Coming soon: a horror story on American Fritzl’s victim?

London, Sept 20 (ANI): Publishers and Hollywood studios have begun a multi-million dollar bidding war for the rights to sex slave Jaycee Dugard’s horrifying life story.

Fresh details of the American Fritzl’s victim have emerged, including that in the early days of her captivity, the terrified schoolgirl was so hungry she ate bugs and worms in the rambling back garden where she was held in tents and lock-up sheds, reports The Daily Express.

She had to use a garden hose to shower outside, even in winters, say detectives guarding her and her two daughters, fathered by kidnapper Phillip Garrido.

However, the public apparently is desperate for the full story of how Jaycee, now 29, survived after being snatched on her way to a school bus stop when she was only 11.

A New York literary agent, who estimates the book and film rights to be worth up to 12million dollars, said: “You couldn’t dream up a script like this. Americans can’t wait to hear the story from the girl who lived it.”

A Hollywood studio producer said: “Everyone is in the market for this story. Poor Jaycee’s life may have been hell for 18 years but she’ll never want for anything for the rest of it.”

Garrido, a registered sex offender, has been linked to six child abductions and murders stretching back years within a 400-mile radius of the ramshackle home in Antioch, California, where Jaycee was held. (ANI)

Steven Spielberg, Robert Redford to go head to head with Lincoln biopics

Washington, Sept 16 (ANI): Steven Spielberg will continue work on his new movie based on the life of Abraham Lincoln, even as Robert Redford is making another biopic on the former American President.

Spielberg insists his film will be quite different from Redford’s version.

It is reported that Spielberg’s film tilled Lincoln will have the American Civil War as its plot, while Redford’s The Conspirator will deal with the events leading up to the former President’s assassination in 1865.

Contactmusic quoted Spielberg as telling Daily Variety: “We are very happy that Redford will be doing this Lincoln movie.

“It is completely different from what our DreamWorks Lincoln movie will be, and we believe that it will add to the commercial potential of our film. Lincoln as a subject is inexhaustible.”

The Jaw’s director had announced Lincoln earlier this year but the project has been delayed due to funding problems and changes in script. (ANI)

55th National Awards announced: Gandhi, My Father wins two

New Delhi, Sep.7 (ANI): The Anil Kapoor produced film ‘Gandhi, My Father’ has won two National Awards while the Shahrukh-starrer ‘Om Shanti Om’ has won in the Best Art Direction category, and Shahid Kapur-starrer ‘Jab We Met’ won the award in Best Choreography category in the 55th National Awards that were announced on Monday.

Gandhi, My Father was pitted against commercial successes like Taare Zameen Par and Chak De.

Feroz Abbas Khan, the director of the Gandhi, My Father won the National Award for Best Screenplay and Darshan Zariwala bagged theaward for the Best Supporting actor for portraying Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation who strives hard to have a normal relationship with his son in the film.

Meanwhile, actor Prakash Raj has won the Best Actor award in the 55th National Awards for his sterling performance as a silk weaver in Priyadarshan’s Tamil film Kanchivaram, which has been adjudged as the Best Film of 2007.

“It’s a very human story of pre-partition time about Kanjivaram. The film’s script was written so well that I didn’t require any homework. It is

It is Prakash Raj’s second National award. The previous one was in the Best Supporting Actor category for Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar in 1998 and a special jury award in 2003.

Directed by Priyadarshan, the film depicts the lives and times of silk-weavers of Kancheepuram in pre-Independent India.

Actor Umashree has won the Best Actress award for her performance for her lead role ‘Gulabi’ in Girish Kasaravalli’s Kannada film “Gulabi Talkies”.

The Gulabi Talkies, which was made in the coastal dialect of Kannada is based on the communal tension in Karnataka.

The best child actor award has gone to Sharad Goyekar for his role in the Marathi film “Tingya”.

Darshan Zariwala has got the best supporting actor award for his role in Feroz Abbas Khan’s film “Gandhi My Father”.

There is also a special jury award for this film, which explores the troubled relationship between Harilal Gandhi and Mahatma Gandhi.

“Chak De” has got the award in the wholesome entertainment category and “Taare Zameen Par” in the family welfare category.

Playback singer Shankar Mahadevan has won the award for the song “Meri Maa” from the film “Taare Zameen Par”.

The jury members for the National Awards headed by Sai Paranjpe included Ashok Viswanathan and Namita Gokhale. About 102 films and 106 non-feature films were considered.

The list had been finalized last week but because of the death of Andhra Pradesh chief minister YSR Reddy, the announcement was postponed. (ANI)

Ancient Indus Valley script communicated language, determines computer modeling

Washington, September 2 (ANI): A team of mathematicians and scientists has rejected claims that the Indus Valley people were functionally illiterate, by employing computer modeling to prove that the Harappan script communicated language.

In 2004, perhaps out of befuddlement and frustration, a group of scholars declared that the ancient Indus Valley script marked only rudimentary pictograms and that the people during the Harappan period were functionally illiterate.

According to a report in the TIME, that hypothesis, which caused a minor uproar in the world of Indus Valley researchers, was recently rejected by a team of mathematicians and computer scientists assembled from institutions in the US and India.

They employed computer modeling to prove that the Harappan script communicated language, and has reinvigorated attempts to crack what is one of the lingering puzzles of ancient history.

The group examined hundreds of Harappan texts and tested their structure against other known languages using a computer program.

Every language, the scientists suggest, possesses what is known as “conditional entropy”: the degree of randomness in a given sequence.

In English, for example, the letter t can be found preceding a large variety of other letters, but instances of tx and tz are far more infrequent than th and ta.

“A written language comes about through this mix of built-in rules and flexible variables,” said Mayank Vahia, an astrophysicist at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in Mumbai who worked on the study.

Quantifying this principle through computer probability tests, the scientists determined that the Harappan script had a similar measure of conditional entropy to other writing systems, including English, Sanskrit and Sumerian.

If it mathematically looked and acted like writing, they concluded, then surely it is writing.

But this is just a first step. Vahia and his colleagues hope to piece together a solid grammar from the sea of impenetrable Indus signs.

Their August research paper charted the likelihood of certain characters appearing in parts of a text – for example, a fish sign appeared most frequently in the middle of a sequence and a U-shaped jar sign toward the end.

Bit by bit, the structure of the script is coming into view.

“We want to find the bedrock against which all further interpretation of the language should be checked,” said Vahia.

Down the road, he imagines he could write in “flawless Harappan” – even though he may have no idea what the assembled sequences would mean. (ANI)

Madonna set to make film on Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson

London, Sep 1 (ANI): Queen of Pop Madonna is set to start her new movie project on Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor.

Madge, 51, hopes that Scottish actor David Tennant, 38, and Aussie actress Cate Blanchett, 40, will star in the movie about Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced American socialite, to marry whom King Edward VIII gave up the throne.

The movie will be another musical like the 1996 flick ‘Evita’, in which Madge played Eva Peron, but this time she will be directing and producing, not acting in it.

She has already met with ‘Dr Who’ star Tennant to persuade him to play Edward, and she is determined to get Blanchett to play the young Wallis after deciding against Keira Knightley.

“The final script is now written and the locations have been scouted. Madonna is now trying to assemble the cast and put the finances in place,” the Sun quoted a source as saying.

“The first scene of the film is an old woman in her nineties living on her own in a Parisian flat. She starts to tell her life story to her housekeeper. It turns out the old woman is Wallis Simpson.

“There will be a song for each decade of her life,” the source added. (ANI)

Keira Knightley competes with Scarlett Johansson to be My Fair Lady

London, Aug 30 (ANI): Keira Knightley has been forced to compete with Scarlett Johansson for the role of Eliza Doolittle in a remake of ‘My Fair Lady’.

Knightley was lined up for the part of the Cockney flower seller, played by Audrey Hepburn in the 1964 film, by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the co-producer.

The ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ star confirmed last year that she had auditioned and begun singing lessons, reports the Telegraph.

However, she has since been told that she has an American rival for the part.

Sir Cameron said: “I have two actresses as potential Elizas, one British, the other American. You’d know their names, but I’m not letting on.”

Emma Thompson is writing the script for the film, which Stephen Daldry is expected to direct. Daniel Craig may be Professor Henry Higgins. (ANI)

Ancient Indus Valley script might soon be decoded by computer program

Sydney, August 29 (ANI): A recent research has determined that an ancient, indecipherable text from the Indus Valley civilization is being decoded with the help of a computer program.

According to a report by ABC News, though it has yet to decrypt this mysterious language, the program may help to decipher other ancient texts whose meanings have been long since forgotten.

“The computer program operates on sequences of symbols, so it can be used to learn a statistical model of any set of unknown or known texts,” said Rajesh Rao, University of Washington professor of computer science and co-author of the research paper.

“In fact, such statistical models have been used to analyze a wide variety of sequences ranging from DNA and speech to economic data,” he added.

Roughly 5,000 seals, tablets and amulets, filled with about 500 different symbols, were created somewhere between 2600 and 1900 B.C. by a people living in the Indus River Valley.

Despite numerous attempts to decipher the symbols, a full translation has long eluded scientists.

In fact, one recent paper even cast doubt on whether the Indus Valley script was even a written text at all, but rather political or religious symbols.

To start the search for what meaning the text might hold, American and Indian scientists input the symbols into a computer program and ran a statistical analysis of the symbols and where they appear in the texts.

With that information, the program can do many things including creating new, hypothetical Indus Valley texts, fill in missing symbols in existing texts, and tell the scientist if a particular text has been generated by their computer model.

“We used the latter to show that the Indus texts that have been discovered in West Asia are statistically very different from the texts found in the Indus Valley, suggesting that the Indus people used their script to represent different content or language when living in a foreign land,” said Rao.

For now, however, the Indus Valley script, along with many other ancient texts, remains indecipherable, but scientists are hopeful that computers will eventually decode the symbols on them.

“I am however optimistic that given a few more years, we may be able to at least narrow down the language family of the script by using computer analysis to gain an in-depth understanding of the underlying grammar,” said Rao. (ANI)

ISI funding charge a ‘film based on an obsolete script’, says PML-N leader

Lahore, Aug.28 (ANI): Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khwaja Asif has rejected reports that the ISI had paid millions to politicians, including party chief Nawaz Sharif.

Talking to private television channel, Asif termed the allegations as a ‘film based on an obsolete script.’

Asif said PML-N has faced many such allegations in the past and come out of it successfully.

“We are not afraid of such blame games and are ready to face them,” The Daily Times quoted Asif, as saying.

PML-N Information Secretary Ahsan Iqbal also rejected the allegations, saying the party never received any money from the intelligence agency.

Iqbal said that such claims were a part of maligning the PML-N leadership. (ANI)

Robin Williams to get ‘Wedding Banned’?

Washington, Aug 28 (ANI): Hollywood actor Robin Williams has been roped in to star in Disney flick ‘Wedding Banned’, it has emerged.

In the film, Williams will play one-half of a long-divorced couple who kidnap their daughter on her wedding day in order to keep her from making a mistake. The divorced parents rekindle their relationship as they elude cops and the angry groom, reports Variety.

The Disney bosses have picked up the film’s script from Jack Amiel and Michael Begler last summer.

Mandeville’s David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman will produce the film.

Mandeville has recently produced “The Proposal” and the upcoming “Surrogates” for Touchstone, and “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” for Disney before that. (ANI)

Mirren to star in big-screen remake of Graham Greene’s novel Brighton Rock

London, Aug 28 (ANI): Actress Dame Helen Mirren is set to star in new film Brighton Rock, adapted from Graham Greene’s classic 1939 novel of the same title.

The Oscar winner will play amateur detective Ida Arnold in the movie.

The plot revolves around teenager Pinkie, who seduces a young waitress after she stumbles on evidence linking him and his gang to a revenge killing committed by Pinkie.

Mirren will have the task cut out to find the truth behind the killing.

Rowan Joffe has written the script and will direct the film too.

And he intends to make it look as contemporary as possible.

“We’re making Brighton Rock as contemporary as we possibly can because the story feels ‘modern’. It’s too alive, too vibrant and too relevant to be contained in the late 1930s,” the BBC News quoted him as saying.

Also starring in the film, set in 1964, is Sam Riley, who will play the lead character Pinkie Brown apart from Pete Postlethwaite and Happy Go Lucky’s Andrea Riseborough.

Shooting is scheduled to start in October this year. (ANI)

Megan Fox not to play Catwoman

Washington, Aug 27 (ANI): Megan Fox will not play Catwoman, as it was earlier speculated.

People magazine reports that Warner Bros. has not selected the sexy actress; in fact, there is no project at all for her to be cast in.

A studio rep said: “It’s rumor. It’s not true. There is no script. There is no project to be cast in.”

Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry have played the role in previous films. (ANI)

Batman helmer abandons plans to direct movie version of The Prisoner

Washington, Aug 19 (ANI): Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has given up all plans of directing a film based on the cult British TV series The Prisoner.

Nolan was to direct a big budget blockbuster version of the 1968 show starring Patrick McGoohan, and his exit has now kicked of rumours that he plans to start early with his third Batman movie.

The director has, however, left behind The Prisoner in a complete mess. The movie’s producer Barry Mendel has said they might not be able to start on the film before movie executives see the level of success that its new TV version – featuring Ian McKellen and Jim Caviezel – achieves.

Contactmusic quoted Mendel as telling CineFools: “Nolan has dropped out of it but we have a first draft (of the script) by David and Janet Peoples who wrote Twelve Monkeys. It’s a good draft and we’re working on the script right now.

“If the series was wildly popular that might effect us. The screenplay (we’ve got) is such a re-imagination of the series, if you think of The Avengers that wasn’t a commercially successful film but it was very much in the spirit of the original show, this looks and feels so different that the tenants of the show are apparent but the execution of it is so different that I think it is unrecognisable.” (ANI)

Will Smith, ‘Legend’ director to reunite for ‘City That Sailed’?

Washington, July 9 (ANI): Francis Lawrence may be reuniting with his ‘I Am Legend’ star Will Smith for 20th Century Fox project ‘The City That Sailed’.

The director is developing the project, which is being produced by Smith’s Overbrook banner, with an eye to direct, reports the Variety.

The film’s story is about a father and daughter living on opposite sides of the ocean whose love is so strong that it causes Manhattan to split off and float across the Atlantic.

‘Ocean’s Thirteen’ scribes Brian Koppelman and David Levien will rewrite a script that originated from ‘Truman Show’ scribe Andrew Niccol. (ANI)

Lindsay Lohan refused ‘Hangover’ role

New York, July 8 (ANI): Actress Lindsay Lohan was initially offered the role played by Heather Graham in hit film ‘The Hangover’.

According to Usmagazine.com, the ‘Mean Girls’ star was offered the role of Jade, a stripper played by Graham in the blockbuster film by Todd Phillips, but turned it down insisting that the screenplay “had no potential”. source said that Lohan’s agent “tried hard to get Phillips to consider her,” but “Lindsay said she didn’t like the script,” reports the New York Post.

However, Lohan’s representative was not available for comment.

Meanwhile, Lohan has once again landed herself in trouble with the law, with a chemist accusing her of stealing her tanning spray formula.

Jennifer Sunday, a St. Petersburg, Fla., chemist, filed the lawsuit in Tampa, Fla. Federal court against Lohan and Lorit Simon, a Las Vegas businesswoman who air-brush tans celebrities. (ANI)

Jennifer Metcalfe mud wrestles in steamy shower gel ad

London, July 05 (ANI): Hottie Jennifer Metcalfe recently did a steamy mud wrestling scene with a Brazilian babe for new Lynx Fever shower gel advertisement.

The Hollyoaks star, who plays feisty Mercedes McQueen in the show, had revealed earlier that she has no problems being intimate with a girl, reports the News of the World.

She said: “If the script was right I would do a lesbian sex scene.”

The bombshell is satisfied with the latest stint, she said: “I enjoyed it. I managed to take my opponent down while keeping my bikini up!”

As for thrill seekers, there is no possibility of disappointment.

One source at the shoot said: “There’s only one thing sexier than Jennifer Metcalfe in a bikini – and that’s Jennifer Metcalfe rolling around in mud with another beauty.” (ANI)

Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning ‘have make-out scene in ‘The Runaways’

New York, July 3 (ANI): Kristen Stewart will reportedly do a steamy bedroom scene with Dakota Fanning in the upcoming Joan Jett biopic ‘The Runaways.’

According to Life and Style, the ‘Twilight’ starlet will try her hand at some girl on girl action in the movie.

According to a source, the script calls for Stewart, who plays Jett in the film, to swap spit with Fanning, who stars as singer Cherie Curie, resulting in their clothes being “scattered all over their hotel room floor in one scene.”

“Dakota’s very controlled and poised. She’s going to have to lose herself in this because it’s pretty heavy,” the New York Daily News quoted Stewart as saying. (ANI)

Sienna Miller thinks Cate Blanchett will make a ‘better’ Maid Marian

New Delhi, July 2 (ANI): Sienna Miller believes that Cate Blanchett, who has replaced her in Ridley Scott’s epic Robin Hood, will make a “better” Maid Marian than her.

The actress, who was due to star alongside Russell Crowe in the upcoming big-budget drama, said that there were no hard feelings against 40-year-old Cate, who she said was “more suitable” for the role, reports the China Daily.

She told Total Film magazine: “There was nothing salacious. The script kept changing and evolving, to the point where I was no longer appropriate for it. Cate’s 10 years older than me, which is more suitable for the script.”

She added: “If they’d recast it with Keira Knightley, I’d have been heartbroken, but they’ve gone for something different – and better, in my opinion. If I had the choice between Cate Blanchett and me, I’d go for Cate Blanchett!” (ANI)

Megan Fox wants her prospective boyfriends to tattoo her name or face

Washington, July 02(ANI): Want to date Megan Fox? Well, then, getting a tattoo of the actress’ name or face on your body is a must.

The actress insists that boys should tattoo her name or face on their bodies if they fancy being her boyfriend.

“I have eight tattoos. All my boyfriends are required to have one and if they don’t have one yet, I make them get a tattoo of my name or my face,” Contactmusic quoted her as telling to TV programme ‘The Early Show’.

The ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ star also revealed that she hardly had any clue what the film was all about and that she does not prefer watching her own films.

She said: “I usually don’t watch things that I do because I’m very neurotic about it and I can’t sit through it. But I had to watch this one because everyone was saying ‘Megan, it’s really good, you have to watch it.’
It’s massive. I don’t know how people can see it on IMAX without having a brain aneurism or at least a migraine headache. I’m in the movie and I read the script and I still don’t know what’s happening so I think if you haven’t read the script and you see it and you understand it you are a genius,” she added. (ANI)

Sienna Miller blames ‘vendetta’ for losing Robin Hood role

London, July 1 (ANI): Sienna Miller has said that there is a “vendetta” against her after the actress lost out on playing Maid Marian in Ridley Scott’s epic Robin Hood.

The Hippie Hippie Shake star, who was due to share the frame with Russell Crowe in the forthcoming drama, said that script alterations cost her the role.

“The script kept changing and evolving to the point where I was no longer appropriate for it,” the Daily Express quoted her as having told Total Film magazine.

The 27-year-old, however, added that she had no hard feelings against 40-year-old Cate Blanchett, who had stepped into her shoes.

She said: “Cate’s 10 years older than me, which is more suitable for the script. If they’d recast with Keira Knightley I’d have been heartbroken but they’ve gone for something different – and better in my opinion. If I had the choice between Cate Blanchett and me I’d go for Cate Blanchett.”

Miller further said that she was not the only one who was dropped out of the project, and that it was the media’s doing that such a hue and cry was created about her loss of role.

She added: “There were several people supposed to be doing the film who no longer are but because it’s me it becomes this enormous drama – I think it’s a Sienna thing! There’s just a vendetta against… I don’t know.” (ANI)

Cameron Diaz excited to work with Tom Cruise in ‘Wichita’

Washington, June 26 (ANI): Cameron Diaz, who starred along side Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky, has said that she is “really excited to work” with him once again in the new action film ‘Wichita.’

After reading the script, which Cruise had already accepted, she said: “Well, if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t be doing it. I’m very, very excited about doing it. It’s an action film, so I’m really excited to work him,” Contactmusic reports.

Meanwhile, the 36-year-old beauty was present with The Mission Impossible star’s wife Katie Holmes when she was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame earlier this week.

She said: “I was really happy to see them. They were wonderful. It was fantastic. It was so lovely of them to come out and show support.

“My whole family was there and my friends were there. And I consider them that as well. So it was really wonderful to have them there.” (ANI)