Taylor Swift's new album 'Speak Now' gets a release date

This is just a hunch, but based on past performance, we're thinking that Taylor Swift's next album is going to do pretty well.

The country-pop phenomenon announced on July 20 that her third full-length record will be titled "Speak Now" and should hit stores on October 25, 2010. After two hit albums, Taylor could have the best songwriters in the world scrambling to work with her, but she's taking this one into her own hands.





Yes, all 14 songs on the album are written by Swift and only Swift. Her first single, "Mine," will drop on August 16th at 12:01 a.m. "Mine," according to Taylor in a live video webchat, is a song that is about her "tendency to run from love." Of course, rumor has it that love found her on the "Mine" video shoot.

Swift's love life hasn't exactly been low-profile: she's gone on paparazzi-snapped dates with the likes of "Twilight's" Taylor Lautner and "Glee's" Cory Monteith. Her last record, "Fearless," featured a few songs targeted at ex-boyfriend Joe Jonas... so we're expecting at least one thinly-veiled reference to the wolfpack this time around.

Fast and Furious Fast Five New Pictures

Fast and Furious Fast Five.A part of the Fast Five cast

The Fast and the Furious has become one of the most successful automotive cinema sagas in history, with the franchise currently preparing to receive the fifth title: Fast Five.





According to filmofilia, Universal Pictures is working hard to prepare the shooting of the new production, with the motion picture set to involve Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, as well as director Justin Lin and producer Neal Moritz. All of the aforementioned names will make a return for the fifth incarnation of the F&F. Lin has directed two other movies in the franchise: �The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift� (the third one) and �The Fast and the Furious Original Parts� (the fourth one), while Moris has been the producer of all the previous titles in the series since the first one (�The Fast and the Furious�) was launched back in 2001.

Getting back to The Fast and the Furious Fast Five, we can tell you that the movie will see Dom (Diesel) and Brian (Walker) as �fugitives being pursued by legendary lawmen.�

However, we could say that if you are already preparing to call the cinema for a reservation, you�re a bit early. We don�t mean to spoil the fun you were planning for tonight, but we�ll have to tell you that the Fast Five will begin shooting by the end of the current year, with the movie coming in theaters sometime in the course of next year.

Meanwhile, you can get some popcorn, sit back in your chair and enjoy the adjacent picture showing Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Ludacris, Tyrese Bigson and Sung Kang (Han of Tokyo Drift) from the cast of the upcoming movie. (yeah, we know, no cars here!).

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."

Romance, comedy dead on arrival in "Killers"

How do you explain being an assassin to your wife?

An action comedy that nearly renders the term an oxymoron, "Killers" is devoid of suspense and laughs. Doing no favors for stars Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher or the audience, this tired attempt to blend romantic comedy with thrills makes one long for the days when films like "Charade" showed how it could be done. Lionsgate released the film Friday without screening it earlier for the press.



The gorgeous Heigl is improbably cast as Jen, a miserable, recently dumped young woman who resorts to traveling with her parents (Tom Selleck, Catherine O'Hara) for a vacation in the French Riviera. Immediately upon settling in Nice, she meets the shirtless, hunky Spencer (Kutcher, who with his torso revealed at every opportunity is the real sex object in the movie), and a quick courtship ensues, with Jen unaware that her wooer is not the corporate consultant he claims to be but rather a professional killer working for an unnamed agency.

Cut to three years later, with the now married couple settled into a quiet suburban life and Spencer apparently having given up his former profession. That is, until his 30th birthday, when suddenly he becomes the target of numerous assassination attempts. Predictable chaos ensues, with the couple bickering about their marital situation even while violently grappling with a series of bad guys (and gals) whose surprising identities are supposed to be shocking.

The film, reportedly Lionsgate's most expensive production to date, is elaborate in its European location shooting and copious amount of choreographed mayhem. It's too bad that such effort wasn't expended on the script, which contains nary a single amusing line of dialogue. Instead, the film's idea of humor is to make a running gag of Jen's alcoholic mother's downing drinks at every opportunity.

