Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Tina Bark Designs: Custom Necklace

I have been a fan of Tina Bark Designs for the past two years. Her styles are unique, creative and can be seen in boutiques around the world including London, DC, and Phoenix. Over the past two years, Miss Tina and I have become friends and at the wedding she surprised me with a custom piece.

She said I was her inspiration for this piece. I was honored that she thought of me while designing it. On her Etsy website she wrote " I designed this necklace for a beautiful woman who is both strong and delicate. The circle reflects the idea that life is eternal, while the butterfly sits perched for a brief second- reminding us that we must grab every moment and live it to its fullest. "


SUCH KIND KIND WORDS! Thanks TINA! I love my necklace!

As Valentine's Day approaches, I encourage you all to check out Miss Tina's designs. You'll love it. I have many of her pieces and get compliments all the time.

Check out her Etsy page here or FB page here.

Her rings are GORGEOUS!!

January #RAK Wrap-Up


I LOVE R.A.K! I love receiving and sending out books. I get super excited to do both!

This month, I did not receive any books. However I was able to send one out to Amanda from Short and Sweet. I sent her The Chick Friends Rules: Freshman Year by Vici Howard.


How big is your R.A.K.?

Beauty Guest Post: Little Ramblings

Today, we have the awesome Mary from Little Ramblings!

Hello, everyone! I am so excited to be a guest blogger for Arianne Cruz! I am the blogger behind Little Ramblings. I blog about anything fashion, makeup, and beauty related. Today, I came up with a fun nail look that I hope you enjoy!
 Every once in a while, I get tired of wearing just one color on my nails. In the past, I have spiced it up a bit by adding glitter, but even that seems to have lost its luster. In order to overcome my boring nail slump, I got a little funky with it. I took two colors and created a slightly different design on each nail. It was almost like giving myself a modern art homework assignment. At first, I was just going to do half of each color on each nail, but then I decided to take it one step further and intentionally design the nails so they would not be monochromatic. Here's what I came up with using two of my favorite blue polishes: NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme and China Glaze For Audrey. 




 I love how well these two colors work together and how great the colors look against silver. A silver clutch, bracelets, and/or rings would add the perfect touch to this edgy nail look. After painting my nails and playing around with accessories, I noticed that the colors seem to follow together from one nail to the next. A complete accident, but one I am glad to have made.  Although this design is rather simple to achieve, it definitely adds dimension and style to not only your nails, but to your whole outfit. I'm looking forward to trying this look with other colors that are similar or even complete opposites. Imagine this look using black and white polish!What funky nail design are you rocking these days? What designs have you been wanting to try out?
Make her feel welcome by leaving a comment or question for her :) Also, don't forget to visit her blog!

Tokyo Drifter (Seijun Suzuki, 1966)

Suzuki's Tokyo Drifter is one of the finest artistic middle fingers ever made, an absurdist take on the yakuza film that makes deliberate, stylish nonsense of its story to infuriate the studio boss who had it in for the director. The result is a kaleidoscopic, day-glo frenzy that gleefully skewers genre conventions, not merely of yakuza films but the Western as well; a ridiculous barroom brawl prefigures the deconstructive climax of Blazing Saddles by nearly a decade. Incessantly inventive, always bewildering, Tokyo Drifter is a delight. Criterion's new Blu-Ray restoration only brings this eye-popping feast to more energetic life.

My full review is up now at Spectrum Culture.

NASCAR Weekend

Ryan, Nicole, Tom

My Saturday, was spent with my favorite people at Phoenix International Raceway. Ryan and Tom were scheduled for a NASCAR experience and it was quite an adventure. I think I was more nervous than anyone and that's probably because I think going 50 mph is fast enough. The whole experience was fun and went by quickly (literally). 5 laps around the tracked lasted all of 5 mins. It was a great time and always fun to see the family. Enjoy the pictures below.

