http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/07/angelina-jolie-brad-pitt-shoot-movie-malta-august

What the country needs is a bollockbuster.

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/40854/joliepitt_movie_could_leave_20_million_in_gozo_economy#.U7pRemthiSM

This type of article is precisely the type that the producers would have loved to avoid. They prefer discretion and being left in peace to get on with their film-making.

Creating hype like this only causes prices and costs to increase which could thrown the budget out of the water.

Just because there are big names attached it does not follow it is a big budget studio film. Not only, even people/studios who have money don’t like to be fleeced.

This is what happened with ‘Troy’ – with the amount of backhanders made, Malta earned a reputation of being “a bunch of thieves”. It took years for Malta to build its reputation again.

The media should exercise discretion and our politicians too. But with this lot I don’t think they understand the meaning of it. I am already cringing at the thought of Michelle Muscat hankering after an ‘audience’ with Brangelina.

Lawrence Gonzi never listened to anyone. He always knew best.

Er, that was exactly the pun.

It was defined by its production budget and marketing effort rather than its success and popularity, and was essentially a tag which a film’s marketing gave itself. In this way it became possible to refer to films such as Hollywood’s Godzilla (1998) or Last Action Hero as both a blockbuster and a box-office disaster.[9]

From Wikipedia

[Daphne – God bless Wikipedia. I think you had better read what Angelina Jolie herself said about the film, which is hers, to Extra magazine: “It’s not a big movie, it’s not an action movie. It’s the kind of movie we love but aren’t often cast in.” In other words, not a blockbuster.]

On White Rocks, NGOs are right to be concerned about the extensive area of land being committed to development. A more sensible approach would be to limit development to those are which are already committed by the British barracks.

Another concern is that this is speculative development, pure and simple. Residential development is acceptable. It is inevitable that the eventual development will consist virtually only of residential. This generates jobs in the short term in construction but does not generate added value.

White Rocks development will result in a MASSIVE increase of vacant properties across Malta.

The past proposal for White Rocks by the PN government (I believe it was the late nineties) was for a development which GENERATES LONG TERM JOBS. The proposal was for a tourism resort development (all inclusive accommodation). The intention was to increase tourism visitors by providing a type of accommodation which at the time was totally lacking.

The PN government’s proposal was to add value and create long term jobs. The PL government’s proposal is to fuel speculation and create short term jobs, jobs which in any case are already being provided for through speculative developments elsewhere.

Well, instead of having him talk about petty news, we would rather have him tell us what is exactly going on in our country under his administration.