Keith Urban to host weekend radio show with smoothfm

Radio-bound: Keith Urban will be hitting the airwaves for smoothfm. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied

 

The Daily Telegraph reports

He’s a music star, a TV star and now Keith Urban has his sights set on radio.

The ARIA and Grammy Award-winning country singer will guest host an hour long weekend show on Australian radio station smoothfm for several weeks starting from September 7.

The station is thrilled about the coup.

"We are thrilled to have someone of the calibre of Keith Urban on our weekend line-up. Our listeners love him and smoothfm is the station in Sydney and Melbourne who truly and passionately support his music," program director Rohan Brown said in a statement on Wednesday.

Urban endeared himself to Australian audiences as a coach on last year's hit series The Voice Australia and is currently a judge on American Idol.

He will release his highly anticipated seventh album Fuse on September 13.

Urban will be heard on smoothfm 91.5 in Melbourne and smoothfm 95.3 in Sydney on Saturday mornings from September 7 through to mid-October.

Wolf Creek 2 praised at Venice Film Festival premiere

Director Greg McLean, right, actor John Jarrat and producer Helen Leake in Venice for the Wolf Creek 2 premiere. Picture: Gabriel Bouys/AFP Source: AFP

 
 

The Daily Telegraph reports

Australian slasher flick Wolf Creek 2 has been well-received by movie critics after making its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The outback sequel to 2005's acclaimed horror movie made its first showing at the popular film festival on Sunday.

The sequel follows the return of outback serial killer Mick Taylor as he reeks his special brand of gory havoc upon more unwitting tourists.

Industry publications Variety and The Hollywood Reporter praised the film's acting talent and production values, despite acknowledging the original for having stronger impact and quality.

"Neither as striking nor as fundamentally scary as its predecessor, this pumped-up, robustly crafted pic is still quite a ride, and one that genre-inclined distribs (sic) should have no qualms about hitching,'' Variety wrote.

The Hollywood Reporter, meanwhile, praised the film's "atmospheric cinematography'' and black humour.

It also lauded "very fine acting'' by John Jarratt, who reprises his role as serial killer Taylor, and Packed to the Rafters star Ryan Corr, as his hapless victim.

"If Corr acts and looks better scene by scene as his character pulls out panicked courage, Jarratt has his role as a psychopath down pat and seems calmly poised for an eventual Part 3,'' it wrote.

Director Greg Mclean on Twitter welcomed the "fantastic'' screening reaction.

"Extremely happy WC2 team today, so warmly welcomed by the coolest cat on the Lido, Alberto Barbera. Impressionante (sic)!,'' he tweeted on Sunday.

Wolf Creek 2 will be released in Australian cinemas on February 14.

Jedward set to tour Australia

Down Under bound ... Ireland's Jedward / Pic: AP/Sergey Ponomarev Source: DailyTelegraph

 

Maria Lewis, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Tween hearts are a flutter with the news that Irish pop sensation Jedward are coming Down Under.

The identical blonde twins will be here in November for an Australian tour with dates in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney.

John and Edward Grimes became a global sensation when they appeared on X Factor in the UK and have gone on to release three albums.

They also represented Ireland two years in a row at the Eurovision Song Contest.

The 21-year olds have amassed a fortune of some $5M between them.

Jedward play at the Enmore Theatre on Sunday, December 1, 2013.

Gracie Otto to light up the BFI London Film Festival

Actor-turned-director Gracie Otto's documentary The Last Impresario will have its world premiere in London. Pictures: John Fotiadis Source: News Limited

 

 

Jonathon Moran, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Like her father and older sister before her, Gracie Otto has cemented her place in the film industry, here and overseas.

The young actor, writer and director's latest work has been picked up to have its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival next month.

The documentary feature - The Last Impresario - includes interviews with massive global names like Yoko Ono, John Cleese and Anna Wintour, as well as Rachel Ward, Barry Humphries and Gretta Scacchi.

Aussie Oscar nominee Naomi Watts has an associate producer title on the 83 minute film that explores the life of boundary-pushing British stage, TV and film producer Michael White.

