Halle bites back: The sassy actress on swimming with sharks, both in and out of the water

An October day in Warsaw, and the Polish glitterati are out in force at the capital’s Intercontinental Hotel as an armed police escort delivers the most exciting arrival from Hollywood for years. Even the chefs have come out of the kitchen to stare in wonderment at the pared-down beauty of Halle Berry who, panther-like in a skintight black Helmut Lang catsuit and gamine crop, makes every other woman present look overdressed.

Halle is here for the European launch of her third Coty perfume Reveal, looking just as sleek at 44 as when she played the title role of Catwoman six years ago. After becoming a mother for the first time at 41 when she had her daughter Nahla back in March 2008, she still has the willowy figure of a woman half her age. But there’s a good reason for that: ‘I exercise all the time because I’m diabetic,’ says Halle, who was diagnosed at 19 and was taking insulin until a change in her diet and exercise programme a few years ago enabled her to stabilise and stop taking the hormone.

It’s clear that this former beauty queen and ex-fashion model takes nothing in life for granted. The actress who was named Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire in October 2008 just months after having her baby (and who broke an ageist taboo by admitting in the same magazine that she had far better orgasms in her 40s than her 20s) is still the only black woman to have won a Best Actress Oscar (for Monster’s Ball in 2002) and the first black girl to win the title of Miss Teen USA (1985) and represent the US in the Miss World contest (1986). Modelling became her stepping stone to acting, yet she remains sensitive about racism in Hollywood and elsewhere, having had to fight to win roles mainly intended for white actresses before making her breakthrough as a drug addict in Spike Lee’s 1991 film Jungle Fever.

Her determination to take risks has seen her accept diverse roles, from the mutant superheroine Storm in the X-Men franchise and Bond girl Jinx Johnson in Die Another Day to her nude scenes with a racist, played by Billy Bob Thornton, in Monster’s Ball. I wonder whether creating her own fragrances makes her feel more in control than she could ever be in an acting career that will always depend upon the parts she is offered and on getting the green light from risk-averse studio bosses. (She’s executive producer of the forthcoming film Frankie and Alice, in which she plays a woman suffering from a multiple-personality disorder, but it has taken her nine years to get it made.)

‘There’s no element of ever feeling in control for me,’ she says. ‘I put my heart and soul in a fragrance or a movie project and just hope that people will love them. But whether things turn out the way anybody hopes isn’t really the goal for me – I just like to challenge myself. Sometimes it scares me to death, but for me, it’s always about growing as an artist.’ Which is why she’s making her Broadway debut this autumn in The Mountaintop, set in a hotel room in 1968, the night before the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King (played by her Jungle Fever co-star Samuel L Jackson).

Read more »

Sandra Bullock to Spend the Holidays with Jesse James

Sandra Bullock is reported to reunite with former husband Jessie James for the holidays in Austin, Texas this year. The decision was Bullocks, in hopes that their adopted son Louis would bond with Jessie’s other children. Louis was adopted during the couple’s very public divorce earlier this year.

People should not look at the reunion as reconciliation for the couple as there are reports that Sandra is ready to date once again. Unfortunately for Jesse, bad boys are couldn’t be further from her boyfriend wish list. She is also looking forward to adopting or havng more children one day, and providing a stable environment for Louis.

Jesse is rumored to still be dating L.A. Ink reality star Kate Von D. No word has been given if Kate will be in attendance at the holiday festivities.

Read more »

Could Future Movies Star Other Green Lanterns?

Green Lantern’s unusual amongst super-heroes in that the identity’s almost equally associated with multiple, totally-different personalities. Sure, Hal’s back to #1 GL these days, but ask any of the JUSTICE LEAGUE cartoon’s fans who GL is and they’ll say John Stewart. And Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner both had lengthy, years-long stints. I bring this up because, during an interview with MTV about BURIED, Ryan Reynolds brings up the possibility (emphasis on possibility) that future GREEN LANTERN movies might be about ringslingers aside from Hal.

So spoke Mr. Reynolds…
"It's a pretty big universe and there's a lot to explore… There's a lot to explore with Hal and without him. You could do a couple more movies with Hal, then you could move on to a movie with Guy Gardner or Kyle Rayner, any of those guys… [but] let's not put the cart before the horse…" So yeah, this talk might be getting a little far ahead of things, but it’s interesting to consider - - this might possibly be an avenue for Reynolds to do the DEADPOOL movie and not have it conflict with the greater plans for GREEN LANTERN.

It’s tough to say which Earthborne GL I’d like to see star instead of Hal. John brings a military hardness and discipline that’s a bit more bad ass than a cocky pilot. Kyle’s more fun since drawing is his day job - - his constructs run a lot more creative than any other GL’s. And as for Guy? It’s always fun to see a cantankerous loudmouth like him in any leading man position (and we have already seen him as GL in THE BRAVE & THE BOLD and the discontinued JUSTICE LEAGUE live-action TV shows.) And how could I forget mentioning Alan Scott?

Me, I just want to see “ultimate Green Lantern” Sodam Yat appear in some capacity in these movies.

I suppose this calls for some fantasy producing. Which GL would you want to headline one of these movies, if not Hal? And what actors are just the undeniable doubles for these characters?

Read more »

"Enter the Void": Acid-trip freakout movie of the year

If you're like me, and pine for the dangerous, ridiculously ambitious and more than occasionally silly LSD mindfuck movies of the 1970s, the Argentine-born French director Gaspar Noé feels your pain -- and is here to fill up your synapses with brightly colored goo. Although he remains nearly invisible to Americans, Noé has carved out a career as a visionary and provocateur on the outermost edge of European cinema, making deliberate outrages like the reverse-chronology rape-revenge saga "Irreversible" and its even more misanthropic and violent predecessor, "I Stand Alone."

After many years of gestation and production, Noé is back with his first English-language film, "Enter the Void," and whether you like it or not, the dude has taken his game to the next level. This powerful, hallucinogenic journey will strike some viewers as a flat-out masterpiece and others as flatulent garbage. It actually has elements of both, so let me issue a completely weaselly, asterisk-laden recommendation: You have to see this! If (and only if) you're into this kind of thing!

Below, you can read what I wrote about "Enter the Void" after seeing Noé's 156-minute edit of the film at Sundance earlier this year. (I've made a few discreet edits.) He's cut almost 20 minutes out of it since then, and that's the version IFC is distributing to theaters and via VOD. I was delirious and underslept when I wrote this -- which was entirely appropriate, as would be other altered states of consciousness -- and somehow neglected to mention Noé's amazing opening-credit sequence, which got a roaring ovation from the Sundance audience and is worth seeing all by itself.

Read more »

Facebook suffered a global outage

Facebook has suffered a global outage Thursday, September 23 in the early evening (French time). For nearly 2 h 30 min, most members could not access the site displayed an error page instead of their profile.

The lucky ones are still able to connect, but temporarily, and navigation was extremely slow.

The operation buttons "I", which allow users to indicate that they have enjoyed a content on another site, was also affected, as shown by the catch taken on the site 01net.

From Facebook's own admission, he is the worst crash he has undergone since its inception four years ago.

The social network has explained the causes of the incident on his blog, to avoid suspicion of hacking. These are modifications of automatic verification of data stored in the cache that are the cause of the outage.

Errors in the setup led to a flood of applications on servers, forcing Facebook to stop traffic before resetting gradually in the evening.

Read more »

Celebrity Twitter auction raises money for Haiti

SAN FRANCISCO — A first-ever Celebrity Twitter Auction raising money for special needs children in Haiti lets winning bidders become buddies with stars at the hot microblogging service.
The auction taking place online at ebay.com/twitchange offers chances for people, or companies seeking promotion, to have stars follow them on Twitter, "retweet" their messages at the service, and mention them to followers.

"A tweet is kind of a modern day autograph but you get more perks," read a message at the TwitChange website on Tuesday.
Actress Eva Longoria of the US television series "Desperate Housewives" teamed with twitchange.com and aHomeInHaiti.org to coax celebrities into donating access to their Twitter worlds in the name of charity.

The auction ends on September 25 and proceeds will be used to finish rebuilding a center in Haiti for children with autism, cerebral palsy, or other challenges.

Dana White, president of Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts group in the United States, had attracted the highest bid as of Tuesday with someone offering 15,600 dollars for his Twitter time and attention.

Actor Zachary Levi who stars in a "Chuck" television series about a computer whiz caught up in comedic spy action was the second most coveted Twitter pal, bidding at 14,900 dollars.
Bids ranged into the low hundreds of dollars, with bargains below 100 dollars scarce on Tuesday.

Read more »

Actress Hilton Eludes Arrest

A one year suspended sentence was awarded by a US judge to American socialite Paris Hilton after pleading guilty for drug possession and obstruction of a police officer. Additionally, the model-singer was fined $2,000 and was directed to perform 200 hours of community service.

Earlier, the great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton has been arrested by the local authorities in Las Vegas after they flagged a vehicle where she was a passenger and spotted cocaine in her purse. The obstruction case stemmed from Hilton denying that the purse and the cocaine was hers.

David Chesnoff, lawyer of The Simple Life actress commented to reporters that her client will be attending an outpatient substance abuse treatment program and that Hilton was treated fairly during the proceedings of the case filed against her. He further added that Hilton accepts the responsibility of her actions.

The plea deal Hilton agreed to could have caused her maximum of four years in prison. In 2007, Hilton has spent 23 jail days in Los Angeles for violation of probation.

Read more »

New Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Elements add Facebook support

Adobe has just released the latest versions of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, adding among many new features the ability to post content directly to Facebook.

Adobe's "Elements" software is designed for entry-level users who want a powerful media editing tool but don't know how to manipulate sophisticated software controls. Photoshop Elements 9, for example, will now let users click on an object in the background to remove it without distorting the rest of the picture. Additionally, there's new functionality for how to export pictures: users can create calendars or greeting cards, upload to Flickr or Facebook, and print out customized photo books.

On the Premiere side of thing, Adobe's video editing software, Elements 9 adds improved HD support, audio optimization (background noise removal, easier volume mixing), new transition and animation effects, and more professional menu themes for DVD burns. It's also a bit easier to import video from digital cameras.

Both software titles are available for around $100 each, or as a bundle for $150. They are available now and should be available at your local software retailer.

Read more »

Facebook puts brakes on fast-spreading 'clickjacking' ruse

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook on Monday put the brakes on "clickjackers" that were duping people with a fake status update about someone getting revenge on an ex-girlfriend.

"We've disabled the page," Facebook said in an email response to an AFP inquiry.

"As always, we advise people not to click on suspicious-looking links, even if they're from friends."

The scam enticed Facebook users with a titillating status update of "OMG This GUY Went A Little To Far WITH His Revenge On His EX Girlfriend" that appeared to be from a friend.

In order to connect to the link provided, people were prompted to verify themselves by clicking on color coded boxes that actually triggered Facebook users' Share and Like buttons, spreading the message.

Tricking people into clicking on computer links that do other than what is promised is referred to as "clickjacking."

Read more »

Steven Spielberg Makes Hollywood Crazy to Read About the Robopocalypse

As a director, Steven Spielberg has warned us about invasion from aliens, technology, and Nazis. But now Vulture hears that he’s intrigued by another threat: robots.

DreamWorks optioned a novel by Daniel H. Wilson (due to be published next June) called Robopocalypse that sources tell us Spielberg has been considering making his next project. And when Hollywood hears that Spielberg is excited about something, they get excited, too: A new draft of the Robopocalypse adaptation has just been handed in by Drew Goddard (co-writer of Cloverfield, and the director of MGM’s lamentably delayed The Cabin in the Woods), and the town is desperate to get its hands on it.

Says one source, “With DreamWorks, everything is potentially a Steven project — until it’s not. That’s why everyone’s in a frenzy trying to read it.” Meaning: If Spielberg does it, agents will be desperate to get their acting clients hired for the film. Meanwhile, directors’ agents are trying to read it in case he decides not to do the project. Goes the thinking, If Spielberg flirted with it, it’s forever marked as a Quality Movie, so everyone wants to scoop it up if it gets dropped.

It does seem like a logical DreamWorks project, whoever directs it; the studio has been betting big on ‘bots for a while now. Shawn Levy’s action movie Reel Steel, set in the futuristic world of robot boxing, appears in theaters in November 2011, six months after the DreamWorks release of Transformers 3.

Vulture was unsuccessful in reaching Wilson, a robotics researcher who previously wrote the 2005 book How to Survive a Robot Uprising. We did leave a message for him at his home in Oregon; he may call us back with details, provided his answering machine hasn’t already slaughtered him.

Read more »

Michael Vick says Kevin Kolb is starting quarterback for Philadelphia Eagles

Michael Vick is trying hard not to fan the flames of what is turning into a heated quarterback debate for the Philadelphia Eagles.

The backup totaled 321 yards, including 37 on the ground, and threw two touchdowns in the Eagles' 35-32 win over the Lions on Sunday in place of anointed starter Kevin Kolb, who was out with a concussion. After the game, head coach Andy Reid reiterated that Kolb would be the starter when the Eagles visit Jacksonville next week.

On Monday, Vick said he will dutifully return to the bench and wait for his number to be called again.

"It's totally OK with me," Vick said in a TV interview with ESPN. " Kevin is out leader. I know how good he is and what he can do. I came into this year as the backup. That's my mindset. That's the way it is. I'm willing to accept that."

Vick sparked a stagnant Eagles offense with 175 passing yards, 103 rushing yards and a touchdown after replaced the injured Kolb in the second against the Packers in Week 1. Kolb had completed just 5 of 10 passes of 24 yards when he was injured.

Still, Vick contended he was just happy to get out on the field.

"it was great to go out and have a chance," Vick said. "Everyone had faith in me. It was gratifying."

Read more »

Sadie Frost to Take DNA Test After Half Sister Claims

Sadie Frost has been left reeling after a woman contacted her alleging she is the star's half-sister, according to a U.K. report. The British actress opened up about her father David Vaughan's womanizing in her new autobiography, "Crazy Days".

And the revelations prompted an unnamed woman from Manchester, north England to contact Frost as she thinks Vaughn may be her father. A source tells Britain's Daily Mirror, "Sadie is shocked. She knew her father was pretty wild but she thought she knew all of his children."

"At the back of her mind she thinks there may be even more." Frost will reportedly undergo a DNA test later this September to establish if the mystery woman is a relative.

Read more »

Reviews on Best Adventure Movies

Well, I believe that adventure movies are the most popular category in the Hollywood. So what do you think that makes these adventure movies great and worth watching? Well, to a very large extent the category is primarily defined (and you can say redefined) by movies themselves – the movies that we remember are primarily the most successful ones.

Below is a review on best adventure movies that I have handpicked from past. The selection includes movies from wide range, from science adventures to pirate adventures, etc. I believe that the essential elements for a movie to be best adventure movies are great story, a good hero and a good villain or a situation that could bring tension in to the movie script.
So let’s start with our review on best adventure movies ever made:

1. The Long Kiss Goodnight: This movie is a story about a happily married mom who lives in a suburban area; however, she cannot recollect anything about the time before giving birth to her daughter some 8 years ago. However, one night she has an accident and after that she starts to recollect her past slowly. But it becomes a crucial time for her as a former enemy of hers sees her on TV and breaks away from the jail to kill her and take revenge.

I believe that this was a terrific adventure movies but it never received the credit it should have been given. I will give a six out of 10 in terms of my category of review on best adventure movies.

2. The Fugitive: This movie is a story about a respected medical practitioner Dr. Richard Kimble who is accused falsely and convicted for killing his wife.

Circumstances give Kimble the opportunity to escape from the prison and prove his innocence. Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford have acted brilliantly in this movie.

I will give a seven out of 10 in terms of my category of review on best adventure movies.

3. The Curse of the Black Pearl – Pirates of the Caribbean: Well this movie is in the list just because it did manage to bring the pirate adventure movies to the mainstream cinema after a gap of almost more than a decade.

However, I also believe that the movie without Geoffrey Rush and Johny Depp would not have been that meaningful.

The story of the movie was something like this: Will Turner and Captain Jack Sparrow need to work together to form and unlikely partnership to face a group of cursed pirates whose leader was treacherous Captain Barbossa.

Though, both Turner and Sparrow had different goals, while Turner wanted to rescue her girlfriend, Jack wanted his black peal back. I will definitely give a nine out of 10 in terms of my category of review on best adventure movies.

So, what are you waiting for, you have gone through mine list now create your own list of movies and just start watching them at your home or PC.

Read more »

Sony's game console to show 3-D movies, get wand

CHIBA, Japan – Sony's PlayStation 3 game console will work as a Blu-ray disc player for 3-D movies and music videos, not just 3-D games, with a software update download starting Sept. 21.

The free-of-charge update for movies and other content had been promised for later this year. But the date is being moved up to ride on the momentum of 3-D popularity, Sony executive Hiroshi Kawano said at the Tokyo Game Show Thursday.

The annual event in this Tokyo suburb features game machines and the latest offerings from game-software makers. It opens over the weekend for the public. A preview event was held Thursday for reporters and business officials.

"The appeal and impact of games will be definitely enhanced with 3-D technology," Kawano said during a two-hour presentation at the Sony booth.

The 3-D capabilities for the PlayStation 3 will not be as thorough as they are for 3-D Blu-ray disc players. The game machine will have no problem playing 3-D movies, but some parts of the menu and other minor portions of some DVDs will play only in 2-D, Sony said.

Sony also showed a motion-controller wand for the PlayStation 3 called Move, similar to the one already on sale from rival Nintendo Co.'s Wii. Sony said Move will go on sale Sept. 19 in the U.S. and Oct. 21 in Japan.

A 5,980 yen ($70) "starter kit" for the Move comes with software called "Beat Sketch!" which allows people to make computer-graphic paintings on the TV screen using the motion-controller stick.

A similar kit for the U.S., with a different game, costs $99.99, and the wand by itself costs $49.99.

Move is cheaper than Microsoft Corp.'s Kinect, which sells for $150 in the U.S. and 14,800 yen in Japan.

Kinect is a system to control gaming motion without a wand. It doesn't require the player to push any buttons, and the game is controlled by the player's movements.

The PlayStation 3 already plays 3-D games with an upgrade that could be done over the Internet earlier this year.

Some 38 million of the PlayStation 3 video game machines have been sold globally so far, according to Sony Computer Entertainment, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company's gaming division.

Read more »

Mel Gibson abuse tape hits the web

Hollywood star Mel Gibson, who is set to be investigated for domestic violence against former lover Oksana Grigorieva, has landed in more trouble with a recording of the actor abusing her, leaked on the web.

The 54-year-old star can be heard unleashing a profanity-laced tirade over how Grigorieva dresses and using derogatory phrases, in the recording posted by Radar Online.

"You go around sashaying in your tight clothes. I won't stand for that anymore," Gibson allegedly says in the tape.

"I'm just telling you the truth. I don't like it. I don't believe you anymore. I don't trust you. I dont love you. OK? I will take care of my child but I don't want you anymore," he says.
Gibson is being investigated after the Russian beauty alleged in a restraining order filed June 25 that the 54-year-old actor punched her in the face "more than once" on that day, causing a broken tooth, knocking out a veneer and causing a concussion.

Read more »

Review: Raavan

The low-caste Beera rules the forest in Raavan, Mani Ratnam’s richly atmospheric adaptation of the Indian epic The Ramayana.
Though the film takes place in the present, Mr Ratnam’s forest remains an appropriately primeval place for mythic doings, full of fog and mists and rain and Beera’s mud-painted followers (shades of “Apocalypse Now”).

Raavan (Ravana in Sanskrit), as every Indian knows, is the demon in The Ramayana who kidnaps Sita, the wife of Rama: king, deity and model husband (as Sita is the model wife).
Early on in Ratnam’s film the question is asked: Is Beera (a gleefully hammy Abhishek Bachchan) Robin Hood or Raavan? He’s both — and more a hero in this telling, set on his turf, than is the Rama character, a cop called Dev (Vikram), who matches Beera in brutality and cunning, but not in heart.

Raavan has Bollywood glamour aplenty, with the lovely if occasionally dramatically challenged Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek’s wife, playing the Sita stand-in.

The real star, though, is Ratnam, a talented visual storyteller who directs action crisply and fills the screen with striking images. (One, of Bachchan’s falling body landing gracefully on a tree branch, is so good he uses it three times.)

Artful but not arty, Ratnam, whose films include Dil Se and Guru delivers the goods: There are songs and dances (A R Rahman of Slumdog Millionaire fame did the excellent score), and an eye-popping climactic battle, between the bad-good Beera and the good-bad Dev, on a teetering suspension bridge. And that, folks, is entertainment.

Read more »

Review: I Hate Luv Storys

You will not hate this love story, a spoof on ace director Karan Johar from his own production house. Hats off to Karan for daring to produce a film that makes fun of his kind of cinema. Samir Soni steps into his shoes with great ease in the film.
Director Punit Malhotra takes a pot shot at everything - designer sets, boy meets girl sagas, actresses singing in chiffon saris in the Alps - that made directors like Karan, Aditya Chopra and Kunal Kohli a name to reckon with in the industry.

In terms of content, nothing is new. But the treatment is fresh, the backdrop is interesting and it's fun watching the romance brew between the lead pair Simran and Jay on the sets of a movie. Yes, the film is about the making of a love story where Simran works as an art designer and Jay as an assistant to highly successful director Vir Kapoor (Samir), known for his candy floss romantic sagas.

Imran Khan as Jay Dhingra and Sonam Kapoor as Simran fit the bill quite perfectly.

First time director Punit Malhotra proves his mettle by narrating a predictable story in such an interesting manner that you are hooked till the end.

A romantic by heart, Simran is contented with life. She is engaged to banker Raj, played by Sammir Dattani, and loves her job. But her life turns topsy turvy when the weird but funny, bratty but lovable Jay walks into her life as her assistant.

They have nothing in common. While Simran is highly disciplined, organised, professional and takes her work seriously, Jay is laid back and always late on the sets.

Yes, opposites attract here too, and they eventually fall in love.

The first half is pacy and director infuses enough energy in this otherwise predictable love story. But some scenes in the second half drag.

Another flaw in the film is that Imran is given too many dialogues to speak, but then he delivers them with just the right expressions. He suits the role of a spoilt brat perfectly and keeps tickling your funny bone. Especially when he breaks down like a girl while talking to his mom (Anju Mahendru) on phone.

Editing could have been better, but never mind.

In sum, the witty dialogues, on screen chemistry of the lead pair and performances of the supporting cast - Kavin Dave, Bruna Abdullah Aamir Ali and Pooja Ghai - make it a good watch.
Sonam may not have hits in her kitty so far, but this film should change things. In every scene, she complements Imran.

In terms of music, Vishal-Shekhar's pacy numbers add zing to the narrative and background music adds a nice flavour to this predictable love story.

I Hate Luv Storys proves that one can make good film without lavish sets, foreign locales and mega budgets. In short, a commendable effort by the first time director.

You may not be a great fan of candy floss cinema, but do watch I Hate Luv Storys... it's refreshing.

Read more »

Review: Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 begins with a rattling, exuberant set piece that has nothing to do with the tale that follows but that nonetheless sums up the ingenuity, and some of the paradoxes, that have made this Pixar franchise so marvelous and so successful. The major toys — Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), the Potato Heads (Don Rickles and Estelle Harris), Hamm (John Ratzenberger), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Rex (Wallace Shawn) and the others — are in a setting at once wholly unfamiliar and instantly recognisable. They’re in a western, albeit one made in the amped-up modern action style, rather than the more stately idiom of old-time oaters.

A train is hurtling down the tracks; a bridge explodes; stuff is falling out of the sky. There are force fields and laser beams and a big noisy surprise every time you blink.

At first glance your heart may sink a little. Can it be that Toy Story, built over 15 years and two previous movies out of the unlikely bonds that flourished among a band of beautifully animated inanimate characters (and Andy, the mostly unseen boy who collects them), has succumbed to flashy commercial blockbuster imperatives? Or would we be fooling ourselves to suppose that it has ever been anything else?

The resolution of the opening scene in the latest episode shows this to be a false choice.
The action is taking place in Andy’s head as he plays with his toys. All those crazy effects are the products of his restless and inexhaustible imagination, which is no less his for having been formed and fed by movies, television shows and the cheap merchandise spun out of them.
And how many real kids who have grown up with Buzz Lightyear and Sheriff Woody have unspooled their own improvised movies on the rec room floor?

Perhaps no series of movies has so brilliantly grasped the emotional logic that binds the innate creativity of children at play to the machinery of mass entertainment. Each one feeds, and colonises, the other. And perhaps only Pixar, a company Utopian in its faith in technological progress, artisanal in its devotion to quality and nearly unbeatable in its marketing savvy, could have engineered a sweeping capitalist narrative of such grandeur and charm as the Toy Story features.

Toy Story 3 is as sweet, as touching, as humane a movie as you are likely to see this summer, and yet it is all about doodads stamped and molded out of plastic and polyester.

Therein lies its genius, and its uncanny authenticity. A tale that captured the romance and pathos of the consumer economy, the sorrows and pleasures that dwell at the heart of our materialist way of life, could only be told from the standpoint of the commodities themselves, those accretions of synthetic substance and alienated labor we somehow endow with souls.

Cars, appliances, laptops, iPads: we love them, and we profess that love daily.
Its purest, most innocent expression — but also its most vulnerable and perishable — is the attachment formed between children and the toys we buy them.

“I want that!” “That’s mine!” Slogans of acquisitive selfishness, to be sure, but also articulations of desire and loyalty.

The first Toy Story acknowledged this bond, and Toy Story 2 turned it into a source of startlingly deep emotion.

When Woody chose life with Andy and the others over immortality with Stinky Pete at the museum, he was embracing a destiny built on his own disposability.

When we grow up, or just grow tired of last year’s cool stuff, we don’t just put away those childish things, we throw them out. “Face it, we’re just trash,” says a bitter pink teddy bear near the end of Toy Story 3. Though the movie, directed by Lee Unkrich from a script by Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine), labours to dispel the gloom of this statement, it can’t entirely disprove it.

As Andy prepares for college, Woody surveys the depleted ranks of his pals, noting that some have passed on (rest in peace, Wheezy) and reassuring the others that everything will be fine. They’ll live in the attic until the next generation comes along.

But instead they wind up at the Sunnyside Daycare Center, which at first seems like a paradise where the problem of obsolescence has been magically solved.

Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear (Ned Beatty), its seemingly jovial patriarch, explains that there, toys are played with every day, and when one group of youngsters outgrows them, another cohort arrives. It’s a perfect reversal of the single-owner predicament, and most of the toys are relieved and happy — especially Barbie, voiced by Jodi Benson, who finds a Ken with a fabulous wardrobe and the voice of Michael Keaton.

The change of scene, and Woody’s subsequent journey to the home of a little girl named Bonnie (Emily Hahn), allows the filmmakers to introduce a bevy of new toys, including a talking phone and a purple octopus who sounds a lot like one of the hosts of The View.
Toy Story 3, which makes remarkably subtle use of 3-D, also explores a range of cinematic techniques undreamed of in the first two chapters, and refined in recent Pixar films like Wall-E and Up.

There are swiftly edited action sequences worthy of a Bourne movie; low-angle compositions and nimble tracking shots; changes in the color saturation and the texture of the light — just like in a “real” movie! When the truth about Sunnyside is revealed, the movie has fun evoking prison escape pictures and horror films, darkening the Pixar palette to captivating (and, to some small children, possibly frightening) effect.

In providing sheer moviegoing satisfaction — plot, characters, verbal wit and visual delight, cheap laughs and honest sentiment — Toy Story 3 is wondrously generous and inventive. It is also, by the time it reaches a quiet denouement that balances its noisy beginning, moving in the way that parts of “Up” were. That is, this film — this whole three-part, 15-year epic — about the adventures of a bunch of silly plastic junk turns out also to be a long, melancholy meditation on loss, impermanence and that noble, stubborn, foolish thing called love. We all know money can’t buy it, except sometimes, for the price of a plastic figurine or a movie ticket.

Toy Story 3 is rated G (General audiences). Some of the mean toys might be a little scary, and the danger the nice toys face becomes pretty intense at times.

Read more »

Review: Milenge Milenge

There is a kind of subverted joy in watching Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor play a Valentinian romance with a full-throttle gusto.

Milenge Milenge took its time to come to the theatres. Yes, it is old fashioned in theme. But not dated. The material which must have been quite bulky by the time Kaushik was done with shooting has been cut and pasted with restrained enthusiasm. What we have is a paper-thin, sometimes cute at times annoying rom-com where Destiny plays a pivotal part. Kiss-mat, anyone? Yup, intimacy is fugitive between Shahid and Kareena. But they nonetheless look like a real pair.

The plot plods at a pace that suggests love is just about the only force that keeps the universe moving. Both the protagonists play professionals. But we hardly see them work except on their ever-palpitating hearts.

The plot invents various devices from missed flights to truant elevators to hero in drag and heroine in glycerine to keep the love birds apart for two hours. There are some heartwarming moments depicting random hearts pumping into a collective despair as time ticks by.

There's no attempt to pull punches, no over-clever dialogues and no effort to paint and gloss the feeling of love with sassy 'cool' lines. Director Satish Kaushik plays the romance on the straight and narrow path. And that's just about the most comforting aspect of this basic simple and predictable boy-meets-girl tale.

The principal performances range from precocious to authentic. Surprisingly Shahid tends to go overboard in the early comic sequences. But he makes up for the excesses in the second-half with expressions of a lover's anguish over Cupid's awry arrow.

Kareena looks gorgeous and slim in some scenes, gorgeous and relatively plump in other scenes. In totality the chemistry is quite palpable, much more so than in some of the other much-hyped love stories that arrived lately with a bang and fizzled out without the pang of love being palpable in a single frame.

In Milenge Milenge you do feel for the lovers. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we know what the film's lovers do not. That the actors playing them were involved not too long ago. But hush!

Read more »

Oscar nomination for Avatar team a surprise: Cameron

Filmmaker James Cameron says he never expected the stars of his sci-fi blockbuster Avatar to fetch Oscar nominations.

The 55-year-old director wasn't expecting the main actors, including Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver, to be nominated for the Academy Awards because of the use of computer graphics in the film, Empire magazine reported.
"Typically, young leading men don't get nominated until the 15th time they've done it.

Leonardo did not get nominated for 'Titanic'. Was Zoe's performance spectacular?" he said.
The 3-D blockbuster Avatar broke box office records by raking in $2.7 billion.

"Absolutely, but there were many great performances last year. But it is arguable that they would have been nominated if you take the computer generated imagery off the table. Put that back on the table - the CGI part of it - and where the acting community is, they are still low down on the educational curve of what this all means. I didn't expect it and I cautioned them not to expect it, so they'd therefore not be disappointed," Cameron said.

The Oscar-award-winning filmmaker admits that the mythical Na'vi aliens would have looked weird without using the graphics.

"Here's the thing, if it had been in live action, Zoe Saldana would have been in blue make-up and it would not have had the power. Her eyes would not have been those eyes.The blue make-up would have looked terrible.I know - every time I go to a convention or a place where someone decides they're going to be a Na'vi, I'm reminded why we did it the way we did," he said.

Read more »