Politics and Stock trading

"When Stone went meditative in Nixon, moviegoers stayed away as if they'd just heard popcorn was carcinogenic. And last spring, critics would have had to try bribery to get people to see Alexander Payne's dandy comedy Election, which gently suggests that our political mores aren't unrelated to our national character. Election, which has just come out on video and DVD, is indeed a small gem. If anything, it's too carefully made; some more recklessness wouldn't hurt. But that's a minor failing in a satire that inveigles its viewers into siding with Matthew Broderick's sad-sack but decent teacher against Reese Witherspoon's go-getting high school pol before turning into caustic, rueful proof of the old Pogo line, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Broderick's bitter final gesture vents the audience's own frustration with politics. But even he knows it's pathetic, and his disgust is also self-disgust--leaving no way out.

[...] Reducing all issues to a duel between Innocence (James Stewart's idealistic newcomer) and Corruption (government itself), Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is as expressive of our craving to transcend the whole sordid business as The Wizard of Oz is of our desire to escape to home instead of from it. Still, you can rely on Capra to churn up darker stuff about America than Oliver Stone dreams of, only to find it innocuous and celebrate it. Despite provoking patriotism the way green corn causes diarrhea, Mr. Smith is a peculiar civics lesson, since the hero isn't elected, casts no votes, and saves himself by an undemocratic filibuster. In fact, in what we can only hope is a blissfully unwitting way, this ostensible ode to democracy is a hairbreadth away from turning into a favorable account of the rise of a dictator.Sixty years after Mr. Smith, we're back at the crossroads of innocence and corruption; however, with (our) naivete personified by two clueless, giggly teenage girls and corruption incarnated by Dan Hedaya's comic-horrible Tricky Dick himself, the confrontation is not only apt but simply, unexpectedly moving. The final scene, with Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams holding up their gleefully obscene sign while a maddened Nixon gives them the finger, can choke you up even while you're grinning, because Hedaya's grimace hints at genuine pain, and the girls' exhilaration is also the dawn of cynicism. And while the coda, with Dunst and Williams roller-skating to "Dancing Queen" around an empty Oval Office, practically hollers "soundtrack video," it's also beautiful--a surreal distillation of the moment when, with Nixon gone, the seventies became "the seventies." Source: www.esquire.com
Michelle Williams was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role as Alma in the 2005 movie "Brokeback Mountain" (starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal). When Williams was a teenager she began getting small TV roles, and when she was 15 she appeared in the feature film Species (1995). She legally separated from her parents before she was 18 to pursue a career in acting, and it paid off. In 1998 she began the first of six seasons on the hit TV show Dawson's Creek as Jen Lindley. The show made her a star, alongside fellow Creeksters James Van Der Beek and Katie Holmes. While working on the series she began a film career that has included the horror film Halloween H20 (1998)and the political comedy Dick (1999, opposite Kirsten Dunst). Williams and Ledger became a couple during the filming of the movie, and their daughter Matilda Rose was born in October of 2005. They separated in 2007, and Ledger died in 2008.
Extra credit: Willams is unrelated to Michelle Williams, the pop singer from the group Destiny's Child... Williams's father, Larry Williams, is a successful stock trader; in 1997 Williams herself won a stock-trading competition"
Source: www.who2.com

The art of stocks trading:
"By understanding the theoretical base first provides you with the building blocks for true trading success in selling stocks. The average student takes roughly two weeks to one month to actually learn the material, provided you are prepared to study a half hour a day. Trading is an individual thing, and so is the time it takes to learn how to trade. The main objective of this Stock Mentoring Program is to eliminate guesswork and simplify your trading into a series of uncomplicated, cohesive decision rules. How much jargon and technical language is used in your Mentoring Program? For most people, technical terms are among the most off-putting aspects of the markets. This systems works using a software charting and scanning package called the Pro Trader Software that finds the stocks that are setting up according to the trading strategies that you will learn. This software is web-based - which means there are no complicated downloads. There are Stock Watch Portfolio Lists that you can go through each night to see what stocks are setting up for a profitable trade. You can either do this manually or have our software scan these special stock lists for you. The SEC and FTC make it mandatory for all educators to place this on all written literature and financial websites. There are always risks associated with trading the markets, for everyone involved. This Stock Mentoring Program specifically teaches you how to minimize losses (but not against slippage)". Source: www.mentoringstocktraders.com

Cool Hand Paul

"For many years, wherever he went, Paul Newman was asked the same questions. Where did your blue eyes come from? Is Robert Redford your best friend? How have you stayed married so long? When the actor became fed up and stopped giving interviews, he was labelled a recluse.

