DiCaprio says Japan perfect for 'Inception'

Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio (C)

TOKYO � Leonardo DiCaprio hopes his mind-warp thriller "Inception" will be a hit in Japan, which has long shown a taste for anime fantasies and surreal works by its own master-director Akira Kurosawa.

The Hollywood star was in Tokyo for the premiere of the sci-fi summer blockbuster by British director Christopher Nolan about a group of thieves who infiltrate their victims' dreams to steal their thoughts.




"This is a very surreal, multi-dimensional plot structure (which) needs ideas that don't come about from Hollywood very often," DiCaprio said.

"I'm truly excited to see how the audiences here would react to this idea," he said, crediting Japanese movie-goers with embracing new concepts such as works by animation director Hayao Miyazaki and cinema legend Kurosawa.

"I'm a huge fan of Japanese cinema, Japanese anime," DiCaprio said at a Tokyo press conference. "The Miyazaki film 'Spirited Away' has very surreal landscapes that audiences here seem to embrace and seem to love."

DiCaprio, a three-time Academy Award nominee, said his latest work stood out from what he admitted can be unimaginative Hollywood fare.

"Films that come out, especially during the summer time... seem to be a recycle from other plot structures, and this is truly unique," he said.

His co-star Ken Watanabe meanwhile lavished praise on Nolan, with whom he tied up for a second time after the 2005 film "Batman Begins", even likening him to the Italian Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci.

"I really wonder what's happening in Chris Nolan's head," Watanabe said. "He has all sorts of elements, not only literary but also scientific and architectural, with a full drive to prepare them and carry them out.

"It even makes me think he is a comeback of da Vinci."

But the Japanese actor also had a complaint to share: "The director first told me to play the role just like James Bond," he said with a stern look.

"Unfortunately he didn't have a Bond girl for me in the script."

�Toy Story 3� beats Sandler, Cruise at box office

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�Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,� Part one

British �Harry Potter� actors Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe.

LOS ANGELES, June 29 � This first trailer for part one of the Harry Potter finale, the seventh installment in the saga, brings fans closer to the end of the epic. Ominous imagery from both Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows films is highlighted and will be attached to the midnight screenings of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse tonight.

In this 3D fantasy, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson return for the final showdown between Harry and the evil Lord Voldemort. The trailer opens with Harry emerging from a dark forest to face his nemesis.

�Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived,� Voldemort says. �Come to die!�

What follows is a montage sequence of dozens of shots excerpted from the films featuring Ollivander the wand-maker, Sirius Black�s flying motorcycle, the Death Eaters, and Hermione, Ron and Harry determined to finish Dumbledore�s work in vanquishing the treacherous villainy.



After a mounting series of menacing scenes and threatening confrontations showing Voldemort�s growing power, he finally asks: �Why do you live?� Harry responds: �Because I have something worth living for.�

The trailer concludes with our hero�s ultimate battle to defeat the Dark Lord amidst bodies strewn across the ruins of Hogwart�s castle.

The movie also stars Ralph Fiennes, Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, and Helena Bonham-Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Miranda Richardson, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, and Tom Felton. Directed by David Yates, who did the last two Harry Potter films.

Part one of Deathly Hallows releases to theatres on November 19, with the last chapter of J.K. Rowling�s Harry Potter arriving July 15, 2011

Dev Patel goes from �Slumdog� to �Airbender�

Patel is seen as Prince Zuko in �The Last Airbender'� in this publicity photo released yesterday, July 1, 2010

NEW YORK, July 2 � British actor Dev Patel had a dream start to his film career digging into his Indian heritage to play the lead role in British director Danny Boyle�s Oscar-winning �Slumdog Millionaire�.

His second film, M. Night Shyamalan�s �The Last Airbender,� is being panned by the critics, but Patel�s performance as an a vengeful fire-spewing prince has earned some of the film�s only praise on the eve of its US release today.



Patel, still only 20 years old, talked to Reuters about the pressure on the set of �Airbender� following �Slumdog�, how he is now mobbed in India and how he and co-star Freida Pinto parlayed their working relationship into a more intimate one.

Q: Why did you accept this as your second major film? The �Slumdog� role created this wholesome image for you, how much will playing more of an evil prince in �Airbender� shake up that good boy persona?

A: �I wanted to do something that was as different as possible as to �Slumdog� and this is a whole 180 (degrees)...I wanted to avoid being typecast.

�I came into this industry as an actor and I want to leave being an actor. So I want to be as versatile as possible. With �Slumdog� it was such a great experience but there was so much exposure and we had to do so much press to build this film up with no money. We sort of became overexposed and were in all of those silly gossip magazines. I don�t want to become one of those celebrities, I just want to be a good actor.�

Q: Did you feel more pressure on set this time around?

A: �I was just as nervous as I was in �Slumdog,� maybe if not more, because you know the whole added pressure of coming off a film like that and everyone expecting another Academy Award-winning film, which is obviously not going to be the case with this, it is a whole different sort of market.�

Q: From whom did you learn more, Danny Boyle or (�Airbender� director) M. Night Shyamalan?

