The Andromeda Strain 2008 miniseries

Posted in Films and Movies on May 27th, 2008 | 0 comments

The Andromeda Strain is a 2008 science-fiction miniseries, very loosely based on the novel published in 1969 by Michael Crichton about a team of scientists who investigate a deadly disease of extraterrestrial origin.

In 2004 the Sci-Fi Channel announced that they would produce a miniseries of The Andromeda Strain. Since that time the project has shifted to the A&E Network. The miniseries will be made up of 2 two-hour episodes. The mini-series has already been shown on Sky Movies Premiere in the United Kingdom and Showcase in Australia, 3 weeks before its American Premiere.

It seemed inevitable that the new two-part TV miniseries of Michael Crichton’s 1969 technothriller novel about a lethal extraterrestrial superbug would strain credulity with pseudoscience and quick thrills. But at least through part 1 of the series, which aired last night, The Andromeda Strain has stimulated without going too far overboard.

A remarkable amount of the science in the 40-year-old original still holds up as compelling and has been wisely retained. Who doesn’t get excited when the scrambling scientists, whisked away to a top secret laboratory, discover that the microscopic invader contains no DNA or RNA making it unlike any other life-form on Earth? To try and wow science-savvy people, as well as inveigle the layman, A&E cranks its version up a notch by throwing in buckyballs and singularity wormholes, though somewhat unnecessarily.

Like the Lord of the Rings screen adaptations, this Andromeda Strain update seems to reflect modern moviegoers’ appetite for adrenaline-fueled action that borders on spectacle. Without giving too much away, consider the nuclear cliffhanger that closes out the first installment as well as the chainsaw suicide. (In fairness, a menagerie of similarly grotesque self-annihilations occur in the book, too.).


Even so, there is a remarkable fidelity to the painstaking lab work that made the novel and the staid but excellent 1971 film so gripping and authentic-feeling. The amount of technical detail is not quite as impressive but still satisfies, thanks to some solid, believable technobabble. Of course, the jargon is scaled down exponentially from Crichton’s trademark hyperrealism (which makes it even more surprising that the celebrated author is a full-fledged global-warming denier.)

The Andromeda Strain Plot: In “The Andromeda Strain,” a U.S. military satellite crashes in a small town and unleashes a deadly plague killing all but two survivors. As the military quarantines the area, a team of highly specialized scientists is assembled to find a cure to the pathogen code-named “Andromeda,” and a reporter investigates a government conspiracy only to discover what he is chasing wants him silenced.

After a government satellite lands in the fictional town of Piedmont, Utah, two young adults find it and take it back to the town. They open it and release a deadly virus which is later known as Andromeda. Andromeda seems to evolve, each cell contacting each other, warning of new lethal weapons.

A science team is assembled and set to work in an underground laboratory, completely sealed off from the outside world.

When they finally discover how to defeat the lethal strain, which kills in around 10 seconds, it is a race against time.

A team of planes drop gas around the quarantined areas, in efforts to kill off Andromeda. Despite this, the laboratory becomes infected. One of the members of the team was given the order to destroy every strain of Andromeda held in the lab for testing. She was blackmailed to keep one strain. As the virus evolved, it broke out of its casing and trapped her in a room, whilst setting off the alarm for the whole laboratory.

Every floor was sealed, and the man with the pass key to stop a “15 Minute Countdown” until self destruction had to get to a different floor and use his pass key and finger print. He begins climbing up an air vent as Andromeda eats at the rubber in the facility.

He gets knocked down into a pool of radioactive coolant fluid for the nuclear reactor below, killing him. The head scientist now has to use his pass key. Another scientist rushes in to the rescue and cuts off the dead scientists thumb, killing himself in the process, however he managed to throw the thumb up towards the head scientist. He saves the lab from destruction with 7 seconds left.

At the end, a sample of the Andromeda Strain is shown being inserted into a containment compartment, with the strange symbol shown earlier upon the sample casing, the sample is then locked away with an access code which is identical to the number seen before with the symbol. The camera then zooms out to show that this all took place within a space station, hinting that in some time in the future the Andromeda strain comes down from the space station, and the future humanity sends the means to destroy Andromeda back in time via a wormhole, thus creating a predestination paradox.

A fictional blog, entitled “What Happened in Piedmont?”, accompanies the show and features references to trouble in the town in which the miniseries is set.The “author” is a journalism student at the University of California, Berkeley, and the blog discusses his attempts to contact people from his home town of Piedmont after receiving a “bizarre voicemail” from his sister that left him with “a horrible feeling inside”. Since the first post in April 2008, the blog has revealed further insight into the plot of the miniseries, with cross links to other fictional sites where readers can enter passwords to obtain more information. On August 16, 2007, cast and crew filmed at the Burnaby, BC campus of Simon Fraser University.

One point that Battlestar Galactica keeps trying to hammer home is “All this has happened before, and will happen again.” With yet another scifi remake on the horizon, they may be more right than they know. The Sci Fi channel announced back in 2004 that they would be making a miniseries version of Michael Crichton’s novel The Andromeda Strain with Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, and Frank Darabont producing. It’s not clear if the Scotts and Darabont are still involved, but the mini has shifted from Sci Fi to A&E, and will be airing in February. What is going to make this worth watching?

Apparently star Andre Braugher isn’t a big fan of the novel, “Crichton’s book doesn’t hold up to the test of time and so not much happens. When you go back to 1968 and read that book it’s anti-climactic, period, so this is a re-telling of the story with the same premise.” Let’s hope fans of the novel aren’t rankled too much by that. As long as he’s nitpicking, he might as well say that the 1971 film based on the same novel doesn’t hold up that well either. What’s going to make their version so much better?

He’s very stingy with the details, and basically only tells us that he’s playing the military man who is brought in to deal with the situation, while Benjamin Bratt plays the “hot-headed scientist” who is trying to track down the virus. Does Benjamin Bratt have any roles where he isn’t hot-headed? According to Braugher, the film will have some elements of Sphere in it (please dear god, let him mean the novel and not the awful movie version), and promises that the virus won’t be benign as it is in the novel, but will be “malignant and on the loose.”

Directed by: Mikael Salomon
Produced by: Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, David W. Zucker, Tom Thayer, Mikael Salomon

The Andromeda Strain Cast:

Sydney Pollack, the great film director dies at 73

Posted in Actors, News on May 26th, 2008 | 1 comment

Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay as director, producer and sometime actor whose star-laden movies like “The Way We Were,” “Tootsie” and “Out of Africa” were among the most successful of the 1970s and ’80s, died on Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 73.

The cause was cancer, said a representative of the family. Pollack’s career defined an era in which big stars (Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty) and the filmmakers who knew how to wrangle them (Barry Levinson, Mike Nichols) retooled the Hollywood system. Savvy operators, they played studio against studio, staking their fortunes on pictures that served commerce without wholly abandoning art.

Sydney Pollack (July 1, 1934 – May 26, 2008) was an Academy Award-winning American film director, producer and actor. He directed over 21 films and 10 television shows, acted in over 30 films or shows, and produced over 44 films.

One of the rare Hollywood talents who excelled at both acting and directing, Sydney Pollack fell haphazardly into a craft that eventually earned him three Oscar nominations and one Academy Award. Thanks to his early career as an acting coach, Pollack developed a reputation for being one of the best director for actors to work with. But his filmmaking style was without a signifying mark or defining element with which audiences could identify.

In fact, it was quite easy to walk out of the theater having enjoyed the movie without ever knowing Pollack was the director. Be that as it may, Pollack crafted excellent films in his four decades as a filmmaker, adding such luminous titles like “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969), “Three Days of the Condor” (1973), “Tootsie” (1982) and “Out of Africa” (1985) to the American filmmaking canon. Despite a lack of visual flare, American cinema would have suffered without Pollack’s steady contributions. Pollack is best known for directing films Out of Africa (Academy Awards, 1985), Tootsie (1982), Three Days of the Condor (1975), The Yakuza (1975), The Way We Were and Jeremiah Johnson (1972), along with newer films The Interpreter (2005), Sabrina (1995), The Firm (1993) and Havana (1990). He has appeared in over 15 films, including The Interpreter (2005), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Husbands and Wives (1992), The Player (1992), and The Electric Horseman (1979). Most recently he appeared opposite George Clooney in Michael Clayton (2007), a film which he also co-produced.

Hollywood honored Pollack in return. His movies received multiple Academy Award nominations, and as a director he won an Oscar for his work on the 1985 film “Out of Africa” as well as nominations for directing “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969) and “Tootsie” (1982). Last fall, Warner Brothers released “Michael Clayton,” of which Pollack was a producer and a member of the cast. He delivered a trademark performance as an old-bull lawyer who demands dark deeds from a subordinate, played by George Clooney. (“This is news? This case has reeked from Day One,” snaps Pollack’s Marty Bach.) The picture received seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and a Best Actor nomination for Clooney.

Pollack became a prolific producer of independent films in the latter part of his career. With a partner, the filmmaker Anthony Minghella, he ran Mirage Enterprises, a production company whose films included Minghella’s “Cold Mountain” and the documentary “Sketches of Frank Gehry,” released last year, the last film directed by Pollack.

Apart from that film, Pollack never directed a movie without stars. His first feature, “The Slender Thread,” released by Paramount Pictures in 1965, starred Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft. In his next 19 films — every one a romance or drama but for the single comedy, “Tootsie” — Pollack worked with Burt Lancaster, Natalie Wood, Jane Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Nicole Kidman, Streisand and others.

Sydney Irwin Pollack was born on July 1, 1934, in Lafayette, Indiana, and reared in South Bend. By Pollack’s own account, in the biographical dictionary “World Film Directors,” his father, David, a pharmacist, and his mother, the former Rebecca Miller, were first-generation Russian-Americans who had met at Purdue University.

Pollack developed a love of drama at South Bend High School and, instead of going to college, went to New York and enrolled at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater. He studied there for two years under Sanford Meisner, who was in charge of its acting department, and remained for five more as Meisner’s assistant, teaching acting but also appearing onstage and in television.

Curly-haired and almost 6 feet 2 inches tall, Pollack had a notable role in a 1959 “Playhouse 90″ telecast of “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” an adaptation of the Hemingway novel directed by John Frankenheimer. Earlier, Pollack had appeared on Broadway with Zero Mostel in “A Stone for Danny Fisher” and with Katharine Cornell and Tyrone Power in “The Dark Is Light Enough.” But he said later that he probably could not have built a career as a leading man.

Instead, Pollack took the advice of Burt Lancaster, whom he had met while working with Frankenheimer, and turned to directing. Lancaster steered him to the entertainment mogul Lew Wasserman, and through him Pollack landed a directing assignment on the television series “Shotgun Slade.”

After a faltering start, he hit his stride on episodes of “Ben Casey, “Naked City,” “The Fugitive” and other well-known shows. In 1966 he won an Emmy for directing an episode of “Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater.” From the time he made his first full-length feature, “The Slender Thread,” about a social work student coaxing a woman out of suicide on a telephone help line, Pollack had a hit-and-miss relationship with the critics. Writing in The New York Times, A. H. Weiler deplored that film’s “sudsy waves of bathos.” Pollack himself later pronounced it “dreadful.”

But from the beginning of his movie career, he was also perceived as belonging to a generation whose work broke with the immediate past. In 1965, Charles Champlin, writing in The Los Angeles Times, compared Pollack to the director Elliot Silverstein, whose western spoof, “Cat Ballou,” had been released earlier that year, and Stuart Rosenberg, soon to be famous for “Cool Hand Luke” (1967). Champlin cited all three as artists who had used television rather than B movies to learn their craft.

Self-critical and never quite at ease with Hollywood, Pollack voiced a constant yearning for creative prerogatives more common on the stage. Yet he dived into the fray. In 1970, “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” his bleak fable of love and death among marathon dancers in the Great Depression, based on a Horace McCoy novel, received nine Oscar nominations, including the one for directing. (Gig Young won the best supporting actor award for his performance.)

Two years later, Pollack made the mountain-man saga “Jeremiah Johnson,” one of three closely spaced pictures in which he directed Redford. The second of those films, “The Way We Were,” about a pair of ill-fated lovers who meet up later in life, also starred Streisand and was an enormous hit despite critical hostility.

The next, “Three Days of the Condor,” another hit, about a bookish CIA worker thrust into a mystery, did somewhat better with the critics. “Tense and involving,” said Roger Ebert in The Chicago Sun-Times.

With “Absence of Malice” in 1981, Pollack entered the realm of public debate. The film’s story of a newspaper reporter (Sally Field) who is fed a false story by federal officials trying to squeeze information from a businessman (Paul Newman) was widely viewed as a corrective to the adulation of investigative reporters that followed Alan Pakula’s hit movie “All the President’s Men,” with its portrayal of the Watergate scandal.

But only with “Tootsie,” in 1982, did Pollack become a fully realized Hollywood player. By then he was represented by Michael S. Ovitz and the rapidly expanding Creative Artists Agency. So was his leading man, Dustin Hoffman.

As the film — a comedy about a struggling actor who disguises himself as a woman to get a coveted television part — was being shot for Columbia Pictures, Pollack and Hoffman became embroiled in a semi-public feud, with Ovitz running shuttle diplomacy between them.

Hoffman, who had initiated the project, argued for a more broadly comic approach. But Pollack — who played Hoffman’s agent in the film — was drawn to the seemingly doomed romance between the cross-dressing Hoffman character and the actress played by Jessica Lange.

If Pollack did not prevail on all points, he tipped the film in his own direction. Meanwhile, the movie came in behind schedule, over budget and surrounded by bad buzz.

Yet “Tootsie” was also a winner. It took in more than $177 million at the domestic box office and received 10 Oscar nominations, including best picture. ( Lange took home the film’s only Oscar, for best supporting actress.)

Backed by Ovitz, Pollack expanded his reach in the wake of success. Over the next several years, he worked closely with both Tri-Star Pictures, where he was creative consultant, and Universal, where Mirage, his production company, set up shop in 1986.

Pollack reached perhaps his career pinnacle with “Out of Africa.” Released by Universal, the film, based on the memoirs of Isak Dinesen, paired Streep and Redford in a period drama that reworked one of the director’s favorite themes, that of star-crossed lovers. It captured Oscars for best picture and best director.

Still, Pollack remained uneasy about his cinematic skills. “I was never what I would call a great shooter or visual stylist,” he told an interviewer for American Cinematographer last year. And he developed a reputation for caution when it came to directing assignments. Time after time, he expressed interest in directing projects, only to back away. At one point he was to make “Rain Man,” a Dustin Hoffman picture ultimately directed by Levinson; at another, an adaptation of “The Night Manager” by John le Carré.

That wariness was undoubtedly fed by his experience with “Havana,” a 1990 film that was to be his last with Redford. It seemed to please no one, though Pollack defended it. “To tell you the truth, if I knew what was wrong, I’d have fixed it,” Pollack told The Los Angeles Times in 1993.

“The Firm,” with Tom Cruise, was a hit that year. But “Sabrina” (1995) and “Random Hearts” (1999), both with Harrison Ford, and “The Interpreter” (2005), with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, fell short, as Hollywood and its primary audience increasingly eschewed stars for fantasy and special effects. Pollack never stopped acting; in a recent episode of “Entourage,” the HBO series about Hollywood, he played himself.

Among Pollack’s survivors are daughters, Rachel and Rebecca , and his wife, Claire Griswold, who was once among his acting students. The couple married in 1958, while Pollack was serving a two-year hitch in the army. Their only son, Steven, died at age 34 in a 1993 plane crash in Santa Monica, California. In his later years, Pollack appeared to relish his role as elder statesman. At various times he was executive director of the Actors Studio West, chairman of American Cinematheque and an advocate for artists’ rights.

He increasingly sounded wistful notes about the disappearance of the Hollywood he knew in his prime. “The middle ground is now gone,” Pollack said in a discussion with Shimon Peres in the fall 1998 issue of New Perspectives Quarterly. He added, with a nod to a fellow filmmaker: “It is not impossible to make mainstream films which are really good. Costa-Gavras once said that accidents can happen.”~ By Michael Cieply, The Herald Tribune

Links:

24 Season 7

Posted in Films and Movies, News on May 21st, 2008 | 0 comments

24 is an Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning American action drama television series. Broadcast by Fox Network in the USA and syndicated worldwide, the show first aired on November 6, 2001, with an initial thirteen episodes. The first six seasons were all centered around the fictional Los Angeles branch of the U.S. government Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU).

24 is presented in real time, with each season depicting a 24-hour period in the life of Jack Bauer, who works with the U.S. government as it fights threats on U.S. soil. Bauer is often in the field for the fictional Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) as they try to safeguard the nation from terrorist threats.

