Lucy Liu @ MindSay

     Nicole Kidman will star in German director Oliver Hirschbiegel's Invasion, a remake of the 1956 sci-fi horror classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Invasion centers on Carol (Kidman), a woman who uncovers a conspiracy in a small town where the inhabitants' personalities seem to be changing. Kidman will also star in Wong Kar-Wai's A Lady From Shanghai as a glamorus woman who is in danger and in love with a spy.

     Russell Crowe is reuniting with Gladiator director Ridley Scott for A Good Year, which follows a London banker who moves to Provence, France. Year is based on Peter Mayle's novel.

     20th Century Fox is updating the Charlie Chan series with a new film starring Lucy Liu as the granddaughter of the fictional Chinese-American detective. Liu will also executive produce. A jury has convicted photographer John Rutter of attempted grand theft, forgery and perjury in connection with his attempts to sell topless photos of Liu's Charlie's Angels co-star Cameron Diaz without her consent. Rutter was taken into custody immediately and faces up to six years behind bars once he is sentenced on September 17. Diaz has also accepted undisclosed libel damages and a public apology from British tabloid The Sun after it published a story alleging that she was seen making out with married television producer Shane Nickerson. The paper now acknowleges the incident involved nothing more than a "goodbye hug" between friends.

     Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello will play the wives of Port Authority officers rescued from the World Trade Center in Oliver Stone's upcoming 9/11 movie. The duo joins Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena, who play two Port Authority officers.

     Paul Walker is joining Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford and Adam Beach for the Clint Eastwood-directed World War II film Flags of Our Fathers. That should be a helluva lot better than Fast and the Furious 3.

     Jeff Bridges, Shia LaBeouf, James Woods, Zooey Deschanel, Jane Krakowski and Jon Heder are providing some of the voices for Sony Pictures Animation's CGI film Surf's Up.

     The foursome of movies released July 22 (Bad News Bears, The Devil's Rejects, Hustle & Flow, The Island) performed poorly at the box office for the weekend of July 22-24, stopping the two week break from the 19-week box office slump. The slump was stopped by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wedding Crashers and Fantastic Four, which remained the top three, respectively, for the second week in a row. Producers pulled printable Purple Hearts advertised as a gimmick to pick up women from the Wedding Crashers website July 25 after complaints from Vietnam vets. This summer's box office giant, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, will be released on DVD November 1 on a two-disc set, complete with all the bells and whistles.

     The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has announced the schedule for the 78th Annual Academy Awards. The actual ceremony will take place at the Kodak Theater on Sunday, March 5, 2006, and will start at 8 p.m. (ET) with ABC's preshow starting at 7:30. The nominations for the 2006 Oscars will be announced Thursday, January 31, 2006, at 8:30 a.m. (ET). Yay!

     Disney named Daniel Battsek the new president of Miramax Films July 25. Battsek will replace the Weinstein brothers upon their departure on September 30. The Weinstein brothers, Bob and Harvey, who founded Miramax before it was bought up by Disney, are leaving after budget and project disputes to start a new production company, the Weinstein Co. Click here for more.

     Jodie Foster will direct and most likely star in Sugar Kings, a drama from Tribeca and Universal. Kings is about a young lawyer who teams with a veteran public-interest attorney to take on powerful sugar barons who are exploiting cane-cutting migrant workers.

     Bride & Prejudice's Aishwarya Rai is joining Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley, Thomas Sangster and John Hannah for Dino De Laurentiis' production of the epic The Last Legion. The action-adventure film, based on Valerio Massimo Manfredi's bestseller, is set during the fall of the Roman Empire. With the help of teacher Abrosinus (Firth) and legionnaire Aurelius (Kingsley), 12-year-old Romulus Augustus escapes to make a last stand for Rome.

     Dukes of Hazzard's Jessica Simpson has signed on for Major Movie Star to play an actress who has hit rock-bottom and enlists in the marine reserve. Simpson says she's doing the movie as an homage to Goldie Hawn's Private Benjamin.

     Crash's Brendan Fraser will star in director Roger Spottiswoode's historical drama The Bitter Sea. The film is based on the true story of British journalist George Hogg, who saved a group of children during the Japanese invasion of China in 1937.

     The Bourne Identity's Gabriel Mann is joining Pete Postlethwaite, Bruce McGill, Diana Scarwid and Tom Bower for the indie film Valley in the Heart's Delight. The film tells the true story of two lynchings that took place in the early 1930s in reaction to the kidnapping of the son of a prominent local businessman.

     Bob Hope's remains have been moved from a mausoleum to the new Bob Hope Memorial Garden in the San Fernando Valley two years after his death. The garden opened July 29 as a place where friends and family can remember the comic legend.

     Hong Kong will mark kung-fu movie legend Bruce Lee's 65th birthday on November 27 with a bronze statue of the late actor, the Bruce Lee Club announced.

     Sin City co-star Brittany Murphy has inked a deal to star in a new ad campaign for Jordache jeans.

     Housekeeper Lucyna Turyk-Wawrynowicz has pled not guilty to charges that she stole from celebrity clients including Robert DeNiro and Candice Bergen.

     Monster-in-Law Jane Fonda has announced plans to take a cross-country bus tour next year to call for an end to U.S. military operations in Iraq. Fonda will be joined by families of Iraq war veterans on her trip. Hanoi Jane Part Deux?

     People reports that Lord of the Rings' Sean Astin and his wife Christine have welcomed baby girl Isabella Louise Astin into the world. Isabella is the couple's third child. Yay for Sam!

     Reservoir Dogs' Mr. Blue, crime novelist and convicted felon Edward Bunker, has died due to complications from surgery to improve circulation in his legs. He was 71.

     George D. Wallace, an actor best known for playing Commando Cody in the film Radar Men From the Moon, has died at age 88.

     Film critic Roger Ebert received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame June 23. Congrats and yay! Someone truly more deserving than Seacrest. Annette Bening, Steve Martin, Ray Romano and Charlize Theron are among the stars who will receive stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006.

     German film critics are protesting Paramount for implementing a worldwide embargo preventing reviewers from publishing their critiques of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds until the film's global release date June 29. The critics called the embargo a "violation of basic constitutional rights." Is the movie that bad?! Tom Cruise hosted a special screening of the  War of the Worlds for hundreds of fans in Los Angeles June 20. Laurence Fishburne and Philip Seymour Hoffman are joining Cruise and Keri Russell for writer-director J.J. Abrams' upcoming Mission: Impossible 3. Two good additions.

     Frankly, my dear, I do give a damn: The line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" from Gone With the Wind was named the American Film Institute's (AFI) number one quote on its "100 Years... 100 Quotes" list and special, which aired June 21 on CBS. Casablanca had the most entries at six, with "Here's looking at you, kid" at number five, the highest-ranked one from that particular movie.

     Paramount Pictures and Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's Plan B production company have entered a first-look agreement that gives Paramount an exclusive first bid at producing projects developed by Plan B over the next three years. Paramount Pictures Chairman and CEO Brad Grey is the third founding member of Plan B. Warner Bros' Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Plan B's first endeavor, hits theaters July 15.

     The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) invited 112 members of the film industry to become members. Members of AMPAS vote on who should be nominated for and win Oscars. Gael Garcia Bernal, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Sophie Okonedo, Clive Owen, Charlotte Rampling, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgard, Imelda Staunton and Ziyi Zhang are the foreign actors that got in. American actors Thomas Haden Church, Jennifer Coolidge, Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti and Mykelti Williamson were extended invitations as well. Five directors got in: Alejandro Amenabar, Marc Forster, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Andy Tennant and Joel Zwick. Paramount CEO Brad Grey, Spider-Man producer Avi Arad, Robert Rodriguez's producer-wife Elizabeth Avellan, Crash creator Paul Haggis, The Motorcycle Diaries writer Jose Rivera and School of Rock writer and co-star Mike White were also invited to join AMPAS. On June 22, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted against granting a consortium of stunt performers their request for an Oscar in their field. Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar received a Bunuel's Razor Award for the Best Spanish Film of 2004 for his latest hit, Bad Education. Again, congrats and yay!

     The Los Angeles trial for the case of a photographer accused of trying to extort money from Cameron Diaz via racy photos of her taken before she was famous started June 23. Diaz's Charlie's Angels co-star Lucy Liu will star opposite Cedric the Entertainer in Les Mayfield's action comedy The Cleaner. Liu plays an FBI agent posing as a waitress to Cedric's amnesiac janitor who thinks he's an undercover agent. Liu will also executive produce and star in the independent thriller Devil to Pay. Diaz's pop star boyfriend Justin Timberlake is in talks to join Christina Ricci and Samuel L. Jackson in the film Black Snake Moan. Ricci and Jackson are good, but I don't know about Timberlake - or the title for that matter.

     Fox and Marvel Enterprises are suing Sony and Revolution Studios over Sony's new comic book satire Zoom, starring Tim Allen, which will hit theaters around the same time as Fox's X3. Fox and Marvel claim that Zoom rips off elements of the X-Men.