Movie Corner

Sparkling Red Star (2007)

2009-03-06T01:56:00.002+07:00

Sparkling Red Star originated from the same titled novel written by a famous Chinese writer Li Xintian. The novel was remade into a film in the 1970s and has become one of the classic all-time hit in China’s film industry. The story is set in 1937 against the background of the Red Army's Long March. In Liuxi Village in Jiangxi, an innocent and cheerful child, Pan Dongzi, spent his carefree childhood. But after reaching 10 years of age, he began to experience the sorrows and joys of life's partings and reunions.

Subtitle: Chinese trad./English
duration: 81 min | XVid 592x320 | 384 kbps 5.1AC3 | 23 fps |
size: 700 mb
Genre : Animation/Drama

http://rapidshare.com/files/205601624/cowry-srs-sample.avi

trailer
http://anonym.to/?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN2L1yXZN88

Kayhan Kalhor and Brooklyn Rider Silent City

2009-03-06T01:53:00.001+07:00

Kayhan Kalhor has performed and recorded with Iran's greatest singers and instrumentalists and toured the world as a soloist. He co-founded the Dastan, Ghazal and Masters of Persian Music ensembles and has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de Lyon, and others. In addition to his work as a performer, Kalhor's compositions have been used for various television and film projects. He is also is an original member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project and his works are heard on all of the Ensemble's albums. Three of his recordings, including his two previous World Village releases, Faryad and Without You, were nominated for Grammy® Awards. The innovative, genre-bending string quartet Brooklyn Rider (Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violins, Nicholas Cords, viola and Eric Jacobsen, cello), is named for the members' beloved New York borough and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) — a German expressionist movement that flourished during the early twentieth century. The quartet has been challenging and delighting audiences ever since its inception by dividing its time between exploring traditional classical repertoire, new music and fervently adventurous intercultural explorations. Aside from their affiliation with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, Brooklyn Rider has worked with composers such as Chen Yi and Kayhan Kalhor and performers such as violinist Jenny Scheinman and visual artist Kevork Mourad.

Download From Rapidshare:
http://rapidshare.com/files/205551720/Kayhan_Kalhor_And_Brooklyn_Rider_-_Silent_City.rar

Tracklist:
01. Ascending Bird
02. Silent City
03. Parvaz
04. Beloved Don't Let Me Be Discouraged
05. Keyhan Kalhors Interview

Cannes film festival honours Clint Eastwood

2009-03-02T03:54:00.002+07:00

Festival hands 78-year-old actor-director a lifetime achievement Palme d'Or, only the second in its history. Eastwood rails against politically correct culture that outlaws jokes about ethnicity and nationality

Man with the golden palm ... Cannes film festival president Gilles Jacob hands Clint Eastwood his lifetime achievement Palme d'Or. Photograph: Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty Images

Clint Eastwood yesterday became only the second person to receive a lifetime achievement Palme d'Or from the organisers of the Cannes film festival. The 78-year-old film-maker was honoured for his body of work at a presentation at Le Fouquet's restaurant in Paris. He joins Ingmar Bergman, who received the honour in 1997, in the most exclusive club on the festival circuit.

"I'm very, very flattered that you've chosen me for this," Eastwood said. "French cineastes have always been very supportive of me along the way. When I directed my first movie, French cineastes and critics encouraged me, while in my own country, everyone was much more reticent. France is the first country to approach and appreciate cinema as an art form."

Yesterday, Cannes president Gilles Jacob paid tribute to Eastwood's work before and behind the camera. "It would be impossible to choose just one of your works for this supreme honour," he said. "It's the right time to give the Palme d'Or to Clint Eastwood." Turning to Eastwood, he added: "And forget about your legendary modesty."

While Eastwood may have been a model of modesty at yesterday's ceremony, he was rather more outspoken in an interview earlier in the week. Speaking to the German magazine Der Spiegel, Eastwood, currently seen in cinemas as an unreconstructed racist ex-soldier in Gran Torino, railed against what he sees as a culture of political correctness that has effectively outlawed jokes about people's nationality or ethnicity. "People have lost their sense of humour," he insisted. "In former times we constantly made jokes about different races. [But] you can only tell them today with one hand over your mouth, otherwise you will be insulted as a racist. I find it ridiculous."

He added: "In those earlier days every friendly clique had a 'Sam the Jew' or 'Jose the Mexican' – but we didn't think anything of it or have a racist thought."

Eastwood will not be attending this year's Cannes film festival because he will be in South Africa, shooting a biopic of Nelson Mandela. The event runs from 13-24 May, and the jury will be headed by Isabelle Huppert. [the guardian]

The Class: Interview

2009-02-27T04:59:00.001+07:00

Laurent Cantet discusses his Palme d'Or winning school-set drama, The Class, which last year became the first French film to win the top prize at Cannes in over 20 years.

Filmmaking was the not the obvious career choice for Frenchman Laurent Cantet. Both his parents were teachers and he describes himself as "on a leave of absence from teaching." In fact his films usually have some lessons to impart going back to his multi-award winning feature debut Human Resources (1999) which looks at the complicated politics between a working-class father and his executive son. He followed that up with Time Out (2001) - a winner at the Venice Film Festival - about an unemployed man who becomes increasingly alienated from society. More recently there was Heading South (2005), a sort of socially conscious Shirley Valentine following three women on holiday to poverty-stricken Haiti.

The Class consisted of volunteers from the school.
His latest opus The Class, based on an autobiographical novel by François Bégaudeau, goes straight to the heart of his concerns about French society. The students who make up the supporting cast reflect the changing face of a country, one that is culturally diverse and economically divided. When a young, well-intentioned teacher (Bégaudeau essentially playing himself) enters the class, it appears the stage is set for a formulaic tale of a liberal do-gooder who aims to win hearts and minds. However, Cantet's film is far from a love-in, more a subtle critique of the teaching system, and his documentary-like approach also gives it an immediacy and dynamism that lacks in Hollywood's usual take on the classroom drama.

Filming on HD cameras helped Capture the details which make The Class 'feel real'.
Cantet has already been awarded the prestigious Golden Palm at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and earned an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Film category. He talks to BBC Film Network about his own teaching experience on the film; taking a bunch of regular students from a deprived neighbourhood and turning them into film actors.

The Class is released in UK cinemas on Friday 20th February 2009.

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Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail

2009-02-27T04:47:00.001+07:00

The latest in this troublemaking grandma series showcases wonderful African-American actors. Too bad the jokes are so lame.

By now everyone knows Tyler Perry movies are A) review-proof (they're not screened for critics, and they make tons of money on their own, anyway) and B) not made "for" white people, so if white people see them and don't get them, it's because they're, well, white people.

As a white critic, I have mixed feelings about Perry's movies: On the one hand, he gives wonderful actors an opportunity to work, the kind of approbation they don't always get in Hollywood. This time around he's got the subtle, intuitive Derek Luke and Viola Davis, an actress who's been giving extraordinary performances for years and is only just now being recognized by the Hollywood mainstream. (She's been nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role in "Doubt.") On the other hand, Perry's movies have crummy production values, stringy plots that go nowhere, lots of lame jokes (among some admittedly funny ones) and, perhaps worst of all, often feature him in multiple roles -- most notably as the troublemaking matriarch Madea, an outsize, silver-haired hellion who scuffles around in her flat granny shoes and giant polyester dresses, stirring up trouble with her good, old-fashioned plain talk.

To put it another way: It's great that Perry has seized opportunity for himself and for the performers he employs. But has he succeeded only in creating a kind of ghetto for black-themed entertainment that's of sub-par quality -- one that, admittedly, makes him a lot of money?

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Wrestling with those questions -- particularly now that we've stepped into the age of Obama, a time when all kinds of stubborn cultural barriers are, at last, being rethought if not actually dismantled -- is far more interesting than actually watching a Tyler Perry movie. "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail" involves two young, successful assistant district attorneys, Joshua and Linda (played, respectively, by Luke and Ion Overman), who are engaged to be married but who hit a rocky patch when Joshua encounters an old friend, Candace (Keshia Knight Pulliam), who's landed herself in deep trouble. Candace has been working the streets, and she has a drug problem, but she keeps refusing anyone who tries to help; those people include Joshua and a tough-love minister, Ellen (Davis), who has experience getting troubled women back on the straight and narrow.

Meanwhile, Madea (played by Perry, who also appears as a crotchety, weed-smoking old-timer named Joe), is getting into all kinds of scrapes. For example, when a snippy white girl steals the parking space she's headed for, she solves the problem by using a forklift. Although she's usually let off the hook by lenient judges, she finally goes up in front of Judge Mathis (playing himself), and he shows no mercy. Her high jinks finally land her in jail, the same facility where, it turns out, Candace has also been incarcerated.

