Natasha Richardson
You would have all heard the news by now but I was very saddened to learn of the death of Natasha Richardson last week. She was a classy actress who always spoke beautifully with her English accent. I remember her clearly in roles such as Evening (2007), The White Countess (2005) and The Parent Trap (1998). Other roles of note included Wild Child (2008), Maid In Manhattan (2002), Nell (1994), The Comfort Of Strangers (1990), Patty Hearst (1988) and Gothic (1986).
She didn’t appear in a lot of movies but Richardson made her mark on stage. In 1998, she won a Tony Award for best lead actress in a musical for her role as Sally Bowles in Cabaret. She also appeared in The Seagull, Anna Christie and Closer.
She will be well and truly missed.
Do We Have A Fetish For World War II Movies?
This is a question I’ve been asking myself over the past few days. There have been so many interesting periods of history and yet we make so many movies which focus on World War II? Why is this? Is it because the people making the movies and telling the stories knew people directly linked to the time? Is it easier to make a World War II flick than say, one set in the 18th Century?
Already this year, we’ve seen Valkyrie (the awful Tom Cruise movie) and The Reader. Now I know The Reader was directly about the holocaust but there was a connection.
Here’s a look at some of the films being released in April…
Good (out Apr 9) - A movie exploring the life of a normal German citizen (Viggo Mortensen) who is embroiled in the Nazi scheme without really understanding the consequences
The Boy In Striped Pyjamas (out Apr 23) - Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences
Defiance (out Apr 30) - Jewish brothers in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe escape into the Belarussian forests, where they join Russian resistance fighters and endeavour to build a village in order to protect themselves and about 1,000 Jewish non-combatants.
Now that’s 5 World War II movies being released in the first 4 months of 2009.
I’m not complaining because these movies are bad but just that I’d like to see something a little different. We’ll see what the rest of 2009 has to offer…
See you next week.