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9:00am ET, 31-October-02

Isaacs Finds His Inner Malfoy

Working with his young co-stars "I think [was] the most fun, because the kids don't disguise their response the first time," Isaacs said. "The first time I did a scene with [star] Daniel [Radcliffe], he went, 'God, you're going to talk like that?' and I said, 'Yeah,' and he went, 'That is soooo cool.'" Chamber of Secrets opens Nov. 15.
Claudia
New Zealand - Thursday, October 31, 2002

Copyright 2002 The Oregonian
The Oregonian
October 18, 2002 Friday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: ARTS AND LIVING; Pg. 32
HEADLINE: 'QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER'
SOURCE: By Ted Mahar, The Oregonian

Tom Selleck rode in 20 years too late to make all the Westerns he might have made, although he has hit the trail in TNT Westerns he has also co-produced. This 1990 film might be called a deep Southwestern, in that Selleck plays an American cowboy who answers Australian rancher Alan Rickman's ad for a crack marksman. Quigley (Selleck) disembarks with his trusty Sharps ultra-long-range rifle and proves to be the phenomenal shot he claims he is. But Rickman wants him to exterminate the Aboriginals around his ranch, and the rest of the story is the battle between Selleck and Rickman. Laura San Giacomo does a good low-key job of playing a woman driven utterly bonkers. She deludes herself that Selleck is the Roy she seeks, saddling him with another problem as he fights for his life. The tension and rough frontier humor are well balanced, and director Simon Wincer stages and films it better than most Westerns of the good old days. 4:15 p.m. Monday, Showtime; VCR Plus: 4129402 -- Ted Mahar

Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, October 31, 2002

Sorry--this is very long, and only one line actually about Mr. Rickman. But, I thought, interesting enough to post the entire thing.

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Oct 2002
v46 i2 p172(4)
Bewitched, bothered, and bored: Harry Potter, the movie.
(Media Literacy). (Movie Review) Philip Nel.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2002 International Reading Association Inc.

This month the Media Literacy department travels to the world of Muggles, Quidditch, and all that is Harry Potter. This series of books written by J.K. Rowling has many a reader, no matter the age, talking on playgrounds, in chat rooms, around conference tables, in hallways--everywhere.

With the release of the cinematic version of the first Harry Potter novel, fans are embroiled in various debates about the movie versus the book, In this column, Philip Nel explores the Harry Potter phenomenon with college students in a university course. As the release of the next novel in the Potter series approaches, as well as the premiere of the second motion picture, this is a perfect time to revisit Hogwarts castle and be amazed ... by the book or the movie?

Lori Norton-Meier The students in my spring 2002 class, Harry Potter's Library: J.K. Rowling, Texts and Contexts, were evenly divided in their responses to the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Columbus, 2001). Those who read the novel before seeing the film gave the film--at best--a mixed review. Generally speaking, they felt that the movie was not as good as the book, even if (as one student put it)they "did enjoy the money that was spent on making Hogwarts castle look real." In contrast, those who saw the film before reading the novel really liked the film because, unlike many film adaptations, they said this movie did not distort the book. Both groups are correct: The movie was not enough like the book and, at the same time, very much like the book.

This paradox resides in the difference between seeing and feeling. As enjoyable as it is to view the film's special effects, director Chris Columbus's movie rarely engages the emotions. Watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (or Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone if you see the British version) is like watching a historical reenactment: You may be interested to see how it's done, but there's not much suspense. In the movie, the filmmakers want the audience to notice how faithfully they have re-created Hogwarts and how vivid the Quidditch match is, and--to their credit--they have done an outstanding job in representing the look of the novel. However, the film's lavish attention to the visual leaves little time for the characters to interact with one another.

J.K. Rowling writes great dialogue; the conversations between her characters give us insight on their lives and allow us to care about them. For example, the film includes some of the dialogue between Harry and Ron on the Hogwarts Express, but instead of focusing on their friendship (as the book does) the movie shows off its special effects, giving us chocolate frogs that actually jump. But they do not jump in Rowling's text and need not do so in the film. In the novel, Harry's purchase of these treats from the witch's concessions cart ("trolley" in the British edition) provide an occasion for Harry and Ron's friendship to grow. It's touching to learn that Ron is embarrassed about his family's poverty and that Harry is anxious about attending wizard school. It is what the characters say, not how they look, that enables us to make an emotional connection with them. Though some of the excellent cast manage to act their way beyond the special effects (notably Alan Rickman's Snape, Robbie Coltrane's Hagrid, and Emma Watson's Hermione), many characters get lost in the dazzle of light and sound that filmmakers feel compelled to throw at us. If characters, and not scenery, had the starring role, viewers could become as involved with the film as they were with the novel. (Italics added.)

Is comparison fair?

Is it fair to compare these two very different media? Because film is a visual medium, perhaps Columbus's film must focus on visuals. However, Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings eloquently demonstrates film's narrative power by providing a stunning visual experience without losing any of the novel's emotional intensity--in fact, Jackson's 2001 film The Fellowship of the Ring is more intense than Tolkien's text. And yet Jackson invested an incredible amount of work in making Middle Earth look as Tolkien described it,including growing the plants and trees of the Shire a year before filming. But the effects never seem to be there for their own sake; the story takes the foreground, and the brilliant visuals augment the story without detracting from it. So, as Jackson's film demonstrates, film can be as powerful a storyteller as a novel can.

To keep the film to three hours, Jackson and his creative team had to condense Tolkien's novel drastically. Columbus and screenwriter Steve Kloves had to condense Rowling's novel, too, in order to create a film with a running time of two and a half hours. As Reader's Digest or Cliff's Notes might suggest, to condense a novel usually means to simplify it. The challenge for a filmmaker is to condense the source texts in a way that retains the central experience or meanings of the original. For example, Jackson and his crew simplify the debate at the Council of Elrond, but they distill the essence of the scene--we glimpse Boromir's half-concealed ambitions for the ring and Frodo's troubled but brave decision to bear the ring himself. Columbus's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone does not succeed as well as Jackson's film, though it does at times hit its mark--as when, for instance, Harry goes straight from Diagon Alley to Platform 9 3/4 (in the novel, he goes back to the Dursleys first). More often, however, the filmmakers' infatuation with special effects leads them astray. Dudley Dursley actually falls into the cage at the reptile house in the movie, and the glass magically disappears and reappears, trapping him on the wrong side. Furthermore, Harry seems quite aware that he has imprisoned his cousin. In the novel, Harry seems a bit bewildered by these occurrences and is not truly aware that he made them happen. His confusion during the scene sets up his later surprise at learning he's a wizard. At the hut on the rock, where Hagrid finally reaches Harry with his Hogwarts letter, Harry says quietly, "Hagrid, [...] I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard." Hagrid chuckles and adds, "Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared, or angry?" (Rowling, 1997, p. 58). Harry then remembers the mishap at the reptile house and realizes he was the cause.

This belated recognition of his magical powers may seem a minor point, but small details like these add up over the course of the movie.

It's in the details

The accumulation of minor details can create a markedly different experience between a book and a film, which may explain why my students who read the novel first were so critical of the film. The movie looks like the places in the book but it doesn't "feel" like them because these little details accumulate. To turn to another example, Dumbledore's sense of humor remains hidden until the very end of the movie when, at Harry's hospital bedside, he selects an earwax-flavored jelly bean. In the novel, his offbeat wit makes earlier and more frequent appearances: At the opening banquet, Dumbledore says, "Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" (Rowling, 1997, p. 125). The film omits these delightful absurdities and also subtracts Harry's asking Dumbledore what he sees in the Mirror of Erised. The headmaster replies, "I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks" (p. 214). As a result, the Dumbledore of the film more closely resembles Tolkien's Gandalf. While Gandalf and British author T.H. White's Merlin are literary antecedents of Rowling's headmaster, the film emphasizes Dumbledore's serious side. A sense of humor may be a minor detail in and of itself, but it is the kind of detail that, over the course of the film, distorts the original character in ways that inspire criticism from fans of the book.

This type of distortion is particularly ironic if the tepidness of Columbus's adaptation derives from a desire not to upset the Harry Potter franchise. As Robert W. Butler wrote in the Kansas City Star, "The book was for everyone; the movie is for kids and true believers" (2001, p. 7). He added, "This may be precisely what the majority of Harry Potter fans demand, but it makes for a movie that is poorly paced and frequently dull" (pp. 7, 9). The film does no violence to readers' imagined versions of characters and events, but it does not offer its own creative vision. In watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, you get the sense that its makers have tried to film a novel instead of make a movie. If so, this approach is a mistake. Films do not need to be true to the books from which they originate; films need only be true to themselves. As Anthony Lane observed in The New Yorker, "The question should therefore be: Is this movie faithful to itself? Does it, like the better make of broomstick, have a life of its own?" (2001, p. 78).

It does not. But, to be fair to the filmmakers, they add some nice touches to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, such as the gathering of owls at the Dursleys when the Hogwarts letters are not delivered, and the medieval look of the Quidditch robes as Gryffindor's team enters the arena. John Williams's music has captured the combination of Harry's qualities--confident and heroic on one hand, sad and full of doubt on the other--that make him such an appealing character. We admire him and feel a little sorry for him. The film uses this music more frequently than it ought, but the theme is evocative.

In any case, subtlety has never been a strong point with Chris Columbus, whose best-known pre-Potter works were Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone. The open-mouthed Home Alone scream makes several appearances in the Potter film: When Harry, Ron, and Hermione first meet Fluffy they do their best imitation of actor Macaulay Culkin, and at the Halloween feast, after Quirrell's announcement of the troll's entry, an entire roomful of Hogwarts students shriek in the Culkin style. Moments such as these call-attention to perhaps the most striking difference between Columbus's film and Rowling's novel: Columbus condescends to his audience, but Rowling does not. Asked if she writes the Potter novels for children or adults, Rowling replied, "Both. I wrote something that I knew I would like to read now, but I also wrote something that I knew I would like to have read at age 10" (National Press Club, 1999). Like all great children's literature, Rowling's books offer pleasures for readers of any age because she does not write down to readers. In contrast, Columbus imagines his audience as children, and fairly daft children at that. It seems he doesn't trust the viewer to "get it" unless he overexplains. Take, for instance, Slytherin's excessive rule breaking during the film's Quidditch match. Only in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling, 1999) does the Slytherin team indulge in the degree and scope of deliberate fouls witnessed in the film of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In all of Rowling's novels, Madam Hooch punishes those who commit fouls. Columbus's film, in contrast, lacks the supervision of such a referee. To make absolutely sure that we perceive the Slytherin team's treachery, Columbus amplifies their cheating to an absurd extent and then--to make sure that we grow sufficiently indignant--allows the cheaters to get away with it. Yet his attempts to connect us emotionally to the Hogwarts team fail because we have never been given any reason to care about these characters.

Perhaps Columbus's version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (in production as I write this column) will succeed where the first film failed. The second novel has a greater sense of narrative drive than the first one does. While Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (like all the Harry Potter novels) is a mystery, its pace is slower than Chamber of Secrets or Prisoner of Azkaban. What sustains our interest in the first Potter novel is its narrative voice, as it offers bemused commentary on the Muggle and wizard worlds. Lacking Rowling's narrative voice, Columbus's film finds no narrative drive to replace it. Fortunately, the second Potter novel provides an abundance of narrative energy: It is more of a page-turner than the first novel. So, if Columbus is taking the same directorial approach toward filming book two, his Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets should succeed where the first film fails. In other words, if he again attempts to film a novel rather than make a movie, he ought to end up with a better film of a plot-driven book.

In its fidelity to the novel's landscape and indifference toward the story's emotional center, Columbus's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone both bores and enchants. Though its pace drags and the effects are overdone, the movie's lush effects nonetheless create an almost nostalgic appeal: Like Harry, we may wish to remain at Hogwarts instead of going home. As the Hogwarts Express prepares to take the students to their homes, Harry says "I'm not going home, really." Screenwriter Steve Kloves's line (it does not appear in Rowling's novel) neatly conveys the point that Hogwarts has become Harry's home. Harry'sline--his final words in the film--also expresses the mixed emotions that viewers might have as they watch the credits roll. We enjoy the world to which the film transports us, while longing for the film that might have been.

REFERENCES
--Butler, R.W. (2001, November, 16). Mild about Harry. Kansas City Star, pp. 7, 9.
--Columbus, C. (Director). (2001). Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone [Motion picture]. United States: Warner Brothers.
--Jackson, P. (Director). (2001). The lord of the rings: The fellowship of the ring [Motion picture]. United States: New Line Cinema.
--Lane, A. (2001, November 19). Nobody beats the wizard. The New Yorker, pp. 78-80.
--National Press Club. (1999, October 20). Book-TV [Television broadcast]. Washington, DC: C-SPAN2. Available online: http://www.npr.org/programs/npc/991020.jkrowling.html
--Rowling, J.K. (1997). Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone. London: Bloomsbury.
--Rowling, J.K. (1998). Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone. New York: Scholastic.
--Rowling, J.K. (1999). Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. New York: Scholastic.
--Rowling, J.K. (1999). Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban. New York: Scholastic.
--Tolkien, J.R.R. (1982). The lord of the rings, part one: The fellowship of the ring. New York: Ballantine.

