Susan Sarandon, Judy Greer join ‘Jeff’

Posted on April 23rd, 2010 | Posted in Rumoured Projects | No Comments »

Susan Sarandon and Judy Greer have signed to co-star in upcoming feature Jeff Who Lives at Home.

The film is directed by “mumblecore” filmmakers Mark and Jay Duplass, reports Variety.

Ed Helms and Jason Segel had previously boarded the project.

The story centeres on two brothers (Helms and Segel) who help each other deal with person crisis.

Greer will play the wife of Ed Helms’s character. Sarandon will play mother to Segel’s character Jeff, a man who, as the title suggests, lives at home with his mother.



You Don’t Know Jack — TV Review (HollywoodReporter.com)

Posted on April 23rd, 2010 | Posted in You Don't Know Jack | No Comments »

Bottom Line: Masterfully acted, sympathetic portrayal of the last doctor anybody ever needs.

How a person feels about Dr. Jack Kevorkian dovetails neatly with personal opinions over end-of-life choices: Either he’s a monster or ahead of his time.

Kevorkian always has been clear that he’s on a mission to let individuals decide when they’re ready to check out. In “You Don’t Know Jack,” HBO’s new film about the doctor’s successes (and one big failure) in making suicide an option for the terminally ill, the position of filmmaker Barry Levinson also is clear: the man is extremely eccentric, but he’s on to something.

Humanizing Kevorkian requires a bit of costume drama, but Al Pacino (Kevorkian) and Susan Sarandon (the head of the local Hemlock Society, later one of his patients) are up to the task along with some clever hair work and oversized glasses. Backed up by John Goodman (who calls Kevorkian “America’s quack”) and Brenda Vaccaro, what emerges are spot-on, heartfelt performances flayed of any sentiment.

Levinson’s tale covers the 130 patients Kevorkian helped to their demise and the legal battles he fought and won thanks to rabble-rousing lawyer Geoffrey Feiger (Danny Huston with a terrible, if accurate, hairdo).

The doc has his own sense of drama, refusing to eat while incarcerated, then storming out of court decrying “this fusion of religious dogma and medicine.” Pacino disappears into the hunch and Michigan accent and fashions an introverted man who is nonetheless propelled by his passion; watching him move forward without regret or fear is astonishing.

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Photos of Susan at the premiere of You Don’t Know Jack

Posted on April 16th, 2010 | Posted in Appearance, Photos, You Don't Know Jack | No Comments »

Susan attended the premiere of her HBO TV movie ‘You Don’t Know Jack‘ in New York City two nights ago (April 14th). As reported earlier (see the new news posts below), she was on crutches because she sprained her ankle in Haiti the other day! So we’re sending her best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Here are some photos of Susan at the premiere on April 14th:


Susan at the premiere of You Don't Know Jack Susan at the premiere of You Don't Know Jack Susan at the premiere of You Don't Know Jack Susan at the premiere of You Don't Know Jack Susan at the premiere of You Don't Know Jack Susan at the premiere of You Don't Know Jack Susan at the premiere of You Don't Know Jack Susan at the premiere of You Don't Know Jack Susan at the premiere of You Don't Know Jack



Susan Sarandon on Crutches: From Break Dancing?

Posted on April 16th, 2010 | Posted in Appearance, Charity, Other | No Comments »

Ever the fashion plate, Susan Sarandon was sporting a new accessory at Wednesday’s New York premiere of HBO’s biopic about right-to-die activist Jack Kevorkian, You Don’t Know Jack: a black foot bandage and crutches.

The cause? “Break dancing,” the Oscar winner told reporters in jest, before finally coming clean – and revealing that she fell while in Port-au-Prince on a recent mercy mission to St. Damien Children’s Hospital, along with Demi Moore and other stars on behalf of Artists for Peace and Justice, as the island still recoves from the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.

“I was in Haiti and it’s the rainy season and I slipped. I mean, it’s a very boring story,” said Sarandon, 63. “It happened the night before I left. But I would prefer to say it was from break dancing or surfing or soccer. It still hurts, but it’s nothing.”

As for what Sarandon saw on her trip, “It was overwhelming, really, and very moving,” she said, admitting that she was especially touched by the children. “I’m hoping that the trip and everybody that went on it will in some way renew people’s commitment when they understand what’s going on.”

Sarandon’s visit did not mark her first contact with the pediatric hospital, which offers free medical care to Haitian children. “We had done a benefit at [SPiN New York, the ping-pong club in which she is an investor], and we sent the money to St. Damien’s, so it was great to be able to go down and recommit.”



