i'm in Beijing now

i'll go to ufsoft on Monday. By the way, it's much more cooler in Beijing.

Naveen Andrews set for movie

Actor who plays cunning former soldier Sayid will star opposite Jodie Foster in revenge thriller.
Naveen Andrews, the British-born Indian actor who plays an Iraqi interrogator in the hit ABC show Lost, has joined the cast of The Brave One, a film starring Jodie Foster. The movie is being directed by Neil Jordan, director of The Crying Game, Interview With The Vampire, and the Steve Guttenberg comedy High Spirits.

In the film, Foster stars as a woman who is psychologically damaged after an assault. She embarks on a mission of revenge, seeking out her attacker and attempting to exact justice. Andrews plays Foster's fiancé.

As an actor, Andrews has had previous experience with darkness--on Lost, his character Sayid is an ex-Iraqi military interrogator. In several episodes Sayid has brutally interrogated suspected villains, an Iraqi military superior, and even fellow castaway Sawyer.

Andrews' previous film credits include the The English Patient, Pride and Prejudice, and the 2002 remake of Rollerball.

The film also stars Terrence Howard and Mary Steenburghen. It is being produced by Die Hard producer Joel Silver, from a screenplay by Withblade writers Bruce A. Taylor written by Roderick Taylor, adapting a story by Will & Grace scribe Cynthia Mort.

Brad vs. Vince: Who’s the money?

Pitt has the tight abs, but Vaughn is sure to make you laugh

By Paige Ferrari

As much as we’d like to pretend that actors’ real lives don’t matter, we know it’s not true. We care. We care about how they lost the weight for that role and how they gained it back. We want to know if they loathe their costars, what best-boy grip they seduced during production, and with whom they cheated when nights on the set got extra long. (Unless you’re Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe in “Proof of Life,” in which case, thanks but no thanks. Ignorance really is bliss.)

This weekend, when Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston’s much anticipated comedy “The Break-Up” hits theaters, you can bet that, like last summer’s “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” audiences will queue up for their tickets with the costars’ personal lives well in mind.

For followers of the Team Aniston vs. Team Jolie struggle, three questions are likely to be front and center: Are Jen and Vince really together? Does Jen ever hassle Vince about what it was like on the set of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith?” (And why didn’t he put a stop to that burgeoning Brangelina hanky-panky)? And finally: How does Vince Vaughn measure up to Brad Pitt?

That last question is unavoidable. After all, affection for Jennifer Aniston aside, Vince Vaughn seems like the Anti-Pitt. This is a man who has made his movie career getting drunk, picking up chicks, and having a rowdy good time. We first met him when he was playing video games and striking out in “Swingers,” never dreaming that he would be thrust into the limelight and held up as the new replacement for Brad Pitt, 1995 and 2000’s “Sexiest Man Alive” — two very competitive years, I might add.

In contrast to Vince’s sophomoric carousing, Brad Pitt has spent his career in search of the Dalai Lama, tracking down serial killers, and playing the sadistic side of Edward Norton. His roles have run the gamut from tear-inducing (“Legends of the Fall”) to edgy (“12 Monkeys”), to unintelligible (“Snatch”), but never — not once in his whole career — has he crashed a wedding or spoken jive in a tracksuit.

The two men may in fact be complete opposites. If only one can triumph in popular opinion, who will it be? Brad Pitt, the ripped Adonis turned United Nations activist? Or the fratty “normal guy” Vince Vaughn, whose antics in “Old School” inspired an entire generation of college women to wrestle in jelly? On this, the opening weekend of “The Break-Up,” and the first weekend of Brad Pitt’s new fatherhood, let us look to a few major categories to determine who has the advantage in the lesser-discussed, but no-less epic struggle of Team Vaughn vs. Team Pitt.

The body
While no one knows for certain, it’s rumored that Brad Pitt works out. His body seems like a living pantheon to low carb diet and personal training sessions with a Jujitsu master. The man is a running-uphill-while-doing-one-armed-push-ups-carrying-a-backpack-full-of-anvils brand of ripped. One can imagine that, in happier times, Jennifer Aniston woke in the morning, not to the smell of bacon and eggs, but to Brad splitting a protein shake with a sherpa he met on the set of “7 Years in Tibet.”

Vince Vaughn, on the other hand, represents a much more approachable physical type. He’s a 6-foot-5 teddy bear with just the hint of a belly, possibly earned from days of drinking full calorie beer and skimping on the Pilates classes. Vince is the kind of guy you can imagine putting peanut butter on his pancakes or drinking a Yoo-Hoo. Rumor has it that he’s recently been plying Jennifer Aniston with red wine and desserts in hopes of beefing her up, making him quite possibly the only man alive who truly thinks Hollywood actresses are too skinny.

Advantage: Team Pitt takes it, with a caveat: No one wants to date a guy who thinks he’s doing you a favor by taking his shirt off.

The friends
The company a man keeps is important. Brad Pitt is friends with many of Hollywood’s A-list, while Vince Vaughn runs with a crowd slightly more reminiscent of the guys you hated sharing a bathroom with in college.

It’s easy to imagine Brad bringing home George Clooney, Gwyneth Paltrow, that protein-shake-drinking sherpa, Angelina Jolie’s son Maddox, (who won’t settle down until everyone oohs and aahs over his precocious little Mohawk) and now Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, the baby Brangelina. A child so wonderful that she is simply set in the middle of the room to luminesce, shaming those who rely on overhead lighting rather than the glow of their own genetic masterpiece.

Vince Vaughn comes with an entirely different crew. His buddies include Owen and Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Will Farrell and the rest of the “frat pack.” If he invites the fellows over for movie night, it is basically a guarantee that someone will mistake a potted plant for the W.C., misuse the food processor, or place a prank call.

