Welcome to the Matt Damon Column,
a forum for sharing news among Matt fans.

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A big thanks to Casey, for sharing the amusing photo shown above. Casey wrote:
Matt Wrote To Me!
...Yea well kind of. I wrote to him and I sent him a picture to sign also and he wrote to me on the pic. Check it out! I'm pretty sure it's real.
(To Casey I wrote:
Oh I think it sounds just like Matt - how lucky you are! Very cute - do take care of that photo and thanks very much for sharing it with Damon fans!)

• From the Big Matt Fan:
  Zap2it.com has an interview with Pete Jones, which includes this:
  QUESTION: How has working with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon been?
  PETE JONES: When I won, my mom right away was �Congratulations, what are Matt and Ben like?� They are two really special guys that decided to give back because they remember what it took to get where they got.
  The site includes a decent photos of Matt, if you're interested: here. (One of the photos is shown as photo of the day.)
• Ryan of www.DamonWeb.net wrote:
  We've completed the switch in our hosting plan, but to prevent bandwidth from being used so quickly we've implemented a password to access the Photo Gallery (the most popular feature on the site). Anyone can have a password sent to them by sending an email to [email protected], but since your viewers are such loyal Matt Damon fans, I thought I'd share it with you so you could post it. The username is damonweb and the password is 2002user.

• The official site for Bourne Identity still reports the release date as 14 June. I presume it's receiving less coverage than other summer films at this stage due to its minimal pre-release publicity. Bourne really hasn't started its press blitz yet, and will still receive less coverage than other media friendly flicks and automatic BO winners like Star Wars, Spiderman and Sum of all fears.
• At keystonepressagency.com there are some pics of Matt and Odessa leaving a restaurant after dining with Brad Pitt, George Clooney and the Confessions crew in Montreal. All of the group look as though they really don't want to be photographed, and there's a separate photo of Matt and Brad with a local fan.
  The dinner was reported in the Scottish Daily Record, talking about Clooney's new 'girlfriend':
  At another dinner with Clooney, on February 22, Maria found herself dining with Damon, his girlfriend and three of Clooney's best friends.Afterwards they went back to his hotel bar, where Maria sat on his lap as they sipped expensive cocktails.
  Such trashy stuff for which I apologise!

• Felicity wrote:
  • Features on the Ocean's 11 DVD as advised by Warner Bros - the commentary with the cast should be interesting.
    You're IN with the DVD Special Features: Commentary by Academy Award� winning director Stephen Soderbergh and writer Ted Griffin.
    Commentary by hot stars Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Andy Garcia. HBO First Look: Behind-the-Scenes documentary on the making of Ocean's Eleven.
    "The Look of the Con," a behind-the-scenes documentary featuring the cast, director and production team talking about the stylized fashion and designs of Ocean's Eleven.
    Original teaser trailer and three theatrical trailers. DVD-ROM features "In or Out" challenge where players become one of Ocean's Eleven crew and must complete several Las Vegas challenges to pull-off the ultimate heist...plus links to the original website. Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio and Dolby Surround 2.0. Languages: English and French (Dubbed in Quebec). Subtitles: English, French and Spanish.
    "The Look of the Con" will also be featured on the VHS.
    Available to own on DVD and Videocassette May 7, 2002
  • From eonline's Movie Scoop:
    Green Means Go...Away? I'm also hearing that Miramax, though committed to another season of Project Greenlight, is considering doing it without the project's founders. That means no Live Planet, the multimedia company that produced Stolen Summer, headed by producer Chris Moore and his partners Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. That would suck.
  • and
    Mountain a Comeback: Nothing is for sure in this town, but there are rumblings around Universal that Steven Spielberg may drop his commitment to Ghost Soldiers, a WWII drama that centers on the Bataan Death March and would have reunited him with his Minority Report star Tom Cruise. That may be why Cruise is so gung-ho about starring in The Last Samurai for director Ed Zwick. I'm told that with Soldiers out of the way, Cruise could even resurrect plans to star in Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain, which he dropped earlier this year.
• Ali wrote:
  Hello from windy Idaho! I've been reading all the entertainment magazines that are starting to talk about the summer movies and none of them mention The Bourne Identity. What's going on? I started to see trailers in the theaters toward the end of June and then they stopped. Has the release been delayed and if so, why? I know I've read on your website that they changed the first release date so that it would not interfere with Sum of All Fears, but now I'm hearing that they've rescheduled the release of that for July 02. What's the deal and does anybody really know? Unfortunately, this seems to happen a lot to Matt's movies. I'm starting to get a bit disgruntled. Am I the only one?
• Ryan wrote:
  since i know we share a lot of traffic, would you please mind letting the column readers know that www.damonweb.net and www.mattdamon.info are in the process of moving to new servers? certain pages and files may be intermittently unavailable over the next several days, depending on how long it takes for the domain transfer to take effect.

• From Felicity:
  • From Ted Casablanca's eonline column:
    Jeepers Peepers
    Back out west, gambling loose-lippers from Sin City recently spotted Matt Damon and Ben Affleck burning off a little steam, or so they squeal.
    Reportedly, the two hunky dudes caught a cab back to their hotel after hitting the legendary Crazy Horse Too strip club during the wee hours. According to an in-the-know Vegas source, the twosome's charismatic camaraderie charmed the pants off (literally, almost) the crazed strippers, who were clamoring in excitement. To further show their good will, M.D. and B.A. generously tipped the G-string brigade.
    Figuring the naked joint might be willing to spare an anecdote or two, I rang up the management office to ask about the stars' supposed clandestine visit.
    "Really!" the club's rep exclaimed with an air of insult. "I wouldn't divulge that information if they had been in here. That's just rude." With that, he slammed down the phone.
    Such morals these sellers of flesh have today. How heartwarming. But let's not ruffle our finely feathered hair over that demi-nude declaration and turn our attention to the Oscar-winning duo's official peeps.
    The well-oiled machinery behind Affleck put it plain and simple: "We can neither confirm nor deny the report." Well, that clears things up now, doesn't it?
    But things with Mr. Damon's always fab reps got a little hairier.
    "Vegas, you say?" his publicist's assistant inquired. "I think he's filming a cameo in Toronto. Could you fax me the details?"
    A half-dozen vague phone calls later, the publicist claimed it just couldn't have been possible, since Matt was in New York at the time.
    Toronto...New York. Just don't say the word Vegas. Oh, come on, even golden boys like Matt and Ben need to have a little raunchy fun, right, girls?
  • NY Post Wednesday:
    FREE AT LAST
    JUST as her movie "40 Days and 40 Nights" is about to hit the big screen, Monet Mazur is hitting the town - solo. After almost a year together, Mazur has broken up with her indie boyfriend, Adrien Brody, and is now spending time with some new friends. Mazur was out in force Monday night and spent time chatting up Matt Damon and Ben Affleck at Nobu.
  • There's been a few sightings of Matt (with girlfriend) and Brad Pitt in Montreal over the weekend to film their cameos.
    Photo from Star Magazine taken at the Greenlight premiere: here
  • From the bizarre stories department - a note in a story on the Playboy mansion and its Bunnies by a majorleaguebaseball.com writer. Seriously - sitting down for a game of backgammon in the Playboy mansion??
    [Bunny] Shanna mentions playing backgammon with Matt Damon ("I kicked his butt, I'm a serious player.")
  • With things so quiet, maybe it's timely to revisit it all: A very early New York Times article on GWH, and where many of the stories started.
    November 20, 1997, Thursday
    THE ARTS/CULTURAL DESK
    The Script Is Modest, But Not The Buzz
    By BERNARD WEINRAUB (NYT) 1021 words
    HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 19 -- Less than two years ago, during a snowstorm in New York, Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Miramax, was seated at the bar of the Four Seasons Hotel when he saw Lawrence Bender, the producer of ''Reservoir Dogs'' and ''Pulp Fiction.''
    Mr. Weinstein walked over to Mr. Bender, whose recent films had been released by Miramax. ''I just got this unusual script and it's just about the best thing I've read,'' Mr. Weinstein told Mr. Bender. ''I want you to produce it.''
    The script, ''Good Will Hunting,'' was especially unusual because two actors, Matt Damon, 27, and Ben Affleck, 25, had written it and wanted to star in it. Within hours, Mr. Bender had accepted the script, which found its way to Gus Van Sant, the director of ''Drugstore Cowboy,'' ''My Own Private Idaho'' and ''To Die For.'' Halfway through, Mr. Van Sant called Mr. Affleck. ''I said flat out I had to do it,'' said Mr. Van Sant. The object of all this Hollywood heat, ''Good Will Hunting,'' which opens on Dec. 5, is hardly the kind of action and alien movie that studios crave. It is a relatively modest movie (costing $15 million to $20 million), about a working class South Boston youth named Will Hunting (Mr. Damon) who happens to be a mathematical genius. The character accepts his photographic memory and prodigious talent without too much interest. The film also features Robin Williams, as a therapist with a deep sympathy for and understanding of Will; Mr. Affleck, who plays Will's best friend and fellow Southie, and Minnie Driver as a Harvard student who catches Will's eye. It often takes years for a movie to evolve, but ''Good Will Hunting'' is an exception, partly because Hollywood studios were so taken with the script. It began in 1992 as a 50-page short story written by Mr. Damon while he was a student at Harvard. (Mr. Damon never graduated, pursuing an acting career in films like ''Courage Under Fire'' and ''The Rainmaker'' instead.) Mr. Damon showed the story to his longtime friend Ben Affleck, an actor who has appeared in ''Chasing Amy'' and ''Going All the Way.'' The two, who grew up in Cambridge, Mass., met in third grade and had shared acting aspirations for most of their lives. They decided to turn the short story into a film, initially a thriller.
    ''Instead of a thriller, we decided to use this character as the basis for a story that really said something about engaging in life, experiencing it to the fullest and allowing yourself to be vulnerable to people who you care about,'' Mr. Damon has said in production notes. What animated the script was the fact that the two actor-writers had improvised and acted out virtually every scene before creating dialogue. ''They wrote it visually,'' said Mr. Van Sant in a telephone interview the other day from an editing studio in Los Angeles where he is putting final touches on the movie. ''It was this balance of character and story and dialogue. The script had these movie moments -- actors' moments -- that they created not only for themselves but for every actor in the film. In this case at least it helped enormously that actors wrote the screenplay.'' Beyond this, the script was written with a specific sense of the Boston area, the blue-collar South Side as well as Cambridge, home of Harvard and M.I.T. ''We knew Boston inside and out, and wanted to write something that captured the essence of our hometown,'' Mr. Affleck has said in production notes.
    Almost as soon as the script began circulating, it stirred interest among numerous studios. The authors opted to sell it to Castle Rock, an independent production company now under the wing of Warner Brothers, for $600,000. Several studios offered even more money, but wanted to cast more well-known actors like Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead roles instead of the two authors.
    But after a year, the project went into limbo, partly because of disagreements over the choice of director and partly because Castle Rock wanted to shoot the film in Toronto, not Boston. (The film ended up being shot in Boston and Toronto.) Shortly after that, Mr. Affleck, while working on ''Chasing Amy,'' showed the script to Kevin Smith, the writer and director of that film, and his producer, Scott Mosier. They, in turn, sent the script to Miramax, which promptly optioned it for more than $800,000. This covered the costs of Castle Rock's investment. (Mr. Smith and Mr. Mosier are executive producers.)
    Mr. Weinstein of Miramax said the company had never paid so much money for a script. ''This was just an incredible story, about South Boston meets M.I.T.,'' he said. ''It was so emotional. It hit me personally. I'm a kid from Queens who moved into the rarefied world of Manhattan. When I read the screenplay it affected me. And it was a poignant love story.'' In the meantime, Mr. Williams's agent at Creative Artists, Mike Menchel, called Mr. Bender to say that he had read the script and wanted Mr. Williams to be in the movie. ''I was blown away by that phone call,'' Mr. Bender said. ''I didn't expect Robin Williams.''
    The involvement of Mr. Williams, who had a limited time frame, gave even more urgency to the project.
    ''The script wasn't a stopping point once we began making the movie,'' said Mr. Van Sant. ''Improvisation extended to shooting the film. These guys had lived with these characters for so long and were so immersed in the project that they actually became the people they portrayed. I've never seen anything quite like it.''
    Although the two actor-writers had a more than usual proprietary interest in the script, they didn't throw their weight around. ''They told Gus: 'You're the director; we'll do whatever you want us to do. We're totally in your hands,' '' Mr. Bender recalled. ''It was great.''
  • And this was from a NY Times article on Gus Van Sant in November 97:
    ''Good Will Hunting'' came to life in 1991 as a one-act play without an ending. Mr. Damon, then an undergraduate student at Harvard, had written it for a play-writing class. ''I went to the teacher and said, 'I'm sorry, I don't know how to end this,' '' the actor recalled. ''The teacher said, 'You should write this as a whole movie because it's really good,' and he gave me an A in the class anyway.''
    Of course, Mr. Van Sant did not set out to make ''Good Will Hunting'' hyperrealistic -- what Robin Williams movie is? Nor is the film peopled with characters who live anywhere near the outskirts of society. ''You don't see it and want to go home and open a vein,'' said Ms. Driver. ''But it doesn't go into the messy business of being alive any less profoundly because it doesn't have an unhappy ending.''

