10 photos‘Immortals’ Actress Freida Pinto

Unfortunately, things are not quite what they seem. Although her first appearance in the film was a graphic and unexpected sex scene, it turns out her character’s nudity was that of a body double, not her own asWall Street Journal. “But it was also a surprise that he had already found a body double, so it was massive pressure taken off of my shoulders and I didn’t really have to worry about that. I just had to worry about the acting.”

Acting? That’s boring! If we wanted to see acting, we’d watch Cowboys and Aliens a third time. Pinto’s not the only actress to use a body double recently, as filmmakers have been using them as a compromise, combining A-list talent with C-list nudity.

Luckily, it’s a compromise we’re learning to not only live with, but enjoy.

Freida might not get naked, but here are 10 actresses who have no problem showing some skin. Check out our picks for the 10 greatest topless scenes.

The trailer for Rupert Wyatt‘s Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes shows a pre-Planet Of The Apes just as the simians figure out how to get out of their cages and force us to live in underground caves. And this is all thanks to James Franco and his science experiments. He couldn’t just leave it well enough alone. Not content with a successful Hollywood/soap opera/writing/art/teaching career, Franco had to delve into neuroscience. And now we’ll all have to live under ape rule. Congratulations, nerd.

Israeli groups are protesting the movie Miral, worrying that it is pro-Palestine. I think it’s a perfectly valid artistic point of view to portray the life of a Palestinian girl. The greater achievement is that Miral never feels like a hot button issue movie, or the even more dreaded “important social” movie. It’s just a moving drama about a world that’s foreign, at least to me, and probably many audiences.

Miral’s (Freida Pinto) story begins with Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass) who founded the orphanage school that provided Miral refuge. In a separate home, Nadia (Yasmine Al Massri) escapes the home where her stepfather rapes her. She is Miral’s mother, and dies when Miral is five. Miral lives in Hind’s school, but at 16 becomes aware of the PLO.

So far this seems like a pretty universal story to me. There’s a history of tragedy that the young protagonist has to survive and overcome. Through Miral’s experience, the audience gets to experience a different time and place. Anyone with such a life would surely be exposed to the influences surrounding her, and if that’s Israel in the last 70 years, these are the issues.

We witness a lot of suffering, from Nadia’s rape to Miral’s violent interrogation later in the film. Amid that, there are influences who encourage her to stay out of politics, and other forces who show that it’s not really possible to be ambivalent.

The most political character in the film, Miral’s boyfriend Hani (Omar Metwally), is totally reasonable. He expresses the Palestinian side but he’s not saying, “You get out!” He’s advocating a policy that includes everyone in the region, because it’s not us or them. Later in the film, he’s willing to accept only 22% of the land under the Oslo Agreement, because he sees the only way to make progress is to start small. That doesn’t sound like zealotry to me.

Director Julian Schnabel will probably never create a point of view more immersive than The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. There he could actually make us see out of the one eye Jean-Do Bauby had. So the challenge of Miral was taking a politicized story and attempting to make viewers see the human story in it. I was just watching the life of Miral, invested in her decisions and hoping she’d come out the other side. Then there’s a text at the end about what happened after Oslo.

^{Little-known Hollywood funfact: Andy Serkis is 3-feet tall.}

The first set pic from Rise Of The Apes has made its way online showing James Franco and Freida Pinto walking along with Andy Serkis. Not entirely certain what is going on in this scene, but it seems that James Franco’s character is trying to impress Pinto by taking his helmet-wearing brother to Chuck E. Cheese. Just kidding. Of course this is Serkis in a mo-cap suit for his performance as the chimp Caesar in the upcoming film. It really does look like a still from Rain Man or "How’s Your News?" though. (JustJared)

See the full pic after the jump….

_{Stroke or physical abuse?}

Oh man, Woody Allen is really Woody Allening it up in the trailer for You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. The film stars Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Freida Pinto, Antonio Banderas, Lucy Punch, and Gemma Jones all unhappily shuffling through life, falling in and out of love, as an omniscient narrator delivers the subtext.

It could be a sequel to Vicky Christina Barcelona with the unfortunate absence of Scarlett Johansson‘s pouty lips. Allen even managed to make Brolin a schlubby writer with self-esteem issues. Put down that hammer, Woody, you’re breaking too much new ground!

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger plops down into theaters September 22, 2010.

Check out the trailer after the jump…

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Lucy Punch, Gemma Jones

Synopsis: Unhappy people fall in and out of love in a Woody Allen fashion.

Release Date: September 22, 2010

We’ve previously reported that James Franco would be mandhandled by damn, dirty ape paws in the Planet of the Apes prequel Rise of the Apes. Today, there are more casting rumors floating around. Bloody Disgusting reports that offers have been made to Don Cheadle and Freida Pinto to join the fight against the CGI simians. There’s no specifics offered about which roles the actors are being offered, but their presence alone should be enough to excite audiences. This project looks like it’s really shaping up.

And judging by this advance artwork I found, it’s going to be a little bit of a madcap romp.