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With kung fu and action superstars Jackie Chan and Jet Li in the same feature film for the first time, The Forbidden Kingdom is a movie
that promises to garner a lot of attention. Chan and Li are two of the most recognizable in the entire world, especially in their native country of China. Many have wondered when these two Chinese superstars would work together – and now that question has been answered!
No matter your age, chances are you have read the Dr. Seuss classic “Horton Hears a Who.” The book, which stars Horton the Elephant, is one of Dr. Seuss’ most famous works.
Dr. Seuss, who was born Theodor Seuss Geisel, is arguably the most celebrated author of children’s books in the history of mankind. Born in 1904, Dr. Seuss was a cartoonist and a writer by trade. In his lifetime, Dr. Seuss made over 40 children’s books. Some of his most well-known books included Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Hop on Pop and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. [Read more →]
As Valentine’s Day approaches, you may be thinking about proposing. You’ve seen those proposals on TV, the ones where a guy proposes via the Jumbotron at a sports stadium. Or maybe he gets down on one knee in a public place. Your intended couldn’t possibly turn you down in front of all those people, right? Think again.
Feeling romantically challenged? Or maybe you’re looking for some movies to share with your Valentine. Bring out the hankies and ice the champagne, if these 14 movies don’t put you in the mood, nothing will.
Maybe you don’t buy the idea of a streetwalker winning the heart of a handsome millionaire and living happily ever after. Apparently the film’s makers didn’t either. They set out to write a much darker movie about prostitution and drugs. They ended up with a movie in which the handsome prince (Richard Gere) strikes a strictly non-sexual deal with a hooker with a heart of gold (Julia Roberts), who becomes a fairy princess after dressing up in a gown from Rodeo Drive.
Don’t think about it too hard. Just relax and enjoy the movie that made Julia Roberts a superstar.
She enslaved every man in sight until she was enslaved by love.
In her first American film, Marlene Dietrich plays an adventuress who trades her sexuality for gifts from men–until she meets French Foreign Legionnaire Gary Cooper.
The movie’s famous today mainly for the scene in which Dietrich, clad in a white tie and tails, plants a kiss on another woman, but it’s the last scene that will set hearts aflutter.
The legionnaires are assembled at the town gate for the march out of town. A mass of women and children congregate behind them, ready to follow their men through the desert. Dietrich stands apart with her wealthy lover. The drum beats. The men march out. Their women follow. Then Dietrich starts to walk. The scene is silent, save for sound of the wind whipping up the desert sand. Marlene removes her shoes and runs to catch up. Fade to black.
Can a man and a woman be friends without sex getting in the way?
Not in When Harry Met Sally, although the eponymous pair manage to remain platonic for 12 years. Harry (Billy Crystal) meets Sally (Meg Ryan) when the two drive from Chicago to New York upon college graduation. They meet several times over the years and eventually become friends. As friends, they help one another through a variety of relationships until …
You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and… blow.
This is the movie in which Bogey met Bacall. And by all accounts life on the set was every bit as full of sexual sparks as their appearances together on screen. She was only 19, he was married–and smitten. But you don’t have to know the backstory to enjoy the film, which is a thrilling mixture of film noir, adventure and intrigue.
The first film to use teenagers to play the teenage lovers, this 1968 movie may also be one of the most beautiful films ever made of a Shakespearean play. Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey were 17 and 15, still a couple of years older than the lovers in the play, when the movie was made. Some reviewers criticized the actors for their inexperience with the material, but the sight of two besotted teenagers spouting those famous lines really adds dimension to the story. As in the famous balcony scene:
A modern-day fairytale, Roman Holiday is the movie that made Audrey Hepburn a star. She plays Princess Ann, who’s on a goodwill tour of Europe, cutting ribbons and giving speeches. One day she escapes from the clutches of her handlers to explore Rome on her own.
She meets up with Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) and Irving Radovich (Eddie Albert), a reporter and a photographer. Ann doesn’t know that her companions are journalists, but they know who she is. Joe plans to sell the princess’s story to the highest bidder, but after 24 hours together, love wins over money and Joe changes his mind. Still, the two of them aren’t destined to live happily ever after: Princess Ann must return to her duties.
There’s an old joke .. two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ‘em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.” Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly. The… the other important joke, for me, is one that’s usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud’s “Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious,” and it goes like this - I’m paraphrasing - um, “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.” That’s the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women.
He’s a neurotic New York Jew. She’s a neurotic Midwestern WASP. Together, they drive each other crazy. When they’re apart, they’re crazy too. A romance about a relationship full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and over much too quickly.
Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart in their prime. Need I say more? The opening scene sets the tone:
Haughty heiress Tracy Lord (Hepburn) ditches husband C.K. Dexter Haven (Grant) for a self-made man (John Howard). Tabloid reporter Macauley Connor (Stewart) and his photographer sidekick, played to perfection by Ruth Hussey, plan to cover the upcoming nuptials. Hijinks ensue.A synopsis doesn’t do it justice. See it; you won’t be sorry.
