#477. Cannes Film Festival 2009: who's in line for the Palme d’Or and the winners

Which films are in competition for the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival?

1. A l’origine (by Xavier Giannoli)
Italian director reunites with Gerard Depardieu, star of Cannes -anointed The Singer (2006)

2. Antichrist (by Lars von Trier)
An apt title for a film the Danish director who delights in provoking and wrong-footing audiences here working with Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg

3. Bright Star (by Jane Campion)
Director of Palme d’Or-winning The Piano returns with romance about love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne.

4. Fish Tank (by Andrea Arnold)
Eagerly-awaited follow-up to British director’s gripping surveillance thriller Red Road.

5. Inglourious Basterds (by Quentin Tarantino)
Brad Pit and Samuel L. Jackston star in this heady thrill-a-thon about Jewish-American soldiers hellbent on mutilating Nazis in occupied France.

6. Kinatai (by Brillante Mendoza)
The Filipino director is not well known in the UK yet, but broad-minded cinephiles will be eager to see his follow to last year’s terrific Serbis.

7. Looking for Eric (by Ken Loach)
Long-time Bath FC fan hooks up with philosophically-inclined Gallic kung-fu master

8. Les Herbes folles (by Alain Resnais)
A new departure for the seminal New Wave auteur who is nearly 90: he makes a film based on a literary novel – based on the rules of flying

9. Los Abrazos Rotos (by Pedro Almodovar)
The flamboyant Spaniard, a long-time Cannes favourite, reworks classic American noir in this heady romance starring Penelope Cruz

10. Map of the Sound of Tokyo (by Isabel Coixet)
The well-regarded Spanish director creates a mood-symphony to the Japanese city that features a motley cast of impresarios, hit women and sound engineers.

11. Un prophète (by Jacques Audiard)
This Corsican gang thriller by the director of the well-received The Beat That My Heart Skipped could be a surprise winner.

12. Soudain le vide (by Gaspar Noe)
Strippers, maiming, Tokyo: shock-meister Noe is back with another round of nightmare cinema.

13. Spring Fever (by Lou Ye)
Return of Chinese director banned from making movies by the Chinese government after his last film Summer Palace screened at Cannes without permission.

14. Taking Woodstock (by Ang Lee)
Chameleonic Lee, a master chronicler of time and place, evokes the heady spirit of late-60s America

15. Thirst (by Park Chan-Wook)
A failed medical experiment turns a clergyman into a vampire: the South Korean king of visceral thrills is back!

16. The Time That Remains (by Elia Suleiman)
Divine Intervention won him the Jury Prize in 2002; here Suleiman draws on his own biography for this wide-reaching tale following a Palestinian family from 1948 to the present.

17. Vengeance (by Johnnie To)
The Hong Kong thriller director – this time of a drama starring Johnny Hallyday as French assassin turned chef – is inexplicably popular with the Cannes selection committee.

18. Vincere (by Marco Bellocchio)
Historical drama from Italy about the relationship between Benito Mussolini and his first wife.

19. Visages (by Tsai Ming-Liang)
The Taiwanese director, beloved by international festivals, pays homage to the Nouvelle Vague in this complex story set in the Louvre’s royal apartments

20. The White Ribbon (by Michael Haneke)
Jury President Isabelle Huppert, who starred in the Austrian moralist’s The Piano Teacher, may look kindly on his characteristically forensic study of fascism and education.

Here is a list of the main winners from the Cannes Film festival together with short descriptions of the winning films.

1. Palme D’Or
“The White Ribbon” directed by Austrian Michael Haneke. A small village is rocked by a series of mysterious and cruel crimes. A group of young children are among the prime suspects.

2. Grand Prix (runner up)

- “A Prophet” directed by France’s Jacques Audiard. Malik is sentenced to six years in prison, and must use every ounce of his ingenuity to survive the dangerous rivalry between gangs.

3. Special career prize
- Veteran French director Alain Resnais. This year he presented “Wild Grass”. When Georges finds a stranger’s wallet by his car, he goes in search of the mysterious and alluring Marguerite.

4. Best actor
- Austrian Christoph Waltz for his role as a Nazi officer in Quentin Tarantino’s World War Two caper “Inglourious Basterds”, in which a group of American-Jewish soldiers gets mixed up in a plot to kill the leaders of the Third Reich, including Hitler.

5. Best actress
- Charlotte Gainsbourg for “Antichrist” directed by Denmark’s Lars Von Trier. She and Willem Dafoe play a couple whose son dies in an accident. Events spiral out of control when they go to an isolated cabin to try to recover.

6. Best director
- “Kinatay” directed by Filipino Brillante Mendoza. Peping, a criminology student, joins his friend on a mission to earn some cash but regrets his decision as events turn sour.

7.Best screenplay
- Mei Feng for his script on “Spring Fever” directed by China’s Lou Ye. A woman hires a man to spy on a passionate homosexual relationship her husband is involved in.

8.Jury prize (shared)

- “Fish Tank” directed by Britain’s Andrea Arnold. Mia, 15, sees her world turned upside down when her mother brings home a new boyfriend.

- “Thirst” directed by South Korean Park Chan-Wook - A priest becomes a vampire during a medical experiment and is seduced by a bored housewife bent on murder.

9.Camera D’Or (for debut film)
- “Samson and Delilah” directed by Australia’s Warwick Thornton. A romance between two teenagers that looks at the often desperate conditions faced by Australia’s Aboriginal communities.

10. Best short film
- “Arena” directed by Portuguese director Joao Salaviza.

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#331. 'Tokyo Sonata' best film at Asian Film Awards

HONG KONG – Japanese cinema has dominated the third Asian Film Awards, with "Tokyo Sonata" winning best picture and Hirokazu Koreeda named best director for another family drama, "Still Walking." Riding on the success of its recent best foreign film win at the Oscars, a third Japanese movie, "Departures," clinched best actor at Monday night's ceremony for Masahiro Motoki, who played an unemployed cellist who learns how to prepare bodies for burial.

China's Zhou Xun was named best actress for her performance in the psychological thriller "The Equation of Love and Death.""I am very happy that Japanese film can cross borders," Koreeda told reporters backstage after his win late Monday.

All three Japanese movies revolve around family relationships. "Tokyo Sonata" describes the breakdown of a family after the father loses his job; "Still Walking" follows a family reunion to honor the death of the eldest son; in "Departures," Motoki's character comes to terms with the death of his absentee father."Tokyo Sonata" director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who is not related to famed late Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, said his movie is reflective of family problems in Japan.

Kurosawa said he wanted to convey through the movie that "you can never abandon hope, no matter how little hope there is."

Koreeda, who received his award from "Platoon" director Oliver Stone and "The Last Emperor" star Joan Chen, told reporters backstage "Still Walking" was a personal film because he made it after his mother passed away, but said he enjoyed the shoot because he was pleased with the cast.

"I only have fond memories of the shoot. It was always happy moments," Koreeda said.

Motoki, who received his trophy from Oscar winner William Hurt and producer Arthur Cohn, said the theme of death in "Departures" was universal.

"It's not just about the negative aspects of death. It's also about how you can accept death in a peaceful way and move on positively," he said.

Chinese actress Zhou said she prepared for her role by asking her boyfriend not visit her on set so she could feel lonely, adding that she had a hard time withdrawing from the character.

"I felt a great sense of loss after finishing the movie," she told reporters backstage.

Adding to the event's pan-Asian flavor, trade publication The Hollywood Reporter presented the Nielsen Box Office Award to 25-year-old Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra. The former Miss World enjoyed a sizzling 2008, which saw her in six releases, including two of the year's biggest hits — "Fashion" and "Dostana."

Jung Woo-sung won best supporting actor for the South Korean western "The Good, the Bad, the Weird" and the best supporting actress prize went to Filipino Gina Pareno for "Service."

A tearful Wei Te-sheng received the Edward Yang New Talent Award from Yang's widow Kaili Peng. Wei, who used to work for the late Taiwanese director, became an overnight sensation after the box office success of the Taiwanese romance "Cape No. 7."

Retired Taiwanese actress Brigitte Lin made a rare public appearance to present the Asian Film Award for Outstanding Contribution to Asian Cinema to veteran Hong Kong director Tsui Hark and his wife, producer Nansun Shi, who were honored for the work of their production house Film Workshop Co.

Source : Ap Entertainment Writer – Tue Mar 24, 6:28 am ET

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#169. China cuts Steven Spielberg's appearance at Academy Awards

New York, Feb 27 : It seems film director Steven Spielberg's refusal to act as artistic adviser during the Beijing Olympic Games has not been forgotten by the Chinese, for censors in the country cut his appearance at the Academy Awards.It happened when the Oscars ceremony was re-aired in the Far East 12 hours later, and Spielberg announced the nominees for Best Picture and the winner, 'Slumdog Millionaire', reports the New York Post.

Chinese viewers saw their screens suddenly cut to the beaming 'Slumdog' crew without any build-up, and insiders say that it was done as a revenge for his refusal to help at the Olympics.Spielberg had refused to take part because China buys oil from the Sudanese Government, whom he considered responsible for the genocide in Darfur.

More than 200,000 have been killed and 2.5 million made homeless in the conflict between Arab Janjaweed forces, supported by the government, and Christian villagers in the country's south. ANI)

Source :
Malaysia Sun
Friday 27th February, 2009
(ANI)

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#143. Will Brit Film Biz Get A Post Oscars Lift?

3:50am UK,
Tuesday February 24, 2009
Jon Gripton, In Hollywood


A war of words has broken out between Britain and the US, after Slumdog Millionaire and Kate Winslet led the UK film industry to its best night at the Oscars for years.
Slumdog director Boyle: "It's just one film". It was back in 1982 that Chariots of Fire scriptwriter Colin Welland famously warned Hollywood that the "Brits are coming."

Well now they are here in force, but a senior industry figure has accused the big American studios of damaging British film-making. Peter Carlton, chief commissioning editor at Channel 4 films, has hit out at distribution deals that gave little or nothing back to independent film financiers.

“They (the studios) make sure they’re the first in line for the profits. And the second and third in line as well. It’s damaging to the whole British film industry,” he told The Times.

At a Hollywood post-Oscars lunch hosted by the UK Film Council to celebrate the achievements of British Academy winners and nominees, the mood was more positive about the future, in spite of the economic downturn.

"This year's Oscars is good news, great news, for British film making," said Chris Corbould, nominated for best visual effects for his work in The Dark Knight.

Himesh Kar, a senior executive of the UK Film Council New Cinema Fund, said: "We lead the world in creative talent, and these Oscars are very good for every facet of our film industry.

"They are really important for the way we are perceived: and America is no longer the key. Yes it is important, but so is the rest of the world."

Slumdog Millionaire, by way of example, has a British director, writer and producers, but was shot in Mumbai with a largely Indian cast.

A new film backed by the New Cinema Fund, White Lightnin', was shot in Croatia.

And Nexus Productions, which made Oscar nominated animated short film This Way Up are using the Oscars season to generate new ideas and new business while they are in Hollywood.

"The nomination gives us credibility and is already opening doors for us," said producer Charlotte Bavasso,

"Britain needs these breakout films to show the international film industry that there is a huge appetite and audience for independent British film," said Tessa Ross, controller of Slumdog producer Film4.

Cinema attendance in Britain rose last year, thanks in part to the smash Mamma Mia! But the number of feature films made in the country fell 10 percent to 111.

And with the economy in recession things won't improve anytime soon, even with 11 British Oscars on the country's mantelpiece.

Dan Jolin, features editor of movie magazine Empire, said the global economic downturn was hitting producers, especially independents, who are finding it tough to get bank loans and other financing.

"It's great that a film by a Mancunian director shot in Mumbai with a cast of unknowns can triumph," he said. "But I think the reality is the British film industry isn't in fantastic shape at the moment."

Slumdog director Danny Boyle has urged calm and realism after the euphoric night in Hollywood's Kodak Theatre.

"You’ve got to be careful of claiming that this marks the renaissance of the British film industry. It is one film," he said.

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#142. Slumdog rules

Tuesday February 24, 2009
The Star
DAVID GERMAIN


The ‘rags-to-rajah’ tale of Mumbai’s slums took home eight Oscars.
Slumdog Millionaire took the best-picture Academy Award and seven other Oscars, including director for Danny Boyle, whose ghetto-to-glory story paralleled the film’s unlikely rise to Hollywood’s summit.

The other top winners: Kate Winslet, best actress for the Holocaust-themed drama The Reader; Sean Penn, best actor for the title role of Milk; Heath Ledger, supporting actor for The Dark Knight; and Penelope Cruz, supporting actress for Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

A story of hope amid squalor in Mumbai, India, Slumdog Millionaire came in with 10 nominations, its eight wins including adapted screenplay, cinematography, editing and both music Oscars (score and song).

“Just to say to Mumbai, all of you who helped us make the film and all of those of you who didn’t, thank you very much. You dwarf even this guy,” Boyle said, holding up his directing Oscar.

The filmmakers accepted the best-picture trophy surrounded by both the adult professional actors who appeared among the cast of relative unknowns and some of the children the British director cast from the slums of Mumbai.

The film follows the travails and triumphs of Jamal, an orphan who artfully dodges a criminal gang that mutilates children to make them more pitiable beggars. Jamal witnesses his mother’s violent death, endures police torture and struggles with betrayal by his brother, while single-mindedly hoping to reunite with the lost love of his childhood. Fate rewards Jamal, whose story unfolds through flashbacks as he recalls how he came to know the answers that made him a champion on India’s version of the TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

As he took the stage to accept his prize for playing slain gay-rights pioneer Harvey Milk, Penn gleefully told the crowd: “You commie, homo-loving sons of guns.”

He followed with condemnation of anti-gay protesters who demonstrated near the Oscar site and comments about California’s recent vote to ban gay marriage.

Penn said: “We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone.”

For his demented reinvention of Batman villain the Joker, Ledger became only the second actor ever to win posthumously, his triumph coming exactly 13 months after the Australian actor’s death from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.

His Oscar for the Warner Bros. blockbuster was accepted by Ledger’s parents and sister on behalf of the actor’sthree-year-old daughter, Matilda.

“I have to say this is ever so humbling, just being amongst such wonderful people in such a wonderful industry,” said his father, Kim Ledger. “We’d like to thank the academy for recognising our son’s amazing work, Warner Bros, and Christopher Nolan in particular for allowing Heath the creative license to develop and explore this crazy Joker character.”

Since his death, the 28-year-old Ledger has gained a mythic aura akin to James Dean, another rising star who died well before his time.

The Joker was his final completed role, a casting choice that initially drew scorn from fans who thought Ledger would not be up to the task given Jack Nicholson’s gleefully campy rendition of the character in 1989’s Batman.

In the months before Ledger’s death, buzz on his wickedly chaotic performance swelled as marketing for the movie centered on the Joker and the perverted clown makeup he hid behind.

Ledger’s death fanned a frenzy of anticipation for The Dark Knight, which had a record US$158.4mil opening weekend last summer.

The previous posthumous Oscar recipient was the British-Australian actor Peter Finch, who won best actor for 1976’s Network two months after his death.

Cruz triumphed as a woman in a steamy three-way affair with her ex-husband and an American woman in Woody Allen’s romance.

“Has anybody ever fainted here? Because I might be the first one,” the Spanish actress said, who went on with warm thanks to Allen. “Thank you, Woody, for trusting me with this beautiful character. Thank you for having written all these years some of the greatest characters for women.”

“OK, that fainting thing, Penelope,” Winslet joked later as she accepted her best-actress prize for The Reader, in which the British actress plays a former German concentration camp guard in an affair with a teen. “I’d be lying if I haven’t made a version of this speech before. I think I was probably eight years old and staring into the bathroom mirror, and this would be a shampoo bottle. But it’s not a shampoo bottle now.”

It was Winslet’s first win after five previous losses.

British Slumdog writer Simon Beaufoy, who adapted the script from Indian Vikas Swarup’s novel Q&A, said there are places he never could imagine being.

“For me, it’s the moon, the South Pole, the Miss World podium, and here,” Beaufoy said.

The epic love story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which led with 13 nominations, had three wins, for visual effects, art direction and makeup.

The Dark Knight had a second win, for sound editing.

Milk writer Dustin Lance Black offered an impassioned tribute to Milk in accepting the Oscar for original screenplay.

Japan’s Departures, a film about a man who prepares bodies for burial, won the Oscar for best foreign-language film in an upset over the favoured Israeli nominee Waltz with Bashir.

“This is a new departure for me,” director Yojiro Takita said while accepting the award. “And we’ll be back, I hope.”

Man on Wire, James Marsh’s examination of French tight-rope walker Philippe Petit’s dazzling stroll between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974, was chosen as best documentary.

The acting categories were presented by five past winners of the same awards, among them last year’s actress winners, Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton, plus Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Kevin Kline, Sophia Loren, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLaine and Robert De Niro.

It was a much different style for the Oscars as each past recipient offered personal tributes to one of the nominees, without clips of the nominated performances. Awards usually are done in chit-chat style between a couple of celebrity presenters.

After last year’s Oscars delivered their worst TV ratings ever, producers this time aimed to liven up the show with some surprises and new ways of presenting awards. Rather than hiring a comedian such as past hosts Jon Stewart or Chris Rock, the producers went with Australian actor and song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman, who has been host of Broadway’s Tony Awards.

Instead of the usual standup routine, Jackman did an engaging musical number to open the show, saluting nominated films with a clever tribute.

Jackman later did a medley staged by his Australia director Baz Luhrmann with such performers as Beyonce Knowles and High School Musical stars Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron.

Slumdog Millionaire went into the evening after a run of prizes from earlier film honours. The film nearly got lost in the shuffle as Warner Bros. folded its art-house banner, Warner Independent, which had been slated to distribute Slumdog Millionaire. It was rescued from the direct-to-video scrap heap when Fox Searchlight stepped in to release the film.

Slumdog composer A.R. Rahman, a dual Oscar winner for the score and song, said the movie was about “optimism and the power of hope.”

“All my life, I’ve had a choice of hate and love,” the Indian film composer said. “I chose love, and I’m here.” – AP

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#141. Lakonan 3 terbaik

24hb Februari, 2009
Harian Metro
Norhadiani Baharom
yanie@hmetro.com.my


BINTANG yang mencipta nama melalui filem Titanic, Kate Winslet, 33, sekali lagi menepati ramalan apabila berjaya meraih anugerah Aktres Terbaik di Anugerah Academy ke-81 yang berlangsung di Kodak Theatre, Los Angeles, semalam. Mempertaruhkan lakonan cemerlangnya menerusi filem The Reader, Kate sebelum ini pernah melakar kejayaan dalam kategori sama menerusi filem Revolutionary Road, melalui Anugerah Golden Globe ke-66 dan Bafta yang turut dianjurkan baru-baru ini.

Kejayaan Kate itu sekali gus mengetepikan calon finalis hebat lain iaitu Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Angelina Jolie (Changeling) dan Melissa Leo (Frozen River). termasuk Meryl Streep yang mempersembahkan lakonan cukup berkesan menerusi filem Doubt.

Kehadiran Meryl dianggap pencabar terdekat Kate memandangkan keberkesanan pelakon 'senior' yang pernah dicalonkan dalam Anugerah Academy sebanyak 15 kali.

Kate menerima trofi kemenangannya yang disampaikan lima daripada 80 pemenang Aktres Terbaik Anugerah Academy antaranya Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, Shirley MacKaine, Marion Cotillard dan Halle Berry.

Bagi kategori lelaki, bintang utama filem romantik cinta epik The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Brad Pitt yang disebut-sebut mempunyai peluang cerah untuk membawa pulang trofi Aktor Terbaik terpaksa akur dengan keputusan juri yang berpihak kepada aktor versatil, Sean Penn.

Bekas suami kepada penghibur antarabangsa, Madonna, yang dikenali sebagai pelakon berkarakter itu memberi persembahan cemerlang menerusi filem Milk sebagai pejuang politik yang mempunyai kecenderungan dalam hubungan sejenis.

Selain Brad Pitt, Sean Penn berjaya mengetepikan Richard Jenkins yang membintangi The Visitor, Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon) dan Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler).

Anugerah berprestij yang dihoskan buat pertama kali oleh pelakon kelahiran Australia, Hugh Jackman, sudah pasti menjadi malam paling bermakna buat pengarah Slumdog Millionaire iaitu Danny Boyle yang dipilih sebagai Pengarah Terbaik serta seisi pelakon dan tenaga produksi yang terbabit.

Filem bajet rendah yang menerima 10 pencalonan itu merangkul lapan anugerah dan diiktiraf sebagai Filem Terbaik.

Ini termasuk tujuh lagi anugerah iaitu Skor Muzik Terbaik, Lagu Terbaik, Suntingan Filem Terbaik, Sinematografi Terbaik, Skrip Terbaik, Lakon Layar Adaptasi Terbaik dan Adunan Bunyi.

Filem mengisahkan seorang budak lelaki yatim piatu di Mumbai yang membesar dengan penuh kepayahan namun, kehidupannya berubah selepas memenangi program gameshow Who Wants To Be A Millionaire versi India, sebelum ini pernah memenangi 11 anugerah peringkat antarabangsa.

Tujuh daripadanya, termasuk Filem Terbaik digondol menerusi British Academy Film Awards (Bafta). Manakala Filem Terbaik, Pengarah Terbaik, Lakon Layar Terbaik dan Skor Muzik Terbaik diperoleh ketika menyertai Anugerah Golden Globe ke-66.

Sementara itu, filem The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button arahan David Fincher yang mendapat 13 pencalonan sekadar meraih tiga anugerah, Kesan Visual Terbaik, Pengarah Seni dan Mekap Terbaik.

Majlis dilimpahi kilauan cahaya dan diadakan dalam suasana cukup meriah dan berprestij itu, bagaimanapun bertukar menjadi sayu tatkala ibu, bapa dan adik kepada mendiang, Heath Ledger, naik ke pentas.

Bagi menerima trofi Aktor Pembantu Terbaik yang dimenangi pelakon muda berbakat itu menerusi filem Batman-The Dark Knight.

Kemenangannya itu, memahatkan sejarah menjadi aktor kedua selepas Peter Finch yang menerima Oscar untuk filem Network pada 1976 selepas kematiannya.

Pelakon dan model jelita kelahiran Sepanyol, Penelope Cruz mengungguli kategori Aktres Pembantu Terbaik.

Penghormatan turut diberikan kepada pelakon, pengarah, penulis dan penerbit, Jerry Lewis yang diperkenalkan menerusi siri My Friend Irma pada 1949 apabila menerima anugerah khas 'The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian'.

Pemberian trofi ini dinilai berdasarkan kejayaan peribadi dan sumbangan pelakon atau penggiat seni kepada masyarakat.

Jerry Lewis yang turut dikenali sebagai pelakon komedi cukup aktif dalam -persatuan kebajikan dan kemanusiaan khususnya membabitkan kanak-kanak.

Atur cara malam itu dihangatkan lagi dengan persembahan Beyonce Knowles, John Legend dan Queen Latifah.



KEPUTUSAN ANUGERAH ACADEMY KE-81



1. Filem Terbaik - Slumdog Millionaire



2. Pengarah Terbaik - Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)



3. Aktor Terbaik - Sean Penn (Milk)



4. Aktres Terbaik - Kate Winslet (The Reader)



5. Aktor Pembantu - Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)



6. Aktres Pembantu - Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)



7. Filem Luar Terbaik - Departures (Jepun)



8. Filem Animasi Terbaik - WALL-E



9. Lakon Layar Adaptasi - Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire



10. Lakon Layar Asal Terbaik - Dustin Lance Black (Milk)



11. Pengarahan Seni - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button



12. Sinematografi - Slumdog Millionaire



14. Suntingan Bunyi - Slumdog Millionaire



15. Suntingan Terbaik - Slumdog Millionaire."



16. Skor Asal Terbaik - A R Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire)



17. Lagu Asal Terbaik - Jai Ho (A.R. Rahman dan Gulzar/Slumdog Millionaire)



18. Mekap Terbaik - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

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#138. Tercapai impian

24HB FEBRUARI, 2009
BERITA HARIAN
Farihad Shalla Mahmud
farihad@bharian.com.my



Selepas lima kali dicalonkan baru sekarang Kate Winslet menggenggam trofi Oscar bagi Aktres Terbaik

TANPA perlu membariskan pelakon popular dan dikategorikan sebagai filem murah, Slumdog Millionaire mengulangi kejayaan pernah diraihnya ketika Anugerah Golden Globe ke-66 dan British Academy Film Awards (Bafta) yang lalu apabila dinobatkan sebagai Filem Terbaik Anugerah Academy ke-81 yang berlangsung dalam suasana penuh gilang gemilang di Kodak Theatre, Los Angeles, semalam.

Malah, filem arahan David Boyle itu berjaya mengungguli lapan anugerah daripada sepuluh kategori dipertandingkan malam itu. Selain dipilih filem terbaik, Boyle diiktiraf sebagai pengarah terbaik dan filem Slumdog Millionaire dilengkapi Lakon Layar Adaptasi, Skor Asal Muzik, Sinematografi Terbaik, Lagu Terbaik, Adunan Muzik Terbaik dan Suntingan Terbaik.

Kemenangan besar filem yang berkisar mengenai kehidupan seorang budak lelaki yatim piatu dan miskin di Mumbai yang kehidupannya berubah apabila dia memenangi program gameshow Who Wants To Be A Millionaire versi India itu bukan sesuatu yang mengejutkan, malah memang disebut-sebut bakal memang besar pada malam itu berdasarkan komen diberikan kebanyakan karyawan seni di Hollywood.

Kemarau penantian Kate Winslet yang lima kali dicalonkan dalam Golden Globe begitu juga untuk Anugerah Academy berakhir apabila wanita berusia 34 tahun ini akhirnya berjaya juga menggenggam trofi Oscar bagi kategori Aktres Terbaik.

Kate yang diiktiraf bagi peranannya sebagai bekas tahanan kem Nazi dalam filem The Reader kelihatan cukup terharu apabila namanya diumumkan sebagai Aktres Terbaik. Dia mengetepikan empat aktres hebat lain iaitu Meryl Streep (Doubt), Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Angelina Jolie (Changeling) dan Melissa Leo (Frozen River).

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#137. Slumdog scores big at the Oscar

23th February, 2009
The Star

LOS ANGELES: Slumdog Millionaire took the best-picture Academy Award and seven other Oscars, including director for Danny Boyle, whose ghetto-to-glory story paralleled the film’s unlikely rise to Hollywood’s summit.

The other top winners: Kate Winslet, best actress for the Holocaust-themed drama The Reader; Sean Penn, best actor for the title role of Milk; Heath Ledger, supporting actor for The Dark Knight; and Penelope Cruz, supporting actress for Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

A story of hope amid squalor in Mumbai, India, Slumdog Millionaire came in with 10 nominations, its eight wins including adapted screenplay, cinematography, editing and both music Oscars (score and song).

“Just to say to Mumbai, all of you who helped us make the film and all of those of you who didn’t, thank you very much. You dwarf even this guy,” Boyle said, holding up his directing Oscar.

The filmmakers accepted the best-picture trophy surrounded by both the adult professional actors who appeared among the cast of relative unknowns and some of the children the British director cast from the slums of Mumbai.

The film follows the travails and triumphs of Jamal, an orphan who artfully dodges a criminal gang that mutilates children to make them more pitiable beggars.

Jamal witnesses his mother’s violent death, endures police torture and struggles with betrayal by his brother, while single-mindedly hoping to reunite with the lost love of his childhood.

Fate rewards Jamal, whose story unfolds through flashbacks as he recalls how he came to know the answers that made him a champion on India’s version of the TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

As he took the stage to accept his prize for playing slain gay-rights pioneer Harvey Milk, Penn gleefully told the crowd: “You commie, homo-loving sons of guns.”

He followed with condemnation of anti-gay protesters who demonstrated near the Oscar site and comments about California’s recent vote to ban gay marriage.

“For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think it’s a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect on their great shame and their shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that support,” Penn said. “We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone.”

For his demented reinvention of Batman villain the Joker, Ledger became only the second actor ever to win posthumously, his triumph coming exactly 13 months after the Australian actor’s death from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.

His Oscar for the Warner Bros. blockbuster was accepted by Ledger’s parents and sister on behalf of the actor’s three-year-old daughter, Matilda.

“I have to say this is ever so humbling, just being amongst such wonderful people in such a wonderful industry,” said his father, Kim Ledger.

“We’d like to thank the academy for recognising our son’s amazing work, Warner Bros., and Christopher Nolan in particular for allowing Heath the creative licence to develop and explore this crazy Joker character.”

Since his death, the 28-year-old Ledger has gained a mythic aura akin to James Dean, another rising star who died well before his time.

The Joker was his final completed role, a casting choice that initially drew scorn from fans who thought Ledger would not be up to the task given Jack Nicholson’s gleefully campy rendition of the character in 1989’s Batman.

In the months before Ledger’s death, buzz on his wickedly chaotic performance swelled as marketing for the movie centred on the Joker and the perverted clown makeup he hid behind.

Ledger’s death fanned a frenzy of anticipation for The Dark Knight, which had a record US$158.4mil opening weekend last summer.

The previous posthumous Oscar recipient was the British-Australian actor Peter Finch, who won best actor for 1976’s Network two months after his death.

Cruz triumphed as a woman in a steamy three-way affair with her ex-husband and an American woman in Woody Allen’s romance.

“Has anybody ever fainted here? Because I might be the first one,” the Spanish actress said, who went on with warm thanks to Allen.

“Thank you, Woody, for trusting me with this beautiful character. Thank you for having written all these years some of the greatest characters for women.”

“OK, that fainting thing, Penelope,” Winslet joked later as she accepted her best-actress prize for The Reader, in which the British actress plays a former German concentration camp guard in an affair with a teen.

“I’d be lying if I haven’t made a version of this speech before. I think I was probably eight years old and staring into the bathroom mirror, and this would be a shampoo bottle. But it’s not a shampoo bottle now.”

It was Winslet’s first win after five previous losses.

British Slumdog writer Simon Beaufoy, who adapted the script from Indian Vikas Swarup’s novel Q&A, said there are places he never could imagine being.

“For me, it’s the moon, the South Pole, the Miss World podium, and here,” Beaufoy said.

The epic love story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which led with 13 nominations, had three wins, for visual effects, art direction and makeup.

The Dark Knight had a second win, for sound editing.

Milk writer Dustin Lance Black offered an impassioned tribute to Milk in accepting the Oscar for original screenplay.

“If Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he would want me to say to all the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told they are less than by the churches, by the government, by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value, and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours,” Black said.

Japan’s Departures, a film about a man who prepares bodies for burial, won the Oscar for best foreign-language film in an upset over the favoured Israeli nominee Waltz With Bashir.

“This is a new departure for me,” director Yojiro Takita said while accepting the award. “And we’ll be back, I hope.”

