Thanks to the latest putting on screen of the strange American family’s adventures, we all have remembered that laughing is a good thing, which should be practiced day by day, hour by hour! The thing with the Simpsons family is, however, more deep than that. It’s true that you laugh, but in the same way you are unconsciously getting a little bit wiser, as the situations and problems that appear in this film are very important.
“The Simpsons Movie” has attracted many of its old fans in theatres, so that it has become a hit comedy cartoon movie. It has gained no less than $74.04 million at the North American box office over its release weekend.
It is its long run of about 20 years that have helped this new big screen comedy to become such a market hit. Its solid fan base has been thrilled to meet the Simpsons again and to laugh and think about their new problems. It is quite clear that the other movies of the week haven’t been able to represent a real threat for the ticket sales of “The Simpsons Movie”. The romantic comedy “No Reservations” have made only $11.70 million, “I Know Who Killed Me”, a nonsensical thriller featuring Lindsay Lohan, has gained only $3.51 million, “Who’s Your Caddy” – only $2.76 and so on.
Anyway, “The Simpsons Movie” has represented a movie that we all have been waiting for and this has been showed by the box offices sales.

Alex Gibney’s latest work, “No End in Sight”, represents another movie, another voice that is more or less subtly condemning the United States’ approach in the Iraq war. Obviously the documentary has no new revelations to offer, but it draws a depressing perspective on one of the most important recent war events of our world.
Alex Gibney has executive produced “No End in Sight”, who has taken this year’s Sundance Festival’s Special Jury Prize; the producer has become known for his directing “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”.
However, “No End in Sight” marks also the directorial debut of Charles Ferguson and it seems to examine the United States’ involvement in the Iraq war, thanks to the former players of that game such as the Ambassador Barbara Bodine, the Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and a number of military officials, which include Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s ex-chief of staff.
This way the documentary is able to focus on an administration that now seems to not have had any post-invasion exit strategy, which led to insurgency and to the hostile situation from now-day Iraq.

The border territories between countries have seemed to become the most recent favourite places for shooting dramatic movies. They are places where people’s feelings are divided into two or more than two directions.
So “Ramchand Pakistani” is another border drama movie starring a popular and well appreciated Indian actress, called Nandita Das. The drama telling the story of a boy who will accidentally stays into India has the subtle role of touching the both countries’ people’s feelings and bringing them closer. The story within the movie has been inspired by a real-life incident.
Nandita Das is playing in “Ramchand Pakistani” the role of the boy’s mother. Although the main characters of the movie are from Pakistan’s minority Hindu community, the Indian actress’ appearance in “Ramchand Pakistani” is the first sign of trying to make things work better between the two countries. Nandita Das has been known for acting in un-conventional movies, so this recent movie, “Ramchand Pakistani”, won’t make any difference for her.
“The film talks about things common to both India and Pakistan — bureaucracy, prejudice. […] There are innumerable cases of people accidentally crossing the border and being jailed as spies.” – said Nandita Das, referring to the numerous cases when innocent people, mainly children, from both Pakistan and India have been sent to jail for many years after they have accidentally straying into each other’s country’s own territory. Eventually some of these persons are being used by the two countries for making peace gestures and are being released.
From the popular Indian actress’ point of view cinema would represent the perfect cultural bridge between the two countries, which have been fighting three wars one against another since their separation from 1947. “Films are important for knowing about culture. I think if we knew a bit more about each other, we would stop perceiving each other as enemies.” – said Nandita Das, who is a former jury member of the Cannes Film Festival.

