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.

I loved Matt Damon in The Bourne movies, and both were excellent. These new stills from the upcoming third film, The Bourne Ultimatum were released on IMDB website, where the status is listed as “filming,” and it is slated for an October, 2007 release. The only thing I’ll really miss is German actress Franka Potente, who was killed off in the last Bourne film after a heartbreaking car chase over a bridge.

Here’s a kind of worthless teaser trailer, that has the release date listed as this spring, which is probably wrong. I swear I saw an actual trailer for this film, but I can’t find it anywhere. Have any of you seen the trailer?

And here’s a scene recorded on set in Tangier, it’s kind of boring, but Matt Damon’s in it, so what the hell.

There are other random videos of Matt Damon filming on YouTube.

Word has it that The Bourne series could go up to five films. The Bourne Ultimatum is the last Bourne novel written by now-deceased Robert Ludlum in 1990 (although I tried to read the first book and found it much different from the film), but there were two sequels written by Eric Van Lustbader called The Bourne Legacy and The Bourne Trajectory. These follow-up novels were published in 2007 and 2007, probably to capitalize on the movie series. The producer says there’s enough material left for two more movies and it’s up to Damon how many films will be made.

Oceans 12 was kind of a mess plot-wise, but the dialogue was good and the actors are so great you forget that films are supposed to make more sense. I would watch Clooney, Pitt and Damon sit around talking about anything. Throw in cool music and some heist scenes and I’m there.

Oceans 13 is scheduled for release on June 8, 2007:

You may have already seen these pictures from the upcoming film, The Good Shepherd with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. They’re new to me, though. Damon plays a CIA agent who is suspicious of the new agency and ends up at odds with his family and coworkers.

The Good Shephard is getting mixed advance reviews, and has just a 45% aggregate rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It is directed by Robert DeNiro, who is lauded for his attention to historical detail, but it is said to be a little too long and clocks in at almost three hours.

The film is out on December 22nd. Here is the trailer:

Pictures from allmoviephoto.

Matt Damon made a controversial statement during a recent interview with Hardball’s Chris Matthews, and suggested that the Bush twins should go fight in their dad’s war:

On the upcoming Hardball College Tour with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, Matt Damon and Robert De Niro speak at George Mason University, and reveal who they hope will be elected president in 2008, among other things.

Not backing away from his strong opinion on who should serve in the US military, Matt Damon said: “I don’t think that it’s fair as I said before, that it seems like we have a fighting class in our country.

“That’s comprised of people who have to go for either financial reasons or, I don’t think that that is fair. And if you’re gonna send people to war.. if we all get together and decide we need to go to war then that needs to be shared by everybody. You know and if the President has daughters who are of age then maybe they should go too…”

Damon was speaking at George Mason University, which is beyond conservative. A woman I used to work with went to school there for a year and told me that there’s a strict dress code and you’re not even allowed to swear.

One article suggests that Matt Damon “never had a high political profile,” and that may be true but he hasn’t tried to hide his political views. A central scene in the Oscar-winning movie he co-wrote, Good Will Hunting, centers around his character impressing the girl by using references from Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States” to one-up a Harvard graduate student. Zinn’s famous book is a story of the US told by the oppressed and marginalized. It is has been lauded as a seminal work of historical scholarship while others claim it is spectacular propaganda. Damon’s family is friends with historian Zinn, who also lives in Cambridge, MA.

Damon signed his name to an ad by “Artists United to Win Without War,” which appeared in major newspapers in late 2002 before the war started. They said at the time that the Bush administration shouldn’t trump up a case for war, and anticipated many of the problems the US is now facing in Iraq.

Header image is a still from The Good Shephard from All Movie Photo.

Update: Reader glowstar goes to George Mason University and says there’s no dress code at this point, that it’s not strict and is one of the most diverse schools in the nation. I should have done more research, and was reporting what I was told by a coworker, who went there back in the late 80s.

Here’s the video:

This is too funny. Damon was on Letterman to promote his new film “The Good Shepherd” with Angelina Jolie. It opens on December 22nd in the states.

Video via Faded Youth.

Lainey’s gossip predicted that Brad and Angelina would walk the red carpet together this winter, and she suggested it would have something to do with awards season. No matter their motivations, Brad and Angelina look relaxed and happy as the meet a firestorm of flashes at the NY premiere of Angelina’s new film with Matt Damon, “The Good Shepherd.”

It doesn’t seem like these two can catch a break, and I admit I was down on them after all the scandals with Angelina’s heavy-handed security staff in Namibia and India. According to reports from New Orleans where Brad was filming, Angelina kept the brutes in check and was gracious with the locals. After the cute news that they toured Frank Llyod Wright’s masterpiece home, they seem like America’s golden couple again. Now that Reese and Ryan have split, someone’s got to take over. They seem to be all too aware of the role the public wants them to fill, and are still willing to play the game for us anyway. Thanks, you two.

Here’s the trailer for the film, which is a fictional retelling of the start of the CIA. Matt Damon looks incredible.

Pictures from SimplyBrad.