Archive for January 15th, 2010
George Clooney will host a telethon to raise funds for the Haiti earthquake relief effort as Hollywood ramped up efforts to assist the shattered Caribbean nation, reports said Thursday.
Clooney became the latest celebrity to lend his weight to the fundraising effort by agreeing to host an event on the MTV Network on Friday which will involve a bevy of stars, several reports said.
MTV was not immediately available to confirm the reports.
But a spokesperson told the Hollyscoop website: “I can confirm that George Clooney is working with MTV Networks to plan a Haiti relief telethon for next Friday, but those are the only details we can share at the moment.
“It’s all still coming together.”
News of Clooney’s fundraising efforts came as power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie donated one million dollars to Doctors Without Borders for the organisation’s operations in Haiti.
“It is incredibly horrible to see a catastrophe of this size hit a people who have been suffering from extreme poverty, violence and unrest for so many decades,” Jolie said in a statement released to People.com.
Three hospitals run by Doctors Without Borders were damaged in Tuesday’s devastating earthquake.
“We understand the first response is critical to serve the immediate needs of countless people who are now displaced from their homes, are suffering trauma, and most require urgent care,” Pitt said in the statement.
Pitt and Jolie are among the most generous philanthropists in Hollywood, and in 2008 donated two million dollars to help children affected by AIDS and tuberculosis in Ethiopia.
The couple also reportedly donated 11 million dollars received for exclusive photos of their twin children born in 2008 to a humanitarian cause.
Hollywood’s awards season cranks into overdrive on Sunday with science-fiction epic “Avatar” hoping to score vital pre-Oscars momentum with victory at the 67th Golden Globe Awards.
James Cameron’s 3D spectacular has electrified the movie world since its release in mid-December, becoming the second highest-grossing movie of all time and earning more than 1.3 billion dollars in a matter of weeks.
The film; about peace-loving blue aliens battling a greedy human corporation seeking to plunder their planet’s resources – is being talked about as a milestone in the history of cinema.
The 500 million dollar blockbuster is vying for four honours at this weekend’s awards, which begin in Beverly Hills at 5.30 pm (0130 GMT).
As well as best picture, “Avatar” has nods for best director (Cameron), best original score and best original song.
However the film faces stiff competition from recession-era drama-comedy “Up In the Air”, which has six nominations, as well as the gripping Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker”, which has three nominations.
Nods for “Up In the Air” include best actor (George Clooney), best director (Jason Reitman) as well as nominations for Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick.
In a quirk of fate, “The Hurt Locker’s” director Kathryn Bigelow finds herself nominated for best director alongside ex-husband Cameron.
Quentin Tarantino (”Inglourious Basterds”) and Clint Eastwood (”Invictus”) complete the field.
But while “Up In the Air” and “The Hurt Locker” remain critical darlings, awards season pundits say the 85 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) who pick the Golden Globes may lean towards “Avatar.”
“Globes voters are foreign journalists who consider it their job to track the hot new thing,” said Tom O’Neil, of the Los Angeles Times’s theenvelope.com. “And there’s nothing hotter right now than ‘Avatar’.”
O’Neil noted that while the Golden Globes traditionally preferred to honour arthouse movies “they do occasionally go for the blockbusters.
“Remember they picked ‘Lord of the Rings (The Return of the King)’ for best picture,” he said.
However “Avatar” almost certainly needed to triumph this weekend if it was to emerge as an awards season favourite for the coveted best picture prize at the Oscars, which will be handed out in Hollywood this year on March 7.
“This is the award that ‘Avatar’ needs if it’s going to become the official front-runner for the Oscars,” O’Neil said. “If ‘Avatar’ gets crowned ahead of time then it could be Oscar-bound.”
Sasha Stone, who runs the Los Angeles-based awards blog Awards Daily (www.awardsdaily.com) described this year’s season as “one of the most open for years.”
“‘Avatar’ can win. But there’s a question mark right now as to which are the top three movies – it seems to be between ‘Avatar’, ‘Up In the Air’ and ‘The Hurt Locker’,” Stone told AFP.
“Traditionally the Hollywood Foreign Press prefer intimate dramas to epic sci-fi films. But ‘Avatar’ is so emotionally affecting that they might go for it. Even so I think it’s between ‘Up In the Air’ and ‘The Hurt Locker.’”
In the acting stakes, Clooney will be up against Jeff Bridges (”Crazy Heart”), Colin Firth (”A Single Man”), Morgan Freeman (”Invictus”), and Tobey Maguire (”Brothers”) for best drama actor.
The women’s acting awards could unfold as a duel between Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep, who both have two nominations each.
Bullock is nominated as best actress in both drama and comedy categories for her respective roles in “The Blind Side” and “The Proposal,” while Streep – hoping to win her seventh Globe – is a double nominee in the comedy category for her performances in “Julie & Julia” and “It’s Complicated.”
Unlike the Oscars, the Golden Globes splits its best picture prizes between genres, honouring best drama and best comedy/musical.
The Globes are often viewed as a key barometer of which films may go on to challenge for honours at the Oscars.
Although 67.4 per cent of films which won best picture at the Academy Awards also won a Golden Globe, in recent years the awards have proved an unreliable guide for likely Oscar winners.
Rags-to-riches drama “Slumdog Millionaire” is the only film in the past five years to have followed up a best picture statuette at the Golden Globes with victory at the Oscars.
Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi has openly denounced allegations that she had an affair with a married businessman.
Rumours are swirling that this was the reason a group of hooded men splashed black ink over a billboard with her image on December 23.
Her lawyer has called it a “vicious” rumour and vowed to take legal action against the media responsible unless they voluntarily retract the story.
On the night of the incident, Zhang was spotted at the lobby of the Park Hyatt Beijing where swarms of paparazzi had gathered to cover Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung and German architect boyfriend Ole Scheeren’s rumoured engagement party.
While Cheung and Scheeren were no-shows, the paparazzi saw a group of men barge into the lobby looking for Zhang, making a scene and claiming that she had cheated people of their money and stole somebody’s husband.
Later that night, a group of hooded men went to a store selling timepieces near the hotel and splashed ink on a giant window advertisement featuring Zhang.
On Wednesday, a prominent Beijing socialite named Zhao Xinyu sparked a new round of rumours about Zhang.
Zhao claimed she had known Zhang for about two years and told entertainment magazine Wan Quan Yu Le that the 30-year-old actress had a fling with a married businessman whom she had introduced to her, all while Zhang was still seeing engaged to multi-millionaire Vivi Nevo.
Zhao claimed that the businessman lavished Zhang with expensive gifts ranging from diamond earrings and necklaces to an Audi luxury car during their time together. She also said the businessman’s wife eventually found out about their relationship.
Zhang thought it was Zhao who told on her and ended their friendship.
Zhao said she was uncertain if the ink splashing incident was related to the fallout from Zhang’s affair.
Zhao also claims that Zhang and Nevo called it quits because they held very different views on marriage.
Zhang’s lawyer admitted that Zhang and Zhao were once friends but said Zhao’s statements were a “personal attack”.
According Zhang’s manager, the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” actress is now in Shenyang, China, shooting the Wong Kar Wai movie “The Great Master”. Zhang’s next film, “Snow flower and the Secret Fan”, will begin shooting at the end of this month.
US lawmakers on Thursday sought to prevent Internet companies from censoring information overseas, hailing Google’s threat to pull out of China as a turning point but saying it needed official support.
Members of Congress said they had new momentum to enact a bill that would prohibit US firms from storing users’ personal information in countries that restrict the peaceful expression of political and religious views online.
“Google sent a thrill of encouragement through the hearts of millions of Chinese,” Representative Chris Smith, the bill’s chief sponsor, told a news conference. “It is a game-changer.”
“But IT companies are not powerful enough to stand up to a repressive government like China. Without US government support, they are inevitably forced to be ever more complicit in the repressive governments’ censorship and surveillance,” said Smith, a Republican from New Jersey.
Under the bill, called the Global Online Freedom Act, the US government would list nations that restrict the Internet and prohibit US companies from storing personally identifiable information in those countries.
Companies would have to report to the State Department which terms countries are trying to filter out. China blocks citizens from accessing uncensored information on sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the Dalai Lama and the banned Falungong spiritual movement.
The bill would also prohibit companies from cooperating in jamming US government websites such as US-funded broadcasters Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.
Google said Tuesday said it would stop bowing to China’s censors and could pull out of the China’s lucrative online market of 360 million users after discovering Chinese attacks against dissidents’ email accounts.
Smith has tried for years to bring the Global Online Freedom Act to the floor of the House of Representatives but it had met a lukewarm response from Internet companies including Google.
Smith declined to say if he expected other companies to lobby against the bill but said his concerns have focused on actions by four US companies — Cisco, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
Yahoo came under intense criticism in 2005 for allegedly providing China with details leading to the email account of journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Human rights campaigners say that Yahoo has improved its record since the experience but have been more critical of Cisco and Microsoft, which both have cooperated extensively with China.
Some Republican supporters of the bill complained of tepid support from President Barack Obama, who has tried to broaden relations with China.
“The Obama administration needs to be standing up and supporting Google. Instead, unfortunately, we have seen a muted response at best,” Representative Frank Wolf said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday the administration “strongly support(s)” Google in the row, a day after declining to give many details beyond saying it backed a “free Internet.”
Under the proposed law, employees of IT companies could face up to five years in a US prison if they knowingly give information to a foreign government that would cause a person to be detained or harmed for peacefully expressing political or religious beliefs.
The law aims to bring greater Internet freedom not only to China but to other nations such as Iran, where online activism has turned into a powerful tool for opponents of the clerical regime.
Some 70 cyber-activists are jailed around the world for what they posted online, according to Paris-based rights group Reporters Sans Frontieres, or Reporters Without Borders, which helped draft the proposed law.
China imprisons by far the most at 49, followed by Vietnam and Iran, it said.
“We don’t want other Shi Taos,” said Clothilde Le Coz, the group’s Washington director.
Invoking Google’s motto of “Do No Evil,” Le Coz said: “Don’t let US Internet firms become evil by not giving them the means to challenge the Chinese restrictions.”