Despite his impressive physique, the boyish Kutcher is less than convincing in macho mode, and Heigl (on a cinematic downhill streak since "Knocked Up") is reduced to dithering reaction shots. Even comic veteran O'Hara is unable to wrest laughs from the lame material, though Selleck manages to retain his dignity because of his stolid underplaying.

"Marmaduke" bounds onscreen for breezy, bland outing

A scene from �Marmaduke,�

It's hard to believe that many of this millennium's kids still read "Marmaduke," but the comic strip has been going strong since the early 1950s. It's even harder to believe that Fox made a feature film based on a single-panel comic in an era where expensive fanboy fare such as "Watchmen" or "Elektra" sometimes flames out.



There's no denying the Southern California setting makes for breezy, if bland, summertime fare, and children undoubtedly will be amused. Unlike the boundless energy of its title character, though, this looks to be a modest performer at the box office. It opens Friday (June 4).

Another curiosity is why producer John Davis, director Tom Dey and screenwriters Tim Rasmussen and Vince Di Meglio changed strip creator Brad Anderson's Great Dane into a wisecracker who now talks to his numerous four-legged co-stars and occasionally to the camera.

Marmaduke (voiced by Owen Wilson) narrates this sitcom story, a tale full of predictable comic pratfalls and equally predictable heartwarming life lessons. About the only connection to the single-panel strip is that the dog belongs to Phil Winslow (Lee Pace) and his wife (Judy Greer). Near the outset, Phil moves the family (teen daughter, son and younger daughter) from Kansas to Orange County, California, with pets Marmaduke and Carlos, a Russian Blue cat (George Lopez), in tow.

Marketing executive Phil has an eccentric, dog-loving new boss, Don Twombly (an uncomfortably cast William H. Macy), who takes meetings while strolling barefoot in a lavish dog park. It's here that Marmaduke bonds with several other mutts. And it's also here that they're taunted by high-class pedigrees led by bullying Bosco (Kiefer Sutherland). The film's basic puppy love triangle involves best pal Mazie (Emma Stone) and the more upper-crust Jezebel (Fergie).

The filmmakers use computer effects in unsurprising fashion, though kids surely will like the impromptu surfing contest with Marmaduke hanging ten and doing aerial acrobatics. The voice cast goes mostly for laughs, mouthing every dog pun and cliche ever recorded.

None of the human actors other than Pace gets much screen time. His casting (whether by design or not) evokes Dean Jones' Great Dane owner in Walt Disney's 1966 comedy "The Ugly Dachshund," right down to the character's clean-cut '60s look.

A snippet of another Disney dog story, 1957's "Old Yeller," can be glimpsed as well. It's always risky to remind viewers blatantly of better movies from years past. But one thing "Marmaduke" does have in common with the earlier Disney titles is a blessed scarcity of crass bodily-function gags that often pass as family comedy.

Movie review: 'Ondine'

Alicja Bachleda and Colin Farrell star in "Ondine."
Reality and Irish mythology get tangled up in Neil Jordan's spare, dreamlike new film. It's both magical and frustrating.

You know it's an Irish fairytale when the mists swirl and the sea churns around the harsh beauty of the Emerald Isle. You know it's a Neil Jordan Irish fairytale when at the center of all that harsh beauty is a working-class family broken apart by alcoholism.

That is "Ondine," starring Colin Farrell as Syracuse, a local fisherman with a grudge-holding, heavy-drinking ex-wife and a spirited daughter on dialysis. Syracuse is long past having dreams when he snares a beautiful woman in his nets and reality and Irish mythology soon tangle in ways both magical and frustrating. It can sometimes feel as if the director is the one lost at sea.

Nevertheless, there is much to recommend "Ondine," Jordan's love letter to Castletownbere, the fishing village on Ireland's southern coast where he lives and where the film was shot; and the notion that no matter how bruised and battered by life, love is still possible, still the answer.



It's a small film, and there's a spare, dreamlike quality that's a departure for a writer-director who tends toward densely detailed stories stuffed with moral complications, "The Crying Game," "Mona Lisa" and " Michael Collins" among them. Sometimes, the simplicity of the story confounds him, with young Annie (Alison Barry) saddled with a wheelchair, a failing kidney and most of the exposition of the story � too much to ask of a child.

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The mysterious woman at the heart of this tale is Ondine, Alicja Bachleda of "Trade," who's perfectly cast as an ethereal creature that may be a selkie � in the way of mermaids, they are seals able to transform into seductively gorgeous humans when the circumstances are right. There are, as might be expected, all sorts of strings attached involving seven tears, sealskins and long-term commitments.

All Syracuse knows is that Ondine is running from something, that her haunting songs increase his daily catch and that she seems to be falling in love with him. Annie is more interested in a selkie's wish-granting powers, while Syracuse's ex, Maura (Dervla Kirwan), is more concerned with where she's sleeping.

Jordan uses the push and pull between real life and legend to explore ideas of social ills, retribution, justice, family bonds and miracles in an age in which it seems there are none. For the filmmaker, optimism and a happy ending are not things he gives away easily, if ever, and there are any number of difficulties he's thrown in along the way, with Ondine's shadowy past rising up right alongside Syracuse's to rough things up.

The filmmaker creates a world so real that you can feel the chill of the water, smell the sweat in the bar. There is so much beauty too, with Jordan clearly ecstatic to be kicking around his hometown, where he uses its weathered nooks and crannies as a gritty contrast to the wild coast and bucolic fields of wildflowers and green as he moves between reality and myth. Director of photography Christopher Doyle follows closely along, capturing both in ways that keep the film's heart beating and that will no doubt boost the region's tourism as well.

At times, the narrative flows beautifully, particularly in the growing connection between Syracuse and Ondine, the slow reveal of who they really are, the delicious tension in their tentativeness. Farrell exposes much with those dark eyes and wary hesitations. It's hard not to wish more filmmakers would tap into that quieter, more vulnerable side.

At other times, the road is rocky when the story speeds up to take care of business, with the end a mad dash to tie up loose ends. Still, there is enough saving grace on these craggy shores to let the mists and the legends roll in and envelop you for a while.

'Eclipse' Scene: Check Out A Sneak Peek Before MTV Movie Awards!

Last month, when we told you Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner would be on hand at the MTV Movie Awards to present a never-before-seen clip from "Eclipse," fans went wild trying to guess just what footage they'd get. Would it be the part where Edward Cullen proposes to Bella Swan? That much-hyped tent scene that co-star Elizabeth Reaser called a "chaste three-way"?



Well, the full clip won't be unleashed until the Movie Awards this Sunday, but it's just cruel to make you wait that long to find out what you'll be getting on show night. So we pushed and we pulled, we twisted arms and engaged in activities that might be illegal in some countries � and voil�: a teaser clip of the "Eclipse" scene to come.

As you can see by hitting play on the embedded video, the scene features Edward, Bella and Jacob in a parking lot. A bit of this footage cropped up in the trailer that dropped in April, but the full clip promises to show much more than anyone has yet seen.

In the teaser, a concerned-looking Jacob approaches Edward and Bella. "Look, I'm here to warn you," he tells him. "If your kind come on our land again ... "

"You should leave now," Edward responds.

As Twilighters know, the three of them are about to be pulled into an epic confrontation with the nefarious vampire Victoria and her band of newborn bloodsuckers. At the moment, though, both these men who love Bella are still butting heads.

Tune in Sunday night to check out the full clip during the Movie Awards. Pattinson, Stewart and Lautner will be introducing the scene live and in person. What's more, co-star Chaske Spencer will be MTV International's official red-carpet correspondent, reporting live from the scene outside the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California, where some of Hollywood's biggest names will be stopping by to chat.

And then, of course, there will be the awards themselves. "New Moon" is up in five categories: Best Movie, Best Female Performance (Stewart), Best Male Performance (Pattinson and Lautner), Best Kiss (Stewart and Pattinson) and Global Superstar (Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner). Fan voting in all these categories is now under way at MovieAwards.MTV.com and will stay open through Saturday. Head over to make sure your favorite stars and movies triumph on the big night.



In THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between Edward and Jacob � knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision of her life.

Review: 'Splice' scientists cook up DNA monster

Science fiction. Starring Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody. Directed by Vincenzo Natali. (R. 110 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
It's easy enough to stick with "Splice" for about half of the way. It stars Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody as a team of genetic engineers - you know, like Dr. Frankenstein - and something in their personal dynamic is arresting. Subtly but unmistakably, she is the stronger partner, the one truly gifted and the one most likely to turn out to be off her rocker.



"Splice" capitalizes on Polley's forceful personality, her intelligence and her prickliness, qualities already in evidence when she was a teenager. From her earliest days onscreen, Polley has definitely had something, but she's had precious few chances to show it. This movie doesn't even qualify as a real chance, because it eventually caves in on itself. But at least Polley makes out better than Oscar winner Brody, who spends his time here acting weak and dumbfounded.

Director Vincenzo Natali, who co-wrote the screenplay, was apparently intent on offering "Splice" as a moral investigation into the issue of genetic engineering. Yet, for all its surface seriousness, "Splice" is a regulation monster movie. So however somber it gets, it's never truly thought-provoking, and however outrageous it gets, it's still always 20 minutes behind the audience. It's just too dumb to be serious and too slow to be entertaining.

It does, however, manage to be disgusting, which could have been interesting in a creepy sort of way had the movie wed the ugliness to an overall mood. Here it's just gross: The ambitious doctors create the first genetically concocted life-forms, two blobs the size of badgers. Then Elsa (Polley) gets more ambitious. She takes the blob DNA and combines it with ... human DNA. And the result is some horrible thing that starts out looking like a chicken with a baby's head and then grows into some terrifying bald girl (Delphine Chaneac) with pretty eyes and ghastly birdlike legs.

From here, we more or less know where "Splice" is going, which means that the filmmaker had only two sensible options: He could do the obvious but do it immediately, so as to arrive at some fascinating aftermath the audience doesn't expect. Or he could upend audience expectation and take the story in a complete other direction.

Alas, he does neither. Instead, he over-invests in the story of Elsa and Clive (Brody) and tries to make us care about the psychological dynamic between them and this monster-girl they've created. The strategy fails, as Elsa becomes repellent and Clive becomes, first, a cipher and ultimately, an amazing idiot.

The cave-in becomes complete at the point that we understand why Clive is such a washout - if the filmmaker made him any stronger, Clive would be able to advance the action, but this filmmaker has nowhere for the action to go. He has no new idea.

To his credit, director Natali does include two of the most disgusting sex scenes this side of David Cronenberg, and that's something. But poor Sarah Polley. I thought it couldn't get worse than having sex with the monster in "Beowulf & Grendel," but apparently it can get worse, much worse. Funny how some perfectly nice women just have awful luck with men.
Advisory: This film contains sexual situations, gruesome sights and violence.

James Franco to star in "Rise of the Apes"

James Franco has his damn dirty paws on the lead role in "Rise of the Apes," a prequel to the "Planet of the Apes" franchise.

The Fox feature focuses on a scientist (Franco) who has been testing a cure for Alzheimer's on apes. The test subject named Caesar starts to evolve rapidly, and the scientist takes him home and protects him from cruel doctors.



The story is designed to be show the modern-day event that set in motion the eventual dominance of apes over humans seen the classic 1960s and '70s movies. It is unclear how much of the movie will focus on the ape inciting an ape revolution, but given that Peter Jackson's WETA effects house is on board, the monkey play could be significant.

The apes will not be actors in costumes but rather rendered digitally to be photo-realistic by New Zealand-based WETA, employing certain of the groundbreaking technologies developed for "Avatar."

The movie will shoot this summer in British Columbia. Rupert Wyatt is on board to direct.

Franco's credits include the "Spider-Man" films and "Milk."

The Showbuzz: Shrek Forever After

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.

LeBeouf: Indiana Sequel Criticism feel role and movie was not done properly

Critics were relatively kind about the Shia LeBeouf �Indiana� sequel performance, but panned the �Kingdom of the Crystal Skull� as a whole. Now, the young Transformers star is talking to the press about his disappointment with the movie, and placing the blame on himself, the movie writers, and director Steven Spielberg. Check out the full story, with pictures and video below!



Shia talked to reporters at the Cannes international film festival over the weekend. He said that his own performance was questionable at times during the filming.

Specifically, LeBeouf�s �Indiana� sequel performance suffered during the tree-swinging scenes.

�You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven. The actor�s job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn�t do it. So that�s my fault. Simple.�

He said he even spoke with Harrison Ford, and found that he too was underwhelmed.

�We had major discussions. He wasn�t happy with it either. Look, the movie could have been updated. There was a reason it wasn�t universally accepted.�

Is he worried about mouthing off about a legendary director? Apparently not.

�I�ll probably get a call, but he needs to hear this. I love him,� the young actor said. �He�s done so much great work that there�s no need for him to feel vulnerable about one film. But when you drop the ball, you drop the ball.�

Shia said that his real worry is about his upcoming Wall Street movie.

�I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved. If I was going to do it twice, my career was over. So this was fight-or-flight for me.�

He said that clearing the air about the �Crystal Skull� would re-establish his credibility with the audience.

�I think the audience is pretty intelligent. I think they know when you�ve made � . And I think if you don�t acknowledge it, then why do they trust you the next time you�re promoting a movie.�

What did you think of LeBeouf�s �Indiana� sequel performance? Do you like his candid approach to his previous movies? Let me know in the comment section!

Also, check out the pictures and video below!

No happy ending for Jack Bauer on '24' finale, but he does survive for potential movie

Jack Bauer's run on the TV series '24' has reached an end, but rest assured, fans may reunite with him (played by Kiefer Sutherland) in an upcoming movie.

Jack Bauer isn't going to live happily ever after.

Fans of Fox's "24" probably weren't expecting that anyway, given the torture and death that Kiefer Sutherland's Bauer has witnessed and dealt in the show's explosive eight-year run, which wraps with a two-hour finale on May 24.



But Howard Gordon, executive producer, made it official in a conference call during which he also defended this season's unpopular Dana Walsh character and the even more unpopular decision to kill off Annie Wersching's Renee Walker, the woman with whom Jack finally seemed to have a shot at putting his demons to rest.

Instead, her death shook the demons awake and sent them into adrenalin overdrive, which Gordon says was precisely the point.

"Renee's death motivated Jack to the final confrontation," said Gordon. "It took him to a place he's never been before."

Gordon naturally isn't specifying exactly where else there might be, beyond saying the final showdown will involve Jack's longtime loyal friend Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones), who right up until a few weeks ago had been a chief executive whose moral center Jack could finally respect.

Whatever happens, we can expect Jack to survive, since a script for a "24" movie is already circulating. Gordon said he'd love for it to happen "in the next year or two," though at this point "it's very much a work-in-progress."

Meanwhile, Gordon said the potential movie won't affect where the TV series ends.

"We considered several very different endings," he said. "We tried 'happily ever after' and it didn't work. This show is a tragedy. To give Jack a happy ending wouldn't have felt authentic."

Two of the show's key premises all along, Gordon said, are that "it must always move forward" and "we've never hit 'reset' with Jack. He feels the accumulated weight of all his actions over eight years."

That need to keep moving forward, which means finding new levels for a character who has already stretched every legal and moral boundary, is one reason Gordon said he's okay with ending the show after this season.

"We'd talked about" continuing, he said, but "Jack's story has a beginning, a middle and an end, and I think we felt we'd reached it."

Gordon acknowledged that Renee Walker's death was a particularly harsh blow to fans, and he also acknowledged that Katee Sackhoff's Dana Walsh character this season had a "convoluted" storyline. But he defended the character, saying he hoped that by the time Walsh departed last week, "people understood what we were doing with her."

And hey, he said, it got people talking.

"As long as people are yelling at the TV, we're happy," he said. "Indifference would have been more hurtful than outrage."

Russell on reinventing Robin Hood.

"Everybody appreciates the idea that there's somebody out there who cares, cares enough to readdress the balance," says Hollywood actor Russell Crowe.

"That's kind of where we've placed this particular character."

The 46-year-old Australian actor is speaking at the end of a long day on set of his latest movie Robin Hood.

This big budget epic has taken a few liberties with the outlaw's story - Richard The Lionheart is portrayed as a selfish, warmongering Monarch, while the Sheriff of Nottingham plays only a peripheral role.

