After a successful run in Washington DC last
year Andrew Upton, Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh have brought the Sydney Theater Company’s production of the famous Chekhov play Uncle Vanya to New York City. And it’s wowing audiences in the Big Apple.
Opening as a part of the Lincoln Centre Festival at the weekend, critics have praised the “uniformly brilliant cast” that includes Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving.
Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh are still slightly terrified by the play ‘It’s excruciating,’ says Blanchett. ‘What I find the most difficult thing to exist within is what Tamas [Ascher, the Hungarian director] describes in Chekhov as the “stupid silences” where everyone just falls into a silence that is utterly stupid, and their stupidity is revealed to them, and they are staring into a void.’ The production continues at the New York City Centre until Saturday.
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Balancing mega-blockbusters and character-driven independent films, Hugo Weaving musters the high style necessary for a elven lord, an evil computer program, and a malevolent transformer, all while retaining the subtlety to fuel more small-scale films. His latest, Last Ride, (which although completed three years ago has only recently debuted in selected USA cinemas) is one of the latter. In it, Weaving plays an abusive ex-convict who takes his estranged son along as they flee through the Australian outback.
Here, he speaks to AV Club about some of the roles he’s played over the years.
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In a new interview with Collider, Hugo Weaving chats about films both old and new.
There’s his delight at Australian film Last Ride (now three years old) has finally achieved a US release in NYC theatres, and nationally through VOD.
He speaks of working with the Wachowskis again on Cloud Atlas, what his love of Berlin.
Plus he touches on reprising Elrond for The Hobbit, the different tone of the new films, and how he thinks the 3D will work wonderfully well for the type of film it is.
Choice Hobbit quote: “You live from day to day and from moment to moment, doing the best you can. There’s a delightful atmosphere there, so it was lovely. I’ve literally just come back from there a couple days ago, having done post-production.”
[Full Q&A]
With Peter Jackson’s release of the second production video from The Hobbit on Facebook, we found ourselves with a lot of new visuals from the upcoming films. Among the highlights are Hugo Weaving as Elrond, a peek at Legolas’s costuming, Goblin-town and more! We are taking a look at each picture individually and have offered our comments and suggestions. Like you, we are purely speculating! Each pic has a number associated with it, and you can click on it for the super high res version. We’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions – just comment on this post, on Facebook and in our Forums! Reference the number when you comment, as we plan on updating this post with your thoughts as well. Oh yea, there be SPOILERS ahead!
Continue reading “Frame by Frame: Production Video Number 2”
That’s the big question posed by Ben Child of The Guardian!
To begin with, fans have long known that Peter Jackson’s vision for his two-part adaptation of The Hobbit involves plans to include the activities of the White Council and the Necromancer of Dol Guldur, a rather sketchy storyline that minimally involves Gandalf, Saruman, and Galadriel, and occurs parallel to the main story of Bilbo’s journey with the thirteen Dwarves to the Lonely Mountain.
But while it could be argued that the White Council storyline is at least canon, what can be said about the surprising inclusion of Frodo, his father Drogo, an older Bilbo (played by Sir Ian Holm), and Legolas?
In his article Ben poses genuine questions that most fans (on TheOneRing.net at least) have been pondering over for months now:
What shape will Sauron take – Tolkien offers no clues – as he will presumably not yet have assumed the form of a great eye in which he appears in Lord of the Rings?
Does this mean that the 89-year-old Christopher Lee has made the trip to New Zealand after all to reprise his role as Saruman?
Going further than questioning the practicalities of filming this prelude to the Lord of the Rings, the article delves deeper into the question at the heart of the much-anticipated cinematic phenomenon – by pulling us away from the central story, will the films present The Hobbit through a very different prism than what was originally intended?
Right smack dab in the middle of the Memorial Day Holiday in the US, Warner Brothers has announced the official titles for the two upcoming ‘The Hobbit‘ films. As previously reported in March, they are ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey‘ and ‘The Hobbit: There and Back Again.’ Click ‘continue reading’ for the full release!
Continue reading “Official Film Titles Announced – March 2nd Titles Confirmed”
