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Category: Hollywood

  • Julia Roberts joins ‘The Secret in Their Eyes’ remake

    Julia Roberts joins ‘The Secret in Their Eyes’ remake

    MUMBAI: Actress Julia Roberts is in talks to come on board for the English-language remake of Oscar-winning Argentine thriller Secret in Their Eyes.

     

    To be directed by Billy Ray; Chiwetel Ejiofor and Gwyneth Paltrow have also been cast in the remake. IM Global is fully financing the project and selling the rights to the project at the Toronto International Film Festival.

     

    The original Spanish-language Juan Jose Campanella movie which was based on the Eduardo Sacheri novel, won the Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards in 2009. The movie centered on a retired attorney who seeks closure for an two decade old unsolved case and for his unrequited love for his former superior by writing a book.

     

    Roberts will portray a character whose daughter is murdered. Her friend digs up the case years later when he thinks he’s found the guy who got away with it. Roberts’ role initially was earmarked for a male actor, but Ray rewrote it specifically for the actress.

     

    Mark Johnson will produce along with John Ufland. The remake, described as a sophisticated crime thriller, is scheduled to start production this fall with plans to shift the shoot from Boston to Los Angeles.

     

    The movie will be a reunion for Roberts and Paltrow, both of whom appeared in Steven Spielberg’s 1991 movie Hook.

     

    Robert’s role in 2013’s August: Osage County got her the best supporting actress Oscar nomination. She most recently appeared in HBO’s The Normal Heart, for which she received a best supporting actress nomination at Emmy.

  • Katie Holmes to make directorial debut with ‘All We Had’

    Katie Holmes to make directorial debut with ‘All We Had’

    MUMBAI: Katie Holmes is all set to add the directorial feather to her cap. She is going to make her directorial debut with the upcoming film All We Had, to be adapted from the Annie Weatherwax novel with the same name.

     

    The 35-year-old actress will not only direct the movie – she will also star in the movie along with co-producing it. Holmes will produce the movie with co-founder New York’s Tribeca Film Festival of Jane Rosenthal, actor Robert De Niro, and vice-president of production and development at Tribeca Productions Berry Welsh. The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone will pen the script.

     

    The book which debuted in August is about a mother and daughter living on the edge of poverty, who finds an unlikely home amid the quirky residents of small town America. Holmes will be playing the mother while the actress playing the daughter is still unknown.

     

    “Katie has such a clear vision for the book’s irreverent, original mother-daughter relationship. Her passion for the material, along with Josh Boone’s ability to tell stories grounded in the comedy and drama of every day, will truly bring these characters to life,” said Rosenthal was quoted as saying in a media statement.

     

    Holmes found fame with the 1990s television series Dawson’s Creek, and has recently appeared in the film like Miss Meadows and Days and Nights. The actress married the Mission Impossible series actor Tom Cruise in 2006, the couple divorced in 2012, they have a daughter named Suri.

  • Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke to be honoured at NY film fest

    Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke to be honoured at NY film fest

    MUMBAI: The New York Film Festival (NYFF), this year will honour veteran actors Ethan Hawke and Richard Gere. The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced that the actors would be guest of honours at the fest’s ‘An Evening With…’ series.

     

    While Hawke’s tribute will take place on 30 September, during which he will participate in an ‘intimate dinner’ and a conversation between the guests and NYFF director Kent Jones, Gere will be honoured on 8 October.

     

    The ‘An Evening With…’ galas are meant to recognise the work of individuals who have made significant artistic contributions to film culture.

     

    While Hawke will be attending the festival as a director on behalf of his documentary Seymour: An Introduction, a documentary about the pianist Seymour Bernstein, Gere’s new movie Time Out of Mind, in which he plays a homeless man, will also be screened at the annual fest.

     

    The festival will open this year with the world premiere of David Fincher’s Gone Girl and will also feature the world premiere of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, Inherent Vice, as its centerpiece selection.

     

    Previous honourees include Nicole Kidman, David Cronenberg, Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes. This is the 52nd year of the festival and it will run from 26 September to 12 October. The 17-day festival will host 30 films this year.

  • Sandeep Marwah on International filmfest jury in Hungary

    Sandeep Marwah on International filmfest jury in Hungary

    NEW DELHI: Marwah Studios and Asian Education Group president Sandeep Marwah is part of the 11-member international jury at the 11th edition of Jameson’s Miskolc International Film Festival commencing tomorrow.

     

    Arguably the country’s largest international event, the festival will continue from 12 to 21 September in the North of Hungary.

     

    Sandeep Marwah will conduct a Master Class at the festival and will be the member of the International jury. He will also be receiving an award for his five World Records.

     

    Marwah has already trained more than 10,000 students from 94 countries of the World. He has been representing India in number of other festivals like Cairo International Film Festival-Egypt, Mons International Film Festival-Belgium, Nigerian International Students Film Festival, Shoot For Life & Shoot For Earth film Festival –Hungary etc.

     

    The Miskoic festival will screen 20 features, 13 documentaries, 33 short features and experimental films, and 19 animation films in competition.

     

    The festival will again attempt to anchor young cinema in an international context. The festival offers great opportunity to dive into the varied film and film history scene, trace current artistic tendencies and discover and rediscover quite a number of films including Cannes, Sundance and Venice hits, some of them months before the US or French premiere.

  • 11 films from India at Busan this year, festival to show 100 feature films

    11 films from India at Busan this year, festival to show 100 feature films

    NEW DELHI: 11 films from India will be screened at the forthcoming Busan International Film Festival next month.

     

    To be held between 2 and 11 October, the Festival will open and close with two films from Greater China. The festival’s opening is the international premiere of Taiwan’s Paradise in Service, Doze Niu’s coming-of-age drama about a young soldier stationed at a brothel on Kinmen Island. The film is produced by Hou Hsiao-hsien. The world premiere of Hong Kong’s Gangster Pay Day by Lee Po-cheung about a washed-out gang boss who turns legitimate by taking over a restaurant, closes the festival. It stars  Anthony Wong and Charlene Choi.

     

    This year’s festival is screening over 100 Asian feature films among a total of 313 films (features and shorts) from 79 countries. The lineup includes the world premieres of 65 feature films and the international premieres of 33 feature films.

     

    Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider, Homi Adajania’s Finding Fanny and Shonali Bose’s Margarita with a straw are among the six films that will be showcased in “A window to Asian Cinema” section.

     

    Other films that will screen in the section include: Malayalam film Zahir by Siddharth Siva, Tamil film Goli Soda by Vijay Milton and Adityavikram Sengupta’s Labour of Love that earlier screened at Venice Days sidebar of Venice Film Festival.

     

    Omung Kumar’s Mary Kom will be screened outdoors in a special programme titled Open Cinema. The film had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival.

     

    Sunrise by Paris based Indian filmmaker Partho Sen-Gupta will compete in the New Currents section.

     

    Our Metropolis by Gautam Sonti and Usha Rao has been shortlisted for documentary competition while Balaka Ghosh’s Foot Prints in Desert will be screened in the Documentary Showcase section.

     

    The festival will also screen Gitanjali Rao’s True Love Story that has earlier screened at Cannes Critics Week and has won award for best animation film at Mumbai International Film Festival.

     

    The annual Korean Cinema Retrospective is dedicated to veteran director Jung Jin-woo. Hong Kong’s Ann Hui is this year’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year and her latest film The Golden Era will have a gala screening at the festival. 

  • U2 partners with Apple for a new album

    U2 partners with Apple for a new album

    MUMBAI:  The veteran Irish rock band U2 revealed that they partnered with Apple for the release of their latest album. Titled Songs of Innocence, the album is available for free on iTunes till it’s officially released on 14 October this year.

     

    The surprise announcement was made at a California event where Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the firm’s latest iPhone and a new smartwatch. This is the first album in five years an U2 album has been offered for free to the 500 million users of Apple’s iTunes service.

