2008.07.01

Spoilers!

• Click here for a video interview with Damian Lewis, Sarah Shahi, and Adam Arkin from the NBC Universal Upfront in New York City on May 12, 2008. The interview was conducted by Kristin Dos Santos and featured on her June 22nd E! Online “Watch With Kristin Show.”

  Thanks to The Path to Zen (a terrific new website dedicated to Life starring Damian Lewis as Los Angeles Detective Charlie Crews) for this partial transcript of the clip that describes plans for Season 2:

  Sarah Shahi: “I know it picks up… It’s like a month after where we left it, but there’s still, like the conspiracy stuff gets bigger and deeper, like that hasn’t gone away, right?”

  Damian Lewis: “Yeah, they’re still committed to the idea, they want revelation, they don’t want to leave the audience hanging on for the whole series, every three or four episode there’ll be an exciting new piece of information, so I think at the beginning of this season we’ll see some of the characters that were established last season.. gone. They’ve moved on… they’ll be moved past in term of their relevance to the plot, you know, we’re going on to bigger fish.”

• None of the supporting cast members of Life [Sarah Shahi (Dani Reese), Adam Arkin (Ted Earley), or Brent Sexton (Bobby Stark)] have been selected as semi-finalists for the Emmy Awards. 🙁

  Still no word about semi-finalists for the leading actor award but the final list of nominees will be announced on July 17th.

• Anton Bitel reviewed The Escapist for musicOMH.com and said:

  “…With its grim portrait of incarcerated life, its daring escape plot and its redemptive story arc, The Escapist aligns itself to any number of prison-break films. At the same time, however, the narrative’s constant flipping forward and back makes it more like a puzzle movie, as viewers are left struggling to fill in the gap between where events are now and where we know they are going. Some highly energised editing ensures that the film remains thrilling from start to finish, while the stillness of Cox’s extraordinary central performance lends the film the gravity that is so necessary for the dramatic impact of the final scenes.

  Ultimately, The Escapist impresses as a recognisable genre film while also breaking free of its generic confines by suggesting that escape is, over and above having the right team and the right tools, a state of mind. Here, the visceral, the intellectual and the spiritual all come together, elevating The Escapist beyond merely escapist entertainment, and offering something that any viewer can dig.”

• Irish journalist Joe Griffin had this to say about The Escapist:

  “And, for the most part, a strong film it is. The casting against type is very effective- Joseph Fiennes is surprisingly convincing, and almost unrecognisable, as the, surly, hooded boxer. And the aforementioned Damian Lewis, so good in `Band of Brothers’, immediately convinces in his unlikely role as the prison’s big fish…

  …Shown as the surprise film at this year’s Dublin International Film Festival, `The Escapist’, though not perfect, is a tough, solid little thriller and a promising debut for its director.”

• Box Office Mojo reports that Rupert Wyatt’s film The Escapist ranked 24 out of 59 in box office sales for films showing in cinemas in the UK and Ireland last weekend.

• According to IMDb Gareth Lewis’s hilarious film The Baker (produced by and starring Damian Lewis) will be released in Greece on July 17, 2008. It is not yet known if this indicates a special screening (e.g., a film festival) or a theatrical release. The film is currently available on Region 2 DVD in the UK.

• During an interview with ComingSoon.net the acclaimed British actor Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films spoke about Helen McCrory who will portray his wife Narcissa in the next two Harry Potter movies:

  “I am very excited. (To reprise the role.) Also, the woman who is playing my wife I’ve been a fan of for a very long time. In fact, one of the great things about going to do “Harry Potter” at all is that a lot of people who are my acting idols I see sitting in make-up chairs beside me. To get to do scenes with Gary Oldman and Richard Harris, Michael Gambon and now Helen McCrory, who I’m a big fan of – it’s fabulous.”

• This New York Times editorial by Ben Brantley discusses the Almeida Theatre production of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm starring Helen McCrory which runs through July 5th.