Brokeback Mountain co-stars and Academy Award nominees Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams might be headed for a break-up in the near future. The New York Daily News is reporting that the two lovebirds, who share a child together–17 month old Matilda–had a huge argument after Heath was spotted around a hoard of women on Valentine's Day at a popular L.A. night club called Teddy's.

Reportedly, he wasn't doing anything too inappropriate but some say Michelle is still very angry with him for going out and partying on Valentine's Day while she sat home with the baby.It's possible things have cooled down between the two of them since they were spotted on the red carpet together this past Oscar weekend at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Ledger's next upcoming project is a film called I’m Not There where he, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, and Christian Bale will all be playing music legend Bob Dylan. The film is written and directed by the brilliant Todd Haynes, and Michelle Williams is also starring the project. After that he's playing The Joker in the next installment of the Batman franchise called The Dark Knight, where he will again co-star with Christian Bale, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

I’m hopelessly addicted to Canada’s Degrassi on The-N and I’ve been watching it sickeningly like 3 times a day for the past two months. And since then, they’ve been playing a promo for Dawson’s Creek because they’re syndicating it on the The-N starting very soon.

It got me thinking…I remember the days when I used to watch Buffy and Dawson’s Creek religiously. I loved those shows so much–and Dawson’s Creek actually was really good in its first season. And of course it goes without saying that in its prime, Buffy The Vampire Slayer was one of the best teen shows ever on TV.

Buffy–you’re my girl. -gang symbol-

-sigh-. I love reminiscing about the good old days.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has announced that “Brokeback Mountain“, starring Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway, will be available on DVD April 4. The film was directed by Ang Lee (”Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon“), who earned an Academy Award.

“As one of the most talked-about movies of the year, ‘Brokeback Mountain’ has not only established a new benchmark in filmmaking but it has also permeated the public consciousness to an unprecedented level,” commented Craig Kornblau, President, Universal Studios Home Entertainment. “We are confident that this DVD will profoundly resonate among consumers and that it will quickly become an integral part of every DVD collection.”

Winner of three Academy Awards, including Best Director (Lee), Best Adapted Screenplay (Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana) and Best Original Score (Gustavo Santaolalla), “Brokeback Mountain” tells the story of Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal), two young men dispatched to work as sheepherders up on the majestic “Brokeback Mountain” in the summer of 1963. During their experience, Ennis and Jack are drawn into an unexpected life-long relationship, filled with love and loss.

The DVD is priced at $29.98 SRP.

All last week, the jokes were flying endlessly about the title of Paramount Pictures’ new romantic comedy Failure to Launch, starring Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Many critics and analysts claimed that the title may as well be a self-fulfilling prophecy for the film’s success. Whomever came up with that title is indeed getting the last laugh today, as the movie took an easy victory at the box office, claiming the #1 spot from Madea’s Family Reunion with an estimated opening gross of $24.6 million, an impressive per-theatre average of over $8 thousand in upwards of 3,000 theatres.

Proving that there was an audience eagerly awaiting a strong romantic comedy, the movie make almost a million more its opening weekend than McConaughey’s previous rom-com hit How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days made three years ago. That movie went onto make over $100 million.

The original comedy was joined this weekend by two very different remakes fighting it out for second place. According to estimates, Disney’s The Shaggy Dog, starring Tim Allen as a man who changes into a dog, eeked out the victory with an opening weekend take of roughly $16 million in over 3,500 theatres.

The Wes Craven produced remake of his own 1977 horror film, The Hills Have Eyes, this time directed by Alexandre Aja, was off to a good start on Friday, but dropped back over the weekend to a respectable opening of $15.5 million in 900 fewer theatres than The Shaggy Dog.

Dropping down to fourth place, the Warner Bros. thriller 16 Blocks, starring Bruce Willis and Mos Def, had the smallest second weekend decline of the movies opening last week, and it stayed perched above the other returning movies with $7.3 million, bringing its gross to $22.7 million.

Having passed the total gross of Tyler Perry’s previous film over the weekend, Madea’s Family Reunion took another 54% drop and ended up at #5 with $5.8 million and a cumulative gross of $55.7 million.

Disney’s other dog movie, Eight Below, lost some of its family business to The Shaggy Dog, but still earned another $5.4 million over the weekend. So far, it has grossed $66.4 million in four weeks, and is currently the third highest grossing film to open in 2006.

Last week’s other new films took sharp drops with 20th Century Fox’s teen comedy Aquamarine pulling slightly ahead of Kurt Wimmer sci-fi-action film Ultraviolet, starring Milla Jovovich, in their second weeks. The former made $3.65 million in its second weekend, while the latter took in $3.6 million, putting it neck and neck with Sony’s hit comedy remake The Pink Panther for eighth place. Starring Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau, the latter has grossed more money than any other movie opening in 2006 after just five weeks.

