Pop superstar MADONNA wants to relaunch her acting career with a remake of 1942 classic CASABLANCA.
The Evita star is reportedly keen to modernize the Oscar-winning romantic drama, which originally starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, and possibly set the film in Iraq.
But the planned project has been met by stiff opposition among Hollywood executives, according to British newspaper The Mail On Sunday.
A studio source says, “She is still determined to make it in the movies. She and her representatives have been touting around a project which is a remake of Casablanca. The reception has been lukewarm to say the least. No one can understand why she wants to redo what many people consider the greatest film of all time.
“Madonna is talking about taking the Ingrid Bergman role for herself, even though Bergman was in her 20s when she played Ilsa (Lund) and Madonna is nearly 50.
“She wants to update the story and maybe set it in a modern war zone such as Iraq. There is no script yet. Madonna and her people are testing the waters to see if this is the right vehicle for her and if a major studio will get behind the project.” A spokesperson for Madonna has so far refused to comment on the reports.
Madonna’s last big-screen outing, in 2002’s Swept Away, was panned by critics and she has since moved behind the camera to direct forthcoming movie Filth and Wisdom.

Lindsay Lohan’s dad has criticised her recent movie choices, telling the actress she should return to “mainstream films”.

Lohan new role will see her playing one of occultist Charles Manson’s devotees in ‘Manson Girls‘, but Michael Lohan thinks his daughter belongs in more traditional fare.

He tells US Weekly, “When you’re the kind of star Lindsay is, you have to appeal to a general audience, not just a specific audience.

“I really hope that Lindsay gets back to the kinds of films that led to her success. I’d like to see her do more mainstream films.”

Michael also commented on Lindsay’s supposed ‘sex tape’ with Calum Best, which he didn’t merely dismiss as a fake like many of the reports this week.

Instead he ranted, “You don’t know what people put out there anymore! So many people have hidden cameras. Our private lives are our private lives - people don’t respect that.”

 

Here’s a suggestion to Danny Ocean: If you need a con artist for your team, stay away from Ben Campbell and his friends.

Danny Ocean is the brains of the Ocean’s 11, 12, and 13 heists. Ben Campbell is the brains of 21. There are, you should pardon the expression, oceans of difference between them. 21 is based on a true story about a group of college students who set out to get rich by playing blackjack. In this case, “based on a true story” means that someone among screenwriters Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb and director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) read Ben Mezrich’s book, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, then managed to turn it into a forgettable potboiler. I haven’t read Mezrich’s book, but just the thought of winning a bundle at Vegas is fascinating. It must have taken considerable work to turn the movie into a snoozer. As played by Jim Sturgess, Ben is a brilliant student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has been accepted into Harvard Medical School. But it takes $300,000 to attend Harvard, and Ben works as an assistant manager at a haberdashery. He’s desperate for money. Ben’s brilliance comes to the attention of professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), who has a neat little side business. He has developed a system for counting cards at the blackjack tables of Las Vegas, and he has trained a group of students to win bundles of money. The problem is, one of his key players has left this lucrative sideline for a job with Google, and Micky needs a new body. Ben’s his boy. After some initial protests (and enticement by the team “hottie”), Ben joins the gang, and pretty soon the money starts rolling in. Up to this point, the movie’s reasonably interesting, despite some obvious questions the moviemakers choose to ignore. (Harvard doesn’t offer student loans? No other medical schools are interested in helping out a summa cum laude graduate of M.I.T.?) But things really get dumb when the gang gets to Vegas. Mickey insists there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing, yet he gives his crew fake IDs, has them wear disguises, and tells them to stay away from each other. And no one asks why (Duh No. 1). And if they’re not supposed to be seen together, why do they share a suite? (Duh No. 2). And why do they keep going back to the same casino? (Duh No. 3). What Mickey has failed to tell them is that although card-counting isn’t illegal, it’s forbidden by the casinos, which train staff members to watch for counters and ban them from the premises (or take them to the boiler room for a beating, according to the filmmakers). In one of the casinos that Mickey and his crew have targeted, Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), “a loss prevention specialist,” spots Ben & Co. winning a little too much. If there is one big asset in 21, it is cinematographer Russell Carpenter. His camera work give the cards and the chips more personality than the people who, other than Ben and the hottie Jill (Kate Bosworth), have been turned into one big stereotype. Sturgess, who was in Across the Universe and The Other Boleyn Girl, makes a bland hero, sort of in the Andrew McCarthy mold. And because the filmmakers give him no common sense, it’s hard to believe he’s a genius. Case in point: Ben keeps his winnings in the ceiling of his dorm room. OK, I can understand why he doesn’t want to risk questions with a savings account, but why not use a safe deposit box? Oh, because it won’t help the plot. Bosworth, who starred with Spacey in Beyond the Sea and was in Superman Returns, is forgettable, and Spacey, who won Oscars for The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, is coasting. 21 starts out with a reasonable amount of promise, sort of an Ocean’s 11 for the college set. But keep looking, Danny Ocean. These geniuses barely get a passing grade.

