Vanity Fair Magazine has assembled 14 of Hollywood biggest names for the cover it’s 17th Annual Hollywood Issue. The special edition features sit-down interviews with Hollywood’s stars of the moment. The cover was shot in Los Angeles and New York by photographer Norman Jean Roy. This year’s Oscar hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco, pose [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Robert Duvall’
“The Godfather†Mansion For Sale
December 6th, 2010 |
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How would you like to own a piece of motion picture history? The Staten Island, New York, estate featured prominently in the filming of Francis Ford Coppola’s mobster classic The Godfather nearly 40 years ago is up for sale, according to listing agent Connie Profaci. The owner of the eight-bedroom mansion used in the 1972 [...]
Ewan McGregor replaces Johnny Depp in Don Quixote film
May 19th, 2010 |
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Ewan McGregor has replaced Johnny Depp in Terry Gilliam’s eccentric movie about Spanish literary hero Don Quixote.
The film was titled ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’ a decade ago and Gilliam casted Depp as time travelling advertising executive Tony Grisoni.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star, however, has been forced to quit because of scheduling conflicts.
Gilliam [...]
Havana ceremony honours del Toro
July 31st, 2009 |
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Oscar-winning actor Benicio del Toro has been presented with an award by the Cuban government in Havana, in recognition of his body of work.
The inaugural Tomas Gutierrez Alea prize was presented at a ceremony attended by US actors Robert Duvall, James Caan and Bill Murray.
Their visit is seen as a sign of warming Cuban-US relations.
Puerto Rican-born del Toro played revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara in two films out last year.
Named after prolific Cuban filmmaker Alea, the new award was voted for by the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba.
Del Toro – who won a best supporting actor Oscar for Traffic in 2001 – said it was "an honour" to receive the award and thanked Che director Steven Soderbergh.
The director’s two-part, four-and-a-half hour biopic on the Argentine revolutionary who helped Fidel Castro take power in Cuba in 1959, was a big hit on the island.
Murray sang songs to union members packed into a room behind the group’s main headquarters.
He then jokingly passed around a baseball cap to collect tips for the pianist who accompanied him.
"This is a show that will never be able to be repeated," del Toro said.
"Bill Murray singing, Robert Duvall with his flowers, James Caan sitting here next to me, with [Cuban actors] Jorge Perugorria and Mirta Ibarra.
"It will stay in history forever."
Because of the long-standing US trade embargo against communist Cuba, Americans have been forbidden – with some exceptions – from visiting the island, which is 90 miles (145km) away from Key West, Florida.
Hollywood stars such as Robert Redford, Arnold Schwarzenegger and director Steven Spielberg have visited in the past but cultural exchanges slowed down because of restrictions imposed by former US President George W Bush.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The indie kid’s guide to classical
July 24th, 2009 |
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Chopin has made it on to Radio 1, courtesy of Muse’s latest hit United States of Eurasia. But don’t stop there,
kids: here’s where you and your iPod should venture next
Kids up and down the country are tuning in to Radio 1 and scratching their heads. What’s that weird, long piano section doing at the end of Muse’s new Bohemian Rhapsody-esque single, United States of Eurasia. Isn’t that (whisper it) . . . classical music? Being played on the nation’s favourite youth station? That’s right, kids, it’s Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat major, Op 9 No 2 to be precise. So now, for all you puzzled young ‘uns out there, here’s how to get in to that classical music vibe . . .
How do you listen?
What you need to do is close the curtains, take your clothes off, lie face down with your teeth sunk deep into the carpet. Then get your butler to sprinkle your buttocks with rose petals and put on the 16-plus hours of Wagner’s operatic tetralogy, The Ring, before he retreats, locking the door on you, until the bloody ordeal is over. Not really: what you need is peace, quiet and concentration.
What am I supposed to be listening for?
Radio 3 helps here. It offers two great entry points to classical music. On Discovering Music (Sunday teatime), leading conductors take you passage by passage through a whole work, explaining what the composer was trying to achieve and what you might enjoy. In Building a Library (Saturday mornings), a critic anatomises different recordings of the same work in a manner that switches between the hilariously pernickety and the genuinely instructive – you can even download it as a weekly podcast.
What should I avoid?
For the time being, avoid anything labelled Salford Toccata by Harrison Birtwistle, explosante fixe . . . by Pierre Boulez, Helikopter-Streichquartett by Karlheinz Stockhausen. Stuff by Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg and Olivier Messiaen might well have you calling 999 and shouting hysterically “Fire in the pet shop! Fire in the pet shop!”
What should I try?
Download Thomas Tallis’s Spem in Alium and, if you have functioning ears, prepare to weep. It is a 10-plus minute, 40-part motet written in the late 16th century: a wall of sound more overwhelming than anything in Phil Spector’s philosophy.
Liked that. Now what?
David Mellor is, as we know, wrong about everything, but the name of his Classic FM show, “If you liked that, you’ll like this”, is helpful here. If you liked the Chopin on Muse’s single, then listen to some more Chopin music – say Martha Argerich’s 1965 concert of his sonatas, mazurkas and nocturnes. Or try the andantino from Schubert’s sonata in A – it’s what Isaiah Berlin insisted be played at his funeral. If you like Roy Orbison, Terence Trent d’Arby or – though you really shouldn’t – James Morrison, then you might well like lieder. Lieder is German for songs – helpfully as short as anything on Chris Moyles’s playlist, but more heartfelt than anything that comes from his mouth. Try some lieder cycles: Schubert’s Winterreise or Schumann’s Dichterliebe will shatter your heart. If you like Kraftwerk, you’ll probably dig minimalist music: try Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians or his Different Trains.
Any chance I’ve heard any of this classical stuff before?
Remember Torvill and Dean hurling each other across the ice? Perhaps you weren’t even a twinkle in your dad’s eye then, but if you were, you might enjoy realising that that stuff they were skating to was Ravel’s Bolero and you’d get a kick listening to it properly. And then there was Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries used when Robert Duvall napalmed Vietnam.
Symphonies – they go on and freaking on. Help me over this experiential hump.
Don’t try (yet) the forbiddingly sculptured hours of Bruckner’s symphonies. Plump instead for Beethoven. You’ll know the opening to his fifth (“Da-Da-Da-Dah”) but stick around for its second movement which, if you have heartstrings, will pluck them mercilessly. If you don’t find the first movement of his sixth the perfect accompaniment to a summer walk in the country, then look into my eyes as I give you the frowning of a lifetime. For those of you whose attention spans have been ruined by daytime telly, Haydn symphonies (try his No 94th, the so-called”Surprise”) are often obligingly short.
Five downloads to getyou started
Schubert: the Trout Quintet
Bach: Brandenburg Concertos
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
Beethoven: Symphony No 9
Puccini: Madame Butterfly
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Bettany & Connelly’s Darwin Movie To Open Toronto Film Festival
July 14th, 2009 |
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TORONTO — Real-life couple Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany will kick off the Toronto International Film Festival with the life story of Charles Darwin.
Bettany stars as the theory-of-evolution pioneer and Connelly plays his wife in “…