Coca-Cola Zero offers fans Black Carpet treatment in partnership with year’s biggest film release – James Cameron’s AVATAR

- New initiative offers Thai fans a trip to AVATAR special effects studio in New Zealand or free admission to 3-D IMAX screening from today until 31 December

- Limited-edition cans of Coca-Cola Zero A
VATAR available for keeps

Coca-Cola Zero – a beverage that gives the real taste of Coca-Cola with zero sugar from the Coca-Cola System in Thailand – today announced a partnership between Coca-Cola Zero Black Carpet and AVATAR, this year’s ultimate blockbuster epic film which took 14 years in the making by director

James Cameron of the ‘Titanic’ and ‘Terminator’ fame recognized for his innovative and creative cinematic adventures to entertain his audiences.

The AVATAR epic adventure features new special effects, computer-generated imagery (CGI), 3D and sophisticated film-making technologies that will give audiences a spectacular and exciting viewing experience.

Ms. Chanisa Kaewruen, Marketing Director, Coca-Cola (Thailand) Limited, said, “As a leading partner in this promotional campaign, the Thailand team has organized fun activities for our fans to derive an exclusive and aesthetic experience from this exciting epic film, AVATAR which shares similar aspirations and unconventional values with our brand.”

She added that two initiatives under the Coca-Cola Zero Black Carpet entertainment platform will be implemented to engage Thai consumers who have eagerly looked forward to AVATAR’s nationwide screening on 17 December. Participants in these activities may win a trip to New Zealand to visit WETA Studio that created AVATAR special effects or join 200 lucky winners to watch AVATAR in 3-D IMAX format for free.

“These prizes are valued at over Bht 1 million. We are also airing the unique ‘Coca-Cola Zero AVATAR’ commercial on television and in cinemas along with the use of a comprehensive mix of media. Limited-edition cans of Coca-Cola Zero AVATAR will be made available for sale at hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, and leading retailers nationwide in the lead-up to the screening of AVATAR in Thailand.”, said Ms. Chanisa.

Enter to win a trip to New Zealand. Mail a Coca-Cola Zero bottle cap together with your name, address, phone number to P.O. Box 49 Phasicharoen, Bangkok 10160 or redeem 7 Coca-Cola Zero bottle caps for 7 coupons whereon to write your name, address, phone number before dropping them in an entry box at any Thai Ticket Major counter, now until 31 December 2009.

Qatar Museums Authority and Tribeca Film Festival To Launch 'Tribeca Film Festival Doha' in November 2009

- Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani and Festival Founders Sign Strategic Alliance Agreement and Announce Long-Term Cultural Partnership

- Doha's Museum of Islamic Art to Host Film Festival

Qatar Museums Authority (QMA), the organization dedicated to developing the cultural resources of this Arabian Gulf state as a platform for international dialogue and understanding, has announced a groundbreaking agreement with New York's world-renowned Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), to launch a world-class international film festival, Tribeca Film Festival Doha. The first festival will take place November 10 - 14, 2009 and be presented at Doha's celebrated new Museum of Islamic Art and in cinemas across Doha.

The announcement of the cultural partnership was made at a special ceremony at the new Museum of Islamic Art, which was attended by Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Chairperson of the Qatar Museums Authority Board of Trustees, and Abdullah Al Najjar, Chief Executive Officer of the Qatar Museums Authority. Joining on behalf of the Tribeca Film Festival were the co-founders, Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff.

H.E. Sheikha Mayassa expressed her confidence that the Tribeca Film Festival Doha will bring together people from around the globe and help to build international awareness and understanding of Arab culture and the Arab world.

"I invite film enthusiasts from every country to share their passion for this art by visiting the Tribeca Film Festival Doha," Her Excellency stated. "In today's increasingly globalized world, creative initiatives like this

Festival can play a truly inspirational role by bringing cultures closer together."

Tribeca Film Festival Doha will be modeled after the annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, which is going into its eighth year. Like the New York event, it will welcome the community, diverse audiences and the global filmmaking industry. As a result of an extensive collaboration between TFF and QMA, the Festival has been designed to showcase the local Qatari community, as well as the broader Arab culture.

Tribeca Film Festival Doha will feature new work from established filmmakers, alongside film debuts from newly discovered directing talents. The program will include approximately 40 films, as well as special events. The Festival will launch "The Doha Conversations", thought-provoking and insightful dialogues between icons of world culture set in intimate environments, with the goal of fostering discussion in Qatar and around the globe. Full details of the festival program and guests will be announced at a later date.

"The Tribeca Film Festival Doha is destined to become a major annual event in world cinema," stated Abdullah Al Najjar. "The Festival will include a wide range of programming, from outdoor screenings to movies for children, from documentaries to new Hollywood releases and from independent films to showcases of the very best works by Arab filmmakers."

"We are honored to create an enduring cultural partnership with QMA and to announce the launch of the Tribeca Film Festival Doha next November. Qatar's transformational vision for the 21st century with its emphasis on culture and education is uniquely consistent with the goals and aspirations of the Tribeca Film Festival," said TFF co-founder, Jane Rosenthal.

"We hope that film will not only be used as a form of entertainment at Tribeca Film Festival Doha but play a role in bridging cultures closer together. By learning each other's stories, we can see how much we share in common as well as explore and better understand our differences," said Robert De Niro.

"In addition to the positive cultural implications, this initiative underscores the enormous potential of the entertainment market in the Middle East and the strategic importance of the region to the future of the film industry," said TFF co-founder Craig Hatkoff. "We think the key to success will be understanding and respecting one another's cultures and traditions. We believe this Festival will lead to many other important and educational initiatives in Doha and beyond."

"The Tribeca Film Festival has become a world-renowned event, and its new partnership with the Qatar Museums Authority will leverage that success and help further its mission of introducing films and filmmakers to a global audience," said New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. "The Festival's substantial cultural and economic impact in New York City is unequivocal, and our hope is that Doha will reap similar benefits. The expansion of a New York institution like the Tribeca Film Festival to Doha is a sign of the international significance of New York City cinema and will help foster new relationships between our two cities."

Tribeca Film Festival was founded in 2001 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in response to the events of September 11. The festival's initial purpose was to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of Lower Manhattan through an annual celebration of film, music and culture.

Up to date festival information can be found by visiting the official Tribeca Film Festival Doha website -- www.tffdoha.com
Notes to the Editor
About Qatar Museums Authority

The Museum of Islamic Art opening 1 December 2008 is a pioneering project, setting apart the cultural vision of the State of Qatar, both in the region and across the world. Under the guiding vision of Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Chairperson of the Qatar Museums Authority

Board of Trustees, the project sets the founding stone in the cultural blueprint to transform the State of Qatar into a global capital of culture.

The Museum stands as an architectural masterpiece 60m off Doha's Corniche on an island made of reclaimed land. Pritzker Prize laureate, I.M. Pei, was commissioned to design the 35,500sq m Museum; inspiration for which he found in the 13th century sabil (ablutions fountain) of the 9th century Mosque of Ahmad ibn Tulun in Cairo, Egypt.

The stone-clad Museum is composed of a five-storey Main Building and a two-storey Education Wing, which are connected across a central courtyard. The Main Building's angular volumes step back progressively as they rise around a 50m high central domed atrium. The dome is concealed from outside view by the walls of a central tower. A glass curtain wall rises to a height of 45m on the north side of the Museum offering stunning views of the Gulf and West Bay area of Doha from all five floors of the atrium.

Collected from three continents including countries across the Middle East and as far reaching as Spain and India, the Museum's artworks date from the 7th through to the 19th century. Representing the full scope of Islamic art, the collection includes manuscripts, ceramics, metal, glass, ivory, textiles, wood and precious stones, and are of superior quality.

Qatar Museums Authority was created in December 2005 to combine the resources of all museums in the State of Qatar. The Authority's vision revolves around the provision of a comprehensive umbrella under which future plans will be drawn for the development of national museums and the establishment of an

effective system for collecting, protecting, preserving and interpreting historic sites, monuments and artefacts.
About the Tribeca Film Festival

Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2001 following the attacks on the World Trade Center, New York City to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of the lower Manhattan district through an annual celebration of film, music and culture. The Festival's mission is to help filmmakers reach the broadest possible audience, enable the international film community and general public to experience the power of cinema and promote New York City as a major filmmaking center.

-- Tribeca Film Festival is well known for being a diverse international film festival that supports emerging and established directors.

-- Tribeca Film Festival has screened over 1100 films from over 80 countries since its first festival in 2002.

-- The Festival has held cultural exchange programs in Milan, Beijing and with the Rome Film Festival.

-- The Festival supports multiple educational programs and filmmakers funding programs through its affiliated non-profit organization, the Tribeca Film Institute.

-- Since its founding, the Festival in New York has attracted an international audience of more than two million attendees and has generated over $530 million in economic activity for New York City.

