War Horse's young British cast talk about the pressures of working with Steven Spielberg, the world's most successful film director, and honouring the memory of a lost generation
Jeremy Irvine
Albert, who joins up to bring his horse, Joey, back from France
Sitting in his Los Angeles hotel, Irvine says he's "living the dream". But does he really mean that? The 21-year-old is the lead in War Horse and, after talking to me, is flying back to London to finish filming his role of Pip in Mike Newell's adaptation of Great Expectations. Surely not even his wildest dreams could have made room for this?
"I was pretty desperate to get noticed," he admits. "After one year at drama school, I traipsed round Soho knocking on agents' doors and popping DVDs of my work through letter boxes. But I hadn't actually done any work – I'd got together with a...
Jeremy Irvine
Albert, who joins up to bring his horse, Joey, back from France
Sitting in his Los Angeles hotel, Irvine says he's "living the dream". But does he really mean that? The 21-year-old is the lead in War Horse and, after talking to me, is flying back to London to finish filming his role of Pip in Mike Newell's adaptation of Great Expectations. Surely not even his wildest dreams could have made room for this?
"I was pretty desperate to get noticed," he admits. "After one year at drama school, I traipsed round Soho knocking on agents' doors and popping DVDs of my work through letter boxes. But I hadn't actually done any work – I'd got together with a...
- 1/9/2012
- by Akin Ojumu, Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
Elizabeth Debicki has opened up about working with major Hollywood stars on The Great Gatsby. The Australian-born newcomer - who only graduated from drama school a year ago - will be introduced to movie audiences as golfer Jordan Baker in Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of the famed F Scott Fitzgerald novel. Debicki told The West Australian: "I probably spend more time with Carey [Mulligan] really than anyone else. "She's just the most beautiful girl, she's a lovely, lovely person and I feel so lucky that on my first job I got to work with such a (more)...
- 1/4/2012
- by By Kate Goodacre
- Digital Spy
The first official Great Gatsby shots have been released. The pictures show Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire in their starring roles. Warner Bros Pictures' adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel features Maguire as would-be writer Nick Carraway. After his arrival in New York City in 1922, he is drawn into the decadent and morally ambiguous world of his cousin Daisy (Mulligan), her philandering husband Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton) and party-mad millionaire Jay Gatsby (DiCaprio). Mulligan has revealed that she (more)...
- 12/21/2011
- by By Hugh Armitage
- Digital Spy
While there have been several unauthorised set pics featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and some of the other cast members from Baz Luhrmann’s take on The Great Gatsby floating around, Warners has now released a couple of official snaps from the movie, featuring the actors in all their finery. Take a look in the gallery below.For those not in the know, Gatsby is taken from F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, narrated from the point of view of aspiring writer and World War I veteran Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Renting a house on West Egg, Long Island, Nick encounters some of the rich types who enjoy the high life of the locality, including the enigmatic Jay Gatsby and some he already knows, including his cousin, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan).Their lives seem to be perfect, but most of it seems to be a front, as they’re all bored and carrying on regular affairs.
- 12/13/2011
- EmpireOnline
Jared Tristan Padalecki was born 19 July 1982 in San Antonio, Texas. Jared is 6' 4" and of Polish descent. He has an older brother, Jeff and younger sister, Megan. Jared attended James Madison High School, San Antonio and in his senior year, he was the Presidential Scholars Program candidate and he and his classmate, Chris Cardeans won the National Forensics League National Championship in Duo Interpretation in 1998. Jared went on to graduate Magna Cum Laude in May 2000. His intention was to study Engineering at the University of Texas. If he wasn't an actor, he wanted to be a teacher just like his mother, Sherri. Sherri teaches Heroes, Myths and Legends at a San Antonio High School, so perhaps Jared was always destined to play some kind of supernatural hero, heartthrob in some show or other. He was best man at his brother's wedding and was at his sister's graduation from Ut- Austin.
- 12/13/2011
- by mhasan@corp.popstar.com (Mila Hasan)
- PopStar
Australian actor Harold Hopkins has died at the age of 67. He passed away in a Sydney hospice during the early hours of Sunday morning (December 11) as a result of mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer. Born in the Queensland city of Toowoomba on March 6, 1944, Hopkins enrolled at acting school in Sydney alongside his twin brother John in the 1960s. He is best known to Australian audiences for his roles as womaniser Cooley in 1976 movie Don's Party and Les McCann in Peter Weir's First World War movie Gallipoli, released in 1981. Hopkins had auditioned for a role in Baz Luhrmann's forthcoming adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald movie The Great Gatsby earlier this year, Aap (more)...
- 12/12/2011
- by By Kate Goodacre
- Digital Spy
Monroe and Thatcher might seem to have played opposite roles. But the biographical films My Week with Marilyn and The Iron Lady suggest that their similarities outweighed their differences
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, impersonation is fast becoming our culture's favourite form of acting. At least since Nicole Kidman's nose won an Oscar for playing Virginia Woolf in The Hours, famous actors have been applauded for pretending to be other famous people: Helen Mirren as the Queen, Michael Sheen as David Frost, Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn, the list of actors nominated for Oscars for impersonating famous people goes on and on. Now we have two more to add to the list, in star turns already accumulating predictions of Oscar nominations: Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn, and Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, impersonation is fast becoming our culture's favourite form of acting. At least since Nicole Kidman's nose won an Oscar for playing Virginia Woolf in The Hours, famous actors have been applauded for pretending to be other famous people: Helen Mirren as the Queen, Michael Sheen as David Frost, Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn, the list of actors nominated for Oscars for impersonating famous people goes on and on. Now we have two more to add to the list, in star turns already accumulating predictions of Oscar nominations: Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn, and Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.
- 12/10/2011
- by Sarah Churchwell
- The Guardian - Film News
Spielberg, Allen, Branagh – Tom Hiddleston has had one hell of a year working with the directing greats. His latest is with Terence Davies in The Deep Blue Sea, set in postwar London. He just hopes he won't always be cast in the past
If you want the British actor who best embodies fragile, gilded youth, Tom Hiddleston's your man, boy, whatever. His speciality is the young, the green, the dying; dreamers and schemers; the callow buck sent off on a mission that may prove to be his last. Over the past year he's been sent over the top in the first world war, survived the Battle of Britain in the second and drunk himself sick in the bars of 1920s Paris. He made five films back-to-back, then collapsed in bed last Christmas Eve, his health in tatters, the "walking dead" for the next two weeks. His breakthrough season almost broke him,...
If you want the British actor who best embodies fragile, gilded youth, Tom Hiddleston's your man, boy, whatever. His speciality is the young, the green, the dying; dreamers and schemers; the callow buck sent off on a mission that may prove to be his last. Over the past year he's been sent over the top in the first world war, survived the Battle of Britain in the second and drunk himself sick in the bars of 1920s Paris. He made five films back-to-back, then collapsed in bed last Christmas Eve, his health in tatters, the "walking dead" for the next two weeks. His breakthrough season almost broke him,...
- 11/26/2011
- by Xan Brooks
- The Guardian - Film News
British actor to take leading role opposite Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis, about a musician in 1960s New York
Carey Mulligan will take a leading role in the new Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis, about a musician trying to make it in the New York music scene of the 1960s, reports Variety.
The Oscar-nominated star of An Education, as well as Baz Luhrmann's forthcoming The Great Gatsby remake, will appear opposite Oscar Isaac in the movie, which the Coens are writing and directing. They plan to start shooting in February, after Mulligan has finished work on the new adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's classic tale of the gilded jazz age. The British actor shows off her vocal talents in Steve McQueen's new film Shame, but it's not known whether she would be called upon to sing in Inside Llewyn Davis.
Following the Coen brothers' project,...
Carey Mulligan will take a leading role in the new Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis, about a musician trying to make it in the New York music scene of the 1960s, reports Variety.
The Oscar-nominated star of An Education, as well as Baz Luhrmann's forthcoming The Great Gatsby remake, will appear opposite Oscar Isaac in the movie, which the Coens are writing and directing. They plan to start shooting in February, after Mulligan has finished work on the new adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's classic tale of the gilded jazz age. The British actor shows off her vocal talents in Steve McQueen's new film Shame, but it's not known whether she would be called upon to sing in Inside Llewyn Davis.
Following the Coen brothers' project,...
- 10/21/2011
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
Amitabh Bachchan has been awarded an honorary doctorate by an Australian university. The veteran Bollywood actor, who has just finished working on an adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby in Sydney, accepted the award for his services to cinema in a Brisbane ceremony. He was then congratulated by film director and Great Gatsby collaborator Baz Luhrmann via video link. Bachchan initially turned down the accolade two years ago after a series of violent attacks on Indian students, but said that he felt the situation has been resolved and he was comfortable accepting the "great honour". The 69-year-old told Afp: "It's been a very warm welcome. I've only been seeing smiling faces and experiencing great hospitality. That was something that was an aberration and it's over (more)...
- 10/21/2011
- by By Rebecca Davies
- Digital Spy
Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris is a cinematic tour of a golden age of art and literature. But who are the characters and why do they matter?
Gertrude Stein was a wealthy American art collector and writer who – by her own account in The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas – dominated the Paris avant garde in the days of Picasso. She was undoubtedly one of Picasso's boldest collectors, his only real female friend (her being gay got him past his normally tyrannous libido) and the object of one of his most revolutionary paintings. Picasso's Portrait of Gertrude Stein, which hangs on her wall in the film, gives her the face of a stone idol. She wears a mask of her own in her modernist literary classic that portrays herself through the eyes of her lover Alice B Toklas. Stein embodies, in her own writings and Picasso's painting, the severity of high modernism.
Gertrude Stein was a wealthy American art collector and writer who – by her own account in The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas – dominated the Paris avant garde in the days of Picasso. She was undoubtedly one of Picasso's boldest collectors, his only real female friend (her being gay got him past his normally tyrannous libido) and the object of one of his most revolutionary paintings. Picasso's Portrait of Gertrude Stein, which hangs on her wall in the film, gives her the face of a stone idol. She wears a mask of her own in her modernist literary classic that portrays herself through the eyes of her lover Alice B Toklas. Stein embodies, in her own writings and Picasso's painting, the severity of high modernism.
- 10/12/2011
- by Jonathan Jones
- The Guardian - Film News
Woody Allen is back on form – just about – with this light-as-a-feather fantasy about 20s bohemian Paris
The souffle rises as it has not done for many years in Woody Allen's new film Midnight in Paris, which (incredibly) is already the most commercially successful of his career. It's a funny, slight comedy whose time-travel conceit is managed effortlessly; there's something of Allen's 1985 movie The Purple Rose of Cairo as well as his 1977 short story The Kugelmass Episode, about the guy who enters the world of Madame Bovary. Allen is famously a film-maker who has outlived his heyday, and whose continuing output seems uneasy and dated in the 21st century. So perhaps it's the fantasy-nostalgist theme of this movie, the retreat from the present day, that has restored his mojo. In the present, the film clunks a bit. But in the past, it zips along.
The modern setting is luxury-tourist Paris,...
The souffle rises as it has not done for many years in Woody Allen's new film Midnight in Paris, which (incredibly) is already the most commercially successful of his career. It's a funny, slight comedy whose time-travel conceit is managed effortlessly; there's something of Allen's 1985 movie The Purple Rose of Cairo as well as his 1977 short story The Kugelmass Episode, about the guy who enters the world of Madame Bovary. Allen is famously a film-maker who has outlived his heyday, and whose continuing output seems uneasy and dated in the 21st century. So perhaps it's the fantasy-nostalgist theme of this movie, the retreat from the present day, that has restored his mojo. In the present, the film clunks a bit. But in the past, it zips along.
The modern setting is luxury-tourist Paris,...
- 10/6/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
This week Jason Solomons meets actor-turned-director Paddy Considine and the star of his feature debut, Olivia Colman. Paddy discusses Tyrannosaur's evolution from the short film Dog Altogether (2007) and how another British actor, Gary Oldman, was instrumental in the project's development.
Jason also talks to another British actor making waves: Tom Hiddleston, who this week stars in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, playing the iconic Us novelist F Scott Fitzgerald. Tom discusses the joys of working with Allen and future roles in Steven Spielberg's War Horse and Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea.
Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw joins Jason to review some of this week's other releases including Four Days Inside Guantanamo, Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes in Don't be Afraid of the Dark and Rowan Atkinson in Johnny English Reborn.
Subscribe for free via iTunesto ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL...
Jason also talks to another British actor making waves: Tom Hiddleston, who this week stars in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, playing the iconic Us novelist F Scott Fitzgerald. Tom discusses the joys of working with Allen and future roles in Steven Spielberg's War Horse and Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea.
Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw joins Jason to review some of this week's other releases including Four Days Inside Guantanamo, Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes in Don't be Afraid of the Dark and Rowan Atkinson in Johnny English Reborn.
Subscribe for free via iTunesto ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL...
- 10/6/2011
- by Jason Solomons, Peter Bradshaw, Jason Phipps
- The Guardian - Film News
Woody Allen's most successful film ever at the Us box office arrives in the UK. So: is Midnight In Paris any good?
With Woody Allen, it’s not so much a case any more of expecting a ‘return to form’, as seeing periodic glimpses of inspiration and genius.
Recently, his work has veered from the atrocious (Cassandra’s Dream) to the great (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), with a handful of tittersome morsels in between (Whatever Works, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger). He’s still working at an alarming rate, and is still quite happy to gaze at intellectual middle class types and their over-inflated personal problems.
However, by now he is so comfortable with these tropes - life crises, marital issues, creative anxiety - that they are mere motifs, or a form of narrative shorthand that he can embellish ever so slightly, marking out each new film with a different location,...
