Kevin Spacey

"House of Cards," the Netflix series starring Kevin Spacey, will be filmed in part in the Calvert Street offices of the Baltimore Sun, it was confirmed Friday. “We are pleased that we were able to accommodate the production needs for this series," said Steve Seidl, senior vice president of operations and technology for The Baltimore Sun Media Group. "It is always exciting when our city is chosen as a film location, and we are looking forward to being a part of the project. " The production contract with the Baltimore Sun runs through the summer.  Soundstages are also being built in Harford County for a 26-episode order on the American remake of a critically acclaimed political thriller done by the BBC in 1990.

"House of Cards,"the $100 million Netflix series starring Kevin Spacey, is looking for Washington types, where else but in the Baltimore area where the production is based. I love all the money Baltimore is making off of being the smart and inexpensive alternative to shooting in bureaucracy-bound, incentive-challenged D.C. I love it, love it, love it. Here's the call from the producers, and, I suppose, if a few real "Hill staffers, aides or reporters" from D.C. sent their CVs, they might be considered.

"House of Cards," a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher, will be filmed in Baltimore starting this spring, it was confirmed Thursday by Gov. Martin O'Malley. The production, which involves 13 one-hour episodes for television, comes from Media Rights Capital and  Netflix and is expected to launch the company known primarily for DVD distribution as a major creator of original dramatic programming. Netflix, which has more than 20 million subscribers, outbid such traditional producers of quality TV drama as HBO and AMC for the rights.

If you've had enough of all that late-night poker playing on NBC, how about watching what Hollywood can do with a standard 52-card deck? 21, starring Kevin Spacey as a university professor who recruits six MIT students to count cards for him in Las Vegas, gets a free screening Saturday at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral St. The 2008 film, directed by Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde), also stars Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne and Jim Sturgess. Showtime is 2 p.m. in the library's Wheeler Auditorium.

Road House [MGM] $20 Though this 1989 action-drama was lambasted by the critics and took in a modest $30 million at the box office, it's had a blockbuster afterlife, becoming one of the most popular movies in rotation on cable TV. And for good reason -- it's campy, silly and addictive fun. Patrick Swayze plays Dalton, a Zen-like bar bouncer with a perfectly coiffed mullet and a degree in philosophy, who finds himself going mano a mano with sadistic mobster...

The best comic-book movies and fantasy films have spoiled us. They've already given us a sublime comedy-drama about a lovelorn superhero in Spider-Man 2 and a religious fable with energy as well as allegory in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Compared with them, Superman Returns is slavishly reverential and morose - The Passion of the Christ from Krypton, with a sad, erratic pulse. (In its defense, it does have a subtly retro, illuminated-manuscript kind of beauty.

Kate Bosworth had trouble seeing herself as early-'60s starlet Sandra Dee in the new Bobby Darin biopic, Beyond the Sea, despite sharing a blond-haired, blue-eyed gamine quality. "I watched two of her movies, A Summer Place and Come September, and then I freaked out, worrying about doing her voice and her style," says Bosworth, 21. So she called Kevin Spacey -- who directed the film and stars as Darin, who was married to Dee -- and he assured her that, "It's not an imitation. The performance had to come from my heart."

WASHINGTON - Bobby Darin's name doesn't exactly jump to mind when talk turns to the greats of American music. Kevin Spacey is committed to changing that. "The big motivation for doing this movie has been to turn the spotlight back on Bobby," says Spacey, whose cinematic take on Darin's life, Beyond the Sea, opens in theaters today. "Other than Elvis Presley and Ray Charles, Bobby Darin had more hits in more genres than almost any other recording artist. He also played the drums, he played the vibes, he played the guitar, he played the harmonica, he played the piano.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Pulitzer Prize-winning author E. Annie Proulx casually dropped a bomb: "I hope never to write another novel," said Proulx, whose second novel, The Shipping News, won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award and has been made into a major-release film starring Kevin Spacey. "I prefer writing short stories. They're difficult and demanding, but they don't eat you alive the way a novel does." At that particular moment, Proulx might have been feeling especially consumed.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Kevin Spacey is grateful for his two Academy Awards. But he also is grateful for the absence of Oscar hype before his movies come out. The 42-year-old actor has nothing against the little gold men. With K-PAX, and The Shipping News set to open here on Christmas, talk about nominations may come up. It's just Spacey wants the buzz generated by folks who actually have seen the movies, and not by publicity machines. "If a film earns a place of merit in people's ... hearts, then [the buzz]