Welcome to the Matt Damon Column,
a forum for sharing news among Matt fans.

• Village Voice review (excerpt):
  There's no getting around the fact that Damon is too old to pass for a teenager. Still, he has the robust physicality and emotional honesty that the role demands. As the more retiring Rawlins, Thomas displays similar conviction. But both are upstaged by Lucas Black as Jimmy Blevins, a horse thief and fledgling psycho killer. Blevins is the cowboy version of Robert De Niro's Johnny Boy in Mean Streets. Moved by his vulnerability, Cole and Rawlins can't bring themselves to brush him off, but they are also powerless to save him.
  Running just over two hours, All the Pretty Horses is a choppy ride. (It's reported to have been two hours longer in earlier versions.) What's missing from the adaptation is the sense of history that gives the novel its scope and depth. An even more crucial problem is the absence, in Thornton's direction, of a specific perspective on the land itself. Compared to films like Thelma and Louise or My Own Private Idaho, which filter familiar landscapes through the eyes of unique and profoundly alienated characters, All the Pretty Horses is merely picturesque.
• Article from the Pioneer Press:
  Cutting `Horses'
  The Oscar-laden cast of `All the Pretty Horses' won't say much about how the four-hour film was cut to two.
  By Chris Hewitt
  Movie Critic
  New York
  So many people at the press junket for ``All the Pretty Horses'' have so many things they don't want to talk about that you can't help wondering why some of them are there.
  Penelope Cruz declines to comment on whether she had a thing with her co-star, Matt Damon, or whether that thing has ended so she could start a thing with her more recent co-star, Nicolas Cage (they just finished making ``Corelli's Mandolin'').
  Damon won't discuss Cruz. Surprisingly, director Billy Bob Thornton will discuss his wife, Angelina Jolie, and cheerfully volunteers that he enjoys wearing her underwear.
  But nobody is crazy about revealing why ``All the Pretty Horses,'' which opens Monday, will hit theaters in a version that's much shorter than originally planned.
  They'd rather not discuss that last topic, but they will. The trouble started nearly a year ago, when Damon told reporters he'd seen a four-hour-long cut of the movie and that it was one of the best things he'd ever seen.
  Then ``All the Pretty Horses,'' a Western about a young Texan who meets tragedy and love on a horse trip to Mexico, was shifted from one studio to another, which led to rumors about its release-ability, and now it has turned up in a version that is under two hours. So what happened?
  ``I made the mistake of inviting all the people at both studios to my house and, against my better judgment, I said, `I'm going to show you all the footage I shot,' but it was just an assembly of footage, not a finished print. I mean, even the `assemblies' of teen comedies are four hours long. So the myth of the four-hour cut came from that screening,'' says Thornton.
  ``The cut we have now is the cut everybody feels good about,'' says Damon. ``There's nothing missing. Nothing got cut out.''
  Screenwriter Ted Tally has a slightly different version of the story. He says the studio decided, in advance, to film every scene in Cormac McCarthy's dense, 300-page novel and then choose later on what to leave out. He acknowledges that major cuts were made -- how could he not, since the movie's closing credits list half a dozen characters who are not, in fact, in the finished film? But he says he thinks they were good cuts.
  ``I'm glad they took out some of my stuff. A lot of screenwriters would say, `They destroyed my baby,' but it's a collaborative business. A lot of people have to be satisfied with the way the movie plays,'' says Tally.
  Pragmatism does seem to be the key concept. The truth about how long ``All the Pretty Horses'' should ideally be -- and the movie does feel rushed in spots -- may never be known unless Thornton decides to put together a director's cut for DVD.
  In the meantime, he lets slip a hint that, whatever he and Damon say for the official record, the decision to trim ``All the Pretty Horses'' was a business decision, not an artistic one.
  Thornton's contract guarantees him the final say on what goes into the movie, with one proviso: ``I had final cut (as long as it was) up to two hours, if that tells you anything. So if I wanted to put the movie before people in my version, it had to be under two hours.''
  Length issues aside, ``All the Pretty Horses'' seems to have been a golden shoot. What with Cruz and Damon possibly falling in love, and Thornton reuniting with a favorite actor, Lucas Black (the kid from ``Sling Blade''), it was, by all accounts, a happy set.
  ``Everyone is entitled to their opinion about it, but I love the movie, and this is the first time I really don't care what other people think,'' says Damon. ``This is one I'd want to do over and over, because the experience with Billy was so good.''
  That news may surprise some in backstabby Hollywood. ``All the Pretty Horses'' is probably the first movie in history with three Oscar-winning screenwriters on the set (Tally won for ``Silence of the Lambs,'' Thornton for ``Sling Blade'' and Damon for ``Good Will Hunting''), so it's easy to imagine the three of them going at each other with well-sharpened red pencils. Didn't happen, though.
  ``Billy added some things to the script, but Matt's attitude was, `I'm wearing my acting hat here.' You would never know he was an Oscar-winning writer,'' says Tally.
  You wouldn't know it to listen to Damon, either. ``Ben (Affleck) and I wrote `Good Will Hunting' strictly out of an acting (perspective). We just loved these characters and tried to make each other laugh and hoped they'd get us jobs,'' says Damon. ``We wrote a couple of thousand pages and some of it is good, but most of it sucked. We had no idea how to structure it.''
  Self-deprecation aside, there was some good-natured whose-Oscar-is-better talk on the set.
  Thornton, chuckling, reveals, ``Matt would say, `When you did your little hillbilly picture, you won for best adapted screenplay, but mine was for best original screenplay.' And I'd say, `Yeah, what material was my screenplay adapted from? Oh, yeah. My own story. And, oh, by the way, you've been nominated for best actor, but have you been nominated for supporting actor? No? Hmm, because I have.' ''
  ``Yeah,'' says Damon. ``And Billy would say, `Oh, and also, when you won that Oscar with Ben, did you, like, both get one or did you have to share it?' ''
  Damon and Thornton's ease with each other indicates that they genuinely had fun working together. It doesn't tell us a lot about the movie, of course, but you hate to interrupt them once they get going on a topic they're willing to discuss.

• More from foxnews.com's Roger Friedman:
  Billy Bob: All the Pretty Diets
  Billy Bob Thornton is not anorexic, contrary to published reports. That's what he told me when we talked on Sunday night. But the director of All the Pretty Horses has lost a lot of weight since his heftier days on the John Ritter comedy Hearts Afire.
  He described his diet for me and I listened very carefully. Folks, don't try this at home:
  "Every morning I have oatmeal, bananas, and papaya. For lunch it's protein — chicken or fish. Dinner is a salad with almonds or pecans, with oil and vinegar. I'm not saying that I'm all anti-carbohydrates, but I try to avoid them as much as possible. No bread, no pasta, none of that. The reason people think I eat orange food is the papaya, which I have a lot of."
  Thornton, who's married to Angelina Jolie, says he's also enjoying having Jon Voight as a father-in-law. When he was asked about him, his face lit up. "He's cool, isn't he? We talk about lots of stuff," Thornton said.
  Damon and Cruz Hug Goodbye
  More from Sunday night's premiere party at Sotheby's auction house: Tom Brokaw and wife Meredith broke bread with Dan and Jean Rather, while co-stars Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz were thisclose all night, according to observers. Cruz had to stay behind to continue making Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky.
  Cruz carried around Damon's one-year old nephew on her shoulder when she and the star weren't nuzzling. She said, "I love children," while patting the tow-headed kid on the back. Damon's dad, Kent, was overheard saying: "It's nice to see they're such close friends."
  Miramax's Harvey Weinstein couldn't get close enough to Cruz to say goodnight while she and Damon were entwined in an embrace. "I'm not breaking that up," Weinstein said and scurried away. Indeed, Damon and Cruz's farewell was a full-bodied adios — or was it adiosita — and seemed quite emotional.
  Affleck Adds Film Editor to Resume
  Ben Affleck told me that he is not dating Shoshanna Lonstein, Jerry Seinfeld's ex, and that's the story he's sticking with. Sounds good to me.
  More interesting Affleck news: brother Casey, who's a good actor and looks nothing at all like Ben, has taken up a new career. He was an assistant editor on Gus Van Sant's Finding Forrester.
  "I did the edit assembly," he told me. That means he actually lined up the footage scene-by-scene and readied it for the movie's head editor.
  Casey got a screen credit, too. "I learned on the job," he said. "My early edits were awful, so the stuff I'm most proud of comes toward the end of the movie."
  Of course, Casey is not responsible for Finding Forrester being one of the most God-awful bad movies of 2000. More on that in the next few days. Suffice to say, if Forrester is found by audiences it will have been a terrible, terrible mistake.
  Meanwhile, director Billy Bob Thornton made nice all night with Damon and Weinstein and wound up taking an overnight flight with them to Los Angeles for last night's premiere of Chocolat and next week's opening of Horses.
• The NY Post has a small bit only on the closeness of Matt and Penelope, but says nothing else. The NY Daily News has a story on Billy Bob and a photo, but that's all.
  From USA Today:
  Damon rides 'Pretty Horses' to happiness
  By Jeannie Williams, USA TODAY
  
  "This is the happiest I've ever been. I'm serious," says Matt Damon about his new movie, All the Pretty Horses.
  "I don't know if I'll ever have this feeling again. I'm just going to try and enjoy it," said the versatile young star, who was surrounded Sunday in Manhattan by his family — "My dad, my mom, my brother and his wife and their kids, and about 20 other friends." He beamed as he greeted director Billy Bob Thornton and introduced his lovely co-star, Penelope Cruz, to his relatives.
  Thornton also was happy. He and Miramax's Harvey Weinstein brushed off media talk about a supposed battle over the movie's length, now a minute or two under two hours. Thornton said his contract gave him final cut "for two hours and under, so I had to cut it to two hours. It's just what we wanted. We love it."
  Although Damon and Cruz get a skinny-dipping scene in a lake, Thornton says they only "smooch a little. It's about an innocent romance." The modern western is based on Cormac McCarthy's novel.
  Thornton got in a New York weekend with wife Angelina Jolie, who returned to England on Sunday to continue shooting Tomb Raider, in which she sees lots of action. Her hubby said: "I think she's over with all the dangerous stuff. She had to swing on a few ropes and climb a couple of things. She sprained her ankle once, but she did great. She's a trouper, and very strong — stronger than me physically. I think she could push me around!"
  Cruz turned up in a tweedy turtleneck and leather pants ensemble by Ralph Lauren. "Billy made everything full of magic," she said. "I remember it as an experience that changed my life." She's a trouper too: She got seriously cold in that lake and worried about slimy creatures crawling up her legs.
• From the Boston Herald:
  Matt: Break that rumor
  Cambridge homey Matt Damon is trying desperately to set the record straight on his purported past as a Harvard Square break dancer named ``Matty D.''
  At the New York premiere for his new flick, ``All The Pretty Horses,'' Damon told Big Apple gossip king Baird Jones that his head-spinning past is an urban legend.
  ``I never break danced in my life,'' Damon told Jones. ``Ben Affleck's younger brother, Casey, loves making up these yarns about me and Ben just to screw up our interviews. He told that tall tale to People magazine two years ago and ever since then, talk-show hosts have tried to get me to show a few of my break-dance moves.''
  Meanwhile, Casey of ``Committed'' and ``Drowning Mona'' fame, was standing a few feet away, still spinning The Legend Of Matt Damon.
  ``Damon is always trying to make me stop telling people he was a break dancer because he says it hurts his acting career by making him look like an idiot. But it happened and I won't shut up about it!'' said Casey.
  ``I remember when Matt was 15, he came back from Harvard Square one summer day and complained to Ben that he had really had his best splits and spins but after an hour, he quit because he only had managed to collect 15 cents.''
  Just 15 cents to watch Matt bust some moves??? Oh give us a break. . . .
• This was the bit from the NY Daily News:
  NY DAILY NEWS/RUSH AND MOLLOY....
  It's true: Billy Bob Thornton really does eat orange food.
  At the Sunday premiere for his Tex-meets-Mex film, "All the Pretty Horses," someone offered him some mangoes, and we couldn't help but ask whether it was true Thornton is on some kind of weird Sunkist-and-yams diet and that's what really put him in the hospital back in September.
  "I do eat orange food," said Thornton, resplendent in a Metallica T-shirt and rosary bead necklace. "But that's not the whole story. I also eat brown, blue, black and purple foods."
  Thornton's curious image — made curioser by his Las Vegas elopement with much-younger Angelina Jolie in May — sometimes eclipses the Oscar-winner's work. Then again, you'd have to be a bit crazy to make a Western today.
  But this ain't no John Ford retread. The celluloid is peyote-soaked. One scene, for instance, has Matt Damon's heartbroken cowboy character drifting through a crowd that fairly bleeds on him — to a soundtrack of guitar chords like glass shards.
  Thornton says he "tried to be true" to Cormac McCarthy's prize-winning novel about the adventures of two young guys and a kid who flee Texas for the horse country of Mexico. Damon finds trouble there in the irrestible form of Spanish siren Penelope Cruz.
  Their love scenes are said to be so steamy they were among the cuts famously demanded by Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein. Not so, Thornton said at the premiere.
  "I cut out a scene where Penelope is walking naked toward the water, much to the dismay of my friends, probably. But I cut it because it was gratuitous. He's already swimming, why isn't she already swimming? But I never filmed it. I cut it out of the script."
  One scene that Thornton did film but, perhaps mercifully, cut was a dream sequence where he wanders naked. Some things may be best left for Angelina's eyes only.
• This was the article in the Sunday Times that I mentioned (published February 20): A reclusive gay murderer? The Talented Mr Ripley is a huge career gamble for Matt Damon, but he's more worried about the corrupting power of fame. And, GARTH PEARCE discovers, his next job will be writing, not acting
  Count him out
  Matt Damon's photograph stands 30ft high on a poster on a Berlin hoarding, advertising his new film, The Talented Mr Ripley, with the teasing question: "Have you ever wanted to be somebody else?" The real-life, 5ft 11in version is sitting next to me, reeling off a list of the men he once longed to be, starting with every player in the Boston Red Sox. Even during daily six-mile runs to lose weight for the film, he listened to music tapes on headphones and imagined he was Eric Clapton. But the truth about Damon is that, at 29, he's become exactly who he wanted to be: a film star. There's one problem. Is living the dream all it's cracked up to be? He's no longer so sure. "There's definitely a price to pay," he admits. "Sometimes, it seems very high. It has eaten up my private life and I have had to hold on to some form of normality, otherwise it would be easy to lose the plot of real life." Some would say he showed signs of losing it two years ago, when he was involved in an infamous slip on The Oprah Winfrey Show: he announced he was "single again" during a relationship with Minnie Driver. The British actress claimed she had been dumped on national television. His embarrassment became more acute when he started dating the obsessively private Winona Ryder shortly afterwards. They have maintained a monklike vow of mutual silence, never discussing each other. "It was my own decision," he says. "And, clearly, it has been hers for many years. I know this sounds ungrateful, but the only time I can really enjoy privacy is when working on a film set."
  Yet this is a man who set out to become exactly what he now is. He quit Harvard in his final year of an English degree in the hope that his appearance in the 1993 film Geronimo: An American Legend was going to make Hollywood sit up and take notice. It didn't. While many stars have to be dragged into fuelling the publicity machine, Damon, even as little as three and a half years ago, eagerly volunteered to take part in a round of television interviews with Meg Ryan and Denzel Washington for the promotion of Courage Under Fire, in which he had a modest role as a heroin-addicted soldier. His request was spurned by 20th Century Fox. He was left, instead, to nurse himself back to fitness after being warned by doctors that he had put his health in danger by crash-dieting to lose 45lb in 100 days so he could add realism to his role.
  He then wrote his own film script, with his childhood friend Ben Affleck, just to get a part. The film, Good Will Hunting, won them both best screenplay Oscars two years ago. From that moment to this, he still can't quite work out what has gone right. The result is that he hasn't dared to stop working. He had dreamed the dream so much, he felt that a rest between movies would be a self-destructive act of treachery.
  After Good Will Hunting, he made John Grisham's The Rainmaker in Tennessee, Saving Private Ryan in England, Rounders in New York and Dogma in Pittsburgh. He has been living in New Mexico while filming the forthcoming All the Pretty Horses, directed by the actor Billy Bob Thornton and set to be launched at the Cannes Film Festival in May. He is fresh from Savannah, Georgia, from a film directed by Robert Redford about a fictional 1931 golf match, called The Legend of Bagger Vance, to be released this autumn.
  But none of this quite compares to the summer he spent in Italy with the English director Anthony Minghella and a glittering cast, including fellow Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow and Bafta-winner Cate Blanchett, making The Talented Mr Ripley. In a remarkable reshaping and reinvention of what we have seen of Damon on screen so far, he plays Tom Ripley as a gay virgin, cautiously pushing open the closet door.
  Ripley is hired in New York by a shipping millionaire to travel to Italy and attempt to persuade his son, Dickie Greenleaf (superbly played by Briton Jude Law), to give up a wayward life of jazz, girls and sunshine and return to the business in America. Instead, he falls in love with Dickie, murders him and assumes his identity. If this plot twist is not enough to put Damon's female fans in a spin, then his performance as a lonely, achingly insecure man who wants the guy rather than the girl will surely put their loyalty to the test. The sight of his white body, plodding across a hot Italian beach in yellow swimming trunks and brown shoes, is just an early light moment before the darker deeds that are to come.
  The script, written by Minghella from the 1955 Patricia Highsmith novel, the first of five she wrote about the deeds of Mr Ripley, is dangerous for Damon, despite the $75m the film has taken in just seven weeks in America. Even the film's veteran producer, Sydney Pollack, a successful director in his own right, says: "It is so risky for a hot young leading man - the newest man in town, in some ways - to play a gay guy. I can't recall any girls' idol being prepared to break the unwritten laws of Hollywood in such a way." Damon is only too aware of what he has taken on. "I am nervous, because the jury is still out on me," he says. "I have taken to making jokes that 'the career was good while it lasted'." He was more sure-footed on the subject of a best actor Oscar nomination (which, in the event, he didn't get, though the film got five): "It is still the same film, whether it wins 10 Oscars or does not get nominated for any," he says. "I am proud of it."
  We meet in the Four Seasons Hotel in Berlin, during the film festival and his tour of Europe, including London, to talk about Ripley. It is the sort of setting that has become home to him since he collected his gold statue in 1998. He can now earn $7m for a film, but does not own a stick of furniture, a car or even a suitcase. Laundry is done, beds are made, meals are delivered.
  His worldly possessions are still proudly carried in two large duffel bags he bought at WalMart before his success. Not that he has had to buy any of the clothing he keeps in them. He receives vast amounts of clothes, all free, from some of the world's most famous fashion designers. He prefers casual, so is today in plain dark green T-shirt and cotton trousers. He's good-looking in an everyman kind of way, with blue eyes, even teeth and brown hair. But smoking a Camel Light and chatting about his love for British-style beer, with Guinness and Newcastle Brown his favourites, he could also be an off-duty waiter or chauffeur, the kind who insist they are just earning money between acting or writing a movie.
  "In the rare moments I've had when not working, I have felt confused," he says. "I am still in a state of shock, with people asking for autographs and wanting to know things." Indeed, he was to be seen the day before we met, baseball cap pulled tightly over his eyes, spending 20 minutes with a large crowd of German fans asking just that. He seemed at ease, although he admits to finding his public appearances very strange.
  "I will be sitting in my room watching television, Armani will arrive with a free suit that fits perfectly and it's off to a premiere. I am driven for 10 minutes, get out, have photographers take 1,000 pictures, then return to the hotel after the film has started. I get out of the suit and put the TV back on. It all looks very jet-set, but it's half an hour out of your life. And where was the free suit when I really needed one? That is the kind of false world that was created and agreed many years before I came on the scene. It will be happening many years after I've finished, too."
  Damon's good sense sounds as if it was hammered home by his mother, Nancy, a professor in early child education who describes herself as a "progressive leftist". She brought him up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with older brother Kyle, after she divorced his father, Kent, when both the boys were children. He was not embarrassed when she delivered one of her few public comments to The Washington Post a year ago: "My beautiful boy is being used to sell products," she said. "He is just a cog in the capitalist system." Her warnings about Hollywood are regularly handed out to her famous son. "She worries about my fame," he says. "She tells me she wishes I was not quite so successful. I know exactly what she means. She is vigilant in safeguarding against some shift in me. I have seen attitudes change in other actors. Someone is doing good work, then something happens. All their movies become totally narcissistic."
  But he has enjoyed equal support from both parents, particularly when it came to quitting Harvard. "I thought I was on a fast track to achieving something as an actor," he says. "It was an early lesson that there are no guarantees." There was another lesson: in the art of negotiating a fee. His first screen appearance was at the age of 19 in a made-for-television movie, Rising Son. "I was paid $25,000, which seemed like great money," he says. "Five years later, after two feature films, I was back doing another made-for-television movie for $20,000. I knew my career was not going the way it should." Such memories still nag him. "I feel responsible to the person I was a few years ago, who could not get the right jobs." he says. "I feel guilty if I take a night off and go out to dinner. I feel as if I am betraying that person."
  He says he suffered the same sensations on The Talented Mr Ripley, even when filming in the golden countryside of Tuscany and on the streets of Rome and Venice. He was not visited by Ryder - they seem to insist on a work-no-play policy on their film sets - and tried to concentrate on the loneliness his character would be feeling. He looked at 27-year-old Jude Law, who was there with his actress wife, Sadie Frost, and their son, Rafferty, aged three, and wondered if he was missing out. "There is much to envy about Jude," he says. "Not only does he look as if he was sculpted out of stone, he is happily married with a great family. He was travelling and having fun, while I was living with the thoughts and manners of Tom Ripley. I have visitors when I am working, but I've not yet figured out a way of marrying my work to my life."
  He is about to have the opportunity. He has stopped acting to write, again with Affleck. He has bought a loft apartment in Greenwich Village, New York, and, when renovations are complete, will be looking to buy furniture and retrieve his Oscar from his mother. After learning how to play the piano and sing the Chet Baker hit My Funny Valentine for The Talented Mr Ripley, ride a horse for All the Pretty Horses and swing a golf club like a pro for The Legend of Bagger Vance, he is concerned about a real life. "I do not have a single hobby," he says. "I would like to say I'm a great mechanic or collect model trains. But I am realising that I have no real talents, other than those that are linked to films. It's time to put that right."
  At this moment, it seems that, after all, Matt Damon just wants to be somebody else.
  (Commented Felicity: It's quite a sad interview, isn't it. A few months old but probably still very apt.)
• Boston news:
  A mention in GWH now has more background. Remember the painting in Sean's office, the Winslow Homer rip-off? The real painting, I didn't know before, is actually in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, called something like 'Incoming Fog'. I saw it on the weekend and thought it really interesting. Either Matt or Ben visited the museum and knew the painting, or found out about it somehow. I've seen various Homer paintings in museums world-wide, but this one of 'whitey rowing the boat' is just the perfect image of the one that Van Sant ripped off (remember that a competition was held to re-do the painting and he won).

• Seems like there's going to be plenty of press coverage coming up, and don't forget the Golden Globe nods on Thursday.
• One ad in a local paper for ATPH has the "Two Thumbs Up" from Ebert and the other, but no other comments from them. But on the Ebert site he does mention ATPH first as films given an 'honorable mentioned' in another sub-set.
• This was in an interview on Newsday with Finding Forrester actor Rob Brown: Still, there was at least one event on the set that he doesn't just take in stride: the appearance of Matt Damon in a cameo role. After all, Damon's break-out acting role was in "Good Will Hunting," the 1997 film (from his script with Ben Affleck) directed by Van Sant. "Someone made a joke," said Rob, "that a few movies down, I'll be doing a cameo for Gus."
• This was an article from Virtual New York:
  Billy Bob Thorton's Pretty Horses
  Friday, 15 December 2000 13:14 (ET)
  Billy Bob Thorton's Pretty Horses
  By KAREN BUTLER
  NEW YORK, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- It's been four years since Billy Bob Thornton took Hollywood by storm with his disturbing, Oscar-winning "Sling Blade." Now the acclaimed actor-writer-director is back behind the camera with another eagerly awaited coming-of-age drama, "All the Pretty Horses."
  "It's about the end of the Western," Thornton says of the film that stars Matt Damon, Penelope Cruz and Henry Thomas, and is based on Cormac McCarthy's beloved novel.
  "Teenage audiences (may enjoy it because) they can watch Matt and Penelope fall in love, but don't let the billboard fool you," he warns. "The movie is also about the end of the West and a young man's search for what his future will be and the future of America and the end of America, in a lot of ways.
  "And it's about walking the path you were comfortable in and assumed you would be living in forever that's no longer there; that's being ripped up from underneath you and where do we go now?"
  Asked if he felt any pressure from Miramax to focus on the love story aspect, Thornton replied: "People who put up the money for a movie will always want to sell it with sex and violence. That will never end. That will never, ever end."
  But Thornton is quick to add that he didn't bend to the pressure when he wasn't comfortable, explaining how he deliberately cut out a sexy scene in the screenplay that called for Cruz to disrobe before meeting an already naked Damon in a lake.
  "That has gratuity or gratuitousness, whatever the word is, written all over it, if you ask me," he said.
  Adds Damon: "(Thornton) undermined the Hollywood machine....That's just one of the many reasons we love working for him."
  The director took over "All the Pretty Horses" when Mike Nichols dropped out a few years ago to pursue other projects. Upon committing to the film, Thornton insisted on using the crew he worked with on "Sling Blade" and the yet-to-be-released "Daddy and Them," instead of hiring better-known actors, as suggested by Miramax.
  Decked out in a Metallica T-shirt and black rosary beads, jeans and baseball cap while lounging at the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue, Thornton seems to enjoy his image as an artistic rebel. The director insists, however, that when it came to boiling McCarthy's 300-page book down to a two-hour movie, he showed nothing but respect for both the author and his material.
  "You have to respect the guy's vision who wrote the book," Thornton explains, adding that his goal was to make "a classical sort of movie" that stays true to the spirit of the novel and that people will flock to theaters to see.
  "That can be a little hard to do because in this quick-cut, video age many people have the attention span of a gnat," he laments.
  Although Thornton only met McCarthy once on the movie's set, the director recalls it was a wonderful experience.
  "He's a great gentleman," says Thornton of the reportedly quiet and reserved writer. "He's not the type of man that you would think would ever write a book like that. You'd think he'd write a manual for how to build a boathouse or something."
  He went on to say: "I respect Cormac McCarthy very much and he understands this. Cormac McCarthy is all for this. He knows that he sold his book to Hollywood and I think if he loved the movie or hated the movie he would have the same feeling about it....He knows that his book is there forever and hopefully our movie will be there forever."
  As for the movie's length, Thornton hints that a much-longer "director's cut" will be made available when the film eventually comes out on DVD.
  "I've never been happier with anything I've been in," says Damon. "I've never been prouder of something. Whether or not it's for everybody, I have no idea, but it's the first time in my life I'm fine with whatever people think about it because I feel so good about it....I imagine that's how all the people I admire really deeply-like Billy or the Coen Brothers or Martin Scorsese -- I imagine that's how those guys feel all the time. You know like, 'I'm a genius and here is my work...' I just never feel that way and this is the first time I've looked at something [I've been in] and went, 'Wow." Leaving myself out of it, the other actors just down the list....Every single actor came and was just so good and then the bar got raised by the way Billy directed us."
  Damon says that he loved working with Thornton and would leap at the opportunity to do so again some day.
  Explaining some of Thornton's ground rules, Damon says: "There's no fighting. You're fired if you get in a fight, if you argue or if you're just a jerk. There's no reason for it. (Billy) says, 'If I'm not nervous there's no reason for you to be.' As a result, you get this group of people, who, every single one of them knows what this movie is about. Everyone's read it. Everyone believes in it. Everyone's taking their work very, very seriously and yet there is this atmosphere of people just being relaxed and good to each other. Billy would just wrap early and take everyone bowling."
• Another photo of Penelope at the ATPH LA premiere is on people.com
• A mini-review from newsweek:
  ALL THE PRETTY HORSES***
  OPENING NATIONWIDE: Dec. 25
  It’s always dangerous turning a beloved novel into a film; its fans are likely to resent anyone’s hijacking their own private images of the tale. In the case of a book as writerly as Cormac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses,” there’s no way a filmmaker can find a visual correlative for such serpentine sentences, for rhetoric that can soar as high as a hawk over the Mexican landscapes where two young Texas boys go riding in search of adventure. What you’re left with is the story, and how well you tell it. In Billy Bob Thornton’s handsome, morosely romantic, but ultimately disjointed Western, Matt Damon is John Grady Cole and Henry Thomas is his best friend, Lacey, the two lads who, displaced from their Texas ranch in 1949, wend their way to the vast estate of a rich Mexican (Ruben Blades). There, Cole is hired to break the landowner’s wild horses. There, though he’s warned not to, he falls in love with the man’s beautiful daughter (Penelope Cruz), a dangerous move that will lead to his violent coming of age. Thornton had bitter fights over the editing of his movie, which shrank from its first cut of four hours to its final two-hour shape. The result is a movie of arresting pieces that don’t harmonize into a satisfying whole. The dialogue captures McCarthy’s tangy, laconic tongue (Ted Tally did the adaptation), and the landscapes dazzle. But “All the Pretty Horses” comes fully alive only when young Lucas Black is on the scene. He plays the volatile teenager Blevins, who tags along with Cole and Lacey, bringing them bad luck at every turn. This skinny, scruffy, quicksilver young actor sneakily steals the show.
• Ads for the film promote www.alltheprettyhorses.com, but it only links to the Miramax 2000 site, which hasn't fully openedy yet. The film has not made it onto any of the end of year 'best' lists from critics so far.

