Hi to everybody...SKY Premiere are showing 'The Illusionist' directed by Neil Burger in 2006 with Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel and Rufus Sewell.
I didn't think I was going to enjoy it but I did. It takes place in turn of the century Vienna with Edward Norton playing Eisenheim, the Illusionist. It's a love story spanning several years and continually thwarted by class...Eisenheim is the son of a carpenter while Sophie, played by Jessica Beil, is a Countess...they were friends as children and loved each other then until she was separated from him forcibly and he went off to travel the world and perfect his growing interest and talent in magic...I won't spoil the story by telling you any more, but it becomes an intrigue which is both mesmorising and exciting...I think Paul Giamatti as the Chief of Police was absolutely excellent...in fact, I think it was one of his best performances...Rufus Sewell also made a good job of the sadistic Prince Leopold and suitor to Sophie...
Here's a preview if you want to see whether or not you might like it..
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi552861977/
Worth a viewing...

First of all, hello everyone!

I'd like to leave a suggestion. Let me say that, lately, all i see is asian or spanish movies. I am soooooo fed up of hollywood films (no, i didn't forgot to capitalize it, i just think it doesn't deserve it anymore) and their "copy, americanize, paste". Ok..."The children of Huang Shi" IS amazing. Japanese know how to do horror movies. Mind horror, not "run, scream and get slashed by a masked killer". Chinese do AMAZING epic movies, as "An Empress and the Warriors" or "Three Kingdoms", to name a couple released this year. Oh, "Pan's Labyrinth", spanish. I kneel before you, Ivana Baquero Macías. I just feel sorry for you going to hollywood, to star on John Connolly's new horror film, "The New Daughter", with Kevin Costner (uh...Kevin Costner...in horror movies?!).

Hope it helps you have a good time, watching some quality cinema.

Hi to everybody...caught a programme that wasn't suppose to be on tonight...it proved to be wonderfully uplifting and a pocket of real hope in a terribly troubled area of the world...
Here's the write up of 'Knowledge is the Beginning'...
Film by Paul Smaczny
(Germany, 2006, 115 Minutes, Color, English, English subtitles)

Knowledge is the Beginning is the story of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra where young Arabs and Jews perform side by side. The film illustrates how prejudices are overcome during rehearsals, concerts and after-concert celebrations. It also demonstrates the problems that crop up occasionally and how music can help people from different points of view find common ground. For Daniel Barenboim, founder of the ensemble, the orchestra is a symbol for what could be achieved in the Middle East.

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a name derived from a collection of poems by Goethe, today embraces eighty Arab and Israeli musicians aged thirteen to twenty-six. Director Paul Smaczny has followed the orchestra since its inception. The film chronicles all five summer workshops in Weimar and Seville, Barenboim’s visit to Ramallah and Jerusalem in May 2004 – during which he received the prestigious Wolf Prize at the Knesset – as well as the sensational concert in Ramallah in August 2005.

In the early 1990s, a chance meeting between Mr. Barenboim and the late Palestinian-born writer and Columbia University professor Edward Said in a London hotel lobby led to an intense friendship that has had both political and musical repercussions.

These two men, who should have been poles apart politically, discovered in that first meeting, which lasted for hours, that they had similar visions of Israeli/Palestinian possible future cooperation.

They decided to continue their dialogue and to collaborate on musical events to further their shared vision of peaceful co-existence in the Middle East. This led to Mr. Barenboim's first concert on the West Bank, a piano recital at the Palestinian Birzeit University in February 1999, and to a workshop for young musicians from the Middle East that took place in Weimar, Germany, in August 1999.

The West-Eastern Divan Workshop took two years to organize and involved talented young musicians between the ages of 14 and 25 from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia and Israel.

The idea was that they would come together to make music on neutral ground with the guidance of some of the world's best musicians. Weimar was chosen as the site for the workshop because of its rich cultural tradition of writers, poets, musicians and creative artists and because it was the 1999 European cultural capital. Mr. Barenboim wisely chose two concertmasters for the orchestra, an Israeli and a Lebanese.

There were some tense moments among the young players at first but, coached by members of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony and the Staatskapelle Berlin, and following master classes with the cellist Yo-Yo Ma and nightly cultural discussions with Mr. Said and Mr. Barenboim, the young musicians worked and played in increasing harmony. The West-Eastern Divan Workshop was held again in Weimar in the summer of 2000 and in Chicago in the summer of 2001. It has since found a permanent home in Seville, Spain, where it has been based since 2002.

Edward Said passed away in 2003 but his partnership with Daniel Barenboim lives on through the West-Eastern Divan Workshop and Orchestra and through the Barenboim-Said Foundation, which promotes music and co-operation through projects targeted at young Arabs and Israelis.

I thought Edward Said was an admirable, dignified and thoroughly moral man who will be sadly missed having died of leukemia at only 67 years old...unfortunately, he has proved irreplaceable so far...all we can hope is that the work that he and Daniel Barenboim have done and are still doing in the case of Daniel Barenboim, will bear real and lasting fruit in the future...
I hope some of you will consider trying to see it because it really is a very moving and hopeful film....