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It's not easy to sustain a movie career if you only have looks and charm, but no real talent. But such is not the case for Kostja Ullmann and Tom Schilling.

Ullmann, who is one of the lead actors in the hit Summer Storm, is quite shrewd in his choices of roles. Still quite young in the industry, Kostja has proved that the raves he received for the Marco Kreuzpaintner's coming-of-age film are no fluke. One of his recent films involved a lot of risk and guts. In Punish Me, Ullmann took on the role of a young juvenile delinquent who gets involved with a mature older woman, one who is into S&M. The part required the young actor to be naked and submissive to his 49-year-old probation officer (played by the talented Maren Kroymann).

Schilling, on the other hand, is not satisfied to just play in the background or to be a supporting actor to other top young talents. While he played second fiddle in a number of youth-oriented films starring Robert Stadlober, Schilling finally went on to prove that he can carry the lead in a film, and be funny as well. In the new Marc Rothemund film, Pornorama, Schilling plays the role of a young and aspiring filmmaker who is forced to do a sex movie in order to help his older brother. Although there are no scenes that require Schilling to take off his clothes, it is nonetheless a film that tackles a rather mature topic. Perhaps this is Schilling's way of getting out of teen roles and graduating into more fully-developed ones.

While both actors have their own following within Germany, we just think Ullmann has a more international appeal!

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Niki Caro's upcoming production The Vintner's Luck has made its first pre-sales. It was sold to Icon for the UK and to Dendy for Australia and NZ. Ascot Elite has acquired Swiss rights to the film.

The Vintner's Luck is an irresistible story of love, wine and angels. It tells the tale of Sobran, a peasant wine-maker in 19th century France and his life-long relationship with an angel as they grapple with the sensual, the sacred, and the profane in search of the perfect vintage.

Juno, this year's undisputed indie favorite, has won Best Picture at the Rome Film Festival!

Screendaily reports: Jason Reitman's teen pregnancy drama/comedy Juno won Rome Film Fest's Marco Aurelio Best Film Award, it was announced yesterday. Reitman was in Rome to accept the award, along with screenwriter Diablo Cody.

Film review by Jackie C.

Boy A, based on the novel by Jonathan Trigell, is the latest film from director John Crowley and writer Mark O’Rowe, who previously collaborated on the 2003 film Intermission.

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As the film opens, we see Jack (beautifully played by Andrew Garfield) meeting with his social worker, Terry (Peter Mullan). In this first exchange, Terry gives Jack a pair of Nike shoes and from Jack’s reaction we discover that this is a young man who has not been given much in his life. We quickly learn that Jack, now in his mid-20s, has just been released from prison, having been there since he was 12. Jack (not his real name) has been moved to a new town and given a new identity for his own protection. The newspapers have headlines warning the public about the imminent release of the infamous Boy A, whom they refer to as 'an evil killer'.

There are lots of good films this year that are truly deserving of the Indie Spirit Awards, the Oscars, BAFTAs and Golden Globes. One great blog dealing with indie films in the US was one of the first to highlight the upcoming awards race. In this series, we feature five awesome movies from Paramount Vantage! Complete with production notes, image galleries and the usual synopsis and cast/crew bios, the Paramount 'for your consideration' drive is one of the first such campaign ever to be launched by a major studio in the US.

A Mighty Heart, featuring the powerful performance of Angelina Jolie, is one of the latest works of famed British director Michael Winterbottom. It tells the harrowing story of Mariane Pearl and her struggle to find her husband, Daniel, who was kidnapped and later murdered by terrorists in Pakistan.

Margot at the Wedding is Noah Baumbach's follow-up to his Academy Award®-nominated The Squid and the Whale. It's "a daringly funny and bracingly honest exploration of the tender, absurd and sometimes excruciating relationship between siblings — and the fallout for those in their wake: children, husbands and lovers."

The Kite Runner, from director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Monster's Ball), is based on one of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, The Kite Runner is a profoundly emotional tale of friendship, family, devastating mistakes and redeeming love.

Finally, There Will Be Blood, the upcoming movie starring the iconic Daniel Day Lewis. A sprawling epic of family, faith, power and oil, THERE WILL BE BLOOD is set on the incendiary frontier of California’s turn-of-the-century petroleum boom. The story chronicles the life and times of one Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), who transforms himself from a down-and-out silver miner raising a son on his own into a self-made oil tycoon.

tMF is particularly excited about Daniel Day-Lewis's performance in There Will Be Blood. The fact that his co-star is the young and talented Paul Dano makes it one of the year's best films. Emile Hirsch's performance in Alpha Dog was a bit of a disappoinment to fans, but in this Sean Penn flick, he definitely establishes himself as a promising leading man in Hollywood. Jolie's Mariane Pearl is one of the year's most convincing performances, but we are more inclined to pick Marion Cotillard in La Vie En Rose and Keira Knigthley in Atonement as two of the best for the year.

To see more of the five features, just click any one of the following:

[ A Mighty Heart ] [ Margot at the Wedding ] [ Into the Wild ] [ The Kite Runner ] [ There Will Be Blood ]

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Ryan Gosling is definitely on the spotlight! A few days ago, people were talking about Jake Gyllenhaal, another tMF favorite and one of today's most popular young actors. but now Gosling steals his thunder with an upcoming GQ spread!

As the news surrounding his recent departure from the Peter Jackson film, The Lovely Bones, picks up more heat, Gosling's interview with GQ's Alex Pappademas features the actor in 12 pages of pure Ryan pleasure!

We're probably one of the biggest fans of Ryan Gosling - not only because he's a talented actor, but also because of his active involvement in a number of worthy causes. While waiting for the release of his new film Lars and the Real Girl, we've been following news about his role in the upcoming The Lovely Bones. So it came as a big surprise when Variety reported that Gosling is no longer part of the cast...

"One day before shooting began, Mark Wahlberg stepped in to replace Ryan Gosling in "The Lovely Bones," the Peter Jackson-directed adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel for DreamWorks.

Wahlberg has taken the role of Jack Salmon, the grieving father of a young girl. That role was vacated Friday by "Lars and the Real Girl" star Ryan Gosling, who stepped out after gaining 20 pounds and growing a beard for the job. Sources attributed the exit to creative differences. "

"Controversy developed over the film when director Tony Kaye attempted to remove his name from the credits, preferring to use the pseudonym Alan Smithee. When this was refused he chose "Humpty Dumpty" as an alternative pseudonym, which in turn was also rejected. Kaye alleged that his reasoning for this was Edward Norton's re-editing of the film to give himself more screen time."

Of course, Mr. Peter Jackson is a much bigger director than Kaye. If he bought the rights to adapt Alice Sebold's book into a movie, he would certainly want to do it according to his own vision for the story. Perhaps Ryan just got in the way of that?

Yeah right… tell that to the millions who watched Spiderman!

But we’re not just talking about box office here; we’re talking about the difference between being an actor and being a star! About selling out or being true to one’s craft. We’re talking about the difference between a risk-taker and a conformist.

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While we admire Tobey Maguire for bringing to life one of Marvel’s most popular characters, we simply prefer Jake Gyllenhaal for continually choosing the more difficult road and opting for roles that challenge his range as an actor. Gyllenhaal is a risk-taker who has shown that he is not afraid to portray characters that may affect his ‘star image’. I don’t think it matters to him that it might - think of Brokeback Mountain and his love scenes with Heath Ledger – I don’t think any other actor would have agreed to take on the role of Jack Twist.

And how about dancing naked with his butt exposed in Jarhead? And that jerk-off scene? Actors like Tobey would not even dare! (Orlando Bloom would run and hide!)

tMF will be celebrating its sixth month this coming November and we're thrilled about it! We're probably one of the first movie-related site to use joomla! and to feature talents from all over the world - we've profiled awesome young actors from Germany, France and even Norway alongside some of Hollywood's top actors. We'll be featuring some of the hottest actresses next month too!

While we're busy preparing for next month's DVD contest, we're also proud to have the chance to be featured at fechr! And that's not a misspelling. Its a groovy way to say featured!

Its hard to discover new sites, especially those that you may want to visit again and again. We aim to be that kind of site, and what better way to do that than to be listed at fechr! Check tMF at fechr! and see which other sites belong to the club.

He's been a tMF favorite since forever and we're just about ready to launch a profile! In the meantime, take a look at some rather 'old' scans featuring this cool actor.

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[ Charlie 1 ] [ Charlie 2 ] [ Charlie 3 ]

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Hedi Slimane, the designer of the über-cool Dior Homme, once photographed tMF favorite Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Of course, he's wearing Dior! Says the designer:

"Joseph isn't that different from the models I usually worked with. The shoot was very casual. It was just the two of us. There was no agenda."

As you can see from the photos, Slimane did show Joe in a different light! See the high-res scans by clicking any of the links below:

[ Joe Levitt 1 ] [ Joe Levitt 2 ] [ Joe Levitt 3 ]

I need to post this! Its so funny, and I loved it! Jake is so witty here, and the host is weird, flirting with Jake! you'll love the video!

At 6 feet tall, Jake Gyllenhaal is that rare breed of movie star, an actor who’s actually bigger in life than he appears onscreen. On reason might be that when Gyllenhaal fills the frame, so much of one’s attention is focused on his eyes; another might be that until recently Gyllenhaal’s roles called for him to portray boyish figures on the cusp of manhood.

In this month’s Rendition, however, that youthful, wide-eyed innocence comes face to face with some ugly realities. Gyllenhaal plays a CIA analyst who enthusiastically signs on for a less-than-orthodox interrogation of an Egyptian-born terror suspect, an assignment that forces him to put his own beliefs on the hot seat. It’s one of the handful of films this fall and in the months to follow that tackle such lighting-rod issues as post-9/11 security and the war in Iraq. For Gyllenhaal, it may well prove the final leap from indie heartthrob to leading man, a process he began with 2005’s Jarhead and Brokeback Mountain, the latter of which earned him earned him his first Oscar nomination. Here Gyllenhaal speaks with David Fincher, who directed him in this year’s Zodiac.

There's also a '15 minute of Interview voices', featuring the actor answering questions from director David Fincher.

[ More from Interview magazine ]

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Our friend at Wet, Dark and Wild is having a field day! Here's what she said:

"You don't need me to tell you that Jake Gyllenhaal's schedule - and ours - is looking a litle busy over the next week or two. We know how entertaining Jake will be and how his ready wit will be armed and ready to take on the likes of Jonathan Ross, Conan O'Brien, Ellen and Jon Stewart. I am fully expecting more classic moments along the lines of the kicked toad, the modern dance troupe, 24 hour Yellow fever, Inuit chanting, shirt stripping and maybe a bit of basketball - or some new interesting fabrics, even more so than suits made out of goats blood or diapers/nappies made from bananas and straw. But what we're also going to get is something a little bit more serious to complement all this wonderful stuff. "

The excitement is all about the upcoming wide release of Jake's film, Rendition. As America gets ready for more of what Jake has to say, many shows will definitely try to outdo each other. But since Jake is the star of these shows, we'll be waiting for what he has to say, and we know he can say a lot!

You may remember him as the idealistic young journalist covering the rock band Stillwater in the film Almost Famous , and his 'adventure' to get his first cover story published. Directed by Cameron Crowe, the role Fugit played is almost an autobiography of the filmmaker himself.

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That film was made when Fugit was only 17 years old. While the film was not a box-office success, it was nevertheless recognized in the Oscars, winning the Oscar for Best Screenplay for Crowe. Fugit went on to star in several more films, and also appeared in several TV series including ER in 2003. Now he's back in another movie that truly highlights his talent as a young actor to be reckoned with.

Wristcutters: A Love Story is a film directed by Goran Dukic and stars Fugit and Shannyn Sossamon.

