Johnny Depp
More than 40 years before True Blood and Twilight made angst-ridden vampires the hot new thing, there was a wicked little afternoon soap called Dark Shadows. At its center was Barnabas Collins, a brooding bloodsucker played with equal parts torment and relish by Jonathan Frid, and if you were an offbeat kid in the late 1960s there's a good chance you raced home from school to watch it. Tim Burton, the acclaimed director, was one of those eager young fans. And now he's put his own spin on things. His movie version of Dark Shadows opens May 11 with a starry cast headed by Johnny Depp — yet another boyhood buff of the soap — as the reluctant, guilt-ridden and immortally sexy Barnabas.
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Courteney Cox
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Question: I know that last week was packed with season finales, talk of cancellations, and predictions of the successes for next fall, but I hope The Good Wife might get some attention. I'm in no way a TV expert, but the gestalt of the last scene was surprising. From the editing to the acting to the music (so out of place for the show, but somehow appropriate at the same time), those few minutes just felt like what great TV is. In particular, the editing of the elevator ride made me feel as though I was watching a cabler. While on the page the plot was perhaps mundane or even cliché, the execution was impressive. — Erin
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Indira Varma
She plays
Human Target's Ilsa Pucci, the sharp-tongued billionaire and not-so-silent partner in Christopher Chance's personal-security agency. "I think anyone with money wants to know how their money is spent," says Varma. "I mean, look at producers!"
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Human Target
Cheers to Human Target for hitting the proverbial bull's-eye.
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Fox's sophomore sleeper may seem like a mindless action show on the surface, but dig a little deeper and you'll find one of network TV's best-written, produced and acted dramas. The ensemble, led by ...
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Janet Montgomery
Still got your wallet? Hot Brit import Janet Montgomery — one of the stars of the Natalie Portman Oscar-buzz movie Black Swan — has joined Human Target as a cocky superthief simply known as Ames. "She was caught by the team in the middle of a heist, and she never gets caught," says Montgomery. "She's really ...
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Human Target
Nice save, Fox. Before the season started, it looked as if the network was hanging the appealing high-action sleeper Human Target out to dry on Fridays, where it was originally scheduled. But the early cancellation of Lone Star and a schedule shuffle opened up a slot on the show's former night (Wednesday) from last midseason. And all of a sudden we now have an hour of exhilarating midweek escapism to enjoy, reminding us how good a show like this can be (as opposed to the fizzle and fast fade of NBC's Undercovers in the same time period)...
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Mark Valley
On top of getting to perform breathless stunts and be the hero on a weekly basis, there's another reason Mark Valley relishes his starring role on Human Target. "It's nice to know that I'm playing a character that once saved Batman's a--," the actor jokes, referring to his character's comic book legacy.
Based on the DC Comics character of the same name, Human Target (Tuesday at 9/8c) follows...
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Jonathan Rhys Meyers by Hal Horowitz/ WireImage.com
Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) will star opposite Julianne Moore in Shelter, a supernatural thriller helmed by Swedes Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein (Storm).... Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer and Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) have joined Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, in which U.S. marshals (Leo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo) investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the insane. Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson and Michelle Williams costar.... Dimension has bought the rights to Locke & Key, Joe Hill's graphic novel about three children who are the caretakers of a magical mansion. Hill is the son of Stephen King.... World Wrestling Entertainment has found a tag-team partner in 20th Century Fox, inking a that gives the studio dibs on pics headlined by the org's wrestlers. — Mickey O'Connor
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Jeffrey Dean Morgan by Jemal Countess/WireImage.com
Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson and Matthew Goode are among those on board as The Watchmen in Zack Snyder's adaptation of the iconic comic book, Variety reports. Crudup will play Dr. Manhattan, Wilson is Night Owl and Goode is Ozymandias, while Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jackie Earle Haley and Malin Akerman round out the cast as Comedian, Rorschach and Silk Spectre. The film will use a green-screen technique similar to what Snyder used for 300, and also reap similar greenbacks.
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Per Variety, Grey's Anatomy's Katherine Heigl, who stars in this summer's Knocked Up, has booked another rom-com: 27 Dresses, scripted by The Devil Wears Prada's Aline Brosh Mckenna and concerning a perpetual bridesmaid whose 27th time is as her sister marries a man Heigl is madly in love with.... Per the Hollywood Reporter, Michael Bay and his Transformers scribes are developing sci-fi author Whitley Strieber's 2012: The War for Souls for the big screen.... Oscar nominee/comeback "kid" Jackie Earle Haley has booked three gigs: Will Ferrell's Semi-Pro, the drama Winged Creatures (with Kate Beckinsale and Forest Whitaker), and the indie biopic Bolden!.... Rudy Ray Moore will exec-produce and perhaps appear in a remake of the 1975 "blaxploitation" comedy Dolemite.
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