 

E! News said it had learned Lohan, 21, would star as Nancy Pitman in the movie, produced by Brad Wyman of Junction Films.

“Yes, I am doing it with Lindsay,” Wyman told E! News.

Pitman was a teenage runaway who fled her wealthy home in Malibu, California at age 16 to join the followers of Manson, who is now 73 and serving a life sentence for first-degree murder.
Four other defendants were also convicted with Manson for the shocking and gruesome 1969 murders of several people including pregnant actress Sharon Tate.

Pitman stayed at the Manson ranch instead of accompanying the Manson crew that went to the house and committed the murders, though she is believed to have accompanied Manson there later to tamper with the scene.

Manson was initially sentenced to die for his crimes but the sentence was commuted to life in prison after California courts abolished the death penalty.

His 11th appeal for parole was rejected in May 2007.

Lohan also plays the girlfriend of John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman in the upcoming film Chapter 27.

Lohan, the one-time child star of Parent Trap, spent time in rehab in 2007 for drug and alcohol abuse.

She told Elle magazine in a 2006 interview: “Yeah, I have a dark side. I watched all those videos on Charles Manson for a while.”

 

The latest disappointing Hollywood redo of a J-horror film — in this case, Thai — “Shutter” demonstrates that the subject of spirit photography, which has been a point of speculation for more than a century, might have passed its peak.

After all, once we’ve seen ghosts emerge via videotapes, cell phones, computers and nearly every other technological device known to man, seeing them appear through Polaroids feels a bit retro.

The 20th Century Fox film opened at No. 3 at the North American box office with weak sales of $10.7 million.

In an homage to its Asian roots, the film is set largely in Tokyo, where star photographer Ben (Joshua Jackson) and his new wife, Jane (Rachel Taylor), have arrived for his latest high-profile shoot. Unfortunately, they’ve barely gotten to town before they have a serious car crash, caused by a mysterious woman on a dark, snowy roadway who promptly disappears.

Pretty soon the same apparition — apparently seeking revenge — shows up repeatedly in Ben’s photographs, wreaking no small havoc with his career. Things get even more serious when Bruno (David Denman), Ben’s boss, and Adam (John Hensley), a sleazy models’ agent, fall victim to mysterious attacks. The increasingly agitated Jane attempts to discover the identity of the malevolent ghost, but she doesn’t like what she ultimately finds.

Strictly perfunctory in its concept and execution, “Shutter” presents the usual series of spooky images of a deadpan female ghost showing up at odd times and moving in the slow, jerky movements that are de rigueur for the genre. Genuine scares are few and far between, and the climactic explanation for the ghost’s appearances comes as something less than a revelation. It must be said, however, that the final screen image, taking place in a mental institution, is subtly unsettling.

Jackson displays his usual likable screen presence, and Taylor manages to look absolutely gorgeous even while terrified. But despite their respectable efforts, “Shutter,” like the similar remakes that have preceded it, demonstrates that Hollywood might have gone to the J-horror well a little too often.