KSEC TAKES ITS CLIENTOS TO THE MOVIES

       One might wonder what benefits the world-renowned detective Sherlock Holmes or a woolly mammoth from Ice Age could bring to a financial firm during an economic malaise.
       At Kasikorn Securities, they could make a difference.
       Since the beginning of this year, the investment arm of Kasikornbank has pinned its hopes on entertainment marketing to gets its name to stand out above its business rivals.
       Prasong Rungsmaithong, KSEC's assistant managing director for corporate strategy, was brought in earlier this year to take the wheel for strategy.
       "In the financial industry, especially the securities business, it's hard to differentiate yourself as we are all sales representatives offering similar products," said Mr Prasong.
       "Clients tend to weigh their decisions on the skills of marketing staff over the company."
       To create client loyalty through an emotional connection, KSEC wants to give its clients what they cannot find elsewhere - which is where entertainment marketing comes in.
       "At a time when the securities business is not doing so well as people delay their investment decisions, we don't have to always focus only on our trading business,we can just find ways to take care of our clients, keeping them happy," said Mr Prasong.
       "And what people seem to have in common, whether in times of a good or bad economy, is entertainment."
       KSEC this year kicked off the KSEC Privilege Premiere campaign offering tickets for film premieres to clients chosen at random.
       The 14 films in its campaign this year include 20th Century Fox's Avatar , with draw winners going to London to see the premiere alongside Hollywood stars.
       For the Thai film Pai In Love , two clients will join the director, crew and cast in a three-day trip to Mae Hong Son's Pai district.
       "It's true that other companies can also give out free movie tickets. But what we offer to our clients is the privilege to be the first to see new films coupled with special and rare experiences," he said."We give them something that money can't buy."
       KSEC also aims to use this approach to attract new investors in an increasingly competitive market.
       Ice Age 3 drew more than 400 new clients who proved to be active investors with a trading value of more than 1 billion baht in their first three months.
       The careful selection of films can also help KSEC reach its target clients, said Mr Prasong, who has worked in the film industry for several years.
       Since male investors dominate in the securities market, KSEC has tried to win female investors by allowing only female clients to see the premiere of the romantic comedy The Proposal , he said. And family films such as G-Force and Ice Age 3 are used to draw clients with stable incomes.
       The new film campaign has already attracted 2,000 new investors and the company hopes to have brought in 3,000 by year-end.
       A new marketing approach is necessary considering the changes facing the securities industry, said Mr Prasong.Brokerage fees, now set at a minimum of 0.25%, will begin to fall from next year and will be fully negotiable from 2012.
       "Everyone is going to be talking about who offers the lowest price. But we chose for our brand to be different by adding the value of being able to provide more,"he said.
       The company plans to organise a film campaign at least once a month next year as well as to add entertainment genres including music, sports, concerts and travel.
       The new approach also covers lifestyle privileges such as discounts at restaurants and shopping malls.
       Mr Prasong said entertainment marketing costs less and is more effective at capturing the right market than conventional methods such as booths in fairs.
       Campaigns are done through partnerships with film or product companies,which offers a win-win situation to all parties, he said.
       "Our partners are looking to sell their products or want as many people to watch their films as possible. Our wellto-do clients, whose opinions tend to be valued, can help pass on their thoughts on the products to others," he said.
       The campaign is part of KSEC's efforts to be one of the country's top three securities firms by 2011.
       Mr Prasong added the campaign had proved its success when a client asked what would be the next film to see.
       "The right connection that links us to the lifestyle of investors will embed our brand in the top of their minds," he said.

"Post Grad" fails to make the grade

       Post Grad , a comedy about a driven, hardworking college student who's unable to find a job after she graduates, actually might have been relevant.It might have been a satirical and insightful look into how our soured economy has dashed the dreams of a generation.
       Instead, it's a flat and tonally jumbled amalgamation of Adventureland Little Miss Sunshine and Some Kind of Wonderful . In other words, it has no idea what it wants to be; as a result, it gets nothing right.
       Alexis Bledel maintains a steady level of wide-eyed pluckiness as Ryden Malby (a name that looks like an anagram), who just got out of school with an English degree and dreams of working at a prestigious Los Angeles publishing house. When she doesn't get the job she applied for, she ends up back home in the San Fernando Valley with the kind
       of eccentric family you only find in the movies.
       Michael Keaton, as her dad, sells novelty belt buckles; Carol Burnett, as grandma, is obsessed with her own death. Then there's Ryden's little brother (Bobby Coleman), who likes to lick his classmates' heads and communicates through his sock puppet.(Actually, he seems like a pretty normal little kid.) And Jane Lynch, as her mother,plays the straight woman for once - which isn't a whole lot of fun.
       Meanwhile, Ryden rebuffs the romantic advances of her best friend, the spineless and worshipful Adam (Zach Gilford), who would rather write love songs for her than fly across the country to attend law school at Columbia in New York. Instead, she enjoys a fling with her sexy Brazilian neighbor (Rodrigo
       Santoro), even though - duh the guy she's supposed to be with has been right in front of her all along. Things pick up briefly with Santoro's arrival, if only because he adds some physical spark, but then that story line goes nowhere for no reason.
       Ryden herself doesn't give us much more to hold onto - which is a problem, because we're supposed to be rooting for her to succeed. This is what we know about her: She's cute, she likes books and she wants a job.
       Animation veteran Vicky Jenson (Shrek Shark Tale ), directing her first live-action feature from a script by first-timer Kelly Fremon, awkwardly juggles all these subplots. There's a sitcommy AP quality to the way certain scenes end abruptly on a wacky or raunchy note, or sometimes with a feel-good moment of supposed poignancy.
       Jenson also squanders the comic presence of J.K.Simmons, Fred Armisen, Craig Robinson and Demetri Martin in minuscule supporting roles. If there is one funny scene in the entire movie, it's the one in which Robinson, as a funeral home director, tries to sell Burnett's character an $18,000 casket.
       Then again,Post Grad itself was already dead on arrival.

Magnificent seven

       In the most important, most revered event since the invention of the brontosaurus trap,Microsoft shipped the most incredibly fabulous operating system ever made; the release of Windows 7 also spurred a new generation of personal computers of all sizes at prices well below last month's offers.The top reason Windows 7 does not suck: There is no registered website called Windows7Sucks.com
       Kindle e-book reader maker Amazon.com and new Nook e-book reader vendor Barnes and Noble got it on; B&N got great reviews for the "Kindle killer"Nook, with dual screens and touch controls so you can "turn" pages, plays MP3s and allows many non-B&N book formats, although not the Kindle one;Amazon then killed the US version of its Kindle in favour of the international one, reduced its price to $260(8,700 baht), same as the Nook; it's not yet clear what you can get in Thailand with a Nook, but you sure can't (yet) get much, relatively speaking, with a Kindle;but here's the biggest difference so far,which Amazon.com has ignored: the Nook lets you lend e-books to any other Nook owner, just as if they were paper books; the borrowed books expire on the borrower's Nook in two weeks.
       Phone maker Nokia of Finland announced it is suing iPhone maker Apple of America for being a copycat; lawyers said they figure Nokia can get at least one, probably two per cent (retail) for every iPhone sold by Steve "President for Life" Jobs and crew via the lawsuit,which sure beats working for it -$6 (200 baht) to $12(400 baht) on 30 million phones sold so far, works out to $400 million or 25 percent of the whole Apple empire profits during the last quarter;there were 10 patent thefts, the Finnish executives said, on everything from moving data to security and encryption.
       Nokia of Finland announced that it is one month behind on shipping its new flagship N900 phone, the first to run on Linux software; delay of the $750(25,000 baht) phone had absolutely no part in making Nokia so short that it had to sue Apple, slap yourself for such a thought.
       Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web, said he had one regret:the double slash that follows the "http:"in standard web addresses; he estimated that 14.2 gazillion users have wasted 48.72 bazillion hours typing those two keystrokes, and he's sorry; of course there's no reason to ever type that, since your browser does it for you when you type "www.bangkokpost.com" but Tim needs to admit he made one error in his lifetime.
       The International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations, which doesn't sell any phones or services, announced that there should be a mobile phone charger that will work with any phone; now who would ever have thought of that, without a UN body to wind up a major study on the subject?;the GSM Association estimates that 51,000 tonnes of chargers are made each year in order to keep companies able to have their own unique ones.
       The Well, Doh Award of the Week was presented at arm's length to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; the group's deputy secretary-general Petko Draganov said that developing countries will miss some of the stuff available on the Internet if they don't install more broadband infrastructure; a report that used your tax baht to compile said that quite a few people use mobile phones but companies are more likely to invest in countries with excellent broadband connections; no one ever had thought of this before, right?
       Sun Microsystems , as a result of the Oracle takeover, said it will allow 3,000 current workers never to bother coming to work again; Sun referred to the losses as "jobs," not people; now the fourth largest server maker in the world, Sun said it lost $2.2 billion in its last fiscal year; European regulators are holding up approval of the Oracle purchase in the hope of getting some money in exchange for not involving Oracle in court cases.
       The multi-gazillionaire and very annoying investor Carl Icahn resigned from the board at Yahoo ; he spun it as a vote of confidence, saying current directors are taking the formerly threatened company seriously; Yahoo reported increased profits but smaller revenues in the third quarter.
       The US House of Representatives voted to censure Vietnam for jailing bloggers; the non-binding resolution sponsored by southern California congresswoman Loretta Sanchez said the Internet is "a crucial tool for the citizens of Vietnam to be able to exercise their freedom of expression and association;"Hanoi has recently jailed at least nine activists for up to six years apiece for holding pro-democracy banners. Iran jailed blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan for 10 months - in solitary confinement.

