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Henry Cavill Hopes That The Justice League Movie Won't Happen Right Away By Eric Eisenberg 2013-06-25 23:06:47 comments In hindsight, Zack Snyder's Man of Steel wasn't quite the bridge to a Justice League movie that we all thought it would be. While the film did contain some hints at a larger DC Cinematic Universe, with references to Batman's Wayne Enterprises, Supergirl and Cyborg, it didn't have anything nearly as epic as, say, Nick Fury appearing in the post-credits sequence of Iron Man to try and recruit Tony Stark for the Avengers Initiative. The truth is that at this point we really have no idea when or even if we will ever see the Justice League united on the big screen. According to Man of Steel star Henry Cavill, however, that may not be the worst thing in the world. The star was recently featured on Peter Travers�s Popcorn webcast for ABC News (via ComicBook.com) and during the 15-minute interview touched on the possibility of getting to see Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and The Flash unite on the big screen in live-action for the first time. Discussing the future of the franchise, Cavill admitted that he doesn't really know what's going on in terms of sequels or a larger comic book movie universe, but expressed hope that the folks over at Warner Bros. and DC Comics will really take their time with the property and build something really special with it. Said the actor, "Justice League�more movies, I have no idea. Justice League could be great if done correctly. It�s a very tough one to do because the DC Comics heroes are all godlike in their power so in the real-world setting we�re telling our story in it�s going to be tough to achieve that and it has to be done very delicately and a lot of thought. So it won�t be right away, certainly not, or I hope not anyway. It may take some time building other movies and other characters and then introduce them together in one way or another." Unfortunately, in the last year or so it has been suggested that "slow and steady" isn't exactly in the WB/DC playbook. Rather than taking the Marvel Studios path, building a roster of superheroes with solo movies before jumping into the big event film that was The Avengers, in June of 2012 it was reported that the studio had actually hired Gangster Squad screenwriter Will Beall to pen a draft of Justice League back in 2011, with plans to have the movie in theaters for summer 2015. That plan seemed to start falling apart in February of this year when it was said that Beall's script had been scrapped. As much as I desperately want to see a Justice League movie actually happen - and I promise you that's a whole lot - I have to side with Cavill in his assessment. Part of the reason why we haven't seen a DC superhero team up movie yet is because they are working with characters that aren't tremendously easy to write for, and need time to be developed on the big screen. At this point it feels doubtful that we will actually see the project come together in any real way in the next few years, but that may be for the best.

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Big Brother 15 Finale Speculation: Who Deserves To Win? By Kelly West 1 year ago comments Another season of Big Brother draws to a close this Wednesday night. At the start of the season, if you had told me that the final three would be Andy, Spencer and GinaMarie, I'm not sure I would have believed it. None of them hit the ground running, as GinaMarie joined the showmance club, pairing up with Nick (kind of). Spencer secured himself a spot in an alliance that had potential, though he seemed more likely to provide more vote-support than anything in the Moving Company. And Andy struck me as the ultimate floater, which he did sort of turn out to be. So how did these three make it to the end? They were smart enough to lock arms near the end and secure themselves the strength in numbers when it mattered the most. They aren't my personal picks for the Top 3. Not by a stretch. But they didn't get there by accident. So, who deserves to win? I'm of the mindset that whoever actually wins deserves to win. The whole point of Big Brother is to stay in the house as long as possible and get to the Final 2 next to someone the jury wants to see win less than you. So it doesn't matter who we want to win. Who will win is whoever got to the Final 2 and managed to secure more than half of the votes from the jury. Predicting that is nearly impossible. We think we can guess how people will vote, but the jury has surprised us in the past. I wouldn't have predicted that last season's jury would've been so unappreciative of Dan's efforts to get to the end. I thought at least some of the jury would have thrown him a vote for the work Dan put into securing himself a spot in the Final 2. Alas, they went with the person who burned them less. Or maybe they just didn't want to see a veteran houseguest win a second time. Who knows? It doesn't matter. If Dan had "deserved" to win, he would have. With the above said, there are reasons why all three of the Top Three houseguests could win this season of Big Brother. Each of their games have merit, and there's a chance any one of them could be $500,000 richer come Wednesday night. Let's look at the arguments to be made for why each deserves the grand prize. GinaMarie - On Head of Household wins, GM's in line with Andy with two, though Andy has a couple of Veto wins on her so he's ahead there. And really, two HoH's isn't really enough to warrant competition credit, though it does exclude her from being carried to the end. You really only need to win one HoH to avoid being branded a weak player. But GM's biggest strength in the game is her loyalty. She stuck by the people she was loyal to pretty firmly, only wavering the week Aaryn went home, which is when she was at risk of being nominated. That's also when the Exterminators formed. She was devoutly loyal to the Exterminators to the end. If she gets to the Final 2, GM's best bet is to argue that she got to the end being loyal, and she's proof that you can make the Final 2 without back-stabbing. This will be especially crucial as an argument if she's sitting next to Andy, who played a very different game. We'll look at Andy's game after the jump... Continued On Next Page > Tweet CSI Is Losing George Eads And That's A Really Bad Sign How James Corden Was Roped Into Late Night When His Career Was Taking Off Network Rundown 2014-2015: Cancelations, Renewals And Episode Orders When The New Late Late Host Will Appear On David Letterman The Millers Just Got Cancelled Partway Through Its Second Season How The Big Bang Theory Honored Carol Ann Susi All The Details On James Corden's Late Late Show Slot

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Music Faith Hill Will Sing on CMA Awards by CMT.com Staff Faith Hill will perform her new single on the CMA Awards on Nov. 9. The title of the song has not yet been revealed. This will be her first performance on the show since 2006. She is expected to release a new album early next year. Hill has won three CMA Awards, including femal

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Tag Archives: MDNA GIVEAWAY: Tix to The Ting Tings on Saturday at the Granada Theater Posted on 18 Apr 2012 at 3:59pm Tweet Thanks to the Granada Theater for offering Dallas Voice readers a chance to see The Ting Tings this Saturday. The band is touring in support of its second album Sounds from Nowheresville and drops in on Big D this weekend. MNDR opens the show (not to be confused with MDNA (or MDMA). We have two pairs to give away for the show and all you need to do is email us here with “My Favorite Tings” in the subject line and your name and phone number in the body (for winner contact purposes only) and we will randomly select two winners on Thursday and contact with concert details. Good luck! And in the meantime, watch their video from the album’s lead single, “Hang It Up.” WATCH: Madonna’s “Girl Gone Wild” Posted on 20 Mar 2012 at 9:27pm Tweet Madonna makes a much more mature showing in this video more so than in “Give Me All Your Luvin’” from January. The buzz is all about its black and white atmosphere and her return to form. She succeeds in stepping up her presence with subtle nods to the Madonna of the Erotica/Bedtime Stories era, but still very fashion forward. This is leaps and bounds beyond the album’s first video, but where Madonna should be at this point. The video premiered tonight on E! Online. M.D.N.A. is set for release March. 26. Expressing herself: The Madonna interview Posted on 24 Feb 2012 at 11:30am Tweet Madonna didn’t snag an Oscar nomination this year — not for her directorial effort or the song she wrote for it in the film W./E., about the romance between the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Warfield Simpson. But she still made an impact, in this Chris Azzopardi interview with the Material Girl. Madonna expresses herself With all of Madonna’s metamorphoses throughout her balls-out career, slipping in and out of cultural zeitgeists (and accents), the queen chameleon is still the master of reinvention. Just don’t tell her that. “Please don’t throw those tired, old clichés at me,” Madonna playfully insists, nodding her head in half-kidding agitation. (Hey, at least I didn’t mention hydrangeas.) Her annoyance is marked with a cheekiness — and a smile — that only the Material Girl could pull off, which has for three decades. The indelible diva drops her hyped 12th album, MDNA, in March via a three-disc deal with Interscope; she plans to launch an extensive world tour; and this weekend, readies for perhaps the gayest Super Bowl halftime ever. That’s just music; feature-length directorial debut W.E., was just nominated for an Oscar for costume design. In fact, all she cares to talk about now is the film, a semi-biopic on Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII dovetailed with a modern-day love story centered on fictionalized damsel-in-distress Wally Winthrop. Seated at a Waldorf-Astoria suite with others in the gay press, Madonna is in her groove. She knows we get her even when she’s wielding snarky cracks. Looking flawless at 53, she delivers exactly what we want: Madonna. No pretense. No filter. No warm-and-fuzzy. Read it all after the jump. Continue reading “Expressing herself: The Madonna interview” » Concert Notice: Madonna at AAC Oct. 20 Posted on 07 Feb 2012 at 9:37am Tweet Big concert news came hours ago as Madonna officially announced the itinerary for her new world tour and Dallas makes the list. This marks her first show this way since the Blonde Ambition tour hit Reunion arena 22 years ago. I was stunned that she wouldn’t be hitting Cowboys Stadium, but this makes it much closer to home. This news only adds to her recent return to the pop culture radar with her new movie W/E, Sunday’s Super Bowl performance and her release last week, “Give Me All Your Luvin’” from her upcoming album M.D.N.A. Will she repeat some of the imagery of her Super Bowl performance that recalled a lot of Kylie’s Aphrodite tour? Mmmmm…hopefully not, but please, Madge, no lip syncing like you did during most of your performance. Madonna is scheduled to play the American Airlines Center, Oct. 20 with tickets to begin going on sale to the general public Feb. 21. WATCH: Madonna’s “Give Me All Your Luvin’” The eagerly awaited new single from Madonna’s new album M.D.N.A. is now official. She teased us with the album art a few days ago and now her first single and video. She dropped her single “Give Me All Your Luvin’” today. A smart move as usual to tease her halftime performed at Sunday’s Super Bowl, especially since she centered the video around cheerleader back up dancers and very assisting football players along with M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj along for the ride. She’s looking good with a sort of brushed out Adele-ish do. The song is both cute and cool thanks to its beat. She seems to be vying for her more pop-friendly days of True Blue and Like a Virgin than her more exploratory, complex stuff like Ray of Light and Confessions on a Dancefloor, so she may be coming full circle to her early days. Either way, she’ll likely score with “Luvin.’” But enough about my thoughts on it. Here’s your new Madonna.

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Democracy Now! interviews and stories about the documentary filmmaker, Michael Moore. ‹ Previous 1 2 3 4 5 … 8 Next › "Here Comes Trouble": Michael Moore Tells the Formative Tales Behind His Filmmaking, Rabble-Rousing For more than two decades, Michael Moore has been one of the most politically active, provocative and successful documentary filmmakers in the business. We talk to Moore about his new memoir, "Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life," which comprises 20 biographic vignettes that capture how his political and sociological viewpoints developed. He also discusses the numerous attacks and death threats he received after speaking out... September 28, 2011 | Story Former Senator Bob Graham Urges Obama to Reopen Investigation into Saudi Role in 9/11 Attacks Former Florida governor and senator Bob Graham is calling on President Obama to reopen the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks after new information has emerged about the possible role of prominent Saudis in the 9/11 plot. According to recent news reports, a wealthy young Saudi couple fled their home in a gated community in Sarasota, Florida, just a week or so before Sept. 11, 2001, leaving behind three cars and nearly all of their... September 15, 2011 | Story West Memphis Three Freed from Jail 18 Years After Being Convicted amid "Wave of Satanic Hysteria" A trio of men convicted of brutally murdering three young boys in Arkansas in 1993 were released from prison Friday. Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. — otherwise known as the West Memphis Three — entered a rare plea deal in which they maintained their innocence, but pleaded guilty to murder, with the state of Arkansas recognizing them as child-killers safe enough to be set free. The men were convicted of the killings... August 22, 2011 | Story Welcome to Bloombergville: New York Activists Fight Budget Cuts By Camping in Front of City Hall In New York City, activists are camping out near City Hall to protest budget cuts and layoffs. They’ve dubbed the encampment "Bloombergville." June 24, 2011 | Web Exclusive Outrage in Wisconsin: Thousands Flood Capitol After GOP Strips Public Workers of Bargaining Rights in Surprise Senate Vote Thousands of demonstrators flooded the Wisconsin State Capitol building last night after Republican senators took a surprise vote to strip most public employee workers of their right to collectively bargain. The bill could be made law if the Assembly votes today. The State Senate has been at a standstill since all 14 Democratic members fled the Wisconsin to prevent quorum. But on Wednesday, Republicans advanced the measure by stripping it of... March 10, 2011 | Story "This is a Class War": Michael Moore Calls for Renewed Pro-Democracy Movement as Anti-Union Bills Approved in Wisconsin and Michigan As Wisconsin Republicans passed Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union bill in the State Senate, a bill in Michigan goes even further. In the measure, emergency financial managers would be allowed to break union contracts, dismiss elected officials, and even disincorporate entire municipalities. Michigan Senate Republicans approved the bill yesterday, and protests are expected in the Lansing State Capitol building today. We speak to filmmaker... March 10, 2011 | Story "America is Not Broke!": Michael Moore addresses thousands in Madison, Wisconsin On Saturday, March 5, 2011, thousands of people rallied in Madison, Wisconsin on the steps of the state capitol. Among those who took to the microphone, was academy award winning filmmaker, Michael Moore. March 07, 2011 | Web Exclusive As Public Broadcasting and Community Media Face Potentially Massive Cuts at Home, Hillary Clinton Calls for Increased Funding for U.S. Propaganda Overseas “We are in an information war, and we are losing that war,” said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week as she praised Al Jazeera’s dedication to “real news.” To win the war, Clinton called for expanding U.S. propaganda TV and radio broadcasts overseas. At the same time, public broadcasting and community media are under attack in the United States. Last month, the House voted to eliminate all financing for the Corporation for... March 07, 2011 | Story Michael Moore Joins Wisconsin Labor Protests: “America Is Not Broke” “Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe, so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot,” said Michael Moore at Saturday’s labor rally in Madison opposing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to end the collective bargaining rights for the majority of public sector workers. “The country is awash in wealth and... March 07, 2011 | Story Judge Convicted in Pennsylvania Kids-for-Cash Scheme, Faces Long Prison Term and Class Action Lawsuit A federal jury has found a former Pennsylvania judge guilty of participating in a so-called "kids for cash" scheme, in which he received money in exchange for sending juvenile offenders to for-profit youth jails over the years. Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, Jr., was convicted Friday of accepting bribes and kickbacks for putting juveniles into detention centers operated by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western... February 22, 2011 | Story ‹ Previous 1 2 3 4 5 … 8 Next ›

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Home » Movies » Feature » Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine, and Hammer Horror Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine, and Hammer Horror Aliya Whiteley Think of women in classic Hammer Horror movies and you probably imagine cleavage and fangs, but the studio worked with some of the greats When you think of Hammer in its heyday, you don’t necessarily think of great roles for women. They employed some amazing actresses in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, including Ursula Andress, Raquel Welch, Ann Todd, Ingrid Pitt, Diane Cilento, Natassja Kinski, and Janette Scott – but these roles mainly concentrated on how good they looked in their dress/underwear/fur bikini. Characterisation often took a back seat to the hero’s story. But there was a period in the 1960s when Hammer embarked on projects that called for the key role to be played by a middle-aged woman, and they brought in some of Hollywood’s most famous actresses who were struggling to find work, including Joan Fontaine and Tallulah Bankhead. But my favourite star who worked with Hammer, and made two of their most interesting films, was Bette Davis. Bette Davis was always a powerful performer who knew exactly what she wanted to achieve in each scene; her focus meant that she could play the heroine or the villainess with equal believability. During her youth she was sublime in films such as Now, Voyager, The Letter, and Jezebel, but as she got older the roles started to dry up. Being as driven as she was, she was determined not to be put out to pasture. In 1962 she placed the following advert in Variety – “Mother of three—10, 11 & 15—divorcee. American. Thirty years experience as an actress in Motion Pictures. Mobile still and more affable than rumor would have it. Wants steady employment in Hollywood. (Has had Broadway)”. She claimed later it was a joke, but there was no doubt that Hollywood has never has much interest in middle-aged women. That’s not to say there was no work at all. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? came along in 1962 and gained Bette her final Oscar nomination for Best Actress. It’s a grand, demented performance. She could be terrifying, but she could also give exact psychological portrayals of intense emotion, and that’s exactly what she did when she agreed to star in Hammer’s The Nanny in 1965. Greer Garson was initially in talks to play the lead in The Nanny, but turned the part down as she thought it would be bad for her reputation, and at that point Davis stepped into the role. She had a reputation for being difficult to work with, and writer and producer Jimmy Sangster recalled in a DVD commentary recorded for the film in 2008 that she was a demanding woman, but only in terms of wanting the best for the film. Certainly her perfectionist streak worked well – Seth Holt’s direction and all the female performances are strong, and although this often gets labelled as another ‘hag’ role for Davis, there’s far more to the film than that. It’s a thriller that makes the most of Davis’ ability to underplay the character. Moviegoers may have gone in with a certain set of expectations about watching a grotesque character, and found themselves in the disconcerting position of not knowing exactly who is responsible for the family tragedy that unfolds. The film also plays nicely in the opening shots in particular with the idea of nannyhood that came from the vast success of Mary Poppins, released just a year earlier. We see Nanny take off her hat and pat her hair in the oval mirror, after a brisk walk through Regent’s Park. And Davis had a great English accent that doesn’t draw attention to itself – she is, initially, a convincing picture of sweetness and light. The Nanny ultimately loses its conviction and a happy ending was tacked on (for which Sangster was admonished by Davis later) but it remains a great thriller. Wendy Craig plays the weak mother who can’t cope with her own child, and Jill Bennett plays the Aunt with a weak heart who has her suspicions about Nanny. It’s a film mainly about the relationships between women, and when the final revelations come they are heartbreaking as well as horrifying. So Hammer’s first collaboration with Davis was a layered, intriguing film. When they next worked with her in 1967 for The Anniversary, they ended up with a very different sort of experience. The Anniversary is the story of a woman who demands the complete attention of her three sons, and is both utterly tyrannical and slyly underhand in her attempts to control their lives. Every year, on her wedding anniversary, the family gathers to toast to their long-dead father, and a power-struggle plays out. Who will win this year, when the long-suffering daughter-in-law (Sheila Hancock) has plans to break away for good? This is the blackest of comedies to the point of making you wince, and Davis is mesmerizingly horrible in it. There are big psychological issues here, but they elicit no sympathy. You laugh, you hold your breath as Davis says the most terrible things to her family, and you can’t take your eyes away from her. Wearing a teardrop shaped eyepatch that is colour-coordinated with her outfits, she manages to look stylish and grotesque at the same time. The film had difficulties. Early on original director Alvin Rakoff clashed with Davis and was replaced with Roy Ward Baker. Neither Baker nor Jimmy Sangster (writing and producing again – apparently Davis had a soft spot for Sangster which wasn’t exactly reciprocated) felt completely happy with the results. It does remain quite obviously an adapted stage play, and has that verbose, static feel throughout. But Davis is marvellous in it, and so is Sheila Hancock. The two women fight with a real ferocity. In between The Nanny and The Anniversary, Hammer released a number of more traditional films that relied heavily on the combination of horror and young women not wearing a lot, such as The Viking Queen, Frankenstein Created Woman, Slave Girls, and One Million Years BC. But in 1966 they also released The Witches, and gave Hollywood star Joan Fontaine her final big screen lead role. A schoolteacher suffers from a nervous breakdown after coming into contact with witch doctors while working in Africa, and hopes that her new role in a quiet English village will provide the calm and stability she needs. But we all know that quiet English villages usually hide at least a few horrible secrets, and witchcraft is not only found in Africa… It’s worth looking more closely at The Witches because it definitely doesn’t fit the ‘hag’ mould. Having an older woman as the lead character (and to make her sympathetic rather than destructive) has the effect, for me, of making the danger seem that much more real. At one point Fontaine’s character, mild-mannered Gwen Mayfield, is told she has had a breakdown, and is taken away to a care home. A strong action hero would have punched his way out in no time, but here we have an aging schoolteacher. How can she escape from such a place? What options does she really have in that situation? Fontaine owned the film rights to the Norah Lofts novel on which the screenplay was based, and Nigel Kneale adapted the material under a pseudonym. Kneale – the writer of The Stone Tape and Quatermass who was certainly able to build tension effectively – later said he wanted to show a blackly comic side to the idea of rural English witchcraft, his script and the direction don’t seem to go together – you get the feeling it was shot as an entirely serious piece of work, which makes for a jarring and faintly ridiculous climax. This is a shame, because there’s some great build-up of suspense early on, and Fontaine is a very engaging heroine. Again, the female roles in The Witches are generally more rewarding than the male roles. In particular, Kay Walsh is very good as the woman who owns the private school in the village. Walsh had appeared in many British films, such as David Lean’s Oliver Twist and Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, and knew her way around a film set. Apparently Walsh and Fontaine were very competitive both on and offscreen, leading to another difficult shoot for director Cyril Frankel. As a final thought, Hammer made a thriller at the end of the 1960s called Crescendo. The first scripted version was co-written in 1966 by Alfred Shaughnessy and a twenty-two year old called Michael Reeves, and the studio was keen to go ahead at that point as long as it could persuade Joan Crawford to star. Alas, Crawford wasn’t interested, and the project was dropped for a few years. Instead, Reeves went off to write and direct the brilliantly bleak Witchfinder General with Vincent Price (co-produced by Tigon British Film Productions and American International Pictures) so we have to count ourselves lucky, but it is a shame to think that Hammer never did manage to work with Joan Crawford too. Crescendo finally went ahead with Margaretta Scott in the role earmarked for Crawford, and by that point it was too late for Hammer to work with Michael Reeves. He had died of a drug overdose months earlier. If Fontaine and Davis were difficult, Crawford would have been no less demanding. But then, maybe such great stars were always going to be hard work for Hammer. They were used to inspiring a certain amount of awe and wonder after so many years at the top of the business, and the culture clash between the golden days of the Hollywood system and the Hammer studio must have been considerable. Still, whatever difficulties they put the crew and their fellow actors through, they made very interesting films that prove Hammer was far from predictable. Hammer may have concentrated on the screaming and the scantily clad, undeniably, but they also gave women some terrific roles in the late 1960s, and proved that they could make unpredictable and shocking films without relying on a splash of bright red blood. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here. Check out Den of Geek T-Shirts HERE MoviesHammer HorrorHammerBette DavisJoan Fontaine Sponsored Links

