Off The Screen Magazine April 2013

April 2013 www.offthescreenmagazine.wix.com/otsm

And the Naledi Goes to…

We have a look at the winners at the 2013 Naledi Theatre Awards

And the Golden Horn Goes to…

We look at all the winners at this year’s 7th South African Film and Television Awards GI Jane Adrianne Palicki tells us about her role in the new actioner, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Return of the Mack

She’s got the Power We talk to Anne Power, star of the new mockumentary comedy, To the Power of Anne

Ballet star Brooklyn Mack comes back to our shores to dance in Don Quixote, after winning some major dance competitions

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Content s Cover Story:

20 And The Golden Horn

Cover: Our look

Goes to…

Jon Broeke looks at the winners at this year’s South African Film and Television Awards.

Features: 6 GI Jane

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at the film winners at the 7th South African Film and Television Awards

We talk to one of only two females to star in the new actioner G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Adrianne Palicki

12 Love is Blind

We find out all about Eduaan van Jaarsveldt and Zethu Dlomo, the stars of the romantic comedy Fanie Fourie’s Lobola

24 Go Joe

DJ Cotrona, star of G.I. Joe: Retaliation talks to us about his role and the pressure of stardom

30 Directing the Power

Director Robert Haynes talks to us about his new film, the mockumentary comedy To the Power of Anne

34 Director Directed

Sacha Gervasi tells us about directing a film about one of the most iconic directors in Hollywood history, Hitchcock

40 She’s got the Power

Star of the new mockumentary comedy, To the Power of Anne, Anne Power talks to us about her role, and aging in entertainment

46 Running with Lions

Popular Afrikaans singer and actor Robbie Wessels tells us about writing, directing and acting in the new Afrikaans comedy, Die 100m Leeuloop

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40 Film

75 A Lucky Man Identity Thief

Reviews: Feature Reviews

52 Great and Powerful

From The Wings Features

56 Naledi Awards 2013

We have a look at the winners at this year’s Naledi Theatre Awards

60 Bringing Bolly

The Producer of the Indian film review, Golly, It’s Bolly, chats to us about the show

65 Return of the Mack

Ballerina Brooklyn Mack tells us about his role in the ballet Don Quizote and his wins at various international ballet competitions

Theatre Reviews

70 Don’t Dress for Dinner 72 Without a Hitch 74 Don Quixote

76 Hyde Park on Hudson Red Dawn

77 Jack the Giant Killer So Undercover

78 Parker

To the Power of Anne

79 The 100m Leeuloop Warm Bodies

DVD

81 Paranorman

Alex Cross Moonrise Kingdom Bunraku

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82 Dungeons and Dragons: The Book

of Vile Darkness The Double Breathless Peace, Love and Misunderstanding

83 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II The Magic of Belle Isle Freelancers Celeste and Jesse Forever

84 The Odd Life of Timothy Green Africa Finding Nemo Recoil

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Editor Jon Broeke jon.broeke@gmail.com

Contributors Buz Publicity, Donna WalkerMitchell

Photo Credits Zoom Photography, Nu Metro, Ster Kinekor, Getty Images, UPI Media, Susanne Holbaek, Val Adamson, Suzy Bernstein, Google Images

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Editors Letter We have another bumper month for you. We speak to the stars of the new G.I Joe sequel, Adrianne Palicki and DJ Cotrona., the star and director of South African mockumentary To the Power of Anne, Anne Power and Robert Haynes, and Afrikaans singing sensation and film star Robbie Wessels.

As some of you know the Fanie Fourie’s Lobola story was missed in last month’s issue, an oops on my part, well, it’s in this month’s issue, so check it out.

We’ve started out From the Wings supplement this month, putting all our theatre content within, and this month we speak to American ballet star Brooklyn Mack and Indian musical producer Jayasperi Moopen.

We also have a look at the winners from this year’s Naledi Theatre Awards and the South African Film and Television Awards.

We would like to extend our condolences to the family members of Garth McLoed, the musician that passed this month, as well as the family members of Mandy Rossouw, a fellow journalist who passed. They are both in our thoughts and will never be forgotten.

So, as you can tell, it’s a full issue. Be sure to check our website, if you’re not there already, and grab next month’s issue, coming first week of May.

Best Wishes Jon Broeke Editor

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Off The Screen Magazine Or you have an event you’d like us to cover Email us at:

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GI Jane

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The sequel to the 2009 hit G.I. Joe hits the big screen this month as G.I. Joe: Retaliation opens nationwide. We sat down with one of the only two female stars of the film Adrianne Palicki to chat about her role and what it was like to be surrounded by the infantry.

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n the new GI Joe film, GI Joe: Retaliation, Adrianne Palicki is the rose among the thorns.

As one of only two girls among the cast, the other being Elodie Yung as Jinx, she is surrounded by boys, but nowhere near out of her depth.

“Lady Jaye is a weapons specialist,” she says about her character when she sits down to talk about the film at Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.

“The intelligence in the group.

She’s the only female in a group of military guys. There’s another female in the movie, Elodie Yung, who is the single ninja (Jinx).”

Jaye is a member of the GI Joe team, among Channing Tatum, Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson, among others. She’s a strong character, but she has her flaws.

“I would say she has a bit of a chip on her shoulder,” Adrianne says. “She is constantly trying to prove herself. She wants to prove she has the right to be there, that she’s supposed to be there. In reality, she probably doesn’t need to prove herself though because she’s better than the majority of the guys. She has some cracks, sure, and you start to see those when things start to go south.”

The character is not very much different from Adrianne herself.

“Let’s see. She’s a tough,

strong, independent woman who can hold her own with all those boys. I can relate, yeah!”

Adrianne is best known for her TV work, appearing in shows such as Supernatural, Friday Night Lights and South Beach. She appeared last month on our big screens in Red Dawn, another actioner, and now she’s in GI Joe. She had a lot of training to cope with the rigorous actions scenes she had to do in the film.

“I’ve had a few physical roles in the past,” she says. “I did combat training for Wonder Woman and gun training from Red Dawn; but even that being said, we went to New Orleans five weeks before we started shooting and we trained for a good eight hours a day doing gun training. We had to do a lot of unit stuff, like how to go into a building together and look like we knew what we were doing.

We also did stunt training and also physical training to gain muscle and endurance.”

She loved the stunts for GI Joe, getting to do a lot of them herself.

“I have an amazing stunt double,” she tells us. “Her name is Shauna Duggins and she’s been my stunt double since Wonder Woman. She’s really adamant about me doing as much of it as I can and want to. She’ll try everything out

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“My advice to people would be go buy your popcorn, sit back, and enjoy because we’re going to take you on the ride of your life.”

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___________________________________________________________________________ first to make sure it’s safe, but she prefers to see the actor do as much as possible.”

And Adrianne is up for almost anything.

“I’m game, for sure. I would repel down an 18 foot wall in this itty bitty harness.

I love doing the fight sequences. They’re the most fun for me because it’s kind of like a dance.”

Doing all those stunts there was a risk of injury.

“Well, the funny thing is they had it originally where when I was doing these fight scenes with the guys, I wasn’t getting hurt,” she says. “I thought, wait a minute, this doesn’t make any sense! In a realistic world I’d probably be dead, so I need to at least get hit in the face or punched in the gut a couple of times. There was this really cool fight sequence which Jon [M. Chu, the director] was adamant about having. I get the shit kicked out of me, but I end up winning in the end. It’s pretty cool.”

GI Joe: Retaliation is the sequel to the 2009 action hit, but this film, according to Adrianne, is very different to the original.

“I hadn’t seen the original,” she tells us. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I just always thought it was one of those films you need to see in a movie theatre and for one reason or another, I didn’t get around to it.

When I read the script for this one, I wanted to be part of it straight away because I really enjoyed it. When I got the role, I went back and watched the original and the first thing which stood out to me is this is an all new cast pretty much. The two movies are totally different and that’s not to say one is better than the other. It’s just that they are completely night and day. The first one felt a little more CGI and more like a video game, I would say. This one is gritty. The set on this is incredible. When something explodes on screen, it’s really exploding.”

Something that was a little worrying.

“Before a take, the crew were telling us, ‘Okay, if we start screaming, run in the other direction because it means something is wrong. It means the tank is going to blow.’ I thought, ‘What? Fire? What are you telling me

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“Yes, it is true,” she laughs at the memory of it. “John McLane [Willis’ character in Die Hard] was one of my first crushes, so when he’d do that squinty eye look during a scene, I was freaking out a little on the inside.” here?’” she laughs. “It was intense, but I loved it at the same time.”

She is acting next to some of the biggest stars in Hollywood cinema, including Bruce Willis, and rumour has it she used to have a crush on John McClane himself.

“Yes, it is true,” she laughs at the memory of it. “John McLane [Willis’ character in Die Hard] was one of my first crushes, so when he’d do that squinty eye look during a scene, I was freaking out a little on the inside.

We banter a lot during this movie. He’s a really funny guy. He came onto this project mid-movie. We were all pretty exhausted by that stage. We had seen a lot of each other and he reignited us. He added a little bit of a spark and he also added a comedy aspect which I think a lot of us were craving. He’s so funny and sweet and he was really great to me.”

Another heavy hitter, and not just in the films, that is in the film is former prowrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

“He’s horrible,” Adrianne jokes about the big man. “I can’t stand that guy. No, honestly everything that’s been said about him is absolutely true. He is the nicest guy.

When you do rehearsals you never know what you are going to get, especially with such a big celebrity. He and Jon would have us do these intense rehearsals so it would help us find our Off The Screen Magazine

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character and make the movie that much better. I remember one day we were crawling on the ground on this disgusting carpet in a warehouse and there’s Dwayne Johnson doing it with us getting rug burns. He’s game for anything that guy.”

But the other stars in the film are just part of what makes this film something to see. Adrianne is sure that everyone will want to, and should, see this film.

“The cool thing about this movie is that it is going to appeal to such a broad range of people. Yes, it is a war movie, yes it is an action movie. Kids are going to want to go and see it and even my parents can’t wait to see it.

Not just because I’m in it, but it looks so exciting and cool.”

We can’t wait to see it, because, if the trailer is anything to go by, it’s going to be a wild ride.

“The coolest part about it,” she finishes. “Is that Jon has made a real effort as far as the characters are concerned because you really feel for them. In an action movie it’s so easy just to have explosions and not care about the characters, but this is different. You care about what happens to them. My advice to people would be go buy your popcorn, sit back, and enjoy because we’re going to take you on the ride of your life.”

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Love is Blind

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In the new romantic comedy a struggling business woman falls in love with a man that makes cars into animals. The trouble is he’s a white Afrikaans boy and she’s a black Zulu girl. Jon Broeke caught up with the stars of the film Eduaan van Jaarsveldt and Zethu Dlomo to discuss their roles and what makes love truly blind.

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omantic comedies are normally mindless, sweet drivel. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back, they’re supposed to be feel good films that make us forget our lives for a short while, but then ultimately forget them soon afterwards, but there’s a lot more to the latest South African romantic comedy to hit our screens. When the story focuses on a white Afrikaans boy falling for a black Zulu girl you know there’s going to be more to the story than just love and happiness.

Eduaan van Jaarsveldt plays Fanie while Zethu Dlomo plays Dinky in Fanie Fourie’s Lobola. I caught up with them at the press junket at Killarney Mall. Zethu wearing an attractive short black cocktail dress and Eduaan looking dapper in a black dress shirt, a black jacket and dark blue jeans. They were dressed up for the premiere which took place right after we were done, but I was there to discuss the film.

“My characters Dinky Magubane,” Zethu tells me when I ask them to tell me about their characters. We’re sitting in a private room in a restaurant next to the cinemas in the Mall, Zethu, Eduuan, myself and two other journalists. “She’s 24. She’s an aspiring business woman, very tough. She’s not a tough cookie, but she’s a strong black young girl who’s determined to succeed.

Single minded girl, so, she falls in love, unexpectedly, with this fabulous Afrikaans guy, played by Eduaan, Fanie, and she brings out the best in him and the other way around.

She has order in her life, he’s the free spirit, arty-farty guy. They come together and they neutralize each other like Ying and Yang. She lives alone… Oh, of course, she doesn’t live alone.” They both start laughing.

“You should see the film,” Eduaan jokes. “I should, hey?” Zethu agrees. “Okay, she lives with her dad in a township and she works in Carnival City as these ladies that…” she struggles to find the word, but Eduaan comes to the rescue.

“Croupier,” he says. “Croupier,” she echoes. “Yes, and she’s trying to save up to start her own business, All her business ideas are not working out, but she’s very determined. A very determined young spirit.

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You’ll love her. I promise you, you will love her.”

I can’t help but see the characters sitting in front of me in the restaurant, especially when I see how the two of them relate to each other in real life, but they both don’t think that they are very much like their characters.

“We share the same confidence level,” Zethu explains. “We’re both go getters and we know what we want. I knew that I wanted to act, I said to the family, ‘Family, I want to act’, and they all said, ‘Okay’. And I went and I followed my dreams and I think that she and I are similar in the sense, that we followed our dreams, we did our thing.”

Eduaan is next to talk as he tells me about his character.

“Fanie is a late twenties guy,” he says.

“Afrikaans guy. Still lives with his mom, lives in a converted garage. He’s an aspiring artist and doesn’t have much of anything going on in his life. He just kind of goes with the flow. There’s not much about Fanie that inspires one, so, yeah that’s essentially Fanie in a nut shell.”

He feels even less connected to his character, sharing almost nothing in common.

“It’s very much unlike me,” he says about the character. “In like a complete polar opposite of what I am. I’m quite hardcore. I’ve got a vision, I have an idea, I’ve got a purpose.

I know what I want to do, I know what I am doing. I’ve always been like that, I’ve always had a drive. In many ways, I think the only similarity between me and Fanie is I really try to be fiercely honest in my life, like with everyone and everything I do. I think the only thing I can be is honest, and I think Fanie has that. Fanie is a very honest being, and I think that’s the only thing we kind of inhabit. And that’s Fanie’s best characteristic, it’s his honesty.”

“His sincerity,” Zethu interjects. “His sincerity,” Eduaan agrees. “And his integrity.

He’s a very sincere person. So I think that’s his best trait.”

The film begins with Dinky and Fanie meeting, but, as the title suggests, it leads up to Fanie trying to marry her and negotiate lobola with her father, played by Jerry Mofokeng. One of the other journalists asks Off The Screen Magazine

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___________________________________________________________________________ the two of them what their thoughts are on lobola. If they feel the same way about it that Dinky does.

“I have no idea,” Eduaan answers.

Zethu smiles. “I’m a girl who grew up in Soweto, you know. I didn’t grow up in KZN, I didn’t do the 21st uMemulo thing, there’s a lot of things I didn’t do as a Zulu you now, because I grew up in the hood.

I think that’s another similarity that I have with Dinky.

We’re both town girls, we’re city girls.

We’re not like those girls that go with the traditions, we question things.

I don’t question lobola. I didn’t know much about it myself, I just thought, ‘What’s this lobola thing?’

‘Cause they’re not explaining it to me at home, but I know it’s important.

When I was shooting this film I discovered that there is a value to it. I’m not sure what that value is, and when I do get lobola’d I’m not going to argue with my dad. It’s his right. He can do whatever he wants.”

