Monthly Wallpaper - February 2008: Romantic Movies

With Valentine's Day, February is a month for l'amour, and Movie Dearest is taking the opportunity to celebrate our favorite romantic movies.

From the deck of the Titanic to Golden Pond to the Moulin Rouge to the burning of Atlanta, these certainly are affairs to remember: Rick and Ilsa, Tony and Maria, Jack and Ennis, Katie and Hubbell, Harry and Sally, Dr. Zhivago and Lara, Vivian and Cay and, of course, Romeo and Juliet. Whether he was a tramp or an officer and a gentleman, these stories of cinematic passion have stood the test of time.

All you have to do is click on the picture above to enlarge it, then simply right click your mouse and select "Set as Background". (You can also save it to your computer and set it up from there if you prefer.) The size is 1024 x 768, but you can modify it if needed in your own photo-editing program.

The Latest in Theaters: Eva, Jessica and Bigfoot

Beauties and a beast are the stars of this week's latest in theaters:

• Over Her Dead Body - Eva Longoria Parker, the sassy Gabby on Desperate Housewives, drops dead at her wedding to hunky Paul Rudd (don't you just hate it when that happens) and comes back to haunt his new flame Lake Bell in this fantasy rom com. Jason Biggs also stars as Bell's gay pal.
• The Eye - Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola and Parker Posey offer plenty of (wait for it) eye candy in this supernatural thriller.
• Strange Wilderness - Steve Zahn and Justin Long are nature TV show hosts who hatch a plan to boost ratings: track down the elusive Sasquatch. And no, the creature is not played by co-star Ernest Borgnine.

Visit Fandango - Search movie showtimes and buy tickets.

Once and Again

"Falling Slowly", the Oscar-nominated Original Song from the indie fave Once whose eligibility had been called into question earlier this week, has been cleared of all charges and remains a nominee.

And if you haven't heard it yet or even if you have, here is a great reason to listen to it again: a well-made tribute video honoring the best movies of 2007.

31 Days of Oscar: The Adventures of Robin Hood

Starting tomorrow, Turner Classic Movies will begin their annual salute to Academy Award-winning and nominated films from the past 80 years with the "31 Days of Oscar".

So, starting today, I will be highlighting one of my personal favorite classic Oscar-noted movies, one that will air on TCM the following day. (And for the record, I have seen all but one of the 31 movies that I will spotlight, and you'll see why I picked that one anyway when I get to it.)

Kicking off the celebration (literally -- it's the first movie scheduled for the month) is one of my favorite adventure films of all time: The Adventures of Robin Hood. Directed by Michael Curtiz and starring the dashing Errol Flynn and the beautiful Olivia de Havilland, the 1938 Warner Bros. hit was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning all but the big one: Best Picture.

The Adventures of Robin Hood airs tomorrow at 6:00 AM EST on Turner Classic Movies.

Oscars at 80: The Best Pictures

In recognition of entering their eighth decade this year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be offering this new "best of" poster shortly after the 80th Best Picture is named. And you can pre-order it now so you'll get it just in time before all the Oscar post-mortems die down.

If you need a refresher of the first 79 Best Picture winners, here is an up-to-date video review, spanning from 1927's Wings to last year's The Departed.

And as for this year's contenders, here is a super-cool mash-up of all five BP '07 wannabes combined into one well-edited mock trailer. Enjoy.

First Look: Sean as Harvey

A blast from the past: Sean Penn gets shaggy as Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant's Milk, now filming on location in San Francisco.

From Pan's Labyrinth to Middle Earth

If you were worried about who would take over as director of The Hobbit with Peter Jackson only producing, worry no more: Guillermo del Toro, of Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth fame, is currently in talks to take on the potential blockbuster, as well as a follow up feature rumored to be a story bridging the prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

However, one only has to take a look at del Toro's Imdb page to see that he will be an awful busy guy, writing and/or directing and/or producing eleven films in the foreseeable future (including the H.P. Lovecraft fantasy At the Mountains of Madness). And that's not even including the movies he's wants to make, such as his take on Frankenstein and a little movie called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, not to mention this summer's Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

UPDATE: As Empire states, "Guillermo Del Toro is directing pretty much every film coming out between now and 2017": he also wants to direct a big screen version of another comic book hero, Doctor Strange.

'S Wonderful

On the dancing heels of The Band Wagon, another classic MGM movie musical is traveling from screen to stage: the 1951 Oscar winning Best Picture An American in Paris.

In addition to the classic songs from the movie, the score will be enhanced with such other Gershwin standards as "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and "The Man I Love". The plot has also been tweaked, and will now revolve around the making of a fictional movie also titled An American in Paris. Crazy for You's Harry Groener and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Erin Dilly star.

The new tuner, officially titled The Gershwins' An American in Paris, will have its world premiere in April in Houston.

UPDATE: Playbill.com has an interview with playwright Ken Ludwig, who is adapting An American in Paris for the stage. Ludwig received a Tony Award nomination for his work on Crazy for You, which also featured the songs of George and Ira Gershwin. In the article, he mentions the Broadway possibilities for the show.

A Nightmare Re-Awakens on Elm Street

The franchise that put New Line Cinema on the map, A Nightmare on Elm Street, is now the latest horror series to get the "reboot" treatment (in Hollywood speak, "reboot" has become the new "re-imagining", but of course, they are all just remakes).

Following in the bloody wake of the recent returns of Leatherface, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees (also in the works), this return to Elm Street will reportedly have a new Freddy Krueger as well. Now how anyone could (or want to) don the stripped sweater and finger blades made iconic by Robert Englund is beyond me.

(That sound you hear is outraged fanboys scrambling to post boycott notices and online petitions as we speak.)

What if Flight 815 ...

... crash-landed in ... the Twilight Zone?

Lost returns with the first of eight new episodes tomorrow night on ABC, with an encore showing of last season's finale airing tonight.

And for a refresher course on all things Lost, check out Doc Jensen's "cheat sheet" over at EW.com.

Women We Love: Norma Shearer

Object of our affection: Norma Shearer, actress.

- She is credited as "the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen".

- She won the third ever Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Divorcée and was nominated another five times (Their Own Desire, A Free Soul, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Romeo and Juliet and Marie Antoinette).

- Married for nine years to "boy wonder" film producer Irving Thalberg, twenty-five years her junior; he was head of production at Metro Goldwyn Meyer, thus she was known as "The First Lady of MGM". After Thalberg's death in 1936, her interest in her career wavered; she would pass on the lead roles in such future classics as Gone With the Wind, Mrs. Miniver and Now, Voyager.

- Life imitates art: infamously feuded with co-star Joan Crawford during the filming of George Cukor's The Women, her last great role.

- Two of Norma Shearer's early pre-code classics, The Divorcée and A Free Soul, will be released on DVD for the first time on March 25 as part of the TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Volume 2,now available for pre-order from Amazon.com.

