This month has been quite a successful one. Thanks to good old nepotism, I got the opportunity of going to the press screening of Disney’s new film A Christmas Carol, followed by an intimate press conference with the staff, which was held at some posh hotel ball room where they served us endless amounts of tiny cucumber sandwiches, high society salmon wraps and alcoholic drinks. I almost felt like a pro.
After watching the ageing (yet charming, in his own way) Jim Carrey talking nonsense for an hour, occasionally interrupted by the striking Colin Firth as well as the well known and respected director Robert Zemeckis, I wrote a news report in English, which got translated to Hebrew as well as (painfully) edited and on the Israeli youth magazine Ma’ariv LaNoar, and can be (partially) read here:
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/24/ART1/971/000.html
This is the authentic version of my story:
Jim Carrey arrived in London to illuminate Oxford Street while promoting his new film – Disney’s A Christmas Carol, premiering tonight in Leicester Square.
The new 3D animated remake for Charles Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Bob Hoskins, will be released in the UK on November 6th. Firth and Hoskins will light up Regent Street and St Paul’s Cathedral tomorrow while Carrey will be switching on the traditional Oxford Street Christmas lights simultaneously, in celebration of the new film.
“We finally have the tools to bring this story to life,” said Zemeckis about the novella that takes place in London, “I could never have imagined setting the film in any other country,” continued the Academy Award winning director of films such as Forrest Gump, The Polar Express, the Back to the Future trilogy and Cast Away.
The film (rated PG) tells the story of Scrooge (Carrey), the misanthropic old man who despises Christmas, and is being visited by the ghost of his deceased friend and business partner Marley (Oldman) as well as the three spirits (Carrey) of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. When asked whether he thinks this film is suitable for children, Carrey replied that “it is certainly no scarier than Pirates of the Caribbean!” while Firth added that “this film is all an act of kindness, and kids love to be scared”.
The new technology used in this film has certainly been a real challenge for the cast, as Firth explained, describing his strange experiences such as the “unfamiliar process of being scanned”, yet it enables a middle aged man to play a little boy and vice versa. “It’s so spooky,“ explained 47 year old Carrey, “Scrooge actually looks just like my father, so I got a glimpse of what I’m going to look like.”
Carrey has recently become a devoted Twitter user, explaining “that’s where you’ll see the whole development of my ego problem.” Before his arrival to London, the American comedian twittered: “Hope to see the whole commonwealth at 'Christmas Carol' premiere. London, Tues the 3rd. It's my honor to light the lights at Oxford St.”
Firth himself does not seem too keen on Christmas, as he admitted that during Christmas he tries “not to turn on the radio” explaining that “one sound of it could make us all homicidal.”
