Superbad has supergood chances of winning a trophy at the MTV Movie Awards.
The buddy comedy starring Michael Cera and Jonah Hill leads the awards ceremony with five nominations in categories such as Best Comedic Performance and Best Movie, MTV announced Tuesday.
Other multiple nominated films included Juno, Enchanted, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Knocked Up. A new category - Best Summer Movie So Far - will debut at the annual awards ceremony. Nominees for that category are Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Sex and the City: The Movie, Speed Racer and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Viewers can vote for all winners online through May 23. They can also submit online movies parodying films from the past year in the user-generated category, Best Movie Spoof. The live ceremony will be broadcast on June 1 from the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California.
PHOTO: EPA
The grim prospect of another Hollywood strike inched closer earlier this week after a fresh round of contract talks between producers and the biggest actors' union ended with no resolution in sight.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) accused the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) of "unreasonable demands" as the two sides attempted to broker a contract to replace the existing deal that expires on June 30.
The deadlock has revived memories of the devastating Hollywood writers strike that plunged the US entertainment industry into crisis and cost billions of US dollars in losses according to some estimates.
Tuesday's stalemate occurred after both sides last week agreed to extend negotiations into a fourth week, with a cut-off set at 6pm Tuesday.
The AMPTP said in a statement it remained optimistic of reaching agreement after resuming negotiations at a later date.
The producers' alliance said key obstacles to a new deal were differences on royalties from DVD sales and new media.
"Under these circumstances, with SAG's continued adherence to unreasonable demands in both new and traditional media, continuing negotiations at this time does not make sense," AMPTP said in a statement.
SAG officials meanwhile insisted that the guild had negotiated in good faith, accusing AMPTP of suspending talks despite the objections of their team of negotiators.
"It is unfortunate and deeply troubling that the AMPTP would suspend our negotiations at this critical juncture," SAG President Alan Rosenberg said.
"We have modified our proposals over the last three weeks in effort to bargain a fair contract for our members.
"Our negotiating team is prepared to work around the clock for as long as it takes to get a fair deal. We want to keep the town working."
This year's screenwriters strike was the US entertainment industry's most damaging dispute in years, forcing the postponement of several US television shows and movie projects.
Yasukuni war shrine is Japan's ultimate taboo subject. A symbol of the country's militaristic past, the shrine is revered by nationalists, despised by Japan's Asian neighbors, and rarely mentioned in public by anyone else.
On Saturday, that taboo faced a test with the Tokyo premiere of a documentary film that has drawn protests from right-wingers, spooked theater owners and won praise from Japanese who say it's time to openly discuss the shrine.
Yasukuni focuses on Aug. 15, the date when thousands throng the shrine to mark the anniversary of Tokyo's World War II surrender. The shrine honors the 2.5 million Japanese who fell in wars from the late 1800s until 1945.
Like the shrine itself, which has a museum depicting Japan's wartime conquests as a noble enterprise, the film has been a magnet for controversy.
The Tokyo opening was accompanied by a heavy police presence, but the sold-out screenings passed without incident.
The film, partially funded by US$73,500 from a government-linked agency, was directed by a Chinese citizen, and includes graphic footage of Japanese soldiers executing civilians - three elements that have earned the ire of nationalists.
"The film is anti-Japan, and an insult to Yasukuni and our devotion to it,'' said Hiroshi Kawahara, who heads the nationalist group, Doketsusha. "But Yasukuni's dignity cannot be shaken by a film like this." Pacifists and the victims of Japanese aggression - such as China and the Koreas - abhor Yasukuni as a glorification of militarism.
Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman is to star in a film based on the life of British pop icon Dusty Springfield, entertainment industry press reported last week.
The 40-year-old Australian actress will also produce the biopic, Daily Variety reported, adding that it was one of two films on Springfield currently in the works in Hollywood.
Springfield, who died in 1999, enjoyed huge success throughout the 1960s with a string of hits including I Only Want to Be With You, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me and The Look of Love.
Springfield's success masked a troubled personal life however that saw her battle mental illness and drug and alcohol problems. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, four years before her death.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby