MovieTime

Disabled groups protest Stiller film

Ben Stiller's latest comedy Tropic Thunder has run into trouble with disability groups in Los Angeles who are picketing it for its use of the word 'retard' as a term of abuse.

The comedy has Stiller, Robert Downey Jr and Jack Black as actors in a war movie who find themselves in the middle of the real thing. Stiller plays Tug Speedman, a pumped-up, simple-minded, extremely vain action star. Jack Black plays a comedian who farts a lot and likes fat-suits. And Robert Downey Jr plays an Australian actor prepared to wear blackface to get a part in an American war film. Tom Cruise plays a crass studio executive. The target of the film is Hollywood and its values.

But this week about fifty protesters picketed the film's premiere in Los Angeles with placards saying, 'Ban the movie, ban the word' and 'Eliminate the R word'.

Australians will be able to judge for themselves when the film opens next week. Just a reminder, folks...context is all.

Tilda's festival

Just about every country, city, small town and suburb has its own film festival these days. Now Tilda Swinton has her own personal festival. The Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams will be held in a rented ballroom in her home town of Nairn in northern Scotland at the end of August. Swinton decided to create (and pay for) a festival that would, 'run eight and a half days, that would be a six out of ten on the grunge scale, that would serve home-made cakes and fish finger sandwiches. It will screen Tilda's and her friends' favourite films'.

BIFF awards

At the Brisbane International Film Festival last week, audiences named Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's animated drama about a young girl growing up in Iran, as their favourite film. The critics' choice, awarded by the Fipresci jury of international film critics, was Good Cats, a sharply observed drama about corruption and disaffection in urban China. This is a third feature from Ying Liang, one of the new generation of Chinese film-makers empowered by DVCam.

Presenter

Julie Rigg

Producer

Julie Rigg