Friday 21 Lifestyle | Features Friday, September 13, 2019

avier Bardem is deep in talks to play King ney’s live-action remake of “Little Mermaid,” forever,” he joked. “Daddy will be a hero! Just Triton in “The Little Mermaid”-but the Bardem says he urged the director to add en- for that it’s worth it.” But becoming a parent JSpanish actor has already gone under the vironmental messages to the film. “You have has also hardened his resolve to take up the sea for his new ocean documentary premier- to take advantage of this amazing, beautiful cause. “Once you have a child, you become a ing at the Toronto film festival. In “Sanctuary,” story written by (Hans Christian) Andersen father of every child in the world. I know it cameras follow Javier and his brother Carlos and bring the pollution of the oceans into it,” sounds very cheesy, but it’s true,” he said. to Antarctica as they learn about-and drum up said Bardem. “You can reach millions and mil- “They will be 18 or 20 years old and they support for-Greenpeace’s campaign to save lions of younger generations ... that is some- will turn to us and they will say ‘Shame on you. the southern ocean from human activity. At thing movies like this could and should do.” You knew-what did you do about it?’” For one point a visibly alarmed Bardem clambers Marshall was “very open to it,” according to Bardem, that is partly choosing roles with im- into a tiny two-man submarine to scoop sam- Bardem-but convincing a certain giant corpo- portant messages. In his upcoming film ples of specimens damaged by climate change ration might be another matter. “This is a big “Dune,” Bardem plays the leader of the last and fishing trawlers from the sea bed. Spaniard actor Javier Bardem poses for AFP during machinery. He’s not an auteur director who surviving tribe on a planet whose ecosystem “Thank God I’m not claustrophobic ... it’s the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival Day 7, has his own little movie where he can have has collapsed, forced to recycle saliva, sweat like a Kinder Egg!” he told AFP in Toronto. in Toronto, Ontario. — AFP every decision-this is Disney.” and urine to endure the heat. “That can be a “But I was in safe hands.” The Oscar-winning reality in 20 years,” he said. Admittedly it is actor says he was raised by his mother to “al- ocean treaty, and warning that “we can’t af- ‘Daddy will be a hero’ harder to find an ecological reason for signing ways speak out on what you think is right, no ford to get it wrong.” But he would also like Bardem-who won an Academy Award for up to play Frankenstein’s monster in a sus- matter what you do as a job,” and in recent to see Hollywood doing more with its “poten- 2007’s “No Country for Old Men”-admits this pended Universal project-”No, I guess he’s years that has meant taking up environmental tial reach of millions of people” to foster is not his only motivation for signing up for not vegan,” joked Bardem.—AFP causes. He addressed the United Nations in change. “Little Mermaid.” He and wife Penelope Cruz New York last month, telling governments the In recent talks with Rob Marshall for Dis- have two children including a six-year-old “world is watching” efforts to create a global daughter. “I will immediately become her hero

Netflix, Apple cross swords in Indian streaming market ompetition in India’s booming streaming market is heating up as Netflix joins forces with a director of CBollywood feel-good blockbusters and Apple launches its TV platform for 99 rupees ($1.39) a month. Netflix announced late Wednesday a long-term partnership with Karan Johar’s Dharmatic Entertainment to make a Director Edward Norton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Willem Dafoe and Josh Pais attend the ‘Moth- Edward Norton attends the “Motherless Brook- range of new fiction and non-fiction series and films for the erless Brooklyn’ premiere during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival at Princess of lyn” press conference. platform. Johar has directed eight films including “Kuch Wales Theatre in Toronto, Canada. — AFP photos Kuch Hota Hai” with Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan, and “Raazi”, nominated for best picture at next week’s In- dian International Film Academy (IIFA) Awards, dubbed the Bollywood Oscars. “It’s going to be P.H.A.T-pretty hot and tempting,” said Johar, whose Dharma Entertainment is one of India’s biggest production firms and which already teamed up with Netflix for the successful “Lust Stories” anthology. Netflix launched in India in 2016 and two of its Indian-made series have won critical acclaim-”Sacred Games” starring Saif Ali d Norton’s hard-boiled, jazz-inflected detective movie The film, out November 1, is based on Jonathan Lethem’s 1999 Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and “Leila” with Huma “Motherless Brooklyn” explores the corrupting influence of novel, which Norton read around the same time he starred in Qureishi. But Netflix faces stiff competition in Asia’s third- Epower at a time when vulgarity and bullying are being cel- “Fight Club,” and had wanted to adapt for the big screen ever largest economy as Amazon’s Prime Video, Disney’s Hotstar, ebrated in politics, the star said Wednesday. Set in 1950s New since. After his mentor Frank Minna (Bruce Willis) is killed over a Alt Balaji and other local platforms jostle for digital sub- York, much of the film’s cesspool of corruption and politics cen- shadowy deal, Norton’s private eye Lionel Essrog vows to track scriptions and eyeballs. ters on the menacing presence of city planning boss Moses Ran- down those responsible, uncovering a tangled web of political US technology giant Apple on Wednesday announced dolph-a thinly veiled Robert Moses, who really did demolish corruption and blackmail while learning to fend for himself. the launch of its streaming platform Apple TV+ in India, so-called “slums” populated by minorities to build vast highways While the book was set in the ‘90s, Norton shifts the action hoping to upend competition. Netflix is available in India through Brooklyn. In turn, that character, who at one point insists back to an era of dangerous New York streets, societal upheaval from 199 rupees a month and as millions of first-time users he is “ahead of” rather than “above” the law, has been likened by and edgy Harlem jazz clubs-Wynton Marsalis performs and access internet in Asia’s third-largest economy, analysts ex- critics to a “prefiguring of Donald Trump.” helped create the score, along with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. pect competition to intensify. “These days it’s incredible the degree to which vulgarity, of Asked about his acclaimed portrayal of a private eye battling un- India’s video-streaming industry is expected to grow at bullying, of violence are being reveled in,” Norton-who wrote, di- diagnosed Tourette syndrome, Norton said there is an “anarchic, nearly 22 percent per annum to 119 billion rupees ($1.7 bil- rected, produced and starred in the film-told journalists at creative beauty” to the syndrome that is liberating for performers lion) by 2023 according to consultancy PwC, Bloomberg Toronto’s film festival. “I thought it was interesting to look at what and enables audiences to be “inside his head and outside.” “No News reported. Netflix chief Reed Hastings has said the leads a person to get to the place where they’re actually celebrat- two people have the same symptomatic expressions of it,” he said. company’s goal is 100 million customers in India-almost 25 ing their capacity to behave that way.” Norton praised the por- Norton added that he shared some of the character’s traits. “The times its estimated subscriber base there as of this year, trayal of Randolph by Alec Baldwin-who regularly depicts Trump part of Lionel that can’t move on from a thing until it sounds right Bloomberg said. — AFP on “Saturday Night Live”-noting how “you can feel the unapolo- probably led to moments where there were a few takes more than getic place he’s reached.” Producer Rachel Shane told AFP the we needed,” he said. “That compulsion to perfect something, I re- “themes of corruption and racism in our movie are very much uni- late to.”— AFP versal and timeless, which is an unfortunate reality.”