Kristen Stewart as a warrior Snow White and Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen

"A lot of hot hype has come out of the 2011 Comic-Con, but as the dust settles in San Diego, perhaps the most exciting movie (at least for us at SheWired) promoted was Snow White and the Huntsman.

Starring Twilight’s Kristen Stewart as a warrior Snow White and Oscar-winning film goddess Charlize Theron as a very wicked (and stunning!) Queen, the first official photos of the cast in costume were released by Universal in conjunction with their Comic-Con panel. The stars promised this version is far from a fairy tale dream.

“I wasn’t initially jumping at the chance [to play Snow White] but she is one of the most heavy-handed, sincere [characters], seriously doesn’t let her heart cloud her mind,” Stewart told fans when asked why she was drawn to the role. “Also, I get to have a sword and stuff.”

"Trust me, she's dark,” she promised of her Evil Queen.
“I'm preparing to play a serial killer. Watch out, Kristen." "And I'm ready for it, bitch!" Stewart shot back. "Let's go!" Source: www.shewired.com




Pattinson -- who plays chivalrous vampire Edward Cullen -- describes being taken by surprise on the set of the first Twilight film in 2008, when a fan handed her 3-month-old baby over to a mystified Rob.

Pattinson, at first, thought she wanted him to autograph her baby. But in fact, her request was even weirder.
"I didn't really understand the reality of the situation at this point, that anybody would actually see this picture", Rob admits. "So there's a picture somewhere on the Internet of me biting this baby". "You bit the baby?" exclaims Kristen. "That's so weird".


Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart attending Comic Con at San Diego, on 21st July 2011

After trying to sheepishly justify his action ("I didn't actually touch it!"), Pattinson cracks a joke to further provoke Stewart. "It's kind of a funny picture. The baby is so young, its entire head fits in my mouth", Pattinson deadpans, getting a laugh from his costar/girlfriend.

Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart in a promotional still of Twilight saga "Breaking Dawn"

Robert Pattinson on the set of "Cosmopolis", June 2011

As for Pattinson, he'll be appearing next in the period piece Bel Ami, as an amoral cad who climbs the social ladder by seducing powerful men's wives. And he's sporting that weird half-shaved hairdo for the recently wrapped David Cronenberg thriller Cosmopolis, just in case he needs to do some re-shoots.
Source: www.ivillage.com

"The Noir Thriller": pessimism epitomised in The Waste Land

"Murder. Lust. Greed. Despair . . . And Literary Criticism. No wonder they called it the Waste Land" -Martin Rowson, "The Waste Land"

"The noir thriller is one of the most durable popular expressions of the kind of modernist pessimism epitomised in The Waste Land. This relationship is wittily suggested by Martin Rowson’s comic-book version of the poem, conflating Eliot’s vision of modern life with the quest of a hard-boiled detective".

Lizabeth Scott appeared in 21 films between 1945 and 1957, mostly for Hal B. Wallis and Paramount, and was promoted by the studio as a Lauren Bacall or Veronica Lake-type.

The underlying ‘message’ of dangerous woman films is often that ‘the male ideal of self-sufficiency is not only impossible to achieve but in many ways self-destructive’: women are ‘merely catalysts, and in the end it is often the men who are destructive to themselves’.

Between 1942 and 1949, there were 11 Woolrich novels or stories made into films, the protagonists of which include a man hypnotised into thinking he is a murderer (Fear in the Night) and a mind-reader who predicts his own death (Night Has a Thousand Eyes), as well as alcoholics, amnesiacs, hunted men and fall guys.

Humphrey Bogart and Lizabeth Scott in "Dead Reckoning" (1947) by John Cromwell

Private eye films continued, of course, to be made, but if investigative figures were included, they tended to become increasingly vulnerable and flawed –for example, Bogart’s confused, hunted Rip Murdoch in John Cromwell’s Dead Reckoning (1947), Robert Mitchum as the traumatised Jeff Markham in Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947), Edmund O’Brien as the dying protagonist hunting his own killers in Rudolph Maté’s D.O.A. (1950)

Gene Tierney in "Laura" by Otto Preminger (1944)

In 1946, echoing the Gallimard label, the French critics Nino Frank and Jean-Pierre Chartier wrote the two earliest essays to identify a departure in film-making, the American ‘film noir’. Although they were not thought of in the United States as films noirs (the French label did not become widely known there until the 1970s), numerous postwar Hollywood movies seemed to confirm the French judgement that a new type of American film had emerged, very different from the usual studio product and capable of conveying an impression ‘of certain disagreeable realities that do in truth exist’.

The Hollywood releases of 1945 included Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour, Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce and three films noirs directed by Fritz Lang – Ministry of Fear, Scarlet Street and The Woman in the Window. In 1946 David Goodis published the first of his crime novels, Dark Passage, and Delmer Daves began filming it; in the spring and summer months of 1946 alone, Hollywood released Blue Dahlia (George Marshall), Dark Corner (Henry Hathaway), The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett), Gilda (Charles Vidor), The Killers (Robert Siodmak) and The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks). In the same year Gallimard brought out French translations of two of Horace McCoy’s novels, the first American novels to be included in the Série Noire.


Lizabeth Scott and Charlton Heston in "Dark City" (1950)

"Hollywood, however, constrained not only by the Hays Code but by conventional expectations about the ultimate repression of the sexual, aggressive woman, tended to package the femme fatale narrative in ways that limited the ‘progressiveness’ of the cycle and confirmed popular prejudices by figuring the defeat of the independent female and the reassertion of male control.

Novelists were free to play much more extensively against stereotype, often setting up plots that initially lead us to judge according to stereotype and then reversing our expectations" -"The Noir Thriller" (Crime Files) by Lee Horsley (2009)

Frank Sinatra and Doris Day in "Young at heart"

Frank Sinatra & Doris Day in a scene from "Young at Heart" (1954)

In ‘Young at Heart’ (1954) a remake of ‘Four Daughters’ (1938) and ‘Always in My Heart’ (1942), Doris Day plays Laurie, the eldest of the Tuttle sisters, all eager to fall head over heels in love and sing away the day. They travel around as a singing quartet with their father and fear that their answers are somewhere out there in the big wide world away from the small homestead.

That is until Alex (Gig Young) walks into their lives and brings piano man Barney Sloan (Frank Sinatra) with him. Surly Sloan seems a fish out of water amongst the happiness of the Tuttle existence, but this only serves as a mission for the ever so happy Laurie to place a smile on his grim face and change his outlook to the world.

Dorothy Malone as Fran Tuttle, Doris Day as Laurie Tuttle, Elisabeth Fraser as Amy Tuttle and Robert Keith as Gregory Tuttle

"You get Doris Day delivering a range of delightful, sweet numbers such as "Ready, Willing and Able", "Hold Me in Your Arms" and "There's a Rising Moon for Every Falling Star" whilst Sinatra in fitting with his darker character gives us more bluesy almost down beat songs such as "Someone to Watch Over Me", "Just One of Those Things" and also "Young at Heart" which he duets with Doris Day on. The contrast of music makes it quite interesting and each song is perfectly pitched to fit in with the emotions of the scene.

Performance wise well Doris Day is as delightful as always, perky, fun loving and optimistic yet she also gets chance to show that she is more than capable as an actress. There are scenes within "Young at Heart" which allow Doris Day to show her range of emotion and in certain more serious scenes it's all quite touching and even realistic as she emits sadness.

Frank Sinatra plays Barney Sloan in "Young at heart" (1954) directed by Gordon Douglas

Alongside Day is Frank Sinatra cast as a complete opposite to the perky Laurie, he's on a permanent downer, the glass is always half empty and as such Sinatra is surprisingly convincing, delivering the believability of someone who just can't get a break". Source: www.themoviescene.co.uk

Frank Sinatra with Doris Day and Lauren Bacall at the Sands in 1955

Jake Gyllenhaal out for a workout in Los Feliz

Jake Gyllenhaal out for a workout in Los Feliz, CA, on 26th July 2011

Jake Gyllenhaal and sister Maggie attend Stephen Gyllenhaal's wedding ceremony in Hawaii

"The spotlight is usually on him, but Jake Gyllenhaal had to take a back seat as he attended his father's wedding.
Sister Maggie, who is also a Hollywood star, took a sidestep so their old man was centre of attention on his big day.
The informal ceremony took place on the beach in front of just 30 guests.

Film director Stephen Gyllenhaal tied the knot on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii with film maker and professor Kathleen Man.
Man is a Hawaii native who graduated from the Punahou School, where President Obama went to high school, in 1992".
Jake Gyllenhaal holds his father Stephen Gyllenhaal in his arms during the wedding ceremonyin Ohau, Hawaii, on 23rd July 2011

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Olivia Wilde in LA Times Magazine, July 2011

Olivia Wilde in LA Times Magazine, July 2011

First look of Kristen Stewart as Snow White

First look of Kristen Stewart as Snow White