BBC News - Entertainment in Mulan English-language film

Zhang Ziyi to star in Mulan English-language film

The actress will be trained with bow and arrow for the role

Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi is to team up with Speed director Jan de Bont to make an English-language version of the Chinese legend Mulan.

The ancient folk story of a woman who replaces her father in battle, was made famous worldwide by an animated Disney film in 1998.

A Chinese-language version of the tale was released last year.

Producer Christopher Brough told The Associated Press that filming will begin this year in eastern China.

Ziyi shot to stardom after starring in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and has since gone on to appear in several high profile Hollywood movies, including Rush Hour 2 and Memoirs of a Geisha.

The actress will undergo bow and arrow and combat training for her latest role.

Her manager Ling Lucas said: "She has complete trust in Jan de Bont to turn Mulan into a memorable screen legend."

BBC News - Entertainment in Coppola takes Venice film prize

Coppola takes Venice film prize















Director Sofia Coppola has taken the top prize at the Venice Film Festival for her fourth film, Somewhere.
Sofia Coppola wins Venice Golden Lion for Somewhere

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Quentin Tarantino presented Sofia Coppola with the award

Film director Sofia Coppola has taken the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, the Golden Lion, for her film Somewhere.

The film tells the story of an actor whose aimless life is transformed when his young daughter comes to stay.

The prize for best director went to Spain's Alex de la Iglesia for his horror film, The Last Circus.
Vincent Gallo of France was named best actor for his role as an American Taliban in the film Essential Killing.
Coppola, 39, based Somewhere on her own upbringing as the daughter of film director Francis Ford Coppola.


Enchanted'

"Thanks to my dad for teaching me," she said in her acceptance speech.

"This film enchanted us from its first screening," said Quentin Tarantino, chairman of the jury which unanimously chose Copppola's film as the festival's best.

Coppola's last film, Marie Antoinette, was booed at its premiere during the Cannes Film Festival four years ago.
She is best known for her 2003 film, Lost in Translation, which starred Bill Murray and made her one of only a handful of women directors to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

Vincent Gallo, who won the prize for best actor, spent much of the Venice festival in a balaclava to escape the paparazzi. He did not appear on stage to accept his award.

Somewhere stars Stephen Dorff and Ella Fanning

The film Essential Killing, in which he plays an American Taliban captured in Afghanistan, was directed by Jerzy Skolimowski.

Neil Marshall-movies news

Dialogue: Exclusive Interview with Centurion director Neil Marshall

English director Neil Marshall has become a cult-film hero on these shores with exciting genre favorites like the werewolf thriller Dog Soldiers, the terrifying spelunking shocker The Descent, and the ultra-violent post-apocalyptic action film Doomsday. His latest movie, the violent and bloody historical epic Centurion, dramatizes the ill-fated Ninth Legion of Roman soldiers who marched north in England to try to obliterate a tribe of Scottish Picts and their leader in the year 117 A.D. We sat down with the 40-year-old director—who is four for four in our book—for a candid chat as Centurion is about to open in limited release in theaters and is currently available on On Demand.

Movies. Tell us about growing up near Hadrian's Wall in Northern England and how that inspired Centurion.
Neil Marshall: I was born and raised in Newcastle on one end of Hadrian's Wall, and the ruins of the wall are still there. When you grow up in that part of the world, you can't avoid Roman history—there are forts everywhere, ruins and Roman roads. It's really part of the culture. My dad's a big history buff as well, so I used to go to school trips to Hadrian's Wall. I'd stand up there on a bleak and rainy miserable day and wonder what these Romans must have thought when they stood watch there.

Movies. What do you know about the legend of the Ninth Legion?
Marshall: I heard the myth of the Ninth Legion about 10 years ago, this idea that an entire legion of Roman soldiers marched into Northern Scotland and vanished without a trace. It just instantly intrigued me. It was a hook, and I knew there had to be a film and a story in there somewhere. I did a lot of research and put together the story from that. The myth itself is nothing—it's as simple as the soldiers marching in and disappearing. I had to fill in a lot of blanks.

Movies. It looks like a lot of Centurion was shot in actual remote locations. What environmental hardships did you endure while shooting?
Marshall: We encountered pretty much every kind of environmental hardship you can imagine with the exception of a forest fire. We were filming in freezing conditions –the first day was -15 degrees Centigrade. It was tough, like being in a blizzard on top of a mountain! That set the standard and it was rough on everybody.

Movies. Were you ever tempted just to use a lot of green screens and fill in the scenery with CGI effects?
Marshall: I wanted to do the anti-300, in a way. I want to film on location and sets if I have to, and the last possible choice is a green screen. A film like this is all about the landscape and being in that location, and the fact that the environment was trying to kill these Romans as much as the Picts were.

Movies.What made you want to cast up-and-comer Michael Fassbender as your lead, Quintus Dias, the only Roman soldier to survive the Pict attack on a Roman garrison?
Marshall: I hadn't seen Michael in Inglourious Basterds when I cast him. The main reason is that I auditioned him for Doomsday and wasn't able to cast him in that. I knew he was an actor of some talent and that he was cast in Tarantino's movie, so he seemed like a pretty good catch.

Movies.com: What was the most challenging aspect of creating specifics about a culture—the Picts—that there is very little recorded history about?
Marshall: That's the thing, you've got to invent the society based around some very thin physical evidence like stone carvings, but they had no written history or recorded language. What we do know about them is mostly from the Romans, so that's a bit biased. We had to create how they would dress, speak, live and fight against the Romans. That was a lot of fun.

Movies. always have very strong female characters present, if not the focus, in your movies. If you could pick any American actress to be the female protagonist in your next movie, who would it be? Marshall: Sigourney Weaver, because Alien is a tremendous inspiration. I never want to have just a male character in a skirt—they have to behave like real women.
med like a pretty good catch.

Movies. Fans appreciate the unrestrained violence in your movies. What would you have said if a studio asked you to edit down your violence to a PG level?
Marshall: I would hope that they would mention it earlier on [laughs]. I think that violence is essential to the stories I have been telling. I don't think you'll see a Neil Marshall romantic comedy anytime in the future, but you might see a 3D horror film. Right now, I'm happy to be working in my comfort zone.

Dave & Jen's Mid-Year Oscar Picks-News news

Critics' Corner: Dave & Jen's Mid-Year Oscar Picks

Now that the summer movie season is over, Dave and Jen wax poetic on the best of the year so far and try their hand at predicting this year's Oscar nominees.
Jen: You hate the Oscars, right?

Dave: They're as meaningful as the Teen Choice Awards. But I don't hate them. I like the ridiculosity. I like awards shows. But the Oscars get less and less fun
because the cheesy awards show stuff that used to make it fun to watch is being stripped away. Like, there are no more dumb song performances.

Jen: Agreed. I like the pageantry. As far as the Academy Awards go, I want to see Beyoncé singing medleys of all the Best Song nominees and dancers doing
interpretive numbers.

Dave: But you don't really get much interpretive dance any more. Or Rob Lowe singing with Snow White. No, the Oscars are like watching a reality show about
fake people with weird lips and foreheads. My favorite was from when I was a kid; I remember vividly when The Omen came out that the theme from it was nominated
for Best Song and it was called "Ave Satani," which is hilarious. And then they did this dance to it and it was like watching Monica Bellucci performing an
incantation in a pentagram in Sorcerer's Apprentice, people all wavy and evil and with flowing capes and whatever.

Jen: That must have made an impression on little Dave White. And with that ridiculous Oscar story as a jumping-off point, let's launch into our own mid-season
Oscar predictions! Speaking of Best Original Songs like "Ave Satani," I happen to think 2010 is a banner year for the category…
Dave: "Pimps Don't Cry" from The Other Guys is pretty great. I think you agree.




Jen: Usually we get stuck with these yuppie middle-aged songs from documentaries, written by musicians like Bono. But "Pimps Don't Cry," to me, is the first CLEAR front-runner of the 2010 Oscar race. And co-written by JON BRION! I want to see Eva Mendes and Cee-Lo perform it on stage at the Oscars.

Dave: My favorite song of the year so far is "Make It Don't Fake It" from Trash Humpers.

Jen: ALSO GOOD! And so catchy it'll haunt your parking lot-destroying, garbage bin-humping, baby doll-mangling dreams.

Dave: Trash Humpers is also my favorite movie of the year so far. Therefore I want it nominated for Best Picture. I would also nominate Toy Story 3 alongside Trash Humpers.



Jen: I would love to see Trash Humpers and Toy Story 3 go head to head in multiple categories: Best Song, Best Director, Best Picture. Forget Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker. Harmony Korine vs. Pixar will be the new divisive Oscar showdown that shows where you stand as a cinephile!

Dave: I love I Am Love so that one gets nominated too.

Jen: Tilda Swinton should get a nom, yes.



Dave: She's the best actress every year even if she isn't in a movie. So lucky us she's in one this year. I also liked Jennifer Lawrence from Winter's Bone.

Jen: And since Lawrence's next role is in an X-Men movie, she stands a good chance to inherit the Oscar curse if she wins! If we're talking Best Actress, I'd like to see Noomi Rapace nominated for the Millenium trilogy. That woman is GOOD. Fearless.

Dave: See, I think those Girl Who Dragoned the Tattoo Fires movies are entertaining, awesome movies but I wouldn't nominate them for best picture.

Jen: I get that, but Rapace's performance is better than 90% of the female performances we've seen this year. Completely Oscar nomination-worthy. Rapace is so good in the Girl with the Doodad Whatsit movies that I cannot picture any of these frail little Hollywood girls filling her shoes in the remake.

Dave: Okay she can be one of our Best Actress nominees, then. I do agree with you on that.

Jen: What about The Kids are All Right mommy lesbians? I feel like that movie is exactly what the Academy likes to embrace. Are you feeling Julianne Moore and/or Annette Bening for Best Actress?

Dave: Annette Bening. I like brittle and cold more than anything. And I liked when she sang the Joni Mitchell song.

Jen: Brittle and cold does make more of an impact compared to Moore's crunchy hippie shtick, although I can already picture Moore's sound-bite monologue about marriage being played on the screen as they announce her nomination for Best Actress and her competition looks bravely into the camera with their best "I'm honored just to be here" faces.

Dave: That whole "what is a marriage" speech is fine… I think that movie is funny and authentic and all, but it didn't convince me of anything new and it plays like a movie that's for people who need to be reminded that gay people are actual human beings.

Jen: Exactly why I think the Academy would embrace it!

Dave: Yes, the real Academy will eat it up. But we are the Awesome-cademy and we don't have to play by their rules, so I'm ignoring that movie.

Jen: In our Awesome-cademy, do we agree that a Best Supporting Actress nod goes to the middle girl in The Human Centipede?

Dave: YES. And I'm being serious. People laugh at me when I say this but I truly believe that she gave a really harrowing performance -- and it was all done with her face sewn to a Japanese guy's butt.

Jen: Has any other actor, male or female, ever had to perform under such severe constraints? Maybe Mathieu Almaric, blinking his way through The Diving Bell and the Butterfly…

Dave: Right. The animals in Milo and Otis that died, they had it worse. But otherwise, The Human Centipede girl kind of wins.

Jen: Oh! What about Inception? I say Best Director/Script/Score/Actress, for Marion Cotillard. Inception's got to win multiple awards. The score alone keeps me up at night.

Dave: Inception is fantastic. I'm not on anyone's backlash wagon.

Jen: Totes. I still wonder if any of this is real. Is this conversation real? Are you real?

Dave: You said totes. You're so young. Kids and their slangs are great…

Jen: Totes magotes! What other nominations do you propose?

Dave: P Diddy for Best Supporting Actor in Get Him to the Greek.



Jen: More specifically, P Diddy's floating Pac-man head for Best Supporting Actor! How about Best Director?

Dave: Nicole Holofcener, Please Give.

Jen: Nice one. A few more Best Song nominees: Pharrell Williams' hip-hop for kids theme song from Despicable Me, and that one Miley Cyrus ballad from The Last Song. Just because.

Dave: You're joking about that Miley Cyrus song. That movie, however, was hilarious.

Jen: I am joking. Kind of. Maybe. It got radio play! It may be the best known mainstream song from a major motion picture this year! Unless "Pimps Don't Cry" gets a foothold. That song is so good. It's up there for me as the Song of Summer 2010 with the "Bed Intruder" song by the Auto-tune the News guys. "Hide your kids, hide your wife…"

Dave: I agree about "Bed Intruder." Sadly, not in any movie though. Like maybe they could put it in one but it wouldn't be an original song and, therefore, would be disqualified. In other news, we've spent way too long talking about the Best Song category.

Jen: I think we've picked some winners here. And the real Oscar season hasn't even begun! We're so winning the Oscar pool this year! Go pimps and P Diddy and Trash Humpers!

Dave: Yes, we're winning the pool. The pool in Backwards Town.

Movies news-STHE AMERICAN tarring George Clooney

Movie Clips from THE AMERICAN Starring George Clooney

With director Anton Corbijn’s (Control) The American getting released on September 1st, Focus Features has released four clips and you can check them out after
the jump. The film stars George Clooney as an aging assassin who vows the next assignment will be his last.

As I said when I posted all the new images, The American was one of those movies I was really looking forward to…but the closer it gets to release, the more I’m
nervous about the film. That’s because Focus Features isn’t doing a junket and I don’t know anyone that’s seen it. Trust me, that isn’t a good sign. But after
watching the clips, the film looks interesting and I’m really hoping it surprises me. Judge the footage for yourself:

Here’s the synopsis:

Academy Award winner George Clooney stars in the title role of this suspense thriller, filmed on location in Italy. Alone among assassins,
Jack (played by Mr. Clooney) is a master craftsman. When a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected for this American abroad, he vows to his
contact Larry (Bruce Altman) that his next assignment will be his last. Jack reports to the Italian countryside, where he holes up in a small town and
relishes being away from death for a spell. The assignment, as specified by a Belgian woman, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten of “In Bruges”), is in the offing as
a weapon is constructed. Surprising himself, Jack seeks out the friendship of local priest Father Benedetto (Italian stage and screen veteran Paolo Bonacelli)
and pursues romance with local woman Clara (Italian leading lady Violante Placido). But by stepping out of the shadows, Jack may be tempting fate.