Chris Hemsworth, star of Thor (now being filmed in Galisteo), took to the hills to ride with his family a week ago Saturday at The Broken Saddle Riding Company in Cerrillos. Hemsworth's parents were visiting from Australia and his brother, Liam, who plays opposite Miley Cyrus in The Last Song and dates her off screen, were part of the group led by wranglers Stephanie Abrams and John Wayne Haynes. After the ride, they were entertained by local cowboy singer Jasper McCoy.

• • •

Speaking of Thor (AAA, anyone?), the big-budget nature of the film is obvious by the number of yellow signs directing crews all over town. From a town built near Galisteo, to a site behind the Franklin Miles Park, shooting has been fast and furious for the Kenneth Branagh-directed blockbuster. One site that might be familiar to locals is a bar interior shot recently at the favorite Santa Fe nightspot, Cheeks — a scene that took 13.5 hours to capture to Branagh's satisfaction. According to an insider, "despite the fact that they had to do a million takes, everyone seemed pretty non-irritable. Very focused, perfectionistic, stressed but not flipping out."

• • •

Get those beards a-growin! Cowboys and Aliens is coming to New Mexico this June, and is searching for men with facial hair, mutton chops, mustaches and long goatees. The film, directed by Jon Favreau from Ironman and produced by Dreamworks, also wants Native American riders, children and women. If you have the chops, visit www.egcasting.com for more information. Daniel Craig (aka James Bond) stars. Harrison Ford, the original space cowboy, also will be starring. The film features the landing of space aliens in the Arizona desert in the mid-1800s, where cowboys and Apaches band together to fight off the aliens' plans to conquer humanity.

• • •
Last week, The New York Times featured painter Susan Rothenberg, whose work is on exhibit at Santa Fe's Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Both painters were New York artists who moved to New Mexico — Rothenberg lives on a 750-acre ranch some 25 miles south of Santa Fe with her husband, artist Bruce Nauman, and, of course, O'Keeffe famously lived in Abiquíu and at Ghost Ranch. David Belcher writes that, "If O'Keeffe's version of this state is a staid and otherworldly landscape of honey-colored plateaus, mountains and desert plains, Ms. Rothenberg's is about a delirious, often physically indeterminate setting for sometimes ghastly scenes, what she calls the 'melodrama of nature.' " Rothenberg's exhibit, Moving in Place, remains at the O'Keeffe through May 16.

• • •

Writer Hampton Sides is featured in the April edition of New Mexico Magazine, discussing his favorite secret place with Santa Fe writer Devon Jackson. This one is truly secret — Sides won't tell which coffee shop he favors for writing, only that "I have an account, a regular parking space, and a certain chair, in a certain corner (at one point I actually had a bronze plaque emblazoned over it)." The author of Blood and Thunder has a new book out, Hellhound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for his Assassin. It rated a mention in the recent Vanity Fair.

• • •

An original tune by Taos singer-songwriter Melody Romancito is going international for a television commercial. Romancito's "Maybe I Should Stay," was chosen by Danish producer and director of photography Flemming Jetmar for a commercial he produced for Jantzens Hotel, a luxury spot on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. The song is a few years old, and remixes of the tune have had success in Europe, including one by Daniel Brandell. You can see the commercial yourself at http://vimeo.com/9911263.

For more of Romancito's original music, visit http://callingsistermidnight.com.

• • •

Spotted driving last Tuesday: Alan Arkin in his silver Porsche on Old Pecos Trail by the Santa Fe Children's Museum.

Send star sightings to elmitote@sfnewmexican.com.