Saturday, December 20, 2008
Elisha Cuthbert
SA former child star whose flame continued to burn bright into her teen years, blonde beauty Elisha Cuthbert has successfully carried the success from Popular Mechanics for Kids and Are You Afraid of the Dark? into a featured role on the hit FOX series 24 and a successful film career. A Calgary native who landed her first modeling job at the tender age of seven, it was a mere four years later that Cuthbert instinctively knew that she wanted to spend the rest of her days in front of the lens. Following an appearance in the 1997 feature Dancing on the Moon, Cuthbert landed a job as a field correspondent for the acclaimed Canadian television series Popular Mechanics for Kids, and her reporting proved so effective that she caught the attention of first lady Hillary Clinton, who invited Cuthbert to Washington for a meeting. Though she spent the majority of her youth in Montreal, Cuthbert moved to Los Angeles at age 17 in order to pursue an acting career. Featured roles as a reluctant pilot in Airspeed (1998) and a time traveling teen in Time at the Top (1999) were soon to follow, and by the time Cuthbert joined the cast of Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark? in 1999, it was obvious that her talent was growing. Her role in the made-for-Canadian-television feature Lucky Girl only furthered her reputation as a dramatically capable rising starlet, and her distinct onscreen facial expressions and convincing performance soon caught the eyes of producers who were preparing a new thriller series for FOX. Cast as Jack Bauer's (Kiefer Sutherland) damsel-in-distress daughter, Kimberly, in the breakout hit 24, Cuthbert's character suffered through multiple kidnappings and a mountain lion attack over the course of the series' first two seasons. In the episode of 24 in which she shared a scene with the mountain lion, Cuthbert made news when the beast actually attacked her on the film set, sending the frightened actress on a trip to the hospital with an injured hand. On the heels of 24, Cuthbert took a supporting role in the comedy Old School before appearing in the subsequent romantic comedies Love Actually (2003) and The Girl Next Door (2004), the latter of which found her taking the lead as an ex-porn star who becomes the object of affection to a lonely suburban boy unaware of her past.
source : elisha-cuthbert.com
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Christina Aguilera
True to its title, Stripped, the audacious new RCA Records release from Christina Aguilera, strips away the last remnants of her previous teen idol persona and what’s left is as real as it gets.The sixteen new tracks that comprise Stripped, including her sensational debut single, “Dirrty,” showcases an unadorned, unfettered and fearlessly outspoken artist who has liberated herself, her soul and her music on an album that is as much a declaration of independence as it is a convincing demonstration of her fierce and original talent. Simply put, this is the real deal.
“When you’re seventeen years old, green and inexperienced, you’re grateful for any guidance and direction you can get.” Says Christina on her rocket sled ride to the top following the 1999 release of her eponymously-titled debut album, with its string of consecutive chart toppers, including “Genie In A Bottle” and “What A Girl Wants.” It was a feat she would repeat the following year with Mi Reflejo, the smash Spanish language version of her debut, followed by her hit holiday release, My Kind Of Christmas.
Ten million plus albums, a Grammy win for Best New Artist and a marathon round of world touring later, Christina began to fearlessly break free from the mass media mask that hid her true self, and the full scope of her talent.
“I felt trapped,” she admits. “I was under the thumb of people who were mostly interested in keeping me doing exactly the same thing. But I’m not blaming anyone,” she’s quick to add. “You learn fast in this business and, once I knew where I wanted to go, I didn’t let anyone get in my way.”
Where she wanted to go, at least initially, was to her Los Angeles home where she could catch her breath, reconnecting with herself and her two canine companions. “I needed a break,” she reveals. “I wanted to disappear into empty space for awhile. So much had happened in such a short time, and not only in my career. I’d gone through a breakup with my first real love and I began realizing that I should be experiencing a bit more of life than TV and recording studios, hotels and green rooms.”
As well intended as her much-deserved hiatus may have been, the vocalist and songwriter still had to contend with the restless creative energy that had fueled her preteen trajectory from talent show contestant in and around her native Pittsburgh to international superstardom.
“I’m driven,” is Christina’s frank admission. “Even in the midst of touring, I was thinking about what my next album would be, writing bits and pieces of songs in journals and scrapbooks.”
That album, like Christina’s long overdue R&R, would have to wait. Unable to resist the lure of a promising creative collaboration, she joined forces with Pink, Mya and Lil’ Kim on the smash “Lady Marmalade” single and video. That eye-popping slice of ear candy kept her front and center in the international spotlight even as she began, slowly and steadily, to lay the groundwork for a musical manifesto that would change all the rules.
“I was straight ahead about what I wanted to do,” Christina continues. “For a long time, I’d been uncomfortable with the image that had been built around me and my music. It felt like I was pretending, trying to hide the real me, and hurting inside because of it. This time I was determined to step beyond the hype and glitter, to take it back down to the bare necessities. It was like starting all over again.”
Yet at the same time, Christina’s bold work-in-progress wasn’t simply a reaction to the past. “I wanted to explore some of the music that had inspired me coming up,” she explains. “I’ve always been a huge fan of soul. I love real rock & roll and hip-hop, of course, is one of my biggest influences. I wanted it all.”
And what she wanted she set about to achieve with a relentless determination and a willingness to stretch her creative boundaries. “I’ve always thought recording was about attaining perfection,” she reveals. “What I discovered making this album is that getting across real feelings is what’s important. As much as possible, I wanted to have the listener right there in the studio with me. I wanted to introduce myself, to get down to it. What mattered was sharing what I was really going through…for the first time.”
And the first and most formidable challenge for Christina was to assemble a supporting cast that, in her words, “weren’t influenced by my old image.” A ruthless process of elimination yielded a production and songwriting team that included, among others, Pink producer Linda Perry; the team of Redman and Rockwilder; Alanis Morrissette producer Glenn Ballard; fast rising studio wizard Scott Storch, as well artist/producer Alicia Keys.
Recorded over an eighteen-month stretch, with Christina firmly at the helm every step of the way, Stripped slowly but surely took shape, not only as an exercise in breathtaking stylistic diversity but as a resonant and revealing look into the mind and emotions of a young woman on the verge of personal and professional liberation.
The result is resonant and revealing original tracks that decisively shred Christina’s squeaky clean persona, even as they set the stage for a career that, millions of albums and concert tickets later, is only now just getting started. The proof is all over Stripped, from the opening notes of “Impossible,” the smoky ballad by Alicia Keys, to the romantic revelations of “Can’t Hold Us Down,” featuring the persuasive production of Scott Storch; from the soaring affirmations of “Beautiful,” to blistering licks of “Make Over,” to the superheated funk of “Dirrty,” featuring Redman and Rockwilder. “I loved ‘Let’s Get Dirty,’” Christina reveals, “So I asked Rockwilder to put something together kind of like that for me.” She laughs. “What I got was a little too close, but then I figured, ‘Why not?’ The track is like an answer song to the original, only from a female point of view.”
As much excitement and surprise as a first listening to Stripped might generate, there are other textures, urgent, honest and unguarded, that emerge with time. “Everything I sing about in ‘I’m OK’ is real,” she asserts. “I took it right out ofmy life and I’m singing it right to my Dad.” While another Stripped standout, “Can’t Hold Me Down,” may at first sound like payback to a certain superstar rapper, for Christina that’s hardly the point. “I haven’t got time for all that,” is her retort. “I’m more interested in helping girls stand up for themselves. That’s what the song is about – double standards and how we’re supposed to look and act a certain way just to please men. If I have any influence as an entertainer, I want it to be optimistic and uplifting, to make this world a little better place to live.”
For Christina Aguilera, it all begins by getting real. “This music is who I am,” she confidently asserts. “You can take it or leave it, but I’m not going to change, not for anyone.” In the end, she says, it’s a tribute to the millions of worldwide fans who have made her a household name. “Fans grow up, too,” she smiles. “We’re all reaching out for something more real and if we really want it, we’re going to find it. This album is for anyone who really wants it.”
source
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
In Slumdog Millionaire, directed by the whiz-bang fabulist Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Sunshine), Jamal (Dev Patel), an 18-year-old Indian orphan who has spent his life scavenging on the streets, lands as a contestant on the Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and he wins — big. Don't worry, I'm not giving anything away: An opening title informs us that he wins 20 million rupees (in U.S. currency, that translates roughly as...an awesome amount of cash). The host (Anil Kapoor), who looks like Omar Sharif if he'd been a high-end vacuum-cleaner salesman, models his act on the British version of the show, which may be why he's a lot more condescending than the courtly Regis Philbin. Mercilessly, he mocks Jamal for being a ''chaiwalla'' (a boy who serves tea — extremely low on the class totem pole). Yet the kid is immune to insults — or, it seems, nerves — and he becomes a folk hero as he keeps knocking out those impeccable final answers. The prospect of an uneducated orphan from the slums of Mumbai winning a pot of gold on a game show that hinges on worldly knowledge is, of course, the stuff of purest fairy tales. Based on Vikas Swarup's novel Q & A, with a script by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty), Slumdog Millionaire is nothing if not an enjoyably far-fetched piece of rags-to-riches wish fulfillment. It's like the Bollywood version of a Capra fable sprayed with colorful drops of dark-side-of-the-Third-World squalor. A framing device has Jamal being interrogated by Mumbai cops who want him to confess how he won the show (they believe, wrongly, that he cheated). To let us know how he won, the film keeps flashing back from Jamal's stint on Millionaire to scenes of his life as an innocently scheming Dickensian ragamuffin.
Orphaned during a riot, the young Jamal (Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) skips around India with his older brother, Salim (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail), the two boys scrambling to survive in a bustling, hothouse landscape of exploitative treachery. They're detained, along with a bunch of other orphans, by a vile crook who doesn't just use them as beggars; in a touch to give Fagin the willies, he likes to blind his orphans by pouring boiling liquid into their eyes, because then they'll earn more sympathy from passersby. The two escape, along with a girl, Latika (Rubina Ali), whom Jamal falls for and keeps trying to rescue. But just as we're reeling from this close encounter with evil, the movie reveals its true, happy design: This episode, and others like it, provides Jamal with the precise piece of information — in this case, a song title — he'll draw on, years later, to answer the questions on Millionaire. The inventor of the revolver, the figure on a $100 bill (he learns that one while scamming U.S. tourists at the Taj Mahal)— all the knowledge he'll need is offered by his life of hardship.
As Slumdog Millionaire jumps from the fear and degradation of Jamal's childhood to the snippet of game-show victory each episode provides, the audience relaxes, secure in the knowledge that the hardship and cruelty on display are, in their way, as much of a fairy tale as the mad-money TV triumph they presage. Slumdog Millionaire is brash and lively and compulsively watchable, but with Boyle working at full boil, it is also an unabashed concoction — a movie that turns the horror of broken Indian childhoods into a whooshingly blithe, in-your-face picaresque. Not since Les Miz have you felt this gooey-good about kids whose lives were this bad.
We follow Jamal and Salim at three different ages (with two sets of nicely matched tyke actors), but it's when Jamal is 18, and played by Dev Patel, that the movie takes on a touch of gravitas. Patel is tall, with a serious thin mouth, sloping eyebrows, and a wiry boyish toughness rather like that of Shia LaBeouf; he holds the camera while appearing to do nothing — the mark of a star. Madhur Mittal, as the older Salim, is a study in contrast — a permed weakling who goes to work for a gangster — but I wish the grown-up Latika (Freida Pinto), whom Jamal finds enslaved to that same thug, looked less like a supermodel. It's all part of the movie's fanciful sentimental tidiness. Slumdog Millionaire rousingly celebrates the escape from the slums, but since it’s Jamal’s childhood that allows him to win big on TV (and to win that girl), you could also say that the movie ennobles poverty.
source
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