Karen Holmes: Why don’t you tell the truth, you just don’t want the responsibility. You’re probably not even in love with me. Sergeant Milton Warden: You’re crazy! I wish I didn’t love ya; maybe I can enjoy life again.
A war story, buddy movie, coming-of-age flick and love story wrapped into one, From Here to Eternity would make the list on the strength of that famous kiss on the beach alone.
It’s a never-a-dull-moment movie with a phenomenal cast. Burt Lancaster is a sergeant married to the Army who has an affair with his commanding officer’s wife, played by Deborah Kerr. Montgomery Clift is a classic hardcase: A bugler and former championship boxer who won’t step back into the ring no matter how much grief he gets from his commanders. Donna Reed is a prostitute with genteel pretensions. Frank Sinatra is the happy-go-lucky friend who crosses the wrong man when he tangles with sadistic prison guard Ernest Borgnine. How could you go wrong?
The ultimate blockbuster, Titanic cost over $200 million to make. Its special effects are dazzling, its sets lavish and its period costumes are gorgeous. But it’s the romance between Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) that had teenage girls lining up at the box office to see the movie again and again.
It all started on an ordinary day in the most ordinary place in the world - the refreshment room at Milford Junction.
Probably the chastest movie discussed here, Brief Encounter concerns a middle-aged couple who don’t commit adultery.
Middle-aged housewife Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) meets married doctor Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) in a train station; she gets something in her eye, he removes it. Their relationship develops over succeeding weeks–a trip into town is part of their weekly routine. A friendship develops. And then it becomes something more. Their one attempt to consummate their relationship is a disaster. Soon after they part forever.
He’s an aimless loner who’s never amounted to much. She works in a paper mill. Throw in an ass-kicking drill sergeant, a sensitive friend and a calculating gold-digger and you’ve got a romance for the ages.
It’s the performances by Richard Gere, Debra Winger and Louis Gossett Jr. that raise this romantic coming of age film above its peers. Gere has never been better as Zack, a nasty piece of work at the beginning of the story who manages to make something out of himself against all odds or expectations. Debra Winger is sexy, yet sweet and vulnerable. And Louis Gossett Jr just about steals the show as Sergeant Foley, who shows Zack no mercy on the training field. By the time Gere sweeps Winger into his arms to the tune of Joe Cocker singing “Up Where We Belong,” you’ll be in tears. In a good way.
Rose: “Do you love him, Loretta?”
Loretta: “Ma, I love him awful.”
Rose: “Oh, God, that’s too bad.”
Cher plays Loretta, a Brooklyn widow whose first marriage ended in tragedy thanks, she thinks, to the couple’s City Hall ceremony. Though she doesn’t love him, Loretta agrees to marry Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello). But complications ensue when Loretta becomes smitten with Johnny’s brother , Ronny, played by Nicholas Cage.
The most enchanting quality about “Moonstuck” is the hardest to describe, and that is the movie’s tone. Reviews of the movie tend to make it sound like a madcap ethnic comedy, and that it is. But there is something more here, a certain bittersweet yearning that comes across as ineffably romantic, and a certain magical quality that is reflected in the film’s title.
Its plot is laughable: If Czech patriot Victor Laszlo could just get a hold of those letters of transit signed by General DeGaulle, he could travel anywhere and the Nazis couldn’t lay a hand on him. And a scene in which an entire nightclub sings “La Marseillaise” in defiance of the jack-booted Nazi thugs who occupy Casablanca would be incredibly hokey in any other movie.
And yet it works.
Humphrey Bogart plays Rick, an embittered American saloon owner sitting out WWII in Casablanca. Then out “of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world,” in walks Ilsa Lund, the luminous Ingrid Bergman. Everyone in the cast is remarkable, the bit players as well as the stars, but Casablanca wouldn’t be Casablanca without Ingrid Bergman, who positively glows as the woman who’s both the ideal helpmate and the ultimate lover.
Take a look at this scene, in which Rick first discovers Ilsa is in Casablanca:
With the writer’s strike keeping many of America’s favorite shows from airing, we’ve seen a resurgence of reality television, game shows and re-runs fill the viewing line-up. Many of these are obvious desperate attempts to get people watching something, anything, on the major networks. However, FOX won’t be suffering quite as much trouble with getting viewers now that the new season of American Idol is about to begin.
While all of the other networks are trying to find something to put on the air, FOX gets to bring back an old favorite. And they didn’t have to change their viewing plans to do it. American Idol was already set to begin its seventh season this January so the network is right on track. The season kicks off this coming week with two-hour premiere episodes on both Tuesday, January 15th and Wednesday, January 16th.
