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Jean Paul Gaultier: Ava Gardner Avatar
(Fashion Wire Daily)
Fashion Wire Daily - When they make the sequel to "Avatar" and want to add a delicious fashion quotient, the producers need to do two simple things: Use the entirety of the epochal Jean Paul Gaultier haute couture show, and resurrect Ava Gardner to play t
on 2010-01-28 04:45:10ET's Top Summer Romance Movies: 'The Graduate'
All this week, ET is spotlighting our top five summer romance movies: 'Dirty Dancing,' 'The Graduate,' 'Grease,' 'Pretty Woman' and 'Titanic.'Koo-koo-ka-choo, Mrs. Robinson! When 'The Graduate' hit movie theaters in 1967, it made DUSTIN HOFFMAN a bonafide
on 2008-03-11 08:45:35-
I remember her in "Enemy at the Gates" which was a pretty good movie with Ed
Harris, Jude Law, and Joseph Fiennes (not Ralph).
She is a really good actress. Great in "Runaway Jury" and "Confidence".
Kevin
"Rick in Oz" wrote in message
news:b4jRe.497$HC6.7242@nnrp1.ozemail.com.au...
>
http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/movies/mmx-0508310009aug31,0,1286171.stor
> y?coll=mmx-movies_heds
> Tribune entertainment reporter
> catch her -- which should be in "The Constant Gardener," which opens
> Wednesday -- you still won't know what to expect.
> accompanied by a carefully crafted persona or well-publicized dating
> history. Actresses such as Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer
> Aniston and Sandra Bullock have branded themselves, their names selling
> tickets because viewers feel like they know these performers on screen and
> off.
> well, has the kind of beauty and talent that could make her a natural
> fixture of our tabloid culture, but she hasn't gone that route. When you
> watch her act, you see her character, not some extension of the person you
> assume she is -- and that's fine by her.
> real life, said while in town earlier this month. She attributes this lack
> of expectations to the fact that "I've just done lots of different kinds
of
> things."
> special-effects-filled blockbusters ("The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns");
a
> determined manipulator of juries in a legal drama ("Runaway Jury"); the
> down-to-earth girlfriend in a smart, character-driven comedy ("About a
> Boy"); a classic noir femme fatale ("Confidence"); and a female cop and
her
> dead twin in a supernatural thriller ("Constantine"), you're not looking
to
> get pigeonholed.
roles --
> such as when she is mercilessly remaking her boyfriend in Neil LaBute's
"The
> Shape of Things" or rebelling against the power structure in "The Constant
G
> ardener" -- they make her characters' ferocity that much more startling.
> overshadowed by her celebrity. To her, appearing regularly in star-fixated
> shows, magazines and gossip columns is a choice.
> control, and then they become the victim of their choice."
> ("Requiem for a Dream," "Pi"), and though they're not at the
stop-and-stare
> level of Brad-'n'-Jen, they've made adjustments to cordon off their
private
> lives from their public ones.
> she said. "There are restaurants in New York where you know there are
going
> to be paparazzi there. The Mercer Hotel -- I live in SoHo, and I won't
walk
> past the Mercer because there are always paparazzi outside, and you know
> you're going to get photographed.
that
> was a real bummer because I would be having lunch somewhere, and normally
> Darren and I just slip away and go down into the subway if we see a
> photographer. But I was on crutches, so I was very slow moving." She
> laughed. "I couldn't get away."
> interview, "I think mystery is kind of great. I don't know anything about
> Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn or Ava Gardner -- not really -- and I
like
> that. I love watching their movies because they're my personal movie
stars.
> I don't know what they eat and who their trainer is."
particularly
> with "The Constant Gardener," a much-acclaimed political thriller based on
> John le Carre's 2000 novel. Much of the film's tension involves trying to
> discern the actions and motivations of her character, Tessa, an American
> activist challenging British government officials and the pharmaceutical
> industry over drug testing on poor Kenyans.
> mild-mannered diplomat named Justin, played by Ralph Fiennes (another star
> who hasn't lived out his personal life in public), but diplomacy is far
from
> her No. 1 priority. She says what she thinks when she thinks it, and
decorum
> be damned, much to the irritation of Justin's colleagues.
> unobtrusive direction, to be a liberating experience.
> doesn't care what people think of her at all. . . . She wanted to get
> justice done, and if she makes some enemies on the way, she really doesn't
> give a monkey's. . . . It's just a very free place to be in life. On the
> whole one wants to be liked."
she
> said. "Maybe with my family, but that would be the only place."
> Weisz was the first actress he interviewed for the role. Because the
> director was hired on the project just weeks before production began, he
> never actually completed the , and Weisz wound up improvising scenes
> to help fine-tune her character and the story. Weisz also was active in
the
> production's efforts to set up a fund to aid the poverty-ridden Kenyan
> community in which "The Constant Gardener" was filmed.
> "humanity" she made so apparent in this strong character; and two, for her
> lack of vanity.
they
> like to look beautiful because everybody expects them to look beautiful,
and
> so of course I thought she would always have her makeup next to her and
> would try to look beautiful. But she didn't. All the scenes she spoke in,
> she never uses makeup. The scene that she's using makeup is when she's at
> the hospital, but we used makeup to make her uglier."
> her current strategy of choosing roles based on who's making the film.
"When
> you're in your 20s, you just have to be working, really, just try all
> different things," she said. "Now I realize that it's the director, the
> director, the director."
all.
> Her next movie, probably to be released early next year, is a
> science-fiction love story called "The Fountain," written and directed by
> Aronofsky. Filming already has taken place, and the couple survived.
> "That's the simplest way I can put it. One's professional self is very
> different from one in a relationship, so I got to see him at work, and
he's
> tremendously talented. And he got to see me at work. We're both very
> passionate and committed about our work, so it was like turning the object
> around and seeing it from another angle."
> because who wants do discover you're engaged to someone who's a
professional
> pain in the tush?
> pause. "It's pretty sexy to see someone be good at something, isn't it?
It's
> very attractive. It made me find him even more attractive."
-
http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/movies/mmx-0508310009aug31,0,1286171.stor
y?coll=mmx-movies_heds
Rachel Weisz: A woman of `mystery'
By Mark Caro
Tribune entertainment reporter
You've probably seen Rachel Weisz in several movies, yet the next time you
catch her -- which should be in "The Constant Gardener," which opens
Wednesday -- you still won't know what to expect.
That's because Weisz isn't one of those actresses who arrives on screen
accompanied by a carefully crafted persona or well-publicized dating
history. Actresses such as Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer
Aniston and Sandra Bullock have branded themselves, their names selling
tickets because viewers feel like they know these performers on screen and
off.
Weisz, a 34-year-old British actress who does American accents often and
well, has the kind of beauty and talent that could make her a natural
fixture of our tabloid culture, but she hasn't gone that route. When you
watch her act, you see her character, not some extension of the person you
assume she is -- and that's fine by her.
"I take that as a compliment," Weisz, casually stunning and thoughtful in
real life, said while in town earlier this month. She attributes this lack
of expectations to the fact that "I've just done lots of different kinds of
things."
That may be true. When you've played a librarian-turned-adventurer in two
special-effects-filled blockbusters ("The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns"); a
determined manipulator of juries in a legal drama ("Runaway Jury"); the
down-to-earth girlfriend in a smart, character-driven comedy ("About a
Boy"); a classic noir femme fatale ("Confidence"); and a female cop and her
dead twin in a supernatural thriller ("Constantine"), you're not looking to
get pigeonholed.
A startling ferocity
Although her kind, soft features often convey sweetness, in certain roles --
such as when she is mercilessly remaking her boyfriend in Neil LaBute's "The
Shape of Things" or rebelling against the power structure in "The Constant G
ardener" -- they make her characters' ferocity that much more startling.
The flip side to all of this is that Weisz's work has never become
overshadowed by her celebrity. To her, appearing regularly in star-fixated
shows, magazines and gossip columns is a choice.
"Most definitely," she said. "I think then it sometimes gets out of their
control, and then they become the victim of their choice."
Weisz lives in New York City with her fiance, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky
("Requiem for a Dream," "Pi"), and though they're not at the stop-and-stare
level of Brad-'n'-Jen, they've made adjustments to cordon off their private
lives from their public ones.
"There's a way of organizing your life so you will be photographed more,"
she said. "There are restaurants in New York where you know there are going
to be paparazzi there. The Mercer Hotel -- I live in SoHo, and I won't walk
past the Mercer because there are always paparazzi outside, and you know
you're going to get photographed.
"I broke my leg there recently, so I was on crutches for six weeks, and that
was a real bummer because I would be having lunch somewhere, and normally
Darren and I just slip away and go down into the subway if we see a
photographer. But I was on crutches, so I was very slow moving." She
laughed. "I couldn't get away."
Maintaining boundaries is important because, as Weisz told me in a 2003
interview, "I think mystery is kind of great. I don't know anything about
Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn or Ava Gardner -- not really -- and I like
that. I love watching their movies because they're my personal movie stars.
I don't know what they eat and who their trainer is."
The lack of preconceptions about Weisz serves moviegoers well, particularly
with "The Constant Gardener," a much-acclaimed political thriller based on
John le Carre's 2000 novel. Much of the film's tension involves trying to
discern the actions and motivations of her character, Tessa, an American
activist challenging British government officials and the pharmaceutical
industry over drug testing on poor Kenyans.
Before her murder (revealed in the film's opening), Tessa is married to a
mild-mannered diplomat named Justin, played by Ralph Fiennes (another star
who hasn't lived out his personal life in public), but diplomacy is far from
her No. 1 priority. She says what she thinks when she thinks it, and decorum
be damned, much to the irritation of Justin's colleagues.
A liberating experience
Weisz said she found playing Tessa, particularly under Fernando Meirelles'
unobtrusive direction, to be a liberating experience.
"She's a very free person," the actress said. "She's not inhibited. She
doesn't care what people think of her at all. . . . She wanted to get
justice done, and if she makes some enemies on the way, she really doesn't
give a monkey's. . . . It's just a very free place to be in life. On the
whole one wants to be liked."
She laughed.
In other words, Weisz doesn't shoot off her mouth like Tessa. "No, no," she
said. "Maybe with my family, but that would be the only place."
Meirelles, the Oscar-nominated Brazilian director of "City of God," said
Weisz was the first actress he interviewed for the role. Because the
director was hired on the project just weeks before production began, he
never actually completed the , and Weisz wound up improvising scenes
to help fine-tune her character and the story. Weisz also was active in the
production's efforts to set up a fund to aid the poverty-ridden Kenyan
community in which "The Constant Gardener" was filmed.
Meirelles said Weisz surprised him in several ways -- one, for the
"humanity" she made so apparent in this strong character; and two, for her
lack of vanity.
"She didn't want to use any makeup," he said. "Beautiful women, usually they
like to look beautiful because everybody expects them to look beautiful, and
so of course I thought she would always have her makeup next to her and
would try to look beautiful. But she didn't. All the scenes she spoke in,
she never uses makeup. The scene that she's using makeup is when she's at
the hospital, but we used makeup to make her uglier."
Choosing right roles
Weisz was complimentary of her director as well; in essence he reinforced
her current strategy of choosing roles based on who's making the film. "When
you're in your 20s, you just have to be working, really, just try all
different things," she said. "Now I realize that it's the director, the
director, the director."
Such thinking led her personal and professional lives to collide after all.
Her next movie, probably to be released early next year, is a
science-fiction love story called "The Fountain," written and directed by
Aronofsky. Filming already has taken place, and the couple survived.
"I got to meet the director, and he got to meet the actress," she said.
"That's the simplest way I can put it. One's professional self is very
different from one in a relationship, so I got to see him at work, and he's
tremendously talented. And he got to see me at work. We're both very
passionate and committed about our work, so it was like turning the object
around and seeing it from another angle."
The fact that they enjoyed working must have been, let's say, helpful --
because who wants do discover you're engaged to someone who's a professional
pain in the tush?
"Yeah, it's definitely helpful, and it's also very . . . " She took a long
pause. "It's pretty sexy to see someone be good at something, isn't it? It's
very attractive. It made me find him even more attractive."
Blush. Next subject.
-
x-no-archive: yes
"Rick in Oz" wrote in message
news:Xojne.600$F95.5524@nnrp1.ozemail.com.au...
>
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/entertainment/story.asp?j=61962246&p=6y96z548&n=6
> 1962626
> months, according to Frank Sinatra biographers Anthony Summers and Robbyn
> Swan - and only one of the babies was her husband Sinatra's.
book
> Sinatra: The life, which exposes the beloved crooner as an alleged rapist,
> mafia member and depressed suicide case.
very
> early in her marriage, but, within a month or three, had had an abortion
of
> a child that had been fathered by another man."
made
> her six-year marriage to Sinatra so tempestuous.
least
> three or four Martinis, big ones... have wine with dinner and go to a
> nightclub and start drinking scotch or bourbon or something. I don't know
> how we did it."
> more trouble living without her - after their divorce in 1957 the authors
> claim Sinatra attempted suicide.
Does anyone else find Sinatra stories as dull as I do?
OTOH, if you haven't, rent "Stealing Sinatra" a comedy about the kidnapping
of Sinatra jr starring David Arquette and William H Macy. Surprisingly
good.
-
Rick in Oz wrote:
> 1962626
> months, according to Frank Sinatra biographers Anthony Summers and Robbyn
> Swan - and only one of the babies was her husband Sinatra's.
> Sinatra: The life, which exposes the beloved crooner as an alleged rapist,
> mafia member and depressed suicide case.
> early in her marriage, but, within a month or three, had had an abortion of
> a child that had been fathered by another man."
> her six-year marriage to Sinatra so tempestuous.
> three or four Martinis, big ones... have wine with dinner and go to a
> nightclub and start drinking scotch or bourbon or something. I don't know
> how we did it."
> more trouble living without her - after their divorce in 1957 the authors
> claim Sinatra attempted suicide.
Old news. Doesn't anyone remember Kitty Kelly?
HellT
-
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/entertainment/story.asp?j=61962246&p=6y96z548&n=6
1962626
Authors claim Ava Gardner aborted Sinatra's baby
01/06/2005 - 12:16:14
Movie siren Ava Gardner underwent two abortions in the space of three
months, according to Frank Sinatra biographers Anthony Summers and Robbyn
Swan - and only one of the babies was her husband Sinatra's.
The authors have already created a storm of controversy with their new book
Sinatra: The life, which exposes the beloved crooner as an alleged rapist,
mafia member and depressed suicide case.
And now, they're exposing Ol' Blue Eyes' second wife.
Summers reveals, "She not only had an abortion of Frank Sinatra's baby very
early in her marriage, but, within a month or three, had had an abortion of
a child that had been fathered by another man."
The authors have also obtained an audio tape of Gardner revealing what made
her six-year marriage to Sinatra so tempestuous.
On the tape, the actress reveals: "Every single night we would have at least
three or four Martinis, big ones... have wine with dinner and go to a
nightclub and start drinking scotch or bourbon or something. I don't know
how we did it."
