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.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built