HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

WISHING YOU ALL BEST THAT 2013 CAN BRING.

HAVE A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

CHEERS, MICHAEL & LUKE

Matthew Morrison and girlfriend Renee Puente walk the walk

Matthew Morrison and girlfriend Renee walking the Bondi to Bronte. Picture: Mode Media Source: Supplied

The Daily Telegraph reports

It wouldn't be a proper trip to Sydney without walking the Bondi to Bronte.

For celebs, anyway.

Glee triple threat Matthew Morrison - who is part of the party peeps brought to town by The Star for New Years - jumped on the bandwagon yesterday, taking model girlfriend Renee Puente on a Sydney tour.

But even though he's here to let loose, the one-time Broadway star recently said he leads a very normal life.

"I'm very happy. Renee's not in the industry - I need that normality," he said.

"We like to stay home and cook, we're not that Hollywood."

The acting crooner also lamented his boy band days with LMNT - best known for their song Hey Juliet - was a big mistake.

"It was at the height of NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, so I really thought I was going to make a lot of money being in a boy band," Morrison said.

"(But) singing and dancing to stupid, ridiculous songs didn't feed my soul."

Pop diva Mariah Carey touches down for new year

Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

The Daily Telegraph reports

Singer Mariah Carey arrived in the country at the weekend ahead of her first Australian tour in 15 years and will spend New Year's Eve with her family.

Confidential hears the pop diva, her rapper husband Nick Cannon and the couple's 18-month-old twins Moroccan and Monroe (or Roc and Roe as she calls them) will see in 2013 aboard a luxury yacht on the Great Barrier Reef.

The foursome touched down on the Gold Coast on Friday night via private jet and boarded the boat on Saturday morning, according to our Queensland sources.

Getting the best of both worlds, the couple and their children spent Christmas in snowy US ski capital, Aspen, in Colorado.

It's understood they will sail around the reef before heading to the Gold Coast tomorrow for Carey's first show at Jupiters Casino with Cannon as the support artist with a DJ set.

The family will then head to Sydney for a concert on January 3, before wrapping things up in Melbourne on January 5.

While the shows are highly anticipated, there are plenty of disappointed fans who have been waiting to see the Hero singer since her Butterfly tour in 1998.

The first two gigs sold out in four minutes, but there are a small number of tickets available for the Melbourne show.

News of the tour came as a surprise because Carey has not released new music since 2010, when her second Christmas album came out.

She is one of the most successful female entertainers of all time, selling a staggering 200 million records and the 43-year-old has promised her fans an unforgettable show.

"It is really hard to make sure I see all of my fans around the world," she said.

"It has been a case of waiting for the right time to make the trip."

Aussie Chris Hemsworth tops list to win risque Hollywood role

Chris Hemsworth is reportedly a frontrunner for the lead in 50 Shades of Grey. Source: AFP

The Daily Telegraph reports

Could Chris Hemsworth have nabbed the most sought-after and risque role in Tinseltown?

Word on the streets of Hollywood is the Aussie man mountain is the frontrunner for the coveted part of Christian Grey in the hotly anticipated adaptation of racy best-seller 50 Shades Of Grey.

The 29-year-old has topped lists on fan websites for the erotic novel, beating out True Blood's Alexander Skarsgard, Twilight's Robert Pattinson, Magic Mike's Channing Tatum and even Ryan Gosling.

It's said that Hemsworth's performance in the soon-to-be-released Rush, in which he plays F1 driver the late James Hunt, reportedly caught the eye of US producers.

There are a lot of steamy scenes - or as director Eric Fellner described it "naked shagging" in the film.

When the actor was asked in May whether he would want to portray the suave playboy, Hemsworth said he wasn't sure.

Revellers set to get climate-friendly bang for their buck

A display to make other cities green … Elena Foti sets up New Year's Eve fireworks on a barge in White Bay. Photo: Tamara Dean

Brittany Ruppert, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

The colour scheme for New Year's Eve is magenta, yellow, purple and red - but it comes with a green tinge.

