Dam 999 movie

A corrupt mayor builds a new dam for political gains and personal glory endangering millions of innocent lives; A mariner desperate to save his sister from evil; Two not-so-young lovers challenging destiny in a bid to unite; A woman on a mission to win her family back; A little boy battling a deadly disease; A devoted wife wants to be with her husband even in death; And the astrologer who has foreseen their ominous fate - Nine lives entwined by the impending disaster. Take the journey of a lifetime - Nine characters, nine moods and a crumbling dam of emotions.

'DAM999 sheds light on the 1975 Banqiao Dam disaster in China that claimed 250,000 innocent lives. In the Indian context, 'Dam 999' serves as a clarion call to action for the Kerala government as recent recurrence of mild tremors in Idukki district in Kerala is causing concern over the safety of the 116-year-old Mullaperiyar Dam, located on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border.

As many as 22 mild tremors and after-vibrations have occurred in parts of Idukki and adjoining Kottayam and Pathanamthitta districts since January this year, officials said.

Two brief spells of quakes measuring 2.02 and 3.04 on the Richter scale gently shook the area including the dam site last week. The officials in charge of the reservoir spotted two minor cracks on it bottom, believed to have been caused by the latest tremor.

Mullaperiyar dam was built when this part of Kerala was part of the Travancore princely state and Tamil Nadu under the Madras province under the British rule. The dam has since then been a major source irrigation for the agricultural belt of central Tamil Nadu districts.

For the past two decades however, the dam has been a subject of hot dispute between the neighbouring states. While Kerala wants to decommission the structure and build a new one, that idea has not found favour with Tamil Nadu. Apart from local resistance groups, political parties on both sides have often taken aggressive postures on the issue.

In 2006, Kerala government passed the Kerala Irrigation and Water Conservation (Amendment) Act 2006, which prohibited the raising of water level beyond 136 ft in the Mullaperiyar Dam as it was placed under the Schedule of 'Endangered Dams'.

Directed by Sohan Roy, the movie stars Rajit Kapur, Joshua Fredric Smith, Linda Arsenio, Gary Richardson, Jaala Pickering, Ashish Vidyarthi, Vinay Rai, Vimala Raman and Megha Burman.

Click on, for exclusive snaps from 'Dam 999', which will be released on November 25, 2011.

A Profile of Conservative Hollywood Actress Patricia Heaton

 Patricia Helen Heaton is one of the few Hollywood conservatives who is absolutely candid about her political positions. The former Everybody Loves Raymond star is honorary chair of the national pro-life organization, Feminists for Life and in 2006, she appeared in an ad opposing embryonic stem cell research. The ad caused a public outcry when it appeared during Game 4 of the World Series (details below). Despite her otherwise socially conservative beliefs, she supports gay rights and birth control. A Republican, she supported John McCain for president in 2008 and Sarah Palin for vice president.

Early Life:

Heaton was born on March 4, 1958 in Bay Village, Ohio, the daughter of Pat and Chuck Heaton. She was raised Catholic and attended Mass with her parents every day. Her father was a sports writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, helping to provide her with insight in her later role as Debra Barone, wife Ray Barone, a sports writer for the Long Island newspaper, Newsday. She graduated from Bay High School in Ohio and was a singer in the choir. She also performed in the Stage Band and was a member of the Rockettes Drill Team with the Bay Rockets' Marching Band.

College and Stage Performances:

Heaton graduated with a bachelor's degree in theater from Ohio State University, where she was a sister in the Delta Gamma sorority. While studying acting in New York, Heaton modeled shoes before making her Broadway debut in the gospel musical Don't Get God Started. She and her fellow students then formed Stage Three, an acting company that produced plays Off-Broadway. As a member of the acting company, she and her fellow performers took the production, The Johnstown Vindicator, to Los Angeles, and Heaton's performance quickly caught the eyes of casting directors.

Early Television & Film Appearances:

Her first recurring role was in the 1987 show, Thirtysomething. In 1990, she auditioned for the role of Elaine on the hit comedy Seinfeld. In 1992, she was cast as the the producer/daughter in the television series "Room for Two," and in 1994, she starred in the series Someone Like Me. In 1995, she had a regular roles in CBS's Women of the House, and in 1997, she starred in the highly rated CBS TV movie Miracle in the Woods with Della Reese. Her feature film credits include Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Beethoven (1992), The New Age (1994) and Space Jam (1996).

Everybody Loves Raymond:

When Heaton auditioned for the role of Debra Barone in 1996, she was reportedly the only actor willing to kiss Ray Ramano during the takes. Although CBS executives had another actress in mind, Heaton most closely represented Romano's vision of the character, and producers supported him. Thus, Heaton was cast as the show's female lead. On the set of the show, she and liberal actor Peter Boyle often would have political discussions. The conversations were never mean-spirited, and Heaton was devastated when Boyle died in 2006.

Emmy Awards:

For her role in Everybody Loves Raymond, Heaton won two Emmys and was nominated for five more for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Role." Her first win came in 2000 after her second nomination for the episode "Bad Moon Rising," and her second victory came a year later for the episode "The Canister." an Emmy for Leading Actress in a Comedy Series. She was nominated for a l999 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and won the l998-99 Viewers for Quality Television Best Actress in a Quality Comedy Award.

Life After Raymond:

In 2007, Heaton was cast alongside fellow conservative Kelsey Grammar in Back to You, a show about a local television news affiliate in suburban Pittsburgh. The show was canceled after 17 episodes. Heaton subsequently returned to the stage, performing in The Scene, with co-star Tony Shalhoub. In November 2008, it was revealed that producers were planning to bring Heaton back to prime time TV, casting her as a female lead in the comedy pilot The Middle, which was scheduled to begin filming in 2009 and revolves around a Midwestern family with three children.

2006 Embryonic Stem Cell Ad:

Heaton became the subject of a Hollywood backlash after appearing in a 2006 advertisement in opposition to embryonic stem cell research. The ad appeared shortly after Michael J. Fox appeared in an ad supporting a bill sponsored by then-House Rep. Claire McCaskill, which would have permitted federal funding for the research (the bill was vetoed by President Bush). When initially approached Heaton had no desire to appear in the ad and had no idea it would run so closely after Fox's, let alone in Game 4 of the World Series. She later apologized to a gracious Fox, but still suffered ridicule by Hollywood's establishment.

Charity Work:

Besides Feminists for Life and the embryonic stem cell ad, Heaton was an outspoken opponent of euthanasia during the Terri Schiavo case. She has since done advocacy for other organizations including Heifer International, a nonprofit organization that seeks to alleviate world hunger, and World Vision, a Christian relief and development organization that seeks to prevent the underlying causes of poverty.

Family Life:

Heaton was married to British actor David Hunt in 1990 and they have four sons. The family splits time between homes in Los Angeles and England, where they own a country estate. In 2002, she published a book about her life, Motherhood and Hollywood: How to Get a Job Like Mine. In it, she describes moving from Roman Catholicism to the more socially acceptable Presbyterianism. Although she and her family attend an Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Heaton claims she is still a Catholic.

Raiders of the Lost Barque

 

Steven Spielberg's motive behind The Adventures of Tintin reveals itself as an exuberant burst of nostalgia. What is the boyish reporter of Hergé's beloved comic series — trotting the globe in pursuit of mysteries — if not a continental cousin of Indiana Jones, his head capped with a quiff instead of a fedora? Within the first few pages of “The Crab with the Golden Claws” — one of the books that sourced this film; the others are “The Secret of the Unicorn” and “Red Rackham's Treasure” — Tintin hastens from his home in the city to a drug-running ship, after which he is found adrift in the middle of the ocean, from where he commandeers a hovering seaplane and crashes into a North African desert.

In short, The Adventures of Tintin, with the hero and his cohorts on the trail of treasure from a sunken vessel, could just as easily have become an Indiana Jones movie: Raiders of the Lost Barque. And it has. This is more Spielberg's Tintin than Hergé's.

But that isn't altogether a bad thing. If The Adventures of Tintin looks like something Spielberg could have done in his sleep, that's still a lot more entertainment than what most other directors can manufacture while wide awake.

From the moment we glimpse Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) through a recently drained bottle of whiskey — what better way to show off a souse? — Spielberg demonstrates that he still has in him the sense of play from the days he was wrestling with a malfunctioning model shark. The action set pieces, especially, are a joy, combining cliff-hanger scenarios with delirious slapstick.

The performance-capture technology, which uses the movements and expressions of live actors as the basis for computer-generated simulations, is just right. Early on, we see each strand of hair in Tintin's (Jamie Bell) quiff catch the breeze and come alive, waving like stalks of wheat in a golden field, and as he walks past a shop with mirrors, his reflections are exactly how they would be from those angles. Yes, this is the technical team showing off, but no more than a ballerina balanced on a toe with supreme poise. They do it because they can, and we watch transfixed. Some of the transformations made me quibble — Nestor isn't as perpetually pained as I imagine him (he comes across as stolid), and surely Bianca Castafiore's High Cs sprang from a more cavernous bosom — but the artistry is breathtaking to behold.

There is so much to enjoy in “The Adventures of Tintin” that it's a shame the film adds up to little more than a collection of set pieces. When Tintin and Co. aren't swooping into thunderclouds or plunging into oceans, we are left with leaden time, and it's because the characters are mere triumphs of technology. They have no spark, no soul. We never get a grip on Tintin, who remains a blandly eager cipher. Hergé solved this problem by letting us hear him think — we followed his intuitive processes through thought bubbles. But here, the din of action drowns out all thought.

Far more tragically, Captain Haddock is just a man with a huge honker. (The honker, however, is exactly right.) A large part of the comedy in the comics comes from his insults — the result of inspired crossbreeding between marine life and made-up languages — and we imagined them as spittle-flecked ejaculations. But here, a mouth-watering put-down like “yellow-bellied lily-livered sea slugs” is delivered like a dramatic declaration, as if it were a wan line of dialogue. If there's going to be a sequel, as the last scene promises, they'd do well to fill this sailor with spirit.

 

The Adventures of Tintin

Genre: Action-adventure

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Daniel Craig, Jamie Bell, Simon Pegg

Storyline: Tintin and cohorts go after a fabulous sunken treasure.

Bottomline: Nicely staged action, though the characters deserved better.