Nok Air ticket sales take off at SF Cinema

       SF Cinema City yesterday announced the launch of a new ticketing service for low-cost carrier Nok Air, marking the first time cinema box offices have sold airline tickets in this country.
       The company is negotiating with another three service vendors over providing ticketing and bill payment services, which are considered a value-added feature of its core cinema business.
       Suvit Thongrompo, managing director of SF Cinema City, yesterday said the ticketing service offered for Nok Air would cater to the lifestyle of urban people, who demand one-stop services and convenience. It will provide win-win benefits to both Nok Air and SF Cinema City, both of which are able to provide better services to customers.
       "For SF, we would like to provide a service for tickets that are beyond just movie tickets. We are quite ready in terms of ticketing system and IT, as well as a strong cinema exhibition network," he said.
       Suvit added that under the strategic partnership, consumers would be able to buy Nok Air tickets at all 11 SF Cinema's box offices in Bangkok and another two in Phuket.
       "We have conducted a soft launch for Nok Air ticketing service since the beginning of this month, getting a very good response from customers. About 300 Nok Air tickets, worth Bt500,000 in total, have been sold so far through our box offices," said Suvit.
       Patee Sarasin, CEO of Nok Air, said a cinema represented a good location because it is where family members spend time together. At theatres, they can discuss holiday plans and make final decisions on where they want to take a weekend trip together - and can now also buy air tickets immediately.
       Nok Air provides domestic routes to seven provinces: Chiang Mai, Udon Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Hat Yai, Phuket, Trang and Surat Thani.
       Suvit said SF Cinema City provided its own theatre ticketing services via four major channels - box office, online service, mobile telephone and call centre.
       "We expect to sell 1.2 million movie tickets this year, which is up 20 per cent over last year," he said.
       "It is a good sign that many of our strategic locations like SF World Cinema at CentralWorld, which has 15 theatre screens, have performed very well with 20-per-cent year-on-year growth in ticket sales so far this year."
       He added that the company had opened SF Cinema complexes in six new locations this year. The latest complexes will be opened on October 28 in Bang Saen, and at CentralPlaza Khon Kaen on December 3.
       "We will also open cinemas in two or three new locations in Bangkok and upcountry next year. The investment will be between Bt20 million and Bt30 million per theatre," said Suvit.
       He added that the company would also renovate theatres at MBK shopping centre, Central Lat Phrao and The Emporium.
       Suvit said SF Cinema City had achieved year-on-year growth of between 12 and 13 per cent in ticket sales in the first nine months of the year.
       The company, however, expects to achieve better growth of more than 30 per cent year on year in the fourth quarter, driven by a strong line-up of expected Thai and Hollywood blockbusters, such as "2012", "The Twilight Saga: New Moon", "Avatar", "Yam Yasothorn 2" and "Ong-Bak 3".
       The overall cinema industry is expected to grow about 10 per cent this year in terms of ticket sales, Suvit said.

Beauty from an age ago resurfaces

       Naturally we wonder, what finally lured the ageing princess out of her padlocked bedchamber?Petchara Chaowarat, now 64,was last seen on screen in the tragic mother-and-son drama Ai Khun Thong in 1978, before Thailand's most celebrated actress in history, the cervineeyed sovereign of our 16mm cinema,chose to flick the light off and pull the curtain over her own illustrious career.At that time Petchara, the Siamese beauty with the most glistening of eyes, was going blind. The irony - the misfortune - couldn't have been harsher.
       For 30 years Petchara totally withdrew from public life, her privacy severely guarded by herself and her family. When the National Film Archive asked for her handprints as a keepsake for the Thai FilmMuseum, the staff were requested to go to her house in Ramkamhaeng with a block of wet cement, so she didn't have to travel to the premises and risk being photographed. The extent of her public activity was limited to a brief stint as host of a country-music show nine years ago, and she only gave an interview to the journal published by the Thai Film Foundation.
       "[In the 1960s] I shot 20 films a month,and I had no day off," she recalled her life in the interview."Then after 1978, I devoted my time trying to cure my eyes,but it didn't work... I didn't allow anybody to see me... Sometimes I wanted to gouge my eyes out... Why couldn't I see? How could I live like this?"
       Yet she lives, and in the past week Petchara came back with a bang. The petite actress, who appeared in a few hundred movies between 1962-1978, has made a surprising comeback as TV presenter of a local cosmetic brand. She appeared on the buzz-brewing television commercials, looking precious, happy and old. Robed in elegant gowns, she even posed for the fashion pages of a popular glossy, with the digital marvel complimenting her classical polish. On TV or in those photos, the first thing you'd look at are her eyes. And you'd be disappointed if you expected to see two lightless caves of faded glory. Those eyes,slightly vacant, remain fabled.
       Whatever lured the ageing legend out of her hermetical void, this must be considered a successful case of modern PR. It's a triumph of advertising to turn - or at least try to turn - a legend into a living ad, a myth into a material campaign. But despite the cynical fact that the goal of all ads is to sell stuff, the return of Petchara to national media may have had a few cultural implications.Here's the legendary actress whom everybody under 40 only heard their parents talk about but never actually saw. Petchara is the missing link between generations that has now resurfaced. And despite the nature of her reappearance in a cosmetics ad - her story, now being retold in several articles, is a reminder of the day when "stars" weren't just pretty faces with aristocratic surnames and big attitude, but were hard-working professionals trying to make a living.
       Petchara was the biggest star in the pre-television, pre-multiplex, pre-tabloid age - her rare public appearances during her heyday in the 1960s, when she costarred with the late Mitr Chaibancha in over 100 films, could create an earthquake of excited humanity. She came from a humble family; she used to work in the rice fields in Rayong, an experience that benefited many of her roles. When she began her acting career, in Bantuek Rak Pim Chawee in 1962, Petchara found herself in a labourintensive industry that demanded her to work non-stop, literally, for over a decade. Shooting movies in those days required the actors,apart from being good-looking, to be Petchara very disciplined, very diligent, and very professional. It was a career that needed to be taken seriously,and not with the kind of colourful caprice that overweening Thai stars seem to subscribe to.
       Of course a lot has changed since Petchara's halcyon years. Actors now have to work in TV, where they waste their talent engaging in prime-time slap parties, while audiences have become more voracious about the secret lives of their tabloid stars. Fame has become so transient that it's worthless, and most actors are after superstardom rather than professional integrity. Maybe it was a good thing that Petchara had quit in 1978. It's nice to see her back, happy and confident, and hopefully that's that.Hopefully she won't be dragged out into the showbiz jungle and sensational talk shows. That would be another irredeemable misfortune.

Contentious film opens "green" festival

       The Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff) opened on Saturday with the debut screening of a USmade documentary about a traditional dolphin hunt in Japan - a contentious inclusion at the week-long event.
       Since last year, the festival has taken on the theme of the environment, with international movie stars, film-makers and other dignitaries walking up a ceremonial green carpet instead of the usual red.
       Stars attending the opening ceremony of the 22nd edition of Tiff, which runs through October 25, include Sigourney Weaver and Sam Worthington, star of James Cameron's new film Avatar .The hard-hitting The Cove , a late inclusion at the festival, will be shown for the first time publicly in Japan, with some saying it casts Japanese tradition in a negative light.
       It focuses on the annual dolphin hunt in the coastal town of Taiji, a long-time practice for local fishermen but condemned internationally by animal rights activists for being cruel.
       The film shows angry confrontations between residents and the lead activist,Ric O'Barry, who in the 1960s trained dolphins for the US hit television show Flipper but now argues the animals should be free to roam the oceans.
       The film has won numerous international prizes, including the Sundance Festival's audience award.
       Tiff has aspired to be the top festival in Asia for international films with the same prestige as Cannes, Venice or Berlin,although it faces tough competition from rivals in Bangkok and Busan, South Korea.
       In addition to The Cove and Avatar ,other special screenings include Drag Me to Hell , directed by Sam Raimi, as well as the Japanese remake of the 2004 Oscar-winning Sideways . Fifteen movies ranging in theme and style will compete for the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix, the top prize. New premier Yukio Hatoyama,sporting a green bow tie in a nod to the environmental theme, and his wife Miyuki were among those who attended the opening event.

Jen,we still believe in you

       How has a brilliant comic actress managed to star in so many unfunny
       romcoms? As another Jennifer Aniston film gets panned, many are
       ready to defend her By Ben Walsh
       Jennifer Aniston stars as Elinor Dashwood in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility ... no, of course she doesn't. Aniston doesn't do period drama. She is a defiantly modern, all-American actress; a L'Oreal and ... wait for it ... the woman who lost Brad Pitt to Angelina Jolie.
       And it doesn't matter one jot how much worthy UN work Jolie does, most of us are still stubbornly Team Aniston. Why?Because she's so ordinary, that's why. So very ordinary and accessible with her engaging, genial comments like:"I couldn't have found a better man than Brad. He still opens doors for me and brings me flowers. He's the sweetest goofball on the planet."Ouch. That has to hurt now.
       The sleek, perma-tanned 40-yearold from Sherman Oaks, California,started out so deliciously perky, all glossy hair and clean teeth, as Rachel in the defiantly upbeat sitcom Friends , but Aniston's face appears to become progressively more downcast in every film she appears in.She's morphing into a sort of female Buster Keaton. Her smile is growing fainter and her film choices - or the parts she is being offered - are getting steadily shoddier.
       The Independent's film critic, Anthony Quinn, described her latest one-star film,the unfortunately titled Love Happens ,starring Aaron Eckhart, where Aniston plays an archery champion turned florist,as a "cry-baby romantic drama" in which "Aniston just about passes muster".The Times went further, saying:"The formula they've come up with is to remove all the comedy, which is a bold choice."
       The Scotsman goes further still:"Love Happens ... there's just not much evidence of it in this dreary romantic drama."Previous Aniston films have been described as follows:"From the start it misfires on all cylinders"(The Observer on Rumour Has It );"There is something wildly odd about a film that measures human happiness with the whims of a dog"(The Times on Marley & Me ); and "A heavy-handed and charmless psychological thriller"(The Guardian on Derailed ).
       Aniston began her movie career relatively late (let's not count the abysmal 1992 horror Leprechaun ) at the age of 27 in 1996 with Edward Burns' winning She's the One and Tiffanie DeBartolo's less winning Dream for an Insomniac . She now has more than 20 films under her belt, mostly in a leading role and mostly as the droll, unlucky-in-love romantic see He's Just Not That into You ,Picture Perfect and The Object of My Affection for evidence. She may be a one-trick pony,but she's a veritable Derren Brown when it comes to romantic comedies.
       These cynical, quite often facile films may lack depth, subtlety and, well,imagination, but Aniston never lets anybody down. In fact, now that Meg Ryan appears to have imploded,Aniston is probably - and this is a tad bold - the most gifted American comic actress of her generation. Her comic timing is immaculate and she could muster up playful sexual chemistry with a sideboard. And while her acting range isn't huge,she's never less than compelling.
       For instance, in Ken Kwapis'wretched He's Just Not That into You - which focuses on various grating Baltimore couples hooking up and emoting - it's Aniston's endearing Beth that stands out above the likes of Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson and Drew Barrymore. We don't care two hoots for their dreary characters, but we do for Aniston's. How does she do it? And why can't she do it in superior films? Why haven't the likes of Martin Scorsese cast her in a gangster flick, Steven Spielberg in a fantasy spectacular or Ken Loach in a gritty drama? Why can't we see Aniston let rip? Play Shakespeare? Play a flesheating alien?
       Well, there have been small attempts to widen her scope, and two low-budget films -Office Space and The Good Girl - are, by some distance, her finest films.Both films are set in small-town,"middle"America with an intense absence of glamour, culture or opportunity. In Mike Judge's exquisite satire on working life,Office Space , Aniston plays a bored waitress who is forced to don items of "flair" on her unsightly work attire. Her bone-dry delivery and resolutely stern demeanour are pitch perfect. It's a defiantly unglamorous role - although she's never looked prettier and her character even loves kungfu.
       Miguel Arteta's downbeat The Good Girl could have been Aniston's moment,like Erin Brockovich was for Julia Roberts.Sort of. Once again she plays bored, this time as a supermarket checkout worker trapped in a sexless marriage to a dimwitted husband (John C Reilly) in mun-dane suburban hell in Texas. To escape the extreme monotony of her life, she falls for a JD Salinger-fixated teenage fantasist (Jake Gyllenhaal). And she's excellent; her down-turned mouth permanently drooped in gloom, her eyes deadened with tedium.
       It's the exact opposite of her animated,glamorous and kooky Rachel in Friends and her performance is all the better for it. However, the film made very little money and her chance to bag juicy acting roles seemed to have slipped away with the film's fortunes. She followed up The Good Girl with the lurid Jim Carrey vehicle Bruce Almighty , wasting her talents opposite the great gurning ham, and sleepwalked through the underwhelming Along Came Polly , which one critic described as "lame and unfunny and unoriginal".
       Most recently, she once again tried dowdy and downbeat, in Stephen Belber's Management - a film so appalling it was shuffled out on to DVD with indecent haste. She plays a glum, uptight sales rep who pitches up at a motel in an American backwater and meets Steve Zahn's earnest suitor. It's the sort of territory in which Aniston usually excels, but here she just
       looks especially, well, sad.It looks as if she needs a great big bear hug, followed by a night in watching a comedy boxset. Ideally, early Friends , a place where people are "there for you",where men (David Schwimmer's nerd and Matt LeBlanc's hunk) fight over her and her hair is shiny and her smile is shinier.
       "I don't get sent anything strange like underwear. I get sent cookies," Aniston once confessed. Maybe it's time for this persuasive actress to cut loose, get a bit kinky and stretch herself.Because I, for one, still believe that she has it in her to act. It would be a pity, if only a slight one, if she's remembered solely as the gorgeous one on Friends and for "losing" Brad Pitt to Angelina Jolie. Come on Jen, some of us (me) are still on your side.

Men on pointe

       Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlois set to entertain Bangkok audiences with a classical laugh-fest ballet performance
       There's something about men "en pointe" that tickles the funny bone and no one gets the point better than this very unusual all-male company that specialises in the comic aspect of classical ballet.One look at the male dancers dressed up to the nines as ballerinas and you'll begin to get the idea. At the heart of the performances by Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, New York, lies a ballet company upholding the traditions of classical ballet. But they have chosen to add another dimension to the classics by finding comedy where you'd think none existed. Something that will not only appeal to adults but also children.
       The dancers portray both male and female roles as they blend cliches of ballet and physical comedy with straight off classical pieces.Founded in 1974 by a group of ballet enthusiasts, the company, fondly referred to as "The Trocks",first performed in Off-Broadway lofts. A year later they were noticed by critics in the most positive of terms. By the '80s they were established as a ballet company and have performed in the US, in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South America, South Africa and Europe. The Trocks have two separate programmes in store for Bangkok:Swan Lake Act II ,Pas De Deux ,Vivaldi Suite ,Dying Swan and Majisimas on October 16, and Swan Lake Act II ,Patterns In Space ,Pas De Quatre ,Dying Swan and Majisimas on October 17.
       Tory Dobrin, the artistic director of The Trocks explains,"Basically we are very good ballet dancers and good comedians. We combine the two using drag as a vehicle to bring out the comedy.People who know The Trocks come because they want to have fun with ballet."
       He adds,"We take classical and modern ballets and change them to create an entertaining aspect of these art forms.All kinds of humour, from subtle parody to outright slapstick. In a way we are just borrowing from existing tradition ... there are many great theatre art forms that have used drag as a vehicle, including Shakespeare and kabuki ... and comedy has been around since the earliest times of life.
       Explaining their creative process Dobrin says,"We stage a ballet like any other ballet company does in the early stages. After the work is completely choreographed, we start to improvise in the studio to see how it develops in a comedic way. Slowly we change the ballet to bring out the comedy. A choreography that truly reflects our philosophy is Swan Lake Act II , which will be performed in Bangkok. It has all the elements of great choreography, the chance to develop a character in a comedic fashion, it has drama!" What else can one ask for, except that with The Trocks, there is always more in store than you expect.
       Asked about what influences The Trocks, Dobrin says,"Mostly the Russian ballet stars of yesteryears such as Alla Sizova, Irina Kolpakova, Lubov Kunakova and Maya Plisetskaya. The 19th century music works best for The Trocks, although we have a large modern wing to our repertory. Also, comedians such as Lucille Ball, Bea Arthur, Gracie Allen and Dame Edna. I would say that we as a company are inspired by fun-loving,nice, energetic people and we are motivated by people's enjoyment of what we do."
       And how do they deal with purists,Dobrin is dismissive,"We don't deal with purists. We deal with people who are interested in the show. Only a very narrow-minded person is unable to enjoy the show. Clement Crisp, who is perhaps the most famous dance critic in the world and who is the ultimate purist, loves the company."
       One thing is for sure The Trocks are the perfect introduction to ballet, not just for the children but the adults as well. If you have avoided ballet before,make sure you see The Trocks. Explains Dobrin,"I would have to say that an allmale comedy ballet company is something that would appeal to just about everyone. So, yes, you could say that we make ballet more universal rather than elitist."
       Bangkok's 11th International Festival of Dance & Music is sponsored by Bangkok Bank, B. Grimm, Bangkok Post, Dusit Thani Hotel, King Power Group, SCG,Thai Airways International, Tourism Authority of Thailand and Toyota Motor Thailand Co, Ltd.
       Performances are at Thailand Cultural Centre on October 16 and 17 at 7:30pm. Tickets are 600,1,200,1,600,2,000 and 2,500 baht,available at Thai Ticket Major on 02-262-3456 or visit www.thaiticketmajor.com.

"Alien" star promotes gorilla rescue project in DR Congo

       Actress Sigourney Weaver said on Saturday that orphaned gorillas desperately need a permanent rescue and rehabilitation centre that's currently being built in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
       The Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education Center (Grace) is set to open in March, about a year after construction began. It's a joint project of the Atlanta-based Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and several other organisations.
       Fossey, a Californian who was killed in 1985, made researching and rescuing the African gorilla population her life's mission. She lived among the rare mountain gorillas and observed their behaviour over roughly 10 years at Karisoke, a research camp she established in Rwanda.
       Ms Weaver played Fossey in the 1988 movie Gorillas in the Mist and is honorary chair of the fund. While filming, Ms Weaver said she spent many days with gorillas.
       "These little gorillas just steal your heart. They're very sensitive creatures,"she said."So it's no surprise that this is a very demanding and ambitious project,the Grace Center, but we need it."
       Ms Weaver was at Atlanta's Woodruff Arts Center Saturday to talk about the project.Gorilla's in the Mist will be shown on a big screen for the first time in about 20 years at Woodruff on Oct 17 as part of fundraising efforts.
       The centre will house orphaned gorillas who may have behavioural, develop mental, physical or psychological problems after being rescued from poachers.
       Ms Weaver said the centre aims to care for and rehabilitate the gorillas to the point that they may be able to survive in the wild, instead of living out their lives in captivity.
       The other organisations partnering with the gorilla fund in this project are the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance, Disney's Animal Kingdom, the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the national park authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

HOLLYWOOD COMES TO BANGKOK

       An international star-studded event to promote Thailand's annual film festival, gems and tourism By Usnisa Sukhsvasti
       It was literally a red carpet night when Beauty Gems hosted a gala dinner at Chatrium Suites Bangkok in conjunction with the National Film Association.
       Titled "Hollywood Night in Bangkok", the evening was held to welcome actors attending
       the Bangkok Film Festival 2009, as well as to
       promote Thailand's gems industry as well as
       film and tourism industries.
       Among the Hollywood faces were RachelNichols (Scarlett in G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra ),Olivia Thirlby (Leah in Juno ) and Sung Kang Fast and Furious, Knight Rider, Forbidden Warrior Guests walked the red carpet in their full regalia of glittering jewellery, stopping en route to view Beauty Gems' latest Stars of Hollywood collection created specially for this event, with such evocative names as Chicago, Dream Girl and the highlight, Moulin Rouge, this last set being a diamond and ruby creation valued at 65 million baht.
       These and other sparkling baubles worth 500 million baht were finely presented by Thailand's leading models: Pi-chanat Sagakorn, Yosawadee Hasadeewichit, Marisa Annita,Pakaramai Potranant, Rasri Watcharapolmek and Michel Wagot.Security was tight, to say the least.
       During the dinner, which comprised an East-meets-West menu, guests also enjoyed a mini concert by Suthasinee "Pat" Buddhinan and Puvanart Kunplin, both of whom were splendidly accessorised by Beauty Gems as well.A few lucky guests went home with additional items to add to their jewellery boxes after winning the lucky dip.

THE KOREAN CONNECTION

       Fourteen years ago not many souls believed that the sombre port city of Pusan would make it. But it did. Today, the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) is arguably Asia's leading film festival in terms of influence, image and business impact. Every October the PIFF is an un-skippable rendezvous for Asian filmmakers and investors who congregate to watch new films and sniff out new deals. In short, it has become a success story - albeit with internal politics and regular complaints - of carefully mapped-out cultural and economic policies that many cities, Bangkok included, look at with admiration and envy.
       This year the PIFF runs from October 8 to 15, and its ties with the Thai film community seem most pronounced.
       This weekend new films and new projects from Thailand are making their debut in the Korean seaside city, evidence that the sometimes aggressive, tirelessly assiduous strategy of Pusan has established the place as a centre of film activities, artistic and financial, that nobody would want to miss out on. Its constant network-expansion and cultivation of personal friendship with leading figures in the Thai - and Asian film community also strengthen its position, and again this is the development that Bangkok still fails to pursue seriously.
       The main budget of PIFF comes from the city of Pusan, plus various sponsors drawn by the starry profile of the event. The festival also organises a funding body that supports young filmmakers from around Asia, which emphasises its aura of a benevolent brother. Below are previews of new, exciting Thai projects that have been invited to be part of this year's PIFF.
       PHUKET INPUSAN
       Honestly the Hae-Un-Dae beach in Pusan isn't nearly as pretty as those sandy stretches in Phuket.But that's another story: this weekend the new Thai film called Phuket will enjoy the honour of having its world premiere at Pusan International Film Festival, held a sandbox's throw away from South Korea's most popular beach, before the film finds its way to into souvenir bags as one of the knick-knacks to promote our Andaman jewel.
       "It's a film made to promote Phuket, but it also has a story, and I believe it's a good story," says Aditya Assarat, a well-known director who was asked to shoot this short movie by the Phuket Tourism Association."I had the freedom to come up with a story, and since Koreans represent a large proportion of foreign tourists in Phuket, I thought it was a good idea to make a movie that relates to them."
       Though a short film,Phuket has the formidable calibre of a feature production. For a start, it stars Sorapong Chatri, recently crowned National Artist and inarguably Thailand's most respected actor.Then the film had the fortune of casting Lim Soojung, one of Korea's most popular actresses (from I'm a Cyborg But That's OK , in which she costarred with Korean superstar Rain), which automatically raises the profile of this otherwise little movie. In the film, Sorapong plays a limousine driver who develops a bond with a young Korean tourist over her week-long stay on the island.
       "When we got Lim Soo-jung, who's a big star,we knew that we had to match her with a major Thai star, and we were lucky to get Sorapong,"says Aditya. It helped that Aditya, though an independent filmmaker, just won the Subhannahongsa award for best director for his Wonderful Town .Sorapong was there at the star-studded event, and Aditya was not a complete unknown to him."Phuket is a two-hander- it relies solely on the performances to two people - so it's important that we get skilled actors to play them."
       Despite the "tourism" purpose of the film, Aditya is a director with such a delicate touch that nothing ever seems explicit in any of his films.Phuket isn't about the beaches or the bars; it's about Phuket as a place of memories. After the Pusan premiere, the film is likely to find a slot on television, then the investors - the Phuket Tourism Association plans to screen it on flights coming into the island.The DVD of the film will also become a souvenir for sale. Other tourism-driven provinces, if finance allowed, should feel free to copy the idea.
       "Phuket is part of a promotion campaign," says the director,"but I'm sure the film also has a true worth of its own."
       MUNDANE HISTORY INPUSAN
       Probably the most-anticipated feature debut of the year, Anocha Suwichakornpong's Jao Nok Krachok (English title:Mundane History ) secures its deserved spot in the New Current Competition at Asia's premier movie jamboree that's taking place this minute in South Korea.
       Among the batch of fresh-blood Thai filmmakers, Anocha's string of impressive,ambitious short movies have teased our cinematic palates through their serious conceptual formations. Anocha doesn't just direct; she seems to sculpt her films. Now with an allegorical story about a troubled household and a direct flashback to our recent political lunacy,Mundane History , her first long film, is a socially-relevant work that represents the consciousness of our troubled times.
       "The idea was to tell a story about father and son, and I began by writing it as a short story," says Anocha, whose short film Graceland was the first from Thailand to be chosen by Cannes Film Festival in 2006."Over two years I revised the story and soon there were so many versions of it. Then the political things came up and they found their way into the story."
       Mundane History takes place principally in a house where a sick, bedbound son maintains a tense relationship with his domineering father. By telling this simple family drama, Anocha manages to mould the narrative to include a weighty discussion about the state of our country and the human condition that we find inescapable - the condition that's biological, psychological and even universal.
       "Politics is part of our condition at the moment," says Anocha."With the film, I intend to talk about society by using the family as a starting point. Either at the individual level or the larger social level, we're facing problems that come from the structure of our society, and we're not sure how to deal with it. Part of my idea came from the story of my friend who's very frustrated with her dominating father, while her mother was meek and quiet. The issue of seniority conditions the way we live in this society."
       In other words, Anocha is telling a big story through a small story, and that makes Mundane History a genuinely challenging debut. The film was completed with the postproduction support from Pusan International Film Festival, which is why it has to premiere in Pusan rather than in Bangkok.
       Yet in truth, this is a film whose genealogy was spawned from specific social codes so that only Thai viewers will grasp its deeper genes. The good news is,Mundane History will have its Thai premiere as the opening film of World Film Festival of Bangkok on November 6. Later Anocha will also try to release the movie in theatres, though no details have been confirmed.
       Main picture: Korean actress Lim Soo-jung stars in a Thai short film,Phuket , which is having its premiere at Pusan International Film Festival this weekend.
       ISAN INPUSAN
       Once a well-known child star, Pramoj Sangsorn, a man with dark glasses and unkempt charisma, has been toiling in the murky waters trying to find money to launch his feature film project for years. This weekend Pramoj's script - not the film, not now - will make its presence felt in Pusan, highlighting the fact that this Korean movie event sees as part of its job the task of supporting young filmmakers from less rich countries.
       Pramoj's project,Tham Rasi Salai , was awarded a generous script development fund (300,000 baht) from Pusan International Film Festival.With a screenplay steeped in narrative arcana and Third-World surrealism it's hard to imagine Pramoj getting a nod from local producers. The story takes place in the titular Northeastern village, Rasi Salai in Si Sa Ket, where the government is building dams that threaten to wipe out the people's livelihoods. Inside this socio-political frame, the drama happens in a small family where the father believes that his dead son has been reborn as a monitor lizard, the blasphemous reptile deemed as the ultimate bad omen in Thai beliefs.
       "When I submitted the script to one of the Thai producers, they asked if I could change the lizard to a bird," Pramoj says in a deadpan tone."Of course I couldn't."
       Pramoj's father came from Rasi Salai, though he himself was born and raised in Bangkok."When I went back to my dad's village, I met old people there who told me stories," he says."That inspired me to write something. The idea of the film began as a family drama, but along the way, I realised that politics slowly became part of my consciousness, with what's happening in the country and the planned Rasi Salai dams.
       "Once I thought politics was something that happened somewhere else. Now I know that it's happening right here and its impact is personal."
       In 2006 Pramoj's short film,Tsu , made to remember the aftermath of the tsunami that struck Phuket in 2004, was the first Thai short to be invited by the Venice International Film Festival. That helped raise his profile internationally. And now, Pusan is embracing the young Thai, or at least his unusual script."It's still a long way to go. But I'm hopeful that the film will happen."
       ENEMIES INPUSAN
       Thai director Ekachai Uekrongtham is unveiling his new project,called Enemies , at Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP), a financing forum which is part of PIFF.
       Enemies tells the story of two teenage brothers and their journey to Bangkok after their father was killed during the war on drugs.
       PPP is a forum where directors have a chance to meet potential investors. Every year, a few hundred scripts are sent to PPP, but only 20 are be picked to participate. Ekachai's project is the only one from Thailand that got a slot in the final round.
       BANGKOK INPUSAN
       After premiering as the closing programme of last week's Bangkok International Film Festival, four films from the ensemble Sawasdee Bangkok will find their international audience in Pusan. The anthology is actually made up of nine short films, but Pusan decided to screen only four helmed by Thai directors with international clout.
       The four shorts are Silence by Pen-ek Ratanaruang (who also serves on a Pusan jury this year),Sightseeing by Wisit Sasanatieng,Bangkok Blues by Aditya Assarat (see "Phuket in Pusan", above),and Pi Makham by Kongdej Jaturanrasmee. The four films, made on the theme of Bangkok, were initiated by Local Colour and TV Thai. They're scheduled to be broadcast on TV Thai (formerly Thai PBS) very soon.

