Russell Crowe and Darren Aronofsky are busy with Noah. Will Smith is apparently tackling the Biblical brother rivals Cain in Abel in his directorial debut. Paul Verhoeven is taking on the big man himself in Jesus of Nazareth and now his earthly mother will be getting a big screen focus. Mary Mother of Christ will show Jesus' life up until about adolescence and the recently retired Peter O' Toole is apparently coming out of retirement to join the project, which is being billed as a prequel to The Passion of the Christ.
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The fun never ends: "When filming 1960's Kidnapped, he became friends with the Australian actor Peter Finch, also a fond boozer. When they were refused a drink after closing time during a session at an Irish pub, they wrote a cheque to buy the pub so they could have another drink. Having sobered up the next day, they rushed back to cancel their purchase. [...] They ended up befriending the landlord, even attending his funeral. While sobbing as the casket was lowered, the pair soon realised they were at the wrong funeral. Their pal was being buried 100 yards away." [The Independent]
It's not as though Peter O'Toole died this week when he announced his retirement from acting, but contemplating the Irish great's absence from stage and screen alike nevertheless yields a bittersweet fog of remembrance through which our hearts and souls must now navigate. I think they call it a "hangover."
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In Tuesday afternoon's round-up of news, Lionsgate sets dates on a two feature plan for the Hunger Games' final book. Also, a parade of stars receive nominations for Latino awards, while the Melbourne Film Festival takes shape with a team-up from Muriel's Wedding among the titles set to screen. And Sweden's Simon heads to the U.S.
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Although he converted to marry his devoutly Catholic wife in 1926, Graham Greene was famously called to the faith during his time in Mexico, where he exiled himself in 1938, after an over-stimulated review of a Shirley Temple movie threatened him with extradition to the United States on libel charges. It was in Mexico that Greene conceived the first novel in his “Catholic trilogy,” The Power and the Glory, about a priest on the run during the Cristero War.
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