29 December

Eastern Promises Live Journal

A blog named Eastern Promises Live Journal has some news and gossip concerning David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. Check it out.

27 December

The 7th British Film Festival in Israel

The 7th British Film Festival in Israel will take place between 18-27 of January 2007 in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. Listing of the films and their schedule can be found here: The British Council, Tel-Aviv Cinematheuqe, Jerusalem Cinematheque, Haifa Cinematheque. Faisal A. Qureshi, who is a film-maker and also happens to be an old fan of The Plasma Pool, wrote and directed two of the short films that will be presented in the festival. The movies are: Scribble (2004) - A science fiction short film about a Sternographer who has trouble dealing with modern technology. Richard Dawson Productions/Silver Cloud Television Ltd/North West Vision (3mins 38sec, Super 16mm). The Applicant (2006) - "Eddie" Ahmed is waiting to be interviewed for a job he has never applied for. HR think they've got the right guy though. Access Moving Image/Screen Yorkshire/UK Film Council (5mins 20sec, 35mm). More info about Qureshi and his work can be found on UK Screen and Shooting People.

22 December

Avatar Postponed to 2009

James Cameron's Avatar has been postponed to 2009. Cameron told The Independent that "Avatar is a very ambitious sci-fi movie... It's a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence. It's an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience. It aspires to a mythic level of storytelling." "The film requires me to create an entirely new alien culture and language, and for that I want 'photo-real' CGI characters. Sophisticated enough 'performance-capture' animation technology is only coming on stream now. I've spent the last 14 months doing performance-capture work - the actor performs the character and then we animate it." "I always want to find something mentally engaging. I'll spend many months completing the special effects on Avatar, and it will not be released until the summer of 2009. It's quite a challenge - and for that reason, I embrace it." Avatar will be shot using the "Fusion Camera System" developed by Cameron, Vince Pace and Rob Legato. The Fusion Camera is a digital high definition camera developed specifically to capture films in stereoscopic 3-D. The film will be shot completely in a studio and will feature a cast composed mostly of CG performers, through performance capture.

19 December

Ennio Morricone to Receive Honorary Academy Award

Composer-conductor Ennio Morricone, who has composed hundreds of motion picture scores over a 45-year career, has been voted an Honorary Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The 79th Academy Awards will take place on February 25 at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood. Ellen DeGeneres has been set to host it. Nominations will be announced on January 23.

16 December

More on Transsiberian

Two official sites now contain information about Transsiberian: Brad Anderson's Official Site (which also has new posters for the movie) and the Spanish Filmax International, which produces the movie. The latter contains the following description of the plot: *** spoilers alert *** Transsiberian is a thriller set on the legendary train that links the Far East and Europe, running from China and Mongolia to Russia. Following a stay in Peking, Roy and Jessie, a couple who are going through a rocky patch, decide to give their relationship one last go and have another adventure together, travelling on the Transsiberian from China to Moscow through exotic, wild and snow-laden places. On the train, Roy and Jessie discover that the days of the Transsiberian’s glorious luxury have faded since the fall of the USSR. The famous train’s former glamour has disappeared, leaving cold steel carriages and taciturn fellow passengers, reputed to include drug traffickers. They take refuge in the company of a fellow western couple who arrive in their shared compartment, Carlos and Abby, who travel throughout the world giving language classes and re-selling handcraft, such as, on this occasion, Russian “Matryoshka” dolls. Everything is going well until the four decide to get off the train at one stop. Roy gets separated from the rest of the group and the train carries on with the other three already back on board. Jessie, by now extremely worried, has no other option but to get off at the next station and wait until Roy comes on the following train. Abby and Carlos offer to wait with her. However, while they wait for him, Carlos tries to take advantage of Jessie and, in trying to defend herself, she ends up accidentally killing him. Terrified, she buries the corpse in the snow and returns to the station, where Roy has finally arrived. Back together at last, Jessie tries to forget about what has happened. But the nightmare is only just beginning. She will soon discover that Carlos and Abby were in fact drug dealers who were being pursued by several corrupt police officers, and they are now chasing her. Unwittingly, Roy and Jessie get caught up in the dark world of smuggling and betrayal. And they know that while the train is in motion, there is no means of escape!

13 December

Peter Boyle Dead at 71

Peter Boyle, whose versatility as a character actor took him from the Vietnam-era angst of Joe to a tap-dancing monster in Young Frankenstein to the cranky paterfamilias of the Barone clan on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, has died. He was 71. Boyle died Tuesday evening at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He had been suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease, according to the Associated Press. More info on IMDB, The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter

7 December

Brad Anderson's New Project

According to The Star Online, Brad Anderson's next movie is Transsiberian, which begins shooting December 11 in Beijing, Russia and Lithuania. Woody Harrelson and Samantha Morton play a couple and Kate Mara and Eduardo Noriega play another couple. Ben Kingsley is rounding out the cast as a Russian police officer hot on the trail of the two couples. The story focuses on an American couple that travels on the famous Transsiberian train from China to Moscow and encounters another couple. What seems to be a simple train journey soon turns into a thrilling chase full of deception and murder as it becomes clear that not everybody is who they seem. More plot details can be found at 24framespersecond.net

5 December

Howard Shore's Official Site is up

After a year of "coming soon", Howard Shore's Official Site is finally up and running. It contains a discography and info about his work. You can also find there a calendar with his scheduled performances and links that will let you buy tickets online if you are lucky enough to live or visit the right area at the right time. Check it out.

1 December

Composer Shirley Walker Dead at 61

Composer Shirley Walker has died at the age of 61. She suffered a brain aneurism and did not regain consciousness. The composer was something of a trailblazer for women film composers, scoring an array of projects from the early 1980s including Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Willard and the Final Destination trilogy. Walker worked largely in a comfortable niche of dark movie material and a host of animated incarnations of favorite comic books, including Superman, Batman and Spawn, though she was more than able in other genres, as scores like Willard showed. The talented composer also served regularly as an orchestrator, arranger and conductor, most notably for Danny Elfman (with whom she worked on Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Dick Tracy (1990), Scrooged (1988), Article 99 (1992) and Nightbreed (1990)) and Hans Zimmer (with whom she worked on Black Rain (1989), Pacific Heights (1990), Days of Thunder (1990), Bird on a Wire (1990), Chicago Joe and the Showgirl (1990), Backdraft (1991), White Fang (1991), Toys (1992) and A League of Their Own (1992)). Her final score, Black Christmas, can be heard in cinemas this holiday season. It's another sad loss for the film music world and so soon after the death of Basil Poledouris, who was also 61. Shirley Walker Official Site (Audio Samples)

Jared Leto Plays with Weight for New Role

For the upcoming movie Chapter 27 (2007), actor Jared Leto (who is also the lead in the rock band 30 Seconds to Mars) gained 67 pounds (30kg) to play Mark David Chapman, who murdered former Beatle John Lennon on December 1980. Leto drank microwaved ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. At times he had to use a wheelchair due to the stress the sudden increase in weight put on his body. Rumor says that once the shooting was over, Leto went on the master cleanse diet and lost 20 pounds in 10 days. Leto says he gained so much weight during the shooting of the movie that it made him sick. Reportedly, it left him with gout-a form of arthritis caused by the accumulation of uric acid crystals in the joints, which most commonly affects the big toe. To ease the crippling pain, Leto has been wearing plastic clogs. According to The New York Post, he revealed he was suffering from gout when asked why he was wearing plastic shoes during a stay at Chicago's Hard Rock Hotel, for a performance of his band in the Lollapalooza music festival. Chapter 27 will be released on 2 November 2007.