Tuesday night, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and their charmingly low-key Before Midnight director and co-writer Richard Linklater were back where it all began 18 years ago: the stage of the DGA Theatre on Sunset Blvd. The LA premiere of the third installment of the trio’s epic indie romance series was preceded by a crowded food-and-vodka reception in the lobby.

When Before Sunrise arrived in 1995, cell phones were just becoming affordable and popular. Today of course, the smart devices are ubiquitous; in the DGA lobby, where patrons snapped Delpy and Hawke on the indoor red carpet; and later on the DGA big screen. In Before Midnight, critical cell phone calls and text messages anchor each of the movie’s three conversational acts.

Because most of today’s film critics still (foolishly) believe that reviews must detail a movie’s plot points, it will be virtually impossible for any such critique to avoid spoilers. Our best advice to Before series fans is not to read any of the write-ups until after you’ve watched the latest chapter, which opens Friday in LA, New York and other select cities.

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Is this really necessary? Today in Cannes, Dave McNary of Variety confirms that a Bollywood film company will soon be remaking Sylvester Stallone’s 2008 offering Rambo. This plan was originally outlined at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, but it is only now – a year later – that full funding is in place:

Daljit Parmar, nephew of the late Bollywood multi-hyphenate Mehmood, said the Rambo and Expendables remakes should be in production by the end of the year.

“I am extremely excited to announce the launch of our slate to remake titles from some of the most successful action franchises in Hollywood on this historic 100-year anniversary celebration of Indian cinema at Cannes,” he said.

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And who better to report about this Saturday May 11 cattle call than San Diego ABC affiliate Channel 10, one of the places where the alleged loose inspiration for Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy character – Harold Greene (also of KCBS fame) – once worked?

The non-union open casting for Anchorman: The Legend Continues is happening today from noon to 4 p.m. at a Mission Valley area DoubleTree Hotel in San Diego, for a local shoot later this month. From the 10news.com report:

Tammy Sandler of the Los Angeles-based company Facetime Media told 10News, “All I can really say is it is a scene with Will Ferrell being shot at SeaWorld…”

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Everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask about Mike Tyson and Ken Jeong’s stellar supporting work in The Hangover can be savored this week in The Hollywood Reporter. In an ingenious editorial move, executive editor Matthew Belloni and senior TV writer Lacey Rose chucked the usual script for sequel promotion and orchestrated instead a rollicking oral history of the 2009 R-rated smash that started it all. (The final Part III installment opens in theaters May 24.)

FishbowlLA can never get enough of Jeong’s Mr. Chow. In the article, the actor’s work is fully retraced, from the audition to the origins of some of the most repeated lines to a touching backstory:

JEONG: It was a very magical shoot. My wife was going through breast cancer and chemotherapy at the time. [She recovered.] It was part of the reason I was so unhinged in the character; I think I was working out my own demons. Todd and Bradley were the only people who knew. Hangover got me through the most difficult time in my life.

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Iron Man 3 co-star Gwyneth Paltrow was crowned by People magazine as the “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” just ahead of last night’s big splashy El Capitan Theatre premiere. In this red carpet photo, she is firmly in the clutches of  the person we think owns the “Coolest Person on the Planet” honors.

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Under the hilarious headline “Hollywood’s F. Scott Fitz and Starts,” Variety executive vice president and editorial director Peter Bart frames the upcoming fourth film version of The Great Gatsby in ways that the average pajama-clad movie blogger can only dream of.

Not only was Bart instrumental in version number three, one that almost paired Marlon Brando with the script nuances of Francis Ford Coppola. But he was also there at the genesis of version number four. If we had this kind of access, we’d lead with the information as well:

Baz Luhrmann took me by surprise four years ago when he confided over lunch that he intended to shoot The Great Gatsby as his next movie — he explained that he had become obsessed with the Gatsby story. I told him that I, too, admired the great F. Scott Fitzgerald novel but could never quite figure out its story — nor could the three directors who’d made previous Gatsby’s.

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There was a one-of-a-kind cinematic event on Saturday in San Francisco. Following a screening at the Roxie theater of the 1974 classic Chinatown, director Roman Polanski beamed onto the screen via Skype (at around 11:30 p.m. Paris time) for a Q&A with producer Thom Mount, with whom he collaborated on several subsequent film projects.

Freelance writer Pam Grady notes in her weekend coverage that Polanski bristled at Mount’s suggestion the the LA featured in the film was make-believe. “That LA existed,” he said. “We were trying to be historically correct. Bob [Robert Evans] loves the city of Los Angeles and he was inspired by it.”

Meanwhile, today, SF Weekly fellow attendee Casey Burchby highlights an infamous exception to Polanski’s smooth-sailing leading lady experiences:

Mount observed that Polanski’s career has been marked by outstanding performances by actresses: Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion, Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, Nastassja Kinski in Tess — and Faye Dunaway in Chinatown. Polanski said that in each case, he’d enjoyed good working relationships with those women, with the exception of Dunaway.

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This is really intriguing. As part of its next “Hollywood Legends” event April 5-6, Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills will be for the first time selling some slices of videotaped Hollywood casting history. With all sorts of big names in the mix:

Tapes include Leonardo DiCaprio’s audition for the role of Ponyboy in The Outsiders; Brad Pitt, Robert Downey Jr., Keanu Reeves and Dermot Mulroney for Backdraft; Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julianne Moore, Helen Hunt and others for roles in Jurassic Park; David Arquette, Adrien Brody, Noah Wylie, Ben Affleck and Lisa Kudrow auditioning with Ellen DeGeneres for Mr. Wrong; Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Patrick Dempsey and others for A Beautiful Mind; and more.

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So what happens when you take a kid from Pittsburgh, PA, put him in the wrong place at the wrong time, sprinkle in some college basketball, a little Caravaggio, some Akira Kurosawa and a few rap music videos?

Antoine Fuqua, director of the new action film Olympus Has Fallen, recently sat down with mediabistroTV and told the crew how the odd mix of bad luck, athletics, an acclaimed Japanese director and the influence of a 16th century bad boy Italian painter led him to a career as one of Hollywood’s premiere action film directors.

Fuqua’s latest movie, Olympus Has Fallen, opens in theaters March 22.

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For fans of The Big Lebowski, it’s Christmas in March thanks to today’s LA Weekly cover package of stories tied to the movie’s 15th anniversary and upcoming local Lebowski Fest. Our personal favorite is the item about the LA home used for scenes involving Ben Gazzara’s pornographer character Jackie Treehorn.

Writer Sam Bloch spoke with James Goldstein, the seventy-ish owner of the Beverly Hills John Lautner spread that doubled as Treehorn’s beachfront party HQ:

For Treehorn’s encounter with the Dude, the crew set up for a three-night shoot. Goldstein “wasn’t thrilled” about a big black sheet being thrown over a glass, which would obscure a view of the Century City skyline. “I am proud of the way the house looks now,” Goldstein says. “I don’t like it when a set designer makes changes just to justify his pay.”

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