'Shattered' Hand Forces Shia Off Film

'Last Lecture' writer also succeeded Ann Landers

(NEWSER) - Author and newspaper columnist Jeffrey Zaslow is dead at age 53 after a car accident in Michigan today, reports the Detroit Free Press and Wall Street Journal . Zaslow is perhaps best known for his book Last Lecture, about the final lecture of the late Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, but he first gained fame in the late 1980s as a writer for the Journal. He wrote a first-person article about the Chicago Sun-Times' search for a replacement for Ann Landers—and ended up getting the job himself over 12,000 applicants. He wrote the advice column until 2001. More»

Movie reviews: Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum can't save amnesia romance

(NEWSER) - In The Vow, Rachel McAdams plays a woman who must learn to love her husband again after amnesia wipes her memory. It's no surprise it was released ahead of Valentine's Day: It's pure mushiness, critics say.

• In the New York Daily News , Elizabeth Weitzman calls the film a "down-the-middle, by-the-numbers fantasy, in which no one is too quirky or interesting or challenging in any way." Still, "there’s no shortage of viewers ready to embrace an old-fashioned, guilty-pleasure romance."

Kristen Wiig comedy snags another record

(NEWSER) - It's official: Bridesmaids has become the most popular video-on-demand movie ever, with 4.8 million rentals in four months, says the Hollywood Reporter . It's just the latest record for the sometimes raunchy female comedy, which is also the top-grossing movie in its genre ever made—$288 million worldwide. And that's not counting $100 million in Blu-ray and DVD sales in the US and two potential Oscars—for original screenplay and supporting actress (Melissa McCarthy). More»

Daniel Radcliffe makes post-Hogwarts debut

(NEWSER) - The boy wizard is back—but this time, he's a 19th-century gentleman. Daniel Radcliffe is generally successful playing a spooked lawyer in The Woman in Black, a throwback haunted house thriller. What the critics are saying:

• The film "makes the most of its old-fashioned virtues," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times . It "isn’t especially scary, but it keeps you on edge, and without the usual vivisectionist imagery." For his part, Radcliffe "has the haunted eyes of the eternal mourner."

Channel called Muppets "anti-oil"

(NEWSER) - The Muppets are firing back at Fox News' claim their new movie is anti-oil . Asked about the accusation at a UK press conference, the Huffington Post reports that Kermit the Frog called the notion "categorically not true. If we had some problem with oil companies, why would we have spent the whole film driving around in a gas-guzzling Rolls Royce?" Added Miss Piggy: "It's almost as laughable as accusing Fox News of, you know, being news." More»