Nora Zehetner

A reminder for those Londoners amongst us, The Brothers Bloom will be screening at the BFI London Film Festival October 27th and 28th. Tickets are still available trough the BFI website for the tuesday showing. If you’ll be attending the festival, or will be in the area and wish to see Nora Zehetner in action in Rian Johnson’s second feature-length endeavor, be sure to purchase your tickets soon before they sell out.

Rian Johnson has confirmed his attendance, and it is rumoured that Rachel Weisz will be there too.

Yesterday marked the launch of my new site, my Reese Witherspoon.

If you’re a fan of Reese Witherspoon (who isnt?), then you should head over there and check it out. I’m still in the process of adding content, but I have BIG things planned for that site. So keep an eye out.

So check it out. And check back often. Heck, sign up for the forums and let’s chat! I’d love to hear from you.

Most of what I had planned for this site, the contests and user involvment, well… I need users for that. It’ll come. NoraZehetner.net has been live for about a month now, and is slowly building it’s popularity. You can help me out by signing up to the forums, dropping a “hello” in the introductions section, and letting yourself be known.

The Heroes release “party” show was aired last night on Canadian television networks. All the current stars of the show were there to discuss their roles and give insights into their characters. Several previews of the upcoming season were shown, as well as several vignettes looking back on the story so far. We even got some glimpses inside the making of the show’s special effects, including the charred Claire as she made her way out of her burning house and the wire-work done for Peter and Nathan’s flying scene.

Nora did not make a personal appearance at the event, but we did catch glimpses of her in some of the vignettes.

The show aired a day early on Global, a canadian television network. If you missed it last night, you can catch it again tonight at its intended time… right before the season premiere of Heroes.

Being a Nora fan means being familiar with Rian Johnson’s work.  His directorial debut, Brick, was one of Nora’s largest movie roles at the time. She also makes a cameo in his second work, The Brothers Bloom. Admittedly, there are currently only two examples, but Nora has appeared in every movie Rian has directed thus far. So when we find out he has a new project in the works, we here at NoraZehetner.net are excited to hear about it.

This project, titled Looper, is a “really violent and dark” (those are his words) sci-fi flick. He revealed just a snippet of the plot: “Looper is set in a present-day world in which a group of hitmen are sent their victims from the future.” This quote follows a previous comparison of the project to the Terminator: “To me, it’s a lot more like the first Terminator. It’s very sci-fi, but it’s very character-based and very concentrated. It’s very different from the Terminator movies, but it’s like the first Terminator in that time travel is involved with it, but only as a plot device.”

Will Nora be a part of this? We’ll just have to wait and see.

The Middle East International Film Festival (henceforth called MEIFF), today announced their line-up of special presentation films. Scheduled for the opening night gala on October 10th, The Brothers Bloom is set to launch this second edition of the festival.

Abu Dhabi plays host to the MEIFF, which aims to introduce filmmakers from around the world to the region and offers a diverse slate of international films to the community. MEIFF is striving to become a centre for filmmakers in the region and internationally to meet and present their films in a city fast becoming the leading cultural centre in the Middle East. The international element of the Festival this year is truly reflected in the line up of films that they will be screening: currently there are plans to screen movies from over 35 countries, and all five continents.

I finally got around to uploading all the photos I have of Nora Zehetner into the photo gallery. Check it out!

The skinning of the photo gallery was done quickly and with only a few photos in it as a test. I’m not happy with how it looks. If anyone has experience with the layout and design elements of Coppermine Photo Gallery, and would like to help, let me know.

On september 8th, Spooner’s status, as seen on IMDB changed from post-production to completed.

Spooner is Drake Doremus’ second feature-length directorial effort. Very little is currently known about this movie, except for the short plot synopsis provided on IMDB:

An average guy in every way meets the girl of his dreams at the worst possible time, and proves to her he really knows how to spoon.

Nora co-stars with Matthiew Lillard of Scream and Scooby Doo fame. With two of my favorite actors in the lead rolls, I’m anxious to see this movie, even if the plot leaves a little something to be desired.

Kevin Nealon won Best Supporting Actor for his role in the new Nora flick, Remarkable Power. The film was screened this weekend at Orange County’s SoCal Independent Film Festival.

The SoCal (SOuthern CALifornia) Independent Film Festival was started in 2005 as a way to celebrate the Indie filmmakers of southern California. This year’s edition screened 116 shorts and feature length films from independant filmmakers, many of whom are students at one of the local film colleges.

Remarkable Power is an ingenious murder mystery comedy about a late night talk show host (Nealon) who masterminds an elaborate scheme to save his cancelled show and avenge his wife’s affair in the process. Along the way he gets tangled in a web of ecclectic characters making his journey anything but predictable.

This is Brandon Beckner’s directorial debut. With principal photography being finished in 2006, the film has been touring the film festivals since then. The film’s release date is currently unknown.

As a side-point of interst, Nora’s Heroes co-star, Ali Larter won the SoCal IFF award for Best Supporting Actress for her film Crazy.

The Brothers Bloom, Rian Johnson’s second directorial effort following 2005’s neo-noire masterpiece Brick, screened recently at the Toronto International Film Festival. Reviews have started popping up on industry blogs all over the internet.

First up is The Playlist, which gave a mixed yet fair review of the film:

Rian Johnson’s sophomore effort is an impressive piece of writing and a cinematic marvel; its a tightly coiled madcap con-man love story, but its major fatal flaw is its over-calibrated hyper sense of self.

Alex Billington wrote a glowing review for FirstShowing.net:

The only flaw I could find in Brothers Bloom was with the story and how confusing it became. But because this is Rian Johnson, I let it slide and enjoyed everything else that this fine film had to offer… when the credits started rolling, I had forgotten that the story was so confusing and just smiled. Johnson achieves pure cinematic bliss in that final act.

Meanwhile, Devin Faraci over at CHUD.com wrote a rather in-depth review:

While Bloom isn’t as stylized in language as Brick, it is stylized in tone and setting. I hesitate to use the word ‘quirky’ because it automatically creates a negative image in so many people’s minds, but Bloom is sort of quirky. It’s unique, with a light spirit and an often playful tone.

James Rocci over at Cinematical.com gave another glowing review:

As much as The Brothers Bloom may feel like it’s cribbing from other films at first, this is Rian Johnson’s movie, and even if my more dreary and discerning critical faculties told me the final act goes on, perhaps, a beat too long, my inner moviegoer was sitting bolt upright, smiling, bright-eyed and carried away.

We here at NoraZehetner.net didn’t get the chance to make it down to the screening of this movie, but reading these reviews makes us wish we had.

Unfortunately, we will have to wait a little longer than expected. The original theatrical release of the film, scheduled on October 24th, will now become a limited release on December 19th, with a following wider release on January 16th 2009.

We have some catching up to do with the going-ons of Nora Zehetner. So this is the first post in a series looking back on recent events in Nora’s career.

I recently read an interview Nora did with goodprattle.com - a website professing “intelligent interviews with intelligent people”. A snippet of the interview follows:

I was attending the Texas Academy of Math and Science, which is a program that allows you to skip the last two years of high school and enter a rigorous math and science program at the University of North Texas geared towards future engineers and doctors, when I seriously started to consider moving to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. I had a wonderful advisor at the school that encouraged me to follow my dreams, when everyone else thought I was crazy. I dropped out at the end of the first year, saved my money and moved to Los Angeles.

Read the full interview at Good Prattle