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Amanda Lucas, the 27-year-old daughter of George Lucas, made her mixed martial arts debut in Auckland New Zealand on Saturday night under the stage name Amanda “Powerhouse” Lucas. The billionaire filmmaker’s daughter took on Australian kickboxer Nicole Kavanagh in a 73kg MMA contest at the Auckland Boxing Association Stadium. Apparently Amanda, who appeared in minor cameo roles in the three Star Wars prequels, was a hip-hop teacher in San Francisco but had years of martial arts training including kickboxing, Muay Thai and Brazilian ju-jitsu. In the Star Wars films, Amanda appeared as a dancer in The Phantom Menace, an Outlander Club patron in Attack of the Clones, and Senator Terr Taneel in Revenge of the Sith. The fight will be part of a new reality television series planned around the formation of this new all-woman MMA league. [/flim]

Death at a Funeral is a comedy about a dysfunctional family that comes together for the funeral of their father. Over the course of the movie we discover that the father had some dark secrets that threaten to come out and tear the family apart.

It really doesn’t sound like a starting point for a comedy, even a black comedy, but a comedy it is. A little long in the teeth to start with, Death is worth sticking with through to the end as the climatic scenes will have you rolling on the floor laughing and will certainly leave a smile on your face for a while afterwards.

As with most funerals, Death has it’s tedious moments and I was certainly ready to put this one in the ‘they tried a little to hard and it didn’t work’ basket. With most of the early humour involving the F-Word and illicit drugs, Death seemed destined for gutter humour, but then the slapstick element kicked in, the drugs proved their worth and when everything came together, something special happened.

Food for thought:
Life is more than just ourselves.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: M – Contains Drug Use & Offensive Language.
Duration: 90 mins.
Genre: Black Comedy.
Director: Frank Oz.
Actors: Alan Tudyk, Jane Asher, Rupert Graves, Matthew MacFadyen, Keeley Hawes, Ewen Bremner, Peter Dinklage, Daisy Donovan, Andy Nyman.
Distributor: Warner.
Release Date: Out Now.

First scene from up coming teenage vampire flick Twilight.

An early morning fire broke out on the Universal Studios backlot Sunday, destroying important cityscape but no soundstages.

The fire was contained within a few hours, and the nearby Universal theme park and other studio facilities were spared any serious fallout. But the lot’s famous Court House Square — used in films including “Back to the Future” — and its New York Street cityscape were destroyed.

A backlot attraction based on the film “King Kong” also was destroyed, but no tour tram lines were damaged.

Little production had been taking place on the backlot, in part because Universal and other Hollywood studios have been going slow on greenlighting new projects while management negotiators hammer out a new SAG contract.

The blaze started on the huge backlot at about 4:45 a.m., fire officials said. At least three firefighters were injured in the blaze, the cause of which was under investigation.

The MTV Movie Awards were allowed to proceed at the nearby Universal Amphitheater on Sunday night, and most studio employees were expected to report to work as usual Monday.

“We are very lucky today,” Universal Studios president Ron Meyer said at a Sunday morning press conference. “It could have been worse.”

Contents of the studio’s video-library vault were damaged, but the vault contained only digital copies of more than 40,000 film and TV titles. No negatives or film masters were affected.

“Fortunately, nothing irreplaceable was lost,” Meyer said. “We have duplicates.”

“Ghost Whisperer,” a CBS series that regularly shoots scenes on the backlot, appeared to be the only major project immediately affected by the fire. But the series will still get its new episodes on the air as planned by the fall, a spokeswoman said.

An unspecified commercial shoot also was hampered by the blaze.

All in all, damage and disruption appeared relatively contained in the end, despite the dramatic initial TV broadcast scenes of the fire showing thick plumes of black smoke pouring from the lot Sunday morning.

“It looked like a bomb had exploded in the San Fernando Valley,” Los Angeles city councilman Tom LaBonge said.

Uni had aimed to open the theme park and the adjacent CityWalk retail complex by midday Sunday, but at the request of fire officials both remained shut for the day. Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal CityWalk were expected to resume normal operations Monday. [thr]

Fracture is a high stakes game of cat and mouse between Ted Crawford (Hopkins) and Willy Beachum (Gosling). Ted is a genius, whose wife is having an affair. As an act of revenge he figures out how to kill her in a way that leaves no doubt that he did it, but also no evidence to convict him. Willy is the assistant D.A. whose job it is to get a conviction.

Anthony Hopkins once again proves that he can deliver a riveting performance that out classes everyone else on the set, this of course plays into his character who is clearly the most intelligent mind in the story. Of course the plot is structured so that you are never quite sure who is going to win, right up to the slightly convoluted ending.

It is for the most part a well paced, brilliantly acted masterpiece of suspense. The Hollywood spit and polish is all there making Fracture an entertaining night in front of the TV.

Food for thought (spoilers):
Whilst on the surface Fracture is a story about manipulating the perfect crime, when you scratch a little you’ll see it’s a perfect parable about pride. All the main characters all share this massive character flaw, and for all three of them it spells their downfall. Ted and Willy are both so self-assured of themselves that they overlook simple things and make huge mistakes. The arresting detective and Willy’s new boss/girlfriend all display prideful attributes that cause them problems as well, re-enforcing the proverb that pride comes before a fall.

Trivia:
When Anthony Hopkins character is being arraigned, a directory of judges is seen over his shoulder with the names Eads and Vacarro. Those are the last names of the production designer and set designer, respectively.

When Willy Beachum is in his office, the boxes behind his desk are labeled “People .vs. Morgenthau” – Kramer Morgenthau was the cinematographer for the film and another box reads, “People .vs. Beaupre” – Steven F. Beaupre was the second assistant director.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: M – Contains Violence, Sexual References & Offensive Language.
Duration: 112 mins.
Genre: Suspense & Thriller.
Director: Gregory Hoblit.
Actors: Anthony Hopkins, David Strathairn, Embeth Davidtz, Cliff Curtis, Rosamund Pike, Billy Burke, Ryan Gosling.
Distributor: Roadshow.
Release Date: Out Now.