What's the Movie About: The film is set in a strange afterlife way station that has been reserved for people who have committed suicide. Says Chris Docker:

"Sometimes we find beauty in the strangest places; and, remarkably for such a gruesome title, Wristcutters could probably be said to be a rather uplifting affirmation of life, hidden within a seriously quirky black comedy. Set in an afterlife reserved for people who commit suicide, it seems to contain wacky nuggets of truth from oddball characters including Zia (Patrick Fugit) searching for the love of his life; Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), an accidental visitor; Eugene (Shea Whigham), a Russian musician that electrocuted himself on stage from being badly heckled, and the weird and wonderful Kneller, played by the ever-mysterious Tom Waits." [ more ]

[ Official movie site ] [ Patrick Fugit ]

Our affiliate, the Cillian Site, continues to update us on the upcoming Cillian Murphy film Hippie Hippie Shake.

"I'm happy to report that director Beeban Kidron is an equal opportunity filmmaker when it comes to depicting Hippie Hippie Shake's sexual revolution era story. Cillian fans, I'm sure you'll be very happy to discover that Sienna Miller is not the only one who's taking off her clothes in this movie. "

It's a bit on the 'naughty' side, but who cares? [ click here for more ]

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What's the Movie About? Hippie Hippie Shake will take the audience on a psychedelic journey through London in the late '60s and early '70s. Murphy plays Richard Neville, the editor of the notorious satirical magazine Oz, and Miller plays his girlfriend Louise. In an era of free love and flower power, the film follows their love story as Neville and his friends launch the magazine and find themselves fighting for both the magazine's survival and for the freedom of their generation.

The movie also stars Max Minghella, the son of famous director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Breaking and Entering).

[ tMF Profile of Cillian Murphy ] [ The Cillian Site ] [ Hippie Hippie Shake @Working Title Films]

Based on the science fiction novel by Steve Gould, Jumper is one of the most anticipated films coming out in 2008. Directed by Doug Liman (The Jason Bourne trilogy), it stars Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Rachel Bilson and Jamie Bell. With the cool teaser unveiled today, the public has been given its first preview of this amazing film.

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Powerful and thrilling, with an awesome set of special effects, plus the teaming up of Hayden Christensen and Jamie Bell against Samuel L. Jackson, it's definitely one of the better science fiction movies in a long time. The gadgets, the weaponry, the actual teleporting from place to place...you name it. Its definitely a film to watch out for in 2008.

While we're sure Jamie Bell will do an awesome job as Griffin, we're a bit more hesitant about Christensen's abilities to match Bell's wit and on-screen presence. There maybe some hints of rivalry here...

[ More of Jumper in our Film Feature ] [ View the first trailer here ]

While it has no bearing on tMF's upcoming launch of actresses' profiles, it seems some of the latest news stories about female stars are as nasty as they come.

News Story #1: The Guardian recently posted a rather scathing article that attacked actress Nicole Kidman (show here in the film Dogville) on her recent role choices and even on her personal life.

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Leading online film sites such as Cinematical and Hollywood Elsewhere are fuming mad and they have good reason to be, as can be seen from the extract from the article quoted below:

"If only you weren't married, because then you could fade away like Grace Kelly, marry the witless king of some corrupt, made-up, toy principality whose only redeeming feature is its colorful Ruritanian military uniforms. But then I remember: you were once a Scientology hostage bride, so you've done all that before.

And what magic are you working on these big Hollywood producers that persuades or forces them to let you keep working? Does Keith Urban know what you're up to? Or do you just have some really juicy Polaroids of Tom and his crazy co-religionists locked together in some sort of sweat-soaked Scientological excelsis? Because if so, well, do your worst. But if not - retire! "

This is the first time that tMF is actually posting something about celebrity 'juice'. While we frown upon the use of pap pics on other sites and the celebration of actors' tragedies, it seems this time the writer of this article has completely abused his privileges and has definitely gone too far. Never mind the fact that Ms. Kidman's latest films are not as successful or as critically-acclaimed as her previous ones, the personal attacks and the tone of the article are so mean and so nasty that one cannot help but wonder if there is some really sinister intent behind the article itself.

