Affiche américaine

Angleterre 1558. A la mort de sa demi-soeur Marie Tudor, Elizabeth, fille illégitime d’Henri VIII jusqu’alors menacée, devient Reine. Mais, même à la cour, elle n’est pas à l’abri du danger. Pour survivre elle va devoir apprendre les subtilités du pouvoir…

Elizabeth est un film de Shekhar Kapur, réalisé en 1998. Il s’agit d’une évocation de la vie d’Elizabeth, notamment de ses débuts sur le trône d’Angleterre.

Ce film réunit une pléiade d’excellents acteurs: Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Fiennes, Richard Attenborough… qui reçurent en même temps que le film lui-même de nombreuses récompenses. Le rythme est agréable, on ne s’ennuie pas. Ce film donne réellement envie d’en savoir plus sur cette reine.

Et Shekhar Kapur l’a deviné: en 2007, il tourne une suite: Elizabeth – L’âge d’or.

Ma note:

A noter: la présence de Daniel Craig (Casino Royale) et James Frain (Empire, Raspoutine, La vengeance de Monte-Cristo, Spartacus) et des acteurs français Fanny Ardant, Vincent Cassel et Eric Cantona.

An amateur newspaper, done in manuscript, from 1882. The authors, Guy and Thomas Berry Cusack-Smith, recount the social and sporting goings-on in their neighborhoods in Eccleston Square, London, and in West Sussex.
Included are drawings, puzzles, and rhymes. Sir Thomas Cusack-Smith was later Consul General for Samoa.

This is a transcript of an interview with Christopher Eccleston on Jonathan Ross’s chat show in March 2005, a few days before the new series premiered. You can see the original here, and as always I’ve cut out the um’s and er’s etc. Eccleston talks about his favourite Doctors when he was younger, and is clearly keen for the new series to be popular with children as well as adults.

A few days, or perhaps a week or so, after this interview was aired, Eccleston announced that he wouldn’t be returning for the second series.

JR: I was so excited when I heard they were bringing back ‘Doctor Who’, because I have very fond memories of it as a kid. So how did you come to get the part? Was it something you actively wanted, or did they come to you first?

CE: It was written by Russell T. Davies, who I did a thing called ‘Second Coming’ with.

JR: Which was brilliant. It was essentially you playing the saviour…

CE: The second incarnation of Christ on this Earth, and he also wrote ‘Queer as Folk’, ‘Bob and Rose’, fantastic writer, and I heard that he was writing it which I thought was quite strange for his career.

JR: An unusual choice.

CE: Yeah. But he’s a massive fan. He’s got a Dalek in his house, at home. He’s been a fan since he was a little boy in Swansea, he used to wander round hoping that the TARDIS would appear and he could be the Doctor’s assistant. He didn’t want to be the Doctor, he wanted to be the assistant.

JR: Why did he want to be the assistant?

CE: I don’t know.

JR: That’s a peculiar thing.

CE: He didn’t want to be the Doctor, he wanted to be his assistant.

JR: You could probably define someone’s psychology by working out if they want to be the Doctor or the assistant. I wanted to meet the Doctor but I wanted it to be a lady Doctor, who would take me in the TARDIS and teach me things. And I still sometimes hope that might happen. So you were attracted by the writing, I mean you know if he’s behind it, it’s going to be quality writing.

CE: Yeah, I thought it was a chance to… you know, its reputation kind of dipped in the 80’s and you get mentions of it over the series, in ‘Queer as Folk’ and stuff and there’s a real passion in him for it, he really believes in it as a vehicle for Saturday night television, because it is a fantastic idea, an alien who can travel backwards and forward in time. It gives the thing scale, for instance in episode eight, Rose played by Billie Piper gets to meet the father that she never met.

JR: So she goes back and meets her father.

CE: It’s an 80’s episode, and it’s frightening, there’s some terrifying aliens in it, but it’s also really emotional and it’s dealing with loss and things, so without getting soapboxy there’s some powerful stuff in there.