"It has been like the last two-and-a-half years of my life really," Otto said. "It started with meeting Michael as a chance encounter at Cannes and turned into this."

Otto is the 26-year-old daughter of legendary Australian actor Barry and younger sister to acclaimed NIDA acting graduate, Miranda.

White, or Chalky as he is affectionately known in the industry, is 77 and has produced more than 100 stage productions and 27 films, including The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Moonlighting.

His autobiography, Empty Seats, was published in 1985.

"As I was getting more and more into the project, I learnt more about Michael," she said.

In total, Otto interviewed some 60 people for the film.

She spoke to Cleese at a hotel in Monte Carlo, Yoko Ono at an art gallery in New York, and Wintour in her Vogue NY office.

"That's the problem when you make a film about someone who knows everyone, there's a lot of people you have to speak to," said Otto, adding; "There were so many funny surreal moments."

The Last Impresario will screen in London on October 13. Then, the plan is to send the film around the festival circuit with a cinematic release yet to be finalised.

Big Read: Winners and Losers' Zoe Tuckwell-Smith expecting a baby

Zoe Tuckwell-Smith has much to smile about. Picture: David Cook Source: Supplied

 

 

Colin Vickery, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Sometimes life imitates art.

Just ask Zoe Tuckwell-Smith.

The Aussie actor spent most of last year padded up to play the pregnant Bec (Rebecca) Gilbert on Winners and Losers.

Now Tuckwell-Smith is pregnant in real life. She and long-time partner, actor and director Damon Gameau, revealed in June that they were expecting their first child.

Here's hoping Tuckwell-Smith has a happier time in the aftermath of her baby's arrival than her TV character.

Bec has spent most of this year's third series of the Channel 7 drama getting over the death of her husband, Matt O'Connor (Blair McDonough).

Matt died after a tragic accident. He was working on the block of land in the country where the couple planned to build their dream home when an acetylene tank exploded and he was engulfed in flames.

Bec has also had to cope with the revelation that before his death, Matt had been cheating on her with nemesis Tiffany Turner (Michaela Banas).

Bec is raising baby son Harrison with the help of her ex-boyfriend, Doug Graham (Tom Wren), who happens to be the boy's biological father.

This week's Winners and Losers showed Bec at a crossroads. She has decided to sell her salon and start a new chapter in life.

"Bec has been through the wringer," Tuckwell-Smith says.

"She has been through all the possible lows that life can throw at you.

"Losing Matt in such a traumatic way, raising a child pretty much on her own - the only way is up really.

"What we're about to see from Bec is that she is going through a transition phase into a fresh start. There is the possibility of a brighter future and also a more honest future.

"She can no longer deny that her relationship with Matt was not the ideal she had imagined in her heart.

"She always envisaged a long-term future with Matt and now she's got a blank canvas."

There are more than a few echoes of Bec's dilemma in the recent series of Offspring. Like Bec, Nina Proudman (Asher Keddie) faces life as a single mother after the shock death of her partner.

Some pundits are predicting that Offspring viewers, already traumatised by the passing of anaesthetist Patrick Reid (Matthew Le Nevez), may shy away from next year's series because it could be too upsetting.

The makers of Winners and Losers have been able to offset Bec's dark storylines with sunnier storylines featuring friends Sophie Wong (Melanie Vallejo), Jenny Gross (Melissa Bergland) and Frances James (Virginia Gay).

This year the show has also introduced Katherine Hicks (Rescue Special Ops) as Jenny's half-sister Sam McKenzie.

Tuckwell-Smith hasn't been afraid to take Bec to some dark places. In fact, she has relished it.

"Our show in the past has always been very happy-go-lucky so I have felt proud to be able to bring a bit more depth to the character and show her evolution. I hope I have done it just. I haven't been through half the things she's been through.

"I did a lot of reading about people who had lost relatives and loved ones suddenly and how they had lived through it.

"It was really humbling to read true accounts of what people go through.

"I really enjoyed doing that justice - bringing a voice to some of the darker experiences of life, but also showing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel - that people can overcome huge tragedy."

Tuckwell-Smith was recently photographed showing off her baby bump as she dined with close friends at a Bondi cafe.