Nel teaches courses in children's literature at Kansas State University. He can be contacted at Kansas State University, Department of English, Denison Hall, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506-0701, USA.

Named Works: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
(Motion picture)
Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, October 30, 2002

Copyright 2002 Midland Independent Newspapers plc
Birmingham Post
October 30, 2002, Wednesday
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 10
HEADLINE: BIRTHDAYS Juliet Stevenson is 46 today

Actress Juliet Stevenson, 46: Ranked among the country's leading actresses, Juliet Stevenson was born in Essex but travelled during her childhood to Germany, Australia and Malta as the youngest child of a senior army officer. A graduate of London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, enjoying a successful career in the classical theatre in the early 80s. She also occasionally worked in more modern productions, such as Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden in which Stevenson is remembered for her role of the vengeful Paulina. Later she successfully extended her career to films and television and was highly acclaimed for her her tour de force performance as a woman coping with the death of her lover (Alan Rickman) in Anthony Minghella's offbeat Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991). Other film roles included Mrs Elton in the superb 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. She lives in London with her partner and two children.

Georgiana
Seattle - Wednesday, October 30, 2002

Copyright 2002 BPI Communications, Inc.
The Hollywood Reporter
October 28, 2002, Monday
HEADLINE: 'A slightly mad Irishman'
BYLINE: Stuart Kemp

The news of the death of Richard Harris produced a flurry of reaction in Britain and America, with members of the "Harry Potter" team leading the charge.

"He was an absolute professional who knew how to live life to the full," said fellow "Potter" star Alan Rickman. "I loved him: He was an extraordinary man. I could count myself so lucky to have worked with him."

"My heart goes out to his family," said Maggie Smith, who plays Professor Minerva McGonagall in "Potter." "It is a great loss. I am going to miss him terribly. It was a great pleasure to be with him, and it's going to be odd doing a Potter film without him."

"A slightly mad Irishman and a truly gifted performer," said Clint Eastwood, who directed Harris in "Unforgiven." "His presence on the set during the filming of 'Unforgiven' always gave us a much-needed lift during the many hours of difficult work."

"He was one of the giants of the old school," said Ridley Scott, who directed Harris in "Gladiator." "Every moment of debauchery was in his face, and every moment of his lust for life was written into his face," said Randa Haines, who directed Harris in "Wrestling Ernest Hemingway."

Potter producer David Heyman told BBC television that the role of Dumbledore would forever belong to Harris. "He was unique. Of course there will have to be another Dumbledore but there will never be another Richard."

Don Boyd, who directed Harris in "My Kingdom," one of the actor's most recent starring roles, said: "All the passion, research and intelligence he insisted on bringing to every role he played were invested in the precious moments of spontaneity he insisted on providing for the camera."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Georgiana (Glad to have seen him on stage in "Camelot," and again, for two hours, reminiscing, at the Seattle Film Festival in 1999 when he came with "To Walk with Lions"; I also heard a story or two when sitting next to his "Julius Ceasar" producer on a plane from London to Malta last March...)
Seattle - Monday, October 28, 2002

Copyright 2002 Century Newspapers Limited
Belfast News Letter
October 28, 2002, Monday
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 32
HEADLINE: REVIEW: IMPORT THAT FAILS TO PLEASE; SEZAR @ STRANMILIS THEATRE
BYLINE: Ian Hill

THE worst you can accuse our own Royal family of Windsor is of serial adultery and leaking negative stories to the media. But in Shakespeare's day, and currently, right across much of Africa, the struggle for crown or dictator's top hat is - just as it was in the Balkans and, less recently, right through the old Communist bloc - a recipe for bloody murder.

Thus, just as the anti-communist artists of Poland reworked the Bard's political plays such as Macbeth and Julius Caesar in subversive pleas for democracy, it's no surprise to find a South African theatre company reworking Sol Plaaitjie's Dint-shontsho Tsa Bo-Juliuse Kesara as the cautionary tale of SeZar, presented in an exotic mix of English and the SeTswana tongue in the Stranmillis College Theatre. On a stage bare almost of everything, bar two ominous metal structures standing for detention camp security towers or copper-mine winding apparatus, we have a parable on the maxim that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The production style is eastern European circa 1970, with the actors on a dark stage caught in pools of overhead light amidst swirls of dry- ice smoke, against an almost deafening soundscape. Where the Poles used, say Beethoven and folk dance, the South Africans - men sweating and stripped to the waist - use jazz-influenced call-and-response tribal dance. Both enhance the war-ambience with crackling radio news flash.

Hope Sprinter Sekgobela's Ceasar/SeZar is a slim dreadlocked epileptic paranoid pitched against Menzi Ngubs Ngubane's muscular noble Brutas, an actor ready for the camera's caress, while Lebohang Elephant's Kassius comes from the Alan Rickman school of villainy. Only Tony Kronge fails, leaving Marc Anthony's ambiguities unexplored.

The battle scenes rouse. The pan-African health warning to a post-colonial continent set on becoming a charnel house of corruption and greed is most pertinent. But this is scarcely the ground breaking imported theatre of the mettle past Festivals would have led us to expect.
(Italics added.)

Georgiana (seeing the Bolshoi do "Swan Lake" with Zelda this week...)
Seattle - Monday, October 28, 2002

Copyright 2002 The Telegraph Group Limited
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
October 27, 2002, Sunday
SECTION: Pg. 12
HEADLINE: Sad farewell to Harris, wizard to the stars Warm tributes for Hollywood hellraiser and rugby fan who fought to the end
BYLINE: BY CHRIS HASTINGS

PETER O'TOOLE, the lifelong friend of Richard Harris, last night led tributes to the 72-year-old actor who died on Friday after a long battle with Hodgkin's disease.

"I am deeply sad. My love is with his family and a great spirit has gone," said Mr O'Toole, who broke off from filming in Tunisia to speak of his sadness as news of Harris's death spread across the world.

Other friends and colleagues paid tribute to Harris, including Alan Rickman, who co-starred alongside him in the first two Harry Potter films. "He was an absolute professional who knew how to live life to the full," he said. "I loved him: he was an extraordinary man. I count myself so lucky to have worked with him. I used to sit next to him in the make-up chair on the set of Harry Potter every morning and he would share his marvellous insights into the works of Beckett and Shakespeare."

Rickman revealed: "He hadn't even read the Harry Potter books and was only doing the film because his granddaughter said she'd not forgive him if he didn't."

Despite his age, Harris still showed flashes of his hellraising past. "Kenneth Branagh and I were in the bar with him one night and he was still going at four in the morning with stories about his life," recalled Rickman. "We just sat there with our mouths wide open.

"But the most amazing thing was that he was on set at 8am the next day to read his lines to me even though he was off camera. That was the real mark of the man."

Dame Maggie Smith, who starred as Prof Minerva McGonagall to Harris's Prof Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, said: "My heart goes out to his family. It is a great loss. I am going to miss him terribly.

"We walked around as a pair in Harry Potter. I always think Prof McGonagall was madly in love with him anyway. It was a great pleasure to be with him and it's going to be odd doing a Potter film without him. I just don't know what we're going to do."

She added: "You had the feeling he was very frail on set, but he was always there doing his bit. I think he loved the films precisely because he was doing it for his grandchildren, who browbeat him into taking the part."
. . . . . . . . . .

Georgiana
Seattle - Sunday, October 27, 2002

Copyright 2002 MGN Ltd.
Sunday Mirror
October 27, 2002, Sunday
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 11
HEADLINE: SPOOKY CELEBS: M CELEBS' TOP 10 GHOSTS
BYLINE: Words: Naomi Greenaway

Patrick Swayze in, er, Ghost
Alan Rickman in Truly Madly Deeply
Mr Claypole from Rentaghost
Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice
Nearly Headless Nick from Harry Potter
Practically every episode of Scooby-Doo
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)
Ghostbusters
Casper

Georgiana
Seattle - Sunday, October 27, 2002

Copyright 2002 MGN Ltd.
The Mirror
October 26, 2002, Saturday
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 16
HEADLINE: WIZARD FILM IS SPRINKLED WITH MAGIC; ALUN PALMER REVIEWS HARRY POTTER'S CHAMBER OF SECRETS
BYLINE: Alun Palmer

BRILLIANT: Harry in a scene from the new film

[An HP2 review includes this . . . ]

Smug, vain and as arrogant as a peacock, Gilderoy slimes through the school leaving the girls swooning and the boys, including nasty Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), less than impressed.

Georgiana
Seattle - Saturday, October 26, 2002

Copyright 2002 Telegraph Group Limited
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
October 26, 2002, Saturday
SECTION: Pg. 07
HEADLINE: 'Millionaire tramp' who had no need for posterity
BYLINE: By Nicola Woolcock and Linus Gregoriadis

[Article on Richard Harris ends with . . . ]

Alive and Kicking was Harris's first film, in 1958, but his success was assured with the release of This Sporting Life in 1962. He won four best actor awards for his performance as a fading rugby player.

He was clear that there were more important things in the world than acting. He recalled delivering a broadside to the likes of Dame Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman and Robbie Coltrane on the set of Harry Potter.

"I said to them, 'What are you all worrying about? There's a war on in the Middle East, floods all over England and there are bombs being thrown all over the world. There is real life out there, this is all make-believe crap'."

As a rugby player he represented his province, Munster, but his career was finished when he contracted tuberculosis at the age of 19. He left instructions that he should be buried in his Munster shirt.

Harris once said: "I'm not interested in reputation or immortality. I don't care if I'm remembered. I don't care if I'm not remembered. I genuinely don't care."

Georgiana
Seattle - Saturday, October 26, 2002

Copyright 2002 Guardian Newspapers Limited
The Guardian (London)
October 26, 2002
SECTION: The Guide, Pg. 53

. . . . . . . . . .
Die Hard With A Vengeance
(John McTiernan, 1995)
9pm, ITV1

Here's big Bruce Willis back for the third time as Detective McClane, threatened by another menacing Brit actor. Jeremy Irons plays the big brother of Alan Rickman's dastardly Gruber, villain of the first Die Hard; but Irons doesn't snarl half as well. The confined violence of the earlier films - in the tower block, the airport - is dissipated in a helter-skelter dash round New York (a plot device borrowed from Dirty Harry) that leads to a grand finale in the subway. Even Samuel L Jackson is low-key as the Harlem shopkeeper Zeus.
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, October 25, 2002

Copyright 2002 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd.
Daily Record
October 25, 2002, Friday
SECTION: 192; Pg. 14
HEADLINE: 192: HOTTER POTTER; THIS IS EVEN MORE MAGICAL
BYLINE: Lindsay Clydesdale

THERE'S still a month to go before its worldwide release, but the latest Harry Potter film is already getting rave reviews.

Fans of the books written by JK Rowling and movie critics alike have heaped praise on the story, cast and special effects in the big-screen version of Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets.

Critics at its first preview in the USA have claimed it's set to be another box-office smash, and Harry Knowles' infamous Internet site - feared by Hollywood moguls for gatecrashing secret advance screenings - gave it a thumbs -up. This is the second of the seven planned films based on Rowling's books, which have been translated into dozens of languages and made her a multi -millionaire.

And it's expected to generate the same hype and hysteria that made the original film, Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, the second most successful film ever, earning pounds 600 million worldwide.

A review on the Ain't It Cool website says: "Chamber Of Secrets is turning out to be a really good flick. In some ways, it is superior to its predecessor, with the young cast coming into their own. It's impossible for me to imagine anyone else as Harry, Ron and Hermione now.

"It's funnier, spookier and a little more complicated."

Tickets for the film went on sale last month amid reports that some UK schools were bulk- buying seats at the first performances for every teacher and pupil.

Favourites of the cast from Philosopher's Stone have returned, including Richard Harris as Professor Dumbledore, Maggie Smith as Professor McGonagall and Alan Rickman as Professor Snape.

They're joined by Julie Walters and The Fast Show's Mark Williams as Ron's parents, Mr and Mrs Weasley, and Miriam Margolyes as Professor Sprout.

Scots actress Shirley Henderson appears as Moaning Myrtle, the ghost of a former pupil who haunts the Hogwarts toilets, and Jason Isaacs joins the cast as Lucius Malfoy, the evil father of Harry's arch- rival Draco.

But it is Kenneth Branagh who almost steals the show as Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher Gilderoy Lockhart, the pin-up of the wizarding world.

One reviewer says: "If he had more screen time, Branagh could get another Oscar nomination.