A: �That is a tricky one. No offence to Night but for me personally no one will ever hold a torch to Danny, it doesn�t matter who it is. He basically had a film and he hedged his bets on an absolute nobody to play the lead in his film. He took such a large risk on me, and I was a complete unknown to be honest. For him to have faith in me... and for the film to be successful, I wanted to impress him and work so hard. And that is how all these awards got showered upon us... I thank him really for being a patient and great mentor.

Q: How have you handled the exposure since then, especially since you publicly started dating �Slumdog� star Freida Pinto?

A: �Publicly? I don�t know what you mean about publicly! We try and be as hidden as possible really. (laughs) But even going to the gym and things, I don�t know how they find you, but they just do, it�s unbelievable. We tried to stay under wraps about it as much as possible, especially during the �Slumdog� press. We didn�t want that to be overshadowing the film in any way so we kept it under wraps.�

Q: Is it difficult now that you are filming separately?

A: �Yes she is doing a lot of filming right now, it is quite inspiring actually. It is tricky, but where there is a will there is a way I guess.�

Q: You went back to India at Christmas. What is your reception like there now?

A: �I love the place. Since shooting �Slumdog� I sort of fell in love with Mumbai and things. I went there and it was great, I made lots of friends on the film set of �Slumdog,� so it was lovely to see them again.

�It is strange because it is incredible how many people recognise me. And it is more by face than name... they are like, �Ah you are the hero, ah ah!�

Q: What would it take for you to do a Bollywood film?

A: �I have had offers with some very, very good directors. Some of them ask me to speak Indian and I am like, �I just can�t, it wouldn�t be right doing that right now, in this sort of time.� Nothing has really excited me yet, to be honest.

�The scripts I get are never quite international enough. They still fall in the trap of being popcorn Bollywood, so I end up eventually deciding not to do them.

Q: All this and you are only 20, what could be better?

A: �Hopefully plenty more films, that would be great. I really believe that films should either allow people to escape into a different world or inspire change in some way. Hopefully I can do a film in the future like �Slumdog� where I can... shed such a nice light on a subject that people don�t know a lot about. And they are utterly moved.�

The Last Airbender' difficult to grasp

 

There is incomprehensible, and there is inexplicable, and then there is "The Last Airbender," M. Night Shyamalan's adaptation of the popular Nickelodeon cartoon "Avatar: The Last Airbender." Not to be confused with James Cameron's tale of tree-hugging blue people, this saga revolves around (I think) a war-torn future world waiting for a messiah to unite it.



But the screenplay (also by Shyamalan) is cluttered with so much gobbledygook exposition and confusing action that it's impossible to grasp what's supposed to be going on for more than 15 seconds at a time.

The opening scenes introduce us to sister and brother Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone), two members of Water Nation -- one of four nations that were once kept in balance by the mysterious Avatar. But when the Avatar went missing, all hell broke loose, as the Fire Nation declared war on the others, including Air Nation and Earth Nation. Got all that?

Part of the problem here is that Shyamalan has tried to cram about three seasons of the cartoon's plot points into this one movie, including the story of the prince of Fire Nation (Dev Patel from "Slumdog Millionaire"), who was cast out of the palace for being a wimp. The other, bigger problem is that you don't care about any of these people, whose motivations and personalities are impossible to discern.

At some point, a savior emerges, Aang (Noah Ringer), a boy who can bend air -- i.e., make the wind knock people over -- and thus the Avatar who will bring peace to this universe. Sweeping his arms about him and prancing around the set, the bald, wide-eyed Aang spends a dismaying portion of the proceedings looking like he's practicing tai-chi.

the time the (mystifying) climax rolls around, the movie has come to resemble an unwieldy hybrid of "Little Buddha" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

Kristen Steward showing cleavage in Twilight Eclipse in LA.

�The Twilight Saga: Eclipse� finally arrived in Los Angeles, as the stars of the film franchise came to the Nokia Theatre for the premiere of the film. On hand were �Twilight� stars Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson.

At the premiere, Kristen Stewart is rarely seen in a typical, conversative dress. She wore a short, one-sleeved white dress by Elie Saab that showed off her legs. Robert Pattinson wore a Gucci maroon silk cotton suit, and Taylor Lautner wore a Gucci grey two button suit.

Movie review: 'Shrek Forever After' aims for

 
The last installment of the "Shrek" franchise finds the green ogre (voice of Mike Myers) in a world in which he has never been born thanks to villainous Rumpelstiltskin

The Shrek we meet at the start of "Shrek Forever After" is a shell of an ogre: mean and green on the outside, but all mellow yellow inside. Married life and fatherhood have made him soft, and no longer scary. Gone are the angry mobs who used to chase him with pitchforks, replaced by some obnoxious brat at his triplets' birthday party, who keeps demanding, "Do the roar!" as if Shrek were just another celebrity with a worn-out catchphrase.



Can this be the monster that we know and love, or is he merely going through the motions, catering to the clamoring crowds that want to see him do what he's always done, one more time?

