Vishnuvardhan, also known as Dr. Vishnu, has died at the age of 59. The Indian actor passed away December 30 of a heart attack. Born, Sampath Kumar, he was given the name Vishnuvardhan by director Puttanna Kanagal in 1973.

His first film role was ‘Vamsha Vruksha’ in 1972, but he came to fame when he starred in ‘Nagara Haavu,’ directed by Kanagal in 1973.

Dr. Vishnu was popularly regarded as versatile, talented and stylish by those in the Kannada film industry, which is colloquially referred to as Sandalwood. He often played the macho hero or ideal husband. 

Over forty years he appeared in 198 Sandalwood films including, ‘Nagara Haavu,’ ‘Sahasa Simha,’ ‘Hombisilu,’ ‘Muthina Haara,’ ‘Yajamana,’ and ‘Apthamitra.’ But his filmography is not restricted to Sandalwood productions. He also starred in Tamil, Malayalam and Bollywood films.

According to reports, Vishnuvardhan once narrowly escaped death while shooting ‘Muthina Haara,’ when he performed a dangerous parachute dive without a double.

He suffered health problems in recent years and was admitted to Vikram Hospital Mysore on December 29 after experiencing severe chest pain. He died a day later of a heart attack .

Adored by his fans, Dr. Vishnu appreciated his following. According to OneIndia.com, during the shooting of ‘Sahasa Simha,’ a fan gave him a bracelet (Kadaga) and told the actor that it would bring good luck. Dr. Vishnu never took off the bracelet; he wore it until his last breath.

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Actor Tim Roth is pushing for movie executives to make a sequel to the screen adaptation of Marvel Comics’ ‘The Incredible Hulk.’ The British actor who played the Russion soldier, Emil Blonsky, turned master villain, Abomination, in the first blockbuster wants to reprise his role because he had so much fun playing the part.

Roth told MTV.com, “I had the best time ever with that one — more fun on set than anybody. I did it purely for my kids, so my boys can laugh at their dad and have fun with it.”

In the comic books Blonsky is a KGB agent, while in the film he is a Russian born captain in the British Royal Marines. A super-soldier serum gives him super powers and an infusion of Bruce Banner’s blood creates an extreme mutation. Abomination appears in the comic books as a reptilian humanoid, but movie bosses redesigned the character to give him a more perturbing look, turning him into a mutated monster with boney protrusions.

Although at the end of the first movie Abomination barely escapes the wrath of the Hulk, played by Edward Norton, his survival could mean a reprisal for Roth.

“When you do your deal, you sign up for three [films]. I’ve done the one … and basically, I don’t know what they have planned, but they can bring me back,” Roth said. “I told them I’m absolutely game for it. It would be so much fun to do it again. I’m in it for three.”

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In a roundup poll of 2009 flicks, Moviefone.com readers voted Megan Fox both the ‘actress who gave the worst performance’ and ‘the year’s sexiest female star.’ It appears people have a love-hate relationship with the foxy lady.

Fox landed her breakout role in 2007 when she was cast as Mikaela Banes (hey, we just noticed how much that name resembles Michael Bay) in Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers.’ She reprised the role in the sequel, ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,’ and it was that performance that netted her both “best” and “worst” Moviefone honours.

Voters also appeared to be divided about the action sequel itself. While ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ was voted ‘worst movie of the year,’ it was also voted ‘best action movie of the year.’ Both titles were barely captured. Ringing up 24% of the votes for each category, ‘Transformers’ beat out ‘Avatar’ for ‘best action film’ by a mere one percent. It also topped the ‘worst film’ list by an equally slim margin, with ‘Land of the Lost’ tallying 23% of the votes.

Fox also was the lead in the colossal box office flop, ‘Jennifer’s Body’ (titled after a song off of Hole’s ‘Live Through This’ album) as a teenager turned possessed serial killer after she is subject to a misguided attempt at a virgin sacrifice.

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The star studded musical ‘Nine’ recently opened, after much fanfare, to disappointing box office and dismal reviews. The Rob Marshall directed film was one of the most anticipated movies of the year and cost an estimated $64 million to produce — and the cast includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Judi Dench and Nicole Kidman. But it finished eighth at the North American box office in its second week last weekend with a meagre $5.5 million in ticket sales. The Hollywood Reporter points out that this is despite five Golden Globe nominations.

