By Amy West

Gemma Arterton turns 30 on Tuesday (2 February) and we can’t think of a better way to celebrate her birthday than to watch one of, if not all of her best films. From the star-studded The Boat That Rocked to children’s guilty pleasure St. Trinian’s, she’s appeared in a lot of titles considering she only really rose to fame less than 10 years ago.

She even played a Bond girl in the 2008 film Quantum Of Solace, so there’s bound to be something to suit everyone who wants to share in her special day.

Gemma Arterton turns 30 on Tuesday (2 February) and we can’t think of a better way to celebrate her birthday than to watch one of, if not all of her best films. From the star-studded The Boat That Rocked to children’s guilty pleasure St. Trinian’s, she’s appeared in a lot of titles considering she only really rose to fame less than 10 years ago.

She even played a Bond girl in the 2008 film Quantum Of Solace, so there’s bound to be something to suit everyone who wants to share in her special day. Read More

By Jamie Neish (The Philippine Star)

MANILA, Philippines – British-born Gemma Arterton has quickly been rising through the ranks since breaking out in St. Trinian’s six years ago. Her latest role, as a sexed-up vampire in Neil Jordan’s Byzantium, sees her try something completely different.

Byzantium centers on two mysterious women, Clara (Arterton) and Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan), who seek refuge in a run-down coastal resort. However, when Eleanor reveals their secret, that they are 200-year-old vampires, to Frank (Caleb Landry Jones), it’s not long before their past catches up on them with deadly consequences.

You’ve done period drama, action adventure and Bond. What was it about Moira Buffini’s script that made you decide it was a vampire film you wanted to do next?

“Well, the original script I read was much more about the mother and daughter relationship between Clara and Eleanor and only hinted at the vampire stuff. But when Neil (Jordan) came aboard, he wanted to make it more of a genre piece. For me, it was never just, “Oh, it’s a vampire movie,” it was much more about the characters at its core, what it was like to be a trapped, ageless mother having to care for her daughter. And the genre elements sort of fed into that. It’s probably the first film I’ve done that’s more in line with what I like to watch, which is anything supernatural and fairytale-like.”

Are you much of a horror fan yourself, then?

“I wouldn’t say I go to see horror films for the sake of seeing a horror film, but I’ve always been fascinated by the genre because it always makes you feel something. But I wouldn’t go to see a horror film because it’s got a lot of gore in it. I’m much more interested in the stuff underneath the surface. I think it’s such a broad term, horror, and even this film is more art-house horror.” Read More

GALLERY LINK:
– Byzantium (2013) > Blu-ray Captures, thanks to my dear friend Stef

GALLERY LINKS:
– Hannah Arterton > Television > Atlantis (2013– ) > Hot TV (UK) – September 28, 2013
– Hannah Arterton > Television > Atlantis (2013– ) > SFX (UK) – November 2013
– Hannah Arterton > Personal Pictures > Twitter
– Hannah Arterton > Personal Pictures > Instagram
– Movies & Television > Runner, Runner (2013) > Posters & Covers
– Movies & Television > Runner, Runner (2013) > Production Stills
– Movies & Television > Byzantium (2013) > Related Clippings > SFX (UK) – November 2013
– Movies & Television > Byzantium (2013) > Production Stills
– Movies & Television > Gemma Bovery (2014) > Related Clippings > Daily Express (UK) – September 16, 2013, thanks to Chuckie

PS: Hannah Arterton didn’t appear in this Saturday’s episode of Atlantis (1×03 – The Boy Must Die), so don’t expect any screencaptures this week.

It’s been a busy weekend for Atlantis nonetheless! The UK side got the 3rd episode while Canadian citizens watched the 1st and the 2nd episodes! Two hours of Atlantis!

Bond girl and sexy star, Gemma Arterton changes her style to act opposite Terence Stamp in Song for Marion.

GALLERY LINK:
– Scans from 2013: D – Donna di Repubblica (Italy) – August 10, 2013

“Imagine carrying so many sad memories with you from century to century,” he says of his latest film’s creatures

By Allen Barra

Two women, one in her late 30s and another perhaps in her early 20s, move into a rundown seaside hotel named Byzantium. They are pursued by menacing strangers who prove to have no connection to the police or any legitimate authorities. The atmosphere is moody, the night air neon-lit. The plot becomes increasingly ominous, and we see violent flashbacks of the same women, not years but centuries in the past.

Neil Jordan’s 17th feature film, “Byzantium,” is already confounding critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Starring Saoirse Ronan (“Atonement,” “Hannah”) and Gemma Arterton and co-starring Sam Riley and Jonny Lee Miller, “Byzantium” is adapted by Moira Buffini from her play “A Vampire Story.” The film is at once identifiable as a Jordan film but is also kind of a busman’s holiday. “There are definitely elements of my other films in this one,” he told me by phone from his home in Dublin, “but I decided not to work on this film as a writer because Moira’s adaptation of her play brought the story to the screen very well. So I was a bit more relaxed while making it.”

Jordan has dealt with vampires before, in his 1994 Anne Rice adaptation “Interview With the Vampire.” In that film, Brad Pitt’s Louis is asked if Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an accurate depiction of the vampire life. “The feverish dreams,” replies Pitt, shrugging off the question, “of a demented Irishman.” Jordan’s interest in vampires is much different from Stoker’s. “I’m very interested in the burden of memories which people carry from one generation to another. Imagine how much more of a burden that must be for creatures who live for centuries. I was intrigued by ‘Byzantium’ because this time it was two women, and the idea of a mother-daughter relationship added a whole dimension. In some ways it’s a little sad, don’t you think? All the things that human beings must carry with them from decade to decade. Imagine carrying so many sad memories with you from century to century.”

“Byzantium” came out in the U.S. on June 28, and it’s just another step in Jordan’s uncommonly varied life and career. He was born in Sligo, in the shadow of Yeats’ Ben Bulben. (“Not so impressive as it sounds,” he once told me, “since virtually all of Sligo is in the shadow of Ben Bulben.”) He was raised in Dublin; his grandfather, mother and sister were all painters.

Source

By Don Groves

Neil Jordan’s Byzantium, his return to the blood-sucker genre following Interview with the Vampire, was due to open in Australian cinemas on July 25.

Not so. The distributor Rialto pulled the release this week and the fantasy thriller about mother-and -daughter vampires will go straight to DVD and Video-On-Demand.

The decision to bypass cinemas is a growing trend as distributors calculate their chances of recouping hefty marketing costs from the theatrical release are diminishing, and the waning DVD market is a less effective safety net.

Horror movies are the most problematic given the genre has never been popular in Oz, unlike the US and the UK. Read More