SISTERS AT WEDDINGS
Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black are co-starring in the comedy about sisters who loathe each other in Margot at the Wedding, left. One is getting married and the other arrives at the wedding ready to spoil everything. Sounds like a regular family wedding when the neighbours fight, kids almost drown, trees fall on wedding tents and then there is the usual things that go wrong at a wedding! www.margotatthewedding.com.

WEDDING SCENE IN LOPEZ MOVIE
August 2007 ... Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez, who are married in real live, pictured left, in a weddng scene from their new movie El Cantante, the title of salsa legend Hector Lavoe's  signature song. The movie covers Lavoe's arrival in New York from Puerto Rico in 1963, his first gig, his first meeting with the sassy Puchi (Lopez), who would become his wife and the mother of his son. His rise to stardom followed by the descent into heroin abuse, the death of his teenage son, his own suicide attempt and his eventual death from AIDS in 1993 at 46.
  His father (Ismael Miranda) didn't want him to go to New York and was never satisfied, despite the heights Hector reached. He strayed with other women and started doing drugs. After singing at a club in the Bronx, he's paired with trombonist Willie Colon (John Ortiz) and the two sign a deal with the up-and-coming Fania Records to become Latin music's hottest new stars. The salsa music they pioneered served as a vibrant voice of a people, as evidenced by sold-out shows and Hector's increasingly lavish lifestyle.
  It's one of his simplest performances in the film that's also his most powerful. Hector returns to his old neighborhood soon after achieving fame and sings for an adoring crowd in the street. The sun is shining under a brilliant blue sky and there's a kinetic energy in the air, which is captured with fluid camerawork. In the middle of it all is Anthony, pouring out his soul, larger than life despite his lean frame. It makes you long to see a documentary of Lavoe, or at least a concert film in which Anthony performs his songs. www.elcantantemovie.com.

THE ODD COUPLE
July 2007 ... Another movie wedding comedy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, about two straight, single Brooklyn firefighters, Adam Sandler and Rick James, left, who pretend to be a gay couple in order to receive domestic partner benefits. Between laughs, grooms-to-be can check out the outfits. www.chuckandlarry.com.

BEING PREPARED FOR MARRIAGE
July 2007... You know something silly is going to happen when Robin Williams, left, is cast as a reverend of a church. In the new movie License to Wed due in July, Ben Murphy’s (John Krasinski, The Office) fiancée, Sadie Jones (pop singer / actress, Mandy Moore), right, has always dreamed of getting married in a traditional wedding at her family church St. Augustine. The problem is the church only has one wedding slot available in the next two years, and its pastor, Reverend Frank (Robin Williams), won’t bless the couple’s union until they pass his patented, foolproof marriage-prep course. If you are going through this then you know about the classes and homework assignments. Could be a good movie for engaged couple’s to see before they walk down the aisle. Visit www.licensetowedthemovie.com. 

AFTER THE WEDDING
A wedding reception is the starting point in the 2007 Danish Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, After the Wedding, which stars Mads Mikkelsen as Jacob, who runs a struggling orphanage in one ’s poorest regions. Desperate to save the orphanage from closure, he returns to to meet Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard) a wealthy businessman and potential benefactor. Jorgen offers Jacob a seemingly innocent invitation to attend his daughter’s wedding. What appears to be nothing more than a friendly gesture sets in motion an increasingly devastating series of surprises, revelations, and confessions that will forever change their lives. The film is directed by Susanne Bier. Visit www.afterthewedding.com.

TIM BURTON'S FILM THE CORPSE BRIDE
2006 PREMIERED AT THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
 

Lynne Gordon
Entertainment Editor
Johnny Depp, the elusive star and his favorite director, Tim Burton, pictured, with the film's wedding cake, have teamed up again. They have done five successful films together, which included Depp starring in Burton's Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow, and they worked simultaneously on the recent hit Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Corpse Brid. But Depp has never voiced a character in an animated film. He jumped at the change to be in this strange stop action puppet film.

