Recent convesation overheard at a southern truckstop known as The McYankee Doodle Doo where international star Ewan McGregor is practicing for his new role as head chef and restaraunter.A trucker came into a truck stop cafe and placed his order. He said, “I want three flat tires, a pair of headlights and a pair of running boards.”

Variety and The Hollywood Reporter haven’t covered it; even Screen Daily doesn’t know about it. But Nilo Garcia’s “United We Stand,” a new European-made political blockbuster starring Ewan McGregor and Penelope Cruz, is about to take the world by storm. Set in the year 2020, the films begins as the U.S. has declared war on China — “a development long expected by international analysts,” according to a synopsis on the film’s website.

This inspiring film provides a great insight into the work of Riders for Health. Narrated by biker and actor Ewan McGregor, it also features interviews with racing legend and Riders co-founder Randy Mamola. You can click here to download a clip.

When three members of the Redgrave acting dynasty – Vanessa, her sister Lynn, and her daughter Natasha Richardson – set about filming the final collaboration between James Ivory and the late Ismail Merchant, it looked like the culmination of a film career famed for its Anglo-Saxon pedigree.But, despite its British and American cast, The White Countess, just released in American cinemas and due to open in the UK in March, is a Merchant-Ivory production with an Oriental twist. Set among the nightclubs and teeming streets of a city engulfed in political conspiracy and consumed by its own flamboyant decadence, where Chinese nationalists and White Russian aristocrats mingle with Jewish refugees and Japanese spies, it is the first Western film to be made entirely in China.