Total Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year (every four weeks) by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features. Guest editors have included Peter Jackson, Kevin Smith, Kermit the Frog, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. It is the second-biggest selling film magazine in Britain, after Empire.

Features[link]

Each month, Total Film provides a range of features, from full-length interviews and photo shoots with established and up-and-coming actors and directors, to major film previews and retrospective pieces. All issues contain the Total Film Interview — an in-depth chat with a celebrated actor or director, along with a critique of their body of work; the Abridged Script - a one-page parody of a recent release and Total Film loves..., a one-page celebration of a film, a scene or a performance.

Key sections within the magazine[link]

Dialogue 

The section where readers can interact with the magazine, this contains readers' letters, emails and feedback from the magazine's social media followers (TF's Forum, Facebook and Twitter). Each month, TF offers a DVD for each published missive. Regular features within Dialogue include Office Spaced where snippets of conversation from the TF office are shared, Still Out, Still Good - a pick of the movies that are already out and Listen up, Hollywood! where TF readers declare what they want from specific future releases.

Buzz 

The news section, providing details on upcoming films, includes first look photos, on-set visits and exclusive "sneak peeks". Regular Buzz features include: Ever met Tom Cruise? where a behind the scenes person is interviewed, e.g. a stuntwoman or a casting director; The 100 Club where stars with over a hundred film credits to their name are interviewed; Red Light, Green Light for what's stopping and what's starting in movieland and Movie Stock for who's up and who's not.

Agenda 

Billed as being for the sharper movie fan, this section often previews more eclectic and less mainstream releases and players. Richard Ayoade from The IT Crowd writes a column for Agenda.

Screen 

The main cinema reviews section, with every new movie for that month reviewed and rated. Major releases receive comprehensive coverage, with a star rating out of five, the magazine's own Predicted Interest Curve — a graph that demonstrates which moments of a film are likely to hold the viewer's attention and a short Verdict. Also briefly listed are similar recommendations under See this if you liked... Smaller films receive a concise review and rating. The end of the section is devoted to the current U.S. and UK box office charts, an irreverent flashback to an old issue and summaries of any films that were not shown to journalists in time for that month's print deadline.

Lounge 

TF's home entertainment guide, including reviews of the latest DVDs and Blu-rays, as well as Games, CD Soundtracks and movie-related books. There is also a regular Lounge feature called Is it just me? where a TF writer gets to rant about a particular (often controversial) film-related point of view, as well as other large-scale features that are DVD or Blu-ray-related.

[edit] Total Movie

In September 2000, Imagine Media, a U.S. division of The Future Network, plc. launched Total Movie, the American offshoot of Total Film. Edited by Gary Whitta, and DVD producer Kathleen Fairweather, Total Movie launched an initial run of 150,000 copies and doubled production to 300,000 copies before folding in February 2001. A major selling feature was the enclosed DVD,produced and edited by Kathleen Fairweather. Each issue filled with trailers, game promos and short films. Some of the latter included the Star Wars/COPS parody, Troops (directed by Kevin Rubio), The Dancing Cow (directed by Taz Goldstein, cinematography by John A. Alanzo), The Killer Bean 2, The Second Comeback and Paranoid (adapted from the poem by Stephen King — the first Dollar Baby ever released on DVD). The publication lasted only four editions (#1 Sep/Oct 2000, #2 Dec/Jan 2001, #3 Feb/Mar 2001, #4 April 2001).

Total Movie was then purchased by Versatile Media One who picked up where Imagine left off and published issue #5 in October/November 2001. Total Movie folded once again after issue #10 in September 2002.

Foreign editions[link]

Licenced local editions of Total Film are/were released in many countries like Turkey, Russia, Serbia, Croatia, Indonesia, and others.

Totalfilm.com[link]

Total Film's online presence includes the TF website and Forum, as well as TF on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. There is also a TF iPhone App.

Totalfilm.com 

Sections on the website include Film News, Film Reviews, Features, Trailers & Video, Films Coming Soon, Competitions, Screening Club and Magazine. Film News is uploaded throughout the day; Film Reviews are uploaded weekly; Features are updated daily; Trailers & Video and Films Coming Soon are updated as soon as new film information becomes available. The website contains a database of every movie review featured in the magazine. Users of the website can subscribe to two newsletters: issued Mondays (entitled The Monday Prescription) and Fridays (entitled The Friday Weekender). RSS Feeds are available for: Film News, Reviews, Features and Films Coming Soon. Users can also comment on any of the articles included on the website, as well as retweeting on Twitter and sharing on Facebook.