"He's smug, vain, pompous and charming. He's foolish and clever, witty and bumbling. This is Branagh spoofing Branagh."

Harry's journey to school in a flying Ford Anglia, a violent attack from the Whomping Willow, and trips to the Forbidden Forest give director Chris Columbus the chance to dazzle viewers with special effects and electrifying action sequences.

These also include a Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin houses which turns into an aerial battle on broomsticks between Harry and Draco.

For Harry's millions of fans, the film can't come soon enough.

AND IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK...

THE Chamber Of Secrets is a far darker tale than Philosopher's Stone. It opens as new character, Dobby the house elf, begs Harry not to return to Hogwarts, claiming evil is about to be unleashed.

Harry ignores him and is rescued from his miserable school holidays at the Dursleys and taken to Hogwarts by best mate Ron Weasley in his dad's flying car.

Gilderoy Lockhart, the new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher famed in the wizarding world for death-defying exploits, is quick to irritate Harry and Ron, but they have more serious problems when, one by one, students are petrified by an unseen predator.

When Hermione is attacked, Harry finds himself under suspicion.

He decides to find the monster, save his friend and clear his name.

Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, October 25, 2002

I have been a way for a little while working on a little surprise for all my AR buds. Hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed working on it. You will need Windows Media Player and the page is best veiwed in an Internet Explorer browser.

AR videos--Emmys and Girls On Top

First: The Emmys video is special thanks to a fellow AR bud (sorry I can't tell you who because I haven't gotten her permission to use her name). I just didn't want you to think I had the foresight to save such a wonderful treasure.

Second: Catty warning here--The Emmy video might cause the cattiness in you to flare when you see Christine Baransky and Cybill Shepard putting their grubby little mits (and lips) on Our Man! LOL

Third: The woman with Our Man is unidentified. It is not Rima, Sheila, nor the friend that accompanied him to the Tonys this year. Does anyone recognize her?

Finally: As you view the videos, please keep in mind that my capture card is a dinosaur and the audio and video isn't always in sync.

Hope you will "scuse" me but I just can't resist and I haven't posted in a while!

Claudia
GA US - Friday, October 25, 2002

Alan Rickman and Rima Horton at the National Film Theatre 50th Anniversary Gala
from yesterday's London Evening Standard (thank you, Sue!).

Suzanne <Suz@mail.usa.comfoo>
TX USA - Friday, October 25, 2002

Copyright 2002 The Irish Times
The Irish Times
October 12, 2002
SECTION: CITY EDITION; WEEKEND; Pg. 56
HEADLINE: The art of keeping secrets -- Lesley Manville wanted to be in musicals, but that was before she started making films with Mike Leigh. Now on her seventh Leigh movie, All or Nothing, improvising is about keeping things hidden, she tells Michael Dwyer

One of her earliest roles was in the mid-1970s, when she was 19, as a character for a year on Emmerdale Farm, as it was then. In 1982, she did four episodes of Coronation Street. "I was in awe, because I had grown up watching it, and there, suddenly, I was in the Rovers Return with Julie Goodyear."

On stage, she was in the celebrated original production of Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses. "I was Cecile, the young woman who is deflowered. It was a heady cast - Alan Rickman, Lindsay Duncan, Juliet Stevenson, and believe it or not, Fiona Shaw as my mother. When we did the very first preview, I knew I was in something very special. We did it in this tin shed in Stratford, which was perfect for a play about the dirt beneath the fingernails of the French aristocracy."

. . . . . . . . . . . ==========================

Copyright 2002 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
The Evening Standard (London)
October 11, 2002
SECTION: Pg. 37
HEADLINE: Why the best film baddies are Brits; Ralph Fiennes is the latest in a line of English movie villains that stretches back to Basil Rathbone
BYLINE: Philip Kerr

VILLAINS, as John Mortimer has observed, have always been the great entertainers, and an entertaining villain is always a better role for an actor than a dull hero. But the sight of Ralph Fiennes as a serial killer named Red Dragon in this week's movie of the same name, starring Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, confirms what a lot of us have long suspected: when you want an actor to play someone really nasty in a Hollywood movie, the villain of the piece, so to speak, has to be British.

In recent years we have seen Rufus Sewell (A Knight's Tale), Kenneth Branagh (Wild, Wild West), Rupert Everett ( Inspector Gadget), Christopher Lee (Lord of the Rings), Jeremy Irons ( Die Hard With a Vengeance), Dougray Scott (Mission Impossible II), Gary Oldman (JFK) and Sean Bean (Goldeneye) stealing a movie as baddies from under the rhinoplasties of major stars such as Will Smith and Tom Cruise.

The British villain is a tradition that goes back to Hollywood's golden age, when the role was commanded by Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, George Sanders, Charles Laughton, Sydney Greenstreet, and James Mason. For years, German actors like Anton Diffring and Ferdy Mayne made a steady living playing "Krauts"; these days agents are much more likely to find a Brit in jackboots. So what is it about an English accent that attracts Hollywood casting agents when they are picking a psychopathic killer, a ruthless terrorist, a vicious megalomaniac or a Nazi war criminal? A simple answer is that many movies are based on British books and screenplays; there have to be some Brits in screen versions of classics like Ivanhoe and The Jungle Book.

Since American money mostly pays for these movies, we cannot grumble if an American gets to play the boring hero.

And in these two films both villains, Brian de Bois Guilbert and Shere Khan, the Tiger, were played with purring perfection by Englishman George Sanders.

Another explanation might be that Brits are better actors.

Film directors as distinguished as Spielberg and Scorsese have spoken of the greater craft employed by British stage-trained actors. For his latest movie, the forthcoming Gangs of New York, Scorsese has cast Daniel Day-Lewis as the villainous William Cutting, aka Bill the Butcher.

What gives British actors their range is, primarily, our great Shakespearean tradition. Although Hopkins never actually played Richard III (he did, however, do a very good Macbeth at the Old Vic in 1972) his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter is very much informed by Laurence Olivier's treacherous king.

The 1946 movie, with Olivier's sly, humorous, intimate, almost dialectic performance, helped redefine screen villainy, and it is arguable that the bad guys played by Ray Milland in Dial M for Murder, David Warner in Holocaust, Alan Rickman in Die Hard, Jason Isaacs in The Patriot, and Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List all owe some of their brittle, cynical brilliance to Olivier's Richard.

NOT the least reason for Hollywood casting Brits as villains is the historical one.

Americans fought a War of Independence against the British. On top of that, the US population is to a large degree composed of those who fled there to escape English persecution - Scots and Irish immigrants driven off their land by English landlords - and hence Received Pronunciation came to signify a baddie.

His idea was the basis of the heavenly trial scene in Powell and Pressburger's 1946 classic movie, A Matter of Life and Death, where David Niven has to defend himself against a charge that by being English he had forfeited any right to the mercy of his divine judges.

A century after the War of Independence, a new ideal of masculine heroism was born on the US frontier. The cowboy defines American heroism just as his ideological opposite, the European-influenced city slicker, defines villainy.

Whereas the cowboy is plain, honest, poor, lowborn, illeducated and close-lipped, the slicker is a smooth-talking, well-educated guy from "back East", with good manners, fancy clothes and a black heart.

In the eyes of most Americans an Englishman is - and always will be - the archetypal slicker: slippery, class-conscious and never to be trusted.

Getting rid of the British, and learning to distrust their cultural descendants, had a downside in America's sense of cultural inferiority in relation to all things European. This persists today in all walks of American life, but especially in acting.

I once asked Robert De Niro why he had not played a Shakespearean role and he confessed that he felt more comfortable playing parts that were, as he put it, "closer to home". Many American actors feel intimidated by Shakespeare.

But it's not just classical training that gives our actors the depth and range to play anything from Heydrich to Hannibal Lecter. Let's not forget the great British tradition of Christmas pantomime, which endows actors, weaned on bad guys like Abanazar and Captain Hook, with perhaps the greatest stagecraft of all in playing Hollywood villains: a very generous helping of ham.

GRAPHIC: CAD: BASIL RATHBONE IN THE MARK OF ZORRO MEDIEVAL MENACE: RUFUS SEWELL IN A KNIGHT'S TALE HOT ROLES: RALPH FIENNES, WHO PLAYS A SERIAL KILLER IN NEW RELEASE RED DRAGON, DISCOVERS THAT BAD GUYS CAN MAKE FOR SCENE-STEALING PARTS SLICK VILLAIN: RUPERT EVERETT IN INSPECTOR GADGET BUTCHER: DANIEL DAY-LEWIS IN GANGS OF NEW YORK

=============================

Copyright 2002 NewsQuest Media Group Limited
UK Newsquest Regional Press - This is Wiltshire
October 11, 2002
SECTION: News
HEADLINE: Film role is part of auction .

PREPARATIONS are well underway for a charity auction of promises due to be held in Bradford on Avon on October 12. The auction has been organised by ex-Radio 4 presenter Jonathan Hewat in aid of his terminally ill wife Theresa. Mrs Hewat, 55, of Wine Street, suffers from LAM ' a rare lung disease affecting just 60 women nationwide.

The auction of promises, being held at The Riverside Inn at 7.30pm, will raise money for the LAM Action Trust. The money will fund vital research into the disease, which causes cysts to develop in the lungs by rapid cellular growth. Mr Hewat said there are auction lots to attract everyone and urged people to take part in the event.

Items up for auction include:

Two Cliff Richard Tennis Tickets for Birmingham Arena
A chance to become an extra on the next Hugh Grant film
A microlight flight in west Wiltshire
A harbour flat in Tenby for one week
An old mill in southern France for one week
A qualified chef to cook dinner for up to six guests
Visit to the Houses of Parliament
Harmony singing workshop for up to 10 people
Four tickets for a Status Quo concert.

Other items include luxury accommodation, restaurant meals, hampers and tours. The total value of items is worth more than GBP 10,000.

========================

Copyright 2002 Guardian Newspapers Limited
The Observer
October 13, 2002
SECTION: Observer Review Pages, Pg. 5
HEADLINE: Review: The Maggie and Judi show: or should that be the Judi and Maggie show? When two theatre giants share a stage, billing order can be a thorny issue. And movie stars are even worse
BYLINE: Matt Wolf

WHEN The Breath of Life opens this week at London's Theatre Royal, Haymarket, it will make history for reasons beyond its record advance sale, reported to be nearing the pounds 2 million mark. The fact that no print ads were taken to achieve that sum - surely a West End first - is equally astonishingly. But the most startling fact is that Dame Maggie Smith, this country's most bankable theatre star, is taking second billing.

Why is that? Easy: the actress with whom she is sharing the stage in David Hare's two-hander is Britain's other leading theatrical dame, Judi Dench. And since D comes before S, alphabetical order gives Dench the edge.

None of this would matter were billing not such a significant issue in the entertainment industry, both in theatre and film. Though most theatre actors would profess lofty indifference to things like typeface, font size and order or placement above the title - heaven forbid we're talking below it - the fact remains that only Dench could topple Smith from her well-earned, first-to-be-listed perch.

Robert Fox, producer of The Breath of Life , has known Smith since 1974, and his brother Edward starred with her in the West End - she got first billing - in the 1985 Ronald Harwood play Interpreters . He says: 'In a play where she wasn't performing with Judi, Maggie would always get top billing, and always has.'

That was true in 1994 in Edward Albee's Three Tall Women , and again in the 1997 revival of Albee's A Delicate Balance , even though it was Eileen Atkins who had the trickier (if less showy) role and who went on to win that year's Evening Standard Award for Best Actress. What Atkins didn't have were Smith's two Oscars and a solid gold West End track record. Dench does have an Oscar - won in 1999 for Shakespeare in Love - and shares Smith's clout at the box office.

When the alphabet dic tates the billing, the ads usually say exactly that, with 'in alphabetical order' printed (usually in tiny letters) to make the placement a matter of record. 'That just seems naff,' says Fox, who is well aware of the practice but never once entertained it for The Breath of Life . 'When I suggested to her agent that (the billing) should be alphabetical, Maggie was totally happy.'

Dressing room spats have also been absent from this production. Dench is in dressing room No 2, several flights up, the same room she had a year ago for Peter Hall's revival of The Royal Family . Smith also occupied that room in 1984 while starring in The Way of the World but has moved downstairs to No1 for The Breath of Life . 'It's all been very amicable,' says Fox, seasoned enough to know that this is not always the case. 'On musicals it's much more of a nightmare.'

The same can be said of both Broadway and Hollywood. Peter Hall's 1989 London production of The Merchant of Venice listed its cast alphabetically, with a certain Dustin Hoffman - in his London stage debut - featured somewhere in the middle.

When the same cast transferred to New York, Hoffman and his British co-star Geraldine James were more or less required to receive star billing so that they could be eligible for Tony Awards in the leading acting categories. (They were indeed nominated, though James lost to - yes - Dame Maggie for Lettice and Lovage

The Tony rules stipulate that your name must appear above the title for consideration as Best Actor or Actress; otherwise you get relegated to the featured or supporting categories, where someone like Hoffman would be understandably reluctant to appear.

ALTHOUGH IT SEEMS unthinkable now, Yul Brynner back in 1952 received the 'featured' as opposed to 'leading' actor Tony for his starmaking performance as the King of Siam in The King and I . This was because Brynner's co-star Gertrude Lawrence got top billing when the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical first opened. When Lawrence died shortly afterwards, Brynner was promoted.

The same thing happened in the Broadway premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947 . Jessica Tandy got top billing, leaving young unknown Marlon Brando on the same line and in the same small typeface as the supporting players. The telling poster for that first production is instructively reproduced in The National Theatre's just-opened revival of the same play has the name of the visiting American lead, Glenn Close, simply given its alphabetical due among the cast, as is the norm with subsidised theatre.

Among West End producers, few have presented more outright stars than Duncan C. Weldon, who hopes to return to the fray in 2003 with a new staging of Ibsen's The Master Builder , starring Patrick Stewart. Most recently he co-produced last season's sellout Albery Theatre revival of Private Lives , in which film name Alan Rickman got first billing while co-star Lindsay Duncan ended up scooping all the awards, here and on Broadway. 'Billing is always difficult,' says Weldon. 'Often actors will drop money to get the billing they want, so it becomes a vanity thing.'

In the past Weldon has lost actors due to billing issues - which is no great loss, he reasons, insofar as such problems can hint at others to come. Usually, though, disputes are solved through sheer good sense. When he revived The Caine Mutiny Court Martial on Shaftesbury Avenue in 1985, Weldon knew Charlton Heston would get top billing over co-star Ben Cross. Even though Cross's part was larger, Heston was the Oscar-winning draw. For Shaw's Heartbreak House at the Haymarket in 1992, Weldon gave top billing out of seniority and deference to Paul Scofield, though fellow player Felicity Kendal did get her name on her own line in recognition of her entirely separate box office pull.

FOR MORE SPECTACULAR billing traumas you have to go back to the 1936 Broadway musical Red Hot and Blue, a Cole Porter show so troubled by warring egos that co-stars Jimmy Durante and Ethel Merman ended up with their names crossed in an ' X' above the title so as to keep both parties sweet. A similar compromise was reached when John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson in Harold Pinter's No Man's Land crossed the Thames from the National to Wyndham's in 1977: half the posters were printed with the two actor-knights' names in alphabetical order and half not, so as to give both men billing parity; the dual posters have since become collectors' items.

In film the ante is notched up even more, as can be seen by the proliferation of film posters with one actor or another named in a box - a sure sign of an aggressive agent - or one name lifted above another in a kind of pyramid: Robert Shaw, for instance, whose name hovered above Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss in the poster for Jaws . In 1969 Steve McQueen dropped out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because he wouldn't give up top billing to Paul Newman. McQueen's replacement, Robert Redford, 'was an also-ran' for the role, recalls octogenarian producer David Brown.

Five years later in Towering Inferno McQueen was desperate to see his name above Newman's. In the end he was happy with the staggered billing which saw his name and Newman's together on screen and on posters: McQueen's was on the left and lower and Newman's on the right and higher - which meant McQueen's was read first.

There are, of course, directors - Woody Allen and Robert Altman come first to mind - whose own clout ensures purely alphabetical listings for even the most starry casts: in Altman's The Player , Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis by request went so far as to be unbilled. But in most movies the pay cheque usually determines placement: you're not shelling out Dollars 20m or more for Cruise, Carrey or Hanks without making plain the goods.

Perhaps the biggest West End miracle in billing terms is This Is Our Youth , American writer Kenneth Lonergan's West End play from last spring that reopens on 13 November at the Garrick, this time with Colin Hanks (Tom's son) stepping where Matt Damon and Star Wars' Hayden Christensen have recently trod.

The play has already hosted two Oscar winners (Damon and The Piano 's Anna Paquin) and countless burgeoning big names, with dozens more (Mena Suvari, Josh Hartnett, and Liv Tyler) in the frame for possible future visits.

All this, says co-producer Clare Lawrence, has been achieved without a single billing tussle. 'Matt (Damon) appreciated the fact that he wasn't being held up as the leading light of a company, and that they (Damon and co-stars Summer Phoenix and Casey Affleck) were all taking on the show together.'

Dames Judi and Maggie, one senses, would applaud.

The Breath of Life is in preview and opens on Tuesday at the Haymarket, London SW1

Matt Wolf is London theatre critic for 'Variety'

======================

Copyright 2002 Time Out Group
Time Out
October 16, 2002
SECTION: Pg. 12 13
HEADLINE: Pottering along; On location Harry Potter
BYLINE: Location report Brian Case

With 'The Chamber of Secrets', Harry Potter lurches into darker, more adult territory.But filming this second instalment has been as much fun as the first for director Chris Columbus and his juvenile cast.

Here's Daniel Radcliffe, hot from the set, in Hogwarts school uniform, which looks as inhabited as a real one and so it should, as he's worn it for 300 days shooting the first two Harry Potter films. Apart from his voice, which has broken, he doesn't seem different from the little lad who fielded the massed journalists on 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'. He's charming, self-possessed, amusing and in no way spoiled by starring in one of the top-grossing films of all time.

We have been shown sketches of the dreadful things that happen to Harry's arm following a fall from his broomstick at Quidditch. Explains producer David Hayman: 'From the description in the book, it would literally look like this but we won't be that literal.' Radcliffe, however, is unperturbed. 'I've got this arm that's pumping to look as if my hand is bubbling, ' he explains. 'It's gross but cool!' Radcliffe has handled fame in a matterof-fact fashion. 'I like getting recognised because I'm an attention-seeker. I still see my friends all the time and we play PlayStation games. On the Harry Potter game I've been killed by Voldemort a lot!' He enjoyed his film the first time, after which he worried about his performance. 'I've heard there are people who have seen it, like, 23 times. Thank you, er, fans!' He has no idea how much he has earned. 'I don't need it because I'm just a kid.' His father, a literary agent, is playing chaperone.

Robbie Coltrane is irrepressible, filling the lulls on set with laughter. Everybody remembered his dance on the table in the Great Hall, which included a can-can. 'He seems to have a new joke each time, which I tend to steal and go and tell to everybody else, ' admits Radcliffe.

There's one amusing moment when the envelope of a normal 12-year-old is pushed. He loves Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Fulham FC, 'Medal of Honour' and the Sex Pistols. 'Is it okay to say that?' he asks the PR. 'He's going through a punk phase, ' she explains. 'It isn't a phase, ' he grits. 'I like the attitude.Yeah!' 'There are a lot worse things going on in the world than being recognised, ' says Emma Watson, the film's Hermione.

Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), veteran at almost 14 and with the film 'Thunderpants' also under his belt, is the same lad as before. He still says 'Dunno' in response to questions and has used some of his wages to buy a unicycle.

Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire was once an aerodrome, and its lofty hangars are perfect for the enormous sets. The Great Hall, with its winged-creature braziers and vaulted ceiling, easily accommodates the 350 Hogwarts pupils, and was used in the first film, as was Hagrid's cramped hut. Diagon Alley, where Harry first collected his wand and broomstick, is a masterpiece of gloomy, cluttered shops: 'Feel Free to Test-Fly Any of Our Brooms' proclaims a notice inQuality Quidditch; dragon liver and clabbert pustules are on special offer in Wiseacres Wizarding Equipment. The most difficult prop was the Whomping Willow, the tree into which the Weasley's flying car crashes. It's a mixture of special effects and real hydraulics. Real footage of the Bodleian library, Christ Churchcollege and Gloucester Cathedral will be fitted seamlessly into the Harry Potterworld.

The Chamber of Secrets, scene of the final battle between Harry and Voldemort, is a cavern lowering with a huge Blakean Jove and rearing fanged serpents. The attention to detail is unrelenting.

Some of the sets are so good, the characters hardly need to act. Kenneth Branaghplays Gilderoy Lockhart, the egomaniacal Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts. His classroom is a hymn to him, paintings and photos of him on every shelf, brave at the tiller, triumphantly landing a huge fish, waving at the camera from beneath a Lawrence of Arabia burnous. He has 15 costume changes, hair-curlers, and no shortage of mirrors.

'There was some talk of putting Hugh Grant in the picture originally, but I feltI wanted an actor who could disappear into the role, ' says director Chris Columbus. 'I was concerned that if you were in the world of Hogwarts and Hugh Grant came on screen, it'd feel like a cameo appearance. Ken's playing it very realistically.' There's a new villain, Draco Malfoy's father Lucius, played by Jason Isaacs. 'It's a tough gig, what with Rickman being so magnificently slimy,' he explains, but demonstrates his snake-headed cane. 'Without my stick I am a Samson shorn!' He based his character on one of our pretentious art critics. 'The fetters are off in magic films. We try to out-ham each other.

Ludicrously good fun. But you have to mean it.

Believe your lines.' Columbus stipulated from the outset that he would only use British actors. 'The ones I've worked with here aren't prima donnas, aren't concerned about the size of their trailers, don't bring their cook and fitness coach along. Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman they're concerned about the work. When they're not here, they go off and do theatre. No ego about it. That's refreshing when you're coming from Hollywood where it's all about thepaycheques and the billing. But I have to ask myself, after being here two years, whether most of our major movie stars could hack it on stage.

'When I first came to England, I thought: Oh great, the kids are going to be plastered on Page Three of the Sun every day, but it didn't happen. The reporters have given them their privacy. They seem to be happy with Jordan and all the other stuff. But look where we are out here! You couldn't find us if youknew where we were! We don't have anybody waiting outside the gates. It's an oddsituation. We have a blockbuster film and no one comes around and bothers the kids.' It's been a long shoot because the children get three hours off a day fortuition, which enables the film-makers to edit as they go along. Then there's the problem of getting a large juvenile cast to focus when they keep getting crushes and texting each other. Columbus, veteran of the first two 'Home Alone' films and 'Mrs Doubtfire', is reportedly a model of patience.

The first 'Harry Potter' found our hero, after 11 horrible years with the Dursleys, suddenly discovering his true history, and a substitute family and home in his friends and school. This one finds him alienated and ostracised at Hogwarts, suspected of evil deeds. Everything is threatened. 'They doubt and betray him, the way it is in life, ' says the director.

'As he gets older, his problems get more interesting.

For some reason, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is never high on the fans' lists, but it's the most cinematic. Lot of action, full of humour.' How did he know how violent was too violent?

'I've got four kids of my own and the youngest saw it and she didn't have nightmares. The books get edgier, darker and scarier, and so will the films.

We're not pulling back. We just make the picture.

They have ratings boards. It's a strange system because you get a picture like "Spider-Man", which is rated 12 for some odd reason, and "The Lord of the Rings", which is PG. I don't understand how that works.

'Dan is more of a leading man now. On the first film, most of the 12-year-old gals went for Malfoy, but this time I think it'll be Harry. He's more confident,more reliable now, and much more aggressive in the action sequences. If I give him a direction "Can you speed this up?" as I'm walking away he'll say "Thanks, Chris." He's always thanking me. He's the most polite kid in the whole world!' 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' opens on November 15.

GRAPHIC: Left to right: Maggie Smith as Prof McGonagall; Miriam Margolyes as Prof Sprout; Richard Harris as Prof Dumbledore. Attention to detail is unrelenting in sets like this, The Burrow. Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy. Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart.

=====================

Copyright 2002 Guardian Newspapers Limited
The Guardian (London)
October 21, 2002
SECTION: Guardian Home Pages, Pg. 5
HEADLINE: Showbiz glitz at cinema's 50th anniversary
BYLINE: Sarah Hall

Lord and Lady Attenborough attend the 50th anniversary gala for the National Film Theatre Photograph: David Mansell

On a dank October evening, London's South Bank glowed with more than a touch of Hollywood glamour last night as Gwyneth Paltrow descended on the British Film Institute to celebrate the 50th anniversary gala of the National Film Theatre on London's South Bank.

The Shakespeare in Love star was making her first public appearance since the death of her father, film director Bruce Paltrow, who died from pneumonia and throat cancer, in Rome, two and a half weeks ago. The 30-year-old actress was at the star-studded celebration to present Harvey Weinstein, the head of Miramax studios, and his brother, Bob, with a BFI fellowship for outstanding contribution to cinema - the highest accolade the organisation can bestow. The octogenarian cinematographer and director Jack Cardiff, whose work includes The African Queen and Black Narcissus, was also presented with a fellowship by actor Susannah York - the 56th to be awarded in a list that includes the late Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier, as well as David Puttnam, Elizabeth Taylor, Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave, and Martin Scorsese.

As the likes of Lord Attenborough, and actors Alan Rickman and Jim Broadbent arrived for the ceremony, the BFI's artistic director, Adrian Wootton, said Paltrow had felt strongly she wished to honour the Miramax brothers, whose studio had produced films in which she had starred, including Shakespeare in Love and The Talented Mr Ripley.

The 90-minute ceremony, hosted by Mariella Frostrup, was the climax of a year of celebrations to commemorate the NFT and came as figures revealed cinema visits in the UK are rising almost twice as fast as the average increase in other major cinema-going countries.

The results, from the movie publication Screen Digest, show the number of visits in the first half of the year shot up by nearly a quarter on the same period of 2001, with moviegoers flocking to hits such as Lord of the Rings, Gosford Park, and Bend It Like Beckham.

y the end of June, there had been 87.7m cinema visits - a 24.7%, or 17m, rise on the previous year - in contrast to the average 12% rise elsewhere in Europe and the US.

===================

Copyright 2002 EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS
Express
October 21, 2002
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 14
HEADLINE: GRIEVING GWYNETH PRESENTS AWARDS; SAD STAR'S BRAVE FACE
BYLINE: By Maurice Mcleod

ACTRESS Gwyneth Paltrow put on a brave face last night to support the British film industry just a fortnight after the death of her father.

Wearing a silk charcoal grey Chanel dress, the Oscar-winning star, arrived looking sombre. Her eyes also appeared red-rimmed as she presented Hollywood film moguls Harvey and Bob Weinstein with the British Film Institute Fellowship at the National Film Theatre on London's South Bank.

Gwyneth's friends say she was inconsolable after her father Bruce died while on holiday with her in Italy to celebrate her 30th birthday.

On receiving his fellowship, Harvey said: "We've worked together on 10 movies - she's family. I asked her not to break her seclusion but that's the sort of girl she is."

The institute also awarded a fellowship to Jack Cardiff, an Oscarwinning 89-year-old British cinematographer, whose films include The African Queen.

The awards were part of the NFT's 50th birthday celebrations.

Film legends Lord Attenborough and Alan Rickman were among the many celebrities who attended the gala evening.

Georgiana (I apologize for duplicates--didn't have time to sort them out.)
Seattle - Friday, October 25, 2002

Yahoo!/Movies reports that Love Actually has a projected release date of fall (November/December) of next year (2003)--for the Christmas holidays.
Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, October 25, 2002

Copyright 2002 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd.
Daily Record
October 24, 2002, Thursday
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 22/23
HEADLINE: I'M WILD ABOUT HARRY; AND I WILL STAY ON FOR THIRD MOVIE SAYS POTTER STAR DANIEL RADCLIFFE
BYLINE: Rick Fulton

HARRY POTTER EXCLUSIVE

DANIEL RADCLIFFE has confirmed he WILL play Harry Potter in the third film, Prisoner Of Azkaban. There had been doubt the 13 year old would be in the third instalment of the books by JK Rowling because of his age.

When Prisoner Of Azkaban starts filming early next year, he will be 14 - a year older than Harry in the books.

Critics were worried that Daniel would be too old to pull off the character, but he has revealed he will be back with new director Alfonso Cuaron, who takes over from Chris Columbus. But he refuses to be drawn on whether he will be Harry for all seven films.

He said: "No-one can predict what is going to happen to these films in the future, so I don't even think about that.

"The most important thing for me is to live in the moment doing the best job I can playing Harry and enjoying myself."

Daniel admits he is feeling the pressure of being Harry Potter as Chamber Of Secrets gets ready to open next month.

The youngster is shielded from the adverse affects of fame by his mum and dad, Marcia and Alan.

But this year, the hype will be more about whether Harry Potter, released on November 15, can measure up to Lord Of The Rings.

While The Philosopher's Stone became the second-highest grossing film of all time, it was Fellowship Of The Ring which won the Oscars and the BAFTAs.

Daniel realises the success of Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets depends on him.

He said: "The more you hear about the build-up of the film, the more you start to realise the pressure that is on you. It's a huge responsibility.

"But Chris Columbus has really helped because he's taken the pressure off my shoulders. However, I have never read any articles or reviews in any newspapers or magazines about Harry Potter.

"I don't know what people are saying about me, which means I have nothing to deal with."

Because of his parents' efforts, he claims he isn't aware of the fans who obsess about him, although he has a naked stalker.

He said: "I did an interview and we looked outside and there was a girl in a Harry Potter towel and nothing else. It was November in New York.

"She was out there for 90 minutes holding a sign that said, Nothing comes between me and Harry Potter'. Later I went to do the David Letterman show and she was standing there, but she had clothes this time. I got to say "Hi" to her again, which was cool."

Despite the adulation he receives as Harry Potter, Daniel admits he's never had a girlfriend.

"One day," he said, laughing. For the time being, he has been busy juggling schoolwork during filming of Chamber Of Secrets.

He is also glad of the support from his family. Initially his parents, who are in the acting business as agents, were reluctant to let their only child become an actor.

But Daniel said: "They're really excited. Some people think I never see them, which is completely untrue, because my dad chaperones me every day."

Despite the worldwide fame, Daniel talks about his career in a manner way above his years.

He said: "As a person, I don't feel I've changed that much. I feel I've kind of matured, but I think everybody does when they're about my age.

"As an actor, I think I've developed a lot thanks to Chris and now he can do much more complicated shots with us. I think we've all developed a lot as actors."

It's good to see that being centre of attention hasn't turned the star into a Liam Gallagher- type brat.

BUT now he and the rest of the cast are gearing up for the hype which is starting for Chamber Of Secrets, based on the book by Scots- based author JK Rowling.

In the second instalment, the young wizard at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry confronts a sinister force which is terrorising the school.

As well as Harry, the main cast from the first film are back, including Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, Richard Harris as Albus Dumbledore, Maggie Smith as Professor Minerva McGonagall, Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid and Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape.

New recruits include Kenneth Branagh as Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, Shirley Henderson as Moaning Myrtle and Jason Isaacs as Draco's dad, Lucius Malfoy.

In the new film, Daniel has his arm chopped off in a killer chess game. He has to have a prosthetic arm before his arm grows back.

He said: "My two favourite scenes are probably the chamber of secrets and in the duelling club. It was a real challenge for me to actually act in that scene because there's a bit of Parcel Tongue in it, which is a completely different language.

"I love the scenes in the Great Hall where there are loads of people - those are always fun."

Working on the film has given him a depth of character which he also feels is reflected in Harry. Proof of Daniel's budding maturity is the lack of pranks he pulled on his fellow cast. In the first film, he admitted most of the main actors had fallen foul of his japes including Robbie Coltrane, whose mobile phone language he changed to Turkish.

Daniel said: "I haven't had the chance to do any on the second film. I think I'm going to get paid back for anything I have done now."

With the PR-machine about to whirl into life, Daniel will be once again thrust into the spotlight.

He remembers that big premiere in Los Angeles when stars such as Ben Stiller were awe- stuck to meet him.

He said: "I was completely overwhelmed. I was really surprised I actually made it with out fainting because the flashing lights stick in your head until about half an hour after.

"Mostly I thought Why are they taking pictures of me?' I guess I had a kind of memory lapse."

That'll be the magic.

Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, October 25, 2002

Copyright 2002 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
DAILY MAIL (London)
October 24, 2002
SECTION: Pg. 14
HEADLINE: CRACKED IT! (Harry's voice, that is); Baz Bamigboye gets a sneak preview of the new Harry Potter film
BYLINE: Baz Bamigboye

THERE'S a flying Ford Anglia, a giant snake, a host of super-sized spiders - and a very familiar schoolboy in wire-rimmed spectacles.

But it's Kenneth Branagh, the former Royal Shakespeare Company actor whose film career had (we thought) been sputtering on the backburner for several years now, who steals the show in the new Harry Potter film.

In Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, Branagh plays Gilderoy Lockhart, a flash-harry wizard with matinee idol good looks and an ego to match. Lockhart is an Order Of Merlin (third class) wizard with a first-class degree in vanity and an outrageously flamboyant hairstyle - like a blond, wand-waving Elvis - who's a superstar in the magic community. Women are nearly as obsessed with him as he is with himself.

But he's all hokum and very little hocus-pocus, as students at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry soon discover when he takes up the post of Professor of Defence Against The Dark Arts.

Branagh's just what the new movie needs because, at two hours and 40 minutes, there's only so much hogwash at Hogwarts an audience - or at least a grownup audience - can handle. He's a breath of fresh air, and very funny to boot.

The Chamber Of Secrets, which will have the field to itself for a few weeks until The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers comes along, is darker than the first film, Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone.

Director Chris Columbus opens with Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) home from Hogwarts and trying to survive the hols from hell, trapped in the house with his hideous aunt and uncle, the Dursleys.

Radcliffe's voice has broken in the gap between Potter pictures, and he now sounds disconcertingly mature and gruff for a junior wizard. Harry gets a visit from a mysterious elf who warns him not to return to Hogwarts, but then he's sprung from his suburban prison by his redheaded pal Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint, also with new, deeper voice) in his getway car - a flying Ford Anglia.

There are many more magical things to watch and wonder at - a thumping willow tree is scary, as are those spiders - and just as Harry has matured and become more sure of himself in this second tale, Radcliffe has gained in confidence and plays the boy wizard with more bravado.

The teaching staff at Hogwarts, led by Richard Harris, Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman, return, along with newcomers Gemma Jones and Miriam Margolyes.

The Chamber Of Secrets, which has its premiere on November 8 (and goes on general release on November 15) won't be greeted by the same level of Potter-mania that ushered in The Philosopher's Stone a year ago.

AND I imagine that, this time round, some parents will opt to drop their children at the cinema, rather than sitting through the movie with them (although smaller viewers - particularly smaller viewers with arachnophobia - will still need someone to hold their hand).

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for the film's three stars. Radcliffe is now 13, Grint (Ron) 14, and Emma Watson, who plays bossy, bushyhaired Hermione Granger, is 12. The trio shot the second film as the first was going into release.

By the time the third Harry Potter adventure, The Prisoner Of Azkaban, comes out in 2004, they will be well into their teens and surely too old to be believable, bombing about on their broomsticks. I suspect they won't make a fourth.

GRAPHIC: MAGICAL TOUCH: DANIEL RADCLIFFE IS IN FINE FORM AS THE BOY WIZARD

Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, October 25, 2002

SPOILERS

Copyright 2002 Telegraph Group Limited
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
October 24, 2002, Thursday
SECTION: Pg. 21
HEADLINE: Dark days come to Hogwarts Harry Potter weaves his magic on screen for the second time in The Chamber of Secrets, the sequel to the second most successful film ever. After the first screening in Los Angeles, John Hiscock gives his verdict
BYLINE: By JOHN HISCOCK

Midway through Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dobby, an obsequious house elf, tells the boy wizard: "History is about to repeat itself." The computer-generated character is probably right.

The second of the planned seven films based on the hugely popular books by J K Rowling, sticks to the formula that made its predecessor, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the second most successful film ever, with a worldwide gross of more than pounds 600 million.

Wisely, scriptwriter Steve Kloves and director Chris Columbus once again are faithful to the book, although Columbus, more confident this time, deftly takes advantage of Rowling's wildly imaginative story to add some visual touches and twists of his own. Some readers have dismissed Chamber of Secrets as their least favourite in the series because the plot is more straightforward than the others. But the dark and grimly topical tale of a malevolent presence hiding in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, freezing pupils one by one to stone, gives Columbus the chance to indulge himself with fascinatingly realistic special effects and riveting action sequences.

Most of the cast from Philosopher's Stone have returned, including Richard Harris as the wise headmaster Professor Dumbledore, Maggie Smith as Professor McGonagall, Alan Rickman as the unpleasant potions master, Professor Snape, and Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, Hogwarts' creature-loving, half-giant gamekeeper. The three young stars, Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger and Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, all act with more assurance than they exhibited in the first film.

The latest adventure benefits from the addition of Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart, the foppish and narcissistic teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Jason Isaacs as the villainous Lucius Malfoy, father of Draco Malfoy, Harry's arch-rival at Hogwarts.

Branagh, wavy hair beautifully coiffed and eyes twinkling, clearly enjoys himself as the preening Lockhart, whose shortcomings are humiliatingly exposed by Harry, while Isaacs, with blond hair reaching to his waist and carrying a snakes-head cane, makes a wonderfully venomous Malfoy. Miriam Margolyes has a marvellous cameo role as the eccentric, green-fingered Professor Sprout.

The Chamber of Secrets differs in structure and tone from The Philosopher's Stone in part because the first film spent some time setting up the world of Harry Potter and introducing the magic, the settings and the characters. With that out of the way, the second film jumps directly into the narrative, quickly transporting Harry from his home with the odious Dursleys in Privet Drive, into the adventure at Hogwarts, by means of a flying Ford Anglia.

Once at school, Harry and his friends quickly learn of a sinister new terror that is lurking in the cellars and secret passageways, and Harry finds himself ostracised by all except Ron, Hermione and fragile young Ginny Weasley, whose mysterious new diary holds a key to the dark force lurking in the school.

