Shine off 'Star Wars' for Liam Neeson
LONDON, England -- The Star Wars franchise can no longer be taken seriously, according to one former Jedi master.
"Ummm, well, they've kind of got silly now, haven't they?" actor Liam Neeson told The Toronto Sun yesterday while doing interviews for his latest film, the forthcoming ensemble romantic comedy Love Actually.
"That last (Star Wars movie) was just pyrotechnics, you know," Neeson said of Episode II -- Attack of The Clones, lamenting that the "computerized stuff" fails to connect with either the actors or audiences.
Neeson said he expects nothing different when Episode III, in which he is not involved, is released in 2005 to complete the prequel trilogy.
Yet Neeson has no regrets about his own participation in Star Wars lore, despite feeling that he did less than stellar work in 1999 in Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace.
"The one I did, I loved working on it," he said, "and I loved working with George Lucas."
Neeson played Qui-Gon Jinn, a Jedi master knight who counsels Obi-Wan Kenobi and the young Anakin Skywalker.
"Admittedly," Neeson said with a wane smile, "we all come across as pretty wooden. But a lot of that was interacting with blue screen, which was difficult and was also a great challenge, you know, to try to make it seem as an everyday thing that (you're with) a winged beast that talks."
Blue screen is an in-studio process in which actors literally perform in front of a giant blue screen, replaced later with computerized special effects. "But listen," Neeson said, "I'm glad I did it."
Athletes Bare All to Pay for Training
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Female Dutch athletes are baring all on a pay-per-view Web Site to fund training abroad during the winter after cuts in subsidies left them in the cold.
A nude runner basks in the sun embracing her knees, sitting next to starting blocks. Another black and white picture shows an athlete wearing nothing at all who is draped across a podium, her chin propped up on her arm as she looks into the lens.
"Most athletes travel to Spain, France, Portugal, South Africa or the Canary Islands early in the year to prepare for the new season in the sun," Joop Tervoort, an athletics trainer and one of the site creators, told Reuters.
"This year subsidies to the Royal Dutch Athletics Union were cut heavily and many athletes are still students who have a hard time scraping together extra money," he said.
Some 250 photos of six women are on www.sportmeiden.nl, which received almost two million hits on Monday alone.
Visitors can access the Web Site for 80 eurocents ($0.943) a minute and all the proceeds go to the women. They expect to earn about 1,000 euros ($1,185) each which will cover travel to warm countries and accommodation, Tervoort said. They will still need to pay for a coach, physiotherapist and masseur.
The Netherlands' 23-year old high jump champion, Frenke Bolt, features on the site that also includes female javelin throwers and shot putters and lists their achievements.
Tervoort also wants to attract internationally famed athletes, although most receive corporate sponsorship.
Sports personalities from other countries have already set the trend, with teams and individuals stripping off for extra publicity or to raise funds for sports associations.
The photographer and co-founder of the Dutch site, Alex Boer, said there was enough interest to add new photos each week and some male athletes had also asked to be included.
"First we will see how it goes as it is, then we will decide whether or not to set up a site for sportsmen."
Tarantino's 'Kill Bill' Opens at No. 1
LOS ANGELES - It was payback time for Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman at the box office as their vengeance saga "Kill Bill — Vol. 1" opened in first place with $22.7 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The previous weekend's No. 1 flick, "The School of Rock," slipped to second place with $15.4 million. The Coen brothers' romantic comedy "Intolerable Cruelty," starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, debuted at No. 3 with $13.1 million.
"Good Boy!", a family flick featuring the voice of Matthew Broderick as a talking dog from outer space, premiered in fourth place with $13 million. The weekend's other new wide release, the horror tale "House of the Dead," opened at No. 6 with $5.5 million.
In limited release, Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River" had an exceptional debut, taking in $591,390 in 13 theaters for a whopping $45,492 average. The dark murder drama starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon expands to more theaters this week.
Playing in 3,102 theaters, "Kill Bill" had a solid $7,312 average.
The overall box office rose, with the top 12 movies grossing $98.7 million, up 6 percent from the same weekend last year.
The opening installment of "Kill Bill," director Tarantino's first film since 1997's "Jackie Brown," did well enough to encourage distributor Miramax over prospects for "Vol. 2," due in theaters next February.
Tarantino and Miramax chose to chop "Kill Bill," a martial-arts epic with a three-hour running time, into two parts rather than dish it out to audiences in one big gulp.
Exit polls indicated 90 percent of the audience the first weekend wants to see "Kill Bill — Vol. 2," said Rick Sands, Miramax chief operating officer.
"The gamble paid off," Sands said. "We think it was a smart decision to split the movie."
"Kill Bill," whose two parts cost a total of $65 million to make, also will be released to home video and pay television in two installments, giving Miramax a double revenue stream in those markets, Sands said.
An R-rated film awash in comic carnage including bloody maimings and beheadings, "Kill Bill" stars Thurman as a former assassin out for revenge against her old employer and his team of killers for hire.
While far from a blockbuster debut, "Kill Bill" delivered solidly at the box office for a genre picture steeped in violence, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
"`Kill Bill' is a very specialized film. It appeals to an important segment of the audience, but kind of a limited audience," Dergarabedian said. "Grandma does not want to see `Kill Bill.'"
The weekend's other wide-release debuts also had niche audiences. While "Intolerable Cruelty" had Clooney and Zeta-Jones' star power, it appealed to fans of the Coens' off-kilter sensibilities rather than a mainstream crowd.
"This was a very different picture from the normal, broad, Friday night movie," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal, which released "Intolerable Cruelty."
MGM's "Good Boy!" grabbed the family audience, which it has largely to itself until the holiday surge of family flicks hits in early November, said Erik Lomis, the studio's head of distribution.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Kill Bill — Vol. 1," $22.7 million.
2. "The School of Rock," $15.4 million.
3. "Intolerable Cruelty," $13.1 million.
4. "Good Boy!", $13 million.
5. "Out of Time," $8.6 million.
6. "House of the Dead," $5.5 million.
7. "The Rundown," $5.3 million.
8. "Under the Tuscan Sun," $4.8 million.
9. "Secondhand Lions," $3.3 million.
10. "Lost in Translation," $2.9 million.