Kidman’s Grace of Monaco première gets royal snub
This new Nicole Kidman movie, Grace of Monaco, has displeased the Monegasque royals; they’re boycotting the première. And producer Pierre-Ange Le Pogam won’t screen it for Prince Albert et al. Of course it’s just a coincidence that this squabble will help sell tickets.
Albert’s beef, the New York Post says, is that it depicts his dad, Prince Rainier (played by Tim Roth) as a weakling and a bully.
The prince’s office says the film “in no way constitutes a biopic” and has “both major historical inaccuracies and a series of purely fictional scenes.”
“Once upon a time, long ago, in a time that seemed to those present exactly like now, except their teeth weren’t so clean and more things were wooden, there was a town called Hamelin ...”
So begins Russell Brand’s version of the old Pied Piper of Hamelin story, one of three old fairy tales he’s re-writing, under the series title Trickster Tales. He says he wants to change the world by showing kids that everything is connected, whatever that means.
The publisher, Canongate, says the Hamelin one will be out in November, with others to follow, all “filled with humour and mischievous energy.” Rich-kid British model Cara
Delevingne has denounced the world’s paparazzi for acting like “assassins.” Thedailybeast.com had the story. She’s been dating Michelle Rod
riguez, and everywhere they go herds of photogs await. Now Cara says, via Twitter, that “it’s disgusting that Paris is the only place where it is illegal for paps to follow you around”.
She’s been cranky about these guys ever since they snapped her last year as a baggie of white powder dropped out of her purse. Now she says they scare her, “because they act like they’re assassins with there (sic) telescope lenses, hiding in bushes or whatever … You have no idea how valuable privacy is until you lose it.”
How often have the Rolling Stones, as an example, toured the U.S.? So how does it make sense that Nigella
Lawson has now been refused entry to the great republic to the south because of her drug use?
You’ll recall that in court last year, during the trial of some aides, she admitted having used marijuana and cocaine. Now this: She wanted to fly, first class, from Heathrow to LAX, but U.S. immigration preclearance people refused her permission to board.
Aren’t you glad Uncle Sam is vigilantly keeping the drug culture out of Los Angeles?
Alec Guinness was not proud of his role in Star Wars, to put in mildly. The legendary actor died in 2000, but Wednesday was the 100th anniversary of his birth, so the people at this interesting website lettersofnote.com posted some of his letters.
In 1977 he wrote to a theatre director friend, Anne Kaufman, calling the Star Wars script “fairy tale rubbish” but saying he might accept the Obi-Wan Kenobi role if “they come up with proper money.”
Three months later he wrote about “rubbish dialogue. … None of it makes my character clear or even bearable.”