tagged w/ Entertainment News
-
The short form would be that John Woo rediscovered himself in returning to China, but that really doesn’t capture what’s going on. Woo made his name with such beautiful, dynamic, and surprisingly thoughtful urban crime films as HARD BOILED and THE KILLER — pop culture with soul — then made his way to America for films like BROKEN ARROW, FACE/OFF, and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II. Pop culture, still — with bigger budgets and bigger stars, granted — but with something missing: Even when Woo touched on the themes that first earned him the love of film fans, it was clear that there was a subtle but critical dissipation of that all-important soul.
So Woo is now back in China. But instead of a full return to familiar, city-grit turf (asphalt?), he’s leveraging his Hollywood-nurtured clout and turned his attention to epic adventure. The result is RED CLIFF, a mammoth (the original Chinese version ran five hours, we’re getting a version that clocks in at somewhere in the neighborhood of two and a half) historical drama based on a fourteenth century novel about two kingdoms who join military forces to repel the onslaught of a usurper general (Zhang Fengyi). And aside from the return of Tony Leung to the Woo fold as a military strategist, and the appearance of Zhao Wei in a very Tsui Harkian role as a female warrior who goes undercover in drag to scout out the opposing forces (other stars in the large cast include Takeshi Kaneshiro as another key strategist, You Yong and Chang Chen as the rival kings turned allies, and Chiling Lin as what amounts to a Chinese Helen of Troy), you can tell Woo is regaining his form in how the lead protagonists form bonds that are less military expediency than they are full-on brotherhood, and the sheer energy and beauty of the production (maybe I’m overdramatizing, but a CG sequence of a dove — John Woo, remember? — overflying the opposing camps looks as much like Woo’s creative heart taking flight as it does a neat way to transition from one locale to another).
I was kind of expecting that having faced/down Tom Cruise, Woo would present a rather battle-hardened front for the press. Instead, he was quiet, polite, and rather self-effacing — which only reinforced my original respect for him. We got to talk about how one brings down to earth a tale originally told at a time when heroes, as a matter of course, were ascribed supernatural powers, and how his sojourn in Tinsel Town positioned him to push the Chinese film industry into more ambitious realms. Click on the link above to hear the interview.The short form would be that John Woo rediscovered himself in returning to China, but... more
-
-
-
-
-
-
Richard Curtis had a death in the family. I’d flown in to London to do the interviews for my PIRATE RADIO coverage, and the director was at the top of my list. Some things, though, take precedence over spending fifteen minutes with a dumpy New York journalist, and for Curtis, this had to be one of ‘em. I had no argument there. I did my sessions with actors Tom Sturridge, Talulah Riley, and Nick Frost instead (you can hear them in Part 1 of this series) and silently wished Curtis well.
Three weeks later, he and I finally had our sit-down. Frankly, I’m not sure I could’ve scraped it all together in so short a time under such conditions, but I was grateful he did. That conversation wraps up this installment, along with my exclusive one-on-one with Bill Nighy — who plays the paternal, impeccably dressed, and seemingly gay (he’s one of the few characters who doesn’t get it on in the course of the film) proprietor of the pirate broadcaster Radio Rock — and the roundtable interview with “The Count” himself, Philip Seymour Hoffman. You’ll learn a little about Nighy’s inner wild man, Hoffman’s experiences as the sole American in a cast of Brits, and Curtis’ decision to trim PIRATE RADIO (nee THE BOAT THAT ROCKED) by some fifteen minutes (or more — reports vary) for its U.S. debut.
Click on the link to hear the show.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-persons/mighty-movie-podcast-empi_b_357596.htmlRichard Curtis had a death in the family. I’d flown in to London to do the... more
-
-
Beyonce Knowles booked a separate hotel room to house her 12 items of luggage when she performed in Liverpool, UK, this week.
The 'Sweet Dreams' hitmaker rented the lavish £2,450-a-night Charles Forte Presidential Suite at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester, UK, while performing in nearby city Liverpool this week...Read More
http://www.livecelebritygossip.com/2009/11/beyonce-knowles-booked-hotel-room-for.htmlBeyonce Knowles booked a separate hotel room to house her 12 items of luggage when she... more
-
-
-
A day after Daily Show host Jon Stewart accused Sean Hannity of swapping protest footage to make a Nov. 5 anti-health reform rally look larger, Hannity conceded that his program used an "incorrect video" during the segment. "It pains me to say it: Jon Stewart was right," Hannity said, according to the New York Times' Media Decoder blog. Hannity called the incident an "inadvertent mistake" and did not explain how it had happened.
On Tuesday night, Stewart joined a number of media watchdog organizations in claiming that Hannity had dramatically exaggerated the numbers of last week's protest. Stewart said footage shown on Hannity's program while he was interviewing the rally's organizer, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), looked markedly different than footage that had been seen earlier in the program. A closer comparison revealed that the majority of the footage rolling during the segment with Bachmann was from September's "9/12" protest, which had been a much larger event. A small notation on the screen said "earlier," but Hannity referred to the visuals as "Thursday," implying that the footage was of the Nov. 5 rally.
Hannity is not the only Fox News host to be accused of using misleading video footage recently. While criticizing White House communications director Anita Dunn for her alleged love of Mao Zedong, Glenn Beck chopped off a clip of Dunn's speech that altered the context of her statement, according to the Web site Media Matters for America. The "doctored" clip was used on several Fox programs.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/11/12/sean-hannity-jon-stewart-was-right-about-swapped-video/A day after Daily Show host Jon Stewart accused Sean Hannity of swapping protest... more
-
-
So here’s what I did on my class trip to London: shoot a video featuring people on the street discussing whether they preferred PIRATE RADIO or THE BOAT THAT ROCKED as the title of the latest Richard Curtis film; interview some of the stars of the film itself; and eat British airport pizza. Two of those things were a helluva lot of fun, and one of them was an ungodly plummet into the depths of Hell. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which (hint: glad I brought some Pepto tablets with me).
The three actors featured in this first installment of our special, two-part PIRATE RADIO coverage form something of a romantic triangle in the film. Tom Sturridge plays Carl, the teenager who is sent by his mother (Emma Thompson) to spend some time on Radio Rock, the notorious pirate radio ship that in 1966 was beaming rock and roll from international waters into a United Kingdom whose own BBC couldn’t be bothered with the form. Talulah Riley is Marianne, the young woman that Carl’s godfather and Pirate Radio owner and captain Quentin (Bill Nighy) brings on-board to alleviate some of the boy’s sense of isolation. And Nick Frost is Doctor Dave, the sexually unquenchable Radio Rock personality whose interference in the kids’ first meeting proves to be something of a distraction for Marianne — because true love may be forever, but getting nailed by a DJ nets you serious street cred.
The conversations in this ep ranged far beyond the topic of PIRATE RADIO itself, covering as they did the legendary 007 water tank, the Cirque du Soleil, Steven Spielberg’s on-set attitude, and Rupert Everett in drag (but, then, don’t all conversations eventually wind up there?). Click the link to hear the show:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-persons/mighty-movie-podcast-empi_b_354827.htmlSo here’s what I did on my class trip to London: shoot a video featuring people on... more
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the poster for TURNING GREEN lies. It showcases Tim Hutton, Colm Meaney, and Allesandro Nivola, but while they’re prominent figures in the film, it ain’t about them. Off in the lower right, with his back turned towards the camera, there’s your protagonist: A teenage boy, played quite engagingly by newcomer Donal Gallery. I can understand the motivation for pitching the name players in your marketing, but really, can’t you at least show the kid’s face?
Granted, beyond that poster, Michael Aimette and John G. Hofmann’s TURNING GREEN has had as convoluted a history as can be imagined: The story of James, a teen who, with his brother, has been shipped by their father to Ireland and who decides to rally up the cash for an escape by peddling contraband pornography to his classmates — much to the displeasure of his bookie boss Nivola and the bookie’s enforcer Hutton — the script was a finalist on the first season of PROJECT GREENLIGHT (the one that ended up producing STOLEN SUMMER — dodged a bullet there, eh, guys?), was actually shot in 2004, has been in release since 2005, and is only now making its U.S. debut. It’s a small film, but a cleverly conceived, beautifully photographed, and well-performed one — as neat a directorial debut as I’ve seen this year. Ben Affleck and Chris Moore should be kicking themselves.
Aimette and Hofmann gave me some insight into the film’s extended genesis and the olfactory-challenging lengths to which Tim Hutton would go to develop a character. Click on the link to hear the interview:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-persons/emmighty-movie-podcastem_b_348798.htmlNot to put too fine a point on it, but the poster for TURNING GREEN lies. It showcases... more
-
-
-
-
