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.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would