Summers and Swann claim Sinatra couldn't live with Gardner, but had even
more trouble living without her - after their divorce in 1957 the authors
claim Sinatra attempted suicide.
-
"Aida Lott" wrote in message
news:1109903555.928326.290980@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> job.
>
http://www.synapticenergy.com/celebs/images/maelstroms_eye/me681-denise_rich
ards_017.jpg
> Let's be fair, Denise is a very cute girl, not classically beautiful or
dumbfoundingly stunning, but she's really very cute with a sweetly girlish
sexuality about her that appeals to both men and women. If were fifteen
years younger and met her in a bar I'd make a point of talking to her but if
she didn't give me her number I wouldn't be devastated as if say I'd been
refused by Gene Tierney, Veronica Lake or Ava Gardner, or Grace Kelly had I
been in their age frame. I've lived in the clouds of "what if" for almost
thirty years because Mimsy Farmer gave me a lingering smile in a market in
Rome thirty+ years ago. Back then I was scared to talk much because people
always were always laughing at my accent. I couldn't even bring myself to
speak to her or ask her for an autograph. In those days, hard core, rural
southern accents like mine was back then, were associated with dueling
banjos and city boys getting raped by guys who talked like me, while on
canoe trips or like rednecks in pickup trucks shooting 12 guage loads of
double ought buckshot into Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda.
Completely without makeup, Miss Farmer was truly a goddess that sunny
day in Rome.
Ambrose
-
On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 19:55:13 GMT, chillled
wrote:
>Lulu wrote:
>might've pulled it off, but she's the only actress I can think of who'd
>be glamorous enough.
Marcia Gay Harden played her in the Sinatra telepic. I was set to
scorn her as I couldn't see it at all. But through the force of the
personality she projected, Harden played a very believable Gardner.
(IMO, of course.)
Beckensale is pretty, but she isn't sensual and volumptious like
Gardner. And while she is a decent actress, she isn't skilled enough
to create a character that has attributes so far from her own
Rebecca.
-
"3finger" wrote in message
news:cubfan23-DA5FE8.18131007022005@news1.west.earthlink.net...
> In article ,
> robin@ratnest.demon.co.uk (Bob) wrote:
Baker"
necessary
won
face
> I saw that ceremony, and I'm pretty sure that Binoche didn't mean to rub
> it in when she spoke about Bacall being the favorite. But sometimes it
> is better simply not to refer to something like that.
This is this new thing that some winners have started doing, to say how
honored they are to be in the same company as -- [list the names of the
other nominees]. Evidently it hadn't occurred to Bacall that she might do
this, so she went ahead and wiped the phony smile off her face, making
herself look about 10 years older in a couple seconds. Kind of like the end
of Lost Horizon.
-
in article buh79t$hk6bv$1@ID-203179.news.uni-berlin.de, KLM at
nonospammer@com.com wrote on 1/19/04 11:22 AM:
> x-no-archive: yes
> klm123@pacbell.netyour_shoes (to email, just remove "your_ shoes.")
> news:sdVOb.34029$VS4.1059998@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
One of the most gorgeous women since Ava Gardner, IMHO. :O)
-
http://heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,11506879%255E2902,00.h
tml
Stars grin and bare much more
27nov04
TODAY'S celebrities flash 59 per cent of their body on the red carpet, a new
study has found.
Researchers have scanned through the years to see how much nudity has been
on show over the decades.
In the '90s, when Liz Hurley upped the ante in a safety-pin Versace creation
at the opening of Four Weddings And A Funeral, celebrities revealed an
average 39 per cent of skin.
Since then, stars such as British TV presenter and model Kelly Brook have
taken flashing the flesh to new heights.
In 2000, Brook shocked onlookers at the premiere of gangster movie Snatch by
wearing a Julien Macdonald two-piece, consisting of little more than
knickers and a backless, sideless dress.
Now experts have calculated the average percentage of nudity on show in
every decade since the 1950s, by selecting 10 iconic photographs from each
period.
They put the images together on a body template to calculate just how much
went uncovered.
For '50s stars such as Ava Gardner glamour was all the rage.
Researchers for the Odeon survey calculated that about 20 per cent of flesh
was on show and it was mostly the cleavage and upper arms.
Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot may have been '60s sexbombs, but the red
carpet look was modest and demure, according to researchers.
Screen legends tended to don full-length formal gowns, uncovering just 9 per
cent on the red carpet.
Stars such as Faye Dunaway and Carrie Fisher covered up in the '70s, with an
average 7 per cent on show, but in the '80s the figure crept up to 13 per
cent. PA
From Sunny Oz, Rick :)
Proud Keeper of the talented & beautiful Halle Berry.
-
http://entertainment.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4459,11740234%255E10431
%255E%255Enbv,00.html
Kate eyes return to Uni
From correspondents in London
December 20, 2004
BRITISH beauty Kate Beckinsale wants to go back to university.
Brainy ... Kate says she may take up studying again.
The actress and young mum, who plays Ava Gardner in Martin Scorsese's
blockbuster biopic The Aviator, is dreaming of a degree.
"If I had the opportunity I'd love to go back to university," she said.
"I'm 31 years old and if I'm going to go back to college ...then it's
probably time to do it now. I never did finish university so that's always
been ... unfinished business."
Beckinsale went to Oxford University to study French and Russian literature,
but left before graduating after a promising acting career took priority.
The actress has been quoted recently as saying she would like to train to
become a doctor, but she played down the possibility and sought to dispel
the impression that her acting career has lost its allure.
She said: "I'm not in any terrible depression. Career-wise I'm happier than
I've ever been. I've just worked with Scorsese and Leonardo (DiCaprio) and
that's all great.
Beckinsale's next project is a sequel to Underworld, a film directed by her
husband Len Wiseman in which she plays a beautiful vampire warrior.
"I love that I can go from a Scorsese movie to revisiting a character that I
should never be playing, because I'm so unathletic," she said.
Reuters
From Sunny Oz, Rick :)
Proud Keeper of the talented & beautiful Halle Berry.
-
Favorite:
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz
Liz Taylor and Richard Burton
Frank Sinatra & Ava Gardner
Least favorite:
Ben and Jen
Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers
(naming MJ with Lisa Marie or anyone is waaaay to easy)
-
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/21/1085028515389.html
Profits of doom
May 22, 2004
Hollywood's latest blockbuster, The Day After Tomorrow, promises epic death
and destruction. But reality is scary enough, writes David Thomson, so why
do we crave celluloid catastrophe?
Just like happiness, cheese and pretty girls, disaster comes in all shapes
and flavours. Try this story as an illustration. In 1943, in the middle of
the war, the German film industry made an epic entertainment film called
Titanic, full of up-to-date special effects. As you might expect, the
sinking of that great ship was blamed on the laxity and corruption of the
British company that made the Titanic. It is said to be a spectacular and
exciting movie - which never got a release outside Germany.
Here's the nasty kicker: late in the production, Titanic's esteemed
director, Herbert Selpin, was heard to make derogatory remarks about the
German army and its recent defeats in Russia. Selpin was relieved of his
job, "interviewed" by Goebbels, and imprisoned. Two days later, he was found
hanged in his cell - a "suicide".
And that's the difference between disastrous and ghastly, as well as a
striking example of the principle that if it is men doing the damage to
other men, the result is tragic; but if the damage comes from nature, bad
luck, unruly weather or faulty mechanics, then it's a disaster movie. In
which case, we are allowed to have a good time. Thus the gleeful fatalism of
the trailer for the forthcoming The Day After Tomorrow (to be released on
Thursday) - the best come-on I have seen in a cinema for months, and the
most alluring calamity since James Cameron's Titanic.
I do not mean to be facetious about disasters, though irony or downright
rudeness may be the best possible responses to real disaster. As our
ingenuity at furnishing calamity increases (the worst are usually man-made),
so we need to be more robust and disrespectful in getting on despite them.
In which case, the movies (not for the first time) are an admirable lesson
for life. Where else but in cinema's dark do we get such huge fun from
disasters?
There's something about cinema that lends itself to this amused but uneasy
survey of tidal waves collapsing Manhattan - it's safe, until the torrent
bursts through the screen - THIS IS FOR REAL, FOLKS!!! I think it has to do
with a kind of finger-crossing in which we all join when a movie begins. In
any packed cinema there is a whisper of claustrophobia or dread. Suppose we
can't get out? Suppose, as in Luis Bunuel's sublimely matter-of-fact The
Exterminating Angel (a perfect generic title for disaster movies), we cannot
bring ourselves to quit the dark? Suppose the film breaks down so that just
a lurid white light falls back from the screen on our mounting hysteria?
Of course, in the early days of the movies, when film was printed on a
highly flammable nitrate-based stock, there was a legitimate fear of fire in
theatres. There were real disasters, as well as the tradition of having a
bolt on the outside of the projection booth (asbestos-lined) so that a fire
might be kept to that small space.
Yes, human beings perished in the cause of projecting film, and that wasn't
funny for them. But early movies thrived on destruction, smash-up,
accident - the ingredients of disaster. And, surely, one subconscious reason
for it was that it released our crippling fear of a scratch on our car, a
leak in our roof or a crack in our conscience. In the increasingly congested
world we have to live in, we have become more and more neurotic about
contact, damage and imperfection. Yet we hate ourselves in some way for that
neurosis, and so we take liberating pleasure in such things as Laurel and
Hardy destroying a piano in their effort to carry it up a flight of stairs;
the delirious smash-up of cars in What's Up, Doc?, Kong's playing ping-pong
with New York subway trains; or the grand dismantling of any great city in a
climate that has lost control. Or "Lost Control!!!", as the posters will put
it.
Yes, we fear all the great natural disasters: such as global warming raising
the level of the seas; the ozone hole making deserts of pasture; the woeful
kind of accident (the Intelligence cock-up) that could let off a nuclear
holocaust. But, just like cocksure kid gangsters, we sneer at all those
risks, too, and ask the film business to bring 'em on.
We don't really know yet what the use of slaughter as a regular part of
"entertainment" is doing to us. We don't know whether we are smart or ironic
enough to handle it. There is a case that being allowed to look at so many
levels of cinematic torture or cruelty only builds indifference to such
things. Maybe we are habituated to television coverage of 40,000 dying in
earthquakes in the "other" part of the world, just as 800,000 dead in Rwanda
10 years ago was more tolerable, even more understandable, than 800,000 dead
closer to home. We live in scary times, when we have so much to see, and
such power of choice. Indeed, there were those who saw the footage of
September 11 "live" and wondered why the early-morning news shows in America
were showing clips from Die Hard films.
Don't forget the perilous balance in that ironic or entertaining point of
view. And don't minimise the remarkable way in which the most recent
advances in film technology - especially computer-generated imagery - have
given expression to every archaic scientific prognostication. It is no
longer "what if", but "look at this", and on the strength of the trailer,
I'd say The Day After Tomorrow has visions of disaster (of unrestrained
weather striking civilisation and causing a new ice age) that are as awesome
as those films of wax models melting in the first atom-bomb blasts. This
movie will show us something we've never seen before, in a way that is not
just credible, but persuasive. What that will do for the larger debate over
climate change in our time remains to be seen. But the warning of mayhem
will be as potent as it is beautiful.
I know "beautiful" is a chilling or creepy word to use if we are asked to
look at the subsiding of skyscrapers and the washing away of streets. Yet I
feel it is the right word. For there is a lyricism, a satisfaction, a
voluptuousness in destruction on screen that is as great as any that may
come from construction, development or progress. And I think it has to do
with our most profound loathing or mistrust of order. Yes, most of us are
urbanites now, struggling with city problems and enjoying the facilities,
but inwardly resentful of so much steel and concrete, so much that is
unnatural. Weather is the return of nature, and while heat and rain can be
killing things, still a part of us feels cut off from nature, deprived of
it, and even betrayers of its pure force. You don't have to see God in that
nature, but you can still believe that nature deserves its revenge.
Since the late '90s, we have seen a great surge of disaster movies (bigger
even than the '70s, when we had The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno
and Jaws. We have earned such scolding by our conduct on the planet, just as
much as we now have the technology to deliver the spectacle without any
seams showing. And it may be that a fearsome competition develops between
the disasters of fiction and the disasters coming our way on the broadcast
news. This could be a gruesome climax to our whole civilisation, and one
that plays to quiet contemplation rather than lamentation. For, after all,
there are reasons enough to wonder whether our Earth has earned its place or
its life. And reasons to wonder whether silence and stillness might not be
the most merciful conclusions.
I recently rewatched Stanley Kramer's On the Beach (1959). It is as bad as
it ever was, though, in its day, it was both a hit and important because of
its grave view of a world terminated by nuclear disaster. For me, it has one
touching moment. A submarine (skippered by Gregory Peck) surfaces in San
Francisco Bay. Its periscope sees a pretty city skyline in the sun. But
there is no movement, no life. Just the vanity of so many buildings
beginning to decay.
That helpless eloquence abides in all disaster films, no matter the silly
storylines that ride along on top of the chaos (will Charlton Heston lose
Ava Gardner but save Genevieve Bujold in the 1974 Earthquake?). And it's a
reminder of something very important about the US, and especially about the
part of the country where movies took root. Southern California seemed like
a promised land for the people who had escaped pogroms in Europe and found
movies as a way to make their fortune. But the promised land was very
vulnerable. Los Angeles was, and is still, surrounded by desert: it needs
its water transported or stolen from somewhere else. And it has to gamble on
when the San Andreas fault will go tense again.
Los Angelenos and San Franciscans tell themselves - with exactly the
defiance I mentioned earlier - that theirs is no place to build a city, let
alone live. And if it isn't earthquake, then it's fire, flood or drought.
Every natural mishap is available around Southern California - and so the
area developed an art form, or entertainment, that has as one of its cutest
tricks the suggestion: What if the world ended?
My guess is that The Day After Tomorrow will be a smash hit in which sheer
wonder triumphs over hokey story elements, and we all move a little closer
to the bleak (but blase) realisation that we are here not so much as
pilgrims in a parable, but as gamblers, sitting in the dark and hoping that
the light is still on outside to guide us home.
The Independent
From Sunny Oz, Rick :)
Proud Keeper of the talented & beautiful Halle Berry.
-
Guy Bannis wrote:
> In article , Lulu
> wrote:
right.
how true
at 18 she broke away from the NYC modelling scene
and caught herself a perfect foil of a husband,
Bogey ...and despite his best efforts she remained
a wooden 'actress' @ best
after she lost her 'model good looks' at 29 or so
she was just plain wooden and Bogeyless
and careerless
put your lips together and just blow
-
"Kate " wrote in message
news:3fd77024.108302905@news-west.newscene.com...
> On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 01:23:29 -0500, "Ambrose"
> wrote:
so
question
basis
priest,
a
of
of
finds
an
be
No
think
> they constantly insist on trying to co-opt my country, my government,
> my school, my children, my doorstep, my telephone, my sisters, my
> brothers, my peace, my home, the achievements of other freethinkers
> and have a disturbing tendency to lie, not to mention a major case of
> hypocrisy and an agenda that spells disaster for the world and the
> future of my children.
> conflicting sociologically predictable stories to be happy and at
> peace and really don't understand their need for violence and the
> infliction of pointless laws causing the misery of others to ensure
> that their fairy tales are not questioned.
> the religous of the world are well behaved? Do you get out much?
> Read the papers? Answer the door?
> way around. Did you really expect your lame attempts at impressing us
> with religous hype would work?
Thank you for your sincere reply. Actually, I've never visited Alt.Athiesm.
Nothing against it, but I rarely post outside entertainment newsgroups, and
almost never outside my iterest area. Apparently someone over there thought
it might be amusing to crossposted alt.showbiz.gossip where the numerous off
topic posts about the Alabama judges kept appearing. I'm sure there are
athiests over here, but most of us find religious and political discussions
tedious and distracting from the topic at hand . Not that we're above
poliical or religious backstabbing, but for most of us, the hedonistic
decadence and self indulgent, self distruction of celebrities is our
interest. But in a regretible moment of hubris I made my original terse
reply. It was for entertainment purposes onl, and my turgid subsequent
off-topic replies were probably inspired by my recent reading of On The
Beach, Neville Shute's enjoyable1950's novel about the aftermath of a of a
nuclear war, which was made into a very entertaining movie, staring Gregory
Peck, Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins with a wonderful support performance by
Fred Astaire as a guilt plagued atomic scientist who seeing the world dying
from radiation, ironically takes up sports car racing. Great performances
all around, exciting car race and a very eerie and sad submarine trip
following a lonely radio signal, to a starkly lifeless San Francisco. Filmed
in beautiful b&w, it's an Aurthur Haley-like story of Austrailians and
Americans struggling to make sense of the impeding end of life on earth,
including s a beautifully melancoly rendition of the usually light-hearted
Austrailian folk song "Waltzing Matilda," as the love theme of the movie.
Perhaps not high art, but On th Beach is one of my favorite romantic 1950's
films.
Anyway, I apologize for the original reply. But, unwanted outsider
replies, are inevitable when people pointlessly crosspost to disinterested
newsgroups.
Well anyway, have a nice day.
Ambrose
-
http://entertainment.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4459,11740234%255E10431
%255E%255Enbv,00.html
Kate eyes return to Uni
From correspondents in London
December 20, 2004
BRITISH beauty Kate Beckinsale wants to go back to university.
Brainy ... Kate says she may take up studying again.
The actress and young mum, who plays Ava Gardner in Martin Scorsese's
blockbuster biopic The Aviator, is dreaming of a degree.
"If I had the opportunity I'd love to go back to university," she said.
"I'm 31 years old and if I'm going to go back to college ...then it's
probably time to do it now. I never did finish university so that's always
been ... unfinished business."
Beckinsale went to Oxford University to study French and Russian literature,
but left before graduating after a promising acting career took priority.
The actress has been quoted recently as saying she would like to train to
become a doctor, but she played down the possibility and sought to dispel
the impression that her acting career has lost its allure.
She said: "I'm not in any terrible depression. Career-wise I'm happier than
I've ever been. I've just worked with Scorsese and Leonardo (DiCaprio) and
that's all great.
Beckinsale's next project is a sequel to Underworld, a film directed by her
husband Len Wiseman in which she plays a beautiful vampire warrior.
"I love that I can go from a Scorsese movie to revisiting a character that I
should never be playing, because I'm so unathletic," she said.
Reuters
From Sunny Oz, Rick :)
Proud Keeper of the talented & beautiful Halle Berry.
-
"mc" wrote in message
news:1106576281.554157.251600@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Agreed, he's a fabulous actor and it's time he was recognized for it. This
list is stupid though, Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Hugh Grant
are not very good actors, and some of the people on the actress list are
even worse. Sharon Stone? Oh puhleese...
> MC
> Keeper of Giovanni Ribisi!
>
-
>From: lili2@aol.com (Lili2)
>LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw, famed for his classic
>recordings of "Begin the Beguine" and "Lady Be Good" as well as turbulent
>marriages to movie stars Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, died on Thursday at age
>94, his manager Will Curtis said.
>perfectionist,
>Shaw put down the clarinet in 1954 and never played it again, saying he could
>not reach the level of artistry he desired.
>bore his name and played his music -- but with another clarinetist, Dick
>Johnson, leading the orchestra and playing the solos.
>the
>band's signature opening number, "Nightmare."
>rival to another clarinet legend Benny Goodman. Shaw's bands in the 1930s and
>'40s featured a Who's Who of jazz greats, including Billie Holiday, Buddy
>Rich,
>Roy Eldridge and "Hot Lips" Page. At his height, he earned $30,000 a week, a
>huge sum for the Depression Era.
>actresses Evelyn Keyes, Ava Gardner and Lana Turner, might have agreed with.
>He
>recalled once almost erupting when a woman asked if he could play something
>with a Latin beat.
>decided
>he was aiming for a perfection that could kill him.
>seeking a constantly receding horizon. So I quit," he said.
>live.
>I'd be dead if I didn't stop. The better I got, the higher I aimed. People
>loved what I did, but I had grown past it. I got to the point where I was
>walking in my own footsteps," he said in that interview.
>shows, writing an autobiography and a novel, traveling and lecturing.
>its host and sometime conductor of its opening number before turning over to
>Johnson.
>"Frenesi."
I think Artie is the last of the Big Band leaders to pass on. I can't think of
another who is still living. It's sad to see this generation pass.
Dora
-
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-12-09-dicaprio-cover_x.htm?POE=LIFI
SVA
Leo DiCaprio: Epic actor
By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY
BEVERLY HILLS - Leonardo DiCaprio looks older than you'd think.
Big shoes to fill: Leonardo DiCaprio, now 30, brings the legendary airman
and playboy Howard Hughes to life in The Aviator.
By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
Standing 6-foot-1 and sporting a goatee and slicked-back hair, DiCaprio
carries himself deliberately. He doesn't walk; he saunters. He speaks
intensely, mulling his words while locking his eyes on you. He looks all of
his 30 years, if not more. There's only a trace of the boy who starred seven
years ago in the biggest box office hit of all time.
DiCaprio concedes that he still gets the "aren't you that kid from Titanic?"
comment on the streets. But make no mistake: He is a boy no more.
"Yes, I can play younger than my age," he says with a grin over
chocolate-dipped strawberries and biscotti at the Regent Beverly Wilshire
Hotel. "But I can play characters older than I am, too. I'm not an actor who
can just play the kid."
DiCaprio gets his chance to prove that on Dec. 17 when The Aviator arrives
in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It goes nationwide on Christmas
Day. Martin Scorsese's sprawling epic about legendary airman and playboy
Howard Hughes puts DiCaprio in foreign territory: playing a character who is
older, richer and more famous than himself.
Few movies enter the fall with heavier expectations. Miramax Films is
banking on the $100 million movie to put the studio back into the Oscar hunt
after being shut out last year.
And after the collapse of Alexander, the critically panned, commercially
disastrous Oliver Stone opus, The Aviator is the last epic standing this
awards season. Part biopic, part homage to Hollywood's heyday of the 1920s
and '30s, The Aviator's classic elements have helped make it the early
front-runner among big-studio entries.
For Scorsese and Di-Caprio, the movie marks something more personal: a shot
at a first Oscar for both men.
Despite earning $20-million-a-movie paychecks and global stardom since
1997's Titanic, DiCaprio hasn't been nominated for an Academy Award since
1994's What's Eating Gilbert Grape. Scorsese is Oscar's latest bridesmaid,
having been nominated for best director four times but never taking home the
prize.
Both may find redemption this year. Industry analysts are calling the film
Scorsese's best work since 1990's Goodfellas, thanks in part to the director
and actor having an unusual aging effect on each other.
"Marty has helped bring out the man in Leo," says film critic Emanuel Levy,
author of All About Oscar. "No one believed Leo could play Howard Hughes,
who has always been seen as a man's man. But that's changed now. Leo is a
lock for a best-actor nomination."
DiCaprio, in turn, "seems to have brought out the kid in Scorsese," Levy
says. The Aviator is "more reminiscent of his brilliant early work like Taxi
Driver and Raging Bull, just more commercial and enjoyable."
Scorsese, 62, acknowledges that the young actor - who starred in his Gangs
of New York in 2002 - has given him new energy.
"Directing is a real headache. But working with Leo, who forces you to talk
and talk and talk about your movies, gets you excited about what you do."
A life 'too big for one movie'
There has been talk about making a film biography of the legendary airman
and filmmaker for decades.
But where to start - or stop - such a film? Hughes was as much a force in
Hollywood as he was in aviation. He broke speed records while financing some
of the industry's most expensive films, including the $4 million Hell's
Angels in 1930. He was commandeering TWA while courting the film industry's
biggest stars, including Ava Gardner, Jean Harlow and Katharine Hepburn.
"And that was before he succumbed to his illness," DiCaprio says of the
obsessive-compulsive disorder that left the germ-phobic millionaire the
poster child for seclusion and paranoia. "His life was just too big for one
movie."
Then it hit DiCaprio: Just take a portion of Hughes' life, the less-examined
slice before the final phase of dementia, of uncut fingernails and tissue
boxes turned into shoes.
When he was 22, the actor had stumbled across a book, Howard Hughes: The
Untold Story by Peter H. Brown, and had been trying for years to coax
directors to tackle the story.
After several fits and starts, he landed director Michael Mann and
screenwriter John Logan, who wrote Gladiator and The Last Samurai.
Mann, citing biopic burnout from Ali, later decided to produce the film and
not direct it. But Scorsese didn't hesitate at the chance to tackle the
project.
"When I saw the title, I thought it was about flying," he says with a laugh.
"And I hate flying. But the more something scares me, the more I want to
explore it."
And DiCaprio sealed the deal, Scorsese says. "He doesn't so much play the
roles as he becomes consumed by them. It's fascinating to watch."
Indeed, DiCaprio became obsessed with the part in a manner that might have
made Hughes proud. He spent days with a man who had obsessive-compulsive
disorder so he could observe the facial tics and mannerisms. He read a
half-dozen biographies and watched hours of archival footage of the brash
Hughes. He even insisted that Scorsese include a song by Django Reinhardt, a
jazz guitarist from the 1930s, in the movie.
He wasn't the only one immersed in research. Cate Blanchett tackles the
challenging role of the legendary Hepburn.
"It was great fun trawling through her films," Blanchett says. "It's one
thing to play on screen someone who people have an image of and regard as an
icon. But it's another thing to play her in the very medium in which she has
become so revered. The truth is that I don't think I would have attempted it
for anyone other than Martin Scorsese."
DiCaprio echoes his co-star. "Marty's got such an encyclopedic knowledge of
film, especially old movies. You have to know your character inside out, or
he'll let you have it."
That included Hughes' mental breakdown. DiCaprio rehearsed scenes for weeks
that called for him to repeat a single line, over and over.
"Howard would get a line in his head and couldn't stop saying it," DiCaprio
says. "One half of your brain is stuck in the record groove, while the other
knows you sound like a fool. I was trying to figure out how you do that, how
to say the same line again and again but express everything else that's
going on inside your head."
DiCaprio's head, the actor insists, is far less cluttered than his
character's, though he concedes that, like Hughes, he is partial to old
films and the occasional obsession, particularly vintage movie posters. Over
the years he has collected a French Buster Keaton poster, a German
Apocalypse Now, a Polish Midnight Cowboy and an authentic King Kong "that
cost me a bundle."
And like Hughes, DiCaprio has dated his share of famous women, having been
stalked by paparazzi snapping him with Kate Moss, Demi Moore and, most
recently, model Gisele Bündchen.
But that's where the similarity ends, he insists. He demurs from talking
about his love life but says there is an emotional bond behind every
relationship that Hughes' liaisons lacked.
"I think Howard thought of women the same way he thought of planes,"
DiCaprio says. "He wanted the fastest thing, the newest model. That is not
how I approach dating."
He also is careful to approach fame differently from how Hughes did.
He doesn't hide buck-naked in hotel rooms as Hughes did in his withering
years. But DiCaprio is selective about his films and his public appearances.
He has starred in only five movies since Titanic, in part so that a single
film would not define him as that one did.
He has acknowledged that it was a mistake turning down Boogie Nights in
favor of the James Cameron film, which made him Hollywood's pinup boy for a
generation of teenyboppers.
But he has since come to terms with that fame and says he takes no film in
the hopes of getting an "anti-Titanic reaction."
"I think people read the tabloids because they want to see you eating a
burger, or out of your makeup or doing something stupid because they just
want to see that you're like everyone else," he says. "And that's OK. I
don't want to catch myself anymore saying that my life is hard, because the
good far outweighs the bad in my life. And it's easier to focus on those
things, on the things that are important."
Like an Oscar? DiCaprio was snubbed when Titanic managed 14 Academy Award
nominations (and 11 wins) in just about every category, including an acting
nomination for co-star Kate Winslet. But DiCaprio's name was noticeably
absent.
"Anyone who tells you that they don't want their work recognized by their
peers is lying," he says. "I'd love this film to be the one, especially for
Marty. That he didn't win an Oscar years ago is still a mystery to me.
"But he's the reason you make movies," DiCaprio says, moving to the edge of
his couch cushion as he speaks. "You learn after you've been in the business
for a while that it's not getting your face recognized that's the payoff.
It's having your film remembered."
He grins slightly at the notion of calling himself a Hollywood veteran. "And
I guess I have been in the business for a while now."
So has Scorsese. But lately, he says, he isn't feeling his years.
"After I finish a movie, I think, 'Wow, that was really hard work. What the
hell am I doing this for?' " he says. "But then you meet an actor like Leo
and start talking about movies and storytelling, and suddenly you're
interested again. Just talking now, I'm ready to go start another one."
From Sunny Oz, Rick :)
Proud Keeper of the talented & beautiful Halle Berry.
-
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/149409p-131745c.html
Let's roll 'em... again!
New flix, old tricks -
Hollywood's recipe for success in '04
After reviewing movies for a while, you begin to think you're the Bill
Murray character in "Groundhog Day." You wake up on the first of January and
realize you're going to see the same movies you've been seeing every year.
Hollywood is in the business of producing the film equivalent of comfort
food, movies whose greatest commercial strength is their familiarity.
Same faces + same subjects + same plots = big bucks.
Thus: The more than two dozen sequels or remakes on the 2004 release
schedule, the 10 superhero adventures, the half-dozen animated kiddie pix,
the bios, the fantasies, the book and play adaptations, and the period
epics.
You can fret about the sameness of it all, as Murray's character does, or
you can look on the bright side: You could be doing this in Punxsutawney.
Not everything on the schedule will be bad. Many of the movies will be good,
a few will be outstanding, one or two may be great. Who knows, we may even
be surprised. If we didn't have hope, we'd have nothing.
As I scan each New Year's schedule, my eyes inevitably stop on the names of
personal favorites among directors, people who've made great movies before
and may again. Among the big stoppers on the '04 schedule are Martin
Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Wolfgang Petersen, Steven Spielberg, Jonathan Demme,
Michael Mann and Lasse Hallstrom.
