My Canadian soul needs no Chicken Soup, thanks
By DAVID MACFARLANE
Globe + Mail


Monday, September 2, 2002 – Print Edition, Page R1


It's not in my best interest to point this out. At this early stage
of a column's development -- when you, the reader, are not at all
sure where this is going, if, indeed, it's going anywhere -- it
seems imprudent of a writer to point out that you don't have to read
any further than you already have. Not if you don't feel like it,
you don't. Not on my watch.

Not reading what you don't feel like reading is one of the great
privileges of living in a free society. It is part of the reason we
let off fireworks on July 1. It's why we'll wave welcoming Maple
Leaf flags when American troops come streaming over our border -- in
the event of an outbreak of terrorism or legalized marijuana. It is,
however, a national strength that is not celebrated as much as it
deserves to be.

On Canada Book Day, for instance, everybody who is called upon to
make a speech says how lucky we are to live in a country in which we
can read pretty much what we want to read. But nobody ever adds the
corollary. The corollary being: Pssst. Hey you. Yes you, the one
with the newspaper. It's the last day of the long weekend. It's the
last day of the summer holidays. Don't you have anything better to
do? And anyway, don't you know that in this country -- this
gloriously free country (the loyalty pledges of the Liberal caucus
notwithstanding) -- that here, in Canada, you are welcome to not
read whatever the hell you don't feel like reading.

Nobody's got a gun to your head. Unless, that is, you're in the
cabinet.

You don't have to be fair. You don't have to be just. You don't have
to be informed. You don't have to be nice, or understanding, or
concerned. You don't have to feel a responsibility to keep up with
things. All you have to do is feel that you would rather be reading,
or doing something else. And then you can just read it, or do it.
For no very good reason.

Even if that means putting me down.

And nobody -- least of all me -- will complain.

(Note to editor: Can I stop writing now?) [Note from editor: No.]

Okay. Apparently our polls indicate that there are few of you out
there who actually don't have anything better to do. That being the
case, I'll carry on. In fact, I'll go so far as to get to the point
of this column.

There is a book, now just coming into view, rippling its way into
the consciousness of bookstores and book sections, taking its place
among the titles of the autumn list, that I will not -- repeat --
will not read. I will not read it for all the tea in China.

Wild horses couldn't drag me past its title page. Bribes won't work.
Threats won't work.


---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Massive advertising campaigns won't work. The 13 endorsements that
appear on the first two pages won't work either, particularly since
I've never heard of Bob Proctor ("Pick any story and you'll see. It
will make you feel better."), or Wayne Patterson ("I enjoyed reading
the diverse stories about my homeland.") or Lynrod Douglas ("I've
always suspected it, but never knew how much talent, courage, and
greatness we have in Canada until I read the wonderful stories in
Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul").

Nothing, but nothing will make me read anything with a subtitle
Stories to Inspire and Uplift the Hearts of Canadians. Nothing on
God's green Earth will make me even take a peek at Chicken Soup for
the Canadian Soul.

Nothing can convince me otherwise. Even if, as the jacket copy
states, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen ("The #1 New York Times
and USA Today best-selling authors") have "dedicated their lives to
enhancing the personal and professional lives of others." Even if
Janet Matthews "teaches a workshop on writing stories from the
heart." Even if Raymond Aaron "has mentored thousands of Canadians
and others worldwide."

No, let me rephrase that. Not 'even if.' Actually, it's more
like 'because.'

This is not fair of me, I know. It's not necessarily justified. It's
not informed, or responsible, or open-minded. It's just me
exercising one of my rights as a Canadian, and as a Canadian reader.

Because it's the last day of the holidays. Because I've got better
things to do.

"Depardieu given Order of Quebec"

French acting giant Gerard Depardieu was named a knight of the Order
of Quebec by Premier Bernard Landry in Montreal yesterday, and the
whole experience appeared to humble the imposing star. ``It's always
embarrassing to be honoured,'' Depardieu said after a long,
thoughtful pause. ``But behind the honour there is also passion,
because I have a passion for Quebec.'' Depardieu is the 29th non-
Quebecer to be given the award, which recognizes people who
contributed to the ``evolution of Quebec society'' and is the
highest award given by the provincial government. In his address,
Landry gave the highlights of Depardieu's cinematic career, which
has spanned more than 30 years. Depardieu, best known in North
America for his role opposite Andie MacDowell in the 1990 film Green
Card, seemed a bit surprised at the amount of information Landry had
in his arsenal. Finally, after having the medal pinned on his lapel
by Landry, Depardieu planted a kiss on each of the premier's cheeks.
``Thank you, Quebec, for being the pride of my language,'' said
Depardieu, who arrived in Montreal with nasty bruises under his
right eye as a result of a motorcycle accident. ``Thank you to this
immense country, this immense province, for taking me in as one of
your own.'' Depardieu was in town for the screening of his newest
film, Aime ton pere (Honour Your Father), at the Montreal World Film
Festival.

Yes, it's hard to believe, but Labour Day in North America falls not
on May 1st (traditional) but in September! Here's a nice ethnic joke
to make ye smile!

----------------------------------------
An elderly Irishman lay dying in his bed.  While
suffering the agonies of impending death, he suddenly
smelled the aroma of his favourite chocolate chip
cookies wafting up the stairs.  He gathered his
remaining strength, and lifted himself from the bed.
Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out
of the bedroom, and with even greater effort, gripping
the railing with both hands, he crawled downstairs.
With laboured breath, he leaned against the door
frame, gazing into the kitchen. Were it not for
death's agony, he would have thought himself already
in heaven, for there, spread out upon waxed paper on
the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his
favourite chocolate chip cookies.

Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his
devoted Irish wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this
world a happy man?  Mustering one great final effort, he threw
himself towards the table, landing on his knees in a rumpled
posture. His parched lips parted, the wondrous taste of the cookie
was already in his mouth, seemingly bringing him back to life. The
aged and withered hand trembled on its way to a cookie at the edge
of the table, when it was
suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife......

"Feck off" she said, "dey're for your wake."

Don't. Be. Silly.
In extracts from his new book published in the Guardian, Martin Amis
accused the British left - including his closest friend - of
overlooking
the crimes of Stalin's Russia. In an open letter, that friend
Christopher Hitchens gives his side of the story
Christopher Hitchens
Tuesday September 03 2002
The Guardian


Dearest Martin,

You know how it is with kind friends. If a disobliging word is
published about one, in, let's say, the letters column of the Sheep-
Shearer's Gazette in the south island of New Zealand, they will take
infinite pains to get word of it to you by fax or email. So I have
lately been reading bushels of stuff about myself, generated by
reviews of your book on Stalinism. I wince on my own behalf a good
deal as I wade through, but I don't forget to wince for you as well.
Hardened as I am to hostile or philistine reviews, I can still
imagine that you must be at least disappointed by the treatment you
have been getting. And in a way it must be worse than all that
journo-sludge concerning your teeth or your divorce, because the
subject that's being slighted here is the grave and momentous one of
the victims of "Koba".

My sympathy is tinged with annoyance, all the same. What did you
imagine would happen if you elected to write on such a Himalayan
topic, and then pygmified it by addressing so much of it to me? If
you remember, I did try to warn you about this over a year ago. I
find myself embarrassed almost every day at the thought of an actual
gulag survivor reading this, or even reading about it, and finding
his or her experience reduced to a sub-Leavisite boys' tiff,
gleefully interpreted as literary fratricide by hacks who couldn't
care a hoot for the real subject.

As it happens, I think that there are passages of really magnificent
endeavour in your book, but anyone who wants to know where and how I
differ on the history and the analysis can direct their jolly search
engines to my mega-review in the AtlanticMonthly
[www.theatlantic.com].

I also thought it would be churlish to pass up the "open letter"
invitation that you extend in your sarcastically headed "Comrade
Hitchens" chapter. Aside from the distressing matter of proportion
that I just mentioned, and the question of your sources and
interpretations, there also remains our political disagreement. In
what you claim to recall of my views, and of the views of James
Fenton, there is an unpardonable assumption that the left of 68 was
not only morally null about Stalin, but also frivolous and selfish.
I am not going to let this pass. I've lived to see the brave and
serious and self-sacrificing war-resisters of the Vietnam era
written off as draft-dodgers and privileged sissies, which
is to say that I've seen a huge lie become widely accepted. You help
circulate part of this lie yourself, when you echo the fantastic
assertion, originally fabricated by paranoid reactionaries, that
American soldiers returned from Vietnam to face "execration". And
here is how you perform your duty to memory, about events with which
you did have a nodding acquaintance:

"In my first year at Oxford (autumn 1968) I attended a demonstration
against the resuppression of Czechoslovakia. Some 60 or 70 souls
were present. We heard speeches. The mood was sorrowful, decent.
Compare this to the wildly peergroup-competitive but definitely
unfakable emotings and self-lacerations of the crowds outside the
American embassy in Grosvenor Square, where they gathered in their
tens of thousands."

I wince again at the sly way you contrast your own sorrowful decency
to the unseemly saturnalia of the time, but as you perfectly well
know I was one of the organisers of that event in Oxford, and James
Fenton was there too (in a crowd, incidentally, that contained many
more "souls" than you say). The group of which I was then a member,
the International Socialists, organised pro-Czech events around the
country and even managed to fling leaflets in Russian on to the
decks of Soviet merchant vessels in British ports. I was actually in
Cuba on the day of the invasion, and managed to distribute
some "anti-Soviet" materials on the streets of Havana. I'm
reasonably proud of that, though if you had asked me at the time,
I'd have been proudest of having hosted Dr Eduardo Mondlane, the
founder of Frelimo, at a reception in my tiny college room. He
was murdered shortly afterwards by the Portuguese secret police, but
he's still remembered as the gentle and highly civilised father of
Mozambican independence and the impetus given to revolution in
southern Africa that year has now resulted, at some remove, in the
triumph of Nelson Mandela.

How you know about Grosvenor Square I can't imagine: I'm willing to
testify that there was some "emoting" all right, and that there
could well have been more - the My Lai massacre had occurred only
the day before, though we didn't quite realise it.
The "lacerations", though, were supplied - as in Chicago and Paris
and elsewhere - by the forces of law and order.

You say sneeringly that the "New Left" of the 60s represented
"revolution as play" and that its "death throes" took the form
of "vanguard terrorism". The atom of truth in this - or the grain of
received wisdom - doesn't excuse you. That year, the unstoppable
fusion of the American civil rights movement with the largest-ever
citizen movement against a war - a war of atrocity and aggression
about which we now know that everything we even suspected was true -
brought about the legal emancipation of black America, and compelled
the warmakers to begin their retreat. Not bad. Not bad at all - even
if there were a few hippies and druggies and freaks involved here
and there (though I can't resist adding that there wasn't much
hedonism on the battlefields of Mozambique). If I am embarrassed to
recall anything about my politics at that time - and I'll admit to
the odd wince - it is chiefly because I wish I had done very much
more than I did.

What else was happening that year? Well, the West German comrades -
led
by a young Rudi Dutschke who had escaped from East Berlin - launched
a
critical movement that broke the shady silence of the post-Third
Reich
consensus. In France, the 10-year period of one-man rule was
abruptly
and, yes, if you insist, joyously terminated. Much of southern and
Nato
Europe was under military dictatorship at the time: I still see old
friends from Spain and Portugal and Greece whose activities in those
days
meant the breaking-open of prison states only a short while later.

Most interesting of all, in my memory, was the direct confrontation
this involved with Stalin's heirs. Our faction at any rate was in
close
touch with student and worker groups in Poland and Czechoslovakia,
where
open rebellion against the sclerotic Warsaw pact regimes was
breaking
out. The regimes themselves seemed to get the point. Moscow directly
ordered the French Communist party to help put down the rebellion
against
De Gaulle, and Brezhnev both sought and received Lyndon Johnson's
advance assurance that a Red Army invasion of Prague would be
considered an
"internal affair".

For a short, exhilarating while, it seemed that the permafrost could
be
melted from below. And this idea did not experience any "death
throes".
It became subterranean, and re-emerged in 1989. Of the dissident
heroes
of that later revolution, I can think of several who I first met on
or
around the barricades of 1968. And many of them also did tremendous
work in helping to save the people of Bosnia a few years further
on.

Not long ago, I took part in quite a serious discussion, initiated
by
the man who had served the longest term of imprisonment in communist
Yugoslavia, about naming a street in the Kosovo capital of Pristina
after
Leon Trotsky. (You make rather a boast of not having read the Old
Man,
but his book of reportage on the 1912 Balkan wars is one of the
finest
polemics ever composed, not to say one of the most prescient.)

Some exemplary people and causes, in other words, could not be said
to
be quite decided on the lethal question of bolshevism: the only
revolution that had ever defeated its enemies. That there was an
element of
power-worship here I'm quite prepared to concede, and those
involved,
including myself, are obliged to subject themselves to self-
criticism. But
your attempted syllogism invites a direct comparison with Hitlerism,
and levels the suggestion of moral equivalence to the Nazis at, say,
the
many "hard left" types who worked for Dr Martin Luther King. My
provisional critique of this ahistorical reasoning would fit into
three short
italicised sentences.  Don't.  Be.  Silly.

I see from some of the more vulgar and stupid responses to your book
that the spectre of Trotskyism once again stalks the land and I
think I
am in a strong position to promise you that all such talk is idle.
It's
over. But how would you know that? You report on how you took the
pedantic trouble to ask me - should it be Trotskyist or Trotskyite?
And you
add that I told you several times that only Stalinists or ignorant
people say the latter. And then you go and call the POUM - George
Orwell's
party - "Trotskyite".

By the way, that's a factual error as well as an aesthetic one, and
I
wish it was the only such. A poor return for my labours, I must say.
I
am glad I didn't try to tell you any more about Rosa Luxemburg, who
was
probably more of a historical heroine to us, not least because her
warnings about Leninism had been the earliest, not to say the most
lucid
and courageous. But then one had to face the argument that if she
and her
comrades had been more ruthless and more Leninist, the militarist
German right might have been crushed in 1919 instead of, with
infinitely
more suffering and woe, in 1945. This is and was a deeply serious
and
troubling question (though I must say that its least serious
consequence is
that you have pissed me off by making light of it).

