 Academy award winner Paul Newman, one of American cinema's most iconic actors, died Friday at his home in Westport, Conn. after a long battle with cancer. He was 83.
One of Hollywood's coolest customers, Newman shot to fame in the 1960s, with his classic good looks and a propensity for roles that required a streak of hip anti-authority. He starred in a number of classic films, including Cool Hand Luke (100 percent on the Tomatometer), Harper (100 percent), The Hustler (97 percent), The Verdict (96 percent), The Sting (93 percent), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (92 percent), and The Color of Money, for which he won an Oscar for Best Actor.
Born in Shaker Heights, OH, Newman served in World War II in the Pacific. After the war, he turned to acting, attending Yale and studying under Lee Stasbourg in the Actor's Studio in New York. He made his big screen debut in The Silver Chalice (20 percent), a forgettable Biblical epic, but soon made his name in Somebody Up There Likes Me (78 percent) and the Tennessee Williams adaptation Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (100 percent), which co-starred Elizabeth Taylor.
Newman continued to give excellent performances into his August years; he starred alongside Tom Hanks in 2002's The Road to Perdition (82 percent) and the made-for-cable series Empire Falls, for which he was honored with an Emmy and a Golden Globe. In his last credits, Newman provided the voice of an aging motor sports champion in Pixar's Cars (75 percent) and narrated The Price of Sugar (75 percent), a documentary on poverty in the Dominican Republic.
In addition to his work in film, Newman was known for his philanthropy. Newman's Own, a company he co-founded in 1982, produced lemonade, pasta sauces, salad dressings, and salsas, among other products, donates 100 percent of its profits to charitable causes.
Newman is survived by his wife, actress Joanne Woodward, as well as five children and eight grandchildren.
 Pixar, the animation company, is known for making some truly exceptional animated movies. From the classic Toy Story to the ‘not quite up to Pixar standards, but still leaps and bounds over the rest’ Cars, the studio has built for itself a strong, solid reputation for movies that can be watched both by children and adults. If nothing else, the studio’s most recently released effort, Wall-E, is a testament to just how good they are at what they do. Still, there are times when, after reading the summary of their idea, you start wondering just what they’re thinking and if they might – just might – have gone off the deep end. Take, for example, their upcoming movie Up.
The story is a little odd for a Pixar film. Basically, the story is about an old man named Carl Fredricksen, who happens to be 78 years old. His story, though, really begins when he was a kid. At the time, he’d met a girl named Ellie, who was raised somewhere in the American Midwest. Ellie had dreamt of exploring the mountains, but she sadly died before she had a chance to. Fast forward back to the movie’s present time, and Carl is being threatened with moving to an assisted living home because real estate developers want his land. Carl, in the midst of this situation, decides to fulfill his promise to Ellie and explore the mountains. To do this, he gets the help of a chubby Wilderness Explorer named Russell. The pair team up and engage in an adventure to fulfill Carl’s promise to Ellie, encountering wild terrain, unexpected villainy, and terrifying creatures that wait in the areas they visit.
I’ll admit, I have some misgivings about this. The concept seems like a good idea, and it might be one of the better ideas they’ve come up with since they first came onto the scene. Though I admit, Wall-E is going to be a tough act to follow in terms of depth. However, this is clearly a Pixar work and from what I’ve heard, this is being marketed as a kid’s movie. Still, they might be able to pull it off.
 Less than a year after starring in the biggest movie of his volatile career, Nicolas Cage led the North American box office to its worst weekend in five years on Sunday with one of his weakest.
"Bangkok Dangerous," a thriller in which the 44-year-old actor plays a jaded assassin, opened at No. 1 with estimated three-day earnings of just $7.8 million, distributor Lionsgate said. While no one was expecting it to be a hit, industry observers had predicted it would earn more than $10 million.
The last box office champ to open lower was the David Spade comedy "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star," which kicked off with $6.7 million during the weekend of September 5-7, 2003.
Overall ticket sales also fell to their lowest level since then, said tracking firm Media By Numbers. The top 12 films earned $51.6 million, up from $50.5 million that weekend.
Early September is traditionally a quiet time at the box office since the summer blockbuster season is over. The studios spend the early fall quietly dumping their underperforming movies on the market. "Bangkok Dangerous" was the only new wide release this weekend.
Lionsgate, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, said it was happy with the film's opening and expected it to be profitable. Although the movie reportedly cost $45 million to make, Lionsgate acquired U.S. and Canadian rights for a modest sum from "The Departed" producer Graham King's Initial Entertainment Group.
