Sylvester Stallone has anther lame Rambo/Rocky/whatever movie coming out, and to try and stop it sinking down with Rocky Balboa, he’s dropping the names of some people who can sell box office tickets. Like Matt Damon.

He said: “I think that some young actors will look at me as this archaic, prehistoric creature because now we’ve become much more scientific, less personal.

“Most of my peers were very physical. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis - they were just more hands-on. I think that a lot more actors today are hands-off and they’re more intellectual.”

Stallone believes Rambo would wipe the floor with Matt Damon’s Bourne Ultimatum character Jason Bourne in a fight.

He joked: “Rambo would murder Jason Bourne. I’m kidding. Maybe the one in The Transporter though - Jason Statham.”

Sydney Morning Herald

Hopefully this challenge won’t lead to a Rambo vs Bourne flick (has anyone seen Alien vs Predator II? I didn’t think so). While Rambo might be tougher, I think he’d have to catch Bourne first. We know which one is more intelligent!

The other things these characters have over the 80’s heroes is they have speaking roles. Does Rambo say anything during the whole first movie?

Checking out the new trailer on YouTube, it looks appropriately violent and features the obligatory hysterical female character. Don’t watch it if you don’t like blood, he’s ripping people’s throats out and all sorts of boy gore.

Yeah, I’ll be sticking to Bourne. Hubby will go see it. Probably twice.

Sly doesn’t address the Janice Dickinson allegations of him ‘juicing’ her with steroids, but I think the interview took place before she said it. Rambo hits cinemas January 25.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Sylvester Stallone is shown donating “Rambo” memorabilia to Planet Hollywood in New York on 1/17/08. Matt Damon is shown at the Toronto International Film Festival on 9/9/07, thanks to PRPhotos.

I swear to you that I had an, uh suggestive dream about Matt Damon last night. This is not an uncommon occurrence, but I felt like a psychic this morning when I discovered that Damon was just named sexiest man of the year by People Magazine.

The thing is, Damon sent People Magazine a letter thanking them for the ego-boosting honor, but turning them down! He said that he doesn’t usually talk about his personal life. He also suggests that New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady would make a better Sexiest Man Alive. You just know he has a man crush on him:

But when the actor learned he had won the title, he wrote the publication a letter turning it down.

The magazine’s Ericka Souter explained: “He wrote People a ‘fabulous’ letter explaining that he doesn’t normally talk about his personal life.”

She said he was blushing when he found out.

Damon wrote: “You just gave an aging suburban dad ego boost of a lifetime.”

The magazine said it chose married dad-of-one Damon, 37, for his “irresistible sense of humour,” “his dedication to his family”, and his “heart-melting humility.”

Damon gave People permission to reprint the letter, featured in the new issue, out later this week.

Last year, Damon’s Ocean’s Thirteen co-star George Clooney was in top spot, for the second time.

Others in the running for this year included football ace David Beckham, actors
Brad Pitt, Patrick Dempsey, and Jake Gyllenhaal, and chart star Justin Timberlake. Scots actor Gerard Butler, of 300, was also considered.

Meanwhile, in his letter to People, the actor suggested New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady - who is dating supermodel Gisele - should have taken the top spot.

[From Showbizspy.com (site has automatic video)]

Last year George Clooney, the 2006 “Sexiest Man Alive” winner, joked about how Matt Damon wanted the title. He said “I gotta say, this is a very big disappointment for Matt, because he did run a very good campaign. If you’ve been around him, you know he’s sexy. His eyes pop. They have a twinkle. He’s got a good smile. He’s quite the dancer. He does rock a Speedo in Ocean’s 13.”

As for when Damon should be named sexiest, Clooney said last year that “Matt’s got a couple of years left before it’s time for him.”

Maybe Damon will win again another year and will actually accept the award. He has plenty of time left. At 37, he’s eight years younger than Clooney was when he last took the title. Sean Connery won in 1989 at the age of 59! Matt strikes me as the type that will hold on to his looks for at least another decade, but I’m completely biased. Matt Damon is the sexiest man alive in my book, and my subconscious agrees.

Other sexiest men alive this year include Patrick Dempsey, Ryan Reynolds, Brad Pitt, James McAvoy, Johnny Depp, Dave Annable from Brothers and Sisters, Will Smith, Javier Bardem, Shemar Moore from Criminal Minds, Ben Affleck, Adrian Grenier, Will Yun Lee from Bionic Woman, and Justin Timerblake.

Here are a bunch of pictures of my two favorites, Matt Damon and Johnny Depp. Photos of Damon in Oceans 13, The Bourne Ultimatum and The Bourne Supremacy from Allmoviephoto. Johnny Depp is shown in stills from In Hell and Secret Window. He is also seen at the premieres of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on 5/19/07 and Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest on 6/24/06, thanks to PRPhotos.

