Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Taylor, the two-time Oscar winner and dedicated AIDS activist whose acting prowess, glitzy lifestyle and larger-than-life celebrity established her as Hollywood royalty, has died. She was 79.
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Taylor died Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles surrounded by her four children, Taylor's rep said. Battling ill health and scoliosis in her later years, Taylor had been hospitalized for the past six weeks for congestive heart failure. She underwent a heart procedure to repair a leaky valve in October 2009.
"My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love," Taylor's son, Michael Wilding, said in a statement. "Though her loss is devastating to those of us ...
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Eddie Fisher
Eddie Fisher, the 1950s pop singer and father of Carrie Fisher known for his high-profile Hollywood romances, has died. He was 82.
Fisher died Wednesday in his Berkely, Calif., home, from complications from hip surgery, his daughter, actress and singer Tricia Leigh Fisher, told The Associated Press.
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Per Variety, Columbia Pictures has acquired screen rights to Cleopatra, a new take on the life of the Egyptian queen based on a forthcoming novel from Pulitzer-winning biographer Stacy Schiff. Cleo was last immortalized on celluloid — and in one of the most expensive films ever — by La Liz, so you just know it's going to be, like, Lindsay Lohan this time around. Because that is how Hollywood works.... Susan Sarandon is joining Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron in In the Valley of Elah, Paul Haggis' tentatively titled follow-up to Crash.
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Question: I watched Stepmom for the 2,000th time this weekend and then read up on the Internet about where it was filmed. I love the house they live in and found that the real house and land are in upstate New York, but that the filmmakers only used it for exterior shots. For everything inside, they built this huge, elaborate soundstage. My question is, why spend all that time and money to make a soundstage that looks like a house when you could just use the inside of the house? Do they just love spending money? And why are scenes shot out of sequence?
Answer: First question first: It may seem as though, having found an attractive house whose exterior says what you want it to say about the lives of the people who live in it, that it would be cheaper and easier to use the real interiors as locations, rather than building a soundstage. But on a big-budget Hollywood movie, it generally isn't, for one of two reasons or a combination
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Question: I haven't seen any questions to you about Rome, and I don't see much chatter about it on the TV Guide website. I know it's on opposite the mighty Desperate Housewives, but in my opinion, it is one of the best shows on TV these days. It is certainly better than the creatively uneven and highly overrated Housewives. Although most people know the rough outline of Caesar, Brutus, Mark Antony and Cleopatra, it has been fascinating to see their lives play out with the rich production values of this series (except for the nonexistent combat scenes). I think Rome ably continues HBO's rich Sunday-night drama history, and I would rank it only slightly behind Deadwood and well ahead of the awful Carnivale and Six Feet Under. What do you think?
Answer: Thanks for asking. Week by week, Rome has become more gloriously addictive, as the historical intrigues and betrayals come into sharper focus along with the reversals of fortune involving the two fictional soldiers at the core of the story
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Well, you certainly can't say nothing happened this week, huh? Caesar, in Egypt, has to deal with boy-king Ptolemy, Cleopatra's brother. ("I think I can handle a small boy and an eunuch," he says when asked if sticking around to "settle things" is a good idea after being presented with Pompey's head as a gift.) Of course he can, and how bad do we want to see him give that annoying little gnat a good slap, kick or series of both? But we get something better — a brilliantly done fight scene when Lucius and Pullo are sent to rescue Cleo from the assassins her little brother hired, followed by a hilarious sex scene and its aftermath when she demands Lucius sleep with her, and he sends Pullo in to do the deed. And it doesn't slow down from there. She manages to look amazing when dumped out of a piece of burlap and onto the floor. And it's clear that Caesar, and
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