MGM goes HD

 

Film and television studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc unveiled plans on Tuesday to launch a high-definition television channel this fall on the DirecTV satellite service with a mix of movies and original programs. 

The channel is MGM's first stand-alone HD service in the United States and it marks a major expansion for the studio. Chief Executive Harry Sloan called the launch a "milestone event" for MGM, the home of the James Bond film franchise. 

(Source: Reuters)

Ang Lee doesn’t play it safe with ‘Lust, Caution’

 

When the MPAA slapped Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (which opens next week) with an NC-17 rating for “explicit sexuality,” the director and his writer-producer James Schamus said they wouldn’t “change a single frame.” We asked Lee to explain himself: Why did he sequester star Tony Leung and newcomer Tang Wei on a closed set, for twelve days, to shoot kinky, violent sex scenes in a bedroom constructed with the kind of padded, stunt-proof walls he used on Crouching Tiger? 

“Each time they have intercourse, it’s like a conversation—and sex is the ultimate body language,” says Lee. “Every nuance, each time they have sex, progresses into something different.” Based on an Eileen Chang short story, the film unspools during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai; a young Chinese radical (Wei) impersonates a society lady in order to seduce and assassinate a collaborator (Leung) who sniffs out the resistance for the Japanese. “I feel like I’m doing sister films,” says Lee. 

(Source: NY Magazine)

Oliver Stone returns to sacred ground with new Vietman movie

 

Oliver Stone honestly thought he was finished with the Vietnam War. With Best Director Oscars for Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), and with 1993's Heaven & Earth to round out his Vietnam trilogy, the director had moved on to more current topics. Last year's World Trade Center centered around rescue workers on 9/11. Any Given Sunday (1999) was set on American football fields, not battlegrounds. So what was the 61-year-old filmmaker doing sitting in an airport lounge in Danang this week, watching himself lighting incense during a temple visit on local television news?  

Researching another Vietnam movie, of course. His latest project, Pinkville, focuses on the investigation into the 1968 My Lai massacre, in which U.S. troops slaughtered as many as 500 unarmed Vietnamese villagers. He spoke to TIME Vietnam correspondent Kay Johnson about parallels between Vietnam and the Iraq conflict, his old Yale classmate George W. Bush and why he won't be making the Great Iraq War Movie. 

(Source: Time)

Matt Damon pulls a Bourne on his public image, says Peter Bart of Variety

 

MEMO TO: Matt Damon

FROM: Peter Bart

Re: your missing public persona

TORONTO -- You've been sounding off about the press lately, Matt. Oops -- since you're a Harvard man, perhaps I should phrase it more elegantly. You've been reiterating some sophistries, Matt, which suggest you're becoming a borderline solipsist.

I realize you don't like to get into the Harvard stuff, Matt, or for that matter, anything that touches on your personal life. After all, you've had extraordinary success at the box office lately, and you've also been noticing the tendency of other stars to self-destruct. Your conclusion: The safest path for a movie star is to remain totally remote from the media, and to be utterly secretive about your personal tastes and beliefs -- in short, to disappear as a person.

(Source: Variety)


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