Devil's Playground returns

Jack Thompson plays The Cardinal in Devil's Playground

stars of the show: Nicole Shostak, Jarin Towney, Andrew McFarlane, Morgana Davies, Don Hany, Simon Burke

Devil's Playground is a new psychological thriller & sequel to the 1976 Tom Keneally & Fred Schepsi film.The series begins in 1988 and features the character from the original film now grown up, (played again by Simon Burke) a secular confessor to the Catholic clergy who becomes entangled in political and theological intrigue. It stars Jack Thompson, John Noble & Toni Collette. We popped along to the Henrietta Supper Club in Kings Cross to meet and dine with the cast.

Movie Stars at premiers

Toni Collette attended the premier of her new film The Way Way Back at the Sydney Film Festival tonight at the State Theatre.
Collette has been spotted around Darlinghurst and Paddington in the past few days during filming of The Devils Playground, the film that picks up where Fred Schepisi's 1976 film left off.
 From the original book by Tom Keneally, the tale is set 35 years later in the 1980s and also stars Simon Burke who starred as a schoolboy in the original Catholic guilt laden true story based on Keneally's life. Simon was on hand at the premier tonight to support Toni while on the other side of town Collette's co-star Steve Carell attended the premier of Crazy Stupid Love.

                                           

Kitsch Week in LA

Those social scribes still holding down a job on a tabloid will be heading for Sydney Airport on Monday for one of the best freebies in town- the annual gala week in Los Angeles known as G'Day USA.
It's a government sponsored promotional week where everything Oz gets shown around LA- local fashion designers, wine tastings, tourism events and err, a discussion on the carbon pricing.

The big do of the week is the LA Black Tie Gala dinner where a few Aussies who have done well in the USA get inducted into some sort of Hall of Fame- this year it's Paul Hogan and Rose Byrne and Qantas pilot John Travolta. Guests include usually every actor in LA that week - Guy Pearce, Naomi Watts, Eric Bana, Toni Collette and it wouldn't be a party without Olivia Newton John. Chef for the night is Curtis Stone.

But wait-there's more : also flying to Los Angeles is the World's Richest Woman and the Aussie version of Christina Onassis, Gina Rinehart and her daughter Ginia Rinehart who is the apple of her mum's eye.

Ryan Johnson  * Gina Rinehart  * Ginia Rinehart

Ginia will wed her long time boyfriend in LA- Ryan Johnson who is the son of the legendary Beach Boys' Bruce Johnson.
On the wedding guest list :  Canadian hamburger king Jack Cowin, John Singleton and Barnaby Joyce MP.  Not invited : Gina's estranged children Hope, Bianca and John.

Tropfest-Twenty Years On....

At least two of the movie superstars at last night's Tropfest were there at the beginning-Nicole Kidman and Toni Collette. Others like Geoffrey Rush and Cate Blanchett have come onboard in recent years.

Some who are about to be catapulted into superstar status like Joel Edgerton ( The Great Gatsby) even appeared in Tropfest entries before finding stardom. Any visiting actor makes their way to The Domain to join 150,000 Sydneysiders for the festival.
Sadly, Leo Di Caprio and Tobey McGuire were too busy bunkered down at Fox Studios putting the finishing touches to their roles in Gatsby. Russell Crowe also sent apologies as he flew out to Europe yesterday.

                                              

It's twenty years since director John Polson conceived of the idea of a short film festival and held it in the Tropicana coffee shop in Kings Cross. The Shuttle was there with about 40 others (we lent him 50 bucks for photocopying)

Now it's screened to huge gatherings in every capital city around Australia and there are Tropfests held in London, New York, Toronto, Bangkok and Beijing. Recently one was held in Abu Dhabi.
Last night's first prize went to to Alethea Jones for Lemonade Stand, a comedy about a man and his grandfather whose efforts to sell lemonade bring a clash with an officious council officer.

Keeping it in the family- film-maker Matilda Brown (below left) and her mum, actress Rachel Ward (right).

Cate Blanchett :"You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"

Cate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton gave a talk to the Sydney City Council last night and they aren't happy with our town. They reckon it's lost it's mojo.

 "Does anyone remember the Trade Union Club? Sydney in the 1980s was a city characterised as a place of live music. Every pub seemed to have gigs and everyone was trying to make music. Not only music, but comedy and poetry and stuff at the weirdest edges of performance.

