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

• A big thanks to the reader who wrote to let us in on this big news:
  Matt and Billy Bob Thornton will be on Oprah this Wednesday.
  11/22/00 � Matt Damon & Billy Bob Thornton (PG)
  Ladies and gentlemen�
  Today, Academy Award (R) winners, Matt Damon and Billy Bob Thorton!
  You�ll hear about everything from their new movie, All The Pretty Horses, to phobias, the fleeting nature of success and on-set practical jokes.
  � plus, a mystery caller!
  (Footnote: Last year Matt also appeared on Oprah just before Thanksgiving, to promot "The Talented Mr. Ripley". Oprah has always been very kind to Matt; and her endorsement of the movie is a very big deal.)

• Got a response from Erin (thanks) to the query posted yesterday:
  There were a few songs in the trailer, the U2 one I just thought of ("All I Want Is You", correct?)...but there's a Mazzy Star song called "Fade Into You" that I believe was on there too. I FINALLY saw the trailer today before I watched Bounce (which, by the way, was kind of a disappointment...I wish Ben would play something more than the superficial roles he's been picking...I've read that Gwyneth told him he should play this role but I'm left wondering WHY??) Anyway, back to the trailer...I saw a couple other good trailers too but I'm pretty sure that Mazzy Star song was in there. I cannot believe how beautiful that trailer was and how much the scenes they showed hit me as extremely close to how I pictured them as I was reading the novel. I think it's the kind of book that's going to come across very well translated into a film. I'm unbelieveably excited!
• Shelley (thanks!) also wrote:
  the U2 song is "all i want is you". which, by the way is one of my absolute favorite u2 songs :) i LOVED the preview...saw it for the first time last night before "bounce"
• Great finds from Felicity:
  • There's another Pretty Horses review at AICN - it�s described as being too short at 1 hour 45 mins. How short is this thing going to go?
    Here'the text:
    A look at ALL THE PRETTY HORSES
    Hey folks, Harry here with a report from Nanki-Poo on ALL THE PRETTY HORSES. Man, it feels as though this has been forever in coming to a theater near you and I... but it had trouble when it was at Sony, but now at Miramax... everything seems to be rather smooth for the production and the resulting film. This should be a rather good sweeping epic, a new genre for us to see coming from Billy Bob Thornton... But dagnamit, I'm ready to see this sucker... Only about a month to wait.... Here ya go...
    Hey there Harry, Nanki-Poo here,
    I recently attended a screening of the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's widely acclaimed first novel ALL THE PRETTY HORSES. Now Miramax is obviously gearing this oft-delayed film as their "for your consideration" offering of 2000--with a scheduled Christmas release. Indeed this film wears its Oscar credentials on its sleeve: Oscar winner Billy "Bob" Thronton directs Oscar winner/nominee Matt Damon in a film written by Oscar winner Ted Tally, produced by Oscar winner Mike Nichols.
    The story takes place in the late 1940s and involves Matt Damon, as John Grady Cole, a young rancher who travels to Mexico with his friend Lacey Rawlings (played by Henry Thomas) after his Texas ranch is sold off. John's passion in life is horses: training and breeding them. Once he finds himself on a large Mexican ranch (really his personal El Dorado) owned by "Rocha" played by Ruben Blades, he finds the 2nd passion of his life--Alejandra, Rocha's raven haired beauty of a daughter. It doesn't take x-ray vision to see that a hired hand from America courting the owner's daughter is a recipe for trouble, and the Mexican legal system is played up for all the ugliness it is so well-known for
    First of all, the film is beautifully shot, and I can only assume the final print will be even better when finalized. The performances and script are uniformly strong, though the standouts are often the supporting character parts--which often resonant with more interest and originality. Lucas Black as the gangly but strong-willed Blevins--who John and Lacey happen upon on their trip through Mexico is quirky, funny and very well protrayed--we're talking Best Supporting nod here (and he actually looks 16)! Another character that caught my eye was Alejandra's aunt--in a few nicely written and acted scenes this actor--I forget her name creates a strong, mature Hispanic female.
    Henry Thomas and Matt Damon share a good synergy as cowboy buddies (with believable Texas accents, too) and cameos provided by Sam Shepard, Robert Patrick and Bruce Dern are nicely played though fleeting.
    The problem with the film is that, like the novel, the narrative is episodic and picaresque, and John Cole's arc -- his joys and sorrows really hinge on his love for Alejandra and the horses. Unfortunately this cut of the film short-shrifts us on the romance and the horse "whispering"--the emotional threads that tie the film together. The result is a film that is marred by a narrative jumpiness. I had heard of earlier, longer screenings of over two hours. The version we saw was a multiplex friendly 1 hour and 45 minutes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if Thornton and Miramax can find a good 10 to 15 minutes to place back in, it could have a film that successfully marries all its good elements into a whole that could very well be the "for your consideration" film they are looking for.
  • In a story about how popular the "new" golf hole at Kiawah Island has become, the course spokesman says:
    Smith, according to Vegis, is all but addicted to golf. ``Between takes, if he had an hour, he'd go out and play three or four holes. Matt Damon (a novice at the outset) was learning. He played a lot while he was here, and our director of golf instruction said he was developing an incredibly good swing.''
  • The Friday movie column at the Wall Street Journal has joined the crowds by stating that Colin Farrell is the next Matt (not sure if they mean just for the Minority Report or on a larger scale).
  • This could be interesting, from IMDB:
    Cruise Sets Movie Sights On Best-Seller
    Tom Cruise (photos) is understood to be among Hollywood stars showing an interest in a movie of Dave Eggers' best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. New Line Cinema has paid $1.8 million for rights to the book, which details the author's life after both his parents died of cancer. Eggers, according to associates, will donate much of his fees to various cancer charities and will have the right to co-write a film treatment. The story, says sources, has fascinated Cruise and a string of other star names including Matt Damon (photos) and Ben Affleck (photos). One source says, "It's very hard, nitty gritty stuff of which dreams are made for any actor. But it's also tough, about loss, about a guy raising his younger brother. You could fall right on your face. There is a lot of interest tainted by caution."
    The book is highly recommended, especially for about the first 150 pages (loses most of its way after that). It is told in a remarkable, personable, self-aware style, and has similarities to language in GWH, as Eggers is from Boston. One to watch.

• A reader wrote:
  THIS IS DRIVING ME NUTS. What is the name of the song in the All The Pretty Horses trailer? Not the U2 one, the other one. I've heard it before, and I just love it and can't find it and I want to knoooow
  If you have an answer to this note, please write me.
• From USA Today:
  For 'Horses,' Stuart settles the score
  "I see it as John Ford with mushrooms in his pockets," Marty Stuart says of his vivid score for All the Pretty Horses, Billy Bob Thornton's screen version of the Cormac McCarthy best seller. The country singer's task was daunting. Thornton originally hired musician/producer Daniel Lanois, but Miramax balked at the result. Enter other composers, whose fine-tuning also failed to satisfy. A studio-director squabble ensued until Thornton enlisted longtime buddy Stuart, who first tweaked Lanois' music but ultimately wrote a fresh score. The film, due Dec. 25, stars Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz in a "danged ol' cowboy movie that called for classic American sounds and, when it moves into Mexico, classic Spanish sounds," Stuart says. Inspired by Bernard Hermann's scores for Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, Stuart says film music "should be a pond that simply reflects what's on top. (Horses) needed a score that's undeniably elegant, but the guy in the pickup truck in Iowa should be able to whistle the melody the day after seeing the movie."
• Steph sent in a couple of funny items:
  • When someone mentioned that Rodney Dangerfield mentioned Matt I believe what he said was that if he were gay, he would go for Matt. Ben just laughed and said he knew how Rodney felt and he could put in a phone call for him if he wanted him to. It was pretty funny if you saw it.
  • And last night, Ben Affleck was on Craig Kilborn. It was a really funny interview. He mentioned the story about the PlayStations. He said he needs another one because Matt called him up and said that when he plugged it in, It just burnt up and broke. Ben laughed because it was an error on Matt's fault. The voltage in Europe is different and he didn't even take that into consideration.
    (Sigh. As we all know, Matt was an English major at Harvard. My apologies to other English majors who are more practically inclined. :-)
• In an article on handicapping this year's Oscars nods in today's Los Angeles Times:
  And what of the movies that didn't do well? Most insiders agree that "Pay It Forward" looked promising at the outset because it starred two Oscar winners ... But the film was seriously damaged by critics and has done only moderate business ..., and insiders say it has completely lost momentum. "The Legend of Bagger Vance," directed by Oscar winner Robert Redford and starring another Oscar winner, Matt Damon, also had some buzz going into its theatrical release. Revies were mixed and ticket sales so-so. That was enough was most handicappers to strike it from their list of potential nominees, they say.
• The ever-reliable Felicity (our eternal gratitude to her, needless to say), from a very far-flung corner in the world:
  • Found an article with Robert Patrick (new of X-files and also in ATPH). In it he says that he "loved his role in Pretty Horses, Matt was teriffic (sorry, forgotten how to spell in this cold climate) and Billy Bob Thornton was a great director" or words very similar.
  • I've found a previews magazine available at cinemas here which has a page or so on all films coming out over the next couple of months. There's a page on Pretty Horses, with a date of winter given only. But there's actually two new photos with the story: one's of a flock of white horses (about ten or so) on the run in the wild, and the other's a shot of Matt and Henry Thomas with ropes at the corral. Rather cool pics.
  • From Variety, details of the "Oceans Eleven" filming� :
    Brad Pitt will complete "Spy Game" in time for his February start in "Ocean's 11," Jerry Weintraub, producer of the latter, tells me.
    His troupe includes George Clooney, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts. They'll film at the MGM Grand, Mirage, Bellagio and Caesars Palace, where all the heists occur the night of a big championship fight. Steven Soderbergh directs and Weintraub says, "If it weren't for him (Soderbergh) -- and George (Clooney) we wouldn't have been able to get this cast together."
  • From the Daily Mail London on Friday - the actor in "Bourne Identity" with the African sounding name (can't remember) will be playing the African president. How many people can be offended there...

• This from Val:
  The long version of Ben's interview w/ Diane Sawyer aired last night. Ben took Diane on a guided tour of his neighborhood in Boston. He pointed out Matt's childhood home as well. I believe the one shown is the communal home Matt and his Mother lived in. Diane pretty much nailed him on his current feelings for Gwyneth. She pointed out that his entire face and demeanor changes when he thinks/speaks of her: ... "women across are America are analyzing this and many would think he still so in love with her." He was quiet and contemplative for a bit and then saved himself with wit by saying something like, "Women sitting at home also do a lot of shopping at the Joan Rivers jewelry collection, so women sitting at home can�t always be trusted."
  He also made reference to his "shoot the moon" personality versus being conservative. {He also discusses this in TALK comparing his 'go for it' attitude versus Matt's "I won't do this or that and I won't be hurt."}
  You can read the transcipt of Ben's interview at this link.
  Later on Leno, Ben did impersonations of Al Gore, George W. and President Clinton. He also told the story of how he and Matt mistakingly auditioned for parts on the Mickey Mouse Club when they were 15/17 years old. They thought they were up for movie parts and were quite embarassed when they found out. The train ride back to Boston was quiet and they never spoke of that trip to NY again.
• From Felicity:
  • From USA Today, confirmation of the change of composer for Horses:
    For 'Horses,' Stuart settles the score
    ''I see it as John Ford with mushrooms in his pockets,'' Marty Stuart says of his vivid score for All the Pretty Horses, Billy Bob Thornton's screen version of the Cormac McCarthy best seller. The country singer's task was daunting.
    Thornton originally hired musician/producer Daniel Lanois, but Miramax balked at the result. Enter other composers, whose fine-tuning also failed to satisfy. A studio-director squabble ensued until Thornton enlisted longtime buddy Stuart, who first tweaked Lanois' music but ultimately wrote a fresh score. The film, due Dec. 25, stars Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz in a ''danged ol' cowboy movie that called for classic American sounds and, when it moves into Mexico, classic Spanish sounds,'' Stuart says. ''The obvious thing would have been lots of Sergio Leone twangy guitars. I wanted to steer clear of that and any heavy country inflections.''
    Inspired by Bernard Hermann's scores for Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, Stuart says film music ''should be a pond that simply reflects what's on top. (Horses) needed a score that's undeniably elegant, but the guy in the pickup truck in Iowa should be able to whistle the melody the day after seeing the movie.''
    -- Edna Gundersen
  • A Penelope gossip story from the Ny post:
    Ralph gets handbagged
    SAYING Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein are rivals is as obvious as noting that Al Gore and George W. Bush aren't on the same political page. So one of my society spies was most amused to see Penelope Cruz (on a break from shooting "Vanilla Sky" here with Tom Cruise) shopping for pocketbooks in Calvin's Madison Avenue boutique. Penelope is the new face of Ralph's perfume ads, and I don't think he'll appreciate the idea of her patronizing Klein.
  • From an Associated Press story with Ben:
    Without going into specifics, Affleck says he and Damon, his childhood friend from Cambridge, Mass., are writing a script they hope to co-direct.
  • Did anyone see Leno last night? Apparently Ben Affleck was on with Rodney Dangerfield (comic) who made some positive comments about Matt??
  • From a postive summary on the National Review website: Matt Damon delivers yet another star turn as the haunted golfer, showing considerable range as he grows from a battle-scarred veteran to a man on the mend. In a small, intriguing touch, we see Private Ryan back in France, only this time in a World War I uniform.
  • From another Ben interview:
    Bounce isn't the first time Miramax has borrowed some of Affleck's reality to help at the box-office.
    "Good Will Hunting was the first time I think that people started to really know who [Matt Damon and I] were," said Affleck. "Miramax certainly -- and Matt and I weren't complicit in it, we weren't aware of it, we were naive in a lot of ways, but -- they used the hook of our friendship as a marketing tool, to push the movie. . . .
    "We just sort of thought, Well, it's true, you know? Yeah, we're friends. And we didn't think it would be a) so novel and b) so material to the story. But being the savvy marketers [Miramax] are, they exploited that rather deftly."
  • On the Pretty Horses press, I believe it will gear up. Other movies coming out around Christmas are only now just releasing their posters and trailers, and Miramax will go all out to push the movie. In the latest Entertainment Weekly, an article specifies who each studio will be pushing for Oscars: for Miramax it's Matt and Gwyneth to make up for last year when both missed nominations for Ripley.

• Felicity finally got hold of a copy of "Talk", and expressed her reactions elegantly:
  A few notes on the Talk issue:
  • The interviewer, Chris Connelly, is the same guy who interviewed Ben two months ago, but I think only one question was exactly the same (Mickey Mouse Club)
  • I especially loved the photo taken of Matt looking back onto Los Angeles - damn attractive shot!
  • I liked the baseball story at the start - both that Pedro likes him and that his friends are so impressed by that incident (you can tell Matt is still completely on the level with his friends/homies!)
  • All of the usual anecdotes were repeated, but most with a small bit of extra information (the Ed Norton meeting, the Leo meeting). Interesting that he clicked with Ed immediately.
  • It was a remarkably "macho" article, if you understand my meaning. There were no females mentioned in speech (except for the radio announcer's wife and brief mentions of mother or girlfriends). All the activities were male-oriented (baseball, ranching, golf championships, male directors, male actors), and there's no female presence.
  • All articles from the BV release are remarkably non-personal. Virtually none mention any real personal life: one says he is rumoured to have a girlfriend, two say he is rumoured not to have a girlfriend. They are incredibly non-intimate (yes, controlled by PR and by the normal reticence not to speak on anything of 'tabloid' human interest). Ben's Talk interview in comparison is very emotive and personal, talking about rifts in relationships and current/past girlfriends and emotional states. If we want another link, his latest movie (Bounce) is all about breaking and repairing of relationships (much emoting), while Matt's (ATPH) is all about a repressed young man who is unable to share any feelings, and barely able to cope with the changes around him (book summary badly condensed).
  • The only thing of 'personal' interest in the Talk story is really the note that he now has two nephews (another son to Kyle), and in the earthquake story Ben thought firstly of Matt (screaming for him) rather than his brother Casey. And that Matt remains close to Casey (staying with him in NY).
  • To put the major interviews in chronological order, the Talk intv occurred two days before the USA Weekend one.
  • And to clarify, Matt says in the article that the four hour version of ATPH is the best movie that he has been in, not the best that he's seen.
  • Funny that the issue had posters for other Miramax movies (Chocolat), but not one for ATPH. Apart from that, the Talk magazine is actually a great read, and includes a great story on Jack Welch, the retiring head of General Electric, an incredibly successful guy who has never forgotten his humble beginnings in Massachusetts, and still gives thanks every day for what he has achieved. Nice symmetry there!
• And other items found by Felicity:
  • Wednesday's Variety had a negative piece on Greenlight, saying the rules were unformed, Matt and Ben's involvement was very light-on and that winners may have no say at all over the finished product.
  • There's a feature story on Billy Bob Thornton in the latest Esquire magazine (US). A few mentions of ATPH, but nothing specific that I could see.
  • Penelope will be on the cover of December's Interview magazine.
  • The Creative Screenwriting issue with a mention of ATPH is good, and compares the book and script versions, including excerpts from the script. The movie should open on a group of horses in the wild, but will lack the obvious descriptive passages and lyricism present in the novel. In summary the script was praised.
• Maria wrote:I think the pictures of Matt in the new TALK issue are great. And offered two of the pics in full size. Here they are:
  Matt reclining on a rock: I believe this is the one that Felicity especially loved.
  A leather-clad, toothy Matt in closeup
• I thank the reader who sent this in:
  In the Nov. 13 issure of US magazine the one with Matt and Will in it, there is a little blurb on page 3. Here's the little article:
  Hey, Ben Get Me Some Game
  Matt Damon was looking for distractions while in Paris filming the Bourne Identity, so he recently called his pal Ben Affleck in the States to ask him to buy a Sony PlayStation 2 for him and ship it to France. Affleck sent an assistant to get two of the $300 units - one for each of the Oscar winners. The assistant waited for four hours at a Fry's electronics store in Burbank, California, before consoles went on sale at midnight on October 25, but they were sold out by the time he reached the clerk. Not to worry. One of Afleck's people called Sony, and two PlayStations were delivered to his L.A. home the next day.

11/13/00
Not a whole lot of news. Val sent in this item:
Ben Affleck is promoting BOUNCE this week beginning with an interview w/ Diane Sawyer this morning on GMA and on PRIMETIME Thursday. [Diane is a HUGE Ben fan]. This morning's talk was a bit subdued, almost sad, as Ben said he felt very sad when he saw BOUNCE recently. He hesitated when Diane asked him why he felt sad. Then she answered that question for him by asking/stating that in the movie, Abby and Buddy have a happy ending, but in real life, Ben and Gwyn don't end up together. I had never seen Ben looking so sullen and emotional in any interview before. He is always mouthing off and joking.
Anyhow there is a possibility Matt may come up in the converation in the Primetime interview. He will also be on Jay Leno on Thursday night. Charlize Theron will be on Leno on Wednesday--she may be promoting THE YARDS this time out. 11/12/00

• If you look in the Miramax "All the Pretty Horses" site, you can find a couple shots from ATPH in the "COMING SOON" window, including a closeup shot of a Matt waring his cowboy hat, looking very handsome.
• I went back to the theater to see Bagger Vance again. Surprisingly, the attendance was not bad at all. Perhaps people weary of the ongoing presidential election drama were returning to the movies. It was good to once again get to see Matt looking so gorgeous on the big silver screen. Saw the ATPH trailer again too, and realized that I missed a lot from the last viewing. The opening scene shows a horse rider - possibly Matt - galloping along a moving truck. There is a scene of Matt and Henry Thomas crossing the Rio Grande, and a shot of a Matt yelling in joy after having crossed it. There is a scene of Matt playing billiard with Alejandra's father, when they first meet. The jail scenes have Matt wearing a dark-green and white striped prison garbs which look to me too clean and neat for the Mexican jail setting. There were quite a few cuts of the post-prison John Grady, and, to my relief, the scarred face doesn't look bad at all, and Matt does not look emaciated in those scenes. There were quite a few cuts of Matt pointing his gun, and contrary to my recollection from the last viewing, there are daytime scenes shown, but the tone, especially when juxtaposed with "Bagger Vance", is subdue and, well, John-Fordish. And the dance scene from which come the still pictures shown above went by all too quickly. Surprisingly, there is very little of Lucas Black shown, and I would have expected to see a lot more horses. I truly hope that the picture is in good hands and will come to us on Christmas in its full splendor.

• Postcard from Felicity:
  • Bagger Vance looks on track for only a $6-7 million second week (came sixth on Friday).
  • It's the weekend for Christmas previews, so here goes. There's nothing new in most of the previews, with most mentioning its oft-delayed release date and long running time. EW has also published its new holiday movie guide.
    From the NY Daily News: ALL THE PRETTY HORSES
    
    Directed by Billy Bob Thornton
    When Oscar-winning screenwriter Ted Tally ("Silence of the Lambs") first read Cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses" several years ago, he knew he wanted to adapt it for the screen. The 1992 novel, which won the National Book Award, is an elegiac tale of a young cowboy who rides into Mexico in the late 1940s and falls in love with the daughter of a rich landowner.
    The horses aren't all that's pretty in Matt Damon's latest film. Says Tally, "I love it because it's so many different kinds of a story � an adventure story, a love story, a coming-of-age story, and a Western, but a different kind of Western, because it's set in 1949. It's a very rich canvas."
    Mike Nichols originally owned the film rights, and Tally was able to convince him that he was the man to write the screenplay. When Billy Bob Thornton came on as director, he retained Tally and, says the writer, "shot everything I wrote."
    As with all the screenplays he has written (which also include "Before and After" and "White Palace"), the process Tally used to get to a final draft was long and arduous.
    "You have to eliminate supporting characters and subplot, and focus on the main character," says Tally. "The details of the structure and dialogue are secondary to your feelings about this main character and what makes a good story."
    McCarthy wrote his book in the kind of highly stylized language that didn't lend itself to adaptation.
    "There's this soaring, poetic prose, but except where you can find a cinematic image that captures that richness, that language is not of much use to you," says Tally. "Movies don't do too well getting inside character's heads in terms of the stream of consciousness that a book can do."
    Luckily, however, McCarthy's novel is also filled with strong action sequences. And, says Tally, if you're a screenwriter, your eye is drawn to anything that involves action on the screen. Still, there was plenty that had to be cut to avoid what Tally describes as the "fanny-time problem that every movie faces."
    Several sequences featuring the Damon character's dying father were pared down to one. A Mexican prison warden who plays a key role in the book was eliminated. Tally says he wished he had had "more space to work with the love story, which only forms a part of the movie. But that's kind of inherent in the plot."
    He says he's pleased with the final result, however.
    "'All the Pretty Horses' is the greatest book I've adapted as a work of literature," he says. "And I think it's my favorite of all my screenplays."
  • There's a Ben profile in Boston Globe (Bounce out next week), but it says nothing new.
• My comments:
  The low boxoffice take of Bagger Vance is to be expected. But I think the film will hang round and quietly draw a few millions each weekend. It was a low-budget production, relatively speaking, and so if nothing else it will break even. Let's face it, it's an artsy film. Also, with all the turmoil in this country this past week, the core audience for BV (older people) probably did not go to theaters.
  • I was disappointed, and somewhat alarmed, that there is no poster for the movie in these previews, including in the LA Times. The LA Times did include a picture of Matt and penelope dancing (see above) on the first page, but there's only a little mentioning of the film itself inside, to the effect of "let's see if Harvey Weinstein can pull off a winner from this long-delayed film." Click here to see the article.
• We have seen this article before, but this time Matt is explicitly mentioned - this one showed up on Mr. Show Biz:
  Lee Slams Smith for 'Driving Mr. Damon'
  At a Harvard panel on race on Monday, Spike Lee criticized Will Smith for agreeing to play a mystical caddy to Matt Damon's golden boy in The Legend of Bagger Vance.
  According to the New York Post, Lee referred to the movie as "Driving Mr. Damon" for painting such a pretty picture of racial relations in the Depression-era South.
  In real life, black men were being "castrated and lynched left and right," the Boston Globe quotes Lee as saying. "With all that going on, why are you [expletive] trying to teach Matt Damon a golf swing?"
  Could it be that Lee is still miffed that Smith chose to back Michael Mann, instead of Lee, as the director for Ali?
  Smith told Mr. Showbiz in a recent interview that he couldn't initially get past the "Yes, sirs" his character had to say in the script, but finally decided that the role and the story were intriguing enough for him to commit. The Robert Redford movie has so far seen so-so reviews and middling box-office business.
  Lee made similar criticisms earlier.
• Tish's take on the cover story in the current issue of Talk magazine:
  Just finished the Talk article and was amazed at how YOUNG Matt looks. I'm talking Rising Son kind of young! Hard to believe he was almost 30 when those shots were taken. Personally, I think it's time to get over the fresh-faced ingenue look and move on to something a bit more mature. As for the article ... a lot less depth than I would have liked, but I imagine he (and his PR machine) can dictate a lot of content. There's something hidden about that boy.

• Picked up a copy of "Talk". Folks, the cover photo is a lot better in print than the one shown above (currently on talkmagazine.com). In print, there is more texture, and so you could really see Matt's skin, blemishes and all. But the best part is his eyes: you could really see the blue in them and the livliness and alertness of Matt do come through. He's looking right at you. It is, as Liz Smith put it, a wonderful picture. Not a pretty-boy shoot, but more of a up-close candid shot. Inside, there are two full-page facial spreads, and one full page photo of Matt, seated and leaning back on what looks like a granite deck. Matt has on the same white Tee as in the cover photo, and blue jeans with rolled-up bottoms. And he is barefeet. In fact, his feet are prominent, as the camera was aimed upward. I am on page 3 of the article now, and one more full page photo, of a smiling Matt (all teeth) with his chin rested on his hands. He is wearing black-leather - oh yes, that's the small pic shown above - again, much better on paper. A bonus is a small still photo from ATPH, with Matt and Penelope standing/seated side by side - and they are dressed in the same outfit as in the dance photo currently on my site.
  It goes without my saying that this issue is not to be missed.

  Notables in the writeup:

  • Matt is quoted as saying: "The four-hour version of (ATPH) is the best movie I've seen in my entire life."
  • Ben is quoted thus: "Matt is like, I won't say anything and I won't do anything, so that I can't get hurt. I'll just be really nice and pleasant, and then nobody will be able to get to me."
  • His pad in New York is 3 hours' train-ride away from his family in Boston.
  • Matt on ATPH: "I wish I could do that movie forever. I mean, that was incredible, that experience. I don't know what will happen. I just know that I have never felt that way about anything ever before.
    TALK: Why is that?
    MATT: I've never ben that surprised by something when I saw it. I was there everyday. I was there for every shot: I looked through the lens. The movie really affected me, just genuinely surprised me. Billy snapped me out of a lot of bad habits.
  • Matt said he was "like a last-minute replacement" for his role in "The Rainmaker."
  • TALK: Seems like you spent quite a few pre-Good Will Hunting years scrambling. Did you turn anything down?
    Matt: I didn't audition for TV. And I turned down The Quick and the Dead; clearly it really derailed Leonardo's career. [Laughter]
  • At one point Matt got a phone call that Leo DeCaprio had taken the part in ATPH, and he "was shocked because everyone was saying he's gonna pass." "I was just crestfallen." Then two weeks later he got another call and was told that Leo has passed. He said he was jumping up and down.
  • Matt met Dicaprio at a reading after he's made ATPH, and asked Leo why he passed up on ATPH. Leo's answer was, "Ahh, you know. You just pass on some things; it wasn't for me."
• Felicity's finds:
  • Greenlight update, from Entertainment News Daily (it's basically a press release, but):
    Greenlight's a Go - Thousands Submit Scripts to World's Largest Active Online Screenwriting Community
    LOS ANGELES, Nov. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Project Greenlight, a first-of-its-kind venture from Miramax Films & TV, HBO and LivePlanet, received entries from more than 10,000 people during its four-week screenplay submission phase, it was announced today by Chris Moore, CEO of LivePlanet, and Billy Campbell, president of Miramax Television. The instant success of Project Greenlight makes it the largest active screenwriting community in the world, with more than 40,000 members who joined at www.projectgreenlight.com. The Greenlight community and executives are poised to begin the process of selecting a winning script.
    "When we made 'Good Will Hunting,' people were fascinated by the story about how Matt and Ben were taken out of nowhere and got to make the movie they wrote. It will be an interesting plot to show what happens when we give a similar chance to someone new," said Chris Moore. "We have guaranteed that we will make the winning script into a film, but Greenlight is even more than that. Greenlight is a community where filmmakers can read each other's work, share experiences and collaborate with one another. That all adds up to the discovery of a lot of good ideas, helping out a lot of people."
    "Although the submission portion of the contest has come to an end, the real fun of the Greenlight experience is just getting started," said Billy Campbell, president of Miramax Television. "The Greenlight community will rally behind one script or another, and those writers will be in the spotlight -- characters will soon begin to emerge, and real-life plots will thicken. All of this means that the Greenlight community will have the opportunity to participate in a revolutionary process -- both in the documentary and on film."
    In the next phase of the contest, the Greenlight community will narrow the contestant pool from over 10,000 to 250. Members of the Greenlight community, both contestants and registered reviewers, will evaluate and provide feedback on the screenplays; these evaluations will determine the final 250 screenplays in the contest. Because each amateur filmmaker who submits a script must review at least three others, each script will have received at least three peer reviews. After the winner is selected, all other screenwriters will get to see the feedback given to their script.
    "Greenlight will be giving the aspiring filmmakers in the contest attention they would not have received otherwise -- Matt and I feel that that the karma of that is really appropriate given how we launched our careers with 'Good Will Hunting,'" said Ben Affleck, co-founder of LivePlanet and an executive producer of the Greenlight film. "Everyone in the contest gets feedback on their work, and the scripts that make it to the final rounds can be read by thousands of people-who knows who might be paying attention? Greenlight can take access to filmmaking out of the hands of seven executives in a Hollywood boardroom and put it into the hands of people everywhere who love movies."
    Amateur screenwriters aged 18 years and older were invited to submit their original screenplays electronically to www.projectgreenlight.com from September 25 through October 22. Not only will Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Chris Moore executive produce this film, but Miramax is providing the winning contestant or team with a $1 million production budget, hiring them to direct the film, and guaranteeing to distribute the film in theatres. At the same time, Miramax Television is chronicling the making of the movie in a 13-episode television documentary series that will take an insider's look at the moviemaking process, slated to air on HBO in Winter 2002. " We couldn't be happier about our first collaboration with HBO," said Billy Campbell, president of Miramax Television. "The series will give millions of people a chance to be a part of this exciting experience."
  • Here's the byline on the Talk cover-story: Headed for Home. Five years in Hollywood have left Matt Damon rich, famous, footloose, fancy-free�and alone. Now, with the release of All the Pretty Horses, he's moving back east. By Chris Connelly
  • Remember that story that Matt was supposed to do Vanity Fair this month but turned it down for Talk? Isn't it funny that Jude Law got the VF cover instead. Also there was the story that Penelope was meant to be in the cover as well (Talk). Well, she's not there.
  • Us Weekly magazine has a holiday and Oscar previews in their latest issue.
• Val sent this in:
  ''Silent Bob'' on Dimension's summer slate
  By Jonathan Bing
  NEW YORK (Variety) - The final episode of Kevin Smith's New Jersey chronicles, ``Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,'' is slated for a national release from Dimension Films on Aug. 10.
  Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are in talks to appear in the pic, as part of an ensemble cast that also features Smith, Jason Mewes, Jason Lee, Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson. All are veterans of Smith's View Askew label, having appeared in one or more of the New Jersey saga's previous installments, ``Clerks,'' ``Chasing Amy'' and ``Mall Rats.''
  Production will begin in January in L.A. The plot is still under wraps, but the picture will be produced by Smith and his View Askew partner Scott Mosier. The two were exec producers of ``Good Will Hunting.''
  Reuters/Variety REUTERS

• Today's Liz Smith Column in the Los Angeles Times:

  In New York, No Rest for Damon

  New York - Short shots: Please, won't somebody give Matt Damon a place to sleep? The cover of Talk magazine has Damon, wonderfully photographed by Oliviero Toscani, quoted: "I literally have nowhere to sleep." Damon is only now finally getting a place of his own, in New York city.
• NR wrote:
  In this month's issue of Creative Screenwriting with Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis on the cover, there are script reviews for The Legend of Bagger Vance and All the Pretty Horses. The photos are the same usual suspects, but, its seems the reviewer might have like Pretty Horses better than Bagger.
• And K&J sent this in:
  Here's the link to an article on Matt in USA Weekend.

• Latest from Felicity:
  • This is interesting. Mark Wahlberg has now started to air his frustrations about Matt. From an article with the London Daily Telegraph:
    The womanising is, Wahlberg maintains, grossly exaggerated. "My mom called me up because she read that I took Jennifer Aniston [who plays his girlfriend in the heavy-metal movie] away from Brad Pitt, and he was sneaking on to the set to see if I'm in her trailer. She's screaming at me, 'What the hell are you doing - you leave that guy's girlfriend alone!' She read it in the National Enquirer. She believes everything. I got more shit for supposedly stealing Winona Ryder from Matt Damon."
    The name of Damon (just a year older than Wahlberg and a fellow Bostonian, but from the right side of the tracks) sends him off on a new and surprisingly caustic rap.
    "He doesn't want to be a Hollywood movie star. He wants to have been to jail, and say he's tough. He's very lucky he didn't have to grow up in Dorchester - he was close enough to know what it's like and to be able to play it in a movie without having had to experience it."
  • To continue the theme, here's Spike Lee trashing Bagger Vance, from the Boston Globe:
    Spike Lee's guide to making friends
    Add Will Smith to the growing list of people not likely to join Spike Lee courtside at a New Yorks Knicks game. At a Monday night forum on race and the media at Harvard University, Lee appeared pained when discussing Smith's new film, ''The Legend of Bagger Vance.'' Smith plays a Yoda-like golf guru who helps Matt Damon 's character overcome flaws in his game. The film is set in the early 1930s, a time when black men were being ''castrated and lynched left and right,'' Lee said. ''With all that going on, why are you [expletive] trying to teach Matt Damon a golf swing?'' Also on that aforementoned list: Cuba Gooding Jr., Ving Rhames , and Michael Clarke Duncan.
  • I thought you need to know the French title for ATPH: De si jolis chevaux, while The Rainmaker was L'Idealiste.
• Hear, hear - a few reviews posted on IMDB:
  • Date: 5 November 2000
    Summary: Beautiful
    This movie is beautiful in every way, and beautiful is not a word I use a lot. The cinematography is masterful, of course, but there is more to the core of this movie then I think some critics are giving it credit for. "It is a game that cannot be won, only played." What a great way to approach life. To say this movie is like a supermodel, pretty but empty, is to completely miss the point of the movie. The beauty is its heart and its message. It is touching in a completely understated way, just like life.
  • Date: 6 November 2000
    Summary: A wonderful film.
    THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE may not be for everybody. In today's movie world where explosions mean more than characters, BAGGER VANCE is an exceptional film. It contains three great starring performances- from Will Smith, Matt Damon and Charlize Theron and has a wonderful visual look thanks to director Robert Redford and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus. The ending is a little unsatisfying, but the movie as a whole is a wonderful, warm hearted, beautiful film. A sure-fired Oscar contender.
  • Date: 7 November 2000
    Summary: "Bagger" has a lot going for it...
    I enjoyed "The Legend of Bagger Vance" very much. I read the book about a year ago, and while the movie varies from the book in many instances, the overall theme of the book carries through into the movie.
    The beginning of the movie disturbed me, as it seemed a bit rushed and disjointed. Once you get past the introduction (the first 30 minutes or so) the movie is great. The photography, music, and scenery are beautiful. The actors all did a good job. Unlike some other reviewers, I felt like all the actors handled their roles well. Will Smith pulls off Bagger Vance with just the right mixture of humor and sincerity. Matt Damon as Ranulf Junnah is much as I imagined him in the book. The "chemistry" between Damon and Theron seemed appropriate given the storyline and the characters' past history. I was especially impressed with J. Michael Moncrief in the role of Young Hardy and with Gretsch and McGill who play Jones and Hagen "to a tee."
    I would rate this movie an 8/10...but the 2nd half of it is a 10/10 in my opinion. Enjoy!
• News from Val:
  • There is a full page photo of the BAGGER VANCE threesome in US Weekly.
  • Not a very complimentary review of BV from Sporting News: 'Bagger Vance' takes its swings, but only shoots par

