Anna Faris Embarks on a Mission to Find a Mate in ‘What’s Your Number?’

“What’s Your Number” is an upcoming film with an interesting cocktail of frank and lively sexual content but with a genuine romantic heart.

In “What’s Your Number,” winds back Ally Darling (Anna Faris) to the men she’d dated after reading a magazine article on the average number of lovers women should have in their lifetime. Ally becomes convinced she’s reached the limit of sexual partners a woman can have before she’s deemed unmarriageable (except maybe, as Dr. Fig notes, she lives in New Zealand). With celibacy as a non-starter, Ally embarks on a mission to find a mate, without adding to her number, by seeking the colorful and strange assortment of lovers from her past; she wonders, are they married, available, gay …dead?

Having been fired from her job and at the same time an ended relationship, Ally embarks on a quest to find the best “ex” of her life, by any means necessary for her chance at true love. Helping in her quest is her new neighbor Colin, played by Chris Evans. Seeking a haven from the woman he’s brought home the night before, Colin comes to Ally’s rescue when she tries to disentangle herself from her booze-riddled mistake of the night before. Ally and Colin click, and even though Ally’s romantic sights are aimed entirely in retrospect, she has found in Colin a new friend and ally. “Ally and Colin enhance each other but don’t necessarily live for each other,” says Evans. “They’ve helped each other become better versions of themselves, but they don’t need each other to exist.”

Faris and Evans nicely balance one another, with Evans displaying a sense of grounded, physical stability while Faris provides a series of fluid, deft and comical transitions that always surprise. “When Ally and Colin meet, there’s a lot of tension between them,” notes Faris. “Ally’s kind of disgusted with Colin because she sees women coming in and out of his apartment. She thinks he’s just this man-whore. Ally wants much more for her own life, so she’s really annoyed when sees somebody who’s lackadaisical in their own lifestyle – probably because she’s envious. Eventually they come to understand one another.”

“Colin comes from a family of cops and detectives, so he’s good at digging up dirt,” adds Evans. “That’s why Ally enlists his help. And he’s a bit of a womanizer, and is very ‘alpha.’ He’s a likable guy but he’s not exactly husband material. But slowly Colin realizes that Ally’s the person he’s supposed to be with, and that opens a lot more doors for him.”

Executive producer Nan Morales confirms that Ally and Colin’s first meeting is far from auspicious. “When she meets him, the audience will think, ‘No, Ally no!’ It’s like what her friends say: ‘You don’t want to go out with that guy; he’s dangerous, he’s sexy, he can trick you.’ But this is how Colin lives; he’s honest about it. This is a lesson Ally needs to learn; she needs to own who she is in order to go to the next level in her life.”

“What’s Your Number” opens October 5 in theaters from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

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Syria's Assad embarks on path of no return

LONDON — By sending tanks to crush dissent in the city of Hama, where memories of a bloodbath in 1982 that killed 20,000 people are still vivid, embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has chosen a path of no return.

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The Assads have been repeatedly warned by the United States, European Union and Turkey against any attempt to repeat the massacre of Hama, where Bashar's father Hafez Al-Assad put down an Islamist revolt by razing whole neighborhoods of the city.

But the government is signaling to its growing legion of critics abroad that it will not bow to calls for change that have swept across the Arab world, and to its people that it is prepared to wade through blood to stay in power.

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Having embarked on a military drive to crush Syria's democracy protests at all costs, the Assads appear to have decided to raise the cost of protest, just as the Muslim month of Ramadan, which began on Monday, offers the opposition a platform to expand its nearly five-month-old uprising.

"The assault on Hama is an indication of loss of control. They crossed the threshold," said Bassma Kodmani, head of the Paris-based Arab Reform Initiative. "They want to show that they can raise the level of repression to the whole country."

"What has been clear is that the government is prepared to use force without limit," Beirut-based Middle East analyst Rami Khouri told Reuters. "But this is not solving the problem. instead, it is making the rebellion more robust."

Symbol of inspiration
Bashar, who inherited power in 2000 from his father, clearly believes overwhelming force will extinguish calls for freedom.

But with 1,600 killed and thousands dragged to the dungeons of Syria's secret police, the protests have spread from city to city unbowed so far by killings, arrests, the disappearance of thousands and the systematic use of torture.