Everything and nothing happens in "Madea Goes to Jail." In addition to the aforementioned prostitutes, lawyers and ministers, there are also scummy white business guys and abusive pimps. The plot involves duplicitousness between lovers, a back story involving a rape and, last but not least, a sassy elderly black woman who has no qualms about driving without a license. The acting isn't the problem here: Luke and Davis play their characters skillfully, as if they've willfully blocked out the ridiculousness of the movie around them. Other notable actors pop up, too, like Vanessa Ferlito (from "Deathproof," the Quentin Tarantino portion of "Grindhouse," who gives a good performance even in a tiny, thankless role. And occasionally, Perry (who is, as usual, both the writer and director here) pulls off a good joke. I laughed when Madea's friend Cora (Tamela J. Mann) tries to instill good Christian values in Madea by showing off the "What Would Jesus Do" bracelet she wears. When a nasty driver cuts in front of the car Cora's driving, Madea cackles, "Did you show him your bracelet?"

But the laughs are few and far between in "Madea Goes to Jail," even when Dr. Phil makes an appearance (playing himself), hoping to help Madea manage her anger and then practically losing his temper himself. "Madea Goes to Jail" will surely make Perry -- and, I hope, his actors -- a lot of money. And as an alternative to the Hollywood mainstream, which doesn't provide many good roles for African-American actors, Perry's movies are at least a stopgap solution. It's just too bad they're not better. [salon.com]

New 'Transformers 2' Teaser Trailer Lands Online

2009-02-18T23:46:00.001+07:00

Will the latest installment be 2009's most successful sequel?

After the successful debut of a teaser trailer during the Super Bowl, a new, longer teaser for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is now available online.

Michael Bay's first Transformers film was one of the biggest box office successes of 2007, with a domestic haul of nearly $320 million. Even though it will be a highly competitive summer, Revenge of the Fallen could easily be one of 2009's biggest hits. The film has the prime release date of Wednesday, June 24 and so far no major summer blockbusters are slated to open that same day.

Check out the HD version over at Yahoo! Movies.

Schwarzenegger Joins Stallone's 'Expendables'

2009-02-18T23:39:00.001+07:00

In an incredibly surprising casting move, Sylvester Stallone has reportedly signed Arnold Schwarzenegger for a cameo performance in his upcoming action flick titled The Expendables.

The cast for Expendables is already an action fan's dream come true. Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren and Mickey Rourke have all joined the cast. Fresh of his comeback in The Dark Knight, Eric Roberts has also snagged a part.

The last time that Schwarzenegger appeared on the bigscreen was in the 2004 dud Around the World in 80 Days, which starred Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan. The film managed to bring in only $24 million domestically.

The best DVDs of 2009

2009-02-18T23:34:00.003+07:00

"Magnificent Obsession" An overripe Technicolor spectacle from 1954 that launched the A-list careers of both star Rock Hudson and legendary director Douglas Sirk, "Magnificent Obsession" gets a spectacular Criterion Collection restoration that emphasizes Sirk's gorgeous deep-focus compositions and the performances of Hudson and co-star Jane Wyman. You can call it passionate melodrama, exaggerated social satire or Freudian allegory, but this yarn about the careless playboy who A) accidentally causes the death of a beloved surgeon; B) falls for his widow and causes her to go blind; C) wins her love under false pretenses; and D) performs the operation that restores her sight is a rich and immersive viewing experience that fires on all cylinders. Arguably not the greatest Sirk film -- I might incline toward "Written on the Wind" or "Imitation of Life" -- but surely among his most beautiful and memorable. His handling of Hudson and Wyman, who play the ludicrous Lloyd C. Douglas love story (swamped in turgid mid-century Christian self-help philosophy) absolutely straight and with surprising delicacy, is masterful. From a technical point of view the entire production, from Russell Metty's camerawork to Milton Carruth's editing to the "Ode to Joy" remix of Frank Skinner's score, represents '50s Hollywood at its height of craftsmanship. The two-disc set also includes John M. Stahl's 1935 black-and-white version with Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor, which some aficionados prefer and has been unavailable on DVD until now.

"The Quare Fellow" With the wave of "Prisoner"-mania surrounding the recent death of Patrick McGoohan, it's a great moment to remember one of his greatest and least-heralded roles, as the naive Irish prison guard Thomas Crimmin in Arthur Dreifuss' riveting 1962 screen adaptation of Brendan Behan's mordant anti-death-penalty masterpiece. Dreifuss' script adds elements that lapse here and there into drinkin'-and-fightin' Irish caricature, but none of that masks the authenticity of the atmosphere -- the film was shot in Ireland, and partly inside Dublin's historic Kilmainham Gaol -- or McGoohan's brilliance as the country boy forced to face the inhumanity and hypocrisy of a system he thought he believed in. Tremendous supporting performance by Irish writer Walter Macken, in one of his few acting roles, as a heartbroken older guard who refuses to yield his humanity. English actress Sylvia Syms is sexy but a bit out of her depth in the vixen role. Kino International's disc transfer captures all the depth and shadows of Peter Hennessy's superb black-and-white photography.

"Days and Clouds" A middle-class marriage in trouble is one of the staples of postwar European film, so you can't call Italian director Silvio Soldini's take on it profoundly original. For many recession-plagued Americans, in fact, the scene where a real-estate broker advises unemployed executive Michele (Antonio Albanese) and overstressed academic Elsa (Margherita Buy) to lower their asking price by 100,000 euros may hit just a bit too close to home. But this movie was an international art-house hit for a reason, and that reason is the well-matched pair of sterling lead performances, a consistently intelligent and perceptive screenplay and the sympathy and warmth with which Soldini portrays this marriage, even as Michele and Elsa lie, fight, recriminate and do close-to-unforgivable things. I thought I could dip into their story for half an hour and finish it later, but that proved impossible: You'll love this couple and long for both of them to be OK, whether that means together or apart. This is the latest in Film Movement's series of subscription DVDs, which is well worth checking out.

"The Taking of Power by Louis XIV" How does the guy who launched the neorealist movement with ground-level dramas about ruined postwar Europe -- most famously, "Rome, Open City" and "Germany Year Zero" -- move on to a movie about the Sun King's total consolidation of power in himself, circa 1640? Somehow Roberto Rossellini got there. This 1966 production, made ultra-cheap for French TV, was the great Italian director's first feature after his road-to-Damascus moment in the early '60s, when he pronounced that cinema was dead and that its true mission was to educate the public about history rather than entertain. Quite a strange business this movie is too, more focused on the intimate physical details of Louis' reign -- the servants and dogs sleeping on the king's bedroom floor; the learned doctors sniffing a dying man's chamber pot -- than on the court drama involving nobles, ministers and cardinals (oh, and a musketeer named d'Artagnan, who appears briefly). Minor characters sometimes interrupt the action to explain what's going on in expositional asides, and Louis himself is played by Jean-Marie Patte, an unprepossessing mailman (or sales clerk; reports vary) who is always staring offscreen because he doesn't know his lines and must read them off a blackboard. Shot largely in and around the actual palace at Versailles, "Louis XIV" displays Rossellini's ingenious shot construction, remarkable gift for group choreography and focus on the emotional center of each scene. You'd have to say the film fulfills its mission: It's handsome to watch -- the Criterion transfer is, of course, meticulous -- and you'll learn a whole lot about 17th-century French life. And it ardently refuses to abandon its rather dry and distant demeanor and become anything like conventional drama. There is considerable fascination to the arguably misguided spectacle of a great artist making elegant didactics, and if you wish to go deeper still, Criterion's Eclipse label has a new box set offering three of Rossellini's later history films, including the four-hour "Age of the Medici" from 1972.

"Workers for the Good Lord" Before Jean-Claude Brisseau became infamous as the French director convicted of sexually harassing two of the actresses in his erotic film "Secret Things" -- and then went on to make his next erotic film, "Exterminating Angels," as a sort of meta-meditation about that experience -- well, before all that he was actually known in France for having made a damn good movie. "Workers for the Good Lord" is that movie, made in 1999, and while it does have semi-nude women aplenty, it's also a gleeful, anarchistic Robin Hood romp in the spirit of the New Wave, with handsome Stanislas Merhar as a jilted, jaded would-be race driver and full-time narcissist who goes on a crime spree together with a gamine postal worker who loves him and a renegade African prince who is also a rebellious school bureaucrat. In the great French tradition, an homage to earlier filmmaking styles (from Capra to Godard and the avant-garde) and also very much its own eccentric creation. Indispensable for lovers of Gallic film.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Funny Face" Paramount Pictures' Centennial Collection continues with these two well-loved Audrey Hepburn staples and, yes, there are few films more often issued and reissued in every possible home-video format over the years. Still, here they are again, on double-disc sets featuring new high-definition transfers (for both DVD and Blu-ray) and a bunch of special features never seen before. The gorgeous and only slightly silly "Funny Face," with its magical Gershwin numbers (and the highly age-inappropriate coupling of Hepburn with Fred Astaire) has mini-features on co-star Kay Thompson, fashion photography, the VistaVision process used to make the film and Paris in the '50s. "Tiffany's" is even richer, with a making-of featurette, mini-docs on Hepburn and composer Henry Mancini and a convoluted attempt to apologize for Mickey Rooney's offensive Asian character. If you don't own these movies, these are terrific packages; on the other hand, there'll be another reason to reissue them in three or four years.

