Now that the relationship between Paramount and Tom Cruise has soured, might the Mission: Impossible franchise be turned over to another of Hollywood's biggest stars? A rep for Brad Pitt tells the New York Daily News that rumblings of the fair-haired hunk heading up the next Mission are "totally made up".... Justin Long and Maggie Q are joining Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard, playing a sidekick for McClane and a world-class hacker, respectively.... Charlize Theron and Tommy Lee Jones are in talks to play a police detective and a father searching for his supposedly AWOL (but perhaps murdered) Iraq War-vet son in Crash director Paul Haggis' next project.
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Taryn Manning, Banshee
With her modest but pivotal role as Nola, pimp Terrence Howard's cornrowed pro in Hustle & Flow, Taryn Manning made folks sit up and notice. Now she's front and center in Oxygen's Banshee (premiering Saturday at 9:45 pm/ET), playing a tough-talkin' babe who steals cars with the greatest of ease. Alas, on one fateful night, she boosts the wrong ride, shifting into gear a deadly tale of revenge. TVGuide.com gave Manning a call — and caught this "tough gal" just as she was hollering down the hall to Mom.
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Night Stalker's Stuart Townsend and The X-Files' David Duchovny
Fans of one of the original ghostbusters and his most recent TV incarnation would be wise to scare up a copy of the new Night Stalker DVD boxed set hitting stores today, as it offers up not only four episodes never broadcast during the series' fall 2005 ABC run, but also revealing commentary from creator Frank Spotnitz. TVGuide.com seized this opportunity to ask Spotnitz about his Stalker's unfortunate fate, the frightfully fun show he's working on now and the next X-Files fi
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Criminal Minds guest star Amber Heard previews CW network's best bet.
Sometimes my job gets spooky. Minutes after I Q&A'd Tara Lipinski (re: an upcoming Malcolm in the Middle), a TV Guide colleague asks if I want to chat up Amber Heard, an ingénue-on-the-rise who plays a big role on tonight's Criminal Minds (9 pm/ET on CBS) but more interestingly got the edgy film role Lipinski just told me she had to pass on. Alpha Dog (in theaters May 12), though, is but one of the many gigs Heard is about to hit you with. In fact, you may be looking at the fledgling CW network's first breakout star. You be the judge.
TVGuide.com: Get this: I just interviewed Tara Lipinski, who opted to pass on a role in Alpha Dog because of the, um, required nudity. That's the gig you wound up with, right?Amber Heard: I definitely think it is. Th
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BonesWas it a purposeful inside joke that David Denman, who plays Roy on The Office, said that he and his fiancé have "finally set a date"? If so, I'm sure it would have definitely gone over Bones' head. She doesn't even know what the board game Clue is. How could you not know that? Was she not a kid before her parents went missing? And Booth was happy to point out more of her lack of knowledge about pop culture: "You know
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Jon Stewart
The 78th Annual Academy Awards 8:01: The opening scene just demonstrates why we love Jon Stewart: No one does self-deprecation so funny. Not even George Clooney. I think my dog would look great in a Steve Martin wig.
8:05: At first, the Hollywood royalty aren't laughing quite as hard as I am at Jon's jokes — especially not at the one about the suffering caused by movie piracy. But nothing brings people together like a Bjork joke. (She was trying on her gown and Cheney shot her!) And then the gay Western montage. Not even Stewart knows how to follow up that hilarity, so I'm not even gonna try. Brilliant.
8:16: Nicole Kidman's weird intro for the best-supporting-actor nominees has me thinking right away that Clooney will win. And then he does; self-deprecation keeps working wonders. "So I'm not winning director." The music starts after about 10 sec
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Lead actress nom Keira Knightley
Nominations for the 78th-annual Academy Awards were announced Tuesday morning, and leading the herd was — yep — Brokeback Mountain, lassoing eight nods, including best picture, best director, and acting bids for Heath Ledger (in the lead category), Jake Gyllenhaal (supporting) and Michelle Williams. Challenging the cowboy romance for best-pic honors are Capote, Crash, Munich and Good Night, and Good Luck. The lead-actor race pits Ledger against SAG-Golden Globe winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Globe winner Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line), Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow) and David Strathairn (Good Night), while the lead-actress contenders are SAG-Globe winner Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), Globe winner Felicity Huffman (Tran
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E! will reveal its Entertainer of the Year when it airs the hourlong special The Big, Bad & Best: 2005 on Dec. 12 at 8 pm/ET. The nominees for EOTY are Steve Carell, Mariah Carey, Desperate Housewives, Jamie Foxx, Jake Gyllenhaal, Terrence Howard, Rachel McAdams, Chris Rock, Charlize Theron, Vince Vaughn, Kanye West and Owen Wilson. Well, if that all ain't a Sophie's choice!
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Charlize Theron, Arrested Development
Arrested DevelopmentAnyone else get the sense that the writers were already getting nostalgic tonight? Not that I wasn't, too. If we're crying on the inside while watching the show's dying breath, we might as well get to laugh on the outside at some of its great recurring jokes. When Michael announced his wedding plans, George Sr. and Lucille reacted the same way they all did to George Michael's ex, Ann: "Who?" Then there was Lindsey imitating Lucille's scary wink. And my personal favorite was Gob's good-natured, "Look at Banner, Michael!" and the banner that said, "Michael Love Marry." As for new jokes, I loved the references to the actors'/characters' past: Lucille was apparently once a waitress at Stuckey's; Buster got his hook stuck when dancing to "Mr. Roboto" in the stair car,
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Charlize Theron in Aeon Flux
Peter Chung was a director for the Nickelodeon series Rugrats when he first came up with the idea for Aeon Flux. Set in the future and following a character who is one part nihilistic assassin and one part sexually charged vixen, TV's Aeon was a slight departure from the adventures of mischievous talking babies. Ultimately, it would become Chung's contribution to MTV's experiment in adult-oriented animation called Liquid Television and would earn its own series of full-length episodes. A decade later the slinky shooter is set to make her big-screen debut in Aeon Flux, with
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