By Vashti Trisawati Abhidana

Viewers tend to be critical when they see a movie which doesn’t match with the book, their imagination or even the animation. The fans of “Avatar”, were really expecting that the life shoot movie “The Last Air Bender” will be spectacular, unbearable and exhilarating. Nickelodeon which released the animation series through its channel and published the comic series was really a phenomenon. From Kids to adults, they love the storytelling and the characters. We never get bored to read and see it over and over again. It took six years for constructing the mythology for Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko the creator of “Avatar” the series.

If we compare the visualization between the animation and the feature film, there are some similarities: the Water-Earth-Fire-Air and the first book is Water in the opening scene, although without any voice over. Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and his sister Katara (Nicola Peltz) try to hunt sea lion for feeding the people in their village. Suddenly under the thin ice, they find a shimmering ray of light and after they break it, it emerges a giant ice ball. The curious Katara breaks the ball and a bright light bursting out, and then both meet Ang and Appa for the first time. Katara feels this boy is special and her grandmother confirms that Ang is the Avatar, who will give the balance of four nations.

Actually three nations are suffering from the greed and the monstrous of Fire Nation. This nation wants to be the ruler of the world, define and concur and contain all the benders in each nation. Because Fire Nation knows that the Avatar will emerge from the one of the monks of Air nation, they wipe out all the monks of this nation. And this devastated Ang when he went to the monastery. He didn’t realize that he left the monastery for 100 years.

At the same time Zuko (Dev Patel) the abandon prince from the Fire nation determine to hunt down the Avatar, just to impress his father, Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis).  Although the Avatar is the master of all elements, Ang only empower the air bender. He needs to learn the other three. As a result he starts his journey from South to the North Nation for taking his first lesson: mastering the water element.

Probably from the commercial side, the movie can be continuous such as Harry Potter which each episode gained box office successfully, and also consistent with the books. Furthermore M. Night Shyamalan visions that this movie will be long lasting and memorable such as The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. If the scriptwriter tries to put all the books in one whole movie, it will be a disaster. The viewers will miss the richness of the mythology storytelling. Thus DiMartino and Konietzko helped out for scaling down the screenplay development.

However cutting and adapting from the animation TV series into a motion picture makes some of the fans were disappointed. “I didn’t see Ang changed into a big fish when he wiped out the Fire nation’s warships. Sokka and Ang were too serious, where’s their humorous side?” Said Viggo, a third grade student who mostly every night still asked his Dad to read the comic. He also pint-point some characters didn’t appear in the movie.

Jackson Rathbone who played Sokka is totally different with the genuine character. Although he is the big brother of Katara and has to protect her sister who is the last water bender in the South, Sokka tend to be silly and clumsy. Nevertheless in the movie he tends to be stiff and cheerless.  Maybe he still can’t put away his vampire character in “Twilight”. Noah Ringer as Ang is also has a different personality. Although he’s the chosen one to be the next Avatar from the Air nation, he is still a kid who is innocent, joyful, playful and lighthearted. However for 2 hours, we see Ang as an ‘adult’ inside a child’s body.

Putting M. Night Shyamalan as a director is also a big challenge. His experience is more to storytelling without the grandiose fight-war-mythology and playing around with the sophisticated CGI. “I was scared to death every day of shooting, as it could be so overwhelming, and there were so many unknowns. This movie is two-and-a-half times bigger than anything I have ever done,” said the successful ‘Six Sense’ film director. Maybe if Peter Jackson on the director seat, he will stick to the story and the fighting-war scene might an eye opener.

Even though the story is bleak, and some of the characters are miserable to watch, I still love Ang’s fighting scene nearly the end of the movie. His slide and flip moves entertained me for a minute. The ‘cute’ Ang at least proofs that he is good in martial arts.

By Vashti Trisawati Abhidana

Will Angelina Jolie the new Jean Bond? Using the premise of James Bond style, she will be, or even will be more deadly. Her previous action films such as “Lara Croft” sequels, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, or “Wanted” proves she has the skill to carry out the action scenes by herself. The idea of “Salt” actually came from Amy Pascal few years ago when she was ready to make the new James Bond movie, and Angelina Jolie reacted that she wanted to be the James Bond. At least in “Salt” her dream comes true.

