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There are oodles of reviews *spurting* in . . . One more, this from SF Station--Revenge Served Cold, With a Soothing Lather:
"Alan Rickman, who guaranteed himself a lifetime of villainous turns after starring as a black-hearted terrorist in Die Hard, infuses Turpin with an almost palpable menace, providing Todd with a worthy foil."
R
No one can forget Hans, it seems, despite AR's valiant attempts to the contrary . . . , - Tuesday, December 25, 2007
From the LA Times--'Sweeney Todd' cuts it close:
"Alan Rickman plays the twisted Judge Turpin, and Timothy Spall appears as his repugnant henchman, the Beadle Bamford. Though Rickman is denied his lech's version of the love song "Johanna" (a shame), he's still suitably nasty -- there's something about the way he acts almost entirely through his nose that lends a perfect sinister snootiness to the part. Spall, meanwhile, does something twisty with his tongue when he sings that couldn't be more repulsive. But the supporting character who steals the show is Sweeney's first -- incidental -- victim, Signor Adolfo Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen), a rival barber and trouser-stuffing fake Italian who recognizes him and threatens him with blackmail."
R
Chilly Marin, - Monday, December 24, 2007
20th December NPR audio of short interview Rickman Gives Voice to 'Sweeney Todd' Nemesis with Alan talking and singing, can be found here
Claire
- Friday, December 21, 2007
Alan Rickman candid picture and exclusive Broadway World interview from 11th December on Sweeney Todd
Claire
- Friday, December 21, 2007
Oh, I should mention that article also contains a photo of AR. (Click to enlarge).
R
- Monday, December 17, 2007
Sondheim, in the Sunday Dec 16 2007 NY Times Arts & Leisure Section, confirms that the Judge's version of the song Johanna has not been included in the film adaptation.
Excerpt: "Mr. Sondheim not only approved every change, as his contract required, but also did the musical reworking himself. Though he was at first shocked by the suggested elimination of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” Mr. Sondheim said that when he put on his “movie-buff hat,” he “completely agreed,” because it would keep holding up the action. The loss of the Judge’s version of “Johanna” — part of a brilliantly conceived triptych of “Johanna” numbers that look at the girl from various perspectives — was more troubling. It is the only time the Judge is characterized in song. (Below left, the Judge and Johanna in the 2002 Kennedy Center production.) But Mr. Logan had written a new scene that covered similar material visually. (The Judge, played by Alan Rickman, above left, fondles albums of exotic pornography.) So out it went. Did Mr. Sondheim not mind so much butchery of his score?"
“Come on, you’ve got to be ruthless. I learned that from Oscar Hammerstein. He and Richard Rodgers cut their big hit song out of ‘Oklahoma!’ because it interfered with the storytelling. A song like ‘Kiss Me’ has its delights onstage if it’s played well, because it’s funny and silly, and I’ve always meant it to be suspenseful, because you worry if the Judge is going to discover the lovers. But that’s just not how the sequence in the movie is written, and if you don’t have that, then you’re stuck in the parlor with the lovers singing and singing and singing and singing and — nothing. So there’s no point. Now, if I had my druthers, would I put the Judge’s song back in? Yes, but it might hold the story up. And anybody who wants to know what the whole thing sounds like can still listen to the record of the show.”
Renie
:-(, - Monday, December 17, 2007
The Broadway World interview with Alan is posted here.
Ali-Pat
Dayton, OH USA - Tuesday, December 11, 2007
There is a new video interview with Alan Rickman here at ReelTalk Enjoy :-)
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Sunday, December 09, 2007
The reviews are trickling in, and they're not all good: Yahoo! Entertainment calls ST a disappointment.
.
Julia
Canada - Thursday, December 06, 2007
I found this excellent review of "Sweeney Todd" someone posted on the imdb. I am so sad I won't be in New York at the time it will open up. But I will see it as soon as possible. Variety.
Greta <lotsalolly@hotmail.comfoo>
- Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Here are more photos from last night (premiere of Sweeney Todd in New York).
If the link doesn't bring up Alan Rickman just go to the site home page and do a search :-) Newscom you have to follow the instructions to log in as a guest before you can do a search :-) Enjoy
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire UK - Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Via The Leaky Cauldron: Rickman donates HP stuff to charity.
Julia
Canada - Tuesday, December 04, 2007
WireImage have new pictures of Alan Rickman from last week's Sweeney Todd Press Junket Enjoy :-)
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Just to update you on the clips floating around for Sweeney Todd. You will find six new hi-res ones (different to the nine clips from the IESB and Johnny Depp Reads Forum) here at Coming Soon most of them downloadable. There are spoilers so be warned. A couple there with Alan Rickman in, including "Thrill" be warned that one does contain a spoiler for those who don't know the story.
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Saturday, December 01, 2007
There is now a transcript of the latest interview with Alan Rickman at the IMDB for those of you who can't read the IMDB boards and don't want to join there you can also see it here on LiveJournal He gives info about release of Nobel Son & Bottle Shock as well as when he starts on the next HP film and more, enjoy :-)
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
- Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The link posted yesterday to the IESB interview has now updated with clips from the film and they have more clips coming soon. Check it out IESB Interview and clips enjoy :-)
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire UK - Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Yippee today seems to be a day I can post. Thank you Vera for posting that for me yesterday.
I bring glad tidings, the podcast from musicaltalk is up already. For those who don't read at other places, a man called Nick Hutson was at the press junket for MusicalTalk. He has posted on the Sweeney Todd board at the IMDB that they have the podcast up now. Not listened yet myself but here it is Press Junket Podcast Thank you to Nick Hutson for sharing it so quickly.
Thank you for everything Suzanne, you do a great job.
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire UK - Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Okay, sorry for the slight delay. Here are a couple of Windows Media files, but if you'd like any other versions, please ask. Believe me, if I can make it, it's yours.
TV spot 1 (3.39 MB, ST-TVspot-chair-11-24-07.wmv)
TV spot 2 (3.58 MB, ST-TVspot-smile-11-24-07.wmv)
(right click and choose "Save as" or "Save Target As)
And I was wrong, AR doesn't say anything in these clips. I saw "the Judge" and his gavel, and my memory played tricks on me from a previous clip. Speaking of, I did make a sound file from the first trailer:
May the Lord have mercy on your soul (46 kb, ST-mercy.wav)
:-)
Suzanne <webmistress@alan-rickman.comfoo>
TX USA - Monday, November 26, 2007
I'm posting this for Sheena, because she has trouble with posting here.
This is taken from the Sweeney Todd Press Junket - IESB Interview which took place in London on Monday 26th November.
Relevant bit from the interview, well for all the Alan Rickman fans:
Although reticent to discuss Harry Potter, Alan Rickman laughed about the recent rumor of a JK Rowling inspired musical; “who is shoving that around?” He further informed the IESB that there is an online porn version of the franchise making the rounds. (Harry Pooter is my vote for the title)With a slasher musical like Sweeney Todd, it’s going to be interesting to see how the film fares in terms of Yule-tide competition at the box office.
Rickman commented, “it is the jolly Christmas option” for punters. He has two independent films due for release in January – “Bottle Shock” and “Nobel Son”.
Vera
- Monday, November 26, 2007
Thanks so much, Julia, for link to the Sweeney Todd CW video! It definitely looks like those interviews were filmed on the set. Anyway, I know a lot of you like to save videos on your computer (as do I) to watch over and over to your heart's content, so I downloaded and converted the video to three different formats: Window's Media (16.1 MB, ST-CW-BTS-11-24-07.wmv), MPEG-4 (12.9 MB, ST-CW-bts-11-24-07.mp4), and QuickTime (22.8 MB, ST-CW-bts-11-24-07.mov).
(right click and choose "Save as" or "Save Target As...)
If there are any other formats to you would like, just let me know. One thing about the QuickTime file; although it seemed to convert fine, I cannot play QuickTime files on my computer for some odd reason, so I could not test it. So, to the Mac users out there, could you please downloaded and watch it to let me know if it works?
Also, last night I caught a couple of great Sweeney Todd ads on the BBC America channel (during Torchwood)! Short (about 30 seconds each), but they showed AR a few times in a couple of shots I haven't seen before. And a little more singing than I've heard before (though AR doesn't say anything except "May the Lord have mercy on your soul," which we've heard before). I'll post them when they are finished uploading.
Suzanne <webmistress@alan-rickman.comfoo>
TX USA - Sunday, November 25, 2007
Have you guys seen this? It's the behind-the-scenes special on the CW network for Sweeney Todd, and it features AR both in the movie and talking about the movie - lovely longish gray hair
Julia
Canada - Sunday, November 25, 2007
They have more clips from "Sweeney Todd" on the Official MySpace site for the film. Alan Rickman is only in the trailer and TV spot, but worth keeping an eye on.
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Tuesday, November 20, 2007
This on Sweeney Todd, from Variety:
"In a season of dark movies, this could be the grimmest -- but done with style and energy that offset the subject matter.
John Logan's screenplay smartly condenses the legit version to under two hours. Several performances, including those of Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall, will merit attention -- though anchoring the film is Johnny Depp, who offers another reminder that he can apparently do anything."
Renie
USA - Tuesday, November 20, 2007
This related link has been posted over at Claudia's.
Ali-Pat
Dayton, OH USA - Saturday, November 17, 2007
I am posting this for Sheena, as she had difficulties trying to do it.
Google News Alert for: "Alan Rickman"
Casting Is Complete on "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"
PR Newswire UK (press release) - London,UK
... Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Natalia Tena, Julie Walters and David Thewlis, as well as Evanna Lynch, Matthew Lewis and Bonnie Wright. ...
Kind regards
Sheena
Sheffe <shethra77@yahoo.comfoo>
Conestoga, PA USA - Saturday, November 17, 2007
The Gazette (Montreal)
November 13, 2007 Tuesday
Final Edition
Activist's parents to attend local play
BYLINE: The Gazette; Newsday
SECTION: ARTS & LIFE; Fast Track; Pg. D5
LENGTH: 120 words
The parents of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old activist crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer, will be in Montreal next month to attend the Canadian premiere of a controversial play based on their daughter's diaries and emails home. Teesri Duniya Theatre's production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie will run from Dec. 6 to 22 at Monument National. The play was written by actor Alan Rickman and journalist Katharine Viner and was first staged in 2005 at London's Royal Court Theatre. Corrie, an American Jewish woman, joined a peace movement in Gaza committed to using non-violent but direct action to resist the Israeli occupation. She was crushed to death in 2003 while trying to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, November 15, 2007
From Los Angeles Times
November 14, 2007 Wednesday
Home Edition
IN CONTENTION TOM O'NEIL; IT'S A CROWDED FIELD
BYLINE: Tom O'Neil
SECTION: THE ENVELOPE; Calendar Desk; Part S; Part S; Pg. 30
LENGTH: 1823 words
THE Oscars' acting races are packed with real drama.
. . . . . . . . . .
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Favorites
Casey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"
Sacha Baron Cohen, "Sweeney Todd"
Philip Bosco, "The Savages"
Paul Dano, "There Will Be Blood"
Albert Finney, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"
Ben Foster, "3:10 to Yuma"
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Charlie Wilson's War"
Ethan Hawke, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"
Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild"
Alan Rickman, "Sweeney Todd"
John Travolta, "Hairspray"
Tom Wilkinson, "Michael Clayton"
Max von Sydow, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana (back from Egypt and have ben working like a dog...)
Seattle - Thursday, November 15, 2007
Slash Film have an article and some hi-res pics from "Sweeney Todd" including one of Sweeney & Judge Turpin, be warned there could be spoilers. You can find them HERE and the direct link to the Sweeney & Judge pic is HERE. I am looking forward to this film I must admit.
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Monday, November 12, 2007
'Nobel' a prize pickup for Freestyle
By Gregg Goldstein
Nov 2, 2007
Complete AFM coverage in our special section
Randall Miller's darkly comic thriller "Nobel Son," starring Alan Rickman, Danny DeVito, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman, Ted Danson and Shawn Hatosy, has been picked up for North American distribution by Freestyle Releasing.
Bryan Greenberg ("Prime") and Eliza Dushku ("Bring It On") also star in the story of an egomaniacal Nobel Prize-winning scientist (Rickman) whose son (Greenberg) is kidnapped. The film features a wild collection of eccentric supporting characters who guide the film through unexpected plot twists.
"The soundtrack is has new tracks by Paul Oakenfold, Groove Armada and the Chemical Brothers. The marketing opportunities are tremendous," said Freestyle co-president Susan Jackson. "We are convinced this will capture the same young male audience that 'Crank' and 'Smokin' Aces' did last year."
Freestyle will roll the film out on more than 1,000 screens in March. Nicolas Chartier of Voltage Pictures is repping its international sales at AFM.
Miller and his and producing partner, Jody Savin of Unclaimed Freight Prods., recently wrapped the wine industry saga "Bottle Shock" starring Chris Pine, Rickman and Pullman. The director wrote the script with wife Jody Savin, who previously collaborated on the Sundance entry "Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School."
Jackson negotiated the distribution deal with Miller and Savin.
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Saturday, November 03, 2007
Sweeney Todd will be on the cover of Entertainment Weekly - Nov. 9 issue! And here are a couple of stories on the EW web-site:
Johnny Depp: Cutting Loose in "Sweeney Todd"
"Sweeney Todd": A Musical on the Cutting Edge
All puns intended, I'm sure. :-) AND there are already Oscar predictions for Sweeney Todd I'm getting excited and really looking forward to seeing this movie.
Suzanne <webmistress@alan-rickman.comfoo>
TX USA - Saturday, November 03, 2007
An article on the concertfrom www.musicfromthemovies.com.
A Remarkable Night with the Stars
"I’ve always been appreciative of Patrick Doyle’s talent as a composer; he has a gift for melody and orchestral nuance, and a sparkling romantic touch with music. Last night those gathered at the Royal Albert Hall in London bore witness not only to that musical gift, showcased through two-hours of his film music performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, but also Patrick’s mighty heart.
It’s ten years since the composer was diagnosed with Leukaemia, a disease that, we were informed, only 30% of adults survive. Patrick’s brave battle is inspiring for many and, with the help of his family and good friends, it is a battle he thankfully won. So, ten years on, and many scores later, Patrick teamed up with Britain’s leading blood-cancer research charity, Leukaemia Research, and with a little help from his friends put on one hell of a show.
They say you can get the measure of a man by his friends, and with the likes of Kenneth Branagh, Dame Judi Dench, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane and Sir Derek Jacobi on his speed-dial, Patrick Doyle is perhaps off the chart. Branagh directed tonight’s show and was a great force in getting it off the ground. His collaboration with Patrick, which began at London’s Renaissance Theatre Company, has since born the likes of Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Frankenstein, Loves Labours Lost, As You Like It and Sleuth and the pair remain close friends. Of course the big-screen Shakespearean adaptations played a big part in the night’s programme, beginning with selections from 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing. Emma Thompson reprised her role as Beatrice, prancing onstage, feeding grapes to orchestra and audience members, before performing the verse ‘Sigh No More Ladies’, which was elegantly put to music by Doyle for the film, while Tenor Scott Davies sang ‘Pardon Goddess of the Night’. Sir Derek Jacobi stole the show though later with a thunderous recital from Hamlet, backed by Patrick’s thrilling underscore.
French director Regis Wargnier was on hand to introduce two dramatic cues, from his films Indochine and East-West. The director offered his memories of working with Patrick for the first time and also, for the latter film, taking the screenplay into hospital for him to read. He recalled how they both tried to hide their shock, Regis’ at how sick Patrick was, and Patrick at how shocked Regis looked. Another director friend to take to the stage was Mike Newell, with whom the composer has worked on the likes of Into The West, Donnie Brasco and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The ‘Harry Potter Waltz’ opened the second half, with Newell introducing the beautiful theme ‘Harry In Winter’. The LSO worked their own magic with Doyle’s music, under the strong direction of conductor Dirk Brossé.
Great humour was abound during the concert and the likes of Imelda Staunton, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane and Greg Wise recounted hilarious anecdotes about their time with Patrick, as a friend and as a fellow actor (one of his many talents). Staunton remarked how Patrick’s laugh is so raucous it can be 'heard across several counties' and, being seated just in front of him, I can vouch for that. The big names continued to step up to the microphone and the highlights continued well into the night.
A poignant moment came when actress Celia Imrie took to the stage with Angela Baker. Angela is one of the original Calendar Girls, portrayed as Annie Clarke by Julie Walters in the film, who lost her husband to Leukaemia. In fact all of the original ‘girls’, members of the Rylestone Women’s Institute, were present and seated in the Royal Box. Leukaemia Research has had a fruitful association with them and, with Patrick coincidentally scoring the film in 2003, it has become a wonderful union. Imrie and Baker went onto introduce US singer/songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman, who put lyrics to Patrick’s theme from the film to create the heartrending song ‘I Find Your Love’. It was a moving moment in the show, made all the more poignant knowing Chapman’s own husband was also taken by the disease.
Further highlights came thick and fast, not least of all the world premiere of Patrick’s new Violin Concerto. Dedicated to his wife Lesley and introduced by his daughter Nuala, the work is based upon themes from his recent score for Branagh’s As You Like It and is in fact titled the ‘Rosalind Violin Concerto’. Soloist and Co-Leader of the LSO Carmine Lauri performed the piece beautifully on his 1780 Lupot instrument. Another Doyle took to the stage in the first half, this time Patrick’s other daughter Abigail. An accomplished vocalist, the young artist performed ‘The Way It’s Meant To Be’, the lyrics for which she co-wrote with director Robert Altman for his 2001 film Gosford Park. Richard E. Grant introduced this segment, which included the buoyant piece ‘String Folly’.
Bringing the evening to an end was Dame Judi Dench who introduced a selection from Patrick’s first film score, Henry V. Kenneth Branagh and Jimmy Yull performed as Henry and Westmoreland, with Branagh giving an exuberant recital of the ‘St. Crispin’s Day’ speech, backed by Patrick’s score. The big surprise of the evening came when Patrick himself performed the opening vocal solo of his piece ‘Non nobis, Domine’. It was a very strong performance, and a lovely touch to the programme. The London Symphony Chorus were of course magnificent in what was a resounding finale. Of course that wasn’t really the end and the ‘cast’ assembled onstage to sing, with a little help from us, a reprise of ‘Sigh No More Ladies’, before Patrick took some time to say a few words, surrounded by his friends. He remarked how having his music performed at the Albert Hall by the LSO was something he would never have imagined in his wildest dreams and to be able to gather together such immense world-wide talent was a ‘miracle’. One final encore came as people left their seats, the hugely exciting cue 'The Creation' from Frankenstein, a stunning final word from Dirk Brosse and the LSO.
It’s certainly true to say that to be able to see not only the world’s greatest orchestra, but also a who’s who of acting talent all under one roof (and what a roof), was just the biggest of treats. 'Patrick Doyle’s Music from the Movies – An All-Star Celebration' was without doubt an enourmous success and a remarkable achievement. This was a special night; not just a concert, but a celebration of life, courage, good humour and music, all things which form part of Patrick Doyle’s character and things that ultimately helped him win his battle with Leukaemia.
If you want to find out more about the wonderful work Leukaemia Research do, or if you want to lend your support, then visit www.lrf.org.uk."
By Michael Beek
Renie
- Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Phenomenal report Wendy! And Sue too! There are more super reports and photos in this Rickman IMDB thread including many large un-watermarked pics from the leaky cauldron.
I wish I could have been there too. So many of my favorite Brits! Sounds like everyone had a fun time for a worthy cause. I'm so relieved Patrick Doyle is now well so he can continue to make such wonderful music.
Terry
FL USA - Tuesday, October 30, 2007
I should have guessed that Kenneth Branagh would perform the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V at the Patrick Doyle concert at the Royal Albert Hall. I can't begin to imagine how thrilling that must have been *live*.
I understand that Derek Jacobi's delivery of Hamlet's "How All Occasions" with Patrick's music behind him was riveting . . . Would I had been there . . .
Here's a review of Rachel Corrie running at the Arcata Playhouse, in Ca.
Renie
*le gasp* et *le sigh* , - Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Britain's Best--a night of movie music from *koff* Hello Magazine. Snippet:
"It could easily have been BAFTA night as the cream of British acting talent turned up in their finest. The stellar lineup, which included Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Richard E Grant and Harry Potter actors Alan Rickman and Robbie Coltrane, all took to the stage at London's Royal Albert Hall for Music From The Movies - An All Star Celebration."
Renie
I hope there are more reports coming-- let's hear them., - Tuesday, October 30, 2007
On Tuesday there was an early screening of "Sweeney Todd" to test audience reactions. Click here for the results (no spoilers).
Ali-Pat, thanks for the "Sweeney" merchandise list from Amazon. That is so cool! I know what's going in MY stocking this Christmas.
Lisa
US - Friday, October 26, 2007
This article on Patrick Doyle's story in the daily Mail. Read it through. Here are the relevant AR excerpts:
"When music composer Patrick Doyle was diagnosed with an aggressive type of leukaemia, his famous friends rallied round in support. Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman had him in stitches when they wore funny wigs to visit him in hospital; he sobbed on the shoulders of Kenneth Branagh and John Sessions; and Timothy Spall relived his own leukaemia battle to help Patrick through.
Hospital staff became used to celebrity visitors. "Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman came in wearing ginger wigs, speaking with Scottish accents. The ward didn't know what had hit it."
Sleuth, scored by Patrick Doyle, is currently playing in the US.
Renie
- Friday, October 26, 2007
This comes from the Sweeneytoddfilm community on livejournal There are reports from the screening here Johnny Depp forum obviously as that is mainly about Johnny Depp not much is said about Alan Rickman, but he does get a couple of little mentions.
There are also reports on the IMDB board for Sweeney Todd be warned there are spoilers involved in two of the links (I will mark those two) and there is one which is meant to be spoiler free but you never know what people will type in things like that so be warned.
Little spoilers and plot details Mega Spoilers Meant to be spoiler free
Just thought you may like to know. :-)
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Friday, October 26, 2007
For all you early holiday shoppers, the Sweeney Todd move book, novelization, and Soundtrack CD are available for pre-order.
Ali-Pat
Dayton, OH USA - Friday, October 26, 2007
The Times (London)
December 14, 2006, Thursday
Play your cads right, and you're a hero
BYLINE: James Christopher
SECTION: FEATURES; Times2; Pg. 13
LENGTH: 1248 words
That ever-reliable rotter Alan Rickman tells JAMES CHRISTOPHER how he came to play the good guy for a change
Alan Rickman takes a pen and a crumpled piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and writes down the name of a wonderful old-fashioned revue club I discovered in Berlin. It's a rare haunt where shapely artistes take pride in saucy routines and nostalgic torch songs, and the punters are civilised and few.
His curiosity doesn't surprise me. These late-night sanctuaries are hard to find if your face is as familiar as Rickman's, and his latest screen adventure will not make the task any easier. The reluctant star plays a modest but crucial role in Tom Tykwer's stunning adaptation of Patrick Suskind's hit novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.
The hero is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (played by Ben Wishaw), a savage wretch born under a Paris fish stall in 1738. He is possessed of a nose that would make Cyrano de Bergerac weep and a sense of smell so acute that it gives him a God-like power over mortals. But life is a squelching misery until a raddled Italian perfumer (Dustin Hoffman) plucks Grenouille from servitude and teaches him the secrets of bottling essence. The young man's quest to decant the perfect scent from the bodies of beautiful virgins results in a grisly murder spree and widespread fear.
Rickman arrives quite late in the film like a doomy Sherlock Holmes. He is a rich and clever merchant keenly aware that his beloved teenage daughter (Rachel Hurd-Wood) is probably the ripest target for the ripper prowling southern France.
His battle to outwit the killer inspires a thrilling endgame. If Tykwer's $60 million (£ 30 million) film taps a fraction of the popularity of Suskind's book, it will bank a fortune. Since its publication in Germany in 1985 15 million copies of Perfume have been sold in 45 languages (including Latin).
"The simple genius of the story," says Rickman, "is that you fall in love with Grenouille's motives, if not the man himself. The miracle of the film is that it en- gages you on the same terms as the book. I've talked to nervous sceptics who ask: 'How do you film a sense of smell?' My reply is: 'Well, how on earth do you write it on a page?' It's all about imagination. Of course with film there are rival senses at work. Your eyes are dazzled by images."
And what images. Tyker's film has a visceral fascination with rotting flesh and muddy peasants that would humble Peter Greenaway. The director sprays his Parisian sets with hundreds of gallons of slurry. Yet there's a doll's-house perfection about the costumes and period detail. Even Rickman was taken aback by some of the extreme realism. "I thought the newborn hero, who lands on a pile of fish guts at the beginning of the film, was an animatronic baby. I've since discovered it was a real premature baby, complete with umbilical cord, surrounded by nervous medical extras."
Given his own colourful history of quirky screen roles, Rickman's conservative patrician in Perfume feels strangely conventional. "One of the unsettling things about the story is that it has no subtext at all," he explains. "My character, Richis, plays straight down the line of the narrative. You don't need to know what his inner psyche is. I'm a widowed father, I have a beautiful daughter, I love her, there's a killer on the loose -let's stop him getting to her."
Isn't playing a part such as this a bit like falling off a log? "No, I think these parts can be terribly difficult. You've got no hiding place. Mannerisms, quirks and tics are not going to be very useful here."
Ironically, Rickman has been unfairly accused in the past of abusing these fidgety tricks, largely because of his sublime ability to turn a deadpan line into a comic feast. It's a skill that made the 60-year-old actor a staple villain in Hollywood in the 1990s. Comparisons are invariably odious, but Rickman is an uncanny British version of John Malkovich. Both actors had huge stage careers in the 1980s. They both mined a rich seam of exotic screen-stealing villains. They've both directed issue-led plays and films. And they both played Valmont in Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses: Rickman on stage for the RSC; Malkovich in Stephen Frears's film in 1998.
The differences are more revealing. While Malkovich wears his psychoses like clunking armour (cf Eragon, reviewed on page 16), Rickman simply doesn't bother with the predictable trappings at all. His detached and withering disdain for emotional overload has served him wonderfully well as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the icy Russian mastermind in Die Hard and as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter franchise.
But recently there's been a perceptible softening of tone, notably his vulnerable performance in Marc Evans's gentle drama Snow Cake, in which he plays a guilty ex-con who finds himself morally handcuffed to Sigourney Weaver's autistic mother when he is involved in a fatal car accident. And the new and conscientious Rickman in Perfume is stubbornly chaste despite his character's stifling obsession with his teenage daughter.
"It's a bit alarming but I found myself referring to Rachel as 'jail bait'," admits Rickman. "You had to keep saying to yourself 'She's 15'. She's an adorable girl who is completely unaware of her own beauty, which is why, I suppose, the tension works."
So was it difficult to remain paternal? I ask naively. "No, my dear," says Rickman. "She's 15. That said, I thought there might be a danger that the film could suffer some sort of sexist backlash given the number of beautiful naked young women who are murdered . But Tom (Tykwer) deals with it brilliantly. The notion of someone trying to bottle purity masks the murdering aspect. Tom never indulges that side, so it becomes a metaphor."
Thankfully Rickman has not abandoned his appetite for black comedy. He is about to start work on Tim Burton's new version of Sweeney Todd. Is it going to be an animation? "No, although Tim may wish it were when we all start singing," says Rickman in that delicious and deliberate drawl. "If you're going to do a musical on film this is perfect because it's so much about close-up, and the seamless stitching between speech and song. There's no ghastly 'And now for my next big number' moments.
"Johnny Depp is playing Sweeney. Helena Bonham Carter is Mrs Lovett. Sacha Baron Cohen is going to play Signor Pirelli, and I'm Judge Martin."
So will he end up in a pie? "I imagine so," says Rickman, and he smiles a small, enigmatic smile.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is released on Boxing Day
* FOUR GUIDES TO RICKMAN'S WORTH
Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990)
Juliet Stevenson is noisily grieving her lover's sudden death when he unexpectedly comes back from the grave.
Michael Collins (1996)
Liam Neeson hogs the camera as Collins, but is totally outclassed by Rickman's beautifully acted Eamon De Valera.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
Rickman's Severus Snape: sinister and irreplaceable.
Snow Cake (2006)
A rare glimpse of Rickman at his vulnerable best
* FREE PERFUME WITH THE TIMES ON SATURDAY
Read The Times this Saturday to find out how to get your free copy of Patrick Suskind's bestseller Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Originally published in 1985, Perfume is regarded as a modern literary classic which explores the human sense of scent and identity.
Read The Times this Saturday to find out how to order your free copy by text (all books will be sent within 28 days).
Georgiana (missed this one)
Seattle - Wednesday, October 24, 2007
A second Sweeney Todd trailer is out. See it on YouTube HERE
sue
england - Saturday, October 20, 2007
Rickman's Latymer speech moved up a page - here it is incase they move it off the site.
(http://www.latymer-upper.org/page147.html)
PRIZE GIVING 2007 SPEECH BY GUEST OF HONOUR
I have to say this is a slightly out of body experience. Apparently, I’m talking to the Latymer pupils even though I’m clearly staring only at parents and staff. The Headmaster assures me I’m being ‘beamed’ to the pupils but my question is – How does he know? Can he be sure? Where are they? Are they still there? This situation seems to me to be open to infinite abuse.
On my side, you see, I have hindsight.
Assuming there are some students, in some room, somewhere, and if my experience of this occasion still applies, they are not so much listening as glued to a stopwatch because someone is running a book on how long this diatribe will last.
That word. Hindsight.
People always talk about ‘the benefit of hindsight’. Right now it seems a cruel thing. Standing here, time contracts alarmingly. It honestly feels not so long ago that I was down there in morning assembly tugging at a year-old tie knot. Flashing in front of my eyes I see an awful lot of laughter and friendship, heroics and stupidities, equal measures of hard work and spectacular time-wasting.
Speaking of which - one of the major skills I developed at Latymer, during certain lessons, was gazing out of the classroom window for minutes on end, hopefully persuading the teacher that I was pondering a concept or two, when in fact I was on another planet entirely and stopping only just short of dribbling.
It’s a lost art, I suspect. But we were in classes of thirty, no computers and no girls. Minds could drift.
Whilst perfecting this technique, I had vaguely noticed, on occasion, groups of pupils in uniform marching about the playground and being yelled at. A class know-all explained that this was called The Cadet Corps. This, apparently, was where you could practise being in the Army, Navy or Air Force while still at school. In due course, we were all invited – in a compulsory sort of way – to visit the three wooden huts that housed these entities. A recruitment drive, basically, with slightly less yelling and a lot of pointing with sticks. It was somewhere during a demonstration of the versatility of the billy-can (I’m not proud of myself) that I started laughing. This happened in each of the three huts in turn and received exactly the same response –
“Get out Rickman – we don’t want your sort in here.”
My sort?
What sort was that?
What sort indeed is that?
Well. Utterly shaped by this school for a start.
What sort was I, when I first arrived at Latymer?
I knew I was bright but a dreamer.
I knew that I was somewhere special.
I knew I was lucky to be there.
I knew that some boys had had an easier path to the school than I had
I knew that a lot of faith had been placed in me and a lot of sacrifices had been made.
I was a scholarship boy – every bit of uniform hard won and queueing up for free lunch tickets on Monday mornings.
Poor boy at a posh school.
What I quickly learned was – so what?
Again, with hindsight, I can see that no judgements were made or allowed to be made.
That had to come from a school confident in itself and its history.
There were definitely ghosts clinging to the walls but the school’s feet were planted firmly in the present.
Free thinking but disciplined with it.
I had an immediate sense, even if I wasn’t framing the sentence, that here was a place to discover who I was – my sort – and what I might do.
Outside of the Cadet Corps eccentricities were tolerated, possibly even encouraged.
Nowadays you’re all so cool and groomed. Then, eccentricity was our only option, it seemed. Look at the old school photographs. Row upon row of appalling haircuts.