Charlotte & Bridge - Wearing Carolina hats!
"Lil" Tarheel!
Shirley & Bill

Allison & Charlotte



Charlotte & Shirley
SEESTERS!

For Haiti - please help!

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM ROBIN MAHFOOD
President, CEO
Food The Poor

Right now we have more than $17.9 million worth of food and other essential aid waiting to be sent, but we need to raise more than $1 million to ship and distribute these goods.

We need your help to get this critical shipment of food and other goods to Haiti! Every dollar you give to help us ship these goods will be transformed into $17.93 worth of tangible aid for hungry, hurting children and their families.

Please send your most generous donation today to help our poorest brothers and sisters.

Robin G. Mahfood
President, CEO
Food The Poor
www.foodforthepoor.org


 

Sent from my BlackBerry® device from Digicel

Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932)

[This is my first post for my Blind Spots 2012 choices]

Previously familiar with the legendary pair of Josef von Sternberg and muse Marlene Dietrich only from The Blue Angel, I got a much better grasp of what made the two such a fantastic duo from Shanghai Express, the fourth of their seven collaborations. Set on a train traveling from Beiping to Shanghai during the Chinese Civil War, Shanghai Express serves not only as a showcase for von Sternberg's formal mastery—Dietrich attributes the Oscar-winning cinematography mostly to him—but for what makes director and star such a good match. It's also such an advanced, nuanced drama that its chiaroscuro textures and layered, repressed emotions would not be so beautifully evoked in another picture until Only Angels Have Wings at the end of the decade.

As with Howard Hawks' masterpiece, Shanghai Express (written by future Big Sleep screenwriter with uncredited help from Hawks himself) opens in an exotic location so bustling with activity that its exoticism is defined less by the setting than the menagerie of people wading through it. A cast of characters from different nationalities and temperaments get their train tickets and fight through the crowds to get on-board before departure. Terse, meaty dialogue exchanged between people dances around sexual lines without leaving much to the imagination, as the presence of certain kinds of women set some passengers on edge and generate intense excitement for the rest.

One of those women is Shanghai Lily (Dietrich), a "coaster" whose reputation precedes her. When word gets out that she may be on the train, most of the men can scarcely contain their lust, and even the perpetually offended missionary sounds, at the very least, intrigued. But when a British military doctor, Captain Harvey (Clive Brook), stumbles across the be-boaed, veiled minx, he recognizes Lily as Magdalen. Dietrich's hard features do not react to this unexpected reunion, though even her wry smirk cannot fully mask the shock of seeing this man again, much less being called her old name.

The heated lines passed between Harvey and Lily reveal a broken romance spurned by her actions, a loyalty test that backfired and drove the doctor away in offense. But to look at Lily now, the thought of her being so sentimental as to try her lover's dedication is almost incomprehensible. Her flippant, seductive tone of voice carries through the entire film, even at her most honest and selfless. Dietrich displays here a singular ability to be unmistakably human and sentimental without betraying an ounce of softness. To the audience, Lily's lingering love for Harvey is impossible to miss, but she's so hard and unflinching even under her already imposing exterior that one can forgive the doctor for not seeing her true feelings.

This burial of melodramatic, theatrical emotion under layers of carefully ordered, objectively removed dressing meshes beautifully with von Sternberg's camera style. Shanghai Express, made during the gritty punchiness of the Pre-Code era, reflects that time period in its punchy dialogue and indirectly direct sex talk, but the director's visual elegance far outstrips his peers. Like any great train movie, Shanghai Express generates a constantly shifting backdrop organized by rigidly static, even claustrophobically narrow and unchanging, mise-en-scène. Chiaroscuro lighting casts what would otherwise be a romantic drama as a borderline thriller of moral ambiguity and hidden despair, a pre-noir underworld of false fronts and swift judgments. The world outside the train is an ever-changing nightmare of building tensions, steam swirling around silhouetted railroad workers and a gradually mounting rebel presence that slowly encroaches on the already unstable peace among the eclectic passengers.

