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Naomi Watts to play Princess Diana Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:15:56 GMT2012-02-10T01:15:56Z Rumor had it that Jessica Chastain was being eyed to nab the part of Princess Diana in a biopic called "Caught in Flight," but the role has gone to Naomi Watts instead. According to a statement, the "Fair Game" star will portray the late Princess of Wales during the last two years of her life. "Caught in Flight," a statement says, "charts how finding true personal happiness for the first time allowed her to achieve her defining successes evolving into a major international campaigner and humanitarian." The film will be directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, who says in the statement that he's "delighted to have such a truly exceptional actress who embodies the warmth, humanity and empathy of such a global icon as Princess Diana." Watts, 43, speaks on what "an honor" it is to have landed "an iconic role." "Princess Diana was loved across the world," Watts said, "and I look forward to rising to the challenge of playing her on screen." Production on "Caught in Flight" is scheduled to begin in the U.K. later this year.
Ellen embroiled in JC Penney controversy Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:15:23 GMT2012-02-10T01:15:23Z J.C. Penney is standing by its decision to make openly gay talk show host Ellen DeGeneres its new spokeswoman despite protests from a parent group. The group called One Million Moms accuses the retailer of "jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon" after DeGeneres was announced as the new J.C. Penney spokeswoman last week. The comedian responded to the group on her show Wednesday. "This organization doesn't think I should be the spokesperson because I am gay," she said. "So for those of you tuning in for the first time, I'm gay. I hope you were sitting down. ... So they wanted to get me fired, and I'm proud and happy to say that J.C. Penney stuck by their decision to make me their spokesperson." In a statement last week, J.C. Penney said it stands behind the partnership. On Thursday's "CBS This Morning," J.C. Penney chief executive officer Ron Johnson said the company "shares the same values" as DeGeneres and that the decision to have her as a spokesperson was a "no-brainer." In a surprise move, Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly also came out in support of DeGeneres, likening the boycott to a witch hunt. “What is the difference between the McCarthy era of the ’50s and the Million Moms saying, ‘Hey, J.C. Penney and all you other stores, don’t you hire gay people. Don’t you dare.’ What’s the difference?” O’Reilly said on his show Tuesday night.
For love or hate of 'The Phantom Menace' Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:06:46 GMT2012-02-10T01:06:46Z The first major signs of trouble in the relationship between George Lucas and legions of ardent adult "Star Wars" geeks can be traced directly to May 19, 1999. "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" opened at midnight, and theaters practically sank under the weight of audience expectations. The movie certainly made a huge impact in the "Star Wars" community, but not in the way the filmmaker or fans could have predicted. "The Phantom Menace," which returns to the big screen in 3-D on Friday, occupies a unique and controversial place in the "Star Wars" universe for a generation of adults who grew up on the trilogy of the '70s and '80s. For one, it ushered in the era of the harshly criticized "Star Wars" prequels, which some of the geek faithful saw, fairly or not, as a betrayal. It was also the beginning of a standoff between Lucas and vocal fans who were displeased not only by the new movies, but also the filmmaker's decisions to tinker with key scenes in the original "Star Wars" films. There's a reason for all those "Han Shot First" T-shirts on the Internet. The emotional reaction to "The Phantom Menace" and what it represents speaks volumes about the fierce sense of ownership that hardcore nerds have about the things they love. Author Henry Jenkins, provost's professor of communication, journalism and cinematic arts at the University of Southern California, said that particular film stands to this day as a sort of love/hate dividing line and "an open wound" for the original "Star Wars" faithful. "'The Phantom Menace' is something the adult 'Star Wars' fans continually reference. It's something they care about deeply," he said. "It's a trauma in the community that they're finding it very difficult to work around." That may sound like hyperbole to some, but for geeks, hobbies are passions. And they take those passions personally. "I think what makes a nerd a nerd in this context is a social life that revolves around collecting and ranking and discussing cultural artifacts, whether it's Civil War nerds or "Star Wars" nerds. There is a whole social community constructed around the collective experience of a certain book or movie," said "American Nerd" author Benjamin Nugent. "For nerds, books and movies aren't just pleasurable consumer experiences. They are parts of their identity and social glue." Fans at the wheel In the 16 years that passed between "Return of the Jedi" and "The Phantom Menace," countless devotees had put their own stamp on "Star Wars" in the form of fan stories and novels, music and adaptations of role-playing games. Jenkins pointed out the 200 amateur "Star Wars" films on the Internet before the curtain opened on "The Phantom Menace." Lucas may have technically owned the franchise, but the people had taken the wheel in their own way. "During that time, fans didn't stay idle," Jenkins said. "They actually dug in ... and extended the universe in really rich directions. So when Lucas comes back, he's not just competing with himself, he's competing with this really rich fan culture. It was just an explosion of creativity that Lucas didn't really control." Canon and continuity loom large in geekdom, and elements of the prequels --- plus the subsequent alterations of the classic films --- upended some fans' longstanding vision of the "Star Wars" universe. In fan communities that place a premium on mastery, those kinds of perceived deviations can set off shock waves. Look no further than the initial outcry over the DC Comics relaunch last year. "That sort of fanboy model is one where knowledge equals power and knowledge equals status," Jenkins said. "When you start to destroy knowledge, you disrupt the entire hierarchical process." Nugent thinks it was inevitable that fans wouldn't like the new films. By then, "Star Wars," "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" had become so iconic that returning to that well "came to feel like trying to make a series of sequels to 'Crime and Punishment.' " And while the computer-generated[...]
