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| Ghost Rider Revealed Sony has unveiled its first glimpse of the title character of its upcoming Ghost Rider movie in a teaser trailer on the film's updated new Web site. |
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| On the inside with Spike Lee By Victoria Lindrea BBC News entertainment reporter Heist drama Inside Man, released in the UK on Friday, marks a rare move toward mainstream Hollywood for director Spike Lee. With a budget exceeding $50m (£28m) and a cast including Jodie Foster, Denzel Washington and Clive Owen, the film has the hallmarks of a studio blockbuster. But what distinguishes Inside Man is Lee's stylish direction and rapid-fire dialogue from debut screenwriter Russell Gewirtz. "Russell respects the audience's intelligence, in not wanting to 'dumbify' or lower the common denominator," says Lee, 49, who has criticised Hollywood films for their lack of originality. Homage Inside Man sees police detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) trying to outwit a gang of robbers holed up inside a Manhattan bank with 50 hostages. Jodie Foster plays a Manhattan power-broker who must infiltrate the investigation to ensure the contents of a bank vault remain unknown. The film pays homage to classic 1970s heist movies such as Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico with Lee's daring camerawork and plot twists. The dialogue plays on issues of race and violence, dominant themes in Lee's previous w**k. "It was a way of trying to make something contemporary, but at the same time being respectful to the films that I liked growing up," says Lee. "The film came together quick, because Denzel had a specific window," he adds. "If Denzel wasn't doing this film, it wasn't getting made." Inside Man marks his fourth collaboration with 51-year-old Washington, Oscar-nominated for his role in Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X. I'd have to go to Industrial Light & Magic to cut him out of this film! Spike Lee on Inside Man star Chiwetel Ejiofor Rising British star Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Washington's police sidekick Bill Mitchell. "He's a wonderful actor - and smart," says Lee, who jokes that Ejiofor guaranteed that he would not end up on the cutting room floor. "While we were shooting the film, I noticed that in every scene he stood real close to Denzel - almost attached to him. "I'd have to go to Industrial Light & Magic to cut him out of this film!" 'Artistry and class' Lee persuaded Briton Clive Owen to play mastermind robber Dalton Russell, despite the actor's misgivings about spending most of the film with his face hidden. "I like w**king with talented people, and Clive Owen is someone with talent," says Lee. "In order to make this cat-and-mouse game w**k, you needed someone who could plant their feet in the ground, stand toe to toe with Denzel and not get blown off the screen." Jodie Foster, who plays smooth-talking businesswoman Madeline White, did not want to dominate the picture. "Jodie didn't want to carry a whole film - she wanted a supporting role," says Lee, who wanted to w**k with the actress for some time. "She wanted a role where she could get dressed up and look glamorous," says Lee, who credits the actress with bringing "artistry and class" to the film. Plans for film-maker Ron Howard to direct fell through when Russell Crowe approached the Oscar-winning director of A Beautiful Mind with the script for Cinderella Man. Lee appears to be emulating Howard with his next project, a film about 1930s boxer Joe Louis. Save us, Joe Louis is scheduled to start shooting in the autumn with Oscar nominee Terrence Howard playing the lead. "We've been trying to make it for six years," says Lee, adding that after the poor performance of Ali and Cinderella Man, studios have been reluctant to back another boxing film. "It's that kind of mentality that keeps good films from being made." Story from BBC NEWS: |
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| Capone has seen true EVIL and it has consumed him... Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with Capone who has turned EVIL thanks to a Swedish flick. I saw him. He's got a goatee, his shirt is a darker shade of red... It's truly disturbing. EVIL Capone. The flick is directed by Mikael Hafstrom who recently did DERAILED and just signed on to the Stephen King evil hotel room movie 1408. He is an EVIL man and has turned our otherwise good Capone to the dark side. The origin of EVIL Capone is below... Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here with a review of a film that is close to my heart. Actually, it was close to my heart even before I saw it simply because it has a title that I think embodies all of things I hold sacred. The film is called Evil. In one of the opening scenes in this 2004 Oscar-nominated Swedish film, a 16-year-old Erik (newcomer Andreas Wilson) gets into trouble at school and is told by an administrator that he is “pure evil.” Immediately in our minds, we assume he will be the character to watch out for. He’ll be the troublemaker, the one whose sadistic and violent acts will make us cringe. Labeling is such a terrible and misleading thing. In fact, when Erik is sent to a private boarding school, he comes face to face with a legion of upper classmen who don’t just tease and berate newcomers--they abuse and torture them into submission. The definition of “evil” is adjusted and reassigned more than once in this disturbing film. Set in the 1950s, Evil represents a microcosm of society, with a Lord of the Flies type of approach. Adults are