BBC Interview with Al Pacino & Susan at ‘Jack’ premiere

Posted on April 16th, 2010 | Posted in Appearance, Interviews, Videos, You Don't Know Jack | No Comments »

Al Pacino joins the cast of You Don’t Know Jack, a television series in America which tells the story of Dr Jack Kervorkian, the right-to-die activist, known by many as ‘Dr. Death.’

Pacino portrays Kervokian in the series during the years when he launched a campaign to provide what he considers a human and dignified option for the terminally ill: physician-assisted suicide.

Al Pacino and co-star Susan Sarandon talked to reporters about their latest roles.


Watch the video at BBC.co.uk



Artists for Peace and Justice Meet in Haiti

Posted on April 16th, 2010 | Posted in Charity | No Comments »

Some of Hollywood’s biggest names teamed up with the organization Artists for Peace and Justice (APJ) to visit Port-Au-Prince, Haiti on Sunday, April 11th. The includes director and APJ founder Paul Haggis, Gerard Butler, Susan Sarandon, Demi Moore, Olivia Wilde, and Ben Stiller.

Stiller recently announced the merger between his Haitian school initiative with APJ to maximize his efforts in the impoverished island nation.

Artists for Peace and Justice encourages peace and social justice and addresses issues of poverty and enfranchisement in communities around the world. The organizations immediate goal is to build schools to serve the poorest areas of Haiti, providing an education, hot meals, clean drinking water and regular medical treatments to the children living in the slums.



‘You Don’t Know Jack’: EW.com review

Posted on April 16th, 2010 | Posted in You Don't Know Jack | No Comments »

You Don’t Know Jack is a deadly-bad title for a lively-good TV movie about the assisted suicide… well, pioneer seems too jaunty a word, doesn’t it? Director Barry Levinson (Diner) approaches Jack Kevorkian’s championing of physician-assisted death as a little-guy-against-the-Establishment drama. The movie shows how Kevorkian’s desire to provide a humane alternative for the terminally ill became a cultural flash point and a media circus.

Al Pacino plays Kevorkian with admirable restraint — a broad Michigan accent is about as showboaty as he gets. Brenda Vaccaro (so infrequently used on screen anymore) proves how brightly she still glows as Kevorkian’s devoted sister Margo, while Susan Sarandon and John Goodman give artfully modest performances as friends of Kevorkian.

You have to admire the way Levinson and company aren’t bothering to reach out to HBO’s True Blood demo, unless you count viewers who’ll tune in to see anybody dead. The movie begins with Kevorkian at age 61 — which was when he began his crusade — and ends with him at 79, just out of jail on a second-degree murder rap cooked up by prosecutors depicted as embarrassed that they’d previously failed to make ‘Dr. Death’ a public pariah.

There’s nothing visually interesting going on in Jack; Levinson shoots everything straightforwardly, approximating a documentary style in many scenes. He craftily edits in real footage of Barbara Walters and Mike Wallace interviewing Pacino-Kevorkian, but that’s as fancy as the director gets. The result is a pro-euthanasia argument told as a lovable-old-coot story. It’s probably the best way to sell such a grim tale. B

- ew.com



‘You Don’t Know Jack’: Al Pacino steps into Kevorkian’s scrubs

Posted on April 16th, 2010 | Posted in You Don't Know Jack | No Comments »

Not strictly about Susan, but an interesting article about Al Pacino and the TV movie itself.

Usually, Al Pacino means raw emotion, a swagger, and an attitude and accent born from his upbringing in the Bronx. Yet in HBO’s compelling “You Don’t Know Jack,” airing Saturday, April 24, Pacino is restrained, shuffling and sounding as if he’s from Michigan. Pacino becomes Jack Kevorkian, known as Dr. Death for assisting terminally ill patients’ suicides.

“I think what appealed to me to do it was to see if I could capture where I could go as a zealot just because there are so few who are really the real McCoy,” Pacino says. “And that would be Jack. He’s the guy that goes out the window.”

Though Pacino makes viewers feel as if they know the crusading Michigan pathologist, he never met the man. He did, though, study hours of footage of the doctor and talked to him over the phone. He worked with a dialect coach to nail Kevorkian’s accent.

“I just practiced every day,” he says. “It is nice to have that advantage to try to learn it as much as you can. It’s like practicing anything, like an oboe.”

Kevorkian first became the subject of controversy in 1990, when he helped the first of about 130 terminally ill people kill themselves. Though a movie about assisted suicide isn’t a day brightener, it is an important, exceptionally well-done film.

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