Like with the other seasons, these initial episodes will show the best and the worst of the auditions that were held throughout the year. Even people who don’t watch the rest of the season often tune in to these first few performances to see what embarrassing vocal performances and on-stage hissy fits happened throughout the filming. As the years have gone by, the show’s producers have realized the value of revealing the worst-of-the-worst on television. And the people attending the auditions have realized that doing something crazy will get them on TV!
Hip hop star Lil Wayne faces three felony drug charges after being arrested on Wednesday at a checkpoint in Arizona. The bus he was riding in got stopped and illegal drugs were found onboard the bus.
Lil Wayne, who was born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., spent the day in a Yuma County jail before being released on a $10,000 bond. Two other men who were on the bus were also arrested.
Police say they found marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy on the bus, along with more than $22,000 in cash. A .40-caliber pistol was also found that was registered to Lil Wayne, who has a gun permit from the state of Florida.
Lil Wayne is from New Orleans, Louisiana and became famous at a young age as part of Cash Money Records. He dropped his first album in 1999 (“The Block is Hot”) at the age of 17. Lil Wayne has since released four more albums, with another one scheduled to be released in 2008.
This isn’t Lil Wayne’s first brush with the law. In July of 2006, he was arrested in New York. In October of 2007, he was arrested in Idaho.
The WGA Writers’ Strike has begun to affect many aspects of American entertainment - indeed, many of our favorite shows have already shown their filmed episodes, in effect wrapping up their seasons prematurely. But now the fate of the Oscars hangs in the balance.
The Golden Globes already shelved its show, broadcasting instead a list of winners rather than the usual red carpet extravaganza.
The Golden Globes are often considered a good forecaster of Oscar winners and this year, the two awards might also share the same fate. Indeed, if the issues — namely the rights to online profits — are not resolved by the end of January, there is talk of boycotting the Oscars as well. Oscar producer Gil Cates doesn’t believe this will happen, stating that he is looking forward to this year’s 80th anniversary of the award.
However, Cates’ confidence is not shared by all, and advertisers have gotten antsy at the thought of no Oscar night commercials. As the biggest, most important advertising night after the Superbowl, ads during the broadcast are said to cost as much as $1.6 million per 30 seconds. That’s a lot of ad revenue lost, which again, is exactly what the writers are going for.
Looks like the industry has some urgent issues to work on in the next few weeks.
The seventh season of American Idol is set to premiere with a pair of two-hours segments that will run tonight, Jan. 15 and tomorrow, Wednesday, Jan. 16.
Episodes of American Idol will then air twice weekly (Tuesday/Wednesday) through Feb. 6. The Hollywood round will be broadcast Feb. 12 and Feb. 13 with the top 24 Idol contestants being announced on Feb. 13.
The show will then continue with the male and female finalist until the top 12 finalists peform for the first time on Mar. 11.
Is the show beginning to lose its luster? One of the shows most popular losers thinks so. Chris Daughtry, who came in fourth place in the 2006 season, thinks the show is in a state of decline.
“I feel like it’s definitely lacking some credibility at this point,” Daughtry, who went on to sell 3.6 million copies of his debut record, told Rolling Stone. “It’s in a state of decline and if they don’t do something about it, it’s probably not gonna last too much longer. I’m sure that’ll be used against me, but that’s the truth, you know?”
Maybe Daughtry is on to something, three top Idols — Ruben Studdard, Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee — have all recently lost their record contracts due to low sales.
Whatever the case is, I’m sure millions of people will still be tuning in tonight for the American Idol 7 premiere episode.
Social bookmarking and networking sites have a lot in common with celebrities: They gain a fan club or following. Their reputation can be made or broken as a result of media publicity. And they must stay hot and interesting in order to stay on the lips of the people who talk about the industry. And just like with Hollywood’s stars, today’s favorites can be tomorrow’s has-beens as new players come in to the game. [Read more →]
According to a report in the New York Daily News, the ties between Will Smith and the Church of Scientology may be growing. Smith, who hasn’t confirmed that he has joined the Church of Scientology, reportedly gave crew members in a film he was working on Scientology related gifts.
The Church of Scientology is a controversial organization that dates back to the early 1950’s. L. Ron Hubbard, a fiction writer, is often credited with the creation of the Church of Scientology. Depending on who you listen to, Scientology is either a legitimate religion or a dangerous cult. Famous celebrities such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta are members of the Church of Scientology.
Smith, who was filming a comedy entitled “Hancock” that is due to be released in the summer, had previously compared the Church of Scientology to Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism: “I was introduced to it by Tom [Cruise], and I’m a student of world religion. I was raised in a Baptist household. I went to a Catholic school, but the ideas of the Bible are 98% the same ideas of Scientology, 98% the same ideas of Hinduism and Buddhism.”
With kung fu and action superstars Jackie Chan and Jet Li in the same feature film for the first time, The Forbidden Kingdom is a movie
No matter your age, chances are you have read the Dr. Seuss classic “Horton Hears a Who.” The book, which stars Horton the Elephant, is one of Dr. Seuss’ most famous works. 
