The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
| Posted: 07 Sep 2011 04:47 AM PDT Jessica Chastain inspired Al Pacino's Wilde Salome. AL Pacino's movie Wilde Salome is a complicated examination of Oscar Wilde's once-forbidden play about illicit love and revenge. But his inspiration was simple: Jessica Chastain. "There is Jessica Chastain, who I really believe is the reason I made the movie," Pacino said Sunday ahead of the film's long-awaited world premiere in a side event at the Venice Film Festival. "As soon as I met her, and saw her, I thought: This is the person to play 'Salome' and I must get her to play it before the world picks up on her – which it has done – and turns her into the next big star." Wilde Salome has been so long in the making that the role was Chastain's first on film. She is, of course, by now a familiar face to moviegoers, having appeared in Terrence Malick's recent sprawling drama The Tree Of Life and now in theatres with The Debt and The Help. Chastain said she and Pacino workshopped the play for over a year, in New York and Los Angeles, then rehearsed for a month on stage before filming on a soundstage, which made her very familiar with the character. "I was always thinking of Salome, and I was taking dance lessons, and everything I could do to try to approach it," she told a news conference in Venice. The resulting film is a tour-de-force tribute to Oscar Wilde and Salome, the 1891 play that he originally wrote in French to tell the story of Herod's obsession for his wife's daughter, culminating with Salome's vengeful demand for the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter. Pacino's Wilde Salome defies easy definition, weaving together a documentary on Wilde's life, footage of a reading of the play in Los Angeles and a film version of the play. "It's not a documentary. It's not a film. It's a much more ambitious and complicated gesture of cinema," Pacino said. "I wanted to make a kind of collage." The director acknowledged that his ambition left him unsure how to pull the project together – and he let it percolate for long periods. Wilde Salome is in the tradition of his 1996 film Looking For Richard, a documentary that Pacino said he directed in an attempt to make Shakespeare more accessible to Americans. But Pacino said Wilde Salome is more personal. "I think there was this idea of creating something that would reveal things about myself, also. Because I interject myself as a kind of goofy guy, or someone who is trying to deal with the process ... the creative process," Pacino said. Pacino, the actor, appears as Herod in both the play reading performances staged at the Wadsworth Theatre, with the actors wearing modern clothes, and in the film version, which he said he intends to edit in its own right. He also pops up wearing a headdress and leading a camel through the desert in a Salome staging with a completely different cast. Pacino, the filmmaker, travels to Dublin, London, Paris and New York as he pieces together Wilde's life story, interviewing such figures as Gore Vidal; Wilde's grandson, Merliln Holland; and Wilde aficionado and fellow Irishman Bono. Bono also agreed to allow the filmmakers to use for free his 12-year-old song Salome, which plays as the credits roll. The most personal revealing moments, however, were when Pacino was shown puzzling through the process. After watching the first cut, he sat there not saying anything for a few moments, then stood up and announced the crew had more work to do and walked out. "At one point, I said I wasn't going to look at the movie for five month because I didn't know where to go with it," Pacino said. "Finally, after five months I took a look and I sort of knew where to go. ... Part of my luck was it worked." But he did learn one lesson. "I tell you, I recommend having a script, to myself, too," Pacino said. "I say it every day, 'I'm going to have a script the next time.' If there is one." In a ceremony in Venice on Sunday evening, Pacino was awarded the Jaeger-Lecoultre Glory to the Filmmaker 2011 prize, in recognition of his contributions to contemporary cinema. – AP |
| Posted: 07 Sep 2011 04:46 AM PDT Game Of Thrones has ample plot twists, cliff-hangers, political intrigue and brilliantly developed characters. WHEN you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die. So says Cersei Lannister, one of the main characters of HBO's fantasy epic Game Of Thrones. Similarly, when you adapt a book like A Game Of Thrones, you either win, or you fail spectacularly. Fortunately, Game Of Thrones is one huge win for fans of medieval fantasy series, especially fans of George R. R. Martin's sprawling fantasy series A Song Of Ice And Fire. The production of the show is lavish and wonderfully detailed, and the cast is a brilliant ensemble of seasoned fantasy character actors and new faces. As testament to just how good the show is, it was nominated for 13 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Casting For A Drama Series, and Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series for Peter Dinklage. Not bad for a fantasy series, eh? Based on the first book of Martin's series, Game Of Thrones is set in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, it revolves around the fortunes of one of the kingdom's main families, or "Houses" – House Stark, who reside in the Northern, wintry fortress of Winterfell. Led by the lord of Winterfell, Eddard Stark (Sean Bean, formerly Boromir from Lord Of The Rings), the family includes Stark's wife Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) and their children – eldest son Robb (Richard Madden), the fair and Barbie-like Sansa (Sophie Turner), feisty tomboy Arya (Maisie Williams), adventurous Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) and the infant Rickon (Art Parkinson). Rounding up the family is one of the series' main protagonists, Lord Eddard's bastard son Jon Snow (Kit Harington). After a somewhat slow but necessary introduction to House Stark, the story really starts to get going when the King of the Seven Kingdoms, Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy), visits Winterfell, and appoints Lord Stark to be his Hand (or advisor) at the kingdom's capital, King's Landing. Among the king's entourage are his queen, Cersei (Lena Heady, who used to play Sarah Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), and her two brothers from the rich, powerful and notoriously ruthless House Lannister – the dashing Jaime aka the Kingslayer (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and the cunning dwarf Tyrion (Peter Dinklage). As events unfold, the Stark family is forced apart and the story separates into two main forks – one follows Lord Stark as he struggles with the political situation in King's Landing while the other focuses on Jon Snow, who decides to join the Sworn Brothers of the Night's Watch at The Wall, an imposing structure that protects the Seven Kingdoms from an unknown, ancient enemy that resides in the Northern lands beyond it. Confused yet? Well, brace yourselves, there's more. Across the Narrow Sea on another continent, Viserys (Harry Lloyd) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), the exiled son and daughter of the deposed King Targaryen (the king that King Baratheon overthrew), hatch a plot to win back the throne that rightfully belongs to House Targaryen. Viserys marries his sister off to Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa, otherwise known as the new Conan the Barbarian), the leader of the nomadic horsemen clan the Dothraki, in return for their allegiance. Speaking as a fan of the novels myself (I happened to think it is one of the best modern fantasy series today), I was pleasantly surprised at how faithful the show is to Martin's plot. Despite the huge cast of characters and the numerous sub-plots, the show manages to keep the story relatively easy to follow by loosely mirroring Martin's technique of telling each "chapter" of the story from the point of view of a single character. Be warned though, the show tends to be rather dialogue-heavy, especially in the first half of the season. However, it picks up significantly from episode six onwards, as the political intrigue is ramped up a notch, and backs start getting stabbed and the heads start rolling. It may not have as much magic and swordfights as you might expect from most fantasy movies or series, but it makes up for that with lots of twists, cliff-hangers, political intrigue, and brilliantly developed characters. While most of the cast give great performances, the magnificently noble Bean obviously hogs most of the limelight in this first season (by the way, can someone please get him a happier role in a fantasy show next time?). Heady also exudes venomous charm as the ruthless Cersei, while Aidan Gillen is brilliant as the deliciously scheming Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, King Robert's Master of Coin. One person, however, stands tall (figuratively speaking) amongst the rest of the cast – Dinklage, who thoroughly deserves his Emmy nomination as the silver-tongued Tyrion Lannister. From the perspective of a fan of the book, it does tend to give one a sense of immense dread while you're watching it, since I also happened to be reading the latest book, A Dance With Dragons. It was even more distressing to see events from the first book unfold on the TV screen, especially when you already know the (often tragic) fate of many of the characters throughout the series. Still, whether or not you are a fan of the books, Game Of Thrones is still a triumph for fantasy adaptations. It proves that a medieval fantasy series doesn't have to be all about long-drawn battle scenes or over-the-top magical antics. Looks like HBO has won the game of thrones after all. Now let's see how they'll do next season with A Clash Of Kings … > Two new episodes of Game Of Thrones premiere every Sunday. Repeats are on Wednesdays at 10pm and 11pm (HBO and HBO HD, respectively). |
