'Nine': The Musical Film

The big screen adaptation of 'NINE' The Musical starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench and Marion Cotillard is set to hit cinemas November 25, 2009.





My Favorite musical 'Nine' has been filmed.
I've been pretty skeptical about how it would translate to the screen. The preview, below, has made me less so. We can only hope!
But it is based on the Fellini masterpiece '8 1/2' which was originally a film. So the cinematic potential was built in. If only they had filmed it on location in Venice on The Grand Canal. So much for dreaming.

My main concern was the casting. My fears seem to be abating here a bit. With the exception of Nicole Kidman as Claudia Nardi. On stage the role was played by the erotic, exotic, sensual and beautiful Shelley Burch. Four qualities I never think of when Kidman's name is mentioned.

Marion Cotillard as Luisa seems a brilliant stroke.

Sophia Loren as Momma seemed a given.

Judi Dench as Liliane La Fleur? Hey Judi Dench in any role is a gift. She will be brilliant. I can't wait for her 'Follies Bergere'.

Penelope Cruz as Carla. Yes Yes Yes!

Stacy Ferguson, Fergie, is just someone I know nothing of. The trailer below tells me she will be remarkable as Saraghina the town prostitute.


Now about the only male role in 'Nine':
Daniel Day Lewis as Guido portraying a director, an italian, going through mid-life crisis? He is an amazing actor so maybe he can 'be italian'.
He does possess a certain needed sexuality.

I now have semi-high hopes. I really do want this to be brilliant and amazing. We'll see!!! In fact it seems to have 'Oscar' written all over it. Done correctly it could win them as the play did with the Tony Awards on Broadway. It may just mean that every supporting actress nominee next year could be from this film.



OH YES INDEED!!! Mothers, lovers, wives, frustrated producers, frustrated husband, ex-lovers and whores. A true mid-life crisis comes to a cinema near you on Nov. 25th, 2009.










The Cast:

Daniel Day-Lewis ... Guido Contini
Marion Cotillard ... Luisa Contini
Penélope Cruz ... Carla Albanese
Judi Dench ... Liliane La Fleur
Nicole Kidman ... Claudia Nardi
Kate Hudson ... Stephanie Necrophuros
Sophia Loren ... Mamma
Stacy Ferguson ... Saraghina

When He Was Young and In Love: 'All I Have to Do Is Dream'

Audrey Hepburn stamp fetches $93,800 in Germany

German auctioneer Elisabeth Schlegel shows a poster of a rare Audrey Hepburn stamp back on March 27. The stamp was auctioned Tuesday for $93,800.



BERLIN (AP) — A rare stamp portraying movie star Audrey Hepburn smoking sold for euro67,000 ($93,800) at an auction in Germany on Tuesday.
The Schlegel auction house declined to identify the buyer, who was represented by an agent.

A minimum bid of euro30,000 was set for the stamp, of which only five copies are known to exist.

Auctioneer Elisabeth Schlegel announced that the stamp — which escaped being incinerated by the German government — had sold for euro53,500. After adding commission and sales tax, the total came to euro67,000.

The government in 2001 printed 14 million Audrey Hepburn stamps as part of a series featuring movie stars including Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo.


The print run was destroyed after Hepburn's son, Sean Ferrer, objected to the cigarette holder dangling from the actress' mouth and refused to grant copyright.

However, the Finance Ministry had already delivered advance copies of the Hepburn stamps to Deutsche Post for approval. Thirty of those proof copies escaped destruction when an unknown employee pocketed them and used them to send letters postmarked from Berlin.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

This...

Susan Boyle round 2:

and That

Remembering America's Heroes Especially Those Who Died Unnecessarily by bush/cheyney's Pack of Lies!

Lara Fabian's 'I Will Love Again' and Baracuda's Version

Lara Fabian:









Barracuda:

Melanie C: 'I Turn to You'

i just like this song













Italian version not by melanie c but her picture???
anyway i like the version.

Special Comment: Keith on the WAR CRIMINAL, fascist, impotent bitter old man and dickWAD Supreme!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Lara Fabian: The Voice!!!

'I've Cried Enough': Two versions and it deserves as many versions as may exist.

Starting Today I Am Going to Share DVD Recommendations along with in theater recommendations

Some will be movies I missed.
Some will be movies I choose to wait for DVD release.
A number of films will movies I did not know existed because the studios did not trust them enough and gave them limited runs if any run at all.
One of the few reasons I miss New York. Everything opens there even if for a short time.

Recommend DVD: 'What Happens in Vegas'

Never saw an Ashton Kutchner movie. Never saw his TV show. Could have cared less.
But I do enjoy Cameron Diaz. She's a welcome throw back to the brilliant screwball comedy parts of the late great Carole Lombard.

So for Cameron alone I rented this movie. As always she was a sheer delight.

Ashton, however, was a revelation to me. He was wonderful. This man has a real Cary Grant quality about him. You go Ashton. You have a new fan in me.

DVD Rating: B+

Julie and Julia

Is Meryl Streep beomcing the 'Queen' of the summer movies?

In 2008 she had a summer smash with 'Mamma Mia' following 2006's summer smash 'The Devil Wears Prada'.
If 'Julie and Julia' is another summer smash the question is answered and the title assured.
That Meryl, of the deep, often dark, good lord 'she has another accent film' would become this is astonishing.
First of all she is at that supposedly 'unbankable' age group for women in ANY film.
Secondly she was a premier actress of the fall/winter worthy of Oscar 'consideration' films.

To be honest I like this Meryl better. Enough with the accents already. After her damn Australian accent that let us know "a dingo ate my baby...it was not an object it was a baby" movie I was done. Done I tell you. But then came 'Prada' and 'Mamma Mia' and she sucked me in again. She almost lost me with the too slick click-click performance in 'Doubt' where she was once again telling us "Look what a great actress I am. You can't deny I'm brilliant". No Meryl not quite. The critics have fostered that on you and us. Yet, when you play a 'real' woman like Donna in 'Mamma Mia' they kill you. Accents do not make great actresses they make great and mostly grating accents. When the audience is listening for the 'next accent she can do' the performance is lost. She has lost me a lot!

I thank god for 1984's 'Falling in Love' . No bloody accent!

Point in case: one of Meryl's greatest performances was in the tv film 'Holocaust' playing a German woman amidst the horrors of the nazi regime. Guess what? No German accent. Guess what? She was believable and almost brilliant.

Well enough. 'Julie and Julia' a sneak peak. And trust me THIS is not an accent but it is a brilliant impression/interpretation of a real life 'self made character'.
I do want this to be wonderful.

Breaking News!!!

'Falling in Love'

Since I brought it up here's a bit of 'Falling in Love'.

trailer:



opening: i kind of like the music.

Damn: CBS Cancelled 'Without a Trace' and picked up the NBC Flop 'Medium'

Dave Says...

'To Know Him Is to Love Him'

2 versions of a song i like.


original by the teddy bears:



Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris

'The Edge of Love'

I'm not really sure what happened to this Keira Knightley film. It never opened anywhere near me after I heard it was going to open in New York and LA the last week of March.
Today I find out the DVD will be released on July 14th.
Kind of odd for a box office star like Knightley.

'State of Play': B-

An adult film early in the year. It is a good film. Period.
But I must say it is boasts the best performance Ben Affleck has ever given on screen. I knew he had it in him.
It will not make my best of 2009 but it won't make my worst either.
Rent it...save the trip to the theater.

Kieth's WTF!@??@! Moment

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Idiot's Greatest Hits!: A Retrospective for Those Doubting Barack!

The Beautiful and Talented Oscar Winning Rachel Weisz WOWS Cannes!

Releasing his week: 'The Brother's Bloom' with Adrien Brody, Mark Rufallo and Rachel Weisz

She Sees England, She Sees France - and Kristin Scott Thomas Sees Virtue in Both

Kristin Scott Thomas is a brilliant actress.
I hope she is finally getting her due.
Although I hated 'The English Patient', which I consider one of the worst movies ever made, I did see that her future acting would probably suck me in. She did. Her new film 'Easy Virtue' begins it's role out this week. And that Colin Firth is in it makes it a double pleasure for me.

NY Daily News 5/17/2009

Kristin Scott Thomas is the quintessential English beauty: chisel-cheeked, pale-skinned with a brittle wit and cut-glass vowels. It's ironic, then, that she has lived in France for the last 30 years, and considers herself as much French as British. She zigzags between Hollywood movies ("Gosford Park," "Mission: Impossible" and her Oscar-nominated role in "The English Patient") and French-language films like last year's "I've Loved You So Long."
Scott Thomas is back acting in English in her latest comedy, an update of the Noel Coward classic "Easy Virtue," opening Friday. She plays a British matriarch determined to drive away a brash American (Jessica Biel) who has married her only son.

You filmed "Easy Virtue" on location in three real English stately homes.
There was one that had the most fantastic - what do you call it? - glasshouse. It's the most extraordinary place, in really bad shape, with very little central heating. It was just like the book: in disrepair, freezing cold. It was perfect for playing the character of the house in the film.

Did you all have to stay on site for Method acting?
Oh no, we stayed in a perfectly ordinary hotel. But at least then we got hot water and warm beds.

Jessica Biel, Colin Firth and Ben Barnes all sing on the soundtrack of "Easy Virtue." But no sign of you - why not? Are you tone deaf?
I don't know why. I think I wasn't available. I've been incredibly busy doing one film after another and haven't had any downtime. Actually, I'm going to be doing [Stephen Sondheim's] "A Little Night Music" in Paris in the spring in English. In Paris, it's treated as an opera - they've never done anything like this before, as they don't go in for musical theater at all.

You've lived in France since moving there as an au pair after finishing school 30 years ago. How did that happen?
I didn't really know what to do at all. I had secretarial experience, I typed a few letters, that kind of thing. Then I needed somewhere to stay, and fell into working as an au pair. I loved it. In fact, the other day I bumped into the girl I looked after and she now has three kids.

When you act in French, after all this time, do you still have an exotic accent?
Yes, some of my vowels are a bit funny. But in France, people are so used to having foreign actresses - Italian, German - that they don't mind at all. If you have a foreign accent, they don't only give you the part as the baddie, as is so much the case in Anglo-Saxon films.

Your movie debut was as a topless French socialite in Prince's notorious bomb "Under the Cherry Moon" in 1986. How was that?
People just hated the film. It was a real baptism of fire as far as I'm concerned. I got the reviews you dread. From then on, I thought, "I'm never going to read reviews of the theater I do and only read reviews about films I don't really mind about."

Have you kept in touch with Prince? I read that the song "Better With Time," on his last album, was an ode to you.
If it's true, it's fantastic. He came to see "The Seagull" [when Scott Thomas was acting on Broadway last year] and was completely wowed by it. A lot of people knew what we were doing and he just turned up. He is incredibly intelligent and talented - if he's written a song for me, it's just the most wonderful present. He's just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant at what he does. What's really great about getting older is that down the road you meet people you haven't seen for a long time and they're still doing something you really admire.

Speaking of age, you turn 49 next week. You're famously candid about aging, especially for an actress.
They did tell me to shut up a long time ago: "You mustn't say you're 35, say you're 30." I thought, "This is ridiculous! Why should I?" In English and American cinema, people my age are immediately categorized into either campy, kind of clowny middle-aged women making them appear much older than they really do look or you're playing someone's grandmother. In Europe, we have this fantastic tradition of really enjoying women over 40, of that not being a taboo at all - people like Catherine Deneuve. Look at [Pedro] Almodóvar, the way he films women with such care and affection. The filmmakers here just love women who've been around a bit longer, they make those wrinkles look beautiful. In English or American films, they just want you to be old and shut up.

Every time you're interviewed, it seems that you're described with some word like haughty, frosty or aristocratic. But you don't seem that way to me.
"Ice queen" is the one they always seem to pick. I think it's the parts you play. Once people have worked with me they know I'm not frosty at all. The parts I play? Someone's gotta do them.

But your breakout role was far from icy. In "Four Weddings and a Funeral," you played the lovelorn Fiona, who ended up marrying Prince Charles. Have you ever discussed that with him?
I met him the day before yesterday for the first time! And no, there was none of that. It was a rather sad occasion that we met. And [the film] was such a long time ago, I think he's forgotten completely.

BY MARK ELLWOOD: NY Daily News 5/17'2009

'Public Enemies': A Third Film With Marion Cotillard for 2009

Johnny Deep, Chistian Bale and Marion Cotillard.

A year ago Marion Cotillard was unknown in the states. Stealing the Oscar from Julie Christie in 2008 put her star on the ascendent. You go girl. And to get Johnny and Christian? Not too shabby.

The Star and Director of 'La Vie En Rose' Reunite

Marion Cotillard as far as I can tell has three movies to be released this year. Her 2008 Oscar win seems to be paying off big time.

Calling Bill Maher

The Idiot and the War Criminal

courtesy of 'Saturday Night Live'

Dave's Top Ten: Sarah Palin's Memoir

Season Three June 7th on Lifetime: 'Army Wives'

1996 or 2009???

Mr. Funny President at the White House Correspondent's Dinner

Letterman Takes On cheyney...cheyney a pathetic little rodent not to mention WAR CRIMINAL and now nothing more than a late night JOKE

Audrey Hepburn the Anniversary of Her Birth

"A Very Stylish Girl"

This is so fitting










Before Kate there was Julie
Before Julie there was AUDREY.
I still miss her.
Audrey would have been 80 years old today.

in her own voice








And then her last film:




some other fan's tributes:

Audrey on 'LIFE'