You demand that people - you prefer the term "intellectuals" - give
an
account of their attitude to the Stalin terror. Irritatingly phrased
though your demand may be, I say without any reservation that you
are
absolutely right to make it. A huge number of liberals and
conservatives
and social democrats, as well as communists, made a shabby pact with
"Koba", or succumbed to the fascinations of his power. Winston
Churchill
told Stalin's ambassador to London, before the war, that he had
quite
warmed to the old bastard after the Moscow Trials, which had at
least put
down the cosmopolitan revolutionaries who Churchill most hated. TS
Eliot returned the manuscript of Animal Farm to George Orwell, well
knowing
that his refusal might condemn it to non-publication, because he
objected to its "Trotskyite" tone. (You can read all about this
illuminating
episode in my little book on Orwell.) I think we can say fairly that
the names of Churchill and Eliot are still highly regarded in
conservative political and cultural circles. You have a certain
reputation for
handling irony and paradox. How could you miss an opportunity like
this,
and sound off like a Telegraph editorialist instead, hugging the
shore
and staying with the script?

However, while all of those and many other dirty compromises were
being
made, the Bulletin of the Left Opposition was publishing exactly the
details, of famine and murder and deportation and misery, that now
shock
you so much. I evidently wasted my breath in telling you this, but
there exists a historical tradition of Marxist writers - Victor
Serge, CLR
James, Boris Souvarine and others - who exposed and opposed Stalin
while never ceasing to fight against empire and fascism and
exploitation.
If the moral and historical audit is to be properly drawn up, then I
would unhesitatingly propose the members of this derided, defeated
diaspora, whose closest British analogue and ally was Orwell, as the
ones who
come best out of the several hells of the last century. A pity that
you
felt them beneath your notice.

Your letter to me is addressed from what sounds like a pretty cushy
spot in Uruguay, where you sometimes repair. You make it appear
idyllic -
"a place of thousand-mile beaches". As you have probably heard, it
has
been calculated that during the 1970s, one tenth of the Uruguayan
population was forced into exile, while one in every 50 of the
remainder was
processed through the military and police prison system and that in
those prisons new heights of innovation - especially but by no means
exclusively in psychological torture - were attained. (Behaviourism
was
involved; detainees were forced to watch Charlie Chaplin movies and
punished if they laughed.) You can look it up in Lawrence Weschler's
harrowing
book, A Miracle, a Universe: Settling Accounts With Torturers.)
Quite
an impressive number of Uruguayans are still looking for members of
their families.

The Uruguayan oligarchy was probably smart in making few claims for
itself while it was doing this. It certainly didn't announce that it
was
trying to bring about a workers' paradise. The mere boast that it
was
doing it in order to ward off communism was enough to keep the
weapons
and "advisers" coming from my home town of Washington DC, and to
procure
an uncritical silence from most western "intellectuals".

You scorn the sinister illusion of human perfectibility, as well you
may. But - though I don't criticise you for idealising Uruguay as a
counter revolutionary tourist - I do earnestly hint to you that
there may
yet be more scope for radical human improvement. And by the way, and
since you linger too long on the subject of mirth, you say that
nobody
laughed at Hitler. Well, the fellow traveller Charlie Chaplin seems
to have
contrived it.

This whole exchange between us comes at an unsettling time for me,
because I think that a huge section of the "left" has fatally
condemned
itself by flirting with, or actually succumbing to, a creepy concept
of
"moral equivalence" between the United States and its (actually our)
enemies - whether Christian Orthodox thugs in the Balkans or Islamic
fascists in Afghanistan or national socialists in Mesopotamia. Talk
about
wincing - I can scarcely bear to read the drivel and bad faith that
is now
emitted by some of my former comrades. However, and though I am now
without allegiances, I still choose to regard the term "comrade" as
a
title of honour, and one which betrays itself rather than fulfils
itself in
such negations. It was always a sorrow to me - I can tell you this
now
- that my dearest friend showed no real interest in such apparent
metaphysics, and I'm sorry all over again that you have written on
the
subject in such a way as to give pleasure to those who don't love
you, as I
do.

Fraternally, then, Christopher

· Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and The Nation.

Is Shannon Tweed really from St. Johns? Is she really a Newfie? I
always thought she was born & bred in the imperial province of
Ontario.

Also: are there any other Shannon Tweed types still hanging out
there? If there are, I'm booking my flight!

Scottish director wins top festival award for film attacked by
Vatican
by Kirsty Scott
Monday September 9, 2002
The Guardian

Peter Mullan, one of the UK's most uncompromising directors and
actors, has won the coveted Golden Lion Award for best picture at
the Venice festival for his controversial film about sadistic
Catholic nuns.

The Magdalene Sisters has already been denounced by Vatican
officials for its unflinching portrayal of the cruelty inflicted on
vulnerable young girls by an order of nuns.

The film tells the story of four girls interned in the Magdalene
Asylums in Ireland in the 1960s and their struggle against the daily
brutality of the Sisters of Mercy. Girls from poor backgrounds who
were considered "promiscuous" were sent to the institutions and
forced to work in laundries as virtual slaves.

"This is a great honour," said Mullan, who wore a deep blue kilt and
purple velvet jacket as he accepted the golden trophy. "The film is
not just about the Catholic church and how they repress young women
in Ireland, it's about all faiths that think they have the right to
pressure women."

The film has been one of the highlights of the 10-day film festival,
with audiences cheering every time one of the girls rebelled against
the nuns. The Vatican newspaper, however, has attacked the film and
Mullan for the portrayal of the nuns and priests as hypocrites. The
Osservatore Romano said the film had been "incautiously allowed to
pass as a work of art at the Venice festival".

While Mullan scooped the best picture award, Julianne Moore was
named best actress for Far From Heaven, and the best actor award
went to Stefano Accorsi, for his role as an early 20th century
Italian poet in A Voyage Called Love.

The Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong won best director for Oasis.

Mullan, a Scot, has built a reputation as one of the UK's grittiest
actors.

He is best known for his portrayal of a recovering alcoholic in Ken
Loach's My Name Is Joe in 1998, for which he won the best actor
prize at Cannes the same year. He also appeared in Shallow Grave in
1994 and in Trainspotting in 1996.

Mullan is a committed socialist who has lent his support to the
Scottish Socialist party.

He made his directorial and screenwriting debut with the well-
received Orphans, a story of four siblings gathering in Glasgow for
their mother's funeral.

Ev'rybody's building the big ships and the boats,
Some are building monuments,
Others, jotting down notes,
Ev'rybody's in despair,
Ev'ry girl and boy
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,
Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.

I like to do just like the rest, I like my sugar sweet,
But guarding fumes and making haste,
It ain't my cup of meat.
Ev'rybody's 'neath the trees,
Feeding pigeons on a limb
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,
All the pigeons gonna run to him.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.

A cat's meow and a cow's moo, I can recite 'em all,
Just tell me where it hurts yuh, honey,
And I'll tell you who to call.
Nobody can get no sleep,
There's someone on ev'ryone's toes
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,
Ev'rybody's gonna wanna doze.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.

