I have a few things to tidy up with it this weekend and then I will upload it probably on Tuesday. It will now have it's own domain name, youknowforkids.co.uk (some bugger already has the .com domain and, since I'm in the UK, this one fits nicely), there will be no more pesky pop-up ads, no more awful frames, TONS more images from the movies, TONS more information, and it should be a whole lot easier to find what you're looking for. I hope you all like it and I apologise again for the delay in taking it live.

The plot of an eccentric professor-turned-criminal-mastermind (Tom Hanks) to commit the massive heist of a New Orleans riverboat casino appears to be thwarted by the actions of Mrs. Munson, the seemingly-innocent little old landlady of the house that he and his three accomplices are staying in, and which is integral to their scheme (they want to dig a tunnel from it to where the casino's money is kept). So they decide that they need to remove her from the equation, but doing so might prove to be more difficult than they expect.

I have ONE movie poster signed by the cast of the movie and FOUR unsigned movie posters. For your chance to win answer the below questions and submit a tie breaker.

QUESTION ONE: Which Tom Hanks character said "I've done some things in my life I'm not proud of, but this is the first time I've ever felt in real danger of hell."?

QUESTION TWO: How many Coen brother's movies has cinematographer Roger Deakins worked on?

QUESTION THREE: What is the connection between The Ladykiller's and the Coen brother's debut movie, Blood Simple?

TIE BREAKER: In no more than 100 words tell me why you feel that the signed poster would look best on YOUR wall.

Send your answers and tie breaker to paul_tweedle@scee.net and mark the subject line of your email - Ladykillers Competition. The closing date for entry is 3pm GMT Thursday 8th April 2004. Winners will be drawn and notified by e-mail on that date. Webmasters decision is final.

Click here to visit THE LADYKILLERS OFFICIAL WEBSITE.

Paul, "You Know, For Kids!"

CHICAGO (AP) - Irma P. Hall triumphed over serious injuries from a January car crash to attend a private screening of her new movie, ``The Ladykillers,'' at a local Chicago theater.

``I loved the whole thing,'' the 68-year-old actress said. ``You never really know until you see it on the screen.''

Hall plays a formidable, Bible-thumping landlady opposite Tom Hanks in the film, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. She has been recovering in a Chicago convalescent center from accident-related open-heart surgery, a broken arm and a crushed ankle.

Hall said she was delighted to be surrounded by friends for Wednesday's screening. ``I've been waiting so long for this,'' she said. ``I couldn't even sleep last night.''

While recuperating from her injuries, Hall said she heard from the Coen brothers, Hanks and co-star Marlon Wayans.

``We're all like family,'' she said. ``They all signed my pillow. Whenever I miss them, I hug it.''

The two-time Oscar winner, here in a Mag Mile hotel to promote his new movie, shifts uncomfortably in his chair.

"For crying out loud! There were funny things in 'Cast Away,' to say nothing of 'Catch Me If You Can'! I know they were animated, but how about 'Toy Story' and the sequel? There sure was a lot of laughs in 'You've Got Mail' and 'That Thing You Do." Last time I checked, those all were released within the past decade."

The actor gives a knowing nod, realizing that his high-profile performances in such movies as "Saving Private Ryan," the Chicago-made "Road to Perdition" and "The Green Mile" clearly were on the mind of the marketing whiz who drafted that "first laugh-out-loud comedy" line.

"Listen, I understand. It's all about trying to promote a film. The marketing department throws down the gauntlet: 'Here's what it is! Here's how we sell it!' Whatever it takes, that's OK, but I don't want people to think I haven't uttered a funny line in 10 years."

On the surface, the fact that "The Ladykillers," which opens Friday, is a retooling of the 1955 comedy classic starring Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers would have been off-putting for Hanks. "So often, I never bat an eye when I hear about someone remaking 'Citizen Kane,' he quips. "It's like, why bother?"

But when the actor heard that the new version of "The Ladykillers" was coming from the sibling team of Joel and Ethan Coen, "that made me pay attention."

For some time, Hanks -- like much of Hollywood -- had been anxious to team up with the acclaimed brothers. "I was always telling my people, 'What are the Coen brothers doing? Can I meet with them?'"

As soon as Hanks read the draft script for "The Ladykillers," he was hooked. "It may be adapted [from the original], but this is very different." An example of the Coen twist was the way Hanks' character -- Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr III, Ph.D. -- is treated when he's not attempting to con his landlady, Mrs. Munson, played by Chicago's own Irma P. Hall.

