The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
- Eight-legged freaks
- Has politics weighed on Oscars race?
- Afghan street kid heads for the Oscars red carpet
| Posted: 19 Feb 2013 02:45 AM PST A new giant spider invasion is about to overwhelm hapless cinemagoers, and this time it's comin' at ya in 3D. THERE have been so many movies with gigantic creatures threatening hapless human beings with monstrous tentacles, claws, paws and jaws. Many of us have also developed an affection for this type of film, with the quality ranging from rather good (Cloverfield, The Host) to enjoyably goofy (Octopus, The Giant Gila Monster) to, of course, mind-numbingly awful. There haven't been that many, however, that had the mutant monsters or alien menaces roaming the big screen in 3D. That's about to change with Spiders 3D. Spiders 3D borrows the good old formula of monster movies from the 1950s and 1960s; they have come from outer space to terrorise both the public transport system of New York City and its commuters. It all starts when debris from an abandoned Russian space station makes its way to New York's subways, bringing with it a whole load of mutated giant spiders. Transport supervisor Jason Cole (Patrick Muldoon) is up to facing almost any challenge at work, but this one is something he certainly never bargained for – especially when his daughter (Sydney Sweeney) gets trapped in some dark tunnels with the rampaging monsters. In the production notes provided by film distributor Rainfilm, director Tibor Takacs says: "I love taking an outrageous premise and trying to make it as believable as possible." He adds: "Why spiders? Many people just have a natural dislike, aversion and repulsion ... spiders lend themselves very nicely to 3D. Especially giant spiders." With the 3D camera now being lighter than before, Takacs – whose credits include 1980s cult favourite horror film The Gate, which starred a very young Stephen Dorff – was able to cover unusual angles to make everything look scarier. And, let's face it, what could be scarier than a giant spider leaping out of the screen at you? When actress Christa Campbell, who plays Jason's wife and the mother of the trapped girl, was sent the script, her first thought was she was going to have to work with spiders. At that point she had no idea if the production team was going to have real spiders on the set at all. Luckily for her, the giant spiders were simply computer graphics. Apparently, Takacs had planned to build several larger-than-life-size spiders. When this idea was hindered by budgetary constraints and a tight shooting schedule, he opted to have just a few giant spider parts built, such as legs to crash through doors or wave threateningly at potential victims. That's as far as physical spider props went on the shoot. Actor Muldoon (Starship Troopers) credits the director for putting the actors at ease working with unseen threats. He says: "Sometimes it's tough to act opposite something that isn't there yet, so you have to put your faith in your director. It's his job to orchestrate everything for us: the levels of danger, how big are the spiders, what exactly are we up against? Tibor is a pro at this." Campbell shares his view, noting that she had no problems imagining giant spiders in her scenes thanks to Takacs' tenacious planning. In an interview with dailydead.com, Campbell also spoke about her experience working with the other cast members and being on the set of Spiders 3D in Sofia, Bulgaria: "Patrick was great. He loves to tell jokes and is always happy. In his costume, he looked like Yogi Bear to me. Sydney was also fantastic. Ironically, kids are usually better actors than adults. They're just playing or reliving something, and fear hasn't set in. "We were shooting in Bulgaria in the winter, it was starting to snow, and we were doing night shoots. It was eerie, but also really fun. There was no drama and everything really flowed." Takacs concludes: "Ultimately, a giant creature film really lives or dies by its tone. I hope I've been able to walk the line between being serious and being a little more light-hearted and funny. We never wink at the audience. I see the film as a black comedy, but we try to sell it as (though) it's actually happening." ■ Spiders 3D opens in cinemas on Feb 21. |
| Has politics weighed on Oscars race? Posted: 18 Feb 2013 09:13 PM PST LOS ANGELES: Perhaps it is no surprise, given that 2012 was a US election year, but this year's Oscars crop includes a heavy dose of politics - which has arguably influenced Hollywood's top awards race. From gun control advocates blasting blood-spattered "Django Unchained," to rows over CIA torture that were triggered by "Zero Dark Thirty," this year's nominees have, whether coincidentally or not, fueled topical political debates. The most obviously political film vying for Academy Award glory on Sunday, Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," even won a surprise backing from none other than former president Bill Clinton, on stage at the Golden Globes last month. That looked eerily like the kind of candidate endorsement America spent last year watching, as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney vied for the White House, except that it was for a movie, in this case by Democrat-supporting Spielberg. "A tough fight to push a bill through a bitterly divided House of Representatives - winning it required the president to make a lot of unsavory deals... I wouldn't know anything about that," Clinton quipped at the Globes. He was joking about the film's plot, in which the 16th US president schemes to ensure Congress backs the 13th Amendment to ban slavery. But he could easily have been referring to any Washington crisis including the current budget one. "Lincoln" has the most nominations going into the 85th Academy Awards, but even Clinton's backing may not be enough to secure it top honors, in one of the most unpredictable Oscars contests in recent memory. Political thriller "Argo," which has won virtually every major pre-Oscars award, tells a true story from the sidelines of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, a US diplomatic disaster which effectively sealed president Jimmy Carter's fate. Reminding US voters of that debacle overall possibly didn't help Democrats too much, although the movie's focus on an audacious CIA operation to free six hostages leaves Carter looking surprisingly good. One Oscar-nominated film which definitely sheds a good light on a Democratic president - Obama - is Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden manhunt movie "Zero Dark Thirty." Indeed, the risk of the film being seen as propaganda - it climaxes with the deadly raid on the Al Qaeda chief's Pakistan hideout, a game-changing Obama triumph - was such that it was only released after the November 6 election. But the bigger political row it triggered was over its depiction of CIA "enhanced