The TF Forum 

The TF Forum has been in existence since 2004 and has a loyal group of long-time users who call themselves The Old Guard, as well as an ever-evolving number of new users. The Forum is broken down into the following sections: Movie Chat, The Rumour Mill, Film Reviews, Movie Players, DVD & Blu-ray Talk, Classics/Retro/Cult Cinema, World Cinema, Off-Topic, TV, Games, Shameless Plugs, Totalfilm.com and Magazine.

TF on Facebook and Twitter 

Bespoke content is uploaded to Facebook and Twitter throughout the day. Posts include news stories and alerts for when a new review or trailer has been posted.

TF on Tumblr 

TF's official blog is located at Tumblr. Bespoke content for Reviews, News, Features, Trailers, Posters, Office Talk and Covers is posted throughout the day.

The Total Film iPhone App 

Total Film launched its iPhone App in August 2010. The App allows users to read the latest film news, live search TF's database of over 8,000 reviews, read daily film features, save favourite articles, find the nearest cinema, look up showtimes and watch high quality trailers.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Total Film's Tumblr Blog

Tom Hiddleston
Hiddleston at the Avengers Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in NY, April 2012
Born	Thomas William Hiddleston (1981-02-09) 9 February 1981 (age 31) Westminster, London, England
Alma mater	Eton College The Dragon School University of Cambridge RADA
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2001–present
Relatives	Emma Hiddleston (sister)

Thomas William "Tom" Hiddleston (born 9 February 1981)^[1] is an English film, television, radio, and stage actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and he rose to prominence through a number of TV roles and more recently major film roles. He played Loki in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Thor, Captain Nicholls in Steven Spielberg's World War I film War Horse (2011), and also Freddie Page in the British drama The Deep Blue Sea, alongside Rachel Weisz. He played author F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris (2011). He returned to his role as Loki in The Avengers (2012) and is set to reprise the character again for Thor 2 (2013).

Early life and education[link]

Hiddleston was born in Westminster, London,^[1] to parents Diana Patricia (née Servaes), a former stage manager and arts administrator, and James Norman Hiddleston, a scientist in physical chemistry who was the managing director of a pharmaceutical company.^[2] His father is from Greenock, Scotland and his mother from Suffolk, England.^[3] He is the middle child with two sisters, Sarah (oldest), a journalist in India,^[4] and Emma (youngest), is also an actor. He was raised in Wimbledon, in his early years, and later in Oxford.^[3] When Hiddleston was 13, he boarded at Eton College, at the same time that his parents were going through a divorce. "I think I started acting because I found being away at school while my parents were divorcing really distressing." He went on to act at The Dragon School^[5] in Oxford, then continued on to the University of Cambridge, where he earned a double first.^[6] He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2005.

Career[link]

During Hiddleston's second term at Cambridge, he was seen in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire by talent agent Lorraine Hamilton, of Hamilton Hodell. While still doing student plays, he began doing British television, landing parts in Stephen Whittaker’s adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby for ITV^[7] the BBC/HBO co-production Conspiracy, and as Randolph Churchill, the son of Winston Churchill, inthe BBC/HBO drama The Gathering Storm.

On graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Hiddleston won his first film role, playing Oakley in Joanna Hogg’s first feature, Unrelated. He also appeared in the leading role of Edward in Joanna Hogg's second feature, Archipelago, and had leading roles in Declan Donnellan's company Cheek by Jowl's productions The Changeling, and Cymbeline. His Donmar Warehouse credits include Cassio in Michael Grandage's production of Shakespeare's Othello alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan McGregor to critical acclaim^[8][9][10] and later Lvov in their West End revival of Chekhov's Ivanov.

His TV credits include Magnus Martinsson in the BBC detective drama Wallander, Bill Hazledine in Suburban Shootout, John Plumptre in the BBC costume drama TV film Miss Austen Regrets and William Buxton in the BBC drama series Return to Cranford.

He is best known for his portrayal of Loki in the 2011 Marvel Studios film, Thor. He was invited to audition by Kenneth Branagh, the film's director, after having previously worked with Branagh on Ivanov and Wallander. "Ken has had a life-changing effect. He was able to say to the executives, 'Trust me on this, you can cast Tom and he will deliver'. It was massive and it's completely changed the course of what is available to me to do. Ken gave me my break."^[11] In the beginning, he originally auditioned for the part of Thor. "I initially auditioned to play Thor. That was what I was being considered for, because I’m tall and blonde and classically trained, and that seemed to be the mold for what Thor was, he was to be a classical character. And it was in my auditions. I owe this entirely to Marvel and their open-mindedness, they saw something that they thought was interesting. They saw some temperament that they liked."^[12] The casting director gave Hiddleston six weeks to bulk up, so he went on a strict diet and gained twenty pounds of muscle. In the end, Branagh decided he was more suitable as the antagonist and cast him as Loki. To prepare for his role as Loki, Hiddleston trained in the Brazilian martial art of capoeira.^[13]

In 2011, he portrayed novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald in writer-director Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. The noble Captain Nicholls in War Horse, a film based on the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo, directed by Steven Spielberg. And Freddie Page, a RAF pilot in the British drama The Deep Blue Sea, alongside Rachel Weisz.

He reprised his role as the supervillain Loki in the 2012 movie The Avengers. While filming a scene with Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor, the film's director, Joss Whedon told the fighting duo that the scene didn't look real enough, so Hiddleston told Hemsworth to really hit him for the fight scene. "I said to Chris, 'Dude, just hit me. Just hit me because I'm protected here and it's fine.' He's like, 'Are you sure?' I was like, 'Yeah, it will look great. Just go for it.'"^[14] Hiddleston is scheduled to reprise his Loki role again in Thor 2, which is set to start filming in August 2012.^[15]

In 2012, he will portray Prince Hal in the TV-movie adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1 & 2 and Henry V in Henry V. Other scheduled projects include Jim Jarmusch's film Only Lovers Left Alive, set to shoot in 2012,^[16] and the film adaptation of Elliott Chaze's 1953 crime novel Black Wings Has My Angel, co-starring Anna Paquin and Elijah Wood.^[17]

Hiddleston narrated the audio book The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner,^[18] poetry for iF Poems on iTunes,^[19] for the British Museum on the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, and was the voiceover for BBC's documentary on the Galapagos Island.^[20]

Awards and nominations[link]

Awards:

• 2012 Glamour Awards, Man of the Year ^[21]
• 2012 Jameson Empire Awards, Best Male Newcomer, for, Thor ^[22]
• 2012 Richard Attenborough UK Regional Film Critics' Awards, Rising Star Award, for, War Horse, Thor, The Deep Blue Sea, Midnight in Paris and Archipelago ^[23]
• 2009 Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers' Choice Award, Best Supporting Actor in a Play, for, Othello and Ivanov ^[24]
• 2008 Laurence Olivier Award, Best Newcomer in a Play, for Cymbeline ^[25]
• 2007 Ian Charleson Awards Third Prize, for, Othello ^[26]

Nominations:

• 2012 Saturn Awards, Best Supporting Actor ^[27]
• 2012 London Evening Standard British Film Awards, Best Actor Award ^[28]
• 2012 BAFTA Awards, the Orange Wednesdays Rising Star Award ^[29]
• 2012 Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards, Best Ensemble Acting ^[30]
• 2012 SAG Awards, Best Ensemble Acting ^[31]
• 2011 My Cinema Awards, Best Supporting Actor in a Drama, Action or Horror Award ^[32]
• 2010 ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards, Best Supporting Actor ^[33]

Filmography[link]

Hiddleston at a press conference for Thor in April 2011

Film[link]

Theatre[link]

Radio[link]

Video game[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tom Hiddleston

• Tom Hiddleston at the Internet Movie Database

Michelle Rodriguez
Rodriguez at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010.
Born	Mayte Michelle Rodríguez (1978-07-12) July 12, 1978 (age 33)[1] San Antonio, Texas, US
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1999–present
Website
www.michelle-rodriguez.com

Mayte Michelle Rodríguez^[2] (born July 12, 1978),^[1] known professionally as Michelle Rodriguez, is an American actress. Following on from her breakthrough role in 2000's Girlfight, she is best known for playing tough-girl roles and starring in Hollywood blockbusters such as The Fast and the Furious (2001), Resident Evil (2002), S.W.A.T. (2003), Avatar (2009), Machete (2010) and Battle: Los Angeles (2011), as well as for her role as Ana Lucia Cortez in the television series Lost (2005–2006, 2009, 2010).

Early life[link]

Michelle Rodriguez was born in San Antonio, Texas. Her mother, Carmen Milady (née Pared Espinal), is a native of the Dominican Republic, and her father, Rafael Rodriguez, is Puerto Rican and served in the United States Army.^[3][4][5] She has a total of ten siblings and half-siblings. She was partly raised by her devoutly religious maternal grandmother and was brought up a Jehovah's Witness (her mother's religion), though she has since abandoned that faith.^[6][7]

Rodriguez moved to the Dominican Republic with her mother when she was eight and lived in Puerto Rico until the age of eleven, later settling in Jersey City, New Jersey. She dropped out of high school but later earned her GED;^{[citation needed]} in total she was expelled from five schools.^[8] Rodriguez briefly attended business school before quitting to pursue a career in acting, with the ultimate goal of becoming a writer and director.^[9]

According to the PBS television show, Finding Your Roots with Dr. Louis Gates Jr., Rodriguez is 73% European, 23% African, and a tiny percentage of Indigenous.