The Films of Michael Powell Well, two of the great British director's films, anyway -- essentially a miscellaneous double bill of Powell films to which Sony happens to hold the rights. Powell's best-known work, including "The Red Shoes," "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp," "The Small Back Room" and "Peeping Tom," is available from the Criterion Collection. What you get here is one undoubted classic -- the supernatural wartime drama "A Matter of Life and Death" (also known as "Stairway to Heaven"), with David Niven as a British flyer forced to argue his way from heaven back to earth -- and one late-career oddity. That would be "Age of Consent," made by Powell (without longtime co-director Emeric Pressburger) in the relatively hedonistic climate of late-'60s Australia. It stars James Mason as a burned-out painter (based loosely on Aussie artist Norman Lindsay) who finds his muse near the Great Barrier Reef in the form of a comely and uninhibited lass, played by a then-unknown 24-year-old named -- wait for it -- Helen Mirren. The movie's fascinating and a little creepy, tinged with that unmistakable Powell dyspepsia, and there's a terrific interview with Mirren among the extras. [salon.com]

Movie Review: Confessions of a Shopaholic

2009-02-17T04:03:00.002+07:00

Can we call it Consumer-Porn?

Poised for a Valentine's weekend release, the new fashion-centric romcom by Muriel's Wedding director P.J. Hogan is as an odd hybrid of pretty and partially digested. On the heels of He's Just Not That Into You, a film that faced a critical blast to be dwarfed by the fate of Shopaholic, this exercise in capitalist wish fulfillment is not unlike a Depression Era Studio Fantasy. Featuring women who struggle financially only to find happiness in the arms of recession-resistant men and fat-cat magazine publishers [yes, you read that right] who are hunks ready to take massive risks without the slightest R&D, this flick is shakey uplift with minor merits. Shopaholic bandies in the same brand of humiliation-humor that made Sex and the City (and Forgetting Sarah Marshall to provide a masculine equivalent) seem so sincere. That plus the glam of celebrity stylist Patricia Fields are viable draws, just not ones destined to last beyond a two week drop off.

Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) is a journalist who, from young, has found practicality poorly suited to her. Her parents, warm-hearted spendthrifts (John Goodman and Joan Cusack), were so different from her she sought identification outside of her home and her personal life: primarily through fashion. This is how we gain access to the issue of her addiction, which is handled oddly and intermittently, but with some clarity. What Rebecca is good at (or rather, we learn she's good at it because she writes one article that sweeps the nation), is writing. She pens a piece under the pseudonym "The Girl in the Green Scarf" that uses fashion as a metaphor for investments and in so doing makes the premise of saving money (something we all have within our reach to understand) finally clear to the common man. So while she plays Martin Luther to the financial institution, instructing the masses in the ways of power, she comes slowly unraveled under the weight of her own massive debts. Hypocrisy or irony: Your choice.

Editor Luke Brandon (her opposites-attract love interest played by Hugh Dancy) instructs her in the simple but weighty distinction between cost and value and when her dire debt situation is made public, she ends up pitting her credit issues against his hard-built credibility. The rules of economics are never far from this love story, even if they’re spooned out in easy to digest servings (probably true to the spirit of Rebecca’s writings—which we’re never lucky enough to hear...I wonder why).

It’s easy to see a film that fetishizes YSL and Prada as a slap in the face during economically hard times. Sophie Kinsella’s original books (upon which the film is based) came out in 2000, just shy of the dot com bust. So, why release this title now? Add this question to the morally awkward characterization of the titular Shopaholic as a vivacious, fun-loving, inspiring woman with an uncanny knack for duping her boss and her debt collector (could you call her a con-artist?) and you’ve really got something to ponder. That Rebecca is most creative when cornered by money troubles is a value at odds with our more common view of commerce (and by extension civilization) as something that sucks out our spirits. But this film, with workmanlike direction and occasionally pronounced cinematography is a can of worms squirming in opposing directions. Character motivations are continually hard to gauge outside of the obvious melodrama at play, and the chemistry between the main love interests relies so heavily on head tilting you would think the actors suffer from Swimmer’s Ear. Thin on plot and heavy with criminally underused talent (Lynn Redgrave plays “drunk woman in the bathroom,” I’m not kidding) the film is a trifle, but if we found that sort of thing comforting in 1931, we’re likely to find it somewhat comforting today too.

Distributor: Disney
Cast: Isla Fischer, Hugh Dancy, Kristin Scott Thomas, Krysten Ritter, Joan Cusack and John Goodman
Director: P.J. Hogan
Screenwriters: Tracey Jackson, Kayla Alpert and Tim Firth
Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Rating: PG for some mild language and thematic elements.
Running time: 105
Release date: February 13, 2009

source

The Pink Panther 2

2009-02-17T03:59:00.002+07:00

Not even as funny as the joke that ends “dead ant, dead ant”

With this sequel to the 2006 release that both reinvented and relaunched the original Blake Edwards film series, Steve Martin officially becomes the first actor since Peter Sellers to earn a second stint in a Pink Panther film. Given the series’ turbulent history of false starts and failed restarts, that’s no small achievement. Unfortunately, the film itself is. Geared primarily to the teens and preteens for whom there is no Inspector Jacques Clouseau, this, the eleventh Panther picture (for those keeping count), is vapid, low-grade slapstick, hopelessly dull yet innocuous, designed more for marketability than entertainment so as to coast comfortably through two middling weekends of respectable pre-Oscar counter programming before word of mouth drops its third weekend drop-off off a cliff.

Having already dispensed with the Sellers comparisons in the previous picture, Martin, who again takes a co-writer credit (this time alongside the screenwriting team of Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter) has clearly grown comfortable molding Clouseau to his own particular comedic proclivities, which is to say the kind of slapstick and relentless mugging that he was supposed to have left buried in the ’80s. Indeed, the resurrection of Clouseau has likewise marked the resurrection of an archival Martin that, in the edgier era of Judd Apatow, Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller, feels almost anachronistically juvenile.

The story once again centers on the theft of the Pink Panther diamond—one of several precious artifacts that have been stolen by a legendary thief known simply as The Tornado. Assigned to an international “dream team” of detectives that includes the suave Italian Vicenzo (Andy Garcia), Japanese tech genius Kenji (Yuki Matsuzaki) and pompous Englishman Pepperidge (Alfred Molina), Clouseau initially does little but aggravate his colleagues with his apparent incompetence and clumsy bumbling. Of course, as per usual, bumbling is all part of a sleuthing process whereby, somehow, Clouseau always manages to prevail.

Part of the problem here is that the formula that once worked so well for Edwards and Sellers (but less well for Edwards without Sellers) feels especially uninspired in second-hand hands. The previous film—directed in predictably lackluster fashion by Shawn Night at the Museum Levy—wasn’t much better, but received a certain amount of leeway from critics and audiences willing to give the new Martinized Clouseau the benefit of the doubt. In the hands of Pink Panther 2 director Harald Zwart, the Norwegian-born helmer of both indie gems (One Night at McCool’s) and studio duds (Agent Cody Banks), the institutionalization of those flaws makes the new picture aggravating at best. With the exception of only one very clever gag—a restaurant scene involving a tumbling wall of wine bottles—there’s nothing here that rises even to the level of a bad Three Stooges short. Martin tries too hard, John Cleese—stepping into the Dreyfus role played previously by Kevin Kline—is painfully miscast, while returning cast members Jean Reno and Emily Mortimer—both exceptionally talented performers when given good material—are frustratingly underused. Indian superstar Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, here appearing in her first major Hollywood studio film, is a luminous presence until she’s actually asked to do something, at which point the picture collapses as badly on her as it does everyone else. Only Garcia and Molina manage to acquit themselves respectably by elevating badly written parts that essentially have nowhere to go but up.

Fans of cameos get a few modest payoffs courtesy of Lily Tomlin, Geoffrey Palmer, Jeremy Irons and French recording star Johnny Hallyday (“Man on the Train”), though even these appearances seem forced and unnecessary.

Unless 12-year-old boys have suddenly developed taste and discernment, however, this should all add up to box office earnings sufficiently respectable to justify a third infliction of the same, which, in keeping up with its developmentally-challenged audience, just may see fit to elevate its comedy several notches to finally include fart jokes.

Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Cast: Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Alfred Molina, Emily Mortimer, Aishwarya Rai Bachchnan, Andy Garcia, John Cleese and Lily Tomlin
Director: Harald Zwart
Screenwriter: Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber and Steve Martin
Producers: Robert Simonds
Genre: Comedy
Rating: PG for some suggestive humor, brief mild language and action.
Running time: 92 min.
Release date: February 6, 2009

source

Justin Timberlake is America's most stylish man

2009-02-17T03:55:00.001+07:00

The singer has topped GQ magazine's list of the Ten Most Stylish Men in America for his impact on fashion and his ''knack for targeting trends.''

