lifestyle THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013 MUSIC & MOVIES Members of the Jury, (from left) Chinese actor and director Jiang Wen, German actress Martina Gedeck, French actress US actor George Virginie Ledoyen, US actress and Clooney steers a scriptwriter Carrie Fisher, British boat next to US director Andrea Arnold, Chilean actress Sandra director, screenwriter and producer Bullock before the Pablo Larrain, Italian director and photocall of the president of the jury Bernardo movie ‘Gravity’ Bertolucci, Japanese composer, presented out of musician and producer Ryuichi competition on Sakamoto and Swiss French director of the opening day of photography Renato Berta pose the 70th Venice during a photocall at the Lido Casino on Film Festival at the first day of the 70th VeniceFilm Clooney,Venice Lido. Bullock Festival yesterday at Venice Lido. space thriller opens Venice film fest ollywood high-rollers George tography Emmanuel Lubezki produces stun- be tested by Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Clooney and Sandra Bullock kicked ning images which leave spectators gasping Skin”, in which Johansson stars as an alien Hoff the Venice film festival yesterday for air, the humour sometimes detracts from who hunts down and devours unwitting hik- with a harrowing space drama that opens a key scenes and the characters lack real ers. Monty Python star Terry Gilliam’s drama line-up flush with gloomy tales. “Gravity”, a depth. Other keenly awaited premieres “The Zero Theorem” is unlikely to lift the 3-D sci-fi thriller, sees Clooney and Bullock include “Parkland”, Peter Landesman’s re- mood, with its bleak tale of solitude and as astronauts who are flung into dark, deep creation of John F Kennedy’s assassination madness centered around a race to decode space when a debris shower destroys their and David Gordon Green’s brutal “Joe” with a mathematical formula to discover whether shuttle. The stars were expected on the red Nicholas Cage as a violent ex-con who life has any meaning. — AFP carpet for the opening ceremony of the teams up with a homeless teen. world’s oldest film festival, followed by an “This festival draws its strength from the exclusive after-dinner party. Directed by risks it takes,” this year’s jury president, Mexico’s Alfonso Cuaron of “Children of Oscar-winning Italian director Bernardo Men” fame, the film induces anxiety, with Bertolucci, said at a canalside cocktail party terrifying shots from inside the astronauts’ on the eve of the opening. Gondoliers could helmets as they spin wildly and lose all radio be seen shipping silver screen stars to contact with Earth. Venice’s Lido Island where the 70th edition Cuaron has said he invented new film- of the festival will run to September 7, making techniques to depict spacewalking- accompanied by a plethora of luxury yacht including shooting inside a giant cube to parties and beach soirees. evoke constantly shifting light sources-and Paparazzi were doused in sea spray as after months of delay and a huge budget, speed boats whipped past the shore of the (From Left) Producer David Heyman, US actress Sandra Bullock, Mexican director “Gravity” delivers a Hollywood punch. Lido and starlets lounged in the Italian sun. Alfonso Cuaron, US actor George Clooney and Mexican screenwriter Jonas Cuaron Bullock plays Dr Ryan Stone, a medical engi- Scarlett Johansson, Nicholas Cage, Matt pose during the photocall of the movie “Gravity” presented out of competition on the neer on her first mission who relies on veter- Damon and Zac Efron are just some of the opening day of the 70th Venice Film Festival yesterday at Venice Lido. — AFP photos an astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) to stars expected on the red carpet this edi- hold on to her sanity and try to survive tion, along with South Korea’s Kim Ki-duk, Martina Gedeck (“The Lives of Others”). signs of optimism”, festival director Alberto despite her rapidly dropping oxygen levels. whose grim morality tale “Pieta” won the British and American flicks dominate, with Barbera said. A soundtrack dominated by her racing Golden Lion prize last year. the return of the family as the vessel for Among the most harrowing will be heartbeat and the deafening silence of Twenty films are up for the Lion this year. social, political and economic crisis, from James Franco’s “Child of God”, an adaptation space is punctuated by jokes cracked by The jury is headed up by Bertolucci, best child abuse and abductions to absent of a Cormac McCarthy novel about a cave US actor George Clooney and US actress Kowalsky: “Half of North America just lost its known for his raunchy 1972 “Last Tango in fathers and marriage breakdowns. The total dweller who rejects the social order and Sandra Bullock pose during the photocall Facebook”, he quips as debris takes out com- Paris”, and includes British director Andrea 53 films screening reflect a “dark and violent ends up slaughtering women to have sex of the movie “Gravity”. munication satellites. While director of pho- Arnold (“Red Road”) and German actress reality” with filmmakers “not giving any with their corpses. The squeamish will also ‘Girls Gone Wild’ creator Emboldened Rebecca Hall gets 270 days in jail irls Gone Wild” creator Joe Francis was sentenced Tuesday to moves toward center stage 270 days in jail and three years’ probation for choking a “G woman and repeatedly slamming her head to the ground at over tea at an East Village cafe, Hall is their divorce when I was five or what- Bridge Project, productions of “The his Los Angeles mansion in 2011. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge sharp, buoyant, funny and seemingly ever. I was very aware of the press Winter’s Tale” and “The Cherry Orchard.” Nancy L Newman also ordered the 40-year-old Francis to complete an energized by the work she’s getting. always - my dad’s reviews.” Movie roles also accumulated, most anger management course and attend 52 sessions of psychological She’s still glowing from the singing Hall’s father, Sir Peter Hall, founded notably the seemingly prudish tourist counseling, according to Deputy City Attorney Mitchell Fox. A jury in May lines of Sylvia - a “once in a blue moon” the Royal Shakespeare Company and is in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina convicted Francis of five misdemeanor charges - three counts of false part, she calls it - a shift for her to play- a renowned figure in British theater. Barcelona” (which earned her a Golden imprisonment, one count of assault by means likely to cause great bodily ing a more extroverted, forceful char- Her mother, Maria Ewing, was an Globe nomination) and Ben Affleck’s injury, and one count of dissuading a witness from reporting a crime. acter: “It was massively liberating,” she acclaimed opera singer from Detroit. love interest in 2010’s heist film “The Francis’ attorney Steve Levine said key details of the case were says. Of her childhood, Hall says: “It was Town.” Her approach to a part - a proven to be false in court, and he is appealing the decision. “Joe has Above all, she comes across, as she mine. I don’t know any different. It was process she’s somewhat protective of - always maintained his innocence,” Levine said. He added that the judge says of herself, as “restless and curious.” peripatetic and nomadic and bohemi- is carefully plotted. She papers the “still came to a very fair and measured decision.” According to Fox, “She’s the real McCoy,” says “Closed an and exciting and at times unusual walls of her trailer with charts of her Francis met three women on Jan 29, 2011, at a college graduation party Circuit” director John Crowley. “She’s to the point of wanting some type of characters’ mental states, scene to at the Supper Club in hugely impressive and has massive stability. But mostly, it was just a very scene. She laughs that she had “a com- Hollywood. He grabbed range. It felt like she would have the creative, exciting environment to be plete and utter meltdown” when her This Aug 19, 2013 photo shows the arm of one of the girls intellectual prowess but also the emo- raised in.” As a child, Hall was immedi- blueprints were temporarily cleaned English actress Rebecca Hall in New and took her to his limo, tionality to handle the part.” In “Closed ately drawn to acting: Her first profes- away while recently filming the sci- York. —AP and the two others fol- Circuit,” Hall plays the Special Advocate sional part came as an 8-year-old in her ence-fiction thriller “Transcendence,” lowed, believing they’d be appointed to jointly defend a man father’s TV adaptation of Mary Wesley’s co-starring Johnny Depp. taken to their car. Instead, ebecca Hall is confidently step- accused of bombing a crowded “The Camomile Lawn.” She later attend- Hall also makes playlists for every they ended up in a gated ping toward center stage. This London marketplace. She and another ed Cambridge for two years, but then character of what she thinks they area of Francis’ Bel Air Ryear, there was her snappy, lawyer (Eric Bana), with whom she has quit, wanting “to do something bold would listen to as a key to their emo- home. unapologetic Sylvia in the Tom a romantic past, must work the case and decisive and not have anything to tions, (contemporary classical and Francis appeared to be Stoppard HBO miniseries “Parade’s under confidentiality and in a hearing fall back on.” Scandinavian jazz trios for her passion- interested in one of the End,” a revelation of Hall’s dynamism closed to the public a cloak of secrecy With such an independent streak, ate but suppressed character in women and tried to lead and capacity for boldness.