Celebrating Rosh Hashana, circa 1919

       Sholom aleichem!" said Shiva Shapiro in a heavy Yiddish accent to her visitors.As she deftly stuffed cabbage leaves with rice and stewed tomatoes, and displayed other dishes she has made on her 1900 Beauty Hub coal stove, Shapiro drew her guests into her life.
       "This is 1919," she said."Last year was the end of the influenza epidemic and the end of the war to end all wars. We're a Jewish family and we're keeping kosher in our home. I don't read English, only Yiddish and Hebrew. My daughter Mollie learned about bananas at school. I think that bananas are mushy, but I take her to buy a hand of bananas for 25 cents."
       Shapiro is actually Barbara Ann Paster, one of the actors here at the Strawbery Banke restoration, a living museum in which over 350 years of Portsmouth homes,stores, churches and history have been preserved. It is in Puddle Dock, which was a decrepit neighbourhood destined to be razed under urban renewal until a campaign in the 1950s and '60s led by the town librarian saved 42 houses on 10 acres to create the museum.
       The area was first settled in 1695 by the English,who found a profusion of strawberries there. By the turn of the 20th century Italians, Irish, English, FrenchCanadians and East European Jews had come here to find work. Although most immigrants at that time settled in large cities, some settled directly in smaller towns like Portsmouth. By 1919, 152 Russian Jews made up about a quarter of the immigrant population of Puddle Dock and 18 of them were Shapiro relatives,according to the museum.
       As Shapiro, the wife of a pawnbroker with a 9-yearold daughter, Paster cooks dishes that follow the rhythm of the seasons, and the Jewish calendar.
       She may make strawberry jam for her strudel in June, or pickle cucumbers with dill from her garden,or put up Reliance peaches with brandy in August.
       For Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, she excitedly pinched rolled-out strips of pasta dough into bowtie noodles to use with leftover kasha stuffing from her roast chicken, and made traditional honey and poppy seed cakes.
       Paster,61, has been portraying Shapiro since the Shapiro house opened in 1997."My entire life was made for this job," Paster said with a laugh."I married an Orthodox man. I'm Jewish from Russia, so I know the rules of kashrut and family purity. I am also a storyteller."
       The real Mrs Shapiro immigrated from Anapol,Ukraine, in 1904 with other family members to meet her future husband, Abraham, also from Anapol, in Portsmouth, where he went to work in a shoe factory and later became the president of Portsmouth's synagogue, Temple of Israel.
       At Strawbery Banke, visitors encounter Shiva Shapiro as a 34-year-old woman whose time is spent in her kosher kitchen with its coal stove and icebox."I get 50 pounds [23kg] of ice for 25 cents [8 baht] every other day and I can keep kosher meat for up to three days,"she said."There is hardly a time when I would need to keep it so long as there are two kosher butchers with delivery: Jacob Segal in a horse and buggy and Harry Liberson, who came here from an advertisement looking for a butcher in The Jewish Messenger out of New York and has stayed for 65 years."
       Holidays were at the centre of the Shapiro family's life, and the museum staff took great pains to ensure the historical accuracy of the foods prepared and the items the family had available.
       "To authenticate the Shapiro house," said Michelle Moon, director of education for the museum,"the curatorial staff interviewed 30 people from the neighbourhood and took pollen and seed analyses to determine what grew and was eaten in their home."
       Shapiro's grandson, Burt Wolf,75, recalls picking seed pods for poppy seed cake or filling for his grandmother's holiday strudel.
       In 1919 it was still too early for standard East European ingredients like kasha, poppy seeds and kale to be in mainstream cookbooks like "Fanny Farmer", which Mollie translated for her mother. Even Florence Greenbaum's International Jewish Cookbook (1918)had only one recipe for mohn (poppy seed) roly polys and none for kale or kasha.
       But immigrants brought seeds of their traditional foods, like yellow Ukrainian carrots, kale and parsnips.Shapiro bought harder-to-save seeds like beets in Jackson's hardware store.
       "Mr Wolf and many older immigrants told us that they ate yellow Ukrainian tomatoes, which we know Mrs Shapiro was growing in her garden," said John Forti, curator of culinary historic landscape for the museum. The red tomatoes were canned.
       Forti found a Reliance peach tree growing out of the compost pile in the Shapiro's garden. Seed catalogues from that time included climbing Russian cucumbers and Zubrinski yellow potatoes, which are planted there now.
       Stoneware crock shards found in the yard were a clue for the staff."Mrs Shapiro was putting up the food in the old style as well as using canning jars," he said."We found kale seeds in the walls of another immigrant's house."
       Jewish truck farmers in the neighbouring town of Greenland grew buckwheat for kasha, an East European staple, used at that time in America only for buckwheat pancakes.
       Recipes were handed down orally, at least in the East European immigrant communities, and they also travelled between neighbours."Whenever Camilla Pento comes to the house she points to the mandelbrot and says 'biscotti'," Shapiro said."She came to my house one day to show me how to make her biscotti. Nothing wrong with her recipe but in order for my family to eat it, we need to make it here so it's kosher. I made my mandelbrot and poppy seed cake and she her biscotti and pizzelles with a brand new pizzelle iron."
       The Sabbath and holidays were the center of Shapiro's world and they also meant a lot of work for the Shapiro matriarch. Visiting just before Rosh Hashana, the first in the Jewish High Holy Days, I spoke with Elaine Kraskar, Shapiro's great-niece,82, who was a prominent Democratic state legislator for 16 years. Kraskar remembers going with her grandparents to farms to get chickens for holidays and the Sabbath.
       "We would put them in a burlap sack and bring them to be ritually slaughtered by Mr Liberson," she said."My grandmother would singe the feathers, pluck and clean out the chickens. Everything was used. The intestines were cleaned and stuffed. We roasted chicken stuffed with kasha. Rosh Hashana was a special time,a time for families to be together."
       Although Kraskar gave the museum her grandfather's safe, a Victrola with Yiddish records, and a nightie her grandmother made for her, she couldn't give up her rolling pin or scrub board.
       "I put the scrub board up on the wall in my laundry room," she said,"to remind me how hard life was for her and how much easier it is today."NYT NEWS SERVICE
       CRISPY KALE Time:
       Adapted from the Strawbery Banke Museum 20 minutes / Serves 6 to 8 as a finger food, snack or side dish Ingredients: Preparation:
       1bunch of kale,(about 450g), cored, leaves rinsed and thoroughly dried 3 to 4 Tbsp olive or vegetable oil 3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced Kosher salt, to taste 1. Preheat oven 260กC. Meanwhile, flatten kale leaves and use the point of a knife to remove tough center ribs. Stack leaves and roll them together, then slice crosswise into chiffonade strips 1in. to 1in. wide.2. Place kale in a medium bowl. Toss with olive oil, garlic and salt, making sure leaves are well coated with oil. Spread evenly across a large baking sheet.3. Bake, tossing once or twice, until leaves are crispy but not burned, about 5 minutes.Serve as is as a finger food or snack, or top with poached eggs as a breakfast or lunch dish.
       KASHA-STUFFED ROAST CHICKEN Adapted from Elaine Kraskar Time:2 hours / Serves 6 to 8Ingredients: Preparation: 4 Tbsp chicken fat or vegetable oil, plus additional for greasing pan 3onions,1 diced and 2 coarsely chopped 1large egg 1cup dry kasha 2cups chicken broth or water 12cup diced celery 1cup sliced mushrooms, optional 2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley 1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh sage 1roasting chicken,1.8kg to 2kg 3cloves garlic, minced 450g whole, unpeeled,small potatoes 3tart apples, quartered and cored 4carrots, peeled and cut into 3- to 4in.chunks 4parsnips, peeled and cut into 3- to 4in.chunks 1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary leaves Salt and freshly ground black pepper 1. Preheat oven to 190กC. Grease a roasting pan and set aside. In a skillet over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons of chicken fat or oil,and saute diced onion until golden. Remove from heat and set aside.2. In a small mixing bowl, beat egg lightly and stir in kasha. Mix well to coat all grains.Place a dry heavy skillet over high heat.When it is hot, add egg-coated kasha and stir with a wooden spoon to flatten it and break up any lumps. Continue to stir until egg has dried and kernels are browned and mostly separated. Add broth or water, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil.Add cooked onions, celery, mushrooms (if using), parsley and sage. Simmer, covered,stirring occasionally, until kasha is tender,about 15 minutes.3. Rub exterior of chicken with 1 tablespoon of remaining chicken fat or oil and garlic.Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stuff both cavities of chicken with kasha mixture.(Excess kasha may be baked in an ovenproof dish, during last 30 minutes of roasting time.)4. In bottom of roasting pan, combine potatoes,apples, carrots, parsnips and chopped onions.Add remaining 1 tablespoon chicken fat or oil, and rosemary, and toss well to coat.Gently place chicken on top of vegetables and bake until golden and cooked through,about 11
       2hours. To serve, carve chicken as desired and serve each portion with some of vegetables and apples.
       POPPY SEED CAKE Adapted from Strawbery Banke Museum
       Time:90 minutes / Serves 12 Ingredients: Preparation:
       1cup poppy seeds 1cup milk or soy milk 1cup (225g) unsalted butter or pareve margarine, plus more for greasing pan 2cups all-purpose flour, plus additional for dusting pan 2cups sugar 3large eggs, separated 2 Tsp vanilla extract 12tsp salt 21
       2tsp baking powder Confectioners sugar, for dusting 1. In a small saucepan, combine the poppy seeds and milk. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, and allow to rest until cool, about 20 minutes.2. Preheat oven to 176กC and prepare a large loaf or tube pan by greasing it with margarine and lightly flouring the inside of the pan.3. In bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together butter or margarine and sugar. Add egg yolks, vanilla, and poppy seed-milk mixture, and beat until smooth. Gradually add 2 cups flour, salt and baking powder. Mix well; remove bowl from mixer and set aside.4. Place a clean bowl in mixer, with a whisk attachment, and whisk egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gently fold into batter. Scrape into pan, and bake until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool on a rack. When cool, dust cake with confectioners sugar.

