The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
- 'Trekkies' break world record at London convention
- Veteran film-maker Yash Chopra dies at 80
- 'Paranormal Activity 4' haunts top of movie charts
| 'Trekkies' break world record at London convention Posted: 21 Oct 2012 11:19 PM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - Star Trek fans made history on Saturday by breaking the record for the largest gathering of people dressed as characters from the TV series at the Destination Star Trek London convention. An estimated 1,083 costume-clad "trekkies" assembled at the event at London's ExCel centre, narrowly beating the previous record of 1,040 characters, which was set at the bigger, annual Star Trek convention in Las Vegas in August. The achievement will be officially verified by Guinness World Records within a few days, but organisers were confident they had topped the Las Vegas record. The majority of record-breakers dressed in the colour-blocked uniforms of the Starfleet, with Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans peppering the crowd. Trekkie Mark Whitfield went to extreme lengths to participate, wearing a full-body suit to emulate a mugato, a beast from Star Trek: The Original Series. "It looks silly, it's just a gorilla suit painted white with horns on it. It's very, very hot. In fact, I was on the verge of collapse when a very kind person gave me a bottle of water because I dehydrated quite badly," he said. Destination Star Trek London is the first live Star Trek event in Britain for over a decade. Around 17,000 fans came to London to celebrate the 46-year-old TV and film franchise, which has spawned six television series and 11 feature films. NERDS Dawn Harris, 26, who had created an Orion slave girl costume and painted herself metallic green, said there was great enthusiasm for the world record attempt. "There just hasn't been a convention in the UK for so long. So I think everyone wants to be involved in everything as much as they can. Everybody saw that guy jump out of a plane in space so people are drawn to things like that," she said, referring to Felix Baumgartner's record-breaking jump from a balloon near the edge of space last Sunday. "Nerds like achieving missions. We've been set a quest and it must be achieved," Harris's fiancé, Ryan Croft, added. Outlandish costumes were ubiquitous at the event, which saw Britain's first Klingon wedding on Friday. Swedish couple Jossie Sockertopp and Sonnie Gustavsson tied the knot in full Klingon attire and exchanged vows in the fictional and guttural-sounding language of the Star Trek characters. The three-day convention also saw all five captains from the TV series appear on stage together for the first time. The captains played by actors William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Avery Brooks (Captain Sisko), Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway) and Scott Bakula (Captain Archer) joined forces to officially open the convention on Friday night. Speaking ahead of the opening ceremony, 81-year-old Shatner appeared moved when discussing the show's loyal and sometimes obsessive fans in an interview with Reuters. "It's an accumulation of a lot of work and a lot of people travelling from all over the world here. It's sort of monumental in its worth," Shatner said. The veteran actor turned filmmaker has released the documentary Get A Life!, which examines why fans attend conventions. "The conclusion that I come to is that it's (Star Trek) mythological," Shatner told Reuters. "It's a desire for mythology that we don't have in this age." |
| Veteran film-maker Yash Chopra dies at 80 Posted: 21 Oct 2012 09:10 PM PDT MUMBAI (Reuters) - Veteran film-maker Yash Chopra, known as India's king of celluloid romance, died on Sunday just weeks after announcing he would not direct any more movies. He was 80. A Yash Raj Films spokeswoman said Chopra died in the evening. The film-maker had been admitted to a Mumbai hospital last week and was being treated for dengue fever. "I'm in shock and numb, can't believe the news, the man who immortalised love, Mr. Yash Chopra is no more," actor Akshay Kumar said on Twitter. Chopra is survived by his wife Pamela and two sons -- Aditya and Uday. Born in 1932 in Lahore, now in Pakistan, Chopra was favoured by leading Indian actors with his movies seen as a sure-fire way to become a hit with audiences. The film-maker proved his mettle with intensely emotional and tragic movies, many of which went on to become box-office blockbusters. Chopra's Bollywood career spanned five decades, and at an event marking his 80th birthday last month, Chopra narrated how he came to Mumbai with 200 rupees in his pocket, hoping to make it as a film director. Since then, Chopra made some of Indian cinema's most memorable films -- such as Deewar, Kabhi Kabhie, Silsila and Chandni. His flamboyant style of film-making, movies filmed in exotic locales and mellifluous music became a hallmark, endearing him to filmgoers. Chiffon sarees and the Swiss Alps are so synonymous with Chopra's style of film-making that Switzerland Tourism even offered visitors a guided tour of the places where the director filmed some of his most famous songs and scenes. Riding on his success, Chopra established Yash Raj Films, one of Bollywood's biggest production houses, churning out at least three movies a year. In November, the film studio announced its foray into Hollywood, signing on actors such as Nicole Kidman and Jason Bateman for its overseas productions. Chopra also produced Indian cinema's longest-running blockbuster, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), which marked the debut of his son Aditya as director. "I have never made romantic films. I have made films on human relations, and humans are complicated people," he said at the event in September. Jab Tak Hai Jaan, with Chopra at the helm for the last time, opens in cinemas in November, eight years after his last project Veer-Zaara, a passionate tale of love across borders. The film features Shah Rukh Khan, one of Bollywood's biggest stars, along with Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma. |
| 'Paranormal Activity 4' haunts top of movie charts Posted: 21 Oct 2012 08:22 PM PDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The fourth Paranormal Activity fright flick crept into the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office with US$30.2 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales. Iran hostage thriller Argo earned US$16.6 million and took second place, studio estimates released on Sunday showed. Two-time box office leader Taken 2 fell to the No. 4 spot with US$13.4 million from Friday through Sunday. Low-budget Paranormal Activity 4 opened short of distributor Paramount's projection for at least US$35 million in domestic receipts during the movie's lead off weekend. The film also trailed its predecessor in the haunted house series. The third Paranormal rung up US$53 million in its debut last October. But with US$26.5 million more from international markets, the fourth installment already had grossed far more than its tiny production budget of US$5 million. "We're thrilled," said Don Harris, Paramount's president of domestic distribution. "It was in a slightly more crowded market than a year ago." The strong showing for the film bodes well for more to follow. "It is highly likely that we will do another," he said. The new Paranormal chronicles the strange events that haunt a neighborhood after a woman and her young son move in. As in the earlier films, the movie uses a "found footage" style by capturing mysterious encounters with invisible forces on surveillance cameras. The franchise produced by Jason Blum has brought in big bucks since the original hit theaters in 2009. The first three Paranormal films grabbed US$577 million in global ticket sales. Each movie was produced for US$5 million or less. Receipts for "Argo" dropped 15 percent from a week earlier. The movie has earned glowing reviews from critics and a rare "A+" grade from audiences polled by CinemaScore. Argo is based on the real-life rescue of U.S. government employees from Iran in 1979 under the guise of a fake movie production. Ben Affleck directs and stars in the film. In fourth place, Taken 2 stars Liam Neeson as a former spy who is kidnapped in Istanbul. The action film has grossed US$105.9 million through three weekends. In the No. 3 slot, family movie Hotel Transylvania pulled in US$13.5 million at North American (U.S. and Canadian) theaters. Global sales for the animated film reached US$119 million through Sunday. Alex Cross starring Tyler Perry debuted in fifth place with US$11.7 million domestically, was on the mark with the predictions by distributor Summit Entertainment. The movie features Perry outside of the popular comedic role of Madea that he created. In Alex Cross, the actor plays a psychologist and homicide detective in hot pursuit of a serial killer played by Matthew Fox. The film is based on the character at the center of a series of best-selling crime novels by James Patterson. Paramount Studios, a unit of Viacom Inc released Paranormal Activity 4. Argo was distributed by Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc. Taken 2 was released by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp. Sony Corp's film studio released Hotel Transylvania. Alex Cross was distributed by Summit Entertainment, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment, in the United States. |
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