Anyway - I was excited. I had come somewhere ‘other’. And it felt like home.
The source of this collective ethic lives somehow in the fabric and brickwork of the school, but crucially it was kept alive and constantly re-invented by the staff.
I happily acknowledge the debt I owe to some very great teachers.
For some the connection was more easily made than for others. Science, unfortunately, was – often literally – a closed book to me. Fred Mayo (‘Sir’ to his face, Fred to us) was a great Physics teacher but I must have been staring out of the window…
I got four percent for one exam. ‘A hysterical paper’ he wrote. I wasn’t sure if he was referring to my state when writing it (correct) or his when reading it.
Maths? Lt. Col Stewart terrified the life out of me. A subliminal Cadet Corps thing? I don’t know...
But up in the Art Room, Alan Gwilt created a mini Republic full of experiment and uncertainty – a tradition I’m glad to see thriving today.
Mostly, however, it was the English staff who became the stuff of legend to us. Inspirational as they opened our minds and spirits in the most impassioned and clear-sighted way to the tumults of Chaucer, Hopkins, Conrad, Donne and Shakespeare, they were also beacons of individuality.
That is to say, each in his own way, nuts.
Whether it was Brian Binding perched in his favourite teaching position on a radiator, or Ted Stead in full flight, seemingly hanging from the light fittings, they knew how to grab your attention.
And their influence wasn’t just academic.
I was given invaluable early lessons in theatrical survival skills as the same teachers elbowed their way past us on their way to the front of the stage at Christmas shows.
Not that you would have missed them. I mention only Colin Turner as Ginger Rogers and Jim McCabe as Elizabeth 1st. I myself have stood in this same spot in harem gear and a yashmak as sixth wife to Wilfrid Sharp (Head of English) as Ali Baba.
Learning my craft.
In the classroom, however, these same teachers were pushing us to have opinions, make choices, take a stand. Nudging ‘my sort’ into action.
What was going on in my head at the time? Exam pressure, financial pressure. I could feel the changes but it was hard to isolate them. Nowadays my politics and energies are a little more defined so I can only describe my time at Latymer as – in every sense of the word – a privilege.
There is obvious elitism in a system which has an independent school spending three times as much per student per year as the State does.
You are very privileged. That’s not a skill. You are lucky to be here, too. So take no credit for it – you are an accident of birth. A chemical equation made of genetics and (unless you, too, are a scholarship student) your parents’ bank balance.
The world owes you nothing, so I hope to God you make the most of this opportunity and figure out what the payback might be one day, otherwise this kind of privilege makes no sense at all. It’s just part of an Olde Englande that consistently proves itself so hard to shift or challenge.
An England made up of not so much a backbone as a compacted spine. Something constipated and repressed where passion is a pair of ever-pursed lips.
An American friend of mine says ‘I start apologising as soon as I step off the plane at Heathrow.’
It’s an England that can’t produce a tennis champion because no-one with the requisite mental rigour can get anywhere near the facilities.
And be wary of success – the English press will be sniffing around your dustbins and snapping at your heels.
I can’t believe this stuff still holds true – but it does.
Fortunately, there’s another England minnowing through the cracks and that England needs your energies because it holds your future. It is multi-cultural, has great new music, the 2012 Olympics, wins the Pritzker Prize for Architecture and the Nobel Prize for Medicine. So – just for reference over the next twenty years, as you assume the seats of power – could I put in a request for this country and the old people’s home I’ll be in to be imaginative, brave, unselfish, tolerant, socially and globally responsible.
Good luck with the crazy world we’re leaving behind. It will be your call. As far as I can see my generation gave you The Pill and The Beatles, so there’s plenty of scope.
Choose. What’s your sort going to be?
Rupert Murdoch or Nelson Mandela?
Paris Hilton or Rachel Corrie?
I mention her because she was one of you. Very young. Twenty three when she was killed four years ago in Palestine. For those who don’t know, she was an American peace activist who wrote vibrant testimony of her time in Gaza, but whose voice belonged to no-one but herself. I know this because I co-edited and directed her writing as a play at the Royal Court and in New York. Some of you came to see it and we talked afterwards.
This is taken from the programme notes written by Rachel’s parents Cindy and Craig Corrie for a recent Spanish language production of the play in Lima Peru.
‘We were asked recently what sort of memorial we would like built to remember Rachel. Well, Rachel would be the first to remind us that this is not about her. She would remind us that she comes from a community of privilege and we must remember first those among us who come from communities without privilege, that come from communities without even the privilege to stand and remember their own sacrifice. To build a memorial to honor these people we must build a world of justice, a world of dignity, a world of peace. We must build a world where each child born, whether they are born in Sweden or the Sudan, in Israel or Ireland, in Oakland or Oaxaca, in Reykjavik or Rafah, no matter where they are born – it is to a world of love and respect, of peace and justice. This is our job, and the world is our worksite.’
I’m sure that today they would add Burma to that list.
This is a time when you are subject to the hopes and voices of so many people – parents and teachers – that it is hard to feel your separateness. Hard for those people to see your separateness.
I quote Cindy and Craig Corrie because they are inspirational parents who allowed and encouraged their child to become herself, and because they remind me of who I am and where I came from. I assure you there is a traceable line from the twelve year old boy in assembly to the person standing here today. It began to be drawn at Latymer and for that I will always be grateful to this great school.
So to anyone still flirting with membership of Olde Englande I say – throw down your Mail on Sunday, roll up your sleeves and meet your destiny.
What sort are you?
You’re all prize winners, that’s for sure.
You are the fortunate ones.
Make a difference.
ALAN RICKMAN
Claire
UK, - Saturday, October 20, 2007
From Filmlinc.com:
FRESH BLOOD: AN EVENING WITH TIM BURTON
A first look at footage from Sweeney Todd
Wednesday, November 14 at 8:00 pm
Rose Theater
Frederick P. Rose Hall
Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center
Broadway at 60th Street, New York City
Admission: Orchestra & Mezzanine: $50 FSLC Members & $60 General Public; Balcony: $40 FSLC Members & $50 General Public. Reserved seating with limited ticket availability in some sections of the theater.*
Witty, often elegant and always unpredictable, the films of Tim Burton have created a special niche for themselves within contemporary cinema. A born spinner of tall tales, whose subjects have ranged from Martians to Z-list Hollywood directors to, now, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Burton takes audiences places they’d never thought they’d go—and in ways they couldn’t have imagined. We’re delighted to welcome Tim Burton for an evening of conversation, clips featuring some of the greatest moments from his films, and a “first look” at his eagerly anticipated screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd, marking his sixth collaboration with Johnny Depp.
Lisa
US - Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Alan Rickman gave a speech at his old school last week Latimer Speech
Claire
UK - Saturday, October 13, 2007
Here's a good in-depth interview with Mike Binder which centres around SFJG: John GIssing
Glowbox
France - Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Sweeney Todd trailer!
Thanks go to sarah_Kutschera on Alan Rickman's IMDB boardfor the heads-up here is the trailer for Sweeney Todd I have to say they look to have done an amazing job on the look of the film as well as making Alan Rickman span the decades needed as his character in the film. Enjoy.
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Friday, October 05, 2007
Some news about "Nobel Son"
Screenings Include 106 Industry World Premieres and 364 Market Premieres AFM Sold Out for Fourth Consecutive Year
LOS ANGELES, October 2, 2007 – A diverse selection of 522 feature films, including 106 industry world premieres and 364 market premieres, have been confirmed to screen at the 28th American Film Market (AFM) October 31 to November 7, 2007, in Santa Monica, it was announced today by Jonathan Wolf, Executive Vice President, Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) and AFM’s Managing Director.
A total of 34 different languages will be represented on the screening schedule of this year’s AFM.
In addition, Wolf announced that AFM has sold out all exhibition space at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel and Le Merigot Beach Hotel, with the market reaching full capacity for the fourth consecutive year.
Among the films making their industry world premieres in Santa Monica are: “Carnera,” starring F. Murray Abraham and Paul Sorvino (Epic Pictures Group); “Flick,” with Faye Dunaway (AV Pictures Ltd.); “Mad Money” starring Katie Holmes, Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah (Nu Image, Inc.); “Sanjuro,” written by the late Akira Kurosawa (Toho Co., Ltd.); “Smart People,” with Thomas Hayden-Church, Sarah Jessica Parker and Dennis Quaid (QED International); “Tales of the Riverbank,” starring Jim Broadbent and Stephen Fry (Handmade Films International); and “The Neighbor,” with Matthew Modine (Curb Entertainment International Corp.).
Other films on the AFM 2007 screening schedule include, to name a few, “All God's Children Can Dance,” starring Joan Chen (Kimmel International); “Anamorph,” with Willem Dafoe (Mainline Releasing); “Battle in Seattle,” with Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson and Ray Liotta; Julian Schnabel’s “Berlin,” with Lou Reed (Fortissimo Film Sales); “Bill,” starring Jessica Alba, Aaron Eckhart and Timothy Olyphant (GreeneStreet Films); “Blood Brothers” from producer John Woo (Fortissimo Film Sales); “Death Defying Acts,” starring Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Myriad Pictures); “Disengagement,” with Juliette Binoche (StudioCanal); “Eichmann,” with Stephen Fry (Media 8 Entertainment); “Fog City Mavericks,” featuring Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood and George Lucas (Starz Media); “George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead” (Voltage Pictures); “Lars and the Real Girl,” starring Patricia Clarkson and Ryan Gosling (Kimmel International); “Married Life,” with Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Cooper and Rachel McAdams (Kimmel International); “Nobel Son,” featuring Ted Danson, Danny De Vito, Bill Pullman, Alan Rickman and Mary Steenburgen (Voltage Pictures); “Purple Violets,” starring Edward Burns and Debra Messing (Showcase Entertainment, Inc.); “Resurrecting the Champ,” with Alan Alda, Josh Hartnett and Samuel L. Jackson (Yari Film Group); and “When a Man Falls in the Forest,” starring Timothy Hutton and Sharon Stone (Rigel Entertainment).
The screening schedule, a full list of films available during AFM and additional information is located in the AFM Catalogue of Films (http://www.afmfilms.org), the market’s online resource housing more than 3,500 motion pictures available at the AFM, including 800 trailers. Visitors to the site can search films by a number of categories, including genre, language, production status, budget, director, cast, company and title. Functioning as a year-round service, the Catalogue of Films will also list titles available at EFM, Filmart and Cannes.
AFM’s festival partner AFI FEST 2007 presented by Audi will take place from November 1 to 11. Together, the two events represent the largest gathering of film industry professionals and the only combined film market-festival event in North America.
About the AFM
During AFM, the business of independent motion picture production and distribution - a truly collaborative process - reaches its peak every year, when more than 8,000 industry leaders converge in Santa Monica for eight days of deal-making, screenings, seminars, red carpet premieres, networking and parties. Participants come from over 70 countries and include acquisition and development executives, agents, attorneys, directors, distributors, festival directors, financiers, film commissioners, producers, writers, the world’s press all those who provide services to the motion picture industry.
Founded in 1981, the AFM has become the premiere global marketplace where Hollywood’s decision-makers and trendsetters all gather under one roof. Unlike a film festival, the AFM is a marketplace where production and distribution deals are closed. In just eight days, more than $800 million in deals will be sealed — on both completed films and those that haven’t started shooting yet — making AFM the must-attend industry event.
The AFM is produced by the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA), the trade association representing the world’s producers and distributors of independent motion pictures and television programs. More information can be found at http://www.ifta-online.org/afm.
About AFI FEST
Celebrating its 21st year as a program of the American Film Institute, AFI FEST 2007 presented by Audi will take place November 1-11, featuring international competitions of new films from emerging filmmakers, as well as global showcases of the latest work from great film masters and nightly red-carpet gala premieres. Kicking off the awards season each year, AFI FEST offers a crucial avenue of exposure to the entertainment community, while providing appreciative audiences with a festive atmosphere and the very best of world film, right in the center of the film capital of the world. AFI FEST is the only FIAPF-accredited film festival in the United States. Additional information about AFI FEST is available at http://www.AFI.com.
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Tuesday, October 02, 2007
An excerpt from a long in-depth interview with the parents of Rachel Corrie.
"It's about oppression and she saw that in Rafah, but Cindy had a really interesting thing happen the second time the play was staged at the Royal Court Theatre. We flew into town. It was 8 o'clock at night or something, and we're met at the airport and brought directly to the theater because (writer) Alan Rickman was going to leave the next morning to go to L.A. for a film. So we wanted to see him and he wanted to see us, and as soon as we got to the theater, which was right after end of the play, he took Cindy over and introduced her to this couple that had just seen the play. Well, they're from Israel and they're in London on holiday, and they say that "My Name is Rachel Corrie" was the pick of the week in London, which is a pretty good honor in London theater. They described themselves as being from the Likud party, which is extreme right in Israel, and justifies the existence of the settlements that are being made the West Bank and at the time were in the Gaza Strip -- but they loved the play. Their statement was, "It's not anti-Israel, it's anti-violence."
Renie
And in other news, Bottle Shock will be at Sundance., - Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Snippet from The Canadian Jewish News at www.cjnews.com
Corrie Play to Premiere in Montreal
By JANICE ARNOLD, Staff Reporter
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
MONTREAL —" My Name is Rachel Corrie, a politically charged play based on the writings of a young American peace activist killed in March 2003 while protesting an Israeli military operation in Gaza, will be staged in Montreal later this year. Critics have charged that the play presents an unbalanced and inaccurate view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that ignores Israel’s side of the story.
Teesri Duniya Theatre will present the one-woman show at the Monument National from Dec. 6 to 22, in collaboration with Neworldtheatre of Vancouver, where it will be staged in January and February at the Havana Theatre.
The Montreal production will be the Canadian premiere of the play. It’s also scheduled to be put on by Theatre PANIK at the Tarragon Extra Space in Toronto from May 29 to June 22. It was to have been presented in Toronto this season by the larger CanStage company, but that production was cancelled soon after it was announced late last year, apparently out of concern it would offend some Jews.
CanStage board member Jack Rose was quoted last December in Variety as saying, “My view was it would provoke a negative reaction in the Jewish community.”
An earlier scheduled run at the New York Theatre Workshop in March 2006 was also put on hold after board members and subscribers objected. Prominent British actor Alan Rickman, the play’s director, denounced that decision as “censorship.”
The play, based on Corrie’s diaries and email, was created by Rickman and Guardian newspaper journalist Katherine Viner. It made its debut in April 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre in London, winning the Theatregoers’ Choice Awards for best director, best new play and best solo performance."
Renie
- Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Don't recall if we saw this article on Bottle Shock.
Here's the opening paragraph:
SONOMA, California (Hollywood Reporter) - "Rows upon rows of grape vines crest the hills in this sunny countryside as a 1970s Gremlin rolls down the road with the gracefulness of a pear, then putters to a stop with a flat tire and a cloud of dust. Alan Rickman gets out, curses and begins flinging out the tire iron and jack."
Renie
- Monday, September 24, 2007
For any of you attending the benefit
Patrick Doyle concert for Leukemia Research
at the Royal Albert Hall, you'll be in good company. A lot of Kenneth Branagh fans will be there. Sounds like so much fun.
Renie
- Monday, September 24, 2007
There is a direct link to the Laurie Lee poem as recited by AR for Peace Day on youtube here. ( Ali-Pat, you can embed it on your Peace Page that way, too.)
R
lots of news this month, - Monday, September 24, 2007
[transcript]:
“The Long War” by Laurie Lee.
Available in Selected Poems: Deutsch, 1983.
Less passionate the long war throws
its burning thorn about all men,
caught in one grief, we share one wound
and cry one dialect of pain.
We have forgot who fired the house,
whose easy mischief spilt first blood,
under one raging roof we lie
the fault no longer understood.
But as twisted arms embrace
the desert where our cities stood,
death's family likeness in each face
must show, at last, our brotherhood.
Also available in these anthologies:
Peace and War, edited by Michael Harrison and Christopher Stuart-Clark: Oxford University Press, c1989.
Poets of Our Time, edited by F. E. S. Finn: J. Murray, 1965.
Ali-Pat
- Sunday, September 23, 2007
http://www.peaceoneday.org/home.aspx?band=hi
page five of seven to see video of AR reciting Laurie Lee's poem "The Long War" for Peace One Day.
Susan
- Saturday, September 22, 2007
I had a letter last week from Melanie Parker so I am passing the info on. Sorry I forgot to pass it along here before, please pass the info on as it seems more and more people are being taken in by the fakes on MySpace and other social networking sites.
"I have had several letters from fans with regards to people pretending to be Mr Rickman on MySpace. Of course none of them are him but we are trying to go through due process on the site but it takes so long. I can categorically confirm he does not use MySpace or any of the other social networking sites.
Mr Rickman is hoping to take part in the Patrick Doyle concert 'An Evening at the Movies' on 28th October but as always this is subject to work commitments. He will be starting on 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' when he gets back from Europe later in the year."
The concert is taking place at The Royal Albert Hall you can find more details Here and Here
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Friday, September 21, 2007
The wrap of the Bottle Shock shoot in Sonoma. The photo of the Toscano Hotel is the First Street East locale that Angelina described. The actors were surely sweltering in that heat!
Renie
Adio to Luciano Pavarotti, - Friday, September 07, 2007
From the Times Colonist, Victoria, British Columbia:
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX
(Empire Capitol 6, SilverCity) Magic hasn't just been outlawed by Imelda Staunton's cheerfully fascistic teacher-from-hell Dolores Umbridge at Hogwarts, which she renders just a bit more joyless than this plodding, albeit technically well-crafted movie based on the fifth instalment of J.K. Rowling's fantasy series. Visual effects wizardry aside, real magic is also scarce in this disjointed, plot-heavy film that does little more than mark time as it charts the darkening boy wizard's adolescence, replete with anger and that all-important first kiss. The episodic and seemingly interminable story is at its least involving here, with familiar characters reduced to walk-ons. Thank heavens for Alan Rickman's redemptive scenes as the snippy Snape -- a dose of relief from occultist chaos that is getting old. PG Rating 2 1/2
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, August 27, 2007
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
August 23, 2007 Thursday
SOONER EDITION
COWARD'S COMIC CLASSIC; DEMANDS OF 'PRIVATE LIVES' FIND PICT GAME BUT FLAWED
BYLINE: CHRISTOPHER RAWSON, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE
SECTION: ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT; ON THE STAGE; Pg. W-16
LENGTH: 1148 words
One of the eternal mysteries of art is how assiduous craft and plain hard work can dissolve into what seems effortless grace.
Think the Taj Mahal or Mozart. Think Fred Astaire. And think Noel Coward's "Private Lives," one of the five most perfect comedies in our language. (As to the others, I'm sure only about "The Importance of Being Earnest," and then the arguments start.)
This is not to say that "Private Lives" is all gossamer elegance, a common misapprehension about Coward. Beneath its high sheen of wit and style beats a heart passionate about the need for love and angry about its disappointments.
Coward's mode -- the play's frothy effervescence -- is also its subject. Life may be one long decline, but we triumph through style and voracious grace. The unblinking rigor of Coward's underlying philosophy comes to the surface in Elyot's attack on "the futile moralists who try to make life unbearable." He continues with the play's most shocking line: "Let's be superficial and pity the poor philosophers. ... Come and kiss me, darling, before your body rots, and worms pop in and out of your eye sockets."
There's realism for you! It's one of the essential themes in English poetry, reminiscent of Andrew Marvell, pleading with his coy mistress in 1681 to "roll all our strength and all / Our sweetness up into one ball, / And tear our pleasures with rough strife / Through the iron gates of life."
But this seriousness notwithstanding, "Private Lives" is mainly a very funny comedy about marriage, about how the intimacy that love demands can also chafe and irritate. Elyot and Amanda cannot live without each other but they can't live together, either, as passion slips into hate and back again.
The comedy comes from juxtaposing these two heroic monsters of self-obsession with two ordinary, conventionally nice people who can't even breathe the same air. And yet the play begins with Elyot and Amanda, whose marriage ended five years before, newly married to this very prosaic Sibyl and Victor and ensconced for their respective honeymoons in adjacent rooms at a French resort.
As their former love rekindles, wonderfully funny fireworks ensue. In Act 2, which must be one of the most difficult acting challenges ever devised, Elyot and Amanda have fled their new spouses for a Paris flat, and we watch their triumphant love begin to cannibalize itself. Nature may urge us to live in pairs, but great love can suck all the air out of life. You want to yell, "Do something! Get out of the house! Get a job!" But nothing deters Coward's humorous anatomy of the glory and neurosis of love.
Then Sybil and Victor show up for their comic recriminations and the cycle begins anew. Perhaps that's the solution, a constantly renewing cycle of love and hate, tearing life through the rough gates of passion, but it's too demanding a life for most. That's why I go to the theater: to see heroes venture where I wouldn't dare.
Given the high challenge of Coward's play, it's perhaps inevitable that the capable production by Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre doesn't get it all. Call it a fine wine, not the intoxicating champagne "Private Lives" can be.
What's missing is exactly that higher grace, where the work disappears. Here, you can still see it, not in Act 1 (this perfect comedy's greatest perfection) but in Act 2, for example in Elyot and Amanda's famous fight. Actors Paul Todaro and Beth Hylton and choreographer Tonya Lynn make it dangerous enough, but it feels studied. Elsewhere, there's a missing briskness and ease.
In general, though, director Jeffrey Cordell moves everyone with good variety around on designer Gianni Down's handsome hotel balcony. The Paris flat isn't quite so good: The furniture seems random and the doors don't make sense. But the show has pace and it looks good, thanks also to Pei-Chi Su's stylish 1930 costumes.
Todaro is at home as Elyot, exasperatingly as handsome and witty as he is petulant and vindictive. He's especially good at small physical business, playing with props. Hylton is a little less at home, but of course it's harder for Amanda, whom Coward describes as "exquisite" and "gay" and who needs to be a mixture of Venus, Cleopatra and Mata Hari -- and to be able to dance backward in high heels.
The balance is reversed in the second couple. Winslow Corbett could hardly be better as Sibyl, her innocent prettiness quickly betraying its comic inner bulldog. Ross Hellwig is a bit of a stick as Victor, as Victor should be, but he never seems at all British.
Well, one could say that of others, as well. On the up side, it is very welcome to see these renowned characters played by actors of about the right age, rather than the aging stars who sometimes take them on.
Of course, star power does have its place -- Coward knew that, writing the lead roles for himself and Gertrude Lawrence. (See below for some other famous pairings.)
There is a fifth character, Louise, the French maid, played by Liz Labacz, but you'd never know that this is a famous comic cameo.
My niggling disappointment may owe something to Tuesday's audience, which rarely lifted the show on transports of laughter -- although it was quick to jump up at the end for a standing O. Well, "Private Lives" at 90 percent is still better than most comedies at 100.
* * * *
Addendum
"Private Lives" is a play often revived. A quick count shows that the Post-Gazette has reviewed it eight times in the 24 years I've been tending to the theater beat, although two of those reviews were by others.
My own most memorable productions were four: the 2002 Broadway revival with Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, both melting gorgeous and dauntingly ferocious, with a wedding cake hotel as a set; the 1992 Broadway tour that ended up on Broadway, with acid-toned Simon Jones prohibited from mussing a single strand of iconic Joan Collins' sculptured coiffeur (and how he must have longed to shake her to bits!); and two magnificent Elyots, Brian Bedford's at the Stratford Festival (2001) and Christopher Newton's at the Shaw (1984).
Among local productions, there were Doug Mertz and Elena Alexandratos for Unseam'd Shakespeare (1999), playing Elyot as "a preening, boisterous near-queen" and Amanda as "a goggle-eyed manipulatrix," and the 1985 Pittsburgh Public Theater version that starred the immaculate Robert Moberly.
It is odd that I always seem to remember the male leads but not always the women. But it's not odd at all that I skipped the famous 1983 Broadway revival with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, not wanting to soil my memories of either the play or Burton by seeing them not at their best.
'Private Lives'
Where: Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre at Henry Heymann Theatre, Stephen Foster Memorial, Oakland.
When: Through Sept. 9; Tues. 7 p.m.; Wed.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m.; also 2 p.m. Sept. 8; pre-show lecture tonight.
Tickets: $38-$45; discounts; 412-394-3353.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, August 27, 2007
Daily Mail (London)
August 24, 2007 Friday
Johnny's demon barber faces a brutal slashing
BYLINE: Baz Bamigboye
SECTION: 1ST; Pg. 62
LENGTH: 354 words
AWARD-WINNING director Tim Burton has been told to butcher his own film, in which Johnny Depp plays the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd.
Studio executives became a tad squeamish when they viewed grisly footage of blood splashing across the set as Depp slits the throats of his customers in the movie, based on Stephen Sondheim's stage musical.
In its present form the film would merit an 18 rating, but Warner Brothers would prefer it to have a 15.
During filming at Pinewood studios, prosthetic lookalike limbs were used (obviously the real thing would have been taking realism too far!) and they were so gruesomely lifelike that some of the crew became nauseous and had to take fresh air breaks.
Those on set were further spooked because there were piles and piles of sliced-up 'corpses', plus several spare 'necks' in case Burton wanted to shoot several takes of the same throat-cutting scene.
Four crew, stationed out of camera range, would pump up blood as Johnny/Todd slashed away, singing as he worked.
In the movie, Todd's victims are sat in a mechanical chair, their throats are cut and as Johnny flicks a switch, the floor opens and they slide down a chute into the lair of Todd's mistress, Mrs Lovett (the pie maker) played by Helena Bonham Carter.
Mrs Lovett uses Todd's 'gifts' to fill her meat pies! One scene that particularly bothered the studio bosses was when they saw a ten-yearold boy cutting up body parts, which were then thrown into a meat grinder and turned into mince.
'Tim's not happy that the studio is asking for so many cuts to the cutting, as it were,' someone connected to the film told me. 'The thing is, the studio really likes the film and they want to make it accessible to as big an audience as possible which means stemming the blood flow. But that's a bit difficult for a story involving a guy who gets high slitting throats.' The movie also features Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Laura Michelle Kelly and Peter Bowles.
It opens in the U.S. in December, which led Burton to quip recently: 'Red is the colour at Christmas.' Sweeney Todd opens in the UK on January 25.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, August 27, 2007
Hindustan Times
August 26, 2007 Sunday 1:44 PM EST
Depp starrer 'Sweeney Todd' director asked to cut down the gore
BYLINE: Report from the Asian News International brought to you by the Hindustan Times
LENGTH: 314 words
DATELINE: London
London, Aug. 26 -- The set of Johnny Depp starrer 'Sweeney Todd' seems to have been turned into a gruesome slaughterhouse.
Award-winning director Tim Burton has been asked to tone down the horrid scenes in his film, in which Depp plays the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd.
Studio executives became a bit squeamish when they saw shocking footage of Depp slitting the throats of his customers in the movie, based on Stephen Sondheim's stage musical.
According to sources, during filming at Pinewood studios, the prosthetic look-alike limbs were so hideously realistic that some of the crew became queasy and had to take fresh air breaks.
Those on set were further disgusted because there were heaps and heaps of sliced-up 'corpses', along with several spare 'necks' for the reason that Burton might want to shoot several takes of the same throat-cutting scene.
In the movie, Todd's victims are seated in a mechanical chair; their throats are cut and as Johnny flips a switch, the floor opens and they fall down a channel into the den of Todd's mistress, Mrs Lovett, played by Helena Bonham Carter.
One scene that principally disturbed the studio bosses was when they saw a ten-year-old boy cutting up body parts, which were then thrown into a meat grinder and turned into mince.
"Tim's not happy that the studio is asking for so many cuts to the cutting, as it were," the Daily Mail quoted an insider, as saying.
"The thing is, the studio really likes the film and they want to make it accessible to as big an audience as possible - which means stemming the blood flow. But that's a bit difficult for a story involving a guy who gets high slitting throats," the insider added.
The movie also stars Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Laura Michelle Kelly and Peter Bowles.
Published by HT Media Ltd. with permission from Asian News International.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, August 27, 2007
The Advertiser (Australia)
August 4, 2007 Saturday
State Edition
His master's voice
BYLINE: Helen Barlow
SECTION: MAGAZINE; Pg. W16
LENGTH: 776 words
Acclaimed actor Alan Rickman is a man of vast vocal talent, reports HELEN BARLOW.
ALAN Rickman is a classically trained actor with one of those deep, rousing British voices that can be used to great, empowering effect in all kinds of movies. He can be loving and eerie, as he was for his ghostly lover in his breakthrough movie, Truly, Madly, Deeply; he can be sinister too, as he was portraying creepy Hans Gruber for his American debut in Die Hard, and also his trademark sneering Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
He can do heavy dramatics such as politician Eamon De Valera in Michael Collins; and he can be very, very funny, as when he portrayed a disdainful, neutered angel in Dogma and an actor who once played a television alien in surprise cult hit Galaxy Quest.
That was before Harry Potter, where all his skills merged in one creepy character, Hogwarts teacher Severus Snape. ''Severus starts to invade the story much more at the end of this one,'' Rickman explains, referring to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. ''I've got it down to about seven weeks. I filmed the previous ones over a longer period, but coming in and out of things gets a bit tricky.''
Now that he has our attention once more, Rickman has left all that severity behind to play two, well, relatively normal men.
Earlier this year, he appeared bedecked in a wig in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, as an 18th century merchant trying to save his daughter from a young man keen to turn her virginal odour into perfume; while in Snow Cake, his motorist befriends the autistic mother of a hitchhiker he has accidentally killed after giving her a ride.
No matter how normal the characters are, however, they still have Rickman's voice. Where does it come from?
''Oh, this is what I'm stuck with,'' he says breathily, sounding like his depressed robot from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. ''It's to do with having a high roof of the mouth apparently.'' He sticks his fingers up his mouth, so that he sounds even throatier. ''I should be a good singer, but a teacher at drama school wasn't too encouraging.''
Although he is in a jovial, buoyant mood today, Rickman doesn't like to talk too much about the Harry Potter behemoth, preferring to devote his time promoting his smaller films ''without a huge publicity machine behind them''.
Besides, Snow Cake is a film he was closely involved in. He even helped enlist the services of Sigourney Weaver, his Galaxy Quest co-star, to play the autistic mother in the film. And Weaver, who will forever be known as Ripley from the Alien films, was eternally grateful.
''I don't think I was their obvious choice for Linda," she confides. ''Luckily, Alan thought I would do a good job and that gave me confidence.
''He's such an astonishing actor and a wonderful comedian. I think he deserves more movies that are about him, so it was great to read something that was written with him in mind: his wit, his kind of melancholy, his depth.''
A Canadian-British co-production written by Angela Pell and directed by Marc Evans, both of whom are British, Snow Cake is set in a wintry Canadian backwater, where presumably Weaver's Linda can be accepted and feel safe.
Rickman's Alex, a murderer and ex-con, doesn't seem to have any friends, so that when he knocks on Linda's door he is forced to let down some of his guard because Linda takes everyone she meets at face value.
''It's hard for me to imagine what that must be like to be involved in the death of someone and then go to knock on the door of that person's mother,'' Rickman admits.
''The story is seemingly quite simple but it's actually about something quite big. It's about rolling up your sleeves and getting on with it.''
Rickman lives in London with politician Rima Horton. Over the years, he has fought to save London theatre, and is personally interested in pursuing meatier subjects in his work, ''sex, religion politics, any of those words with big letters''.
Born in 1946 to Irish and Welsh parents, he initially studied at the Royal College of Art. When he developed the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Dangerous Liaisons and portrayed Valmont, the play became a huge hit. He was understandably disappointed when the role went to John Malkovich in Stephen Frears' screen version.
Rickman delves into black comedy and we can only imagine what he will get up to as Judge Martin in Tim Burton's new version of Sweeney Todd, which also stars Johnny Depp and Sacha Baron Cohen.
While Rickman is clearly a bit of a ham, I ask him if he is anything like his buttoned-up, introspective Alex in Snow Cake.
