jeezbee

Once again, I haven’t been updating the blog as I wanted… so I’ll be trying to play catch up – again.

To start things off, the very basics about last night’s premiere of Me and Orson Welles at the Toronto International Film Festival. There were many articles leading up to the premiere indicating high hopes for this movie (which I’ll put together in a later catch up post). There aren’t many reviews out yet (and not really any important ones) but the first reaction seems to be that the film is good but not brilliant. I’ll try to stay at least on top of the reviews. For this post, here is the entry about Me and Orson Welles from the festival website (written by the TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey) and a first clip from the movie.

Me and Orson Welles

Following on from School of Rock, Before Sunset and A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater continues to range across American cinema with the freedom of a true maverick. Is it any surprise that he has arrived at the doorstep of Orson Welles?

It is November, 1937, and teenager Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) dreams of making it on Broadway. One day he runs into Welles (Christian McKay), years before Citizen Kane but already a famous New York dramatist. With his new Mercury Theatre troupe as his instrument, Welles plans to mount a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that will shake the foundations of American stagecraft. But he needs a bit player. Young Richard impresses him with his bravado and his singing voice – he’s hired.

Like a moth to a flame, Richard seeks the approval of the quick-tempered director, but soon finds himself distracted by Welles’s girl Friday, Sonja. Crisply played by Claire Danes as a woman with equal parts candour and ambition, she is irresistible, and knowingly so.

As Welles whips the troupe into shape for the pending premiere, egos and passions simmer to a boil. Richard falls for Sonja, but Sonja has a soft spot for more powerful men. Welles erupts into roaring fury when things don’t go his way, but can turn on a dime to charm an investor or a pouting actor.

McKay was discovered for this role doing a one-man show as Welles, and his performance is pitch perfect in voice and gesture – nothing short of dazzling. Efron is stretching his talent in new directions. He shows truly impressive range here, as the heady environment of the theatre awakens his character’s confidence and brings him to an inevitable clash with Welles.

Based on the novel by Robert Kaplow, Me and Orson Welles offers all the thrills of watching genius through the eyes of an innocent. The man who rose from Julius Caesar to War of the Worlds to Citizen Kane must have been hell to live with, which is the delicious pleasure of Me and Orson Welles.

And here is the short clip where Richard auditions for Orson Welles in front of the Mercury Theatre:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kteUGbN9CD4[/youtube]

I’m sorry, I haven’t been updating in the last few weeks – nothing really major happened but a lot of small tidbits became available. I’ll start with a round up on HSM3 and will follow on the other two projects a bit later.

The most obvious news: filming started yesterday, 3 May 2008 in SLC. Disney has already started their marketing despite the fact that the cameras just started rolling. They’ve already released the first poster (left – big version in the gallery). We also got to see and hear the entire main cast (minus Lucas), director, writer and producers in a press conference on Friday, 2 May 2008 to announce the start of production. They didn’t give away much about the movie itself, most talk was about how excited everyone was to be back, blah blah. The best online video of the press conference can be found on Utah’s Fox site (Part one is here, part two you find in the sidebar of the same page). Their video is basically straight through without any edits or cuts.

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IoM Today published an article on 6 March 2008 about “Me and Orson Welles” based on the press conference I’ve been posting about the other day. Mostly a recap of the video; it doesn’t contain a lot of new info but it confirms that filming will take place in PineWood (only) after they wrap in IoM and then move on to NYC. And they have the big stage play this Sunday with 570 extras in the audience. It does have some interesting information about how the Gaiety theatre works well as double for the Mercury.

Zac Efron – what’s all the fuss about?

By ANGELA GREGORY

UNLESS you’re a girl under the age of 17, or a parent, it’s entirely possible you had no idea who Zac Efron or what High School Musical was until the past couple of weeks.

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There was a short press conference on Sunday, 2 March 2008 in the Sefton Hotel on the Isle of Man with the Me and Orson Welles director and producers Richard Linklater, Ann Carli and Marc Samuelson. They talk about how IoM managed to get the production onto the island and how the Gaiety Theatre is a really good location for it.

IoM Today has a very brief article about it here and the link to the original video is here. In the article there are also press pics with the producers and Zac but they are not really ‘relevant’ for the movie, so you have to get them directly there. For your convenience (and people who have problems with embedded Windows Media Player) here is the video of the press conference as YouTube video: