Hi! If you have Matt news, write to me at [email protected].)

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

Updated 8/1/2000

Sorry, "The Legend of Beggar Vance" is NOT opening this Friday 8/4.
It has been rescheduled for November.

"That Matt Damon is going places", Gregory Peck, 1998. . .

8/1/00

Anna wrote (thanks!):
HEy, just a note: a pic of matt is in the new Premiere Mag. August, 2000 w/jennifer lopez on the front. an old one but still valid :) of good will hunting
From Val:
Here's a cool site to browse through when you have time to play:
http://www.young-hollywood.com
Many of the gallery pics of Matt are familiar ones but we NEVER get tired of looking at him, do we?

7/31/00

News from Felicity:
And another week goes by without any news...
The only scrap of news I've found recently is from the forum at the Cormac McCarthy site, which includes this post, in response to a query on how BBT will adapt the book:
"You might not even get to see Thornton's version of anything. Right now he's locked in a very unpleasant fight with Columbia over the running time of the film which originally came in at about 3 hours and has been cut down to 2 hrs 40 mins or so by the Columbia studio hacks, who want to be able to show the film at least once more per evening. This is the basic problem that's held up the film for a year. Thornton has threatened to reject the film and publically disavow it if the cuts are allowed to stand, which would be just as disastrous for the studio as would losing the extra showing per night, if not worse -- so they're at an impasse. It's not a good situation, so don't hold your breath. We may all wind up waiting for the DVD of the director's cut. "
When pressed for more info, the person wrote:
Peter Josyph, who's been working on Acting McCarthy, a film documentary about the making of Thornton's ATPH and also of The Gardener's Son and the proposed Blood Meridian, is in frequent touch with just about all the pricipals of the film (except, so far, Penelope Cruz -- whose p/r people have been less than cooperative, but whose interview responses I've read have been so predictably mindless and supermarket-tabloid-brain dead housewife oriented that I doubt Peter'll think she was worth the trouble when he catches up with her). The information I have is a composite of remarks by several of the folks involved, including Thornton himself.
In any event, Chip's information may be a bit dated because it seems the Columbia beancounters may have moved the goal posts again, which was apparently once too often for Thornton's patience.
(And again later, asked whether it was the same documentary the Cormac McCarthy society was raising money for...)
Ken: Yep,that's it. It's coming along brilliantly -- I've been privy to some of the stuff (the interviews with Thornton, Bruce Dern, Matt Damon, Harold Bloom [!] and Kevin Conway in particular) are fantastic. He's heading for Alabama to interview Lucas Black (Jimmy Blevins in the film) next week. He's still got to negotiate for rights to incorporate film clips from Gardener's Son and ATPH into the documentary, and will need about another $25,000 to complete the editing and copying of the film for distribution. He's got a professional fundraiser working on grants now but any considerable donations (anything $1000 & over) will be appreciated; smaller ones won't make a dent.
Anyone who's got that kind of spare change can make it payable to the Cormac McCarthy Society (which will make it fully tax deductible) and designate it for the Acting McCarthy fund; we've already run over $20,000 in private funds through the Society as grants-in-aid to the film.
*** It's a shame that neither ATPH or BV will be at the Venice Film Festival - my hope now (for either) is the London Film Festival, scheduled for 1-19 November. Not bad timing for the release of either film.
From an article with Billy Campbell of Miramax in the London Guardian about Project Greenlight:
Eventually a shortlist of 40 candidates will be drawn up. It's at this point that Harvey Weinstein (the formidable Miramax boss), Matt Damon and Ben Affleck enter the fray, and that the "fast-moving, verite-style" TV series begins shooting in earnest.
Campbell, a Harvard Business school graduate who helped develop such series as ER and Everybody Loves Raymond, promotes the competition with all the fervour of a Mark Twain-era mountebank selling hair tonic. No, it's not simply another of those marketing wheezes which Miramax is famous for. No, Matt and Ben aren't just along for the ride. The project is being organized to fit in with their busy schedules. ("This would not work if their participation was just nominal They've been to every pitch meeting we've had... they're completely hands-on guys.") No, the 13-part series isn't catering to the new fad for voyeuristic TV shows. "This is not Survivor or Big Brother," he insists. "We're not going to create games that pit people against one another." In the next breath, he adds that he has never been around a film or TV set where there haven't been "creative conflict and personality issues - so we won't have to manufacture any of that."
*** From an interview with Jonathon Mostow, the writer and director of U-571: Any actors or actresses you're dying to work with?
Too many to list. I have the obvious A-list movie star choices like Cruise, Pitt, Damon, Ford, Gibson, etc.
(I like the order there!)
I can't copy it, but there's a slightly amusing study of TTMR at the Cinema Nutrition column at www.corona.bc.ca/coming attractions I can't really explain it, but it's a calorie breakdown of Ripley.
Titan AE opened in Britain yesterday, to mediocre reviews. Sure the story is pretty bad, but the animation is superb. Not a bad film, in comparison to many others. The character of Cale (Matt's voice) is generally described here as being 'David Beckham before his latest haircut'.
More from Felicity:
Just two small things from the NY Daily News:
Maximum Golf: Robert Redford excels in method directing. While filming "The Legend of Bagger Vance," a golf movie coming out in the fall, the still-handsome actor-turned-director kept funnyman Will Smith in character for his serious role by keeping him on the links. "Whenever he [Smith] was not on camera, Redford had him off playing golf," reports a studio spy.
Evidently it worked: Smith is said to have turned in a sterling performance.
Not-so-odd Couples: The Lemmon is turning sweet on acting. Jack Lemmon is peddling a proposal for a book to be based on his interviews with major male stars like Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Will Smith, Michael Douglas and Robin Williams. The idea came to the "Days of Wine and Roses" star after he played reporter and interviewed Kevin Spacey (for another newspaper) just before the Academy Awards.

7/27/00

Val wrote:
According to the latest PEOPLE Mag, Matt has been spending some of his free time with Billy Bob while BB is in a Nashville recording studio. Apparently, BB is putting an album together. Prior to hitting it in the movie biz, he was part of a rock-a-billy band who played gigs in the south. Perhaps this latest foray into the music world is just another side of the "deeply complex" man (as Angelina has described him) known as Billy Bob.
US Magazine July 31, 2000
Under HOT STUFF:
WHO LOVES LUCY: It's been a month of love for Lucy Liu. First, the Ally McBeal star was linked to Matt Damon. NOw, reports say she's with George Clooney. Publicists deny all. Damon's rep says: "There is no relationship. He met her once at a party. Idon't even know if they shook hands." Her rep says: "She met Damon once. I don't consider that a date--do you?"
CAN WE GET PIZZA TO GO?: Minnie Driver has long been Matt Damon's ex, but she can't seem to shake him entirely. The actress was at a New York Pizzeria with beau Josh Brolin when a female fan approached, asking "How's your husband, Matt Damon?" Driver explained she was never married to Damon and that their romance was history. Even after meeting Brolin, the fan rambled on about what a cute couple Driver and Damon made.

A Big Matt fan wrote:
FYI: There's a photo of Matt and Ben in the current week's Entertainment Weekly. It's an old one (the two in suits, with Ben yawning and Matt looking at him with an expression of chagrin), but it's cute.

Posting on a usenet newsgroup:
Snobby Gwyneth Paltrow is No. 4 on Autograph magazine's Worst Celebrity Signers. This is a huge turnaround from her previously being listed as one of the more cooperative signers last year. However, the magazine notes that Gwyneth did a 360 once she won her Oscar and now she refuses to sign anything, be they a fan or autograph collector. Looks like success went to her little head. Gwyneth should take notes on how to act gracefully from Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie--both are Oscar winners but neither have stopped giving autographs or posing for pictures with their fans. Methinks Gwynnie thinks just a little too highly of herself. She should be more appreciative of her good fortune instead of believing her own hype. 7/25/00

