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Отправлено: 21.08.09 21:39. Заголовок: Тюдоры 3-й сезон
На ВВС 2 повторяют третий сезон Тюдоров в связи с чем небольшая статья)
WHO WOULD BE KING? ; Sexy Jonathan is Back As Henry VIII but Says He'D Never Give Up hisTV Role for Real Throne August 21, 2009
By Rick Fulton
IT's the role that offers ultimate power, untold riches and any woman he desires - but Jonathan Rhys Meyers says he'd pass on the chance to be king.
Tonight, the heart-throb star returns to our television screens as Henry VIII in historical bonkbuster The Tudors.
In the sexy drama, the 32-year-old Irish actor gets to bed a bevy of beauties, order people about and control a nation.
But Jonathan admits living the life of one of England's most famous monarchs wouldn't be for him.
He laughed: "I can't understand why anyone would want to be king.
"It's such a difficult, tiring job. It's a tiring job playing him."
The new series on BBC2 opens with him marrying his third wife Jane Seymour, played by Annabelle Wallis, 11 days after the execution of Anne Boleyn.
The first few episodes get off to a saucy start with the introduction of fictional mistress Lady Ursula Misseldon (Charlotte Salt) to add some steamy nudity to the court history.
And Jonathan can't be bothered with some critics who have knocked the show's sex-mad portrayal of Henry. "We're not making a documentary for universities," he said. "It's all a fantasy.
If we did everything Henry did, it couldn't be on TV because it would be way too boring. "Henry went through three or four hours of ceremonies every morning just eating breakfast and going to the bathroom.
"And remember, Henry VIII was the first king to put a bath in his castle. They were not the cleanest of people. "It may look fabulous in high-definition on a 68-inch screen, but in reality, it was a very dirty, stinky, syphilitic age." Roles in Mission:Impossible III, Alexander, Velvet Goldmine and Bend It Like Beckham have put him on the map but The Tudors has made him a household name on both sides of the Atlantic. A massive hit in the States, The Tudors is currently filming the fourth and finalseries in Dublin.
While some may criticise how the drama plays fast and loose with history, the Americans don't care and enjoy it for what it is - entertainment.The Dublin-born actor agrees, saying: "The show's been modernised for a 21st-century audience.
"I learned what was necessary to play the role.The difficult part is that I'm playing a man who I look nothing like."
Jonathan, who is the face of Hugo Boss, certainly doesn't look like the overweight and bearded Henry of his portraits.
Still, why let the facts get in the way of a good story? And series three sounds like it will be just that.
Jonathan explained: "From here on, the story is all about Henry and his descent into a sort of isolation, paranoia as well as extreme pain as a result of the accident he suffered in the joust last series.
"Things start off great for him with his marriage to Jane Seymour. She was an amazing wife, a Stepford wife, but she doesn't last long after their son is born. After that, Henry becomes very closeted, and the next wives were all disasters. CatherineHoward was a nymphomaniac.
"There's plenty of good story to tell."
Viewers will see Henry, brother-in-law Charles Brandon (Henry Cavill) and adviser Thomas Cromwell ( James Frain) halting a rebellion, later called The Pilgrimage of Grace, led by Robert Aske (played by Braveheart actor Gerard McSorley).
And the series will also cover the arrival of Mary (Sarah Bolger), Henry's daughter by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Soul singer Joss Stone also makes an appearance as Anne of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry VIII, in her debut television actingrole on September 18.
The 21-year-old pop star made her film debut in 2006 fantasy film Eragon, advertised Cadbury's Flake and gets her first starring role in British film Snappers out later in the year.
Joss plays Henry's least glamorous wife. It was said Henry chose her on the strength of a portrait - but was horrified to discover that she was much uglier in the flesh, and famously referred to her as the "Flanders mare".
The marriage only lasted six months but, luckily for Anne, she wasn't beheaded - unlike his next wife Catherine Howard - and instead she was given money and a castle.
Joss admits luckily the role suited her character.
She laughed: "Anne was nervous all the time, like me. I'm nervous all the time. My first scene was their wedding. Anne was very frightened because she was worried she'd get her head chopped off. She was worried, which was how I was feeling any way.
"I was nervous too. Luckily,Ididn'thave any words to say."
NOT only does Joss have to look dowdy in the show, she had to speak with a German accent.
"I so wanted to be involved in this show," she laughed. "Then I realised I had to speak in a German accent and learn how to play the harpsichord.
"It was such a different thing to do. She was not the most beautiful of the queens, which is cool. With the accent thrown in, it was more of a challenge."
Jonathan put her at ease and she admitted he was "very intense,very passionate".
However, having performed to millions around the world, she couldn't have found acting too hard?"
On stage I'm not performing to be someone else," Joss said. "I may sing a happy song and then go to a sad song and feel really sad, but as soon as I'm on to the next song I'm out of it."
The series will see a new face with Annabelle Wallis replacing Anita Briem, who quit the role of Jane Seymour.
The newcomer said: "I was originally cast for the role in series two, but it went back and forth, and they went with someone else.
"A year later, I got a call saying I had got the part, so it was all a bit of a scramble to get to that. She's the love of Henry's life.
"To be chosen as someone to represent that is an honour because you'd like to think that you resemble some of her qualities." She admits the dresses were so heavy that in one scene where she had to get up on a horse it took her 10 attempts and theyfinally got a man to hoist her up.
"He was built like a ton of bricks, and it would've been impossible to have done it without him," she laughed "It was the also the last day of my shooting, and it was really hot. It was terrible.
"When you see us in our dresses, we're wearing four layers underneath and petticoats and corsets. It's an incredible weight on an actor.
"But it helps with your posture and the constraints make you feel how your character would feel at the time."
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Отправлено: 21.08.09 21:40. Заголовок: WHAT better way for ..
WHAT better way for Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) to get this latest sex-drenched season of The Tudors underway than to get himself hitched yet again, this time to a noblewoman by the name of Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis).
Jane was one of his previous wife Anne Boleyn's ladies-in-waiting during the phase when Anne was still in possession of a head, and Henry and his team are desperately hoping she’ll provide him with a male heir.
In that regard, of course, they won’t be disappointed – but unfortunately poor sickly Jane isn’t destined to stick around too long once the child has been born.
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Отправлено: 21.08.09 21:41. Заголовок: As series three kick..
As series three kicks off with a rollicking two-hour special, I wonder if King Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) will notice that wife number three, Jane Seymour, isn’t the same Jane Seymour who Anne Boleyn caught him snogging in series two.
Icelandic actress Anita Briem has been replaced by Annabelle Wallis who looks like the sort of queen you might order from a catalogue called Blonde English Roses R Us.
They’ve even re-shot the “previously” bits to make it look like she was there all the time.
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The Tudors rewriting history? Surely not!
Henry tells Jane he loves her more than the other two (but I bet he said that to all his wives) and as long as she provides him with a male heir, that’s probably all he’ll be bothered about. History says she does, but this series has such a casual relationship with the truth you wouldn’t be all that surprised if she presented him with a litter of Labrador puppies.
Later in this series we can also look forward to the arrival of singer Joss Stone who, improbable as it sounds, will play Anne of Cleves, (hopefully with her transatlantic accent and purple hair intact).
But for now Henry has other things on his mind as do-gooder Jane wants him to patch things up with his daughter Mary. Henry’s new henchman – a scary bloke in an eye-patch – disagrees. “If you were my daughter,” he hisses at Mary, “I’d smash your head against the wall until it was as soft as a baked apple.”
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Отправлено: 23.08.09 11:25. Заголовок: Justin Pollard must ..
Justin Pollard must have one of the most thankless jobs on television. He is, after all, the historical consultant on The Tudors, now back on BBC Two. According to David Starkey, the programme’s willingness to play about with (i.e. ignore) the known facts has brought ‘shame’ on the BBC. To which the traditional defence, of course, is that The Tudors may be rubbishy, but at least it's good fun.
Sadly, though, if Friday’s double episode is anything to go by, this defence mightn’t work for much longer. The problem wasn’t that we suddenly got a historically accurate guide. A lot of it was still reassuringly rubbishy. Yet, taken as a whole, the result suggested that The Tudors may now have ideas above its station – even to the extent of considering itself a serious drama. In other words, what was too often missing was the ‘good fun’ bit.
True, the opening scenes didn’t give much cause for concern. To make sure we knew who everybody was, many of them consisted of the characters telling each other their names – sometimes with the addition of a handy CV. The latest improbably foxy lady-in-waiting was briskly seduced by Sir Francis Bryan (Alan Van Sprang) with an expensive necklace and the words, ‘I was wondering if you would like to become my mistress.’ Sure enough, in their next scene, the necklace was all she was wearing.
There was also the weird depiction of the King’s blonde new wife Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis) as a kind of 16th-century Princess of Hearts. ‘I know things have not gone well for you since your husband was executed,’ she told one courtier with doe-eyed empathy. ‘Women are much put upon in this world. It’s my desire to promote their interests.’ (Naturally, given Henry’s record, it wasn’t long before there were three people in the marriage.)
And yet, after a while, the inadvertent comedy became disappointingly thin on the ground. Worse, the pace flagged too. ‘Plodding’ is not an adjective normally associated with The Tudors, but as Friday’s 90 minutes of carefully delineated court politics wore on, it became increasingly hard to avoid. Even the cast – usually so reliable when it comes over-acting – seemed strangely subdued.
A full-scale rebellion in Yorkshire didn’t liven up proceedings much either, largely because the rebels didn’t do anything as exciting as fight. Instead, they simply repeated their demands for Catholic restoration to any nobles who’d listen – which unfortunately was quite a lot.
Towards the end, there were a few reminders of The Tudors in its pomp. Sir Francis used the word ‘cunnilingus’ to the prim Mary Tudor (Sarah Bolger). Henry (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) started to do an impressive amount of shouting, even when just passing on to us some background information. (‘Pontefract has great strategic importance!’) By then, however, this felt like too little too late. In the past, The Tudors has been entertaining, titillating and infuriating by turns. On Friday, for the first time, it came alarmingly close to being boring.
In The Simpsons, the ever-charitable Ned Flanders was once asked by his son what taxes pay for. ‘Why, everything!’ Ned replied. ‘Policemen, sunshine – and let’s not forget the folks who just don’t feel like workin’, God bless ’em.’ Ned’s line, sad to say, did rather spring to mind early on in Benefit Busters (Channel 4, Thursday), which followed a group of Doncaster single mothers through a new employment training course.
Dawn, for example, would do ‘anything it takes’ to get a job – except apparently to accept any she was offered. And, when the group were asked to list the advantages of employment and unemployment, the latter scored heavily on ‘lying in bed’ and ‘getting everything paid for’.
But, as it turned out, this was not just another documentary about feckless no-hopers and the go-getting types who fail to understand them. Some of the women clearly did want jobs – and one, called Yvette, took the unexpectedly Thatcherite line that state benefits are so over-generous that they discourage people from working. Hayley Taylor, who runs the course, also played a blinder. While certainly no bleeding heart, she seemed genuinely sympathetic to those less competent than herself.
The programme didn’t really have time to explore the individual stories in any depth. None the less, it did raise the general issues very effectively. There was even a happy ending of sorts when several of the women were offered jobs at Poundland and all but one accepted. The exception was Yvette – who, with four children, realised she’d be better off on benefits. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6068853/The-Tudors-BBC-Two-TV-review.html
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Отправлено: 24.08.09 22:02. Заголовок: I'll say one thi..
I'll say one thing for Henry VIII, he seems to be looking remarkably well for a chap who's supposed to be 45. The permanently brooding Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who plays him, looks not a day over 28.
It causes some problems when he meets Queen Mary and looks more like her date than her dad.
But never mind. The Tudors (BBC 2, Friday, 9pm) stormed in with not one but two episodes to start the new series, all packaged up tidier than a courtier's codpiece.
When Tony Curtis was once asked how he kept his vigour, he replied: "Saliva of young girls." Maybe that's what is doing the trick for Meyer's Henry VIII.
Only a particularly revolting looking leg is preventing him from frolicking with the entire female population of his court.
As it is, even the festering gammy thigh fails to stop Henry, all Brylcream and wafer-thin moustache, from pulling the saucy Lady Misterton. She's obviously made of sterner stuff than most sane women.
"Mmm, sorrel and linseed," she purrs, sniffing the potion. "It's from the meadows," he tells her, which is probably the Tudor equivalent of "hey, ladies, I'm an eco-conscious kinda guy" chat up line.
Frolicking aside, there was the serious business of war so lots of opportunities for ranting against the peasants, while clutching his leg. It made you nostalgic for another soap opera star, shouty Don the psycho taxi driver in Corrie.
Even Max Von Sydow turned up in a criminally brief cameo as a conniving cardinal at Castle Gandolpho, Italy.
