Latin Review posted a wonderful Q&A between Johnny Depp and online Internet sleuth Fred Topel during a press conference today for Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, Depp was asked about playing The Mad Hatter, his upcoming return to the character of Captain Jack Sparrow and playing Tonto in The Lone Ranger. Depp’s answers were very flippant but guarded about  playing these characters. Click Depp’s gun  to read the interview.

Miley Cyrus will be in good company with Kelly Preston and Greg Kinnear , who have joined Disney’s The Last Song, the adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel. Sparks wrote the script based on the novel specifically as a star vehicle for Cyrus.

Kinnear and Preston play the parents of Cyrus’ character, a rebellious teen sent to spend the summer with her estranged father. He tries to reconnect with her through the one thing they have in common, of course, music.

Julie Anne Robinson is currently directing the movie that opens January 8, 2010.

Yes, the robots are coming and Megan Fox talks about her career and future with the Transformers. I am sure that’s why you want to click on the magazine cover to read bits of the interview not because there are seven full body and three-quarter shots of her revealing her tatoos.

This is a funny clip from the Letterman Show last night.  Julia Roberts is warm, gracious and hilarious.

Looks like Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz picked the 20th Century Fox action comedy Wichita as their next star vehicle together, which is directed by James Mangold.  According to sources reported by Variety, Cruise and Diaz have approved the script, and their deals are in advanced negotiations. While Fox has not officially dated the picture, studio is hoping for a summer 2010 release.

The script has changed many times; still the recent renditions were penned by Scott Frank while Mangold is currenlty tweaking the script even more with Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island).

Cruise will play a secret agent who pops in and out of the life of a single woman (Diaz) hence several actions scenes are in the movie.

If you have been following my blogs,  you know that Cruise had a hand full of projects to choose from as his next starring movie: the Len Wiseman-directed DreamWorks thriller Motorcade; the Bharat Nalluri-directed Spyglass remake The Tourist; the David Cronenberg-directed MGM drama The Matarese Circle; the Universal/Working Title romantic comedy Lost for Words; and The 28th Amendment, the Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck-directed Warner Bros. thriller.

The selection process came down to Wichita and Motorcade.

Tom Cruise is a crazy, scary man.  If you read the tabloids long enough you’ll find scads of stories about him, which are just fabricated and sheer lunacy.  But one thing is true…he’s a pretty good actor. And when you run to the video store and grab a copy of Valkyrie, well, you’ll probably notice that yourself.

In Valkyrie, we’re introduced to a huge and incredibly convoluted plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler by elements within his own army.  The best part is, much of this actually happened.  Klaus von Stauffenberg (a real person, here played by Tom Cruise) is part of the military arm of the attempt to kill Hitler, using his own plans against him.  See, Hitler had a plan just in case someone should turn against him called Operation Valkyrie, in which a reserve contingent of the German army, dubbed the Reserve Army, was kept around Berlin in the event of an uprising to suppress civil insurrection.  So Stauffenberg and his contingent feign an uprising…on the part of Hitler’s own SS.  This allows them to enact Operation Valkyrie to seize the SS, and with both the Reserve Army and the SS removed from the equation, the path becomes clear to seize Hitler’s government.

The most amazing part of this entire exercise is that this actually happened, and essentially came within a gnat’s whisker of actually succeeding, which would have brought the war to an end quite a bit sooner than it actually did.  Frankly, with stuff like this going on, it’s a wonder Hitler’s regime managed to last as long as it did.  Watching this epic story of love of country and betrayal play out is downright amazing—even more so when you consider that Hitler would commit suicide just nine months after the events of Valkyrie.  It’s as though something was conceived that day that would be born as real as any man.

History aside, however, this is actually a very riveting movie, made doubly so by the fact that it has an unusually long runtime of a full two hours, in an era where eighty to ninety minutes is standard operating procedure.  It’s a stunning, deep and rich epic that makes its viewer sit up and take notice.  While most of us who haven’t studied World War II history extensively may not have known about Operation Valkyrie or the other fourteen assassination attempts on Hitler, this one carries an authenticity to it that makes it especially good.  These were men so concerned about the direction of their country that they were willing to surrender their status and their very lives to bring about its downfall and rebirth.

And though the Stauffenberg heirs didn’t personally care for Cruise’s portrayal of him, I confess that I liked it just fine.

Valkyrie is a great thriller / suspense title  and deserves your dollars and your time to watch.  It’s downright inspiring in its portrayal of resistance to a madman, and it looks as beautiful as the plot itself is deep.

The Internet is buzzing about Kenneth Branagh’s casting of Loki in Marvel Studios’ Thor.  AICN reports the lucky fellow is Tom Hiddleston.  Apparently, he is a bit of an unknown but not for long. 

To offer a little bit of background information on Loki, he is the evil character who is beautifully written as a unique character, not just some maniac.

The trades are buzzing about Martin Scorsese bringing Frank Sinatra to the silver screen.

Scorsese has signed with Universal Pictures and Mandalay Pictures to direct and produce  Sinatra. If anyone is a fan of Scorsese or Sinatra, then you know Scorsese has long played with the idea of creating biopic on singer-actor Frank Sinatra.

Now, the trades are speculating Leonardo DiCaprio as an obvious choice to play Ol’ Blue Eyes because he has become Scorsese’s go-to actor over the past decade, having starred in the director’s past four features: Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed and the upcoming Shutter Island.  Most of the music in the film will come from Sinatra’s recordings.

Personally, I’d like to see someone else take the role. Who?  I am not sure.  There are a lot of up and coming actors who’d do the role justice.  Sam Worthington is a good choice because he looks like Frank Sinatra.  Plus, he’s a talented actor.

Project marks the first silver screen movie to be made about the Hoboken, N.J., native, whose life provided continual fodder for the gossip columnists because of his turbulent love affairs, infamous friendships with notables like President Kennedy and possible Mafia ties.

It will be interesting to see how the casting pans out.

For most kids and teens, the summer means a lot of things like taking a break and hitting he beaches. But for the ones who don’t have anything to do, here is something that may be worth their while as well as the beneficiaries from such efforts.

As part of Do Something 101, Ciara is encouraging teens to make a difference this summer by collecting school supplies and dropping them off at their nearest Staples store, from July through September. In addition, Staples customers can get involved by donating $1 at any Staples store with 100 percent of the proceeds benefiting local teens in need. Each Staples store is matched to a local educational and not-for-profit organization serving disadvantaged youth, and DoSomething.org and Staples will ensure that all the donations get to these partners just in time to head back to school.

To help kick-off the campaign, Ciara is starring in a public service announcement (PSA) that will air on television and radio stations nationwide starting in July, and Staples is donating more than $125,000 worth of school supplies to the program.

Teens who want to get involved can go to www.DoSomething101.org for ideas on how to run local school supply drives. Whether holding a school supply drive at summer camp, during a summer sports league, or at a neighborhood block party, DoSomething.org and Staples offer tips, resources, and flyers for how to get started and make the most of every teen’s summer.

(Source) Press

With Wolverine turning out to be bankable, it clearly proves that Hugh Jackman is a box office stud. His company, Seeds Productions,  is lining up several projects to keep him producing like a box office stud.

First, Personal Security is a spec script by Matt Lieberman. Jackman will star as a tough Gotham police detective coerced into bodyguard duty for a spoiled teen heiress who is receiving kidnapping threats.

Second, Jackman is spinning over Drive,an adaptation of the James Sallis novel, playing a lonely who drives race cars by day and getaway cars by night in Los Angeles.  Rumors are that Jackman is energized by the latest draft that captures the tone of a Steve McQueen film.

Third, according to Variety, a long development project Carouselis now a priority.  A rewrite emerged as a timeless spirit of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic while bringing in relevance for a contemporary audience. Jackman will play Billy Bigelow in hopes that the role of Julie Jordan is played Anne Hathaway. Both performed a duet in the Oscarcast opening number.  Nothing official has begun with the actress.

Lastly, Jackman, who won a Tony for The Boy From Oz, hopes to return to the Broadway stage in early 2010 performing the title role in Houdini.