Brad Pitt and Matt Damon are said to have send their Ocean’s co-star George Clooney a “get well soon” present after his motorcycle mishap in New Jersey late last month. The pair didn’t send a bouquet of flowers or a sappy card, they sent over a gag gift that made fun of his accident. Since neither Clooney or his girlfriend of the moment, Sarah Larson, were seriously injured, it doesn’t sound that tasteless and I could see it happening:

Sympathetic buddies Brad Pitt and Matt Damon sent over a care package [to Clooney] containing a yellow plastic crash helmet topped by a flashing red light - and a beat-up leather jacket festooned with rips and skid marks. Adding insult to injury: His “Ocean’s” co-stars included a card that read “Get Well Soon, Skid Head!”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, Mike Walker’s column, October 22, 2007]

With all the pranks that Clooney likes to pull, and the way these three banter on The Oceans movies, I’m inclined to believe this story. Still, it would require a certain amount of coordination between Damon and Pitt to both sign the card within a short period of time. While Pitt was in NY at the time working on the same movie as Clooney, the last I heard of Damon he was back in Miami. It would be a more likely story if just one of them sent the gift.

Meanwhile Clooney and Pitt weren’t able to attend the American Cinematheque Awards on Friday, where their Oceans costar Julia Roberts was honored, but they did send over a funny video to add to the tribute.

In the clip, Clooney and Pitt run into each other in the bathroom, and Pitt’s foot is shown tapping in Clooney’s stall. This sounds pretty funny and I hope it “leaks” online:

In Clooney’s video, Roberts’ “Ocean’s Twelve” co-star was shown “hiding from fans” in a public bathroom stall. He suddenly feels a foot tapping his, a la Idaho Sen. Larry Craig. When he jumps out to see who’s in the next stall, he finds Pitt, who cries, “I have a wide stance!”

[From NYDailyNews]

Hopefully someone will come up with a better venue for this team than the Oceans movies. They were slick and fun, but they lacked a certain substance and the plots were hard to follow. Still, I would pay to see Clooney, Pitt and Damon read the phone book. They would have to be shirtless, though, with some homo-eroticism thrown in for good measure.

Pictures are of the Oceans 13 photocall and premiere at Cannes back in May. Thanks to INFDaily and Photorazzi.

Matt Damon’s wife, Luciana Barroso, 31, is said to be three month’s pregnant with the couple’s second child together. They have a 14 month-old daughter, Isabella, and Luciana has another child, 9 year-old daughter Alexia, from her first husband.

“Luciana is about three months along, and she’s doing great - and Matt couldn’t be happier,” a source close to the 36 year-old actor told The Enquirer.

“They don’t yet know if the baby is a boy or a girl, and they’re still deciding whether to find out the sex beforehand.

“Their main priority is to have a healthy baby - but I’m sure in the backs of their minds they’re hoping for a boy.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, September 2, 2007]

If this news is true, congratulations to Matt and Luciana! Matt seems like a devoted father and husband and they must be ecstatic. When a reporter asked him recently if he liked being married, he said “F–k, no. It’s a ridiculous thing to do. But I like being married to her [Luciana].”

Fatherhood sounds like a challenging but rewarding role for Damon. He suffered a painful pinched nerve in his neck while holding and feeding his daughter and had to skip the after party at the Berlin premiere of The Bourne Ultimatum on Tuesday. He told German newspaper Bild “My 14-month old daughter Isabella did me in — something no killer can.” Damon attended the premiere with acupuncture needles in his ear and was spotted out wearing a neck brace the next day. [Details From US Weekly]

Meanwhile there’s a lack of sensational news about top box office draw Damon, and Star Magazine is running a laughably mild story about how he got dissed after his 1988 senior prom by his date titled “The Girl He Can’t Forget”!:

“We went to an after party on Cape Cod, which is two hours from Boston, and my girlfriend bumped into an ex boyfriend of hers at the party,” Matt recalled in a 2004 interview. “We all went back to a little shack, and her sister told me to sleep in this longue chair.”

Unfortunately for young Matt, his date spent the rest of the evening lavishing on her attention on her ex! “I didn’t have a car; I was stuck there. It was terrible,” Matt lamented. In another interview, he added that he was “hopelessly in love, crying myself to sleep. I mean heartbroken! Crestfallen!”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, September 3, 2007]

Matt’s ex girlfriend is now married to a former NBA pro, has four children, and lives in Florida. I wonder if she’s smirking over the fact that her old high school picture is in Star Magazine this week along with that nearly two decades-old story that she wasn’t interested in Matt Damon. It seems like the worst thing this guy did was break up with Minnie Driver by telling Oprah about it first, and after he made that mistake early in his career he’s turned into an incredibly good guy and an all-around decent human being. If only all celebrities could be like Damon.

