In these supposedly progressive times, gender equality is one of those touchy issues relegated to the last paragraph of a trend piece nobody reads. When Katherine Heigl suggested to Vanity Fair that Judd Apatow's movies were sexist, the assertion came across like an after-the-fact shrug of acceptance. Ever the galvanizing provocateur, New York Times critic Manohla Dargis confronts the issue head-on with a thorough analysis of the gender bias in this year's summer blockbusters.

With "Iron Man, Batman, Big Angry Green Man" and other massive expressions of virility invading the box office, female roles appear to be relegated to the back of the multiplex. Dargis touches on the rumors that Warner Bros head Jeff Robinov believes no woman has been able to sell a movie since Julia Roberts (a point that Natalie Portman might contest, but not Paris Hilton) before sizing up numerous upcoming studio releases, with particular attention paid to Anna Faris, "who could be the next Judy Holliday but without the right material will, alas, probably end up the next Brittany Murphy." It's the kind of pronouncement that hits you in gut.

Like many of the characters he plays, Clive Owen was reserved, astute and insightful throughout his public appearance at the Apple store in downtown Manhattan on Friday. Interviewed by American Psycho director Mary Harron as a part of a series of conversations co-hosted by Apple and indieWIRE, taking place during the Tribeca Film Festival, Owen touched on two of his recent projects while fielding broad questions about his professional interests.

Although not currently starring in any theatrical releases, Owen was in town performing opposite Julia Roberts in the corporate spy thriller Duplicity, the sophomore feature from Michael Clayton director Tony Gilroy (a special guest at the store the following night). "I read the script and thought it was brilliant," Owen said, adding that shooting was halfway done. "I'd met Tony already, and he screened Michael Clayton for me. Obviously, when I saw that, it was a no-brainer." Meanwhile, Owen has another thriller in his queue: He plays an Interpol agent fighting global arms dealing in The International, which finished shooting in New York last January and hits theaters next year. Directed by Run Lola Run visionary Tom Tykwer, The International has provided Owen with "as good a director as I've ever come across. He's incredibly on top of every aspect of filmmaking."

There are two ways to watch Charlie Wilson's War. The first way is to watch it like we watch most movies -- go in to be entertained, to experience something outside of our scope of experience -- to leave our lives at the door and encounter something different. The other way is to be critical, having researched the situation upon which the film was based, to see how it diverges, and then decide whether the divergence is acceptable within the realm of what actually happened. One way will give you an entertaining experience. The other will probably result in the film getting under your skin.

I usually get pretty tense over large leaps in the truth. To this day, I grumble at the thought of Girl Interrupted, and the fact that they could insinuate that a character based on a real, live person could be indirectly involved in another's death when it simply isn't true. With Charlie Wilson's War, however, I wasn't completely weighed down by derailments from truth. Perhaps this is due to being warned after reading reviews like James' and Kim's, maybe it was due to the film more omitting facts than completely changing them, or perhaps it was the light delivery of the subject. Whatever the case, Charlie Wilson's War is an enjoyable film weighed down by its decisions of omission.

For many, Closer is that Mike Nichols movie where Natalie Portman played a stripper, stripped down, but then had her nude footage destroyed. For me, it's the film that gave me a new-found appreciation for Julia Roberts. Like many of you out there, I've grown tired over the years of the typical Roberts roles, but pitting her against Clive Owen and making her a mellow, wry, and serious photographer was excellent, and it dulled the memory of her monotonous previous work. Was it her own talents, or what Owen inspired within her that made this possible?

Now she's teaming up with Owen again for Duplicity, and I can only hope that they have the magic again. The film stars Roberts and Owen as two corporate spies who conspire to con their bosses, and Just Jared has a whole slew of pics of the two shooting an anger-filled scene. It's all suits, grabbed arms, and arguments for the pair on the streets of New York. So far, so good.

But even if Closer becomes a distant memory and this flick is just classic Julia, it's still looking damned good. It will be an absolute and serious waste if these two, mixed with Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton, and the increasingly impressive Tom Wilkinson can't create a great flick. Are you ready for their Duplicity?

She's getting into some duplicitous cinematic action with Clive Owen, but that's not enough for Julia Roberts -- she is already getting her next project lined up. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that she will be producing and starring in an adaptation of an upcoming novel by Margot Berwin called Hothouse Flowers, for Columbia Pictures. Roberts will be "a recently divorced woman who is dissatisfied with her job at a Manhattan ad agency and goes off on an adventure that takes her to places she never expected to go." Right now, there's only a plan in place, since the strike has the project sitting without a writer or a script.

