Timur PANKOV
ALMATY, April 15 (THE GLOBE)
My attitude about Hollywood is that I wouldn�t walk across the street to pull one of those executives out of the snow if he was bleeding to death. Not unless I was paid for it. None of them ever did me any favors.
James Woods
James Woods has such an intimidating visage, his smile can be more terrifying than his glare. What makes him such an impressive actor is that for all this perceived menace, and despite his decidedly off-kilter appearance, he can still elicit sympathy from an audience. Winning the audience over has never been the mercurial actor�s problem � moviegoers have always been glad they queued up to witness the results of his legendary perfectionism and slavish work ethic. But unfortunately for Woods, these same qualities have tended to alienate the influential Hollywood producers and directors who dole out the leading-man assignments. Woods once commented of his devotion to his craft: �My attitude is when you make a film, you eat, drink, and sleep it. And be thankful that you can go 22 hours a day, because if you�re spending any less time than that, you�re probably not giving it your best shot.� His dedication to each and every one of his projects has presented some problems along the way, considering the fact that most directors value the sleep that Woods has no qualms about disturbing at any hour. This passionate and kinetic � or abrasive and volatile, depending on how charitable one looks at it � approach has had the attendant affect of earning him a reputation for being meddlesome, a complainer, and difficult to work with. Obviously, charity was far from the mind of New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael when she called Woods the �most hostile actor in America.� While Woods enjoys this hell-raiser reputation, it has most certainly impacted the rate at which he has advanced � or hasn�t � in Hollywood.
Things changed significantly for the better after Woods was cast as a psycho cop killer in a film adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh�s best-selling book, The Onion Field (1979). Roles in Sergio Leone�s sweeping gangster opus Once Upon a Time in America (1984), and in Oliver Stone�s Salvador (1986) cemented his cult following. Woods earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his brilliant performance as self-serving, opportunistic photo-journalist Richard Boyle in the latter film, concurrently earning notoriety in Hollywood for the on-set screaming matches he had with director Stone. Stone later commented of his incendiary star, �He�s a lunatic. He always knows better, which is very irritating. In the end, it was like a 15-round fight. We were both beaten. But we both respected each other . . . [If] he�s right for the role and you want to make the best film possible, you�ve got to go with him.�
The early �90s delivered up a string of bill-paying roles in largely unchallenging films: few would admit to being entertained, let alone charmed, by Chaplin, Diggstown, The Getaway, or The Specialist. But fine character turns in Casino and Nixon (both 1995) reaffirmed his reputation as a top-drawer actor. He gave one of the finest and most restrained performances of his career in Killer . . . A Journal of Murder (1996), in which he played a prison inmate who writes an autobiographical record of his grisly career as a serial murderer. Woods scored an Oscar nomination for his performance as the unrepentantly bigoted assassin Byron De la Beckwith in 1996�s Ghosts of Mississippi. Par for the course of his villainesque track record, Woods gave voice to Hades in Disney�s 1997 animated release Hercules; and his smarmy politico was one of the best things about the extraterrestrial-encounter flick Contact.
Woods, a veteran of two short-lived marriages, is engaged to marry 20-something actress Missy Crider, who played his daughter in the 1994 TV movie Jane�s House.
James Woods, famous by movies �Once upon a time in America�, �Salvador�, �Casino�. Because of his intimidating visage he was called the most hostile actor in America.
Aigul MYRZATAI, ALMATY, April 15 (THE GLOBE)
In the beginning of April in the small hall of the Kazakh Auezov Academic theatre was the first night of the performance �Turning � Whirling.�
The action of the drama takes place in a far deserted Kazakh steppe, where the main a Jewish family � a father and a daughter, and Hans Muller, a German traveler, occasionally appear.
A hopeless situation makes the heroes ponder reality in practical way. Hans Muller mentally travels back to far away Germany, and loudly meditates in German about his native home and beautiful green orchard. Arnold Veisman is also reminded of his youth, his great and sincere love for his wife and friend Sara. Sara, who is far away, but always in Viesman�s heart, appears before his eyes. But �a source of life� runs short, and the heroes must again return to the hard reality. Their souls are so pure and virginal that they are not able to withstand it. A tragic end will befall each of them.
The philosophic implication of the drama seems very relevant for today. We live in time when the ideals of humanity are overshadowed, and only money and gold are considered valuable. Striving for them, the human soul becomes hardened and embittered.
Recently the international press has published many of the ancient predictions of the Apocalypses, which is supposed to happen in 2003. I do not want to believe that. In my mind, the author of the plot and producer of the performance �Turning � Whirling�, Victor Nemchenko emphasizes this thought consciously. Desert and only desert is left in the soul of the contemporary man, and it will be with him in the future. Maybe that is why there is no scenery, only sand and a street lamp � a guide between God and a man, but unable to help. The Man made his life himself.
�A blue sphere is turning and whirling� is a theme of a simple song, which determined the name of the performance and its main leitmotif. The blue Earth, a blue conception is still somewhere in the human soul, and may withstand the Apocalypses. The Germans, Kazakhs, Jewish and Chinese people, all of us are united on this Earth, though we speak different languages. We have the common world and the Earth.
I would like to say some words about the play. The drama lasts for 2.5 hours without a break. It is too tiresome for the perception by the audience. Such a dragging out of the performance is caused, in my mind, by many scenes that do not blend with the plot. The script of the performance is based on several plays, such as �Veisman and Red-faced� by J. Tabory, �Don Pedro� by S. Nosov and �Russian people�s mail� by O. Bogaev. However, all these moments did not darken the perception of the performance. It means the theatre in our city has not died, the art is still alive.
There was this little guy sitting inside a bar, just looking at his drink.
He didn�t move for a half-an-hour.
Then, this big trouble-making truck driver stepped up right next to him, took the drink from the guy, and just drank it all down.
The poor man started crying. The truck driver turned and said: �Come on man, I was just joking. Here, I�ll buy you another drink. I just can�t stand to see a man crying.�
�No, it�s not that. Today is the worst day of my life. First, I overslept and was late for an important meeting. My boss became outraged and then fired me.
When I left the building to my car, I found out that it was stolen. The police said they could do nothing. I then got a cab to return home, and after I paid the cab driver and the cab had gone, I found that I left my whole wallet in the cab.
I got home only to find my wife was in bed with the gardener. I left home depressed and came to this bar. And now, when I was thinking about putting an end to my life, YOU show up and drink my poison ...�
16/04/1889 - Sir Charlie Chaplin (comedy actor: �Little Tramp�: The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Limelight)
16/04/1917 - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin returned to Russia after years of exile.
16/04/1972 - Apollo 16 blasted off on a voyage to the moon.
17/04/1894 - Nikita Khrushchev was born (U.S.S.R. premier [1958 - 1964])
17/04/1941 - Yugoslavia surrendered to Germany in World War Two.
17/04/1961 - About 1500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro.
18/04/1846 - The telegraph ticker was patented this day by R.E. House of New York City.
18/04/1947 - James Woods was born (actor: The Onion Field, Holocaust, The Way We Were, Night Moves, Against All Odds)
18/04/1949 - The Irish republic was proclaimed.
18/04/1956 - Eric Roberts was born (american actor).
April, 17
The Kazakh Concert Hall. The concert �In the mysterious night`s silence�. 6.00 p.m.
April, 20
The Kazakh Concert Hall. The concert of Rakhmaninov�s compositions. 6.00 p.m.
The Kosteyev State National Museum. Exhibition of the works of S. Kalmykov, I. Itkind, V. Eifert, and Rudolf Nuriev�s painting.
From 10.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Closed on Monday.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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