“More than just monetary stuff,” Eduaan adds. “It’s about respect. It’s the only way it transfers to my life as a homosexual white man in South Africa today, is it’s about respect. If you can’t respect your wife and her family then you really shouldn’t be bothering marrying her.”

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Zethu continues from there.

“There’s this part in the film, I don’t know if it’s there or if it was cut, but it’s when Dinky’s father says to her that if your future husband asks you to pay lobola, like asks for money from you to pay your lobola, then what respect does he have for you? And what respect does he have for your family? And that’s where some of things about lobola come from.

It’s the respect, the understanding, the paying of respect, of saying thank you.”

“And you do respect yourself,” Eduaan adds.

“Yeah, exactly,” Zethu agrees.

“That’s what I took away from lobola,” Eduaan concludes. “My lobola learnings. I didn’t know anything about it, nothing at all. I thought it was just money or cows. I thought, ‘Yup, give three cows, there take a wife’, he says with a fake African accent. “And it’s not that at all. It ultimately comes down to respect for yourself. If you can’t respect yourself and be a man about it, then you’re not worthy to marry this woman.”

The same journalist then asks Zethu what she thinks she’s worth, in terms of lobola, and after some laughter…

“I think 75 cows should cover it,” she jokes.

“I’d probably pay R3000 – R4000 for you, easy” says Eduaan. Zethu feigns shock.

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“I think it’s a universal story about acceptance and culture. I really do believe that the story is not really about South Africa, it’s about people. Culture is universal.”

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___________________________________________________________________________ “My goodness, why don’t you just throw in a packet of Simba chips while you’re at it.”

“I’ll throw that in as well,” Eduaan continues. “Or we’ll have a braai. A bring and braai, that’s what white people do, we have bring and braai’s.” They both laugh.

While the film covers the controversial topic of dating outside your race neither Eduaan nor Zethu have ever done it in real life.

“I’ve never dated across the colour bar before,” Zethu answers the question about dating. “I once was presented the opportunity to date an American guy, when there was an exchange student in my third year, and what I realised is that I appreciate other races, it’s just I relate better with black people,” Eduaan laughs out loud at that. “It’s simply that. I have lots of white friends, lots of different races if friends, but I relate better with my race. I just find black men…” she growls causing the whole table to collapse in laughter.

In the film it seems that the black people that are confronted with the relationship accept it better than the white Afrikaaners that se them, but Eduaan disagrees. He feels it’s bad on both sides.

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“There’s a scene in the parking lot at the rugby stadium,” Eduaan says. “Those two black guys find out she’s black and she’s dating a white guy, they’re pretty insulted by it, and they’re quite aggressive about it. I was walking in a shopping centre once in the south of Joburg, and, it was very funny, this really pretty black girl was walking and this really creepy looking white guy with long hair was walking with her, and they were holding hands, but they were holding hands and walking together and they looked very happy and very comfortable with each other’s presence, and these two black guys in blue overall were walking past and they stopped and they went…” He pulls a face of shock and disgust. “And they stopped and they both shook their heads and carried on walking. I thought that was such a true representation.

In many ways both sets of black and white, especially in the Afrikaans and especially in the Zulu, are completely against anything that is other than their culture. Speak Zulu or shut up, praat Afrikaans of hou jou bek, it’s very much the same thing.”

Zethu agrees with him.

“I was once hanging with these guy friends of mine,” she adds. “And they were like, ‘When we see a black woman walking

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___________________________________________________________________________ with a white guy we’re like…” she makes that sound of disgust that only black people can make. “These guys are stealing our woman, and then when we see a black guy bring a white woman to the township we’re like, good catch, its good’.”

They both believe that the issue isn’t so much colour anymore, but more to do with the way you’re bought up. You, and your families, cultural beliefs.

“It’s a cultural thing,” Zethu says.

“Absolutely,” agrees Eduaan as well. “I think it’s within cultures. It’s a problem if you’re Jewish and a Catholic, it’s a problem if you get married. It’s a problem if you’re Zulu and Sotho because the languages are different and the collision of the two cultures is what you have to navigate. This is not about race or politics at all, it cannot be. This is a film about culture and about being human and about finding your place in this world that we live in, as crazy as this world, as South Africa, is.

Finding out who you are and being true to yourself.”

Zethu and Eduaan are so comfortable around each other you would think that they grew up together, but the truth is that they didn’t meet until filming began.

“Zethu is like 20 years younger than me,” Eduaan jokes. “Lies,” she replies.

“No, Zethu’s only 23 now,” he continues.

“I’m 24,” she corrects.

“24,”he corrects himself. “She’s such a grown up. They grow up so fast.” She laughs at his playful teasing. “When I left varsity she hadn’t started yet, so I haven’t ever actually met her before. Also I was in a very different professional film people. Being in the production side you don’t mingle with the actors as much, and I was doing a lot of producing a lot of on-set work so it was our first encounter, but I think we do just naturally get on. I don’t know why, we just do.”

“We just do, hey?” Zethu agrees.

“I don’t think we hate each other,” Eduaan says, jumping back into the jokes.

“We don’t,” Zethu agrees as they laugh.

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The future looks bright for these two stars, especially one that’s spreading her wings, literally.

“I’ve been accepted into the New York Film Academy,” she tells us. “I’m going to be jetting off in August because my classes start in September, and I’m really looking forward to that. I’m doing the one year acting for film course there and it’s going to be awesome.

And, of course, I’m going to come back. And I’m going to bring back my knowledge, because it’s so stupid that our actors are leaving our industry as it’s growing, going overseas and never coming back to feedback.

I’ve got my honours degree at Wits, but I felt that because our industry is small, and it’s not very supported in this country. We don’t have the facilities to teach more, whereas in a school like New York Film Academy it’s hands on. You learn how to handle those cameras, you’re a crew member, you’re writing. I’m just hungry for more knowledge while I’m still young. I don’t want to do this when I’m 35. I hate school.”

Eduaan’s plans aren’t as exciting as Zethu’s, but he’s busy nonetheless.

“So many things,” he says about what he’s doing this year. “There are a few films in the pipeline. I’m producing a few commercials over the next few months. It’s just an array of things that I find interesting. Also I’m getting into farming. I actually live in White River now so…”

Hopefully farming won’t take him off the screen though. This is a wonderful film which is important for our country. Eduaan sums it up very nicely.

“I think it’s a universal story about acceptance and culture. I really do believe that the story is not really about South Africa, it’s about people. Culture is universal. In every country they’ve got the same issues. In the UK, in London, for example, if you came from the South of the UK or you came from the North of the UK there’s a separation. In fact, if your father supports a different football team to you, it’s a problem, and I think this is about that kind of thing. It’s about acceptance and tolerance.”

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And the Golden Horn Goes to…

The winners for the 7th South African Film and Television Awards have been announced. Jon Broeke has a look at the winners, and why he thinks they were given the Golden Horn trophy at this year’s awards ceremony.

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he 7th South African Film and Television Awards have come and gone for another year and the best film, actors and actresses have been announced. The awards ceremony took place at Gallagher Estate this month and there were no real surprises this year.

Let’s have a look at the winners in the feature film categories.

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he big winner at this year’s great way to look at it. Riaad Moosa shines at awards was the dramatic the son trying to live in two worlds at the comedy Material. The film won same time. He’s is funny and sympathetic, but in the Best Feature Film category, won the at the same time strong-willed and stubborn.

Best It’s a great mix Director for a character for Craig and he portrays Freimond, it beautifully.

Best Actor Vincent for Riaad Ebrahim was Moosa, born in South Best Africa many Supporting moons ago, but Actor for now lives in Vincent England. You’ll Ebrahim recognise his and Best face from many Riaad Moosa in Material Sound different roles, Deginer for Charlotte Buys. The film tells the but mostly for his role as the father in The story of Cassim Kaif, played by Riaad Moosa, a Kumar’s at No. 42. He is a subtle, strong and good Muslim boy living in Johannesburg. He effective actor, creating a role that is his own, runs a material shop with his father, played by but recognisable by all South African’s. He Vincent Ebrahim, during the day, but at night works so well with Moosa in the role, he lives his true passion, to be a stand-up especially the more dramatic scenes where he comedian. Of course this goes against cannot deal with the way his son wants to live everything his father wants for him so he his life. It’s a fantastic performance. must keep it quiet, which he does, until the old man finds out about it by accident and then the sparks really fly. The film is a wonderful exploration of the new South Africa’s everyday collision with the old South Africa. Those living in the new are looking at life differently, looking at different ways of making a living, more about joy of living than making money, whereas the older group are still stuck in the mentality that if they’re not careful everything could be taken away from them at a moment’s notice. It complicates Marlee van der Merwe, Steve Hofmeyr and Sanet Ackerman in Pretville things when those in the new are subservient to those in the old, and have to acquiesce with them, completely worthy of the Golden Horn. whether they agree or not. The film looks at The next big winner at the awards the complicated situation with humour and show was Pretville. The film is set in the kindness, showing both sides at their best and fictional 1950’s South African town of coming to the conclusion that neither is right, Pretville and the townsfolk sing and dance but that the same time, neither is wrong. It’s a their way through the storyline which sees a Off The Screen Magazine

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young woman, played by Marlee van the Merwe, falling in love with a farm boy, played

by Eugene Jensen, but her wannabe boyfriend, played by Marno Van der Merwe, tries to step in the way of the match, wanting the girl for himself. Of course they are helped along the way by her mother, played by Sanet Ackermann, who’s a little busy by the arrival of an old flame in the form of an aging rocker who could, or could not be the girl’s father, played by Steve Hofmeyr, and the town barber, who doubles as the town mayor, played by Terence Bridgett. The film won the Golden Horn for Best Production Designer, Best Costume Designer and Best Make up/Hair Stylist and the simple reason is that the film is visually stunning. The producers actually built the entire town, diner, town hall and all in the middle of Hartebeespoort Dam, and the production really profits from it. The costumes are great, the poofy 50’s dresses and the greasers meet the farm boys and the up-tight older woman, and the hair and

The Best Actress award went to Lindiwe Ndlovu for her role in the film Little One. In the film she plays a woman who lives in a township and sells sweets on the side of the road, who finds a little girl who has been raped. She helps the little girl, getting involved in every aspect of her care, including trying to find those responsible, and eventually breaks the law to help the girl in every way possible. Her performance is nuanced and subtle, with really good moments throughout. I will be honest and say that I didn’t love the film, or her in it. I felt she was a little clumsy in carry out this really difficult role, but she was, by no means, the worst I’ve seen, and she had enough good points to warrant the award.

Other winners on the night include Matshepo Maleme who won in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in A Million Colours and Orangotang Music and Michael Bester who won the award for Best Music Composition for the Afrikaans romantic comedy Semi-Soet.

Anneke Weidemann and Dawid The film Die Minaar in Die Wonderwerker Wonderwerker won two Golden Horns. One for Best Writing Team which went to Chris Barnard for his script, and one for Best Editor which went to Ronelle Loots.

For the full list of the winners in the Feature Film categories have a look on the next page, otherwise we’ll see what happens at next year’s awards, if they have them next year, since it doesn’t seem to be an annual awards makeup works great to compliment the show. We’ll have to wait and costuming. All in all the Art team did a see. fantastic job.

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All the Winners: Best Feature Film “Material” Best Director of a Feature Film Craig Freimond “Material” Best Actor in a Feature Film Riaad Moosa “Material”

Best Cinematographer of a Feature Film Trevor brown “A Million Colours” Best Editor of a Feature Film Ronelle Loots “Die Wonderwerker” Best Production Designer of a Feature Film Bathoni Robinson “Pretville”

Best Supporting Actor in a Feature Film Vincent Ebrahim “Material”

Best Music Composition Orangotang Music and Michael Bester “SemiSoet”

Best Actress in a Feature Film Lindiwe Ndlovu “Little One”

Best Costume Designer Nerine Pienaar “Pretville”

Best Supporting Actress in a Feature Film Matshepo Maleme “A Million Colours”

Best Make up/Hair Stylist Charlie Runge and Lee-Anne Nourse “Pretville”

Best Writing Team of a Feature Film Chris Barnard “Die Wonderwerker”

Best Sound Designer of a Feature Film Charlotte Buys “Material”

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Joe

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The much anticipated sequel to the 2009 smash hit G.I. Joe hits

Donna Walker-Mitchell

the screen this month. sat down with star of the sequel DJ Cotrona to discuss the role and reaching stardom in a town known to send the most grounded actors into a tailspin

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e’s one of the hottest young stars in Hollywood, but DJ Cotrona has his feet firmly planted on the ground. The down-to-earth 32year-old stars in one of this year’s most highly anticipated films - G.I. Joe: Retaliation - and although the role is set to catapult him to super-stardom, Cotrona is taking it all in stride.

“I’m not one to believe in all the hype, you know?” Cotrona says, sipping his coffee at LAmill cafe in Silver Lake, near downtown Los Angeles. “I’m the type of person who is always waiting for the other foot to drop,” he adds candidly.

Cotrona, who has starred in films such as Dear John, Love Is The Drug and also the TV show, Detroit 1-8-7, knows his role as Flint is one of his biggest career breaks yet.

“Despite whatever happens from here, my day to day won’t change. No matter how successful G.I. Joe: Retaliation is I have to put my nose back to the grindstone and get back in the boxing ring and compete with other actors for the next job.”

It’s that attitude, a rarity in Hollywood, which made G.I. Joe director Jon M.Chu realize Cotrona was perfect for the pivotal role of Flint.

According to Cotrona, Flint is “very very smart, he’s very efficient, he’s very good at what he does, but he’s kind of a lone gunman. He doesn’t take orders very well. He doesn’t do well with authority and he doesn’t really fit in.”

When audience members first see Flint, they immediately realize he’s not the type of guy who easily fits in to the group.

“The Flint we’re introduced to doesn’t gel well. He immediately butts heads with Roadblock (played by Dwayne Johnson) and with everyone honestly. A lot of crazy things happen to our guys and he’s forced to work

with everyone. He has no choice but to work with them in order for them to survive and overcome their obstacles,” he says.

When Cotrona read the script, he found he could easily relate to Flint and the role resonated with him on a personal level.

“I think we can all relate to not feeling like we fit in. Everybody has those moments, whether you’re male, female, young or old. In everybody’s life we all feel ostracized or as though we don’t quite fit in and I related to that with Flint.

“Anytime you have a goal or something you’re trying to achieve, initially you’re always the odd man out. I think it’s a universal theme and it’s fun to play, especially in this role. The whole arc is there,” he says.

On the set of G.I. Joe though, one thing was immediately clear - Cotrona fitted in immediately with the rest of the cast.

Starring opposite Dwayne Johnson, Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum, Adrianne Palicki and Elodie Yung, Cotrona says the cast bonded quickly.

“Right off the bat, we were all there to have some fun,” Cotrona smiles. “With Dwayne, I’ve never heard more positive rumors about someone before working with them. Everyone from set PAs to producers, everyone says he is the nicest guy in the world, he’s funny and humble. You hear enough of that and at a certain point you think ‘All right, this is bullshit. He has to have a little bit of an asshole in him,’” he laughs.

“But it’s all true. He’s a really good guy, a true professional, zero ego, funny, very self effacing, very self aware, smart and very down to do the work.”

There was however one drawback to working with Johnson, which Cotrona freely admits.

