The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Assange slams Wikileaks film as “geriatric snoozefest” Posted: 10 Oct 2013 01:03 AM PDT The Australian hacker, who has been holed up at the Ecuadoran embassy in London after claiming asylum a year ago to avoid extradition to Sweden, has refused to meet the British actor. Cumberbatch stars as Assange in director Bill Condon's thriller The Fifth Estate, which won a long ovation at its world premiere during the Toronto Film Festival last month and is due for release in the United States next week. He requested a meeting to study his subject's manner, but Assange refused as "such an interaction might appear to legitimize a film intending to mislead the public with numerous inaccuracies". "I believe you are a good person, but I do not believe that this film is a good film," said Assange's letter to the actor, who revealed last month he considered quitting the movie after receiving it. "Feature films are the most powerful and insidious shapers of public perception, because they fly under the radar of conscious exclusion," said the letter. "This film is going to bury good people doing good work, at exactly the time that the state is coming down on their heads. It is going to smother the truthful version of events, at a time when the truth is most in demand. "As justification it will claim to be fiction, but it is not fiction. It is distorted truth about living people doing battle with titanic opponents. It is a work of political opportunism, influence, revenge and, above all, cowardice." In comments accompanying the release of the letter, he added: "The result is a geriatric snoozefest that only the US government could love". According to Assange, Cumberbatch's reply was "courteous and considered" with the actor admitting aspects of the script troubled him. The letter exchange took place in January. At the Toronto Film Festival, Cumberbatch, who has won rave reviews, said he wanted to see Assange carry on his work exposing secrets. "What I'd like to see is the man... able to carry on his work as founder of WikiLeaks. Beyond that, due process has to take place in whatever shape or forms that happens," he said. WikiLeaks enraged the United States in 2010 by publishing hundreds of thousands of classified documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a huge cache of US diplomatic cables that embarrassed governments worldwide. Ecuador granted Assange asylum last year but Britain refuses to grant him safe passage out of the country, leaving him stuck inside the embassy. Britain says it is obliged to see him extradited to Sweden where he faces sex crime allegations that Assange denies and claims are politically motivated. – AFP, October 9, 2013. |
| Hanks bookends London Film Festival with latest releases Posted: 09 Oct 2013 11:24 PM PDT The 57-year-old will also close the festival playing Walt Disney in new release Saving Mr Banks, which dramatises the making of the Wizard of Oz. Hanks is being talked about as an Oscar candidate for his depiction of Phillips, who was the captain on board container ship Maersk Alabama when it was hijacked 2009. Phillips was taken hostage with his crewmates, and it is Hanks' performance in the final minutes of the film, directed by Briton Paul Greengrass, which has critics raving. But the Forrest Gump star would not reveal how he was able to muster such powerful emotion. "It's a secret," he explained at a press conference. "It's like going to a Coca-Cola press conference and asking for their secret formula." "I'm a professional and I like to think of myself as a creative artist and you sort of take that on," said the double-Oscar winner. "As soon as you say yes to something you realise that a day is going to come where you have to be in a place that is both manufactured and yet very real to all your senses. And you prepare to get there as best you can, and when the time comes hopefully you achieve it." Hanks will end the festival on a much lighter note playing movie-mogul Disney. The biographical film, directed by American John Lee Hancock, portrays Disney's dogged efforts to convince Mary Poppins author Pamela Lyndon Travers to adapt the book for the big screen. In between the double dose of Tom Hanks, the festival, which runs until October 20, will present 232 feature-films and a procession of stars including Sandra Bullock, Judi Dench, Carey Mulligan, Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes, Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson. Another highlight will be the appearance of Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, who will explain the process of making the multi-million euro film Gravity – starring Bullock and George Clooney – which is also tipped for Oscars honours. – AFP, October 10, 2013. |
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