Last week I caught up Andy Garcia while he was in London promoting his latest film City Island – a charming dysfunctional family flick that will melt even the coldest heart – I promise you, you’ll leave the cinema with a big fat smile on your face!  Andy Garcia is an incredibly talented actor that I love seeing in anything, especially in great roles like this one. Read More

I recently caught up with the stunning Olga Kurylenko to talk about Neil Marshall’s “Centurion”. After making her film debut in the French film L’Annulaire, in 2005, she has since found fame as the female lead in the last James Bond film, Quantum of Solace.  She recently starred in the film Centurion as an invincible Pict warrior in Roman Britain. Read More

Earlier this week I had the good fortune of talking to Sharlto Copley while he was in London promoting The A Team. The South African actor was undoubtedly the breakout star of 2009 due to his leading role in Neill Blomkamp’s Oscar Nominated film District 9. He again thoroughly impresses in The A Team playing Howlin’ Mad Murdock (he’s as mad as a bottle of chips in the film). Check out what he had to say for himself below. Read More

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A ridiculously talented director + a great cast + an interesting and original story + amazing imagery + jaw dropping action + heartfelt emotions= win win win win win win win win win win……and more win. Christopher Nolan has truly become the modern master of balancing entertainment and substance. 2010 has been a great year for Leonardo DiCaprio after an amazing performance in Shutter Island and now with an even more astonishing performance in Inception. I caught up with Christopher Nolan and Leonardo DiCaprio – two men at the top of their games – at the London Press conference for Inception. Check out what they had to say below:

What was your initial inspiration behind Inception, and how did it develop into the movie it is today?

Christopher Nolan: I’d always wanted to make a film that addressed dreams, and do something set in that world. About ten years ago I focused in on the idea of a exploring a technology that might allow people to share dreams, and the uses and abuses of that, and came up with this idea of doing a heist film set in the world of dreams with a technology that could be used to penetrate a person’s subconscious.

Inception is an emotionally complex and complicated film. When you were first approached to appear in the film, did you understand it?

Leonardo DiCaprio: It certainly took a couple of readings, but it was really the interaction with Chris, one-on-one. It’s an idea that’s been locked in his mind for eight years now. So for me a lot of the preparation was understanding what he wanted to accomplish and achieve. Being able to sit down with him and understand that he had this concept of doing a highly entertaining Hollywood film, that is existential, cerebral, surreal, and that delves into various states of the subconscious. The way that he wanted to put that up on screen involved us really talking with him at great lengths to truly understand his concepts.

How did you find the process of creating the rules of Inception’s dream worlds, as compared to the realism of The Dark Knight?

Christopher Nolan: I think that with every film you take on, you try to establish the rules and the tone of what you’re working with. In taking on the idea of dreams, you have a real burden on the rules of the film, because dreams are infinite and have infinite potential, which is the thing that really makes them fascinating in the first place. But it also makes them hard to address in drama, because anything can happen, and therefore how does anything matter? The rules of the world were designed to impose limits. The key thing for that, in my head, was to make it the story of a con, as soon as you take on the idea of trying to fool somebody and creating a reality for somebody else, naturally the team have to adhere to certain rules within the dream to avoid fracturing the reality of it.

Did you have get up to scratch on the world of dreams when researching your role?

Leonardo DiCaprio: I tried to take a very traditional approach to researching this film and read the analysis of dreams immediately and tried to pick apart the psychology of what things represented in the dream world. But I quickly realised that this was a whole new type of preparation, that meant basically talking with Chris at great length about this cathartic therapy session my character goes on, the psychoanalysis. In doing that we created this really powerful emotional journey.

As far as the analysis of the dreams in this movie, and how Chris was going to make four different states of the human subconscious interact with each other in a cohesive plot structure, I left that ENTIRELY up to Chris (laughs). I did not want to get involved, because Chris is obviously very capable of pulling off complex narratives like this and making them emotionally engaging for an audience. It’s reassuring as an actor to know you’re dealing with someone who has a great track record of accomplishing stuff like that. As far as my own dreams, I’m not a big dreamer, I think obviously we suppress things in life, emotions and thoughts, we wake up, and we should look at that. Ironically I had a really powerful dream the other day, I won’t get into the details of what it was but I remember sitting there saying to myself, forgetting totally that I’ve done this movie, but saying to myself, wait a minute, these details in this dream are real and I can create these dreams and manipulate the environment, I’ve heard this somewhere before (laughs). And I started to play with the dream in a very surreal way. I had that moment of knowing I was dreaming and being able to combat my surrounding so it was kind of cool. I had no previous knowledge I had done Inception or heard of this movie in that dream state so it was kind of fun.

The film was kept under a wraps. Why was this, and was it difficult to maintain such secrecy?

Christopher Nolan: It’s difficult to keep anything fresh in movies these days, with technology being what it is people seem to know everything there is to know before you’ve even made it. For me, as a film goer, I like nothing more than to sit in a cinema, have the lights go down and not know what I’m about to see and every time we go to make a film we do everything we can to just systematize things so we’re able to make the film in private. So then once it’s finished it’s up to the audience to make of it what they will.

What were the challenges of making this movie?

Christopher Nolan: For me, the underlying tone of the thing is best summed up by Leo’s character in the film when he says that dreams feel real while we’re in them. So everything we did in a production sense was an attempt to try and retain a tactile sense of reality to the world of the dreams, so they felt like possible worlds even as impossible things were happening. This creates challenges for all departments, for example, when you have a freight train barrelling down the street smashing cars and things. We wanted to do these things for real, so they would feel possible to the audience and that we wouldn’t have an obviously surreal quality to things. That’s why we went to all these locations and travelled all around the world, and shot in blizzards and so forth.

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Hollywood must specialize in Faustian bargains. There’s simply too much evidence walking around to deduce otherwise. Consider the once-interesting Brendan Fraser, who now plays second banana to the special effects in “Mummy” movies. Or Scarlett Johansson, mousy and introspective in “Lost in Translation,” now brassy, blowsy and bleach blond. Once upon a time, Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar. Once upon a time, Chevy Chase was funny.

And then there’s Nicolas Cage.

Let us ask ourselves something: Why is Nicolas Cage a movie star? And why do we care?

The answer, in part, is that Cage — whose latest, “Knowing,” opened Friday — won an Oscar in 1996 for playing a suicidal alcoholic in “Leaving Las Vegas,” a gritty, brutal, honest movie, wonderfully acted (by both Cage and Elisabeth Shue) and which confirmed what a lot of people had long believed: that Cage was the most interesting actor in American movies.

His performance in “Raising Arizona” remains iconic. Likewise, “Wild at Heart.” From the time he was 17 — and got passed over for the Judge Reinhold role in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” — he was cutting a righteous swath across the screen, in movies that rarely missed such as “Valley Girl” and “Birdy.” He even made an impression in some pretty dubious projects, including two directed by his uncle Francis (Coppola), namely “Cotton Club” and “Peggy Sue Got Married.” Then the Coens cast him in “Raising Arizona.” He became Cher’s one-handed romantic poet in “Moonstruck.” That was followed by “Vampire’s Kiss,” the immortal “Wild at Heart” and a mixed bag of principal roles leading up to director Mike Figgis and “Leaving Las Vegas.”

What happened then bears the infernal reek of sulfur, brimstone and gross receipts. “Con Air,” in which Cage played an unjustly convicted parolee battling a planeload of criminal misfits and psychopaths, was an action thriller — the old adrenaline-fueled thrill ride/riveting roller coaster of a big old movie. Yes, Cage had appeared in “The Rock” immediately after winning his Best Actor statuette (thus abandoning idiosyncratic leading manhood forever), but it was “Con Air” that made Cage fans sit up and say “Wha . . . ???” (Significantly, Steve Buscemi was in the movie, too, sliding into the Beloved Character Actor slot that Cage was so busily abandoning, in a flick that was about as cynically brainless as anything in the history of mall movies.)

And so it has been, with few detours from the action star/blockbuster track upon which Cage has trod with particularly graceless aplomb, and virtually no humor at all, except on top of his head, where his hair is continual source of mirth and mystery, because you never know what it’s going to do, where it’s going to go or to whom it once belonged. Some favorites: the punky cut of “Ghost Rider” (2007), with its black spikes and bangs; the inky-looking Franz Liszt arrangement of last year’s bewildering “Bangkok Dangerous.” Or the gravity-defying-do of “Lord of War” (2005), which was Cage’s best performance in years, because it returned him to a realm of moral ambiguity and outsider status, precisely where his talent thrives — rather than as a low-rent Indiana Jones (“National Treasure”), a thoroughly unconvincing Italian lover (“Captain Corelli’s Mandolin”) or anyone named Memphis Raines (“Gone in Sixty Seconds”).

Taking on preposterous roles, like the supposedly coldblooded hit man of “Bangkok Dangerous” (“My name is Joe. . . . This is what I do . . .”), it’s clear that Cage would like to assume the mantle of Clint Eastwood. His character is a man of few words, he grimaces with irony-free disgust at the moral bottom-feeders of the world and he dispenses large-caliber justice. But Cage has never taken Dirty Harry’s advice: A man’s got to know his limitations. Cage isn’t a sex symbol and — stripped of the existential complexity of his early roles — he’s not that interesting to watch. Despite the fact that there are Nicolas Cage action figures available, watching his pursuit of action stardom has been like watching a Jack Russell terrier romance a Doberman.

But in an industry, and a town, where a movie is judged entirely by its profits, Cage is secure. “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” made more than $450 million worldwide, its predecessor, $348 million. “Gone in Sixty Seconds” made more internationally ($135 million) than domestically ($102 million). These are not the kind of figures that prompt a man to resume playing suicidal alcoholics. “Ghost Rider” probably made less money than people might have expected — $116 million here, $113 million there, according to boxofficemojo.com.

Does the average moviegoer care how much money Nicolas Cage makes? Probably more than he or she should; given the celebrity-besotted culture we live in, it’s inevitable. But it seems the unavoidable conclusion that Cage, once held up as an example of the intrepid artistic impulse, has become something of the poster boy for blind ambition, cynical role selection, questionable judgment and, worst of all, humorlessness: He glowers, he hunches, he looks meaningfully into the distance without it meaning anything at all.

If Cage were replaced tomorrow by Ben Stiller, we’d get all of the above plus a couple of laughs. Instead, we have an actor who used to be able to do something remarkable — overcome a lack of native charm by embracing his inner outsider, creating affectionate portraits of unlikely heroes, and soldiering on despite a seemingly unmerciful universe. It may not pay as well. But that’s a Nic Cage we could use.

The obvious question comes to mind: what makes the cat odd?

Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor who performed for over half a century.

He was perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning performance as Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) and for his roles as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and his Academy Award-winning performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954), both directed by Elia Kazan. In middle age he also played Colonel Walter Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979), also directed by Coppola, and delivered an Academy Award-nominated performance as Paul in Last Tango in Paris (1972).

Brando had a significant impact on film acting. He was the foremost example of the “method” acting style, and became notorious for his “mumbling” diction, but his mercurial performances were highly regarded and he is now considered one of the greatest American film actors of the twentieth century. Director Martin Scorsese said of him, “He is the marker. There’s ‘before Brando’ and ‘after Brando’.'” Actor Jack Nicholson once said, “When Marlon dies, everybody moves up one.”

Brando was also an activist, supporting many issues, notably the American Civil Rights and various American Indian Movements.

Last night I was watching Teen Wolf and with all due respect, it really pis*ed me off watching the basketball scenes… at least without the stunt guy who played the wolf.  No offense to Michael J. Fox or his teammates but come on.  When you have scenes where they flip out and cheer because they make a foul shot in the league championship, it’s kind of sad.

The only actor in that movie who knew how to shoot a basketball was the guy with red hair on the Beavers.  I mean even Mick, the bad guy, had zero clue how to shoot a layup.  I don’t know about you guys but I just can’t stand that stuff.   Nothing is more annoying than sports scenes with guys who clearly can’t play sports.

That’s why I always appreciate an actor who has coordination.  I mean is it so hard to cast a person who actually looks like they know how to play a sport?  I guess it is.

In any event, here are 10 actors who are athletically coordinated

Charlie Sheen

Sheen was actually a pitcher in high school so it’s nice to watch him in movies.  In the movies Major League, Cadence, and Lucas you can see that Sheen was clearly an athlete as he’s got good form on his jump shot, solid command of his pitches, and he knows how to run routes as a wide receiver.

Robert Redford

Redford had a sweeter swing than most major leaguers in the movie The Natural.  Also at the very end when he’s playing catch with his son, Redford clearly knows how to throw as well.

Kevin Costner

Costner also has a great baseball swing as demonstrated in Bull Durham.  He also knows how to throw as evidenced in For Love of the Game.  Hell he doesn’t even have a bad golf swing as shown in Tin Cup.  P.S. Don Johnson had a terrible golf swing in that movie.

Dennis Quaid

Quaid is a solid football type guy.  In Everybody’s All American he did more running than anything, but he definitely looked the part as an aging quarterback in Any Given Sunday.  Also, he definitely looked like he knew how to pitch in The Rookie.

Woody Harrelson

Don’t get me wrong, Harrelson had an ugly looking jump shot in White Men Can’t Jump.  However, he’s got great dribbling skills and certainly has a ton of coordination when playing hoops.  Wesley Snipes wasn’t nearly as good.  Although I have to say Snipes was the man in Major League and he’s phenomenal with martial arts.

Dennis Haysbert

You all know him as president Palmer from 24 but Haysbert is the man that played Pedro Cerrano in Major League.  P.S. Haysbert was also in the movie Mr. Baseball as a…baseball player.  Haysbert’s got a great throwing style and his swing is certainly Major League worthy.

Duane Martin

Remember the movie Above the Rim?  Well Martin did play college hoops so maybe this is a little biased.  Still though, it’s a pleasure to watch a guy who knows how to play the game.  Martin was also in White Men Can’t Jump.

Derek Luke

In Friday Night Lights he was the famed running back Boobie Miles, and in Glory Road he played Bobby Joe Hill.  Luke has solid athletic skills and definitely has coordination on the court and field.

Sylvester Stallone or Carl Weathers

I was trying to think of boxing and Stallone definitely throws punches with a ton of coordination.  Weathers was actually a football player but he’s got a ridiculous amount of coordination as well.  I’d like to see if Weathers could play all sports.  I’ll bet he could.  You could also go with Wesley Snipes in the movie Streets of Gold for boxing prowess.

Maris Valainis

Jimmy Chitwood.  This guy’s got a prettier looking jumpshot than 99% of all players in basketball history.

*I’m sure I’ve left out some actors but these ten are pretty damned coordinated.

Men might be the oft leading candidates for the bad-ass heroes in films, but women have had their share of butt-kicking screen time as well. Here are the top ten Bad Ass Women of all time.

10. Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991)

Skynet, the 21st century computer waging a losing war on humans sends a second terminator back in time to destroy the leader of the human resistance while he is still a boy. His mother is the only one who knows of the existence of the Terminators, human-like robots that exist only to kill and are nearly indestructible, and she, the boy’s mother, is currently in a state mental hospital because of her ‘delusions’. A second protector is sent back to the past by the Human resistance to protect John Connor, their future leader, at all costs. All in order to protect her son, the future leader of the resistance against the machines, Sarah kicks a sizable amount of ass.

9. Lori Petty as Tank Girl (Rebecca) TANK GIRL (1995)

Tank Girl (Rebecca) and her friends are the only remaining citizens living in the wasteland that is Earth, where all the remaining water is controlled by Water and Power, the mega corporation/government that runs the territory. While incarcerated at W + P, Tank Girl and her new friend Jet Girl break out and steal… a tank and a jet. After meeting some mutant kangaroo/humans, and rescuing her little girl (adopted by her friends), the kangaroos and the girls kick Water and Powers’ ass. Based on a comic series, it tends to take a more comedic approach to the subject, but there is little doubt that Tank Girl kicks ass.

8. Michelle Yeoh & Zhang Ziyi as Yu Shu Lien & Jen Yu CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON (2000)

Wo hu cang long (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) is a timeless story that takes place in QING China when miracles were credible and spirits and gods were present in man’s world. It is not unbelievable that zen warriors float through the air, skim the water and battle in trees and on rooftops. Pain, revenge and duty are the stuff that bind us in this world and are the main plot line of the movie, but in the afterlife love and faith linger on. Along with Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat), the ladies in this movie are graceful and downright deadly.

7. Uma Thurman as Beatrix Kiddo (The Bride) KILL BILL VOL. I-II (2003-4)

The lead character, called ‘The Bride,’ was a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, lead by her lover ‘Bill.’ Upon realizing she was pregnant with Bill’s child, ‘The Bride’ decided to escape her life as a killer. She fled to Texas, met a young man, and on the day of their wedding was gunned down by an angry and jealous Bill (with the assistance of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad). Four years later, ‘The Bride’ wakes from a coma, and discovers her baby is gone. She, then, decides to seek revenge upon the five people who destroyed her life and killed her baby. Beatrix absolutely goes all out as she individually hunts and eliminates every member of the D.V.A.S., finally getting to Bill, her desired target. Kicks ass!

6. Carrie Fischer as Princess Leia THE STAR WARS TRILOGY (1977-1983)

Snide, snarky, and about as un-princess-like as one could be, Leia Organa takes charge of her rag-tag rescue band from the moment Han, Luke, and Chewie release her from the cell block. Defiant, cock-sure, and a natural leader, Leia eventually safely delivers the Death Star plans to the Rebel resistance via R2-D2 and sets into motion the utter collapse and downfall of the Galactic Empire. If there was any Imperial ass to kick, Leia was there with blaster in hand. And was there ever any doubt that she’d eventually hook up with a galactic smuggler?

5. Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft TOMB RAIDER (2001-03)

Based on the popular video game series, Tomb Raider features the adventures of Lara Croft an antiquities hunter-for-hire. She travels to exotic locales in search of treasures and artifacts in the catacombs of ancient tombs and ruins remaining from age-old empires. A female Indiana Jones, Croft’s expeditions are always chock full of action, danger, intrigue, suspense and her omnipresent knack for defying death in skin-tight outfits. Looking good and kicking ass is a winning combination.

4. Sheri Moon Zombie as Baby Firefly HOUSE OF A 1000 CORPSES & THE DEVILS REJECTS (2003-05)

The sequel to ‘House of 1000 Corpses’, ‘The Devil’s Rejects,’ takes place a few months later with the Texas State Police making a full-scale attack against the murderous Firefly family residence for the 1,000+ murders and disappearances of the past several years. But three of the family members escape, including Otis, Baby Firefly and Baby’s father Captain Spaulding. The evil trio go on a road trip, leaving dozens of mangled bodies in their wake. Evading a massive Texas Rangers dragnet as well as a group of equally murderous bounty hunters led by Ken Dwyer (the brother of a policeman Mamma Firefly killed in ‘House of…’) who’s obsessed with finding the deadly killers, the surviving Firefly clan gather at a run-down amusement park owned by Captain Spaulding’s half-brother, Charlie Altamont, who offers them shelter and a new base of operations for their killing spree as Sheriff Dwyer, the Texas Rangers, the FBI and others slowly close in. Though gruesome and sadistic, Baby kicks all kinds of ass.