With Woody Allen, it’s not so much a case any more of expecting a ‘return to form’, as seeing periodic glimpses of inspiration and genius.
Recently, his work has veered from the atrocious (Cassandra’s Dream) to the great (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), with a handful of tittersome morsels in between (Whatever Works, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger). He’s still working at an alarming rate, and is still quite happy to gaze at intellectual middle class types and their over-inflated personal problems.
However, by now he is so comfortable with these tropes - life crises, marital issues, creative anxiety - that they are mere motifs, or a form of narrative shorthand that he can embellish ever so slightly, marking out each new film with a different location,...
- 10/6/2011
- Den of Geek
The actor is in talks to play an assassin in an adaptation of Don Winslow's crime novel, which Warner Bros hopes to develop into a franchise, according to reports
Leonardo DiCaprio is in talks to play an American raised as a highly-skilled assassin in Japan for a film that could develop into a Bourne-style action franchise, reports Deadline.
Satori is based on the crime novel by current Hollywood favourite Don Winslow. Set in the 1950s, it centres on Nicholaï Hel, who is brought up in Japan by a martial arts expert and military leader. Imprisoned in a Us jail in Tokyo following the mercy killing of his mentor and father figure, Hel is recruited by the CIA to assassinate the Soviet commissioner to China under threat of returning to jail if he fails to carry out his mission.
According to Deadline, studio Warner Bros sees the film as the...
Leonardo DiCaprio is in talks to play an American raised as a highly-skilled assassin in Japan for a film that could develop into a Bourne-style action franchise, reports Deadline.
Satori is based on the crime novel by current Hollywood favourite Don Winslow. Set in the 1950s, it centres on Nicholaï Hel, who is brought up in Japan by a martial arts expert and military leader. Imprisoned in a Us jail in Tokyo following the mercy killing of his mentor and father figure, Hel is recruited by the CIA to assassinate the Soviet commissioner to China under threat of returning to jail if he fails to carry out his mission.
According to Deadline, studio Warner Bros sees the film as the...
- 10/4/2011
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
Veteran director joins $100m club with his acclaimed new picture despite being written off by critics
Despite years of critical derision and a general perception that his career is in terminal decline, Woody Allen has confounded his critics by engineering a commercial renaissance – joining the $100m club in the process.
Allen's 41st feature as director, Midnight in Paris, which is due for release in the UK on Friday, is already his highest-grossing picture: its worldwide take stands at more than $107.4m (£68.7m).
Allen has not reached these heights at the box office since the mid-80s, when Hannah and Her Sisters took $40.1m in the Us, compared with Midnight in Paris's $54.4m. Manhattan (1979) and Annie Hall (1977) are the next highest, with $39.9m and $38.3m respectively.
The reasons behind the success of Midnight in Paris are open to debate. In recent years Allen's commercial credibility has been on the rise,...
Despite years of critical derision and a general perception that his career is in terminal decline, Woody Allen has confounded his critics by engineering a commercial renaissance – joining the $100m club in the process.
Allen's 41st feature as director, Midnight in Paris, which is due for release in the UK on Friday, is already his highest-grossing picture: its worldwide take stands at more than $107.4m (£68.7m).
Allen has not reached these heights at the box office since the mid-80s, when Hannah and Her Sisters took $40.1m in the Us, compared with Midnight in Paris's $54.4m. Manhattan (1979) and Annie Hall (1977) are the next highest, with $39.9m and $38.3m respectively.
The reasons behind the success of Midnight in Paris are open to debate. In recent years Allen's commercial credibility has been on the rise,...
- 10/3/2011
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
London, Sept 13: Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan has said that he will charge no money for his Hollywood debut in a new film adaptation of 'The Great Gatsby', starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Bachchan said he had waived his fee as he was making a "mere one scene appearance."
The actor will play Meyer Wolfsheim, a Jewish man described as a gambler in F Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel.
Writing in his blog, Bachchan, 68, said he had "refused any remuneration" because his small role in the film was a "friendly gesture" to director Baz Luhrmann.
"Baz Luhrmann during his private visit to.
Bachchan said he had waived his fee as he was making a "mere one scene appearance."
The actor will play Meyer Wolfsheim, a Jewish man described as a gambler in F Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel.
Writing in his blog, Bachchan, 68, said he had "refused any remuneration" because his small role in the film was a "friendly gesture" to director Baz Luhrmann.
"Baz Luhrmann during his private visit to.
- 9/13/2011
- by Diksha Singh
- RealBollywood.com
Bollywood star 'refused remuneration' for Hollywood debut in Baz Luhrmann's forthcoming F Scott Fitzgerald adaptation
India's best-known actor, Amitabh Bachchan, is to take an unpaid role in Baz Luhrmann's retelling of F Scott Fitzgerald's classic tale of the gilded jazz age, The Great Gatsby.
The Bollywood legend revealed on his blog that he had "refused any remuneration" for his portrayal of shady businessman Meyer Wolfsheim in the new film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and Carey Mulligan as the shallow-but-alluring Daisy Buchanan. Bachchan said he had agreed to join the cast – in his Hollywood debut – as a favour to Luhrmann.
"Baz Luhrmann, during his private visit to India last year, had dropped by my office to meet me and presented me with some paintings of a prominent painter who was accompanying him," Bachchan wrote. "He called last month...
India's best-known actor, Amitabh Bachchan, is to take an unpaid role in Baz Luhrmann's retelling of F Scott Fitzgerald's classic tale of the gilded jazz age, The Great Gatsby.
The Bollywood legend revealed on his blog that he had "refused any remuneration" for his portrayal of shady businessman Meyer Wolfsheim in the new film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and Carey Mulligan as the shallow-but-alluring Daisy Buchanan. Bachchan said he had agreed to join the cast – in his Hollywood debut – as a favour to Luhrmann.
"Baz Luhrmann, during his private visit to India last year, had dropped by my office to meet me and presented me with some paintings of a prominent painter who was accompanying him," Bachchan wrote. "He called last month...
- 9/12/2011
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
Canal Plus Eyes Vincent Bollore’s Channels In Free TV Push Vivendi’s Canal Plus said today it is working to take a majority stake in channels owned by French billionaire Vincent Bollore, as part of a push into free TV. Its proposed deal would give Canal Plus 60% of Direct 8 and music-focused Direct Star in exchange for Vivendi shares. Canal Plus has an option to buy the remainder within the next three years, its head Bertrand Meheut told French daily Les Echos. The deal, subject to approval by the government and employee reps, values the Bollore assets at about $650M. Canal Plus wants to defend itself against new players in France such as Netflix, Google and Apple. WB’s ‘Great Gatsby’ Adds Indian Icon Amitabh Bachchan Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan is making his Hollywood debut in Warner Bros’ new adaptation of The Great Gatsby. He’ll play Meyer Wolfsheim, a...
