So George Clooney, in London for the premiere of Leatherheads, squeezed in a visit with British prime minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday to discuss the ongoing Darfur genocide crisis and the possibility of buying peacekeeping helicopters (probably through Clooney’s Not On Our Watch organization, which he started with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Don […]

After La Misma Luna broke opening-weekend records for a Spanish-language movie, making $2.8 million at just 266 theaters, I thought it would be great to publish an interview I had with the movie’s Mexican director, Patricia Riggen. She had some surprising things to say about the movie, her career, motherhood, and pitching movie ideas to […]

Fidel Castro—who will be portrayed in three upcoming movies— is already a movie star, kinda. While he’s been featured in archival footage used in many a documentary—everything from Looking for Fidel (2006) to The Fog of War (2003), he has never been portrayed by an actor, which is weird, considering he’s one of the most […]

As a big Dune fan, I’m guardedly excited about the news that we’re getting a new movie version of the classic sci-fi book, directed by Peter Berg (The Kingdom, Friday Night Lights).
On one hand, the book seems more relevant than ever: it has a lot to say about ecology and the environment and the main […]

Caught the new trailer for the new Incredible Hulk yet? Check it out here.
Looks better than the Eric Bana/Ang Lee version, but still kinda dumb. Maybe it’s because I’m a girl, but I never understood the appeal of the Hulk, basically a dude in ugly shorts who is forced to show his emotions only when […]

So word has gotten out that Brian Grazer, one of the most successful producers in Hollywood (A Beautiful Mind, American Gangster, The DaVinci Code), is looking for a new “cultural attache” — someone hired to satisfy his every intellectual whim and curiosity. This person schools him on everything from molecular biology to the stock market, […]

Think you know all about Latinos in Hollywood? Bwa ha ha, smarty pants! I defy you to test yourself with my new Latino Movie Pop Quiz, designed to give your brain a run for its money. Look for it every once in a while right here in this blog. Write your answers in the comments […]

After delivering their biggest box office success with No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers will finally have a movie open in wide release. Burn After Reading, a comedy starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton, comes out Sept. 26. That news may have been expected after No Country won the […]

I confess myself to be an apologetically hardcore Jane Austen fan, despite the fact that a big chunk of the society she writes about was built on the backs of Caribbean slaves like my ancestors. Oh well, I can’t help it—the writing is too witty and good, and in any case, Jane Austen’s dead, so […]

When I first heard that Eva Mendes was playing a husband-stealing tart in the upcoming movie “The Women,” I cringed a little. Why did the lone Latina in an all-female cast have to play the slut? And then I remembered that, Oh yeah, my girl-crush on Eva aside, I do know that she’s not exactly […]