Terry Gilliam remembers Heath Ledger

"He died halfway through the film I'm currently making, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. We had finished shooting in London on Saturday night. On Sunday, I went to Vancouver to prepare for the next stage and Heath went to New York. He was supposed to be turning up in Vancouver on the Friday. On Tuesday he was dead.

None of us could deal with it. It was impossible - that was the problem. It was absolutely impossible that this could be a fact. But there it was. I was working in the art department when I heard the news, and we stayed there all afternoon. At sunset, thousands of ravens flew over the window and I thought: those are the ravens from The Brothers Grimm, and they are all going to salute Heath.

In terms of his acting, it still rankles with me that he's dead because he would have been streets ahead of anyone else in his generation. He just kept getting better and better. He was fearless. On Parnassus, he was improvising all the time and it was better than what we had written. I don't normally encourage that kind of improvisation, but in a sense I felt Heath was writing this film. He was an incredibly funny performer when he wanted to be - his comic timing was just extraordinary - and then he could break your heart the next minute.
When he died, there were all these nonsensical stories coming out about Heath Ledger, James Dean and River Phoenix, all destroyed by the system - but that's bullshit. What happened was an absurd accident. I still don't understand it. I know he was exhausted - the last thing he said was that he was so tired and just wanted to sleep. You actually think at certain times angels come down to earth and Heath might have been one of them. And then he's gone and you think: this is all wrong, all the other people should be dead. He should be leading us all into a wonderful world of adventure". Source: www.guardian.co.uk

"Now that Heath Ledger has been posthumously nominated for a Golden Globe, there's maneuvering behind the scenes as to who will accept the award should he win.

"Kim desperately wants to do it," one cognoscento tells us of Heath's father. "But the studio and the producers would rather have Michelle receive it on behalf of Matilda" - the couple'sdaughter.

Some Hollywood insiders have speculated that the foreign journalists who decide upon the Golden Globes choose some nominees based on their attractiveness and star power, to goose up their televised awards show's ratings. Michelle Williams, who broke up with Ledger four months before he died in January, is a lot purtier than the senior Ledger, who accepted an "Aussie" award for his son last weekend.

But a friend of the family tells us, "Why would Michelle be involved? She had nothing to do with the movie. They weren't even together when he passed away. Would you have your ex-wife accept your award? And they weren't even married. [Director] Chris Nolan or [star] Christian Bale would make more sense. Michelle makes no sense. It's like those rumors that she would go to the premiere of 'Dark Knight.' That was never in the realm of possibility." Source: www.nydailynews.com

Outsider types

"Onscreen he wears angst and desperation like a badge of honor. Raging in the existential cult drama "Donnie Darko" (2001), crossing the fine line between passion and obsession in "The Good Girl" (in which his character, one Holden Worther, lugged a beat-up copy of The Catcher in the Rye across Texas in writer-director Miguel Arteta's shout-out to Salinger's protagonist), mourning the loss of life and youth in "Moonlight Mile", Jake Gyllenhaal has become the movies' poster child for outsider, misfit characters".Chelsea Clinton: "I would encourage people to read it in the hope that maybe it would have a similar inspirational effect. Did you feel Holden Caulfield-esque while you were making "The Good Girl"? Do you even agree with your character's interpretation [of the book]?

Jake Gyllenhaal: "There's something about him that makes me think he's only read that one book. He's so lost that he just sort of takes on this "Holden" persona because he understands it's universal". Source: www.highbeam.com

Q: Why do you like to play outsider types?

Hirsch: I don't know. There's something about the good-hearted guy fighting the system. I just love that. That's how Speed is. He's a really focused guy with a heart of gold and the corporations are trying to crush him and use him for his skills to make them more money. And when he doesn't want to play ball, they want to destroy him. Source: chud.com/articles

"Wendy and Lucy" review

"Wendy and Lucy", director Kelly Reichardt’s follow-up to her 2007 indie marvel, "Old Joy", returns to a Pacific Northwest of equal parts natural beauty and desolation. Dressed in androgynous clothes, her hair chopped and boyish, Michelle Williams stars in Wendy and Lucy as a slacker waif adrift in a subculture of neo-hippie train jumpers building bonfires in the woods, bruised blue collars and a collection of vets and disabled hard-luck cases waiting at the corner store to exchange cans for change.
As Wendy is hauled away to jail, Lucy remains tied to a bicycle rack, one more tragic loss in a string of escalating disasters.These losses come with a devastation comparable to that in Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 neo-realist masterpiece, "The Bicycle Thief".
Unlike Emile Hirsch’s adventuring, Alaska-bound dropout in "Into the Wild", Wendy’s is not a purposeful estrangement from the world.
There are foils and fairy godfathers along the way, but the overall impression Reichardt creates is of a cold, hostile world as immune to individual suffering as the Depressionera America of "They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?" or "The Grapes of Wrath".The only comfort Wendy finds is from the drugstore security guard (Wally Dalton) who first rousts Wendy from sleeping in his parking lot and then watches her contend with the ruined car and lost dog. His gestures of kindness are pitiably small, compromised by his own limited means.
Reichardt allows us so little access to her interior life that she seems opaque, her comatose demeanor hard to identify: Is it deep depression or soft-headedness? "Old Joy" went deep inside the loneliness and need for connection of its heroes, and Wendy and Lucy’s impact often resides in external events. Wendy can feel more like a symbol of economic despair than the soft and pulpy realer-than-real men of "Old Joy". But thank goodness for Reichardt’s committed focus even on symbols in the escalating miseries of our own hard times.
Source: www.nypress.com

Amanda Seyfried video

Happy belated 23rd Birthday to the talented and lovely actress/singer Amanda Seyfried! This is a musical video dedicated to her.
Songs "Honey, Honey" sang by Amanda Seyfried in "Mamma Mia!" and "Pale Blue eyes" by The Velvet Underground.

Amanda's most famous roles have been the Plastic Karen Smith in "Mean Girls" (2004), Samantha in "Nine Lives" (2005), Mouse in "American Gun" (2005), Lilly Kane in "Veronica Mars" series (2004-2006),Julie Beckley in "Alpha Dog" (2006), Rebecca in "Wildfire" series (2006), Sarah Henrickson in the series "Big Love" (2006-2009), and her first lead role as Sophie Sheridan in the film version of the musical "Mamma Mia!".

Amanda joined the cast of the dark horror film "Jennifer's Body" (2009) written by Diablo Cody, playing the title character's best friend Needy Lesnicky. Her upcoming roles are Savannah Lynn Curtis in "Dear John" (2009) and Paige Prideaux in "Boogie Woogie" (2009).

Honey, Honey video

A musical video featuring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and Michael Cera.

Song "Honey, Honey" by Abba.

Emile Hirsch (Into the wild)

A video featuring some images and stills of Emile Hirsch in "Into the wild". Song "Pale blue eyes" by Counting Crows and Fiona Apple.

Mark Ruffalo's brother passed away

Mark Ruffalo and Jake at "Zodiac" Cannes Film Festival Premiere.
Jake with Mark Ruffalo at NYC "Zodiac" Screening.

I hate to communicate these tragic news, because I can't imagine how much Mark Ruffalo must be affected by his brother's loss. I've always been a follower of Mark's career and loved his performance (as usual) in "Zodiac", so here I give my condolences to Mark Ruffalo, my heart goes out to him and his family.

"Scott Ruffalo, a married hairdresser, died late Monday after he was taken off life support, one week after he was found with a gunshot wound to the head in his Beverly Hills condo. He is the kid brother of "You Can Count on Me" star Mark Ruffalo".

Source: www.nydailynews.com