The same thing might be asked of the movie, the fourth and supposedly final chapter in the animated series. Has "Shrek Forever After" still got it, or is it just a crass attempt to cash in on a now-tired franchise?

Believe it or not, there's life in the old boy yet. After a disappointing third outing, this "Shrek" brings the cycle of fairy-tale-themed films to a fine finish.

The premise itself will sound familiar. Not from earlier Shrek movies, but from the 1946 "It's a Wonderful Life." In an attempt to get back some of his mojo, if only for a day, Shrek (voice of Mike Myers) finds himself in the position of George Bailey, in a world in which he has never been born.

That's because he makes a magical deal with Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn). Shrek gets 24 hours to live the life he used to have, before fame and family came along. In return, Rumpelstiltskin gets to take a day from Shrek's life.

Our hero should have read the fine print more carefully. Rumpelstiltskin picks the day Shrek was born, meaning that, while Shrek now finds himself in a world unencumbered by diapers and responsibility, it's also a world in which all the good he's done has had no effect. He wasn't there to rescue his wife, Fiona (Cameron Diaz), from her tower prison. Rumpelstiltskin is now king, and his kingdom is a police state, run by witches who hunt down ogres and toss them in jail. Fiona is the Amazonian leader of the ogre resistance movement.

Fortunately, there's an escape clause: If he and Fiona share one "true love's kiss," Shrek gets his old life back. All he has to do is make Fiona fall in love with him -- all over again. If he doesn't, he'll evaporate come sunrise.

That much is reminiscent of the first two movies, which also revolved around the power of a transformative kiss. But there's enough here that's clever and new -- and at times very funny -- to keep things from feeling stale.

Many beloved old characters return, only much transformed. Gingy the gingerbread man (Conrad Vernon) is now a scarred professional gladiator, fighting animal crackers in an arena for sport. Donkey (Eddie Murphy) is a mangy beast of burden, pulling the paddy wagon into which Shrek is thrown after he's captured. Most hilariously, Puss (Antonio Banderas) can no longer fit into his boots, having put on well more than a few pounds as Fiona's pampered pet.

Among the new characters, Rumpelstiltskin makes for a perfect villain. Vain, insecure and ridiculous in an assortment of constantly changing wigs, he's a pleasure to boo and hiss at.

The Pied Piper also makes an indelible debut, without ever uttering a word. Hired by Rumpelstiltskin to round up ogres, he carries a high-tech flute with him -- it has settings for rats, witches, ogres, etc. -- that makes dancers out of whatever and whomever he wants, to consistently amusing effect. If you liked the episode of "Glee" where the football team shakes it, improbably, to Beyonc�'s "Single Ladies," you'll love the sight of hulking, line-dancing ogres.

Have we heard some of this before? Sure. But as with the best fairy tales -- the ones that bear repeating again and again -- the delight in "Shrek Forever After" is not in the tale itself, but in the telling.

*** PG. At area theaters. Contains slapsticky action and bathroom humor. 98 minutes.

Noami Watts stars as CIA operative Plame in Cannes film

 
Actress Naomi Watts, left, director Doug Liman, center, and actress Liraz Charhi, right, pose during a photo call for the film "Fair Game", at the 63rd international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Thursday, May 20, 2010


Actress Liraz Charhi, left, and actress Naomi Watts, right, pose during a photo call for the film "Fair Game", at the 63rd international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Thursday, May 20, 2010.

Naomi Watts has gotten used to playing unstable women. But with the Cannes Film Festival entry "Fair Game," Watts is playing a woman as steady as they come in Valerie Plame, whose secret CIA identity was leaked by the George W. Bush administration.

 
Actress Liraz Charhi, left, and actress Naomi Watts, right, pose during a photo call for the film "Fair Game", at the 63rd international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Thursday, May 20, 2010



 
From left, actor Khaled Nabawy, actress Naomi Watts, actress Liraz Charhi, and director Doug Liman, rigjt, pose during a photo call for the film "Fair Game", at the 63rd international film festival, in Cannes, southern
France, Thursday, May 20, 2010.




Directed by Doug Liman ("The Bourne Identity," "Mr. and Mrs. Smith"), "Fair Game" chronicles the battle Plame and husband Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) fought in the scandal that called into question the White House's rationale for going to war in Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction.

"She's a real woman, and more of a woman than I've ever played thus far. A lot of the material I've been drawn to in the past been about women in some kind of psychosis, since David Lynch," said Watts, referring to Lynch's 2001 Cannes entry "Mulholland Dr.", a career-making role in which the actress starred in a tale of shifting identities and twisting personalities.

"But this woman transcends her psychosis, and not alone," Watts told reporters Thursday before "Fair Game" premiered. "She has this incredible husband, Joe Wilson, who gives her the encouragement and strength and belief that they are strong enough to go forward and tell the truth. And who really would have gone there? I certainly wouldn't have. I couldn't have done it. So I'm just in awe of her strength and her courage."

One of 19 movies competing for the festival's main prize, "Fair Game" arguably is the most politically charged film to play in the Cannes main competition since Michael Moore's war-on-terror documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which won the top award in 2004.