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Matrix Revolutions, The (US - DVD R1) Join the Revolution with Chris Gould... After months of waiting the final instalment in the Wachowski’s fantastical trilogy is finally upon us in the form of a two-disc DVD set. Continuing the story of the rebel’s attempts to end the war between man and machine, The Matrix Revolutions strips away much of the intellectualising of the oft-maligned second instalment and attempts to pull together the various dangling threads to produce a satisfying conclusion to the series. Feature The Matrix Revolutions picks up right where the previous film—rather abruptly—left off. After inexplicably stopping a number of Sentinels, Neo (Keanu Reeves) has somehow separated his mind from his body and is trapped in a place that exists between the machine world and the Matrix. After a daring rescue attempt by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Seraph (Colin Chou), Neo pays a final visit to the Oracle (Mary Alice), who warns of impending doom at the hands of rogue program Smith (Hugo Weaving). Back in the real world Zion’s inhabitants are preparing for the inevitable attack, with Captain Mifune (Nathaniel Lees) leading an army of mechanised warriors in a last-ditch attempt to stop the marauding machines. As Morpheus, Niobe and the crew of the Hammer race home under attack from swarms of Sentinels, Neo and Trinity head to the machine city in a desperate attempt to avert the annihilation of the human race. While Reloaded was largely a roller-coaster ride through the artificial world of the Matrix, complete with stunning bullet time effects and extraordinary stunts, the events in Revolutions occur primarily in the real world. With Neo out of action, and Morpheus reeling from the revelations of the previous film, the focus shifts to Zion as the human race prepares to defend itself against the machine onslaught. This astounding set-piece is, without a doubt, the most visually impressive sequence in the entire trilogy. With literally thousands of Sentinels and dozens of APUs duking it out, the sheer scope of the battle is unrivalled by anything other than the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and perhaps Attack of the Clones). It’s just a pity that the film takes almost sixty minutes to build to this moment. However, the attack on Zion isn’t the only impressive spectacle to be found. Just as Reloaded had its three big set pieces, Revolutions has its fair share of jaw-dropping action. Things start off small with the infiltration of the Merovingian’s ‘Club Hel’, in which gravity defying henchmen walk on the ceilings as our heroes fire off enough lead to sink a battleship (all to the tune of the latest Don Davis/Juno Reactor collaboration). This little bit of mayhem pales into insignificance when compared to the magnificence that is the ‘Super Burly Brawl’, the climactic, apocalyptic battle between Neo and Smith towards the end of the film. Suffice to say this is mind-blowing stuff. Unfortunately the fact that the trilogy ends on an intellectual note rather than an emotional one has served to alienate a great deal of viewers, as has the reliance on a number of largely anonymous bit-players to carry some of the bigger scenes. This instalment also features the weakest acting in the trilogy, with the untimely passing of actress Gloria Foster having the biggest impact. It’s not that replacement Mary Alice is bad, but I was so used to the unique inflections used by Foster that I found the transition difficult to handle (not that the Wachowski’s handled it particularly well). While the loss of Foster was unavoidable, the casting of Tanveer Atwal (Sati) was not. I think the kindest thing I can say is that Atwal is not the most gifted of child actors—Jake ‘Mannequin Skywalker’ Lloyd is Robert De Niro in comparison. On the plus side Hugo Weaving is in fine form as the maniacal Smith, and I was also impressed with Nathaniel Lees’ turn as Mifune. Special mention must also go to Ian Bliss and his dead-on impersonation of Hugo Weaving. Regrettably the fantastic Laurence Fishburne is given a criminally small part in the film, taking a back seat to Jada Pinkett Smith’s tough, but no less annoying, Niobe. One of the biggest criticisms levied at Reloaded related to its convoluted, often-impenetrable dialogue. Although seen as a weakness by the majority I was enthralled by these exchanges, primarily because I held fast to the belief that all would be revealed in the final instalment. I was wrong, and on my first viewing I will admit to being more than a little disappointed when the curtain fell. After a little thought I am now of the opinion that my discontent lay with the Wachowski’s daring decision to deliver something unexpected: an unhappy ending. Neo and Trinity, the central characters in the trilogy, are dead, and although the war is over the human race is still enslaved. It’s hardly a ‘Hollywood’ ending. However, after watching the film a number of times during the course of this review I’ve changed my opinion somewhat, and I now believe that this was the only possible conclusion to the series. What would have happened if Neo had single-handily beaten a city full of Smiths and released everyone from the Matrix? Mass starvation for a start! Video Continuing their recent trend of making reviewer’s lives miserable, Warner have delivered yet another stunning transfer that—dare I say it—actually surpasses the effort made for The Matrix Reloaded. Anamophically enhanced and presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the transfer is once again incredibly sharp and detailed—you can practically make out each and every pore on the actor’s faces during the close-ups. As always the film features a muted, almost antiseptic palette that helps to give the forays into the Matrix that other-worldly feel. Thankfully colour rendition is wonderfully accurate throughout, as are contrast and shadow detail. Both film and digital artefacts are conspicuous by their absence; if there is any aliasing, macro-blocking or edge enhancement it’s going to take someone with a bigger television and keener eyes than me to find it. The last time I saw a transfer as impressive as this (excluding the all-digital Finding Nemo) was on the Reloaded disc, and in recent memory only the Lord of the Rings films have come close to matching the overall quality of these releases. Where Revolutions improves over its predecessor is in the visual effects department. A number of you may have read my Reloaded review in which I denied the disc top marks for video on account of some dubious use of CGI (the Burly Brawl looking more like a PlayStation game than a real fight for example). This time around there are fewer moments where suspension of disbelief becomes difficult—the digital doubles themselves seem to have been ‘upgraded’, and on the whole the special effects are astounding. Everything from Zion to the quasi-organic machine city is rendered in exquisite detail, and the CGI during the siege sets the standard by which all new films will be judged. I defy anyone not to be impressed by the ‘Hand of God’, a twisting, spiralling tornado of destruction composed of literally thousands of swarming Sentinels—simply magnificent. Audio The Matrix Revolutions arrives with Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks in both English and French (some sites have reported EX encoding, but I am unable to test this). Yet again we’re treated to superb mix, which strikes the perfect balance between dialogue, score and effects. Aggressive use of the surrounds ensures that there’s always something happening, while the LFE channel pumps out enough bass to topple ornaments and scare small pets in submission. The siege sequence provides the greatest opportunity for the track to demonstrate its brilliance, placing gunfire and Sentinels around the soundstage to create an enveloping experience that fully immerses you in the battle. The ferocity of these scenes is countered by some wonderful ambient effects, the subtle nuances of which are difficult to articulate. For me Neo’s journey through the machine city, and the subsequent meeting with the Deus Ex Machina, are among the most aurally satisfying moments in the film. The Deus Ex Machina’s guttural, almost primal voice alone is, quite frankly, awe-inspiring. As someone who raved about the awesome score that accompanied The Matrix Reloaded it comes as a great personal relief to discover that Don Davis has seen fit not only to continue, but to expand upon that magnificent work. This soundtrack contains more choral elements than the previous two, and is probably closer to what many of us would consider a ‘traditional’ score than either The Matrix or The Matrix Reloaded. The standout piece has to be the epic ‘Neodämmerung’, which accompanies the trilogy’s climactic battle between Neo and his arch-nemesis Smith. Best described as ‘apocalyptic’ in its tone, Sanskrit chanting sets the mood as the titanic battle rages above and below the city streets. In fact, I’d have to go as far as to say that this piece of music is as good as, if not better than, John Williams’ ‘Duel of the Fates’! The electronic elements are still present, albeit severely toned down from the previous film. Most notable among them are the tracks ‘Tetsujin’, which accompanies the hero’s decent into ‘Club Hel’, and ‘Navras’, Juno Rector’s thumping remix of Davis’ ‘Neodämmerung’ that plays over the closing credits. So there you have it—yet another reference quality soundtrack. Extras While most of disc one is dedicated to the film, it does include a number of trailers. There are four in total: The Matrix teaser (0:54); The Matrix Reloaded teaser (1:13); The Animatrix teaser (0:59) and The Matrix Revolutions theatrical (2:20). The rest of the supplemental material is housed on the second disc. First up on disc two we have ‘Revolutions Recalibrated’, a twenty-seven minute documentary that takes the viewer on a journey through the making of the film. The actors and filmmakers begin by discussing the experience of working on Revolutions, as well as their feelings towards the Matrix trilogy as whole. After six years it’s understandable that they should have mixed emotions, especially considering some of the tragedies that befell the productions. The documentary touches on this with tributes to Aaliyah and the incomparable Gloria Foster, before plunging headlong into the more technical aspects of production with plenty of behind the scenes footage and interesting technical details. For example: did you know that the CG for the siege sequence alone consumed over 100,000 gigabytes of storage space? Well, now you do! During the featurette our old friend the white rabbit, last seen on the original Matrix DVD, makes a fleeting return. Pressing enter while the icon is on screen will take you to another short featurette entitled ‘Neo Realism’ (12:22), which goes into even greater depth on the phenomenal effects sequences and the methods used to create them, particularly the revolutionary (excuse the pun) virtual cinematography. ‘CG Revolution‘ (15:23) takes the viewer on a dizzying tour of the computer generated effects used throughout the movie. We learn how the animators breathe life into the massive APUs, how the astonishing ‘Hand of God’ was crafted from thousands of Sentinels, and how they were able to bring character to the most awe-inspiring machine of them all—the Deus Ex Machina. We’re also given a brief overview of the creation of the astonishing sets, and how the amalgamation of CGI and miniatures (now referred to as ‘bigatures’) helped to produce shots that would otherwise have been impossible. Speaking of miniatures, our old friend the white rabbit pops up here to transport you to a featurette called ‘Super Big Mini Models’, which goes into great detail about the various models built for use in the film. The ‘Super Burly Brawl’ (6:17) is a multi-angle featurette that affords the viewer an alternate take on the climactic battle between Smith and Neo. At the beginning of the feature you’re presented with a choice of three feeds—storyboards, raw footage, and final composite—which are shown in three windows. The largest of these windows displays the currently selected feed, but you can switch feeds at any time by using angle button on your remote. Personally I found the raw footage the most interesting to watch, but the storyboards are also worth a look. The white rabbit makes not one, but two appearances during this featurette, allowing you to branch off and view material relevant to the current scene. The first time the rabbit appears, pressing enter transports you to a featurette entitled ‘Double Agent Smith’ (7:11), which deals with the process of creating a multitude of Hugo Weaving look-alikes to line the streets of the Mega City. The second time the rabbit pops up it is to reveal ‘Mind Over Matter’ (8:04), which details the work that Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving put into the fight sequences. We go behind the scenes for interviews, footage of the stunt players taking the falls deemed too dangerous for the actors, and the special rigs used to facilitate some of the amazing aerial battles. This is one of the most interesting featurettes on any of the Matrix DVDs. ‘Future Gamer: The Matrix Online‘ (10:59) in an introduction to the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game) that continues the story of the Matrix beyond Revolutions. The events of the game are intended to evolve as players interact with one another, although the creators will maintain a significant amount of control over the proceedings by introducing new environments, characters and other assorted goodies. This is obviously an ambitious project, but it remains to be seen how the final product will deal with latency issues and other problems associated with online gaming. The first Matrix-inspired game, Enter the Matrix, was universally slated by reviewers and gamers alike, so it will be interesting to see how The Matrix Online fares in the coming months. ‘Before the Revolution’ is a text-based timeline that details the history of the Matrix up until the beginning of Revolutions. The majority of the text is accompanied by stills from the motion pictures, but every so often the viewer is treated to a brief video clip from one of the earlier instalments (including The Animatrix). There’s a fair amount of stuff to wade through, but thankfully the timeline is divided into clearly defined sections: Birth, Matrix, The One, Zion, and The Truth. The timeline makes for useful reading for those new to the trilogy, but there’s precious little information here that can’t be learned from the films themselves. ‘3-D Evolution’ is basically just a sill gallery, albeit a rather fancy one. Here you'll find concept art, storyboards, and final scenes. If you use the ‘Play All’ option it will take you around five minutes to sit through everything on offer here (although you can skip ahead with the chapter skip button on your remote). The final supplement, entitled Operator, offers direct access to all of the white rabbit featurettes, of which there are four in total: ‘Neo Realism’ (12:22), ‘Super Big Mini Models’ (8:47), ‘Double Agent Smith’ (7:11), and ‘Mind Over Matter’ (8:04). The disc also includes a number of DVD-Rom features, accessed via the optional InterActual Player (complete with Matrix skin). ‘TheMatrix.com Preview Player’ gives you a brief sample of some of the content to be found at the official Matrix website. There’s little to be seen here, with only a few still images videos on offer. To be honest you’re better off visiting the real site via one of the included links… Clicking on ‘The Matrix Comics’ opens a large PDF file (providing you have Adobe Reader or similar installed) that contains not only previews for the Matrix comics, but one complete story entitled ‘The Miller’s Tale’. The included ‘Tunnel Recon’ Flash game is straight from the Matrix website and has more than a little in common with Pac-Man. The game requires you to manoeuvre through a series of tunnels, collecting EMPs and energy ‘pills’ along the way, while avoiding the many Sentinels who are trying to destroy you. The controls aren’t the easiest I’ve ever used, but this sort of game that should keep you amused at work for a few minutes. Overall While not the earth-shattering finale that many hoped for, Revolutions does provide a satisfying, if flawed conclusion to the trilogy (although in true Matrix fashion the ending leaves viewers with almost as many questions as answers). As with its predecessors, repeated viewings lead to greater understanding and appreciation of the subtleties of the convoluted plot, and certainly there’s a lot more going on here than first meets the eye. Whatever your opinion of the film there’s no denying the quality of the audio-visual presentation on offer here, which ranks among the best available on the format. Unfortunately, while better than those found in the Reloaded set, the quality of the supplemental features still isn’t up to scratch for a major release such as this. What this film—and the trilogy in general—are crying out for is a commentary by the only people who matter: the Wachowski brothers. Perhaps the inevitable release of a trilogy box set will bring this and more (and satisfy all the devoted Matrix fans who have helped to put the brothers where they are today). All things told I’m inclined to recommend this package, but whether you decide to buy may depend largely on your attitude to the whole Matrix phenomenon. People looking for a new demo disc shouldn’t hesitate to pick this up regardless, as it’s clearly going to be up there as a contender for the technical achievement awards come the end of the year. For those of you who did enjoy the films this should be a ‘no-brainer’ purchase, and the prospect of sitting down to watch the entire six hour story of the Matrix unfold should be a most welcome one. Matrix, The (AU - DVD R4) Matrix Reloaded, The (US - DVD R1) Dolby Digital 5.1 English, Dolby Digital 5.1 French English, Spanish, French Matrix Recalibrated Documentary, Neo Realism: The Evolution of Bullet Time, CG Revolution Documentary, Super Big Mini-Models Segment, Super Burly Brawl Featurette, Double Agent Smith Segment, Mind Over Matter: The Physicality of The Matrix, Before the Revolution 3D Timeline, Future Gamer: The Matrix Online Feature, Multidimensional Stills Gallery, Matrix Revolutions Theatrical Trailer, DVD-ROM Features: Weblink & Matrix Test The Wachowski Brothers Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, Mary Alice, Harold Perrineau Jr., Jada Pinkett Smith, Lambert Wilson, Monica Bellucci, Helmut Bakaitis, Collin Chou, Anthony Wong, Nona M. Gaye

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'Slumdog' Wins Eight Oscars; Entire Subcontinent Suddenly Gets An Attitude See other arts & culture news In the wake of "Slumdog Millionaire" taking home Oscar gold for Best Motion Picture, the world awoke the day after the ceremonies to discover the entire subcontinent of India had suddenly copped an attitude."India has finally achieved equality with the US," said one Indian man on Monday morning. "In fact, India is probably even better than America now."India's Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, denied having an attitude, but was pretty arrogant throughout the whole interview. "Uh, we pretty much expected this win," said Mukherjee. "None of those other movies really even came close to 'Slumdog' in its complexity and character development. You idiot." The movie, released amidst a sea of American Oscar hopefuls such as "Twilight" and "Tyler Perry's Madea Is A Black Woman", took home eight awards, and seemed to validate the Bollywood industry in its entirety. Representatives of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences were apologetic, but denied any intent to make America seem less powerful in the world. "While we do not regret giving Oscars to Slumdog, we realize now that we may have been careless in our selection," said Academy member and billionaire Steve Jobs. "In a time of economic uncertainty, it is unfortunate that a third world country like Indiana now seems to think it can compete on the world stage." "It's not a big deal, really," said American citizen -- but Indian person -- Sreehan Ceylon. "We've been making movies [in India] for a while...it was only a matter of time before they started winning real awards. Don't worry about it. Your movies are still good, really." The arrogance exuding from the entire Indian subcontinent is enraging other countries in the area, most notably Pakistan. "Normally, Pakistan and India are friendly trading partners," said Pakistan's Minister of "Defence," Chaudhry Mukhtar. "But if they think they're so good at everything, explain to me why they aren't as cool as Pakistan." A spokesman for India denied any cockiness. "We're the same old India," said the Minister for External Affairs, who actually happens to also be Pranab Mukherjee. "We still put our pants on one leg at a time. The only difference between us and, say, Pakistan is that once our pants are on, we win Oscars.""Sorry Pakistan. Sorry Afghanistan," he added. "Get your heads out of the Stone Age and maybe we'll talk." Some Americans were also angered by the arrogance. "Last time I checked," said American citizen Regis Philbin, "America invented 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'. Without America, this so-called movie would have had no subject matter to begin with." India, however, remained defiant throughout the day. Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, announced a national holiday in celebration of "Slumdog"."Today [February 23] shall henceforth be known as the annual Slumdog Feast," said Singh on national television. "And no, the irony isn't lost on me."

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Arts / Film & Video History & Criticism Direction & Production "It's the Pictures That Got Small": Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywood's Golden Age Anthony Slide Golden Age Hollywood screenwriter Charles Brackett was an extremely observant and perceptive chronicler of the entertainment industry during its most exciting years. He is best remembered as the writing partner... Cinematic Homecomings: Exile and Return in Transnational Cinema Rebecca Prime The history of cinema charts multiple histories of exile. From the German �migr�s in 1930s Hollywood to today's Iranian filmmakers in Europe and the United States, these histories continue to exert a profound... Brick Flicks: A Comprehensive Guide to Making Your Own Stop-Motion LEGO Movies Sarah Herman Turn your bricks into blockbusters with this movie-making guide! You’ve seen the smash-hit film; now it’s time to step into the director’s chair and make your own. Forget big budgets, A-list movie stars,... Direction & Prod... Cinema Novo x 5: Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Film Randal Johnson With such stunning films as Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, Bye Bye Brazil, and Pixote, Brazilian cinema achieved both critical acclaim and popular recognition in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming the premier cinema... The Hobbit and History: Companion to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Nancy R. Reagin & Janice Liedl What do Gandalf and Merlin have in common, besides robes and magical staffs? Where do hobbits get their recipes, riddles, and love of rambling? What other Rings of Power were circulating in medieval Europe?... Visions of Dystopia in China's New Historical Novels Jeffrey C. Kinkley The depiction of personal and collective suffering in modern Chinese novels differs significantly from standard Communist accounts and most Eastern and Western historical narratives. Writers such as Yu Hua,... Parallel Lines: Post-9/11 American Cinema Guy Westwell Parallel Lines describes how post-9/11 cinema, from Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002) to Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (2012), relates to different, and competing, versions of US national identity in the... Projecting 9/11: Race, Gender, and Citizenship in Recent Hollywood Films Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo & Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo Projecting 9/11 looks at how the themes of race, gender, and citizenship are treated in more than 20 recent movies. The book highlights racial and gender stereotypes and shows how characters are portrayed as... Discrimination &... Hollywood Hoofbeats: The Fascinating Story of Horses in Movies and Television Petrine Day Mitchum & Audrey Pavia The horses that captured the moviegoers’ hearts are the common denominator in Hollywood Hoofbeats. As author Petrine Day Mitchum writes, “the movies as we know them would be vastly different without horses.... As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride Joe Layden, Cary Elwes & Rob Reiner From actor Cary Elwes, who played the iconic role of Westley in The Princess Bride, comes a first-person account and behind-the-scenes look at the making of the cult classic film filled with never-before-told... William Mann & William J. Mann Who killed Billy Taylor, one of Hollywood's most beloved men?For nearly a century, no one has known.Until now.In the early 1920s, millions of Americans flocked to movie palaces every year to see their favorite... Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design Jan-Christopher Horak Iconic graphic designer and Academy Award--winning filmmaker Saul Bass (1920--1996) defined an innovative era in cinema. His title sequences for films such as Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)... Artists, Archite... The Architecture of David Lynch From the Red Room in Twin Peaks to Club Silencio in Mulholland Drive, the work of David Lynch contains some of the most remarkable spaces in contemporary culture. Richard Martin's compelling study is the first... Filming the End of the Holocaust: Allied Documentaries, Nuremberg and the Liberation of the Concentration Camps John J. Michalczyk Filming the End of the Holocaust considers how the US Government commissioned the US Signal Corps and other filmmakers to document the horrors of the concentration camps during the April-May 1945 liberation.... Rex Ingram: Visionary Director of the Silent Screen Ruth Barton Noted for his charisma, talent, and striking good looks, director Rex Ingram (1893−1950) is ranked alongside D. W. Griffith, Marshall Neilan, and Erich von Stroheim as one of the greatest artists of the silent... Entertainment & ... Bruce Dern: A Memoir Bruce Dern, Christopher Fryer & Robert Crane One of Hollywood's biggest personalities, Bruce Dern is not afraid to say what he thinks. He has left an indelible mark on numerous projects, from critically acclaimed films to made-for-TV movies and television... Rich & Famous After the Silents: Hollywood Film Music in the Early Sound Era, 1926-1934 Michael Slowik Many believe Max Steiner’s score for King Kong (1933) was the first important attempt at integrating background music into sound film, but a closer look at the industry’s early sound era (1926–1934) reveals... Enneagram Applications: Personality Styles in Business, Therapy, Medicine, Spirituality and Daily Life Thomas Condon & Clarence Thomson See the Enneagram at work and play The subject of several best-selling books, the Enneagram is a fascinating, powerful system of psychology that describes the nine personality styles that human beings most favor.... We're No Angels With this screenplay David Mamet gives the traditional prison-break story his special blend of gripping suspense, slapdash buffoonery, and ingenious plotting.Bob, a vicious killer, cheats the electric chair... Hollywood Screenwriting Directory Fall/Winter Volume 5: A Specialized Resource for Discovering Where & How to Sell Your Screenplay Writer's Store Editors The Hollywood Screenwriting Directory is a specialized resource for discovering where and how to sell your screenplay. It contains over 2,500 listings for Industry insiders such as studios, production companies,...

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Rebel Wilson & Isla Fisher Joining Sacha Baron Cohen's 'Grimsby' by Ethan Anderton June 13, 2014 So far it's been a boys club when it comes to the casting of Sacha Baron Cohen's spy comedy Grimsby. The Borat star leads the film about a British black ops agent forced to go on the run with his long-lost brother, a northern English soccer hooligan (Cohen). Sherlock Holmes villain Mark Strong is playing the agent, and recent additions to the cast included Ian McShane and also Gabourey Sidibe was the only actress cast in the film so far. Now two more ladies have joined the cast as Variety reports Pitch Perfect star Rebel Wilson is taking a role, and The Wrap reports Cohen's wife Isla Fisher (The Great Gatsby) will have a pivotal part. At this time we don't know specifically what characters Wilson and Fisher will be playing, but Wilson would make a great henchwoman to deal with, and Fisher definitely has the looks to take a Bond girl sort of role, whether it's an ally or a villainous vixen. Anyway, Louis Leterrier is directing the film with a story written by Cohen and Phil Johnston, who also co-wrote the script with Peter Baynham. This film is probably the primary reason that Leterrier isn't coming back for a sequel to Now You See Me and Jon M. Chu has been courted to replace him. We'll keep you posted on both projects. Find more posts in Casting, Development, Movie News I don't really care for either actress, but they both a fairly faithful fan base. Could make for a good pairing.

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Shahrukh Khan to be the showstopper at late Yash Chopra's birthday bash Recently we reported that Bollywood Diva's like Madhuri Dixit, Sridevi, Juhi Chawla, Rani Mukerji, Katrina Kaif, Anushka Sharma would be walking the ramp to pay tribute to the late filmmaker Yash Chopra on his birthday (September 27). Joining the ladies bandwagon for the event would be the Bollywood Baadshah Shahrukh Khan. SHAHRUKH KHAN and YASH CHOPRA Not only will Shahrukh be the only male actor to have this opportunity but he would also be a showstopper. ''Shah Rukh has agreed to do the honours. He will be the showstopper at the event. It was Pamelaji's (Chopra; Yash Chopra's wife) idea and he was more than happy to oblige,'' says an insider. On his 80th birthday last year, SRK had interviewed Chopra in front of a live audience comprising of the industry members and journalists at a grand event in the city. For the uninitiated, SRK starred in the last four films Chopra directed - Darr (1993), Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Veer-Zara (2004) and Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012). Chopra breathed his last on October 21, 2012. While Pamela Chopra couldn't be reached for a comment, Rafiq Gangjee, the official spokesperson of the filmmaker's production house, confirms the news, saying, ''Pamelaji requested Shah Rukh to be part of this tribute to Yashji and he happily agreed to walk with all the divas as part of the grand finale.'' With Shahrukh Khan walking the ramp with the beautiful ladies, the event undoubtedly would be grand! Amrita Rao Vir Das Fawad Khan Amrita Arora Sonal Chauhan Kangana Ranaut Bipasha Basu Rakul Preet Singh Sophie Choudry Shriya Saran Esha Deol Neha Dhupia Tanisha Singh Gauhar Khan Shilpa Shetty Complete List

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Hitler's Children AboutThe DirectorThe FilmCreditsSynopsisTreatmentMediaReviewsThe TimesThe TelegraphThe GaurdianThe New York TimesThe IndependentThe Hollywood ReporterThe Village VoiceFilm Journal InternationalAbout.com DocumentariesYedioth AhronothThe City MouseFestivals2011 Film Festivals2012 Film Festivals2013 Film FestivalsArticlesAbout the HolocaustNazi War CriminalsPost WWII and Hitler RegimeWhat happened during WWIIAbout HitlerHolocuaust Survivors and HeroesHitler's Children DocumentaryContactBuy the DVDbooks Buy the DVD online and donate to the cause of perpetuating the memory of the Holocaust Order the Exclusive DVD Pack The City Mouse Hitler’s Children review – by Tomer Pratt, posted on City Mouse on May 2, 2011 No one prepared the Israeli junior high students visiting Auschwitz to the presence of Rainer Höß, grandson of concentration camp commandant Rudolf Höß. Rainer’s father grew up on the “other planet”, not on the side of the murdered but in his family’s villa, built just outside the camp. Now the grandson is walking around the place like a ghost. Only an iron gate separated the Höß family from the area where Mengele conducted his selections, and from the crematoriums, but the smell of smoke was always in the air. Journalist Eldad Beck, who escorted Rainer during the film, got a permission from the site’s management to enter the camp with the grandson. They traveled on a train to Oswiecim station, the town adjacent to the camp named after it. Everybody knows the iron sign ARBEIT MACHT FREI at the camp’s entrance, which became an icon in many Holocaust movies, but it appears that the small, abandoned station and the wretched sign OSWIECIM were never filmed. Its desolation and banality screams. Rainer Höß holds in his pocket an old photograph of a toddler standing near the gate. Now he is looking at the photograph and the real gate, and breaths in excitement. In the museum he looks at the piles of the deceased’s shoes for the first time, and no muscle moves in his face. Suddenly, the Israeli guide announces: “We have the grandson of the camp’s commandant with us today. Would you like to ask him any questions?” What happens next is an unforgettable scene. The grandson now stands before the young Israelis who stood before the crematoriums earlier and are now sitting in front of him on the museum’s floor. His eyes are nearly popping out. The camera focuses on a young girl who stood up to ask a question, but now chokes and cries. Höß is looking at her with a poker face, and it seems like the crowd is about to jump at him with burning rage. But then another question rises from the audience: “If you met your grandfather today, what would you do?” Rainer doesn’t hesitate: “I would kill him” and his face are twitches in lament. A Holocaust survivor escorting the tour hurries to hug and comfort him: “I go across Germany and tell that not all Germans are guilty”. The students stand up, shake his hand, and one girl gives him a personal necklace as a souvenir. Katrin Himmler carries the name of her uncle, Heinrich Himmler, who commanded on the SS and the Gestapo and was responsible for the extermination of millions of Jews. She is a gentle, intelligent woman, who married an Israeli Jew and lives with him in America. Bettina Göring, niece of Hermann Göring, one of the heads of the Nazi Party, underwent sterilization, to “put an end to the Göring dynasty”. Monika Göth, daughter of Amon Göth, the infamous commandant of Płaszów who is remembered from the movie “Schindler’s List” is a sensitive, expressive woman, who constantly relives the horrors her father had committed. “I look like Amon, but I am not Amon” she apologizes in pain. Niklas Frank, son of Poland’s Governor-General, who was one of architects of the plan to exterminate the Jews in Europe, is an obsessive, yet amusing man. He spends his life traveling across Germany to meet with the youth, to whom he tells about the horrors committed by his father, his bitter enemy. He wrote two books about his life in the shade of his family name, and reads from them to his listeners. “I use dirty words against my father, and it amazes the teenagers sitting in front of me every time” he tells while driving. Later, in front of a high school class, he says: “I see that I’m not very interesting for you. You must be thinking, here comes another one old fool to nag us about the Third Reich”, and in a lecture to an older crowd: “I’m glad you came to hear me even though I do not trust you, as Germans, at all. In the event of a small economical crisis, some strong politician will rise, and then all of a sudden appears a little labor camp, followed by a little slaughter. This, of course, will contribute to the unity of the German nation, leading to more work places for the real Germans. Yes, I have many apprehensions towards you”. These eccentric people are what makes the film an original and fascinating creation. They live right under our noses, and all one had to do is find them and have them sit in front of a camera before they too pass away. The stories that the murderers’ offspring heard from first source are another way to deny the Holocaust. In the movie they come out as caring, conscientious people, very much unlike their ancestors. The film doesn’t try to provide theories or psychological explanations. Director Chanoch Ze’evi lets them speak, thus showing the banal, disappointing truth: monsters don’t give birth to monsters. Evil is not hereditary. The conclusion of the film is similar to the one of the Holocaust author Ka-Tzetnik towards the end of his life. The man who came up with the term “other planet” in relation to Auschwitz, went back on his word and claimed that the Holocaust happened on earth, by regular people. The hug scene between the grandson and the survivor could have ended the film with a decent catharsis. But the director refuses to sell us that. The ending shot belongs to Eldad Beck, who says: “What happened there with the students was real. But it was too quick. Shallow. Because of the horribleness of the Holocaust we have the need to find a good ending, so we can live with it in normality. So here comes the grandson and apologizes and everyone’s happy. But not every story has a happy ending, and the specific story of the Holocaust has no ending at all”. Holocaust Books

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Irish actress Maureen O'Hara ‘Quiet Man’ star Maureen O’Hara says John Wayne birthplace appearance will be her last - VIDEO @irishcentral May 25,2013 Irish screen legend Maureen O’Hara has said her visit to John Wayne’s 106th birthday celebration in Iowa this weekend, will be her final public appearance. The weekend event will pay tribute to O’Hara - the guest of honor, by showing movies the Hollywood duo made together.In a statement released by her grandson, Conor Fitzsimons, O’Hara said that “after 75 years as a performing artist, it’s time to start taking my final bows."The 92-year-old flame-haired Quiet Man star moved to Boise, Idaho, at the end of last year to live close to her only grandson after living in her home in Glengarriff in west Cork since 1968.She now lives in a home close to her grandson, where she has access to 24-hour care.Speaking to the Irish Times the Dublin born actor said she was “weepy and teary” that her visit to John Wayne’s birthplace this weekend, would be her last public outing.It is “best to have the last of something”, she said.The star paid tribute to John Wayne, whom she starred alongside in five movies including the 1952 classic, ‘The Quiet Man’, which was made in Ireland.“He meant so much to me and all the people in the world who enjoyed his movies and his speeches and his sayings and his joking and teasing of people,” she said.The Irish Times reports that O’Hara’s family have hired an Irish law firm to find information about her financial assets, after a legal battle with her former personal assistant, Carolyn Murphy, erupted last year. Last July, O’Hara called an impromptu press conference where a series of allegations about Murphy and the foundation established to honour the actress’s legacy were aired. The former PA has also rejected the family’s allegations that she ever misappropriated O’Hara’s funds.Her grandson said this week that the family had hired one of Dublin’s biggest law firms, Arthur Cox to seek more information on O’Hara’s financial records.“The bottom line is we are going to court,” he said.“We have asked and requested information but we have heard nothing further for almost a year.“We are going to have to go a legal route.”Watch some highlights of ‘The Quiet Man’ below:

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Home › Anime/Manga › BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC Arrives BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC Arrives Series: BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC Arrives The first part of the trilogy By Robert T. Trate April 10, 2012 Source: VIZ Media Arms and Armor Action Clash In Three Visceral Anime Films About A Young Medieval Mercenary.VIZ Media, the largest distributor and licensor of anime and manga in North America, has acquired the North American theatrical, TV, home entertainment, digital and merchandising rights for the BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC animated movie trilogy. The company made the licensing announcement during its panel held at Sakura Con 2012 this past weekend.BERSERK: THE Golden Age Arc film trilogy was produced in Japan by Studio 4ºC and is based on the bestselling medieval dark fantasy manga (graphic novel) series created by Kentaro Miura. VIZ Media plans to release the first film of the trilogy, BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC I – THE EGG OF THE KING, in the Fall of 2012. Combining a foreboding medieval European-insired setting with fantasy and exquisitely detailed swordsmanship, BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC I – THE EGG OF THE KING follows lone mercenary Guts as he travels the land where a hundred-year-old war is taking place. His ferocity and ability to take down enemies attracts the attention of Griffith, leader of the mercenary group “The Band of the Hawk,” and Guts is recruited to the unit. Thanks to their continued victories on the battlefield, the bond between Guts and Griffith deepens, but despite all their success, Guts begins to question his reasons for fighting for Griffith’s dream. Unknown to Guts, this unyielding dream is about to bestow a horrible fate on them both.“Thrilling action and a tense plot are at the center of these gripping films that depict how the young mercenary protagonist, Guts, becomes a legendary swordsman,” says Lyn Johnson, Senior Animation Marketing Manager. “We’re very excited to add these films to the VIZ Media anime library. BERSERK combines a foreboding medieval European-inspired setting with fantasy and horror elements to make for an amazing adventure that no action fan will want to miss, and we look forward to announcing more information on the release of the first film in the Berserk: THE Golden Age Arc trilogy very soon!”The BERSERK manga series, by Kentaro Miura, debuted in Japan in 1989 and quickly drew a devoted following, going on to sell more than 30 million copies worldwide. The series, still ongoing in Japan, has been published in North America and the UK, as well as in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, and Latin America. The BERSERK manga has also inspired a popular anime television series and has spawned a variety of related video games, collectable figures and toys, and music soundtracks, as well as the current BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC film trilogy. For more information on the BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC film trilogy, please visit the official Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/BerserkFilm. ANIME/MANGA REVIEWS 1 lusiphur 4/10/2012 7:10:01 AM Is this new animation or a compilation of the TV series into 3 movies, similar to what was done with the original Mobile Suit Gundam? KyleRayner 4/18/2012 10:17:12 AM I really hope we get to see this through the end, last time I got burned with an unfinished story. Im from Mexico and getting your hands on black horse Manga is really hard, not imposible but expensive as well so I didnt get a chance to find out what happened after the events of the anime. mirajane 6/22/2012 4:55:21 PM the movies are supposed to be based on the manga so im guessing they all PWN, anyway berserk is super cool either way and new material is always welcomed! I WANT TO COSPLAY GUTS! lol my friend is cosplaying griffith! 1 ADD A COMMENT

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Go On – Season 1 Episode 8 – Recap and Review – Videogame, Set, Match Recap and review for Go On – Season 1 Episode 8 – Videogame, Set, Match The latest Go On was delayed two weeks, first by the media coverage of Hurricane Sandy, and then by coverage of the US Presidential Election. For fans of the show, however, “Videogame, Set, Match” proves worth the wait, by building on the collective strength of its ensemble, and in bringing the show back to its central premise of people working through their grief together. It’s almost surprising that this premise has worked as well as it has, given the disconnect between the comedic aspects and the show’s darker underpinnings. When I spoke with Tyler James Williams last week, he reconciled the show’s two halves, stating that, “All comedy is, is a warped perception of bad things happening to other people.” This struck me as a very salient point, particularly where tonight’s episode is concerned. I’ve argued in the past that Owen (Tyler James Williams) is among the more interesting characters in the group, given to long silences and terse responses. He comes across as an introverted guy, but it’s easy to see how this wasn’t always the case. Sure, he’s shown to have a pretty twisted sense of humor (tricking Ryan into placing a ring on the finger of the wrong patient in the hospital, allowing him to believe that the man was Owen’s comatose brother), but humor is often shorthand for the processes by which people negotiate their pain. “Videogame, Set, Match” is an episode fraught with meaning, in that regard. Credit: NBC Owen and Ryan (Matthew Perry) have become addicted to the latest Halo game, and bond over an all-night gaming session over at Owen’s house. However, Owen’s mother, Joyce (Vanessa Bell Calloway), doesn’t appreciate her son lazing about all day and night. She reveals that Owen has yet to visit his brother, who is comatose as a result of a skiing accident. She reasons that if he isn’t going to visit his brother and actually confront his grief, Owen could at least find a more substantive way of spending his day than simply playing videogames. Owen, for his part, isn’t really the kind of guy who’s eager to confront his pain, and though this is an unhealthy approach, his situation is demonstrably different from that of, say, Ryan’s. For Ryan, his wife is irretrievably lost. Janie is dead, and except for his visions of her “ghost,” he won’t ever see her again. However, Owen’s brother is in a liminal state. He’s not dead, but he’s not exactly present either. And so Owen lives on in a sort of fugue state, as if refusing the facts of what’s happened will prevent his brother’s condition from becoming permanent. But that’s not how life works, and it isn’t how grief should work either. At some level, we can get the sense that Owen knows this too. Credit: NBC Ryan spends much of the episode trying to serve as a big brother figure to Owen, giving him some menial tasks to do around the office (where a starstruck Owen meets NBA star Chris Bosh, playing himself), and attempting to play Cyrano for Owen’s attempted courtship of the new K-BAL promotions model, Kimmie (Kaitlin Doubleday). This serves the dual purpose of bringing Owen, as a solitary influence, into Ryan’s personal space, but also helps resolve the two separate kinds of comedies being portrayed in this show: the workplace comedy, and the quirky ensemble show. When Kimmie gets upset over having broken Owen’s heart, Steven (John Cho) chews Ryan out for bringing his “bummer people” into the office. It’s not the most revolutionary conflict in the world, and this characterization seems to go somewhat go against Steven as developed, since he’s interacted plenty of times with the group, but it’s a conflict that feels organic and helps to reconcile the two disparate halves of this series. Once Joyce grills him for wasting her son’s time, telling him to either take a more substantial role in his life or get out of it altogether, Ryan decides he’s going to help Owen confront his grief by visiting his comatose brother. While this initially leads to Owen playing the aforementioned hospital prank on Ryan, the episode ultimately culminates in Owen accepting that he has to visit his brother if he’s ever going to make any progress in his emotional recovery. The episode’s tag reveals that Owen has made significant gains, in some respects, hanging out at Ryan’s house and having a prank played on him by Ryan, who lets Owen think he broke the urn with his wife’s ashes. He’s easygoing in this bit, more so than he seemed previously. Owen’s arc is among the show’s most moving, rivaled only by Ryan’s (and what little we know of Fausta’s, actually), and I’m glad we were given the opportunity to get to know him better, since there’s plenty of fertile ground for emotionally resonant conflict. Credit: Justin Lubin/NBC The rest of the episode followed the graduation of Yolanda (Suzy Nakamura) from the group. Yolanda has finally overcome the pain of being dumped at the altar, and is ready to move on from the therapy group, officially named Transitions (but only because, as Ryan theorizes, someone beat Lauren to the name “Stone Cold Bummer Society”). However, this all goes pear-shaped when Yolanda realizes that she doesn’t really want to leave the group, since she’s come to depend on the group not only for support, but for companionship, since she doesn’t really have any other friends. Unfortunately, Yolanda is reluctant to back out of her graduation ceremony because she feels that Lauren (Laura Benanti) really needs a win, since it doesn’t seem she’s ever actually coached someone through to a successful recovery before. This is a relatively lightweight arc, but it’s the episode’s funniest, from the dwindling attendance of Yolanda’s frequently-organized group gatherings, to Mr. K’s (Brett Gelman) photo slideshow at Yolanda’s graduation. Even sweet-natured Sonia (Sarah Baker) gets some solid digs, stating that she bailed on Yolanda’s Halloween costume party because, “In fairness to us, that sounds awful.” Though the arc involves feigning wellness in order to give a friend a boost, the storyline ultimately resolves in a welcome return to the status quo. Lauren has grown as a character, in that her one-track focus on successfully rehabilitating these people (treating them as cases, in a way) has given way to a Lauren that accepts that people confront issues in their own ways, and on their own time. Lauren, more than anything else, seems happy just to be needed. At least as much as Yolanda wants just to be accepted. The story works, and hey, it leads to everyone dressed as various Alice in Wonderland characters, and I love a good costume gag (particularly since Mr. K’s job, whatever it is, apparently requires him to dress as the Mad Hatter). “Videogame, Set, Match” is one of the best episodes of the series thus far, offering emotional insight and genuine laughs in nearly equal measure. The show is becoming much more self-assured in its storytelling (they even got a slick new opening title sequence as well, which I really enjoyed, given how rare a good opening title sequence is these days). With each week, I find myself more and more excited by the possibilities of what this show could become, and satisfied to see that potential gradually being realized. TV Go OnNBC Share UP NEXT: Dancing with the Stars – Results Video – 11/13/2012 HomeTVGo On – Season 1 Episode 8 – Recap and Review – Videogame, Set, Match About Rickey.org

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What to Watch: Christmas classic reveals Santa's backstory On TV"Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" stars the voices of Mickey Rooney as Kris Kringle and Fred Astaire as narrator. This stop-motion Christmas classic tells the story of how a young Kris Kringle became Santa Claus. ABC 8 p.m. EST.Hot Video: Ten-year-old dances with Tampa Bay cheerleadersTrending TopicThe Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced the 2013 inductees. Heart, Randy Newman, Public Enemy, Rush and Donna Summer will be inducted as performers. Quincy Jones and Lou Adler will be inducted as non-performers.The news was a long time coming for the band Rush, which has been eligible for induction for 14 years. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame eligibility standards require that the group or artist must have released work at least 25 years earlier to be eligible for induction.GateHouse News Service

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ABS-CBN Livestream GMA Livestreaming Rondownload Teleserye Watch Kapamilya and Kapuso Teleserye Replays Online ABS-CBN Shows Kris TV Its Showtime BCWMH Bagito Dream Dad Two Wives Aquino And Abunda Tonight The Voice PH Season 2 GMA Shows Yagit The Half Sisters Ang Lihim Ni Annasandra Strawberry Lane Ang hiram Na Alaala Kapamilya Wansapanataym Maalaala Mo Kaya Home Sweetie Home Gandang Gabi Vice Kapuso Bubble Gang Vampire Ang Daddy Ko Magpakailanman Celebrity Bluff Pepito Manaloto Asianobela Coffee Prince Ended Shows Jumong Pure Love (49 Days) The Master's Sun Return Of The Wife My Love from the Star A 100 Years Legacy That Winter That Wind Blows Foreign Movies Dream Dad November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay Dream Dad November 24 2014 Philippine comedy-drama television series directed by Jeffrey Jeturian, starring Jana Agoncillo and Zanjoe Marudo. The series is set to premiere on The Filipino Channel on November 24, 2014 “Dream Dad” centers on Baste (Zanjoe Marudo), a bachelor company president who is trying to move on from a heartbreak by focusing on his family. He crosses paths with Baby (Agoncillo), a bright and inquisitive orphan girl who is looking for a family that will love and accept her. When they meet at her orphanage, Baby quickly takes a liking to her would-be father figure.Joining Marudo and Agoncillo in “Dream Dad” are (Maxene Magalona), (Beauty Gonzalez), (Yen Santos), Ana Feleo, (Katya Santos), (Ketchup Eusebio), (Ariel Ureta), and (Gloria Diaz) 24 Oras November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay 24 Oras (24 Hours) is the flagship national network news broadcast of GMA Network. A nightly national newscast which airs in the Philippines and worldwide via GMA Pinoy TV. It is aired Weeknights at 6:30-8:10 PM, Saturdays and Sundays 5:30 to 6:00 PM (PST). The newscast is simulcasted on radio thru Super Radyo DZBB 594 kHz in Mega Manila and several of its regional Super Radyo stations nationwide. 24 Oras premiered on april 15, 2004 at 6:15pm, replacing Frontpage: Ulat ni Mel Tiangco. Frontpage anchor Mel Tiangco was joined by Saksi's Mike Enriquez, rejoining them in one newscast since they co-anchored Saksi from 1996 to 1998. 24 Oras, GMA7, Bagito November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay Bagito November 17 2014 is a 2014 Philippine melodrama television series based on the Wattpad series of the same title by Noreen Capili. Directed by Onat Diaz, it is topbilled by Nash Aguas, Alexa Ilacad and Ella Cruz. The series premiered on ABS-CBN and worldwide on The Filipino Channel on November 17, 2014, replacing Pure Love. Bagito, Kapamilya, Coffee Prince (Tagalog Dubbed) November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay Coffee Prince’s Flagship Store is a TV series that revolves around the love life and dreams of four young people who meet together at a cafe. Han-gyeol (Gong Yoo) is a smart young man who hates to be tied down to one career in his life. Abhorring the idea of joining the family business, he is ordered by his grandmother to manage a cafe. Unable to disobey his grandmother, he reluctantly takes over the responsibility of running a cafe and begins to immerse himself in the gourmet coffee business. One day, he meets Eun-chan, a cheerful girl who has an unpredictable personality, and learns the meaning of true love Asianobela, Coffee Prince, May Queen (Tagalog Dubbed) November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay May Queen (Hangul: 메이퀸) is a 2012 South Korean television melodrama series about three people who experience ambition, revenge, betrayal and love, against the backdrop of the shipbuilding industry in Ulsan during Korea's modernization. It stars Han Ji-hye, Kim Jae-won and Jae Hee. Kapuso, Ang Lihim Ni Annasandra November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay A traditional drama with touch of fantasy, Ang Lihim Ni Annasandra is about every woman’s quest to be loved for who she truly is and be allowed to keep her secrets, as a way to appreciate her person and past. Annasandra (Andrea Torres) is the beautiful, smart, and loving daughter of Belinda (Glydel Mercado) and Carlos (Emilio Garcia). But twist of events led Annasandra to be cursed as an “awok” (aswang). Ang Lihim Ni Annasandra, The Half Sister November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay The Half Sisters is an upcoming Filipino family drama to be broadcast by GMA Network starring Barbie Forteza, Thea Tolentino, together with Derrick Monasterio and newcomer Andre Paras. It is set to premiere on June 9, 2014 replacing Villa Quintana on the network's GMA Afternoon Prime afternoon block and worldwide on June 9 (North American feed with new episodes in the evening telecasts) and June 10 (Middle East and North Africa, Asia Pacific and European feeds with new episodes in the afternoon telecasts) via GMA Pinoy TV. The Half Sister Eat Bulaga November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay Eat Bulaga! is a noon-time variety show in the Philippines produced by Television And Production Exponents Inc. (TAPE) and aired by GMA Network. The show broadcasts from The New TAPE Studios (Eastside Studio) at the GMA Broadway Centrum in New Manila, Quezon City. Eat Bulaga! is aired Weekdays at 12:00pm to 2:30pm and Saturdays at 11:30am to 3:00pm (PHT). Eat Bulaga It's Showtime November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay It's Showtime (formerly known as Showtime) is a Philippine noontime musical variety show broadcast on ABS-CBN. The show is also broadcast worldwide through The Filipino Channel. The show premiered on October 24, 2009 as a morning talent show for over four regular seasons and various special editions. On January 28, 2012, the show aired its final episode with its two-year competition format and ended with an impartial farewell. On January 30, the program revealed a teaser showing its reincarnated look as a reformatted noontime show now entitled It's Showtime, which premiered on February 6, 2012. It's Showtime, The Singing Bee November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay Muling magbabalik ang gameshow na patok na patok sa lahat ng Pinoy! Test your song skills with Amy Perez and Roderick Paulate and baka ikaw na ang next na Singing Bee! The Philippine version of The Singing Bee premiered April 21, 2008 on ABS-CBN. A combinination of karaoke singing and a spelling bee-style competition, this show features contestants trying to remember the lyrics to popular songs. Singing Bee, The Ryzza Mae Show November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay The Ryzza Mae Show - May 19 2014 is a Philippine talk show presented by Ryzza Mae Dizon. It premiered on April 8, 2013 at 11:30 am on GMA Network. The show was first announced by Vic Sotto during the live airing of Eat Bulaga! on April 1, 2013. Ryzza Mae Show Don't Lose The Money November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay Dont Lose The Money September 29 2014 “Don’t Lose The Money” is a franchised game show from RTL Germany that will test skills and teamwork of the players. Two teams consist of three players will be given P250,000 each. The team who finishes effectively will have the chance to play the jackpot round or they can also pass. If they play and win, they get to win half of the jackpot money. If they lose, the other team will take home the prize. Don't Lose The Money Kris TV November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay Kris TV is an upcoming daily talk show of the “Philippines’ Queen of Talk,” Kris Aquino! Also known as the Queen of All Media, Kris tweeted that “Kris TV” will be the 2011 re-boot of her previous talk show “Today with Kris Aquino,” which is said to be the first interactive talk show in the country. The said program was also Kris Aquino‘s very first project on ABS-CBN after her transfer from GMA-7. It lasted for 6 years on air (1996-2001). Kris TV will air from Monday to Friday, 9:30 am, beginning June 27 on ABS-CBN Kris TV, Please Be Careful With My Heart November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay Be Careful With My Heart is about the story of Maya Dela Rosa (Jodi Sta. Maria), a simple girl from the province San Nicolas who are introduced as tour guides including her older sister, Cristina Rose "Kute" Dela Rosa (Aiza Seguerra) and Nephew, Pocholo "Cho" Macavinta (JM Ibanez). With lack of money for their daily expenses and household repairs, Maya and Kute are having a hard time reaching their dreams to become a Flight Stewardess and a sea worker. On a rainy night, Kute accidentally fell off after she tried to fix their roof which disappointed Kute to achieve her dream of becoming a sea woman. With large medical bills, Maya became interested in working abroad for two years to help her family financially. Unfortunately, Maya became a victim of a swindler employer. Despite of being unfortunate, Maya still hoped to become a Flight Stewardess with the help of Richard "Sir Chef/Ricardo" Lim (Richard Yap) who offered her a work as a nanny to his daugher, Abigail Ruth "Abby" Lim (Mutya Orquia). Without any second thoughts, Maya accepted Richard's offer, since Maya knows that Richard is her last hope because of his influence in the airline industry. With this in mind, will Maya ever achieve her dreams as a Flight Stewardess even though she started as a nanny to Abby? BCWMH, Princess Sarah November 26, 2014 Full Episode Replay Princess Sarah tells the story of Sarah Crewe, a young daughter of a wealthy English family in India, who starts attending an all-girl's seminary selection boarding school in London, where she excels in her studies and is loved deeply by many of her friends and classmates. However, tragedy soon strikes when Sarah's father passes away and her family goes bankrupt, leaving her to be a poor orphan. The school's headmistress, Miss Minchin, takes advantage of this situation and makes her a maid in the school, trying hard to make her life as miserable as possible. However, Sarah, with the help of her friends, perseveres and tries to endure all her hardships until redemption comes at last. Princess Sarah Forever And A Day Full Movie Tagalog 2011 (Sam Milby and KC,Romance,English Subtitle) Forever and a Day is a 2011 Filipino romance film starring Sam Milby and KC Concepcion. The film was released by Star Cinema. The film premiered on June 15, 2011 Eugene (Sam Milby) arrives in Bukidnon with only one intention: to forget his problems at work. But when he meets Raffy (KC Concepcion) and as they travel and go on ridiculous and death-defying activities together, they start to form a friendship that goes beyond Eugene’s original plan. Raffy helps Eugene appreciate himself more and to look at things in a positive way. With Raffy, Eugene begins to believe in himself again. Soon, against his own expectations, he admits to himself that has fallen in love with this girl. But life is truly ironic. The moment Eugene expresses his feelings for her, Raffy suddenly starts to push him away. She admits that he can never have her, and she doesn’t want Eugene to hope for a happy ending with her, because she cannot be loved. Pinoy Movie Asianobela Shows Cool Guys Hot Ramen Gumiho Jewel In The Palace 24 Oras ABS-CBN News ASAP19 Face The People GMA News Goin Bulilit Hiram na Alaala Ilustrado Imbestigador Ipaglaban Mo Ismol Family It's Showtime KMJS Luv U Marcelino Pan y Vino Mga Kwento Ni Marc Logan Pure Love (Teleserye) Rated K Singing Bee Startalk TX Sunday All Stars The Buzz Ng Bayan TV Patrol Wish Ko Lang D I S C L A I M E R Rondownload Teleserye Replay respects the intellectual property of others. All live and recorded channels or videos posted on this website were hosted on third party streaming service and websites available freely on the internet. Articles from other sources were linked to the original article to give full credit to the writer and publisher. In the event that there is a problem or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial and the material will be removed immediately upon proof. If you are the owner of material that appears on this site please send proof to us and the material will be removed promptly. However, if you are the owner and would rather credit be given for the material, instead of removal, we will gratefully give the appropriate credit desired. PRIVACY POLICY Rondownload Teleserye | AdminJuan Replays Copyright © 2014. Rondownload Teleserye - All Rights Reserved Template Edited by Rondownload Published by Rondownload Teleserye Proudly powered by Blogger

