Ewan McGregor: Happy Birthday 2009!

Is it really possible that Ewan McGregor is 38 years old today?! Good lord ... AG takes a moment out and looks at the calendar ... is it. Woah. Where does time go?

Seems like only yesterday we were watching the new Obiwan Kenobi. And Brassed Off! -- which has to be my favorite of Ewan McGregor's movies, and that's saying a lot, because he's made some great ones.

Here's a bit of trivia for you: he's short sighted. Like yours truly! You might recall the serious eyeglasses you saw in The Long Way Round ... no joke. Those are the real deal. (He's also one of those guys who looks just as dishy with the spectacles on. Like Johnny Depp, for a start.)

So -- Happy Birthday, Man! Many more of 'em!

And now, shut up and paste in the eye candy, AG. I hear you growling, so ...

Christopher Lambert: Happy Birthday 2009!

And it's a big, loud HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Christopher Lambert, who turns 52 today! Can you believe that? It only seems like yesterday that I was drooling -- uh, watching, uh -- well, yes, all right, drooling my way through Greystoke. Never mind Highlander!

I have some fantastic memories surrounding Christopher Lambert, whose movies don't seem to get a lot of publicity downunder, so it's easy to miss them. One of my favorites is the off-the-wall comedy he did with Christopher Loyd, Why me? I laughed and laughed. Love the scene with the piano...

It's astonishing to go over to CL's page at IMDb and check out the amazing list of credits he's assembled. I have one monster wish: to see Vercingetorix. Not likely to happen, I know, but I can wish...

So -- hey, happy birthday, man! And now, who's for some eye candy?

A word or two from your host: heeeeer's AG!

And an editorial note here ... thanks gazillions to Jade (who is the cover artist for DreamCraft and Mel Keegan) for the spanking new header for this blog! I think it looks amazing, and it also reflects where most visitors are coming from, and what they want when they get here!

In fact, you might be interested to know a few stats on this here blog, since there's over 100 posts up now, and visitors from every part of the world are browsing through as if it were a magazine ... which I suppose it is, really!

• About 40% of all visitors follow a link or an image or a Google search of some description (blog, web or image) for ... Johnny Depp!
• Johnny Depp's tattoos are the most popular single feature on the blog!
• Followed a close second by Viggo's tattoos -- and then by Viggo himself.
• Next up, folks follow links and threads and wind up here on the trail of Elijah Wood...
• And about equal numbers of people are looking for Elijah Wood and Christian Bale; and finding it here!
• Next, James Spader, without or without the long hair (but searches and visitor "came from" links show a definite preference for "with").
• And Richard Dean Anderson is right up there with James Spader, Christian Bale and Elijah Wood, in terms of how many visitors are looking, and searching.

After that -- well, it's a free-for-all, with an absolute gran-bag of everything on the blog.

You'll have noticed the "Link Within" widgets ... I added this service about two weeks ago, and it really has added value to the blog. Visitors like it, and many wind up browsing from topic to topic ... a few have stayed for an hour!

I'm not so sure about the "Snapshots" feature, though. I know it's popular on a lot of sites (like Live Journal and (Wordpress) but I'm not totally "sold" on how it works here.

But I have checked out my Statcounter stats and made a note of what visitors are downloading as "keepers." Guys: you're sussed ... ie., I know what you like! Therefore, I can "keep it coming." And let's be honest, there is never a shortage of stuff to babble about!

Many thanks to all who have supported the blog with a click or two on whatever interesting advertising has come along. I appreciate it!

The next thing I want to add to the site here is a Movie Shoppe. Stay tuned...

Viggo Mortensen -- being Good

As a kind of post script to the last entry in this odd journal, I'm going to talk about Viggo again for a couple of minutes, and his new movie, Good.

I was over at YouTube, getting the trailer to plug in here, and couldn't help noticing that there's a bit of a furore brewing up over there. Most of it is about Nazis, Germans, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians and so forth -- and I really don't want to get into that ... I'm not qualified, honestly! There's people who know 100 times what I know, about all those subjects, and they're out there on the web, whanging it out all the time: they've said everything, fifty times each. Nothing left for me to add, and if I did, I'd either get it wrong or get everyone steamed.

But one thing on the discussion about the movie, Good, that seemed (to me) to be silly enough to be worth a post here is this:

A fair few people say they're "bothered" be the fact that Viggo and Jason Isaacs are playing the parts of Germans, using English accents. Apparently these viewers would have preferred to hear Viggo and Jason speaking with German accents.

Hunh?! Here's the problem. We hear German accents when German people speak English. But in Good, all the characters are German, speaking German, as German native speakers, in Germany.