All good fun, spoiled only when my pedant of a husband – who refuses to watch anything like this for lack of historical accuracy – appeared. "They wouldn't have called it Reformation. Not then," he announced. "Shut up, I am trying to watch." Then: "And they wouldn't have called him Henry VIII, either." Thanks.
Timothy Spall turned in another flawless performance in the rollercoaster Gunrush (ITV1, Sunday, 9pm).
As Doug, a timid driving instructor, he was as unlikely a vigilante as you could imagine.
But when his eldest daughter is shot dead after a row with two teenage gang members, he decides to track them down himself. "What are you going to do?" asks his family liaison officer.
"I dunno, something," he says, exasperated. "I may have not thought it through entirely…"
There are plot holes wide enough to jump through, but Spall's always believable.
His bizarre detective work included a tearful appeal at a karaoke session and enlisting a drug addict who shows him the estates where he can find the culprits – for a price. "I hate to intrude upon your grief, but I need some, y'know…"
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Отправлено: 24.08.09 22:03. Заголовок: The third series of ..
The third series of US drama The Tudors, which stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as King Henry VIII, launched with 2.3 million viewers on BBC2 on Friday night, 21 August.
Commissioned by premium cable network Showtime in the US, The Tudors brought an average audience share of 11% to BBC2 for a double bill between 9.05pm and 10.35pm, according to unofficial overnight figures.
BBC1's movie repeat War of the Worlds drew 3.2 million viewers and a 15% share in the 9pm hour, with the concluding part after the 10pm News picking up 3 million and 20% between 10.35pm and 11.25pm. The BBC1 10pm news picked up 4.2 million and 22% over 20 minutes.
ITV1's repeat of Stephen Fry drama Kingdom drew 2.8 million viewers and a 14% share in the 9pm hour.
Channel 4's Big Brother picked up 2.4 million viewers and a 12% share in the same slot, with a further 120,000 on Channel 4 +1. The second episode of the reality show attracted 2.2 million and 13% between 10.35pm and 11.10pm, with a further 122,000 on Channel 4 +1.
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Отправлено: 26.08.09 20:47. Заголовок: Показ третьего сезон..
Показ третьего сезона стал одним из самых популярных программ по просмотру- ура Bare breasts and rippling torsos? Check. Impossibly beautiful people with exceptionally good teeth in 16th-century period costume? Check. A whole host of historical inaccuracies? Check. Yes, The Tudors is back - with 2.3 million tuning in on Friday - and I for one am delighted.
After a lengthy recap of the previous two series, our much-married monarch began the new one with yet another wedding, this time to Jane Seymour, meaning the year is 1536 (and the king is supposed to be 45). Jonathan Rhys Meyers still looks far too young to be Henry VIII, and his interpretation of the role has not improved, consisting of shouting to convey every single type of emotion. However, the cast welcomes Max von Sydow – yes, Blofeld in Never Say Never Again, Major Von Steiner in Escape to Victory and Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told – as a cardinal, plotting with a Ronan Keating-lookalike monk with a claim to the English throne.
Other newcomers for this series include Sir Francis Bryan, played by Alan Van Sprang, the man trying to force the princess to accede to her father's will. He does this all the while looking a bit like a pirate with his big, black eyepatch and speaking with an accent that's a cross between received pronunciation, and Mike Myers attempting to sound Scottish. Lady-in-waiting Ursula Misseldon is our first entirely fictitious character of the series, apparently introduced to heave her bosom and act provocatively. Despite her professed engagement to Sir Robert Tavistock, a sparkly necklace turns her head enough for her to become the mistress of the pirate, and then lay totally naked in front of a window with the jewels nestling around her throat.
There's plenty of violence coming up as well, now that the Reformation is taking hold - Roman Catholic houses of worship are destroyed under Thomas Cromwell's regime and those ever-present captions pop up just to remind the simple viewer that those big religious buildings are churches and abbeys. There is a popular uprising, and leader Robert Aske reminds everyone that he and his followers are not in fact rebels, but pilgrims (although he managed to stop short of explicitly saying, "It's a Pilgrimage of Grace").
While gallons of blood are shed around the country as the pilgrims get their comeuppance, the king's one-track mind hasn't deviated – he wants a son, and he wants one now. Interestingly, the opening episode includes a mention of his physical decline, with the painful ulcer on his leg causing Rhys Meyers to showcase his newly-learnt "in agony" acting, consisting of wincing and biting on his hand; we can only hope he'll indulge in some method acting and put on at least four stone to portray the ageing, more portly, Henry.
