Paul Bettany by Lester Cohen/WireImage.com
Paul Bettany (A Beautiful Mind) has joined the cast of The Secret Life of Bees, playing the widowed father of Dakota Fanning.... Phillip Noyce (The Bone Collector) will direct (a presumably corseted, meow) Scarlett Johansson in Mary Queen of Scots, which is set for an April start.... As snuck in here late Tuesday, Kate Winslet is replacing expectant Nicole Kidman in the WWII drama The Reader.
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The unsinkable Molly Brown is teaming up once again with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet for the upcoming Sam Mendes drama Revolutionary Road, about a 1950s couple whose relationship devolves into one that sounds an awful lot like Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger's. Unreliable sources say Billy Zane was considered for a role, too, but the furniture on the set was so nice, they didn't want the scenery getting chewed. In other movie news, Kevin Bacon has agreed to accept the lead in HBO's Taking Chance, the true story of the military man who escorted the body of a Marine, Chance Phelps, a casualty of Iraq, back to his Wyoming hometown in 2004. Here's hoping he insists on a name change for the project. Is it just me, or does the one they have sound alternately corny as hell and vaguely porny?
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Lenoardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, who last shared the silver screen in the 1997 art-house sleeper Titanic, will reunite for Revolutionary Road, a drama about a 1950s couple dealing with repressed desires, Variety reports. based on a novel by Richard Yates, the film will be directed by Winslet's hubby, Sam Mendes (American Beauty). So no messin' around in the Renault, kids!
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All the King's Men, starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet and many other bold-faced names has been given a new September 22 release date. The political-drama remake was originally pegged to hit theaters last December.... Singer Alicia Keys will play Scarlett Johansson's best friend in The Nanny Diaries.... Peter Segal (The Longest Yard, 50 First Dates) will direct Shazam!, a big-screen take on Captain Marvel, the superhero I was for Halloween many, many years ago.
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Stiff upper lips? Hardly. The best of British TV is anything but stuffy. From the guilty pleasure of the trashy Footballers' Wives (returning for a third season in February) to hauntingly dark mysteries and wacky comedies, BBC America has become one of my top cable destinations for the range of its bold and unpredictable programming. But the fun doesn't stop there. PBS still turns to England for classy drama, HBO has developed a crush on shows with an accent (Rome and Extras) and A&E will air a fourth season of gritty spy drama MI-5 in 2006. Here's a roundup of some recent arrivals.
Bad GirlsTuesdays at 9 pm/ET, BBC AmericaThink: "Oz with Estrogen"The Lowdown:
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Question: I've really been enjoying Extras, but it seems like I never hear anything about the show. Why has HBO put so little effort into promoting it? Do you think it's because it's not their own production? Or because there aren't that many episodes? I saw ads for Unscripted and The Comeback all over the place and neither of those shows was nearly as good as this one. Whenever a network attempts to remake a British show, there are always scores of people complaining because they don't just air the
U.K.
originals. Now that a network finally is, it seems like the show is going completely unnoticed.
Answer: It would make sense to me if HBO, as I expect, spent most of its promotional energy this fall, once Rome was up and running, to trumpet the long-awaited return of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I'm loving Extras and agree HBO had some real opportunities to exploit the hilarious cameos by Kate Winslet and Ben Stiller, but much like Ricky Gervais' original The Office, it's still something of a
...
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Please, please, please be as good as BBC's The Office. Please? Well, here's our beloved Ricky Gervais, just missing his chance to get into the shot in a very David Brent-like movie. Don't care... I'm headed into this with a strong bias toward wanting to like it, despite HBO's building surplus of showbiz-related fare. And the first-audible-laugh honors go to guest-star Kate Winslet for her absolutely filthy dirty-talk coaching (which I obviously can't repeat here). But good god, are they jumping in with both feet in terms of dancing around delicate topics for humor, or what? A Nazi movie, atheism vs. belief and a character with cerebral palsy? "Heaven? Brilliant up there," Gervais' Andy tells the others. "You're gonna have an amazing time." In his voice, funny. When I type it, not so much.
Then there's Winslet again, gamely saying she only took a Holocaust film because she figured she was guaranteed an Oscar, and Andy making tim
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Oh, Ari. What have you done? The car? Gone. The job? Vapor. The Batphone? Dead. All you have left is Lloyd! And as great as his "There's got to be a moment after..." speech was, he still sort of sucks as an assistant. Plus, he drives a prop car from The Fast and the Furious. This is so not good. Obviously someone wasn't paying attention — or paying for a Variety subscription — back when Ovtiz ditched CAA to start his own agency, huh? Even if the Gold-en god does manage to do the bootstrap thing, I hate to think what Terrence is planning to keep his client list intact. Though, honestly, he can have Vince. I'm done with that one, falling for Mandy Moore like a 12-year-old, getting all bitchy with the boys and now dumping "Aquaman" just because she wants to go back to her fiancé. Please! It's James Cameron! You don't quit a Cameron flick over a girl! And as Kate Winslet knows, you don't even quit over a crappy script. So, boyfriend,
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Question: In your Aug. 15 column, you commented that you didn't understand the market for edited R-rated movies on broadcast and basic-cable television. I was a little surprised by that remark, because it was somewhat insensitive for you. The market for edited-for-TV movies exists because there are many people who really want to see Titanic (yes, I know it's PG-13) but don't necessarily want an extended view of Kate Winslet's breasts. It exists because there are people who want to see an inspirational story like The Shawshank Redemption, but don't necessarily want the F-word hurtled at them numerous times. These are the same people who would probably enjoy Deadwood or The Sopranos were it not for HBO inserting as much profanity as possible just because they can (a topic you have also addressed). The fact is that many people avoid R-rated movies in theaters because of moral or religious objections. With the "offending" material cut from TV airings, at least these people can experience ...
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It's 12 days until the Academy Awards, but Oscar nominee Kate Winslet is positively counting the minutes until her limo pulls up outside Hollywood's Kodak Theater. Though thrice nominated before — for Sense and Sensibility, Titanic and Iris — she's as giddy as an awards-season rookie this year, thanks to her best-actress nod for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
"It feels absolutely fantastic," Winslet says. "Just getting the part of Clementine was such a fight. I was so determined. I loved this character so much, and was always so amazed that [director]
Michel Gondry saw beyond the period pieces and the corsets and gave me this opportunity. To be remembered for [
Sunshine], since it came out so long ago — I could not be happier and more overwhelmed by that.
"Look, I've always been so amazed to get a job," the 29-year-ol
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