Natasha Richardson

Natasha Richardson doesn't remember much about the news conference for Patty Hearst after it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Yet, no one else who was there is likely ever to forget. Up on the dais were two strawberry blondes, heiresses of very different legacies. Ensconced amid the potted palms was Richardson - fourth generation of a British theater family made celebrated and notorious by her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, and her obscure political agenda. To her right sat Patty Hearst herself, fourth generation of an American publishing line made celebrated and notorious by her grandfather, newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst.

The ladies of Widows' Peak like to enforce their social and moral position - and a literally commanding view of their neighbors - in the village of Kilshannon. Understandably, their interfering ways create a lot of pique. Hugh Leonard's story is an amiably predictable tale of secrets, past and present, in the lives of two women. They are kept by Miss O'Hare (Mia Farrow), a nonvoting member of the widows' club, and Edwina Broome (Natasha Richardson), a newly arrived predatory beauty from England.

A funky shamble down the bleak, too-bright corridors of New York's storied Chelsea Hotel, Ethan Hawke's Chelsea Walls is a hipster paean to the rundown palace on West 23d Street where the likes of Mark Twain, Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas once hung their hats. Set in a romantically bohemian here and now, the film - shot on digital and featuring a fine, folky collection of songs mostly from Jeff Tweedy of Wilco - follows a ragtag assortment of dreamers, drunks, poets and poseurs as they dream, drink, poeticize and pose.

When the producers of "A Month in the Country" named the film the way they did, they were running a considerable risk. The risk was that some wise- guy reviewer would say that a month in the country was the best way to describe the experience of sitting through the film. In point of fact, "A Month in the Country" is not really that dull - it doesn't feel any longer than a week. Tom Birkin (Colin Firth) has returned to England from World War I with a stutter, a facial twitch, a recurring nightmare that involves crawling under barbed wire and a conviction that, in a world so evil, there could not be a God. A picture restorer by trade, he has taken on the summer job of uncovering and sprucing up, in a Yorkshire church, a medieval painting of the Last Judgment.

"Gothic," a horror drama starring Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands and Natasha Richardson. Directed by Ken Russell. Screenplay by Stephen Volk. Running time: 90 minutes. A Vestron release. At the Ritz Five. It's not surprising that the theater where "Gothic" opens today is the tony Ritz Five. Just consider the movie's pedigree: made in Britain, directed by Ken Russell, starring a quintet of classical actors and - best of all - about an encounter between the poets Shelley and Byron. But it would make much more sense for "Gothic" to play on Chestnut Street.

Any movie that casts an earthy cockney like Bob Hoskins as a virginal Frenchman and the ultra-hip Jeff Goldblum as a man convinced he is Jesus Christ is one that is demonstrably willing to take risks. But The Favor, the Watch and the Very Big Fish is proof that he who dares doesn't always win. Australian director Ben Lewin's first feature is a self-conscious and often ungainly serving of everything from religious satire and black comedy to romantic whimsy. One of its recurring jokes is an atrocious cook who mixes everything, from hapless canaries to the very large fish of the title, in a giant meat grinder.

A week ago, Natasha Richardson was flirting around the edges of fame. For most, her name elicited a vague "Yeah, seems familiar," but then they couldn't quite place her. Her photograph might have recalled any beautiful, if icy, blond actress of a certain pedigree. Today, she is everywoman - wife, mother, sister, daughter. Dead at 45 in the most capricious of ways. She was not hot-dogging down a triple-black-diamond slope when death tapped her on the shoulder. No, she was on the bunny hill, on a spring-break trip with one of her two sons.

Blow Dry is one more reminder that when it comes to movies, the English love an underdog. Admittedly, Blow Dry - written by Simon Beaufoy, who penned The Full Monty - is formulaic. But it's a formula that has yielded some diverting films, and Beaufoy has the good sense to return to the North of England, an ideal setting for us-vs.-them comedy. This time the arena is the National British Hairdressing Championships, a competition whose preposterous styles are matched only by the seething animosity of the rival snippers.

A defining moment in A Streetcar Named Desire finds Stanley Kowalski eavesdropping as Blanche DuBois heaps disdainful anger on his loutish ways. "He's like an animal," Blanche (Natasha Richardson) tells her sister Stella (Amy Ryan), Stanley's wife and a target of his brutality. On the other side of the curtain that affords such scant privacy in the cramped two-room apartment in New Orleans stands John C. Reilly in the heart of a disappointing production. When director Edward Hall - who did an acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last season - chose Reilly for the revival of Tennessee Williams' masterwork, eyebrows shot skyward.

For Hayley Mills devotees, this is heresy. So call me a heretic: Filmmakers Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer have built a better Parent Trap than the 1961 Mills classic, itself a remake of a forgotten British film called Twice Upon a Time. Why remake perfection? Well, when you have a myth as potent as The Parent Trap and an actress - make that a firecracker - as colorful and appealing as Lindsay Lohan, the question is 'Why not?' As the resourceful 12-year-old twins who discover they were separated at birth and conspire to reunite their divorced parents, the freckle-faced redhead is like an explosion in a paprika factory.

IN THE NEW British indie "Harry Brown," Michael Caine summons his inner "Gran Torino" to portray a senior vigilante. Ironically, the film was shot in the poor area where Caine grew up - there's a plaque there commemorating his getting out and making good. The veteran actor spoke to Tattle about "Harry Brown" (review on Page 39) at last September's Toronto International Film Festival and said the primary differences from his childhood and now are that drugs have replaced alcohol and weapons have replaced fists.

Dynasty: Barrymores, Bridgeses or Redgraves? From Carrie Rickey's "Flickgrrl" Lynn Redgrave's passing this week has me thinking of acting dynasties and of the privileged moments when multiple members of the same acting clan appeared together on screen. Who's your choice for most accomplished acting dynasty? The Barrymores, the Bridgeses, the Fondas, the Hustons, the Redgraves? Perhaps Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow? Kirk and Michael Douglas? Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli? Will, Jada Pinkett, and Jaden Smith?

A week ago, Natasha Richardson was flirting around the edges of fame. For most, her name elicited a vague "Yeah, seems familiar," but then they couldn't quite place her. Her photograph might have recalled any beautiful, if icy, blond actress of a certain pedigree. Today, she is everywoman - wife, mother, sister, daughter. Dead at 45 in the most capricious of ways. She was not hot-dogging down a triple-black-diamond slope when death tapped her on the shoulder. No, she was on the bunny hill, on a spring-break trip with one of her two sons.

Broadway salutes Richardson Broadway theaters dimmed their lights Thursday night in tribute to actor Natasha Richardson, 45, who died Wednesday. The tribute featured Richardson's husband, Liam Neeson; her mother, Vanessa Redgrave; her sister, Joely; and actors Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker and Ron Rifkin. Sam Mendes, who directed Richardson in the '98 revival of Cabaret, said "it defies belief that this gifted, brave, tenacious, wonderful woman is gone. " No details on the funeral.

How can someone fall and hit her head on a beginner's ski slope, seem to be OK at first, and then die two days later? Such dire consequences are unusual. But given the wrong set of circumstances, the sort of traumatic head injury suffered by actress Natasha Richardson can be fatal, experts said. Her condition - an epidural hematoma, according to an autopsy released yesterday - can also be successfully treated with prompt surgery. And it can be prevented entirely by using a helmet.

Natasha Richardson, 45, the Tony Award-winning actress and member of the fourth generation of England's Redgrave theater dynasty, was declared dead last night at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital. The radiant beauty, who electrified Broadway in Cabaret and charmed moviegoers in The Parent Trap, suffered a fatal head trauma during a skiing lesson Monday in Quebec. Alan Nierob, the Los Angeles-based publicist for her husband, actor Liam Neeson, confirmed her death in a written statement.

A defining moment in A Streetcar Named Desire finds Stanley Kowalski eavesdropping as Blanche DuBois heaps disdainful anger on his loutish ways. "He's like an animal," Blanche (Natasha Richardson) tells her sister Stella (Amy Ryan), Stanley's wife and a target of his brutality. On the other side of the curtain that affords such scant privacy in the cramped two-room apartment in New Orleans stands John C. Reilly in the heart of a disappointing production. When director Edward Hall - who did an acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last season - chose Reilly for the revival of Tennessee Williams' masterwork, eyebrows shot skyward.

A funky shamble down the bleak, too-bright corridors of New York's storied Chelsea Hotel, Ethan Hawke's Chelsea Walls is a hipster paean to the rundown palace on West 23d Street where the likes of Mark Twain, Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas once hung their hats. Set in a romantically bohemian here and now, the film - shot on digital and featuring a fine, folky collection of songs mostly from Jeff Tweedy of Wilco - follows a ragtag assortment of dreamers, drunks, poets and poseurs as they dream, drink, poeticize and pose.

Blow Dry is one more reminder that when it comes to movies, the English love an underdog. Admittedly, Blow Dry - written by Simon Beaufoy, who penned The Full Monty - is formulaic. But it's a formula that has yielded some diverting films, and Beaufoy has the good sense to return to the North of England, an ideal setting for us-vs.-them comedy. This time the arena is the National British Hairdressing Championships, a competition whose preposterous styles are matched only by the seething animosity of the rival snippers.

It's reassuring to this well-fed Tattle to learn we're not the only ones concerned about that bony "Ally McBeal" star, Calista Flockhart. Staffers at Entertainment Weekly magazine, alarmed by Flockhart's gaunt frame, reportedly insisted the actress pile on some sweaters when she arrived to pose for photos in this week's issue. The New York Daily News says stylists at the mag - used to dealing with the most willowy of stars - were positively alarmed by Flockhart's concentration-camp silhouette, and tried to cover it up a bit. (The magazine gallantly contends that Flockhart selected her own wardrobe for the photo shoot.