Jim Carrey's daughter gets boot from 'Idol' Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:50:39 GMT2012-02-09T20:50:39Z The "American Idol" judges had praise for Jane Carrey when they voted to send her on to Hollywood week, but it looks like they've held firm to their statement that the daughter of actor Jim Carrey wasn't going to get special treatment. On Wednesday night's episode, she was sent home. Us Weekly reports that the 24-year-old gave a "shaky" performance of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Looking Out My Back Door," and that Jane knew even before she was done singing that she wasn't going to become the next "Idol." "I freaked out when I was [up] there so I was really, really shaky," Jane said. "I know I can do way better than that, so I'm really disappointed." Jane also placed a call to her dad, who's gushed to CNN about his daughter's talent, to ease the disappointment. "I talked to my dad and he was kind of comforting," Jane said. The 50-year-old actor told her, "'I've been said no to a bunch of times,'" Jane said, "and it worked out for him. So hopefully I have a shot." Some were surprised that the judges had given the go-ahead to Jane when she auditioned, but judge Jennifer Lopez told us that she really was impressed with the singer/songwriter's vocals. "To [reject] her because of who her dad is would not be fair either," Lopez said. "She sang well and we put her through to the next round, period. That's how it goes. If she wasn't [good], we would have had to say very sadly, 'No, and say "Hi" to your dad for me.' But that wasn't the case, she earned her way to the next step."
Paul McCartney voice mails hacked, ex says Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:02:51 GMT2012-02-09T20:02:51Z Voice mails left by Paul McCartney for his then-girlfriend Heather Mills were illegally accessed and heard by a former employee of a major British newspaper group, Mills told an independent investigation into press ethics Thursday. The former Beatle left about 25 messages for her one night in 2001, including one where he sang to her, as he tried to make up with her after a quarrel, she said. "One of them said, 'Please forgive me,' and he sang a little ditty of one of his songs onto the voice mail," said Mills. The former Trinity Mirror group employee later phoned her and said he had heard her voice mail. She responded angrily, she testified before the Leveson Inquiry, saying there was no way he could have heard the message unless he had obtained it illegally. Mills said the man laughed, and she said she told him: "I promise you, if you report this story, even if it's true, you have obtained the information illegally, and I will do something about it." "And he never reported the story," she added. The inquiry is not releasing the name of the person who heard the message because he is under police investigation, said Robert Jay, the chief counsel to the Inquiry. But it was not a Daily Mirror journalist or anyone working under the supervision of its then-editor, Piers Morgan, Jay said. Morgan now hosts a CNN talk show, "Piers Morgan Tonight." The voice mail in question was a critical point when Morgan testified in December before the Leveson Inquiry. The probe was set up in response to widespread anger in Britain at the revelation that a murdered 13-year-old girl's phone was hacked by journalists in search of stories -- and that many other crime and terror victims, politicians and celebrities had also been targeted. Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid has been the focus of much of the anger, and Murdoch's son James ordered it shut down over the scandal. But accusations have been leveled against other newspapers as well, including the Daily Mirror. Testifying in December, Morgan said he did not believe phone hacking had taken place when he was editor of the tabloid, prompting Jay to follow up: "You don't believe so or you are sure?" "I don't believe so," Morgan responded by video link. Jay pressed Morgan particularly hard about his having written in 2006 that he had heard a message McCartney left for Mills, trying to make up after a quarrel and singing to her. Morgan refused to say who played the message for him or where, but he admitted under sustained questioning that he believed it was a voice mail. "Did you know that was unethical?" Jay demanded. "Not unethical, no. It doesn't necessarily follow that it was unethical," Morgan said, insisting he would not "go down a trail that will lead to the identification of a source." On Thursday, Mills said she had never authorized Morgan to access her voice mail or to listen to a recording of it. "Never, ever," she said. She said she had never made a recording of any of the messages. "No, no. They were deleted pretty much straight away," she said. Brian Leveson, the judge leading the inquiry, intervened to ask if she had ever authorized anyone to listen to her voice mail. "No," she said. Mills and McCartney divorced in 2008. Morgan has said in the past that he has never hacked a voice mail and vigorously denied ever ordering phone hacking. Morgan said Thursday, "I have nothing further to add to the evidence I gave to the Leveson Inquiry." The publisher of the defunct News of the World paid out hundreds of thousands of pounds Wednesday to settle lawsuits over phone hacking from celebrities and politicians, including former Tony Blair spokesman Alastair Campbell. Piers Morgan is a former editor the News of the World, but left in 1995 -- about seven years before the Milly Dowler hacking -- and went to the Mirror, which he edited until 2004. With Wednesday's settlements, News Group Newspapers has settled 59 of the 60 lawsuits against it[...]
'Safe House' director refuses to play it safe with stars Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:49:05 GMT2012-02-09T19:49:05Z We can only hope that before they started their work on director Daniel Espinosa's intense action thriller "Safe House," Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds took the time to watch the Swedish director's crime thriller "Easy Money." That way, both actors would have gotten a clear sense that they would be the ones kicking each other's butts throughout the film -- and not stunt doubles. "I never talked to them about doing their own stunts because I just assumed that they just would," Espinosa told me with a laugh in an interview this week. "I told them that I didn't want to be forced to use those big, wide shots where you can't tell who's who and if it's the real actor or not; I wanted it to be them. That way, we can really see that the actors are worried and thrilled at the same time, because they are." Opening in theaters Friday, "Safe House" is set in Johannesburg, South Africa, where a low-level CIA operative, Matt Weston (Reynolds) has become increasingly frustrated with the mundane job of maintaining a safe house that rarely sees any use. That all changes quickly, though, when the CIA's most-wanted traitor, former intelligence operative Tobin Frost (Washington), turns himself in to authorities without warning after nine years on the lam. But shortly after Frost is brought to the safe house for interrogation, the facility is breached by a heavily-armed band of mercenaries who want to kill him over some sensitive information he might be carrying. Sworn to protect his charge, Weston escapes the precarious situation with Frost; only to be challenged by the his methods of psychological manipulation and deadly combat skills. In addition to the fight scenes, everything physical you see in "Safe House" was shot as realistically as possible. Whether it be car chase scenes, footraces across rooftops or even a terrifying water-boarding scene, Espinosa insisted upon filming the scenes with an old-school approach. "I've become a bit sick and tired watching things where you can clearly see that stunts are done with green screen, and you can see that there is no real sensational fear in the actors when they're doing things like hanging from an airplane," Espinosa said. "I wanted all the stunts to be real, with no green screen and no modern digital effects. I thought if I did things that were real basic, like a fight in a car that one of the people is driving, I want that car being driven. It creates a completely different synergy both when you shoot it because the actors are really scared out of their minds." Of course, with as much action going on as there is in "Safe House," it was inevitable that there would be a point where Washington and Reynolds were accidentally going to connect. And when they did, it was a real doozy. "Ryan gave Denzel a black eye at one point," Espinosa said. "It was during the car sequence when Denzel was trying to choke Ryan from behind with his handcuffs. That's when Ryan head-butted Denzel and gave him the black eye." The great thing, Espinosa added, was that Washington took the missive all in stride. After all, even though Washington is 57, he's still pretty put-together for a guy his age. "When those things happen, you never know how they are going to react," Espinosa said. "Are they going to blow up? Are we going to have to stop shooting? There were some intense seconds before we realized that we were good to go. He's as strong as a bull and has the willpower that's almost otherworldly. I never considered his age as a factor, but at one point I thought, 'Denzel is not much younger than my father, and I would never, ever ask my father to do the things I'm asking Denzel to do.' But Denzel just has an amazing inner-strength." Apart from the physicality and determination Washington brought to the role, Espinosa was impressed with the two-time Oscar-winning actor's willingness to take risks and play unsavory characters. "He's not afraid to go places that[...] |
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