Beginning in the early days of the U.S. war on terror after the Sept. 11 attacks, "Fair Game" traces Plame's background as a covert operative, taking on assumed identities to uncover details about possible weapons programs in Iraq and elsewhere.

After the Bush administration cites a supposed uranium deal involving Iraq, Joe Wilson writes a piece in The New York Times disputing the information, noting how he was dispatched by the U.S. government to Niger in west Africa to investigate the case but found no evidence of a uranium sale.

Soon after, Plame's CIA cover was leaked to the news media. She says her outing came in retaliation for her husband's Times piece.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the Plame investigation. President George W. Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence.

In "Fair Game," Watts' Plame and Penn's Wilson face death threats against their family, hostile criticism from the government and accusations of betraying their country.

Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, fights back in a media campaign against the White House, while Plame refuses to respond publicly to the scandal, which strains their marriage to the breaking point.

"I was so captivated by the character of Valerie Prime and the character of Joe Wilson that I almost forgot it was a true story," Liman said. "She's this incredibly private person, and he's this extroverted, larger-than-life character. And they're married. That's real."

The film is based on the couple's memoirs � Plame's "Fair Game" and Wilson's "The Politics of Truth."

Plame also appeared in the Cannes film "Countdown to Zero," director Lucy Walker's documentary about the continuing danger of nuclear arms. A weapons-proliferation specialist, Plame was among those interviewed about the possibility of terrorist or accidental nuclear detonations.

Though Plame and Wilson were at Cannes for the "Fair Game" premiere, they were not participating in the film's publicity, including a festival press conference.

"She and Joe are both here and are very supportive of the movie. Obviously, part of the story is that they wanted, especially Joe wanted, this story to be told," Liman said. "But this is a film festival, and we were told that in the history of Cannes, they wouldn't normally bring the people on whom the film was based to the press conference. That is the procedure for Cannes."

Nightmare On Elm Street remake tops US box office -'Nightmare' wins weekend with $32.9M debut

New remake Freddy Kruger.


Box office dream...Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger


Jackie Earle Haley stars as Freddy in film No. 9


Rooney Mara in "Nightmare on Elm Street"

Horror remake A Nightmare on Elm Street has topped the north American box office after taking $32m (�21m) in its opening weekend, figures have revealed.

The film sees the return of serial killer Freddy Krueger, who appeared in the original 1984 Wes Craven movie.



Last week's top earner, How To Train Your Dragon, fell to second place with slapstick comedy Date Night in third.

At number four was Jennifer Lopez's The Back-Up Plan and rounding off the top five was family film Furry Vengeance.

"A Nightmare on Elm Street" led the weekend box office as the remake of the 1980s slasher film debuted with $32.9 million.

Freddy Krueger is back, only he's just not himself. In fact, he's someone else altogether.

A Nightmare on Elm Street, No. 9 in the series and a remake of No. 1, opens Friday, but this version of the iconic slasher flick is the first not to involve either slash-maestro Wes Craven as director or Robert Englund as Krueger, the man with the melted face who stalks dreams of his victims and kills them with a razor-armed metal glove.

For the new picture, Freddy is played by Jackie Earle Haley, who attracted attention in 2006's Little Children and this year's creepy Shutter Island. In place of Craven, Samuel Bayer (best known as a commercial and music video director) took the helm, and Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer wrote the screenplay, which again has serial killer Freddy, in his fedora and green-and-red-striped shirt, haunting the dreams of a group of suburban teens.

But if the original Nightmare, from 1984, was so shiveringly memorable, why do it again?

"Not every movie should be remade, but this is a franchise that had run out of steam," Bayer says. "Freddy had become a bit of a comedic character; he had lost some of his power to scare people. We have to wipe the slate clean and start over again. So it's not a remake, it's a reinvention of the legend of Freddy Krueger."

New Line Cinema's Walter Hamada says the natural progression of horror franchises is that the scary things become less scary, more campy. "The best franchises to reboot are the ones that go off the rail," says Hamada, a senior vice president at New Line, long known, he adds, as the "house that Freddy built." The studio had successes in remaking the original Friday the 13th last year and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2006.

Nightmare became one of the "most treasured" horror franchises in Hollywood because it tapped into a fear that anyone around the world could recognize: the fear of being attacked in your dreams, Hamada says. "It's the idea that if you die in your nightmare, you die for real. It taps into universal fears � everyone's got nightmares."

And everybody likes to be scared silly at the movies.

"We love that sense of sitting on the edge of our seats, palms sweating, stomach churning," says Diane Robina, president of FEARnet, the on-demand, online horror channel that is celebrating the new movie with a month of Nightmare-related content.

"It allows people to safely face their fears," adds Mick Garris, a veteran horror writer and director (Critters 2, Sleepwalkers) who is a friend of Craven and Englund and interviewed both for his show, Post Mortem, on FEARnet.

Moviemaking tools, such as CGI and 3-D, have improved in 26 years, but computer-generated effects are not what scares people, Bayer says. "What scares you is that you believe that the Freddy Krueger who exists in your dreams is somehow also flesh and blood. And you recognize a part of yourself in the characters he threatens."

