Movie Star Blog

Today was the Day for The chronicles of the Riddick starring Vin Diesel and Val Helsing starring Kate Bekinsale (Drool) and Hugh Jackman …..

The 1993 Toyota Supra that "starred" in both Fast and Furious movies is up for bids at the almost-Ebay website called OnlineAuction.com. The car has been restored to 2 Fast 2 Furious condition by the original designer Eddie Paul and has both Paul's and stunt driver Kevin Jackson's signature on the spoiler. The Supra has as better on-screen persona than Vin Diesel, we guess that's why the bidding starts at $80,000.

For some reason I feel like I'd seen this movie before (I hadn't) because it was somewhat predictable and cliche. Despite that, the comedy was fabulous and the beautiful Salma Hayek was even more fabulous in her skimpy outfits. While I thought I had the ending all figured out, it did throw me for a loop.

From the people who brought you The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, etc., comes an adaptation of the comic V For Vendetta starring Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman. Set in futuristic 1997, V For Vendetta was originally published in the anthology magazine 2000AD, which also brought us Judge Dredd. What I want to know is when are we going to get the movie version of 2000AD's D.R. & Quinch?

Finally, a promotional poster for Terry Gilliam’s upcoming The Brothers Grimm which stars Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as travelling con-artists who encounter a genuine fairy-tale curse which requires genuine courage instead of their usual bogus exorcisms.

I am giving this movie 6-1/2 bananas. When I seen the previews for the movie, I wasn’t too impressed with seeing it. It was a lot better then the previews suggested, but it could have been better. I felt that Jamie Foxx’s character was a little too weak and stuffed with fillers.

Halle Berry is still unconfirmed. Quote: “I don’t know… I wish I could tell you more… Sorry!”

However, before Paramount can move forward with the project, Harrison Ford needs to sign off the script. Unfortunately, he hasn’t read it yet.

After watching Revenge of the sith on opening night (or morning - 12 AM) we decided to watch the older episodes IV-VI. We started watching The Empire Strikes Back (episode V) on Saturday and finished watching it today. It is a good film, perhaps the best of all of them. Harrison Ford is definitely in his prime and Carrie Fisher plays princess Leia as only she could. The scenes in the icy planet (filmed in Norway) are awesome and we finally get introduced to Yoda. The odd thing about this is that Yoda is not as they’ve prtayed him in the...

This movie is crap. I definitely recommend that you take it off your queue, or make a note to never rent it. The only redeeming quality (and the only thing that saves it from being a "1", although I will do my best to never see it again) of the movie is that eventually Gwyneth Paltrow's character gets punched in the face to show her who's boss. Christ her character is annoying.

George Lucas's mythmaking is legendary and he does not disappoint with his latest adventure.He is more or less the godfather of special effects and modern digital filmmaking.His story constuction is sound,as is the soundtrack(John Williams can never go wrong),the Photography is breathtaking,the droid CG/Makeup amazing and the editing is top notch.The effects are par exellence,Ewan McGregor as usual delivers and Natalie Portman didnt have much to do.However,the undoubted star of the show is the Dark lord of the Sith - Darth Sidius who also doubles...

In “Chasing Amy”, protagonist Holden McNeil (played by Ben Affleck) hooks up with the incomparable Alyssa Jones (played by the dead sexy Joey Lauren Adams… that voice!), who happens to be a lesbian — or so Holden thinks. Holden’s buddy Banky (played by the hysterical Jason Lee) tells Holden, “She just needs the right guy…. all every woman really wants, be it mother, Senator, nun, is some serious deep dicking.” While I’m not about to subscribe to that theory, lest the lesbian community pillorizes me, it turns out that Holden IS the right guy for he

Could this, finally, be a return to form for Spielberg? As much as I've loved his recent movies - even AI! - they've each had a sweet, sugary, poisonous little core in them that ruined the stories (at least in my mind). However, WotW looks like it is near perfect; Tom Cruise looks absolutely solid, and the special effects had me at one point whispering 'Jesussss Chriiiist'.

Tom Cruise (42) showed up to talk about War of the Worlds which doesn't open until the end of June, but spent most of the time acting like a total lunatic jumping on the couch and kneeling on the floor and laughing and smiling and getting all googly-eyed over his girlfriend of one to two months, Dawson's Creek's Katie Holmes (26).

The million dollar question making round in Hollywood is who is going to be the female lead in Mission Impossible 3 being directed by JJ Abrams.

First it’s Lindsay Lohan and then it was the future Mrs. Tom Cruise, Katie Homes. Now it’s being reported that Michelle Monaghan is a done deal as the lead love interest in the project.

After having seen the disappointing Troy, I had low expectations of Kingdom of Heaven and was hoping that sitting through this nearly two and half hour epic would at least be bearable. Also, I was hoping for a stronger “manlier” performance by Orlando Bloom. It is basically a story of a religious war (namely the Crusades) and no doubt about it the blood and gore is sickening. Having said that, the story is fair and paints the two sides (Christians and Muslims) evenly with good and bad men on both sides.

-- Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher are teaming up for THE GUARDIAN, an action-drama. The story centers on a rebellious young man who enlists in the Coast Guard where he forms a mentor-friendship with a legendary rescue swimmer who lost his crew in a fatal crash. Andrew Davis (THE FUGITIVE) is directing. Actually, I can't improve on a comment left at AICN: "Is there a scene where Kutcher gets swarmed by over-eager fans, so Costner picks him up and carries him in his arms to safety?"

The ashes of legendary gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson are to be fired from a cannon housed in a giant fist-shaped monument paid for by movie star Johnny Depp.

I like Ashton Kutcher the more I see of him away from That 70's Show. He was very much at ease playing the quick-witted future groom to Zoe Saldana (make a note to watch for more from her in the future).

The adult industry is dealing with the recent announcement of revised 2257 regulations. '2257' is shorthand used for a set of rules instituted in the late eighties, as a direct result of the Traci Lords scandal and the Meese Commission. The current regulations were drafted without thought for the internet and announced changes are supposed to make them current.

After we returned in Vancouver I went to the cinema once again. I had already seen everything that played, except Crash. Without a clue as to what kind of movie this was, I decided to go anyway. And once again it turned out to be my lucky trip, because Crash is one of the best movies I've ever seen! It's about racism basically, and Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon and Sandra Bullock are only a few of the people who play in the movie, together with about 10 other main characters who all perform way beyond what you would normally expect in a movie....

In Sith, Lucas had a genuinely talented cast, and he almost entirely failed to use them properly. You can almost see the anguish in Natalie Portman's eyes as she forces herself to deliver her wooden, trite dialogue. Ewan McGregor is almost channeling the late, amazingly great Sir Alec Guinness, but the script never quite gives him what he needs to reach the spot where he could really, truly own the part (and we all know he could have). Samuel L. Jackson? Well, I can't even write about how badly Lucas flubbed the character arc on Mace Windu.

She strips off for a glossy new book, 4 Inches - a reference to the size of the models' stiletto heels - to raise money for Sir Elton John's Aids charity. Posh and other celebrities, including the Duchess of York, Kate Moss, Rachel Hunter and Geri Halliwell, agreed to be photographed nude - except for a pair of Jimmy Choos and Cartier jewellery.

Given the Flea's ongoing reportage of cutting edge keep fit trends and coverage of the latest in popular film it only seemed wise to link to these clips of Natalie Portman pole dancing in the film "Closer". I doubt I shall ever see the movie myself as it looks to be more an exercise in existential frustration than an exercise in keeping fit. Jude Law and Clive Owen also feature.

Of course when the heroic Sky Captain finishes fending off the fiendish foes, he flies to a giant hanger for repairs. Apparently the impressive facility was built for the sole purposes of storing and repairing the only airplane in existence. I mean it looks big enough to house at least several hundred similar planes, but if there were any other planes they surely would have flown out to help Jude Law fight the bad guys so he concentrate on trading witty banter with Gwyneth Paltrow.

And it was the dialog itself that was partly to blame for the failings of the first half. It seemed like it was almost a dispassionate narration of the events, delivered from the actors as if speed-reading their lines. Honestly, the writing, directing, and acting were really quite awful at first. Only Ewan McGregor’s performance as Obi-wan Kenobi was consistently good; I found myself watching scenes and wishing that he would make an appearance. Things picked up overall about halfway through the movie as the plot fleshed itself out, but...