Career[link]

Rodriguez at the New York Fashion Week, spring 2006

Having run across an ad for an open casting call and attending her first audition, Rodriguez beat 350 other applicants to win her first role in the low-budget 2000 independent film, Girlfight. With her performance as Diana Guzman, a troubled teen who decides to channel her aggression by training to become a boxer,^[10] Rodriguez accumulated several awards and nominations for the role in independent circles, including major acting accolades from the National Board of Review, Deauville Film Festival,^[11] Independent Spirit Awards,^[12] Gotham Awards,^[13] Las Vegas Film Critics Sierra Awards, and many others. The film itself took home a top prize at the Sundance^[14] and won Award of the Youth at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2002, she was also featured in Ja Rule's music video for his song Always On Time.

Subsequently, she has had notable roles in other successful movies, including The Fast and the Furious, Resident Evil, Blue Crush, and S.W.A.T..^[15] In 2004, Rodriguez lent her voice to the video game Halo 2, playing a Marine.^[16] She also provided the voice of Liz Ricarro in the Cartoon Network series IGPX.^[17] From 2005 to 2006, she played tough cop Ana Lucia Cortez^[18] on the television series Lost during the show's second season (the character's first appearance was a flashback on season 1's finale, Exodus: Part 1), and returned for a cameo in the second episode of the show's fifth season The Lie in 2009 and again in the penultimate episode of the series What They Died For in 2010. In 2006, Rodriguez was featured in her own episode of G4's show Icons.^[19]

In 2008, she appeared in Battle in Seattle alongside Charlize Theron.^[20] Rodriguez next appeared in the fourth installment of the The Fast and the Furious franchise,^[21] which was titled simply Fast & Furious and released to theaters on April 3, 2009.^[22] Rodriguez starred in James Cameron's high-budget sci-fi adventure film Avatar, which was released to theaters on December 18, 2009. The film became the highest-grossing film in history and Rodriguez's most successful film to date. She has also expressed interest in returning for the film's two sequels.^[23][24]

She starred in Trópico de Sangre, an independent film based on the Dominican Republic's historic Mirabal sisters who were assassinated in 1960 by the Dominican dictator Trujillo for opposing his rule, the same year.^[25][26]

Michelle Rodriguez (left) and Aaron Eckhart (right), along with director Jonathan Liebesman at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International

In 2010, Rodriguez appeared in Robert Rodriguez's Machete, which also co-starred Danny Trejo, Robert DeNiro and Steven Seagal. The film was opened to mostly positive reviews and earned $44 million in the box-office on a $10 million budget.^[27] In 2011, she appeared with Aaron Eckhart in the science fiction film Battle: Los Angeles which grossed over $200 million in the worldwide box office.

As of July 20, 2010, Rodriguez's films have grossed $1,272,734,719 in the United States and $3,686,521,043 worldwide.^[28]

Typecast[link]

Following her debut in Girlfight, Rodriguez has consistently portrayed tough girl, tomboyish characters that operate in traditional male fields such as the police force or armed forces. Rodriguez says that she does not mind the typecasting, and in fact, is somewhat responsible for it:^[29]

Oh baby, I was typecast the minute I did a film called Girlfight years ago. That has nothing to do with anything, it just has to do with… you allow yourself to be typecast. If I decided I didn't want to be typecast tomorrow I'd just go do an indie film where I play some poor girl who goes through some excruciating experience and win myself an award for crying or being raped [breaks into laughter] or playing someone with mental illness. But at the end of the day I'm not in it for the acting. If I were in it for the acting then I would be worried about people not giving me the opportunity to express my vast array of emotions on the screen.

I could give two shits. I only wanna be someone I respect or someone that I consider interesting or fun. I'm here to entertain people and make a statement about female empowerment and strength and that's what I've done for the last 10 years, and people can call it typecast, but I pigeonholed myself and I put myself in that box for saying no to everything else that came on my plate. Saying no to the girlfriend, saying no to the girl that gets captured, no to this, no to that and eventually I just got left with the strong chick that's always being killed and there's nothing wrong with that.

Notable rankings[link]

Several times over the course of her career, she has been ranked in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women In The World", Maxim's "100 Sexiest Women", and People en Español's "50 Más Bellos", and was ranked No.74 in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World 2009".

Writing[link]

Rodriguez is currently working on two screenplays. One is a family film based on a concept which she describes as "a 2012 story about purity and animals and children"^[30] and the other is a revision of an American remake of the 1997 German film Bandits which she describes as a film "about four girls who break out of jail and get chased across the country by the feds and by this MTV-like representative".^[31]

Personal life[link]

A DNA test of Rodriguez, performed by the television program Finding Your Roots, on PBS, stated that her ancestry is 73% European, 23% African, and 4% Native American.^[32]. She also stated on the program that there was some racial conflict between her families since her Puerto Rican father, Rafael was light skinned and her Dominican mother, Carmen had a dark complexion.

Relationships[link]

Rodriguez in December 2009

In early 2000, Rodriguez broke off a near engagement to a Muslim boyfriend, citing opposition to religious requests he asked of her.^[33] She has since dated or reportedly been linked with her Fast and the Furious co-star Vin Diesel,^[34] and SWAT co-star Olivier Martinez.^[35][36]

In July 2006, Rodriguez told UK's Cosmopolitan magazine that she was not lesbian, but had "experimented with both sexes."^[37] In November 2006, her openly bisexual Bloodrayne co-star Kristanna Loken's comments to The Advocate were widely interpreted and reported by the media as an admission that the two were in a relationship, though the relationship was never officially confirmed by either actress.^[38]

In June 2007, the lesbian magazine Curve ran a cover story that claimed Rodriguez to be bisexual.^[39] Rodriguez criticized the magazine for this, asserting that the magazine "put words in (her) mouth".^[40] She again stated that she was not a lesbian in a November 2008 interview in the Dominican women's magazine Cayena.^[41]

Legal issues[link]

Between 2002 and 2008, Rodriguez was involved in a number of legal issues, mostly relating to charges of driving under the influence of alcohol.

In March 2002, Rodriguez was arrested for assault after getting into a fight with her roommate.^[42] The charges were later dropped after the roommate declined to press the allegations in court.^[43]

In November 2003, Rodriguez went to court to face eight misdemeanor charges based on two driving incidents including a hit and run and DUI.^[44] In June 2004, Rodriguez pleaded no contest in Los Angeles to three of the charges: hit and run, drunken driving, and driving with a suspended license.^[45] She went to jail for 48 hours, performed community service at the morgues of two New York hospitals, completed a three-month alcohol program, and was placed on probation for three years.^[46]

In 2005, while filming Lost in Hawaii, Rodriguez was pulled over by Honolulu police multiple times; she was cited for driving at 83 mph (134 km/h) in a 55 mph (89 km/h) zone on Oahu on November 1, and was fined $357, paid a $300 fine for driving 90 mph (140 km/h) in a 35 mph (56 km/h) zone on October 20, was fined $197 for going 80 mph (130 km/h) in a 50 mph (80 km/h) zone on August 24.^[47]

On December 1, 2005, Rodriguez was pulled over and arrested for driving under the influence.^[48] Rodriguez pleaded not guilty when arraigned,^[49] but on the day of her trial in April 2006, she pleaded guilty to one charge of driving under the influence. She chose to pay a $500 fine and spend five days in jail instead of doing 240 hours of community service.^[45] Rodriguez cited her high doses of allergy-relieving steroids as part of the reason for her erratic behavior.^[50] Because the Kailua incident was a violation of her Los Angeles probation, Rodriguez was sentenced to 60 days in jail, a 30 day alcohol rehabilitation program and another 30 days of community service, including work for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, by a judge in Los Angeles on May 1, 2006.^[51] Because of overcrowding, she was released from jail on the same day she entered. She wrote about the experience on her blog.^[52]

In September 2007 however, Rodriguez allegedly violated her probation by not completing her community service and not following an alcohol education program. It was reported that Rodriguez originally submitted a document stating she performed community service on September 5, 2006, but it was later confirmed she was actually in New York City that day. Her lawyer claimed it was a clerical error.^[53] On October 10, 2007, following a hearing, she was sentenced to 180 days jail time after agreeing to admit to violating her probation. She was expected to spend the full 180-day term in jail, as she had been deemed ineligible for work furloughs and house arrest.^[54] However, after turning herself in to begin the jail term at the Century Regional Detention Facility located in Lynwood, California on December 23, 2007,^[55] Rodriguez was released 18 days later on January 9, 2008 due to overcrowding.^[56]

Filmography[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2012)

References[link]