The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
- Spielberg makes history personal with 'Lincoln'
- Twilight cast bids farewell at final premiere
- Buzz building for debut of Wii U videogame console
| Spielberg makes history personal with 'Lincoln' Posted: 13 Nov 2012 05:15 AM PST LOS ANGELES: Steven Spielberg said it was tough to persuade British actor Daniel Day-Lewis to play Abraham Lincoln - but the result was worth the struggle, winning rave reviews and Oscars speculation. "Lincoln," released in the United States this weekend, is an intimate portrait of the 16th US president as he struggles to change history by abolishing slavery amid the still-raging the Civil War. The veteran director had wanted to make a film about Lincoln, probably America's most revered president, who was assassinated in April 1865, for more than a decade. "I've just always had a personal fascination with the myth of Abraham Lincoln," he said ahead of the film's red carpet premier at the American Film Institute (AFI) festival, which traditionally starts the annual Oscars race. Spielberg lamented that Lincoln has been reduced to "a kind of cultural national stereotype," and no-one has made a film about him since 1939's "Young Mr. Lincoln" by John Ford, in which Henry Fonda played the president. The three-time Oscar-winning filmmaker decided from the start not to attempt to tell the Republican politician's whole life story, saying: "We would have been dilettantes as filmmakers and as actors. "We would have just been hitting all the high points and just giving you the headlines, and not giving you any sense of the depth of this character, this man," he told reporters. With screenwriter and playwright Tony Kushner - who won a Pulitzer prize for the play "Angels in America" in 1993 - Spielberg opted to focus on the final months of Lincoln's life and his battle to abolish slavery. The result is an intimate film mostly shot in interiors, apart from an opening battle scene, where the drama is driven by dialogue and a stellar cast including Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Day-Lewis's performance has already got some talking about the possibility he could win a third best actor Oscar to go with his golden statuettes for 1989's "My Left Foot" and 2008's "There will be blood." The actor, known for his pickiness in choosing roles, hesitated for a long time to portray a "life that has been mythologized to that extent." He said he wasn't sure he'd be able to take on the part "in such a way that you can get close enough to properly represent it." "Least of all did I want to be responsible for irrevocably staining the reputation of the greatest president this country's ever known," he added. Spielberg confirmed: "It was hard to get him to say yes," adding: "If he had finally and ultimately said no, I would never have made the movie Abraham Lincoln ... It'd be gone." The director added that he deliberately planned the film's US release - it comes out in January or February in most other countries - for after the US presidential elections to prevent it being used by either side politically. "There's a lot of confusion about the political ideologies of both parties, (which) have switched 180 degrees in 150 years. It's just too confusing, everybody claiming Lincoln as their own," he said. "I just wanted people to talk about the film, not talk about the election cycle. So I thought it was safer to let people talk about film during the election cycle in this run-up with ads on TV and posters going up and all that. "But the actual debut of the film should happen after the election's been decided. That was my feeling." - AFP |
| Twilight cast bids farewell at final premiere Posted: 13 Nov 2012 03:22 AM PST LOS ANGELES: Thousands of screaming fans lined the black carpet late on Monday for the final "Twilight" film premiere as the cast of "Breaking Dawn - Part 2" bid farewell to the franchise and its loyal followers. Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and other cast members greeted fans known as "Twi-hards," many of whom had camped out for days in downtown Los Angeles to catch a glimpse of their favorite actors and see the film before it is released in theaters on Friday. Breaking Dawn - Part 2 will see the love story of human Bella Swan (Stewart), vampire Edward Cullen (Pattinson) and werewolf Jacob Black (Lautner) come to a tantalizing end, when Bella and Edward are forced to protect their child from an ancient vampire coven. Stewart, who was finally able to embrace her wild side by playing Bella as a vampire, hoped people would enjoy the ultimate transformation of her character in the film. "Bella has worked pretty hard to get to the point where they can have it all, and it's fun to be there. She's always been human, but now that she's not, you're just in full blown vampire land and it feels funny in a great way," Stewart told Reuters. More than 2,200 fans from all over the world came to camp out on a concrete plaza in downtown Los Angeles last week, where Twilight movie studio Summit laid out activities and marathon screenings of the previous movies. All of the film's main actors spent time signing autographs and posing for photographs with the loyal fans who had camped out in chilly November