All you need to do is tell us Liam Neeson is in a movie to have us immediately be interested in it. But add guns and some intrigue to that mix? We’re sold. So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to find out that we’re pretty thrilled about his upcoming flick “Taken 2.”

Entertainment Weekly has some new images from the movie, and they all feature Neeson front and center. The magazine also chatted with Neeson about how the movie’s plot furthers the story told in the first film. It turns out that Neeson is enjoying a nice family vacation with his wife (Famke Janssen) and daughter (Maggie Grace), only to be taken by the family members of the men he killed while saving his daughter in “Taken.”

“The action is supposed to take place about a year or a year and a half after the first story. It’s a very clever sequel with the usual thrills and spills, but the ante is upped quite a bit in this one,” Neeson said. “They kidnap him to humiliate him, torture him, and ultimately bring him back to the village in Albania where the boys from the original film came from. With the help of my daughter… she wants to help me escape from where these bad guys have me.”

Even with “Taken 2″ underway, Neeson is also busy lining up other future projects. Deadline has reported that Neeson is set to star in the adaptation of “A Walk Among the Tombstones.” He’ll play leading man Matt Scudder as author Laurence Block created him: an ex-NYPD cop and unlicensed private detective hired to kidnap the wife of a drug dealer. Jeff Bridges previously portrayed Scudder in the movie “8 Million Ways to Die.”

That project isn’t set to start filming until February 2013. Neeson will probably spend his downtime between “Taken 2″ and “A Walk Among the Tombstones” filming either “Third Person,” “Non-Stop” and (potentially) “The Butler,” depending on which of the recently announced projects he moves on first.

What do you think of these new “Taken 2″ pictures? Tell us in the comments section below or on Twitter!

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Donna Summer, the powerhouse singer known as the “Queen of Disco,” died on Thursday (May 17) in Florida after a battle with cancer, according to The Associated Press.

The five-time Grammy winner who set dance floors ablaze in the 1970s with such anthems as “Last Dance,” “Hot Stuff” and her most iconic hit, “I Feel Love,” was 63 years old. In a genre that was filled with many one-hit wonders and fly-by-night studio acts that were unable to keep the disco inferno stoked after scoring hits, Summer was a lifer, consistently charting even after the dance craze faded in the late 1970s.

For photos of Donna Summer through the years, click here.

Unlike many of her contemporaries, Summer set herself apart with strong vocals backed by her songwriting skills, as well as some creative luck in hooking up with producers/songwriters Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. The pair helped her pump out hit after hit and provided her with a sensual, almost ethereal sound on tracks such as “I Feel Love,” which seduced both on and off the dance floor.

Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines on December 31, 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts to a butcher father and schoolteacher mother, Summer showed promise as a singer from an early age. She made her public debut at age 10 at her church when the scheduled singer didn’t show up and she filled in. After appearing in a number of musicals and plays in high school and singing with the psychedelic rock band The Crow, she joined the cast of German production of the musical “Hair” in 1967 at age 18.

She stayed in Munich after the show’s run ended and recorded her debut solo album there in 1974, Lady of the Night. Though it spawned a hit overseas with “The Hostage,” she didn’t crack the U.S. market until a year later with the song that would make her an international superstar, the seductive disco anthem, “Love to Love You Baby.” The tune she created with Moroder and Bellotte was a #2 hit in the U.S. and landed her an American record deal with the it label of the era, Casablanca Records.

The 17-minute club remix of the single, which featured such real-sounding ecstatic moans that some radio stations refused to play it, became a huge hit and set a new standard for sophisticated arrangements in a genre often marked by cheesy sounding instrumentation and lazy songwriting.

She released two albums in 1976, A Love Trilogy, which featured the nearly 18-minute epic “Try Me, I Know We Can Make It” and the winter/spring/summer/autumn-themed Four Seasons of Love. In a singles genre where the one good song was the thing, Summer continued to put out consistently artistic albums, including 1977′s I Remember Yesterday, which featured the tune that would secure Summer’s place at the top of the disco diva pecking order, “I Feel Love.” That hypnotizing track was also the first one recorded with music made up entirely of synthesized sounds.