Now, at least, there is a new line of inquiry. Last week the movie world was abuzz with reports - first denied, then confirmed, then denied again - that he was close to death. The story began with the emergence of pictures of the 83-year-old actor, his face gaunt and ghostly, attending a charity event near his home in Connecticut.

On Wednesday, the Associated Press quoted his close friend and business partner, A?E Hotchner, as confirming that cancer had been diagnosed. The following day Hotchner insisted he had been misunderstood, and to add to the clarity, Newman's own spokesman stated that the star was "doing nicely". This, as was widely observed, is the kind of thing doctors tell anxious relatives.

If the curiosity appears unseemly, it is also understandable. Perhaps even refreshing. Newman is one of the few surviving links to the golden age of American film and stage acting, but remains a strangely elusive presence.

The Apollonian features and faint air of hauteur smack of something in the psychological mix that Newman has never been inclined to explain, or, perhaps, even to think about. He exists in the public mind largely as the residue of the characters he has played - the disaffection of Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler, the incorrigibility of Cool Hand Luke, the elegant delinquency of Hud.

"People want to know about him," says his latest biographer, Shawn Levy, "while he's still here to tell them."

Not that Newman has ever said much. He distrusts almost everything in the star system, with its shallow vanities and colliding egos, and the distance he has kept from Hollywood is only partly down to a preference for living in New England.

"Once you start to believe in celebrity, it's impossible to take yourself seriously," he once said. "You're busted, when you take that road."

He modestly claims that he can no longer remember any of his best lines, but can still quote the worst ("Helena, is it really you? What a joy!" from a bizarre 1954 Old Testament toga-and-sandals epic, The Silver Chalice).

Newman's background is thoroughly documented, without being unduly revealing. He was born in 1925, in Shaker Heights, a well-to-do but otherwise nondescript suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, the son of a Jewish sporting goods shop owner.

His father, he says, was "funny, erudite, hard-working, extremely ethical - and distant". If, as many have deduced, the theme of stern masculine values lies at the core of Newman's work, the likelihood is that it stems from the emotionally-deficient relationship with his father. It was, nevertheless, a relatively secure and comfortable childhood.

His stage-struck mother, Theresa, nudged Paul and his brother Arthur (later a film producer) towards the theatre, and both acted in local productions as children. Paul attended university in Cleveland, but was thrown out after a brawl in a bar, and after working briefly in the family shop, where he was forced to come to terms with his shortcomings as a salesman, landed a small-time acting job in a theatre in Wisconsin.

"If it hadn't been for that fight," he mused many years later, "I probably wouldn't have become an actor."

He served in the US Navy during the Second World War, but his hopes of becoming a pilot ended when he learned that those trademark sapphire eyes were colour-blind. This blow, moreover, was only the start of the troubles those mesmeric peepers have caused him. All his life, complains Newman, he has been plagued by people demanding to gaze into his eyes.

"To work as hard as I have," he once said, "to accomplish what I've accomplished, and then have some yo-yo come up and say 'Take off those dark glasses, and let's have a look at those blue eyes'. It's really discouraging."

The eyes soon settled on Jacqueline Witte, a tall blonde actress who, in 1949, became his first wife, and the mother of his first three children.

They moved to New York, where Jacqueline modelled and Newman studied at Lee Strasberg's Actors' Studio among a vintage collection of classmates including Marlon Brando, James Dean and Rod Steiger. Between them, these actors perfected the deadly art of cool, although Newman admits that it was a while before he came to grips with the concept of sexuality.

He broke through with a starring part in the 1953 Broadway production of William Inge's Picnic, and it was during the run that he met Joanne Woodward, a blonde, delicate-featured actress from Georgia, who was in the cast as an understudy and became his second wife. They have been married for 50 years - a feat almost unrivalled among major movie stars, albeit one that neither of them is much inclined to discuss. Newman once unwisely told Playboy magazine that "if you've got fillet steak at home, what's the point the point of going out for hamburger?" Mrs Newman took great exception to the imagery, and they now let the longevity of their union speak for itself.

The great movies that made his name as a working-class hero, with just the requisite touch of defiance, soon began to flow - The Hustler (1960), Sweet Bird of Youth (1961), Hud (1961), Cool Hand Luke (1967), and the most famous buddy film in history, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). This collaboration with Robert Redford - who only got the part when Steve McQueen refused it because of dispute over which actor would get top billing - gave Newman both a fresh lease of life and another headache.

Almost 40 years after the release of Butch and Sundance the two stars have never fully extricated themselves from each other.

"People think we're like brothers," says Redford, "that we're on the phone, and round each other's house all the time. It isn't like that." Nor is it: "polite familiarity", is how those who know the pair characterise the relationship.

His extra-movie life has been dominated by a lifelong attachment to liberal politics (he backed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination), motor racing, at which he has been wildly and improbably successful, and the running of Newman's Own, the salad dressing and pasta sauce business that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for his Hole in the Wall Gang children's charity.

Last year, when he announced his retirement, he bluntly declared: "I can't work any more. You start to lose your memory, to lose your confidence, to lose your invention. I think that's a pretty closed book for me." The epilogue, however, remains to be written2. Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
See this previous post "Neman style"

Jake and Ryan at Teen Choice Awards

Jake Gyllenhaal to Face Off Ryan Phillippe at Teen Choice Awards

"Jake Gyllenhaal will face off against Reese Witherspoon's ex Ryan Phillippe at the 2008 Teen Choice Awards.

Both are up for Choice Movie Actor: Drama (Gyllenhaal for Rendition, Phillippe for Stop-Loss)."


Choice Movie Actor: Drama
Channing Tatum - Stop-Loss
Emile Hirsch - Into the Wild
Jake Gyllenhaal - Rendition
Mark Wahlberg - We Own the Night
Ryan Phillippe - Stop-Loss

Choice Movie Actor: Comedy
Ashton Kutcher - What Happens in Vegas
James Marsden - 27 Dresses; Enchanted
Jonah Hill - Superbad
Michael Cera – Superbad; Juno
Will Ferrell - Semi-Pro

Source: www.usmagazine.com

Cowboy Downey Jr

Downey Jr. In Talks To Play Cowboy In Quirky Sci-fi Western

Robert Downey Jr. is set to bring a 10-year-old sci-fi movie idea to the big screen after negotiating to star in Cowboys and Aliens.

The Iron Man star is in talks to sign on to the film, about an alien spaceship that lands in the Wild West, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Brian Grazer and Ron Howard will produce the film, which has been in development for a decade.
Source: vvv.imdb.com/news

Positive Fuel

"On the massive Montreal set, star Gyllenhaal, late of such very non-actiony films as ''Donnie Darko'' and ''The Good Girl,'' gets his cheeks pinked and bangs frosted, then begins an odd chase scene around the freighter, as he flees from...nothing -- the wolves will be added later. After a few takes, Emmerich remarks to his young actor that he's terribly fleet of foot. Gyllenhaal grins beneath frosty eyebrows and replies in perfect movie trailerese, ''Faster's better: Bigger...faster...funnier!'' Source: www.ew.com

June 14 - Leaving A Studio In Hollywood.Fray, founder of Los Angeles-based Eco-limo, and a former driver of Leonardo’s Prius says; “When someone like Kirsten Dunst, Nicole Kidman, Cameron Diaz, Al Gore or Leonardo DiCaprio takes an alternative fuel car to the Oscars or another major event, people see that they walk the walk. That’s a good thing.” Source: davidreport.com

"Day After Tomorrow, The: Politically charged and somewhat poorly executed 2004 disaster movie, starring Randy Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal, exposing the potentially apocalyptic effects of global warming, albeit in a scientifically implausible form. In green-tech slang, the title has become a synonym for "worst-case scenario." Notable for laughably ironic scene of hordes of illegal U.S. immigrants storming the border into Mexico to escape extreme weather in the north". Source: www.cnet.com

Here we have a good alternative to the typical fleet companys: a novel vehicle tracking company which uses a software solution that was designed for web based access from its initial design. The FleetMatics solution provides their customers with real time information about their mobile assets anytime/anywhere 24/7."Fleetmatics is a rapidly growing venture backed telematics company with significant mobile asset software experience dating back to 1998. Fleetmatics was incorporated in 2004.

The company's heritage began in the UK/ Ireland market which lead to rapid customer growth with market entry into the USA in 2005.

With offices in the USA, UK and Ireland, FleetMatics is one of the fastest growing telematics companies in the world. It provides the customers with web based software solutions to improve efficiency and reduce cost of all types of mobile assets.

GPS vehicle tracking improves productivity, reduces fuel cost, enhances customer service and provides our customers with the reporting information needed to make real time business decisions. We provide this solution to customers of all sizes from the smallest fleets to fleets well over 500 vehicles.

Lower fuel costs:
With gas prices on the rise, now is the time to use FleetMatics to cut fuel costs. GPS fleet tracking benefits:
Reduce vehicle mileage, Improve customer service, Eliminate vehicle down-time, etc. More Advantages:
Assess entire fleet performance in one screen, Easily identify top offenders, Reduce phone calls made to drivers’ cell phones, Compare individual performance against peers, Improve safety and Reduce fuel costs. Improve overall operational efficiencies: Source: www.fleetmatics.com

Yoga and sportwear

Cast of 'Nailed' with Parker the Monkey In Columbia, SC
June 14 - Leaving A Studio In Hollywood
Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal leaving private yoga session togther in Santa Monica. 6.14.08
More pictures of celebs in sportwear:Brittany Murphy and Eminem.Shia Labeouf.Jake and Ryan running.
Ryan Phillippe.

On the set of "Brothers"

"Everyone who expects a love triangle or two brothers fighting for a woman will be disappointed. I for one am happy with this - I don´t want a typical Hollywood film.

IMO the three main roles have nearly equal screen time - perhaps Natalie a little less than the two guys.
"Actually all the awards prediction sites have Jake as leading and Tobey as supporting.

If the script is correct and they have not changed it it will be:

Jake - Tommy (Thomas) Cahill
Tobey - Sam Cahill
Natalie - Grace Cahill

During the scenes where Sam is probably dead they alternate between the family dealing with Sams "death" and him being a prisoner of the Taliban and what happens there.

IMO Tommy is a great opportunity for Jake - I really hope he will be able to disappear in this character and we will see him in another challenging role".Source: iheartjake.suddenlaunch.comDavid Benioff & Amanda Peet.
"While the title of this interview might seem a bit like hyperbole, ComingSoon.net has talked to many screenwriters in our time, and true, many of them are pretty cool--Juno's Diablo Cody is the latest upstart contender to receive the honorary title--but none of them have quite the credentials that David Benioff has that makes him so cool.

For your consideration, we shall list some of the reasons why we think he's cool:

* Although he may be the coolest writer in Hollywood, he's actually a New Yorker born and raised, and he still spends a lot of time in the city that never sleeps.

* His first screenplay was an adaptation of his first novel, which turned into Spike Lee's The 25th Hour, one of the few films that epitomizes what it was like being a New Yorker right after 9/11.

* He wrote the initial draft for the upcoming prequel X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and he's a long-time comic book fan himself.

* He adapted Susanne Bier's wartime drama Brothers into an English language film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire and directed by Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan (In America)

* He's working on a screenplay for a Kurt Cobain biopic!
Source: www.comingsoon.net