Since 1984, the famously loyal fan base for horror has grown even deeper and wider, Robina says, so remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street is a smart idea from a marketing perspective. She predicts that both old and new fans will want to see the new film, as demonstrated by the success of the remake of Friday the 13th last year.

"But the key is going to be whether it's authentic," she says. "If (the new film) is not good, they will not support it � the (filmmakers) have got to deliver something good."


The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "A Nightmare On Elm Street," Warner Bros., $32,902,299, 3,332 locations, $9,875 average, $32,902,299, one week.

2. "How to Train Your Dragon," Paramount, $10,614,289, 3,426 locations, $3,098 average, $192,173,750, six weeks.

3. "Date Night," Fox, $7,577,352, 3,093 locations, $2,450 average, $73,604,361, four weeks.

4. "The Back-up Plan," CBS Films, $7,255,762, 3,280 locations, $2,212 average, $22,963,517, two weeks.

5. "Furry Vengeance," Summit, $6,627,564, 2,997 locations, $2,211 average, $6,627,564, one week.

6. "The Losers," Warner Bros., $5,888,471, 2,936 locations, $2,006 average, $18,013,781, two weeks.

7. "Clash of the Titans," Warner Bros., $5,855,368, 2,737 locations, $2,139 average, $153,911,073, five weeks.

8. "Kick-ass," Lionsgate, $4,515,940, 2,542 locations, $1,777 average, $42,228,273, three weeks.

9. "Death at a Funeral," Sony Screen Gems, $4,123,105, 2,271 locations, $1,816 average, $34,900,278, three weeks.

10. "Oceans," Disney, $2,564,843, 1,210 locations, $2,120 average, $13,460,115, two weeks.

11. "The Last Song," Disney, $2,255,782, 2,276 locations, $991 average, $58,600,765, five weeks.

12. "Alice in Wonderland," Disney, $1,478,225, 1,050 locations, $1,408 average, $329,686,666, nine weeks.

13. "Hot Tub Time Machine," MGM, $1,125,651, 1,112 locations, $1,012 average, $47,636,575, six weeks.

14. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," Fox, $981,535, 1,166 locations, $842 average, $60,899,640, seven weeks.

15. "The Bounty Hunter," Sony, $846,334, 891 locations, $950 average, $64,065,681, seven weeks.

16. "Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too?," Lionsgate, $812,234, 727 locations, $1,117 average, $58,736,999, five weeks.

17. "City Island," Anchor Bay, $733,338, 269 locations, $2,726 average, $2,086,876, seven weeks.

18. "Housefull," Eros, $642,156, 82 locations, $7,831 average, $642,156, one week.

19. "Avatar," Fox, $633,124, 387 locations, $1,636 average, $747,292,481, 20 weeks.

20. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," Music Box Films, $510,509, 199 locations, $2,565 average, $4,632,005, seven weeks.

Rourke had doubts over Iron Man

 
Mickey Rourke had to be talked into signing up for Iron Man 2.
The Wrestler stars plays villainous loner Whiplash in the movie, but director Jon Favreau revealed the role wasn't an easy sell - for Mickey or for Marvel Studios.



Jon said he and Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr worked hard to persuade both, explaining: "There was a lot of resistance to (Rourke). The studio was not inclined to hire him. It took a bit of a struggle and Robert was very helpful in that. And Robert was the guy who there was resistance in hiring last time around."
Mickey's agent insisted doing Iron Man 2 would be a good move, but the actor still needed convincing.
"I didn't want to play a one-dimensional villain," said the 53-year-old.

"I said I'd like him to have a sense of humour. I'd like him to have a particular look. I'd like to do it with the accent. I could see Favreau shaking his head, and I knew I was taking the chance that he could just say goodbye, thank you for coming in. But he embraced the ideas."
:: Iron Man 2 is in cinemas now.

Batman sequel is scheduled for July 2012

The Dark Knight sequel finally has a release date. Almost two years after the killer clown crime epic dominated the box office and spawned a million Halloween costumes, Warner Bros. has announced that the still-untitled Batman 3 will be released on July 20, 2012, according to The Hollywood Reporter. (In other news, I�m going off the grid from July 19, 2012 through August 1, 2012.)

There�s not a whole lot of information about the movie, which is still in the very early planning stages. Director Christopher Nolan and writer David Goyer have always been focused on presenting a more realistic take on the Batman mythos, so we�re probably not going to see Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze, or Clayface. Even though he�s a bit more outlandish, I wouldn�t mind seeing the Riddler, if only because his presence could pump up Batman�s mystery-solving detective side. But what do I know? None of my films have ever grossed over a billion dollars.



PopWatchers, what would you want to see in Batman 3? And what should they call the thing? I�d go with something vintage, like Shadow of the Bat, but I remember reading a rumor that it might be called Gotham City, which would be nifty.

Why breathing a word of the plot will cost the Sex And The City girls �1.6m

Hush hush: Sarah Jessica Parker, co-producer of Sex And The City 2, ordered her cast and crew to sign a confidentiality agreement

Best friends? Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon in the next film of Sex And The City

Love life: Kim Cattrall's Samantha possibly has two romances, one with a toyboy and the other an older man

They're back. More airbrushed, better lit, and more painstakingly styled than ever. Sex And The City 2 is nearly upon us - it premieres at the end of May - and fans of the original series are agog to find out what's in store for Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte.

Everyone is wondering how well they have got on behind the scenes. Relations between the ladies have been famously fractious - Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha, refused to sign up unless she was better paid last time.

This time around everyone's claiming they had a ball making the movie. Samantha says in the film: 'We made a deal ages ago: men, babies . . . it doesn't matter. We're soulmates.' And that's what the PRs would have you believe is true in real life.
But there are indications to the contrary - starting with the fact that they stayed in different hotels when they were filming.

And why did none of them turn up to the launch of the fashion collection Sarah Jessica Parker fronted this year? Could all three of the others have been busy that night? Or perhaps they are not truly 'friends' off-screen?

This time SJP, a highly successful actress who has a reputation for knowing exactly what she wants, has exerted her control to an even greater extent than she did on the last movie.
She is the co-producer of the film as well as its star. This has left Kim Cattrall out in the cold. The chemistry seems to boil down to three girls on one side, and Kim on the other.

One major source of conflict was the confidentiality agreements that SJP ordered the entire cast and crew to sign. Under its terms, if they are proven to have leaked a story about the movie, they are liable to pay up to $2.5million (�1.6million) in damages. Cattrall nearly came a cropper after she was photographed holding a script, with some of the dialogue visible.


There was a terrible fuss - it was put up on the internet and Cattrall received a warning telling her to be more careful. She sighed: 'I thought: "You have got to be kidding! This isn't state secrets, it's the f****** script for a movie!" It's crazy. You really have to be careful because I've signed my life away to say I won't tell. It gets to the point where you're terrified to carry your script around in case someone catches a glimpse of it.'

And the reason for the anxiety is that SJP seems to be convinced that the only way the sequel will do well is if people don't know what is going to happen to the 'girls'. They are all very keen to strike gold again - especially SJP, after her last romantic comedy movie bombed at the box office.

She's almost certainly wrong about why people go to see SATC, though. The first movie took $400million two years ago, though it was critically panned as nothing much more than three TV episodes stuck together.
To the surprise and delight of the studios, it was an enormous hit. It showed that films featuring women over 40 could actually make money, so Warners decided to rush out the sequel - a script was commissioned within weeks of the first movie's release.

Early signs are that it will be another huge hit - ticket sales are brisk, with many groups of women planning 'party screenings' complete with cocktails.

There is considerable pressure now on the actresses to agree to begin shooting a third and final movie - before they look too old for their adventures in romance and fashion in new York to appear completely unlikely.

The preference would be for a start towards the end of this year, although it will be a push as writer Michael Patrick King doesn't have a script ready yet.

But one source connected with the film used the words 'more haggard' and 'even older' to describe fears over how the stars now look, and the belief certainly seems to be the sooner, the better.

Some people think that they are way past it already. Cattrall is the oldest - a beautifully preserved 53. SJP and Kristin Davis are 45, and Cynthia Nixon is 43.
There have been many unkind remarks about an early publicity poster, featuring SJP in a white dress. 'She looks like a reanimated corpse,' wrote one. Another poster, which shows all four girls in a bar, was labelled 'grannies' night out'.

SJP, recently voted 'the world's unsexiest woman', is naturally alarmed. Apparently, she frets about seeming 'haggard' on screen - because she is so slender-she thinks she's aged more noticeably than her co-stars, and she's thinner than she's ever been.

It's said that she was spotted looking tearful at a salon in new York when they were doing lighting and make-up tests for the film. Apparently she was horrified by the way she had been lit in the film did You Hear About the Morgans?

And by the time they came to film SATC2, she had twin baby girls, presented to her by a surrogate mother, to cope with too. Marion and Tabitha were born in June last year and she started filming in September.

Caring for twins and a ten-year-old is enough to make anyone look baggy under the eyes. no wonder they have all been happy that the movie has taken infinite care over lighting and airbrushing.

The rumour is that more than $1million has been spent giving them electronic tweaks on screen and has been a greater priority this time than the outfits.

So what can we expect? The new movie opens two years after the last. Carrie is living in New York with Big and writing her fourth book.

Writer Michael Patrick King said: 'the question is, what is Carrie Bradshaw like as a wife? What's that about for Carrie, who is the eternal single girl, the rebel, the individual.'

Carrie and Big don't have a baby - they spend the film wrestling with the question of whether they are ready for one or not. Actor Chris Noth, who plays Big, added: 'No matter how long you have known someone, marriage changes things. It's a learning process for Carrie and Big.'

In a recently released trailer, we see Big flirting with a colleague, played by Penelope Cruz, and Carrie telling him: 'We are getting a bit too Mr and Mrs Married. We need to work on the sparkle.'

Samantha is in New York, running her PR firm, Miranda is working for her law firm, and Charlotte and husband Harry have another baby. There will be a big wedding.

