The Vatican has apparently caught wind of Skyfall mania and it even gave its opinion through its official l’Osservatore Romano newspaper. The 23rd James Bond pic even nabbed a rare review, calling it one of the best in its 5 decades.
l’Osservatore Romano’s Skyfall green light is a sea-change for the publication which only has a print circulation of 15,000. Its influence is far higher, however, when its editorial which reflects Vatican policy, is splashed in papers and websites around the world.
For Skyfall l’Osservatore Romano published five articles, according to Reuters. The paper noted in its main article “007 License to Cry” that the latest installment presents the British super-operative in a less cliché manner, and “more human, capable of being moved and of crying: in a word, more real.”
In another article, the paper compares the lineage of Bond actors from Sean Connery to the current Daniel Craig. Craig told the paper he feels “very different” from his predecessors, but noted that Connery is a “point of reference.”
The Catholic Church famously condemned Federico Fellini’s classic La Dolce Vita when it debuted in 1960 through l’Osservatore Romano, which viewed a scene from the film as a parody of Christ’s second coming. It was subject to widespread censorship including a full ban in Spain until after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
[Source: Reuters]
Talk about local flavor: Peter Jackson’s WETA pals this week installed a giant Gollum statue inside Wellington, New Zealand’s airport in celebration of the Lord of the Rings franchise’s fruitful connection to the community (and, y’know, Jackson’s upcoming The Hobbit). Now boarding: precious, MY PRECIOUS!
The 13-meter installation, depicting Gollum fishing for a tasty fish, hangs over the Wellington Airport’s dining lounge and was created by WETA’s own Oscar-winning Richard Taylor, according to TheOneRing.net; it took three days for crews to erect this humongous, magnificent thing, which gives Tolkien nerds yet another reason to visit beautiful Wellington, NZ.
It’s beautiful and awesome and so wonderfully garish all at once. In other words, how hasn’t LAX done something like this already?
[Photo: TheOneRing.net]
[TheOneRing.net via FirstShowing]
“I’m here to answer all of your questions about Rampart.” With that sly nod to Woody Harrelson’s infamous fiasco of an internet Q&A, Molly Ringwald arguably won Reddit’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) for all of eternity — and that was even before she named Nights of Cabiria as her all-time favorite movie, answered Redditor memes with other memes, quoted American Psycho, and told tales about John Hughes and The Breakfast Club and applying lipstick with her boobs.
For example, on the subject of her famed lipstick trick:
Regarding lipstick, it’s all movie magic. There is a story behind that: John Hughes wrote it but never actually thought about me having to do it. He kept putting it off until the end of filming that long scene. I kept bringing it up, like, “Hey. We gotta figure this out. Are we going to have robotic breasts?” Finally we decided it was better to see less and let everyone assume that I was particularly skilled.
Let the record show that Molly Ringwald did not, in fact have robo-boobs! (That should make some of us ladies who still have to apply by hand a little bit better.) Elsewhere, she was asked to clear up the rumor that Breakfast Club co-star Judd Nelson was almost fired from the shoot for giving her a hard time.
This is true. I think Judd was doing the method actor thing during rehearsals. He was wearing Bender’s clothes and trying to annoy me. I was fine but John Hughes was very protective of me. We ended up having a powwow, led by Ally. I remember her telling me, “We have to get him focused. Like a laser!” I think a bunch of
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Full Story »Before I gift you with John Cameron Mitchell’s cute and funny five-minute short film for Dior where Marion Cotillard endures a panic attack during a photo shoot, let me acknowledge one unsettling truth: When she’s wearing banana curls and pink lipstick, Cotillard is a dead-ringer for Katy Perry. I DID NOT MAKE THE RULES. I’m sorry I discovered this, and I hope we can join hands and chuckle as we watch this silly photoshoot parody. “Open up that neck for me!”
Best lines: “We really, really love your movie! I can’t wait to see it”; “What do you think of this? Tibetan prayer flags laced with Aztec gold. Isn’t that clever?” And of course, “There are people — tiny little people in the real world — who are counting on you.” The short is based on a Richard Avedon short film from the ’70s starring Lauren Hutton, and the mania of it is pretty similar. Every time I see Cotillard, it’s like I’m adoring her for the first time. Her conniption at the end is priceless.
• L.A.dy Dior The Film – Starring Marion Cotillard [The Beauty Shop]
Full Story »
Get out your scoresheets and see how they compare with those of Venice Film Festival jury boss Darren Aronofsky, whose group today awarded the fest’s top prize, the Golden Lion, to Aleksandr Sokurov’s film Faust. The heavily favored Michael Fassbender won the fest’s Best Actor award for Shame, while Deanie Ip earned Best Actress for the Stephanie Zacharek-endorsed Hong Kong effort A Simple LIfe. Other big winners included People Mountain People Sea and Terraferma; congrats to all! [AP]