The modern age of the cinematic epic began with Braveheart's mix of old-fashioned, widescreen, guts-and-glory filmmaking (well, the guts part, anyway) and modern morals and messages. Braveheart begat Gladiator, which added a light frosting of computer-generated effects to help the combination of bleeding-heart ideas and blood-spilling action go down. Now, Gladiator director Ridley Scott is back in modern epic territory with Kingdom of Heaven — yet another big, brawny film that somehow tries to reinvent the grisly, barbaric...

Basically another finding one’s self / romance movie. It is kinda strange, natalie portman plays a kinda plain looking but extremely charming love interest. It didn’t really follow much of the standard plot lines. Extremely well done. Note it was quite edgy so i’m not going to ‘recommend it’ per ce. Zach Braff (Scrubs guy) wrote it and starred in it, definately one of my new favorite actor guys. The title refers to New Jersey which is pretty lame. But maybe it has a deeper meaning and refers to the main character’s...

There were a few other redeeming moments. Ewan McGregor looks dazed and sounds flat in most of his line readings, mistakenly thinking a roguish twinkle in his eye will carry him through most of the technobabble, but his portrayal of Kenobi's sheer anguish on Mustafar after he cuts off Anakin's arm and legs is astonishingly good. And Ian McDiarmid's performance as Palpatine is subtle and excellent. After he bloats up from having his own Dark Force lightening turned back on him (and why does that turn him fat?), though, he hams it up in the worst...

We were planning to see Denzel Washington in Julius Caesar but we were scared off by the lukewarm reviews. If Broadway ticket prices were like London's West End's, not much more than the price of movie tickets, a lot more people would risk going to see shows the critics were iffy about. But we aren't going to spend a month's mortgage payment to see a play we've already seen done superbly and with one of the same actors playing the same role and doing with it what he did with it when we saw him. Did you follow that?

As if the very existence of the new CBS reality show “Rock Star: INXS” isn’t enough of an insult to the memory of Michael Hutchence, producer Mark Burnett and the surviving band members have provided another: Dave Navarro and Brooke Burke are hosting.

I know the speculation that it’s a publicity stunt, which I understand for the Ashton Kutchers and the Lindsay Lohans of the world, but Tom Cruise is most famous movie star on the planet. He and Steven Spielberg really need more publicity for a huge summer event movie? Tommy’s never done anything like this before, not for Mission Impossible or Minority Report, and those movies did just fine. He’s just too careful of his image to go off his rocker and blab about his personal life all over the place, it makes NO logical sense.

Wow, what an intense ride. If you have not seen this movie, go see it. Totally not what I expected out of a movie with Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser. What gets me though, is that these people are as caught up on racial issues as the characters in QaF are on queer issues. Maybe its cuz I live in a city that is probably 95% white and 95% hetero that I don't see these issues.

Speaking of which, I’d like to say that I think that hiring hot women to prance around E3 should be banned. Nobody but the Japanese businessmen gave half a damn about the half-naked girl wearing a thong that said, “MMO” on the front. Basically, these women are seen by most attendees as an obstacle in the way of getting to the games. Case in point - a lot of us were lured to a stage promising a demonstration of a free MMORPG. We stood there eagerly awaiting the unveiling of such a truly insidious product (if it’s any good, screw buying FFXI or WoW). Finally the countdown began.. 30 seconds… 20 seconds… 3, 2, 1… and suddenly there are eight dancing women on stage, gyrating to some song featuring the company’s name. The crowd quickly scattered (besides the aforementioned Japanese businessmen). I don’t think it’s because these people dislike staring at half-naked beautiful women. But it’s more because there are only so many hours in the day. And spending around forty-five minutes on average standing in line to play something and then actually playing it… there’s just no time to stare for twenty minutes at something you can see on the muddled version of Skin-a-Max. It’s worthless junk and you feel cheated. Give me my time back Conquer Online.

That said, Traci Lords was signing autographs… which made even my small group stop and stare.