20th Century Fox’s romantic comedy spoof Date Movie held onto the Top 10 with $2.5 million, bringing its box office gross to $44.2 million. Having doubled its production budget, one can probably expect the inevitable Date Movie 2 to spoof Failure to Launch.

After a brief Oscar run in 2005, the long delayed period drama The Libertine, starring Johnny Depp, finally received a national roll-out into just 815 theatres where it made an unimpressive $2.2 million.

Surprisingly, the sharpest decline from last weekend was suffered by the concert film, Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, which took a 68% drop in its second weekend, despite strong reviews before opening. Apparently, Chappelle’s many fans were expecting something different from his comeback. It made less than $2 million this weekend, to bring its total to $9.6 million, but it dropped down to the bottom of the Top 12.

After losing the Best Picture Oscar to Crash last Sunday, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain took a 49% tumble after losing 395 theatres. Still, it has grossed over $81 million, significantly more than the controversial Oscar victor.

Opening in limited release, the erotic drama Ask the Dust, starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek, made roughly $72 thousand in 7 theatres, while the Alfonso Cuaron sheperded Mexican comedy Duck Season made roughly a third that amount in 6 theatres.

I don’t know how many of you heard about the whole Heath Ledger/Michelle Williams squirting incident, but here’s video of it, in honor of both their Oscar nominations.

The cowboy love story “Brokeback Mountain” won best picture and its creator Ang Lee was named best director Saturday at the Independent Spirit Awards, which played out as a potential prelude to the Academy Awards.

Honoring the best in lower-budgeted, edgy filmmaking, the Spirit Awards honored many key contenders for Sunday’s Oscars, where “Brokeback Mountain” is the best-picture favorite.

“In a year when the Oscars have such an independent spirit, I really treasure this encouragement,” Lee said.

Top Oscar nominees “Capote,” “Crash” and “Transamerica” also earned two honors at the Spirit Awards, and virtually every winner in the ceremony’s top 12 categories also is competing at the Oscars.

“Capote” took the best-actor award for Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is the favorite to win the same prize at the Oscars for his role as author Truman Capote. The film also earned writer Dan Futterman the best-screenplay award.

Hoffman, who has won most other key best-actor honors this award season, cheered his fellow nominees: Jeff Daniels for “The Squid and the Whale,” Terrence Howard for “Hustle & Flow,” Heath Ledger for “Brokeback Mountain,” and David Strathairn for “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

“It’s ludicrous and I’ve been given enough,” Hoffman said. “And I want to share this so badly with all the nominees. I can’t tell you how fantastic these gentlemen are.”

Felicity Huffman, also an Oscar nominee, was named best actress for “Transamerica,” in which she delivers a gender-bending role as a man preparing for sex-change surgery. The film’s director, Duncan Tucker, received the award for best first screenplay.

The ensemble drama “Crash” won for best first feature by a director (Paul Haggis) and best supporting actor for Matt Dillon, who also has an Oscar nomination for his performance as a racist cop.

The supporting-actress prize went to Amy Adams for “Junebug,” who is nominated for an Oscar for her role as a sparkling Southern waif.

There usually is some overlap between the Oscars and Spirit Awards, such as last year’s “Sideways,” which dominated the independent prizes and was a contender in top Oscar categories.

But this year, the Oscar nominations mainly singled out the same dark, daring low-budgeted films that ruled the Spirit Awards.

“Brokeback Mountain” is the story of two sheepherders who carry on a torrid gay love affair that they conceal from their families for years.

It would be the first explicit gay theme film to win the best-picture Oscar.

“Mostly ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is about sheep,” said one of the film’s producers, Diana Ossana.

“So we want to thank our shepherd, Ang Lee,” said the film’s other producer, James Schamus.

Along with “Brokeback Mountain,” “Crash” and “Capote” are nominated for best picture at the Oscars. A fourth best-picture Oscar nominee, the Edward R. Murrow tale “Good Night, and Good Luck,” earned the cinematography honor at the Spirit Awards for Robert Elswit, who also is nominated at the Oscars.

The Spirit Awards’ other top two prizes also went to Oscar nominees: The Palestinian terrorist tale “Paradise Now” was picked as best foreign film, while “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” was honored as best documentary.

Presented by the nonprofit group Film Independent, the Spirit Awards honor movies showcasing original, provocative subject matter shot on relatively modest budgets, with financing at least partly from outside the Hollywood studio system. Winners were chosen by the group’s 6,000 members, who include actors, directors, writers and other film professionals.

