Xavier Dolan film to compete at Venice Film Fest

Canadian director Xavier Dolan will unveil his latest film alongside new work by Stephen Frears, Terry Gilliam, Errol Morris and Hayao Miyazaki at the 2013 Venice Film Festival.

Organizers unveiled in Rome today the lineup for the upcoming 70th edition, which runs Aug. 28-Sept. 7.

Young Quebec filmmaker Dolan's new drama Tom à la ferme will screen in competition for the festival's top prize, the Golden Lion. Based on a play by Michel-Marc Bouchard, Dolan's film tells the story of a gay man who attends the funeral of his lover, only to learn that no one knew of the deceased's sexuality nor their relationship.

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Altogether, 20 films will vie for the Golden Lion, including:

• Es-Stouh, directed by Merzak Allouache.
• L'Intrepido, directed by Gianni Amelio.
• Miss Violence, directed by Alexandros Avranas.
• Tracks, directed by John Curran.
• Via Castellana Bandiera, directed by Emma Dante.
• Child of God, directed by James Franco.
• Philomena, directed by Stephen Frears.
• La Jalousie, directed by Philippe Garrel.
• The Zero Theorem, directed by Terry Gilliam.
• Ana Arabia, directed by Amos Gitai.
• Under the Skin, directed by Jonathan Glazer.
• Joe, directed by David Gordon Green.
• Die Frau des Polizisten, directed by Philip Groning.
• Parkland, directed by Peter Landesman.
• Kaze Tachinu, directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
• The Unknown Known, directed by Errol Morris.
• Night Moves, directed by Kelly Reichardt.
• Sacro Gra, directed by Gianfranco Rosi.
• Jiaoyou (Stray Dogs), directed by Ming-Liang Tsai.

Famed director Bernardo Bertolucci will preside over this year's jurychoosing the Golden Lion.

The contenders are largely auteur films, with the list also including a surprising two non-fiction titles: Rosi's doc about the highway that circles Rome and Oscar-winner Morris' new film about Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. secretary of defense.

"Venice on paper takes more risks, for example, taking two documentaries in competition — a first by any festival — and organizing an auteur cinema to support and promote these films," festival director Alberto Barbera told a news conference in Rome.

• George Clooney, Sandra Bullock space drama to open Venice film fest

The Alfonso Cuaron space thriller Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, was previously announced as the Venice opener. It will screen out of competition, along with films like:

• The Armstrong Lie, American documentarian Alex Gibney's film about disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong.
• Yurusarezaru Mono, a Japanese samurai remake of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven that stars Ken Wantanabe.
• Locke, a 90-minute, director-screenwriter Steven Knight's real-time thriller starring Tom Hardy.
• The Canyons, Paul Schrader's erotic thriller, written by Bret Easton Ellis and starring Lindsay Lohan.
• Palo Alto, a screen adaptation of actor Franco's short stories directed by Gia Coppola, granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola.
• Aningaaq, a new film from Mexican filmmaker Jonas Cuaron, who also co-wrote the screenplay for opener Gravity with his father, Alfonso.

Overall, the festival will screen more than 50 new feature films from more than 30 countries and the majority of which will be world premieres. The film programs also include sections focusing on new trends in filmmaking, shorts and restored classics.

Showbiz Analysis with Lana Wood

Lana Wood landed her first major acting role at the age of 8, when she was cast as the younger version of her sister Natalie Wood in the John Waynewestern, The Searchers. Her early career path had little to do with following her sister’s success and everything to do with growing up on the set with a sibling where acting and show business were simply a way of life. “That’s how I grew up, I was on sets all the time. I was in public school very very little. There was always a teacher on the set when Natalie was under age and still in school, so I would go to the studio school as well. It was just something that was,” said Wood. Whether it was familiarity or a little bit of genetic predisposition, Wood notes that acting “was simply a continuation of everything I had always known my entire life.”

Fascinatingly, Lana Wood would make her own unique mark in the industry, carving out a career that would veer away from the girl-next-door image her older sister had perfected. Instead, Wood lit up film and television screens for decades as the quintessential beautiful bad girl. From Peyton Place to 007, Lana Wood’s acting and voluptuous beauty threw her into roles she described as “marvelous fun.”

Perhaps her most iconic character, Bond girl Plenty O’Toole (Diamonds Are Forever), wasn’t without Wood’s own special touches. “I wanted to make her (Plenty) as innocent and sweet as humanly possible. I literally changed my voice and my speech pattern (for the role).”

While one might believe Lana Wood masterfully created her own bad-girl brand, Wood notes it wasn’t intentional. “It had to do with how I was perceived. I didn’t choose it,” she says, “I was typecast.”  Still, being repeatedly typecast means you’re doing something pretty convincing as an actor.

Today, Lana Wood juggles acting with her active role as a grandmother. Her sister Natalie’s tragic death in 1981 still weighs heavy, but Lana is quick to share the heartfelt and fascinating tales of their life together. While the backdrop in her life may have been Hollywood glamour, Wood’s warmth and outgoing personality prove that playing a great bad girl has always been just an act.

Listen to my interview with Lana Wood here or on iTunes.

Nancy Berk, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, author, humorist and entertainment analyst. The host of the showbiz podcast Whine At 9, Nancy digs a little deeper as she chats with fascinating celebrities and industry insiders. Her book College Bound and Gagged: How to Help Your Kid Get into a Great College Without Losing Your Savings, Your Relationship, or Your Mind can be seen in the feature film Admission starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd.

Rosamund Pike to Star in Gone Girl Movie Adaptation

The Gone Girl is here. British actress Rosamund Pike has been cast as the lead character in the upcoming movie adaptation of Gillian Flynn‘s bestseller, Gone Girl, the Hollywood Reporter reports.

Pike, 34, nabbed the role over several better-known actresses who were reportedly considered for the part, including Charlize Theron, Natalie Portman, Emily Blunt, and Olivia Wilde.

The actress will star opposite Ben Affleck in the film version of the thriller that follows a wife who goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary, and a husband who becomes the lead suspect in her disappearance.

Meanwhile, as production on the David Fincher-directed film moves forward, Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry have been named as possible actors for supporting roles, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Reese Witherspoon will serve as a producer.

So who is Rosamund Pike, anyway? The blonde actress recently costarred withTom Cruise in Jack Reacher, and will grace the screen alongside Martin Freeman, Simon Pegg, and Pierce Brosnan in the August action flick The World’s End.

But she’s perhaps best-known for playing Jane Bennet in the 2005 adaptation ofPride & Prejudice.

Gone Girl was one of the bestselling books of 2012. The New York Times called it a “dazzling breakthrough,” and wrote that the story is “wily, mercurial, subtly layered and populated by characters so well imagined that they’re hard to part with.”

5 Shockers from The Partridge Family Star Shirley Jones's Memoir

“So bring out the smelling salts, hang on to your hats, and get ready for the surprise of your lives!”

So begins Shirley Jones‘s new autobiography. And it’s an apt introduction to ashockingly frank memoir that’s raising eyebrows—and turning Jones’s reputation as the wholesome mother Mrs. Partridge on the 1970s TV show The Partridge Family on its head.

In the memoir, Jones, 79, writes about her career from when she became a star in the 1950s movie adaptations of Oklahoma! and Carousel to her years on The Partridge Family. But it’s her surprisingly honest reminiscences about her marriage to Jack Cassidy and her love life that’s making headlines.

Here are five of the biggest revelations from Shirley Jones, which hit shelves this week.

1. Shirley Jones has little in common with Mrs. Partridge

In the memoir, Jones makes it clear that her image as the wholesome mother fans knew her as on television doesn’t reflect her true nature. “I am nowhere near as breezy and uncomplicated as Mrs. Partridge,” Jones writes in the book. “And I’m not a spoiled Hollywood movie star or a jaded TV icon, either.”

2. She had—and has—a steamy love life.

Writing about her marriage to Cassidy, Jones reveals that the actor was well-endowed and a skilled lover in the bedroom. She also writes of their menage a trois with a young female dancer (her opinion of the experience? “Yuck,” she told the AP), and revealed that Cassidy was attracted to both men and women, was repeatedly unfaithful to her, and that she tolerated it.

And she still has plenty of vitality in her current marriage to comedian Marty Ingels. “Luckily, Marty thinks I’ve still got a beautiful body, even though it is old, and every now and again I take all of my clothes off in front of him … and he loves it,” Jones writes.

3. The best kisser among Jones’s costars was Burt Lancaster.

Out of all of her co-stars, including Marlon Brando and Jimmy Stewart, Burt Lancaster was her favorite—and he was the best kisser of them all, she told Good Morning America. She shared the screen with Lancaster in the 1960 film Elmer Gantry, and won an Oscar for the role.

Jones also writes that Richard Widmark, who she costarred with in the 1961 filmTwo Rode Together, was the only co-star she ever fell in love with.

4. She originally wanted to be a veterinarian.

Before making it big in Hollywood, Jones had dreams of becoming a veterinarian. “I’m a nut about animals,” she told Good Morning America. “I wanted to do that, but I was given a gift.” She admitted she sometimes wished she had followed that path, and that the glitz of an acting career never seemed that exciting. “I liked my job, but when I came home, I never thought of it,” she said.

5. She’s relishing her golden years.

Jones said it took the maturity of old age to finally feel comfortable sharing all these intimate details. “I never would have written this book if I weren’t the age I am now,” she told the AP. Looking back on her life in the audio recording ofShirley Jones, she says she’s not ashamed of any of it. “What came to me is, ‘I did this, and obviously I loved it when I was doing it,” she said. “I had a great time. I have no regrets whatsoever.”

Jimmy Fallon Shares First Picture of Baby Daughter Winnie Rose Fallon on

Girl, meet world! On Thursday, July 25, two days after welcoming a baby with wife Nancy Fallon, new dad Jimmy Fallon shared a picture of his little bundle of joy on Twitter.

"I would like to introduce...Winnie Rose Fallon," the Late Night host captioned the adorable snapshot, which showed a close-up of the sleeping newborn's sweet face.

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Speaking about the surprise birth of his daughter one night earlier on his show, the Saturday Night Live alum said fatherhood was an exhausting but rewarding experience. "It's been a crazy couple of days -- well, actually, just one day," he quipped in his opening monologue. "It was just yesterday. It feels like I've had a four day conference."

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"It's very taxing on the fathers. I don't know how it is for the mothers, but [it's] very taxing [for us]," he joked. "I'm emotionally drained. I'm a father of a beautiful baby girl. She's so cute. Her name is Winnie Rose Fallon and she's so cute. She's 5 pounds, 9 ounces."

Fallon and his film producer wife have been married since December 2007. This is their first child.

KATE APPLAUDED FOR NOT HIDING NEW MOMMY TUMMY

NEW YORK (AP) -- As Kate and William showed off the royal baby, what caught the eye of many women was not the new heir to the throne but the Duchess of Cambridge's post-childbirth silhouette: that little bump under her pretty polka-dot dress.

"I love that she came out and there was a mommy tummy. It was there! We all saw it!" said Lyss Stern of New York City, who remembers turning down offers of a girdle and diet pills after her first child was born nine years ago.

Stern, whose company Divamoms.com organizes events and product launches, added that Kate was sending "the right message," in stark contrast to Hollywood celebrities who are shown "three weeks after childbirth with a flat stomach and G-string bikini. That's not real."

Even those who make a living getting new moms into shape applauded Kate. "I'm thrilled that she went out there like that, because we never see real mommy tummies," said Helene Byrne, a personal trainer in Oakland, Calif., who specializes in pre- and post-natal exercise. "When you see a magazine or photos of new celebrity moms, they're Photoshopped. They're fake! They're a big lie!"

The Daily Beast even ran a headline saying Kate's "unabashed baby belly busts the last taboo of pregnancy." Indeed, most celebrity new moms don't have their pictures taken until their tummies are flat again. And while the stars usually credit diet and exercise with making their bodies bikini-ready so fast, gossip and plastic surgeons often cite something else: the popular procedure known as a tummy tuck.

People magazine has an entire online archive devoted to "Body After Baby: Celebrity moms show off shockingly svelt figures after giving birth," but the magazine declined to comment Wednesday on the example set by Kate. Meanwhile, the summer's other celebrity mom, Kim Kardashian, has yet to be seen in public. Us Weekly reported that she won't leave the house untill she's ready to "debut her post-baby body."

Nobody can say whether Kate consciously chose to send a message that this is what new mothers really look like, or whether she didn't realize -- or didn't care -- how obvious her tummy would be. Either way, she un-self-consciously handed the baby off to her husband rather than using the newborn to camouflage her figure from the cameras and crowds when she emerged from the hospital Tuesday. And her form-draping dress was a contrast to the caftan-like outfit that hid Princess Diana's figure when she appeared publicly for the first time after giving birth to Will in 1982.

Nancy Manister, who worked for 20 years as a maternity nurse and now teaches at Fairfield University in Connecticut, even noticed a moment during the photo op when Kate "clasped her hands together underneath the belly, and I thought, 'She's not trying to hide it.'" As for anxious new moms wondering when that bump will go away, Manister says, "it takes six weeks to lose 25 pounds, and a full year" to get your old body back.

Jennifer Moneta, who works in public relations in Dallas, gave birth nine weeks ago and was especially pleased that Kate made the post-partum silhouette "look very natural, as if that is what all moms can and should expect after having a baby." Moneta said that when she left the hospital, "I still looked five months pregnant, even though I only gained 20 pounds during pregnancy. My father even lovingly kidded me about it, saying 'I didn't realize the baby was still in there.'"

Alison Jimenez, a fashion blogger in Astoria, N.Y., said she was "outraged" by comments from some Kate-watchers asking things like "Is she pregnant again?"

"This woman has just given birth, what was she supposed to do? Struggle into a pair of Spanx?" Jimenez said.

But some new moms do swear by girdles or their modern equivalent. Josephine Giraci, of Lloyd Neck, N.Y., says the best piece of advice she got before her first child was born 11 years ago was to pack a girdle in her maternity bag. She wore it for three months after giving birth: "I slept in it and everything."

One shapewear company, Hourglass Angel, wasted no time Wednesday emailing pitches showing a picture of Kate with the mommy tummy alongside ads for corsets and girdles as a way for women to "regain their body" and "feel even more beautiful."

Dr. Robert Atlas, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, explained that the "bulge that women have after they deliver" is mostly loose skin and fat. He said breast-feeding can help new mothers lose the weight "due to extra metabolic processing," but he doesn't recommend girdles as a way to lose baby weight -- though women who have cesarean sections do wear a binder-like accessory around their midsections to support abdominal muscles.

As he spoke, he was with a patient, Melissa Baker, of Ellicott City, Md., who gave birth just a week ago. Asked what she thought of Kate, Baker said, simply, "I liked that she didn't look perfect."