- 9/9/2011
- by THE DEADLINE TEAM
- Deadline TV
Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan is the latest talent to join the cast of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. The name may not immediately set bells ringing because this will be the first time that Bachchan will star in a Hollywood film. That's despite being voted the greatest star of the millennium in a 1999 BBC poll and having acted in 180 films spanning a forty-year career. Amitabh will play Meyer Wolfstein in Luhrmann’s adaptation on F Scott Fitzgerald’s tale of 1920’s high society in the Us. Luhrmann...
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- 9/8/2011
- by Jack Tomlin
- TotalFilm
New York, Sept 8: After over four decades in Bollywood, Indian film legend Amitabh Bachchan will finally grace the Hollywood silver screen with Leanardo Di Caprio starrer "The Great Gatsby".
Warner Bros. Pictures confirmed on Wednesday that the 68-year-old Bollywood superstar, who has acted in more than 100 Indian films over more than 40 years, will play the role of Meyer Wolfsheim in the blockbuster 3D big screen adaptation of the 1925 F.Scott Fitzgerald novel of the same name, reports the New York Post.
Filming of the drama romance, directed by Oscar nominee Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, began on Monday in Sydney,.
Warner Bros. Pictures confirmed on Wednesday that the 68-year-old Bollywood superstar, who has acted in more than 100 Indian films over more than 40 years, will play the role of Meyer Wolfsheim in the blockbuster 3D big screen adaptation of the 1925 F.Scott Fitzgerald novel of the same name, reports the New York Post.
Filming of the drama romance, directed by Oscar nominee Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, began on Monday in Sydney,.
- 9/8/2011
- by Arun Pantit
- RealBollywood.com
Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby has officially begun shooting. Production on the Moulin Rouge! director's adaptation of the acclaimed F Scott Fitzgerald novel started at Fox Studios Australia on Monday, with location shooting also planned in Sydney. Set in the early 1920s, Fitzgerald's novel tells the tale of writer Nick Carraway as he mingles with wealthy socialites in New York City including mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby. Luhrmann said in a statement: "Fitzgerald's story defies time and geography. The vision and the goal of our remarkable cast and creatives is to do justice to the deftness of Fitzgerald's telling, and illuminate its big ideas and humanity. This is our challenge and our adventure." Leonardo DiCaprio (more)...
- 9/7/2011
- by By Kate Goodacre
- Digital Spy
Principal photography on Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby has officially begun. Production on the Moulin Rouge! director's adaptation of the acclaimed F Scott Fitzgerald novel started at Fox Studios Australia on Monday, with location shooting also planned in Sydney. Set in the early 1920s, Fitzgerald's novel tells the tale of writer Nick Carraway as he mingles with wealthy socialites in New York City including mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby. Luhrmann said in a statement: "Fitzgerald's story defies time and geography. The vision and the goal of our remarkable cast and creatives is to do justice to the deftness of Fitzgerald's telling, and illuminate its big ideas and humanity. This is our challenge and our adventure." Leonardo (more)...
- 9/7/2011
- by By Kate Goodacre
- Digital Spy
Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan has joined the cast of The Great Gatsby, which will feature Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire in lead roles. The production of the film, to be directed by Baz Lurhmann of Australia has started in Sydney.
The film is a 3D adaptation of the F Scott Fitzgerald classic, first published in 1925.
The previously announced cast of the film includes Hollywood and Australian actors–Tobey Maguire starring as Nick Carraway; Joel Edgerton and Carey Mulligan as Tom and Daisy Buchanan; Isla Fisher and Jason Clarke as Myrtle and George Wilson and newcomer Elizabeth Debicki, Luhrmann as Jordan Baker.
Bachchan has been roped in to play the role of Meyer Wolfsheim.
The film will be distributed in 3D and 2D by Warner Bros. Pictures.
The film is a 3D adaptation of the F Scott Fitzgerald classic, first published in 1925.
The previously announced cast of the film includes Hollywood and Australian actors–Tobey Maguire starring as Nick Carraway; Joel Edgerton and Carey Mulligan as Tom and Daisy Buchanan; Isla Fisher and Jason Clarke as Myrtle and George Wilson and newcomer Elizabeth Debicki, Luhrmann as Jordan Baker.
Bachchan has been roped in to play the role of Meyer Wolfsheim.
The film will be distributed in 3D and 2D by Warner Bros. Pictures.
- 9/7/2011
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
As he prepares to start shooting The Great Gatsby early next month, Baz Luhrmann has been filling in some of the smaller parts of his adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, adding Callan McAuliffe and Gemma Ward to the cast. Gatsby already features Leonardo DiCaprio, Isla Fisher, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton and Jason Clarke in the central roles of the rich playboy Jay Gatsby and the ill-fated couples/friends who orbit his charismatic centre.Luhrmann, who is shooting the movie down under, is boosting the Oz contingent in the cast even further despite the presence of Fisher, Edgerton and Clarke. McAuliffe, last seen as Alex Pettyfer’s geeky, alien-obsessed friend Sam in I Am Number Four, is on to play the younger version of DiCaprio’s leading man.Ward, a fellow Aussie and former model, menaced the leads The Strangers and was one of the mermaids in...
- 8/31/2011
- EmpireOnline
Screenwriter David Koepp has been hired to write the script for Johnny Depp and Rob Marshall's remake of The Thin Man. Koepp is a well known screenwriter who has worked on films such as Mission: Impossible, Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Panic Room and a ton of other films. There's no doubt he'll do a great job bringing this story back to the big screen. Previous reports indicated that this new version of the film wold take elements from the first two movies, and work them into one story, "putting it into a period setting and giving it a Sherlock Holmes-like stylized treatment." According to Deadline the film will also include a couple of musical numbers, which isn't surprising for Marshall who also directed Chicago. Depp will play the character Nick in the story. Nick is a former detective who marries an adorable young socialite, drinks a lot and occasionally solves a case.
- 8/30/2011
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
The British, at long last, are showing a healthy indifference to the ways of the super-rich
Did anyone feel for Richard Branson and his Necker Island inferno – sympathy, empathy, anything? If not, why not? The story had all the compelling ingredients. Lightning striking the £60m private island, fire raging through the Agatha Christie-sounding Great House. Guest Kate Winslet carrying Branson's 90-year-old mother to safety. Branson racing towards the burning house, stark naked. Perhaps too much information with that last one. I hope his hot-air balloons weren't damaged.
Here was a story with everything. By "everything", I mean, billionaires and Oscar winners in peril! We'd have lapped this up in decades gone by. Fabulous, brave Kate, and her soot-smudged cheeks, carrying Granny Branson through the flames to safety – wow, it's like Titanic, only hotter.
And yet no one I've come across seems that fussed about the Necker fire. Which seems surprising,...
Did anyone feel for Richard Branson and his Necker Island inferno – sympathy, empathy, anything? If not, why not? The story had all the compelling ingredients. Lightning striking the £60m private island, fire raging through the Agatha Christie-sounding Great House. Guest Kate Winslet carrying Branson's 90-year-old mother to safety. Branson racing towards the burning house, stark naked. Perhaps too much information with that last one. I hope his hot-air balloons weren't damaged.