Period films easier to get past censors

       Chinese film-makers are addressing modern social woes by setting their movies in the past to avoid censorship,Wheat director He Ping said at the Toronto film festival.
       For decades the Chinese have sought to get around censorship by using old poems or literature as allegories for modern situations.
       An international audience is now being acquainted with this tradition, carried on in film. He Ping's satirical film,screened here for the first time outside of his homeland, is set in the Warring States era from 476 BC to the unification of China by the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC.
       It depicts the struggles of women left behind when men go off to war and the way they remain happy - by believing in the lie that their loved ones will return to them once the conflict ends.
       The film could easily have been set in modern times, he said."But if you tell a critical story in a contemporary Chinese setting, it can be a much more sensitive issue. The reality for Chinese film-makers is that if you set a film that blasts current goings-on in a contemporary setting, it may not pass the censors," he said.
       Tian Zhuang Zhuang's film The Warrior and the Wolf , adapted from a short story by Japanese author Yasushi Inoue,is also set in the period of Warring States.
       And director Lu Chuan travelled back almost 80 years for his film City of Life and Death , about the infamous massacre in Nanjing during the 1937 fall of the then-capital to the Japanese army.
       He Ping is careful to point out that his film targets Chinese society and not China's Communist regime.
       "China has made a lot of progress of late, but there is still a lot of truth being covered up," he said."Chinese people are living a much happier life than at any point in their history, but they are still living a lie."
       He points out that a series of deadly coal mine accidents and a recent contaminated milk scandal only became known when "tragedy struck",adding that he fears much worse remains hidden.
       Lu Chuan's movie deals in gruesome detail with the killing of what China says were 300,000 defenseless civilians and prisoners of war by Japanese invaders. But it also portrays the Japanese soldiers as ordinary people caught up in the tragedy of war, rather than the bloodthirsty monsters that they are often
       depicted as in China.
       This is unforgivable in the eyes of some ultranationalists and Lu has already received at least one death threat.
       Lu says he was driven to "adopt the point of view of a Japanese soldier" to show the truth, and to counterbalance the "excessive" way the massacre has been dealt with in China in the past.

Watching a nation fall apart, entertainingly

       "A merica unravelling in different ways."That's how Thom Powers, the documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival,put it. It was Tuesday night, six days into the 34th edition of this annual cinematic convocation, and Powers had just bluntly identified a trend that had become apparent from my sampling of more than two dozen fiction and nonfiction movies laden with doomsday predictions, conspiracy theories (and facts), grim statistics, alarming charts,dire projections and shrieking, whimpering and failing men and women.
       During its 10 days, this sprawling,homey event takes over Toronto,attracting locals as well as journalists and industry insiders from around the world. This is where professional festivalgoers catch up on films they missed at Cannes and Venice and preview scores of other new titles.
       It's where George Clooney (here with Up in the Air and Men Who Stare at Goats ) and Oprah Winfrey (fronting for the Sundance hit Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire ) sell the celebrity goods, giving journalists 10 minutes of face time and sidelined fans high-wattage smiles. It's also where Werner Herzog unveiled one of the best movies of his career (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans ) and one of the worst (My Son,My Son, What Have Ye Done?).Trying to locate an overarching theme in a festival as large as Toronto - this year, there are 335 movies from 65 countries - is usually either an exercise in futility or a critical contrivance. Even so, Powers had acknowledged something that was difficult to avoid and not just among the documentaries: Along with the rest of the world, film-makers are casting a hard, sober, often alarmed eye at the US.
       These days even a documentary about bees and beekeeping skews apocalyptic:Witness Colony , an examination of what's been labelled colony collapse disorder,the mysterious phenomenon that has,over the past few frightening years, wiped out about a third of the US honeybee population.
       Backed with Irish money (we liked it,a producer explained),Colony was jointly directed by Carter Gunn (the Irishman who edited it) and Ross McDonnell (the US man who shot its pretty digital images). Working under the obvious influence of Errol Morris - notable in their attention to beauty, interview style and even pacing - they shift seamlessly from macro-images of the swarming bees to close-ups of their fretting keepers who are struggling with the devastation,including one large California family that is unwisely compared to a hive. Although they could have dug deeper and incorporated more of a global perspective (colony collapse disorder reaches to Europe), their movie constitutes a satisfying addition to the blooming, buzzing field of social issue documentary.
       Rather less happy is Michael Moore's latest,Capitalism: A Love Story , a soft look at our hard times that opens on Wednesday in the US. Off screen, at least, Moore was in fine form at his premiere last week, fielding questions from the volubly adoring audience and joking about the less welcome critical reception he expects back home. He also introduced some striking steelworkers and reminded Powers to tell us that Capitalism is eligible for an award from Cadillac, a festival sponsor.(Cadillac, of course, is owned by General Motors,whose former chief executive Roger Smith was the subject of Moore's Roger & Me .)I kept wondering how the award fits in with GM's restructuring plan.
       More bad news was delivered in the far more elegantly structured if not unproblematic documentary Collapse ,from Chris Smith. A US film-maker who occasionally delves into fiction (The Pool and so forth), Smith trains his intelligent, focused attention on just one man in this compelling curiosity: Michael C. Ruppert, who discourses or, more precisely, disgorges, on everything from the intrigues of Dick Cheney to the dangers of corn.
       In a different age Ruppert, a chain smoker with the crumpled face and wary gaze of the cop he once was, might have alarmed and entertained from the Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park in London,famed for prophets and fools. Now he spreads the gloom via (of course) his blog fromthewilderness.com.
       For much of Collapse Ruppert sits in a wooden chair in an anonymous brickface room and talks and talks and talks,very much a man cinematically and existentially alone.
       He derives much of his information from news reports, which he combs through to uncover what he believes to be the truth. Although some of what he says sounds reasonable (his harangue about declining petroleum reserves, for one), I wish Smith, who never appears on screen but whose presence is felt in all his film-making choices, had approached his subject more aggressively.
       As in any large festival, the fiction titles ranged far and wide across genres and themes, with a familiar smattering of downer dramas and melancholic melodramas.
       (I'm dysfunctional, you're dysfunctional, we're all dysfunctional!) In Love and Other Impossible Pursuits Don Roos attempts, with mixed results, to show what a real family looks like, much as he did in the more successful Happy Endings . Although he tries hard to create a sense of actual if cosseted Manhattan life - gustily insisting for instance that his star Natalie Portman, as a grieving mother, remain unlikable - Roos overworks his material into a sudsy pulp.Most of the characters might be in need of therapy, but Roos' screenplay has already been therapeuticised, with every angle, emotion, feeling spelled out.
       It's not immediately clear what ails Ryan Bingham ( Clooney) in Up in the Air , about a lone wolf who tirelessly crisscrosses the country firing employees for cowardly or indifferent bosses. Based on the Walter Kirn novel of the same title and smoothly directed by Jason Reitman (Juno and Thank You for Smoking ),Up in the Air starts as a comedy only to metamorphose into tragedy as this one-dimensional corporate assassin makes a mid-life run for happiness with another high flier (Vera Farmiga, a charmed match for Clooney).
       Over a meet-and-greet dinner Reitman explained that one of his inspirations was Shampoo , Robert Towne and Hal Ashby's 1975 masterpiece about a Beverly Hills hairdresser that ends on a similarly ambiguous image of terminal aloneness.
       Reitman doesn't reach the sublime heights of Shampoo or tap into the haunted US soul as deeply as About Schmidt , which limned comparable terrain. But he's taken significant steps forward with Up in the Air and without the self-conscious cutesy dialogue of Diablo Cody, who wrote Juno . Ms Cody,meanwhile, fizzled early at the festival with Jennifer's Body , a horror throwaway starring Megan Fox as a cannibalistic hottie.
       Like the pitiful stick figures who inhabit Life During Wartime , Todd Solondz's hateful, would-be comedy, the middleclass characters in Jennifer's Body are nothing more than fodder for the filmmakers, which wouldn't be such a problem if all the bile and cheap laughs in both movies were accompanied by ideas,politics, a little heart, anything.
       Among the worthier titles that will or should be coming to a cinema or cable channel near you are films such as City of Life and Death , a fictional re-creation of the Japanese conquest of Nanking in 1937. Directed by Lu Chuan (Mountain Patrol: Kekexili ), one of the most talented Chinese film-makers to emerge in recent years, and shot in widescreen black and white,City of Life and Death opens just as the Japanese overrun Nanking.
       What follows is a phantasmagoric vision in which decapitated heads swing from ropes like pendulums in front of mountains of rubble and billowing smoke. Lu smartly toggles between the prisoners and their captors, a strategy that helps humanise the invaders, giving a face to evil.
       My favourite discovery at Toronto,however, is the deliriously unhinged Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans ,which was met with laughter and audible gasps during its initial press screening.Although it bears some resemblance to the original Bad Lieutenant , Abel Ferrara's 1992 grungy classic about a drug-addled cop, Herzog's redo is its own beast.Nicolas Cage, delivering his loosest,twitchiest, most furiously engaged performance since Vampire's Kiss (1988),in which he swallowed a cockroach for his art, plays the title character, a detective who's badder and madder than most.
       Written by William Finkelstein, a veteran television writer (L.A. Law ), the plot hinges on familiar dirty business (a multiple murder, drug deals) that becomes increasingly irrelevant as the mood and film-making heat up.
       In this brightly lighted nightmare, a post-Katrina New Orleans that might have been conceived by Hieronymus Bosch but could come to the screen only through the feverish imaginings of Herzog, a dead man's soul dances near his body and googly-eyed iguanas trade seemingly knowing looks with the popeyed lieutenant.
       To watch Cage melt with pleasure as he lights up his "lucky crack pipe" or seize up with spasmodic giggles, is to understand that Herzog has again found a performer as committed to representing unspeakable human will as Klaus Kinski,the star of Herzog masterworks like Aguirre, the Wrath of God . Here Cage and Herzog take you into a hell that leads straight to movie heaven.