''Well, not really. I haven't killed anybody yet,'' he says.
Georgiana (I believe that last has seen a different answer previously...)
Seattle - Monday, August 27, 2007
And an older Bottle Shock article from the SF Chronicle which reveals some of the storyline, so beware. Includes an incredibly nasty comment from the screenwriter of the "other" film. ( I've never had a bottle of his wine, not likely to now.)
R again
- Monday, August 27, 2007
Sorry, not sure if this has been posted already (just returned home.) More "life of an extra" from the set of Bottle Shock in Sonoma, and good set of photos and slide show here.
Renie
- Monday, August 27, 2007
There was a report by a woman who was an extra on the movie "Bottle Shock" on the imdb. She said that she was in the airport scene, and that it was over 100 degrees farenheit. Poor Alan was stuck shooting that sequence for over 12 hours. Anyway, this is the quote "I was in the airport scene... when Bo (Chris)is trying to convince Alan Rickman's character to take his wine to the tasting in France. They have to try to work around the airline rules of only one bottle per carry-on.. it was a fun scene!
I stood in front of Alan Rickman throughout the whole scene (in line at the "ticket counter") and after a few hours, got up the nerve to turn around and say hi and shake his hand. I felt embarassed invading his privacy, but I was sure as heck not going to be on a set for over 12 hours in over 100% heat and NOT at least say hi! He was also very polite and very professional and a bit intimidating.
They need extras again in a few days... if I get a call, I'll write more :)"
Gretl <lotsalolly@hotmail.comfoo>
- Monday, August 27, 2007
page two, row two-- a photo of AR in costume and makeup (and mustache) for Bottle Shock.
Susan
- Monday, August 27, 2007
The West Australian (Perth)
August 15, 2007 Wednesday
METRO
An enigma wrapped in a dark cape
BYLINE: MARK NAGLAZAS
SECTION: TOD; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 735 words
There is a lot more to veteran stage and screen actor Alan Rickman than playing villains. He spoke to Mark Naglazas.
When I was told that my interview with Alan Rickman would take place only hours after the local critics preview of Die Hard 4.0, I let rip with a little "Yippy-ky-yay, mother".
Rickman made his big-screen debut playing the hyper-articulate uber-villain Hans Gruber in the first Die Hard flick, giving a performance of such scene-sucking Shakespearean relish that it both made him a star and defined his entire career.
Indeed, Rickman was so good as the terrorist-turned-bank robber who taunted Bruce Willis blue-collar cop John McClane that it has been described as the first of his great movie-stealing turns (a couple of years later, in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, he wiped the Sherwood Forest floor with the hopelessly miscast Kevin Costner).
So, fresh from the successful reignition of the Die Hard franchise, I was excited to chat with Rickman about working with Willis and his characters ranking among movie historys greatest villains (up there with Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader).
"I dont want to talk about that, its ancient history," Rickman tells me down the line from his home in London, cutting me down to size with that famously supercilious drawl. Plucking up my courage, like McClane after another bone-shattering beating, I have another shot at getting Rickman to talk about working with Willis on a film that has passed into legend (it was recently voted the greatest action movie of all time). "Just one question, Alan," I plead.
"Thats what they all say," says Rickman with that signature world-weary sneering sigh. "Then before you know it the whole article is about Die Hard. Its boring."
Clearly, Rickman is tired of talking about movies from the last century and his reputation as a big-screen villain. "Ive only ever played a villain a few times yet its all people want to talk about," he says.
Indeed, the Rickman oeuvre does extend well beyond those villainous roles: winning a legion of female fans in the upscale weepie Truly, Madly, Deeply, bringing gravitas to the role of Eamon de Valera in Michael Collins and showing a real facility for droll comedy in the Star Trek spoof Galaxy Quest.
However, today Rickman is most keen to talk about Snow Cake, a critically acclaimed small-scale drama in which he plays a man with a dark past whose journey across Canada is interrupted by a car accident which lands him in the home of a high-functioning autistic (Sigourney Weaver).
Its the most ordinary-man role for an actor who, even when not playing villains, tends to get cast as an interesting eccentric - support characters who class up films that are often beneath him.
Rickman says he has never played a character so much like himself. "I enjoy playing someone who is just doing his best. Thats me."
That downbeat quality, which was used to such glorious effect playing the depressive robot Marvin in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, also wraps around him like one of those dark capes hes worn many times on stage and screen.
When I suggest to him that his elegant gloominess in films such as Sense and Sensibility and Love Actually has made him a thinking womans crumpet, he doesnt even take it as a compliment. "Well, there you go," he mutters, as if being lusted after by ladies of a certain age was another of lifes many burdens.
While Rickmans heart is clearly in indie productions such as Snow Cake and in theatre - hes constantly returned to the stage since his late blooming as a movie star - the 61-year-old RADA graduate is far from contemptuous of work in blockbusters, most notably as part of the all-class Harry Potter support cast.
"The big films allow you to do the smaller ones," explains Rickman, who for many Potter fans is Severus Snape. "It is different playgrounds and one of them has more expensive equipment. Its great fun to work on films like Potter. Its just a different use of your acting brain."
For his next role Rickman will play a real-life English wine merchant in Paris who used the American bicentennial to hold a blind wine-tasting competition. To the horror of the French, the US wines were deemed superior.
"I get to do lots of research," says Rickman. Lots of drinking, I suggest. "No, research," insists Rickman, whose love of wine is so palpable that Im sure I could hear a cork popping as I hung up the phone.
Snow Cake is now showing.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, August 20, 2007
The Guardian (London) - Final Edition
August 15, 2007 Wednesday
g2: Arts: Diary: Revealed: Sylvia Plath's unseen art, discovered in the attic
BYLINE: Francesca Martin
SECTION: GUARDIAN FEATURES PAGES; Pg. 27
LENGTH: 332 words
Paintings and drawings by Sylvia Plath, many of which have never been seen before, are to be published in October to mark the 75th anniversary of the birth of the American poet and novelist.
In the book Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath's Art of the Visual, editor Kathleen Connors reveals illustrated childhood letters that Plath wrote when she was seven, which were found in the Plath family attic in 1996. There are also schoolbook sketches, portraits and a series of photographs and paintings from when Plath was an art student at Smith College, Massachusetts, including this self-portrait (pictured) . The works were all completed by the time Plath was 20, at which point she decided to concentrate on her writing.
As Connors points out, it was no small decision. "While few would argue with Plath's career choice, it is unfortunate she dropped her Smith college studio courses just as she was developing her famous literary themes in art," she says. "The limited life options for women, and the marriage of military and commercial cultures during the 1950s, for example, are beautifully depicted in her late artwork."
Connors will discuss the book in person on October 14 at the Cheltenham literary festival, with one of Plath's friends, poet and critic Al Alvarez, and actor Diana Quick, who will read a selection of her poetry. In addition, there is a planned concert reading at the Royal Festival Hall for which musicans such as Patti Smith and Alanis Morissette and actors, including Alan Rickman, have been approached to participate.
Another actor said to be keen to take part is Julia Stiles, who is to star in and produce a film version of Plath's book The Bell Jar.
"A lot of people think of Sylvia Plath as being this dark, brooding soul because of her history," says Stiles. "Actually, her writing was different. She writes with beautiful imagery, and I think the vibrant images she describes in The Bell Jar are perfect for a film - maybe even more so than a novel."
Georgiana (worth keeping an eye on the Royal Festival Hall website for this one...)
Seattle - Monday, August 20, 2007
Sunday Business Post
August 19, 2007
Hollywood gets high on wine
SECTION: AGENDA
LENGTH: 1180 words
The Judgment of Paris - a famous wine tasting event in 1976 which pitted France against the US and ignited the New World wine phenomenon - is set to become yet more famous, this time as the subject of two forthcoming films.
From Hollywood comes Bottle Shock, the unofficial story of the event, which stars Alan Rickman as the Machiavellian leading man, Stephen Spurrier.
The British-made film, Judgement of Paris, is based on last year's bestselling book by Time Magazine journalist George Taber. The Brits have favoured Hugh Grant as Spurrier and, with the real Spurrier a consultant on the film, provide a lighter take on events.
Whatever version you like to believe, the effect of the judgment was to propel New World wine onto the world stage.
This is not the first time Hollywood has linked arms with the wine world .With many film companies having invested heavily in the winery concept over the years, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood became interested in wine as a subject matter in itself.
The critical and commercial success of the documentary film Mondovino sparked a rash of follow up projects, including several reality television shows which involved participants mucking in on a winery.
The success of Oscar-winning film Sideways was due in part to the fact that many of those involved had connections with the wine business in California.
In response to Sideways' sideways swipe at merlot, the documentary film Merlove is now scheduled for release in autumn. The film focuses on merlot and its attempt to overcome the negative impact Sideways had on sales of merlot, or the Wine of the Dark Side, as it is called by the film's hero.
Merlove travels the world from California to Bordeaux, stopping off at the most famous merlot of the all, Petrus, where it is staunchly defended by Jean-Claude Berrouet, Chateau Petrus's elusive winemaking genius. Naturally there is already a Merlovers Napa Valley tour and Merlove wines in the pipeline.
Taber's Judgement of Paris and the ensuing Hollywood film, promises another love-in with Napa. It tells the story, well-known in wine circles, of an event in 1976 when California took on the world, particularly the Old World, and won.
It was America's bi-centennial year and, for those of us still in short pants and obsessed with Caramac bars and Tizer on this side of the Atlantic, it was also the year Star Wars came out. For grown ups in the wine world, a cultural earthquake had occurred.
The story hinges on a young, well-heeled Englishman called Stephen Spurrier, who had moved to Paris in 1970 after decade at the top of the English wine trade. He opened the Caves De Madeleine wine shop in the most expensive part of Paris.
It sold top-notch French wines to Paris's colourful expat scene, at the centre of which was Stephen and his wife Bella. Spurrier Parties became a fixture for English and Americans in Paris.
Paris in the 1970's had a reputation for high living, free love decadence and cultural supremacy - before New York assumed the mantle in the latter part of the decade.
In 1972, Spurrier set up one of the first wine schools in France, the Acadamie Du Vin. It ran in the Caves Du Madeleine and added to the hedonistic atmosphere as it drew foreign diplomats, students and foreign correspondents, all keen to learn more about France and its wines.
The French themselves had never seen the need for any formal wine education. Rather like the idea of formal teaching of soda bread making or understanding that Irish butter is the best in the world, these things are a given, from birth.
The French wine world recognised that Spurrier was doing beneficial things for the reputation and sales of good French wine, so in 1976 he pitched an idea that grabbed their attention: a contest between the best cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay from France, the Old World, and that of California, the New World.
The contest would be linked to the American bi-centennial which was rushing towards a tumultuous climax on July 4, 1976.
Spurrier and his partner from the Acadamie du Vin, Patricia Gallagher, gathered an impressive bunch of contacts from across France.
The main judges were all French and included Claude Dubois-Millot, director of influential guide Gault Millau, Odette Kahn, the editor of the Revue du Vin de France, and France's three best sommeliers Christian Vanneque of Tour D'Argent, Jean-Claude Vrinat of Restaurant Taillevent and Raymond Oliver.
In addition, Spurrier got Aubert de Villaine of the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Pierre Tari of Chateau Giscours and Pierre Brejoux of the Institute of Appellations of Origin from the wine industry.
Gallagher was also to be a judge at the event. Spurrier has consistently said he had absolutely no expectation that the US would, as happened, win the contest comprehensively.
Attending the event was Time magazine's Paris correspondent, George Taber, without whose insight the event would have passed into the ether.
Because Taber, spoke in English to Spurrier, was an American and a reporter, many of the judges assumed he didn't understand French. Taber walk ed up and down the tasting tables where the judges were seated as they tasted and talked among themselves.
He noted and published their every cringing comment - such as the ''Back to Montrachet, thank heavens'' comment made of Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, the eventual white wine winner.
Taber's 400-page book is the basis of the 'official' film of the event, the British-made Clear Entertainment, which has Spurrier's backing.
The script sticks closely to the book, which paints the wide-eyed Spurrier in glowing terms. However, as with the 7A, you wait 30 years for one and along come two at the same time.
Bottle Shock, which was announced later than Judgement of Paris, but got into production before it, is the Hollywood take on the events of 1976.
More aggressive and hard edged than its reival, it is pushing itself as the film of the birth of the Napa wine industry, which it pins around the 1976 tasting.
It takes a much more jaundiced view of events and features more of the back-story of how the Napa Valley winemakers came to beat the French, their gritty determination, French haughtiness and a bag of other cliches.
The motivation for Bottle Shock apparently comes from Irish-American Jim Barrett, owner of the winning white wine, Chateau Montelena Chardonnay 1973.
Danny De Vito is tipped to play Montelena's winemaker, the diminutive Mike Grgich. Keanu Reeves was tipped for the lead role in Judgement of Paris, which reveals a good amount about the vision of that film version.
Alan Rickman is also a much edgier choice as Spurrier, playing him as effete, privileged and quite Machiavellian. Spurrier has issued legal missives to the producers of Bottle Shock, who have cast them aside.
Bottle Shock looks set to beat Judgement of Paris to the big screen.
It is probably only fitting that this most contentious set of events should be conveyed in two different ways - an Old World and a New World version of the truth. Judging them may prove as difficult, if not as tasty, as the original events.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, August 20, 2007
Here is a link to the article from the Brisbane Times Mortiana posted.
Georgiana (I could spare the 30 seconds... Hope it works)
Seattle - Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Copyright 2007 Guardian Newspapers Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Guardian (London)
August 1, 2007 Wednesday
SECTION: GUARDIAN HOME PAGES; Pg. 9
LENGTH: 949 words
HEADLINE: Film: Hollywood goes nose to nose over French wine's darkest moment: Rival films to tell tale of 1976 tasting when classics were humbled by the New World
BYLINE: Kim Willsher Paris
Taste the difference
Steven Spurrier re-enacts the legendary Judgment of Paris, which is to be made into two rival Hollywood films - only one with his backing Photographs: Rex Features
It was a calamity for French viticulture - and it sparked a wine war that rages even to this day.
In 1976 a group of 11 distinguished wine experts were asked to compare some of France's finest wines with some little-known California bottles in a blind test. At the time it was carved in stone that France produced the best wines in the world.
When the unthinkable happened and every one of the judges - nine of them French - awarded top marks to the American wines, the reaction brought a whole new meaning to the phrase grapes of wrath. Three decades on, French viticulture has never completely recovered and some in France still find the event too painful to discuss.
Now the tasting is the reason behind another round of bloodletting, this time over two rival Hollywood films - one starring British actor Alan Rickman - that are being made about the legendary judgment.
At the time the French cried foul, dismissed the result as a fluke and declaring that anyone who knew anything knew as a matter of fact and instinct that French wines were better than California wines. The British wine merchant Steven Spurrier, who had organised the competition, was shunned as an agent of perfidious Albion, while the Gallic tasters received hate mail for "letting France down".
Mr Spurrier is involved in the so-called "official" version of the event, a film called Judgment of Paris based on a book by Time journalist George Taber, the only reporter present at the tasting. Mr Spurrier has accused the producers of a rival movie, entitled Bottle Shock and starring Rickman as Mr Spurrier and Danny DeVito as Mike Grgich, a celebrated Californian winemaker whose Napa Valley Chardonnay triumphed in the 1976 tasting, of "defamation and gross misinterpretation".
Having read the script Mr Spurrier is reportedly outraged that he is being portrayed as an "impossibly effete snob" and says the portrayal of his character is "deeply insulting". He has now written to the Bottle Shock producers threatening to sue and demanding that his name is excised from the story.
"There is hardly a word that is true in the script and many, many pure inventions as far as I am concerned," Mr Spur rier said in Decanter magazine, where he works as consultant editor.
Mr Spurrier, who organised a re-run of the tasting - with the same results - last year, added that some "if not all" representations of him in the rival film are "false, defamatory and disparaging", and show him in a "false light".
"It's absolute rubbish the way they portray me. I'm supposed to have employees I never had, been in places I've never been, borrowed money from banks I never borrowed," he said yesterday. "I've had my name taken off the script and I hope that if they make the film it will be as fiction rather than a true story."
The American production company making the official Judgment of Paris, which owns the rights to Mr Spurrier's story, is also considering suing the rival production.
Mr Spurrier, who was 34 at the time of the original tasting, said the production company had mooted some big names to play his character. "I said I wanted an English actor and they suggested Hugh Grant, but I said he's too old. They said Jude Law, I said too beautiful."
Other Hollywood leading men, including George Clooney and Keanu Reeves, have been suggested for major supporting roles.
Bottle Shock, which is currently being filmed, is due for release next year. Both films are hoping to cash in on the success of 2005's wine-themed Oscar winner Sideways. Nadine Jolson, a spokesman for Bottle Shock, said the film was about a historical event "and nobody owns the rights to that".
The infamous Paris tasting took place on May 24, 1976 in the covered terrace at the Intercontinental hotel. Mr Spurrier, who owned a small wine shop in the centre of the city and a wine school next door, wanted to draw attention to some exceptional wines from California, then unknown in Paris. He brought together a panel of judges, including Odette Kahn, editor of La Revue de Vin de France, a top sommelier and the owner of one France's top restaurants.
"It was an absolutely impeccable range of tasters. My intention was simply to draw attention to these new wines but I realised the only way to persuade them to taste them was to do it blind and say there were benchmarks of French wine in there," said Mr Spurrier.
He pitted premier and first cru Burgundy wines and grand and premier cru Bordeaux wines against Californian Chardonnay and Cabernet. "I had rigged the whole thing for the French to win. You don't take half a dozen unknown Californian wines and put them up the very best of French wine," he said.
Mr Spurrier said the French judges had treated the tasting as an intellectual exercise with only one outcome.
"They were saying things like "this is rather rich, it must be Californian", when it was a French wine, and they gave top marks to a wine convinced it was French. When they found out it wasn't there was general consternation," he said. "One of the judges wanted her notes back to change them, then wrote an article saying I had rigged the tasting, but the other testers were all very gentlemanly.
"What we showed in 1976 was that the Californian wines were better than the best French wines. It was a wake-up call to French winemakers. Sadly, it is a wake-up call they didn't heed."
Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1970, which came a shock second to the Californian Stag's Leap Wine Cellars 1973
British actor Alan Rickman is starring in one version of events, Bottle Shock
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Copyright 2007 World Entertainment News Network
All Rights Reserved
WENN Entertainment News Wire Service
August 1, 2007 Wednesday 12:10 PM GMT
SECTION: MOVIE
LENGTH: 172 words
HEADLINE: WINE MERCHANT SUES RICKMAN MOVIE BOSSES
ALAN RICKMAN's new movie is facing delays after the British wine merchant he portrays in the film pressed legal action.
Bottle Shock charts the infamous 1976 wine tasting competition in Paris when 11 experts were invited to blind test top French brands against little-known California bottles.
The judges, nine of them French, unanimously voted for the U.S. wine, causing huge upset in France.
But Steven Spurrier, who organised the event and is portrayed by Rickman in the film, is furious after reading the script, accusing moviemakers of "defamation and gross misinterpretation".
In a letter fired off to Bottle Shock's producers, he adds his characterisation is "deeply insulting" and is threatening to sue unless his name is removed from the story.
He says, "There is hardly a word that is true in the script and many, many pure inventions as far as I'm concerned."
An American production company making a rival movie about the event after securing rights to Spurrier's story, is also considering legal action against Bottle Shock bosses.
Georgiana (Can you imagine? Not wanting to be played by Alan Rickman in a film?)
Seattle - Wednesday, August 01, 2007
From the BBC:
Stars unite to save city theatre
The signatories fear the theatre company will fade away A host of Britain's best-known actors, writers and directors have signed a letter of support to help save Bristol's Old Vic company.
Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Judi Dench, Patrick Stewart, Alan Rickman, Simon Curtis, Sir Derek Jacobi and Emma Thompson are among 120 signatories.
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Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, July 30, 2007
Australian interview with Rickman HERE
sue
England - Sunday, July 29, 2007
From Sunday Telegraph on Bottle Shock
Films at war over fall of French wine
29/07/2007
When American wines trounced the French in a blind tasting in Paris in 1976, there was uproar. More than 30 years on, a new row has broken out, this time over who has the right to film the story for Hollywood.
British wine merchant Steven Spurrier: Films at war over fall of French wine Steven Spurrier claims a new film of The Judgement of Paris depicts him as a snob
The British merchant who organised the 1976 tasting, which came to be known as The Judgement of Paris, has threatened to sue the makers of one movie, entitled Bottle Shock, while the producers of a rival project, The Judgement of Paris, claim that they own the rights to the story.
Mike Grgich, whose own Chardonnay emerged victorious in the blind tasting, is said to be objecting to Bottle Shock, which is backed by his former employers, Jim and Jo Barrett, the owners of Chateau Montelena in the Napa Valley, California.
Shooting on Bottle Shock is due to start this week, with Alan Rickman, 61, starring as Steven Spurrier, who arranged the Paris tasting, and Danny DeVito as Mr Grgich. Having read the screenplay, Mr Spurrier claimed the film is a misrepresentation of the story and that the portrayal of his own part in the event is "false, defamatory and disparaging".
Elizabeth Fowler and Clark Peterson, the producers of The Judgement of Paris, insist that theirs is the official version, as they own the rights to George M Taber's book recounting the story of the tasting and hold "life" rights to Mr Spurrier and other leading protagonists in the event. They say they are preparing to take legal action against Bottle Shock.
While Mr Taber, who was the only journalist at the event, is understood to be consulting his lawyers, Mr Spurrier has written to Randall Miller, the director of Bottle Shock, threatening legal action unless references to himself and his former businesses - Les Caves de la Madeleine and L'Academie du Vin - are removed from the film.
Connoisseurs were stunned in 1976 when US wines won in both the red and white categories. It marked an end to the superiority of French wines and put New World wines on the map.
Mr Spurrier said: "There is hardly a word that is true in the script and many pure inventions as far as I am concerned. It's deeply insulting. They are depicting me as an impossibly effete snob. The idea of Alan Rickman playing me is most bizarre and about as far from historical truth as one can get. He's a really nice guy, but I was a very young 34 at the time."
Producers of The Judgement of Paris are lining up Hugh Grant or Jude Law for the role.
Mr Spurrier said that he plans to contact the surviving 1976 tasters to warn them about Bottle Shock.
One of the French judges, the late Odette Kahn, tried to get her ballot back after the event and accused Mr Spurrier of falsifying the results when he would not return it.
Warren Winiarski, who produced the winning red, received letters from people in the French wine business telling him the results were a fluke.
Miss Fowler said she expected The Judgement of Paris to finish shooting next year, and that the main aim of the legal action is to stop an inaccurate version of the story being told.
Nadine Jolson, a spokesman for Bottle Shock, claimed the real reason for the threats is concern that The Judgement of Paris might be overshadowed, in the same way that the film Infamous was overshadowed by its rival Capote last year.
She said filming on Bottle Shock will not stop and none of the names will be changed. "We're talking about the same historic event, but nobody owns the rights to that," she said, adding that their script was written in 2004, two years before Mr Taber finished his book about the event.
Claire
UK - Sunday, July 29, 2007
From Sonomanews.com:
'Lights, camera, action ...'
Feature film to be shot in Sonoma
By David Bolling INDEX-TRIBUNE EDITOR
Posted: Monday, July 23, 2007 7:34 PM PDT
It will be called "Bottle Shock," famed English actor Alan Rickman will star, and it will be shot mostly in Sonoma and Napa, partly around the Plaza.
Rickman is the famed star of countless British stage productions, as well as numerous films, including the original "Die Hard," "Robin Hood," "Love Actually," and most notably of late, the "Harry Potter" series in which he plays the oily Severus Snape.
"Bottle Shock" is the brainchild of Brenda Lhormer who, with her husband, Marc, has been a driving force behind the Sonoma Valley Film Festival. The film chronicles the events leading up to the famous Paris Tasting of 1976, at which California wines bested the exalted French wines in a blind tasting organized by Steven Spurrier, a Paris wine merchant.
The film unfolds through the lives of father and son, Jim and Bo Barrett, who founded Chateau Montelena in the early 1970s and whose chardonnay, made by winemaker Mike Grgich, went on to win the white wine competition in what was eventually coined "The Judgment of Paris." The red wine winner was a 1973 vintage from Stag's Leap.
"Bottle Shock" will be directed by Randall Miller, whose career has been primarily in television, but who directed the film "Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School," which opened the Sonoma Valley Film Festival in 2006.
Miller and his wife, Jody Savin, reworked the original "Bottle Shock" script and Savin is now one of the film's producers.
Filming will be done primarily at Sonoma wineries, as well as in Glen Ellen and Calistoga. There will be some filming in downtown Sonoma around the Plaza on Aug. 22 and 27 that will close down portions of East Napa Street. Foot traffic will be minimally affected and traffic will be rerouted. Filming will include the Ledson Hotel, the Swiss Hotel and Toscano. Businesses impacted by the shooting schedule will be fairly compensated for any demonstrable losses.
Numerous local extras will be hired to augment the 50-person cast. Some 10 to 20 actors will be hired from Sonoma and San Francisco.
Some 18 crew members are already in Sonoma, renting local lodging, and a production office has been set up on Eighth Street East.
The release date for the film has not been set, but Lhormer said the Sundance Film Festival will be an early venue, along with other key festivals, to build interest in the film and drive distribution deals in 2008.
Georgiana (the same version as below, with reps added)
Seattle - Friday, July 27, 2007
From the Hollywood Reporter:
Five raise a glass to 'Bottle' pic
By Borys Kit
July 20, 2007
Chris Pine, Rachael Taylor, Eliza Dushku, Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman are toasting "Bottle Shock," a drama about the birth of the Napa Valley wine industry from filmmaker Randall M. Miller.
Set in the 1970s, the film is based on the true story of the Montelena Winery, which won an international wine-tasting competition and put the California region on the vino map.
Pine portrays the son of the vineyard owner who saves the winery and represents Napa in the French tasting, while Taylor plays a university student who interns at the winery.
Dushku acts as a local bartender, and Pullman is the owner of the run-down winery who clashes with his son.
Rickman is an Englishman who runs L'Academie du Vin in Paris and is the chief architect of the blind-tasting challenge that results in an upset victory for the American vintages.
The script was written by Miller and Jody Savin from an original script by Ross Schwartz. Savin also is producing along with Marc Toberoff and J. Todd Harris of IPW.
IPW raised the financing for the film, which begins shooting Aug. 1 in Napa and Sonoma.
Miller, an actor-turned director, is best known for writing, directing and producing 2005's ensemble musical "Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School."
Pine, repped by SDB Partners and John Carrabino Management, is shooting "Small Town Saturday Night." The project by writer-director Ryan Craig was initially set up at the Sundance Producers Lab in 2006. Pine will next be seen in Paramount Vantage's "Carriers," due out early next year, and recently starred in the Neil LaBute play "Fat Pig" at the Geffen Playhouse.
Taylor can be seen in the summer hit "Transformers" and recently wrapped the horror film "Shutter" opposite Joshua Jackson. She is repped by WMA and Marquee in Australia.
Gersh-repped Dushku next stars in the indie crime drama "The Alphabet Killer" while Pullman, repped by One Entertainment, recently appeared in the crime comedy "You Kill Me."
Rickman, repped by Endeavor and ICM London, is on screen as Severus Snape in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and will next be seen in Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd."
Georgiana (the same version as below, with reps added)
Seattle - Friday, July 20, 2007
Copyright 2007 VNU Business Media, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
VNU Entertainment News Wire (Online)
July 20, 2007 Friday
SECTION: NEWS; FILM
LENGTH: 252 words
HEADLINE: Five raise a glass to 'Bottle' pic
BYLINE: BORYS KIT
Chris Pine, Rachael Taylor, Eliza Dushku, Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman are toasting "Bottle Shock," a drama about the birth of the Napa Valley wine industry from filmmaker Randall M. Miller.
Set in the 1970s, the film is based on the true story of the Montelena Winery, which won an international wine-tasting competition and put the California region on the vino map.
Pine portrays the son of the vineyard owner who saves the winery and represents Napa in the French tasting, while Taylor plays a university student who interns at the winery.
Dushku acts as a local bartender, and Pullman is the owner of the run-down winery who clashes with his son.
Rickman is an Englishman who runs L'Academie du Vin in Paris and is the chief architect of the blind-tasting challenge that results in an upset victory for the American vintages.
The script was written by Miller and Jody Savin from an original script by Ross Schwartz.
Miller, an actor-turned director, is best known for writing, directing and producing 2005's ensemble musical "Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School."
Pine is shooting "Small Town Saturday Night."
Taylor can be seen in the summer hit "Transformers" and recently wrapped the horror film "Shutter" opposite Joshua Jackson.
Dushku next stars in the indie crime drama "The Alphabet Killer" while Pullman recently appeared in the crime comedy "You Kill Me."
Rickman is on screen as Severus Snape in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and will next be seen in Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd."
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, July 20, 2007
Sorry, the 'below' is from Playbill News online.
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, July 20, 2007
Pullman and Rickman Team on New Film "Bottle Shock"
By Ernio Hernandez
20 Jul 2007
Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman have joined the cast of the upcoming independent film "Bottle Shock," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Randall M. Miller ("Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School") directs the script he penned with Jody Savin from Ross Schwartz's original. Filming starts, according to the trade mag, this August in California.
Chris Pine (Fat Pig - Geffen Playhouse), Rachael Taylor ("Transformers") and Eliza Dushku (Dog Sees God) will also be part of the cast of the new 1970's-set film based on the true story of the birth of the Napa Valley wine industry.
Pullman will portray the owner of a run-down winery, while Rickman plays an Englishman who helps put the American vintage on the map.
After making his Broadway debut in the Edward Albee play The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, Pullman revisits the scribe's work this fall at Off-Broadway's Second Stage when he stars in Peter and Jerry. The actor — known for turns in such films as "Sleepless in Seattle," "Independence Day," "While You Were Sleeping," "Spaceballs," "Lost Highway" and more — has also appeared on stage in Subject Was Roses, Oedipus at Colonus and The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve Killing His Wife Killer's Head/Action. He also conceived and will direct Expedition 6 (Sept. 8-Oct. 7) at San Francisco's Magic Theatre.
Rickman — seen now on screen reprising his role in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and next to be seen in Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd" — has performed on Broadway in Private Lives and Les Liaisons Dangereuses, earning Tony Award nominations for both. The London stage star recently directed Rachel Corrie, which he co-created with Katherine Viner. Other film credits include "Die Hard," "Galaxy Quest," "Love Actually," "Dogma," "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" and the HBO movie "Something the Lord Made."
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, July 20, 2007
From decanter.com:
Alan Rickman to play Steven Spurrier in rival 'Paris Tasting' movie July 19, 2007
Adam Lechmere
Hollywood star Alan Rickman will play Steven Spurrier in a rival to the forthcoming film of the Paris tasting, decanter.com can reveal.
The actor - renowned for his portrayals of charming though sinister Englishmen - plays Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies. He became an international star with his role as the evil Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.
But Rickman is taking part in a film called Bottle Shock, which also stars Danny DeVito, and is a bitter rival to the Judgment of Paris, the official movie of the legendary 1976 tasting.
So incensed are producers of Judgment of Paris that they are considering suing their competitors, who they consider are mounting unfair competition.
Producers Elizabeth Fowler and Clark Peterson of Clear Pictures Entertainment own the life rights to Spurrier and Patricia Gallagher (his business partner in Paris in the 70s), and rights to George M Taber's book The Judgment of Paris, the official story of the 1976 Paris Tasting.
Fowler told decanter.com they are consulting their lawyers 'regarding filing a lawsuit against the production of Bottle Shock.'
Their film is scripted by Robert Kamen – whose credits include the Fifth Element and Lethal Weapon. Bottle Shock has been commissioned by Jim and Bo Barrett of Napa property Chateau Montelena.
Fowler and her colleagues consider Bottle Shock has at best a cavalier attitude to history. The script allegedly makes no mention of Warren Winiarski, whose 1973 Stag's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon came out top in the legendary 1976 tasting.
Meanwhile, Clear Pictures have mooted several different stars for the part of Spurrier, including Hugh Grant and Jude Law.
Other actors have been suggested for key supporting roles, including George Clooney for Winiarski. Producers were also looking to net Keanu Reeves to play Napa winemaker Mike Grgich of Grgich Hills.
Rickman himself is an Italian wine fan, and already knew of Spurrier, having stayed at Montalcino property Castello di Argiano at the same time as the wine writer, although they never met.
Spurrier said Rickman called him to tell him he would be playing him in Bottle Shock.
'Knowing that the script described me as “an impossibly effete young Englishman”, I wished him the best of luck,' he said.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, July 19, 2007
Copyright 2007 International Herald Tribune
Staunton joins an astonishing ensemble of serious actors who, in the best British tradition, refuse to condescend to the material, earning their paychecks and the gratitude of the grownups in the audience. Rickman has turned Snape (who here discloses the origins of his animus against Harry) into one of the most intriguingly ambiguous characters in modern movies, and it is always a treat to see the likes of Emma Thompson, David Thewlis and Gary Oldman, however briefly.
The International Herald Tribune
July 11, 2007 Wednesday
SECTION: FEATURE; Pg. 20
LENGTH: 1153 words
HEADLINE: Corruption, conspiracy and deceit in the wizard world;
MOVIES
BYLINE: by A.O. Scott - The New York Times Media Group
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Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Copyright 2007 New Statesman Ltd.
The series has reached the unusual stage where actors of the calibre of Maggie Smith, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman and David Thewlis appear in the background like beautifully upholstered furniture, doing little more than exuding classiness. This makes Staunton's forceful comic turn all the more welcome. The jolt of life she brings to Order of the Phoenix briefly helps you forget that the Harry Potter films still have yet to deliver much in the way of cinematic magic. Most of the 12 hours of screen time notched up so far bears all the hallmarks of having been masterminded by Muggles.
All Rights Reserved
New Statesman
July 12, 2007
LENGTH: 744 words
HEADLINE: Masterminded by Muggles
BYLINE: Ryan Gilbey
HIGHLIGHT:
Harry Potter has amassed 12 hours of screen time, but real magic eludes him
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (12A) dir: David Yates
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Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Copyright 2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
Meanwhile, fans will surely savour the high professional gloss and expertise of this film, and the acting of a notable cast (Helena Bonham Carter as mad-eyed Bellatrix and Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, among them).
All Rights Reserved
The Evening Standard (London)
July 12, 2007 Thursday
SECTION: A; Pg. 35
LENGTH: 486 words
HEADLINE: Harry gets his girl;
The boy wizard has some growing up to do in the darkest Potter film yet, but there's still plenty of magic
BYLINE: DEREK MALCOLM
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Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Copyright 2007 Nottingham Evening Post
The other performances are mostly excellent, with Michael Gambon now fully inhabiting the sketchily written Dumbledore, Alan Rickman perfect as the morally ambigious Snape, Gary Oldman providing just the right degree of vulnerable gravitas for Sirius Black, and Jason Isaacs radiating malice as Lucius Malfoy.
All Rights Reserved
Nottingham Evening Post
July 13, 2007 Friday
SECTION: Pg. 4
LENGTH: 687 words
HEADLINE: Hurryupharry
It's no fun being Harry Potter.
Jjj
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Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Copyright 2007 EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS
The screen swarms with familiar faces such as Emma Thompson (sadly underused), Dame Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane's Hagrid and Helena Bonham Carter, who give their all and, in the case of Alan Rickman, gives his all and then far too much.
All Rights Reserved
Daily Star
July 13, 2007 Friday
U.K. 1st Edition
SECTION: COLUMNS; 57
LENGTH: 325 words
HEADLINE: WIZ IS THE BIZ!; ALAN FRANK'S back row - Harry is simply wand-erful
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Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Copyright 2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
If The Order Of The Phoenix had to be 157 minutes long, one wishes fewer of those minutes had been taken up by Radcliffe's dubious expressions of awe and wonder (surely Harry would be a bit jaded about this sorcery stuff now he's come face-to-face with the dark lord himself and everything) and more by Alan Rickman's sarcastic Severus Snape, Gary Oldman's swaggering Sirius Black or, better still, Imelda Staunton's Dolores Umbridge, Hogwarts' new Iron Lady..
All Rights Reserved
Daily Mail (London)
July 13, 2007 Friday
SECTION: 1ST; Pg. 54
LENGTH: 1490 words
HEADLINE: Harry's growing pains stretch the magic;
its friday! film reviews
BYLINE: Tom Cox
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Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Copyright 2007 Telegraph Group Limited
The rest of the cast, as always, lay on a series of master classes in the droll superiority of English character acting. Fiona Shaw, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters, Brendan Gleeson, Robert Hardy, Alan Rickman and Michael Gambon all offer delicious, if far, far too brief turns. Welcome new arrivals include Helena Bonham Carter, as the deranged cousin of Sirius Black, coming across as the kind of dark-garbed, electric-shocked-hair freak you'd expect to see in a Tim Burton movie.
Best of all is Staunton, who, playing Professor Umbridge, puts behind her the mild-mannered dormouse demeanour that she has displayed in films such as Vera Drake. Here, dressed in pink, a smile on her rosy cheeks, nodding constantly as if to signal agreement, she rules Hogwarts like a tyrant, or, as Rowling may well be seeking to imply, a National League Tables inspector. Every time she appears, it's hard to know whether to giggle or hiss.
All Rights Reserved
The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
July 13, 2007 Friday
SECTION: NEWS; Film on Friday; Pg. 31
LENGTH: 982 words
HEADLINE: Harry stumbles in the dark There are plenty of things to like in the latest Harry Potter movie, but it fails to sustain the thrillingly apocalyptic mood of the opening scenes
BYLINE: Sukhdev Sandhu
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Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Copyright 2007 Newsquest Media Group
With Staunton commanding maximum screen-time, the ever-growing gang of hallowed British thespians orbiting the children barely register; only Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman manage to make their presence felt, with Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson left with little to do except happily ponder their paycheques.
All rights reserved
The Sunday Herald
July 15, 2007
SECTION: SEVEN DAYS; Pg. 21
LENGTH: 857 words
HEADLINE: You can't always get what you wand
FILM
BYLINE: By Graeme Virtue
HIGHLIGHT:
Harry Potter experiences teen angst in the latest film of the series
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Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Copyright 2007 Newspaper Publishing PLC
Apart from Alan Rickman, whose Snape here mines several new strata of sepulchral peevishness, Staunton is the only actor who really gets to attack her part with relish: enjoy the saccharine chill as she simpers, "The consequences may be... severe," through murderously pursed lips.
All Rights Reserved
The Independent on Sunday
July 15, 2007
First Edition
LENGTH: 1311 words
HEADLINE: The minister of magic is not for turning;
A Thatcherite presence stalks Hogwarts' corridors of power, but do the teen wizard's fans care about politics?
Film
BYLINE: Jonathan Romney
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
David Yates
138 MINS, PG
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Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, July 18, 2007
From Gazette.net, Maryland community newspapers online:
. . . . . . . . . .War does arrive, after a protracted buildup, and so does confusion, despair and a sense of having arrived in mid-air. In the swift pile-up of characters and plots, the old guard clocks in and out: McGonagall (Maggie Smith), Moody (Brendan Gleeson), Hagrid (Bobby Coltrane) and the ditzy Trelawney (Emma Thompson). A new bunch crowds the bus — Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch), Bellatrix Lestrange (a demented Helena Bonham Carter) and someone called Nymphadora Tonks (Natalia Tena) — none of whom can hold a bell, book or candle to, for example, the exquisitely sneering Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), who has a way of guillotining his words — ‘‘Get. Out.”
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Pop Stop: Turn to the Brits for the baddest of the bad guys
Aaron Sagers
July 15, 2007
In the interests of national security, I'd like to officially request that British actor Alan Rickman be flagged and added to some sort of threat list.
In the original ''Die Hard,'' Rickman was introduced to American audiences when he immortalized the character of money-hungry terrorist Hans Gruber. Not content to simply nibble as the scenery, Rickman's Gruber gobbled it up with a vitriolic smarminess and set the bar for brainy bad guys in modern action movies.
Despite plenty of respectable, non-villain roles (you can't get much cooler than being ''The Voice'' of God in ''Dogma''), Rickman continued to be incredibly good at being devilishly bad. Never before has an actor so successfully sold a bit on cutting a heart out with a spoon (''because it's dull, you twit, it'll hurt more'' of course) as he did in ''Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.'' Certainly, he'll imbue his Judge Turpin with a similarly evil attitude in next year's ''Sweeney Todd,'' directed by Tim Burton.
Currently, in but a few scenes for every movie, Rickman has fully realized the greasy, subtle menace of bad-good-eventually-bad-again Professor Snape in the Harry Potter series.
Meanwhile, the foil for John McClane in the newest ''Die Hard''? Boyishly cute Hawaii-born actor Timothy Olyphant. ''Meh,'' I say.
When will we Americans learn that, when it comes to pop culture, the British are the real enemy? It's always the Brit villains who have exuded a smooth, sophisticated malevolence that has classically posed the greatest risk.
Just take a look at some great movie bad guys from just the last few years. Christopher Lee nailed the nasty wizard bit as Count Dooku and Saruman from the ''Stars Wars'' prequel and ''Lord Of The Rings'' trilogy, respectively. As Magneto, Ian McKellen is set on exterminating homo sapiens in ''X-Men,'' and Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) almost squished the bug in ''Spider-Man 2.'' Hugo Weaving -- who was born in Nigeria when it was still ruled by the crown -- has made the main meany list twice by acting like terrible tech as Agent Smith in ''The Matrix'' and as Magnetron in the new ''Transformers.''
This short list doesn't even cover the great villains of the past like Alex from ''Clockwork Orange'' (Malcolm McDowell) or Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) from ''Silence Of The Lambs.'' The best James Bond heavies have always answered to the queen (with apologies to Auric Goldfinger, played by German actor Gert Fröbe). The same is true for the best baddies in TV land -- Scotsman Gordon Ramsay from ''Hell's Kitchen,'' ''Battlestar Galactica's'' James Callis and ''American Idol's'' Simon Cowell.
However, it's not just that our friends from across the pond tackle villainy with such aplomb, it's that we actually prefer our bad guys to be Brits. And it should come as no surprise, really.
In part, the reason undeniably has to do with our roots as a country and our scrappy battle against King George III. Even if we've been nicey-nice for over a century, the United Kingdom will always sort of be the Celtics to our Lakers. The fascination with bad guys with brogues probably also relates back to Shakespeare; that was one guy who knew how to write a good villain, and every British villain since ''Othello'' has just been putting a new gloss on Iago.
Now, for those of you who might suggest it's connected to the metric system and the annoying addition of the letter ''u'' in words that work perfectly well without it, keep in mind that the idea of a believable Canadian villain is sort of laughable.
Even fellow Commonwealth Realm Australia -- which, like Canada, still ceremoniously recognizes the queen -- has a hard time pulling off a good villain. Example: Julian McMahon's finger-tenting hamminess as Dr. Doom in ''Fantastic Four: The Rise Of The Silver Surfer.''
But when it comes down to it, British villains in pop culture just feel safer than some of our real-world bad guys. They're easier to separate from reality and aren't really bad.
Well, that was before the Spice Girls decided to reunite, anyhow. Man, where's Alan Rickman with a spoon when you need him?
aaron.sagers@mcall.com
610-820-6127
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, July 16, 2007
Copyright 2007 Guardian Newspapers Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Guardian (London) - Final Edition
July 2, 2007 Monday
SECTION: GUARDIAN REVIEW PAGES; Pg. 38
LENGTH: 294 words
HEADLINE: Review: Classical: The Ground Beneath Her Feet Bridgewater Hall, Manchester 2/5
BYLINE: Alfred Hickling
As the only major international festival based solely on new work, it's the business of the Manchester international festival to present bold experiments. Victoria Borisova-Ollas's commission, based on a novel by Salman Rushdie, is suitably difficult to classify: it's a film by Mike Figgis; it's a reading by Alan Rickman; it's an undemanding evening's work for the Halle orchestra - all this and somewhat less besides.
Rushdie's novel is a rock'n'roll reincarnation of the Orpheus legend in which a Greco-Indian duo overcome their emotional differences to become an enormous stadium act promoting the message that "only music can save us".
But not this music. In the novel, Rushdie took the audacious step of penning lyrics to the most heartbreaking love song the world has never heard. Borisova-Ollas sets herself the impossible task of rendering it audible, and the soupy, sub-Scott-Walker melody is inevitably rather underwhelming.
Borisova-Ollas's orchestral writing is perfectly competent, yet it often seems no more than an soundtrack to all the other elements jostling for attention. You are never sure if you should be looking up at Figgis's film, or down at the two soloists, James McOran-Campbell and Lore Lixenberg, whose microphone distorts every time she ascends into operatic head voice. The narration is suitably charismatic, though often it simply feels as if you are listening to the audio-book read by Rickman.
Above all, one wonders if a story about rock stardom really requires the Halle to go through the motions while a three-piece electric band makes all the most telling contributions. Rushdie's narrative culminates in a series of earthquakes - one of the few occasions where the ground really does oblige by opening up and swallowing everything.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, July 09, 2007
Copyright 2007 NewsQuest Media Group Limited
All Rights Reserved
UK Newsquest Regional Press - This is Hampshire
July 3, 2007 Tuesday
SECTION: NEWS
LENGTH: 129 words
HEADLINE: Birthday bash for film-maker Ken
BYLINE: Sally Churchward
DATELINE: Daily Echo
WORLD-RENOWNED Hampshire film director Ken Russell is hosting a lavish 80th birthday bash tonight with a guest list reading like a who's who of British stage and screen.
Among those on the guest list are Russell Brand, Glenda Jackson, Alan Rickman, Kevin Spacey, Lee Evans, Jermaine Jackson, Lord Bragg, Robert Carlyle, Helen Mirren, Twiggy and Bryan Adams.
The party of the Southampton-born director is being held at the Proud art gallery in London, which is showing a retrospective of his photographs of London in the 50s, before moving on to a private members' club.
Ken's wife Lisi said: "We want to celebrate the enormous life force of this brilliant, gorgeous genius."
Ken added: "It's going to be the greatest show on earth."
For the full story see today's Daily Echo
Georgiana (found amongst the zillions of DH4 reviews--is there a one that doesn't mention the best villain?)
Seattle - Monday, July 09, 2007
I see Seattle is seeing a run of "Snow Cake" at the Varsity Theater this weekend.
Showtimes are as follows:
Fri, Jul 6: (2:00 4:20)7:20 9:20
Sat, Jul 7 - Sun, Jul 8: (2:00)4:20 7:20 9:20
Mon, Jul 9: 7:20 9:20
Tue, Jul 10: (7:20 9:20)
Wed, Jul 11 - Thu, Jul 12: 7:20 9:20
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, July 06, 2007
Just want to let you all know , that Perfume is going to be out on dvd July 24th. I was in a local video store and saw it advertised. Can't wait.
well thats it for now, take care all. Lynn
Lynn <pyewacket003@aol.comfoo>
ottawa, Canada - Wednesday, July 04, 2007
I just ordered The Search for John Gissing after waiting for it since 2002. Thank you, Sheena, for all your effort, patience and perseverance, working for years to get this film released for us all.
Susan
- Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Yummy picture and good critique: The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Glowbox
France - Wednesday, July 04, 2007
From the Manchester Evening News
"Rickman, as the other lover, is also the narrator and shoulders the whole script with supreme aplomb, striking a tone that is both authorial and amusing."
It must have taken a lot of effort to pull off this performance. (I'd still rather have seen Tango or LLD though, to be honest.) Bravo to AR for getting involved. There are photos and first hand reports at Claudia's GB, BTW. Thanks again Susan.
Renie
I'm only through Chapter 3 of the book, - Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Mike Binder has updated his MySpace with the latest info on The Search for John Gissing There is a slight delay but he hopes to have it up for sale next week. Read the blog entry for the details :-)
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, US - Saturday, June 30, 2007
Don't miss those interviews!--in the first AR is relaxed and very engaged, animated, laughing even. In the second he recoils, appalled, at the interviewer and references to "that book" LOL-I love it when he disses that piece of JUNK, MP's "book".
Some more accolades for our consumate villain:
From the SF Chronicle Culture blog:
"And Hans Gruber (memorably played by Alan Rickman, with immmmmmposssssibly arrrrrrch and rounddd vocal tonesssss) is another reason to praise Die Hard. There's a basic principle of storytelling Hollywood often forgets in action films -- namely, your hero is only as tough as the villain he takes on... Rickman's Gruber -- smooth, swift, smart and deadly -- is both the opposite of Willis' earthy, plain-guy McClane and entirely similar. McClane is good at improvising; so, in one of the movie's best scenes, is Gruber. . . . we'll always have Nakatomi Plaza."
From Daily Yomiuri Online:
"Above all, the new movie is lacking Alan Rickman's perfect villain. ("No, I'm an exceptional thief," is still among cinema's most memorable rejoinders.) This time around, Olyphant does his best as a super-smooth mastermind in the Rickman mold, but there's no beating the original, and perhaps the filmmakers should never have tried. Ultimately, it's pointless to compare the new movie with the original. Since the first Die Hard was arguably the best action movie ever made...."
R these reviewers don't even *mention* the hand-iwork in DH, which slays me . . . every time.
“Just *wound* them.”, - Saturday, June 30, 2007
AR is performing in Manchester tonight. Yesterday he gave two interviews to BBC Manchester radio
Susan
- Saturday, June 30, 2007
Back on the DH4 front, many reviewers are revisiting AR's turn in their critiques of the new movie.
Here's a snippet:
"The original 1988 "Die Hard" gave us a terrific villain, Hans Gruber, played by Alan Rickman. His crew was a gang of no-nonsense Swedes. I always watch "Die Hard" for Rickman's performance. There is the scene where Gruber introduces himself to the assembled hostages and he makes a slight shrug. That shrug is a brilliant, non-verbal display of efficiency, disassociation, and command. And how about when Gruber runs into McClane? This has become an essential piece of the "Die Hard" template.
What about the duet between Gruber and Harry Ellis (Hart Bochner)?
Unfortunately, this time, McClane is up against a rather shallow villain, Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant). He's an angry stockbroker with a very hot, super-intelligent girlfriend, Mai (Maggie Q)." [End snippet]
I agree with the Gruber shrug. Another example of how AR uses his whole body in acting so well. But a few mistakes by that reviewer. In the new DH film, ****WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS***
...the villain is NOT a stockbroker in the least. The "fire sale" attack upon the US is engineered by Thomas Gabriel, who was fired by DOD when he told them the US was vulnerable to such an attack. (The classic "I told them and they didn't believe me--those fools--now, now I shall unleash the fury of my knowledge upon those ungrateful ****'s.) The "villain" is not wall street, but actually a cyber-thief with a large bone to pick. He's in black emo clothes, with a black watchband for God's sake. (Kind of reminded me of Toby M in Spiderman 3 in the club, not a good thing for a villain to do.)
***END SPOILERS BUT DISCUSSION CONTINUES****
BW does a fine job, actually in the movie, there are homages and running gags from the first film (e.g., another FBI agent named Johnson) and visual send-ups. The movie scene stealer this time is Justin Long, Brandon from GQ, with sprigs of facial hair but that same "Ah, Commander?" voice. ("I knew it was real!" LOL) The banter is funny enough, lots of cable TV type stand-in expletives for the F-word, and you'll notice a few scenes where the redubbing on Justin is awful---he's cursing longer and worse that the audio overdub. That was to get rid of the R rating (just as happened in GQ). Women don't really figure in this film, Maggie Q could be a guy the way she gets beat up by BW, even if she is in high boots. Be prepared for lots of action and shoot 'em ups. Overall, the editing is the real star, keep it moving, don't ask questions, and those bad guys take a licking and keep on kicking to the point of absurdity.
I watched DH with family the night before we saw DH4--that was the *very* thing to do, I recommend it highly.
Renie
Ah, Hans. You're still the best., - Friday, June 29, 2007
A wonderful article on Hamlet, AR and Director Robert Sturua> Oh, to have been there.
Interchange Between Georgian Director and British Actor "rare opportunity"
By Alan Blyth
A short, dramatic extract from Robert Sturua's Hamlet was the captivating opening to Masterclass, a fifty-minute event featuring the world-renowned Georgian theatrical director, Robert Sturua, and his long-time friend, the award-winning British actor, Alan Rickman, which was performed at the Rustaveli Theatre Sunday, June 17. Throughout this event, Hamlet's sword, planted in a block, stood upright centre-stage as a potent reminder of the key connection between the two men: Rickman played Hamlet at the Riverside Studio in England in 1992, under Sturua's direction.
Sturua and Rickman, with the aid of an interpreter, talked about their association, which goes back about 25 years, and their experience of working together on Hamlet provided an anchor for many witty anecdotes. In the course of this dialogue, Rickman mentioned that he had had to learn how to work with Sturua, as his style of direction was so different from the style that Rickman was used to. Rickman vividly recalled how they had had only five weeks to rehearse Hamlet, and that after the first week had elapsed, they had only rehearsed Act 1, Scene 1, and Rickman, the main protagonist in the play, had neither said nor done anything in that time. This had caused him some dismay, however things worked out well in the end. Rickman emphasized that it had been an absolute pleasure to work with Sturua on that play.
Questions from the audience were wide-ranging. Sturua was asked about censorship during the Soviet era, and how things had changed since then. He gave a brief reply, in which he said that despite the difficulties they got their message through using the "language of the theatre". He chose not to elaborate on this, and said that he did not want to talk about politics.
Rickman, whose short visit to Tbiilisi was partly funded by the British Council, revealed that he had wanted to be an actor since the age of seven, when he had had a role in a school play. He added that he is probably best known in Georgia for his portrayal of Professor Severus Snipe in the Harry Potter movies. Asked whether it was difficult to be an actor, he replied: "It's difficult to be unemployed, it's difficult to be a coal miner, it's difficult to be a single mother... life as an actor is blessed."
When Rickman was questioned about what it's like to act in sex scenes in movies, he candidly revealed that such scenes are unromantic: with a hundred people watching, you take your clothes off, say "Hello" to someone you don't know, worry about your body because you are old and fat, and you just wonder what the poor girl is thinking about.
Rickman ended the Masterclass with a rendition of the monologue, "All the World's a Stage..." and following that the audience rose to their feet and their applause lasted for a full four minutes, while bows were taken. It's worth mentioning that at this point Sturua stayed mainly in the background and allowed Rickman to take the limelight.
Renie
- Friday, June 29, 2007
A review of Die Hard 4 in The Guardian on-line today mentions AR: BW starred "in 1988 in the action classic Die Hard, taking on 'terrorists', which in those innocent days meant our very own Alan Rickman with a comedy German accent". In both senses quite a good review, though marred by a certain ageism. The critic is glad that BW doesn't show his arms in DH4, and hopes he won't appear at all in DH5, supposing there will be one.
pia susanna
edinburgh, - Friday, June 29, 2007
From the Pending Projects front, I learned from another GB that Acts of Charity, in which AR is set to play an ex-pat journalist named Fenchurch, is now being called We're Here to Help according to IMDB
Ali-Pat
Dayton, OH USA - Thursday, June 28, 2007
A lady in the group I run just checked and the announcement has now gone up at Mike Binder's official website. The Search for John Gissing goes on sale on Friday 29th June!
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Wednesday, June 27, 2007
From Timothy Olyphant, the guy who plays the villain in DH 4:
"I promise you that you will enjoy." The "Die Hard" franchise is known for its great bad guys, starting with Alan Rickman in the original film and continuing with William Sadler and Jeremy Irons.
Will Olyphant's Thomas Gabriel top them? Not necessarily, he says. "I went into it without thinking that I had to outdo the villain played so deliciously by Alan Rickman in the first film," the actor says. "It's a slippery slope, as an actor, to go down that line of thinking. You just can't go on the set thinking, 'I'll never do as good as that guy."' He did watch the first "Die Hard" film several times, however, to prepare for his role. "It's still a great movie that holds up," Olyphant says. "The characters are memorable. If anything, I wanted to find something that Alan Rickman did and stick it in somewhere as a little homage." [End snippet]
Most of the articles/reviews which mention AR cite him as a seminal and original prototype of the cool, intelligent and suave "bad guy". The UK Guardian described Alan Rickman as "co-starring" with Bruce Willlis in DH.
Shoot the glass, I say.
Renie
- Friday, June 22, 2007
From today's Entertainment Weekly (The EW 100 - The Stars We Love right Now Issue): Number 4 - Alan Rickman Most Valuable Player. Age 61. Why Him? As the icy, humorless magic instructor Severus Snape in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Opening July 11), Rickman may not be on screen long-but he owns every minute. He's magnificently intimidating, whether jousting with Daniel Radcliffe's Harry or turning a simple retort ("No idea") into a mini-symphony of contempt. A stage veteran, Rickman can go from villainous (Die Hard) to heartbreaking (Truly Madly Deeply). NEXT Hes the lecherous Judge Turpin opposit Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd.
Chris
NJ - Friday, June 22, 2007
AR obviously can't resist an invitation to travel; he's been at the Georgia Book Festival: Georgian Times article
Glowbox
France - Friday, June 22, 2007
News on "The Search for John Gissing" I just checked Mike Binder's MySpace and he has finally updated with news... he hasn't posted since May and finally he posted again :-) Anyway here is the post Mike Binder's MySpace He says we should have the DVD in a couple of weeks! Before anyone says anything about if it is Mike's MySpace, it is definitely his MySpace as he links to it from his official website ;-)
Thanks to everyone who has signed and helped with publicise the petition. :-)
Sheena <dragon@amberdragon.freeserve.co.ukfoo>
Berkshire, UK - Friday, June 22, 2007
Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company
All Rights Reserved
The Boston Globe
June 1, 2007 Friday
FIRST EDITION
SECTION: LIVINGARTS; Pg. D12
LENGTH: 673 words
HEADLINE: Cold and alonein the world,two souls meet
BYLINE: Ty Burr Globe Staff
Movie Review
Snow Cake
Directed by: Marc Evans
Written by: Angela Pell
Starring: Alan Rickman,Sigourney Weaver, Carrie-Anne Moss, Emily Hampshire
At: Kendall Square
Running time: 112 minutes
Unrated (vehicular violence,mild sexuality, language)
**1/2
Beware of movie stars portraying the afflicted. On the other hand, treasure any movie that hands Alan Rickman a leading role.
The small Canadian drama "Snow Cake" prompts many emotions, not least of which is gratitude for temporarily freeing this great, undersung actor from the bondage of Severus Snape. Most of the mixed feelings, though, arise from Sigourney Weaver in the role of Linda Freeman, an autistic woman living in rural Ontario. The performance is brave, difficult, inventive, meticulously researched, fully felt. And you never forget you're watching someone pretend.
Is this because of our own discomfort? Because Weaver's too big a star to sink out of sight? Or is it because the movie, written by Angela Pell and directed by Marc Evans, is too small to rise up and meet Linda more than halfway? "Snow Cake" isn't "Rain Woman," exactly, but still there's the sense of packaging a prickly, mysterious subject into convenient dramatic shape.
Against that is the pleasure of watching Rickman play Alex Hughes, a wreck of an Englishman crossing Canada in a rental car. He's fleeing his past - it involves jail time and distant violence - and almost against his will picks up a young hitchhiker named Vivienne (Emily Hampshire). Rather, she picks him out of a diner full of travelers because he looks like "a man who needs to talk." That he does, even if it takes him the entire movie to do so.
Vivienne's a kook and a chatterbox, but Hampshire makes the character strangely endearing to Alex and to us, so it's with regrets that she disappears suddenly from the movie and he feels compelled to visit her mother. This is Linda, a restless woman-child who can't make eye contact but does her best to be social. "I'm supposed to offer you something, would you like some herbal tea, I have 18 different varieties," she blurts in an unsteady drone.
Another character describes her as "high functioning, can talk a glass eye to sleep, but can't tie her shoelace." Linda eats snow (thus the title), owns a backyard trampoline. Intensely germophobic, she won't let anyone into her kitchen, although she prevails on Alex to stay until trash-collection day because she "doesn't do garbage." Conveniently, this gives him time to attract the attention of others in her small town, particularly Maggie (Carrie-Anne Moss), the attractive and accommodating lady next door.
Well, the man needs healin', but it's to Rickman's credit that Alex's psychic scars seem too deep to be cured by a few rolls in the futon, even if it's with the babe from "The Matrix." The almost tactile sadness this actor has carried with him from 1991's "Truly Madly Deeply" all the way to Harry Potter is refined here to a thing of ruinous purity - an entire belief system based on disenchantment. "Snow Cake" is conventional in its slow arc toward personal betterment, but one look into Rickman's tormented eyes tells us some things can't be fixed.
Weaver's Linda is another matter. The actress doesn't use her eyes but rather her flailing arms and the forward thrust of her chest to convey this woman who understands just enough to know she stands forever outside human society. "Snow Cake" is about grief and its processing, both of which Linda may be immune to, yet the filmmakers aren't sure whether that's a tragedy or a state of grace. (Either, presumably, would be immaterial to an autistic.)
The actress just plays the part as honestly as she can, even when the script gives her a lovely but fraudulent Big Speech about her favorite made-up Scrabble word, "dazlious." "Snow Cake" is dazlious, too: overly forced, a shade too whimsical, but filling a void other words and other movies haven't the nerve or errant taste to confront.
Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/movies/blog.
GRAPHIC: Sigourney Weaver stars as an autistic woman living in rural Ontario in "Snow Cake."
Georgiana Ellis
Seattle - Thursday, June 21, 2007
Good news for anybody in the Seattle area! I have just learned that SNOW CAKE will be at Seattle's Varsity Theater for a week's run July 6-12.
Ali-Pat
Dayton, OH USA - Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Anybody who can play Region 2 DVDs can check out the first season of the Britcom Shelley which has just been released on DVD. AR appears on an episode called “Nowt So Queer” and he looks soooo young! He appears about 15 minutes into the episode and is only on screen for about six minutes, but I found those six minutes are highly entertaining! More about the Shelley DVD here.
Ali-Pat
Dayton, OH USA - Friday, June 15, 2007
According to Amazon, the Region 1 DVD of Snow Cake will be relased in the U.S. on September 11, 2007 (ouch).
Ali-Pat
Dayton, OH USA - Saturday, June 09, 2007
Snow Cake ALERT!
In the theatre magazine Famous thats out in ottawa, i saw a release date for Snow Cake on dvd.
It's coming out June 12, 2007. YIPPY i can't wait. i'm sure all of you will also be in the stores getting their copies.
have a great weekend . and GO! SENS! GO! :-)
lynn
lynn
ottawa, canada - Sunday, June 03, 2007
Alan Rickman is down as narrator for a World Premiere Concert in Manchester on 29th June. Details HERE
sue
england - Friday, June 01, 2007
Copyright 2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
The Evening Standard (London)
May 23, 2007 Wednesday
SECTION: A
LENGTH: 588 words
HEADLINE: The South Bank light show;
Lily Cole and Thandie Newton at Vogue party to celebrate Pounds 111 million overhaul
IT WAS the night the world of fashion gave its vote of confidence to a centre previously popular but not cool.
To mark the forthcoming reopening of the revamped Southbank, Alexandra Shulman, editor of Vogue, hosted a dinner at the new Skylon Restaurant at the Royal Festival Hall.
The guest list covered fashion, music, art and writing.