News Story # 2: Slashfilm picked up a rather controversial news story when they posted about Warner Bros President of Production Jeff Robinov stating that the studio is no longer producing films with female leads. Says the blogger:

"Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov has made a new rule that “We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead”, according to DeadlineHollywood. Apparently, Robinov won’t even look at a script with a female lead. And why has Robinov come around to this new way (Neanderthal, so rather old way) of thinking? Because it is the recent Hollywood trend: Both Jodie Foster’s The Brave One, Emma Robert’s Nancy Drew, Hilary Swank’s The Reaping, and Nicole Kidman’s The Invasion fared poorly at the box office."

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Nikki Fenke from Deadline Hollywood updated her post when noted women's rights attorney Gloria Allred reacted to the announcement:

"If that's what he said, when movies with men as the lead fail, no one says we'll stop making movies with men in the lead. This is an insult to all moviegoers and particularly women. It is truly unfortunate that women get blamed for decisions which are made by men. Instead of taking responsibility for their own lack of judgment about which scripts to make, directors to hire and budgets to OK, some men in the movie industry find it easier to place blame for their lack of success on women leads and to exclude talented female actors from the top employment opportunities in Hollywood in favor of macho males. If that studio confirms that their policy is to now exclude women as leads, then my policy would be to boycott films made by Warner Bros."

Reactions were varied from the readers of /Film. Apparently the main issue of contention is that Warner Bros is first and foremost a business, and therefore they want to make a profit. In the movie-making business, the more you earn at the box office, the better your chance of making a sequel and thereby marketing the original film even further. It has been that way ever since they started making huge movies with huge budgets - just think Star Wars! Think Harry Potter! And let's not forget the recent Transformer craze!

Businessmen, whether in movies or other fields, will always look at the bottom line, and that bottom line is easy to see: it's their net profit.

When tMF conducted an interview with the editor and owner of European-films.net, the issue of why there is such a big difference between films made in the US and those produced in Europe became quite apparent. Corporate interests rule supreme in Hollywood and the major concern of these big studios is to earn huge profits. Movies in Europe, however, are produced with the support of the government, thus enabling the main issue to be artistic merit. Of course, even those government want to have their Euros back!

Atonement, Hallam Foe, Control. Three up and coming films from the UK that feature some of the most exciting young actors today. But the filmmakers are also making waves, in their own rights! Let's see what they're up to - and what they're saying:

"In a lot of films, the sexual side is relatively disconnected from the narrative; you can easily cut to 'after' without losing anything. But in almost everything I've done, something is going on with the characters beyond bodies touching each other, and that's why you focus on it." David McKenzie, director Hallam Foe.

"Stephen Daldry [the director of Billy Elliot] watched it and said, 'You've just made a romcom. You may not realise it but you have,'" admits McKenzie.

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Hallam Foe (Jamie Bell) has transgression aplenty, reports the Guardian, but it also has romance. When Hallam falls for Kate (Sophia Myles), Mackenzie's directorial eye looks away. "In terms of his scenes with Kate, it's all rather sweet and I deliberately don't show stuff. One of my favourite scenes is when they play a word game that is obscene in one way but coy and sweet and romantic in another." He's not bashful about letting tenderness into his films. "If I have made a romcom, then I'm delighted because it feels like it's mine and I've been relatively honest with it. We went to great lengths to make it original, even though it is, I guess, a coming-of-age romcom." Or, as one US distributor said in private: "You've made an Oedipal romcom."

Hallam Foe first came to the attention of McKenzie when his former flatmate, Peter Jinks, revealed he was writing a book about a "misfit on the rooftops". McKenzie leapt on it and, after the novel was published, co-wrote the script. "The character Hallam appealed most of all. It's an ugly duckling story. I can identify with being a misfit," he says. "It's a story about leaving home, and that's a fairly universal thing. I know Hallam is a weirdo but I hope people are going to go with him. At that age we are all a little bit uncomfortable with ourselves and we are all a bit weird. Actually, I think we go to our graves being a bit weird. What makes us individuals is our discomfort with things."