3. Devon Aoki as Miho SIN CITY (2005)

“Sin City” is infested with criminals, crooked cops and sexy dames, some searching for vengeance, some for redemption and others, both. The film incorporates storylines from three of Miller’s graphic novels including ‘Sin City,’ which launched the long-running, critically acclaimed series, as well as ‘That Yellow Bastard’ and ‘The Big Fat Kill.’ Where Hartigan, a cop with a bum ticker and a vow to protect stripper Nancy. Marv, the outcast misanthrope, is on a mission to avenge the death of his one true love, Goldie; there’s also Dwight, the clandestine love of Shelley who spends his nights defending Gail and her Old Towne girls from Jackie Boy, a dirty cop with a penchant for violence. Miho resides in Old Towne and with one word from Gail, the appointed matriarch, Miho dispatches raiders and men alike with razor-sharp accuracy. She kicks serious ass.

2. Mila Jovovich as Alice RESIDENT EVIL, RE: APOCALYPSE, RE: EXTINCTION (2002-07)

A virus has escaped into a secret facility called “The Hive,” which chemically turns the staff (Umbrella Corporation) into man-eating zombies and releasing the mutated lab animals that they were studying. The complex computer (The Red Queen) shuts down the base to prevent further infection. The parent corporation sends in a military unit, where they meet Alice who has only a short time to remember who she is and the state of her mission, and is suffering from amnesia due to the nerve gas released into her bathroom. The military must shut down the computer (The Red Queen) and make their way back out of the Hive. Fighting their way past zombies, mutants and The Red Queen before the T-Virus escapes and effects the rest of the world. Its up to Alice to defeat the virus, if she loses, we all lose. And yes, she defeats them so thoroughly through three well-made films, kicking zombie ass all the way through.

1. Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley ALIEN, ALIENS, ALIEN 3, ALIEN RESURRECTION (1979-97)

Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the sole survivor of the alien attack on the mining ship Nostromo, awakens half a century later when she is found by a salvage ship. The welcome given to her by the “Company” officials is far from warm, since they refuse to believe her discovery of alien existence and strip her off her flight officer’s license. Ripley also discovers, much to her horror, that the planet LV-426 where her crew had encountered an alien species for the first time, is now colonized by the company. But when all contact from the planet is lost Ripley is called back into action again as an advisor to a team of tough space marines with lots of firepower. To get rid of her recurrent nightmares about the alien creature, Ripley prepares for a final battle with the monsters – and this time, there are hundreds of them out there. Going from unwitting recipient to a monsters attack, to a vicious military scourge, to a prisoner, to an alien/human hybrid, Ellen Ripley kicks ass for 200 solid years. The very best of the best.

Kristin Kreuk in Street Fighter

Kristin Laura Kreuk (born December 30, 1982) is a Canadian actress. She is known for her roles on the Canadian television series teen soap Edgemont and on the American television series Smallville in which she starred as Lana Lang.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is an upcoming film and the second live-action film based on the Street Fighter series of video games. It follows the quest of Street Fighter character Chun-Li, who will be portrayed by Smallville star Kristin Kreuk.

The story follows Chun Li’s personal history and her journey for justice. The film co-stars Neal McDonough as M. Bison, Chris Klein as Charlie, Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog, and Black Eyed Peas singer Taboo as Vega.

Rick Yune was originally cast as Gen but has been replaced by Robin Shou, who portrayed Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat films. The film is scheduled for release in February 27, 2009.

Read full Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li review