Kathryn Morris UK

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – April 2015

Normally the monthly CCCC-up is purely about the other main actors from Cold Case that aren’t Kathryn. This time I’m making an exception.

Earlier this month saw the passing of the actor James Best (picture above), most famous for playing Sheriff Rosco P Coltrane in the long-running TV series The Dukes Of Hazzard. The show ran for 7 seasons and over 140 episodes, not far of Cold Case‘s figures. James’ last film work was in The Sweeter Side Of Life starring as the father of Kathryn’s leading role of Desiree Harper.

James will forever be seen as Rosco but take even a brief look at his filmography and you’ll see he started working at the age of 24 in 1950. He is credited in more than 180 projects in a career that spanned 64 years. I’m far from knowledgeable about American TV from that era but even I know that shows like The Lone Ranger, Wagon Train, The Andy Griffith Show, The Twilight Zone, The Fugitive, Rawhide, Perry Mason, Bonanza, and Gun Smoke were some of the biggest. James appeared in all of those, many more and a lot of films too.

1979 and onwards James’ work was dominated by the creation he made his own: Rosco P Coltrane. The original Dukes TV series saw a cartoon version, a spin-off about Sheriff Coltrane’s deputy Enos, and several TV movies staring James and many of the original cast made. The family connection of the writing/directing/producing pairing of his daughter Janeen and her husband Michael Damien kept James on the small screen as he starred in several of their TV movie projects. The Sweeter Side Of Life was one of those.

James Best 1926-2015.

Heading back towards Cold Case we take a brief pitstop to mention the actor who played Lilly Rush’s half-brother Finn, Brett Davern. Several times over the life of this site I’ve posted (most notably here) about Kathryn’s foray in to motorsport when she took part in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity charity race (which is one of the support categories to the Longbeach GP IndyCar race) back in 2007. Brett recently competed for the third time at the event. After winning overall last year he was upgraded to Pro status for 2015, meaning that he no longer benefited from the 30-second head-start the celebs get. He finished 6th, some way behind Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton on The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air), who is already is a two-time winner, and therefore also a celeb classed as a pro.

Getting back on track (see what I did there?) I get the pleasure of mentioning one of our less regular regulars Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera on CC). Just last week Jeremy made a guest-starring appearance in the latest episode of the still-going TV series Bones. Jeremy played a high-stakes poker player, one of several suspected of killing a fellow gambler to steal his winnings. ‘ATM’, nicknamed because he’s always paying out money, has a few arguments with Special Agent Seeley ‘Booth’ Booth (David Boreanaz, of Buffy and Angel fame). Did he do it?

Bone Tomahawk: It Begins

Well… it actually began quite a few years ago now, as covered previously in far too much detail here. Things are, however, progressing with the pre-release process starting very soon.

Once past all the ups-and-downs of pre-production the movie Bone Tomahawk was filmed in September and October last year. Since then it has been in post-production: the process of editing, re-recording audio, adding special effects etc.

We’re interested in all this on KM UK because Kathryn has a small role in the horror western film as the wife of the main character Sheriff Franklin Hunt, as played by Kurt Russell (Fast & Furious 7).

In a couple of weeks (13th-24th May) the famous ‘Cannes Film Festival’ starts in the southern France. The glitzy star-studded premières and the critics’ reactions to the latest releases get all the headlines but a big part of the 10-day long event is the business deals done. Films are sold on the international markets by distributors in ‘Le Marché du Film’.

One of the distributors of Bone Tomahawk is French company ‘Celluloid Dreams’. They will be attending Cannes and will be promoting 9 projects, some ready to go like local fare Dheepan and others still in early development such as The Swallows of Kabul. Bone Tomahawk is in between those states as it is still in post-production but it is set to be showcased in some form or other.

It is unlikely that much will be made public about Bone Tomahawk‘s appearance at Cannes but more details, such as possible release dates, and who knows, maybe even a trailer could make a showing.

Either way it is a sign that the process is moving along.

The Perfect Guy Previewed @ CinemaCon

Having just survived the annual influx of the broadcast industry for the NAB show, Las Vegas has now seen off the other end of the chain with the CinemaCon event ending yesterday (23rd April).

Now in its fifth year, CinemaCon is a convention for the National Association Of Theatre Owners, the companies that run the cinema chains we see in our towns. I always thought that NATO had more important issues to deal with

As part of the event the movie studios/distributors show previews of upcoming film releases, allowing the theatres to decide what they will purchase for putting on the big screen.

On Tuesday Sony Pictures gave a presentation covering some of their wares for 2015 and beyond. The new James Bond film Spectre was bound to steall the limelight, albeit with a non-action sequence preview clip. There were plenty of other movies mentioned too, such as Seth Rogen comedy Xmas; Jodie Foster-directed, George Clooney-staring thriller Money Monster; and Ricki And The Flash, which has Meryl Streep playing a reasonably successful rock star who gives up life on the road to be with her grown-up daughter. Sounds odd but it’s Meryl so you know she’ll be good regardless.

One of the smaller films previewed, and the reason for this post, was The Perfect Guy, which stars Sanaa Lathan (The Cleveland Show) and Michael Ealy (Almost Human). Kathryn has a small role in the film as a friend of Sanaa’s Leah character. Leah finds herself under attack from Ealy’s Carter after breaking off a brief relationship with him. Ex goes psycho, basically.

Anyway, here’s what HitFix’s Gregory Ellwood had to say about what he saw of The Perfect Guy:

If this movie was just about Sanaa Lathan’s character falling for Michael Early’s character that might make for an interesting dramatic romance. The fact Early’s character turns into a psychopath drew laughs from the audience.

Ooooookaaaay…. time to re-work it as a comedy?

You can read Gregory’s full run-down of the Sony previews on the HitFix website HERE.

The Perfect Guy is set for a world wide cinema release later this year with the US starting in September.

The Coin @ Philly Indie Film Fest Tomorrow

It’s another of KM UK’s classic ‘quick reminders’ which tend to drag on, thereby ending up anything other than quick

Perhaps this time will be different. It’s not looking good so far though

As previously posted about the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival started last Friday and continues until Saturday (25th), though at this stage it is not clear what is happening beyond Thursday.

Tomorrow sees the Fabien Martorell short film The Coin receiving its public outing. The event will be at the University Of The Art’s Levitt Theater on Broad Street, starting at 6:20pm. Also on the bill in the 70 minute screening is Fabien’s latest short Unbelief.

More information can be found on the official website.

I think you got off lightly there

A-musing Reminder Of Doctored History

It’s been a while since we had reason to post about the not picked up TV drama pilot The Surgeon General. Not since the last time in fact

In July of 2013 we saw the surprise (and possibly accidental) publication of a promo video for the show. By then we already knew the show had not been selected for the 2013-2014 TV season by the CBS network. That decision was clear (largely by omission from announcements, but also by director Rod Lurie Tweeting about it) a couple of months earlier.

Much like the promo video release we can still get the occasional pleasant surprise, even 2 years later.

Rod Lurie spent a bit of time yesterday (18th April) reminiscing on his Tweeter feed with photos from various projects he’s been involved with over the years. One of them (now in the Gallery) was the one you see above. That is Rod and Kathryn on the set of The Surgeon General.

Rod should be well known to all Kathryn fans because she has been in most of his feature films. She starred in Deterrence, The Contender, The Last Castle (in scene that didn’t make the final edit) and Resurrecting The Champ. For a long time I’ve thought of Kathryn as probably being Rod’s muse. He’s now confirmed my feelings by posting the above photo with the message: