The Return of the GDW

Stevie Nicks is back on the scene with some new material, and I love it.

The Gold Dust Woman’s latest solo album, In Your Dreams (her first in forever), will be released on May 3.

The CD is available for pre-order and all pre orders come with a download of Nicks’ new single, “Secret Love,” for which I’ve already fallen.

Photo: RockALittle.com.

The Secret

It wouldn’t be the beginning of a new year if we didn’t have a feel-good indie to look forward to, right?

To fit the bill here comes Josh (TV’s How I Met Your Mother) Radnor’s Sundance-approved Happythankyoumoreplease.

The movie, which tells the story of a struggling writer (Radnor) and his circle of friends, all of whom seem to be on this gratitude-is-key-to-it-all bender, marks the actor’s screenwriting and directing debut and will begin hitting theaters on March 4.

I don’t know what it is, but I find the vibe of the whole thing tremendously appealing.

I think it’s the fact that the cast is mostly up-and-comers who aren’t yet plagued by the sort of trappings of fame that lands them on the pages of the weeklies, so they’re like, these blank slates waiting for us to color with appreciation.

I like that.

Check out the trailer and tell me I’m not onto something:

Good Going, Teddy

They sure are keeping Trevor Donovan busy over on 90210 now that his character, Teddy, has swung open the door of the closet.

Donovan is getting a new love interest in the form of newcomer Freddie Smith later this season, but first lover boy’s gonna run into a former prep school roommate that Teddy used to crush on during a Spring Break-themed episode.

And who’s the hunk playing this blast from the past, who may have a surprise announcement of his own?

That’d be Alan Ritchson, a.k.a. Smallville’s Aquaman.

Nice....

Photo: CeedSmith.blogspot.com.

Girl, Interrupted

It seems all Carey Mulligan does these days is work, work, look gorge, and work.

Good for her.

The actress will return to the New York stage (she was in the 2008 revival of The Seagull) in the spring in an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1961 film Through a Glass Darkly. The show will premiere off-Broadway on May 13. She’s set to play a young woman who loses her mind because of a psychiatric illness and spirals out of control during a vacation to Sweden with her husband, father, and brother.

“It’s an incredible descent into insanity,” Mulligan said. “It’s horribly scary and I have no idea what I’m going to do. Everyone wants to play someone with a problem.”

Sounds like a meaty part for a more than capable talent.

Break a leg, girl.

Photo: PowerSellerUnion.com.

Fun Bug

The Green Hornet – a friend of mine couldn’t believe I never watched the show when it was on the tube.

I had to remind this fellow I’m much younger than he (yah, by like, two-three years, he reminded me) to have caught the reruns, and that to me, Britt Reid would be the son of a prominent and respected Los Angeles media mogul, a spoiled schlub who would be happy to coast through life directionless...and a man who very much always will look like Seth Rogen.

And that, I don’t think, is such a bad thing.

By kicking off this emerald year at the movies (Green Lantern is still a-comin’) Rogen has accomplished what many before him (including George freakin’ Clooney, not to mention Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Wahlberg, and filmmakers like Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino) haven’t: to bring the 1930s-radio property-turned-1960s-TV program to the big screen. And he’s done a pretty good job that hits all its marks. Honest!

The movie, directed Michel (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) Gondry and written by Rogen with his Superbad partner and real-life BFF Evan Goldberg, pairs the actor with Taiwanese multi-hyphenate Jay Chou as his Kato. The two have an easy chemistry, but if there is anything that works against the duo that would be the fact that Chou dances circles around Rogen with the greatest of ease. He clearly is a big, big star in the East – it just oozes out of him, and by that I mean It.

Not that the movie doesn’t click, because it ultimately does as a piece of well-meaning, amusing, but misguided – tonally, that is – entertainment. There are some elements in the movie that are as cool as they are inconsistent and thus, random. Regardless, if you’re in the market for a mindless afternoon at the theater then look no further.

As the moneyed and spoiled, wild-party-at-The Standard-throwing Britt, Rogen is borderline aggro in that man-child way, but, y’ know, fun because he looks like one of the guys (Rogen trimmed down for the part, but he didn’t go for a full rip, keeping his Every Joe-ness intact).

Like I said earlier, Britt’s just going through the motions, excelling at being an heir and resenting his tough-love dad (Tom Wilkinson) for a sin of the past that made quite an impact on the poor guy and left him feeling unloved.

When his father dies a mysterious one, though, our eventual hero must take responsibility for the family business, which he does in his own manner while nurturing his burning desire to fulfill his perceived potential in the most out-there way he’s always entertained but never acted upon – by righting wrongs as a masked vigilante.

He strikes an unlikely friendship with one of his father’s more industrious and inventive employees, (that’d be Kato, he who soups up the ride known as the Black Beauty on which they get around), and together they set out to fight crime and something meaningful for the first time in their lives. Their method is unorthodox, to say the least. They decide to act like criminals themselves in order to get the attention of the true bad guys, chief among them the ruthless Chudnofsky (Oscar winner Christoph Waltz, dialing back his Inglourious Basterds persona just enough in a part that once belonged to Nicolas Cage), sorta to destroy evil from within, if you will.

With the help of Britt’s new secretary, Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz, effective but miscast in a too-small-for-her role), the Green Hornet and Kato begin hitting L.A.’s gritty underworld where it counts, setting the stage for a ridikolous but exciting showdown that you best believe you needn’t splurge on to watch in 3-D, for 2-D will do just fine.

This one’s so popcorn, so enjoy it.

My Rating ***

Photo: Sony Pictures.

What Up, Spidey!

Here we go.

The first image of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man has hit the Internet, and boy does our friendly neighborhood webslinger look a tad...moody.

Well, it was to be expected. After all, Marc Webb’s reboot, due out in 2012, will be set in high school. Oy, the angst!

Garfield’s slender physique is definitely getting played up and not bulked up, like it was with Tobey Maguire, which kinda gives him and the character are more Regular Joe vibe, no?

Color me intrigued, alright, and well teased.

Photo: EW.com.

A Bit of Brontë in Our Lives

That Victorian staple Jane Eyre, a story I best remember as one of simmering passion, is coming to the big screen on March 11, and I for one cannot wait to see it.

That’s because it stars one of the most exciting young actresses out there, Mia Wasikowska, and that hot dish known as Michael Fassbender.

Check out the film’s trailer and tell me this adaptation doesn’t look like a must.

Photo: Collider.com.