"Howards End" Premieres, "Ladies In Black" Begins Filming

"Howards End" premiered today in the UK. The Starz/BBC 4-part mini-series will air in the U.S. early next year. The trailer for the mini-series dropped a few days ago and contains a brief line of dialogue from Julia Ormond, playing a scene with series star Hayley Atwell.

The BBC website contains more footage from the adaptation of E.M. Forster's classic novel.

II. Julia will be appear in a new Australian film called "Ladies in Black." It is based on a bestselling novel by Madeleine St John. IMDB describes the film as follows:

"Ladies in Black is set in Sydney in the summer of 1959, against the backdrop of Australia's cultural awakening, breakdown of class structures, and liberation of women. It tells the coming-of-age story of suburban schoolgirl Lisa, who while waiting for her final high school exam results with dreams of going to the University of Sydney, takes a summer job at a large department store. Here she works side-by-side with a group of saleswomen who open her eyes to a world beyond her sheltered existence, and foster her metamorphosis."

According to Variety:

"Ormond will play a Slovenian emigre who’s the manager of the high-fashion floor. Other cast members include Rachael Taylor as Fay Baines, Alison McGirr, Vincent Perez, Ryan Corr, Susie Porter, and Shane Jacobson."

III. True Sioux Hope Foundation, an organization dedicated to "assisting the Oglala Lakota Sioux Native Americans from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota," recently held its second annual True Sioux Hope Gala. The non-profit "reached out to donors including Donna and Dick Pickup, Tim and Stephanie Busch, Linda and Burton Young, Leroy and Kelly Breinholt, Cheryl and John Joliffe, Marilyn Robinson and Julia Ormond to build local interest and bring in financial backing."

Learn more from the LA Times article below:

http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/opinion/tn-dpt-et-the-crowd-20171012-story.html

IV. Are you still disappointed that Lifetime cancelled "The Witches of East End" on a cliffhanger? This may be the consolations you're looking for:

"On Tuesday, Summer on East End: Triple Moon, the young adult spinoff novel series by Witches of East End author Melissa de la Cruz, arrives in bookstores, and with it comes “Mirror Souls,” a short story conclusion to the TV series."

This story is an old one at this point but I missed it the first time around. If you missed it, too, and are a fan of the tv series, pick up the book!

V. "Remember," the sci-fi thriller starring Peter Dinklage, Martin Donovan, Anton Yelchin and Julia Ormond will become available on blu-ray on November 28th. Julia is all over the trailer (yay!!!). This one looks like it could be really good.

Julia in "Howards End," Syfy's "Incorporated" Cancelled, "Rememory" & "Tour de Pharmacy"

I. Howards End Mini-Series

Julia Ormond has joined Hayley Atwell, Matthew Macfadyen, Tracey Ullman and Philippa Coulthard for a BBC/Starz four-part mini-series production of Howards End, based on the classic E.M. Forster . Yes. You heard that right. Julia Ormond - and - Hayley Atwell... in the same mini-series! You may recall that the novel was also adapted into a very popular 1992 Merchant-Ivory film starring Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. Filming has wrapped

Deadline describes the mini-series:

"Howards End tells the story of two couples caught in a swirling landscape of social and class divisions in turn-of-the-century England. Playground is executive producing in association with City Entertainment and KippSter Entertainment. Kenneth Lonergan is penning the adaptation, directed by Hettie Macdonald.

It focuses on Margaret Schlegel (Atwell), an intelligent, idealistic, bohemian young woman who is courted by the older Henry Wilcox (Macfadyen), a self-made conservative businessman, after his wife Ruth Wilcox (Ormond) dies unexpectedly. Meanwhile, Margaret’s passionate and capricious younger sister Helen Schlegel (Coulthard) takes up the cause of Leonard Bast (Quinn), a young bank clerk who falls on hard times at work and at home with his partner Jacky (Eleazar). In the absence of their parents, who have died, the sisters’ loving but interfering Aunt Juley (Ullman) tries to keep the young ladies and their brother Tibby (Lawther) on the straight and narrow."

II. Rememory, Julia's new SF drama, co-starring Peter Dinklage and the late Anton Yelchin premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to mixed reviews. Entertainment Weekly has a plot description and clip from the film (featuring Dinklage):

Reviews by The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Birth.Movies.Death are linked.

III. Incorporated

The first season (10-episode) episodes of Syfy's INCORPORATE concluded to generally positive reviews. The author of this Vanity Fair article is clearly a fan!

No word yet on whether the series will be picked up for a second season but Bustle lists the reasons why it should be!

Wait -- what's that, you say? Oh... right. Incorporated been cancelled. ::sigh::

IV. Tour de Pharmacy, the star-studded HBO mockumentary about doping in the world of professional cycling, had its first trailer released. Considering its colossal cast I wonder if this will be a blink-or-you'll-miss-her role for Julia. That will probably apply to most of the actors credited in the trailer.  The movie premiers on July 8th.

"Incorporated" Premieres; "Rememory" To Debut At Sundance

Julia Ormond is celebrating a birthday! I'm sure all of her fans wish her a very happy birthday today. Incorporated is half-way through its first season and the reviews have been generally positive. It's certainly been my favorite project Ms. Ormond has been involved with in recent years. The SyFy Channel series is very much worth checking out if you haven't already.

I. Variety review: “Incorporated is an energetic and watchable science-fiction thriller that posits that a climate apocalypse will be followed by a swift division of survivors into haves and have-nots — all by the year 2074. Right now, that date feels like a somewhat optimistic estimate."

As you can imagine, Julia has been doing a lot of interviews and press for the show over the past few months. A very small sample can be found below:

II. Rememory will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25th. The festival synopsis describes the film as follows:

"Famed scientific pioneer Gordon Dunn (Martin Donovan) is mysteriously found dead shortly after the unveiling of his latest and most groundbreaking achievement—a device that can extract, record, and play a person’s unfiltered memories. After his death, Gordon’s reclusive wife, Carolyn (Julia Ormond), recedes into her own private world until a mysterious man (Peter Dinklage) knocks at her door, claiming to be a past acquaintance. With questionable motives, he steals the machine in an attempt to unravel his own personal demons, launching an exploration into a troublesome past filled with guilt, grief, and betrayal.

Through the glass of the mind’s eye, director/co-writer Mark Palansky steadily introduces pieces of an intricate puzzle that don’t always fit, leading us down a winding path where our human consciousness often defines reality. Rememory is a striking and uniquely stylized portrait of loss and recovery, reminding us that we are nothing more than the memories we keep."

III. Julia Ormond, in her role as the founder & president of ASSET (Advancing Systemic Solutions to End Enslavement and Trafficking), was involved in a lengthy discussion, which took place on November 15, 2016, entitled LET'S END HUMAN TRAFFICKING: MODERN-DAY SLAVERY IN AMERICA: