Animal rights campaigners have taken aim at the bosses of Dustin Hoffman's new TV drama Luck and demanded a halt in filming after three horses died on the set.

The HBO show has been hit with a series of equine tragedies - two mounts had to be put down last year and earlier this week a third beast was killed after falling backwards and breaking its neck.

Now, officials at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have hit out at the TV network and the racing series' producers Hoffman, David Milch and Michael Mann, demanding they stop shooting the show.

In a statement, a spokesman say...

HBO's Luck isn't accurately reflected by its title. It's much more calculated than that.

Even though the network previewed the first episode of the nine-part miniseries not so long ago, there should still be plenty of eyeballs as it officially arrives tonight, if only because of the pedigree. The series is written by David Milch, who already wowed HBO viewers with Deadwood, and directed by Michael Mann.

Its cast, led by Dustin Hoffman, is a cornucopia of familiar faces for TV buffs, including Dennis Farina (Law & Order), Jill Hennessy (Law & Order) and Richard Kind (Spin City). Even the s...

From acclaimed director Michael Mann and "Deadwood" creator David Milch, the nine-episode season of "Luck", starring Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman and Oscar nominee Nick Nolte, launches on HBO on January 29 at 9pm. "Luck" is a behind-the-track look at the world of horse racing and gambling's denizens - owners, trainers, jockeys and gamblers. The pilot is directed by Mann and written by Milch, both of whom also serve as executive producers for the series. It was filmed at Santa Anita Park and other Los Angeles locations.

You know him as Mike Ross on USA's new hit original series Suits. As fantastic as he is on that show, that's just one part of what the multitalented Patrick J. Adams is up to. He's currently on stage starring in the Bootleg Theater production of Bill Cain's 9 Circles, extended through November 19.

And in January, you'll see him in an ensemble cast including Dustin Hoffman in the HBO horse-racing drama Luck, written by David Milch (Deadwood) and directed by Michael Mann (Heat).

Whether it's breaking new ground as the star of a TV series, starring and producing in a play, or fitting ...

Since her intense breakout role in 1994’s “The Professional,” Natalie Portman has been one of the most respected and versatile actors working in Hollywood. Her filmography spans over 15 years but is as impressive and solid as Audrey Hepburn’s or Meryl Streep’s, two actresses to whom she has rightfully been compared.

It makes sense that Portman has become one of the most talented performers in Hollywood considering the amazing list of directors with whom she’s worked:

Luc Besson (“The Professional”)

Michael Mann (“Heat”)

Ted Demme (“Beautiful Girls”)

Woody Allen (“Everyone Says I Love Y...

Award-winning director Michael Mann transports audiences back to the era of the 1930s American gangster in the critically acclaimed crime saga "Public Enemies", coming to two-disc Special Edition Blu-ray Hi-Def, two-disc Special Edition DVD, single disc DVD and digital download on December 8, 2009 from Universal Studios Home Entertainment. Starring Oscar nominee Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, "Public Enemies" places you in the center of the fast and dangerous life of outlaw John Dillinger (Depp), whose cascade of heists, breakouts and charismatic press confe...

Is Brett Ratner misunderstood? The "Rush Hour" and "X-Men: The Last Stand" director thinks that's quite possible.

His new retrospective DVD series, "The Shooter Series," (to be released September 15) paints the some may call party-boy director in a different light. Contemporaries such as Quentin Tarantino share their experiences about working with Ratner; and the director's early student films, commercials, and music videos are also chronicled.

Ratner also doesn't parse words about his feelings toward the vocal online community who criticized his work on "X-Men: The Last Stand," and h...

Now that Labor Day has come and gone, the official end to summer has now passed. Yes, the days will now be shorter, the weather cooler (unless you're smart enough to live in Southern California like this column's scribe), and for some school resuming its session, but there's also a lot of good news.

TV is back, football is back, and summer movie season is finally at its end. Yes, no more summer movies, no more endless weekends filled with event films that shatter theater speakers and routinely melt screens with too much rambunctious action. It's a thankful end to a season that routine...

Ok, we are almost through the summer season of film, and I, for one, feel like I am trying to resuscitate an almost dead corpse. Sure, there were hits, good films, and technical blockbuster hits, but were they really great or just great within their summer context?

The Blockbusters

Just because a movie generates revenue at the box office does not necessarily translate into a successful well-loved film. X-Men Origins: Wolverine for instance, didn't exactly start the season off with a bang. Star Trek was loved by both fans and non-fans; something that was a bit of a worry before th...

Posing this question is damning because I critique films and other productions, but it is relevant. This past week, after the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Public Enemies, the issue of film critics came to a particularly strong head. I do not read film reviews. This is something that happens during the process of studying film. As we critics-in-training collected credit hours watching and analyzing countless "art" films and auteur films (and drooled over the likes of Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock), we got swelled heads, thinking we knew best.

