#218. Berita Filem : ShoWest to honor Michael Caine

Actor will receive Lifetime Achievement Award.

Michael Caine will receive the ShoWest 2009 lifetime achievement award at the annual gathering of theater owners in Las Vegas. Kudo will be presented during ShoWest's closing night banquet on April 2, two weeks before the limited opening of Caine starrer "Is Anybody There?"

Big Beach, which co-produced the movie with Heyday Films and BBC Films, will release in North America."He simply does it all, and he does it all so incredibly well, be it comedy, drama or action," ShoWest co-managing director Mitch Neuhauser said of Caine's long career onscreen. ShoWest begins March 30.

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#217. Berita Filem : Chinese director plans film on 1976 quake

HONG KONG – One of China's most successful commercial directors plans to make a 150 million Chinese yuan ($22 million) movie about the country's deadliest earthquake in modern times, which killed at least 240,000 people, a production company said Thursday.

Feng Xiaogang plans to start shooting the film about the 1976 quake in northeastern Tangshan city in July and releasing it on July 28, 2010 — the 34th anniversary of the natural disaster, production company Huayi Brothers said in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The statement quoted Feng as saying no actors have been cast yet.

The 1976 quake and the temblor in China's southwestern Sichuan province on May 12, 2008, which left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing, are the deadliest in the country's modern history.

Huayi Brothers said in the statement the movie, called "Tangshan Earthquake" in Chinese, is a co-production with state-run China Film Group and the city of Tangshan, which is contributing tens of millions of yuan (millions of U.S. dollars) in funding.

Feng's credits include "Big Shot's Funeral," "A World Without Thieves," "The Banquet" and most recently, the romantic comedy "If You Are the One."

Source :
AP
By MIN LEE, AP Entertainment Writer Min Lee,
Thu Mar 5, 2:29 am ET

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#216. Berita Filem : Indian politicians lean on 'Slumdog' in campaigns

NEW DELHI – India's election campaign is going to the "Slumdogs."

It was initially panned in the country it portrays. But after eight Oscars, "Slumdog Millionaire" is such a sensation that India's main political parties are fighting over the right to play its signature song at campaign rallies. One politician made a show of catching a matinee of the film — arriving in a rickshaw surrounded by reporters. Another longtime government critic said the film's portrayal of Mumbai's shantytowns sums up the current administration's failures.

The ruling Congress party has bought the exclusive rights to play "Jai Ho," which translates as "Be Victorious," at their election rallies, said senior party official Digvijay Singh. The song, played on the closing dance sequence of the film, won Best Song at the Academy Awards. Congress plans to play the song at rallies and in commercials leading up to the national elections, which will be held in five phases beginning in April at the end of the ruling party's five-year term.

However, the main opposition, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Partym was not happy with Congress appropriating "Jai Ho" as its own.

"Anyone should be able to use the song. 'Jai Ho' should not belong to any one; it belongs to the country," Atul Shah, a member of the BJP campaign committee, told the NDTV news channel.

But the BJP will probably be frustrated.

Harindra Singh, the managing director of the Percept advertising agency, which negotiated the deal, said the party has bought "exclusive rights for political exploitation" for one year, meaning that no other political party could use the song. He declined to say how much they paid.

The film, which won eight Oscars including best film and best director, received negative reviews when it premiered in India for its graphic portrayal of Mumbai's slums and focus on poverty in the country.

But since its success at the Academy Awards, the country has embraced the film, from British director Danny Boyle, as its own.

Other politicians and parties have sought to associate themselves with the film, hoping some of its magic will rub off on their campaigns.

In the northern state of Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar — a member of the BJP-allied Janata Dal (United) party — took a very public midday break Thursday to see the film.

He even abandoned his motorcade to ride a bicycle rickshaw to the cinema, as security guards and reporters jogged along beside.

"Oh, come on," he said with a wry smile when asked if it was an election stunt. "I'm just going to see 'Slumdog' and felt like taking a rickshaw."

Still, at least one opposition politician, however, said Congress was welcome to take credit for the film.

"If it were not for Congress misrule for the last 60 years, there would be no slums and then no slumdog (film) and no Oscar," Nanendra Modi, the BJP's Chief Minister of the western state of Gujarat told a recent election rally.

Source :
AP
By GAVIN RABINOWITZ, Associated Press Writer
– 1 hr 25 mins ago

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#205. Berita Filem : Buzz

1. DiCaprio in sci-fi mode for Nolan's "Inception"
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Leonardo DiCaprio will star in "Inception," a sci-fi action film that "Dark Knight" helmer Christopher Nolan wrote and is directing.The contemporary story is described as taking place within "the architecture of the mind."

Nolan set up the project less than a month ago at Warner Bros., the studio where he made his Batman films as well as the thriller "Insomnia." The filmmaker and the studio are aiming for a 2010 release.DiCaprio next appears in Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island."

2. Conviction in murder of actor in Harry Potter film
LONDON – A London jury has convicted a man of murdering teenage actor Rob Knox, who had a small role in a soon-to-be released Harry Potter movie.Karl Bishop, who was found guilty Wednesday, could face life in prison when sentenced for the stabbing death of 18-year-old Knox.

Prosecutors say Bishop killed Knox outside a bar in east London in May after Knox stepped in to protect his brother, who had been threatened by the 22-year-old.Knox had just wrapped up filming on "Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince." The movie is the sixth in the Harry Potter series and is due out this summer.Knox played the part of Marcus Belby, a minor character.

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#204. Berita Filem : L.A.-based firm to build movie town in Thailand aiming to be Asia's movie industry hub

BANGKOK, March 4 (Xinhua) -- CKA Chiang Mai Company Limited has planned to invest 8.0 billion baht (220 million U.S. dollars) to build a movie town in Chiang Mai, aiming to be a hub of the movie industry in Asia.
The company, which is located in Thailand's northern province of Chiang Mai, is a subsidiary of the Los Angles-based entertainment firm Creative Kingdom Inc.

CKA Chiang Mai Company has believed that "Chiangmaiwood" would be able to surpass Hong Kong as the Asian hub of the movie industry, the website by Bangkok Post reported on Wednesday.It is projected that it would take seven years to complete the movie town's construction on a 12-acre site in San Kamphaeng district.

By 2014 six studios of varying sizes would be available for different scales of movie productions, the Bangkok Post's website quoted Eduardo Robles, CEO of the company as saying.And, in 2015, it is expected the company's production facilities would be able to attract about 35 productions worldwide.

The project would officially be announced on June 19 this year, while movie producers and directors across the globe would be invited to see the business potential.Chiang Mai has been chosen since it is offering a good location and traffic, amid skillful human resources in the field. Moreover, the city is a geographical center for services in the Mekong region.

Most importantly, production costs are about 20 percent lower than those in rival locations, while the company has also received tax incentives from Thailand's Board of Investment.However, Robles has declined to reveal a source of funds for the project, saying the company is talking with several foreign investors abroad.

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#203. Berita Filem : 'Lymelife' to open Gen Art festival

The Gen Art Film Festival has announced the slate for its 14th annual edition. Running April 1-7, the fest will feature new movies starring Paul Dano, Alec Baldwin and Cynthia Nixon, among others. The fest's feature lineup includes:

"Lymelife," starring Alec Baldwin, Kieran Culkin, Rory Culkin, and Cynthia Nixon, will open the series on April 1. Pic from helmer Derick Martini, about a teenager's coming of age on Long Island during an outbreak of Lyme disease, opens in limited release on April 8, expanding April 17.

"Gigantic," directed by Matt Aselton, follows a mattress store worker, played by Paul Dano, trying to adopt a Chinese baby. Pic opens in theaters April 3.

"Peter and Vandy," helmed by Jay DiPietro, is a Manhattan-based love story told out of sequence, with Jason Ritter, Jesse L. Martin and Tracie Thoms.

"My Suicide," by director David Lee Miller, follows a teenager named Archie who films his life as a high schooler. Pic features Gabriel Sunday, David Carradine and Mariel Hemingway.

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#193. Berita Filem : Jackie Earle Haley's comeback is complete with role in Watchmen

Watchmen may be the most eagerly awaited movie of 2009 - the film of the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel has been the object of breathless Internet anticipation for years.xBut before the hype for the movie reached its fever pitch, there was that first day, that first moment, with actors, old colleagues, in odd costumes about to perform in a comic-book movie.

"Patrick Wilson and I were on the set, in full garb. He's Nite Owl, in a cape and goggles, and I'm Rorschach, in a mask," Jackie Earle Haley recalls. "We kinda look at each other and just start laughing, thinking that there's no WAY that two years ago we could have guessed we'd be standing there, dressed like this in a comic-book movie."

Two years ago, Haley, 47, was "the comeback kid." He and Wilson were co-stars in the acclaimed drama Little Children. Haley gave an Oscar-nominated performance as a child molester who likes to put on his swim gear and leer at children in a pool.

"Two years ago, I was the guy in the goggles!"

With Watchmen, Haley's comeback can be called complete. Internet fans pushed for his selection as Rorschach, and one of them, Clint Morris of Moviehole.net, calls him "a standout as the sociopath of the hero troupe." As "Walter Kovacs (a k a Rorschach) ... Haley is the best thing in Watchmen."

"Internet fans of the books got me to start looking into it," Haley recalls. "The more I looked into it the more excited I got. I fell in love with the book and the character; such an intricate, complex and iconic character. I talked to my agents and asking them to look into it. The problem was, it kind of looked like they were going down the 'movie star' road. That ruled me out. At one point, my agent said, 'Dude, get over it. It's gone.' And then a month later he calls and says 'It looks like things are shifting a bit over there. Why don't you do an audition tape and send it to (director) Zack (Snyder) and those guys?'"

Haley landed the part, the one member of a group of retired "costumed vigilantes" who suspects that somebody is murdering the members of their elite club and hunts for clues about the crimes. But Rorschach, hidden behind an ever-changing mask, is a brutal, deeply disturbed and ruthless man not above using torture and risking "collateral damage" in his search for a villain.

"This guy's definitely a bit further out there than most of the characters I've played. Damaged? He's really damaged. But his absolute black-and-white sense of justice is what I love about him. For him to even survive in this world, he had to embrace that absolutism, no compromising. When you start looking at his childhood, how his mother was a prostitute, raging alcoholic, how he was victimized, the beatings, you can see how he'd invent this world for himself, this identity. He fell through society's cracks and needed a black-and-white world, a simpler view of things - good, evil, life, death."

The trickiest thing about playing the character was getting across Rorschach's personality and giving a performance behind a mask. It's one of the tougher things acting students learn to do - "mask class."

"Dude, I missed those classes!" Haley chortles. "That would've helped! I mean, come on. It was daunting. You think, 'I've gotten another incredible break, a part in this awesome flick.' And then you think, 'My God, I've got a SOCK on my head for the whole movie!'

"A face is an actor's main way of getting across feeling and meaning, our main point of conveyance. To cover that up, to not have that, is just plain scary. But on the other hand, to don the Rorschach outfit is incredibly liberating and motivating. I had to embrace it and do the work, the internal work of an actor, and hope that the externals take care of themselves. I admit I did sneak a peak at the monitor to see how a take registered, see if I needed to do more or less. Sometimes, what I was doing just wouldn't read, so I'd have to animate the outfit a little bit, play it a bit bigger."

It's another big break for a former child actor who lived through decades in the movie wilderness, substance-abuse problems and multiple marriages, only to re-emerge in All the King's Men and Little Children in 2007. One thing the onetime Bad News Bears star learned from the experience is to pay attention to the Internet, where the fanboys and fangirls have embraced him as one of their own. Their latest lobbying effort? Cast Haley as the new Freddy Krueger in a remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, which starts filming at the end of April.

"I just heard about it, so I don't know what I think about that," Haley says, laughing. "Nobody's called yet. It'd be another mask role, wouldn't it?"

Pretty heady stuff for any actor, fans lobbying for your next job. And his next film after Watchmen has a pretty serious pedigree. Shutter Island is based on a Dennis Lehane novel, was directed by Martin Scorsese and stars Leonardo DiCaprio.

"When you've been where I've been, to cut to all these years later and I've gotten to play Rorschach, and I'm standing across from Leo, doing a scene for Marty. And I'm calling him Marty! Man, It doesn't get any better than this!"

Source :
The Star
By ROGER MOORE
- Copyright (C) 2009 MCT Information Services

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#191. Berita Filem : Jalan kaki 10km kerana AFP

PARA pemenang utama Anugerah Filem Pendek 2008/2009 (dari kiri) Shuhaimi Zulkefli, Farizie Morinding dan Christopher Low.

DARIPADA lebih 120 peserta yang menyertai Anugerah Filem Pendek 2008/2009 (AFP 2008/2009), Farizie Morinding memang layak muncul juara pertandingan anjuran Astro Kirana itu.

Sebabnya, pengarah berasal dari Ranau, Sabah ini telah mengharungi pelbagai dugaan untuk menyertai pertandingan itu sebelum filem arahannya berjudul Odoi Odu (Oh Grandma) muncul juara pertandingan tersebut. Menurut Farizie, dia berjalan kaki sejauh 10 kilometer (km) dari kampungnya di pedalaman Sabah semata-mata untuk mengepos penyertaan filem pendek arahannya itu.

"Saya terpaksa berjalan kaki keluar dari kampung saya di Ranau untuk ke stesen bas bagi mengirim filem pendek arahan saya itu menggunakan pos laju pada Januari lalu.

"Semuanya bermula pada awal pagi selepas saya habis mengedit filem pendek saya itu pada tengah malamnya," cerita Farizie pada sidang media selepas berakhirnya anugerah itu di Kuala Lumpur, baru-baru ini.

Jelas pemuda keturunan kaum Dusun ini, dia turut melalui pelbagai kesukaran termasuklah tidak mempunyai peralatan seperti komputer untuk menghasilkan Odoi Odu (Oh Grandma).

Bekas pelajar Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Shah Alam ini, terpaksa meminjam komputer rakannya bagi melakukan proses suntingan filem pendeknya itu.

"Untuk menerbitkan filem itu, peralatan yang saya ada hanyalah sebuah handycam (camera tangan) yang saya beli dengan harga RM1,500 pada 2003. Sehingga kini handycam itu tidak pernah rosak.