"This is what these guys came up with, which I thought was so magnificent. Often in these caper movies, it gets so programmed -- so structured. So the first time I read the script, I was expecting that when this guy would go downstairs [to join his fellow co-conspirators], he would drop the facade, drop the flowery language and affected accent.

"But he didn't, and I thought wow! This is going to be different."

The creation of the Dorr character proved to be a treat for Hanks. Sitting in front of a poster for "The Ladykillers" -- casually dressed in a well-worn charcoal-gray sweater and pair of sturdy Roots walking shoes -- the actor provides a stark contrast to his onscreen persona staring back. Turning to glance at the poster, Hanks unconsciously squints.

"Oh I don't know, I see a little Mark Twain in there. Certainly some John Wilkes Booth, some [Edgar Allan] Poe, a touch of Colonel Sanders, Inspector Clouseau [from "The Pink Panther" films] and maybe just a little bit of Bennett Cerf."

Yet, more than the physical appearance, it was Dorr's amazing way with words that made him a delight for Hanks. Fun, but certainly challenging.

"To get out those lines convincingly, it's sort of like jumping on a freight train going full throttle. The way he jumps from one subject to the next. It all sort of just spills out. You start saying that stuff as fast as you can and you can't hesitate, because Dorr doesn't hesitate."

In his own mind, Hanks felt he needed to create something of a back story for Dorr. "He says he's on sabbatical from that college in Mississippi, but I think he's been on sabbatical for 17 years. You just know, he got fired for something, probably something a bit scandalous. I just figured that out and put it in the back story in my mind.

"He's just one of those characters you have to tackle head first. You dive right into him and never look back."

Compared to the solitary experience of filming "Cast Away," where "much of the time I had no one to play off of, except that damn soccer ball Wilson," Hanks loved working in an ensemble environment. In "The Ladykillers," he doesn't "have one scene in the movie where I'm all alone. I'm either with Irma or the other guys."

Hanks calls that "an absolute luxury. In many movies, you just go to work every day and sometimes you feel like Steve McQueen in the cooler in 'The Great Escape' -- just throwing that ball against the wall and asking the director, 'How's that?'

"You rarely get to have that great ensemble experience in films -- where everyone has such wonderful, well-defined characters."

Some of Hanks' favorite moments working on "The Ladykillers" came while working with veteran actress Hall, best known for her portrayal of the beloved family matriarch in "Soul Food," both on the big screen and in the Showtime cable TV series.

"She's the star of the movie," Hanks says. "She's the 'lady' in 'The Ladykillers.' She's amazing. She was impervious, a dear, sweet lady who works hard and does her job -- and does it beautifully. Irma's had a renaissance life. She was a teacher, her father was a musician who played the black nightclub circuit throughout the South.

"She was a nurse, for crying out loud! She's done so much and most important -- she knows this world. The world inhabited by this Mrs. Munson. She gets her and she gets her good, from the way she sings in church to simply the way she walks in and lectures that sheriff. I love the way she just keeps talking and barely takes a breath -- not letting him get a word in edge-wise. That stuff's priceless."

In the final analysis, Hanks wants to make it clear it was the chance to make a film with the Coens that clinched the deal. "Everybody works differently, but here's what I think they do: The two of them have already spent a long time making the movie already -- long before we ever show up on the set. They've already made the movie, we just have to step in and film the scenes. Sure, things change, but of all the films I've made, this one had the least script changes. In fact, the only changes were because they had to get [legal] clearance on simple things like the use of certain corporate names ... stuff like that."

Hanks contrasted the Coens' way of filming to another one of his favorite directors -- Steven Spielberg. "Steven will often play on a set. He'll get there and see a possibility and explore that possibility and try different things. He'll still get everything he planned to get that day, but he'll improvise as well."

The actor says he was relieved the Coens are not free-form filmmakers -- the type who are constantly tinkering with scripts, "always going back rewriting, bolstering up somebody's part, cutting down another one, changing dialogue, that kind of thing." For Hanks, changes could have been extremely unsettling. "It was very freeing for me as an actor. Sometimes I had to come in with eight pages of very complicated dialogue memorized -- having spent the last three and a half weeks getting it down. It was nice that there were no changes.

"Or else, we'd probably still be filming!"

Thanks to Joseph Kinney for sending this in.

Thanks to MMM@ for sending me some of the links.