No way in the world would you hear German accents! Think of it like this: the whole movie has been translated out of German into English. You just wouldn't, shoudn't, couldn't, hear an accent like Max von Sydow speaking English! (And incidentally, I could listen to Max von Sydow all night.)

Making a movie about Germans speaking German in Germany, they only had two choices: 1) have everyone speak German and subtitle it; or, 2) have everyone speak English that sounds as perfect to the ear as proper German would sound to native German speakers.

Now, the question of "should Viggo be speaking with an English accent?" comes up ... and it's pretty plain to me that since all the characters are German etc. etc., then you have no choice but the stabilize the accent used in the movie to ONE accent. Jason Isaacs is English -- so is everyone else in the cast ... I know, because I bothered to go to the movie's IMDb page and check! So, since they're all English barring Viggo ... if someone wanted to have Viggo speaking with his American accent or his Danish accent, they'd have to coach everybody else in the movie to speak with the same accent as him ... that's a huge amount of work, to make 10 people match up with one!

Why bother, when Viggo already "does" a gorgeous English accent (Aragorn), so he can mesh with the rest of the cast without problems.

This seems to be such a weird thing to me. It's just about the last reason I could think of for people saying, "I'm bothered by an American speaking in an English accent, playing a German." I mean -- duh. It's so obvious, I shouldn't have to be saying this!

Eye candy now, anyone...?!

Viggo Mortensen -- trilingual is terrific!

I'm in a Viggo mood today ... because he's been on the box promoting GOOD, which is just one of his new movies.

So, what the hey? Let's have some Viggo stuff today.

Let's start with the GOOD trailer ... which is a marvelous piece of filmmaking in itself. Listen to that accent! Viggo is "doing" the gorgeous British accent we heard in Lord of the Rings. Aragorn speaks! Have a listen to this...



This is going to be such a good movie. Next ... since we're on the subject of
accents and languages, you have to check this out:



Being bilingual would be fantastic. I always wanted to speak a second language. Viggo, it turns out, speaks at least three. He did CAPITAN ALATRISTE in the Spanish language:



And yes, I have a copy of ALATRISTE ... in Spanish ... with English subtitles, thank heavens, or I wouldn't get one word in three of what's being said!

Lastly ... well, let's get naughty. Chuckle! Enjoy:

Digital eye candy ... Final Fantasy. Woah!

When's the last time you took a long, hard, serious look at anime, and digitally animated movies, not to mention the games that either spin off them or spawn them?

You might not have looked in a while ... I haven't. I just did. I'm fairly speechless here (and for AG that's saying a lot).

What can I tell you? There's going to come a time when human actors are going to be out of work! What they're doing with animation these days is aready enough to blow you away ... you know what this is going to be like in another 10 years?!

Take a squizz at this ... and think of Storm Comstantine's Wraethu while you're squizzing ... because both these characters are guys -- namely Sephiroth and Cloud, villain and hero, from Final Fantasy.






What can you say? Johnny Quest was never like this!

Christian Bale must be blushing (again) when Auntie Beeb does an oopsie

You just have to chuckle, but I can also imagine some red faces -- and Christian Bale must be among them. Check this out:

BBC Breakfast has avoided censure by Ofcom after it quickly apologised for broadcasting an unedited version of Christian Bale's foul-mouthed tirade on a film set.

On 16 February, the BBC One breakfast news show featured part of the sound-clip in which Bale is heard losing his temper with a member of the film crew.

After introducing the Bale item, the word "fucking" was heard almost immediately.

The clip was stopped and the presenters apologised stating that the clip should have been edited.
The Ofcom code states that "most offensive language must not be broadcast before the watershed".

The BBC explained to Ofcom that two versions of the Bale rant item existed in its production database – one containing the most offensive language and one with this language bleeped out for transmission.

Apparently the original unedited version was played by mistake because the two different versions were not clearly labelled.

Ofcom said it considered the matter adequately resolved in view of the broadcaster's swift action to stop the clip and apologise for offence to viewers.
(From http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=43399&c=1)

Nice one, Auntie.

The problem is, Christian Bale might never live this down!




Along the same lines ... but it's a very, very safe bet that it's a clever publicity stunt ... is Gary Oldman's absolutely hilarious tirade ostensibly aimed at a bunch of TV or magazine journalists who appear to be pursuing/harassing him. It's all about a movie that must need some advertising -- because this is just about the best kind of advertising it could get. God knows, even I want to see it now, to figure out what the brewhaha is about! Have a butcher's at this:



I laughed and laughed. And I'm honestly curious to know what the heck The Perfect Sleep is all about. Good one, guys: the advertising worked ... and you got the Internet to spread it "virally" for nothing, right?! Glad to help.