Daily Archives: October 24, 2008

2008 Foreign Language Film for Oscars – Asian submissions

A whopping 67 countries have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category at the 81st Oscars, topping last year’s record of 63 countries. Nominations for the 81st Academy Awards will be announced on Thursday, January 22, 2009, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2008 will be presented on Sunday, February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Here’s the Asian submissions for consideration

Bangladesh, “Aha!,” Enamul Karim Nirjhar, director

China, “Dream Weavers,” Jun Gu, director

Hong Kong, “Painted Skin,” Gordon Chan, director

India, “Taare Zameen Par,” Aamir Khan, director

Japan, “Departures,” Yojiro Takita, director

Korea, “Crossing,” Tae-kyun Kim, director

Singapore, “My Magic,” Eric Khoo, director

Taiwan, “Cape No. 7,” Te-Sheng Wei, director

Thailand, “Love of Siam,” Chookiat Sakveerakul, director

Crossing Trailer

Maya Lin : Systematic Landscapes

Recent sculptures, drawings, and installations by the celebrated artist Maya Lin are on view at the de Young Museum October 25, 2008, to January 18, 2009. Lin (b. 1959) came to prominence in 1981 with her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and has since achieved a high degree of recognition for a body of work that includes monuments, buildings, earthworks, sculpture, and installations. Systematic Landscapes is Lin’s second nationally-traveling exhibition in ten years, with venues in Seattle, St. Louis, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. “This exhibition continues my interest in exploring notions of landscape and geologic phenomena,” says Lin. “The works created, both small- and large-scale installations, reveal new and at times unexpected views of the natural world: from the topology of the ocean floor to the stratified layers of a mountain to a form that sits between water and earth.”

Lin’s extraordinary ability to convey complex and poetic ideas using simple forms and natural materials is fully evident in Systematic Landscapes. Working in a scale that relates to the land, and combining a deep interest in forces and forms of nature with a long-term investigation into the possibilities of sculptural form to embody meaning, this exhibition offers a rich, immersive experience for visitors that brings the sensory understanding of Lin’s outdoor works inside.




Lin has created a trio of large-scale sculptural installations for the exhibition that present different ways to encounter and comprehend the landscape. 2×4 Landscape (2006), a vast hill built of 65,000 boards set on end, presents a land surface rising from the gallery floor. Water Line (2006), a wire-frame three-dimensional drawing in space based on an undersea formation, is installed overhead and dips into the visitor’s sightline. Blue Lake Pass (2006) is a topographic translation of a Colorado mountain range made of layers of stacked particleboard that have been segmented and pulled apart to create landscape strata through which the visitor can see.




Systematic Landscapes also includes a series of sculptures based on the water volumes of various inland seas; plaster reliefs of imagined landscapes that are embedded directly into gallery walls; large drawings of landforms and river sheds; and altered atlases that present alternative topographies.

Concurrent with Systematic Landscapes is the debut of Maya Lin’s public art installation Where the Land Meets the Sea, a tubular wire sculpture commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for the California Academy of Sciences, also in Golden Gate Park. The installation is the first permanent work by Lin in San Francisco. The de Young exhibition will feature small-scale models, maquettes, and renderings of the piece, engaging audiences in Lin’s creative thinking process and studio practice.



Maya Lin Systematic Landscapes Documentary

Vanessa Hudgens in High School Musical 3 : Senior Year

Vanessa Hudgens plays Gabriella Montez for the third time in the High School Musical series. Last year, nude photos of her surfaced online. Early rumors were that Disney would drop Vanessa Hudgens from High School Musical 3 due to the scandal. Obviously with her in the movie that rumor was not true.

Vanessa is HAPA. Her mother is Filipina, Chinese,and Spanish, while her father is Irish and American Indian.

High School Musical 3 : Senior Year Synopsis

Disney ’s “High School Musical ” phenomenon leaps onto the big screen in HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: SENIOR YEAR, in which the world ’s favorite high school students (ZAC EFRON, VANESSA HUDGENS, ASHLEY TISDALE, LUCAS GRABEEL, CORBIN BLEU and MONIQUE COLEMAN) hit senior year. Amidst a basketball championship, prom and a big spring musical featuring all of the Wildcats, Troy and Gabriella vow to make every moment last as their lifelong college dreams put the future of their relationship in question. A crew of sophomore Wildcats (MATT PROKOP, JUSTIN MARTIN, JEMMA MCKENZIE-BROWN) joins in the fun as the film ’s incredible new music and exciting dance numbers take maximum advantage of the big screen.

Vanessa Hudgens in High School Musical 3 : Senior Year

More about Vanessa Hudgens

VANESSA HUDGENS (Gabriella Montez) is a promising young actress and recording artist.

She appears in the music-driven, inspirational fish-out-of-water story “Bandslam” to be released in early 2009. Starring alongside Gaelan Connell, Aly Michalka and Lisa Kudrow, Hudgens plays a misfit who finds her voice in a coming-of-age story about a high school battle-of-the-bands competition.

Hudgens began her career at age 8 in the world of musical theatre. Early roles in such productions as “Evita,” “Carousel,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The King & I,” “The Music Man,” “Cinderella” and “Damn Yankees” gave the actress the opportunity to showcase her impressive singing and acting skills.

She made her feature film debut in Catherine Hardwicke’s “Thirteen,” starring Holly Hunter and Evan Rachel Wood. Soon thereafter, she co-starred in the action-adventure film “Thunderbirds,” and was a recurring guest star on Disney Channel’s “The Suite Life of Zach & Cody.” Her television credits include “Quintuplets,” “Brothers Garcia,” “Still Standing” and “Robbery Homicide Division.”

But it was Hudgens’s role in Disney Channel’s breakaway sensation “High School Musical” and its follow-up “High School Musical 2” that has garnered her much praise and attention. In 2006, Hudgens released her debut solo album “V”-a captivating variety of rock, electronic and R&B styles-and toured with the Cheetah Girls, followed by a sold-out 42-date arena concert tour of “High School Musical: The Concert.” In July 2008, Hudgens released her second album “IDENTIFY” for Hollywood Records, followed by a two-month concert tour in the Unites States.