Like lite...

They don't get top billing. You know the face but can't quite place the name. Though they toil in the shadows of more famous leads, to imply that character actors merely 'support' is to vastly underrate the contributions of many remarkable entertainers: Often, it is the performance of lesser-knowns that leaps from screens large and small into the hearts of an audience, leaving them with both a lasting impression and a question that begs to be answered: 'Who the heck is that?'

As a misunderstood 19th-century rent-collector called Pancks, British actor Eddie Marsan sputters and guffaws his...

It's hard to draft this kind of list with "Public Enemies" so close to reaching its port of call at your local theater, since it's bound to shake the list up a bit. But so far as it goes, the Mob genre has a few golden standards that have set the bar high enough to make any director quake in their concrete boots at the prospect of taking the plunge. These films have a built-in mechanism that causes them either to take complete control of the empire or erupt like a car bomb. It's the requirement for these movies to champion the 'bad guy' as the hero of the film, casting them in a sympathetic...

I saw "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" last week, and I really enjoyed it. Apparently among critics I was in the minority on that one. The film certainly wasn't perfect, but I didn't think it was nearly as bad as people were saying.

The surprising thing for me though, was how divided people's opinions were about it. For the most part I found that people who viewed the film fell into two camps: those that loved it and those that hated it. I didn't really encounter a many people who fell in between.

July starts out a bit slow this week with "Public Enemies," "Ice Age: Dawn of...

During a visit to a Chicago restaurant with some "Public Enemies" co-stars, Johnny Depp left a waiter a $4,000 tip, according to Access Hollywood.

Depp, co-star Marion Cotillard and director Michael Mann ate at Gibsons Steakhouse around 11:30 p.m. Depp paid the bill, reportedly $4,400, at about 2:30 a.m. Depp left the sizable sum to make sure the waiter who stayed so late into the night was compensated for his time.

Depp and his friends ordered items including shrimp cocktails, Clams Casino, and some expensive bottles of wine.

The waiter, Mohammed A. Sekhani, told RadarOnline, "I ha...

Johnny Depp arrived for the opening of "Public Enemies" in Chicago yesterday sporting his usual blue-tinted glasses and a black pinstriped suit. Does the actor still have what it takes? See more photos after the jump...

Image © AP Photo/John Smierciak

In director Michael Mann's sprawling historical crime drama "Public Enemies," Depp plays notorious bank robber John Dillinger, who is pursued by top FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale).

Image © AP Photo/John Smierciak

What does Johnny do during his down time? His long-term partner Vanessa Paradis and their two children, d...

Take a look at the box office chart below, ranking the top ten films of the year so far:

1. Star Trek - $232,557,467

2. Monsters vs. Aliens - $195,246,609

3. Up - $191,041,612

4. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - $176,270,686

5. The Fast and Furious - $154,669,230

6. Paul Blart: Mall Cop - $146,336,178

7. Taken - $144,958,654

8. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - $144,596,100

9. Angels and Demons - $123,708,539

10. The Hangover - $115,000,000

Notice something missing? Notice a lot of things missing? Namely, many of the high-profile remakes and sequels (Requels, to co...

The teaming of Johnny Depp and Christian Bale may be this generation's equivalent of Heat, where Robert De Niro and Al Pacino first faced off. Like the previous Michael Mann film, Mann's Public Enemies also keeps the two stars mostly apart. Depp plays John Dillinger and Bale plays Melvin Purvis.

"We don't know each other in the slightest," said Bale. "I met him at the script read-through. We chatted for 5 or 10 minutes. Other than that, I had two scenes with him, one in which he's in a jail cell. I have a tendency, and it seemed like he was happy to do the same, I have at tendency to n...

Since the dawn of the American cinematic blockbuster in the late 1970s and early 1980s, moviegoers have eagerly waited for May - the unofficial beginning of summertime. This summer is no different. Films, and most popular media, are social mirrors, and this summer season supports that. The large box office contenders all deal with very similar themes: escapism and the support of the lone, outlaw hero figure (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Star Trek, Terminator Salvation, Up, Transformers 2, Public Enemies, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, Inglourious Basterds, et...

Cast your votes for your favorite male & female celebrities in Starpulse.com's First Annual "Celebrity March Madness" showdown! In the spirit of the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments, we bring you two celebrity tournaments throughout the month of March that will determine the number one male and female celebrity - chosen by YOU!

All you have to do is cast your vote in the poll under the picture for one of the two celebs in each matchup! At the end of the round, we'll tally the votes and get the next round underway. There's even a bracket (updated after each round) with all ...

In the action-thriller Public Enemies, acclaimed filmmaker Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Academy Award® winner Marion Cotillard in the story of legendary Depression-era outlaw John Dillinger (Depp)—the charismatic bank robber whose lightning raids made him the number one target of J. Edgar Hoover's fledgling FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (Bale), and a folk hero to much of the downtrodden public.

No one could stop Dillinger and his gang. No jail could hold him. His charm and audacious jailbreaks endeared him to almost everyone—from his girlfriend Billie F...

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and on television it often appears to be the only form of creativity. Yes, ever since Milton Berle first stole a joke for "Texaco Star Theatre", TV has been a wild west of borrowing material and copying good ideas until they've become completely stale. Many of these ideas were so good, in fact, that their resonance is still felt today, and that's when a show crosses over from being copied to being influential.

Over the years, many shows have been considered influential. From "The Dick Van Dyke Show" first showing both the home and office l...

Johnny Depp will star as real-life Chicago, Illinois mobster John Dillinger in acclaimed director Michael Mann's upcoming gangster movie "Public Enemies."

Soul veteran Solomon Burke will perform at the party following Led Zeppelin's comeback gig at the O2 Arena in London on Monday.

Sylvester Stallone has his wife Jennifer Flavin's face tattooed on his right shoulder.

John Hurt and Tilda Swinton have pledged their support for a $14 million appeal for a new London Film School. The school's chairman, director Mike Leigh, created the campaign to raise funds to replace the 51-ye...

Legendary actor Robert De Niro is returning to his Mafia-character roots with acclaimed director Michael Mann. The two-time Oscar winning actor, best known for gangster movies including Goodfellas and Casino, and Mann last joined forces on the critically-acclaimed 1995 crime thriller Heat.

Now the pair are working on Frankie Machine, based on the Don Winslow novel The Winter Of Frankie Machine, in which De Niro will play a former mobster forced out of retirement.

-Check out Robert De Niro's Filmography

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)

Drew Carey is engaged to get married. The 49-year-old new host of beloved game show The Price Is Right proposed to his cooking school graduate girlfriend Nicole Jaracz on Tuesday. His publicist Christina Papadopoulos says, "It will be the first marriage for both. No date for a wedding has been set yet. They are both very happy and excited about their future together."

Sharon Stone has been named the new global fundraising chairwoman of AIDS charity AmFar. The actress has made a name for herself by hosting celebrity auctions for the organization, and selling off items she's wearing.

...

Kind hearted Robert De Niro has spent time in jail offering help to prison convicts. De Niro met actor Danny Trejo on the set of Michael Mann's 1995 crime epic Heat, and he was intrigued to hear the Hollywood tough guy - who is a reformed criminal - regularly gives motivational talks to prison inmates. And Trejo was quick invite the Hollywood legend along.

He says, "I always ask movie stars to come out to jails with me and talk. That guy (De Niro) actually showed up. He went out to jail where everybody was hardcore. And he came and talked. On his own. I was so sure he wouldn't turn up...

"I'd get really, really large breasts, really big knockers, and then I'd wear, like, one of those little triangle bikinis and then go to the beach all the time." Sandra Bullock jokes about her plastic surgery dreams.

"I did not see the movie and apparently I'm not the only one." Don Johnson hasn't seen Michael Mann's big screen Miami Vice remake, he tells radio station Heart FM.

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)

Director Michael Mann has entered the race against Johnny Depp to make a film about Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-KGB agent who was fatally poisoned in London last year. Mann's film is based on the unpublished book "Death Of A Dissident," which is being written by Litvinenko's widow Marina and Alex Goldfarb, who reportedly had close ties with the spy.

The movie will focus on the Russian power structure enforced by the KGB and its successor the FRS and the "Wild West capitalism" that followed glasnost, with Litvinenko caught in the middle.

Meanwhile, Depp's production company and ...

Anger is mounting among Chinese moviegoers after the government postponed releasing a string of Hollywood blockbusters, such as Miami Vice, in favor of homegrown films. The country's Ministry of Culture put back the Michael Mann movie - starring Chinese actress Gong Li - to next month to promote the 'October Golden Autumn Excellent Domestic Film Exhibition Month'. The festival celebrates China's revolutionary past and heroic figures through 10 local films.

Tong Gang, director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, says, "These 10 movies variously involve weighty re...

Michael Douglas, Bruce Willis, Ridley Scott and Nicole Kidman have united in the fight against terrorism after taking out a full-page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times condemning violent extremists. The foursome's signatures appear today alongside fellow actors and directors Danny DeVito, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Don Johnson, James Woods, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi, among others.

The ad reads, "We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organiz...

Miami Vice director Michael Mann will only commit to a sequel of the undercover cop film if he is inspired by a new plot. He tells Empire Online, "If I have an idea for a story that I think I want to do then we'll see what happens."

The coy filmmaker, speaking at the European premiere of the movie in London last night, refused to give a definitive answer to fans desperate to see stars Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx reprise their roles as Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs in the big-screen adaptation of the hit 80s TV show.

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Netw...