While containing plenty of humorous incidents, the film is also much darker in tone than its predecessor and some scenes, particularly a bloody and violent battle between Harry and a giant monster, which would do credit to any horror film, may be too intense for younger children; and, although Columbus for the most part keeps up a hectic pace, at two-and-a-half hours it is overlong and likely to strain young attention spans.

But there is also plenty to enthrall them. Columbus has refined and improved his technique for filming the game of Quidditch, which any Rowling reader knows is the most popular sport in the wizarding world, played with six tall goalposts, four flying balls and 14 players on broomsticks. A game between Gryffindor and Slytherin houses, which turns into an aerial duel between Harry and Draco, contains more thrills than a roller coaster ride, and the flying car that takes Harry and Ron to Hogwarts proves much more hazardous for the riders than it was in the book. The Whomping Willow tree into which the car crashes and which subsequently exacts its revenge is a visual marvel.

Add to this giant spiders, howling magical mandrakes, Fawkes the Phoenix, a horde of mischievous Cornish pixies and Harry's arch-enemy Lord Voldemort, and all the ingredients are in place to provide Warner Bros with another huge hit.

Yet, when the action keeps coming and danger is always lurking and there is another hour to go, it's possible to feel that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets may be just too much of a good thing.

Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, October 24, 2002

Copyright 2002 NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS LTD
The Sun
October 23, 2002
SECTION: BIZARRE
HEADLINE: GWYNETH CATCHES COLDPLAY
BYLINE: Dominic Mohan

COLDPLAY frontman CHRIS MARTIN dedicated the song In My Place to Oscar- winning actress GWYNETH PALTROW at the group's Wembley Arena gig on Monday night.

The Shakespeare In Love star joined family, friends and myself at a special pre-show drinks party. A pal of the band said: "Gwyneth loves music and Coldplay are one of her favourite bands. She always goes to see them when they play in the US.

Coldplay seem to be a favourite with actors.

Harry Potter star ALAN RICKMAN and COLD FEET's JAMES NESBITT joined them at the Cobden Club in West London later to celebrate the band picking up Q magazine's Best Album award for A Rush Of Blood To The Head.

By the end of the night it looked as though James might have partied a little too hard. He spent 20 minutes looking for the exit, each time getting lost and ending up back at the bar.

Georgiana
Seattle - Thursday, October 24, 2002

VCR Alert!

Entertainment Tonight is having a Harry Potter preview tonight!
VH
Dublin, OH USA - Thursday, October 24, 2002

Ok AR NEWS - AR is defintely back in the UK!

Ananova reports Alan Rickman was amongst some very well known names who attended the 50th anniversary of the National Film Theatre - spock it out at Anannova

The Irish Examiner has comments about the new HP movie leaked to them by Kenneth Branagh...

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper has taken the time to tell us Australians that we will have to wait another agonising 13 days to see HP - its not being released here until November 28...
sally
Sydney, Australia - Thursday, October 24, 2002

Harry Potter is giving up his secrets 23/10/2002 - 10:12:30 am IrishExaminer.com, Ireland

The stars of the second tale of the pupils at Hogwarts Academy - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (due for our screens early next month) - have been coming clean about the magical blockbuster.

And from Kenneth Branagh, who joins the story as the vain and foppish Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, Hogwarts' Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, come most of the secrets.

Says the Belfast-born actor of his character: "In the books he was described by JK Rowling as having flowing golden locks and dandyish qualities. He's a highly-successful wizard and writer and his textbooks are now standard works at Hogwarts' ... but he's a narcissus, a gadfly who's full of himself and faintly idiotic.

"But he can also be rather touching at times ... he's certainly a strong comic energy and a strange peacock of a man."

To get the character looking just right, Branagh, having a stunning period to his career at the moment with a constant flow of stage, television and big-screen hits, tried several guises before arriving at the frills and fancies we will see.

He's all flopping hair, fancy clobber and flowing capes.

But Branagh also says that this HP will be different: "It will be darker and it will add a different texture to the story, making it tougher, grittier and leaner."

Chris Columbus, returning as director (though he won't be doing any of the future films), reckons he has been "through a learning experience" with the first film and the Chamber of Secrets "will have a lot more visual freedom." Though, as with the agreement originally made with Rowling, the film will stick faithfully to the book.

Young Chris Radcliffe returns as Harry and the cast also includes Rupert Grint as Harry's best pal, Ron Weasley; Tom Felton as arch enemy, Draco Malfoy; Emma Watson as fellow-student Hermoine; and Alan Rickman.

Already fans of the best-selling books and Box Office screen hit have been snapping up tickets for the November 15 opening and it's already another runaway success.
Claudia
New Zealand - Wednesday, October 23, 2002

Copyright 2002 Nottingham Evening Post
Nottingham Evening Post
October 18, 2002
SECTION: News; Health; Others; Pg. 26
HEADLINE: £8,000 Bash For Patients

The event was called a Grand Auction of Promises and was organised by support group Lam Action. Based at Nottingham City Hospital, the group was set up by sufferers of a rare condition called lymphangioleimyomatosis, which causes cystson the lungs.

The condition affects only women and the £8,600 raised will help to fund further research into the illness.

The auction was held last Saturday and involved selling off 70 items, including holidays and a flight with round-the-world solo pilot, Polly Vacher.

Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, October 22, 2002

Copyright 2002 EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS
The Express
October 22, 2002
SECTION: COLUMNS; Pg. 30
HEADLINE: DAY AND NIGHT; DAY AND NIGHT
BYLINE: WITH KATHRYN SPENCER, JULIE CARPENTER, MICHAEL LEVENTHAL AND KATE BOHDANOWICZ

TRULY Madly Deeply star Alan Rickman has been defending the dark and villainous Professor Snape character he plays in the Harry Potter film series. "What's he done that's so terrible, " inquired Rickman innocently when cornered at the NFT's 50th birthday party, "except saving Harry's life?" Meanwhile Rickman does have a film bugbear of his own: " I want a cinema where popcorn isn't sold, " he added broodily . "I'm sick of the noise. I want to listen to the movie."

Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, October 22, 2002

I've been scouting again in the HP universe. I have recently returned from the world known as The Leaky Cauldron where I've discovered MORE Snape snippets from The Chamber of Secrets. Here's what I've discovered, if you all haven't seen them yet (Note: the first few pics are kinda large...):

Four Professors
Harry & Ron in trouble with Snape
From Latino Review
Duel: Pretty clear pic
Duel2: He's sure packing a wallop with that spell--it goes to show how much he LOATHES that particular co-worker of his...

Cool, huh? Really can't wait for the Philippine release of this movie!!!

Zel-Anne <zelanne@yahoo.comfoo>
Philippines - Tuesday, October 22, 2002

And that, you definitely know already, but here's another take:

Sarah Hall

Monday October 21, 2002

The Guardian

On a dank October evening, London's South Bank glowed with more than a touch of Hollywood glamour last night as Gwyneth Paltrow descended on the British Film Institute to celebrate the 50th anniversary gala of the National Film Theatre on London's South Bank.

The Shakespeare in Love star was making her first public appearance since the death of her father, film director Bruce Paltrow, who died from pneumonia and throat cancer, in Rome, two and a half weeks ago. The 30-year-old actress was at the star-studded celebration to present Harvey Weinstein, the head of Miramax studios, and his brother, Bob, with a BFI fellowship for outstanding contribution to cinema - the highest accolade the organisation can bestow. The octogenarian cinematographer and director Jack Cardiff, whose work includes The African Queen and Black Narcissus, was also presented with a fellowship by actor Susannah York - the 56th to be awarded in a list that includes the late Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier, as well as David Puttnam, Elizabeth Taylor, Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave, and Martin Scorsese.

As the likes of Lord Attenborough, and actors Alan Rickman and Jim Broadbent arrived for the ceremony, the BFI's artistic director, Adrian Wootton, said Paltrow had felt strongly she wished to honour the Miramax brothers, whose studio had produced films in which she had starred, including Shakespeare in Love and The Talented Mr Ripley. The 90-minute ceremony, hosted by Mariella Frostrup, was the climax of a year of celebrations to commemorate the NFT and came as figures revealed cinema visits in the UK are rising almost twice as fast as the average increase in other major cinema-going countries.

The results, from the movie publication Screen Digest, show the number of visits in the first half of the year shot up by nearly a quarter on the same period of 2001, with moviegoers flocking to hits such as Lord of the Rings, Gosford Park, and Bend It Like Beckham.

By the end of June, there had been 87.7m cinema visits - a 24.7%, or 17m, rise on the previous year - in contrast to the average 12% rise elsewhere in Europe and the US.
******

And since you are all wondering, the paper version had a nice photograph of Richard Attenborough and lady of the same name. The other broadsheets didn't even mention the event, unless it was in the small prints. Long live the Guardian.
GML
UK - Monday, October 21, 2002

Rex Features has a pic of Alan at last nights 50th Birthday Gala of the BFI, here's the link RexFeaturesPic . The man does look delish, but I DO wish he'd let his hair grow longer (and a different color), and he'd learn how to properly tie a tie, then he wouldn't have to do the scarf around the neck thing. ;)
Annette
Mansfield, Tx - Monday, October 21, 2002

Good news, perhaps! If you are curious to see the 1978 BBC production of Romeo and Juliet that features Alan Rickman as Tybalt, but balk at spending $99 for the opportunity, the Holiday 2002 Signals catalog might have an answer for you. They offer a 5-DVD set of the 70s era BBC tragedies, including downloadable text files with the scripts. The cost for this set, which includes Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Othello, is $149.95. Still pricey, but you get five plays, which brings the per-play price down to $30. Plus you get to see all those great actors at work--Alan Rickman, Derek Jacobi, Patrick Stewart, Claire Bloom, John Gielgud, Anthony Hopkins...AND MORE!
Ali-Pat
Dayton, OH USA - Monday, October 21, 2002

Story from Ananova: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_693592.htmlp Stars come out for gala night

A host of stars from the big screen have joined up to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the National Film Theatre.

Gwyneth Paltrow, Sir Richard Attenborough and Alan Rickman were among the celebrities who attended the gala evening at the theatre on London's South Bank.

Three British Film Institute Fellowships were also awarded during the event, taking the total number of fellows to 56.

Veteran cinematographer Jack Cardiff posed proudly for photographers with his award and BFI Fellowships were also given to producers Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob, who was not at the gala event.

The brothers have worked on smash hit films such as The Crying Game, Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love.

Past recipients of BFI Fellowships include Orson Welles, Sir Michael Caine, Clint Eastwood and Dame Maggie Smith.

The star-studded bash, followed by dinner at the Savoy, was also attended by Joan Bakewell, Jane Horrocks, Rhys Ifans, Lynda La Plante, director Alan Parker, Miranda Richardson, Jim Broadbent, Emily Mortimer, Sir Derek Jacobi and Frances Barber.

The evening was hosted by Mariella Fostrup and also included a video message from the Prince of Wales.

Since it opened in 1952, the NFT has brought many of the world's greatest film-makers to the UK, right from its early days in the Festival of Britain Telekinema building.

It also provides film education to movie-makers and enthusiastic amateurs.

Story filed: 23:07 Sunday 20th October 2002
Claudia <claudia@paradise.net.nzfoo>
New Zealand - Sunday, October 20, 2002

Alas, no AR in the Entertainment Tonight segment. But here's hoping we'll be more fortunate when HBO airs it's documentary about the making of Chamber of Secrets. It premieres November 5th and will be repeated many times within the month.

And Warner Brothers has now released its final production notes on the second installment, for all to read. It's quite long, but very interesting.

Suzanne <Suz@mail.usa.comfoo>
TX USA - Sunday, October 20, 2002

On behalf of all my fellow long-time GB lurkers, thanks Suzanne for bringing back the Guestbook! Even though it's been a rather rocky road of late, I admire your great resilience and determination to keep this wonderful forum alive.

As a small token of my appreciation, I made a few scans of Snape to share with everyone. The first and second pic are from the latest issue of the Japanese movie magazine, "Screen", and the third is from the Poster Book (my copy is from USA).

I pray that Mr. Rickman will come to Japan to promote the second HP movie when it comes out here December 1st!!!
Carol
Aichi, Japan - Saturday, October 19, 2002 at 06:20:47 (PDT)

OK, hold on to your girdles girls (you Snape fans mostly). I just found this site on Google - can't make out much of the text (if anyone can translate for me...) but WOAH!

New Trailer Stills

Be still my beating heart...
Ensnaring Snape
UK, - Friday, October 18, 2002

Photos of Alan Rickman from the Ruby Wax autobiography "How Do You Want Me?":

ARPhotos

The caption on the second photo (bottom)reads: The Nubile Alan Rickman and me (Ruby Wax) admiring our names outside the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Kimberly
- Friday, October 18, 2002

VCR ALERT! Entertainment Tonight goes behind-the-scenes of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, this evening. Check your local listings for exact time.

Suzanne <Suz@mail.usa.comfoo>
TX USA - Friday, October 18, 2002

Warner Brothers made an announcement yesterday:

"An official from Warner Brothers announced that production of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, as well as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire will begin in early 2003, and both will be released simultaneously in 2004."

My understanding was that it was by no means certain that GoF would be filmable, let alone that it had been contracted for. So it would logical to assume that AR is in for all four movies at least.
Magda
Canada - Saturday, October 12, 2002

Copyright 2002 MGN Ltd.
The Mirror
October 11, 2002, Friday
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 23
HEADLINE: MATTHEW NORMAN'S COLUMN: IT'S A DASTARDLY ROLE FOR MANDY
BYLINE: Matthew Norman
HIGHLIGHT: RACY: Mandy as Dick

HOW long can it be before Ang Lee or another top movie director makes Teletubbies into a film and tries to pass it off as some kind of heavyweight psychodrama (which is his line about The Incredible Hulk) to justify grown-ups going to the cinema?

About five years on current form, because by then there won't be many kids' shows left to turn into films. The latest in a long line - Spider-Man, The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, etc - is The Magic Roundabout, the 60s French-made animated series. Robbie Williams will do the voice of Dougal (new catchphrase: give us a shag) with Kylie, Nicole Kidman and Jim Broadbent joining him in that mystical garden.

After Teletubbies: Tinky Winky's Revenge, it'll be Guy Ritchie's Andy Pandy with Madonna as Looby Loo, or The Taking Of Trumpton 1, 2, 3 "Robert De Niro IS Barney McGrew").

One plea, though. Let no one touch Wacky Races. You can see the temptation to cast Alan Rickman, or possibly Peter Mandelson, as Dick Dastardly, but it would be criminal damage to tamper with the greatest kids' show of all time. We know it's a metaphor for the utter, circular pointlessness of human existence already, thank you very much, without having Liz out of Atomic Kitten playing Penelope Pitstop to underline the point.
(Italics added.)

Georgiana
Seattle - Friday, October 11, 2002

Addendum to the Addendum: here is the auction page which lists the various lots up for bidding and the details of how to bid. Email bids are accepted but please note the rules - as I said below, there are time zone differences that can trip you up.

Magda
Canada - Friday, October 11, 2002

Addendum: the auction takes place THIS Saturday, October 12; remember the time zone difference. Some people might find it worthwhile to get up at 3 a.m. for this.
Magda
Canada - Friday, October 11

Forget e-Bay, ladies. This is THE BIG ONE. Get out those credit cards and you too can bid on a chance to be an extra on an Alan Rickman film. Yes, you can appear in Love Actually if you have the funds.

According to The Bath Chronicle:

The chance to appear in a film with three big movie stars is on offer at a charity auction. Bradford on Avon broadcaster Jonathan Hewat has assembled around 80 lots for an auction to raise money for research into a rare disease which affects his wife. One of the most sought-after will be a visit to the set of Love Actually, which is being filmed in London.

There will also be a chance to be an extra in the film, which stars Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson and Alan Rickman.

The auction takes place at The Riverside Inn at Bradford on Saturday from 7.30pm, and Mr Hewat hopes to raise at least £12,000.

Other auction offers include a flight for two with Polly Vacher, the first woman to fly solo around the world, and visits to broadcasting studios, including that of Terry Wogan's Radio 2 morning show. There are also holidays at villas in France on offer. Donations will go to the charity, LAM Action, the support network for patients diagnosed with the little-known lung disease lymphangioleiomyomatosis and their families.

Mr Hewat, whose wife Theresa has the disease which affects only around 100 people in Britain, said: "It's not every day you get to see how films are made and even star in one. It's a very exciting lot. The quality of the donations means we should raise a considerable amount of money for research into this terrible disease."

The disease attacks the lungs of pre-menopausal women and there is no known cure. The cause of LAM also remains a mystery. LAM is not inherited or passed on to children. One theory suggests LAM, which causes an excess of milky fluid around the breathing tubes and blood vessels, could be due to a chromosome mutation. More information about the disease can be found on the website www. lamaction. org.

Magda
Canada - Friday, October 11, 2002

From the 'official' (Warner Bros.) Harry Potter e-mail newsletter:

MOVIE 3 CASTING!

Jina Jay is the casting director for "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". Send casting queries to:

Jina Jay
Leavesden Studio
P.O. Box 322
Watford, England
WD25 7XJ
Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Thursday, October 10, 2002

The 8 October Mirror report on the top villains includes this mention: "Harry Potter star Alan Rickman who has made a career out of playing baddies came fourth for his role as Hans Gruber in Die Hard."

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Wednesday, October 09, 2002

Copyright 2002 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
MAIL ON SUNDAY
October 6, 2002
SECTION: Pg. 72
HEADLINE: Rory creates his veryown fast show...; Live Shows
BYLINE: Mark Wareham

Rory Bremner With Bird And Fortune
Albery Theatre, London

The question on everyone's minds as they flocked into Rory Bremner's show on Wednesday was: ' How would he handle the comedy gift that was the Major-Currie affair?' Presumably, he'd been buffing those gags ever since the unpleasant revelations broke.

Hell, as the country's premier impressionist, it was virtually his satirical duty. But whereas that other great institution, Private Eye, was a non-stop titterthon, even resurrecting The Secret Diary Of John Major, Bremner was happy with a couple of passing references. Perhaps he'd been too busy plugging the show to pick up a newspaper.

Bremner's Channel 4 programme has become more and more politicised down the years, but for the live show he blended the satire into a West End-friendly greatest-hits package. The gags kept coming ('Blair's love of the countryside . . . the olive groves, the lemon trees'), allied to the occasional insight: 'We don't have politics in Britain. We have Tony Blair.' What makes Bremner so impressive is the speed at which he operates. A dream sequence affords him the opportunity to unleash a blizzard of impressions, stepping in and out of characters with breathtaking agility. The only time he does make a slip, doing Bush as Clinton, he recovers with a seamless switch to Denis Norden: 'That's one of those great cock-ups.' The best set piece has Blair struggling to adapt one of President Bush's speeches for British ears. Painfully, he reworks 'I'm strolling round Texas' as 'round Tesco's', ' Rumsfeld has never looked fitter' becomes 'Prescott has never looked fatter' and 'God Bless America' comes out as 'God help us all'.

The two Johns, Bird and Fortune, slowed the pace, reprising their familiar debates, such as why British Army equipment won't work in the desert. Less successful was Bird's Robert Mugabe, delivered from one of the boxes (the punters at the back of the stalls couldn't even see him), but Fortune came up with a delightfully pervy monologue on rail travel.

Without recourse to makeup and costume, Bremner's impressions had a pared-down quality which accentuated their accuracy. He was happy to show us the mechanics of his vocalisations. How John Prescott could morph into Johnny Vegas via Les Dawson. Or how, improbably, a satanic Alan Rickman can become Kenneth Williams.

All very clever, but you fear for Bremner's health. How does he stay sane with all those voices in his head?

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Tuesday, October 08, 2002

Here are the top ten villains from the Online Film Critics Society, as published in the Christian Science Monitor:

1. Darth Vader (David Prowse, voice by James Earl Jones), "Star Wars" trilogy
2. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), "The Silence of the Lambs"
3. Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), "Psycho"
4. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), "Die Hard"
5. Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), "Blue Velvet"
6. Rev. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), "The Night of the Hunter"
7. HAL 9000 (voice by Douglas Rain), "2001: A Space Odyssey"
8. Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), "The Wizard of Oz"
9. Graf Orlock (Max Schreck), "Nosferatu"
10. Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban), "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Tuesday, October 08, 2002

Copyright 2002 Business Wire, Inc.
Business Wire
October 6, 2002, Sunday
DISTRIBUTION: Entertainment Editors
HEADLINE: The Online Film Critics Society Names the Greatest Screen Villain Of All Time: Darth Vader from "Star Wars"
DATELINE: NEW YORK, Oct. 6, 2002

The Online Film Critics Society

International Critics Group Celebrates the Top 100 Villains, Including Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates and the HAL 9000

The Online Film Critics Society (OFCS), the international association of the leading Internet-based cinema journalists, is sharing its love with the character we're supposed to hate.

The OFCS has announced its new list celebrating the Top 100 Villains of All Time and the greatest screen villain of all time, according to the 132 members of the OFCS, is Darth Vader played by David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones in the original "Star Wars" trilogy.

Following Darth Vader in the Top 10 sector of the Villains list is Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs," Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates in "Psycho," Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber in "Die Hard," Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth in "Blue Velvet," Robert Mitchum's Rev. Harry Powell in "The Night of the Hunter," Douglas Rain as the voice of the HAL 9000 in "2001: A Space Odyssey," Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz," Max Schreck as Graf Orlock in "Nosferatu," and Ricardo Montalban as Khan Noonien Singh in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." The complete list of the Online Film Critics Society's Top 100 Villains can be found online at www.ofcs.org.

With a reminder list of more than 400 potential villains to choose from, the OFCS invited its critics to consider some of the most wonderfully charismatic examples of celluloid evil. "The Villains list spans the history of motion pictures, from Max Schreck's landmark performance in the 1922 silent version of 'Nosferatu' to Anthony Hopkins reprising his Hannibal Lecter role yet again in the new 'Red Dragon' feature," says Erik Childress, editor of eFilmCritic.com and a member of the OFCS Governing Committee. "In many ways, the Villains are the most important aspect of classic films--what would 'Star Wars' be without Darth Vader or 'The Wizard of Oz' without the Wicked Witch of the West'? With this list, we can unapologetically say that we love a great villain!"

Now celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Online Film Critics Society has been the key force in establishing Internet-based film journalism. The OFCS membership consists of writers from the U.S., Canada, Europe, Latin America, Australia and Africa, with journalists representing many of the most important online news sites including Salon, Slate, TV Guide Online, the Apollo Guide, FilmCritic.com, Daily-Reviews.com and the Internet Movie Database. The Society's web site, which has been hosted since January 2001 by the highly influential film resource Rotten Tomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com), provides the most comprehensive online listing of reviews and original interviews with the leading artists in today's cinema, plus links to the most important motion picture-related web sites. The annual OFCS Awards, announced after the new year, are widely regarded as a prime barometer in determining which individuals and films are top contenders for the Academy Award nominations.

The OFCS Governing Committee consists of Chicago-based Erik Childress of eFilmCritic.com, New York-based Phil Hall of Film Threat, and Liverpool's Ian Waldron-Mantgani of The UK Critic. The Governing Committee is the OFCS liaison with the film industry and the Net community. For more information, visit the Online Film Critics Society at www.ofcs.org. CONTACT: Open City Communications Phil Hall, 212/714-3575 URL: http://www.businesswire.com

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Monday, October 07, 2002

Copyright 2002 MGN Ltd.
The Mirror
October 5, 2002, Saturday
SECTION: REVIEW; Pg. 33,35
HEADLINE: BREAKING THE SPELL; HARRY POTTER ACTOR RICHARD HARRIS SLAMS THE STARS BEWITCHED BY THEIR OWN EGOS
BYLINE: Garth Pearce

HIGHLIGHT:
STILL FRIENDS: With first wife Elizabeth; UNTAMED: With second wife; Ann Turkel; LEGEND: Harris hit it big in 1963's This Sporting Life, below, and now plays Dumbledore, left, in the Harry Potter films

IT was a lesson his fellow stars might not have taken too kindly. On the set of the latest Harry Potter movie, Richard Harris's notoriously short temper snapped as his colleagues fretted over the problems of filming.

The star, who plays kindly headmaster Albus Dumbledore in the film, did not flinch when delivering a broadside to the likes of Dame Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman and Robbie Coltrane.

"I said to them one day: 'What are you all f***ing worrying about? There's a war on in the Middle East, there are floods all over England and there are bombs being thrown all over the world.'

"I told them: 'There is real life out there. This is all make-believe crap. What we are doing here is very minor.'" Harris has just turned 72 and has lost little of the fire that made him as famous for his hellraising as for his acting.

In a typical piece of candour, he tells me: "I have no friends in this business, because they're the biggest bulls****ers on God's Earth.

"I have never taken an actor's life seriously. I don't want to know. I don't go to their clubs, don't go to their hang-outs and don't mix at all. I am part of the business but I am apart from it. If anyone ever asks my advice, I tell them: 'Don't take yourself too seriously.'

"I don't think we are special. I don't think I am any more special than the guys I drink with, one of whom is a chef and the other a master carver. "I am no more important than they are but actors believe the opposite. They think they are special, precious and elite. I love the acting but the rest you can stick.
(And it goes on . . . and on . . . and on . . . with no further mention of Mr. Rickman.)

