Give Robert Downey Jr. a glass of scotch and a suit made of metal, and lines will form around the block. But cast him as a newspaper columnist who befriends a cello-playing homeless man, and these days the only crowds gathering will be for the movie playing next door.
Ben Stiller had no problem handling Christian Bale and an army of robots this Memorial Day weekend. "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" cruised to an easy first-place finish of $70 million over the four-day weekend, according to early estimates by Hollywood.com Box Office.
Usually, when characters in a movie are one-dimensional, that's not a good thing. But in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," the waxworks figures who come to life after sundown aren't crassly sketchy or dramatically lacking. They're one-dimensional, all right, but knowingly, delightfully so.
Give Robert Downey Jr. a glass of scotch and a suit made of metal, and lines will form around the block. But cast him as a newspaper columnist who befriends a cello-playing homeless man, and these days the only crowds gathering will be for the movie playing next door.
Ben Stiller had no problem handling Christian Bale and an army of robots this Memorial Day weekend. "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" cruised to an easy first-place finish of $70 million over the four-day weekend, according to early estimates by Hollywood.com Box Office.
Usually, when characters in a movie are one-dimensional, that's not a good thing. But in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," the waxworks figures who come to life after sundown aren't crassly sketchy or dramatically lacking. They're one-dimensional, all right, but knowingly, delightfully so.
If you're a collection of animals trying to travel the many thousands of miles from the island of Madagascar to the island of Manhattan, it's fastest to fly -- but then you risk crashing on the continent of Africa, as happens in "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa."
Something feels strangely familiar about Alex the lion in "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa," and it's not just because we moviegoing humans met that animated animal, voiced by Ben Stiller, just three years ago in the original "Madagascar."
It is hard to imagine that DreamWorks and Paramount, the companies behind "Tropic Thunder," did not foresee some sort of reaction from activist groups.
I am so proud of everyone who turned out to Monday's premiere of the film "Tropic Thunder" to protest its unfortunate and humiliating portrayal of people with intellectual disabilities.
• Reese Witherspoon and Jake
Gyllenhaal, sharing an early breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien in Brentwood,
Calif. Walking in with their arms around each other, the casually dressed
pair shared a table for two in the back, ordering coffee, an omelette and fruit. The pair talked and traded sections of the Los Angeles Times at the table. Later that night, the couple was spotted again – this time at West Hollywood's Chateau Marmont where they celebrated Robert Downey Jr.'s 43rd birthday with Cameron Diaz, Gerard Butler, Ben Stiller and more.
Hollywood may not have a Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Shrek or Capt. Jack Sparrow on its upcoming lineup. Yet the fall and holiday schedule does offer filmgoers a chance to catch up with some familiar characters, stories and movie-making teams.
DECONSTRUCTING THE DOW: Nice second quarter, right? S&P up 5.8 percent, best tally since Q4 of '06. Naz up 7.5 percent, best since Q4 '04. And as for the Dow, it truly rocked! Up 8.5 percent, best since way back in '03. Why did the big daddy index rule? You would think the answer would be one simple phrase: Sheer energy! (I love energy - tee hee.)
An American Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale to San Juan, Puerto Rico has been diverted after a passenger found a suspicious note written on a napkin behind her tray table, an FBI spokeswoman told CNN.
The movie-going masses on Friday will learn at last the dark story behind Bruce Wayne's transformation into a masked crusader battling evil in Gotham. Hollywood is hoping "Batman Begins" is more about an end -- to what could soon be the longest box office slump in twenty years.
If you thought Dustin Hoffman was a riot in "Meet the Fockers," the inevitable sequel to "Meet the Parents," wait till you see him acting even less restrained in the outtakes.
The TV cop show "Starsky & Hutch," which aired from 1975 through 1979, was a goofy mixture of gritty street crime and tongue-in-cheek humor. Now, Ben Stiller (Starsky) and Owen Wilson (Hutch) try to follow in the footsteps of Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul.
The yoga backlash has officially begun. It seems that trendsetting sports aficionados have taken to a significantly more violent pastime: dodgeball. The sport started gaining popularity in Los Ange...
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