The danger finally mounts to the point that it penetrates the insular realm of the train, and von Sternberg's alteration of lighting and shot placements completely change the tone of the familiar interior sets. Character dynamics also get overhauled, with the revelation of a rebel among the passengers and reevaluations of people by the others. The other courtesan traveling on board, played by a fierce Anna May Wong, becomes intense with patriotic fervor when she realizes Chang is the wanted warlord, speaking coldly of his offenses to China. The judgmental missionary who refused to even sit in a cabin with these loose women comes to view Lily in a different light, and he even finds himself defending her to the others when the gossipy nature of the other passengers boils over.

But the act that turns the missionary's opinion of Lily is not so much a different side of the woman so much as the first good glance of her real self. She nearly sacrifices herself for Harvey, who is still so adamantly clueless that he does not realize what he gets himself into by disrespecting the warlord and how brave Lily is to volunteer her services to save her true love. The tragedy of his ignorant dismissal endures even past the seeming resolution of the perilous situation, as Lily makes plain her love for Harvey while not delving into the full extent of her sacrifice, at this point unable to be open with herself, much less others. A flippant Harvey notes that Lily is trembling when they talk after being rescued from Chang, to which she says, "It's because you...touched me, Doc." Dietrich utters this response with a tossed-off, even playful bite, a come-hither tease that permits her to openly state how she feels while still hiding behind her armor. But when von Sternberg frames Dietrich in a highly stylized, shadowed medium close-up after she leaves his cabin, leaning against the door and trembling so violently she can barely get her cigarette to her lips, the full extent of her devastation engulfs the screen.

Shanghai Express ends on conventional terms in a general sense, but there is a surprisingly modern willingness to accept one's partner for who they are, as opposed to what one wishes the other should be. Refreshingly, Shanghai Express is not about the redemption of a whore; in fact, the two most heroic people in the movie are both courtesans and both act out their bravery through their seductive powers. But the real delight remains that train ride, so locked into its path—in physical and literary terms—yet so routinely reinventing and fresh. I cannot think of a train movie to rival it until Wes Anderson made his even more ruminative The Darjeeling Limited, another film that dismantles preconceived notions of people as privileged whites ride through a troubled, foreign, complex land. And Shanghai Express doesn't even have such lofty ambitions; it primarily serves to show off von Sternberg's formal skill and Dietrich's unique acting chops. But as they say, when you've got it, flaunt it.

Mmetupa raha sana Twiga stars....



 Kikosi cha Twiga Stars......So proud of these women..Mungu ibariki Tanzania, Mungu ibariki Twiga Stars.
Imefika wakati serikali yetu izidi kuboresha soka kwa wanawake nchini mwetu. kwa maana ni ukweli kwamba hii timu inatuwakilisha vyema na kuipa sifa nchi yetu. 
Picha asante issamichuzi.blogspot.com

sifa za mwanamke mnene!!!!!

            Mwanamke mnene ni mtamu sana, ana joto kali sana ndani ya uke, ana nyamanyama ambazo hazimuumizi mwanaume wakati wa kutoa mastyle, mwanamke mnene akikaa style ya chuma mboga basi lile sponji la nyuma loooote lasababisha maangamizi ya muda mfupi kwa abdalah kichwa wazi, mwanamke mnene ana degree ya kwenda miondoko ya r ...N b kitandani ambayo huwa so romantic na haitoi jasho, mwanamke mnene akivua nguo akalala kifudifudi basi mkaka hata kama anaangalia mpira lzm atadata, mwanamke mnene ana sifa ya kukojoa bila kumwaga maji mengi. happy wanene day vimbaumbau mnasonyajeeeeeee"

Monday, January 30, 2012

From Underworld to Sparks - SCOTT SPEEDMAN, the other man in “THE VOW”

Finding huge box-office success with such blockbusters as “Underworld” and “Underworld: Evolution” where he originated the central character of the hybrid Vampire/Lycan Michael Corvinus, Scott Speedman now explores his romantic side in Columbia Pictures' endearing love story, “The Vow.” He joins an impressive ensemble led by Channing Tatum, Rachel McAdams, Jessica Lange and Sam Neill.

“The Vow” is the real-life story of a young couple who were struck by tragedy shortly after their wedding. A car crash puts the wife (McAdams) in a coma, where she is cared for by her devoted husband (Tatum). When she comes to, without any memory of her husband or their marriage, the husband must woo her and ultimately win her heart once again.

Paige has reverted mentally to the young law student she was five years earlier, before she met Leo and became an artist. In seemingly an instant, she is no longer the wife Leo knew, and on top of that, she no longer recognizes her current life. Making matters worse, Paige thinks she's still engaged to charming businessman Jeremy (Speedman), who still wants her, and remains reluctant to embrace Leo, with his less conventional lifestyle making music, as anyone she might have ever loved.

As for the role of Jeremy, it was important to cast an actor who had the charisma to be a formidable foe for Leo and someone that the audience would believe Paige had loved, and may still love. Jeremy shows the other path that Paige could have taken and could choose again. Scott Speedman was cast in this role and did not disappoint.

“The great thing about Scott is that he plays a leading man,” explains director Michael Sucsy. “A lot of times with Hollywood casting, you’ve got the big movie star in one role, and then some supporting guy in the other role. Well, guess who she’s going to end up with? It telegraphs it. So the great thing about casting Scott is that it really puts into question who she’s going to end up with. He has to be a contender, and I love that about Scott and his performance.”

An added bonus was that Scott and Rachel had worked together previously and therefore evoked a natural chemistry on set. “Scott really nailed the role. We’re lucky to have had him,” adds McAdams.

Scott Speedman most recently starred in “Barney's Version” opposite Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman for director Richard Lewis, “Good Neighbours” opposite Jay Baruchel for director Jacob Tierney and “Adoration” for director Atom Egoyan. Prior to that he starred opposite Liv Tyler in the box-office smash “The Strangers.”

His other film credits include Ron Shelton’s “Dark Blue,” opposite Kurt Russell; Isabel Coixet’s “My Life Without Me,” opposite Sarah Polley, for which he won Best Actor at the Bordeaux International Film Festival; Bruce Paltrow’s “Duets,” co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Maria Bello; and Lee Tamahori’s “xXx: State of the Union.”

In television, Speedman landed the role of Ben Covington in the popular WB Network drama “Felicity,” which had a successful four-season run.

Opening across the Philippines this February, “The Vow” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit www.columbiapictures.com.ph to see the latest trailers, get free downloads and play free movie games.

Latest computer generated visual FX stun in “GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE”

Though the directors’ focus for Warner Bros.' “Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance” was to capture as much of the action in camera as possible, it was clear from the beginning that the film would have to employ CG effects as well. After all, the title character has a flaming skull.

In the film, Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) -- still struggling with his curse as the devil’s bounty hunter – is hiding out in a remote part of Eastern Europe when he is recruited by a secret sect of the church to save a young boy from the devil. At first, Johnny is reluctant to embrace the power of the Ghost Rider, but it is the only way to protect the boy – and possibly rid himself of his curse forever.

Overseeing the VFX is Visual Effects Supervisor Eric Durst, who says, like all of the departments, the new Ghost Rider film would have a very different look from its predecessor. “[Directors] Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor really wanted a new look for `Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.' It’s a darker film, so we created a look that integrated with that. The look of the character isn’t stylized at all – it is as if Ghost Rider really existed, really had a flaming head. The skull is dark and charred – just as it would be if you really had a skull that was on fire. Another touch like that is the shoulders of the jacket – they would be bubbling up from the heat inside the body.”