McKenzie is not remotely patronising in his praise for Bell, now 21, who has, he says, "a huge future ahead of him". Bell spent much of the intense, six-week shoot suspended from wires above the grey grandeur of Edinburgh's Old Town. "Edinburgh is a sort of gothic fairytale city and it can be a gothic horror city as well. It lends itself to that rooftop world," says McKenzie. "If you set Hallam Foe in Manhattan, Hallam would have to be Spiderman."

[ See our Film Feature on Hallam Foe ]

Speaking of Jamie Bell, /Film recently announced that they had received a mysterious letter:

"I received a postcard in the mail addressed to “/Film”. It had no mailing address on the front, and the back is black (seen above) and reads “be at the scene of every story.” Little type on the bottom of the card reads “find out how 10/10/07. anywhereispossible.com”

[ See our Film Feature on Jumper or visit the site /film is talking about ]

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It’s a weird thing that people say: “Great books make bad films and bad books make great films.” I had that paranoia running around the back of my mind. But the problem is that I don’t have much choice. When a piece of material gets its claws into me, I’m at its mercy. However much I try and talk myself out of doing something I can’t really help but do it. So that’s how it was with Ian McEwan’s spectacular novel. It just got under my skin and all those kind of concerns had to be dealt with." So says Joe Wright when asked if it's daunting to adapt such a popular, well-respected book.

"I think the book is very visual so I therefore tried to make an almost literal adaptation of the book. When we got to a passage in the book like Robbie in the cellar, for instance, and there’s this little sequence that talks about going back to before it all happened, we literally ran the film backwards! We were very literal about it. Most of the changes that happened did so for financial reasons rather than creative ones. The book works obviously, so we tried to be faithful to it. I kind of had faith that the film would work too if we stuck to the truth of the novel.

With a lot of adapted novels, the catchphrase they all have is kind of, “at some point you need to throw the book away”. I always used to nod my head and pretend to understand what they meant. But I think you only throw the book away if it’s rubbish, so we never did that. We kept the book by our side throughout the whole process. Obviously, you have to cherry pick a bit. I also think a lot of literary people presume that literature and the written word has a monopoly over internal truth and I personally, as a dyslexic, don’t agree with that. I think, to me, the films of Fellini or Bergman or the great classical masters of the medium spoke just as much truth as Tolstoy or Dickens. It’s just another medium, so anyone who thought that the book was un-adaptable was probably under estimating the power of film."

[ More of Atonement from our Film Features section ]

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"A lot of people assumed that I just shoot in black and white, but actually that’s not the case - I shoot a lot of colour photography. But my memory of Joy Division is very black and white. If you look at the visuals that are available of Joy Division, especially stills, I would say it’s almost 99% black and white. The reason being that in the 1970s and early 1980s, all the important music magazines were printed in black and white. A band had to have a hit to be photographed in colour for more commercial publications, but a band like Joy Division had no hits (yet). Also, their record sleeves were black and white, and the way they dressed was quite grey-zoned. So, I felt this was the right way to think of Joy Division, " says Anton Corbijn of his latest feature.

[ More of Control from our Film Features section ]

Vampire novels have fascinated readers of all ages- from teenage girls who crave for romance with a certain gothic flavor to die-hard fans of the macabre to just plain folks who like to read some thrills with chills.

When Anne Rice's novel Interview With the Vampire was first announced to be adapted into film, the author and her fans denounced the choice of Tom Cruise for the role of Lestat, one of the lead characters in the novel. While they praised the casting of Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas, it was only after the film was shown that the author made an about-face and 'praised' Cruise for his portrayal of the naughty, handsome vampire.

