Sci-Fi, Cli-Fi, We All Cry: the End Is Nigh
June, 12, 2013 12:19 pm | Comments On #Adam Trexler, cli-fi, Gregory Norminton, Media, Rodge GlassLast month I noted here at TheWrap how two stories at NPR and the Christian Science Monitor catapulted the emerging literary and movie marketing term "cli-fi" (a term I coined in this very blog as short for climate-change fiction) into the American news cycle while social media came alive with tweets and status updates about the genre.
A few weeks later, the term landed at two major British newspapers, the Guardian and the Financial Times.
In the Guardian, British author Rodge Glass issued a "global warning" about what he termed "the rise of cli-fi" -- noting that ''unlike most science fiction, novels about climate change focus on an immediate and intense threat rather than discovery."
Also read:...
Read MoreThe Navajo-Dubbed 'Star Wars': It's a Family Project to Debut on July 4
May, 17, 2013 10:59 am | Comments On #Movies
Earlier this month, I noted that there was a cooperative project between Lucasfilm and the Navajo people in Arizona to dub "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" into the Navajo language, Diné.
Now there's more I can tell you about it.
Manny Wheeler, director of the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, Ariz., who has been steering the project, told me the dubbed version is expected to screen on July 4 in Window Rock.
And in an email, Richard Epcar, a well-known voice director in Hollywood, gave me a few more details of the project.
A cast of 20 Navajo voice actors and actresses working with the museum will be doing the dubbing. "The actual...
Read More'Stars Wars' Goes Navajo in Bid to Save Tribe's Language
May, 13, 2013 2:41 pm | Comments On #Movies, Star WarsIn a first for both Hollywood and the Navajo tribe in America, Obi-Wan Kenobi will soon be saying, "May the Force be with you" in the Diné language.
Yes, you heard me right: An innovative educational dubbing project is currently under way to dub “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” into Diné, with a cast of 20 Navajo voice actors and actresses working with the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, Ariz.
Think Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Han Solo, C-3PO, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Grand Moff Tarkin all speaking Diné.
According to Manny Wheeler, director of the museum who has been steering the project in co-operation with Lucasfilm for more than three years, the dubbed version is expected to be completed in two months.
"We hope to be finished in July," he told me in a recent email. If all goes...
Read MoreIn a Warming World, 'Cli-Fi' Is Here to Stay
May, 03, 2013 10:25 am | Comments On #Movies
More than a year ago, I wrote a blog post here headlined "The Next Big Genre: 'Cli-Fi' -- Climate Fiction, in Which 'Mad Max' Meets 'The Road'" -- and now comes NPR and the Christian Science Monitor with two very good trend-spotting stories about, yes, "cli-fi." It takes some time for the mainstream media to catch up.
...
Read MoreLiam Neeson Takes 'Walk Among the Tombstones’
April, 11, 2013 4:32 pm | Comments On #hollyblog, Lawrence Block, liam neeson, Movies, Walk Among the TombstonesActor Liam Neeson is on novelist Lawrence Block's mind a lot these days. The New York novelist is chock-a-block with anticipation as one of his novels, "A Walk Among the Tombstones," is being filmed on the streets of Manhattan, and Neeson is starring as the character Matthew Scudder.
Recently, Block was invited by the producers to visit the set of the movie and came away as happy as an author can be.
Also read: Liam Neeson Thriller 'A Walk Among The Tombstones' Sells Worldwide at AFM
"I paid my third visit to the movie set of 'A Walk Among the Tombstones,'" he said the other day, noting that his first visit was to a Delancey Street diner, where he watched...
Read MoreWhat Kind of Culture Accepts Media Violence Toward Women?
March, 24, 2013 1:50 pm | Comments On #exploitation, Media, objectification, WomenIt's not just television and movies that often portray women in a poor light. Print newspapers and magazines are part of the problem, too.
In newsroom cultures of newspapers and magazines around the world, the photographic depiction of women in many stand-alone photos amounts, more or less, to what might be called newsroom rape. It's not a pretty picture, and the mindset among editors who green light such photos and write the captions needs to change.
If these photos and captions of scantily clad "models" and "campaign girls" were of black men or Islamic men and carried captions such as "Juicy Fruit" and "Get an Eyeful," things would change very quickly. But depicting women this way is business as usual in most male-dominated newsrooms, from the New York Post to Esquire magazine.
To raise awareness about gender...
Read MoreThe Unsung (Skinny) Body in 'Life of Pi'
March, 14, 2013 9:00 am | Comments On #Movies
In Taiwan, there's a self-described "skinny brown guy" named Ricky Henry Peters, who played a very small role in Ang Lee's 3D adaptation of "Life of Pi" -- but it's been a big secret, until now.
When Ang Lee gave his Oscar acceptance speech for his Best Director gong for "Life of Pi,” he gave a special shout out to Suraj Sharma of India, who was sitting in the audience but did not win any awards himself, and who played the role of a lifetime in the movie.
The television cameras panned over to Sharma and focused on him smiling as he acknowledged Lee's praise. But he wasn’t the only one who had the role...
Read MoreJan & Dean's Dean Torrence to 'Surf' Taiwan ... by Motorcycle
March, 04, 2013 11:34 am | Comments On #Dean Torrence, Jan & Dean, Movies
In an earlier Hollyblog post, I reported that motorcycle film maven Peter Starr, now in his early 70s, has been busy promoting motor-scooter and motorcycle road trips for healthy seniors in Taiwan, and now his first foray into all this last year will be leading to more trips being planned, both in Taiwan and in California next fall.
And one his friends who has signed up is Dean Torrence of the old 1950s/1960s rock duo ''Jan and Dean.''' Jan Berry, as readers might recall, passed away in 2004.
Dean will come to Taiwan in September to join Starr's motorcycle...
Read More'Mystery Train' Star Is Now ‘Coaching’ a Taiwan Baseball Movie
January, 13, 2013 4:03 pm | Comments On #Movies
Jim Jarmusch's 1989 movie "Mystery Train," financed by a Japanese consortium and executive-produced by two Japanese men, put Jarmusch on the world map and turned the then-22-year-old Masatoshi Nagase, a high-school dropout, into a Japanese star.
Fast forward to 2012, and Nagase is in Taiwan as part of the cast of a flick about a 1931 Taiwan baseball;; team that made history at a high-school tournament in Japan.
The movie is titled "Kano," and it's being produced by Wei Te-sheng, who wrote the script based on a real historical event that rocked both Taiwan and Japan in the '30s and appears poised to rock the two nations again in 2014, when it's...
Read MoreAn Open Letter to the MPAA's Chris Dodd: Get Rid of the Guns
December, 21, 2012 10:29 am | Comments On #Movies
Dear Chris Dodd:
I recently read a news story on TheWrap in which you, as chairman of the MPAA, said Hollywood is ready to participate in a meaningful dialogue about gun violence after the Sandy Hook Massacre in Newtown, Conn.
You are from Connecticut. I am from Massachusetts, originally, although I am now living in Asia, far from the violent gun culture of America.
Mr. Dodd, I grew up on movies. I went to college with people who are now film producers in Hollywood and overseas. I went to college with people who are now famous actors in Hollywood.
I love Hollywood, and I love movies, from "The Ten Commandments," which I saw when I was about 8 years old, to the...
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Description
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer based in Asia since 1991. During a five-year stint in Tokyo, he covered the triumphs (and occasional failures) of Hollywood movies in Japan and interviewed American actors passing through Tokyo on film promotion tours, including Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and Kevin Costner.
