The 2008 Cannes film festival will go down in film history as the year with the Latin touch as Spanish-language movies, Latin themes and A-list celebs make waves at cinema's largest showcase.
Eagerly-awaited Thursday by the 4,000-odd film critics attending the fest is star director Steven Soderbergh's more than four-hour look at the world's best-loved revolutionary, Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
Filmed in Spanish and starring Benicio Del Toro, the movie being presented in two two-hour parts marks a new departure for the director best known for his blockbuster gangster Ocean's movies.
PHOTO: AP
It's one of 22 films nominated for Cannes' top Palme d'Or prize for best movie, a selection in which there are as many Latin American as US movies - four each - and more films than traditionally well-represented Asia.
On the celebrity front, A-listers Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem starred in Woody Allen's first-ever feature shot in Spain - Vicky Cristina Barcelona - and soccer icon Diego Maradona, in Cannes for a film on his life, gave movie-buffs repeated performances of how well he still juggles the ball.
Another emerging nation at Cannes is India, whose entertainment billionaires seemingly blessed with limitless pockets. Bollywood is flexing its movie muscle, taking on Hollywood in unexpected corners of the globe and buying up theatres worldwide.
PHOTO: EPA
The slew of major entertainment deals announced this week at Cannes, the world's biggest film market, underlined Indian cinema expansionism.
Reliance BIG Entertainment, for example, the entertainment branch of India's mighty Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (ADA) Group, unveiled plans to spend US$1 billion by the end of 2009.
ADA plans to use the cash to produce a slate of films in nine languages while ensuring the movies make it onto cinema screens outside India as well as on home video, online digital platforms, and television through the Internet (IPTV).
On the sales front, traditional romantic Indian melodrama as well as newer-wave comedies and edgy arthouse are selling well - sometimes to the most unexpected markets.
In Germany, Eros' new political thriller Sarkar Raj, featuring Bollywood star and former Miss World, Ashwarya Rai, playing alongside her celebrity actor husband Abhishek Bachchan, generated huge unexpected market interest at the recent Berlin film festival.
In the cinematic mainstream, production of a new installment of the Terminator science fiction franchises began three weeks ago, with Christian Bale starring as John Connor in his ongoing quest to save humanity from the machines. Arnold Schwarzenegger did say he would be back, but whether he can combine being the 38th governor of California and a relentless killing machine is another question.
The movie, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, is due to be released this time next year, complete with online and offline games.
In another revitalization of a well-established franchise, Harrison Ford is back as Indiana Jones. In this role, he has cheated death and withstood excruciating pain, and now he has gone the extra mile in the discomfort stakes to protect rainforests.
He has had his chest waxed.
Anyone who has ever waxed their legs or, worse still, bikini line or underarms, knows that this form of hair removal can be painful.
But while Ford winces, he doesn't make a peep when the esthetician in the short video rips a wide swathe of his chest hair out.
It happens as the actor nears the end of a monologue about how depleting the rainforests in distant lands hurts people in countries like the US.
The point of the video - which could be entitled "Indiana Jones and the Wrath of Wax" - was to raise awareness of the crucial part preserving tropical rainforests could play in stemming climate change, Conservation International, which made the clip with Ford, said.
Late last month Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Theresa Lazaro told the Philippine Senate that the nation has sufficient funds to evacuate the nearly 170,000 Filipino residents in Taiwan, 84 percent of whom are migrant workers, in the event of war. Agencies have been exploring evacuation scenarios since early this year, she said. She also observed that since the Philippines has only limited ships, the government is consulting security agencies for alternatives. Filipinos are a distant third in overall migrant worker population. Indonesia has over 248,000 workers, followed by roughly 240,000 Vietnamese. It should be noted that there are another 170,000
Enter the Dragon 13 will bring Taiwan’s first taste of Dirty Boxing Sunday at Taipei Gymnasium, one highlight of a mixed-rules card blending new formats with traditional MMA. The undercard starts at 10:30am, with the main card beginning at 4pm. Tickets are NT$1,200. Dirty Boxing is a US-born ruleset popularized by fighters Mike Perry and Jon Jones as an alternative to boxing. The format has gained traction overseas, with its inaugural championship streamed free to millions on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Taiwan’s version allows punches and elbows with clinch striking, but bans kicks, knees and takedowns. The rules are stricter than the
“Far from being a rock or island … it turns out that the best metaphor to describe the human body is ‘sponge.’ We’re permeable,” write Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie in their book Slow Death By Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things. While the permeability of our cells is key to being alive, it also means we absorb more potentially harmful substances than we realize. Studies have found a number of chemical residues in human breast milk, urine and water systems. Many of them are endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the body’s natural hormones. “They can mimic, block
Next week, candidates will officially register to run for chair of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). By the end of Friday, we will know who has registered for the Oct. 18 election. The number of declared candidates has been fluctuating daily. Some candidates registering may be disqualified, so the final list may be in flux for weeks. The list of likely candidates ranges from deep blue to deeper blue to deepest blue, bordering on red (pro-Chinese Communist Party, CCP). Unless current Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) can be convinced to run for re-election, the party looks likely to shift towards more hardline
RSS