The king was soon back in his comfort zone of romping with comely ladies-in-waiting, as Lady Ursula distracted him from his suppurated leg in her own particular fashion. Despite having broken his new marriage vows after approximately 37 minutes, the king assured his queen that he loves her more than any of his other wives, though as he's killed one and left the other to rot in exile it's not really saying much. Jane Seymour's days are numbered, and anyway, in a few weeks we can look forward to Joss Stone's portrayal of wife number four, Anne of Cleves. That's one no historian should miss. http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandradioblog/2009/aug/25/tudors-jonathan-rhys-myers
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Отправлено: 26.08.09 20:48. Заголовок: When is The Tudors g..
When is The Tudors going to swallow the bitter pill of historical accuracy and admit that in his latter years Henry VIII was a fat man with personal hygiene issues?
Never, we hope, so long as we can keep enjoying Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The show might offend purists but not half as much as casting Johnny Vegas would do to my viewing pleasure.
Series three kicked off with the usual rumpy pumpy punctuated with bits of fact you might dimly recall from history lessons.
This week, children, we learned about the Pilgrimage of Grace.
This involved lots of peasants being revolting until Henry mollified them with the Tudor equivalent of family tax credits and the scrappage scheme.
As usual with Henry, this was just a ploy until he could get enough gibbets built and organise a job creation scheme for redundant hangmen.
It was overlong and dull. I don't know why they bother with history in this show. If the scriptwriters want to show a faithful depiction of Tudor times they could always chuck in more sex.
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Отправлено: 29.09.09 21:27. Заголовок: Mark Hildreth starte..
Mark Hildreth started into the heavy lifting, acting-wise, in his first day on the job with The Tudors.
Season 3 of the prestigious historical series about Henry VIII introduces the Vancouver actor as Reginald Pole, an English Catholic priest promoted to cardinal as the Vatican manoeuvres to oust Henry. The first scene the 31-year-old actor shot was when Pole is assigned to a high-level political mission by an aging cardinal played by acting legend Max Von Sydow.
"I show up and there's Max Von Sydow -- he's six foot eight, huge. He's done 11 Bergman films, 150 films on his resume," Hildreth recalls. "At first it's intimidating, he towers over everyone. It is a little weird, you come in and sit down next to The Exorcist -- whew, my head's spinning. He's like, 'it's OK, I'm used to it.'"
The show, an international co-production filmed in Ireland, stars Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers as a lusty King Henry, who grows increasingly unhinged in the third season.
"It's nerve-wracking. You're walking onto a show that's already established," says Hildreth. "I walk into the dressing room, open the door and there's my costume, it looks like a long red dress. It turns out that it's a cardinal's robe."
Hildreth's Pole, based on a real historical figure, marshalls international support in Europe to replace Henry as king, as Henry plots to kill him.
"By all accounts, Reginald Pole was a bookish, quiet man of God," says Hildreth. "He was cousins with Henry, and had in some form a bloodline to the throne."
Hildreth didn't share any scenes with Rhys Meyers during filming in the summer of 2008. The series climax has Henry slaughtering Pole's English family, and Von Sydow's cardinal tries to console the younger priest. That minutes-long scene took hours to film from different angles.
"The whole scene is Max sort of propping me up, and I'm a complete emotional mess. Max does most of the talking," says Hildreth. "He recognized that this was a really highly charged emotional scene for me. To keep that going over a series of hours was a challenge. I'm crying and crying, crap's coming out of my nose, makeup is coming in and fixing me up . . . and he kept apologizing between takes. He didn't have anything to apologize for, and I had this moment where I was like, 'oh my God, Max Von Sydow's apologizing to me, what does that mean?'"
Hildreth grew up in Kerrisdale and started acting as a pre-teen, doing commercials and movies of the week. After high school he went to Montreal's National Theatre School where he starred in a musical about rock pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis between terms.
Back in Vancouver, he starred in a production of Hamlet at Christ Church Cathedral between movie and TV jobs.
"On The Tudors, the strongest aspect is the writing, and that's the way it is in my experience with the theatre -- it starts with the writing. On The Tudors, the actors can just run with it because the dialogue is so rich."
Another day, another acting job, more intrigue. Hildreth's latest gig is on ABC-TV's filmed-in-Vancouver sci-fi series remake V, in which he has a recurring role as a sympathetic alien.