almost never seen at the school and parents are largely absent. The exceptions to this are Erik’s mother and stepfather, the latter a miserable nasty bastard in his own right, who regularly beats Erik for the smallest infraction. As a result, the boy carries around a boatload of resentment and rage. But once at boarding school, he makes a real effort to succeed, both academically and behaviorally. But circumstances (namely the leadership structure of the school’s students) make that impossible, and we soon discover that Erik is just about the least evil person in the movie. The humiliation these boys inflict upon each other is graphic and awful, and it seems too outrageous to have ever been true. But since the story is adapted from Jan Guillou’s popular autobiographical novel, we guess that much of this really did happen to him. Director Mikael Hafstrom has already made a couple of films since Evil, including the moderately entertaining Derailed (which came out on DVD this week), and is about to direct John Cusack in 1408, based on the Stephen King short story. Clearly this guy has a gift for making films about some of the darkest elements of human existence, and Evil is a solid jumping off point to discovering his talent. Evil is a gripping and difficult story to see unfold, but it also works as a brutal social commentary about how far people will go when there’s no one around to tell them to stop and far too many people cheering their bad behavior on. In a time when the topic of excessive torture is in the forefront of many people’s minds, Evil stands as a testament to those who fight against (and often lose) battles against such oppressors. /aintitcoolmail.com |
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| Krrish To Save India India will release its first superhero movie, Krrish, across the country on June 23, the Reuters news service reported. The movie—about a homegrown superhero who not only tackles villains and saves the world, but also sings and dances—is being heavily promoted with television ads, billboards and countless merchandising spinoffs. The $10 million film, a costly production by Bollywood standards, is a sequel to the 2003 blockbuster Koi ... Mil Gaya (I Found Someone), considered Hindi cinema's first major science fiction film. In it, an E.T.-like alien comes to earth and is saved by Rohit, a kind but dimwitted youth. Before returning home, the alien transforms the nervous, cocooned Rohit into a powerful hero who avenges his tormentors and wins the girl. Krrish tells the story of Rohit's son, Krishna (Hrithik Roshan), who is born with all his father's superpowers and more, but is unaware of them until he follows his lady love, a television reporter, to Singapore from his pastoral idyll in India, the wire service reported. The film is directed by Rakesh Roshan, who is also Hrithik Roshan's father. |
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| From Smh.com.au - "The Grudge 2" Movie - A disturbingly normal Sarah Michelle Gellar is back on the A-list with a hot new horror film, Sal Morgan writes. Shy ... Buffy made Sarah Michelle Gellar into an international star, but she still doesn’t like interviews. "This really scares me," says Sarah Michelle Gellar. "The thought of talking about myself for days on end. It’s frightful!" Gellar is laughing but insists she’s not kidding. "Seriously, there has to be something more interesting to talk about than me." At 29, Gellar has been a star for almost half her life. She’s been in dozens of movies, on hundreds of magazine covers and modelled for Maybelline. She’s been voted "sexy" and "beautiful" more times than you can imagine - but says none of this has helped her shyness, it’s just "made it worse". "The more [interviews] I do, the worse I get," she says. "I think it would be better if you didn’t know what to expect." Dressed in a black satin top, fitted jeans and over-the-knee brown boots, the down-to-earth petite actress says she was surprised when the director invited her back to star in the sequel to the 2004 horror flick The Grudge. "When they called me and said they wanted me to be in the second one I said ’Didn’t I die?’. Evidently not. Apparently, I escaped. I thought I was a goner. That’s movie magic!" Gellar’s The Grudge 2 role is much smaller than in the first film, but the sequel was not going to be made without her on board. Additionally, Gellar said she’d only do it if "it had a purpose". "I didn’t want to come back just to come back," she explains. "The story had to make sense and stick to the original. That’s important with any kind of remake. You’ve got to be careful and you’ve got to get it right." It seems they did. The Grudge 2 opened at No.1 last weekend in the US, taking in $US22 million ($29 million). Gellar is an unlikely fan of Asian martial-arts movies and still jokes that she started stalking the American producers of The Grudge as soon as she heard that there was going to be a remake of the Japanese horror film Ju-On. "I’ve always been fascinated by Asian culture, and I love that women can play the lead in a horror film. It used to be only on TV that women could lead, that a show could be based on a woman. In television, women rule. They can do whatever they want. In films they still have a long way to go. Why is it that women can’t open a comedy the same way a man can? Why can’t women open action movies the same way Bruce Willis can? "There are still only certain film genres where a woman can stand out, be heroic, be the centrepiece." Clearly, horror fans loved Gellar as the "centrepiece" of The Grudge: it made almost $US190 million at the global box office. |