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Since 1982 and the Sylvester Stallone film First Blood, people have been using the expression “going Rambo” to describe, in the words of Wikipedia, “someone who thoughtlessly charges into a fight with no regard for personal safety or careful planning.”

Appropriately, Stallone has gone Rambo yet again with the making of this fourth instalment in his popular action-hero series, charging headfirst into the roles of writer, director and star of the film, not to mention dragging hundreds of cast and crew members into the steaming jungles of Myanmar (formerly Burma) with the objective of setting as many things on fire as possible.

The result is a movie that, on one hand, boasts tons of solid action sequences, but on the other hand includes a script that sounds very much like it was written not just by Rambo, but Rambo after a heavy meal, a round of steroids and a few tokes of something else.

Take the following:

“We believe all lives are special,” says Christian missionary Sarah (Julie Benz, of Dexter), in an effort to convince Rambo to take her, her sissy hubby and the rest of their gang up the river to help the citizens of Karen, who are being tortured by the Burmese military.

“Trying to save a life isn’t wasting your life … is it?” Sarah adds, rambling on about how the world needs him.

His response?

“F*** the world.” Cue close-up of Stallone’s meaty, 61-year-old lower lip…aaand cut.

Wicked.

It’s the kind of dialogue that must be accepted with bandana-clad irony, the kind that has so little substance or value it just goes straight through the audience’s system without any need for digestion, like the screenplay equivalent of a Twinkie.

This can be a good thing, however, as it allows for the action to take centre stage.

The predominant theme here is decapitation: At least 80 per cent of the characters who die get their heads blown off by a grenade, shot off by a machine gun or chopped off by a knife. One of the best sequences, in a slight variation on this theme, involves a villain getting shot through the face with an arrow, then tripping and falling onto a land mine before exploding in a mess of blood, guts and swampy stuff.

Right after this transpires, one of the mercenaries who’s turned up on the scene looks over at Rambo and, in a whisper, says, “Who are you, boatman?”

The answer, as fans will know, is John Rambo, a Vietnam War veteran with a chip on his shoulder and a thousand-mile stare, who may be puttering around in river boats and cursing the world now but has spent the past few decades running between Bangkok and Afghanistan, kicking ass, looking tough and generally putting the hard in hardcore.

After decades of this, he’s actually in pretty decent shape. It’s hard to tell if there’s been any dalliances with tanning beds or Botox injections, but regardless, there’s a lot of muscle under that strategically tattered shirt and he appears to be able to jump, kick, dive and roll just as readily as the twentysomethings alongside him.

Artistically, Stallone isn’t quite up there with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, but there are nods to Apocalypse Now with, for example, the shot of a burning landscape reflected in Major Tint’s aviators, or that of the billowing clouds of red smoke emerging quietly from the windows of a mess hall.

Speaking of mess, this is what the film turns into by the last half hour. The entire cast, it seems, is running around, shooting at everyone and everything, bamboo stretchers are miraculously constructed in 10 seconds or less and Rambo, in a last-ditch attempt at something poetic, is uttering ultimatums like, “Live for nothing, or die for something.”

But, in a way, it’s an organized mess, and once all the baddies have been killed off, we know it’s time for the good guys to wrap things up with some weary hugs and a let’s-go-home montage. In fact, this is probably what audiences will be doing, too, because as fun as Rambo may be, there comes a time when the bandana just needs to come off.

Rambo

Forest Glade, Lakeshore, Palace, SilverCity

(18A)

Rating: Two stars out of five

The top two American winners at the Sundance Film Festival put faces on at least three political hot buttons: Hurricane Katrina as it becomes something more than an act of nature, the collapse of the economy and illegal immigration.

Both Tia Lessin and Carl Deal’s Trouble the Water, which won the documentary Grand Jury prize, and Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River, which won the dramatic Grand Jury prize, are small, personal films that reel back independent filmmaking’s more recent, polished and well-financed art-house star vehicles to the early days of Sundance social realism, where women, blacks and native Americans have to walk a tightrope to survive.

Trouble the Water mixes home-video footage shot by New Orleans wannabe rapper Kim Roberts in the days leading up to Katrina and into the teeth of the storm with footage from co-directors Lessin and Deal of Roberts and her husband’s return a year later.

Frozen River plays out in the failing economy of upstate New York as a stand-in for small-town USA, and tells a story of two women, one white working class the other Native American, sneaking illegal aliens in from Canada who want a piece of the very American Dream that has collapsed for their smugglers. Sony Pictures Classics picked up the film at the festival for release in the USA.

Many of the films that took home awards from the American and World juries Saturday night flew under the radar of buzz. They were not, for the most part, the films talked about by the industry pros and critics, who were largely underwhelmed at the vintage.