Tuckwell-Smith says acting out Bec's pregnancy last year was a "practice run" for the real-life event.

Fans will remember that Bec had a home birth, surrounded by Sophie (who delivered the baby), Jenny and Frances.

"This pregnancy is much more delightful than anything Bec went through," Tuckwell-Smith laughs.

"(For a start) I'm pregnant to someone I actually love. It has been wonderful. Damon and I are so happy. We're really excited about being parents. We feel very lucky. I've been very well."

Tuckwell-Smith's pregnancy isn't expected to affect filming of Winners and Losers if it goes to a fourth season.

Series three wrapped in July. Seven hasn't announced a fourth series yet though the ratings have been encouraging with an average of more than one million viewers nationally per episode.

If series four does go ahead, filming wouldn't start until January at the very earliest.

"I couldn't have timed this pregnancy better if I'd tried," Tuckwell-Smith says.

"It is hard to tell what happens with a child. You can't know. Hopefully it will be straight back in (to work on Winners and Losers) and it will flow smoothly.

"It (baby) will have so many aunties. Virginia, Melanie, Melissa and I are very close and when Katherine came along we welcomed her with open arms because she is hilarious and a great actor.

"That has made the job over the last three years really easy. There is nothing like turning up to work when the environment is relaxed and everyone is compatible.

"Winners and Losers is not like Neighbours or Home and Away where you can see it going on indefinitely.

"Hopefully we've got a couple more seasons in us. Who knows what the future will hold?"

Tuckwell-Smith reckons there is still plenty to explore in Bec's life journey.

"Bec has always been very good," Tuckwell-Smith explains.

"She's done the right thing. I guess I like that about her - that goodness in her.

"Now that is tempered with reality. She always had clear definitions of what was right and wrong and now she is left with a grey area - that Matt wasn't the love she necessarily thought. She's had the edges knocked off her. She's more accepting of life's uncertainty and its imperfections.

"That makes her more relaxed and a bit more accepting of other people's imperfections. She used to be judgmental, but now she's more understanding of other people's foibles.

"She is also a bit more fun. Going through something that rough (Matt's death), it makes you appreciate life more."

Winners and Losers, Channel 7, Tuesday, 8.50pm

Gatsby dances rings around homegrown competitors at the box office, but 2014 line-up sparkles

Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth star in the upcoming WWII drama The Railway Man. Source: Supplied

 

Vicky Roach, The Daily Telegraph, reports

The Great Gatsby aside, it's been an underwhelming year for Australian cinema at the box office.

Baz Luhrmann's sparkling, 3D adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel is currently the fourth-highest earner for 2013 - behind Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 2 and The Life of Pi.

But of the nine other Australian features that had been released up until the end of August, only two have managed to even make it past the $1 million mark: kitchen sink musical Goddess ($1.64m) with Laura Michelle Kelly and Ronan Keating, and Bindi Irwin's Return to Nim's Island ($1.21m).

There are still six more home-grown productions scheduled in the next four months - Adoration starring Naomi Watts, Robin Wright and Xavier Samuel, Iven Sen's murder-mystery Mystery Road, the Redfern-set inspirational drama Around the Block starring Christina Ricci and Jack Thompson, suspense thriller Patrick, and The Turning, a collection of short films based on Tim Winton's stories.

But with the exception of The Railway Man, starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, all of them are seen as smaller, niche releases. And given that Jonathan Teplitzky's WWII drama opens on Boxing Day, most of its earnings will roll over into 2014.

The overall number of releases is also down - 16 films against a 27-year average of 21 feature dramas per year.

Gatsby's $27.5 million contribution means Australia's share of the box office pie is currently sitting at a relatively healthy 4.4 per cent, but with a string of US blockbusters scheduled to roll out over the next four months, it's almost certain to fall significantly below four per cent by the end of the year.

"Probably none of the other pictures releasing between now and December 25, and I say that to some degree against myself but I am a realist, are going to substantially tweak those numbers,'' says producer Anthony Ginane, who has remade his 1978 cult hit Patrick with Sharni Vinson, Rachel Griffiths and Charles Dance.

"Conversely, the size of the box office always explodes from December when all the really big (US) films come through."

Hopscotch Films' managing director Troy Lum says the figures for the company's most recent release, Drift, starring Myles Pollard, Xavier Samuel and Sam Worthington, had been disappointing.

"It's really hard to compete for the young male ticket when their diet is superhero movies and (action franchises such as) The Fast And The Furious.

"But two of our top grossing films of all time, The Sapphires and Mao's Last Dancer, are Australian movies."

And if Australian cinema could be seen as having underperformed in 2013, 2014 could well be shaping to be a bumper year.

Lum has five local films on his slate including I, Frankenstein with Aaron Eckhart, Kill Me Three Times, the next film from Red Dog director Kriv Stenders, and Son of A Gun with Ewan McGregor.

Rival distributor Roadshow will release Wolf Creek 2, the Joel Edgerton crime thriller Felony, The Rover - David Michod's follow-up to Animal Kingdom starring Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce - and potentially Mad Max: Fury Rd, although insiders now say the fourth Road Warrior instalment might not make it into the cinemas until 2015.

Also scheduled for release early next year are the Spierig brothers' sci-fi thriller Predestination, with Ethan Hawke, and Outback odyssey Tracks starring Mia Wasikowska.

"All those pictures have a significant shot (at breaking out),'' Ginane says.

Portia de Rossi picks love over fear after living her life `closeted and terrified'

Portia De Rossi as Beth with Robyn Butler as Caroline on the set of Now Add Honey, now shooting in Melbourne. Picture: Roadshow Source: Supplied

Sally Bennett, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Actor Portia de Rossi hopes her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres is a good example for young gay Australians.

The Victorian-raised-LA-based actor said she went from being a young woman who was "closeted and terrified of being outed as gay" to being happily in love with an American talk-show queen.

"I just fell in love with somebody and I thought I'm going to take this over living in fear of my television career ending," de Rossi said of coming out.

"I choose her, I choose to be happy and it was the best decision that I have ever made. We are actually good role models in that we're a very ordinary happy couple."

The Arrested Development star was speaking in Melbourne this week where she is filming Now Add Honey, a New Australian film from the makers of The Librarians and Upper Middle Bogan.

The Roadshow comedy also stars Robyn Butler, Hamish Blake, Lucy Durack, Lucy Fry, Erik Thomson and Angus Sampson.

De Rossi, who married DeGeneres in California in 2008, said marriage equality was "so important" and that she hopes in happens in Australia soon.

"It really does make a huge difference and it really does validate you, not only as a gay person in your relationship, but as a human being," she said.

"It's hard to explain the impact that just one person coming out can have on your life as a gay person if you're a teenager," she said.

"If you're watching the news and you know that the news anchor is gay, all of a sudden you think, maybe I could be a journalist, or maybe I could be a model, or an actress or a school teacher or a football player. It makes a huge difference."

De Rossi is flying solo for this three-week work trip and said she and DeGeneres were overwhelmed by the love and support they were shown during their March visit.

"It was crazy, it was great, but it was just surreal though," she said of the huge crowds that greeted them in Melbourne.

"It was like, this is my hometown, what is happening? And of course, I'd been telling her all this time, come to Australia and everyone will leave you alone.

"It was announced on her show (The Ellen DeGeneres Show) so I knew it was going to be a different thing, but I do actually think that if we came, just the two of us, that people would be respectful."

The release date for Now Add Honey is yet to be announced.

Mia Wasikowska stars in film of Robyn Davidson's book 'Tracks', about camel journey across Australia

Mia Wasikowska in new film Tracks, based on Robyn Davidson's 3200-kilometre trek across Australia. Picture: Supplied

 

The Daily Telegraph reports

Robyn Davidson's 3200-kilometre foot journey across Australia accompanied by four camels and a black dog has never really ended.

Her 1977 trek catapulted Davidson into an unexpected media storm, from which came a book deal a few years later and a career as a writer and traveler. More than 30 years on, her book recounting the journey, Tracks, has been turned into a film starring Australian actor Mia Wasikowska and directed by John Curran.

"I think even writing the book all those years ago changed the journey," Davidson, now 62, said in an interview before the world premiere of the Tracks in competition at the Venice Film Festival. While writing it in "this horrible, pokey flat in London" two years after the fact, Davidson said she experienced an incredible feat of memory.

"I swear I remembered every single campsite over a period of nine months. As soon as the book was finished, it was gone. It was as if the book ate the memory," she said. "I wonder now if the film is going to copy the book in some sort of way, so people, and even I, remember it in some weird confused way."

The book, which was translated in to 18 languages and has been part of the Australian school curriculum, had been optioned many times for films that were never made.

Davidson said she is "delighted" other filmmakers didn't get to make their versions of the film and that it went to Curran, an American who has lived in Australia, saying his film "is the good one." Her only condition was that she wanted Wasikowska, a fellow Aussie, to play her.

The two women met on a trip to the desert so Davidson could show the young actress a few things about camels.

"I thought, 'Oh, she is she is so tiny and frail. How is she going to muster the sort of earthiness?'" Davidson recalled.

"The next time I saw her was at a shoot at Ayers Rock, and she was transformed. She was wearing my clothes, she had hairy legs. She was a little toughie. It was amazing."

Tiny and frail is exactly how many viewed Davidson when she showed up in Alice Springs in 1975 to prepare for the trek eastward to the Indian Ocean. She spent more some two years scraping together money and learning to train the camels that would accompany her. Eventually she sought sponsorship from National Geographic, which set a condition that a photographer would capture images at intervals.

Along the way, Davidson had to face down charging feral camel bulls, track down her own camels when they went missing, suffered the loss of her faithful dog, and eventually faced a growing media circus as word of her feat spread.

She also was befriended by Aborigines, including one elder, Mr. Eddy, who accompanied her through sacred lands, and was taken in for brief respites by the few white settlers living in the outback.

Davidson also developed an enduring friendship with National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan, played in the film by Adam Driver, despite her initial resentment at his periodic intrusions.

She still is at a loss to explain why she undertook the journey.

"I suppose the most I can say is I had a kind of instinctive understanding I needed to do something very demanding of my life in order to make an individual of myself, in order to pull all these rather unprepossessing bits together, and forge a person."

Davidson went on to become a prolific writer and lived two years with nomads in India, which she said, was "the most extreme and difficult" thing she has ever done. "That made this look like a cakewalk," she said.

The bonds she forged with those she met on her on her trans-Australian journey, including the camels, remained strong. Mr Eddy, she said, made her an honorary wife.

And the camels retained their loyalty years after. She visited them once in western Australia. After playing and cuddling them for an hour, she turned to walk back 16 kilometres to the homestead.

"They fell in line behind me, following me all the way," she said.

Hugh Jackman to play Harry Houdini on Broadway with music by Stephen Schwartz

Hugh Jackman will play famous escapologist Harry Houdini in a musical on Broadway. Source: DailyTelegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

Acclaimed Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz says he's hard at work on a full draft of the musical Houdini, starring Hugh Jackman.

"I'm specifically writing for Hugh in terms of what I think will sound good in his voice and what sorts of things will really help him to do the things that he does," Schwartz said during the Dramatist Guild of America's conference in Chicago. He is the group's president.

The Academy Award- and Grammy Award-winner - famous for Wicked, Godspell and Pippin - said a reading of the new full show is scheduled for December and he's been "writing away on it" with a collaborator. So far, he said, they have a full first act of Houdini.

"As soon as we finished it, of course, we immediately said, 'We have to rewrite this entire thing,'" Schwartz said. "But nevertheless we're moving on to try to get a complete draft of the show."

Houdini is scheduled to reach Broadway during the 2013-2014 season. Schwartz said he hopes the show will make an out-of-town debut in Chicago before it premieres on Broadway.

So far, the fun, he said, has been writing music and lyrics with Jackman in mind. Schwartz said he's considering "Where does he want to stretch himself? Where does he want to do something that he feels he has and we feel he has that he hasn't really shown before?"

