Before you continue bad mouthing George Lucas for what he's done to your childhood, first with the Star Wars prequels and now with the disappointing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, you might want to worry that he'll send his daughter after you. Wait, what? Yeah, that's George's daughter, Amanda "Powerhouse" Lucas, in the image on the right. She's a member of an American all-female MMA (mixed martial arts) fight team, and she's seen here duking it out with a Kiwi kickboxer during a recent Auckland, New Zealand-set event titled Princesses of Pain. And according to Stuff.co.nz, footage of the bout may be featured in a planned reality series about the formation of a women's international fighting league as well as on the news program 20/20.

27-year-old "Powerhouse" Lucas appeared in all three of her father's Star Wars prequels, portraying the dancer "Diva Funquita" in The Phantom Menace, "Adnama, patron of the Outlander Club" in Attack of the Clones and "Senator Terr Taneel" in Revenge of the Sith. She also voiced a separate character in The Phantom Menace, Neimoidian communications officer "Tey How" (she was credited under the pseudonym Tyger). Outside of the Star Wars films, she's worked as a hip-hop teacher and has spent years training in multiple martial arts, including kickboxing, Muay Thai and Brazilian ju-jitsu. According to New Zealand's TV3, Lucas lost her debut bout, but she did win a medal for "gutsiest fighter," and according to the Princesses of Pain website, the whole match ended in a tie between Team America and Team Australasia, each winning 3 bouts.

Is Paramount poised to have the best May imaginable at the box office between Mr. Stark and Dr. Jones? Can you take any movie with a monkey in it seriously? Will Pixar succeed again with WALL-E, or are robots the new Cars? Is a long-awaited sequel 'too little, too late' for X-Files fans? And will Hellboy 2 be the surprise smash of the season? Joining us this week on The Rocchi Review to talk summer's biggest movies is Scott Weinberg of Cinematical and FEARnet, and we try to answer all those questions and more. ... Cinematical's podcast content now has even better sound quality, and is now in iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



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She isn't too well known in America, but Star Wars fans may recognize Claudia Karvan as the actress who played Padmé's elder sister Sola in Revenge of the Sith. Now the Australian actress, who is a popular television star in her native country, has landed herself another Hollywood role sure to make her more familiar to audiences in the States. She has been cast as the female lead in the futuristic vampire movie Daybreakers, in which she'll co-star with Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and fellow Aussie (slash New Zealander) Sam Neill. The casting of an up-and-coming Australian star makes perfect sense since the movie will be shot Down Under by Australian filmmakers the Spierig twins (Undead), who also wrote the screenplay.

According to Moviehole, Karvan will be playing a human love interest for Hawke's vampire character. The movie is set in 2017 when the world is mostly populated by vampires, a race that may become extinct once the blood-supplying humans are also extinct. Hawke is some sort of good guy vampire who is researching a way for his people to survive with a blood substitute. Dafoe plays his rival. Still no word on who or what Neill will be playing. If Karvan's part is correct, I think we can assume that once Hawke falls for her, he begins to think twice about feeding on humans. Of course, he could just turn her into a vampire and then live happily for eternity with her, but narratively that idea lacks conflict. Daybreakers begins filming soon and is set to release next year, which will be long after we've already seen I Am Legend, 30 Days of Night and Bloodrayne II. Hopefully we'll still be interested in vampires by that point.

The Quick Stop Entertainment site (which is the new incarnation of View Askew's Movie Poop Shoot site) has launched a new feature that I think has plenty of potential. Quickcast Commentaries are all new audio commentaries for existing films or TV shows that are downloadable in MP3 format. (Yes, it's kinda like Mike Nelson's RiffTrax.) Just synch them up to the film or show in question and your off. Future entries will feature a full range of creators commenting on films they've either loved, despised or worked on. The first in this series is a commentary by Quick Stop editor-in-chief Ken Plume and columnist Widgett Walls for Star Wars Episode III-The Revenge of the Sith.

As I said, the idea has promise, though, unfortunately, the feature is off to a shaky start. I was not a huge fan of Revenge of the Sith, but even if I utterly despised the film I can't imagine wanting to listen to this non-stop gripe-fest. Ken and Widgett don't like this movie. I mean, they really don't like this movie, and the commentary stops just short of the two of them running over to George Lucas's house and leaving flaming dog crap on his doorstep.

The problem is that people who listen to audio commentaries are people who love film and the filmmaking process. Listening to this commentary is like being stuck in a cubicle next to that co-worker who never stops complaining. Granted, there are people who despise Episode III, so maybe this is more their cup of tea. Personally, when I see a bad movie I kick my stuffed penguin, perhaps write a negative review, and move on. I still like the idea of alternate audio commentaries, though, and I'm anxious to see where this feature goes in the future.

Let the record show that I never in my wildest dreams imagined that headline would roll off my fingertips.

But, yes, dear readers, it looks like a controversy has erupted in the ever-contentious Best Makeup category, with the women respectively responsible for sprinkling glitter on Natalie Portman and Darth-ifying Hayden Christenson fighting for a single slot on the Oscar ballot. Apparently, AMPAS named hairdresser Annette Miles as a nominee, alogside Dave Elsey, on their initial press release last week. But then, after learning that Miles left the set before filming of George Lucas' final spurt of geek porn had finished, AMPAS replaced Miles' name with that of makeup artist Nikki Gooley. An AMPAS spokesman now says that the initial release contained an "administrative error", and that Gooley is "more deserving" of the nomination; an up-in-arms Miles insists that she left the set on "the same day [as] Natalie Portman". The Academy says they're going to give Miles a chance to prove them wrong by "submit[ing] further material". Considering that Oscar ballots were reportedly mailed yesterday, I have no idea how that's going to work.

Darn, I missed the People's Choice Awards last night. Completely forgot ... if I knew they were going to be on in the first place. I didn't even get the chance to vote!

I had to find out on the Web that Revenge of the Sith won both Best Overall Film and Best Drama Film. I wouldn't have voted for it myself, but then I never saw the film. So I am probably not the typical audience member, which is why I don't understand how Sandra Bullock won an award for Favorite Female Movie Star. Was she even in a movie last year? (Oh yeah, Miss Congeniality 2.) Wedding Crashers won Best Comedy Film and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory won Best Family Film.

I remember watching the People's Choice Awards when I was a little girl (yes, they had the awards back then ... shut up) and realizing that the big-name stars who won were never there. The actors who did show up to gather awards were second-tier or maybe desperate for any kind of publicity. Has this changed in recent years? Or should we speculate on the careers of the winners who collected their awards in person: George Lucas, Sandra Bullock, Jessica Simpson, Owen Wilson, and Reese Witherspoon, who won for her performance in Walk the Line. Wilson and Witherspoon don't seem to need the extra attention right now. Meanwhile, Brad Pitt won an award for Favorite Leading Man and Johnny Depp won one for Favorite Male Movie Star (these are separate awards?) and neither showed up. Do "the common people" as voters have more clout than they once did? If you watched the show, share your thoughts.

With an absurd amount of movie related lists floating around at the end of a year, I'm almost sick of talking about them by now. However, this list fascinates me because, in order to create it, one must be so glued to detail it's frightening. For the folks over at moviemistakes.com, it's their job, not to tell us how good or bad a film is, but how many times the filmmakers screwed up.

According to them, and interestingly enough, our friend George Lucas has topped yet another list, though this one has nothing to do with box office figures. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith has come in at numero uno on the Top Ten Foul-up Films of 2005. With 142 mistakes, it beats out Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds who finished with 111. An example they give in Episode III pin points a scene in which Anakin's hair changes direction (who notices this crap?) while apologising to Obi-Wan.

The Keanu Reeves film, Constantine (66), tied with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (66), while Peter Jackson's King Kong (44) rounded out the top five. I guess this goes to show that, even with the tremendous amount of detail that's shoved into a huge CGI-filled blockbuster, there are still plenty of mistakes to be had. Check out the full top ten after the jump...