actors

Hugh Jackman Not to Play Odysseus?

Eppu

Three and a half years ago, I spotted a tidbit about an Odysseus movie being in development. Since then, I’ve kept an eye out for more news.

Hugh Jackman

There still is an IMDb entry for the movie, and it still lists the project as “in development”. Nothing significant enough to warrant further publication seems to have happened, however.

I don’t know whether the ancient world mini-boom has officially busted, or whether there wasn’t enough money, or what. It sounded like an interesting project, though. Perhaps it still has a chance.

Image: Hugh Jackman on Twitter

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Advertisement

A New Doctor with New Best Friends

Eppu2 Comments

The new Doctor Who season started this past weekend, on Sunday October 07, 2018. The big thing, of course, is that Jodie Whittaker makes her doctorial debut in season 11! I have some thoughts on it. But first, the official trailers:

Doctor Who: Series 11 Trailer by Doctor Who on YouTube

Doctor Who: Series 11 Trailer #2 by Doctor Who on YouTube

I get chills from both! 😀 Although the music choices for trailer 2 seem a little odd—I suspect I might be missing some cultural references here.

I haven’t seen the first episode yet, so I only have previously shared glimpses, various reports, and other people’s reactions to go by. Reading to the rescue, then! Below are quotes from some of the most interesting writeups I found.

Spoiler warning is in effect! (Also, because some quotes are quite long, I’ll pop the rest behind a cut.)

Read the whole post.

Quotes: It Hurts All Three of My Feelings

Eppu

Actor Carrie Fisher lays it out in a Twitter comment on criticism of her appearance in The Force Awakens and proves she was so much more than a pretty face.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

R.I.P. Carrie Fisher

Eppu

Carrie Fisher, actor, author, advocate, script doctor, and Resistance General extraordinaire, has passed at the age of 60.

Carrie Fisher Homepage

Rest in peace, dear Ms. Fisher. Your honesty, fearlessness, and spirit will be missed.

In the words of Tough Love Leia on Twitter:

 

Image via carriefisher.com

Post edited for formatting.

Labyrinth Released 30 Years Ago

Eppu

Jareth: “You remind me of the babe.”

Goblin 1: “What babe?”

Jareth: “The babe with the power.”

Goblin 2: “What power?”

Jareth: “Power of voodoo.”

Goblin 3: “Who do?”

Jareth: “You do.”

Goblin 4: “Do what?”

Jareth: “Remind me of the babe.”

Labyrinth Movie

This year marked the 30th anniversary of the release of Labyrinth by director Jim Henson. This past weekend FantomEvents ran some special Labyrinth showings in theaters. We didn’t go due to schedule issues (=work, work, work) but instead watched it at home.

As a geeky kid of the 80s, I have very fond memories of the movie. It’s mostly because of its visuals, but I do like the fantastic lines – great for learning English with – and voice acting as well.

Flickr leeno The Worm from Labyrinth

Sarah: “Did you say ‘Hello’?”

Worm: “No, I said ‘allo’, but that’s close enough.”

(One of my very first tastes of dialectal / regional English!)

If my memory serves, the puppetry effects in Labyrinth are mostly better than in The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson’s previous fantasy movie. (Note to self: Find out if I can rent / stream The Dark Crystal. Local library to the rescue!)

Some of the songs, too, have become long-time favorites, especially “As the World Falls Down” by David Bowie.

Ballroom Scene – Labyrinth – The Jim Henson Company

As a kid, I didn’t really understand how someone could like Bowie’s music, but that one song opened my eyes. (Ears?) I still love it, and the ballroom scene with its floating props.

Bonus find: Stephanie at Make and Tell shares her “the babe with the power” wall art printable.

Stephanie Make and Tell babewiththepower_printable_mockup2

What’s your favorite Labyrinth memory?

Crossposted from the Playfully Grownup Home blog.

Images: Labyrinth DVD case by Eppu Jensen. “The Worm” from Labyrinth by leeno on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). The babe with the power printable by Stephanie at Make and Tell.

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Apparently Now I Must Get into The Expanse

Eppu

Browsing Tumblr the other day, I ran into what looked like stills from a scifi series. My immediate reaction was “What is this? Who’s she? I wanna see it!!”

EW Bobbie Draper 000230444-the-expanse-0005

Turns out they were indeed scifi show stills. The pictures come from an article by Dalton Ross on Entertainment Weekly. He talked with The Expanse showrunner Naren Shankar about a new character introduced in season 2, and shared these photos.

EW Bobbie Draper 1739082-frankie-0006

The commanding presence that drew my eye is marine Roberta “Bobbie” Draper from Mars, played by New Zealand actress, model, and boxer Frankie Adams.

Mr. Shankar talked about casting Ms. Adams for the role:

“When you ask a casting director to find a 6-foot half-Polynesian, the response is usually one of stunned silence, like, ‘Really?’ And we were like, ‘Yeah, really.’ We’ve been very conscious about maintaining the ethnic identity of the characters in the book as much as humanly possible. And we were really intent on doing that with Bobbie.

“We actually looked in the U.K., Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Hawaii, and New Zealand. And when [co-author] Ty Franck saw the first casting tape on her, he said, ‘That’s her, that’s her,’ right away. She’s a professional boxer, as well as being a model and so she had the physicality and a very interesting, unusual kind of face you rarely see on television. She’s awesome and we couldn’t be more delighted to have her on the show.”

EW Bobbie Draper 17390800-arm-wrestle-00007

I have to say that the third shot (above) reminds me a lot of the 2004 Galactica reboot. I’ve only seen the pilot for The Expanse, though, and that streamed over a very hiccupy connection. It looked interesting, but for some reason or another I never got back to it.

I seriously hope that Bobbie won’t just be another case of Strong Female Character syndrome. Kick-ass female characters can be awesome, and they are definitely an improvement over women as mothers or love interests. But I’m done with women written as one-dimensional beings, be it demure damsels in distress or forceful fighters.

I want the people in my entertainment to be complex and three-dimensional regardless of their gender. Whether The Expanse delivers or not will remain to be seen, though. (Haven’t read the books that it’s based on, so I’ve nothing to go on there.) Apparently I now must check out season 1 in order to see season 2 when it comes out. 🙂

Images Rafy / Syfy via Entertainment Weekly

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

R.I.P. Alan Rickman

Eppu

Actor Alan Rickman has passed. Apart from a fantastic Professor Severus Snape, Rickman brought to life both on stage and screen numerous other characters, including my favorite Colonel Brandon in the 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense & Sensibility.

Sense & Sensibility – Weep You No More Sad Fountains via anotherrainbow2008

I also have fond memories of his performance as Alexander Dane / Dr. Lazarus in Galaxy Quest and the sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (with the unforgettable delivery of “Because it is dull, you twit, it’ll hurt more!”, on the desirability of a spoon as a torture device).

Rest in peace, sir. You will be missed.

Sean Bean on the LotR Joke in The Martian

Eppu2 Comments

Finland’s national public broadcasting company Yle interviewed actor Sean Bean (article in Finnish; the 4-minute video in English) during his promo tour for The Martian.

Yle Sean Bean Interview
Yle Uutiset.

(Note: I wasn’t able to share the video; you’ll have to follow the link to Yle and play it there.)

Bean mentions that the Lord of the Rings reference – Project Elrond – was something he didn’t know how to react to. My partial transcription from the interview (from ca. 1:50-2:30) picks up with Bean’s answer to how it came about:

“I don’t know. I think it was in the script originally and it stayed in there, and it was very funny ’cause I’ve never been in a f– I was in a film that– then– which was– within a film. So it was very funny. [Laughs.] And, erm, you know, I just kind of listened to it, I didn’t know how to react, really [laughs], to that. It’s an unusual kind of situation I was in. But it was great, it’s great. I love that, it’s nice.”

When asked whether they joked about the reference on set, Bean answered:

“Not really, no, you said it and everyone went, like– [indistinct; laughs.] You know, I couldn’t kind of go, like, ‘Oh yeah, I was in [that]’, you know. But I– So I just kind of– [makes a gesture of playing it cool] went on with it.”

Other questions touch on the large number of team leader roles he’s played or characters who die (which Bean doesn’t seek out, specifically), how Bean built the character of Mitch Henderson with director Ridley Scott, and the kind of roles Bean would like to play in the future.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Downton Wars, Episode I and II

Eppu2 Comments

Rob James-Collier certainly knows how to put fun in fundraiser! For his London Marathon fundraiser run, the actor (who played the sly footman Thomas Barrow in Downton Abbey) wrote and directed an exclusive Downton Abbey clip to benefit the Chiltern MS Centre. Filmed on his smartphone in between takes, the spoof features other Downton actors and lightsabers!

Downton Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Valet

(“Mmmm, cheese!”)

In the end, James-Collier raised more than £15,000 and created a second episode as a thank you. In this second installment, the whole house gets in a Star Wars mood with even more lightsaber action! The absolute best, though, is when the two venerable old ladies, the Dowager Countess and Mrs. Isobel Crawley, played by Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton, pick up lightsabers!

Downton Wars: Episode 2 – The Evil Butler Strikes Back

(“I would not do that if I were you!”)

Cheers!

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Remix Video: Idris Elba as James Bond

Eppu

Lately there’s been some talk about casting Idris Elba as the most famousest of British spies, most notably a Bond author stuffing his foot in his mouth about the hypothetical casting. Vulture had the brilliant idea of asking video artists Diane Bullock and Mike Schuster to put together a mock trailer for the upcoming movie Spectre with Elba as 007.

Idris Elba Plays James Bond: “Vulture Remix” Episode 10

Awesome! How do we make this happen?

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.