The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| ‘Hitchcock’ trains lens on the love story of Alfred and Alma Posted: 20 Nov 2012 07:12 AM PST  Actress Helen Mirren attends the film premiere of "Hitchcock" in New York November 18, 2012. — Reuters pic In "Hitchcock," Mirren stars opposite Anthony Hopkins as legendary director Alfred Hitchcock's devoted wife Alma Reville, and early buzz has her a contender for another Oscar nomination. The film, which opens in limited release on Friday, explores the domestic life of one of Hollywood's most iconic and revered directors, set during the days of his struggle to put the ground-breaking 1960 classic, "Psycho" on the silver screen. Toggling back and forth between his on-set battles with censors and his cast including Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson), Vera Miles (Jessica Biel) and Tony Perkins (James D'Arcy), and his strained relationship with Alma as she copes with his well-documented obsession with his ravishing leading ladies, "Hitchcock" treats film fans to a glimpse of bygone Hollywood. But it paints a more nuanced and sympathetic portrait of the director Hopkins called "a damaged man" than the recent television film "The Girl," which dramatised the hell Hitchcock put Tippi Hedren through during filming of "The Birds." "It's a great role," Mirren said of Alma, a film editor and assistant director in her own right who ceded the spotlight to her husband, but as the film makes clear was involved in virtually every aspect of his films and even re-cut "Psycho" into the masterpiece it is known as today. "So, you don't turn that down," she told Reuters. Having won her Oscar as one of the world's most famous women, Mirren said she finds herself drawn to "the ones I don't know anything about, like Alma. Those are the most fun." With little to go on, Mirren said she turned to the 2003 book "Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man," by the couple's daughter Patricia, who also acted in several Hitchcock films. "I'm not that much of a film buff that I knew about Alma, and I had no idea about Hitchcock's private life," she said, adding the book aimed "to bring her mother out of the shadows." Hitch the brand By all accounts making the movie about the movies was a joy, with Mirren and Hopkins co-starring in their first film together under first-time director Sacha Gervasi ("Anvil: The Story of Anvil"), who fixed a script that had made the rounds. Hopkins described it as the "most fun" since his Oscar-winning role in the thriller "Silence of the Lambs." Mirren recalled rushing off to work each day: "I couldn't wait." And it helped that the actors have the same approach. "There's no mystery to it ... They talk about chemistry, and Helen agrees with me, there's no such thing. You know your part, she knows hers, and off you go, hope it works," Hopkins said. But Mirren and Hopkins, who is also being touted for an Oscar nomination, parted ways when speculating on how the auteur director, who never won an Oscar during five decades of work, would have fared in the Hollywood of today. "He would have despaired," Hopkins said. "It would have been anathema to him. That kind of artistry is gone." Corporate control means "you have eight or nine producers on the set, everyone's got a say in the scripts, and even craft services!" But Mirren differed, imagining "he'd do brilliantly well." "He was a great salesman, and the Hollywood of today is so much about being a salesman and being able to sell yourself as a brand," she explained. "He did that brilliantly. I think the two of them sold Hitch. Hitch was the faceman, he was the brand." "Also," she added, "his filmmaking techniques would be incredibly successful," given the technological advances since Hitchcock's death in 1980. Hitchcock was on a roll in his early 60s, with his "Psycho" follow-up, the shocking thriller "The Birds" becoming a hit and a much-loved classic. But none of the handful of films he made afterward attained their iconic status. Mirren, 67, by contrast, truly hit her stride during her 40s, despite a steady two-decade career by that point. Starting with the TV show "Prime Suspect" to the films "Gosford Park," "The Queen" and "The Last Station," she racked up four Oscar nominations and a mantel full of Emmys, which raises a question about the validity of complaints that Hollywood has no use for actresses over 40. "I think what has changed is, the world around has changed," Mirren said when reflecting on her success and acclaim. "I was lucky that I hit my 40s just as the world around me was changing. Twenty years before I never would have been cast in 'Prime Suspect' because there were no women inspectors." And so, she looks forward. "As I've carried on, my God, 20 years ago it was inconceivable that you'd have a female president of the United States," she said. "Now, the next president of America may well be a woman, and if there is a female president, that means that if a movie comes along, and there's the president of America ..." She laughs. "You know what I mean?" — Reuters |
| Stallone’s daughter to make Paris ball debut Posted: 20 Nov 2012 06:44 AM PST  US actress Rosanna Arquette (R) and her daughter Zoe Bleu Sidel pose during the closing Ceremony of the 52nd Monte-Carlo Television Festival on June 14, 2012 in Monaco. Zoey will be at the debutante ball. — AFP pic Taking place at the glitzy Crillon Hotel on Saturday, the ball will also draw the daughter of US actress Rosanna Arquette, 18-year-old Zoe-Bleu Sidel, as well as Lily Rivkin, 17, daughter of the US ambassador to France Charles Rivkin. Launched in 1992, the high-society highlight updates a custom stretching back to the royal courts of France and England. Dressed in haute couture and accompanied by cherry-picked cavaliers the young women from 14 countries, daughters of a global elite of actors, business leaders and aristocrats, will have dinner before the big dance. "Le Bal" is held every year in late November during the US Thanksgiving weekend. Proceeds from this year's event will go to the "Enfants d'Asie" charity for Asian children. Past debutantes include the daughters of actors Forest Whittaker, Clint Eastwood, the blockbuster author Daniele Steel or car tycoon Carlos Ghosn, and the granddaughters of ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. — AFP-Relaxnews |
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