The film is a remake of the 1999 Thai film of the same name, with both being directed by Hong Kong-born twin brothers Danny and Oxide Pang. The remake was not screened in advance for critics, which is rarely a good sign.
Cage has actually done a lot worse at the box office: His terrorism thriller "Next" opened to $7.1 million in April 2007 and the family drama "The Weather Man" to $4.2 million in 2005. But he was last in theaters with the biggest movie of his career, "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," The action sequel opened to $45 million in December on its way to $220 million.
After three weeks at No. 1, DreamWorks/Paramount's Hollywood satire "Tropic Thunder" slipped to No. 2 with $7.5 million, while Columbia Pictures' comedy "The House Bunny" rose one to No. 3 with $5.9 million in its third week. Their respective tallies stand at $97 million and $37 million.
DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures are units of Viacom Inc. Columbia Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp.
 The Box-Office Top Five
#1 "Tropic Thunder" ($16.1 million)
#2 "The House Bunny" ($15.1 million)
#3 "Death Race" ($12.3 million)
#4 "The Dark Knight" ($10.3 million)
#5 "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" ($5.7 million)
The Olympics are over, the flame has been extinguished, and the winners and losers are going home. But didn't it feel as if it was the same people who kept winning over and over again: Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt ... Robert Downey Jr.?
Downey's "Tropic Thunder" earned $16.1 million, closing the book on the summer by narrowly beating "The House Bunny" and earning its second consecutive first-place finish. Also starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Tom Cruise, the war spoof brought its overall total to a healthy $65.7 million. Thanks to "Iron Man," it was also the fourth #1 finish for Downey in as many months. (He has four golds to Bolt's three.)
Largely written off before the weekend, "The House Bunny" performed above expectations to walk away with the silver medal, earning $15.1 million in its debut week. The Anna Faris comedy about a former Playboy Playmate turned sorority house mom is the fifth-highest opening of the actress' career, but the highest ever for a movie without "Scary" in the title. (Yes, she was in four installments of "Scary Movie.")
Then there was "Death Race," the Paul W.S. Anderson re-imagining that stalled at the starting gate with a third-place finish. The Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson action flick had [insert car metaphor] but [second car metaphor] meaning that it [third car metaphor] instead. It earned just $12.3 million.
In fourth place, "The Dark Knight" continued to be the most awesome cultural force of the summer, falling just 37 percent in its sixth week to walk away with another $10.3 million. Already the second-highest-grossing movie of all time, by next week it'll cross the half-a-billion-dollar mark domestically. Meanwhile, rounding out the top five, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" continued to be , falling 61 percent in its second week to walk away with another $5.7 million.
Among other new releases, the Ice Cube-starring, Fred Durst-directed "The Longshots" was a true underdog, fumbling its way to $4.3 million and an eighth-place finish. And "The Rocker", totally bombed, good for just $2.7 million and a 12th-place finish. One wonders what will happen now to poor Jenna Fischer.
 It's not easy being Bond.
Roger Moore, who starred in seven Bond films in the 1970s and 1980s, recounts his days as the dashing super-spy in his upcoming memoir, "My Word Is My Bond," and says things weren't always as they seemed.
"Jimmy Bond had a big jet boat chase in `Live and Let Die,'" writes Moore, now 80. "I did quite a few run-throughs to practice and whilst banking on one such run, the engine cut out. I had no steering! I therefore continued in a straight line ... directly into a wooden boat house."
He instantly catapulted from the boat into a wall, cracking his front teeth and twisting his knee.
"There I was, as a fearless 007, hobbling on a cane to my boat and then pretending to be indestructible for the cameras. Who says I can't act?"
Moore replaced Sean Connery in the 007 franchise in 1973. His films include "The Spy Who Loved Me," "Live and Let Die," "The Man With the Golden Gun" and "A View to a Kill."
The book, due out Nov. 4, also recounts the time Moore bumped into a young Steven Spielberg at a Paris hotel.
"He was a huge Bond fan and said that he would love to direct one of the films," Moore says. "He'd recently had great success with `Jaws' and `Close Encounters' and was considered a very hot property. I was rather excited at this news and went looking for (film producer Albert R. `Cubby' Broccoli) to tell him."
But Broccoli, who steered the Bond franchise over three decades, shook his head and asked, "Do you know how much of a percentage he'd want?"
