Author: Sara Embrey

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Ben Chaplin in British Import “Dates” on the CW

 

Ben Chaplin turned 46 on July 31st! Ben, born and raised in the UK, is a notable actor with roles in many films from the 1990s up until the present. In 1992, Chaplin landed his first break starring in "Bye Bye Baby" for Channel Four. He was later cast in The Remains of the Day. Continuing to advance his career, Chaplin garnered rave reviews as Tom in Sam Mendes' stage production of The Glass Menagerie (1995). Some of his more recent notable films include the independent film Ways to Live Forever, Cinderella, and the 2015 British TV series Mad Dogs. Chaplin has received a few awards during his acting career such as the Olivier Award nomination for Best Supporting Performer in The Glass Menagerie, and a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in The Retreat from Moscow. Ben is now appearing on the CW network in Dates, a British romantic comedy import about personal relationships.

Ben will actually be starring in a new British television show “Dates” which is set to be released in the U.S. soon. There are currently nine episodes currently acquired. The show centers around couples first dates after meeting via online dating. The premier dates are not currently set, however they show release is supposedly set for sometime this summer.

A few interesting facts about Chaplin is that his real name is actually Benedict John Greenwood and he became interested in acting after attending a school play. He later attended and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Ben Chaplin is known for concentrating on risk-taking, quality movies rather than mainstream and Hollywood films.

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Actress Emilia Fox Talks About Family, Love, and Feminism in Interview with Good Housekeeping UK

 

Actress Emilia Fox opened up to Good Housekeeping for the August 2015 issue about her hopes and views on marriage and men.

After a recent trip to Ethiopia as an ambassador for ActionAid, the 41 year-old Fox stated she “would love to get married again.” The actress describes herself as a hopeless romantic, and hopes that she can marry once again. Emilia Fox was married to Jared Harris in 2005, but the two were divorced after three years.

The Ways To Live Forever actress told the magazine, “When I was in Ethiopia and saw families with siblings who look after each other, I thought how we can get caught up in our work. But what is more important than family life? So, yes, I would love more children!” She also mentioned it would be nice for her daughter to have more siblings to grow up with.

Fox recalls that in her youth she had “a very idyllic childhood, of innocence and wild gardens and running around in Dorset pressing wild flowers, making scrapbooks and being by the sea in rock pools.”

She encourages romance and chivalry, as she wholeheartedly stated that she “believes in equality…But equally I love it when gentlemen are allowed to be gentlemen…I don’t think we want to kill that off with the word feminism—when a gentleman is kind to you and opens a door, or gives up his seat or says something nice, we must encourage that too,” and believes equality should live hand-in-hand with chivalry.

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Sixth-Generation Chinese Cinema and Academy selection The Nightingale

 

The exhibition of Chinese films in the US has not always been as common as it has become in the recent years. Cold War politics forced the two nations into an unfriendly embargo, so that the exhibition of Chinese films on US soil was non-existent. The cease of almost all artistic creation during the “cultural revolution” left China without a film industry for many years. Without a cinema to represent it in a global stage, this vast nation became an enigma to the international film community. This much was true, until China reopened their film schools, and gave students the opportunity to have their films be exhibited internationally.

The first group of film students who worked to reintroduce Chinese cinema to the world was dubbed the “fifth generation.” Their films gathered international interest, not only because they unveiled the style and point of view of inland Chinese cinema, but also because their films were of high artistic value. A certain dogma of Chinese cinema since its reintroduction to the world was unveiled with the film Yellow Earth. That film exclaims an artistic style through slow scroll-like camera tilts that embody the earth as a character that is in control of the tragic ambiance and the poverty stricken characters that live on that land. This film, along with a few others, had the opportunity to be shown in various prestigious international film festivals during the 1980’s, and with it came the exponential regrowth of the Chinese film industry.

Today, the Chinese film industry is one of the world’s largest in terms of number of pictures made. At the same time, China continues to maintain a high artistic pedigree in their productions. This is evident in one of China’s contributions to the Academy Awards: The Nightingale (to be distributed by World Wide Motion Picture Corporation). This picture is a heartfelt story about an old man traveling through rural China with a pet bird nightingale and his young granddaughter. The Nightingale emphasizes certain themes evident in contemporary transnational cinema regarding culture. In a world interconnected with the immediacy of technology — as emphasized by the young tech-savvy granddaughter in the film— Chinese culture is almost non-existent in the big cities, but it is rediscovered in the countryside. With that said, technology and the commodities brought by economic growth, have lessened the warmth and communication in families, which is seen in the transformation of Ren Xing (the grandaughter) as the journey develops.
A Chinese-French co-production, evidently falling under the transnational category — a trait it shares with a lot of international cinemas — The Nightingale also follows suit of now sixth-generation Chinese cinema — pictures such as The World, or In The Mood For Love. Like many films around the world, The Nightingale embodies a universality that makes it a film that can be understood, no matter the nationality of the audience watching it.

