Peter Jackson and the other members of the team that wrote the Lord of the Rings film trilogy have signed on to pen the movie’s Hobbit prequels, Variety reported on Wednesday. The two Hobbit movies will be directed by Guillermo del Toro, who will join Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens in adapting the J.R.R. Tolkien book for the screen. The news caps off an eight-month search for a scribe to tackle the coveted task of bringing the literary classic to the big screen.
The Hobbit, written by Tolkien for his children years before the Rings trilogy, follows a young Bilbo Baggins, who finds his comfortable life turned upside down when the wizard Gandalf takes him on a journey for a hoard of treasure that involves trolls, humans, Gollum and his ring of invisibility, and a dragon named Smaug. The films will be shot simultaneously starting in late 2009 with the first movie hitting screens in 2011.
In other news about films concerning people of diminutive stature, singer-songwriter Elton John is to showcase his major hits in a new animated film called Gnomeo and Juliet, the Hollywood Reporter reported on Wednesday.
The movie is an adaptation of the Shakespearean classic, and substitutes lovers from rival clans of garden gnomes for the dueling Montagues and Capulets.
Scottish actor James McAvoy and Emily Blunt are lined up to play the heartbroken garden ornaments. The movie will be produced by Miramax and Elton John’s Rocket Pictures, and features several John classics and possibly a few new tracks.
Much as these films may be anticipated, the attention of the movie-going public is currently focused on the Venice Film Festival, which will open on Aug. 27, especially with the looming presence of the American Academy Awards over this year’s official competition. Many Oscar hopefuls and past winners are included in the selection of 21 films vying for the Leone d’Oro.
The Hollywood link coupled with the box-office success that usually accompanies films associated with the Academy Awards has helped raise the Venice Film Festival’s commercial profile, but the event, which was first held in 1932, has a long-established reputation for showcasing emerging cinema, including films from Asia and Latin America, and this year proves no exception.
Burn After Reading, perhaps the most eagerly anticipated film at this year’s Venice Film Festival, is not running in the official competition and thus won’t win any prizes in the lagoon city.
But if a recent trend is to be confirmed, the film is likely to make a splash at the next Oscars.
Made by Joel and Ethan Coen, it has the honor of opening the festival in a world premiere that will lift the lid on the latest effort by the siblings whose No Country For Old Men triumphed at the last Academy Awards.
Billed as a spy story laced with black humor, Burn After Reading boasts a high-powered Hollywood cast including George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand.
Last year, two films launched in Venice, Atonement and Michael Clayton, garnered seven Oscar nominations each, while in 2005 Brokeback Mountain scooped Venice’s top Leone d’Oro (Golden Lion) award and later earned Taiwanese director Ang Lee an Oscar as Best Director.
In family news, actor Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana, have become parents of a second baby girl.
Their daughter, named Gia Zavala, was born on Wednesday, the Oscar winner’s spokeswoman was quoted as saying by the US entertainment magazine People.
The couple tied the knot in December of 2005. They met two years earlier in Miami Beach, where Matt Damon was filming at the time. Luciana Damon, who was born in Argentina, worked in a nightclub.
Matt Damon, 37, is working now on a CIA thriller entitled Green Zone. He has also agreed to star in the forth installment of the highly successful Bourne action movies.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
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