Archive for May, 2007
Jane Fonda Accepts Lifetime Achievement Award In Cannes
CANNES, France: The 60th Cannes film festival, which wrapped up Sunday, awarded a Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement to veteran US actress and activist Jane Fonda over the weekend.
The exceptional Golden Palm prize, awarded by festival chief Gilles Jacob, had only been awarded three times before since 1946, to French directors Alain Resnais and Gerard Oury and the French actress Jeanne Moreau.
Jacob presented the surprise honour at a dinner after a screening of Sidney Lumet’s classic “12 Angry Men” as a tribute to her late father Henry, who died in 1982.
“I never imagined that the Cannes film festival would honour a person who was spied on and tracked by the FBI, a person who has a 20,000-page file,” Jacob noted with a touch of irony, referring to her campaign against the Vietnam war, and later the US invasion of Iraq.
“You are a woman who fights and wins.”
A visibly moved Fonda, 69, said she was “overwhelmed” by the special prize.
“I have the feeling my father is with me tonight. The whole Fonda family thanks you,” she said in French.
“He loved progressive films and those films taught me important things: justice, democracy…. I feel inspired by and proud of the heritage he left us.”
The two-time Oscar winner was accompanied at the dinner by her daughter by Roger Vadim, Vanessa.
US director Robert Rodriguez said during the festival that he has signed on to remake Fonda’s iconic cult hit “Barbarella.” - AFP/sh
Channel News Asia
Journey Into A Symphonic Galaxy
Conductor Harding leading the London Symphony Orchestra.
Listening to the London Symphony Orchestra playing the theme music for Star Wars turns on FARIDUL ANWAR FARINORDIN.
CONCERT-goers burst into sighs of delight and excited applause when the all-too-familiar strains of John Williams’ Star Wars theme, with its triumphant march heralding good-over-evil, was performed at the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, recently.
What made the difference was that it was being performed by the original ensemble of musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra.
The Star Wars theme was the orchestra’s encore performance, after having completed the night’s programme with works by Antonin Dvorak (The Golden Spinning-Wheel, Op. 109) and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor.
More than just providing all-sensory, pure cinematic joy. LSO, brought the universe to the audience in the hall this time. For a Star Wars fan like me, it was like being transported by a Millennium Falcon to a faraway galaxy. The experience was far richer than listening to the LSO’s original recording of the Star Wars sound-track on a high-end, multi-channel, full-surround audio system.
The LSO and pictorial symphonic pieces have a long history. Over the years, it has recorded sound-track albums for many big blockbusters such as Braveheart, the Alien series, Indiana Jones installations and also the upcoming fantasy adventure Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
The pieces selected for the evening further emphasised LSO’s ability to paint atmospheric and picturesque pieces with all the dramatic elements.
With The Golden Spinning-Wheel, a symphonic poem based on Karel Jaromir Erben’s works, it was a journey of a young king in search for his true love. The narrative story-telling was as pleasant as it was disturbing (the king’s love interest was murdered and her body dismembered).
The Mahler composition, on the other hand, was a more abstract picture of life and death, order and balance. The philosophical piece, with all its celestial elements, earthly possessions and heavenly creatures, was quite intriguing.
Forceful and fierce yet at the same time melancholic and tragic, it sought to answer metaphysical questions that the composer had later in life (the piece was first premiered in Cologne, Germany in 1904, when he was 44). Call it early mid-life crisis, but I don’t think he found the answers.
It was not difficult to see how the LSO magic was created. Looking at conductor Daniel Harding’s entertaining balletic movements - at times, standing on his toes - on the raised conductor’s platform, it became clear that his role was more than just the guy wielding a baton.
You could see him becoming totally immersed in the works, as if he was an extension of the music, giving a whole new dimension to the art.
On the second night of the performance, LSO performed Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, with German violinist virtuoso Frank Peter Zimmermann, as well as Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique (Op. 14).
New Straits Times
Rise Of The Dragon Girls
They are hungry and they’re everywhere. Of course, it helps that they’re gorgeous.
We’re talking about mainland Chinese starlets who have suddenly made their presence felt in practically every major Chinese language movie release.
Last year, there was Zhou Xun in The Banquet, Xu Jinglei in Confession of Pain and Fan Bingbing in A Battle of Wits.
So far this year, Zhou has had double exposure playing two characters in Ming Ming, currently showing in cinemas here; Fan has starred in the horror show, The Matrimony; and Zhang Jingchu has appeared in Prot g .
And no surprises - the same faces will be seen in upcoming blockbusters: Fan in the Donnie Yen action picture, Flash Point, Xu in the Peter Chan period epic, The Warlords, and Zhang in the Hollywood crowd-pleaser, Rush Hour 3.
Another starlet, Liu Yifei, even beat her compatriots to the coveted role of Golden Sparrow in The Forbidden Kingdom, the eagerly-awaited collaboration between Jet Li and Jackie Chan.
Liu was also in the news recently when she became the second Chinese actress, after Zhang Ziyi, to sign with William Morris Agency, one of the top three American talent companies, whose clients includes Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson among others.
No question about it - mainland Chinese beauties are hot and they rule the roost once occupied by doe-eyed Hong Kong starlets like Gigi Leung and Charlie Yeung.
And there’s hard-nosed economics behind it, according to Daniel Yun, managing director of MediaCorp Raintree Pictures.
Referring to the reasons for Zhang’s casting in Prot g , of which Raintree was one of several financiers, he explained in an email interview with TODAY: “Since this is a co-production, there’s a quota of involvement for mainland Chinese talent.
“And because it’s a co-production with China, it can be released in China without any restrictions. Otherwise, it would have to compete with Hollywood movies to be the 20 overseas imported titles allowed into China each year.”
Although Yun declined to go into detail, pay is most likely a big consideration, too.
These Chinese actresses on the cusp of stardom don’t make diva demands - well, at least not yet. And they don’t mind parts that are little more than the token love interest.
For instance, Fan was given little to do in A Battle of Wits, while Xu’s role in Confession of Pain was clearly underwritten.
The upshot: None of these up-and-coming names, apart from Zhou, really have the star power and clout to follow in the footsteps of trail blazers Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi.
“The key challenge for them,” observed Yun, “is to find a breakout role, like the one which Zhang Ziyi had in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), which will use who they are, what talents they have and build on these fundamentals.”
In other words, while landing a plum role in a big budget production is a no-brainer for these starlets, finding a part that actually shows off their acting chops is the only way to advance their careers.
Zhou has, in fact, already begun doing this, diversifying her portfolio by appearing in the MTV-friendly Ming Ming.
TODAY picks the cream of the recent crop of Chinese starlets and profiles the six who are most likely to crack the international market. -
Channel News Asia