JR: I’ve seen the first episode, I watched it with my children and they loved it -

CE: Good

JR: I was worried because they’ve got no knowledge of ‘Doctor Who’, I once tried to make them watch an old episode of ‘Doctor Who’ and they had no time for it.

CE: Which was it?

JR: I can’t remember which one it was, I think it might have been one of the Jon Pertwee ones, who was my favourite. Did you have a favourite Doctor?

CE: Erm… the first one I remember is Patrick Troughton. For some reason when people say ‘Doctor Who’ I have this black and white image of his face, his fantastic face, but the ones I grew up with were Baker and Pertwee.

JR: Yeah, well Tom Baker, I think everyone loved Tom Baker, but I liked Jon Pertwee because of the velvet jacket.

CE: The whole -

JR: He was quite the dandy. That’s why when they were looking for a Doctor I thought they might have considered someone who liked clothes. I mean the acting’s quite important, but I would have thought the clothes wearing would’ve been above that.

CE: It occurred to me that you dress like a Doctor.

JR: I’d have been a much better Doctor than you, we both agree on that.

CE: Yeah, absolutely.

JR: Maybe it’s not too late?

CE: Get that cockometer on the table.

JR: It’s not a cockometer!… I watched it with my kids, and they found it scary but not too scary that she wouldn’t watch again.

CE: Interesting. I mean we’ll have to see with later episodes because it gets scary. I mean that’s for parents and children to decide.

JR: But he’s super-confident, super-inquisitive, always going forward, wants to talk to, wants to engage with the aliens.

CE: And I think that takes some of the fear out for children. If I’m being chased down a corridor by aliens and just before I slam the door I give them a flash of my grin, I think that invites kids into it.

JR: But not in a Michael Jackson kind of way. Although a strange Doctor turns up, he takes a young woman away into a phonebox.

CE: And I must be, what, twenty-five years older than her?

JR: Although Billie Piper’s got a history of that kind of relationship. Well you’re 900 years older than her, aren’t you?

CE: Exactly.

JR: We’ve got a montage of some of the creatures that appear in the later episodes, and it looks like it gets better and better.

CE: Yeah, we do get stronger as we go, I think.

In January this year, with great excitement, eight young professional men decided to establish a commune in a lovely old house in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. All are university graduates – accountants, lawyers, marketing executives and hugely passionate, committed South Africans who have grown up in the New South Africa.

On Friday night they threw a dinner party for their mates and their girlfriends. All the boys were in the pub celebrating their culinary and organizational skills – the first guests arrive, followed by some uninvited guests – three men armed each with a gun and menacing and violent attitudes. For the next two hours as each guest arrives, instead of a welcoming Jaeger bomb or Tequila, they are greeted with a gun at their head with comments like “wrong place, wrong time”. For the next two hours, the once happy, uncomplicated group of young men and women (numbering 16 including some Straight A matric graduates) are subjected to physical and mental abuse – the men and women are separated to add to the anxiety. The thugs take great delight in taunting the group with promises of what they are going to do to them and their girlfriends.

What have this group lost on this tragic night? The normal things critically important to 20 somethings – their cell phones, watches, wallets, laptops and jewellery – but most enduring, their feeling of security and passion for this great country. In some instances – their dignity and feeling of self-worth – not being able to give protection to their girlfriends, who suffer huge anxiety at what might be their fate.

In this one incident, how many people are traumatized, how many are directly affected? The immediate family and close friends of each of the victims, probably number in total in the region of 100 people. Suddenly they are all part of this terrible statistic. Assume that this one group of thugs , who had finished this section of a days work by 20h30, go on to do another two jobs that day. We are talking about a potential of around 200 to 300 people being directly affected in just one day by just one gang of thugs. Who knows how many more are operating at present. The victims perceptions of their own security and concerns for the safety of their families are dramatically altered. Their previously unbridled passion for this country is certainly going to suffer in some way. This all in just one day in the lives of us South Africans.
What is this all about? The police, once notified, were fantastic, efficient, calm and empathetic. This is not a political story, and other than the attitude of the thugs, this is not a racial story. Every day, irrespective of race, this type of incident happens – there is no difference to the feeling of insecurity, fear, anxiety and depression due to colour of skin. There are a number of prominent black businessmen and politicians living in this area who have the same issues. We are all proudly part of the new South Africa for whom we are voting with our lives and the lives of our close ones. This is not petty thievery which some may try and justify by the “Robin Hood” theory.

This is about economics, this is about the addressing the curse of poverty. This is about the poor, 99.9% of whom are honest, law abiding citizens, trying desperately to make ends meet.
We all know that the main long-term solution to alleviating poverty is providing people with the ability to earn, coupled with education and basic services. Once off aid packages are important, but are short-term and not enduring. To enable the country to achieve this there has to be economic growth. The Government provides the framework and the stimulants, but at the end of the day, like all successful businesses, it is about the people. There is no doubt that successful businesses are run and staffed by good people. Another critical aspect of successful businesses is funding.

What is the correlation between this and our tragic Friday night? Some of these families have had up to 4 such incidents in the last year. These youngsters, who have never questioned their allegiance to, love for and belief in South Africa, are now starting to have their doubts. There is nothing worse than the loss of dignity, the feeling of complete helplessness and the confrontation of senseless, potential loss of your own and your loved ones life. It is natural – you will start to consider alternatives. It is absolutely a rational consequence – forget the taunts of – “they must leave – the country is better off without them”. It has nothing to do with patriotism – just the basic instinct of self preservation for yourself and your family.
So what happens? These kids, on whom the country has made substantial investment in their education – will at the very least spend some time overseas. They may come back, they may not. Some families will leave – captains of industry – often wealthy people, and even the not so wealthy – taking with them as much of their possessions and wealth that they can. But more importantly, the unbelievable skills that this country has nurtured, produced, and paid for, to say nothing of the skills and potential skills of all their descendants. Some forever lost!
These skills and resources are taken to another country – Australia, New Zealand, Canada are the lucky and grateful recipients. Take the South African Jewish community – see what they have produced and grown in those countries. They have invested in and most importantly have created millions of jobs in these adopted countries – jobs that should have been created here, skills that should have been deployed here in business, education, health, services – all areas essential to alleviate poverty and make this country the great place to live in that it should be for all of our people.

All because of a small minority of people who roam our streets with no fear. It is in every one of our interests, rich, poor, black, white, ANC, COPE, DA, whatever to root these people out. These people are destroying this country and they are the biggest inhibitor of growth in this country.

A company without its good people is nothing – and equally, a country without its people is nothing.

This is not political, this is not racial, this is about economics. A company will do everything in its power to keep its people. South Africa needs to do everything in its power to keep its people – starting with the very basic right to life and security. We owe it to the poor people of this country to preserve our best people. It is through them that their poverty will have a chance of being alleviated.

Singapore did it. New York did it. We can do it. We need to take draconian measurements against crime. We need to be less concerned about preserving the rights of criminals over and above the rights of our good, law abiding patriotic people and, over and above the rights and aspirations of our poor people. The right of criminals can wait until our good people, rich, poor etc have been sorted out. A person caught in a criminal act with a weapon should proceed straight to an uncomfortable jail cell for 20 years, no parole. No need to waste our courts time. Spend the rehabilitation time on these criminals in rather preventing our good people from needing to be rehabilitated. Prevent our people from ever having to think about taking their most valuable assets – their skills and all the skills of their families, their money to benefit some other country in alleviating the plight of their poor!

Our new president carries the vote of 65% of this country. He has the power and support to institute whatever draconian zero tolerance actions necessary to root out this scurge. He has the power to keep the people and skills in this country to provide the growth to help the poor.

Who is trading Up - Bernie or his wife

PS I did my usual of being so intent on the painting that I ended up with Slavica floating (yes that is her name! Perhaps it is Bernie’s pet name for her). I made her legs too short. To rectify that problem I put her on a small podium which is apt for F1. I have since found out that Slavica filed for divorce last November. Im not surprised, billions wouldn’t make me marry him even if I was the right gender.

Well the moment we have all been waiting for, today is when the BBC is going to anounce the Person that is going to replace David Tennant for the part of The Doctor.

David Tennant as The Doctor

The Announcement is in the Doctor Who Confidential on BBC1 At 17:35.

Here Is the BBC Advert:

Now I would like the the Replacement to be David Hewlett as he would make a good Doctor. I am involved in the campaign that has been organized by the Squirrels of David Hewlett (the members of the forum on his website (of which I am one)).

David Hewlett and Jewel Staite

There are other actors that the Bookies have been taking bets on taking over the role of The Doctor. thease include such people as:
Doctor Who Guest Stars:
These probably will not be the doctor as they have appeared in the show and only one Doctor was a guest star and became The Doctor (Tom Baker)

Paterson Joseph – Rodrick
David Morrissey – Jackson Lake
John Simm – The Master
Russell Tovey – Midshipman Alonzo Frame
Anthony Head – Mr Finch
Harry Lloyd – Jeremy Baines/Son-Of-Mine
John Barrowman – Captain Jack Harkness
Dean Lennox Kelly – William Shakespeare
Christopher Eccleston – The Doctor
Richard E Grant – The Doctor (Curse of The Fatal Death)
Hugh Grant – The Doctor (Curse of The Fatal Death)
it is fairly unlikely that these actors will make The Doctor but as Richard E Grant and Hugh Grant were in a spoof episode the could be a chance that these could be considered.

Other Names:
James Nesbitt
Robert Carlyle
Jason Statham
Aidan Gillen
Ben Whishaw
Julian Walsh
Nigel Harman
Bill Nighy
Stephen Fry
Chiwetel Ejiofor
David Suchett
Paul Bettany
Joel Beckett
Christopher Villiers
Ricky Gervais
Vinnie Jones
Robbie Williams
now these are some big names that could play the part of The Doctor but as this list of people was in Doctor Who Magazine issue:402 and this was out in November 2008 and in December of 2008 Robert Carlyle was signed as Dr David Rush in Stargate Universe and so he was taken off of the list as he will be filming SGU at the same time as the Filming of Doctor who so he was unable to be included but he was the favorite of Russell T Davies and it was learned that RTD is not a Stargate Fan.

Robert Carlyle

All of these names are the ones that the bookies are and have been taking bets on them to be given the role of The Doctor. I am supporting David Hewlett but I have seen some people that others would like to see in the role of The Doctor and these include:
Allan Davies
Bill Bailey
Martin Freeman
Any of these could be in the role.

So I will be watching Live at 17:35 on BBC1 and I will be posting who gets the role later on.

BBC1 Logo

Stargatefreek
David Hewlett Supporter

I finished watching the first season of the new Dr. Who yesterday afternoon.

It wasn’t the most brilliant show I’ve seen – Farscape still holds that award – but it was still pretty dang cool.

Dr. Who deals with Time. I think his approach to dealing with time is pretty cool, though the constant problems he faces raises questions for me. If time is a constant stream, and he can pop in at any point, that means that EVERYTHING is happening right now, and the time stream can be diverted by…by someone not creating dog food, or something like that. That small inconsequential thing could CHANGE THE WORLD. Like in Back to the Future II. So in a way, that means he has all the time in the world to fix something. He doesn’t have to stay there. If a problem seems to hard, he could technically leave, then come back and it will still be at the same time. Also, I don’t understand why he doesn’t take Rose back to immediately after she left. The next day or something – I know that he tried, but he could have tried a bit harder. Captain Jack seems like a cool character – I’m interested to see what happens with him – right now he’s stuck on a space station. Also, David Tennant seems like he’s a bit more energetic than Christopher Eccleston, which will be interesting to see, I suppose.