The primary challenge in creating the VFX, says Durst, is that the character is “interactive. The light that comes off the flames on his head – it interacts with his shoulders and anything else nearby. But interactive light is very difficult to recreate in the computer. It’s so subtle, and it interacts in different ways with different fabrics and objects. So to achieve that, we took a hood with LED lights on it that flickered on and off. That had two great benefits for us: first, the LED lights served as tracking markers in the computer, so when Nick moved his head from left to right, we could make the skull match those movements. But the LEDs also cast a light on anything that was in proximity, so it would give us the light that would occur if the flame really was on his head.”

Durst also notes that since the release of the first “Ghost Rider” film, there have been tremendous advances in CG animation. “The foundation of getting flames in CG is fluid dynamics, and so much has happened technologically in just the last five or six years,” he says. “For the original film, Sony Pictures Imageworks created their own code and worked within the software systems that existed at the time. It was very labor intensive. For the new film, with six years’ worth of development of the technology in the field, we had a big head start. You can make things look stunningly real now.”

The effects were completed by Iloura, an Australian company. “We canvassed the world to see who had the best fire,” says Durst. “Their first test had everything – the right, dark look for the skull, the flames, the right vibe. Everyone fell in love with it right there, and Iloura did a great job on the movie.”

Opening across the Philippines on Friday, Feb. 17, “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Haita de caini in actiune


Alert: January is Almost Over

Hello internet! It's me! Laura! It has been too long since my last post. I am ashamed. Still friends?

Ok good.



Now - what the f*** happened to winter? The last thing I remember is being really excited about Christmas, waiting for January to start so it'd actually get cold in Texas, and then BOOM. It's almost February. Where's the cold, Texas??!!

I miss winter. Real winter. Where you can actually wear a jacket for more than just two hours in the middle of the night. Sure, the news says it's been getting down to 40-ish degrees, but that's at 4AM. It doesn't count! Tomorrow the high is 75. SEVENTY FIVE!!! In my book, that's summer weather. Summer, however, doesn't begin until Wednesday, June 20, 2012. That's a long-ass time away!

*Sigh* Maybe I'll do some more winter nail designs just so I can pretend it's cold out.

NEW WINNER: The Crystal Princess

Unfortunately, the original winner failed to reply to my email so I had to pick a new winner.


Congratulations Coranne! Please reply by February 1 or I will have to choose another winner.


happy anniversary martha and himidi mungu awape maisha marefu na yenye amani

                              martha n hubby on their big day
                          martha n hubby
                          tunda lao "abiga"

Book Review: Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready

What a beautifully sad book!

Death is a sad phenomenon most of the time. This book emphasized that while incorporating love, grief, and hope in the entire story. At first, I was really prejudiced because I'm not a big fan of ghosts. They scare me, therefore, I didn't really want to read about them. This feeling caused me to feel that the book started slow. I'm not sure if it really did or if it was just me. However, after I finally focused in the story, I started enjoying it and went on to finish it. It was sad but not sad enough to make me cry. It also wasn't scary!! :)

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Aura was the main character of the story. She was a Post-Shifter which meant she was born after the Shift. I still don't know what Shift means. If you haven't read this book, Post-Shifters could see and communicate with ghosts. It was such a phenomenon that the government started an entire agency dedicated to ghosts, kind of like the FBI of ghosts.

Logan was Aura's boyfriend. They were a typical young couple who had a goal of having sex with each other at a certain time, drink a lot, party, etc. Logan was a part of the band Keeley's Brothers. Everything was going well until he did something stupid and killed himself. His passing was hard for everyone, especially for Aura. It was hard for her to let him go and vice versa. They really did love each other.

Zachary was the new Scottish exchange student at Aura's school. He was so charming and just criminally adorable. He was also in love with Aura. Throughout the book, he expressed how patient he was and that he would wait for Aura to be ready, no matter how long it took. Well, at least, until it was time for him to go back to Scotland. Did I mention, he was also the last of the Pre-Shifters? As the Last, he had some kind of special powers. As Logan described it, he was so bright and red. No wonder he repels ghosts.

Logan's family sued the record company who gave him the cocaine that killed him. The description of the court chapter was so sad. Anyway, he was supposed to move on but instead, he turned Shade. Shade meant that the ghost was no longer violet, instead, he was black with specks of violet. They were also very harmful to living people. Despite turning Shade, however, Aura believed in Logan coming back. Something about her believing brought him back in the end. Woah.

Check out these awesome quotes/scenes :D
Zachary: "The pieces of you are complete shite today, the bloated eyelids and splotchy skin and your hair all, you know, and all together you should look pure hackit, but somehow, you're more bonnie than ever. (insert Aura's response) I'm no' flirting with you, not with your boyfriend just passing. I'm only making an observation."
Zachary: "I won't believe a word. In fact, I'll just give them blank looks and say--" He uttered a series of guttural Gaelic syllables. All I could make out was something that sounded like byorla.
Aura: "What's that mean?"
Zachary: "I don't speak bloody English."
"Aura."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zachary's hand near my face. Slowly he brushed back my hair, sliding it behind my shoulder. His fingertip grazed my bare neck right under my ear.
My entire body tensed. I held my breath to keep from gasping.
"Sorry." He quickly tucked the ends of my hair inside my hood. "It was in the way. I couldn't see."
(omitted scenes here)
"Your turn to draw." I tossed the pencil at his chest.
"At least my hair won't block your view."
"No, but your big head might." I crawled behind him so he could take my place in front of the chart.
"I'll have you know, my head is perfectly average size." He spread his fingers. "My hands, though, are enormous, and you know what they say--"
"Shut up and draw, lad," I said in my best attempt at a Scottish accent.
Z: "Aura."
A: "Hmm?"
Z: "Your, uh, your chest is humming."
Z: "The man at the flower shop said that yellow was for friendship and red was for, well, more than friendship."
A: "Does this mean we're both?"
Z: "It means I don't know which we are....I know I want to be with you. But not if you're in love with someone else."
A: "I'm not."
Z: "I could hear it in your voice--it hurts you just to say his name. And I can see it in your eyes right now. You're not over him."
A: "I'm working on it."
Z: "Aura, I'm really patient, but I'm not a bloody saint."
(omitted scenes)
A: "I'm ready to move on."
Z: "Moving on doesn't mean moving on to me. I don't want you to want me just because I'm here and alive."
 So, have you read this book? Can you tell I'm a bit obsessed with Zachary? Isn't he just too awesome? Talk to me in the comments :)

amvalisha mpenzi wake pete ya ndoa akiwa amefariki so sad!!!!!!!


A man in Thailand Married a dead girlfriend to fulfill his promise of love.

29-year old Sarinya Kamsook and her 28-year-old boyfriend, Chadil Deffy, were to be married this year. Sarinya Kamsook unfortunately died in a car crash, just day before the big event, Deffy decided to go on with their wedding as planned and married her.

Sarinya was involved in a car crash, leaving her severely injured. She still could have been saved with timely medical attention. However, the doctors made her wait for 6 hours due to an overcrowded ICU instead of transferring her to another hospital. During this time, she succumbed to her injuries and passed away.
During her funeral in Surin, Thailand, Chadil Duffy placed a ring on his deceased bride’s finger. It thus turned out a wedding/funeral ceremony, one of the rare events in the world.

mrembo wa week grace mbuta!!!!!!!!!!!



                                           uko juu mama

                                       
                                kiofisi zaidi
                                 full kujiachia

Sunday, January 29, 2012

“JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND” takes on IMAX 3D cinemas on Feb. 2!!!

Believe the impossible, discover the incredible as New Line Cinema's “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” embarks on an adventure of a lifetime in IMAX 3D! The film will be shown in local IMAX 3D cinemas, as well as digital 3D and regular theatres starting Thursday, Feb. 2.

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Vanessa Hudgens, Josh Hutcherson and Michael Caine, “Journey 2” takes moviegoers on a fun and fantastic new adventure to parts unknown, a place so remote it has lain hidden for centuries … and, when found, is almost impossible to escape.

Upon seeing the script for “Journey 2,” director Brad Peyton says, “I never imagined doing it small. Right away, I knew it had to involve land, sea and air, with creatures, caves, storms, underwater battles and aerial chases, and all of it set against the most incredible, breathtaking terrain. That meant utilizing the latest and best technology, to deliver something special in the 3D realm that the prequel ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ helped to establish.”

In 2008 that film broke ground as the first narrative feature to employ the Fusion System, a sophisticated digital 3D camera rig developed by James Cameron and cinematographer Vince Pace, and subsequently used on “Avatar.” Not surprisingly, the “Journey 2” filmmakers returned to the Cameron Pace Group for state-of-the-art strategies and equipment to capture the depth and scope Peyton wanted to achieve in a range of real-world environments. 

“Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” is a New Line Cinema presentation, will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

TOM HANKS, the perfect dad in “EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE”

Two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks stars as Thomas Schell, a devoted husband and father who was at the wrong place, at the wrong time during the fateful day of 9/11, in Warner Bros.' life-affirming drama, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

The film is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father died in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears.

As a screen character, Thomas Schell was a challenge because he is seen entirely through Oskar’s eyes, to the extent that much about his history and inner life remain mysterious -- except for the parts that have made an impression on Oskar and especially Oskar’s memories of their very best times together, which remain indelibly immediate to him.

To embody the essence of a father as captured in time by his young son, director Stephen Daldry thought early on of Tom Hanks. “We thought that in terms of Oskar’s memories of Thomas as the perfect dad...well, who else could that be but Tom Hanks?” recalls Daldry. “Tom took that responsibility to heart and created a real bond with child actor Thomas Horn that was evident to everybody on the set. They were absolutely charming together, which was great for me as a filmmaker, because they created this dynamic relationship and all I had to do was shoot it. It was an act of real dedication by an extraordinary actor and collaborator.”

Hanks was drawn to the way the script gets inside Oskar’s mind at a time when the power of logical facts to keep him grounded seems to have evaporated. “In the blink of an eye, the course of Oskar’s whole world changes, and he loses his only anchor,” Hanks says. “His father used to tell him that there are always clues and treasures to be found in the world. So when he finds his father’s key, it’s very interesting that Oskar devises his own elaborate hunt for what the key might mean, convinced it will somehow explain the unexplained to him. It becomes a very personal, intimate story of a kid trying to make sense in his own way of a nonsensical world.”

He adds: “It was easiest thing in the world for me to want to do this – as soon as I read it, there was not even any question.”

The actor says he gave a lot of consideration to the kind of father Thomas was to Oskar prior to his death. He also kept in mind that Thomas was himself a child of immigrants who took up the trade of jewelry as his only clear opportunity to support his family, even though he dreamed of being a scientist. “I think Thomas was someone who felt the real task in his life was to make sure that his very bright son became a well-rounded, content human being who might make the world a better place,” Hanks says. “Since Thomas himself grew up without a father, fathering Oskar was the most important thing to him. I think he loved inventing wild stories for Oskar, like the one he makes up about New York’s lost Sixth Borough, but he also very clearly designed these stories to get Oskar out in the world and help him feel safe there.”

In part, Hanks drew on his own experiences as a father. “The emotional part of it for me was going back and remembering what it’s like to have an 11-year-old kid who is bubbling over with life,” he says.

While Hanks believes Thomas was well aware that Oskar often showed signs of behavior akin to Asperger’s Syndrome, he also says Thomas readily accepted and even related to many of his son’s oddities and phobias, which made the two of them even closer. “I think Thomas wasn’t bothered at all by his son’s behaviors,” he says. “Instead, he looked for ways to build bridges over Oskar’s turbulence, over his constant questions, his flights of fancy and his fears. Yet because of that, when he’s gone, it magnifies the incredible loss for Oskar even more.”

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.