  Depp says the movie is accurately described as a tragic tale of romance, passion and a murder most foul. The tale of the Corpse Bride and the hapless groom she spirits away from an arranged earthly marriage is based on a Russian folk tale. The question is raised "Can the living marry the dead"

  Tim Burton, at the Toronto International Film Festival said it might suggest that our life on earth can be so sad and disappointing that perhaps there is something magic that happens after you die. He points out that in they have a day to celebrate the dead. I wondered if that reflected Burton 's own philosophy.
  Depp points out that a great a cast helped the film with its truths and purity and moved it forward. Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney, pictured with the bride, are the aristocratic couple who have no cash. They feel they can get back their social status by arranging a marriage between their daughter Victoria (Emily Watson) and the bachelor son, Victor, who is rich (Johnny Depp). Helena Bonham Carter is the corpse bride, who feels that Victor is her true love that she has been waiting for over the years. It seems that at the eve of the wedding when Victoria and Victor were about to exchange their vows, grave, terrible things began to happen to sabotage the wedding. Victor in desperation to salvage the wedding mistakenly marries the corpse. Then a tug of war begins between the living and the dead! How the audience reacts to this struggle may say a lot about them. For more visit: www.corpsebridemovie.com.

Interestingly enough 's foremost jeweler, Henry Birks and Sons, used the premiere of the Corpse Bride to mate the appearance of Johnny Depp at a late night party with the launch of an exclusive and extremely rare new Amorique Diamond. Wish I had been there to listen to the reaction of the strange pairing. Visit: www.birks.com.

Lynne Gordon is a journalist, author, consumer advocate, radio and TV host, travel reporter and a professional member of The Arts and Letters Club of Toronto. She can be reached at lynne_gordon@rogers.com.

WEDDINGS & PARENTS

Rumor Has It stars Jennifer Aniston, left with Kevin Costner, as a woman who finds out her family was the inspiration for the book and movie, The Graduate. She then puts her wedding plans on hold to figure out exactly how her parents are. The movie also includes Shirley MacLaine and Mark Ruffalo. Director is Rob Reiner.

WATCH THOSE BRIDESMAIDS!
Ever seen someone at a wedding that no one knew or could figure out what side of the families they were from? Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn starring in Wedding Crashers, are divorce mediators who have a secret set of wedding crashing rules. The pair find their way into a different wedding and bridesmaid's heart every week. The twist is that one of them falls for the engaged daughter, Rachel McAdams, of an influential and eccentric politician Christopher Walken. Visit www.weddingcrashersmovie.com.

WEDDING ALBUM PHOTO, right: (l to r): Larry Campbell as Best Man, Rachel McAdams as Claire, Geoff Stults as Craig, Jenny Alden as Christina, Christopher Walken as Secretary Cleary, Ellen Albertini Dow as Grandma Cleary, Jane Seymour as Kathleen, and Keir O'Donnell as "Todd". Photo: Richard Cartwright/New Line Productions.

BRIDES LEAVE HOME FOREVER
On March 3, 2007, in the Kunettra Crossing, a buffer zone in the Golan Heights between two enemies, Syria and Israel, Arwad Abushahen waved farewell to her family, as she joined her husband knowing that she might never see her home again. Families who can afford to travel to other countries often see each other in Jordan.
  In the 2004 movie,The Syrian Bride, it follows the bride, pictured with her family, who is from a village in the Golan Heights and knows after she marries a Syrian she may never see her family again. The Syrian Bride, played by Clara Khoury, is a story about physical, mental and emotional borders and the will to cross them. She knows that once she crosses the border between and to marry Syrian TV star Tallel, she will never be allowed back to her beloved family in Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in the Golan Heights, occupied by since 1967. The movie was shot on location in the Golan Heights and in other locations in. For more story visit The Syrian Brides or www.mongelmedia.com.

www.WeddingsHoneymoons.com | January 11, 2008