Model Lily Cole, actors Thandie Newton and Alan Rickman, composer Thomas Ades and writers Hari Kunzru and Alain de Botton were there alongside artists Martin Creed and Cornelia Parker. Sir Terence Conran, who worked at the Festival of Britain as a teenager, led the design team for the restaurant, which is intended to add a final touch of style to the Pounds 111 million transformation of the Southbank Centre.
Sir Terence said: "The Southbank was the first glimpse of cheerful modernity after the end of a long, gloomy war. I wouldn't be here if it didn't matter to me." The centre was built in 1951 in a spirit of egalitarian post-war optimism as part of the Festival of Britain. Guests reminisced about their own experiences of the centre, especially the Royal Festival Hall, which re-opens next month after its first major overhaul in half a century.
Thandie Newton, who danced at the Festival Hall as a girl, said it still retained its idealism.
"It's a properly fabulous environment. It doesn't feel class-ist." Mark Wallinger, one of this year's Turner Prize nominees, said he saw Miles Davis and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys play there.
Michael Lynch, the Australian chief executive who has kickstarted work after years of delays, said a fine restaurant went hand in hand with presenting a good programme.
"If you spend Pounds 100 million on a building, you hope that it will attract new people and make people feel as if it's an incredibly exciting part of the city." Ms Shulman said the Fifties design and architecture was very much of the moment. "For years, everyone thought it was hideous. Now it looks spot on.
And this whole area feels so much more alive." Artist Antony Gormley, who co-hosted the dinner, said: "London has come alive in the last 15 years and this is the heart of its aliveness. This is the place that gives it its beat."
Guests had a glimpse of the refurbished Royal Festival Hall. Alan Rickman said: "It's thrilling. Magnificent.
It's a great public space.
What's not to support?" The revamped Royal Festival Hall opens to the public with a weekend of events called The Overture starting on Friday 8 June.
Billy Bragg is among the performers.
"I think it will be a wonderful thing to be part of," he said.
HIGHLIGHTS OF NEW SEASON
THE OPENING season features performances as diverse as Bryn Terfel as Sweeney Todd to ex-Pulp star Jarvis Cocker's Meltdown festival.
The formal concert of the official opening night on 11 June features all the centre's resident orchestras - the London Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment - in a giant blast of 250 musicians and conductors including Vladimir Jurowski and Marin Alsop.
Also appearing in the first few weeks are Alfred Brendel, the pianist, and Paco Pena, the guitar master. Pop performers include Suzanne Vega and Brian Wilson.
The Jesus and Mary Chain, Motorhead, Iggy Pop and Sixties folk star Melanie are among Cocker's guests.
There will be a new production of Carmen Jones and performances by a Japanese electronic pop specialist and American jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Page 12 3,OOO FREE TICKETS TO THE OPENING WEEKEND: Page 45 END
GRAPHIC: FESTIVAL FESTIVITIES: LILY COLE, KIMBERLY AND STEPHEN QUINN, THANDIE NEWTON; HARLAN MILLER AND ANTONY GORMLEY
Georgiana Ellis <gellis@u.washington.edufoo>
Seattle - Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Copyright 2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
The Evening Standard (London)
May 24, 2007 Thursday
SECTION: B
LENGTH: 197 words
HEADLINE: Art crowd flocks to Saatchi rival;
THE LONDONER'S DIARY
ACTOR ALAN Rickman, Tate supremo Sir Nicholas Serota and artists Jake Chapman and Paula Rego were among the guests who packed the private view of Anticipation, a new show curated by Kay Saatchi at the One One One gallery.
The ex-Mrs Saatchi, who used to be married to veteran art collector Charles, is one of three curators who have assembled the show, which features the work of BA and MA arts students from 2005 and 2006.
One One One, which is located at 111 Great Titchfield Street in Fitzrovia, is run by David Roberts hailed in some quarters as this decade's new Charles Saatchi.
Accordingly most of the big players in the modern art world turned out last night to snatch a glimpse of the show, although because the gallery covers such a small space most of the party carried on in the street.
One exhibit, a workbench made of MDF, suffered the ignominy of having a full glass of red wine spilt over it, leaving Dave Benett a permanent stain, while another work was covered in footprints by the end of the evening, many guests not having spotted it subtly arranged on the floor.
Nevertheless, everything was sold in minutes, according to a gallery spokeswoman.
Hooray for modern art..
Georgiana Ellis <gellis@u.washington.edufoo>
Seattle - Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Copyright 2007 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd.
Sunday Mail
May 27, 2007, Sunday
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 19
LENGTH: 353 words
HEADLINE: HELP ME FIND LITTLE VOICE OF SCOTLAND;
MY LONDON DIARY..
BYLINE: Elaine C. Smith
I SPENT most of this week in London in bilin' temperatures.
We were down to see a production of Little Voice, which I am doing with Andy Gray in a major tour next year.
If there are any budding Little Voices out there then do get in touch with me through the Sunday Mail.
But before you rush off saying "Hey I can sing", I have to tell you that singing isn't enough.
You have to be between 18 and 24 (or at least look it), be able to impersonate Shirley Bassey, Judy Garland and Billie Holiday and act as well. It's a tall order but I know that she must be out there.
We timed our London trip so we could get to a "big do" to honour one of our friends, Ian Hutchison, who has just been made a professor of facial cancer at a top London hospital.
He is a wonderful, dedicated surgeon - up at six every day of the week, works tirelessly to help save the lives of his patients and rarely takes a holiday. The NHS are lucky to have so many like him.
The "do" was at the House of Lords which was a real experience. To be standing on the banks of the Thames with the likes of Alan Rickman, Bill Paterson, Ruby Wax, Jon Snow, James Naughtie and Neil Kinnock - as well as some of the best medical and legal brains in the country - just shows that when someone does good and wonderful things, their net casts very deep and wide.
It was an amazing night, especially when I think back to Neil Kinnock and myself singing "Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone" in the lobby of the House of Lords.
Yes, drink was taken and as we know it's not a good night unless it ends with a country song - and it took a couple of Celts to get the karaoke going.
A leading journalist who had been in Edinburgh covering the election said how excited he'd been by the result.
He said his entire stay was peppered with taxi drivers in Edinburgh who had said that they'd voted SNP for the first time in their lives "to gie somedie else a shot" and everyone else he met saying that they wished that they had voted SNP as they wanted to be part of the change.
They were feeling left out and that the revolution had passed them by... in a taxi obviously!
Georgiana Ellis <gellis@u.washington.edufoo>
Seattle - Tuesday, May 29, 2007
FYI...
A&E's Emmy Nominated Series
BREAKFAST WITH THE ARTS
May 6th, 2007 8:00 -10:00 AM EST
Host: Karina Huber
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2007 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This year the Tribeca Film Festival celebrates its Sixth Anniversary and we are there to talk to the people who make this star studded event one of the fastest growing film festivals in the world.
Featuring exclusive interviews with Robert De Niro, Jaime Kennedy, John Leguizamo, Eva Mendes, Adam Carolla, Matthew Perry, Alan Rickman, Mary Steenbergen and many more, this two – hour special goes deep inside the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival with the most talked about films and our celebrity spottings!
Join us as we check out the red carpets of some of the season's biggest premieres such as Spiderman 3 and Lucky You with the likes of Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Topher Grace, Drew Barrymore, Eric Bana and more!
See also: Breakfast with the Arts
Slope
Canada - Saturday, May 05, 2007
Copyright 2007 Newsweek
All Rights Reserved
Newsweek
April 9, 2007
International Edition
SECTION: THEATER; Pg. 0
LENGTH: 719 words
HEADLINE: Safety in the Slums; A play that deals frankly with AIDS prevention and treatment is changing social attitudes in Kenya.
BYLINE: By Alexandra Polier
Atop a small stage set against the backdrop of Kenya's biggest slum, a group of young actors is telling the story of one family's struggle with AIDS. Two daughters contract HIV, one through consensual unprotected sex and one through being raped by a friend who believes that sleeping with a virgin will cure him of the disease. At first, both girls are ostracized. But the rape victim courageously goes to the hospital for treatment; a year later she gets a clean bill of health and marries the boyfriend who stood by her. The other daughter goes on antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), stays symptom-free and gets a job working at a television station. The family reconciles as the crowd cheers at the happy ending.
. . . . . . . . . .
To date the SAFE troupes have performed for more than 450,000 people. An impact assessment sponsored by the Ford Foundation found that after a performance, up to 80 percent of the audience said they would use condoms and 95 percent said they would get tested for HIV. Still, the challenges remain daunting; though the Kenyan government has created 800 voluntary testing centers, the rollout of free drugs and counseling have been slow. But it's a start. "At the beginning of any given show up to 2,000 people know little about AIDS except what mystery, rumor and prejudice tells them," says actor Alan Rickman, a SAFE trustee and star of such films as "Love, Actually" and the Harry Potter series. "An hour later they go back to their villages knowing everything through stories they can identify with."
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, May 03, 2007
Copyright 2007 Time Out Group
All Rights Reserved
Time Out
April 18, 2007
SECTION: Pg. 127
LENGTH: 965 words
HEADLINE: Theatre - Battle lines; Rachel Halliburton travels to the land of the rising sun to talk to Yukio Ninagawa about his vision of Shakespeare, swords, and samurai war .. .
BYLINE: Rachel Halliburton
. . . . . . . . . .
Setting 'Coriolanus' in the samurai era is an interesting way of looking at political leadership, since through emphasising the honour implicit in fighting, it makes its central character more sympathetic, and therefore more complex. Ninagawa has chosen the actor Toshiaki Karasawa to play the role - 'the equivalent to your Alan Rickman' he grins, though it has to be said that, with all respect to Rickman, Karasawa is both younger and considerably more agile. 'He's a very stoic actor. He manages to contain himself even though he has strong passions inside, which gives him a dignity very appropriate for Coriolanus.' With a glint in his eye, Ninagawa adds 'He's also very good at sword-fighting. British actors don't do sword-fighting very often do they?'
Although certain actors at the RSC might disagree with his comment, what's certain is that Karasawa brings a level of skill to the fight scenes which gets the adrenaline flowing more successfully than most stage fights.
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Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, May 03, 2007
Copyright 2007 Salon.com, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Salon.com
April 27, 2007 Friday
SECTION: MOVIE REVIEWS
LENGTH: 1120 words
HEADLINE: "Snow Cake"
BYLINE: Stephanie Zacharek
HIGHLIGHT:
Sigourney Weaver plays a woman with autism in this sad little film. Let the awards roll in.
Somewhere, somehow, someone once came up with the idea that it's always good for actors to "stretch," to tackle roles that no one would ever imagine them playing. Catherine Deneuve as Golda Meir! George Clooney as the Elephant Man! Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf! I'm not just talking about the practice of deglamourizing stars by sticking them in serious, ponderous roles (although that's bad enough). I'm talking about performances in which an actor takes the very things we love most about him or her -- expressiveness, timing, sharpness, even just wily charm -- and wrests them into awkward pretzel shapes just to prove that it can be done. We're supposed to walk away marveling at the brave spectacle we've just seen, when often what we've really witnessed is a display of craft at the expense of characterization. Maybe challenging our expectations is easier than actually filling them.
And so that's how we get Sigourney Weaver -- an actor with extraordinary wit and smarts -- playing a woman with autism, a woman whose way of experiencing the world has very strictly delineated limits, in Marc Evans' "Snow Cake." Weaver's character, Linda, is independent: She lives in a house of her own, in the small, snowy town of Wawa, Ontario, and has a job stacking shelves at a local grocery store. She's reasonably capable of carrying on a conversation, although her social skills are virtually nonexistent. When a stranger, an Englishman traveling through Canada named Alex (Alan Rickman), shows up at her house, she says, mechanically, "I'm supposed to offer you a cup of tea," as if she were remembering something that had been drummed into her in a classroom long ago. She shows little emotion and lacks compassion for others. She's childlike at times, gazing with glassy-eyed delight at a sparkly ball, or jumping, with gleeful obsessiveness, on the trampoline in her backyard. When she's excited or agitated, her hands curl up into little claws.
Is this a believable and accurate portrayal of what a high-functioning autistic person would be like? Maybe. Did the role demand tons of preparation and concentration on Weaver's part? There's no doubt. ("Snow Cake" was written by Angela Pell, who drew on her own experience with her 7-year-old son's autism.) And yet the performance feels like a stunt, not a true marvel -- a case of an actor playing a condition, not a character. You can see the actor's gears grinding away in Weaver's every expression, every movement. Linda's eyes glitter as she cuts little snowflakes out of paper (snow, if you haven't already guessed, is her favorite thing in the world). She launches into mini temper tantrums when anyone sets foot in her kitchen (which she inspects obsessively before and after each use, as well as in between), her facial muscles contorting into an almost primeval expression of anger.
This, apparently, is the kind of "stretch" our contemporary great actresses have to look forward to as they near 60.
It feels a bit uncharitable to beat up on Weaver and on "Snow Cake," a small picture that was obviously a labor of love. (Evans' previous credits include the 2002 webcam thriller "My Little Eye.") But the picture is so drab and listless that it often feels like punishment, even though Rickman gives a fine performance, one that's heartfelt as well as characteristically elegant (not to mention sexy). Tragedy brings Alex to Linda's house: Earlier, he'd picked up a hitchhiker, a young woman named Vivienne (Emily Hampshire). His car was hit by a truck, and Vivienne died instantly. Linda is Vivienne's mother, and Alex feels compelled to connect with her, to offer his sympathy, even though the accident wasn't his fault.
The two forge a bond that can't really be called a friendship, or even a connection: Linda is nearly incapable of connecting with people, although at one point she concedes that she likes people who are "useful" -- those who will build snowmen with her, or who will bounce around with her on the trampoline. Alex intends to drop in just for a brief visit, but he finds himself sticking around to help plan the funeral. He also befriends Linda's free-spirited neighbor (played by Carrie Ann Moss), who helps him sort through some of his own interior troubles, largely in bed. The two have a lovely scene together, a moment of post-coital embarrassment that's at first painful to watch but ends up shifting into a breezy little joke, a case of two actors making a connection that feels both deep and effortless at the same time.
It's wonderful that Rickman -- with that handsome, hawkish profile, that voice like the purr of a disdainful jungle cat -- gets to play such a sensual character here. In the movies, sex is so often presented as just a young person's game, while "older" actors are shuffled off to play parents and granddads.
Obviously, Weaver's role in "Snow Cake" isn't about, and doesn't need to be about, sexuality. But there's something distressing about seeing this remarkable performer -- who played both a slayer of monsters and a fiercely protective mother figure in "Alien," and a bracingly vital boss-villain in "Working Girl," to name just two of many terrific performances -- grunting and snorting with delight as she stuffs her face with snow. I can't help wanting something better, or at least just meatier, for an actress like Weaver. It's not impossible to come up with good roles (and not even necessarily glamorous ones) for actresses over 50. In Sarah Polley's remarkable, soon-to-be-released "Away from Her," Julie Christie plays a woman diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And although the affliction affects the character, it doesn't define her. Christie gives a difficult, penetrating performance, one that suggests the way our experience can widen with age, rather than close down. It's the sort of thing not every actress could carry off. The lucky thing is that the role was there for Christie to play in the first place: There are more wonderful over-50 actresses around than there are movies to place them in.
Weaver will not only rebound from "Snow Cake"; she'll probably win an award or two. At the screening I attended, I heard various allegedly serious-minded types humming about how amazing they thought she was. Her performance is, at the least, a well-executed acting exercise, and Rickman, with his dry powers of observation, serves as a kind of protective foil for the extremely vulnerable character Weaver is playing. Still, as I watched Rickman's Alex express incredulous curiosity as Linda packs snow into her gob, I couldn't help wondering, What would Snape make of all this? We shouldn't need the dark arts to come up with decent roles for experienced actresses, but maybe that's what it's come to.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, May 03, 2007
It looks like Mr. Rickman is back in London, according to Yahoo News, attending the 54th birthday party of Ruby Wax.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, May 03, 2007
From the Screen Daily review of "Nobel Son" referenced on the main page, is this comment about Mr. Rickman:
* * * * *S P O I L E R S * * * * *
Alan Rickman steals the show here as a vain professor who is a cad of a father that any son would hate and a shameless philanderer who denies his student conquests good grades. Wickedly hilarious, in a script that gives him all the good lines, his character shows no sign of a conscience and relishes lording his unearned prize over colleagues.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, April 30, 2007
From an article in the Chicago Sun-Times on 'Ebertfest':
Other participants in the festival's many dawn-to-dusk activities were filmmakers Cox, Herzog, Adams, Toronto Film Festival founder Dusty Cohl and Rudi Dolezai (director of "Freddie Mercury"), who sat in on the morning panel discussions. "Perfume" star Alan Rickman, who graciously signed autographs at a midnight gathering at the Steak 'n' Shake, one of Ebert's favorite hometown hangouts. (The sign outside the Neil Street location bore the greeting: "Get Well, Roger Ebert.")Earlier in the evening, Rickman regaled the crowd with his comments on the "Perfume" experience: "Somewhere along the way I realized I was walking through a field of naked people."
Asked what his "Harry Potter" alter ego would have thought of the magic potion unleased at the climax of "Perfume," Rickman said, "Who knows what Professor Snape thinks about anything!"
The New York Times, as well as a number of other sites, lists April 25 as the "release date" for "Snow Cake." However, I am unable to find any mention of showtimes.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, April 24, 2007
For those of you near enough and eager to see it on the big screen, "Snow Cake" is showing at the Minneapolis/St. Paul film festival on April 28.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, April 19, 2007
The New York Theater Workshop, in the wake of its debacle over MNiRC, announces a two day workshop titled Aswat: Voices of Palestine featuring a two-day program of readings by playwrights of Palestinian and Arab (and other) descent. They have named the participating Arab-American theatre collective Nibras a company-in-residence at NYTW.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, April 19, 2007
An article from The Coast (Halifax) about Carrie-Anne Moss states "Snow Cake" will be released on DVD (North American--it's already out in the UK) in June.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, April 12, 2007
The Conservative Voice," in a Commentary by Ben Shapiro, tells us that:
In 2005, Alan Rickman directed and acted in a play eulogizing anti-American, terrorist-supporting nut job Rachel Corrie, killed by Israeli bulldozers in 2003.
Who says those conservatives don't know what they're talking about?
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, April 12, 2007
The Los Angeles Times has an online article about the (?) inexplicable attraction of Severus Snape, entitled 'Potter's' Snape is really an OK guy, which includes:
Oh, sure, there's a school of thought that blames all the Snape love on hormones and Alan Rickman, the actor with the seductive voice who plays him in the movies — the fifth of which, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," is due in theaters in July. Rickman comes with a fan base, and whoever decided to put him in that repressively buttoned-up Victorian get-up seemed to understand how that would affect adult women. We do seem to be Snape's biggest fans.
Seven Oaks Magazine has an article on My Name is Rachel Corrie which ends with:
My Name is Rachel Corrie, however, has had to struggle to get a run on stage at all. This play is worth the drive to Seattle, where it runs until May 6. It’s unlikely to be at a theatre any nearer to you anytime soon.
From Playbill online:
Rachel Corrie Canceled at Florida Theatre
By Zachary Pincus-Roth
04 Apr 2007
In what is becoming a familiar story for the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie, the work has been pulled from the lineup at the Mosaic Theatre in Plantation, FL, after protests from some of the theatre's subscribers and outside individuals, according to the Miami Herald.
The controversial one-woman play is about a young American activist who died after she was run over by an Israeli-operated bulldozer in the Gaza Strip. The play is edited by Alan Rickman and the journalist Katharine Viner from Corrie's writings.
Mosaic, which presents its shows in a black-box space at the private American Heritage School, had planned to offer the one-woman Rachel Corrie in repertory with Heather Raffo's play 9 Parts of Desire, a solo show about Iraqi women.
The Herald reports that Mosaic's board of directors decided to drop the play after the theatre received several phone calls, emails and comments on a special Rachel Corrie blog — which has since been removed from the company's website — that objected to the play.
Rachel Corrie, which premiered in London at the Royal Court Theatre and the West End, became the subject of a heated debate this past spring when it was scheduled and then postponed at Off-Broadway's New York Theatre Workshop. The Royal Court and the play's creators accused the New York company of censorship, while the New York troupe stated it merely sought to present the play in a climate suitable for the volatile work.
The play eventually had its New York premiere at the Minetta Lane, produced by Dena Hammerstein and Pam Pariseau, without NYTW's involvement, running Oct. 5, 2006, through Dec. 17, 2006.
In December 2006 Toronto's CanStage canceled its production, but for reasons of merit, not for its political content, according to artistic director Martin Bragg. Bragg originally read the play and scheduled it for CanStage's 2007-08 season, but he changed his mind after seeing the New York production.
Mosaic's production of 9 Parts of Desire will go on as scheduled, from April 18 through May 13.
From EW.com (Entertainment Weekly online):
The DVD Insomniac
Family Feuding
In this '87 sci-fi flick, Richard Dawson plays the murderous emcee of a hit television reality show to chilling, thrilling effect
By Chris Nashawaty
As far as I'm concerned, it's pointless to even debate who the greatest '80s action-flick villain was. Alan Rickman's Teutonic badass Hans Gruber from Die Hard wins hands down. The real contest is for the runner-up spot.
While some might have a soft spot for the oily Ronny Cox in RoboCop, or Gary Busey's Mr. Joshua in Lethal Weapon, or even Carl Weathers' double-dealing Dillon in Predator, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that there's a stronger all-around candidate than... survey says: Richard Dawson in the 1987 Arnold Schwarzengger sci-fi throwdown, The Running Man.
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Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, April 04, 2007
From the Seattle Times:
Bruce Ramsey / Times editorial columnist
Putting an American face on Palestinian aspirations
My first reaction to the death of Rachel Corrie was to sigh at the damfoolishness of a 23-year-old from Olympia who would place her body in the way of the Israeli army. On March 16, 2003, in Rafah, Palestine, an Israeli soldier drove his bulldozer over her and crushed her.
I think of the Chinese man who blocked the column of tanks in Beijing on June 4, 1989. That man created an image and vanished, never leaving his face. Rachel left her face.
In "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," now playing at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, actress Marya Sea Kaminski brings Rachel to life in a 90-minute monologue extracted solely from Rachel's diary and e-mails. Here is The Evergreen State College idealist, who declares, "I am building the world myself and putting new hats on everybody."
The 9/11 attacks have provided a focus to her fervor. She is drawn to the Palestinians. She imbibes Arabic. Feeling that she must join in, she goes to Gaza to witness the Israeli occupation.
Making use of her "international white person privilege" — an asset she feels she shouldn't possess but does — she joins a campaign to block the bulldozing of Palestinian homes, which is how the Israelis searched for smuggling tunnels.
Still, Rachel says, "I worry we are not really effective. I still don't feel particularly at risk." The protesters take more risks — and the soldiers grow more steely. Toward the end, she says, "I am really scared and questioning my belief in the fundamental goodness of human nature."
Her father, an actuary — Rachel denounces his "neoliberal job" — says in an e-mail he is proud of her but wishes her home. He knows the military. He served in Vietnam with the First Air Cavalry. He senses that this is not going to come out well.
She has dreams of dying. "I can't die. I can't die," she insists. But she does.
I spoke to her father, Craig Corrie. He said where Rachel was killed there had been two bulldozers (49-metric-ton Caterpillar D9s) and two soldiers in each one, plus an armored personnel carrier. There were six or seven protesters — and unlike the man in Beijing, the protesters in Gaza intended to stop the army permanently.
For a while, the bulldozer drivers would stop at the protesters and yell at them. Then they were called away. After they came back, they didn't stop, and within five minutes Rachel was run down.
Apologists say it was an accident. Perhaps the driver's intention was to force Rachel to jump aside, and it was an accident that her legs got caught in the advancing pile of dirt.
The not stopping was no accident. Certainly, the Corries do not speak of accidents. Not once when I heard them did they say their daughter had "left us" or "passed away" or "died." Always they say she was killed.
It was her death, and her expressive writing, that made Rachel Corrie an international figure. A British paper, the Guardian, asked to see Rachel's writing and published it. A Guardian editor, along with actor Alan Rickman (the terrorist in "Die Hard") made a play of it. It has been performed in London and New York only, and to much controversy. The play is doing so well at the Rep that it has been held over until May 6.
Of course the play does not tell both sides. Neither did the 1960 movie "Exodus," which I saw as a kid. It told the Israeli side only, and in Paul Newman, put an American face on that side. For years, it was the only side Americans could see.
The Palestinian side never had an American face. Now it does. It is a female face, an unthreatening face. Rachel's face.
One wonders whether Rachel would think it was all worth it. Her mother, Cindy Corrie, says Rachel's story may open Americans to hearing the Palestinians' side, which would be a good thing. Still, she says, "Sometimes you want to reclaim your child for yourself."
From The Olympian Online:
Rachel Corrie play extendedBecause of overwhelming box office demand, Seattle Repertory Theatre will extend the run of the one-woman play "My Name is Rachel Corrie" through May 6.
Additional performances are at 7:30 p.m. May 1-6, with 2 p. m. matinees May 5 and 6 as well.
Tickets are on sale now and available through the Seattle Repertory Theatre box office at 206-443-2222, toll-free at 877-900-9285, as well as online at www.seattlerep.org.
The play is based on the writings of 23-year-old Olympia native and Evergreen State College student Rachel Corrie, who was killed in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli bulldozer. It was assembled by actor/director Alan Rickman and journalist Katharine Viner and won the Theatergoer's Choice Award in London.
From the Miami Herald (dot com):
THEATER
Theater won't stage controversial drama
A South Florida theater dropped a controversial play about an American activist killed in the Gaza Strip.
BY CHRISTINE DOLEN
cdolen@MiamiHerald.com
My Name Is Rachel Corrie, the controversial play about a young American activist who died after she was run over by an Israeli-operated bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, has been pulled from the lineup at Plantation's Mosaic Theatre after protests from some of the theater's subscribers and outside individuals.
Mosaic, a professional company that presents its shows in a black-box theater space at the private American Heritage School, had planned to offer the one-woman Rachel Corrie in repertory with Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire, a solo show about Iraqi women.
But Mosaic's board of directors agreed to drop the play after phone calls, e-mails and comments on a special Rachel Corrie blog -- which has now been removed from the company's website -- made it clear that an impassioned, vocal minority strongly objected to the play. There have been no such complaints about Raffo's play, which actress Pilar Uribe will perform April 18 through May 13.
Artistic director Richard Jay Simon, who declined a request for comment, wrote in a release Monday announcing the cancellation, "Exploring critical issues to inspire healthy dialogue is and always will continue to be our mission at Mosaic Theatre. I believe strongly in the piece and, while I respect the board's decision, I am obviously disappointed."
A more telling sentence in the release notes that "numerous conflicts have arisen, and the associated risks appear too great for our community and our angel sponsor, American Heritage School."
Efforts Monday to contact theater board members were unsuccessful.
Except for its 2005 premiere production at London's Royal Court Theatre, My Name Is Rachel Corrie has stirred such conflict wherever it has been produced -- or, in several cases, not produced.
Both the New York Theatre Workshop and a Toronto theater company dropped it altogether. Other producers finally brought it to Off-Broadway's Minetta Lane Theater last October, where it got mixed reviews.
A current, glowingly reviewed production at the Seattle Repertory Theatre is so successful that its run has already been extended; however, three Jewish groups took out ads in the play's program denouncing the play, and protesters have been handing anti-Rachel Corrie leaflets to arriving theatergoers at each performance.
"We weren't inclined to censor the ads. We thought carefully and came to the conclusion that it was best to allow expression of their points of view," said Benjamin Moore, Seattle Rep's managing director.
"I think it's thrilling for there to be this conversation about something people don't feel comfortable talking about. So far, it's a civic discourse vs. a shouting match."
The script, shaped by actor Alan Rickman and journalist Katharine Viner from Corrie's letters, e-mails and journals, offers a 90-minute glimpse into the life, dreams and premature death of the 23-year-old activist from Olympia, Wash.
When she died March 16, 2003, Corrie was in Gaza working with the International Solidarity Movement to protest the Israeli razing of Palestinian homes; Israel, however, said it was destroying tunnels used to smuggle weapons.
Standing in front of a bulldozer headed toward a house, Corrie fell and was crushed. An Israeli investigation determined her death was accidental. Her fellow activists maintained the bulldozer's driver saw her and kept going.
There is little agreement on the facts of the Corrie case (rachelcorriefacts.org argues that she was a misguided, ill-informed idealist and anything but a martyr), and those most vehemently opposed to the play paint her as an anti-Israeli apologist for Palestinian terrorism.
Efforts to reach the Jewish federations of Broward and Miami-Dade and the South Florida chapters of the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee for comment on the play were unsuccessful Monday due to the start of Passover.
After Mosaic's Simon, who is Jewish, announced he planned to present My Name Is Rachel Corrie, he posted an open letter on the company's website, outlining his reasons for doing the play and soliciting comments on a blog.
Although the majority of the entries expressed support (some for the exercise of free speech and artistic freedom, if not for the play itself), others expressed outrage.
One woman suggested doing the play might mean the end of Mosaic. Another said she wouldn't see My Name Is Rachel Corrie, any more than she would see a play titled My Name Is Yasser Arafat or one called My Name Is Osama bin Laden.
Actress Mindy Woodhead, who was to have portrayed Corrie at Mosaic, is grieving both the loss of a powerful role and the opportunity for connection with audiences.
"It was very shocking; it feels like the death of a creative child . . . It makes me sad that fear of the unknown is such a motivating factor," said Woodhead who, like Corrie, is trying to make a difference in the world via two years of Peace Corps service in Morocco starting in September. "It demonstrated to me how little I knew about the political implications of a production in southeast Florida."
Just after the local controversy began to heat up, Simon said that comments were running 85 percent for doing the play, 15 percent against, adding, "I've been astonished at the attacks on me as a Jew."
Now the blog has vanished. And so, for the foreseeable future in South Florida, has My Name Is Rachel Corrie.
Christine Dolen is The Miami Herald's theater critic.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Copyright 2007 Newstex LLC
All Rights Reserved
Newstex Web Blogs
Copyright 2007 Blogcritics.org Video
Blogcritics.org Video
April 2, 2007 Monday 7:01 AM EST
LENGTH: 982 words
HEADLINE: DVD Review: Bandidas
BYLINE: Richard Marcus
Apr. 2, 2007 (Blogcritics.org delivered by Newstex) --
What do you get when you combine two beautiful women, a Western movie, Mexico, and a whole bunch of bank robbing? When the two beautiful women are Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz and the movie is Bandidas, you get a whole lot of fun.
You can ignore the cover of the DVD dressing them in black so they look like some sort of Western bondage chics. This is your classic Western buddy movie, except the two leads are women instead of men. They fight over the guy (Quentin, played by Steve Zahn), rob banks, fight each other, rob some more banks, kill some bad guys, and in the meantime stop a nefarious plot to steal the people's land and build a railway.
The bad guys are your usual collection of miscreants and inbred wonders led by Dwight Yoakam in a black wig and a great sneer. His Tyler Jackson will be remembered as a great scenery-chewing villain a la Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham in the annals of film history.
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Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Copyright 2007 Telegraph Group Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
March 28, 2007 Wednesday
SECTION: FEATURES; Arts; Pg. 31
LENGTH: 1079 words
HEADLINE: Why my face doesn't always fit Zoë Wanamaker talks to Jasper Rees about her latest outsider stage role - and reveals why she has come to dislike her hit sitcom, 'My Family'
BYLINE: Jasper Rees
. . . . . . . . . .
She is much sunnier about Harry Potter, in which she played Madam Hooch. "There was one day when Maggie [Smith], Richard Harris, Alan Rickman and myself came in at about eight, got into full make-up, full costume, sat there and then had lunch and tea time comes round and the first AD comes in at about seven and says, 'I'm sorry, it's a wrap.' I saw Richard Harris's eyes open. His beard was all tied up in bows so that it wouldn't go up his nose and I knew he was going to explode and I thought this was the funniest thing. He said, 'What are you laughing at?' I said, 'Look at us, we've been sitting here all day all dressed up like this and we're getting paid for this and you're getting angry!'"
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Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, April 03, 2007
The Jerusalem Post has an article about "My Name is Rachel Corrie" in Seattle which you can read here. They managed to get the name of the play wrong, which is not the only mis-statement in the article.
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, March 30, 2007
"Magnolia [a Seattle neighborhood] News" posts another "My Name is Rachel Corrie" review here.
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, March 30, 2007
From "The Stranger, Seattle's only newspaper"
Crushing Irony
brendan@thestranger.com
Recomplicating Rachel Corrie
By BRENDAN KILEY
Chris Bennion
My Name Is Rachel Corrie
Seattle Repertory Theatre Through April 22
After the show on opening night, people walked into the lobby looking dazed. A man in a suit said, "Just for someone to have so much passion, no matter what her politics, is amazing." A woman in a shawl choked back tears: "I'm just—I'm just not ready to talk about it yet." Pamphleteers outside condemned Israel while ads in the program, bought by the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, insisted, "My Name Is Rachel Corrie Does Not Tell the Whole Story." People were talking, less about Rachel Corrie—a play about a dead young woman who grew up an hour south—than about Rachel Corrie.
Reinforcing her realness was the impulse behind the play, which is all Rachel's words from diaries and correspondence (before she was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah, Palestine, while acting as a human shield), as edited by Katherine Viner and Alan Rickman. They wanted to restore Rachel Corrie's good name and counter the abuse she'd received in the media and, especially, from bloggers. (A funny thing for a play—to try to de-fictionalize a person.)
The set, by Jennifer Zeyl, makes the transition between Corrie's Olympia home and Rafah smartly and efficiently—the play begins in her apartment, filled with college furniture and paraphernalia, which she packs while telling us about herself: "Sometimes I wear ripped blue jeans. Sometimes I wear polyester. Sometimes I take off all my clothes and swim naked at the beach." Once she's taken down her wall hangings and carted her things offstage, she's in a bare room with bullet-pocked walls and helicopter searchlights.
She was, according to Viner and Rickman's editing, a typical college idealist, torn between wanting to save the world and just wanting a decent boyfriend. She was a liberal of broad palette—you could just as easily imagine her joining Greenpeace as accepting the invitation to Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement to stand between Israeli bulldozers and the houses, gardens, and wells they destroy.
It wasn't her life, but the crushing irony of her death—an American activist killed by an American bulldozer bought with American military aid to an American ally—that makes her important. In the play, she acknowledges her idealism and flaws—she is, in her words, "scattered and messy"; she is also careless and naive; she says, "I look at things the wrong way"—unaware that they are leading her to her death. That is the play's second irony and it gives her sincere, sometimes callow words a tragic weight: Her trying on the idea that the difference between life and death is "just a shrug," listing the people she wants to hang out with in the afterlife, fantasizing about whether to go to Paris or Egypt next, not knowing what we know—that her shrug is coming fast.
That is the way to watch Rachel Corrie: Not as a profile of her virtuous character, nor as an indictment of Israeli policy, but as the story of a young, scattered woman who died for a principle in a conflict that she, by her own admission, didn't know a whole lot about.
The script makes Corrie more real than the hero vs. idiot split that dominates the discussion about her death, but it still feels like a whitewash. Her doubts seem superficial—she doubts herself but never her convictions, never wonders if she's completely wrong. Actor Marya Sea Kaminski finds the beating heart behind Corrie's diatribes, especially in a daunting, four-page concluding passage about the bulldozers and the Geneva Convention and her own brute fear. Kaminski is a charismatic actor, but she delivers too much of the show at the same pitch, giving every moment and sentence equal weight. It's numbing and seems like excessive reverence.
The Rep took a risk with this politically—and artistically—precarious production. A year ago, when the theater announced it would produce Rachel Corrie, the New York Theater Workshop had just canceled its production, afraid that the play would be perceived as anti-Semitic. (Which it isn't; Corrie says the Israeli operations in Rafah are "truly evil" but that "Jewish people are suffering too... it's important to draw a firm distinction between the policies of Israel as a state and Jewish people.")
Then the Rep announced the production team—not four-star imports or even Seattle's theater mandarins, but young artists: Marya Sea Kaminski (of the Washington Ensemble Theater), Jennifer Zeyl (also of WET and a Stranger Genius Award winner), Braden Abraham (a relatively green director), and L. B. Morse on lights.
The risk paid off. Rachel Corrie recomplicates Rachel Corrie. It's an imperfect but moving portrait of a woman transformed by her death into an icon—something a little more, and a little less, than a person.
Georgiana (I'm sorry--I really disagree about the 'pitch' comment, and all the pamphleteers I saw both times were pro-Israeli)
Seattle - Thursday, March 29, 2007
Copyright 2007 MGN Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
The Mirror
March 28, 2007 Wednesday
3 Star Edition
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 12
LENGTH: 84 words
HEADLINE: 3AM: HIDDEN DEPPS
BYLINE: EVA SIMPSON & CAROLINE HEDLEY
CUT! If we're blunt Johnny Depp doesn't look quite so gorgeous as usual playing the Demon Barber of Fleet Street in a new movie.
Johnny, 43, wears odd grey streaks in his hair and a cut-throat razor by his side for Sweeney Todd, currently being filmed at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.
Shooting has only just resumed after Johnny's seven-year-old daughter Lily-Rose suffered serious food poisoning. She is now making a good recovery after her nine-day stay in a London hospital.
We're glad to hear it.
GRAPHIC: Picture: WWW.BIGPICTURESPHOTO.COM
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, March 28, 2007
According to cinematical, Dreamworks has given Sweeney Todd an official release date of December 21st, 2007, even with its rumored filming delays.
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Alas, no picture of the Judge, but there are photos on the web of the first look of Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd. Is that a scalpel he has in that leather fob? At least a razor . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Alas, no picture of the Judge, but there are photos on the web of the first look of Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd. Is that a scalpel he has in that leather fob? At least a razor . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Alas, no picture of the Judge, but there are photos on the web of the first look of Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd. Is that a scalpel he has in that leather fob? At least a razor . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Alas, no picture of the Judge, but there are photos on the web of the first look of Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd. Is that a scalpel he has in that leather fob? At least a razor . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, March 28, 2007
From the Champaigne News Gazette online:
OVERLOOKED FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULECHAMPAIGN – Roger Ebert and other organizers of his Overlooked Film Festival, to be held from April 25 to 29 at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign, today released the festival schedule, which follows, with comments on each of the 13 movies coming from Ebert:
April 25
– 7 p.m.: "Gattaca" (1997), about a future world in which test-tube babies are made to order for looks, brains and long life span, and the naturally born are second-class citizens. It stars Ethan Hawke, Jude Law and Uma Thurman, and is one of the smartest and most provocative of science-fiction films, a thriller with ideas. Producer Michael Shamberg will be a guest on stage after the screening.
April 26
– 12:30 p.m.: "The Weather Man" (2005), a stunning portrait of a sad loser in crisis. The film stars Nicolas Cage, with Michael Caine as his father, a famous author who has always been disappointed in his son and cannot forgive failure. Writer Steven Conrad and actor Gil Bellows will be guests.
– 3:30 p.m. "Moolaade" (2004), a story vibrating with urgency and life even though it centers around the difficult subject of female circumcision in an African village. Written and directed by Ousmane Sembene, sometimes called the father of African cinema, the film was Ebert's pick as the best at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. Professor Samba Gadjigo, whose research focuses on Sembene's work, and actress Fatoumata Coulibaly, who plays the lead character, will be guests.
– 8:30 p.m. "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" (2006), a very dark film about a man with an acute sense of smell who can create the finest perfumes, but whose work leads him down a gruesome path. Dustin Hoffman plays a key supporting role. You may not savor the film, but you will not stop watching it, in horror and fascination. Actor Alan Rickman is scheduled to be a guest, but his appearance has not yet been confirmed.
There is another very nice review of MNiRC in the Seattle Weekly.
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Copyright 2007 The Seattle Times Company
The Seattle Times
March 23, 2007 Friday
Fourth Edition
SECTION: ROP ZONE; Northwest Life; Pg. E3
LENGTH: 679 words
HEADLINE: Olympia woman's words brought to life;
"My Name Is Rachel Corrie" - Based on e-mails, journal entries - THEATER REVIEW
BYLINE: Misha Berson, Seattle Times theater critic
How does one portray a symbol?
More specifically, how does one portray Rachel Corrie who in an anguished political and moral tug-of-war has become a heroine to some for her fatal activism against Israel's policies toward Palestinians, and a symbol of dangerous, wrong-headed naïveté to others?
If you are Seattle actress Marya Sea Kaminski, you play this world-famous but largely unknown figure as a complete human being: young and impassioned, funny and fallible.
Kaminski's Rachel, the sole character in the Seattle Repertory Theatre's West Coast debut of the controversial script "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," is introduced first as a bright, arty kid from a middle-class Olympia family.
She leaves her room in a mess. She wishes her mother wasn't so doting. She has crushes on fickle boys. She writes poetry, and fantasizes about hanging out in eternity with Jesus and Charlie Chaplin.
Nothing strange about all of that, for an intellectually precocious Northwest adolescent who has a way with words and a vivid imagination.
Kaminski later also conveys the fear, the sorrow, the angry disappointment and didactic idealism of someone who put her life on the line in one of the globe's most volatile conflicts and lost it.
It is Kaminski's potently mercurial and poignant solo performance that gives "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" (cobbled together from Corrie's e-mails and journal entries, by actor-director Alan Rickman and journalist Katharine Viner) its humanity and heart.
This actor may make you care about Corrie even if you don't share her politics. And even if you consider her 2003 death after being run over by an Israeli bulldozer during an anti-demolition protest in Gaza foolhardy and futile.
The script Kaminski and director Braden Abraham have to work with is more a roughly assembled scrapbook than a developed narrative. Delivered on Jennifer Zeyl's evocative single setting, which morphs from an Olympia bedroom into a bullet-pocked stone hut in Gaza, Corrie's words are not always arranged for maximum impact. And their chronology can get confusing.
Abraham tries to smooth out the monologue's choppiness by giving Kaminski a lot of busy work packing a trunk, sorting through clothes, putting together a makeshift table. More helpful in this respect are L.B. Morse's lighting and Obadiah Eaves' excellent sound design.
As for the controversy over Corrie's impassioned defense of Palestinian civilians, and her scathing criticism of the Israeli government, anyone looking for a balanced treatise on this Mideast political quagmire should look elsewhere.
This play is Corrie's story, from her vantage point.
Writing home during her fateful, increasingly frightening protest trip to the Mideast, she employs the rhetoric of those staunchly opposed to Israel's policies in Gaza. Her eyewitness accounts of random shootings, rampant poverty and displaced families are harrowing. And her nightmares about dying and ruminations on mortality are eerily prescient.
"My Name Is Rachel Corrie" certainly invites political debate. (People on different sides of the issue are having their say by handing out leaflets to Rep patrons entering the theater.) Yet earlier controversies over its production in New York and Toronto seems odd, given that the piece isn't so much a manifesto as a requiem for a vibrant, gifted young person who died while her beliefs and identity were still very much in flux.
In Kaminski's hands, Rachel is no plaster saint or wild-eyed insurgent. She is a youth whose bravado is peppered with fear and self-doubt, whose humor is largely self-deprecating and whose desire to help others is extraordinary in one so young.
Ultimately it is Rachel's innocence and youth that give the show its symbolic resonance. Whatever else you think about her, Rachel Corrie is one of far too many young people, Jews and Arabs, lost to a tragedy that shows no signs of abating.
Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com
Now playing
"My Name Is Rachel Corrie," Tuesdays-Sundays through April 22, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center; $10-$40 (206-443-2222 or www.seattlerep.org).
GRAPHIC: photo; Chris Bennion : Marya Sea Kaminski portrays Rachel Corrie, who died after being run over by an Israeli bulldozer during an anti-demolition protest in Gaza.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Copyright 2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
The Evening Standard (London)
March 23, 2007 Friday
SECTION: A MERGE; Pg. 17
LENGTH: 410 words
HEADLINE: E.coli nearly killed Depp's daughter as kidneys shut down
BYLINE: EMILY PARSONS
JOHNNY DEPP'S seven-year-old daughter nearly died when her kidneys shut down after she suffered E.coli food poisoning, it was revealed today.
Lily-Rose is recovering after spending nine days critically ill in an unnamed London hospital where her condition was said to be "touch and go".
The Pirates Of The Caribbean star and his partner, 34-year-old Vanessa Paradis, kept a vigil at their daughter's hospital bedside earlier this month.
Depp, 43, refused to return to the set of his latest film, Sweeney Todd, until she was out of danger, forcing filming to be stopped.
E.coli food poisoning is commonly caused by improperly cooked meat, unpasteurised milk or water contamination. It is a bacteria which normally lives inside the intestines where it helps break down and digest food.
But certain strains can get into the blood causing a rare but very serious infection.
Staff on the Warner Bros set at Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, were told the illness caused Lily-Rose's kidneys to shut down and she was lucky to survive.
An insider said: "Everyone gasped when we were given the real reason for her illness. It was touch and go for a while."
Occurrences of E.coli have increased in recent years, with up to 1,000 people contracting the disease in the UK each year.
It is particularly serious in vulnerable people such as the elderly or children under the age of five, with long-term effects which can include kidney damage, paralysis or blindness.
The mortality rate among the elderly is 50 per cent.
Doctors do not prescribe antibiotics and commonly allow the illness to run its cause, which usually lasts about a week.
Depp has starred in Hollywood blockbusters, including the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Sleepy Hollow and Edward Scissorhands, while his partner Ms Paradis is an actress and singer.
The couple also have a four-year-old son John Jack. Depp has spoken in the past of the effect being a father has had on his life.
"I just want to watch my kids grow up and make sure they're healthy and happy," he said. "They are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I never thought it was possible to feel such profound, deep love.
"Being a dad has given me great strength, great perspective, great calm.
More than anything, I love being with my family." Filming of Sweeney Todd, which co-stars Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen, will resume on Monday, said the producers Warner Bros.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Limited
All Rights Reserved
Sunday Times (London)
March 25, 2007, Sunday
SECTION: FEATURES; Culture; Pg. 14
LENGTH: 294 words
HEADLINE: Kathy Lette
BYLINE: Richard Brooks
I am worried about the company that Gordon "Stalin" Brown is keeping. I don't mean the sweet Kylie Minogue, but her fellow Antipodean, the novelist Kathy Lette. It seems that almost every time I see the quick-witted Lette, she is in close communion with some hapless man. It is sometimes her friend John Mortimer, who can't escape as he's stuck in a wheelchair, but, at another recent party, I spotted her getting up close and personal with Andrew Motion. Now the touchy-feely author has the uptight Brown in her sights. How will he react?
Anyway, the well-connected Lette--she's married to the leading left-leaning lawyer Geoffrey Robertson--is getting Brown to dine with luvvies such as Minogue (has he been to her V&A clothes show yet?), Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman and Anthony Minghella, who interviewed the chancellor at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, where he showed a genuine knowledge of books. But anybody who believes that Brown as PM would befriend the arts had better think again. The arts world is politically very naive. Having recently gone en masse to Tate Modern to hear Tony Blair claim that, thanks to him, the arts were doing wonderfully, they all swooned. But eight days later, it was announced that the arts and heritage lotteries were to be cut so more money could be wasted on the London Olympics. And whose decision was this? Brown's. He has slashed £675 m from the lotteries.
In fact, it could have been a £2 billion hit, but I hear that Tessa Jowell, for once, stood up to Stalin.
Brown may be well read, but he thinks most arts are for toffs. He understands only the importance of film, pop music and design because they are industries, but cares not for theatre, galleries or orchestras, even if they also bring in millions of tourists.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Amazon.co.uk is listing the region 2 DVD for Perfume, the Story of a Murderer as April 30, 2007. The region 1 release is not yet listed at Amazon.com.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, March 26, 2007
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/theater/308603_corrie23q.html
The Rep's 'Rachel Corrie' is stunning
Play is a multi-part exercise in free speech
Friday, March 23, 2007
By JOE ADCOCK
P-I THEATER CRITIC
THEATER REVIEW
MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE
WHERE: Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center
WHEN: Through April 22
TICKETS: $10-$40, discounts for groups of 10 or more; 206-443-2222, 877-900-9285 or seattlerep.org.
To begin with, six paragraphs about the play, and then four paragraphs about the controversy sparked by the play.
"My Name Is Rachel Corrie" at Seattle Repertory Theatre is a wonderful play, brilliantly constructed by Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner, using writings by the title character. Actress Marya Sea Kaminski does a beautiful job of bringing Corrie to life.
Though only one character is on stage, director Braden Abraham creates a broad picture. As she tells Corrie's story, Kaminski moves about the stage, slowly converting Jennifer Zeyl's versatile setting from a messy 12-year-old's bedroom to a slightly less messy student's room at The Evergreen State College and then into a bullet- and artillery-shell- battered house in Gaza.
Lighting by L.B. Morse helps us feel the damp of Olympia and the dryness of Gaza, the idyllic clarity of Mount Rainier and the hellish flashes of exploding artillery rounds. Similarly, sound by Obadiah Eaves ranges from soothing birdcalls to the terrifying rattle of automatic-weapons fire.
As Kaminski moves through the phases of Corrie's life, she goes from funny and idealistic to ironic and searching to passionate and indignant. Through it all, Corrie's writing (and Kaminski's acting) vividly evokes people and places. In the final section, Palestinians are depicted with sympathy and affection. Israeli soldiers merely evoke fear.
Well they might. Corrie was volunteering in Gaza as an unarmed human shield, trying to defend Palestinian families she believed were constantly under attack. The idea was that Israeli soldiers wouldn't harm a 23-year-old woman from Olympia, Wash. That idea proved to be incorrect. While Corrie was trying to protect the home of a Gaza family from being demolished by an Israeli bulldozer, she was crushed and buried alive. She died on the way to a hospital. That was on March 16, 2003.
I have never seen a play that merged the personal and the political as completely as "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" does. The frightful situation in Gaza that Corrie described, combined with her personal fate, is devastating. But the mere existence of such a passion for peace and justice is heartening, truly. Rachel Corrie was certainly not a typical Gen Y-er. But she is a recognizable and familiar sort of woman. Her story is inspiring.
Now for the controversy. "My Name is Rachel Corrie" was a great success in London two years ago (the playwrights are British). When the show was to transfer to New York, there was trouble. The original American producer backed out, fearing problems that might be created by unconditionally pro-Israel New Yorkers. A different producer took over the project, and the show played in New York without problems.
On opening night at the Rep on Wednesday, leafleteers greeted playgoers streaming toward the theater. One leaflet stated that Corrie "died in Gaza after interfering with Israeli counter-terrorism operations." It juxtaposes her fate to that of eight Israeli women, also named Rachel, who were the victims of Palestinian terrorists. Another quite different leaflet states that Corrie was "crushed to death while trying to protect a Palestinian home from illegal demolition."
Once inside the theater, playgoers received a program that included two large advertisements, one placed by the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, the other by the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. The latter warns playgoers, "Don't be misled" by a sympathetic portrayal of Corrie and her mission. The former includes a concocted posthumous confession by Corrie in which she admits she was in the wrong. Under that are pictures of six Israeli women named Rachel who were victims of Palestinian terrorists.
Also in the program is a note from the Rep's artistic director, David Esbjornson, stating that "buying ads in our theatre publication to denounce the work on our stage is unprecedented. ... I acknowledge the right of these groups to their free expression. Similarly, presenting 'My Name Is Rachel Corrie' is a form of free expression that we should embrace and protect."
Polemical considerations aside, "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" is indisputably an extraordinary piece of dramatic art. One actor and one set -- and yet it has an epic quality. It is as if one of Shakespeare's doomed heroines -- Ophelia, say, or Desdemona -- were to narrate and bring to life the whole of "Hamlet" or "Othello."
P-I theater critic Joe Adcock can be reached at 206-448-8369 or joeadcock@seattlepi.com.
© 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, March 22, 2007
Also from Yahoo:
CATF announces 2007 productions
SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. - The Contemporary American Theater Festival announces its lineup of four plays for the 2007 season. Individual and group tickets are now available.
The festival runs from Friday, July 6, through Sunday, July 29. Producing director Ed Herendeen has gathered a collection of plays intended to delight and challenge the audience.
The 2007 CATF season:
. . . . . . . . . . [Third of which is . . .]
"My Name is Rachel Corrie" edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner - Based on the diaries of Rachel Corrie, a young woman from Washington state tragically killed in Gaza. From her wide-eyed middle school musings to her eye-opening Middle East reports, Rachel's voice is powerful and direct.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, March 22, 2007
Posted on Yahoo:
Vail Mountain
March 29-April 1: Best Life Vail Film Festival will screen 63 films from around the world, including 12 feature films and 51 documentaries, short films, Oscar shorts, action sports, and student films. The 2007 Festival opens with a screening of Snow Cake, starring Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Carrie-Anne Moss, David Fox, Jayne Eastwood, Emily Hampshire and James Allodi. The Festival Tribute Awards will recognize screenwriter, actor and director Harold Ramis with the 2007 Gold Summit Award; the 2007 Rising Star Award will be presented to Sophia Bush, who can be seen in the re-make of horror film, "The Hitcher"; and Hayden Panettiere who currently stars in the NBC Television dram Heroes, will be honored as the 2007 Breakthrough Actor of the Year. For program, tickets and schedule information visit
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, March 22, 2007
The Baltimore Sun has a huge article on Severus Snape, including a segment titled "The Rickman Factor." You can see the article on-line here.
Georgiana (...I hope...)
Seattle - Tuesday, March 20, 2007
© Seattle Times Company
The Seattle Times
March 20, 2007
Controversy follows "Corrie" to Seattle stage
By Misha Berson
Seattle Times theater critic
Like any proud parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie eagerly anticipate the local debut of a play about their daughter.
But the Corries are also bracing for backlash. In 2003, at age 23, their daughter Rachel died after being run over by an Israeli bulldozer while protesting treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. And her activism in the Middle East has become so controversial that just saying — or printing — her name can incite an argument.
No one is shouting yet at Seattle Repertory Theatre, where the West Coast debut of "My Name is Rachel Corrie" is now in previews and opens Wednesday. But quietly, offstage, the debate re-emerges with the production of the solo play based on Corrie's e-mails and diary entries, some of which express her political concerns.
It's a debate that mirrors the impassioned divisions between some Israelis and Palestinians, and between their American supporters and critics.
A hit in its 2005 London premiere, the play was derailed in New York and Toronto when 2006 productions were postponed and canceled, triggering claims of artistic censorship and intolerance.
The Rep run is going on as planned, but it reignites a larger debate over whether Corrie was a naïve but altruistic activist, a gullible tool of terrorists or a martyr for human rights.
"My Name is Rachel Corrie," taken from the writings of Rachel Corrie, edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner, previews at 7:30 tonight, opens Wednesday and plays through April 22, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center; $10-$40 (206-443-2222 or www.seattlerep.org).
A call for "balance"
The Rep is fielding many reactions to the play. One is a letter from the Va'ad HaRabanim of Greater Seattle, a consortium of Orthodox Jewish rabbis who say the play falsely casts Corrie's death "as a murder while demonizing Israel as an evil, inhumane power whose only purpose is to kill innocents."
The letter also urges the Rep to "balance" the play's depiction of the complex Gaza situation by airing other, more vigorously pro-Israel views.
In a coordinated effort by some Jewish groups, the Pacific Northwest Anti-Defamation League took an ad in the Rep's program (which is published by the Encore Media Group) defending Israel's Gaza policies as essential security measures. And an ad from Seattle's Jewish Federation ties the tragedy of Corrie's death to those of six Israeli women, also named Rachel, who were killed by Palestinian violence.
Members of these Jewish groups also handed out pro-Israel leaflets to Rep patrons as they entered the theater for last week's previews of "Rachel Corrie."
But the play has defenders here, too. Nada Elia, a Palestinian-American professor at Antioch University and member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, says Corrie represents a "noble commitment" to "justice, peace and nonviolent resistance, even when one is not directly affected by the injustices one is working to end. ... "
Others hope the show will stir discussion inside an American Jewish community deeply divided over whether criticizing Israel holds that country accountable for its more controversial policies or plays into the hands of bigots and terrorists.
Eager for a "compassionate" open dialogue is Mercer Island psychologist Yaffa Maritz, co-founder of the interfaith peace group Find Common Ground.
The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Maritz is an Israel-bred "patriot" and frequent visitor to her native land. She says many American Jews especially "are afraid that there is only room for one story about this issue. They're afraid if Rachel's story is heard, then their story [will be seen as] wrong."
"A native daughter"
The Corries say they've also sought common ground, via their Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice and visits to Israel and Gaza.
The Olympia couple, who are not Jewish, say they have mourned in Israel with Jewish parents whose children died in Palestinian suicide-bombing attacks there. And they strongly deny Rachel was a terrorist or anti-Semitic.
Craig Corrie believes "My Name is Rachel Corrie" is a multifaceted portrait of his daughter that will resonate locally. "Bringing this play to the Northwest is very special for us. There's a lot about it that's very specific to the Northwest."
"This is about a native daughter of our area," concurs Seattle Rep artistic head David Esbjornson. "I wanted to do it because it has really wonderful observations, and some really beautiful language, and real heart. But the bigger motive is for us as a culture to engage in a dialogue. We have to open this subject up for discussion."
Death in Gaza
The roller-coaster response to "My Name is Rachel Corrie" can be traced to 2003, when Corrie went to the Gaza city of Rafah as a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a controversial Palestinian-led group that describes itself as a nonviolent organization committed to resisting Israel's occupation of Palestinian land.
While in Gaza, Corrie lived with a Palestinian family and protested Israel's bulldozing of Palestinian homes — a tactic Israel says is essential to rooting out terrorist tunnels.
In detailed e-mails home, Corrie expressed "disbelief and horror" over the poverty and other suffering among Palestinian refugees, and her belief that the U.S. shared responsibility for it. "I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world," she wrote, "and that we in fact, participate in it."
Corrie's death on March 16, 2003, during a demolition protest, provoked headlines worldwide. Details of the incident are still disputed: Israel ruled it an accident, while the Corries still press for an independent investigation.
Soon after Corrie's death, the Guardian, a liberal London newspaper, published some of her Gaza e-mails. Moved by her words, famed film and theater actor Alan Rickman proposed that the Royal Court Theatre, a noncommercial theater in London, stage a play based on her writing.
With the Corries' permission — and a sheaf of Rachel's diary entries and e-mails collected by her older sister, Sarah — Rickman and co-adaptor Katharine Viner (a Guardian editor) assembled the script for "My Name is Rachel Corrie."
A work for one actor (in Seattle, Marya Sea Kaminski, directed by Braden Abraham), the show draws from Rachel's Gaza e-mails but also her searching, whimsical diary jottings from her early youth: about her love of Northwest nature (salmon, mountains, trees), family relations and her budding idealism.
"Rachel was always writing," says Cindy Corrie. "And from the time she was little, she had her own unique way of looking at the world."
Troubles in U.S.
In London, the play won some raves and was such a hot ticket it went on to a commercial run in the West End.
There were no organized protests, says Viner, noting that art reflecting a range of political opinions is popular in England — and in Israel.
The Corries were delighted by the London success but steeled themselves for a different U.S. reaction. They've been stunned, says Corrie's mother, by the hate messages people send. One was "a toy bulldozer, with a note saying, 'I'm glad Rachel died.' "
But it was still a jolt when the New York Theatre Workshop indefinitely delayed its U.S. debut of "My Name is Rachel Corrie." The theater cited sensitivities in the Jewish community in an "edgy" period of escalating Israel-Palestine tensions.
Nobel playwright Harold Pinter and others angrily accused the theater of bending to pressure from hard-line supporters of Israel. Similar charges were lodged at Toronto's CanStage company, when it backed off producing "My Name is Rachel Corrie."
Last November, different producers mounted the play's New York premiere, to mixed, mostly lukewarm reviews. Drama critics praised Corrie's writing talent but faulted the script.
"I think after all the fuss, people came expecting something massive, or very political, and this play just isn't," Viner says. "What's controversial isn't the play, but Rachel herself."
In Seattle, "Rachel Corrie" is selling well. And the Rep has slated nine post-play forums, several more than usual. Among others, Maritz, Rabbi Daniel Weiner of Temple De Hirsch Sinai and Ed Mast of the Palestine Information Project will be part of the discussions.
But Rabbi Moshe Kletenik, head of Seattle's Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath congregation and signer of the Va'ad HaRabanim protest letter, says no one from his group was invited to participate — a missed chance, in his view, to balance "a very one-sided, simplistic picture" of a complex issue.
Asked for comment, the Rep issued a written statement arguing that "to provide the venue or time for anyone who has a differing point of view to what a particular playwright puts forth in their work would be ... an overwhelming and impossible task."
Any U.S. theater presenting this minefield of a play will likely face similar demands. So far, the Rep is the only American regional company to stage it.
Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, March 20, 2007
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
Director squanders wonderful acting in Wawa
Katherine Monk, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, March 09, 2007
Box Office
Snow Cake
Director: Marc Evans
Alan Rickman, left, Carrie-Anne Moss, centre and Sigourney Weaver do their best to bring life to Snow Cake, a joint U.K.-Canadian production, but they are burdened by a weak script and heavy-handed direction. CanWest, AP photos
CanWest News Service, AP
Stars: Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Carrie-Anne Moss
Where: Vic
Rating: 2 (out of five)
- - -
If you like Alan Rickman, you may find Snow Cake offers one of his finer performances to date -- and given the man's catalogue of dry-witted tearjerkers and pathos-laden comedies, that's saying a lot.
Too bad director Marc Evans could not find a nicer frame for Rickman's portrait of a broken man learning to mend through tragedy, because his Canadian-shot Snow Cake never quite gels.
The problem, primarily, is the high sap quotient.
It opens with the death of a young woman in a car accident, then goes on to explore the impact of her death on her autistic mother -- as well as the guilt-ridden driver who escaped injury.
Snow Cake is packed with downer material that could easily suck the air out of every scene, and suffocate an actor's ability to offer nuance.
If the script picks up the sledgehammer, and flattens the characters even further, even the most talented actor could end up looking like Wile E. Coyote after an encounter with a falling anvil.
Now, if you were going to cast Wile E. Coyote in human form -- who better than Rickman to take on the role of the perpetually cranky canine dreamer and schemer?
Rickman seems to channel the spirit of the squeaking accordion named Coyote as he plays Alex Hughes, a role written specifically for him by British screenwriter Angela Pell.
Alex is just passing through Wawa, Ont., on a personal mission when he's stopped in his tracks by a semi-trailer. This is more than metaphor. Pell pulls out the hammer and makes it happen in the opening act.
Alex survives the horror, but his passenger does not. A young woman named Vivienne (Emily Hampshire) is killed, leaving Alex to deal with even more baggage than he already arrived with -- and that was plenty.
Alex tries to cleanse himself by spending time with Vivienne's autistic mother -- played as a highly-functioning, child-like grump by Sigourney Weaver -- but his attempts at playing confessor fail to inspire any trust.
The only person who prompts Alex to linger in town, and remain emotionally accessible, is Maggie (Carrie-Anne Moss). The two form a solid, grown-up bond that allows them to share deep thoughts -- and, in turn, put into words all the complex emotions about love and loss that would make most poets whimper in fear.
Profound loss and the finding the will to heal are states of mind that transcend words as they tap into the primal human experience. A great actor can communicate the many moods and layers of survival guilt and suicidal urges without saying a thing.
Unfortunately, Rickman and his co-stars are left to do a lot of talking -- and swing a lot of sledgehammers -- in this poorly directed, poorly scripted and yet wonderfully acted film.
Snow Cake clearly has admirable intent and a sincere heart, but there's no flow. No matter how hard Evans pushes, he can't find the sweet spot in a single scene.
Rickman seems to sense Evans's inability and every once in a while, you can see the Coyote grimace flash over his face as he slinks away from yet another disastrous dramatic moment that doesn't click.
Weaver's talent is undeniable, but she never disappears into the role and somewhere along the way, thoughts of The Miracle Worker crossed my mind -- and not in the best way -- leaving this Wawa-shot drama lost in a world of its own.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, March 19, 2007
Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Limited
All Rights Reserved
Sunday Times (London)
March 11, 2007, Sunday
SECTION: FEATURES; Culture; Pg. 11
LENGTH: 1036 words
HEADLINE: She'd be mad not to
BYLINE: Jasper Rees
Frances Barber takes on the role of her life in the wilful Arkadina.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Years ago," she says, "Vanessa Redgrave brought the Shalom Theatre of Moscow to London, and Alan Rickman and Frances de la Tour and I were asked to do simultaneous translation. I was the voice for this actress called Marina, who gave me notes every night. Every time I saw her coming, I'd duck. 'Where is Frances? Where is Frances?' Alan and Frankie would go, 'She's looking for you again.' I'd get more notes than I've ever got in my life.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, March 19, 2007
Copyright 2007 EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS
All Rights Reserved
The Express
March 15, 2007 Thursday
U.K. 1st Edition
SECTION: COLUMNS; 19
LENGTH: 486 words
HEADLINE: HICKEY
. . . . . . . . . .
HAS Jeremy Irons developed a rather macabre new hobby? The actor was spotted yesterday watching a grisly "honour killing" murder trial at the Old Bailey in London.
It is possible, though, that Jeremy was getting into the mood for a new part. He is to star alongside Alan Rickman and Annette Bening in an adaptation of the novel The Villa Golitsyn in which a diplomat must find out if an old friend was behind the torture and murder of a fellow Foreign Office colleague. "He was sitting at the back of court 10, stroking his beard and looking engrossed, " says Hickey's spy, "but perhaps he'd just popped in for lunch with a judge."
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, March 19, 2007
One more--it's being carried 'everywhere.'
Minogue dines with future UK PM
Australian pop princess Kylie Minogue made an unlikely dinner companion for Gordon Brown recently as Britain's Prime Minister-in-waiting launched a bid to shed his dour image.
Minogue became enveloped in Brown's charm offensive when she attended a dinner hosted by her friend and writer Kathy Lette at leading London restaurant Rules last month, a British newspaper reported.
Lette, who is a good friend of Brown's wife, Sarah, said the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasurer) was "very sociable and charming" throughout the soiree.
"Gordon and Kylie got on really well," Lette told the Evening Standard.
"They spent quite a bit of time talking to each other over drinks.
"He is so much more relaxed in private ... people who hadn't met him before were really knocked out."
Lette said the dinner was partly an attempt to introduce Brown to a wider circle of friends.
British actor Alan Rickman, who played baddie Hans Gruber in the 1988 action movie Die Hard, was also a guest at the dinner which, according to the paper, was just one of a series involving the Browns and celebrities.
Others to have reportedly dined in the couple's company include singer Dionne Warwick and England soccer manager Steve McClaren.
At the age of 56, Brown appears to be remodelling his image, which is often described as dour, brooding and serious.
He is expected to succeed Tony Blair when he resigns as Prime Minister in the middle of this year.
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, March 16, 2007
From the Guardian Unlimited online:
When Gordon met Kylie
Press Association
Friday March 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Kylie Minogue: got on 'really well' with chancellor. Photograph: John D McHugh/AFP.
The chancellor met Kylie Minogue, the pop singer, when the pair were unlikely fellow guests at a dinner party in London, it was revealed today.
Mr Brown met the singer at a get-together at a central London restaurant hosted by Australian author Kathy Lette and attended by celebrities including Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman and Ronnie Ancona, the actors.
Lette, who hosted the event at Rules with her husband, Geoffrey Robertson, the prominent QC, told the London Evening Standard: "Gordon and Kylie got on really well. They spent quite a bit of time talking to each other over drinks.
"He was very sociable and charming. He absolutely charmed everybody."
A Treasury spokeswoman confirmed that Mr Brown was invited to the dinner party in February by Lette, and said she understood that Minogue joined them after the meal, having attended the Bafta awards ceremony earlier in the evening.
Lette, and not the chancellor, organised the party and chose which guests to invite, the spokeswoman added.
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, March 16, 2007
There is a lovely long article in the Seattle P-I about MNiRC, opening tonight.
Georgiana (ticket in hand--ignore the face that they think it opened last night)
Seattle - Thursday, March 15, 2007
The "Olympian" has a nice piece about MNiRC, opening (in previews) tomorrow night at Seattle Rep, with official opening a week away--as in the London theatre tradition.
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, March 14, 2007
According to ITV:
Depp 'quits' for daughter
12.16, Tue Mar 13 2007
Hollywood actor Johnny Depp is reportedly taking a break from acting until his daughter is well again.
Depp, 43, has been in Britain filming his latest movie Sweeney Todd.
But the production at Pinewood Studios has been on hold since the actor's daughter Lily-Rose was admitted to a London hospital earlier this month.
A newspaper claimed to know the details of the little girl's condition but have kept the details secret to protect the family's privacy.
Staff on the set of the new film are expected to be re-hired once the seven-year-old is fully fit again.
The movie is directed by Tim Burton and also stars Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman.
From Zap2It (and many other sources):
Depp was about to start filming "Sweeney Todd" in England when Lily-Rose fell ill. Production on the DreamWorks film will adjust its schedule to accomodate Depp's needs.Lily-Rose, 7, and Jack, 5, are Depp's two children with girfriend Vanessa Paradis.
"Sweeney Todd" is Depp's latest Tim Burton collaboration that also stars Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and Sacha Baron Cohen.
The Everett (WA) Herald online has a nice little article about MNiRC, entitled Famed actor helps tell doomed activist's story.
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, March 09, 2007
It looks like controversy around MNiRC in Seattle is manifesting in an unusual way. I'm curious to see the program. Please see the notes from the Seattle Rep's artistic director.
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Copyright 2007 The Liverpool Daily Post & Echo Ltd
All Rights Reserved
Daily Post (Liverpool)
February 14, 2007, Wednesday
1ST Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 8
LENGTH: 234 words
HEADLINE: WALES: Well known faces to launch art exhibition
BYLINE: DAVID GREENWOOD
A WELSH university has landed an artistic coup by attracting an exhibition of drawings of famous British actors.
The gallery at the school of art at Aberystwyth university is the only place in Wales to be selected as a venue for the show, which was launched at the National Portrait Gallery in London last summer.
"Most People are Other People" features a crop of well-known actors, all the work of multi-award winning artist Stuart Pearson Wright.
The "cast" includes Welsh actress Sian Phillips, as well as Alan Rickman, Jeremy Irons and Daniel Ratcliffe who plays Harry Potter. They are joined by the likes of Timothy Spall, who shot to prominence in the TV drama Auf Wiedersehen Pet and Terry Jones of Monty Python fame.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, February 19, 2007
Copyright 2007 MGN Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
The Mirror
February 16, 2007 Friday
3 Star Edition
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 210 words
HEADLINE: INTERVIEW: SIMON'S TOP 5 COP FILMS
DIRTY HARRY (1971)
It's a fantastic performance from Clint Eastwood who plays a really enigmatic lead character. I saw it when I was young on TV and the scene when he foils the robbery and delivers the bullet monologue is something I remember very, very clearly.
THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)
It's a great film with a great central performance from Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle, plus some fantastic car chases which I think they shot without telling anybody. They just raced through the streets of New York without bothering about health and safety.
DIE HARD (1988)
It was the first film to humanise the action hero by making him more fallible and vulnerable than what had gone before. Bruce Willis was fantastic and it had a brilliant turn from Alan Rickman. It was a really surprising, exciting movie.
POINT BREAK (1991)
It's an adrenalin-fuelled thrill ride with really engaging central characters played by Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. It's also directed by a woman [Kathryn Bigelow] which gives it a different feel by taking the testosterone out of it just a little bit.
TRAINING DAY (2001)
It's just a fantastic film - brilliantly acted and very well directed. Really, really gripping and Denzel Washington is outstanding. He definitely deserved the Oscar for it.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, February 19, 2007
Copyright 2007 MGN Ltd.
The People
February 18, 2007, Sunday
SECTION: 3 Star Edition; FEATURES; Pg. 33
LENGTH: 1002 words
HEADLINE: BOOZE, DRUGS AND WOMEN FRENZY LEFT ME BROKE AND HOMELESS. NOW I'M LIVING IT UP AT THE HOTEL BABYLON;
EXCLUSIVE DEXTER TELLS OF FIGHT BACK TO SUCCESS
BYLINE: BY JON WISE
HIGHLIGHT:
FIXER: Dexter as hotel's anything-goes concierge; LOCK: With Jason Statham and Jason Flemyng; CLOSE: Dexter with devoted wife Dalia; FAME: Dexter with his ex Julia...and in Bugsy Malone
AS Hotel Babylon's cunning concierge Tony Casemore he's used to catering for the over-the-top tastes of the rich and famous.
But actor Dexter Fletcher remembers when booze, drugs, fast cars and beautiful women were all part of HIS life.
The former child star, who appeared with big names such as Al Pacino and Mel Gibson, had too much too soon.
And by the time he was 30 he had blown the lot in a haze of cocaine-fuelled partying - and ended up bankrupt with debts of £90,000.
"I went off the rails," Dexter admits. "I had too much money when I was young and no responsibility. I blew my childhood earnings pretty good. I was living recklessly."
But when it came to rebuilding his flagging career Dexter, now 41, was every bit as resourceful as the Babylon's bell-hop.
Tony, who satisfies guests' every whim - even finding them call-girls - was back in action last Thursday with the return of BBC1's hotel drama, starring Tamzin Outhwaite and Max Beesley.
And Dexter has no intention of returning to his bad old ways.
He recalls: "I was drinking and taking drugs. I didn't pay my mortgage and bought more cars than I needed.
"All my money went on partying. I lost everything as I turned 30. Tax never got paid and I eventually went bankrupt. I did the whole bit.
"When you look back it's fairly cliched but I can understand how it happened."
Dexter now splits his time between London and Los Angeles with director wife Dalia Ibelhauptaite. But when he hit rock bottom he lived in his car as he struggled to repay his debts. "At the time it was hard," he says. "When you have been in the business from a kid you think that's how it's always going to be.
"So it put me back in touch with the real world and kept me grounded. Otherwise I could have ended up in cuckoo land."
Dexter was just 10 when he played Baby Face in Bugsy Malone alongside Jodie Foster. His career flourished with films such as The Elephant Man, The Long Good Friday and The Bounty.
"The Bounty was great," grins Dexter. "I was on a desert island in the middle of the South Pacific. There was glorious sun and all those gorgeous Tahitian women."
But it was his role as Spike Thomson in Press Gang alongside lovely Julia Sawalha, 38 -his real-life girlfriend from 1989 to 1993 -that made him a household name.
"I have been knocking around for a while," he laughs. "I did my first job when I was seven, playing Diana Dors's son in Steptoe And Son Ride Again. I was lucky and kept working until my mid-20s but that's when it started to stall because I didn't adapt."
Fate took a hand when Dexter listened to the advice of his friend, Harry Potter star Alan Rickman, and took a role in a small London theatre.
"I'd lost all interest in acting and was presenting bad children's TV shows just for money," says Dexter. "But I got the part and it was my best acting experience in 20 years."
He fell in love with Dalia, the show's beautiful director.
Dexter has said: "She's the best influence on me. She's my hero and my best friend. She loves me and I really feel that.
"I remember lying alone in bed after a bad day and wanting very much to be with her. I realised I was happy when I was with her and in control. So I set about making her my wife."
He proposed in the back of a taxi and they married soon afterwards at Marylebone register office with Alan Rickman as best man.
The couple had a second ceremony in a cathedral in Dalia's native Lithuania. "It was the start of something fantastic for me," says Dexter, now married for 10 years.
His career also started to pick up again and in 1998 Dexter won the part of Soap, the chef in hit movie Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
"It pulled it all back for me," he says. "It was the first film I had done in a while so it felt good."
A part in Mike Leigh's movie Topsy Turvy followed and he and Dalia moved to LA. Then Dexter landed the plum role of John Martin in the award-winning war series Band Of Brothers.
He says: "It was 10 months of work and I loved every minute, even the boot camp we did at the start. We got to play war on a scale you'd never believe." Not bad going for a cheeky chappie brought up in Bounds Green, north London.
"I was always a bit of a clown as a kid," he admits. "Luckily I was never bullied or picked on because I made people laugh."
Dexter, who has two older brothers, went to the Anna Scher Theatre School whose past pupils include Phil Daniels, Pauline Quirke, Sid Owen, Patsy Palmer and Kathy Burke.
He left school at 16 with no qualifications. "I had it all mapped out. I knew I wanted to be an actor," he says.
In this week's episode of Hotel Babylon, Tony deals with a rowdy bunch of footballers who check in for drug-fuelled sex romps.
He even walks in to find two players snorting cocaine off a girl's bottom during a raunchy threesome.
Life for real concierges is rarely that exciting and Dexter says: "All I've ever done is ask them to recommend a good museum and restaurant.
"But Tony can get you anything you desire. He doesn't have boundaries -getting ladies of the night for guests is not a problem.
"In the hotel trade guests might phone the concierge and ask for an extra pillow - meaning a prostitute -and the next question is blonde or brunette, male or female.
"One concierge who was very high up in the Golden Keys Association -which represents top concierges around the world - denied being involved in activity like that.
"But they can get you tables at restaurants that are fully booked and tickets to shows that are sold out."
With his career back on track, Dexter says he doesn 't have time for regrets.
"I have had such ups and downs, periods of working really hard and then nothing at all," he says.
"Now I am slowly working my way back up. It has made me understand the bigger picture and in a way I am grateful that it has all happened."
Hotel Babylon, BBC1, Thursdays 9pm
jon.wise@people.co.uk
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, February 19, 2007
From The Huntsville Forester online "Snow Cake" review:
. . . . . . . . . .GeorgianaWhile her portrayal is remarkably poignant, Weaver said in a recent article that it is Rickman’s performance “that gives the audience permission to laugh. When you see him try to sleep on that impossible couch that she has, with his long legs trying to curl up, that’s when[audiences] begin to really enjoy the movie and enjoy the situations we get into with each other.”
. . . . . . . . . .
Copyright 2007 The Irish Times
All Rights Reserved
The Irish Times
February 9, 2007 Friday
SECTION: THE TICKET; VideoDVD; Pg. 13
LENGTH: 326 words
HEADLINE: NEW DVDs
. . . . . . . . . .
SNOW CAKE ***
Directed by Marc Evans. Starring Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Carrie-Anne Moss 15 cert
Rickman, just out of prison, embarks on a strange platonic relationship with an autistic woman whose daughter has recently been killed in a car crash. Weaver is rather too showy as the bereaved parent, but the picture, shot in Canada, does have a languid, deadened feel that nicely articulates the suppressed emotions that skirt her psyche. A partial success. Donald Clarke
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Copyright 2007 Guardian Newspapers Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Observer (England)
February 11, 2007
SECTION: OBSERVER REVIEW ARTS PAGES; Pg. 18
LENGTH: 109 words
HEADLINE: Review: CRITICS: Releases: DVDS: Snow Cake 2006, 15, BBC 2 Entertain £ 15.99
BYLINE: Mark Kermode
'You've been really. . . annoying.' Some critics bridled at Sigourney Weaver's flighty portrayal of an autistic mother whose daughter's death brings her together with a traumatised Alan Rickman. But talented director Marc Evans gets the most out of Angela Pell's heartfelt script, which draws credibly upon her first-hand experiences of the disorder. Steve Cosens shoots the snow-swept Canadian locations with a chilly warmth, while Toronto alt-rockers Broken Social Scene contribute to the typically engaging soundtrack. I could have done with a little less trampolining, but as ever with Evans's films, the magic lies in the moments between the bounces.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Copyright 2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
Mail on Sunday (London)
February 11, 2007 Sunday
SECTION: FB 04; Pg. 78
LENGTH: 646 words
HEADLINE: Pedro and Penelope cruise to brilliance
BYLINE: JASON SOLOMONS
. . . . . . . . . .
Some found Sigourney Weaver's performance in Snow Cake (15) *** too twee to bear. She plays an autistic woman who develops a relationship with Alan Rickman's traumatised tourist in a snowy American small town. He has killed her daughter in an accident, but her coping mechanisms are unorthodox to say the least.
Snow Cake is actually a delicate piece of cinema that succeeds or fails on your buying the characters and their performances.
Rickman is very good, both characteristically frosty and humorously awkward, but Weaver's childlike stares and Rain Man fits are tremendously hard to carry off.
I think that it just about works and, for all the ice and snow, Marc Evans's film is something of a heart-warmer.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Copyright 2007 Nottingham Evening Post
All Rights Reserved
Nottingham Evening Post
February 5, 2007 Monday
SECTION: Pg. 14
LENGTH: 622 words
HEADLINE: Our chance to show city in a different light
I have always felt kinda bad for the Sheriff of Nottingham. Nobody likes the taxman, but this guy had some particularly bad PR. There he was, just trying to do his job, and what did he get for it? Being shot at with arrows by Robin Hood, spurned by Maid Marian and over-acted by Alan Rickman. It's enough to make a guy give up and go work for Ye Olde Private Security Firm.
But now the sheriff's getting the Total Bad Guy Makeover he's long needed, thanks to a planned film that will star Russell Crowe as the man himself.
The film has raised some eyebrows because, my reliable sources inform me, the legend of Robin Hood will be given a revisionist treatment so that the sheriff's the good guy whereas Robin, in a plot twist so dastardly and diabolical that it could only have come from the most depraved minds in Hollywood, is from Doncaster.
Ha ha, that's a little joke. I mean really now, Hollywood types don't have the greatest reputation for mental acumen but they're not South Yorkshire airport bosses or anything.
No, the film will apparently depict the sheriff as a good guy who's investigating a series of murders in which old RH is a prime suspect. It's our old sheriff, finally getting the de-Rickman-isation he deserves.
Friends, what we need to do is capitalise. Not unlike our unpopular, fictional sheriff, our city itself doesn't exactly win popularity contests by the boatload.
Let's face it, plenty of national media and political types seem to take pleasure in depicting our home as a cross between Dodge City and a methadone clinic, the kind of living monument to Where Britain Has Gone Wrong that they can trot out whenever they need to make a point.
Not that we've been any better with our debates on whether we are "Nottingham: Our Style Is Legendary", "Nottingham: Look, we're slanty!", "Nottingham: You're never more than 20 yards from a Caffe Nero" etc.
But now, like the sheriff, we've got a shot at some of the ol' re-branding.
And we've already got the ball rolling on that thanks to next month's Old Market Square re-opening extravaganza.
We've got fireworks. We've got DJs. We've got marching bands. In a fit of civic derring-do that I could not make up if I tried, we've got an attempt at breaking the hula-hooping world record.
And to top it all off, we've got big names.
To prove we're Down With the Kids, we've landed popular rock band the Magic Numbers. To prove we're Down With the Even Younger Kids, we've landed Barney the Dinosaur.
And to prove we're Down With All Their Parents, we've got Tony Hadley, former frontman of Spandau Ballet, the 1980s rock band famous for being the one I always confuse with Flock of Seagulls.
So we're having this big ol' party, but what are we going to do after it?
Here we'll have this brand spanking new square, and the rest of the world will be talking about our newly re-branded sheriff, who goes after that dastardly Robin Hood and looks a bit like the one from Gladiator. (Did I mention they're even calling the film "Nottingham"? This is too perfect, people!)
Finally, we'll have something that we can call our own.
All and sundry can keep trying to poach Robin Hood, and after this new film shows what's he's really like, they'll be welcome to him but I'd like to see, say, Barnsley try to make a claim for somebody who's job title is 'Sheriff of Nottingham'.
I'm envisioning a statue for our shiny new square. A new animatronic-figures tourist attraction across from Tales of Robin Hood "Stories of the Sheriff" or some such.
Pointy green hats shall be banned, banned - in favour of black robes for all. Far more flattering. Better than tights.
The Robin Hood Pageant? Ha! Sheriff-fest '07, baby!
I'm buying my T-shirt now. Nottingham: There's A New Sheriff in Town!
Georgiana (my first English city--Nottingham--my first English pub--Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem...)
Seattle - Friday, February 09, 2007
Copyright 2007 Telegraph Group Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
February 8, 2007 Thursday
SECTION: FEATURES; REVIEWS; Pg. 31
HEADLINE: THEATRE Uncle Vanya WILTON'S MUSIC HALL Blasted SOHO THEATRE How to turn regret into a sorry tale
BYLINE: Dominic Cavendish
MAYBE it's because he looks and sounds a lot like Alan Rickman. Maybe it's because he gets to speak the most prescient lines in Chekhov - about the urgent need to care for the environment ("Perhaps the climate itself is in our control''). But the actor I most warmed to, was most held by in this wildly variable Uncle Vanya was Ronan Vibert's Doctor Astrov.
When he talked, I could quite forget I was sitting amid the draughty, decayed surroundings of Wilton's Music Hall and was swept off to the steaming samovars and smouldering discontents of Professor Serebrayakov's estate.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana (Similarities have been previously noted in these pages.)
Seattle - Friday, February 09, 2007
Copyright 2007 NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS LTD
All Rights Reserved
The Sun (England)
February 9, 2007 Friday
SECTION: SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND; FILM
HEADLINE: DVDs
BYLINE: Emma Cox
SNOW CAKE (15)
Most women would happily rent a DVD of Alan Rickman reading an instruction manual for a toaster for two hours, so his lead role in Snow Cake makes it an appealing prospect.
But his sexy, deep and velvety voice is not enough to save this film from collapsing like an undercooked souffle.
Rickman plays Alex Hughes, a broken man harbouring a dark secret.
Traumatised after a car crash in which his passenger is killed, he goes to stay with his [stet] autistic mother played by Sigourney Weaver, who puts in a half-baked performance and lets Rickman down considerably.
Extras are pretty standard - trailer, deleted scenes, and a "making of" featurette.
But unless you're a serious Rickman fan, I suggest giving it a miss.
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, February 09, 2007
Copyright 2007 The Irish Times
All Rights Reserved
The Irish Times
February 9, 2007 Friday
SECTION: THE TICKET; VideoDVD; Pg. 13
HEADLINE: NEW DVDs
SNOW CAKE ***
Directed by Marc Evans. Starring Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Carrie-Anne Moss 15 cert
Rickman, just out of prison, embarks on a strange platonic relationship with an autistic woman whose daughter has recently been killed in a car crash. Weaver is rather too showy as the bereaved parent, but the picture, shot in Canada, does have a languid, deadened feel that nicely articulates the suppressed emotions that skirt her psyche. A partial success. Donald Clarke
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, February 09, 2007
From The Massachusetts Daily Collegian Online Edition, "Perfume" stinks up the silver screen:
. . . . . . . . . .Thus only in the action itself can the audience find solace in the strength of the supporting characters. The later sequences are aided by the desperate father of Grenouille's final victim. The character of Richis is played beautifully by Alan Rickman whose subtle concerns and heart wrenching love for his daughter are powerfully poignant. Nevertheless, it is Dustin Hoffman's role in his all too short stint as washed up perfumist Giuseppe Baldini that overwhelms the acting of the film. From his mannerisms, to his dress, to his dialogue, Baldini is a breath of fresh air after a dull opening. While Hoffman proves his worth as an extraordinary character actor yet again, the audience is left with the feeling that the end of his performance was the end of the film.
Following loosely in the realm of murder, intrigue, and pursuit Perfume tries to do too much. The film dabbles across numerous thematic elements. The audience finds biblical references with a scene of Grenouille's baptism in scent and his role as a savior. The influence of a secular class structure is made apparent with the stringent divisions between the wealthy and impoverished. There is even a typical clich�d moment as a dog ousts Grenouille as a vicious murderer. Overall, the work fails to find unity.
As simply a murder film or a mysterious thriller "Perfume," with its unique motivations and beautiful filming may have succeeded. And yet, it seemed that it strove to achieve more and failed to accomplish much of anything. Except, of course, a hangover.
From The Massachusetts Daily Collegian Online Edition, "Perfume" stinks up the silver screen:
. . . . . . . . . .Thus only in the action itself can the audience find solace in the strength of the supporting characters. The later sequences are aided by the desperate father of Grenouille's final victim. The character of Richis is played beautifully by Alan Rickman whose subtle concerns and heart wrenching love for his daughter are powerfully poignant. Nevertheless, it is Dustin Hoffman's role in his all too short stint as washed up perfumist Giuseppe Baldini that overwhelms the acting of the film. From his mannerisms, to his dress, to his dialogue, Baldini is a breath of fresh air after a dull opening. While Hoffman proves his worth as an extraordinary character actor yet again, the audience is left with the feeling that the end of his performance was the end of the film.
Following loosely in the realm of murder, intrigue, and pursuit Perfume tries to do too much. The film dabbles across numerous thematic elements. The audience finds biblical references with a scene of Grenouille's baptism in scent and his role as a savior. The influence of a secular class structure is made apparent with the stringent divisions between the wealthy and impoverished. There is even a typical clich�d moment as a dog ousts Grenouille as a vicious murderer. Overall, the work fails to find unity.
As simply a murder film or a mysterious thriller "Perfume," with its unique motivations and beautiful filming may have succeeded. And yet, it seemed that it strove to achieve more and failed to accomplish much of anything. Except, of course, a hangover.
From The Massachusetts Daily Collegian Online Edition, "Perfume" stinks up the silver screen:
. . . . . . . . . .Thus only in the action itself can the audience find solace in the strength of the supporting characters. The later sequences are aided by the desperate father of Grenouille's final victim. The character of Richis is played beautifully by Alan Rickman whose subtle concerns and heart wrenching love for his daughter are powerfully poignant. Nevertheless, it is Dustin Hoffman's role in his all too short stint as washed up perfumist Giuseppe Baldini that overwhelms the acting of the film. From his mannerisms, to his dress, to his dialogue, Baldini is a breath of fresh air after a dull opening. While Hoffman proves his worth as an extraordinary character actor yet again, the audience is left with the feeling that the end of his performance was the end of the film.
Following loosely in the realm of murder, intrigue, and pursuit Perfume tries to do too much. The film dabbles across numerous thematic elements. The audience finds biblical references with a scene of Grenouille's baptism in scent and his role as a savior. The influence of a secular class structure is made apparent with the stringent divisions between the wealthy and impoverished. There is even a typical clich�d moment as a dog ousts Grenouille as a vicious murderer. Overall, the work fails to find unity.
As simply a murder film or a mysterious thriller "Perfume," with its unique motivations and beautiful filming may have succeeded. And yet, it seemed that it strove to achieve more and failed to accomplish much of anything. Except, of course, a hangover.
From "Filter" Magazine ("Good music will prevail"):
Broken Social Scene Score Film
by Staff | 02.01.2007
As if we needed more proof that the breakup rumors were false, Canadian indie-collective Broken Social Scene have been hard at work scoring the film adaptation of Maureen Medved’s novel The Tracey Fragments. The film, which currently has no confirmed US release date, will premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, which runs from February 8th to the 18th, as part of their Panorama program.
The book, which was released 1998, chronicles a girl's traumatic childhood and strange home-life while she rides a bus looking for her lost brother. The film adaptation was directed by Bruce McDonald, who in addition to his film work has directed episodes of Degrassi and Queer as Folk. The Tracey Fragments stars Ellen Page as the title character. Many will remember Page from her shocking portrayal as a pedophile hunter in 2005’s Hard Candy.
The songs of Broken Social Scene filled the ears of movie goers last year thanks to Academy Award nominated film Half Nelson. In addition to The Tracey Fragments, BSS have songs featured in the Sigourney Weaver/Alan Rickman flick, Snow Cake, which has already been released in the UK and Canada, and is slated for an April release in the US.
Georgiana (Note "Snow Cake" April US release date.)
Seattle - Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Copyright 2006 Time Out Group
All Rights Reserved
Time Out
September 6, 2006
SECTION: Pg. 62
LENGTH: 284 words
HEADLINE: Film - Review - Snow Cake - Dir Marc Evans; GB/Can (15) 112 mins, West End & Vue Islington, see listings
BYLINE: Trevor Johnston
The debate about actors playing disabled characters is well rehearsed. On the one hand, it offers these lives dramatic representation; on the other, it's prone to a certain self-conscious display from performers. This chamber drama set in remote snowy Canada won't change any of that, but accept it for what it is and you'll find a decent, respectable piece of work. Sigourney Weaver works very hard to portray Linda, a high-functioning autistic woman who has found some measure of security in an obsessively neat lifestyle - until her routine is challenged by the arrival of Alex (Alan Rickman), a cross-country driver with his own curdled past. Forced by tragic circumstances to announce the death of her teenage daughter, he then stays on to help her adjust in the run-up to the funeral.
Screenwriter Angela Pell clearly has something to say about the way autism brings clear-sighted lack of prejudice and a childlike innocence, albeit often masked by seemingly irrational needs and drives. Such thematic integrity might lend the film genuine substance were it not dramatised through a panoply of unlikely circumstances, convenient contrivances and Linda's seemingly uncanny ability to supply wise insights at exactly the right moment. That said, it's hard not to respond to the central duo's touchingly awkward to-and-fro, even if Rickman's typically overdetermined sardonic spikiness is in marked contrast to the unforced naturalness of Carrie-Anne Moss, in a thin-ish subordinate part as the love interest next door.
There's no little sensitivity here, darts of wry humour too, and it's cumulatively absorbing to be sure, but if the whole actorly bit tends to put your back up, best approach with caution.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Copyright 2006 New York Magazine Holdings LLC
All Rights Reserved
New York Magazine
October 30, 2006
LENGTH: 709 words
HEADLINE: Stand and Don't Deliver; After all the drama around My Name Is Rachel Corrie, what are we to make of the actual play?
BYLINE: Jeremy McCarter
T hough there's still time for a protester or counterprotester to do something really dumb, l'affaire Corrie seems, finally, to be at an end. Since word of it reached the papers in the spring, My Name Is Rachel Corrie, a show based on the writing of a young American activist killed in Gaza, has provided the city with its noisiest theatrical scandal in years. Now that the play has opened at the Minetta Lane Theatre, it's at last possible to see what the fuss was really about.
On March 16, 2003, Corrie died horribly beneath an Israeli bulldozer, and her appropriation began. Yasser Arafat seized upon her as a martyr, and the Israeli right denounced her and the International Solidarity Movement. But Corrie had left behind some eloquent diaries and e-mails, from which actor-director Alan Rickman and Guardian editor Katharine Viner decided to fashion a script that would "uncover the young woman behind the political symbol." The play they assembled scored a hit in London and was headed to the New York Theatre Workshop. That was the idea, anyway.
I've never considered Jim Nicola-artistic director of NYTW, producer of Caryl Churchill and Tony Kushner plays-fainthearted or unwise. Still, it seems extremely naïve to read a script that calls the situation in Gaza "truly evil" and not expect supporters of Israel to object. When Nicola belatedly discovered those sensitivities among his constituents this past spring, he postponed the show to better "contextualize" it with talk-backs and things, then compounded his trouble through inexplicably clumsy handling of the announcement. No sooner did a brief news item turn up in the Times than the full, happy cataclysm of denunciations began. Bloggers leaped into the fray, boldface names followed, most dumping scorn on Nicola. "We believe that this is an important play," declared Harold Pinter and twenty other writers in a letter to the Times.
The whole debate seemed slightly tinny at the time, as if there wasn't quite as much at stake as all those partisans seemed intent upon discovering. Seeing the play confirms the impression: Corrie's death was important, and the subject is excruciatingly important, but the play is not important. It's a well-meaning wisp. As Corrie describes her girlhood in Washington State, she shows a sharp eye and a flair for language. ("He pronounces his words like rubber bands stretched and snapping," she says of a boy she likes.) Once in Gaza, she's astute to worry about a generation of children who will grow up knowing only this violence, and she flashes a blistering eloquence in a climactic speech (forcefully delivered by Megan Dodds) in which she vents her "disbelief and horror" at the carnage.
But the play develops no cumulative power. For all the gravity of the material, her observations feel curiously weightless, offering no sense of why these bad things are happening all around her. In fact, the play is so thin that anybody who might have told Nicola not to proceed because of its politics seems misguided. For the love of John Stuart Mill, are these journal entries really damning enough to merit suppression? The e-mails of a young outsider who says "I'm really new to talking about Israel-Palestine" don't seem terribly hard to refute, if you're so inclined.
Corrie's diaries are more valuable in describing a budding idealist's growth than in bearing witness to the world's knottiest conflict. Even here, though, unlovely notes intrude. More than once, Corrie takes an oddly detached view of Palestinian violence, doubting that it could have "any impact" on the Israelis-a surprisingly clinical tone for such a sensitive advocate of social justice, as if it's the body count incurred in a bus bombing that matters. I didn't pick the example at random. While Corrie was in Gaza, a suicide bomber destroyed a bus in Haifa, killing fifteen people-mainly children-including an American girl even younger than Corrie, one involved in a program to reconcile Arab and Jewish students. There's something poignant in the ways these two sad stories parallel each other and diverge. I can even imagine a drama using their deaths to tell us something new about the conflict, or help us better understand its whole horrible complexity. This play doesn't.
LOAD-DATE: October 23, 2006
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Copyright 2006 The Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
The New Yorker
October 30, 2006
SECTION: THE CRITICS; The Theatre; Pg. 98 Vol. 82 No. 35
LENGTH: 1356 words
HEADLINE: HUMAN SHIELD; The making of an activist.
BYLINE: JOHN LAHR
In a one-person show, the most important question is not where to start the story but why to tell it. The actor needs a compelling reason, beyond vanity, to step from the wings onto the stage. There has to be both need and news; there rarely is. One exception is the riveting "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" (at the Minetta Lane, under the deft direction of Alan Rickman, who also co-edited the play, with the journalist Katharine Viner). "Rachel Corrie" is a ventriloquist's act in which the bright, fine-boned Megan Dodds, who radiates a sense of both privilege and pluck, resuscitates from diary entries and e-mails the voice and being of the American pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie, who died at the age of twenty-three. For most of her life, Corrie was haunted by the suffering in the world. In the play, which is a kind of ghost story, she returns to haunt us.
On March 16, 2003, Corrie, wearing a bright-orange jacket and holding a bullhorn, tried to shield the home of a Palestinian civilian in a refugee camp in the Rafah area of the Gaza Strip, one of three thousand homes that were demolished by Israeli forces between 2001 and 2003. She was crushed to death by an Israeli Caterpillar. In the subsequent furor, Corrie was labelled both a traitor and a martyr. (The New York Theatre Workshop, which was originally supposed to produce the play, dropped it, because of Corrie's "controversial" views.) She was neither. By the evidence of her own words-and this takes nothing away from the poetic power of her testimony or the tragedy of her death-she was, it seems, an ascetic hysteric. "I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop," Corrie e-mailed her mother, of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my co-workers. But I also want this to stop."
During the play, we see an eerie video clip of Corrie at age ten, speaking eloquently and precociously at her school's fifth-grade press conference on world hunger. "My dream is to save the forty thousand people who die each day," she says. Listening to her proclamations as a girl-"We have got to understand that they dream our dreams and we dream theirs"-one gets the sense that the child is an understudy for an adult. She is clearly porous, a vessel for the projections of others. In the texts from which the play is drawn, Corrie, who grew up, the youngest of three children, in the Arcadian liberal sanctuary of Olympia, Washington, claims to owe a great deal to her mother. "You gave me a potential," she writes, adding, "You made me." Corrie also seems to have absorbed her mother's political narrative. She describes a trip to a Seattle bookstore, where her mother buys her some books, including one on delinquency. "I'm sure she was hoping I'd become a bank robber," Corrie says. "My mother would never admit it, but she wanted me exactly how I turned out-scattered and deviant and too loud." Most of the e-mails cited here are addressed to Corrie's mother, whom Corrie describes as "very involved . . . overly involved sometimes," and whom she perceives, variously, as a co-conspirator ("Maybe you should try to get Dad to quit his neo-liberal job") and a colossus. "Sometimes my mother is up there, bobbing in the sky like Macy's Parade balloons," she says. "So big she looms over everything."
The set at the Minetta Lane is divided between Corrie's cluttered, red-walled American bedroom and the bullet-pocked stucco walls of the Palestinian refugee encampment where she died. Corrie's journey is from one side of the stage to the other, a shift from surreal optimism to surreal devastation. "I'm building the world myself," she says. From the first words she delivers-addressing her ceiling from beneath the covers on her bed-she is clearly self-dramatizing. She is "the bad other girl" who reads fashion magazines and makes a mess of her room, painting it the color of "carnage." She's the renegade who chooses Evergreen State College over the more prestigious academic path of her siblings, "my Economics-major-high-achiever-khaki-and-high-heels-Yalie-corporate sister and brother." She's the would-be artist and writer, dreaming up lists of "Five People I Wish I'd Met Who Are Dead" and "Five People to Hang Out With in Eternity." (There's a jazzy rhythm to Corrie's words but no consistent authoritative personality behind them.) Long before she puts herself in harm's way, trying to cow injustice with a show of righteousness, she sets out to throw herself-with tight shirt and newly shaved armpits-in front of her former boyfriend and his "new hoochie-ass girlfriend." "They'll drop the spoons in their strawberry milkshake when I slide past," she says. Corrie professes a love of Salvador Dali; she, too, is given to making grandiose spectacles of herself. On some level, she knows this, observing wryly that, of all the things she has dreamed of becoming, the hardest to give up is Spider-Man. "I'm a junior in college," she confides to her diary. "I still don't have the conviction to cross 'Spider-Man' off my list." When she can't make a myth of her achievements, she makes a myth of her abdications. As she sets off on her radical course-"I've had this underlying need to go to a place and meet people who are on the other end of the tax money that goes to fund the U.S. military," she says-she notes, "I can't be Picasso. I can't be Jesus. I can't save the planet single-handedly. I can wash dishes."
The play shrewdly does not show Corrie dying; it shows her living, in all her funny, lively, melancholy, and manipulative immediacy. She ponders the misery of the Israeli checkpoints, the nihilism of the humiliated Palestinian population, which has turned suicide bombing into a heroic destiny. She meditates on her own fears and her own death. "If my whole life is going to amount to one shrug and a shake of the head," she says, "who cares if it comes in eighty years or at eight p.m." With a kind of tragic symmetry, the catastrophe that Corrie was perhaps courting comes to her in a dream, almost exactly as it eventually happened. "Had a dream about falling, falling to my death off of something dusty and smooth and crumbling like cliffs in Utah, but I kept holding on," she says. Corrie, it seems to me, is a far more complex character than this play intends her to be, which makes the evening all the more fascinating. Her words bear witness to the deracinating madness of war, a hysteria that infects not only those doing the fighting but also those ambitious to do the saving.
"I wonder how it would be for them to arrive in my world," Corrie says of the refugees she encounters. "I wonder if you can forgive the world for all the years spent existing-just existing-in resistance to the constant attempt to erase you from your home."
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2006
Georgiana (Just found this--I don't think I've seen it before, but sorry if it is a duplicate, given how long it is.)
Seattle - Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Mr. Rickman gets a mention in Who Are the Least Intimidating Movie Villains of All Time?
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Copyright 2007 Nottingham Evening Post
All Rights Reserved
Nottingham Evening Post
February 5, 2007 Monday
SECTION: Pg. 14
LENGTH: 622 words
HEADLINE: Our chance to show city in a different light
I have always felt kinda bad for the Sheriff of Nottingham. Nobody likes the taxman, but this guy had some particularly bad PR. There he was, just trying to do his job, and what did he get for it? Being shot at with arrows by Robin Hood, spurned by Maid Marian and over-acted by Alan Rickman. It's enough to make a guy give up and go work for Ye Olde Private Security Firm.
But now the sheriff's getting the Total Bad Guy Makeover he's long needed, thanks to a planned film that will star Russell Crowe as the man himself.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, February 06, 2007
More on "Snow Cake":
Copyright 2007 EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS
All Rights Reserved
The Express
February 2, 2007 Friday
U.K. 1st Edition
SECTION: FEATURES; 49
LENGTH: 224 words
HEADLINE: REWIND DVD; Weekend FILMS
SNOWCAKE
SENSITIVELY handled tale of grief and guilt, with a commanding performance from Sigourney Weaver as an autistic woman whose daughter is killed in a car crash. Alan Rickman tries to comfort her as he struggles with his own sense of loss and despair. A maudlin but touching tale enhanced by the fine performances.
Cert 15, Cinema Club, DVD: rental and retail.
Georgiana (I really did add Italics--wonder where they went?.)
Seattle - Monday, February 05, 2007
Copyright 2007 EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS
All Rights Reserved
The Express
February 2, 2007 Friday
Highlands Edition
SECTION: NEWS; 17
LENGTH: 323 words
HEADLINE: Hadrian scrawl marks final act of Potter saga
BYLINE: By David Scott
MULTI-MILLIONAIRE author JK Rowling signed off on the last Harry Potter adventure by leaving a surprise message at a five-star Scottish hotel.
The writer put the finishing touches to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in a top-secret session at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh - then scrawled a note on a bust of Roman emperor Hadrian in her luxury room to mark the big achievement.
Cheeky Rowling scratched "JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11th Jan 2007)" on to the bust before checking out of the hotel with the manuscript of the hotly anticipated book.
And fans of the boy wizard - whose seventh and final tale will be published on July 21 - believe the message is a clue to the fate that might befall a key character in the final chapter of Harry's epic story.
They reckon the note points to the demise of Professor Severus Snape, played by Alan Rickman in the film versions of the books, because Roman Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus rebuilt Hadrian's Wall near the village of Snape in North Yorkshire.
But the true contents of the book are a closely guarded secret that will only be revealed when copies go on sale at the witching hour on July 21.
Thousands are expected to queue up as more than 300 bookshops open at midnight on publication day.
Experts predict Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be the biggest and fastest-selling book ever.
Bookseller Waterstones revealed that "tens of thousands" of Potter fans had already ordered copies.
They are expecting orders to rocket now the release date had been revealed by publisher Bloomsbury.
Rowling has said two characters will die in the book. Debbie Williams, Waterstones' teenage books buyer, said 60 per cent of readers will be teenagers or young adults. "This could be a similar moment to when Take That split up - there could be a lot of upset teenagers, " she said. "We are looking at setting up a helpline for them."
GRAPHIC: CREATOR: JK Rowling
LOAD-DATE: February 2, 2007
Georgiana (Italics added.)
Seattle - Monday, February 05, 2007
Quite a few "Snow Cake" DVD reviews in the British papers. Those I've found with something of substance to say follow:
Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Limited
All Rights Reserved
Sunday Times (London)
February 4, 2007, Sunday
SECTION: FEATURES; Culture; Pg. 25
LENGTH: 548 words
HEADLINE: DVDs
BYLINE: Lauren Paxman and Sarah Harvey
Snow Cake. Film *** Extras **
Does Alan Rickman do anything other than wander through films looking sour?
In Marc Evans's bleak film, his performance as Alex Hughes, a broken man harbouring a dark secret -"I don't have baggage, I have haulage" -grates rather than grips. The spirited Vivienne Freeman (Emily Hampshire) hitches a ride with Hughes, but is killed when a truck crashes into his car. Traumatised, he visits her mother (Sigourney Weaver), a lone, "high-functioning" autistic, lucid, independent and obsessed with her kitchen.
She cajoles him into staying, he embarks on an implausible affair with her sexy neighbour, Maggie (Carrie Anne Moss), and Weaver eats lots of snow. Weaver's autism creates an amusing counterpoint for Rickman's emotional incontinence. Angela Pell's script has a knowing poignancy (her son is autistic), but, although schmaltz-free, it's also predictable. And, unfortunately, Weaver's parboiled performance butters no parsnips. Standard extras. SH
Cinema Club, 15, 107 mins; £15.99
Copyright 2007 Belfast Telegraph Newspapers
All Rights Reserved
Sunday Life
February 4, 2007
LIF Edition
SECTION: MORE2LIFE; Pg. 42
LENGTH: 491 words
HEADLINE: DVD REVIEWS
BYLINE: Audrey Watson
Snow Cake
(15) Drama starring: Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Carrie-Ann Moss.
Director: Marc Evans.
What's the story?... After a car crash kills his teenage hitchhiker passenger, ex-con Alex Hughes (Rickman), seeks out the dead girl's mother Linda (Weaver), who turns out to be a high-functioning autistic woman.
He intends to stay only a few days in order to help Linda arrange the funeral, but the two quickly become friends and Alex decides to stay on in the town.
He soon falls for Linda's neighbour Maggie (Moss), but then a local cop starts to dig up his past.
What's the verdict?... Uplifting and poignant, this moving drama avoids excess sentimentality thanks to a great script and some great acting - especially from Rickman and Moss.
Copyright 2007 Telegraph Group Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
February 3, 2007 Saturday
SECTION: ART; Pg. 16
LENGTH: 203 words
HEADLINE: DVDs ALSO RELEASED
BYLINE: Tim Robey
Snow Cake
Copyright 2007 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd.
15, Cinema Club, pounds 15.99
Sigourney Weaver does autism in this rather precious small-town drama set in wintry Northern Ontario, as the mother of a car crash victim being consoled by Alan Rickman's lonely Brit. It's all rather forced.
Daily Record
February 3, 2007, Saturday
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 11
LENGTH: 133 words
HEADLINE: OUT ON DVD
SNOW CAKE
Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman star in the story of a man with a traumatic past and a weight on his shoulders. Offset by a brilliant showing from Weaver playing an autistic mother with an unusual grieving process. Gently charming.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, February 05, 2007
(Sorry--the link failed. Search "Snow Cake" at amazon.co.uk.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, February 05, 2007
I believe the "Snow Cake" DVD is now available for rental or purchase in the UK. There are a number of customer reviews up at Amazon.co.uk--all favorable (although I'm not sure you'd expect anything else, e.g., from a reviewer self-styled as "Sigourney's toy boy").
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, February 05, 2007
I believe the "Snow Cake" DVD is now available for rental or purchase in the UK. There are a number of customer reviews up at Amazon.co.uk--all favorable (although I'm not sure you'd expect anything else, e.g., from a reviewer self-styled as "Sigourney's toy boy").
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, February 05, 2007
I believe the "Snow Cake" DVD is now available for rental or purchase in the UK. There are a number of customer reviews up at Amazon.co.uk--all favorable (although I'm not sure you'd expect anything else, e.g., from a reviewer self-styled as "Sigourney's toy boy").
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, February 05, 2007
I believe the "Snow Cake" DVD is now available for rental or purchase in the UK. There are a number of customer reviews up at Amazon.co.uk--all favorable (although I'm not sure you'd expect anything else, e.g., from a reviewer self-styled as "Sigourney's toy boy").
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, February 05, 2007
Copyright 2007 Reed Elsevier Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Daily Variety
January 31, 2007 Wednesday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 8
LENGTH: 218 words
HEADLINE: Crossroads takes a new path with coin
BYLINE: STEVEN ZEITCHIK
NEW YORK Indie production shingle Crossroads Films is expanding, starting a development company that will have access to about $1 million in development funds per year.
Coin will allow shingle to increase production in a number of areas, including features (between two and three additional); docus (one to two); and TV shows (up to four).
Company will be known as the Deciders. As many as eight employees will be brought on to work on development for the firm, Crossroads Films topper Dan Lindau said.
Crossroads has also hired former Raytheon exec Ed Pliner in the new position of chief operating officer to oversee more expanded efforts.
Money will come from private sources.
Crossroads has a number of production credits under its belt, including "Igby Goes Down" and recent Sundance pic "Snow Angels." It is in pre-production on a number of movies, including "Acts of Charity," starring Alan Rickman, and "After Silence," a romantic drama about a cartoonist.
Company is also working on a documentary, to be directed by Peter Friedman, about a group called PCI, which uses soap operas and other forms of entertainment for social change.
"Development is often the last stop for what people want to spend," Lindau said. This company will "allow us to leverage a lot more of our relationships."
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, February 01, 2007
Copyright 2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
The Evening Standard (London)
January 26, 2007 Friday
SECTION: A MERGE; Pg. 15
LENGTH: 281 words
HEADLINE: Pelling is going to the dogs;
The Londoner's Diary
. . . . . . . . . .
ALAN RICKMAN and John Hurt were guests at a charity gala to raise money for the Gate Theatre at the 20th Century Theatre on Westbourne Grove. "It's difficult to build a theatre space," pointed out Rickman in his speech. "They are usually found or converted and have ghosts still clinging to their walls." There was a silent auction with lots including an evening at a press night with Sunday Times theatre critic John Peter, four tickets to the Sound of Music and - curiously for this luvvie crowd - Champions League tickets to Manchester United vs Lille.
Georgiana (sorry--missed a paragraph on that last one.)
Seattle - Thursday, February 01, 2007
Copyright 2007 The Financial Times Limited
Financial Times (London, England)
January 27, 2007 Saturday
London Edition 1
SECTION: TELEVISION, RADIO AND SPORT; Pg. 13
LENGTH: 212 words
HEADLINE: FILM NIGEL ANDREWS
BYLINE: By NIGEL ANDREWS
Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai inspired The Magnificent Seven (Five Saturday 6.10pm). For samurai eastern read burrito western, as a cast of nascent stars (Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen and James Coburn lining up behind Yul Brynner) swirl across the wide screen - sue Five if it lops and crops - in this great action film. Sand, six-guns, a smash-hit score by Elmer Bernstein.
Trouble sleeping? Try Gerry (Channel 4 Sunday 3.40am). Gus Van Sant's minimalist desert epic starring Matt Damon will either send you straight off or cast a lifelong spell. Musings on life, death and friendship in a landscape painted in the colours of eternity.
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (BBC1 Sunday 6.45pm) should be insured for Dollars 1bn. That is the value of Alan Rickman's sheriff of Nottingham, a priceless artefact from an actor now gone on (he thinks) to higher things.
Preston Sturges's The Great McGinty (Sunday 7.00am and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (2.50pm, both on Sky Cinema 2, are unrelated though each comes from 1940, when comedy was king, Hollywood queen and Adolf Hitler about to try wiping everyone's smiles off their faces. He succeeded, though Chaplin prophetically lampooned him and Sturges resisted him by painting free America as a mad, magnificent Utopia.
Georgiana (Italics added.)
Seattle - Thursday, February 01, 2007
According to the "Hollywood Reporter" referenced here, Russell Crowe is set to re-define the Sherrif of Nottingham.
Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, February 01, 2007
From the review of "Perfume" in "The Daily Iowan":
Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman show up, ugly powdered wigs in tow, in an attempt to shock some emotion into Perfume, but to no avail. Hoffman, as an out-of-date perfumer, lets his accent do most of his work for him, while the fantastic Rickman is left to the unenviable role of 18th-century Fox Mulder, though he does get off a few amazingly delivered lines.
The Mercury News online, in an article about an upcoming run of "Sweeney Todd" at San Francisco's ACT Theater, concludes with the following:
Tim Burton's film adaptation of "Sweeney Todd," starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and Sacha Baron Cohen, is scheduled for release in December.
Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, January 29, 2007
Copyright 2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
The Evening Standard (London)
January 26, 2007 Friday
SECTION: A MERGE; Pg. 15
LENGTH: 281 words
HEADLINE: Pelling is going to the dogs;
The Londoner's Diary
. . . . . . . . . .
ALAN RICKMAN and John Hurt were guests at a charity gala to raise money for the Gate Theatre at the 20th Century Theatre on Westbourne Grove. "It's difficult to build a theatre space," pointed out Rickman in his speech. "They are usually found or converted and have ghosts still clinging to their walls." There was a silent auction with lots including an evening at a press night with Sunday Times theatre critic John Peter, four tickets to the Sound of Music and - curiously for this luvvie crowd - Champions League tickets to Manchester United vs Lille.
Georgiana
Seattle - Sunday, January 28, 2007
Copyright 2007 Moscow News
Moscow News (Russia)
January 19, 2007
SECTION: ENTERTAINMENT; No. 02
LENGTH: 148 words
HEADLINE: A NEW ROLE FOR SIGOURNEY
BYLINE: By Anna Ozar
Snow Cake is a drama film released on September 8, 2006 in the U.K. Directed by Marc Evans, it stars Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Carrie-Anne Moss and Callum Keith Rennie. The movie was filmed in Wawa, Ontario.
Snow Cake tells about the friendship between Linda, an autistic woman (Weaver), and Alex (Rickman) who is traumatized after a car accident involving Linda's daughter.
The movie was screened and discussed at Autism international conference in May 2006, as well as the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, among others.
It was the opening night screening for the Berlin Film Festival.
What's so special about these "autistic" movies? Why do they get all these prizes? Maybe because all of us are a bit crazy.MN
From January 18
Cinemas of Moscow
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Copyright 2007 The Seattle Times Company
The Seattle Times
January 12, 2007 Friday
Fourth Edition
SECTION: ROP ZONE; Ticket; Pg. H39
LENGTH: 773 words
HEADLINE: In the wings: whimsy, music, history;
Spring previews: theater
BYLINE: Misha Berson, Seattle Times theater critic
. . . . . . . . . .
"My Name is Rachel Corrie": Just the mention of political activist and Olympia native Rachel Corrie, in print or aloud, can incite an argument. Controversy still clouds her death in 2003, when Corrie (at age 23) was run over by an Israeli bulldozer during a protest in Gaza.
Last year this Alan Rickman-Katharine Viner play, culled from Corrie's personal journals and e-mails, had its U.S. debut canceled by one New York theater anxious about public reaction, and recently a Canadian theater also scotched plans to present it. But it was seen in 2006 at New York's Minetta Lane Theatre, and soon the Seattle Repertory Theatre will mount its own version. Local reaction to this dramatic self-portrait of an impassioned, headstrong native daughter should be at least as interesting as the play itself.
Runs March 15-April 22 at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center (206-443-2222or www.seattlerep.org).
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Nobel Son website HOT Alan Rickman footage in the trailers ect.
Claire
- Friday, January 12, 2007
Toronto Sun More on Sweeney Todd but the bonus is a great photo!
Claire
- Friday, January 12, 2007
Sorry about that. Must have been formatting errors in the Lexis listing.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Copyright 2007 Brunico Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Playback
January 8, 2007 Monday
SECTION: NEWS; Box Office; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 328 words
HEADLINE: Rom�o et Juliette find love in Quebec
BYLINE: Laura Bracken
Quebec's star-crossed lovers came out on top despite heavy competition over the holidays when Rom�o et Juliette opened on Dec. 15 to a first-week gross of $481,510, besting the box-office take on French screens of both Charlotte's Web and The Pursuit of Happyness.
The teen-targeted romance - from Cin�maginaire producers Denise Robert and Daniel Louis - opened on 73 screens in the province via Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm, for a healthy per screen average of $6,596.
By comparison, Paramount's redo of Charlotte's Web opened to only $79,557 on French screens, while Happyness, from Sony, drew $205,909. Both opened on Dec. 15.
Rom�o has gone on to gross $950,000, as of the Dec. 29-31 weekend. It is directed by Yves Desgagn�s (Idole instantan�e) and retells the Shakespearean romance in present-day Quebec, starring newcomers Thomas Lalonde and Charlotte Aubin.
Charlotte's Web fared better in the rest of Canada, with a first-week gross of more than $1 million from 250 screens nationwide, although its average $4,263 per screen still falls below that of Rom�o et Juliette. Pursuit of Happyness grossed $2.5 million from 193 screens across Canada.
The only Hollywood release that presented any competition for Rom�o et Juliette was Fox's adventure flick Eragon, which grossed $453,524 on French screens over its first week. Eragon opened on Dec. 15 on 226 screens across Canada to $2 million-plus.
It comes as no surprise that Hollywood presented more competition in English Canada, where Marc Evans' Snow Cake was released Dec. 15 in five theaters through Alliance Atlantis MPD.
The Canada/U.K. copro from Rhombus Media and Revolution Films grossed over $13,000 in its first week for an average $2,709 per theater. It expanded on Dec. 22 to 12 screens and has since grossed some $57,000.
Starring Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman, Snow Cake tells the story of the relationship between a man and an autistic woman in rural Ontario.
-With files from Sean Davidson
Georgiana (Italics added.) (At least it found distribution in Canada...)
Seattle - Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Copyright 2007 Brunico Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Playback
January 8, 2007 Monday
SECTION: NEWS; Box Office; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 328 words
HEADLINE: Rom�o et Juliette find love in Quebec
BYLINE: Laura Bracken
Quebec's star-crossed lovers came out on top despite heavy competition over the holidays when Rom�o et Juliette opened on Dec. 15 to a first-week gross of $481,510, besting the box-office take on French screens of both Charlotte's Web and The Pursuit of Happyness.
The teen-targeted romance - from Cin�maginaire producers Denise Robert and Daniel Louis - opened on 73 screens in the province via Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm, for a healthy per screen average of $6,596.
By comparison, Paramount's redo of Charlotte's Web opened to only $79,557 on French screens, while Happyness, from Sony, drew $205,909. Both opened on Dec. 15.
Rom�o has gone on to gross $950,000, as of the Dec. 29-31 weekend. It is directed by Yves Desgagn�s (Idole instantan�e) and retells the Shakespearean romance in present-day Quebec, starring newcomers Thomas Lalonde and Charlotte Aubin.
Charlotte's Web fared better in the rest of Canada, with a first-week gross of more than $1 million from 250 screens nationwide, although its average $4,263 per screen still falls below that of Rom�o et Juliette. Pursuit of Happyness grossed $2.5 million from 193 screens across Canada.
The only Hollywood release that presented any competition for Rom�o et Juliette was Fox's adventure flick Eragon, which grossed $453,524 on French screens over its first week. Eragon opened on Dec. 15 on 226 screens across Canada to $2 million-plus.
It comes as no surprise that Hollywood presented more competition in English Canada, where Marc Evans' Snow Cake was released Dec. 15 in five theaters through Alliance Atlantis MPD.
The Canada/U.K. copro from Rhombus Media and Revolution Films grossed over $13,000 in its first week for an average $2,709 per theater. It expanded on Dec. 22 to 12 screens and has since grossed some $57,000.
Starring Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman, Snow Cake tells the story of the relationship between a man and an autistic woman in rural Ontario.
-With files from Sean Davidson
Georgiana (Italics added.) (At least it found distribution in Canada...)
Seattle - Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Roger Ebert's four-star review of "Perfume" can be found here. He does not mention Mr. Rickman.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, January 09, 2007
From Backstage.com:
FILM NEWS
Alan Rickman to Judge 'Sweeney Todd' Film
January 08, 2007
By Tatiana Siegel
Alan Rickman has signed on for Tim Burton's ensemble musical "Sweeney Todd," a DreamWorks Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures co-production.
Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen already have boarded the project, based on the macabre Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical. Rickman, no stranger to the stage, has been nominated for two Tonys and is a U.K. theater veteran. He will play Judge Turpin in the film, scheduled to begin production next month in London.
The film centers on Benjamin Barker (Depp), a man unjustly imprisoned by a lecherous judge (Rickman). Barker returns as barber Sweeney Todd and exacts revenge. John Logan penned the big-screen adaptation.
Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald, Richard D. Zanuck and Logan are producing.
Paramount Pictures will distribute for DreamWorks domestically, and Warners will distribute internationally.
Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, January 09, 2007
There is a web site, which appears to be by a fan of the musical, devoted to Sweeney Todd that looks to have loads of information, including the libretto. When we first meet Judge Turpin, the stage directions are as follows:
(During the following, the JUDGE appears, tears off his mask, then his cloak, revealing himself naked. The wife screams as he reaches for her, struggling wildly as the BEADLE hurls her to the floor. He holds her there as the JUDGE mounts her and, the masked dancers pirouette around the ravishment, giggling)
Georgiana (Thanks, Claire, for that great .pdf file--the back cover is lovely!)
Seattle - Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Detailed German Pressbook for Perfume If you can't read it, the photos are nice!
Claire
- Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Scotsman.com confirmation of Alans part as the Judge in Sweeny Todd - with a nice photo from the Berlin International Film Festival last February.
Claire
- Monday, January 08, 2007
From Peter Howell in his "Perfume" review in the Toronto Star:
Tykwer's greatest directorial feat, perhaps, is coaxing Dustin Hoffman into a reasonable facsimile of bewigged Italian perfumer Giuseppe Baldini, whom a grown-up Grenouille persuades to teach him the fine art of capturing scents. A most curious casting choice - did Tykwer owe someone a favour? - Hoffman nevertheless acquits himself reasonably well, including a scene in which he demonstrates quite vividly the sensual feelings that an expertly crafted perfume can arouse. Also surprising, but more felicitous dramatically, is the pick of the dour Alan Rickman to play merchant nobleman Antoine Richis, a widower whose pride and joy is his lovely daughter Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood). She is sought by the killer with the ravenous nose.
Most impressive of all is Whishaw, a relatively unknown British actor who fixes Grenouille somewhere between feral child and cunning predator. Previously seen as Keith Richards in Stoned and soon to be viewed as one of several Bob Dylans in I'm Not There, Whishaw has a knack for making the unwashed and ill-bred seem worthy of love and sympathy.
Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times movie critic, refers to Mr. Rickman in "Perfume" as "the very essence of nobility."
Georgiana
Seattle - Sunday, January 07, 2007
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a brief interview with Tom Tykwer about "Perfume."
Georgiana
Seattle - Sunday, January 07, 2007
HPana (the Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator) is reporting that a number of entities are reporting "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" to be topping the 2007 film lists, even though the film will not be released until this July. These include MTV, which lists it as number 1, and Entertainment Weekly, where it ranks second.
Georgiana
Seattle - Sunday, January 07, 2007
Copyright 2007 World Entertainment News Network
All Rights Reserved
WENN Entertainment News Wire Service
January 3, 2007 Wednesday 3:18 AM GMT
SECTION: MOVIE
LENGTH: 72 words
HEADLINE: IRISH UNKNOWN TO STAR OPPOSITE DEPP IN SWEENEY TODD
An unknown Irish actress has landed the dream role of JOHANNA opposite JOHNNY DEPP in TIM BURTON's star-studded musical SWEENEY TODD.
Scottish Academy of Music and Drama student JAYNE WISENER will play the ingenue in the film, which also stars Burton's partner HELENA BONHAM CARTER, ALAN RICKMAN and funnyman SACHA BARON COHEN.
Shooting on the film adaptation of the STEPHEN SONDHEIM/HUGH WHEELER musical will begin next month (FEB07).
LOAD-DATE: January 2, 2007
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, January 05, 2007
The quote has made the web:
THE THINGS THEY SAY
"Hollywood exists on a trinity of products - popcorn, coke and the movie. I'm not quite sure what means the most to them." Actor ALAN RICKMAN explains why he's wary of signing up for Tinseltown projects.
04/01/2007 01:54
(He-and Rima, both--said they really hoped to make Seattle as it is the closest the play will come to Rachel Corrie's home town of Olympia, Washington, but it depends on whether his shooting schedule for "Sweeney Todd" will allow.)
Georgiana (that American whose back is to you in 'the only photo' done with the flash on...and doesn't he just look interested)
Seattle, WA - Friday, January 05, 2007
Photo from Tricycle event last night from flickr.com
Claire
- Thursday, January 04, 2007
New Alan picture taken December 2006
Claire
- Wednesday, January 03, 2007
