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| September 29, 2003 |
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| September 23, 2003 |
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"Stars from the world of showbiz gathered tonight to pay tribute to screen idol Richard Harris. Actors including Alan Rickman and Peter Bowles joined the Limerick star’s family for a memorial event at the Strand Theatre in London’s West End.....The event was organised by Harris’s sons, Damian, Jared and Jamie who booked the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra for the evening....Also attending were film-maker Michael Winner and his wife, and actors David Hemmings and Richard Griffiths. Actor Liam Neesom was also reported to beat the event."
Magda
- Tuesday, September 23, 2003
| September 22, 2003 |
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| September 21, 2003 |
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Film: Something’s got a hold of our hearts His tales of middle-class, middle-youth romance have all made box-office hits. Now Richard Curtis has directed his first film. He talks to Jeff Dawson about love and realism
Canadian audiences are subtly different from their American counterparts. More polite, for one. Also, thanks to historic ties - and a diet of the BBC - they are quite discerning when it comes to British comedy. Benny Hill? Not around these parts, friend. When Richard Curtis is dragged onstage at the Victorian Elgin Theatre in downtown Toronto and introduced, among other things, as the writer of Blackadder, it meets with thunderous approval. On the other side of Niagara Falls, it would prompt only blank stares.
Curtis has never been the most comfortable of public performers. But with the world premiere of his film Love Actually, the hot ticket at the Toronto International Film Festival, there come ceremonial obligations. Some of the actors - Colin Firth, Laura Linney and Rodrigo Santoro - walk on for moral support. But, mercifully, the crowd is putty. The only other time Curtis was at a film festival was in Utah, where Four Weddings and a Funeral previewed before a room full of Mormons; they all stormed out during the opening F-word salvo, he says. If anyone here stays longer than five minutes, he will consider it a triumph.
Two hours later, the standing ovation suggests a capacity for monumental understatement. It is probably a good job he previewed the movie in Canada, though. Two-thirds of the way in, an extraordinary thing happens: the British prime minister (Hugh Grant) makes a rousing speech condemning America as a playground bully and imploring us plucky little islanders (and, one assumes, our Commonwealth chums) to stand up against ghastly Uncle Sam and that reprobate redneck president.
Onscreen, in Blighty, the streets are thrown into a euphoria of Mafeking-relief proportions. In the audience, the liberal old Canadians can barely contain their glee. Below the 49th parallel, Lord knows how this will play.
With his grey hair, glasses and genuinely amiable demeanour, it is hard to imagine Curtis upsetting anybody. “No, it’s pro-American,” he smirks the next day, citing other, less contentious moments. For a man whose previous work has been marketed so adroitly for the USA, the scene still seems out of character. In his hotel room, high above the festival throng, international incidents seem remote. “Look, fundamentally, it’s not a political point, it’s a comic point.” Six months ago, pre-Iraq, Grant’s speech seemed rather clumsy, he says. And in two months’ time, it may appear awkward again. Billy Bob Thornton gets to play the good ole boy in the White House. “I did think of making him French at one point,” laughs Curtis, “but then I thought there wasn’t so much at stake.”
Curtis is probably right, for if anyone knows an audience, it is he. The films he has written - Four Weddings, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary (not forgetting Bean or The Tall Guy) - have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide. Love Actually marks the first time he has stepped behind the camera to direct. “It was reaching a point where I’d stolen enough hints from other people,” he says. “In particular, I got very involved in the edits. I now had strong opinions about where the camera should be, how the actors should act. I just think it was time I dared.” It is a case of going in at the deep end. A tapestry of interweaving stories - of an ageing rocker (Bill Nighy), a fractious marriage (Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman), a widowed father (Liam Neeson), a lovelorn writer (Firth), newlyweds (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Keira Knightley) and an office romance (Linney and Santoro), not to mention the travails of the prime minister - Love Actually is more beddings (but no funeral). “It was quite complicated, but I always knew that I was going to do the next film, and this turned out to be the next film, ” he says. He concedes a certain degree of technical assistance. “I never learnt the difference between a rake and a dolly, and I still don’t know.” But the large cast, he adds (20 lead parts, with even Rowan Atkinson and Gregor Fisher popping up), was actually an advantage, given that the principals came in for just two weeks each, maintaining a perpetual honeymoon period. Where else but a Curtis film would you find your cast in constant rapture?
It is all Edward Heath’s fault. Were it not for our bachelor premier of the early 1970s, Curtis’s appetite would not have been whetted for romance in the corridors of power. “I’ve always had that vague thought in my mind about how brilliant it would be to have someone with a real personality going out with someone in Downing Street.” The resulting story, of a prime minister (Grant) copping off with his tea lady (Martine McCutcheon), was intended to be a film in its own right - as was, separately, the episode featuring Firth (a novelist toiling in Provence and copping off with his thé lady, Lúcia Moniz). In April 2000, Curtis boiled them down and started mixing. “Well, I realised a lot of films I’ve liked recently have had more than one story,” he explains, mentioning movies such as Smoke “and those middle-period Woody Allen films - Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Husbands and Wives”. His most obvious debt, though, is to Robert Altman. “My first sort of adult favourite movie was Nashville, which I absolutely adored because you just felt so spoilt,” he gushes. “And then there’s As You Like It.”
Curtis got a first in English at Oxford, and his knowledge of storytelling has served him well. Some will still argue, though, that Love Actually is simply the next instalment in a series that has become - dare one utter it? - formulaic. All made by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner’s Working Title Films, and produced by Duncan Kenworthy (except Bridget), they have invariably dealt with middle-class, middle-youth love, topped off with an FM lite soundtrack, an offbeat London location (Wandsworth this time, or the bit where they have walk-in Smeg fridges), an American female star and, of course, Hugh Grant.
It’s no secret that Grant has served as Curtis’s alter ego. But don’t expect any changes. “Look, I think I’m a fantastically lucky writer to have somebody who can play my central characters, because, on the whole, central characters are dull,” says Curtis. He cites Dickens, where David Copperfield and the like are redeemed only by their interesting pals. “In a way, in Four Weddings, there was a central, slightly uninteresting bloke and Simon Callow, who sparkled on the edge,” he says. Hugh can be dull and funny. “So why would I ever drop him?” It was the death of Callow’s character in Four Weddings that demonstrated Curtis’s knack for pushing buttons. With several stories at his disposal here, the blubbing possibilities are limitless. When a film kicks off with a voice-over about September 11, musing on the “I love you” phone calls of those trapped inside the Twin Towers, this can hardly fail to prompt the required response. Overtly sentimental? Absolutely. But then, Curtis argues, this is nothing to be ashamed of.
“For years, I’ve been puzzled by why people think the saddest things are the most real,” he says. “‘Searingly realistic’ always means someone is going to be brutally murdered. Yet, in real life, to a lot of people, what is searingly realistic is a mum getting up early, loving her kids, being nice; a husband loving his wife. These things happen all the time. That’s powerfully realistic to me.” September 11, he says, shifted the focus to “the harsh things in life, the chaos and the hatred. More than ever, I think you have to say that isn’t what the world’s really like. That’s one side of it. But the other side of it is all this love stuff”.
Not all will be happy. Certain critics lambasted Notting Hill for its lack of ethnic actors - even though the Portobello Road stallholders and passers-by featured in the street scenes were all real. Curtis seems genuinely hurt by the criticism. “It was a bit weird, because I wanted to call the movie The Famous Girl, and then we wouldn’t have got any criticism at all,” he says. The sheer number of parts in Love Actually, he says, gave him scope to widen his casting. Of his black actors, he had seen Ejiofor in the play Blue/Orange, and fell for Nina Sosanya in Teachers. “In a way, the more black actors who are cast, the more likely you are to cast them.” The same might be said of Martin Freeman (Tim from The Office), Andrew Lincoln (Teachers), Kris Marshall (My Family) and McCutcheon. For if there’s one thing Curtis knows, it’s his telly.
More likely, the press will emphasise Love Actually’s blatant schmaltz (“Luvvy Actually”, “Richard’s Friends” - you can see the headlines already). Though if we can’t indulge in a good old romantic weepie at Christmas, then we’re a lot more jaded than even Curtis gives us credit for. The saving grace here is that Curtis has a big wink at the audience, sending up his whole oeuvre: lampooning, for starters, that accursed ditty Love Is All Around (the film’s original title), the hit song from Four Weddings. “No 1 for 15 weeks, or something,” says Kenworthy. “We feel a bit guilty about that being foisted on the public for so long.”
What’s next for Curtis? There’s a new baby (with his girlfriend, Emma Freud), then he will take a year off to write. He would not be averse to directing again, but only his own material, and even then, only if it felt right. The thing he is eyeing up is a second world war drama. “And I’m not sure I trust myself with that.” We wait for the lifts, which, at Toronto’s Four Seasons, not only take for ever but, unless you jump in instantly, will snap their doors shut on you. Poised, Curtis explains that a similar scenario has just been cut from his continuing rewrite of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
When we emerge into the madness, we bump into an Australian distributor who declares that he was trying to buy Love Actually, but failed. Curtis replies: “I’m pre-bought.” Still not sure about that Hugh Grant speech, though. Later, Kenworthy does a Q&A with some journalists. They, too, feel it might be a bit too close to the knuckle for those a few leagues south. “I know the Republicans in the area I live in will have a problem with it,” one woman tells him. They might be picketing theatres in Texas yet. Curtis as cinema radical? Now that would be an interesting development.
Love Actually opens on Nov 21
Sue
- Sunday, September 21, 2003
| September 20, 2003 |
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Copyright 2003 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
DAILY MAIL (London)
September 19, 2003
SECTION: ED_1ST; Pg. 50
LENGTH: 2077 words
HEADLINE: So who can make Mary Poppins fly?
BYLINE: BAZ BAMIGBOYE
. . . . . . . . . . .
LAST y e a r, when Chiwetel Ejiofor and Keira Knightley were filming their roles in Richard Curtis's enchanting romantic movie Love Actually, they weren't the 'names' they are
now.
Since then, Keira has enjoyed back-to-back hits with Bend It Like Beckham and the summer blockbuster Pirates Of The Caribbean, while Chiwetel has won awards for his
star-making part in Dirty Pretty Things.
In Love Actually, they play a newly married couple who find their best man (Andrew Lincoln) has a jealously problem.
The picture has a series of intertwined love stories, the most prominent being that of a bachelor Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) who falls for his tea lady, played with a hint of
Monica Lewinsky by Martine McCutcheon.
I saw the flm at a special screening in Toronto, and one of the biggest laughs came when Grant's PM is introduced to the Number 10 staff.
In a reference to the current real-life occupants, he tells the housekeeper: 'This should be easier than the last lot.
No nappies, no teenagers, no scary wife.' Billy Bob Thornton co-stars as a lecherous U.S. president who also has designs on the tea lady.
Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman and Bill Nighy - hilarious as an ageing rocker - also star. But the 23 million movie is almost stolen by ten-year- old
Thomas Sangster (a cousin of Hugh Grant), who plays a lovelorn schoolboy.
Olivia Olson is a fellow pupil, and the object of Sangster's desire.
Ms Olson has, as one producer put it, 'the voice of an angel'.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Saturday, September 20, 2003
| September 19, 2003 |
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Given the huge success of songs used in his previous hits, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, the BBC were keen to find out what music will feature in this movie. As Curtis himself explains, 'Music is a really important linking device to keep the emotion going as you cut from tale to tale and show what unites the characters rather than what divides them.... I'm very lucky in that movies are the second most interesting thing to me - I'm much more interested in pop music.'
Of the film soundtrack itself he says; ''It's a very good soundtrack with some good old songs and some good new songs - there's a very good song by the Sugababes, it's called Too Lost in You - it's serious!'
Admitting that there's a lot of pressure on him to succeed as a first-time feature film director, 'It would make some people very happy if the film was a failure!' Curtis dodged questions about future projects - and when asked whether his favourite star Hugh Grant might follow him back to a TV production, he laughed; 'he won't do telly - he's too grand! Although he has done degrading stuff on comic relief from time to time.'
Sue
England - Friday, September 19, 2003
| September 18, 2003 |
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Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information US, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Video Business
September 15, 2003
SECTION: Tipsheet; Drama; Pg. 14
LENGTH: 315 words
HEADLINE: Close My Eyes
BYLINE: By Ed Hulse
Color, R (mature themes, language, sexual situations), 109 min., VHS $19.95, DVD $24.95
DVD: no extras
Street: Oct. 14, Prebook: Sept. 23
First Run: L, Int'l., 1991, <$1 mil.
Cast: Alan Rickman (Sense and Sensibility), Clive Owen (Croupier), Saskia Reeves (Antonia & Jane), Karl Johnson (Pure)
Director: Stephen Poliakoff
HEN'S TOOTH
Story Line: Emotionally fragile Natalie (Reeves) is married to wealthy entrepreneur Sinclair (Rickman). When Natalie is reunited with her younger brother Richard (Owen) after
many years apart, their long-simmering attraction to each other blossoms into an incestuous physical relationship that threatens to destroy them both.
Bottom Line: This unusually powerful drama, made in 1990, has been almost forgotten despite its forthright, non-exploitative treatment of a taboo subject and the edgy
performances of its talented cast. Incest doesn't usually lend itself to sensitive, sympathetic treatment, but talented playwright and dilettante filmmaker Poliakoff manages to
make it palatable enough to sustain viewer interest. The issue isn't skirted or camouflaged; there's no doubt that Natalie and Richard are sexually involved, and her termination
of the affair is clearly shown to have serious consequences. The physical aspect of the incestuous liaisons isn't delineated in a titillating way, however, although the scenes of
Owen and Reeves certainly are erotically charged. Rickman's character, potentially a two-dimensional one, is skillfully limned, and his reaction to the whole mess is probably a
lot more realistic than might be normally expected. These characters aren't merely pawns; they are people coping with achingly real desires--and that's what makes Close My
Eyessuch a fascinating film. Some renters might find the subject off-putting, but those with reasonably sophisticated world views will be accepting.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, September 18, 2003
| September 17, 2003 |
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Alan Rickman was .. and probably still is .. attending a private function at the Royal National Theatre tonight!
An unexpected bonus to the end of an evening of excellent theatre with Kenneth Branagh.
Claire & Dana
- Wednesday, September 17, 2003
A skyscraper with Bruce Willis in it
his nemesis: German terrorist
but it’s not Alan Rickman
not Alan Rickman, no
it’s just a character in a film.
Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman
swashbuckle the Sheriff of Nottingham
but it’s not Alan Rickman
not Alan Rickman, no
it’s just a character in a film
based on a myth.
A duel with Brannagh sporting a black cape
the silkily evil Professor Snape
but it’s not Alan Rickman
not Alan Rickman, no
it’s just a character in a film
based on a book
from someone’s head.
truly, madly, deeply it is not Alan Rickman
truly, madly, deeply it is not Alan Rickman
truly, madly, deeply it is not Alan Rickman
truly, madly, deeply it is not Alan Rickman
Words and music by Adam Leonard
(Thanks, Leah!)