     

    The said album has 11 songs, which includes the lead single ‘The Miracle’ which the group performed in the Apple event.

     

    Talking at the event launch, U2 lead singer Bono said, “From the very beginning U2 has always wanted our music to reach as many people as possible, the clue is in our name I suppose – so today is kind of mind-blowing to us. The most personal album we’ve written could be shared with half a billion people… by hitting send. If only songwriting was that easy.”

     

    “It’s exciting and humbling to think that people who don’t know U2 or listen to rock music for that matter might check us out. Working with Apple is always a blast. They only want to do things that haven’t been done before – that’s a thrill to be part of,” he added.

     

    Despite the group’s unprecedented move to give it for free, Songs of Innocence will not be eligible to be nominated for the next Grammy Awards.

     

    U2’s last album, No Line on the Horizon, hit the top spot in the UK charts in 2009 and eventually surpassed the five-million-sales mark worldwide.

     

    The Irish band is famed for producing some of the landmark albums of the 1980s and early 1990s, including The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby.

  • Makers of ‘Harry Potter’ to come up with ‘Paddington’

    Makers of ‘Harry Potter’ to come up with ‘Paddington’

    MUMBAI: This Christmas comes a special treat from the makers of Harry Potter. Christened Paddington, the movie is a British comedy directed by Paul King, who along with Hamish McColl has also co-written the script.

     

    Produced by David Heyman, it is a story of a lovable bear and is based on the famous book and TV series ‘Paddington Bear’ by Michael Bond. The feature film is being released in India by PictureWorks.

     

    The movie stars Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent and Peter Capaldi with Nicole Kidman and Ben Whishaw as the voice of the title character.

     

    The story revolves around a young Peruvian bear with a passion for all things British travels to London in search of a home. Finding himself lost and alone at Paddington Station, he begins to realise that city life is not all he had imagined – until he meets the kindly Brown family, who read the label around his neck (‘please look after this bear, Thank you.’) and offer him a temporary haven. It looks as though Paddington’s luck changes until this rarest of bears catches the eye of a museum taxidermist.

  • Brett Lee all set for his new innings

    Brett Lee all set for his new innings

    MUMBAI: After a legendary inning in cricket, Former Australian fast bowler Brett Lee is all set to star in his first lead role as an actor in an Indo-Australian romantic comedy.

     

    Titled UnIndian, the movie is the first feature to be produced by the recently established Australia India Film Fund (AIFF). Lee will share screen space with Indian actress Tannishtha Chatterjee.

     

    The announcement about the upcoming film was done by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Indian cricket’s living legend Sachin Tendulkar during their meet at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai.

     

    Written by Thushy Saathi and to be directed by Anupam Sharma, the movie will be shot primarily in Sydney. Sharma and Lisa Duff are co-producing the film while Chandru Tolani is the executive producer.

     

    After being part of a Bollywood film and music video, former Australia cricketer Brett Lee is all set to become a full-time actor in an Indo-Australian romantic comedy, aptly titled ‘UnIndian’.

     

    “I’m honoured to have been cast as a lead in the first AIFF film, privileged to be working with Anupam Sharma and humbled to be working with an actress of the calibre of Tannishtha Chatterjee,” Lee said in a statement.

     

    Lee plays the role of a happy-go-lucky man who falls in love with divorcee and single mother, Meera (Chatterjee). The movie is set to go into production in October and expected to hit the theatres in March 2015.

     

    While this is not Lee’s first stint with movies, he has earlier done a cameo in Hindi film Victory starring Harman Baweja and has also featured in a music video with Asha Bhosle,  Chatterjee is best known for her role in Brick Lane (2007), a British film.

     

    AIFF was established in 2013 to invest in Australian films with Indian themes for a global audience.

     

    The 37-year-old pacer, announced his retirement from international cricket in 2012, however, the cricketer still plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Big Bash League.

  • Guinness Book of World Records 2015 to be star studded

    Guinness Book of World Records 2015 to be star studded

    MUMBAI: The Guinness Book of Records 2015 has announced a new list of personalities who broke and created new records this year and it appears to be filled with names of prominent musicians.

     

    Metallica, Eminem, One Direction and Miley Cyrus are among the musicians who have found their way into Guinness World Records 2015 which will be published next week.

     

    Eminem earned the honour for the ‘most words in a hit single’ with his song Rap God, which has him rapping 1,560 words in six minutes nine second. Eminem’s rapping skill has been applauded by the Guinness Book of World Records for the first time.

     

    The band ‘One Direction’ was recognised for being the ‘First act to debut at No. 1 with first three albums’ on the standard-bearing American chart. Their album Midnight Memories debuted at top position last year following the chart-topping successes of Up All Night and Take Me Home in 2012.

     

    While Miley Cyrus has been chosen for being ‘the most searched-for Pop Star on the Internet in a year,’ Shakira is officially the ‘Most liked person on Facebook’. Shakira reached 100 million likes in July on Facebook also making her the ‘First person to reach 100 million likes on Facebook’ and star singer Katy Perry boasts the most Twitter followers in the world, with a count of more than 56 million.

     

    Thanks to their ‘Freeze ‘Em All’ show in Antarctica, Metallica became the first and only band to ‘perform a concert on each of the Earth’s seven continents’.

     

    The band set the record after they entertained 120 scientists and competition winners in a transparent dome at Carlini Station in Antarctica in December 2013.

     

    Among the television and film records listed in the book, the popular movie Frozen has also found a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the ‘highest box-office earning for an animated movie’, HBO show Game of Throne is now officially the most copiously pirated show on television. Each episode of the show has been recorded to be downloaded at an average of 5.9 million times. The last show of the recently concluded season alone was downloaded 1 million times.

     

    The DiCaprio-Scorcese movie The Wolf of Wall Street makes record for ‘Most swearing in one film’. The movie has at least 687 expletives at an average of 3.81 swear words per minute.

     

    Guinness World Records 2015 marks the 60th anniversary of the book and will be available on stands from 9 September.

  • Comedian Joan Rivers dies at 81

    Comedian Joan Rivers dies at 81

    MUMBAI: The Iconic comedian and a master of one-liners Joan Rivers, with a career of five decades in the industry died at the age of 81. A week before her death, Rivers suffered a cardiac arrest and had been on life support at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital.

     

    Informing the media about Rivers’ death, her daughter, Melissa said, “It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my mother, Joan Rivers. She passed peacefully at 1.17pm surrounded by family and close friends. My son and I would like to thank the doctors, nurses, and staff of Mount Sinai Hospital for the amazing care they provided for my mother.”

     

    “My mother’s greatest joy in life was to make people laugh. Although that is difficult to do right now, I know her final wish would be that we return to laughing soon,” she added.

     

    In 2009, Rivers emerged as the winner of NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice and most recently worked as a host of Fashion Police on E! Network.

     

    Mourning her death, her fashion police co-star Kelly Osbourne posted on Facebook, “I’m completely heartbroken by the loss of my beloved Joan. Not only was she my boss, she was and will always be my teacher, therapist, closest friend, inspiration and the only grandmother I ever knew. She was family and I will never forget her. Laughter will be difficult for a while but when I’m sad, lonely or upset all I will have to do is think of Joan and a smile will cross my face. Laughter is what she gave us and laughter is what she would want us to do in remembrance of her.”

     

    Rivers also hosted an online weekly talk show called In Bed with Joan. She frequently performed live stand-up, and had finished the fourth season of Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best, the reality show in which she starred with her daughter.

     

    Born in Brooklyn in 1933, Rivers worked in the New York comedy scene alongside Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, George Carlin and Woody Allen. Her big break came with an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1965, where she quickly became an audience favourite.

     

    After that she went on to appear on a galaxy of other TV shows, including The Carol Burnett Show and The Ed Sullivan Show.

     

    She was also a prolific humour writer; she wrote the films The Girl Most Likely To… and Rabbit Test. In 1974 she released Having a Baby Can Be A Scream, the first of 12 books including the best-selling The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abramowitz.