By Roger Moore


Paulina Garcia took the best actress prize at last year’s prestigious Berlin Film Festival for her performance in the title role in Gloria. And as Irish Times film critic Donald Clarke enthused, “It is hard to imagine the jury deliberated for long.”
Garcia, 53, is a veteran of Chilean film and theatre and makes the most of a character written with her in mind, a lonely but vital 50-something divorcee who refuses to settle. In Gloria, she “brings a welcome, defiant sense of brio to a complex role,” Film Comment raved. Excerpts from an interview with Garcia in Santiago, Chile.

Who is Gloria?
“She is this shy woman, nervous, the kind of person who is always in the back of the room. Never getting attention for herself. She just watches the world go on around her. This movie is about her walk, little by little, from the back to the front of the room, out of the shadows. It’s a fantastic journey for an actress of any age, to work from the back of the house and into the spotlight. That is Gloria. She is empowered by this journey, by making it at the age she is.”

What did you decide that she wants out of life?
“Like everybody else, she is looking for happiness. It’s not success or love or companionship or having friends, but about ‘What are you doing with your life, to make your life happier?’
“She is trying to change her life, doing all the things you do — going out, meeting people, trying new things. Is she desperate? Sometimes, you despair of ever being happy, and sometimes you just go with what life offers you. She seems anxious and impatient, wanting all these things to happen faster, wanting to get happy faster. Everything comes easier when you are calm, centred in mind, body and soul. It’s absurd! You need to be happy today, not tomorrow.”
“Life is longer, she has more time, this walk from the back of the house to the front can take place later in her life because she has more time. Her decisions have different consequences at this age. She understands this. But she wants the same things she wanted at 20. She made bad decisions back then, but she will not let that keep her from making bad decisions again.”

Is she a universal character, or is there something particularly Chilean about her?
“She is like a lot of women in Chile. She is not an intellectual. She doesn’t think very much about who she is or what she wants. Very ordinary.
“She is very Chilean because she is a woman who looks and watches other people making lives for themselves. She just watches. And waits. She’s not making things happen, and that seems very Chilean to me. It is only when she changes that that she moves to the front of the line.” — MCT


Unravelling the Bond


Fleming — Ian Fleming — gave the world its most famous secret agent when he authored the series of books starring the man with a licence to kill, James Bond. A new four-part BBC America series reveals that everything from Bond’s way with women to his famous shaken-not-stirred drink could be rooted in the author’s own life.
Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond tells the story of how Fleming (Dominic Cooper) went from playboy to war hero with the outbreak of World War II. Partly as a way to escape from the shadow of his more popular brother, Peter (Rupert Evans), and to win favour with his formidable mother Eve (Lesley Manville), Fleming becomes part of Britain’s Naval Intelligence. He soon finds that he has a knack for working in the cloak-and-dagger world.
Cooper — a longtime fan of the Bond movies (especially the Sean Connery ones) — didn’t know a lot about Fleming before taking on the role. He quickly caught up on the author’s life by reading two biographies and then relied on the script to fill in the other pieces. Just as Bond’s exploits are so outrageous to believe, Cooper found himself questioning the accuracy of the accounts of Fleming’s life because so much happened to him in a very short period of time.
It helped when Cooper realised that this is a dramatised version of Fleming’s life, which means some liberties can be taken.
“The truth was that when you’re making a biographical piece, you certainly want certain elements of yourself to be in some way, at least, resemble that person. I look nothing like him. There’s no way I could possibly ever, ever be him. So I knew that we were starting from quite a fictitious place,” Cooper says. The series looks at Fleming’s military service from the opulence of high-society London to the dangers of being behind enemy lines. In each adventure, Fleming battles his own personal demons while facing life-threatening assignments.
Executive producer Douglas Rae says the series is more than just another spy story. — By Rick Bentley, The Fresno Bee, MCT


Michelle Obama on Puppy Bowl


Viewers who want to see first lady Michelle Obama do a touchdown dance on Super Bowl Sunday will only have to tune in to Puppy Bowl X, a spoof on Animal Planet.
As part of her “Let’s Move” campaign to reduce childhood obesity, Obama enlisted the family’s Portuguese water dogs, Bo and Sunny, at a pregame “training camp” for some of the canine participants on the South Lawn of the White House in October, said Jared Albert, an Animal Planet publicist.
With Washington schoolchildren on hand, 13 puppies from shelters and rescue groups played fetch and ran agility drills as Obama taped segments announcing Let the Puppy Bowl begin and demonstrating a touchdown dance. — By Katherine Skiba, Chicago Tribune/MCT

Oscars honour for The Wizard of Oz

The 86th edition of the Academy Awards will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the all-time classic The Wizard of Oz.
The 1939 movie featuring Judy Garland as Dorothy, was nominated for six Academy Awards in 1939. The movie won two awards in the original score and song categories, reports Entertainment Weekly.
“We are delighted to celebrate the birthday of one of the most beloved movies of all time at this year’s Oscars,” said Oscar show producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. — IANS

Hudson ‘too busy’ to plan wedding

Actress Kate Hudson says she is “too busy” to plan her wedding with fiance Matthew Bellamy and admits they are in no rush to get married. The 34-year-old, who was raised by her mother, Goldie Hawn, and her partner, Kurt Russell, got engaged to Bellamy in April 2011, reports contactmusic.com.
When Hudson was asked about her wedding plans on a talk show, she said: “No, I’m planning nothing right now. I’m so busy, we’ve been so busy and it’s been great. I come from an unconventional family — they’re not married, my parents aren’t married.” – IANS

Chris Pine in The Line

Actor Chris Pine has been roped in for The Line, a gritty thriller that will be directed by David Gordon Green. The script has been penned by Sang Kyu Kim, reports hollywoodreporter.com.
The Line will see Pine essaying a patrol agent who finds himself in a downward spiral on the job and at home after he loses his wife and young son. — IANS