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SINGAPORE: America recently made its big decision and now, Singapore, it’s your turn.
No, we're not talking about the historic election of the first-ever African American President. We're talking about that all-important decision on whether you will propel a pampered yappy dog in a handbag or big-time Hollywood superstars Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe to the top of the Singapore box office when both their respective films open Thursday.
America has already spoken. "Body of Lies", big name terrorist thriller directed by esteemed sure-shot director Ridley Scott ("Gladiator", "Thelma & Louise", "Blade Runner"), barely scratched the surface of the United States box office surface, leaving a talking dog with a voice of an angel (in this case, a Charlie’s Angel - Drew Barrymore) to prance its way to the top spot for two straight weekends.
So far, "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" has grossed a whopping US$108.5 million worldwide - a stark contrast to the reported US$55 million for "Body of Lies".
Similarly, tween phenomenon "High School Musical 3: Senior Year" sang and danced its way to No 1, bubbling high with a worldwide gross of US$194.7 million. It trounced the highly anticipated cop saga "Pride and Glory" (opening in Singapore December 18), boasting a leading cast of Edward Norton and Colin Farrell, which has only managed US$11.7 million worldwide so far.
Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros, which released "Body of Lies" and "Pride and Glory", told the Associated Press: "The last few weeks have been really tough for adult films. The lighter fare seems to be taking a dominant position."
The same report points out how the current movie-going sentiment echoes that of the Great Depression, when slapstick comedy and glamorous musicals helped lift people’s spirits.
We live in bleak times. Markets are crashing, retrenchments are rife, and that war, well, it's still going on. And none of it looks likely to change any time soon. The celluloid world has always been the comforting pit of temporary solace - a place people go to escape. And it seems no one really wants to escape to the movies to get even more depressed than they already are after watching the evening news.
The proof is in the box-office pudding. Movie-goers are shunning serious movies for fluff. It's sad (unless you're Zac Efron or a talking Chihuahua) but true.
This year's list of highest-grossing films screams "popcorn", filled with adventure, comedy and superhero escapism.
From "Kung Fu Panda" high-kicking its way to US$630.9 million to "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" clocking US$786 million, not a single "serious" film was in sight of the Top 10, as an Abba-singing Meryl Streep, a lovable robot named "Wall•E" and a Downey-esque "Iron Man "dominated the box office.
Some might argue that the biggest film of the year is really more of a "drama" than a "comic book flick". But let's face it - "The Dark Knight" wouldn't have made US$997.5 million if Christian Bale hadn't been dressed as a bat.
With the rolling out of serious Oscar contenders over the coming months - including DiCaprio teaming up once again with his "Titanic" co-star for Sam Mendes' "Revolutionary Road", Sean Penn as the first openly gay man to be elected to US public office in "Milk", and real-life political dramas like Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon" or Bryan Singer's "Valkyrie" starring Tom Cruise - the spotlight turns onto the audience.
How will these thought-provoking, heavy-hitting films measure up against the talking animals of "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa"?
Will you choose an espionage thriller over a dog in a handbag? Or will you only be happy when "High School Musical" wins an Oscar for Best Picture?
Vote wisely.
"Body of Lies" director Ridley Scott and the movie's leading man, Oscar-winner Russell Crowe, talk about their political agenda and the deflowering of Leonardo Dicaprio.
Does Body of Lies have any political underpinnings?
Russell Crowe: I don’t think Ridley has a made a choice to push any particular political agenda. If anything, he's created an atmosphere or a world - the world of espionage. This is the world where spies live, and in the world where spies live, there are no good guys and bad guys. This movie is about deception, it's about seduction and its about abandonment.
These are the themes of the film - not politics.
There is an interesting juxtaposition with Russell's character Ed Hoffman running these dangerous spy operations while at home with his kids. Where did that come from?
Ridley Scott: Because he has become such a politically-correct American, its quite amusing that the head of this kind of operation delivers his kids to school. He can function anywhere and, by the way, I don't think it's because he loves the kids. He says (in the film), I've got to go and take the kids to "Lion King". Never, ever, ever have kids.
He's so bad he's funny. We tried to make him as bad as possible without being, like, gangster-bad - just a man without any compunction about doing what he has to do. There is no guilt.
Crowe: Ed doesn't feel the pain of any of the decisions he makes. He’s completely insulated from that. He’s tens of thousands of miles away at the end of a phone line.
Russell, how was it working with Leo again?
Crowe: Great. Fabulous. We really got on when we were both younger fellows and in a really wonderful way it was revisiting that time in both of our lives. On "The Quick and the Dead", we were in a situation where we had Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman... and then there were the two of us.
Now we have this sort of elevated status in the cast list, but back then we were both new kids on the block to a large degree... We were on the same plane and so we hung out, you know? We didn't have the agendas that other people had - we just wanted to enjoy the experience as much as we could, so that’s what we did.
Two major things that have changed with Leo: Now he can drink legally and he is no longer a virgin. (Laughs)
Those are the only things that have changed about him over the years?
Crowe: Do you know how pleasant that is to find out? That he's still that same kid who can laugh easily?
He's got a great heart. He's connected to the environment and the world around him, and to find out that with all the commercial success and all the pressure on him, that they didn't get to him - they didn't attack his core, they didn't change him fundamentally as a person - is wonderful.
And the funny thing is, I've got all that stuff going through my mind, and a minute after we started laughing together when we met up on this, I could see in his eyes that he had this going on, too. I can just imagine what he would have read about me, and he must have been thinking: 'Whoa, he's changed.' And we get together, and it's the same thing.
If you can communicate, and if you can laugh and if your heart's in the right place, then you're definitely the sort of person, one, I want to hang out with, and two, I want to work with.
TRANSCRIPT COURTESY WARNER BROS.
- TODAY/rose
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