"He's going to act, and act as if he's not acting.
He's going to be Hud. Cool Hand Luke. Fast Eddie. and Butch Cassidy.
He's going to be a beautiful loser, a self-made orphan, adrift and misjudged, as scornful as he is scorned.
He's going to be the adolescent fantasy of a man's man, tough inside and out, all smirk and sinew, opposed -- not by choice but by the helpless fault of his nature -- to the laws that govern everyone else.
"I don’t know what I've learned," Paul Newman growls in a voice fit to his seventy-five years, many of them spent smoking Marlboros, drinking Scotch and whisky.
Then comes the pause. Loooooong pause. It's a by-God-vintage-Actors-Studio pause, a quiet billowing like fog, a hush that gathers, waiting, falling like the dark. You can hear the tape recorder whirring.
He looks like Paul Newman. That sounds moronic, I know -- he is Paul Newman, dammnit -- but that's still the first thing you notice. His wrinkles are creases now; vertical seams stitch his lips. He is an old man, yes . . . and yet unbent. He is lithe, well oiled, loose -- a sleek old tom. He takes smallish steps, but with a quick, athletic grace. He may have been five feet eleven inches tall, as he used to claim -- his height was once a matter of hot media dispute -- but he's no taller than five nine this evening. Those eyes, so intensely blue, yes, but a blue dyed with depth. He seems tired, a little beat. Hell, he's seventy-five, it's afternoon: Maybe he's just hungry. He just sits there on the couch, hands clasped behind his neck, looking up at the ceiling. He's in no hurry.
You want him to open and spill himself? He won't. He doesn't think of himself like that, as a subject. Long ago, he decided that his inner life would stay that way. "This is the great age of candor," he told Playboy in 1983. "Fuck candor." For him, celebrity was another, lesser role, empty of meaning and not to be trusted, he might even think that fame itself -- had come to him for stupid, superficial reasons. He does not gaze at the mirror and say, 'Holy shit, look at my beautiful eyes.' His right hand lifts his sweater and scratches absentmindedly; his belly looks flat, taut, tanned.
"Maybe that's the problem: I don't know what I've learned that's going to make these golden years golden."
He laughs, he laughs to himself.
This is textbook Newman. He is an ancient mariner, a survivor of a generation of tough guys, a stranger to self-congratulation and self-parody, a man who busted his nuts and yet found it unnecessary to seek release and affirmation in moshing with hotel furniture, punching pencil-necked photographers, or dancing the Watusi when he hit the end zone. Rarer than a virgin in Las Vegas is a Paul Newman interview in which luck, whimsy, and serendipity don't get the credit for his success.
"It is just luck. It is stunning. I didn't think very much about the future. I never felt like a leading man, never felt it. You've gotta feel like a leading man in order to be a leading man, and I never had that kind of confidence."
The first time he actually saw himself on a movie screen, in 1954, he was shit-faced drunk, a blessing in disguise. The Silver Chalice was the title, a costume drama, the kind of epic that is laughable kitsch even when done well, which this wasn't. Jack Palance, playing the pagan magician, was lucky enough to be disguised by an evil goatee; Newman, wrapped in a mini toga, played the slave turned sculptor whose task was to craft the goblet Christ would use at the Last Supper.
At a movie house in Philly, slumped down with a case of brew, he watched himself, a cigar-store Indian in ancient Rome, turning slowly to deliver his first line of film dialogue.
"I hope these hands never again have to perform such a sad duty," he said, his voice as flat and dead as dirt.
Surviving that dog took luck.
James Dean dying and bequeathing to Newman his first plum role, as Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me -- good luck, too, at least for Newman.
Meeting Joanne Woodward, not just a great actress but a raving beauty, a Georgia peach who not only could live with Newman's obliquity and rough edges but could also share her passion for literature, for politics -- and who was willing to set aside the meat of her career to raise their kids: That was very lucky, too.
But he had something beyond the luck. It was Newman who refused when Warner Bros. suggested that he change his name to something that sounded less Jewish, who bought out his first and last studio contract in 1959 for half a million dollars he didn't have and became one of the first movie stars of his time who would control his value, who bought a home in Connecticut in 1962 and lives there still, who marched in Alabama in '63 and campaigned for Gene McCarthy in '68, who spoke of his beliefs in public and backed them with good deeds and money at a time when most citizens sat mute -- especially those types whose earnings were based on an image of insouciant glamour -- and who refused to mail in the same tired, smirking, tough-guy, buddy-buddy formula in movie after movie, choosing instead to grow as an actor and as a man.
Luck?
Sure.
Great good luck -- and the will to work and the stamina to endure it.
Luck, heart, and a pair of big stone balls. Let's go down memory lane. Brando? A lunatic, an island in Hollywood.
Dean? Dead.
McQueen? Dead.
Monty Clift? Dead. Newman? Loooooong pause.