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___________________________________________________________________________ feeling pretty good about himself until he saw Johnson in person.

“The problem is you work hard, you train hard, you eat specifically, blood, sweat and tears for months and months. I got to set and was feeling good and then you have to stand next to Dwayne. All the work I did was completely pointless! How do you win that contest? You can’t. It’s impossible,” he says.

For the role, Cotrona says apart from hitting the gym on a daily basis, he also trained in free running and parkour and combined it with combat fighting.

“I trained with Team Tempest here in LA. When we got to New Orleans for filming, we did some amazing work yet which hasn’t been seen, not even in the trailer. Everyone’s seen free running before in movies, but I can assure you, nothing like this. The way we integrate it with attacking enemies is really incredible,” Cotrona adds, his voice quickening with excitement.

In addition to being physically

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demanding, Cotrona says there were also many explosions happening on set too which made for an intense work day.

“Every one of us did insane stunts,” he says. “We would have eight, 10, 12, giant vehicle explosions going off while we were shooting a scene. Another day I had to jump

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___________________________________________________________________________ over a 250 foot railing straight down to concrete so there were lots of crazy things people were doing every day.”

Doing as much stunt work as he was able to came at a price though. On the second day of shooting, during a scene with co-star Adrianne Palicki, Cotrona got a little too close

“Everyone was looking at me while I was a psychopath,” he says. “But it hurt!”

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to the action.

“Annie (Palicki’s nickname) shot her pistol while she was standing next to me and the shell casing went flying through the air and I don’t know how it got in there, but it got into my flak jacket, burnt my chest and fell onto my, um, area.”

Although in pain, Cotrona finished the scene.

When Chu yelled ‘Cut’, Cotrona started jumping up and down and screaming.

“Everyone was looking at me while I was a psychopath,” he says. “But it hurt!”

Bragging about his war wound to Channing Tatum the next day however, Cotrona was quickly put in his place.

“I stopped feeling so tough when he told me he had the same experience but way worse when he was shooting The Eagle.

Let’s just say I was humbled pretty quickly. With burnt dick stories, Channing wins, trust me,” Cotrona laughs.

When the work day was done, Cotrona and his new G.I. Joe buddies would regularly go out in New Orleans and explore the city’s famed restaurants and bars.

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“It is mostly out of your hands. I’m just happy to work. I’m not curing cancer and it’s an absolute blast doing my job. I get to run around just as I did in my backyard as a kid and hopefully entertain people along the way.

You can’t ask for much more than that.”

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“We were in New Orleans for about six months and we all had the best time. We went to a really nice restaurant like Emeril’s one night and then the next night we’d go to dive bars in the back corner of the French Quarter. The best part about New Orleans was all of the great places to hang out, but that was also the worst part because you’d have to show up for work the next day, sometimes not feeling too great,” he smiles.

Playing the role of Flint is a dream come true for Cotrona, who says he would regularly play with his G.I. Joe action figures in the backyard of his Connecticut home when he was growing up.

“The nine year old is very happy I’m playing Flint and also a little bit in awe,” he says. “I couldn’t believe the day I was on set and I was having an action figure being made of me. I was presented a box with six to seven different versions of my head for the action figure. It was surreal for a kid who grew up playing with these things,” he adds. Surreal indeed.

As the actor finishes his coffee, he says he still can’t quite fathom how he’ll feel the first time he sees his face on a giant billboard as he’s cruising down Sunset Boulevard.

“It’ll be great, I’m not going to lie. But, you can’t take anything to heart in this business. Here’s the one thing I’ve learned,” he says, glancing out the window at the treelined street, while putting on his black zip-up hoodie.

“It is mostly out of your hands. I’m just happy to work. I’m not curing cancer and it’s an absolute blast doing my job. I get to run around just as I did in my backyard as a kid and hopefully entertain people along the way.

You can’t ask for much more than that.”

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Directing the Power

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The new mockumentary, To the Power of Anne, explores life for an actress over the age of fifty in South Africa. Jon Broeke sat down with the director Robert Haynes to discuss the film and what it means to grow old in South African cinema.

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t’s never easy to grow old, but in the entertainment industry it’s downright dangerous. As soon as the years start to add on the roles start to dry up. This is what the new mockumentary, To the Power of Anne, explores, and at the helm of this project is director Robert Haynes. I sat down with him at the Palazzo Hotel at Montecasino a few hours before the premiere of the film.

“I think the inspiration for the film,” he tells me sitting at a coffee table near the pool deck at the hotel. “Initially, and it may sound like doom and gloom, but it came out of necessity because of the whole crisis at the SABC. We were sitting in a situation where there was no work, there was nothing happening. I’d met Anne on this other project that we were working on together and we kind of became friends, and I just approached her about it and I said to her, ‘Hell, neither of us are doing anything, work wise, at the moment, let’s get together’. I sat down, I threw together a few ideas, wrote the script over the course of about three weeks, sent it through to her. She read it in a bot 48 hours, whatever it was, loved it, got back to me and said, ‘Let’s start shooting’. In terms of the inspiration, the idea was inspired by, I saw a show called Cathy Griffins: My Life on the DList, which, I think it was on E-Entertainment, or something along those lines, and then I’ve been watching a lot of Modern Family as well, and kind of took elements, and appropriated elements from both of those shows, and sort of married the two. Then I found out, because I didn’t know that Anne was a hell of a singer as well, so I thought, ‘Let’s really turn the reality genre on its head and introduce a little bit of song and dance into it as well’. It never started off as a musical, but it sort of became a musical down the line.”

The Anne he refers to is Anne Power, the star of the film. The film follows her as she

tries to get the starring role in a play entitled, Woman of a Certain Age. We see all the ups and downs, the hoops she needs to jump through, and what it’s like for an aged actress in South Africa. Of course, with Anne being a songbird in her prime, and still being able to carry a tune very well, the film is carried along with several songs.

“My partner Riaan, and myself, we got together and we brainstormed the songs,” Robert replies when I ask about who’s idea the songs were. “We said, ‘This is the plot line, this is relevant’, so the music is always relevant to what’s happening on screen. It’s kind of like what they do with Glee. It’s always pertinent to what’s happening on screen, and we said, ‘This is what we want and that was it’. Then we said to her, ‘You like this? You like this?’ Initially she was hesitant on one or two of the numbers, but after a while we convinced her and said, ‘Trust us’, and she was like, ‘Okay, cool. Let’s do it’.”

And work out it did. Anne was always the one in mind when the project was first concived by Robert.

“As I said, I’d written the script before,” he reaffirms. “I had sort of mentioned it [to Anne], planted the seed in her mind, but I approached her, basically, with a finished script and asked her, “Do you want to do it?’ to which she said, ‘Oh, hell, yeah, I’m not doing anything at the moment. Let’s do it’. So we got started and that was it.”

The film is shot in the mockumentary format, meaning that though the story is fictional, the film is shot as a documentary.

“That was always the idea,” Robert answers when I ask if it was always meant to be a mockumentary. “To sort of take Modern Family and Cathy Griffin’s: My Life on the DList and use that as a bare bones basis on which to structure the film. That was always the idea, to base it on a mockumentary.”

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___________________________________________________________________________ It does make it a little difficult for the audience to tell the truth from the fiction though, especially since Anne is a real person, but this doesn’t bother Robert. In fact, quite the opposite.

“That was also the intention,” he clarifies. “To sort of, make the line between reality and faux-reality so fine that the audience doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t. And the irony of it is, that there’s a hell of a lot more in the film that’s script than people know, because the performances a re very throw-away performances, in terms of they’re delivered in a very naturalistic way. It’s nothing that’s too put on or too stagey, I said, ‘Throw it away. Throw it away. Keep it natural. Look at Modern Family as your guide, as your reference’.

Now it’s at a stage where people don’t know where faux-Anne ands and real Anne begins, and vice versa. Which is great. Also, in terms of the structure of the film, I don’t want to sound grandiose, but if you use District 9 as an example, it starts out in pure mockumentary style, but by the end of the film we’re into pure narrative, and you don’t really know where the switch has happened, which is also something that I’d always had in mind. I like tricking an audience, if you will, and we have. People don’t know.”

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He likes the fact that there’s confusion. He likes the conflict within the viewer’s mind.

“I like the fact that there is a bit of a conflict,” he says. “In terms of the, what is real and what isn’t. And [Anne’s] also embraced it. I said to her, ‘If people ask, if they want to think it’s real, let them think it’s real. It’s fine’. It gives more empathy to the character of Anne. So, I’m happy with that.”

Besides being a farcical confusion in terms of what is real or not, there are a few moments where the meaning is abundantly clear, and that meaning is not exactly pro-South Africa.

“To make it slightly topical as well,” Robert answers when I ask why he put these obvious retorts at our country in the film. “We don’t want just a fluff, little throwaway piece, so it’s a case of, this is the truth of an actress that is a white actress, who is over 50, and these are her realities. She’s battling to find work, that’s very real. That’s not deviating from reality, that’s total reality. A white actress in this country in her 50’s cannot find work. So it’s not so much as having a dig, as much as just making a statement, because it’s a fact. It’s not like its pie in the sky, it’s true.

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“We always wanted to be a bit risky,” he says.

“And a bit daring and a bit brazen and we thought, ‘What the hell?

Let’s do it. Let’s make the few statements we want to make and throw caution to the wind, and people must think what they will, because it’s factual’.”

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know that kind of role. You need and older actress who has that gravitas behind her, otherwise it just becomes a fluff piece. So I think that was the motivation behind including a little bit of political commentary here and there, without being openly political.

I never wanted to be hitting people over the head and making these political statements, but at the same time, it is commenting on the reality of the situation.”

With South Africa being the way it is, people being overly sensitive about many subjects, expecially this one, I asked if he thought it might have been a little risky to put it in the film.

“We always wanted to be a bit risky,” he says. “And a bit daring and a bit brazen and we thought, ‘What the hell? Let’s do it. Let’s make the few statements we want to make and throw caution to the wind, and people must think what they will, because it’s factual’.”

Rumour has it the show is intended to become a TV series.

“That was always the intention,” he clarifies. “To use this [film] as an example of showcasing what we can do with a limited budget, etc. And then take that, leave it sort of open ended, in terms of this can definitely be developed into a TV series down the line, but the TV series won’t be as focused on Anne. She’ll still be the central character, but the side line characters will be bought in as repeat characters, and their storylines will be developed and so on, and so forth. And, once again, keeping the same style.”

Well, if the film is anything to go by it will be a biting, satirical look at the entertainment industry for women of a certain age, but even if the concept never makes it to the little screen you can see it on the big screen now, in select cinemas.

cast older actresses, even to play older roles.

They’re actually going with younger actresses and then dolling them up to make them look older, because they’re thinking, ‘Ooh, we’re not sure she can handle it. She’s in her fifties’.

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Director Directed

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The new film Hitchcock takes a look into the private life of the famed director Alfred Hitchcock. The film is directed by Sacha Gervasi, in his first feature endeavour. We spoke to him about the film, the man and the legend.

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acha Gervasi is better known in Hollywood as a writer, having penned the critically acclaimed Steven Spielberg film that starred Tom Hanks, The Terminal, and for his documentary work, most notably the rock band bio documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil, but this month he adds director to his list of critically acclaimed work with the release of his first film, Hitchcock.

The film, based on the life of legendary director Alfred Hitchcock during the making of his legendary film Psycho, and starring Anthony Hopkins, was as much a lucky break for Sacha as anything.

“Originally what happened was there were 26 directors who auditioned for this,” Sacha says. “Alan Barnette and Tom Thayer had been trying to get it made for some time and then they bought in Tom Pollock and Ivan Reitman. Tom actually had

written me an Anvil! fan letter, just as a fan.

About three years ago I got this e-mail out of nowhere saying ‘My name is Tom Pollock. I used to run Universal for 12 years.’ Martin Scorsese calls Tom Pollock our last great studio head.

He’s legendary.

He wrote me this fan letter about Anvil! saying how it touched a chord and really resonated with him and he felt incredibly lucky to have seen this film and it made him want to keep going.

So when this job came up they called me in and, I’d heard about it, there were 26 directors, two of them had won Academy Awards, Tom Pollock sat me in the room and said, ‘Listen, Sacha, I love Anvil!. This is absolutely great, but I just want you to know you’re not gonna get this job, but we’re thrilled that you’re here, we love your film, as you know I wrote you a fan letter. But it’d be great to hear your ideas.’ To me it was like a red rag to

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“He’s amazing,” Sacha says of the famed actor. “He’s so sweet to me, without his encouragement and his belief none of this would have happened.

He took a risk. He said, ‘I love Anvil!. I think what you want to do on the script is great. You go do that stuff. And I really believe in you.’

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___________________________________________________________________________ a bull. I was like, ‘F**k it, I’ve lost anyway, I may as well tell them,’ so I said, ‘This is what I’d do to the script, this is how I’d cast it, this is how I’d shoot it, this is what I think it’s about, this is what I think you need to take out, this is what I think you need to focus on.’

An hour and a half later Tom Pollock said, ‘You should direct the movie.’ It was only because I didn’t give a f**k. I was like ‘Who cares? I’ve lost! There are two Academy Award-winners who are probably going to do it anyway.’ So there was that underdog thing that somehow liberates you sometimes when you’re on the outside and there’s no chance. To Tom Pollock’s credit he stuck to his guns and all these agents called and said, ‘How can you get this young kid who did Anvil!? We’ve got all these blah-blah-blah directors!?’ And he said, ‘No, I’ve heard Sacha.’ And he stuck with the whole thing. That to me is old-fashioned, movie mogul-type stuff, where one man makes a decision and it was just incredible that he was that supportive. Then it was about meeting Tony Hopkins. I met with his agents and it was like a Stasi-style interview and again I was like, ‘I couldn’t care less.’ My philosophy is, ‘If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. There’s no point in me being frightened. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t happen. If it does: great. If it doesn’t: something better will come along.’ Then I went to meet Hopkins and he was so friendly. The first thing he said to me was, ‘Me and Stella [his wife] have seen Anvil! three times.’ I was so nervous and he was such a darling. But it was really Tony saying, ‘Listen, I think you’re a f*****g lunatic, you’re crazy, but I totally believe this movie is gonna happen and I want to do it with you.’”

This was the first meeting Sacha had with the man who would eventually take the role and become Hitchcock. The incredible actor, Mr Anthony Hopkins.

“He’s amazing,” Sacha says of the famed actor. “He’s so sweet to me, without his encouragement and his belief none of this would have happened. He took a risk. He said, ‘I love Anvil!. I think what you want to do on the script is great. You go do that stuff. And I really believe in you.’ It was a huge leap of faith for him and for Helen. To say, ‘Look –

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let’s go!’ Because when actors do something, especially about this sort of iconic stuff, at this level, it’s them putting themselves out there.

For them to trust me is extraordinary. I hope I can honour their trust.”

Helen is Helen Mirren, the actress who embodies Alma Reville, Hitchcock’s wife, but she and Hopkins are only two members of an amazing cast, including Scarlett Johansson.

“The best thing was as soon as we had Tony and Helen in the movie it was extraordinary,” Sacha tells us. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Obviously the iconic subject matter and the combination with these incredible actors were too delicious to resist for most actors. We ended up getting the British legends and we also got the younger Hollywood stars like Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel. And we also got some of the best character actors around: Michael Wincott, Michael Stuhlbarg, from Boardwalk Empire and A Serious Man. Danny Huston, who is just a genius, and Toni Collette. She’s great. It was all about the right actor for the role but since we had so many great actors it wasn’t about getting known people but the right actors for the role. Luckily the people who presented themselves were all relatively well-known.