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Jun 12, 2013 10:34PM ET Steven Spielberg, Struggling Filmmaker Of all the people to sound the alarm on the decline and fall of the film industry, Steven Spielberg might seem like an improbable choice. But the director, speaking with George Lucas at a ceremony celebrating the opening of a new building at University of Southern California's film school, said that an "implosion" of his industry is inevitable. Case in point, for him: Lincoln, which was a commercial and critical success, was apparently almost an HBO exclusive. "This close -- ask HBO -- this close," he said in response to Lucas's comment that "eventually the Lincolns will go away and they're going to be on television." Spielberg, he said, only got the film into theaters in the first place because he basically owns his own infrastructure. As documented by the Hollywood Reporter, Lucas added, "You're talking about Steven Spielberg and George Lucas can't get their movie into a theater." Spielberg's advice for the aspiring USC filmmakers was, well, straight out of a disaster film script: "Eventually going to be an implosion — or a big meltdown. There's going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that's going to change the paradigm." That scenario, presumably, leaves established directors like Lucas and Spielberg to fight for their creative lives in a new and unforgiving world. But here's the thing: even as Lucas and Spielberg lamented the fall of their industry, they made a good case for more or less ignoring the demarkations between traditionally different forms of digital media — television, the internet (i.e. Netflix, which Spielberg specifically praised), and even video games, which both Lucas and Spielberg have dabbled in. An example: while lamenting that his industry doesn't take to kindly to riskier work these days, Lucas called cable television audiences "much more adventurous." So while the big coming implosion will be a big deal to the industry itself, it's less clear what the two famous filmmakers think it means for the people who just want to watch their work. See comments

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U2 3 1979 Boy-Girl Lyrics 'U2-3' was the first single released by U2, originally appearing in both the 7" and 12" formats - the latter highly sought after by collectors. Only 1,000 copies were pressed and were individually hand-numbered by Jackie Hayden, formerly Marketing Manager at CBS Records in Ireland and later General Manager at Hot Press magazine. This collectible had all four band members' names scratched into both sides of the vinyl and the word 'Ireland' appeared on the label. The original 7" version had UKTM No.B81 8091 written on the label after the copyright. Three songs were in contention to be the a-side for the single so DJ Dave Fanning was asked to poll listeners on his radio show to vote which song should be the a-side. The three songs were Out of Control, Boy/Girl and Stories For Boys. Fanning's listeners chose Out Of Control, a song that Bono wrote on his 18th birthday. Both Out Of Control and Stories For Boys appeared on the Boy album. Boy/Girl was only released as a single. On January 15, 1980, U2 performed Stories For Boys on the Late Late Show. Out Of Control can be found on the Irish A-Z Of Rock compilation. Stories For Boys can be found on the Just For Kicks compilation of Dublin bands, with sleeve notes by Dave Fanning. A live version of Stories For Boys was released as a b-side on the Sweetest Thing single. This version was a different mix than the one on Just For Kicks and a slightly longer version than the one on Boy. A live version of Boy/Girl was also released as a b-side on the 7" I Will Follow single. Chas deWhalley/U2 Produced By: Chas deWhalley/U2 Engineer: Remixed by Robbie McGrath Release Date: 1979-09-01 Label: CBS Ireland Recorded At: Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin U2 3 VIDEOS 'Out of Control is about waking up on your eighteenth birthday and realising that youre 18 years old and that the two most important decisions in your life have nothing to do with you - being born and dying.' Bono in Hot Press, October 1979 They used to say about U2 that we had an anti-dance stance, music to fall over to - which I thought was funny. I remember in an American club on an early tour, Bono, after a few bevvies was persuaded to go on the floor and the DJ put on Out of Control and not only did everybody leave the floor but he couldn't dance to it either.' Edge in 1987. COMMENTS

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See Pictures of Angelina Jolie Being a Secret Goofball Amy Poehler Dreams of Bette Midler Jon Lovitz. Jon Lovitz on Sing Your Face Off, Robert Downey Jr., and the SNL Character He Wishes He’d Created By Steve Marsh In the toxic slurry of aggressive reviews greeting ABC’s new singing-and-impersonating competition show, Sing Your Face Off, the New York Observer’s might’ve been the most shrill: “I hope I’m not exaggerating here, but Sing Your Face Off will lead directly to a Hunger Games–style dystopian future.” But our opinion is that anything that features Jon Lovitz hamming it up as Elton John and Pavarotti can’t be all that bad. The man’s record of humanitarian service — forged from characters like Saturday Night Live’s Master Thespian and The Critic’s Jay Sherman — has earned him the right to be showered with confetti and fanfare, not internet hatred and dismissal, even if getting upstaged by Sebastian Bach pretending to be Adam Levine is part of the deal. With Sing Your Face Off set to debut tomorrow night, Vulture talked to Lovitz about the SNL years, Robert Downey Jr.’s poetry, Lorne Michaels’s tennis game, and the first time he laid eyes on Adam Sandler. Such an eclectic cast on this show — the teenage Disney Star, the former New York Knick, and Sebastian Bach. Shades of your first SNL cast with Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., and Terry Sweeney. Does the assortment feel as strange?No, they’re all really great. They’re all really, really nice, and super talented. We all got along great. The show was more about having fun and imitating these people and the music and singing like them as opposed to a competition. So everybody was very supportive of each other. That’s interesting that a reality-competition show was actually less competitive than SNL.Well, yeah, Saturday Night Live, it was like every week you were auditioning to get on the show. Literally. You’d write scenes and you’d have a read-through and they’d pick ‘em, and out of 38 or 40 sketches they’d pick 13 that they would produce, and then you’d have dress rehearsal and they’d cut six. They only air eight. It was really competitive. You felt like you were auditioning for your job every week. That’s what it felt like. Where, with this, I knew I had it. I wasn’t competing to be on the show. I knew I was on the show. If you think back to that first season of SNL where you were the breakout star, it was your lightning-in-a-bottle year. The other cast members that season didn’t fare as well.I thought that that cast got a raw deal in the TV Guide. We had done 11 shows, but the guy only talked about the first three. And he didn’t mention the fact that by then my liar character was a big hit. I created my liar character, and after the first show, Lorne said, “Why don’t you write it with A. Whitney Brown?” And I give him 50 percent credit because he really helped me expand the character. Did you expect Robert Downey Jr. to go on to have such a huge career?I never knew him before I got that show. And I became friends with him, and he would make up these poems. “Wanna hear a poem I made up?” “Sure.” “They’re kinda different.” And he would tell me them and I just thought they were brilliant. I would go, “You’re a genius.” He had a way of speaking that I’d never heard anybody speak like that before. He was 20 years old at the time. I didn’t know Robert would become as big as he is now, but I thought he was brilliant then and a really nice guy. And Anthony Michael Hall I thought was brilliant. And Joan Cusack. And Randy Quaid, you know, was already established, but I thought he was a great actor. And Danitra Vance and Nora Dunn and Dennis Miller. Do you think anybody on Sing Your Face Off will break out in the way you broke out back then on this show?In my opinion, and I think everybody else’s on the show, China McClain, the 14-year-old, is one of the most phenomenal performers I’ve seen in my life ever. It was so exciting for all of us to see a talent like that in person. She’s only been on a show called A.N.T. Farm. She’s 14 years old. And she’s just amazing and she just blew everybody away over and over. And I think she’s going to be as big as any of the musical stars ever. Crazy great. I knew that you had a certain kind of vocal talent — you can make it do unbelievably grating things. In some ways, your voice might be your biggest talent. But I didn’t know you were a song-and-dance man.Well, I was 8 years old and my parents said, "You need to learn an instrument." I picked piano. Phil Hartman had hidden song-and-dance talents, didn’t he?I wouldn’t say he was a great singer, but he could carry a tune. But he could change his voice to play anybody. And any style. Superbly. And he could change his face to look like the person he was playing without any makeup. Phil played guitar too. But Dana Carvey? He could be a professional drummer. For a while, towards the end of your Saturday Night Live career, you had beef with Lorne Michaels. Do you guys talk?Oh, yeah, I’ve been getting along great with him for years. We play tennis together. Everything’s fine. Is he competitive?Yeah, he’s into it. Whatever. We had our differences. I’m very grateful to him. He hired me on Saturday Night Live. I always say to him, “Thank you for giving me the life I dreamed of.” Smigel did a great TV Funhouse on “That’s the ticket” versus “Isn’t that special?” called “The Life of a Catch Phrase.” In the spirit of Sing Your Face Off, were there characters on SNL either before or after you that you would liked to have had a crack at?I remember in 1990, I was at the Improv Comedy Club on Melrose, and I saw all these comics and there was this one that was different than all the rest and he really made me laugh. His was odd and quiet and his jokes were ridiculously silly, but I was just crying laughing. And he just killed me. Anyway, it was Adam Sandler. So I talked to him and said, “Hey, nice to meet you, and I think you’re so funny.” And then when I left Saturday Night Live, they basically hired him to replace me. So I called him and said, “Hey, I heard you got the show. You want me to tell you how it works?” And he goes, “Yeah.” So I told him everything. But anyway, we became friends. So he was on the show and he was doing Opera Man. And I remember thinking, Oh, crap! I wouldn’t have thought of his other characters, but Opera Man! Why didn’t I think of that! I could’ve played the crap out of that character. Anyway, I called him and I said, “I never would’ve thought of your other characters, but Opera Man! I wish I would’ve thought of that one. It’s so funny.” And he goes, “Do you want to do it with me?” And I go “Really?” So I ended up doing it with him on “Update.” I think Glenn Close was hosting. And I played Opera Man’s brother. He was just really generous like that. None of the other people on the show would’ve ever done that in a billion years. But he’s not like them. He’s a great guy. And he’s put me in his movies. I can’t say enough about him. One more thing: I love The Critic. One of the great animated characters of all times. And your character on The Simpsons, Artie Ziff, was also one of the best. I would relapse on The Simpsons Tapped Out if they sold him for 200 doughnuts.Well, thanks. That’s the writers. Al Jean and Mike Riess created The Critic and Artie Ziff. I give them the credit for that. They created both characters? Artie Ziff inspired The Critic?I think so. Well, it helped. They were running The Simpsons at the time, and I did Artie Ziff, and they liked me. They became fans of mine. They wanted to do a show with Jon Lovitz, so they created The Critic. jon lovitz, saturday night live, sing your face off, Photo: Michael Buckner/Getty Images

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Interview: Jane Eyre’s Star Mia Wasikowska and Director Cary Fukunaga by Locke Peterseim | Sep 14th, 2011 | 8:35AM | Filed under: Interviews, Movies Since the invention of movies, there’s been no shortage of film adaptations of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre: The Gothic tale of a headstrong orphan who grows into a quiet, thoughtful young governess and falls in love with her employer Edward Rochester, a mad, bad and dangerous-to-know Byronic Hero. The latest cinematic Jane Eyre is a raw and thrilling interpretation from director Cary Fukunaga and writer Moira Buffini that remains faithful to the novel, but draws considerable energy from Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, The Kids are All Right) as Jane and Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, Inglourious Basterds) as Rochester. Also on hand are Jamie Bell as St. John, Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax, and Sally Hawkins as Mrs. Reed. Last spring other writers and I sat down in Chicago to talk with Jane Eyre director Cary Fukunaga and star, Mia Wasikowska. The following is a reprint of that interview. Jane Eyre is now available from redbox. Mia, what did you want to communicate about Jane with your performance? Mia Wasikowska: She has a strong sense of self, of who she is. She doesn’t compromise herself for anyone, and there’s something inside of her that believes she’s worthy of having a good life and being treated well and respected. I think that’s really admirable. You’ve been Alice in Wonderland and Joni in The Kids are All Right, and now Jane Eyre. Are there similarities in these characters that drew you to them? Wasikowska: There’s a complexity to them–they’ve got a lot of layers and different things going on. That was something like I hadn’t done before and I like doing things that challenge me and are different from what I’ve done before. How do you play Jane for a 21st century audience? Wasikowska: If you were to take away the costumes and the period setting, at the core is a story that’s very familiar to audiences, which is partially why it’s lasted such a long time and it hasn’t wavered in its popularity. At the core of it is a young woman who’s trying to find a connection, love and a family in a very dislocated, isolated world. How was it working with Michael Fassbender as Rochester? Wasikowska: It was great. We were able to counter the intensity of the material with a lot of fun playing around and goofy activity and then channel that energy into the intensity of the scenes. I have so much respect for him–it’s so easy to act opposite someone who’s as present as he is. There’s such intensity not only to his performance but to who he is as well–that really brings you in. Cary Fukunaga: I know loyalists want actors that match physical descriptions, but the most important thing is spirit, the essence of what the actor does and what they bring to the role. Rochester is a bit wild, mercurial and dangerous, and had an incredible emotional tragedy early in his life that has affected the way he lives and operates and how he indulges himself. There’s something naturally wild about Michael Fassbender that he brings to the film. Cary, what challenges did you discover when you set out to adapt Jane Eyre? Fukunaga: My style of film making right now is trying to be realistic or authentic–it should feel like it’s happening, not like we’re watching some sort of arch version of the story. So the novel’s language came into play because it’s so specific, that language of Bronte’s time. Wasikowska: There was a lot of translating. The language in that time is so poetic and elaborate, so it’s kind of like decoding another language. Then once you understand the meaning of it, you can own it a bit more. Cary, your film opens in the middle of the novel, with Jane fleeing across the windswept moors, then tells most of the story in flashback from St. John’s home. Why did you and writer Moira Buffini approach the material this way? Fukunaga: I think in a very eloquent way it allows you to tackle the third part of the novel, the St. John section that’s often a very difficult narrative hump to get over. By peppering it across the course of the film you can stay faithful to the novel and still tell a compelling story that starts off with a mystery and hopefully keeps you engaged all the way through. You certainly emphasized the story’s ghostlier tone. Fukunaga: I interpret the novel as a spookier story. I have friends who read the book and were horrified while reading. The difficult thing is managing that horror and the romance–if you focus too much on the horror it’s exciting in the moment, but you lose the emotional connection with the characters. And likewise, if you spend too much time on the characters then the horror tends to disappear. Where did you shoot the Thornfield Hall sections of the film? Fukunaga: We needed to be faithful to story, a Jacobean castle that had pre-Victorian interiors. We couldn’t afford to build sets for the film so we had to shoot in real locations, and Haddon Hall [in Derbyshire, England] came up as being the perfect place. I initially was against shooting at Haddon because other versions of Jane Eyre had shot there [the 1996 Zeffirelli version with William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg and the 2006 BBC version], but it’s so far and away better than other houses, you’d be cutting off your nose to spite your face not to shoot there. Cary, Jane Eyre is a departure from your first film Sin Nombre, about gang members and immigrants coming north from Mexico. Did you deliberately try to go in a different direction? Fukunaga: You know, you have a story, an idea and what it looks like in your head, and you set out to do that. But all the elements of film making are the same. And when it comes to choosing projects I tend to go where the wind takes me. I have no strategy other than just doing things that I feel like. Maybe I should. But you’re going to be giving two years of your life to something, so for me it’s just, “Don’t say ‘no’ to good things.” Jane Eyre is available from redbox. More from the cast of Jane Eyre at redbox: Mia Wasikowska in Alice in Wonderland and The Kids are All Right Michael Fassbender in Jonah Hex and coming soon in X-Men: First Class on DVD and Blu-ray Jamie Bell in The Eagle on DVD and Blu-ray Similarly themed drama from redbox: Beverly Lewis’ The Shunning Red Riding Hood on DVD and Blu-ray Keira Knightley and Jude Law to Star in Anna Karenina In Theaters: Review of X-Men: First Class Movie Trailer: Jane Eyre 2 Responses to “Interview: Jane Eyre’s Star Mia Wasikowska and Director Cary Fukunaga” moviegoer123 I agree, Erika, ever since the invention of cinema, there’s been plenty of film adaptations of books and movies about toys fighting something (that would be the Transformers series) and then, there is the sweet Toy Story series that is irresistable. I rented the Mia Wasikowska starring Jane Eyre and haven’t watched it yet. I’m hoping a lot out of it even though I haven’t read Charlotte Bronte book. My father introduced me to the version of this movie with William Hurt, loved it! Actually liked the movie better than the book, that’s a switch :) Spoiler alert: Who plays the wife in the attic? Hey friend! Can't get enough of our movie reviews and other goodies? Then you should

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TV'American Idol' EP Nigel Lythgoe Defends Slipping Ratings, R… Home 'American Idol' EP Nigel Lythgoe Defends Slipping Ratings, Rules Out Changes, Takes Swipes At Rivals 'The Voice' & 'X Factor' February 7, 2012 12:54pm 8 TV American Idol Nigel Lythgoe The Voice The X Factor Ray Richmond is contributing to Deadline’s TV coverage. With American Idol’s ratings down well into double-digits year-to-year this season, executive producer Nigel Lythgoe claimed not to be surprised by the drop and even grew somewhat defensive with journalists during a conference call this morning. “You’re asking me how I feel about the 11th season ratings when I originally thought we’d be going off the air after three weeks (of season 1)?” he said. “Let’s be honest about this: We’re constantly compared against ourselves and our own ratings. Of course you’re going to see some sort of deterioration in the numbers.” Lythgoe sees the reason for the slippage as stemming from a combination of factors, chiefly the increased competition and resultant music reality series fatigue. “We’ve got The Voice and X Factor going now, and we’re all feeding from the same talent pool and of course the same ratings pool. …We’d always said we would never two Idols in a single year, and this is why. Now we have X Factor sitting there, and it feels just like Fox is doing two Idols a season. Add to that The Voice and of course there’s going to be viewer fatigue, as much you see when you have too many science fiction dramas or too many hospital dramas on television.” Lythgoe was quick to note that “we’ve still got the No. 1 show on TV in our 11th year. That’s pretty incredible. And after 11 years, I don’t think we should have to be defending ourselves. … Whatever bad press we’re getting about the ratings, I mean, my God the rest of the world would kill for these kinds of ratings.” Supporting Lythgoe’s claim that slipping ratings are not sounding the alarm, there are no changes planned in the short term save for a new Las Vegas location, he said. “Otherwise I don’t see any need for changes at this time.” Lythgoe also took the opportunity to take a few swipes at The Voice and X Factor, finding that The Voice “is fed by talent that hasn’t quite made it or is trying to come back. X Factor didn’t really know what it wanted to do I think.” As for Idol, Lythgoe defiantly maintained that his show remains the gold standard. “If what you want is bloody good talent on that stage without gimmicks, then you watch American Idol, because that’s what you’re going to get.” Lythgoe acknowledged that judges Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler are sometimes caught struggling to be honest while at the same time satisfying their fans and supporting the artist — and inadvertently took a shot at former Idol judge Simon Cowell in the process. “It’s easier for someone like Simon Cowell,” he said “because all the time he’s just thinking, ‘Can you make me money?’ ” 8 People Commenting The problem here is that we already know who's going to win American Idol...a random "cute guy"... ConfusedReply I agree with you. The simple fact is that "Newer" catches the attention of young viewers and... rayj idols become boring and very predictable. I've fallen asleep during a few of the episodes so far... As for host Ryan Seacrest’s unresolved status with Idol beyond this season, Lythgoe called him “probably the best host in the business” and “the glue that holds (the show) together and moves it along.” He admitted he’d hate to see Seacrest go. “I don’t have anything bad to say against Ryan other than that he’s too good-looking and has too much money. … I just hope he doesn’t leave to be frank. They should try to sort out a deal.” 8 8 Comments jake • on Feb 7, 2012 12:54 pm the problem is that fox is not doing 2 hour shows — more people watch the 2nd hour than the first — just look at the voice’s monday ratings where there was at least a 2 million difference in viewership from the 8p hour to the 9p hour. I still prefer Idol out of the other two singing competitions. Mission Acromplished • on Feb 7, 2012 12:54 pm The FOX decade is coming to an end. They had a great run. Doc Michaels • on Feb 7, 2012 12:54 pm How is it coming to an end? If it is then broadcast TV itself is coming to an end. Confused? • on Feb 7, 2012 12:54 pm I like Nigel, but he is acting like Kodak when digital came into the marketplace. Kodak, after years of dominating the market, was sure digital was just the flavor of the month. We know where Kodak is now. Idol is stale and the landscape is filled with competition. Idol will get bigger audiences as the season progresses, but Idol’s overall downward trend will also continue. HotFlix • on Feb 7, 2012 12:54 pm I think you’re spot on there Confused. ConfusedReply • on Feb 7, 2012 12:54 pm I agree with you. The simple fact is that “Newer” catches the attention of young viewers and young viewers often contribute greatly to what’s “cool” (concerning family viewing.) The REAL thing here though is the Nielsen ratings. They don’t measure very many homes. If there’s ANYTHING that needs to evolve it’s the measuring of audiences. Applying their formulas (Nielsen’s) to the real world with the limited amount of homes they measure seems crazy nowadays. rayj • on Feb 7, 2012 12:54 pm idols become boring and very predictable. I’ve fallen asleep during a few of the episodes so far this season. I feel like I know what the judges are going to say – I know whats going to happen – they’ve even recycled contestants from previous seasons Mike • on Feb 7, 2012 12:54 pm The problem here is that we already know who’s going to win American Idol…a random “cute guy” that all the tweens love and spend two full hours texting/calling/etc. And said guy isn’t going to be anywhere near as talented as the people who get voted off early on b/c of said tweens. If Idol could change their voting strategies (i.e. The Voice), then it would be more interesting and hopeful that the best person will win. After last year’s debacle, they need major help. And as far as “has-beens” (re: The Voice): not only are they just as deserving, but they’re much better than the green talent that Idol goes for. At least The Voice doesn’t make us watch 10 audition episodes, with 70% of the auditions made up of bad singers and such ridiculousness.

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‘Saving Mr. Banks’ Adds Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, and Ruth Wilson, Making Sugar Go Down With Sugar Casting Couch By Nathan Adams on July 25, 2012 | Be the First To Comment Share Pin Reddit Even when it just had a director and two principal actors in place, Disney’s upcoming Saving Mr. Banks already seemed like it was the perfect storm of mainstream appeal. Take director John Lee Hancock, who made mountains of money and received boatloads of acclaim for his sugary sweet The Blind Side, give him two of the most universally loved actors working in Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson, and put them to work on subject matter involving one of the biggest legends in entertainment history, Walt Disney, and one of the most enduring children’s stories of all time, “Mary Poppins,” and you have to imagine this film’s potential for box office dollars and warmed hearts is unprecedented. It turns out Saving Mr. Banks isn’t just content to get our attention and then sit back and coast on a winning formula though. Variety has a new report that a trio of actors have just signed on to the film in supporting roles, and they’re three of the best supporting players studio dollars can buy. Joining Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as “Mary Poppins” author P.L. Travers will be Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, and Ruth Wilson. Giamatti, of course, is one of the greatest character actors ever to live, and needs little introduction. He’ll be joining the film in the role of Travers’ chauffeur. Schwartzman first came to prominence through his collaborations with Wes Anderson, and was last seen in that director’s recent film Moonrise Kingdom. He’ll be playing Disney composer Richard Morton Sherman, who ends up doing the music for Disney’s Mary Poppins movie after Walt finally convinces Travers to allow him to adapt her material. Ruth Wilson has big upcoming roles in The Lone Ranger and Anna Karenina, but at this point she’s probably best known for her absolutely chilling and revelatory recurring role in the Idris Elba-starring BBC series Luther. She’ll be appearing in flashbacks as Travers’ mother (joining Colin Farrell, who apparently has been cast as her father). As if this one didn’t already have everybody planning on taking their parents and grandparents to it already, now they go and pull this. With this cast in place, it would appear that one would have to be a fool to not at least give Saving Mr. Banks a try. Casting Couch, Movie News, Casting Couch, Collin Farrell, Emma Thompson, Jason Schwartzman, John Lee Hancock, Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, Paul Giamatti, Ruth Wilson, Saving Mr. Banks, Tom Hanks, Walt Disney

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"a mind trained by academia into almost fractal subtlety" Matt Sinclair of Sinclairs Musings "I am the wisest man alive for I know one thing and that is that I know nothing" Socrates Filming a desire for death: The Sea Inside The Sea Inside is a tragic film- it is about a man who cannot move his limbs, still vibrant and full of humour on the inside, he lacks the facilities to take part in life. Consequently this man decides that he wants to die. Ramon Sampedro was a real person and the story is an account of his life and his later death. We are told that he was a fisherman, who one day dived into the water near his home in northern Spain and struck his head upon the seabed and broke his neck, he was rescued but was unable to move again. The film concentrates on what this means that he is unable and able to do: he is unable to do any of the things he enjoyed before he dived, he has to renounce his life, renounce his girlfriend, his career and even in a certain sense his family by deforming their lives. He lives in the imagination; there are some incredibly powerful sequences in the film where Sampedro imagines flying over the village to the sea, imagines getting up from his bed and kissing a girl, imagines the freedom of being able to physically move and yet every time, he returns to lying on his bed demanding the mercy and compassion of others. For him that kind of life is not one that he wishes to live and yet he cannot commit suicide for he cannot move to do so, and should any friend help him, they would become guilty of murder.There are good arguments for and against euthanasia and the broader issue is not one that is easy to resolve, particularly in a film review. The film here actually takes almost no position on the broader issue. There are several moments in which Javier Bardem, acting as Sampedro, is asked about euthanasia, and rather than saying that everyone in his condition would desire to die or should desire to die, he merely states that he desires to die. Rather than argue that a quadriplegic has no life worth living anymore, Ramon suggests that he has no life worth living anymore. A fascinating debate with a quadriplegic priest makes that clear: the priest and Ramon disagree not so much about euthanasia as a principle available for all, but as to whether Ramon has the authority to decide whether his own life is worth living or whether it is something granted to him, which he has no authority to come to a decision about.Ramon's decision impacts on a larger community: his friends. His family care for him in a sweetly affectionate way: one can see that their entire lives are based around his care. His brother resents that he wants to die, his father utters the most tragic line in the film- that the only thing worse than having a child who dies before you die, is when your child desires to die before you die. His sister in law's attitude to Ramon is motherly, bossy yet fundamentally protective and kind. Ramon's nephew Javier has a wonderful relationship with him- one of the achievements of this film is that it gets the affectionate and exasperated relationship between the teenager and the uncle perfectly. Then there are a circle of friends outside the family- in particular three women- Julia, Ramon's lawyer, who herself suffers from an incurable disease and whom Ramon is in love with, Gene a member of a local support group and Rosa a local factory worker who comes to see Ramon. Julia and Rosa are perhaps the most interesting of this collective for Julia faces the same choice as Ramon and ultimately decides to stay alive at the cost of her dignity and her mind.The internal battle within Rosa is perhaps the most moving and important of the film. Rosa claims from the first moment she sees Ramon to be in love with him. She develops a dependancy upon him, talking to him about her own problems and rushing to see him at every point of the day or night. What is most interesting though about this relationship is that Rosa's conception of what she means by love evolves through the film. At the beggining and in the middle fo the film what Rosa means by love is a kind of dependance that makes you desire a person's presence and definitely not their suicide. Love for her means a reliance on another person- a care for them but a care for them which is instrumental to sustaining that reliance. It is only towards the end of the film that she attains another conception of love- that love might mean that you desire for a person the ends that they desire for themselves. Those two conceptions of love are very different- even though for most of us, most of the time they come together as one: Ramon's case means that Rosa has to separate them and decide which matters more to her, her decision has a nobility and a tragedy to it and in a sense her decision is her wooing of Ramon. That suggests a further thought that the first sense of love is the actual feeling we feel inside, the second is our rhetoric to inspire recipricocity.That last sentence goes beyond the subject of this film- as I hope I have shown the film is about the subtle interweaving of love and death that Ramon's accident creates. On the one hand we have the deep individual desire of Ramon to die- he knows that there is nothing left for him in this life. On the other we have the drama of the contest within his friends between their love for Ramon as a support and a friend and their love for Ramon as an individual who they desire to be happy. These are not easy issues- but they are important- perhaps as important as the great political and ethical battles about euthanasia and in a sense they are more universal. Understanding that human beings are individuals and a tragedy for someone might not be one for you is the heart of understanding depression and sadness itself, understanding love is more fundamental even than that. This film has things to say about both issues. Gracchi DiggIt! Edward III's peace If Edward III’s reign was abundant in future precedents, it was no less significant within the England of the 14th Century. Before Edward took the throne, his grandfather Edward II had been deposed and murdered. After he died, King after King would find themselves facing major internal problems. Edward’s grandson Richard was killed, his grand nephew Henry IV faced rebellions across the north and into Wales, Henry’s grandson Henry VI was deposed twice and murdered, Edward IV was only deposed once but even so was forced into exile briefly during his reign and Richard III died at Bosworth field, killed by one of his own subjects (presumably). From Edward III to Henry VIII- during a gap of about 200 years- of the 8 monarchs to reign in England, only two did not face a severe and serious rebellion and only 4 were not murdered or assacinated. Edward’s achievement therefore was to create within England a break- a break in the routine of medieval England that before him consumed John, Henry III and his father and afterwards was to wreak havoc. The question that contemporaries and historians focus on about Edward’s reign is how did he maintain the peace.One answer to this success has to be that Edward shares a chief feature with two other kings who were able to keep the peace in medieval England- his grandfather Edward I and his great grand son Henry V- he was good at fighting. Edward took English troops deep into France. That success turned easily into popularity- during the 1340s, 1350s and 1360s- the apex of his power- Edward was unassailable at home and abroad and the two factors were connected. The nobility in particular saw Edward as one of their own, part of a military aristocracy. He founded the Order of the Garter, linking together the high nobility of the nation in a chivalric order bound to defend the monarchy and the crown. Edward’s ability to do this was founded on his undoubted charisma and his military prowess- as that faded in the 1370s with the King’s increasing age, the death of his old companions and of his equally glamorous son the Black Prince and with the rejuvenation of French military power, so did Edward’s power. Just like his predecessors and successors, Edward’s position was closely tied to what he could do militarily, particularly in France.Even so, even in the 1370s, there was no revolt against Edward. The Edwardian regime succeeded in containing problems- the defections of leading councillors from Archbishop Stafford in 1341 to Bishop Wyckeham in 1376 without breakdown. Edward was, like Elizabeth, skilful at feinting at concession, gulling his political enemies before exerting the authority of the crown. Edward was, in his prime, a subtle and skilful politician: though that may have been built through instinct rather than as with Elizabeth training, his judgement was as sound. Edward unlike Elizabeth left the crown stronger than he found it- he did this in two ways: firstly by creating a myth which both Henry V and Henry VIII were to seize on- the myth of the chivalric, martial prince. Secondly and more importantly he was an institution builder- we shall turn later to his creation of the House of Commons- but equally important was his cooption of the English gentry into regional government. Edward’s reign saw the creation of the system of justices of the peace that would last into the 20th Century. This system made the gentry partners in the extension of royal authority right down into the localities.The ultimate reward for such institution building was that Edward was phenomenally wealthy by the standards of contemporary Kings. He was able to collect taxes on a vast scale, impressive even by more recent standards, and to do so from a heavily diminished tax base. During his reign, the Black Death killed a third and possibly more of his subjects: but Edward’s ability to collect taxes was scarcely changed or challenged by the phenomenon. Rather through instruments like the statute of labourers (which set the price of work artificially low) he cemented an alliance between the nobility and the crown, the gentry and the centre, which paid off in more prosperous times. If we are to understand Edward, we have to understand him as a charismatic war leader who led his armies to victory and reaped the reward in reputation and power, but we also have to understand an intelligent if instinctive English monarch who was able to martial political forces to achieve his aims. Ultimately Edward was perhaps England’s luckiest medieval monarch- both for his long life and through his martial successes which relied on his emergence at a particular point in time- but he also made use of that luck to carve out fiscal and political gains for the crown. Fiscal and political gains which helped maintain a momentum that supported the crown’s position right up until his dotage and his death. Edward III and Parliament Edward III was king of England from 1327 until his death in 1377. His reign was one of the longest in English history and encompassed a huge amount of administrative and political change- the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, the growth of Parliament as an institution, the transition from judicial eyres as were held by his grandfather Edward I and before him Henry II and the Conqueror to a magistracy based in local communities and the centralisation of the English state. Of course accompanying all of this were famous military victories- Crecy, Poiters, Neville’s Cross and Sluys. Mark Ormerod in his account of Edward’s reign tries to make sense of the period from an institutional point of view: looking at Edward’s reign as a set of transactions between the monarch and his subject- what he reveals I suggest is interesting for the history of medieval kingship and royal power.For the political theorist the most important growth in Edward’s reign was undoubtedly that of Parliament. It is from Edward’s reign that we can date many of the most important constitutional innovations and peculiarities of the English system: the first Speaker was appointed by the House of Commons in 1341, Parliament’s supremacy over finance evolved over the 1340s and 1350s, its power to present petitions was solidified and those petitions evolved from private documents presented on behalf of the petitioner into petitions of the commons about wider matters. It also became more confident in linking those petitions to its financial demands, and it was in Edward’s reign, that it became an accepted principle that the Lords could only agree new taxes on behalf of their members, the Commons agreed new taxation for the rest of their kingdom. Also the House of Commons itself became more regular in its composition- from 1327, every English Parliament until the great reforms of the nineteenth century, save those in the civil war, included 2 members from each of the English counties (excluding the county Palitinates of Chester and Durham). It was from the 1330s that knights and burgesses started sitting together in sessions- Edward III attempted to summon councils of merchants to vote subsidies, by the 1350s those councils had become merged into Parliament and the Commons had become able to claim that they represented every class.What Bishop Stubbs and others termed the rise of Parliament, the seizing of the initiative by the House of Commons (a process lasting according to Professor Notestein several centuries until its fulfilment in the 18th Century) was not a process that worked against the crown: rather it was a biproduct of the crown’s increasing strength. Throughout the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries the increasing prestige and power of the House of Commons cemented the increasing prestige and power of the King. Edward III’s reign was also notable for the increasing ability of the King to wage war, to summon soldiers to his standard and levy taxes. Edward levied unimaginable taxes from his subjects: compared even to his grandfather Edward I, Edward III doubled or even tripled the tax load upon England- a load born after the Black Death in 1349 by almost a third fewer people. Not merely that, but Edward governed through a council that under the leadership of Robert Erdington and later William Wyckham Bishop of Winchester had become an administrative instrument of some precision: Edward’s powers were extended to the lowest levels of the government and he might and did interfere in decisions of every level. Edward used Parliaments to raise funds- but he did not listen to them when they threatened his prerogative. Rather what the Commons learnt in the reign of Edward was, as Professor Ormerod puts it, that confrontation produced a short term gain for them which was easily revocable (see for example 1100, 1215, 1258, 1310-11, 1326-7, 1341, 1376 etc.) - cooperation between crown and Parliament led to both organisations (principally the crown) gaining powers. The lesson Lord Manchester sought to teach Oliver Cromwell sounds through English history like a claxon bell, the King was still King whatever his Commons might say.The rise of Parliament and its growth as an institution fulfilled a need for the crown: it legitimised quite extraordinary collections of taxes, legitimised increasing scrutiny over the control of localities by magnates. It further entrenched the primacy of royal law throughout England- a distinguishing character according to Dr Garnett of English government in the early Middle Ages. The lesson that Professor Ormerod teaches us about Edward III is the same lesson as Dr Graves has taught us about Elizabethan Parliaments: Bishop Stubbs and his followers were wrong. Parliament did not seize the initiative in Edward’s reign (or Elizabeth’s for that matter): what it became was the best royal instrument to demonstrate the consent of the realm to the acts of the crown, Parliament authorised taxes and MPs acting as Justices of the Peace in the localities collected them, Parliament petitioned against ills and the King in his righteousness decided how to redress them. The constitutional story of the late middle ages, culminating with the most fundamental act (to this day) of Parliamentary supremacy- the acts in the Commons that made the English Reformation- was the story not of the triumph of Parliament over the King, but the triumph of the King in Parliament. The road from Edward III’s constitutional experiments leads not so much to Robert Walpole and William Gladstone, but to Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII, and the chasm that separates us from the Edwardian and Henrican Parliament is not one of Whiggish evolution but one of war, blood and toil. After Cromwell cut the King’s neck, the Gordian knot of the English constitution was slashed to pieces and the world changed.Edward III and his councillors did not live in Restoration times- we do. Giulio Andreotti was Prime Minister of Italy seven times. He was allegedly linked to all sorts of conspiracies and conspirators- from the CIA and the Pope to various mafiosi. During his period in Italian politics, several ministers were assacinated and one of his rivals for power, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped by the leftwing red brigades and eventually killed by them. This information is indispensible if you are going to watch and enjoy Il Divo, the new film about Andreotti that has just come out, however it is not important that you take a view on the issues. Rather than present an argument, the film presents an impression of Andreotti, it does not narrate or put together the series of murders and plots that may have put him at the centre of Italian politics, it assumes they did and then builds a picture impressionastically of the man and his milieu.For the duration of the film you have to accept the film maker's view of Italy in the period, even if it is incorrect, for there is nothing to be gained from this film from arguing with it as it has no argument. Rather it is a series of illustrations- treat it as fiction or fact depending on your own view of Italian politics in the postwar era: but don't get hung up on inaccuracies or false assumptions, the film is bold, blatant and ahistorical. What is there to enjoy then in the film? Lets start with the filming which is truly innovative- you can see why a prize was given to the film at Cannes just from the unique style that the director has given his movie. This is a visual song and dance film not a deep film about political analysis. There are some very fine touches within it. As men die in an opening sequence- murdered by the mafia- their names follow the blood out of their mouths. In Roberto Calvi's case (he was an Italian banker whose corpse was found hanging off a bridge in the Thames) the camera revolves around his body and gradually he see his names emerging like his last breath into the foggy London air. There are some wonderful counterposes as well: at one point Andreotti confronts a cat- the cat sits looking at him across a marble floor and the absudity of human political power is brought out as this weak old man cannot move the cat from the floor, though he can move policemen and soldiers around at whim. There are other fine visual moments: lovely touches which show that the director has mastered the basics of the cinematic art.It is the impression that I think is important in this film and not the detail. In a way the effect of the film is like that of Bulgakov's masterpiece- the Master and the Margerita- just like Bulgakov made the Russia of Stalin absurd through the device of the devil's return to earth, so Il Divo trades on the absurdity of Italy. Andreotti's historical cronies are given hyper real personalities their exaggerated expressions dance across the screen, puppets of the film makers imagination. Andreotti himself, dressed in black, stalks the stage- a hyperactive hunchback with an enigmatic smile. That sense that Andreotti was as his nicknames suggested the master of Italy is perpetuated by having him as a central point in all the scenes- the camera narrows in on this hunched frame: a Latin Richard III. Impressions are the key thing that the film trades on- attempting to analyse it as a narrative or a story will not give you what makes the film work or the point that the director is trying to get at.Analysing the baroque spirit of the film- Andreotti's nervous pacing, the ceremony of the Catholic church, the booming sound of pop music- gets you much further. Atmosphere is at the heart of this movie. What the director wants you to see is the atmosphere of Italian politics- a panorama of the scene in which Andreotti trod and an exploration of what Italian politics was like. For example Andreotti in one scene treads a corridor into a party- but he is still the Premier and his sad glance takes in the corrupt antics of his finance minister. Andreotti stands surrounded by this society and consequently becomes explained by his context in part. The gnomic utterances make sense alongside the anarchic disputation: as the one silent man in a screaming Parliament can bear loss with equanimity and dignity. Andreotti's presence in the film is equivocal and not examined seriously, but Italian politics is presented as riotous and colourful. At the centre strides this implacable and silent figure- wondering amidst the strands of his own memory and the manipulated mafia- whether it tells us anything about him is another matter, but what it does present is a picture of Andreotti in his times. A Protestant Union? Scottish and English Unionism in the 16th and 17th Centuries In 1643, English Parliamentary forces were in retreat. The King seemed to be on the verge of triumph in the English civil war. However the war involved not merely the English Parliament but also the Scottish Kirk. In 1638-40 the Scots had rebelled, the Irish rebelled in 1641 and the royal forces were attempting to deal with a problem across the three kingdoms not merely in the England. In 1643 the English Parliament went to negotiate with the Scots about them joining in the war. The treaty which brought the Scots in was called the Solemn League and Covenant. The Solemn League and Covenant is a fascinating document because, as Colin Kidd argues in a recent set of lectures on the issue of unionism in Scotland, it provides a template for understanding Scottish and English unionism.The Solemn League and Covenant was not merely an alliance against Charles I in the English Civil War: it was also a constructive document that envisaged a world after the civil war. Because it was negotiated at a period in which the Scots were powerful, the Solemn League and Covenant bound the English to fulfill Scottish conditions. It envisaged a partial political union- an eternal alliance between the English Parliament and the Scottish one- but did not envisage the marriage either of the two countries' politics or of their laws. Rather the document envisaged a union of the two nations' religions: England and Scotland would be united according to the Solemn League and Covenant in Presbyterian faith and Church government would proceed according to the best Calvinistic model. Both Bishops (the Anglican form of church government) and independent congregations (the type of government favoured by independents like Oliver Cromwell) would be abolished or restricted. Though the Solemn League and Covenant was never fully enforced and was abandoned as the balance of power changed in England- it did have some lasting effects including an assembly of Scottish and English divines and scholars at Westminster which debated theology for five years and produced a confession of faith for the whole nation.The Solemn League and Covenant provides an important template for thinking about Scottish and English union in the 16th and 17th Century. The imagined reality of two Presbyterian nations, perpetually Protestant and perpetually allied, facing a Catholic Europe was not one that suddenly emerged in 1643. One can see a similar idea (if backed by a different ecclesiology) in William Cecil's plans for the destruction of Marian Scotland in the 1560s or in John Knox's plans for the evangelisation of the English court in the 1540s. Part of the reason that both in England and Scotland union was popular in the Early Modern period was that it represented a way to unite Protestant forces against a Catholic other- whether France or Spain- that threatened to use Britannic minorities to overthrow the religious settlements in both nations. Perhaps one of the interesting reflections that that provokes is that national identity in the early modern period may have been weaker in comparison to religious identity than it is today. Recent Comments on Westminster Wisdom Reference Media British Academy (free lectures) Bryn Mawr Classical Review- academic reviews of books about the classical world and they are all free History Journals Free on the Internet Movie Review Query Engine Secrecy News- Congressional Report Service Words without borders- online literature magazine Philosophical and Historical Blogs Airs Waters Places: The Seventeenth Century Environment Early Modern Intelligencer Granite Studio Rethink A Protestant Union? Scottish and English Unionism ... Easy links to topics this blog covers China and the Far East Blogpatrol Local Blogging

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Film Review: Charly (1968) Posted on 02/13/2013 by Nigel Honeybone One comment “Charly is an adult male with a cognitive disability struggling to survive in the modern world. His frequent attempts at learning, reading and writing prove difficult. His teacher, Miss Kinian, takes Charly to the clinic where he is observed by doctors who have Charly ‘race’ a mouse, Algernon. Algernon is usually the winner thanks to an experiment that greatly raised his intelligence. This experiment is given to Charly, who at first does not seem affected. However, he becomes more logically advanced, eventually becoming a pure genius. Emotional and intra-personal consequences are involved when Charly learns the truth of the experiment, and struggles with whether or not the procedure was a good idea.” (courtesy IMDB) The best science fiction films of the sixties – apart from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – were the quiet ones not set in the future or in space, like Charly (1968) directed efficiently but without charm by Ralph Nelson, scripted by Stirling Siliphant and based on the award-winning novella (which was later expanded into a full novel) by Daniel Keyes entitled Flowers For Algernon. The story of the film follows the original quite closely, and tells of a mentally-retarded floor-sweeper who becomes the subject of a scientific experiment designed to increase intelligence, an experiment that has already been carried out on a mouse named Algernon, apparently successfully. Most actors would jump at the chance to play a character who, within the time-span of one film, ranges from a subnormal thirty-year-old to a super-genius and then back again to subnormal. Cliff Robertson did more than jump at the chance. He formed his own production company and, after various setbacks, succeeded in obtaining the necessary finance to make the film. It was a gamble that paid off in more ways than one, and his performance as Charly won him an Oscar that year. Robertson’s best roles can be found in such films as PT-109 (1963), 633 Squadron (1964), The Honey Pot (1967), Too Late The Hero (1970), Obsession (1976), Class (1983), Brainstorm (1983), Escape From LA (1996) and Spider-Man (2002). Cliff Robertson could also be found on the small-screen in Rod Brown Of The Rocket Rangers, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone and Batman. When he’s not acting up a storm, Cliff relaxes by collecting vintage fighter aircraft, including a Messerschmitt BF-108, a Supermarine Spitfire, and several Tiger Moths, and was given the Good Will Aviation Award by the National Transportation Safety Association. As usual, he gives an intelligent and sensitive performance in Charly as a man with the mind of a child slowly coming to full adult life and knowledge, as well as falling in love with his doctor (Claire Bloom). Apart from being an effective showcase of an actor’s talents, the film also retains some of the evocative pathos of the original story. The main interest of the story is that the operation turns out to be only a temporary success and Charly, now a genius, has to come face-to-face with the fact that all he has gained will be lost again. His moment of realisation is certainly touching and there is a horrible fascination in watching his IQ being slowly stripped away, but it may be because the original story was never quite as good as the claims made for it. Certainly, blown up for the big screen, its elements of sentimentality seem a little over-inflated, and are milked for all they’re worth. This mainly due to the rather wooden direction of Ralph Nelson, whose best work could be found on television. He served as Production Manager on The Twilight Zone and directed the acclaimed episode A World Of His Own. Not only did he direct both the television and film versions of Rod Serling‘s Requiem For A Heavyweight (1956 & 1962), he also directed the made-for-TV movie about the making of Requiem For A Heavyweight entitled The Man In The Funny Suit (1960). He then moved to the big screen with Lilies Of The Field (1963), Tick Tick Tick (1970), Soldier Blue (1970), The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) and Embryo (1976). He returned to television in the late seventies with a string of mediocre made-for-TV movies before passing away in 1987. It’s certainly not the fault of the faithful screenplay by Stirling Silliphant, who is probably best known for adapting In The Heat Of The Night (1967) and writing a number of Irwin Allen blockbusters including The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974), The Swarm (1978) and When Time Ran Out (1980). In the case of The Towering Inferno, Silliphant was tasked with blending two entirely unrelated novels (The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas Scortia) into a single screenplay. Silliphant is also remembered for his now-infamous bet with Hal Warren on whether Warren could make a successful horror film on a limited budget, which resulted in one of the worst films ever made, Manos The Hands Of Fate (1966). Charly is a self-conscious contemporary drama, and is probably the first ever to exploit mental retardation for the bittersweet romance of it. For all of its earnestness, the audience are forced into the vaguely unpleasant position of being voyeurs, congratulating ourselves for not being Charly as often as we feel a distant pity for him. But for all the easy manipulation of an audience’s ready sympathies, this very likable though rather stiff film does have something serious, if not profound, to say about human intelligence and emotion, and the way they’re linked. After decades in which science fiction films mostly meant monsters, Charly was a very definite step in the direction of relative maturity. It’s with this thought in mind I’ll politely ask you to please join me next week when I fish-out more celluloid slop from the wheelie-bin behind Fox Studios and force-feed it to you without a spoon, all in the name of art for…Horror News. Toodles! Charly (1968) This entry was posted in Film Reviews and tagged Charly, Claire Bloom, Cliff Robertson, Daniel Keyes, Flowers For Algernon, Ralph Nelson, Stirling Silliphant. Bookmark the permalink. Also, if you like following updates on industry Horror News.. About Nigel Honeybone "Nigel Honeybone's debut was as Hamlet's dead father, portraying him as a tall posh skeleton. This triumph was followed in Richard III, as the remains of a young prince which he interpreted as a tall posh skeleton. He began attracting starring roles. Henry VIII was scaled down to suit Honeybone's very personalised view of this famous king. Honeybone suggested that perhaps he really was quite skeletal, quite tall, and quite posh. MacBeth, Shylock and Othello followed, all played as tall, skeletal and posh, respectively. Considering his reputation for playing tall English skeletons, many believed that the real Honeybone inside to be something very different, like a squat hunchback perhaps. Interestingly enough, Honeybone did once play a squat hunchback, but it was as a tall posh skeleton. But he was propelled into the film world when, in Psycho (1960), he wore women's clothing for the very first time. The seed of an idea was planted and, after working with director Ed Wood for five years, he realised the unlimited possibilities of tall posh skeletons who dressed in women's clothing. He went on to wear women's clothing in thirteen major motion pictures, including the Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and Star Wars (1977), heartbreaking as the remains of Aunt Beru. With the onslaught of special effects came the demise of real actors in these sorts of roles. After modeling for CGI skeletons in Total Recall (1990) and Toys (1992), the only possible step forward for a tall posh skeleton was television, imparting his knowledge and expertise of the arts. As well as writing for the world's best genre news website HORROR NEWS, Nigel Honeybone is currently signed to star in a new series for television presenting the finest examples of B-grade horror. THE SCHLOCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW is seen on Friday nights at 10.30pm on TVS Television Sydney, and where ever good Youtube downloads are available." (Fantales candy wrapper circa 2007) View all posts by Nigel Honeybone → One Response to Film Review: Charly (1968) トートバッグ 人気 says: 11/06/2013 at 5:31 am tory burch 店舗

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MTN joins Silverbird to premiere first 2014 Superhero movie on Thursday For the second time in 2014, Ghana’s leading telecommunication service provider, MTN is partnering Silverbird Cinemas to premiere the first ever superhero movie to be released in 2014, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”. The 2014 American superhero movie is the sequel to 2011’s blockbuster movie “Captain America: The First Avenger” and happens to be the ninth installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Box office hit, “Thor: The Dark World”. Mr. Albert Adomako Mensah, Director in charge of Special Projects at Global Media Alliance, owners of Silverbird Cinemas stated that “As the leading entertainment hub in Ghana, we are always ready to bring the best movie experience to our customers. Three years ago, we premiered the first installment of this movie and recorded impressive numbers in our cinemas. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” will be premiered in 3D at our 3D cinema branch located at Weija on Thursday, 27th March and then at the Accra Mall on Friday, 28th March. We thank MTN for partnering with us for another world premiere”. MTN, as part of its loyalty initiatives will be inviting its customers to this premiere. Marvel’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” finds Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, living quietly in Washington D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world after the catastrophic events in New York with The Avengers. When a “S.H.I.E.L.D” colleague comes under attack, Steve becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the Falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy - the Winter Soldier.Source: GhanaWeb« Previous | Next »View CommentsSponsor Links Distance LearningDegree,mba frm S.Africa,India 0574841979 PAYPAL ACCOUNT GHANAGet verified Paypal A/C Call 0543185402 Houses & Apartments Buy, Sell & Rent Houses and Apartments

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Close Reads Zachary Wigon || May 4, 2012 02:00 PM EST Is Two Can Play That Game the Original Think Like a Man? While Think Like A Man may have conquered the domestic box office two weekends in a row – an impressive feat for what Hollywood execs refer to as an “urban comedy” – there’s no question that the film’s success is as much due to the popular self-help book on which it is based as it is to its comedic merits. Roger Ebert hit the nail on the head in his review, remarking: “The movie's mistake is to take the book seriously. This might have worked as a screwball comedy or a satire, but can you believe for a moment in characters naive enough to actually live their lives following Steve Harvey's advice?” The funny thing is that the screwball version film Ebert would have liked to see actually exists -- and is infinitely superior to the more dramatic, contemporary incarnation. That film is Two Can Play That Game, Mark Brown’s hilarious entry in the battle-of-the-sexes subgenre. A distant descendant of true screwballs (most notably The Awful Truth, which depicts a recently divorced couple’s attempts to derail one another’s new romances), Two Can Play That Game is, like Think Like A Man, anchored by a character explaining dating rules and philosophy to the audience. However, in this film that character actually has skin in the game – in fact, she’s its heroine: Shante Smith (Vivica A. Fox) is an ad agency exec who dispenses advice to the audience (and her girlfriends) about her seemingly perfect “Ten Day Program” for keeping a straying boyfriend in check; when her own boyfriend Keith (Morris Chestnut) begins to stray, a battle of wits ensues. The Kevin Hart comedic-sidekick role is played here by Anthony Anderson, as Keith’s relationship consigliore. Anderson knocks the role out of the park, with a performance that easily steals the entire film. It’s true that the most dramatic moments of Think Like A Man – when the characters try to level with each other and Own Up To Their Mistakes - are the moments in which it feels the most deadened. Two Can Play That Game, alternatively, embraces its absurdity; like its finest performance, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. In one scene, when Anderson seconds the points Keith makes by shouting as if he’s at church, an organ and chorus suddenly appear on the soundtrack to emphasize the revelations the men are coming to about women. The film, at various points, informs us that the first law of thermodynamics explains how best to manipulate your partner; has Vivica A. Fox punch Gabrielle Union in the face; and, in the funniest scene, puts forth the theory that church is a better place to pick up promiscuous women than a nightclub. And while the film understands that it’s a light comedy, it’s not lacking for bombast. “This is way bigger than you,” Anderson tells Chestnut late in the film. “You’re doing this for all men across the country. You’re doing this for men all around the world!” With increasingly deranged anxiety, Anderson goes off the rails: “Pretty soon women are gonna be pulling these head trips on us, dog, and you know what’s gonna happen? We’re gonna be the ones cooking dinner! We’re gonna be the ones changing the diapers! We’re gonna be the ones washing the dishes! And you know what they’re gonna be doing? They’re gonna be sitting on our couches, watching football on our Sunday!” Between putting forth the misguided belief that people need to engage in psychological warfare to keep their partners in line and the propagation of all kinds of stereotypes and clichés, no one’s going to accuse either of these movies of responsibly depicting gender relations. But when choosing one to watch, a viewer is well-advised to pick a film that is fully aware of – and complicit in – its own absurdity. Zachary Wigon is a writer based in New York. His work has appeared in the New York Press, NYLON, and Filmmaker Magazine, among many other outlets. He tweets @zachwigon. Tags: roger ebert, steve harvey, think like a man, Two Can Play That Game Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube Carol says: May 4, 2012 at 3:43 pm I *love* Two Can Play That Game -- fun, funny and insightful too. So glad to see a review encouraging people to check out this gem! Lyn Michelle says: May 4, 2012 at 4:14 pm The only similarity between these two films, other than an African American cast, is that they both deal with relationship advice. That's it. I fail to see why a comparison was even made. Both of these movies were entertaining based on their own merits. I wonder if Roger Ebert read Steve Harvey's book. Many women found it very helpful and enlightening to read about how men viewed many aspects of relationships from a man's point of view. I would think most people who buy self-help books don't follow them "to the letter" but use them as a guide, which is after all the point. Mr. Ebert's mistake is that he takes himself too seriously. Shala says: May 4, 2012 at 4:14 pm never thought about it but you're right about the comparison. i remember really liking "two can play that game" but now i refuse to see "think like a man".. hmmm.... Jen says: May 5, 2012 at 1:30 am u should go see it, i've seen it twice b/c it is really entertaining...two can play that game can't EVEN compare.....

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Previous Next Mon, Apr 25, 2011 | 12:56 PM SHARES: Simon Cowell Wants Paula Abdul to Join 'X Factor' & "Always Loved Working with Her" Although rumors have indicated Paula Abdul isliterallythisclose to inking a deal with Simon Cowell’s show, The X Factor, one report has confirmed the former American Idol judge hasn’t signed on the dotted line yet but will likely join team up with him yet again. Plus, the report has noted British singer Cheryl Cole will also join the star-studded panel! OK! NEWS: SIMON COWELL SAYS MARIAH CAREY WILL BE INVOLVED IN SOME FORM ON X FACTOR According to Deadline (via Entertainment Weekly), Fox hasn’t officially announced the judges but Simon indicated he wants Paula Abdul sitting alongside him on the panel. He noted, “First of all, it’s like casting a dinner party. You’ve got to have people on the panel you get on well with.” From the report it sounds like Simon is meeting with several people though, he’s “always wanted Paula” to join the dinner party. He explained, “I missed her the second she left the show. Always loved working with her even though she can be a pain. And I’ve been consistent about this. I don’t know what it is about her, but I’ve always clicked with her.” He added, “You just have to get that chemistry, and she’s right. I’ve never found anyone better than her. I think there’s a good chance it will be her.” OK! NEWS: JESSICA SIMPSON CONFIRMS X FACTOR RUMORS AS POSSIBLE JUDGE Although it sounds like negotiations with Paula haven’t even begun and Cheryl’s deal hasn’t been sealed yet, assuming Simon gets what Simon wants, they’ll join him on the panel along with Antonio “L.A.” Reid. L.A. was formerly known as the chairman of Island Def Jam Music Group. He resigned from his job to join the panel on The X Factor. Simon indicated he “was my No. 1 choice to sit alongside me on the show.” Tags: Get Scoop, Featured, Cheryl Cole, Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell

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Cameron Diaz Joins Ridley Scott’s ‘The Counselor’ Posted by Jordan Raup, on May 8, 2012 at 10:12 pm On the cusp of Ridley Scott’s return to R-rated sci-fi territory with Prometheus, the director is already busy aligning the cast for his next project. Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem are set for the Cormac McCarthy project The Counselor, but he’s been having trouble locking down the female roles, with Penelope Cruz the latest to be attached. Twitch now lets us know that Cameron Diaz has joined the film as Malkina, a role that was circled by Angelina Jolie. In the screenplay she’s an Argentinian drug dealer close with the Reiner character, but perhaps her origins have changed to fit casting. I honestly can’t picture Diaz in the role, an actress who has done little to impress the last few years. Hopefully Scott will be able to pull out a worthwhile performance out of her. The star will next be seen alongside Colin Firth in the Coens-scripted Gambit remake, since we’re all collectively wiping What to Expect When You’re Expecting from our minds. Described as “No Country For Old Men on steroids,” The Counselor follows “a respected lawyer who thinks he can dip a toe in to the drug business without getting sucked down.” Expect a 2013 release as production gears up this spring. What do you think about Diaz starring in this Ridley Scott project? Tags: Cameron Diaz, Ridley Scott, The Counselor Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

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A companion site to ThisDayInDisneyHistory.com DISCOUNT DISNEY WORLD TICKETS October 26: TV Tower of Terror On this day in 1997 Tower of Terror, a television film, directed by D. J. MacHale and based on the Florida theme park attraction The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, aired on The Wonderful World of Disney for the first time.The movie begins with a flashback to Halloween, 1939 … the night the elevator gets struck by lightning as it reaches the eleventh floor. All 5 passengers aboard disappear, only to return as ghosts!Cutting to the present - the Hollywood Tower Hotel is now believed to be cursed and haunted by the spirits of the elevator riders. No one is able to make sense of it all - except would-be reporter Buzzy Crocker (played by actor Steve Guttenburg), who hopes to write a newspaper article on the story with his teen niece, Anna (portrayed by Kirsten Dunst).They team up with an old lady named Abigail (played by Amzie Strickland) who tells them that if they find a belonging of each person on the elevator they will be free from the hotel.Dunst went on to be nominated for a Young Artist Award.Click HERE for more October 26 Disney history. October 18: The Jungle Is Jumpin' On this day in 1967, Disney's animated feature The Jungle Book was released. Inspired by an 1894 novel written by Rudyard Kipling, it was the last film produced by Walt Disney (who unfortunately passed away during its production).The plot centers around man-cub Mowgli (voiced by Bruce Reitherman - son of Wolfgang the film's director & one of Walt's Nine Old Men) who is found in a basket as a baby deep in the jungles of India. He is raised by a wolf (along with her cubs) and becomes acquainted with jungle life. The film tells of his ups and downs as he makes his way back to the human village.Although based on Kipling's story, Disney writers Bill Peet, Larry Clemmons, Ralph Wright, Ken Anderson, and Vance Gerry altered the tale for the big screen. In fact the character of King Louie was created by the Disney staff. The orangutan who kidnaps Mowgli does not appear in Kipling's tale (as orangutans are not native to India).The all-star voice cast included Phil Harris as Baloo the bear, Sebastian Cabot as Bagheera the panther, George Sanders as Shere Kahn the tiger, Sterling Holloway as Kaa the python, Louis Prima as King Louie, J. Pat O'Malley as Colonel Hathi the Asian elephant, and Clint Howard as Junior - Hathi's son.All of of the songs were written by the Sherman Brothers except "The Bare Necessities" which was written by Terry Gilkyson. The overall score was written by George Bruns.Animators who worked on The Jungle Book included Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, and some 20 plus other stylists and layout artists.The film grossed $73,741,048 in its initial release.Click HERE for more October 18 Disney history. October 17: Birth Of A Legend On this day in 1925, Disney Legend Jack Wagner - often referred to as the official voice of Disneyland and Disney World - was born in California. He recorded all of the parks announcements up until the early 1990s (vocal cord surgery forced him into retirement).His association with Disney goes back to 1955 when he was invited to Disneyland's debut. In the early days Wagner did guest announcements and narrations for parades and special programs. It wasn't until 1970 that he came on board full time as Production Consultant.Probably his most famous Disney World announcement ..."Please stand clear of the doors; por favor manténganse alejado de las puertas."Click HERE for more October 17 Disney history. October 16: 85 Years Ago Today On this day in 1923, the Disney Brothers Studio was founded by Walt and his older brother Roy in Hollywood, California. The reason ... the Disney brothers on this day signed a contract with a cartoon distributor for their Alice Comedies.Within 3 years the company changed its name to the Walt Disney Studio. But on December 16, 1929 the original partnership formed in 1923 was replaced by Walt Disney Productions, Ltd. (plus three other companies - Walt Disney Enterprises, Disney Film Recording Company, and Liled Reality and Investment Company - were also formed).These 3 companies were all merged into Walt Disney Productions in 1938 and in 1940 the studio moved to its present location in Burbank, California.It wasn't until 1952 that WED Enterprises (later named Walt Disney Imagineering) was formed to design Disneyland.The following year Retlaw Enterprises was formed to control the rights to "Disney," and Walt Disney Studios Motion pictures to distribute feature films.In 1957 Walt Disney Productions went public.But in 1968 Walt Disney Productions was changed to Walt Disney Enterprises. It would stay that way until 1986 when the company's name was changed to The Walt Disney Company.Today one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world ... it all started as an equal partnership between 2 brothers 85 years ago.Click HERE for more October 16 Disney history. October 15: This Day's LIFE On this day in 1971, LIFE magazine ran a cover story on the opening of Disney World. The 50-cent issue (dated October 15) featured a color photo of 1,500 Disney employees in front of Cinderella Castle.The article "Disney Moves East" began on page 44 with a night shot of a crowded Main Street, USA (by photographer Yale Joel). LIFE informed readers: "The new site is Florida, but the air is pure old Disney."Click HERE for more October 15 Disney history. October 02: There is a 6th dimension, beyond that which is known to man ... On this day in 1959, "Where Is Everybody?" the very first episode of The Twilight Zone television series aired.This episode (written by Rod Serling) tells the story of a man named Mike Ferris (played by actor Earl Holliman) who finds himself alone in a strange and apparently deserted town. Ferris is dressed in an Air Force jumpsuit - but has no recollection of how he came to be in this town. Although he discovers signs of life - food cooking on stoves & cigarettes burning in ashtrays - he can't find any people ... yet feels as if he is being watched. As he grows more unsettling, Ferris collapses at a street crossing and presses a button labeled "WALK." The walk button is actually a panic button and it is revealed that Ferris is an astronaut who has been confined to an "isolation room" for testing! The town is a complete hallucination.The Twilight Zone eventually became the inspiration for Disney's popular Tower of Terror theme attractions. An inspection sticker outside the Tower's elevators (in Florida) has the number 10259 on it. 10259? October 2 '59 ... perhaps in reference to this very first episode?!Click HERE for more October 02 Disney history. October 01: A Day For Celebrating On this day in 1971 Walt Disney World opened its doors for the first time. Over the years October 1st became the day for kicking off Disney World anniversary celebrations. The very first Disney World anniversary celebration started on this day in 1981.On October 1, 1982 EPCOT (Disney World's second theme park) first opened. Even Disney World's Caribbean Beach Resort debuted on this day in 1988.In 1999 a little website called This Day in Disney History first appeared.Here's to many more October 1st celebrations!Click HERE to read more October 01 Disney history. "I love the nostalgic myself.I hope we never lose some of the things of the past."-Walt Disney October 02: There is a 6th dimension, beyond that... tonytallarico.com For more Disney history ... visit This Day in Disney History

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Fantasia More » Fantasia 2014: New Trailer For World Premiere Of THE DROWNSMAN Andrew Mack, Contributing Writer Chad Archibald's moist slasher flick The Drownsman will have its world premiere at Fantasia on August 2 at 5:15 p.m. in the renovated DB Clark Theatre. To mark the occasion, they have cut a new trailer. After almost drowning in a lake, Madison finds herself bound to a life of fear. Unable to describe what happened to her during the moments she was underwater, Madison begins to develop hydrophobia: an abnormal fear of water. Crippled by her past trauma, Madison attempts to shut out the world around her but, her fear intensifies when she begins to be haunted by the vision of an evil figure. After watching her struggle for over a year, Madison's four friends stage an intervention in a desperate attempt to help. In doing so, they accidentally open a floodgate to a dark place where none of them are safe. As Madison and her friends dive deeper into the dark history of the evil that haunts them, they're dragged one by one to a ho

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Published on Aspen Daily News Online (http://www.aspendailynews.com) Closing Weekend at Aspen Filmfest Writer:Andrew TraversByline:Time Out Staff WriterWe've all heard plenty recently from politicians about Obamacare and America's healthcare crisis. But most of us haven't heard from young doctors on the front lines of the broken system, trying to hold onto their idealism and the Hippocratic oath. Ryan McGarry's gripping documentary, “Code Black,” does just that, cutting through the din of pundits and pols by putting us over his shoulder in the emergency room at Los Angeles County Medical Center. “The goal is to disarm people,” McGarry said after a recent shift in the ER at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, where he now practices. “I think that's enough. If we can just disarm people, maybe the next time they're exposed to the debate they think about the people on the front line.” McGarry, 31, began making the film in 2008 while he was a resident physician in the ER at L.A. County, working 12-hour shifts in the hospital and spending his few waking hours trying to make a professional documentary. He profiles himself and the team of young residents during their time in the hospital's notorious “C-Booth,” the trauma center where modern emergency medicine developed. C-Booth closed in 2008, when L.A. County was replaced by a new state-of-the-art facility. There, the young doctors in “Code Black” struggle with the overburdened waiting room, piles of paperwork and legal precautions. In one scene, a frustrated McGarry is instructed to prepare for a malpractice suit while filling out a report on a patient, because the patient was hurt on the job and his employer is likely to challenge a workman's compensation claim. “It's pretty damn simple,” McGarry says. “Patients want to see doctors and doctors want to help patients. Profit shouldn't be part of that conversation.” The film includes some intense and graphic images of emergency room procedures — unflinching looks at chests sawed and people dying on the table. McGarry felt he needed to show the jarring intensity of such scenes in the ER, because it makes the over-crowded waiting rooms and bureaucracy seem all the more absurd. “If you can sort of experience the visually intense moment, you can feel that and it puts a different weight on the waiting room, which is a bigger problem,” he says. We see patients wait upwards of 24 hours to see a doctor, many of them the uninsured poor for whom the emergency room is the only access to healthcare. McGarry will hold a question-and-answer session with festival-goers after Friday's screening at Aspen Filmfest, along with two other doctors featured in it. “Code Black” won Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Film Festival this summer, and McGarry is in talks with distributors to give the film a theatrical and on-demand release. It's also been optioned by “Mad Men” producer Marti Noxon, who is working to adapt “Code Black” into a dramatic television series. McGarry is planning to direct some of the series episodes, and is interested in making fictional narrative films down the line. 'Mother, I Love You' A quiet Latvian drama about a 12-year-old boy, “Mother, I Love You,” may be the most universally affecting film featured at this year's Aspen Filmfest. It follows Raimonds (Kristofers Konovalovs) as his boyhood mischief teeters on the edge of petty crime. Raised by a single mom, Raimonds rebels against her with school pranks, hides bad behavior reports, and clashes with his school band conductor. As he and his friend Peteris begin breaking into the apartments his mother cleans, their hijinks escalate and police catch on. The stakes may seem low, but the emotional intensity of the film couldn't be higher. Director Janis Nords deftly hones in on the guilt and fear that attends everyone's adolescence, and elicits a nuanced performance from Konovalovs. “They say that fear has big eyes when you're a kid,” says Nords. “What may look like nonsense things, unimportant things from an adult point of view are completely different when you're a kid.” The movie won top prizes at the Los Angeles and Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, giving it palpable buzz coming into Friday's Filmfest screening. “I never thought it would bring any awards or anything like this,” says Nords. “Working from low expectations means you've set solid ground for yourself. I hope I can keep that quality.” andrew@aspendailynews.com Aspen Filmfest 2013 Through Sunday, Sept. 29 • Paepcke Auditorium Mother, I Love You 2:30 p.m. • Friday, Sept. 27 Code Black Full schedule at www.aspenfilm.org [1] Add Image:archive_date:1 week Source URL: http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/entertainment/159595 Links:[1] http://www.aspenfilm.org

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Articles & Interviews; Entertaintment Weekly - October 15, 1999 BLOOD, SWEAT AND FEARS - by Benjamin Sventkey With their bloody buddy picture, Fight Club, Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and bleak-chic director David Fincher get ready to rumble "First rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club."--Tyler Durden in FC First rule of interviewing David Fincher: talk all you want about FC. Ask him anything that pops into you head abut his new $65 million film starring Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter. About its unrelenting violence. its murky morality. Its provocative politics (which one outraged critic has already denounced as "fascist") Go ahead, ask. He won't hit you. "This is the part of the interview where you ask who the hell do I think I am and what the hell do I think I'm doing," correctly observes the 37 yr. old director of what could turn out to be the most controversial release from a major studio since Natural Born Killers. "But, you know, I honestly don't get what the big deal is. I've always thought people would think the film was funny. It's supposed to be satire. A dark comedy. I think it's funny. But I dunno," he goes on, stumbling onto an epiphany, "maybe I have a different take on funny." Oh, he has a different take all right, and not just on funny. As one of the most subversive mainstream filmmakers in hollywood--the man who made moral ambiguity and psychological dubiety into a marketable cinematic style with his 1995 serial-killer thriller Seven and his 1997 Michael Douglas mind trip The Game--you can always count on Fincher for different. Still, even by his sublimely warped standards, FC is a shocker, a film so harrowingly brutal and unabashedly out there it makes that elephant-dung art at the Brooklyn Museam of Art look about as disturbing as a big-eyed Walter Keane pixie. Norton (American History X, The People vs. Larry Flynt) plays the movie's insomniac narrator, a corporate drone alienated by his cookie-cutter job and consumeristic lifestyle; his only true joy is crashing support group meetings for the terminally ill. Pitt (who's done Fincher's bleak brand of "comedy" before, starring in Seven) plays his newfound pal Tyler Durden, a mysterious (and none too hygenic) soap salesman who helps Norton's character get in touch w/ his inner anarchist. Together, they start a support group of their own--FC--where disillusioned men from all walks of life learn to work through their pain and find emotional insight by beating each other's heads into bloody pulps. "There's something about getting hit in the face that gives you an adrenalized version of life that's very profound," Fincher says as he relaxes in the sunroom of the Los Feliz, Calif., rental where he's spent the last few months putting a postproduction polish on his film. "It's like nothing else you experience in life." There's more. Like a story line about a cabal of anti IKEA terrorists scheming to bring down the evil home furnishings empire (and other oppressors, like Starbucks and Calvin Klein) by sabotaging corporate art and blowing up office towers; a sadistic love triangle involving Bonham Carter as a suicidal Goth goddess named Marla and a surprise ending so shocking (and complicated) we'd have trouble revealing it even if we wanted to. And all of it unspools in a synapse frying rush of flashbacks, jump cuts, and stylish special effects that hang together more like a Mobius strip than a motion picture. There's even not quite subliminal footage of x rated body parts, though perhaps subliminal inch age describes some of the inserts better. "This isn't the sort of movie you just sit back and watch," Fincher warns. "This is a movie that's downloaded in front of you. It doesn't wait for you. If you don't keep up, you're lost. It's like you've tripped and sprained your ankle. You have to tell the rest of the audience, 'Go on, go ahead without me!" Some people will undoubtedly enjoy the ride. In fact, a few critics have already declared FC brillient ("an orgiastic pop masterpiece," according to American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis' review). But when 20th Century Fox opens the film to the public on Oct. 15, Fincher may be dealing w/ more than sprained ankles. In the current post-Columbine climate, w/ Congress contemplating legistration to regulate violence in entertainment and Oliver Stone battling in court over crimes supposedly inspired by Natural Born Killers, a movie this viscerally savage and morally fuzzy--a film that could be misconstrued as actually advocating violence--is bound to be explosive. The only question is how loud will its boom be? Even the film's biggest star recommends taking cover. "Fincher is piloting the Enola Gay on this one," Pitt predicts, "He's got the A-bomb." "I want you to make me pregnant. I want to have your abortion."--MARLA Turns out the executive at Fox who discovered FC, or least who purhased the film rights to the '96 first novel by Oregon mechanic Charles Palahniuk, was none other than Laura Ziskin, the producer who launched her career nearly 10 yrs. ago by reworking a dark, edgy screenplay about a down and out prostitute in L.A. into a frothy romantic bubble bath called Pretty Woman. This time, though, Ziskin didn't slip any Roy Orbison songs onto the soundtrack. "I was sitting at the edge of my bed in the middle of the night reading passages of this book to my family and calling up colleagues on the phone sayin, 'You have to hear this dialogue!'" says Ziskin, recalling her first bout w/ FC. "The ideas in the book were so potent and compelling and original." Fincher had spent a sleepless night w/ the novel as well--he'd even tried to bid on the movie rights himself--so it wasn't long before he was sitting in Ziskin's office pitching his directorial services. "It was one of those jerk-off meetings where you come in and say how great it's going to be," he recalls. "I told Laura we could do the movie a number of ways. We could do it for $3 million on vidiotape, a sort of anarchist cookbook version. Or we could really go for it, try to embrace everything in the book, like the scene w/ the plane exploding in midair and the car crash..." Fox liked the second version, although originally the sturdio was planning on embracing only about $50 million worth of the novel. First time screenwriter Jim Uhls was hired to translate Palahniuk's prose into a shootable script ("A faithful fleshing out" is how the novelist reviews the results) and Fincher started fishing around for movie stars willing to take on the film's raunchy roles. Sean Penn wa briefly talked about for Pitt's part; Courtney Love was mentioned for Marla, the movies only significant female character ("too busy" says Norton, explaining why his ex girlfriend didn't do the film). Of course, back during those early stages of pre production--in '97 B.C. (before Columbine) the violence in entertainment debate wasn't the front burner political issue it is today. Nobody was particularly troubled by the film's bone crunching milieu, or even paid much attention to it. Norton, for one, saw the movie as a '90s update of a classic '60s love story. "It reminded me of The Graduate," he says. "My grandfather was very uncomfortable w/ it. He thought it was negative and inappropriate. But my father loved it, thought it was a great metaphoric black comedy that dealt w/ his generation's feeling of disjointedness. And that's exactly what FC is. My character is sort of like Benjamin, and Brad's character is like a postmodern Mrs. Robinson." One word: plastiques. In any case, Pitt wasn't deterred by FC violence, either. In fact, he was so elated at the prospect of working w/ Fincher again (understandly, since Seven was the actor's last movie to hit $100 million at the box office) he sprinted to the director's house to seal the deal. Recalls Fincher: "I hung up the phone and he was knocking at my door in, like, four minutes. And I live in a gated community. I don't know how he got past security." "Finch is hyperbolizing hte moment a little," Pitt semi-corroborates, "but, yeah, I was pretty excited about doing it. I hadn't read anything like it, and I read everything. It's an astounding, extraordinary, amazing movie" he gushes, inventing his own FC rule (talk about FC, but only in superlatives). "It's a pummeling of information. It's Mr. Fincher's opus. It's provacative, but thank God it's provacative. People are hungry for films like this, films that make them think." The movie certainly forced Pitt into some heavy thinking. "Fincher, Norton, and I had endless discussions about it before we started filming," he goes on. "We sat around for months battling around ideas, breaking apart every line like it was Shakespeare. It's such a hard film to get a handle on. How do you characterize something you've never seen before?" Oddy enough, about the only thing Pitt didn't contemplate during those long months of pre filming rap sessions was what effect playing Tyler Durden--by far the ugliest role this prettiest of movie stars has ever undertaken--might have on his career. For an actor like Norton, who make his name by slipping into dark, difficult parts FC was a no brainer. But Pitt? Playing a nihilst antihero who shaves his head, urinates in cafeteria food, and manufactures his soap in ways that are 99 44/100 % impure? "Actually, I didn't think about that too much," he says. "It didn't seem gutsy to me at all. It seemed like it would be foolish not to do it." "People who don't know Brad think he's a strange choice for the role," Fincher acknowledges. "But people who do know him--who know the Brad Pitt who hangs out at his house with his five dogs, who chain-smokes, who lives under an inch of dust--they think he's perfect." As it happens, the only one who expressed any reservations about appearing in Mr. Fincher's Opus was Bonham Carter. "I was the last one on board," says the English actress. "I wanted to meet Fincher just to ascertain that he wasn't a complete misogynist. The script was awfully dark, and in bad hands it could have been immature or possibly even irresponsible. But after meeting him, I could tell that it wasn't going to be a concern. He's not just an all-out testost package. He's got a healthy feminist streak." During shooting, Fox maintained a mostly hands-off policy toward Fincher. But there was one moment when Ziskin felt compelled to put her foot down--when she saw dailies of a post-coital scene in which Bonham Carter delivered that line about wanting to have Tyler's abortion. Fincher remembers her reaction: "She came to me with her voice quivering and said, 'You know, we just can't release a movie that has that line in it. Will you please shoot something different.'" He obliged, penning Bonham Carter's replacement line himself: "That was the best f--- I've had since grade school." "After we previewed the picture, Laura came up to me," Fincher says, laughing. "She said, 'Please put the abortion line back in.'" He didn't. "This buttoned-down schizophrenic could probably go over the edge at any moment in the working day and stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-180 carbine gas-operated semiautomatic." --Fight Club's narrator to his boss. Originally, Fox had slated Fight Club for release last July, opposite Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. But last April, two lunatic teenagers wearing black trench coats went on a shooting spree in Colorado. Suddenly, fairly or not, Hollywood became ground zero in a political and cultural battle over the roots of teen violence. A frenzy of proposals aimed at curbing Hollywood's supposed excesses whipped through both the Senate and the House (most were eventually voted down, but a bill to begin a special congressional investigation of Hollywood's creative practices, complete with subpoena powers, is still under consideration). None of the above had anything to do with Fight Club's release being bumped back three months, at least according to Fincher. "It just wasn't ready," he says. "There was a lot of concern about the length of the movie. I had it down to two and a half hours, but we wanted to get it down to two-nineteen. I needed more time." Still, the Columbine tragedy (and the three other mass killings given saturation media coverage since then) has put a distinct chill in the air. And whatever else Fight Club may be--an orgiastic pop masterpiece, a fascist rant, a remake of The Graduate--it will definitely make a tempting bull's-eye. At this writing, with the movie only just arriving in theaters, it's too early for reaction from the usual Hollywood bashers. "I'm lucky if I see one movie in six months," says former Family Research Council leader Gary Bauer, reluctantly admitting that his jihad against the entertainment-industrial complex may have lost some steam ("I cannot find any constitutional case that I could make that would permit government limitations on this sort of thing," he says). Conservative moralist Bill Bennett hasn't viewed Fight Club either, although he was quoted in Larry King's USA Today column blasting the film's "illicit, pummeling free-for-alls." And while there's no word yet from Kathie Lee Gifford--who, Pitt recalls, once advised her viewers that it was their "moral imperative" not to see Fincher's Seven--you don't have to get up early in the morning to figure out which way her thumb will probably end up turning. Of course, fundamentalist presidential candidates and perky morning-talk-show hostesses aren't exactly Fight Club's target demographic; in fact, they're precisely the sort of people the movie hopes to offend. "I don't really care what Bill 'S---head' Bennett thinks about this movie," Fight Club producer Art Linson lets loose. "I don't care if he thinks it's irresponsible. It's not irresponsible. The fact is, there's more violence in the first five minutes of Saving Private Ryan than you'd see watching Fight Club four times. To me, Spielberg's movie is the one bordering on irresponsible, with all those limbs flying around on the beach." "Art has always reflected society," Norton offers more calmly. "Art doesn't invent violence. It doesn't inspire violence. This movie examines violence and the roots of frustration that are causing people to reach out for such radical solutions. And that's exactly the sort of discussion we should be having about our culture. Because a culture that doesn't examine its violence is a culture in denial, which is much more dangerous." Elegantly put. But you don't have to be a right-wing cinemaphobe to wonder whether Fight Club's true target audience--young males in their teens and 20s--will be quite so subtly Socratic in their interpretation of the movie. Or to worry that some may walk away with an entirely different message. Already there have been ominous (although unsubstantiated) rumors of real-life versions of Palahniuk's fictional Fight Clubs popping up in New York and California. If true, Fincher may want to give Oliver Stone's lawyers a call. Even New York City college professors have some concerns. "I found the film fascinating and provocative, often scathingly funny, and ultimately requiring a real leap of faith in psychological projection," ruminates Annette Insdorf, director of undergraduate film studies at Columbia University, who saw a sneek peek of Fight Club last summer. "But, yeah, I am worried about young males. What bothers me is that the body is rendered as an object upon which pain can and should be inflicted. I can see people asking if impressionable young men will be inclined to play Fight Club. But then," she says, adding a caveat, "I was concerned when Rambo came out too." Fincher, meanwhile, is still stuck on the comedy thing: "People say this movie advocates violence, but did M*A*S*H advocate alcoholism? That's how the characters in that movie dealt with their circumstances in Korea. And this is how the characters in this movie deal with their circumstances. This isn't A Clockwork Orange. It was never intended to be. It's a fairy tale, a coming-of-age story about choosing a path to maturity. "You know, I'm 37 years old," he goes on. "I don't purport for a second to know what a film should be, what entertainment should be, how much it should teach, how much it should titillate. I'm just trying to make a good, funny movie." And then the slightest glimmer of what might be doubt creeps into his tired, red-around-the-edges eyes. "You didn't think it was funny?" What was that first rule of Fight Club again? � BRAD PITT PRESS.COM part of SIMPLY BRAD.COM 2005-2014

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Click Here for Articles About Great Performances Magical Mystery Tour Revisited Set for THIRTEEN's Great Performances, 12/14 Related LinksScoop: SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE on NBC - Saturday, November 22, 2014November 20, 2014THIRTEEN's American Masters to Premiere Documentary 'Bing Crosby Rediscovered', 11/2November 19, 2014THIRTEEN's American Masters Series Premieres PLIMPTON! TonightMay 16, 2014PBS Announces Full Fall LineupMay 08, 2014 THIRTEEN, Great Performances Songs you'll never forget, the film you've never seen and a story that's never been told. In August 1967, in the wake of the extraordinary impact of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles made a film. It was seen in the U.K. by a huge audience, at 8.35 p.m. on BBC One on Britain's Boxing Day...and all hell broke loose. The story behind that film - Magical Mystery Tour - is revealed on Magical Mystery Tour Revisitedon THIRTEEN'S Great Performances, Friday, December 14 at 9 p.m. on PBS. (Check local listings.) The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour itself will follow at 10 p.m. (Check local listings.) Magical Mystery Tour was chock-full of thinly veiled references to psychedelia, anarchy and fantasy, all in the setting of a traditional British sightseeing bus outing to the seaside. This was a far cry from the innocent loveable mop-top japery of Help! and A Hard Day's Night. Middle Britain had tuned in but was a long way from turning on and dropping out - the nation was baffled and outraged by the film's unexpected and uncompromising surreal, non-linear narrative. Paul McCartney appeared on The Frost Programme on rival ITV the day after transmission. He was called upon to account for himself and the rest of the group. Could it be that a pearl was cast before swine and then thrown away? To its small band of admirers, it was a masterpiece of surreal British wit and imagination in the tradition of The Goons and Alice in Wonderland. Now with the film fully restored to the highest technical standard with a remixed soundtrack, it's time to tell the extraordinary story of Magical Mystery Tour: why it was made, how it was made and the circumstances in which it was made. In the summer of 1967, The Beatles had the world at their feet. It's impossible to overestimate the effect of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; that was revolutionary too but everyone loved it. In August, Brian Epstein tragically died, leaving the Beatles not only without a manager, but without their ambassador. They decided to go ahead with the film they'd been planning. To tell the story, this film calls on those who were there, most notably Paul McCartney, who had the original idea, and Ringo Starr, who is credited as the director of photography. John Lennon and George Harrison are represented through interviews over the years and through their appearances in the film itself and in the copious and fascinating outtakes.

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Muslims seek dialogue with Jews through film Janice Arnold, Staff Reporter, Friday, May 3, 2013 Tags: Arts Comments Shaheen Ashraf, left, seen here with Deena Roskies, is realizing her dream of a Montreal première for the film Out of Cordoba, which carries a message of tolerance. MONTREAL — A local Muslim women’s group is reaching out to the Jewish community for greater dialogue through the screening of a documentary film that offers the perspective of those people of faith struggling against the hijacking of their religions by extremists. The Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) has teamed up with the Montreal Dialogue Group (MDG) and the Canadian Friends of Rabbis for Human Rights to bring Out of Cordoba: Averroes and Maimonides in Their Time and Ours and its New York-based director Jacob Bender to Montreal. The award-winning film, released in 2010, will be shown at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts twice on May 12, at 4 and 7:30 p.m. CCMW board member Shaheen Ashraf said she had been trying for a couple of years to find a partner in the Jewish community to help support this effort and to hold a public program about the issues the film raises. “I think the film is a good medium to bring about better understanding and peace between the two communities,” said Ashraf, a native of Pakistan. Founded 30 years ago in Winnipeg, the CCMW describes itself as a highly diverse organization in favour of women’s equality and dedicated “to empowering Muslim women to remain true to their Islamic heritage within the rights and responsibilities of the Canadian context.” Ashraf said the CCMW has spoken out against so-called honour killings and, in Quebec, has taken the position that a women’s head or face coverings should be a matter of personal choice, although its membership includes both those who do and do not wear such attire. Ashraf has been involved with the MDG, a group that brings together Jews and Arabs, since its founding 10 years ago. While the MDG’s intercultural activities are generally open to the public, the film screenings will be its first outreach program on the Jewish Community Campus, said MDG member Deena Roskies. Roskies emphasized that the initiative came from the CCMW, and she is grateful that the Segal has agreed to be the venue. “The Segal, although connected to the Jewish community, is going to great lengths to make everyone feel welcome,” Roskies added. “I think this will be a wonderful chance to broaden our dialogue from the personal or political. Religion can be sensitive, but I learned from living for a while in Singapore, where I had many Muslim friends and colleagues, that we have much in common and we can talk when there is good will.” Out of Cordoba, she believes, will encourage openness among Montrealers today by recalling the common heritage of Jews and Muslims in the medieval Spanish city. Bender, a Jewish filmmaker with more than 30 years experience, has been dedicated to interfaith dialogue throughout his life. “Out of Cordoba is not only about Averroes and Maimonides, the two ‘wise men of Cordoba,’ one Muslim, one Jewish, but also the story of the remarkable Christians, Muslims and Jews I have met during the making of this film over nine years,” Bender said. “These brave souls are living proof that religious faith can yet be a source and inspiration for compassion in today’s world.” The film profiles contemporary people of faith, who, inspired by these two thinkers, are challenging the notion that there is an inevitable “clash of civilizations” between the West and the Muslim world, and an unsolvable conflict between Muslims and Jews. Bender began his research after the 9/11 attacks, in an attempt to restore his belief in the possibility of interfaith reconciliation and co-existence. He started in Spain, exploring its history of harmony among the monotheistic religions. “Additionally, the suicide bombings in the Middle East, and in Madrid and London, left those of us in the Jewish community committed to Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation feeling terribly outnumbered.” As a Jew, Bender said he is honoured by the level of support he received from Muslims around the world. Jewish sponsors include the Jewish Communal Fund of New York and Hebrew Union College. The film’s advisory board includes Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars and community leaders. Rabbi Michael Paley, of the Jewish Federation of New York, endorsed the film, saying: “In a time of continuing religious conflict, with the dangers of militant religious extremism all too apparent, Out of Cordoba will demonstrate not only the symbiotic relationship between Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but as well the possibility of a spirituality of tolerance.” Since its release, the film has been screened more than 100 times at universities, film festivals, mosques, churches and synagogues around the world, including a special presentation at the United Nations headquarters. For tickets to the Segal screenings, call 514-739-7944.

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New Magazines Both Doctor Who Magazine and Doctor Who Adventures not surprisingly feature next Sunday's special, The Waters of Mars, in issues published today. Doctor Who Magazine 415 talks to Lindsay Duncan, who plays Captain Adelaide Brooke of Bowie Base One, who reveals in an interview what was it like working with David Tennant? “His energy levels are so high. You think, oh God! In terms of my character, but also in terms of myself, the actor, I desperately wanted to keep up with him, but I have to admit it – I can’t run as fast as him! But I gave it a good shot. I didn’t want Adelaide to drop the ball. I didn’t want her to show any kind of weakness...” Also in the magazine Russell T Davies pays his own personal tribute to former Doctor Who producer, director and writer Barry Letts in Production Notes. The magazine reveals the the long-awaited results of the competition to ‘Be a Doctor Who Magazine reporter’, and follows the winner as she gets to go behind the scenes of the series – and chat to David Tennant and Russell T Davies! In the latest comic strip the Doctor and Majenta uncover the terrifying secret behind the apparitions in the London Underground and in Without You Neil Harris asks how different would things be if the TARDIS hadn’t taken the Doctor on some of his adventures? The magazine takes a look at stories that nearly made it onto TV that are now being made at last. Scripts featuring Sil, the Ice Warriors, the Celestial Toymaker and many more are now being realised on audio. The Watcher continues his essential guide to the Time Lord’s many incarnations and uncovers everything you ever needed to know about the northern Ninth Doctor and the Fact of Fiction looks at Douglas Adams’ memorable Fourth Doctor story from 1978 – The Pirate Planet. The magazine for younger readers Doctor Who Adventures 141, also takes a sneak peak at Sunday's special with pictures of some of the scariest monsters ever and their own interview with actress Lindsay Duncan who tells the magazine all about Adelaide and why she’s different from previous people who’ve teamed up with the Doctor. Also this week a preview of the next episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, three posters and a free Doctor Who notebook and pen. Not to be outdone, Radio Times has launched a new gallery of pictures from Sundays special. DWM,

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U.S. Marshals - Mermet Springs In this flick, the U.S. Marshal character from The Fugitive is on the hunt for a wanted man after he escapes from a prisoner transport plane during a spectacular crash. This action thriller filmed extensively in Southern Illinois, including along the Ohio River near Metropolis and in rural Vienna. The Boeing 727 used in the crash scene is now submerged in Mermet Springs, a spring-fed quarry where you can scuba dive and actually swim through the plane. How the West Was Won - Cave-in-Rock State Park An all-star cast is featured in this frontier drama about the western expansion of the United States in the early 1800s, as seen through the eyes of two pioneer families. Parts of the movie were filmed in Southern Illinois' Shawnee National Forest and Cave-in-Rock State Park, named for its limestone cave that once harbored real river pirates. CITY: Cave-in-rock Renaissance House: A Working Art Gallery The gallery offers classes in art, as well as original art and gifts for sale. Exhibits and events in the performing arts are scheduled throughout the year. The Porch Basket A unique one of a kind shop in downtown Eldorado, the Porch Basket offers a large line of hand woven baskets, country decor items, and a large line of basket weaving supplies. Call about basket weaving lessons. Buel House Situated at the base of the Ohio River bluffs, this two-story log structure, built in 1840, has been continuously occupied by generations of one family for 146 years. It was listed on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1976. How the West Was Won - Shawnee National Forest Marion Cultural and Civic Center The Marion Cultural and Civic Center serves Southern Illinois as an outlet for cultural and artistic opportunities of all types. MCCC is a 1094 seat performing arts center located in the historic town square of Marion, IL. In addition to providing a state-of-the-art theatrical facility at a low rental cost, MCCC also provides a portion of the lobby to display paintings and artwork from Southern Illinois artists. Veterans Affairs Medical Center - Marion Tours are available at this center, built in 1914, that features an Egyptian architectural motif. It has been serving veterans for 50 years. The Pavilion of the City of Marion The Pavilion is centrally located near excellent area shopping, lodging and restaurant facilities. The 40,000 sq. ft. multipurpose facility features banquet and meeting rooms as well as an exposition hall, great for providing the perfect solution for meeting, gatherings, receptions, banquets, trade shows, conventions, etc. Free parking, Wi Fi, catering options and many other amenities make this the Premier Event Center in Southern Illinois. Goddard Chapel Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this chapel was built in 1918 with a donation from former Marion mayor Leroy Goddard. It is still used for weddings and other events, this chapel is one of the beautiful historic places to see in Williamson County. Little Egypt Arts Association Art Centre Little Egypt Arts Association is a not for profit artist Co-op that was established in 1995 by approximately 20 local artists and art patrons. It's the largest cooperative art center in Southern Illinois. Offering a gift shop, art classes and workshops. Williamson County Historical Museum Located in an historic brick building in Marion, the museum features artifacts, antiques, and records of a bygone era. 17 rooms contain exhibits, including an old-fashioned school room. Tours may be arranged through the Marion Chamber of Commerce. Sheeba - Crab Orchard Lake This heartwarming family film centers on a city boy from New York City who moves to the country to live with his grandfather and befriends a loyal dog named Sheeba. Artstarts Artstarts Company is a Southern Illinois based, non-profit charitable organization devoted to making the "Arts" accessible to all Southern Illinois children. We connect the community through the arts, and help artists astound the world by sharing what they are capable of becoming. The Artstarts House is host to musical theatre performances, theatre and art camps, and much more. U.S. Congressman Ken Gray Presidential Museum Opened in 2010, this 3000 square foot space is located in the Illinois Star Centre Mall. It keeps mall hours and is staffed by volunteers. Admission is free and the museum is stocked with items from Ken Gray's Congressional period as well as items he has collected from other congressmen and women. Illinois Iron Furnace Step back to Civil War days when "pig iron" was smelted at this, the first coal-fired iron furnace in Illinois, now on the National Register of Historic Places. Restored structure is in a beautiful park with fishing, hiking, and picnicking available. CITY: Vienna

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Coraline, Live! Posted by PhDork in Culcha Vulcha, Thoughts on May 13, 2009, 11:00am | 7 comments Pretend that egg is a marble with a child's soul inside. Via Offbeat Photography @ Flickr. You might remember our first Harpy Cinematical Society, on the animated feature, Coraline. At the time, I mentioned that a musical stage production was in the works, and that I would view and report on it when the time comes. And the time has come. I saw the show (now in previews at MCC Theater) this past weekend, and I want to think a little more about this story, our fascination with motherhood, and how we choose to re/present it. I don’t really intend to review the production, which has both its charms and flaws, but it’s somewhat unavoidable. As adapted by David Greenspan, the show hews much more closely to the Gaiman novel than the screenplay, and not only because it’s set in England. Gone are Whybie and his grandma, along with a lot of the colorful, eye-popping spectacle. Instead, the tone is darker and more spectral, and the set is cluttered with the bones and guts of old pianos of all sizes. The show can hardly be called a traditional musical, but its filled with the sometimes tinkly, sometimes dirge-like piano music of Stephin Merrit (of The Magnetic Fields), whose off-kilter melodies and quirky lyrics fit well with the creepy mood of the story. You can here a few brief clips of the songs, performed by Merrit, here. Because of the single set, expository information is rendered a bit clunkily (“now I’m in the hall!”), but the liveness of the event delivers other charms, like puppets and mis-sized props. The handful of actors slip in and out of a variety of eccentric characters, and seem to have a great deal of pleasure in doing so. For some reason that isn’t entirely clear to me (but I’m going to hazard a guess that it has something to do with Patriarchy), five of the seven actors are men, even though more characters are female. The two particularly non-traditional casting choices were, unsurprisingly, for Coraline and the Other Mother. Coraline was played by Jayne Houdyshell, a wildly talented woman in her 50s. This was initially jarring, but Houdyshell fully and winningly inhabited the role. David Greenspan (the author, mind) was cast as the Other Mother. Where Houdyshell filled her role with subtle skill , Greenspan, who has a history of playing cross-cast (or cross-dressed) characters, camped it up royally. The role is already showy, and was played up erratically, calling attention to itself–or to Greenspan, at any rate. I was and am bothered by this latter casting choice. Was it author/actor vanity? A way of demonstrating the Other Mother’s “unnaturalness”? (Coraline’s Mother is played by a woman.) While the Others all had button eyes and playful costumes, the Other Mother did not go through the transformation to a spider-like creature, and only wore a bushy wig to indicate hir gender. She was never a terribly attractive figure, unlike in the film. I’ve always struggled with the reputed gender liberation that drag performance brings, and this was no different. “Women” (like the Other Mother) who don’t gender conform are revealed as ”monstrous,” or fakes, while men who don’t (like Greenspan and at least one other actor) are lauded for their talent. Is that just because we read so much of femininity as a performance, while masculinity is (erroneously) understood as natural or basic? Thematically, Coraline deals with duality and doubling–distorted mirror images–so while I can intellectually see reasons for the artistic choices of playing with gender, politically I can’t help but notice that in addition to my reservations about the story itself (Plucky Girl must defeat the Evil, emasculating Queen) the women in the cast never performed as male characters. I feel like this production could have helped rehabilita

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Seth Green: 'Ben Affleck isn't scary enough for Batman' WENN.com Feb 19, 2014 | 3:21pm EST Actor Seth Green is not a fan of Ben Affleck's upcoming role as Batman, insisting the A-lister is not "scary" enough to play the legendary Caped Crusader. The former Buffy the Vampire Slayer star is a well-known comic book enthusiast who even penned his own graphic novel in 2005, and now he's adding to the list of Batman purists who are critical of the Argo director's latest gig. During an interview with veteran newsman Larry King, Green insisted that Affleck going head-to-head with Henry Cavill's Man of Steel in the upcoming Batman Vs. Superman film will not be convincing in the least. The comic book aficionado explains, "You've got to remember that at the core of that character, Batman's a crazy person. Batman has no powers. Batman is a rich, screwed-up kid whose parents were killed in front of him, who with his money and insanity decided to become a vigilante symbol to combat darkness. "If this movie is meant to be the idealistic alien, humans-before-all-else Superman, and this is supposed to be the grizzled, weathered Batman who's been living in Gotham, fighting crime himself for 10 years, you need a guy who's older. You need a guy who's got more weight. And you need a guy that a Henry Cavill Superman is gonna be actually scared of." When King noted that Affleck should be praised for his acting abilities, Green replied, "Yes, but there is only so much you can act a role before people are or are not going to believe you in that role." news>>brief news More General News Ellie Goulding & Bruno Mars among early winners at the 2014 BRIT Awards Florida Georgia Line's Tyler Hubbard hospitalised

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David Seidler Articles By David Niles White | Wednesday, February 02, 2011 2011 SBIFF Writer’s Panel: It Starts with the Script now available in the Online Training Library® The writer's panel at the Santa Barbara International film festival featured (from left to right) moderator Anne Thompson (indieWIRE), Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3), Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right), Charlie Mitchell (Get Low), David Seidler (The King’s Speech), Scott Silver (The Fighter), Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network)My favorite part of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival has to be the industry panels. Over the weekend, I watched the writer’s panel. As a member of the Producer’s Guild, I’m fortunate to have screened most all of the Academy Award nominated films, and right there in front of me were the nominated writers!The panel was a lighthearted and candid look at how these writers’ scripts have found their way from the keyboard to the big screen. What’s clear is that there’s no formula, no easy path, and no shortcuts. The writers reveal the obstacles each overcame on the way to seeing their vision realized. The anecdotes range from stories of triumph over adversity to remarkable collaborative efforts to just plain luck.Here’s a small taste: David Seidler, writer for The King’s Speech, requested permission from the Queen Mother to tell King George’s story. She gave her permission with the proviso that it only be produced after her death since it would be too painful to re-live on the screen. She died just short of age 102, nearly 25 years after he made his request.This year’s panel, moderated by Anne Thompson of indieWIRE, features these screenwriters: Aaron Sorkin – The Social Network Scott Silver – The Fighter David Seidler – The King’s Speech Charlie Mitchell – Get Low Lisa Cholodenko – The Kids Are All Right Michael Arndt – Toy Story 3How did Michael Arndt come up with Spanish Buzz Lightyear for Toy Story 3? Does Aaron Sorkin have a Facebook account? Find out by watching 2011 SBIFF Writer’s Panel: It Starts with the Script. All movies in this course are availble to watch for non-members, as well as members.