Lindsay Lohan seems to be some kind of second Britney Spears. Her latest adventures have not even amazed too much the officials, and not even her fans, while her parents’ divorce trial has been subtly making from Lohan’s life a soar soap opera. However, among drug abuse, heavily drinking and chasing former assistants’ mothers’ cars, Lindsay Lohan has been still making her job, that of an actress. Unfortunately her latest movie has not received such a positive review, as it has even nominated for running for the worst movie of the year 2007. “I Know Who Killed Me” has already been considered a ridiculous, hilarious thriller.
That’s very sad, as this movie could have helped Lohan escape the haze in which she seems to feel like home: she could have been considered at least a good actress, and her personal problems could have passed as eccentricities. Bad chance anyway, “I Know Who Killed Me” is a lost movie, as lost as the young actress is too.
The film’s plot doesn’t have any sense and its actors are mechanically performing their roles. Lindsay Lohan plays the role of Aubrey Fleming, who is a wannabe writer and also a promising pianist who is eventually going to disappear while being out with friends. She will then re-appear, but he will miss both a hand and a leg, as she has been tortured by the terrible madman.
However, the young woman will insist that she is no wannabe writer, nor pianist, and that her name is Dakota and she is a pole dancer in a striptease bar. So, it seems that Dakota is Aubrey’s twin sister and that our real main character is somewhere struggling for help.
While the FBI is hunting the potential killer, the girl(s)’ parents are trying to understand the mystery.
The question that flows in the air is why Lohan has accepted such role in this movie, as her career had seemed to become promising thanks to roles in such movies as “Just My Luck” or “Georgia Rule”. Could this be related to the young actress’ really problematic recent life?

It’s not over yet! Michael Moore’s war against everybody (the American health-care system, the federal officials and so on) has just gone into the next stage.
All the noisy and fury that the director has created with his latest movie haven’t been able to create a positive buzz and to transform “SiCKO” into a top selling documentary. But, Michael Moore hasn’t also been able to escape the federal officials, who are seeking information about the trip the director took to Cuba for making his documentary. Not only that the officials haven’t forgotten about Moore, but they are now planning to subpoena him to explain everything to them.
It has been Michael Moore himself that has announced during his late Thursday appearance on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” that he has already notified at the TV studio in Burbank, California, that a subpoena was issued by the federal officials related to his old issue.
Michael Moore has directed a documentary that took a scathing look at the United States or America’s health-care system through the eyes of the people who felt that their country’s system of insurers and drug providers failed in providing them help in battling injuries of serious diseases.
However, this hasn’t been the reason that the federal officials want now Moore to talk to them. It is the fact the director allegedly took several American citizens for free treatment in Cuba. These people have all become ill after working in the ruins of New York’s World Trade Center following the criminal terrorist attacks from the 11th of September 2001.
Michael Moore had been informed in May by the United Sates’ Treasury Department that he would have to explain his trip and that he could be accused of violation of Washington’s long-standing embargo that restricts the United States of America’s citizens’ travel to the communist country of Cuba. Then Michael Moore replied: “I have broken no laws, and I have nothing to hide.”

Glory and fame are helping people to be proud of themselves and to remember that they “are somebody” when all their boats are sinking. But when they have pay for this fame and glory is it just the same?
This is somehow the case of Barcelona’s people, who are going to have their charming city on tape, in exchange of their money from taxes. Although Woody Allen has promise to make from his “Barcelona Project” what he has called a “love letter to Barcelona, and from Barcelona to the world”, the Catalans hasn’t really seemed to be touched these words. On the contrary they hasn’t seemed so keen to their city’s paying 10 percent of the movie’s budget.
This investment has been already called by the local media the biggest public investment from the history of Spanish cinema. The city’s city hall will be providing $1.37 million and the Catalan Regional Government about $680.000. About seventy-five percent of Catalans have been considered the public investment to be “excessive”, resulting from the newspaper El Periodico’s poll.
On the other hand, the officials are continually saying that this investment is worthwhile to promote the city to the whole world, in the same way that “Lord of the Rings” helped New Zealand. But the issue has already aggravated also artistic tensions in the region, as the first official language is Catalan, not Spanish.
“The problem is … they say there is no money for Catalan films, and they even put obstacles in the way of awarding subsidies to films made in the Spanish language.” – has said Alberto Fernandez Diaz, who is the leader of the opposition right-wing Partido Popular.
So, although the movie is to be directed by such important director as Woody Allen and is to star beautiful blonde starlet Scarlett Johansson, the investment that it involves is even more difficult to swallow for the people, as authors and script writers are excluded from local arts subsidies because they write in Spanish.

The organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival have announced on Wednesday that “Emotional Arithmetic” will close the 32nd edition of the film festival, which will be running between the 6th and the 15th of September. “Emotional Arithmetic” is drama, featuring popular actors like Christopher Plummer and Susan Sarandon.
As the festival’s previous editions used to schedule lighter movies for its closing night, choosing “Emotional Arithmetic” have been somehow unusual, contrary to the festival’s tradition. “Emotional Arithmetic” was created by Paolo Barzman and it is in fact a story about three Holocaust survivors who reunite on a bucolic Quebec farm after more than 35 years from their being separated by the Nazis.
The movie has already received a high-profile gala at the Roy Thompson Hall, before being featured at the Toronto Film Festival. It has even been a possible opener for the international film festival, but it was eventually beaten by Jeremy Podeswa’s “Fugitive Pieces”, which is also a Holocaust-themed feature.
Alongside Susan Sarandon and Christopher Plummer, the movie’s cast features Roy Dupuis, Gabriel Byrne and Max von Sydow.
Noah Cowan, the Toronto International Film Festival’s co-director said about “Emotional Arithmetic”: “We are proud that the festival now opens and closes with vibrant and high-profile Canadian films. […] The inclusion of this powerful film reflects the robust nature of our industry.”

Adam Sandler’s latest comedy, “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” has evidently touched the gay-couple marriages theme, which is not such an interesting issue for politicians and not even for common straight people. The American gay people are legally and officially allowed to marry one each other only in Massachusetts, although the United States of America represents the country of freedom.
Anyway, comedian Adam Sandler’s latest comedy proves that although people are not very willing to talk about gays and to give them the right of marriage, in the same way they don’t seem to be shy in watching a movie about two men exchanging their marriage symbolic rings.
“I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” debuted at the Number 1 position last week, with North American sales at the box office of about $34.2 million. This important amount of money shows that people have really enjoyed the comedy, and haven’t been scared by its gay theme.
Although Adam Sandler couldn’t be called a social crusader his movies are always focusing on some serious problems that the human society is experiencing. This is also the case of this latest funny comedy, which transmits in the end a message that focuses on the importance of the social acceptance of the gay people. Sandler’s way of making people laugh but then realize the seriousness of the issue is great, as the method attracts people, makes them feel good and then even determines them to be better persons, or at least make them think about it.
Although the comedy evidently features some anti-gay slurs and stereotypes, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance against Defamation has accepted the movie after being invited to consult. The Alliance seems to have understood Sandler’s way of trying to make people realize they could easily make interpretation mistakes.
All in all, “I Now Pronounce Chuck and Larry” is a successful comedy that focuses also on a serious issue. Its message is socially positive and the fact that people are going in the cinemas to watch the comedy is great thing!

The famous director Steven Spielberg has been announced that he may quit his job in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, if China is not to take a harder position against Sudan over Darfur. The popular movie director’s role in the 2008 Beijing Olympics has been that of an artistic adviser.
Spielberg’s position comes in the political context of the troubled Darfur region. China represents an important investor in Sudan’s oil industry and it hasn’t been willing to send U.N. peacekeepers to the country’s troubled region. China has been accused by several human right groups and other similar critics that it breached international rules and fanned bloodshed by selling Sudan weapons that have been diverted to the country’s Darfur region. The movie director has not yet escaped from the critics’ voicing that he should have used his position to push the Chinese government to change its involvement in the problem.
“Steven will make a determination in the next few weeks regarding his work with the Chinese. Our main interest is ending the genocide. No one is clear on the best way to do this.” – said the director’s spokesperson, adding that “All options were on the table.”, which means that quitting could be also a solution.
However, the Chinese government is expected to announce its position, so till then everybody, including Steven Spielberg, is calmly waiting.

Neil Sacker and Mark Gill’s new production outfit, the Film Department, has announced its first acquisition: Chloe King’s script titled “Lorelei”, which will be produced with Sandbar Pictures.
“Lorelei” seems to be a dark comic drama, which tells the story of an embattled New York divorced couple, who will have to have another child together so that they could save their ill daughter.
Chloe King’s credits include “Poison Ivy II” for New Line Cinema and also “B. Monkey” for Miramax Films.