| Posted: 07 Sep 2011 02:58 AM PDT THE 2011 Venice film festival which opened last Wednesday comes to a close on Saturday. After last year's low-key affair, this year has seen a flurry A-list stars on the red carpet and several eagerly awaited productions making their debuts. These are some of the noteworthy movies that are making their presence felt: > Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Swedish director Tomas Alfredson tackles John Le Carre's 1974 classic Cold War spy thriller, with a stellar cast including Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and John Hurt. British viewers will inevitably compare it to the classic television version featuring Alec Guinness as George Smiley, the espionage veteran brought out of semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet agent who has infiltrated British intelligence. > Wuthering Heights: British festival favourite Andrea Arnold gives her take on the Emily Bronte novel, which was famously adapted in 1939 in a version starring Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff. On the festival's website, the director hints in a statement that this will be a hard-hitting version: "The novel by Emily Bronte is full of violence, death and cruelty. Living with that for the last 18 months has been hard.'' > The Ides of March: George Clooney was handed the coveted opening film slot for his movie based on Beau Willimon's play Farragut North. The film is set in the near future in the world of American politics during the Democratic primaries for the presidential election. Ryan Gosling potrays an idealistic young press secretary to governor Mike Morris (Clooney) who is drawn into a dangerous game of deceit and corruption. > A Dangerous Method: David Cronenberg renews his partnership with actor Viggo Mortensen for this "dark tale of sexual and intellectual discovery'' based on the lives of fledgling psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and his mentor Sigmund Freud (Mortensen). Between them comes the beautiful Sabina Spielrein, played by Keira Knightley, based on the real-life psychoanalyst rumoured to have had an affair with Jung. > Killer Joe: William Friedkin, the American director behind such classics as The French Connection and The Exorcist, is in Venice with Killer Joe about a detective, played by Matthew McConaughey, who is also a hit man for hire. In his director's statement, Friedkin calls it a Cinderella story and, despite its dark themes, "quite humorous.'' > Carnage: Franco-Polish director Roman Polanski worked on the script of Carnage while under house arrest in Switzerland in 2010. The 78-year-old behind movies Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby was freed after the Swiss authorities decided not to extradite him to the United States, where he was wanted for sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 in Los Angeles. Unsurprisingly, Polanski is not expected to leave France for Italy to attend the world premiere, although members of his cast including Kate Winslet and Jodie Foster are. The movie is about two sets of New York parents who meet up after their children are involved in a brawl. > Faust: Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov is a favourite on the European festival circuit for movies like the single-take Russian Ark and his "power trilogy'' based on the lives of Hitler, Lenin and Hirohito. In fact, Sokurov has called Faust the fourth instalment in the series, adding: "The symbolic image of Faust completes this series of great gamblers who lost the most important wagers of their lives.'' > Tahrir 2011 (out of competition): A three-part documentary on the recent revolution in Egypt is likely to generate significant media interest given the relevance of the subject matter to what is happening in north Africa today. The film is divided into three parts - The Good, The Bad, The Politician - all directed by different people. > La Desintegration: Philippe Faucon, a Morocco-born French director, is the latest film maker to tackle the theme of radical Islam. Set in contemporary Lille, three young Muslims get to know the older Djamel who gradually "indoctrinates'' them. Faucon has criticised cinema's treatment of the subject, and said he believed that society was, at least in part, to blame for extremist religious views and acts. "In my film, the radical, violent shift also has a metaphorical sense: it is the symptom that reveals a fatal condition in society.'' > W.E.: Pop superstar Madonna presented her second feature film, loosely based on American divorcee Wallis Simpson whose relationship with King Edward VIII led him to abdicate the throne in 1936. Madonna's track record on the big screen has been patchy, with her performance as Eva Peron in Evita lauded but that in erotic thriller Body Of Evidence derided. Her directorial debut, the 2008 comedy drama Filth And Wisdom, was generally poorly received by critics. – Reuters |
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