JohnnyDepp-Zone.com

Ten years ago today, May 26, 1995, Jim Jarmusch’s stark and haunting allegory of the American frontier, DEAD MAN, debuted at the Cannes film festival. In the intervening years, and despite a spotty early critical reception and an almost total lack of promotion by its distributor, DEAD MAN has advanced from cult favorite to landmark film. It is widely acknowledged as one of Johnny Depp’s finest performances, a perfect meld of artist and vehicle.

The Zone salutes Jim Jarmusch,who wrote and directed DEAD MAN; director of photography Robby Muller and editor Jay Rabinowitz, for their extraordinarily poetic images; Neil Young for his evocative score, and an outstanding cast headed by Johnny Depp as William Blake and Gary Farmer as Nobody, with Lance Henricksen, Iggy Pop. Billy Bob Thornton, Mili Avital, Crispin Glover, Gabriel Byrne, John Hurt, Alfred Molina, and, in his final role, screen legend Robert Mitchum. We invite Zone members to post their reminiscences to a tribute thread on the Porch, and to join in a special discussion of DEAD MAN on the Movie Nights board.

Depp fans could enjoy the new television commercial for CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY morning and night: it aired during the TODAY show at breakfast time and during ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT in the early evening hours on Thursday, May 26th. Thanks to DeppFever for information on the TODAY show and DeepinDepp for posting a transcript on the News forum; thanks to ack and Fran-is-a-fan for word on ET.

Zoners who were not able to see the commercial can go to the Recent Pics board to see a set of screencaps posted by Intodadepps; the small photo on the left is a sample. You can see a larger version of the picture HERE.

Fran-is-a-fan found the following snippet of a past interview with Johnny Depp posted on the ET website–thanks, Fran! The interview dates to last fall’s FINDING NEVERLAND promotion, when Johnny was shooting CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. At that time, he told ET he was “happy to do films that are pretty accessible to my kids right now.” ET adds that Johnny “only had raves for his young co-star, Freddie [Highmore],” who played young Peter in FINDING NEVERLAND and plays Charlie Bucket in CATCF–a role for which he was recommended by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. “He’s a magic kid,” said Johnny. “Freddie’s all magic, all purity, all honesty. He is as good a pal as any I’ve got. He’s someone I consider a great friend, and beyond that, a great actor. He’s just a really good human being.”