The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
- Bin Laden movie based on first hand account, says director
- New Zealand turns to Middle Earth as Hobbit mania takes hold
- Jackman welcomes 'Les Miserables' Oscar buzz
| Bin Laden movie based on first hand account, says director Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:17 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The makers of a Hollywood movie about the U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden denied asking for classified material for their film, but say they did conduct interviews with a CIA officer and others at the heart of the decade-long hunt for the al Qaeda leader. "It was all based on first-hand accounts so it really felt very vivid and very vital and very, very immediate and visceral of course which is very exciting as a filmmaker," Kathryn Bigelow, director of Zero Dark Thirty, told ABC News in an interview airing on Monday. Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal said in a Nightline interview that they were originally working on a film about the failed bid to find bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan during the U.S-led invasion there in 2001. But their plans changed swiftly after U.S. President Barack Obama announced in May 2011 that a Navy commando unit had killed bin Laden in a compound in Pakistan. "I picked up the phone and started calling sources and asking them what they knew and taking referrals and knocking on doors and really approached it as comprehensively as I could," Boal told Nightline according to an advance excerpt. "I certainly did a lot of homework, but I never asked for classified material," he said. "To my knowledge I never received any." The release of Zero Dark Thirty - seen as a strong contender for Oscar nominations - was pushed back to December after the film got caught up earlier this year in a U.S. election year controversy. The U.S. admiral who oversaw the secret operation in May denied a claim that the Obama administration arranged for Bigelow and Boal to be given special access to top officials while researching their movie. The film reconstructs the hunt for bin Laden largely through the eyes of a young female CIA officer, played by Jessica Chastain, who helps find him through a long-forgotten courier. Obama only makes a fleeting appearance in the film. "It was a couple of months into the research when I heard about a woman, part of the team, and she has played a big role and she had gone to Jalalabad and been deployed with the SEALs on the night of the raid," Boal told ABC News reporter Martha Raddatz in the Nightline interview. While some of the dialogue is word for word and based on interviews with the young CIA officer and others, some of the dialogue is dramatized, said the Oscar-winning makers of 2008's The Hurt Locker, about a U.S. Army bomb disposal team during the Iraq War. The assault on bin Laden's Pakistan compound was recreated as accurately as possible, using a full-scale version built in Jordan. The floor, the tile, the carpet, the furniture and the marks on the walls were copied from images seen in ABC News footage that Bigelow said they reviewed frame by frame. Zero Dark Thirty opens in U.S. movie theaters on 19 December. Nominations for the 2013 Academy Awards are announced on 10 January ahead of the 24 February Oscar ceremony. |
| New Zealand turns to Middle Earth as Hobbit mania takes hold Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:09 PM PST WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand's capital city was rushing to complete its transformation into a haven for hairy feet and pointed ears on Tuesday as stars jetted in for the long-awaited world premiere of the first movie of the Hobbit trilogy. Wellington, where director Peter Jackson and much of the post production is based, has renamed itself "the Middle of Middle Earth", as fans held costume parties and city workers prepared to lay 500 meters of red carpet. A specially Hobbit-decorated Air New Zealand jet brought in cast, crew and studio officials for the premiere. Jackson, a one-time printer at a local newspaper and a hometown hero, said he was still editing the final version of the Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey ahead of Wednesday's premiere screening. The Hobbit movies are based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book and tell the story that leads up to his epic fantasy The Lord Of The Rings, which Jackson made into three Oscar-winning films about 10 years ago. It is set 60 years before The Lord Of The Rings and was originally planned as only two movies before it was decided that there was enough material to justify a third. New Zealand fans were getting ready to claim the best spots to see the film's stars, including British actor Martin Freeman, who plays the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, and Elijah Wood. "It's been a 10-year wait for these movies, New Zealand is Tolkien's spiritual home, so there's no way we're going to miss out," said office worker Alan Craig, a self-confessed Lord of the Rings "nut". The production has been at the centre of several controversies, including a dispute with unions in 2010 over labour contracts that resulted in the government stepping in to change employment laws, and giving Warner Brothers increased incentives to keep the production in New Zealand. "The Hobbit did come very close to not being filmed here," Jackson told Radio New Zealand. He said Warners had sent scouts to Britain to look at possible locations and also matched parts of the script to shots of the Scottish Highlands and English forests. "That was to convince us we could easily go over there and shoot the film ... and I would have had to gone over there to do it but I was desperately fighting to have it stay here," Jackson said. Last week, an animal rights group said more than 20 animals, including horses, pigs and chickens, had been killed during the making of the film. Jackson has said some animals used in the film died on the farm where they were being housed, but that none had been hurt during filming. The films are also notable for being the first filmed at 48 frames per second (fps), compared with the 24 fps that has been the industry standard since the 1920s. The second film The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug will be released in December next year, with the third The Hobbit: There And Back Again due in mid-July 2014. |
| Jackman welcomes 'Les Miserables' Oscar buzz Posted: 26 Nov 2012 07:33 PM PST SYDNEY: The screen adaptation of "Les Miserables" is being talked about as Oscar material and its star Hugh Jackman has welcomed the buzz as recognition of how hard it is to transform a musical to the screen. The star-studded film version of the stage musical debuted to critics at screenings in New York, London, Los Angeles and Sydney last weekend and it won lavish praise, with reports of standing ovations. Showbiz.com tipped Jackman as a contender for the best actor Academy Award for his role as Jean Valjean, the ex-prisoner who creates a successful new life for himself. The Universal Studios movie, directed by Tom Hooper who won an Oscar for "The King's Speech", also features fellow Australian Russell Crowe as Jackman's nemesis Inspector Javert and leading lady Anne Hathaway as Fantine. Jackman said he had not seen the final cut until the Sydney viewing and he was "pretty blown away by it". "I think everyone understands that musical movies are probably the Mount Everest of movies," he told ABC television. "There's so many elements that need to come together. Les Mis has so much pedigree, not only in world literature, but as probably one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. "So there was a lot at risk, but I loved it, I really loved it." The stage version has been seen by more than 60 million people in 42 countries and in 21 languages around the globe, and is still breaking box-office records in its 27th year. Jackman, who made his name on the stage but is best known for his role as Wolverine in the "X-Men" movie series, said his latest role, set against the backdrop of 19th century France, was the hardest of his career so far. "There's no doubt that of all the things I feel I can do, this demanded more than anything," he said. "As a pedigree of work, it's probably higher than anything else I've been in. The director, the ensemble, it was certainly one of those projects that felt like a once in a lifetime event." It makes the early Oscar buzz all the more satisfying for the Sydney-based star. "I would love nothing better than for the film to get recognised because I know how hard everyone worked and what was at stake, and we all know how musicals, when they don't come out well, can stink to high heaven," he said. "So, any kind of positive buzz, of course I'm happy." - AFP |
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