The competition also sandbagged films with recognizable stars, with the exception of a special jury prized given to the ensemble cast of Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly MacDonald and Brad Henke in Choke, director Clark Gregg’s adaptation of Chuck (Fight Club) Palahniuk’s novel.

Filmgoers also get a vote at this festival, and audience awards went to Josh Tickell’s documentary Fields of Fuel, which travels the arc of U.S. oil dependence from Rockefeller to Iraq; and to Jonathan Levine’s fictional The Wackness, a love-it or hate-it film with a wild and woolly Ben Kingsley exchanging therapy sessions with high school grad Josh Peck for pot. Sony Pictures Classics is said to be close to a deal for the film.

Said Levine: “I just accepted an award from William H. Macy in a cowboy hat. That is so (expletive) weird.”

As for other winners in the American competition, Nanette Burstein (2002’s The Kid Stays in the Picture) won best documentary director for American Teen, which waves together the stories of four throwback archetypal seniors in the all-white, all-middle class 2006 graduating class in Warsaw, Ind. Paramount Vantage paid a reported $1 million for the film.

Novice director Lance Hammer was named best dramatic film director for Ballast, an artfully shot story in the Mississippi Delta about a fractured family stumbling its way forward after the suicide of the family head. Lol Crawley also won the best cinematography award for his muted greens and grays in a year that was haunted by stories filmed in desaturated monotone color palettes.

Sleep Dealer writer/director Alex Rivera and co-writer David Riker won the screenwriting award for their sci-fi story about agua profiteers, terrorist cells and the Internet, set in the near future in Mexico. The film also won the $20,000 Alfred P. Sloan prize for films with a scientific theme or characters.

Director Steven Sebring and cameraman Philip Hunt won best documentary cinematography for their dreamscape collage of color and black-and-white images in Patti Smith: Dream of Life, about the ’70s New York underground poet-punk rocker.

Documentary editing went to Joe Bini for Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.

The festival also handed out awards to overseas films, including best documentary to British director James Marsh’s Man on Wire, a breathtaking minute-by-minute account of French daredevil Philippe Petit’s August 1974 high-wire walk at the top of the World Trade Center. The film also won the World Audience Award. “I saw the towers born, I married them with my wire, and I saw them die,” Petit said, after a late-week screening “And when they died, it pulled out something alive inside me.”

Jordanian director Amin Matalqa’s Captain Abu Raed, about an Amman airport janitor posturing as a pilot to all the neighborhood urchins, won the best world fiction award. It’s the first feature film to come out of Jordan in half a century.

And Swedish commercials director Jens Jonsson’s first feature, King of Ping Pong, about a dysfunctional family, was named best world dramatic film and won the foreign documentary cinematography award.

Other World awards:

Documentary directing: Nino Kirtadze (France) for Durako: Village of Fools

Dramatic directing: Anna Melikyan (Russia) for Mermaid

Screenwriting: Samuel Benchetrit (France) for I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland last August.

More special jury prizes went to Lisa F. Jackson for Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, Ernesto Contreras for Blue Eyelids and Chusy Haney-Jardine for Anywhere, USA.

Nagarjuna - Vishnu film Krishnarjuna will be hitting the marquee on 31 January. Mamata Mohandas played the female lead. P Vasu (Chandramukhi fame) directed this film. This film is supposed to have a novel story idea that never appeared before on Telugu screen. MM Keeravani composed music. Mohan Babu produces film. He also did a small guest appearance.

Lawrence is going to act in another film titled Pardhu. He is paired up with actresses Sneha and Namitha in this film. Manyam Ramesh will produce this film on Manyam entertainments banner. Pardhu regular shooting will start on 21 January and will be shot in Naidupet, Madhurai, Chennai, Dubai and Hyderabad. Srikanth Deva composes music. Manyam entertainments is aiming at releasing this film in the first week of May.

C Aswini Dutt and GP Vijaya Kumar would be jointly producing the Telugu version of Rajnikant’s latest film in the direction of P Vasu (Chandramukhi fame). This film is a remake of Malayalam film Katha Paryambol (Mammotty). Rajnikant and Jagapati Babu play siblings in this film. Brahmanandam, Sunil, Venu madhav and Tanikella Bharani play other roles. The regular shooting of this film will start in the second half of February. A press meet was arranged in Chennai on 15th January in Taj Coromandel, Chennai to announce this news.