Song and dance promo

       As the autumn television season begins,and new and returning shows jostle one another to remind easily distracted viewers that they exist, there are many routes TV series can take to promote themselves. Some buy print ads and rent billboards; others use internet banners and viral videos. But probably only one is sending its cast on the road to perform a live musical.
       For the past several days the stars of the irreverent FX comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia have been readying for a six-city tour. They will act, sing and karate kick their way through The Nightman Cometh , an original stage work taken from a recent episode of the show. Costumes and sets have been packed up, a tour bus has been prepared, and a few days ago some of the cast members even got together to rehearse for,like, four hours.
       Asked recently if he had the musical theatre background to pull this off, Rob McElhenney,the show's creator and co-star, gave a long, nervous laugh."No," he said."No. No, I don't. I don't really have any comedy background. This show is the first comedy I've done.
       "Now we're doing it in front of 4,000 people at a clip. It's going to be pretty interesting."
       This ad hoc, see-what-happens strategy has defined Always Sunny since FX signed McElhenney and two equally untested friends, Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton, to produce and star in a series about a group of mates who run an Irish pub in South Philadelphia.
       Since its 2005 debut the show has developed a deliberately grimy, lowbrow comic sensibility consisting of naughty words, sexual innuendos and casual references to drug and alcohol abuse,as well as plots about get-rich-quick schemes,pranks gone wrong and internal rivalries.
       Following a third season story in which the tried fruitlessly to start a rock band, a fourth season episode revived one of their songs for a musical performed by the full Always Sunny cast, including Kaitlin Olson (who plays Howerton's sister) and Danny DeVito (who plays the siblings' father).
       In the context of the show this production is composed by Day's character, ostensibly telling the story of a boy who is transformed into a man by his love for a woman, and by the molestations of a bedroom invader called the Nightman.
       In real life it was written by McElhenney, Day and Howerton, with some musical help from a friend, the actor and musician Cormac Bluestone.McElhenney described the musical as "profound in its own sort of innocent ridiculousness".
       "We had never seen anything like that in a comedy before," he said,"possibly for good reason. But we decided to go for it anyway."
       In April the cast was invited by another musician friend, Don McCloskey, to sing some of the Nightman Cometh songs as part of his show at the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood.But when event listings mistakenly said that the actors would be performing the entire musical - and two shows quickly sold out, based on this premise - the Always Sunny team agreed to give its devotees what they expected.
       Critics were sceptical that they could pull it off. Previewing the Troubadour shows for LA Weekly , Nicole Campos wrote that the cast of the "cranktastic" show "usually can't be bothered to take a spare breath when they aren't shouting put-downs at one another" and asked,"How would they stand still long enough to hit the high notes?"
       The actors recall these performances as scary and a bit sloppy but ultimately successful."As soon as you start singing in front of an audience full of fans," Olson said,"they're singing and screaming with you, so you can't really hear yourself. That was terrifying." But the overall production, she said, was "so stupid to me that it's fun".
       It also attracted the attention of the concert promoter Live Nation, which offered to take the show on a 22-city tour. This was not quite compatible with the schedule of the Always Sunny crew, which is still editing the final episodes of its coming season. But an abbreviated run was worked out, which began in Boston.
       The musical backgrounds of the Always Sunny stars are wildly disparate. Day's parents both hold doctorates in musicology, and his sister has a doctorate in choral conducting. Howerton, a Juilliard-trained actor, performed musical theatre in high school and college, while DeVito once serenaded Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie Twins .Still, the performers agree that the road show is not only a great excuse to travel in a tour bus and fulfil their rock star fantasies, but also a validation of their series' unexpected success.
       "The whole thing is a total fluke," Howerton said."The first script I ever wrote in my life was an episode of the first season. Now all of a sudden we're writing a musical, and all because we talked some people into letting us do something that we didn't even totally know how to do."
       When the tour is complete, the cast will get a one-month break. Then the team must figure out how to top this stunt in future episodes of Always Sunny , which FX has renewed for two more seasons.

"MAD MEN", "30 ROCK" RECLAIM EMMYS

       Mad Men and 30 Rock led a pack of Emmy winners who successfully defended their titles at Sunday's, while Australian Toni Collette of Showtime's United States of Tara was honoured as best lead actress in a comedy series for her role as a mother with multiple personalities."Wow, this is insanely confronting," said a beaming Collette.She thanked series creator Diablo Cody, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Juno .AMC's glossy 1960s Madison Avenue saga Mad Men , which last year became the first basic cable show to win a top series award, won the best drama trophy for a second time.
       "It is an amazing time to work in TV," said Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner."And, I know that everything is changing, but I'm not afraid of it because I feel like all these different media is just more choice and more entertainment. It's better for the viewers in the end and I'm glad to be a part of it."
       NBC's 30 Rock , a satirical take on life inside a TV variety show, was honoured for the third time as best comedy series, while star Alec Baldwin won his second award as best comedy actor.
       "We want to thank our friends at NBC for keeping us on the air ... even though we are so much more expensive than a talk show," said 30 Rock creator and star Tina Fey, referring to Jay Leno's new daily prime-time comedy show, which NBC likes to note is cheaper to produce than a scripted series.
       Baldwin, accepting his acting trophy for 30 Rock from Brothers & Sisters star Rob Lowe, joked,"I'll be honest with you. I'd trade this to look like him."
       Glenn Close's performance as a ruthless trial attorney on Damages and Bryan Cranston's turn as a meth-making, cancer-stricken teacher on Breaking Bad were honoured with the top drama series acting Emmys, the second consecutive trophies for both.
       Iranian Shohreh Aghdashloo won for her role in HBO's House of Saddam .Aghdashloo won best supporting actress in a TV movie or miniseries for playing Saddam's wife Sajidah Khairallah Tulfah.
       The BBC's Dickens adaptation Little Dorrit , co-produced with PBS's Boston affiliate WGBH, won for best miniseries as well as awards for cinematography,art direction, casting and costumes.
       Ireland was well represented as Irish actress Dearblha Walsh won for directing Little Dorrit and Irish actor Brendan Gleeson won for playing Winston Churchill in the HBO miniseries Into the Storm .Australian Hugh Jackman won for his opening musical performance for the Oscars awards show.
       Collette's victory deprived Fey of 30 Rock of winning a second consecutive award in the category. But Fey took the stage a few moments later to acknowledge a guest actor award she received for her Sarah Palin impersonation on Saturday Night Live .Close called it a "huge privilege" to be part of entertainment community,then tweaked her show's writers.
       Her role is "maybe the character of my lifetime, depending on what they do this season," Close said.
       Michael Emerson, who plays the cruelly devious Ben on Lost , and Cherry Jones, the stalwart US president on 24 , were honoured as best supporting actors in drama series.
       "Wowza," Jones said. Emerson accepted his award for what he called "the role of my lifetime".
       Kristin Chenoweth of Pushing Daisies and Jon Cryer of Two and a Half Men won supporting acting Emmys for their comedies and proved that acceptance speeches can be entertaining.
       "I'm not employed now so I'd like to be on Mad Men . I also like The Office and 24 ," said Chenoweth, alternating between tears and smiles as she accepted for her cancelled ABC series."Thank you so much to the academy for recognising a show that's no longer on the air."
       Backstage, the Tony Award-winning Chenoweth noted that she is appearing on an upcoming episode of Fox's show Glee , has shot two movies and is doing a series of concerts.
       Cryer, whose series is the most-watched comedy on TV, brought a wry tone to his speech.
       "I used to think that awards were just shallow tokens of momentary popularity, but now I realise they are the only true measure of a person's worth as a human being," Cryer said.
       The Daily Show with Jon Stewart won the trophy for best variety, music or comedy series, its seventh in a row.
       Grey Gardens , the story of a reclusive mother and daughter who were relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, won for best TV movie.
       Neil Patrick Harris, the show's host as well as a nominee, lost to Cryer for his role on How I Met Your Mother but won on-stage accolades for his emcee work, including a heartfelt compliment from Jon Stewart.
       Harris, who moved the show along with good-natured humour, started the evening on a lively note, performing Don't Touch That Remote , a custommade tune from Broadway composers Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman of Hairspray fame. Harris implored viewers to stay glued to the show and called attention to some of the stars in the house.
       "I see legends galore, Lange, Barrymore," Harris sang to Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, later adding,"But like next season on Idol I'm not seeing Paula Abdul." Meanwhile, the camera panned to an empty seat at the Nokia Theatre.
       Harris' winning turn as host also was lauded by Jeff Probst, honoured as best reality show host for CBS'Survivor . Probst was one of the five reality hosts who emceed the Emmys last year and received scathing reviews.
       "Neil Patrick Harris, this is how you host the Emmys. Nice job," Probst said, pointing his Emmy toward him.
       The Amazing Race won its seventh consecutive Emmy in the outstanding reality-competition category, once again turning top-rated American Idol into an also-ran.
       An exception to the upbeat mood came in clips from
       animated series Family Guy , which showed the dog character Brian beaten bloody, followed by a reality show snippet with barely concealed swearing.
       In a bid to give viewers reasons to stick with the show,CBS put advisories on-screen of upcoming moments,including Justin Timberlake's appearance as a presenter.
       The TV academy, meanwhile, hoped to avoid an unwanted rerun at the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards: paltry
       viewership. The 2008 ceremony was the least-watched
       ever with an audience of 12.3 million.
       Acclaimed but low-rated series such as Mad Men are seen as one reason viewers bypassed the awards, so
       major categories were expanded to increase the odds for
       more popular fare. There were as many as seven nominees per category, compared with the traditional five.
       Harris and Emmy executive producer Don Mischer promised to keep the scheduled three-hour ceremony snappy, but they had less room to manoeuver than planned. A TV academy proposal to pre-tape some acceptances and show them in a truncated version - gaining time for something
       more entertaining than speeches - was quashed by industry
       opposition.
       Harris also was a supporting actor nominee for How I Met Your Mother .HBO went into the ceremony as the awards leader after last weekend's Creative Arts Primetime Emmys ceremony for technical
       and other achievements. The channel earned 16 trophies, followed
       by NBC with 11 and Fox and ABC with eight awards each. CBS,
       PBS and Cartoon Network had six each.
       After Sunday, HBO emerged with a leading 21, followed by NBC with 16, ABC with 11 and Fox with 10. CBS and PBS had nine each.