19 Things You Didn't Know About Star Wars

I Hate Luv Storys

Starring: Imran Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Sammir Dattani, Sameer Soni and Kavin Dave Director: Punit Malhotra Rating: *** Boy hates mushy love stories, doesn’t believe in love and all those things that come along with it whereas the girl is a big believer in romance and is living her own perfect love story with a childhood pal. Boy meets this girl and don’t get along but eventually love strikes! First for the girl but the boy rejects it explaining that he only thought of her as a friend. Soon love strikes him too but by then it is too late. He tries to woo her back and ends up doing all those mushy things that he hated in the first place. Punit Malhotra’s debut directorial venture, I Hate Luv Storys works well when it tries to poke fun at these elements but eventually falls in the same clichéd trap when it comes to delivering as a film. I Hate Luv Storys’ main lead character, J (Imran Khan) tries to poke fun of all the mush and romance ideas that generate from Bollywood. Ironically, working with Bollywood’s King of mush, filmmaker Veer Kapoor, he barely manages to keep a straight face about all that’s happening around him. A complete opposite of J, Simran (Sonam) joins Veer Kapoor’s production as a set designer. As expected clashes take place between the two but eventually they end up becoming good friends. Gradually she ends up falling for, Mr. Wrong at the risk of dumping her loyal perfect Mr. Right Raj (Sammir). J rebuffs her. Hurt, she tries to get over her fixation for J and decides to concentrate on her relationship with Raj. But by then J has fallen head over heels in love with Simran and wants her back. How he tries to use all the tricks from the clichéd Bollywood references and much more to woo Simran back, forms the rest of the film. First timer, Punit delivers big when it comes to giving the film a fresh treatment in terms of narrative and style and laces it with some extremely laugh out loud one liners. But as a writer, he falls short of offering anything new when it comes to the script. Agreed, it tries to take a funny look at the romance seen through the typical eyes of Bollywood, by doing a parody of sorts on filmmakers. He includes his own producer Karan Johar, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and even Aditya Chopra in it but one fails to understand why Punit doesn’t give a new perspective about the same in his own film given the resources he had in hand. The jovial first half has its moments but the second half tends to drag, especially since you can predict well in advance how and where it is all heading. But, full marks to his actors including the periphery ones, who keep it rocking with their perfect acts. Vishal and Shekhar’s chart topping music also aids IHLS and lifts it above the average. The innovative production design works well with the theme of the film. Ayananka Bose continues to surprise with camerawork with each passing film. She has captured the New Zealand locales superbly. Imran Khan, after a lackluster performances in Kidnap and Luck is back in top form and very much at ease playing a rom com lead. He adds more fun to his character with his body language and facial expressions. Sonam Kapoor is aptly cast as the dreamy lover girl and wows in her more contemporary city gal avatar unlike her first two films Saawariya and Delhi 6 which presented her in a more ethnic way. The chemistry between this fresh pairing is amazing. Kavin Dave as Imran’s office colleague is hilariously good. The graffiti on his Tees make you LOL as well. Sammir Dattani delivers his lines monotonously. Perhaps he was asked to appear as a boring boy friend. But he does it well. Sameer Soni is fun with his take on Karan Johar and so is Aamir Ali as the hot shot romantic star of the film he is shooting. Bruna Abdullah is smoking hot in her special appearance as Imran's flirt interest. IHLS is fun till it lasts but once you come out of the cinema hall you realize that it fails to make an impact as a romantic comedy thanks to the feeling of déjà vu. IHLS works as pure popcorn fun.

Movies

The Stories Behind Hollywood Studio Logos

By Alex in Movies & SciFi, Neatorama Only on Dec 3, 2008 at 1:02 pm

 

You see these opening logos every time you go to the movies, but have you ever wondered who is the boy on the moon in the DreamWorks logo? Or which mountain inspired the Paramount logo? Or who was the Columbia Torch Lady? Let's find out:

1. DreamWorks SKG: Boy on the Moon

In 1994, director Steven Spielberg, Disney studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, and record producer David Geffen (yes, they make the initial SKG on the bottom of the logo) got together to found a new studio called DreamWorks.
Spielberg wanted the logo for DreamWorks to be reminiscent of Hollywood's golden age. The logo was to be a computer generated image of a man on the moon, fishing, but Visual Effects Supervisor Dennis Muren of Industrial Light and Magic, who has worked on many of Spielberg's films, suggested that a hand-painted logo might look better. Muren asked his friend, artist Robert Hunt to paint it.
Hunt also sent along an alternative version of the logo, which included a young boy on a crescent moon, fishing. Spielberg liked this version better, and the rest is history. Oh, and that boy? It was Hunt's son, William.
The DreamWorks logo that you see in the movies was made at ILM from paintings by Robert Hunt, in collaboration with Kaleidoscope Films (designers of the original storyboards), Dave Carson (director), and Clint Goldman (producer) at ILM.

Photo courtesy of Robert Hunt - Thanks for the neat story, Robert!

2. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM): Leo The Lion

In 1924, studio publicist Howard Dietz designed the "Leo The Lion" logo for Samuel Goldwyn's Goldwyn Picture Corporation. He based it on the athletic team of his alma mater Columbia University, the Lions. When Goldwyn Pictures merged with Metro Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures, the newly formed MGM retained the logo.
Since then, there have been five lions playing the role of "Leo The Lion". The first was Slats, who graced the openings of MGM's silent films from 1924 to 1928. The next lion, Jackie, was the first MGM lion whose roar was heard by the audience. Though the movies were silent, Jackie's famous growl-roar-growl sequence was played over the phonograph as the logo appeared on screen. He was also the first lion to appear in Technicolor in 1932.
The third lion and probably most famous was Tanner (though at the time Jackie was still used concurrently for MGM's black and white films). After a brief use of an unnamed (and very mane-y) fourth lion, MGM settled on Leo, which the studio has used since 1957.
The company motto "Ars Gratia Artis" means "Art for Art's Sake."

Sources: MGM Media Center | Wikipedia entry on "Leo The Lion"

3. 20th Century Fox: The Searchlight Logo

In 1935, Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Film Company (back then mainly a theater-chain company) merged to create Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (they later dropped the hyphen).
The original Twentieth Century Pictures logo was created in 1933 by famed landscape artist Emil Kosa, Jr. After the merger, Kosa simply replaced "Pictures, Inc." with "Fox" to make the current logo. Besides this logo, Kosa was also famous for his matte painting of the Statue of Liberty ruin at the end of the Planet of the Apes (1968) movie, and others.
Perhaps just as famous as the logo is the "20th Century Fanfare", composed by Alfred Newman, then musical director for United Artists.

4. Paramount: The Majestic Mountain

Paramount Pictures Corporation was founded in 1912 as Famous Players Film Company by Adolph Zukor, and the theater moguls the Frohman brothers, Daniel and Charles.
The Paramount "Majestic Mountain" logo was first drawn as a doodle by W.W. Hodkinson during a meeting with Zukor, based on the Ben Lomond Mountain from his childhood in Utah (the live action logo made later is probably Peru's Artesonraju). It is the oldest surviving Hollywood film logo.
The original logo has 24 stars, which symbolized Paramount's then 24 contracted movie stars (it's now 22 stars, though no one could tell me why they reduced the number of stars). The original matte painting has also been replaced with a computer generated mountain and stars.

Paramount logo history, for more details, see: CLG Wiki

5. Warner Bros.: The WB Shield

Warner Bros. (yes, that's legally "Bros." not "Brothers") was founded by four Jewish brothers who emigrated from Poland: Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner. Actually, those aren't the names that they were born with. Harry was born "Hirsz," Albert was "Aaron," Sam was "Szmul," and Jack was "Itzhak." Their original surname is also unknown - some people said that it is "Wonsal," "Wonskolaser" or even Eichelbaum, before it was changed to "Warner." (Sources: Doug Sinclair | Tody Nudo's Hollywood Legends)
In the beginning, Warner Bros. had trouble attracting top talents. In 1925, at the urging of Sam, Warner Bros. made the first feature-length "talking pictures" (When he heard of Sam's idea, Harry famously said "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"). That got the ball rolling for the studio and made Warner Bros. famous.
The Warner Bros. logo, the WB Shield, has actually gone many revisions. Jason Jones and Matt Williams of CLG Wiki have the details:

Warner Bros. Logo History - see the full details at CLG Wiki

If you're interested in WB cartoons, you can't go wrong with Dave Mackey's Field guide: Link

6. Columbia Pictures: The Torch Lady

Columbia Pictures was founded in 1919 by the brothers Harry and Jack Cohn, and Joe Brandt as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales. Many of the studio's early productions were low-budget affairs, so it got nicknamed "Corned Beef and Cabbage." In 1924, the brothers Cohn bought out Brandt and renamed their studio Columbia Pictures Corporation in effort to improve its image.

Vintage Columbia Pictures Logo (Source: Reel Classics)

The studio's logo is Columbia, the female personification of America. It was designed in 1924 and the identity of the "Torch Lady" model was never conclusively determined (though more than a dozen women had claimed to be "it.")
In her 1962 autobiography, Bette Davis claimed thatClaudia Dell was the model, whereas in 1987 People Magazine named model and Columbia bit-actress Amelia Batchler as the girl. In 2001, the Chicago Sun-Times named a local woman who worked as an extra at Columbia named Jane Bartholomew as the model. Given how the logo has changed over the years, it may just be that all three were right! (Source)
The current Torch Lady logo was designed in 1993 byMichael J. Deas, who was commissioned by Sony Pictures Entertainment to return the lady to her "classic" look.
Though people thought that actress Annette Bening was the model, it was actually a Louisiana homemaker and muralist named Jenny Joseph that modeled the Torch Lady for Deas. Rather than use her face, however, Deas drew a composite face made from several computer-generated features (Source: Roger Ebert, Photo: Kathy Anderson)