Now that all the principal castmembers of the newest sequel film The Twilight Saga: Eclipse have made their way to Vancouver, BC to begin production it’s time for the work to get underway … but before the grueling grind of movie making can get started, the assembled castmates – led by Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner — gathered for a fun sushi dinner party at a place called Miko Sushi in downtown Vancouver:

And so … the party officially gets underway. I presume the kiddies are hard at work on the movie starting today and will be hard at work for the weeks to come. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more pics of the cast chillin’ in Vancouver as production continues.

[Photo credit: INFdaily]

Okay … on the real, I’m not the biggest TomKat fan but even I have to admit that these new photos of the happy family laying in the grass in Melbourne, Australia (where Katie is working on a new film and very narrowly escaped with her life from a flaming car accident a couple of weeks ago) are just WAY TOO cute … behold:

They say you can’t improve on perfection but somehow the Cruise family always seem to find a way. The model family enjoyed another idyllic day out as they relaxed by the lake at Government House in Melbourne with daughter Suri today. As they cuddled up together, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and their adorable daughter looked every inch the poster image for the perfect life. Katie, 30, was taking a well-earned day off from working on her latest movie Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark, which she is filming in Australia. The family were reunited last weekend when Tom flew out to join Katie and Suri, bearing two dozen red roses for his wife. During his stay, the Hollywood star found time to take Suri to an aquarium, as well as going to an Australian Rules football match with Katie’s co-star Guy Pearce Tom, 47, is due to leave country tomorrow and the family were obviously keen to make the most of their precious time together. Dressed casually in jeans, a make-up less Katie cuddled three-year-old Suri under a blanket, while Tom looked lovingly on. As she snuggled up to her mother, all that was visible of the little girl were her grey trainers and mop of dark hair. Wearing dark shades, Tom looked the devoted Hollywood dad as the family larked around in the park.

OY … these are cute pics. I’m gonna take them at face value and not assume that the family was aware that they were being photographed (and therefore putting on a show) and just enjoy these pics as the insane cuteness that they are. They do make an adorable family, manufactured or not :)

[Photo credit: Splash News; Source]

Yesterday afternoon David and I met up with our friends Ollie and Caleb for a late afternoon showing of District 9 — a movie I’ve been dying to see for months now! The buzz about this film has been building for weeks now and I’ve only heard great things … but I did my best to stay away from any spoilers that might ruin the film for me before seeing it. The movie was featured on the cover of Entertainment Weekly magazine last week and hinted at a huge plot development that I didn’t want to know beforehand … from that moment on, I kept well away from all things District 9 until I could see the movie for myself. BE WARNED that my review below will contain spoilers of the movie so DO NOT READ IT if you want to remain unspoiled. In short, I loved the film and think many of y’all will love it, too:

Yes, District 9 lives up to the hype and is a very excellent movie … that being said, it works very well because of the involvement of Peter Jackson who produced the film and knows how to tell a tale with FX and make it look believable. To be honest, the best things about this film have been inspired by previous sci-fi movies and TV shows and owes a lot of its success to those films/movies. District 9 has shades of the films Enemy Mine (but set on Earth) and Starship Troopers (but in a serious way) and is similar to the TV shows Alien Nation (but set in South Africa and more gritty) and V (without the aliens having an advantage). Altho the film borrows from earlier projects, it does tell a mostly unique tale of its own in a very believable manner. There were a few plot developments that I hated but overall I loved the tale of a massive spaceship full of grotesque-looking refugee aliens being stranded on our planet. As you start to empathize with the aliens, or prawns as they are called in the film, you start to truly understand the brutality of the human race. To be completely honest, the sorts of things you see in the film would most likely happen on some scale if ever the same circumstance were to happen in real life (tho, I contend the US would have a great role in the exploitation … you know, should an alien race take refuge here on planet Earth, that is). The movie is much more than an alien movie … it’s a great commentary on social inequality. The ending leaves the movie wide open for a sequel, prolly called District 10, with will likely hit theaters in 3 years. District 9 is deffo one of my fave films of the year thus far.

After the movie, we made our way to Kitchen 24 in Hollywood for dinner and drinks and ended up calling it an early night. I fell asleep while reading last night. This afternoon, I’m making my way down to Huntington Beach to see Darion play beach volleyball for charity in shorty shorts. I’ll do my best to come back with photos :)

• Mariah Carey’s publicist claims that all of her recent cancellations and postponements are due to the “lot of moving parts to Mariah’s professional life”.
• Folks in New Jersey mistake Bob Dylan for a homeless man.
• Cops question George Michael after his car slams into another car.
• Mary J. Blige signs on as guest judge on American Idol.
• Gary, IN paid for Joe Jackson’s appearance at the hometown memorial for Michael Jackson.
• Sarah Chalke is pregs.
• Sonic Youth to perform on Gossip Girl?
• Joe Jonas of The Jonas Brothers is 20, Ben Affleck is 37, Debra Messing (Will and Grace) is 41 and Linda Ellerbee is 65 years old today. Click HERE to see who else is celebrating a birthday today.
• Radiohead ready to drop a new EP on Monday?

Here is this week’s batch of photos sent in by Pink is the new Blog readers — Lisa sends in a pic of the house that is used as Bella Swan’s house in the Twilight films which is currently wrapped in plastic and sits behind barbed wire in South Surrey, British Columbia — Allison and Jake from Louisville, NY send in a pic in front of the Welcome to Forks sign in Washington that they snapped on their recent 2-week West Coast trip that also included a visit to their first Comic-Con in San Diego — Ashley sends in a pic with her friends Tiffany, Peyton, Joe and Lee Ann at the 2009 New Orleans Red Dress Run — Amanda from Louisville, KY sends in a pic with a group of friends at Filene’s Basement Bridal Event in Chicago, IL, lovingly referred to as the Running of the Brides, where her BFF Katie managed to snag an amazing wedding dress for her upcoming June wedding to her fiancée Brad — Marvin sends in a pic from the Nine Inch Nails concert in Singapore earlier this week. NIN have completed the international portion of their tour and are heading home for the last round of NIN shows of the Wave Goodbye Tour:

Much, much love and thanks to you all for the great photos! Y’all look so happy and content, these are great photos! Please keep ‘em coming … I love receiving all y’all’s photos so SEND ‘EM IN please ;) xoxo

Now that Vampires are all the rage these days, it appears that someone got the bright idea to delve back into The Vampire Chronicles series written by the amazing Anne Rice in order to remake the movie Interview with the Vampire. As some of you may be well aware, Interview (which was written in 1976) was made into a movie in 1994 and starred Tom Cruise as Lestat de Lioncourt, Brad Pitt as Louis de Pointe du Lac and Kirsten Dunst as Claudia. In the wake of the success of Twilight, True Blood and (presumably) The Vampire Diaries, the plan is to bring Anne Rice’s vampires back to the big screen. And get this … Robert Downey, Jr. is rumored to star as Lestat:

We’ve been scrambling all week to confirm the following report, especially since it came from a very reliable source and is insanely logical considering the popularity of vampires these days. I guess something good has come from the success of Twilight as Bloody Disgusting has learned exclusively that Universal Pictures is looking to restart Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles, which tells the tale of the vampire Lestat Du Lioncort (through his narration), a nobleman-turned-vampire in the late 18th century. No word yet on how they plan on unrolling this franchise, but we did find out who they are talking with to replace Tom Cruise and Stuart Townsend. We have confirmed this afternoon that ROBERT DOWNEY JR. is in close talks to play the vampire Lestat in Universal Pictures’ The Vampire Chronicles, a newly rebooted franchise based on Anne Rice’s popular novels. Lestat appears as a major character in both motion picture adaptations of The Vampire Chronicles novels. In Neil Jordan’s 1994 film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, he is portrayed by Tom Cruise. In the 2002 film adaptation of Queen of the Damned, he is played by Stuart Townsend. The Vampire Chronicles is a series of novels by Anne Rice that revolves around the fictional character Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman made into a vampire in the 18th century.

OOOOOOH I’m so on the fence about this. On the one hand, I love Anne Rice and pretty much all of her books. I’m a big fan of The Vampire Chronicles and have loved Interview with the Vampire for many, many years. When it was made into a movie, I was quite surprised at how much I liked the film. Mind you, it was made in the days before Tom Cruise went crazy and was still a respectable actor. Interview is one of my fave Brad Pitt films. The sequel, Queen of the Damned (starring Stuart Townsend as Lestat) was laughable. That it was Aaliyah’s final film role is so tragic … mainly because the movie is not good at all. I kinda don’t want Hollywood to eff up Anne Rice’s characters again … but the thought of RDJ as Lestat is VERY intriguing. I guess we should hold off on getting too excited until things are confirmed all around but … I dunno. I’d hate for Interview with the Vampire to be exploited just to cash in on the fervent vampire craze that is going on these days (after all, let’s not forget the TERRRRRRIBLE Broadway musical titled Lestat that seemingly opened and closed in the same week). If they do it, I hope they do it right.

UPDATE: In response to an inquiry made by a fan, Anne Rice herself has issued a statement on the rumors of this Interview remake:

I cannot confirm this story. The negotiations are entirely in the hands of my agents. I know they are always working on setting up my books with good motion picture prospects. But I do not have anything specific to say on the matter right now. I am optimistic that we will see good movies in the future based on the Vampire Chronicles. When I do have news to report, I will post it on my website. I thank you for your interest. I can certainly confirm that the film of Queen of the Damned was a terrible disappointment to me and to many of the readers. Thank you for your letter. Anne Rice.

No surprise here. Rice admitted back in the 90’s that she had no say in the casting of Tom Cruise as Lestat in the original film (tho, she did love his performance after the fact). I wonder if RDJ will speak on this matter in the days to come.

[Source]

Here are a few really cute pics of Levi Alves McConaughey chillin’ all by himself (well, with his faithful pooch and his grandma Alves who was watching them both) at a beach in Malibu, CA. Clearly, the little tyke is a chip off the old block … he seems to love the beach as much as his daddy does:

Little Levi is soooo big! A year ago this week, Matthew and babymama Camila Alves were carrying Levi inside a sack when they brought him to the beach … and here he is, playing by himself. You may recall, Matthew picked up this little pooch for Levi back in November presumably cuz a boy needs a pet dog to grow up with. Now that the McConaughey-Alves family has another baby on the way, it looks like Levi won’t be the baby anymore … he’s gonna be the big brother. Clearly he is up for the task … being the loner that he already is ;)

[Photo credit: Splash News]