Amber Valletta Tagged Articles at Cinematical

A colleague of mine once observed that the very manner by which Chev Chelios had to keep himself alive in the Crank films respectively represented the approach that writing/directing team Neveldine/Taylor took for each of them, which is to say that Crank 1 was all about keeping our hearts racing and Crank 2 was all about shocking us as an audience. It's a simple, literal assessment that nonetheless cleared up why yours truly was a fan of the first and yet let down by the second -- I'd rather be excited than appalled any day.

And at the intersection of 'thrill' and 'shock' is precisely where N/T's latest, Gamer, falls, and it succeeds considerably more when it's shooting for the former than when it's reveling in the latter.

We know him as the man who made the radios go wild with "Achey Breaky" hearts, and he who holds the loins that made Miley, but could Billy Ray Cyrus soon become that tough action spy?

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Cyrus, George Lopez, Amber Valletta, and Katherine Boecher have joined Jackie Chan's upcoming comedy The Spy Next Door. Chan plays a man who helps out his neighbors by babysitting their children. In a twist of bad luck for the guy, one accidentally downloads a code and he must protect the tykes from secret agents. They're lucky Kenneth from 30 Rock wasn't the babysitter... Lopez is "a CIA agent who might not be all the he appears," Cyrus is an agent as well, Valletta is mom, and since we're in spy-land, there are Russian shoes that will be filled by Boecher.

I think it's safe to presume how this will turn out. But what about the family of Cyruses? Will this lead to co-starring father-daughter gigs? Will anyone believe Cyrus is in the CIA? Sound off below!

It seems like every actress these days either got her start as a model or scored an Estee Lauder/Noxema/Gap modeling contract after she hit it big in film. But when you think about it, there really aren't too many actresses who were actually well-known models before breaking into film or TV. Amber Valletta, star of not one but two new films out this week (Premonition and Dead Silence), is one such actress. She was a recognizable staple of women's fashion magazine covers, the star of Versace and Calvin Klein ad campaigns, and the host of MTV's House of Style long before landing the plum role of Harrison Ford's undead mistress in the 2000 hit What Lies Beneath. Since then, she's starred in a slew of films, including the Will Smith blockbuster Hitch and the action smash Transporter 2.

Of course, a symmetrical face, ample bosoms, sexy legs and perfectly formed buttocks do not necessarily equate to acting prowess -- so we decided to rank the success of runway walkers, Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, fashion mag goddesses and Victoria's Secret Angels who were first famous for modeling and only later broke into the movie biz. Check out our gallery of the Top 20 Models Turned Actors, then tell us how accurate our model-turned-actress-ranking skills are.

Do you like movies about dolls that come to life and go on a murderous rampage? That's a rhetorical quesiton -- everyone likes those movies. There are Chucky people and Puppetmaster people, but no one can deny the sheer creepiness that comes from watching the waxy face of a child's doll start slowly twisting with evil life. James Wan, the writer/director of Saw, knows this full well, and we've finally got a peep at his next movie, Dead Silence, which seems to be about an entire army of crazy ventriloquist dummies that start terrorizing a town. The film, which stars Donnie Wahlberg and Amber Valletta, is being released by Universal Pictures on March 23rd and IGN has obtained the first full trailer. It has a sort of old-school 80s horror feel, with the present-day events being based around one character from the past who tangled with dolls and lost, and now exists as a ghostly cautionary tale/possible villain.

"There's an old ghost story around here about a woman named Mary Shaw," the narrator tells us in the trailer, as we get all kinds of weirdo imagery of an old lady doing a ventriloquist act. Then there's lots of running-around-with-flashlights stuff. The creepiest part of the trailer is reserved for the ending, when we hear a doll's nursery rhyme, that begins..."Beware the stare of Mary Shaw....she had no children.....only dolls."

How many J-horror remakes have we weathered in the past three years? Five? Seven? Boy is that a trend I'll be happy to see die ... but not just yet, apparently. Seems there's still a remake of The Eye due to hit theaters late next year, but before that we get Sandra Bullock starring in Premonition -- a flick that definitely seems to be a semi-kinda-remake of Norio Tsuruta's Yogen (aka Premonition) from 2004. That film, which clearly borrowed a few cups from the original Ringu, is about a phantom newspaper that informs people of tomorrow's bad news. Not a bad little entry into the J-horror canon, but a slight one nonetheless.

...actually, come to think of it, I'm beginning to suspect that these films have no connection. Based on this new trailer and the few plot synopses I've seen lying around, it looks like the only thing the two movies have in common is the title. My bad.

Anyway, Sandra plays a woman whose husband is killed in a car accident, only when she wakes up the next morning, he's (dun dun dun) still alive! Scary! The movie comes from German director Mennan Yapo and second-time screenwriter Bill Kelly. Co-starring alongside Ms. Bullock will be Julian McMahon, Amber Valletta, Nia Long, Peter Stormare and Kate Nelligan. Release date is March 16.

Ok, seriously: Who are the people who think it's a good idea to repeatedly pair up Frankie Muniz with movies involving sex? Step forward and explain yourselves immediately. First there was Parental Guidance Suggested, an awful-sounding "sketch comedy feature" about boys and their hi-larious sex-capades -- in Frankie's case, for example, he plays "a teen who loses his virginity to his girlfriend ... only to find she wants to take things much further, including farm animals and midgets." Yeah, I know -- I can't wait either.

And now, as if that wasn't much, much more than enough, The Hollywood Reporter revealed this morning that Muniz is set to star in My Sexiest Year, a comedy-drama (or, as the execs like to say, "dramedy") about "a young man [yes, that's Freddie] and his never-to-be-forgotten romantic encounter with a top international model." (In case you're wondering, they've hired Amber Valletta to really stretch her acting muscles by playing said supermodel.)

Ok, first of all, yawn. Can we call a moratorium on the "homely teenage boy is deflowered by impossibly hot older (usually foreign) woman" movies, please? Second, what is it about Frankie Muniz that gets him hired for these roles? Malcolm in the Middle fans, help me understand the guy's irresistible appeal to people casting movies about teen sex. Seriously, I want to know.

As we reported way back in August, Sandra Bullock, as part of her bid to appear in fewer stupid movies, agreed to star in Premonition, a supernatural thriller about "a housewife (Bullock) whose husband dies in a car crash and who is shocked when he appears alive the next day." Good call, Sandy - there's no way this one can be stupid. The dead/not dead hubby will be played by Julian McMahon who, given his experience as a demon husband on Charmed, should find this job a piece of cake. (Oh, wait - according to the IMDB, he's not dead, it was a premonition. Bummer)

Since the movie is currently filming in Shreveport, LA (they won't be put off by a little hurricane), it's a good thing that casting has finally been completed - joining Bullock in (not) being haunted will be Nia Long, Amber Valletta, and Kate Nelligan. Long is set to play Bullock's best friend, and Nelligan will be her mother. Valletta, needless to say, is the movie's designated Hot Chick, and will be having extramarital sex with McMahon. (That sound you hear is a nation of teenage boys suddenly becoming very interested seeing a Sandra Bullock movie.)