The City of Sydney plans to make its New Year's Eve extravaganza a carbon-neutral event by using biodegradable firecracker cases, recycled water, renewable energy and buying carbon credits to offset the emissions created by the evening's dazzling $6.5 million fireworks display.

''Hurricane Sandy and a string of extreme weather events this year are an important reminder that climate change remains the biggest challenge of our time,'' the lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, said.

''Making New Year's Eve carbon neutral shows you can stage a world-renowned event attended by over 1 million people and still be sustainable.''

Seven tonnes of fireworks will light up the sky on Monday night in a display inspired by the theme ''embrace''.

Singer Kylie Minogue is the event's creative ambassador. She has worked on the soundtrack with the producer, Aneurin Coffey, has a personalised semiquaver firework created in her honour and will launch the display at midnight.

Mr Coffey admitted he would be ''sweating it out'' until midnight strikes.

''Every year, you have that big feeling of elation at having essentially entertained a million-and-a-half people around the harbour and another couple million around the country,'' he said.

Revellers can look forward to new additions this year, with the fireworks director, Fortunato Foti, promising a series of never-before-seen effects including feet and hands, koalas, butterflies and birds.

''What we aim to do is make each year the best one, for people to go away and say 'that was the best display I've ever seen','' he said.

After 13 years producing Sydney's New Year's Eve fireworks, the display will be the first to involve three generations of the Foti family, with Elena, 18, joining her father and grandfather Sam in the evening's preparations.

''Without family, something like this just couldn't happen,'' said Mr Foti, with his father and daughter on either side.

Les Mis ready for its close-up

Les Miserables at the Theatre Royal 25 September 1987. Standing Ovation: The Cast of Les Miserables after their triumph. It was a night of emotion, of the anticipation and fear, of nervousness, excitement and finally relief. Photo: Paul Mathews

Giles Hardie, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

How will it compare to the original? This is the question many will be asking as they walk in to the cinema in the coming weeks to see Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe in Les Miserables.

While there is a great history of adapting beloved works for the big screen - arguably Les Miserables' greatest competition at the box office is Peter Jackson's first film in the Hobbit trilogy - many will walk in hoping to revisit the show they adored so many years before.

Sir Cameron Mackintosh, who has produced every professional production of Les Miserables to date, as well as the movie, remembers the first Australian production well.

“We were lucky,” says Mackintosh. “We sort of brought together what became the next generation of stars with Anthony Warlow, Marina Prior, Simon Burke. An amazing cast of people that have gone on to all be the leading players in Australia.”

Burke, who played Marius for the Sydney premiere in November 1987, remembers the show fondly. “It was a very emotional experience for me to see the film. Les Mis was a huge turning point in my career and I am forever grateful to Cameron and [Theatre, film and TV director] Trevor Nunn for taking a punt on a young actor who had never been in a big musical before.

“The bar that this musical sets for a performer is and always has been incredibly high - it demands complete emotional truth and absolute commitment to every beautiful note of Claude-Michel's [Claude-Michel Schonberg] score, and the movie is even more so. Watching Hugh and co rise to the challenges was completely thrilling.”

The movie is much more than a mere recording of a star-studded cast performing the stage show. The creative team behind the movie describe the process as stripping the show down to its parts and building something entirely new. The music has been recomposed by Schonberg, including the addition of a new song. That work was based on the 25th anniversary production which already contained changes, such as a reworking of Gavroche's Little People. Indeed, Gavroche is a changed character again in the movie, with Daniel Huttlestone taking a more prominent role and the high parts in a reworked version of Drink with Me.

The film almost contained a far more significant shift, as the initial decision to include dialogue in the film (the stage show is sung through) was rejected by director Tom Hooper.

“The very first draft of the screenplay that Bill Nicholson wrote was dialogue interspersed with songs,” Hooper explains. “I thought a lot about it and I thought the difficulty with going from dialogue to singing and back is gear changes. The reality like ours and the reality where I sing to you. I felt the gear shifts in this case wouldn't help the musical. This is a world like ours but where people's primary form of communication is singing. We're just going to commit to that and be brave about that.”

The transition to the big screen has also involved many stylistic decisions. Hooper has adopted lengthy close-ups on actors who would on stage have received spotlights. “The challenge I laid down to the cast was 'can you find a way of telling the stories of these songs in the medium of the close up?'” he says. “They found brilliant ways to do it. I honoured that by staying close and meditating on the face and meditating on the emotions.”

“You can get behind the eyes of an actor and the emotion that you simply can't do on the stage,” says Mackintosh. “You can show what's going through the actor's mind. The trio of Cosette, Eponine and Marius I think works even stronger in the movie. It's wonderfully cast in the movie but you seem to understand that fated love trio even more, it's more powerful because of the medium of cinema.”

Hooper actually found the wide shots more challenging to justify. “A single person singing close-up you can say it's like a prayer, it's like a soliloquy in a play,” he explains. “It's not that unreal. Whereas 100 people singing in unison felt like a harder thing for the audience to accept.”

That need for justifying the songs lies at the heart of a film that seeks far more realism than the show. Jackman feels it came from Hooper's never having worked with musicals before. “He very much approaches it as 'sometimes I get embarrassed watching it, I feel uncomfortable,' so he did it in a way where I think it feels very accessible. He took some bold choices. It has a very muscular, real feel the way he shot it."

Says Hooper: “I felt that the whole thing was a tightrope walk between gritty realism and a kind of magical realism, a heightened reality... The gritty realism anchors singing in a very visceral way that I felt would help me, at the same time the heightened style allows you to take the audience into an extraordinary world for this story.”

Australian actor Silvie Paladino certainly knows the show, having played Eponine in Australia for two years from 1989 then Fantine on the West End in the late nineties. She found the movie “very emotional” but felt that gritty realism had slightly skewed the musical.

“There were some strange interpretations to the songs," she says. "Schonberg wrote songs that mix a positive with a negative, in the film they played with the negative not the positive. It works better on stage. I thought it was wonderful on screen, but extraordinary on stage.”

For Burke, those who loved the stage show have no option. “If you have seen the musical and loved it as millions around the world have, then you don't have a choice - you have to see it!”

Mackintosh feels the movie is a unique amalgam of cinema and stage: “Everyone is saying how cinematic it is, yet in the cinema people are applauding it as if it is a stage show.”

He even has a solution for those who fall in love with Les Miserables for the first time on the big screen, as he plans to start all over again by bringing his 25th anniversary stage production to Australia “to find a while new raft of talent which I'm looking forward to doing next year”.

Life's still a beach for Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi

Portia de Rossi and her wife Ellen DeGeneres. / Pic: Getty Images Source: Getty Images

 

The Daily Telegraph reports

The queen of daytime TV Ellen DeGeneres and her Australian actress wife Portia de Rossi opted for a white sand Christmas this year.

The happy couple were captured taking a morning stroll down St Jeans beach in the celeb holiday island haven of St Barts, near Puerto Rico in the French West Indies.

Having spent the whole festive season in the Caribbean, the pair was seen having lunch at Eden Rock restaurant.

They also shopped in Hermes earlier in the week and DeGeneres, 54, reportedly bought a ring from Cartier.

The two celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary this year, with DeGeneres hiring a sky writer to write "four" in the sky.

As usual, the pair are not the only A-listers in the area at this time of year.

Stylist Rachel Zoe hit the beach with husband Rodger and son Skyler in St Barts on Christmas Eve, while Jennifer Aniston and fiance Justin Theroux soaked up the sun in Mexico.

Rumours have ring to them - did Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth elope?

Miley Cyrus posts pictures of her and fiance Liam Hemsworth on Twitter. Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

Could Liam Hemsworth have followed his big brother Chris's example and eloped with fiancee Miley Cyrus?

That is the talk circulating tinseltown at present after the newly made-over Cyrus Tweeted a Christmas photo purportedly showing the pair wearing wedding rings.

It's been two years to the day since Thor actor Chris secretly wed his Spanish bride, Fast Five actress Elsa Pataky, in a quiet ceremony in Indonesia.

Yesterday bloggers were quick to point out that in her social media shots, Cyrus, who has become a guest star on Two & A Half Men this year, appears to have an extra white gold band next to her engagement ring.