"Tetapi saya tidak mempunyai komputer dan terpaksa pinjam daripada seorang kawan. Mula-mula kawan saya itu tolong edit (sunting) tetapi selepas itu dia melarikan diri.

"Begitu juga dengan seorang lagi kawan saya juga melakukan perkara yang sama menyebabkan saya terpaksa membuat plan a, b dan c. Ketika itu, saya hampir-hampir putus asa dan patah hati. Saya duduk di suatu tempat mencari kekuatan dan melihat kelemahan diri," katanya.

Halangan-halangan itu tidak mematahkan semangat Farizie, sebaliknya beliau terus bangkit sehingga akhirnya beliau bertemu dengan seorang kawan lama yang mempunyai sebuah komputer riba di kampungnya.

Berkat sabar, bertawakal kepada Allah dan menggunakan sepenuhnya bakatnya dalam bidang pengarahan yang dipelajarinya sewaktu di UiTM, Farizie kemudiannya berjaya menyiapkan proses suntingan filem pendeknya itu.

"Kebetulan ketika itu saya bertemu dengan seorang kawan lama yang sudah hampir 10 tahun tidak jumpa. Dengan menggunakan laptop (komputer riba) miliknya saya melakukan proses editing (suntingan).

"Kaedah yang saya gunakan sangat basic (asas) iaitu hanya dengan menggunakan perisian Windows Movie Maker. Masa editing itu pula malam Jumaat. Selepas habis editing sudah tengah malam.

"Saya terpaksa pulang ke rumah dengan melalui kawasan kubur. Ketika itu saya bertawakal sahaja kepada Allah kerana alang-alang menyeluk pekasam biar sampai ke pangkal lenggan. Keesokan paginya barulah saya mengepos filem saya itu untuk menyertai anugerah ini," ujarnya.

kisah sedih

Odoi Odu (Oh Grandma) mengisahkan tentang kisah sedih seorang wanita tua yang kematian suami. Dia mendakwa boleh melihat roh suaminya menyebabkan orang kampung menganggapnya gila.

Selain muncul juara AFP 2008/2009, filem arahan Farizie itu turut merangkul tiga lagi anugerah iaitu kategori Lakonan Terbaik, Cerita Terbaik dan Pengarahan Terbaik.

Ketika ditanya rancangannya selepas memenangi geran RM100,000 untuk pembikinan filem pendek seterusnya, anak jati Negeri Di Bawah Bayu itu bercadang untuk menjadikan Odoi Odu 0sebuah sekuel.

"Mungkin kesukaran saya membikin filem ini boleh dijadikan sebuah cerita dalam filem saya yang seterusnya. Saya juga ada rancangan untuk sambung filem ini kerana saya sudah ada skrip baru. Saya akan kekalkan pelakon lama dalam filem itu nanti," jelasnya.

Selain Farizie Morinding, AFP 2008/2009 untuk tempat kedua dimenangi filem Mirror arahan Christopher Low dan tempat ketiga pula diraih oleh filem Aku arahan Shuhaimi Zulkefli.

Sementara itu, Pengarah Eksekutif Astro Entertainment Sdn. Bhd., Zainir Aminullah berkata, anugerah seperti itu bukan sahaja semakin menggalakkan sambutannya.

Malah, anugerah masuk tahun kedua itu juga bukan setakat menggalakkan penyertaan daripada pembikin filem amatur tetapi ia juga terbuka kepada golongan profesional bagi mengetengahkan lebih banyak penyertaan semua pihak.

"Penyertaan anugerah ini terbuka kepada umum dan tiada had kelayakan yang ditetapkan. Filem pendek suatu pendekatan yang berbeza kerana tidak semua pengarah filem profesional yang pernah mengarah filem pendek.

"Lagipun filem pendek tidak sama dengan filem cereka dan mempunyai disiplin tersendiri," katanya yang gembira kerana penyertaan tahun ini meningkat 20 peratus berbanding tahun lalu.

Selain tiga filem tersebut, tujuh lagi finalis yang terpilih ke peringkat akhir AFP 2008/2009 ialah filem Eyefinger, Burp, Satu, Qalam, Permata Bonda, Kalsom, Michelle dan Khilaf.

Selain penyampaian anugerah, ramai artis terkenal turut dijemput mengadakan persembahan seperti kumpulan Meet Uncle Hussain, Bunkface, Nikki, Misha Omar, Saiful Apek, Adam, Aizat dan Stacy.

Sumber :
Utusan Malaysia
Oleh ABD. AZIZ ITAR
aziz.itar@utusan.com.my

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#189. Berita Filem : Filem terbaik kerana nasib atau suratan?

BARISAN pelakon dan krew meraikan kejayaan filem Slumdog Millionaire yang di nobatkan sebagai Filem Terbaik pada Akademi Award ke 81 di Hollywood, Isnin lalu.

Filem ini memeranjat semua orang. Tiba-tiba sahaja menjadi sebutan dan sambutan yang hebat di seluruh dunia. Setelah memenangi filem terbaik di Anugerah Globe, Slumdog Millionaire dicalonkan untuk 10 kategori di Anugerah Akademi ke-81 iaitu hanya satu pencalonan di belakang filem Ghandhi (Richard Attenborough) dan A Passage to India (David Lean).

Seperti yang telah diketahui Slumdog Millionaire memenangi lapan Anugerah Akademi, antaranya untuk Pengarah Terbaik dan Filem Terbaik. Pencapaian ini menyamai rekod yang dimenangi oleh Ghandhi. Apa yang menarik ketiga-tiga filem tersebut yang berlatarkan India memenangi anugerah filem terbaik dan kesemuanya diarahkan oleh pengarah British.

Jadi, apakah menjadikan filem ini filem terbaik? Nasib atau suratan?

Slumdog Millionaire arahan Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave, Trainsporting & The Beach) dan skrip filem ini diadaptasi oleh Simon Beaufoy daripada novel Q & A tulisan Vikas Swarup. Selain daripada Danny Boyle dan Simon Beaufoy adalah warga Britain yang mengadaptasi sebuah novel India, hampir keseluruhan pelakon dan tenaga produksi filem ini terdiri daripada orang India. Malah pengarah bersama filem ini Loveleen Tandan adalah warga India.

Meromantiskan kemiskinan

Tidak hairan jika filem ini mendapat pelbagai reaksi di kalangan orang-orang India dan malah penonton lain di seluruh dunia. Ada yang melihat Boyle sengaja meromantiskan kemiskinan di India. Tidak seperti dalam filem-filem Hindi yang digunakan sebagai sumber pelarian oleh penonton India daripada masalah kemiskinan yang menghimpit mereka. Bagi Boyle, dia melihat ada tenaga dan semangat yang kuat di sebalik kemiskinan itu. Yang menariknya seperti kebanyakkan filem-filem Hindi, Slumdog Millionaire juga mengangkat watak underdog (golongan miskin dan kelas bawahan yang terpinggir) yang berusaha memenuhi impian dan berjaya meningkatkan kedudukan rendah mereka ketahap yang tinggi. Tiga watak utama filem ini Jamal Malik (semasa kecil dimainkan oleh Azharuddin Mohammed kemudian Dev Patel), Salim Malik (Madhur Mittal) dan Latika (Rubina Ali dan kemudian Freida Pinto) adalah kanak-kanak yang tinggal di kawasan setinggan yang cukup miskin di Mumbai (mereka ini digelar slumdog istilah hybrid daripada perkataan underdog). Jamal (18 tahun) adalah peserta rancangan Who Wants To Be A Millioanaire? versi India, sebuah program kuiz TV yang cukup popular di seluruh dunia beberapa tahun lepas. Jamal menyertai program tersebut hanya untuk menarik perhatian Latika yang telah terputus hubungan dengannya yang diketahuinya adalah antara jutaan yang menggilai program realiti tersebut. Sementara menunggu untuk menjawab soalan terakhir, Jamal ditahan polis (Irrfan Khan) yang mengesyaki Jamal menipu kerana dapat menjawab kesemua soalan walaupun pada satu ketika Prem Kumar (dimainkan oleh Anil Kapoor, hos sebenar program ini di India adalah Amitabh Bachchan dan kemudian Shah Rukh Khan) cuba memberikan tip yang salah. Apakah Jamal menipu atau dia memang seorang yang pintar? Bagi Jamal semua soalan yang ditujukan kepadanya adalah sebahagian daripada kehidupan pahit yang pernah dilaluinya. Setiap soalan yang dikemukakan akan membawa kepada imbas kembali (flashback) kehidupan masa silamnya di kawasan setinggan miskin di Mumbai.

Elemen stereotaip

Plot Slumdog Millioanaire seakan plot filem-filem Hindi. Di satu lapisan filem ini adalah kisah cinta remaja dan perjalanan hidup dua beradik yang berlainan arah kerana keadaan yang kemudian bertemu semula. Doyle mengolah struktur naratifnya dengan elemen komedi, aksi dramatik dan impian romantis heronya dengan segala elemen kemungkinan dan kepastian bagi mencapai impiannya. Dengan latar muzik oleh Komposer terkenal A.R. Rahman, Doyle membentuk tempo filem ini dengan kepantasan dan tenaga yang hebat sepertimana yang pernah dilakukannya dalam Trainspotting. Boyle kemudian kembali kepada elemen stereotaip filem Bollywood diakhir filem ini dengan adegan nyanyian dan tarian ribuan pelakon. Filem ini dapat diterima dan dikongsi oleh ramai orang kerana filem ini mengangkat golongan underdog yang berjaya mengenepikan aturan sosio-politik untuk mencapai impian dan kejayaan.

Slumdog sempat mencipta kontroversi di India kerana dianggap mengeksploitasi kemiskinan. Tetapi yang membezakan filem Hindi dengan Slumdog, filem ini tidak mengangkat cerita sentimental yang dicantikkan untuk menjadi sumber eskapisme sepertimana banyak filem Hindi, sebaliknya filem ini mengangkat subjek yang menjadi realiti dan biasa dengan mereka. Ingat filem City of Joy (1992, Roland Joffe) juga pernah mengangkat isu kemiskinan melarat di Calcutta dan filem dokudrama Salaam Bombay (1988, Mira Nair) yang mengisahkan tentang realiti kemiskinan kanak-kanak jalanan di bandaraya Bombay (Mumbai sekarang).

Tetapi apa yang menarik nasib filem Slumdog ini juga seakan selari dengan nasib Jamal dalam filem Slumdog. Filem berbudget kecil RM54 juta ini dan dianggap filem bebas hampir sahaja diedarkan dalam bentuk DVD. Tetapi kemenangannya di Globe dan Akademi telah menjadikan filem ini perbualan dunia. Hingga perkataan slumdog telah menjadi perbendaharaan Inggeris yang baru.

Sumber :
Utusan Malaysia

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#182. Berita Filem : Jonas Brothers concert film lacks dimension

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – For the most part, the experience is missing from Disney's "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience."

This is, of course, a 3-D concert film built around the squeaky-clean band of brothers so popular with female tweeners. But director Bruce Hendricks makes little use of 3-D technology other than to have a band member occasionally throw something at the camera. The producers did hand out glow-in-the-dark wands to the audience, so cameras catch waves of color undulating in the dark. A runway thrusts out into the audience for a brother to venture out into a sea of 3-D-grasping female hands. And that's about it.

Not that this will dissuade any of the Jonas Brothers' loyal troupe of female youngsters. Disney looks to score big with that demographic not only with this movie but the soundtrack and DVD. Every other moviegoing demographic shrugged its shoulders. The film debuted disappointingly at No. 2 with estimated weekend sales of $12.7 million.

The concert, taken from the brothers' Burning Up tour last year, mostly was filmed at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., despite the film's curious attempt to make it look like everything is happening in and around Manhattan. Guess the Big Apple is more hip than the home of the Anaheim Ducks.

Adding to the pedestrian presentation are "backstage" antics and a single-song Central Park concert that are surprisingly lame. Throw in a few chase sequences where the brothers are pursued by overexcited fans, which serve only to remind you how much more cinematic Richard Lester's "A Hard Day's Night" was, and you have a dubious experience indeed.

The main selling points to the band, which originally gained popularity on Disney Channel, are their clean-cut, "family-friendly" image -- which is fine so far as it goes. Certainly their musicianship and onstage professionalism are smooth, though maybe a bit too smooth. There is little spontaneity in anything they do.

The brothers make good dance music with a strong beat and rhythm. In this concert, they never attempt a ballad or, for that matter, anything other than uptempo raves and fuzzy guitar licks. The sound amplification and the screams of freaked-out tweens tend to drown out the lyrics, but what does come through mostly is bubblegum.

Hendricks devotes considerable footage building a character around Robert "Big Rob" Feggans, bodyguard to the band as he is for other top musical acts. But there is little payoff to the buildup other than a brief appearance onstage late in the film doing a half-hearted rap against the brothers' pop-rock sounds.

At one point, the band is joined onstage by Disney's latest ingenue, 16-year-old Demi Lovato, who has a voice but like the brothers lacks a presence. Another forgettable appearance is made by 19-year-old country star Taylor Swift.

The subtext here is the extreme youth of the film's performers, even though two of the three Jonas Brothers are legally adults -- Kevin is 21, Joe 19 and Nick 16. Tell you what: How about a battle of the bands between the aging Jonas Brothers and Jack Black's elementary-school kids in 2003's now-classic "School of Rock"? The Jonases wouldn't stand a chance.

(Editing by Dean Goodman at Reuters)

Source : Reuters
By Kirk Honeycutt Kirk Honeycutt – Mon Mar 2, 12:23 am ET

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#181. Berita Filem : Iran angered over films 'The Wrestler' and '300'

TEHRAN, Iran – An adviser to Iran's president on Sunday demanded an apology from a team of visiting Hollywood actors and movie industry officials, including Annette Bening, saying films such as "300" and "The Wrestler" were "insulting" to Iranians.

Without an apology, members of Iran's film industry should refuse to meet with representatives from the nine-member team, said Javad Shamaqdari, the art and cinema adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"In my viewpoint, it is a failure to have an official meeting with one who is insulting," Shamaqdari told The Associated Press.

The film "300," portrays the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in which a force of 300 Spartans held off a massive Persian army at a mountain pass in Greece for three days. It angered many Iranians for the way Persians are depicted as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks.

Iranians also criticized "The Wrestler" starring Mickey Rourke as a rundown professional wrestler who is preparing for a rematch with his old nemesis, "The Ayatollah." During a fight scene, "The Ayatollah" tries to choke Rourke with an Iranian flag before Rourke pulls the flagpole away, breaks it and throws it into the cheering crowd.

Neither movie was shown in Iran.

While American actors such as Sean Penn have traveled to Iran, it is rare for such a large group to visit. In February, Iran denied visas to a U.S. women's badminton team that had been invited to compete in a tournament in Iran.

The group includes the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Sid Ganis; actors Bening, and Alfre Woodard; producer William Horberg; AMPAS Special Events Programmer and Exhibitions Curator Ellen Harrington; and Tom Pollock, the former Universal Pictures chairman.

According to the Web site of Iran's Cinema Association, the group arrived Friday in Iran. They met a group of Iranian artists on Saturday, and will be holding educational seminars in directing, screenwriting, acting, producing, marketing and film distribution.

Shamaqdari says Iranians will warmly host the visiting Americans "but it will not stop Iranians from demanding an apology."

The visits come as President Barack Obama has indicated a new willingness to open up relations with Iran.

Relations between the two countries have been strained over concerns in the West that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapons program, something Tehran denies. The U.S. has also alleged that overwhelmingly Shiite Iran supports Shiite militias in Iraq, which Iran says is not true.

The two countries have not had diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage-taking at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

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#180. Berita Filem : 300 director Zack Snyder is Watchmen hero

The clock is ticking on Watchmen - finally opening in theatres after more than 20 years of "To Be Continued ..."

A comic-book mini-series so ambitious, so culturally complex and so deconstructive of the superhero archetype that Time magazine in 2005 included it on its list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923, Watchmen daunted such filmmakers as Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass as it wound its way through 20th Century Fox, Universal, Paramount and finally Warner Bros.

But now 300 director Zack Snyder and screenwriters David Hayter (X-Men) and Alex Tse, a feature-film newcomer, have made a Thermopylae-like stand against overwhelming odds.

If they pull it off - and a preview of three scenes and a background-establishing credits sequence that's a mini-movie itself suggests they have - Watchmen will be watched over and over. Why? As King Leonidas might have screamed, "This ... is Snyder!!!"

Not that the genial and unassuming director himself suggests anything of the sort. "It's been an intense, exhausting process," says Snyder, 43. "I was happy to do it, and I couldn't be happier with the result, but it's the hardest thing that I've ever had to work on."

And unlike many filmmakers fresh off a $245-million worldwide hit, he gives spontaneous props to his studio. "Warner Bros. understands what I'm trying to do. I think they're the voice of reason sometimes. Ya know," he adds, "what I've always wanted to do is make movies. I would do it for free." (Note to his agent: Never show this to a studio.)

A faithful adaptation of the revered mini-series, the two-hour, 37-minute Watchmen follows the fates of several non-superpowered masked crime fighters and one genuine superhuman from 1940 to 1985, when the bulk of the story takes place. Amid an escalating Cold War, President Richard Nixon has repealed term limits and made costumed vigilantes illegal.

The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a sociopath who is one of two government-sanctioned heroes, is murdered by an unknown assailant. When outlawed hero Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), a madman-savant Ayn Randian in a trench coat, investigates, the mystery eventually ensnares hero-turned-philanthropist Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), the voluntarily vanished Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) and Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman). She's now the consort of the government's other hero, the freakish Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a godlike molecular manipulator who lives unstuck in time and space.

Snyder "would work 12-, 15-hour days" to bring all this to the screen, Goode says. "He's got hundreds of people around him needing answers to things, and there's no wrong question - you can ask him anything. He's never tired, he's excited to be doing the job he's doing - and he still takes time to play football with his kids."

Snyder even stoically soldiered on when 20th Century Fox filed a doomsday lawsuit over ownership issues. (Fox and Warner reached a settlement in January.)

"It was a little bit scary for a while," Snyder says. "It's one thing to say, 'Oh, another studio is gonna release the movie.' It's another thing entirely when they're saying, 'Oh, we're gonna shelve it for all time'."

The cast, which includes Matt Frewer, Stephen McHattie and Carla Gugino, was chosen less for marquee value than for acting chops. "I was very worried about my casting," Goode says, believing that he was "not the physical type for (Ozymandias). Yet Zack was adamant and reassuring and made me feel at ease."

Snyder, for his part, says Goode "fit the bill and did an amazing job. We were having a hard time casting (the role), because we needed someone handsome, beautiful and sophisticated, and that's a tough combo." Likewise, for The Comedian: "It's hard to find a man's man in Hollywood. It just is. And Jeffrey came in and was grumpy and cool and grizzled, and I was, like, 'OK, Jeffrey is perfect!'"

Some fan controversy arose over Snyder choosing to forgo the "space squid" climax that worked in print but likely would have looked silly onscreen. (The ending remains intact thematically.) Others grumbled over studio ads calling Snyder "visionary" - as if 300 didn't have a distinct vision.

That criticism riles Goode. "It may be too early to call him the next Ridley Scott," he says of Snyder, "but visually he's freaking extraordinary. Anybody who says he's not, after they see the first 15 minutes, they'll be eating their hats."

And unless you're Matter-Eater Lad of the Legion of Super-Heroes - the very antithesis of Watchmen - that just won't do.

Source :
MCT Information Services
The Star
By FRANK LOVECE

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#170. Berita Filem : 'Gomorrah' strong in limited release

Despite Oscar snub, Italian mafia film a big hit
Oscar snub? Who cares?

While some crix decried the omission of Italy's "Gomorrah" in this season's foreign-language category, Matteo Garrone's naturalistic Mafia pic has quietly been doing boffo biz Stateside, albeit in very limited release.

The film has grossed $25 million to date worldwide. Stateside, after playing in L.A. for its failed Oscar-qualifying run, IFC bowed "Gomorrah" in New York on Feb. 14 to the highest North American per-screen average prior to Presidents Day -- $20,540. In its soph outing, the pic scored a still-strong $10,087per-screen-average.

The film just expanded to the top 10 U.S. markets over the weekend before it gradually goes wider.

Meanwhile, producer Domenico Procacci, who kept mum in the immediate aftermath of the pic's Oscar exclusion, has been revealing details of his subsequent exchange with the Academy, specifically with the topper of the foreign-language branch.

"I don't want to sound like a sore loser," Procacci tells Variety. "I simply sent a letter to Mark Johnson to say that something had not worked properly in the selection process."

"Now I just hope that the system will be perfected."

"Gomorrah," which won the Cannes Jury Grand Prize and five European Academy Awards, among other kudos, has played particularly well in Gaul ($4 million), Spain ($3 million), and Blighty ($ 1.3 million to date).

Source :
Variety.com
Posted: Fri., Feb. 27, 2009, 1:01pm PT
By NICK VIVARELLI

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#168. Berita Filem : Only inspectors torture in India, government told 'Slumdog...' makers

The co-producer of 'Slumdog Millionaire' says one of the best things to come out of the Oscar winning movie is the debate on poverty and torture that it has sparked in India.Christian Colson disclosed that when the filmmakers sought the initial permission of the government, the only thing the ministry of culture objected to was a scene in the script where the hero is tortured by a Mumbai deputy commissioner of police.

But the objection wasn't over the torture itself - 'the letter from the ministry said it is inconceivable that anyone above the rank of an inspector could be involved in torture', Colson told a large crowd at the House of Commons Thursday night.As a result, the filmmakers lowered the torturer's rank - Irfan Khan plays an inspector but doesn't carry out any of the torture himself, leaving the job to his subordinate.

Colson made the comments while accepting an award for international achievement at the Asian Voice Political and Public Life Awards in the exclusive setting of the Members' Dining Room of the British parliament.

Other winners included: IANS European Bureau Chief Dipankar De Sarkar (journalist of the year), Minister for Women and Equality Harriet Harman (parliamentarian of the year); Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal and Executive Vice President Anita Goyal (international entrepreneurs of the year), Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather (opposition parliamentarian of the year) and Baroness Paula Uddin (peer of the year).

Among the large gathering at the ceremony were Transport Minister Geoff Hoon, Asian Voice Publisher and Editor C.B. Patel, Conservative Party Chairman Eric Pickles, Home Affairs Select Committee Chairman and Labour MP Keith Vaz as well as a number of other British MPs and ministers.

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

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#167. Berita Filem : French film awards accused of box office snub

PARIS (Reuters) – French cinema holds its version of the Oscars on Friday in a ceremony where self-congratulation after a year of box office and critical triumphs will be dosed by claims that the biggest hit of all has been snubbed.The annual Cesars awards provide the local industry with one of its annual highlights, with a glitzy if rarely glitch-free night often mocked in France for its mix of gushing tributes and onstage gaffes by stars and presenters.

This year, French cinema has an unusually successful period to look back on, with an Oscar for actress Marion Cotillard, the first French film winner at Cannes in more than 20 years and the biggest box office success in the industry's history.But controversy is rarely far away and this year is no exception with claims that the Cesars have ignored the popular comedy "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" (Welcome to the Sticks).

The story of a post office executive transferred to the far north of France and forced to deal with rain, strange food and incomprehensible accents has attracted more than 20 million viewers to become the biggest French hit of all time.

Star and director Dany Boon, reported by the daily Le Figaro to have earned 26 million euros ($33.06 million) from the film, will not be attending the ceremony because it has only been nominated for one award -- Best Screenplay.

"It's a shame, it's cinema's party and we're not represented," he told RTL radio earlier this month.

A galaxy of French comedy stars have backed him, declaring that the awards have become the snobbish preserve of intellectual films that nobody watches and demanding a special award for "Best Comedy."

Others, including Luc Besson, director and producer of a string of hits including "Le Grand Bleu" and "Leon," have responded that "Les Ch'tis" was an enjoyable and unpretentious comedy but hardly great cinema.

"I like Dany Boon a lot, 'Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis' made me laugh but I don't understand the debate," he told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

Instead, favorites include "Mesrine," the two-part story of legendary 1970s French gangster Jacques Mesrine, starring Vincent Cassel or "A Christmas Tale," director Arnaud Desplechin's family saga starring Catherine Deneuve and Bond villain Mathieu Amalric.

The schoolroom drama "Entre les murs" ("The Class"), the first French film since 1987 to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes and nominated for the Oscar as Best Foreign Film, is also in the running, crowning an outstanding year for French films.

Although the Cesars may have overlooked it, the industry overall has every reason to thank Les Ch'tis, whose success fueled a bumper year in which French films attracted more than 86 million spectators at home and a record 77 million abroad.

Source : Reuters
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
By James Mackenzie James Mackenzie
Fri Feb 27, 6:13 am ET

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#166. Berita Filem : African film festival turns 40 with pride

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – Big-screen tales of township gangsters and cattle-preying lions compete at next week's 40th anniversary FESPACO Pan-African film festival, showcasing the continent's wide-ranging cinematic talent.Far from the red carpets and paparazzi of Cannes and Venice, film lovers will throng movie halls in dusty Burkina Faso, where every two years cinema comes to the masses in one of the world's poorest countries.

"There's no other festival in the world like it -- it's a populist event," said head judge Gaston Kabore, himself a popular director from Burkina Faso."When people can't get in because the theatres are full, they just grab a beer and mill around with the filmmakers, drinking in the atmosphere," he told Reuters in an interview.

Conference halls have been transformed into cinemas for the week and in outlying districts of the capital Ouagadougou viewers will perch on concrete pews in open-air theatres beneath the Sahelian star-scape for 200 CFA ($0.40) apiece.

Instead of the usual imported kick-flicks and Bollywood blockbusters on show at disheveled cinema halls, FESPACO offers a broad wealth of African imagery.

"African films are always full. We don't like all the special effects from Hollywood ... We are proud to see ourselves and want to do it ourselves too," said Moumini Sawadogo, a 28-year-old IT worker.

DREAMS AND HARDSHIP

"My big dream is to become a filmmaker ... Cinema is the way I can express myself and what I see," said Sawadogo. He has written a film script about the broken dreams of Africans who head to Europe only to have to be bailed out by family at home.

Burkina Faso, landlocked, dependent on subsistence farming and so earthy the capital's magenta flowers flail under thick dust, suffers many hardships that typify Africa's image overseas.

Its film-loving leftist revolutionary president Thomas Sankara once called the country "the quintessence of all the misfortunes of the peoples." Sankara was assassinated in 1987.

Nurtured by ties to France, its former colonial master, and Soviet funding and training during the Cold War, the West African state built up a cinema culture in the 1960s, later winning awards at festivals abroad. FESPACO launched in 1969.

"We come from very great cultural riches but we have lost a lot of ourselves through the traumatic experience of colonialism and for many other reasons. We need our own patterns and paradigms to look at the world; that way we can really repossess ourselves," Kabore said.

Highlighting the achievements of African cinema, this year's festival will include a special celebration of the work of Senegalese director and fisherman's son Ousmane Sembene, a father of African film who died in 2007.

Even so, lack of funds makes it hard to bring films to the few cinemas from Senegal to Swaziland. The last big screen in Cameroon, a country of 18.5 million people, shut down last month.

Feature films competing for this year's Etalon d'Or de Yennenga, the "African Oscar" fashioned after the legendary horsewoman founder of Burkina Faso's biggest ethnic group, range from a superstitious tale of an albino murdered for his head to incest in a poor Afrikaner family in South Africa.

Other categories include short films, television and video, sitcoms, documentaries and entries from the African diaspora.

"People get lost in thinking Africa is one big country," said Keith Shiri, director of Britain's Africa at the Pictures.

"Likewise African film is not a genre -- there's sci-fi, melodrama, romance, political satire, you can find anything."

(Editing by Alistair Thomson)

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#165. Berita Filem : "Watchmen" turns superheroics into campy soap opera

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – It's not easy being a comic-book hero these days. The poor boys have taken their lumps in "Hancock," "The Dark Knight" and even "Iron Man." Self-doubt, angst and inadequacies plague them. And now comes "Watchmen." Its costumed superheroes, operating in an alternative 1985, are seriously screwed up -- and so is their movie.

As stimulating as it was to see the superhero movie enter the realm of crime fiction in "The Dark Knight," "Watchmen" enters into a realm that is both nihilistic and campy. The two make odd companions. The film, directed by Zack Snyder ("300"), will test the limits of superhero movie fans. For anyone who's not already invested in these characters because of the original graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, nothing this movie does is likely to change that predicament.

That's bad news for Warner Bros. and Paramount, which hold domestic and international rights, respectively. Opening weekends everywhere will reflect the huge anticipation of this much-touted, news-making movie, which opens March 6 stateside. After that, the box-office slide could be drastic.

Snyder and writers David Hayter and Alex Tse never find a reason for those unfamiliar with the graphic novel to care about any of this nonsense. And it is nonsense. When one superhero has to take a Zen break, he does so on Mars. Of course he does.

The film opens with a brutal killing, then moves on to a credit-roll newsreel of sorts that takes us though the Cold War years, landing in 1985, when Nixon is in his third term -- tipping us that we're in an alternate 1985 America, where our superheroes have taken care of Woodward and Bernstein and other forces have evidently taken care of the U.S. Constitution.

The opening murder happens to a character called the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who was once a member of a now-banished team of superheroes called the Masks. Fellow ex-Mask Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), his mask one of perpetually shifting inkblots, takes exception to his old colleague's death. He believes the entire society of ex-crime-fighters is being targeted even as the Doomsday Clock -- which charts tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union that could lead to nuclear war -- nears midnight.

His investigation and renewed contacts with former buddies fill us in on the complicated histories and problematic psychiatric makeup of these colleagues.

It's all very complicated but not impenetrable. We pick up the relationships quickly enough, but soon realize these back stories owe more to soap operas than to superhero comics.

These aren't so much superheroes as ordinary human beings with, let us say, comic-book martial arts prowess. The one exception is Billy Crudup's Jon Osterman, aka Dr. Manhattan, who in true comic-book fashion was caught in a laboratory accident that turned him into a scientific freak -- a naked, glowing giant, looking a little bit like the Oscar statuette only with actual genitals -- who has amazing godlike powers.

These powers are being harnessed by an ex-Mask, Matthew Goode's menacing and slightly effeminate industrialist Adrian Veidt.

When Dr. Manhattan's frustrated girlfriend, yet another former Mask, Malin Akerman's Laurie Jupiter, can't get any satisfaction from Dr. M, she turns to the former Nite Owl II, Dan Dreiberg, who seems too much of a good guy to be an actual superhero, but he does miss those midnight prowls.

The point is that these superheroes, before Nixon banned them, were more vigilantes than real heroes, so the question the movie poses is, Who is watching these Watchmen? They don't seem much different from the villains. Which also means we don't empathize with any of these creatures. And what's with the silly Halloween getups?

The violence is not as bad as early rumors would have one believe. It's still comic-book stuff, only with lots of bloody effects and makeup. The real disappointment is that the film does not transport an audience to another world, as "300" did. Nor does the third-rate Chandler-esque narration by Rorschach help.

There is something a little lackadaisical here. The set pieces are surprisingly flat and the characters have little resonance. Fight scenes don't hold a candle to Asian action. Even the digital effects are ho-hum. Armageddon never looked so cheesy.

The film seems to take pride in its darkness, but this is just another failed special effect. Cinematographer Larry Fong and production designer Alex McDowell blend real and digital sets with earthen tones and secondary colors that give a sense of the past. But the stories are too absurd and acting too uneven to convince anyone. The appearance of a waxworks Nixon, Kissinger and other 1980s personalities will only bring hoots from less charitable audiences.

Looks like we have the first real flop of 2009.

Source : Reuters

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#159. Berita Filem : Films on terror don't get shooting permission in London

By indiaabroad
Friday Feb 27 8:55 AM

Mumbai, Feb 27 (IANS) Post-9/11 many Indian filmmakers experimented with the theme of terrorism. But filming them on foreign soil has become an uphill task, especially in Britain. If writer-director Renzil D'Silva had his way, his debut film on terrorism, which is being produced by Karan Johar, would have been shot in London. Unfortunately permission was denied to shoot in any underground tube station of London.

The same happened with Karan's directorial venture 'My Name Is Khan'. He couldn't get permission to shoot this Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol starrer in London. Finally, Karan too shot in the US his film about the isolation of the Muslims after 9/11. A little ironical, considering Jagmohan Mundhra's 'Shoot On Sight' based on the London tube-station bombing was shot on actual location.

'Getting permission was tough. The British authorities were very apprehensive because they had read my script. The UK Film Council had to invervene after we protested about artistic muzzling,' Mundhra told IANS. Such pleas, however, did not work with D'Silva's terror drama. Not any more. The shooting had to be shifted out of London.

Since a major chunk of the terrorists' scenes featuring Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi and Om Puri were situated in a tube station, the unit had no option but to shift base to Philadelphia, where permission was not only obtained to shoot in a tube station but an entire train was hired for shooting during off hours.

Confirming this shift of venue Om Puri said: 'We were supposed to shoot the film in London but were denied permission to shoot at a tube station. Now we're shooting in Philadelphia. The paradigms of terrorism and films on the theme have certainly shifted first after 9/11 and now even more so after what has happened in Mumbai.'

Even Kabir Khan's next film, which is titled 'New York', is on terrorism and was shot in Philadelphia. John Abraham, who plays lead in the film, says the film was shot in Philadelphia because the topography is similar. 'A lot of films located in New York are actually shot in Philadelphia,' said John. 'New York' also stars Katrina Kaif and Neil Nitin Mukesh.

After the Mumbai attacks, terrorism as a theme has found prominence in Hindi films and several filmmakers are attempting to exploit it. Not only that. It looks like one of Bollywood's beloved villains - the terrorist - is being played by all and sundry. But Om Puri feels the terrorist shouldn't be Bollywood's favourite villain. 'We can't make provocative films on terrorism any more where we show terrorists as snarling villains,' he said.

Om thinks even Neeraj Pandey's much-acclaimed 'A Wednesday' featuring Naseeruddin Shah as a terrorist mastermind was provocative. 'Imagine what they'd make of 'A Wednesday' across the border! Now I think the time has come to soften the edges while portraying the terrorist. In Renzil's film, though I play a terror mastermind I'm not shown as an insane irrational madman. To understand why terror attacks happen we need to understand the terrorists' mind. My character in Renzil's film is an endeavour in that direction,' said Om Puri.

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#149. Berita Filem - Role that matters

Thursday February 26, 2009
The Star



At the centre of Love Matters’ story is troubled couple Tan Bo Seng (Henry Thia) and Jia Li (Yeo Yann Yann). After years of marriage, they start to feel that the love has gone out of their relationship.Meanwhile, their young son Benny (Alex Leong) is just finding out about the birds and the bees, while Bo Seng’s womanising brother Jeremy (Jack Lim) finds himself falling in love.

The movie also stars Malaysians Cheryl Lee, MayJune Tan and veteran Lai Ming, with a cameo by Jack Neo regular Mark Lee.

It’s interesting to note that Thia is a Neo film regular while Malaysian actress Yeo is a Neo film newbie. And what’s more interesting is that while Yeo plays Thia’s wife in the film, she is actually almost the same age as Thia’s eldest daughter.

“She can be my daughter, you know!” Thia joked.

Johor-born Yeo has appeared in many Singapore productions, from Royston Tan’s 2007 megahit 881 and Singapore Dreaming to some independent short films. In Love Matters, the 32-year-old had to make herself look older in order to play Jia Li.

“It was one of the things I had to consider before taking on this role,” said Yeo. “So I did my homework and tried on a few things for myself. And then I thought perhaps I could do it.”

“She went to the market and surveyed the aunties,” Thia joked.

“If I can’t look the role, then I can’t do it, because the camera is so cruel,” said Yeo. “If you do not look the part, then no matter how hard you try, it won’t work. You have to somehow look the part first, and so I started from there.”

“You know what helped you?” Thia asked her. “The costumes!” At that point, Yeo broke into laughter.

“She has to act old, but I don’t have to,” Thia added, eliciting more laughter from those at the press conference.

In one particular sequence, Bo Seng and Jia Li try to “get it on” in bed, but the husband discovers his impotence. Asked if it was awkward for them in that scene, Yeo said: “No, it wasn’t awkward. In fact, we were laughing so hard under the covers. Our crew was just laughing so hard, we had to lock them out of the room because they were so noisy! They were distracting us.”

Thia and Yeo had worked together in a TV sketch 10 years ago, so for them, the chemistry was immediate once they got on the set of Love Matters.

“The moment we came to work on this film, we just clicked,” said Yeo. “It’s probably because we’re both Pisceans. His birthday is five days after mine.”

For Thia, this is his first leading role, after having worked with Neo for 25 years.

“He has improved a lot,” said Thia of Neo. “Now I like Jack Neo movies!”

So he didn’t like them before this?

“I don’t know lah,” said the ever straight-faced comedian. “Before this, he used to make just funny movies, but now, his movies also touch on serious issues. So I get to learn more as well.”

Thia also credited Neo for making him well-known. “Before this, whenever I came to Kuala Lumpur, nobody recognised me. But after Money No Enough 2, a lot of people now know me,” said Thia.

So, what if one day Neo doesn’t have a role for him any more?

“I will ...” Thia joked, feigning anger and clenching his fists.

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#148. Berita Filem - Che director Steven Soderbergh's revolutionary filmmaking

Thursday February 26, 2009
The Star
ROBERT W. BUTLER

It's a face recognised even by those who know nothing about the man behind it. He peers at us from T-shirts and posters and magazines, a bearded man in a beret who 42 years after his death remains the stuff of myth.

But just who was Che Guevara?

In his four-hour film Che director Steven Soderbergh digs at the mystique of the Latin American revolutionary.But even Soderbergh admits that his subject - portrayed on screen by Benicio del Toro - remains a mystery.

"I suspect Che would find someone who does what I do for a living pretty silly," Soderbergh said in a recent phone conversation from his Los Angeles home.

"I don't think he cared much for movies. He didn't have much use for the arts in general. The only mention of movies I could find in his writing was very dismissive. He viewed them as a propaganda tool of the imperialists.

"In the society Che was trying to build, I wouldn't have a job."

Still, there was something about the arc of Guevara's life that appealed to Soderbergh.

The versatile and daring filmmaker is used to swimming against the current, dividing his projects between profitable popcorn (the Ocean's franchise, Erin Brockovich) and small, personal films that sometimes never make it past the festival circuit.

He became fascinated by Che's status as a true believer, a man who would risk everything to fight imperialism on behalf of Latin America's impoverished masses.

"I didn't want this film to feel like a typical biography," Soderbergh said. "I didn't want to do much with Che's personal life, which wasn't really relevant to what I was interested in."

The key to getting a handle on Guevara, he said, is to understand his attraction to the jungle.

Born in Argentina and trained as a physician, Guevara joined Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution in 1955 and led an army in that country's mountains and jungles. He held important positions in the new Cuban government but left to organise Communist guerrilla units in the Congo and South America. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967.

"Out in the wild with a group of fighters must have been where Che felt the most complete," Soderbergh said. "I got a sense of that when we were out in the middle of nowhere shooting the movie. I had a tiny feeling of being somewhere remote with a small group of people trying to accomplish something.

"Those were the circumstances in which we saw the best version of Che. It was an opportunity for him to combine intellect and action."

But Soderbergh remains puzzled over how Guevara sustained his belief for so long in the face of so much adversity.

"We all get activated at some point about something. But our fervor tends to go up and down.

"Not Che. His ability to get up every morning and continue to go at it, day after day, year after year - that's what impressed me. Whether you like him or not, he was constantly sacrificing himself for someone else. Often for someone he'd never met."

The down side of Guevara's revolutionary fervour, Soderbergh said, was that it overwhelmed just about everything else.

"Apparently not even the men who fought and died with Che really knew him," Soderberg said. "There's a great quote from a young doctor who fought alongside Che and was close to him. He said you had to love Che for free.

"Even this guy who admired Che was saying that he was impossible to embrace."

His goal in making Che, Soderbergh said, was not to give a sense of what it's like to be Che, but rather what it was like to be around Che.

That approach dictated the look of the film. For example, there are virtually no close-ups of Del Toro.

"It seemed it would be a violation of Che's ethos to isolate him in the frame," Soderbergh explained. "It was the opposite of what he was about. I purposely grouped him with other characters whenever I could."

So daunting is the Guevara legend that after years of planning to play Che, Del Toro got cold feet as filming approached.

"Benicio was feeling pretty anxious. I said, 'Look, let's just acknowledge that it's impossible to do this. You can't get all of somebody in a movie, especially someone who lived a life like this. Let's just accept it and do it anyway.'"

Soderbergh said he tried to be totally objective.

"I'm just trying to give an impression of what I learned about the man through all my research."

The results haven't been without controversy. A screening of Che in Miami, where Cuban exiles are a powerful political force, ended in a screaming match.

"You can imagine the response," Soderbergh said. "They were livid. But given some people's experience, I can understand that. For certain people, Che is totally defined by what happened in the six months after the success of the Cuban revolution. He supervised the executions of Batista supporters. And he never expressed any remorse about it.

"People who consider him a butcher won't be satisfied by our film."

Che often feels more like a documentary than a fictional re-creation, something that Soderbergh attributes to the manner in which it was filmed in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Spain and New York City.

"The feel was dictated by the speed with which we were shooting. We had a tight schedule and little money, so you didn't have time to act. We did everything in two or three takes and moved on. You didn't have time for lots of analysis ... which was a good thing.

"I warned all the actors that I wouldn't have time to be as overtly supportive as I'd like and that they'd have to take care of themselves.

"But the fact that they were all adrift bound them to each other and resulted in a sense of collusion that comes across in the movie. What happened to Che's soldiers happened to the cast. That's why it feels lived-in rather than acted."

Soderbergh says he's always working on two or three projects.

"I'm often surprised that so many well-regarded filmmakers don't work more. The only way to get better is to shoot. And my metabolism is more accelerated now than when I started out in this business. If there's no money for a big movie, you make a little movie."

- Copyright (C) 2009 MCT Information Services

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