weather over five days. Pattinson, who plays vampire Edward Cullen, said he hoped the fans would like the franchise's swan song. "I hope they feel it kind of respects them, because I think in a lot of ways that's what we were thinking when we were making it," the actor said. Lautner, who plays werewolf Jacob, said he'd be sad to say goodbye to the films and his character and hoped fans would be happy with the conclusion of the final film. "I'm feeling fantastic, sad, emotional, there's a lot of things going on inside of me right now but I'm just trying to soak up every moment because this means the world to me," Lautner said. The three lead stars were joined by fellow cast members including Nikki Reed, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Jackson Rathbone, Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning, as well as director Bill Condon and author Stephenie Meyer, whose Twilight novels kicked off the franchise and phenomenon. Meyer said she would miss watching the three lead cast members evolve as actors and characters in the films. "It's really been great to watch them grow up, particularly Kristen because her character gets to evolve so much in this film, and to watch her be all powerful and really get to where the character was always meant to go, to be the fiercest of the fierce, was really rewarding for me," the author said. - Reuters |
| Buzz building for debut of Wii U videogame console Posted: 12 Nov 2012 05:57 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO: Pre-orders for Wii U have been hot ahead of the Sunday release of the new Nintendo videogame console that the Japanese electronics titan hopes will catapult it to renewed glory. Nintendo is hoping for a repeat of the runaway success it had with original Wii consoles, which lured legions of "casual gamers" into the videogame world with the introduction of motion-sensing controls. Promising signs in the market included US consumer electronics chain Best Buy informing people that it was sold out of Wii U consoles for pre-order online but that they could try their luck at real-world stores on launch day. At Internet retail titan Amazon.com, Wii U consoles were being offered at opening prices hundreds of dollars above list prices of $300 for basic models and $350 for "deluxe sets." A grand Wii U event is planned at Nintendo World in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza on Saturday night ahead of the consoles going on sale there at midnight. "The Wii U is exactly what the game industry needs right now," said Tony Key, vice president of sales and marketing at French videogame star Ubisoft. "Consumers are looking for a fresh experience and to have fun, and this is our chance to deliver." Nintendo unveiled Wii U in June, vowing to start a trend in "asymmetrical play" that lets players using GamePad tablets have different in-game perspectives and roles than those using traditional wand controllers. "At its core, the Wii U does three different things," Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said during the unveiling. "Change your gaming, change how you interact with gaming friends and change the way you enjoy your TV," he continued. "It stands to revolutionize your living room." Nintendo has shown off a "TVii" application that lets people use the Wii U tablet-style "GamePad" controllers to access television programs or video online at services such as YouTube and Netflix. More than 50 games tailored for play on Wii U will be available when the consoles hit the market, according to Nintendo. Titles will include the latest installment in Ubisoft's blockbuster "Assassin's Creed" franchise and a version of beloved "Call of Duty" from Activision. "The integrated second screen of the GamePad creates new possibilities for how games can be played," said Activision chief executive Eric Hirshberg. "We're excited for our fans to experience the biggest franchises, like Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Skylanders Giants and Transformers Prime, in new ways made possible on Wii U." Ubisoft's Wii U lineup includes action, dance, fitness, adventure and sports titles. A "ZombiU" zombie killing game geared for mature audiences takes an ambitious approach to using the GamePad controller that is a key feature of the Wii U. Ubisoft designers turned the GamePad into a "survival kit" for players in the horror-action game. Ubisoft hits being tailored to take advantage of Wii U touch-screen controls included the company's iconic "Rayman" and the slapstick "rabbids." "People may not quite understand yet what is so special about the system because they haven't been able to experience it themselves," Key said. "That was the problem with the Wii too, and we saw how that turned out." Kyoto-based Nintendo is counting on the new Wii U to boost the company's fortunes the way the original Wii console did after its introduction in 2006. Nintendo said it aimed to sell 5.5 million units of the new Wii U by the end of March. The company has struggled against competition not only from traditional rivals such as PlayStation maker Sony and Microsoft's Xbox, but also cheap online games that can be downloaded to smartphones and tablet computers. - AFP |
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