Matt Damon's New Film Changed Horses Mid-Stream
All the Pretty Horses, starring Matt Damon and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, started 2000 as a Columbia Pictures release. It ends it as a Miramax film with a premiere on Sunday night in New York. Yesterday critics finally got to see the finished version.
The movie is based on Cormac McCarthy's award-winning novel. As a film it's had quite a history. Mike Nichols was going to direct a version, then Anthony Minghella wanted to do it. The job fell to Thornton after much wrangling.
Miramax
Ride 'em cowboy: Matt Damon in All the Pretty Horses.
Thornton — who's become better known for his marriages, divorces, and eating disorders — won an Oscar for his original screenplay for Sling Blade, a movie he also directed and starred in. Another film in which he's worn several hats, Daddy and Them, is considered so bad it's almost unreleasable. It may see the light of day next summer.
All the Pretty Horses was also rumored to be in a lot of trouble, which is why Columbia switched places with Miramax and let the latter company take responsibility for domestic release. Miramax is Thornton's home and Damon's home; the smaller studio has more invested in making the horses canter properly. The rumor is that studio honcho Harvey Weinstein, who does not especially like long films, worked with Thornton to cut a four-hour version down to the present incarnation.
So what of this long-aborning project? Well, it's not bad. It's not necessarily great either, although Matt Damon gives his absolutely best performance ever and may wind up with an Oscar nomination. Damon's character, John Grady Cole, is on screen for almost the entire two hours.
Even when the action is not about him, Damon manages to attract the camera. He is not a quirky or adventurous actor — indeed, his earnestness is what has probably turned him into a star on the level of Tom Cruise.
Miramax
Matt Damon with co-star Penelope Cruz in All the Pretty Horses.
It's worth noting because his best pal and cohort in real life, Ben Affleck, has definitely chosen a different road — Affleck can be much more disarming. Neither is a preferred way to get your star on Hollywood Boulevard, although I think I prefer Affleck's.
Nevertheless, Damon — in The Legend of Bagger Vance and All the Pretty Horses — is paving a road toward big, big things. The problem is that with Horses is that the filmmaking is so uncertain that you can see the seams.
When Tom Cruise became a sensation, in Top Gun, the movie-making wasn't artistic, but it was one piece. It was manipulative, but you could accept the conceit. In Horses, Matt is caught in an ambitious but failed artistic endeavor. It's to his credit that he survives.
Henry Thomas, who we all remember so fondly as Elliott from E.T. almost twenty years ago, is very good as Damon's sidekick on their adventure to Mexico. Penelope Cruz is great to look at, although sometimes her accent is heavy enough to be intrusive.
There's a trio of good cameos — by Sam Shepard, Ruben Blades, and Bruce Dern — and some other good casting. The cinematography, of course, is gorgeous, and if the story tracked a little better, we'd all say that All the Pretty Horses is an epic for the ages. We'll have to settle for Not Bad, instead.
All the Pretty Horses is better than a lot of the films I've seen in the last month — certainly better than Gus Van Sant's execrable Finding Forrester or Robert Zemeckis's ludicrous Cast Away. But what a crop of interesting failures this year: Quills, Unbreakable, Traffic, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Bounce, Pay It Forward, Remember the Titans, What Lies Beneath, etc.

And Felicity wrote further from Boston:
The new EW has a story on the actors with two shots for Oscar nods this year, Matt's mentioned and it says only what we know, that the push will be for Horses. The latest issue includes reviews of films including Cast Away, so my bet is that the next will be a double issue, possibly featuring Horses.
The computer won't let me look at the EW page, but there's a story which says Matt is an Oscar contender in a "smaller film".
(Here's an excerpt from the story:
To make it an even dozen, let's throw two final names into the hat: Matt Damon, whose work in ''All the Pretty Horses'' could make him a contender for a third nomination (he won for writing ''Good Will Hunting'' and was also up for acting), and Ralph Fiennes, who has the virtue of playing three roles in the epic ''Sunshine.'' ...)
Cultural reference: a new play in New York (Old Money) has a character that's a director who has just re-made Citizen Kane with Matt.
Haven't found Premiere yet but the latest Ocean Drive has a feature with Penelope (Madonna cover). Couldn't view the article when I saw it.
I haven't seen the Pretty Horses (not even the trailer at a Miramax movie!), or a poster. Apparently it is now going to open on less than 1,000 screens to gauge audience response.
Did you see this from yahoo - article about the number of movies with Spanish ties this season:
"I do not care how much an American practices the accent. The only way to play a good role is to speak Spanish fluently and become immersed in the culture," Matt Damon said in defense of co-star Cruz after director Billy Bob Thornton convinced the studios of the need to hire someone who knows the language.

• Hey, ya'll catch the new ATPH commercial? I was watching KTLA this morning and there it was. So, of course, afterward, I started switching channels and caught it again on NBC. Using much of the trailer footage, it basically promotes the "rich girl/poor boy" storyline without really giving it all away. Not too bad, I thought. Will it pull audiences away from Castaway, Family Man or Miss Congeniality? I'm not sure, but let's keep our fingers crossed.
• Just a couple of items:
  From The NY Daily News:
  'Finding' Parallels Director Gus Van Sant knew people would compare his new film, "Finding Forrester," with his 1997 flick, "Good Will Hunting." Like "Hunting," "Forrester" is about a brilliant street kid (played by Rob Brown) who's taken under the wing of an eccentric mentor. But wasn't Van Sant inviting critical wisecracks by actually having his "Hunting" star, Matt Damon, do a cameo in "Forrester"?
  "I just did it intuitively," the director tells us. The scene involves Damon, playing a lawyer, who hands over a significant set of keys to Brown. "I'm glad Matt trusted the project enough to do that."
• And from Marilyn Beck's column:
  TALENT TIE-UP: Contrary to other reports, it's going to be tough -- if not impossible -- for Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and George Clooney to squeeze any film projects in-between their wrap on "Ocean's Eleven" and the threatened industry strike in June. According to Clooney, unlike the typical studio flick with a three-month production schedule, "Ocean's" is "a big ol' film that's going to take about four and a half months. It'll be shot in nine cities, from Atlantic City to Monte Carlo." And as far as the strike deadline, "It'll take us right up to it."
  With studios vying hard to sign A-list stars who still have pre-strike holes in their schedules, you've got to know "Ocean's Eleven" is causing some gritted teeth among producers around town.
  NINE cities? Wow! That sounds grueling...and intriguing. (What a job for the location supervisor!) I guess Matt's Wal-Mart duffel bags will get a work-out!

