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Tag: American Beauty

  • Penny Dreadful Series Premiere Shows Promise

    Penny Dreadful, Showtime’s entry into the supernatural category, had a relatively strong formal debut Sunday night.

    Going up against genre heavy weights such as AMC’s The Walking Dead and FX’s American Horror Story, Penny Dreadful attempts to set itself apart “with a combination of literary allusion, fine acting, patience and fearlessness” according to a review in The New York Times.

    The series was created by John Logan, who is known for his Oscar-nominated work on films such as The Aviator, Gladiator, and Hugo. Sam Mendes (American Beauty, The Kite Runner, Revolutionary Road) is executive producer. Logan and Mendes previously collaborated on Skyfall.

    Set in Victorian London, 1891 to be precise, Penny Dreadful stars Timothy Dalton, Eva Green and Josh Hartnett as a mishmash trio of explorers searching for Dalton’s character’s daughter. Classic horror characters such as Frankenstein, Dracula and Dorian Gray are woven into the story line.

    “Penny dreadful” was a term used to refer to dime novels and horror books in Victorian-era England.

    According to The Toronto Star, the series premiere “did a fantastic job at setting the series’ dark, gothic tone while making it accessible to both new and seasoned horror fans alike.”

    Penny Dreadful debuted in Showtime’s 10:00 pm time slot immediately after network strongman Californication and drew in 872,000 viewers. After accounting for multiple plays Sunday night, the total number of viewers came in at 1.443 million.

    Breaking down the stats even further, 895,000 – or 62% – of the 1.443 million were in the highly-sought-after 18-49 age demographic. This made Penny Dreadful’s premiere the best in that younger age group since Dexter’s in 2006, which set a network record of 65%.

    Impressively, Penny Dreadful topped the series premieres of Homeland and Masters of Sex by about 5%.

    Further evidence of the premiere’s success is the fact that the numbers above don’t include the 900,000 Showtime subscribers who watched online when the network made the premiere available two weeks prior to Sunday night’s formal debut.

    Image via Penny Dreadful, YouTube

  • Annette Bening Offers Tips on Acting

    Annette Bening proffered words of wisdom to her fellow actors Tuesday at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, where she was honored for her past work as well as for her latest feature, The Face of Love. It was during a question and answer segment of AFI Fest’s Conversations program that Bening shared tidbits of advice from her very successful career.

    Naming ‘listening’ as the first and foremost helpful hint for actors, Bening shared a time when she was called out by her director during a rehearsal when she clearly wasn’t listening to what her acting partner was saying. Her embarrassment was a price well paid, however. She also says drawing the line between fact and fiction is of utmost importance to actors–not just for their performances, but for their overall emotional well being as well.

    “When you’re involved in it in a neurotic way…if you’re still crying when the curtain comes down, that’s a problem. That has to do with something else. I think it’s healthy to be able to stop and let it go,” she said.

    Annette Bening’s final piece of advice for fellow actors pertained to something that takes place after the fact. Actors read reviews. Sometimes those reviews will send them jumping for joy, while others make them want to refuse to take the stage for their next performance. She tells actors to, “believe the good ones and ignore the bad ones.”

    Bening is best known for films including The Grifters, American Beauty and The Kids Are All Right. She won Golden Globes for both The Kids Are All Right and American Beauty.

    In her film, The Face of Love, Annette Bening plays a vulnerable character who is on the verge of breaking. She plays opposite Ed Harris. The Face of Love did well at the Toronto Film Festival.


    Just imagine being a fledgling actor–or perhaps one with a few notches on your belt–and receiving acting tips from Annette Bening. What an amazing gift her words of wisdom would be.

    Image via Wikimedia