otics may lead to future antibiotic-resistant infec - Kuwait Times

FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2012
Jonah Hill
seeks a dramatic
career change
Fresh from his surprise Oscar nomination for a dramatic
role in “Moneyball,” Jonah Hill is looking at a career
change that many have tried before in Hollywood but
few have succeeded at. He is moving from funnyman to
serious actor. Even as his new “21 Jump Street,” based on a
1980s TV drama but turned into a comedy for the movies,
hits theaters on Friday, Hill said he has grown bored with
always being the sidekick in funny films like “Superbad”
that made him a star. At age 28, a slimmed-down Hill said
his role as a numbers-crunching Yale grad in baseball drama
“Moneyball” has blown “the door wide open” for new
opportunities and better roles. In fact, he’s already hard at
work on one new drama.
“The past 10 years, I’ve
made a lot of comedy films,” he
told Reuters at the South by
Southwest film festival where “21
Jump Street” premiered last
week ahead of its US debut. “It’s
just not as inspiring to me anymore
as an artist. I love doing it,
but it really is exciting after
‘Moneyball’ to have that taste for
something different ... doing the
same thing over and over again
is as boring to do as it’s boring to
watch.” Others, of course, have
tried before. Funnyman Jim
Carrey had his box office bombs
with Andy Kaufman biopic “Man on the Moon” and thriller
“The Number 23,” and Adam Sandler flopped with
drama/comedy hybrids “Punch-Drunk Love” and
“Spanglish.” Steve Martin and Robin Williams have fared
much better.
Hill will soon add his name to the list of comedy-todrama
crossovers, but until then comes “21 Jump Street,” a
new take on the TV show from 25 years ago that starred
Johnny Depp. Hill, who co-wrote the screenplay, portrays
one of two bumbling young police officers - the other is
played by Channing Tatum - who are sent undercover to a
high school to investigate a drug ring.
Time for a change
Hill’s character, Schmidt, was a high school nerd
(Tatum’s was a jock), and his return to drama class and
dances is Schmidt’s chance at redemption. Parties,
romance, car chases, boyish humor and a chaotic prom
night are all part of the plot. The actor said he was first
approached about a remake of “21 Jump Street,” coincidentally,
at South by Southwest (SXSW) five years ago, but
turned it down. “I thought it was lame,” he said. But Hill
changed his mind after considering that bothSchmidt and
Tatum’s character, named Jenko, could return to high
school, re-examine their own lives and come to a new
understanding of who they are as grown men.
“High school was all about defining yourself and figuring
out who you are, and I realized that doesn’t go away in
your 20s,” Hill said. Hill said he wanted to create a new story
and new characters with a few homages to the original.
There’s one joke early in the movie that refers to the laziness
of the remake concept. “We wanted to call ourselves
out on it before anyone else did, because the movie doesn’t
take itself super seriously,” Hill said. “It’s supposed to be an
hour and a half of fun.”
But that is changing. In 2010, Hill had a supporting role
in the drama/comedy hybrid “Cyrus” and after that came
“Moneyball,” both of which, Hill said, had inspired him as an
actor. In the works is crime thriller “True Story” with James
Franco in which Hill plays a New York Times journalist who
is trying to figure out if Franco’s character killed his family.
That film is a drama-it may go without saying-and a
payoff of Hill’s long transition from “Superbad” to
“Moneyball.” —Reuters
best stories on our planet are natural ones,” says
Alastair Fothergill. But you’d expect him to say that. For
“The
two decades with the BBC, Fothergill has produced
wildlife documentary series including “Planet Earth,” “Blue Planet”
and, back in 1993, “Life in the Freezer,” which explored Antarctica
in all its frigid wonder. Now he’s executive producer of “Frozen
Planet,” a Discovery Channel/BBC co-production that takes a fresh
look at Antarctica as well as its north-end counterpart, the Arctic,
in seven gorgeous episodes premiering Sunday with the first two
hours on Discovery. And while you may not be ready to dismiss
filmdom’s stars and screenplay writers as unnecessary, “Frozen
Planet” makes a strong case that Nature - captured in the wild -
can equal Hollywood for epic sweep and drama.
Comedy, too. In Sunday’s second hour, male penguins by the
hundreds of thousands anticipate the spring return of the
females, for whose favor each male must compete by building a
swankier nest than his rivals. In a delightful sequence, a painstaking
penguin gathers stones one by one, only to have them
filched, one after another, by a scheming neighbor whenever the
hapless suitor’s back is turned. These performers, with their
Chaplin-esque gait and impeccable timing, would have been
right at home in a 1920s two-reeler.
There’s also bittersweet romance on “Frozen Planet.”
Nature’s ultimate loner, a 1400-pound (635-kilogram) male polar
bear, has lumbered across the ice all winter in search of a mate
come spring. Picking up her scent from 10 miles (16 kilometers)
away, he finds her, after which they share a tender interlude.
Lifestyle
In this undated image released by Discovery Channel/BBC, polar bears walk on ice floes during the filming of ‘Frozen Planet,’ a
seven-part series premiering with the first two hours Sunday, March 18, at 8 pm EDT on Discovery. — AP
In this undated image released by HBO, Nick
Nolte appears in a scene from the HBO original
series ‘Luck.’ — AP
Then, just two weeks later, their brief encounter ends as they are
fated to part. Plus, there are thrilling, life-or-death confrontations
in the series. Three-ton elephant seals brawl over females. A pack
of 25 wolves brings down a huge bison. A wide-eyed Weddell seal
falls prey to hungry orca whales that, working as a team, can stir
up giant waves to wash these frantic seals from the refuge of their
ice floes.
And talk about “special effects”! An unprecedented timelapse
shot underwater records the growth of a brinicle - an ice
stalactite progressing downward toward the seabed - killing
everything its frozen plume touches. This otherworldly sight is as
eerie and magical as a CGI effect from a sci-fi film. But it’s real.
“That’s the thing about the natural world: It gives you amazing
natural drama,” says Vanessa Berlowitz, “Frozen Planet” series
producer, “It looks like it’s scripted, but we don’t fake anything.
Everything that we film is a complete portrayal of reality. And the
audience thinks, ‘Wow, they did that without trained animals!’”
Berlowitz has produced and directed a score of BBC documentaries,
including two episodes of “Planet Earth,” and, like
Fothergill, she logged time at both poles for “Frozen Planet.” She
lived aboard a Royal Naval icebreaker for four months filming
penguins and whales, and, in the Arctic, spent three weeks filming
female polar bears and their cubs while she was five months
pregnant.— AP
Ahit US television series starring
Dustin Hoffman has been canceled
after three horses died
during filming, the channel which
makes the show announced
Wednesday. “Luck,” about thoroughbred
racing and also starring Nick
Nolte, launched in January and had
already been picked up for a second
season, with production mostly at a
horsetrack east of Los Angeles. But a
first horse died on the set in 2010
and another died last year. Then a
third animal had to be put down on
Tuesday after falling backwards and
striking its head, despite new safety
rules put in place.
“Safety is always of paramount
concern,” said Home Box Office,
which aired the show. “We maintained
the highest safety standards ..
higher in fact than any protocols
existing in horse racing anywhere
with many fewer incidents than
occur in racing or than befall horses
normally in barns at night or pastures.—AFP