Samantha has been pictured in a wedding dress, but that seems to be part of a dream sequence. The nuptials are between Carrie's friend Stanford Blatch and his boyfriend Anthony Marentino.

Sources indicate that at the wedding SJ P wears a tuxedo, and that Liza Minnelli performs at the Jewish ceremony with a highlight of the film being Minnelli, at 64, putting on a high-kicking routine which includes a reprise of Beyonce's Single Ladies. 'It's a wonderful number and I just got my new knee, so everything moves,' she said.
Meanwhile, Charlotte and Harry have marital problems. She has Lily and a newborn, and suspects Harry of cheating. She's also said to be surprised to feel sexually attracted to their gorgeous blonde Irish nanny, played by Alice Eve.

Cynthia Nixon said: 'Miranda is still married to Steve. She only has one child. She's living in Brooklyn, still employing Magda, still working as a lawyer, still having brunch with the ladies.' But she's finding it increasingly hard to have so little time with her family, and reports suggest she quits her job in an effort to redress her work/life balance.

Samantha has two romances, one with a toyboy played by male model Noah Mills. When that doesn't work out she falls heavily for an older man, acted by Max Ryan, who is 43 and portrays a European architect named Rikard.

He is said to be the reason why the ladies go to Abu Dhabi on an all-expenses-paid holiday, although other reports say Samantha takes them because her ex-boyfriend Smith Jerrod, played by Jason Lewis, has shot a film in the kingdom.

Michael Patrick King said: 'I thought, OK it's a depression. What do people need? And I thought extravagance. Let's put them on a big vacation. the idea of Samantha Jones, sexually liberated beyond anyone's expectation, going to the Middle East amused me. And I started building the story around that.'

The girls ride camels and go to nightclubs. And the major plot point happens when Carrie runs into her former lover Aiden in a market. 'We bump into each other halfway around the world?' Carrie muses. 'That means something.'

Samantha is said to fall quite seriously for her older beau. There are rumours that she will fall pregnant (she is said to be taking hormone pills in a bid to appear more youthful - might they wreak a miraculous plot twist with a baby for the oldest of the gang?).

SJP said that this film 'is a sort of antidote to the first one, which had a lot of sadness in it. this movie is more like a caper, a romp.'

She added that while in Morocco the four of them 'lived together, worked together for almost eight weeks solid - breakfast, lunch and dinner together every single night.'

Which is odd, because reports insist that Kristin and Kim stayed at the Amanjena Hotel in Marrakech, SJP was at the Mamounia and Cynthia Nixon at the Es Saadi. They were spotted dining separately. But relations do seem to have improved since the state of war which existed at the end of the TV series. The fact that the first film was such a hit smoothed tensions.

Cattrall still wishes that she was paid equally, but Kristin Davis has been a peacemaker between her and SJP. Cynthia Nixon does not want to get involved at all.

It seems that SJP and Cattrall have decided to make peace because they both know how tough it is to survive in the movies beyond 40, and that it would be foolish to sabotage this rich opportunity.

'People don't want to believe that we get on,' said Cattrall. 'They have too much invested in the idea of two strong, successful women fighting with each other. It makes for juicy gossip. The truth of us being friends and getting along and happily doing our jobs together is nowhere near as newsworthy.'

She added: 'I think Sarah is fantastic. She is a born leader and she guides the crew and the cast in such a strong but gentle way. She and I are sick of the rumours. It's exhausting talking about it, and a real bore.'

Katie Price's husband skips premiere of controversial film Killer Bitch .Alex Reid bottled it.

He's behind you! Co-star Yvette Rowland was reduced to posing with a cardboard cutout of the cagefighter after he opted out of appearing at the premiere

Controversy: Alex Reid appears in what has been described as a rape scene with Yvette Rowland in the violent gangster movie

Where is he? One attendee makes his thoughts known through a message on his T-shirt as he makes his way into the Killer Bitch premiere

Did the wife put her foot down? Or was Alex Reid actually too embarrassed about the content of his new movie to appear at last night's premiere.

In either event, the cagefighter was a noteable stayaway from the Curzon cinema in Mayfair which was descended on by a motley collection of former underworld characters and glamour girls.

A cardboard cutout of its star was all that was to be seen of Mr Katie Price at the launch of Killer Bitch, which features a rape among its most unsavoury scenes.
Written and directed by Liam Galvin, the movie is a tasteful affair which focuses on a woman who has to kill five people or her friend and family will be butchered.

It is the sort of low-budget flick in which the characters have the same names as the actors - presumably so they don't forget in the heat of filming. Not surprisingly, it won't be reviewed is going straight to DVD.

Reid's no-show may even have been a last-minute decision as he and Price were staying around the corner at the May Fair hotel.It may be that in the light of Price taking over her husband's PR, she deemed it unwise to be connected with the assembled, but he's unlikely to hear the last of it.

One cagefighting rival turned up with a prescient T-shirt that read: 'Alex Reid bottled it'.