• What an incredible election night we have had. Over there in Paris I imagine Matt was following it however. I know I am exhausted.
• Felicity found a bunch of news on "Pretty Horses", which whets my idea further more.
  • From the Chicago Sun-Times:
    PRETTY LONG: It may be called "All the Pretty Horses," but they couldn't say whoa. Matt Damon's Tex-Mex holiday Western used to clock in at a saddle-sore three hours--not that its star ever minded.
    After a yearlong delay and a studio switch from Columbia to Miramax, Damon is upfront about the fate of the screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's book. "I know it won't be for everybody. I don't care," Damon says, defending his un-Hollywood "Horses," which co-stars Penelope Cruz and Henry Thomas. He calls the movie "an experience. . . . If you broke down the story of `Pretty Horses,' it's about the feeling of it and not the plot," he says.
    At three hours, maybe there was too much feeling. When the film is released at the end of the year its running time will be reduced by a third. "I don't think the studio thought the average person could sit through three hours," he says. Damon says someday audiences will see the extended version of "Horses." "When the DVD comes out, you can see the three-hour version."
    "[Miramax] can market it the best," Damon said. As for the box office, he says, "Look at [director Billy Bob Thornton's] `Sling Blade.' It wasn't a $200 million hit at the box office. This is an art-house movie. Billy is like, `I make one kind of movie.' "
    And this will be a clean kind of movie. Book fans might remember a chapter where Damon's character rides a horse in the buff. "Um, the horse is still nude in the movie," says Damon who jokingly tells fans, "Get your mind out of the gutter."
  • If we're following box office, BV did $11.5 for the weekend (they nicely overestimated the predictions), and $0.78 yesterday, for a total of $12.23 million so far.
  • This was one of the stories from the NY Daily News:
    A 'Horse' Opera at Miramax
    Hoofbeats stampeding through the movie "All the Pretty Horses" are getting louder.
    The film, starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz in a story based on the first novel in Cormac McCarthy's "Border Trilogy," has occupied an important slot in the Hollywood rumor mill since last year. Stories abound about the battle of wills between the director, Billy Bob Thornton, and Harvey Weinstein, whose Miramax Films will release the film on Christmas Day.
    Depending on the sources you talk to, the movie is too long, not commercial enough, doesn't have enough romance between the two stars, or is a masterpiece about the disappearance of the Old West.
    Just last week, Thornton was overheard in a heated cell phone conversation with Weinstein, sparking a new round of buzz on the Left Coast.
    Thornton, who is in Oregon working on the Barry Levinson movie "Bandits" with co-star Bruce Willis, says it's all part of the process. "The studio always wants to make it more commercial, while the director is going for something artsy, and this is no different. Harvey and I have our stuff all the time. He wants to do this, I want to do that, and somehow we meet in the middle.
  • In the other story Weinstein said that Matt feels it's his best performance (Horses).
  • A small item in Heat magazine notes the size of Will's trailer for Bagger Vance, which had a recording studio and a lounge for 20 people. Matt is quoted as saying "It was four times as big as my apartment in New York."
• I got some enqueries about the "All the Pretty Horses" trailer that I mentioned. It seems that the trailer is not shown with all screenings of "Bagger Vance." I am sure it's just a matter of time that it will be everywhere. But for your curiosity, here's my impression of the trailer.
  Spoiler warning!
  Truth be told, I can't be held accountable for the accuracy of my description, as I was pretty much reduced to a knot of nerves as soon as I saw the words "Miramax Presents". It had occurred to me, after having already sat through two other big-feature previews, that they would be showing ATPH, and of course ATPH is jointly produced by Miramax and Columbia. Next thing I knew the Columbia logo came on, and I knew for sure that it has to be ATPH.
  It went by very quickly. But my recollection is that the whole thing had a gritty, solemn tone to it. There was a lot of sky, river, and open land. Having read the book, I recognized all of the scenes immediately, some of which I have played out in my mind often. In particular, the scene of John Grady Cole (Matt's character)'s first encounter with Alejandra (Penelope Cruz) is very much the way I imagined. There's Matt, cowboy hat and blue jeans and all, riding on a dark horse, and he turns around to look once, then swirls his horse around to look once more, his gaze fixed on the sight of a beauty, also on horseback, who has just passed by.
  There was also a quick shot of a dance scene. Then we are given a glimpse of the most tentalizing scene from the book, of the two young lovers' illicit midnight rendezvous in the river. Also shown is a cut from a torrid love scene in a very dark room, with John Grady declaring his undying love for Alejandra.
  If you have read the book, you know what will happen. Don't read on if you don't want to have the movie spoiled for you.
  There after came a cut of the scene where Alejandra's aunt spoke to John Grady about "the honor of a woman", followed by a startled John Grady roused from his bed by a posse sent from Alejandra's father. We are also shown cuts from the prison scenes, incluing a brief glimpse of the knife fight. After which we see a shot of the John Grady who survived the ordeal, his face scared and his eyes flinty.
  I can't remember if they showed the scene of the sad reunion of John Grady and Alejandra, but I do remember that the trailer ends with a cut which showed Matt, all alone, in a deserted landscape, set againt a night sky, followed by the words "Opening on Christmas."
  It's a very haunting trailer. You can sense the expansiveness of the scenary, and the intensity of the emotion. Rumors are that the film is still being trimmed to come under 2 hours. I hope they don't end up butchering it, for this film really has the potential of greatness.

• Election day. Please vote.
• Excellent Reuters article sent in by Val. See it here, excerpted below:
  Entertainment Headlines
  Saturday November 4 5:17 PM ET
  Weekend Movies: Calling on 'Angels' And a 'Bagger'
  By Bob Tourtellotte
  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Moviegoers received a big blast from the past and a little lift from heaven as female friendly action flick ``Charlie's Angels'' opened in theaters alongside Robert Redford's spiritual drama, ``The Legend of Bagger Vance.''
  It's no big mystery that action movies get made because teenage guys, who are among Hollywood's biggest customers, love seeing muscled-up actors firing guns and blowing up bad guys. But movies like ``Bagger Vance'' get made because they are really trying to say something to audiences -- young and old.
  ``Bagger Vance'' is one of those very pretty Hollywood movies with the big-name actors and sweeping landscapes and wonderful costumes and inspiring music like other recent Redford films such as ``The Horse Whisperer'' or ``A River Runs Through It.''
  The movie has a message, too, and it is delivered by Will Smith as Bagger, a sort of angel sent from heaven to steer a young World War I veteran onto a path of self-redemption.
  The veteran, played by Matt Damon, is Rannulph Junnuh who had been a favorite son of Savannah, Ga., and a top flight amateur golfer before the war shattered his sense of himself.
  ``It's the classic journey of a hero who falls into darkness through some disconnect with his soul, and then comes back into the light with the help of a spiritual guide,'' said Redford, who directed the film but does not appear in it.
  Ten years after the war is over, a disillusioned Junnuh returns to Savannah, but the Great Depression has begun and the town has lost its own sense of pride.
  One of Savannah's wealthiest citizens has built a golf course on the outskirts of town, but it nearly bankrupts him in the process and leads him to take his own life.
  Lost Swing And Lost Love
  To save the course from ruin, the owner's daughter, Adele Invergordon, (Charlize Theron) decides to hold a challenge match between two of the golf's legendary players, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. But to hold the match, the town's leaders force her to come up with a local player to include. Junnuh's the man for the game, but the problem is, he doesn't play anymore.
  Junnuh and Invergordon were once lovers, but the war ended their affair. So, not only must Junnuh regain his golf swing, but he also must cope with a lost love.
  Of course, it's Bagger who comes into his life to help him reconcile his past with the future that lays ahead.
  For moviegoers who don't want to think too much, however,
  there's ``Charlie's Angels,'' based on the 1970s television show of the same name and starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu.
  While the angels aren't as muscle bound -- thank goodness -- as a Keanu Reeves or Bruce Willis and while they have vowed not to use guns, there should be plenty of kung fu fights and high-tech special effects to thrill action aficionados. And the message these ``Angels'' bring to moviegoers is to just have some fun and laugh a little. ...
• Postcard from Val:
  ... I saw BV on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday!
  The man (Matty, that is :-) is absolutely breathtaking! He never ceases to win me over with each role. The way he immerses himself into his character is just incredible. I doubt he even realizes his own talent genius--certainly those WORTHLESS critics who have attacked him have no eye whatsoever (okay, so I'm being protective!)
  I must give kudos to Will Smith who was simply terrific as Bagger. He managed to keep his comedic nature to a minimum and was so endearing, even mesmerizing in places. The little boy, for having had no acting experience, was great as well. And what about Charlize's clothes and impeccable makeup. Good Lord! She was simply beautiful in every frame--beautiful in that Southern way!
  Redford and his cinematographer did an amazing job of framing shots and landscapes--just beautiful. As for the story, I completely GOT IT! I was so taken with the message and was so moved in places--ie. Matt faces his memories of the war in the woods--. I so pity those people who just didn't take the 'message' out of the theater with them.
  The audiences at the showing I saw were overwhelmingly older. Mostly couples and a alot of mature women. I did notice a sprinking of boys--
  I was surprised to read that the ATPH trailer was out in California theaters. I am soooo jealous. The 'big' trailers attached to BV was BOUNCE and Men of Honor.
  BTW/ If any of you have been involved in the presidential election coverage, Ben along with 10-12 other celebs appeared at South Beach rally for Gore last night. The production was orchestrated by ol' Harvey Weinstein who called on Affleck, Bob DeNiro, Bon Jovi, Stevie Wonder, Deidre Hall, Baby Face, et al. Live coverage was on CSPAN. Ben also made phone calls to Florida voters throughout the day urging them to vote. When he was interviewed, he made some less than gracious political comments (which I can't respect him for doing). Anyway, there's little doubt that Matt would have been up on that stage had he been stateside. Okay, all, give me your impressions as to why Hollywood supports the Democratic party so loudly! I know there is alot more than just the concept of a democracy going on here--I have my own ideas but I'd like to hear what you think and know especially those of you living in California/NY.
  All for now. Val
  My responses: I pride myself on being objective, and I will say that in the hands of any number of other actors, the role would have been a joke. Think Ben, for example. The ire from the few critics who did pick on Matt has to do with his being miscast, or his being too pretty (frankly, jealousy is very obvious in some of these cases.)
  I think these young actors all put their heart and soul into the movie for Redford. It's reassuring that every one of them has been put down by one critic or another - it's not just Matt
  >Redford and his cinematographer did an amazing job of framing shots and landscapes--just beautiful.
  Again, agreed. It's reminiscient of Gus Van Zant. You can totally sense how much a director cares about the actor, as compared to one who's indifferent (Spileberg, John Dahl, in my opinion). Redford let us see the actors' reaction shots, instead of concentrating on the action and the scenery - and that makes all the difference.
  >As for the story, I completely GOT IT! I was so taken with the message and was so moved in places--ie. Matt faces his memories of the war in the woods--. I so pity those people who just didn't take the 'message' out of the theater with them.
  Supposedly people coming out of the theater consider the message "shallow" - by the admission of a Dreamworks rep. I must admit that that was my initial reaction, dating from when I first read the book. But thinking about the film has made me see it in a different light - I admit that my opinion might have been helped because Matt was shown so well.
• Felicity sent in this abbreviated report after accidentally losing a long message :(
  • From an interview with Cole Hauser(GWH costar):
    What's it like having Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as friends?
    They're great friends of mine. I respect a lot of what they do and they respect what I do. Obviously they're on the 'space train' and it's wonderful to see your friends do well.
    Would you ever want to become that famous?
    I try not think too much about it if it's not happening. If you do the work you'll eventually end up where you should be. I hope this film gives me the opportunity to showcase myself in leading roles. If 'Pitch Black' gives me that, it will be wonderful.
  • There have been a few stories on ATPH in the NY Daily News in recent days. Usual possible problems/denials/everything going to be OK stuff we keep hearing about. Everyone's still saying it's going to come in at around two hours.
  • Watch out for Talk and Cowboys and Indians magazines this week or next.
  • From Variety
    HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Producer Frank Marshall is newly set as exec producer on Universal's ``The Bourne Identity'' starring Matt Damon and Franka Potente (``Run Lola Run'').
    Helmed by Doug Liman (``Go''), pic is an adaptation of a Robert Ludlum novel about a wounded amnesia victim who discovers he's trailed by assassins.
    Principal photography began last week in Paris.
  • In the NY Daily News today, a line that Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman saw a session of BV at the weekend.
• A Big Matt Fan wrote:
  One place on the web where BAGGER rates well is on moviefone.com, the popular service used to check times and purchase tickets. Last time I looked, it had an A- rating from moviegoers, which isn't bad at all...
• Here's a review posted on the Internet Movie Database Site that I do agree with:
  If you think this movie was really about golf....
  ...then you need to go back and watch it again. This beautifully shot movie uses the game of golf as an analogy for life and coming to grips with one's past. Rannulph Junuh, a local golf hero (played by Matt Damon), returns home from the Great War, the only survivor of his company. Unable to shake the horrors of war, he becomes a recluse, attempting to drown his pain in whiskey and alienating all he loves, including his former girlfriend, played by Charlize Theron. It is only through the intervention of a young aspiring golfer (J. Michael Moncrief) and the mysterious new caddy, Bagger Vance (Will Smith), that Junuh faces his fears and starts actively playing the game of life again. In addition to the lush cinematography, the actors were well cast and gave strong and colorful performances. The musical score, written by Rachel Portman, was entertaining in its own right, in addition to perfectly complimenting the film's 1930s setting. I look forward to hearing more of her work. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who's feeling a little disillusioned - the feeling you'll leave the theater with is more than worth the ticket price.
• Excerpts from an article in the Boston Herald.
  `Caddyshack' links all of the best golf movies Movies/by Paul C. McLean
  Monday, November 6, 2000
  ...
  Now Matt Damon is stepping to the tee as Rannulph Junuh in ``The Legend of Bagger Vance.'' Will Smith is his caddie, the title character, and the film is from the director Robert Redford.
  What ``Bagger Vance'' does remarkably well is communicate the passion many golfers feel for the game, and the idealized view they have of it (the one in which Tiger Woods was always welcome at Augusta).
  Golf is almost a religion, with former Ryder Cup captain Ben Crenshaw perhaps its high priest. The opponents in ``Bagger Vance'' are intense rivals on the course, moral opposites off it, but models of sportsmanship through it all. Jack Lemmon, perhaps avenging his careerlong torture at Pebble Beach, gets to revel in Junuh's glory as the narrator. Most important, the golf course is a beautiful thing, and golf a beautiful game, in director Redford's hands.
  Of course, it all may add up to a metaphorical shank to any nongolfer.
  The fairways of the film's Georgia island course carry echoes of Redford's ``The Natural'' and ``A River Runs Through It,'' but even ``Bagger Vance'' owes something to ``Caddyshack.''
  You can spot an uncouth Rodney Dangerfield in ``Bagger'' 's Walter Hagen, some Ted Knight blowhard in its Savannah pols, and a whole lot of Chevy Chase's Ty Webb in both Bagger and Junuh.
  And think of the story line: the untested kid taking on the established players, helped along the path to enlightenment and in keeping it on the fairway by something of a mystical being, a Zen master strolling the Cartpath of Least Resistance.
  Damon even learned to play golf for the film, and his swing isn't bad. But forget that ``authentic swing'' business, Matt. Just be the ball. It's all you need to know. Be the ball.

