BBC - Films -news article - High Noon

		Ang About Hulk director Ang Lee is returning to more 'serious' material, with an adaptation of E Anne Proulx short story Brokeback Mountain. The romantic western drama is being scripted for the screen by Proulx and Larry McMurty, who wrote the novel upon which TV series Lonesome Dove was based. It sounds a touch like Steve McQueen's Junior Bonner meets All The Pretty Horses, focusing on the friendship between two young cowpokes in the 60s.

		Wheezy Christensen Star Wars star Hayden Christensen has been blabbing about Episode III. As everyone and their uncle knows, junior Jedi Anakin goes over to the Dark Side and becomes Darth Vader. But will we see the suit? "You'll hear the breathing," he says. "I might get in trouble just for saying that. I do get to finalise my character arc and most people know where that ends up." Christensen also revealed that fans can expect some furious action. "There's an amazing light saber fight that'll knock people's socks off," he says. "Geographically, it covers the most distance of any other swordfight on film. And depending on the way they cut it, it should be the longest swordfight, timewise, that's ever been on film."

		Japanese Story Success The Australian Film Institute has handed out its annual awards, with Toni Collette-starrer Japanese Story cleaning up. The excellent romantic drama (which will be released in the UK next year) nabbed eight gongs, including Best Film, Best Actress (for Collette) and Best Director (for Sue Brooks). The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers was named best non-Aussie film.

		Red Alert Dirty Pretty Things star Chiwetel Ejiofor is teaming with Boys Don't Cry actress Hilary Swank on Red Dust. The courtroom drama, which has just started shooting in South Africa, is being adapted from Gillian Slovo's novel about an anti-apartheid activist who seeks the help of a Noo Yoik lawyer to try a case before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

		Blanchett's Hepburn Panic Cate Blanchett has talked of her "panic" over playing screen legend Katharine Hepburn in Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. "Look, you panic," she told reporters at a press conference to promote thriller/western The Missing. "Of course you panic because I'm trying to represent somebody in the same medium in which they were iconic, in which the audience rightly feels they have a sense of ownership of her screen persona. But it's for Martin Scorsese. The script is extraordinary and it's an enormous challenge. "Marty kept saying: 'You're playing a character called Katharine Hepburn'. So I'm not up there doing my cabaret impersonation of her. That would be grotesque. To unlock that private person, there's a lot of poetic license."

		Ear Ear Awards season is fast approaching and British period flick Girl With A Pearl Earring is being talked up, with US distributors Lions Gate keen for Oscar recognition. "It is fantastic that people are putting us in that place," says director Peter Weber. "It's very gratifying. I am trying to remain calm and sober and not be caught up in the frenzy. I can't even begin to think about awards because it's not down to me. I'm shocked, surprised, delighted that people like the film as much as they do." Same here. Apart from the "delighted" bit - the art drama is almost literally like watching paint dry.

		Post Passion The decision by US tabloid The New York Post to screen a pirated copy of Mel Gibson's The Passion Of Christ is still rolling on. According to Variety, the paper screened the video to "a rabbi, a priest, a religion professor, their own critic and a reader selected at random" (see yesterday's High Noon for their comments on the film). Various studio heads and veteran director Sydney Pollack have now condemned their decision to screen the work-in-progress picture. "If I had made that picture, I would have felt raped," said Pollack, with somewhat dubious taste. "As a director, the sense that the New York Post has the legal right to take somebody's work that isn't finished is really very frightening to me." Gibbo's company, Icon, may sue the Post, although the First Amendment right to free speech will probably scupper its chances of success.