Colin Farrell opens up during ‘Fright Night’ panel

Colin Farrell smiles during the Sony panel discussion of the movie, "Total Recall," at Comic Con Friday, July 22, 2011, in San Diego. - AP Photo

SAN DIEGO: Colin Farrell plays a vampire in his latest film, but he says almost any role will do: He just loves being an actor.
The 35-year-old opened up during a panel featuring the update of ”Fright Night” Friday at the Comic-Con fan convention.
When a fan asked whether he preferred his earlier starring roles or his more recent character parts, Farrell said that in the last six years, he ”reconnected with the mystery of the whole thing and the imagination of the whole thing and how much fun it is to be an actor.”
”I came to success really quickly in relation to most other actors,” he said. ”The idea of how fast the chaos around me took grip, it’s insane. And I, myself personally, I lost sight of why I went to my first acting class when I was 17 in Dublin … I lost sight of that through this good fortune I was experiencing in Hollywood. So in the last six years I reconnected with the Colin who was 17.
”It’s a lot of fun to do what we do. It’s such a fortunate place to find yourself,” he said.
He plays the vampire-next-door Jerry Dandrige in ”Fright Night,” a reimagining of the 1985 horror classic that’s set for release Aug. 19.
Farrell took the stage again later in the day for a panel about the reboot of ”Total Recall.” He plays Doug Quaid, the same role originated by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1990 original.
Farrell’s description of his character’s arc echoes what the actor has experienced in his own life: ”I loved the idea of a man journeying from being a man in a deep, deep slumber to consciousness,” he said.
He described his character’s battle in the film as one between the intellectual and the emotional.
”Total Recall” director Len Wiseman said that while his version is totally different from the first film, it also draws from the original source material: Philip K. Dick’s story ”We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.”
Besides Farrell, the film stars Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Bill Nighy, John Cho and Kate Beckinsale. It is set for release next summer.
Comic-Con continues through Sunday at the San Diego Convention Center.

Stars accept YouTube marine ball invites

Actors Justin Timberlake (L) and Mila Kunis. - AFP Photo

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood stars Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis have accepted YouTube invitations from two US marines, one serving in Afghanistan, to accompany them to military balls. And singer-turned-actor Timberlake and “Black Swan” star Kunis are having fun with the invitations by a male and female Marine, which went viral on the video-sharing site last week.
“Marines have a lot of balls,” Kunis told the Today show on MSNBC on Monday, confirming that both of them had accepted their invitations to separate balls in November.
“We want to pay honor to our country and embrace their balls,” added Timberlake, who starred in last year’s Oscar-winning Facebook movie “The Social Network.”
The story started when a Marine Sgt. Scott Moore, stationed in Musa Qala, southern Afghanistan, posted a video on YouTube inviting Kunis to the Marine Corps Ball on November 18 in Greenville, North Carolina.
Kunis, who co-starred with Natalie Portman in last year’s sexually-charged hit movie “Black Swan,” was asked about the invite during a press interview and spontaneously said she would go.
That prompted female marine Corporal Kelsey De Santis to issue an invitation to Timberlake — co-starring with Kunis in a new movie “Friends with Benefits” — to a Marine Corps Ball on November 12 in Washington DC.
“So Justin you wanna call out my girl Mila, well I’m gonna call you out and ask you to go to the Marine Corps Ball with me,” said De Santis, who is stationed in Virginia and is a martial arts expert.
Timberlake confirmed he will attend, quipping: “I don’t get asked out, ever. So, I was very flattered by that. And I hear that she’s trained in martial arts, so I’m hoping we can tussle at some point.
“That last bit was a joke,” he added.
And it doesn’t stop there: on Friday veteran US comedy actress Betty White, 90, was invited to a marine ball by Sgt. Ray Lewis, who has served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“She’s funny, she’s sweet, she’s mature, she’s the all around perfect woman,” Lewis says in the YouTube video invitation.
But the 89-year-old declined, diplomatically. “I am deeply flattered and truly appreciate the invitation, as everyone knows I love a man in uniform,” she said, in a statement forwarded by her publicist.
“But unfortunately I cannot accept, as I will be taping an episode of ‘Hot In Cleveland,’” she said, referring to her hit show about three ageing showbiz veterans who find renewed fame when they unexpectedly land in Cleveland, Ohio.

China fans blast ‘Transformers’ brand placements

Michael Bay's big budget action film starring Shia LaBeouf focuses on alien robots in a quest to save the world. - File Photo

BEIJING: Despite thrilling to its 3D visual effects, Chinese moviegoers on Friday blasted the Hollywood blockbuster “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” for clunky product placements of Chinese brands.
The Hollywood robot action movie hit screens in China on Thursday, crashing ticket-booking websites as fans scrambled to get a seat for the film’s national debut, the Beijing News reported.
Analysts expect the box office for the day, once tallied, will break the 60 million yuan ($9.3 million) one-day record for China created by DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 2” on its debut in May, Friday’s Beijing News report said.
Four Chinese brands enjoy prominent exposure in the third instalment of the “Transformers” franchise — the most in any Hollywood film — in a sign of a push by Chinese firms to raise their global profiles, the Financial Times said in a report Wednesday.
However, viewers complained that the product placements were forced and “stiff” and did not blend with the script as naturally as those involving foreign labels, said Friday’s Modern Express newspaper.
“I can handle Adidas and Lenovo, but why give a part to Shuhua Low Lactose milk? I’m crying. I hate such product placements,” said a posting on the popular microblogging service of leading Chinese portal Sina.
Lenovo is China’s largest personal computer maker while Shuhua Low Lactose milk is a product of major Chinese dairy producer Yili.
“You can’t remember the protagonist, or the story, or any fighting scenes. But you can definitely remember Lenovo, TCL and Yili Shuhua milk,” said web user Jingang Daodan.
TCL is a Chinese maker of television sets. The other Chinese brand name with a cameo in the film is Meters/bonwe, a clothing line targeted at youths that also made its way into the second film in the series, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”