People came to audition for this role who never audition. It doesn’t happen very often.”

One of the hardest characters to cast was the iconic Anthony Perkins, the actor who played Norman Bates, the serial killer, in Psycho.

“With the character of Tony Perkins,” Sacha says. “I happened to know the actor, James D’Arcy, and I was unsure, because he was a friend, but he came in, auditioned and was stratospherically brilliant. It was like he was channelling Perkins. He’s astonishing. In that case we had someone who was a really great actor but who happened to resemble him quite a lot. In other cases we had, like Scarlett Johansson playing Janet Leigh, they don’t look exactly the same, but there’s a similarity in tone.”

In the film Hitchcock spends a lot of time talking to Ed Gein, a fictional character in the story played by Michael Wincott, but based on a real life serial killer, so basically

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“That’s what was perfect for me,” he says. “It had that mixture of British and American. The outsider. Always the outsider. And he was.

But he was also a genius.” talking to himself, though a very dark twisted version of himself.

“Ed Gein was, for me, a critical part,” Sacha says about the inner voice character in the film. “He was obviously this incredibly well-known serial killer – or mass murderer, because the phrase ‘serial killer’ wasn’t coined until the ’70s – who influenced Robert Bloch’s book Psycho. So he was part of the DNA of the story. Originally in the script there was a separate part with Ed Gein, the serial killer. What I thought was to bring in Gein as, essentially, Hitchcock’s shadow. So you had three parts: the making of Psycho, the love story and this story of Ed Gein. What I did was I tried to find a way to bring them all together and Ed Gein was the lynchpin. So essentially Hitchcock is talking to Ed Gein in the movie as his shadow. It’s a fantasy relationship but it’s a way into Hitchcock’s mind, it’s a way to connect – in, I hope, a very Hitchockian way – this very dark aspect of Hitchcock’s own persona and to dramatise it because clearly he was struggling with that. My theory was that Hitchcock was obsessed with murder and his movies were his way of taking what was so deeply sublimated and his own fears and desires and really working them out. The suggestion is that deep in Hitchcock’s soul there’s this fear that he too could be capable of these horrible, murderous acts and were it not for the tiny matter of some directing talent he’d be doing exactly the same and carving up these women. There’s a big

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moment in the story where he realises there’s an essential difference between him and Gein.

Where Gein cuts things up it’s to destroy.

Whereas when he cuts things up, it’s little bits of film to make something beautiful. So the journey is into his psyche, to try and understand if he is like this guy.”

What this angle does is to create a very psychological based film, looking at this iconic director, who other director’s today try to emulate, in a way that has never been done before.

“That’s what intrigued me,” Sacha says about another inspiration for the feel of the film, Stephen Rebello’s book” Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. “There was all this information of complexity and dimension of character. I knew nothing about him personally. I knew about his wife, Alma, and that she was involved, but I didn’t know how long they’d been married or what the emotional contours of that relationship were like. I didn’t really know anything about it. So I was sort of educating myself as I approached making this film, as I hope an audience member would, not knowing much. The story behind the curtain is much more interesting, sometimes, than what we imagine it to be. Or sometimes the mystery we project is more fascinating. I think in this case there were so many interesting dimensions, so many contradictions, so much darkness, so much light, so much unexpected stuff. I was just fascinated by the idea of trying to explore the character. It was amazing.”

And it has come through in the film.

Of course Sacha can relate to the great man.

He was a Brit working in Hollywood, and so is Sacha.

“That’s what was perfect for me,” he says. “It had that mixture of British and American. The outsider. Always the outsider.

And he was. But he was also a genius.”

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She’s got the Power

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In the new mockumentary, To the Power of Anne, eighties pop star Anne Power shows that you can be fabulous at 50. Jon Broeke sat down with her and chatted about getting older in an industry that revers only the young and beautiful.

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ll those that lived through the eighties remember the big pop divas that ruled the time. From Olivia New-John to Bonnie Tyler, these big voiced, and big haired, singers were icons of their day. Well, in South Africa is was Anne Power that ruled the radios, and stages, of the eighties, belting out songs that made everyone in their neon colours and bad hairstyles dance the night away, but when the eighties ended, Anne’s career started to wane. Well, she’s back on the big screen, looking back at her life in a funny, thoughtful way, in the new mockumentary film, To the Power of Anne.

“First of all a lot of the scenes that we put into the movie I’ve actually experienced, so it might not have been totally real at the time we were filming it, but was real from my perspective, just in terms of the auditions, being told you’re too old,” she tells me when I sit down with her at the Palazzo Hotel at Montecasino hours before the premiere of the film. She’s wearing a floral dress and has her hair up for the premiere. She looks lovely and jokes about having to cut the hair off to get all the pins out that are keeping gravity from taking a toll.

The film sees her, somewhat, making fun of the position she’s found herself, a seasoned actress not being able to find work playing people her age.

“Going and trying to get your life together again, trying to get work again, as a mature woman of a certain age, which is all very romantic, but sometimes it’s a little bit frustrating,” she tells me about the film directed by Robert Haynes. “So we would actually discuss the scenes and initially they would be semi-scripted, but then when the cameras started rolling you actually have to go with the flow. So Robert gave us complete freedom to the put it into our own words, and workshop it and make it real.

The film blurs the line between reality and fiction. Anne’s character is named Anne Power, but it is still very much a character, an extreme version of the lovely lady sitting opposite me.

“So some of the stuff is very real and other stuff isn’t,” she says. “Other stuff is faux-real, but what we’ve tried to say to our audience is, we’ve tried to blur the lines.

Obviously I’ve embellished my character a bit because you’ve got to make it interesting. I think if you had a camera on somebody for 2 hours a day it would be incredibly boring, but what we’ve tried to do is to create something with a bit of a different edge that people say, ‘Wow, acting isn’t so glamorous, but when she sings it’s glamorous, but when you see her at the gym, it’s quite scary,” she laughs. “So we’ve actually tried to be as honest and as humorous, but also say the points, which are the real points. At the end of the day this is the reality of getting older. If you’re in business it’s all fabulous and you can still maintain a certain level, but in acting it tends to be quite a flesh game and unless you’re going to play the old granny, it can be difficult to keep yourself relevant.

She, and business partners Robert and Riaan Janeke, have very clear ideas of the point of the film.

“I think all I’m trying to do in this movie,” she tells me. “With Robert and Riaan, is to try and keep woman over 50 relevant.

And so to keep yourself relevant you need to keep reinventing the wheel, and look at areas that might interest younger people, but also give the mature people something to laugh at and enjoy and empathise with. That’s what we’ve tried to do, even down to silly things like the mother, how many mothers do you know who thinks no person is ever good enough for their son? It doesn’t matter, whoever they’re into, no one is good enough for their son. So when we’ve done that in the Off The Screen Magazine

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___________________________________________________________________________ movie where I don’t like the girlfriend, I don’t actually mind the girlfriend,” she says making it very clear as the girlfriend, Hayley Burls, is her son Ryan’s real girlfriend. “But we played it, so that in terms a lot of the mothers can see, and the girlfriends go, ‘Oh my goodness, I know. I’ve been there’.

We’ve taken silly situations, but they’re all real situations.

Credit cards being declined and you’re in an embarrassing situation. I know that most women I’ve spoken to, and men, have been there when suddenly it said – declined and they went,” she makes the sound of someone drowning in embarrassment as much as water. “We’ve actually gone for real situations and also having the generations all living in the house, the sangoma, my house keeper, my son with his girlfriend. It all gets a little bit chaotic.”

Ryan Flynn, her actual son with the late actor and comedian Bill Flynn, plays the role of her son in the film as well. Of course it’s an over dramatized version of the reality, he spends a lot of time complaining about come up, enjoy them. I was always big about the fact that I never had any other job but

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her, especially since he’s starting off in the industry and she’s trying to hang on, much to his chagrin, but the fundamentals are real.

“You know how a son feels,” Anne says. “When he comes from well-known parents. How he has to deal with interviews and auditions, because people assume he’s a Bill Flynn, but he’s not, he’s his own person.”

This film is just the starts of a bigger project, if they have their way.

“The most exciting part of all this is that we’re determined to do a TV series,” Anne tells me about the future of the Power. “I do believe that there is a market for exploring old people, but also including the youth, because there are a lot of young people in it too, across the board. It’s kind of me saying, ‘Hey guys in show business, yes it’s lovely now, but you’ve got to just make sure you keep your entire area of your brain open to other possibilities, because when that play comes to an end, or that movies finished, then what?’ In South Africa especially, you need to be as versatile as possible, and if other areas acting. Well, you know, when I got to fifty it got a bit scary because suddenly those jobs Off The Screen Magazine

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“We are determined, as 42nd Street Films, to actually create more projects, and yes, to feature the more mature person with the experience.

There’s nothing wrong with being young and fabulous, gosh, I mean I loved being young, but everyone’s going to turn 50.” dried up and then you start losing your selfesteem, you lose your resolve, you lose your mojo and if nothing else, this movie has given me back that feeling that I can do something, I can dream again, because there comes a time when you think, ‘What am I going to do with the rest of my life? I’m in my fifties, I’m not dead. I’ve got no pension, I’m an actress, what am I going to do?’ With Robert Haynes, who’s

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my business partner and producer and director of the movie he turned around and said, ‘But there is something you can do.’”

In the film Ryan and Hayley are not the only members of Anne’s family that are real, but they are the ones that are in the industry. Rose, who is Anne’s housekeeper and plays her housekeeper in the film, is not in the industry at all. “It was actually quite interesting,” she answers when I ask if it was difficult playing a part when actually in her own life. “Because the dynamics grew and when you look at it from outside, when you’re watching the rushes, or whatever, you think, ‘Actually this is a crazy family’, but at the same time I think for me personally to have Rose [her housekeeper] in a movie was fantastic, because she’s had a rough time in her past, and it’s not easy when you’re a housekeeper, and to suddenly let her feel something special and different .Also my son has done acting roles before, he’s in Jersey Boys at the moment, but for me to actually have him in a movie with me was so perfect, because I think his father must be watching and saying, ‘Hey, that’s fabulous’. Every single person in this movie was hand-picked by us because they were excellent for the role, and they were also incredibly good friends of mine. So that’s what we found very exciting.

Nobody was in the movie because it was a favour, they actually did us the favour by giving of their time to believe in a project that, at that point was going to be a TV pilot. We had no idea it was going to turn into a movie, but when Indigenous Films saw it, Helen [Kuun] and Diane [Hay] said, ‘Hey this should be a movie’.”

There is a specific moment in the film that stands out above the rest, when Anne is told, rather bluntly, that she’s too old for a role, something you’d think never happens, but, I’m told, it does.

“I have auditioned for shows in the past,” she tells me. “Where I have actually been told when I was finished singing, ‘We liked your voice, but I’m afraid you’re too old’.

What I’ve noticed nowadays in theatre is that you need to be younger to play older. In fact, when we’d finished shooting the movie an interesting situation occurred where I was up Off The Screen Magazine

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___________________________________________________________________________ for a role and the girl I had to play was 65, so I thought, ‘Well I can easily crack that’, and I was actually called by one of the producers and told that the demographic had changed and they were now using an under 40 year old actress to age up to play 65 because they didn’t believe that I had the stamina. I was absolutely devastated. I mean we have this in the movie. So at that point, when we shot the movie that had never happened, but ironically enough, about a month or two ago, when I thought this would be a good role to go for, I was told, very nicely, I mean it’s the producers prerogative, ‘Sorry honey, but you’ve got to be under 40 to play 65’. That made me realise that if I don’t start making my own work I might as well pension myself off.”

With that in mind, she, Robert and Riaan started 42nd Street Films, not only to give themselves work, but to build something for the other actors and actresses in the country that are looked over, after all, we’re not getting any younger, are we?

“We are determined, as 42nd Street Films, to actually create more projects, and yes, to feature the more mature person with the experience.

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There’s nothing wrong with being young and fabulous, gosh, I mean I loved being young, but everyone’s going to turn 50.”

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Running with Lions

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Afrikaans singer Robbie Wessels stars, directs and wrote, with his brother, the new Afrikaans comedy, Die 100m Leeuloop. Jon Broeke sat down with him to discuss the movie and running with the lions.

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obbie Wessels is very well known as an Afrikaans singer, best known for his song Leeuloop, but what most people don’t know is that he studied acting, not music. He applies these skills in his new film, Die 100m Leeuloop, and not only does he act in the film he also wrote it, along with his brother, Hamilton Wessels.

“I was in the Karoo,” he tells me about the inspiration for the film. I met him at a coffee shop in Centurion and was amazed by how down to Earth and well-spoken he is, not at all what I expected from his music videos.

“Working on another film and we went for a jog the one morning, it was, I think, two and a half years ago, we went for a jog and I was running and I tripped over something and the one girl that was jogging with us said, ‘It almost looks like you’re doing the Leeuloop’. You know the Leeuloop song,” he laughs. “I just got this crazy idea for a minute and I thought, ‘This could be almost like the Leeuloop changing into an Olympic item’. I had this thought and

then it wouldn’t leave me, it just stayed there.

So I phoned my brother, me and him we hang together a lot, and I said, ‘I have this idea. We must start writing when I come back’. Then we started writing some stuff and it was just flowing, and now, two years later, the 100m Leeuloop was born.”

Though the film shares the name of his most famous song, it actually has nothing to do with it.

“You know the lyrics have nothing to do with the whole movie,” he tells me. “It was more a thing of what the people know and recognise when they think about the Leeuloop is me dancing and going crazy on stage, and so the idea goes around that, more the dancing and the singing part of the Leeuloop song. We just added one thing, that’s the running, just to make it an Olympic item. So I must say it hasn’t got a lot to do with the song whatsoever, it’s more of a performance thing.

The way I deliver the Leeuloop.”

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“Probably Manie Mol,” Robbie says about his favourite character to play in the film. “He’s like the main character, the guy that the whole movie follows, and he was very special for me because he was totally different.

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___________________________________________________________________________ to writing, having written most of his songs over the years, this was different however, not just because it was a film and not a song, but because he was writing with his brother.

“We’ve been touring together now for about seven years,” he explains about his brother and him writing the film. “With the singing, so we know each other very well, but this was the first time we’ve actually worked together, written together.”

His brother is part of Robbie’s band, which is why he travels with him.

“He plays the drums,” Robbie says. “And he sings backing vocals, but he hasn’t got a singing career or anything, he just sings within the band.”

This was the first time that Robbie had written with a partner and he found it difficult at first.

“Because I was so set in my ways,” he says.

“Because I always write on my own, whatever I wrote I was always doing it on my own, so this was the first time that I wrote with somebody. I feel it was an awesome experience in the first place, because I believe you can get a better result when there’s two heads together, but it was challenging. It was probably the most difficult thing. It had its fun times, but then it had it’s difficult times, when we just wouldn’t agree and I just wouldn’t let go of my ideas, and I think that’s where the trick comes in. You have to sometimes, you

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have to let go and realise that your ideas not always going to be the right one, r the good idea. And I’ve learnt that I had a lot of bad ideas.”

