Movie review: Ender's Game by Rashid Irani

Source : Rashid Irani, Hindustan Times,  November 01, 2013

Direction: Gavin Hood

Actors:  Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford

Rating: ** ½ Size and age don't matter.  When it comes to superheroes likely to save humanity from annihilation in the not-so-distant future, it could even be a precocious boy endowed with will power and a 

brilliant strategic mind.  As it happens, a pint-sized, somewhat scrawny schoolboy has these qualities and more.

The future of Planet Earth is in the hands and mental skills of a wunderkind named Ender Wiggin according to the bestselling author Orson Scott Card.  Adapted from his 1985 page-turner, this space opera gets the full-blown, CGl-crazed treatment from director Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine).  If you have a taste for interplanetary combat with malevolent aliens, this is your ticket to ride.

The ongoing futuristic battle is between creepy ant-like antagonists and an international fleet of military commanders.  A catastrophic crisis can be averted by training a batch of supremely gifted kids led by the titular space cadet (Butterfield, the breakout star of Martin Scorsese's Hugo).

Undoubtedly, the production design which uses imaginative sets and décor keeps our interest rooted in the exploits of the junior saviour.  Without much ado, he earns the respect of his peers as well as the support of two war stalwarts (Ford and Ben Kingsley).

Aimed obviously at a teen audience, the outcome has its passages of technical bravura, which has become a given in the sci-fi adventures ever since George Lucas went ballistic with Star Wars some 30 years ago. Quite expectedly, the emotional quotient is barely palpable, the concentration being on visuals which at points, seem to belong to a videogame console.

Besides all the razzmatazz, there's a message that it's essential to prepare the next generation from ensuring that the world isn't blown to smithereens some day.  However, a climactic plot twist reduces the moral issues of recruiting youngsters for acts of genocide to simplistic levels.

Much of the films' appeal comes from the forceful performance of Asa Butterfield.  Harrison Ford as a ruthless colonel passes muster, while Ben Kingsley, sporting Maori face tattoos, manages to register a strong screen presence.

Don't expect originality of either content or style from Ender's Game and you won't be disappointed.

AD : Web Design Bangladesh

Read more »

Transformers crew faces second extortion bid in Hong Kong

Source : AFP, Hong Kong, October 24, 2013

Hollywood director Michael Bay's Transformers crew has faced a second extortion attempt in a week while filming in Hong Kong, reports and authorities said Thursday. Police arrested a man who was suspected of intimidating a member of Bay's film crew on Wednesday afternoon in the Kowloon City area, where 'Transformers: Age of Extinction' was being filmed. "Four men intimidated her and asked for money" on a rooftop building location, a government statement said without referring to Michael Bay or the movie.

"Police sped to the scene and arrested a 35-year-old male," it said, adding that the other three are now being sought for 'blackmail'.

The three are suspected members of the Sun Yee On triad, reported the South China Morning Post.

Last Thursday, Bay was attacked by a man wielding an air conditioning unit and demanding HK$100,000 ($12,900) compensation for filming at a location in the southern Chinese city.

"Some drugged-up guys were being belligerent asses to my crew for hours," Bay said on his website then.

The fourth installment of the Transformers franchise starring Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz is scheduled to hit theatres in June.

Read more »

Writer Michael Arndt exits Star Wars: Episode VII

Source : PTI, Los Angeles, October 26, 2013

Director JJ Abrams and longtime Lucas film collaborator Lawrence Kasdan are now handling script duties for the franchise's newest installment, the Hollywood Reporter said.
"I am very excited about the story we have in place and thrilled to have Larry and JJ working on the script," Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm president, said.

"There are very few people who fundamentally understand the way a Star Wars story works like Larry, and it is nothing short of incredible to have him even more deeply involved in its return to the big screen. 

JJ of course is an incredible storyteller in his own right. Michael Arndt has done a terrific job bringing us to this point and we have an amazing filmmaking and design team in place already prepping for production," she added.

Arndt has been working on Star Wars even before Disney announced it was buying Lucasfilm in October 2012, writing a 40- to 50-page treatment for Episode VII. Then in late 2012, Arndt was formally hired to write the screenplay.

While George Lucas is considered the author of the stories for the Star Wars movies, the screenplays for both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were written with collaborators.