In April, admirers of the composer packed Carnegie Hall in New York for a tribute marking both Schwartz's 65th birthday and the 10th anniversary of Wicked, which is still a tough ticket. But that show's success doesn't amount to pressure, he said.

"It sort of makes you feel, 'I have this big hit running, well if this doesn't work out, it doesn't work out," Schwartz said.

Schwartz's work on Houdini could serve to counteract what he calls a recent "artistic slump" in commercial musical theater with shows that he says are safe and formulaic."I've found the last couple of Broadway seasons pretty disappointing from the point of view of musicals," Schwartz said. "Though from the point of view of plays it's been pretty exciting."

Besides Houdini, Schwartz has been focusing on his role as president of the dramatist guild. He cited censorship at schools and theaters as one threat that is proving stifling and discouraging for playwrights. He said his own 1971 work, Godspell, has become more controversial recently. The guild has a legal defense fund that can help writers with censorship, copyright and other issues, he said.

"Really that's what theaters should be doing, is causing audiences and people to think about things and look at things in a different way," Schwartz said. "Not flag-waving for whatever the prevailing point of view is at that point."

Kathy Griffin will get her chance to laugh at Australia during the Just For Laughs festival along with Rob Schneider and Tommy Tiernan

American comedian Kathy Griffin loves Australian audiences. Source: Supplied

Jonathon Moran, The Sunday Telegraph, reports

Controversial American comedian Kathy Griffin will let it fly when she performs here next month, tackling subjects as diverse as Nicole Kidman's forehead to Mel Gibson's backyard church.

The star of reality series, Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List, will headline the annual Just For Laughs festival at the Sydney Opera House.

"I will not be censored in any way,'' Griffin tells Insider on the phone from her Los Angeles home.

"I will be making fun of people, places and things. I am going to just let it fly. There is so much we have to discuss, from the Kardashian baby I don't care about, to the royal baby I don't care about. I don't know why we have to care about everyone's baby.''

Griffin, 52, is one of America's most recognisable comedians, having won two Emmy Awards and been nominated for five Grammys.

As an actor she has appeared in Seinfeld, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The X Files, Ugly Betty and Ru Paul's Drag Race.

She's known for speaking her mind, most often about other celebrities, accompanied by her witty candid observations on popular culture.

Even Griffin is not immune from her acerbic tongue, poking fun at being single as well as all the plastic surgery she's undertaken.

"I fear the election that I will be arriving after,'' she says. "I don't want you to go far right. I enjoyed when you had the ranga (former Prime Minister Julia Gillard) because I could say ranga at every show. And who knows what will happen between now and the middle of October with any of Justin Bieber's cars. There is a lot we have to cover.''

Wasn't Griffin dating Justin Bieber for a nanosecond?

"He is a little old for me so I had to kick him to the curb,'' she laughs. "I had to call Selena Gomez and say, 'take him back, he's too needy'.''

Also playing the Just For Laughs festival, which runs from October 16-20 at the Opera House, is Deuce Bigalow star Rob Schneider and Irish funnyman Tommy Tiernan.

Rove McManus will host the event and Griffin has been brushing up on local current affairs ahead of the tour.

Perusing websites on Australia's most loved and loathed celebrities, Griffin found Kyle Sandilands tops the list of disliked celebs which also features Matthew Newton, Pauline Hanson and John Laws.

"What has he (Sandilands) done that makes him so loathed?'' she asks.

Hugh Jackman is at the other end of the list as our most loved.

"Now the gays want Hugh more than women. Women obviously find him attractive but they really want him and I will tell you why, they don't want Russell Crowe any more, he is too chubby.''

Mel Gibson didn't make the list but Griffin pleads for us to take him back. ``

"He walks around Malibu getting in fights with people, he looks like he's on steroids, he has a church in his backyard, you've got to take him back,'' she says.

Griffin's personal favourites include Simon Baker, Kylie Minogue and Nicole Kidman.

"Being someone who has had a face, I do love Nicole Kidman's old forehead,'' she says. "And I like that you can now divide Nicole Kidman into body parts or facial zones.''

Truthfully though, Griffin likes Australian audiences because they "allow me to take the piss out of things''.