After the end of the cold war between US and USSR, and the communist era in Russia, the spy thriller genre tends to be changed too.  Usually in the 70s and 80s, spy movies were dominated with KGB vs CIA. After watching “Salt”, the endurance tension between these two espionage agencies is still interesting to watch. Although KGB is part of history, nevertheless former KGBs are still playing their role intelligently. They’re well planned to reach their goal: destroy the enemy inside-out by recruiting orphanages or kidnapping children who had the potential to be the sleeper spies. Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) trained them well. He brain-washed these kids to think, breathe and live like the Americans.

“I have no doubt that sleeper spies are out there,” says Phillip Noyce, director of the film.  “It’s been a part of spycraft since day one.  Even before reading Kurt Wimmer’s script, I was fascinated by the question of what might happen if long at rest sleeper spies were suddenly called to action.”

A year after Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) freed from North Korea, she faces a bigger problem when she has to conduct an interrogation on Orlov, his previous mentor. During a short interrogation, Orlov said the key words and the passage to confuse the viewers begin. Is it true that she’s a Russian spy? Or does she still hold her oath as a CIA agent, or even playing both sides? Even Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) his colleague and supervisor in the CIA still believe that Salt wouldn’t betray her country. His character was constantly defending her, but William Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) swiftly didn’t believe her. Moreover, does she recognize Orlov during the interrogation? You must decide.

With the uncertainty situation, it’s normal that Salt must defend herself. She has to escape from the agony. As a well trained spy, we can expect she will be hard to catch. She just wants to save her husband from this damned situation. We can understand her determination to find her husband, because we can feel her normal livelihood with her husband who can understand her as one of the best espionage.

The poster tagline “Who is Salt?” is completely make the viewers can’t guess which one she stands for. It’s really smart to put this line on the poster. Her chameleon appearances and character give the movie some spices. We wouldn’t see some hyper-real scene like “Wanted” or the over confidence female spy like we use too perceive in other action-thriller movies. I think James Bond will envy her or even Jason Bourne in his Bourne series will appraise her!

It’s quiet playing your brain to see this movie; especially when we’ve been bombardier with the contra Islamic terrorist movies lately. Also it’s a clever idea to change from a male espionage to a female. If they stick with a male spy, the movie might be dried and ended up just like another Bourne series. “She’s an incredible actress who would bring such depth and realism to a very enigmatic character.  Having that realism in an otherwise fantastical story was very important, and we were beyond thrilled when she responded to the role,” said Sunil Perkash, the producer.

Changing the main character from Edwin Salt to Evelyn Salt brought huge consequences in the script. The dynamic in every scene, how a female reacts and decides, or even the fight scenes is interesting to watch. So… don’t wait, just go to the nearest cinema!

Jakarta, July 30, 2010

Vashti Trisawati Abhidana

In “The Sorcerer Apprentice”, it needs a thousand years to find the best wizard apprentice and it’s Balthazar Blake’s (Nicolas Cage) missions to find the right one. Whoever wears the dragon ring, fits perfectly in his/her finger and the important part is the dragon sculpting “feels” comfortable on it, than voila… he or she will be the next powerful sorcerer, named the Prime Merlinean. Actually Balthazar Blake is one of Merlin’s disciples. Together with Victoria (Monica Bellucci) and Maxim Hovarth (Alfred Molina) they are the trio wizard masters. However Hovarth chooses to cross into the dark side and together with his new witch master, Morgana, kills Merlin.

Before Merlin passed away, he handed the dragon ring to Balthazar and said that only the Prime Merlinean can defeat Morgana. Nevertheless the battle continues and Veronica gives her body and soul to tie Morgana and trap this evil witch into a similar ‘babushka’ Russian nesting wooden doll. This doll is getting bigger every time when Balthazar defeats evil sorcerers, including Maxim Hovarth.

This linear story about good and evil wizards is easy to digest. “It’s a story about two quests,” explains Bruckheimer. “Balthazar has been searching the world through the centuries for his apprentice, and Dave then has to discover his true potential as a human being,” he added. Various visual effects and CGI are entertaining and well made. There’s no differences between Nicolas Cage as Balthazar in this movie or as Ben Gates in “National Treasure”. This is his seventh time collaboration with Jerry Bruckheimer as the producer. Only his appearance make the difference:  the hobo-grungy looking who owns a curio shop, with tons of curses creepy treasures. However through this antique shop, Balthazar meets Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel), a fourth grade boy, who tries to catch his love note from Becky Barnes (Teresa Palmer) during his field trip with his schoolmates. After a brief chat, Baltahazar offers the dragon ring to him.

This ordinary fourth grade dorky boy, stuns when the dragon ring fits and stays put in his finger. Balthazar is so relieve to have ‘the one’ who will defeat Morgana. In the middle of persuading Dave to be his apprentice, the wooden doll is unexpectedly broken then Maxim Hovarth appears. Balthazar and Hovarth try to cream and struggle each other to catch the babushka doll. Hovarth wants to release Morgana and demolish the world; on the other hand Balthazar wants to protect it from his wicked friend.

Ten years later, Dave is still the unpopular, nerdy, and absentminded guy. He creates his own world by inventing music-lightning machine in the underground subway wreckage. Jay Baruchel’s role as Dave Stutler reminds me when he was the guest star in one “Numbers” TV series. He played as the whiz kid who could predict the best batter and player of baseball games based on his formula.

Unconditionally when he teaches physics in the classroom, he meets Becky Barnes again. Besides as a student at New York University, Becky is also works as a DJ in her campus radio station. Afterward we can see Dave’s journey between impressing Becky through his inventor and learn the fast way to be the Prime Merlinean.

This movie is a modern Harry Potter sorcerer type and John Turteltaub, the director, portrays Hovarth wickedness without being scary at all.  This evil sorcerer rides an ultra modern car and wears flamboyant wardrobes, and matches with his apprentice, Drake Stone (Tobby Kebbel), a modern punk-devilish opportunistic illusionist who leaves in his tacky-gold apartment. As we understand Disney’s approach is always entertaining without any violent and sadistic visual graphic.

Probably the interesting part is that all kind of magic in a modern world will always related with physics, which we wouldn’t see in Harry Potter. The verdict? If you just want to ease your head, and don’t want to think heavily, “The Sorcerer Apprentice” definitely will entertain you. At least you won’t get irritated after you leave the cinema.

(PEOPLE.com) — With less than a week left in jail, Lindsay Lohan is now thinking — and worrying — about what comes next: her mandatory three months in rehab.

“She’s a little upset right now,” her attorney Shawn Chapman Holley said after visiting the actress Tuesday. “She’d like to spend some time with her family, and there’s at least some question as to whether or not she’ll have to go directly to rehab.”

Prosecutors confirmed Tuesday that Lohan must report to a Los Angeles-based residential rehab facility 24 hours after her release from jail, which likely will be Sunday or Monday, but her attorney is concerned “there’s a push now for her to go directly to rehab from jail.”

“I think it would only be fair for her to spend some time with her family and that’s what she’d like for me to emphasize to judge,” says Holley.

Lohan, 24, has been jailed at the women’s facility in Lynwood, California, since July 20 for a 90-day sentence for violating probation in a DUI case. Her term is being reduced due to overcrowding.

See full article at PEOPLE.com.

Source : By Mike Fleeman and Mussarat Bata, PEOPLE.com

Vashti Trisawati Abhidana

The third installment of the Twilight Saga is hoping to grab guy viewers more. Is it successful?  With the fighting scene between good and bad vampires and the veracious wolf pack it might be.  Nevertheless the female audiences still have to drag their boyfriends to sit and watch or at least they must go together with other couples. It’s always interesting to see how this movie can make hysteria to female audiences; from mommy groupies to expressive tweens were so excited to watch their heartthrob: Robert Pattinson vs Taylor Lautner. Once more, their imaginary prince makes their heartbeats pounding and the whole theater suddenly rocked. “Eclipse is the only one consistent with the book. David Slade (the director-red) can capture the action and the romance nicely,” said Penty Djani, one of the enthusiastic Twimom who saw on the 1^st day release with others Twimoms.

Some of them really enjoyed it, but others were disappointed especially if they read the book series for 40 times! “Bella should be more confused and not pro Edward. Although all girls love Robert Pattinson, but for me his character is too mushy,” said Karina, a student from University of Indonesia. This vampire freak loves the book so dearly and it disturbed her mood when the fans were screaming out loud expressing their feelings.  Vampires are always fascinate her because usually they’ve been described as an incredibly handsome, well mannered, rich, intelligent and express their love with the fullness.

After the opening night terror scene which Bela’s nemesis,Veronica (Bryce Dallas Howard), changed Riley (Xavier Samuel) to be her second in command to build a newborn vampire army, the scene jumps into the romantic meadow.   Edward asks Bella several times to marry him, and Bella response jokingly that she’s still a young teenager. If Edward wants her so badly, he has to change her. It is weird to see a guy is so desperately to marry in a young age. In the real life, young guys still want to do crazy things. Well he’s not human after all, and his age is nearly 100.

Compare with the previous movies, Bella’s character is more confident and sometimes sarcastic-humorous when she has to chill out between Edward and Jacob. She has tried to be the “Swiss” girl, although her heart tugs to Edward. During the romantic-conflict triangle love, Riley and his army are also escalating the terror. The Cullen family realizes that Bella is in danger, after Alice has told her vision. Afterwards, Edward became more and more protective to her girlfriend, while Jacob asks Bella to open her heart and admit the love she always have for him.

Although both are struggling to win Bella’s heart and facing the danger of the girl’s life which they love so deeply, in a second they come to their senses. Jacob voluntarily wants to join the Cullens to fight Veronica-Riley’s army. Jasper whom is the best fighter of the Cullen’s family member trains the vampires and the wolf-pack. For guys this is the scene that you’re waiting for, after half of the movie seeing the Jacob–Edward jealousy, and also the snippets of the new born vampires terror in the dark. Don’t expect you will find the fighting scene like the Blade movies. Keep in mind the martial art technique is full with CGI and the super fast movement ala vampire. So how about the wolf pack? When fighting with the vampires, they are really veraciously and savagely animals with their humongous sizes, although we wouldn’t see bloodbath everywhere.

For ordinary viewers who just want to continue to see all the sagas until the end, Eclipse’s more dynamic, lively and nice to see. Sometimes we can laugh to hear Bela’s spontaneous comments when the boys are getting tense. The over protective and traditionalist Edward will make girls screams louder. Although it seems he’s the perfect prince, nevertheless he has limitation too. His ice cold body can’t give warmth when Bela needs it most. Jacob’s character is way much mature comparing in New Moon. Sometimes he is tense with anger and desperation, or just laid back and tease or mock Bela’s stupidity to choose Edward.

The downside of this movie is the presence of the Volturi. The movie didn’t shows why they didn’t stop the terror? Since one of the codes is that vampires can’t show their presence publicly. And why the Volturi must kill the youngest new born vampire army when Carlisle can protect and give a chance to be a good vampire? Maybe the answer will be in Breaking Down which the shooting will start this fall.

The first “Sex and the City” movie, released in 2008, showed that after a romantic relationship comes marriage. Now that Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) has settled down with Big (Chris Noth), avid viewers were curious about what would happen next. Would she live happily ever after, with her three longtime friends and the man of her dreams?

It is no wonder, then, that fans in Jakarta were excited about “Sex and the City 2,” currently playing in major cinemas. Story aside, let us not forget about what has become the series’ main attraction, which are the clothes, shoes and bags, with everything else wedged in between.

The sequel begins with a wedding. But the wedding is not for Samantha Jones, as fans previously predicted when photos of actress Kim Cattrall wearing a white wedding gown during the film shoot surfaced. Instead, gay couple Stanford (Willie Garson) and Anthony (Mario Cantone) were getting hitched amid an elaborate backdrop of choirs, swans and a performance by gay icon Liza Minnelli singing “Single Ladies.” A terrifying yet funny stage show to start the fun.

But is everything all fun and games in the movie?

Not so much. Behind their seemingly glamorous life, the four gals still need to deal with problems here and there. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is beginning to realize that motherhood can be tough and time-consuming. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) has a sexist boss at the law firm where she works, but refuses to quit. Samantha, on the other hand, is trying to ward off menopause. Carrie? She thinks that her life is no longer as glitzy now that she is married.