• From the Big Matt Fan:
  FYI: As if this were news, "Ocean's 11" continues to do extremely well oversees, even better than in the US. From Zap2It:
  'Ocean's Eleven,' 'Monsters,' 'Rings' Still Reign at Overseas Box Office By Brandon Gray
  February 26, 2002
  HOLLYWOOD (Zap2it.com) � "Ocean's Eleven," "Monsters, Inc." and "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" remained firmly entrenched in the win, place and show positions at the overseas box office for the weekend ending Feb. 24. "Ocean's Eleven" rolled passed its $181.7 million domestic take internationally, reaching $183.1 million after a $19.1 million weekend from 4,493 theaters across 46 countries. The all-star Rat Pack remake registered No. 1 bows in Brazil ($1.3 million from 296 sites) and across Eastern Europe, and stayed on top for the fourth straight week in Japan, where it's amassed $34.2 million to date.
  BTW: Random Matt reference of the day. Over the weekend, I read Wendy Holden's "Farm Fatale: A Comedy of Country Manors," an amusing little novel about a young Londonite who moves to the countryside with her writer boyfriend. At one point in the novel, the boyfriend decides to try screenwriting in an effort to become "the British Matt Damon." In a later scene, he works with a self-important, idiotic, minor actress who throws about names such as "Gwynnis Paltrow, "Brad Reeves," and "Kevin Spacek." However, the actress complains about the script because "Matt or Bill, er, Ben" wouldn't possibly take the role as written. Just another example of how Matt has penetrated pop culture, not just domestically, but internationally.

• Kerry wrote:
  hey got you a pic of matt from UK mag (total fim )
• From Kay:
  News from USA Today Life section reported by Susan Wloszczyna:
  From the horse's mouth: Damon rides with 'Sprite' The star of All the Pretty Horses will talk for one. Matt Damon does the equine narration for the animated Western Sprite: Stallion of the Cimarron, out May 24. Instead of making like a cartoon Mr. Ed, Sprite - a captured wild mustang who struggles to regain his freedom - shares his thoughts without speaking. That's where Damon takes over the reins. "We spent four years trying to find the perfect voice that could capture a sprited heroic character," says Dream Works' animation overseer, Jeffrey Katzenberg. "Matt had everything we hoped for, a genuine enthusiasm for life that comes through melodically in his voice." Eight new songs written and sung by Bryan Adams also fill in the story blanks.
  Damon even got to meet the real-life model for Sprite in the horse flesh. "It was a beautiful thing, those two together," says Katzenberg, who adds with chuckle, "They did have a contest over who was the bigger star."
• Felicity also sent in the same bit about 'Sprite', as well as other items:
  • An early positive review of the film ('Sprite') was at AICN, but some of the talkback was worrying. The film will have a very simplistic storyline, its primary audience is kids, and it opens two days after Star Wars: here
    and Jawad's Dreamworks page on the film.
  • From the NY Post Friday - does this sound right!?
    MATT Damon drinking scotch and smoking big cigars at Hudson Bar & Books with two older male friends.
  • News about a project we're watching - from Salon, talking about Mel Gibson's involvement:
    And as for the adaptation of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" he's been working on, he's not even thinking of putting his joints through a turn in that.
    "I'm way too old for 'Fahrenheit,'" Gibson says. "It needs Brad Pitt at his prime-time, butt-kicking best."
  • ET Thursday included some out-takes of Matt and Ben cracking up on the set of "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back". It's one of the additions on the DVD out soon.

• From a Big Matt Fan:
  FYI: Photo of Matt at http://www.darkhorizons.com/news.htm.
  (Also shown as today's feature pic)
• Our thanks to Kathryn, who wrote:
  ... here's some info on Franka which I found on IGN "Celeb of the Day": ml. It makes reference to her official site (didn't know she had one) which can be found at http://www.franka-potente.de/

  Here are two bits of news (of sorts) from Dark Horizons:
  

  First, a new photo from Bourne, here. This was the URL referenced in yesterday's Horizons update.
  Second, one Gerry still, located here
  (Again, shown as today's feature pic)
• Rebecca wrote:
  This is from New Idea
  Ben Affleck doesn't want to go down the Matthew Perry road to alcohol recovery by stacking on the kilos. He's beefed up since coming out of rehab, so close pal Matt Damon has stopped boozing in sympathy support. He even joined Ben for a week at a strict and expensive Palm Springs health retreat, where they lived on juices, went for long hikes and came home much slimmer.

• Karthryn wrote:
  Here's a little mention in an article from the New York Times:
  Excerpt (Bourne influence?):
  BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. � Mark Canton, in his fourth day on the job as chief executive of Artists Production Group, the moviemaking offshoot of Michael Ovitz's Artists Management Group, sat at one end of the coffee table. Joel Gotler, head of A.M.G./Renaissance, the company's literary division, sat at the other. "O.K.," Mr. Canton said, "Pitch me. I've only got a few minutes."
  The office was nearly bare, outlines of pictures on walls left unpainted since the departure of the previous occupant. In his three decades in the movie business, Mr. Canton had been president of production at Warner Brothers by age 29 and chairman of Sony's Columbia-TriStar Pictures by 39. Now, at 52, a half-dozen years after being fired by Sony, followed by four years as an independent producer, here he was, back in the mogul game.
  Mr. Gotler started in: "Chasing the Dime" was a new thriller from Michael Connelly, about a computer scientist ("Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, whoever you want") who suddenly finds himself caught in webs of betrayal. There are plot twists, double-crosses, triple-crosses.
  "This could be a good George Clooney," Mr. Canton said. Mr. Gotler nodded readily.
  "O.K., enough," Mr. Canton said, catching Mr. Gotler in mid-sentence, only a few minutes into the pitch. "It's O.K. We want it. Go make the deal."
• From Felicity:
  • pictures of Matt and Penelope originally appeared on the Splash News website on 18 January. More from the series are at the site.
  • From the NY Post:
    SWEET SCHEME
    GEORGE Clooney is rolling in dough, but he's not beneath scamming free pastry from unsuspecting eateries. Clooney, who's filming "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" in Montreal, was dining with Steven Soderbergh and co-star Matt Damon at a local Italian joint the other night when he told the waiter it was Soderbergh's birthday, prompting him to bring out a cake and serenade the "Ocean's 11" director. But when one of the cuties at Clooney's table ran into our spy in the ladies room, she confided, "It's not Steven's birthday. We do this everywhere so we can get free cake."

• Thank you, Nasreen, for sharing this:
  hi, i come here almost daily, and i haven't seen u post this interview of matt with this magazine called flimfare...its a indian magazine. its a nice short interview with a nice pic... also, this has interviews of andy garcia and george clooney...matt's is the last one. thanks for your time...i hope u like it...and u will have to cut and paste
  See the article here The text of the interview is as follows:
  MATT DAMON
  Style: Black cotton shirt over white vest, white jeans, Nike keds, long drags of Camel cigarettes and chattier than a long-lost buddy. Career high points: Won Oscar for Best Screenplay for Good Will Hunting along with Ben Affleck. Gathered hosannas for acting in Mystic Pizza, Good Will Hunting, The Talented Mr Ripley, Saving Private Ryan, Courage Under Fire and The Rainmaker.

  How come you haven't authored another screenplay after winning an Oscar for Good Will Hunting?
  (Smiles) That's a sore topic with me. Wish I could put pen down to paper soon. The thing is that Ben (Affleck) and I were struggling actors when we wrote Good Will Hunting. We thought the screenplay would lead to acting offers... and they did. Now since that has happened, Ben and I've been caught up in front of the camera instead of behind it. Logistically, it's impossible for us to get together, we're almost always in different parts of the world. Like I'm in London today and he's in Tokyo. Still, recently we were chatting on the phone, promising to each other that we should sit down and give a bash to another script.

  How did you two collaborate in the writing?
  Ben and I've known each other as kids, we grew up together. Our visual sense and our sense of humour are pretty much the same. We work out of the same reservoir of ideas. We tend to think the same way and (laughs) more often than not, we end up falling in love with the same kind of girl. Just kidding really.

  What kind of a theme would inspire you today?
  I wonder. Because America is so different after Septemeber 11. Since the movies must reflect the state of the country, the themes will have to be updated. I was in New York when the WTC devastation happened. It was very eye-opening for Americans to feel vulnerable. That's not something that they're very culturally used to. We tend to be ethno-centric geographically, we tend to be self-absorbed. Perhaps now there will be a greater realisation, a greater global understanding. Must tell you that I've been wanting to go to India since the last five years, I've been working on my trip consistently. Would love to get there... and see some Indian cinema... obviously since you guys make the largest number of movies in the world. I've just seen Salaam Bombay on DVD and would love to catch up on Satyajit Ray's work.

  Finally, any directors you regret not having worked with?
  Two of the great masters particularly--Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.

  Khalid Mohamed

  (The article came with a photo, shown as today's feature pic.)
• Thanks, Erika, for sending this in:
  Here is an article (with pictures) I got from the Feb. 25 issue of US Weekly Magazine. The article entitled "Cruz and Damon Say Hello" was featured in the "Faces & Places" section.
  
  
• Sarah is also thanked for alerting us to the same scoop:
  Hey!! I have a scoop for you, there are multiple pics of Matt and Penelope Cruz in the recnt issue of US magazine. They had a chance meeting outside of Armini.
• Felicity wrote:
  • Another Ocean's Eleven interview with an Indian-based publication from Katie's George site at: here - Note: this is the same one mentioned by Nasreen.
  • A separate radio interview is at here.
  • I will admit that I've been waiting six weeks for a DVD of "White River" from the US. You may remember that the film is Odessa's only credit on IMDB, and it has never received a wide release. I haven't watched the whole film (only bits on fast forward) but it has lived up to its dreadful reputation, and reviews.
    Odessa's credited as Timberfest Queen, and her part is as bad as could be expected. It's not a speaking role, and she's in two shots only, very briefly, as part of a group of blonde bimbo festival contestants (who are not credited). In the first shot she's leading the group smiling, wearing a tiara and holding a saw, which Antonio Banderas touches and keeps walking. The second is a long-shot of the contestants with Odessa raising the saw in triumph on the podium.
    She's wearing the same gear as the other 'contestants' and it's pretty tacky: hot pink t-shirt and white shorts. Her hair is long, blondish (but almost orange) and curly. I don't think she would agree that it was her finest hour - it's not gratuitous, but it's pretty cheesy and I'd love to know the story of why she did it.

• Kathryn of Edinburg wrote:
  I got the chance to see 011 last night and really liked it. I thought it was a very funny and charming film, and Matt did his best with the material (the character of Linus was badly written and lacking - I didn't really understand the dialogue concerning his father, for example - perhaps there wasn't enough background material). The 'Ripley' get-up made me smile, and there were a few very good lines, although most of those seemed to go to Brad Pitt (who, IMO, gets better-looking - sexier - by the day :). I was confused by a couple of sequences, for example, when Linus leaves the van and goes into the Cal Research building, it's not clear where he goes; by the time Clooney et al are in the van, we're left looking at alternating shots of figures which cut to Linus crashing through a window. The same with the end sequence at the fountain: I didn't really understand what it was there for, or what kind of significance it had for the characters. So, my conclusion? All that aside, it's a great, fun movie. Matt looks gorgeous in suits; he should wear them more often. :)

• Cathy wrote:
  I thought I'd pass on to you that Matt is in the March In Style. He's in the "Culture Club" section where celebrities recommend a cd, book or video. His video recommendation was "Rififi" by Jules Dassin. He says that "It's the greatest heist movie of all time, plus it's great fun to watch. It's got that whole Robin Hood plot thing going on."
  Seems like his movie choice was influenced by Oceans Eleven, maybe?
• And in spite of a no-news weekend, Felicity managed to come up with these finds to share:
  • Happy long weekend everyone - virtually no news around.
  • From EW online, a list of Greenlight's winners and losers, but Matt barely scores a mention (unlike Ben): here
  • From Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times, a very positive review of the Greenlight series, including this paragraph:
    Affleck and Matt Damon came across as Ben Affleck and Matt Damon--charming, smart, talented and lucky boys who were sincerely trying to give someone else a major break. (And they both smoke too much--though the alcoholic drinks disappeared from Affleck's grasp by the end of the series, when he was in post-rehab mode.) Damon in particular shows a strong talent for script vivisection in pre- and post-production meetings. If there was any lingering doubt that these guys are a couple of "himbos" who lucked out with the "Good Will Hunting" script, it should be erased by this series. source.
  • From Star Magazine:
    Best pals Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, along with Ben's brother Casey recently checked into We Care, an exclusive and expensive diet retreat near Palm Springs. The boys lived on juices for their one-week stay, went on early morning 5-mile walks and were given daily colonics to cleanse their systems. It worked! They each left around 10 pounds lighter...
  • From a press release shown earlier:
    Universal City, California, November 2, 2001 - Universal Pictures has set a May 31 release date for director Doug Liman's big-screen adaptation of acclaimed novelist Robert Ludlum's best-selling spy thriller, The Bourne Identity, starring Matt Damon and Franke Potente, it was announced by Nikki Rocco, president, Universal Pictures Distribution.
    In announcing the release date, Ms. Rocco said, "We think The Bourne Identity will be the perfect film for summer movie audiences - an exciting, fast-paced adventure-thriller based on a classic work of fiction with a real movie-star hero, lots of dramatic European locations and big production values."
    (That was before Sum of all Fears changed its release date.)
  • The extras on the Ocean's 11 DVD are:
    Theatrical Trailers
    Behind-the-scenes featurette
    "Are You In or Out?" HBO Special
    "The Cook of a Con" featurette
    Commentary by Steven Soderbergh and cast members
  • Snarky but almost true comment from an Amazon review of Ocean's 11:
    Matt Damon is a complete waste. Didn't he write "Good Will Hunting" to get out of playing underwritten cardboard parts like this?
  • From a story about Boston's Wheelock Family Theater in the Globe:
    Those programs have their share of famous alumni - Joey McIntyre once got a part after Matt Damon turned it down for a soccer commitment - but what pleases the directors even more is the effect they can have on children who may never go on to an acting career.
  • From Jeanette Wells' gossip newsletter, and her advice to Chelsea Clinton:
    Celeb boyfriends: Ian Klause, your Oxford classmate who is rumored to be your boyfriend, is a cutie, but dating a celeb is the best career kick-starter in the world. Just ask Gwyneth or J. Lo. But not all male arm candy is created equal. The ultimate hottie catch out there is Prince William, but don't hold your breath on that one. (Do a little research on Britney Spears' failed efforts on that front.) Others celeb hunks on the Scoop's approved list: Heath Ledger, Josh Hartnett, and Matt Damon (even though Matt may or may not have the ungentlemanly habit of dumping girlfriends on the "Oprah Winfrey Show"). Damon's sidekick, Ben Affleck is a less wise choice.

• A quote from Billy Bob Thornton in a September 01 flight magazine:
  Q: Matt Damon, who starred in All the Pretty Horses, isn't exactly an unknown actor.
  A: I knew that I was going to have to choose a movie star. So out of the array of movie stars I had to choose from, Matt's the one that made the most sense. Matt has the intelligence and the wit of an adult, and yet he still has innocence; he's a sweet guy.
• A page of media clips from Bagger Vance, which includes interviews with the cast, photos from production etc. http://www.savannahnow.com/features/baggervance/media/

• Kelly wrote:
  Matt Damon nominated for Best Actor at the Ac...
  Just kidding. But I did find a nice review of Gerry over at dvdtalk.com, available here:
  Gus Van Sant Gets Abstract with Gerry
  Review by Geoffrey Kleinman
  "It's been a long time since I saw a movie that was equally loved and hated by an audience than Gerry. Perhaps it's the expectation that the re-pairing of star Matt Damon and Director Gus Van Sant would be more 'Good Will Hunting' and less 'Waiting for Godot' that effects going into this film so greatly. Maybe it's the sheer shock of a 103 minute movie with maybe 30 words of dialogue which makes Gerry such a hotly debatable film.
  As I sat squirming in my seat looking at my watch for over an hour and a half, waiting for SOMETHING to happen, I had a flashback to my experimental film class back at Ithaca College. I remember a film that was just over an hour of a camera tumbling down the side of a mountain. I found myself wrestling with the question: Is Gerry art or entertainment? And do I love it or hate it?
  The truth is, now several days after watching the film, I find it hard to definitively love or hate Gerry. The film is sort of an enigma, one that really requires a second viewing, yet was so 'difficult' to sit through the first time around that it hard to imagine watching it again.
  One of the most frustrating things about Gerry is that there are some simply amazing moments in the film, but they are surrounded by such emptiness, such tediousness that it's hard to enjoy the film as a whole.
  Based entirely around two characters, Gerry follows two guys (both named Gerry) as they get lost in the desert. Much of the film simply follows them as they are lost showing brilliant (even awe inspiring) desolate vistas, and not much else. In the 103 mins of the film the two Gerrys talk to each other only a handful of times, and each time the dialogue is as sparse as the desert. Both stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are given writing credits on the film along with Gus Van Sant, but the truth is the entire dialogue of the film could easily been written on the back of a napkin. It's that sparse.
  What dialogue there is, is very entertaining. It's often fairly random and feels extremely improvisational, and I kept wanting to hear more of it. Is that Gus Van Sant's clever hand or just a great lack of dialogue? I have no idea!
  If you can get past the extreme vast emptiness of Gerry and are willing to squirm in your seat for over an hour, there really is something extraordinary here. It's not often that 'successful' or 'big name' actors and directors take such huge risks with a film, and Gerry is a risk that is sure to challenge you in a way no other films do.
  Because Gerry is anything but 'main stream,' it's unlikely that it will get very broad distribution. I was able to see the film as part of the Portland International Film Festival, and I'm sure in the near term the festival circuit will be the only place to see this film. But I do hope it finds its way onto DVD. I'd love to have a commentary track not only from the makers of the film but art/cinema critics giving their take on this truly unique film.
  When I left the theater I was sure I was going to give Gerry a SKIP IT recommendation, but after letting it 'cook' in my head for a while and really mulling over it, I'm going to RECOMMEND it with the caviate that you need to know what you're signing yourself up for when you go see this movie. Gerry is the perfect movie to go to with a group of friends and then grab a cup of coffee (or other adult beverage) and discuss. Some are sure to hate this film, while others may love it. Where am I on that scale? I'm still not sure."
• A Matt fan from Belgrad , Yugoslavia wrote:
  While I was surfing the internet , I found the article " all about Ripley" . I sow film twice , and every time I was fascinated with strong performance of Matt Damon . I didn't like him as actor before this role , because he was nothing less than ambitious Hollywood boy. With this role , transfigured by Italy , he touched the deepest darkness of soul , and gave so much of real him . I think that scene when he sings My funny Valentine , is one of mostly complexes acting scenes in last decade ...as well weakness that sudden transform of darkness is never seen before on screen ...
• Felicity wrote:
  • Here's an article about Gerry from the Portland Tribune thanks to Chad and his Gus Van Sant site at
  • Of interest: Matt is rumored to have bought Gus Van Sant's farm in central Oregon. The article is at here.
  • From USA Today
    NBC lands gold with Games, 'Will & Grace'
    By Gary Levin
    An Olympics-fueled week of the February sweeps period was easily dominated by NBC's coverage, including a record-setting opening ceremony (average audience: nearly 46 million).
    But the network had other high points. Comedy Will & Grace attracted a series-high 25.3 million viewers with an episode guest-starring Matt Damon.
    ... the final episode of Project Greenlight was watched by 3.7 million viewers.
  • From Variety:
    NBC also saw series-record numbers for Matt Damon's guest appearance on Thursday's "Will & Grace (news - Y! TV)" (25.30 million, 13.6/31 in adults 18-49);

