Michael Dwyeron film
Movie stars sing for their suppers
Strike up the band - actors are bursting into song on both sides of the Atlantic.
•On Wednesday night Gabriel Byrne made his singing debut on Broadway, playing the leading role of King Arthur in the musical Camelot. Last night's performance was broadcast live on PBS, the US public service channel.
Backed by the New York Philharmonic, Byrne performs the show's big numbers, If Ever I Would Leave You and How to Handle a Woman. "By the time they asked me if I could sing - and they were very polite - it was too late," Byrne told Reel News. "They were stuck with me and a 75-piece orchestra."
In the 1967 movie of Camelot, fellow Irishman Richard Harris played the king. Harris also toured with the show for years.
•Scarlett Johansson, who plays the queen in Mary, Queen of Scots, to be shot here this year, releases her debut album, Anywhere I Lay My Head, on May 20th. The album features 10 Tom Waits covers (with David Bowie guesting on two), and one original composition.
•Nicole Kidman, who proved she could sing in Moulin Rouge, will play the great Dusty Springfield in a biopic following the singer from her rise to fame in 1960s London to her death in 1999. Michael Cunningham, writer of The Hours, which won Kidman her Oscar in 2002, has scripted the movie.
How Mick lost out to Malcolm
A letter written in the late 1960s, which came to light this week, reveals that Mick Jagger wanted to play Alex in A Clockwork Orange - and that The Beatles were keen to write the score.
The correspondence was between executive producer Si Litvinoff, who acquired the film rights to the Anthony Burgess book in 1965, and John Schlesinger, the Oscar-winning director of Midnight Cowboy. Encouraging Schlesinger to direct A Clockwork Orange, Litvinoff wrote: "The Beatles love the project."
Schlesinger declined, which is just as well, given how effective the 1971 movie was with Stanley Kubrick directing, Malcolm McDowell as Alex, and the music by Ludwig Van.
Awards from Tribeca festival
Swedish director Tomas Alfredson had two happy endings at this year's Tribeca Film Festival in New York, which was co-founded by Robert De Niro and closed last Sunday. Alfredson received the Best Narrative Feature award for Let the Right One In, a tale of first love between a young boy and the vampire next door. And the US remake rights were snapped up for a seven-figure sum.
Congratulations to the Irish winners at Tribeca: writer-director Steph Green, winner of the Best Narrative Short prize for New Boy, and Eileen Walsh, voted Best Actress for Eden, which goes on Dublin cinema release from May 30th at the new Light House Cinema, which opens today.
Bond theme beyond Amy
Amy Winehouse has abandoned her recording of the theme song for the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. Mark Ronson, who produced Winehouse's Back to Black album and was working with her on the 007 theme, says Winehouse is "not ready to record any music" and that it would take "some miracle of science" to finish the recording. With the movie scheduled to open here on October 31st, the producers need to find a substitute singer very soon.
A chance to size up Spurlock
Where in the world is Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock? Well, tomorrow he's due at Cineworld in Dublin for a question-and- answer session after the 3.10pm screening of his new documentary, Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? More on Morgan and his movie on pages 8 and 12.
Battle in Seattle
The apt choice of opening film for this month's Seattle Film Festival is Battle in Seattle, written and directed by Irish actor Stuart Townsend. The festival, which may well be the longest in the world, runs for 24 days. That's twice as long as Cannes, which opens next Wednesday.
I'm Indy, you're out
The invitation to the Dublin press screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has arrived in my inbox. Terms and conditions apply, more than at any media preview ever held here, so I dare not tell you when and where it is.
During summer blockbuster season, those of us who review movies discover just how many friends we have as calls pour in. Sadly, the press invite to Indy's fourth adventure specifically precludes guests. Not that this bothers me - I'll be at the world premiere in Cannes.
