Brad Pitt gets top billing in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," but Austrian actor Christoph Waltz may have turned in the most memorable performance as a Nazi "Jew Hunter." Waltz, a 52-year-old veteran of German television, was hardly known outside of Europe, until now. Tarantino, insisting on actors with geographic origins similar to their characters, chose Waltz to play a complex and unforgettable villain: Nazi Col. Hans Landa. Landa mixes charm, humor and intelligence with great cruelty and opportunism ...

If riding on top of a Mexican freight train while bandits lie in wait, or inviting real-life gang members to improvise street battles doesn't sound like the wisest approach to making your first feature film, try telling Cary Fukunaga. Because those are exactly the scrapes the 32-year-old writer-director got into during production of his highly-acclaimed debut "Sin Nombre." Set in Mexico against the backdrop of the country's ballooning people trafficking problem, Fukunaga's social-political thriller shows one boy's struggle to ...

A Disney stunt performer died Monday night after suffering an injury during a rehearsal, company and local officials said. Walt Disney World spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez said the performer was injured while performing a tumbling roll for the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular at Disney's Hollywood Studios, part of the Orlando, Florida, theme park. It was the third fatal incident at the park in less than two months. Earlier this month, a performer was injured in a pirate show and later ...

Sometimes bad breaks can bring great fortune. A few years ago, Peter Jackson, the Lord of the Rings movies, planned a big-screen version of the Halo video-game universe and tapped Neill Blomkamp to direct it. When that project collapsed after a few months, Jackson proposed that Blomkamp turn his science-fiction short Alive in Joburg into his first feature film. It would be set in Blomkamp's native South Africa, focus on the country's traumatic tradition of apartheid, have characters who ...

In a country built on a system of checks and balances, it's intriguing to have an award that allows the President to reveal some personal preferences. Since February 1963, when John F. Kennedy's executive order made bestowing the Medal of Freedom a Presidential privilege the highest civilian honor in the nation has offered unique insight into the elite group of people who inspire our Commanders-in-Chief. Officially, the award, which President Obama is scheduled to present to 16 people on ...

Forty seven-year-old Australian "adrenaline junkie" Sean Langman will attempt to break the 50-knot sailing speed barrier with his half sailboat, half plane, after a serious crash last summer. Langman, a shipyard owner and yachtsman, is intent on beating the French-set record within the next few weeks, with the "Wot Rocket," a canoe-style pod with a nine meter-long rigid sail. The Wot Rocket is waiting for confirmation from the World Sailing Speed Record Council to attempt, once again, an unprecedented ...

Hundreds of excited music fans wait in line on the lookout for their favorite singers on a hit television show. Instead of spending the time outside a New York venue or Hollywood soundstage though, these fans braved barbed wire and gun-toting guards in Kabul to attend Afghanistan's premier pop music event: the finals of "Afghan Star," the embattled country's answer to "American Idol." In line, bright mod outfits have replaced Kabul's normally conservative dress code. Onstage, men sport the latest ...

Don't tell Brad Pitt who or how to love. The actor and star of the new film "Inglourious Basterds" opened up to Parade magazine about his thoughts on love, marriage and fatherhood. During the candid interview, Pitt showed off a secret area in one of his homes which he said "is a great place for sex" and reflected on his early days in Hollywood, which included superstardom and some marijuana. "I liked to smoke a bit of grass ...

Comedy is hard; dying is easy. Any stand-up will tell you that. Let's have a hand, then, for Judd Apatow. Hollywood's most successful contemporary comedy producer isn't resting on his laurels but continues to push toward risky subject matter: male sexual insecurity in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," unwanted pregnancy in "Knocked Up" -- and now the big C. No, not cancer -- though Adam Sandler's superstar comedian George Simmons is stricken with an appropriately eccentric form of leukemia. No, this ...

Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend of two years, New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush, are going their separate ways, the reality star's rep confirms to PEOPLE. The pair, who recently returned from a charity trip to Africa with Kardashian's sister Khloe, just last May talked about "heading" toward marriage, but sources tell PEOPLE their relationship suffered from the time they spent apart ­with yet another separation looming with the upcoming NFL season. "They never get to see ...