• Christine wrote:
  I found a wonderful site for anyone who missed Matt's appearance on W&G last week (or for those, like me, who saw it and are still laughing!). Go to www.feedroom.com and you will find a menu of video news clips. W&G appears on the third menu page. It contains clips from the episode, as well as interviews with Matt, Sean Hayes, Debra Messing and an appearance by David Spade (who stopped by the set). It's a great video! (But I think you must have Windows Media Player to view it!)
  Happy surfing,
  Christine
• Jennifer wrote:
  This is a hillarious take on Matt's appearance on W&G, tying in his comment about boyfriend "Ben".
  From Infobeat entertainment newsletter 2-11-02
  Is Matt in Love with Ben?
  World Entertainment News Network--MATT DAMON has been poking fun at his friendship with his GOOD WILL HUNTING co-star BEN AFFLECK - by claiming the two are now lovers.
  WILL & GRACE fans saw OCEAN'S ELEVEN star Damon grilled by SEAN HAYES' gay character JACK on American television last night.
  Damon plays a singer who pretends to be homosexual to gain access to the New York Gay Men's Chorus - and Jack feels sure his rival is straight.
  And when Jack tries to catch Damon's character out by quizzing him about his private life, Damon says his long-standing high school boyfriend is called Ben.
  Damon won't be the last movie star to show up as a guest on top American sitcom Will & Grace - MICHAEL DOUGLAS and GLENN CLOSE have also been earmarked for upcoming roles.
• Felicity wrote:
  • Here are some interesting statistics re US boxoffice returns.

    Saving Private Ryan    $216,335,085
    Ocean's Eleven         $180,548,000 (worldwide $291,500,000)
    Good Will Hunting      $138,433,435
    Talented Mr Ripley     $  81,292,135
    School Ties            $  14,715,000
    

    Looking back Ripley did very well, but is often mistakenly viewed as a failure. Good Will Hunting also had video returns of $53,988,000 (very high). The other figures aren't worth including! Figures courtesy of http://www.the-numbers.com.

  • From the Chicago Sun-Times: BIG DEBUT: First-time director Pete Jones and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are expected on our home turf on March 12 for the world premiere of their Project Greenlight project "Stolen Summer." The film, the subject of the fascinating HBO behind-the-scenes series, opens on March 22.

• A Big Matt Fan Wrote:
  RE: Project Greenlight. Matt did appear in more of the last episode of Project Greenlight. He is shown giving input. At Ben's house, Matt told Pete Jones that some of the scenes with the kids look staged. In an editing room, Matt explained to Jones that much of what he saw seemed melodratic, with a demonstration of what he meant. In both cases, Matt seemed remarkably gentle and diplomatic, and Pete seemed to take the advice surprisingly well. There was a scene of Pete explaining to Matt his desire to shoot additional scenes, and scenes at Sundance where Matt talked to reporters about how Pete, "did a really good job." When Pete Jones arrived, Matt directed attention to him and gallantly slipped away. Interspersed throughout are various interview snippets where Matt talks about Jones and the process.
  My take on the show: fascinating, absorbing stuff, though one senses that much was left out, with only the most contentious and difficult sequences shown. It looks like the most problematic scenes they shot did not make the final edit. They were poorly planned, badly executed, and thus, not worth putting into the film--though they made for great drama for the TV show. The scenes that seemed to work best, for the most part, did not get much air time on HBO.
  Though Soderbergh knows Matt, his comments suggest that a lot of industry people have been watching the show. I remember thinking that "Ocean's" was the absolute opposite of "Stolen Summer"--big stars, huge budget, an experienced, award-winning director. However, the fact that he can relate to the show makes one think that the sort of production problems on the show are much more common than one would think.
  It's hard to say how this show will affect Matt. He's never depicted badly, but you really only see a small part of his input. However, one can't help but recognize the genius in developing a series that promotes a film that promotes a series. If even one were successful, Live Planet would benefit. However, there are indications that in fact, both may be.
  BTW: Should have mentioned before that the Feb. 8 edition of Entertainment Weekly had a photo of Matt, Casey, and Gus at Sundance. Matt looked cute, wearing what else? His favorite black sweater.
• Felicity wrote:
  • On the PGL site there's also footage of Matt in the editing room (I think).
  • Another new twist on the Ocean's cast interviews from the British Empire magazine, and again reprinted at Katie's George site.
    Some quotes:
    EMPIRE: Jerry says this movie is about the work. What aspect did you find the most challenging?
    GEORGE: (deadpan) Working with a hangover.
    DON: (to Matt) I was gonna say your lay-up. That was probably the most challenging thing.
    MATT: Yeah, I hadn't played basketball in a while. (smiles) I had absolutely no challenge making this movie. I gambled, played golf with these guys, went out at night and ate at every single restaurant they had at all these hotels. I spent most of my time feeling guilty for how hard Steve was working.
    EMPIRE: So while Steven was struggling, you were all having a good time?
    GEORGE: We are a crew that will party at the drop of a dime. ANDY: Before it drops.
    GEORGE: We'd get to Chicago for two days and [the crew] said, "We're gonna have an opening party for Chicago," and we're like, "Okay." And two days later, "We're having a leaving Chicago party." "Okay."
    MATT: (brightly) That was my first two days of work. I showed up from the set of this other movie where I had been doing six-day weeks for seven months, and they're having a 'Welcome To Chicago' party bigger than any party I ever had on this other movie. And then two days later they have a party that tops that one. After that I was off for a couple of weeks and I needed the vacation.
    DON: From the parties.
    GEORGE: Matt came off of working three movies, back to back, (gesturing to Matt) in which you were in every scene? (Matt nods) Had to carry all of it. And we're all getting drunk the first night, and he's like, "I'm beat. I'm beat from doing this. I need to get the love of doing it again. I need to get my mojo back." MATT: Steven and I got really drunk that night, and Steven just put his drink down and said, "You're gonna get your mojo back on this one.
    Int. a hotel bar - Chicago. April, 2001. It is Matt Damon's third day of work on Ocean's 11 and his second party. Matt turns to Steven and raises his glass. "It's back," he says. "It's back."
  • Bourne Identity sounds as if it was a really rough shoot - remember the comment from Julia Stiles that Matt seemed stressed while she was there. It's almost unfair that Ocean's was so untroubled, and so successful, while Bourne is likely to be the complete opposite.
    Bourne also has a new listed cast member - Gabriel Mann (Josie and the Pussycats, Abandon).

• From Eonline's TV scoop:
  Despite the September 11-inspired cancellation of The Runner for this season, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and producers Chris Moore and Sean Bailey (the guys behind Project Greenlight) have another reality series on deck at ABC. Push, Nevada features contestants and viewers, via the Web, searching for real "buried" treasures.
  Project Greenlight, by the way, wraps its season Sunday on HBO (9:30 p.m.), and the show's Website has info on the very funny "Chris Moore Challenge" impersonation contest, complete with video of Affleck's tips on exactly how to mimic the suddenly famous Moore. You can also vote on which viewer impression will snag a trip to a screening of Stolen Summer, the movie Project Greenlight launches in March.
• A story on PGL and the conclusion of the series from the St Petersburg Times: here.
• The final Greenlight episode involves Matt and Ben, so the website has some information which may be of interest, including video of Matt impersonating Chris Moore: here.
• Another story and photos from the Paul Pierce charity softball event last year - from nba.com here.
• From Katie's George Clooney site:
  Ocean's Eleven will be released on VHS/DVD in the US on May 7 2002.
  A cast interview from UK magazine Total Film: here
  Note this comment re gambling losses:
  Clooney: Casey Affleck lost. They wouldn't let him back into the casino for a while.
• For Silke of Germany:
  A transcript, audio and video clips from the Will & Grace episode will be online within a couple of weeks at "Rob's Will & Grace Page": here.
  I'll post a link when they're available.
  The episode may also be viewed at mirc.com (according to a fan bulletin board). The IRC software has to be downloaded first.

• Christine wrote:
  Access Hollywood (Weekend Edition) had a story on Project Greenlight and "Stolen Summer." As we all know, the film was a hit at Sundance and Matt & Ben are already working on a PG sequel. Ben was quoted as saying about the Stolen Summer script: "If it works, it's 'Stand by Me.' If it doesn't, it's the afterschool special I did when I was 13."
• Felicity wrote:
  • Gerry will be showing at the Portland International Film Festival, held from February 8-23. Screenings are only on February 9 and 10.
    The Portland Mercury in its preview isn't exactly a fan:
    Gerry (dir. Gus Van Sant, USA)
    Gerry, the latest feature from hometown director Gus Van Sant, is the story of two friends (Casey Affleck and Matt Damon) who go hiking out in the desert and get lost And that's it. 110 minutes of barely any dialogue and long non-edited shots of the boys hoofing it through a barren wasteland. But let me make something perfectly clear: When I say "long non-edited shots," I mean shots that can last up to EIGHT minutes. And when that eight minutes are up, the angle is then switched to another walking shot lasting SIX minutes. In fact, I noticed someone from the audience getting up to go to the bathroom, doing their business and returning to their seat--AND IT WAS STILL THE SAME FREAKING SHOT!! Now, while some film snobby-snobs may try and convince you this is Van Sant's "cinematic homage to the work of Bela Tarr," just smile, nod, and know they're full of crap. In Gerry you cannot wait for these people to die. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
  • From the official festival site, and a comparison with Tomb Raider:
    Gerry
    Gus Van Sant's mysterious new film is another adventurous turn for a director who refuses to do the expected. Filmed in the stunning deserts of northern Argentina, Utah and Death Valley with ciniematographer Harris Sarides (Finding Forrester), Gerry falls into the category of road movie-trek movie actually-as two friends (Casey Affleck and Matt Damon) set off on foot in the wilds in search of the elusive. Calling to mind Antonioni 's searching meditations of the '60s, or perhaps the mystical quests of Andrei Tarkovsky or Bela Tarr, but with the complex and constant forward motion of Tomb Raider rather than meditative reflection. While the mystery of destination challenges, the complexities of the journey provide a visually striking opportunity to think about where you might be going and what you might find, the power of nature, and the bonds of friendship. (103 mins.) Print courtesy of My Cactus Pictures.
  • From EW via Katie's George Clooney site:
    Entertainment Weekly 2/7/02
    With Full Frontal just about finished, Steven Sodebergh has turned his attention to his remake of the 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky sci-fi flick Solaris. "We start shooting on May 1, but other than George Clooney it hasn't been cast," says the director, who wrote the script on spec for producer James Cameron. "And then I'm taking a break. [Solaris] is a culmination of a lot of things conceptually and technically for me, and it'll be a good movie to disappear after. I want to do a mini-Terrence Malick." And if you bought that, we've got a casino for you to rob. When pressed, the ultraprolific director admits he has a project to work on during his hiatus - an adaptation of the John Barth novel The Sot-Weed Factor. Well, that and watching reruns of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's Project Greenlight series. "It's jaw-dropping. That's what most movies are like. I just sit there stunned - they're getting all the s---!" he says. "And the brilliance of it is that [Stolen Summer] isn't something I'd see without this documentary. Now I'd pay $50 to see it."

• Felicity wrote:
  • The general response (to W&G) seems to be that Matt was cute and funny; the episode didn't live up to its "best ever" status, but it was a good one; yet it was all fairly tame (blaming the writers and their stereotypical characters and unwillingness to really break barriers).
    A poster on Datalounge said Matt gave an interview to a Boston NBC affiliate, mentioning that he and Sean Hayes play on the same softball team every Sunday and are close friends.
    I thought the clips shown on ET Thursday and hollywood.com were a lot of fun, but we'll get the official view soon - first ratings for the episode will be out Friday.
  • From eonline's Movie Scoop:
    After speculation voiced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon at Sundance, Fox News reports that the second season of Project Greenlight has been, well, greenlighted. But how can any writer-director top Pete Jones' temper tantrums? Just watch...
    (I can't find this Fox News report, and it's likely the second season will be officially announced at the premiere in March.)
  • An article in the Chicago Sun-Times on the conclusion of the Project Greenlight series: here
  • As a sidenote, I found a December 2001 National Enquirer today, and saw Odessa wrongly credited in a picture with Ben as romantic interest Famke Janssen. Poor Ben.
• The Big Matt Fan wrote:
  My take:
  • Personally, I loved Matt's appearance on "Will & Grace." Of course, I do like the show, I do like Sean Hayes, and I do like farce.
    One of the qualities of a good actor is the ability to adapt to his environment. Though Matt is better known for his subtlety and nuance, sitcoms (and farce) demand an entirely different style of acting--broader and bolder--the kind of performance that can be appreciated by a studio audience watching at a distance. In some ways, sitcoms are a little more like live theater than film. I was impressed with the way Matt tailored his voice and body language to fit seamlessly into the fabric of the show. Remember, too, that actors often say that comedy is much harder than people think.
    On the show, Matt seemed totally at ease, unaffected and unrestrained. He looked great, and even though he sort of played the "villain," he was irresistibly charming. There was this scene at the end where Jack tells Owen (Matt), "At least I have my dignity. What do you have?" Owen answers, "I have a free trip to Europe, a huge per diem, and chance to perform in the best venues in the world. And a winning smile." He turns his face up and gives his famous, incandescent grin. The movie star in him peeks through and captures the moment. The audience laughs. Priceless.
    I think this performance actually helps demonstrate his range and could lead to more comedic work. Honestly, I like seeing this charming, funny, light-hearted side of Matt. Don't get me wrong. I love his work in serious dramas. However, the fact that he can do comedy as well only affirms my respect for him as an actor.
  • FYI: According to the preliminary Nielson ratings, Will and Grace did quite well, better than last week, and better than CSI, which usually wins the time slot.
    Among all households, it scored a 15.6 rating and a 23 share (meaning that about 23% of all people actually watching TV at the time were watching "Will & Grace.") The first half hour of CSI (its nearest competitor), scored a 15.1/22.
    However, if you look at younger audiences, W&G's lead is even greater. Among 18-49 year-olds: 13.6/31 to 8.4/19.
    Among 13-34 year-olds: 13.9/35 to 6.3/16.
    Not surprisingly, a hefty percentage of the audience was composed of women. Here are those numbers compared to CSI's:
    Women 18-49: 16.9/35 to 9.7/20
    Women 18-34: 18.3/40 to 7.7/17 <-- Yes, 40 share! That's our demo!
    Girls 12-17: 15.6/23 to 3.0/9
• Vanessa wrote:
  New pics of Matt on www.alloverpress.com, go in archive ("Ga til arkivet") and type Matt Damon. They are pretty cute.(One of the photos is shown to the right.)
• Ali wrote:
  I really enjoyed watching Matt in Will & Grace. It looks like he really had fun and sometimes that all that matters. You could tell that he enjoyed acting with one of his friends just by the way that they easily played off one another. Everyone deserves a break from all the seriousness in their lives and I'm glad that Matt finally got his. I feel sorry for my friends on the PGL site that don't think his performance was worth all the hype it received. Call me bias, but I think that a lot of things Matt does he does because he enjoys them, regardless of what anyone else might think. That's one of the things that I like about him. I say, "You go, Matt!"
• Silke from Germany wrote:
  If you know where I can read the transcript of yesterdays Will & Grace episode with Matt, please let me know, because I'm from Germany and I can't see Will & Grace.
  Thanks in advance!!!
• More from Felicity:
  • Here's the press release from NBC:
    MATT DAMON TAKES 'WILL & GRACE' AND NBC'S THURSDAY STRAIGHT TO THE TOP
    Published: February 08, 2002
    MUST-SEE GUEST STARS PRODUCE "WILL & GRACE" RECORDS AND PRIME-TIME'S HIGHEST-RATED NON-SUPER BOWL NIGHT IN 18-49 SINCE MAY 2001
    AN ENCORE BRAD PITT APPEARANCE ON "FRIENDS" SCORES TELEVISION'S HIGHEST NON-SPORTS 18-49 RATING IN 17 WEEKS; HIGHEST ENCORE RATING FOR ANY SHOW SINCE APRIL 1998
    NBC HEADS INTO THE OLYMPICS AS THE DOMINANT ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK OF THE FEBRUARY SWEEP, THE 18-49 WINNER ON SIX OF EIGHT NIGHTS
    SINCE THE SUPER BOWL, NBC'S 18-49 SCORE IS EVEN OR UP YEAR-TO-YEAR FOUR NIGHTS IN A ROW WHILE THE OTHER MAJOR NETWORKS ARE ALL DOWN FOUR NIGHTS IN A ROW
    BURBANK, Calif. -- February 8, 2002 -- A guest appearance by Matt Damon has propelled "Will & Grace" to series-record results among adults 18-49 and total viewers, boosting NBC to prime time's highest nightlong 18-49 average, excluding Super Bowl Sunday, since May 17, 2001.
    It was a spectacular night for NBC's Thursday lineup, with an 8:30 p.m. ET encore of the Brad Pitt episode of "Friends" earning television's highest non-sports 18-49 rating in 17 weeks and highest result for an encore presentation of any program since April 1998. Also, last night's 9:30 p.m. edition of "Just Shoot Me" equaled that program's highest 18-49 rating this season and the 10 p.m. ET drama "ER" matched its second-best 18-49 score of the season. For the night, NBC beat the 18-49 scores of the other three major networks combined.
    Among adults 18-49, it was the highest-rated night of series programming on any network, excluding premieres and finales, since February 17, 2000.
    According to preliminary "fast affiliate" in-home viewing statistics from Nielsen Media Research, the 9 p.m. ET episode of "Will & Grace" (13.6 rating, 31 share among adults 18-49, 25.5 million viewers overall) set series record in multiple categories, including adults 18-49 and overall total viewers. The episode featured guest star Matt Damon as a secretly straight man competing with Jack (Sean Hayes) for a spot on the Gay Men's Chorus.
    That special casting helped "Will & Grace" dominate time-period rival "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (8.4/19 among adults 18-49, 23.4 million viewers overall from 9-9:30 p.m. ET) with a 62 percent margin of victory among adults 18-49, largest for any program over "CSI" in the time period since October 4, 2001. "Will & Grace" won the half-hour last night among total viewers and virtually every key demographic, including adults, men and women 18-34; adults, men and women 18-49; and adults, men and women 25-54.
    With those record "Will & Grace" numbers in its column, NBC more than doubled its closest pursuer for the night among adults 18-49, giving the Peacock 18-49 wins on six of eight nights for the sweep to date (including one tie). Even before the Winter Olympics, NBC is leading all networks except Super Bowl-boosted Fox for the sweep in virtually every key category, including total viewers and adults, men and women 18-34; adults, men and women 18-49; and adults, men and women 25-54.
    NBC also improved last night on its 18-49 rating for the same night of the sweep last year, meaning the network has matched or beaten its year-ago results on each of the four nights since Super Bowl Sunday, when NBC aggressively counterprogrammed the big game with special first-run segments of "Fear Factor." All three of the other major networks have been down year-to-year on each of those four nights. Since Super Bowl Sunday, NBC's lineup has led 18 of 24 prime-time half-hours among adults 18-49.
    Last night, NBC opened its phenomenal Thursday with an 8-8:30 p.m. ET edition of "Friends" (14.4/37 among adults 18-49, 28.4 million viewers) that beat the combined major network competition in virtually all key demographic categories. It was, at the time, the highest-rated non-sports telecast on any network among adults 18-49 since the October 11, 2001 edition of "Friends."
    But those 18-49 numbers were topped at 8:30 p.m. ET by the Brad Pitt rebroadcast of "Friends" (14.5/34 among adults 18-49, 27.8 million viewers overall), which achieved the highest encore 18-49 rating and viewer total for any show on any network since an April 23, 1998 rebroadcast of "Seinfeld" (16.5/40 among adults 18-49, 30.3 million viewers overall).
    After the record "Will & Grace" numbers at 9 p.m. ET, "Just Shoot Me" (10.6/24 among adults 18-49, 19.4 million viewers overall) matched its highest 18-49 rating since January 4, 2001. "Just Shoot Me" defeated the second half of "CSI" (9.3/21 among adults 18-49, 25.3 million viewers overall from 9:30-10 p.m. ET) among adults, men and women 18-34 and adults, men and women 18-49.
    And at 10 p.m., "ER" (14.0/35 among adults 18-49, 27.4 million viewers overall) stretched NBC's advantages by virtually destroying its time-period rivals. "ER" more than doubled the combined competition of CBS' "The Agency" (3.7/9 among adults 18-49, 10.8 million viewers overall) and ABC's "PrimeTime Thursday" (2.5/6 among adults 18-49, 8.3 million viewers overall) in several categories, including adults, men and women 18-34, adults and women 18-49 and women 25-54. "ER" matched its highest 18-49 rating since the medical drama's September 27, 2001 season premiere.
    Preliminary nightlong adult 18-49 averages were: NBC, 13.5/32; CBS, 6.0/14; Fox, 2.3/6; ABC, 2.3/5. Last night's total viewer averages were: NBC, 26.0 million; CBS, 17.5 million; ABC, 7.9 million; Fox, 4.9 million.
    For the night, NBC was up over results for the second Thursday of the February 2001 sweep by 14 percent (with a 13.5 rating vs. a 11.8), CBS was down 28 percent (6.0 vs. 8.3); Fox was down 30 percent (2.3 vs. 3.3) and ABC was down 32 percent (2.3 vs. 3.4).
  • And more from the Big Matt Fan:
    In the final overall ratings, CSI did squeak by Will & Grace due to old people and teenage boys. (15.8/23 to 15.5/23)
    Will & Grace won every demographic except Adults 55+ (14.5/25 to 5.4/9) and Males 12-17 (4.1/12 to 3.9/12), but those groups were enough to nose CSI ahead.
    However, you really have to look at the demographics to understand Will & Grace's success. Take away the elderly, and Will and Grace win by a landslide, 13.6/31 to CSI's 9.0/20 for Adults 18-49.
    Moreover, Matt's episode was a huge jump over Will & Grace's usual ratings. For example, among Adults 18-49, the last four episodes had the following shares:
    (Jan. 10) 21 share
    (Jan. 17) 21 share
    (Jan. 24) 7.6 share (re-run)
    (Jan. 31) 22 share (Rosie O'Donnell episode)
    (Feb. 1) 31 (Matt's episode) Again, that means that of all viewers 18-49, 31% were watching Matt. That's an enormous improvement. Here are the shares for competing network shows airing at the same time: CSI--20, Temptation Island 2--6, WWF Smackdown--6, Charmed--5, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?--4. As you can see, in that demographic, no other show even came close.
    I hope all this ratings stuff isn't too boring. I just wanted to show that Matt's appearance was really much more successful that it might appear at first glance.
    ...Yes, the Brad Pitt re-run still beat Matt's "Will & Grace." However, you have to realize that "Friends" is still a far more successful show with a much broader following. Matt's appearance gave "Will & Grace" its best ratings ever, but it's hard to compete with a juggernaut like "Friends," even in repeats. And of course, some people will never really warm up to a gay themed comedy.
    This ratings news is good for Matt, proving that he does, in fact, have drawing power