• From The Box Office Guru: Opening in third place with an estimated $12M was the Will Smith-Matt Damon golf drama The Legend of Bagger Vance. Directed by Robert Redford, the DreamWorks release teed off in 2,061 theaters and averaged a solid $5,822. In Bagger Vance, Smith plays a caddie who helps a war hero, played by Damon, compete in a prestigious tournament. Reviews were mixed for the PG-13 film which arrived a bit below Redford's last directorial effort, The Horse Whisperer, which opened with $13.7M in May 1998 with a $6,712 average and went on to gross $75.4M domestically. Also starring Charlize Theron, Bagger Vance will be released by Fox overseas.
• I disagree with the assessment of the film, but this line appeared in one of the reviews of BV on the Internet Movie Data Base site:
  Partway through the film, I realized that it wasn't going to get any better, and I decided to focus on the eye candy, namely Matt Damon (and Charlize Theron is undoubtably a reason for any man to see this film).
• Another cute line from another web-posted review, which I happen to agree:
  "One thing that didn't grow on me was this one particular continuity issue which just bothered me throughout. If Matt Damon's character was supposed to have been this great golfer back in the day, why is it that when he returns to the game all those years later, he is still decades younger than the top golfers of that time? The fact that Damon's character was this aged golfer who didn't look a day over 25 just struck me as very odd and somewhat distracting. Or was that just me?"
  I too noticed the inconsistency. Considering that Junah was supposed to have been a recluse for 12 years, Matt should look at least in his late 30s, but, as this reviewer said, he doesn't look a day older than 25. In fact, there seemingly wasn't any effort to age either Matt or Charlize - they look the same at the beginning and in the end, when over 20 years supposedly have intervened.
  That said, I am very grateful nevertheless, because Matt couldn't have looked better in this film.
• While watching Ebert's review of Bagger Vance (of which more will be said), it occurred to me that there perhaps is a good reason for the age inconsistency mentioned above. Redford is not stupid, and it would not have taken very much effort to take care of the age. But the story is told from the eyes of a 10 year old who idolized the Junah character. And so, in his eyes, Junah (and his girl) didn't age. To the little boy, he stood out from the others, hence Matt looks twentish while the other golfers look to be the age of his father. This would also explain Matt's wardrobe. To the little fellow, Matt's character IS God-like and glamorous.

  It turns out that Roper, Ebert's partner on his show, didn't care for BV at all, and called it a big disappointment. To which Ebert retorted that he "loved this movie", and went on to point out that it is an allegory of life, and that the movie struck a chord with him and cast a spell. When asked just what was it that BV told to Matt's character that made sense, Ebert unhesitatingly said it was that "you don't win at playing golf, you just play' (paraphase mine). And now that I think about it, that does ring true: In the game of life, no one wins either, we just play - live, and try to enjoy the moment.

• A concerned Felicity wrote:
  There's an incredibly vitriolic attack on BV at the Washington Post today. In an very nasty piece, this is the sole reason to mention it: "Damon looks superb in the role, like something out of a J.C. Leyendecker advertisement for Arrow shirts, lean-jawed and lush-haired in flattering period plus fours and caps, his socks argyle, his tie knotted tight, his brow sweatless, his eyes narrow, his unflappability extraordinary. As a consequence, he's a kind of godlike figure, beloved and glamorous, who quite naturally is awarded (and deserves) the adoration of Adele Invergordon (Charlize Theron), daughter of the richest man in Savannah and prime beauty of the South."
  [It goes on to say Matt destroys the movie, and includes this phrase among its less stinging remarks: perhaps the best way to sum it up is to say that "The Legend of Bagger Vance" seems like something put together by a very stupid but powerful person to whom nobody had the nerve to say: No.]
  To which I responed:
  I read that piece too. My impression is that the writer was making fun of the very preppy costumes that Matt was given to wear in the movie, but the venom was directed towards Redford - surely it's not Matt's idea to dress himself up, and we who have seen that black sweater all too much can only imagine how uncomfortable it must have been for Matt to be wearing shirt and tie during the filming. I will have to say that it is rather ridiculous for this supposedly down-and-out character to have such a downright preppy wardrobe. As I said, even when he was supposedly in his drunken stupor, Matt's outfit was designer stuff. BTW he was very appealing in that scene where Charlize's character tried to seduce him into signing up for the tournament. But then the next we see him he is wearing the blue denim Redford outfits. It's very incongruent. But, hey, what a treat to us.
  BTW Matt was in just about every frame of that ATPH preview that I saw. Also, come to think about it - considering that he wasn't playing the title role of BV, Matt was on screen an awfully lot, and he was really lovingly filmed.
  Also among the previews was one "by the makers of Good Will Hunting" - I didn't catch if it's a Gus Vant Sant flick, but the credit titles use the same fonts and styles as those for GWH - it's a Sean Connery film, about an old scholar helping a black kid out, I think. It was really quite astonishing to sit in the theater and see so much of Matt - I am still kind of dazed from it all. Will have to find time to go through it once more at least.
• And more from Felicity:
  From the NY Post:
  Critic's scalpel for too-long 'Horses'
  EVEN though it's supposed to open soon, on Christmas Day, Miramax's much-anticipated "All the Pretty Horses" is still undergoing serious editing to get it down from three-and-a-half hours to a more watchable two. To help him out, Harvey Weinstein has enlisted ex-New York Times film critic and close pal Janet Maslin to give "insight" on the screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's best seller. "I always get people that I like from all sorts of worlds, usually in publishing, to view my movies and get their insight. Janet Maslin is amongst a few people who I always ask to see movies. Matt Damon thinks it's his best work to date," Weinstein told PAGE SIX. He shot down rumors that the picture, directed by Billy Bob Thornton and starring Damon and Penelope Cruz, is "a mess," having gone through six different versions so far. "['Horses'] has tremendous Oscar potential. It's excellent, just too long," Weinstein said. "I should only have this kind of problem with all my movies, and anyone who says any different will eat their words! Look at 'Cider House Rules.' They said that had problems, too." It ended up winning several Oscars.
• I saw BV with my own eyes just now. I must say that the reviews were a little harsh. Like A Big Matt Fan, I actually quite enjoyed the film. It is a deliberate, quiet kind of film , and so it is not surprising that it does not appeal to the average movie goers. But it is really very easy on the eyes. And it was obviously filmed with love. It is true: Matt looks wonderful in ths film. It's really too bad that his role is not a flesh-and-blood character, because Matt looks stunning in it, recalling his appearance in Good Will Hunting. There were shots that are truly breath-taking. Particularly memorable is a sequence towards the ending when Matt's character was hitting the last shots in the tournament, where Matt's face, framed against a dark sky, was all that was shown on the screen - it was poetry in motion.

  I will have to agree with the critics that Matt is just too young and too apple-pie to play this role. While he was quite convincingly rugged in the scene where we found him in the squalor of a rundown Southern mansion, his subsequent appearance does not reflect someone who has lived hard for ten years. And while I surely appreciate it, Matt was entirely too well-groomed -- even in the scene when we found him living in squalor, he was wearing what looks to be designer clothes! It was as if Redford wanted to re-live his youth via Matt, as several critics pointed out. There were shots of Matt that were really very Redford-like.

  The actors are not to be faulted, but I really don't think they jelled very well. It was as if Matt, Will Smith, and Charlize Theron were in a movie separte from the other actors, which are older and more Southern. And Theron's character makes no sense at all; it was a throwback to using actresses as glamorous decorations.

  Oh, but what a feast to these eyes. If only Matt were playing Will Hunting again.

  I did get a wonderful bonus: a preview of "Pretty Horses" was shown before the feature. Judging from the look of the footage shown, this one is going to be very gritty. The shots looked very dark. Matt had that lean, long-chinned look. I could see that the romantic scenes were shot faithfully according to the book, including the love scene in a river in the dark of night. The trailer is well done. And made a very good point of driving home that the movie is opening on Christmas. It's going to have heavy competitions: the other previews include George Clooney in some kind of comedy set in the South, Russel Crowe & Meg Ryan in an action-packed drama, and Tom Hanks in Castaway.

  These are heady days for Matty, and we are the lucky ones.

• A Big Matt Fan wrote:
  • According to local listings, Matt will be on "Entertainers with Byron Allen" this week. In LA, it's at 2:15 am on Saturday, November 11, but check your local listings. Apparently, it's an internationally syndicated show, so there's a chance it'll be airing sometime in your area. By the way, their website at http://www.entertainmentstudios.com/entertainers/index.asp has clips of Matt interviews for ROUNDERS and GOOD WILL HUNTING (but not the RIPLEY or VANCE ones). Worth a look.
  • Re: THE ROSIE O'DONNELL SHOW Looks like it was shot earlier in the week. Will said that Jada hadn't yet delivered. (I think she delivered Tuesday or Wednesday.) Judging from the way they teased each other constantly, it's obvious that Will, Matt and Charlize get along well. Matt did look pretty cute, which is interesting because it seems as though this was shot near the TODAY SHOW appearance, though Matt looks better here.
  • Re: ESPN 2 UP CLOSE I think this was shot during the earlier press junket. Matt's hair was a little longer in it. He seemed quite animated, here, jumping into impressions of his father or the golf instructor, Moss, with surprising agility. (I suspect that Matt's good at impressions, but that he's generally a little shy to really show it off in interviews). I found it touching when he described watching the joy on his father and brother's faces when they all played ball at Fenway park together. You could just see how happy it made him feel to do something for the people he loved. It was interesting that when asked about the demolition of Fenway Park, Matt was sorrowful but understanding of the reasons for it. He talked about how he bad the view was from the grandstand (the cheap seats), and that it would be wrong of him to say "Save Fenway" now that they'd probably put him in the good seats. It's just another example of how he never forgets where he came from, or the people still there. To me, the interviewer seemed remarkably engaged by Matt, almost star struck. He was grinning the whole time, and laughed loudly at all of Matt's jokes.
  • RE: USA Weekly
    Loved those audio clips at the site (http://www.usaweekend.com/00_issues/001105/001105damon_soundclips.html)As Felicity mentioned, the article is well worth your time. You can tell that the writer is truly seems to like him. Here's the introduction to the clip section:
    I met Matt Damon in late August at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, his favorite spot for interviews. Damon shows up right on time in loosefitting khakis, T-shirt, hiking boots and a baseball cap promoting his upcoming movie "All the Pretty Horses," co-starring Penelope Cruz. After lunch, we drive in circles around L.A. When I ask to see where he used to live, Damon shows me the small house in West Hollywood he shared with Ben Affleck when he first arrived in the West in the early '90s. The two-family, one-level home is where he and Affleck, who took the couch after his engagement ended, wrote "Good Will Hunting." Throughout the four-hour interview Damon is funny, eager to please and self-deprecating. Following our talk, he returned home, ran five miles, then spent the rest of the evening reading scripts. -- Craigh Barboza
    BTW: The US Weekly review, while negative (2 of 4 stars), does say the film "squanders an impressive performance by Damon."
  • MOVIELINE: The new issue has a blind item which I'm hoping isn't about Matt. It basically says something like this:
    What's with the new skin and bones look sported by that young, good-looking actor? Close friends swear he's clean as a whistle, but they can't explain his bizarre eating habits. It's said he'll go into a hip restaurant and complain if certain foods touch each other on the plate. He's taken to lecturing others on the toxicity of some foods, which is the excuse he's using to justify why he sometimes goes days without eating. His designer clothes have begun to hang off his body. Someone should tell him that anorexia doesn't just happen to women.
    Added the fan: "This couldn't be Matty, could it?" I hope not. But someone ought to let Matt know that he looks his best with a little weight on, ala Good Will Hunting and now Bagger Vance.
• Also from the Big Matt Fan:
  If you've checked the numbers, you'll note that BAGGER's getting killed by the ANGELS. No surprise there, of course. It looks like we may have an $11-12 million opening.
  To which I replied:
  And that's actually good news. "Pay It Forward" opened less than that. I don't think this movie was competing against Angels. They are apples and oranges. It's like comparing the sale of rap music with that of a classical record. The fact that BV opens at #2 is encouraging. In the screening that I went to today, the theater was pretty full, and while there was some fidgeting among the audience, no one walked out. I think Redford actually did a good job of minimizing the hokiness and the golf worship. It was a wonderful, animated photo album of Matt, played on the silver screen. I am still swooning. :-)

