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August 2007
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From the Denver Post
Hunter's friends tell Gonzo stories, most of them pretty crazy
By Bill Husted
Denver Post Staff Columnist
Article Last Updated: 09/01/2007 10:05:24 PM MDT
"Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson" comes out on Halloween, fittingly, because from all accounts it's pretty scary.
The book is an "oral biography" by Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour - which means they sit around and talk to different people about Thompson. And it isn't all whiskey, LSD and laughs.
Johnny Depp, who portrayed Thompson in the 1998 movie "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and paid for Thompson's elaborate funeral, wrote the loving introduction.
He met Thompson late one night at the Woody Creek Tavern. Thompson entered with a cattle prod and a Taser as he threatened to shock the $%#@* out of anyone who got in his path. He found Depp in the corner, they shook hands. "The beginning," Depp writes, "of a long and deep-rooted friendship."
Jack Nicholson remembers a night in Aspen with Hunter. "The first time I met him, he pulled out a gun in the middle of a house. Me and a friend of mine jumped out the window."
Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis says he misses the late-night calls Thompson was famous for. "From now on when the phone rings at 4 a.m., it's just bad news."
Ain't that the truth.
From Terrys Blog 8-22-07
(Terry Russio writer of the POTC films)
Johnny Depp and his wife Vanessa join us this year for dinner, and afterwards
we head over for the midnight showing at the El Capitan. So, if any of
you out there reading were watching At World's End there that night, opening
night, you might not have noticed, but Johnny Depp, Gore, and Bruckheimer
were there in the theater with you.
Not quite Johnny news- but HERE is a very interesting article about the most successful pirate of all time.
Word has it that "Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End" will start airing on pay-cable TV in December.
From TV Shows on DVD
Inside the Actors Studio - 2 DVD Titles Return to the Schedule: 'Leading Men' & 'JohnnyDepp' Set for 2007
Posted by David Lambert
8/28/2007
Back in April we reported that a planned May release of Inside the Actors Studio - Johnny Depp was moved to September by Shout! FActory, to instead by replaced with a June release of Inside the Actors Studio - Leading Men. Then, just days later, both of those titles were completely taken off the schedule, with no word of a release date for either one. We only knew that they would return to the schedule at some point.
Now we know when! According to Shout! Factory's distributor, Vivendi
Visual Entertainment, Inside the Actors Studio - Leading Men will
be in stores on September 25th, and Inside the Actor's Studio
- Johnny Deppwill make it to shelves finally on November 20th.
We're sure that the latter is no coincidence to fact of the early December
home video (DVD & Blu-Ray) release of Depp's huge hit, Pirates of
the CAribbean - At World's End, so hopefully stores will stock up!
From Emma first posted on the Johnny Depp Zone
Biennale Cinema
64th Venice International Film Festival
The 64th Venice International Film Festival runs at Venice Lido from
August 29 to September 8. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement is to
be awarded to Tim Burton by his long-standing colleague, Johnny Depp, on
September 5.
The screenings schedule of the Festival includes 11 days of screenings
and a pre-opening in Venice on August 28. The line-up includes the Venezia
64 section, whose films run for the Golden Lion, the Out of Competition,
Orizzonti, and Corto Cortissimo sections. Quentin Tarantino will host a
special retrospective section dedicated to Spaghetti Westerns.
and also confirming it
Biennale Cinema 64th Venice Film Festival “Tim Burton Day”: Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Tim Burton
Some sequences of Sweeney Todd and the Digital 3D version of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas are the special events of the “Tim Burton Day”. The 64th Festival’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement is to be awarded to Tim Burton by his long-standing colleague, Johnny Depp.
The screening of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in the new Disney Digital 3D version, and a world premiere of some sequences from the eagerly-awaited Sweeney Todd are the special events planned for the “Tim Burton Day”, to be held on Wednesday 5th September.
On that day, Johnny Depp will hand the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to the American director Tim Burton, awarded by the 64th Venice Film Festival (29th August – 8th September 2007), directed by Marco Müller and organised by the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Davide Croff.
