Tom Hanks says he has coronavirus

LOS ANGELES — The actor Tom Hanks said Wednesday that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, have the coronavirus.

Hanks and Wilson, both 63, are in Australia, where he was set to film a movie about the life of Elvis Presley. “We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches,” the Academy Award-winning actor said in a statement. “Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers, too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the coronavirus, and were found to be positive.”

He added that he and Wilson “will be tested, observed and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires.”

“Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no?” Hanks said in his statement, which he also posted on Instagram accompanied by a photograph of a lone medical glove in a hazardous waste container. “We’ll keep the world posted and updated.”

Hanks is by far the most prominent entertainment figure to say he has the virus and, by going public with the information, instantly becomes the face of an outbreak that has cascaded around the globe.

With the seriousness of the pandemic still being debated in some corners of the media, learning that Hanks, the star of films like “Saving Private Ryan” and “Apollo 13,” has been stricken may make the situation seem much more tangible to some Americans.

In the movie he was in Australia to film, Hanks is playing the role of Colonel Tom Parker, Presley’s eccentric manager, who groomed the famous singer for stardom in the 1950s.

Production on the film, which is being directed by Baz Luhrmann and does not yet have a title, is set to begin Monday. Warner Bros., the studio behind the movie, has said it spans “over 20 years, from Presley’s rise to fame to his unprecedented stardom, against the backdrop of the evolving cultural landscape and the loss of innocence in America.”

Luhrmann, an Australian, wrote the script with Craig Pearce, with whom he also wrote “The Great Gatsby” and “Moulin Rouge!”

Australia has had more than 120 confirmed cases of coronavirus.

“The health and safety of our company members is always our top priority, and we are taking precautions to protect everyone who works on our productions around the world,” the studio said in a statement.

Warner has been among the Hollywood studios most affected by the coronavirus epidemic because of its large television production division, which makes more than 80 shows.

Also on Wednesday, Warner confirmed that it had suspended production of “Riverdale,” a teenage drama based on Archie Comics characters that runs on the CW network, because of the coronavirus. “Riverdale” films in Vancouver, British Columbia.

“We have and will continue to take precautions to protect everyone who works on our productions around the world,” Warner said in its “Riverdale” statement.

In the United States, the number of cases has surpassed 1,150, and warnings about the safety of mass gatherings has begun to have tangible effects in the entertainment world. Daytime talk shows like “The View” and “Live With Kelly and Ryan” filmed without their usual studio audiences Wednesday, and late-night shows based in New York, like “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” announced that they would go without studio audiences starting Monday.

“The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” a Warner production in Burbank, California, will also begin taping without a studio audience.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Tom Hanks and J-Lo strippers raise pulses at Toronto film fest

TORONTO -- Scantily clad strippers and softly spoken kids' TV stars were on show Saturday as the Toronto film festival hit its stride
with a wide range of hotly anticipated premieres.

Screams from the red-carpet crowd could be heard blocks from the city center as Jennifer Lopez headed a cast of glamorous leading ladies for the world premiere of "Hustlers."

Constance Wu ("Crazy Rich Asians") and singers Cardi B and Lizzo appear in the star-studded movie about New York strippers who turned the tables on wealthy businessmen during the financial crisis.

The real-life tale -- billed as a female "Wolf of Wall Street" -- depicts how a group of women resorted to increasingly criminal tactics, such as spiking men's drinks before emptying their bank accounts, as the stock market crash hit strip club receipts.

Lopez said the film puts a spotlight on how society is more harsh to judge women than men "when they're stealing or robbing people blind."

Men "are doing it on this big corporate level and these girls are doing it that kind of small street level -- and they get off and (the girls) go to jail," she said.

Introducing the film, director Lorene Scafaria dedicated it "to strippers and sex workers everywhere."

Earlier, Tom Hanks kicked off the evening with "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," based on the unlikely true friendship between a cynical investigative journalist and Fred Rogers, the impossibly nice US television presenter he is sent to interview.

The movie, directed by Marielle Heller on a gala night dedicated to female filmmakers, blends Rogers' trademark nursery-rhyme stylings with hard-edged family drama, and drew a lengthy ovation at its world-first showing.

While describing Hanks as the perfect casting to play a beloved national treasure, Heller insisted the "Forrest Gump" star's preparations for the role had been "transformative."