• My thanks to the reader who sent this in:
  Per showbizdata.com, Friday's #1 movie was Charlie's Angels (13.39 million), Legend of Bagger Vance and Meet the Parents were tied at #2 (3.81 million).
  Considering the nature of the Bagger Vance film, this is very respectable showing.
• I caught Matt's appearances on ESPN2's Closeup and also on the Rosie show yesterday (11/3).
  These two were taped at different times, apparently. The ESPN2 segment was from an earlier time, and the Rosie show must have been taped after filming on Bourne Identity had started, for he said he flew in from Paris for the show and would be flying back "in a couple of hours". Will Smith later kidded him about mentioning Paris twice, hinting that he was showing off. Matt carried a gift bag, and presented Rosie with chocolate, crackers, and caviar from France. Then he gave Will a pen with "I love New York on it" and said he picked it up from the airport - Will pretended to look disappointed that he got so little.
  On all his recent appearances Matt was spotting very short hair-do's. He was most like his fetching self on the ESPN2 segment, where he was wearing a - yes - black sweater. On Rosie he had a light-colored sweater on, I believe, and looked a bit gaunt, which is probably the way we will see him in "Bourne Identity." His hair was very short and moused down. He and Will Smith were very chummy, kidding each other. Smith seemed a bit hyper. At one point they were talking about Matt's weight and Will turned to feel out Matt's chest muscles, to the screams of the audience and the obvious surprise of Matt. Will also jokingly mentioned "Matt Damon is a pretty man", twice, at one point.
  Matt mentioned that for Bagger Vance he put on weight ("eating everything"), but for Bourne he had to work out and trim up, hence the gaunt look that I Mentioned.
  Charlize Theron was also on the Rosie show and, next to the two casually dressed guys, she came on like a fashion model and looked ravishing, but totally out of place. The trio did seemed very friendly to each other and it was obvious that they had a good time during the filming.
  It was good to see Matt on these shows again, after so long.
• More from Felicity:
  • From Jam Showbiz,
    Matt Damon suffers for his art
    By BRUCE KIRKLAND
    Toronto Sun
    NEW YORK -- For Matt Damon, celebrity, actor and Oscar-winning screenwriter, there is pleasure in the pain.
    But this is dedication, not sadomasochism.
    "I like that mentality," the 30-year-old Damon says about the extreme lengths an actor has to go to make sure that the show really does go on.
    On Courage Under Fire, Damon needed to look emaciated so he lost 45 pounds from his five-foot 11-inch frame and induced an adrenal gland disorder that made him deathly ill. It took him months to recover. And that was just for a cameo role.
    On All The Pretty Horses, due in theatres in December, he did the weight loss thing again to look like an 18-year-old cowboy. This time, he was more careful, lost a lot less body mass, and stayed healthy.
    On the set of The Legend Of Bagger Vance, the Robert Redford drama which opened yesterday, Damon separated a rib. That meant that it was 'free floating' or travelling independently, as his chiropractor put it.
    Considering that Damon plays a star golfer who is searching for his lost sweet swing, the rib separation was a serious matter. After it happened, Damon would swing the club and pop the rib out of position again. As soon as the camera stopped rolling, he crumpled to the ground writhing in pain.
    Meanwhile, Damon was obsessed with developing a convincing golf swing for the character. When he was hired for the role, opposite Will Smith as the angelic caddy and Charlize Theron as the sex pistol, Damon did not have a game.
    "I had never played. It was like a month's crash course in figuring out how the game works and to get a swing -- any swing. I mean, I'm not very good. But I break 100 (playing now) so I'm certainly better than I was before. And it looks all right."
    As for the pain he was suffering after the rib separation, for the final month of filming, Damon shrugs it off and says that actors should just do what they have to do.
    "It wasn't the most horrible thing ever to swing a golf club. I mean, we're pretty pampered."
    Damon, honoured with an Oscar at age 27 along with his childhood buddy Ben Affleck for co-writing Good Will Hunting, and now one of Hollywood's more interesting risk-taking young stars, seems remarkably unspoiled by his success. At the very least, he has maintained a cynical wit about it.
    "It definitely has," he says of being transformed by celebrity. "It has to have changed me."
    "Yes," I offer with a grin, "you used to be a nice guy." Getting the joke and laughing, Damon fires back: "Now I'm an incorrigible prick!" Everybody laughs.
    Clearly, he isn't, except perhaps in the minds of ex-girlfriends such as his Good Will Hunting co-star Minnie Driver. One thing keeping him real and honest is Damon's extraordinary mother, Nancy Carlson-Paige, a professor at Lesley College in Cambridge, Mass., where Damon grew up with his older brother Kyle. Their mother divorced their father, the now retired stockbroker Kent Damon, when Matt was two.
    Carlson-Paige specializes in non-violent conflict resolution in childhood education. When the media barrage hits during the release of one of Matt's movies, she brings him down to earth with blunt humour, the son says proudly.
    "She comes from the school of thinking that, 'It's a tremendous amount of resources to be wasted on you! I know you!' "
    What this has done is give him a healthy perspective, Damon says. He also hangs with the same friends he grew up, and not just Affleck.
    "I've got a really good group of people, the same friends as before and a really understanding family, so it's been good. They kind of 'get it' about all this, too, (especially) the more vapid stuff, which is the majority of it."
    That leaves him in position to concentrate on the meaningful stuff, such as suffering through pain for the pleasure of making movies such as The Legend Of Bagger Vance
  • More on Charlize's role as messenger from Jam:
    Theron recalls she became Damon's messenger service for a couple of weeks.
    Theron came straight to Bagger Vance from the set of Reindeer Games in which she played Ben Affleck's girlfriend.
    "We had to do some extra shooting on Reindeer Games so I was flying up to Vancouver to be with Ben and then back to Savannah to be with Matt.
    "They had me delivering letters back and forth. I asked them if they'd never heard of phones or e-mail, but they kept sending letters. When I threatened to open one, they used my makeup man as the courier."
    Theron says she understands why Damon and Affleck are such good friends.
    "They share the same sense of humour and love of movies. There are few people who love making movies as much as Matt and Ben and that is a wonderful bonus if you're playing either one's leading lady."
  • Aren't we just slightly curious about what was in those letters??
    Nice story from Mr Showbiz:
    Damon Learns to Swing, Painfully
    Golfing isn't as brutal a sport as football or hockey, right? Tell that to Matt Damon, who cracked a rib and blistered his hands while perfecting his swing for The Legend of Bagger Vance. Damon knew it would be hard to look as good on-camera with a golf club as Tiger Woods. But after spending eight hours a day with a golf pro, "I got a swing together," he says.
    Joel Gretsch, the Robert Redford look-alike who plays legendary golfer Bobby Jones in the period film, relates, "When I got down to Savannah [Ga.], Matt had blisters on every finger from hitting practice balls. He'd keep hitting even though he was blistered."
    Matt's Murderous Ways
    Damon is undergoing training of a different kind for his next movie, The Bourne Identity: assassin school. "I'm learning how to kill people," he says, flashing his killer smile.
    For this big-screen version of the Robert Ludlum thriller, Damon is teamed with Germany's Run, Lola Run star Franka Potente. The story presents Damon as a man who wakes to discover he has amnesia. "He's trying to find out who he is; he doesn't remember. As the movie progresses, he finds a number of things about himself: He can speak a number of languages, and he's a good fighter."
    And, obviously, a good killer. "I can kill you a number of ways, but the best way is to shoot [you]," he jokes.
    Taking Time for Horses
    Bagger Vance precedes the Christmas release of Damon's long-awaited, elegiac Tex-Mex Western All the Pretty Horses. One reason for the year-long delay was director Billy Bob Thornton's tussle with the two studios that co-produced the film, Columbia Pictures and Miramax, over running time. "The version that opens at Christmas in theaters will be two hours, 14 minutes," Damon reveals. "But two hours, 45 minutes on the DVD."
    Which version is better?
    "It depends," he says. "If you love the [Cormac McCarthy] book, longer is better, but most people probably didn't read the book and they'll enjoy the [shorter] version. But to �� tell that story and not make it look like a jagged MTV cut-cut-cut movie, it takes time. [You also have to take into account] the pace of that part of the country." Damon flashes that grin again and adds, "It's hot down there, and they talk a little slower."
  • Have we heard this before? From an article in USA Today:
    Damon, who learned how to play golf for the film, says a real-life experience helped him connect with his character. During a Thanksgiving break from filming, he was playing a round and suddenly felt stressed because he had another month of work on Vance, plus promotions to do for The Talented Mr. Ripley. ''I was really exhausted from working five years straight,'' Damon says.
    His first nine holes were terrible.
    ''I knelt down and said, 'I am not going to be this person. I'm going to let it go. I'm just going to have fun today,' '' he says. ''I really had an actual conversation with myself, and I got up and the next 18 holes I broke 100. . . . That was kind of a breakthrough.
  • Here's the Studio Briefing summary of Ripley reviews:
    Movie Reviews: Bagger Vance
    It may boast such movie icons as Will Smith and Matt Damon in front of the camera and Robert Redford behind it, but Legend of Bagger Vance, The (2000) will not have an easy go of it at the box office if its reviews are any indication. Clearly critics are deeply divided over this period piece. On the one hand, Rita Kempley in the Washington Post writes that Vance "is a slight, disingenuous script that robs the characters of their histories, deprives the actors of subtext and minimizes the odds each must overcome." Of Smith's role, in particular, Kempley writes, "Isn't it time to put Stepin Fetchit to rest?" On the other hand, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times must have been seized by inspiration after seeing the movie: "Will Smith could make Bagger Vance insufferable, but the part is written and played to make it more of a bemused commentary ... all oblique and understated. No violins. Is he a real person or a spirit? You tell me. The photography by Michael Ballhaus makes the great course look green, limitless and sad -- sad that every shot must fall and every game must end. There is a dusk here that is heartbreaking, like the end of every perfect summer day..."
  • I liked the comment from a reviewer on the IMDB boards that the film is "easy to love". It's a lesson in how not to expect too much, and be pleasantly surprised at the outcome.
  • From the Savannah paper:
    'Bagger Vance' a hit with Savannah audiences
    The tale of a golfer in search of his authentic swing makes it's national debut Friday.
    By Jaymi Freiden
    Savannah Morning News
    You know you're at a movie that was filmed in Savannah when you go to a weekday matinee and you're not the only person in the theater.
    Friday's nationwide release of "The Legend of Bagger Vance" brought out not only moviegoers but television cameras and radio crews, eager to see and report on the new movie, which stars Will Smith and Matt Damon. The Zen-like golf movie was shot earlier this year in and around Savannah.
    "There were people here when we opened," said Willie C. Braxton, general manager at the Wynnsong 11 theater at Savannah Mall.
    "Bagger Vance" had 12 screenings in three theaters on Friday, and will have the same amount today, Braxton said. It's unusual, he added, to see so many people show up for a matinee.
    The crowd that came to the 4 p.m. show wasn't disappointed with the movie. They generally laughed when they were supposed to, especially when newcomer J. Michael Moncrief had a funny line. When Rannulph Junuh (played by Damon) had an important shot to make, the theater got as silent as the sidelines at the Masters. And when the movie ended to scattered applause, many stayed in their seats to watch the credits roll by.
    Among the 4 p.m. viewers were Brad and Cindy Bailey, neither of whom are golfers, nor are they movie buffs, though Brad said he's a fan of Robert Redford, who directed "Bagger."
    "We just got a chance to see it so we came," Brad said. "We chose this over 'Charlie's Angels.' We thought that one looked a little cheesy."
    After the film ended, the Baileys were happy they came.
    "It was pretty good," Brad said. "It was better than I thought it would be. I liked the ending."
    A few seats down, Bob and Donna Poleman were also delighted with the movie. Bob was supposed to play golf Friday afternoon but got out of work too late to make his game, so the couple decided to go to the movies instead.
    "The little boy was fabulous," Donna said.
    Bob said that people coming in expecting to see a golf movie might be a little disappointed because the movie is really a "metaphor for life," but he knew what to expect, having read the novel the book is based on several years ago.
    "I liked it a lot," he said. "It was neat to see our city."
    The golf critic in Bob came out a little bit, too.
    "Matt Damon doesn't have much of a swing," he joked.
    Ann Donovan bought the "Bagger Vance" novel last week and was pleased to see the movie live up to -- and exceed -- her expectations.
    "It was a beautiful movie," she said breathlessly. "I was very impressed by all the characters and actors. I can't say enough about it."
    Neither could Bob Fennell, only his comments weren't quite so positive.
    "I missed something here," said Fennell, who used to teach film and theater. "It was beautiful to look at and Savannah looked great, but I wasn't transformed to where Robert Redford wanted me to go."
  • On the deja boards the golfers seem to be happy about the film, and are choosing to see it (one hasn't seen a film at the theatre since Tin Cup!)
• A reader turned this in:
  Saw a preview (of Bagger Vance) in Boston Wed. night.
  For Matt, it's a great photo shoot. Great in a tux and in the golf clothes, where he wasn't forced to wear knickers like the others. Nice red overtones in his hair and great cuts.
  All the actors escape with their dignity.
  The movie is a dog, as anyone who read the book (and isn't brain dead) would expect. But Matt has nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, the opening scenes are dreadful as we careen to the war and back, and the movie only settles down in the card-playing scene with Matt's brain cells speech. Soon Will Smith appears and we're in bogus philosophy land.
  Maybe it's a good thing Matt's better effort will be out soon.
• Val sent in a note - "Roger Eberts says thumb up":
  'BAGGER VANCE' HAS GOLDEN TOUCH
  By Roger Ebert
  Universal Press
  Look how silky this movie is and how completely in command of its tone. Robert Redford's "The Legend of Bagger Vance" could be a movie about prayer, music, or mathematics because it is really about finding yourself at peace with the thing you do best. Most of the movie is about an epic golf tournament, but it is not a sports movie in any conventional sense. It is the first Zen movie about golf.
  I watched it aware of what a delicate touch Redford brings to the material. It could have been punched up into cliches and easy thrills but no: It handles a sports movie the way Billie Holiday handled a trashy song, by finding the love and pain beneath the story. Redford and his writer, Jeremy Leven, starting from a novel by Steven Pressfield, are very clear in their minds about what they want to do. They want to explain why it is possible to devote your life to the love of golf, and they want to hint that golf and life may have a lot in common.
  I am not a golfer. It doesn't matter. Golf or any game is not about the rules or tools but about how you conduct yourself. Civilized games make civilized societies. You look at he movie and you see that if athletes are not gentlemen and gentlewomen, there is no reason to watch them. Micheal Jordan is a gentleman. Roger Clemens is not. You see how it works.
  "The Legend of Bagger Vance" takes place in Savannah, GA, in the first years of the Depression. A man builds a great golf course, goes broke, and shoots himself. His daughter, Adele (Charlize Theron), faces ruin but risks everything on a $10,000 tournament.
  She invites the two greates golfers in the world, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. She also invites Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon) who was the greatest player in Savannah until he went off to war and something broke inside him. He spent the 1920's drinking and playing poker.
  Junah doesn't much want to return to golf which for him also means returning to civilization and to his own better nature. He is encouraged by three people. One is Adele--before the war she and Junnah were lovers. One is a young boy named Hardy who dreams of golf. And one is Bagger Vance (Will Smith), a caddy who appears out of nowhere and assigns himself to rehabiliate and educate Rannulph Junuh.
  Nothing in this movie is pushed too far; it is a masterpiece of tact. Not even the outcome of the tournament is pumped up for effect; quietly, the movie suggests that how the tournament is won is more important that who wins it.
  As for romance, it is in a minor key good for regret and tremulous hope; Charlize Theron's wise, sweet Adele handles Junuh like a man she wants to teach about tenderness.
  Every actor makes the point and then pauses, content. Matt Damon's Junah is not a comeback hero but a man who seems surprised to be playing golf. Jones and Hagen (the two greatest golfers in the world) are not the good cop and the bad cop. They are both good--spsortsmen who love the game but don't talk a lot about it. Jones is handsome, a goldern boy. Hagen is dark and has a gut and smokes all the time. Jones Plays a beautiful game. Hagen is always getting into trouble and saving himself. Both of them are having fun...just fun.
  Will Smith could make Bagger Vance insufferable but his part is written and played to make it more of a bemused commentary. He has theories about golf, and ways of handling his player and advice, but it is all oblique and understated. No violins. Is he a real person or a spirit? You tell me. Oh, and the kid: He is necessary because he has to grow up and become an old man (Jack Lemmon) and tell the story so you can see that lessons were learned.
  The photography by Michael Ballhaus makes the great course look green, limitless, and sad--sad that every shot must fall and every games must end. There is a dusk here that is heartbreaking, like the end of every perfect summer day.
  The spectators do not make spectacles of themselves but seem to identify with the aspirations of the players. Hagen and Jones know each other well and during the marathon tournament they watch Junuh carefully and decide that he will do. Redford found the same feeling in "A River Runs Through It" where the standards a man forms through his pasttime give value to his whole life. Golf, Bagger tells Junuh, is "a game that can't be won, only played."
• Felicity's finds:
  • From the stories yesterday, some things are emerging. Matt and Charlize got on really well, and still do. Joel Gretsch really liked Matt, and that's backed up by a story below. It was also really strange to note that while Matt doesn't see himself as unattractive, he doesn't feel he has charm or charisma. Watch for some of the reviews below! Also look for the excerpts from the USA Weekend article. I didn't copy it here, but ROGER EBERT LIKES IT!! (3.5/4 from him, and Charlie's Angels got only half a star!)
  • The latest US Weekly has a special on Will Smith and Matt - premiere photos and a fashion story, I think.
  • I'll try to keep stories here different from those we've seen before, or at least interesting in a different way! I'll also include reviews if they are very positive, like the trustworthy Boston Globe.