Man on Wire, James Marsh’s examination of French tight-rope walker Philippe Petit’s dazzling stroll between the towers of the World Trade Centre in 1974, was chosen as best documentary.

The acting categories were presented by five past winners of the same awards, among them last year’s actress winners, Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton, plus Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Kevin Kline, Sophia Loren, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLaine and Robert De Niro.

It was a much different style for the Oscars as each past recipient offered personal tributes to one of the nominees, without clips of the nominated performances. Awards usually are done in chit-chat style between a couple of celebrity presenters.

After last year’s Oscars delivered their worst TV ratings ever, producers this time aimed to liven up the show with some surprises and new ways of presenting awards. Rather than hiring a comedian such as past hosts Jon Stewart or Chris Rock, the producers went with Australian actor and song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman, who has been host of Broadway’s Tony Awards.

Instead of the usual standup routine, Jackman did an engaging musical number to open the show, saluting nominated films with a clever tribute.

Jackman later did a medley staged by his Australia director Baz Luhrmann with such performers as Beyonce Knowles and High School Musical stars Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron.

Slumdog Millionaire went into the evening after a run of prizes from earlier film honors.

The film nearly got lost in the shuffle as Warner Bros. folded its art-house banner, Warner Independent, which had been slated to distribute Slumdog Millionaire. It was rescued from the direct-to-video scrap heap when Fox Searchlight stepped in to release the film.

Slumdog composer A.R. Rahman, a dual Oscar winner for the score and song, said the movie was about “optimism and the power of hope.”

“All my life, I’ve had a choice of hate and love,” the Indian film composer said. “I chose love, and I’m here.” -- AP

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#136. Bold new telecast for the Oscars

Oscar fever: A photographer taking a picture of the 1934 Oscar awarded to Clark Gable for It Happened One Night at the Meet the Oscars Chicago event last week.

Expect a revamp for this year’s Oscar Awards show.

A veil of secrecy has been thrown over preparations for this year’s Oscars, with organisers hoping a sweeping revamp of the ceremony can help the show bounce back from record low ratings.One year after the 80th Academy Awards entered the record books as the least-watched Oscars in history, Hollywood is buzzing with speculation over how Sunday’s show at the Kodak Theatre is set for an overhaul.Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Sid Ganis said earlier this month that fans could expect some daring tweaks.

“It’s going to be a show that takes some bold risks,” Ganis said.

Some of the changes to the telecast’s tried-and-tested formula are public knowledge. Australian actor Hugh Jackman is to host the event in a break with the recent tradition of having a comedian act as compere. The identities of the presenters on the awards night have also been kept a secret when in previous years the Academy revealed presenters in the weeks building up to the ceremony.

The choice of Jackman as host, and the fact that the telecast will be produced by Bill Condon and Laurence Mark, the team behind 2006 musical Dreamgirls, hints that the emphasis will be on “show” rather than “business”.

Jackman earned rave reviews for his singing and dancing hosting of the Tony Awards from 2003-2005, and hinted that viewers could expect more of the same in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly magazine.

“It’s too early to give details, but it’s fair to say there’s going to be singing and dancing. The fact that they’ve hired me is a sign they’re taking a different route,” Jackman said. Jackman also hinted the show was likely to be shorter than the usual three-hour extravaganza.

“I love the Oscars but there’s no doubt they’re too long,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a person on the planet who doesn’t feel that way.”

The apparent willingness to streamline the show has not found favour with everyone however. Veteran British singer Peter Gabriel, nominated in the best song category, revealed last week he had scrapped plans to sing at the Oscars after discovering that his performance had been slashed to 65 seconds.

Instead of a full rendition of Down to Earth from hit animated movie Wall-E, Gabriel said he had been told that he would only be part of a medley with his two fellow nominees.

“I do think it’s a bit unfortunate because songwriters, even though they’re a small part of the whole film-making process, still work bloody hard, and I think deserve a place in the ceremony as well,” Gabriel said.

In previous years, music nominated in the best song category has been performed live on Oscars night. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences was not immediately available for comment.

Whether the revamped ceremony is able to entice more viewers remains to be seen. Lew Harris, a consultant to the website hollywood.com, suggested that moves to keep changes to the show secret could backfire.

“They’re talking about surprises, the problem is, if this is true, they’re keeping it under wraps,” Harris told AFP. “This isn’t going to bring viewers to their televisions.”

“Why should people turn on the television in the first place? They need to think about the length of the telecast, they need to show more clips. They’ve got a big jump to get people to watch the show.”

Robert Thompson, a pop culture expert at Syracuse University in New York, agreed. “In the end, the Academy Awards night is really about reading a bunch of lists on films that have been recognised as superior by people within the film industry,” he said. “And then saying which one won.” – AFP

The 81st Annual Academy Awards airs live on Star Movies on Mon, Feb 23 at 9am, with a primetime encore at 8pm.

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#135. A.R. Rahman is set to score with Slumdog

20th February, 2009
The Star
CHARLES J. GANS

A.R. Rahman: "I think my philosophy of life is music is universal ... so I’m never closed to things."

Renowned Indian composer A.R. Rahman identifies with Slumdog hero.

Should A.R. Rahman win an Oscar or two on Sunday, the Indian film composer has written just the right tune for the occasion: Jai Ho, the celebratory ode sung during the Bollywood-style, song-and-dance finale of Slumdog Millionaire.

The film’s rags-to-riches plot might seem improbable, but Rahman’s own unlikely life story enables him to identify with the film’s hero – a resourceful orphan from Mumbai’s slums who becomes a celebrity when he gets a shot at winning a fortune on India’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

“I can relate to the film because I take life positively and feel that even after great depression, something good will come out,” the 43-year-old composer said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.

“Almost everything is finished for this guy but there is still hope and then he ... succeeds in the end.”

When Rahman performs his two Oscar-nominated songs, O ... Saya and Jai Ho, at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony he will be realising his own dream. A deeply spiritual man, Rahman believes that music and film have the power to bring people together across boundaries of caste, religion, nationality and race.

Rahman, who has already won a Golden Globe and British BAFTA award for his Slumdog score, says he would like to share the Oscar prize with his many fans in India and elsewhere. They have made him one of the world’s best-selling recording artistes, globally on a par with Madonna and the Rolling Stones.

With Oscar nominations for best song and original score, Rahman could wind up getting in one night as many golden statuettes as Indians have won in the Oscars’ 80-year-history. Costume designer Bhanu Athaiya won for Gandhi in 1982, and arthouse director Satyajit Ray received a lifetime achievement award in 1992.

Rahman hopes an Oscar win will make Western audiences more aware of contemporary Indian film music, much as the Beatles raised the profile of Indian classical musicians like Ravi Shankar.

“We have a different philosophy of approaching film music and I would say there’s lots to give which I always wanted to happen,” said Rahman.

The composer overcame many hurdles in going from his native Chennai (formerly Madras) in south India, where he began studying piano at age four, to the Kodak Theater for Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony.

Rahman was nine when his film composer father died, and he began to support his family at 11 as a keyboard player in an ensemble led by the prominent south Indian film composer Ilaiyaraaja.

As a teenager, he formed a rock band and also toured with such prominent Indian musicians as tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and violinist L. Shankar.

Even though he left school early, his talent won him a scholarship to London’s Trinity College of Music, where he received a degree in Western classical music.

Back in India, he was writing advertising jingles when film director Mani Ratnam asked him to compose the score for the 1992 film Roja. Rahman realised that young people like himself were bored with traditional film music and decided to experiment by introducing Western styles like reggae rarely heard on Indian soundtracks.

“I think my philosophy of life is music is universal ... so I’m never closed to things,” said Rahman. “Like some people say, ‘Oh, I hate heavy metal’, or ‘I hate jazz’. Why do you need to hate it? Why don’t you appreciate it in a certain context.”

Rahman thought of Roja as a one-shot project, but it ended up changing Indian film music. He became the first debuting film composer to win a National Film Award, India’s equivalent of the Oscar, for best music director. Time magazine critic Richard Corliss rated the Roja score among the all-time best movie soundtracks.

“I kept hearing his music and really liking it ... there was a fresh sound and a fresh approach ... and a completely different way of looking at film music,” said Rahman’s friend, the German-born film composer Hans Zimmer. “Like any good artiste, A.R. is not a traditionalist, he’s a revolutionary. He uses all the revolutionary things that come from all over the world in his stuff ... hip hop beats, electronics ... and there’s an incredible inquisitiveness and playfulness in his music.

“Plus he writes a bloody good tune,” said Zimmer, an Oscar-winner for his score to The Lion King. “He’s got the most perfect love theme (Latika’s Theme) in Slumdog Millionaire which I am incredibly envious of in a loving way.”

Rahman has composed music for more than 130 Indian films and gained recognition in the West when he wrote the score for the 2002 musical Bombay Dreams. He also wrote music for the stage adaptation of Lord of the Rings and the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

But he remained relatively unknown in the United States until the unexpected success of Slumdog. Rahman said he accepted British director Danny Boyle’s offer to write the score for the low-budget, independent film because he needed a break from Indian movies.

“This was a perfect opportunity to work with a British director with a different vision of things. He wasn’t catering to Indians but to an international audience,” said Rahman.

With the film covering a 15-year time span, Rahman composed a varied score to reflect “past India, present Indian and future India” ranging from the seductive Bollywood-style Ringa Ringa to the futuristic Mausam & Escape with its guitar-sitar blend and crashing tabla drums and synthesizers.

Boyle, who used rapper M.I.A.’s Grammy-nominated hit Paper Planes for one scene in the film, suggested that Rahman collaborate with the British-Sri Lankan hip hop artiste on O ... Saya.

The high-energy tune, mixing Rahman’s chanting and M.I.A.’s rapping, sets the tone for the scenes of children fleeing from police through Mumbai’s alleys.

Rahman says the closing Jai Ho, or Victory to You, was meant to create “a vision of the whole world celebrating this victory” by mixing Hindi lyrics and Indian pop melodies with influences from Arabic, Japanese and Spanish music.

Even before the Slumdog score started getting awards, M.I.A. – like Rahman an ethnic Tamil – made it the first release on her Interscope imprint N.E.E.T., and the CD reached the top 20 on Billboard’s album chart.

“I kind of did it because I thought it would be good for A.R. Rahman and people in India and the Tamil people to be like, ‘oh, she’s doing something for us,”’ M.I.A. said.

