Earlier this evening my mother gushed about the recently released Juno , and how it was imperative that I see it, particularly for the performance by Ellen Page. I've been browsing the net too, as I'm want to do, and of course there has been a deluge of Heath Ledger related news. Messages from Ledger's family in a Perth newspaper were halting, a brief glimpse into their tragedy and the real Heath. His father lamented never again playing chess with his son, whom he could never beat. As if this weren't maudlin enough, I was also reading about the Hollywood industry response to Ledger's death as well. As I mentioned before, Terry Gilliam was shooting a film with Heath, and the quote he gave at the end of the Variety article , just served to compound the melancholy. Gilliam tells us that Ledger was about to direct soon, and that had was keenly observant of all of his techniques on set. Gilliam was sure he was going a be a better director then himself. The movie that Led...

~ There's a great little piece at TV Guide by Michael Ausiello about watching Brokeback Mountain again after hearing of Heath Ledger's death. ~ Poor Terry Gilliam was in the middle of shooting " The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus " with Heath Ledger. Rather then recast and reshoot, there is some talk of Johnny Depp replacing the Ledger in the film. Read how here . ~ Latest Britney goss is that her crazy antics that fuel the paparazzi might be due some sort of deal where she gets a cut from the sale of the pics . Could explain why she shacked up with a pap... ~ The Warner Bros backed big-screen CGI adaptation of Astro Boy has changed has switched directors. It's now being helmed by Flushed Away director David Bowers. ~ As if you really need a good reason to post a pic of Daniel Craig, but the new James Bond movie, coming out in November, now has a title - Quantum of Solace . Plenty of new details about the plot and characters have been released too.

What a sad way to wake up this morning, particularly for little Matilda. Heath Ledger has been found dead in a Manhattan apartment, apparently from a drug overdose. Friends have said that he had a drug problem, but that he's been clean for a year. His family are adamant it wasn't suicide, and apparently he was ill with pneumonia, so it seems likely he misjudged his self-medication. His death is one of those celebrity events I find quite sad, much more so then I would have predicted. Thinking about it, I guess my esteem for him has gradually grown since the initial pretty boy phase of his career. I admired the risk he took with starring in Brokeback Mountain, and he always came across as a pretty genuine, down-to-earth sort of guy, who loved his daughter deeply. I always imagined him ageing well as an actor, given the success he had already with stepping outside of expectations in the roles he chose. Poor Terry Gilliam, in the middle of shooting a film with Heath, will have yet...