Perhaps the loudest (mainly female) cheers from the edges of the red carpet at this year's Abu Dhabi Film Festival so far have been those reserved for Topher Grace, the US actor who stars alongside Richard Gere in the spy thriller The Double. The film, which was co-produced by Abu Dhabi's Image Nation, a subsidiary of The National's parent company, Abu Dhabi Media, had its world premiere on Saturday night at the Abu Dhabi Theatre.
And although the film was shot in the US, mainly in Detroit, by the American director Michael Brandt and with American actors, Grace thought that having the world premiere in the Middle East helped highlight the movie's international appeal.
"When I tell a joke, I like someone who's 90 to get it and someone who's nine to get it. That's when you know it's a solid joke. And I feel the same way culturally, too," he says. "I really liked Avatar, but so did everybody else. There's something to be said about certain things that have a lot of success, there seems to be a reason."
In The Double, Grace plays a CIA agent on the hunt for a Russian assassin who is back after a 20-year exile, a story that harks back to the espionage thrillers of the Cold War.
"One of the few things that was good about the Cold War was that it provided America with a very black-and-white idea of who were the good guys and who were the bad guys," he says. "It's a different world now, but I think there's a sort of nostalgia for that, which is interesting."
Having to speak a few lines of Russian in the film saw Topher call his former That '70s Show fellow star (and Russian-born) Mila Kunis for pronunciation help. And he says that he's still in touch with many of the actors from the television programme that brought him to public attention. "I actually just went to a taping of Ashton's for Two and a Half Men."
Topher last appeared alongside Ashton Kutcher in last year's 24-hour romcom Valentine's Day, in which he has a particularly awful date with Anne Hathaway. But as far as dates go, it's not his worst. "This one time, there was some guy in a corner pointing in my direction and making noises. It was a blind date and I didn't know the girl at all well," he says. "Then he tapped his buddy and they started going 'yeah, yeah, yeah'. I thought this was so rude. So I turned to them, said, 'Excuse me, I know I'm famous, relax'. And she said to me, 'I think they're watching the football game on the TV behind you.' We're not in touch anymore."
Other promotions
- Deliveroo will team up with Pineapple Express to offer customers near JLT a special treat: free banana caramel dessert with all orders on January 26
- Jones the Grocer will have their limited edition Australia Day menu available until the end of the month (January 31)
- Australian Vet in Abu Dhabi (with locations in Khalifa City A and Reem Island) will have a 15 per cent off all store items (excluding medications)
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo
Power: 268hp at 5,600rpm
Torque: 380Nm at 4,800rpm
Transmission: CVT auto
Fuel consumption: 9.5L/100km
On sale: now
Price: from Dh195,000
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
Retirement funds heavily invested in equities at a risky time
Pension funds in growing economies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have a sharply higher percentage of assets parked in stocks, just at a time when trade tensions threaten to derail markets.
Retirement money managers in 14 geographies now allocate 40 per cent of their assets to equities, an 8 percentage-point climb over the past five years, according to a Mercer survey released last week that canvassed government, corporate and mandatory pension funds with almost $5 trillion in assets under management. That compares with about 25 per cent for pension funds in Europe.
The escalating trade spat between the US and China has heightened fears that stocks are ripe for a downturn. With tensions mounting and outcomes driven more by politics than economics, the S&P 500 Index will be on course for a “full-scale bear market” without Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, Citigroup’s global macro strategy team said earlier this week.
The increased allocation to equities by growth-market pension funds has come at the expense of fixed-income investments, which declined 11 percentage points over the five years, according to the survey.
Hong Kong funds have the highest exposure to equities at 66 per cent, although that’s been relatively stable over the period. Japan’s equity allocation jumped 13 percentage points while South Korea’s increased 8 percentage points.
The money managers are also directing a higher portion of their funds to assets outside of their home countries. On average, foreign stocks now account for 49 per cent of respondents’ equity investments, 4 percentage points higher than five years ago, while foreign fixed-income exposure climbed 7 percentage points to 23 per cent. Funds in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are among those seeking greater diversification in stocks and fixed income.
• Bloomberg
The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
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