Movie Music: Jaan Pehechaan Ho

Made famous in the movie Ghost World, the quirky, practically surreal "Jaan Pehechaan Ho" production number is from the 1965 Indian movie Gumnaam.

Watch it in its original, head-bopping form here ... it's just as mesmerizing as Thora Birch made it look.

Lee, Nolan on Ledger

Two of the directors that worked with him pay tribute to the late Heath Ledger:

Ang Lee, Academy Award-winning director of Brokeback Mountain: "He brought to the role of Ennis more than any of us could have imagined -- a thirst for life, for love, and for truth, and a vulnerability that made everyone who knew him love him. His death is heartbreaking."

Christopher Nolan, director of Ledger's final completed performance in The Dark Knight, currently being edited: "Heath was bursting with creativity. It was in his every gesture ... I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly."

Falling Slowly ... Out of the Running?

Every year there is usually at least one scandal amidst all the Oscar hoopla, and this year is no different. Seems Once's "Falling Slowly", nominated for Original Song, may not be so original after all.

The Academy's music branch is reportedly meeting this week to determine the eligibility of the tune (widely believed to be the front-runner to win), which prompts the question: aren't they supposed to do that before the nominations?

Start of Something New

The legit stage version of Disney's High School Musical just got a little more legit: it will open in London's West End this summer following a sold out tour of the United Kingdom.

Best of the Fests: Sundance 2008

The 2008 Sundance Film Festival came to a close this past weekend. The big news was the surprising lack of big buys; one would think the studios would be snapping up these ready-made films to stock up for the strike-weary future.

But it isn't all about deal making in Park City (at least, it's not supposed to be); awards were handed out as well, with the bleak drama Frozen River and the Hurricane Katrina doc Trouble the Water taking the grand jury prizes.

And for all the scoop on the fest's queer offerings, head over to AfterElton.com for Lawrence Ferber's extensive "Gay Film Dispatches".

Real American Heroes

The sure to be high-testosterone big screen version of G.I. Joe just got even more manlier: Channing Tatum and Dennis Quaid have been drafted as the leads (Duke and Hawk, respectively).

They join the already cast Marlon Wayans, Sienna Miller, Ray Park, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who co-stars next month with Tatum in another military movie, the expected to be far more realistic Stop-Loss.

Crash TV

The movie Crash -- the Paul Haggis one, sadly not the David Cronenberg one -- is being developed as a drama series for the Starz network, a first for the movie channel.

Considering that the Oscar winning Best Picture (it still hurts to say that) was as episodic, derivative and pretentious as most television dramas these days, it should fit in just fine on the boob tube.

Awards Watch: SAG Pulls a Stunt

Hollywood stunt people just can't seem to catch a break.

Not only have they been constantly turned down by the Academy for their own Oscar category, but even the Screen Actors Guild, which did create a "Stunt Ensemble" award this year, ended up showing them little respect come showtime. Instead of actually showing the presentation of the new awards during the ceremony telecast itself, they were actually handed out beforehand ... and on the red carpet no less.

The winners were The Bourne Ultimatum for film and 24 for television.

Film Art: Up, Up and Away

First look at concept art for Disney/Pixar's 2009 release Up, a tale of a 70-year-old man who "travels the globe, fights beasts and villains and eats dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon".

The film will show Up in theaters on May 29, 2009.

Day-Lewis Honors Ledger

The most memorable moment of Sunday night's Screen Actors Guild Awards was Best Actor winner Daniel Day-Lewis' heartfelt dedication of the award to the late Heath Ledger. Backstage, Day-Lewis elaborated to the press:

"I suppose that's all I've been thinking about for the last few days. I never met him. I thought he was beautiful. I just have a very strong feeling that I would have liked him very much as a man. I admired him very much."

This proves that not only is Day-Lewis one of the finest actors of our time, he is also one of the classiest.

In related news, Ryan Gosling also paid quiet tribute to his fellow actor at the ceremony.

UPDATE: SAG has posted the complete transcript of Day-Lewis' speech.

Awards Watch: Golden Tomatoes '07

And a rat shall lead them: Rotten Tomatoes has revealed their 9th Annual Golden Tomato Awards, honoring the best-reviewed films of 2007, with the Disney/Pixar hit Ratatouille landing in the top spot. Netting an overall score of a whopping 96%, the Oscar nominated animated comedy won director Brad Bird his second Golden Tomato; he received his first four years ago for The Incredibles.

Rounding out the top ten for wide release movies are No Country for Old Men, The Bourne Ultimatum, Sicko, Hairspray, Juno, Knocked Up, Gone Baby Gone, Enchanted and Zodiac. See the comments section below for the top ten films in limited release and the number one movie per genre.

Poster Post: Army Fatigue

MTV Films is hoping to steer clear of the bleak box office of other recent war-themed dramas with this Outsiders-esque image for Kimberly Peirce's Stop-Loss.

Of course, the presence of Channing Tatum, Ryan Philippe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt can't hurt. Stop-Loss opens in theaters March 28.

Click here to buy Stop Lossposters from Amazon.com.

The Latest on DVD: Big Lewton

Warner Home Video has released another DVD box set devoted to old school horrormeister Val Lewton. In addition to nine of Lewton's best films (including Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie), the set now includes the brand new feature length TCM documentary Martin Scorsese Presents: Val Lewton - The Man in the Shadows.

Click here for more info and to order The Val Lewton Horror Collectionfrom Amazon.com. And for more of this week's latest on DVD, see the Amazon widgets located in the sidebar to your right.

Cinematic Crush: Scott Bakula

Crush object: Scott Bakula, actor.

- Best known for his time-traveling Dr. Sam Beckett on the cult sci fi drama Quantum Leap, a role that earned him a Golden Globe and four Emmy nominations.

- Also appeared on such TV shows as Designing Women, Murphy Brown and Star Trek: Enterprise, wherein he played the dashing Captain Archer.

- His film work includes co-starring roles in Color of Night; My Family, Mi Familia; American Beauty and Life as a House.

- Onstage, he was nominated for a Tony Award for the tuner Romance, Romance; also on Broadway, he played Joe DiMaggio in the musical Marilyn.

- Stepping into the shoes of none other then Fred Astaire, he has been cast as the lead in Dancing in the Dark, the new stage musical version of the classic movie musical The Band Wagon.

Poster Post: The Adventures of Indiana Spurlock

Raiders-inspired artwork for the latest documentary from the cheeky Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame): Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?

Be-Leaguered

In their time, the heroes that have made up the Justice League of America have faced their fare share of fearsome foes and nefarious nemeses, always emerging triumphant. Alas, their greatest defeat may be due to Hollywood politics.

That's right, the big screen debut of the world's greatest superheroes has become the latest casualty of the accursed writers strike.

Film Art: The Second Star to the Right ...

... is Tina Fey as that sassy sprite Tinker Bell, joined by supermodel Gisele Bündchen as Wendy Darling and dance legend Mikhail Baryshnikov as Peter Pan (looks like the boy that would never grow up, well, grew up).

