GetListy » Judi Dench

Cast list for ‘NINE’ (movie)

GetListy — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:42:39 +0000

NINE, which premiered on Broadway in 1982 to critical acclaim (winning five Tony Awards, including Best Musical), and successfully revived in 2003 (winning another two Tonys, including Best Revival), is now a movie directed by Rob Marshall. Here is the cast list:

Daniel Day-Lewis
Penelope Cruz
Marion Cotillard
Nicole Kidman
Judi Dench
Kate Hudson
Fergie (Stacy Ferguson)
Sophia Loren

Actors who played gay roles

Philip Wuntch — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:49:47 +0000

At this point, Sean Penn ranks high among probable Best Actor Oscar nominees. The dynamic Penn stars as assassinated gay politico Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant’s Milk, which opened nationwide Nov. 26. There was a time, though, when such a role would have been considered risky. Among those who proved otherwise: Hugh Jackman. What’s this, People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive once played gay? Yes, and he was heaped with praise for it. Although Jackman’s buff performance in Australia, not to mention X-Man Wolverine, helped make him People’s cover boy, he won a Tony as gay entertainer Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz. That musical hasn’t made it to the screen yet, but if it does, you can be sure Jackman will be cast. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Probably the movie world’s most famous onscreen gay couple, they moved critics and moviegoers in Brokeback Mountain(Watch) . But when Brokeback surprisingly lost the 2005 Best Picture Oscar to Crash, Academy homophobia was blamed. Maybe Oscar voters will anoint this year’s Penn as means of erasing that label. Russell Crowe. Six years before Gladiator, Crowe played a good-natured gay in 1994’s The Sum of Us. He and his widowed father bond while searching for appropriate Significant Others. However, Crowe was reportedly offended when he and his rock band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts played San Francisco and gays threw their underwear onstage. Meryl Streep. In 2002’s The Hours, Madame Meryl played a plain-spoken lesbian who vainly tries to keep AIDS-ridden friend Ed Harris from suicide. And near the beginning of her movie career, when handlers discourage such role choices, she played Woody Allen’s ex-wife in Manhattan. When she writes a book explaining how her same-sex relationship had been much more nurturing than her marriage, Woody’s character was not amused. Didn’t hurt Meryl’s career at all.

Movies about writers

Philip Wuntch — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:51:33 +0000

Few things are more difficult to transfer to film than the process of writing. What’s cinematic about showing a poor slob staring blankly at a computer, a typewriter or a piece of paper? Nevertheless movies find writers fascinating.

Gonzo: The Life and Works of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, currently navigating the art theater route, delightfully relates the misadventures of the maverick journalist whose Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ranks as a classic. The fall movie line-up will bring us Chris & Don: A Love Story, which explores the longtime relationship between portrait painter Don Bachardy and writer Christopher Isherwood. Isherwood’s most famous work, arguably, is Berlin Stories, which inspired the musical Cabaret.

Both these films are documentaries, but through the years, feature films have explored the writing ritual and its colorful inspirations. Recently, both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Nicole Kidman won Oscars for playing writers. Among the many efforts to capture the literati onscreen:

Hunter Thompson was anointed on film before Gonzo hit the screen. Bill Murray, whose glib exterior hides a literary bent, played Thompson as an agreeably outrageous charmer in Where the Buffalo Roam, while Johnny Depp, who narrates the current documentary, presented an earthier portrait in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

On a more genteel level, Depp won an Oscar nomination as Sir James M. Barrie, wistful author of Peter Pan, in Finding Neverland. The well-mannered film softened the tragic aspects of the family that inspired Barrie’s famous work.

Another seemingly discreet Brit, Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was brought to haunting life by Ian Holm in 1985’s shamefully neglected Dreamchild, which explored the obsessive relationship between Carroll and the real Alice.