|
|
|
Hugo Weaving ~ Breaking News2004
|
||
|
||
|
|
|
| 2nd October Hugo Weaving AFI Nomination for Best Supporting Actor After a massive delay to get distribution outside of the festival circuit, The Old Man Who Read Love Stories has been awarded Australian Film Institute nominations for Best Film and Supporting Actor. 2nd October Peaches in Hollywood Also long delayed (the problems getting distribtion and repeated changes to release days do not bode well), Peaches gets its US Premiere at the Hollywoood Film Festival October 12 to 18. 2nd October Peaches Review in Variety by Ronnie Scheib In helmer Craig Monahan's assured sophomore outing, "Peaches," past and present relationships perform a ghostly minuet in and around a South Australian peach cannery's assembly line. Sue Smith's ambitious script charts a twisted timeline of sex and workplace intersections, but the actors strain to fit their complex slots. Likable yet flawed pic touches on a wide range of arthouse-friendly subjects, from factory closings to immigration to dyslexia, but elements never truly cohere into satisfying whole. Despite strong down-to-earth perf by Hugo Weaving, better known as cyber-villain Mr. Smith in "Matrix" trilogy, distrib chances appear iffy. Dramatic opening shows a grisly car accident that kills the father and mother of the film's heroine, Steph (Emma Lung), decapitating her mother while Steph is still in the womb. Steph is raised by her mom's best friend Jude (Jacqueline McKenzie), whose anxiety over the "miracle baby" is exceeded only by her unexplained hatred of Alan (Hugo Weaving), a foreman at the peach plant that employs half the town but is in danger of closing. On her 18th birthday, Steph crosses two milestones: She starts work at the factory and receives her mother's diary, which will radically change the way she perceives everything. Her mother's words allow Steph, who has low self-esteem caused by her extreme dyslexia and Jude's endless expectations of gloom and doom, to slowly penetrate a bygone time of promise and daring. Pic's first flashback, a Sally Rand-y feathery fan dance performed by her mother and a younger Jude for the delectation of the assembly line, portrays a very different atmosphere from the present climate of fear and firings. The backstory sets up an inseparable foursome: Steph's mother, Jass (Sam Healy); her Vietnamese emigre father, Johnny (Tyson Contor), underemployed, like many of his compatriots, at the plant; a then-freewheeling, fun-loving Jude; and Jude's boyfriend, Alan, an ardent union activist. The madcap quartet steals giant peach floats, skinny-dips in the river and generally takes full advantage of their youth. Angry at having missed all the good stuff, Steph initiates an affair with Alan. The sexual tensions that radiate from that coupling, mirrored and retroactively illuminated by flashback events, fuel pic's momentum. Weaving, unsurprisingly, commands the screen, making his transition from stuttering, shy working-class idealist to hardnosed managerial prick 100% believable. Indeed, he almost blows the other actors completely off the screen. McKenzie owns the younger, adventurous Jude but when her persona loses its joie de vivre, the character shrinks accordingly. Tyro actress Lung carries doe-eyed love scenes well enough but her Steph remains a collection of scripted givens. "Peaches" lacks the psychological density and cohesion of Monahan's 1998 debut feature, "The Interview" (which paired Weaving with Aussie thesp Tony Martin). In general, helming and scribing seem to be pulling in different directions, Monahan's subtlety with actors and their immediate surroundings not particularly enhanced by Smith's chronological incrustations. 7th August Excellent Reviews for Hedda Gabler Reviews are beginning to come in for the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Hedda Gabler, starring Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving: "A discussion between Brack (Weaving) and Hedda about trains and bare ankles might be the sexiest encounter yet staged – and they never touch. Cate Blanchett is terrific, perfectly embodying Hedda’s strength and insecurities…Weaving is flawless." ~ Tim Benzie, Sydney
Star Observer
"A theatrical landmark that will be remembered long after it closes at the end of September. Cate Blanchett’s Hedda is energetic, stylish and dangerous ... Hugo Weaving is pleasurably greasy as the Judge, who simultaneously aids and endangers others." ~Saskia Smith, The
Program
"Weaving commands attention as the engagingly urbane, somewhat smug Judge Brack who, like most of the men that come into Hedda's orbit, falls under her flirtatious, mischief-making spell." ~ Bryce Hallett, Sydney
Morning Herald
27th July Hugo Weaving on Cate Blanchett Hype for Hedda Gabler Asked if it had been intimidating for any of the cast to work alongside the Oscar-nominated actress, Nevin paused before replying pointedly: "When you go into the rehearsal room with Ibsen, your main challenge is Ibsen." Similarly for Hugo Weaving, who plays opposite Blanchett as Judge Bracks, it seems the Blanchett hype has remained outside the production. "It hasn't felt particularly hyped from our end; Cate's not really like that, it's just like doing another show with really good actors." The pair has worked together before on Company B Belvoir's The Blind Giant is Dancing and on screen in The Lord of the Rings. "She's no different on stage - she's an actor who's serious about her work and approaches it with a very inquiring mind." Both Weaving and Blanchett begin work on
the new Australian
film thriller, Little Fish, less than 24 hours after the show closes on
September 26.
11th July Everything Goes voted most popular Australian short film
"Everything Goes" starring Hugo Weaving and Abbie Cornish was voted by this year's Sydney Film Festival audiences as the most popular Australian short film at the State Theatre. Hugo Weaving's dry and witty performance as Ray has also been highly praised. Hot on the heels of its Sydney premiere,
"Everything Goes"
screens twice at the 53rd Melbourne International Film Festival and
once
at the 13th Brisbane International Film Festival later this month.
"Everything Goes" is also eligible to be
nominated for
Best Short Film at the 2004 Lexus IF Awards. You can vote for the film
simply by registering online at:
n. Thanks to Diana for the pulicity info 16th June Weaving to action-up with Jackie Chan Weaving will play a swaggering hero in a new Jackie Chan vehicle called The Myth. An adventure film in the vein of "Indiana Jones", the film sees Chan playing an archeologist-for-hire (in that he's enlisted by every company and their dog the moment they want something recovered) who is enlisted to track down the Tomb of the Chin Dynasty. The Myth has already commenced principal photography. 18th May Weaving and Neill Catch Little Fish Hugo Weaving and Sam Neill are currently in negotiations to star alongside Cate Blanchett and Martin Henderson in the crime thriller Little Fish, Variety reports. Written by Jacquelin Perske, the film centres around a girl who clings to the hope of a new life all while her brother and ex-boyfriend threaten to destroy her chance of happiness by embarking on a criminal venture. The Myriad Pictures feature is scheduled to begin shooting in Australia in October. 10th May
Everything Goes at Australian Film
Festivals
The film was funded by The Australian
Film Commission
and was produced by Colin Englert for Soft Paw Films.
The film also stars Abbie Cornish (the star of Cate Shortland's debut feature "Somersault") and Sullivan Stapleton (from the US horror film "Darkness Falls"). "Everything Goes" is being screened at numerous Australian and international film festivals this year. n. Special
thanks to Diana for the info.
12th April Hugh Jackman influenced by Schoolboy Hugo Either Hugh will do Aussie actor displays impressive versatility by RICHARD OUZOUNIAN When
Hugh Jackman was only 8, his parents split up and his mother fled back
to England, leaving the children with their father.
A distant
memory stirs behind his eyes.
At
Knox, Jackman explains, "acting was always encouraged as a rounding out
of the man, a worthwhile hobby, rather than an actual profession."
6th April Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler Cate and Hugo to play for 300 a night By Jane Albert, Deputy arts editor The Australian THE
casting of Cate Blanchett in a Sydney Theatre Company production in
July
was enough to sell out the eight-week season before it even started.
The two stars of the blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy will play the lead roles in Henrik Ibsen's work Hedda Gabler. The play marks Blanchett's first return to the stage here since 1997, although STC director Robyn Nevin said the London-based actress has been looking for a theatre project in Australia for the past four years. Blanchett
and Weaving last shared the stage in a 1995 Company B production of The
Blind Giant is Dancing.
Written in 1890, Hedda Gabler, a dark and complex work, is considered to be the Norwegian playwright's greatest play. It is the story of a 29-year-old married woman plotting the destruction of an old flame. Weaving will play the man who lusts after her and discovers her deception. Although Weaving was not required to audition for the part, Nevin said she had discussed a number of possible actors with Blanchett. "The
putting together of the puzzle is very important to Cate – the roles
require
that they can trust each other," the director said.
20th February Aden
Young writing project for Hugo Weaving
.
|
||
|
||
|
|
|
 The
Hugo Weaving Galleries
Web
Weaving |
||
|
||