Russian planning to invest..

Technoprom Export, a leading Russian engineering company that provides energy facilities in the domestic market and abroad, expressed a similar interest. DESIGN: ESSA MALIK

MOSCOW: 

As a sign of improved bilateral relations, major Russian companies have expressed their desire to invest in coal-based power projects in Pakistan.

Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali is currently on a visit to Moscow in order to woo investors to make investment in the country.

During one of the meetings with Ali, representatives of the Russian companies put forward the investment proposal.

Technoprom Export, a leading Russian engineering company that provides energy facilities in the domestic market and abroad, expressed a similar interest. The company is willing to look into the construction of a new coal-fired unit at Jamshoro with the capacity of 600 megawatts and a 660MW coal-fired unit at Gadani.

Britney’s songs used to shoo away Somali pirates!

Britney’s music is used as a second line of defense at sea because Somali pirates hate it. PHOTO: PUBLICITY

Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean was right when he said that it’s remarkable how often the traits madness and brilliance coincide.

An absolutely mind-boggling yet effective new weapon being used by the merchant navy, is Britney Spears’ music. Her songs help in defending cargo ships from the threat of being hijacked by Somali Pirates, reports The Guardian.

The sea captains, who face a grave threat from pirates off the Horn of Africa, claim that the star’s songs are played to ward off Somali pirates because they can’t stand her music. Merchant navy officer Rachel Owes said, “These guys can’t stand Western culture or music, making Britney’s hits perfect.” Another officer, Rachel, said that “her songs were chosen by the security team because they thought the pirates would hate them most.”

The east African coast is a hot spot for pirates, who are on the lookout for ships from which they could kidnap crew for millions in ransom. In 2011, there were 25 successful attacks on ships off the Horn of Africa. But the newfound tactic of using Britney’s hits to scare away pirates is not only unique but also useful. “They’re so effective that the ship’s security rarely needs to resort to firing guns – as soon as the pirates get a blast of Britney, they move on as quickly as they can,” said Rachel. The music is currently being used as a second line of defense and is utilised when initial calls from the guards on board fail to prevent the pirates from approaching.

The US police and military were the first to use music to deter potential attacks in sea. The tactic was then employed by merchant navy vessels and cruise ships to scare away pirates. “I’d imagine using Justin Bieber would be against the Geneva Convention,” joked Steven Jones of the Security Association for the Maritime Industry.

This is definitely the news highlight of our day! All hail pop music!

Lady Gaga facing lawsuit over 'Teeth' song

Lady Gaga facing law suit over 'Teeth' song. PHOTO: REUTERS

LOS ANGELES: Music producer Teddy Riley is planning to sue pop star Lady Gaga over her 2009 song “Teeth”, claiming he hasn’t received any payment for his involvement in creating the song.

Riley, who was a member of 1990s hip-hop group Blackstreet, has filed a lawsuit against the 27-year-old pop star, claiming he hasn’t received any of the payments he is owed after the song was included in her smash hit “The Fame Monster” EP (extended play).

The 46-year-old says he was promised 25 per cent of the writing fees for the song but hasn’t been paid at all, and he is now seeking $500,000 as well as punitive damages, reportstmz.com.

Gaga’s “Fame Monster” EP, which was released after her debut album “The Fame” , is credited with establishing her as one of the most popular music artists today. It also features hit songs such as “Telephone”, “Bad romance” and “Alejandro”

Spoiler alert: Ender’s Game explores complexity of youth, isolation and warfare

Based on Orson Scott Yard’s 1985 novel, the film depicts the mayhem caused by warfare. PHOTO: FILE

LOS ANGELES: 

Out in theatres on Friday, Ender’s Game follows the journey of young boy Ender Wiggin, played by Asa Butterfield, who is singled out from childhood for his superior intellect and put through advanced warfare training.

Ender is isolated from his comrades and manipulated by Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) into commanding war against a hostile alien race. In doing so, Ender begins to garner a fascination and connection to the alien enemy known as Formics. “It’s about young people being asked to accept huge responsibilities, being trained for warfare because it’s proposed that they have this capacity to absorb information more quickly than older people,” commented Ford.

The movie stars Viola Davis, Ben Kingsley and Oscar-nominated rising star Hailee Steinfeld, among others. Based on Orson Scott Card’s 1985 novel, the film features prominent themes of the emotional impact of warfare on young people, who have been manipulated from childhood through propaganda to develop a hatred for the enemy, an alien race.

Ender’s warfare training comes from videogames and large-scale computer simulations, displayed with striking special effects in the film. Butterfield said that Ender’s Game, while written three decades ago, was “scarily accurate” in how it resonated with present day issues. Davis remarked that the film may lead audiences to consider the bigger human social connection. “We’ve gotten in this age of social media, where we’ve become desensitised, we’ve put things out in the world not knowing that they have an effect,” Davis said.

Jami’s Moor highlights lost livelihood in Balochistan

From being detained by the ISI to later being confronted by TTP members, Jami’s filming for Moor has not been hiccup-free. PHOTO: PUBLICITY

KARACHI: 

The journey of a director going from advertisements and music videos to the longer and more demanding medium of film, is not an easy one. A feature film takes much more time. It requires guts. You need months of planning and above all, a considerable amount of money to get a project completed.

This is probably why Jami Mahmood is uncertain today. Despite having the rough cut of his film, titled Moor (Pashto for mother), Jami is torn between producing quality content as well as making a film that will rake in money at the box office.

“The real dilemma faced by Pakistani cinema today is the battle between authenticity and commercialism,” says Jami, as he skims through the rough cut of his upcoming film, which has garnered attention after the release of its trailer. The visuals and score are haunting.

Produced by Nadeem Mandviwalla, the film is slated to release in April 2014. Moor is shot mainly in the Pashtun-dominated belt of the province of Balochistan, with most scenes filmed in Muslim Baagh, Khanozai and Shelabagh. The remaining sequences are shot in Karachi.

“I want to get more authentic with the issue that I am tackling,” he says. “But would it be too early or too much for the audience? It’s a question that boggles me,” he adds.

The storyline is based on the closure of the Zhob Valley railways in 1984. The film shows how a family is affected by growing corruption in the system.

“If you start walking on the railway track in Bostan, you will see that as the tracks eventually start to disappear, so does the population in the surrounding areas,” says Jami, who co-wrote the story with Nazira Ali. “It was their bread and butter. No one can gauge the magnitude of damage it has caused to their livelihoods,” he stated.

Although Jami has his heart in the right place, the closure of the railways is hardly Balochistan’s biggest problem.

From being detained by the ISI to later being confronted by TTP members, Jami’s filming for Moor has not been hiccup-free. PHOTO: PUBLICITY

“People of Balochistan might think that I have gone nuts by talking about a railway system, which has been non-functional for years at a time, when the entire province is at stake [due to an insurgency],” says Jami. “They will be right in saying that I should have portrayed the ‘real issues’ of Balochistan. But frankly, had I chosen to do so, the film would never have been cleared by the censor board,” he said.

Getting approval from the federal and provincial governments wasn’t easy for the director. Jami finally succeeded and travelled to the snowcapped highlands of Muslim Baagh with a crew of 150 people. But there were more hurdles awaiting him.

Jami was briefly detained by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) when they first discovered that he was filming in the area and shooting was halted for three days. Later, he encountered members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

“It was alarming to see that the Muslim Baagh railway station is under the control of the TTP with all of their stationary in use,” says Jami. “When we asked them to let us shoot, they were very accommodating and didn’t bother us at all. We shot there for 40 days with girls wearing tights and no one interfered,” he recalls.

Jami hopes to make the cycle of film production more systematic and accessible. For that to happen, he believes that young film-makers graduating from media and film schools have a key role to play. “So far, the fresh graduates haven’t disappointed me. The best thing about them is that at least all of their basics are covered and they are passionate about films. That is why they grow very fast with hands-on training, as compared to those who have not been formally educated,” he says.

Big B supports Dutt by shooting for his film

Bachchan shows benevolence by shooting a sequence for Dutt’s film. PHOTO: FACEBOOK

As a goodwill gesture, Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan will appear in a film being made under Sanjay Dutt’s production house. Bachchan recently shot a sequence for the film despite complaining of physical “discomfort,” according to IANS and theIndian Express.

The 71-year-old actor posted on Facebook saying: “[Doing a] shoot today for a film being made by Sanjay Dutt… a gesture to be by his side in his time of trial… he is in jail but his wife and friends are running this production… and despite the pain of injury to [my] body, [I am] jiving it up… once the camera starts, it is difficult to stop…” According to reports, Bachchan will be playing himself in the film, which is reportedly titled Big B. Film-maker Rohit Shetty, who has to his credit the blockbuster Chennai Express, has been signed to direct the film.

After a four week-long furlough, Dutt recently returned to jail. He was originally released for 14 days on October 1 but requested a fortnight’s extension on medical grounds. It has been reported that Dutt had to get treated for blood clots, which had formed in his legs due to an ailment. The plea was granted to him by jail authorities.

“I still have a problem in my legs but it is a bit better than before. Pray for me, so that I can come out soon. Happy Diwali to all,” he said.  The Munna Bhai MBBS star will spend Diwali in prison, where he has been given the task of making eco-friendly bags that are sold through Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs). Dutt also expressed his thanks to the media for not violating his privacy during his parole period.

On his release, there had been speculation that Dutt may be granted a remission of sentence or a pardon. However, the rumours were debunked by state Home Minister R R Patil, who clarified that he had not received any such instructions. 53-year-old Dutt will now be serving the remaining 42 months of his five-year sentence.

Dutt was found guilty of possessing an automatic rifle and a pistol, which were part of a series of weapons meant to be used during the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts. He insisted that he had the firearms only to protect his family but, to no avail. The actor’s latest release was Policegiri, which was screened after he was sent to jail.

Movie review: Prisoners - no right way to do wrong

Prisoners will place you in morally murky situations and force you to make a choice.

There is no escaping from Prisoners. This masterfully directed psychological thriller from auteur Denis Villeneuve is so intense that its haunting melancholy will hold you captive long after the film ends. This will especially hold true if you are a parent, in which case the film may leave you in a temporary state of paranoia.

The film forces you to think about uncomfortable questions such as the twisted depths to which a parent will sink, in order to save their abducted child. The answers are so uneasy, and the stakes so high, that it may break a lot of your convictions.

The film stars Hugh Jackman (Keller Dover) as a religious carpenter in a powerful performance that is truly magnificent, and easily the best of his career.

The film begins with Keller, a loving father, who alongside his wife Grace (Maria Bello), son Ralph (Dylan Minnette), and daughter Anna (Erin Gerasimovich), is visiting family friends and neighbors, the Birches, for Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner, Anna asks her parents if she can leave with Joy Birch (Kyla Drew Simmons) to play at the Dover home. Anna’s parents reluctantly agree on the condition that the kids be chaperoned by their elder siblings.

What follows is a parent’s worst nightmare, and a plot ripped straight from American headlines.

After both children fail to return after some time, Keller discovers to his alarm that they left unescorted. Alongside Joy’s father, Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard), Keller frantically combs the neighborhood until he realizes the children are truly missing. The only clue the two families have is an RV, spotted outside of the Birch home while the girls were playing outside.

Coming to the aid of the desperate families is Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal), who backed by the local police, manages to locate the RV. Unfortunately, the RV carries no evidence that it was involved in the abduction.

Complicating the entire situation is the fact that the driver of the RV and the primary suspect, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), is a grown man with the I.Q. of a ten-year-old. Moreover, he provides Loki with no solid reason to suspect him. After he is released, however, he tantalizingly hints to Keller privately that he knows more than he has been letting on. Keller, frustrated with the release of Alex, kidnaps him, and later with Franklin’s assistance, tortures Alex using elaborate techniques.

With his nostrils often flaring, Hugh Jackman is stunningly convincing as a desperate father who must channel his inner psychopath in order to find his daughter. You feel torn between being sympathetic towards Alex and yet being able to relate to Keller’s agony, who is also held hostage by the situation.

Gyllenhaal, playing a detective so burdened by his job that he develops a very noticeable eye twitch, delivers a particularly powerful performance. The chemistry between Jackman and Gyllenhaal is also strong, with the detective looking to rein in the impatient father’s aggression, as the two main characters engage in a tug of wills.

Prisoners is a complex multi-layered film that does justice to its multiple themes. Matching the darkness of these layers is the film’s visually intoxicating cinematography, sporting simple backdrops that are given a suitably grim look by the gritty camerawork.

Prisoners’ narrative twists and turns like a maze, featuring surprises that will leave you guessing as often as the film’s principal characters. Disappointingly, some of the major set-pieces are foreshadowed a little too well, leaving little room for surprise. That being said, after a terrorizing ride, a little cheap satisfaction is somewhat welcome.

For more on Criminal takedown, watch

Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Starring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster, the film won five academy awards, and put Hannibal Lector on the map as one of the greatest villains ever seen on film. The film started a trend, and established a blueprint for other psychological thrillers to follow.

Se7en (1995)

Starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, the film featured a richly dark narrative, and an ending that blew cinemagoers away. However what most people don’t know is that the director, David Fincher was initially sent the wrong script by mistake, but he remained adamant that the producers stuck to it.

Zodiac (2007)

Also directed by David Fincher, the film is based on a true story of a series of complex and perplexing murders which law enforcement officials to this day have not been able to solve. The killer, Zodiac, sent taunting letters to both newspapers and the police during his horrifying killing spree