The film tells the story of Manie Mol, a strange young man who is crazy about a rock star that disappeared, but more than that he doesn’t have much, so when he sees the opportunity to take part in a race, the 100m Leeuloop, he jumps at it. Of course because there’s prize money involved he’s not the only one after the prize. Robbie came up with the characters in the film, but I wondered if they were based on real people, or just made up.

“Probably each one has something of someone that I’ve met in my life and on my journeys,” he tells me.

“Obviously they’re not 100%, but that’s the joy about writing, you can add some stuff, but somewhere along the line, on my road, wherever I went I met someone similar to that character that we created. I remember when I was in Hawai’i, I think three years ago, I met this one guy that just never stopped dancing, you know that street dancing where you’re really loose, he danced. Dancing for him was like breathing almost, and, for instance, one of the characters came from there. Platanna, obviously we went crazy with some of them, like the Platanna Boer, Off The Screen Magazine

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___________________________________________________________________________ but I’ve met a lot of farmers. So yes, definitely based on a lot of people that I’ve met, but not 100%.”

Not only did he come up with the characters, he plays several of them himself.

“Probably Manie Mol,” Robbie says about his favourite character to play in the film. “He’s like the main character, the guy that the whole movie follows, and he was very special for me because he was totally different. You know one of those characters where your face changes, where everything changes. Almost 100% not yourself. I love character acting. That’s for me my favourite part of acting, where few of the other characters, the changes where just in the big make up, but acting wise it wasn’t that different from myself, but the Manie Mol character was the most fun.”

Robbie was also involved in the production side of the film doing the casting of the other actors playing he various roles he didn’t play himself.

“We did all that, me and my brother,” he says. “Because we were privileged to have my band with us for the last six years, so we know each other very well, we’re like a family on the road, and we were very privileged to have two guys that’s also really way out characters, in their real lives actually, the ones very short, and the other guys just funny, everything he does he just has that comedy thing going. So that part was quite easy to do the casting because we wrote the characters around them. So we did all the casting.”

A great coo for the film was landing iconic Afrikaans actress Annette Engelbrecht to play Mannie’s mother in the film. She was a great influence on Robbie.

“She was wonderful,” he says about the actress. “She also taught us with a bit of acting skills a week before we started filming.

So we’re very thankful for her. She taught us a lot.”

The film is on circuit now, but Robbie isn’t resting on his laurels. He’s already busy with an exciting new project.

“I’m working on a stage production that’s coming out in May,” he tells me. “We start rehearsals in April and then open in May, it’s the Jesus Blyspel at the State theatre. It’s

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the whole bible story about Jesus and his work. So I’m performing in that, starting the beginning of May.” Robbie is leaving most of the writing responsibilities to another for this project.

“Johan Scholtz wrote it,” he says. “But I have one or two songs that I’m busy writing, the rest was all them.”

He’s playing Johannes, an Afrikaans version of John the Baptist, and it sounds very exciting, but if you can’t wait until May then check out Robbie in Die 100m Leeuloop.

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Great and Powerful

After 70 years we’re back in the Land of Oz with Oz: The Great and Powerful. Jon Broeke has a look to see if it matches up to the original, or if it should follow the yellow brick road straight off a cliff.

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ne of my favourite films growing up was the Wizard of Oz. The adventures of Dorothy and her little dog Toto walking down the yellow brick road, meeting her friends, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, on her way to the Emerald City to ask the Wizard to send her home, all the while battling against the evil of the Wicked Witch.

It really sparked my imagination, which was why I was so excited to hear of the prequel, of sorts, that was being made by director Sam Raimi for Disney, and I have to say they didn’t disappoint.

In the very early 1900’s Oscar, known as Oz, played by James Franco, is a magician travelling with a circus. He’s a bit of a charlatan and a ladies man, taking advantage

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of naïve country girls, both for his act and for his pleasure, but when he’s in Kansas, his way catch up to him and he needs to escape in a hurry. He finds his rescue in a hot air balloon, escaping from a marauding strong man bent on killing him, but getting in the balloon heads him to a far more interesting fate as he’s picked up and taken away by a tornado, the very same way that Dorothy finds herself in Oz years later. When Oz arrives in Oz he’s greeted by Theodora, played by the beautiful Mila Kunis, and using his charms on the girl he convinces her that he is the wizard of a legend they have, a man meant to save them all from a wicked witch. He also steals her heart as they make their way to the Emerald City.

Once there he convinces everyone that he is the wizard, everyone except for Evanora,

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____________________________________________________________________ played by Rachel Weisz, Theodora’s sister. She tells Oz that to become the wizard, and king, and take all the gold in Oz, he must destroy the wicked witch. So he heads off to find the evil witch and destroy her, only to discover that the wicked witch he’s been sent after isn’t wicked at all. In fact she is Glinda the good witch, played by Michelle Williams, and that Evanora is the evil that’s destroying Oz. He joins forces with Glinda to stop Evanora, thinking it’s the only way for him to get the gold, but in doing so also breaks Theodora’s heart, creating a far more dangerous evil than any of them could have imagined.

I love the way Raimi connected this film to the classic. The munchkins are there, the flying monkeys, even the Wicked Witch, all green and evil, is there, and it’s wonderful.

Franco is selfish and greedy as a man that has had to take everything he has, but still

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thinks he deserves more. He has got redeeming qualities though, and knows right from wrong, and tries to do the right thing, especially if he can get something out of it.

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____________________________________________________________________ Kunis is fabulous as a specifically naïve girl who falls for the wrong guy. She’s like a catholic schoolgirl who’s never seen a boy,

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then suddenly falls in love, and then has her heart broken. Trouble is she takes revenge in the worst possible way, by deadening her heart. She is wonderful as a green evil monster. Weisz gives strong performance as an evil witch who wants power, nothing but power. She’s manipulative and nasty. Williams is sweet and kind and bubblishisciouc as Glinda, floating around in her bubbles and trying to save Oz. The whole film is wonderful, and yes, the beginning is black and white, an homage to the original Wizard of Oz, which also starts in black and white. I love this aspect of it.

I really enjoyed this film and would recommend it to fans of the original. I give it 9/10.

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From The Wings ___________________________________ Feature

The Miser is the big winner at The 10th Annual Naledi Theatre Awards Issued by Buz Publicity Photos courtesy of Zoom Photography

It was an exciting evening of glitz and glamour at the prestigious Lyric Theatre at Gold Reef City on March 18 as the South African theatre industry gathered to celebrate and applaud their peers and icons at the 10th Annual Naledi Theatre Awards supported by Auto & General Insurance.

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From The Wings ___________________________________ Feature

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ilvaine Strike's The Miser, about The life time achievement award the madness of a father’s greed, went to South Africa's first lady of song, paranoia multiple award-winning and suspicion, walked Sibongile Khumalo, whose off with four Naledis; many contributions to the Best Production of a Play, theatre includes the title Best Performance by an role in Mzilikazi Khumalo’s Actress in a Supporting illustrious musical Princess Role for Patricia Boyer; Magogo ka Dinuzulu, as Best Costume Design for well as the Award winning Sarah Roberts and Best production of “Songs of Director for Sylvaine Migration”.

Strike.

Chairman of Naledi’s, Andrew Lloyd Dali Tambo said that Ms Sylvaine Strike Webber's famous Khumalo was an musical The Phantom of the Opera won three inspiration to all who witnessed her awards: Best Production of a Musical (Pieter performances; her talents span across acting, Toerien Productions), Best Musical Director / opera, jazz , teaching and above all she is a Score / Arrangement for Louis Zurnamer , strong activist for the advancement of theatre currently with Phantom in Korea, and Best of all genres in SA. Performance in a Musical (Male) which went The coveted Executive director's to multi-talented Jonathan Roxmouth. award for producers and individuals who have Samantha Peo won best performance made a significant contribution to the in a Musical for her poignant portrayal of Sally advancement and development of SA Live Bowles in Kickstart’s Theatre through their vision production of Cabaret. and commitment went to The Market Yvette Hardy, managing theatre production of director of Assitej SA,the Delirium, written by International Association of Ariel Dorfman and Theatre for Children and directed by Greg Young People.

Homann, won two Executive Director, Naledis: Best Cutting Dawn Lindberg said that Edge/Ensemble, and Assitej SA raised the Best Theatre Set Design standard of Theatre for for Denis Hutchinson.

Children and built new The daring audiences and theatre Khutjo Green historical epic makers of the future. She Abnormal Loads also won two awards: Best also thanked the sponsors over the past 10 Theatre Lighting Design for Tina Le Roux and years who have supported the Naledi’s Best New SA script. including Wharfedale Pro, Chauvet Lighting, Best performance by an Actor in a and Distell and in particular, Auto & General Leading role went to Michael Richard for his Insurance who have chosen to support the riveting performance in Kickstart’s production Naledi theatre Awards for 3 years. of Red, and his son, Jeremy won best The Naledi Theatre Awards ceremony supporting actor for the same play. was staged and Directed By Dawn Lindberg Best Newcomer/Breakthrough went and the Master of Ceremonies was comedian to son of theatre icon John Kani, Atandwa Alan Committie.The star line-up of presenters Kani for the State Theatre’s production of included well-known celebrities including Rhetorical.

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From The Wings ___________________________________ Feature Kgomotso Christopher and Vusi Kunene, 2012. Modern Major performance poet,Lebo Mashile, star of Oscar General from the Pirates winning movie Tsotsi, of Penzance had the audience Presley Chweneyagae, chuckling as David Dennis, Young Artist winner, Michael Richard, Jonathan Prince Lamla, and Taylor, Clinton Hawks, Keaton Gugu and Welcome Ditchfield and Kevin Kraak Msomi. took to the stage. Michael De Guests Pinna sang Feeling Good, enjoyed a scintillating which was arranged by Johan line-up of Laas.

Left to right: Jonathon Roxmouth and entertainment from To open the show, Atandwa Kani some of the best dancers from the National performers in the country: Cabaret, School of the Arts Festival of performed by award winning artist Samantha Fame, performed Pictures of Peo and accompanied by Evan Roberts.

Africa. Choreographed by Lauren Jones to Jonathan Roxmouth, also a winner, teamed music by Dead can Dance, it featured N up with Ian Von Memerty for Music of the Bekwa, C Du Preez, L Ferreira, K Mokhosi, K Night from Phantom, and History of the Nche, L Phale, C Schafer, E Stevens, J Stroud, Broadway Musical: A Handful of Keys. and Y Thomas as birds; K Devar, L Mzimaze, I Tamara Dey of Flash Republic sang a Poggenpoel, C Rau, C Roebeck, and R van den song specially written for the occasion and to Aardweg as buck; K Gwangwa, T Mdluli, S mark her first public performance after major Ngoma, M Renecase, and S Stewart as zebra; surgery to remove nodules from her vocal and S Blaauw, L Botha, T Tshephe, and T chords.

Turner as rhino.

The Leonard Judges for 2012 were: Renos Cohen classic Hallelujah Spanoudes, Welcome was movingly sung Msomi, Helen a’capella by Naami Heldenmuth, Lance Gottlieb Liebermann.

Maron, Lali Sharon Spiegel-Wagner Dangalese, Mandla and Sivan Raphaely , Motau, Peter “from the Mouths of Feldman, Rudi Sadler, Babes” to highlight the Carolyn Steyn, tributes to those who Dorianne Alexander passed away during and Ferosa Marais.

Left to right: Michael and Jeremy Richard

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From The Wings ___________________________________ Feature The full list of winners: Life time achievement award : Sibongile Khumalo Executive director's award: Yvette Hardy, MD of Assitej SA Best Theatre Set Design Denis Hutchinson - Delirium

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role / Cameo Patricia Boyer - The Miser Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role / Cameo Jeremy Richard - Red Best Director of a Play or Musical Sylvaine Strike - The Miser

Best Costume Design Sarah Roberts - The Miser Best Theatre Lighting Design Tina Le Roux - Abnormal Loads Best Theatre Sound Design / Sound Effects Braam du Toit - Trilogy: Lot/Betésda/Babbel Best Production of Children Theatre Goggas! - National Children Theatre Best Performance by Newcomer / Breakthrough (Male/Female) Atandwa Kani - Rhetorical Best Community Theatre Sello Le Dipogiso - Black Child Productions directed by Thembeni Joni Best Original Choreography (Musical or Play) Loukmaan Adams & Jodi Abrahams – The Kat and the Kings Best Musical Director / Score / Arrangement Louis Zurnamer (MD) - Phantom of the Opera Best Ensemble Production/Cutting Edge Delirium – written by Ariel Dorfman.

Produced by The Market Theatre.

Directed by Greg Homann

Best Performance in a Musical (Female) Samantha Peo - Cabaret Best Performance in a Musical (Male) Jonathan Roxmouth - The Phantom of the Opera Best Production of Play The Miser - produced by Fortune Cookie Theatre Company & Market Theatre, directed by Sylvaine Strike Best Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role (Play) Khutjo Green - The Line Best Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role (Play) Michael Richard - Red Best New South African Script Abnormal Loads - produced by the Market Theatre in ass with Standard Bank and Think Theatre, written by Neil Coppen, directed by Neil Coppen and Janna Ramos-Violante Best Production of Musical The Phantom of the Opera - produced

by Pieter Toerien and The Really Useful Group Limited. directed by Harold Prince

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From The Wings ______________________ Feature

Bringing Bolly Photos by Suzy Bernstein

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From The Wings ______________________ Feature Golly, It’s Bolly opened this month at The Globe Theatre at Gold Reef City. We sat down with the producer of the show, Jayasperi Moopen to discuss the show, Indian cinema and the songs that their audience just loves.

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ollywood, as the Indian film industry is affectionately known, is huge. It churns out around 200 films per year, so you know its followers have a lot of content to choose from. Now think about choosing your favourite films, films that represent the film industry as a whole, and you can tell what a

mammoth task that would be. Well, that’s exactly what the producer of the new show, Golly, It’s Bolly, Jayasperi Moopen has done.

The show is a celebration of Bollywood, using some of the best known and loved songs from the 1000’s of musicals to choose from, and putting them together with dancers and live singers to make a show that any Bollywood fan will love.

“We want to entice people back to the theatre,” Jayasperi tells me when I sit down with her after the opening night of the show at The Globe Theatre at Gold Reef City.

“You know people are not theatre going people.

South African audiences are very few and far between. If you look at these shows, it was nice that we had a nice mixed crowd, which we always try to target, and I think with this type of show, it’s easily accessible, so you want people to come and be able to come and spend the night out, and not think too much about it, because they don’t always know what’s hitting them.”

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From The Wings ______________________ Feature “I think they must just have a good feeling,” she says of what she wants her audience to get from the show.

“You came out, you bought your ticket, and it was worth you coming out. You took the time to get in your car and come out and watch a show and you want them to feel that it was a good night out.”

The show is all Indian music and Indian films, but she hopes that it will appeal to a wider market.

“I know it seems like it’s aimed at an Indian market,” she says. “Because Bollywood cinema is Indian cinema, but we’re hoping that other people will come and also enjoy the old movies. We started from the 1950’s and brought it to the present, but we tried to take the best of things so you can get people to go down memory lane, you know nostalgia, feel a little nostalgic, hum with the tune. That was the whole idea of doing something like this.”

This show is not what Jayasperi normally does.

