nicole-kidman

So How Is That Australia Movie Anyway?

Richard Lawson · 11/18/08 01:58PM

Fans of big old sweeping historical, romance, adventure epics (like us) are mostly pretty excited for Australia, Baz Luhrmann's (Romeo + Juliet!, Moulin Rouge!!) new 1940's set ode to his home country, starring native son and daughter Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. It's the most expensive movie ever made in Australia, and is the Great White hope for its tourism industry. Well, it finally premiered last night in Sydney and sooo how is it? According to early critics, it's pretty good! Stirring and exciting enough, romantic enough, not as treacly as its big, grand trailer (above) may make it seem. We'll give a little digest of the reviews below. Megan Lehmann for The Hollywood Reporter:

Nicole Kidman Celebrates 'Australia' Premiere By Plotting Retirement

STV · 11/18/08 11:43AM

The first audience to see the finished version of Australia should be drunkenly stumbling out of the afterparty right about now in Sydney, where Baz Luhrmann's $130 million epic held its world premiere today. Early reviews from the homeland are mixed ("While it will be very popular with many people I think there's a slight air of disappointment after it all," notes The Australian), putting Fox on edge for this weekend's first American press screenings and underscoring downswung star Nicole Kidman's red-carpet threat to walk away from the whole sordid business:

'Australia' Inches Closer As Baz Luhrmann Caves to New Ending

STV · 11/10/08 11:45AM

Not much has changed in the last week since industry observers filed a missing persons report on Australia; Baz Luhrmann's $130 million historical romance is still officially unfinished with only nine days to go before its homeland premiere and 16 days before it opens worldwide. Again, Baz, don't hurry on our behalves, but! We learned a lot more over the weekend about those "mechanics of stotrytelling" so troubling the director in his quest to put his Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman epic to bed. And massive spoiler aside, it should make for a roiling eternity of second-guessing, DVD revisionism and studio-hating from Luhrmann loyalists.The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that "disastrous reviews from test screenings" rejected Australia's original ending, in which Jackman's character dies:

Spotted

cityfile · 11/10/08 09:40AM

Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel leaving Southern Hospitality on Second Avenue through the back door ... Nicole Kidman getting lunch with a friend in the West Village ... Hilary Duff and boyfriend Mike Comrie arriving at their hotel ... Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts pushing baby Alexander in a stroller ... Natalie Portman taking her dog for a walk in the rain ... Jessica Alba going to dinner at Via dei Mille on West Broadway with daughter Honor and other family members ... Katie Holmes and Suri leaving the Union Square Greenmarket .. Eva Mendes on the set of her new film ... country singer Taylor Swift arriving at her hotel ... Brooke Shields buying toys at FAO Schwarz ... and Keira Knightley and boyfriend Rupert Friend hugging in Central Park.

Four Oscar Winners Plus Fergie's Labia Add Up To 'Nine'

STV · 11/07/08 04:15PM

The Weinstein Company this week released the accompanying portrait from Nine, director Rob Marshall's musical currently shooting in London. The occasion was the American Film Market, where foreign buyers (and probably not just a few domestic distributors smelling blood) rummaged through Harvey's Dollar Store for bargains on TWC properties, and as the photo suggests, nothing says "deal" like Penelope Cruz in her best bladder-holding pose opposite a spread-eagled Fergie. (Click through for a larger image.)And that's not even counting the four Oscar winners on display: Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Marion Cotillard and Dame Judi Dench. And look at Kate Hudson! Even the PA's get to be all dressed up on this movie! Dec. 11, 2009, can't come soon enough!

Whereabouts of 'Australia' Uncertain as Fox Buys Time For Baz Luhrmann

STV · 11/03/08 08:46PM

Director Baz Luhrman's historical epic/romance/tourism ad Australia is set to premiere Nov. 19 in its home country before opening wide here Nov. 26. It has a press junket in LA scheduled in between. And as of this writing, it has Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and $130 million worth of Fox's Oscar hopes tied up in an unfinished bundle in Luhrmann's editing bay. No one has seen much more than a couple stirring trailers and, according to Anne Thompson, an unfinished print that screened without effects for a lucky Oprah Winfrey audience (none of whom, of course, were critics). So with less than three weeks before the studio expects to introduce it to the world, what's taking so long?Last month Luhrmann told The Age that he was expecting to hand the 170-minute film to Fox one reel at a time while he tightened "mechanics of storytelling." (The Kidman/Jackman romance, though? Totally believable!) Over the weekend, though, he vaguely hinted that the Nov. 19 date was just another porous deadline:

