• "a gorgeous woman dressed to match the statuette"

Grey's Anatomy might not have won any Emmys, but Katherine Heigl (right) topped many pundits' - including ABC News', CBS News', and MSNBC's - "best dressed" list.

The Houston Chronicle said that she "exuded Hollywood glamour in a body-hugging Escada gown," a view echoed in the LA Times: "Katherine Heigl's vintage Escada beaded champagne gown, paired with her marcelled hair, pale lips and dark-rimmed eyes, brought classic Hollywood to mind."

According to the Detroit FreePress, Katherine was to the Emmys "what Jessica Alba was to the Oscars: a gorgeous woman dressed to match the statuette." back to the top

• "it's a tough ship"

Zap2it currently has an article about Kristen Bell's forthcoming horror movie Pulse. The comments about the film itself are the same as featured in the Sci-Fi article below, but there was also the following about Veronica Mars:

Rapturous critical acclaim and utter fan devotion haven't translated into mainstream success for Veronica Mars, which begins its third season this fall, transplanted from UPN to the new CW. Perhaps that's why Bell says that she doesn't necessarily have her pick of projects for her vacations.

"I don't think that really happens until much further down the line than I am," she laughs. "I certainly had a chance at a lot of awesome scripts. I think I'm put into the category of more of a short list, which I'm very happy to be on."

Bell has gone back to work on Veronica Mars, a gig that the actress has frequently admitted can get tiring. For the first season, Bell's character was in nearly every single scene, week in and week out and since then she's only been cut a little slack.

"It's gotten a bit better, because they have a lot of new character and a lot of characters have plotlines that don't necessarily completely involve Veronica," she says. "It's still really hard. I still don't know that I'd recommend for anyone to be the main character on a one-hour drama ever unless they are planning on giving up their whole life. But they have made it easier for me to do stuff like this. Obviously, they are shooting today but there is a huge storyline that involves Enrico [Colantoni] in the first two episodes and he's shooting right now."

She continues, "But, yeah, it is what it is. I'm Veronica Mars on Veronica Mars. I wasn't prepared for this the first year at all so I was just really caught off guard when my life was taken away from me and all of a sudden I was having to do all these requirements I didn't know were requirements. It's gotten a little easier, but it's still a one-hour drama and it's a tough ship."

Pulse opens in the US on Friday 11 August. Veronica Mars' third season premieres on The CW on Tuesday, 3 October. back to the top

• "it's fun to be different"

Kristen Bell told Sci Fi Wire that the forthcoming film Pulse stands as a metaphor for the intrusion of technology into modern lives. "I thought it was smarter than a lot of the other [horror films] I read, Bell said. "I thought the fact that it was actually using something very real and very tangible to all of us, because everyone's always hooked to their cell phone or grabbing some sort of PDA or something, as opposed to just dealing with 'The murderer's out there somewhere' or 'The ghost is in the closet.' You know what I mean? It was a much different plot line than I was used to hearing, and I like, I think it's fun to be different."

In Pulse, Bell plays a college student whose friends and acquaintances begin disappearing after encounters with electronic devices that seem to channel supernatural creatures. The movie dramatises the alienating effect of cell phones and computers. "All of these things that are supposed to bring us closer together, like text messaging and e-mail and such, is actually pulling us further apart, because we're all becoming more reclusive, and you end up sitting on the Internet, ... and you're like, 'Oh, it's 4am. What have I been doing for the last nine hours?'" Bell said. "The idea of writing a letter has now become ancient, and that's only happened in, like, the last five years. I feel like we've come farther in the last five years than we have in the last 50."

Bell's character, Mattie Webber, "is a college student who's very independent and very driven and also very guarded," she said. "I think ... she's tough, but I think she has a lot of walls put up. ... The movie starts off with her boyfriend committing suicide. ... He must have been the only one that she was really vulnerable with, which is why ... she absolutely has to find out why he left her, why he did it. And that's sort of what drives her throughout the whole movie." Pulse opens in the US on Friday. back to the top

• "it was totally freaky"

Kristen Bell has told Sci Fi Wire that a key scene in the forthcoming supernatural horror film Pulse, in which she is attacked by thousands of supernatural creatures, was shot with only a few very real stunt performers. In the scene, Bell's character, Mattie, is borne aloft on a sea of arms and hands, which grab her and pull her down.

In reality, Bell said, she was standing against a green screen that had slots cut into it. But "all the hands that are actually touching me are real, which was sort of [weird]," Bell said in an interview. "There was a lot of hand choreography involved." On cue, performers behind the screen reached through the slots around Bell and grabbed her, pulling her against the screen.

"They were really respectful about it, because it's very ... I get claustrophobic easily in general, so I was a little bit nervous about doing it," Bell said. "But it was up against a green screen, and they slit holes for everybody's hands, and there were 12 guys back there, and they did the choreography of, like, where they'd [grab me]. And then everybody sanitised their hands and ... the camera was like dead on, and I started to scream, and they grabbed and pulled me back. And I also pulled back myself, too, but it was really, ... yeah, it was totally freaky."

Bell plays a college student who finds that friends are disappearing after exposure to electronic devices that seem to channel supernatural creatures. Based on the Japanese horror film Kairo, Pulse opens in the US on 11 August. back to the top

• alexis dziena co-stars

Eliza Dushku has signed on to play one of the leads in the dark comedy Sex and Breakfast. Macaulay Culkin will play the other, while Alexis Dziena (Invasion) and Kuno Becker (Goal!) co-star in the film, which is now shooting.

Written and directed by Miles Brandman, the project apparently focuses on a couple who go to a relationship therapist with intimacy problems. The recommendation? Group sex.

"I read a lot of material and loved the script," Culkin told Variety. "It's really about the pressure that leads them to experiment, the anticipation leading up to the event and then the fallout." back to the top