• This bit from Cindy Adam's column (emphasis added):
  CASEY AFFLECK, 24, Ben's kid brother, got his major casting break. He nailed producer Jerry Weintraub's "Ocean's 11," the George Clooney / Julia Roberts / Matt Damon / Alan Arkin / Brad Pitt remake of Sinatra's Rat Pack flick. However, Brad Pitt's "Spy Game" opposite Robert Redford, was slated for Israel but had to relocate to safer Morocco. This caused a domino effect. Mark Wahlberg had to quit due to scheduling conflicts. With "Oceans" temporarily in limbo, Casey was having a meltdown.
  Now it's on track again. It shoots in Vegas in March.
  Of course, it's possible that this is the start of shooting in Las Vegas, while shooting could start earlier elsewhere. Or, Adams could simply be wrong. As we've seen, even VARIETY can get a start date wrong. However, if accurate, this is quite a delay, isn't it? Wouldn't Mark Wahlberg be furious if he was actually available by then and the producers stuck with Matt?
• The Dark Horizons website has the following dubious report:
  All the Pretty Horses: Uncut reports that there's a bit of squabbling going on over Billy Bob Thornton's "All the Pretty Horses". The flick was originally shot a while ago and was supposed to come out in the Fall, but then switched from Columbia Pictures over to Miramax who are now trying to get it out on December 29th. There's a slight problem though, the final cut which Thornton turned in apparently clocked in at a whopping six hours - though other cuts are in existence including some which are under two hours, though the main print now stands at around three. Thornton is 'attached' to some footage and doesn't want to cut it - despite threats from the execs that they may even bring in someone else to try editing it. On the upside Penelope Cruz apparently gives a good performance though. Thanks to 'Anna'.
  Of course, I say "dubious" because; a) Most reports list the original version as FOUR hours long, not SIX; b) Recent reports are saying the film is just under 2 hours which would comply with the Sony contract; c) Thornton and Weinstein have publicly denied that execs threatened to take ATPH from Thornton; and d) This film is premiering TOMORROW. One would expect things to be resolved by now. These are the types of negative rumors that the Army Archerd and Liz Smith interviews were supposed to combat. It's just surprising that they're still being circulated despite abundant newer information to the contrary. I have no doubt that there were was conflict between Thornton and Sony execs (a dispute which has been well documented in many publications, most recently in the newest PREMIERE issue). However, this piece implies a level of panic and disorder that I don't think really exixts.

• A very good piece with Matt in Army Archerd's column today:
  Wednesday December 6 1:22 AM ET
  Archerd: Miramax steps up PR campaign for ``Horses''
  By Army Archerd, Daily Variety Senior Columnist
  HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Although Miramax will premiere Billy Bob Thornton's ``All the Pretty Horses'' Sunday at the Beekman in N.Y., a screening for our critic was not set, as of Tuesday.
  ``Horses'' kicked up speculation about disagreements among Thornton, studio co-chairman Harvey Weinstein and Sony, the latter a 50-50 partner with Miramax. While the studio partnership remains intact, it is Miramax that now has the domestic distribution and Sony, overseas.
  The much-discussed running time, based on the director's original cut -- which is usually longer than the final -- is now a minute shy of two hours. And Miramax's praisery has been mounting a campaign to undo any preconceived mal de mouth.
  F'rinstance, they had Thornton, Weinstein and the film's star Matt Damon conference-call Liz Smith to erase the evil droppings of fellow fourth-estaters. She printed the trio's denials of problems and praise of one another.
  But, with due appreciation of Liz's power, it didn't seem to be enough for Miramax because they then called yours truly to ask if I'd talk to Damon (between takes in Paris on his current film, ``The Bourne Identity''). Of course I would be happy to talk to Damon, any time -- and did, Tuesday.
  The always-affable actor said he will fly in from the Paris location to attend this weekend's premiere of ``Horses,'' then return to France.
  ``This ('Pretty Horses') is a very special picture,'' Damon said. ``Hopefully it will be for everyone. It is truly profound and I am prouder of this than anything I have ever done. I wish I could make it over and over again.''
  As for working with Thornton, Damon stated, ``He is a miracle worker; I learned so much from him.''
  Damon had similar remarks of praise for director Gus Van Sant (``Good Will Hunting''), for whom he did a surprise cameo in the Sean Connery starrer, ``Finding Forrester.'' Damon explained, ``Any time Gus says 'jump,' I say 'How high?' It is great to even have just one day with Gus. We are always looking to do something together again.''
  Just as he and Ben Affleck keep hoping to find time to write/act together again. ``When we get the time, we will probably just sit around and try to make each other laugh,'' said Damon, ``and then put it on paper.'' He reminds that they wrote ``Good Will Hunting,'' ``just to get ourselves acting jobs.''
  For his current ``acting job'' in ``Bourne Identity,'' Damon said he trained for three months in martial arts, boxing and weapons handling, each with specialists in the field. In the picture, he's washed ashore an amnesia, bullet-riddled victim -- who is unknowingly carrying top-secret info implanted in his side. He laughingly answered my query about a comparison to Tom Hanks being washed ashore (in ``Cast Away''). No, Damon's already been picked up floating in the Mediterranean waters off the coast of Italy. Tuesday's sequence was near the DeGaulle airport where the smell of burning rubber had the company worried about another air disaster -- but it was a demonstration via tire-burning!
  From the Paris locations, the company moves on to Prague, with studio and exteriors to double Paris (!). And no, Damon's amnesia in ``Bourne'' is not similar to that to be suffered by Jim Carrey in his about-to-start ``Bijou.'' But interestingly these three top stars' roles have something (albeit small) in common.
  To celebrate the exceptional visual beauty of ``All the Pretty Horses,'' Sunday's N.Y. premiere will be held at Sotheby's new building at York & 72nd St. and underwritten by Kodak, which will decorate the giant loft with 4'x6' museum-style framed photos of the picture's scenic settings -- plus equally large images of its impressive participants: Damon, Henry Thomas, Penelope Cruz, Bruce Dern, Lucas Black and, of course, Thornton. Shouldn't Harvey be up there, too?
  (Noted Felicity: Is Miramax worried? Why are they pushing these interviews with the leading press? And why is the final cut now under two hours?
  To which I responded: I think they are really trying to get Matt an Oscar. I think the movie itself is suspect - halving it from its conceived length does not bode well - but I think Harvey Weinstein is really trying to promote Matt.
• Ocean's Eleven could go longer than expected: (12/5/00) George Clooney told columnist Marilyn Beck recently that it's very unlikely any of the cast would be doing much other pre-strike work after Ocean's 11, because the filming schedule is for 4 and a half months, starting in late January, and going nearly right up to the SAG 6/30/01 deadline.

• Robin Williams was Charlie Rose's guest last night. On the subject of working with great directors, he mentioned how laid back Gus Van Sant is--offering little direction and fostering a comfortable atmosphere on set. He said that when making GOOD WILL HUNTING, Van Sant would have Matt and Robin run through the 'therapy' dialogue without so much as one directive. Pretty soon the 'rehearsed' conversation become very natural and real and often spontaneous--those were the takes that appear in the film.
• E! Radio had a little plug for Matty this morning reporting that he is showing a "HOT",lean, muscular body on the set of BOURNE. The remainder of the report went something like this: "Some 3 months of physical training have left the actor even more desirable than before. When lovelorn Winona Ryder next sees him, she will most likely have regrets .... speaking of Winona, she has been seen sporting a cowboy hat around L.A. Could she be having flashbacks of her time spent with Matt on the ALL THE PRETTY HORSES set? Move on, Ms. Ryder."
• I imagine the reviews of HORSES will come fast and furious after this weekend! Let's all keep our fingers crossed!

Anyone catch this tonight? An illuminating program. Billy Bob comes across as a brilliant, authentic, and good natured person, though more than one person (including Billy himself) comments that he's borderline crazy. Like Matt, he also seemed genuninely attuned to the lives of people less fortunate than he. One producer (and former lover) mentioned that once she gave Billy Bob a pair of boots that he had really coveted, after which, he actually cried. He said that whenever he gets something like that, he can't help but think of all the people who will never have boots like that. Matt is generous in his praise throughout the program (in which he wears, of course, a black sweater and his favorite Panavision cap).
There are several behind-the-scenes segments from ATPH, though they look like ones we've seen before. However, the best part was the very end of the program when Matt is with Billy and his friends at the Nashville recording studio. Matt is among friends who sing with Billy, and there's quite a bit of friendly joshing between them. Matt and Billy both seem to do their Robert Duvall impersonations, as well as some other southern accented scenes that seem improvised. During the credits, Billy puts his hand on Matt's shoulder and says, "I tease my young friend here, but the love I have for this kid..." Matt looks up and they both start laughing. The program ends with Matt doing a hilarious Slingblade impersonation, after which Billy tells him, "You're going to have to put your chin out there if you're going to do that role." Matt complies with comic effectiveness. Matt then says with embarrassment, pointing to the camera, "Now it's on video." Billy answers, "It's not on video..." , then in unison, they say,"it's on Bravo!" Much laughter.
It was a bit strange to see Matt hanging out with Thornton and his buddies, all of whom are older and considerably more southern than Matt. Made me wonder what the attraction was. Then, as I was rewinding the tape, I reviewed a segment in which Billy Bob talked about his younger brother Jimmy Don who died in 1988. Apparently, the two were very close. I recalled that old PREMIERE quote in which Thornton mentioned that he "immediately felt a sort of big brother connection" to Matt. Then I looked at Jimmy Don's tombstone. He was thirty when he died--Matt's age. One can't help but speculate that Matt somehow fills a hole in Thornton's life. As for Matt's interest, it seems that Thornton is what Matt imagines he would like to be--a talented actor, writer and director who remains true to his origins and the people he came from.

• Here's a lovely bit from yahoo:
  HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Sony's premiere of ``Finding Forrester'' Friday night turned into a futile search for the picture's star Sean Connery, who quietly slipped away in the minutes between the screening and dessert reception at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills. Helmer Gus Van Sant was willing to talk, though, and he commented on his decision to give Matt Damon a cameo in the picture -- which, by the way, elicited the biggest audience response all evening.
  ``It's interesting metaphorically, because he had such good will with 'Good Will Hunting' and he's, like, sliding the keys over to Rob (Brown) -- and there's sort of a connection there between the two leads,'' Van Sant said.
  (Commented Felicity: Matt drawing the best response - good news! I hope he doesn't detract from the film (like the Ted Danson bit in SPR, or just a celeb cameo for no reason). But good to see him there, especially if the film does well. Funny though that the film will open on Christmas Day, but go into wide release in January.
• There's another Charlize Theron cover story in the latest GQ. This was on 'culture briefs' in the Washington Post: 'She's funny and loud and loves to laugh. She's not the girl sitting in the corner worried that no one's talking to her,' says Damon of his on-screen love interest in . . . 'The Legend of Bagger Vance.' 'I think she'd much rather have a beer and shoot pool than sit around and talk about [German filmmaker Rainer Werner] Fassbinder.' "
  — John Brodie, writing on "Charlize Is Hungry," in the December issue of GQ
  Matt sure does know his movies. Fassbinder here and remember the reference to Aguirre, Wrath of God in the ad-libs with Robin Williams (Premiere mag)?
• (The) National Board of Review awards announced tomorrow (6th). Ripley made it to their top 10 of the year.
• If you want to see more of Ben, the episode with Leno (and Rodney Dangerfield) is on tonight.

• From the NY Post today:
  THE THREE KINGS: Matt Damon, Harvey Weinstein and Billy Bob Thornton! Well, I talked to this trio simultaneously-Matt calling from Paris, Billy Bob on a cell phone in the middle of Somewhere USA and Harvey conferenced in from his NYC office. Matinee idol Damon, studio head Weinstein and director/actor Thornton want to put to rest rumors around their upcoming film, "All the Pretty Horses," which also stars Penelope Cruz. Contrary to what we might have heard, they say, there was no in-fighting, no on-set fighting, no quibbles over the length of the film, its content or casting. Harvey never threatened to take the movie away from Billy Bob because it first clocked in at four hours. "That is utter nonsense; the movie that opens on Christmas Day is the movie we all wanted, right from the beginning," Harvey says. Thornton insists, "If only 15 people went to see it and loved it, then I'd have done my job, made the perfect movie for 15 people!" Harvey, the super-competitive mogul to whom success is a way of life, adds, "I've had plenty of success, but I'd rather be proud of the work this studio produces." Damon didn't say much as Billy Bob and Harvey heaped praise on each other, but did volunteer, sincerely, almost shyly, "I don't think I've ever been this good onscreen. But all that's entirely because of Billy Bob." (Elsewhere, Matt told a reporter, "It was the first time I saw myself on screen and didn't want to throw up!") Damon is modest. His work is always first-rate-and he sure was robbed of an Oscar nod for "The Talented Mr. Ripley." He went on to say, "If I could make every movie for Billy Bob, I'd die a happy man." Thornton quipped, "We'll try to accommodate you, kid." Thornton added that the only true rumors surrounding the production concerned, "my relationship with several of the animals in the film. A horse, and a smaller creature I'd rather not name." How good is the "buzz" on this one? Well, President Bill Clinton, for the first time in the eight years he has known Harvey, called the studio head for a screening. Rather than vice versa. Clinton wanted "All the Pretty Horses." The movie will premiere Sunday at the Ziegfeld in Manhattan.
• A story in the NY Post (anyone seen People?)
  PENELOPE: broad support
  PENELOPE Cruz is upset with the suggestion in this week's People that she landed the part in "All the Pretty Horses" because of director Billy Bob Thornton. Miramax mogul Harvey Weinstein supposedly wanted Natalie Portman to play the sultry Mexican farmgirl. In fact, Weinstein was so charged up for Cruz, he flew her to Rome to audition opposite Matt Damon. A rep for Cruz said, "Harvey was and is a big advocate of Penelope's."
• Was the press junket held last weekend? This was in Jam Showbiz:
  Damon saddles up
  Last-minute casting meant a crash course in horsemanship
  By LOUIS B. HOBSON
  Calgary Sun
  HOLLYWOOD -- Billy Bob Thornton's much-delayed western All the Pretty Horses will be released on Christmas Day.
  Miramax Pictures will release it in the U.S. and Columbia Pictures will release it in Canada.
  "Billy Bob had to cut the film from three hours to just over two hours," explains Matt Damon, who stars as a 1940s horse wrangler seeking adventure south of the Texas border.
  All the Pretty Horses also stars Henry Thomas, Bruce Dern and Penelope Cruz.
  "When the DVD comes out, every minute will be back in. That's the wish of all of us who starred in it."
  Damon, a last-minute replacement for Leonardo DiCaprio, had to take a crash course in horsemanship.
  "For a month, all day, everyday, I rode horses, brushed horses and cleaned their stalls.
  "Billy Bob wanted everything I did to look absolutely natural.
  "It was his dedication, encouragement and guidance that motivated me."
  In Cormac McCarthy's best-selling novel, Damon's character John Grady rides nude several times.
  "For the movie, only the horse is nude. I was wearing a bikini and Billy Bob shot around it to make me look nude, so if pictures start appearing on the Internet, they've been doctored."
• And an item in the London Times:
  New York’s finest takes a fast route to fame
  To Off Off Broadway and the tiny East 13th Street Theatre to watch Philip Seymour Hoffman direct Jesus Hopped the A-Train, an energetic new play performed by the LAByrinth (sic) Theatre Company and written by a young New York playwright, Stephen Adley Guirgis. Hoffman has an uncanny talent for selecting unusually good scripts. In his other life as a movie star, he has already chalked up several awards for Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Almost Famous and The Talented Mr Ripley. He is also that rarest of creatures, an artist who is apparently nice to work with — a fact supported by two $5,000 cheques that arrived earlier this year to help workshop Jesus Hopped, from two of his former co-stars, Tom Cruise and Matt Damon.

• From a Big Matt Fan:
  As for "Inside the Actor's Studio", Ben was his typical funny, articulate self, although I wasn't crazy about how, at times, he tended to portray Matt as somewhat pretentious during his childhood and teen years. He said that he met Matt at the park because Matt had heard there was another kid actor in town. He mentioned that Matt had done some theater work at the Wheelock Community theater and that he wanted to see if Ben was a serious actor or just a dilettante. He said that in high school, Matt took him aside and told him that high school was serious, "and that it wasn't like TV where it's just about your face." Ben then added, "as if he hasn't traded on his good... it's so sad that Matt's so ugly as a character actor." Honestly, I sometimes felt that he didn't give Matt enough credit. For example, when asked about where GOOD WILL HUNTING came from, he mentioned their mutual desire to further their careers. He didn't say that it came from Matt's Harvard class assignment. Of course, he was frequently and extensively asked about Matt, prompting Ben to quip, "Why does this guy's name keep coming up?"
  Yes, Matt was there. For most of the show, he sat in the shadows in the back, wearing a dark sweatshirt, khakis and that familiar Panavision cap. Apparently, Ben didn't know he was in the theater because once he found out, he acknowledged to that he'd have to make it up to him because of all the things he'd said previously. When introduced at the end of the show, Harvey Weinstein prompted Matt to stand up and waive, which he did. The host invited Matt to ask Ben a question, to which Ben said something like, "I am your lover?" to which Matt joked, "Was I the best you ever had?" Ben answered something like, "Well, you always lie to the ones you care about." Ben declared that Matt probably knew all the answers and Matt confirmed that he did because it'd been twenty years. He joked that sitting through the interview "was killing him."
  I still find it strange that Ben was in a seat usually reserved for well-established actors whose talent and reputation are beyond reproach. It was interesting to watch how the host barely mentioned such films as Armaggeddon and Forces of Nature, but instead focused on Good Will Hunting, Shakespeare in Love and of course, Bounce. In fact, much of the admiration expressed was toward the writing of GWH and not toward Ben's performances as an actor. When asked about his career choices, Ben stated that he tried to do "profitable" films so that he could afford to do smaller ones like The Boiler Room. This is in such contrast to Matt, who on Oprah, specifically spoke against such a strategy. (Remember, he said something like, "People say they want to do one big movie so they can do a small movie, but the big movie isn't really big, it just costs a lot of money. Then people don't see it and the actor is left with an empty feeling because he didn't really care about it.") I think Ben is well aware that Matt has a better reputation as an actor, (he may even believe he is the better actor) and it seems as if his defense is to cast him as the somewhat pretentious thespian while Ben assumes the role of the practical populist.
  Just my humble opinion...
• And from a reader:
  Why I don't like Ben Affleck- a rant by a disbeliever.
  I watched Inside The Actor's Studio last night on Bravo. My thoughts-Affleck is a buffoon. He brags, boasts, exaggerates, and yet, says nothing at all. His jokes are seldom funny and his stories ain't all that witty. Affleck has no class; this is a guy overly impressed with himself, who feigns intelligence and pontificates like a bloated King whose subjects pray for his abdication.The most talent he has ever shown was in Good Will Hunting; a glimmer of it came through in Bounce; however, the rest of his catalogue has been submerged in overacting and empty sentiment. He plays the same character in every film, he just changes the pitch of his voice. How sad this guy feels that he must tear down his best friend in order to gain any credibility-. While some could discount these comments as "buddies f***ing around" --guys screwing with each other good-naturedly. Nope, for some reason with Affleck, it never really comes! across as anything other than bitterness and jealousy. It was hilarious to hear him basically state that Good Will Hunting was originally his idea. Has he forgotten all the press reports and the interviews which revealed it began as a one act play written by Damon? Did he miss the interview with the Professor who originally read it? Yep, he CO-wrote the final product with Matty- but who is this guy trying to fool?
  You gotta wonder about the patience and good will Damon must possess to stay friends with this idiot for twenty years. Finally, could he have mentioned sex more? Could he have been more crude and vulgar? It's very doubtful
  Thanks for allowing me to vent.
  (You are welcome!)
• And someone who came to Ben's defense:
  I too saw Ben on ITAS and I wasn't quite as unimpressed with Ben as your other two commentators. I do agree that Ben and Matt are just different; they choose different roles, they have different personalities, they joke about different things and they come off completely different in interviews. However, I think Ben's really funny. Yes, he's done some really bad movies (Armageddon is one I've seen and didn't like, and I didn't really like Bounce either). But he's done some good ones too; Chasing Amy was awesome, his part in Shakespeare in Love was perfect for him, and the same goes for GWH. I wonder why Ben keeps choosing roles that aren't that challenging, because I think he has potential to be a good actor. Most likely not as good as Matt, but still good. (Matt hasn't had a perfect track record either...Rounders was pretty flat and I have yet to see the Rainmaker because it seemed to be a typical, redundant lawyer movie that was just a guarantee of making money.) Anyway, I too wonder why they chose Ben instead of Matt to be on ITAS, but it seemed like James Lipton loved him and the crowd loved him and he made me laugh a lot, so maybe that's why. Yes, Matt thought of the concept of GWH and wrote the basic story for a class, but they've both said that they would spend a great deal of time, together, improvising scenes and feeding off one another and bouncing ideas off of one another. I don't think GWH would have come to see the light of day in the form it developed into without both Matt AND Ben. I think both of them can be seen in the film's dialogue. And as for Ben being crass...when they asked Matt what he wanted to ask Ben at the end of ITAS, Matt actually said "Actually, it's just killing me sitting through this f***ing class." I'll betcha 10 to1 Matt's mouth is just as "crass" as Ben's, but he isn't quite as open about it!!!
  That said, I do think Matt's the better actor and will probably go further in his acting career because he makes choices that are well thought out. I hope, though, that Matt's having a lot of fun too, as Ben seems to be.
  P.S. Just turned on the TV and Billy Bob Thornton was on Bravo Profiles. I only caught the end but they showed Billy Bob and Matt and others singing a song together, and then goofing off as the credits rolled. Matt was spoofing Billy Bob's Sling Blade character. I'm going to try to record it late tonight to see if Matt's interviewed about Billy Bob.

Yet more discussion on the Pretty Horses running time, from reel.com:
The Incredible Shrinking Western
Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses, the Matt Damon/Penelope Cruz Western that Miramax is opening on 1,800 screens Christmas Day, keeps getting shorter and shorter. Based on the Cormac McCarthy prize-winning novel, Horses is supposed to be a prestige holiday release for Miramax, but it's mainly acquired the rep of being a film that can't seem to leave the editing room or decide on a final commercial length. It started at around three hours — by the time it opens on Christmas Day it may be down to 113 minutes.
After principal photography ended in June '99, and as Thornton began editing it for release by Sony Pictures, the word was that he'd shot Horses with an eye for the pastoral and that the finished cut would probably run about three hours.
Greg Dean Schmitz's Web site Upcoming Movies also reported that an early cut had run a whopping 240 minutes. I also heard during '99 that Horses might turn out be a little shorter, or two hours and 50 minutes.
But Thornton kept editing and editing, and Sony, I kept hearing, wasn't especially thrilled with how things were turning out. Too slow, too many master shots, etc. S