Ryan Stewart
Filed under: Action, Romance, Casting, Sony, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Newsstand, James Bond, Remakes and Sequels, Daniel Craig
Is Gemma Arterton feeling the heat for having recently (apparently) blurted out a key plot point involving her character in Quantum of Solace? Seems that way. “You have to work out what you can say and cannot say,” Arterton tells Reuters in a recent article. “It’s quite hard for me who has a bit of a motor mouth. I’ve been learning for the last six months to think before I speak.” As she continues to work on her problem, Arterton also continues to give away more plot details for the upcoming film, intimating in the same Reuters piece that oil — “a lot of oil” — is what the villains are after this time, and South America is apparently where they’re looking for it. Arterton also tells IGN in another new interview that her character does become sexually involved with Bond — there’s a kiss, at least — and that something happens to her in a “scene which is an homage to something iconic, but I cannot tell you what that is. But it will be remembered.”
What is she talking about? Let’s speculate. Given what Arterton has already let slip about her character’s destiny and given that in this IGN interview she mentions Diana Rigg more than once — noting her as one of her favorite Bond girls and saying “my hair is reminiscent of Diana Rigg’s hair” the most obvious answer is that perhaps the “homage scene” is a climactic one for her and is something similar to the climactic scene in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. That would fit in with everything she’s saying, but it wouldn’t seemingly fit in with Bond’s journey at this point, since it would be so similar to the ending of Casino Royale. Although, it might work if Arterton’s Agent Fields is only a minor character, which she appears to be. A minor character could be resolved in such a way. Gemma, you’re making my head hurt!
Tags: daniel craig, DanielCraig, gemma arterton, GemmaArterton, james bond, JamesBond, quantum of solace, QuantumOfSolace
Source: Motormouth Gemma Arterton Reveals More ‘Bond’ Details!
Brokeback Mountain just keeps getting better. The more I look at it the more classically and perfectly structured, shot, acted, and edited it is. Since I’m still reeling from the tragic loss of Heath Ledger, I was looking at the movie this morning. Ang Lee’s deliberately quiet and langorously paced drama introduces Ennis Del Mar in longshot as he walks to his destination and waits. And waits some more. He rarely lifts his head up, but stays all stiff and internal. We get our first closeup at the sixth cut to him as Jack Twist’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) sputtering vehicle disturbs his peace and quiet. But when Jack gets out of the truck and looks at him, Ennis immediately shrinks back into himself, head bowed, staring at the boots (the bottom right highlighted image, which is the eighth).
Daniel Day-Lewis’s remarks on Oprah (on the day of Heath’s death) felt extremely genuine and sad to me –the less said about Oprah trying to deal with the sudden disruption of Oscar conversation the better –but his dedication of his own SAG trophy to Ledger @ last weekend’s ceremony made me uncomfortable. Even though I feel the same way in regards to Monster’s Ball (FB win) and Brokeback (FB win). I understand that this same exact speech really affected others deeply. Which I’m glad for. But the only thing I could think was: again? And ‘oh god, no’.
I keep reading about how great he was in I’m Not There but before his death he was barely mentioned in the Blanchett-obsessed reviews and media coverage. I’m distrustful of the sudden great love. I was also reading some annoying bits about John Travolta slobbering over Heath at Out in Hollywood and it felt so distasteful. Why is Heath Ledger suddenly everyone’s favorite actor? Was he their favorite actor before his untimely death? I’m skeptical. Where were Hollywood’s votes when he lost the Best Actor Oscar two years ago? He lost despite giving a performance that was so obviously going to become legendary. No offense to Phillip Seymour Hoffman (honestly, no offense. He’s quite good in Capote) but Ennis Del Mar was a legend-making performance that was pitted against a traditional type of very good performance. Excuse the generic analogy but it’s like comparing a Mona Lisa to a fine painting and choosing the latter. Maybe the Mona Lisa is just too hard to really stare at. Too much to see?
To be fair I can tell you that I relate to the urge to make everything about oneself. I cringe at Mickey Rooney’s SAG antics and Travolta’s “everyone in Hollywood is my best friend” neediness because I probably see too much of myself in it. But then I also know it’s not just me. I think we all have moments of self-absorption but we civilians don’t think of it as a character strength and our weaknesses don’t get broadcast for the masses. Famous people are playing in a different universe. They are essentially asked to succumb to this urge fully. Everyone wants a piece of them. Everyone wants their picture. Everyone wants to hear their thoughts about everything they feel about themselves and everyone and everything else –even shit they know absolutely nothing about. Who can blame them for disappearing up their own asses?
I’ve had a thing for lounge covers of popular songs ever since I heard Jaymz Bee’s take on Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” and Loverboy’s “Turn Me Loose.” But those were all Canadian covers. Stateside, Richard Cheese & Lounge Against the Machine take care of the big lounge covers, and Watchmen filmmaker Zack Snyder really likes them. He likes them so much, in fact, that he just wrote a blog post about them for MTV. 
After being a bit unhappy with some of the portrayals in Knocked Up, what does Katherine Heigl do? She signs on to star in a new romcom called The Ugly Truth, which Christopher Campbell told you about in November. The flick will focus on a “romantically challenged” morning show producer who deals with a chauvinistic correspondent trying to teach her how to find love. There’s nothing like saying Knocked Up is sexist and then signing up for a movie where she gets taught love by a chauvinist.
Salim Baba (d. Sternberg)
La Corona is just as good, with a riveting subject matter: a beauty pageant in a women’s prison in Columbia. Terrific characters, very well-directed, amazing access to the prison facility thanks to director Isabel Vega (her co-director Amanda Micheli made the terrific stuntwoman documentary Double Dare, which proved the awesomeness of Zöe Bell well before Death Proof). My only personal reservation with the film is that it seems like it could have been even more effective if expanded to feature-length, and that its 40-minutes-on-the-nose running time (the maximum for this category, and according to imdb Freeheld hits it too) is a naked grab at this Oscar. I guess that’s business though. It feels a lot like a winner; a nice mixture of socially-conscious and entertaining. La Corona was an honorable mention for a prize awarded bythe Sundance Shorts Jury, made up of Juno directorJason Reitman, Melonie Diaz (this year’s “queen ofSundance” she acted four feature films in the festival), and Jon Bloom, head of the Academy’s Short Film section.
Sari’s Mother, which I saw not at Sundance but at the San Francisco International Film Festival back in May, is the fourth segment planned for last year’s documentary feature nominee Iraq in Fragments. Director James Longley felt it didn’t fit with the other three fragments after all, and decided to leave it out of his feature and develop it into a stand-alone short subject. It’s probably the most downbeat of the four of Longley’s fragments, as it shows a mother trying to get medical care for her young son, who contracted AIDS through a bloodtransfusion. It’s pretty bleak, but voters could go for it if they decide they want to acknowledge the war in Iraq.”
For those of us who were at Sundance until the very end, 2008 will be remembered as the Year of That Blizzard. James Rocchi and I finally made it home safely today after getting stuck in Park City when the highway was shut down from 22″ of new snow and winds up to 60MPH.