I have been told that a trailer from "Bagger Vance" is now being shown in theaters. This particular informant saw it at a showing of "What Lies Beneath", and said "half of the girls in the audience drooled at Will Smith, and the other half of them oohed-and-aahed over Matt Damon, and they all said they had to see the movie when it comes out." :-)
A reader wrote:
Since things have been slow -
I guess some well-timed free publicity is worth noting.
Monday's NY Times crossword puzzle. Clue 25 down.
Matt of "The Talented Mr. Ripley"
Answer: DAMON
Batch of goodies from Felicity:
- Moment had a touch of Hollywood
  By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Staff, 7/23/2000
  ''Bottom of the 12th and in steps Carlton Fisk. Old Pudge. He steps to the plate, and you know, he's got that weird stance? And he clocks it, you know? High fly ball down the left-field line! Thirty-five thousand people on their feet, yelling at the ball, but that's nothing because Fisk - he's waving at the ball like a madman, going, `Go, Go, Get Over,' And then it hits the foul pole and oh, he goes [expletive] ...'' -Dr. Sean McGuire in ''Good Will Hunting''
  In their Academy Award-winning film, ''Good Will Hunting,'' Cambridge homeboys Matt Damon and Ben Affleck took Carlton Fisk's home run to Hollywood, making it part of a pivotal scene involving Will Hunting (played by Damon) and psychiatrist Sean McGuire (played by Robin Williams).
  In the film, the doctor makes a breakthrough, telling a sweet tale about meeting his wife the night Fisk hit the famous homer. The boy is startled that the doctor remembers the actual date he met his wife, then Williams tells him, ''Oh yeah, because it was Game 6 of the World Series - biggest game in Red Sox history. My friends and I had slept out on the sidewalk all night to get tickets.''
  (Actual footage of Fisk's homer plays while Damon and Williams exchange dialogue.)
  Broadcasters Dick Stockton and Lesley Visser, married for 17 years, were thrilled when they saw the film because they actually met the night of the game. Stockton was the Red Sox' play-by-play broadcaster and Visser was covering high school sports for the Globe.
  ''Peter Gammons got me a press pass and Dick and I were introduced before the game,'' said Visser. ''A few days later, Dick called me at the Globe and we had dinner at Cafe Budapest. Someone left a note on my typewriter saying that Dick had been seen at Cafe Budapest three times that week, with three different dates. I asked Dick about that and he said, `I like the chicken paprikosh.'''
  Seven years later, they met again and married shortly thereafter.
  Like Stockton and Visser, Fisk has seen the movie.
  ''That was really cool,'' said the catcher. ''I saw Matt Damon at the All-Star Game in Boston last year and we had a few beers.''
  Pat Darcy, who yielded the homer, also enjoyed the film, but said, ''They doctored the sequence a little bit. They show me walking around the mound after the first pitch, but that was actually after the end of my warmups.''
  Damon has baseball roots. His dad is freshman baseball coach at Newton North High and Matt spent some time with Ted Williams at the 1999 All-Star Game at Fenway.
- From the NY Times:
  Ready for Their Close-Ups
  Every novelist, composer and film director is a pinup these days. What ever happened to off-screen talent? By JUDITH SHULEVITZ
  "Cult of Personality"
  "Of the many changes that have occurred in the United States since World War II, few strike me as being more alarming than our ravenous appetite for the Artist's Personality. The new vogue is as ironic as it is ominous. Americans' traditional fear of and disdain for the artist have seldom been equaled in the Western world. Yet artists have been vastly glamorized in the past decades, offered a glossy media image alongside millionaire chefs and celebrity dress designers. And under grilling from talk-show hosts who barely know the difference between Bacon and Bakunin, they are frequently invited to reveal to national audiences many secrets of their craft which they might be wiser keeping to themselves." -- Francine du Plessix Gray, ''Writers at Work''
  Photograph by Eldad Rafaeli
- Sooner or later, the television industry was bound to come up with a reality-based program with actual social value. Here it is: indie-film TV. In conjunction with HBO, the producers -- Matt Damon and Ben Affleck among them -- have announced plans to pick an aspiring filmmaker and finance his or her project. As the director casts, shoots and edits, an additional camera crew will follow behind and shoot the ready-made "making of" documentary. Youths with a bohemian bent will tune in to "Greenlight" to learn a lesson that could save their parents millions of dollars in film-school expenses: the life of the auteur is hard. And dull.
  Damon and Affleck have a less educational goal, of course. They want to find a star. And so, their spokesman has said, they'll select the project on the basis not just of the script's strength but also of how well they think the lucky director will play to the camera (the one trained on the one he or she is behind). You can expect the indie-film community to seethe with resentment, to say the winner is more good-looking than talented. And you can probably expect them to be right.
  But that's the way the world works. What sells an artistic product isn't the quality of the artwork; it's the presentability of the artist. Damon and Affleck are just applying the well-learned lessons of the past few decades. Good looks have always been required for acting, but by the 1980's, after what had been a banner decade for grungy, unkempt stadium rockers, MTV imposed the same standards on the music industry. The muscled diaphragm of a teenage pop idol quickly became more important than the voice it projected. Remember Martha Wash, the plus-size singer who filed suit when C+C Music Factory hired a skinny model to lip-sync her tracks on the "Everybody Dance Now" video?
  What makes the current situation seem mildly appalling is that it's so commonplace no one even questions it anymore. And it involves media in which the effacement of the artist was once considered not only a practical reality but also a virtue. Cecily Brown, Justine Kurland and Stella Schnabel make themselves the talk of an approving New York art scene by baring their breasts, thighs or midriffs in the pages of glossy fashion magazines. Twenty eminent members of the cultural elite -- from Salman Rushdie (post-cosmetic surgery) to Tom Ford -- pose solemnly next to their favorite Absolut ads for an advertisement about advertisements that you can find on newsstands now. VH1 just broadcast "Out of Sync," a movie adaptation of Wash's case. ("They used her voice . . . to make her a star.") It starred two equally aerobicized women.
  Judith Shulevitz writes the Culturebox column for Slate.
  Writers, too, play the game. Any author with a potentially commercial manuscript gets called in for a round of go-see visits with interested editors, who want not only to discuss the book but also to decide whether the author has the looks to go on "Good Morning America" or be featured in Allure. The New Yorker has started publishing a full-page glamour shot of every short-story writer making a debut in its pages. It has got to the point where those who choose not to play along -- authors who refuse to put their photos on their book jackets or bands, like Pearl Jam, who no doubt try their publicists by declining to participate in fashion shoots or music videos -- stand out as genuine oddities.
  The commodification of artists and writers may be off-putting, but it's neither new nor all that deplorable. Artists have always had to market themselves, whether to noblemen at a Renaissance court or to officers at a nonprofit foundation. You might even see the romantic image of the artist, that carefully packaged creature of rapture and torment, as a clever bit of branding aimed at an emergent middle class. Suddenly art wasn't just words or pictures or craft. It was an attitude, a neighborhood, a swashbuckling personal style.
  What's particular today is the emphasis on looks. The image -- the face, the body, compressed into two dimensions -- has become a lapidary bit of shorthand. It says everything that needs to be said in the time allotted. It's infinitely reproducible and ever-easier to send. But its vocabulary is limited. There are thousands of kinds of artistic cool that the camera can't communicate in the necessary instant. It's sad to think of all these rich and complicated phenomena being flattened, almost literally, onto a page or a screen.
  But I wouldn't worry too much. Art is always viewed through the filters of its time. Greatness slips through anyway -- and sometimes where you least expect it, dressed in the gawdy costume of commercial culture. The irony is that the images of the artist that have for now eclipsed the art are the most impermanent element of the creative process. They are a necessary first step, but after that, they are fodder for the recycling pile. If the book is good, the author's photo will someday be replaced by a quotation that has become a part of the culture; if the movie endures, even the E! interviews will someday all be forgotten.
- On ATPH, it's amazing that there's no poster, no trailer, no confirmed release date. The website still says 3rd quarter, and it hasn't changed all year. Distributor Sony is certainly having problems at the moment with Patriot and Loser doing worse than expected.
  Meanwhile, Dreamworks continues to promote BV - if you go to www.dreamworks.com, there's now a link to an Amazon-based BV site, with a more complete site promised soon.
  After wasting a weekend watching Tiger Woods play at St. Andrews, I can't help feel that his oustanding success at that championship, and everywhere else, will benefit the commercial appeal of Bagger Vance. There's a huge popularity in golf at the moment, and he's leading the world-wide surge in support. What are the chances of Tiger, and other leading players, attending the premiere of BV in the States? It would be great publicity, but we have to remember that Redford did not 'do' a premiere for his last film, The Horse Whisperer.
Val wrote:
Maybe I hadn't noticed but MOVIELINE Mag has a 'teen' version of its publication highlighting young hollywood. It's actually a nice looking mag--glossy pages and excellent quality photographs.
The summer issue (James Marsden on the cover) does have a couple of interesting Matt/Matt related tidbits. Under "Future Films" there is a small picture of Matt in his PRETTY HORSES attire looking gorgeous sporting that should-be-patented smile. Below that is a blip on Gwyneth and Ben's BOUNCE.
Curiously, there also is a photo of Winona holding hands with a tall, bearded guy who the article claims is her "roommate." Yep, we all hold hands with our plutonic roomates . . . She is featured in a series of write ups aboutchild/teen actors who left their families to pursue the Hollywood life.

7/23/00

A hugh Matt fan wrote:
Hello! I just found out yesterday on upcomingmovies.com, that ATPH has been pushed back yet again, this time till December. They didn't mention a specific date in December though, so who knows what's taking so long. (Didn't this finish filiming quite a while ago?)
(My note: The last I heard, ATPH will be released in December. Yes, the film was finished a while back. I hope that the rescheduling is a good sign - December is the best time for Oscar-contending flicks to open.)
Becky wrote to say that there's no sign of Matt in the latest issue of Talk magazine -
"Today I saw Talk mag.. the newest issue (Aug) and Matt wasn't on the cover!!! :"( Well I guess that whole rumor thing wasn't true after all! :("
Posting on Deja.com:
The August JANE (Beefcake Special) includes the results of the mag's annual sex survey (over 47,000 readers responded). Here's one category:
GRATUITOUS CELEB-RELATED STAT
If you assembled a platter of your favorite Hollywood studmeat, portions of Jude Law, David Duchovny, Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, Omar Epps and Matt Damon would be well represented. Toss on some Winona Ryder/Angelina Jolie seasoning, and you've got a meal.

