Mad Max 4: not coming soon to a theater anywhere near you

Mad Max 4 ... and it's not good news. With the movie delayed yet again, all cst announcements (or predictions, or inspired guesses) made in the past are void. If you check Sam Worthington's page at IMDB.com, you won't see a mention of Mad Max 4 there. [AG sighs heavily]

The reason for the current delay: Climate Change-1, Max Rockatansky-0.

Seriously. This ran on the ABC in October, and they were not joshing you:

Filming of George Miller's fourth Mad Max, Fury Road, has been postponed for a second time.

Production is now expected to begin in Broken Hill in 2012.

Accommodation provider Hugh Gough says he received an email from Kennedy Miller

Productions at the weekend informing him filming would not start in February as planned.

Mr Gough says no reason was given for the delay.

This is the second time the film has been delayed. In July, Kennedy Miller Productions said unseasonal rains had made Broken Hill too fertile.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/11/3034506.htm

If I had to make an inspired guess, I'd say Kennedy Miller will have to shoot around Sam Worthington's schedule ... no longer do you just give out your orders about when you want to shoot. He's a busy boy and a mega-star. That'll push the scheduling for the movie around -- and there's no guarantee you can get him in any case.

Also, you wait for Mama Nature to turn the Broken Hill region back into an iron oxide desert, if you want Mad Max to look like, well, like Mad Max. No good filming there, if it looks like Ireland! See what climate change is doing, and how real it is? Sheesh. Can't even make a movie without being sabotaged by fields of flowers in a region that oughtta look like the planet Mars.

Breaking into song for a second, "You must remember this..."





And it's a real pity the delays have caused the cast to evaporate, because I could really believe Sam Worthington in this part...




Back to the drawing board. Patience is a virtue ... I guess. Well, poop.

Sam Worthington and Mad Max 4 ... wowzer!

Mad Max ... Sam Worthington ... say them in the same breath and then indulge yourself in a pleasant little shiver. Oooooooh, yes!

I know, I know, I've been silent as the tomb on this blog for more than a year, but my life went berserk. Crazy. Insane. It's only now that I can start to think about posting here again ... and what should come along right at the crucial moment? Try this:

June 9, on the Perth Now website:

Mad Max to hit road again, Sam Worthington tipped for lead

Here's the teaser for the feature, and a link to get you through to the rest of it:

THIRTY years after the original, Mad Max 4: Fury Road will kickstart the local movie industry - with WA star Sam Worthington tipped for the lead role.

THE original Mad Max put the Australian film industry on the map and launched the career of one of our most recognised actors, Mel Gibson.

Thirty years on and Mad Max 4: Fury Road is about to restart the local movie industry, being filmed entirely in Sydney and Outback NSW.

The Daily Telegraph reports that work on the film will start immediately, injecting tens of millions of dollars into the economy and creating more than 500 jobs.

Here's your link to the rest!

If you're wondering why this would show up on Perth Now ... well, after AVATAR and TERMINATOR 4 you might be assuming that Sam Worthington is an American star. Not true. He was born in England and came out to Aus -- Western Australia, the capital of which is Perth! -- as a wee little kid.

Having been too busy to blog for a loooong time, I've missed blogging about Iron Man and Avatar and Inkheart, and so much more. But you knew I'd be back, and -- better late than never, here I am. I'm going to be playing catch-up for ages. It's going to be all kinds of fun...

So, let's have some more Sam Worthington pictures before I leave you for today...

Going separate ways

It's official, and it's all over the Internet today:

MEL Gibson's wife, Robyn, has filed for divorce from the Aussie actor after 28 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences.

Robyn Gibson lodged divorce documents in the Los Angeles Superior Court, the Associated Press reports.

Robyn Gibson has requested joint custody of the couple's youngest son, Tom, who turns 10 tomorrow. The couple's six other children are over the age of 18.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25331608-661,00.html
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Today/Entertainment/2009/04/13/9100141.html
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1609146/story.jhtml
...and so on, and on, and on!

Not much you can add to that. It's been a long haul, but the couple have been separated for the last couple of years. One imagines, Mel's beliefs (being a staunch Catholic, which Robyn isn't, and holding some pretty whacked-out idea regarding the Jewish race, which Robyn doesn't share) would drive a wedge between them.