Advantage: Team Vaughn. Provided you have a carpet cleaner, like to hear “Dodgeball” quotes over and over, and the furniture is covered in two sheets of plastic.

The hobbies
In determining dominance between Team Vaughn and Team Pitt, the final category is, of course, hobbies. How better to judge a man than by the activities he finds personally fulfilling?

To the casual fan, Brad’s hobbies seem to include: Getting highlights, working out, adopting other women’s children, remodeling houses and making examples of pesky paparazzi in Namibia.

Vince’s hobbies seem a bit simpler: Watching sporting events, Sega Genesis and excessive use of the word “baby” and “money,” top the list.

Advantage: Overwhelming victory for Team Vaughn. While few women want to devote their lives to watching football every weekend (aren’t the Manning brothers some sort of dance troupe?) there’s nothing wrong with macho pastimes, especially if it keeps a guy too busy to run off and impregnate Angelina Jolie.

The advantage in this week’s battle thus falls by a small margin to Team Vaughn — whose frat-boy-next-door charm seems to be winning him fans, even if he has yet to trump Team Pitt in the battle of the washboard stomachs. After all, audiences were so invested in Vaughn’s pairing with Aniston that the “The Break-Up” was rewritten to reunite the pair — a good omen for Vince and Jen, and an even better indication of Vince’s big-screen likeability. Now if only he’d take a jog with Brad’s sherpa…

It's over for Cruz and McConaughey

well, the "sexiest man alive" is available again.

Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz "have decided to split," Cruz spokesman Robert Garlock told The Associated Press Friday. McConaughey's rep, Alan Nierob, confirmed the breakup, first reported by People magazine.

The couple costarred in 2005's "Sahara."

McConaughey, People's reigning hunk of hunks, appeared in this year's "Failure to Launch."

This fall, Cruz, 32, stars in Pedro Almodovar's "Volver" ("Return"), which just made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival.

Cruz and McConaughey, 36, parted ways four weeks ago due to busy work schedules, People reports.

Taylor Hicks signs record deal

American Idol winner starts his journey as a real singer

Taylor Hicks, the season-five winner of reality competition American Idol, has signed a record deal with 19 Recordings Unlimited, the label managed by music legend Clive Davis and Idol cocreator Simon Fuller. Two singles, the original song "Do I Make You Proud" and a cover of the Doobie Brothers "Takin' It to the Streets," will be released June 13, with a full-length album coming later this year.

Hicks' soulful crooning earned him the Idol crown and a legion of fans calling themselves The Soul Patrol. The Birmingham, Alabama native beat out LA's Katherine McPhee in the season finale last Wednesday, May 24.

"He definitely has his own sound. He does have that gift, you know who it is when you hear him," Davis told the Associated Press.

Runner-up McPhee is reportedly in talks with big-name Hollywood filmmakers, including Steven Spielberg and Joss Whedon, to appear in movies. Whedon is readying a big-screen version of Wonder Woman.

Past Idol winners and runners-up who have gone on to release successful albums include Clay Aiken, Ruben Studdard, and Carrie Underwood. Season one winner Kelly Clarkson enjoyed a hit with her song "Since You Been Gone," selling seven million units. By contrast, season one runner-up Justin Guarini sold only 100,000 copies of his CD.

American Idol reached series-high ratings this season. The show averaged 30 million viewers a week, and the finale reached 42 million people in the final half hour.

NBC TO AIR CLIP SHOW SPECIAL OF USA NETWORK'S HIT SERIES "THE 4400"

Released by NBC

One-Hour Special Airing Saturday, June 3

Los Angeles, CA May 31, 2006 - In a first for USA Network's original scripted shows, NBC will air a clip special of the cable network's critically acclaimed and Emmy- nominated series THE 4400 on Saturday, June 3 from 9:00-10:00pm ET/PT.

A powerful one-hour clip episode, THE 4400 SPECIAL: UNLOCKING THE SECRETS reintroduces past events of the show giving returning fans and newcomers the opportunity to catch up with the hit series before its much-anticipated third season launch on Sunday, June 11 on USA Network. THE 4400 SPECIAL: UNLOCKING THE SECRETS begins its first televised airing on NBC on Saturday, June 3, followed by USA Network on Sunday, June 4, and SCI FI and Bravo in primetime on subsequent dates leading up the show's premiere. The special just ended an eight-day digital run on YAHOO! TV.

THE 4400, a series that chronicles the reappearance of 4400 people previously reported missing or dead, premiered as a limited series on July 11, 2004 on USA Network as the highest-rated and most-watched new series premiere ever on a basic cable network. Last summer, the show ranked as the #1 original scripted series on cable in P18-49, beating every other cable network's new series launches. THE 4400 received three Emmy nominations in its first season, including Outstanding Miniseries, as well as Outstanding Writing and Cinematography for a Miniseries or Movie.

The series returns for a third season on Sunday, June 11 as a two-hour special from 9:00-11:00pm ET/PT on USA Network, and then will air as weekly one-hour episodes at 9:00pm ET/PT starting Sunday, June 18.

THE 4400 was created by Scott Peters and Rene Echevarria. Ira Steven Behr, Scott Peters, Maira Suro and Perry Simon are executive producers. THE 4400 is produced by CBS Paramount Network Television in Association with Sky Television, Renegade 83 and American Zoetrope for USA Network.

For photos of THE 4400, please log on to the NBC Universal Media Village at http://www.nbcumv.com/.

USA NETWORK is cable television's leading provider of original series and feature movies, sports and entertainment events, off-net television shows, and blockbuster theatrical films. The #1 basic cable network across the board in 1Q06, USA Network is seen in 90 million U.S. homes. The USA Network Web site is located at www.usanetwork.com. Characters Welcome. USA Network is a program service of NBC Universal Cable a division of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience.