The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
- China launches star-studded propaganda movie
- The Super 8 teens are ever ready for their close-ups.
- Stewart cuts wrist during taping of Weiner skit
| China launches star-studded propaganda movie Posted: 08 Jun 2011 06:24 AM PDT BEIJING (AP): Chinese movie stars gathered Wednesday to launch a blockbuster movie celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. The "Beginning of the Great Revival" traces developments between the 1911 revolution that overthrew imperial rule and the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party on July 31, 1921. It is part of a series of events in China marking the anniversary. It features many of the Chinese film industry's biggest names such as Andy Lau and Chow Yun-fat, who attended Wednesday's event. Director Han Sanping told a news conference the movie is better than 2009's "The Founding of a Republic," which told the story of the Communist Party winning power in 1949. China Film Group is hoping for a repeat of the success it had with "The Founding of a Republic" which made 415 million yuan ($61 million) at the box office, a large amount for China. Its success was helped by politically correct theater operators who flooded their properties with screenings. The "Beginning of the Great Revival" is likely to receive similar treatment. Communist China's founding father, Mao Zedong, is played by Chinese actor Liu Ye, best known to Western audiences for his roles in the Zhang Yimou imperial drama "Curse of the Golden Flower" and the drama "Dark Matter," which costarred Meryl Streep. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| The Super 8 teens are ever ready for their close-ups. Posted: 08 Jun 2011 02:08 AM PDT WHEN you are watching a J.J. Abrams' product, you know that you're in for a fantastic ride (well unless it's Mission Impossible III). His latest effort, Super 8, carries all the signatures of an Abrams' story – it has complex and likeable characters, at least one complicated parent-and-child relationship and a warped mystery. But Super 8 also has something extra – the most interesting and the most entertaining end credits which features a zombie movie shot on a Super 8 camera. Super 8, of course, refers to the Kodak film format that was a sensation among amateur filmmakers back in the 1960s. Abrams had one when he was 10 and he spent his childhood days making movies with his friends – now director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield and Let Me In) and cinematographer Larry Fong (300, Watchmen and Super 8). In those early days, Abrams' films consisted of monster movies with lots of crazy violent fights and chases with horrible-looking creatures. The short movie within the movie in Super 8 is no different. Abrams, who was in Singapore with his cast last week to promote Super 8, laughs and shares: "The whole idea was to treat it the way I treated my movies when I was at that age, which was badly. Part of it was I'd say to the young actors, 'this is the idea for a scene. Go out and write it.' And they'd come back like in 30 seconds with a scene. I would maybe do a little thing here and there because there were some things that I knew I wanted to do but most times, it was just fun letting them invest in the process of making this movie." For Riley Griffiths – who plays Charles Kasnick, the serious young director with a keen eye for production value – writing and making the short film gave him further insight to yet another area to filmmaking. "We pretty much got to write the whole thing. It showed us the other side of making a movie, like the producing and directing side. It was cool to come from the Super 8 set with all its realness and J.J. being the director and all that, then to go to this. It was fun, you could be as cheesy as you wanted to be and write those cheesy one-liners." Griffiths and Joel Courtney – who plays Joe Lamb, a kid who is really good at doing monster make-up and building models – are newcomers to the film industry, and had never even been on a movie set before Super 8. Their prowess is apparent on film, however. These young actors are so good, they make their characters so real that the audience is immediately pulled into the story emotionally. Their fellow actors are equally fantastic. Ryan Lee plays a teen obsessed with blowing things up, always fretting in the background with so much pent-up energy. Elle Fanning (Dakota's sister) is just so natural as Alice, the older girl that the boys have a crush on, that it's shocking to realise that she's actually the youngest in the cast – she was only 12 when Super 8 was filmed, and the boys were all 14. Ask the newcomers right now what they want to do when they grow up and they all say they are keen to pursue a career in acting. Courtney, now 15, who is originally from Idaho, sums it up nicely: "I really do love acting. I've only been doing for a year-and-a-half but I already know it is what I want to do." Abrams adds: "The way we found Joel was, he was attending an acting class in Seattle and we had a casting director there. What is great is that he was doing it with a dedication for the craft and learning how to do it. It was exciting to work with someone like that." Abrams describes the casting process as crazy; a movie could live or die based on the cast. His casting directors scoured the country, reached out to all their contacts, all in all a long yet tireless effort to get the right actors. But as Abrams points out, even when the right actors are found, it doesn't guarantee the right connection is automatically born when they are put together, especially so when the film's premise is about a group of good friends who share a common passion for making