Justin – who has his own clothing line William Rust – topped the list because of his willingness to take style risks with his use of hats, three-piece suits, skinny ties and facial hair.

The list also includes T.I. - who features on Justin's song "My Love" - Kanye West, Jason Schwartzman, hotelier Andre Balazs and photographer Alexi Lubomirski.

Despite his grand title, Justin believes British supermodel Kate Moss is the ultimate fashion icon because she "could put a barrel on and it would be some sort of statement."

Justin - who has been dating actress Jessica Biel since early 2007 – was recently thrown a surprise party by Jessica to celebrate turning 28.

A source said: "Justin was totally blown away when he walked in. He had no idea."

Source: BANG Showbiz

Salma Hayek has married French businessman Francois-Henri Pinault

2009-02-17T03:48:00.001+07:00

The "Ugly Betty" actress - who has a 16-month-old daughter, Valentina, with Francois-Henri - reportedly tied the knot in France on Valentine's Day (Feb 14, 2009).

The ceremony took place at the city hall of the Sixth Arrondissement in St. Germaine, Paris.

It has been claimed the couple - who called off their engagement last July - decided to give their romance a second try by taking two romantic breaks to the French capital late last year.

In December, Salma and Francois-Henri sparked reunion rumors after they were seen being "very affectionate" at the Dubai Fim Festival.

Salma, 43, recently confirmed she is still romancing the 46-year-old businessman - who is CEO of luxury brand giant PPR - after revealing she thinks of him when she films love scenes with her "30 Rock" co-star Alec Baldwin.

She said: "I keep telling Francois, 'I imagine I was kissing you.'"

Francois-Henri - who began dating Salma in May 2006 - is one of France's richest men and has an estimated fortune of $16.9 billion.

Source: BANG Showbiz

Maxim Magazine March 2009

2009-02-17T03:37:00.002+07:00

Eliza Dushku - Maxim Magazine (March 2009)

PDF | English | 7 Pages | 8.38 MB

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Chris Brown Rejected by Radio; Rihanna Cancels on Jakarta

2009-02-12T03:07:00.001+07:00

Chris Brown has been canceled, while Rihanna has canceled once again.

Brown, who's under investigation for allegedly beating his "Umbrella" singer girlfriend, has been completely nixed by a Cleveland radio station. WAKS "Kiss" FM 96.5 has dropped "Forever," "Kiss Kiss" and all other tracks by the 19-year-old R&B star from its onair playlist.

"After the alleged incident, the phones exploded," evening host Java Joel said on the channel's website. "It's all that people wanted to talk about. They were outraged at his alleged behavior and wondered why we were continuing to support his music. I agreed and immediately pulled all Chris Brown songs from my show until this thing shakes out in the legal system."

The station's program director Bo Williams adds, "I then made the decision to rid the whole station of Chris Brown songs while this plays out. We are fans of Chris Brown's music, and this is not something that will last forever. But it appears that Chris has made some poor choices, we are following the lead of our listeners, and we will not be supporting Chris Brown on 96.5 Kiss FM in Cleveland until the alleged situation gets resolved."

In the meantime, Rihanna has scuttled yet another appearance of her own.

The stunning singer will not be performing in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Thursday, as originally planned.

This is the second time this particular show has been delayed and it won't likely be rescheduled.

"We spoke to Tony Goldring of William Morris Agency and he said the concert had to be canceled because of an assault case involving Rihanna's boyfriend," local promoter Troy Reza Warokka told Agence France Presse.

"He offered to reschedule but we don't think we'll take it up, not this year at least. This is her second postponement. Her fans are traumatized and we've spent so much money on production and promotional materials."

The "Disturbia" singer postponed her sold-out Friday performance in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, earlier this week.

··· THEY SAID WHAT? Get today's most commented stories now at www.eonline.comRihanna to Cops: Chris Brown Threatened to Kill MeRihanna Leaves the Hospital, Postpones ConcertChris Brown Lowdown: Cops Continue Probe, Wrigley's Halts AdsChris Brown Bounces NBA All-Star AppearanceChris Brown Doesn't "Got Milk"; CoverGirl Stands by RihannaChris Brown Investigated for Domestic Assault; He and Rihanna Sitting Out GrammysRihanna's New York City Birthday Party CanceledChris Brown Grew Up "Terrified" In a Violent HomeD.A. Wants Further Investigation in Chris Brown-Rihanna CaseT.I. & Kanye West Rap on Chris Brown-Rihanna Sitch.

source: movies.yahoo.com

Rewriting Hollywood History in Julie Dash’s Illusions

2009-02-12T03:02:00.001+07:00

“Now I am an illusion, just like the films. They see me but they can’t recognize me.” So states the protagonist of Julie Dash’s 1982 film, Illusions. The film is a critique of Hollywood history and an attempt to subvert that very history by calling attention to the lack of an African-American presence in Hollywood during the era of World War II and even today, for that matter.
Illusions

The film begins with a rotating Oscar with a voice-over that states:

“To direct an attack upon Hollywood would indeed be to confuse portrayal with action, image with reality. In the beginning was not the shadow, but the act, and the province of Hollywood is not action, but illusion.”

These illusions that Dash discusses in her short film attempt to call attention to the illusion that African-Americans were not a part of Hollywood history and seek to end the illusion, to finally make things right, by re-writing history. This illusory element is at its peak in the dubbing sequence of Illusions.

The scene begins with a pan across a sound booth that Mignon (Lonetta McKee) and her boss (Ned Bellamy) enter while two sound engineers attempt to finish the dubbing and post-synchronous sound for their Christmas holiday-season release, but there is a problem: the dubbing does not match and their star is away helping with the war effort. To fix the problem, they have hired Esther (Rosanne Katon), a young African-American girl, to replace the voice of Leila Grant, the star. We then see a musical scene from the film.

Leila Grant is the object of desire: ‘the true woman of the discourse of feminity,’ an object of the gaze and the editor’s cut. She does not have desire; she is desire. She does not have voice; she embodies it. Stranded on the Dark Continent, Esther looks at Leila and desires to be desired. (1)
Illusions

Throughout this scene, the film clips we see of Leila Grant all position her as the object of desire through several close-ups of her various body parts - her face, legs, etc. - which objectify this idealized woman of the screen.

As the group in the sound booth watches the debacle, on the back wall we can see a Mae West poster. This image is important on many levels. First, West seems to be the real world counterpart to the Leila Grant character. Both are white, beautiful, blonde screen queens who are objectified by the male gaze. On the other hand, this poster of Mae West can be seen as doing something different. In her heyday, West was famous for her on screen bawdy double entendres, her most famous being the quip: “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
Illusions

During the 1930s, when the Production Code was taking over the morality of Hollywood, West, who co-wrote many of the screenplays for which she was to star, was forced to edit out the “racy” content. It seems that Dash is making a statement with the West poster on the wall for the fact that not only were African-American women subjected to the white patriarchal Hollywood system, but white women were as well. If they were seen to be strong, independent, sexual beings, they were forced by either the studio heads or the Production Code to tone down their acts, in essence erasing many of their dreams and talents from history and forcing them to be mere illusions of what they desired to be.

Like West, Esther, the young African-American girl who is selected to replace the voice of Leila Grant, is also a mere illusion, forced into non-existence by the studio system.

Like the seamless continuity style that conceals its work (e.g., editing, processing, discontinuity), Hollywood cinema has concealed or erased and prohibited the work of people of color, on and off screen. (2)

Esther begins to sing and, at this point, Dash has done something very interesting with the composition of the frame. In the upper-left-hand corner, Esther is singing; in the upper-right-hand corner is a screen with the Leila Grant film playing; and in the bottom part of the frame is a doubled image of one of the sound engineers watching this take place. Esther’s voice literally “looming in dark space asserts the power of cinema to produce images and illusions” (3).

What is interesting about this shot is the way in which it utilizes the multiple gazes found in the cinema. First, we have Esther, the object of the gaze of the sound engineer. Second, we have Esther looking at Leila Grant on the screen trying to lip-synch her words to her mouth movements. Then, we have the literal “doubling” of the sound engineer to which the audience is sutured with, as we are placed inside of the sound booth with him watching all of this happen inside the studio.
Illusions

Dash’s Illusions calls attention to the ways in which the Hollywood studio system created the illusions that forced African-American women to the wayside of film history only to be forgotten. In her films, Dash makes these illusions visible by critiquing that very system and showing how the Leila Grants of the world in effect were not the real star of the picture, but the Esthers who had the real talent à la Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952).

Yet, Illusions’ own operation remains transparent. Ironically, in the projection scene, the diegetic and extradiegetic levels collapse; all the female voices in this sequence are post-dubbed. Both Ester and Leila lip-sync Ella Fitzgerald. The narrative’s focus on synchronization- the corporealization of the female voice- shifts attention away from the film’s orchestration of image and sound so that Leila’s voice, in fact, is no more or less true than Esther’s. (4)

According to Mellencamp, “Dash reverses the blond standard of the star system that defined conventions of female beauty within a regimented, standardized uniformity.” (5)
Illusions

To put it briefly, Dash’s film, namely the dubbing sequence, attempts to subvert the history of Hollywood that all but disintegrated the presence of African-American women. She revises this

by synching their off-screen voices to onscreen white women. Women of color were heard, but not recognized. When women of color were on the soundtrack or passing on screen, they were not remembered or recognized. Illusions inscribes the point of view missing from U.S. film history: African-American women (both onscreen and in the audience) granting visibility and audibility by synching image to off-screen voice. Illusions also charges Hollywood, which did not make films about people of color even during World War II, and the nation with hypocrisy and racism. (6)

Illusions calls attention to this travesty and tries to rewrite history and reclaim what was lost: “Illusions explores questions of race, representation, and gender in Hollywood cinema-in particular, the absence of ‘meaningful’ and ‘realistic’ images of our lives.” [source]

Salma Hayek Kisses Alec Baldwin

2009-02-11T02:26:00.001+07:00

What does Salma Hayek use for inspiration when locking lips with Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock? Her ex-fiancé and current boyfriend, Francois-Henri Pinault.

"I keep telling Francois, 'I Imagine I was kissing you,' " Hayek, who is doing a guest stint on 30 Rock as Baldwin's girlfriend, said on The Rachael Ray Show for a segment that airs Wednesday.

Hayek, 42, otherwise kept mum about Pinault – they called off their engagement in July though still remain a couple – but had plenty to say about her onscreen love interest.

"I have so much fun with him," Hayek says of Baldwin. "He is just so precious, I love him."

Daughter Sees Ghost
The actress also has her hands full with Valentina, her daughter with Pinault. At 16 months, the girl already is trilingual – she speaks English, Spanish and French – and seems to have developed a sixth sense.

"Last night she saw a ghost. I'm convinced," says Hayek, "Last night she woke up and her eyes were open. And she's looking at one specific point and she's going, 'No no no no, au revoir,' which means goodbye in French ... And she's looking at someone, but there's no one there.

I was so scared, and I'm like, 'Yes, au revoir, whoever you are, get out!' And then she started saying it in English: 'Bye bye, bye bye!' I guess she was trying in different languages to see what nationality this ghost was to go away. It was terrifying!" [people.com]

Alain Cavalier - Thérèse (1986)

2009-02-11T02:18:00.003+07:00

Alain Cavalier - Thérèse (1986)
French | Subtitle: English (Hard Sub) | 1:26:54 | 720x394 | 29 fps | DivX 5 | DVDRip | Audio: 192 Kbps | 865 MB
Drama | Biography

Stark, stylistically directed, fact-based story of a dreamy, intense 15-year-old girl (Mouchet) and her desire to become a Carmelite nun, to be wedded to Christ. Winner of six Cesar Awards, including Best Picture. Remake of the 1938 film THERESE MARTIN.

Performer-----------------Character

Catherine Mouchet-----Therese Martin
Aurore Prieto------------Celine
Sylvie Habault-----------Pauline
Ghislane Mona----------Marie
Clemence Massart------Prioress
Nathalie Bernart--------Aimee
Beatrice DeVigan-------The Singer
Noele Chantre----------The Old Woman
Anna Bernelat----------The Cripple
Sylvaine Massart-------The Nurse
M.L. Eberschweiler-----The Painter
Josette LefevreGilberte-Laurain The Nuns
Jean Pelegri-------------Father
Michel Rivelin------------Pranzini
Jean Pieuchot-----------The Bishop
Armand Meppiel--------The Pope
Lucien Folet-------------Old Man with Flowers
Pierre Maintigneux-----Convent Doctor
Guy Faucon--------------Aimee's Fiance
Joel Le Francois---------The Young Doctor
Jacqueline Lagrain------Violinist
Simone Dubocq----------Embroideress
Helene Alexandridis-----Lucie

Producer-----------------Maurice Bernart

Director------------------Alain Cavalier

Screenwriter------------Alain Cavalier
----------------------------Camille De Casabianca

Editor---------------------Isabelle Dedieu

Cinematographer------Philippe Rousselot

Art design---------------Bernard Evein

Costumes---------------Yvette Bonnay

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Playboy Present Dian Parkinson (1993)

2009-02-11T02:16:00.001+07:00

Playboy Present Dian Parkinson (1993)
PDF | English | 7.49 Mb

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DVD Review: Frozen River

2009-02-11T01:37:00.002+07:00

Here's the double Oscar nominee you haven't seen yet. We hope it takes home a gold statue or two come Oscar night.

Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is a mom who only wants to do right by her two sons, teenager T.J. (Charlie McDermott) and five-year-old Ricky. But a week before Christmas her husband robbed them of the little cash they had in their "tin crapper" house trailer and lit out for ... well, Ray and the boys have no idea. The only certain thing is that he abandoned his car at a bus stop and hopped a Greyhound for God knows where. Now Ray is trapped in the December wasteland of rural upstate New York with kids who need a pantry that holds more than popcorn and Tang. All she has are a dead-end part-time job at the dollar store, an impossible balloon payment on a relatively palatial double-wide (no more frozen pipes) her family dreams of, and a desire to let her kids "have Santa Claus" when Christmas finally comes.

When opportunity and desperation meet, Ray turns to crime just to get by. That opportunity arrives in the form of Lila Littlejohn (Misty Upham), a young woman on the nearby Mohawk reservation. Marginalized by family and tribe alike, Lila has her own quiet desperation to unfold through the story. Their uneasy relationship begins when Lila recruits Ray into a scheme smuggling illegal aliens (of various nationalities) from Canada to the U.S. in the trunk of Ray's car. The job pays well, and Ray absolutely needs the money, but the clandestine trips back and forth involve evading both the state troopers and the tribal hierarchy that already know what Lila's up to. And then there's that little matter of driving a fully packed car across a temporarily frozen river at night. Lila's husband is somewhere under that ice, "lost on a run" the previous winter.

A tense, emotionally gripping tale of the heroically struggling poor, Frozen River (official site) is now the reason for Melissa Leo's Best Actress nomination at the Academy Awards. Its first-time writer-director, Courtney Hunt, is also an Oscar hopeful for best original screenplay. And that's after Frozen River's five Independent Spirit Award nominations -- including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actress -- and the big win of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Drama at Sundance. The American Film Institute dubbed it one of 2008's top movies, as did a list of professional press critics as long as your arm.

So how come Frozen River is the Oscar contender that has so many people asking, "What the hell is that? I've never even heard of it."

Like sausages and laws, motion picture PR and distribution deals are things you don't want to see actually being made, the process is that ugly and sometimes bloody a grind. Frozen River's limited initial distribution did it no favors, and the advertising imagery fails at hooking us into the film's beautifully written and played substance. But that's being corrected now by a new theatrical run and a timely release this week on DVD and Blu-ray disc. That's a smart move, as Frozen River absolutely deserves our attention as indeed one of the best films of 2008. Its center of gravity is Melissa Leo's finely tuned performance as Ray. In her close orbit are most notably Charlie McDermott, who chose to not play T.J. as an easy Angry Teen, and first-timer Upham, who, even while maintaining a deadened flat affect, holds her own with Leo in every one of their many shared scenes.

Having finally caught the film on Blu-ray, I couldn't be more pleased if the film takes away both its potential Oscars. My only regret is that there's no Oscar for Most Impressive First-Time Director Who Could Teach Studio Hacks With Vaster Resources and Budgets a Thing or Two.

As both a writer and a director, Tennessee-born Hunt displays a flair for a good story well told. She understands the power of subtlety in hard realism, and exhibits a feel for the revealing details that speak volumes -- a bra strap so old its elastic is dead; a lower back tattoo on the young blonde co-worker that tells us in one glance everything we need to know about why Ray isn't getting ahead at the dollar store; Ray's reasoning while abandoning on the ice a Pakistani family's duffel bag -- maybe it holds a nuclear bomb or poison gas, "and I don't want to be responsible for that," when in fact what it holds becomes a key connection between Ray, Lila, and the immigrants who are also just trying to do right for their families as best they can. Looking at Melissa Leo's worn-through, terribly authentic face, you see that Ray knows hardship down to her marrow. Ray's ease with a handgun clues us in to a life's worth of understanding that even the most determined resolve sometimes requires its own backup plan.

Assisted by Reed Morano's cinematography and the supportive musical scoring by Peter Golub and Shahzad Ismaily, Hunt is a filmmaker of such restraint, and she avoided so many moments that could have careened into studio-imposed clichés we've been conditioned to expect, that Frozen River let me forget I was watching a movie, something that didn't happen often in 2008.

Yes, Frozen River is a knowing, naturalistic, bone-and-blood story of racial inequities and women on the verge of having their lives crack beneath their feet to swallow them down. But remember this, because the PR here is missing the opportunity to hook us in -- it's also a tightly wound, albeit low-key, crime thriller. And emerging from the shady dealings and gunshots and suspense are moments of unforced humor (how do you mask the smell of smoke after you almost burn your trailer down?) and lovely little revelations (what is T.J. building with that blow-torch?). Think a low-humming Fargo vibe without the Coens' exaggerations, or Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan minus the conventional plot theatrics.

What the publicity campaign is completely missing is Hunt's subtly conveyed mainspring piercing through Frozen River. It winds itself on the unifying, universal importance of family, that hard, irreducible, driving force that joins our common humanity no matter where we come from or where we're going or what we're willing to sacrifice in between.

Now on DVD and Blu-ray from Sony, Frozen River presents as well as you'd expect a new film shot in digital HD to look on home video. A few dark scenes tend to get unusually murky to my eyes, but that's the worst I could say about it. The only significant extra is the commentary track with Hunt and producer Heather Rae. It's a disappointing track for anyone taking notes on Hunt's production techniques or how she worked toward her sudden rise as a filmmaker to watch. She and Rae remark on production points here and there, give us some background on Frozen River's origins as a short film shown at the New York Film Festival, and of course they rightly praise everyone on screen and behind the scenes for their good work. It's not a bad track, for sure, but there's too much dead air and not enough prepared information on how it was all done and what they can teach us about the latest wave of filmmaking and "the industry" today.

Besides that, the only extras here are the theatrical trailer and a half-dozen trailers for other recommended indies such as The Wackness and Rachel Getting Married.

----------
This review written by Mark Bourne, published at film.com

Carlsberg web-tv

2008-11-15T10:33:00.001+07:00

Carlsberg web-tv is a place where football lover meet. They have 5 channels showing all aspects about football from the classic football matches to life as a fan. Do not miss the video clips about football funnies and rituals from the Football Magic channel or the bizarre story about fans in the stand and how fan culture sometimes go beyond reason. You can also upload your own favorite football and fan moments. Check out this fantastic web tv football lover at Partofthegame.tv

www.partofthegame.tv

John Barrowman: 'Why am I gay?'

2008-07-25T22:22:00.004+07:00

Torchwood star John Barrowman has known he was gay since he was nine. But was he born that way or did his upbringing have something to do with it? Here, he explains why he set out to try to solve this mystery, for the BBC One show The Making of Me.

I was in the closet for three hours once in 1972. It was dark, uncomfortable, and really cramped. Plus, I was convinced I wasn't alone (a crumpled jacket lurking in the corner looked pretty dangerous). I was five and my brother, Andrew, then 10, and my sister, Carole, 13, had shoved me into the coat closet because, well, really for absolutely no good reason. I mean what baby brother has ever annoyed his siblings to the point of needing to be locked up or tied down?

This story still gets a laugh from my nieces and nephews. Depending on who's doing the telling, Uncle John was either locked up for 30 fleeting minutes or for three long, tortuous, oxygen-starved hours. As simple as the story is I think it's an apt metaphor for the way I've chosen to live my life - openly, honestly, with no regrets. And, whenever I can, I try to confront the monsters in the dark. As my favourite Jerry Herman song proclaims: "There's no return and no deposit. One life. So open up your closet."

My sexuality has never been deliberately hidden. I'm in a committed relationship with the love of my life, Scott Gill, and he is as much a part of the family as my sister's husband, Kevin, and my brother's wife, Dot. However, just because I'm comfortable with my sexuality doesn't mean that I'm not curious about it and that's one of the reasons I agreed to take this journey to discover the making of me.

I remember vividly when I first realised I was gay. I was nine and a few of my friends were looking at some mild porn in the playground during recess. While they were ogling the well-endowed female models, I couldn't take my eyes off the male members in the shot.

Growing up in the Barrowman household, conversations about sexuality were never taboo. Over the years, we've talked about many of the theories that may explain what makes a person gay. In fact, it's always been a bit of a joke in our family that my dad was responsible - he frequently dressed me up as a girl. In fact, he has some cross-dressing in his own past. He once dressed up as a tarty neighbour, pretended to crash his own party, and proceeded to flirt with the men in the room- all with my mum playing along for the laughs.

Nature or nurture?

The show actually gave me an opportunity to discover whether or not I had ancestors who were gay because years ago if you were in the closet you were so far in the closet you were in the house next door.

During the filming of the programme, I not only revisited my childhood, I was also subjected to a battery of psychological and physical tests, everything from comparing my DNA to that of my straight brother, Andrew's, to watching my brain light up like a fireworks display in response to certain erotic stimuli.

I've always been convinced I was born gay (and am happy that way). But over the years there are plenty of people who have argued the opposite - and some still do today. I really wanted to meet people like this, and the film gave me a chance to do so. In the unresolved argument about whether it is nature of nurture that makes us gay or straight, I was hoping for affirmation that nature decides. The risk I took in filming was that it would be disproved.

But in the end neither happened as the tests didn't provide that clarity. I learned that science has yet to find a fool-proof and definitive genetic test for gayness - at least in my case.

Hormonal explanation?

Yet I did find something unexpected and different. The latest science is concentrating on a whole new area of potential causality that I hadn't thought about at all. It's not genes, but it is biological, looking at hormonal effects in the womb.

Other psychological and physical tests told me more about my sexuality. Like whether I had any latent attraction to women at all. That one really caught me by surprise - at least for a moment. And in word association tests, men tend to be more factual and literal. But women and gay men tend to be much more descriptive and eloquent. I'm glad to say that was true for me as well.

Another test involved looking at moving images of different combinations of men and women. I had to press buttons to signal my reaction while lying in an MRI scanner which also measured my reaction so I couldn't lie.

I'm proud to say that in some of the tests I was totally off the scale.

So participating in this programme was exciting and provocative, but in the end, taking the personal risk to discover what makes me gay was worth it because on a daily basis I get letters from young men and women who are feeling the brunt of our culture's homophobia. If exploring this issue can bring comfort to some of these young people then I think the programme will have done a really wonderful thing.

Written by John Barrowman and Carole E Barrowman

Add your comments on this story, using the form below.

The only thing I'd like to discover about John Barrowman is why he talks with an American accent except when he's in Scotland - what is that about? Its ridiculous and patronising and I'd like to know why he does it?
Lisa G, Falkirk

Good for John. I think it's high time people accept others for who they are and not who they want them to be.
Jenny, Denver, Colorado

Much as I find John Barrowman hugely entertaining and genuinely I do, may I suggest that he is on TV far too much and is running the risk of over exposure. With regard to being out of the closet - he is now so far out that he must surely find it difficult to even see without the aid of a strong pair of binoculars. That said - I'll be there 9pm, BBC1.
Tim Holder, London

Many congratulations to the BBC for airing this programme, the subject matter of which is smart, dangerous, timely and strongly political. Would that it were compulsory viewing at the Lambeth conference...
Kathryn Whitney, Oxford

Can we have a John Barrowman amnesty? He's never off the tv and I'm not sure anyone really cares which side he plays for.
Gary P, West London

I'm glad there are people like him in the public eye that don't necessarily conform to stereotypes and help promote understanding and acceptance of people that don't necessarily fit to what society tells us in normal. And not just homophobia, there's other things that need combating and every single person that stands up against an issue close to them also stands up to all the issues!
Angel Cutsforth, Reading, England

What an amazing family John Barrowman's is. Sadly I don't think all families are as supportive about their children/brothers, sisters etc. being gay. I will look forward to watching this programme this evening.
Celia Proud, Oxford

Typical gay man, using his sexuality to boost his career. Lucky for some, my boss is female which means I can't follow suit.
Angel, Coventry, UK

I don't think that gayness has one simple cause. Rather, like intelligence, it is a subtle interaction of genetic inheritance, neonatal & juvenile development along with environmental factors (e.g. disease, schooling) and upbringing. All of these interplay to make a person more or less likely to be gay in a statistical sense. Nature, Nurture, Personal Choice: Some people want it to be one or the other or a combination to justify their own circumstances or beliefs. At the end it is natural: animals show homosexual tendencies. We should all get used to it. We have enough evidence that homosexuality has been part of humanity for thousands of years and we aren't going to change any time soon.
Sue, Staines, UK

It's really refreshing that the BBC is exploring this issue. So many narrow minded people today just believe blindly that gay is wrong just because that's what they've been told by their parents of friends. Very similar to religion, really - you believe something just because you couldn't be bothered to think about it. Gay people don't go about beating up straight people, yet straights who do so to gays don't think they're doing anything wrong (yet themselves indulge in back-slapping, hugging and touching during footie matches - go figure). Live and let live. In this day and age people really need to wake up and stop hating so much before finding out facts.
Bob, Oxford, UK

I am interested in why the BBC seems preoccupied with homosexuality or to be more precise it's promotion. Is it because according to Andrew Marr the BBC is disproportionately overrepresented by gays? And certainly in positions of influence to promote the gay agenda?
Dave Stevens, reading. UK

This sounds like a great project and it is my hope that it will be shown in Canada at some point. I recently interviewed your Torchwood romantic counterpart (Gareth David-Lloyd) and was pleased to note how he didn't over-react to his character's bisexuality nor did he feel the need to loudly declare his own heterosexuality, as so many other straight actors have. "The Making of Me" will hopefully put a dent in the homophobia and self-loathing.
Kristine Maitland, Toronto, Canada

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http://news.bbc.co.uk

Rowling's Harry Potter 'regret'

2008-07-25T22:08:00.002+07:00

Author JK Rowling has revealed her "real regret" that her mother died without knowing about Harry Potter.

Best-selling author JK Rowling has spoken of her regret that she never told her mother about her world-famous creation, Harry Potter.

She began work on her tales of the apprentice wizard six months before her mother Anne, who had multiple sclerosis, died at the age of 45.

Rowling's comments came in a BBC Scotland programme about the degenerative disease.

The writer expressed frustration about a lack of funding for MS research.

Recalling her mother, the Edinburgh-based author said: "I started writing Harry six months before she died. That's obviously a real regret, because I never told her I was even writing it.

"She never knew anything about Harry Potter at all."

Speaking of her pain at her mother's gradual decline before her death in 1990, Rowling said: "When I left home, she was walking unaided. By the time I graduated, she was in a wheelchair and in the house she needed a walking frame.

"It was awful to watch."

Rowling, whose Harry Potter novels have been transformed into a globally successful film series, said her mother had shown marked signs of the illness for six or seven years before she was diagnosed.

A numbness in her right arm had spread over half her torso in a year.

In 2006, multi-millionaire Rowling made a major cash donation towards a multiple sclerosis research centre at Edinburgh University to help find a cure.

She has now hit out at a perceived general lack of funding for, and interest in the condition, which affects about one in every 500 people in Scotland.

"It's a Cinderella of illnesses, you hear this all the time, because it's under-funded, because it's ignored," she said.

"I think it's possibly common to a lot of neurological conditions. It just seems to be an area that has not seemed very sexy for funding."

Rowling, patron of the Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland, added: "People get diagnosed and sent home. It's a frustration to those of us whose family members do have MS that so little is being done, because it is a life-altering condition and a lot can be done now, so why isn't that happening?"

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BBC Movie News

Alice role for Australian actress

2008-07-25T21:59:00.002+07:00

Australian actress Mia Wasikowska is in final talks to star in director Tim Burton's Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, according to a report.

Wasikowska has just finished filming Amelia with Richard Gere.

The 18-year-old is set to land the role after a long search for the title character, the Hollywood Reporter says.

The actress started out in Australian TV drama All Saints and stars in US series In Treatment.

She also appears alongside Daniel Craig in war drama Defiance, due out later in the year.

Burton's take on Lewis Carroll's classic fantasy novel will use a mixture of live action and animation and will be made in 3D.

Filming is due to begin in November, the Hollywood Reporter said.

Wasikowska has just finished filming her role as a young fan of aviator Amelia Earhart in Mira Nair's biopic Amelia, starring Hilary Swank and Richard Gere.

Burton's previous projects include musicals Sweeney Todd and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

There's only one great Mafia film, capice?

2008-07-23T00:55:00.000+07:00

IN the crime annals of popular culture, The Godfather remains capo di tutti capi.

Many have imitated the 1972 film but few have come close to matching Francis Ford Coppola's Academy award-winning masterwork - no matter what contemporary critics contend, says Gianni Russo.

"The Sopranos to me was so low-class it's ridiculous," said the man who played Carol Rizzi in The Godfather. "To be operating a family out of the Bada Bing strip club, I mean, come on."

Goodfellas came close and Donnie Brasco was brilliant but one Mafia film tops them all, he argued with some confidence. And Russo is more than happy about that. "It's amazing, it's been a 37-year career on one film, even though I made 43 others," he said.

The Godfather's status will be reassessed tonight at Sydney's State Theatre at the world premiere screening of a newly re-mastered and restored print. If that weren't an enticing enough prospect, the film will be accompanied by a 65-piece orchestra, primarily made up of members of the Western Australia Philharmonic and conducted by expat composer Ashley Irwin.

"It sounds terrific and the theatre's glorious of course," said the Sydneysider, now one of Hollywood's most prolific arrangers.

He spent 18 months orchestrating The Godfather videogame in 2004 with additional music written to add to that famous score. He was the obvious choice to lead the live performances of what will be a number of global black tie premieres ahead of the remastered trilogy's release on DVD in September.

His work includes arranging the Academy Awards, American Idol and many films. But none in his homeland. "No, it's really sad Australian films don't use orchestrations because it adds great gloss to a production," Irwin said. "And synthesisers always sound like synthesisers.

"For me to come home and do it means there's more pressure than a New York or London premiere. I care about it more than if I was doing it in LA."

Russo, who will attend tonight's premiere with his on-screen partner, Talia Shire, said Coppola had not made any changes to the film other than visually, although he hoped a "horrendous miss I reacted to" in the fight scene had been amended. But he's content if the restoration doesn't change a thing.

"It would be like changing the Mona Lisa's smile," he said. "It's been a privilege and it continues to go on."

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www.theaustralian.news.com.au

The Dark Knight: A thousand and one knights

2008-07-20T23:20:00.002+07:00

There have been countless versions of Batman, from brooding crusader to gadget-loving detective. How does "The Dark Knight" measure up?

There's no such thing as a "definitive version" of Batman in comics, movies or anywhere else. He's a corporate property and a cash cow, so there are a few things that are set in stone about him: the cape, the urban setting, the millionaire-playboy alter ego. Beyond those premises, there are as many interpretations of Batman as there have been creators who've worked on his stories -- which makes the question of whether Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" is "faithful" to its source beside the point. Still, Nolan has dropped the ball on one of the most compelling ideas comic books have established about Gotham City's most famous resident: that his heroism doesn't come from his batarangs and right hook, but from his magnificent, brooding mind.

In the nearly 70 years since artist Bob Kane created Batman with writer Bill Finger, there have been thousands of comics about the character, and innumerable wildly different takes on him -- all of them exactly as "valid" as they are good. Well over a hundred collections of "Batman" comics are currently in print. Pull one of them off a shelf, and you might see Batman as the cheerful, gadget-happy detective that Finger established in the early years; as the passionate Byronic hero of Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' collaborations; as the half-demonic bruiser Jim Aparo used to draw (as Chris Sims puts it, "Every time Jim Aparo drew Batman hitting someone, it looked like -- at the very least -- they would never walk again"); as the art deco/pulp hybrid of the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers era; as the rippling creature of the shadows Don Newton drew in the late '70s and early '80s; as the stoic martinet who appeared in J.M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen's "Justice League"; as the tormented father figure of recent years. (The ingenious premise of Grant Morrison and Tony Daniel's "Batman R.I.P.," currently being serialized in the comics, is that Batman's personal experience encompasses all of those stories, and that their cumulative stress is crushing him.)

For most of the past 20 years or so, the Batman seen in comics has been dominated by Frank Miller's conception of him: the self-doubting, relentlessly driven ideologue of "Batman Year One" who eventually becomes the pain-wracked one-man paramilitary force of "The Dark Knight Returns." "There are 50 different ways to do Batman and they all work," Miller said recently. "In fact, I've probably done about ten of them." The echoes of Miller's stories in "The Dark Knight" don't stop with its title (the movie also borrows a few riffs from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's "The Long Halloween"); the Miller idea that has stuck to the character most is that Bruce Wayne has made himself into a perfect person, physically and mentally, by sacrificing a lot of his humanity.

There's one crucial element of Batman's relationship to the Joker in "The Dark Knight" that's directly drawn from the comics -- and one that isn't, but really ought to be. The comic book Joker, once the goofy, practical-joke-obsessed villain that Cesar Romero played in the mid-'60s "Batman" TV show, has evolved into a much scarier avatar of chaos. He's a psychopath whose sole stable personality trait is his sadistic amusement at the pain and fear he inflicts, and a lunatic whose madness can curdle milk at 500 feet. That comes through magnificently in Nolan's movie: Heath Ledger's Joker lurches through every phrase he speaks, as if he's trying to extract the right words from his roiling mind and has to orient himself by the North Star of his cruelty. 1988's "The Killing Joke," a brief, savagely cruel Batman tale by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland that has recently been reprinted as a fancy hardcover, crystallized the modern conception of the character, as well as the idea that Batman and the Joker are an inseparable dyad -- that they complete each other, and that their struggle can never end, because neither one can kill the other.

The modern idea about Batman that's most glaringly missing from "The Dark Knight," though, is that he himself is mad, one way or another. Batman's enemies aren't simply criminals: They're madmen, inmates of an insane asylum rather than an ordinary jail, and he's functionally indistinguishable from them in a lot of ways. (Grant Morrison and Dave McKean's fascinating 1989 graphic novel "Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth" explores that premise.) A rich man whose parents were murdered in front of him who responds to his grief by putting on a bat costume to beat up criminals? Arguably, he's totally insane -- or maybe he's "super-sane," a person whose mind has adapted to bizarre and painful circumstances in radical but very useful ways.