-- Bob Dylan, "Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)"

Vatican renews attack on Golden Lion winner

Staff and agencies
Tuesday September 10, 2002

The director of the controversial movie which picked up the Golden
Lion at this year's Venice film festival has defended his film
against renewed attacks from the Vatican.
Scottish director Peter Mullan's feature The Magdalene Sisters deals
with life in an oppressive Irish convent and has already provoked
the ire of the Roman Catholic church.

Vatican radio said the film, which on Sunday won the award for best
picture at the Venice festival, unfairly compared the Catholic
church to the Taliban.

The movie tells the story of four women living in one of the
Magdalene convents in Ireland in the 1960s. The convents often took
in unmarried women who had had babies, and Mullan's film suggests
these women were imprisoned and tortured by their fanatical
overseers.

Yesterday Mullan, who admits to being influenced by his own
upbringing as a Catholic in the west of Scotland, told BBC Radio
Four's Today programme the church should face up to the cruelty
dealt out in the asylums.

He said: "I'm disappointed at the announcement that they have made,
in that it is all lies, that it never happened.

"That's something I'm very, very surprised at - I really thought
they would have at least the courage to own up to the fact that
these things did go on.

"I'm not a good enough dramatist to make this stuff up."

Vatican radio earlier described the movie as "clearly false" and
laid into Venice's seven-member international jury, which was headed
by Chinese actor Gong Li, and included Easy Rider cinematographer
Laszlo Kovacs, and French writer-director Jacques Audiard.

It said: "Awarding top honours to Magdalene was the most offensive
and pathetic page written by the jury."

Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter says the film has been picked up
for distribution by Miramax for close to $1m following its success
in Venice.

The Straight Story meets Slapshot?
Six filmmakers give their best pitch

James Cowan
National Post


Tuesday, September 10, 2002

Six finalists were each given six minutes yesterday at the Sutton
Place hotel to pitch their film ideas to a panel of industry
heavyweights, most of them Teleglobe types. Chosen from more than
100 applicants to the annual Pitch This! competition, the aspiring
Canadian filmmakers vied not only for the $10,000 top prize but also
for the attention of the many producers and financiers in the crowd,
any one of whom might be willing to pony up the dough.

Here are yesterday's pitches:

PITCH 1 A proposal for a science fiction drama titled The Purity
Report.

Filmmaker Sarah Michelle Brown delivered much of her proposal in
character as Sarah Shepherd, an inspirational slogan writer in 2061.
In her emotional performance, she appealed to the crowd to authorize
the cloning of her dead daughter, Jenny, though the child was a
natural birth and an ethnic minority (both illegal in 2061).

PITCH 2 Anthony Del Col described his comedy, Lab Rats, as "Swingers
meets High Fidelity meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

It would focus on two men who work as test subjects, or lab rats,
for a pharmaceutical firm. As slides asking "What's the wierdest
[sic] thing you've ever done for money?" flashed on a screen behind
him, Del Col explained his screenwriter was a lab rat himself and
thus had a keen understanding of this subculture.

PITCH 3 B.C. filmmaker Ronald Ng had an action adventure idea to
hustle. The Mission is about an "aboriginal government ex-secret
agent" who discovers he can channel animal spirits, thereby giving
him super powers.

Ng described his film as "Brotherhood of the Wolf meets The Bourne
Identity and Iron Monkey," and said he wanted the lead part to be
played by Windtalkers star Adam Beach, with secondary roles to be
filled by Graham Greene and Michael Ironside.

"I have spoken to Adam Beach's manager and she wants to see the
script," said the enthusiastic Ng.

PITCH 4 Serendipitously, Peter Rowe also cited Beach and Greene as
potential stars for his film, Snakehead Passage.

This proposed drama follows a Chinese seamstress as she is smuggled
into Canada, becomes a stripper, is caught by police, escapes during
a fiery crash, hides in a marijuana grow house, flees to America and
finally finds peace in the arms of her native-Canadian lover.

PITCH 5 This pitch began with Halifax filmmaker Chaz Thorne carried
onstage in a coffin. A previous Pitch This! winner, Thorne proposed
Pushing Up Daisies, a comedy-noir about a Toronto man who inherits a
funeral home in Nova Scotia and decides to murder some of the
community's misanthropic citizens in order to drum up business.

PITCH 6 In the end, a 23-member jury including filmmakers Clément
Virgo and Nicholas de Pencier awarded the Pitch This! money to 29-
year-old Alan McCullough for Zamboni Guy.

The film follows a small-town Alberta rink rat as he drives his
machine across the country to resurface the ice at the Montreal
Forum during the NHL All-Star Game. McCullough said he would like to
cast an unknown for the title role, but that a "Matt Damon type
would be about right to attract the women."

© Copyright  2002 National Post

"Shabby chic reigns"

So many gala screenings, so little time to figure out what to wear.
Or is it that impending war with Iraq and the flood of Sept. 11
anniversary glance-backs that is making this year's Toronto
International Film Festival a bit of a sartorial downer?

Whatever the reason, a great many stars this season are shunning
glamour gowns in favour of the dressed-down look: jeans, a T-shirt,
a pair of flip-flops and hair that blows naturally in the wind
spewing from their publicity machines. And so you have Sean Penn and
wife Robin Wright arriving at the White Oleander premiere in a
button-down shirt (him) and low-rise jeans (her) and actor Djimon
Hounsou in a T-shirt barely tucked into his baggy jeans at the
screening of The Four Feathers.

Even Canada's own Sarah Polley wore an oversized wrinkled shirt to
Sunday night's splashy Premiere party at Prego della Piazza, in
keeping with the glum antifashion trend. But not everyone's a lover
of the new North American counterchic.

Foreign talent like France's Juliette Binoche (Jet Lag) and China's
Bai Ling have been putting their own spin on message dressing by
stopping traffic on the party circuit dressed head-to-toe in their
own interpretation of screen diva-ness. With Binoche that means
vintage satin-slip dresses, with Ling, idiosyncratic ensembles
pairing cowboy boots with rompers and Halston-era halter tops. Both
actresses have heeded the European runway decree to use fashion as a
barometer of individual style.

In comparison, their North American counterparts look like shabbily
dressed pack dogs. There goes the neighbourhood.

-- Glove & Mail

How exicting [--YAWN--]...

CONSUMING PASSIONS: John Cusack shopped on Bloor yesterday, Pierce
Brosnan dined at Opus on Sunday and Matt Dillon did Opus last night.

Spider co-stars Gabriel Byrne and Ralph Fiennes Sotto Sotto'd last
night and Michael Douglas took the missus, Catherine Zeta Jones, to
Morton's.

Spotted at Rosewater Supper Club recently: Shawn Thompson, Stephen
Dorff, Elijah Wood, Jerry Ciccoritti and Emily Hampshire.

Paul Ahmarani, star of Le Marais, seriously depleted the stock of
Cubans at Thomas Hinds Tobacconist yesterday.

Alexis Bledel and Jonathan Jackson, the young leads of Tuck
Everlasting, were at the film's dinner at YYZ on Sunday.

Celeb guests at the Sony party at Gus on Sunday night included
Willem Dafoe, Juliette Binoche, Greg Kinnear, Juliana Margulies,
Stephen Dorff, David Cronenberg and Norman Jewison. Kinnear, Dafoe
and Margulies came over from the Premiere mag party at Prego, where
the other boldface consisted of director Todd Haynes, Dennis
Haysbert, Miranda Richardson, Mike Leigh, Sarah Polley, Dennis
Quaid, Julianne Moore, Paul Schrader and Olympia Dukakis.

Dafoe ended up at Bistro 990 while Binoche did dinner at Spuntini
and was joined for a nightcap by Dustin Hoffman and Jean Reno, who
dined downstairs at Sotto Sotto, as did Michael Douglas, Sharon
Stone and Susan Sarandon.

Adam Beach turned up at Red Drink for the Flower And Garnet party
that night.

Norman Jewison showed up at the Serendipity Point Films party at
Rain, where Lucy Darwin, producer of Lost In La Mancha, informed us
that her film has been screened by Dustin Hoffman, Sydney Pollack
and Greg Kinnear.

The Rain fête was civilized and classy. Great ambience, great food,
good conversation and good company. And nary a cheesewhatsit in
sight.

-- Toronto Star

IF I COULD TELL YOU
by W.H. Auden

Time will say nothing but I told you so.
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

check out "Annibelle Scoops" on atomfilms.com.  About a rising young pop
starlet and her insanely ambitious mother/manager.   <A
HREF="http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/annibelle_1_starlet">
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/annibelle_1_starlet</A>

... Back-to-back blond ingénues at Bloor Street's Colony Café on
Sunday afternoon: hottie Leelee Sobieski at one table, Canada's own
Sarah Polley right next door. Polley as usual looked angst-riddled
as she nibbled salad. Told her male companion she was "depressed"
from reading bad scripts. "I did three films I loved this year and
one that I just hated by the end of it," confessed The Polley ...

-----------------

Pic of Sarah (with blurb) here

http://www.nationalpost.com/search/site/story.asp?id=EC15BC99-B497-
4F13-AAD4-7DD8CEF0AE1F

Any beautiful scientific minds out there?
Thursday, September 12, 2002 – Print Edition, Page R2


New York -- Robert De Niro and his Tribeca Film Institute partner,
Jane Rosenthal, are looking for scripts with scientific or
technological themes for possible development.

The scripts, due Nov. 1, should have a leading character who is a
scientist, mathematician or engineer. Each submission should include
a feature-length script, a short synopsis up to two pages, and the
writer's résumé. Science fiction story lines won't be accepted.

Two writers will be chosen in the first year of the program, and
will receive financial support and insight from filmmakers and
science experts. At least one script will be read at the second
annual Tribeca Film Festival next spring and the completed film will
screen at the 2004 festival.

Scripts should be sent to the Tribeca Film Institute, 375 Greenwich
St., New York, N.Y., 10013, Attention: Tribeca/Sloan Film Program.
AP



---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

-- Globe & Mail

> The Polley ...

The National Post must really, really, REALLY like her, to call her
"The Polley." :)

He's abandoned Sarah Polley for Molly Parker....

--- In sarahpolleyfanclub@y..., "guy_dalziel" <guy_dalziel@y...>
wrote:
> Is Shannon Tweed really from St. Johns? Is she really a Newfie? I
> always thought she was born & bred in the imperial province of
> Ontario.
>
> Also: are there any other Shannon Tweed types still hanging out
> there? If there are, I'm booking my flight!

Actually, they are insulting her, and the Post, being the Post, is
showing its francophobia.

They're calling her a diva, with all the pejorative associations
that implies.

It is traditional to address a diva with "la" such as La Callas (for
Maria Callas, a true diva in that she was a great opera star) and La
Streisand (Barbra Streisand, not a true diva in that she was a
popstar but a diva in the sense of her demanding nature).

The Post hates Quebec and bilingualism, so instead of calling
Sarah "La Polley" they call her The Polley. They insulting her and
mocking her as a diva.

She's dropped out of major films in Hollywood and is now appearing
in time travel movies with Ryan Phillippe with fifth billing. They
are saying she is a joke.




--- In sarahpolleyfanclub@y..., maestroshelly98 <no_reply@y...>
wrote:
> The National Post must really, really, REALLY like her, to call her
> "The Polley." :)

"The Hall of Mirrors"

The young man stepped into the hall of mirrors
Where he discovered a reflection of himself
Even the greatest stars discover themselves in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars discover themselves in the looking glass

Sometimes he saw his real face
And sometimes a stranger at his place
Even the greatest stars find their face in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars find their face in the looking glass


He fell in love with the image of himself
and suddenly the picture was distorted
Even the greatest stars dislike themselves in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars dislike themselves in the looking glass


He made up the person he wanted to be
And changed into a new personality
Even the greatest stars change themselves in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars change themselves in the looking glass


The artist is living in the mirror
With the echoes of himself
Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass


Even the greatest stars fix their face in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars fix their face in the looking glass


Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass

-- from the Kraftwerk album TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS

Thank god for Sarah....

The two looks of Love
September 16 2002


There were so many questions that needed to be answered. So many
important philosophies, considered opinions and meanings of life to
be espoused. But alas, we had only 10 minutes with Jennifer Love
Hewitt.

Well, 12, really, if you considered the photo shoot. And even that
was compromised. "Do I have Tim Tams stuck in my teeth or anything?"
said Love - for that's the cute single moniker to which she answers
where friends and family are concerned and, after 10 minutes and two
handshakes, surely we were friends? This meant her make-up artist
having to check those Hollywood-white choppers closely for any tell-
tale flecks of milk chocolate. All the while, the clock was ticking.

An officious little American man one of Love's "people" hovered in
such a way that he remained a constant, nagging peripheral vision
presence. You knew that if you made direct eye contact you'd get
that annoying finger-pointing-to-wrist signal that time was short.

Ten minutes. Where to even begin?

It wasn't supposed to be like this. We were supposed to have Sunday
Brunched with Love, got to know her a little, marvelled at her
talent and deep thoughts. But, as the allotted time for our meeting
approached, she was locked away in her room, presumably chowing down
on those local bikkies.


Then her interview with a New Zealand TV show went overtime and
afterwards she stood around giggling with the star-struck crew.
Meanwhile, other interviewers had begun to line up at the chichi W
Hotel like Friday night peak hour over Sydney Airport.

And speaking of the airport, that's where Love had to be. She was
off to Melbourne later that afternoon for an important TV
appearance.

"Don't worry," said the patient local publicist, trying to be
reassuring. "She's very good with her answers."

Eventually Love wandered over. In person, she's a tiny, skinny 23-
year-old with the kind of flawless, pretty American face that was
seemingly made to flog expensive cosmetic products to flawed teenage
girls. Which, of course, it does.

Sensing things weren't going to schedule, she immediately launched
into that time-honoured tradition of visiting American stars sucking
up to the locals.