    Boston Herald article:
    Damon had no lack of interest in playing Junuh - especially when Redford cast Will Smith as Bagger Vance, the wise caddie who just may be a heavenly visitor sent to help Junuh get his swing back. But there was that one little problem: Damon, who turned 30 last month, had never golfed. ``Matt's a naturally athletic guy, he plays baseball,'' said Redford. ``The swing of a baseball bat is just similar enough to a golf club, you make contact the same way. He had a jump on it that way and he was ambitious for himself to be good and willing to exercise the disciplines of an athlete to exercise quickly. ``His natural vanity,'' Redford added, smiling, ``would get him there.'' In fact, Damon's efforts under the tutelage of PGA pro Tim Moss were strenuous enough to cause him to break a rib. Joel Gretsch, who plays the real golf legend Bobby Jones in the film, said, ``When I got down to Savannah, Matt had blisters on every finger from hitting practice balls. He'd practice for two hours and keep hitting even though he was blistered.'' Bruce McGill, who plays the film's other golf legend, Walter Hagen, added, ``Tim Moss was a great teacher and understood the nature of the job: It was to make him photograph like a capable golfer. He said to Matt, `How good do you want to get?' Matt said, `I'd really like to beat my dad.' '' Gretsch, who is getting his big break after a few years on the soaps, bonded with Damon. ``I consider Matt one of my best friends now. He hasn't worked since and we play golf (in Los Angeles) every other weekend.'' Gretsch, a ringer for the young Redford, couldn't help smiling. ``It's strange to say that. You think when somebody's such a huge star, what time would he have for someone who isn't? But he could not have been more generous and helping and I know it sounds over the top but that's the truth.'' For Damon, ``Bagger Vance'' is an intentional departure, a period piece with the mysticism that defined Redford's baseball classic ``The Natural.'' Preceding the Christmas release of his long-awaited ``All the Pretty Horses,'' ``Bagger Vance'' provides a stark contrast to last Christmas' ``The Talented Mr. Ripley,'' in which he played a sociopathic killer. ``The movie I like, because it's optimistic, an old-fashioned fairy tale,'' Damon said. ``It's not a movie for a cynic and it goes against the grain, a little bit, of the movies in vogue right now. Tonally, it's different from everything I've ever done and it worked out well for me between `Ripley' and `Pretty Horses.' ''

    Boston Globe review:
    'Bagger Vance' masters the mystical
    By Jay Carr, Globe Staff, 11/3/2000
    hen it comes to movies, mysticism is no match for cynicism, which means that ''The Legend of Bagger Vance'' is going to take its lumps, which is too bad because it offers pleasures of a kind that fewer and fewer films even seem to remember, much less aspire to. If you didn't know that Robert Redford was a painter before he became an actor and director, you could guess it from the burnished, painterly look of ''Bagger Vance,'' starring Matt Damon as a soulsick golfer between the wars. As baseball is the sports metaphor for American public life, golf is America's Zen, where the game is played against one's inner demons. Returning to Redford's favorite theme of a man regaining wholeness, ''Bagger Vance'' is in the same ballpark as ''The Natural'' and ''A River Runs Through It.'' It's a film about a man who has lost his swing, made by a man who has found his swing. Damon initially had trouble fitting himself to a role originally intended for Redford. But he uses his discomfort to feed the character of the golden boy of Savannah, Ga., who came back from the horrors of World War I a changed man, a victim of what, in those days before the term post-traumatic stress disorder existed, was called shell shock. Never does anything remotely approaching confidence or cockiness flicker across Damon's face. Although he had been the amateur champion, he not only gives up golf, he gives up everything, except playing cards. He's mostly a drunken mess, unable to face the woman he had loved, Charlize Theron's Adele. When the Depression hits, and the golf club founded by her late father is about to go under, she fights back. She organizes an exhibition between golf's two stars, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, and ups the ante by leaning on her estranged beau, Damon's Rannulph, to compete, too. Enter Bagger Vance, Will Smith's otherworldly caddy (a role that was to have been played by Morgan Freeman when Redford was still a possibility to take the role of the broken golfer). Maybe Bagger is an angel, maybe he's God himself. The important thing is that Smith possesses the relaxed command that renders the mysticism palatable, as he gently nudges Rannulph back onto the fairways and greens, where, in reviving Rannulph's swing, he revives the golfer's soul as well. Smith's warm, low-key benevolence and Damon's fragility play well against each other. The world of 1931 is evoked pungently, too, from the town's bleakness to the beckoning woods of the course, which has been laid out 1931-style, with shorter fairways and bigger greens than today. Theron projects tangy strength and J. Michael Moncrief effortlessly steals his scenes as a hero-worshipping 12-year-old who becomes the aged narrator telling the story in flashback. Joel Gretsch, as the graceful icon Jones, and Bruce McGill, who plays the flamboyant Hagen as the Babe Ruth of golf, are plus es, too. There are times when inevitability yields to predictability, and the film can't be said to represent Redford at the limits of his reach. But from Smith's Bagger on down, the characters emerge robustly and ingratiatingly, and the rich, ripe period visuals are part of the film's appeal, too.

    NY Daily News review
    Redford also has a knack of shooting his stars to look like younger versions of himself. Brad Pitt looked like he'd just come off the set of "Barefoot in the Park" when he made "A River Runs Through It." In the case of "Bagger Vance," Damon gets the Redford look. He plays Rannulph Junuh, jewel of the South, 18 holes' worth of charisma.

    USA Today
    Damon won't report for duty with Spielberg
    By Josh Chetwynd and Andy Seiler, USA TODAY
    Who would pass up the chance to star opposite Tom Cruise and be directed by Steven Spielberg?
    It looks like the answer is Matt Damon. The much-in-demand actor had long considered the Spielberg-Cruise sci-fi action film Minority Report but is moving on. It's not that he doesn't want to do the movie, but it looks like the schedule of the Ocean's Eleven remake, which Damon also is expected to do, will conflict.
    A decision hasn't been made as to who will be the next target for the Report role.
    "Casting on the film and all the characters, with the exception of Tom Cruise, has not yet been finalized," Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy says.
    The movie, which focuses on a futuristic judicial system in which killers are arrested and convicted before they commit murder, is expected to begin shooting April 1.
    Whoever gets the role will play a friend of Cruise's who must track him down after he learns that Cruise's character is going to murder him.
    "It was a really good role, and it still is a really good role," Levy says.

    Really great story in USA weekend, now online. A few excerpts, but do look at the article and buy the paper (new photos).
    His work in movies has made him rich and famous, though hanging out with him you'd never know it. When he needs to get around town, Damon uses a "loaner" (today, a black Cadillac). But don't let his regular-guy appearance fool you. Few among us can get Tom Hanks on the phone or arrange a private batting session at Fenway Park for friends. Damon is one of those formidably intelligent people who can discuss great literature, offer a rich and philosophical take on fame, then jog down the lineup from the 1977 Red Sox in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette. "He's a cool dude," says Bagger Vance co-star Will Smith. "That dichotomy is interesting, when you see someone who's Ivy League-schooled but also knows Biggie lyrics." Between takes, the two spent hours impersonating their favorite caricatures from In Living Color: Smith, hoochie-mama Wanda; Damon, Fire Marshall Bill. It got pretty loud, and "we almost got kicked off a few courses."
    Damon approaches his work with an intensity rarely seen in big stars, preparing sometimes three months in advance. For The Bourne Identity -- a thriller, now shooting, about a man with amnesia pulled from the water after a murder attempt -- Damon studied martial arts, boxing, weight lifting, firearms and two languages. His career is, he says, in excellent shape, but it's come "at the expense of everything else."

    Calgary Sun review:
    As he did with Brad Pitt, Redford coaxes the kind of look, attitude and effortless performance from Damon that the actor/director built his own career achieving.

