The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Tim Burton recalls dark childhood in ‘Frankenweenie’ Posted: 08 Oct 2012 07:24 AM PDT LOS ANGELES, Oct 8 — Black and white, old-fashioned stop-motion animation but in 3D: cinema's past and future combine in Tim Burton's "Frankenweenie", which the Gothic filmmaker says was inspired by his childhood. His first animated feature since 2005's "Corpse Bride", the movie tells the story of a boy who brings his cherished dog back to life, only to open a Pandora's box of terrifying back-from-the-dead monsters.  "Frankenweenie" tells the story of a boy who brings his cherished dog back to life, only to open a Pandora's box of terrifying back-from-the-dead monsters. — AFP/Relaxnews Almost three decades later, having made his name in Hollywood with hits including "Alice in Wonderland" — which has earned over US$1 billion (RM3.1 billion) worldwide — the quirky director was given carte blanche to remake his early work. The story is the same: Victor Frankenstein, a bit of a loner and obsessed with science, sees his pet dog Sparky killed by a car — but brings him back to life in high-voltage Frankenstein fashion. The "miracle" is difficult to keep secret, especially from classmates who are curious and jealous of his discovery, and one thing after another leads to havoc in the town. While Burton's 1984 short told the story with real actors and actresses, the new version uses stop-motion animation techniques — where objects are moved in small increments between individual frames. It is also in black and white — which the filmmaker says was crucial. "It had to be stop-motion and it had to be black and white. It's hard to put into words but for me it makes it more emotional," Burton told reporters, presenting the movie before its release. "I felt so strongly about it that if the studio had said 'We'll do the movie but it has to be in colour,', I just wouldn't have done it. It was that important." Burton had already used stop-motion — one the oldest animation techniques, and one of the most laborious — in "Corpse Bride," and earlier in "The Nightmare Before Christmas" in 1993. The characters are articulated figurines, which have to be moved onerously, frame by frame — 24 movements per second of film — to create the illusion of movement. "There is something about it that can't change: you have to take puppet and moving it 24 times for one second of film. That goes back to the beginning of cinema," he said. "There's something about the old-fashioned technique ... It's tactile, it's tangible. Some of the people that like doing it love the fact that actually nothing has changed technologically." The movie also pays tribute to classic horror flicks that Burton grew up with as a child in Burbank, a Los Angeles suburb: Frankenstein, but also Godzilla and actors like Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre, evoked in the movie. "I grew up feeling, which probably most kids do, like you're alone, no one understands you, you're different, all those kinds of feelings. At the same time, I remember feeling quite normal, whatever that means," he said. "I didn't feel like a weirdo." The original short was "based on real feelings about when I was a child with a dog, the Frankenstein movies and mixing those up," he said. "As the years went on... I started going back to other memories about that time, remembering other kids at school, the weirdness of the way kids are, and the new teachers, and other monster movies. "So after years of thinking about it, it just sort of made sense to kind of do stop-motion black and white 3D, it just made it feel like a whole different project. "I tried to personalise everything. You can't do that with a lot of projects but this one was so much based on all sorts of memories." — AFP/Relaxnews |
| Britain’s BBC apologises over sex abuse scandal Posted: 08 Oct 2012 07:05 AM PDT  Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron speaks on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, during the Conservative Party annual conference, in Birmingham, central England, October 7, 2012. — Reuters pic The man accused of using his status as a celebrity and prominent charity fund raiser to commit the crimes is Jimmy Savile, an eccentric BBC presenter who died last year aged 84. Instantly recognisable for his shock of blonde hair, Savile was famous for his larger-than-life personality and for his love of smoking cigars, donning tracksuits and coming out with catchphrases that sometimes became part of the national lexicon. The former DJ travelled around London in a Rolls-Royce and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his charitable work in 1990. When he died last year, he was buried wearing a tracksuit after his gold-coloured coffin was put on public display in a hotel. His reputation was called into question last week, however, after a documentary shown by the BBC's rival ITV channel aired a slew of sexual assault allegations against Savile, triggering a media storm that has raised awkward questions for the BBC. Today, the BBC's new boss, George Entwistle, promised the corporation would co-operate fully with the police to investigate the allegations. "The women involved here have gone through something awful and it's something I deeply regret," he told BBC radio today, the first time the BBC had said it was sorry for what it is alleged to have happened. "I would like to apologise on behalf of the organisation to each and every one of them for what they have had to endure here." "A culture of sexual abuse" Some women said Savile had abused them when they were as young as 12 and described a culture of sexual abuse inside the BBC at the height of Savile's fame in the 1970s and 1980s. Some also alleged that they had been attacked on BBC premises. The scandal has seen critics accuse the BBC of mishandling or even covering up the case, particularly after an investigation into the allegations by its own flagship TV programme was axed by its editors last December. Prime Minister David Cameron has waded into the scandal, calling on the BBC to conduct an internal investigation, saying the allegations were "truly shocking". "It seems to me it is very important that the organisation, the BBC, does that itself," he told a BBC program on Sunday. "But also, if there are questions that should be pursued by the police and other organisations, everyone has to ask themselves the question: 'Is there new evidence that needs to be looked at?'" Entwistle — who became Director General of the BBC less than a month ago — said all questions would be addressed, but only after police had finished their own investigation. In an attempt to distance themselves from the sex abuse claims, charities set up by Savile are now considering dropping his name altogether, local media reported. Last year, an investigation by Newsnight, the BBC's flagship news show, was shelved, prompting suggestions that BBC bosses had known about the allegations but kept quiet. The BBC has denied that. Newsnight's editor Peter Rippon said his decision not to run its story was because the claims against Savile could not be substantiated. — Reuters |
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