Bishops sound off but won't ban Da Vinci Code

Catholic bishops in the Philippines condemned the yet-to-be-released The Da Vinci Code, but said they would not call for a ban of the movie.

The announcement comes after some Catholic church leaders had asked censors to nix the film from Philippine theaters.

Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) released a "guide" to the movie outlining its fallacies, according to the church, but said they would respect freedom of expression.

Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales said the movie presented the greatest challenge to the church since the Arian heresy of the 4th century.

The film inspired by the novel by Dan Brown and produced by Sony Pictures is due for release in May.


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Production retarts on "The City of Golden Armor"

Production on Zhang Yimou's The City of Golden Armor staring Chow Yun-Fat amd Gong Li as emperor and empress repectively restarted at Hengdian World Studios.

The film with its 44+ million budget is the most expensive Chinese production yet. A full-scale replica of buildings at the Forbidden City has been decorated for the shoot.


Gong Li in Memoirs of a Geisha. Columbia Pictures photo from Yahoo Movies

Based on the the modern play Thunderstorm by Cao Yu, the movie depicts a power struggle between emperor and empress during the T'ang Dynasty.


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Bollywood prepares for Cannes invasion

Bollywood's Aishwarya Rai arrived in Cannes Wednesday for the International Cannes Film Festival in May.


Aishwarya Rai arrived in France for the Cannes International Film Festival this month.

Studios in India plan an all-out assault on European markets hoping to sell Indian-style melodramas to a hefty film audience.

Despite its prodigious output, Bollywood has barely made a dent in Western markets as opposed to its success in a number of other countries.

In 2005, India made 1,000 films, more than any other country, but garnered only about 1 percent of global film revenues.

Indian films may falter because little effort is made to adapt them to non-Indian audiences. Typical Bollywood flicks feature spontaneous song-and-dance numbers that for the most part have disappeared from cinema in other parts of the world.

A few films have attempted to craft these numbers in a style somewhat similar to what appears in Western music videos.


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