Anthony Minghella | The New York Observer

HBO in the Spring: Shrinks, Detectives and Eccentrics

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:45:05 -0400

In the so-charming-it-hurts I Love You, Man, Paul Rudd’s character, Peter, likes to spend Sunday nights at home with his lovely fiancée, watching HBO. Peter is such a champion of network that at one point he even utters the famous catchphrase—“It’s not TV, it’s HBO”—to help explain what he loves about this chosen date-night activity. On first glance, the concept feels slightly dated—isn’t loving HBO very 2005?—but after getting a glimpse at the network’s...

Hello, Mullet! HBO Sets Dates for Two New Shows

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:01:43 -0500

It might be time to add HBO back to your cable package. The network has spent the better part of the last two years stockpiling shows from seemingly all parts of the Hollywood gene pool, and the fruits of those labors are just about to start paying off in 2009. To wit: HBO has just announced the starting dates for two of their more highly anticipated shows in the new year, Eastbound and Down and The...

Director Anthony Minghella Dies at 54

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:13:16 -0400

Anthony Minghella, the Oscar-winning director and writer of The English Patient, has died suddenly, Variety reports. He was 54. The cause of death has not yet been confirmed. Mr. Minghella most recently directed the BBC/HBO telepic No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, based on Alexander McCall Smith’s novel set in Botswana, which is due to premiere March 23 on BBC1. His last movie was Breaking and Entering. His other credits include Cold Mountain, The Talented...

Madama for the Masses; Ponchielli for Night Owls

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 20:00:00 -0400

On opening night, a red carpet led operagoers Oscar-style across the Lincoln Center Plaza. The Metropolitan Opera’s façade was partially obscured by a giant screen installed for the outdoor viewing pleasure of those who couldn’t afford to watch Madama Butterfly in the house. To further accommodate the hoi polloi, a similar screen and roped-off seating area had been set up in Times Square, 20 blocks south. Welcome to the Happening New Met and the...

In Academy Race, Miramax Chilled On Cold Mountain

Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 -0500

On the morning of Jan. 27, when Frank Pierson, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and actress Sigourney Weaver announced the final film to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar as … Seabiscuit , an audible gasp could be heard from the gathered crowd. It was a little after 5:30 a.m. Pacific time, but suddenly movie executives on both coasts were wide awake and reaching for the speed dial....

A Prayer For The Human Race

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:00:00 -0500

Wrapping up the year on film, they saved one of the best for last. As war movies go, Hollywood has always treated the Civil War-the only homemade war ever fought on American soil-with boredom, disinterest and disdain. Except for Gone with the Wind , the War Between the States is like Bette Davis in the winter of her career: box-office poison. Spectacular and overwhelming, Cold Mountain is an exception. The movie that Anthony Minghella...

Is Time Inc. Spying on Its Editors?

Sun, 16 Sep 2001 20:00:00 -0400

A number of staff members suspect so, citing a couple of strange devices that make them think a hidden camera had been trained on them.

Specifically, they believe that Susan Casey, the managing editor of Sports Illustrated Women , was being secretly videotaped. In the first week of September, Ms. Casey was told by a colleague at Sports Illustrated that a security camera hidden without her knowledge had been taping her office around the...

Bill Clinton, Rainmaker, and Other Scary Ideas

Sun, 16 Jan 2000 19:00:00 -0500

Between Christmas and New Year's, I found myself wandering the streets of Manhattan in a black funk. So clearly did my feelings-of the wan and palely loitering knight-at-arms variety-show upon my face that passers-by halted, some even extended tentative helping hands and nervous little solicitous murmurs. If I had a nickel for every time I was told, "I know, old boy, it's hard, but one must get on with one's life," I'd be rich...

The Year at the Movies: Overlong, Overambitious

Sun, 26 Dec 1999 19:00:00 -0500

Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley , from a screenplay by Mr. Minghella, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, is well on its way to becoming the most written-about cinematic event of 1999, the most insane year in the whole millennium in terms of the number of virtually simultaneous releases of overlong, overambitious and overpublicized productions. The Talented Mr. Ripley , as a case in point, is an often brilliant but ultimately confused...