Here was a story with everything. By "everything", I mean, billionaires and Oscar winners in peril! We'd have lapped this up in decades gone by. Fabulous, brave Kate, and her soot-smudged cheeks, carrying Granny Branson through the flames to safety – wow, it's like Titanic, only hotter.
And yet no one I've come across seems that fussed about the Necker fire. Which seems surprising,...
- 8/27/2011
- by Barbara Ellen
- The Guardian - Film News
Rain Perry interesting and fun article comparing Crazy, Stupid, Love. with... Biutiful. (via Ad)
Tom Shone on the elitism of magic and power in modern entertainment. It's a curious question really.
THR Nobody can quite let go of Sex and the City Movie 3. It still might happen.
Corduroy (via Jj) talks to Josh Hartnett about his career (post acting hiatus). I thought I'd share this since we were just talking in that Taylor Lautner post -- I realize they're not exactly interchangeable ;) -- about the limited shelf life of young male actors who get hired for a lot of big roles and big projects before they've truly proven themselves. Isn't that essentially what happened to Hartnett?
Hartnett photographed by Peter Ash Lee for Corduroy
When you first start really young and you have some success, they want to take away your edges and make you into this proto-typical movie star.
Tom Shone on the elitism of magic and power in modern entertainment. It's a curious question really.
THR Nobody can quite let go of Sex and the City Movie 3. It still might happen.
Corduroy (via Jj) talks to Josh Hartnett about his career (post acting hiatus). I thought I'd share this since we were just talking in that Taylor Lautner post -- I realize they're not exactly interchangeable ;) -- about the limited shelf life of young male actors who get hired for a lot of big roles and big projects before they've truly proven themselves. Isn't that essentially what happened to Hartnett?
Hartnett photographed by Peter Ash Lee for Corduroy
When you first start really young and you have some success, they want to take away your edges and make you into this proto-typical movie star.
- 8/21/2011
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
It's a long time since Woody Allen has had a success to match Midnight in Paris. In fact he never has. Opening in the Us on 22 May, at a cost of around $30m, it has already grossed in the region of $40m. Is that just Paris and "midnight"? Is it the amiable, lackadaisical air of the very light film? (If it wasn't on a string it might fly away.) Or is it Owen Wilson? He plays the screenwriter hoping to be more respectable who gets to meet Scott, Zelda, Hem and Gertrude Stein when a splendid antique car comes by on a back street at midnight? It helps a lot that Wilson isn't Woody. Allen cast himself as his romantic lead way too long, and it's refreshing to see Wilson – that rarity among male stars now in that he's a true blond – who looks smart enough to have written something,...
- 7/14/2011
- by David Thomson
- The Guardian - Film News
John Cusack has signed on to star in The Paperboy. The Hot Tub Time Machine actor will replace Tobey Maguire in the adaptation of the 1995 Pete Dexter novel, Variety reports. Maguire joined the film in May, but was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby. The Spider-Man star will play the role of narrator Nick Carraway in the F Scott Fitzgerald adaptation. The Paperboy centres (more)...
- 7/12/2011
- by By Tara Fowler
- Digital Spy
Jacquelyn Mitchard
If I’d erased Oprah Winfrey’s message from my answering machine just one more time, there might never have been an Oprah Winfrey Book Club.
Think of it! No Toni Morrison intoning, “That, my dear, is called reading …,” no Mr. Franzen regrets, no James Frey becoming a millionaire for doing the wrong thing — twice.
In 1996, I was a widowed mom, stone broke, writing a novel as an alternative to spending the rest of my life sitting in...
If I’d erased Oprah Winfrey’s message from my answering machine just one more time, there might never have been an Oprah Winfrey Book Club.
Think of it! No Toni Morrison intoning, “That, my dear, is called reading …,” no Mr. Franzen regrets, no James Frey becoming a millionaire for doing the wrong thing — twice.
In 1996, I was a widowed mom, stone broke, writing a novel as an alternative to spending the rest of my life sitting in...
- 5/27/2011
- by Jacquelyn Mitchard
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
New York -- Leaving the Angelika Theater this past weekend, on the opening night of Woody Allen's latest film, I participated in a mild argument with my companion that left me feeling a bit like one of the blathering, pseudo-intellectual characters Allen has been parading before audiences for decades.
What I liked best about "Midnight in Paris" -- and what my friend found most annoying -- was its very thinness, its gallery of static characters, its steady march of fleshed-out clichés. In the film's fantastical sequences, which deliver a struggling novelist from 2010 back to 1920s Paris, Allen conducts affairs with a mythical grasp of history, from entire eras –- primarily, the gin- and jazz-soaked Roaring Twenties -– to individuals: Ernest Hemingway always rearing for a fight; genial Scott Fitzgerald thwarted by his hysterical wife, Zelda; and Salvador Dali, the wide-eyed, hallucinatory weirdo.
All of this irritated my companion and delighted me,...
What I liked best about "Midnight in Paris" -- and what my friend found most annoying -- was its very thinness, its gallery of static characters, its steady march of fleshed-out clichés. In the film's fantastical sequences, which deliver a struggling novelist from 2010 back to 1920s Paris, Allen conducts affairs with a mythical grasp of history, from entire eras –- primarily, the gin- and jazz-soaked Roaring Twenties -– to individuals: Ernest Hemingway always rearing for a fight; genial Scott Fitzgerald thwarted by his hysterical wife, Zelda; and Salvador Dali, the wide-eyed, hallucinatory weirdo.
All of this irritated my companion and delighted me,...
- 5/23/2011
- by Gregory Beyer
- Huffington Post
It’s always difficult to remain impartial whilst sat in the 2300 seated Lumiere theatre in Cannes, tuxedo donned and having just trod across the second most famous red carpet in the world (behind the Oscars) and having literally bumped into Robert DeNiro, Uma Thurman and Jude Law a few hours earlier! So it is safe to say that we were in a good mood as we awaited for Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris to open up the Cannes film festival…
Plot spoilers abound.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed Woody’s latest effort, it was fun, beautifully paced and effortlessly fascinating. Starring Owen Wilson, with another one of Allen’s superb ensemble casts backing him up, Midnight in Paris tells the story of Gil (Owen Wilson) who’s travelled to Paris with his fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her parents. It’s quickly apparent that Gil and Inez are entirely...
Plot spoilers abound.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed Woody’s latest effort, it was fun, beautifully paced and effortlessly fascinating. Starring Owen Wilson, with another one of Allen’s superb ensemble casts backing him up, Midnight in Paris tells the story of Gil (Owen Wilson) who’s travelled to Paris with his fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her parents. It’s quickly apparent that Gil and Inez are entirely...
