Diana's Loyal Fans Mark Somber Anniversary
LONDON - Princess Diana's most loyal fans gathered outside her former home Wednesday to remember the eighth anniversary of her death and to revile the woman who succeeded her as the wife of Prince Charles.
Britain's royal family planned no special observances. Her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, "will be going about their business as normal," said a spokesman at Clarence House, Prince Charles' official residence. The spokesman declined to be identified, in keeping with royal policy.
Outside Kensington Palace, Diana's home after her divorce from Charles, bouquets of roses, carnations and lilies were placed on the fence by her fans. The number of people at the site at any one time was in the dozens, in contrast to the throngs who piled up mounds of flowers in the days after Diana's death.
There were messages from Australia, Argentina and the United States, and pictures of Diana from every stage of her life. Some of the mourners wiped tears from their eyes; even more wiped sweat from their foreheads on a warm summer morning.
Diana died in a car crash in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997, along with boyfriend Dodi Fayed and chauffeur Henri Paul. The only survivor was Diana's bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, who was badly hurt.
Many of those who came to Kensington Palace Wednesday were upset that Charles in April married the former Camilla Parker Bowles — the woman the princess had blamed for the failure of the marriage.
In a gesture to the sensitivities of the Dianaphiles, Camilla took the title of Duchess of Cornwall rather than using Diana's title of Princess of Wales.
"Every year is hard but it's been more so this year because Charles married. I can't even say her name," said Julie Cain.
"She (Diana) is our queen of hearts. You never forget your queen of hearts," said delivery driver Raymond Nurse, 44. "Camilla — they will forget her, she's rubbish — but not our Diana."
Nurse and his wife, Lisa, 37, are members of the Diana Circle, a group set up to honor her memory, and came bearing pink lilies and a photo of Diana. "We'll be here next year and the year after that," Nurse said.
One of the many anti-Camilla messages taped to the gates at Kensington Palace said, "Adulterers will be punished on judgment day."
Cain, 42, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, spent the night in a London park next to the palace waiting to pay her respects.
"We camped out overnight and we do it every year because we have to try to keep Diana's memory alive," said Cain. "There's certain people within a certain family that just want to eradicate her from history. As long as I've got breath in my body I'll be coming here."
About 50 people gathered to hear Father Frank Gelli, the former curate of St. Mary Abbots Church nearby, conduct a brief prayer service.
The priest said afterward he believed it had been a difficult year for some of the Diana supporters.
"I want to say of course that a priest must be a reconciler, not a divider, I don't want to say anything that would be antagonistic but I do realize that there has been some hurt and hurt should be catered for."
Standing near Gelli was retired clown Edward Larki, 85, who came in white face makeup, plaid suit, a magenta tie and a yellow bowler hat. He came dressed that way, he said, because he had met the princess several times and "this is the only way Diana knew me — as a clown."
Joining in the bitterness which marked the occasion, Larki said that he never got close to Charles, "I would knife him for what he did to Di."
'Virgin' Waxing Scene Easy - for Co-Stars
LOS ANGELES - The day that had to be Steve Carell's most difficult while filming "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" was the easiest for the guys who played his friends.
In a scene where Carell gets his chest hair waxed, the former "Daily Show" star wasn't acting. His co-stars weren't either.
"It was really like the easiest day of filming for us because we just had to stand there and watch, and all of the reactions were pretty organic," Paul Rudd told reporters.
Rudd, best known as Phoebe's husband in the last season of "Friends," also co-starred with Carell in last year's "Anchorman."
Carell — who punctuated the painful rips by shouting things like " Kelly Clarkson!" — made the "Jackass"-style scene funnier with his reactions, Rudd said.
"The first few times it was just like, oh my God. What makes it funny was also Steve's reaction, because it takes a second for the pain to hit," he said.
Studios Hope to Salvage Disappointing Year
LOS ANGELES - Hollywood's long, dreary summer finally is over. Now it's on to the good stuff. And it better be good, if film studios hope to salvage what's shaping up as the worst year for movie attendance since the late 1990s.
After a summer season that left audiences generally uninterested, the fall and holiday lineup offers the promise of fresh films with an exotic cast of characters that includes country music legends, a great ape, teen wizards and a Japanese geisha.
The long-awaited adaptation of the best seller "Memoirs of a Geisha," director Rob Marshall's follow-up to "Chicago," stars Ziyi Zhang as a poor Japanese girl who becomes a geisha goddess.
Many people define "geisha" as a high-end prostitute, but Zhang discovered a rich artistic and social fabric behind the geisha culture.
"From my opinion, `geisha' means a woman skilled in the arts. Like dancing, singing and playing musical instruments," said Zhang, making her first English-language movie after such Chinese martial-arts hits as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero."
"They are also skilled in the art of conversation," said Zhang, who underwent two months of geisha "boot camp" to learn complicated dances, the proper way to wear kimonos and the art of pouring tea.
Other big films include Steven Spielberg's "Munich," a thriller about the slayings of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics; "All the King's Men," starring Sean Penn as the Southern political boss of Robert Penn Warren's classic novel; "Jarhead," a Gulf War tale with Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx; " Tim Burton's Corpse Bride," an animated yarn featuring the voices of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter; "The New World," Terrence Malick's epic set in colonial America with Colin Farrell; and "Elizabethtown," Cameron Crowe's romance starring Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom.
Also, "The Weather Man," with Nicolas Cage as a TV forecaster who has a stormy personal life; "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," starring 50 Cent as a street hood aiming for a rap-music career; "Oliver Twist," Roman Polanski's fresh take on the Charles Dickens orphan-boy classic, featuring Ben Kingsley; the animated "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit," the big-screen debut of TV's cheese-loving Brit and his faithful dog; and "In Her Shoes," a sister-act tale from director Curtis Hanson ("Wonder Boys," "L.A. Confidential").
"In Her Shoes" follows two sisters, one a knockout ( Cameron Diaz) who has leeched all her life off her workaholic sibling ( Toni Collette), and the grandma ( Shirley MacLaine) who helps them reconnect after a bitter estrangement.
"My character, she's kind of gotten away with her looks, gotten away with her ability to charm people and find her way without having to work," Diaz said. "And she's kind of coming to the end of that rope, as well as having nothing to fall back on, having bitten the hand that's always fed her."
Science-fiction and fantasy are shaping up as some of the season's biggest attractions, led by "The Lord of the Rings" mastermind Peter Jackson's new take on "King Kong," starring Naomi Watts as the beauty who steals the heart of the gigantic primate.
The fourth " Harry Potter" tale casts the young hero (Daniel Radcliffe) into an international wizardry competition that leads him to another showdown with dark sorcerer Voldemort ( Ralph Fiennes).
The British fantasy franchise gets its first English director in Mike Newell ("Four Weddings and a Funeral"). For all the magical trappings of "Harry Potter," Newell enjoyed injecting a sense of his own classroom days into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"Aside from everything else, these are school stories," Newell said. "In a middle-of-the-road English education, the teachers are embattled, the school is a very kind of anarchic place and a very funny place, as well. Where two sets of people — one of which is becoming adults and one of which is trying to avoid going back to becoming children — clash.
"The anarchy of youth, it is really rich stuff. I loved that. I loved doing the school side of it."
Hollywood's current love affair for fantasy continues with "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," adapted from C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series.
The film, whose cast includes Tilda Swinton and Jim Broadbent, follows the adventures of four English children in World War II who battle an evil witch enslaving a magical land of giants, talking animals and centaurs.
"Narnia" director Andrew Adamson (the "Shrek" movies) figures the recent surge in fantastical stories has something to do with the real-world stories audiences see all the time on TV and on the big screen.
"There has been an awfully lot of reality programming in the last 10 years and natural-disaster movies. I do think there's somewhat of a backlash," Adamson said. "People do want to be taken to new worlds. They're kind of tired of this one and want to go somewhere where they can let their imagination run free a little bit."
Fall's fantasyscape also includes the video-game adaptation "Doom," starring The Rock as part of a commando force taking on creatures from another realm on Mars; and "Serenity," a sci-fi adventure whose behind-the-scenes story is a drama unto itself.
After scoring with the TV version of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Joss Whedon created a smart, funny show called "Firefly," about misfits living on the edge of the law aboard the rickety space ship Serenity 500 years in the future.
"Firefly" lasted only 14 episodes but its cult audience kept interest alive. Now Whedon has directed the big-screen continuation "Serenity," reuniting the "Firefly" cast.
"I took the overreaching arc I was headed toward in the TV show and made that the plot of the movie," Whedon said. "I had to jettison or streamline plenty of things. It's two totally different mediums, and you've got to respect that. A TV show can kind of meander its way along and find a little piece of something for everybody. A movie is more about the momentum of the main story."
Sarah Jessica Parker also returns to the big screen in "The Family Stone." After her TV series "Sex and the City," Parker is on familiar turf as a Manhattan woman in love, though her character is the flipside of Carrie Bradshaw. Parker plays a career woman who makes a terrible impression on her fiance's relatives when meeting them for the first time.
Unlike loose and lively Carrie, Parker's character is a tightly wound woman who "is really at a loss to navigate basic interactions that so many of us feel confident about," the actress said. "So many people feel fairly comfortable around new people. They can figure out a room or say something inappropriate then navigate back from it. She doesn't have those skills."
Also trying something different are Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash in director James Mangold's "Walk the Line," a portrait of the early years of the country star who died in 2003.
"I'm not a singer by any means," said Phoenix, who did his own singing (as did Witherspoon). "If it was a fictional character where it was a made-up voice, it might have been harder. But I had a specific voice to go after, so I had to work specific muscles and really work at hitting certain notes. It was nice to have a recognizable voice as a goal."
Also on the musical front: "Rent," director Chris Columbus' follow-up after making the first two "Harry Potter" flicks; and "The Producers," Susan Stroman's adaptation of Mel Brooks' Broadway show that won a record 12 Tonys. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick reprise their roles.
Charlize Theron and Keira Knightley each have two wildly different films coming. Both actresses step into full action mode, Theron with "Aeon Flux," adapted from the animated sci-fi TV show, Knightley with "Domino," a casino-heist caper inspired by the real-life story of actor Laurence Harvey's daughter, who quit her modeling career to become a bounty hunter.
"It's one of those things you hear about and think, `God, this is an absolutely insane story. It's so crazy it has to be true,'" said Knightley, noting that while Domino Harvey's career switch is true, the casino heist is make-believe. "She's an amazing woman to turn her back on everything that certainly we in today's society would think she could want."
Knightley also headlines the 18th century period piece "Pride & Prejudice," a new adaptation of Jane Austen's classic about love, marriage and Britain's rigid social-class structure.
Theron also stars in "North Country," a drama about a single mother who takes groundbreaking legal action over sexual harassment by co-workers at a Minnesota mining company in 1989.
"If you were a single mom, there's no way to support yourself and your kids by working in a hair salon," Theron said. "It's about a woman who decides to go and do what was considered a man's job, but was treated quite horribly for it and decides she has to fight for her rights when everyone thinks she should just shut up and take it."
Steve Martin also has a twofer season with "Cheaper By the Dozen 2," reprising his role from the 2003 family hit as patriarch of a family of 12 kids, and "Shopgirl," adapted from his short novel.
"Shopgirl" stars Claire Danes as a Saks clerk wooed by a rich older man (Martin) and a younger guy ( Jason Schwartzman). The story originated with Martin's long-held interest in how people go about looking for love.
"There was a time in my life when I was very interested in relationship psychology," Martin said. "Relationships end, but they don't end your life. But people do often spending more time finding out about failed relationships than finding successful ones."
Though he had not envisioned any movie prospects when he wrote the book, Martin said once he had adapted it into a screenplay, he felt should go ahead and act in the film, as well.
"I would have felt a little funny if another actor was playing this role," Martin said.
CBC, union to resume labour talks
TORONTO (CP) -- In the first major break in the two-week-old CBC lockout, both sides will sit down for "some preliminary talks" Wednesday, says CBC spokesman Jason MacDonald.
The development was confirmed by chief Canadian Media Guild negotiator Arnold Amber on Tuesday afternoon.
The public broadcaster locked out 5,500 of its employees, who are members of the CMG, on Aug. 15 after negotiations on a new contract broke down.
"The parties, through their chief negotiators, have had some good discussions over the last few days and have agreed it's time to get the negotiating committees back together," says a message on the guild website.
The union says smaller groups from both committees will begin the work to create the necessary dialogue to move towards agreement on the key outstanding issues.
"Talking's always better than walking," said Amber with a chuckle. "You know, you have to start somewhere. This is a start. It's all to the good."
Juliana Hatfield on a twisted trip to 'China'
BOSTON (Reuters) - Even when she's in love, Juliana Hatfield is miserable. Not that she always realizes it.
The durable singer-songwriter, who says she is "always frustrated and anxious and pissed-off and depressed," has just released a cathartic, aggressive album with sonic dissonance worthy of Neil Young or John Cale.
Life was actually going well when Hatfield, 38, recorded "Made in China," a low-budget effort on her own label, Ye Olde Records. She collaborated on the project with her boyfriend, a guitarist 15 years her junior, and says she was "having a great time" with the youngster. But her subconscious had other ideas.
"In looking back at the relationship, I can see that there are all these things happening, that I didn't want to admit or acknowledge, and I think that stuff got into the music," Hatfield told Reuters in a recent interview before playing to a small but ardent hometown crowd at the Paradise club.
"You can feel that in the music, just the unease and the distrust of the things that satisfy people, and make people feel good."
ALONE AGAIN, NATURALLY
Several months after the album was recorded, Hatfield and her boyfriend, Joe Keefe, ended their 18-month romance, by mutual consent, she says. It was her longest and most fulfilling relationship, and now she has a lasting souvenir: he played on eight of the 12 tracks alongside his bandmates in local band the Unbusted, and co-wrote two of the songs.
Hanging out with Keefe and his equally youthful buddies was a pleasant experience for Hatfield, who sought his help in harnessing a deep source of energy she says has been trapped inside her since she was 12 years old.
Now she is back to her default setting: alone, sharing her digs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her Labrador retriever and tomato plants. Her eerie, newfound skinniness notwithstanding, she swears she is not miserable, and has even cut her therapy sessions to twice a month.
Only one song on the new album is about Keefe, "Digital Penetration," a joyous ode to her "island boy." Keefe is from Martha's Vineyard, and he saw her perform there when he was 14, though Hatfield stresses they did not meet then.
Her favorite song from the album is "Oh," one of four tracks on which she plays all the instruments. It sounds as if it could be a Neil Young outtake, which was not a conscious style choice. But she cites Young, as well as the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards and Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis as her favorite guitarists "in that they're all sorta sloppy."
Hatfield claims to be a "disgrace to guitar players everywhere" because she never practices and is insecure about her inability to play fast.
ALIVE, NOT BITTER
The album title is drawn from a line in the song "What Do I Care," in which she disdainfully recalls her days as a commodity on Atlantic Records in the 1990s.
Back then, she enjoyed such hits as "My Sister" and "Spin the Bottle," and it seemed that Hatfield -- along with female rockers like Liz Phair, Aimee Mann and Bjork -- might become a permanent resident on radio playlists.
That was not to be. Hatfield returned to the indie world, and an accordingly more selective audience, but she doesn't mind. It's another theme that comes through in the song, with the line "You're over me, but I'm alive. So what do I care?"
"I'm totally fine with my place in the universe, even though sometimes I question it and I get frustrated," she said in the interview. "I still think that the path I'm on is the path I'm supposed to be on. I really do. I'm not bitter."
Still, she is sick of touring -- which is not really a big money-earner anyway -- and plans to focus more on recording, writing and drawing, as well as "my own development as a person, just getting healthier in my head and heart."
Her talents as a photographer are evident on the sleeve for "Made in China." The cover is a shot of her torso, one of a series taken a few years back as part of a bizarre experiment "to lose weight just to see what happens." Inside the sleeve, she is sitting naked in the bathtub of a posh European hotel, having just had a good cry because she was, yes, miserable.
MTV Brings Back 'Unplugged' for Keys
MIAMI - Alicia Keys has resurrected "MTV Unplugged." The singer and pianist has performed an acoustic set for the dormant MTV series, to air Sept. 23 (10 p.m. ET). MTV also announced Tuesday that the show will first premiere Sept. 15 on Overdrive, MTV's broadband network.
"I've always been a very big fan of the show and when they stopped doing it, I was like, what happened to 'MTV Unplugged?' I specifically went in there and said we have to do an 'Unplugged,'" Keys told AP Radio.
Keys' performance, filmed July 14 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is a group effort. Mos Def, Common and Damian Marley are her guests, as well as Maroon 5's Adam Levine.
"Adam Levine and I remade the Rolling Stones' classic 'Wild Horses' and it is right up my alley, that whole style" Keys said. "It has a style of its own but still stays very true to the classic arrangement and I love it."
Previous bare-bones performances on "Unplugged," which debuted in 1989, include those by Eric Clapton, Nirvana and Jay-Z. Dashboard Confessional and Shakira were two of the most recent acts on the series back in 2002.
After Keys' "MTV Unplugged" episode airs, it will be released as a CD and DVD on October 11.