"There's a hidden agenda that slowly gets revealed as the show progresses," he says. "This is one of the things I like about The Tudors, too. The first thing people ask me is, 'are you a good guy or a bad guy?' Well that's the thing, Jonny doesn't play Henry as a mad, crazy villain, he's a human being in extraordinary circumstances. The good guys are bad and the bad guys are good, they're human."
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Отправлено: 30.09.09 21:33. Заголовок: Money and sex. The c..
Money and sex. The combo always sells stories and propels drama. In the newspaper racket, and in TV. It is the way of things.
Tonight, the return of a drama driven by a character notorious for being far too interested in sex. As it turns out, though, he needs loads of money too. Also tonight, a far more modest show begins, a droll bittersweet comedy about people living on too little money, just trying to get along and survive. The two shows make a good combo.
The Tudors (CBC, 9 p.m.) returns to start its third season. At this point, Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is older, angrier and even though he's disposed of Anne Boleyn and set his beady eye on Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis) he's still looking around for liaisons with any lady of the court who will oblige him. They all do. He's the friggin' king, after all.
The first episode has Henry marrying Jane and, in truth Jane's a bit wishy-washy after the sizzling Anne who, as played by Natalie Dormer, was both a terrific character and crackerjack entertainment, especially in the areas of undergarments and night robes. Henry wants a male heir to the throne. He always does. That's why he keeps switching wives.
Thing is, a previous switch had set the old order of the European powers on its head. Henry's now head of the Church of England, bent on destroying the Roman Catholic Church, apparently, and avid for the wealth that comes with a hostile takeover of the abbeys and monasteries of England.
Some people don't like that much. And, wouldn't you know it, by the end of the first episode Henry is telling Jane that he's kinda disappointed with her. Everyone watching knows that Anne of Cleves is hovering somewhere in the background. And then there's a popsy in court, a flirty young woman named Lady Ursula Misseldon (Charlotte Salt) who has accepted an offer from Sir Francis Bryan (Canadian Alan Van Sprang) to be his mistress. But you know, as soon as Henry gets a good look at her, she's going to be his. Meanwhile up in Yorkshire, people watch as a monastery is plundered.
Thus, rebellion seethes. And before long a portion of the population is on the march, heading for London.
The first batch of episodes are written by series creator Michael Hirst and are deftly done, entertaining and very focused on two themes - the boss (Henry, that is) in his relationship with women and his relationship with his subjects. There is layer upon layer of subtext here. Are the rebels what we would call terrorists? After all, their rebellion is a rage against what they see as derision for their religious practices and principles. Is Henry like any megalomaniac corporate leader exploiting his office staff and all the employees?
Mind you, there are still times when The Tudors strays into Sopranos-like territory, as it must to keep fans entertained. CBC warns viewers, "The following program contains nudity, sexuality and violence. Viewer discretion is advised." And it's serious. Lady Ursula lounges around naked after sex with Sir Francis. Not long before, Sir Francis had confronted Henry's daughter Mary and hissed, "If you were my child I would smash your head against a wall until it was as soft as a boiled apple, understand?"
Even a Cardinal (Max Von Sydow) plotting in Rome goes all menacing and says, to a priest, "The death of the whore Anne Boleyn is perhaps providential." And Henry, of course, rages against the rebels and barks, "I promise the utter destruction of them, their wives and their children."
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Отправлено: 30.09.09 21:33. Заголовок: Playing Henry VIII ..
Playing Henry VIII in The Tudors has given Jonathan Rhys Meyers a keen sense of 16th-century royal cuisine.
"If you look at the Tudor diet, I'm surprised anyone lasted longer than six months," said Rhys Meyers, whose series returns to CBC for its third season tonight.
The conversation about food got started when we mentioned to Rhys Meyers that he is considerably younger than Henry VIII was when the general events -- with poetic licence, of course -- depicted in The Tudors took place.
"Eight years, we've pulled everything back only eight years," said Rhys Meyers, a 32-year-old native of Ireland. "Remember, Henry was dead by the time he was (55), and he was king by the time he was (17).
"By the time you were 12 you were a fully grown man. Girls were married at 12 and 13. They would bear five children by the time they were 20, you know? They were lucky to last past 30."
And then there was the diet.