"It's always been policy that no Bond director ever got a slice of the box office profits," Moore says. "So, Spielberg went off and made `Indiana Jones' who I reckon to be a period James Bond!"
 Brad Pitt has closed his deal to star in Inglorious Bastards, the WWII drama that Quentin Tarantino will direct for the Weinstein Company and Universal, reports Variety.
Additionally, Nastassja Kinski is in early talks to play one of the sole female roles in the film. Kinski would play a German movie queen.
The trade says much of the dialogue is in French or German, and subtitles will be used, though Pitt will speak English in his role as a Tennessee hillbilly who assembles a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers to take on the Nazis.
Simon Pegg, David Krumholtz and B.J. Novak are also in talks to join the project. Pegg would play a British lieutenant, while Krumholtz and Novak would play Pitt's underlings.
The film begins production on October 13 in Germany. Tarantino, who wrote the script, is aiming to complete the film and have it ready for next year's Cannes Film Festival. Lawrence Bender is producing, with Erica Steinberg and Harvey and Bob Weinstein as executive producers.
Eli Roth will play Sgt. Donnie Donowitz, and Tarantino is locking in the other actors to play the soldiers who make up the Bastards team. Tarantino regular Tim Roth had been in contention to join the cast but couldn't work out the scheduling because of his upcoming TV series "Lie to Me."
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
 HOLLYWOOD - Morgan Freeman has undergone surgery on his left arm and is expected to leave the hospital later this week--just days after he was involved in a serious car crash.
Freeman and a female passenger had to be cut free from the wreckage and airlifted to the Regional Medical Center (The Med) in Memphis, Tennessee, on Sunday night, after the actor lost control of his vehicle on the highway near his home in Charleston, Mississippi.
The 71-year-old suffered a broken arm and shoulder when he flipped his car over in the crash.
And Freeman's publicist Donna Lee has confirmed the Dark Knight star is making progress and looking forward to returning home.
In a statement released on Tuesday, she says: "Morgan is doing well after his surgery last night to reconnect nerves and repair damage in his left arm and hand.
"The surgery last night lasted four and a half hours. He's visiting with family this morning. As of this morning he's up and walking around and looking forward to his release in a few days."
Freeman was said to be "in good spirits" on Monday when he arrived at the hospital before his surgery took place.
His passenger, Demaris Meyer--whose relationship to Freeman is unknown--is reportedly suffering from minor injuries but is "in good condition."
 One of the biggest surprises today at Comic Con came at the end of the Fox panel when, unscheduled, a very special guest appeared. Coming straight from filming in Australia, Hugh Jackman leapt onstage to introduce the first footage from Gavin Hood’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Needless to say the crowd went absolutely mental.
What was shown was a sizzle reel of footage that will likely form the basis of the first trailer. Action-packed isn’t even the word for it and several scenes, including appearances from other well known mutant characters, drew forth a storm of applause.
The footage begins with Jackman’s Logan and Liev Schreiber’s Victor Creed (aka Sabertooth) huddled in a prison cell in army fatigues (Creed’s fingernails are noticeably claw-like). Danny Huston’s William Stryker stands before them.
Stryker: “You were sentenced to death for decapitating a senior officer. Your sentence was carried out by a firing squad at 10:00 hours. How did that go?”
Cut to the two tied to stakes and a squad of soldiers opening fire.
Cut back to the cell.
Logan: “It tickled.”
Logan and Creed are seen escaping, followed by a shot of Logan silhouetted by a huge explosion as he walks towards the camera.
Stryker: “My name is Major William Stryker. Tired of denying your true nature?”
Creed: “What do you care?”
Stryker: “Oh I care. I care because I know how valuable you are. I’m putting together a special team. With special privileges. So tell me, how would you like to really serve your country?”
As this is said a variety of images flash across the screen, including Logan with bone claws, an acrobatic Taylor Kitsch as Gambit with his staff glowing at both ends, Silverfox, The Blob and a very brief shot of Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool – although he looked more like a normal Ryan Reynolds in a red t-shirt than the masked/scarred Deadpool of the comics.
Cut to: Images of the adamantium injection tank from X2.
Creed: “We didn’t sign up for this.”
Creed: “Who do you think you are?”
Creed: “This is what we do.”
Stryker: “Become the animal.”
Stryker: “Embrace the other side.”
Cut to: a series of images of Logan undergoing the Weapon X experimentation, being submerged in the tank and having adamantium bonded to his skeleton. We see an x-ray image of the metal going into his skull. His claws pop out – now metal-coated – and he springs from the tank in a classic Weapon X look with the adamantium injection spikes still protruding from his body. He attacks everyone around him.
Unidentified Voice: “We’re making him indestructible.”
Cut to: Logan as a boy, bone claws extended.
From there the action heats up with Wolverine clashing several times with Sabertooth in some impressive action sequences (Creed flies through the air, claws first, in one). There are also more images of The Blob and Gambit. Logan in a jeep, which explodes, flinging him into the air where he latches onto the front of a helicopter with his claws.
Cut to: a close up of Logan facing off against Sabertooth
Logan: “I’m gonna cut your god damn head off. See if that works”
He pops his claws.
Jackman went on to say that they’ve just wrapped so nothing’s finished yet but he did say that fans can expect a large amount of “berserker rage” from the film and thanked geeks everywhere, without whom he “wouldn’t have a career.” He also singled out Wolverine creator Len Wein (who happened to be sitting next to Empire) for a very special thanks.
Now, whatever misgivings fans may hold over the film, there’s no denying they saw an impressive sequence, and if the rest of the film is as good as what was shown today then Wolverine may turn out to be a worthy X-sequel after all.
James Dyer
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
 Actor reportedly injures hand; officers say he was clearly intoxicated at scene.
Shia LaBeouf was injured in a car crash on Sunday morning (July 27) and was arrested under suspicion of driving under the influence, according to The Associated Press.
Sergeant S. Wolf of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department told AP that the "Indiana Jones" co-star was the driver of a vehicle that was involved in a collision at 3 a.m. Sunday morning. Wolf said LaBeouf, his passenger and the other driver were all injured, although he said he did not know the extent of their injuries. Wolf also said officers at the scene reported that LeBeouf was clearly intoxicated, and said it was unknown whether the actor will face felony or misdemeanor charges; TMZ, citing unidentified law-enforcement sources, reported later Sunday morning that LaBeouf will be cited and released on suspicion of misdemeanor DUI, and that neither the actor's passenger nor the other driver were seriously injured.
TMZ reported on Sunday that LaBeouf allegedly made an illegal left and struck the other car at the corner of La Brea and Fountain avenues in Hollywood, which caused his vehicle to roll. The site reported that the actor badly injured his hand and will need surgery. TMZ cited an unidentified source as saying LaBeouf will be in the hospital "for a while."
The actor has had less serious legal difficulties in recent months. Last fall he was arrested at a Chicago Walgreens drugstore for criminal trespass after refusing the leave the premises. In February he received a ticket for illegal smoking, and a bench warrant was briefly issued for his arrest after he and his lawyer failed to show up for a court appearance regarding the ticket.
 Christian Bale turned himself in to London police early Tuesday (July 22), after allegations of assault were made against him, and was released from custody several hours later. He was not charged.
The "Dark Knight" star, who was in London to promote the film, was allowed to attend the U.K. premiere at a Leicester Square theater Monday night because he made an appointment to turn himself in the following morning. The alleged incident took place on Sunday night at the actor's hotel, the Dorchester on Park Lane, and involved Bale's mother Jenny and his sister Sharon, who went to the police in Hampshire to make a report.
"Christian Bale attended a London police station today on a voluntary basis in order to assist with an allegation that has been made against him to the police by his mother and sister," the actor's spokesperson said in a statement. "Mr. Bale, who denies the allegation, co-operated throughout, gave his account in full of the events in question, and has left the station without any charge being made against him by the police."
After being held for more than four hours, Bale was released on the condition that he returns to the station at an unspecified date in September, a London Metropolitan Police spokesperson told MTV News. The spokesperson declined to reveal the conditions of his release, termed as "bail" in the U.K. — although no money is exchanged, as it would be in the U.S. "He has been bailed," a London Metropolitan Police spokesperson said, "pending further investigation into two separate inquiries," referring to the reports from Bale's mother and sister.
At Monday's premiere, Bale told MTV U.K. that the movie was a success because it is a "perfect storm."
"The hype has been good, the reviewers have responded, you've got great portrayals, you've got a great cast, and a great director in Christopher Nolan," Bale said. "And of course you've got Heath Ledger giving a fantastic portrayal of the Joker. He deserves all the credit that people are giving him."
Bale was slated to meet with journalists to promote the film further at his hotel on Tuesday.
|
