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Posted: 20 Dec 2012 04:58 AM PST

Jack Reacher's only possessions are his name, his passport and his toothbrush. And no baggage to hold him back.

IT IS never easy casting an actor for a film that's based on a book. No matter who is chosen, it's going to upset someone, from the author to the fans. This is exactly what happened when director Christopher McQuarrie picked Tom Cruise to play the title character in the film Jack Reacher, which is based on the novels by Lee Child.

In the books, Reacher is described as a 1.96m-tall (six-foot-five) guy with dirty blond hair, and there's no mention of a megawatt smile anywhere in their pages.

Cruise obviously does not come to mind from such a description, but McQuarrie – who was a writer on the actor's World War 2 thriller Valkyrie – just knew that he was the perfect actor to play Jack Reacher.

His choice was informed by what he knew of Cruise: an extremely calm person (Oprah Winfrey's couch notwithstanding) when faced with crisis, who is also pragmatic and strong-willed – all qualities that Jack Reacher possesses.

All the same, when McQuarrie had to propose the star's name to Child, he was a little nervous.

In an interview transcript provided by UIP Malaysia, McQuarrie recalled: "When we went to meet Lee to talk about casting Tom, there was a very carefully prepared speech – the rationale that led up to that decision. All of it was very carefully articulated and, quite frankly, all of it was inevitable.

"And when we got to the end of the speech, Lee just said, 'why wouldn't I want the biggest movie star in the world to play this character?' It was great.

"I feel some sympathy for Lee because I know there is a backlash from some of the fans. They feel that Lee has compromised and 'oh yeah, they wrote him a big cheque.'

"But that's not it at all. He was really a collaborator in this process and we were all functioning on a higher plane in terms of what meant the most to us about this character. And I knew right from the beginning that no one was going to get it like Tom was going to get it.

"More importantly, nobody was going to be as in synch with me as a storyteller. I didn't want to fight with the actor playing this role. Tom and I come from very different places in the universe with very different philosophies of filmmaking.

"If we have anything in common, it's our sense of story. Put us in two different rooms, give us the same story to tell, and I would say we'll tell that story the same way to a degree of 99%."

Cruise really became a collaborator on the film when he suggested to McQuarrie to turn a very simple sequence (in which Reacher crashes his car and runs off) into one of the film's signature set pieces. What he ended up with is Reacher driving a classic Chevrolet Chevelle through the streets of Pittsburgh, pursued at high speed by police cars. And since the leading man is also an experienced and professional driver, Cruise did most of the stunt driving himself. McQuarrie said: "What people won't realise when they watch that car chase is that it required Tom to do a lot of the sequence after a full day of shooting with the main unit.

"You're talking 24-hour days. No days off. A 30-minute nap between an all-nighter with the action unit and a long day with the main unit. In the end we shot five nights with the main unit and 12 days with the action unit without going over budget or over schedule."

The production did, however, encounter some bumps along the way. "There's a shot where Tom is standing on a bridge. The camera is mounted on a car and it does a 180-degree turn as it passes him, requiring a special rig. At sunset, by the way.

"But the city of Pittsburgh would only give us control of one lane of traffic, which meant we couldn't close the bridge. The only way to get the shot would be to leave Tom on the bridge alone.

"Every take would require us to drive in a huge loop around downtown Pittsburgh during rush hour, with Tom waiting for us to come by. And when I explained to Tom that this was the only way, he said, 'well then, that's how we have to do it.'

"So there was Tom with nothing but a walkie-talkie on a highway bridge at rush hour. Meanwhile, we're stuck in traffic trying to get to him. And he's waiting. At a certain point he's thinking, 'Did they leave me in the right place? Where is everybody?' Cars are driving by and people are looking out of their windows thinking: 'Is that Tom Cruise just standing on the bridge in rush hour traffic?' I don't know another actor at that level who would comfortably do that."

The plot of Jack Reacher is drawn from one of Child's 17 Jack Reacher novels entitled One Shot. Reacher is a former military investigator who doesn't say much but has abnormally fast reflexes and a fascination for mathematics (physics comes in handy when he has to make a quick kill).

He is a skilled fighter with an extensive knowledge of weaponry, and he enters a fight with the intention of disabling his opponent quickly, efficiently and permanently. In short, not a man anybody wants to mess with.

McQuarrie added: "What I liked is the character, and specifically, his approach, his methodology. I love this idea of somebody who lives completely free from our idea of contemporary society – he has no cell phone, no e-mail, no fixed address, no possessions.

"There's something really free and liberating about that. With Jack Reacher, Lee Child created the (successor) to (fictional detectives) Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade.

"But it was very important to him to create a character that didn't have the emotional baggage. And that's Jack Reacher – somebody who literally has no baggage." – Mumtaj Begum

>Jack Reacher opens in cinemas nationwide on Dec 21.

In the right corner

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 03:21 AM PST

Here Comes The Boom has lots of surprising elements, but the biggest of them all are its two main stars.

There is a very easy camaraderie between Salma Hayek and Kevin James, who are friends in real life and co-stars in the new film Here Comes The Boom. As it turns out, they're funny in real life too. At this particular press conference in Cancun, Mexico, the two kept the international journalists (gathered at a big conference hall of a five-star hotel) in stitches, either by exchanging insults or praises. One of the funniest moments was their reaction to a woman in charge of bringing microphones to journalists with questions (she was dressed like a boxing ring girl with cue cards).

Hayek, seemingly bemused, and James, seemingly amused, began – respectively – making observations about the hour of the day to be dressed like that (it was after 10am) and commented on how the questions kept coming from one end of the room, only to be followed by a question at the other end of the room, forcing James to follow the, erm, mike.

Hayek and James first worked together on Grown-Ups (2010), a film in which they had a good time and formed a bond.