"He did not just slip on this cardigan and 'boom' he was Mr. Rogers -- he actually truly goes to a very deep place," she told AFP.

Hanks said had been too old to watch the long-running "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" program while it aired, admitting he "didn't get" the "really weird black and white TV show" as a child, but was won over by its host.

"Mr. Rogers doesn't want anything except for people maybe to understand themselves and the world a little better," he said.

Matthew Rhys, the Welsh actor who plays the film's journalist, said Rogers -- who died in 2013 -- "bucked the norm" of goofy custard pie-throwing theatrics on kids' TV.

"That's the last thing children want -- they want calm, they need to be treated maturely," he told AFP.

'Sinister undercurrent'

Across the street, Eddie Murphy marked his big screen comeback by attending the premiere of "Dolemite Is My Name," his biopic of US comedian Rudy Ray Moore, famed for his outlandish 1970s Blaxploitation character.

The "Beverly Hills Cop" star, who recently announced he would return to stand-up comedy from next year, received a standing ovation from the Toronto crowd.

Also in town were 007 actor Daniel Craig and "Captain America" Chris Evans for "Knives Out," the Agatha Christie-style whodunnit movie from "Star Wars" director Rian Johnson.

Craig praised the cast for the film -- described by the Hollywood Reporter as a "deviously irreverent crowd-pleaser" -- as "a lightning in a bottle situation."

Earlier on Saturday, Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx called on America to tackle the "sinister undercurrent" of racism in its justice system, after his courthouse drama set in a starkly polarized Deep South debuted the previous night.

Foxx and Michael B. Jordan -- two of Hollywood's top black A-listers -- co-star in "Just Mercy," the true story of a black man put on death row in Alabama in 1988 for the murder of a young white woman he did not commit.

"We wanted to make sure people understand how tragic it is, and how commonplace it is -- it happens all the time," said Foxx, who plays wrongfully convicted Walter McMillian.

The Toronto International Film Festival, the largest in North America, runs until September 15.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Review: Hanks plays hero again in short, simple 'Sully'

Tom Hanks is still one of the busiest senior actors around in Hollywood. Most of his recent films still end up with awards attention, like "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (2011), "Cloud Atlas" (2012), "Captain Phillips" (2013), "Saving Mr. Banks" (2013), and just last year "Bridge of Spies" (2015). This year, he has three films with three distinct flavors. "A Hologram for the King" is a slow and puzzling art film. "Inferno" is the third installment of the popcorn Dan Brown-Robert Langdon film franchise. And then there is this film "Sully," a type which may likely attract Oscar attention again.

On January 15, 2009, US Airways pilot Captain Chelsea "Sully" Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and his first officer Jeffrey Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) just took off from La Guardia Airport in New York City on a routine domestic flight to Charlotte, North Carolina. A few minutes in midair, a flock of birds flew straight into the path of the airplane, causing both engines to explode and fail.

In the face of certain disaster, Capt. Sully made a decision to land right onto the Hudson River. All 155 passengers and crew survive and the press celebrated this heroic landing "The Miracle on the Hudson." However, amidst the jubilation, Air Safety experts investigated whether Capt. Sully's feat was truly heroic, or was it a foolhardy stunt which actually endangered the lives of everyone on board.

Hanks can really embody these types of characters so well, so cool and collected, so stoic and unflustered. We have seen him in roles like this many times, most recently in "Bridge of Spies." He has been so uniformly consistently good in similar roles like this that they do not make any real solid impact anymore. He is a very good actor no doubt, but incredibly, his last Oscar nomination for Best Actor was way back 2001 for "Cast Away," his last risky performance of note.

The film also celebrates the unprecedented feat of commercial aviation by Capt. Sully, as well as the prompt response of the rescuers from the city of New York. However, the drama and conflict of the film was more about the investigations which came after the landing upon which the career and name of Capt. Sully hung precariously.

Director Clint Eastwood did not waste any time at all with useless diversions, telling the whole story in only a terse yet tense 96 minutes. This extraordinary story was straightforward and simple, and the film was similarly straightforward and simple. This "straight-to-the-point approach" is really the best for true-to-life stories like this. There is no need for extra dramatics in the guise of artistic license.

The emergency water landing scenes were harrowing (even if I did not watch this in IMAX). The inclusion of real-life celebrities like Katie Couric and David Letterman added interest. A heartwarming extra scene during the closing credits added gravitas. 7/10

This review was originally published in the author's blog, "Fred Said."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Tom Hanks to publish collection of stories

Actor Tom Hanks will publish a book of stories linked to his collection of typewriters, publisher Alfred A. Knopf said on Monday.

The book, which will include photographs, is still untitled and no publication date has been set.

"I've been collecting typewriters for no particular reason since 1978 - both manual and portable machines dating from the 30s to the 90s," the 58-year-old Oscar winner said in a statement.

"The stories are not about the typewriters themselves, but rather, the stories are something that might have been written on one of them."

Hanks, who recently published his first work of fiction in the New Yorker magazine titled "Alan Bean Plus Four," won best actor Academy Awards in 1994 for "Philadelphia" and the following year for "Forrest Gump."

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Eric Kelsey and Andre Grenon)

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Disney explores own history in 'Saving Mr. Banks'

LOS ANGELES - Disney delves into its own history in "Saving Mr. Banks," a movie about the difficult birth of the classic film "Mary Poppins," wrenched from a tale by a reluctant British author.

Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney, who used all his sunny Californian charms to persuade writer P.L. Travers, played by Emma Thompson, to allow him to use the story.

The movie, released in the United States on Friday, is tipped as a serious contender for the Oscars, having already won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) nominations for Thompson.

Directed by John Lee Hancock ("The Blind Side," "The Alamo," "A Perfect World"), the film recounts the two weeks Travers spent in 1961 at Disney Studios, where Walt battled to win her consent for his whimsical adaptation of her work.

Australian-born Helen Lyndon Goff, who changed her name to P.L. Travers after moving to Britain -- a nation whose starchy national stereotype she came to embody -- began writing her Mary Poppins stories in 1934.

For two decades Disney had been trying to secure the rights to her tale about an English nanny who floats into a family's home with the help of a magic umbrella.

Disney had nonetheless already begun the film, and invited Travers to come and work with the screenwriter and composers Robert and Richard Sherman, hoping to win her confidence -- never imagining how hostile she could be.

To prepare for the role, Thompson studied everything about Travers.

"Around some corners, you'd find this terrible monster. And around other corners, you'd find a beaten child. She was the most extraordinary combination of things," Thompson told a pre-release press conference in Beverly Hills.

"I suppose that was the scary thing. In films, we often get to play people who are emotionally, or at least morally, consistent, in some way, and she wasn't consistent, in any way.

"You would not know what you would get, from one moment to the next."

The movie is constructed around repeated flashbacks to Travers' childhood in Australia, marked by boundless admiration for her father, a day-dreaming bank manager and chronic alcoholic whose first name was Travers.

"Every time Travers appears on screen ... you are seeing a particular stage of his development which is actually a particular stage of his disintegration," said Colin Farrell, who plays the paternal but immature character.

"It felt to me that he was somebody who is married with three children and has all the responsibilities that come with that, but emotionally, he has never been able to leave his childhood behind," he told AFP.

The film doesn't claim to depict a historically exact account of events. But it is based on memories of Disney veterans, notably in creating the unforgettable tunes for the 1964 film "Mary Poppins" starring Julie Andrews.

Richard Sherman, the sole survivor of the musical duo behind the score, was "literally a never-ending fountain of stories, of facts, of anecdotes, and of bits and pieces of everything that had happened," said Hanks.

The actor, who is also a producer, said the new film is a perfect illustration of the ruthlessness a filmmaker must sometimes have to exert in order to get a project completed.

"At this point, Walt Disney was pretty much used to getting his way because everybody loved him and he was the guy who invented Mickey Mouse," he told reporters.

"In the creative process, which is really what this movie is about, you come to loggerheads and you just have to keep the process moving forward, even if that requires jumping on a plane and flying to London.

"It's a good thing. It's fun, otherwise it would be too much work," he added.

Thompson said she was sure what Travers would have thought of "Savings Mr. Banks."

"I think what she would say about this is 'This is an absolutely ridiculous film! It has no relationship, whatsoever, to what was happening. But, it's about me. And the clothes were really rather nice.'"

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com