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National Parent’s Day: Movies Celebrating Parents

 

Today is National Parent’s Day, and although this day does not get as much recognition as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, this day celebrates both! Having both parents is a blessing in itself and if you are fortunate enough to have both of your parents in your life, today is the perfect day to pay some love and respect to them. Parents and family are huge topic in many films made today, such as the film Ways to Live Forever (2010) and the film Amy (1997). The movie Ways to Live Forever focuses on a young boy with leukemia and how he and his family cope with the illness. The parents, played by Ben Chaplin and Emilia Fox, both take care of their son, played by Robbie Kay. The film displays support from family since the parents do everything they can to ensure that their son can stay alive. They fight alongside him to battle the illness. The film Amy also about a young child fighting a health issue, featuring a girl who suffers from hysterical deafness and only responds to song. Her mother, played by actress Rachel Griffiths, searches for answers to find out how her daughter can eventually hear again. Both films demonstrate how strong parents love is no matter the situation.

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Celebrate and Watch Gorgeous Celebrity Grandmas, including Jessica Lange, Susan Lucci, Sally Field, Phyllida Law and Gladys Knight

 

Happy Gorgeous Grandmother Day! Over the last couple of decades, older celebrities have retained their beauty well into their golden years. Older celebrities like actress and singer Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow look better in their 40’s than they did in their 20’s. New diets, pharmaceuticals, and exercise routines have given women the ability to stay gorgeous well into old age. Being 40 years old is no longer the career killer it might have been, the stigma of being a grandmother is still being challenged. Notably gorgeous grandmothers include; Jessica Lange, Priscilla Presley, Susan Lucci, Sally Field, Phyllida Law and Gladys Knight. All these women are over 60 years old and have adorable grandkids. Jessica Lange at 66, looks incredible every week on American Horror Story. She became a grandmother about 30 years after making it big in King Kong. Priscilla Presley is aged to a perfect 70 years and has three grandchildren. In 2008, her daughter Lisa Marie Presley had twin boys, apparently twins run in the Presley family.  Susan Lucci, from All my Children, became a gorgeous grandma in 2006, with the birth of Liza Huber’s first child named Royce Alexander, who was born on Grandma’s birthday. Sally Field is a 68 year old and is a devoted mother to her 3 children and multitude of grandchildren. She is most known for her role on Brothers & Sisters.  Some of these women have used plastic surgery to retain their looks, while others age with grace, for example Phyllida Law is one of the oldest gorgeous grandma, mentioned here, at 83 years old. She is the mother of Emma Thompson and grandmother of her 2 children.Her classic, if lines, features and her silver hair give her a beautiful natural look, we can only hope to age so well. She played a grandmother in Ways to Live Forever, distributed by World Wide Motion Pictures. Gladys Knight is 71 years old and her beautiful skin still glows with a youthful glint and her voice hasn’t aged a day. She has ten grandchildren, more than all the other women mentioned here. All grandmothers are gorgeous in their own way and today take the time to tell yours how amazing she looks, because soon enough we’ll all be as old as they are (fingers crossed).

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Greetings Earthlings! July 20th is Space Exploration Day

 

Have you ever wanted to witness an alien encounter? Or maybe see an asteroid explode into another comet? Today we wonder about the vast complexities of outerspace, and continue to search for various other life forms similar to our own. Space Exploration Day is the day we decide to build our own rocketship and see the stars for ourselves. Millions of different photographs NASA releases for us to gaze at will never recreate the sensation of floating aimlessly in a space shuttle with no gravity to hold anything back.

It seems that the more information our civilization finds out about space, the less we seemingly know about. Will we ever find out how green are the alien life form’s skin compared to what we had first thought, if they even have skin at all? Will we ever find the beginning, middle, or the end of the universe? Is our physical existence expanding, or contracting? So many questions are left to be answered, which makes space exploration more exciting than ever.

Robbie Kay’s character in the film “Ways to Live Forever” had a fascination with traveling to outer space. Everyone has thought about it at least once in their lives. This could be the day you actually sneak onto a NASA space shuttle and explore the next frontier for yourself!