The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
- Johnny Depp to star as gangster in 'Black Mass'
- ‘Tau Fu Fah’ short film touches the hearts of many
- Benh Zeitlin believes he is on right track after Beasts Of The Southern Wild success
| Johnny Depp to star as gangster in 'Black Mass' Posted: 03 Feb 2013 12:50 AM PST LOS ANGELES - US star Johnny Depp will play notorious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger in the film "Black Mass", to be directed by Barry Levinson, the producers announced Saturday. The film recounts the fate of the godfather of Boston's underworld who became an FBI informant to get rid of a gangster rival but was eventually arrested in 2011. Adapted from a book by two Boston Globe journalists, "Black Mass" will be directed by Barry Levinson, who won an Oscar for best director in 1988 for "Rain Man." Shooting will start in May and the film will be distributed by Universal Studios, said a statement from co-producer Cross Creek. Depp, 49, will also play in Disney's "The Lone Ranger" scheduled for release next summer. In June, the actor announced his separation from long-term partner Vanessa Paradis with whom he has two children. - AFP |
| ‘Tau Fu Fah’ short film touches the hearts of many Posted: 02 Feb 2013 04:36 PM PST KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas is famed for its emotionally-gripping short films and this year is no different – its new Chinese New Year film has already touched many people's hearts. Simply titled Tau Fu Fah, the film tells the story of a humble tau fu fah (soya bean curd dessert) seller and his customer, who end up falling in love and starting their life together. Through the years, they slowly build up their business and grow their family, eventually earning enough to open a tau fu fah shop. However, disaster strikes when the shop catches fire and they lose everything. They had to rebuild from scratch. Nevertheless, they persevere and finally get back on track, now as a pair of contented grandparents. Expressing their gratefulness for their life together, the film ends up on a sweet note with the husband replacing the "fu" word on his old bicycle cart's "tau fu fah" sign with a Chinese New Year "fu" (meaning luck and good fortune) sign. "Look back on a great life. Look forward to an even greater one," said the simple message at the end of the clip, which is slightly over three minutes long. Blogger Ringo Tan, who blogs as Cheesie on Cheeserland, said she was extremely touched and inspired by the film. "I think the message is very clear. If we go through failures in life, never give up. We have to treasure every moment," she said. Over 100 viewers who watched the clip on the Petronas YouTube page, uploaded yesterday, gave it a resounding thumbs up. YouTube user Aina Sofea wrote: "My father once sold rojak for a living for the family. "I cried watching this. Something like this did happen to my family too. I am very touched by this commercial." Another user, Pierre Ng, praised the details Petronas had captured, such as the placing of the "fu" signs upside down. "This is a very good commercial from Petronas. It captures a big part of the Chinese resilience and perseverance. Fu is a lucky word. It is very easy to say it. "Around Chinese New Year, people often put up a poster with this word on it – upside down! "It's the only time when a Chinese word is posted upside down intentionally. Well done, Petronas!" he wrote. The short film can be viewed on its channel youtube.com/user/PETRONASOfficial, while a shorter version has started airing on television. Related Stories: |
| Benh Zeitlin believes he is on right track after Beasts Of The Southern Wild success Posted: 02 Feb 2013 04:45 AM PST Unexpected success of Beasts Of The Southern Wild has convinced director Benh Zeitlin that he is on the right track. Calling up press on the other side of the planet close to bedtime would not be called a normal activity for a nine-year-old, but then Quvenzhane Wallis is not any nine-year-old. She is the youngest ever in Academy Awards history to be nominated as Best Actress, for a role she played when she was five in her acting debut. In the drama Beasts Of The Southern Wild, she appears as the indomitable Hushpuppy, a resident of The Bathtub, an isolated area of the Louisiana bayou settled by a small group of resilient, independent people. The little girl lives with her father Wink (played by a baker-turned-actor Dwight Henry) and because of his volatile nature and delicate health, she is often left to fend for herself, even as the storm of the century threatens the community. The film is seen mostly through her eyes and also depicts the fantasy creatures of her imagination. We spoke with Quvenzhane late last month, over a noisy line from her home in Louisiana, some weeks before the Oscar nominations were announced. Nazie (as she is nicknamed, pronounced "nay-zee"), the youngest of four children, was accompanied on the call by her mother Qulyndreia Wallis, a teacher. Her father, Venjie Wallis, is a truck driver. Perhaps it was the late hour – 8pm in the US – or the bad connection but she sounded tired and distracted. She said she had a "great" Christmas, partly because she got a scooter as a present. It has been reported that she has signed on to other film projects but, at the moment, she was back at school in Houma, a city of about 30,000 people in southern Louisiana. She said her name is pronounced "kwee-von-je-nay" ("It means 'fairy' in Swahili," said her mum). How would director Benh Zeitlin prepare her, an acting novice, before the cameras rolled? Her answer was remarkably straightforward. "Before every scene, he would come to me and tell me like, what's going on, how it's going to work and how I was supposed to say, and we would do it like that," she said. Some have said that her astonishing screen presence stems from an innate talent for acting or that she is just being herself. That might not be correct, given that the girl had her share of re-dos for her scenes. Sometimes, the scene could be done in one take but more often, "he would want to do it a lot of times", each time asking her to read the line differently. But it was not for her ability to take instructions that Zeitlin picked her from the 4,000 who auditioned. Quvenzhane was five, pretending to be six, when she appeared before him. He picked her for her "powerful and defiant" personality and according to news reports, for her loud scream and ability to burp on command, two skills which Zeitlin then wrote into the script for her character. The 30-year-old filmmaker, who spoke to us from New Orleans a few days after the call with Quvenzhane, spoke about how he, a New York native, went to New Orleans six years ago to make a short film. He fell in love with the locale and has remained there. "I was going to different places, trying to make films in the way I imagined, in a collaborative, guerilla style. And when I came to New Orleans, as soon as I tried to make a film here, this community of people helped me. It's a great place for making films and a place that I love living in," he said. Beasts was made with the help of locals and Court 13, a film-making collective Zeitlin co-founded in 2004, when he was a student. For Zeitlin himself, the success of the bayou story – made for under US$2mil (RM6.2mil) and which has since grossed more than US$11mil (RM34mil) worldwide – is a sign that he can and should go on making movies, in his preferred film-collective style. And it is enough for him. "When you make a film like this, you never know if anyone is going to watch it or if anyone is ever going to let you make another film. "Knowing that I can go on making films in the way that I have always wanted to is really, really special." – The Straits Times, Singapore/Asia News Network |
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