Enter Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis), Samantha’s boy toy with whom she has had her longest relationship to date. Smith’s appearance leads the gang to vacation in Abu Dhabi for a week. Leaving husbands, kids and careers back in New York City, Carrie and friends travel in style to the Middle East. And so begins the discovery that there is a whole new world outside Manhattan where women were veils and dress more modestly. This is also where Carrie runs into her old flame Aidan,

Abu Dhabi was quite the setting for the film, from the first-class flight, to the white limos for each of the girls, from the five star hotel, to the personal butlers. Almost every scene exuded consumerism and exoticism.

Then there was how the characters were styled by Patricia Field, known for her flashy and sometimes over-the-top creations. In a flashback scene from the ’80s, Field styled the girls in vintage outfits and big hair. She also uses Abu Dhabi to explore different looks more suited for a desert vacation, from a vintage jumpsuit and print maxi dresses to a turban and a Cleopatra-inspired headpiece.

The Middle East offered a refreshing change of scene for the series. But the longer one watches the movie, the more it feels like the series is actually losing its touch. Not only are three of the characters now married, they are no longer in the city to have sex. Gone are the days when they questioned their actions and how they behaved because they have been whisked thousands of miles away from their playground to something different.

Well, except for Samantha, who thinks that whether she is in Abu Dhabi or not, getting laid is her basic human right.

That is why “Sex and the City 2” is no longer as fun as it used to be plot-wise. All the settling down and adapting to a new culture does not suit the girls. The characters are also not given space to grow, with Carrie disappointing the most. She simply cannot stop being a drama queen, and now worries about take-home dinners and the flat-screen TV in the bedroom.

The sweet Charlotte, as it turns out, is not so good at playing mommy, when she wears vintage Valentino while baking cupcakes with her kids.

Miranda is no longer Miranda as we know her, either. She quits her job, starts having fun, and that’s it for her role.

Among the four, it is only Samantha who does not change as a reckless, sex-loving character who still comes up with hilarious lines.

However, the viewer has to keep perspective. Hating “Sex and the City” for its superficiality is like comparing a beauty pageant to a presidential debate. At the end of the day, “Sex and the City 2” should be viewed as the ultimate chick flick, which it still is. Whether you bring your friends to watch it with you at the theater or not, the movie is surely going to be the talk of the town for at least the next coming week.

Charlie Sheen wants out of ‘Two
and A Half Men’: Report
by Lynette Rice
Categories: News, Television
Image Credit: Greg Gayne/CBSPeople.com is reporting that Charlie Sheen — the highly paid star of CBS’ Two and A Half Men – wants to leave the top-rated comedy when his contract expires at the end of this season. The actor has reportedly told friends that “he’s not coming back” to the show. “Leaving is 100 percent his idea,” a source told People.com. Apparently, the network has been trying to negotiate a new deal but Sheen turned down the offer. His spokesman would only confirm that his deal is through this current season.

A source close to comedy said negotiations are ongoing and that no one is assuming this will be Sheen’s last year. Representatives for CBS and Warner Bros. TV declined to comment.

The studio temporarily halted production of Men last month after Sheen announced he would spend time in a rehab facility. He returned to the set March 16, the day after his lawyer entered a not guilty plea on behalf of his client to charges of felony menacing, criminal mischief, and third degree assault, which stem from an alleged Christmas day argument with his wife, Brooke Mueller. A trial date has been set for July 21.

It seems unlikely that Sheen would want to leave the show that made him one of the highest-paid actors on TV today. There’s some thought around Hollywood that the actor could be angling for an even richer salary given the show’s continued success on CBS: At 14.98 million, Men remains TV’s most-watched comedy.

Ade Mardiyati | The Jakarta Globe

The poster of the film ‘Mudmax.’

Muddying the Truth: A New Documentary Looks at Sidoarjo

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, the unending mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, will have spewed out approximately another 12,000 liters of scalding hot sludge and enough mud will have accumulated to swallow the home of yet another Indonesian family.

For nearly four years now the Sidoarjo mudflow has smothered more than a dozen villages. The homes, factories and farms of local residents have disappeared.

As a result of the mud volcano, nearly 60,000 residents have been left homeless and 100,000 people have been left displaced since the mud started flowing on May 29, 2006.