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Now another vampire novel is currently into production. While the author has no say on the casting, still she has posted a number of actors, models and celebrities whom she deemed fit to play the roles of her novel's characters.

Says Ms. Meyer: "My opinions on the movie matter to no one. I have no influence on what goes on with the movie at all. No one is going to ask who I think should star in Twilight.."

Twilight, a novel by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight is a young adult/horror/fantasy/romance novel written by author Stephenie Meyer, originally published in hardcover in 2005. The story is about seventeen-year-old Isabella Swan, a girl who moves to Forks, Washington and finds her life in danger when she falls in love with vampire Edward Cullen.

Meyer is vocal about her choices- from Henry Cavill ( as Edward Cullen) to Emily Browning (as Isabella Swan). She also mentioned awesome actor and tMF favorite Cillian Murphy.

But her fans think otherwise. Among the many names suggested were French rising star Gaspard Ulliel, top male models Jeremy Dufour and Kevin Flamme. All happens to be French.

Charlie Hunnam was reported to be 'not interested in doing Vampire roles'. British top male model Callum Best was also mentioned by the author. We'll have more developments soon, in the meantime you may want to visit the author's website and get to know more of her novels and yes, the casting saga!

[ Stephenie Meyer official website ]

Rivalry adds spice to an already exciting and colorful showbiz situation. While actors have always been pitted against each other in friendly competition, some rivalries gain too much 'heat' and fans and the media want more of the juice.

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Much has been said regarding the 'rivalry' between Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal. When Tobey was reported to be leaving Spiderman, it was Jake's name that was most often mentioned as Maguire's possible replacement. And although in the end this did not happen, the actors nevertheless competed at the box office soon thereafter, as their latest films were released almost simultaneously - Maguire in Spiderman and Gyllenhaal in The Day After Tomorrow. Both films were big winners at the box office, thus escalating the potential for 'rivalry'.

Variety recently reported that the actors will soon be working together on a new film called Brothers. A remake of the 2004 film by the Danish director and writer Susanne Bier, the film is about two brothers. One is a soldier who goes missing in Afghanistan and the other goes on to comfort his brother's wife and children.

The remake is to be directed by Jim Sheridan, the guy who brought us My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father, among others.

The talented Natalie Portman is reported to be playing the part of the wife.

Mexican superstar Gael Garcia Bernal is not only a talented actor, but also a budding filmmaker. At the recent Toronto Film Festival, Bernal's directorial debut Deficit was shown to much acclaim. Not only is Bernal emerging into the limelight as a director, but he also starred in another Mexican film, this time from Oscar-winning Argentine-born Brazilian director Hector Babenco.

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The film is called El Pasado: Bernal stars as Rimini, a young translator who in the midst of divorcing his wife of 12 years becomes involved with a younger woman, which sparks a vengeful response on the part of his former love. Adapted from Argentinian writer Alan Paul's novel of the same name, the movie marks a move away from Babenco's familiar territory of outcasts ("Pixote," "Kiss of the Spiderwoman") to more straightforward dramatic terrain of men and women, love and loss.

The 45th New York Film Festival will feature a list of exciting new films from some of the world's most prominent filmmakers. 28 films will premier at the festival, while some of the most acclaimed films from Cannes will also be shown.

Wes Anderson’s new film, The Darjeeling Limited, featuring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman, will be the Opening Film.  Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men will be honored as the festival’s Centerpiece. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis has been selected as the festival’s Closing Night film.

tMF is particularly excited about Todd Hayne's I'm Not There, the Bob Dylan biopic featuring Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett.  We're also looking forward to seeing Eric Rohmer's The Romance of Astreé and Céladon, which features former top male model Andy Gillet in the lead role. Claude Chabrol' s A Girl Cut in Two featuring one of France's most exciting actors Benoit Magimel, also ranks high on our list. Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park will also be shown at the festival.

Lastly, we have to make mention of José Luis Guerín's In the City of Sylvia. Described as 'exceedingly graceful' it is one of the films we will be featuring on tMF soon.

[ Official Festival website ]