Suzanne , <webmistress@alan-rickman.comfoo>
TX, USA - Wednesday, September 17, 2003
"Thanks for your interest in RW009. Unfortunately this item is no longer available but we are currently considering re-pressing. I suggest you check the Eden's Engine website in a month or two to see if this happens."
I also checked Adam Leonard's page again and the CD single has been moved to the home page with a caption that notes some "very unexpected (and late!) interest" in this CD. They also ask you to email them if you are interested.
So there you go--express yourselves, Rickmaniacs!
Ali-Pat , <ali-pat@earthlink.netfoo>
Dayton, OH, USA - Wednesday, September 17, 2003
| September 16, 2003 |
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Copyright 2003 Gannett Company, Inc.
USA TODAY
September 15, 2003, Monday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: LIFE; Pg. 6D
LENGTH: 590 words
HEADLINE: Toronto gets a little funny
BYLINE: Harlan Jacobson; Special for USA TODAY
DATELINE: TORONTO
TORONTO -- Dark comedies touched a chord at the Toronto Film Festival, raising hopes that the Academy Awards will uncharacteristically honor something funny.
The festival, which ended Sunday, is seen as an early test ground for Oscar hopes. The buzz for 1999 best-picture winner American Beauty started here. This year's People's
Choice award, voted on by moviegoers, went to Zatoichi, director/star/writer Takeshi Kitano's story of a blind swordsman.
But it was the Tokyo-set Lost in Translation that raised the not-so-offbeat idea of an Oscar nomination for Bill Murray as a depressed actor taking stock of his failing career
and marriage.
Like Lost in Translation, the darkly comedic movies here often involve men seeking a second chance at meaning in their lives:
* In Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men, now in theaters, Nicolas Cage's con man jumps at the chance for redemption via a long-lost daughter (Alison Lohman).
* Canadian Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World, one of the big critical hits, satirizes Canada and the USA with its darkly funny story of a contest mounted by a
double-amputee beer heiress (Isabella Rossellini) to have the nations of the world compete to see who has the saddest tune.
* Wayne Kramer's The Cooler breathes new life into a loser played by William H. Macy, whose luck is so bad he has a job in a Vegas casino run by Alec Baldwin to cool off the
craps tables where someone is winning. Due Nov. 19.
* Love Actually involves an ensemble of talent -- Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney and Hugh Grant as a Tony-Blair-style prime minister
-- all seeking the redemptive power of love. Due Nov. 7.
* Nicotina, a comedy of errors, by director Hugo Rodriguez, has killer con men, a computer geek (Y Tu Mama Tambien's Diego Luna), a beautiful violinist, a tyrannical
pharmacist, a befuddled barber and his crazed wife, who gives a comic twist to the term "gut-wrenching performance."
* Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, by Danish director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners), is the comic tale of a man avoiding redemption who is detoured from increasingly
desperate suicide tries.
* Failed rocker Jack Black takes his cues from John Belushi in transforming a class of 10-year-old prep school twits into a rock band in School of Rock.
Amid the humor, tragic redemption stories were here as well: . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Martine spoke of how dreadfully nervous she was to be surrounded by so many famous actors.
“When we had our first read through I was so intimidated I just sat there and I was shaking like a leaf and after the read through I went, ‘Did I speak English or did I just go garblegarblegarble all the way through?’ and Alan Rickman was brilliant all the way through, he was so nice, he just really kept me calm. I kept kicking him under the table going ‘It’s my bit in a minute!’ and he was, like, ‘Calm down!’ I was like a five year old!”
Rickfan37
UK - Tuesday, September 16, 2003
| September 15, 2003 |
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The 12 September Daily Variety still lists HP3:POA as "filming outside the US."
Georgiana (began 2/24--approaching 7 mos. now)
Seattle - Monday, September 15, 2003
Copyright 2003 Guardian Newspapers Limited
The Observer
September 14, 2003
SECTION: Observer Review Pages, Pg. 7
LENGTH: 8359 words
HEADLINE: Review: Arts: Four-page special: 50 TOP TIPS FOR THE AUTUMN: Justin Timberlake live, Prime Suspect VI, the latest Tarantino, a new Helen Fielding, Degas in
Edinburgh... with a packed season ahead, Observer critics pick the hottest acts to follow
BYLINE: Geraldine Bedell, Oliver Bennett, Tom Bragg, Susannah Clapp, Rachel Cooke, Kitty Empire, Kathryn Flett, Kirsty de Garis, Liz Hoggard, Anthony Holden, Kate Kellaway,
Stephanie Merritt, Dee O'Connell,
. . . . . . . . . .
17FILM LOVE ACTUALLY
It would be easy to get all high-minded and sniffy about this directorial debut from Richard Curtis, writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill , but it would also be
wrong. It's winter, it's cold and we'll all need a bit of incredibly skilful rom com. The film tells the intertwining stories of a vast range of characters, played by such luminaries as
Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, and of course Hugh Grant, whose love interest is Martine McCutcheon. It got a terrific reception at the Toronto Film Festival and
should push all the right buttons. DO'C
Love Actually is released on 21 Nov
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, September 15, 2003
| September 14, 2003 |
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He did do the shoot, for I have a photo somewhere showing him standing on a tube train behind Sophie Dahl, who does appear, but tonight all the action took place outside a theatre, to which Sophie's character arrived late (I presume having been delayed on the tube on her way there). If it is any small consolation, his appearance, per the sketchy plot, would have been disappointingly brief. And to think I upgraded my subsription for nothing. Bah!
I am sorry to disappoint people.
Rickfan37
UK - Sunday, September 14, 2003
| September 13, 2003 |
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| September 11, 2003 |
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| September 9, 2003 |
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Copyright 2003 CanWest Interactive, a division of
CanWest Global Communications Corp.
All Rights Reserved
The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec)
September 9, 2003 Tuesday Final Edition
SECTION: Arts & Life; John Griffin; Pg. D5
LENGTH: 943 words
HEADLINE: So many films, so little sleep: Nonstop activity. Lost in Translation and Love Actually among highlights
SOURCE: The Gazette
BYLINE: JOHN GRIFFIN
DATELINE: TORONTO
Yesterday the Toronto International Film Festival settled down to the business of show business.
Professionally speaking, this consisted of watching 8:30 a.m. movies like Robert Altman's The Company, a modest but stunningly composed tribute to Chicago's Joffrey Ballet
and the arduous craft of creation, starring ex-ballerina Neve Campbell; and its polar opposite, Richard Linklater's all-ages comedy The School of Rock, setting Jack Black loose
among a bunch of private-school kids.
There were press conferences, seminars, roundtable interviews and individual chats over coffee on hotel terraces in continuing midsummer weather. And there were notes to
compare with other foot soldiers in the 700-member regiment of journalists that descends upon this event from almost every country in the world.
Those with the necessary faculties could look back on the unnaturally active weekend and share a few stories. (Forget reports about Nicole Kidman, Nic Cage, Sir Ridley Scott,
Francis Ford Coppola, Christina Ricci or Val Kilmer. They were here, but moving in a different crowd.)
Most recent in memory, and therefore more likely to reflect reality, was Sunday night's "work-in-progress" screening of Love Actually, the directorial debut of British writer
Richard Curtis. The name may not be familiar to everyone, but his scripts for Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones's Diary are the international gold
standard in mainstream adult comedy.