The film is based on an award-winning Broadway stage musical which is in turn based on Federico Fellini’s ‘8 1/2.’ It follows a filmmaker going through a midlife crisis and dealing with the women in his life.

It has ranked only 37% fresh on the tomatometer on aggregator Rottentomatoes.com. Roger Ebert says “Nine is just plain adrift in its own lack of necessity,” while USA Today’s Claudia Puig says, “Nine should have been called 4 1/2 because it doesn’t come close to the work of the master who inspired it.”

But the Hollywood Reporter says the Weinstein Company isn’t going to pull it from any theatres just yet and expects it will pick up.

“At this moment in time there has been no plan between us nor the theatre chains that we deal with to cut any theatres,” David Glasser, an operations executive for the company reportedly told Reuters on Wednesday.

“We are going to hold our theatres as planned. The movie is working.” He said the studio expected ‘Nine’ to perform well in the coming weeks.

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George Clooney isn’t going to do any more press conferences to promote his movies. The actor is reportedly sick of stupid stunts and getting marriage proposals from journalists, or rather, strippers posing as journalists.

Contact Music says Clooney was left a little red-faced at a Venice Film Festival press conference in September 2009 when a journo turned out to be a male stripper and took off his clothes while professing his love for the heartthrob. After that, Clooney reportedly started to become elusive and refused to promote his latest movie ‘Up In The Air,’ leaving interviews to co-stars Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. And apparently there’s more of the same coming in the future. No more George for the press.

He reportedly told Entertainment Weekly magazine, “When you’re at a certain place in your career where people know you, it’s not like you have to get known. I don’t want to be more famous. You realise that movies are either going to be successful or not based on the trailer and how it’s sold and what people’s perception of the movie is.

“I’ll do the red carpets, but I’m not going to do the press conferences anymore. You focus on a few smart interviews and try to do them every once in a while and make them hard to get.”

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RadarOnline.com is reporting that Zelda Rubinstein has been taken off life support and it has been estimated that she has only a short time left to live.

The 76-year-old actress is best known for her role as the medium Tangina Barrons in the ‘Poltergeist’ movies. She has been hospitalized for over a month at Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and the decision to remove her from the life support machine came after the failure of two of her major organs.

A friend of the actress told Radaronline.com that “Her lungs and kidneys have failed and she’s in and out of consciousness. It’s only a matter of time now — she doesn’t have long to live.”

Rubinstein won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the medium, Tangina, in ‘Poltergeist,’ directed by Tobe Hooper and released in 1982. She reprised the role in ‘Poltergeist II: The Other Side,’ and ‘Poltergeist III.’

Rubinstein also starred as Madame Serena in the 1989 film ‘Teen Witch.’

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James McAvoy is the lead in what will be the first feature film about journalist/writer Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. According to Moviehole, moviemakers once had their eye on Leonardo DiCaprio to star, but now McAvoy has been tipped to play Fleming in the independently financed film based on biographer Andrew Lycett’s book ‘Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond.’

The picture has a budget of around $40 million and currently bears the working title ‘Ian Fleming.’ It will focus on the years during which the author acquired inspiration for his classic Bond character.

Fleming’s youth is said to have been spent as an aimless playboy but his path took a turn toward purpose when he lived through World War II. Fleming was first a Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve lieutenant and later promoted to Lieutenant Commander, before finally reaching the rank of Commander. The Bond character is, in part, based on Fleming himself.

The author created Bond in 1952 while on holiday at his Jamaican estate, GoldenEye. The SIS Agent was named after an American ornithologist and author of the field guide book ‘Birds of the West Indies.’ Fleming was a keen birdwatcher and once told Reader’s Digest “I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, ‘James Bond’ was much better than something more interesting, like ‘Peregrine Carruthers.’ Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure — an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department.”

Currently James McAvoy is busy working on a few movies, leaving the question of when he will have time to star in the high priority project up in the air. At the moment he is wrapping up filming on ‘The Conspirator’ and has both ‘I’m with Cancer’ and ‘Wanted 2′ in the works.

