Name Annette Bening
Born May 29, 1958 in Topeka. Kansas, US.
Background Bening's acting career began when she played the lead in her high school's production of The Sound of Music. After graduating from San Francisco University she took to the stage in California and later New York. She then moved back to California to pursue a career in film. Her breakthrough film role in The Grifters in 1990 earned her her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Actor/producer Warren Beatty then invited her to star in Bugsy (1991), and the two later married. Beatty later claimed that he'd fallen in love with Bening within five minutes of meeting her. Since Bugsy, she's appeared in Richard III (1995) Mars Attacks! (1996), The Siege (1998) and has received two Best Actress Oscar nominations for her roles in American Beauty (1999) and Being Julia (2004). On both occasions Bening lost out to Hilary Swank.
What’s she up to now‘.’ Being very family orientated, Bening tries to avoid a heavy work schedule and takes regular breaks from acting to spend time with her four children. She can, however, currently be seen in Running With Scissors, a film adaptation of Augusten Burroughs' cult biographical novel directed by Ryan Murphy. She is also currently preparing to star in Murphy's next film Dirty Tricks about the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt are also slated to star. The film is scheduled for release in 2008.
What she says about ageing on camera ‘I don't really have a choice. I'm getting older. To me I didn't think of acting as being a young thing only. I think for all of us, as we age there are always a few moments when you are shocked}
Interesting Fact Bening formed a babysitting circle with Meryl Streep, Carrie Fisher and Tracey Ullman, proving celebrity mums can get tired of their kids too. (Bebecca Moore)
I Running with Scissors is out now on general release.
42 THE LIST if) Feb-1 Mar 2007
guide to this world of luxury. Meanwhile, a famous female TV star (Valerie Lemercier) is rehearsing a Feydeau farce, whilst dreaming of landing a serious film role. In the adjoining concert hall a renowned pianist (Albert Dupontel) yearns for a less structured and pressurised existence. And at the next door auction-room, a dying art-collector (Claude Brasseur) is preparing to sell off his life's work and patch up his relationship with his academic son (Christopher Thompson).
Everyone is at a crossroads, in other words. whether personal or professional, and one's enjoyment of this glossily photographed confection will depend on your pain threshold for smug multiple character comedies. Despite some enjoyable ensemble performances, including Sydney Pollack’s cameo as an American director attempting to cast a Sartre and de Beauvoir biopic, the contrivances and the clichés in the
MYSTERY/THRILLER THE NUMBER 23 (15) 97min .0.
This conspiracy theory chiller, penned
by first time British screenwriter Fernley Phillips, turns on the notion that the number 23 is a diabolic digit pairing that's ubiquitous and exhibits a pernicious effect on the world (the DNA of a child is comprised of 23 chromosomes from each parent; the Earth's axis is off by 23.5 degrees; the assassination of Julius Caesar involved 23 stabbings; Shakespeare was born
(Jim Carrey). Sparrow begins to see the number everywhere after he starts reading a book his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen) buys in a local second hand bookstore, the title of which dog-eared paperback is, of course, The Number 23. The further he gets into the book the more convinced Sparrow becomes that he‘s the next recipient of a sinister curse. But is Sparrow really cursed, or is he just obsessed with a mathematical conspiracy theory?
Initially, The Number 23 is reasonably intriguing stuff. For the first half an hour you, like Carrey's protagonist, will be spotting permutations of the titular number everywhere, from street signs to car licence plates. But as the plot unfolds. the film suffers from an uneven tone that mixes humour and horror, to detrimental effect. It's almost as if Carrey's making a comedy (half the time, at least) and director Joel Schumacher is directing something else. Which is a shame, because the
screenplay prove irksome. (Tom Dawson) 1 I Film/rouse, Edinburgh from Fri 23 '
COMEDY/FANTASY
THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP (LA SCIENCE DES REVES)
(15) 105min .000
French auteur Michel Gondry asserts himself as the natural heir to Jean Cocteau in this his third feature proper. Welcome to the mind-bending world of Stéphane Miroux (Gael Garcia Bernal), a shy Mexican who exists in a perpetual confusion between realities. After his initial attraction to boho neighbours, Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Christine (Miou- Miou), develops into a creative but unrequited passion, Stéphane and Stephanie begin to share a dream world where they express their offbeat sensibilities through fuzzy felt horses, cellophane rivers and cotton wool clouds. But banality and lack of self-belief may just prove to be these two dreamers’ undoing.
Certain sequences in Gondry’s multi-layered 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind had already set a template of sorts for Stéphane’s bizarre fantasies, where cardboard cars trundle through sagged Skylines, which shimmer and waver like reefs of undersea coral. But Gondry constantly twists his quirky production design to provide an increasingly dark reflection of his
and died on 23 April, etc).
The unfortunate recipient of this numerological curse is unassuming Feb. suburban dogcatcher Walter Sparrow
intriguing as it is, The Number 23 doesn't quite add up. (Miles Fielder)
i i [ star is otherwise very good. As l I General release from Fri 23 Feb.
anti-hero’s tortured mental state; the writer/director presents Stéphane’s thought processes as the workings of a television studio, where he presents a nightly cookery programme in which the ingredients of a humdrum life are cooked into feverish fantasy.
Like its Quixotic hero who fancies himself able to fly like Superman, but lacks the confidence to meet his girlfriend for an afternoon coffee, Gondry’s film is likely to divide audiences, but The Science of Sleep offers an intensity, which carries a rare spark of inspiration and sincerity. In a role originally intended for Rhys Ifans, who provided Gondry with the film’s title, Bernal drops his usual cocksure arrogance in favour of a dweebish awkwardness, mangling several languages at once in his discussions of ‘Dis-astrology’ and ‘schitzometric’ behaviour.
Returning to the Paris streets where he spent his formative years, Gondry’s highly personal account of a hapless adolescent struggling to connect with the world may be overtly cute at times, but it’s hard to miss the point; that a passionately lived life is a piece of art in itself, whether the outside world gives a damn or not. (Eddie Harrison)
I Selected release from Fri 76 Feb. See feature, page 22.