- 5/12/2011
- by Guest
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Cannes opens with a Woody Allen love letter to the French capital, a shallow examination of nostalgia with endearing performances from Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard
From this movie's opening postcard-view montage of Paris — familiar in a number of ways — it's clear the French capital is to be added to the list of cities that Woody Allen adores, and idolises all out of proportion. His new movie was an amiable amuse-bouche to begin the Cannes festival feast: sporadically entertaining, light, shallow, self-plagiarising. It's a romantic fantasy adventure to be compared with the vastly superior ideas of his comparative youth, such as the 1985 movie The Purple Rose Of Cairo, in which it was possible to step through the silver screen, or his 1977 short story The Kugelmass Episode, in which it was possible to enter the world of Madame Bovary. And it's notable for a cameo from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, playing a deadpan,...
From this movie's opening postcard-view montage of Paris — familiar in a number of ways — it's clear the French capital is to be added to the list of cities that Woody Allen adores, and idolises all out of proportion. His new movie was an amiable amuse-bouche to begin the Cannes festival feast: sporadically entertaining, light, shallow, self-plagiarising. It's a romantic fantasy adventure to be compared with the vastly superior ideas of his comparative youth, such as the 1985 movie The Purple Rose Of Cairo, in which it was possible to step through the silver screen, or his 1977 short story The Kugelmass Episode, in which it was possible to enter the world of Madame Bovary. And it's notable for a cameo from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, playing a deadpan,...
- 5/11/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Woody Allen opens the 64th Cannes film festival with his paean to the French capital, Midnight in Paris, while jury president Robert De Niro describes selecting a winner as a 'double-edged sword'
Few would say – regardless of his recent patchy form – that the director of classics such as Manhattan, Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanours was anything less than a cinematic master.
Except perhaps the man himself. Woody Allen, as his latest film Midnight in Paris opened the 64th Cannes film festival, said it was "clear as a bell" that he is not an artist – at least compared with great directors of the past such as Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman and Luis Buñuel.
According to Allen – whose self-deprecation is part of his artistic persona – "I have never considered myself as an artist. I have aspired to be one, but I have never felt that I have the depth, substance or...
Few would say – regardless of his recent patchy form – that the director of classics such as Manhattan, Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanours was anything less than a cinematic master.
Except perhaps the man himself. Woody Allen, as his latest film Midnight in Paris opened the 64th Cannes film festival, said it was "clear as a bell" that he is not an artist – at least compared with great directors of the past such as Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman and Luis Buñuel.
According to Allen – whose self-deprecation is part of his artistic persona – "I have never considered myself as an artist. I have aspired to be one, but I have never felt that I have the depth, substance or...
- 5/11/2011
- by Charlotte Higgins
- The Guardian - Film News
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Midnight in Paris, which debuted on the Croisette at the 11am press screening opening of the Cannes Film Festival is a surprisingly delightful excursion into a cultured man’s fantasies… perhaps and probably Woody Allen’s own nostalgic wish to have been born in a different time and place.
Warning – The marketing team behind Midnight in Paris have done a terrific job of keeping the neat concept of the movie under-wraps and hidden by sleight of hand misdirection, so although there are no real spoilers ahead, I know I certainly enjoyed the movie more for not knowing what it actually was going in.
Full review follows…
It’s an interesting riff of the concept, oddly enough, of Nicolas Lyndhurst’s Goodnight Sweetheart British sitcom, but this time with our lead falling in love with a girl from the 1920′s who actually knew the likes of Ernest Hemingway,...
Midnight in Paris, which debuted on the Croisette at the 11am press screening opening of the Cannes Film Festival is a surprisingly delightful excursion into a cultured man’s fantasies… perhaps and probably Woody Allen’s own nostalgic wish to have been born in a different time and place.
Warning – The marketing team behind Midnight in Paris have done a terrific job of keeping the neat concept of the movie under-wraps and hidden by sleight of hand misdirection, so although there are no real spoilers ahead, I know I certainly enjoyed the movie more for not knowing what it actually was going in.
Full review follows…
It’s an interesting riff of the concept, oddly enough, of Nicolas Lyndhurst’s Goodnight Sweetheart British sitcom, but this time with our lead falling in love with a girl from the 1920′s who actually knew the likes of Ernest Hemingway,...
- 5/11/2011
- by Matt Holmes
- Obsessed with Film
"An insane true story about an unemployed Army veteran and crystal-meth addict named Shawn Nelson who stole a tank from a San Diego military base in 1995 and went on a rampage, [Cul-de-Sac: A Suburban War Story] sounds — in abstract, at least — like an appealing piece of wish-fulfillment fantasy," writes Steve Dollar in the Wall Street Journal. "But it also was a profound tragedy that resonated long after the destructive stunt faded from the memory of a local evening-news audience. The incident, which ended with Nelson's death, is memorialized and given rich context by Garrett Scott's 2002 documentary, which frames the mayhem within the rise and fall of Clairmont, CA, Mr Nelson's hometown and a city whose fortunes were tied to its manufacturing of bombs for the American war effort. The screening also recalls the achievements of Mr Scott, who died in 2006 at age 37."
"Cul-de-Sac is heavily influenced by a time, a place, and a literature,...
"Cul-de-Sac is heavily influenced by a time, a place, and a literature,...
- 4/26/2011
- MUBI
Baz Luhrmann is really pushing ahead with casting on The Great Gatsby, with Isla Fisher now entering negotiations to play Myrtle Wilson, one of the central characters in F Scott Fitzgerald’s tale of wealth, privilege, love and tragedy.So far, the Gatsby cast is coming together smoothly, with Leonardo DiCaprio playing the mysterious playboy Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as writer and narrator Tom Carraway and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, one of the social elite with little concern for how their actions affect others.Fisher's Wilson is a woman who's married to a garage mechanic and who is having an affair with Daisy’s hubby, Tom. Her fate is more tragic than romantic when she’s killed by a speeding car driven by… Well, that would be telling.Unfortunately for Luhrmann, he’ll have to find someone new to play Tom, as his first choice, Ben Affleck, will be...
- 4/20/2011
- EmpireOnline
Despite seemingly ever-shifting claims about Baz Luhrmann’s planned 3D version of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (he’s workshopping actors! He’s shooting in Sydney! He’s not really making it a priority!) the film definitely still seems to be simmering healthily away on his development front burner. And now Ben Affleck is in talks to play Tom Buchanan.If he signs on, Affleck will be Tom to Carey Mulligan’s Daisy Buchanan, a rich couple who fill their idle days with parties and affairs (at least, in Tom’s case). We’re introduced to them and their mysterious, equally wealthy neighbour Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) by the story’s narrator, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), who watches the various characters interact as tragedy strikes.Affleck will need to juggle his schedule as he’s preparing to direct Argo, chronicling how the CIA used a fake science fiction...
- 4/8/2011
- EmpireOnline
Johnny Depp's been wprking on getting a remake of the The Thin Man for awhile now, but it's starting to gain some momentum. Author and screenwriter Jerry Stahl (Permanemt Midnight) has been hired to screenplay, and Rob Marshall is in negotiations to direct the film. It looks like Depp enjoyed working with him on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
The film will be based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett which centered on former private detective-turned-professional drunkard Nick Charles, his lovely socialite wife Nora and their schnauzer Asta.
Despite the book by Hammett not being a huge it, it spawned six films for MGM starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. There was also a short lived television series on NBC between 1957 and 1959.
Johnny Depp's been interested in this project for awhile to be produced by his sisters production company Infinitum Nihil, along with Kevin McCormick, who's...
The film will be based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett which centered on former private detective-turned-professional drunkard Nick Charles, his lovely socialite wife Nora and their schnauzer Asta.
Despite the book by Hammett not being a huge it, it spawned six films for MGM starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. There was also a short lived television series on NBC between 1957 and 1959.
Johnny Depp's been interested in this project for awhile to be produced by his sisters production company Infinitum Nihil, along with Kevin McCormick, who's...
- 3/22/2011
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
Wisconsin State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says the evolving fight in Madison is "about the 2012 election." In an interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly, Fitzgerald said efforts to recall senators were designed to impact the 2012 elections--even suggesting the recall of Republican senators was being orchestrated by the White House. "This is not some grassroots effort...there's definitely more to this."...
- 3/9/2011
- by Mark Joyella
- Mediaite - TV
A sympathetic account of Arthur Miller's later life depicts the playwright struggling to accept his creative demise
As F Scott Fitzgerald ruefully noted, there are no second acts in American life: the impatient marketplace decrees that early success leads directly towards oblivion, as newer talents bustle into view. Christopher Bigsby dealt with the productive first half of Arthur Miller's life in the initial instalment of his biography, so why should these last dejected decades be treated to a second outsize volume?
Miller's best plays – preachy democratisations of Ibsen, lumpenly prosaic despite their solemnity – were written between 1947 and 1955. After that he dwindled into an appendage of Marilyn Monroe; when they divorced in 1961 he became officially a has-been. Reviewing his new plays, as a critic remarked in 1971, was "like going to the funeral of a man you wish you could have liked more". Once when he attempted to hire a limo,...
As F Scott Fitzgerald ruefully noted, there are no second acts in American life: the impatient marketplace decrees that early success leads directly towards oblivion, as newer talents bustle into view. Christopher Bigsby dealt with the productive first half of Arthur Miller's life in the initial instalment of his biography, so why should these last dejected decades be treated to a second outsize volume?
Miller's best plays – preachy democratisations of Ibsen, lumpenly prosaic despite their solemnity – were written between 1947 and 1955. After that he dwindled into an appendage of Marilyn Monroe; when they divorced in 1961 he became officially a has-been. Reviewing his new plays, as a critic remarked in 1971, was "like going to the funeral of a man you wish you could have liked more". Once when he attempted to hire a limo,...
- 3/6/2011
- by Peter Conrad
- The Guardian - Film News
If Hollywood wants to keep the 3D golden goose alive, it needs to hand the technology to film-makers with genuine innovation
When this newspaper reported last month that Baz Luhrmann was mulling over the possibility of shooting his version of F Scott Fitzgerald's famous tale of the gilded jazz age, The Great Gatsby, in 3D, there were snorts of derision. The whole business stank of studio interference, a product of the current Hollywood environment in which producers believe they can eke out an extra 20% in profits provided they can find some – any – excuse to film in 3D. The figures, up until recently, appeared to confirm the theory: movies shot in stereoscope have benefited from a sizable 3D bump, with three of 2010's top five films, Toy Story 3, Alice in Wonderland and Shrek Forever After being shot in the format.
The bad news is that Luhrmann wasn't kidding. Hollywood Reporter...
When this newspaper reported last month that Baz Luhrmann was mulling over the possibility of shooting his version of F Scott Fitzgerald's famous tale of the gilded jazz age, The Great Gatsby, in 3D, there were snorts of derision. The whole business stank of studio interference, a product of the current Hollywood environment in which producers believe they can eke out an extra 20% in profits provided they can find some – any – excuse to film in 3D. The figures, up until recently, appeared to confirm the theory: movies shot in stereoscope have benefited from a sizable 3D bump, with three of 2010's top five films, Toy Story 3, Alice in Wonderland and Shrek Forever After being shot in the format.
The bad news is that Luhrmann wasn't kidding. Hollywood Reporter...
- 2/22/2011
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
As Gov. Walker escalates his budget showdown with unions, he's got help from the Fitzgerald family, which runs both houses of the legislature and, lately, the state troopers. Dirk Johnson reports.
To slap down the public unions, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker knew he would need unblinking Republican loyalty, especially from the bosses in the legislature: Scott Fitzgerald, the leader of the state senate; and Jeff Fitzgerald, the speaker of the state house.
The Wisconsin state troopers, as it happened, needed a new chief this month, and the Walker administration determined the ideal candidate for the job was Stephen Fitzgerald-the 68-year-old father of those very same Fitzgerald brothers, who is now sending his team into the field to hunt down wayward Democrats. The job pays nearly $107,000, and will mean a big boost in pension benefits.
In this state that gave birth to the Progressive Party, critics of the governor have called...
To slap down the public unions, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker knew he would need unblinking Republican loyalty, especially from the bosses in the legislature: Scott Fitzgerald, the leader of the state senate; and Jeff Fitzgerald, the speaker of the state house.
The Wisconsin state troopers, as it happened, needed a new chief this month, and the Walker administration determined the ideal candidate for the job was Stephen Fitzgerald-the 68-year-old father of those very same Fitzgerald brothers, who is now sending his team into the field to hunt down wayward Democrats. The job pays nearly $107,000, and will mean a big boost in pension benefits.
In this state that gave birth to the Progressive Party, critics of the governor have called...
- 2/22/2011
- by Dirk Johnson
- The Daily Beast
Advertising Age how Twitter made us care about stupid awards shows again.
Boston Wesley Morris on Oscar snubs and the problem of comedy. It's not serious enough for gold.
Orlando Sentinel really interesting piece about Matt Damon not wanting Steven Soderbegh to retire. Damon still wants to make Liberace with Michael Douglas.
“I’ve talked at length with Steven about it. He is going away for a while, I think. He genuinely wants to paint... But I see it as a waste of this incredible depth of knowledge of filmmaking. But his thing is ‘form. I’m only interested in what I can do with form. I’ve made almost every movie I want to,’ he says. ‘And if I see another over-the-shoulder shot, I’m going to kill myself.’"
Awards Tracker I hadn't read this but Anne Hathaway credits Penélope Cruz's filmography with helping her deal with doing nudity on film.
Boston Wesley Morris on Oscar snubs and the problem of comedy. It's not serious enough for gold.
Orlando Sentinel really interesting piece about Matt Damon not wanting Steven Soderbegh to retire. Damon still wants to make Liberace with Michael Douglas.