The show also follows the actions of other CTU agents, government officials and terrorists associated with the plot. The first six seasons of the show were all based in Los Angeles and nearby locations – both real and fictional – in California, although occasionally other locations have been featured as well – most notably, Washington, D.C., where a significant portion of the action took place during the fourth and sixth seasons. Promotional materials for the seventh season have already established that, departing from tradition, it will be set primarily in Washington, D.C.

After leading actor Kiefer Sutherland won a Golden Globe for his role in the first 10 episodes, the ratings of the show increased, leading FOX to order the second half of the season. There have been six seasons of 24 produced. On May 15, 2007, it was confirmed that FOX has ordered seventh and eighth seasons. A motion picture based on the show has been written and was scheduled to be filmed in 2007 for a 2008 release but plans for production were put on hold to focus on the TV series.

The seventh season, originally scheduled to premiere on January 13, 2008, was initially postponed in the wake of the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike to ensure a non stop season, a trademark of the show since the start of its fourth season in January 2005. It is now officially postponed until January 2009. To help offset the strike-induced delay, 24 will return on Sunday, November 23, 2008 with a two-hour prequel that will take place almost a year after day six and will “set up the story that launches season seven”.

Season Seven, also known as Day 7, of the television series 24 was originally planned to premiere on January 13, 2008 but was delayed an entire year due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. FOX will air a two-hour “prequel” TV movie on November 23, 2008 that bridges the gap between seasons.

24 Season 7 Plot:

  • According to a TV Guide interview with co-executive producer Manny Coto, “In a sense, it’s a reboot — in location and personnel. We’re going to be introducing a new stable of characters, along with a couple of old ones. Jack starts next season in a very different place than any season so far. [He's] not living under an alias. He’s found a place he thinks he belongs and a job he enjoys doing that doesn’t involve the government… We’re hewing much closer to real life: tighter, more personal, more difficult for Jack. There will not be a ticking clock on a nuclear device and the villain is not a terrorist but someone with a supremely dark past who’s done something horrific and whose ambition is to regain his stature in the world. There may even be a plot thread that doesn’t take place on U.S. soil.”
  • Writer and Executive Producer Michael Loceff has confirmed, “what we are going for, is really taking this to the personal level,” unlike this season six’s focus on nuclear threats, the President getting hurt and possible war. Loceff says “you just can’t go much bigger than that, unless you put a spacesuit on Jack Bauer and shoot him into orbit. Which you know, we may get there, but we’re not going to be there yet.” Next season expect smaller story lines for the characters, including Jack. Loceff adds, “and how he tries to resolve a particularly thorny conflict in the final episode.” Loceff tells us Season 7 will focus on smaller and more intense story lines. But the specifics are still a mystery even for Loceff and the writers.
  • Fox President Peter Liguori said: “We’ve really heard what the loyal audience has said to us. The good news is simply this: It has really fueled the show runners to be more daring with what they’re going to do next year.”
  • Executive producer Howard Gordon told iF Magazine that the new season is set several months after the events of the sixth season and will be set entirely in Washington, D.C. or New York and will start at 7 am.
  • Carlos Bernard will return as Tony Almeida in the premiere of season 7 as one of the main antagonists. Show-runner Howard Gordon explained that Tony’s “uncertain fate” left the door open for his return and cited the lack of a “silent clock” as a deliberate move to keep his death ambiguous. “We didn’t give him the silent clock because we always wanted to keep alive the possibility for some kind of (admittedly) miraculous resurrection… which we will explain,” and followed up with “He’s definitely NOT the Almeida we once knew.”

Trailer: The debut trailer aired on October 25, 2007. In the trailer, Jack is seen testifying before Congress concerning his past extralegal activities, including the torture of terrorist Ibrahim Haddad.


The international version of the trailer is largely identical but features an additional line where Bauer implies personal enjoyment from torturing a suspect. This line is cut from the US version. A second trailer emphasized the plot concerning USA losing control of its power lines, water supplies and air traffic control.

Prequel: FOX will air a two-hour “prequel” TV movie on November 23, 2008 that bridges the gap between seasons. The storyline of the prequel takes place during Inauguration Day for the next U.S. President, Allison Taylor, and is shot partially in South Africa. “Jack is a soul in turmoil and has been moving from place to place trying to find somewhere he can be at peace,” says co-executive producer, Manny Coto. “But he winds up in Africa in the middle of a military coup.” Meanwhile, Bauer is subpoenaed to appear before the Senate hearing while in Africa, but doesn’t want to go.

Howard Gordon revealed the prequel takes place approximately a year after day six. On April 30, producers began scouting locations in Africa in order to film the prequel in the following weeks. Robert Carlyle was cast as Benton, Jack’s mentor in Africa.

Production:

  • Measures will be taken during filming and production of season 7 to save energy and reduce enough carbon emissions throughout the season to make the season finale “carbon neutral”. Howard Gordon said that 24 cares about the issue of global warming and takes fighting climate change seriously. A number of ways that the production intends to save energy are listed on the site, some of which are: using a combination of petroleum diesel and biodiesel instead of regular diesel fuel, creating a series of PSAs with Kiefer Sutherland and other main cast members to educate the public on what they can do to help with the issue, and, when appropriate, applying the issue of global warming and reducing carbon emissions to the storylines.
  • The crew was scheduled to film scenes with Kiefer Sutherland at the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro on Monday October 22, 2007, however filming was canceled for health reasons due to raging wildfires in the area. Cast and crew had blurry vision and difficulty breathing from the smoke.
  • The first promotional image of the Season 7 cast was released on the internet on April 20, 2008

Writers Strike: On October 25, FOX premiered the first trailer and announced the return date for season 7 as January 13. Just eleven days later, on November 5, the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike began. FOX executives postponed the season to ensure that it “can air uninterrupted, in its entirety.” FOX scheduling chief, Preston Blackman, admitted “It’s not a decision we wanted to make, but it’s one based on how we feel the viewers expect us to schedule the show.”

Following the conclusion of the writers strike, production resumed on April 22. Kiefer Sutherland claims the strike was beneficial to the show: “The time allowed us to do something that has never been done before  create a map of the entire season before we started shooting. So I can tell you without hesitation, I know for a fact, that season 7 is going to be the best season yet.”

Regular cast:

Recurring cast:

  • Carlo Rota as Morris O’Brian
  • John Billingsley as Michael Latham
  • Ever Carradine as an FBI Agent
  • Nick Chinlund as Former Agent Masters
  • Isaach De Bankolé as Ule Motobo (former Prime Minister of an African nation)
  • Warren Kole as Secret Service Agent Gedge
  • Mark Kiely as Rogue Secret Service Agent Vossler
  • Carly Pope as Samantha Roth
  • Kurtwood Smith as Senator
  • Peter Wingfield as Emmerson
  • Marlene Forte as Rosa Gonzales
  • Hakeem Kae-Kazim as Ike Dubaku
  • as General Benjamin Luma (dictator of Sangala, an african nation)
  • as Laurent (soldier in General Juma’s army and son of Colenel Dubaku)

Kung Fu Panda 2008 REAL STORY !!

Posted in Films and Movies, News on May 21st, 2008 | 0 comments

Kung Fu Panda is an animated film about a panda who learns martial arts and then uses this new ability to fight his enemies. Kung Fu Panda is being directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne and produced by Melissa Cobb. The idea for the film was conceived by Michael Lachance, a DreamWorks Animation executive. The film is due for release on June 6, 2008. It will be distributed by Paramount Pictures.

The film stars the voices of, among others, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, David Cross, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie and Lucy Liu.

Whats the Story ? Po (Jack Black) is a panda who is an apprentice noodle-maker and kung fu fanatic, but whose defining characteristic appears to be that he is the laziest animal in ancient China.

Evil warrior Tai Lung (Ian McShane) has escaped from prison, and all hopes have been pinned on a prophecy naming Po as the “Chosen One” to save the day. He has a kung fu master, Sifu (Dustin Hoffman) who “has trained five of the greatest warriors that the world has ever known”, to help him.

Notably, all the original disciples of the main masters are animal stances or styles commonly used in the art of Kung Fu – Tigress (Tiger), Monkey, Viper, Crane and Mantis. Shen Lung Kung Fu uses those animals as a base for the whole system.

In an animated ancient China populated by talking animals, the world’s most malevolent warrior is the snow leopard Tai Lung. When Tai Lung escapes from prison, all seems lost until a prophecy points to a heroic Dragon Warrior destined to save the day! Problem is, the chosen one happens to be Po, a lazy, clumsy dumpling addict whose girth puts the “giant” back in “giant panda.”