So, when the opportunity came to team up again, they didn't hesitate.

In Here Comes The Boom, they play a pair of teachers at a school that is facing budget cuts. When this cost-cutting business threatens to cancel the music programme and lay off its dedicated teacher (Henry Winkler), James' character – biology teacher Scott Voss – decides to step up and raise the huge sum of money the school needs.

When he finds out teaching extra class leads to nowhere fast in earning the US$48,000, Scott comes up with the idea of participating in mixed martial arts fights. But first, he must not die at the lower levels of this brutal sport. He gets a friend to coach him, since the only experience he's had is as a wrestler – and that was in high school.

Meanwhile, Hayek plays Bella, the school nurse Scott runs to when he needs patching up, which occurs more than usual after Scott starts his nocturnal activities. Bella also happens to be the woman Scott has been pursuing romantically for years, but to no avail.

Since James has had a fascination with mixed martial arts (MMA) for over 15 years and has worked with a trainer before, the 47-year-old actor did the fighting sequences himself in the film.

And get this, the other fighters James fought with were all professional MMA fighters! No wonder, James began training seriously 14 months before the filming started, even adapting to a fighter's strict diet along the way.

Hayek was only too happy to tell the journalists exactly what James ate during this period: "He was eating just lettuce and the green stuff."

Naturally James jumped in with: "It was horrible. And you know what's the most horrific thing about it? You train for so long and you're still fat in the movie. I'm like 'What do you want from me? I just ate raw food for eight months of my life and I'm still jiggling up here?' "

At the press conference, it was obvious that James had regained some of the weight he lost, which he confirmed when he shared: "I did get in shape for the movie.... I have since gone to a lot of pizza restaurants."

In a similar spirit, Hayek did her 'physical' scene – in which her character gives Scott some fighting pointers by actually punching James and attacking him – without the assistance of a stuntwoman.

The beautiful actress said indignantly in her ever-recognisable Mexican accent: "I'm not gonna get a double for my fight. Are you kidding me?"

James, of course, had to add: "Yeah, she wouldn't have (a double) for that. Except for the kiss, then she wanted a double. I was like, wait a minute!"

This topic naturally got both of them started on a long exchange.

Hayek: "I actually did (want a double) because I'm really good friends with his wife and children. I've been kissing people on the screen all the time, but they're not like good friends, and our kids are good friends.

"I'm like, 'Are you sure they're not here?' because how weird is that, you know? It was the strangest thing ... By the way, it is really weird because he's actually a very good kisser.

James: "OK, I don't want to take this the wrong way because I will leave my family right now."

Hayek: "No! No! No! No! No! It was a joke. It was a joke."

James: "I will run away with you right now, Salma. We will never look back."

Hayek. "No, no. It was a joke. Oh my God. Big mistake!"

James: "OK. This is awkward then. Thank God I didn't call my wife."

Even when the topic did stray from the movie, Hayek and James (who named Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason as their comedian-heroes) couldn't help but overlap answers. Fortunately, they did get on track to enlighten the journalists on what it was like to work with MMA fighters.

"It's an incredible discipline," answered James. "That's why I was interested in doing the movie in the first place, because these guys are doing what could be conceived as the most barbaric thing in the world, where it's just two men in a cage.

"And it was exciting for me in a crazy way, but to meet these people – and I got to meet a lot of them – and to realise they're just husbands and fathers and friends and great guys, real guys, who just love doing this for the sport of it. These guys are incredible human beings, which is really why I was most inspired by them."

This very fact also surprised Hayek when she met them. Actually she called these fighters, erm, sweet. "It was incredible how sweet they were."

She continued: "But I want to say something that was very impressive for me. That Kevin, not only did he get in shape and did the fighting, he was actually good at the fighting. I mean, we did have some problems where he got injured many times ... he'd walk in limping every day ....

James: "All right. You don't have to say all that."

Hayek: "It was impressive. The fighters were impressed too."

Humour aside, at the heart of the movie is the theme of teachers trying to make a difference to students. And in the process, Scott discovers it's never too late to turn your life around and do some good.

When Scott first appears in the movie, he is not the greatest teacher – well, OK, he may be the laziest teacher in the whole school. But once he gets on the right path, he learns that he still can become a person who inspires students to tap into their potential.

"I try to convey a positive message in the movies without going too over the top," explained James. "You want it to be fun and not preachy. But it was a good message, as far as not giving up and kind of sacrificing yourself for others, which is important to do, and I think this world lacks a lot of."

Hayek noted: "Yeah, and I got to say that when you think you're going to do a movie about mixed martial arts, you think it's going to be a set that is just full of testosterone and violence. But it was really warm, and they really did care about having a heart for the film, sending the right message. So it ended up a really interesting combination. I really like it."

>Here Comes The Boom opens nationwide tomorrow.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's 'Ten' to Kick Off 2014

Posted: 19 Dec 2012 04:28 PM PST

LOS ANGELES: Open Road Films will release Arnold Schwarzenegger's action thriller "Ten" nationwide on Jan. 24, 2014, the company announced on Wednesday. Directed by David Ayer ("End of Watch"), the former governor leads an elite DEA task force that takes on the world's deadliest drug cartels.

When the team executes a high-stakes raid on a cartel safe house, they think their work is done until, one-by-one, the 10 members start to be eliminated. The film also stars Joe Manganiello, Sam Worthington, Harold Perrineau, Terrence Howard, Max Martini, Josh Holloway, Olivia Williams and Mireille Enos. The original "Ten" screenplay is by Skip Woods ("X-Men Origins: Wolverine").

Bill Block, Paul Hanson, Joe Roth, Palak Patel and Al Ruddy produced the film. Financing was by QED International.-TheWrap.com

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Khamis, 20 Disember 2012

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

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