It was no surprise, then, that a mob scene descended on the historic Elgin Theatre on Yonge St., creating block-long lineups and bringing out Toronto's finest to keep the
peace. It also encouraged Los Angeles's unfinest to push their industrial weight around in the protection of their corporate bosses, whose stretch limos took up an entire block
off Yonge, engines idling in defiance of local environmental ordinance to keep their occupants chilled.
Curtis introduced his film with the same elegant self-deprecation he brings to his work. He then brought on members from the production, including Colin Firth and Laura Linney,
before taking a seat for the first public screening of a film that is expected to put healthy bonuses under Working Title/Universal Pictures's Christmas tree when it is released
"in cinemas - on November 21, actually," to quote from a print press campaign already in full swing.
The studios are flinging the PR money about because Curtis is the closest thing to a sure thing in the movies these days, and because he has assembled a British supergroup
to act in a shamelessly manipulative and therefore appallingly appealing romantic comedy I like to call Four Weddings and a Funeral for Bridget Jones's Diary About a Boy in
Notting Hill.
Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson, Firth and Linney star in a frantic, multiplotted story about the
universality of love that alternatingly clogs the veins, quickens the pulse, fills the eyes and hammers the funny bone.
It is, in other words, pure Curtis - boldly stolen from his own work and that of Nick Hornby, and set during the five weeks before Christmas (note release date) among the smart
set in London, with side trips to Portugal and Wisconsin. A final split-screen montage of normal people hugging each other to the strains of Brian Wilson's incomparable God
Only Knows sent a crowd that had been with Curtis since hello into a frenzy. Love Actually will make a billion dollars this winter.
Sofia Coppola's indie production Lost in Translation will not make as much money, but it will do more for her reputation than any fat bank account. If her debut feature - The
Virgin Suicides - introduced a strong new voice to film, her new story about an over-the-hill action star and a bright young married American who strike up a friendship in a
Tokyo hotel confirms it. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson create on-screen magic and Coppola finds fresh ways to describe the crisis of crossroads in our lives.
Too bad so little of it came out during her monosyllabic interviews Sunday. She had just flown in from the film's world premiere in Venice, was jet-lagged and about to hit the
wall. She apologized, which came as small solace to the ragged wretches breathing tainted air in the narrow corridors of the hotel where the meeting was held. You sign on to do
this stuff, you do it. Young Johansson (The Horse Whisperer, Ghost World) may have given her handlers diva fits, but she was absolutely articulate in action.
Articulation was not a prerequisite for the weekend's Perspective Canada party in the parking lot of Citytv on trendoid Queen St. Whatever cachet the event might have had has
long since been overwhelmed by its size (2,000 of your closest friends) and its clientele (the highlights and implants set). The once-bucolic Sunday picnic up at E.P. Taylor's
old place in North York has gone the same way, the charm squeezed out of it by sponsorship and the city's sociopathic pursuit of status. There was also, apparently, a huge
bash thrown by CanWest Global to launch its new jazz station here.
The best parties were the smallest and the most easily accessed. Seville served finger food and cocktails on a terrace atop its offices on happenin' King St. W., and there was a
great bash on gay Church St. For those whose tastes run in other directions, merry hempster Woody Harrelson conducted a yoga session Sunday on the grounds of the
University of Toronto while in town to promote Go Further, a new documentary by Ron Mann about organic living. The session was free. Everyone was invited.
jgriffin@thegazette.canwest.com
GRAPHIC: Photo: AARON HARRIS, CP; Laura Linney and Colin Firth arrive for the premiere of the romantic comedy Love Actually in Toronto.
Georgiana (I'd have loved to have seen "Benefactors" on stage. Did anyone?)
Seattle - Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Variety
September 8, 2003 - September 14, 2003
SECTION: LEGIT; Strands; Pg. 64
LENGTH: 657 words
HEADLINE: Returning intrigues
BYLINE: MATT WOLF
LONDON "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," the Christopher Hampton stage adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos's 1782 novel that was one of the defining stage events of the 1980s,
is wending its deliciously nasty way back to the West End. Plans are brewing for a November opening that should enliven what otherwise looks like a distinctly sleepy
commercial London lineup this fall.
The director will be Tim Fywell, who won acclaim earlier this year for his debut film, "I Capture the Castle." Fywell's co-producer on "Castle," Trademark Films' David Parfitt,
will back the stage revival alongside Ambassador Theater Group impresario Howard Panter. No performers have yet been announced, but expectations are for a young,
presumably sexy cast who can do for the play in the 21st century what Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan did nearly two decades ago. (One name being quietly mooted to star
is a British thesp recently seen Off Broadway.)
Play was originally preemed by the Royal Shakespeare Co. in Stratford under Howard Davies' direction before transferring to London's Barbican and then on to a commercial run
that survived several years and numerous changes of cast. ("Hill Street Blues" thesp Daniel J. Travanti was among those who inherited Rickman's career-making role as the
scheming Vicomte de Valmont.)
On Broadway in 1987, the play was shorter-lived, but nonetheless earned rave reviews and seven Tony nominations, losing in numerous categories to August Wilson's
"Fences." Stephen Frears' 1988 movie version won several Oscars, including one for Hampton's screenplay.
The decision to revisit the play isn't especially surprising. In the past few years, virtually every successful British play from the 1980s has had a London or New York
(sometimes both) revival of some sort or other, including "Noises Off," "Benefactors," "Amadeus" and "The Real Thing." Fywell's production will have nothing to do with a
recent regional theater stand of "Liaisons," starring Rupert Penry-Jones, that played the Bristol Old Vic.
Georgiana (I'd have loved to have seen "Benefactors" on stage. Did anyone?)
Seattle - Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Copyright 2003 Telegraph Group Limited
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
September 09, 2003, Tuesday
SECTION: Pg. 18
LENGTH: 722 words
HEADLINE: Actually, it's great fun David Gritten on Richard Curtis's directing debut, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival
BYLINE: BY DAVID GRITTEN
WHY is Richard Curtis Britain's most successful screenwriter by a mile? Partly it's because audiences happily turn up to his romantic comedies with a fair idea of what to
expect. Anyone familiar with his hits - Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral - could tick off a list of elements one might reasonably expect from a
Curtis film.
These include a funeral, a wedding, Hugh Grant in a leading role, a character swearing intemperately, endearingly bad pop music, social gaffes, grief and pain juxtaposed with
comedy, London looking ravishing, a specific kind of Englishness, and an optimistic world view.
All the above are to be found in Love Actually, enthusiastically received at its first public screening on Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival. For the first time, Curtis has
directed a film as well as writing its screenplay, and his stamp is unmistakable; Love Actually feels like a greatest-hits compendium.
This is not to detract from the consummate writing skill underpinning it. Love Actually is what used to be called a portmanteau film, with Curtis dexterously cutting back and
forth between nine sets of loosely linked characters and storylines. Appropriately for a film that opens on November 21, all the action occurs in the weeks leading up to
Christmas.
A newly elected bachelor prime minister (Grant) falls headlong for the woman who brings him his tea at Number 10 (Martine McCutcheon). His sister (Emma Thompson) is
crushed to learn that her husband (Alan Rickman) is planning a fling with his secretary. One of his employees (Laura Linney) finally seduces a colleague she has long fancied,
but the romance is halted by her need to stay in phone contact with her mentally disturbed brother.
Liam Neeson is a grieving widower who must now tend to his 11-year-old stepson, himself a bit lovelorn. Colin Firth plays a writer, cuckolded by his own brother, who flees with
his typewriter to a refuge in the south of France - and falls in love across language barriers with a Portuguese cleaning woman (Lucia Moniz.) New bride Keira Knightley is the
object of unspoken love from best man Andrew Lincoln. And Bill Nighy shines as Billy Mack, a burned-out rocker (think Keith Richards meets Ozzy Osbourne) with a surprise
Christmas Number One contender on his hands: a re-make of Love Is All Around, already familiar to Curtis fans.
But that title summarises the film's theme: that love actually is all around. Curtis highlights people's essential goodness at crucial moments - weddings and funerals, of course,
and also airports. In Curtis's world, Heathrow is ideal for observing people affectionately greeting each other, and for staging a dramatic dash to intercept a departing loved one.
His world is also becoming gradually more inclusive: no Asian characters are seen, but three black Britons have (admittedly minor) speaking roles.
The old pros in a strong cast acquit themselves splendidly. Nighy, looking hilariously wasted, almost steals the film, but Emma Thompson's beautifully nuanced performance is
its emotional core. In the film's most affecting scene, she stands beside her marriage bed, tearfully breaks down, then pulls herself together; no words, just body language.
Much rubbish has been written about her career being damaged by the hostile reception to her film Imagining Argentina; here is an eloquent response.
Inevitably, some stories work better than others; Thompson's and Linney's are the simplest and most effective. Grant's much-vaunted turn as the PM never quite ignites,
largely because his romance with McCutcheon (who seems flat and overawed in this starry company) never rings true. But the ever-watchable Grant has an amusing scene,
boogeying around Number 10 unobserved (or so he thinks). He also gets the best speech - a stirring, patriotic moment when he lists Britain's virtues and berates an
overbearing US president (Billy Bob Thornton) for bullying us. Cue cheers and applause in hundreds of Odeons.
Still, Curtis is the real star: a master of the feelgood movie, a man not ashamed to be corny or sentimental, and happily asserting reasons to be cheerful. Love Actually
re-affirms his stature as a great populist entertainer. Move over Calendar Girls, here comes the year's big British movie hit.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Copyright 2003 Financial Times Information
All rights reserved
Global News Wire - Europe Intelligence Wire
Copyright 2003 Independent Newspapers (UK) Limited
The Independent
September 9, 2003
LENGTH: 639 words
HEADLINE: PANDORA
BYLINE: Sholto Byrnes
. . . . . . . . . .
At an 80th birthday party held for him by the British Film Institute on Sunday, Sir Richard Attenborough was congratulated by the likes of Alan Rickman, Sir John Mills, Saeed
Jaffrey and Anthony Minghella. After showing a clip of Attenborough's first ever film, Journey Together, there was a Q&A session. "What do you think of your performance?"
asked David Robinson, author of a BFI book about Attenborough. "Well, it was a bit lip-trembly," replied the famously lachrymose thespian, "but that has been part of my scene
for quite some time."
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, September 09, 2003
| September 8, 2003 |
|---|
Copyright 2003 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
The Evening Standard (London)
September 8, 2003
LENGTH: 287 words
HEADLINE: RATHER GOOD...ACTUALLY
RICHARD CURTIS, screenwriter of Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill, has made a triumphant directing debut at the Toronto Film Festival with Love Actually.
Although billed as a work in progress with some dubbing to be completed, the audience was delighted with the film, which interweaves eight love stories.
Hugh Grant is one of an ensemble cast, although as a dashing bachelor prime minister he naturally attracts the most attention.
Within minutes of entering Downing Street he falls for the curvaceous young woman who brings the tea (Martine McCutcheon).
Curtis juggles his stories deftly, somehow managing to link them without making the contrivance too irritating.
The cast list is long and talented. Alan Rickman plays a man married to Emma Thompson who is besieged by an overtly desirous secretary. Colin Firth is a thriller writer
two-timed by his girlfriend, who decamps to a villa in the south of France and falls for the Portuguese cleaning girl.
Newly widowed Liam Neeson finds his 11-year-old son pining for a girl at school.
Bill Nighy excels as a washed-up old rocker who exposes himself on Michael Parkinson's programme. It is no surprise that everything comes right in the end with ingenious
plot-boiling.
Toronto is now the best testbed for new films and offers a discriminating local audience who spotted American Beauty and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
The festival attracts more stars and film-makers than any other with 63 world premieres this year.
Will the real prime minister be invited to the British premiere of the GBP 23 million film on 21 November? 'We'll ask him but he'll probably have other things on his plate,' said producer Duncan Kenworthy.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, September 08, 2003
Copyright 2003 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
The Evening Standard (London)
September 4, 2003
SECTION: ES MAG; Pg. 24
LENGTH: 1937 words
HEADLINE: Bright young things
. . . . . . . . . .
Jamie Cullum, 24 JAZZ
PIANIST A cheeky chappie with a lovely voice, this jazz pianist/singer is self-taught, yet has put out two albums in two years the first, Pointless Nostalgic, was a great critical success; the release of Twentysomething next month is eagerly awaited. Fans include Cat Deeley, Alan Rickman and Prince William Cullum played at an intimate Royal Family
dinner. Despite his success, he still honours commitments to play at friends' weddings.
. . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, September 08, 2003
| September 7, 2003 |
|---|
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
September 7, 2003, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 2; Page 65; Column 1; Arts and Leisure Desk
LENGTH: 8598 words
HEADLINE: THE NEW SEASON/FILM;
Hippies and Orphans, Desperados and Dummies
BYLINE: By DAVE KEHR; Compiled with the assistance of SUZANNE O'CONNOR
All dates subject to change.
. . . . . . . . . . .
November 21
LOVE ACTUALLY -- Richard Curtis, the screenwriter of "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill" and "Bridget Jones's Diary," takes up directing with an ensemble piece
that intertwines 10 different love stories. One takes place between the British prime minister (Hugh Grant) and his new tea girl (Martine McCutcheon); the other lovestruck
actors include Laura Linney, Rowan Atkinson, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, Denise Richards and Alan Rickman.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Sunday, September 07, 2003
| September 6, 2003 |
|---|
| September 3, 2003 |
|---|
Movieline Magazine, March/April 2003
"Attack of the Killer Second Bananas" by Joe Queenan
"...before you knew it, Costner was getting upstaged by his own second bananas: Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (though Rickman is not so much a second banana as an entire plantation of bananas -- all of them overripe)..."
Barbara the Wallpaperer
- Wednesday, September 3, 2003
| August 31, 2003 |
|---|
August 29 "Daily Variety" still lists HP:POA as "filming outside the U.S."
Georgiana
Seattle - Sunday, August 31, 2003
Copyright 2003 CanWest Interactive, a division of
CanWest Global Communications Corp.
All Rights Reserved
The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec)
August 30, 2003
Saturday Final Edition
SECTION: Arts in Autumn; Pg. K13
LENGTH: 600 words
HEADLINE: From racism to romance: Busy fall for film. Kidman, Hopkins lead pack with Human Stain
SOURCE: The Gazette
BYLINE: JOHN GRIFFIN
This is the time of year when Hollywood wakes up and smells the awards season. Look for the very best the industry has to offer between now and the patter of tiny reindeer feet
on the snow-covered roofs of the nation.
. . . . . . . . . . .
NOVEMBER
Love Actually: Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman - the gold standard of British romantic comedy - join Four Weddings writer Richard Curtis for a welcome confection
about that crazy little thing called love. Also stars Laura Linney and Liam Neeson.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Sunday, August 31, 2003
| August 29, 2003 |
|---|
| August 28, 2003 |
|---|
"'I was doing a Shakespeare workshop in London with Ian McKellan. I was debating whether or not to do ["Dragonheart"] and Ian at that point hadn't done films. He said, "Oh, God, if I could do it all over again, I'd bloody do films from the start. I'm flat broke. I'd just grab it, if I was you, love." And I did, and I've worked in films ever since.'
"He has followed a parade of great English actors who've come to the U.S. to make bucks as dastards, including Lord Laurence Olivier ('Marathon Man'), Alan Rickman ('Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves') and Jeremy Irons ('Die Hard With a Vengeance'). 'They're great parts,' Isaacs said. 'They're really the best parts. If you're lucky and you play it right and don't take too many of them, there's a longevity in it. Those poor romantic lead buggers. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to carry every film you're in. I get to come along and chew up the scenery.'"
[The interview discusses his appearances in "CSI: Miami", the new indie "Passionada", as well as the new version of "Peter Pan" (Isaacs is Capt. Hook/Mr. Darling) which is being released in December.]
Lily
Chicago, IL - Thursday, August 28, 2003
| August 27, 2003 |
|---|
Copyright 2003 Telegraph Group Limited
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
August 27, 2003, Wednesday
SECTION: Pg. 05
LENGTH: 398 words
HEADLINE: Hugh Grant's romantic comedy will have No 10 in a spin
BYLINE: By Michael Paterson
IT is a spin doctor's nightmare. A bachelor prime minister arrives at 10 Downing Street and falls in love on his first day with, of all people, the tea lady. Even worse, they are
spotted together at a Christmas pageant.
This is the basis of one of the many plots in Love Actually, the next romantic comedy from the team behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones's Diary.
It promises to have many of the winning ingredients of previous productions from the Working Title stable and, on the team's previous form, the project, with a cast of major
names, is likely to be an enormous box office success on both sides of the Atlantic.
Hugh Grant stars as the prime minister, with Martine McCutcheon, formerly of EastEnders as the tea lady who captures his heart. The twists and turns of their romance are
interwoven with other characters in 10 separate stories of love in London which merge into the film's Christmas Eve climax.
The prime minister's sister Karen (played by Emma Thompson) is married to Harry (Alan Rickman), who is pursued by a German colleague (Heidi Makatsch).
Meanwhile, Colin Firth plays a jilted writer who moves to the south of France and falls in love with his Portuguese housekeeper. Andrew Lincoln (This Life, Teachers) is besotted
with Keira Knightley (Bend It Like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean), who marries an unsuitable suitor.
Liam Neeson is devoted to his stepson, played by Grant's real cousin, Thomas Sangster. The two have their own issues with unrequited love. If this is not enough to satisfy star
spotters, Billy Bob Thornton, the grizzled ex-husband of Angelina Jolie, has a cameo role as the US president.
Publicity material for the film, to be released on Nov 21, describes the many love affairs as "sometimes romantic, sometimes sad, sometimes stupid - all funny in their own
way".
The film is the directorial debut of Richard Curtis, who has also written the script. His screenplays have gone a large way towards giving British screen comedy its best
reputation since the heyday of the Ealing studios.
Four Weddings, made for pounds 4 million, took pounds 150 million worldwide, Notting Hill, made for pounds 27 million, took pounds 230 million, and Bridget Jones's Diary
made for pounds 18 million and took more than pounds 100 million, according to the Internet Movie Database.
[PS]News: [ES]
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, August 27, 2003
LONDON (Reuters) - Hugh Grant will play a charismatic, bachelor prime minister who falls in love with a tea-lady in a romantic comedy due for Christmas release, its makers say.
"Love Actually" reunites the team behind box office hits "Notting Hill" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and is the biggest Brit-flick hope in years.
Grant stars with Martine McCutcheon, little known outside Britain where she is famous for appearing in the top-rated soap EastEnders.
She is joined by Hollywood names such as Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson and Emma Thompson. Comic actor Rowan Atkinson, who plays the bungling Mr Bean, makes a cameo appearance.
Set in wintry London around Christmas, the film intertwines the premier`s unlikely love for the woman who makes the tea with nine other love stories.
Grant`s character has been compared to Tony Blair, the youngest premier since 1812, although its makers deny any deliberate comparison.
It was made by Working Title films and United International Pictures and is due for release on both sides of the Atlantic on November 21.
Newspapers are predicting it will be one of the biggest British hits in years, but it faces tough opposition at the box office from the latest Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings instalments.
Claire
- Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Copyright 2003 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
The Evening Standard (London)
August 26, 2003
SECTION: A_MERGE; Pg. 3
LENGTH: 329 words
HEADLINE: Hugh and cry
BYLINE: RICHARD SIMPSON
AMAZE of love matches make up a movie that is set to be this year's smash hit. But the plot of romantic comedy Love Actually is not going to be the easiest to follow.
As these exclusive pictures show, Hugh Grant leads a cast that also includes Martine McCutcheon, Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth and Keira Knightley.
And what a tangled web they weave - not surprising, when the film comes from the same team that produced Notting Hill, Bridget Jones's Diary and Four Weddings And A
Funeral.
Grant plays a young, single prime minister. His love interest comes in the somewhat unlikely form of his tea lady, played by former EastEnders and My Fair Lady star
McCutcheon (love match one). The prime minister has a sister, Karen - played by Emma Thompson - and she is married to Alan Rickman's character Harry to provide love
match two.
Harry is relentlessly pursued by an office temptress played by German beauty Heike Makatsch, which makes love match three.
Firth plays a writer jilted by his love who moves to the south of France to start anew, only to land in the arms of his Portuguese housekeeper, played by Lucia Moniz (love match
four).
Liam Neeson's love - not the romantic variety this time - is for his stepson, played by rising star Thomas Sangster, who in real life is Hugh Grant's cousin.
Confused? We're only halfway there. In the film, even young Sangster has a crush on the prettiest girl in the school. Neeson, by the way, also has a crush on Claudia Schiffer.
One love match - or mismatch in this case - involves Keira Knightley's character Juliet, who marries Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
Their wedding proves that the power of love can be as wild as a tornado.
If Love Actually - directed by Richard Curtis and out in November - sounds like Notting Hill, Four Weddings, Sliding Doors and Bridget Jones all rolled into one, that's because
it probably will be. But, if a formula works, why not stick with it?
GRAPHIC: ODD COUPLE: HUGH GRANT PLAYS A SINGLE PRIME MINISTER WHO FALLS FOR A TEA LADY (MARTINE MCCUTCHEON) IN LOVE ACTUALLY DEVIL MAY CARE: HEIKE MAKATSCH AND ALAN RICKMAN LOOK OF LOVE: LAURA LINNEY AND COLIN FIRTH ABOUT A BOY: LIAM NEESON AS DANIEL WITH HIS ONSCREEN STEPSON SAM (THOMAS SANGSTER) THEIR BIG DAY: CHIWETEL EJIOFOR AND KEIRA KNIGHTLEY
Georgiana (Harry!)
Seattle - Wednesday, August 27, 2003
LONDON (Reuters) - Hugh Grant will play a charismatic, bachelor prime minister who falls in love with a tea-lady in a romantic comedy due for Christmas release, its makers say.
"Love Actually" reunites the team behind box office hits "Notting Hill" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and is the biggest Brit-flick hope in years.
Grant stars with Martine McCutcheon, little known outside Britain where she is famous for appearing in the top-rated soap EastEnders.