"Let me retire to the john," he says. "This beer has gone through me fast." He has consumed one seven-ounce pony of Budweiser.
He comes back rubbing his cheek. He has seen the red mark on his nose.
"I go to the doctor once a year," he explains, "to have my face scraped. All the rough edges -- it's sore as hell. It's what they call a precancerous growth. One of those choice things that come with age."
He is seventy-five years old now. He has seen his colleagues come and, most of them, go. He doesn't kid himself about the future.
"You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: Holy Christ, whaddya know -- I'm still around. It is absolutely amazing that I survived, survived all the booze and the smoking and the cars and the career. I'm at that age when you really start thinking about what the end is going to be like and how gracefully you're gonna do that. If I would have to say I was preoccupied with anything, it would be just wondering how graceful that exit is gonna be.
"Is it just gonna be non compos mentis? Is it gonna be graceful? Is it gonna be quick? Is it gonna be one of those long, drawn-out . . . you wonder about it. It doesn't occupy my day, but you wonder about it."
Suddenly, Joanne Woodward enters the room.
"This is my lady," Newman says, introducing us, and the gravel in his voice is gone. His voice is rich and warm and full of joy.
Lucky, yes. She is seventy years old, more rounded now than curved, and more beautiful for that. She smiles at him with that look that women have who have come to cherish the boy in their man.
"Don't believe any of it," she warns me on her way out to dinner. "It's all one big joke."
But this much is no joke: He has slowed. He retired from auto racing in 1995, after winning the GT-1 championship at the Daytona Rolex 24 at the age of seventy, and the movie work is sparse, redundant, cued by his creases and old white head and dusty pipes. Since Nobody's Fool in 1994 -- a fine job, garnering him his eighth Oscar nomination for Best Actor; he lost, of course, to Mr. Box o' Chocolates -- he has played a creaky shamus in 1998's Twilight, and he did his level best as Kevin Costner's pop, crusty and wise, in Message in a Bottle. In Where the Money Is he plays yet another cranky alter kocker, a bank robber who fakes a stroke to get out of prison and into a nursing home, where Linda Fiorentino, playing the hot 'n' nasty nurse, cajoles him into one last heist.
And since?
"Lean stuff out there. It's dry, a dry season." His voice, solemn to begin with, trails off into a grunt.
I ask about The Homesman, a project he's talked about the past few years, a character-driven western he's written and rewritten. He has said that he'd like to direct it and star in it with his wife -- they've done eleven pictures together -- and then call it quits.
"I can't seem to get anybody interested," he says. "I may have just run out of steam on it."
Hard to believe, I say, that no one's interested.
He squints, frowning. Tell him you love his popcorn and red sauce and salad dressing and he'll thank you kindly with a twinkle in his eyes, but don't blow smoke up Paul Newman's bony old ass. Don't even try.
So, if the scripts he sees these days are few and far between, if the directors now come from MTV and NYU, if the writers are fresh from Harvard, and if the actors are from the San Diego Zoo, digitally enhanced planks of pine who moan about the emotional agony, the soul torture, of playing a part in a fucking movie -- if he never acts again, so what?
He began to produce and direct his own films; the first, Rachel, Rachel, starring Woodward, which earned a Best Picture nomination in 1968. In 1969, he formed First Artists Production Company with Sidney Poitier; later, Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman joined up. The idea was that they would produce quality films, films they cared about. The reality was that the lunatics couldn't run the asylum, and he himself was bored, frustrated, sick of playing Paul Newman playing Paul Newman.
"I'm running out of steam," he said in 1968. "Wherever I look, I find parts reminiscent of Luke or Hud or Fast Eddie. Christ, I played those parts once and parts of them more than once. It's not only dangerous to repeat yourself, it's damned tiresome."Besides, he had discovered racing. This circle he liked -- fast and faster, no thought beyond the screaming cockpit, no introspection, no box office. You won or you didn't. He kept his filming schedule clear from April to October -- racing season -- and turned pro in 1977. He was fifty-two years old, and acting was now something he did on the side.
And this he could use to become the actor he'd always wanted to be, free of all the smirking boyo shit and freeze-framed machismo.
The transformation began in yet another movie no one saw, 1976's Buffalo Bill & the Indians, in which Newman played the living legend as a drunken buffoon and a showbiz fraud. And when Redford pulled out of The Verdict because playing the boozehound shyster wouldn't gloss his image, Newman took the part, pouring himself into a raw wound of a character and -- stripped of all mannerism -- bared the soul and spirit of the man, coming out on the other side in the flat-out best ride of his career.
He is what his father was, a family man. Five daughters. His first child, Scott, his only son, overdosed and died at the age of twenty-eight, in 1978. Scott had tried to become an actor, had tried stunt work, had changed his name to William Scott and tried to become a singer. It had been bad between them for a long time before the pills and alcohol carried Scott away.
When the phone call came, he was not surprised to hear that Scott had died. What shocked him was the anger and the hurt. What enveloped him then was the length of the shadow his own father had cast, and the darkness of the shadow now belonged to him.
Then a line of dialogue drifts back to him from twenty-five years ago, from when he played Buffalo Bill for Robert Altman: "The last thing a man wants to do is the last thing he does." "I don't ask any questions about it," he says. "I'm afraid that if I ask any questions about it, I could come up with the wrong answer. It's the act in itself that is the important thing, not seeking out the motivation for it. Every donation that I ever made to anything was always anonymous. Now I have to broadcast it. I really don't like it."
He is now a spokesman for the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy, whose goal is to increase the total annual amount of corporate donations from $9 billion to $15 billion by 2004. He spoke late last year at the kickoff banquet to a gaggle of CEOs -- Chase Manhattan, Kmart, Citibank, Xerox, America Online: more than two dozen of the lucky bastards, all self-made, rugged individualists who weren't born in Papua, New Guinea -- and told them, "Wipe your minds," and asked them to commit 2 percent of their annual after-tax profits to charity.
Well, they said, they'd have to think about it. They'd have to consider their responsibilities to the shareholders.
They thought about it. They discussed it. They voted no. "With all the questionable things we're capable of doing," he tells me, and this clause is followed by another long pause, "it seems that all entities should participate in holding out their hands to people who have less than they have." He knows that the last thing a man wants to do is the last thing he does". Source: www.esquire.com
"Thought of you as my mountain top, Thought of you as my peak. Thought of you as everything, I've had but couldn't keep. I've had but couldn't keep. Linger on, your pale blue eyes. Linger on, your pale blue eyes.
If I could make the world as pure and strange as what I see, I'd put you in the mirror, I put in front of me. I put in front of me. Linger on, your pale blue eyes. Linger on, your pale blue eyes.
Skip a life completely. Stuff it in a cup. She said, Money is like us in time, It lies, but can't stand up. Down for you is up. Linger on, your pale blue eyes. Linger on, your pale blue eyes"
"Pale Blue Eyes" lyrics by The Velvet Underground.
What She's Done: Besides heating up the screen in 'Transformers,' Fox has positioned herself as a saucy sex symbol -- her Maxim cover was a scorcher.
What's Next: This fall's comedy 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People'; 'Whore' (really), 'Jennifer's Body' (a comedy horror penned by 'Juno' scribe Diablo Cody); and 'Transformers 2.'
Industry Buzz: "I honestly believe that Megan is here to stay," says Robert Weide, director of 'How to Lose Friends.' "She'll constantly surprise people by her range. Anyone who thinks she's just a pretty face is going to be surprised in the same way they were when Michelle Pfeiffer proved she really was an actress." MICHAEL CERA Age: 20 Years on List: 2007, 2008
What He's Done: Cera made the leap from TV star ('Arrested Development') to box office draw with the raunch-fest 'Superbad' and the Oscar-nominated 'Juno' in '07.
What's Next: He'll follow up October's 'Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist' with starring roles in 'Year One,' 'Youth in Revolt' and 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.'
Industry Buzz: "With 'Arrested Development,' 'Superbad' and 'Juno,' he always came across as an appealing, funny kid," says Entertainment Weekly's Dave Karger. "But in 'Nick & Norah,' he's really emerging as a young man, and a very likable one."
SHIA LABEOUF Age: 22 Years on List: 2007, 2008
What He's Done: The Beef made the leap from Disney tween ('Even Stevens,' 'Holes') to blockbuster action star ('Transformers,' 'Indiana Jones') in what seemed like a week (actuality: four years).
What's Next: He reunites with 'Disturbia' director D.J. Caruso in this month's thriller 'Eagle Eye' while filming next summer's 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.'
Industry Buzz: "Shia is genuine, and very real," says Caruso. "He's the good-looking guy next door, he's your best friend next door, he's a little bit of everything. He's been blessed with that." ELLEN PAGE Age: 21 Years on List: 2007, 2008
What She's Done: She played Kitty Pride in 'X-Men: The Last Stand,' but her turn as a pregnant teen in 'Juno' made her a household name (and scored her an Oscar nod).
What's Next: She'll star in the thriller 'Peacock,' play a roller derby skater in Drew Barrymore's 'Whip It!' and take the title role in a new adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre.'
Industry Buzz: "The amazing thing about Ellen is how sophisticated her tastes are," says EW's Dave Karger. "We will probably never see her take on a typical starlet role. She's so strongly associated with her 'Juno' character, but I'm sure we'll soon see there's a lot more to her than that." ANTON YELCHIN Age: 19 Years on List: 2008
What He's Done: Long called a "next big thing," he's impressed in movies that had trouble finding audiences ('Alpha Dog,' 'Fierce People,' 'Charlie Bartlett').
What's Next: The actor's next two projects -- 'Star Trek' and 'Terminator Salvation' -- should have no such trouble. Both are slated for a summer 2009 release.
