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. There was that masks further injustice in the she initially recoiled when her father “Closed Circuit”). “Of all the actresses her away, but her friend her supporting role as a scientist in name of national security. offered her a part in his production of I’ve ever worked with, she was the pulled back, Fox said. “Iron Man 3,” an indoctrination to the The film has obvious contemporary George Bernard Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s most clear, the most thought-out,” says Francis then “jumped on Hollywood blockbuster. And, now, relevance, but it also relates personally Profession” in the West End. “Then I Susanna White, director of “Parade’s the friend, took her to the there’s the British thriller “Closed to Hall. The 31-year-old actress has changed my mind after six months and End.” “She’d come in and kick it straight ground, choked her, Circuit,” a confirmation of her ascen- seen her life made the fodder of British realized I might as well get it out of the away. It was thrilling to watch.” This slammed her head dance to being a leading lady - one tabloids for her relationship with direc- way,” she recalled. “Either I’ll be mauled December, Hall will make her against the ground, bristling with intelligence in any role. tor Sam Mendes. “I find it slightly dis- by the press and I’ll never be allowed Broadway debut in “Machinal,” an dragged her across the “I want to play women who are rich turbing that privacy means that you’re to do this again, or they’ll get over the expressionistic 1928 play based on ground, and when she got and make mistakes and can be messy guilty of something that you have to fact that I’m Peter Hall’s daughter.” Ruth Snyder, who was convicted of back up, did it several and ugly as well as pretty,” says Hall. “I hide,” Halls says. “That probably stems Hall won the Ian Charleson Award murdering her husband. Describing more times,” Fox said. He think that’s really an important service. from the fact that I saw my parents for the performance. Years of theater the character, Hall drifts into contem- then apparently told the That sounds very grand. I don’t mean it have their privacy invaded on by the and frequent collaborations with her plation: the early wheels turning on women they were tres- to sound grand.” In a recent interview press when they were going through father followed. She stared in Mendes’ the next character to map out. — AP passing and had to leave. The women said they File photo shows Joe Francis attends were going to call the the House of Hype Music Awards at the police, and Francis yelled Obama says he teared Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, to “go ahead and call the Calif. — AP police,” the prosecutor said. Francis told the girls he “owns the police” and that officers wouldn’t arrest him, Fox added. up over butler movie Judge Newman denied Francis’ request for a new trial Tuesday, but sentenced him to less than the four years in county jail urged by prose- cutors. Levine said Francis would be released from custody soon after resident Barack Obama teared were talented and skilled, but federal level rules about where posting a $250,000 bond Tuesday. up watching “Lee Daniels’ The because of Jim Crow, because of dis- blacks could eat, go to school, sit on He’ll remain free pending the outcome of the appeal. The day after PButler,” a celluloid depiction of crimination, there was only so far a bus, and who they could marry, Francis was convicted in Los Angeles, he told The Hollywood Reporter the US civil rights battle as seen by they could go,” Obama said in an among other restrictions-were in that members of the jury were “retarded,” and said “they should all be an African-American who served in interview with radio host Tom Joyner. force from the 1870s to the 1960s. lined up and shot.” Francis later apologized for his comments. “This is the White House. The movie, starring “And yet, with dignity and tenacity, The epic film-encompassing over 50 one of those cases where being a celebrity did not help him at all,” Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, they got up and worked every single years of history and a dozen US presi- Levine said. Francis has had a number of past legal troubles. Last year, a jury topped the North American box day,” said Obama, the first African- dents-is loosely based on the real-life found him guilty of defaming casino mogul Steve Wynn on multiple office for a second straight weekend American US president, noting that story of Eugene Allen, an African- occasions, including on ABC’s national morning show. Francis claimed and is already being spoke of as a those who were discriminated American who worked as a butler at the creator of some of Las Vegas’ most upscale resorts threatened to kill multiple Academy Award contender. against put up with a lot “because the White House for 34 years. him over a gambling debt. Dozens of other lawsuits have targeted “I teared up just thinking about they hoped for something better for Whitaker plays the title role and Francis, who built a porn empire producing and marketing videos of not just the butlers who have worked their kids.” Winfrey-who has been a longtime young women exposing themselves on camera. — AP here in the White House, but an The racially motivated “Jim Crow” supporter of Obama’s political cam- entire generation of people who laws-which legalized at the local and paigns-stars as his wife. — AFP