Ang Lee filming comedy on 1969 Woodstock
concert
Taiwan-born film director Ang Lee, known for such box-office hits as Lust, Caution and Brokeback Mountain, is filming a comedy about Woodstock ahead of the landmark countercultural event’s 40th anniversary, his spokesman said.
Taking Woodstock is based on a book by the man who granted the original permit for the 1969 event, which turned into a hippie-dominated music festival that drew half a million fans. Oscar-winning Lee is shooting the film for Focus Features near the Woodstock location in upstate New York with an eye toward releasing it next year, spokesman David Lee said.
He declined to elaborate on the plot, the budget or the director’s reasons for getting involved. “I’m not in a position to discuss details of the film,” he said.
The film follows the book “Taking Woodstock: A True Story Of A Riot, A Concert, And A Life, by Elliot Tiber, who was instrumental in bringing the controversial concert of unprecedented scale to his region.
Lee found the movie theme when he happened to meet Tiber backstage before a televised book promotion in San Francisco, said Dan Bloom, a Taiwan-based writer who has interviewed sources close to the film. Lee, 53, lives in the United States and has explored other symbols of Americana, such as cowboys in Brokeback Mountain and the comic book character Hulk in a movie of the same name.

James Earl Jones to get SAG Life Achievement award
James Earl Jones, whose booming voice gave the world the villainous Darth Vader in Star Wars, will receive the 2008 life achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild.
The award, given annually to the actor who fosters the finest ideals of the acting profession, will be presented to Jones in January when the guild honours the year’s top acting achievements on television and film, SAG said recently.
Jones’ voice is known around the world in roles such as Mufasa, the king in Disney’s The Lion King and in numerous commercials. He also has a long and distinguished career on Broadway in roles such as boxer Jack Johnson in The Great White Hope, on screen in Patriot Games and Cry The Beloved Country and on television, where he played Alex Hayley in Roots:The Next Generation. Ironically, Jones, 77, spent his childhood as a virtual mute because of a severe stutter that he overcame only in high school. SAG president Alan Rosenberg said Jones was an extraordinary actor whose long and quiet work-off camera as an advocate for literacy and the arts “deserves our appreciation.”
“Growing up, I was mute to the outside world, but there were hundreds of conversations in my head...Through a love of reading, I was able to overcome my muteness and pursue a career in which my voice would be my most prominent asset,” Jones said in a statement.