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Rate The MovieDraft DayArticles(11)Photos(6)Videos(39)Reviews(2)DirectorIvan ReitmanProducerIvan Reitman, Ali Bell, Joe Medjuck, Gigi PritzkerWriter(s)Scott Rothman, Rajiv JosephGenreDrama | SportCast Brian Haley as NFL Commissioner Chadwick Boseman as Vontae Mack David Ramsay as Thompson Denis Leary as Vince Penn Ellen Burstyn as Barb Weaver Frank Langella as Harvey Molina Jennifer Garner as Ali Kevin Costner as Sonny Weaver Jr. Rosanna Arquette as Angie Sean Diddy Combs as Chris Crawford Terry Crews as Earl Jennings Tom Welling as Brian Drew Distributed bySummit EntertainmentRelease DateApr 11, 2014LocationsCleveland, Ohio, USALanguage Like us in Facebook See More Movie News Kevin Costner's "Draft Day" to be a Score at the Box Office Movie Description(Click Here To Hide)The General Manager of the Cleveland Browns struggles to acquire the number one draft pick for his team. FB Photo Credit: Summit Entertainment April 7th, 2014 Two-time Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Costner's new comedy-drama "Draft Day" tells the story of how one NFL general manager boldly negotiates the high-stakes power struggles surrounding of the annual NFL draft. Also playing in this Ivan Reitman-directed feature alongside Costner are Jennifer Garner, Denis Leary and Frank Langella. The Story Line In "Draft Day," Costner's character, Sonny Weaver Jr., is the fictional general manager of the Cleveland Browns. Weaver and the Browns have been on a long-term losing streak, and Weaver needs to successfully secure the number one draft pick in order to salvage his career and the future of his team. The movie gives a fascinating inside perspective on the high-stakes balancing act of the NFL draft. The negotiations are tense, there are enormous amounts of money involved and the lives of hundreds of players hang in the balance. With limited time and attacks on his judgment from all angles, Weaver cannot afford to second-guess his instincts. The Key Players Co-written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph and screenwriter Scott Rothman, the movie focuses on the struggle between Weaver and the other people who also have heavy investments in the result of the draft, including the team's owner, the team's coach and the players themselves. Frank Langella plays the team's owner. Over the years, he has lost faith in Weaver's decision making and makes it clear that this draft is Weaver's final chance. Denis Leary plays the Browns' coach. Despite his obvious position of authority with the team and distinct investment in the team's success, the coach has little direct influence on the draft. Jennifer Garner plays the team's salary cap manager who attempts to work with Weaver to make the best choices for the team. All of these key players have the shared goal of putting together a winning team, but vastly different perspectives on how to achieve it. Special Appearances Houston Texans running back Arian Foster makes his film debut in "Draft Day" as one of the players whose future is caught up in the draft. In addition to Foster, several other NFL players appear in the movie, including Demario Davis, Stephen Hill and James Brewer. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and ESPN's Jon Gruden both have cameo appearances in the movie. Sean "Diddy" Combs, Chadwick Boseman, Ellen Burstyn, Rosanna Arquette and Sam Elliott are also featured in the cast. NFL Cooperation What sets "Draft Day" apart from many other sports movies is that the filmmakers had the cooperation of the NFL, which lends a very realistic, insider feel. Portions of the movie were shot in Radio City Music Hall before and during the 2013 draft with the cooperation of the NFL. The NFL reportedly helped the filmmakers alter actual 2013 draft materials. Cooperation with the NFL also enabled the producers of the film to use the actual names of the NFL franchises. The characters in the movie are fictional, but teams themselves use the actual names. Costner attributed the NFL's decision to assist with the movie to the league's satisfaction with the authenticity of the script as well as the actor's history of association with successful sports films, including baseball classics "Field of Dreams" and "Bull Durham" and golf movie "Tin Cup." The team at the center of "Draft Day" is the Cleveland Browns. Originally, the movie was going to be about the Buffalo Bills, but Reitman chose to shift the movie to Cleveland for financial reasons. The Browns were a perfect match for the movie since they have not been a winning team since returning to Cleveland in 1999. "Draft Day" strikes an interesting balance between the tension and nervous excitement that epitomize the NFL draft while effectively highlighting the struggle between personal achievements and teamwork. While "Draft Day" has its moments of extreme tension, there are also comedic moments in the film. Billed as a comedy-drama, the PG-13 film differs from what filmgoers may expect from director Ivan Reitman. Reitman is best known for his comedies, including "Animal House," "Ghostbusters" and "Stripes." The comedy in "Draft Day" is less overt than most of Reitman's signature work but occurs organically within the plot. Kevin Costner's first football movie is sure to excite sports fans and movie buffs alike with its smart, fast-paced approach to the drama surrounding the NFL draft. The chemistry between the movie's cast is electrifying, and viewers can expect spectacular sports shots balanced with a focus on the off-field dynamics. The actual NFL Draft happens on May 8, 2014, but the movie "Draft Day" opens across the United States on April 11. Tags: Draft Day, Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Denis LearyYou Might Also Like... Kevin Costner teams up with "The Iceman" director in "Criminal" Box Office Weekend Update NFL Features Prominently in "Draft Day" It's Almost the Weekend! Lots to See at the Box Office

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Broadway Favorites in England: The Book of Mormon and Once Gavin Creel Photo by Johan Persson Broadway's Book of Mormon and Once — Best Musical winners from the 2011 and 2012 seasons, respectively — are both ensconced in the West End. How do the productions compare with the originals? How do they differ? How is an American abroad likely to react? We took the opportunity to check in on both. The Book of Mormon, of course, is Broadway's biggest blockbuster in recent memory. I approached the London production with some trepidation, being overly familiar with the musical. How would I react to the same show in a different theatre with a different cast and different accents? [Disclaimer: I wrote the text for the coffee table book, "The Book of Mormon: The Testament of a Broadway Musical," in the course of which I spent time with the creators and the entire cast, so that I know all the moves and all the jokes (plus many that were cut along the way)]. The performance I attended last Thursday in London, to my surprise, was met with precisely the same over-the-moon reaction seen in New York. The audience took about ninety seconds to get in gear — they weren't quite sure whether to laugh or not at the opening tableaux of two Mormon prophets talking to Jesus, with electric lights — but as soon as the smiling Elder Price rang that imaginary doorbell and sang "Hello," it was clear that we were in for the full Book of Mormon experience. The local Elders are Gavin Creel (as Price) and Jared Gertner (as Cunningham), American imports who originated the roles in the first U.S. touring company. Creel is familiar along Broadway, having received Tony nominations as Sutton Foster's love interest in Thoroughly Modern Millie and Claude in the recent Hair. (He has starred in London as well, as Bert in Mary Poppins and in the 2010 transfer of Hair.) Rather than simply replicate Andrew Rannells, who created the role on Broadway, Creel's performance is a bit more shaded; while thoroughly and enthusiastically devout, he seems to raise his eyebrows at some of the dogma earlier in the proceedings than Rannells did. Both interpretations work equally well, but the different attitude allows Creel to build a full-fledged performance of his own rather than just an excellent reproduction. I saw Gertner play the show on Broadway prior to the tour, when he covered for original cast member Josh Gad (who was off making a television pilot). Gertner was out the night I saw the London Mormon. These things happen, but it turned out to be felicitous, because standby Daniel Buckley is a thorough delight. Gad's Cunningham was one-of-a-kind; he participated in six early readings and workshops of the show, and the authors literally developed the role around his comedic style (which was something of a 21st-century mix of Jackie Gleason and John Belushi). In fact, more than a few of Gad's off-hand ad-libs have been permanently written into the script for all future Cunninghams. Advertisement Buckley performs the role as a misfit, yes, but he is a warm and sweet misfit. His Mormon lullaby is more tender, and he also offers an earlier and deeper indication of a relationship with the native Nabulungi. On the comic side, Buckley's "Man Up" is as funny as ever I've seen, in some part due to what can only be described as a cascading stomach. The London Mormon takes off during the first African scene, just like on Broadway. That dead donkey dragged across the stage ignites laughter that grows and grows, and "Hasa Diga Eebowai" explodes like a firecracker. After this, the show is unstoppable. For the first time in my eight viewings, I observed that a significant segment of this mostly British audience was fully reacting to "Hasa Diga Eebowai" before the lyric is translated. Either the house was packed with repeat visitors, or the Broadway cast album has a wide U.K. circulation.

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Colin Hanlon Will Play Robert Pattinson Role in Twilight Reading at New World Stages Colin Hanlon Colin Hanlon, who was seen on Broadway in Rent, Off-Broadway in I Love You Because and in the first North American tour of Wicked, has joined the cast of the upcoming reading of Twilight: The Musical, which parodies the "Twilight" books and films and will be presented Jan. 16 at 8 PM at New World Stages. Hanlon will play the role of Edward, the role played on screen by Robert Pattinson. The cast will also feature the previously reported Meghann Fahy (Next to Normal) as Bella Swan, Jenna Leigh Green (Wicked) as Rosalie, Hermione (et al.), Lauren Lopez (A Very Potter Musical) as Alice (et al.), Jason Michael Snow (The Book of Mormon) as Harry Potter (et al.), Olli Haaskivi (Jurassic Parq: The Musical) as Jasper (et al.), Eddie Gutierrez (Miss Abigail’s Guide…), Lindsay Dunn (West Side Story), Michael McArthur (Newsies), Kaitlin Mesh (West Side Story) and Clifton Samuels (Follies). Created by Ashley Griffin, Twilight: The Musical features music and lyrics by Jeremy Ezell, Griffin, Sean Mahoney, David Mallamud and Michael Sutherland. The musical, according to press notes, "examines our culture of obsession through the story of teenage outsider Bella Swan who risks everything when she embarks on a star-crossed romance with Vampire Edward Cullen." Presented by Ulmer Theatricals, Moxyrah Productions and Dreamcatcher Entertainment, the upcoming evening will feature direction by Gabriel Barre and choreography by Matthew Neff. Proceeds will benefit Blessings in a Backpack, a program designed to feed elementary school children whose families qualify for the federal Free and Reduced Price Meal program, but have little to no food on the weekends. New World Stages is located at 340 West 50th Street. Tickets are available via telecharge.com or at the New World Stages box office. For more information visit www.thetwilightmusical.com. RELATED ARTICLES:

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Written by Chris Kelly Josh Ellinger, aka Biggie, the producer of the 2 Guys Named Chris Show, has been a big member of this show since 2008. And when we say big, we mean BIIIIG. The big man checks in at over 550 pounds, and every ounce of it is funny, hard working, and full of diva spirit. If there’s a complaint to be made, Biggie will make it. Biggie was born in Johnson City, Tennessee on a cold January morning in 1983. It was at that point he developed a lifelong tradition of wearing loose fitting white t-shirts and expandable waist pants. He and his family moved a lot when he was a kid. This, more than anything else, gave him his snarky, “I’ll make fun of you before you make fun of me” attitude. Biggie is a hard working guy who enjoys large trucks, spending money on useless items, and weekend trips to Las Vegas. He is a big fan of the movie “The Hangover”, and generally any movie that has lots of explosions and gets bad reviews from reputable critics. He has been a stand up comedian for several years and can regale you with great pizza stories from the past as he was a longtime manager of Papa John’s. Ask him about the vegan who loved making pizzas but would loudly exclaim, in front of customers, that she didn’t understand how anyone could eat this mutilated flesh. Good times. In his spare time, you can find Biggie sleeping or hanging out with his dog Cora. By the way, his mother lives with him, so he’s cut way back on cursing, smoking, and drinking…three other things he enjoys immensely. And that’s Biggie in a nut shell…a very large, cavernous nut shell. He’s a great guy to get to know, every weekday morning from 6 to 10am on the 2 Guys Named Chris Show. Filed Under : Location : Johnson City, Las Vegas, Tennessee People : Chris Kelly, Josh Ellinger E-Mail P1 Club

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In Middle Earth, Must All Hobbits Be White? This week, the casting director of "The Hobbit" was fired for turning away a woman of Pakistani descent for being too dark to play a hobbit. The agent also placed an advertisement in a New Zealand newspaper seeking extras with "light skin tones." "We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be … whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a Hobbit," said the agent in video footage captured during auditions. After the person in question was fired, producer and director Peter Jackson distanced himself from the casting director, who remains unnamed."The crew member in question took it upon themselves to do that and it’s not something we instructed or condoned,” said a spokesman from Jackson's production company. "No such instructions were given."Considering the film's origins as a book series rooted in Anglo-Saxon, Northern European lore, should the casting director have been fired? Bloggers debate whether this was an instance of racism or political correctness:This Is Heated, writes the staff at Movie Web: This has caused quite a bit of controversy, with both sides of the issue giving their reasons for why the decision is right and wrong. While some see no problem whatsoever with casting according to what has come before in the franchise, [the dismissed actor] stated, "It's 2010 and I still can't believe I'm being discriminated against because I have brown skin."Does Jackson Really Think He's Innocent? wonders Sean O'Neal at The A.V. Club:Peter Jackson’s production company released a statement clarifying that the casting director had acted totally alone, and that it had never made any explicit specifications that they should only be auditioning white people. All it ever did was make three Lord Of The Rings films without any black people.There Are Two Ways to Look at This, writes Matthew Perpetua at New York magazine:The casting director was under the impression that only white people could be hobbits, which is either racist or depressingly unimaginative. It's hard to say! (It's probably both.)I'm Torn, writes the staff at Worst Previews: JRR Tolkien never really described the color of the hobbits, but Middle Earth and it's stories are derived entirely of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Norse lore which were all of the white race... Is this racism, or should a production be allowed to cast actors based on the color of their skin? This Is Pretty Silly, writes the staff at Get the Big Picture:There's a difference between hating or judging someone by the color of their skin vs. not looking the part of a cast member which best conveys the story and the environment. I mean, you can't cast a Caucasian guy to play the role of Shaft just like you can't cast a black guy to be King George VI (King's Speech). See comments ATM Fees Are Officially an Absolute Ripoff John Hudson jhudson@theatlantic.com

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Teams Mother A versatile and talented actress and writer, Jessica St. Clair co-stars and co-created USA Network's first foray into half-hour comedy Playing House with her writing partner and co-star Lennon Parham. A multi-talented actress and writer, St. Clair initially gained notoriety performing at the legendary Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York and Los Angeles. St. Clair has appeared in numerous features, most recently, the critically praised independent films Afternoon Delight and Enough Said. One of her most memorable roles was in 2011's blockbuster hit Bridesmaids in the unforgettable bridal salon/food poisoning scene. Other credits include Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator, Wanderlust, She's Out of My League, Life as We Know It and Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration.On television, Jessica currently has a recurring role on HBO's award-winning comedy Veep. In addition, St. Clair & Parham starred and created Best Friends Forever for NBC in 2012. She's also starred opposite Megan Mullally and Cheryl Hines in ABC's In the Motherhood and has had guest-starring appearances on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, Showtime's Weeds, United States of Tara, and NBC's Parks and Recreation and The Office.A graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, St. Clair can also currently be seen as the spokesperson for the retail chain Marshall's.St. Clair currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, playwright Dan O'Brien, daughter Isobel and her rescue miniature schnauzer, Emma. © 2014 Upright Citizens Brigadeprivacyterms

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Home / Entertainment News Fox TV pushes change in TV season LOS ANGELES, April 19 (UPI) -- Fox TV is launching six new series in June, as part of its effort to replace the conventional TV programming season with a new model. The network announced Monday it will premiere the dramas "The Jury" and "North Shore" in June, along with comedies "Method & Red" and "Quintuplets" and reality shows "The Casino" and "The Simple Life 2." Fox will also add repeats of the new series to its regular schedule. Fox Broadcasting President of Entertainment Gail Berman called the move a significant step in the network's two year campaign to develop a year-round programming schedule. Berman said the launch of the new series, just days after the current, traditional TV season ends, is designed to keep the network's programming "fresh and compelling ... continually throughout the year." "The Jury" -- created by a team led by Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson and Emmy-winning writer-producer Tom Fontana -- will be the first of the new series to get a summer premier on Fox when it debuts on June 8. Comments Topics: Barry Levinson, Tom Fontana Recommended 2014 Latin Grammy Awards [PHOTOS] Kate Hudson admits she has to work hard to stay in shape

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Groundbreaking improv comic Jonathan Winters dies LOS ANGELES (AP) - Comedian Jonathan Winters, whose breakneck improvisations inspired Robin Williams, Jim Carrey and many others, has died at age 87. Longtime family friend Joe Petro III says the Ohio native died Thursday evening at his Montecito, Calif., home of natural causes. Winters was a master of improvisational comedy, with a grab bag of eccentric personalities and facial expressions. Characters such as the dirty old lady Maude Frickert were based on people Winters knew growing up in Ohio. In the mid-1950s, "The Jonathan Winters Show" pioneered the then-new videotape technology on to do stunts like showing up as two characters on screen together. He was introduced to millions of new fans in 1981 as the son of Williams' goofball alien in the final season of ABC's "Mork and Mindy."

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Home · News · Ron Taylor 1934-2012 • by Location • South Bali • Denpasar Ron Taylor 1934-2012 Remembering Legendary Underwater Cinematographer and Frequent Visitor to Bali & Indonesia � Ron Taylor Ron Taylor, a frequent visitor to Indonesia and a world-famous underwater cinematographer, died on Sunday, September 9, 2012, at the age of 78. Rob, together with his wife Valerie Taylor, is credited with creating riveting underwater film footage used in numerous documentaries and blockbuster features films. Among their most recognized works are the terrifying underwater shark attack sequences used in the 1975 Hollywood blockbuster Jaws. Ironically, the Taylors frequetly bemoaned the negative light the Jaws epic cast on the reputation of sharks, underwater creatures they held in great esteem. Throughout their careers, Ron and Valerie dedicated themselves to documenting the shark as majestic animals worthy of man's respect and protection. As a result, they worked tirelessly to publicize and stop the wholesale slaughter of sharks merely for their fins taking place in Eastern Indonesia and other areas. Both Ron and Valerie Taylor are recipients of the Member of the Order of Australia, bestowed for their work in conservation. Ron Taylor had battled cancer during the final years of his life. Prior to his illness, both Taylors were frequent visitors to Bali and Indonesia where they were awed by the rich bio-diversity of the waters of eastern Indonesia. During those visits they dived extensively in remote areas of the archipelago, including Komodo, where there dive sites named in their honor. Ron is survived by his wife, Valerie, who he first met at spearfishing competitions in the 1950s. © Bali Discovery Tours. Articles may be quoted and reproduced if attributed to http://www.balidiscovery.com.

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The Films Of Pedro Almodóvar: A Retrospective By The Playlist Staff October 14, 2011 at 5:50AM "The Flower of My Secret" (1995)Perhaps best remembered by long-time Almodóvar disciples as the film that begat the storyline in "Volver" -- it’s the plot from the protagonist author's new book -- "The Flower of My Secret" centers on Leo (mainstay Marisa Paredes, who’s appeared in five of his films), a successful, but unhappy writer who masquerades under the pseudonym Amanda Gris, a very popular trashy romance novelist (an element off the top of the film is also appropriated for “All About My Mother”). Facing a personal and spiritual crisis, Leo can no longer stomach what she believe is the shallow sentimentality she writes and instead of delivering another tawdry Amanda Gris novel, she pens the gritty and sordid story that eventually became the aforementioned Almodóvar film. So discontented, she pitches herself as a book critic – to an editor named Angel who has eyes for her -- and then tears her own Amanda Gris novels to shreds. But Leo has myriad problems as well, including the dissolution of her marriage to a military officer husband stationed in Brussels, Angel’s growing affections, a dissatisfied book agent suing her for writing an anti-Gris novel, and eventually the theft of that unpublished book, which she discovers is being turned into a screenplay that will soon go into production. While this is a pre noir-Hitchcock affinity for Almodóvar, as you can tell by its title ‘Flower’ has many secrets and plenty of unveiling twist and turns. A diverting film with melodramatic flourishes (the family stuff with Leo’s mother is hilarious), ‘Flower’ is also subdued and mature and often looked at as the gap between Almodovar’s earlier NC-17 heavy work and campy comedies and his richer, elegant dramas that would blossom in the late 90s and early aughts. Because of its position as a transition film, it wasn’t beloved at the time, but it still holds up well as an exploration of denial, loss and personal growth. [B]"Live Flesh" (1997)The director's 12th film, and superficially his most "male" effort by some distance, "Live Flesh" strips away the frankly wackadoo plotting of the Ruth Rendell source novel and retools it to fit the director's idiosyncratic concerns, mimicking his treatment of Thierry Jonquet's "Tarantula" for "The Skin I Live In" over 10 years later. Maintaining only the dramatic nub of the story, and not nearly as salacious as its risqué poster and title would suggest, it concerns Victor Plaza (Liberto Rabal), a man inadvertently responsible for paralyzing one of the police officers who mistook his harassing of a would-be paramour, Elena (Francesca Neri), for a criminal act. Imprisoned for a spell of several years, Victor adds insult to injury by shacking up with the wife of the other arresting officer upon his release and tracking Elena down, throwing the lives of everyone involved into disarray. The film's preface is notable for Penélope Cruz’s first performance for the director as Victor's mother, who gives birth to her son on a bus, whilst Javier Bardem, who spends most of the film confined to a wheelchair, is gifted with a complicated leading role. Bookended by some on-the-nose political statements, at times it feels self-consciously like a film straining desperately to be "about Spain" -- a feat the director would accomplish better later in his career, with less of the ham-handedness -- it's nonetheless alarmingly self-confident picture, and an indication of the overwhelming international acclaim that was shortly to follow. [B+]"All About My Mother" (1999)Pedro Almodóvar’s “All About My Mother” is not an easy film to watch. One of his best films, 'Mother' is also one of Almodóvar’s most painful. Early in the film, Manuela (Cecilia Roth) loses her only son, Esteban (Eloy Azorin), when he is hit by a car while chasing after actress Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes) for an autograph. Once she is able to sufficiently compose herself, Manuela travels to Barcelona to tell Esteban’s father what happened. For 17 years, Manuela hid from Esteban the truth about his father, but we, the audience, are brought along on Manuela’s visit to her past as a kind of substitute for the young man who never knew his father. Almodóvar’s heartbreaking story begins with Manuela as the central character, but she quickly falls into a supporting role alongside the many women with whom she comes into contact. A natural caregiver, Manuela helps one of her old friends, a transvestite prostitute named Agrado (Antonia San Juan) get her life out of the gutter; she becomes a surrogate mother to Sister Rosa (Penélope Cruz), a nun who is pregnant and too embarrassed to tell her real mother; and, even though it pains her every second, she becomes an assistant to Huma Rojo. The film is at once comedic and tragic. Though his style is intrusive at first, Almodóvar rarely interferes with the story, practically disappearing in the second half of the film and letting the story tell itself. In his absence, he leaves myriad metaphors and imagery which can be read many different ways. Most notably, the splashes of red throughout reflect both the passion and violence experienced by every character. His actors are all superb, especially Roth, and every new revelation in the story is a surprise but perfectly weaved into the overall fabric of the film. [A]"Talk to Her" (2002)For this film, which turned out to be one of his most popular worldwide especially in America, Almodóvar won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for Achievement in Directing -- both remarkable achievements for a foreign-language film. It success must reflect the amazing skill with which the director coaxes universally recognisable emotions and responses from an unusually specific set up: “Talk to Her” follows the dual stories of two now-comatose women, Alicia (Leonor Watling) and Lydia (Rosario Flores), and the two men who love them, Benigno (Javier Camara) and Marco (Dario Grandinetti). Lydia is a bullfighter whose relationship with Marco isn’t going as well as he hoped, while Benigno takes care of Alicia as her nurse and fantasizes about her when he can’t be with her. Here, Almodóvar once again balances melodrama with black comedy, but despite all the craziness going on -- there’s an extremely long segment, for example, where Benigno re-imagines a psychosexual silent film for a sleeping Alicia -- the real heft of this film is firmly, and touchingly, grounded in real-life emotions like loneliness and love. The intimacy between a man and a woman, even across borders of consciousness, is beautifully drawn, despite the fact that perhaps these relationships are among the most dysfunctional relationships in the history of film. We ache for Benigno as he longs for Alicia despite her condition, and really feel the effect of certain revelations about Lydia on Marco. Perhaps what's most impressive is that, long championed for creating unforgettable portraits of women, here Almodóvar makes our hearts break for these two male protagonists. Small wonder Time Magazine included it in their Top 100 Movies of All Time list. [A] Foreign Films, Feature, The Essentials, Foreign Directors, The Skin I Live In, Pedro Almodóvar, Features

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