Matt and Luciana are shown at the London premiere of The Bourne Ultimatum on 8/15/07. Thanks to PRPhotos for these pictures.

Forbes.com just released an analysis of who gives movies studios the most bang for their buck. I was kind of surprised, but it turns out the best investment is Matt Damon. In a way it makes sense: those “It” actors and actresses command such huge paychecks, that investment-wise, it’s hard to get the same return. For every dollar that Matt Damon is paid for a film, the movie returned $29. Pretty good deal.

“According to Forbes’ first-ever list of Ultimate Star Payback, the movie stars who deliver the best bang for the buck aren’t the industry’s top earners. Matt Damon, the soft-spoken leading man in box office winner The Bourne Ultimatum, turns out to be Hollywood’s best investment. For every dollar Damon got paid for his last three roles, his films returned $29 of gross income. And, surprisingly, former ‘Friends’ star Jennifer Aniston is Hollywood’s most profitable actress, despite duds like ‘Rumor Has It.’ For ever dollar the former Mrs. Pitt was paid for her last three major roles, her films on average returned $17 of gross income.”

[From Forbes.com]

Second place for actors went to Brad Pitt, and third place was a tie between Johnny Depp and Vince Vaughn. Vince Vaughn is the biggest surprise to me. It must be because he makes about $34 a film, so if the film makes $43,000 you’ve got a pretty good deal. Vaughn’s rate is actually about a million a film, a relative bargain in Hollywood terms. Forbes points out that his last three movies “’The Break-Up,’ ‘Wedding Crashers,’ ‘Dodgeball’–have been box office bonanzas relative to their low production costs. (At $52 million, The Break-Up’s budget was roughly 20% of “Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest.).” The big budget actors like Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and Will Smith only averaged about $12 in gross income per salary dollar.

The actor who gave the worst return, dollar for dollar? Russell Crowe. Forbes points out that his “standing in Hollywood has shrunk since he scored back-to-back consecutive Oscar nods for ‘The Insider’ (1999), ‘Gladiator’ (2000) and ‘A Beautiful Mind’ (2001). Crowe’s last three films earned on average just $5 in gross income for every dollar spent on the star. His most recent, last year’s ‘A Good Year,’ was made for $35 million, almost one-third of which went to Crowe’s salary. The film earned only $40 million in worldwide box office, making it a huge disappointment for Fox, which produced and distributed it.” Logically, it seems like the opposite should be true. Who would ever have guessed that getting three Oscar nominations in three years could be bad for your career?

You know who is not a good investment? Lindsay Lohan. For some reason Forbes doesn’t even bother mentioning this. Probably because it’s so obvious it doesn’t need stating. Ironically, I bet this report will raise Matt Damon’s salary, thus making him less of a great deal. Oh well. He’s still a good actor, and fun to look at.

Picture note by JayBird: Here’s Matt Damon yesterday at the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival. Header image of Matt and his wife Luciana Bozan Barroso from the “The Bourne Ultimatum” Los Angeles Premiere. Images thanks to PR Photos.

Matt Damon was flanked by the two women in his life, his mother and his wife, at the premiere of The Bourne Ultimatum in Hollywood last night. It will be the third installment in the excellent Bourne series, and will be the last starring Damon. He has ruled out appearing in another sequel:

Amidst telling the press that he feels “a bit like a prostitute for putting out two number threes in one year” (to which George Clooney added, “That’s better than three number twos”), Damon said (regarding the Bourne franchise): “I’m definitely done with that. I think we’ve ridden that horse as far as we can. The character lives on in the books and if someone else wanted to play it, I guess they could.”

[Cinematical.com]

To me the Bourne series is so excellent that I don’t think it would hurt Damon’s career to continue playing the character. You can see why he’d want to move on, though.

Damon credits the first Bourne movie, The Bourne Identity, with saving his career. He says he was working in theater, hadn’t done a film in six months before it came out and that his last two movies had tanked. After the film came out to box office and critical acclaim he started getting offers again.

He also says it was harder to play action hero this time around. He said when the first movie came out he was 29, and that at 36 he “felt his age” when working on some of the fight scenes for Ultimatum.

He said: “There was a huge difference in the fighting stuff. The first movie, ‘The Bourne Identity’, came out when I was 29. For the third one I was 36 and I definitely felt my age.

“In one big fight scene in Tangiers, Joey Ansah, the guy I’m fighting, is only 23. He would have been in high school when the first film came out!”

[From Monsters and Critics]

The Bourne Ultimatum is out in theaters on August 3.

Here are pictures from the premiere including Julia Stiles, Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck. Thanks to Splash News and PRPhotos.

Oscar-winning screenwriter and actor Matt Damon received the 2,343rd Star on The Hollywood Walk Of Fame yesterday. The ceremony was held in front of the Kodak Theatre, and he was accompanied by his wife Luciana and mother, Nancy Carlsson-Paige.

Speaking to the crowd, Damon reminisced about his humble beginnings in Hollywood with fellow actor and co-star in Good Will Hunting, Ben Affleck:

“Ben and I lived in a really, really crappy apartment about five blocks away from here,” said Damon, who recently starred in crime-caper Ocean’s 13 as well as Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning The Departed.

“We used to walk up and down here, and look at these stars and … I hoped, I dreamed that this would happen but I … thank you, thanks a lot.”

[From The Sydney Morning Herald]

I love how Damon has managed his career and has maintained his integrity in Hollywood. He’s a wonderful actor and seems like a great guy and I’m surprised he hasn’t received a star yet.

The Bourne Ultimatum also premiered yesterday and we’ll have the pictures coming up soon. Congratulations to Matt.

Thanks to Splash News for these pics.

Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jennifer Garner, Jason Biggs and Sarah Silverman are amond the celebrities that appear in a series of new videos promoting the use of cleaner-burning fuels. There are three ads out produced by the Center for American Progress Action Fund that feature a dorky guy named Phin, a “lone citizen for change” who gets awkward help from the celebrities in his quest. Affleck is featured in the first ad, while Jason Biggs is in the third. Silverman, Damon and Garner will appear in the upcoming segments. The ads are kind of goofy, but if you watch them you get the point and they are entertaining. If you want to learn more about exactly what they’re proposing, it’s in the second video below and/or you can visit their website, CleanMyRide.org.

They want to increase mileage requirements for automobiles in the US and make ethanol and “flex fuel” available at more gas stations.

This seems completely reasonable and attainable, but it will take work and advocacy. In Europe you can get biodiesel gas all over the place. Biodiesel is usually a little less expensive at the pump than regular diesel in Germany. It’s made from vegetable oil such as rapeseed oil, and it has 60% less CO2 emissions than standard diesel, as well as a lot of other environmental benefits. We have more deisel cars here, and there’s a real push to use alternative fuels and cars that get better MPG because gas is so much more expensive. Maybe if Americans started to feel the pinch too they would be more supportive of measures to fund and use alternative fuels.

To learn more and see the new video spots when they’re out you can visit the website CleanMyRide.org

Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, and Joan Allen star in the latest installment of the excellent Bourne series, The Bourne Ultimatum. Everyone still wants assassin Bourne dead and it looks like he travels all over the world to figure out what happened to him while escaping government agents and hatching a plot to kick their sorry asses.

Here’s the full length trailer:

I love these movies and I can’t wait to see Ultimatum. It’s out in theaters on August 3rd. It doesn’t hurt that Damon stars. Ever since Good Will Hunting I’ve had the biggest crush on that guy.

In a recent interview with Esquire, Damon is quoted as saying that he cultivates a boring personality to keep the media interest in him at bay. He said he would have difficulty coping with the level of fame that his co-star Brad Pitt and his girlfriend Angelina Jolie deal with. He also compared the paparazzi that hound Pitt and Jolie to hungry lions.

Thanks to Allmoviephoto and RottenTomatoes for the movie stills. The last two pictures are from a recent exclusive photo session with Damon thanks to PRPhotos.

Please do not read this article if you haven’t seen the Oscar-nominated film The Departed. This movie is so good that I screamed while watching it on a plane over the holidays, waking up the guy in the seat in front of me. Even if you don’t intend on seeing it, believe me you will find it worth your while.

Martin Scorsese has semi-confirmed the news that there’s going to be a sequel to the film The Departed, making filmgoers scratch their head and wonder how he’s going to pull it off. Just about all of the lead characters meet violent ends in the film, which help it pack such a cinematic punch.

Screenwriter William Monahan, who wrote the first Departed screenplay, is said to be working on the follow up, which will include Mark Wahlberg’s Oscar nominated potty-mouthed character, Sergeant Dignam, as well as bring in a new character played by Robert DeNiro.

At least one article I read said they haven’t ruled out a prequel, which means more tortured Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio eye candy. Indeed, the film it was based on, 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, had its own prequel successor.

I would like to see a bonafide sequel, though, because the end left me wondering who fathered Madolyn’s baby and if she had anything to do with clueing Wahlberg into Damon’s role as the mole. (I said there were spoilers, sorry about that. Let me know if I missed something in the plot that would explain how Wahlberg found out. I was really tired when I watched it.)

The Departed is a critical and commercial success, having pulled in $125 million in the US, and received five Oscar nominations. It is considered the front runner for best picture at the Oscars.

Here are some pictures from the film, courtesy of All Movie Photo.