“It was something very out of my comfort zone,” she tells me. “So I had to do research. You can’t just go and put on a production, put your name to it and not do a good job.”

Normally Jayasperi is a choreographer and director of the Tribhangi Dance Theatre of

South Africa, a company that combines Indian and African dance and rhythms, but this time she was the producer, not just the choreographer.

“I’m a choreographer,” she says. “This time I’m in the role of the producer, because I had to fund raise for the production, get the monies, but you work hands on in every aspect of the production, the sets, the lighting, the choreography, the costumes, everything you’ve got to be part of and try to know what you’re doing. Then you bring a nice team together. You bring the best creative team that you can, Ivor Jones, our creative director, Johan Engelbrecht, he was doing the sets and design and helped with the costumes and all the DVD footage. All the old movies needed to be spliced and brought in to the proper quality for viewing, so that was very good, in terms of having that team, because you can’t work without a good team.

The two choreographers, young people that we had helping with the choreography, so it all comes together because a production needs these kinds of experts, the sound guy, the DVD guy, the lighting, everything has to come together.”

The music was all from Bollywood films, and with so many films, it wasn’t easy to find the songs to use.

“They were just all time favourites,” she says of the song choices. “That’s it, right through the production, but how do you choose? That’s was the difficulty for me, and eventually I had to go and ask different people what they would choose. I got all different lists. Then I went back to my childhood and looked at what I liked when I was a child, so the first half was more the songs that I knew that were the hits at that time, and then of course take all the common denominators and then decide. The second we know because we know what all the popular songs are now. It’s easier to choose, but to go back in time, that was a bit more difficult. I watched over 150 movies to choose, and I had a lot of help. I had Priya [Naidoo], who was the choreographer who helped with the music. She gave me a whole list and then I had to sit and choose. And then you’re not sure how things will work, Off The Screen Magazine

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From The Wings ______________________ Feature you’re not sure if it will work, how it will work. It’s testing new ground for me, and we’ll see how it goes, I don’t know.

Bums on seats, that will tell.”

She is confident though, that the Indian market will recognise the songs that are performed by the singers and dancers, and that will bring them out to see it.

“They did, a lot of them did,” she says about the audience knowing the songs.

“They were singing along.

Our target audience is also the older folk as well, you want to get them out of their homes, so that they can come to the theatre and watch this stuff. That’s one of the reason you entice them to comes, and then the younger people will recognise all these younger [songs]. You can see the vibe in the second half, it’s all about vibe, but the first half was more back in the day, because back in the day it wasn’t about song and dance, the people they acted a bit more, the movies were not just about song and dance.

We’re not sure when the shift happened, in terms of cinema, but we sometimes wonder whether Bollywood came first, or Hollywood came first, because you’re not sure who’s borrowing from who, you know, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers movies and such.”

Zena Edwards What she really wants is for people to enjoy the show. To have a good time, and be glad they came.

“I think they must just have a good feeling,” she says of what she wants her audience to get from the show. “You came out, you bought your ticket, and it was worth you coming out. You took the time to get in your car and come out and watch a show and you want them to feel that it was a good night out.”

Well, golly, if you like Indian music and films then a good time is what you’ll have.

Off The Screen Magazine Jasmine Peterson with the men

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From The Wings ______________________ Feature

Return of the Mack

Off The Screen Magazine Brooklyn with Sanmarie Kreuzhuber Photo by Susanne Holbaek

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From The Wings ______________________ Feature Ballet dancer extraordinaire Brooklyn Mack returns to our shores this month when he comes to dance in Don Quixote at the Mandela at Joburg Theatre. Jon Broeke chatted to the ballet superstar over the phone about his dancing, his competition and what we’re like compared to the rest of the world.

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hen Brooklyn Mack came to our country to perform in the International Ballet Gala at Montecasino in 2011 he captured our hearts and minds with his incredible dancing.

Now he’s back performing on the Joburg Theatre stage in Don Quixote with the South African Mzansi Ballet dancers.

Brooklyn’s new visit is courtesy of Dirk Badenhorst, director of SAMB. Badenhorst first saw Brooklyn dance in Helsinki in the Helsinki International Ballet Competition in Finland in 2009. This led to Brooklyn’s first visit, and now Badenhorst called him and asked him to come out and perform the lead in the much loved Don Q. The role is Basilio, which Brooklyn told me when I spoke to him over the phone from his hotel room.

“Basilio is a really fun role,” he tells me. “It’s a fun role to dance. He’s a young barber. He’s kind of the boy next door with a little bit of a bad side, I don’t want to say bad side, but he’s a big flirt, so a lot of fun, I get to flirt shamelessly on stage. His love interest

is, of course, the girl next door, Kitri, and he really des fall for her, but Kitri’s dad is not too happy about that because he wants Kitri to marry somebody that’s really well off, and Basilio is just a barber so he doesn’t make

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From The Wings ______________________ Feature much money, but in the end it all works out.”

This is not an easy role to dance.

“Yes, absolutely,” he answers when I ask if it’s a challenging role. “It’s filed with a lot of energy. You have to have a ton of energy to dance Basilio. Also there’s a lot of dance pyrotechnics, like a lot of very technical and difficult steps to perform.”

Don Q features one of the best loved solos any male dancer can perform, the Don Q solo from the second act. I asked the dancer if he felt daunted doing this iconic dance.

“No, not really,” he tells me. “I would

say, if anything, tackling the entire ballet is more daunting than any single solo, and that solo is a lot of fun actually, so I always look forward to it.”

This is not the first time that Brooklyn’s performing Don Q. “This is actually my third production of Don Q,’ he says. “The first time was when I was with Orlando Ballet, in Florida, and the second time was with the company I’m currently with, the Washington Ballet.”

Born and raised in Elgin, South Carolina, Brooklyn has danced with some of the most impressive companies, not only in America, but in the world, including the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, the American Ballet Theatre, Orlando Ballet and now Washington Ballet. I asked him how the South African Mzansi Ballet matches up to their more famous and established counterparts.

“They stand up very well,” he says.

“There are a lot of really talented dancers here. A lot of young talent, and it brings a fresh vibe on stage, and it also amplifies the energy I think, so I enjoying performing with everyone here.”

Brooklyn was partnered with one of younger members of the company, Sanmarie Kreuzhuber.

I asked him what he thought about the fiery, red-headed dancer.

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From The Wings ______________________ Feature

“I’m the third American to have received gold at that competition, the first African American, or person of colour, and also the people that have won this competition are all legends, so it’s a big responsibility and a huge honour to be part of the legacy.”

“She’s also very talented as well,” he tells me. “I’m enjoying dancing with her. We had another show on Sunday afternoon, and the more we dance the better it gets, the more chemistry there is there, the more relaxed Sanmarie gets, and yeah, I’m enjoying it. Also we’re just ten days apart, our birthdays, so I think we have kind of a lot in common.”

Don Q is much loved, not only for the beautiful dancing, but, maybe more so, for the comedy that’s included in the show. I

asked him if he enjoyed the comedy as much as the dance.

“Absolutely,” he says with surety.

“There are a lot of [comedic] parts in the ballet. I know the audience always get a kick out of the mock death scene, where Basilio grabs [Kitri’s] boobs when he’s supposed to be dying, but yes, it’s always a lot of fun, and I think [Sanmarie] gives me something to play off as well, which is nice.”

The audience was roaring the night I saw the show, the opening night, where Brooklyn and Sanmarie danced, but are our audiences always that excited? And how do they compare to international audiences?

“I really think the audience here is really appreciative,” Brooklyn answers my question. “I mean, it depends on the city, I suppose, where I’m performing, or even on the night. All audiences are different, it depends on the day, the night, how many people are there, and so on, but so far my experience here has been very good. The audiences here are very appreciative, and that feels great. It gives me a lot of energy and inspiration on stage.”

But are they as appreciative as the Washington Ballet audience?

“I can’t really say,” he says.

“Sometimes Washington could be roaring and other times they could be not quite as much.

It’s very different night to night. Both are great.”

Brooklyn came on Badenhorst’s radar at a competition, but this is not the only sompetition the dancer has taken part in. In fact, he’s just won three separate ballet competitions in the last years.

“The first one, last year, was the Boston International Ballet Competition, and I got the gold medal there, and then I went to the Istanbul International Ballet Competition in Turkey and I received the Grand Prix there, which was an award I’d never even given any thought or dreamed about because it just wasn’t something that I ever thought would be part of my career. That was a huge honour, because it’s also not even given out often, so it was a huge honour. Then I went to the Varna Ballet Competition, which is the oldest international ballet competition, kind the Off The Screen Magazine

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From The Wings ______________________ Feature mother of all of them, and I received the gold medal there, and that was again a super huge honour, for a lot of reasons. I’m the third American to have received gold at that competition, the first African American, or person of colour, and also the people that have won this competition are all legends, so it’s a big responsibility and a huge honour to be part of the legacy.”

These wins mean a lot to Brooklyn on a personal level, but professionally they are just as important.

“Professionally, I think, it opens a lot of doors,” he says. “Even if you don’t win a medal necessarily at a competition, if you do really well it opens a lot of doors. It’s one of the things I really like about competitions is that a lot of different directors are there, and choreographers and ballet masters from different companies are often scouting, looking for new dancers. That was the way I actually ended coming here for the first time, because Dirk saw me at the Helsinki Ballet Competition where I got a silver medal, so professionally it’s a great networking tool and, even more, winning these medals adds even more prestige and, I guess, recognition to my CV, to my resume. Also it just feels great.”

I asked him which company he would like to dance with, if he could choose any company in the world.

“My dream company is the Royal Ballet in London, and I also really love the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam.”

He also loves the Bolshoi, he says. And he’ll have time now to shop around, I find out when I ask him about what’s next for him.

“I’m not sure,” he says, thoughtfully.

“But I think I might be done with competitions. There’s a possibility, my partner asked me to do a competition with her this summer, and if I’m available then I suppose I will go, but as far as what’s immediately next, from here I go to Japan. I have a couple galas there. Then I’ll be back in Washington after that. We have one last production of the season that my directors doing, then the summer madness starts.”

The director is Septime Webre, and the production is very exciting.

“It’s called The Sun Also Rises,” Brooklyn says. “After the Hemingway book.

My director’s making that ballet and, I guess, over the next couple of weeks we begin rehearsals for it.”

Well, let’s hope that we’ll see Brooklyn performing this very dance on our very shores, but if not we look forward to seeing him perform anything again, when we welcome him back with open arms.

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From the Wings ____________________ Theatre Reviews

Don’t Dress for Dinner At Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre Photos by Val Adamson

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nfidelity and mistaken identity are relationship with Jackie, but, not wanting to common place in a farce, but these let on to Bernie, he agrees. Then the chef aspects, and to make them funny arrives, a girl named Suzette, played by Janna and believable, are incredibly difficult.

Ramos-Violante, Suzy for short. Rob Thankfully, Don’t Dress for Dinner, directed by mistakenly thinks this is Bernie’s Suzy and Steven Stead, at Montecasino, has no convinces her to pretend to be his girlfriend, problem enveloping and for R200 she these ideas, and agrees, but when making them Bernie arrives home, funnier than with Jackie, he anything I’ve seen realises the mistake, in a while. but to keep Jackie Bernie, convinced of the played by James charade, and for Cunningham, thinks another R200, they he has the weekend all continue the lie. planned. His wife, Then the real Suzy Jackie, played by arrives and has to Natasha Sutherland, pose as the chef, a is off to see her role she is not mother. His best prepared for, and friend, Rob, played hilarity ensues for

by Robert Fridjhon, everyone in the mad is on his way from house.

Dubai to spend the This is one of weekend, and his the funniest things, girlfriend, Suzanne, play or film, which played by Emily I’ve seen in a long Child, is coming to time. It had me in stay as well. He’s hysterics from the even hired a cordon first scene all the bleu chef to cater way to the end. The the evening to writing is tight and In front: James Cunningham impress her, but very well done. The Behind: Robert Fridjhon when Jackie timing of the jokes is discovers that Rob, perfect, all the way a man who she through the way the happens to be having an affair with, is coming, actors bounce off each other is wonderful, she immediately cancels her trip to see him, and they are all great. seriously throwing a spanner in Bernie’s Cunningham is great as the straight works. He comes up with a genius plan man who can have the audience rolling in the though, he convinces Rob to tell Jackie that aisles with a simple look. He has a lot of the Suzy, his mistress, is in fact Rob’s girlfriend. Of unspoken comedy in the film, the facial course this is a problem, him begin in a Off The Screen Magazine

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From the Wings ____________________ Theatre Reviews expressions that carry more expression than a monologue.

Fridjhon is great next to Cunningham as the bounce off character. The two of them work very well together and their dialogues are insanely funny. He is also very good at physical comedy, throwing himself around the stage with great comic effect. He also has a moment in the play when he’s explaining everything to the others, and he delivers the lines perfectly with such great effect.

little too easy when accepting gifts, especially from men. She is also a very good straight man delivering lines with no emotion, making them even funnier.

The highlight of the show though has to be Ramos-Violante. Her performances as the very Afrikaans, up for almost anything as long as the price is right, Suzette is comic genius. She is funny, notmatter what she’s saying or doing and had two especially funny moments when she had the audience literally roaring with laughter. A truly inspiring performance.

Another highlight is the set, which is spectacular. It really looks like the lounge at an exclusive Safari lodge, which was the look they were going for. I will say, though, that the sound is rather bad. I wish they had put lapel microphones on the actors. It would have enhanced an already very enjoyable experience.

This is play that I would suggest to anyone. It’s funny and smart and a really good time. If you have ever wanted to know how farce should be done, and done well, this is the play to go and see.

Left: Emily Child Right: Natasha Sutherland Sutherland is bitchy and horny and wonderful as the twice wronged woman, or so she thinks. She’s great at being jealous and showing to full effect. The ultimate Sandton coogle.

Well, until she meets Child’s Suzanne.

She is a ditzy blonde with a great body, great looks, but not much between her ears, and a Off The Screen Magazine

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Cast with Janna Ramos-Violante

From the Wings _____________ Theatre Review

Without a Hitch At Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre

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arce is very hard. For a farce to work there need to be certain elements present to create a very certain feel to a show. The dialogue needs to be biting, witty and quick. There needs to be a lot of jokes, and inside jokes, and plays on words, and various other devices to get the audience laughing, if they get the joke.

There needs to be a lot of misdirection, a person going through a door as someone else comes out another, or ducking behind a hedge as someone walks past. These near misses are usually unintentional, in the play, adding to the confusion of the characters in the stage, and the amusement of the audience.

The new play at the Pieter Toerien Theatre at Montecasino is classified as a farce, but it doesn’t quite get there.

At a dinner party, while their husbands, played by Damon Berry and Gordon van der Spuy, are outside talking to the boring neighbours that they felt obliged to invite, Caryn, played by Diane Simpson, and Louise, played by Jessica Richards, hatch a

devious and ultimately insane plan, based on a story that Louise tells Caryn. In the story two friends lust after the others husband, so they devise a plan to sleep with them. In the dead of night, after the two men are asleep, they will sneak out of their houses and climb into the others bed and then have their way with the man there. The idea is that in the haze of sleepiness, and in their ‘excited’ states, the men won’t realise who they sleeping with, or care. It’s the perfect plan, and Louise and Caryn think so too.