Si, si, un circo, così è stata definita più volte, quindi cosa c’è da stupirsi quando circo è? a me sembra che la decisione di questo weekend presa a Spa, non centra nulla con lo sport, con le gare ecc, e semplicemente una decisione che tiene aperto il campionato e quindi gli ascolti in modo di accontentari i vari sponsor.

Si poteva limitare ad essere di gran lunga la gara più bella della stagione, pero sicuramente il Sig. Eccleston, che in questo si che è un maestro, a pensato bene di sfruttare il tutto fino all’ultima goccia, e così che parte una penalità al ragazzo che questa volta in realtà non è stata così grave come le solite a qui ci tiene abituato, guarda caso sembrarebbe che la FIA sia contro la Mclaren, e non come l’anno scorso che sembrava il contrario, non è che c’è un po’ di coda di paglia, e adesso essageriamo un attimino? solo che la FIA si sa o è tutto o niente, pero che ci vuoi fare, godiamocela così come viene con penalità colpi di scena penalità lì, e bandera gialla là, insomma se uno e ben cosciente di quello che è la Formula 1 forse non si scalda più di tanto, questo weekend è il turno degli inglesi, allora si incazzino gli inglesi, chi sa forse il prossimo toca a noi, oppure agli italiani a Monza fanno una bella “penalty” a Massa se Hamilton finisce sesto? insomma l’importante è tenere viva la cosa, perche anche se ci provano troppo spesso la Formula 1 emozionante, non è, e sembra che il modo di riscuottere più attenzione è creando dei grandi “Circus” fuori delle gare e alimentare la fame di notizie dei media che ci cammpano sopra alla grande.

E commenti futtili aparte, Alonso resta il numero 1 e se non ci credete, provate a dare a Raikonen, a Massa o a Hamilton la Renault di Alonso, e vediamo dove finivano ieri, e facendolo rientrare alla fine in box, decisione più che discutibile…, date a questo ragazzo una macchina di Formula 1 e allora non ci sarà bisogno di inventarsi penalizzazioni per avere del vero espettacolo.

Nach dem ich gestern endlich die Gelegenheit hatte die zwei aufgenommenen Folgen Dr. Who von Samstag anzuschauen, verlangt es mich, noch ein paar Worte dazu zu schreiben.

Weniger, weil es so wenig dazu im Web gibt, die Serie läuft in England schließlich schon seit 2005, sondern eher, um auch hier in Deutschland für “den Doktor” zu werben.

Mit “Dr. Who” ist es meiner Meinung nach der BBC gelungen, eine kurzweilige, frische und sehr unterhaltende Serie auf die Beine zu stellen. Und dies ohne die heute sonst so üblichen Stielmittel von entweder viel, viel Gewalt und Action oder viel, viel billigem Humor.

Dr. Who schafft es mit nettem englischem Humor die klassischen SiFi-Stielmittel mit einer, nicht zu action geladener, dafür aber schnellen Thiller-Handlung zu verbinden. O.k., der Sendeplatz im Vorabend passt schon irgendwie, ist die Handlung doch etwas bunt und manchmal wohl auch nicht immer ernst gemeint. Auch brutales, übermäßig dramatisches oder gruseliges gibt es nicht wirklich. Dafür aber eben eine flotte Handlung, mit gut aufgelegten Schauspielern (allen voran Billie Piper und Christopher Eccleston) und unheimlich viel Spaß an der Sache – und genau das merkt man der Serie an und wird davon mitgerissen.

Also von mir die unbedingte Empfehlung rein zu schalten (und zu hoffen, dass der Sender mit der 7 nicht gleich wieder anfängt die Serie zu killen)!

Mehr zur Serie, und ich meine wirklich viel mehr, gibt es auf: http://www.drwho.de

.