Archive for the 'News' Category

Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Helen Mirren, Clive Owen, Nicole Kidman, Salma Hayek, Antonio Banderas, Melissa McCarthy and Freida Pinto have all been announced as presenters at the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards, which is scheduled to air this coming Sunday on NBC.

The group was announced via the official Twitter account of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the organization that chooses the winners and nominees at each year’s ceremony.

Portman, of course, won the award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama at last year’s show for her performance in Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan”.

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New York Daily News is reporting that PETA has developed a series of postage stamps to help raise awareness about animal abuse. The stamps will showcase the faces of 20 of the most famous vegetarians in history. The stamps will be available on PETA’s website through December and possibly into January, just in time for us to send out those holiday cards. The collection will include the faces of celebrities such as Russell Simmons, Woody Harrelson, Natalie Portman, Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett, Bryan Adams, Leona Lewis, Paul McCartney, Pamela Anderson, Bob Barker, Stevo-O, and Ellen DeGeneres.

Natalie’s first post-baby project: playing Fran Kubelik, the Shirley MacClaine role, in The Apartment for Jason Reitman’s staged reading at LACMA. So far, the rest of the cast includes JK Simmons as Sheldrake, Ken Jeong as Dobisch, Nick Kroll as Kirkeby, Mindy Kaling as Miss Olsen, Collette Wolfe as Sylvia, and Jake Johnson as Dr. Dryfeuss.

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Natalie recently wrote a letter to John E. Deasy, Ph.D., superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, congratulating him on LAUSD’s 2011 Golden Carrot Award.

School cafeterias across the US are ditching the mystery meat and serving up fruits, vegetables, and healthy plant-based meal options. It’s National School Lunch Week, and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has announced the winners of its 2011 “Golden Carrot Awards” for innovation in school food service. The grand prize went to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education and Superintendent John Deasy.

I was thrilled to hear about the Los Angeles Unified School District’s revamped lunch menu. As a new parent, I love your district’s emphasis on healthy meal options and nutrition education. By serving healthy menu items like fresh salads, avocado wraps, and black bean burgers, you’re helping students develop a taste for nutritious foods. But you’re also making sure students understand how food affects their bodies so they’re more likely to bypass the cheeseburgers and put healthful items on their trays.

I’m worried about my son’s generation. Childhood obesity has hit a record high, and experts say that one in every three children born today will develop diabetes in his or her lifetime. But I’m also hopeful that we can reverse these terrible trends. That’s where parents and school officials come in. We need to work together to help our children develop healthy eating habits.

Schools play a critical role. They can help teach children healthy behaviors—and they can also support these behaviors on a daily basis by providing more fruits and vegetables and other healthy foods, along with opportunities for physical activity.

That’s why I’m joining the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine during National School Lunch Week to congratulate you on your new menu items and healthy school lunch campaign. I hope schools across the country look to you as they work to improve their own cafeteria offerings.

Thank you again for helping kids stay healthy.

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Marvel Studios announced today that Patty Jenkins will direct Thor 2, which will be released in theatres on Friday, November 15, 2013. Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman will return to star in the film along with Tom Hiddleston. Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige will produce the sequel to this summer’s blockbuster Thor, which has grossed over $448 million worldwide to date.

Patty Jenkins previously directed Monster starring Charlize Theron, who won an Academy Award for her performance in the film. Jenkins, who received an Emmy nomination for directing the pilot of AMC’s acclaimed series The Killing, has also directed episodes of Entourage and Arrested Development. Most recently, she directed “Pearl,” one of the five short films that comprise Lifetime’s original movie Five.

In addition to Thor 2, Marvel Studios is currently scheduled to release Marvel’s The Avengers on May 4, 2012, and Iron Man 3 which is slated for release on May 3, 2013.

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Four years after Tony Krantz left his TV producing career to focus on feature directing, he is mounting a big push in television with 8 projects set up at various broadcast networks, including a Scruples adaptation at ABC, which he is executive producing with Natalie Portman.

Krantz, who was head of primetime packaging at CAA and CEO of Imagine Television before he embarked on a feature directing career, started building his Flame Ventures into an independent TV production company last year when it sold 5 broadcast projects. With the hire of Reece Pearson as head of development, the company has stepped up its TV efforts, selling 8 projects in the past few weeks. Flame is using an indie model similar to that employed by DreamWorks TV where projects are sold directly to the networks and then laid off at the nets’ affiliated studios.

At ABC, the company has Scruples 2. It is based on the 1978 novel by Krantz’s mother, Beverly Hills novelist Judith Krantz, who also penned a sequel in 1992. Bob Brush and Mel Harris will write the adaptation and exec produce with Natalie Portman, her producing partner Annette Savitch and Krantz. Warner Bros. TV is producing as it has the rights to the property via the 1980 Scruples miniseries starring Lindsay Wagner, which it produced.

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