I tripped lightly out to my mailbox this morning (okay, I trudged. It's about 300% humidity here), and who should be scowling up at me from the cover of
EW but Russell Crowe. Russell, with long blond hair and a snazzy Royal Navy uniform. Jack Aubrey!
Which is to say, the Fall Preview issue (#724/725, Aug. 22/29) has a three page "exclusive" interview with Himself. It's not online, but I don't know if that's "not yet" or "not ever". Photos are, well, nice but not amazing- cover pic (he's scowling), big splash pic (scowling), pic of him in battle (and scowling), pic of him standing around with Paul Bettany waiting to film something (and scowling. Paul looks cold), pic of the two of them and Peter Weir looking relaxed (but he's still scowling), and pic of a ship being filmed (the ship looks happy, at least).
( So until Maximum Russell or some other site has it online, here are most of the bits about M&C- vaguely spoilery I suppose. Nothing that’ll wreck it, I don’t think. And I left out of all his usual ‘I don’t need to be nice to people, I’m an actor’ stuff )And when I was checking the fansites to see if anyone had been super quick and gotten this interview online already (no luck obviously, but of course it
just came out), I found
this article about some fans' reaction to the film, or at least to the idea of the film. This "Growlbunny" dude should probably step back and take a moment to breathe. I might have quibbles with some of the things we've heard so far, but without having seen the movie, I can't get too upset yet. I just want to see it. A lot. And if it doesn't match the books, fine, it's
not the books. I still have them. It's not like Peter Weir's going to come snatch them off my shelves and burn them (he can come visit me though. Come over, Peter! I'll make you a pie, and you can tell me about filming
Picnic at Hanging Rock and
Witness.
Dead Poets Society was the biggest thing to hit my junior high clique in years! I'm a big fan [but not a scary one, honest]!)
Neat thing of the day: the ship "playing" the
Surprise is
HMS Rose (isn’t she lovely?). That's the ship that James. L. Nelson, author of the "Revolution at Sea" series that I’ve been enjoying so much,
worked on (and then cannibalized his experiences on to help write the books) The original
Rose is a character in the first book in the series (and pops up occasionally in later books), so it'll be nice to see the reproduction in action.
(Speaking of Nelson, I'm on
All the Brave Fellows, the last book of the series thus far, it’s only 1777, and Nelson's website says, "There are no immediate plans for more books in the series, though the author intends to eventually get Captain Biddlecomb through the entire war." Gah! Eventually? When's that?! Okay, I'm glad he's writing about pirates and about the Civil War navy now. I'm sure they’re interesting and I plan to read both series. But I want Isaac to get through the war safely first! Poor guy, stuck at sea as a "damned rebel colonial" while his creator plays with shiny newer toys.)
Ten days until
Two Towers! Yay!