FIRST ONE

SECOND ONE

The film tells the story of a blue-collar man forced to choose between his mistress and his long-suffering wife. The action will apparently be punctuated by lip-synched versions of popular songs from Irving Berlin, Nick Cave, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Bruce Springsteen and Engelbert Humperdinck. The lack of live singing is slightly disappointing ? it means that there is little chance of Susan Sarandon exercising the vocals she displayed to such good advantage in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

It will be interesting to see how Coen Brothers regular Turturro handles musical comedy. The important thing here is that there is a very good chance of Christopher ?Twinkle Toes? Walken displaying the dance skills he used to such good advantage in the video for Fat Boy Slim?s Weapon of Choice.

Fargo made it to number 60 and The Big Lebowski (of course) making it to number 30. Fargo has moved down the 100 since the last time it was compiled in 1999, by 13 places while Lebowski is a new entry.

Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope was knocked off the top by, that's right, you guessed it, Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring. The other two Ring's movies came in at number 3 (The Two Towers) and 8 (The Return Of The King).

It's also now up at the official The Ladykillers site.

Thanks to MMM@!

The R1 version is out on 10th February, the R2 is out a mere fortnight later, on 23rd February. Extras are to be; "A Look Inside Intolerable Cruelty" featurette; a wardrobe fearurette and outtakes. Alas no commentary!

DETAILS: in a remake of the Ealing classic, southern professor-cum-criminal mastermind Professor Goldthwaite Higginson Dorr (Hanks) rents a room in the house of an elderly widow (Irma P Hall) from which to plan a casino heist with his band of bumbling associates. When the old lady gets wind of their scheme, the men's minds turn to murder.

The enjoyable remake of The Italian Job went some way to assuaging fears that Hollywood updates of British classics could lead only to the end of the world as we know it, in which loveable Cockney scamps would be replaced by Los Angelinos with biceps bigger than thier acting range. And though a few noses were surely put out of joint at the news that the Yanks had got their hands on this Ealing favourite, the association with the Coen brothers should snap the majority of those back into place. The others are just too damned hard to please and need to recognise a good thing when they see it.

The premise is largely unchanged from the 1955 original, and the changes that have been made play right into the hands of the Coens - who rewrote the script (rejecting a version penned in 1998 by Steel Magnolias scribe Robert Harling) after signing up when Barry Sonnenfeld dropped out. The location change from quaint 1950's London to modern-day New Orleans revisits the same stamping ground that proved such a success in O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The gentle old woman of the original has been replaced by a far more aggressive evangelical pensioner, and the thieving band - including Marlon Wayans as a casino inside-man who's a jack short of a full house - should provide plenty of scope for Coen caricaturing. Those expecting John Goodman, Steve Buscemi and other Coen regulars however, will be looking in vain since the entire cast is new to the brothers' world.

We said it before with Intolerable Cruelty, but this really should be the Coen's big box office breakthrough - with a little help from Tom Hanks. America's premiere Everyman has only had one film gross less that $100 million in the last decade and stands as probably the most bankable star in the world. Since Road To Perdition he's also challenged his amenable 'aw shucks' persona to explore a darker side. This represents his biggest departure yet, taking over the Alec Guinness role as a villain as sharp and smooth as treacle-coated razor blades. It's the same kind of blindsiding opportunity the Coens gave Clooney with O Brother, and if Hanks proves as good as we expect he will, Oscar's favourite son could be his own major competition (The Terminal) for Best Actor in 2005. You'd be a fool not to bet on a hand like this.

Thanks to Sladey for pointing this sad story out.

It was originally posted at Mysan.de.

Thanks to Joseph Kinney for pointing it out.

3. Joel and Ethan Coen

Their latest film, Intolerable Cruelty, may have marked a new, "commercial" phase in their career, but no one could ever accuse the Coen brothers of selling out. The Coens' special mix of arch, sculpted dialogue, film-history homage and scrupulously-framed cinematography has never failed them yet, and through their associations with Sam Raimi and Barry Sonnenfeld, have exerted a powerful, if unacknowledged, influence on mainstream event cinema. Until Fargo, they seemed content to mess about in their own particular corner of the film industry; that film's stunning popular success suddenly catapulted them into the Hollywood big league.

Substance 14

Look 18

Craft 18

Originality 18

Intelligence 18

Total 86

Thanks to "Bunnie Lebowski" for pointing this out!!!

Opens with a shot of a church and an old black woman walking down the street.

She narrates "John the Baptist said, behold, there's a stranger in our midst and he's come to destroy us". Doorbell rings. Candles blow out and old lady turns around to see Hanks at the door.

He says, "allow me to present myself formerly. Goldthwait Higgenson Doyle PHD. I saw the sign advertising a room to let."

She says "I'm looking for a quiet tenant".

He says, "you are addressing a man who is quiet and yet...not quiet." With a great smirk on his face.

Title Card: From Joel and Ethan Coen

Hanks narrates, "What I'm about to reveal, you might find shocking."

A beautiful shot of Hanks shadowy figure walking down the street.

Hanks rolls out a map/plans on the table.

Hanks says, "this is a criminal enterprise gentlemen. It is of the essence of this plan that it should appear the money had simply vanished, spirited away as it were by ghosts. So here you are: men of different talents and differing backgrounds and you are all going to be incredibly rich."

Meanwhile shots of Hanks addressing the group of oddballs in the basement of the old ladys house, and other shots of digging through tunnels and shadowy figures, along with a shot of money being hid under the floorboards and covered up. Also a shot when he says 'differing backgrounds' of Marlon Wayans pushing a cart behind a big butt.

Hanks says at the end of the plan, "by all means let us keep this to ourselves."

At that moment the old lady comes down the stairs into their meeting and says, "just thought I'd leave y'all with some cinnamon cookies."

Cut to some shots of a church choir singing and some southern black folk dancing in church.

NARRATOR: THIS SPRING...

A shot of Hanks and Co. in a diner saying, "we must have waffles. we must all have waffles, forthwith."

NARRATOR: FOR A MASTER CRIMINAL

Shot of a giant explosion and money flying around everywhere.

old lady says, "what was that?"

Hanks says, "why, I'm not even certain that i heard anything at all."

NARRATOR: PULLING OFF THE PERFECT CRIME

Shots of money being dumped out, someone's legs sticking out of something and people fighting.

Old lady says, "I want to know what's going on."

Hanks says, "unfortunately Mrs. Munson has complicated the situation."

Wayans says, "well i know how to de-complicate it." As he walks up the stairs with a gun.

NARRATOR: WILL TAKE THE PERFECT EXECUTION

Hanks says to Asian man with Hitler mustache, "you sir are a Buddhist. Is there not a middle way?"

Asian man says, "must kill old lady."

NARRATOR: TOM HANKS

Hanks is synchronizing watches with his crew and says "in twenty seconds it will be exactly 12:16....fifteen."

One guy says, "it will be 12:15?"

Hanks says, "no, fifteen seconds."

Another guy says, "I don't have a watch."

NARRATOR: FROM THE CREATORS OF O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU Wayans is creeping in the room behind the old lady. Returns to group and says, "I can't do it. She remind me of my momma."

Shot of her socking Wayans with a pillow.

Another crew member says to Wayans, "you've got to except your responsibility young man, and shoot that old lady."

NARRATOR: THE LADYKILLERS

Wayans with old lady says, "damn."

She smacks him and says, "mind your mouth!" smack "this is a christian house boy!" smack "no hippedy hop language in here" smack

Marlon says, "you ain't gonna hit me..." (smack)

She continues, "I'm trying to help you boy!" (smack)

Hanks finally pulls her off of him and says, "so you should madam, so you should."

MARCH 2004

Thanks to MMM@ for pointing this out!!!

Just pop on over to the scripts section or click here.

Thanks again to Dennis over at the newly re-launched Weekly Script!

Thanks to Julian Kemp for pointing this out!

Moucho thanks to Dennis Kiracofe over at The Weekly Script!

Thanks to the wonderfully beautiful mjl for pointing this out. xxx

Thanks again to MMM@ for pointing them out.

Many thanks to Joseph Kinney for emailing me the link.

Q- Miles Massey in Intolerable Cruelty is the second idiot you've played for the Coen brothers...

A- Joel and Ethan have another film they want me to do, Hail Caesar - where I play an absolute jackass. They're talking about it being my trilogy of cowardly idiots [laughing]. Which seems perfect for me. I'm really lucky that I get to work with guys like those; they're so much fun to work with.

Q- You have this obsession with your hair in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and in this one it's your teeth. Why are the Coen brothers doing this to you?

