More precipitation

For those of you who haven't had your fill of the critics, a few more reviews have trickled in:

• There's lots of love from Tom Long of The Detroit News, who declares that "'Rains' pours down emotion:"

  There's an exquisite pain to "Before the Rains," an anguish that feels real on so many levels -- social, personal, political, romantic -- it's both overwhelming and somehow cleansing.

  . . .

  But he [Santosh Sivan] and screenwriters Cathy Rabin and Dan Verete also breathe real life into their conflicted characters. The result is a deep, dark and rich brew of contrasts between cultures, time periods and loyalties.

  Stirring and filled with sad beauty and grandeur, "Before the Rains" offers a tale of torn tradition and perverted progress wrapped around smothered love. It hurts to watch this film. It should.

• More praise from Popserious:

  [...] All the actors do terrific jobs, the story is compelling and the visuals stunning. Almost too stunning in a way that it works against the film at times. Directed by Santosh Sivan who got his start in the industry as a cinematographer, each shot, every frame, is carefully lit and colored. At times I wanted it to look less beautiful and in fact, rawer - to capture the ‘realness’ of the emotions, the screaming, the workers. I actually haven’t seen a movie with my buddy Rahul Bose in it, since we worked together on Chameli - so it was fun for me to see how well his career has advanced.

  Universal in its story and message, Before The Rains is a testament to the growing sophistication and creative vision of Indian filmmakers in the international sphere. And I would highly recommend watching this film while it’s in theaters now.

• There is further reviewage at The St. Louis Post and Playback and a reference to an "underused Jennifer Ehle" at Atlanta's Creative Loafing.

Furthermore:

• It's raining boquets for Rahul Bose, according to Glamsham Entertainment Magazine.
• Read about the toast-loving Linus Roache at The Houston Chronicle. Here's his response to the interviewer's inquiry about Henry in Before the Rains:

  Q: In Before the Rains, the character you play — Henry Moores, the British-born owner of a tea plantation in 1930s India — is quite complex, almost contradictory. His intentions are good, but his will is weak.

  A: And he's also a bit arrogant. But, to me, that was the whole issue — how to balance all these things. Because you can play him as a kind of villain, you can play him as a kind of weak man, whatever. I just wanted him to be a human being. He's a man who loves everything about India. And he's ambitious, he wants to achieve a lot. He loves his wife — and he loves his housekeeper. He's like a guy who wants to have his cake, and eat it. But then he gets into a situation where, well, what can he do? He has limited choices. And he can't undo what he's done. So I decided that I wasn't going to comment on the character. I just wanted to play him dead straight, with no frills. Because he's a tortured soul. I know that, in one sense, his story sort of represents the decline of the British Empire. But Before the Rains also is the story of someone literally selling out his soul. And it's painful thing to watch.

• Apparently he made an appearance at the River Oaks Three movie theater in Houston last night, or so says Free Press Houston.

In other news, Rosemary Harris is going to be filming a new movie in Belfast next month! According to IFTN:

New Belfast production company Real Hollywood has announced its first project, ‘Yankee King’, will begin shooting in Belfast next month. Directed by Gerry Lively (Dungeons & Dragons II), the film will star Bill Campbell (The Rocketeer, Enough), Claire Forlani (Flashbacks of a Fool), Kelly Brook (Survival Island, The Italian Job) and Rosemary Harris (Spiderman). [...]

It's not IMDb-able as yet, but The Hollywood Reporter and Screen Daily report the same. (>1 source = credibility!)

Speaking of Rosemary Harris, don't forget that Holocaust will be released on DVD (Region 1) on May 27. Amazon.com provides the following summary:

An original TV dramatization of one of the most monstrous crimes in world history – the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis. Dramatically and definitively, the story covers an entire decade, the eventful years from 1935 to 1945. HOLOCAUST focuses on the tragedy and triumph of a single family – the Weiss family. Their story is told in counter-poise to that of another fictional family, that of Erik Dorf, who portrays a Nazi aide to Germany’s infamous Heydrich. Starring a brilliant international cast and filmed on location in Berlin and Vienna.