A publicist for the Bourne Identity actor Matt Damon told a magazine that after dating for two years, Damon popped the question to Luciana Barroso "shortly before Labor Day." Damon's publicist, Jennifer Allen, didn't immediately return a call from The Associated Press. The couple hasn't set a wedding date. It would be Damon's first marriage. Barroso has a daughter, Alexa, from a previous relationship. Damon's screen credits also include The Brothers Grimm, Ocean's Eleven and The Talented Mr. Ripley. He shared a screenplay Academy Award with his friend Ben Affleck for 1997's Good Will Hunting.
Controversial director Michael Moore is seriously considering making a movie about the government lapses that surrounded Hurricane Katrina according to US media.
A Web site quoted a source close to Moore as saying that the issue "has all the elements that made Fahrenheit 911 such a powerful film ... the political outrage, the human suffering and the incredible footage".
PHOTO: AP
Moore has already lashed out at the way that the administration of US President George W. Bush handled the disaster, posting a scathing critique of the federal response on his own Web site.
"There is much to be said and done about the manmade annihilation of New Orleans, caused NOT by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in the past four-and-a-half-years," he wrote.
"Do not listen to anyone who says we can discuss all this later. No, we can't. Our country is in an immediate state of vulnerability. More hurricanes, wars, and other disasters are on the way, and a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show."
Tackling the role of the nation's chief in an altogether different manner, actor Leonardo DiCaprio is to portray former US president Theodore Roosevelt in a biopic of the leader to be directed by Martin Scorsese according to a trade paper.
The movie will be based on Edmund Morris' Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and will chronicle the leader's rise from New York politics to a military leader and on to the White House, where he served from 1901 to 1909.
Scorcese and DiCaprio are currently filming the crime drama The Departed about the rise of the New York Irish mafia. They have previously made Gangs of New York and The Aviator.
In 2000, Roosevelt was voted the fourth-best president in US history by 60 American history professors.
"His life reads like a movie that requires a big bag of popcorn," screenwriter Nicholas Meyer said.
Also making it onto the list of favorites in the US is former child star Shirley Temple Black who has been chosen to receive a life time achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild, the organization has announced.
Temple Black will receive the award in January, in recognition of her "inspirational contributions" to the entertainment world, said Screen Actors Guild President Melissa Gilbert.
Born Shirley Jane Temple on April 23, 1928 in Santa Monica, California, she made her screen debut in 1932 in What's to Do and was Hollywood's number-one box office draw from 1935 to 1938, when she headlined such hits as Curly Top, Captain January, Poor Little Rich Girl, Stowaway, Heidi and Little Miss Broadway.
And harking back to another bygone era, an untitled new musical featuring
OutKast duo Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton will be released by Universal Pictures, according to media reports.
The musical, financed by HBO Films, is set in a speakeasy in the South during prohibition and will feature an ensemble cast that includes Ving Rhames, Jackie Long, Patti LaBelle and Macy Gray.
It stars Benjamin as the house piano player and Patton as the lead performer and speakeasy manager trying to stave off gangsters who want a piece of the club.
The movie will include numerous tracks from OutKast's award-winning album Speakerboxx/The Love Below, but will also feature numerous new songs that will serve as OutKast's next album.
Johnny Depp, the chameleon-like actor who has played so many different roles that he may not have a self, says he's finally found a role he wants to stay in: the buccaneer Captain Jack Sparrow. Sequels frighten Depp, but he said the chance to reprise his role as the suave Sparrow in the next two editions of Pirates of the Caribbean was too delicious to pass up.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50