• Some early looks at Will & Grace, with the first one from the Boston Herald:
  Damon goes all out for `Will'
  by Mark Perigard
  Thursday, February 7, 2002
  Matt Damon sings! Hear him warble a bit of a show tune, anyway, in ``Will & Grace'' tonight at 9 on WHDH (Ch. 7).
  The Cambridge movie star plays Owen, a straight guy angling for the last spot in a gay men's chorus so he can win a trip to Europe. In an epic battle of halfwits, Jack (Sean Hayes) tries to ``in'' him, using Grace (Debra Messing) as the bait. Owen's cover story involves a long-term relationship with a high school boyfriend named . . . Ben.
  Like most episodes of the camp hit, the show flies with jokes predicated on stereotypes and sexual innuendo. In the ``B'' storyline, thanks to a lie by Karen (Megan Mullally), Will (Eric McCormack) starts picking up a lot more clients - who think he's a gigolo.
  Damon is a good sport with all the silliness, though, and seems more at ease here in the sitcom than he has in his last three films. If you are planning to tape, remember this is one of NBC's ``super-sized'' sitcoms, a sweeps stunt that will find this episode running four minutes longer.
• Great review from tvguide.com
  GOING TO THE MATT
  Ah, sweet sweeps. Where else but in a network's quest for Nielsen numbers would you find a serious film actor like Matt Damon on a TV sitcom like Will & Grace? And portraying a scalawag pretending to be a homosexual?
  It's called stunt casting, folks, and NBC is making hay of it a day before its wall-to-wall Olympic coverage begins. Last week, Ray Liotta and Jay Leno appeared as themselves on Just Shoot Me; and Rosie O'Donnell played the no-nonsense single mom who raised Jack's son on Will & Grace. Later this month, Roy Scheider and rapper Method Man appear on Third Watch; Michael Keaton guest stars on Frasier; Regis Philbin's co-anchor Kelly Ripa is Ed's mystery woman; and Suzanne Pleshette and Sandra Bernhard show up on a two-part Will & Grace.
  Stunt or not, Damon's appearance refreshes this series, which has lost some zip this season. For example, the episodes early on featuring Woody Harrelson as Grace's live-in lover, the crude yet endearing Nathan, initially sparkled but fizzed out as the character was being fazed out. The best entry by far was the Thanksgiving show: a freewheeling road trip in which the principal characters accompanied one another on contentious and uncomfortable visits with relatives.
  Here, their interaction with Damon energizes Sean Hayes's Jack and Debra Messing's Grace. In the story, Damon plays a clever charmer named Owen who's competing against Jack for a spot in New York's Gay Men's Chorus. But Owen is totally straight and is angling for the chorus's big perk: a summer trip to Europe, all-expenses-paid. Damon, who's done very little comedy on the big screen but showed a nice light touch in the recent Ocean's Eleven, is dandy from the get-go: belting out a solo verse from "Let's Hear It for the Boy" at his callback and matching bitchy quips with a catty Jack, who knows that Owen isn't gay when he ogles one of the chorus's female assistants.
  So Jack tries to catch Owen in his lie with a prying interrogation. "What gym do you go to?" Jack asks. "Why haven't I seen you at the clubs? And who have we slept with in common?" Nonplussed, Owen fires back that "I work out at home. I'm allergic to smoke. And I'm in a long-term relationship with my high-school boyfriend." Hayes and Damon are obviously having fun playing off one another, and that rapport is felicitous. Later, Jack turns to Grace for help, whose seductive attempts to "in" Owen - and revalidate herself as a femme fatale - unfold as a cleverly written scene in which Damon reveals a real flair for farce.
  Guest shots on TV by top-name celebrities usually flop because their personas - and egos - intrude. Not so with Damon. He really gets into the quirky, silly spirit of Will & Grace, drawing on his considerable skill and charm to create a fluffy yet endearing character. Let's hear it for the boy. - Skip Carrington
• A review of a new biography on Gus Van Sant: here.
• From USA Today: The most publicized event tonight is the guest arrival of Matt Damon on Will & Grace (9 ET/PT) in a hilarious episode that lives up to the hype. Damon plays Owen, a candidate for Manhattan's Gay Chorus who is competing with Jack for the last choral spot and a free trip to Europe. Jack is sure Owen is straight, but Owen vigorously denies the sordid rumor. ("I'm as gay as the locker room at the Ice Capades.") Add in two funny subplots, as Grace fears she has lost her touch as a flirt and Karen tells her friends at a society function that Will is her paid companion, and you have an excellent episode - one in which the free-flowing insults are all the funnier for being aimed outside the show's family.
• UK show "Big Breakfast" will have interviews with the Ocean's cast on Friday.
• A new show from LivePlanet that Matt's not involved with, but Ben is co-writing and co-producing, Push Nevada, has been confirmed on ABC's schedule, possibly as soon as summer.

• From the Big Matt Fan:
  Yesterday's E! segment had a clip of Matt singing, "Let's Hear It For the Boy." He actually sounded rather impressive. Judging from the brief clips I've seen, Matt does seem to give a performance unlike anything we've seen elsewhere.
  As for NBC's hype, last night, promos for Will and Grace actually exclaimed, "We dare say it's our funniest ever!" No reservations there!
• Ziggy wrote:
  Matt will be on Access Hollywood Thursday night in a segment on the "Project Greenlight" series. They showed preview clips of him and Ben discussing the project.
• K. wrote:
  hollywood.com has a clip of Matt's singing in this week's Will & Grace. It's a very short clip but good.

• From Felicity:
  • Here's the gist of an item in the local 'New Idea':
    If you think Matt Damon's been looking good lately, put it down to a new diet. Matt's on a diet of 80 per cent alkaline (fruits and veges) and 20 per cent acid (fish and meat). He's already lost five kilos and says he feels great.
  • The TV listings have Matt on this Thursday's ET talking about Will & Grace in addition to the E! News spot for Tuesday.
  • All the Pretty Horses is showing on HBO from Thursday 14 February.
  • The IMDB page for Gerry now has some interesting and very mixed user reviews. Of the 13 people who have rated the movie, four have rated 1/10 and four have rated 10/10 with a median of 6.0. The main page is at here
    Is anyone able to check out the two magazines with articles on Gerry - FilmMaker and Film Comment?
  • EW online's sweeps preview:
    ''Will & Grace'' (9 p.m., NBC) Owen (Matt Damon) is fierce and fiiiiine competition for Jack (Sean Hayes) as the two vie for a spot of New York's Gay Men Chorus. And Ben Affleck makes out with Will. Okay, so the last part's a lie.
  • Here's an article I think we all missed from the NY Times about the release of Pretty Horses. Looking at it now is pretty sad, and indicates the troubles behind the scenes (which we knew about, but not how they tried to cover it up).
    December 23, 2000, Saturday
    ARTS & IDEAS/CULTURAL DESK
    After Choppy Seas, a Film Nears Port
    By RICK LYMAN (NYT)
    HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 22 -- Matt Damon said he got a little lost last summer when he first tried to find the remote house where the director, Billy Bob Thornton, was editing ''All the Pretty Horses'' under the watchful gaze of Harvey Weinstein, the chairman of Miramax. ''There was just a bunch of shacks and no sign or anything,'' Mr. Damon said. ''But then I saw a 'Beware of the Dog' sign in one window and I figured, yeah, this must be it.''
    And it was.
    Some films seem to sail effortlessly from script to production to editing and into the nation's multiplexes. Others have a bumpier ride. ''All the Pretty Horses,'' a $45 million adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's celebrated novel about codes of honor along the United States-Mexico border in the 1940's, will open around the country on Christmas Day at just a whisker under two hours. About a year ago Mr. Thornton showed executives at Columbia Pictures a 3-hour-48-minute assemblage of the film. And in between it has been carved into various lengths, one as short as an hour and 45 minutes. Meanwhile, the film, which was originally to be distributed by Columbia Pictures, saw its release date shift from Christmas of 1999 to the spring, then summer and finally this Christmas.
    All of these reports of length problems and delays stirred gossip and rumors in the press, on the Internet and in Hollywood about whether Columbia had lost faith in ''Pretty Horses'' or was simply, as was indicated at the time, giving the film to Miramax, its partner on the project, because of the smaller company's proven ability to mount and market such specialized films.
    Whatever the case, Mr. Damon and the film's other principals said they were concerned that ''All the Pretty Horses'' had come to be seen as damaged goods.
    ''I've never been prouder of anything I have ever done, and it worries me that some people might be listening to rumors,'' Mr. Damon said. Mr. McCarthy's 1992 novel, the first in his ''Border Trilogy,'' which includes ''The Crossing'' in 1994 and ''Cities of the Plain'' in 1998, follows the adventures of John Grady Cole (Mr. Damon's character), descendant of a long line of Texas ranchers, who crosses into Mexico when his mother sells the spread, hoping to find a country where he can live the kind of life he has always dreamed about. There he falls in love with the daughter (Penelope Cruz) of a wealthy landowner.
    The saga of the movie version began eight years ago when the screenwriter Ted Tally, an Oscar winner for ''The Silence of the Lambs'' in 1991, began the task of shaping Mr. McCarthy's sprawling story and lyrical prose into a screenplay. In the end he delivered a 150-page script to Mr. Thornton, who was hired to direct the film after his critically praised directorial debut with ''Sling Blade'' in 1996. Among the actors who discussed playing the film's lead role were Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio.
    ''I knew that it was a lot of material,'' Mr. Tally said. ''I mean, 150 pages is long for a script. But Billy Bob read it, and he called me and said he intended to shoot the whole thing, every bit of it.'' It wasn't that they felt that all of it would necessarily end up in the final film, just that it felt right to shoot it all. Mr. Damon agreed. ''We shot some scenes that we knew, even at the time, probably wouldn't make it into the film,'' he said. ''There was one scene, early on, between Grady and his girlfriend. It just gave another reason for him to want to go to Mexico, but it really wasn't necessary for the story.''
    Whatever the case, Mr. Thornton said, he decided to put together a comprehensive assemblage -- the name given to a very early version of a film that comes before the director's cut, which is the version submitted for release. It included all he had shot, and he screened it for Columbia executives late last year. He said he never intended to give them the impression that the 3-hour-48-minute version was what he hoped to release in theaters.
    But the event, by all accounts, did not go well.
    ''It freaked them out,'' Mr. Weinstein said. ''It was like, oh my, I can't even watch anything this long.''
    In retrospect, Mr. Thornton said, perhaps he should not have shown an assemblage, especially one that was so much longer than usual and far longer than he intended the finished film to be. ''I figured I wanted to show them everything I had shot, everything they had paid for,'' he said.
    The shifts in the movie's release date suddenly threatened to collide with the release of another film starring Mr. Damon, ''The Legend of Bagger Vance,'' which DreamWorks initially intended to release in August. ''At that point, there was nothing I could do but move to December,'' Mr. Weinstein said. In the end, the DreamWorks movie was also delayed, to early November. Over the summer, ''Pretty Horses'' was moved into the shack where Mr. Thornton and his company set up shop. ''We purposely picked a neighborhood where movie executives never go,'' Mr. Weinstein said.
    Mr. Thornton cut, recut and recut again, eventually producing a 2-hour-28-minute version, a 2-hour-14-minute version and even, after prodding from Mr. Weinstein, a 1-hour-45-minute version. ''That's the one I hated,'' Mr. Thornton said.
    ''We just did it as an experiment,'' Mr. Weinstein said. In the final rounds of trimming, almost no entire scenes were cut. Instead, bits of individual scenes were whittled back, a 10-minute scene becoming 3 minutes and so on.
    During the trimming, Columbia and Miramax decided that Miramax would handle the movie's domestic distribution and that Mr. Thornton had to deliver a version of around two hours. Many people in Hollywood saw the decision at the time as an indication that Columbia was washing its hands of a troubled project. Not true, officials from both Miramax and Columbia said. ''Columbia very astutely saw that it had a lot of movies to take care of,'' Mr. Weinstein said.
    Indeed, Columbia's slate for December was crowded, with ''Vertical Limit,'' a mountain-climbing thriller, and ''Finding Forrester,'' a Gus Van Sant drama starring Sean Connery that many at the studio felt was Columbia's best Oscar prospect. The move to Miramax, they said, was to help ''All the Pretty Horses,'' not to abandon it.
    ''We've all invested a lot in getting this movie done right,'' said Amy Pascal, Columbia's chairwoman. ''Columbia had two other movies coming out this month, and Miramax is great at handling pictures like this. It seemed like it was the right thing to do to make sure that 'Pretty Horses' gets the attention it deserves.''
    In the end, Mr. Damon and Mr. Tally said, the crucial point is that the movie that will arrive in theaters on Christmas is one that matches their vision for the film.
    ''This is the best thing that I have ever done as a screenwriter,'' Mr. Tally said. ''It almost never happens. The movie that Matt and Billy put up on the screen is exactly the dream that I had when I was writing it. It was like they channeled it right out of my head.''
  • the HBO Project Greenlight series seems to finish this weekend or the next, and Matt/Ben should be involved in these episodes.
  • Here's a Will&Grace preview ad from zap2it.com:
    Do any of the clips have Matt singing??
• A Big Matt Fan wrote:
  (The W&G episode) is getting a lot of promotion, isn't it? Footage from NBC's latest spots seem interesting, with phrases like "Why is Matt Damon pretending to be gay?" and "Matt Damon as you've never seen him before!" In the commercials, he looks much more animated that what we've seen previously on ET. BTW: NBC seems to be giving it a good lead-in. Two "Friends" episodes precede it, one where Joey confesses his feelings for Phoebe to Ross, and the highly rated re-run featuring an apperance by Brad Pitt.

• A Big Matt Fan wrote:
  Congrats to Matty's team, the New England Patriots. Great game, especially given the fact that they were such major underdogs. Of course, the fact that their young quarterback, Tom Grady, bears a certain resemblance to Matty, made the game especially interesting. When I first saw him, I thought I just had Matt on the brain, but my brother told me that he is known for his resemblance to Matt. In fact, one of his friends who was watching with us (and he knows nothing of my personal obsession), commented during the game, "You know who that guy reminds me of? Matt Damon." The similarity is most marked when the guy has his helmet on, but if you haven't seen him, check it out.
• Erin chimed in:
  For those who don't want to search through the Patriots web site (like I just did)...Tom Brady definitely looks like Matt around the eyes~!
• And I might add:
  Indeed there's a resemblance. I always root for the underdog, and it was good to see the Pats pull it off. My first thought was indeed that this guy (Tom Brady) looks like Matt. He even talks like him - that New England twang. Well!
• C. Wrote:
  E! News Daily will have a segment on Matt's appearance on Will & Grace tomorrow (Tuesday). Just FYI..
  Thanks for your great column!
• Felicity wrote:
  • What about that Patriots win! Great to see the underdog triumph. Tom Brady is often compared to Matt, and there are a lot of references at the moment, including these - first one from the Chicago Tribune today: Brady, 24, who will no doubt be played by actor Matt Damon should a movie ever be made of this day, acted like the youngster he is in finding out that being named Super Bowl MVP meant he won a brand-new sport utility vehicle. Or People online: Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady, 24 (and a dead ringer for Matt Damon, except for the fact that Brady is 6'4" and 220 lbs.), was the game's most valuable player.
  • An article on Geraldine Cox and My Khmer Heart in the LA Times: here.
  • A photo of Matt with Gwyneth and 'Mango' on Saturday Night Live: here.

• Kathryn of Edinburgh wrote:
  Just wanted to let you know that promo has begun for Ocean's over here. The first TV ad I saw was two nights ago, and stated that the film was "Across Europe Now". The marketers/ad people must have realised their mistake, however, as another ad appeared the next night, and told me that O11 is to be released on Valentine's Day (which is great, she said sarcastically, as I don't have a significant other and so won't be able to go and see it the first night, as it will presumably be fully booked! I don't think there's anything *really* Valentine'sy about 011 -or is it just me?).
  In my local cinema there is a giant board promoting the film, with standees of Matt, George, Julia and Brad. I felt like asking the management if I could take it home :). The backdrop and the posters which were dotted about certainly didn't look like any of the posters on Katie's site. The same goes for the TV ads - there are scenes featuring each key actor, then the screen goes black and tiny text flashes across the screen. If they have advanced screenings, which I assume they will, I'll try and book tickets. I have a friend who knows one of the crew members on O11 - it's too bad that I went to see her in LA after it had finished filming in Las Vegas - she said she'd try and get me onto the set (although obviously no guarantees). Oh, well. There's always next time! :)
  I actually wonder if, given its appearance at Sundance, Gerry might be winging its way to other film festivals, ie Edinburgh or Cannes. I hope so; I'll let you know if I hear anything.
• Kay wrote:
  This is what Feb 2002 issue of Empire's Pipeline said about The Bourne Identity teaser trailer:
  "Flushing any promise Doug Liman's adaptation of Rober Ludlum's novel had down the toilet, this cluttered trailer contains lots of action, but Matt Damon looks ill at ease. Still, appearances could be deceptive, but this is soft-core Bourne."
  The reviewer only gave BI trailer only two stars. I wonder if the reviewer is familliar with the story of Jason Bourne. BI is about a guy who is not quite comfortable with his own identity. It is about a guy who wakes up, after a near death experience, without any memory of who he is but with deadly combat skills and mortal enemies. The character, in the novel, is in a conflict of wanting to find out who he really is and not wanting to confirm the suspicion that he may be a cold blooded assassin. Of course, Matt Damon should look ill at ease if he is playing this character right!
  I just hope that script is good and the changes they made do not hurt the storyline.

• Felicity wrote:
  • From EW's wrap of Sundance and critic Owen Gleiberman:
    Film festivals can always use a good love-it-or-hate-it conversation piece. This year it was ''Gerry,'' Gus Van Sant's beautiful, snail-paced, monosyllabic art stunt about two guys (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck) who get lost in the California desert. It's Andy Warhol meets Ansel Adams meets ''Blair Witch'' meets Beckett, and though the film flirts with testing your patience on purpose, those who give it a chance may get hooked -- especially by the haunting finale.
    Anyone who has followed ''Project Greenlight,'' HBO's amateur-dude-gets-to-make-a-movie series, is in for a surprise: ''Stolen Summer,'' Pete Jones' cuddly opus about Catholics, Jews, and a big-eyed kid suffering from leukemia in 1976 Chicago, turns out to be competent and watchable. But the bigger surprise, to me, is that it's a family weeper made with intelligence and feeling. If nothing else, it should earn Jones his next green light.
  • Newsaskew.com has posted some pics from the Gerry premiere. Matt and Odessa are in the first one: here.
  • High praise here for the Will & Grace episode from a NBC President:
    NBC 'super-sizing'
    ''The producers [of the two shows\] were aware that we did this last year . . . and they called us,'' NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker told Zap2it.com. ''Their shows were running over, and they were so good that they were having a difficult time cutting them.''
    On Thursday, ''Will & Grace'' will run four minutes long to accommodate a plot involving guest star Matt Damon (9 p.m., 77129). The start times of ''Just Shoot Me,'' ''ER'' and the late local news will move back accordingly.
    Zucker said the network's affiliates signed off on the time shift, adding that he considers the episode to be the best in the show's history.
  • From Katie's George Clooney site, a page with various posters for O11, including international and draft versions: here.
    This one barely looks like Matt: here.
  • The current issue of Film Comment (Black Hawk Down cover/Jan-Feb) includes a preview of Gerry and two photos.
• Stacey wrote:
  If you rent American Pie 2, you'll see the preview for The Bourne Identity before the movie starts. It's the same preview as online, but of course TV's are faster than streamed clips... Also, Extra! showed a clip of the Will & Grace scene where Matt and Debra Messing kiss. It's easy to tell how she got her "war wound" - it is quite a powerful kiss. Lucky girl.

• From Felicity:
  • There's apparently an article on Gerry in FilmMaker magazine, Winter 2002 edition - Monsoon Wedding cover. From the website:
    SANDS OF TIME
    From the upcoming USA Weekend:
    Loathe or love the holiday release "Ocean's Eleven", one must admit the cast is out of this galaxy. Rarely do the stars align in such a big way. If you wonder how it really all came about, as I did, you'll enjoy this story, direct from director Steven Soderbergh: "George [Clooney] and I read [the script] at the same time. I called him and said, 'I hope you want to do it, because I want to.' George said, 'We have to go after Brad [Pitt].' George had worked with Mark Wahlberg a couple of times, so we were talking with him. But when he jumped into "Planet of the Apes", we both said, 'Let's go to Matt [Damon].' " Soderbergh brought in Julia Roberts, whom he had directed to an Oscar in "Erin Brockovich", because "I felt Julia and George would be interesting together [as a divorced couple]. George has a quality I think is very American. He has a strong code: You do certain things, not other things. There's a right way and a wrong way, and he makes the effort. He has a great inner solidity that comes across onscreen."
  • A Louisville paper on Gerry at Sundance:
    "Gerry"
    (Bought by ThinkFilm)
    "It was very liberating," Van Sant said. But for the viewer, there's not much more than rocks, sand and grand vistas. It's like "Lawrence of Arabia" without Lawrence or the Arabs.
  • Reaction to the Will&Grace preview on the web has been very positive.
• A reader wrote:
  Hi,I'm May and I live in Rome,so I saw Matt personally with his ex-girlfriend Winona.It was night and they were near a restaurant called ''La Rosetta'';I think they ate there because they both wore a hat with the name of the restaurant written on it.Well,they were just walking hand in hand and I thought that I had never saw someone so deeply in love.I wasn't a big fan of Matt at the time and I didn't have a camera with me...BUT I SAW HIM!!!!!!!And,you know,I think that Winona is really better than Odessa.She's a great actress. Well,maybe it would be better if she won't go shopping for a while...

• From Felicity:
  • New Will & Grace pics from NBC:
    Matt and Debra Messing:
    here
    Matt and the chorus:
    here, here, and here,
    Matt with Sean Hayes and some of the chorus: here.
  • Part of a media release from NBC:
    OSCAR WINNER MATT DAMON ('GOOD WILL HUNTING,' 'OCEAN'S ELEVEN') GUEST-STARS
    ON NBC'S 'WILL & GRACE'
    Published: January 30, 2002
    BURBANK, Calif. -- January 29, 2002 -- Oscar-winning writer and actor Matt Damon ("Good Will Hunting," "Ocean's Eleven") will guest-star in a "super-sized" version of NBC's "Will & Grace" as a young man who competes with Jack (Sean Hayes) for the last spot in a popular gay men's chorus - and a desperate Jack seeks to "in" his rival and rule him out by proving that he 's actually straight.
    The episode, "A Chorus Lie," will be broadcast Thursday, Feb. 7 (9-9:34 p.m. ET). Debra Messing, Eric McCormack and Megan Mullally also star.
    "The episode turned out to be so great that there was no way we could trim it down to fit a 30-minute window,' said NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker. "Our experiment with 'super-sizing' has been an exciting development and we're happy producers know we are open to this."
  • preview for next week's episode of W&G was shown after the latest episode. Apparently this is part of the text:
    Jack: "How come I haven't seen you at the gym? The clubs? Or slept with any guys you have?" Matt: "I work out at home, I'm allergic to smoke, and I have a long-term relationship with my high school boyfriend." Jack: "Oh yeah, what's his name?" Matt: "Ben."
  • A really old quote from Kevin Smith about Matt in Dogma:
    "Matty Damon is kind of a surprise because you never really get to see that dude be funny. He's kind of cute and funny in some parts of Good Will Hunting, but this is a movie where he gets to be funny and goofy, and a second banana too. And I thought it was nice to mix this performance in with all his heavy dramatic stuff to show 'yeah, I can do comedy too.'"
• From Val:
  E! Radio
  Summary of Anita's conversation with Odessa Whitmire:
  Anita Talbert recently "ran into" Matt's latest love.
  Anita directly asked Odessa when she and Matt were planning to tie the knot. Odessa responded by saying that the marriage rumor was just that. She and Matt have NO plans to marry--they have only been involved some 4 months and neither is ready for such a committment.
  Anita then asked her about the white and pink diamond bands on her middle finger. Odessa said they were "friendship" rings and she had purchased them herself.
  HMMMMMM.

• From Felicity:
  • A TV Guide summary of the W&G appearance: Will & Grace A Chorus Lie 30 min. Matt Damon makes a guest appearance as a clever charmer named Owen, who's competing against Jack (Sean Hayes) for a spot in New York's Gay Men's Chorus. Truth be told, however, Owen is totally straight and is really after the group's big perk: a summer trip to Europe, all-expenses paid. Jack suspects Owen's ruse but needs proof. How about the hug test? "Hmm," Jack murmurs skeptically, "you gave me the 'straight-guy-double-pat-on-the-back-no-hip-contact' hug." "Actually," Owen parries adroitly, "it was more the 'gay-guy-feel-the-delts-bend-at-the-waist-check-out-the-shoes' hug." Now a flustered Jack reluctantly turns to Grace (Debra Messing) to "in" Owen. Beverley: Leslie Jordan.
  • A Village Voice article critical of Gerry and others at Sundance is at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0205/lim.php Excerpt:
    "It's a metaphor for life," a satisfied patron behind me concluded. But the majority of the audience, it seemed, had been too busy fidgeting or making for the exits to venture any theories. Hell hath no fury like a Sundance crowd challenged. Variety's reviewer, not just bored but actively hostile, condemned the movie to a purgatory in "high art venues in France and elsewhere." Thanks to ThinkFilm, the new company headed by former Lions Gate execs Mark Urman and Jeff Sackman, "elsewhere" will include at least some American cities. (Maybe they can market it as the new Matt Damon movie.)
  • It's our regular question, but when is Matt going to sign for a new project? There seems to be a lot of film deals being made at the moment - a good one today is Ed Norton's new low-budget drama with Spike Lee. If Cold Mountain is even an option, it's not going to start until late 2002. Or is it going to be the long-awaited year off?
• From a Big Matt Fan:
  More on Will & Grace from ET Online:
  Good "Will" Hunting!
  January 30, 2002
  Hit comedy "Will & Grace" hardly needs more star power than the dashing ERIC McCORMACK and glam DEBRA MESSING. Yet NBC is amping up the celeb quotient for February sweeps, with a guest appearance by 'Ocean's 11' cutie MATT DAMON.
  The fair-haired Damon, whose upcoming film credits include 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' and 'The Bourne Identity', stars in "Are You 'In' or Out?" airing Feb. 7 at 9 p.m. And it was Damon's friendship with SEAN HAYES, Will's neurotic friend Jack, that made the casting coup possible.
  When ET dropped by the set for an exclusive interview, the two couldn't stop busting each other's chops. Matt "can't remember anything," Sean teased. "There's a huge mass of cue cards, so if you watch the show you'll see this." (Pretends to be reading cue cards with exaggerated eye movements.)
  Damon retaliates, "What I didn't realize about Sean is that he can't remember one line! They call it 'the look' on the show. (He'll say), 'I need to know?' and he turns and gives 'the look,' and the script supervisor fills the line in. Sean turns around and snaps back in (character). It is a whole different kind of acting."
  The guys were tight-lipped about the Feb. 7 episode. But with a little detective work, ET uncovered additional plotline.
  Evidently, Jack is desperate to prove that Damon, who's competing for a coveted spot in a gay men's chorus, is actually straight. And Jack is not above using Grace (DEBRA MESSING) to eliminate his rival. Does Matt's character take the bait? You'll have to tune in to find out.
  Meanwhile, Sean raves about Matt's role on the show. "It is one of the best, if not the best, episode we've done this year. A large part of that is because of Matt."
  Matt says he'd do it again, proclaiming, "I've had a blast." He and buddy BEN AFFLECK currently star in a TV series of their own, HBO's "Project Greenlight", a 13-part documentary in which the two Academy Award winners play themselves.
  Get your sneak peak of Matt and Sean going at it, on tonight's ET.

Click on a link

Still photos from Good Will Hunting.
USA Weekly November 2000 article, "Ace of Clubs" y by Craigh Barboza.
Local boys making 'Good' a Boston Herald article from the GWH days
The Advocate (12/99) interview by Brendan Lemon.
Some of my personal favorite pictures of Matt
The Talented Mr.Ripley page
The All the Pretty Horses page
The Bagger Vance page
Matt at Fenway Park for the 1999 Major League Baseball All Stars
The Details magazine article, as appeared in the London Telegraph.
Janel Maslin's NY Times Review of GWH , in which she called Matt "very much the supernova".
An article about pre-GWH videos of Matt Damon/
Archive of Past Matt Columns

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