“I’ve talked at length with Steven about it. He is going away for a while, I think. He genuinely wants to paint... But I see it as a waste of this incredible depth of knowledge of filmmaking. But his thing is ‘form. I’m only interested in what I can do with form. I’ve made almost every movie I want to,’ he says. ‘And if I see another over-the-shoulder shot, I’m going to kill myself.’"
Awards Tracker I hadn't read this but Anne Hathaway credits Penélope Cruz's filmography with helping her deal with doing nudity on film.
- 2/20/2011
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Director Baz Luhrmann will bring an adaptation of literary classic ''The Great Gatsby'' to the big screen and is in negotiations between rival studios Sony and Warner Bros for the same. Luhrmann, who is a self-confessed Bollywood fan, is in the middle of deciding which studio would be best for the ambitious new movie version of F Scott Fitzgerald''s classic American novel, reported New York Post. The ''Moulin Rouge'' helmer rubbished recent reports that he is walking away from the project. "I am in the middle of deciding which studio relationship is best I''m making a big decision about ''The Great Gatsby'' by the end of the week," he said. Luhrmann wants to start filming in June in New York with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan. Costumes and set design will be overseen by Luhrmann''s wife, Catherine Martin, who won two...
- 2/10/2011
- Filmicafe
Rewind TV: Boardwalk Empire; The Big C; Louis Theroux – Ultra Zionists; Welcome to Romford | Reviews
HBO's much-hyped gangster drama is beautiful to look at, but there's little that is new here
Boardwalk Empire (Sky Atlantic) | skyplayer
The Big C (More 4) | 4oD
Louis Theroux: Ultra Zionists (BBC2) | iPlayer
Welcome to Romford (C4) | 4oD
The opening two episodes of Boardwalk Empire had everything – sex, murder, dancing girls – except an original idea. Created by Terence Winter, one of the writers on The Sopranos, the HBO drama series, which launched the new Sky Atlantic channel of American imports, has drawn loud acclaim in the States and boasts several weighty players, led by Martin Scorsese and Steve Buscemi. None of that was enough, however, to prevent its wholesale bootlegging of American gangster classics.
Large quantities of Coppola, the Coen brothers, Brian De Palma – even Scott Fitzgerald – have been added to what, underneath all the handsome labelling and lavish packaging, remains a rather conventional narrative blend. It's not easy to...
Boardwalk Empire (Sky Atlantic) | skyplayer
The Big C (More 4) | 4oD
Louis Theroux: Ultra Zionists (BBC2) | iPlayer
Welcome to Romford (C4) | 4oD
The opening two episodes of Boardwalk Empire had everything – sex, murder, dancing girls – except an original idea. Created by Terence Winter, one of the writers on The Sopranos, the HBO drama series, which launched the new Sky Atlantic channel of American imports, has drawn loud acclaim in the States and boasts several weighty players, led by Martin Scorsese and Steve Buscemi. None of that was enough, however, to prevent its wholesale bootlegging of American gangster classics.
Large quantities of Coppola, the Coen brothers, Brian De Palma – even Scott Fitzgerald – have been added to what, underneath all the handsome labelling and lavish packaging, remains a rather conventional narrative blend. It's not easy to...
- 2/6/2011
- by Andrew Anthony
- The Guardian - Film News
Innovative costume designer for stage and screen, she won an Oscar and three Tonys
Theoni V Aldredge, who has died aged 88, could and did do anything with clothes, on Broadway stage or film; outfit Joe Papp's earliest Romeo and Juliet for $120 or promise embarrassed guys cast as showgirls in La Cage Aux Folles that they would never have to shave their chests or legs. More than 1,000 performers wore Aldredge clothes nightly on Broadway in 1984, in five different productions, and she raided each show impromptu, "policing", she called it, "to make sure the kids are all Ok". Broadway dimmed its lights on Tuesday to mark her death.
She was born Theoni Vachliotis, the daughter of the Greek army surgeon-general in Salonika, but emigrated to the Us, wanting to be "where there hadn't been a war". She had begun her lifelong doll collection, and maintenance of its wardrobe, as a child.
Theoni V Aldredge, who has died aged 88, could and did do anything with clothes, on Broadway stage or film; outfit Joe Papp's earliest Romeo and Juliet for $120 or promise embarrassed guys cast as showgirls in La Cage Aux Folles that they would never have to shave their chests or legs. More than 1,000 performers wore Aldredge clothes nightly on Broadway in 1984, in five different productions, and she raided each show impromptu, "policing", she called it, "to make sure the kids are all Ok". Broadway dimmed its lights on Tuesday to mark her death.
She was born Theoni Vachliotis, the daughter of the Greek army surgeon-general in Salonika, but emigrated to the Us, wanting to be "where there hadn't been a war". She had begun her lifelong doll collection, and maintenance of its wardrobe, as a child.
- 1/28/2011
- by Veronica Horwell
- The Guardian - Film News
Here are five good reasons not to turn your nose up at 3D movies
Baz Luhrmann's recent hint that his forthcoming remake of The Great Gatsby might be filmed in 3D has had F Scott Fitzgerald acolytes reeling in horror. But what if the twitterers who bleated their ire across the interweb yesterday got it wrong? Just imagine the guests at Gatsby's infamous parties whirling like dervishes in glorious stereoscope as the camera swoops high and low before disappearing under some poor flapper's cloche hat. Wouldn't that be something? No, not feeling it? Well, here are five 3D scenes that do just about justify the extra couple of quid.
Avatar
Jake's first foray into the jungle in James Cameron's 3D behemoth made it instantly apparent that five minutes on Pandora meant at least 20 brushes with hideous (if rather aesthetically pleasing) death. The verdant flora might have seemed so...
Baz Luhrmann's recent hint that his forthcoming remake of The Great Gatsby might be filmed in 3D has had F Scott Fitzgerald acolytes reeling in horror. But what if the twitterers who bleated their ire across the interweb yesterday got it wrong? Just imagine the guests at Gatsby's infamous parties whirling like dervishes in glorious stereoscope as the camera swoops high and low before disappearing under some poor flapper's cloche hat. Wouldn't that be something? No, not feeling it? Well, here are five 3D scenes that do just about justify the extra couple of quid.
Avatar
Jake's first foray into the jungle in James Cameron's 3D behemoth made it instantly apparent that five minutes on Pandora meant at least 20 brushes with hideous (if rather aesthetically pleasing) death. The verdant flora might have seemed so...
- 1/12/2011
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
London, Jan 11 – Australian film director Baz Luhrmann’s planned 3D remake of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ has been met with disapproval and anger from the classic’s fans.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Luhrmann, 48, had hinted at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that although he had work- shopped his Gatsby in 3D, he had not made a final.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Luhrmann, 48, had hinted at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that although he had work- shopped his Gatsby in 3D, he had not made a final.
- 1/11/2011
- by realbollywood
- RealBollywood.com
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