This is just one of four new images created by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz for Disney Parks' never-ending "Year of a Million Dreams" campaign. Other pix include two inspired by Aladdin (Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez as Al and Jasmine and Whoopi Goldberg as the Genie) and pale face Jessica Biel as Pocahontas.

You can se all ten of the special photographs here; something tells me that at least two more will pop up by the end of the year and the whole lot will be repackaged as a wall calendar on sale at your local Disney Store.

SAG Awards '07: Best Cast

No Country for Old Men

SAG Awards '07: Best Actress

Julie Christie in Away from Her

SAG Awards '07: Best Actor

Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood

SAG Awards '07: Best Supporting Actress

Ruby Dee in American Gangster

SAG Awards '07: Best Supporting Actor

Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men

Poster Post: Gimme Shelter

Not that it would be too hard to advertise a movie about two surfer dudes who fall in love, but the new poster for festival favorite Shelter sure is sexy.

And if that doesn't do it for you, this video preview should.

You can learn more about the movie at its MySpace page.

From Barbary Lane to Broadway

A stage musical version of Armistead Maupin's beloved Tales of the Cityhas been rumored about for some time now, and now it appears to be a bit closer to reality: Jake Shears, lead singer of the Scissor Sisters, says he is currently writing the show's songs.

Anyone who has heard the group's Bee Gees-esque "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" will agree that Shears is a good choice for the 70's set story.

Perhaps we'll even get a madrigal from Mrs. Madrigal?

UPDATE: The producers, librettist and director of the Tony Award-winning Avenue Q are now attached to this project, with eyes on Broadway for the 2009/2010 season.

LA Times' O'Neil: Child Rape = Gay

It is usually easy to dismiss the often obsessively overenthusiastic Tom O'Neil, the Los Angeles Times resident entertainment award guru, he of the "tail that wags the dog" school of such coverage (i.e.: more concerned about a film's awards chances then the actual, you know, quality of said films). But a recent outrageous blunder of his cannot -- and should not -- be ignored.

While perusing the recent nominees for the GLAAD Media Awards, O'Neil scoffs at the "not gay enough" contenders and wonders why The Kite Runner, a film deemed homophobic by the queer press, was "snubbed":

"One great film with a gay subtext got overlooked by other awards this derby season and deserved to be noted here, but wasn't: The Kite Runner, which contains a controversial boy-rape scene. Why did GLAAD wimp out?"

Seems that in O'Neil's eyes, lesbian cheerleaders and cross-dressing pirates are nothing compared to child rapists. In the comments of his article, be sure to leave a virtual quarter so that Tom can buy a clue.

UPDATE: AfterElton.com tries to get the bottom of O'Neil's comments; in his replies, O'Neil repeatedly uses the offensive term "gay rape" ... and then throws a hissy fit in the comments section of his original post.

Queer Quartet

Four critically acclaimed gay-themed movies from 2007 will be hitting DVD in the next few weeks:

• The Bubble- Eytan Fox's film festival winner about two men -- one Israeli, the other Palestinian -- who fall in love in Tel Aviv.
• Dirty Laundry- This dramady recently made history as the first gay film to be nominated for an NAACP Image Award.
• Fat Girls- Another fest fave, this comedy is for anyone who never quite fit in in high school.
• For the Bible Tells Me So- Although this documentary on organized religion's view on homosexuality didn't make the final five, it was a finalist for the Academy Award. Click here for interviews with the film's producer, Robin Voss, and one of its subjects, Bishop V. Gene Robinson.

The latter film will be available February 19; the other three come out February 12. Click on the title links for more information and to pre-order from Amazon.com.

Shrekland?

DreamWorks Animation, home to Shrek and other crude-minded toons, is branching out into the theme park business ... in Dubai?

Talk about Far Far Away ...

Film Art: Keeping Up With the Jonses

Steve Anderson's classicly-styled cover painting for the upcoming Dark Horse comic book adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Awards Watch: Coens Win DGA & More

No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood each added one more trophy to their respective cases last night.

Joel and Ethan Coen won the Directors Guild of America award for No Country, thereby more or less ensuring their eventual victory come Oscar night (in its 60 year history, the DGA and AMPAAS have only not matched 6 times). And Blood's Robert Elswit was anointed the best of the year by his peers in the American Society of Cinematographers.

Also, the last of the guilds has chimed in with their nominations: the Motion Picture Sound Editors. Leading the pack are American Gangster and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End with three nods each. See the comments section below for a quick look at the nominees; winners of the Golden Reels will be announced February 23.

MD Poll: If You Picked the Oscars 2007

With the nominations this week of the 80th Annual Academy Awards, Oscar season is in full swing. So today, Movie Dearest is kicking off a month-long countdown to show biz's biggest night (a.k.a. "the gay man's Super Bowl") that will include special Cinematic Crush and Women We Love looks at this year's acting nominees, Oscar trivia and video clips of our favorite past Oscar moments, plus the usual predictions and breaking news.

To start the festivities, the latest batch of MD Polls ask you not to merely predict who will win (with this year's race, the outcome has become pretty predictable), but what movies and actors you would vote for if you were lucky enough to be a member of the prestigious Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The five separate polls for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress can be found in the sidebar at your right. Be sure to vote in each one, and remember, this is who you would vote for, not the Academy (and sorry, no DVD screeners are available).

You'll have plenty of time to make your decisions, as the polls will run from now until 12 noon EST Saturday February 23, the day before Oscar day, with the results of the MD Oscars to be posted shortly thereafter.

UPDATE: This poll is now closed. Click here for the results, and click here to vote in the latest MD Poll.

EW Eulogizes Ledger

Concrete proof of the devastating impact of this week's tragic death of Heath Ledger: Entertainment Weekly (which this time of year could easily be renamed Oscar Weekly) bumped the Academy Award nominations off its cover in favor of a tribute to the late actor.

The cover story is also available online at EW.com, as are the following related stories:

• Film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum remembers the highlights of his promising, far-too-short career.
• A career retrospective Photo Gallery.
• Christopher Plummer, Ledger's co-star in The Brothers Grimm and the uncompleted The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, reflects on the loss of his castmate.
• Popwatch's Gary Susman remembers.
• Reports from the Sundance Film Festival on reactions to the shocking news.

The Latest on TV: The SAG Awards

For all of you gong through glamour withdrawl following the debacle that was this year's Golden Globes, fear not: the Writers Guild will not be picketing tomorrow night's award show thrown by fellow union the Screen Actors Guild.

The SAG Awards should prove to be a great night for star-gazing, with the likes of Nikki Blonsky, Josh Brolin, Marion Cotillard, Russell Crowe, Ruby Dee, Zac Efron, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, Hal Holbrook, James Marsden, Matthew McConaughey, Viggo Mortensen and Vanessa Williams among those scheduled to present. The program will air live on both TNT and TBS.

And remember to tune in to Movie Dearest tomorrow night as well for up-to-the-minute results in all the film categories.

MD Poll: Friends of Dorothy

If the results of the latest MD Poll are any indication, most Movie Dearest readers truly are "friends of Dorothy". The gingham-clad, ruby slipper-wearing girl from Kansas, immortalized onscreen by Judy Garland, was voted your favorite character from The Wizard of Oz with almost 20% of the total 77 votes.

In a tie for second was Dorothy's pal Toto and her nemesis, the Wicked Witch of the West (methinks something Wicked was going on there, as Glinda also placed higher then expected in the results). Rounding out the top five were the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion. Ironically, the title character, the Wizard himself, came in last.

Check out the comments section below for the complete rundown, and click here to vote in the latest MD Poll.

Jack + Spike

James Marsters (a.k.a. Spike, the sexy vamp of Buffy/Angel fame) joins the cast of Torchwood for its second season premiere tomorrow night on BBC America.

Marsters plays Captain John, a renegade Time Agent who re-enters the life of John Barrowman's Captain Jack, his former flame. And as you can see above, it appears that that flame may be rekindled.

Who says sci fi can't have a little hot man-on-man action?

Out in Film: Amanda Bearse

Idol worship: Amanda Bearse, actress/director.

- We first noticed her on the daytime soap All My Children and in the 80's horror/comedy classic Fright Night.

- Gained fame with her memorable role as uptight next-door neighbor Marcy D'Arcy on the long-running sitcom Married ... With Children.

- She made history in 1993 as the first primetime star to publicly come out.

- In a 1997 Married episode, she played Marcy's lesbian cousin Mandy.

- Became a prolific television director beginning with over 30 episodes of Married. She has also directed such TV faves as Mad TV, Dharma & Greg, Reba and The Big Gay Sketch Show.

Did You Get Lost Again?

The Emmy Award-winning Lost returns a week from tonight with the first of the eight new episodes of its fourth, strike-truncated season.

It has been many months since last season's game-changing stunner of a finale, so to refresh your memory, iTunes is offering a free recap episode to get you back up to speed.

Click on the image above to download the free episode now (link will open in a new window), and tune into ABC next Thursday night for the sure to be talked about season premiere of Lost.

Movie Music: Oscars 2007

As far as the Oscars go, Tuesday morning's nominations brought a mixture of good news/bad news for Enchanted composer Alan Menken. Sure, he and co-songwriter Stephen Schwartz netted three of the five slots for Original Song (only the fourth time in history that has happened -- the first was Menken's own Beauty and the Beast). However, he was overlooked in the Original Score category. Seems the fickle Academy music branch decided the very songs they honored with nominations in one category made his work in the other ineligible (they give, they take ...).

At least Menken had those consolation nods. Eddie Vedder's Into the Wild score was discounted for the same reason, while his Golden Globe winning tune "Guaranteed" (which seemed, well, guaranteed for a nomination) was snubbed. And if you're wondering what happened to Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood score (already hailed with several critic awards), it was dropped from the running for containing pre-existing music.

Back to the songs, the following links will take you to YouTube videos of the five nominees so you can judge for yourself which tune is tops:

• “Falling Slowly” from Once -- Music and lyric by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova; performed by Hansard and Irglova.
• “Happy Working Song” from Enchanted -- Music by Alan Menken, lyric by Stephen Schwartz; performed by Amy Adams.
• “Raise It Up” from August Rush -- Music and lyric by Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas; performed by Jamia Simone Nash and the Impact Repertory Theater.
• “So Close” from Enchanted -- Music by Menken, lyric by Schwartz; performed by Jon McLaughlin.
• “That’s How You Know” from Enchanted -- Music by Menken, lyric by Schwartz; performed by Adams.

Quantum Leap

Bond is back, and he finally has a name for his next adventure: Quantum of Solace.

... Really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Taken from the Ian Fleming short story collection For Your Eyes Only, the new moniker joins other incomprehensible 007 titles as A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights, not to mention Octopussy. For their sakes, let's hope whoever writes the theme song doesn't have to find any words that rhyme with "solace".

In other "Movie Formerly Known as Bond 22" news, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly's Mathieu Amalric has been cast as the big bad, while Ukrainian model/actress Olga Kurylenko is charged with the enviable task of playing the latest Bond girl opposite Daniel Craig (lucky bitch). Judi Dench and Jeffrey Wright return as M and Felix Leiter, respectively, with The Kite Runner's Marc Forster at the helm. Quantum of Solace will hit theaters November 7th.

The Latest in Theaters: Fourth Blood

Some blasts from the past -- recent and not so recent -- in this week's latest releases:

• Twenty years and nine titles later, Sylvester Stallone's Rambo is back.
• Unfaithful Diane Lane is now Untraceable.
• The Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm Award-winning Romanian abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days makes its stateside debut.
• Kevin "Hercules" Sorbo and Ken "Fat naked guy from Borat" Davitian spoof 300 in Meet the Spartans.
• Step up to get served the last dance in How She Move.
• And Michael Clayton returns to bask in the glow of its seven Oscar nominations.

Visit Fandango - Search movie showtimes and buy tickets.

Grieving Heath Ledger via Ennis Del Mar

I think we all went through our own versions of this yesterday: a heartfelt tribute to the late Heath Ledger from TV Guide's Michael Ausiello.

Women We Love: Patricia Clarkson

Object of our affection: Patricia Clarkson, actress.

- With award-worthy performances in such critically acclaimed films as Far from Heaven, The Station Agent and Pieces of April, she has stole many a scene ... and our hearts as well.

- She made her film debut as Eliot Ness' wife in The Untouchables.

- She's always good in whatever she's in, no matter the size of the role (Good Night and Good Luck, Lars and the Real Girl) or the ultimate quality of the film (The Green Mile, Miracle).

- She and her real-life beau Campbell Scott played a married couple in Craig Lucas' The Dying Gaul.

- On television, her recurring role as Ruth's bohemian sister on Six Feet Under won her two well-deserved Emmy Awards.

Stardate: In the Beginning ...

The evocative teaser trailer for this year's eagerly awaited return of Star Trek.

No One Ever Went Broke ...

... underestimating the taste of the American public. The latest example:

Cause: total box office gross to date of Alvin and the Chipmunks: $199,138,605.

Effect: Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: Rise of the Chipettes.

Now That's Entertainment

Not sure when this is hitting theaters, but a brand new documentary compiling the best of Hollywood Singing and Dancing looks like a must-see for movie musical fans, if only to see some of these classic song and dance numbers on the big screen again ... or for the first time.

As seen in the trailer, movies from the golden age to the present day -- and from every studio (unlike the MGM-centric That's Entertainment! series) -- are represented in the feature, which recently premiered at the Palm Springs Film Festival.

Awards Watch: Oscar Nominations 2007

The nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards are finally here, filled with the usual surprises and snubs.

No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are neck and neck in the lead with eight nominations apiece. Fellow Best Picture nominees Michael Clayton and Atonement (proving that no guild support means nothing to the Academy) racked up seven nods each, with Animated Feature front-runner Ratatouille scoring five. And Juno edged The Diving Bell and the Butterfly out of the BP race, with both netting four nominations each.

Surprises include unexpected nods for actors Tommy Lee Jones, Laura Linney, Ruby Dee and director Jason Reitman. Among the notable snubs: Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Jonny Greenwood, Eddie Vedder, The Simpsons Movie, 300 and (tragedy!) Hairspray.

See the comments section below for the complete list of nominees. The Oscar winners will be announced, with or without the strike, on February 24.

The Latest on DVD: Jack of All Trades

Just in time for the second season to start on BBC America, Torchwood: The Complete First Season hits DVD today. The sci fi series, a spin-off of Doctor Who, stars John Barrowman as the rascally, omnisexual Captain Jack Harkness, an agent of the Torchwood Institute, a criminal investigation unit that hunts down extra-terrestrial and supernatural threats in the 21st Century.

The seven disc set is packed with extras, including special effects featurettes, audio commentaries for all 13 episodes, the multi-part series Torchwood Declassified and Barrowman's "Captain's Log", where the cheeky star takes fans along for the ride during a day's filming.

Available today, click here to buy Torchwood: The Complete First Seasonfrom Amazon.com, and for more of this week's latest on DVD, check out the sidebar widgets on your right.

Heath Ledger: 1979-2008

Incredibly upsetting and shocking news today: Heath Ledger was found dead today in a Manhattan apartment. He was 28 years old.

Heath moved us all with his Oscar nominated performance as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain and was poised for superstardom as the Joker in this summer's The Dark Knight. With his diverse range of roles ranging from 10 Things I Hate About You and A Knight's Tale to The Patriot and the recent I'm Not There, he had only begun to show us his talent.

He will be missed.

Totally Awesome, Totally Gay

Xanadu is changing things up with an all-new ad campaign, including a super-cool, special effects-laden commercial starring our favorite sweethearts of the stage, Kerry Butler and Cheyenne Jackson.

The toothsome twosome are also featured on the new poster art, along with a flying horse, disco balls and rainbows, thereby officially-without-a-doubt-unquestionably making Xanadu the gayest show ever on Broadway.

And finally, Kerry and Cheyenne were also recently honored with their very own caricatures at the legendary Sardi's Restaurant.

UPDATE: Broadway.com has a behind-the-scenes video on the making of the new commercial.

Awards Watch: Raspberries!

Personally, I tend not to do "worst" lists (I prefer to celebrate movies, not berate them), but in the case of the trio of cinematic offenders pictured above, I'll make an exception ... and "congratulate" them for leading this year's nominations for the 2007 Golden Raspberry Awards.

"Honoring" celluloid schlock for the past 28 years, the "Razzies" this year have singled out I Know Who Killed Me (starring "Worst Actress" double nominee Lindsay Lohan in a dual role far -- very far -- from her breakout role in Disney's The Parent Trap), I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (starring "Worst Screen Couple" Adam Sandler and Kevin James) and Eddie Murphy's Norbit, which netted the star the ignoble achievement of receiving the most Razzie nominations -- five, for playing three characters -- in a single year. Naturally, all three are up for "Worst Picture", along with Bratz and Daddy Day Camp.

The awards, which consist of about $1.98 worth of gold spray paint and plastic fruit, will be bestowed on the usual no-show celebrities on February 23, the day before the actual Oscars. For a quick look at the nominees, see the comments section below.

Cinematic Crush: Channing Tatum

Crush object: Channing Tatum, actor/model.

- Gained fame (and countless adoring fans, both male and female) as a model for such names as Abercrombie & Fitch and Dolce & Gabbana.

- Made his onscreen debut as a dancer in the music video for Ricky Martin's "She Bangs".

- His film debut was in Coach Carter in 2005, but it was 2006 when his movie career really took off. He started the year with the popular teen flicks She's the Man and Step Up and ended it with the critically acclaimed indie A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which landed him an Independent Spirit Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor.

- He next co-stars in Stop-Loss, Kimberly Peirce's first film since Boys Don't Cry. The war-based drama hits theaters March 28; click here for the trailer. (OK, here's a video that's not quite so serious.)

- He will also be seen later this year in Fighting and will star in Oliver Stone's next visit to Vietnam, Pinkville. For all about Chan, visit his official website, Channing Tatum Unwrapped.

Harry Potter and the Two-Part Finale?

Could the seventh and last Harry Potter movie actually be two Harry Potter movies?

Rumor has it that with all that plot J.K. Rowling crammed into the last book, Warners is contemplating splitting the whole thing in half, sending Harry to the Deathly Hollows twice (following, that is, his encounter later this year with the Half-Blood Prince).

Of course, that also means that audiences will spend twice as much to see it. But I'm sure that will have nothing to do with the final decision ...

Return to Neverland

Playbill.com is reporting that the songwriting team behind Grey Gardens are currently working on a stage musical version of Finding Neverland, the Oscar-winning movie about author James M. Barrie that itself was based on the Off Broadway play The Man Who Was Peter Pan.

Awards Watch: GLAAD Tidings

Honoring the "fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives", the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation announced the nominations for their 19th Annual GLAAD Media Awards tonight at the Sundance Film Festival.

Three movies are up for the Film - Wide Release award: Across the Universe, The Jane Austen Book Club and Stardust (thankfully, the GLAAD sanctioned I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry was left off the ballot). Festival favorites The Bubble and Itty Bitty Titty Committee are among the nominees for Film - Limited Release, while For the Bible Tells Me So and Small Town Gay Bar lead the documentary field. Last year's television winners, Brothers and Sisters and Ugly Betty, are back for another chance to win as well. Additionally, actor Wilson Cruz, singer Rufus Wainwright and the late photographer Herb Ritts will be among those honored with special awards.

The awards, which also include categories in print and digital journalism and Spanish language media, will be handed out in four different ceremonies in four different cities on four different dates (GLAAD sure knows how to party). For a quick look at the film, TV and stage nominees, see the comments section below.

UPDATE: Here's a video montage of the major nominees.

MD Fearless Oscar Nomination Predictions - 2007

With or without the specter of the ongoing writers strike, 2007 will be remembered as an unpredictable year in Oscar history.

The tides have shifted within the Academy, and films that once would have been considered shoe-ins (Atonement, Charlie Wilson's War) might now find themselves on the outside looking in come nomination morning this Tuesday. On the other hand, edgier and darker fare (like No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, even Juno) are now the front-runners. And in the end, perhaps that is a good thing.

However, it doesn't make it easy for those of us who attempt to predict who and what has caught the Academy's fancy in any given year. So it is with deft caution that I reveal the Movie Dearest Fearless Oscar Nomination Predictions for 2007:

- Best Picture: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood.
- Best Actor: George Clooney (Michael Clayton), Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood), Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd), Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) and Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises).
- Best Actress: Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age), Julie Christie (Away from Her), Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart) and Ellen Page (Juno).
- Best Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James), Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson's War), Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild) and Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton).
- Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There), Catherine Keener (Into the Wild), Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone), Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) and Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton).
- Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood), Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men), Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton), Sean Penn (Into the Wild) and Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).
- Best Adapted Screenplay: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Into the Wild, No Country for Old Men, Persepolis and There Will Be Blood.
- Best Original Screenplay: Juno, Lars and the Real Girl, Michael Clayton, Ratatouille and The Savages.
- Cinematography: The Assassination of Jesse James; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Lust, Caution; No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood.
- Art Direction/Set Decoration: Atonement, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Sweeney Todd and There Will Be Blood.
- Costume Design: Atonement, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Hairspray, La Vie en Rose and Sweeney Todd.
- Original Score: Atonement; The Kite Runner; Lust, Caution; Ratatouille and There Will Be Blood.
- Original Song: "Come So Far (Got So Far to Go)" from Hairspray, "Do You Feel Me" from American Gangster, "Falling Slowly" from Once, "Guaranteed" from Into the Wild and "That's How You Know" from Enchanted.
- Film Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood and 3:10 to Yuma.
- Sound Mixing: The Bourne Ultimatum, Hairspray, No Country for Old Men, Sweeney Todd and 300.
- Animated Feature: Persepolis, Ratatouille and The Simpsons Movie.
- Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, 300 and Transformers.
- Sound Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum, No Country for Old Men, 3:10 to Yuma, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Transformers.
- Make-Up: La Vie en Rose, Norbit and Sweeney Todd.
- Foreign Language Film: The Counterfeiters (Austria), The Trap (Serbia), 12 (Russia), The Unknown Woman (Italy) and The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (Brazil).
- Documentary Feature: Autism: The Musical, Body of War, For the Bible Tells Me So, No End in Sight and Sicko.

Those last two categories were selected by using my patented "dart and dartboard" method. I would have used it on the short subject categories, but I have no idea what is eligible, so ... there you go. We'll see how well I did come Tuesday morning.

Plus: Be sure to check out the extensive 2007 For Your Consideration gallery at Awards Daily and, if you've ever wondered just how the Oscar nominations are tabulated, Entertainment Weekly has a good rundown of how it is done (it's not as simple as you may think).

And finally: Click here to order the official poster of the 80th Annual Academy Awards, pictured above.

UPDATE: Fearlessly predicted correctly: 68 out of 99 total nominations, roughly 69% accurate.

Poster Post: Pretty in Pink

First look at the poster art for the upcoming Sex and the City movie, which may be the first in a trilogy if the rumors are correct.

Click here to buy Sex and the Cityposters from Amazon.com.

Gay People Have a Choice Too

AfterElton.com is currently running their latest poll, asking readers to name their favorites in gay and gay-friendly entertainment from 2007. Dubbed the "Gay People's Choice Awards", you can vote in categories devoted to film, television, music, internet and gay celebrities.

Their nominees are pretty spot on, especially when you get to "Favorite Female TV Star" ... talk about your Sophie's choice. When you got Brothers and Sisters' Sally Field, Grey's Anatomy's Katherine Heigl, Pushing Daisies' Kristen Chenoweth and both America Ferrera and Vanessa Williams from Ugly Betty, how can you pick just one?

Voting continues through January 28, with the winners to be announced shortly afterward.

Suzanne Pleshette: 1937-2008

Suzanne Pleshette, known for her distinctive voice and throaty laugh in films and television, passed away last night at the age of 70.

On Broadway, Pleshette played Annie Sullivan in the original production of The Miracle Worker, and on film she co-starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (wherein she uttered the infamous line "Don't they ever stop migrating?"). She would go on to star in several Disney family favorites, including The Ugly Dachshund, Blackbeard's Ghost and The Shaggy D.A., and also voiced the villainesses in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride and Spirited Away.

But Pleshette will most be remembered for her work in television, in particular as Emily Hartley, Bob Newhart's no-nonsense wife on The Bob Newhart Show, a role that earned her two Emmy nominations (she would famously reprise the role years later on the classic series finale of Newhart). She was also Emmy nominated for her memorable performance as the title character in the TV movie Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean, and guest starred as Karen's mother on Will and Grace.

Pleshette, who was briefly married to heartthrob Troy Donahue in the 1960's, married her Newhart co-star Tom Poston in 2001 (the two had co-starred in a Broadway play some 40 years before) and were together up until his death last year. Now they are together again.

Film Art: Mean Green Mother

Concept art for the upcoming The Incredible Hulk, in theaters June 13.

Not a sequel, more a "reboot", the new Hulk will star Edward Norton (who also co-wrote the script) as Bruce Banner and some CGI as the title character. Liv Tyler, Tim Roth and William Hurt co-star.

Now Here in Spamalot

Clay Aiken, who recently confessed to thinking that Monty Python was a person, has nevertheless joined the cast of the Tony Award-winning musical Monty Python's Spamalot. The American Idol runner-up takes on the roles originally played by David Hyde Pierce, including Sir Robin, the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Lancelot.

Also joining -- actually, returning to -- the cast is Christopher Sieber, the original (and Tony-nominated) Sir Galahad. Considering that he will be in the upcoming Shrek the Musical, it's safe to assume he likes medieval times.

AFI Goes 10 for 10

The American Film Institute has revealed the theme for this year's annual "AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies" program: AFI's 10 Top 10.

The top ten movies of all time in ten different genres -- animation, fantasy, romantic comedies, science fiction, western, gangster, sports, courtroom drama, mystery and epic -- will be revealed in a television special this June on CBS. Fifty films from each category (from the 1915 silent epic The Birth of a Nation to the 2006 sci fi-er Children of Men) have been nominated on the official ballot.

More Milk Men

Gus Van Sant's biopic of Harvey Milk, titled simply Milk (Harvey was already taken), is getting more star-studded ... and gayer.

Diego Luna (star of the homoerotic Y Tu Mama Tambien) has joined the cast, along with three out actors: Victor Garber, Stephen Spinella and Denis O'Hare.

UPDATE: In related news, it seems the Bryan Singer directed, Craig Zadan/Neil Meron produced The Mayor of Castro Street, based on the book by Randy Shilts and possibly starring Steve Carell, is now unlikely to ever see the light of day.

UPDATE 2: Lucas Grabeel, the hat-wearing, jazz-squaring Ryan in the High School Musical movies, has reportedly also joined the cast.

Beowulf Uncut

Those of you with an itchy freeze frame finger anxious to lay their eyes on some prime digital beefcake, your prayers have been answered: Beowulf is coming to a DVD player near you (February 26, to be exact).

And although it is available in the theatrical cut as well, something tells me you'll be gunning for the unrated director's cut ... in high def, no less.

Click here to pre-order Beowulfon DVD from Amazon.com.

The Great Green Way

Soon, Wicked's Elphaba won't be the only emerald-hued protagonist on the boards of Broadway: Shrek the Musical will have a Seattle try-out late this summer prior to a New York debut in the fall.

Directed by Avenue Q's Jason Moore, the all-new musical will star Christopher Sieber as Lord Farquaad (two words: Perfect. Casting). No other casting has been announced at this time.

UPDATE: Shrek the Musical will open on Broadway November 8 at the Broadway Theatre, current home to The Color Purple, which is slated to close on February 24.

These Are the Voyages ...

The first official look at J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (click on image for a larger view).

In more Trek news:

• Rumor has it that there be Romulans about.
• And you thought Winona Ryder was odd: Tyler Perry signs up for Starfleet.
• Karl Urban chimes in on his character, the one and only Bones McCoy.
• And finally: screw Shatner ... we want George Takei!

The new voyage of the Starship Enterprise arrives in theaters this Christmas.

Allan Melvin: 1922-2008

Allan Melvin, the prolific character actor best known in these parts as Sam the butcher on The Brady Bunch, passed away this week at the age of 84.

In addition to his time with the Bradys, Melvin had regular roles on such other TV classics as The Phil Silvers Show and All in the Family, played Al the plumber in Liquid-Plumr commercials for fifteen years, and was the voice of Magilla Gorilla and many other cartoon characters.

He was also in the original Broadway production of Stalag 17, but his only onscreen film role was in the Doris Day comedy With Six You Get Eggroll.

Poster Post: Here Comes the Bride

Mamma Mia!'s mother and daughter (Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried) are featured on the first one sheet for the new stage-to-screen musical, hitting theaters July 18.

21st Century Caligula

Sometimes, life imitates art ... even bad art.

McKellen on Renfro

On his website, Ian McKellen offers an eloquent tribute to his Apt Pupil co-star Brad Renfro upon his recent, untimely passing.

First Look: The Return of Mulder and Scully

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are back in the still untitled X-Files sequel.

Billy Connolly, Amanda Peet and the appropriately named rapper Xzibit will be joining them as well, with X-Files creator Chris Carter at the helm.

The film, which will forego the dense "mythology" of the long-running TV series in favor of a "stand-alone" story, is due in theaters July 25.

We're All in This Together ... Again

TV Movies, legit stage shows, concert tours, ice capades, theme park extravaganzas ... High School Musical has done 'em all, so why not a documentary?

Chronicling the making of a Texas high school's theatrical production, High School Musical: The Music in Me premieres tomorrow night on The Disney Channel. With an actual documentarian behind it -- director Barbara Kopple, who last took on the Dixie Chicks in Shut Up & Sing -- it may actually look beyond the Disney hype machine to reveal the dramas of high school drama.

Out in Film: Ian Roberts

Idol worship: Ian Roberts, athlete/actor.

- A former professional rugby player in Australia, he has turned to acting following his celebrated sports career.

- He graduated from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art with a degree in Performing Arts in 2003.

- On film, he played a henchman of Lex Luthor in Superman Returns and will next be seen opposite Robert Gant in Kiss Me Deadly.

- On the second season of the Australian version of Dancing With the Stars, he placed as the runner up.

- You can learn more at The World of Ian, "a tribute to Australia's only favorite big, gay, out footballer/drama student/working actor" and in his biography, Ian Roberts: Finding Out.

Awards Watch: Costume Designers Guild

Keira Knightley's green dress from Atonement (recently named the "best film costume of all time" by In Style magazine) is among the nominees for the 10th Annual Costume Designers Guild Awards, to be handed out on February 19.

See the comments section below for a quick look at the nominations.

Golden Tee

The perfect gift for all your Golden Girls to say "thank you for being a friend".

Click here to purchase the Stay Goldent-shirt from Amazon.com.

Best of the Fests: Sundance Begins

The 2008 Sundance Film Festival began today in chilly Park City, Utah.

Returning this year is GLAAD's Queer Lounge, a "hub for queer and queer-friendly filmmakers, professionals and audiences to connect and network".

In other words, if you stop by you may find yourself rubbing elbows with the likes of directors Tom Kalin (Savage Grace, starring Julianne Moore), Craig Lucas (Birds in America, starring Matthew Perry and Ben Foster) and Isaac Julien (Derek, a documentary about queer cinema legend Derek Jarman).

The Latest in Theaters: Welcome to '08

The 2008 movie year really begins tomorrow, and as you can see, there's something for everyone:

• Fanboy favorite: Cloverfield, J.J. Abrams' monster mash.
• Chick flick: 27 Dresses, starring Katherine Heigl and James Marsden.
• MOR comedy: Mad Money, starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes.
• Art house pick: Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream, starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell.
• Depressing documentary: Taxi to the Dark Side.
• Bizarre indie: Teeth ... don't ask where they are, you don't want to know.

Visit Fandango - Search movie showtimes and buy tickets.

If You Build It ...

... he will come ... and rip its head off.

Awards Watch: BAFTA Nominations

Maybe Atonement isn't out of the Oscar running after all: The Golden Globe Award winner, severely lacking in any major guild support on this side of the pond, racked up an impressive 14 nominations today from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, including Best Film and Best British Film.

Joining it in the former are the two Oscar front-runners, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, plus American Gangster (also pretty much MIA in key precursors stateside) and last year's Oscar winner for Foreign Language Film, The Lives of Others, which picked up four other nominations, including a posthumous one for the late Ulrich Mühe.

See the comments section below for a quick look at the BAFTA nominees; the awards will be handed out on February 10.

Women We Love: Julianne Moore

Object of our affection: Julianne Moore, actress.

- In one of her first big films, Short Cuts, she got everyone's attention -- and proved she's a natural redhead -- with her notorious "bottomless" scene.

- She earned Oscar nominations for playing a porn star (Boogie Nights), an adulterer (The End of the Affair), an abandoning mother (The Hours) and the ultimate 50's housewife (Far from Heaven); she should have won for that last, bravura turn, but lost to her Hours co-star Nicole Kidman.

- Other notable performances include: a woman allergic to the world in Safe, modern femme fatales in The Big Lebowski and Magnolia, and a certain FBI agent in Hannibal.

- She won a Daytime Emmy Award as "Outstanding Ingénue in a Drama Series" for her dual roles of Frannie and Sabrina Hughes in the soap opera As the World Turns.

- Made her Broadway debut two years ago in the play The Vertical Hour and released her first children's book, titled Freckleface Strawberry, last year.

Paging Ms. Darbus ...

It is being reported that all of the "principle players" of the lucrative High School Musical movies are indeed returning for the big screen transfer of the third film, now titled High School Musical 3: Senior Year.

Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu and Monique Coleman have all signed on the dotted line, but one burning question remains:

What about Alyson Reed???

39 Steps to Broadway

In 1935, The 39 Steps was an Alfred Hitchcock mystery thriller. Now, in 2008, it is a new Broadway play (transferred from London's West End, where it won the Olivier Award) ... with a twist.

Billed as a "whodunit/espionage thriller/slapstick comedy", the production casts four actors as a host of characters -- some even at the same time -- ranging from femme fatales to secret agents to a swampy bog.

The 39 Steps opened tonight at the American Airlines Theatre and is scheduled to run through March 23.