7/19/00

Sent in by a big Matt fan:
FYI: Matt's among the nominees for Hollywood Actor of the Year at the Hollywood Awards (sponsored by Hollywood Video). I know, it's not as prestigious as the Oscars or even the Blockbuster Awards, but who knows? Given the success of Matt's films on video, perhaps he has a chance. The other nominees are as follows: Michael Caine, Jim Carrey Russell Crowe, Hugh Grant, Samuel L. Jackson, John Malkovich, Matthew McConaughey, Sean Penn, Christopher Plummer, Kevin Spacey, and Denzel Washington. ALLURE MAGAZINE, July 2000
Sent in by Val:
ALLURE MAGAZINE, July 2000
Penelope Cruz' upcoming movie, WOMAN ON TOP, is going to make her exactly that.
Penelope Cruz is attracting a crowd. On the steps of San Fransisco's Palace of Fine Arts, the Spanish actress is cooking while a mariachi band clacks along in the background. She's filming a scene for WOMAN ON TOP, in which she plays a Brazilian housewife with motion sickness, marital problems and eventually, her own US cooking show. Like most sets, this one is crowded, but the rubberneckers on a nearby hill, though they may not yet put a name to the face, have no trouble spotting the movie star.
The same might be said of American audiences, who have noticed the 26 year old in Pedro Almovodar's Oscar winning ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, in the HI LO COUNTRY, and as a magazine cover girl. But long before captivating this country, Cruz had become the Julia Roberts of Spain, with more than 20 films (a few that made it stateside) and tenure on the pages of European tabloids. Then, about a year ago, she charmed some of Hollywood's most influential citizens, including director Billy Bob Thornton, who cast her opposite Matt Damon in October's ALL THE PRETTY HORSES. There's been buzz ever since.
Her appeal, says Thornton, is "total realism. There is nothing phony about her." Damon adds, "Even if she were a total prima donna, I'd still jump at the chance to work with her again. Shes' that great an actress." And need we mention her obvious assets: the long brunet hair (lightened a bit for today's shoot), the secretive eyes, the wide, infectious smile?
Despite her growing fan base, Cruz downplays her good fortune in America. "Here, nobody knows me," she insists. "I can go out at night. I go bowling [which she started doing with Damon] and all those things, and it's okay. I don't do that in Madrid."
If Cruz doesn't semaphore her stardom, it's because, as Mark Feuerstein, her WOMAN ON TOP, costar, explains, "she's not just selling a bill of goods. A lot of times you meet someone famous and they fall short because the characters they've played are more intelligent than they are. But Penelope is smarter and funnier and more charming than she is beautiful." If a little bashful.
"When I do a photo shoot, I get very scared," says Cruz. "But when I'm filming, I'm not so shy, because I"m playing somene else. I don't even realize that people might be looking."
But today's crowd on the San Francisco hillside can't take their eyes off her. When Cruz finishes filming her scene, the cast and crew will prepare for a sequence in which Feuerstein's character smitten with Cruz, will be joined by a mob of lovestruck suitors who chase ther through the streets of San Fransisco. Gee that will be a stretch.

7/14/00 News from Felicity:

You may have already seen this from dark horizons: The Stax Report: Script Review of The Bourne Identity Tue, Jul 11, 2000 11:58 PM EDT
Stax here with my reaction to the screenplay for The Bourne Identity! This 137-page "first draft/polish" by Tony Gilroy is dated May 18th, 2000. It is based upon Robert Ludlum's bestselling novel of the same name, which is the first entry in his "Jason Bourne" trilogy. Doug Liman (Go) will produce and direct this $75 million dollar film with production slated to begin this fall. Brad Pitt toyed with playing secret agent Jason Bourne but opted to make Spy Game with Robert Redford and director Tony Scott instead; Matt Damon is now in final negotiations to star. Universal hopes to release The Bourne Identity sometime during 2001. Should this film be a success, it is believed that Ludlum's subsequent books The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum will also get the big-screen treatment.
I haven't read Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne trilogy but I have done a little research online to familiarize myself with them. The premise of The Bourne Identity intrigues me enough that I planned on reading the original novel whether I enjoyed this screenplay adaptation or not. I also just rented the 1988 TV movie version, which stars Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith. I plan on watching that tonight to see how different it is from Gilroy's interpretation (besides the obvious age difference between Chamberlain's world-weary Jason Bourne and Matt Damon).
The Bourne Identity begins with a man being found at sea by the hard-bitten crew of a fishing trawler. He's been shot and stabbed and cannot remember who he is. Implanted under the skin of his thigh is a strip of microfilm. On this strip is the number for a bank account in Switzerland. The trawler drops the man off in Barcelona and he travels across Europe to Zurich. Along the way, the man realizes that he's capable of amazing (and deadly) physical feats. At the Swiss bank, the man discovers the safety deposit box that the number on the microfilm is for; inside it is a gun, tons of money, dossiers, and six passports for various countries bearing the name "Jason Bourne."
Struggling to piece together his identity, the amnesiac Jason Bourne (if that's even who he is) soon finds himself the target of assassins and manhunters. He goes on the run across Europe, aided by a foul-mouthed, high-strung but pretty American named Marie Purcell. Marie agrees to drive Jason to Italy in return for $20,000 from his satchel full of cash. Naturally, Jason and Marie soon fall for each other and this complicates their arrangement. Jason soon discovers that he's really a top-level assassin for the CIA who botched his last high-profile assignment. Now, his former patrons want to terminate their relationship with him. Jason must protect Marie and make a stand against those who are after him if he's to stop running from his past.
I don't really consider what I outlined above to be that spoiler-heavy since the back of Ludlum's novel and the announcements in the industry trades tell you nearly the same thing. But I understand that in Ludlum's novel Jason Bourne is being pursued by "Carlos," which I assume is a character based on the infamous real-life terrorist Carlos the Jackal. Carlos has already been the inspiration for several movie and literary villains, most notably Frederick Forsyth's The Day of The Jackal. Forsyth's book was made into a classic 1973 film and was also later remade as The Jackal with Bruce Willis. Carlos has also served as the basis for Rutger Hauer's antagonist in Nighthawks and for Aidan Quinn's character in The Assignment. With all these prior incarnations, I was not surprised that Tony Gilroy's adaptation of The Bourne Identity ditched Carlos altogether.
Instead, Gilroy employs a number of sleeper agent-type assassins who are on the hunt for Jason Bourne: a professor, a young backpacker, a businessman, all unassuming looking men who are called upon to get the dirty work done. But only one of these assassins, The Professor, had any personality outside of his physical description. The Professor's pivotal showdown with Bourne had a melancholy feel to it that reminded me of Sam Peckinpah's tragic westerns where gunfighters realize they've lived past their day. Ironically, Bloody Sam's last film was the lackluster adaptation of Robert Ludlum's The Osterman Weekend. Overall, though, this script desperately lacked a strong main villain with a clearly defined agenda.
The troika of CIA heavies (Conklin, Zorn, and Abbott) are introduced within the first fifteen pages so there's really no suspense or mystery about who is after Jason or why. I solved this mystery by the end of Act One and spent the rest of the script going through the motions. These three "evil government agents" are clich� heavies that too strongly recalled Jon Voight and his cronies from Enemy of the State. Indeed, with its "man on the run" story line and its cardboard cutout, suit-and-tie villains, this Bourne Identity came across as a pale version of Tony Scott's earlier paint-by-numbers thriller. But at least in Scott's film I understood why these government agents were after Will Smith; they had a clear and gripping motive. In this script, the villains just want to protect their prize asset. Conklin, Zorn, and Abbott were indistinguishable from each other and lacked any true menace. Like the old adage says, a hero's only as good as his villain(s). Judging by these antagonists, Jason Bourne only seems to be running from clich�s.
Since weak villains sabotaged the "chase" story line, I'd hoped to at least become emotionally involved with the romantic subplot between Jason and Marie. Unfortunately, I simply never bought their contrived relationship; it strained credulity and I never felt anything real between them. I was constantly questioning why they were sticking together except that the laws of screenwriting required them to. I had a similar problem with the otherwise enjoyable Three Days of the Condor. Like that story, the male hero essentially forces the heroine to comply with his dangerous quest. We are then supposed to believe that this woman will fall for a man who coerced her into a life-threatening situation. I didn't buy it with Condor and I didn't buy it here. Even though Gilroy has written Marie as a ne'er-do-well with a shady past and a weakness for troublesome men, I never accepted her having feelings for Jason. They have only been together a few days when they become romantically involved and yet they're already talking about running away to start a new life together? Please.
I just never saw what Jason found so appealing about Marie. She is grating almost from the start. She never stops yammering and she curses more often than a drunken sailor. When Marie first begins ranting in their getaway car, Jason says that he likes her non-stop chatter. That he's had a headache since they fished him out of the water but that her talking helps it go away. What?! She's flat-out annoying and, ironically, gave ME a headache during this very scene! There isn't much to Marie except her green hair, which seems to be a nod at the wild-haired, high-strung heroine of Run Lola Run. Doug Liman has said that he wants Bourne to be as "stylish" as Lola; while I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities for visual flourishes, the characters and the suspense in this script were never as engaging as they were in that German cult classic.
With his buddy Ben Affeck now apparently up for the role of CIA man Jack Ryan, Matt Damon is ready to get in on the super-agent act by playing Jason Bourne. This role offers Damon the chance to be a genuine action movie hero (something different for this celebrated "serious actor"). His character's a sharp-minded man of mystery who can kill in innumerable ways. Basically, he's James Bond with amnesia. Jason's quest to find out who he is makes for an ironic parallel with an actor trying to understand and become the character he's playing. But I do have some trouble accepting Damon in this role simply because of his age; at least Brad Pitt, who is nearly forty, was a somewhat more believable choice as the battled-proven Jason Bourne. This will be Damon's movie all the way and I'm sure he'll still have a lot of fun in an otherwise under-written part.
Gilroy (through the character of Marie) clearly realized the contrivance of Bourne's suffering from amnesia but what really bothered me was that Jason's lack of memory gets him off the hook so easily. He's no longer responsible for his actions since, "hey, that really wasn't me who killed all those people and did those awful things. I'm a good guy now." (Not a direct quote from the script!) I don't believe that amnesia wipes out someone's true nature along with their memories. What is this anyway? John Woo's remake of Regarding Henry? By absolving Bourne of his sins in such a convenient way, there's really nothing for him to lose or to learn during the course of this story. Jason's amnesia has already made him a better man so where is this journey to?
The action scenes were all rather formulaic, replete with several car chases through narrow European streets (and, yes, down old stone stairs and past crowded outdoor cafes). The finale was particularly lackluster. The manhunt began when Bourne visits the U.S. Consulate in Zurich. By this point, Jason still has no clue of who he really is but he's discovered the safety deposit box full of money and passports. Jason begins to tell his seemingly far-fetched tale to a clerk who soon excuses herself to a back room. While waiting for her to return, Bourne sees that she's pulled up his information on the computer with the word "Detain" blinking on the screen. He then bolts, setting off an intensely violent chase. Except there's one huge problem with the logic behind this.
Jason has been shot, stabbed, left for dead at sea, and has microfilm in his hip (and let's not forget that safety deposit box full of trouble). He is trying to tell all this to the clerk, he even shows her his passports - and then acts shocked when they want to detain him?! Well, what else were you expecting? What if they were only going to detain him since he was the victim of a crime and they wanted to help him? It was ridiculous and contrived for Jason to even show up at the consulate if it was only to get him on the run. The ensuing manhunt was entertaining but entirely perfunctory, since I've seen it all before in The Fugitive and its countless derivatives.
While I didn't like this draft as much as I had hoped, I actually enjoyed Tony Gilroy's writing style. I also recently gave high marks to his hostage drama Proof of Life. Gilroy crafts real page-turners that are written in a staccato style often laced with what Mr. Spock would call "colorful metaphors." Unfortunately, the strongest part of Bourne was its premise. I "pitched" this story to a few relatives and friends and they all listened with rapt attention (doing this with other people's movies is a good exercise for writers who wish to hone their pitching skills). "It's about a guy who's found at sea. He's been shot and stabbed and is suffering from amnesia. He's got microfilm in his hip that leads him to a safety deposit box with money and a gun inside it. Now he's on the run from whoever it was that left him this way." Isn't that a story that makes you to want to know what happens next? Of course it is. The problem with this script is that it sets all of this cool stuff up within the first fifteen pages and then from there on you're just watching it all play out in a linear fashion. There are no surprising conclusions and no real suspense ever generated.
The Bourne Identity is certainly an interesting departure for producer/director Doug Liman. Liman previously directed such well liked, youth-oriented fare as Swingers and Go. This film appears to be his calling card to bigger projects with broader appeal. But I dread that The Bourne Identity could just end up being an exercise in style. We need to care about Jason Bourne's quest, to fear the villains, and to root for Jason and Marie to end up together at the end. Hopefully, future rewrites by the talented Tony Gilroy will accomplish these essential goals before cameras roll this fall. - STAX
The Daredevil project, now firmly underway, will be interesting. I wonder if he's holding off agreeing to Bourne Identity because of this one. Remember that Matt's expressed an interest (I'm sure) in doing this one before, and with stories like this from David Poland on roughcut.com:
And now, Daredevil has found a home at New Regency, which has a home at�taa-daaa!�Fox. I am still a bit skeptical about Mark Stephen Johnson as a writer/director of this kind of material, though every indication is that this is a true passion of his. Then again, I am far more skeptical about Raja Gosnell trying to pull off Fantastic Four with anything less than a cast of movie stars who can cover his flaws as Drew Barrymore and Martin Lawrence have. (Gosnell, Andy Tennant and Howard Deutch should start a club.) And for all my mocking of Mr. Affleck and his Jack Ryan situation, do you know who I think would make a great Matt Murdock (a.k.a. Daredevil, The Man Without Fear, a blind lawyer who fights crime by night)? Matt Damon. There is something about his build and style that makes me feel he could be a believable blind, clumsy guy by day and an butt-kickin' hero by night without getting laughs.
This story is identical to one a few years back: just replace the word Winona for Minnie: From IMDB Gossip.
Actress Winona Ryder's throwing out all memories of her relationship with hunk Matt Damon - she's giving away all the clothes he left at her house to a charity shop. Ryder donated a big bag of clothes, both men and women's, to an AIDS charity thrift store in Beverly Hills last week. And a beady-eyed shop worker noticed the monogram on one of the men's shirts, and realized it belonged to her handsome ex-boyfriend, Matt Damon. Most of the male clothes have already been snapped up by the shop's regular gay clientele, but many of Ryder's designer cast-offs are still available at the store.
From a question on the Affleck board, answered by friend Derek, on why British entries for Greenlight aren't allowed:
"It's not going to work out for you this time. Actually, Ben wanted to allow British entries, but Matt is STILL really pissed off about that whole taxation without representation thing."
From a 'nobody' on an Oscars discussion board about Bagger Vance:
"I talked to an industryite who has seen it, and he's talked to others who have also seen it, and the word on Bagger Vance is that it's very enjoyable, but not an Oscar-type movie. More Milagro Beanfield than Ordinary People or Quiz Show."
Added Felicity:"I loved Milagro Beanfield! Too early to tell on this one."

7/13/00 News from Felicity:
After the good news of yesterday, here's some more quotes re the project from the NY Times: Get Real!

The reality television juggernaut continues, now on cable, where it actually began, with MTV's "Real World" and HBO's "Taxicab Confessions."
On Monday HBO executives told television writers gathered in Pasadena, Calif., for the twice-yearly Television Critics Association tour that they were introducing a new reality show produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, the screenwriting and acting duo, who are also producing a reality show for ABC.
Called "Greenlight," the new HBO show will follow the travails and triumphs of a first-time filmmaker who is to be chosen from among the thousands of everyday people HBO expects to respond to its open call for screenplays, which will be submitted over the Internet.
The show will track the filmmaker throughout the process of making a small, independent-style film, which HBO, in partnership with Miramax, will release in theaters at the end of the show's run.
Mr. Affleck and Mr. Damon will be seen in the series and will also be executive producers of the film. But a representative from their company, Pearl Street Productions, said they did not want to become focal points of the series, which will not be shown on HBO until early in 2002.
"We don't want it to be about Matt and Ben," said Kent Kubena, vice president for development at Pearl Street. "We want it to be about the filmmaker."
So of course the filmmaker will not be chosen only on screenwriting skills, but also on issues of personality, Mr. Kubena said.
This is the second reality series that Mr. Damon and Mr. Affleck are producing. They recently sold ABC a show called "The Runner," in which one contestant will embark on a cross-country trek during which he or she will have to perform specified tasks while trying to avoid being spotted by viewers.
And from Jam:
Greenlight -- HBO has green-lighted this 13-part reality series which was developed by red-hot movie hunks Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. The premise has the two sifting through a stack of movie scripts sent in from budding Spielbergs. From the pile, they'll chose a project and help turn it into a theatrical film, awarding the lucky filmmaker with a $1 million budget and some studio muscle.
The Runner -- Affleck and Damon have also sold this show to ABC. The premise is simple: One lone contestant has to roam across the U.S. without getting caught by pesky viewers. Think of it as Survivor meets The Fugitive.
A British site, Popcorn, is upset:
It can't be you...
11/07/2000
Do you want to be the next big thing? Miramax, along with Good Will Hunting writers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are launching a competition that will propel a totally unknown screenwriter into the Hollywood starlight. Prospective screenplays can be submitted online this summer and one lucky scribe will be paid by Miramax to direct their masterpiece, while Damon, Affleck and Good Will Hunting producer Chris Moore will take executive producer roles.
A dream come true right? Well, if it sounds too good to be true, that�s because it is. Neglecting all the talent found on British shores, Miramax have confined the competition strictly to the US. So unless non-American writers fancy hoisting the star-spangled banner and taking a quick oath of allegiance you�ll have to spend a few more years languishing in obscurity.
Disgruntled screenwriters can register their outrage at www.projectgreenlight.com
7/12/00

Affleck, Damon focus 'Greenlight' for HBO, Miramax. Read here. Matt and Ben is involved in the production of a mini-series for HBO called Greenlight, which shows the production of a movie from start to its premiere.
Here's another take of the same story -
HBO 'GREENLIGHT' INDIE BOW
By PAULA BERNSTEIN
HOLLYWOOD -- HBO and Miramax TV have given the greenlight to "Greenlight," a 13-episode reality series chronicling the making of an indie film, which Miramax will release theatrically.
Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Chris Moore ("American Pie") will exec produce the movie and the TV series, HBO announced Monday at the semiannual Television Critics Assn. Tour.
The film will be based on a screenplay chosen via an Internet contest. Writers will be able to submit screenplays electronically at www.projectgreenlight.com and the winner will be paid by Miramax to direct the feature film. Pic's budget will be in the $1 million range, according to Miramax Television president Billy Campbell, who anticipates that hundreds of thousands of screenplays will be submitted.
The contest will begin in September, and pre-production on the movie will begin in early 2001 with a release date projected at January 2002, around the same time the series hits HBO. "We'd love to have the last episode of the series feature the filmmaker at the premiere of his film," said Campbell.
HBO has ordered 13 episodes of the half-hour series and plans to bring in a documentarian to direct it.
The series will begin pre-production immediately. Spanning the entire process of creating a movie, "Greenlight" will begin with an episode that introduces the aspiring filmmakers who submitted their screenplays via the Internet, followed by the selection of the winning scripts. Subsequent episodes will cover everything from pre-production and casting through principal photography and post-production.
Talent overseers
Damon, Affleck and Moore will be an integral part of the series, as viewers will witness the decisions they make as they help the director through the process of bringing a film to the bigscreen. Campbell said it's likely that the stable of Miramax directors such as Kevin Williamson and Robert Rodriguez will also help guide the filmmaker along.
In addition to helping the exec producers select the winning screenplay,Projectgreenlight.com will also serve as an interactive online community where aspiring filmmakers can meet and learn about each other's projects.
"Greenlight" was created by Alex Keledjian and developed for television by Eli Holzman, VP of Miramax TV, and Kent Kubena, VP of Pearl Street Prods.
7/11/00

Felicity's wrote:
From a Sony press conference in France, from AICN:
All this was quickly swept away by the trailers of "All the pretty horses" and "Final Fantasy"� The first clearly announces an epic film, but also that the Oscars hunting season has started. The second announces that the world of animation broke a new step.
And "more rumors" from Felicity:

Another rumour from the Daily Telegraph (London):
'Tina Brown' film set to get all of NY talking: Not before time, Tina Brown, the lofty British magazine editor first of Vanity Fair, then The New Yorker, now Talk, is to be the subject of a film... kind of.
Dame Judi Dench has agreed to play the part of the doyenne of the New York publishing world in a new film, Helen's Boy, being developed by the British company Ecosse, which so successfully cast her opposite Billy Connolly in Mrs Brown.
In Helen's Boy, when the husband of her character leaves her (surely Harold Evans wouldn't) she befriends a handsome young man and sets all of New York abuzz with gossip that the queen bee of publishing has taken a toyboy.
Ecosse is guarded about the basis for this evidently fantastic story though it admits "it's sort of Tina Brown 20 years on".
Ecosse's Douglas Rae wants Matt Damon for the toyboy.
"I haven't approached him yet but he and Judi got on very well at the pre-Oscar party that Miramax held in 1998," a spokesman said guardedly.
That was when Dame Judi was nominated for Mrs Brown.
Rae should maybe play down Tina Brown as the inspiration for Helen's Boy if he wants Miramax to back it. Talk, her current berth, is owned by Miramax.
From stories on dejanews: in that Golf Channel bit a while back Matt said that he golfs a lot with his father, and that his immediate aim is to beat him in one match. Also, a rumour that Billy Bob dislikes the score to ATPH (by Daniel Lanois), so it all had to be redone.

