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Wednesday, 21 November 2012
'Jab Tak Hai Jaan' earns Rs120 crore in six days
MUMBAI: 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan' (JTHJ), legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra's last directorial venture, is raking in the moolah at the box-office -- the romantic saga has collected over Rs.120 crore worldwide in just six days of its release. 
'Hitchcock' trains lens on the love story of Alfred and Alma
NEW YORK: She won Oscar gold for her uncanny performance as Britain's Queen Elizabeth, but Helen Mirren's latest portrayal finds her as the power behind the throne -- or, more precisely, the director's chair.In "Hitchcock," Mirren stars opposite Anthony Hopkins as legendary director Alfred Hitchcock's devoted wife Alma Reville, and early buzz has her a contender for another Oscar nomination.
The film, which opens in limited release on Friday, explores the domestic life of one of Hollywood's most iconic and revered directors, set during the days of his struggle to put the ground-breaking 1960 classic, "Psycho" on the silver screen.
Toggling back and forth between his on-set battles with censors and his cast including Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson), Vera Miles (Jessica Biel) and Tony Perkins (James D'Arcy), and his strained relationship with Alma as she copes with his well-documented obsession with his ravishing leading ladies, "Hitchcock" treats film fans to a glimpse of bygone Hollywood.
But it paints a more nuanced and sympathetic portrait of the director Hopkins called "a damaged man" than the recent television film "The Girl," which dramatized the hell Hitchcock put Tippi Hedren through during filming of "The Birds."
"It's a great role," Mirren said of Alma, a film editor and assistant director in her own right who ceded the spotlight to her husband, but as the film makes clear was involved in virtually every aspect of his films and even re-cut "Psycho" into the masterpiece it is known as today.
"So, you don't turn that down," she told Reuters.
Having won her Oscar as one of the world's most famous women, Mirren said she finds herself drawn to "the ones I don't know anything about, like Alma. Those are the most fun."
With little to go on, Mirren said she turned to the 2003 book "Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man," by the couple's daughter Patricia, who also acted in several Hitchcock films.
"I'm not that much of a film buff that I knew about Alma, and I had no idea about Hitchcock's private life," she said, adding the book aimed "to bring her mother out of the shadows."
HITCH THE BRAND
By all accounts making the movie about the movies was a joy, with Mirren and Hopkins co-starring in their first film together under first-time director Sacha Gervasi ("Anvil: The Story of Anvil"), who fixed a script that had made the rounds.
Hopkins described it as the "most fun" since his Oscar-winning role in the thriller "Silence of the Lambs."
Mirren recalled rushing off to work each day: "I couldn't wait." And it helped that the actors have the same approach.
"There's no mystery to it ... They talk about chemistry, and Helen agrees with me, there's no such thing. You know your part, she knows hers, and off you go, hope it works," Hopkins said.
But Mirren and Hopkins, who is also being touted for an Oscar nomination, parted ways when speculating on how the auteur director, who never won an Oscar during five decades of work, would have fared in the Hollywood of today.
"He would have despaired," Hopkins said. "It would have been anathema to him. That kind of artistry is gone."
Corporate control means "you have eight or nine producers on the set, everyone's got a say in the scripts, and even craft services!"
But Mirren differed, imagining "he'd do brilliantly well."
"He was a great salesman, and the Hollywood of today is so much about being a salesman and being able to sell yourself as a brand," she explained. "He did that brilliantly. I think the two of them sold Hitch. Hitch was the faceman, he was the brand."
"Also," she added, "his filmmaking techniques would be incredibly successful," given the technological advances since Hitchcock's death in 1980.
Hitchcock was on a roll in his early 60s, with his "Psycho" follow-up, the shocking thriller "The Birds" becoming a hit and a much-loved classic. But none of the handful of films he made afterward attained their iconic status.
Mirren, 67, by contrast, truly hit her stride during her 40s, despite a steady two-decade career by that point.
Starting with the TV show "Prime Suspect" to the films "Gosford Park," "The Queen" and "The Last Station," she racked up four Oscar nominations and a mantel full of Emmys, which raises a question about the validity of complaints that Hollywood has no use for actresses over 40.
"I think what has changed is, the world around has changed," Mirren said when reflecting on her success and acclaim.
"I was lucky that I hit my 40s just as the world around me was changing. Twenty years before I never would have been cast in 'Prime Suspect' because there were no women inspectors."
And so, she looks forward.
"As I've carried on, my God, 20 years ago it was inconceivable that you'd have a female president of the United States," she said.
"Now, the next president of America may well be a woman, and if there is a female president, that means that if a movie comes along, and there's the president of America ..." She laughs.
"You know what I mean?"
At least 20 killed in South Sudan army clash with rebels
JUBA: South Sudanese troops attacked a rebel base in the latest violence in troubled Jonglei state, killing at least 19 rebels for the loss of one soldier, officials said Wednesday.Troops launched an attack on a base of rebel commander David Yau Yau on Monday, firing "rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells", said army spokesman Philip Aguer.
10 injured in blast on Tel Aviv bus: medics
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TEL AVIV: At least 10 people were injured on Wednesday in an explosion on a bus in central Tel Aviv, Israel's emergency services said, with police saying the source of the blast was not immediately clear.
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Ban urges 'immediate' halt to rocket attacks on Israel
RAMALLAH: UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate halt to rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip, after talks with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday."I reiterate my call for an immediate cessation of indiscriminate rocket attacks by Palestinian militants targeting Israeli populated centres. This is unacceptable," he told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"Now is the time for diplomacy and stopping the violence," he said, a week into deadly Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip from which militants have been firing hundreds of rockets at the Jewish state.
Imran sees polls as passion-money fight
LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan has dubbed upcoming general election a contest between ‘money and passion’, Geo News reported on Wednesday.Speaking at a ceremony, the cricketer-turned politician said that the nation was facing poverty due to affluent rulers, adding that he would start accountability from his own.
Khan said that the VIP culture could not be finished until the rule of law was established in the country. He said that the democracy was not going to complete its 5-year term in Pakistan instead the five years of corruption were going to an end.
He said that a poor man was sent to jail for theft while NRO came to shelter ‘influential robbers’ in the country.
The PTI chief said his eyes were fixed on Punjab’s governor house and he would bulldoze it as he came into power.
Suddle requests Arsalan, Riaz and Kahlil be placed on ECL
 ISLAMABAD: The Shoaib Suddle commission has requested that the names of Arsalan Iftikhar, Malik Riaz and Ahmed Khalil be placed on the Exit Control List (ECL). According to sources, the commission which is tasked with investigating the Arsalan Iftikhar case has requested the Interior Secretary to place the above mentioned names on the ECL within two days. Sources further add that there was no extension granted to Ahmed Khalil to record his written statement and he is expected to do so by November 21. However if Khalil’s counsel requests for an extension the commission would consider it. |
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