The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Ron Howard’s new test of survival in F1 racing film Posted: 09 Sep 2013 12:13 AM PDT His new movie Rush is about the death-defying thrill of F1 racing and the legendary rivalry between Austrian driver Niki Lauda and Britain's James Hunt in 1976. "The closer you are to death, the more alive you feel," says the flamboyant Hunt, played by Chris Hemsworth of action hero Thor fame. For the film's director, it's almost like they're going to war. "At the beginning of every year they would have a drivers' meeting... and a number of people from that time (1970s) told me that you would look around the room and know that a couple of those faces were not going to make it, weren't going to live through the year," says Howard in a recent interview in Paris. "And that's what combat pilots talk about." The 59-year-old Hollywood director, bearded and youthful-looking in his usual baseball cap, admits he likes stories where the characters take life to the edge, "putting themselves on the line" - like in Apollo 13. His box office hit was based on the true story of three US astronauts orbiting the Earth in a crippled space capsule, with that unforgettable line: "Houston, we have a problem." Whether a comedy, drama or true story, "you're always looking for the test, how are the characters being tested and I'm always interested in seeing how people reach for something that is really, really challenging," Howard says. Rush is set in what he calls the "recklessness" of 1970s F1 racing which was "a golden age for fans, because a lot of people were dying, which made it more gladiatorial and so the danger was with the audience and the fans every lap". The film captures the almost ghoulish fascination with racing and the tension on the track in recreating the famous fiery crash of Niki Lauda – played by multi-lingual German actor Daniel Bruehl (Good-by Lenin, Inglourious Basterds). Lauda was left disfigured from severe burns but he went on to become an amazing comeback Grand Prix champion. Howard's next project In the Heart of the Sea tells the tale of the whaleship Essex in 1820 which was attacked by a sperm whale leaving the crew adrift for 90 days, resorting to cannibalism to stay alive. "It's the events that inspired Herman Melville to write 'Moby Dick' 30 years later... When I learned about it, and their survival story which is both tragic and heroic, really remarkable, I felt like it was a very original kind of story to tackle." Howard is a son of Hollywood having started as a child actor in popular US television sitcoms, first as the young boy Opie on The Andy Griffith Show and then teenager Richie on Happy Days, and what he wants is to entertain. "I try to choose movies where I think I understand something, but also make me curious enough that I want to learn, and then offer back to audiences in an entertaining way what I think I've come to realise." He made his first movie in 1977, another car flick Grand Theft Auto, and won a directing Oscar for the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind. His credits also include Cocoon, Frost/Nixon, and the screen adaptations of Dan Brown's bestsellers The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons. He shrugs and smiles – a glimmer of the boyish charm that endeared him to TV audiences – when asked about his rare success story, not the stereotypical child actor who grows up to be a disillusioned adult hooked on drugs. He insists he's not alone and points to Jodie Foster. "She's certainly a very successful child actor who's had a very rich adult career." He then recalls how he was encouraged to pursue directing by iconic actor Henry Fonda, whom he worked with "in the 70s on a television series that was a complete disaster". But Fonda gave him some advice. "He said to me: 'If you don't make creative decisions, where you feel you're risking your career, every 18 months or two years, you're playing it too safe, and you're not going to grow as an artist, whether you are in front of the camera or behind the camera'." "But you asked me earlier about my interest in stories that are about risk, there's a lot of emotional risk in being involved in a high-profile way in movies and television... It's nothing like Formula One or going to the moon... but it's your life's work and it sometimes feels like it's emotional life or death...," Howard said as he was preparing for a screening of Rush at the Toronto International Film Festival yesterday and its general release later this month. - AFP Relaxnews, September 9, 2013. |
| Dallas Buyers Club takes homophobic cowboy’s AIDS tale to Toronto Posted: 08 Sep 2013 10:23 PM PDT No one wanted to make the film about the guy for the longest time, says actor Matthew McConaughey. But 20 years after inception, Dallas Buyers Club – a chronicle of Woodroof's transformation from bigot to AIDS patient to saviour of many – has finally made it to the screen. And had it not been for the Texas-born McConaughey's extreme weight loss to play Woodroof, the film might never have happened. Dallas Buyers Club premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday and garnered favourable reviews, particularly for McConaughey's depiction of a man both lovable and detestable and awfully skinny. McConaughey, 43, said he had seen a screenplay years ago, and "the fangs of Ron Woodroof had stuck in me from the first time I read it". He just wanted to play the part, not produce, but started helping to cobble finances together. He and his partners got to the point where they might have enough money to begin filming, but it was tenuous. "Someone said, 'Well maybe next spring. And I was like 'I'm 47 pounds down. I could, but I am not gonna'," McConaughey said. He said he and Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee, who McConaughey admired for his 2005 film C.R.A.Z.Y., decided to proceed with just over US$4 million under their belt, giving the film an underdog air that McConaughey says only added to its allure. "That's inherent to the man I was playing. All of that is part of the spirit," said the actor, who got his start 20 years ago in the coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused and made waves last year with his daring turn as a male strip-club impresario in Magic Mike. Early in the film, Woodroof is diagnosed with HIV and given 30 days to live, but thinks it must be a mistake. After all, the mustachioed macho asks his doctor, played by Jennifer Garner, how could he contract "that gay disease" claiming lives of gay men he made fun of like Hudson? He learns of his fate around the time that Hudson, a long-time leading man in Hollywood, loses his battle with AIDS and becomes one of the first celebrities to die of the disease. Drug smuggler, then saviour Hit forcefully with the kind of bigotry and rejection that he so embodied, Woodroof is left to fend for himself. He first steals the potent AZT from a hospital while it awaits approval by the US government's Food and Drug Administration. But he just gets sicker – while snorting coke – and goes to Mexico for treatment, where he finds an alternative drug mix that restores his health. Then he has his epiphany: ever the scheming entrepreneur, he realises he can smuggle the drugs from Mexico and sell them for a big profit to the gay men of Dallas, who he still holds in contempt, despite their common plight. With the business acumen of drug-addicted transsexual Rayon, played by Jared Leto, Woodroof launches his "buyers club," offering drugs not available in hospitals for a monthly charge. "The biggest challenge was getting these two bigger-than-life, over-the-top characters... team them up and make it real," Vallee said. "The first week of shooting, I thought, 'What am I doing? This is too big. No one is going to buy this'." Trade publication Variety called the film a "riveting and surprisingly relatable true story." Any doubts as to McConaughey's talents, it added, "are permanently put to rest." Woodroof might have turned out to be one of the saviors of a generation of gay men, but for most of the film he is an opportunist looking to survive and make a lot of money, travelling as far as Japan and Europe to smuggle in drugs. But as the gay community recognises his contribution to saving lives, his antipathy toward homosexuals melts away. He then takes the fight for access to drugs to court, but loses and ultimately dies in 1992, seven years after diagnosis. "We got away with making one of these movies that is important, and is good medicine," said McConaughey. "We got away with making a damn entertaining one." Dallas Buyers Club from Focus Features opens in North American theatres in December. - Reuters, September 9, 2013. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider : Showbiz To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan