Philip Seymour Hoffman

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - William Shakespeare's "Othello" has worked perfectly well onstage for more than 400 years, so it's a puzzlement as to why director Peter Sellars felt such the need to mess with it in his new production starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. The answer, of course, is that the controversial theater/opera director always has imposed his own authorial ideas into his stagings, with results that have ranged from the sublime to, in this case, the ridiculous. In recent years, many productions of the Bard's classic have tended to reflect the aftereffects of the O.J. Simpson case. Sellars' modern-dress rendition, according to the ... Read Full Story

Since the focus of this blog is on screenwriting, naturally most of the interviews and articles I've posted thus far have been with screenwriters. But that's really only part of the learning process. Movies are a 'collaborative' effort and from a screenwriter's standpoint, the primary other players in that process are directors, actors and editors . They along with screenwriters have more direct impact on the shaping and telling of our stories than anyone else. So it behooves us to understand how directors, actors and editors think when they approach a story and its characters. Hence this inaugural post of a new recurring feature ... Read Full Story

After two asinine outings, Tom Cruise finally figured out how to get a Mission: Impossible to work. There’s an actual story–the viewer’s engagement with the plot doesn’t revolve around one’s appreciation of Tom Cruise and his frequent grin. The difference is in Cruise himself. He’s no longer charming the women aged twelve to fifty-two in the audience, he’s widened his scope–he’s trying to present an affable lead… to everyone. It’s amazing how little the film needs to engender some real concern for the character. Give him a girlfriend, a pre-exisiting girlfriend–does wonders. Throw in Ving Rhames putting his foot in his mouth while talking ... Read Full Story

Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt Photo: Miramax Films Set in 1964, Doubt takes place in a Catholic school in the Bronx as the old and the new are set to clash over an alleged bit of wrong-doing. John Patrick Shanley wrote and directed the feature based on his stage play of the same name and has brought a choice cast to bring his story to the big screen. At one end is Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), the distrusting witch of a nun who has set out to prove Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has involved himself in inappropriate ways with the ... Read Full Story

In the late 1960s, American radio stations blasted rock and roll 24 hours a day. But in the home country of the Beatles and The Rolling Stones , the only way 25 million people could hear their music was to tune in…to a boat. Read Full Story