I've always been fascinated by Robyn Gibson, because she's a South Australian lass, like self. In fact, she was the friend of the daughter of the guy who used to do a lot of printing for me, about 30 years ago! I used to get "Mel Gibson stories" from my printer, back in the Days of Yore when very few people outside South Australia knew who the hell Mel Gibson was!

This is the second time recently that Robyn has been in the news, and it was sad last time, too:

THE family of Hollywood star Mel Gibson has made a sad journey to Adelaide - to farewell the father of his wife, Robyn Moore.
Bill Moore, 85, died peacefully on October 10, at Ashford Hospital.
The funeral was held at the Mawson Chapel, Centennial Park yesterday.
It is believed Gibson, 51, did not make the journey from the US with his wife and children for the service.
Bill is survived by his wife Nancye, children Susan, Robyn and Michael, and 12 grandchildren -- including Gibson and Moore's seven children -- and one great grandchild.
Gibson met Robyn, a dental nurse, in Adelaide in the late 1970s, soon after filming the first instalment of Mad Max.
The pair were housemates, who became best friends, then eventually lovers. They dated for six years, then married in 1980.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22591253-5006023,00.html

Now, let's go back to happier days, when the world (and certainly mel, Robyn and Aricia!) were all a hell of a lot younger...

On the cover of the Rolling Stone --!

So, my Significant Other is listening to old-old music on new-new electronics. You've got Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show pounding out of an MP3 player attached to computer speakers, right so far? Right. An they're doing their really Big Number from about thirty years ago --

The Cover of the Rolling Stone. Remember it? And I got to thinking, "Gee-Zeus, it's hard to get on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. In all their years of working, A-listers like Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman and Brendan Fraser have never made the cover yet --

But Doctor Hook did. They did it by writing an hilarious song:
The song was so damned funny, and probably did Rolling Stone a power of good (publicity like this, you cannot buy), and they met the Medicine Show halfway with the cover equivalent of the whacked-out song. Kewl. (Incidentally, the band still has a webpage. Wouldn't you know it? Doctor Hook, uh, dot-com.)

And all this got me to thinking ... so, who HAS made the cover of the Rolling Stone?

Well, for sure the mag has its favorites. Johnny Depp had been on the cover at least four times; Star Wars was on their at least six times that I know of. Brad Pitt has made the cover twice; Angelina's been on there about four times -- so far. She ain't 35 yet. Give her time.

So, just for fun I present the following for your entertainment -- enjoy! (I've uploaded thumbnails because there's s lot of them -- give 'em a CLICK for the fill-sized scan.)



This could go on all day ... time to stop and go get a cup of tea!

Look who's Hamlet now!

Hamlet. The mere sound of the word gives you shivers ... you're beset by horrific memories of your Ninth Grade classroom, where Miss Perkins goose-stepped up and down in front of the blackboard and her cringing students took turns making verbal compost out of Shakespeare. The entire year you were 15, you were sure you were allergic to Shakespeare ... every time someone started to read it, you got woozy -- or at least the English language stopped making sense, and everyone said it was your fault.

Then you grew up a bit and realized that if you wanted to see Mel Gibson in his latest flick, you'd have to slog through the whole thing again ... and it wasn't just Mel Gibson who was doing Hamlet.

Kevin Kline. Paul Gross. Kenneth Branagh. David Tennant!!

Is there no end to the list of luscious actors who've had a crack at the Crazy Dane?

Apparently not -- and the next one might surprise you. Jude Law is doing Hamlet in '09, directed by Kenneth Branagh.


You reckon I'm making it up? Shame on you! Click here, and eat your words.

Jude Law as Hamlet. Think of the possibilities...



Hamlet ... the word might make you come over goosey for different reasons, in a while! I've heard that David Tennant was the "best Hamlet in years," and someone who was in the audience at the Kevin Kline production a couple of times said KK never played Ham the same way twice. One night it was tragedy, the next night it was hilarious farce. Remember the line in The Last Action Hero: "Something is rotten in the State of Denmark, and Hamlet is taking out the trash."

One more cute Jude Law photo, and I'm done for today. No, not the nekkid one ... I'm not even convinced that one is JL. Somebody convince me.