Industry Buzz: "He may not be a name that many people know, but he's already delivered very impressive performances in 'Charlie Bartlett,' where he really carried the entire film, and 'Alpha Dog', says Dave Karger of EW". EMMA STONE Age: 19 Years on List: 2008 What She's Done: Her resume's heavy on comedy -- from the super hit 'Superbad' to lesser films 'The Rocker' and 'The House Bunny.'
What's Next: She'll play to her strengths -- she's next up in the Matthew McConaughey rom-com 'The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,' by 'Mean Girls' director Mark Waters.
Industry Buzz: Says L.A. Daily News and LA.com film critic Bob Strauss, "This summer's 'Rocker' and 'House Bunny' weren't up there with last year's hysterical 'Superbad.' But Emma Stone maintained her sweet and natural quality through all three no matter how outrageous or unfunny matters got. She's the most superb straightwoman of her age group, and that's a rare talent in any generation." KAT DENNINGS Age: 22 Years on List: 2008
What She's Done: She was Catherine Keener's not-quite-sexually-active daughter in '40-Year-Old Virgin'; played a goth girl who gets an Anna Faris makeover in 'The House Bunny.'
What's Next: She plays Michael Cera's possible soul mate in 'Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist,' then stars in Robert Rodriguez's kid-friendly 'Shorts' and the college football flick 'End Zone.'
Industry Buzz: "Kat is a refreshing and remarkable actress," says 'Nick and Norah' director Peter Sollett. "She's unbound by what she thinks a director might be expecting of her, instead favoring unique interpretation of her character. She's an independent-minded artist who is here to stay." MILEY CYRUS Age: 15 Years on List: 2008
What She's Done: The ubiquitous teen's 'Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds' concert flick shocked the movie industry with a $31 million opening weekend.
What's Next: She lends her voice to fall's animated Disney flick 'Bolt'; 'Hannah Montana' continues its Hollywood takeover in April '09; and Nicholas Sparks is tailor-making a script for her.
Industry Buzz: "She has great talent and family values," says Falco Ink. publicist Janice Roland. "Her talent will take her to the next level. I think she has staying power if she stays with her fans. As her fans grow up, she should be there with them." GEMMA ARTERTON Age: 22 Years on List: 2008
What She's Done: The new Brit on the block is bursting on the scene with a pivotal role in this year's Bond, 'Quantum of Solace,' and a part in Guy Ritchie's 'Rocknrolla.'
What's Next: You may catch her in the English comedy 'The Boat That Rocked,' but you're sure to see her in the epic actioner 'The Prince of Persia.'
Industry Buzz: "Gemma is an extraordinary talent," says 'Solace' director Marc Forster. "I told her when I first met her on the first day: 'You will work until you're very, very old.' Because I think she's extraordinarily gifted and she has incredible timing. Her comedic timing is brilliant, and her dramatic quality as well." SCARLETT JOHANSSON Age: 23 Years on List: 2007, 2008
What She's Done: Since capturing moviegoers' attention in 'The Horse Whisperer' at age 14, she's earned raves for 'Lost in Translation,' been Woody Allen's muse in a trifecta of films and generally made men swoon.
What's Next: She'll star opposite Jennifer Aniston and Drew Barrymore in 'He's Just Not That Into You,' play a comic-book vixen in 'The Spirit' and get married to Ryan Reynolds (sorry, guys).
Industry Buzz: "Being Woody Allen's muse isn't a bad gig," says USA Today's Susan Wloszczyna. "But at 23, the experienced-beyond-her-years Johansson deserves to appear in high-caliber movies like 'Lost in Translation,' not splashed on more magazine covers." SEE FULL LIST in www.moviefone.com
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) Backstage part 1:
Backstage part 2 of the Disney feature film; Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), shot in Marrakech, Ouarzazate, Agdez Arfoud Morocco:
Backstage part 3 of the Disney feature film; Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), shot in Marrakech, Ouarzazate, Agdez Arfoud Morocco:
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) Backstage, Backstage of the Disney feature film; Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), shot in Marrakech, Ouarzazate, Agdez Arfoud Morocco:
"Disney gave IESB a sneak peek and The Surrogates and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time at the Walt Disney Studios Showcase in Hollywood on Wednesday. Prince of Persia is massive - the sets are huge, the action sequences are huge and the only thing that comes to mind is that this is another Pirates of the Caribbean in the making. Can you say billion dollar franchise?" Source: www.iesb.net
Drew Barrymore splits from Justin Long. A source close to the actress says the two ‘are still friends’. Drew Barrymore and Justin Long have broken up. Her rep confirmed the news with no other details than that the two "remain friends". Source: Evan Agostini / AP file Drew Barrymore kissing Ed Westwick, Chuck Bass in "Gossip Girl". "Kirsten Dunst was looking particularly smiley in NYC on Saturday, but she found herself in a little bit of drama earlier that night. She stopped by SNL to support her Spider-Man costar James Franco, and ran into Drew Barrymore who was there to cheer on her BFF Cameron for her cougar cameo. Apparently Drew wasn't too happy to see her ex Justin Long's rumored new flame and the ladies had to split off with their respective celebrity buddies. The awkwardness continued at the after party at Wildwood Barbeque, as Drew and Kirsten continued to do their best to keep their distance in the crowd of celebs that included Emile Hirsch, Ellen Page, and the kids from Gossip Girl".Source: popsugar.com
"Natalie Portman and her folk-rocker boyfriend Devendra Banhart have broken up, a source confirms to PEOPLE.
Portman, 27, began dating Banhart, also 27, after starring in his "Carmensita" video, which was shot last March. A short time later, they took their romance public when they were spotting kissing on the streets of New York and over a sushi dinner at Jewel Bako.
A fan of Banhart's music, Portman had asked him to donate a track to the charity compilation she curated on iTunes, Big Change: Songs for FINCA. She returned the favor by forgoing her usual fee to appear in the video".
"Michael Cera is in. Now what about the rock 'n' roll?
Inspired equally by music and video games, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s “Scott Pilgrim” series is a “High Fidelity” for those weaned equally on Nintendo and record stores. The six-part comic series -- Parts 1-4 are out now, and O’Malley hopes to have Book 5 in stores by the end of 2008 -- is being turned into a film by Universal Pictures, with shooting pegged to begin later this year.The books may not come with a soundtrack, but music has a starring role. For instance, the title in Book 3, “Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness,” is a nod to a certain Smashing Pumpkins album, and the main character himself is named after a song from little-known defunct indie rock band Plumtree.
“Juno’s” Cera has been cast as the young Scott Pilgrim, a character who tempers his self-proclaimed awesomeness with a bevy of neurotic ticks. So how much, if any, of Pilgrim’s mystique comes from being in a rock band?
“None”, said O’Malley. “Zero percent. The girl doesn’t care about the band. I had one girlfriend who was obsessed with the fact that I wrote and recorded songs, which, of course, is great for the ego. But to the woman who became my wife, my musicality is just little bonus on the side, if that, which is probably better in the long run.”"I thought of early Uncle Tupelo, when they were really smushing punk and country into one weird arrhythmic monstrosity," O'Malley continued.The band's Jeff Tweedy went on to form adventurous pop act Wilco, while Jay Farrar, who voiced most of Uncle Tupelo's songs, started Son Volt.One of Uncle Tupelo's early songs, "I Got Drunk," is below, but it probably doesn't provide a full picture of the sound of Sex Bob-omb. O'Malley is quick to add that Bob-omb is "not nearly as good, and 10 years too late, and with Scott and [drummer] Kim singing along and adding ba-ba-bas to everything."
[...] Here's the track list, which O'Malley describes as kind of an "intersection between '70s rock, Canadian Pilgrim_basslineindie stuff and a laid-back country feel."
1. Plumtree, "Scott Pilgrim" 2. Joel Plaskett, "When I Have My Vision" 3. The Flying Burrito Brothers, "To Ramona" 4. Thrush Hermit, "Oh Man! (What to Do?) 5. Wilco, "Someday Soon" 6. Big Star, "O My Soul" 7. Sloan, "Can't Face Up" 8. Guster, "Ramona" 9. Old 97s, "Stoned" 10. Super Friendz, "10 lbs" 11. Beachwood Sparks, "By Your Side" 12. Cuff the Duke, "Long Winter" 13. David Bowie, "Let's Spend the Night Together" 14. Mamas and the Papas, "Dedicated to the One I Love"
"After the commercial success of "Transformers" and "Disturbia," "Eagle Eye" reaffirms the status of the likable Shia LaBeouf as one of the prominent thespians of his generation.The screenplay by Alex Kurtzman (also a producer) was proposed by Spielberg, who's credited as exec producer and is instrumental in launching and keeping on track LaBeouf's career (and much publicized life off-screen). Spielberg's concept stipulated that technology was becoming ubiquitous, surrounding us in many ways, and thus can suddenly or not so suddenly turn against us human beings. In 1968, in his seminal sci-fi "2001: A Space Odyssey", Kubrick played with the notion of what if the technology that that we love and depend on, was used on us in harmful ways, beyond our control. Since then, there have been several film about this idea, some by Spielberg himself.While socializing with her peers one night, Rachel receives an odd call on her cell by a strange, anonymous woman, who tells her to follow instructions blindly and implicitly, or else Sam, whose appearance is visible on a wall of TV screens across the streets, will get killed.Back in Chicago, Jerry finds his usually meager bank account inflated to $750,000, and his sparsely furnished apartment crammed with do-it-yourself terrorist supplies. He, too, receives a call from the same mysterious woman, warning him to run away, or risk being arrested.
While still digesting the menacing news, Jerry is apprehended. Tonally, "Eagle Eye" exploits not only our heavy reliance on technology--specifically cell phones and Blackberries--but on the prevailing fear, scare and paranoia in the wake of 9/11, the notions that we are never really alone, that unknown people could observe and control our behavior, that we could be arrested on the slightest suspicion or whim.When Jerry and Rachel first meet, they immediately assume that the other is the source of their troubles. However, they quickly realize they are both victims in a larger scenario over which they have no control, and that if they are to survive, must learn to trust one another.
[...] Rounding out the cast were Ethan Embry as FBI Agent Grant and Anthony Mackie as Major Bowman. Caruso. An underling agent to Morgan, Grant is always nervous around his hothead boss, but he's the guy who provides the vital information and thus propels the plot forward. Once the basic situations and premises are set, the narrative declines in energy, and the second half of the film, which becomes more of an actioner than a paranoia thriller, is rather generic and predictable, containing all the requisite escapes, chase scenes, bombs and explosions". Source: emanuellevy.comMichelle Monaghan as Rachel Holloman in "Eagle Eye". Michelle Monaghan and Shia Labeouf at The Los Angeles Premiere of Eagle Eye, 16 September 2008.
"On a shadowy, non-existent street in Weirdsville, USA, first-time writer-director Richard Kelly lives next door to David Lynch and Greg Araki. In order to keep up with the neighbours, he has crafted his own magnificently bizarre hybrid of suburban paranoia and apocalyptic teen angst.
Of course, there could be a 'logical' explanation for the disturbing nightmares and time-travelling episodes that central-character Donnie undergoes. He's a sharply intelligent but world-weary boy, and the fact that he avoids taking his medication hints that what we're seeing – including his imaginary giant rabbit friend – is the by-product of some form of schizophrenia.
But Kelly leaves plenty of room for dark and playful ambiguity, and it's the casting of Jake Gyllenhaal that makes these bold moves succeed. A black sheep triplet to Tobey Maguire and Elijah Wood, Gyllenhaal's exquisite comic timing and laidback personality create a wonderful tension with the odd events surrounding Donnie. Cult glory beckons".
“My father-in-law’s mother committed suicide in the great depression. He said to me, ‘Movies saved me, every week I would see heroes winning and I thought I could be that.’ That’s a pretty powerful argument.”
“Why do you think people come to the United States of America? Are people smuggling the constitution under their pillow and reading it at night in Bangladesh? Or are they seeing things in American film?A movie could have a direct message with Maggie Gyllenhaal and the Gyllenhaal triumvirate of hate that says that America is horrible, and yet that message is overwhelmed by the proliferation of excess on the screen. They’re like ‘Did you see there were four different types of orange juice on the table? I’d rather go to that place where those people are complaining about how badly they have it.’ You know it’s like I think that people read between the lines, that America, despite the fact that our Hollywood class says ‘It sucks here. It’s horrible’. People see it on the screen and go, ‘No it doesn’t. Look at all that shit you have! It’s so good there, I want a piece of it.’”
[...] “These people [the as of yet closeted conservatives] want they want to reconnect Hollywood to its initial successes. Not this sort of dark inverted, moral system, that expresses the darkness of these peoples’ spirits. They’re really dark people. They’re conflicted people and they want us to see how conflicted they are.”
"DUBAI (Dobayy), second largest of the seven emirates constituting the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf. [...] Almost half the inhabitants of Dubai are from the Indian subcontinent; 100,000-150,000 are of Persian origin. This Persian community, the largest in the U.A.E., has been instrumental in promoting ties between Persia and Dubai.
Relations with Persia before 1357/1979. Toward the end of the 19th century the Persian port of Lenga lost its free-trade status, and nearby Dubai became the leading entrepôt in the area. The liberal policies of the emir of Dubai persuaded many Persian merchants to move there from Lenga. Dubai thus became the major port for trade with Persia. In addition, the growing Persian community provided opportunities for special cultural ties between the two countries. Nevertheless, Dubai, as a member of the Trucial States, was still under British control, and its relations with Persia were governed by the overall relations between Great Britain and Persia.Persia was able to exploit the rivalry between Dubai and Abu Dhabi by developing close ties with the emir of Dubai. A consulate was opened in Dubai in July 1952; it was elevated to consulate general in 1954. On the other hand, the trade-oriented economy of Dubai ensured the emir's greater interest in Persia than in his immediate neighbors. In the early 1970s more than half of about 50,000 trading dhows in Dubai were engaged primarily in re-export trade with Persia. Cultural relations flourished as well, as Persia sponsored educational, health, and other institutions in Dubai. Students from Dubai attended Persian universities, particularly in Shiraz.
[...] The end of the war and subsequent developments in the Persian Gulf area, including the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, only strengthened ties between Persia and Dubai. Many hospitals, schools, banks, recreation clubs, workers' cooperatives, and other institutions in Dubai are run directly by the Persian government or semigovernmental organizations. If no new major crises occur capitalist initiatives adopted recently by the Persian government should strengthen relations with Dubai in the near future". Source: www.iranica.com
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"I don’t know what I've learned," Paul Newman growls in a voice fit to his seventy-five years, many of them spent smoking Marlboros, drinking Scotch and whisky.
Then comes the pause. Loooooong pause. It's a by-God-vintage-Actors-Studio pause, a quiet billowing like fog, a hush that gathers, waiting, falling like the dark. You can hear the tape recorder whirring.
He looks like Paul Newman. That sounds moronic, I know -- he is Paul Newman, dammnit -- but that's still the first thing you notice. His wrinkles are creases now; vertical seams stitch his lips. He is an old man, yes . . . and yet unbent. He is lithe, well oiled, loose -- a sleek old tom. He takes smallish steps, but with a quick, athletic grace. He may have been five feet eleven inches tall, as he used to claim -- his height was once a matter of hot media dispute -- but he's no taller than five nine this evening. Those eyes, so intensely blue, yes, but a blue dyed with depth. He seems tired, a little beat. Hell, he's seventy-five, it's afternoon: Maybe he's just hungry. He just sits there on the couch, hands clasped behind his neck, looking up at the ceiling. He's in no hurry.
You want him to open and spill himself? He won't. He doesn't think of himself like that, as a subject. Long ago, he decided that his inner life would stay that way. "This is the great age of candor," he told Playboy in 1983. "Fuck candor." For him, celebrity was another, lesser role, empty of meaning and not to be trusted, he might even think that fame itself -- had come to him for stupid, superficial reasons. He does not gaze at the mirror and say, 'Holy shit, look at my beautiful eyes.' His right hand lifts his sweater and scratches absentmindedly; his belly looks flat, taut, tanned.
"Maybe that's the problem: I don't know what I've learned that's going to make these golden years golden."
He laughs, he laughs to himself. 
This is textbook Newman. He is an ancient mariner, a survivor of a generation of tough guys, a stranger to self-congratulation and self-parody, a man who busted his nuts and yet found it unnecessary to seek release and affirmation in moshing with hotel furniture, punching pencil-necked photographers, or dancing the Watusi when he hit the end zone. Rarer than a virgin in Las Vegas is a Paul Newman interview in which luck, whimsy, and serendipity don't get the credit for his success.
"It is just luck. It is stunning. I didn't think very much about the future. I never felt like a leading man, never felt it. You've gotta feel like a leading man in order to be a leading man, and I never had that kind of confidence."
The first time he actually saw himself on a movie screen, in 1954, he was shit-faced drunk, a blessing in disguise. The Silver Chalice was the title, a costume drama, the kind of epic that is laughable kitsch even when done well, which this wasn't. Jack Palance, playing the pagan magician, was lucky enough to be disguised by an evil goatee; Newman, wrapped in a mini toga, played the slave turned sculptor whose task was to craft the goblet Christ would use at the Last Supper.
At a movie house in Philly, slumped down with a case of brew, he watched himself, a cigar-store Indian in ancient Rome, turning slowly to deliver his first line of film dialogue.
"I hope these hands never again have to perform such a sad duty," he said, his voice as flat and dead as dirt.
Surviving that dog took luck.
James Dean dying and bequeathing to Newman his first plum role, as Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me -- good luck, too, at least for Newman.
Meeting Joanne Woodward, not just a great actress but a raving beauty, a Georgia peach who not only could live with Newman's obliquity and rough edges but could also share her passion for literature, for politics -- and who was willing to set aside the meat of her career to raise their kids: That was very lucky, too.
But he had something beyond the luck. It was Newman who refused when Warner Bros. suggested that he change his name to something that sounded less Jewish, who bought out his first and last studio contract in 1959 for half a million dollars he didn't have and became one of the first movie stars of his time who would control his value, who bought a home in Connecticut in 1962 and lives there still, who marched in Alabama in '63 and campaigned for Gene McCarthy in '68, who spoke of his beliefs in public and backed them with good deeds and money at a time when most citizens sat mute -- especially those types whose earnings were based on an image of insouciant glamour -- and who refused to mail in the same tired, smirking, tough-guy, buddy-buddy formula in movie after movie, choosing instead to grow as an actor and as a man.
Luck?
Sure.
Great good luck -- and the will to work and the stamina to endure it. .jpg)
Suddenly, Joanne Woodward enters the room.
"This is my lady," Newman says, introducing us, and the gravel in his voice is gone. His voice is rich and warm and full of joy.
Lucky, yes. She is seventy years old, more rounded now than curved, and more beautiful for that. She smiles at him with that look that women have who have come to cherish the boy in their man.
"Don't believe any of it," she warns me on her way out to dinner. "It's all one big joke."
But this much is no joke: He has slowed. He retired from auto racing in 1995, after winning the GT-1 championship at the Daytona Rolex 24 at the age of seventy, and the movie work is sparse, redundant, cued by his creases and old white head and dusty pipes. Since Nobody's Fool in 1994 -- a fine job, garnering him his eighth Oscar nomination for Best Actor; he lost, of course, to Mr. Box o' Chocolates -- he has played a creaky shamus in 1998's Twilight, and he did his level best as Kevin Costner's pop, crusty and wise, in Message in a Bottle. In Where the Money Is he plays yet another cranky alter kocker, a bank robber who fakes a stroke to get out of prison and into a nursing home, where Linda Fiorentino, playing the hot 'n' nasty nurse, cajoles him into one last heist.
And since?
"Lean stuff out there. It's dry, a dry season." His voice, solemn to begin with, trails off into a grunt.
I ask about The Homesman, a project he's talked about the past few years, a character-driven western he's written and rewritten. He has said that he'd like to direct it and star in it with his wife -- they've done eleven pictures together -- and then call it quits.
"I can't seem to get anybody interested," he says. "I may have just run out of steam on it."
Hard to believe, I say, that no one's interested.
He squints, frowning. Tell him you love his popcorn and red sauce and salad dressing and he'll thank you kindly with a twinkle in his eyes, but don't blow smoke up Paul Newman's bony old ass. Don't even try.
So, if the scripts he sees these days are few and far between, if the directors now come from MTV and NYU, if the writers are fresh from Harvard, and if the actors are from the San Diego Zoo, digitally enhanced planks of pine who moan about the emotional agony, the soul torture, of playing a part in a fucking movie -- if he never acts again, so what?
He began to produce and direct his own films; the first, Rachel, Rachel, starring Woodward, which earned a Best Picture nomination in 1968. In 1969, he formed First Artists Production Company with Sidney Poitier; later, Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman joined up. The idea was that they would produce quality films, films they cared about. The reality was that the lunatics couldn't run the asylum, and he himself was bored, frustrated, sick of playing Paul Newman playing Paul Newman.
"I'm running out of steam," he said in 1968. "Wherever I look, I find parts reminiscent of Luke or Hud or Fast Eddie. Christ, I played those parts once and parts of them more than once. It's not only dangerous to repeat yourself, it's damned tiresome."
Besides, he had discovered racing. This circle he liked -- fast and faster, no thought beyond the screaming cockpit, no introspection, no box office. You won or you didn't. He kept his filming schedule clear from April to October -- racing season -- and turned pro in 1977. He was fifty-two years old, and acting was now something he did on the side.
And this he could use to become the actor he'd always wanted to be, free of all the smirking boyo shit and freeze-framed machismo.
The transformation began in yet another movie no one saw, 1976's Buffalo Bill & the Indians, in which Newman played the living legend as a drunken buffoon and a showbiz fraud. And when Redford pulled out of The Verdict because playing the boozehound shyster wouldn't gloss his image, Newman took the part, pouring himself into a raw wound of a character and -- stripped of all mannerism -- bared the soul and spirit of the man, coming out on the other side in the flat-out best ride of his career.
He is what his father was, a family man. Five daughters. His first child, Scott, his only son, overdosed and died at the age of twenty-eight, in 1978. Scott had tried to become an actor, had tried stunt work, had changed his name to William Scott and tried to become a singer. It had been bad between them for a long time before the pills and alcohol carried Scott away.
When the phone call came, he was not surprised to hear that Scott had died. What shocked him was the anger and the hurt. What enveloped him then was the length of the shadow his own father had cast, and the darkness of the shadow now belonged to him.
Then a line of dialogue drifts back to him from twenty-five years ago, from when he played Buffalo Bill for Robert Altman: "The last thing a man wants to do is the last thing he does." "I don't ask any questions about it," he says. "I'm afraid that if I ask any questions about it, I could come up with the wrong answer. It's the act in itself that is the important thing, not seeking out the motivation for it. Every donation that I ever made to anything was always anonymous. Now I have to broadcast it. I really don't like it."
He is now a spokesman for the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy, whose goal is to increase the total annual amount of corporate donations from $9 billion to $15 billion by 2004. He spoke late last year at the kickoff banquet to a gaggle of CEOs -- Chase Manhattan, Kmart, Citibank, Xerox, America Online: more than two dozen of the lucky bastards, all self-made, rugged individualists who weren't born in Papua, New Guinea -- and told them, "Wipe your minds," and asked them to commit 2 percent of their annual after-tax profits to charity.
Well, they said, they'd have to think about it. They'd have to consider their responsibilities to the shareholders.
They thought about it. They discussed it. They voted no. "With all the questionable things we're capable of doing," he tells me, and this clause is followed by another long pause, "it seems that all entities should participate in holding out their hands to people who have less than they have." He knows that the last thing a man wants to do is the last thing he does". Source: www.esquire.com