Two years after the world premiere of Corpse Bride on the Lido, Tim Burton returns to the Festival to receive the 2007 Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. To pay homage to one of the boldest, most visionary and innovative of American film-makers, able to charm and fascinate the widest of audiences, the Venice Film Festival has organised a special “Tim Burton Day”, to be held on Wednesday 5th September. The programme will include not only the awards ceremony in the Sala Grande at the Palazzo del Cinema, but also the world premiere of some sequences from Burton’s latest film, the cinema adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s prize-winning musical-thriller, Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd is co-produced by Warner Bros Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures, and stars Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Jamie Campbell Bower, Jayne Wisener and Sacha Baron Cohen. The film will be released in the United States on 21st December 2007, distributed by Paramount, and in Italy in early 2008, distributed by Warner Bros Pictures Italia.
Sweeney Todd is a famous musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, first presented in 1979 on Broadway and initially starring Lean Cariou, Angela Lansbury and Victor Gaber. The musical, adapted from a theatrical work by Christopher Bond, and characterised by nocturnal, gothic atmospheres, won eight Tony Awards (the Broadway Oscars), including Best Musical. The story is set in Victorian England and is the story of a man who, using his barber’s shop as a cover, returns to London after years of absence to take revenge on those who destroyed his family. In Burton’s film, the deadly barber of Fleet Street is played by Johnny Depp, working with the director for the sixth time (the other films being Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005; Corpse Bride, 2005; Sleepy Hollow, 1999; Ed Wood, 1994; and Edward Scissorhands, 1990). The screenplay is by John Logan, who in the past produced the screenplays for Any Given Sunday (1999), Gladiator (2000), The Time Machine (2002), Star Trek: Nemesis (2003), Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003), The Last Samurai (2003), and The Aviator (2004). The sets and décor are by the Italian Oscar winners Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo. The film is produced by Richard D. Zanuck, Walter F. Parkes, Laurie MacDonald, John Logan, and Patrick McCormick is executive producer.
For the “Tim Burton Day”, there will also be a screening of the new stereoscopic 3D version of the feature film, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, created and produced by Tim Burton and directed by Henry Selick. Presented as a world premiere in Venice in 1994, the film has become a charming and magical cult animation film. For the first time in the history of film festivals, the Venice Festival will screen an entire film - Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - in 3D Stereoscopic Digital Cinema, making use of highly advanced technological solutions to ensure viewers in the Sala Grande the best possible visual quality, as desired by the film’s director. This has been possible due to the consistent work and collaboration of the Biennale di Venezia’s Digital Cinema Team with the Disney Production Team.
Using the new “Shutter” 3D spectacles, the public will be able to “make contact” with the film’s characters. The 3D technology provides a 3D effect by projecting a double image, one for the right eye and one for the left, creating a sense of depth and reality. Disney Digital 3D takes the application of this technology to a level never previously experienced, using a single projector that alternates the images for the right and for the left eye extremely rapidly (144 times a second), so that the brain perceives the stimulus of a third dimension.
This new Disney Digital 3D process had its first successful debut with Chicken Little, but Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in the new 3D version explores a higher level. The film marks the first instance in which a complete analogical film in 2D is converted into a 3D Stereoscopic Digital Cinema format. For Walt Disney Animation, the project represents a rare opportunity to enable the public to perceive an already greatly appreciated classic from a completely new perspective. The Disney Digital 3D technology is the result of a collaboration between Disney Studios, the special skills in the digital field of Industrial Light and Magic and the digital cinema projectors and servers of DCI comply.
The 3D version of the film will be released in European cinemas in time for Halloween, on 31st October 2007.
Venice, 27 August 2007
From USA Today
Johnny has won the Teen Choice Award for Action Movie Actor - here is the Movie winners from USA Today:
Teen Choice Award winners
Movies
Action adventure:Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Drama: The Pursuit of Happyness
Actor, drama: Will Smith (The Pursuit of Happyness)
Actress, drama: Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls)
Actor, action adventure: Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End)
Actress, action adventure: Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End)
Actor, horror/thriller: Shia LaBeouf (Disturbia)
Actress, horror/thriller: Sophia Bush (The Hitcher)
Villain: Bill Nighy (Davy Jones), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Hissy fit: Ryan Seacrest (Knocked Up)
Breakout male: Shia LaBeouf (Transformers)
From the Denver Post
(excerpt)
Foreward
By The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 08/25/2007 10:58:07 PM MDT
BOOK NEWS
Depp may finally get "Rum Diary" on film
Hunter S. Thompson's 1959 novel, "The Rum Diary," first published in 1998 and set for film adaptation in 2000, may finally reach the screen with star-producer Johnny Depp, Warner Independent Pictures and Graham King's GK Films.
Bruce Robinson, whose 1987 comedy "Whitnail & I" garnered a cult following, is writing the adapted screenplay and directing.
"Rum Diary" is loosely based on Thompson's experience working as a freelance
journalist in Puerto Rico in the late '50s. Depp will play a reporter who
works alongside a motley crew of self-destructive staffers at a struggling
San Juan newspaper,
You can VOTE for POTC:AWE HERE at the MSNBC poll as best Summer movie.
Rumor has it that Johnny may show up at the Venice Film Festival this year. They are honoring Tim Burton and screening a 10 minute promotion for "Sweeney Todd."
There's now a hardcover book on the Sweeney Todd movie available for pre-order at Amazon.com
Description:
Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again in a big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning musical thriller Sweeney Todd .
Depp stars as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, joined by Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney's amorous accomplice, who creates diabolical meat pies... The cast also includes Alan Rickman,Timothy Spall and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Produced in close co-operation with Tim Burton and the production team,
this lavish, full colour hardcover official companion volume to the film
will include a Foreword by Tim Burton, over 200 photos, concept drawings
and production designs, extracts from the screenplay and interviews with
the cast and crew.
Yet another cover for the AWE DVD - sent in by Jaclyn found at Barnes & Noble
and at Amazon
From Commander Bond
'Casino Royale' & Cast Nominated For National Movie Awards
Craig is nominated for the Best Male Performance award alongside seven other actors.
* Orlando Bloom (Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s
End)
* Daniel Craig (Casino Royale)
* Johnny Depp (Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s
End)
* Rupert Grint (Harry Potter And The Order Of The
Phoenix)
* Shia LeBeouf (Transformers)
* Tobey Maguire (Spider-man 3)
* Daniel Radciffe (Harry Potter And The Order Of
The Phoenix)
* Bruce Willis (Die Hard 4.0)
Commissioned by ITV on the success of the National Television Awards, the winners of the National Movie Awards will be decided upon by the public. Voting forms will be available at cinemas throughout the UK and published in national newspapers and magazines. Alternatively, you can vote now on the National Movie Awards website.
The ceremony will take place at London’s Royal Festival Hall on 28 September
and air on ITV1 the next day.
From Flick Direct
Disney's Pirates Johnny Depp Stunt Double Suit
8/8/2007
Anthony Angelotti, Johnny Depp's stuntman for Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean films, is suing Disney and the producers of the film for what he claims are a work related injuries.
According to Angelloti, he suffered pelvis, leg and bladder injuries after performing a "human yo-yo stunt" that simulates a 80 foot fall. He says that the stunt was not properly supervised by Disney and that along with his physical and emotional pain, he has also lost wages and work.
The case will be going before a court in Los Angeles in December.
From Shelle
Sci Fi Channel Broadcast Schedule:
NOTICE: Dark Shadows now airs in most areas at 8am (check your local listings).
Sent in by Carol found at Contact Music
DEPP KENNELS HIS DANGEROUS DOGS
JOHNNY DEPP allegedly kennels two aggressive Rottweilers in Anaheim,
California - because he can't bare to have them around his young kids.
The movie star pays hefty fees at the Crossroads Country Club Pet Resort
to house his pets, Red + Blue, because he'd rather hand over the cash than
destroy his dogs. A source tells the National Enquirer, "Johnny can't bring
himself to have them put down, so he pays $2,000-a-month on each dog for
them to be kept in a kennel." An employee at Crossroads confirms Depp's
dogs are housed there. The insider tells the Enquirer, "They've been here
a couple of years."
02/08/2007 02:09
New Sweeny Todd photo here
From Forbes
Ultimate Star Payback
Dorothy Pomerantz, 08.06.07, 6:00 AM ET
(excerpt)
Hollywood studios routinely shell out $20 million paychecks and serve up rich percentages of a film's revenue to A list stars like Will Smith, Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp on the premise that their famous faces ensure packed movie houses around the world on opening weekend.
But are these superstars worth it?
According to Forbes' first-ever list of Ultimate Star Payback, the movie
stars who deliver the best bang for the buck aren't the industry's top
earners. Matt Damon, the soft-spoken leading man in box office winner The
Bourne Ultimatum, turns out to be Hollywood's best investment. For every
dollar Damon got paid for his last three roles, his films returned $29
of gross income. And, surprisingly, former Friends star Jennifer Aniston
is Hollywood's most profitable actress, despite duds like Rumor Has It.
For ever dollar the former Mrs. Pitt was paid for her last three major
roles, her films on average returned $17 of gross income.
In Pictures: The Best Actors For The Buck
The first step in calculating our payback figures required adding up the film's worldwide box office and U.S. DVD revenues. We then subtracted the budget (which includes the up-front compensation for actors) for each film to derive net revenue.
Next, to calculate gross income, the actor's total compensation was divided into net revenue. The gross income for the last three movies for each actor was averaged to calculate his or her ultimate payback. We deliberately used gross income rather than net income in our analysis because the former is a better measure of a movie star's ability to generate income for a film.
Movie studios are famous for their accounting creativity. The further down the profit and loss statement you travel, the more room for chicanery. While there is little debate over a film's budget, marketing expenses are treated differently for almost every movie.
In Tinseltown, a film must be able to recover its production budget to be considered a box office success. The only film on the list that didn't recover its costs at all was Gigli (2003) starring Jennifer Lopez, which reportedly cost $54 million to make but barely earned a fraction of that at the box office and on video.
Damon earned the top spot mainly through his work playing an amnesiac spy in the Bourne trilogy. In 2004 Universal Studios made The Bourne Supremacy for $75 million--downright cheap for a summer action flick--and grossed $290 million in worldwide box office, plus another $165 million in video sales and rentals. Damon's total compensation for that film was just $26 million, a bargain for Universal. The latest installment, The Bourne Ultimatum, opened in theaters this past weekend with $70.2 million in box office receipts in the U.S., the biggest August opening weekend ever.
Screen heartthrob Brad Pitt seized second place, thanks in good measure to his enormous appeal overseas. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, for example, co-starring his current real-life love interest Angelina Jolie, grossed $186 million stateside. The 2004 Trojan War epic Troy made $133 million in U.S. box office receipts. It nearly tripled that abroad.
Tying for third place are Johnny Depp and Vince Vaughn. Depp,
who earns $20 million per picture, has logged some $2.2 billion at the
box office for his last three films. Vaughn's going rate has been roughly
half that. But Vaughn's last trio of movies-- The Break-Up, Wedding Crashers,
Dodgeball--have been box office bonanzas relative to their low production
costs. (At $52 million, The Break-Up's budget was roughly 20% of Dead Man's
Chest.)
From the Guardian
The road less travelled
The Roma in films are a byword for adventure and song. How about showing them as human beings, says Louise Doughty
Tuesday July 31, 2007
The Guardian
There is a sex scene with a twist in the film Transylvania. The hero and heroine have stumbled drunkenly out of a bar and are making passionate love on a car bonnet. The beautiful Zingarina, played by Asia Argento, is in love with someone else; her companion Tchangalo (Birol Unel) is a shady figure. Here they are, shouting at and slapping each other - giving it some, in other words. Then Zingarina freezes. "Don't move," she whispers. From her vantage point, she can see what he cannot - a black bear foraging in a rubbish bin. Suddenly sober, they slink into the car.
It is a typical moment from the film's director, Tony Gatlif: hilarious, touching - and debunking itself. Transylvania - Algerian-born Gatlif's latest depiction of European Roma, following Gadjo Dilo (2004) and the musical documentary Latcho Drom (1993) - is inevitably being marketed as a film about the Roma's "vibrant culture". But it could just as easily be described as a romantic comedy where you actually care about the protagonists.
A movie like Transylvania is long overdue. From my experience of writing novels about Roma people and my own English Romany ancestry, I know the frustration of seeing works pigeonholed by their characters' ethnicity. In mainstream films, Romany characters are most often ciphers representing freedom and wildness. Johnny Depp has cornered the market in these roles, playing the river-travelling Roux in Chocolat (2000) and, in the same year, the Gypsy horseman Cesar in Sally Potter's The Man Who Cried.
Depp also has a bit-part in Gypsy Caravan - When the Road Bends, a documentary directed by Jasmine Dellal and released next month. The film follows five Romany bands, including Taraf de Haidouks, on a tour of North America, where Taraf stop off for a chat with Depp. "It would be great if, by experiencing the Romany people and their music, people can learn about them," Depp says. "What you've believed about these people your entire life has been a lie."
An overly cosy, folkloric representation of Roma people in film can be troublesome. Yes, they are superb musicians - but they are also doctors, lawyers and politicians, as well as being among the most excluded peoples in Europe. Serbian director Emir Kusturica, whose Time of the Gypsies (1988) was arguably the first film about the Roma to break through to English-language audiences, combines humour with a detailed, complex portrayal of the Roma. But he has also been criticised for showing the seamier side of a marginalised culture: scenes in his films include violence, begging and prostitution.
Ultimately, what is important is whether these films are convincing representations of human beings. This is something Gatlif understands. In Transylvania, Asia Argento is incandescent as Zingarina, a woman who has begun a relationship with a Roma musician in France only for him to disappear, leaving her two months pregnant. She is French, but she could just as easily be Italian, Spanish, Roma or any combination of the above. What matters most is her personal dilemma.
Gatlif has become a kind of hero to a fast-growing band of European Romany intellectuals. The French Romany composer Robert Ninot believes he is in the same league as Almodóvar and Fellini. "The strength and beauty of his films lies in his uncompromising attitude," Ninot says.
Translyvania depicts the post-communist wilds of north-west Romania, its hamlets and industrial waste-lands, its tundra and swirling mists. Much of the film was shot at dusk. " I love those rare moments when the sky is blue and the land is dark ... filled with a mysterious light," Gatlif says.
It is this mastery of technique that means his films transcend any pigeonhole. "It is through the accuracy of the actors and their emotions that it is possible to reach a wider audience," he says. "The most important thing is to shoot a fair and true story."
Transylvania is released on August 10. Gypsy Caravan - When the Road
Bends is released on September 28.
From the PR Inside
RYDER'S PARENTS REFUSED TO LET HER WED DEPP
Click
to see full size
WINONA RYDER would have wed ex-boyfriend JOHNNY DEPP if her parents hadn't put an end to wedding talk. In a new interview with Vogue magazine, the actress and her father, Michael Horowitz, discuss the Heathers star's romance with Depp. And, although the family loved their daughter's Edward Scissorhands co-star, they disapproved of the couple's wedding plans.
In the article, Horowitz says, "They were the hottest couple in the
United States at that time, like Brad (Pitt) and Angelina (Jolie)... You
guys were cool." But Ryder recalls, "You stopped a wedding." The actress'
father responds, "We loved Johnny but you were 17." He later asks, "Was
Johnny angry at us for stopping the wedding? We had dinner soon after,
and I didn't get a bad vibe."
From Vanessa in Translation
Johnny did the cover for Vanessa's newest album, Divinidylle.
In a recent interview for the release of her new album, Vanessa Paradis firmly denies any marriage plans with Johnny Depp, in fact she refuses to discuss anything personal in her life. That was the groundrule for the interviewer, who kept straying.
Here is an excerpt:
Things have been written about the release of this CD, that it was delayed because of your daughter’s illness…
It’s nobody’s business. It is not me who has chosen to speak about it.
Has it shocked you?
I don’t feel like talking about it to you!
There is also talk about marriage with your partner Johnny Depp?
No.
There’s nothing to it?
No, that’s the second time I have answered you!
From Lisabel at Deppography she reports there was an interview Van gave in Le Parisien 5/7/07 and here is a rough English Translation of the part in quesiton:
But my life is also presented on this new album. “The battle” is about
the confusion you can have in your mind. “Junior suite” is about loneliness.
Why should love be seen to be more intimate than the disorder and waste/loss
of yourself? (sadness?Depression?)People create and recreate the lives
of celebrities, one minute they want to know then they don’t give a damn
because there is something more interesting that has come along!