This being the era of excess, her second 1977 album, Once Upon A Time, was another concept disc, this one retelling the Cinderella story in the disco era on tracks like “Once Upon a Time,” “Fairy Tale High,” “Working the Midnight Shift” and “Queen for a Day.”

She transitioned into acting in 1978 in the disco comedy “Thank God It’s Friday,” which earned her a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal for the hit “Last Dance.” By 1979′s two-album Bad Girls she was indisputably a star, logging six weeks at #1 and scoring hits with the sexy “Bad Girls” and more rock-oriented “Hot Stuff.” When Summer released a double-album greatest hits disc later that year she became the first artists to ever score three #1 albums in a row with double-disc releases.

She went on to record a hit Barbra Streisand duet and moved over to the then-new Geffen Records, where her success began to wane. By 1983, she’d moved past the disco beat and into a synth-heavy R&B/new wave sound with the female empowerment anthem “She Works Hard For the Money.” That song, though, would effectively mark the end of her hit-making days. Summer continued to release albums through the late 1980′s, but was never again able to capture her disco peak. In fact, by the end of the decade she spoke out against the “sinful” nature of her disco hits and turned her back on her earlier material and focused on painting.

After a 17-year break, she released her first studio album of original material, Crayons, in 2008.

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Taylor Swift has a reputation for being a good girl with a big heart, and when you pair that with her sizable bank account, you get one very large charitable donation that will benefit music education for both children and senior citizens.

The six-time Grammy winner has donated $4 million to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville to fund what will now be known as the Taylor Swift Education Center, an exhibit and classroom space scheduled to open in 2014.

“In terms of what it will allow us to do, we do education very well now,” museum director Kyle Young told the Associated Press (via Billboard). “It will allow us to do what we do better, serve more people, develop new programs, and I’m happy to say that as we talked through this opportunity with Taylor, she very much wants to be involved in an advisory capacity in what we do. Is there a better person out there who’s in touch with a young audience? I think not. I was joking we should be paying her to do that. I was only joking.”

Swift’s donation is the second largest ever gifted to the museum and is the largest given by a musician. The country-pop megastar has a long history with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. She signed her record contract there and gave one of her first public performances on the building’s plaza.

In the past, she has also volunteered her time to the museum’s “All for the Hall” fundraisers.

The Taylor Swift Education Center is part of a larger $75 million expansion of the Hall of Fame that will more than double the size of the museum and include a new concert theater and more space for exhibits and archives.

The planned education center will be more than 7,500 square feet spread over two stories. It will have its own exterior entrance that will lead to three classrooms and exhibit space. The expansion will allow the museum to dramatically increase its youth education programs, with plans for it to house a “musical petting zoo” and an art classroom where children can make concert posters and other art projects.

The center will also give the museum the opportunity to add new programs and workshops for teens and senior citizens.

“For Taylor to want to engage herself in the life of this place in such an appropriate way,” Young continued, “every way you slice it and dice it, it’s great.”

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The 2012 MTV Movie Awards are just around the corner?June 3 at 9 p.m. ET for those of you not keeping track?and as we count the days until the Golden Popcorn battle begins between “Hunger Games,” “Bridesmaids,” “Harry Potter” and more, we’re looking back on Movie Awards days gone by.

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Listen up, Little Monsters: It’s Mother Monster’s 26th birthday! And in that quarter of a century (plus one year!), Lady Gaga has managed to reinvent the pop wheel with her eccentric persona and pumping, politically charged dance music. When asked how she planned to celebrate another year, she simply told a Monster on Twitter, “Quinceanera.”

While we’ll be Quinceañera-ing in spirit, we will celebrate her colorful life and career by remembering 10 of the most-revealing bites she’s shared with MTV News. So, dabble on some glitter, put on your best wig, platforms and leotard, and let’s take a stroll down memory lane ? in no particular order.

10. In 2009, Gaga sat down and explained that when “Poker Face” was re-imagined by Kanye West and Kid Cudi as “I Poke Her Face” (later changed to “Make Her Say”), she felt that it was time for someone to get the true meaning of the lady-love euphemism.

“It’s funny, because a lot of my fans were like, ‘Gaga, Kanye wrote a song … and it’s not about what your record’s about. Your record is about gambling, and this song is about dirty sex things,’ ” she recalled. “I said to them, ‘You’re wrong. Kanye was right,’ ” she explained, laughing.