She is joined by Hollywood names such as Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson and Emma Thompson. Comic actor Rowan Atkinson, who plays the bungling Mr Bean, makes a cameo appearance.
Set in wintry London around Christmas, the film intertwines the premier`s unlikely love for the woman who makes the tea with nine other love stories.
Grant`s character has been compared to Tony Blair, the youngest premier since 1812, although its makers deny any deliberate comparison.
It was made by Working Title films and United International Pictures and is due for release on both sides of the Atlantic on November 21.
Newspapers are predicting it will be one of the biggest British hits in years, but it faces tough opposition at the box office from the latest Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings instalments.
Claire
- Wednesday, August 27, 2003
| August 25, 2003 |
|---|
Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Limited
Sunday Times (London)
August 24, 2003, Sunday
SECTION: Features; Culture; 51
LENGTH: 524 words
HEADLINE: The one to watch
BYLINE: Sally Kinnes
Alibi. Monday, ITV1, 9.15pm
For all ITV's flirtation with golden handshakes and exclusive deals, its highest-rated new drama last year was not a vehicle for those who had been considered its biggest stars,
such as Robson Green, Sarah Lancashire or Ross Kemp.
It didn't even feature an actor under 30. Its biggest new hit starred Michael Kitchen, an actor who seems to be hitting his stride at the age of 54.
The drama was Foyle's War, an old-fashioned detective series full of period charm set in the second world war. It returns later this year, but Kitchen is much more than an actor
who looks good in a fedora.
An underrated star, you can see just how good he is tomorrow in Alibi. This is an uncategorisable two-parter, which is not quite a thriller and not quite a black comedy, though it
has elements of both.
Written by Paul Abbott (State of Play, Clocking Off), it begins with a setup of Hitchcockian promise. Kitchen's character throws a party for his wife, during which one of the
caterers (the excellent Sophie Okonedo) notices she is clearly not as faithful as Kitchen believes. After the party, Okonedo forgets her bag and has to return to the house,
where she finds Kitchen standing over a corpse. For a while, you have no idea how it might develop.
"It's a very unusual drama for ITV," says the director, David Richards. "They kept saying, 'What is it, is it a thriller or what?' but it's really about a rather odd relationship that
develops between two mismatched people (Kitchen and Okonedo) who would never normally meet. Paul Abbott and I are interested in people who have bigger emotions going on
than they have the capacity to express, and essentially Alibi is about a rather disorganised, repressed, middle-aged man carried through this awful situation by a much
younger, apparently ordinary woman."
Kitchen is perfect in it. "He's terrifically good at suggesting a boiling rage of suppressed emotion, while on the surface being calm," says Richards. "Whatever he is saying, he
always looks as if he might be thinking something else."
One of the generation of actors who began his career at the RSC and the National, Kitchen made a few Hollywood movies, including Out of Africa and The Russia House.
He has never made it big in Tinseltown, however, specialising in baddies, unlike, say, Alan Rickman. But Kitchen is so good, you cannot help but wonder why he has never
become a big star. Why hasn't he made it into the super league, like John Thaw or David Jason? "You never know why these things don't happen," says Richards. "It's certainly
not lack of ability."
Until Foyle's War, he had been one of those actors who is never out of work, yet never the star. He never does interviews, but he is hardly the first actor to keep a low profile.
"David Jason appeals to lots of people and John Thaw was very good at being interestingly grumpy, but Michael is more idiosyncratic," says Richards.
"He's attractive -whenever I say I'm working with him, loads of women say they fancy him, but maybe he is too acquired a taste." Acquired taste or not, this is a vintage
performance.
Georgiana (Kitchen was the architect across the street from Mr. Rickman in "Benefactors" and also in "Enchanted April" with Polly Walker)
- Monday, August 25, 2003
| August 23, 2003 |
|---|
Copyright 2003 EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS
The Express
August 23, 2003
SECTION: COLUMNS; Pg. 40
LENGTH: 310 words
HEADLINE: DOC SHOWBIZ; POOR FISHER LOOKING FOR FOR A NIBBLE
BYLINE: GAVIN DOCHERTY
DON'T expect to see a lot of Gregor Fisher in much-ballyhooed Love Actually, the first directing effort from Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones writer
Richard Curtis.
He has only a modest part in this star-studded romantic comedy featuring a juggernaut of talent including Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Billy Bob
Thornton and Keira Knightley.
The harsh fact is that Gregor, 50, could do with a nice beefy part after two disastrous sitcoms, Brotherly Love and Snoddy. Apart from career considerations, the guy needs the
moolah to pay for those fancy cars, fine malts and a hefty mortgage owed on a still very impressive country pile.
Filming involved Gregor for just a couple of weeks and is the only acting work he has done in 18 months . . . that won't keep his bank manager happy at all.
In order to trim back the financial engines, Gregor has downsized twice. Now he's holed up in slightly more modest place in the Borders, enjoying some quality time with his wife
and two weans and pottering around his beloved garden.
"Gregor's known for his spending and likes the good life, " says a pal.
"He's very generous and has even paid for friends to go on holiday."
So, is Gregor's career in crisis?
Not according to agent Belinda Wright. "Gregor's considering a number of offers at the moment, " she tells me. "But nothing's concrete."
What's clear is that Gregor, a fine actor, has effectively turned back the clock 20 years to when he was a supporting actor in films such as Another Time, Another Place and The
Girl In the Picture.
Maybe his low-key appearance in Love Actually could be a shrewd move. After all, look how fellow Scot John Hannah's career took off with a similar non-starring role in Curtis's
smash Four Weddings.
The Doc wishes Gregor a speedy recovery.
Georgiana
Seattle - Saturday, August 23, 2003
| August 22, 2003 |
|---|
22 August Daily Variety lists HP3:POE still as 'filming outside the US.'
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, August 22, 2003
| August 21, 2003 |
|---|
Daily Variety
August 20, 2003, Wednesday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1
HEADLINE: A TURN IN CANUCK LUCK
BYLINE: DAVID ROONEY and TAMSEN TILLSON
HIGHLIGHT:
Toronto Fest bounces back with high-end film lineup
:
The studios and their top filmmakers are taking a wary view of the top fests, but the Toronto Intl. Film Festival, which announced its full lineup Tuesday, has scored what is arguably an impressive slate of high-end product.
. . . . . . . . . .
Other key premieres scattered through the fest include Mike Hodges' "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," starring Clive Owens, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Charlotte Rampling, unspooling in the
Masters sidebar; John Crowley's "Intermission," with Colin Farrell, in Contemporary World Cinema; actor-turned-director David Thewlis' "Cheeky" screening as a special presentation;
and in the same section, screenwriter Richard Curtis' helming bow "Love Actually" from Universal, showing as a work in progress.
Latter pic's stellar cast includes Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, August 21, 2003
| August 19, 2003 |
|---|
| August 17, 2003 |
|---|
| August 16, 2003 |
|---|
| August 15, 2003 |
|---|
Love Actually Posters are out. POSTER 1 , POSTER 2
Sue
England - Friday, August 15th 2003
| August 14, 2003 |
|---|
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
August 10, 2003 Sunday Home Edition
SECTION: Arts; Pg. 1M
HEADLINE: Q&A: The ups and down of a Movie Star;
Costner high in the saddle with 'Open Range'
BYLINE: ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
SOURCE: AJC
Kevin Costner is a Movie Star.
. . . . . . . . . .
He's been a star for a long time --- through the ups ("No Way Out," "Bull Durham," "Field of Dreams," "Dances With Wolves") and downs ("Waterworld," Madonna fake-gagging after he
paid her a backstage compliment in the documentary "Truth or Dare"). It shows.