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Avaaz, a global movement that monitors Syria as the government has banned foreign journalists, said that since March 15, 1,634 had died in the crackdown. The group estimated that 2,918 people had disappeared, 26,000 had been arrested with many of them beaten and tortured, and 12,617 were still in detention.

"After four months of brutal repression the regime hasn't realized that there is no military solution to the protest movement and that the only solution is to enact reforms," said Nadim Houri, of Human Rights Watch in Beirut.

The tank assault on Hama on Sunday, in which 84 people were killed, is clearly an attempt to regain control of the city ahead of Ramadan and to avert protests during the holy month.

"They want to prevent Hama from becoming a symbol and inspiration for other cities," Houri said.

But the authorities, analysts say, could not have been more crude in choosing the beginning of Ramadan, a holy day in the Muslim calendar, and Hama, a bastion of revolt which occupies a significant place in Syria's history, to mount their assault.

"You cannot mention tanks and Hama and not evoke memories of the massacre," said Nadim Houri. "Ramadan is full of symbolism and the people will feel more aggrieved by the regime and there will be a backlash."

Analysts say Ramadan will witness calls at prayers for other cities to rise up, including Damascus and Aleppo, the second largest and mainly Sunni city, where demonstrations until now have been modest. They said many will heed the calls.

Few experts believe that the Assads -- from the Alawite minority sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam which has ruled over this country of 23 million with a 75 percent Sunni majority -- would respond to the unrest with the sort of change its citizens are demanding: the dismantling of the police state and the Assad clan's power monopoly, free elections and an end to corruption.

For Assad to enact the reforms he has been promising since he came to power in 2000, he would have to purge the Syrian establishment of his most powerful allies and cronies. Since they are the foundation of his power, that is unlikely.

Yet, while grievances proliferate amid more bloodletting, the authorities may not be as robust as they look.

The army, in which nearly all crucial positions are held by Alawites, is nevertheless predominantly Sunni. Reports of soldiers refusing to fire on demonstrators and others who have turned their guns on their own comrades are rife.

That leaves the security services and elite army units commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president's brother, and overseen by Asef Shawkat, his brother-in-law.

Erosion of power
While these forces can ensure a prolonged and bloody conflict, they do not guarantee the Assads' long-term survival.

"The opposition will become more unified and a possible option is that the opposition will create a government in exile that will get some countries to recognize it. This will put huge pressure on the Assad regime," Khouri said.

Although the government seems to have the military might, the political and economic foundations of the Assads, in power for more than 40 years, are being eaten away.

Some advisers and businessmen hitherto close to the government are quietly distancing themselves from Assad.

Sanctions, imposed by the United States and EU, are starting to bite. Key revenue streams look shattered and the economy is declining steeply. Tourism, which accounts for 23 percent of Syria's hard currency earnings, has collapsed and the government may be running out of money.

The Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center this month cited reports of $20 billion leaving the country.

Rami Makhlouf, Bashar's millionaire cousin whose interests Syrian bankers say may account for around a third of the economy, has seen pressure on him grow since he was blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury in 2008.

A shareholders meeting of Cham Holding, his main business and Syria's largest private company, was, according to one investor present, unable to elect a new board last month after the outgoing chairman, Nabil al-Kuzbari, was blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

One expert said Makhlouf made a $1 billion deposit in June to shore up central bank reserves and the Syrian pound. An Arab diplomat said Syria had asked a Gulf Arab country to deposit $1 billion in the central bank but the request had been ignored.

Syria's isolation can only continue after the weekend's assault on Hama prompted wide condemnation and the European Union extended sanctions against Assad's government.

"They are slowly losing legitimacy among more Syrians and generating more opposition at home and abroad," said Khouri.

The main fear of Sunni Arab governments in the region is that Syria, with an ethnic mix, could descend into sectarian mayhem if the Assad government collapses, something that could destabilize the entire Middle East.

But the Hama assault on fellow Sunnis could finally force the Sunni governments to break their silence and inaction.

"The Hama massacre is a watershed," said Murhaf Jouejati, Professor of Middle East Studies at the Washington-based National Defense University.

"The ferocity of the assault is increasingly galvanizing the international community against the Assad regime and increasing the number of anti-Assad Syrians who until now have been sitting on the fence."

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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