... and I wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Well, I'm back from Stockholm obviously and I basically spent the whole Tuesday and today editing, reviewing and uploading all kinds of things.

First off, the gallery is back online. You will notice that a few pictures had to go, but there's still enough to see.

Secondly, I uploaded two really long (and apparently good) interviews to the so far horribly neglected media section. Both interviews are in swedish and unfortunately not translated (yet), one is from January and the other one is from this Sunday.

Then, two new additions to the rumour mill:
- The Royal Physician's Visit, based on a swedish novel that plays in the 18th century in Denmark and covers a politically dramatic era in danish history.
- Love Bombing. This one has been mentioned a lot over the past year, it's based on a play by a swedish author, and Lasse is planning to turn it into a low budget movie with Lena in the main part.

Both of these were mentioned by Lasse on the weekend, along with Sheba, which is still not confirmed.

On to the actual event at the Stockholm Film Festival:
Although the whole film festival seemed rather international, the Lasse event was unfortunately held in swedish, and the organization refused to switch at least the interview to english, which was very disappointing.
Anton was there too and wrote up a little report of the most important things over here in the forum.

So, I can't really tell you more about the whole thing except that first we had a screening of My Life as a Dog in swedish, then Lasse came on the stage for a half hour interview, and then he got the prize for Lifetime Achievement in shape of a rather heavy looking golden horse. (Not a random horse, but a Dala horse, which is part of swedish tradition but would take too long to explain here now.)

Anyways, I uploaded a few pictures over here.

The filmfestival was partly sponsored by Nokia, and so every director got a Nokia mobile phone and filmed a short movie with it. (The "short film" I mentioned a while back.) Lasse filmed the Hallström's two dogs, Siri and Greta playing. That may sound very banal, but those two might just be the most adorable dogs I've ever seen (and that while I'm a cat person), and on top of that Lasse somehow managed to turn the whole thing into a really funny and cute classy comedy piece, probably largely because of the perfect background song by the awesome Ella Fitzgerald. (You can do no wrong with that woman, and for anyone who wants to know: The song is "Too marvelous for words")
The whole thing can be viewed here.

Lasse also did a rather long interview with Dagens Nyheter, that you can read here if you understand swedish.

If any Swede reading this happens to have some time on his or her hands and would be willing to translate a few things, please send me an email.

Well, I think that was it for now!

I uploaded a few interviews:

Soft-centred
-- The Guardian | Feb 24 2001

Numbing down in Hollywood
-- The Daily Telegraph | Feb 26 2002
(this one's very honest and a bit negative in between)

Casanova - Q&A with director Lasse Hallstrom
-- Buena Vista | 2005

Oh, and I completely forgot to say that the gallery is offline for a few days because I need to fix a couple of things. It should be back up sometimes next week, for anyone who was wondering.

The The Cider House Rules database is partly online! I just uploaded a general overview, pictures, reviews and articles over here.

Also added an interview with John Irving, the author of the novel, because I found it very interesting to read.

During working on the database I read "My Movie Business" by John Irving, which you should definitely read if you are a fan of the movie. It describes how Cider House was made into a movie (which took more than a decade), how Irving changed the script, it explains a lot about adapting novels in general and gives a lot of insightful info on the process of shooting or the stories behind the movie and also includes a few nice anecdotes from the movie set. (If you haven't read the original novel you might want to do that first though, otherwise you won't understand large parts.)

Also, Buena Vista announced that Casanova will be one of the first movies to be published in the new Blu-ray Disc® format. The BV DVDS will be about 50 GB large and therefore offer more space for extra content as well as general better quality of the movie.

Buena Vista has announced that all of the Blu-ray Discs will have extra features that the "normal" DVDs don't have, in Casanova's case:

Casanova's Blu-ray bonus materials will include audio commentary from director Lasse Hallstrom; a "Blu-scape" featurette created specially for the Blu-ray release by noted director/cinematographer Louie Schwartzberg titled "Reflections of Venice"; and the featurettes "Creating an Adventure" and "Dressing in Style."

The last two features are already on the normal DVD, so the "Reflections of Venice"-feature is the only one that will be new.

A first tentative price lies at $34.99, the DVD is supposed to hit stores on January 27 2007.

It's probably obvious that I'm back at uni, sorry for the long news break.

So, all Lasse news compact:

- Sheba, originally supposed to be shooting this fall, has been shifted a bit back, it's supposed to be released 2008 now, so it's probably gonna be shot sometimes in 2007.

- Once again, the Boone's Lick (western drama, starring and producing: Tom Hanks) rumours are circulating, looks like Lasse is really in negotiations about directing the movie now.

To keep track of all movies Lasse has been connected with in the last year I created a rumour section, visit the Rumour Mill to take a look at possible upcoming Lasse projects.

Also, and additional Hoax Review over in the Hoax Press Section.

And, last thing for today: Lasse will be awarded with another Life Time Achievement Award!

It will be a special event dedicated to Lasse, taking place at the Stockholm film festival on November 25.

He is also producing a short film for the film festival that will be shown during the 160 - minute - long ceremony. It's a public event and tickets are still available at the official site of the film festival.

That's all for now, I'm working on a few things over the next days, so stay tuned for more updates.

Well, let's start with the good news:

The Hoax premiered yesterday in Rome, and the first reactions are pretty positive. Lasse was not in attendance, but Richard Gere turned up for both the press conference and the premiere.

You can watch a video excerpt of the press conference with Richard Gere here by clicking on 'The Hoax' conference's video. (Gere talks about how him and Lasse decided to make the movie, and how he saw his character)

Then, thanks to Sarah for the italian Hoax poster:



I also uploaded an article and the first two reviews:

-Tale of U.S. book scam wins over Rome film festival
- Screendaily.com Review
- Variety Review

As I said, the reviews are very positive and several other press mentions talk about Hoax being oscar-worthy, which leads me directly to the bad bad bad bad news:

Miramax has pushed The Hoax back to April 6, 2007. No, I am not kidding. (Wish I was, though). With this move they not only make us wait even longer, they also take The Hoax effectively out of the Oscar Race. There were some rumours that Miramax is afraid of The Departed, and they don't want to compete with it in the next Oscars. Begs the question, why do they think the next Oscars after that are gonna be "easier"? Or what are they trying to do?

I don't get it. Dear Miramax people, if anyone of you happens to be reading this right now, be so kind and send me an email to explain.

More news as soon as more reviews are published.

The Hoax premiere in Rome is getting closer, and apparently the movie is also released in the whole of Italy on October 20, which makes it a month earlier than in the USA.

There's an official italian Hoax Site over here with synopsis, gallery and downloads. I added 7 new movie stills to the Hoax database:

.

The official site does have a few more in the gallery, so you might want to take a look.

Then, Anton translated the little interview I was talking about in the previous news post, you can read it here.

Also, two new articles/interviews in relation to the upcoming Cider House update:

- Lasse Hallström's Rules

- Breaking the rules: Hallström encouraged 'creative chaos' for 'Cider House'