This great snap, from a reception at the Rome Film Festival in 2009, shows the two leading-ladies cracking up with laughter. Any ideas what somebody might have said or done? Suggestions please… this needs a good caption!
Mar 222012
Mar 132012
Producers Barbra Streisand and Joel Silver have set Academy Award-winning writer Julian Fellowes to pen the screenplay adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ Tony Award winning musical, Gypsy, which Streisand and Silver are currently developing for Universal Pictures. Streisand will portray “Momma Rose” in the new version, her first musical film since Yentl in which the Oscar–winning actress and iconic singer starred, produced, co-wrote and directed in 1983.
Fellowes won the Original Screenplay Academy Award for Gosford Park and most recently earned the Emmy and Golden Globe for creating and writing the acclaimed miniseries, Downton Abbey. His musical theatre work includes adapting the script for Disney’s stage production of Mary Poppins.
Gypsy has exhilarated audiences on both stage and screen since its first Broadway run in 1959 with Ethel Merman. Since then, the compelling story based on the memoirs of the famous striptease artist, Gypsy Rose Lee, has spawned numerous reincarnations including the 1962 film starring Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood, four Broadway revivals, as well as a made-for-television movie.… continue reading
Feb 252012
Woody Allen’s 1994 film “Bullets Over Broadway” explored the travails of an aspiring playwright struggling to bring his creation to the Great White Way. And now, in a possible case of art imitating, um, art, Allen is working on a musical adaptation of the film, with a Broadway première tentatively slated for 2013, reported Reuters.
Allen will write the book for the musical, which will feature existing music from 1920s, in which “Bullets Over Broadway” is set, said producers Julian Schlossberg and Letty Aronson.
The original film, which starred John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly, was nominated for seven Academy Awards, and won one — in the Best Supporting Actress category, for Wiest’s portrayal of alcoholic actress Helen Sinclair. The “Bullets Over Broadway” adaptation is the latest development in Allen’s decades-long relationship with Broadway, starting with 1966’s “Don’t Drink the Water,” which Allen wrote.… continue reading
Feb 152012
“Uggie has not been asked to participate or appear at the Oscars,” said The Weinstein Company, distributors of “The Artist”.
Without an official invitation or credential, the playful Jack Russell terrier, 10, will not be able to romp with other stars on the Oscar red carpet as the silent film front-runner vies for the movie industrys highest honours, said Reuters today. Contrary to some press reports, Uggie has not been rehearsing an Oscar skit with host Billy Crystal.
Uggie has at least one trophy in his own right to add to his own Facebook page and Twitter account. On Monday night he fought off a stiff challenge from Blackie the Doberman — the star of director Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” — to win the inaugural Golden Collar Award for best dog in a theatrical film. It was not immediately known if Blackie had also been snubbed with a non-invite to the Oscars.… continue reading
Feb 022012
The Arab world’s most famous comic actor, Adel Imam, has received a three-month jail sentence for insulting Islam in films and plays.
Imam, who has frequently poked fun at authorities and politicians of all colors during a 40-year career, has one month to appeal the sentence and will remain out of jail until the appeal process is concluded.
The sentence yesterday evening came weeks after Islamists swept most seats in a parliamentary election. The case was brought by Asran Mansour, a lawyer with ties to Islamist groups, and had languished in court for months, judicial sources said.
Mansour accused the actor of offending Islam and its symbols, including beards and the Jilbab, a loose-fitting garment worn by some Muslims.
Jan 242012
Martin Scorsese’s Paris adventure “Hugo” leads the Academy Awards with 11 nominations, among them best picture and the latest director honour for the Oscar-winning filmmaker.
Also nominated for best picture today: the silent film “The Artist”; the family drama “The Descendants”; the Sept. 11 tale “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”; the Deep South drama “The Help”; the romantic fantasy “Midnight in Paris”; the sports tale “Moneyball”; the family chronicle “The Tree of Life”; and the World War I epic “War Horse.”
“The Artist” ran second with 10 nominations, among them writing and directing nominations for French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius, a best-actor honour for Jean Dujardin and a supporting-actress slot for Berenice Bejo.
Dujardin, who won the Globe for best actor in a musical or comedy as a silent-era star whose career goes kaput with the arrival of talking pictures, will be up against Globe dramatic actor winner George Clooney for “The Descendants,” in which the Oscar-winning superstar plays a dad trying to hold his Hawaiian family together after a boating accident puts his wife in a coma.… continue reading
Jan 152012
Kate Winslet is to work with Kenneth Branagh for the first time since they made Hamlet in 1996, says Variety.
Winslet will star in the director’s latest film, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Branagh has described the project as “a beautiful romance, very touching and uplifting.”
The film is to be based on the best-selling 2008 book by Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece Annie Barrows, who helped her finish the book after she became terminally ill. The writer eventually died aged 74, a few months before the novel was published.
Set after World War II, the story is about a magazine columnist, Juliet Ashton, who learns how Guernsey islanders created a book group during the war to outwit their German occupiers.
After exchanging letters with a pig farmer who uncovers evidence of the book club in the modern day, Ashton becomes so capitvated by the story she travels to Guernsey, where she delves deeper into the lives of the islanders and experiences things that change her life forever, said the BBC.… continue reading
Jan 102012
I want to report a rape. My body of work has been violated by The Artist.”
This is a statement by Vertigo star Kim Novak.
Novak says she was appalled when she sat down to watch the Oscar front-runner and found that an important sequence in the movie shamelessly lifts Bernard Hermann’s score from Vertigo.
Novak’s manager told Deadline that the score sampling sent Novak into “an absolute state of shock and devastation”.
Even though they did give Bernard Herrmann a small credit at the end, I believe this kind of filmmaking trick to be cheating. Shame on them!”
Someone had better take all those Brian De Palma movies off Novak’s Netflix queue, and quickly, jokes Kyle Buchanan for New York Magazine.… continue reading
Jan 032012
Meryl Streep is to be honoured at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, which takes place next month. Streep will be presented with the honorary Golden Bear award, the festival’s highest accolade, on 14 February.
“Meryl Streep is a brilliant, versatile performer who moves with ease between dramatic and comedic roles,” said festival director Dieter Kosslick.
Streep’s latest film, The Iron Lady, will be screened at the festival.
via BBC News
Photo by Andreas Tai… continue reading