HEATH LEDGER RECEIVES RECOGNITION AT 2008 AFI AWARDS

A BIG THANK YOU TO THE AFI FOR HONOURING HEATH LEDGER WITH THIS TREMENDOUS TRIBUTE, which gives him much deserved and overdue recognition. Watch the crowd pay their respect with a standing ovation and Heath's mother, father and sister accept the AFI award on his behalf. Note: The award is being presented by Michael Caton (lead actor in 'The Castle').

"Milk" review in Cinematical

"Milk" includes the fight against the Briggs Initiative, a 1978 California ballot initiative that would have stripped gay and lesbian teachers of their jobs, and even taken away the jobs of those teachers who supported them. Black, Van Sant and Penn show us how Milk worked to stop the initiative with persistence, perspective and humor; refuting the idea that gay teachers 'recruit' kids, Milk notes that "If it were true that children mimicked their teachers, you'd sure have a hell of a lot more nuns running around," making a joke and the point. There's been some question if releasing Milk before the November 4th elections might have 'moved the needle' against the vote for the recent passage of Proposition 8 in California; it's hard to say, but what Milk makes clear for any follower of modern activist politics was that Harvey Milk succeeded because he failed, because he knew how to turn every loss into a chance to take what he'd learned and apply it to the next race.

Milk shows us the joy of victory, and the pain of what victory can cost; it shows us the agony of loss, and the opportunities to re-think, re-organize and retrench that loss can give us. Milk repeats one of Harvey Milk's best-known lines: 'You gotta give 'em hope." Milk understands not just what hope can do but also the hate, fear and ignorance that make hope required. It shows the struggle for gay rights in the '70s, but it also makes it clear that there are too many groups -- and too many people -- who are still treated as if there are asterisks and escape clauses hidden in the Bill of Rights denying them the chance to try and attain life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Milk isn't a hollow Hollywood exercise in hero-making, and that makes it all the better: Van Sant's film succeeds so well because of its complexity, its ambiguity, its devastating combination of sorrow and joy; walking out of Milk, you'll be energized and excited, moved to feel and moved to act, amazed at one man doing so much and painfully aware of how much there is left to do".
Source: www.cinematical.com


A video featuring scenes from "Milk" and interviews with James Franco, Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, Gus Van Sant, Victor Garber, Diego Luna, etc.

Emile Hirsch (Falling in love again)

A musical video featuring images and stills of Emile Hirsch, in very good company. Songs "Falling in love again" by Kevin Ayers, "Discretion Grove" by Stephen Malkmus and "I must be high" by Wilco.

BBM's gay sex scenes censored

"Italian gay rights' group Arcigay on Tuesday criticised the censorship of the award-winning cowboy movie, 'Brokeback Mountain', by the country's state television channel. The movie was shown on Rai2 on Monday without controversial gay sex scenes.
"We want to know who decided to show 'Brokeback Mountain' yesterday evening with such blatant, 1950s-style cuts," said Arcigay's president, Aurelio Mancuso.

"The film won the Golden Lion Award at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, as well as three Oscars and four Golden Globes," said Mancuso.

"Who had the presumption to think an adult public could not handle the sight of kissing and intimacy between two men?"

Source: www.adnkronos.com

Old times with Greta Caruso

October 20th, 2006 - Out & About With a lady friend (Greta Caruso) In NYC. New additions courtesy of Iheartjakemedia.com gallery.

"Time" - Top Movies and Performances

Top 10 Movie Performances:

1. Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight

Reviewers evoked Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter — the same mock-ingratiating tone, same sadistic ingenuity — but this Joker is the bigger, gaudier showman, with a sick kid's need to watch the damage he's caused. His ornate facial scars (possibly self-inflicted) suggest a traumatic past, but unlike Lecter the Joker has no backstory; he can't be read as the sum of what his parents, or a girl, or the Iraq War, did to him. He comes out of nowhere, creates chaos, disappears. Ledger thus had the freedom to invent his own nightmare.

5. Ben Burtt as WALL-E in WALL-E
The lonely robo-boy of Andrew Stanton's fabulous fantasy doesn't say much ("WALL-E," "Eva," "Ta-DA!"), but there's a future-world of humor and emotion in each syllable. Those intonations, and nearly every other sound in the movie — the machines, the weapons, the whole aural environment — are the amazing achievement of Ben Burtt [...]
Source: www.time.com

Top 10 Movies:9. Speed Racer

Not every avant-garde FX masterpiece receives instant audience validation. This tale of a family of racers — Racer is the family name — exists simultaneously in the 1950s and today, in a live-action world and its own complementary alternate cyber-universe. Operating a pitch of delirious precision, the movie is a rich, cartoonish dream: non-stop Op art, and a triumph of virtual virtuosity.

8. Iron Man A tin man who realizes that, if he is to become human, he must build himself a heart — and then a big red metallic airborne suit for buzzing unsuspecting planes and vanquishing his enemies. What a kick it is to see the thing fly. Same with the movie, for, like Tony, Iron Man is the perfect expression of Hollywood's engineering ingenuity.5. Milk

This exceptional docudrama — written by Darren Lance Black, directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn — covers the last eight years of Milk's life, which ended when he was shot by fellow supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin). Penn, who’s in nearly every scene, manages the neat trick of merging his star personality with the public figure well known from the 1984 documentary The Life and Times of Harvey Milk.
Source: www.time.com

Jake Gyllenhaal biography part 2

Jake biography part 2, with Interviews about Donnie Darko of Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone and the writer/director Richard Kelly.