  • From an interview with Paul Fischer on darkhorizons.com:
    Hunting for Matt Damon
    Matt Damon/Legend of Bagger Vance Interview by Paul Fischer
    Matt Damon is not only a major Hollywood star these days, but an Oscar winning star at that. He is teaming up with the beautiful Charlize Theron as well as Will Smith, in the poetic new Robert Redford-directed pic, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Paul Fischer reports from Los Angeles.
    Matt Damon has much to celebrate these days. Not only can he talk with pride about his starring role in Robert Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance, but during the week of the film's opening, he happened to be turning 30. Ah, the big 30, not that young Matt worries about this particular milestone. "I don't know how it is for you, but for me, people always ask those questions the minute you have a birthday. Do you feel older? And it's like: Of course not. 8 hours after than the last time. But I guess this one is significant somehow. I guess I haven't internalised that."
    Damon's boyishness masks a clear maturity and eloquence, not the down and out guy struggling to find his place in the world, like the character he so effortlessly plays in Bagger Vance. "I think there's always a tendency to assume that people are like from some kind of external idea or at times vapid reporting about what's going on. I don't feel I know what anybody's life is like who I see kind of in the news."
    Based on the novel by Steven Pressfield and set in 1931, The Legend of Bagger Vance tells of WWI veteran Rannulph Judah (Damon), once a skilled amateur golfer, who agrees to play Bobby Jones (Joel Gretsch) and Walter Hagen (Bruce McGill), two of the game's most distinguished players, in a 36-hole match. Since Judah's swing is not what it used to be, a mysterious gentleman named Bagger Vance (Will Smith) is recruited as his caddy. As Bagger helps Judah to get his game back, Judah discovers that many of Bagger's lessons apply to life as much as to golf.
    Damon admits that the character had certain resonances with him. "There's a certain amount of disillusionment which I think we all have, the older we get. We see how things kinda work, we all become a bit cynical probably. It's interesting in a sense that this is the guy [in Bagger Vance] who was like the golden child and he had everything, because he thought there were certain rules that applied, and every time he played by these rules, life was wonderful and he was always very successful. But the fact that there is a reality that is chaotic, that isn't governed by any rules, and he realises that, is enough to send him into a tailspin. He's a victim of his own success, in a sense that once he realises that life isn't all governed by a set of rules, he just completely abandons it."
    Damon had no hesitation in agreeing to do Redford's film, not so much because of the role, but Redford came a calling. "Good Will Hunting is obviously influenced by Redford's Ordinary People, not only because of the dynamic between the therapist and the central character, but it's one of our [Ben and mine] favourite movies, so I couldn't say no. The odds of working with directors that are this good are really slim."
    In the cynical world of Hollywood, Damon is an example of someone who doesn't seem to have been victimised by success, unlike so many of his contemporaries. The secret of maintaining a semblance of sanity, Damon argues, "is to do with really great friends and family. What success has really done for me is made me a lot stronger than I already thought before it happened. It may sounds trite and hokey but your deep relationships are what defines you; the rest of it's bullshit."
    A product of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was born on October 8, 1970, Damon grew up in prosperous surroundings with his tax preparer father, college professor mother, and older brother. At the age of ten, he made the acquaintance of one Ben Affleck, a boy two years his junior who lived down the street. The two became best friends and professional collaborators. Educated at Cambridge's private Rindge and Latin School, Damon was accepted at Harvard University, where he studied for three years before dropping out to pursue his acting career. During his time there, he had to write a screenplay for an English class: it went unfinished, but it would later be dusted off and turned into Good Will Hunting.
    Arriving in Hollywood, Damon got his first break with a one-scene part in Mystic Pizza (1988). However, his film career failed to take off, and it was not until 1992, when he had a starring role in School Ties, that he was again visible to movie audiences. As the film was a relative failure, Damon's substantial role failed to win him notice, and he was back to labouring in obscurity. It was around this time, fed up with his Hollywood struggles, that Damon contacted Affleck, and the two finished writing the former's neglected screenplay and began trying to get it made into a film. It was eventually picked up by Miramax, with Gus Van Sant slated to direct and Robin Williams secured in a major role.
    Before Good Will Hunting was released in 1997, Damon won some measure of recognition for his role as a drug-addicted soldier in Courage Under Fire; various industry observers praised his performance and his dedication to the part, for which he lost forty pounds and suffered resulting health problems. Any praise Damon may have received, however, was overshadowed the following year by the accolades he garnered for Good Will Hunting. His Oscar win and strong performance in the film virtually guaranteed industry adulation and steady employment, something that was made readily apparent the following year with lead roles in two major films. The first, John Dahl's Rounders, cast Damon as a former card shark trying to make good, despite the temptations posed by his ne'er-do-well buddy (Edward Norton). Despite a name cast and preliminary hype, however, the film proved a relative critical and financial disappointment. The same could not be said of Damon's second film that year, Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. As Ryan's title character, Damon headlined an all-star line-up and received part of the lavish praise heaped on the film and its strong ensemble cast.
    The following year, Damon further increased his profile with leads in two more highly anticipated films, Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley and Kevin Smith's Dogma. The former cast the actor against type as the title character, a psychotic bisexual murderer, and featured him as part of an improbably blonde and photogenic cast that included Cate Blanchett, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Dogma also allowed Damon to go against his nice-guy persona by casting him as a fallen angel. One of the year's more controversial films, it reunited him with Affleck, as well as Smith, who had cast Damon in a bit role in his 1997 film, Chasing Amy.
    Matt and Ben remain close pals, though with all the work they do with each other, one would assume that by now, they are well and truly sick of each other. "Funnily, we see each other less now than during our teens and twenties. If we were tired of each other, we would have been tired of each other a long time ago, trust me. We have very similar sensibilities about a lot of stuff."
    With the good Hollywood life that Damon has attained, there is the price he pays for success: Loss of privacy. The thoughtful actor remains philosophical. "Right now it's hard to wrap my brain around the idea that I'm a public figure. It's a by-product of the other thing, which is getting the best material first and working with the best people. That's what a movie star gets." He concludes that his basic philosophy working in Hollywood "is I want to work as hard as I can and I don't want to let people down. For me, the best I can do is to just look back and say: "I don't have regrets. I tried my best.' I always try my best, and I think that's probably the most valuable thing that I've learnt."
    The busy Damon will next be seen in All the Pretty Horses, Ocean's Eleven, Third Wheel and The Bourne Identity.
  • Access Atlanta review:
    As for Damon, he carries on the tradition of the Redford-surrogate - think Brad Pitt in "A River Runs Through It" - with distinction. He has that movie-star thing that can't be imitated or directed. Even his forced smiles are dazzling. "The Legend of Bagger Vance" is a big, plush slow-moving movie, the cinematic equivalent, perhaps, of a Lincoln Continental or a Cadillac. It's a picture that takes its time and says its piece
  • From someone who hated the film (Fort Worth paper):
    Bag this one: `Bagger Vance' is a four-putt of a film, but the clothes are nice
    In The Legend of Bagger Vance, Matt Damon -- playing a depressed, Depression-era Southern golfer named Rannulph Junuh -- wears a cream-colored, ribbed sweater vest, over a white cotton button-down shirt, with beige corduroys and a brown-and-green-striped tie. At other times, he sports a lightweight brown cardigan, and a pale blue-and-taupe-striped shirt, with a removable white collar. Did the costume designer, Judianna Makovsky, actually direct the movie? When the sun captures the golden highlights in Damon's hair -- and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus frames him against the bright greens of Savannah's golf courses -- Bagger Vance turns into a kind of pornography for male clotheshorses. It's J. Crew: The Vintage Years; or perhaps A White-on-White Fantasia.
    There is also a story unfolding here -- but, to be honest, I stopped paying attention to it after about 20 minutes. At that point it was obvious that each scene was going to linger on for at least two minutes longer than necessary, and that the film itself was going to be a vague remake of Good Will Hunting -- the earnest tale of a sullen prodigy with psychological demons who, with help of a kindly mentor, learns to live life to the fullest. In which case, forgive me for wondering where I might get a pair of Damon's plain front butter-colored trousers -- instead of wondering how long the movie was going to last.
  • At News Askew they mentioned a Houston Chronicle article, in which Matt discusses his role in the new Kevin Smith movie (Ben and Matt sitting around thinking about how much money Good Will Hunting 2 is going to make).
  • From the Salt Lake Tribune:
    Redford draws fine performances from his three leads, stretching each beyond their movie-star expectations. Damon, so mysteriously needy in "The Talented Mr. Ripley," is striking as the disillusioned idol trying to let go of self-doubt.
• A Big Matt Fan wrote:
  • According to TV Guide, Matt and Will are on UP CLOSE on ESPN 2 tonight, Friday, November 3 at 11:30 pm (Pacific Time).
  • Loved that Ebert loved it. A lot of people only see his review.
  • Especially loved those comments from Joel, Will, and that USA TODAY reporter who called him, "formidably intelligent." Isn't it interesting how often the words "smart" and "intelligent" are used to describe him, as well as "generous," "modest" and "kind"?
  • In the Fischer interview, Matt makes some interesting comments about this character--this "golden child" who played by the rules and had early success, but was confronted by a chaotic reality that sent him into a tailspin. You can just sense that Matt identifies strongly with this "golden boy" and that he does everything he can to ensure that he doesn't make similar mistakes, that his life won't have that same "VH-1: Behind the Music" curve of early success, celebratory overindulgence, humiliating descent and hopeful return. Matt just refuses to really celebrate his success. Despite his star power, he conducts his life with the dilligence and determination of an underdog. Gotta love that, too.
• Found on deja,com: At fantasticon.com they have a huge feature on the new movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance, staring Will Smith, Matt Damon, Charlize Theron and directed by Robert Redford. They've got Quicktime interviews with Will Smith, Matt Damon, Charlize Theron and Robert Redford, plus a featurette on the making of the movie,a trailer that I haven't seen before and clips from the movie. It's pretty cool. If you interested check it out here
• Finally, from the BV review on the RoughCut site:
  Are there any virtues on display here? Yeah. A few. Damon is good, and Redford has surrounded his stars with a wonderful collection of character actors -- McGill, Presnell, Lane Smith, and Jack Lemmon (as narrator and on screen briefly as a framing device). The storytelling is slick and effective; the film's two-plus hours whip by quickly, particularly given that a lot of the screen time takes place on a golf course.

• TV schedule reposted:

  Fri 3    2:00 PM  Behind the Movie: The Legend of Bagger Vance  VH1
  Fri 3    2:00 PM  Making of `The Legend of Bagger Vance' HBO
  Fri 3    2:00 PM  Behind the Movie: The Legend of Bagger Vance  VH1
  Fri 3    3:00 PM  Rosie O'Donnell  4  KNBC
  Fri 3    6:00 PM  Behind the Scenes: The Legend of Bagger Vance  E!
  Fri 3    9:45 PM  Making of `The Legend of Bagger Vance'  23  HBO
  

• More BAGGER VANCE photos can be found here
• Some early reviews are in (see the rotten tomato site.) The news is not good: most reviewers find faults with the film. The saving grace is that Matt is not among the cited reasons for the film's failure. Nor is he mentioned very much. However, a Big Matt Fan turned in this note after returning from an early screening:
  I was able to see a screening of BAGGER VANCE tonight. My thoughts:
  1) OH, MY GOD MATT IS BEAUTIFUL IN THIS MOVIE! If you thought he was hot in GOOD WILL HUNTING, if he made you melt in ROUNDERS, well you ain't seen nothin' yet. In a tux, in golf clothes, even in his scruffy, unshaven, alcoholic phase, he just looks heavenly. I wanted to capture every shot of him and frame it. It's no wonder people are comparing him to Redford. Honestly, he has NEVER looked better.
  2) I thought he gave a wonderful performance, exuding just the right blend of insecurity and bravado. I can see why they always show clips of him in the alcoholic phase. He does some of his best work there. However, he is delightful throughout. His Georgia accent seems natural and unforced. In a few sentences, you forget he's from Boston.
  3) OK. As for the film itself, I felt that some of the mystical moments bordered on hokey. Will is pleasant enough, but his pronouncements sometimes strained my patience. And, though Charlize did a decent job, the romantic element really isn't adequately developed.
  4) However, on the whole, I found the film quite charming. It's much funnier than the ads lead you to believe, and the old "triumph of the underdog" theme, while admittedly predictable, is nonetheless satisfying
  This film isn't likely to win any Academy Awards, and I can see why some critics don't like it. Having read some of the reviews, I must admit, I felt a little apprehensive going into the theater. However, I actually enjoyed it more than I expected. I didn't find it slow at all (although, I suppose I should confess that I love watching golf on TV). However, I know you're all planning to see it, so you don't need my recommendation. Have fun tomorrow (or Felicity, whenever you see it.)
  (So, we should all go see it, if only for a treat of seeing Matt in a beautiful portrait :-) - about time, if you ask me.)

Click on a column

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

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