Robert Downey Jr. Takes Down Russell Crowe In Battle Of The Box Office Heroes
Posted on May 16, 2010 @ 10:17AM - 6 comments
It was Iron Man vs. Robin Hood at the box office this weekend, and metal trumped bows & arrows easily.
PHOTOS: Gwyneth & Scarlett Strut Their Stuff At Iron Man 2 Photo Call
With Downey in the title role, Iron Man 2 added another $49 million to its box office total. Take that Russell Crowe! His Robin Hood brought in an underwhelming $36 million in its opening weekend.
PHOTOS: Stars Go Glam For Robin Hood Opening At Cannes
The one movie for the girls this weekend, Letters to Juliet with Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave took in a respectable $13.2 million for third place.
PHOTOS: Amanda Seyfried's Style Evolution
Just Wright, with Queen Latifah, opened with $8.2 million. And the one flick for horror fans, Nightmare on Elm Street, took in $4.6 million for fifth place.
Movie Review: Letters to Juliet
Posted on May 15, 2010 @ 10:32AM - 3 comments
Prepare to be delighted. Honey-dipped Letters to Juliet is so thoroughly charming that true love seems like like it’s just around the corner, while getting published in The New Yorker is simply one submission away. In this story, the heart knows no obstacles -- and neither does the movie, with its delicately witty take on inter-generational dynamics and boundless belief in fairy-tale romance. Set in the idyllic Italian countryside, Juliet’s world is where relationships blossom among fields of gold and truth is found beneath the stars.
Doe-eyed Amanda Seyfried stars as Sophie, an aspiring writer who’s engaged to the wrong guy and desperately wants to move up the ranks at her hum-drum magazine job. Her fortunes change when she takes a fateful trip to Verona (the setting for Romeo and Juliet) with Victor (Gael García Bernal), her husband-to-be. Getting more neglect than amore from her foodie of a fiancé, she soon finds her own fun with a group of ladies who answer letters from the love-lorn addressed to Shakespeare’s fabled Juliet. While Victor trembles over local wines and quakes with the ecstasy of cooking, Sophie answers a letter that’s been lost for 50 years -- and can hardly believe it when the author arrives to take her advice.
Vanessa Redgrave plays Claire, who responds to Sophie’s reply with a plan to track down Lorenzo, a local farmer who asked her for her hand way back when. In tow is Claire’s ornery grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan), who provides not only Ken-doll eye candy but also a dry wit that makes Juliet much more fun than the average romantic comedy. Claire’s no slouch either: With more than 117 acting credits under her belt (including a recent stint on the pulpy Nip/Tuck), Redgrave brings her best to a role that could easily have slipped into stereotypical territory for so-called old ladies. Both the writing and the actress’s visible commitment humanize Claire as a woman with feelings that transcend age and whose wisdom informs her young charges. Plus, Redgrave’s presence alone imbues the film with a dignity often missing from the genre.
Still, Seyfried and Egan aren’t simply riding their talented elder’s coattails as Sophie of course joins Claire on her excellent adventure, serving as the heart and soul of Mission Amore, while Charlie is the hunky wet blanket and stand-in for romantic cynics. Juliet cements Seyfried as a capable, inoffensive female lead. Where her past roles have sometimes left a smarmy residue, her portrayal of Sophie is all feel-good and clean. The role is Seyfried’s third major one this year, but it’s also her best. As Sophie, the actress works her mellifluous appeal to the max, becoming both a gorgeous girl-next-door and an earnest ingenue who’s waiting for her big break. Egan, an Australian import, similarly handles his dreamy looks (which were groomed with soapy, homegrown fare like Home and Away), reveling in Charlie’s adorable dorkiness and crossing the line of palatable cheesiness just a couple of times when the plot predictably dictates.
Enhancing everything is the hopelessly beautiful setting, portrayed here with such warmth that regional airline Alitalia could have been a co-sponsor. While the Italian hills nurture budding romance between the young’uns, they’re also the only place that could make a guy like Victor look less than perfect. Bernal is another gem of Juliet -- not his sex appeal, but his knack for comedy. Having made his reputation on heavy Spanish-language dramas like Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien, the Mexican native wouldn’t be the first actor that his character might seem to call for. Yet in Bernal’s hands, the self-obsessed Victor is more lovable than malicious.
Letters to Juliet has its corny moments and is shameless in purpose. But none of that really matters when it lets us believe, even for just 100-odd minutes, that magic might actually be possible.
Grieving Joely Richardson Departs TV Series to Spend More Time With Family
Posted on May 15, 2010 @ 08:00AM - 2 comments
Joely Richardson had been scheduled to jump from a supporting role on cable's Nip/Tuck to the lead in Jerry Bruckheimer's next sure-hit network TV series, The Whole Truth, but she's pulled out of the ABC legal drama, RadarOnline.com has learned.
PHOTOS: Family and friends attend Lynn Redgrave's Funeral
Richardson has experienced a traumatic last 14 months.
Her legendary aunt Lynn Redgrave died earlier this month. Her acting uncle Corin Redgrave died in April
Joely's beloved sister Natasha Richardson died last year in a freak skiing accident.
PHOTOS: Natasha Richardson's Funeral
Joely is especially close to her mother Vanessa Redgrave who broke down on The View Friday when talking about her family.
VIDEO: Vanessa Redgrave Gives Emotional Interview On The View
Joely has an 18-year-old daughter by her former husband, producer Tim Bevan.
PHOTOS: Family Bids Natasha Richardson Farewell
She asked to be released from her TV project so she could spend more time with her mother and daughter, and the producers understandably agreed.
VIDEO: Vanessa Redgrave Talks Family's Triumphs And Tragedies On The View
Posted on May 14, 2010 @ 11:05AM - 1 comment
Vanessa Redgrave said she's been both sad and sentimental when reflecting on the deaths of her daughter, brother and sister within the past 14 months, during her appearance on The View Friday.
"When you lost people you absolutely love and adore, you're both glorying and you're grieving," a teary, trembling Redgrave said, referencing the recent deaths in her iconic stage family: Redgrave's daughter Natasha Richardson died at 45 from head injuries sustained in a skiing accident in March 2009, while her sister Lynn Redgrave died a few weeks ago at 67 after a long fight with breast cancer. Her older brother Corin died at 70 last month.
Family and friends attend Lynn Redgrave's Funeral
Posted on May 08, 2010 @ 03:43PM - 1 comment
Family and friends attend Lynn Redgrave's Funeral
Vanessa Redgrave Leads Her Family In Sad Farewell To Her Sister Lynn
Posted on May 08, 2010 @ 12:04PM - 4 comments
The surviving members of one of acting's most royal families gathered in upstate New York Saturday for the funeral of Lynn Redgrave.
PHOTOS: Redgrave Family Gathers For Lynn's Funeral
The legendary Vanessa Redgrave dressed in white as a way of celebrating her beloved sister's life.
Lynn Redgrave Dies From Cancer
The burial came just slightly more than a year after the family lost Vanessa's daughter Natasha Richardson in a freak skiing accident. Natasha's widow Liam Neeson was in attendance as was Natasha's actress sister Joely Richardson.
VIDEO: Liam Neeson Talks About Life Without Natasha Richardson
Lynn Redgrave had bravely battled cancer for eight years -- often sharing her struggle with the public -- before dying at her Kent, Connecticut home May 2.
Lady Gaga And Cyndi Lauper Step Out In New York
Posted on Feb 11, 2010 @ 06:00AM - 2 comments
Lady Gaga has a new BFF more than double her age!
PHOTOS: Cyndi Lauper and Lady Gaga Step Out in NYC
Cyndi Lauper stepped onto the red carpet with an all-white wearing Gaga in New York Wednesday night for the amfAR annual gala to raise awareness and funds about the HIV/AIDS epidemic and AIDS research.
Gaga's new bestie offered RadarOnline.com a candid insight into music’s most eccentric - and eccentrically dressed - personality since, well, the Time After Time diva herself.
Catherine Zeta-Jones Broadway Debut
Posted on Sep 23, 2009 @ 04:20PM - Add a comment
Catherine Zeta-Jones is dusting off her dancing shoes and tuning up her vocal cords in preparation for her big Broadway debut.
Zeta-Jones to star as Susan Boyle in biopic?
Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury have been confirmed to star in the Broadway revival of A Little Night Music opening at the Walter Kerr Theater in December.
Video: Michael Douglas recieves AFI's Lifetime Achievement Award
Zeta-Jones, who won an Oscar for her part of Velma Kelly in the hit movie Chicago, is set to play the central character of Desiree, an actress in end of the century Sweden.
The musical is based on Ingmar Bergman's 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night and had a benefit performance by the Roundabout Theater Company in January, starring the late Natasha Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave.
Read about Natasha Richardson's tragic death
A Little Night Music will begin previews November 24th ahead of a December 13th opening.
Report: Richardson's Organs Donated To Waiting Patients
Posted on Mar 25, 2009 @ 12:03PM - Add a comment
Liam Neeson, Vanessa Redgrave and other family members decided to donate Natasha Richardson's organs to waiting transplant patients last week before deciding to pull the plug on the actress, according to the New York Post.
"Some patient is going to wake up in the recovery room and start reciting Shakespeare," a source told the paper.
Doctors, a source told the paper, spent six hours harvesting Richardson's organs following her tragic fall on a Canadian ski slope two days earlier.
Natasha Richardson Laid To Rest
Posted on Mar 22, 2009 @ 04:07PM - Add a comment
Private services were held this afternoon in upstate New York for actress Natasha Richardson, who died following a freak skiing accident last week.
Click here to see photographs from today's funeral services.
Richardson's funeral was held at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Millbrook, N.Y., near the family's 19th century farmhouse where she lived with her husband Liam Neeson and their two sons. She's being buried in a nearby cemetery.
Neeson was among the pallbearers for her coffin as it was taken into the church. He arrived with his sons and mother-in-law, Vanessa Redgrave. Other stars at the funeral include actor Ralph Fiennes and actress Uma Thurman.
The service was open only to family and close friends.
Richardson's mahogany coffin — emblazoned with an Irish claddagh symbol, signifying love, friendship and loyalty — was driven Saturday from the couple's Manhattan townhouse to their home near Millbrook where she had married Neeson in July 1994.
Richardson, 45, died Wednesday, two days after hitting her head in a freak skiing accident on a beginner's slope in Canada. She and Neeson had two sons: Michael, 13, and Daniel, 12.
