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Sandra Bullock’s journey into motherhood was anything but traditional, and she’s more than happy about it. Adopting her two children later in life, Bullock believes the universe had her wait for a reason. Instead of following the typical timeline, she embraced motherhood in her 40s, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. She’s got no regrets—just pure joy for the way things turned out.

Sandra Bullock as FBI Special Agent Gracie Hart in Miss Congeniality | Warner Bros

Bullock’s two kids have brought her a sense of purpose and fulfillment she hadn’t expected, proving that life’s timing works in mysterious ways. Forget the rulebook—Bullock’s path to parenthood is proof that there’s no right time for anything, just the perfect time for your story to unfold.

Sandra Bullock on Adopting Louis and Laila: A Journey of Love and Perfect...

Stars are currently mourning the loss of the legendary English actress and two-time Oscar winner Maggie Smith, following her demise on the eve of September 27. Joining the list of celebrities paying tribute to the actress—popularly known for her role as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films—is Sandra Bullock.

Sandra Bullock with Maggie Smith in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood | image: Warner Bros.

Recalling her collaboration with Maggie Smith in the 2002 film Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Sandra Bullock offered her heartfelt statement during an interview with People. Reflecting on her best experiences with the late actress, Bullock claimed to cherish her conversations with Smith while appreciating the icon’s wicked sense of humor, and gentle advice that had a lasting impact on her life.

Sandra Bullock Paid Tribute to Her Late Co-Star Maggie Smith

Right after Maggie Smith’s sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin...

John Bailey, the cinematographer on Ordinary People, Groundhog Day, As Good as It Gets and dozens of other notable films who endured two “stressful” terms as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, died Friday. He was 81.

Bailey died in Los Angeles, his wife, Oscar-nominated film editor Carol Littleton (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), announced.

”It is with deep sadness I share with you that my best friend and husband, John Bailey, passed away peacefully in his sleep early this morning,” she said in a statement. “During John’s illness, we reminisced how we met 60 years ago and were married for 51 of those years. We shared a wonderful life of adventure in film and made many long-lasting friendships along the way. John will forever live in my heart.”

They worked on more than a dozen features together.

The Southern California-raised Bailey served as the director of photography for...

Over 100 popular films are leaving HBO Max at the end of the month, but luckily you have the whole month to stream them.

They include cinema classics like “Ben Hur,” the winningest film in Oscars history

Leaving April 5

The Inside Story, 1948

Reminiscence, 2021 (HBO)

Leaving April 11

Adult Swim Yule Log (aka The Fireplace)

Leaving April 12

About Face: Supermodels Then and Now, 2012 (HBO)

Leaving April 13

The Last Duel, 2021

Game Theory With Bomani Jones, Season 1

Leaving April 18

The Lego Batman Movie, 2017

Leaving April 24

Tom and Jerry Cowboy Up!, 2022

Leaving April 27

Malignant, 2021 (HBO)

Leaving April 30

47 Ronin, 2013 (HBO)

3 Godfathers, 1948

Accepted, 2006 (HBO)

The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938

A Private War, 2018 (HBO)

An American in Paris, 1951

The American President, 1995

Any Given Sunday, 1999

Australia, 2008 (HBO)

Before I Fall, 2017 (HBO)

Ben-Hur, 1959

Black Legion, 1937

Blade, 1998

Blood Diamond, 2006

Blow Out, 1981 (HBO)

The Bodyguard, 1992

Boogie Nights, 1997

The Book of Eli, 2010

The Bourne Identity, 2002 (HBO)

The Bourne Supremacy, 2004 (HBO)

Bringing up Baby,...

It's not April 25 but we'd still say July 26 is the perfect day. Why? Because it's Sandra Bullock's birthday, of course. Throughout her illustrious career, the actress, turning 57 today, has kept us laughing, crying and dancing from the windows to the walls. So, needless to say, we're always looking for a reason to celebrate her—and discuss her iconic resume of romantic comedies. Seriously, could you imagine the entertainment world without her? We don't even want to think about it! Sure, we loved her in Ocean's 8 and other amazing dramas like Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Gravity and The Blind Side, which earned her an Oscar...

Rolling Stone interview series Unknown Legends features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and veteran musicians who have toured and recorded alongside icons for years, if not decades. All are renowned in the business, but some are less well known to the general public. Here, these artists tell their complete stories, giving an up-close look at life on music’s A list. This edition features multi-instrumentalist David Mansfield.

David Mansfield was just 19 years old when he joined the Rolling Thunder Revue in the fall of 1975 as a fiddle player and pedal-steel guitarist,...

As August winds down, it’s time to look ahead to everything that’s hitting the major streaming services in September. As always, there’s an enormous haul of originals and newly licensed titles going up across Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu and Prime Video over the month, including content from every genre out there.

The first day of September brings the usual lengthy list of movies arriving on most of the sites. Just a few of the highlights include all three Back to the Future films returning to Netflix, every entry in the Twilight saga arriving on Hulu and countless iconic movies going up on HBO Max, including Grease, Miss Congeniality and V for Vendetta. Also, Doctor Who fans will want to take note, as the most recent season of the show lands on HBO Max the same day.

Feel free to inspect the full list of everything...

Although it still has a long way to go to catch up to Netflix, HBO Max is gradually building a reputation for both an impressive library of content and its own original programming. As well as reportedly working on a number of Batman-focused series, the WarnerMedia streamer is also absorbing shows from DC Universe, and funding the Snyder Cut of Justice League. We now know what’s coming to HBO Max in September, and there’s plenty there for subscribers to sink their teeth into.

The big original series highlight next month is the Ridley Scott-produced Raised by Wolves, which explores two androids raising human children. Created by Adam Guzikowski, the program could be one of HBO Max’s first big hits with critics and audiences, and is set to arrive on September 3rd. Other notable originals include comedy Unpregnant, wherein a pregnant teenager travels to Mexico with her...

HBO Max is out with its list of everything new coming to the streaming service in the month of September.

Highlights include Ridley Scott’s “Raised by Wolves,” out Sept. 3, which follows two androids raising a human child on a distant planet; “Coastal Elites” starring Bette Midler, Kaitlyn Dever, Dan Levy, Sarah Paulson and Issa Rae, out Sept. 12, and “The Murders at White House Farm,” which is out in Sept. but doesn’t yet have an exact premiere date.

Others without a premiere date coming in Sept. include season one of “Haute Dog,” “Mo Willems: Don’t Let the Pigeon Do Storytime!” and seasons one through three of “The Great Pottery Throw Down.”

Also Read: 'Lovecraft Country' Premiere Draws 1.4 Million Multiplatform Viewers - Including HBO Max

Read the full list below:

Sept. 1

93Queen, 2018

All The Right Moves, 1983 (HBO)

The Astronaut Farmer, 2007 (HBO)

Badlands, 1973

Ballmastrz: 9009, 2018

Bandidas, 2006 (HBO)

Barnyard, 2006 (HBO)

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,...

WarnerMedia’s grand streaming experiment continues apace with HBO Max’s list of new releases for September 2020.

This month, HBO Max is bring some serious dramatic heat with the Ridley Scott-directed sci-fi series Raised by Wolves arriving on Sept. 3. And if science fiction isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, then HBO Max has identified something that is: true crime. The Murders at White House Farm will arrive at a date to be determined in September.

In addition to those intriguing original offerings, HBO Max is making the best of its WarnerMedia library this month. Doctor Who season 12 makes its long-awaited streaming debut on Sept. 1. Also arriving on the first of the month are Clerks, Election, and the hopefully-not-too-timely V for Vendetta.

Recent horror hit The Invisible Man arrives on Sept. 19. It is complemented by HBO Max original comedy Unpregnant on Sept. 10.

Here is everything else coming to HBO Max this month.

Exclusive: The Nashville trio of creator-executive producer Callie Khouri, producer Michael Lohmann and Season 1 executive music producer T Bone Burnett are reuniting for another music-driven drama series.

Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment has acquired the rights to Jake Brennan’s music and true-crime podcast Disgraceland for a TV series written by Khouri, Lohmann and Brennan, with Burnett overseeing the music.

Disgraceland, which will be taken to the premium cable and streaming marketplace shortly, is a music and true-crime television show about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly.

It stems from an original idea by Lohmann based on the podcast. He reached out to his former Nashville colleagues, the husband-and-wife duo of Oscar winners Khouri and Burnett, and took the project to Kapital Entertainment, where he serves as head of production.

Launched independently in 2018, the Disgraceland podcast, created and hosted by Brennan, quickly went to No. 7 on the Apple Podcast chart.

Long before Reese Witherspoon or Nicole Kidman produced their own material, Bette Midler was calling all the shots on her productions. In 1985, she signed a blockbuster multi-movie deal at Disney’s Touchstone Pictures, making her the highest-paid actress of her time. But in addition to a massive paycheck, she also wanted to be empowered to make decisions. Midler launched her company All Girl Prods. to steer her own soon-to-be hits, such as “Beaches,” “For the Boys” and “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.”

“I had always felt from the time I started in the business that there was a kind of bias against women in positions of power,” Midler tells Variety on a recent afternoon in Los Angeles. “If you went to a pitch meeting, you’d often be the only female in the room.”

Midler, now 73, loved the feminist name of her new enterprise. Her producing partner, Bonnie Bruckheimer,...

Spring is here, and with the new season comes a heavy sprinkling of new films and TV shows to Netflix.

Movies being added to the streaming service in April include dramas The Hateful Eight: Extended Edition, The Imitation Game, All the President's Men and American Honey, along with Pineapple Express, Freddy vs. Jason, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Spy Kids.

Netflix original film premieres include the comedy Someone Great, starring Gina Rodriguez and Lakeith Stanfield (bowing April 19); Brie Larson's directorial debut Unicorn Store (April 5); Noah Centineo's latest rom-com The Perfect Date; and the Stanley Tucci-Kiernan Shipka horror-thriller The Silence (April 12). Kevin ...

