I recently saw a trailer for a small British movie that is due out this June called Miss Conception. This film has all the makings of your typical British comedy: There's driving on the wrong side of the road, people drinking tea … Mia Kirshner and Heather Graham. Crikey! Mia and Heather are British? Well, no. But if I didn't have it on good authority (via a quick trip to Google) that Ms. Graham was born in Wisconsin and Ms. Kirshner was born in Canada, I could see how an unsuspecting person would think that they were in fact from across the pond just by watching the trailer.

A millisecond into the preview, we hear both Mia and Heather sporting fairly impressive faux-English accents. It is obvious to those of us in the entertainment know (or those who have access to Google) that these women are faking it and are actually from North America, but that knowledge aside — do you find their accents believable?

Judging their entire performance based on this 60-second trailer, I can make the dubious claim that they both did a pretty good job. I couldn't pinpoint what region of England they're pretending to be from, but then again I'm not a linguist and never wished to be one, so I'll leave those little details to the experts.

The shock of hearing Jenny Schecter speak with an accent got me thinking: Who else in the movie biz has mastered the art of British speak? If blindfolded and left only to depend on sound, which actors would dupe me into thinking I was talking to a gal from jolly olde England? … continue reading

They say behind every great man is a great woman. While we AfterEllen.commers might take issue with that first gender, the saying definitely holds true in the to big-budget superhero movies coming soon to a theater near you. In fact, USA Today recently interviewed the trio of Gwyneth Paltrow, Liv Tyler and Maggie Gyllenhaal, or — as I like to call them — the supergirlfriends of summer.

All three actors are more known for their dramatic or independent film work, and all three are now stepping into mainstream comic book movie heroine roles. They're the superheroes' girlfriends/potential love interests: Gwyneth as Pepper Potts in Iron Man, Liv as Betty Ross in The Incredible Hulk, and Maggie as Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight.

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Olivia Wilde is going to play Jack Black’s love interest in the new biblical-times comedy The Year One. I am going to let the full weight of that news sink in while you stare at a picture of Olivia. Please, take your time. I’ll wait.

And, for comparison, here is Jack Black.

OK, now side by side.

So, yeah, what’s wrong with this picture? God, could there be a better example of the schlubby guy/hottie girl formula that has become the on-screen Hollywood couple du jour? I’ve railed (and railed) against these pairings for what seems like forever now. It’s not just the aesthetic that bothers me. Heaven knows a book is more, so much more, than its cover. But it’s the inequity of this equation that infuriates me. Where are the schlubby girl/hottie guy movies? And, since we’re dreaming big, how about the schlubby girl/hottie girl flicks? … continue reading

Over the weekend, not one, but two celebrities welcomed wee packages of joy into their lives. No, not that kind of wee package of joy, Lindsay Lohan. Geez, I thought you got that straightened out. Still, as word got out that Nicole Richie and Christina Aguilera had given birth, I braced for the inevitable. The inevitable being whatever wacky, weird thing they decided to name their kids. Like, say, Tundra or Unicorn or Suri.

Luckily, both Richie and Aguilera decided to go relatively restrained, with Harlow Winter Kate Madden (for Nicole’s little girl) and Max Liron Bratman (for Christina’s little boy).

But other celebrities have been considerably less, shall we say, discreet when naming their offspring. Pilot Inspektor? Fifi Trixibelle? Sage Moonblood? Moxie Crimefighter? (The bad parents being, respectively, Jason Lee, Bob Geldof, Sylvester Stallone and Penn Jillette.) Dudes, do you not love your children? … continue reading

What is up with all these stars choosing truly tragic looks for their big comebacks? First Lauryn Hill, now Gwyneth Paltrow. Her cover photo for the new issue of W made me truly thankful for headline writers. Seriously, if it hadn't said “Gwyneth,” I would have had no idea. None.

Do the editors of W have some sort of secret (well, now, not-so-secret) grudge against Gwynnie? Perhaps the publisher had money on Saving Private Ryan to win best picture in 1998 and lost a bundle when Shakespeare in Love snuck in to steal the Oscar. Really, it’s the only explanation I can think of for making Blythe Danner’s daughter look like an unholy mash-up of bushy-eyebrowed Sienna Miller, passed-out Lindsay Lohan and a Communist-era East German transsexual.

And if you thought that was weird, wait until you see the inside photos (after the jump). … continue reading

So I was cruising the photos of the beautiful and bizarre at Cannes again (FYI, Sharon Stone: immortal glamour goddess from the front, still above average yet mortal 49-year-old from the back), when I stumbled across this vision of perfection: Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni.

Yowza. With a little research (thank you, Google), I learned that Chiara is the daughter of Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni and an actress in her own right. OK, fine, her credits include roles in movies like Hillbilly Chainsaw Massacre and characters described as “S&M Girl #1,” but we can’t all be Catherine Deneuve. Still, she was at Cannes with her mother promoting their parts in the animated feature Persepolis, so good for her. … continue reading

Julia Stiles will soon be starring as the original girl, interrupted. The actress has signed on to play Esther Greenwood in a big screen adaptation of Sylvia Plath's iconic novel The Bell Jar. I have to say, I have sky-high hopes for this project.

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First, you can't beat the source material. Plath's semi-autobiographical book is a lyrical look at a young woman's descent into disillusionment and depression. Both the work and its author deserve a fitting cinematic tribute beyond Gwyneth Paltrow's tepid Sylvia.