Hemsworth, too, is wearing a dark band on the appropriate finger.

Adding fuel to the speculation, the 20-year-old tween idol recently said on Ellen that all she cares about on her wedding day is the groom himself.

"I don't want to be doing too much and be crazy and forget about the moment of it all," she said on the show.

"That moment when he first gets to see me in my dress and everything all together - (that) has to be perfect. It has to be like a soundtrack in a movie.

"That's the one day where that movie crap is real. That romance. It's rare that people just stop to really look the person in the eye and know that this is your life together."

There was no comment from either party yesterday.

A family day for Russell Crowe and his boys

Russell Crowe and Danielle Spencer in happier times / Pic: Richard Dobson. Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

Putting their young sons first, Russell Crowe and Danielle Spencer put their marriage breakdown to one side to break bread together on Christmas Day at the Rose Bay sanctuary Spencer and her sons now call home.

Recognising the importance of the day to his youngsters after his latest three-month absence, Crowe abandoned plans to whisk the boys out of Sydney to his farm at Nana Glen near Coffs Harbour, acquiescing to Spencer's wishes to remain in Sydney.

Despite having tweeted his hopes of reconciling his family, Crowe, it would seem, has come to terms with the fact that his estranged wife has no desire to revisit the past.

Crowe and the boys - Charlie, 9, and Tennyson, 6 - were planning to head to Nana Glen this weekend before Crowe returns to New York.

Despite back-to-back film shoots keeping him in Britain, Iceland and the US this year, Crowe slipped home for a few days with his boys in June, August and September, while Spencer took them to him in LA in July. The couple confirmed their separation in October after nine years of marriage.

Picture of the month: December '12

Rozelle’s abandoned White Bay power station - The Great Gatsby

Riding a terror wave

Naomi Watts. Photo: Sahlan Hayes

Disaster proves harrowing for Naomi Watts, too, writes The Sydney Morning Herald’s Steven Rea

'Fear takes us to so many different places,'' Naomi Watts says. ''You can't really judge. One person's suffering is going to manifest itself differently than another's.''

The Australian actress is mulling how different people react in the face of catastrophe. Some summon up untapped courage, generosity, selflessness. And then there's the guy in The Impossible, the film Watts stars in with Ewan McGregor - based on the real-life ordeal of a family that is literally swept away in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami - who won't lend out his mobile phone. So what if McGregor's character, lost and in shock, needs to let his parents know he is alive?

Set in Thailand, and inspired by the experiences of the Alvarez Belons, a family of five on Christmas vacation at a coastal resort when the tidal waves came crashing in, The Impossible screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

Watts has received best-actress nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes for her portrayal of Maria, who is separated from her husband and two youngest boys, and caught in a raging current of water and debris with her oldest son (a remarkable Tom Holland).

The first half of J.A. Bayona's masterful disaster movie follows Maria, who is resolved to find her family, to survive, no matter what. In Thailand, the tsunami resulted in more than 5000 deaths, with an additional 2800 missing and unaccounted for.

''If there is any good coming out of these kinds of disasters … it is that it strips away everything else,'' says Watts, speaking in Toronto. ''People come together. It's not about class and it's not about race. It's about: How are we going to get through this? And that's when the space for humanity comes back into it.''

Except for that guy with the mobile phone, maybe.

''Well,'' Watts adds with a smile, ''not always, but maybe the next moment.''

The star of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, of David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's 21 Grams, Watts says that making The Impossible - while nothing compared to what her real-life counterpart experienced - was physically harrowing work.

Those scenes of Watts swirling in the waves, with tree limbs and car parts shooting past her - that is not computer-generated imagery. ''I didn't know it was going to be so difficult,'' she says. ''They had it all very well prepared - we had allegedly the second largest water tank in the world, and they had these giant cups that we were anchored into … so you were just above water level, you could use your head, and you could use your arms so you looked like you were swimming … and you're on this track, and then a giant wave was coming towards you … and then side pumps were shooting more water, and all the garbage and debris …

''So, it got increasingly difficult, and then we noticed that we couldn't actually act, or speak. We were lucky if we could get one word out, and that word would be 'LU-CAS (Holland's character, Maria's son.)!'''

