EARLIER this month, in promoting The Avengers movie, Mark Ruffalo, the latest to be cast as the Hulk, revealed on NBC talk show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, that he has been signed by Marvel Studios to portray the greenskinned superhero six more times.
MARVEL Studios’ The Avengers has just passed the US$1 billion (RM3.13 billion) mark at the global box-office and at this rate could eventually topple 2009’s Avatar as the No. 1 biggest-grossing movie of all time.
Naturally, comics fans the world over are rejoicing as from now on nobody should look down at the costumed superheroics genre that began merely 74 years ago with the advent of Superman in 1938.
Since ancient times, many civilisations throughout the world have spontaneously been celebrating motherhood and fatherhood as annual festivals on different days of the year, but in modern times, Mother’s Day is mainly observed on the second Sunday in May (this year, May 13) and Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June (this year, June 17).
MOST people are not aware that Thursday was named after Thor the Asgardian god of thunder and lightning, that Wednesday was in honour of Thor’s father Odin, that Friday was for Odin’s wife Frigg, and that Tuesday was for Odin’s other son Tyr the god of war.
IT has been a dozen years since Malaysian-owned Celestial Pictures acquired ownership to the much-coveted catalogue of 760 movies produced by famous Hong Kong studio Shaw Brothers, a decade since Celestial began remastering the films for gradual video release, and nine years since Astro’s Cel
ORGANISED crime has long been big business and in many cities, and countries, around the world, gangsters enriched by their multi-tentacled vice activities often become even more powerful by corrupting the police, judges and politicians with money and sexual favours.
IN the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans, mythical Greek hero Perseus, supported by majestic flying white horse Pegasus, slayed a Gorgon named Medusa and then used her serpent-tressed head to turn into stone, sea monster Kraken unleashed on mankind by Perseus’ estranged father Zeus, the paramount Olympian god.
WHILE channel-surfing Astro earlier this year, this writer was delighted to come across the Agatha Christie's Poirot series on Sunday nights over the low-profile ITV Granada Channel 735.
SHIP ahoy! Merely two months after Italian-owned luxury cruise liner MS Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized off the coast of Italy on Friday the 13th, Astro's National Geographic Channel 553 screened an hour-long documentary last Sunday, titled Costa Concordia: Voices of Disaster, on that disaster which claimed 32 lives.
IN the way that Dracula kept on rising from his grave in seven films starring Christopher Lee that were unleashed two generations ago by Hammer Film Productions, this British studio has finally returned to haunt cinemas around the world after being absent for over three decades.
SEVEN decades has passed since the British surrendered Malaya and Singapore to the Japanese on Feb 15, 1942, this, merely 10 weeks after the Japanese landed on Kota Baru, Kelantan in the wee hours of Dec 8, 1941, a defeat which then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill admitted was the most humiliating in British history as 130,000 of their troops became prisoners of war.
"I, BRUCE LEE, will be the first highest paid Oriental superstar in the United States. In return I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor. Starting 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness."
GROWING up, it’s natural for us to develop crushes on school teachers, singers and actors, and this goes on even as adults although the real-life or fictive subjects of our adulation may change from time to time.
THIS month is exactly a century since John Carter of Mars made his debut in the February 1912 issue of American pulp magazine All-Story and fans of this inter-planetary hero are eagerly awaiting the release of Disney’s big-budgeted John Carter on March 9 (here, March 8).
