Quick question: What movie-making elements guarantee the success of a film? Are they the script, the direction, the cast, the action sequences, the subject matter, or the vigorous marketing campaign? In the case of “Sherlock Holmes, directed by maverick Guy Ritchie, it is a composite of all of the above. Ritchie builds on the popularity …
Singh For many people, Indian cinema is Bollywood. But the popular Hindi-language movie industry and others like it across the country might have been different without a man called Dhundiraj Govind Phalke. Phalke made India’s first feature film in 1913, giving birth to an industry that is now worth 109 billion rupees ($2.3 billion), makes …
Dan Gilmore – journalist, director of the Center for Citizen Media and new media expert – signed Arabic language copies of his book, “We the Media at Diwan Bookstore in Zamalek on Wednesday. True to his ethic, he held a conversation with interested listeners and responded to questions from the group, mainly AUC students. Gilmore’s …
A Turkish television series at the center of a diplomatic row with Israel, the “Valley of the Wolves, is a long-running ratings hit which has drawn criticism for being too nationalistic and violent. In its latest episode, the show’s star, secret agent Polat Alemdar, storms an Israeli diplomatic mission to rescue a Turkish boy kidnapped …
Hollywood may find it tough to match 2009’s record box-office revenue. Yet studios have a cast of characters this year to make a run for their money. Among the gang Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in “Alice in Wonderland. Russell Crowe as the noble thief in “Robin Hood. Jennifer Aniston as a wily bail-jumper …
CAIRO: By next March, popular Channel 2 talk show “El-Beit Beitak will no longer be gracing Egyptian living-rooms, as producers have recently announced that the show’s six-year run will come to an end. “The program’s contract ends in February and is renewable every year, Soheir Gouda, deputy producer of “El-Beit Beitak told Daily News Egypt, …
The Paris art scene spotlights giants Lucian Freud, Claude Monet and even Yves Saint Laurent in 2010, but a chill air of death and destruction peppers many of this year’s shows. Opening a crammed winter season in the French capital is a high-profile two-part show by Christian Boltanski, a French artist of 65 obsessed with …
Tobey Maguire has hung up his spandex suit and will not return as Spider-Man when the fourth film based on the web-slinging superhero hits cinemas in 2012, studio officials confirmed Monday. In a surprise move, Sony Pictures Entertainment said Maguire and director Sam Raimi would not be involved in “Spider-Man 4 the latest installment of …
Eric Rohmer, pivotal member of France’s New Wave film movement that changed the history of the art form, has died aged 89, leaving behind an immense yet subtle and sensitive body of work. Rohmer, died in Paris, said Les Films du Losange, the production company he co-founded. The cause of death was not immediately given. …
On the first evening the acclaimed British playwright Harold Pinter met his future wife Lady Antonia Fraser, he asked her: “Must you go? Fraser, a glamorous historical biographer, said she replied: “No, it’s not absolutely essential. Just over a year after Pinter’s death, Fraser is publishing a book on the 33 years during which the …
Works of old and new masters as well as newcomers comprise the program of the Panorama section of the 60th edition of the Berlin Film Festival. Back with new works are Lothar Lambert, Peter Kern and Jacques Martineau and Olivier Ducastel, as well as Isao Yukisada, E J-Yong and SĂ©bastien Lifshitz. The festival will lift …
NBC said Sunday it decided to pull the plug on the Jay Leno experiment when some affiliate stations considered dropping the nightly prime-time show, and the network is waiting to hear if Leno and “Tonight host Conan O’Brien accept its new late-night TV plans. “The Jay Leno Show, which airs at 10 pm EST, will …
Last week, Sawy Culture Wheel’s Word Hall was host to art of a different dimension: dĂ©coupage, a technique where layer upon layer of cut-outs are glued together. Raised under a glass, the cut-outs look like paintings accentuated with a three-dimensional effect. Amany Zakaria Hamed showcased this technique through 42 paintings in her collection entitled “DĂ©coupage. …
Blue-skinned aliens are helping Rupert Murdoch s News Corp. see green. The runaway global success of James Cameron s 3-D spectacle, Avatar – his first feature film since the record-breaking Titanic in 1997 – has prompted analysts to lift earnings estimates for News Corp., the owner of movie studio 20th Century Fox. It s fairly …
CAIRO: Egyptian archaeologists discovered a new set of tombs from the workers who built the great pyramids, shedding new light on how the laborers lived and ate more than 4,000 years ago, the antiquities department said Sunday. The tombs date to Egypt s 4th dynasty (2575 B.C. to 2467 B.C.) when the great pyramids, the …
Charlie Chaplin is to be brought to life as a cartoon character via an Indian-French collaboration that will see the legendary British comedian featured in an animated television series. DQ Entertainment, an animation and special effects firm based in the southern city of Hyderabad, says it is to reproduce the entertainer’s slapstick in 3D and …
Conservative figures in Egypt are furious over an Egyptian moviemaker’s plan to produce a drama series about a woman with several husbands. Filmmaker Mustafa Mahram told Al-Arabiya that there was no reason he should not go ahead with the series, “Hajja Zahra and her Five Husbands, because “it happens in real life. Egyptian lawyer Nabil …
CAIRO: Egypt will host a conference in April for countries demanding the return of their stolen antiquities that are on display in museums round the world, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said Wednesday. The conference will discuss the question of returning stolen antiquities, the council said in a statement. It gave no dates for …
Artwork from the Punjab state of India decorates the Ray family home. A Johann Sebastian Bach statue sits on a piano. But in the basement – cluttered with wires, old concert fliers and drawings – 25-year-old Arjun Ray is fighting distortion from his electric guitar. For this son of Indian immigrants, trained in classical violin …
One of the most tantalizing things about Cairo is the little surprises it always manages to tuck away in its street corners. Of those surprises are the tiny galleries that are small enough to remain hidden, yet big enough to house a decent collection. Safar Khan Gallery in Zamalek is one such treasure trove, currently …
Women jump up in their fluffy orange cotton skirts, waggling their shoulders at men who are swift to join the dance, sporting white feathers in their hair and shepherd s crooks in their hands. This tribal dance pays tribute to the heroes of the small Konso community, an ethnic group which has lived for 700 …
Only art can make of tragedy an enjoyable occasion. “Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), a tragedy written by renowned Spanish poet and writer Federico Garcia Lorca, opened at the Cairo Opera House’s Main Hall on Wednesday through the taps and claps of flamenco dancers of Spain’s Antonio Gades Company. The Company, part of the Antonio …
Outspoken film director Spike Lee has thrown his support behind the United States bid to host the World Cup in either 2018 or 2022. The Academy Award-nominated director has accepted an invitation to join the board of the bid committee, US Soccer said. Lee is known as a keen sports fan who is frequently sighted …
Fifty years after his death, the writer Albert Camus is again the focus of controversy, as the left accuses French President Nicolas Sarkozy of trying to co-opt a thinker they claim as their own. Camus, when he died in a Paris car crash on January 4, 1960, aged only 46, was one of the leading …
CAIRO: Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed the largest tomb yet discovered in the ancient Saqqara necropolis, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Monday. One of two tombs found, which were carved out of stone, consists of a vast chamber that branches off into many alcoves. One alcove contained skeletons and pottery, and led to another chamber …
Irish author Colm Toibin is favorite to win the 30,000-pound Costa Book of the Year award after Monday clinching the best novel category for his work Brooklyn, observers said. The winner of the Costa Award is drawn from the winner of five individual categories – novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children s book – …
It was an evening of nostalgia. The band formed in 1976 made a comeback at the Sawy Culture Center on Sunday at a concert entitled “El-Masriyeen Rag’een (Masriyeen Return). While I went expecting some ironic numbers a la Ahmed Fouad Negm and Sheikh Imam, the band leader and composer Hani Shenouda was all praises for …
