Glum connections in Hollywood

Earlier this evening my mother gushed about the recently released Juno, and how it was imperative that I see it, particularly for the performance by Ellen Page. I've been browsing the net too, as I'm want to do, and of course there has been a deluge of Heath Ledger related news. Messages from Ledger's family in a Perth newspaper were halting, a brief glimpse into their tragedy and the real Heath. His father lamented never again playing chess with his son, whom he could never beat. As if this weren't maudlin enough, I was also reading about the Hollywood industry response to Ledger's death as well. As I mentioned before, Terry Gilliam was shooting a film with Heath, and the quote he gave at the end of the Variety article, just served to compound the melancholy. Gilliam tells us that Ledger was about to direct soon, and that had was keenly observant of all of his techniques on set. Gilliam was sure he was going a be a better director then himself. The movie that Ledger was developing for his directorial debut was an adaptation of the Walter Tevis novel "The Queen's Gambit," about a young female chess prodigy, to be played by Ellen Page.