Ewoks – An A-choired Taste

Josh W Bush

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Polanski's Baby

Samantha Gelmer, the 13-year-old on whom Roman Polanski committed statutory rape back in 1978, is now 43 and has since forgiven the director. She walked the red carpet outside New York's Paris Theatre on Tuesday for the celebrity premiere of Marina Zenovich's documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. She and her mother participated in the film. Was the Paris Theatre a wink-wink choice of venue or a coincidence? Paris is where Polanski hightailed it to 30 years ago to avoid retribution. The doc will air on HBO June 6 before its theatrical release. (Bauer-Griffin)

Like Father, Like Son

James Caan, who walked off the set and out of David O Russell's Nailed after arguing over a scene in which the director wanted him to cough while choking to death on a cookie, which Caan insisted was implausible, has been replaced by James Brolin. A good choice. Brolin, you'll remember, was the Coen brothers' original and only choice to play Llewelyn Moss in No Country for Old Men, but due to a mixup the casting director sent his son Josh Brolin to read instead, and the age difference forced the brothers to change the story's timeline to 1980. Incidentally, the younger Brolin will be portraying George W Bush choking on a pretzel in a scene from Oliver Stone's upcoming W. But not fatally. (THR)

Battrailer

More light is shed on The Dark Knight. But where's Two-Face? (Click here)

Quote Unquote

"I can tell you that, basically, when you look at Two-Face, you should get sick to your stomach. Being the guy under all that, well, that was a lot of fun for me. It's like you would feel if you met someone whose face had pretty much been ripped off or burned off with acid. I can't talk about it beyond that because I don't want to give away too much.... There are fans on the Internet who have done artist's versions of what they think it will look like, and I can tell you this: They're thinking small." – actor Aaron Eckhart, the other, currently second-billed villain in The Dark Knight, talking to the LA Times.

Let's Go Shopping!

Photoshopping, that is. This is just one of hundreds of stiff female-bonding photos yet to come in a deluge of promotion for the May 30 release of the overblown and over-hyped big-screen reworking of Sex and the City, and thank god we have Elizabeth Spiridakis and her Very blog in the New York Times to deconstruct it. Yeah, it's from last week or so, but it's still fresher than these tired ladies. Bitchy fun. (The Moment; t/y Randy)

A Row to a Kill

Music producer Marc Ronson has put the kibosh on Amy Winehouse recording the title track for the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, claiming the singer's current erratic behavior is not conducive to working in the studio. And he's one of her supporters, remember. Winehouse performing a Double-O-Seven song would have been wonderful for both her and us, but Ronson says it will happen now only if "by some miracle of science it gets recorded and someone sings a vocal on it." But isn't the miracle of science the root of her troubles? (Digital Spy; photo: MatrixPhotos)

Wack Job

At the Tribeca Film Festival's screening of The Wackness at the Loews Village VII, Faye Dunaway was up to her legendary wackiness. During the post-screening Q&A, Jonathan Levine, the director of the Josh Peck-Olivia Thirlby starrer, volunteered that, "Faye freakin' Catwoman Dunaway was sitting right in front of us and acting like a crazy woman, raising her hand like Horshack on Welcome Back, Kotter and wearing a fedora.... She was also furiously taking notes." Dunaway may rue the day she ever made Mommie Dearest, but she seems to be reliving the part every day since.

Smart Ass

Amy Smart on the set of Crank 2, kicking ass and showing it too. Plus a bonus nip slip. (Photos: Splash, Pacific Coast via Egotastic!)

Snap!

Here are Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel yesterday on the funeral set of their comedy Nailed. (via Wet Dark and Wild)

Perfect Harmony

After taking eight years off to work as a lawn mower, a lifeguard, a cobbler, and a fishermen in Peru, Kids writer Harmony Korine is back on the scene with a feature called Mr Lonely. It's the story of a Michael Jackson impersonator (Y Tu Mama Tambien's Diego Luna, above with Korine) who falls in love with a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton). "I chose Diego because I wanted Michael to be played by a Mexican," Korine says. "I just saw him that way." Don't we all. Gummo's pretty much one of our favorite movies, don't ask, so we can't wait.

Ben Le Vine, Accepting the Award for Homer, Would Like to Thank the Academy

Homer and I would like to thank the amazing James St James for getting our sense of humor. We would also like to thank World of Wonder and Randy, Fenton, Tom, Stephen and the Wow Report team for providing these opportunities for four-legged young filmmakers like Homer Wolfchop DuKlau. Lastly, we'd like to thank the big guy who made all of this possible, David Hasselhoff, for being "The Hoff."

The Critics Rave

WOW guy Eduardo Magaña and intermittent WOW gal Alicia Gargaro went to see The Forbidden Kingdom at the ArcLight the other night and afterward were waylaid into discussing it with the wacky Fan on the Street. Turns out those sidewalk movie endorsements you see on TV might be real. (Click here)

Snap!

They're boobs, not boo-boos. Amy Smart on the set of the Jason Statham-starrer, Crank 2: High Voltage. (Photo: JFX Images via TMZ)

Horton Hears a Homo

A tanned and turned-out Jim Carrey with costar Rodrigo Santoro shooting scenes for I Love You Phillip Morris. In the jail-break comedy, Carrey is a prisoner who falls in love with his cellmate, played by Ewan McGregor. We shudder to imagine how Carrey, who never gives less that 120%, might hike up the gay mannerisms, like an Ace Ventura at a circuit party. (Photos by SplashNews via Daily Mail)

Why So Similar, Batman?

Quote Unquote

"He was my gardener. He was my carpenter. He rerouted the electricity in my house. He looked after the children. And he started making home movies of my children. And they were amazing." – Madonna at the Tribeca Film Festival talking about Nathan Rissman, the man who directed I Am Because We Are, her documentary about HIV/AIDS orphans in Malawi. (Peeps)

Benny Lava

This is the funniest thing we've seen all morning. And it would be even if it wasn't the first thing we'd seen all morning. It's a clip from a Bollywood movie – with "sounds like" subtitles. And if you're late for a meeting, don't worry, it's one of Bollywood's shortest production numbers. Kidding. (via College Humor)

Nude Cruz

Penelope Cruz is nude in her new movie Elegy. But so is Ben Kingsley. It's like looking at naked Marisa Tomei in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and seeing Philip Seymour Hoffman naked on top of her. (Egotastic! has the videos)

Set Upset

While Jessica Biel has been "delightfully friendly" on the Columbia, South Carolina, set of Nailed, chatting with visitors and turning cartwheels, costar Jake Gyllenhaal has been uncharacteristically unfriendly, said to have had a "hissy fit," whining and complaining about everything: the size of the room, the temperature, his chair. "It was like watching a two-year-old have a meltdown every five minutes," said a source. He was so bad-tempered that the production had to shut down early.

Dark Knight Alternate Ending

Is it too soon? (Watch clip at Filmdrunk)

Speed Racer Trailer

Watchoutski!

Iron Man to Get Fleshed Out

Lindsay Lohan: Fully Frontal

For a paycheck rumored to be in the neighborhood of "peanuts," Lindsay Lohan has agreed to go completely, full-frontally nude in a cheapie independent movie, because absolutely everyone hasn't seen her naked yet. In Florence, she'll play against type as a nymphomaniac waitress. Says a source, “She is fully aware of the potential of her body. Lindsay wants to build up an image as a mature, responsible actress.” (Daily Mail)

The Penis Monologue

And speaking of Jason Segel, he had this to say recently about his full frontal scenes in Fogetting Sarah Marshall – scenes, we should mention, that he wrote himself.

"I thought it would be fun. I thought I'd walk out naked and they'd yell, 'Action,' but no, it's not like that at all. You show up and realize you're about to be naked in front of 300 people. I also had a realization right before I walked out that did not help: There aren't too many women out there who just love a small penis. That's all I kept thinking. The MPAA made a specific rule that as long as it's flaccid, it's still an R rating, but you don't want to be too flaccid! At one point there were seven penis shots and now we've got it down to four. One of the shots they framed was just half my penis and it looked really, really weird. People fainted and cried. I'm interested to see how it affects my life. I don't know how it's gonna affect my dating life. It'll be like, 'You've already seen me naked!'"
(Source;

That Touch of Mantle

In his upcoming tell-all Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door, David Kaufman reveals that Day was not quite the breathy, huffy virgin she portrayed in too many movies. Seems that when the New York Yankee horndog Mickey Mantle made a cameo in her 1962 movie, That Touch of Mink, the two did the deed after a day of shooting. (She'd might have done and tired of costar Cary Grant already.) "Mantle boasted to friends that not only had he slept with Day at his regular suite in New York's St Moritz Hotel," writes Kaufman, "but that she was 'one of the best fucks of his life.' " A spokeswoman for Day as good as confirms the story by saying the actress, now 84, has no comment. (Page Six)

Mike Who?

Nominations for the MTV Movie Awards will be announced next month, but we already know that Mike Myers will be hosting the show June 1. That'll be interesting because with all his voiceover work lo these many years we're not sure what he looks like anymore. But we're sure he'll do at least part of his hosting duties in a Scottish accent. That never changes.