But Crowe is insistent that certain parts of the legendary story are sacred.

"I think the core thing with Robin Hood is robbing from the rich and giving to the poor," he says.



"In our movie, we don't do it literally like, 'here's a gold coin, mate'. It's more of a metaphor."

This may aim to be a more thoughtful version of the story, but that's not to say it does not have its fair share of spectacle and action.

Crowe has spent the day filming on a back lot at Shepperton studios, along with hundreds of extras - many dressed as peasants - spilling over an area the size of a football pitch.

A huge recreation of the Tower of London can be seen in the distance, built specially for Sir Ridley Scott's film.

The upper sections of the model are bright blue so the castle can be digitally enhanced to its full glory in post production - a technique the director first used to recreate the Coliseum in his Oscar-winning epic Gladiator.
Grittier and realistic

Although the story of Robin Hood and his Merry Men has been told many times, Crowe insists he doesn't feel constrained by people's expectations of the character.

"Show me the template you think that really is Robin Hood," he says.

"Errol Flynn in baggy green woollen tights and a stupid hat? Kevin Costner, the extra from a Bon Jovi video clip?"

Crowe, notoriousloy taciturn, has unsurprisingly decided upon a grittier, more realistic and believable interpretation - despite his belief that Robin never existed.

"[It's] a fascinating subject to go into, to examine the mythology of something that people so definitely believe is real," he says. "But there is absolutely no hard evidence to say it is."

Sir Ridley Scott, speaking in a break between shots, has no such reservations.

"Was this fairy story, legend, or was he actually real? My guess is he was probably real.

"He was probably some kind of vigilante fundamentalist, who was working against the constant oppression of the crown, the monarchy and probably the upper classes."

This is the fifth film Sir Ridley has directed with Crowe in the lead role.

Following Gladiator, they have produced A Good Year, Body Of Lies and American Gangster together - but they have never quite scaled the heights of that first encounter.

"When we were making Gladiator everybody was laughing at us," Crowe confesses.

"That went on and on for ages, and [it was] probably, only about four weeks before the movie came out that the word of mouth and the vibe changed, that there was something really special."

However, he refuses to be drawn into whether Robin Hood is the next Galdiator, insisting that is not what they are working towards.

"They're very difficult to make, films like that, to keep people inside the story and inside the time period.

"So Ridley and I are not thinking about that. Everyday on the set we just try and do something special. That's all we're trying to do. So who knows?"

The Showbuzz : The New Robin Hood

Get ready for an all-new take on a medieval classic. Russell Crowe returns to the screen in Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood." CBSNews.com's Karina Mitchell reports from New York.

'Iron Man 2' Star Scarlett Johansson Talks Deleted 'Repulsor' Scene 'There was a moment where there was a little bit of repulsion, a jolt of some kind,' she tells MTV News.

If "Iron Man 2" fans heading to the theater are hoping to see what MTV News has dubbed "the repulsor moment" in the flick, they may be disappointed to find that the scene didn't make the final cut. Those in need of a refresher can watch what we alluded to, at the 2:13 mark, in the trailer that premiered in March.

But moviegoers aren't the only ones in the dark about the moment in question. "A repulsor? Oh, yeah. ... It's not in the film?" Scarlett Johansson said when MTV News asked her about the now-deleted scene. "Am I with Robert [Downey Jr.]? I don't know. I have not yet seen the film, so I'll be looking out for that.



"But there is a scene where Natalie is sort of cozying up to Tony, and I do have that repulsor, as you call it," she said of her character, Natalie Romanoff, a.k.a. the Black Widow. "There was a moment where there was a little bit of repulsion, a jolt of some kind. Maybe it didn't make it into the movie, I don't know."

Although that particularly explosive scene didn't make the film, Johansson relished in the action scenes that did. "It was a bit daunting at first, especially when I was watching whatever Tom Harper, our stunt coordinator, had cut together, these sequences that he was planning and choreographing," Johansson recalled. "It was like, 'I'm going to be doing that in how many months?' It just seemed like it'd be really painful. And it was. It all paid off in the end."