And it's Batman's mind that's at the core of the best stories about him. He's infinitely dangerous because he's infinitely clever: There's a sequence I still remember vividly from a decade-old Justice League story in which he holds off an invading alien fleet with nothing more than a box of matches and a brilliant plan. One disappointing thing about Nolan's interpretation is that his Batman is basically just a growling James Bond -- he relies on super-expensive gadgets and can beat down anyone in a fight, but any number of action-movie badasses can do that. We never see "The Dark Knight's" Batman doing anything particularly thoughtful, which is a hallmark of the comic book Batman. Not for nothing has he starred in a series called "Detective Comics" for close to 70 years.

There are also a couple of aspects of Batman comics that are impossible to capture in a live-action film -- mostly because a movie's images always have to carry the massive burden of believability, and the fact that comics are drawn gives them a lot more latitude for visual impressionism. (For that matter, the "sound design" in the comics is considerably more effective: Batman's guttural hiss is much scarier on the page, where readers can only hear it in their own minds, than coming from Christian Bale's all-too-human larynx.) In "The Dark Knight," Gotham City is solid and looming, imposing and full like a slightly creepier version of Chicago or New York. In the best Batman comics, it's practically a character itself: an old-money beauty fallen into hopeless decay (imagine what might have happened if New York actually had dropped dead when Gerald Ford told it to), a maze of alleys and gargoyles and disintegrating, mossed-over remnants of splendor.

That version of Gotham is a bit more in evidence in the other Batman movie released this month: "Gotham Knight," a direct-to-DVD animated feature. Actually, it's not quite a feature, but half a dozen vaguely linked vignettes created by Japanese and Korean animation studios in an anime style; their scripts were written by Americans with connections to Nolan's movies and "Batman" comics. The stories involve a few more familiar supporting characters from the comics than "The Dark Knight," most notably detective Crispus Allen, one of the stars of Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark's excellent "Gotham Central" comics; detective Anna Ramirez, who appears in both the animated and the live-action movie, bears a very strong resemblance to "Gotham Central's" detective Renee Montoya.

"Gotham Knight" is, frankly, nowhere near as good as "The Dark Knight" -- there's nothing as sharp and speedy as Nolan's dazzling opening bank-heist sequence, and its pace and line readings are slapdash in a familiar low-budget-cartoon way. But it doesn't have to pretend to be "real," and the spectacle and variety of its visual approaches to Batman and his surroundings are a welcome contrast to the gray bombast of the live-action movie. Its first episode lays out the premise of the project in miniature: A group of kids describe their encounters with Batman, and their explanations of him have almost nothing in common. He's a half-imaginary shadow, dissolving into smoke; he's a transforming robot with an arsenal of mechanical weapons; he's a guy in a bat suit, frail and bleeding. The point is that they're all sort of true, and the fact that the various segments of the film all look different doesn't mean they contradict one another.

And although they don't have the boundary-pushing illustrative verve of the best-looking "Batman" comics of recent years (Darwyn Cooke's cool, minimal "Ego," Paul Pope's ferociously blobby "Batman: Year One Hundred," J.H. Williams III's multilayered compositions in "The Black Glove"), they manage to fill in some of "The Dark Knight's" conceptual gaps. The most effective segment of "Gotham Knight" portrays Batman as a creature of almost pure intellect, whose body is effectively a liability: "Working Through Pain," written by Brian Azzarello (who collaborated with artist Eduardo Risso on the Batman book "Broken City"), is explicitly about how he manages his physical pain but is entirely in the thrall of his unending psychological torment. A little more of that might have granted some depth to Bale's stiff, guarded performance.

Still, there's something missing from both "Knights" that an action movie -- of any kind -- can scarcely provide: a space for contemplation. Comics can be read at any speed you choose, and the best ones are meant to be lingered over, image by image. "The Dark Knight" is a modern bullet train of a film: It grabs its viewers by the neck and shoulders and frog-marches them from scene to pyrotechnical IMAX scene. It's not surprising, then, that it focuses so little on what's going on behind that sturdy black mask. In a story about the relationship between madness and a detective's logic, which is what most of the best Batman stories are, the reader's own mind has to be given room to work, gazing at pictures and working out what happens in the space between panels.

John Chow Million Dollar Wiki Blog Contest [del.icio.us]

2007-08-14T09:40:38-07:00

Some bloggers aggree with them to put off Mybloglog from their blog, but some refused if Mybloglog has made them being banned from Adsense. A good refusal argument given by Andry. Andry said that 901am did not have any evidance how mybloglog track break a

Mystery Behind Britney Spears Madness Discovered [del.icio.us]

2007-08-09T16:11:28-07:00

Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly contemplative, I wonder why celebrities can be such raging a-holes. To be more specific, why Britney Spears is so outlandishly beyond hope at the tender age of 25. I would like think that if I had access to all of

80 Years of Women in Film [del.icio.us]

2007-08-08T14:23:55-07:00

Here's a lovely way to kick off your Wednesday. Anne Thompson linked to this a couple days ago on her Thompson on Hollywood blog, but I just now got around to checking it out ... it's a nice little video montage featuring 80 years of women in film, from M

The Power of Gabriel García Márquez [del.icio.us]

2007-08-07T16:57:22-07:00

Everyone from Clinton to Castro listens to him. But can he help rescue Colombia from left-wing guerrillas and right-wing death squads?

What is Magical Realism? [del.icio.us]

2007-08-07T16:55:41-07:00

A literary mode rather than a distinguishable genre, magical realism aims to seize the paradox of the union of opposites. For instance, it challenges polar opposites like life and death and the pre-colonial past versus the post-industrial present. Magical

Transformers conquer US cinemas [del.icio.us]

2007-08-07T14:56:03-07:00

Sci-fi blockbuster Transformers has entered the North American box office chart at number one, with takings of $67.6m (£33.6m) in its first weekend. The film has registered the highest first-week box office returns for a non-sequel in US cinema history,

Movie Review: Stardust (Updated) [del.icio.us]

2007-08-07T12:59:31-07:00

Everything but the enchanted kitchen sink shows up in the sprawling fairy tale "Stardust," including evil witches, airborne pirate ships, double-parked unicorns and Robert De Niro as a cross-dressing sea captain. Sprinkled with tongue-in-cheek humor, fair

Prevent Visitors from Downloading Images from Your Website [del.icio.us]

2007-08-06T15:11:29-07:00

I previously have posted "Isnaini banned from Adsense". Isnaini then ask Adsense to re-evaluate his account for it's Invalid Clicks.

Isnaini finally say good bye to Adsense [del.icio.us]

2007-08-06T14:59:37-07:00

I previously have posted "Isnaini banned from Adsense". Isnaini then ask Adsense to re-evaluate his account for it's Invalid Clicks. But, what's the result? And the answer is Adsense do not tolerate for Isnaini arguments. Adsense keep giving banned to Isn

Movie Review: Hot Rod [del.icio.us]

2007-08-06T14:15:07-07:00

There’s a scene in Hot Rod in which the titular moped daredevil tries to raise the money needed to finance his biggest stunt ever—jumping 15 school buses, exactly one more than Evel Knievel’s personal best—by screening a homemade documentary of hi

Movie Review: Stardust [del.icio.us]

2007-08-06T14:11:27-07:00

Pulled down from the heavens by an enchanted necklace belonging to the cruel King of Stormhold (Peter O’Toole, Venus), the celestial lady Yvaine (Claire Danes, Evening) lands unceremoniously in a crater in a far corner of the dying monarch’s magical k

a scepticism of adsense publisher in bahasa Indonesia [del.icio.us]

2007-08-06T10:33:47-07:00

Indonesian bloggers may be happy with the new Adsense policy that Adsense now support publisher in bahasa Indonesia. But you have to know that, you can only place search product in your site/blog. Adsense actually do not support ads content and referall p

Why did I have difficulty to get downline? [del.icio.us]

2007-08-06T10:24:18-07:00

“I am member of several businesses, but no one downline I got from them. I've tried to promote them by placing ads in some "line-advertisement" in order to increase traffic of my website, but this is do not give me anyone downline. What was the matter?

God of Small Things: From The Critics [del.icio.us]

2007-08-06T10:16:15-07:00

Arundhati Roy's rich, humid fairy tale of a novel begins in June, when the monsoon rains send the province of Kerala, in southwestern India, into fecund frenzy: "The countryside turns an immodest green ... Pepper vines snake up electric poles. Wild creepe

Isnaini has been banned from Adsense [del.icio.us]

2007-08-06T10:03:15-07:00

Today I am visiting Isnaini website and I am very surprised when reading his last posting entitled "Google AdSense Account Disabled". According to the posting, his google adsense account now has been banned for having invalid clicks. What is invalid click