Rahman has been working on scores for Indian films again, and while Slumdog has led to offers from US producers, Rahman says he won’t succumb to the lure of Hollywood and abandon Bollywood.

“I can’t suddenly dump them,” said Rahman. “India is going through this huge change in the whole vision of film-making and I want to be a part of that change.” – AP

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#134. Academy's snubbing of The Dark Knight is a crime

20th February, 2009
The Star
CHRISTOPHER KELLY

It conjured up a complex and detailed alternate universe. It featured one of the most convincing portraits of wanton evil ever seen in an American film. Its vision of an upside-down political system rotting from the core struck a deep chord with moviegoers during a heated election year. It grossed more than US$500 million domestically, making it the second most successful film of all time.

Yet despite these considerable achievements, The Dark Knight failed to secure a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Five far less interesting efforts were somehow deemed more legitimate choices: the charming but slight Slumdog Millionaire; the stodgy biopic Milk; the TV-movie-of-the-week-ish Frost/Nixon; the kitschy Nazi melodrama The Reader; and the dull and soulless The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

It strikes me as one of the most egregious oversights in academy history, right up there with the similarly clueless shutouts of Do the Right Thing (1989) and Vertigo (1958). And regardless of which movie wins the Best Picture prize Sunday night (and it's almost certainly going to be Slumdog Millionaire), it's clear that the time has come for Hollywood to rethink the entire notion of an "Oscar movie."

This is not, I hasten to add, a sour grapes screed, because my personal favourite was not invited to compete for the top prize. There are a number of other movies I admired in 2008 just as much as The Dark Knight - including Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky and Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy - but I hardly regard their absence from the Best Picture category as a crime.

Quite the opposite, I've long felt that the Best Picture prize should not necessarily strive to reward "the best" movie, which is an impossible-to-quantify notion to begin with, so much as the film that managed to have the greatest artistic and cultural impact. As much as I adore the micro-budgeted Wendy and Lucy, an agonising portrait of an impoverished young woman (Michelle Williams) whose life begins to unravel after her dog goes missing, I can't pretend it sent shock waves through American multiplexes.

But The Dark Knight mattered, the way Best Picture-nominated movies from this decade like Traffic, Brokeback Mountain, Moulin Rouge and There Will Be Blood all mattered. Even if you didn't love the movie (and, frankly, I thought There Will Be Blood was a snooze), you couldn't dismiss the ambition on display or deny that this was a work that sought to expand the boundaries of the art form. A Best Picture nominee, even if it's not a perfect effort, should be something that gets moviegoers talking.

I don't hear anyone talking about Frost/Nixon, The Reader or Milk - unless it's the people who've told me that they'll probably catch all three on DVD. (Combined, these three films have thus far grossed US$63 million - or about what Paul Blart: Mall Cop made in its first ten days of release.) The cultural guardians might point to this as proof of the ongoing dumbing-down of society. But I'd argue that it's proof that American moviegoers aren't nearly as stupid as Hollywood thinks.

The Best Picture nominees this year - and the voters who propped them up - confuse good intentions for good filmmaking (Milk), serious subject matter for serious art (The Reader) and historical significance for dramatic worthiness (Frost/Nixon). I get paid to talk about them, and I have nothing to say - other than that they're boring.

(The Best Picture nominations for Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are more justifiable. The former occupies the crowd-pleasing Juno/Little Miss Sunshine slot, while Button offers a genuinely distinct, if decidedly pointless, vision.)

So why was no love shown to The Dark Knight in any of the top categories? (It did earn eight nominations, including one for the late Heath Ledger, who seems guaranteed to win the Best Supporting Actor prize). Part of it probably has to do with the academy's long-standing tradition of awarding lumbering behemoths like Gandhi over enchanting mainstream entertainments like E.T., or blanched, "socially conscious" dramas like In the Heat of the Night over groundbreaking work like Bonnie and Clyde.

But at least E.T. and Bonnie and Clyde made it to the final five in their respective years. That The Dark Knight was passed over suggests to me that Hollywood still doesn't want to accept that it's no longer capable of making the grandiose epics of yesteryear. For Oscar voters to embrace The Dark Knight would be to admit a kind of defeat - that fantasy and CGI have officially triumphed over more human efforts.

(You could argue that the Oscar success of The Lord of the Rings proves my theory wrong. But, remember, those movies had a stodgy literary source, not to mention a cast of mostly British and Australian actors - classic catnip to academy members.)

That's why The Dark Knight's exclusion runs deeper than a mere snub. It also says that the film industry no longer fully understands what it does best. (In some respects, this is the story of our times: Just consider the woes of the publishing and automotive industries.) I'll of course be watching the Oscars, and I'll probably even be glad to see Slumdog Millionaire take the prize - it's the one movie in the nominated bunch with true heart.

But at a point in history where we need all the forward-thinking we can get, the academy seems further than ever behind the curve.

- Copyright (C) 2009 MCT Information Services

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#133. Saingan hebat Pengarah Terbaik

20hb Februari, 2009
Utusan Malaysia
SHAZRYN MOHD. FAIZAL
shazryn.faizal@utusan.com.my

CEMERLANG...Danny Boyle dilihat pemerhati filem sebagai calon utama untuk memenangi kategori Pengarah Terbaik.

ANUGERAH Academy ke-81 atau Oscar semakin menghampiri ke kemuncaknya dan sudah pasti, peminat dan pemerhati filem di seluruh dunia menantikan saat ini untuk mengetahui siapakah yang bakal membawa anugerah keramat ini.Menariknya tentang Oscar, bukan sahaja pelakon yang dicalonkan sahaja menjadi sebutan tetapi dari semua sudut dalam sebuah penerbitan filem juga tidak dipandang sepi.

Baik mereka yang terlibat dalam lakon layar, rekaan busana, solekan, rekaan set, suntingan bunyi, muzik, animasi sehinggalah ke dokumentari. Semuanya diiktiraf Oscar dan memenangi Oscar sememangnya menjadi idaman karyawan seni di Hollywood.

Kategori Pengarah Terbaik juga tidak terlepas daripada pemerhatian kerana ia juga memperlihatkan kehebatan pengarah yang mencurahkan idea dan kreativiti menerusi filem arahan mereka.

Jika tanpa sentuhan sang sutradara, mustahil filem berkenaan mampu dijiwai oleh penonton selain daripada keberkesanan lakon layar yang merupakan penentu kejayaan sesebuah filem itu.

Tahun ini kategori ini menyaksikan kelima-lima pengarah filem yang dicalonkan kesemuanya mewakili lima filem yang tercalon dalam kategori Filem Terbaik.

Tidak seperti tahun-tahun sebelumnya di mana ada filem yang dicalonkan untuk Filem Terbaik tetapi pengarahnya gagal ditempatkan dalam antara lima yang terbaik.

Nama-nama hebat yang tercalon tahun ini adalah Danny Boyle yang mempamerkan kehebatannya menerusi filem Slumdog Millionaire, Stephen Daldry (The Reader), David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon) dan Gus Van Sant (Milk).

Sudah pasti, sinar kecemerlangan akan menyinari Danny yang menjadi sebutan kali ini untuk membawa pulang gelaran yang menjadi idaman ramai pengarah di Hollywood.

Golden Globe menjadi miliknya malah BAFTA juga berada kemas dalam genggamannya. Selain itu, dia turut menerima anugerah Director's Guild of America (DGA) yang sering kali menjadi penentu bagi seseorang pengarah itu untuk dinobatkan sebagai Pengarah Terbaik di Oscar.

Jadi, daripada trek rekod cemerlang itu tidak mustahil untuknya dianugerahkan dengan Oscar sekali gus melengkapi gelaran itu untuk musim anugerah tahun ini.

Namun, harus diingat. Penganjuran Oscar akan sentiasa berdepan dengan kejutan kerana calon yang diramalkan tidak semestinya akan membawa pulang anugerah tersebut.

Sebagai contoh, pada tahun 2003, Rob Marshall memenangi DGA menerusi filem Chicago manakala Martin Scorsese pula menerima Golden Globe bagi hasil kerjanya untuk filem Gangs of New York.

Sebaliknya, di Oscar, dua nama itu kecundang apabila nama Roman Polanski ditabalkan sebagai Pengarah Terbaik menerusi filem The Pianist yang ternyata telah mengejutkan ramai pihak.

Melihatkan sejarah yang pernah terlakar itu, tidak mustahil seandainya ia berulang lagi tahun ini dan jika itu berlaku, Danny nampaknya terpaksa berputih mata.

Mungkinkah juga Oscar akan menjadi milik David Fincher yang begitu menyerlah hasil seninya dalam filem hebat, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, filem yang paling banyak menerima pencalonan dalam 13 kategori.

Apatah lagi kali pertama dicalonkan, mungkin pihak akademi mahu memberinya pengiktirafan di atas hasil kerja kerasnya menghasilkan filem seindah The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Ron Howard yang pernah menerima Oscar dalam kategori ini pada tahun 2002 turut dicalonkan sekali lagi menerusi filem Frost/Nixon. Walaupun filem ini mendapat kritikan pelbagai, namun, di mata Oscar ia tetap mempunyai nilai dan sentuhannya yang tersendiri dan atas alasan itu, Ron juga mampu mencipta kejutan.

Dua calon lain iaitu Stephen Daldry dan Gus Van Sant memang bukan asing lagi dalam bidang pengarahan kerana masing-masing mempunyai pendekatan artistik dalam filem The Reader dan Milk yang diarahkan mereka.

Kalaulah mereka menang sekalipun, bukanlah sesuatu yang harus diperdebatkan kerana masing-masing sudah dikenali dengan penghasilan filem-filem yang hebat dan bermutu.

Pilihan Hits: Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire).

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#130. Era of the documentary

Thursday February 19, 2009
The Star
MARY MILLIKEN

Documentaries may come down to the Wire at the Oscars.

One man’s high-wire walk between the World Trade Center towers is so unfathomable it could seem as fictional, but the real-life feat has made Man on Wire the documentary film to beat at this year’s Oscars.

The portrayal of Frenchman Philippe Petit’s illegal 1974 adventure in New York comes to the Academy Awards loaded with prizes, most notably British Film of the Year at this month’s Bafta Awards.

Tightrope-walker Philippe Petit accepting the Best Documentary Award for Man on Wire at the 2008 National Board of Review of Motion Pictures awards gala in New York last month.

Director James Marsh said he was stunned by the Bafta award – a first for a non-fiction film – but believes Man on Wire has crossed over to the mainstream because it is less like a documentary and more like a narrative movie.

“It was really like a heist film, a thriller,” said Marsh, who reveled in the remarkable planning and obstacles that Petit’s team faced in the lead-up to the walk itself, 450m above the sidewalks of Manhattan.

Documentary filmmaker A.J. Schnack says Man on Wire is the clear favorite because, not only has it won prizes, but its box office is high for a “doc” (US$3mil in North America) and it has earned the respect of the documentary community.

“Nearly everyone I talk to really loves (it) and you don’t get that all the time in the documentary category,” said Schnack, who writes about the industry in his weblog “All These Wonderful Things.” But Schnack notes the four other films in the race have their supporters and could all be described as “dark horses” for the award at the Feb 22 show in Los Angeles.

The directors are all first-time Oscar nominees, but their films tackle very diverse issues, unlike the 2008 line-up, when war in Iraq and torture were the dominant themes.

Prolific German director Werner Herzog, an arthouse idol for films like Fitzcarraldo, is nominated with his ode to Antarctica and adventurous souls who work there in Encounters At the End of the World.

Herzog spent seven weeks at the American Antarctic research centre and found unique characters to help him narrate, such as an eloquent philosopher turned truck driver. Sweeping snowscapes and dreamy underwater camera work complete the picture.

“I had no idea who I was going to meet, I had to make contacts very quickly and I never thought I would come back with a movie,” said Herzog. “It was totally surprising it came together so easily.”

He vowed not to make a movie about “fluffy penguins”. But he does feature one lone penguin who marches away from the pack toward certain death in a heart-rending scene.

Cinematographer Ellen Kuras earned a nod for her directing debut, The Betrayal, which took 23 years to make. The film shows how US military intervention in Vietnam impacted Laos through one large family that fled to America.

Thavisouk Phrasavath, Kuras’ co-director, chronicles the breakdown of his family on the mean streets of New York.

“It is very universal,” Kuras said. “I think it has touched on people in a very personal way.”

Trouble the Water has made waves for its first-hand account of survival from Hurricane Katrina, pieced together by documentary makers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal.

They took Kimberly Roberts’ dramatic video camera footage of her and her husband’s experience during the storm and put it at the heart of the film that chronicles their evacuation and eventual return to the devastated city of New Orleans.

The Garden by Scott Hamilton Kennedy could win a portion of the local Academy votes with its tale of the battle for one of the nation’s largest community gardens, created in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Marsh says he feels uncomfortable with the front-runner status for Man on Wire, in a field he calls “very good” and reflective of an exciting direction of non-fiction film.

“This might be looked upon as a very good era for documentary making, especially in America,” said Marsh. – Reuters

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#122. Oscar milik Penelope?

17hb Februari, 2009
Utusan Malaysia
SHAZRYN MOHD. FAIZAL
shazryn.faizal@utusan.com.my



SEMALAM, Hits telah menyorot kategori Pelakon Pembantu Lelaki Terbaik yang memperlihatkan saingan dan calon-calon yang bukan sembarangan meskipun, pemenangnya bagaikan sudah boleh diramal.Hari ini, Hits akan membawa pembaca budiman untuk melihat senarai calon-calon bagi kategori Pelakon Pembantu Wanita Terbaik yang mempunyai kekuatan masing-masing.

Mereka yang bertuah kali ini adalah Amy Adams yang dicalonkan menerusi lakonannya dalam filem Doubt, Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Viola Davis (Doubt), Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) dan Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler).Agak menarik untuk memperkatakan tentang kategori ini kerana berdasarkan dua acara anugerah sebelum ini iaitu Golden Globe dan Screen Actors Guild, pemenangnya adalah Kate Winslet yang memenanginya menerusi filem The Reader.

Akan tetapi, nama Kate tidak dicalonkan untuk kategori ini memandangkan beberapa pengkritik filem telah mempersoalkan kemenangan Kate dengan mengatakan dia tidak layak dicalonkan dalam kategori pembantu.

Ini adalah kerana dalam filem The Reader, dia merupakan fokus kepada jalan cerita dan justeru itu, dia adalah watak utama dalam filem berkenaan.

Dengan tiadanya nama Kate dalam senarai ini, sudah pasti lima calon yang bertanding mampu menarik nafas lega memandangkan masing-masing mempunyai peluang yang sama rata untuk membawa pulang trofi idaman ramai itu.

Berdasarkan ulasan dan ramalan pihak pengkritik di Amerika Syarikat, Penelope dilihat sebagai calon utama untuk memenangi kategori ini. Apatah lagi, dia baru sahaja dinobatkan dengan gelaran yang sama dalam anugerah BAFTA yang baru sahaja berlangsung.

Membawakan watak sebagai Maria Elena, seorang janda yang masih terperangkap dalam hubungan yang cukup kompleks bersama bekas suaminya, lakonan Penelope dilihat cukup menarik perhatian juri untuk memilihnya sebagai pemenang.

Bersahaja namun dalam masa yang sama impak yang diberikan cukup besar dalam filem arahan Woody Allen itu, ia merupakan antara lakonan terbaik Penelope sepanjang dia bergelar pelakon.

Bukan itu sahaja, filem Vicky Cristina Barcelona telah membuktikan bahawa Penelope sememangnya seorang pelakon yang cukup berbakat dan tidak hanya mempertaruhkan kejelitaannya semata-mata.

Malah, dia juga pernah menerima pencalonan Oscar pada tahun 2006 tetapi untuk kategori Pelakon Wanita Terbaik menerusi filem Volver.

Jika bukan Penelope yang menjadi pilihan, mungkin juga Oscar akan berpihak kepada Marisa yang berjaya memberikan lakonan cemerlang dalam filem The Wrestler.

Pernah memenangi kategori ini pada tahun 1992 bagi filem My Cousin Vinny, tidak mustahil untuk Marisa menerimanya untuk kali kedua.

Watak Cassidy iaitu seorang penari bogel pertengahan umur yang terlibat dalam perhubungan singkat dengan seorang ahli gusti dilihat cukup berkesan dibawakan Marisa.

Amy Adams yang juga pernah dicalonkan dalam kategori ini pada tahun 2005 juga mampu memberikan kejutan pada malam Oscar nanti.

Dicalonkan menerusi filem Doubt, Amy telah berjaya membawakan watak Sister James dengan penuh berkeyakinan sehingga pengkritik menyifatkan lakonannya merupakan antara yang terbaik pada tahun lalu.

Dalam filem Doubt, Amy merupakan seorang rahib yang baru sahaja dilantik dan tidak mempunyai sebarang pengalaman telah terlibat dalam kes yang telah mencemarkan kesucian institusi keagamaan di sebuah gereja.

Hanya kerana mempunyai pandangan yang negatif terhadap seorang paderi yang begitu mengambil berat tentang seorang pelajar, akhirnya, ia merubah menjadi satu kes yang cukup besar apabila Sister James telah melaporkannya kepada ketua rahib.

Seorang lagi pelakon filem Doubt yang dicalonkan, Viola Davis tidak kurang hebatnya. Pertama kali dicalonkan, lakonan Viola tidak seharusnya dipandang sebelah mata dan siapa tahu, rezeki mampu berpihak kepadanya pada malam bersejarah itu.

Lakonannya sebagai seorang ibu yang berdepan dengan situasi yang sungguh menyulitkan apabila mendapat tahu anaknya menjadi mangsa penderaan di sebuah gereja memang cukup dramatik.

Sebagai Queenie iaitu orang gaji kepada Benjamin Button dalam filem hebat, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, ia sememangnya cukup menyerlahkan bakat pelakon berasal dari Washington ini.

Lebih menyerlah dalam bidang televisyen sebelum ini, Taraji membuktikan bahawa dia hadir dengan bakat yang tersendiri. Sememangnya, lakonannya dalam filem berkenaan cukup berkesan dan memperlihatkan sisi lain seorang yang bernama Taraji P. Henson.

Pilihan Hits: Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona).

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#119. Which road will Oscar take? Benjamin Button, Slumdog travel on two distinct paths

16th February, 2009
The Star
DUANE DUDEK

New Orleans is 8,870 miles from Mumbai, India, as the crow flies.

The Academy Award nominees for best picture set in those cities - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire - are a world apart as well. There are three other contenders for best picture - The Reader, Milk and Frost/Nixon - but these two films have advantages the others do not.

The effects- and star-driven Benjamin Button, in which Brad Pitt plays a man born old who ages in reverse, has all the nominations money can buy - 13, the most of any film this year. And the zeitgeist-tapping Slumdog, about an impoverished youth in the slums of India, has a sense of global diversity, a road-less-taken populism and a string of pre-Oscar awards from film industry groups that are the equivalent of primary wins by an insurgent presidential candidate.

While the two films share themes about finding love, and each has a time-shifting structure, they are like two paths diverged in the woods.

Which one Oscar voters choose will be revealed Feb 22 when the awards are announced. But like their characters, who travel parallel paths that do not intersect (until they do), they represent antithetical trends in the business and culture of film.

While each is emotionally resonant in its own way, Slumdog offers more tears for the buck. In fact, the discrepancy in their budgets is shocking: The reported US$15 million cost of Slumdog, directed by Danny Boyle, is just one-tenth of the reported US$150 million cost of Benjamin Button, directed by David Fincher. Both directors also were nominated for an Oscar.

What Benjamin Button delivers for that kind of money are seamless special effects by technologies that were invented for the occasion.

"There's a reason this hasn't been done before," said Eric Barba, the film's visual effects supervisor.

Barba, who received an Oscar nomination for his work on the film, was fresh from London, where Benjamin Button received the visual effects award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and where the contest with Slumdog is perceived as "Hollywood vs. British independent film."

"They were not at all abashed about being biased" in favor of Slumdog," he said. The film won the BAFTA award for best picture.

In a phone interview last week, Barba patiently described the dizzying array of technologies developed over several years that were used to integrate Pitt's head and face onto aged versions of his character being played by other actors. These included: silicone life masks of different ages, created by Rick Baker and digitally scanned; "skin shaders," "created to explain to the computer how lighting and skin work"; and "contour," in which 28 cameras filmed Pitt, wearing phosphorescent green makeup, while he "basically gave a performance," which was then used to create a database of his facial gestures.

For 52 minutes and through a series of 325 effects, the character is 100 percent computer-generated onto another actor's body. Counting subtle "youthening" shots involving Cate Blanchett, there are about 1,200 visual effects in the film.

"Thank God," Barba said, Slumdog Millionaire didn't also get an Oscar nomination for visual effects.

"I'm very happy about that," he joked, because he did not have to compete with it.

But technology made Slumdog possible as well.

In a recent phone conversation, Boyle, the film's director, credited "these small digital cameras" that allowed his crew to prowl the streets of Mumbai relatively unobserved.

The cameras, he said, "are incredibly flexible and dynamic and able to capture motion that you wouldn't ordinarily be able to get because the slums are narrow and restricted places." They also created an intimacy, spontaneity and organic reality that distinguished the film and help explain its success.

"So many films are foisted upon us," said film critic Leonard Maltin, who has a show on ReelzChannel TV and will cover the Oscars for Entertainment Tonight. "But every year one or two films" - like Slumdog - "slip through as sleepers. Largely by word of mouth. And audiences like that feeling of finding that film."

Maltin said the visual effects and star-powered pedigree of Benjamin Button "shouldn't be marks against it. But Hollywood is always looking for a sure thing, and usually those sure things are built on a belief in formula and repetition, while the films that people respond to the most are original."

Boyle's reputation for originality is the result of a diverse body of work, from the heroin film Trainspotting to the plague-themed allegory 28 Days Later.

"I have this provocative theory that your first film is your best film because there's an innocence about it," Boyle said. "You don't know what you're doing and have to work your way out of it."

His genre-hopping is, in a sense, a way to make each new film the first. Boyle said he had never been to India before making Slumdog, "and nothing prepares you for it. I got the sense quite quickly that ... there was no way you were going to ... get normal things like control of continuity" while filming, or fashion what you found into what you wanted.

"You were going to have to let the place take over the film, which we did. It was alarming at times. But if you trust it" what you end up with "more than compensates for the finer details of filmmaking you might be worried about."

Controversy flared when anonymous sources charged that the children who appeared in Slumdog were exploited - something the filmmakers, who are paying for the younger actors' educations, strongly deny. Others suggested the film demonstrated a cultural naivete and filtered its story through a Western perspective.

Slumdog is very reminiscent of other Hollywood movies that tend to show India as a poor and violent country "in need of help," said Ananda Mitra, a professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and author of India Through the Western Lens.

Too, Mitra said, the film recycles melodramatic conventions from Bollywood films popular in the region. A scene where a train pulls away and a little girl is left behind "has been done over and over again. As I was watching it, I thought, 'How much more Bollywood can you get?'"

Mitra acknowledged that Slumdog "does do some positive things" for an American audience "ignorant of world affairs and how the world outside the U.S. looks. In this sense, it is good."

Kamal Shah of Mequon, Wisconsin, who was raised in Mumbai and moved to the United States in 1967, reacted more positively.

"I have seen many of these slum areas personally," said Shah, president of the Wisconsin Coalition of Asian Indian Organisations.

And while the plot was exaggerated, Shah said, the film does present "a realistic picture of that lifestyle."

Even Benjamin Button visual effects supervisor Barba acknowledged that Slumdog is "an amazing film."

But any momentum it has developed may be misleading, Maltin warned.

While awards for Slumdog by the Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild of America and other groups suggest that the film is the favorite to win the Oscar for best picture, Maltin noted that such groups are much larger than the voting members in the same branches in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

And, he said, the 13 Oscar nominations for Benjamin Button suggests that "every branch of the academy responded to it strongly.

"It's a tremendous show of support," he said. "It's not to be written off lightly. It may even be the winner."

"But I do think," he added, "people have an emotional connection and response to Slumdog Millionaire."

- Copyright (C) 2009 MCT Information Services

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#112. @Sinepleks: Demam Academy ke-81 bermula

14hb Februari, 2009
Berita Harian
Nurulhisham Abdul Latiff

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button bakal jadi tumpuan pengkritik filem

DILIHAT sebagai calon pilihan pada Anugerah Academy Ke-81, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button sudah semestinya sebuah filem yang kuat, bukan hanya dari segi pengarahan, lakonan, cerita dan sinematografi, malah solekan serta rekaan pakaiannya juga mengagumkan. Maka tidak hairanlah apabila kesemua aspek itu mendapat perhatian juri Academy.

Lebih membanggakan, filem arahan David Fincher yang sebelum ini pernah tampil bersama Se7en, The Fight Club, Panic Room dan Zodiac ini rata-rata mendapat kritikan positif daripada penulis filem antarabangsa.

Ditayangkan penghujung tahun lalu di Amerika, sebanyak 79 kali filem terbabit muncul dalam senarai Top 10 daripada 286 kritikan berbeza bagi tahun 2008.

Menurut CriticsTop10, filem ini muncul dalam lebih 136 kritikan filem Top 10, dengan 12 daripadanya mengisi kedudukan pertama. Ia juga diletakkan pada kedudukan keenam daripada segi kemunculan dalam kritikan filem 10 terbaik.

Dari sudut itu saja sudah membayangkan betapa filem yang dibuat bersumberkan cerita pendek tulisan F Scott Fitzgerald pada 1921 itu mendapat tempat yang baik di kalangan penulis filem, seterusnya muncul calon pilihan untuk menggondol beberapa Oscar pada majlis anugerah paling berprestij di dunia.

Peminat juga memberikan sambutan baik kepada filem ini apabila kutipannya sudah pun menjangkau RM564 juta di seluruh dunia.

Filem yang memulakan produksi sekitar November 2006 itu dibintangi bintang hebat seperti Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett serta Julia Ormond. Turut menjayakannya ialah Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, Jared Harris, Jason Flemyng dan ramai lagi.

Filem The Curious Case of Benjamin Button mengisahkan seorang lelaki dilahirkan dengan keadaan yang cukup luar biasa. Benjamin Button dilahirkan pada usia 80 tahun. Berbeza dengan insan lain di sekelilingnya, semakin dia dewasa semakin bertambah muda.

Diletakkan dalam kategori drama fantasi, ia bukan saja bercerita mengenai perjalanan hidup Benjamin itu sendiri, yang dibuang bapanya ketika masih bayi. Malah filem ini melihat kepada beberapa karakter yang wujud di sekitar kehidupan lelaki terbabit.

Antaranya seorang wanita kulit hitam yang mengambilnya sebagai anak angkat, seorang wanita tua yang mengajarnya bermain muzik, seorang lelaki Afrika yang memperkenalkannya kepada dunia luar, serta seorang kapten yang membawanya mengenali dunia sebenar termasuk Peperangan Dunia Kedua.

Tidak dilupakan tentunya kisah cinta Benjamin sendiri dengan sekurang-kurangnya dua wanita yang dilihat begitu bererti. Pada awalnya muncul Tilda Swinton sebagai Elizabeth Abbott, isteri seorang pegawai tinggi British yang menjalinkan hubungan cinta dengannya.

Kemudian hadir Cate Blanchett sebagai Daisy Fuller, wanita yang dicintai lelaki itu sejak awal hingga akhir.

Pertemuan yang berlaku ketika Daisy masih kanak-kanak (begitu juga dengan Benjamin, walaupun dalam fizikal yang begitu tua) berlarutan sehingga ke akhir cerita. Oh! ya, jangan lupa sediakan tisu kerana penghujungnya memang menusuk jiwa.

Brad Pitt sendiri menampilkan lakonan yang memberangsangkan, sebagai lelaki yang dilahirkan amat luar biasa. Penonton akan dapat melihat perubahan wataknya, daripada lelaki berusia 80 tahun sehingga usianya sekarang, seterusnya menjadi bayi dalam dukungan. Solekan yang hebat membolehkan aktor itu melihat sendiri bagaimana rupanya nanti, kira-kira 34 tahun dari sekarang.

Taraji yang memegang watak ibu angkatnya pula mencuri perhatian dengan lakonan meyakinkan. Tidak hairanlah apabila namanya turut tersenarai sebagai calon akhir Pelakon Pembantu Wanita Terbaik pada Anugerah Academy, 23 Februari ini (tarikh di Malaysia).

Di negara ini, filem The Curious Case of Benjamin Button mula ditayangkan pada 12 Februari.

Info

Pencalonan The Curious Case of Benjamin Button pada Anugerah Academy Ke-81:

Filem Terbaik

Pengarah Terbaik: David Fincher

Pelakon Lelaki Terbaik: Brad Pitt

Pelakon Pembantu Wanita Terbaik: Taraji P. Henson

Lakon Layar Adaptasi Terbaik: Eric Roth

Sinematografi Terbaik: Claudio Miranda

Suntingan Filem Terbaik

Skor Asal Terbaik: Alexandre Desplat

Arahan Seni Terbaik

Rekaan Pakaian Terbaik

Solekan Terbaik

Adunan Bunyi Terbaik

Kesan Visual Terbaik



Carta pecah panggung:

1 - Ong Bak 2

2 - The Pink Panther 2

3 - Look For A Star

4 - Sifu And Tangga

5 - Naan Kadavul

6 - Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans

7 - All's Well End's Well 2009

8 - The Wedding Game

9 - Red Cliff Part 2

10 - Inkheart

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#109. Oscar fever at the movies

13th February, 2009
Malay Mail
Anu Venugopal

As Hollywood gets ready to pay tribute to sterling performances in the forthcoming Academy Awards on Feb 22, movie fans will get the chance to watch Oscar nominated movies at Golden Screen Cinemas (GSC).From Feb 19 to March 4, selected Oscar nominated movies will be screened at GSC Mid Valley, GSC Pavillion KL, GSC 1Utama and GSC Gurney Plaza.

Movie fans here can get into the hype of the Oscars by competing in GSC’s “Oscar Winning Prediction” contest online.Simply log on to www.gsc.com.my and predict the winners of the following categories: Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress; Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Animated Feature Film, Best Cinematography and Best Music (Score).

Complete the slogan “My best Oscar moment is ... (in less than 15 words)” and get a chance to win an Oscar Movie Goodie Bag, GSC Movie vouchers as well as other premiums by GSC. The contest started on Feb 5 and all entries must be submitted online before Feb 18.

Catch the likes of Slumdog Millionaire, nominated for seven awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original categories.

The highly anticipated movie is scheduled to be screened in participating GSC cinemas from today.

Popular Hollywood couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have movies nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Changeling.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is nominated for seven awards including Best Actress, Best Cinemato-graphy’and Best Art Direction while Jolie’s Changeling is nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Cinematography at the Oscars.

These movies will be sold at normal ticket prices while older movies like The Dark Knight, Tropic Thunder and animation movies Bolt and Wall-E will be sold at RM5 each.