UPDATE: The reviews are in ... could a Tony nomination be the next step?

Awards Watch: Foreign Finalists

What do 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; Persepolis and The Orphanage have in common?

A) All three have won major international film awards (from the Cannes Film Festival, the New York and Los Angeles critics groups and the Goya Awards, among others).
B) All three have received favorable responses from both critics and audiences around the world.
C) All three were selected by their respective countries to represent them at the Oscars and were strong contenders to not only be nominated, but even win the award.
D) All three have been passed over for the Academy Awards' Foreign Language Film prize in favor of nine movies that most of us have never heard of.
E) All of the above.

And once again, this category becomes even more irrelevant.

UPDATE: And once again, reform is promised.

"Vampira" Maila Nurmi: 1921-2008

Maila Nurmi, the actress who created the iconic TV horror hostess Vampira, has died.

In addition to her legendary late night television appearances in the 1950's, Vampira co-starred (as "Vampire Girl") in what is now known as the worst movie ever made, Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Other film appearances included such trash classics as I Passed for White, Sex Kittens Go to College and I Woke Up Early the Day I Died.

Poor Unfortunate Show

The new musical stage version of Disney's The Little Mermaid was harpooned by the Broadway critics following its opening night last week. Perhaps the coral codpieces had something to do with it. They should retitle that song "Underwhelm the Sea".

Newcomer Sierra Boggess, making her Broadway debut as the title character, seems to fare much better with "Part of Your World", coming as close to capturing the innocence and wonder that original Ariel Jodi Benson did in the animated classic as anyone else who has ever attempted to sing that song.

In more Disney stage news, Mary Poppins has closed in London and Tarzan will soon swing into the regional theater circuit.

UPDATE: Well, at least it got one good review.

Brad Renfro: 1982-2008

Actor Brad Renfro, best known for his breakout performances in The Client and Apt Pupil, has died.

His body was found this morning in his Los Angeles home; no cause of death has been released at this time.

He was 25 years old.

Poster Post: ... Never a Bride

Considering that 27 Dresses (in theaters Friday) refers to ugly bridesmaid outfits, could the dress seen here be the 28th?

Click here to buy 27 Dressesposters from Amazon.com.

The Latest on DVD: Our Love Affair ...

The romance to end all romances, An Affair to Remember, celebrates its golden anniversary (one year late, but who's counting) with a new special edition two-disc DVD.

Bonus features include profiles of stars Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr and director Leo McCarey, the AMC Back Story of the movie and an audio commentary featuring Marnie Nixon, who dubbed Kerr's voice for this film, as well as in The King and I.

Available today, click here to buy An Affair To Remember: 50th Anniversary Editionfrom Amazon.com. See the sidebar widgets at right for more of this week's latest on DVD.

Cry-Baby of Broadway

It's official: the new stage musical based on Cry-Baby, the John Waters cult favorite, is heading to Broadway.

Following its critically acclaimed west coast premiere, it will begin previews March 15 at the Marquis Theatre (previous home of the recently closed The Drowsy Chaperone) in preparations for an April 24 opening.

Awards Watch: NAACP, PGA

In news that should surprise no one, the inspirational The Great Debaters leads the nominees for this year's NAACP Image Awards with eight nominations, including two for director/star Denzel Washington (likes he needs anymore ... he's got 14 of 'em) and Outstanding Motion Picture. Joining it in the latter category is I Am Legend, Talk To Me, Why Did I Get Married? and another Denzel picture, American Gangster.

Debaters will also be honored with the Stanley Kramer Award from the Producers Guild of America, who also announced their nominations today. No big surprises in their finalists -- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. The way things are going, these five titles could very well be the names read when the Oscar nominations are announced a week from tomorrow.

See the comments section below for the full nominees for both the PGA (awards date: February 2) and the NAACP (awards date: February 14, broadcast live on Fox).

America's Next Top Blonde

Rumor has it that the next Elle Woods in Broadway's Legally Blonde - The Musical will be cast through an MTV reality show, à la Grease: You're the One That I Want.

In that case, maybe it should be called Legally Blonde: What You Want.

UPDATE: MTV has announced information for the nationwide auditions.

First Look: Disney's Newest Princess

The first official image of Princess Tiana from Disney's upcoming The Princess and the Frog (click on image for a larger view).

An update of The Frog Prince, the film (which marks the studio's return to traditional animated musicals and classic fairy tales) will arrive in theaters Christmas 2009.

Die Fly-dermaus

When it comes to screen to stage adaptations, a movie is usually turned into a musical or maybe a play or even (in the case of Edward Scissorhands) a ballet. But an opera?

David Cronenberg himself will direct the American debut of an opera version of his classic creep fest The Fly this season at the L.A. Opera. One wonders if the lead tenor will have to regurgitate on cue ...

Cinematic Crush: Robert Mitchum

Crush Object: Robert Mitchum, actor.

- Even though the barrel-chested he-man starred in over a hundred movies throughout his 55 year career, he was only nominated for an Oscar once (as Supporting Actor, no less), for The Story of G.I. Joe.

- His two most iconic characters -- Cape Fear's Max Cady and The Night of the Hunter's Harry Powell -- were both named to AFI's 2003 list of the top movie villains of all time.

- His film career (beginning with an uncredited bit part in Hitchcock's Saboteur) spanned many genres, including war films (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, The Longest Day), film noir (Crossfire, Out of the Past), dramas (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison; The Sundowners) and many, many westerns. In his later career, he starred in two of the most popular television mini-series of the 1980's, Winds of War and North and South.

- He came naturally to the many tough guy roles he played thanks to his colorful youth, including stints as a boxer and in a prison chain gang; he made headlines in 1948 when he was arrested for possession of marijuana; he was later cleared of all charges when it was revealed to be all a set-up.

- He recorded two albums: Calypso - Is Like So ... and a country album titled That Man, Robert Mitchum, Sings. His brutish desirability was immortalized in the song "Robert Mitchum" in the gay musical review Naked Boys Singing!

Awards Watch: Golden Globes '07

Wow, that was quick (and a bit inane ... what could be worse then film punditry from Billy Bush?) and even then they didn't announce all the Golden Globe winners on the air. Here's the rest:

• Best Foreign Language Film: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Best Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men
• Best Original Score: Dario Marianelli for Atonement
• Best Original Song: Eddie Vedder for "Guaranteed" from Into the Wild

No film won more then two awards, and a few major contenders (Juno, Michael Clayton) came up empty-handed in the end.

What does this all mean for the Big Show? Well, their Best Picture wins may help boost the chances of Atonement (which really needed this) and Sweeney Todd (although it didn't help Dreamgirls last year), but the film that could most benefit is Diving Bell, especially with the surprise Best Director win for Julian Schnabel. I tell you, I strongly expect it to be in the Oscars' top five come nomination morning.

In closing: wasn't it ironic that the first award given was to a movie titled I'm Not There?

Golden Globes '07: Best Picture - Drama

Atonement

Golden Globes '07: Best Actor - Drama

Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood