Bond 4
The fourth wave of Bond titles has been announced just days before the release of wave three.
License to Kill and The Man with the Golden Gun will arrive in May.
Licence to Kill marks Timothy Dalton's first release on Blu-ray. The disc comes with two audio commentaries; one by director John Glen and cast and the second with Michael G. Wilson and crew. Several deleted scenes are included along with the featurettes Bond '89, On the Set with John Glen, On Location with Peter Lamont, Ground Check with Corky Fornoff, 007 Mission Control - Interactive Guid into the World of License to Kill, Exotic Locations Montage, Inside License to Kill and a production featurette along with a stunt film music video, trailers and photo galleries.
The Man With The Golden Gun will come with a commentary featuring Sir Roger Moore, and a second commentary with director Guy Hamilton and cast and crew. The featurettes include The Russell Harry Show, On Location with The Man With The Golden Gun, Dirls Fighting, American Thrill Show Stunt Film, The Road to Bond: Stund Coordinator W. J. Milliagan (audio only), Guy Hamilton: The Director Speaks, 007 Mission Control - Interactive Guide into the Wold of The Man With The Golden Gun, Exotic Location Montage, Insite The Man with The Golden Gun and Double-I Stuntmen. Trailers, tv broacasts, radio spots and an image gallery round out the features.
Another two loaded discs brings the total number of Bond titles to 13 on May 12th.
Vulcans 'deserve their day in the sun,' says Spock
CALGARY–Mr. Spock would never admit to any emotion, but the actor who portrayed the very logical character is peeved about a decision not to show the premiere of the new Star Trek movie in a southern Alberta town.
Leonard Nimoy thinks Star Trek XI should go where no film has gone before.
A mission by the town of Vulcan, southeast of Calgary, to beam in the movie on opening day May 8 appeared to have failed this week when Paramount Pictures said it couldn't work out details.
The community with the same name as Spock's birthplace has used that connection to develop itself as a tourist attraction.
And now Spock has returned to help his people.
"It seems to me that someone at Paramount should show some interest and not take this lightly. This is a serious issue," Nimoy said in a phone interview from Los Angeles with The Canadian Press.
"The people of my home planet of Vulcan are not happy about this. I won't say they're sad or upset because that would express emotion but they think it's illogical that somehow Paramount could not arrange to get a screening of the movie up there in Vulcan," he said, laughing.
Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock in the original series as well as several Star Trek movies, only learned of Vulcan, Alta.'s existence when he saw the story about its failed bid Thursday on the Internet.
He said he's been sending emails to Paramount every couple of hours in an attempt to force the movie giant to do something for the town.
"I got the word out to Paramount that there's an issue here that should be dealt with," he said. "The Paramount press people are aware of it and hopefully the word will filter into the proper offices and somebody will do something about it."
"My position is if they can produce this gigantic movie and get it done with all the physical requirements that are involved in making this film, they can find some way to show it in Alberta, Canada," Nimoy added.
"The people of Vulcan deserve their day in the sun."
Nimoy has a small part in Star Trek XI, which focuses on Mr. Spock and Capt. James T. Kirk's early years, and is scheduled to premiere on stardate 05-08-09, otherwise known as May 8.
Vulcan pulled out all the stops to try to gain the premiere or even a sneak peak of the movie. It even launched a Facebook site which now boasts over 1,500 members.
"This is the voyage of a small town's quest for the Star Trek XI movie premiere," begins a video on the Facebook site with the Star Trek theme playing in the background.
"Our Mission – to showcase our Star Trek spirit, to help Hollywood showcase the new Star Trek movie and to host a spectacular event that brings Spock home to Vulcan, Alta."
Dayna Dickens, tourism co-ordinator for Vulcan, was nearly speechless over Mr. Spock's endorsement and had an embarrassing admission.
"I got a call from Leonard Nimoy this morning but I ... seriously thought it was a prank call," she sighed.
"We get calls from people pretending to be Montgomery Scott (Scotty) and Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. I always respond professionally and I will play along to a certain extent. But I can't believe this. Wow."
Nimoy laughed when told that Dickens questioned the authenticity of his call and noted she did appear a "bit guarded". He said he will not be beaming in any reinforcements from the old Star Trek cast including Canadian-born William Shatner.
"No, I think this is strictly a Vulcan project but Zachary Quinto, who plays the young Spock, he might be interested. I'll have to talk to him," said Nimoy.
Vulcan held its first Vul-con convention in 1993. Two years later, the town unveiled its own Star Ship FX6-1995-A to welcome visitors. A plaque includes greetings written in English, Vulcan and Klingon.
Another sign welcomes visitors with the Vulcan motto "Live Long and Prosper." There's also a space-themed visitors centre and, in an odd combination of Prairie tradition and outer space zeal, there's also the annual Spock Days Rodeo.
Nimoy, who also starred in the popular series, In Search Of, said he has a soft spot for the Star Trek series and his alter ego.
"I care a lot. It's been very good to me and I have to be good in return," he said.
"It has given me a great life, creative opportunities. I have no disappointment, no anger, no frustration and I am very grateful."
Natasha Richardson mourned as a 'wonderful woman'
NEW YORK – Tributes have begun to pour in from across the show business generations for Natasha Richardson, the Tony Award-winning actress who died after suffering a head injury on a ski slope.
"She was a wonderful woman and actress and treated me like I was her own," said Lindsay Lohan, who as a preteen starred with Richardson in a remake of "The Parent Trap" in 1998. "My heart goes out to her family. This is a tragic loss."
Actress Judi Dench told the BBC that Richardson was "a really great actress" who had "an incredibly luminous quality, that you seldom see, and a great sense of humor."
"It's just so shocking, really shocking, and I hope that everybody leaves the family quietly to somehow pick up the pieces," Dench said.
Sam Mendes, who produced the Broadway musical "Cabaret" for which Richardson won a Tony, said, "It defies belief that this gifted, brave, tenacious, wonderful woman is gone."
Richardson fell during a private lesson Monday at a ski resort in Quebec. She was not wearing a helmet. The 45-year-old actress was seemingly fine afterward, but about an hour later, she complained that she didn't feel well. She was hospitalized Tuesday in Montreal and later flown to a hospital in New York.
Alan Nierob, the Los Angeles-based publicist for Richardson's husband, Liam Neeson, confirmed her death Wednesday without giving details on the cause.
There were no details on funeral arrangements.
Neeson and Richardson's sister, actress Joely Richardson, were seen leaving Lenox Hill hospital Wednesday. Actress Lauren Bacall also visited the hospital.
Yves Coderre, director of operations at the emergency services company that sent paramedics to the Mont Tremblant resort where Richardson suffered her fall, told The Globe and Mail newspaper Wednesday the paramedics who responded were told they were not needed.
"They never saw the patient," Coderre told The Globe and Mail. "So they turned around."
Coderre said another ambulance was called later to Richardson's luxury hotel. By that point, her condition had gotten worse and she was rushed to a hospital.
Richardson's career highlights included the film "Patty Hearst" and a Tony-winning performance in a stage revival of "Cabaret."
Richardson was a proper Londoner who came to love the noise of New York, an elegant blonde with large, lively eyes, a bright smile and a hearty laugh.
Jane Fonda on Wednesday recalled meeting a young Richardson on the set of "Julia," the 1977 film Fonda starred in opposite Richardson's mother, Vanessa Redgrave.
"She was a little girl but already beautiful and graceful. It didn't surprise me that she became such a talented actor," Fonda recalled on her blog. "It is hard to even imagine what it must be like for her family. My heart is heavy."
As an actress, Richardson was equally adept at passion and restraint, able to portray besieged women both confessional (Tennessee Williams' Blanche DuBois) and confined (the concubine in the futuristic horror of "The Handmaid's Tale").
Like other family members, she divided her time between stage and screen. On Broadway, she portrayed Sally Bowles in the 1998 revival of "Cabaret." She also appeared in New York in a production of Patrick Marber's "Closer" (1999) as well as the 2005 revival of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," in which she played Blanche opposite John C. Reilly's Stanley Kowalski.
She met Neeson when they made their Broadway debuts in 1993, co-starring in "Anna Christie," Eugene O'Neill's drama about a former prostitute and the sailor who falls in love with her.
The New York Times critic Frank Rich called her "astonishing" and said she "gives what may prove to be the performance of the season."
Her most notable film roles came earlier in her career. Richardson played the title character in Paul Schrader's "Patty Hearst," a 1988 biopic about the kidnapped heiress for which the actress became so immersed that even between scenes she wore a blindfold, the better to identify with her real-life counterpart.
Richardson was directed again by Schrader in a 1990 adaptation of Ian McEwan's "The Comfort of Strangers" and, also in 1990, starred in the screen version of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale."
She later co-starred with Neeson in "Nell" and with Mia Farrow in "Widows' Peak." More recent movies, none of them widely seen, included "Wild Child," "Evening" and "Asylum."
Richardson was born in London in 1963, the performing gene inherited not just from her parents (Redgrave and director Tony Richardson), but from her maternal grandparents (Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson), an aunt (Lynn Redgrave) and an uncle (Corin Redgrave). Her younger sister, Joely Richardson, also joined the family business.
She also is survived by two sons, Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12.
Friends and family members remembered Natasha as an unusually poised child, perhaps forced to grow up early when her father left her mother in the late '60s for Jeanne Moreau. (Tony Richardson died in 1991).
Interviewed by The Associated Press in 2001, Natasha Richardson said she related well to her family if only because, "We've all been through it in one way or another and so we've had to be strong. Also we embrace life. We are not cynical about life."
Her screen debut came at 4, when she appeared as a flower girl in "The Charge of the Light Brigade," directed by her father, whose movies included "Tom Jones" and "The Entertainer." The show business wand had already tapped her the year before, when she saw her mother in the 1967 film version of the Broadway show "Camelot."
"She was so beautiful. I still look at that movie and I can't believe it. It still makes me cry, the beauty of it," Richardson said.
She studied at London's Central School of Speech and Drama and was an experienced stage actress by her early 20s, appearing in "On the Razzle," "Charley's Aunt" and "The Seagull," for which the London Drama Critics awarded her most promising newcomer.
She and her mother acted together, most recently on Broadway to play the roles of mother and daughter in a one-night benefit concert version of "A Little Night Music," the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler musical.
Before meeting up with Neeson, Richardson was married to producer Robert Fox, whose credits include the 1985 staging of "The Seagull" in which his future wife appeared.
She sometimes remarked on the differences between her and her second husband — she from a theatrical dynasty and he from a working-class background in Northern Ireland.
"He's more laid back, happy to see what happens, whereas I'm a doer and I plan ahead," Richardson told The Independent on Sunday newspaper in 2003. "The differences sometimes get in the way but they can be the very things that feed a marriage, too."
She once said that Neeson's serious injury in a 2000 motorcycle accident — he suffered a crushed pelvis after colliding with a deer in upstate New York — had made her really appreciate life.
"I wake up every morning feeling lucky — which is driven by fear, no doubt, since I know it could all go away," she told The Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2003.