Salma Hayek at Cannes. Does that sexy Mexican maid ever make a fashion faux pas?

If you have managed to escape the coverage, a good article to read was in last week's Times. In addition, The Guardian had a great feature on her life last week as well and if that is not enough, go rent Frida (2002) with Salma Hayek from your local DVD store.

The story is quite easy: Max (Pierce Brosnan) and Lola (Salma Hayek) are two retired high-profile jewel thiefs that settled down on the Bahamas. One day their FBI counterpart tracked them down thinking that they are after yet another diamond. Both parties (thiefs and law enforcement) are playing tricks on each other while doing their thing.

I like the Travel Channel’s “World Poker Tour,” but novices really can’t learn much from such advanced playing. Bravo’s “Celebrity Poker Showdown” is cooler because it shows people at my skill level — such as Sean Astin, Andy Richter and Shannon Elizabeth — and explains exactly why they suck in such a shameful way.

And what about the movie? It blew me away :) Even my friend thought it's a good movie. It was soo much better compared to the total crap of Episode I and II. Much better than I expected, or maybe I don't really have that much of expectation. The movie is action packed, full with fight scenes, a tad too much maybe. I remember being bored a bit watching yet another light saber fight. No corny lines from Anakin to Padme, no weird hairdo on Natalie Portman trying distract the movie goers from realising that the movie was crap (Episode I & II) and thank...

Finally, what is missing from these last three Star Wars is what was present in the first three of the series -- a joi de vie, most explicitly characterized in the romanic tango between Princess Leia and Han Solo. The woodenness of the characters stands in stark contrast to the characters in The Lord of the Rings. In that series of three films. the core of the film is on the relationships between members of the Fellowship. They care for each other, are willing to sacrifice for one another, and are a picture of genuine diversity. ...

The movie in a nutshell without giving anything away: Ewan McGregor was superb. Hayden Christensen was horrible. The movie could have done better without the cheesy love scene between Hayden Christensen (horrible) and Natalie Portman (horrible script-writing by George Lucas). Yoda was awesome. Hayden Christensen was horrible. Ewan McGregor was awesome, the epitome of Jedi.

Anthony (Ludacris) and Peter (Larenz Tate) converse casually about the unfair racial stereotypes applied to blacks, and then reinforce those very stereotypes by carjacking an SUV--District Attorney Rick (Brendan Fraser) and his wife Jean's (Sandra Bullock) SUV, as coincidence would have it. Jean's distress becomes wrath directed at her Hispanic housekeeper and a locksmith named Daniel (Michael Pena). Meanwhile, the stolen vehicle triggers bigoted Officer Ryan (Matt Dillon) and his green partner Officer Hansen (Ryan Phillippe) to pull over black TV director Cameron (Terrence Howard) and his mixed race wife Christine (Thandie Newton) who drive a similar looking vehicle. Using the pretext of the law to sexually molest Christine, Ryan patronizes Cameron who is unable to stand up against the humiliation.

There were a few scenes that I think played out really well - Brendan Fraser's DA thinking of race in strictly electoral terms and Tony Danza's producer telling black director to make sure one of the characters talks "black" because he's not supposed to be the "smart one" were both pretty realistic and at least could be argued from both sides. The hitchhiking scene is also pretty compelling stuff, although Ryan Phillippe was absolutely the wrong choice for this. I think he's pretty much the wrong choice for every movie except Cruel Intentions though. He's only got one note, and that note is smarmy. These are basically the only three scenes in the movie that aren't preachy or sanctimonious.

The Chronicles of Riddick is a sci-fi action flick that had a lot of potential. Sadly it focused more on the action and less on the sci-fi and so it fell a little short. I was impressed by the universe David Twohy (who also directs) creates. Pitch Black (the first movie with Riddick) was surprisingly good and the character of Riddick played by Vin Diesel was intriguing. In The Chronicles of Riddick of Riddick though, Riddick loses his edge a little and becomes the "super action hero". If Twohy had left some of the over-the-top action behind the...

Shakespeare’s first draft of “Romeo and Juliet” was actually titled “Vin Diesel Gets All the Honey He Wants.”