There seems to be plenty of fruit on the set of The Tudors, but that mostly is due to the personal tastes of the actors. The real Henry VIII probably was eating fried chicken all day, right?
"But Henry wouldn't eat fried chicken," Rhys Meyers corrected. "They would take a chicken, tear the top off, giblets on the top, and they would take giblets from the bottom, they would take the throat, and the head, and the feet, and they would clip the wings, and they would cook those. The breast would go to the poor."
Not surprisingly, the poor sometimes were healthier and lived longer than the rich in Henry VIII's time.
"The poor were mostly rural, agricultural, so they would eat vegetables, they would drink water, they would eat roast beef, whatever they had at the time," Rhys Meyers said. "Whereas if you went into the city, you're having jowl of salmon, jowl of chicken.
"And when you're inside the kingdom itself, sanitation goes out the window. Clean water was not a possibility. What they used to drink as water had a good percentage of ale in it.
"The average man would imbibe 22 litres of alcohol per week, the average woman 15. So when you see portraits from that time and everybody looks a little worn? That's why they look worn."
Could Rhys Meyers have told us anything about this stuff before he joined the cast of The Tudors?
"Of course, you learn," he acknowledged.
Don't we all.
The third season of The Tudors already has aired in many countries, but the show always gets delayed in Canada because of CBC's springtime coverage of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The fourth -- and reportedly final -- season of The Tudors will air in 2010.
As the third season begins, Anne Boleyn has been beheaded and Henry VIII weds a third time, to well-liked peacemaker Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis).
While life at court has become calmer, a group of once-loyal subjects in the north begins a rebellion, in objection to Henry's crusade against Catholicism. The rebellion enrages Henry, who blames Thomas Cromwell (James Frain) for either misreading the level of resistance or misinforming the king.
Later in the third season, young British singer Joss Stone will appear as Henry's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.
"At the start of season three, even though Henry is still dangerous, he has found some sort of comfortable family life," Rhys Meyers said. "That is snatched away from him, throwing him into further turmoil. And then there's the rebellion in the north and the ill-advice he got from Thomas Cromwell.
"So a lot of things are going on in Henry's head. He is a leader. It is very difficult to lead."
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Отправлено: 30.09.09 21:34. Заголовок: Still regal. Still r..
Still regal. Still ruling. Still ruthless and raging, still reckless and ribald and randy.
And really, would we want Henry VIII to be any other way?
As The Tudors' third season Canuck-TV season begins (tonight at 9 on CBC), all is not well in the royal court. As Henry (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) prepares to wed for a third time -- to Lady Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis), the wispy but headstrong blond who caught his eye while former spouse Anne Boleyn was awaiting her inevitable meeting with the executioner's axe -- his nation is divided, as pockets of unrest grow into masses of organized resistance against Thomas Cromwell's (James Frain) ruthless reformation of the English church.
Despite the calming effect Jane seems to have on the monarch, tensions outside the palace continue to grow. Cromwell's campaign of religious reform -- actually a thinly veiled bloody, greedy rampage through the countryside that includes burning monasteries and abbeys, murdering Roman Catholic clergy and the wholesale acquisition of church riches -- has caused a groundswell of defiance in England's north, and before Henry has a chance to react, a rebel force numbering in the tens of thousands has begun an unstoppable trek southward.
As the king's reign is threatened by rebellion and his health is threatened by a jousting wound that has become infected, his inner circle of trusted advisers begins to disintegrate into factions whose competing agendas could ultimately have dire consequences.
Henry's short temper and from-the-cradle arrogance lead him to impulsive and inconsistent decisions that are as likely to make matters worse as they are to preserve his status as divinely anointed ruler.
All that, of course, and then there's the continuing failure of Henry's wives to produce a male heir to the throne. It's a pretty sticky business atop the house of Tudor.
As it has since its premiere a couple of years ago, The Tudors continues to occupy a unique place in the prime-time landscape. It's a drama unlike any other, melding historical fact with racy fiction to create a storyline that's as fast moving and addictive as any TV yarn set in the present.
The costume and sets are spectacularly beautiful, as is the cast (one suspects this is The Tudors' greatest compromise of historical accuracy -- this version of 16th-century English nobility is quite breathtakingly attractive, while the actual folks in Henry's court must surely have trended a bit more toward the flea-bittenly hideous and smelly).
Rhys Meyers continues to be a powerhouse in the role of Henry VIII, mixing passion, rage and occasional flashes of conflicted sensitivity to create a central character that sets a near-impossible standard for the supporting cast to match.