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Filming in Mexico hasn’t even begun and Mel Gibson is already facing controversy over his latest project which is to be filmed in a Veracruz prison. According to the BBC, hundreds of demonstrators stood outside the Ignacio Allende Prison to protest moving their incarcerated family members to another jail for the sake of Gibson’s production.

Gibson, who donated one million dollars to the Gulf of Mexico region in 2005 after it was hit by Hurricane Stan, plans to have the prison cleared to shoot his second Veracruz- based movie (‘Apocalypto,’ was filmed there in 2006).

Earlier this month, state governor, Fidel Herrera Beltran, announced, “My friend Mel is coming to work for many months here in Veracruz.”  Beltran told reporters that prisoners would be transferred from Ignacio Allende to other state facilities in order to set the stage for filming in January. The governor had also said that construction of a new local prison would finish before film production started.

Protestors have recently demonstrated displeasure with the plan. According to the BBC, one family member held up a banner that read, “No transfers to make a movie,” while another sign read, “Mel Gibson, it is your fault that they are going to be transferred.”

Relatives lost faith in the plan when they spotted soldiers taking photographs and videos of the prison leading them to believe transfers would happen before the end of the month, even though a new local prison still has not been built. According to Contact Music, families of the inmates fear their loved ones will be sent to facilities across the country. The transfer would make visits both expensive and difficult.

But Gerardo Duran, the director of Ignacio Allende, said reports that transfers were to begin imminently are false.

One protester told TV Azteca, “We have been here all night, supporting our relatives. While we are here we won’t let anyone take them away.”

The BBC says Duran assured family members that they would be informed when inmates were about to be moved, which prompted protestors to end their demonstration. Duran confirmed that part of the prison would be cleared for filming.

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Mila Kunis would not do well in a post-apocalyptic world. For one thing, because she’s not a fan of dirt.

The star of ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ and television’s ‘That 70’s Show’ was so glad to be done with her filthy costume from the action drama ‘The Book of Eli,’ she burned it.

Kunis told the World Entertainment News Network that she hated having to don the same dirty clothes every day on the set of the upcoming film, which also stars Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman. And so she gave the experience a ceremonial sendoff when it was over.

She said, “I kept none of my ensemble from the film. It was so dirty and filthy. In fact I burned it in effigy when we wrapped production.”

‘The Book of Eli’ is directed by Allen and Albert Hughes (‘American Pimp,’ ‘From Hell’) and revolves around a lone warrior, Eli (Washington), who guards a book of knowledge that could redeem society. Oldman portrays the despot of a small makeshift town who is determined to take possession of the book.

Kunis also explained where her strengths and weaknesses lie and how she might fare were she to survive the apocalypse.

“In a post-apocalyptic world I would need toilet paper, so as not use leaves for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t know what to eat. I would eat that snake with the yellow tail because I wouldn’t know it’s poisonous. But I could kick some serious a**, especially in five-inch heels. It’s amazing what I could do. I could throw a really strong right hook. I learned that from my Max Payne (movie) training. And I could shoot really well. And I could run really fast, so if anything happened, I’d run.”

‘The Book of Eli’ is set for release January 15, 2010

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Designer-turned-filmmaker Tom Ford drew from a family tragedy for the suicide scene in his acclaimed directorial debut, ‘A Single Man.’

In the movie, based on the Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name, Colin Firth plays George Falconer, a gay British college professor living in California who has just lost his longtime partner, played by fellow Brit Matthew Goode.

Ford says the tragedy of the movie seems authentic because he actually experienced something similar in his own family. Falconer is considering suicide and (spoiler alert) goes so far as to lay out the clothes in which he would like to be buried, along with instructions for tying his tie. He worries about making a mess.

Ford told the World Entertainment News Network, “The suicide in the story comes from my family. There was a suicide that really took place in my family. It was exactly that re-enacted in the film by Colin’s character with the suit and cufflinks laid out, and how he zipped himself into a sleeping bag because he didn’t want to make a mess.

“I remember very vividly that there were darkly comic moments because what are you gonna do when these things happen to you in your life.”

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