Chiwetel Ejiofor directs

Updating this site is rather like a London bus - nothing for ages and then 3 come together at once ...

A rather short piece from the 18 June edition of The Guardian has come my way courtesy of Screen International regarding Chiwetel Ejiofor's directorial debut.

Mr Ejiofor's contribution to the 'Verse requires no introduction and we all know that he has become one of the most hardworking UK actors in the industry today. I'm rather pleased to say that thanks to Katy, I was able to see Mr Ejiofor in the recent Donmar production of "Othello" in January with Ewan McGregor which was utterly incredible; I understand that there will be an audio release of the production shortly which I can't recommend enough. However, the piece in The Guardian has Mr Ejiofor recounting his directing experience and can be found here:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2286130,00.html

The short, "Slapper" will screen as part of the UK Shorts programme at the 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival on 24 June.

Cyd Charisse

I'm a real Hollywood musical fan falling completely and unashamedly in the Gene Kelly camp. How sad I was to wake up this morning to the very sad news of the death of Cyd Charisse.

Both Kelly and Astaire worked with many very talented female partners, but I will always argue that of all of them, only Miss Charisse was their true equal who made it all look genuinely effortless and never as if she was giving her all just to keep up.

While Andrew and myself were in LA earlier this year, we took the Sony Studios tour in Culver City (I highly recommend it); the studio itself is actually the former MGM site and I can't tell you how terribly exciting it was for me to be there.

Show 35 available

The June show is now available to download. As well as a brief update on upcoming Serenity showings we also have a gang of people in to review the second episode, The Train Job. These people include Bill and Ben (who did a show for us last year), Paul from Cadmium2, Nick from The Signal and also Odile and Charlene, both from France, as well as the regular gaggle of Wendy, Mike and Andrew. No Rosie this month but she will be back soon.

The show is available on the podcast feed and can also be downloaded by clicking here.

Stan Winston

It is with great sadness that we learnt the very sad news that Stan Winston lost his battle against multiple myeloma on Sunday 15 June and died in Malibu, aged just 62.

As film special effects were moving from their post-Harryhausen era to the CGI spectacles that we know today, Winston's work was truly revolutionary. From creations such as The Terminator's exo-skeleton, to the Queen Alien to the dinosaurs of "JURASSIC PARK", Winston and his teams really did embody "doing the impossible".