The Toronto Comic Expo is happening this weekend, and among the special guests in attendance this year are Kirk and Spock themselves, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. The Toronto Sun interviewed Nimoy this week, and he revealed some surprising news about the upcoming Star Trek movie that is being produced by J.J. Abrams. Despite the insistence that the new movie will be a complete “reboot” of the Trek franchise, introducing a brand new cast of characters and severing all connections with past movies, it seems that Paramount may want Nimoy and Shatner to be involved after all. “They might possibly want Bill and I to set up the story as a flashback. But that’s just conjecture on my part.” This would seem to support the possibility of the new movie featuring a young Kirk and Spock after all. Personally, I’d be okay with that. Although I’m interested in a fresh take, I think you do need something to connect it to previous Trek incarnations, otherwise it just wouldn’t feel like Star Trek anymore. But let’s hope this doesn’t turn into another Star Trek: Generations.

Tabloids can make for an entertaining read every now and then, and although they generally fabricate all their headlines, the photos are a little bit harder (though not impossible!) to fake. Goon sent me a link to this curious photo of everyone’s second favourite scientologist, John Travolta, who was in Toronto recently preparing for the upcoming Hairspray remake. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation for why John Travolta was kissing this unidentified man as they boarded his private airplane, but at the moment it escapes me. Has all the cross-dressing of Hairspray made him a little sexually confused? Or was he just enjoying the newfound freedom and tolerance of gay-friendly Canada? Either way, it’s worth a look!

The first half of the 6th and final season of The Sopranos is coming to DVD in a couple of months, giving viewers a bit of time to get themselves caught up before the show heads into the home stretch next March (it was originally supposed to air in January, but a knee injury to James Gandolfini reportedly pushed production back). Despite the extended length, I’m not really a fan of how they divided up this last season, especially since the episode that ended the first half on was so obviously not meant to be a season finale. The 4-disc set will contain all 12 episodes, along with some extras such as featurettes and audio commentaries, although full specs have yet to be announced. The Sopranos: Season Six, Part 1 hits stores on November 7th. An HD-DVD version of the set will also hit stores on the same day, making it the first TV series to be released on HD-DVD.

I’d take this next bit of news with a grain of salt, but it’s so moronic that I couldn’t resist posting it. Moviehole reports that Joss Whedon has his eye on another possible leading lady for the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. Of course, it seems like pretty much every actress in the world would love to snag this role, but rumour has it that Whedon wants former American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee to play the Amazon princess. I don’t really watch American Idol so I don’t know who this person is at all, but I can say that if she’s just a singer then it’s probably not a good sign. Here’s the really stupid part though: Whedon took notice of McPhee because of her “real-life heroics”, soldiering through the American Idols Live concert with bronchitis, laryngitis and a broken foot. Hey Joss, I went to work the other day with a cold, do you think you can fit me in as an extra or something? To be honest, I don’t entirely believe this story; Moviehole cited Hollywood.com as their source, but I couldn’t find it anywhere on the site.

Just before I wrote this post I read a news article on Yahoo about CNN news anchor Kyra Phillips, who apparently left her mic on while taking a trip to the bathroom, inadvertently broadcasting an off-hand conversation on live TV over top of President Bush’s speech. So immediately I went over to YouTube, and watched the video. Now this is what the internet was made for… helping to embarass people across the world. Also among this week’s viral videos is a special video that was actually shot by Film Junk’s own Jay Cheel, and somehow made its way onto YouTube. Can you guess which one?

Kyra Phillips Forgets To Turn Off The Mic
World’s Most Naked Man
Matrix/Office Space Mash Up
Enrique Without Backing Vocals?
Crazy Screaming Funny Lady
Kelly Clarkson Parties With Metal Skool
Gang Boy
Porn Foley Artist
Japanese Ass to the Face
Monkey Kung Fu
Air Force Cadet Caught Dancing on Camera

The 3rd season of Entourage just wrapped up on HBO this past weekend, and at only 12 half-hour episodes, the season felt all too short (as usual). However, word on the street is that HBO will be looking to step up production on Entourage very soon. They are currently shooting 8 new episodes to air as a new “mini-season” as early as January, paired up with the final run of The Sopranos in order to maximize exposure. Then they are hoping to have as many as 15 or 16 episodes ready for the following summer.

Clearly HBO has high hopes for the future of this show, which has been steadily developing a following since its debut back in 2004. With Six Feet Under and Sex and the City finished, and both The Sopranos and Deadwood wrapping up, there’s a lot of pressure for the cable giant to find another flagship title real soon. People have been responding well to Entourage, and now the powers that be are hoping to foster the good buzz into a true blockbuster. Don’t get me wrong, I love Entourage, but I’m just a little worried that this could lead to too much of a good thing. The appeal of Entourage has always been the fact that it’s a silly half-hour comedy in the midst of all these dark dramas. Put too much focus on it and it may lose that spark that makes it such fun, easily digestable fluff. But hey… more Entourage in January! Right on!

Earlier this year there was a lot of debate about whether or not cell phones should be allowed into movie theatres. Considering all the annoyances that can come from watching a movie in a public place, many theatre owners were wisely seeking ways to cut down on these frustrations to ensure the quality of the theatre-going experience. It only makes sense… after all, it’s so easy for people to watch movies at home nowadays, you had better make sure there aren’t any distractions when they decide to go to a theatre.

Well now it seems there may be yet another argument for banning cell phones in a movie theatre, and it’s a problem that can’t be solved with high-tech signal blocking paint. Cell phone video cameras can be used to record bootleg footage from a movie, and although current cell phones lack the storage space and the image quality to capture a full movie, the MPAA is starting to take notice. A guy in Taiwan is facing hard time after recording only a few minutes of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift onto his cell phone. While the MPAA is probably just making an example of the poor guy, the message is clear… recording a clip from a movie on your cell phone is indeed considered piracy. I personally have no problem with cell phones being banned outright, but it’s going to be a tough call because the younger generations are pretty damn attached to their personal electronics. Take away their right to text message, and you’ve just given them another reason to skip movies altogether. How do you feel about cell phones in movie theatres?

Acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s next martial arts epic Curse of the Golden Flower looks and sounds pretty similar to Hero and House of Flying Daggers, only this time around instead of Jet Li and Ziyi Zhang, it stars Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li (now best known to North American audiences for her recent performance in Miami Vice). There should be enough name recognition to make it a decent-sized foreign hit when it hits theatres later this year. Of course, the main reason to go is probably for the ridiculously intricate costumes and gorgeous cinematography. As far as the martial arts choreography, it looks like this movie may feature more large-scale battles as opposed to one on one duels. Although this style of film is being done to death right now, Zhang Yimou is the man, and I’m excited to see what kind of massive action set pieces he pulls out this time around. You can check out the trailer over at the Sony Pictures Classics official site now (linked below). Curse of the Golden Flower hits New York and L.A. on December 22nd.

It seems those pesky Batman rumours just won’t go away… now that we know Heath Ledger is going to be playing The Joker, the internet has turned its attention to the next major role in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins sequel (now confirmed to be called The Dark Knight): Harvey Dent aka Two-Face. Some people will remember that Tommy Lee Jones was Two-Face in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever. While I’m sure everyone loved his powerful performance in that movie, I’m sad to say, he won’t be returning. Instead, there’s a lot of speculation that Ryan Phillippe may be close to landing the role. Other actors rumoured to be in the running are Liev Shreiber, Josh Lucas and Jake Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal would be pretty unlikely at this point, given the Brokeback implications of pairing him up with Ledger again. Personally I’ve never understood the hype around Josh Lucas; Shreiber might be alright. As for Phillippe, if he really is the frontrunner, I think it’s a terrible choice but hey that’s just me. He may be easy to hate (making him great for villain roles), but I just hate this trend of casting hot young actors in roles that actually deserve someone a bit older. Anyone else have thoughts on the matter?

Fox has reportedly greenlit production on a new TV series based on The Terminator franchise. The show will be called The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and will focus on Sarah Connor and her son John, and what happened to them following the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. David Nutter (Smallville, The X-Files, Supernatural) has been hired to direct the pilot episode.

On the one hand, I think these kinds of spin-off shows do seem to devalue the original films in some way; with lower production values and different actors it always ends up looking like a second-rate knockoff. But then I think Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was in some ways a second-rate knockoff of the first two Terminator films, and I still enjoyed it. Of course, the big difference is that it did still have Arnold in it. Does anyone really care about stories told from the Terminator universe that don’t involve the good ol’ T800? Hey, maybe they can get Robert Patrick back as the T-1000 since he seems to be doing a lot of TV lately. Filming is expected to start early next year. No word on what this might mean for a 4th Terminator movie, although if the show is a success, another movie would probably be inevitable.