. . . . . . . . . .
Q: Did Madonna's reaction have any consequences?
A: Well, it started a pile-on, I'm telling you. But seven or eight years later, she did a very heroic thing. She came to Los Angeles for a concert, so I got tickets and took my kids. Somehow
I guess she found out I was in the audience because, about halfway through, she said, "I want to dedicate a song to Kevin Costner." I thought a lot of her for doing that. It was a beautiful
thing for her to do, and what was really beautiful about it was, my children heard it.
Q: In a sense, you could say Madonna made you her straight man in "Truth or Dare." It seems like you've been doing a lot of straight men in the last few years. That, as an actor, you've
lost some of that, for lack of a better word, goofiness you had in your earlier movies. Is there a reason?
A: I'm really comfortable in my roles. I know what kind of attention I'm going to get. I knew it was going to happen in "Robin Hood." Alan Rickman was fabulous. I wanted him to be. Same
with Michael Jeter in "Open Range."
. . . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, August 14, 2003
| August 11, 2003 |
|---|
I found this in the Leaky Cauldron:
Mike Newell Confirmed to Direct GoF
It's official (and just hitting the wires): Mike Newell is confirmed to direct Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The franchise's first British director, Newell directed the hit movies Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is very tentatively scheduled for late 2005 - which would be a rush, considering when PoA is slated to debut.
Wow!
Carole
Canada - Monday, August 11th 2003
| August 8, 2003 |
|---|
They are still flogging August issues of Harpers in Sainsburys today so I picked up HotDog instead as it had a pic of Bruce Willis in Die Hard on the front cover and a big *Movie Classic* Spread on Die Hard. There were the usual Hans pix but a large B&W one of all the Die Hard Baddies that I hadn't seen before. Unfortunately Hans is slap bang in the middle near the join (Ever noticed how everywhere you want to go is always in the middle of the map book!!)They are numbered because there is an index as to where and how they were all polished off!!!
Sue
England - Friday, August 8th 2003
Okay, here is the Toronto International Film Festival schedule information where Love Actually will have its premiere. Nothing at the moment but it will go up on August 19. The Festival runs from September 4 to September 13, 2003.
On a more disquieting note: previous PR bumpf about Love Actually indicated it was supposed to be a major 100-million-pound profit movie. Restricting its appearance to the top 25 movie markets and premiering it at a film festival doesn't sound like a vote of confidence to me.
Magda
Canada - Friday, August 08, 2003
YES!!!!!!! Love Actually will Premiere at the Toronto Film Festival!!!!!!!!!!!
According to a number of news outlets today, including the Toronto Globe and Mail
"The 28th annual Toronto International Film Festival has announced five more Special Presentations today, and leading the list is the latest from the man behind Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill. Director/Screenwriter Richard Curtis helms an all-star cast including Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Keira Knightley, Martine McCutcheon and Rowan Atkinson in the Special Presentation of a work-in-progress, LOVE ACTUALLY - the ultimate romantic comedy that weaves together a spectacular number of love affairs into one amazing story."
Great news for the TARTS and anyone in driving distance of Toronto.
Magda
Canada - Friday, August 08, 2003
| August 7, 2003 |
|---|
"Harry Potter Grows Up." Four pictures, including one of the new Dumbledore, from HP:POA (none of Snape--he's already grown) have been released by Warner Brothers and are up at the BBC website.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, August 07, 2003
Copyright 2003 CanWest Interactive, a division of
CanWest Global Communications Corp.
All Rights Reserved
Ottawa Citizen
July 9, 2003 Wednesday Final Edition
SECTION: Arts; Pg. B8
HEADLINE: Pirate movie delivers the yo ho hos: Johnny Depp is daft and delightful in Disney's summer swashbuckler, writes Roger Moore.
SOURCE: The Orlando Sentinel
BYLINE: Roger Moore
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl ****
Starring: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom
Rush chews through the sets in the best Alan Rickman-villain tradition.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, August 07, 2003
Copyright 2003 National Post, All Rights Reserved
National Post (Canada)
July 8, 2003 Tuesday Toronto Edition
SECTION: Arts & Life; Pg. AL1
HEADLINE: What dreams may come outside: Summer is the season of Shakespeare in the park, wherein nature provides the scenery, the lighting and much of the atmosphere
SOURCE: National Post
BYLINE: Robert Cushman
They call it The Dream in High Park even when, as this year, the play happens to be Twelfth Night. For many people there is only one legitimate open-air Shakespeare, and all others are
pretenders. An actor friend who in the 1960s played two seasons at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London told me that patrons, usually American, would call up and ask if A
Midsummer Night's Dream was playing that night. Told that it wasn't even playing that year, they remained undeterred; couldn't you, they would plead, do it tonight anyway?
Because it has fairies, and a team of accident-prone rustics putting on a play, A Midsummer Night's Dream has an undeserved reputation for innocuousness. It's the play of choice for
introducing children to Shakespeare, and outdoor presentation -- a pretty setting for a pretty text -- seems to go along with that. Also, outdoor theatres tend to be cheaper to attend than
indoor ones (The Dream in High Park is free, although there is a suggested $15 donation), so taking the family is an easier proposition.
. . . . . . . . . .
I now propose to get autobiographical. In my youth, I was involved in two open-air Shakespeare shows. At 15, I played Fabian (encouragingly described in the text we used as "this
unnecessary character") in a school production of Twelfth Night. It was done in a garden, but, most important, it was done in front of a house. Having that unifying facade to act in front of,
and to walk in and out of, was a great help.
It was a golden English summer, and everybody, actors and audience, felt enchanted. Our Malvolio grew up to be a playwright, while at the other end of the cast, furniture was moved about
by half-a-dozen 12-year-old pages, one of whom was called Alan Rickman. I would like to say that his talent was immediately recognized by his seniors in the cast, but it wasn't.
Some 20 years later, the three of us -- Malvolio, Rickman and I -- were fortuitously reunited at a theatre reception. I doubt if any other old school production, or indeed any other old
school, was as well represented. Malvolio was married by now to an actress, a very good one, and he tried to explain to her what it had been like. "Well," he said, "there was Peter Brook's
Dream, and there was Twelfth Night." He was probably right.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, August 07, 2003
| August 6, 2003 |
|---|
Here's a link to the Ain't it Cool review of "Love Actually" [that Magda kindly posted]. Thank you, all. Rickman gets
only a mention. Sounds like Bill Nighy, from "Blow Dry" and who also read at "Collateral
Damage II," steals this one, not to mention Neeson Junior.
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, August 06, 2003
Copyright 2003 Guardian Newspapers Limited
The Observer [and nearly every other paper in the UK]
August 3, 2003
SECTION: OTV, Pg. 8
HEADLINE: OTV: FILMS: PICK OF THE WEEK: DIE HARD
BYLINE: Philip French
WEDNESDAY, ITV1, 9PM (John Tiernan, 1988) First and best in the series featuring Bruce Willis as maverick New York cop John McClane. In this one he's visiting Los Angeles for
Christmas and finds himself in the skyscraper office block where his ex-wife (Bonnie Bedelia) works when it's taken over by ruthless European terrorists. Long but without longueurs ,
this is one of the best action movies ever made by a master of the genre. After his performance here as the intruders' leader, Alan Rickman became one of the most sought-after
heavies.
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, August 06, 2003
| August 2, 2003 |
|---|
1 August 2003 Daily Variety reports HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN still "in production" in the UK.
Georgiana
Seattle - Saturday, August 02, 2003
