Johnny Depp has been bran-ded an eccentric for playing a recluse with scissors for hands and a delusional Don Juan. This time his own son is calling him a weirdo for his role as crazy candyman Willy Wonka. The Hollywood heartthrob said he invited his children to watch him dress up in his slick jacket and top hat to shoot Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the latest film version of British writer Roald Dahl's kids classic. Depp, in Tokyo yesterday ahead of the Japanese release of Tim Burton's movie, said his three-year-old son was asto-nished and told his dad, "You are really weird."
Reality TV has taken Malaysia by storm, but instead of eating bugs or cavorting nude in jacuzzis, contestants in the mostly Muslim country observe a "hands-off" policy and face spot checks on the direction of Mecca.
Influential deputy prime mini-ster Najib Razak has complained that the shows "borrow extensively from Western culture" which he fears could "threaten Eastern values and lead to moral decadence." But cult phenomenon Akademi Fantasia, which is based on a Brazilian talent search, has kept record audiences around the country glued to their screens, suggesting that the criticisms do not reflect society standards.
Featuring a group of ambitious young men and women confined in a house and given voice and dancing lessons, Akademi culminates in a concert finale after most of the contestants are voted out weekly via SMS text messages. The conclusion of its third season recently attracted 12 million SMS votes, no mean feat for a country with a population of 25 million. Its winner, 24-year-old Asmawi Ani, drew a cult following, and his popularity among the show's largely Malay audience was mainly due to his clean-cut image, religious background and past experience in Koran recitals.
However, Najib was incensed that some contestants were shown hugging each other tearfully as their peers were voted out. "No hugging please, we are Muslims," he was quoted as saying. "This is about religion. It is forbidden in the religion."
A documentary tackling an anti-Jewish lie that spread around the world after 9/11 screened at a French film festival celebrating American film on Saturday. The filmmaker, Marc Levin said he hoped his movie The Protocols of Zion would help dispel the myth -- widely believed in Arab countries and elsewhere -- that no Jews died in the attack on the World Trade Center because the outrage was part of some Zionist conspiracy.
"Light is the best disinfectant," said Levin, a New York-based US Jew who has made a number of documentaries for US television and fictional features based on real events. The documentary, which opened the documentary section of the Deauville film festival, gets its title from an anti-Jewish booklet that has circulated for over a century and which alleges that Jews have a secret plan to rule the world.
Australian actor Heath Ledger has conquered hearts at the Venice Film Festival with his lighthearted portrayal of the city's most famous ancestor in Casanova, given a comic spin at the hands of Swe-dish director Lasse Hallstrom.
Hallstrom's witty romantic comedy, starring Ledger alongside Sienna Miller, Lena Olin and Jeremy Irons, gives the story of the amorous adventurer a more modern slant, having him fall for a woman who promptly gives him the cold shoulder. In order to make a fun film, historical fact had to take a hike, Hallstrom admits. "Obviously this is a romp, this is a comedy. We've taken a lot of liberties but we've tried to stay true to the atmosphere of Venice at the time," he told reporters in Venice.
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