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Despite Po’s apparent lack of potential, the legendary kung fu master Shifu tries to whip him into shape with the help of his five prize students: Tigress, Monkey, Snake, Crane, and Mantis. Enthusiastic, big and a little clumsy, Po is the biggest fan of Kung Fu around…which doesn’t exactly come in handy while working every day in his family’s noodle shop.

Unexpectedly chosen to fulfill an ancient prophecy, Po’s dreams become reality when he joins the world of Kung Fu and studies alongside his idols, the legendary Furious Five — Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey — under the leadership of their guru, Master Shifu. But before they know it, the vengeful and treacherous snow leopard Tai Lung is headed their way, and it’s up to Po to defend everyone from the oncoming threat.


Can he turn his dreams of becoming a Kung Fu master into reality? Po puts his heart – and his girth – into the task, and the unlikely hero ultimately finds that his greatest weaknesses turn out to be his greatest strengths.

Three Good Reasons:

  1. The voice talent is, for lack of a better word, awesome. Legends like Jackie Chan and Dustin Hoffman join the sultry Lucy Liu and Angelina Jolie, jokesters Seth Rogen and David Cross, and, of course, Jack Black.
  2. This promises to be a fun movie for the whole family, with a great message about believing in yourself and finding your hidden gifts. Plus, Po the panda is just so squeezable.
  3. With a whole menagerie of kung fu fighting animals, this movie will inspire years of “Who would win in a fight?” debates.

Soundtrack: As with most DreamWorks animated films, composer Hans Zimmer was hired to score the film. Zimmer is said to be visiting China at some point in order to absorb the culture and get to know the Chinese National Symphony, all as part of his preparation to write music for Kung Fu Panda.

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Though Zimmer was originally announced as the main composer of the film, during a test screening Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation SKG, announced that composer John Powell will also be contributing to the score. This marked the first collaboration in eight years by that time between these two composers, who worked together on Dreamworks’ The Road to El Dorado and the action thriller Chill Factor. This was publicly confirmed by DreamWorks Animation on March 21, 2008. A soundtrack album will be released by DreamWorks Records on June 3, 2008.

Cast:

  • Jack Black as Po – Giant Panda
  • Jackie Chan as Master Monkey – Monkey
  • Angelina Jolie as Master Tigress – South China Tiger
  • Lucy Liu as Master Viper – Viper
  • Nadine Vi as Master Ferto – Fer-De-Lance
  • Ian McShane as Tai Lung – Snow Leopard
  • David Cross as Master Crane – Japanese Crane
  • Seth Rogen as Master Mantis – Praying Mantis
  • Michael Clarke Duncan as Commander Vachir – Javan Rhinoceros
  • James Hong as Mr. Ping – Goose
  • Dan Fogler as Zeng – Palace Goose
  • Randall Duk Kim as Oogway – Tortoise

Links:

Mixed reviews for Indiana Jones 4

Posted in Films and Movies, News on May 20th, 2008 | 1 comment

Mixed reviews for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Some critics are happy to see Indiana Jones back in action, but others have very harsh words.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a 2008 adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, from a story co-written by executive producer George Lucas. Set in 1957, this fourth film in the Indiana Jones film series pits an older and wiser Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) against agents of the Soviet Union led by Spalko (Cate Blanchett) for a crystal skull. Indy is aided by his former lover Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), the greaser Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) and fellow archaeologist Mac (Ray Winstone). John Hurt and Jim Broadbent also play fellow academics.

The film was in development hell since the 1989 release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, because Spielberg and Ford initially disagreed over Lucas’s choice of the skull as the plot device. Screenwriters Jeb Stuart, Jeffrey Boam, M. Night Shyamalan, Frank Darabont and Jeff Nathanson wrote drafts, before David Koepp’s script satisfied all three men. Shooting finally commenced on June 18, 2007, and took place in New Mexico; New Haven, Connecticut; Hawaii; Fresno, California; and soundstages in Los Angeles. In order to keep aesthetic continuity with the previous films, the crew relied on traditional stuntwork instead of computer-generated stunt doubles, and cinematographer Janusz Kamiński studied Douglas Slocombe’s style from the previous films.

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Marketing relies heavily on the public’s nostalgia for the series, with products taking inspiration from all four films. Anticipation for the film has been heightened by secrecy, which resulted in a legal dispute over an extra violating his non-disclosure agreement, and another man was arrested for stealing a computer containing various documents related to the production. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is scheduled for a near-simultaneous worldwide release on May 22, 2008. 

Indiana Jones received louder applause going in than he did coming out. His latest adventure, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” earned a respectful though far from glowing reception Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival, avoiding the sort of thrashing the event’s harsh critics gave to “The Da Vinci Code” two years ago.


Yet Indy’s fourth big-screen romp is not likely to go down as one of the most memorable. Some viewers at its first press screening loved it, some called it slick and enjoyable though formulaic, some said it was not worth the 19-year wait since Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford made the last film.

“They should have left well enough alone,” said J. Sperling Reich, who writes for FilmStew.com. “It really looked like they were going through the motions. It really looked like no one had their heart in it.”

Alain Spira of French magazine Paris Match found “Crystal Skull” a perfectly acceptable “Indiana Jones” tale, a sentiment echoed by the solid applause the movie received as the final credits rolled.

“It’s good. It’s a product that is polished, industrial, we’re not getting ripped off in terms of quality,” Spira said. “You know what you’re going to see, you see what you get, and when you leave you’re happy.”

The applause was louder at the outset, though. Fans at the early afternoon showing, which preceded the film’s glitzy formal premiere with cast and crew Sunday night, cheered and clapped wildly at an announcement that the screening was about to start. Some even hummed the Indiana Jones fanfare as the lights went down.

The applause at the end was more subdued.  Cast and crew were unconcerned about how critics might dissect the film.

“I’m not afraid at all. I expect to have the whip turned on me,” Ford told reporters after the screening. “It’s not unusual for something that is popular to be disdained by some people, and I fully expect it. But, he said: “I work for the people who pay to get in. They are my customers, and my focus is on providing the best experience I can for those people.”

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The filmmakers kept the movie shrouded in secrecy, skipping the rounds of press screenings often held for big studio movies and going for a big blowout at Cannes.

Spielberg said he and his collaborators decided “that the fair thing to do and the fun thing to do would be to view it where the entire world is come together every year at this wonderful festival, and we thought that was the best place to introduce Indiana Jones to you again after 19 years.”

The film received none of the derisive laughter or catcalls that mounted near the end of the first press screening for “Da Vinci Code.”

There were a few titters from the “Crystal Skull” crowd early on over co-star Cate Blanchett’s thick, Boris-and-Natasha accent as a Soviet operative racing against Indy to find an artifact of immeasurable power. The rather corny romantic ending also drew a chuckle or two.

In between, the film packed a fair amount of action, though some viewers found the middle portion dull. Conchita Casanovas, of Spain’s RNE radio, said she was “bored to death.”

The new movie hurls archaeologist Jones into the Cold War in 1957. He survives a nuclear blast in the desert in typically creative fashion and is reunited with “Raiders” flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen).

As speculated, the film has an alien connection, though far more subdued than the “Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men From Mars” story Lucas once envisioned.

There are melancholy nods to Sean Connery, who played Indy’s dad in 1989’s “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” but declined to return for the new movie, and the late Denholm Elliott, Indy’s college dean in two of the previous movies.

And the film reveals the relationship between Indy and his new sidekick, an angry young motorcycle rebel played by Shia LaBeouf.

As with “Da Vinci Code,” which went on to gross $758 million worldwide, “Crystal Skull” is so hotly anticipated that it will be virtually immune from critics’ opinions. The film is expected to put up blockbuster box-office numbers when it opens globally Thursday.

“The movie was absolutely effective enough to score with audiences everywhere,” said Anne Thompson, deputy editor of Hollywood trade paper Variety. “This played way better than ‘Da Vinci Code.’ No one was gunning for it. They were excited going in, hooting for it in a positive way.”

Dozens of fans prowled outside the Palais, the Cannes headquarters, holding signs saying they needed tickets for “Crystal Skull.”

Amelia Sims, a 19-year-old University of Georgia student studying abroad, held a sign reading “I (heart) Indy.” She managed to get a pass to the press screening and loved the movie.

“I guess I’ve been waiting 19 years for this,” Sims said. “You could say I’ve been waiting my whole life.”

But Christian Monggaard, who is reviewing “Crystal Skull” for Danish newspaper Information, said he grew up with the “Indiana Jones” films and came away from this one disappointed, finding the climax an “overblown special-effects extravaganza.” ~ CANNES, France (AP), Associated Press writer Angela Doland.

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