Starting from Feb 19, movie goers who purchase four tickets for the movie Bolt from the participating cinemas will receive a complimentary Bolt boxed notepad, while stocks last.

Also, watch out for upcoming Oscar nominees; The Reader starting on March 5, Revoluntionary Road on April 16 and Frost/Nixon on April 30.

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#75. 59th Berlin Film Festival beckons

04th February, 2009
The Star
DEBORAH COLE


Illuminated posters promoting the upcoming Berlin film festival in Berlin. The 59th International Film Festival Berlin begins tomorrow and runs until Feb 15 in the German capital.

Stars vie with hard times at the 59th Berlin Film Festival.

Star-studded premieres and gritty dramas on the ravages of capitalism and globalisation will dominate the line-up of the 59th Berlin Film Festival starting tomorrow, organisers said last week.

The Berlinale will open with The International, a thriller set in the cut-throat world of global finance starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts.

Festival director Dieter Kosslick called it a prescient choice.

“We selected the opening film months ago and in that time it has gone from being a movie to practically becoming a documentary (about the financial crisis),” he told a news conference.

The International was directed by Germany’s Tom Tykwer and will screen out of competition. German Critics are hoping the picture will mark a comeback after a string of disappointments following Tykwer’s breakout 1998 cult hit Run, Lola, Run.

Kosslick said Watts may not be able to attend the premiere because she recently gave birth, but expected stars including Owen, Kate Winslet, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Martin, Renee Zellweger, Michelle Pfeiffer, Aishwarya Rai, Demi Moore and Gael Garcia Bernal to grace the red carpet during the 11-day event.

The film industry regards the Berlinale as the second most important European festival after Cannes and it has won a reputation as the most political of the top cinema showcases.

Kosslick said a record 6,000 productions had been submitted to the festival for vetting, of which 386 films will screen.

A jury led by Oscar winner Tilda Swinton will choose among 18 contenders for the festival’s coveted Golden Bear for best film to be awarded on Feb 14.

Among the most keenly-awaited pictures in competition is the Franco-US production In The Electric Mist by Bertrand Tavernier, a racially charged murder mystery set in Louisiana and starring Jones.

Stephen Frears (The Queen) will present Cheri featuring Pfeiffer and Kathy Bates as ageing courtesans in an adaptation of a 1920 novel by French writer Colette.

Moore and Parker Posey play sisters who return home to care for their irascible father (Rip Torn) in Happy Tears by US director Mitchell Lichtenstein.

Rage, a black comedy about a New York fashion house by British director Sally Potter (Orlando), will gun for the Golden Bear with a powerhouse cast including Jude Law, Judi Dench, Dianne Wiest and Steve Buscemi.

Zellweger leads an ensemble including Kevin Bacon and Chris Noth in My One and Only, a comedy based on a childhood story of actor George Hamilton that traces the travels of a young mother in the 1950s shopping for a wealthy husband.

France’s François Ozon (Swimming Pool) will premiere Ricky about a mysterious newborn.

Asghar Farhadi of Iran will present About Elly telling the story of an Iranian who returns home after years living in Germany.

Winslet is to promote The Reader, an erotic drama appearing out of competition in which she plays a former Nazi concentration camp guard running from her past in postwar Germany. The role brought her one of two Golden Globe awards this month as well as an Academy Award nomination.

Martin will bring the second Pink Panther remake featuring the silver-haired comedian as the hapless Inspector Clouseau. Pink Panther II will also appear out of competition.

Kosslick cited two documentaries in a sidebar section of the festival, Chinese filmmaker Christina Yao’s Empire of Silver and Food, Inc., a stomach-churning expose on how food is made and sold in America, as other examples of films this year that took unflinching looks at market capitalism.

The festival will also hand out a number of special prizes including a Berlinale Camera to French master Claude Chabrol (Wedding in Blood), a Teddy award for achievement in gay cinema to Andy Warhol muse Joe Dallesandro and an Honorary Golden Bear for French composer Maurice Jarre for his legendary film scores (Doctor Zhivago).

And in honour of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Berlinale will showcase Cold War cinema that seemed to foreshadow the end of European communism in a series called After Winter Comes Spring. – AFP

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#59. Rotterdam Tiger Awards

Films from Turkey, Iran and South Korea took the Rotterdam VPRO Tiger Awards VPRO Tiger awards at the 38th International Film Festival Rotterdam.

The winners were Iranian film-maker Ramtin Lavafipour's Be Calm And Count To Seven*, Yang Ik-June's Breathless from South Korea, and Turkey's Wrong Rosary.

The $19,000 (Euros 15,000) prizes were handed out at a ceremony at the Rotterdamse Schouwburg.

The competition had 14 contenders - all first or second-time films.

Other awards

NETPAC Award: The Land (Dadi) (He Jia, China).
Special Mention: Agrarian Utopia (Uruphong Raksasad, Thailand)*
FIPRESCI Award: Blind Pig Who Wants To Fly (Edwin, Indonesia)*
KNF Award: Tony Manero (Pablo Larraín, Chile/Brazil, 2008)*

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#29. Festival : 'The Good' leads Asian awards race

Wed., Jan. 21, 2009, 3:31am PT
Variety.com
MARCUS LIM

'The Good' leads Asian awards race
Korean Western takes eight nominations

HONG KONG — Kim Jee-woon’s Korean Western "The Good, the Bad, the Weird" leads the list of nominations for this year's Asian Film Awards.

Film, about a chase for treasure through the wilderness of Manchuria, collected eight noms, including feature, director and cinematography, as well as supporting actor nods for both Jung Woo-sung and Lee Byung-hun.

Other best film contenders include Chen Kaige's "Forever Enthralled," Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea," Riri Riza's "The Rainbow Troops, John Woo’s "Red Cliff" and Kiyoshi Kurusawa’s "Tokyo Sonata."

The kudofest also announced the creation of a best newcomer category to augment the existing acting awards.

The nominations were announced Wednesday by the Hong Kong Intl. Film Festival Society, organizers of the AFA.

In a nod to the award's pan-Asian ambitions, the nominations this year also included a significant Bollywood contingent. Comedian Akshay Kumar and actress Deepika Padukone both received nods for their respective turns in "Singh is Kinng" and "Chandni Chowk to China," while Hindi period epic "Jodhaa Akbar" came up for contention in the production design and composer categories.

Local Hong Kong films, however, were significantly shut out of the major creative categories. With the exception of favorite son John Woo ("Red Cliff") running for the director prize, and Nick Cheung stalking the supporting actor category for his performance in Emperor Motion Pictures' crime thriller "Beast Stalker," no other Hong Konger or Hong Kong film was nominated in the acting, directing or film categories.

The jury that will select the eventual winners is given some star power with former Bond-girl and "Crouching Tiger" alumnus Michelle Yeoh presiding over the panel.

The 13-member jury includes Peggy Chiao, chair of Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards, as well as Kong Rithdee, Thailand correspondent for Variety.

The AFA will be held in Hong Kong, March 23.

Nominations for the 3rd Asian Film Awards

FILM
"Forever Enthralled"
"The Good, the Bad, the Weird"
"Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea"
"The Rainbow Troops"
"Red Cliff"
"Tokyo Sonata"

DIRECTOR
Feng Xiaogang, "If you are the one"
Kim Jee-woon, "The Good, the bad, the Weird"
Koreeda Hirokazu, "Still Walking"
Brillante Mendoza, "Service"
Hayao Miyazaki/Frank Marshall, "Ponyo on the Cliff by the sea"
John Woo, "Red Cliff"

ACTOR
Ge You, "If you are the one"
Ha Jung-woo, "The Chaser"
Akshay Kumar, "Singh is Kinng"
Matsuyama Kenichi, "Detroit Metal City"
Motoki Masahiro, "Departures"
Song Kang-ho, "The Good, the bad, the Weird"

ACTRESS
Fukatsu Eri, "The Magic Hour"
Jiang Wenli, "And the Spring Comes"
Deepika Padukone, "Chandni Chowk to China"
Yoshinaga Sayuri, "Kabei — our Mother"
Zhou Wei, "Painted Skin"
Zhou Xun, "The Equation of Love and Death"

NEWCOMER
Matsuda Shota, "Boys Over Flowers: the Movie"
Sandrine Pinna, "Miao Miao"
So Ji-sub, "Rough cut"
Xu Jian, "CJ7"
Jeeja Yanin, "Chocolate"
Yu Shaoqun, "Forever Enthralled"

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Nick Cheung, "Beast Stalker"
Jung Woo-sung, "The Good, the Bad, the Weird"
Lee Byung-hun, "The Good, the Bad, the Weird"
Tsutsumi Shinichi, "Suspect X"
Wang Xueqi, "Forever Enthralled"

SCREENWRITER
Na Hong-jin, "The Chaser"
Li Qiang, "And the Spring Comes"
Tom Lin/Henry Tsai, "Winds of September"
Kurosawa Kiyoshi/Max Mannix/Tanaka Sachiko, "Tokyo Sonata"
Mitani Koki, "The Magic Hour"

CINEMATOGRAPHER
Ato Shoichi, "Paco and the Magical Book"
Cheng Siu-keung, "Sparrow"
Lee Mo-gae, "The Good, the bad, the Weird"
Jola Dylewska, "Tulpan"
Wang Yu/Nelson Yu, "24 City"

PRODUCTION DESIGNER
Nitin Chandrakant Desai, "Jodhaa Akbar"
Kuwajima Towako, "Paco and the Magical Book"
Daniel Lee Yan-kong, "Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon"
Bill Lui, "Painted Skin"
Taneda Yohei, "The Magic Hour"

COMPOSER
Dalpalan/Jang Young-gyu, "The Good, the bad, the Weird"
Hanno Yoshihiro/Lim Giong, "24 City"
Hisaishi Joe, "Ponyo on the Cliff by the sea"
Henry Lai Wan-man, "Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon"
A.R. Rahman, "Jodhaa Akbar"

EDITOR
Chan Ki-hop, "Beast Stalker"
William Chang Suk-ping, "Miao Miao"
Darya Danilova, "Native Dancer"
Waluyo Ichwandiardono, "The Rainbow Troops"
Kim Sun-min, "The Chaser"

VISUAL EFFECTS
Craig Hayes, "Red Cliff"
Kim Wook, "The Good, the bad, the Weird"
Yanagawase Masahide, "Paco and the Magical Book"

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