A thoughtful comment from a reader in response to that blurb on "Ripley's Game", mentioned in a previous item -
I'll see if I can clarify the multiple versions we have of Tom Ripley, and how that impacts on the idea of a sequel.
Highsmith's Ripley is first and foremost a con artist. Her TTMR opens with Tom one step ahead of the cops in NY, stealing from gullible people by pretending to be an IRS agent and threatening them if they don't pay up fast, all based on some stolen stationery. No struggling piano player, but a small-time criminal who even lies to the relatives that raised him. The book is an exercise in making the reader root for a criminal -- not an accidental criminal, but a schemer and liar and ultimately a murderer to whom we're sympathetic because Highsmith is a great writer (in this one novel, at least) and pulls it off. Tom's not in love with Dickie at all. The murder is entirely mercenary: Tom wants to steal Dickie's life. There are only a few hints that Tom may not be entirely straight, but the hints are subtle, the question *never* becomes part of the plot, and few 1950s readers would even have picked up on them. It was more of an in joke for Highsmith.
I don't need to tell you that Minghella took great liberties with Highsmith's work.
As it happens, the only other work of Highsmith's I've read is "Ripley's Game," the very one mentioned in that report about Brosnan and Dougray Scott. My memories of it are a bit hazy but I believe it presents Tom as a guy who has had a career on the fringes of the criminal world, fencing stolen art work and the like. He's definitely a happily married husband and father -- there are scenes with his in-laws! -- living and running a small art repair and framing shop near Paris. He gets involved with old criminal connnections to earn big bucks via a murder for hire, while pinning the crime on a guy he's mad at for very slight reasons. It involves lots of trips to Germany, some shooting, rival Mafia families, all standard crime/action stuff. No great roles for anybody until somebody does a re-write and decides whether it's just another crime story or a psychological study. Highsmith's is a mixed bag and succeeds as neither.
My bet: if someone decides to make "Ripley's Game" into a movie, it won't play at all like a sequel to Minghella's TTMR. It couldn't be pitched or marketed that way, and the title will probably change, too.
All of which suggests that Matt had it right when he was asked if there'd be a sequel. He laughed.
First someone would have to write the story that follows Mighella's movie. Highsmith didn't do that.

7/8/00
This posting on the rec.arts.movies newsgroup on usenet caught my attention:
Entertainment Weekly, July 14th, 2000 page 49
They report Pierce Brosnan "may very well be starring" as Tom Ripley in the sequel to The Talented Mr. Ripley, called Ripley's Game, opposite Dougray Scott no less. What is going on here?
Having not read Patricia Highsmith's novels regarding the Tom Ripley character, I can't say whether or not Brosnan is right or wrong for the role, but i've got to wonder why a recast, so early in a potential series of films? To me, Damon *is* Tom Ripley. The film was one of the better films i've seen in a while. Jude, Matt and Gwenyth all deserved Oscars. Why such a radical shift?
(My note: It's nice that this poster gave Matt such high marks for his performance in Ripley, and I of course agree with the sentiments. However, I must admit that Ripley is not a character that I would exactly like to see Matt in on a continuous basis. Hence I am not too distressed by this news.)
7/8/00

Felicity's finds:

If anyone couldn't find the trailer at the msn page (as I couldn't), it's now online in three speeds at www.comingsoon.net/trailers
From an article with Lochlyn Munro, an actor who has a multi-picture deal with Miramax: "I think there's a lot I can do. It's sort of like Matt Damon had to write Good Will Hunting so he could prove he could do other things -- well, now everything is written for Matt Damon. I'm not jealous of his or anyone's success, but I can get envious of the parts they get to play because that's the whole reason why actors act -- to immerse yourself in a different world view," says Munro.
There's apparently a blurb on 'The Runner' in Us Weekly (which is no longer on sale over here).
If anyone's really bored, try www.eonline.com , the celebs section, and celeb sightings. Matt scores many mentions, and one person's even suggested that he should be 'celeb of the year' for his many favourable interactions with fans. There's a few encounters at Minnesota, and this general one:
Matt Damon (by) Henry (Jun 25, 2000, 03:27 AM)
I live in LA and frequent the hot clubs. Matt Damon has to be one of the friendliest celebs around. Recently outside a club some fans were gathered and he signed autographs, posed for pics with his fans and shook their hands. He also kidded around with them. One fan asked him to leave a voice message on his friend's voice mail.Without hesitating, he did. Matt Damon deserves credit for being very down to earth and a great guy!!

Kathryn wrote:
Tom Cruise was on UK breakfast show The Big Breakfast to promote M:I 2 yesterday (Fri) -he did mention that his next project (or one of them) was Minority Report, and that Spielberg was going to helm it. No mention of Matt, however; but it wasn't the main focus of the interview. He did say how much he admired Spielberg and his cinematic talents. Another reason to look forward to MR, then :)
7/7/00

A Matt fan wrote, in response to Felicity's find of a Bagger Vance article which appeared in the current issue of Savannah magazine:
I found Savannah magazine -- there's not a single quote from Matt in the entire article. It's centered on Redford -- "A Legend Films a Legend" is the title -- and was timed to coincide with the film original release date. It's very Savannah: the local expert on accents, the number of costume seamstresses on hand, etc. A few nice shots, esp. a small one of Matt in profile with a day's growth of beard looking up at Charlize.
And Felicity spoke again - thank you! :-)
Tom Cruise now says Minority Report is back on, to start in April or May next year (after AI). From the sounds of that intv a few weeks back Matt is still involved - we'll wait and see.
7/6/00

Thus wrote a big Matt fan:
According to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, "Paramount Home Video's 'The Talented Mr. Ripley" debuted during the holiday weekend, taking the No. 3 rental slot with an impressive $10.79 million gross. However, the nation's largest video-rental chain, Blockbuster Video, reported that "Ripley" was its No. 1 rental last week in more than 5,000 stores nationwide.'" For the week ending July 2, Ripley was third in DVD sales, behind "The Green Mile" and "Independence Day."
I bought the DVD this weekend (on sale for $15.99!) and was once again struck by the exceptional artistry of the film. In his commentary, Minghella reveals his intention and motivation for every scene, making you really appreciate the complexity of the work. Every element has significance. Of course, he raves about Matt's performance (as well as everyone else's). Interestingly, Cate Blanchett also has some nice things to say about Matt, such as how easy he was, self-confident enough that he didn't have to flaunt himself. As for the film itself, as some have said, Matt's performance seems even stronger on repeat viewing.
And a follow up note from the big Matt fan:
According to DAILY VARIETY and VSDA VidTrac, for the week ending July 2, Ripley is the #1 DVD rental ($1.207 M) and #2 video rental ($9.3 M).
7/5/00

Sorry, I didn't get wind of this until just now - it's probably too late for everybody - but tonight's Leno show is a rerun of Matt's last appearance - he was hilarious and adorable - if you didn't catch it last time, it's worth watching. My thanks to the reader who sent in the alert. Sorry for not being able to spread the word sooner - too bad.
And thanks to Yasmin, who wrote: I bought an allure magazine today,and in the back, a section, last page called private eye,features matt.each month,allure asks different celebrities different questions.this month, the question was "if you were a rock star,how would you dress?" well matt answered, "I'd dress the exact same way I dress now, because i assume that if i were in a rock band, I'd be interested in making music and not wearing clothes." I think thats a great answer. Theres also a small picture of him, I think that it was at the golden globes.
7/1/00

(I've been traveling again, and so the following item is late - most of you have probably got wind of the news - I did while I was on the road.)
From a big Matt fan:
If you haven't seen it yet, Matt looks great in People's "100 Most Eligible Bachelors" issue, in a photo from the GQ shoot. Ranking at #3(!): "Matt Damon, 29, actor, New York City. The Beantown native learned his lesson. After incurring flak for airing his breakup wtih Minnie Driver, 30, on Oprah in 1997 ("I didn't understand the impact of speaking about something like that," he later told The London Guardian) Damon kept mum following his April split with actress Winona Ryder, 28. He's been eqully tongue-tied about rumors of romance with Spanish beauty Penelope Cruz, 26, his lady love in this fall's All the Pretty Horses, for which he earned a reported $5.5 million. Cruz recetnly told People she and Damon are "just very good friends" but went on to gush, "He's a very, very nice, very humble man. He's a very wise man. And I think he's a great actor." It's easy to excuse the superlatives. Damon's smart (he attended Harvard, leaving two semesters shy of graduation), industrious (he's completed five flicks in three years), handsome and sweetly devoted to his mother, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, 56, a professor of early childhood education. Most importantly, "when he does settle down," says his friend Costas Panagopoulos, "he'll commit to it with full force." BIG PLUS: He's modest ("There are times I've been rejected that would spin hour head around," he told TIME last year). CAVEAT: He has said that his non-stop work schedule has left him "out of gas."
(Commented the big Matt fan: Impressive placement. Only George Clooney and Derek Jeter are ahead of him. Interestingly, Ben and Freddie Prinze Jr. are much further down, with no mention of Leo, Mark Wahlberg or even Russell Crowe. decent mates, or maybe they just picked those who consented to have their picture included (although it's hard to see why someone would turn down inclusion on such a list). Who knows? Whatever the reason, it's great to see Matt so delightfully presented. )
This is also from the big Matt fan:
By the way, today, you can find the Bagger Vance trailer on msn.com which calls the film "a certain Oscar contender": http://windowsmedia.msn.com/MediaGuide/default.asp?page=0
This and many other items about the charity event that Matt participated in were found by Felicity
From the Denver Rocky Mountain News:
Penny Parker
On the Town
Jake Schroeder, the Opie in the local band Opie Gone Bad, called me with an up-close-and-personal report following Avalanche player Shjon Podein's celebrity golf tournament in Rochester, Minn., Sunday and Monday.
"I was a celebrity in his tournament," said Schroeder, who sings the National Anthem when the Avs play the Pepsi Center. "I figured he was thin on celebrities if I was there."
The "real" celebrity who impressed Schroeder most was major movie star Matt Damon (swoon!). "He was so nice and accessible," Schroeder said. "He let everybody take pictures and he totally got involved with the whole auction."
For Sunday's auction, Damon brought copies of the Good Will Hunting poster with his signature, along with co-stars Ben Affleck and Robin Williams. Also on Sunday, the day before the tournament, Damon tested out the course with Avs forward Stephane Yelle.
"The whole back nine, Damon kept doing his Mike Tyson impression," Schroeder said. "They couldn't play because they were laughing so hard."
As for the entire event, Schroeder summed it up: "It was killer!"
This came from Felicity:
I just found a link to the website (www.savannahmagazine.com) and it promotes their latest issue:
Read these and other interesting articles in our July/August issue of Savannah magazine:
The filming of The Legend of Bagger Vance in the Savannah area last fall captivated a lot of star gazers who watched director Robert Redford and actors Matt Damon, Will Smith and Charlize Theron weave a mystical tale of golf and life. By Linda Wittish
The cover is of Matt and Redford in chairs. The article could be good (as would the photos) if anyone could find the magazine. The issue was meant to be on sale from July 3 (July/August issue).
If you get hold of the magazine mentioned and would like to share, please write me at [email protected].)
From Jam on the DVD release of Ripley:
The talented Mr. Minghella
By BRUCE KIRKLAND -- Toronto Sun
Some DVD releases enhance the reputation of the film itself. Thanks to English filmmaker Anthony Minghella, tomorrow's DVD release of The Talented Mr. Ripley does just that for this under-appreciated study in psychotic love and psychological terror.
While also coming out on VHS, the DVD has the extras, including an impressive feature-length commentary by Minghella.
The DVD also includes two music videos with Damon singing, trailers, routine cast interviews and a strong insight into the role of the music in the film. A strong package of materials.
And another nice review:
Ripping good Ripley
By NEAL WATSON
Edmonton Sun
Tom Ripley is one of those people who is uncomfortable in his own skin.
Luckily for this young man, he sheds his skin the way others lose their clothes on the sun-drenched Italian beaches that are the backdrop for the superb The Talented Mr. Ripley, available on video this week.
Based on the 1955 novel by Patricia Highsmith and intelligently adapted by writer/director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient), The Talented Mr. Ripley is a true Hollywood rarity - a thoughtful, multi-layered thriller.
Tom Ripley - played by reigning Hollywood golden boy Matt Damon in what was a master stroke of casting - states at one point that he would rather be "a fake somebody than a real nobody,'' the line seized upon by many reviewers and those whose job it was to market the film.
But the line only hints at the depth to which Minghella's film goes to explore issues of class, social climbing, identity, envy and the duplicitous nature of human beings.
Ripley earned almost universal critical acclaim and its commercial success belied conventional studio wisdom that literary films are box-office poison. Widely expected to nab a best-picture Oscar nomination, its omission from the list may have had a lot to do with its dark treatment of a difficult subject. (The Academy prefers more uplifting material like The Green Mile, which was nominated.)
A fascinating portrait of an amoral sociopath, we have no reason to think that Tom Ripley is anything other than an average young man when we first meet him. Mr. Greenleaf believes he is a fine young man when he hires Ripley to go to Italy and retrieve Greenleaf's son, Dickie - Jude Law in a dazzling Oscar-nominated performance. We have already learned there is something odd about Ripley - we are going to learn much more.
Arriving on the beach in Italy and exposing his Casper-like skin to a world he cannot comprehend, Ripley encounters the bronzed god-like figures of Dickie and his girlfriend, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), who are living la dolce vita. Soon, the empty personality that is Ripley is brimming over with Dickie's charisma and thirst for life.
"You stay at Dickie's house, eat Dickie's food, wear his clothes,'' says Freddie, one of Dickie's rich friends, mocking Ripley and hinting at what this odd stranger is doing. (Played as a wildly eccentric playboy by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is rapidly turning into the top film character actor of his generation, Freddie is one of the great treats of Ripley.)
Most of the reviews of this film gave away far too much about what would happen if Ripley violent sociopathic tendencies were unleashed - a forgivable sin given that the studio's marketing campaign did exactly the same thing. I think, however, you should discover Ripley the way Dickie and Marge do, first as a friend, then as someone who kind of creeps you out and, finally, as someone who can't let go.
"I've gotten to like everything thing about the way you live,'' Tom says, at one point.
Ripley is masterfully directed by Minghella, who carefully builds the suspense and eschews standard thriller gimmicks instead of concentrating on the ever-growing web of lies and deceit. (The underlying homoeroticism, played in a subtle fashion by the director, only adds to the tension.)
With its detailed re-creation of time and place - the gorgeous, romantic Italy of the late '50s - and swinging jazz soundtrack, Ripley was one of last year's most beautiful movies but the look and leisurely pace never undermines the often-uncomfortable suspense.
Minghella's young cast is as gorgeous as the setting, but beauty is only skin deep. With his vacant stare and crooked smile, Damon is rivetting, while Law is utterly charming as the ultimate rotter. Relegated to a girlfriend role in the first half of the movie, Paltrow's Marge is cranked through the emotional wringer as the movie goes on, and the young actress is clearly up to the demands of the role.
Dark and uncompromising, The Talented Mr. Ripley is hard to watch but you may find it harder to look away.
The Talented Mr. Ripley - original rating: 5 SUNS (out of 5); video rating - 5 SUNS.
www.spielberg-dreamworks.com has digitised the Bagger Vance clip from earlier this week. It looks great to me.
In a USA Today story on books to film:
A book that might have had a small audience can become a best seller because the jacket of the movie ''tie-in'' edition sports a photo of a big star.
Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, for example, sold ''hundreds of thousands'' of copies once Matt Damon was added to the cover of the novel last year.
Matt and Ben's new reality series will have a lot of competitors - another show has been picked up today with an almost identical theme (for another network).
On the People mag's list of bachelors Matt was named #3 bachelor (Clooney 1). Can anyone access the text?
Some late articles from Rochester, Minnesota about that charity weekend:
Podein weekend fund-raiser to draw host of celebrities
Thursday, June 22, 2000
By Christina Killion
The Post-Bulletin
Where can you see actor Matt Damon, network sports announcer Sean McDonough, former heavyweight boxer Scott Ledoux, ex-Green Bay Packer Darrel Thompson, and Nicole Sullivan from MadTV in one night without channel surfing?
The answer may be surprising.
The Aquarius Club in Rochester will be the scene of a charity auction and concert featuring "g.b. leighton" that is expected to draw almost 50 sports and entertainment celebrities to raise money for the Shjon Podein Children's Foundation.
"We have been lucky as a foundation that people with very big hearts are willing to give their time for kids in this area. It means a lot," said Podein, a Rochester native and Colorado Avalanche Hockey player.
The foundation was established in 1997 to provide financial gifts to organizations that support children. Contributions have been given to organizations such as R.A.D.A.R. (Rochester Area Disabled Athletic and Recreation) and Pain Management, a counseling agency that teaches children to deal with anger issues.
"We want to help kids that do not have the same opportunities we had when we were young," Podein said.
Each year the event has raised more money, Podein said, adding that he hopes to continue the tradition this weekend with the auction and golf tournament.
Items to be auctioned off beginning at 8 p.m. Sunday include an autographed Wayne Gretzky jersey, a jersey of hockey legend Bobby Orr, a football signed by Minnesota Viking Chris Carter, Timberwolves tickets and a VIP trip to a Colorado Avalanche game. Back-stage passes to a Phish concert and items autographed by Santana, the Dixie Chicks and John Mellencamp are also on the auction block.
The fund-raising continues Monday with the annual "Making Dreams Reality" celebrity golf tournament at the Rochester Golf and Country Club.
Birdies and putts mean big bucks
Tuesday, June 27, 2000
By Bob Brown
The Post-Bulletin
When Shjon Podein was growing up in Rochester, he had one goal in mind.
"It was to make the John Marshall hockey team,'' he said. "I didn't know there was anything beyond that.''
Well, there's been plenty beyond that for Podein.
He played junior hockey for the Rochester Mustangs, he played college hockey at Minnesota-Duluth and now he's playing for the Colorado Avalanche, which made it to the National Hockey League semifinals this season.
Not only that, but he has rubbed shoulders with some of top celebrities in the sports and entertainment fields, and he had many of them in Rochester the last two days for the third annual Shjon Podein Children's Foundation Celebrity Golf Tournament.
Among those who played in the tournament Monday at the Rochester Golf and Country Club were actor Matt Damon, actress Nicole Sullivan, recording artist Garrett Love, former NBA player Randy Breuer of Lake City, onetime Green Bay Packer running back Darrell Thompson of Rochester, ex-Washington Redskins kicker Chip Lohmiller and Podein teammate Stephane Yelle to name a few.
An auction and the tournament were expected to raise about $130,000, Podein said. That's twice as much as last year and $100,000 more than was raised at the first Podein tournament in 1998.
"It keeps getting better and better," Podein said. "These celebrities really dig in to help the kids. Having Matt Damon this year helped a lot. He's a great guy. He's kind-hearted."
Podein got the idea for the tournament after playing as a guest in a benefit tourney for ataxia that was held in Rochester.
"I wanted to help the kids in Rochester, especially those who don't get much funding," he said.
So Podein started his own tournament, with some of the proceeds still going to ataxia.
Monday's tournament also attracted local golfers from every walk of life. One of them was Rick Lovett, Rochester's assistant fire chief. He was a little nervous about having Adrian Watey as the celebrity in his group. Watey, an Orlando, Fla.,-based golf pro, coaches 13 players on the PGA Tour, including Ernie Els.
"He (Watey) is going to throw up when he sees my swing,'' Lovett joked.
But Watey said he wasn't looking for flaws in anybody's swing. "We're all out here to have a good time,'' he said.
And a good time they had.
Podein was stationed at par three hole No. 11 all day, hitting tee shots for each group. If his shot happened to land closest to the pin (which it did on occasion), a group could use that shot in the best-ball format.
There was also a reward for golfers when anybody hit an old Podein Freightways white van, owned by Shjon's father, that was parked next to the green.
Anybody who made a hole-in-one got $5,000 and the van.
Time to relax
Podein, now 32 and an eight-year NHL veteran, said he'd have more time to work on the golf tournament when his NHL playing career is finished.
"It will be three more years and out for me," he said. "That's the length of my contract. Then I'll spend my time running with the dog and being lazy."
Even though he has a home in Minneapolis, Podein likes playing in Colorado, where he just completed his second season.
"I hated leaving Philadelphia (he was with the Flyers for five years),'' he said. "But after being in Colorado for two years, I'd hate to leave there."
Even though he scored five goals in this year's NHL playoffs, Podein was disappointed with the way the season wound up. The Avalanche lost to the Dallas Stars in seven games in the NHL semifinals.
"We really wanted to get to the finals," he said.
Boston to Hollywood to Rochester
Monday, June 26, 2000

What is it about a Hollywood film star that makes perfectly-normal people go bonkers?
Saturday night in Minneapolis, Matt Damon was forced to leave a restaurant because he was being mobbed from all sides.
Sunday night at McMurphy's, he again couldn't walk more than two steps without interference of some sort.
Which leads us to this; what in the world is Matt Damon doing in Rochester in the first place, and it has nothing to do with the Mayo Clinic.
Let's ask Sean McDonough.
Both the movie star and TV play-by-play announcer are here playing in the third annual Shjon Podein Children's Foundation golf tournament.
McDonough and Damon met in 1991 when the aspiring actor was a student at Harvard and McDonough was doing play-by-by for the Boston Red Sox.
And Damon is a huge, huge Red Sox fan, but then again, isn't everybody in Boston?
"We met through some mutual friends,'' said McDonough. "One day we were both playing tennis at Harvard Square and one thing led to another. We sat down and started talking baseball. Matt's dad (Kent) is a huge Red Sox fan, too.''
McDonough's group of friends includes several with hockey connections, and they decided to vacation for a few days in Las Vegas during the NHL All-Star Game break in February.
Guess what? Podein, the Rochester native, was there, there, and his group met the McDonough-Damon group.
"There was about 10 of us,'' said McDonough, "and we had a great time. We decided to reconvene in Rochester, so here we are. Everybody made it.''
Including Damon.
"He's the same today as when I first met him,'' said McDonough. "Kind, generous, down-to-earth. He's the same now as he was when he was literally down to his last 50 cents as a student.
"You would think all the fame would change him, but nothing has. He's the same old Matt.''
McDonough has been doing Red Sox games for 13 years, but you've seen him at CBS where he worked for nine years before being unceremoniously let go last summer.
Nobody said the TV business is fair, and in McDonough's case it's not. He has a pair of World Series to his credit as lead announcer and at one time was the golden voice at CBS, both in baseball and football. He's as professional as they come.
But one day you're king and the next you're given the boot out the door.
One day Dennis Miller is a comedian and the next he's on Monday Night Football.
"I was disappointed, sure,'' McDonough said Sunday night during a break in the silent auction for the Podein tournament at McMurphy's.
"My contract was up, and I was gone. CBS was under new ownership, and they went in a new direction.''
So when CBS hired Dick Enberg from NBC last year, it was McDonough who was given a farewell party.
He wasn't the first. Pat O'Brien was dropped, then Tim Ryan, Andrea Joyce and Michelle Tofoya.
"Things happen for a reason. Now I have the opportunity to spend more time with my family and to attend events like this,'' he said.
McDonough was approached by ESPN but nothing has worked out so far. Fox has no openings, and NBC is cutting back since it lost the NFL a couple of years ago.
"Right now, there's no place else to go,'' he said, "but to be honest, when I was working for CBS and also doing the Red Sox, I was working 52 weeks a year and that was too much.
"I'll probably sit out this year (football) and maybe next year I'll try the network route again. I may go back but there's no hurry.''
Good will found as actor comes to benefit auction
Monday, June 26, 2000
By Christina Killion
The Post-Bulletin
"Do I hear $10,200?" asked actor and impromptu auctioneer Matt Damon during the Shjon Podein Children's Foundation benefit at Aquarius Club in Rochester Sunday night.
Celebrities and benefit attendees bid on sports and entertainment memorabilia including "the most individualized 'Good Will Hunting' poster ever," as described by Damon, at the auction.
Guaranteeing that he and his friend and fellow actor and screenwriter, Ben Affleck, would write absolutely anything on the poster and Robin Williams would autograph it too, Damon started the bidding at $7,000. Williams and Affleck co-starred with Damon in "Good Will Hunting."
"How do you like them apples?" Damon asked the crowd. "Remember, all the money goes to the children."
Four bidders each took home a distinctly-yours "Good Will Hunting" poster for $10,000 each, making it the biggest fund-raising item at $40,000.
"Our goals for tonight are simple: to raise as much money as we can for the kids and to have fun," said Shjon Podein, a Rochester native and Colorado Avalanche hockey player who founded the foundation, which funds local organizations that are often overlooked, Podein said.
By the end of the live auction, $90,000 was raised.
"I get invited to a lot of these things and I don't go. Not because I don't like charities, but I'm busy," Damon said.
"What am I doing in Rochester, Minnesota?" asked Damon, "I'm here for him," he said, answering himself and pointing at Podein. "He's an amazing human being."
Damon took home a chocolate Labrador puppy, after jumping in on the bidding to raise actor-comedian Steve Shenbaum's original bid from $300 to $3,000.
An autographed Podein jersey also went to Damon, for $6,000, after a bidding war with Florida hockey player Mark Parrish.
"This is for a great, great cause and a great foundation," Damon said, adding, "Shjon Podein is as classy as they come."
The celebrity guests increased interest in the event, said Tracy Dixon, from Fox Country 102.5 FM, a media sponsor. But the focus stayed on raising money for children.
"It's really cool he wants to keep the focus on Shjon Podein," Dixon said about Damon, who mingled and signed autographs for fans.
Continuing the fund raising, Joe McBride, branch manager of co-sponsor Dain Rauscher, will be golfing with Matt Damon today at the third annual "Making Dreams a Reality" Celebrity Golf Tournament. McBride was the top bidder for a tee time with Damon, with $1,100.
Other celebrity golfers on the greens today included Podein's teammates Dan Hinote and Stephane Yelle; and Brian Leighton, lead singer/guitar of g.b. leighton, who played a concert at the benefit; and actor Joel Gretsch, who is in the upcoming movie, "The Legend of Bagger Vance."
More gems from Felicity:

From NY Daily News:
ABC Has More Games Afoot
By DONNA PETROZZELLO
Daily News Staff Writer
BC is developing at least two new game shows for prime time, including a reality show pitched to the network by Academy Award winners Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
The network yesterday said it has committed to buying "You Don't Know Jack" from veteran TV producer Carsey-Werner Productions.
The show, a spinoff of a popular CD-ROM trivia game of the same name, will feature a wise-cracking host who ridicules contestants when they give wrong answers.
One "Jack" fan described the computer version as "an irreverent version" of "Jeopardy."
Damon and Affleck, who won a Best Screenplay Oscar for "Good Will Hunting," will be executive producers on "Runner," a reality show with just one contestant at a time.
The contestant attempts a solo trek across the country without being recognized by viewers.
ABC has agreed to produce 13 episodes of "Runner." Damon and Affleck spent six months developing the concept with their production company.
Both shows are expected to debut later in the upcoming TV season, said Andrea Wong, ABC's vice president of alternative series and specials.
ABC says it doesn't expect to launch "Jack" until after this summer and the network has not determined how many episodes it will order to start.
"Jack" had been on the drawing board with Time Warner-owned Telepictures Productions, which considered launching the computer game as a syndicated show four years ago, but the project fell flat.
ABC's announcement about "Jack" and "Runner" comes a week after the network said it will partner with Los Angeles-based Stone Stanley Entertainment to produce a U.S. version of the Belgian game show "The Mole."
Somewhat similar to CBS' hit "Survivor" series, "The Mole" pits 10 contestants in a team effort to complete odd tasks, except that one of the contestants is planted by the production crew and tries to sabotage the group's efforts.
At the end of each episode, the member of the team who is furthest from guessing which of his comrades is a spy is booted off the show.
With "Mole," "Jack" and "Runner" in development for ABC, an industry source said the network's plans to develop "Mastermind," the second quiz show from "Millionaire" executive producer Michael Davies, are "on the back burner."
From a story on Chet Baker in the LA Times:
The Chet Baker story continues to be a tempting one for Hollywood producers. Virtually every hot young male star has been mentioned as a possibility for what would seem to be a plum role. And Matt Damon's's brief, Baker-like rendering of "My Funny Valentine" in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" positioned him as a potentially believable candidate.
How's this for a quote after Matt was offered the lead in Apes, and Wahlberg took it: The film's producer, Richard Zanuck, tells the Hollywood Reporter that they always envisaged Wahlberg in the lead role, noting that he combines "both great acting talent as well as great physical ability".

6/28/00

News from Felicity:

Absolutely nothing in the latest Premiere or Movieline issues.
But there's lots on Penelope at the news-stands. She's got about a four-page spread in In Style where they follow her at Cannes, and she's also on the cover of the US Elle. Great photos and nice story, where it says (of Matt) "We've become very close", she says smiling. It also writes that she has broken up with her Czech boyfriend. Now let the rumours continue...
And due partly to the disappointment of Titan, Fox has shut down its animation division.
From TV News Daily:
Damon And Affleck Team With ABC For 'Runner'
Tue, Jun 27, 2000 02:55 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES (Zap2It.com) - Academy Award-winning partners Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are re-teaming to executive produce the ABC reality-based series "The Runner."
"The Runner," with its "Fugitive" -like plot, follows a single contestant who crosses the country while trying to avoid being identified by viewers. ABC has given the series a 13-episode commitment and has slated the show for later this season.
"We couldn't be happier about bringing this terrific original concept to network television," said Andrea Wong, ABC's vice president of alternative series and specials. "Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have given us a series that combines the best elements of reality programming and some of the tried and true basics of fictional drama."
This will be the first television venture for Damon and Affleck, who are co-executive producing along with their LivePlanet, Inc. partners Sean Bailey and Chris Moore. Damon and Affleck each received an Oscar for their screenplay of "Good Will Hunting."
"Matt and I have spent six months developing this idea with the rest of our group at LivePlanet and we couldn't be happier to find ourselves partnering with ABC. They've shown real excitement at the idea and made real contributions to the creative aspect of the program," said Damon and Affleck in a statement.
Damon recently starred in the films "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Dogma," which co-starred Affleck. Affleck's most recent films include "Forces of Nature" and "Armageddon."

6/27/00

Just got back from a week of travelling. I thank all who mailed in their finds of Matt news while I was gone.
I flipped on ET soon after I return and what did I see? Another of those ET-first clip of Bagger Vance. I only caught the tail end of the segment and it went by in lightning speed, but there were a few memorable scenes that they showed, including a very Redford-like closeup of Matt, very well-groomed and golden, and a romantic shot of Matt and Charlize Thuron, and I believe a shot of a slightly unshaven Matt. Judging from the stills, I think there is a chance that we maybe going to get to see Matt in his full glory in at least part of this film. That would be a nice treat, don't you think? It seems ages since we have had that.
More on BOURNE IDENTITY
Damon Likely to Assume 'Identity'. Read it here.
Tons of news from Felicity:

Hardly huge news, but Bagger Vance has got a PG-13 rating (for some sexual content). Titan now looks like a huge loss for Fox (very sad).
You all probably saw this, but from dark horizons:
Matt Damon's Next: Matt Damon chatted with iFUSE about his highly talked about schedule of upcoming work. He's "verbally agreed" to a supporting part in Spielberg's "Minority Report" if it ever gets made, Tim Burton has offered him the lead in "Planet of the Apes" which he hasn't decided on yet, and he's "very interested" in taking the lead role in Doug Liman's adaptation of the Robert Ludlum novel "The Bourne Identity". Damon says "A lot of good stuff is coming my way, it's hard to make choices which is a good place to be". Thanks to 'Leslie'.
There are longer quotes on the story - check under fast news. The site won't allow me to copy it here.
From the Chicago Sun Times and an interview with Mark Wahlberg:
... For starters, is he the reason Winona Ryder broke up with Matt Damon? "It's pretty ridiculous," Wahlberg said. "I've met Matt, and he's a nice guy. I like him a lot. I've met her. We talked about doing a movie together. Other than that, it's just stuff to fill in the blanks in a newspaper." Anita Talbert of the E! Channel reported the latest Hollywood couplings on her radio bit this morning.
From yahoo.com and reuters:
Matt Damon Helps Out at Fund-Raiser
ROCHESTER, Minn. (AP) - Matt Damon played auctioneer at a fund-raiser for children, promising ``the most individualized `Good Will Hunting' poster ever,'' signed by him and co-stars Ben Affleck and Robin Williams. Four bidders got posters for $10,000 each at the Shjon Podein Children's Foundation benefit Sunday. Podein, a Rochester native and Colorado Avalanche hockey player, started the foundation. The auction raised $90,000, including the $3,000 Damon bid for a Labrador puppy and the $6,000 he bid on an autographed Podein jersey. Damon stayed in Rochester for a celebrity golf tournament Monday.
Damon flicks to go face to face this fall
Movies/by Stephen Schaefer
Sunday, June 25, 2000
Matt Damon is a hot commodity in Hollywood, and it's got him in the hot seat.
Not that Damon has done anything wrong. But when DreamWorks recently announced that it would pull its Damon movie, ``The Legend of Bagger Vance,'' from August and open it instead in November, it set up a collision with another prestigious Damon project, the long-awaited (and long-delayed) ``All the Pretty Horses,'' a Miramax film.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein is taking it as a personal affront. Why? Because Miramax has Oscar ambitions for ``Pretty Horses'' and did not expect to be playing in a twosome with ``Bagger Vance,'' a Robert Redford film in which Damon teams with Will Smith and Charlize Theron.
``Pretty Horses,'' originally scheduled for release late last year, was postponed until this November, and the reasons for that may be fuel for Weinstein's anger.
Talk in Hollywood is that director Billy Bob Thornton either took his time editing or was engaged in a power struggle over the running time and his final cut. (Then, there's the distraction of his marriage to Angelina Jolie, but that's a whole other story.)
The situation is unusual because big stars in Hollywood - major payday players like Robin Williams or John Travolta - have a major say when their films are released. For instance, Williams' Holocaust drama ``Jakob the Liar'' was finished long before Miramax's Oscar-winning Holocaust drama ``Life Is Beautiful'' was released here but it was held up for a year so that two other Williams movies could be released first. When ``Jakob the Liar'' opened, it was a major flop - partly due to the fact that it reprised a subject moviegoers felt they had recently seen.
At this point, Damon, who gets less than $10 million a picture (though he recently signed up for the high profile Robert Ludlum thriller, ``The Bourne Identity''), does not have the clout to demand that none of his movies collide with each other in the marketplace.
Does it ultimately matter? Not to moviegoers who love Damon - they'll be thrilled with a double whammy. But it definitely could, as Weinstein fears, affect the year-end Oscar voting.
Damon's involvement notwithstanding, the films are hardly similar. The 1930s' era of Savannah, Ga., that Redford has re-created for ``Bagger Vance'' harks back to another sport-themed Redford picture, ``The Natural.'' The golfing tournament that is central to ``Bagger Vance'' echoes the baseball motif of ``The Natural'' and both films share a mystical element.
In ``Pretty Horses,'' Damon plays is a Texas youth whose trip to Mexico with his buddy (Henry Thomas of ``E.T.'') becomes a series of lessons about living and dying. According to actress Penelope Cruz, no one will see ``Pretty Horses'' without being moved. Cruz plays Damon's love interest in the Texas-to-Mexico journey depicted in the film, based on the first novel in Cormac McCarthy's border trilogy.
``I saw it and can't talk about it,'' said Cruz, a Spanish actress who starred in Pedro Almodovar's Oscar-winning ``All About My Mother'' and whose English-language debut feature, ``Woman on Top,'' is due in September. ``What (Thornton) has done is amazing and brave. When I see that movie, I cannot talk to anybody for hours. It's like a knife in your heart.''
She'd get no argument on that from Harvey Weinstein.
A Penelope story from Now magazine last week:
On asked directly if she and Matt were dating: "Matt's one of my best friends. It keeps being written that we're in love and I've seen photographers hanging out of trees to get a picture of us together."
So that's a no, then?
"Why should we have to explain? Questions like why we're with someone or not - or why we've broken up? There are some things you should keep to yourself. It should be respected."
So, is that a yes?
Penelope remains coy but is in no doubt about one thing - Matt's nice-guy talent.
"I play a Mexican from a wealthy family in the 40s and Matt plays a cowboy visiting our ranch. When we fall in love my father doesn't allow the relationship, so I have to choose between him and Matt. It's a very strong, dark and powerful story. A lot of people will be very surprised by this film.
Matt's an amazing talent. He's very humble, very wise. The way he deals with everyone is so polite. It isn't a pose - it's real. He's always like that, even at the end of a long day. He always has time for people. He was very helpful to me and, by the time the film was over, everyone loved him."

This is a no-frills web site dedicated to a weekly (or so) column on Matt Damon , the actor.
The columns are written by a fan of the actor and are stricly for the reading pleasure of others who admire Matt. Each column will address a specific topic, along with tidbits and news on Matt.
Readers' emails are welcome. Write to me at [email protected].
Guest columns are invited. If you have a column that you want to be considered to be published here, write me.

Click on a column

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

I hope you enjoy this site. Sorry if you looked for Matt photos in vain. If you like photos, see the Unofficial Matt Damon site or this site.
Some good sources of Matt Info

E-mail: [email protected]

URL: http://mattdamon.cjb.net

You are visitor to this page since 8/13/99

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

Sorry, "The Legend of Beggar Vance" is NOT opening this Friday 8/4. It has been rescheduled for November.

Click on a column

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

Sorry, "The Legend of Beggar Vance" is NOT opening this Friday 8/4.
It has been rescheduled for November.