Berwin is a writer from Nerve.com, which should give you an idea of how saucy her words can get. Back in 2005, she wrote a story about a man and woman who work in an office and, um, find some extracurricular activities to keep themselves busy. (You can read it here, and it's Nerve, so don't expect anything G-rated, or PG for that matter.) Whether this new work will have similar sauciness, we'll have to wait and see.

Roberts has been making some interesting choices with her career lately, from Closer to Fireflies in the Garden, so I'm hoping this will have a good, meaty twist to the "dissatisfied person discovers the world" theme. Unfortunately, we'll have a while to wait and see.

When I first posted about the film back in November, I said that the upcoming Clive Owen and Julia Roberts-starring Duplicity filled me with curiosity and dread. The curiosity (and a little excitement, I must admit) came from the fact that it was re-teaming two stars from Closer -- a film I really enjoy. On the other hand, I hear "Duplicity," and I think of the similar-sounding Derailed. That makes me want to run for my life. (Famous last words said before watching the latter: It's got Owen. It can't be all bad.)

All that said, there's two more great actors joining the cast, which should start to erase those Derailed fears. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Tom Wilkinson and Billy Bob Thornton are looking into joining the cast. (Wilkinson is in negotiations, and THR doesn't say whether BB has officially signed on yet.) This will re-team Wilkinson with Michael Clayton director Tony Gilroy, who also wrote the script, so I imagine he'll sign on the dotted line soon enough -- Tom's role in the film did nab him an Oscar nod for supporting actor, after all.

The thriller focuses on Roberts and Owen's characters, "who are longtime lovers and rival corporate spies who team to pull off an elaborate con." (Sounds like Mr. & Mrs. Smith meets Ocean's 11.) Wilkinson is set to play the CEO of a large company, while Thornton's role is said to be "a more maverick type of CEO." The film will shoot this spring in the Big Apple.

Sometimes I wish I had a large, waiting-to-be-used stash of money that would allow me to go to every film festival that caught my fancy. The other option would be to convince a patron of each fest to wear a mini camera on their lapel, but that would be, well, illegal, so let's stick with the other fantasy. Like many of the big fests, Berlinale is looking to be all sorts of tasty. We've already had some previous screening announcements, and now Reuters has added even more eagerly-anticipated films to the fest list.

In the realm of Berlin's competitive films, Kristin Scott Thomas' I've Loved You So Long has been added to the roster. In the "out of competition" offerings at Berlinale, filmgoers can delight in a who's who of big names. There's Fireflies in the Garden, the Julia Roberts-starring film about a town devastated by an unexpected tragedy. (It's also a film that co-stars the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hayden Panettiere, and Ioan Gruffudd.) Or, if you want to dip back into history, there's Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman's The Other Boleyn Girl. And, what could be better to wrap up the festival than a movie for fans of film? Berlinale will perfectly close with Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind. (Check out James' Sundance review!)

The festival will run from February 7 to 17.

I just love those lists that are supposed to represent the fandom of the general public. This is probably because my preferences rarely converge with them. Sure, some of my tastes are a little off the beaten path -- I'd pick Danny Huston over Brad Pitt, or Julie Delpy over Julia Roberts. That being said, I still love me some good mainstream. Yet I still find myself raising my brows when I read these lists, just as I did today when I saw the annual Harris Poll for America's favorite movie stars, which Hollywood.com put up today. The order is surprising, as is the one lone oldie to the group.

Their results, counting down from 10 to 1:

10. Bruce Willis
9. Sandra Bullock
7. (tie) Matt Damon & Sean Connery
6. John Wayne
5. Will Smith
4. Julia Roberts
3. Johnny Depp
2. Tom Hanks
1. Denzel Washington

Yes, that's John Wayne there at number 6. Apparently he is the only actor to nab a spot on the poll every year since its inception in '94. Also, Depp is quickly working his way up the ranks, having moved up four positions from last year. Personally, I find the list surprising, and a bit sad in the realm of women in cinema. What say you?

I didn't leave Charlie Wilson's War, the new film from director Mike Nichols, dissatisfied or unamused. I walked out of Charlie Wilson's War angry. No reasonable person expects a film -- any film -- to capture the complexity and scope of real events with absolute precision; adaptations are translations, and as the old Italian saying goes, "The translator is a traitor." It's one thing to compress, combine and fictionalize a story to fit the sprawling, ugly mess of it onto the big screen; it's another to take only the best, shiniest parts of a real, ugly story and turn it into a feel-good comedy. Translation may be traitorous, but Charlie Wilson's War feels like a conscious act of treason against reason itself. As film critic David Thompson has said, "We learn our history from movies, and history suffers ...." Charlie Wilson's War isn't just bad history; it feels even more malign, like a conscious attempt to induce amnesia.

Based on George Crile's 2003 book of the same name, Charlie Wilson's War follows the exploits of Charlie Wilson, a Democratic Congressman from Texas who, during the '80s, had as much fun with his position as you could, which was a lot. As Charlie Wilson's War opens, we see Charlie hot-tubbing in a Vegas hotel suite; the room's full of booze, broads and blow. But Charlie, played by Tom Hanks, can't look away from the news; as one of his new acquaintances notes her apathy to world events, Charlie boils it down: "Dan Rather's wearing a turban; you don't want to know why?" Dan Rather's in a turban because Dan Rather's in Afghanistan, among the Afghan mujahideen -- the Islamic rebels trying to drive the Soviet Union out of their country by any means necessary. This sight sparks something in Charlie, so he sets out to increase the C.I.A.'s funding for the Afghan rebels -- from $5 million a year to 10. It's a lot of money. It's going to be much more.

There are girls who make the waves in the media world because of their exploits (Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears), and then there are some special ones who just know how to keep gossip-fiends hooked with their strange vacation from reality. Jessica Simpson is one of those people. If you thought Blonde Ambition or Major Movie Star (as if) were laughable, get ready for this -- she wants to be the next Julia Roberts. Or, at least, follow in her footsteps a little and play a hooker.

Yes, dear Cinematical readers, Jessica Simpson wants to star in a remake of Pretty Woman. According to OK! Magazine's source, "She thinks this one's got 'hit' written all over it.' Her father Joe has been telling anyone who will listen that she's the next Julia." Yeah, so as her manager, he's got to talk her up, but there's a difference between being positive about your talent (for lack of a better word), and making ridiculous comparisons. I would ask if she's really that clueless, but after her television show, and her myriad of insane statements, I think that's clear. And, no, I'm not talking about the Heckerling sort of Clueless.

And here I thought Simpson taking on the role of Sandy for a Grease remake was bad ... but I'll hand the mic over to you. Would you like to see Miss Jessica as a Pretty Woman? Can you see her winning an Oscar one day? Have we all just somehow disregarded her amazing acting talents?

About four years after filming the dysfunctional love fest otherwise known as Closer, Variety reports that Clive Owen and Julia Roberts are teaming up again for a new con flick called Duplicity. This fills me with both curiosity, and dread. I happened to love Closer, from Owen's creepy pervishness to Roberts actually being understated. Then again, the last one-word con film Clive did was Derailed. I put that sucker in my DVD player with the thought: "It's got Owen, so even if it's as crappy as I hear, it'll have something to enjoy." Oh yeah, not at all. It was downright scary with how bad it was.

So, now we've got the next attempt. The drama was written, and will be directed by Tony Gilroy, who seems to be getting better with age, like a fine wine. The guy has flicks like The Cutting Edge and Bait on his roster, as well as the three Bourne movies. But that's not all -- he's also the pen and director behind Michael Clayton. The drama will focus on Roberts and Owen as "longtime lovers who happened to work as spies on opposite sides. They team up to stage an elaborate con to rip off corporations and steal a valuable product." It's looking like a Mr. and Mrs. Smith without the assassinations and after the discovery of their work -- unless they know and find a thrill in bonking the enemy. Duplicity will start filming this March, after Owen wraps his stint as Tom Tykwer's The International.

ComingSoon now has the exclusive first look at the teaser poster for Charlie Wilson's War (click on the image to the right for a larger version). War stars Tom Hanks as the 'unconventional' congressman Charlie Wilson, who with the help of a Texas socialite and a rogue CIA agent managed to organize a "covert war" in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. Hanks is joined by Julia Roberts as the socialite Joanne Herring and Philip Seymour Hoffman as CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos.

Wilson's good-time-guy image was only one aspect of his personality and more importantly he considered himself a staunch patriot with a clear sense of right and wrong. Wilson was once quoted as saying '"The US had nothing whatsoever to do with these people's decision to fight...But we'll be damned by history if we let them fight with stones." Charlie Wilson's War is based on the book, Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History by George Crill III -- I guess for the sake of billboard space they decided to shorten the title just a little.

The trailer for the film was just released a few weeks ago, and I think most of us were a little 'underwhelmed' by the whole thing. It's a solid cast, and it does have Oscar written all over it, but for such a fascinating story I guess I was just expecting a little more 'oomph' in the preview. Although for those of you out there worried that this is just another boring political drama, don't worry, the trailer works in a few genuine laughs -- but that could just be me. Much like the trailer, the poster for the flick isn't going to blow you away but it gets the job done -- mainly reminding you that there are three Oscar winners in the film. Considering you have mega-stars like Roberts and Hanks in the cast, it's a pleasant surprise that Hoffman made it on the poster at all. Charlie Wilson's War is scheduled for release on Christmas Day.

When you consider the star power behind the film version of George Crile's book, Charlie Wilson's War; I'm a little surprised it took this long to finally get a trailer. Worst Previews is hosting a clip from Entertainment Tonight who had a first look at the real life story of democratic senator Charlie Wilson, as played by Tom Hanks (unfortunately it also has an ET commentator rattling on in the background). In the early 80's, Wilson conspired with a Texas socialite and a rogue CIA agent to fund an Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion. Tom Hanks stars as the coke-snorting, stripper-loving senator congressman with Julia Roberts filling in as socialite Joanne Herring, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as CIA agent Gust Avrakotos. The film has Oscar bait written all over it; three winners in one film? Someone has got to get a nomination out of this one. Directed by Mike Nichols, the film marks Aaron Sorkin's first screenplay in almost a decade; now that Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip is no more, maybe he can get to work on that script about the '68 Democratic convention for Spielberg.

Charlie Wilson's War is set for release this Christmas and opening the same day as Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, as well as the kiddie flick The Water Horse. Neither of which seems like much of a challenge to the drama when it comes to ticket sales since they aren't exactly vying for the same audiences. The only fly in the ointment come Christmas weekend could be the Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson life affirming weepy, The Bucket List. It looks like it's gearing up to be a battle of the "Hollywood heavyweights," but my money is on Hanks and company. The man seems to have the magic touch, after all. Charlie Wilson's War opens December 25th.

UPDATE: The official trailer has just arrived over on Yahoo, so head on over there to check it out.

Fox411's Roger Friedman is reporting that Julia Roberts could be joining Nicole Kidman in the romantic comedy, Monte Carlo. Fox spoke with Kidman during the NYFF premiere for Margot at the Wedding (read Ryan's review here) when the actress confirmed Roberts involvement. Monte Carlo centers on three schoolteachers that pose as socialites in the glamorous city to snag a rich husband. Kidman signed on for the project back in July with The Family Stone director, Tom Bezucha, who is also co-writing the script with Maria Maggenti. The story is based on the novel Headhunters by Jules Bass and the movie was inspired by the Marilyn Monroe classic, How To Marry a Millionaire.

Roberts has relatively absent from the screens for the last few years, with only the odd role here and there, but she appears to be returning to work full time. The gal will next appear in the political drama Charlie Wilson's War, followed by the dramatic weepy, Fireflies in the Garden. Last but not least, she has just signed for another romantic role in the Friday Night Knitting Club with actor and writer Mike Binder (Reign Over Me). Kidman is busy back at work on Baz Luhrmann's epic, Australia, as well as the period drama, The Reader with Ralph Fiennes. So in spite of some rather low blows in the press, Kidman has no shortage of work, and has already lined up the drama, Need, with long-time friend Naomi Watts. Although, judging from Kidman's past attempts with comedy, she could probably use the help from a veteran like Roberts.

It was just announced by Variety that Aaron Sorkin has made a deal to write three films for DreamWorks. This would have filled me with excitement a couple years ago, but after watching an entire season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, I don't know what to feel. I guess everyone should be allowed a misstep, but few shows have angered and frustrated me like Studio 60. Dreamworks CEO Stacey Snider remains confident, stating: "The quality of (Aaron's) work speaks to the kind of movies we want to make here at DreamWorks and we couldn't be happier to have him in our filmmaker family." Sorkin's three film scripts have all been pretty great -- A Few Good Men (an adaptation of his stage play), Malice, and The American President. This Christmas will mark his return to feature films with Charlie Wilson's War, which Mike Nichols is directing.

The first project Sorkin will write for DreamWorks is a drama called The Trial of the Chicago Seven. It "focuses on the trials of protestors at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, where clashes between demonstrators and police made it one of the defining events of the '60s." OK, Sorkin and politics, I'm intrigued. And making the project all the more exciting is its potential director -- none other than Steven Spielberg. Apparently Spielberg has been developing the project with Sorkin for a while, and hopes to direct the film. Charlie Wilson's War, from Sorkin's first screenplay in over a decade, stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Emily Blunt, and Amy Adams. That film will be a drama about covert dealings in Afghanistan. Hey, you know what would work well in a serious drama about Afghanistan? A look behind the scenes of a late-night sketch comedy show! Sound ridiculous? Then why did you think it would work the other way, Sorkin? Why? I'm sorry, I'm still recovering.