For more than 100 years, mainstream Hollywood movies largely shunned gay subjects, which were either disregarded, closeted or dealt with by independent filmmakers.

But in 2005, “Brokeback Mountain,” the story of two cowboys in love, broke big at box offices and earned eight Oscar nominations, including best film. It was a hit and Hollywood loves a hit.

“Gay people are now living more honest and open lives and that leads to others wanting to know more about our lives,” said Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “People want this product and we can provide it in a compelling and powerful way that can be profitable.”

Historians and experts divide Hollywood’s portrayal of gay life into three periods: years before the early 1930s “production code;” self-censorship under the code until the late 1960s; and the years since then as gays and lesbians have been slowly accepted into mainstream culture.

The production code, also known as the Hays Code, was devised by a forerunner of today’s Motion Picture Association of America and was strictly enforced by Hollywood’s major studios starting around 1934.

It set out general guidelines specifying that no film would lower moral standards of an audience member and included warnings against nudity and positive portrayals of crime and illicit sex.

Before the code, historians said movies showed no depictions of gays or lesbians because they largely kept to themselves and were ignored by mainstream society. As a result, the movies also set them aside, reflecting the culture of the day.

“It was not so much keeping a secret. It was more like, ‘How could you write about something that wasn’t being written about?”‘ said William Mann, author of “Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood 1910-1969.”

TO GAY, OR NOT TO GAY

Although the production code did not allow portrayals of gay life, some male roles were often built around effeminate personality traits. By association, the characters were deemed homosexual, although such a distinction was never talked about, said Jonathan Kuntz of the film and television school at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Some actors such as Franklin Pangborn enjoyed careers playing effeminate men and closeted homosexuals like Rock Hudson could live in privacy and still take heterosexual roles.

“Sexuality is overtly talked about now but wasn’t really in those days,” said Robert Osborne, author of “75 Years of Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards.”

The sexual revolution of late 1960s brought an end to the production code, and in 1969 “Midnight Cowboy” the relationship between Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) was widely considered a love affair, although the two never had sex on screen, as do the cowhands of “Brokeback.”

“Midnight Cowboy” became a box-office hit and won the best film Oscar, but what followed were film flops such as 1982’s “Making Love,” which made “gay film” sound like “money loser” to mainstream Hollywood. As a result, homosexual stories were fodder for independent filmmakers and art-house cinemas.

In 1993, “Philadelphia” starred Tom Hanks as a gay man, won Oscars and earned $206 million worldwide, but it was largely seen as an AIDS movie, not a gay film.

In the late 1990s, gay television shows such as “Will & Grace” and TV stars like Ellen DeGeneres helped mainstream Hollywood get to a point where it could promote a film such as “Brokeback,” the experts said. Now, they expect the major studios to be more accepting of gay stories and screenplays.

“I don’t know if we’re going to see any $200 million movies built around a gay character but certainly this will spark other films,” Kuntz said.

Playwright Tyler Perry, who turned his crazy-granny “Madea” character into a lucrative cottage industry, returned to the top of the box office on Sunday, exactly one year after stunning the industry with a No. 1 bow for his first film.

“Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion,” which Perry wrote, directed and starred in, sold an estimated $30.3 million worth of tickets in its first three days since opening on Friday, distributor Lionsgate said.

The comedy-drama revolves around a pistol-toting matriarch, played by Perry, who beats and lectures her chaotic clan into submission. It was not screened in advance for critics, a tactic usually employed when a studio knows a movie will get harsh reviews but fans will turn out anyway.

While Perry, 35, is one of the best-known black playwrights in the United States, with sold-out shows in virtually every city for his “Madea” plays, he was barely a blip on the radar of mainstream movie audiences until last February when “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” opened at No. 1. The revenge comedy, budgeted at $5.5 million, ended its theatrical run with $50 million and was huge seller on home video. It was also released by Lionsgate, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.

Last week’s champion, Walt Disney Co.’s fact-based survival saga “Eight Below,” slipped to No. 2 with $15.7 million, taking its 10-day total to $45.1 million.

NEW DUDS

Two other films opened in theaters, not that many people noticed. The canine cartoon “Doogal” played dead at No. 8 with $3.6 million, while the mob drama “Running Scared” was whacked at No. 9 with $3.1 million.

“Doogal” was released by the Weinstein Co., the privately held firm established by former Miramax Films co-chairmen Bob and Harvey Weinstein. “Running Scared” was released by New Line Cinema, a unit of Time Warner Inc.

Rounding out the top-five, Steve Martin’s comedy remake “The Pink Panther,” another former champ, was steady at No. 3 with $11.3 million in its third weekend. The film has earned $61 million to date.

The teen comedy “Date Movie” fell two places to No. 4 with $9.2 million, for a 10-day haul of $33.9 million. The computer-animated children’s book adaptation “Curious George” dipped one spot to No. 5 with $7 million and a three-week tally of $43.1 million.

“The Pink Panther” was released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp. while “Date Movie” was released by Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of News Corp. “Curious George” was released by Universal Pictures, a unit of NBC Universal, which is controlled by General Electric Co.

In a sign that Oscar buzz has largely been a bust for movie theater owners, three of the five best picture nominees earned a combined $3.4 million during the weekend, with leading contender “Brokeback Mountain” accounting for $2.3 million of that. To date, the gay-cowboy film has earned $75.4 million.

George Clooney’s newsroom drama “Good Night, and Good Luck” earned $600,000, while Steven Spielberg’s revenge thriller “Munich” pulled in $488,000. Their respective totals stand at $30.3 million and $46.1 million.

Of the two other nominees, the ensemble drama “Crash” is already out on home video, while official estimates for the Truman Capote saga “Capote” were not available. However, a rival studio estimated it made about $1 million, taking its total to about $23 million.

The Academy Awards will be handed out in Hollywood next Sunday.

Heath Ledger has asked ‘Brokeback Mountain’ co-star Jake Gyllenhaal to be his baby’s godfather.

The actors got so close while shooting the gay cowboy drama, Heath decided he wanted Jake to be involved in his daughter’s life.

The ‘Donnie Darko’ star admits he was thrilled to be asked to help raise little Matilda, Heath’s daughter with partner Michelle Williams.

Jake told Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper: ‘Heath and I are best friends now, making the film was very intense for us.

‘I’m actually godfather to Heath’s daughter Matilda which is an amazing honour.’

Heath recently revealed he loves his new role as a dad - even though all he does now is cook and wash up.

The Hollywood hunk says he’s happily settled into domestic life since Michelle gave birth last October.

He said at the time: ‘My life right now is, I wouldn’t say reduced to food, but my duties in life are that I wake up, cook breakfast, clean the dishes, prepare lunch, clean those dishes, go to the market, get fresh produce, cook dinner, clean those dishes and then sleep if I can.

‘And I love it. I actually adore it.’

“Brokeback Mountain,” already a hot favorite for next month’s Hollywood Oscars, was the big star of the night at the British Film Academy awards on Sunday, scooping four BAFTAs.

The gay cowboy love story won the coveted Best Film Award, Ang Lee was picked as Best Director, Jake Gyllenhaal was chosen as Best Supporting Actor and it also won the Best Adapted Screenplay statuette.

“I didn’t have a specific message. I wasn’t trying to push any political issues. We are dealing here with love,” Lee told Reuters Television before accepting his award.

Gyllenhaal, flabbergasted by his triumph, shook his head in astonishment and said: “Who would have thought this would happen.”

“It moved me like no other love story I have ever seen,” he said of the film for which he is also Oscar-nominated.

The film, which had taken Lee seven years to bring to the screen, faced tough competition in a strong year from “Capote,” “The Constant Gardener,” “Crash” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” to be picked as Best Film.

Philip Seymour Hoffman took home the Best Actor BAFTA for his mesmerising portrayal of writer Truman Capote in “Capote” and Reese Witherspoon was selected as Best Actress for her role in the Johnny Cash biopic “Walk The Line.”

Accepting his award, Hoffman thanked his girlfriend Mimi O’Donnell, saying “I want to say I love her and she looks really hot tonight.”

The Best Supporting Actress award went to British star Thandie Newton for her role in the low-budget racial drama “Crash.”

“This is the highest high ever,” she said afterwards. “I don’t expect it to get any higher.”

The British film industry had great hopes for the stylish political thriller “The Constant Gardener” which garnered 10 nominations but its stars Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz went home empty-handed.

Another disappointed star was George Clooney who had been nominated four times in recognition of his directing, acting and writing skills in the McCarthy era drama “Good Night, and Good Luck” and the Middle East thriller “Syriana.”

“Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” another in line for Oscar glory in Hollywood next month, was chosen as The Best British Film of the Year, much to the delight of Nick Park, creator of the two plasticine pals.

The BAFTAs were shifted in 2001 from April to February to fall between the Golden Globes and the Oscars with organizers hoping to capture some Hollywood glitter in the packed awards calendar.

But winning a top UK film industry award is certainly no guarantee of Oscar success.

Last year, Clint Eastwood’s boxing drama “Million Dollar Baby” swept the board at the Oscars but failed to score at the BAFTAs after distributors refused to send out copies of the film to voters amid fears of piracy.