Wallis is a welcome addition as Henry's third wife, who quietly challenges her husband's authority and deftly forces him to face up to his past (in the form of daughters Mary and Elizabeth).
Frain is an able foil as Cromwell, but it's clear from the outset -- and particularly so as the unrest in the north becomes an unwelcome distraction for Henry -- that his days are numbered. These Tudors are, after all, a hatchet-happy bunch.
If the first four episodes are any indication, The Tudors' third season will fully reward viewers who commit to spending their next few Wednesday nights in the royal court. And CBC deserves credit for continuing to give this smart, complex and decidedly mature drama -- which resides up in the premium-cable spectrum on U.S. TV -- a home on mainstream broadcast television.
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Отправлено: 14.11.09 20:17. Заголовок: Steamy sex, savage ..
Steamy sex, savage violence and historical fiction: It's good to be king in The Tudors.
With maturing Irishman Jonathan Rhys Meyers playing Henry VIII -- the King of England, Wales and Ireland from 1509 to 1547 -- The Tudors is a superior soap opera that has captivated CBC viewers and generated a fanatical following.
It works even better as home entertainment. The DVD and Blu-ray releases are all uncut editions, increasing the intensity of the lurid scenes, and they preserve the original widescreen cinematography.
The Tudors: The Complete Third Season arrived this week on DVD as a three-disc box set. In addition, all three seasons are now available in Blu-ray.
Each Blu-ray is a three-disc set with identical bonus materials to the standard DVDs. With The Complete First Season, those extras are extensive, including a visit with creator Michael Hirst.
More significantly, there are long interview clips with Meyers, who demonstrates a remarkable grasp of the real history.
The extras for Season 2 are still strong, if less extensive.
The extras for Season 3 are disappointing. The profane blooper reel, however, is pretty funny as actors let their guard down while flubbing lines. When Season 4 -- the finale -- arrives in 2010, we do expect more.
The Tudors is stunningly beautiful on Blu-ray. Visuals are crisp, clean, richly coloured and simply glorious for showing detail, including in the rich fabrics. But Blu-ray is also unforgiving, so minor mistakes -- the cheesy London skyline in the very first episode -- are also emphasized.
As entertainment, The Tudors is terrific, especially with Meyers increasingly able to portray the nuances of Henry's mercurial character.
This latest season also changes the nature of the storytelling. The first two seasons moved gradually through the dissolution of the king's failing marriage to Catherine of Aragon and into his doomed, dangerous liaison with Anne Boleyn. Wife number three, Jane Seymour, is introduced as a possibility.
Season 3 rips through two wives -- Seymour and Anne of Cleves -- with astonishing speed. We also meet future number five, Katherine Howard.
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Отправлено: 19.11.09 22:55. Заголовок: TV’s most sexy and s..
TV’s most sexy and scandalous hit drama is back with The Tudors: The Complete Third Season! Golden Globe winner Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Elvis) stars as a young King Henry VIII, a ruler whose reign changed the course of history forever. Now for the first time on DVD, the complete third season of this delicious and daring drama from Showtime is available in a 3 disc DVD set including every broadcast episode and loads of special features including and the first two episodes of Showtime’s hit show United States of Tara and an exclusive featurette called the Tudors Timelines.
PLUS unlock even more bonus features on your PC including interviews with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Annabelle Wallis, Henry Cavill, Joss Stone, and Max Van Sydow! The Tudors: The Complete Third Season – starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, as a young King Henry VIII, is now available for the first time on DVD this Tuesday, December 15th from Showtime and Paramount Home Entertainment. Set includes every sexy, scandalous episode PLUS royal DVD exclusives you can’t see anywhere else.
Contest Rules
We have 10 Copies of this awesome series to give away. To win all you have to do is follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/facebook. Once you follow us, send us a tweet saying you want the Tudors DVD. Tuesday, Dec 2nd we’ll select 10 winners at random. Our goal is to start using Twitter and Facebook for all of our Contest announcements and move away from sending out a newsletter. So sign up for our Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/eclipsemagazine and Twitter Pages (http://www.twitter.com/eclipsemagazine.) On Tuesday be sure to send an email to contests@eclipsemagazine.com with your full mailing address. The DVDs will be delivered around Christmas. http://eclipsemagazine.com/announcements/Contests/13439/
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