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Ask Filmbill — Your film questions answered by Michael Norris



Richard Gere and Hope Davis in The Hoax

Q.I was very impressed with Hope Davis, who played the small but pivotal role of Andrea, the book editor, in The Hoax. Can you tell me what this delightful actress is up to these days?
Dennis DeMarco, via e-mail

A.The always-interesting Davis, 45, has continued to work steadily since her breakout role in 2003’s American Splendor. By the time you read this, she may have won an Emmy for her riveting multi-episode performance on the HBO drama In Treatment. Last year she also appeared in writer Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut Synecdoche, New York and a yet-to-be-released drama with Dermot Mulroney called Happy Together. She spent the summer filming another HBO project, a movie about Bill Clinton and Tony Blair called The Special Relationship that was written by the apparently Blair-obsessed Peter Morgan (The Deal, The Queen). Like those two films, this one also stars Michael Sheen as Blair, with Dennis Quaid as President Clinton and Davis as Hillary Clinton (thankfully replacing the project’s announced co-star, Julianne Moore).

Q.What’s up with the big-screen version of Dallas, which at one time John Travolta was set to star in?
Maria Sticco, via e-mail

A.Talk about your soap operas. The original director of this feature-film version of the classic TV series was Robert Luketic (Monster-in-Law), who was replaced by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham), who was replaced by Betty Thomas (The Brady Bunch Movie). Then Jennifer Lopez dropped out of a key role. First the film was a straight remake, then a comedy spoof with Meg Ryan reportedly playing Sue Ellen and Shirley MacLaine as Miss Ellie. Then Travolta (attached all along as the scheming J.R., as was Luke Wilson as Bobby) said the film was set mostly in Saudi Arabia and featured few of the original Ewing characters. So why bother? Chadha said it best: the studio discovered that no one under 35 was familiar with the original show, and that’s the audience who drives Hollywood. So my guess is that the Dallas movie is dead, but in true soap-opera fashion death never stopped anything so it may crop up at your local multiplex one of these years.


Alexander Skarsgård in True Blood


Q.Is Alexander Skarsgård, who stars in the HBO vampire series True Blood, related to the Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård?
Kerry Sharpe, via e-mail

A. In fact he is. Stellan, familiar to fans of Danish director Lars von Trier for his roles in Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark and Dogville, is Alexander’s father. Before True Blood, the younger Skarsgård, 33, was probably most known in the U.S. for his roles in the comedy Zoolander and another HBO drama series, Generation Kill, about the Iraq war. He’s now filming a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s classic 1971 drama Straw Dogs, about a couple who move to an isolated village and are terrorized by menacing locals. His father, meanwhile, has bagged two big international hits recently with Mamma Mia! and Angels & Demons and has just co-starring with Halle Berry in a drama about multiple personality disorder. Both Skarsgårds provided voiceovers for the recent Scandinavian animated feature Metropia.


Barbara Loden in Wanda

Q.My friend told me there was a pioneering independent film made in and around Scranton in the late ’60s or early ’70s. Is this true? I grew up around Scranton but have never heard of it.
Dan Hudgins, via e-mail

A. Not only is it true; it’s downright historic since it was that rare film, independent or otherwise, made by a woman. This 1970 film is called Wanda, and it was written and directed by—and starred—Barbara Loden, who’s probably best known now for her role as Warren Beatty’s sister in Splendor in the Grass and for being married to writer-director Elia Kazan. The character of Gwen in Kazan’s bestselling novel The Arrangement was based on her (a role Faye Dunaway played in the book’s 1969 film version). Loden was cast in the 1968 film version of John Cheever’s story The Swimmer, but she supposedly overpowered the film’s star, Burt Lanacster, and her scene was reshot with another actress. Wanda received critical raves at the 1970 Venice Film Festival. In 1971 it had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. and was screened in Cannes. Sadly, Loden never followed up on the film’s success, dying of cancer in 1980. Wanda is available on DVD.


Q.Is Queen Bee, the Joan Crawford movie from the 1940s, available on DVD?
Gary Hines, via e-mail

A.This film actually dates from 1955, but, yes, it is available on DVD. Crawford plays a manipulative Southern matron wreaking havoc with those around her, including Betsy Palmer (now legendary to a whole different generation since she played Jason’s mom in the original Friday the 13th) and Fay Wray of King Kong fame. In her book Mommie Dearest Crawford’s daughter Christina wrote that she had to leave a screening of Queen Bee since her mother’s performance was so true to life. Match this with Faye Dunaway in the film version of Mommie Dearest, and you’ve got yourself a great double feature if ever there was one!

Q.Now that 10 pictures will be nominated for Oscars, will the Academy also nominate 10 in other categories like directors and actors? In the past, when they nominated 10 pictures, did they have 10 of each category?
Howard Haas, via e-mail

A.As usual, I can’t resist a good Oscar question. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences caused quite an uproar a few months again when it announced it was increasing the number of Best Picture nominees from five to 10. This was widely seen as a move to attract a larger audience for the telecast by hopefully ensuring the inclusion of more mainstream Hollywood movies in the Oscar race (and I’m sure The Hollywood Reporter and Variety won’t turn away all that extra “For-Your-Consideration” advertising revenue!). As you allude, there is a precedent here: between 1932 and 1943 the number of Best Picture nominees ranged from eight to 12 and the number of acting and directing nominees ranged from three to six. This time around the number of nominees in other categories will still be limited to five. In those categories voters will choose one winner, but they’ll rank their picks for Best Picture, which might create some interesting results.


Rufus Sewell in The Illusionist

Q.When I saw Rufus Sewell in Cold Comfort Farm I thought he was the next big thing . . . but I haven’t seen him in anything big since then. What happened?
Bonnie Graham, via e-mail

A.I guess what happened is that Sewell is drawn more to good scripts and interesting roles than to splashy star-driven vehicles. He certainly hasn’t lacked for work since he first emerged on this side of the Atlantic in Cold Comfort Farm (which also brought Kate Beckinsale to prominence). Right after Farm he appeared in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet and played the lead in the dense, noirish 1998 science-fiction movie Dark City, and he’s appeared in nearly 20 film or TV projects in the last decade, including The Illusionist, Amazing Grace and the HBO miniseries John Adams, in which he played Alexander Hamilton. But brace yourself, because if you want big, Sewell’s next project might just blow your socks off: he’s starring in a 10-hour TV miniseries adapted from Ken Follett’s hugely popular novel The Pillars of the Earth, about the building of a medieval cathedral.

Q.Do you know where I can get a DVD of an old comedy called Made for Each Other, starring Joe Bologna and Renee Taylor? It was one of the funniest films I have ever seen.
Karyn Tufarolo, via e-mail

A.This 1971 film, which Bologna and Taylor, married in real life, also wrote, was the follow-up to their successful 1970 movie, Lovers and Other Strangers (for which they received an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay). The earlier film, as well as their 1996 film Love Is All There Is (co-starring a young Angelina Jolie), has been released on DVD, but Made for Each Other has not. Bologna and Taylor, however, are still going strong in their mid 70s, with dozens of recent acting credits between them.

Michael Norris has written the “Ask Filmbill” column since 1988. He works in Philadelphia’s nonprofit arts community as an administrator, board member and volunteer. Send your questions about film, television or video to Michael at Ask Filmbill, c/o Filmbill magazine, 125 N. Third Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106, or e-mail him directly at m.norris13@verizon.net