They decide to try it that very night, after some preparation, including a shave of some nether regions. The catch is that the men have devised a plan of their own.

This is by no means the worst show I’ve seen, not even this year, but as far a farce goes, it fell short. There are some very funny moments, the helicopter for instance, but the witty banter in the second act just didn’t have the timing it really needed for a true farce, or to make it really funny.

The play was written by Jessica D. Richards, and I enjoyed it in the first act. The jokes written into the play were funny, but all

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From the Wings _____________ Theatre Review

This is not a bad way to spend an evening at the theatre, but if you’re going to spend money on a ticket I’d rather wait for Jersey Boys, but… If you enjoy somewhat crass humour you may get something out of this show. It’s showing until the middle of April at Montecasino.

of them were vulgar and below the belt. Now while I know that the play was about a vulgar and below the belt subject, some of the comedic devices could have been clever, rather than crass. Farce is known for the cleverness of its comedy, but it was lacking in this instance.

The performances were good.

Simpson’s Caryn is loud and vulgar and laughs like a cackling hyena on speed, it made the audience crack up each time she did it. Berry’s Dave was the straight man, subtle and normal, and quite annoyed with his wife a lot of the time. Richards’ Louise is proper and quiet and very English, but has a naughty streak that shows through in the end. Van der Spuy’s character is loud and obnoxious and reminded me of Rob Moranis more than a little. They were all good, but completely over the top. I liked this fact, because the characters are supposed to be over the top and apart from the ordinary, but some of the time I just wanted them to act a little more subtly, to control the extreme nature of the script, but instead it seemed to get away from them all.

This is not a bad way to spend an evening at the theatre, but if you’re going to spend money on a ticket I’d rather wait for Jersey Boys, but… If you enjoy somewhat crass humour you may get something out of this show. It’s showing until the middle of April at Montecasino.

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From the Wings ____________________ Theatre Reviews

Don Quixote At the Mandela at the Joburg Theatre

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his month South African Mzansi Ballet takes to the stage with their performance of the classic about love, money and jousting at windmills, Don Quixote.

The show, whose name is taken from one of the lead characters, tells the story of Basilio, danced in the performance I saw by American dancer Brooklyn Mack, and his beloved Kitri, danced by South African Mzansi Ballet’s very own red-headed dynamo Sanmarie Kreuzhuber. They are madly in love, but her father wants more for her than the philandering Basilio. He wants money and security, so he agrees to let Gamache, an overly camp, very sword happy rich man, danced by Keke Cele, but when Basilio and Kitri find out about the match they, of course, are not happy about it. They create a plan to run away together, only to be found again by Gamache and her father, but when Basilio fakes his death, with the help of Kitri, her father realises how much she loves the young man and gives his consent. They are married and all is well. In the middle of all this is the aging Spanish knight, Don Quixote, danced by Manuel Noram and his faithful assistant, who plod along and interfere in everyone else’s story. The knight is on his way to full senility and so, at one stage, uses his lance to try and kill a windmill that he is convinced is a dragon. In one of the scenes he also sleeps and sees visions of dryads dancing before him.

I find it odd that the show is titled Don Quixote, after a character that could really have been left out of the production. He’s completely irrelevant, only being there as an excuse to have the dryads dance in

the second act, but Noram plods around the stage very convincingly, pulling the story arc along with him.

The dancing by all involved is wonderful. I am always amazed by the new South African Mzansi Ballet at the quality of their performances. They really are getting better and better. There are a few let downs though.

Kreuzhuber and Mack are both wonderful dancers, even if she had a few mishaps throughout the show, but together

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From the Wings ____________________ Theatre Reviews they’re just not too comfortable with each other. It comes when you’ve only been dancing with a partner for a few days, or weeks. It takes years to get to know a ballet partner correctly to know her movements like you know your own. They were very good together, though, in the comedy sequences and played off each other very well. Their timing was impeccable and very funny indeed.

Chele was fantastic as Gamache. His comic timing and ability to make the audience laugh is very well used and is absolutely great in this production. When he finally does start dancing he is a delight to watch, whether in ballet shoes or the character ones he was wearing for most of the performance, he is wonderful dancer.

A special mention needs to be made

of Javier Monier. This boy can jump like nothing I’ve seen in years. He flies across the stage pulling off incredible turns and leaps throughout the show. He had the audience screaming on several occasions, really a treasure of a dancer to have in our country. It must be said that the company is looking stronger than it has in years, thanks in no small part to Dirk Badenhorst. He has made such a difference to ballet in South Africa, which I’m not entirely sure we would have ballet in South Africa, especially not in the quality, or indeed quantity, that we have today. Our collective hats should be off to the man, but… I’m sure I’m alone on this, but I’ve began to question the introduction of all these international stars in our productions.

The internationals are mostly males, coming from Cuba mostly, but now also from the United States and Australia, and, don’t get me wrong, it is fantastic to have these incredible dancers on our shores, to see them dance is a privilege, but, firstly, I feel that the partnering may be suffering because of it. It takes couples years of working together to learn the way the others body moves, and it’s important for them to take that time to learn each other, but here we’re throwing couples together with no more than a few weeks partnering. Perhaps we should focus on our own power couples, the likes of MacDonald and Beukes, rather than importing them.

Secondly, I fear the eclipsing of our own stars in favour of the internationals. Yes, again, it is great to have them here, but we have fantastic South African dancers who may be getting overlooked in favour of an international. Now, I’m not saying this is happening, but we need to be careful it doesn’t. We need to build our own instead of importing in.

Just a thought.

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Film Reviews

A Lucky Man 2/10

Starring Jared Geduld, Keenan Arrison and Levi Du Plooy Directed by Gordon Clark

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he true story of Cape Flats gangster Ernie “Lastig” Solomon. Ernie Solomon (Levi Du Plooy as a child, Jared Geduld as a teenager and Keenan Arrison as an adult) is a man in search of his identity, but on the Cape Flats that’s not an easy thing to find.

From a young age he gets involved with gangsters, drugs and drink, much to the horror of his mother, but in a world where gangsters are an everyday sight, what other choice does the boy have. He then comes to the realisation that, to find himself, he needs to go to jail, but only when he’s ready, so when he’s set up, firstly by a couple other gang members, and then by his cousin, he

seeks revenge, turning him into a feared man on the Flats and ending him in jail again, but on his timetable.

This film shouldn’t be called A Lucky Man, it should be called a stupid one. It was not done well at all. I understand the thinking behind it, for Solomon at least. He has a message to give to the younger people like him, albeit a garbled one that makes no sense at the end of the film, a message he feels, and he’s not wrong, they should hear to avoid leading the life he’s led. I respect that, the problem is that the message is part of a film that is so disjointed and laughable that no one is going to sit around long enough to get the message. The script is shoddy, the acting is amateurish and the directing is without purpose or focus. The whole film is just a big mess.

Identity Thief 8/10

Starring Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy and John Cho Directed by Seth Gordon hunter after her, and now him, he may have bitten off far more than he can chew.

I loved this film. It’s funny and vulgar, but at the same time moving and touching, thanks, in no small part, to McCarthy. She is wonderful as a girl whose always needed to get by on her own, even if that means hen Sandy Patterson (Jason fracturing a law or two, but she has a good Bateman) finds out that someone heart under it all, and her dramatic scenes, has stolen his identity, what starts when we get the see the vulnerable little girl out as a major inconvenience quickly becomes who just wants to be loved, are the highlights a catastrophe when Sandy discovers this same of the film. Bateman is his straight man best in person has not only spent all his credit, she’s this film, working well with the over the top also been implicated in a drug deal, so now comedic fashions of McCarthy and with an there’s a warrant out for his arrest. With no array of great supporting cast this is a funny other option he rushes to Florida and finds film that all comedy fans should see. Very Diana (Melissa McCarthy), the woman who enjoyable. stole his identity. The idea is to get her to go back to Denver with him to clear his name, but with cartel killers and a crazed bounty

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Film Reviews

Hyde Park on Hudson 8/10 Starring Bill Murray, Laura Linney and Olivia Williams Directed by Roger Michell

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hen President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Bill Murray) moves to upstate New York for his health his distant cousin, Margaret “Daisy” Suckley (Laura Linney) is summoned to be a friend to the president and help him relax. This friendship soon develops into something considerably more as they become lovers, but as she becomes more embroiled in his life, and discovers that she is merely one of many mistresses the man has, the drama begins to unfold. Added to this is the impending war in Europe and the visit of the new King, George the 6th (Samuel West), and his wife (Olivia Colman), to develop the relationship between England and America and it seems there is a

powder keg waiting to explode not just in Europe.

This has got to be one of the best performances of Bill Murray in his entire career, second only to his performance in Lost in Translation. He seamlessly creates a president who is wonderful and remarkable, but at the same time flawed and immensely selfish. It is a portrait of a man regarded by history to be great, but in reality to be just a man. Linney is wonderful as his cousin who falls for the legend, only to discover the man beneath. I will say I was a little shocked at the way the film develops, making it seem that his philandering ways are okay because of who he his, which flies in the face of what I think is right, but guess that was the way it was back then. It is a remarkable film about love, trust and friendship, and the scene between FDR and the King of England in FDR’s study is one of the best I’ve ever seen, thanks to Murray.

Red Dawn 5/10 Starring Chris Hemsworth, Isabel Lucas and Josh Hutcherson Directed by Dan Bradley but after a few heavy losses it seems that they may not have the fortitude to stop these invaders and save their home.

This is the re-make of the 1984 film of the same name starring Patrick Swayze, and it needs to be said, the first film wasn’t so great, and this one is not much better. The idea that n a crazy day an army invades a small North Korea would risk attacking America is a American town, taking control. The little ridiculous, but even if you can look past army is from North Korea and starts that the film itself is not great. The acting is using the town as a foot hold to take over the shoddy and unbelievable, and while the rest of the United States. A group of high explosions are impressive, for the most part, it school students, led by an ex-pupil who is now seems the director felt that the bigger they a marine, Jed (Liam Hemsworth) and his were the less a decent script was needed. This brother, Matt (Josh Peck), form a resistance, is not a film I would recommend for action the Wolverines, and begin fighting back for fundi’s, but if you liked the original, maybe their town and America. They start off strong, you’ll get something out of this one. It does making real headway to take their city back, star both of the boys from Hunger Games.

O

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Film Reviews

Jack, the Giant Slayer 8/10

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any years ago the monks of a fabled land wanted to get closer to their God so they created beans and infused them with dark magic to create a bridge between our world, and God’s, but what they got instead was a bridge to a devastating place inhabited by huge creatures, the giants. These giants came to our world and got a taste for the finer things, gold, animals and people, things they didn’t have in their world. King Eric created a crown, made from the heart of one of these creatures, and used it to control them and send them back to where the belonged. This story now has become legend, until the day the legend comes back to life. When the beans and the crown are found by the wicked Roderick (Stanley Tucci), the monks steal the beans back, to keep them safe. In return for

Starring Nicholas Hoult, Ewan McGregor and Stanley Tucci Directed by Bryan Singer helping him escape the monk gives the beans to Jack (Nicholas Hoult) to keep them safe, but when one of the beans gets wet it sprouts into the beanstalk that connects to the world of the giants. Worse than that Jack’s house gets taken into the air with the stalk, and the Princess (Eleanor Tomlinson) who was seeking refuge from a storm inside. Now Jack and the king’s men, including knight Elmont (Ewan McGregor) travel up the stalk to save the princess and stop the invasion for the monsters that live at the top.

This is an action filled adventure-asecond film. The effects are amazing, especially the two headed leader of the giants. The beanstalks are great the acting is believable from a lot of accomplished actors and the fights are very impressive, especially those involving giants and people. This is a fun-filled couple of hours and worth the price of admission.

So Undercover 4/10

Starring Miley Cyrus, Jeremy Piven and Kelly Osbourne Directed by Tom Vaughan A tough, no-nonsense private eye, Congeniality, 2000, starring Sandra Bullock. who happens to be a young girl, Molly Unfortunately in the case of the other two (Miley Cyrus), is hired by FBI agent films they had stars that could carry a film, Armon (Jeremy Piven) to join a and this one doesn’t. Miley just doesn’t have sorority. Her job is to get close to one the screen presence to carry an entire film. of the girls in the house, Alex (Lauren She’s not especially funny, nor is she McKnight), the daughter of a witness in a especially compelling. Even in the dramatic, or huge criminal case, to keep her safe. The FBI romantic, moments, she just doesn’t capture fears that someone has been placed, either in your attention. Because of this the film kind of the house or somewhere else in her life, to falls flat, and a film that could have been good get close to her with the ultimate plan of and funny, becomes boring and tedious. Even killing her. So Molly finds herself becoming a good performance by Piven doesn’t save the Brooke, finds her biker boots and leather film. And Kelly Osbourne is great, as Kelly jackets replaced with high heels, lipstick and Osbourne. She has no real character, and designer dresses, and she soon discovers that she’s only in as a cameo at best anyway, a pity the girls in a sorority house can be far more because more of her may have helped. dangerous than any of the low-lives she’s had to deal with in her work This film is Underclassman, 2005, starring Nick Cannon, meets Miss Off The Screen Magazine

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Film Reviews

Parker 8/10

Starring Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez and Michael Chiklis Directed by Taylor Hackford part of the heist. So together with his new friend Parker sets out to get revenge, get the money, and get the guys that tried to get him.

This film could very easily have turned out to be another Transporter film, and while those films were not bad, they had very little substance. It starts off the same way, Statham arker (Jason Statham), a crook with a as a not-very-talkative hard ass with a set of set of ethics he never crosses, is double morals, kicking butt and tracking the bad guys, crossed after a job by a member of his not much substance there, but it’s when team, Melander (Michael Chiklis), and left for Lopez’s character enters the fray that the film death, but he doesn’t die. He survives and really picks up. She’s funny and sympathetic goes about looking for the guys that double and completely out of her depth and gives a crossed him. He finds them in Miami, with the light side to Statham’s action hero that is help of an estate agent, Leslie (Jennifer lacking in most of the other work he’s done.

Lopez), preparing for another job and decides They work very well together and give the film to get from them what they took, the money whole other dimension that would have been they owe him. Trouble is he got more than he lacking otherwise. This is great for the fans of bargained for with Leslie, who realises he is action comedies such as Beverly Hills Cop. not who he said he was and now wants to be

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To the Power of Anne 8/10 Starring Anne Power, Ryan Flynn and Wim Vorster Directed by Robert Anthony Haynes it back, while trying to pay the rent at the same time.

This film was a lot funnier than I thought it was going to be. I was fully expecting to be bored out of my mind hoping the building would collapse around me to get me out of watching to the end, but I was his mockumentary follows the pleasantly surprised. The wit is cutting and the adventures, or mis-adventures, of Anne timing is very good. Yes, it is very politically Power, a once famous pop star and incorrect, which may rub some the wrong actress in sunny South Africa, but now an way, and the lines between fantasy and reality aging diva who hasn’t cracked the audience aren’t blurred, they’re rubbed out altogether. nod for years. We see her trying to make a I think that’s the major fall point of the film. come-back with a show titled, Woman of a Anne Power is real, her family is real, but the Certain Age, but there’s no guarantee of her situations and actions, even the demeanour’s even getting the show. We see her of the people, are fake. So it becomes a relationship with her son (Ryan Flynn), also in guessing game as to what’s real and what’s the entertainment industry, with his not, whereas if the lead had been made up girlfriend, who Anne positively hates, and her from the get go, then the guessing game industry friends, who try to help her, but are would not be necessary. It’s a bit of a pity that in very much the same boat she is, wondering brings down a very funny film. where their star has gone and if they can get

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Film Reviews

The 100 Metre Leeuloop 0/10

Starring Robbie Wessels, Emo Adams and Annette Engelbrecht Directed by Diony Kempen and Robbie Wessels Aspiring musician and Venter, who hijacked Venter trailers in his momma’s boy, Manie heyday; and Petros Petros Mali, a pea-shooter Mol (Robbie Wessels) champion. He also has to deal with the is looking for his big shenanigans of Harregat Harrighol, a former break when his competitor who is now betting on the race, mother comes across and the presenters Gazi and Dopi, who have an advert in the aspirations of their own. newspaper for a This is the bottom of the rung in competition, Die 100 terms of comedy. They have used every meterLeeuloop, a single, offensive, stereotype that you can competition where think of, thinking it would be funny, but it’s the competitor actually just annoying and irritating. The story doesn’t only need to is shocking and ridiculous, the acting is so over dance, not only to the top that it stops being funny and just run, and not only to becomes tedious, add to that the fact that sing, but to do all script wasn’t funny in the first place and you three, and more than that, to do all three at know the jokes had no hope to start off with. the same time. Manie enters the competition, This is, by far, the worst Afrikaans comedy hoping to get his break, but he has stiff that I have ever seen and I’m a little ashamed competition in the form of Pieter Platina, a that this kind of film is even being made in frog farmer; Rey Mac, a rhythmic raver; Fanie this country. Shocking.

Warm Bodies 8/10

Starring Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer and John Malkovich Directed by Jonathan Levine

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he world has been overrun by the undead. Zombies that feed on anything that moves, but especially like human brains, giving them the memories of the person they’re eating and a tantalising feel of what is was like to be human. In this world lives R (Nicholas Hoult), a remarkable zombie in that he likes music and art and still has some human emotion attached. Of course he still eats people, but he feels bad about it.

During one such food search R saves the life of Julie (Teresa Palmer), the daughter of the leader of the resistance (John Malkovich). He takes her to his home, an airplane at the

airport, and keeps her safe from the other zombies, but while he’s doing this he’s changing, and she’s starting to notice, leading to events that could change the entire world.

I loved this film. It’s clever and original and funny. Hoult as the humanist zombie is funny and sympathetic and classically heroic, even if he does eat people. His inner monologues are one of the highlights of the film. Yes, the idea that love could sure zombies is a little far-fetched, okay a lot farfetched, but I look past that because this is such a smart, original concept that is done with such good humour that it enjoyable anyway. Definitely worth the look. And the Bonies, what a zombies becomes after it’s given up all hope and ripped off all its skin, are very cool.

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DVD Reviews

Paranorman 8/10

Moonrise Kingdom 6/10

Starring the voices of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick and Christopher MintzPlasse Directed by Chris Butler and Sam Fell Norman (voiced by Kodi Smt-McPhee) has always been a little different. He can talk to ghosts, a skill that’s made him a little less than popular, but when his uncle (voiced by John Goodman) dies, he leaves Norman a mission.

He needs to stop the famed witch of his town from rising and fulfilling a curse to raise zombies, but when things go wrong and the zombies arise, Norman has to stop them, and save everyone.

This is a great film. It’s funny and scary and full of adventure and good messages. The animation is exceptional and the story is wonderful. I will say though that the showdown between Norman and the witch at the end is very scary and probably not suitable for children under 10, and even then with serious parental supervision.

Starring Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Bill Murray Directed by Wes Anderson It’s 1965 and 12 year old Sam (Jared Gilman), a boy scout, and Suzy (Kara Hayward), a troubled young girl, decide to run away together on the small island of New Penzance.

This causes a major search to be called for them including the island sheriff (Bruce Willis), Sam’s scout leader (Edward Norton) and Suzy’s mother (Frances McDormand) and father (Bill Murray), but things get far worse when the two are found. Their tryst illuminates the issues inside the relationships of the others, and when they run away again, in the middle of a hurricane, all hell breaks loose.

This is a very odd, very quirky, very Wes Anderson film. If you’ve enjoyed Anderson’s other work, such as The Royal Tenenbaums, then you’ll probably enjoy this one, if not steer clear. It is very stylised in so far as it becomes surreal at times.

Alex Cross 8/10

Starring Tyler Perry, Matthew Fox and Edward Burns Directed by Rob Cohen Alex Cross (Tyler Perry) is a Detroit policeman, but with a difference. He has a doctorate in psychology and is the best at what he does, and he’s thinking of moving to join the FBI when a woman is tortured and killed by a psychotic assassin (Matthew Fox). Nicknamed Picasso by the team, since he leaves a Picasso like drawing at the crime scene. Cross and his partners (Edward Burns and Rachel Nichols) go in search of him, but when they stop him getting to hi next target he makes it personal, killing people important to them. So Cross turns his back on the law and goes on a vengeful quest to stop a madman.

I loved the Alex Cross character in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, but I’ve never been a fan of Perry’s work, Madea does not interest me, so when I discovered he’d be playing Cross in this film I was sceptical, but he’s great. The whole film is good, it’s tight and twisty and compelling. A great watch for a Saturday night.

Bunraku 6/10 Starring Josh Hartnett, Woody Harrelson and Gackt Directed by Guy Moshe Set in a post-apocalyptic world where guns have been outlawed, a stranger (Josh Hartnett) comes into town to find Nicola (Ron Perlman), the leader of the gang that runs the city, with the help of his army of reds, and his 9 killers. At the same time Yoshi (Gackt) a Japanese warrior, comes looking for his family’s amulet, which he discovers Nicola has. The two men join forces against a common foe, with a little help from a mentorlike bar tender (Woody Harrelson).

This film is for everyone that likes stylised kung fu films, similar to Sin City, overly done fight scenes, over-acting the whole way through, and elaborate CGI backdrops. The fight sequences are pretty cool, but that’s about all the film has going for it. This one is strictly for fans of the genre.

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Dungeons and Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness 7/10 Starring Jack Derges, Eleanor Gecks and Barry Aird Directed by Gerry Lively Years ago a monster made a deal with the demons to keep his soul alive forever by turning his body into a book that turns anyone that hears its words mad, or evil. Knights rose up to defeat him, but before they could his followers split the book and hid it. 800 years later, while Grayson (Jack Derges), the son of one of the knights, is being inducted into the order, the knights are attacked, and his father is taken by the followers of the evil. To rescue him Grayson joins a group of mercenaries, led by the witch Akordia (Eleanor Gecks). Their mission is to find the book and give it to the followers so they can restore it, but can Grayson stop them, and save his father?

Dungeons and Dragons have been around since the 80’s, and this is just the latest of a series of TV series and films. One of the most popular ones was the Thora Birch film back in 2000, at the height of her fame.

This isn’t a bad film. It’s well acted, the story is interesting and the effects aren’t bad. Some of the CGI is a little dodgy, but that’s forgivable. I would have liked the ending to be a little more dramatic though.

The Double 8/10 Starring Richard Gere, Topher Grace and Martin Sheen Directed by Michael Brandt When a US senator is killed in a very specific way retired CIA operative Paul Shepardson (Richard Gere) is called back to bring in a Russian assassin that he could never catch, Cassius. He’s teamed up with a young FBI agent, Ben Geery (Topher Grace) and the two begin the hunt, but unknown to Geery, the man that is now his partner is, in fact, the man they are hunting.

This is a great espionage thriller. The action is cut-throat, if you forgive the pun, and the story is compelling, with just the right amount of twists to keep the viewer guessing right up until the end. It’s a great film if you’re looking for a little intrigue and action on a weekend.

DVD Reviews

Breathless 5/10 Starring Gina Gershon, Val Kilmer and Kelli Giddish Directed by Jesse Baget Lorna (Gina Gershon) discovers that herhusband, Gale (Val Kilmer) has robbed a bank for $100 000, so she does the only thing she can think of, she ties him up and calls her best friend, Tiny (Kelli Giddish), to get the money, but when, during the interrogation she accidentally shoots him things go from bad to worse very quickly. Now they need to search for the money and figure out how to get rid of the body, but when the local Sheriff (Ray Liotta) shows up looking for Dale himself, their plans need to change, fast.

This is one of the darkest comedies I’ve seen for a while. It’s creepy and gross, and quite funny at times, but if you’re not into body parts flying and people getting killed, this is not the film for you.

Peace, Love and Misunderstanding 6/10 Starring Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener and Jeffrey Dean Morgan Directed by Bruce Beresford Diane (Catherine Keener) takes her kids to see their estranged grandmother (Jane Fonda) to break the news to them that she and their father are getting a divorce. The news comes as no surprise to the kids, what is a surprise, is the grandmother. She’s a floral wearing, potsmoking, stuck in the 60’s woman, who still pickets against injustice. During their time there, the whole family, including daughter Zoe (Elizabeth Olsen) and son Jake (Nat Wolff) all met people and begin to question what they knew about themselves.

This is a sweet, though ultimately forgettable film. It’s funny, and interesting, especially the alcohol and drug fuelled woman ritual the grandmother, with the help of the woman from town, perform, but the film doesn’t seem to go anywhere, and doesn’t have any real impact.

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II 9/10 Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner Directed by Bill Condon The final instalment of the Twilight Saga. Bella (Kristen Stewart) is now a vampire, and her, Edward (Robert Pattinson) and the rest of the Cullen clan are happy with arrival of the newest member, baby Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy), but things get complicated when Irina (Maggie Grace) sees the child and, thinking she’s a vampire child and a crime, reports it to the Volturi. This gives them the chance they’ve been looking for to attack the Cullen’s and take what they want from them, namely Alice.

This is a great way to end off one of, if not the most successful film franchises in history. It has all the elements that made the books and other films popular. The child’s face, before Mackenzie starts acting, doesn’t work for me, but it’s a small thing. Buy it today to add to your collection and live the magic over and over again.

Read the feature review for this film, and rest of the Twilight Saga, in the December issue.

The Magic of Belle Isle 9/10

Starring Morgan Freeman, Virginia Madsen and Emma Fuhrmann Directed by Rob Reiner Monte Wildhorn (Morgan Freeman), a writer, has given up on everything, writing, loving and life in general, so when his nephew (Keenan Thompson) drags him to Belle Isle, he’s not happy about it, but he goes and meets Finnegan (Emma Fuhrmann) his nextdoor neighbours daughter, who hires Monty to teach her to about imagination, but she ends up teaching him about getting his life back.

This is wonderful, sweet, inspirational story that is a pleasure to watch. Freeman is his wonderful, old-cantankerous best, but the highlight of the film is Fuhrmann who is delightful as a spunky, wilful little girl who awakens something in the old man. A wonderful film to chare with the family.

DVD Reviews

Freelancers 4/10 Starring Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Forest Whitaker and Robert De Niro Directed by Jessy Terrero Jonas (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), Lucas (Ryan O'Nan) and A.D. (Malcolm Goodwin) graduate from the police academy, adamant to make a difference, but when they start working at the LAPD, things change. Lucas is stuck with a racist white cop, A.D. is stuck with a racist black cop, but Jonas ends up worst of all when he’s taken in by his father’s, a dead cop, expartner (Robert De Niro). A cop that runs a group of cops that break the law as much as they uphold it.

This is not a good film. Even the performances of Robert De Niro and Forrest Whitaker can’t help it, which is odd considering the character Whitaker plays is similar to characters he’s played before, but better. There is just something missing in this film, and it doesn’t work.

Celeste and Jesse Forever Starring Rashida Jones, Andy Samberg andChris Messina Directed by Lee Toland Krieger Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) are best friends. They have been since high school. They got married, but that didn’t work out, so they got a divorce, but remain best friends, even so far as spending almost every moment together and Jesse living at Celeste’s place while he gets his art career off the ground, but things get complicated when Jesse meets someone, and Celeste realises that she didn’t want just a friend relationship after all.

This is a sweet film, but ultimately forgettable. It has some funny moments and Jones and Samberg are very good at bouncing the jokes off each other, but there’s nothing to really captivate you, and 30 minutes after seeing it, it’s completely gone from your mind. Not a bad way to spend a couple hours, but not life altering either.

Reach the feature review for this film in the November issue.

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The Odd Life of Timothy Green 8/10

DVD Reviews

Finding Nemo 9/10

Starring Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton and Dianne Wiest Directed by Peter Hedges A couple (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton) are desperate to have children, but have been told that there’s no hope. To try and get over it all they decide to write down all the attributes they would want their child to have and bury them in the garden. What they get, instead of a resolution, is a ten year old boy, Timothy (CJ Adams). He’s everything they could have wanted, having all the attributes that they put in the box, but he also has leaves in a box and a secret that will change their lives forever.

This is sweet family film done in the way only Disney can. It’s fun and family friendly and has a wonderful message, but be warned, have the tissues on hand because the ending is a real tear jerker.

Starring the voices of Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres and Alexander Gould Directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich When Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould), a young clown fish, is taken by a diver his father, Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) goes on a massive search to find his son. He’s aided by a forgetful fish (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), who can’t remember anything for more than a couple of minutes, and together they face off against sharks, jellyfish and people in an attempt to save his son.

Meanwhile Nemo finds himself in a tank in a dentist’s office among other fish, one of which has the need to escape.

This is fantastic Disney fare for the kids. It’s fun and funny and incredibly sweet. If you haven’t seen it before then it’s high time you did. If you have then it’s time to buy it so you can enjoy it over and over again.

Africa 8/10

Recoil 6/10

Narrated by David Attenborough Africa is a documentary series about the oldest continent in the world. Narrated by well-known animal man David Attenborough, the show has an in depth look at several regions on the continent, from the Kalahari, in the pilot episode, to The Savannah, to the Congo, to the Cape, having a look, not only at the animals that live in these places, but also at unique geological features that make these regions, and the continent itself, what it is today.

This is a lovely documentary series, if you’re into that kind of thing. The visuals are incredible getting so close to the animals that you can smell their breath, so close to the bugs they have the ability to creep you out. I especially liked the look at the geological features of the regions, such as caves and mountains, especially the places I didn’t know existed, very educational, and the interviews with the film makers at the end of the episodes, the Eye to Eye section. It’s fascinating to see exactly how they got those incredible images. If you’re a fan of animals and wildlife, this is a series I would definitely recommend.

Starring Steve Austin, Danny Trejo and Serinda Swan Directed by Terry Miles Ryan Varrett (Steve Austin) is a man out for justice, and vengeance. A former Dallas police officer he sets off on a search for vigilante justice after his family are gunned down, but when he goes to the small hell-hole of a town Hope to find a rapist who was let off, Rex (Noel Gugliemi) he finds more than he bargained for. Rex is the brother of Drayke (Danny Trejo), the leader of a gang of bikers, the Circle, who run the town, and everyone in it, so when Ryan kills Rex he starts a war, but that’s when he discovers the connection between him and Drayke.

This film is nothing special, but it’s not the worst film I’ve seen either. Austin, Serinda Swan as the motel owner, and Trejo each give believable performances and the fights are pretty good. If you like action, and the wrestling heroes, then you’ll like this film.

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