Also known as Lusi (an contraction of lumpur Sidoarjo , or Sidoarjo mud), the disaster has inflicted almost $5 billion worth of damage, according to one estimate by an Australian expert. And with 70 million liters of mud still pouring out daily the mud flow shows no signs of abating. Fourteen people were killed when a natural gas pipeline under one of the holding dams ruptured.

Dams have been built, along with levees and drainage ditches, while efforts have been made to plug the hole with concrete, but to no avail. So many investigations have been conducted to establish the cause of the mud volcano’s eruption — earthquake or industrial drilling — and the issue of blame has been so hotly contested that the mudflow is clouded in confusion, claim and counterclaim.

PT Lapindo Brantas, an oil and gas company, was drilling a gas exploration well 200 meters from the eruption site when it began. The company is owned by leading businessman and former cabinet minister Aburizal Bakrie, the current chairman of the Golkar Party.

Lapindo has been vociferous in denying that its drilling was the cause, although a weight of scientific investigation has failed to put forth few credible alternative explanations. Some scientists, however, have pointed to a 6.2-magnitude earthquake 280 kilometers away, near Yogyakarta, two days before the flow began.

Into this literal and legal quagmire bravely wades a new documentary on Lusi, “Mud Max: Investigative Documentary — Sidoarjo Mud Volcano Disaster.”

The film received a brief flurry of publicity toward the end of last year when it had a premiere in the United States, but it is now set to reach a wider and much more concerned audience following its Asia-Pacific premiere on Feb. 13 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.

Filmed over two and a half years by Immodicus SA in conjunction with the Arizona State University School of Earth and Space Exploration, the nearly 50-minute documentary examines the eruption of the mud volcano and the economic, social and political fallout left in its wake. “We started research in August 2007 and contacted people who were involved, [representatives of] Lapindo and also expert witnesses, and from them we got references of who to contact,” said Ismutia Rahmi, the associate producer and researcher.

Director Gary Hayes said the documentary aimed to cover the facts and views from all sides and ultimately allow viewers to decide for themselves what caused the mudflow.

On one side of the debate stands a team led by Richard Davies at Britain’s Durham University. In early 2007, Davies and others suggested that Lapindo may have been at fault. Research continued, and earlier this month they released a new report containing evidence pointing the finger at human error in drilling procedures as the trigger for the mudflow, with Davies saying he was now 99 percent certain the devastation was man-made.

One the other side of the argument is a team led by Adriano Mazzini, from the University of Oslo in Norway, which believes the disaster was probably due to the Yogyakarta earthquake. “I have a very open mind that the drilling may have done something, but there’s no geological evidence for that,” he said. “The solid evidence indicates an earthquake.”

The executive producer of “Mud Max,” Chris Fong, agreed that the cause remained a mystery, but said he believed the “small group” of people who blame Lapindo Brantas received a lot of publicity.

“They really don’t know what the cause is, they just made assumptions,” he said. “We talked to a lot of scientists about this, we looked at the drilling procedures and we don’t think [Lapindo] did anything wrong.”

While the courts currently agree with him — last year the Supreme Court decided that the mudflow was caused naturally — East Java Police recently said that reopening the case was a possibility in light of the new evidence from the Durham University research, which was published long after “Mud Max” had been released.

Fong said the idea for “Mud Max” was inspired by a report he worked on for a financial institution in early 2007, trying to ascertain the cause. “We did that report and it was interesting because it didn’t establish what the cause was,” Fong said during a news conference before the screening. “But we were led to believe by the media around the world and in Indonesia that it was because of human error in the drilling.”

In producing “Mud Max,” researchers sought out geologists, drilling experts and scientists who had investigated the disaster. Representatives from government and nongovernmental institutions as well as victims also have their say.

It begins with Indonesia’s history of volcanic activity, including the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island in West Nusa Tenggara that claimed 70,000 lives and caused “the year without summer,” and the eruption of Krakatoa 70 years later that killed almost 40,000 people and cooled temperatures around the globe for years.

But while the makers of “Mud Max” said the film was made to offer viewers the facts with which to make their own assessments, not everyone believes the documentary is balanced and some have accused the creators of using funding from Lapindo.

The makers strenuously deny this.