Valkyrie's Papers Are Not in Order

The release date for Valkyrie, Bryan Singer's film about the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and in which Tom Cruise portrays Colonel Claus van Stauffenberg, the driving force behind the plot, has been pushed back twice and is now set for February, 2009, which Variety's Anne Thompson says makes it seem like "tainted goods."

Andy's Boys

New York nightlifers from the '80s will be interested to know that the ubiquitous DuPont twins, Richard and Robert, pets of Andy Warhol, will be the subject of a Steven Klein-directed movie, based on the New York magazine story, Factory Boys. Of course, the bros want Zac Efron to play them. (Page Six; photo: Anton Perich)

Turner and Pooch: Peggy Sue Got Sued

Kathleen Turner has publicly and legally apologized to Nicolas Cage for writing in her autobiography, Send Yourself Roses, the total fiction that he was arrested twice for drunk driving and stole a Chihuahua during the making of their 1986 movie, Peggy Sue Got Married. Cage filed and won a defamation, libel, and slander suit against Turner, who will pay Cage's legal fees and make a substantial donation to the National Adult Protective Services Foundation, a charity that benefits vulnerable adults. In addition, the Daily Mail, which excerpted the actress' claims, will remove the article from its website and publish an apology, and the publisher will include a correction and apology in printed copies of Turner's book. In other words, you don't fuck with Nic. (E! Online)

Whirl of Wonder

The progress progresses. A whole new wall appears in the renovation of the World of Wonder Storefront Gallery. Last weekend, inspired by the Egyptian Theater's special Bully screening in tribute to Brad Renfro, we made our own DVD festival of recently dead-before-their-time stars. We started with the little-seen small masterpiece Bully, followed by The Talented Mr Ripley, directed by the recently deceased Anthony Minghella, then The Brothers Grimm, Terry Gilliam's fairy-tale film costarring Heath Ledger in a delicate, delightfully daffy performance, and, since there was still some weekend left, we threw the 1948 noir Kiss of Death, with the late Richard Widmark's genius performance as psycho killer Tommy Udo, into the DVD player. We mention all of this because when the Storefront Gallery reopens on April 25, the work in the group show "depARTed" will focus on celebrities who came to an early, unexpected end.

(Photos by James McGowan)

Shameless Plug

Calpernia Addams. star of World of Wonder's dating show on Logo, Transamerican Love Story, is in London right now repping Casting Pearls, the short film she made with sidekick Andrea James, at the 22nd London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. Andrea's website has more info and reports that Calpernia's single "Stunning" has been added to the rotation on NewNowNext's Queer Mix.

Snap!

New leaked photo of Heath Ledger as The Joker. (via Filmdrunk)

When She Knew

Here are two promotional videos for When Kiran Met Karen, the English-language cross-cultural Indian-American indie film that covers the subject of lesbianism on a canvas of South Asian conservatism, lifestyle, and existence while following the trials and tribulations of a promising young Bollywood actress who discovers her own sexuality after meeting a lesbian journalist just days before the premiere of her blockbuster film. Which is just the long and convoluted way of saying there's some hot cross-cultural girl-on-girl action.

Tread Carefully

Alex at First Showing alerts us and you to many of the "breaking" Hollywood stories we'll run into on the net this April Fools day, including news of a Superman vs Spider-Man movie, a possible Spielberg remake of Duel, and a Tyler Perry horror film in the works. Outside of movie news, though, we're on our own. (Photo via SlashFilm)

Don't Film It Again, Sam

Madonna wants to remake Casablanca and set it in Iraq. And, at 50, she'll play Ilsa, the part Ingrid Bergman played in her 20s. Hollywood's not buying it. But you know Madonna. (Daily Mail)

Up in the Air

Will Hayden Christensen be playing the young Superman in Justice League: Mortal? Will there even be a Justice League: Mortal? (Cinema Blend)

Brad Renfro Tribute Tonight

If you're in Los Angeles, try to make the Brad Renfro Memorial Tribute screening of 2001's Bully tonight at 7:30 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Bully is the true story of a group of middle-class teenagers who decide to kill the bully in their group. The film's director, Larry Clark, will be present at the screening, as will actor Daniel Franzese. Along with Franzese and the late Brad Renfro, the film also stars Michael Pitt, Rachel Miner, Bijou Phillips, and Nick Stahl as the Beaver the bully.

Shameless Plug

World of Wonder's touching documentary When I Knew, directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, will play the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival on April 27. The festival runs from April 25 to May 4. Barbato and Bailey will attend the screening and discuss the film afterward. And meanwhile, the HBO When I Knew video booth will be set up to record, we hope, your own stories.

Doing It with Lindsay

Lindsay Lohan has signed to play Nancy Pitman, one of Charles Manson's most loyal followers, in a movie to be called Manson Girls. "Yes, I am doing it with Lindsay," says Brad Wyman, the film's producer. There looks to be a slight physical resemblance between Lohan and Pitman. According to lore, Pitman was at home with Manson the night he sent members of his "family" to music producer Terry Melcher's house, where they famously killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and the others. (Pop quiz: If Tate had lived and delivered Roman Polanski's baby, how much might she have got at that time from a tabloid for photos of the newborn?)

"High School Drag"

In a spectacularly riveting cameo in the middle of the 1958 teen-exploitation classic, High School Confidential, Phillipa Fallon performs a beat poem in a coffeehouse to the accompaniment of Jackie Coogan on piano. As the poem says, "Turn your eyes inside and dig the vacuum."

Schwarzenegger IS Hamlet

Arnold brings the Great Dane to life in this Shakespeare classic retold in no uncertain terms by James Cameron. Pretty sure this is how the Bard would have produced it if he were working in Hollywood today.

Marquee de Sade

God bless my local Los Feliz 3 Cinema for trying to scratch out a living with their innovative, family-friendly Mommy & Me Matinees, in an increasingly multiplex-saturated town. But glancing through their online schedule, I'm not sure the thriller Funny Games, in which Naomi Watts' family is brutally tortured by a pair of serial killers in their own home, is the most suitable fodder for the bib-and-stroller crowd.

– Steven Corfe

¡Viva Maria!

That's Ashton Kutcher's back and Maria Conchita Alonso who's looking at his front on the set of his new movie, Spread. Maria Conchita is the host, by the way, of World of Wonder's new VH1 series ¡Viva Hollywood! which begins airing on April 13. (via Just Jared; photo: Pacific Coast News)

Long John

Johnny Depp is in Wisconsin shooting Michael Mann's Public Enemies, also starring Christian Bale, Channing Tatum, and Giovanni Ribisi. Depp plays John Dillinger, which makes us wonder about the casting process. (AP photo)

Your Loss

"I've had a little fun with Ryan Phillippe and Channing Tatum's new movie STOP-LOSS," says prettyontheoutside's David Gilmore. "If I had been allowed to write and direct it, the film would have gone in a different direction."

You'll Know Us by the Trailer Dead

The trailer premiered on TV last night during Two and a Half Men, so you were spared 2,000 calories by watching it and then not having enough time to go to the kitchen to get something to eat. But you'll make up for it in the lobby at the cineplex. Anyway, this movie looks like it could be Ben Stiller's stellar comeback. Or not. But we'll see it for the Watermelon Man angle.

Return to the Scene

If Loving Him Is Wrong...

"Is it really so wrong that I totally want to do JoJo?" asks James St James. Thoughts anyone?

These Projects Live Forever

Plans are in the works at the CW for a spinoff of the '90s teen soap Beverly Hills 90210. The network might order a pilot by the end of the month. Meanwhile, Variety reports that a remake of the 1980 Alan Parker film, Fame, will go into production around Labor Day, to be directed by 23-year-old Kevin Tancharoen. So now would be a good time to buy stock in leg warmers, etc.

The Ledger King

The good news is that production has resumed on the Terry Gilliam film The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, which had been near-scrapped due to the death of its star, Heath Ledger. Replacing Heath now are Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law. But because the film is a far-fetched fantasy in the Gilliam manner and since Ledger had completed filming the "realistic" sections, Depp, Farrell, and Law will play physically transformed versions of his character when he passes into other worlds. At no point will Heath's work be modified or altered through the use of digital technology, promise the producers. And the bad news? Heath Ledger is still dead. (Variety; photo of Heath and Gilliam: Getty Images via New York)

Who Needs a Movie?

That philosophical question aside, this lugubrious promotional video for Fred & Sharon's Movie Productions unfolds like a Canadian Saturday Night Live sketch on drowsy-formula cold medication. We're still not 100% convinced Fred & Sharon's company is authentic or that Fred & Sharon actually exist. If you know something, let us know. (t/y Thairin)

Soldiers of Misfortune

From left: Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr, and Ben Stiller in a scene from Tropic Thunder. Yes, Robert Downey Jr. The comedy, co-written and directed by Stiller, is synopsized thusly: Through a series of freak occurrences, a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying.

The Camera Adds 10 Pounds