films. Fortunately, Courtney, Griffiths, Zach Mills, Lee, Gabriel Basso and Elle Fanning had no problems when they finally got together. "It was exciting watching them very quickly develop a dynamic. I just had to film them," says Abrams. There's no doubt the young actors have become close in the process of making the film. Even now, months after the shoot ended, it's obvious they enjoy each other's company immensely and have kept in touch – judging from all the laughing and talking that's heard in the hotel hallways before they are ushered into their respective interview rooms. Fanning elaborates: "I feel like we just all clicked instantly. All of us did. I met with J.J. beforehand and didn't know what the movie was about. He then auditioned all the guys and that's when I met Joel and I just knew we'd be friends for a lifetime." Griffiths agrees: "Going into this movie, obviously there's acting but there's a lot of just kids hanging out. We knew when to get serious, but there were times when we just couldn't hold in the laughter." One of the times they knew they had to get serious was during the film's early climatic scene – a train crash resulting in "something" escaping from its metal container. While bits of the accident were made up of visual effects, the aftermath was recreated on location with the young actors in the thick of the wreckage. Griffiths explains: "Everything that you see on the ground was really there. There was really the busted up train car everywhere and wood debris. We were actually able to do most of our stunts. I think, it's every teenager's dream to run through explosions, right? While that was really cool, it was hard at the same time because I had to gain 20 or 30 pounds for this movie, and whenever we were running, the hardest thing was to probably look cool and not totally be exhausted because that was the 10th take or whatever." Lee adds: "That time we had to be serious because there were times we could've easily got hurt – walking up to the train car with sharp metal sticking from the ground, we could've fallen and got hurt." While Lee has made guest appearances in shows like Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad, he counts his Super 8 experience as the one that taught him the most. This, he says, is especially thanks to Abrams. "J.J. told us to never change, be humble and just be regular kids. Something I will always take with me and I will always remember that J.J. was inspired by Steven and now we're inspired by J.J. I am hoping millions of kids around the world are inspired by Super 8 to pick a camera and make movies." According to Fanning, the kids of yester-year and today are not that different. They still have to deal with the same kind of problems – usually concerning family and relationships - even if the gadgets are much more advanced now. Courtney shares Fanning's view: "Nowadays, you see kids stuck with their iPhones, who won't get off their Xbox and PS3. I think it's really cool going back to 1979, only to realise we're not all that different. Back then the Super 8 was their iPhone. Nowadays, people shoot with their iPhones." The fact that these teenagers have such high regard for the film – and rightly so – may have something to do with how Abrams treats them. Kyle Chandler (of Friday Night Lights) – one of the few adults in the film, who portrays Joe's father and the town's deputy – makes this observation about the close relationship Abrams shares with his actors: "Part of the reason the movie is so darn good is these young actors were treated like young actors and not like kids. Even Joel – who has never acted before – he was very well taken care of. There's always a lot of love between the actors and the director, and that was one of the most interesting things for me here, watching that process." A father of three, Abrams admits this is his first time directing young actors. According to him, he knows that it's very hard to get children to focus on just one thing for too long. However he concedes that it is important for the actors to go with whatever real feelings they are experiencing as their characters, a freedom he gave the Super 8 cast. Abrams says: "That was what I wanted, I wanted them to have a life of their own. I didn't want them to be like robots, sitting there like professionals. And they always come together, in focus. It was worth it." – Mumtaj Begum Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Stewart cuts wrist during taping of Weiner skit Posted: 07 Jun 2011 09:42 PM PDT NEW YORK (AP): The story about a U.S. congresswoman's use of Twitter to send a lewd photo to a woman has been awkward for comic Jon Stewart, a friend of the lawmaker. On Tuesday, it proved painful. Stewart broke a glass and gashed his wrist while taping a skit about U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner on Comedy Central's satirical "The Daily Show." The taping was briefly stopped so a bleeding Stewart could get medical attention, then resumed after he was bandaged up. Network spokesman Steve Albani said the accident was left in Tuesday's show. Stewart and Weiner briefly roomed together when they were younger, a point "The Daily Show" host noted over the past week. That hasn't stopped Stewart from making fun of his friend, who admitted Monday to inappropriate online contact with women he met on social networks. Tuesday's skit featured Stewart in a mock news conference designed to resemble Weiner's from the day earlier. Stewart broke the glass when the script called for him to make a margarita. The show posted a picture of Stewart's bandaged wrist and a bloodstained cuff of his shirt. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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