It’s not a good idea to stand someone up, especially David Letterman, but Amanda Peet has a valid reason. She gave birth to a baby girl.

PEOPLE reports that Peet unexpectedly went into labour on Tuesday, missing her scheduled appearance on David Letterman to promote her new movie “Please Give.” This is the second child for Peet and her screenwriter husband David Benioff.

“Mother and daughter are doing great,” Peet’s rep told the website.

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

Well folks, it looks like we’ve only got two years to live.With that in mind, are you sure you want to spend the last bit of your precious time watching your terrifying fate on the big screen? If your answer to that question is an enthusiastic and energetic YES, then 2012 is just the movie for you.

Directed by Roland Emmerich, 2012 is about the human race’s greatest fear: the end of the world. According to the Mayan calendar, the world is set to undergo a series of large-scale natural disasters on Dec. 12, 2012, that humans will not be able to survive. The film takes us on the two journeys. The first is with an intelligent but unpopular writer, played by John Cusack. He’s divorced, and has two kids who prefer their mom (Amanda Peet)’s new boyfriend to their real father. Pretty typical, right? Still, if anyone can wiggle back into a child’s heart, it’s Cusack.The second journey follows a geologist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who works for the White House. He helps the government prepare by giving estimated times for each disaster to hit.

As for the special effects, let’s be honest: they look like a video game. Albeit trying to capture volcanoes the size of cities and earth cracks the size of supermarkets is difficult, it’s no secret that digitalization played a huge role in this film. And there’s no question that 2012 is melodramatic. It’s basically just one horrid natural disaster after the next. The fact that Cusack narrowly escapes death by two seconds on numerous occasions is a bit much.

The film’s most compelling aspect is its underlying moral dilemma: when it comes down to survival, is it every man for himself or every man united? When survival instincts first kick in, panic ensues and individual survival becomes primary. But does that make it right? The movie seems to ask, if you were in the position of these characters, what would you do?

Still, one major problem arises. Is it really a good idea to make this movie now? The world supposedly has only two years left of existence – not exactly a comforting thought. Do we really want mass amounts of people to see such disaster, knowing that some people believe it to be our fate? The film is frightening in that way. You see families get torn apart, witness parents and children saying goodbye for the last time. It makes you think: if this actually happens, where will your loved ones be? Will you get the chance to say goodbye?

This seems like the type of film that should be made after the fact – you know, maybe in 2014, when we are long past this dreaded day and can look back and laugh about how scared we once were. The fact that this date is coming our way so soon is rather unsettling.

Still, 2012 is sure to keep you entertained. It’s action-packed and in-your-face. And hey, it would make for a wicked video game. Let’s just wait a few years before we make it, shall we?

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

Amanda Peet has joined John Cusack and Thandie Newton on the cast of the epic disaster movie “2012.”

The film is being directed by Roland Emmerich, who has helmed such other big-budget apocalyptic flicks as “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “2012″ centres on a global catastrophe and the characters’ ensuing struggle to survive. Peet will play Cusack’s ex-wife who is newly married to a wealthy man, while Cusack is a divorced father and limo driver trying to make it as a writer.

It won’t be Peet’s first time working with Cusack – they previously appeared together in 2003′s “Identity” and last year’s “Martian Child.”

Also part of the ensemble cast in “2012″ are Danny Glover, Oliver Platt and British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor.

The movie will begin shooting in July, with a release date set for July 10, 2009.

Peet is currently shooting an untitled comedy from “Friends With Money” director Nicole Holofcener and will appear in the upcoming “The X-Files” movie as an FBI agent.

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

Actress Amanda Peet married screenwriter David Benioff on Saturday.

Peet, 34, who stars in the NBC drama “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” and Benioff, 36, who wrote the screenplay for “Troy,” wed at Peet’s alma mater, the Friends Seminary, a Quaker school.

Guests included Elizabeth Berkley and Mark Ruffalo, who said the ceremony “was beautiful.”

“It was amazing and as extraordinary as she is,” said Berkley, reports People.

The four-months pregnant Peet walked down the aisle wearing a strapless white dress with a black sash, carrying a bouquet of roses, reports E! Online.

Following the ceremony, guests made their way to the Chelsea Art Museum for the reception, where the music of Dexter Lane Club had all the guests on their feet.

The wedding went smoothly despite the fears she revealed on The Late Show with David Letterman.

“I have been having recurring nightmares about, not the ceremony, but the party. I go to the bathroom and I come back to the party and everyone’s gone. Except for some, everyone’s dispersed. And another one where the band just didn’t show up so everyone got bored. And I was begging musicians that I know to just play, ‘Play something!’” confessed Peet, reports E! Online.

The wedding came two weeks after Peet announced that there was a bun in the oven. The couple dated for four years after they were set up on a blind date through friends. They became engaged in July of 2005. This is the first marriage for both.

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

The love story will always be clich?. There’s no room around it. Two people meet, they fall in love with each other but an obstacle is in their way, but in the end it all works out.

A Lot Like Love is that clich? love story, and if it were not, then it wouldn’t be a love story.

What makes this movie unique is that every aspect of the clich? is primitive, hardly the typical aspect of a clich?, though not that uncanny. Every movie has a twist that will set it apart somehow. This movie tries to do it throughout, that when the clich? eventually becomes complete, you’re relieved.

Ashton Kutcher stars as Oliver, who at first is a child stuck in a recent graduate’s body. He has a five-year plan, but it’s nothing more than becoming rich and getting married. He meets Emily, played by Amanda Peet, as they exchange eye contact in an airport terminal.

Before they speak, they are in the plane’s compact washroom, joining the mile high club.

(Step one: two people meet.)

They have a chance encounter in New York the day after the plane lands, which leads to the occasional get-together over the years. He likes her; she likes him. But every meeting, either one of them is too vulnerable after breaking up with someone or one of them is involved with someone else.

Step 2: They fall in love with each other but an obstacle is in their way.

And the third step is inevitable, as even the trailer suggests.

Kutcher shows once again how his acting ability stretches farther than his role on That ’70s Show. He is convincible playing Oliver, who changes dramatically each time a few years pass. The movie takes place over a decade, and Kutcher must stretch his acting muscles to play what seems like a few different characters. Oliver matures in every scene; as does Emily, who transforms her punk lifestyle into a career-driven woman.

Peet isn’t as convincing playing the youngest Emily. Though like Kutcher, Peet’s ability to have her character mature with age is superb.

The bonus features include a music video from Aqualung, commentary, deleted scenes (not that interesting) and bloopers (more interesting than the deleted scenes, and worth watching).

4*

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance