NZ government weighs into Hobbit dispute
Source: smh.com.au
The New Zealand government is backing filmmaker Peter Jackson’s position in a union dispute that’s erupted over his latest Tolkien saga The Hobbit.
Jackson and his Hollywood backers have threatened to move the production from New Zealand after an actors’ union called for an international boycott of the film because he would not allow it to negotiate on behalf of its members.
The government said it had received legal advice that the film’s producers could be breaking industrial laws if they negotiated an agreement with the union, as actors were regarded as individual contractors, not employees.
“It would potentially represent price fixing for Peter Jackson or any other movie producers to enter into a collective agreement,” a spokesman for Attorney General Christopher Finlayson said.
The union, NZ Actors Equity, is linked to Australia’s Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), which Jackson has accused of “bully-boy” tactics as part of a campaign to muscle in on the New Zealand film industry.
New Zealand’s main union body said the conservative government should not take sides in the industrial dispute, calling on Finlayson to instead try to find a solution to the impasse
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Chloe Moretz as The Hunger Games’ Katniss is a Bad Idea
Source: andyatthemovies.com
About the only thing similar actress Chloe Moretz and The Hunger Games’ fictional Katniss Everdeen have in common is both have kicked a lot of ass and both have seen a boatload of blood. I’m referring, tounge-in-cheek, to Moretz’s performances as Hit Girl in last April’s Kick-Ass, as well as her role as the blood-thirsty, yet tender-hearted, vampire in Let Me In, opening this Friday. Those are the only similarities and if the rumors of Moretz being considered for the role of Katniss are true, that is a bad, bad, bad idea on two main fronts.
First and foremost, Chloe Moretz looks absolutely nothing like Katniss Everdeen. Moretz has pale skin and is a dishwater blonde, whereas Collins describes Katniss as having long, black hair (usually in a braid of sorts), grayish eyes and olive-colored skin, traits that specifically mark residents of The Seam, the poorest of poor miners in District 12. Short of a huge makeover, which I suppose is possible, Moretz simply doesn’t fit the part. And that leads me to my last point.
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Will Darren Aronofsky end up directing ‘Wolverine 2’?
Source: smh.com.au
No. Probably not.
But let’s look at why this conversation is even possible.
How do you get from “the maker of ‘Pi’ and ‘Requiem For A Dream'” to “the director of ‘Wolverine 2′”?
Well, for one thing, if you’re the maker of “Pi” and “Requiem For A Dream” and “The Fountain” and “The Wrestler” and “Black Swan,” you are not the guy who is paying the light bills at 20th Century Fox. If you’re the guy who made “Wolverine 2” for a respectable price and kept the studio’s movie star happy, then you might be the guy paying the light bills. And that changes things.
Darren Aronofsky’s had an amazing career, and whether you like or dislike his work, what he was created is distinct and alive and fascinating, worth studying and revisiting. I haven’t seen his new film yet, but it’s the first new movie I’ll see once I land in Toronto next week. His work is that significant.
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Sighs at the Hobbit news – this movie just keeps hitting roadblocks ….
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