“It’s my own money,” Fong said in a panel discussion after the Sydney screening. “Let’s deal with this as a disaster and manage it properly. The issue of who caused this — whether it was caused by the company or is natural — is not going anywhere.”

Director Gary Hayes echoed these sentiments to the Jakarta Globe. “We weren’t hired by anybody,” he said. “It’s such a tragic event that happened and I thought somebody had to cover it.”

Scheduled for release in Indonesia sometime this year, “Mud Max” will challenge viewers to struggle with questions that have continued to go unanswered since May 2006.

For Davies, though, questions have been superseded by his latest research, which he feels is the strongest evidence to date of a link between the drilling and the mudflow.

“There can be no doubt at all that it was physically impossible for the earthquake to cause this mud volcano,” he said in an interview with British newspaper The Observer. “The disaster was caused by pulling the drill bit out of the hole while the hole was unstable. It’s like pulling up a bicycle pump, it acts like a plunger, sucking the water and gas from the surrounding rock in a way that could not be controlled.”

See the trailer for ‘Mud Max’ at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd8ZdQ2MPAQ

Triwik Kurniasari ,  THE JAKARTA POST ,  JAKARTA   |  Sun, 01/31/2010 2:33 PM  |  Screen

The poster for the movie Legion, which depicts the heavenly body of actor Paul Bettany with a pair of wings protruding from his back, sends a clear message to moviegoers: it’s an angel movie, people.

It’s Hollywood doing the angel thing again. While in other movies the angels usually appear to be the ones being turned to for help, Legion offers a different line.

The film is not the typical angel story where an angel, winged or otherwise, falls to Earth and in love with a mortal, as with Nicholas Cage in City of Angels or Denzel Washington in The Preacher’s Wife.

Legion provides a darker and gloomier story than other angel flicks, bringing more action, full of machine-gun blasts.

The fantasy-action-thriller gives us a world where God has lost faith in humankind. So what does God do when He feels that way?

“The last time God lost faith in man, He sent the flood. This time, He sent angels,” says the archangel Michael, played by Englishman Bettany, who rose to fame as Silas in The Da Vinci Code.

Michael is a fallen angel sent by God to Earth.

But he decides to break the rules that bind him to the Almighty, and chooses to take a stand with humans, trying to protect one woman’s unborn child – the one who is said to be the only hope for humanity to survive.

Besides the chaos around the globe, life goes on as normal for Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid), the owner of a roadside diner in a dusty desert, and his only son Jeep (Lucas Black).

Charlie (the luscious Adrianne Palicki), a pregnant waitress, works for Bob.

The problems begin when the TV reception dies and the phones go out, and the diner’s crew and customers realize they have lost all communication with the outside world.

As they wonder what’s happening, an old woman (Jeannette Miller) arrives and orders a steak.

Not long after her meal arrives, the fragile old lady turns into a powerful woman, striking fear into everyone in the diner.

Enter Michael, complete with an arsenal of stolen weapons, telling Charlie that her unborn baby is now humanity’s only hope. And he is willing to do whatever it takes to save the baby.

This modest, backwater diner in the desert suddenly becomes the silent witness to, and ground zero for, the Earth’s final battle.

The world has become an unstoppable nightmare for the last people on the planet as hordes of zombie-like killers arrive and an army of warrior angels closes in, with rival archangel Gabriel looking to finish the job.

Gabriel is played by Kevin Durand, previously from X-Men Origins: Wolverine and several episodes in the series Lost.

Directed by visual effects master Scott Stewart (Iron Man, Night at the Museum, Superman Returns), this film is equal parts action movie, supernatural thriller and horror, with a sprinkling of drama.

Despite its heavy action scenes, it leaves several gaping plot holes by skimming over some subjects.

There is no reason given for why Michael has been ordered to kill Charlie’s unborn baby, even though it is said the baby will save mankind, whatever that means.

Quaid, playing the token loner, helps out a lot with his acting talent, giving a surprisingly good performance.

Verdict: A well-built angel carrying machine guns offers (forgettable) fun for the weekend.

Legion

Screen Gems, 104 minutes

Directed by Scott Stewart

Produced by David Lancaster, Michel Litvak

Written by Peter Schink, Scott Stewart

Starring Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, Lucas Black, Adrianne Palicki, Kevin Durand, Kate Walsh