“That’s exactly what this song is about. The record is about how I used to fantasize about women when I was with my boyfriend. It was really exciting that he had so much insight into what the song was about. He’s a cool guy.”

9. Gaga’s pop-music kinship with Beyoncé has been well-documented in two songs: G’s “Telephone” and B’s “Video Phone.” When Gaga headed to shoot the Hype Williams-directed video for “Video Phone,” she had this message for the team: “I said, ‘I want to do you in your video, and I want to tribute you. I want to dress up like you,’ ” Gaga recalled telling her co-star. “And Hype Williams … was so excited. He was like, ‘Gaga, I want no makeup on your face.’ It was really stripped down ? real Beyoncé hair, and we wore the same outfit in the video, and I [paid tribute to] her.”

8. Gaga’s love for her hometown of NYC is hardly surprising, and she shared on the MTV special “Inside the Outside” that when she sat down to write the track “Marry the Night,” “he” was the perfect muse to inspire the song. “It’s never gonna go away, the tan of New York never goes away,” she explained about always identifying with the city that bred her.

7. During the same special, Gaga opened up about her other inspiration ? her fans ? adding, “The biggest surprise to me has been my relationship with my fans. They’ve changed my life. The fans are the thing that you can’t learn; they were the instrument in the music that nobody taught me about.”

6. Always politically charged and motivated, Gaga has made it her mission to not only make chart-topping music, but also be a voice for the disenfranchised. When she sat down for “MTV First: Lady Gaga” in 2011, she explained that, despite her strong political beliefs, she wouldn’t want to run for office.

“Well, first of all, I wouldn’t want to be president for the day,” she said. “And I say that because I really, for myself, it’s important that my message, although it has political implications, I like to keep myself separate because politics can constrain things,” she continued. “So, our message can be completely free of any politics, and we can just surge forward.”

5. During that “MTV First,” when she debuted her video for “Yoü and I,” the singer discussed how difficult love can sometimes be and how her art explores that theme. “Sometimes in love, you can’t make it work,” she said. “No matter what you do, there’s this giant boundary between you and someone else. So, that’s what it’s about: perceiving in your imagination that there’s something magical inside of you that you can make it work.”

4. At the 2011 VMAs, she pulled the ultimate costume change by appearing as her male alter-ego, Jo Calderone. Gaga, as Jo, took home the Moonman for her fist-pumping equality anthem “Born This Way.” Afterward, Jo explained, “She was texting me after the award, after I picked it up for her, and she just said, ‘You know, more than anything I’ve ever gotten before, this means more to me, because “Born This Way” is about the fans and the fans are more important to me than anything I do; more important than f—ing breathing, you know?’ “

3. In late 2011, Gaga released her semi-autobiographical video for “Marry the Night,” noting that history can be reinterpreted for her art, if need be. “This was one of the first times that the fashion didn’t propel so much of the story line,” she explained. “It is autobiographical, so the entire story’s true, and it’s through the lens of how I choose to repaint my past.”

2. Behind every great woman is a great Haus. Gaga’s famed, rarely spotted, Haus of Gaga are the folks who help create the live shows, fashions and accessories she wears. And they mean everything to her. “They’re my best friends,” she said. “I’m not really sure what the world thinks … but I do hear things like, ‘Who is the Haus of Gaga?’ and ‘Are you putting out a fashion line?’ And no one gets it. It’s not a commodity. It’s not something that’s meant to be sold.

“It’s a real bond and relationship, and that’s what I think music and art is about,” she said. “They are my heart and soul. They believe in me, and they look at me like a mother and daughter and sister, with pride and love.”

1. In the end, everything Gaga does is for her art, and there’s no place Gaga feels more at home than onstage in front of thousands of screaming fans. “I don’t see the live show as extension of the record at all, it’s meant to be a completely different experience with the artist, with myself. I want my fans to come and go to a party,” she told MTV News.

“I want them to watch the show and think, ‘I’m so f—ing cool that I am here right now.’ It’s about them. It’s about love. It’s about art. The show is meant to bring a tremendous feeling and sentiment of escapism.”

Share your birthday wishes for Gaga in the comments below!

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