A- I think they're desperately trying to ruin my sex symbol image [laughing]. They literally said, "OK, we'll do teeth this time." They brought these whitening guys onto the set, and they said, "we'll whiten your teeth for you." I refused: "I don't want you whitening my teeth, dude." I have no idea what the next one will be - I'm running out of body parts.

Q- What was your own experience of divorce lawyers when you got divorced [in 1992]. Was it anything close to the film?

A-It was fun, man. I recommend it to everyone! No, it was fine. There was a settlement, we didn't go through any trial. No one had any money, so it wasn't a big deal.

Q- Are pre-nups part and parcel of Hollywood now?

A- I think they are. I don't think anybody discusses it. It gets talked about sometimes, but I don't know of anyone that's said, "Hey, did you get a pre-nup?" Catherine [Zeta-Jones] and Michael [Douglas] just got married, I don't know what their situation is; she probably wouldn't talk about it anyway. I think it depends who's getting married, I doubt Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward [married since 1958] had a pre-nup.

Q- After doing this film have you got the "Clooney pre-nup" drawn up?

A- Oh yeah, I think I should do that right away. In fact I have one now, and I'm not even married. If I go out to dinner with someone, I make them sign it automatically. It's not very romantic is it?

Q- Divorce in Hollywood always creates a media frenzy, so it must have been fun to be able to play around with that...

A- In Hollywood everything is so documented. If you go for a drink with somebody, it's passed around the world so quickly. So, yes, divorce is talked about a lot, but it's so much more fun to be able to spin it with dark humour, rather than talk about real people's divorces.

Q- Do you have a healthy relationship with your lawyer in real life?

A- I love my lawyer. I have to say that of course! Now, I think any lawyer in the world is going to think they're George Clooney after seeing this - "They based him on me!" But I'm very happy with my lawyers. Though I don't think I want to spend the rest of my life with any of them.

Q- What's it like on-set with the Coens?

A- Well, working with the Coen brothers is just such an easy, relaxed experience.

Q- And what did you bring to the role that wasn't in the script?

A- I didn't want Marilyn to be that deliciously bitchy, because I wanted people to like her. And I wanted George, and my other husband, to like me.

Q- But she stirs up a lot of trouble through her materialist scheming. So she is a bitch...

A- Yes, but I think on a character level, the way I approached it was that she really has no idea how much chaos she can create. She is like the eye of the storm. The tornado - all this craziness that happens around her - she just waltzes through it. She's unaware of what she can create.

Q- You and your husband were both in Traffic, but wouldn't you like to really go head-to-head in a film?

A- I love The War Of The Roses, especially as my husband is in it! I've often said to him it would be great to remake that with me and him in it, because then we could really get down to some serious business...

This figure has been reported as a "disappointment" probably because this movie has been hyped up to be the Coen's "Hollywood mainstream" movie, but when you consider that their previous highest grosser, O Brother, Where Art Thou? raked in £45 million in total it ain't too bad a start now is it.

Thanks to MMM@ for the tip off!

To collect your tickets for the 'Intolerable Cruelty' screenings on Wednesday 15th October at 6:30pm or 7:00pm, just pick up the latest copy of HEAT magazine (Out 7/10/03) and take it to the box office of a participating cinema (listed in the magazine) and exchange it for a pair of tickets - but remember it's first come first served, so act now to avoid disappointment.

Thanks again to MMM@ for alerting me to it!!!

You all simply MUST buy this month's Empire magazine, it is chock full of Coen brothers and Intolerable Cruelty articles.

The first one I must mention is the cracking 5 page article, Cracking the Coens, which deals with trying to work out how the Coens consistently make great movies. It is a great, well-written piece and if demand is high enough (and you're all too cheap to buy the magazine :-)) I will get it on this site somehow.

Next up is the fact that they are running free reader screenings at UGC cinemas in the following UK cities on Monday 13th October at 8.45pm; Aberdeen; Belfast; Birmingham Broad Street; Bolton; Brighton; Cardiff; Crawley; Didsbury; Dublin; Edinburgh; Glasgow; Ipswich; London; Middlesborough; Nothampton; Sheffield; Southampton; Stockport and Wigan. All you have to do is take your copy of the magazine to the cinema of your choice from October 1st. Easy!

Also Intolerable Cruelty gets a 5 STAR review too! You can see that over at Empire's website or in my review section.

And there's a short interview with Clooney from the 60th Venice Film Festival in which he chats about Intolerable Cruelty.

Oh, and there's a full page ad for the Miller's Crossing DVD :-)