Spring is here, and with the new season comes a heavy sprinkling of new films and TV shows to Netflix.

Movies being added to the streaming service in April include dramas The Hateful Eight: Extended Edition, The Imitation Game, All the President's Men and American Honey, along with Pineapple Express, Freddy vs. Jason, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Spy Kids.

Netflix original film premieres include the comedy Someone Great, starring Gina Rodriguez and Lakeith Stanfield (bowing April 19); Brie Larson's directorial debut Unicorn Store (April 5); Noah Centineo's latest rom-com The Perfect Date; and the Stanley Tucci-Kiernan Shipka horror-thriller The Silence (April 12). Kevin ...

Netflix might be skipping this year’s Cannes Film Festival, but the streaming giant is offering a bit of a mea culpa in its April offerings, which come with some exciting options from bonafide auteurs who also happen to be Cannes regulars, including Lee Chang-Dong, Andrea Arnold, and Quentin Tarantino. Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner “I, Daniel Blake” will also join Netflix’s ranks next month, along with classics like “All the President’s Men,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” and “Deliverance.”

In April, Netflix will add Lee’s lauded Cannes competitor “Burning,” which missed out on Oscar love but picked up plenty of other accolades during last year’s awards circuit, including a number of nods for star Steven Yeun. It will be joined by Arnold’s 2016 Palme d’Or entry “American Honey,” along with an extended version of Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight”.

The streaming service will also...

Star Trek is boldly going on a new mission where only men have gone before. Hanelle Culpepper will direct the first two episodes of the upcoming untitled Star Trek Jean-Luc Picard series, making her the first woman to direct a pilot or debut episode of a Starfleet series in the franchise’s 53-year history. All 13 feature films in the Trek universe have also been directed by men.

Culpepper has directed two episodes of Star Trek Discovery on CBS All-Access. She helmed the episode titled Vaulting Ambition in Season One as well as an upcoming episode in Season Two, now underway on the subscription streaming site.

The as-yet-untitled Star Trek series features Patrick Stewart reprising his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard, which he played for seven seasons on Star Trek: Next Generation. The new series will follow the iconic character into the next chapter of his life and will air...

Callie Khouri shifted the attention off herself Tuesday night and on to the assault and hospitalization of “Empire” star Jussie Smollett in Chicago earlier that day.

Khouri, the Oscar-winning writer of “Thelma & Louise” and the creator of the series “Nashville,” made her remarks at the Paramount Theatre in Hollywood during her induction into the Final Draft Hall of Fame. She emphasized the role that writers play in troubled times.

“I decided to talk about our responsibility as storytellers,” she said. “We have to help each other understand how connected we are. We are seeing things in 2019 that would not look out of place in 1939 and that’s a failure of our society, so we have to keep telling our stories.”

Khouri admitted that it’s still a challenge to make herself write. “I would be most qualified to write about how to avoid writing because that’s what I’m best at,...

Final Draft announced the honorees for the screenwriting software’s 14th annual Final Draft Awards Tuesday.

Academy Award winning screenwriter Callie Khouri (“Thelma & Louise”) will receive the Hall of Fame Award for her prolific contribution to the art of screenwriting and devotion to writers and the writing community. Khouri also penned the scripts for “Something to Talk About” and “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.” The latter marked her directorial debut. She also helmed the 2008 Diane Keaton/Queen Latifah crime comedy “Mad Money” and is the creator and executive producer of the critically acclaimed series “Nashville.”

“Callie Khouri has left an indelible mark on both film and television with her writing,” said Final Draft president Scott McMenamin. “Her unique voice and dedication to making our industry a better environment for all writers make her the perfect candidate for this award.”

Previous recipients of the Final Draft Hall of Fame honor include Aaron Sorkin,...

Jessie James Decker and husband Eric Decker are ecstatic to be welcoming another son into their family soon, but their daughter couldn’t help feeling a bit let down at finding out she would be getting another brother.

During a chat with People Thursday during a Facebook Live session at the Lord & Taylor Holiday Window Unveiling in N.Y.C., the country-pop singer admitted that the hope 3½-year-old Vivianne “Vivi” Rose had for a baby sister was “the only feeling of disappointment” during the couple’s October gender reveal.

“I 100 percent was happy either way,” said the third-time mom-to-be, 29. “We...

Exclusive: Callie Khouri has signed with UTA. Khouri, who won the Oscar for her first script Thelma & Louise, is the creator, writer, director and executive producer of the ABC drama Nashville. The Lionsgate TV series, which stars Connie Britton and Hayden Panetierre, is currently in production on its fourth season. Khouri, who made her feature directing debut on Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood and followed with Mad Money, had been repped by CAA. She continues to…...

Exclusive: Callie Khouri has signed with UTA. Khouri, who won the Oscar for her first script Thelma & Louise, is the creator, writer, director and executive producer of the ABC drama Nashville. The Lionsgate TV series, which stars Connie Britton and Hayden Panetierre, is currently in production on its fourth season. Khouri, who made her feature directing debut on Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood and followed with Mad Money, had been repped by CAA. She continues to…...

We’ve reviewed every summer movie season since 1980 to find out which are the best, and which are the worst. Last week we posted our picks for the worst, and here we post our picks for the best.

2015 and 2016 may just be the most overthetop summer movie seasons yet. It seems like nearly every movie slated for a summer 2015 or 2016 release is heavily anticipated. Because of these impending summers of movie awesomeness, we’ve decided to take a look back at summer movie seasons of years past. The idea of the summer movie season is currently in full swing, but it didn’t catch on immediately. Hollywood had to do its fair share of experimenting to determine what types of films would be most successful. As a result, some summer movie seasons have been better than others. We’ve reviewed them all for you and ranked them from worst to best.

James Garner, an actor best known for his portrayals of charming, wry anti-heroes in "The Rockford Files" and "Maverick", has died. He was 86.

He was born James Scott Bumgarner on April 7, 1928 in Norman, Oklahoma, the third and youngest son of Mildred and Weldon Bumgarner. His young life was very unsettled; at the age of four, his mother passed away, and James and his brothers Charles and Jack were sent away to live with relatives. When their father remarried in 1930 the boys were able to return home, but their stepmother mistreated them and the marriage ended after her cruelty to the boys, James in particular, grew untenable. Weldon, leaving the boys behind, moved to Los Angeles to look for steady work. After a brief stint in the Merchant Marines at the age of 16 (which ended due to his extreme seasickness), James followed his father to California, where he enrolled in Hollywood High School briefly. While there, he was recommended for a Jantzen swimsuit modeling job which turned out to be his first taste of Hollywood.

Grown tired of modeling and repelled by the phoniness of the Hollywood movie system, he returned to Norman and re-enrolled in high school there for a short time, before dropping out for good and enrolling in the National Guard. After a serious knee injury, he was discharged from the National Guard, only to be drafted by the Army in 1949 and sent to fight in Korea, where he was twice wounded and awarded two Purple Hearts.

After his discharge from the Army, he was persuaded by producer Paul Gregory, an old friend from his Hollywood High School days, to accept a role in his Broadway play "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial". In taking the role and studying following Henry Fonda's performance every night, James learned what he deemed his most effective tool in acting: listening.

His Broadway experience led him back to Los Angeles, where he won roles in commercials and TV, eventually signing a contract with Warner Brothers, who changed his screen name to Garner without his permission for his appearance in the 1956 film The Girl He Left Behind. In that same year he met Lois Clark at a political rally, and the two married 14 days later. Garner adopted Lois’s daughter Kimberly, and the couple also had a daughter together, Greta. It was after Greta’s birth that he legally changed his surname to Garner, as he was concerned that his children would have too many last names.

In 1957, he won a lead in the new television series “Maverick”, the role in which he originated and refined the ‘charming and hesitantly heroic con-man’ persona that would resonate with audiences through the remainder of his career. His turn as Bret Maverick, first imagined as the focal point of a by-the-numbers Western soon morphed into a new sort of anti-hero, one with a sense of humor who would rather charm than shoot or fight his way out of a bad situation. This portrayal of Bret earned him a Golden Globe in 1958, and an Emmy nomination in 1957. Network concerns led James to leave the show in 1960 and head back to feature films, where he relied on his life’s experiences to flesh out roles in a varied collection of films: the dramatic The Children’s Hour; war movies The Great Escape, 36 Hours and The Americanization of Emily; romantic comedies The Thrill Of It All and Move Over Darling and even racing drama Grand Prix. It was during Grand Prix that Garner discovered one of his life’s passions – auto racing – that would inspire him to support a racing team himself.

In 1970, he joined forces once again with “Maverick” creator Roy Huggins and writer Stephen J. Cannell to bring a new detective show to television, “The Rockford Files”. Much like they had in “Maverick”, they used the show to reinvent the detective genre. Gone were the hard-nosed gumshoe tactics and gunplay used in noir-inspired private investigator series, replaced by Jim Rockford’s easygoing personality and wit as the main tools used to solve robberies, insurance scams and the like. The show would run for six seasons before Garner’s stunt injuries and financial disputes ended the run, but not without Garner earning a Best Actor Emmy in 1977. In between film roles, Garner would revisit the character several times during the next few decades in made-for-TV movies, as the original show’s growing popularity in re-runs fueled demand for more Jim Rockford tales from a new generation of fans.

Garner’s film career continued alongside his major TV successes for the next 3 decades. Cinematic roles in Victor/Victoria, Murphy's Romance (which earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination), Tank, Twilight, Maverick, Space Cowboys, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, The Notebook were interspersed with appearances in TV movies and series such as “Bret Maverick”, “Man of the People” “Chicago Hope” “First Monday” and “8 Rules for Dating Your Teenage Daughter.” Though he had experienced physical injuries in sports, war and during stunt work and had recovered from quintuple heart bypass in 1998, it wasn’t until suffering a stroke in 2008 that his work slowed.

He is survived by his wife Lois and his daughters Greta and Kimberly. He was preceded in death by his brother Charles in 1985.

©2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Oscar-nominated actor James Garner has passed away at the age of 86.

From AP:

Garner, whose whimsical style in the 1950s TV Western “Maverick” led to a stellar career in TV and films such as “The Rockford Files” and his Oscar-nominated “Murphy’s Romance,” was found dead of natural causes at his home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles Saturday evening, Los Angeles police officer Alonzo Iniquez said early Sunday.

Police responded to a call around 8 p.m. Pdt and confirmed Garner’s identity from family members, Iniquez told The Associated Press.

There was no immediate word on a more specific cause of death. Garner had suffered a stroke in May 2008, just weeks after his 80th birthday.

Although he was adept at drama and action, Garner was best known for his low-key, wisecracking style, especially with his hit TV series, “Maverick” and “The Rockford Files.

Carlos de Abreu, founder and executive producer of the 17th Annual Hollywood Film Awards, announced today that Academy Award®-winning actress Sandra Bullock will be honored with this year’s Hollywood Actress Award for her riveting performance in Alfonso Cuarón’s acclaimed dramatic thriller “Gravity.” The award will be bestowed at the Hollywood Film Awards Gala Ceremony on Monday evening, October 21, 2013 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. “We are honored to present the Hollywood Actress Award to Sandra Bullock for her outstanding work in ‘Gravity,’” said de Abreu. “Holding the screen alone for a large part of the film, she delivers a stunning and emotionally layered performance that shows once again why she is one of Hollywood’s most respected and popular actresses.” Sandra Bullock won an Oscar® for Best Actress for her performance in the true-life drama “The Blind Side,” for which she also took home Critics’ Choice,...

The 20th annual Austin Film Festival has unveiled its 2013 lineup of screenwriter-focused panels and special filmmaker guests. This year’s fest runs from October 24-31 and will honor Oscar winner Callie Khouri (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood) with its Distinguished Screenwriter Award. Confirmed panelists include Robert Rodriguez, Roberto Orci, Jenji Kohan (Orange is the New Black), Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad), Rian Johnson (Looper), the Veronica Mars filmmakers, and Dan Rather. Here’s the Aff 2013 Conference lineup: - Robert Rodriguez (director/producer Sin City, Machete, Machete Kills) and Roberto Orci (creator Fringe, writer Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness) will discuss their recent collaboration on El Rey, Rodriguez’s owned and operated cable network, which will host their upcoming original scripted series. - Jenji Kohan (creator Weeds, Orange is the New Black) joins David Shore (creator of House), Terri Edda Miller, and Andrew Marlowe (creators of Castle) by way of...

Los Angeles, Aug 4: Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock feels that the Academy Awards do not show respect to comedy movies.

The 49-year-old has been part of some comedy-drama's like "Miss Congeniality", "28 Days", "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood", "The Thing Called Love" and "Love Potion No.9".

She won an Oscar in 2010 for her role in "The Blind Side".

"There's no respect for comedies when it comes to the Oscars - absolutely none. But you don't do comedy for awards or credibility. You do it for the joy," dailystar.co.uk quoted Bullock as saying.

The actress was at the red carpet of her forthcoming.

After 12 years of marriage, Ashley and Dario announced on Jan. 29 that they have split. So sad. Keep reading for their official statement.

Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti announced on Jan. 29 that they were separating after over a decade of marriage. Ashley, 44, and Dario, 39, who married in 2001 in Scotland, “mutually decided” to end their marriage. They have no children.

Ashley Judd & Dario Franchitti End Their Marriage

Ashley and Dario made a joint statement, which was sweet as they said that they will always remain family.

“We have mutually decided to end our marriage,” Ashley and Dario told People. “We’ll always be family and continue to cherish our relationship based on the special love, integrity, and respect we have always enjoyed.”

Ashley is most famous for her acting career, starring in films such as Kiss the Girls and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, while Dario is an IndyCar driver and three-time Indianapolis 500 champion.

After she won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for Thelma & Louise in 1992, Callie Khouri leisurely built a résumé of films focused on the concerns of women whose twenties are behind them (including Something to Talk About, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and Mad Money). Her first TV series, ABC’s musical drama Nashville, stars Connie Britton as a veteran country singer whose popularity is challenged by a young crossover star and the new economics of the record industry. Khouri’s husband, prolific Grammy-winning producer T-Bone Burnett (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), is overseeing the music, which has so far included songs by the Civil Wars and Elvis Costello. Vulture sat down with Khouri, 54, in her Santa Monica office for a wide-ranging chat about writing complicated women, working with her husband, soap operas, shoplifting, and crossover music.What’s been most challenging about transitioning from film to TV? Any surprises?...

The Oscar-winning screenwriter of Thelma And Louise and director of The Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood has one of the rare critical hits of this fall TV season, Nashville. Callie Khouri talked to Salon recently about how she went from not wanting to write for TV to realizing that telling stories about women is more respected on the small screen: I’m just liking TV so much more than features right now, just in terms of what you can get made… I don’t think any studio — it was a long shot at the time – but I don’t think any studio in a million years would make Thelma And Louise right now. But there’s so many other kinds of movies they won’t make right now. People who make TV also seem much more comfortable making shows for women than people making movies do. Because you’re allowed.

Ray Richmond is contributing to Deadline’s TV coverage. Oscar-winning Thelma And Louise screenwriter Callie Khouri found herself this morning at TCA on a panel promoting the new ABC serialized ensemble drama Nashville starring Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere that might best be described as “Dallas in Tennessee.” Khouri is an executive producer of the new series. And if it seemed weird that such an esteemed feature scribe (who also wrote Something To Talk About and Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood) would be producing her first series for TV, her partner on the project is equally odd: R.J. Cutler, known primarily for his unscripted shows and whose past projects have included the likes of Flip That House and Greatest American Dog. Khouri admitted this kind of project is brand new for her but that she’s having a blast doing it. “I’m actually loving it because with a feature,...

Benicio Del Toro, who.ll next be seen in Oliver Stone.s drug-smuggling thriller Savages, has just signed on to a passion project from director Arnaud Desplechin. Titled Jimmy Picard, the drama focuses on the true friendship between a Native American and a French psychoanalyst that, according to Deadline, will begin shooting in Michigan next week. Del Toro will be joined by Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) and Gina McKee (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood) in a subdued character study produced by Desplechin.s partner Pascal Caucheteux. As the site notes, Del Toro will play the title character, a Plains Indian and a member of the Blackfeet nation who .returns from the WWII battlefield and experiences various medical symptoms, none of which can be explained physically.. In an effort to deduce what might be plaguing him, Picard meets with Topeka, Kansas-based psychiatrist Georges Devereux (Amalric), who...

With the big reveal of CBS' 2012-2013 primetime schedule, all of the major networks have revealed which of their current shows will be back in the fall and which ones are being sent to the television graveyard as well as which pilots will be premiering this fall.

We have to say, we're pretty pleased with how things panned out. After a tense, touch-and-go couple of days "Parks and Recreation" and "Happy Endings" got their expected pick-ups, and favorites "Modern Family" and "30 Rock," albeit for a truncated final season, will also be back when the leaves start to turn.

(We're not exactly in love with the idea of two cycles of "The Voice" – part of that show's appeal was that it was neither overextended nor played out and a non-stop, yearlong run puts that in danger – but we'll deal.)

We've also got Louis C.K.'s brilliant "Louie" returning to FX in June,...

John Bailey was a graduate film student at USC studying film criticism when he discovered a passion for cinematography while working on a school production. His first feature-length credit was for a 1972 horror movie Premonition, and since then he has accumulated a long and impressive list of credits, including such classics as: Groundhog Day, The Accidental Tourist, Swimming to Cambodia, Silverado, The Big Chill, and American Gigolo. More recently, he’s worked on projects as diverse as Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Must Love Dogs, The Producers, and Country Strong.

I first heard John speak at an event organized by Kodak in Rochester in the late 80′s. He talked at length about the language of the movies, and about shooting The Accidental Tourist. It was a revelation; at the time, cinematography to me was framing the camera so the subject was in the scene; if the subject was too far away,...

Mark Harrison Nov 16, 2016

Our look back at the Harry Potter series continues with movie number three, The Prisoner Of Azkaban

This article contains a mild spoiler for Harry Potter And The Cursed Child.

See related DC Comics movies: upcoming UK release dates calendar Batman V Superman: where does it leave the Justice League? Batman V Superman: Michael Shannon fell asleep watching it Zack Snyder interview: Batman V Superman

Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban is quite rightly viewed as the point where the series found its footing. After putting everything he had into The Chamber Of Secrets - “blood, sweat and tears,” as he put it - Chris Columbus decided that he wouldn't return for the third instalment. He stayed on as a producer, but as the series moved into its regular 18 month cycle of releasing, the third film needed a new director for the June 2004 release.

That's far...

Santa Monica, CA, June 28, 2011. Lionsgate has announced an unprecedented film music collaboration between Academy Award® winner and two time nominee T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart, Cold Mountain) and four time Academy Award® nominated composer Danny Elfman (Alice In Wonderland, Spider-man) on the music for the highly anticipated film adaptation of The Hunger Games, based on the first in Suzanne Collins.s runaway bestselling book trilogy. The announcement was made by Lionsgate.s Motion Picture Group President Joe Drake.

Elfman and Burnett will be collaborating on the film score, with Burnett also serving as the film.s Executive Music Producer, producing songs for the film and soundtrack.

Said Lionsgate.s Head of Film Music Tracy McKnight of the musical dream team assembled on behalf of the film, .The Hunger Games is such a special property . it has worldwide mass appeal, but it.s also sophisticated, cerebral, soulful, and rebellious. We needed...

We're not saying these are necessarily movies to empower women, but they are films with a large female ensemble cast. 

In celebration of the release of Bridesmaids, which is being hailed "The Hangover for women," we thought we'd go through our top 10 favorites films with a female ensemble cast.  Whether those women are young or old, most of these films show the bonds of sisterhood and the positive relationships between women. 

Some of these films you might not even remember, but take a look at our list and then chime in with your favorite films with an ensemble female cast.

Top 10 Movie With A Female Ensemble

10. Sucker Punch (2011)

This film isn't necessarily about the bonds of sisterhood, but it is about a group of women staying loyal to each other amidst some pretty awful adversity.  Even though this isn't rooted in reality, the way these women work together to keep...

Academy voters are already putting in their ballots for these two performances: Meryl Streep has signed on to play former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for director Phyllida Lloyd, who Streep worked with on Mamma Mia!, while Sean Penn has signed on the play Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, the patriarch of “surfing’s first family.” Streep’s film is called The Iron Lady, the script written by Abi Morgan, co-financed by Pathe and Film4 and described as a “story of a woman who smashed through the barriers of gender and class to be heard in a male-dominated world. The story concerns power and the price that is paid for power, and is a surprising and insightful portrait of an extraordinary and complex woman.” [THR] Thatcher made as many enemies as she did friends (if not more), and was regarded by many to be brutal in her tactics and conservation decisions. Streep should destroy the role,...

Bullock puckered up with her 'Proposal' co-star Ryan Reynolds' wife during her acceptance speech.

By Gil Kaufman

Scarlett Johansson and Sandra Bullock onstage at the 2010 MTV Movie Awards

Photo: Jeff Kravitz/ FilmMagic

The last time we saw Sandra Bullock on the stage at a major awards show, she was collecting an Academy Award for her role in "The Blind Side." Things were a little different on Sunday night at the MTV Movie Awards, where the lovable actress — whose movies have grossed nearly $700 million worldwide in the past year — celebrated her latest honor by smooching with Scarlett Johansson.

With co-stars Betty White and Bradley Cooper joined by Johansson to present the Generation Award, Bullock got a standing ovation from the rowdy crowd.

"Sandy, I know I'm not alone in saying I hope you know how loved you are," said Cooper, screaming over the hyped-up audience. "Both for your incredible talent and...

Bullock puckered up with her 'Proposal' co-star Ryan Reynolds' wife during her acceptance speech.

By Gil Kaufman

Scarlett Johansson and Sandra Bullock onstage at the 2010 MTV Movie Awards

Photo: Jeff Kravitz/ FilmMagic

The last time we saw Sandra Bullock on the stage at a major awards show, she was collecting an Academy Award for her role in "The Blind Side." Things were a little different on Sunday night at the MTV Movie Awards, where the lovable actress — whose movies have grossed nearly $700 million worldwide in the past year — celebrated her latest honor by smooching with Scarlett Johansson.

With co-stars Betty White and Bradley Cooper joined by Johansson to present the Generation Award, Bullock got a standing ovation from the rowdy crowd.

"Sandy, I know I'm not alone in saying I hope you know how loved you are," said Cooper, screaming over the hyped-up audience. "Both for your incredible talent and...

As if Robert Rodriguez were not busy enough, with Predators being released to theaters in July and Machete in September, he's also directed a music video. The filmmaker helped out another Austinite, musician Bob Schneider, and shot a video in one weekend of "40 Dogs {Like Romeo and Juliet)" from Schneider's latest album, Lovely Creatures. Rodriguez recruited an actress from his recent film Shorts for the video -- Kat Dennings, who has also starred in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Charlie Bartlett. One of Rodriguez's sons also makes his first onscreen appearance.

The video is now available to watch online after the jump (via IFC). In addition, on the same webpage as the video, you can read an interview with Rodriguez and Schneider -- how they ended up collaborating, where they shot the video, and questions about music. For those who prefer to watch music videos on television, IFC will...

Sandra Bullock is one of the world's most popular, most recognizable and longest-lasting movie stars. She arrived on July 26, 1964, as Sandra Annette Bullock, the daughter of opera singer Helga Meyer and voice coach and Pentagon contractor John Bullock. Though she was born in Arlington, Virginia, Bullock actually grew up in Nuremberg, Germany, where she first dipped her toes in the entertainment waters by studying vocal arts and ballet dancing, and appearing (briefly) in some of her mother's shows. She returned to the States in the mid-70's, attending high school and then going to college at East Carolina University in North Carolina, but she exited before graduation in order to chase her acting dream. It wasn't long before Bullock -- initially based in New York City -- started to find work. She landed a role in the back-door pilot Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman...

The 9th annual Tribeca Film Festival will be kicking off in 3D. The festival has chosen the fourth Shrek film, Shrek Forever After as its opening night film. Mainstream movies premiering at the festival is nothing new. Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Divine Secrets Of The Ya-ya Sisterhood all premiered at Tribeca.