Ex-gangsters: Former jewel thief Lenny Hamilton and Billy Frost, who was a driver for the infamous Kray twins pose on the red carpet

Glamour? Model Camilla Quance and actress Jessica Bast were amongst the female contingent which mainly consisted of models from phone-in channels

Colourful: Old faces from London's underworld added a murky element to the screening they included Dave Courtney and former bareknuckle boxer Roy Shaw

Just round the corner: Alex Reid had been at the Mayfair Hotel with his wife Katie Price just a stone's throw from the Curzon cinema

Classy: Glamour model Coralie Robinson, who once had a threesome with a cricket star Shane Warne and a female friend, was also in attendance

Co-star Yvette Rowland posed next to Reid's cutout, while former underworld figures like Dave Courtney, former West Ham hooligan Cass Pennant, ex-jewel thief Lenny Hamilton and former bareknuckle boxer Roy Shaw (who had a rather strange stain on his trousers) made their way into the screening.
Glamour models and actresses Camilla Quance, Jessica Bast and Coralie Robinson supplied the flesh content on the red carpet.

But former drug runner turned author Howard Marks, who has a cameo role, was also otherwise detained.

Meanwhile, Katie Price is said to be shocked at her husband's use of a fake tan drug that has been linked to cancer.Sources allegedly told the Daily Star that the fake tan-loving reality TV couple would be distressed to learn that regular use of Melanotan can cause the disease.

An insider told the Daily Star that the cage-fighter apparently injects the chemical directly into his stomach, which is the quickest way to get the Melanotan to enter the bloodstream.

The newspaper claims that the link with cancer will come as a blow to Katie, as the former glamour model has previously had her own battle with the illness.
Experts have said that the fake tan medicine is available on the internet for around �25 but is "untested and unlicensed".

Florence Palmer, from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Service, said: 'It may give you a nice tan at the moment but we don't know what kind of long-term effects it could have.'

New �Twilight Eclipse� Trailer Premieres (VIDEO)

The new and final trailer for the next film in The Twilight Saga, Eclipse, premiered on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Friday. While Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner continue the love triangle, their appears to be less moping about and more action this time, set up by the threat of an army of vampires. We finally get a glimpse of the much-anticipated battle scene between the Cullens, the Wolf Pack and Victoria�s army of newborn vampires. Twilight Eclipse is set to take a bite out of the box office on June 30. But you can catch Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Dakota Fanning on a special episode of Oprah on May 13.

First Look: New `Shrek' premieres at Tribeca-Shrek hit my midlife crisis,Pussy is fat.

From left, actors Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers and Antonio Banderas attend the premiere of "Shrek Forever After" during the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival in New York, on Wednesday, April 21, 2010.


In this film publicity image released by DreamWorks Animation, Shrek, voiced by Mike Myers, left, and an over-fed Puss In Boots, voiced by Antonio Banderas are shown in a scene from "Shrek Forever After." 

One thing hasn't changed with "Shrek": Puss in Boots still steals the show.

The fourth and supposedly final "Shrek" film, "Shrek Forever After," premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday night at New York's Ziegfeld Theatre.

It was a glitzy affair for the film, the first in the franchise to be released in 3-D. Given the box-office boost 3-D films have seen � particularly since "Avatar" � the film's studio, Dreamworks, expects a 3-D "Shrek" to be a hit, capping a franchise that has already earned more than $1 billion at the domestic box office.

"Shrek Forever After," which will be released May 21, returns the voice cast of Mike Myers (Shrek), Cameron Diaz (Fiona), Eddie Murphy (Donkey) and Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots, the Zorro-like feline.



The film takes the shape of "It's a Wonderful Life." A mid-life crisis comes to Shrek, now a father of three, who laments the loss of his younger, wilder days as a fearsome ogre. The evil magician Rumpelstilskin (Walt Dohrn) makes a dubious deal with Shrek, the result being that Shrek was never born and never married Fiona.

The bizarro world Shrek encounters � something like the sideways shifts of ABC's "Lost" � is a mishmash of mostly the familiar fairy tale characters, but with different twists of fate. The Gingerbread Man, so meek in previous "Shrek" movies, is now a kickboxing warrior.

Puss in Boots, too, has been inverted. In this "Shrek," the debonair swashbuckler has turned out an obese house cat, too lazy to shoo a mouse drinking from his bowl. He doesn't even have his namesake's footwear.

The character, something of a sensation after his debut in "Shrek 2," won many of the laughs at the premiere of "Shrek Forever After."

Shortly before the premiere, Banderas said he believed the "Shrek" films have been popular because they're enjoyed by both kids and parents � "but most especially by the parents." He credited a loose atmosphere for the films' tone.

"We are absolutely not conditioned to say the lines in a specific way, but they allow us to improvise a lot," said Banderas. "I know that is not the method used in all animated movies."

"Shrek Forever After" continues many of the familiar characteristics of the franchise � the pop song allusions, the fractured fairy-tale storytelling � but moviegoers can expect Puss in Boots to again be a memorable part of the experience.

The premiere was the opening night for the Tribeca Film Festival, which was co-founded by Robert De Niro. The festival, in its ninth year, runs through May 2.