Scorsese follows last year's "Gangs of New York" with another period film,
"The Aviator." It's a biographical drama about the early years of Howard
Hughes and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, with Kate Beckinsale and Cate Blanchett
playing his Hollywood girlfriends Ava Gardner and Katharine Hepburn, and
Jude Law playing his pal Errol Flynn.
Stone, a dabbler in epic biography himself ("Nixon," "The Doors"), takes on
Alexander the Great with his $100 million "Alexander," starring Colin
Farrell as the Macedonian king who conquered the known pre-Roman world.
Another Hollywood hunk, Brad Pitt, dons battle gear as Achilles in
Petersen's "Troy," based on the myth of the Trojan War.
Spielberg reteams with "Saving Private Ryan" star Tom Hanks for "The
Terminal," the story of a Balkan immigrant who spends a decade in a New York
airport after being stranded by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Demme ("Silence of the Lambs") remakes John Frankenheimer's 1962 classic
"The Manchurian Candidate," updating its brainwashing theme to a post-Gulf
War plot. Denzel Washington takes over for Frank Sinatra.
Tom Cruise lays down his sword to play a contract killer on a day's round in
Michael Mann's "Collateral."
And in Hallstrom's "An Unfinished Life," Robert Redford is a Wyoming rancher
visited by his abused and estranged daughter-in-law (Jennifer Lopez).
Besides "The Manchurian Candidate," the list of remakes includes:
A new, apparently more whimsical, version of "The Stepford Wives"
A new take on Elmore Leonard's "The Big Bounce"
"Around the World in 80 Days," with Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan in the
roles played by David Niven and Cantinflas in 1956
"Shall We Dance?", an English-language remake of a 1996 Japanese hit, which
has Richard Gere learning to dance from Jennifer Lopez.
Busy Jude Law, who has four movies slated for '04, reprises the Michael
Caine role in a new version of "Alfie," while Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis
Quaid assume the roles of Davy Crockett and Sam Houston in the new "The
Alamo." Quaid also takes over for James Stewart in a remake of "The Flight
of the Phoenix."
SERIAL THRILLERS
Among the many, many - oh, so many -sequels are follow-ups to "Dirty
Dancing," "Scooby Doo," "The Whole Nine Yards," "Shrek," "The Bourne
Identity," "Blade," "The Mask," "The Ring," "Ocean's 11," "Agent Cody
Banks," "Bridget Jones's Diary," and the second half of Quentin Tarantino's
"Kill Bill."
Then, of course, there are the two 800-pound-gorilla sequels of the coming
summer - "Spider-Man 2" and "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Other superhero comic-book adventures are: "Catwoman," with a hissing and
purring Halle Berry; "The Punisher," about a "Death Wish" vigilante played
by Thomas Jane; "Hellboy," in which Ron Perlman plays an avenging survivor
of Nazi black magic; and "Constantine," starring Keanu Reeves as an
investigator of the supernatural.
Paramount is also high on "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," a
throwback to 1930s matinee films, starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and
Angelina Jolie.
No superhero in the New Year is more ambitious than Hugh Jackman's "Van
Helsing," the Transylvanian vigilante who goes after Count Dracula,
Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolfman and the evil half of the bipolar Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - all during a couple of hours in the same movie.
COMPUTER ANIMATION
For kids, the boom in computer animation checks out Shrek and Princess
Fiona after their wedding; "Shark Tale," about mafia life beneath the sea;
"Polar Express," a potential Christmas evergreen about a boy whose doubts
about Santa are dispelled by a magic trip to the North Pole; and Pixar's
latest, "The Incredibles," about a retired superhero called back to action.
"Garfield," the cat, is computer-animated (and voiced by Bill Murray), but
he's in a live-action world, while "SpongeBob SquarePants" combines live
action with conventional, hand-drawn animation.
One of the likeliest family hits ahead is "Lemony Snicket's A Series of
Unfortunate Events," adapted from a series of books about a trio of orphans
and the odd and threatening characters in their lives. Jude Law (again!) is
Lemony, Jim Carrey is Count Olaf and Meryl Streep is Aunt Josephine.
Sports themes, once a rarity in Hollywood, are flush again in '04, led by a
trio of biographical dramas. In "Miracle," Kurt Russell plays U.S. Olympics
hockey coach Herb Brooks. In "Coach Carter," Samuel L. Jackson plays a
high-school coach who benches his undefeated team for poor grades. And, in
Ron Howard's "Cinderella Man," Russell Crowe buffs up for the role of
Depression Era boxing champ James J. Braddock.
Though movies showing the mass destruction of occupied buildings have
most-ly disappeared since 9/11, Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day") goes
for it again with "The Day After Tomorrow," a cautionary disaster movie
about a plague of storms caused by global warming.
Speaking of disasters, "Gigli" stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are
together again, if briefly, in Kevin Smith's "Jersey Girl."
And on Feb. 25, after a year of calculating international publicity, Mel
Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" reaches the screen and we can decide
for ourselves whether this look at the last hours in the life of Jesus is
anti-Semitic, pro-medieval Catholicism, biblically authentic - or just
another cynical Hollywood hustle.
A TALE OF GRIMM AND BEAR IT
For me, the year's most enticing project is Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers
Grimm," a fantastical look at the lives of the authors of those wondrous
19th-century fairy tales. It stars Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as the
brothers and Monica Bellucci as the sorceress they encounter in the haunted
woods.
In full disclosure, I wrote a book that was both about and supporting
Gilliam's fight with Universal over the final cut of "Brazil," and I'm on
record as saying he's the most visually gifted fabulist working today
(sorry, Tim Burton fans). The evidence is there, in fits and starts, in
"Time Bandits," "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" and "The Fisher King."
But the former Monty Python illustrator has never had a budget to match his
imagination, until now. We'll soon find out where his imagination takes us
as the Grimms enter the world of their own tales.
Originally published on December 28, 2003
From Sunny Oz, Rick :)
Proud Keeper of the talented & beautiful Halle Berry.
- Celebrity Gossip
- One of Hollywood's legendary "love goddesses," this green-eyed brunette beauty combined feline grace with passionate intensity, and while she never claimed to be (nor was ever recognized as) a great actress, she held her own in a number of memorable films. Gardner was born into a poor family, and had no loftier ambition than to become a secretary in New York until her picture was seen by MGM's East Coast talent executive. A screen test was arranged (deliberately silent, because her Southern accent was so thick) and she was judged to have potential. She flew west to Hollywood and cheerfully signed a term contract with the studio, which promptly enrolled her in acting classes and took hundreds of publicity shots of her before she ever stepped on a movie set.
Gardner spent several years playing undemanding bit parts in MGM Bs such as We Were Dancing, Joe Smith, American, Kid Glove Killer, Calling Dr. Gillespie (all 1942), Pilot No. 5, Hitler's Madman (both 1943), Swing Fever, Three Men in White, Maisie Goes to Reno (all 1944), and She Went to the Races (1945). She even appeared briefly in an MGM "Our Gang" short, Mighty Lak a Goat for which her scene was reportedly directed by thenhusband Mickey Rooney. In 1943 she was loaned to lowly Monogram Pictures to play the ingenue in Ghosts on the Loose aside from being mauled by the East Side Kids and ogled by Bela Lugosi, her responsibilities were minimal. It took another loan-out assignment, that of a femme fatale in Universal's Hemingway adaptation, The Killers (1946), to make audiences sit up and take notice. Her good reviews prompted MGM to try her opposite the King himself, Clark Gable, in The Hucksters (1947), in which she played a self-assured nightclub singer. Gardner acquitted herself nicely and was promoted to full-fledged stardom.
In most films, her presence was basically decorative, but she contributed memorable performances to Show Boat (1951, as Julie, the beautiful mulatto, for which she performed several Jerome Kern songs that made it to the soundtrack album but were redubbed for the film itself), Mogambo (1953, opposite Gable in this remake of his earlier success Red Dust with Gardner snagging an Oscar nomination for her interpretation of the tarttongued character played in the original by Jean Harlow), and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Barefoot Contessa (1954), in a part she seemed born to play, an earthy Spanish dancer who's transformed into a screen goddess-but destined never to find personal happiness.
In 1957, life imitated art once again. Gardner divorced singer Frank Sinatra that year (they had married in 1951 following a tempestuous courtship) and, after playing American expatriate Lady Brett Ashley in the film adaptation of The Sun Also Rises adopted her character's lifestyle and moved to Spain, where she was surrounded by adoring European jetsetters and matadors. Years of these hedonistic pursuits took their toll on her beauty; by the time she'd turned 50 she looked at least 10 years older. But as a mature, worldly actress, she delivered several interesting, multilayered performances. Her other husbands were actor Mickey Rooney (whom she wed shortly after joining Metro) and bandleader Artie Shaw.
In later years Gardner lived in London, but spent one season as a cast member of the TV series "Falcon Crest" (1985) and shortly before her death completed an autobiography, "Ava," which was published posthumously in 1990. More than one obituary declared her the most beautiful woman who ever stepped in front of a camera, and she was once in fact "voted" The Most Beautiful Woman in the World.
OTHER FILMS INCLUDE: 1947: Singapore 1948: One Touch of Venus 1949: The Bribe, East Side, West Side, The Great Sinner 1951: Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, My Forbidden Past 1952: Lone Star, The Snows of Kilimanjaro 1953: The Band Wagon (in a cameo as herself); 1953: Knights of the Round Table 1956: Bhowani Junction 1957: The Little Hut 1959: The Naked Maja, On the Beach 1960: The Angel Wore Red 1963: 55 Days at Peking 1964: Seven Days in May, The Night of the Iguana 1966: The Bible 1969: Mayerling 1972: The Devil's Widow, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (as Lillie Langtry); 1974: Earthquake 1975: Permission to Kill; 1976: The Blue Bird 1977: The Cassandra Crossing 1979: City on Fire; 1980: The Kidnapping of the President; 1981: Priest of Love 1985: The Long Hot Summer (telefilm); 1986: Harem
- [On why she came out of retirement to appear on a prime time soap opera] "For the loot, honey, for the loot." [1985]
- "I wish to live until 150 year-old but the day I'll die, I wish it to be with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other."
- "I made it as a star dressed, and if it aint dressed, I don't want it."
- "What's the point? My face, shall we say, looks lived in."
- "Everybody kisses everybody else in this crummy business all the time. It's the kissiest business in the world."
- "After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled, "She can't talk! She can't act! She's sensational!"
- "Deep down, I'm pretty superficial."
- "I couldn't imagine a better place [Australia] for making a film on the end of the world."
- "Nobody ever called it an intellectual profession."
- "I haven't taken an overdose of sleeping pills and called my agent. I haven't been in jail, and I don't go running to the psychiatrist every two minutes. That's something of an accomplishment these days."
- "I must have seen more sunrises than any other actress in the history of Hollywood."
- "I don't understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of goddamn duty. Doing nothing feels like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect."
- "When I lose my temper, honey, you can't find it any place."
- "I have only one rule in acting -- trust the director and give him heart and soul."
- "All I ever got out of any of my marriages was the two years Artie Shaw financed on an analyst's couch."
- Measurements: 36-23 1/2-37 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
- Part of "On the Beach" was filmed in a Berwick, a suburb of Melbourne. Ava had a street which was being developed at the time named after her. It is of course called "Gardner Street."
- When married to Sinatra, he was at the lowest point of his career. She often had to lend him money so he could buy presents for his children.
- A statue of Ava from The Barefoot Contessa was given to Frank Sinatra as a gift. He kept it in his backyard garden well after their divorce. When he married Barbara Marx, she forced him to get rid of it.
- When shooting "Earthquake" (1974) Gardner surprised director Mark Robson by insisting that she do her own stuntwork, which included dodging blocks of concrete and heavy steel pipes.
- Was a good friend of Lena Horne, despite the fact that they both competed for the part of 'Julie' in Show Boat (1951).
- Daughter-in-law of Joe Yule.
- All three of her marriages were childless.
- Once met J.R.R. Tolkien and neither knew why the other was famous.
- After her death in 1990, Ava's long time housekeeper, Carmen Vargas, and her dog, a Welsh Corgi named Morgan were taken in by her former co-star Gregory Peck.
- She spent her final years as a recluse in her London apartment - her only companions were her longtime housekeeper Carmen Vargas and her beloved Welsh corgi, Morgan. Sinatra paid all her medical expenses after her 1989 stroke which left her partially paralyzed and bedridden. Vargas took her body home to her native North Carolina for private burial. None of her ex-husbands attended.
- There is an Ava Gardner Museum of memorabilia in Smithfield, North Carolina.
- She was continuously under contract at MGM, 1941-1958.
- In a promotion for Little Hut, The (1957), a small island in Fiji was renamed Ava Ava and leased to a contest winner.
- While in Spain, she also became a bullfight fan.
- Flamenco became one of Ava's favorite pastimes after she learned it for Barefoot Contessa, The (1954); increasingly proficient and needing little sleep, she often danced all night.
- She sang in her own voice for Killers, The (1946) but in all MGM films her singing voice was dubbed (much to her disgust).
- Her early education was sketchy; by 1945, she had read two books, the Bible and 'Gone with the Wind'. In later life, she more than made up for this lack by continual self-education.
- Youngest of 7 children, her older siblings were Raymond, Melvin 'Jack', Beatrice 'Bappie', Elsie Mae, Inez and Myra.
- Mother, Mary Elizabeth 'Molly' Gardner, nee Baker; father, Jonas Gardner, tobacco farmer, died of bronchitis 1935.
- Her singing voice was dubbed in the film "Show Boat", with Annette Warren's voice.
- Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#68). [1995]
- Born on a tobacco farm, where she got her lifelong love of earthy language and going barefoot, Ava grew up in the rural South. At age 18, her picture in the window of her brother-in- law's New York photo studio brought her to the attention of MGM, leading quickly to Hollywood and a film contract based strictly on her beauty. With zero acting experience, her first 17 film roles, 1942-5, were one-line bits or little better. After her first starring role in B-grade Whistle Stop (1946), MGM loaned her to Universal for her first outstanding film, Killers, The (1946). Few of her best films were made at MGM which, keeping her under contract for 17 years, used her popularity to sell many mediocre films. Perhaps as a result, she never believed in her own acting ability, but her latent talent shone brightly W_hen brought out by a superior director, as with John Ford in Mogambo (1953) and George Cukor in Bhowani Junction (1956). After 3 failed marriages, dissatisfaction with Hollywood life prompted Ava to move to Spain in 1955; most of her subsequent films were made abroad. By this time, stardom had made the country girl a cosmopolitan, but she never overcame a deep insecurity about acting and life in the spotlight. Her last quality starring film role was in Night of the Iguana, The (1964), her later work being (as she said) strictly "for the loot". In 1968, tax trouble in Spain prompted a move to London, where she spent her last 22 years in reasonable comfort. Her film career did not bring her great fulfillment, but her looks may have made it inevitable; many fans still consider her the most beautiful actress in Hollywood history.
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