interrogation" techniques, widely seen as torture, and specifically how much role they played in tracking bin Laden to his Abbottabad compound. The CIA's acting head and a number of top lawmakers lambasted the film for implying that torture helped turn the tide in the hunt for bin Laden - a charge Oscar-winning Bigelow repeatedly rebuffed. "I think Osama bin Laden was found due to ingenious detective work. Torture was, however, as we all know, employed in the early years of the hunt. That doesn't mean it was the key to finding Bin Laden," she said. But the torture row could well have clouded the movie's Oscars chances, as Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters may have balked at casting their ballots for such a politically-loaded film. But perhaps the most obvious victim of political controversy, in awards terms, has been Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained." The film is about a black slave freed by a white bounty-hunter in pre-Civil War America, and features Tarantino's trademark over-the-top violence as the pair kill for rewards and revenge in nearly three hours of blood-soaked chaos. Days before its release, the massacre of 20 small children occurred in Newtown, Connecticut - and America went into paroxysms of hand-wringing about gun violence, just as "Django" was gearing up for its big entrance. A red-carpet premiere was called off, and a range of toys of the film's key characters was withdrawn and banned from eBay as "offensive." Tarantino, long used to defending violence in his films, was pushed even more in media interviews, losing his temper in at least one encounter with a British TV channel. "Yeah, I'm really annoyed," he told National Public Radio (NPR) in the US, saying his film had nothing to do with the deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary School. "I think it's disrespectful to their memory. The issue is gun control and mental health," he said. But for all his arguments, it was never going to help his film's awards chances. The movie won Golden Globes for best supporting actor for Christoph Waltz and best screenplay for a visibly startled Tarantino ("This is a damn surprise!") but has otherwise failed to pick up any big prizes this season. It is nominated in five Oscars categories, including best picture - but even Tarantino admits it has little hope of the top honor. "I don't think we're going to win best film," he told the BBC after the nominations were announced last month. "But the recognition, being invited to the party, is a lot of fun." -AFP |
| Afghan street kid heads for the Oscars red carpet Posted: 18 Feb 2013 09:02 PM PST KABUL: An Afghan street kid is off to Hollywood and the red-carpet treatment at the Oscars - a fairytale ending to a chance encounter that led to a starring role in a movie. Fawad Mohammadi, 14, was selling maps to passing foreigners on Kabul's famed Chicken Street to help feed his family when he met American director Sam French. Now he is preparing for his first flight in an aircraft and his first trip outside war-torn Afghanistan to a glamorous world almost beyond imagination on the grimy streets of Kabul. French cast Mohammadi as one of the main characters in "Buzkashi Boys", a movie shot entirely in Afghanistan and nominated for Best Live Action Short Film at the Academy Awards on February 24. The film is about two youngsters growing up in Kabul who dream of becoming Buzkashi horseback riders in Afghanistan's dramatic national sport, which uses a headless goat in place of a ball in a wild version of polo. In the movie, one of the boys is a street kid like Mohammadi, the other the son of a blacksmith forced to spend long hours in his father's dark workshop sharpening axe heads. Ahead of the US trip, Mohammadi, sporting a leather coat and jeans, told AFP the adventure would be a "great privilege for me and for all Afghanistan to meet the world's most famous superstars". "It's truly such a great feeling to go to the Oscars, I had never thought about it. I still don't believe it." Mohammadi, whose ambition is to become a pilot, said he hoped to be able to visit the cockpit of the airplane during his flight to Los Angeles. "I have grown up watching Afghan movies. When I watched them, I dreamt of becoming an actor. Then I met Sam French on Chicken Street, that's how I came to act in the film," he said, with a big smile. Mohammadi is the youngest of seven siblings. Their father died several years ago, and his five brothers all also work. He started selling chewing gum on the streets and expanded his trade to selling maps and dictionaries to foreigners. He learned English as he worked on Chicken Street, a popular destination for expats shopping for Afghan carpets, jewellery and craftwork. "We knew him from Chicken Street as the kindest and most warm-hearted street-kid, who would provide 'bodyguarding' services and sell maps - he always had a smile and witty remark," French told AFP by email. "The challenge was to make him not 'act' but to be himself. His kind and generous character was the very same character we had written - so we wanted him to be himself as much as possible and connect with the story on a personal level. He did a fantastic job." The other Buzkashi Boy is Jawanmard Paiz, also 14 and the son of a prominent Afghan actor, who plays an orphan in the movie. Both boys were 12 at the time the movie was shot. Paiz has already appeared in a few films after starting his acting career at the age of five, and has attended the Cannes film festival. "When I saw Fawad acting he was such a good talent although he was a street vendor and he really surprised all of us on set," Paiz said. Afghanistan's once burgeoning cinema industry was hammered by more than three decades of war, especially during the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, when music and films were banned. Now Afghan cinema is struggling to re-emerge amid an ongoing Taliban insurgency against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. "There were many logistical challenges," French said. "We spent over a year in pre-production to ensure we had the support of the Afghan government and police protection in all the locations we filmed." The boys will arrive in Los Angeles on Wednesday ahead of the Oscars on Sunday, with the cost of their trip covered by a fund-raising campaign, free tickets from Turkish Airlines and help from the US State Department. They will stay "with an Afghan family to provide some cushion against the culture shock of travelling from Kabul to Hollywood", French said. Some of the extra cash raised will be used on Mohammadi's education and to provide for his family. Mohammadi, who has used his earnings from the film to attend sixth grade at a private school, says he refuses to be swept away by dreams of movie glory. "I will continue to sell maps and dictionaries and go to school," he said. -AFP |
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