Richard E. Grant and Famke Janssen are set to star in a new black comedy. They will pay sparring dot.com lovers in the as-yet-untitled movie. The film is loosely based on the rise and fall of boo.com.

The company was set up by Swedish model Kajsa Leander and was once valued at 200 million GBP. But after an 18 month long rollercoaster business ride, the organisation crashed with massive debts.

Working Title hope to go into production next autumn with the project, which is based on a book by Charles Drazin, Ernst Malmsten and Eriuk Portanger.

Nikki emailed me to report that on Saturday (UK) on the BBC at 10pm they are airing the Dame Judi Dench Birthday special. Richard went to this function and he may be on the special itself. So you might want to get your videos set in case theres a “surprise” appearance!

There’s yet another review of Gosford Park, this time courtesy of Marbellalife.com. You can find it here.

And as yet there has been no real news of Hildegarde and when it will be released. Apparently this past fall Amazon.com had it listed as having a release date (U.S.) in October, but than it disappeared from the listings. Pat apparently contacted them about it, but all they could tell her was that it got pulled from release. We’ll keep you posted on any new developments.

Taken from NTL entertainment news,
4:41pm Monday, 07th January 2002

Helen Mirren has been honoured by America’s National Society of Film Critics. She was named best supporting actress for her role in Robert Altman’s film Gosford Park.

Altman was named best director, and the film’s writer Julian Fellowes won the best screenplay award.

David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive was named best picture of 2001 by the group of 52 newspaper and magazine film critics.

Gosford Park came second in the best picture voting, with The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring third, www.thisislondon.co.uk reports.

And in other news…..Could it be there may be a supporting actor nod for our Boy? Read on:-

Much as in the male supporting category, likely candidates for supporting actress have yet to emerge. Marisa Tomei has received good notices for her performance in In the Bedroom, which would give her another shot at supporting (her one Oscar came for supporting in My Cousin Vinny).

But Tomei doesn’t clock much screen time, and she is up against the unstoppable Kate Winslet, who took a nod for her performance as the young, pre-Alzheimer’s Iris Murdoch in Iris from the L.A. critics. In turn, Winslet has stiff competition from a fellow Brit, Helen Mirren, who got the supporting nod the New York Film Critics Circle for her work in Gosford Park. Though many sources are relishing Maggie Smith’s performance as a snooty dame and Richard E. Grant’s as a naughty manservant, Mirren has managed to stand out as awards-worthy from a cast chock-a-block with knights, dames, and other Oscar bait (Emily Watson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon, Jeremy Northam, Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, and so on).

For everyone else not living in Scotland (and therefore not being able to receive the chat show programme, “Elaine”) according to Kirsten REG has apparently appeared on it just recently. Does anyone out there have a video of this appearence or should we all start bothering the BBC for a copy of it?

And finally, Nikki tells me that Richard attended an award show in December for “Interior Designer of the Year”, won by Amanada Rose and Andrew Martin at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The reviews are in for Gosford Park and by all accounts it’s a definite winner! You can take a look at the reviews from many different sources on this latest film featuring REG.

You can check out the Daily Telegraph review by going here, and one from The Guardian here.

Linda has sent in some of the reviews from some of the Philadelphia area press which you can find here, and Pat has sent her own review (which I grabbed from the REG Temple mailing list) which you can find here.

For all you Brits out there, in case you hadn’t already noted it in your diaries, Gosford Park does not reach your shores until 1st February. In Australia (Sydney at least) the film won’t be appearing until 7th March.

For those of you who are yet to see the film and can’t quite wait that long, you can now check out the trailer here.