Read more »

Madonna's old naked pics up on auction

Source : ANI, London, October 28, 2013

 

Madonna's naked photographs from a 1977 photoshoot are set to be auctioned online on November 9. The photographs feature the then very young Madonna completely naked, with just a few sheets covering her, the Daily Star reported. The photographs were stowed away by the founder of Penthouse magazine, Bob Guccione, until Madonna achieved fame. He published them in his magazine in 1987. Madonna was reportedly paid 10 dollars per hour for modeling for the shoot, but it's believed that each image would now be sold for several hundreds dollars.

The rare pictures were bought by Jeremy Frommer following Guccione's death.

AD : Web Design Company

Read more »

Avatar cast to start shooting sequels in late 2014

Sam Worthington has said that work will begin on Avatars 2, 3 and 4 towards the end of 2014. The 37-year-old actor told the Fitzy and Wippa show on Nova FM that the screenplay is still written, and when the cameras do roll they are going to film the three sequels back to back, Metro.co.uk reported.

His comments come after reports surfaced that Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to join the Avatar cast in an antagonist role.

According to Latino Review, the 66-year-old actor's part has been described as a "bad guy human general." (ANI)
Source : Hindustantimes.com

Read more »

Lindsay thinks she’s perfect as Elizabeth Taylor

 

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond 'Liz' Taylor (1932 - 2011) went from a child star with MGM to one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age.

 

Lindsay Lohan is convinced that she’s the perfect choice to portray Dame Elizabeth Taylor in an upcoming TV biopic, as the two share “a lot of similarities” in terms of love and life in the spotlight.

The 25-year-old star, who has been in and out of jail and rehab in recent years, has landed a major comeback gig as the Cleopatra icon in the Lifetime network movie Liz and Dick, about Taylor’s love affair with Richard Burton.

Production will soon begin in Toronto, Canada, and the Mean Girls star reveals that she will be drawing inspiration from her own past to bring Taylor back to life on the small screen.

“I’m gonna put my all into it. I’m really honoured to be playing Elizabeth Taylor and I really love the script, it’s phenomenal,” Contactmusic quoted her as telling TMZ.

“There’s a lot of similarities from my past that I can relate to her on some things that she’s gone through and the kind of person that she was, whether it’s relationships or just being in the public eye, so I’m gonna obviously do the best I can and hopefully people will enjoy it. I don’t wanna depict her in the wrong way,” she added.

Read more »

YouTube to offer Paramount movie rentals

 

A visitor is seen at the You Tube stand during the annual MIPCOM television programme market in Cannes, southeastern France. Credit: Reuters/Eric Gaillard

Even courtroom adversaries can be partners in the nascent online movie rental business.

YouTube announced a movie rental partnership with Paramount Pictures on Wednesday, despite the online video website's long-running litigation with Paramount parent company Viacom Inc.

YouTube said it would offer online rentals of nearly 500 Paramount films, including "Hugo" and "The Godfather," rounding out its growing catalog of feature-length movies.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed and it was not immediately clear why the two companies, whose parent companies have sparred in court for years, decided to put their differences aside for this licensing agreement.

Viacom is currently seeking to overturn its defeat in a landmark $1 billion lawsuit in which the media conglomerate charged YouTube and parent company Google Inc with "massive" copyright infringement.

Viacom alleged in its 2007 suit that many of its programs, including "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "South Park," and "SpongeBob SquarePants," have been illegally uploaded on YouTube and that YouTube and Google executives knew about it but did nothing to stop it.

The case has been closely-watched as a test of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 federal law making it a crime to produce technology to circumvent anti-piracy measures, and limiting liability of online service providers for copyright infringement by users.

YouTube, the world's most popular online video website, streams 4 billion videos every day and its users upload more than 60 hours of video to the site every minute. Although much of the content on YouTube consists of home videos that are free to watch, YouTube has increasingly added professionally-produced content, some of it available to rent for a fee.

The Paramount deal means that YouTube now has movie rental deals with five of the six major film studios, as well as more than ten independent film studios, giving it access to a catalog of nearly 9,000 films.

Consumers can rent the films, generally for 24 hours or 48 hours, for anywhere from $2.99 to $3.99.

The Paramount movies, which include recent releases and classics, will be available in the United States and Canada over the next few weeks. Consumers can rent the movies on the YouTube website, or on Google Play, Google's online storefront for music, games, movies and other types of media.

 

Reuters
April 04, 2012

Read more »