The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
| Red Lights - Thriller with supernatural overtones Posted: 16 Nov 2012 04:42 AM PST A Spanish filmmaker sees a future in making supernatural-themed movies. Some years ago, Rodrigo Cortes was in Hollywood trying to find support for a film he had written when he happened to read a script about a man buried in a coffin while still alive. He thought the screenplay was brilliant. "Nobody wanted it. They thought it was impossible to film. Everyone in Hollywood thought the material was great, but that it was not meant to be a movie. "I became obsessed with it," says the 39-year-old Spanish filmmaker. Written by screenwriter Chris Sparling, the entire story takes place inside the coffin, with the only visible character that of the trapped man. Conventional wisdom ruled that no one would watch a film that felt so claustrophobic, even if a director could get around the technical difficulties of filming inside a box barely large enough to hold one person, much less making it visually interesting. "I wanted to do it, maybe because it was such a foolish idea," says Cortes. Actor Ryan Reynolds believed in the project and signed on. His cachet helped raise the production budget of US$2mil (RM6mil). Buried was a sensation at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010, winning notices for the technical brilliance of the directing and Reynolds' gripping performance. It has now earned 10 times its cost of production. The film that Cortes was trying to produce before he was sidetracked by Buried is Red Lights, which opens in Malaysia this week. Compared with the minimalist casting of Buried, his first English-language feature, Red Lights, a thriller with supernatural overtones, is bursting at the seams with A-listers. They include Robert De Niro, Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy and Toby Jones. Like Reynolds in Buried, "the actors are in this film because they want to be in it", not because they are being paid their usual fee, says Cortes in a phone interview from from Salamanca, a city in the west of Spain, where he is doing research for his next film. The stars of Red Lights are taking far less than their usual amount to meet the film's US$15mil (RM45mil) budget. The story takes place in the United States, but to stretch his money, Cortes filmed the interior shots in Barcelona, Spain, and the exteriors in Toronto, Canada, dressed up slightly to look like an American city. To be working with screen icons such as De Niro in only his second English-language feature posed an interesting challenge for Cortes. "You have to disconnect your brain, in a way. If you focus on it, you are going to die, under the pressure of his legend," he says. Directing these veterans proved to be easy, he says, in that they are no different from other experienced actors he has worked with in their enthusiasm and willingness to serve the character. Cortes, born in the north-western region of Galicia, speaks English fluently though not in an idiomatic way. He had always intended for the story of Red Lights to be set in the United States, and for the protagonists to be Americans. He wrote the script in Spanish, then worked with a translator to produce a version in English. The story comments on the revered status of magicians such as David Blaine, he says, but the character of the superstar psychic Simon Silver (De Niro) also bears the traits of the televangelist and the demagogue politician. "There is a huge business in the US. It is fascinating to see this need to believe and how it has become showbusiness," he says. Because Red Lights pits the supernatural against the rational and is structured as a thriller with a surprise ending, there has been some comparison between Red Lights and the works of M. Night Shyamalan. It has not helped that the film's poster bears the phrase "This year's Sixth Sense". Cortes dislikes that phrase because it sets up the wrong expectations, but there is little he can do, he says. This is the nature of the business. For distributors, films are just products that need to be packaged in formats familiar to the consumer, he says. "That is what happens when movies are released. For a couple of months, they are like hamburgers." – The Straits Times Singapore/Asia News Network |
| Posted: 15 Nov 2012 11:25 PM PST World War Z AFTER much delay, World War Z, the movie based on Max Brooks' brilliant book, is finally here. The book tells of how the world went from bad to worse through interviews conducted by a journalist who goes to different parts of the globe. He speaks to a survivor who reveals what went on at a place where he was when the world was fighting an unstoppable zombie outbreak – also known as World War Z. The film looks somewhat different. It focuses on one United Nations employee (played by Brad Pitt) who must race against time to stop the outbreak of a deadly zombie pandemic. But from the trailer it's obvious that they haven't totally abandoned the concept of the book, as our hero goes to other parts of the world to see what's going on. Its hook is definitely the scene in which a massive number of zombies are trying to get over a wall. Quickly read the awesome best-selling book before the film comes to our cinemas on June 20, 2013. |
| Posted: 15 Nov 2012 11:25 PM PST The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part Two — Stephenie Meyer's drawn-out tale about a teenager finding herself after falling in love with a vampire reaches the end. Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Rise Of The Guardians — The Easter Bunny, Jack Frost, Mr Sandman, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy must work together when darkness threatens the innocence of children around the world. Featuring the voices of Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Isla Fisher and Jude Law. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower — Author Stephen Chbosky directs the adaptation of his book of the same name. It revolves around an introverted freshman who finds his place in the world when two seniors befriend him. This film is featured in Golden Screen Cinemas' International Screens and stars Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller. |
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