Baz Luhrmann Ads Propose Australian Tourism as Salve for Shattered American Lives

STV · 10/08/08 12:13PM

Baz Luhrmann's boundless ambition may have met its match in a new pair of TV spots commissioned by Tourism Australia, an organization still reeling from its failure to entice international visitors two years ago with its bikini-clad representative scolding, "Where the bloody hell are you?" This time around, the tourism board opted for the more cheerful specter of an Aboriginal child whose fistful of fairy dust cures everything from burnout to bipolar disorder, all graphically allayed against the backdrop of America's inclement urban hellholes. Luhrmann's quick-cut horror show not only disappoints as a short film, but also tosses back in our face all the romantic tourist goodwill he'd accrued through his sweeping Australia trailers — themselves a far more uplifting endorsement of young native kids' rejuvenating powers, if Nicole Kidman's burnished features are any indication. Back to the drawing board, Baz! Judge for yourself after the jump. [YouTube]

Lauren Bacall Livens Up Nicole Kidman Profile With Cuss-Laden Slams at Tom Cruise

Kyle Buchanan · 10/06/08 01:00PM

Here at Defamer, we have a well-documenter love of salty old battle axes (hi, Cloris Leachman!) so props must be paid when one goes above and beyond the call of duty in providing us with entertainment. This week's recipient of our wizened love is Hollywood veteran Lauren Bacall, who adds a much-needed dash of (blue) color to Elle's upcoming profile of Nicole Kidman. While the Botoxed beauty is in a magnanimous mood, acknowledging her pleasure that ex Tom Cruise has found a "more profound" love with Katie Holmes, Kidman's former costar Bacall isn't one to mince words, and she jumps in to call Cruise a "maniac":

Nicole Kidman's Babymaking Secret: Cool, Uterus-Friendly Australian Water

STV · 09/24/08 11:10AM

This just in from Defamer's Wall Street bureau: Pharmaceutical stocks are down and airlines are up this morning on news that Australian water is the world's most fashionable new fertility drug. Or at least that's the word straight from Nicole Kidman, who attributes her recent pregnancy to the pregnancy-friendly falls of Kununurra — the tiny town where the actress filmed her upcoming epic Australia. And while our skeptical medical experts beg to differ, the numbers from the mouth of the water's unofficial, Oscar-winning spokeswoman do not lie:

Clay Aiken Comes Out, Surprises No One

cityfile · 09/24/08 06:15AM

♦ You probably heard the news yesterday that Clay Aiken is coming out of the closet. We thought we'd remind you again since you're undoubtedly still in a state of shock and disbelief. [P6, People]
Anna Wintour took the trash out of her West Village townhouse wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt, and slippers. [R&M]
Olivia Palermo's role in Whitney Port's new Hills spinoff will earn her $12,000 an episode. [P6]
♦ In response to her father's recent rants, Lindsay Lohan says her dad is out of line and "obviously needs to be on medication to control his moods." [P6]
♦ Jude Law was spotted with protestors outside the UN this week, although he was acting like "more of an observer than a protestor." [MSNBC]

Nicole Kidman To Search For Mythical Fountain Of Botox In 'The Eighth Wonder'

Seth Abramovitch · 09/17/08 04:20PM

· Nicole Kidman will star in The Eighth Wonder, an action-adventure whose goal "is to be to Raiders of the Lost Ark what the Bourne movies are to James Bond movies." Damn—comparisons were always our SAT Achilles' heel. We're just going to darken the oval next to Romancing the Stone and be done with it. [THR] · Miley Cyrus will star in a Disney movie tailor-made for the virginal superstar by author Nicholas Sparks, whom we hold personally responsible for the recent shmaltzalanche to devastate Hollywood. How can he make us blubber sufficiently if the lead actress can't even consummate her love for the soldier she reluctantly waves off to war from a sunlit dock? We shall see. [Variety] · Michael "For My Next Song, I'll Play Beethoven's Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major and Sparkle My Pants Off!" Douglas will first star as a horny auto magnate in Solitary Man. [Variety] · David Spade will star in Divorced Guys. [Variety] · True Blood already got its second season pickup after just two episode airings, with effusive network reps citing an "unprecedented" 24% increase in viewers since the premiere, who roundly found the show "a lot less awful and confusing than John From Cincinnati!" [THR]

Scream, Angelina, Scream!

STV · 09/11/08 07:45PM

· Now playing: The new trailer for Changeling, your official 2008 vintage Angelina Jolie Oscar Bait™ [YouTube] · For every dollar Nicole Kidman made in 2007, her films made a dollar. You don't need a calculator to guess what that makes her. [Forbes] · This should make Terry Giiliam happy: Warner Bros. plans a January Dark Knight rerelease to coincide with Oscar nominations. [Reuters] · Would Rose McGowan make a better IRA car bomber or executioner? If this was 1971, according to her we might have found out by now. [BBC] · If Jon Favreau had his way, Iron Man 2 would be in 3-D. Whoa! Hold it there, big fella — has anyone consulted Justin Theroux about this? [Collider]

Can A Movie That's Not Crocodile Dundee Make People Go To Australia?

Hamilton Nolan · 07/29/08 11:33AM

I have to admit I didn't know that people actually physically picked up and visited and/ or moved to New Zealand just because they loved the Lord of the Rings movies. This is a fact, apparently, but what's the rationale? Hoping to run into a fantasy battle scene? I don't see it. Nevertheless, Australia is now planning to use a movie to lure in similar hordes of easily manipulated child-like Hollywood fans. If you go there you'll probably have sex with Nicole Kidman!

Madonna Takes Needle To Gerard Butler's 'Little Bottom', Only Succeeds In Making Him 'Severely Ill'

Molly Friedman · 07/28/08 01:15PM

Madonna broke into the public consciousness not because of her vocal talents, but because of her catchy tunes, dance fever, and suggestively nymphomaniac tendencies. But now, the nearly-50-year old has finally morphed into the modern day Britney Spears: she's forcing unwilling male stars to pull down their pants, she's making headlines mainly due to a messy divorce, rumored affairs and plastic surgery rumors. Just as the British tabs begin to accuse the failed director/actress of going under a very sharp knife, it seems as though the exercise addict has used her seduction technique of shooting B-12 shots into hunky acquaintances’ butts. But this time around, unlike the soaring success story that was Justin Timberlake’s energizing vitamin-equipped ass, her second attempt on quasi-ex-husband Guy Ritchie’s newest leading man, Gerard Butler, left the poor man’s Clive Owen “severely ill.” Butler’s tale of Madge’s terrorist attack on his “little bum,” plus the allegations being made about how the extremes the Yankee doodler’s “grueling” beauty regime have affected her oddly sharp cheekbones and “popping veins,” after the jump.Cameron Diaz' ex and 3000 star Gerard Butler (we keep trying to forget that we first noticed him in Phantom Of The Opera even though every time we see his now-rugged face we can't help picturing him over-earnestly busting out "Music Of The Night") is fortunate enough to be starring in Ritchie's upcoming Rocknrolla, which means he was unfortunate enough to run into Madge at some point during filming. And as we learned months ago, the Ritchie groupie is always equipped with a baggie filled with needles filled to the brim with Lindsay Lohan's favorite "asthma attack" cure, Vitamin B-12. But according to Butler, the normally healthy kick to the ass advertised extensively be Madonna's most fickle supporter/critic Justin Timberlake, "the injection failed to boost Butler's immune system - and left him feeling worse than before." Even more embarrassing for Madge, Butler describes her as "the nurse" on set. Meaning she's gone from platinum singer to failed director to failed on-set medical assistant. Frankly we don't blame her if she did get some "filler in her cheeks," as a Daily Mail plastic surgery believes. A little nip and tuck, which, in Madonna's case, doesn't look as horrific as the tab makes it out to be, can go a long way in boosting one's self-esteem. Just look at Bat Face victim Nicole Kidman — it's almost like she never looks unhappy, even when she's so bored by her husband's music that she nods out for a while! [Photo credits: Splash]

Who Knew? The Top 10 Unlikely Vocal Performances From Non-Singing Actors

Seth Abramovitch · 07/16/08 07:00PM

In light of Pierce Brosnan's brave, warbling turn in Mamma Mia—as well as recent news that Kate Hudson would veer off the Bongo Romcom highway to explore the musical theater side roads in Rob Marshall's Nine—Defamer videologist Molly McAleer has compiled a countdown of 10 Classic Musical Crossover Performances. We've ordered these from least to most successful; some of these actors-who-sing are arguably better singers than they are actors, and have gone on to cut their own records. Some are clearly better actors than singers. And some should probably just give up both and become something sensible like a dental hygienist or insurance broker. We have no doubt you have your own strong opinions on notable omissions; feel free to post video in the comments.

No One Wants Poor Nicole's Baby

cityfile · 07/16/08 05:25AM
  • The real reason Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban didn't sell baby pics to the tabs? It may have had less to do with morals and more to do with the fact no one was willing to shell out $3 million. [Page Six]