Read more on Shrek Forever After opening the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival…...

James Cameron's film holds on to the top spot in its fifth weekend, proving immovable to new challengers Up in the Air, The Book of Eli and All About Steve

The phenomenon

With fifth-weekend takings of £5.52m, Avatar is demonstrating unprecedented staying power at the UK box office. The previous best fifth-weekend performance was enjoyed by James Cameron's other behemoth hit Titanic, with £3.66m. Even Mamma Mia!, the most notable sleeper hit of recent times, grossed £2.8m on its fifth weekend of release. Only one film had taken more money in total after five weekends – The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

Despite shedding 11% of its cinemas – 2D screens where the film has been relatively shunned by audiences – Avatar's takings went up 16% from the previous weekend. The particularly severe weather over 8-10 January may have had something to do with that, dampening grosses across the board,...

2010 SAG Award Predictions Best Actress Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side Say what? Sandra Bullock? I know I’m going a bit out on a limb here, but unlike Jeff Bridges‘ Crazy Heart, Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side is truly a career-capping flick — as in, more box-office cash registers ringing than, say, Miss Congeniality, Infamous, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, or The Proposal. Additionally, the heart-warming, family-friendly, holiday-cheering, greenhouse-gas-reducing The Blind Side proves that a) Bullock can be really successful in dramas, b) she can have two major box-office hits in a single year (that used to be Julia Roberts‘ exclusive province), c) she looks good as a blonde. Item c) is the most difficult to accomplish, something [...]...

Emma Watson may only be 19 years of age, but she has beaten her seniors, such as Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, and Cameron Diaz, in terms of the amount of money her movies have earned. EW recently reported that the Hermione Granger of "Harry Potter" series has been crowned the biggest-grossing female star of the decade by the Guinness Book of World Record.

According to the famed reference book, Emma has collected $5.4 billion in global box office receipts. The actress gained the impressive receipts from starring in movie franchise "Harry Potter" as well as from lending her voice to the 2008 animated film "The Tale of Despereaux". In fact, she earned more ticket sales than her "Potter" co-stars, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint.

Following Emma in the second place of the biggest-grossing female star list is her other "Potter" co-star, Maggie Smith. Smith, who tackles the role of Minerva McGonagall in the wizard movies series,...

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the highest grossing actress of the aughties 2000s I-don't-know-what-to-call-'ems is Emma Watson. All six of her live-action films this decade just happen to be the six Harry Potter films, which have conjured $5.4 billion worldwide, or roughly $900 million per film. (Guinness actually only measured the first five Potter films, but PopWatch is a full service pop-culture blog. You're welcome.) But if you want to know who Guinness believes is Ms. Watson's male counterpart as the decade's highest moneymaker, you're out of luck. For some reason, the famed record keeping crew simply proclaims Samuel L. Jackson...

Albert Ferreira Singer Sara Evans has a lot on her plate. As a mom to seven children — three of her own and four belonging to husband Jay Barker — the country star is responsible for making lunches, packing backpacks and drying tears — all while recording albums and writing books!

Sara, 38, recently took time out of her busy schedule to talk to CBB about her controlled chaos, as well as her partnership with Libby’s, encouraging families to “get back to the table” and enjoy home-cooked dinners together.

CBB: How is the family?

Sara: We are all wonderful, and crazy busy! In total, we have Andrew, 11, Avery, 10, Braxton, 9, twins Harrison and Sarah Ashley, 8, Olivia, 6, and Audrey, 4. All the kids are in school now. We have three boys playing tackle football, one daughter playing soccer, and one playing tennis. We don’t make it to all their games/matches. Jay is coaching one of his sons,...

Polly Cohen has been promoted to executive vp production at Warner Bros. Pictures. She moves up from her previous position of senior vp production. Cohen, a nine-year veteran of the studio, has overseen such projects as the first four Harry Potter movies, Must Love Dogs, Starsky and Hutch, Gothika, the Scooby-Doo movies, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Analyze This and its sequel, Analyze That. She also was on the production team for Three Kings and A Perfect Storm. Among the films she is working on are Superman Returns, the Potter series, License to Wed, I Am Legend and Blood Diamond.

Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri has come aboard to rewrite Warner Bros. Pictures' A Season in Central Park under the supervision of the film's director, Mike Newell. Outlaw Prods. is producing. The project reteams Khouri with the same studio for which she wrote and directed Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Central Park is about a wealthy man in a relationship with a woman, but unbeknownst to him, his best friend wants to be with her as well. The best friend teams with a working-class girl -- who has her sights set on the wealthy man -- in an attempt to drive a wedge between the couple and make way for each to be with their object of desire. What the schemers do not plan on, though, is falling in love with each other. Aline Brosh-McKenna and Ron Bass had written the previous drafts of the script. Outlaw's Robert Newmyer, Jeffrey Silver and Scott Strauss are producing the project. Warners exec Jessica Goodman is overseeing. Khouri, repped by CAA and Industry Entertainment, won a screenplay Oscar for Thelma & Louise.