"I have this weird obsession with Australian people, I love them,"
she said. "I just think that they're awesome and I really like the
energy level here."

Did she actually know any Australians? "No," she said, taken aback
by the question. "Just the onesI've kind of met on my different
trips and I just really enjoy them. They're great."

At this point we should mention that Love was in Australia promoting
her new pop album, BareNaked. She's very keen to be known as a
singer and an actor, having starred in such cinematic milestones as
I Know What You Did Last Summer and, of course, I Still Know What
You Did Last Summer.

She has cleverly invented separate personas so people can tell the
difference between Jennifer Love Hewitt, singer, and Jennifer Love
Hewitt, actor. Seriously.

"I know with this record, look-wise and image-wise, I've tried to
change how people perceive me a little bit, so musically and acting-
wise they're different," she said.

"So that when I show up at a music show, they go, 'Oh, that's a
musician'; when I show up at an acting event, 'That's the actress,
Jennifer Love Hewitt'. My hope would be that audiences would be able
to go to my movies and not think that I'm a singer at all; and
they'd be able to listen to my records and not be able to ever know
that I was an actress."

How so?

"I look a little bit different for the record stuff," she said. "My
hair's a little bit darker, I cut it off because I need to kind of
have a change, I dress a little bit more casual. For the acting
stuff, I try to dress a little more elegant and glamorous.

"I think musically the album's different because it's a little
deeper, it has a little more soul, it's something that's more
attached to my heart, so I tend to be a little more open and honest.
I think in interviews my goofier side comes out because I get
nervous to talk to people sometimes. So, interview-wise, you get to
see a different side to me than you do musically. Which is good.
People have lots of different sides to them and I think it's
important for that to show."

Today, in keeping with her casual singer mode and her desire to show
her different sides, Love was wearing an off-the-shoulder top and
hipster jeans - so hipster that her G-string was visible at the
front and the back. Not surprisingly, Love was all for the Britney-
style porno-pop that has been dominating charts.

"I think in all societies there's a huge first impression that's
based on eye candy and it should be that way," she said. "You don't
want to go to a movie theatre and see a girl with no make-up running
around with sweats on for two hours. That's not interesting. You
want to see a girl that looks great, andhot."

Love's a show-biz kid, groomed to be a star since the age of 10. She
once said she hadn't really missed out on any of the usual American
girly things the school prom, cheerleading because she'd been able
to do them all on her popular TV show Party Of Five.

"I didn't really feel like I found my life until I started getting
to live my dream," she said, possibly previewing a lyric from her
next album. "I feel like this is what my life is supposed to be and
I've gotten so much out of life. I feel like the chosen ones who get
to be entertainers kind of have a duty and I feel like I'm supposed
to be here for the other 75,000 girls that can't and so it's my job."

By then, the minder had stopped hovering and was sitting right next
to us. "You have to wrap it up," he said. Just like that, it was
over and we were left with the distinct impression there was never
any real Love in that room.


Personal trainers

If porno-pop was last week's trend, this week we have the emergence
of a curious new mentor system for female solo acts.

American singer Pink was first to join this very corporate
sisterhood, employing Linda Perry from the one-hit-wonder band 4 Non
Blondes (What's Up) to guide her through the process of creating her
recent hit album M!ssundaztood.

Now, with BareNaked, Jennifer Love Hewitt has joined the club as
well, teaming up with another one-hit wonder in singer/songwriter
Meredith Brooks (Bitch) to co-write the songs.

It's a win-win situation for all concerned, giving employment to the
mentors and no competition for the mentees, who've carefully chosen
talented but nonetheless has-been performers to help guide their
careers.

"It's been great," Love Hewitt said of her experience with Brooks.

"She's really been a hero for me. Writing's not something that I'm
usually that comfortable with. It's an insecure sort of thing to do,
to pour your heart out into a three-minute song. She really believed
in me a lot and helped me to overcome that."


This story was found at:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/15/1032054709862.html

Tarantino calls 'action' in the east

September 14 2002


Quentin Tarantino is on his haunches, a little to the left of the
movie camera, watching his star, Uma Thurman, gaze with almost
erotic longing at a gleaming samurai sword. "You can sense the
dragon within," Tarantino whispers. At once, Thurman's eyes flare
with a look somewhere between anger and awe. "Cut!" the director
calls. "That was so cool."

For Tarantino, the video clerk turned movie wunderkind, it has been
six years since he last set foot on the set as a director. Yet here
he is, now 39, on a stifling, muggy, pungent stage at the venerable
Beijing Film Studio - built by Mao in 1949 to make propaganda -
directing his favourite actress with one of his personal idols, the
veteran Japanese action star Sonny Chiba, in a major scene of his
newest film, Kill Bill.

There have been rumours and cutting gossip during the director's
long hiatus. Some noted his many supporting roles in films and
television shows and wondered whether he was too intent on turning
himself into a movie star. Or perhaps, others speculated, he was
burned-out in the wake of the spectacular success of 1994's Pulp
Fiction, which won the Palme d'Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film
Festival, and became the most imitated movie of the '90s. The usual
whispers of off-the-set problems and failed romances also
occasionally made the rounds.

BIOG
QUENTIN JEROME TARANTINO
Nickname QT
Born March 27, 1963
Where Knoxville, Tennessee
Films as director 4
As actor 16
Appearances in the Golden Girls as an Elvis impersonator 1
All of it was nonsense, the director says. He's been acting, yes.
And writing. And waiting until he felt the time and the project were
right to step behind the camera again.

"I don't need a job," Tarantino says. "Making this movie is not a
job. I don't have to work again if I don't want to. So I only make
the movies I want to make, when it's fun. Because if you're not
gonna have fun, why do it?"


Tarantino comes from the peripatetic school of film-makers: affably
bouncing around the set, talking to the cinematographer, Bob
Richardson, about camera placement, laughing with the first
assistant director, Bill Clark, about the difficulties getting a
baseball to slice in half in a previous scene, clumping down the
wood ramp from the raised stage to draw a sweet smile from the
Chinese assistant director Zhang Jinzhan's bulldog before wrapping
his arms around a visiting friend, the director Scott Spiegel,
asking him what mischief he'd been in last night in Beijing's
flourishing bar scene, then breaking into an intense conversation
with a visiting journalist about his favourite Chinese pop songs,
trading a ribald wisecrack with the passing Thurman, handing off a
list of shots for that afternoon, going into a tirade about the
plague of mobile phones that has invaded movie sets since last he
directed and then stalking back up the ramp and picking up his
conversation with Richardson as though there had been no intervening
distractions.

Yohei Taneda, the production designer for the film's Asian
sequences, tries to explain the look of the film and the experience
of working with Tarantino. "There is a reality to Kill Bill, but it
is not the reality of the world," he says. "It is the reality of
Quentin's world and that is a somewhat different place. We are in
Tokyo, we are in Okinawa, we are in a Chinese temple, but at all
times, really, we are in the world of Quentin."

Essentially, Kill Bill, which is being made by Miramax Films, is a
revenge story - set in a pop-cultural blend of samurai movies, urban
action flicks and spaghetti westerns. Thurman plays the Bride,
awakening from a five-year coma to track down the man who put her
there, Bill (David Carradine, star of the TV series Kung Fu), her
former boss and lover as well as the band of female assassins who
work for him (Lucy Liu, Vivica Fox and Daryl Hannah, among others).

The movie will be violent, but playfully so, more like Pulp Fiction
than Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino's 1992 debut.

Tarantino says he was hard at work a couple of years ago, on what he
hoped would be his next film, a World War II epic called Inglorious
Bastards, when he bumped into Thurman at a party. "I hadn't seen Uma
in maybe three years and she asked me, as she always did when we saw
one another, when I was going to finish writing this project we'd
talked about doing together," Tarantino says. "I've always
considered her my actress, you know. So I went back home that
weekend and dug out the few pages that I'd written on Kill Bill and
decided, what the heck, I'll work on them."

By this point, his war epic had ballooned into something much larger
than he had intended and he was distressed that so many other
directors were already working on World War II films. "So I decided
to shift over to Kill Bill," he says. "I thought it would be fun.
I'd get to work with Uma again and it would be good practice for my
epic."

But Kill Bill mutated into an epic of its own. The plan was to shoot
only some of the scenes in China - mainly exteriors at a
mountainside temple where the Bride trains, and studio interiors of
a sprawling Japanese nightclub, but once getting there, the rhythm
of the resurrecting Chinese capital and the inexpensiveness of
shooting there transformed eight weeks into three months.

"It's almost like this movie became a Petri dish for world
globalisation," says Tarantino's friend and longtime producing
partner, Lawrence Bender. "You look at it now and everything is
working very smoothly. But the first few weeks were very different.
We've got people speaking English, people speaking Chinese, people
speaking Japanese. The grips put tags on all of the equipment with
the names in both Chinese and English."

When Woo-ping Yuen - the Hong Kong martial arts master whose wire
work on The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has
revolutionised action films - had long meetings with Tarantino,
often not a word was exchanged. "They would make these signs to one
another," producer E. Bennett Walsh says.

The production's turning point, most agreed, came on the fourth day -
  an ambitious Steadicam shot in which the camera needed to snake its
way through the bustling nightclub, following the Bride down a
flight of stairs, around a corner, then rising up and over a wall to
follow her (as though looking straight down from the ceiling) into a
bathroom, then down on the ground, out into the club, across a
stage, over a dance floor and up a stairwell.

"I remember when they described it to me I said, 'What was that part
about going over a wall?"' says Larry McConkey, a veteran Steadicam
operator, laughing.

In the end they had to shoot the bustling nightclub and then, when
the camera turned, remove one of the side walls and roll in a crane
McConkey could climb aboard, which transported him over the wall and
then into the bathroom. As he shot in there, the crane was rolled
out, the wall replaced and the bustling resumed before the camera
made its way back. "I got bounced around pretty good," McConkey
says. "I never actually hit the ground, but I hit just about
everything else."

The scene required 17 takes, Walsh says, but they got it in one
day. "We knew if we could do that, we could get anything done."

Tarantino wanted to film in Beijing, he says, largely for the
adventure of it - and he got it. "During the seven months of pre-
production, I spent three in Beijing," he says. "And since May, I
haven't left China at all. Four months straight." Like the others in
the production crew, Tarantino made friends here, explored the
country, became a habitue of the capital's exploding nightlife. He
adopted a favourite restaurant, a low-rent Sichuan place that he -
and then the entire crew -began to call the Bucket of Blood, a
reference to its red-coloured and red-hot food.

It is approaching midnight on a particularly long day of shooting -
the last in China, though another month of work remains in Japan,
Mexico and the United States - and Tarantino is keen for the right
sound.

Thurman, dressed in yellow and black motorcycle gear with a samurai
sword in her hand, is opening the trunk of a car containing a gore-
covered body. From catwalks in the gloomy recesses of the studio,
workers sprinkle artificial snowflakes. Looming behind Thurman is a
brightly lighted billboard for Tenku beer, a fictitious brand that
will join Red Apple Cigarettes and Go Juice in the roster of made-up
products Tarantino likes to put in his films.

The trunk shot is a kind of in-joke for the director's fans. Each of
his movies has included a shot from inside the trunk of a car.
Tarantino was nearly giddy with delight. "Ah, the trunk scene!" he
says.

All around him, crew members are signing one another's scripts and T-
shirts, aware that the adventure is drawing to a close. Several hug
and cry. Plastic cups and champagne await in a nearby cooler, but
Tarantino is not finished. He is having too much fun.

He calls out to Mark Ulano, head of his sound team, "Can you put a
microphone inside the trunk?"

This is translated to some of the Chinese crew, who seem a little
puzzled. Tarantino cackles happily.

"Because when you slam it," he says, "It sounds really cool in
there."

-- The New York Times

Site featuring The Golden Road by Lucy Maud Montgomery (second Story
Girl novel):

http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Lucy_Maud_Montgomery/The_Golden_Road/

Sins of the sisters
Even before Peter Mullan won a Golden Lion at Venice for his film
about sadistic nuns, the Vatican was on the attack. He tells Derek
Malcolm why that's good news

Derek Malcolm
Monday September 16, 2002
The Guardian

'I don't know why the Vatican bothered to slag off me or my film,"
says Peter Mullan, winner of the Venice festival's Golden Lion for
his film The Magdalene Sisters. "They've only given us some
wonderful publicity. The best thing they could have done would have
been to ignore us completely. It could be worth a million at the
Italian box office now." The film, about a Catholic reformatory run
by cruel and uncaring nuns in 1970s Ireland and attacked as a
falsehood by the Church, is already worth a million - the price in
dollars that Miramax, the American powerhouse, has just paid to
distribute it in the US.

Mullan is surprisingly cheerful about the furore the film has
caused, despite the fact that several members of the festival's
board of directors also object to it, claiming the jury, headed by
Gong Li, had disgraced the 59th edition of one of the oldest and
most prestigious film events in the calendar.

But Mullan is aware that after all three showings of The Magdalene
Sisters at the festival, the applause was huge. What's more, the
film got more plaudits from the Italian critics than any other. La
Stampa newspaper even printed an editorial on its front page lauding
the film, headed: "Where's the scandal?" It said that the Church
should ask for forgiveness, not deny the facts.

Not surprisingly, Mullan says he is not in the least repentant about
telling the sad and sometimes horrific story of the "fallen" girls
mistreated by the nuns in the name of God. It is entirely based on
the truth - if anything, it was softened a bit in order not to give
the audience too hard a time. "I couldn't possibly have made it up,"
he says. "I'm not that good a dramatist. And what disappoints me is
the attitude of those who claim that nothing like this ever
happened.

"It would have been good to think that the Vatican might have
apologised. After all, the Pope himself has said Catholics should
now admit their mistakes and purge themselves of the faults of the
past. But denial won't do them any good. People are beginning to
know too much to be fooled any more."

Actor-director Mullan, known as a straight-talker and a left-wing
political activist, was inspired to make The Magdalene Sisters by
the Channel 4 documentary Love in a Cold Climate. He was also
inspired by Gillo Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers. Above its title on
screen was "Winner of the Golden Lion at Venice". Now Mullan has got
one himself, and Pontecorvo was in the front row of the theatre when
the kilted Scotsman held his trophy aloft in triumph.

Mullan took three and a half years to make The Magdalene Sisters.
Only after a long search did he find financing, but when he started
shooting it "suddenly disappeared again".

"We'd done about a week and I had to defer my own fee and put in
£17,000 of my own money to continue. Eventually, all was well. But
it was a very narrow squeeze. Added to that, Vanessa Redgrave left
the cast because her mother had an accident.

"We had to make the film in Scotland because we were worried about
setting off a scandal in Ireland. We already had done when we
advertised for women to come forward who had been in one of the
Sister of Mercy's reformatories. People guessed that we might be up
to no good!

"But I don't regard the film as anti-Catholic, even though I believe
that certain fundamentalists of the Church behave just about as
badly as the Taliban, especially towards women whom they regard as
naturally weak and thus prone to evil. I regard it as an attempt to
right the injustices done to thousands of young girls over a great
many years. It amazes me that the Magdalene sisters' last
reformatory was only shut six years ago."

Mullan, a Catholic, was born in Peterhead in the east of Scotland to
a "dirt poor" family who believed, as a lot of Scots Catholics did,
that Irish Catholicism was the fount of all wisdom. He was soon
disabused when he came to London and worked for a particularly evil
nun with a beatific smile.

This is not the first time one of Mullan's films has sparked
controversy. Orphans, his debut, was dropped by Channel 4 because
they didn't think it was going to be any good. When it was somehow
completed, it won prizes at Venice and did surprising box-office
business into the bargain. Mullan is best known, however, as an
actor - particularly as the reformed alcoholic in Ken Loach's My
Name Is Joe.

Acting, not direction, is his next assignment. He is preparing to
play Macbeth in a new film that stars Courtney Love as Lady Macbeth.
Nothing, though, is going to stop him making films. He has several
projects in mind, and his Golden Lion should allow him to do
them. "But I'll never go to Hollywood to make them," he says
adamantly. "I want to stay in my own country."

The Magdalene Sisters opens in Ireland next month. Mullan is just a
little apprehensive. "If you think the Venice screening caused a
riot, wait till you see what could happen there."

· The Magdalene Sisters opens in the UK in January.

From the L.A. Times:

The Weight of Water

Southland Theaters

Drama Lions Gate

With: Catherine McCormack, Sean Penn, Elizabeth Hurley, Sarah
Polley.

The idea: A woman's obsession with a 19th century murder plays out
against her increasingly troubled marriage.

Writers: Alice Arlen and Christopher Kyle; based on the novel by
Anita Shreve.

Director: Kathryn Bigelow.

So? Bigelow takes a break from action.

Starting Nov. 1.

Daily

Here's a link to a series of articles on the Summit Series:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/series/72summit/

Get Shorty Film Showcase & Tour comes to Boston!
Featuring the best short films under 5 minutes on
Earth. GSFS is dedicated solely to the art of the
Short Films.  Please join us Sunday, Sept. 29th @
7:00pm at La Boom, 25 Boylston Place (in the Alley) in
Downtown Boston!  Reservation Hotline: 617.848.5809.
(directions: www.laboomboston.com) $10.00 reserved.
$15.00 at the door. Submit your short film with the
submission fee waived on Sunday. Please support Indie
Film and forward this notice along.

A pioneer, cultural event will provide a monthly forum
to showcase the most creative short films from around
the world! We truly believe that there are filmmakers
who can be brilliant in FIVE minutes or less. All
genres will be accepted, including categories for
narrative, docs, commercial/PSA, music videos,
experimental and student films.

GSFS offers filmmaker’s great venues, relaxed social
settings, and an outlet to screen their work for their
peers and industry executives. No judges, no
exorbitant entry fees, no B.S. Only the toughest
audience & industry invited guests an open bar can
buy, and...some kick-a** prizes. Short film entries
for all cities are still being accepted, deadlines
will be on each 10th of the month for that
participating city.  For more information on
National/Regional sponsorship opportunities, Film
Festival partnerships or attending the showcase,
please email: getshortyfilms@.... Please use the
official entry form link to enter your film: <a
href="http://rsvpnycity.com/GetShortyForm.html">http://rsvpnycity.com/GetShortyF\
orm.html</a>





=====
Get Shorty Film Showcase & Tour
P.O.Box 7727
New York City USA 10116-7727
Fax: +01.419.858.4065
Entry: http://rsvpnycity.com/GetShortyForm.html

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
http://sbc.yahoo.com

Get Shorty Film Showcase & Tour comes to Boston!
Featuring the best short films under 5 minutes on
Earth. GSFS is dedicated solely to the art of the
Short Films.  Please join us Sunday, Sept. 29th @
7:00pm at La Boom, 25 Boylston Place (in the Alley) in
Downtown Boston!  Reservation Hotline: 617.848.5809.
(directions: www.laboomboston.com) $10.00 reserved.
$15.00 at the door. Submit your short film with the
submission fee waived on Sunday.

A pioneer, cultural event will provide a monthly forum
to showcase the most creative short films from around
the world! We truly believe that there are filmmakers
who can be brilliant in FIVE minutes or less. All
genres will be accepted, including categories for
narrative, docs, commercial/PSA, music videos,
experimental and student films.

GSFS offers filmmaker’s great venues, relaxed social
settings, and an outlet to screen their work for their
peers and industry executives. No judges, no
exorbitant entry fees, no B.S. Only the toughest
audience & industry invited guests an open bar can
buy, and...some kick-a** prizes. Short film entries
for all cities are still being accepted, deadlines
will be on each 10th of the month for that
participating city.  For more information on
National/Regional sponsorship opportunities, Film
Festival partnerships or attending the showcase,
please email: getshortyfilms@.... Please use the
official entry form link to enter your film: <a
href="http://rsvpnycity.com/GetShortyForm.html">http://rsvpnycity.com/GetShortyF\
orm.html</a>





=====
Get Shorty Film Showcase & Tour
P.O.Box 7727
New York City USA 10116-7727
Fax: +01.419.858.4065
Entry: http://rsvpnycity.com/GetShortyForm.html

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
http://sbc.yahoo.com

Before the talk about hooters:

--- In sarahpolleyfanclub@y..., techichi74 wrote:
It's curious that you mention the comments on
Sarah's forearm hair. I have a theory that an anatomical
fetish is a symbol of a non-physical attribute that a
person wants in a mate. I may be full of shit but it
would be interesting to research.<br><br>I've never
noticed the eroticism of forearm hair.<br>I believe that
the whole counts but I have my fetish, too. Sarah has
a nice body in general, but I think she
particularly has a nice, sexy back. (Please don't laugh at
me.) What does my fetish or melbone2's mean? Who
knows?

"Annibelle Scoops" on atomfilms.com, about a young pop starlet who
makes up for lack of talent with silicone injections:
   http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/annibelle_2_blossoming

"Annibelle Scoops" on atomfilms.com.  Clever, well-animated short about a
young pop starlet and her insanely ambitious mother/manager.
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/annibelle_2_blossoming