ITV

Category: Movies

  • Suchitra Sen in hospital

    MUMBAI: Noted actress Suchitra Sen has been hospitalised with a respiratory infection and chest congestion.


    The actress is being treated with a combination of antibiotics and steroids in Belle Vue Clinic‘s Intensive Therapy Unit.


    79-year-old Sen was admitted to the hospital on 20 June in a critical condition. When she was wheeled in, the actress was suffering from severe respiratory distress and also running a temperature. The oxygen level in her blood had gone down to 60 per cent, against the normal of 90.


    Hospital sources say she has been kept on oxygen and is being put on nebulizer at regular intervals. 


    “She was suffering from severe respiratory distress because of a chest infection and was put on antibiotics and steroids. She was on nebulisation and was also given inhaler to help her breathe properly,” said critical care expert Subrata Maitra.


    Sen, who is considered the Greta Garbo of Bengali cinema, acted in notable Hindi films like Devdas, Champakali, Bombayu Ka Babu, Mamta and Aandhi.


    She quit films in the seventies and has kept herself out of public eye ever since. In 2005, she turned down the Dadasaheb Phalke Award

  • Andrew Garfield to play in Spider-man

    MUMBAI: A related new actor, Andrew Garfield will play Peter Parker in the upcoming Spider-Man. Tobey Maguire played the protagonist in a trilogy that grossed more than $2.5 billion at the worldwide box office. The Sony Corp unit will release the film in 3D on 3 July.


    Born in Los Angeles and raised in Britain, 26-year old Garfield has only one movie to his credit in the UK crime drama Boy A that won for him a Bafta award in 2008.


    His upcoming releases include Never Let Me Go and the Facebook movie The Social Network.


    Garfield also played small roles in box-office hits as The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus and Lions for Lambs.


    Other actors who were reportedly vying for the role include Logan Lerman, Josh Hutcherson, Jamie Bell and Aaron Johnson.
     

  • Neil Jordan to head TIFF jury

    MUMBAI: Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan ( of Interview with a Vampire and The Crying Game fame) will head this year‘s jury of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF).


    Jordan, who debuted in TIFF‘s competition in 1985 with The Company of Wolves returns to the festival for the first time after twenty five years.


    Also an award-winning novelist, Jordan‘s filmography includes fantasy to unconventional sexuality to Irish politics and history. He won an Academy Award for best original screenplay for The Crying Game which received five other Oscar nominations and picked up many other awards. Jordan has also won awards for Michael Collins, Mona Lisa and The End of the Affair.


    The 23rd TIFF will be held from 23 to 31 October this year.

  • Sunil Punjabi quits Sony to join Cinemax as CEO

    MUMBAI: Sunil Punjabi has put quit Sony Entertainment Television as senior VP business development and new media. He will join Cinemax as CEO and everything related to movies from distribution, exhibition and production will come under his ambience.


    While Punjabi will report to the Cinemax board, Devang Sampat, president – sales marketing and operations, will report to him. 


    Said Punjabi, “With this move, I have taken a larger growth opportunity. I will be joining Cinemax as CEO on 12 July.”


    Punjabi joined Sony in June last year to head business development for sports, and movie channels. Additionally, he was also responsible for the new media, telephony and syndication businesses.
     

  • Meryl Streep to play Thatcher

    MUMBAI: Meryl Streep is in talks to with director Phyllida Lloyd for a biopic of the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. The film titled Thatcher will have Jim Broadbent playing Margaret Thatcher‘s husband, Denis.


    The film is set in 1982 and tracks Thatcher as she tries to save her career in the 17 days preceding the 1982 Falklands War. The 2 1/2-month war was a turning point for the prime minister, who, after the victory, saw her approval ratings double after which she went on to win a second term.


    The story of the film was developed by producer Damien Jones along with screenwriter Brian Fillis.


    If everything goes well, the role of the ex-prime minister would be the highest-profile character yet tackled by Streep who has bagged Oscar nominations for playing real-life women such as Karen Silkwood, author Susan Orlean and cooking guru Julia Child.


    Lloyd, a British theater director known for her work in the opera world, elicited energy and brought out youthfulness in Streep in her feature adaptation of Mamma Mia! that grossed more than $600 million worldwide in 2008.
     

  • John Woo bags top Hong Kong honour

    MUMBAI: The Hong Kong government has decided to bestow the Silver Bauhinia Star, a top official honour to veteran director John Woo in recognition of his contributions to Hong Kong and Chinese cinema. The award is named after the semiautonomous territory‘s official flower.


    Woo made his name in Hong Kong with his action thrillers before moving to Hollywood, where his credits include Face/Off, Hard Target, Broken Arrow, Mission: Impossible II among others. In 2008, he returned to directing Chinese films with the two-part historical epic Red Cliff and Red Cliff II.


    The annual honours were announced by Hong Kong to mark the 13th anniversary of the former British colony‘s return to Chinese rule.


    Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled, and The Killer. He also created the comic series Seven Brothers published by Virgin Comics.
     

  • Amitabh Bachchan to appear in regional film for first time

    MUMBAI: For the first time in his life, Amitabh Bachchan will be seen in a regional film. He will join Malayalam superstar Mohanlal, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Ganesh Venkatraman in Kandahar, a movie directed by Major Ravi. 


    Produced by Pranavam International at a cost of Rs 420 million, the film is inspired by the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 in 1999. It was hijacked while on its way from Kathmandu to New Delhi on Christmas eve by five Pakistani militants and was forced to land in three different airports – Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai – before spending a week on the tarmac in Kandahar with 186 hostages on board.


    Khandahar will be simultaneously made in Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi.


    The film will be shot in Delhi, Kerala and Nepal. The shooting is currently on in Ooty.

  • Film on Banda Singh Bahadar released

    MUMBAI: In its desire to pay tribute to the legendary Sikh warrior, the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) released today a one-hour film, Baba Banda Singh Bahadar.


    This is for the first time that a live character has been allowed to play the role of a prominent personality from Sikh history.


    “Through this one-hour film, we have taken the heroics of one of the greatest Sikh warriors to the people and showcased the glorious history of the Sikhs to the world. We are releasing this movie on TV channels in various countries like the US, Canada, the UK and Australia,” said writer director Harjit Singh Ricky.
    Baba Banda Singh Bahadar was the closest general of Sikh Guru Gobind Singh.


    With only 25 soldiers, he had begun his journey from Nanded in Maharashtra (west India) to Punjab (in the north) to end the misery of people under Muslim tyrant Wazir Khan, the then governor of Punjab province.


    The shooting of the film was done in various villages of Mohali district.
     

  • Third part of Sex And The City scrapped

    MUMBAI: After the not-so-good reviews the second instalment of Sex And The City received worldwide, producers have shelved all plans for the third part.


    All this goes to show that after 12 years, 94 television episodes and two films, lead actresses Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon will be out of work. 


    Sex and the City 2 fared disappointingly at the box office, coming in third in the US on its opening weekend and making $37 million compared to the first part that earned $57 million.


    Sarah Parker is upset by the reports of Sex and the City being scrapped.


    Sex and the City was based on writer Candace Bushnell‘s book by the same name.
     

  • Paramount to release dubbed version of Ghost in Japan

    MUMBAI: As US films stumble at Japan‘s box-office charts, Paramount Pictures has decided to bring out a dubbed version of Ghost. With this move, Paramount Pictures becomes the latest Hollywood studio to launch a local-language production.


    The new Ghost, being made in association with Nippon TV and distributor Shochiku will release in Japan this year. 


    Ghost was a smash hit in 1990 with its universal tale of a love that knows no boundaries such as real life and the after life. Swayze portrays a murdered man who must warn his loving wife (Demi Moore) that she is in danger, and it is most memorable, perhaps, for its scene of Moore making pottery as Swayze wraps his arms around her while the song Unchained Melody plays in the background.


    The studio is also taking to dub more US films such as Shutter Island into Japanese.


    Hollywood studios are increasingly eyeing the potential of local-language production, particularly in the $2 billion Japanese market where once-dominant American movies have been outgunned by local films in the past couple of years.


    Warner Bros. is already an established player in Japan‘s local-language game and recently saw its animated movie Gintama stay atop the box-office for five weeks in Japan.


    Fox International Productions is planning a Japanese remake of the Cary Grant classic An Affair To Remember, it is said.