Award season is upon us and “Bend It Like Beckham” has been getting some attention. It made Entertainment Weekly’s top 10 films of the year at #5. The Editor’s Guild announced it’s nominations and “Bend It Like Beckham” received a nod for Best Film Editing (Comedy). It’s has been nominated for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) at this year’s Golden Globe awards. The awards will be telecast on January 25.
Some good news about “Vanity Fair” to announce. It will have it’s world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival with a possible Fall 2004 release in theatres.
Jonathan has accepted the role of Cassander in Oliver Stone’s upcoming project “Alexander”. Rehearsals start late August in Morocco. Filming has just wrapped on “Vanity Fair”, a day past his birthday. And while Jonathan has been invited to attend the premiere of “The Tesseract” in Japan, time may not permit him to attend.
“Bend It Like Beckham” recently won for Best Sports Movie at the 11th annual ESPY Awards. You may have noticed more ads on TV lately for the movie… after all this time in limited release (it was first released in a handful of theatres in the US back in March!) Fox Searchlight is releasing “Bend It Like Beckham” in wider release on August 1. It should be hitting more theatres then ever before. It’s already made over $26 million at the US box office with an over $39 million overseas gross. Getting a wide release after so long means Fox has faith this movie can reach an even larger audience.
“Bend It Like Beckham” has recieved 3 nominations for the Empire Magazine Awards (Best Newcomer for Parminder Nagra, Best British Actress for Kiera Knightly, and Best British Film) and 1 nomination for a BAFTA for Outstanding British Film. “Bend It Like Beckham” is also making the rounds around the US playing in various film festivals like the Miami International Film Festival being held Feb. 21 - March 2. Watch out for advertisements and reviews of this film in various magazines out now like Elle Girl (thanks to Robby for the sighting on this) and Seventeen.
“Bend It Like Beckham” has been getting a lot of press attention. The film recently had a big London premiere. Jonathan did attend the premiere (I’ve added some photos in the Gallery). You can find contests, goodies, reviews and more at BBC Online (you can see Jonathan arriving in a video on that site and he is interviewed at around 40 minutes into the one hour special) and at the film’s official website.
In other cool news, Jonathan was recently awarded the Canal Grande Award for the Best Young Promising Actor at the Venice International Television Festival 2002 for “The Magnificent Ambersons”. Jonathan attended the festival and received his award. Thanks to Alec and Ronan for passing this info along. The festival jury had this to say about awarding Jonathan with this honor: “For his compelling depiction of a young man who has had everything and who lost everything.”
Lastly, there is a full page photo (from the Instyle photo shoot, nothing new) and small article on Jonathan in the May 2002 issue of UK Glamour magazine. And more good news for those in the UK, “Tangled” has been released on DVD. Still no word of when this might come to the States. Apparently “Tangled” is also out in a few other countries as a rental.
Miramax has pushed back “B. Monkey” once again for release September 9 of this year. Will it appear before the century is over? I wonder.
“Velvet Goldmine” is nominated for 2 BAFTA’s for Best Costume Design and Best Makeup/Hair. It should win both. Sandy Powell won an Oscar for her work in that other Miramax film, but it was nice she mentioned “VG” in her speech and it was hilarious that Whoppi Goldberg attempted to dress like Brian Slade. At the Independent Spirit Awards, “VG” did win for best cinematography! Congrats to Maryse Alberti’s fine work! Speaking of “VG”, it is due out on video May 11th here in the US.
In the latest Vanity Fair magazine, you can find a sneak peek of images of the cast from “Titus”, including Jonathan. Currently, Jonathan is in London for a couple of months filming “Gormanghast”. No details yet on what this is. And lastly, Jonathan was up for British Newcomer of the Year by the London Critics Circle Awards. I have not found out any details on when this happens or if it already did. Hope to find out more soon.
Visit E! Online to see their feature on Johnny. B.Monkey is set for release Feb. 26 - let’s see if that happens.
The Loss of Sexual Innocence debuted at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. It is set to be released on May 21. Nice date. Check out the Sundance Channel page on the film. They give much praise to Jonathan and so does Variety’s review, where they say, “The most emotionally touching chapter is the sexual exploration of teenager Nic (splendidly evoked by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) with Susan (Kelly MacDonald), capturing with humor and poignancy the timidity and awkwardness of the first kiss, the first touch.”
Congrats goes out to Todd Haynes and company for nabbing three nominations for the 14th annual Spirit Awards. Velvet Goldmine got nods for Best Feature Film, Best Director and Best Cinematography. The ceremony is be held on March 20th in Santa Monica and broadcast live on the Independent Film Channel.
“Velvet Goldmine” will be released in the US this coming November. And it won a Special Jury Prize for Artistic Contribution at Cannes. Next up is the Toronto Film Festival the first week of September. Lastly, Jonathan looks to be sporting long hair. Check out the Gallery for pix from Cannes - is it real or a wig?