The Sydney Front? It must epitomise real adventure and risk-taking and, more to our point, that sense of an organic, vibrant art-making precinct that erupted around Surry Hills and Oxford Street and down into Redfern and Newtown. All places where people lived and worked and got on with their lives.

For young adventurers from the suburbs, ''town'' was the centre. It was the magnetic attractor. It was freedom and the chance to invent and create and witness other creations. The suburbs could feel flat and dry and filled with sinister silence underneath the crickets and sprinklers. But the city was loud, crowded and dangerous.

What happened? Pubs and live music have been killed by poker machines, for a start. And gentrification of many of those areas made it less possible for the demographic range and the vitality of the shops to remain as sparky, quirky and forgiving."

The theatrical duo have certainly done their bit to breathe some much needed  culture into this brassy, glitzy and sometimes ever so tacky town. Their stewardship at the Sydney Theatre Company has attracted international actors like John Hurt and Philip Seymour Hoffman  for little pay with sell out box office receipts. Giorgio Armani has become the chief patron and their production of Streetcar Named Desire was hailed as the best ever version when it toured the USA to critical acclaim.

They even have a production of ZEBRA! coming up starring Bryan Brown which may reveal previously never glimpsed depths of Bryan's acting abilities.

Much of what the pair said is spot on. You can read the full speech in the Sydney Morning Herald here.

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The Shuttle dined at  the Glebe Point Diner late last week at the invitation of the management and we can report the service and food is as usual up to it's first class standard. It must be one of the most pleasant restaurants in the inner city Glebe area situated as it is in a wide leafy boulevard.

Certainly one of our favourite movie stars Toni Collette thinks so as she screeched to a halt in a black 4 wheel drive and rushed in wanting a table.
Sadly for Toni the place was packed and she was turned away looking very disappointed but not before hurling a fierce glance towards the Shuttle that said "don't even think about it" as one's slim hand reached for that ever ready camera.

We have a Love / Hate  relationship with Ms Collette. We love her and she hates us. I suppose sitting at the much coveted  No.One table on the balcony didn't help.

Toni flees

Hollywood beckons for Abe

   At only 19 young actor Abe Forsyth has won the 18th Tropfest short film festival with his movie about a radio DJ-Shock .  How scary-tSS went to the very first Tropfest at the Tropicana Cafe in Kings Cross all those years ago when Abe was just a baby !.

John Polson, Abe Forsyth, Elijah Wood (c)

    From a night at the coffee shop Polson's baby has grown to a phenomenal size that attracts Hollywood stars to judge the 15 finalists in the short film festival. Polsons own film career is blooming and Tropfest has a life of it's own. Sponsors fall over themselves to get involved and 75,000 people attended the festival in the Domain on Sunday night. Similar numbers likewise in Melbourne, Perth , Brisbane and so on. (tSS received an email on Friday from a previous judge-Jamie Foxx asking if we were attending and to request we pass on our regards to Polson!)

  Polson  has a New York version underway in association with Robert de Niro 's Tribeca Film Festival-tropfest@tribeca and will be launching a European version next year.

    And previous winners have gone on to great success. 1995 winner Gregor Jordon directed Two Hands, Buffalo Soldiers and Ned Kelly with the late Heath Ledger. His latest thriller Unthinkable with Samuel L. Jackson and Carrie-Ann Moss will be released this June.

Bryan Brown

Elijah Wood (c)

  

 2005 winner of the Tropfest best comedy Alister Grierson is currently directing his first feature, the 3D film Sanctum staring Richard Roxburgh and Welsh star Ioan Gruffudd. Sanctum is being produced by Avatar director James Cameron who chose Grierson after watching him work on Avatar.

   

Part of Forsyth's prize includes a trip to LA to meet some film bigwigs. Amongst this year's judges-Toni Collette, Elijah Wood and Bryan Brown.

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## What Would Warhol Blog?

see the answer to one of the great mysteries :

What would Andy Warhol think of the internet ?

Fomer friends from The Factory ponder on what the artist would have thought of the WWW.

photo finish

some snaps from the week's events...

  Mini Cooper at the 2010 Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras launch at the Polo Lounge

the fab Susan Saradon at the Sydney premiere of the Peter Jackson
film 'The Lovely Bones'

Toni Collette at the Australian Film Awards in Melbourne