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Sunday, October 06, 2002

Copyright 2002 Express Newspapers
Daily Star
October 5, 2002
SECTION: COLUMNS; Pg. 13
HEADLINE: BITCHES WITH JULIA ETHERINGTON, MEL MYERS, LAURA BENJAMIN AND AMY WATTS; SPOTTED

IN London. . .Tara Palmer Tomkinson in Top Shop, Oxford Street, with a personal security guard helping her buy armfuls of clothes for her numerous TV appearances.

Alan Rickman walking alone in Clerkenwell.

And funnyman actor Robin Williams eating dinner along with his lovely wife Marcia at fashionable The Ivy.

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Sunday, October 06, 2002

Copyright 2002 Telegraph Group Limited
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
October 05, 2002, Saturday
SECTION: Pg. 03
HEADLINE: Playing ha ha Lynn Barber is moved by Ruby Wax's efforts to escape an appalling childhood
BYLINE: By Lynn Barber

How Do You Want Me? by Ruby Wax
241pp, Ebury, pounds l7.99
T pounds 15.99 (plus pounds 1.99 p&p) 0870 1557222

If you know anything at all about Ruby Wax, then you are bound to know about her parents. She made a documentary about them, but she also talks about them in every interview she ever gives. Thus we are already familiar with Mr Wax, the Chicago sausage-skin king who drives a giant hot dog, and Mrs Wax, the domestic banshee who swathes all the furniture in plastic in her eternal war against dirt. But this book gives us more, much more - and it is still completely jaw-dropping. Ruby describes a typical evening chez Wax, with Mr Wax sitting glued (literally) to his plastic-covered chair listening to opera at full volume while Mrs Wax rails, "His Highness is a misogynist and wife torturer - always running with the animals and the perverts, he makes me vomit." Then she screams a bit at Ruby - "Mother murderer" - before sinking to her knees and crying "Cut my heart out, with a scissor!" The climax is a loud shout of "Toscanini!" at the top of her lungs ("That was the scary bit," notes Ruby), whereupon Mr Wax yells "Shut up!" and drags her off to the bedroom to beat her.

Ruby claims that she once walked into her parents' bedroom while her father was beating her mother and they both looked up and said, "Mommy and Daddy are playing ha ha, we're having fun! Close the door!" So she did.

Ruby looked like a boy for much of her childhood, with a pudding basin haircut and big, goofy teeth. She only came into her own when she became the class comedian in her teens: "It was like growing tits overnight - I was a hit."

She escaped to England to become an actress and, after drama school in Glasgow, played wench and wimple parts at the RSC. She recounts how once her parents came to visit her and joined the cast for dinner. Her father insisted on paying for everyone and told them, "When you're famous, you can pay for me." Michael Hordern piped up sadly, "But I am famous" whereupon Mr Wax said, "Yeah, sure, old man" and gave him a fiver. Years later, Ruby was on the Gloria Hunniford Show with Michael Hordern, and her father was in the green room. Michael Hordern went up to him and said, "Remember me?" and Mr Wax said, "No" - and pressed another fiver into his hand.

Ruby eventually realised that she was not going to be Judi Dench. Her friend Alan Rickman encouraged her to write plays and said he would produce them. One of these plays was transferred to New York, where Ruby was courted by agents and told she should be in the States. So she moved to Los Angeles and spent a very unhappy year writing a screenplay, then having a nervous breakdown when it was rejected. She was saved by being asked back to England to help write a television series, and collaborated with French and Saunders to make Girls on Top. She went on to have her own series of interviews, documentaries and chatshows, which included some of the funniest television moments of the last decade.

But even when she was famous and, moreover, married with three children, she was still in thrall to her parents. Until a few years ago, they would come and stay four or five times a year, and Mr Wax would listen in to her phone calls and sometimes interrupt with, "This is your father. Hang up now. I'm only here for a short while." Then Ruby would shout and he would try to hit her and they would end up driving to the airport in silence - and she would apologise as she waved them goodbye. Her therapist told her to discourage their visits, but she never did. Then, three years ago, her father suffered a stroke: "When he lost control of his power I became liberated. It's that simple."

Ruby Wax asks at one point, "OK, do you want the funny stuff or should I tell you what really happened in my life?" She tries to do both, but it doesn't really work because, even while you are laughing at the funny stuff, you know it will end in tears. And sure enough, the final chapters recount her nervous breakdown, her stay in the Priory, her pursuit of therapy, her spiritual experience at Big Sur and her lessons in meditation with the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University. She used to joke on stage that "I'm in litigation with my inner child", but now she and her inner child are skipping off into the sunset, spouting psychobabble. I hope it makes her happier, but it does no favours to the reader.
(Italics added.)

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Sunday, October 06, 2002

Copyright 2002 The Telegraph Group Limited
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
October 06, 2002, Sunday
SECTION: Pg. 36
HEADLINE: Alas, Smith puts Grant to shame
BYLINE: By TIM WALKER

ALTHOUGH NOT blessed with the same matinee idol looks as Hugh Grant, the portly, balding Mel Smith outshines him in the eyes of pupils at their alma mater, Latymer Upper School in west London.

Smith has donated pounds 1.5 million to a charitable trust to help less well-off children attend the school - putting to shame the foppish Four Weddings and a Funeral star who earlier this year trumpeted plans to set up a similar bursary himself, but failed to deliver.

"Mel has been extremely generous," says a friend of star of Alas Smith and Jones. "He loved his time at the school and is keen to give others a chance to go there. He has done all this very quietly, but it's a cause he believes in passionately." A former student of Latymer tells me: "Hugh got all the publicity, but did nothing, whereas Mel has come up trumps without telling hardly a soul. We're hoping that this might weigh on Hugh's conscience, as we still need the money."

Grant, who is reputed to be paid pounds 5 million a film, says: "When the school told me the amount of money it would actually involve, I couldn't believe it. I told them I'd have to go away and think about it."

Other old Latymerians lined up as possible donors include the actor Alan Rickman and George Walden, the former education minister. The school is unlikely to want to get into a financial relationship with another of its old boys, Keith Vaz, the disgraced former minister who was suspended from the Commons for a month after an investigation into his business dealings.

Smith, who pocketed pounds 23 million from the sale of the television production company Talkback, was in the Isle of Man directing his latest film last week and was modestly keeping quiet about his most generous gesture.

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Sunday, October 06, 2002

AR will be attending the HPCoS premiere in London on November 3, according to Sky News:

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets will have its world premiere on November 3 in London, Warner Bros said. Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry, is expected to attend along with co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. Also on hand will be other actors from the film, including Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith and Kenneth Branagh. The film, the second based on the hit children's novels by JK Rowling, opens in both the US and UK on 15 November.

Magda
Canada - Saturday, October 05, 2002

Copyright 2002 The Press Association Limited
Press Association
October 4, 2002, Friday 08:26 AM Eastern Time
SECTION: HOME NEWS
HEADLINE: NEW HARRY POTTER FILM PREMIERE SET FOR NOVEMBER 3
BYLINE: Anita Singh, Showbusiness Correspondent, PA News

The world premiere of the new Harry Potter film is to be held in London on November 3, it was announced today.

Stars of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets will be at the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square for the first showing of the eagerly-awaited movie. The sequel to last year's blockbuster Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone finds the young wizard back for his second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe, aided by friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, must confront a sinister force which is terrorising the school.

Actor Kenneth Branagh has joined the cast as Gilderoy Lockhart, Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts.

There are also repeat roles for Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Richard Harrison and Robbie Coltrane.

The film is being released in the UK and the US on November 15 and is sure to be one of the biggest blockbusters of the year.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone remains the second biggest film of all time - second only to Titanic - grossing £650 million worldwide.

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Friday, October 04, 2002

Copyright 2002 / Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
October 3, 2002 Thursday Home Edition
SECTION: Calendar Weekend; Part 6; Page 16; Calendar Desk
HEADLINE: Camel Beats Rock on the 'Scorpion' DVD
BYLINE: SUSAN KING, TIMES STAFF WRITER

[Following a review of "The Scorpion King" DVD...] If your tastes run to the more esoteric than wrestlers wielding swords in ancient Egypt, then the "Beckett on Film" DVD gift set (Ambrose Video, $150) is a must. This terrific compilation includes all 19 of Samuel Beckett's plays, including "Waiting for Godot," "Endgame" and "Krapp's Last Tape."

Among the highlights are John Gielgud, Harold Pinter and Rebecca Pidgeon in "Catastrophe," directed by David Mamet; Jeremy Irons in a dual role in the haunting "Ohio Impromptu"; Julianne Moore--or rather, a close-up of her mouth--in "Not I," directed by Neil Jordan; the wonderful Irish actors David Kelly and Milo O'Shea in "Rough for Theater I"; and Alan Rickman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliet Stevenson in "Play," directed by Anthony Minghella.

Featured on the discs are information about each play and interviews with several of the directors. There's also a documentary on the making of the films.

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Thursday, October 03, 2002

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
October 03, 2002, Thursday
SECTION: Pg. 27
HEADLINE: Spot-on impressions, but the dossier's a bit thin
BYLINE: By Dominic Cavendish

Comedy - Rory Bremner Live
ALBERY THEATRE

WE NEED people like Rory Bremner. There's a new militancy in the air, an upsurge of collective grievance about the way matters are being handled in international affairs and on the home front. Comics who splash around in the shallows of their own personalities or celebrity trivia had better take note: the thirst for political satire is growing, and thank goodness Bremner, installed in the West End for a month, is on hand to supply some. Just to see Tony Blair mimicked and mocked sends your spirits soaring; lampooning is as essential to democracy as the ballot box. Bremner has got TB down to a tee: not just the physical mannerisms - the pained smile, fixed gaze and furrowed brow - but the attendant attitudes, too.

Sneaking on stage, his PM admonishes us for wasting our time with this show. "I've got a dossier. I know about the material they have and that they're prepared to use." It'll be cheap shots, he warns: "Frankly, I'm very disappointed in you." How well this nails the Blairite habit of framing dissent as a pitiable refusal to see self-evident truths.

It's a shame that the evening doesn't live up to its early promise, and that the writing isn't as sharp as the suits. Bremner looks the spit of Paddy Ashdown, but there's something of our Tony in his desire to be liked. At times, the material becomes as innocuous and forgettable as he paints Iain Duncan Smith - represented as an interval usherette with nothing to sell - to be.

There are frequent swipes at Blair's poodling after Bush. In a topical flourish, the Blackpool speech turns into a struggle to anglicise the patriotic guff inserted by American speechwriters. Given that there's nearly a war on, though, the comic could pummel his target far harder.

He's not helped by the soporific skits involving his regular TV colleagues, the two Johns (Bird and Fortune), who tackle clearly flagged-up themes (our military capability, immigration) in a tired, rambling manner.

As it stands, the show justifies its ticket prices not by overall coherence, but by Bremner's quick-fire impersonations. These range from apposite John Majorisms ("Oh yes, I'm back"), through to a second-half blaze of glory in which the Bible is retold using everyone from Alan Rickman (the serpent) to David Frost (Lazarus). (Italics added.)

Bremner can still do the voices brilliantly; he just needs to find something truly compelling to say with them.

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Thursday, October 03, 2002

Filming Report
(Dark Horizons, Oct 2, 2002) [the site that reported on a Baader-Meinhoff gang film last November]

"I was at Shepperton Studios where a Heathrow Airport Arrivals set has been built. What was filmed were various characters coming out of arrivals and other characters waiting for them. Hugh Grant plays the prime minister and as he walks out Martine McCutcheon (TV's "Eastenders") runs to him, jumps on him and kisses him. Reporters and other people waiting at arrivals are shocked. In the film Hugh as the prime minister falls in love with the young tea lady played by McCutcheon.

"Also filmed was numerous other scenes with various celebs: Liam Neeson and Claudia Schiffer are waiting at arrivals, Colin Firth arrives with a European woman, Shannon Elizabeth and Denise Richards arrive as sisters and Alan Rickman arrives where Emma Thompson and her children are waiting for him (Thompson plays his wife, and Hugh's sister). The scenes were supposed to be set in winter. Also filming took place at a school in Putney in London, where various characters watch a school nativity".

Georgiana (from the Colin Firth site) <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Wednesday, October 02, 2002

ALAN RICKMAN JANEANE GAROFALO MIKE BINDER JULIET STEVENSON ALLAN CORDUNER

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT !

HAMTONS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - The Hamptons, New York
Saturday, October 19th at 5:00pm & Sunday, October 20th at 12:00 Noon

Sunlight Productions is pleased to present the comedy feature film THE SEARCH FOR JOHN GISSING at the festival.
We extend this private announcement to our kind friends who have expressed interest in the film and the stars.

We thank you for your interest and hope that you or someone you know may attend the festival to see the film.

Any assistance in this regards shall help get the film out to a greater global audience as distributors will attend.

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Wednesday, October 02, 2002

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