This week, Sylvia Plath and Scientology.

To what extent do artists give up their lives to the public? Sylvia (co-produced by the BBC) details the tortured, passionate relationship of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Their daughter, Frieda, has been very outspoken in her opposition. She even wrote a protest poem, My Mother, detailing her upset: “Now they want to make a film/For anyone lacking the ability/To imagine the body, head in oven/Orphaning children”. And Hughes famously held his silence about the relationship, breaking it only near the end of his life with the publication of Birthday Letters – he was also reportedly against a dramatization of his life.

Still, the film went forward with the cooperation of many of Ted and Sylvia’s friends and acquaintances, to produce a somewhat simplistic biopic that is careful to vilify neither one of the doomed couple. Directed by Christine Jeffs, Sylvia has all the lyricism of her debut, Rain, but, despite fine performances from Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig, somehow fails to transcend the realm of tragic true story.

You know all those crazy things they say about Scientology and Hollywood? How all of Tom Cruise’s relationships are arranged by the cult and certain actors travel everywhere with their “advisors”? It looks like devoted Scientologist John Travolta has gone one further, bringing his own L Ron Hubbarb-lovin’ prop crew to the set of The Punisher, the new movie based on a Marvel Comics series that he’s shooting in Tampa, Florida. Word from the set is that none of the regular crew is allowed to touch anything that Travolta might possibly touch. Makes those stories about Stallone’s aversion to eye contact seem almost sweet by comparison. Jade Chang 26 September 03

useful link: www.punisherthemovie.com