''It was tough, and then the underwater stuff was even more difficult. That was very scary,'' she says. ''But it was all marginal compared to what Maria and her family went through.''

Watts met with Maria Belon before shooting began.

''I didn't want to pry too much,'' she says. ''I didn't want to seem too actor-y. But she had so much to say, so it was perfect,'' Watts recalls. ''And something that I didn't quite understand at the time was that she said she felt completely sure of her instinct. That nothing got in the way of it. And she'd never had that feeling before. Which made her incredibly heroic, because every decision she makes seemed to be the right one.

''And I think that instinct is in us all, but it's so easy to second-guess, isn't it?

''Not that I want a disaster like this to happen for me to get to that place; it just overcame her, and she never doubted herself. And that's just an admirable strength in anyone, and it got her to that place of purity.''

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Talking Television: 2012's hits and misses

The Voice transcended the reality talent show format to become one of the biggest hits of the year. Source: Supplied

Debbie Schipp, The Sunday Telegraph, reports

It was a year Australia drama rediscovered its mojo, Channel 7 again won the ratings war, Channel 10 couldn't take a trick and Channel 9 closed the gap and found its Voice.

Along the way, viewers were treated to some true TV triumphs and failures.

Fast-tracked for Christmas and without the benefit of Facebook likes, iTunes downloads or SMS votes, here is Insider's take on what had us buying the box set or hitting "change channel" in 2012.

Best Australian drama series:

Puberty Blues, the exquisite retelling of the 1979 coming-of-age novel of the same name, oozed chemistry and nostalgia and wins by a nose.

House Husbands hit the jackpot with a new twist on family drama, with Firass Dirani breaking hearts with his portrayal of a dad trying to hold on to his children.

Honourable mentions: Rake, Tangle and Offspring. Redfern Now was the big surprise, each episode beautifully nuanced, written and acted.

Best Australian mini series/telemovie:

Howzat! Kerry Packer's War by a century. Awesome storyline and soundtrack and very retro.

Honourable mentions: Devil's Dust and Mabo.

The latter had Deb Mailman at her finest.

Best acting:

Lachy Hulme was sublime and terrifying as Kerry Packer in Howzat!

Anthony Hayes had us in tears with his touching portrayal of anti-asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton in Devil's Dust.

Puberty Blues' Ashleigh Cummings and Brenna Harding showed acting chops beyond their years and chemistry as believable as it was touching.

And Jonathon LaPaglia scared the hell out of us with his chilling portrayal of merciless crime boss Anthony Perish in Underbelly: Badness.

Best overseas drama:

Seven's big US import Revenge gets the vote here, barely ahead of period piece turned soap Downton Abbey, Homeland, which wraps up on Ten tonight, and Foxtel imports Sons of Anarchy and Game of Thrones. That all are back next year is an indication of just how good they are.

Best reality show:

The Voice Australia was the smash hit of the year.

Those spinning chairs had us in a spin from the outset, and the show raised the bar on the reality/talent genre with outstanding casting - both judges and talent - and superior production values. We fell in love with Joel Madden, in and out of love with Seal, finally saw Keith Urban as someone other than Mr Nicole Kidman, and little girls thought Delta Goodrem was a living, breathing princess. And then they gave us Karise Eden.

The X Factor on Seven was another winner, while My Kitchen Rules also proved a tasty rater for the network.

Nine successfully revived Big Brother with Sonia Kruger at the helm and had another reality renovation hit with The Block.

Best comedy:

ABC's late-season barrel of laughs, A Very Moody Christmas, was clever, quirky and all that's good about Australian comedy as it swung between subtle, bittersweet and laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Best Australian pay TV:

Eight channels showing every Olympic sport made Foxtel's Olympics coverage gold. It was a triumph over the time difference and heralded a new era of the viewer controlling their program choices.

Biggest fail:

Everybody Dance Now was a bedazzled, awkward, mistimed, misstepping mess.

Thankfully Ten's discovery that Nobody Wanted to Dance Now took the heat off Nine for the tragedy that was Excess Baggage - the weight loss show where nobody really lost any weight - early in the year.

Most excruciating death scene:

Ten Breakfast, began in February with a promise to reinvent breakfast TV with million-dollar import Paul Henry as its centrepiece.

The audience skipped Breakfast. Ratings of between 20,000 and 50,000 viwers made no dent in the competition. Its axing in November was a mercy killing.

Shortest death scene:

Blown out of the ratings water by The Voice, Seven axed Australia's Got Talent. A day later, Nine revived the format.

Things we can't unsee:

Pretty much all of The Shire, but especially the fat cavitation scene featuring Vernesa Toroman and Sophie Kalantzis.

Then there was Patti Newton toting husband Bert's wig around in Celebrity Apprentice; and Today Show host Karl Stefanovic being groped by One Direction's Harry Styles.

Things we never want to see again: Rule No.1 of reality television: it has to be interesting in a car-crash kind of way.

Ironically, Being Lara Bingle did feature a car crash, but it still wasn't interesting.

The survivors: The Today Show chalked up 30 years on Nine. Over at Seven, Home and Away celebrated 25 years on air by remaining television's most undentable show.

And at Ten, The Project continued to deliver despite weathering more timeslots than Ten Breakfast had viewers.

Best comeback:

Leigh Sales had a stellar year at the helm of ABC's current affairs flagship 7.30.

She won a Walkley Award for her tough-as-nails interviews with the likes of Tony Abbott.

In the wake of that interview in August, former John Howard adviser Grahame Morris, observed Sales could be "a real cow sometimes".

Her reply, via Twitter, that she'd "rather be a cow than a dinosaur" made it game, set and match to Sales.

Can Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman stop a Shire thing

Russell Crowe in a scene from the film, Les Miserables. Source: The Daily Telegraph

Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Boxing Day king Peter Jackson returns to Middle Earth to ward off the challenge to his throne from Aussie heavyweights Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe.

Last year, the Jackson-produced The Adventures Of Tintin lorded over its rivals on Australian cinemas' biggest day and the Kiwi director looks set to repeat the dose with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a 169-minute 3D epic that has already topped box office charts in New Zealand, the US and across Europe.

The Lord Of The Rings prequel's only competition will come from the movie version of stage musical Les Miserables, which had its claims boosted by Jackman and Crowe appearing at the red carpet premiere in Sydney last week.

Filling the Boxing Day family comedy slot -- dominated in recent years by Ben Stiller's Fockers franchise -- is Parental Guidance. It stars old-schoolers Billy Crystal and Bette Midler and serves up enough inter-generational chaos to appeal to everyone from grandma down.

Disney's feel-good 3D animation Wreck-it Ralph -- about a video game character who jumps into different games -- may be aimed at kids, but with plenty of 1980s video arcade references (and guest stars such as Pacman and Sonic the Hedgehog), grown-ups will have plenty to dig, too.

For The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel set there is Quartet, Dustin Hoffman's directing debut about a retirement home for British opera singers. It stars Maggie Smith and Billy Connolly.

Those in a "bah humbug" frame of mind should head to the arthouse for British black comedy Sightseers. It's about a caravanning couple who visit museums and kill litterbugs.

Village Cinemas CEO Kirk Edwards believes the chain is "on course for its biggest ever Christmas period".

"The magic of the movies is still alive," he said. "There has been unprecedented demand for tickets to see The Hobbit, Les Mis and all the other major blockbusters."

Christmas greetings

 

A very Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy New Year!

Cheers, Luke & Michael

 

Accent on rest for Toni Collette's family circus

Toni Collette in Port Macquarie / Pic: Nathan Edwards Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

Is it any wonder actress Toni Collette is looking a bit weary while picking up some last-minute Christmas gifts in Port Macquarie yesterday?

She's home for a couple of weeks ahead of the release of her latest film Hitchcock in January.

She has two new films in post-production and three more slated for next year.

Coming home to Australia is essential, says Collette, who calls husband Dave Galafassi and children Sage, almost five, and Arlo 20 months, her "travelling circus''.

Collette recently said she hoped her children never developed American accents.

Russell Crowe's 5 minutes with wife Danielle Spencer

Danielle Spencer arriving home with her mum / Pic: INF Source: The Daily Telegraph

 

Annette Sharp, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Russell Crowe finally had his much-touted family reunion this week - and what a triumph in strategic planning it was, coinciding as it did with his eldest son's ninth birthday and the Australian premiere of his latest blockbuster movie Les Miserables.

That the actor managed to combine the Sydney film premiere, the last stop on a world promotional tour, and Charlie's birthday is probably a credit to Crowe, the film star.

This week was always going to be difficult for Crowe, his two sons and his estranged wife, Danielle Spencer.

After months apart, Crowe was finally coming home on the back of a flurry of tweets (received by some 675,000 fans) in which he very publicly expressed a desire for something private. Family time.

In the end it wasn't just family that brought him home.

It was the business - the very thing that has taken him away from his family. And Christmas.

One can only imagine how Spencer would have felt on Thursday when confronted with the sight of the forlorn and closely shorn Crowe standing in her driveway holding a plastic bag of gifts.

How does a woman who had the strength to end what she believes is an untenable marriage steal herself for a reunion that has been promoted and anticipated around the world for months?

How could she or anyone not be moved by the sight of a long absent father standing in the driveway, one hand thrust deep in a pocket as though searching for a house key he seems not to possess?

The unsolicited PR campaign for Crowe's family reunion has nearly eclipsed the extravagant PR campaign undertaken for the very film that has, this writer assumes, paid for his ticket home.

In London, the press reported Crowe's separation from his sons Charlie and Tennyson, 6, hit him "hard". In the US, it's been reported that the actor is "upset".

With there being little compelling evidence the actor has been unfaithful to his wife, the whole world is watching and hoping that Crowe, a reformed bad boy in Hollywood's books, can successfully engineer a reunion with Spencer, his wife of 12 years.

If he does, it could be one of the greatest celluloid comebacks since Robert Downey Jr's rehabilitation.

Interestingly, on arrival in Sydney, Crowe didn't go straight to the Rose Bay property that Spencer and the boys call home.

He went instead to his apartment at Woolloomooloo, where he took a few hours to collect himself and a car before driving slowly on to Rose Bay at midday.

He then pulled up in her driveway and attempted, with little success, to open her garage door.

It seems that having been abroad for the past three months - and estranged from his wife for many months prior - he was unable to identify her remote control in the collection of remotes in his car.

Eventually he emerged wearing that forlorn, vulnerable and tortured expression fans know well - it helped to earn him an Oscar for Gladiator and a BAFTA for A Beautiful Mind, after all.

Upon finding the correct remote, he finally let himself in via the garage.

Shortly after, an assistant arrived carrying a laundry basket full of clothing and a freshly dry-cleaned dress.

Within minutes of Crowe's arrival, Spencer, in a surprise floral blue dress, left the house. With her mother at her side, the two cleared out to give the actor and his sons some privacy for their long-awaited reunion.

They returned later when Crowe had departed.

It's believed the two boys went back to Crowe's apartment and stayed the night with him there.

Just what Spencer's dress tells us about this "reunion" - witnesses say the couple were together for under 10 minutes - is unclear.

Here is a woman who dresses like a rock 'n' roll chick and is rarely seen out of jeans and black yoga pants.

What was she doing in a pretty, blue, mumsy, floral frock? Should we believe she is so eager to reunite with her pretty dress-loving ex that she is willing to shelve her own personal style to delight him?

Surely psychoanalysts would take one look at that dress and declare this does not bode well for a reunion.

Or is this a reunion straight out of a Hollywood publicist's handbook?

A carefully co-ordinated public affair that could even inadvertently help Crowe in his bid for a best supporting actor Oscar nomination?

Crowe has much to commend him as a husband.

He is rich, he loves his sons and he comes from a solid and loving working-class background where family is valued above all else.

Only the independent, non-superficial Spencer knows if this will be enough.