Question: Hollywood seems obsessed with remakes; just recently they've made new versions of King Kong, Fun with Dick and Jane and Yours, Mine & Ours. Don't you think this is part of the reason people aren't going to the movies the way they used to? I've seen the originals of all three of the movies I just mentioned, and if I want to see them again I'll watch them on TCM at home, in my pajamas, for free.
Answer: I don't think it's the remakes per se that's keeping people at home: I've seen remakes I thought were terrific, like the recent The Manchurian Candidate (2004). The 1962 original is a great movie, and the remake puts a different spin on the material, which is as timely today as it was then. Remakes bother film freaks (like us), but casual moviegoers often don't even know they're seeing a remake
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The "real" thing: Keira Knightley
Question: The new movie Domino, starring Keira Knightley boasts that it's based on a true story... sort of. First, what is the true story? Second, when a movie is based on a true story, how much is really accurate?Answer: It's based on the story of professional bounty hunter Domino Harvey, the daughter of late actor Laurence Harvey (star of the original version of The Manchurian Candidate) and Vogue model Pauline Stone. Harvey rejected the privilege and glamour of her parents' lifestyle, working as a firefighter and a ranch hand before being hired by a bail-bond company in South Central Los Angeles. The Hollywood appeal of this story is obvious: An attractive woman — though it must be said that Harvey was no Keira Knightle
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Anything but Love
Question: I know you've written about on-set fighting in the past, so I'll ask you about another rumor. Was it true that Jamie Lee Curtis and Richard Lewis fought a lot while they were on Anything But Love?
Answer: Depends on whom you choose to believe, Anne — the tabloid reporters who reported on the supposed turmoil, or the stars themselves. According to the two of them, nothing beyond the usual professional give-and-take took place on the ABC comedy, which ran from March 1989 to June 1992.
"I've never been involved in a show without a few problems," Lewis told TV Guide in 1989. "That's why this so-called controversy with Jamie and me is so laughable. She has a point of view, yes. There is some tension involved, even on the best of shows. We like to joke with each other, and some people misunderstand that. Hey, this isn't Othello. We have
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The biggest question surrounding Paramount's remake of the 1962 classic The Manchurian Candidate — besides "Why remake a classic?" — is whether Meryl Streep is channeling Hillary Clinton in her performance as power-hungry Sen. Eleanor Shaw.
"A lot of journalists have asked me that question," sighs the two-time Oscar winner. "Even Katie Couric, who you'd think would have good fact-checkers." Disturbed by the comparison, Streep went online to track down the source of the rumors. "I discovered that it's from a really scary guy who runs a website in Los Angeles. And every single reporter has heard this story and fed it back to me as if it was true. But consider the source!"
Still, Streep does admit that the character is modeled after a real political figure, whom she declines to name. "I think I'm doing a dead-on impersonation of them," she teases, "but no one has identified who it is yet. And who says I haven't
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