Mittwoch trudelte meine DonDVD ein. Der Zoll hatte sie sich gegriffen. Aber egal, somit wäre mein Weihnachtsgeschenk an mich auch eingetroffen. So hab ich ihn gleich Mittwoch und gestern geschaut und ja, ich liebe Don. Ich kann an meiner Review nicht rütteln, vielleicht um einen halben punkt, aber nööö das mach ich nicht. Die extras sind ganz nett aber irgendwie ein bissl wenig. Aber die bloopers sind extra schick!!!! Diese Zunge killt mich. Ich muss davon gleich mal nen Screenshot machen. Aber erst News

Da kam heute endlich I See You raus. Und ich musste einmal Tarans Review lesen auf IndiaFM. Sonst lese ich seine Reviews nie, weil er meist komische Reviews schreibt und dabei noch so richtig Spoilert. Aber ich wollt ja wissen wo Shahrukh auftaucht. Das weiß ich nun, nämlich im Song shubah shubah. Wer den Song sichtet bitte bitte bescheid geben

Heute kam dann noch eine 2 minuten promo von KBC raus. GAHHHHHHHHHHHH die ist total schick. Der kleine ist total niedlich!! Und Shahrukh zwinkert am ende sooooooooooooo süss!!!!!!!

Zur zeit kann man sich die hier unter just added angucken. Die Ladezeit ist fast unerträglich. Aber was tut man nicht alles für Shahrukh Ausserdem ist das soooooooo süss

Shahrukh wird ausserdem wieder mit Sushmita Sen vor der Kamera stehen.

SRK, Sushmita hain naa
Subhash K Jha‘Main Hoon Na’ gave Bollywood a new pair to tap into. The unanimous opinion was that Shah Rukh Khan and Sushmita made a sizzling pair.So what stopped the industry from using more of the the hot couple?Sushmita says, “I’ve news for you. Shah Rukh and I are getting together again in Dulha Mil Gaya, though Shah Rukh only makes a guest appearance in the film. The actuall reason I’m doing it is the director Mudassar Aziz. He wrote the songs of Zindagi Rocks. When I heard the script I just fell for it. I guess I’m an emotional sucker too. I’ve become the first-film queen. Look at the number of times I’ve worked with debutant directors.”

Producer Viveck Vaswani was keen on pairing SRK with Sushmita in his film. “That’s been organised completely by producer Viveck Vaswani,” adds Sushmita. “It has got nothing to do with me. It’s a romantic comedy. We start filming in Trinidad & Tobago in March 2007.“

She gets nostalgic. “I’m looking forward to visiting Trinidad. It was one of the first countries I visited as Miss Universe. I was so touched when Viveck Vaswani told me people still have my picture in their homes in Trinidad. Filming there would be fun. And yes, Shah Rukh and I were really good in Main Hoon Na. Dulha Mil Gaya would probably be an encore,” she says.

Die Dreharbeiten für Om Shanti Om fangen nun am 7 Januar an, ausserdem steht Shahrukh nebenbei ja noch für KBC vor der Kamera und für Bootnath auch ab 10 Januar. Zur Zeit scheint Shahrukh in Dehli zu sein und für Chak De India zuende zu drehen. Es gab einige berichte wo Shahrukh Silvester feiert, letztens war was mit Goa, voher aber wars Mumbai, nun soll er in Dehli sein. Wo er nun Silvester feiert, keine Ahnung. Leider nicht mit mir

Amisha Patel will be seen next in Kunal Kohli’s project opposite Saif Ali Khan. This is the first time Amisha is teaming up with Chhote Nawab. The film will be produced by Kohli himself and distributed by Yash Raj. It will also have Rani Mukherjee and Rishi Kapoor in a cameo. It will be shot maily in Delhi.

This will be Kohli’s next after ‘Fanaa’ and Amisha is gearing up for it. She has lost a few kilos and is taking extra care of her skin these days.

Mischa Barton picks her way through the battered old school building in Henley that serves as the set for the return of the St Trinian’s franchise. This nostalgic realm of jolly hockey sticks and high school japery has been reimagined for the 21st century by Ealing Studios.

The film’s directors, Barnaby Thompson, who acquired the studios seven years ago, and Oliver Parker, who directed the first Ealing movie in almost 50 years with The Importance of Being Earnest in 2000, have been keen to bolster the star power with names including Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Russell Brand, Stephen Fry and Girls Aloud. Barton plays J. J. French, a former head girl who has moved to the US and prospered in the media world, before returning to St Trinian’s to help the girls in their bid to save the school. “The idea is that J. J. went into PR and became very sassy and quite ruthless,” she says. “She gives the girls some advice, and it turns into a bit of a treatise on pop culture as she decides to teach them all the tricks of her business.

“It is supposed to be rife with funny clichés. I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say that it hones in on the superficiality of the business, and all the silliness. I was considering playing one of the main characters in the film. But it didn’t work out and Barnaby wrote the cameo for me,” Barton says.

“I was originally talking to Barnaby about playing Annabelle, the lead girl, but then this is a very English film,” adds the 21-year-old actress.

“My family’s English, I have seen the films, and I thought that they meant a lot to a lot of people, so it just seemed more appropriate to come in and do a cameo role, rather than play an established British character that people really love.”

She may speak with an American accent, but Barton was born in the UK to an Irish mother and English father. She has fond memories of growing up in London, moving to New York with her parents and two sisters, Hania and Zoë, when she was six years old. Yesterday, she donned a St Trinian’s uniform for a photo-shoot and, she chuckles, it took her back to her childhood.

After breaking into theatre when she was 9 – co-starring in the off-Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s Slavs! – Barton is inured to the silliness and superficiality of show-business. And as soon as she was cast as the troubled belle Marissa Cooper in The OC, which ran from 2003 until this year, Barton became a pop-cul-ture icon and tabloid favourite.

“After we finished the first season of The OC I started running into paparazzi all over the place,” she laughs. “And I became popular with the tabloids, so I knew straight away that I’d need to make a few changes in my life.”

These involve keeping a lower profile when she and her friends venture out for the evening. “The media is so quick to pick up on things, so you can’t go around dancing on tables and drawing lots of attention to yourself. If you do anything, they will try and paint as you this wild party girl. That really isn’t me.”

Did she have a St Trinian’s-style schooling? “When I was at school I wasn’t out all the time. Maybe I wasn’t quite head girl material, but I worked hard. Because I was working as an actress, there was always that sense of a normal schooling being taken away from you. Since then I’ve always kept things very focused on my family and my career.”

That career has spanned more than half her life. She was offered modelling work when she was only 11 years old, shooting a campaign for Calvin Klein jeans, she made her film debut in Lawn Dogs (1997), and appeared in The Sixth Sense and Notting Hillin her early teens. It was The OC, however, that propelled her to stardom. Following her departure after the third season last year, the show’s ratings tumbled; it ran for only one more season.

“Of course I’m grateful to The OC,” she says. “It has opened up a lot for me. Ever since I did that first off-Broadway play I knew that acting is what I wanted to do with my life.”

She’s happy to deal with the media pressure. “You read about all these different guys that you are supposed to be dating, while really I’ve only had a couple of boyfriends in my entire life.”

Last year the gossip press tracked Barton’s romance with rocker Cisco Adler from the band Whitestarr. Before that she dated Brandon Davis, the oil heir and former MTV star. She will not be drawn on any current romances, but does admit that she is always “very careful”.

“I’m not one of those girls who likes bad boys who are going to treat them badly, and I’m also not sure about dating another actor. I can’t remember meeting any actor and thinking that I must get him to take an interest in me. I also have to spend far too long looking in the mirror, so it wouldn’t be a good idea to share my life with a man who has to care about his looks, too!”

Anyway, she says she has been too busy of late. She has recently finished filming the dramas You and I (Finding tATu), Don’t Fade Away, and the comedy Assassination of a High School President, in which she stars alongside Bruce Willis. Her next project, Malice in Sunderland, is, as the title suggests, set in the UK.

“It’s been great coming back to England,” she says. “I still have family here. My dad’s with me today on the St Trinian’s set and I’m sure people will like the new version.”

And she has a good idea what it is about the films that people like: “Looking at the older girls, they are really sexy,” she says smiling naughtily. “I was watching them strutting around, and we all know how boys feel about girls in school uniforms.”

Tollywood superstar Chiranjeevi not yet announced his political entry but his fans are eagerly awaiting his leadership in politics and they wanted their star to be the CM of Andhra as soon as possible, but Chiranjeevi keep his fans and political parties in andhra guessing about his entry. Leaders of Kappu caste looking forward the announcement of Chiranjeevi, they wanted him to be their leader other backward castes also looking forward to over rule the domination of Reddys and Naidus in Andhra Politics. The major political parties are wary of the impact of Chiranjeevi’s entry in politics. Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy said he would welcome the actor’s foray into politics and would even ask him to join the Congress. But as per sources, if Chiru enter politics he will be a tough fight to both Congress and TDP.

Critically acclaimed Telugu film “Vanaja”, directed by Indian filmmaker Rajnesh Domalpalli, has continued its winning streak by picking up two major Independent Spirit Award nominations. One of this year’s best reviewed foreign language films, “Vanaja” has been nominated for Best First Feature along with such high-profile entries as Julie Delpy’s “Two Days In Paris” and Scott Frank’s “The Lookout” It has also been nominated for Best Cinematography where director of photography Milton Kam faces fierce competition from Rodrigo Prieto of “Lust, Caution” and Janusz Kaminski of “The Diving Bell and The Butterfly”. The Independent Spirit Awards ceremony, the premier event for the independent filmmakers, will take place on Feb 23, 2008, one day before the Academy Awards.