The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews
The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews |
| Scarlett Johansson's new film is disappointing Posted: Lots of films have been shown at the Venice Film Festival, but few are memorable. Scarlett Johansson as a predatory alien in Scotland got a lukewarm reception and a film about mutilation and masochism that is banned in the director's native South Korea roused disbelieving laughter at the Venice Film Festival yesterday. Booing followed the customary applause after a press screening of Under The Skin, a comeback for British director Jonathan Glazer, starring the Lost In Translation actress. Described as "an undeniably ambitious but ultimately torpid and silly tale of an alien on the prowl" by trade magazine Variety, Under The Skin is one of 20 new films in competition for a prestigious Golden Lion at the 70th annual festival. Korean director Kim Ki-Duk screened Moebius outside the competition, which he won last year with Pieta, an absorbing thriller about a pitiless loan shark. For Under The Skin, Johansson as the alien Laura was filmed in real-life settings, including a shopping centre and a street in a drizzly Scottish town, surrounded by members of the public. "People would take pictures of you with their 'cameraphone' and not help you, all kinds of strange things," Johansson told a press conference. This technique was an "important ingredient" in the film, said Glazer, known for the 2004 picture Birth. Laura drives around in a white van, stopping to chat coyly with young men in a cut-glass English accent. Her mysterious beauty prompts one of the men she meets to comment, in a strong Scottish accent, that she reverses the trope of the creepy male motorist picking up female hitchhikers. "It didn't bother me that the dialogue was indecipherable at times" as long as the characters' intentions and behaviour were clear, Glazer said.  Scarlett Johansson in a scene from the sci-fi flick, Under The Skin. Meanwhile, Kim's tale of sex and pain, which starts with a woman cutting off her teenage son's genitals, is punctuated with cries of agony, rage and arousal, but barely any dialogue. The mutilated young man and his father experiment with masochism and the son develops a relationship with the father's ex-mistress. "While purporting to explore morality and mortality by tracking its male protagonists' pursuit of sexual gratification, Moebius offers bizarrely cartoonish characters whose erratic behaviour brims on the hilarious," said critic Clarence Tsui in trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter. Kim has made a redacted version of the film to be shown in South Korea, where authorities wanted to protect people who have not reached "psychological maturity", he said at a news conference. "The problem of censorship will have to be tackled in the future," said Kim, whose film The Isle made two people faint when it was presented in Venice in 2000. Kim said he is reproached for making violent films that seem to attack South Korea. "I criticise my country because I love my country. Loving my country doesn't mean that I should stop raising questions or that I should close my eyes," he added. — Reuters |
| 'Fifty Shades Of Grey' stars revealed Posted: Charlie Hunnam and Dakota Johnson will star in the highly anticipated erotic film. The film version of erotic best-seller Fifty Shades Of Grey will star British actor Charlie Hunnam as Christian Grey and US actress Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele, the book's author E.L. James said yesterday. The casting of the movie, to be directed by British filmmaker and artist Sam Taylor-Johnson of Nowhere Boy fame, has been one of the most hotly anticipated secrets in Hollywood. But instead of big names, the producers have gone for up-and-coming stars. Hunnam starred in this summer's sci-fi blockbuster Pacific Rim while US actress and model Johnson is the daughter of veteran Miami Vice star Don Johnson and Oscar-nominated actress Melanie Griffith. "I am delighted to let you know that the lovely Dakota Johnson has agreed to be our Anastasia in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades Of Grey," author James said on Twitter. About an hour later she announced: "The gorgeous and talented Charlie Hunnam will be Christian Grey in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades Of Grey." She also confirmed the casting in statements on her website.  Dakota Johnson starred in the short-lived sitcom Ben And Kate, and was praised for her performance in The Social Network. Johnson, 23, had her screen debut with her mother in the 1999 film Crazy In Alabama. More recently she starred in the David Fincher movie The Social Network and the US television sitcom Ben And Kate. Hunnam cut his teeth in the British children's drama Byker Grove and appeared in the 2006 dystopian thriller Children Of Men before his appearance in giant-lizards-versus-robots blockbuster Pacific Rim. Spiced up with sado-masochism, the 2011 novel Fifty Shades Of Grey was the first part of a trilogy about a relationship between a college graduate, Anastasia Steele, and a young business magnate, Christian Grey. The film is due to be released on Aug 1, 2014. Universal Pictures and Focus Features acquired the rights to the trilogy – which also included Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed – in March 2012. The books have been translated into 50 languages, and sold over 70 million copies worldwide in ebook and print, making it one of the fastest-selling book series ever, they said. — AFP Relaxnews |
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