STAR spotters will be spoilt for choice this week as a army of American television stars arrive in Sydney to spruik their shows.

The US writers strike has forced production giant Warner Bros to shift its annual press junket for the small screen’s next big hits from Los Angeles - to Sydney.

Ten of the hottest new TV stars, along with journalists from around the world, are flying in for a frantic round of interviews.

Hollywood’s loss is Channel Nine’s gain, as the shows are all due to be shown on the network this year.

Dropping in will be Thomas Dekker and Summer Glau from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a small-screen sequel to the hit film Terminator 2.

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Do American audiences need their TV characters to be American?
by Eric Goldman

February 7, 2008 - Last summer at the big TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour, as the cast and creators of all the new network series took to the stage one by one, a popular topic among the assembled journalists was the notable amount of British and Australian actors who were starring in new shows. On top of that, what was perhaps the most interesting thing about this point was that these actors were all playing American characters.

I’m definitely not saying, “How dare these foreign actors take our American roles!” Rather I simply think it’s a bit odd that so many times, these actors (in most cases, very talented people mind you) are being asked to play an American, regardless of whether it’s necessary for the role.

So who am I speaking of? Well, the list includes House’s Hugh Laurie (English), Bionic Woman’s Michelle Ryan (British), Moonlight’s Alex O’Loughlin (Australian) and Sophia Myles (British), Journeyman’s Kevin McKidd (Scottish), Pushing Daisies’ Anna Friel (British), Chuck’s Yvonne Strahovski (Australian), Terminator’s Lena Heady (British), Gossip Girl’s Ed Westwick (British), Jericho’s Lennie James (British), Dirt’s Ian Hart (British), The Riches’ Eddie Izzard (British) and Minnie Driver (British), Nip/Tuck’s Julian McMahon (Australian) and Joely Richardson (British), Eli Stone’s Jonny Lee Miller (British) and The Wire’s Dominic West (British). Quite a list, huh? And no doubt I’m forgetting some people…

Read the whole article here!

Paramount Vantage acquisition finally set to bow
By ADAM DAWTREY
After a year in legal limbo following its splashy $7.5 million acquisition by Paramount Vantage at Sundance ‘07, “Son of Rambow” is finally ready for release.

Vantage has reached a compromise with StudioCanal in their tug of love over this quirky little British movie by writer/director Garth Jennings.

Vantage has sold certain U.K. rights to StudioCanal’s Optimum Releasing; and the French major has dropped its objections over the pic’s use of material from “Rambo: First Blood,” which it owns as part of the Carolco library.

Optimum, whose topper Will Clarke was after the movie from the start, will now send it out wide in early April. Vantage goes a month later in the U.S. with a platform release. Both hope it could be a leftfield Brit break-out in the vein of “Billy Elliot.”

It was a tough call for Vantage to give up the movie in its home territory — where it stands the greatest chance of success, and where its performance will set the bar for Par’s distribution in the rest of the world.

“Everything we did, we did because we love the movie and we want to get it out as soon as we can,” explains Vantage prexy Nick Meyer.

“We didn’t acquire the movie to hand over a key territory to someone else,” he admits. “But I’ve personally worked with Will Clarke for 10 or 11 years, and we have an inherent trust and rapport with Optimum. We wouldn’t have been comfortable with this otherwise.”

For Jennings and his producer Nick Goldsmith, it’s a positive outcome to a rollercoaster journey, during which they sometimes wondered if their passion project would ever see light of day.

“Son of Rambow” is a coming-of-age comedy set one rural British summer in the early ’80s, about two misfit boys inspired by a pirate video of “Rambo” to shoot their own home movie.

It wasn’t an easy concept to get financed. Jennings and Goldsmith first made their names with inventive pop promos under the moniker Hammer & Tongs, then had a mixed success with their big-budget feature debut “A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” for Disney.

“Son of Rambow” was a very different proposition — naturalistic and very personal, about kids but aimed at an adult audience, with an unknown cast. No-one in the U.K. would touch it.

“Garth and I were very surprised that no British financiers were willing to back the film, in fact we felt quite disheartened by it,” recalls Goldsmith. “We truly believed that we were making what would be a highly commercial film, but completely British at its heart.”

Hengameh Panahi of French sales outfit Celluloid Dreams rode to the rescue. She bankrolled the $8 million budget, pre-selling Japan, Germany and French TV.

StudioCanal agreed to license the “Rambo” clips, but there were still some intellectual copyright issues unresolved when the movie bowed at Sundance. Celluloid had talks with Optimum for U.K. rights — but insiders say those broke down in acrimony just before the fest.

The Sundance crowd of industry insiders and movie geeks proved to the perfect audience for the movie’s cinematic nostalgia. After a bidding war, Panahi and Frank Wuliger, the L.A.-based agent of Jennings and Goldsmith, brokered the richest sale of the fest to Vantage for all remaining worldwide rights.

StudioCanal promptly lodged a lawsuit. It alleged the movie exceeded its clip deal and infringed upon its intellectual property, and asserted a prior claim on the U.K. rights. After months of wrangling, the judge eventually threw out everything except the distribution issue, which he left Vantage and StudioCanal to settle between themselves.

It was hard for Jennings and Goldsmith to move onto anything else while the fate of “Rambow” hung in the balance. But the positive was that these two American and French titans were fighting over a hard-to-market, small-scale, very British pic because both believed in its potential and were desperate to have it.

Maybe, in the end, the movie has ended up in the best hands for it. Clarke himself was a childhood Rambo fan who grew up to become one of the U.K.’s most admired distributors.

” ‘Son of Rambow’ is sort of Will’s life. The kid in the movie is even called Will,” says Clarke’s sidekick Danny Perkins. “It’s a great film, and we’re desperate to make it work.”

Source: variety.com

Interesting article, definitely worth the read! Credit to Gossip Boys! Source is given below! Click “continue reading” for the article!

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Viewers can now spend time with Serena van der Woodsen, Blair Waldorf, Nate Archibald, Jenny Humphrey, and Chuck Bass as Gossip Girl welcomes fans in the virtual world of Second Life called The Upper East Side.

Inside the Gossip Girl neighborhood, players will be able live the life of the show’s characters as they experience the same parties and catch a glimpse of the same streets and hot spots featured on the television series. Players will also be able to build customized avatar, attend various dance parties with friends, play Gossip Girl games, watch clips, and watch full episodes of the show.

In true Gossip Girl style, this virtual world also has a list of upcoming events scheduled on a weekly events, consisting of numerous parties and social events.

Last week’s calendar of social activities included checker’s night on Nathan’s roof, hide and seek at the park, coffee at Le Bilboquet, a yacht party, slug races, winter masquerade at the ballroom, a bonfire, Gossip Girl trivia at the Asian Garden, a fashion workshop, a brunch meeting, and a concert under the stars, just to name a few.

For this week’s schedule of events, fans can visit The CW’s official website where they can also download the Second Life game software, go through a brief orientation of the virtual world and start having fun at The Upper East Side.

Meanwhile, those who have missed the first season of Gossip Girls can watch repeat episodes of the TV series every every Monday at 8pm on The CW. Gossip Girl stars Blake Lively as Serena Van Der Woodsen, Chace Crawford as Nate, Ed Westwick as Chuck, Kelly Rutherford as Lily, Kristen Bell as the voice of Gossip Girl, Leighton Meester as Blair, Matthew Settle as Rufus, Penn Badgley as Dan, and Taylor Momsen as Jenny.

Source: Buddytv.com

The CW Network invites die-hard fans and new viewers to catch the hit freshman drama “Gossip Girl” from the very beginning with a special, 90-minute “Gossip Girl Revealed,” on Monday, January 28 (8:00-9:30 p.m. ET), hosted by the stars of “Gossip Girl” and featuring the series premiere as well as exclusive, never-before-seen bonus material.

In addition to airing the pilot episode in its entirety, The CW will offer an enhanced “Gossip Girl” experience to passionate devotees and the uninitiated wanting to see how the phenomenon began.

During the broadcast, viewers will go behind the scenes for in-depth conversations with TV’s hottest cast, including Blake Lively (”Serena van der Woodsen”), Leighton Meester (”Blair Waldorf”), Penn Badgley (”Dan Humphrey”), Chace Crawford (”Nate Archibald”), Taylor Momsen (”Jenny Humphrey”), Ed Westwick (”Chuck Bass”), Kelly Rutherford (”Lily van der Woodsen”), Matthew Settle (”Rufus Humphrey”) and Jessica Szohr (”Vanessa”).

Additional bonus material includes never-before-seen footage from the series, profiles of the players and the wannabes in the “Gossip Girl” world, featurettes on the “Gossip Girl” fashion and music, and much more.

Source: starpulse.com

The CW show Gossip Girl is taking a fresh stab at reruns.

The CW Network has announced that it will begin airing the first season of Gossip Girl, but the reruns will kick off with a 90-minute special dubbed Gossip Girl Revealed on Monday January 28.

The special will air the pilot and will also offer some DVD-like bonus features. The special will be hosted by the cast of the show and will also include interviews with the cast members Blake Lively (”Serena van der Woodsen”), Leighton Meester (”Blair Waldorf”), Penn Badgley (”Dan Humphrey”), Chace Crawford (”Nate Archibald”), Taylor Momsen (”Jenny Humphrey”), Ed Westwick (”Chuck Bass”), Kelly Rutherford (”Lily van der Woodsen”), Matthew Settle (”Rufus Humphrey”) and Jessica Szohr (”Vanessa”).

The show will also include never-before-seen footage of the show and will feature profiles of the characters as well as featurettes on the fashion and music of the show.

Gossip Girl Revealed will air on the CW on January 28 at 8 p.m. and the rest of the season will air on the same day and timeslot for the duration of the season.

Source: movieweb.com

From Bloody-Disgusting.com!

SYNOPSIS

A young woman, Marnie Watson, is granted early release from her prison sentence for manslaughter (killing her husband – a violent NYC cop – in self defense) on condition she wear an electronic ankle bracelet and remain within her home, effectively under house arrest, for the remainder of her sentence. Her late husband’s partner keeps tabs on her from a patrol car parked across the street, hoping she’ll violate probation and he can send her back to prison. But the 100-foot radius her ankle bracelet allows isn’t the worst of her problems. Her dead husband –now a malevolent ghost–is still in the house, where he died — intent on savage revenge.

Here is the movie poster! (It will be added in our gallery a.s.a.p! I’m too tired to do it now lol )

This is an article of Chace, but here is the bit where he mentions Ed!

Everyone always ask what do i think about the cast. I love every single one of them, and I currently live with Ed Westwick (chuck from GG)We love to catch concerts at Central Park, and we spend our downtime watching football game.

Click here to read the whole article! I must say, it is a nice read!

In last week’s Gossip Girl, Chuck reached a new level of cruelty, shooting down Blair at the bar (Leighton Meester) as she was suffering the consequences of being the latest social outcast. In an interview with cwsourcetv.net, actor Ed Westwick shed some light on his alter-ego’s devilish personality.

“Up to that point he’s caught up in that infatuation – that blindness that they can get together. He’s oblivious to the fact that she’s his best friend’s girlfriend,” Westwick explained. “When he has the falling out with Nate [Chace Crawford], it’s kind of like, ‘S**t, this is my best friend; we’ve been best friends since childhood, and we’ve let a girl get between us’… That’s what he’s let happen. In that scene he’s not blaming himself; he’s kind of blaming her… In that last scene, he went back to what he does best.”

To be fair, Ed Westwick’s Chuck wasn’t always so harsh towards the brunette beauty, who he had pursued fervently despite the circumstances. Their relationship, although not exactly ideal, has become a drawing factor for many viewers.

“I think it kind of adds an interesting angle in regards to the whole Dan [Penn Badgley] and Serena [Blake Lively] thing,” Westwick said. “This triangle adds the kind of scandalous… element to the show,which is great. I think people kind of enjoy a scandal and they always say sex sells. I think the Nate/Chuck/Blair thing adds the more shady elements.”

That said, it’s clear that things are no longer well between Chuck and Blair, and even Westwick is uncertain of the two characters’ future as a couple.

“Everyone always says opposites attract, but they’re similar kinds of personalities. I don’t know – it’s kind of one of those dangerous chemical reactions,” he said. “I think they’re both young people; their personalities are kind of forming. When I was 17 or 18, I changed a great deal in a year. I think at that age you’re still very impressionable, very easily influenced. Who knows, but they’re both strong people.”

Last week’s broadcast of Gossip Girl was the final pre-strike episode, which means fans will have to wait until the strike is over to watch new installments of Gossip Girl.

Source: Buddytv.com