WEIRDLAND

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

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"

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

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

Monday, June 16, 2008

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

The Dark Knight trailer

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Sensitive issues

"Maggie Gyllenhaal has hit out at the media for their reporting tactics after the death of fellow actor Heath Ledger - branding the industry "disrespectful".

The Secretary star blasted journalists for their style of reporting after the tragic death of the Australian actor, insisting she was "shocked" by the way they tackled the sensitive issue.

Gyllenhaal starred opposite Ledger in his final full film, The Dark Knight, in which he stars as Batman's nemesis, The Joker.

And the actress - whose brother, Jake Gyllenhaal, featured alongside Ledger in 2005's Brokeback Mountain - reveals her co-star and friend's untimely death has taken its toll on her.

She tells Britain's Empire magazine, "It's hard to talk about how it's (Ledger's death) affected me personally. It's been really hard for me."

"(And) the media has shocked me with the way that they've been disrespectful in some ways."
Source: www.imdb.com/news
Actress Reese Witherspoon's marriage to Ryan Phillippe is officially over - their divorce was finalised on Thursday.

The couple ended its seven-year marriage when they separated in 2006 and the union was dissolved on 5 October, but the pair has only now fully resolved all financial and custodial issues.

Court documents filed in Los Angeles on Thursday reads: "(The court finds) the parties have settled all their remaining issues in these proceedings."

Witherspoon and Phillippe have since moved on to new relationships. The Legally Blonde star is currently dating Jake Gyllenhaal, while Phillippe recently went public with his romance with Abbie Cornish.

Witherspoon and Phillippe have two children - daughter Ava, eight, and son Deacon, four". Source: www.imdb.com/news

Eye candy - My eyes



White eyes, gaze-detection, and sexiness

John Hawks comments on a new study suggesting that the reason human beings have white sclerae is to facilitate detection of what another person is looking at (press story here). Though the article is not out yet, the gist is that humans pay more attention to another person's eye movements, while other primates pay more attention to another's head movements in order to infer what the other is looking at. The pupil through which we look is only color-differentiated from the surrounding iris in people with light irises, but since the iris and pupil are concentric, if we could track the iris, we could track the pupil as well. And because our visual system is tuned to pick up on contrasts, especially between figure and background, a contrasting iris-sclera form would be ideal for tracking someone's eye direction. This in turn would have been useful in cooperative and learning situations where individuals need to focus on the same objects so that background information is shared, minimizing the need to spell out assumptions. This is similar to the Gricean Maxims in the linguistic field of pragmatics -- the more we share assumptions and follow cooperative norms, the less longwinded and lawyerly we have to be in communicating.1) Aside from detecting eye direction, a white sclera would also facilitate detecting emotional eye expressions, as the white sclera contrasts with the full range of human skin colors -- especially the darker ones, but even Irish skin isn't that white. When you narrow your eyes in suspicion or incredulity, for instance, darker shapes (the eyelids) overtake whiter shapes (the sclerae). Conversely, when you express surprise, the darker eyelids recede and open up more of the white sclerae. We look at muscular contractions in the brow area as well when detecting suspicion or surprise, of course, but color contrast between the eyelids and sclerae is also informative. The more varied and subtle an organism's emotional range becomes (i.e., more so in humans than other primates), the more crucial this information may become.

2) The study mentions that gaze-detection would be useful during mother-child learning, and John adds tool-making and tool use, but many cooperative behaviors would not be aided by gaze-detection -- namely, those where individuals are physically separated beyond the threshold at which judging another person's gaze based on eye movement becomes unreliable. I couldn't find any study quantifying this threshold, but I think at the range of about 40-50 feet, a moving head with stationary eyes would convey a stronger signal than a stationary head with moving eyes. If you recall any battle scene you've ever seen where two units were separated by such a distance, they usually communicate by jerking their heads or motioning with their hands and/or weapons, and surely combat is a cooperative and learning situation par excellence. Thus, it's really the close-range, intimate cooperative behaviors that are most facilitated by gaze-detection.3) The news release mentions that "our eyes are more horizontally elongated and disproportionately large for our body size compared to most apes." That makes sense: if you're trying to detect a figure moving across a background, or the frame closing in or opening up by say 25%, these tasks would be easier if the background were larger on an absolute level.

4) It follows from the above three points that larger, whiter eyes would be of greater use to females than males. I tried Google and PubMed for info on sexual dimorphism of eye size and came up with this, though I can't access it. Hormones affect the eye, so there may be dimorphism. Judging from experience, it seems females do have larger eyes, though the magnitude isn't as pronounced as for, say, breast size or height. Dimorphism is slow to evolve, but we're talking about something that likely happened at least before the major human races diverged and sometime after we split from chimpanzees. The primate-human comparison apparently measures the area occupied by the eyes compared to that occupied by the face or body, but that may not be the best way to measure large eyes when the purpose of those large eyes is to make it easy to track the iris' movement. What you'd measure, then, would be the area of the visible iris divided by the area of the entire visible part of the eye. I think it's by this measure that you can tell girls have larger eyes, and that "babyfaces" like Johnny Depp and Pete Doherty do as well.

5) Once eyes become whiter and larger, they could be used to gauge a mate's health since discolorations due to infection will be more apparent against a white background, which would set off a round of sexual selection for more ornamental eyes. Thus does evolution strive to create Penelope Cruz, a dual-mooned beauty if ever there was one".
Source: www.gnxp.com

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Happy birthday, Diablo Cody!

Showtime picks up 'Tara' Diablo Cody-penned series stars Toni Collette

Updated: June 4, 2008, 10:27 PM
Showtime has given a series pickup to
"The United States of Tara"

The pay cable channel has greenlighted 12 half-hour episodes (including the pilot) of the single-camera comedy from DreamWorks TV and Steven Spielberg. It's expected to enter production in Los Angeles in the summer.

"Tara," written by Oscar-winning "Juno" screenwriter Diablo Cody, stars Toni Collette as a wife and mother with dissociative identity disorder. John Corbett co-stars as her husband.

Story lines will examine how a dysfunctional family copes with the various identities that might appear on any given day and range in age, temperament and even gender.

Cody will continue to serve as a writer; she also will exec produce with Spielberg, Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank of DreamWorks TV and Alexa Junge. Craig Gillespie ("Lars and the Real Girl") directed the pilot.

"The combination of Diablo Coby's vision and Toni Collette's brilliance at playing her characters(cq) is irresistible," Showtime president of entertainment Robert Greenblatt said. "It's a very provocative idea, and there's a combination of humor and real drama. It's a unique show that seems to be right up our alley."

Greenblatt said he's looking at debuting the show early next year; he had originally hoped he might be able to launch it before year's end, but the writers strike and Collette's pregnancy delayed the shooting of the pilot.

Asked with what series "Tara" might be paired, Greenblatt emphasized that it's too early to say but mentioned "The Tudors," "The L Word," a second season of "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" (the series debuts June 16 after the season premiere of "Weeds") or "maybe another new show to come."
Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

DIABLO CODY VIDEO:

Friday, June 13, 2008

Health issues

"Since our founding in 1932, New Eyes has brought improved vision and hope for a better future to more than 6.5 million people.

New Eyes for the Needy is a non-profit, non-sectarian volunteer organization.
Blindcntr.org focuses on all aspects of health insurance. We offer extensive guides and articles covering health insurance hoping to help our visitors get the information the need before and after buying health insurance". Watch the entire clip of Jake talking in favour of neweyesfortheneedy.org

Blindcntr.org health insurance quotes service is your doorway to affordable health insurance. By filling one easy form, you get access to multiple health insurance companies and agents.

Online health insurance quotes help make the process of buying insurance easier. You will get offers from health insurance agents in your local area that are interested in your business. Quotes are available for individual health insurance, family health insurance and group health insurance.

This is an interesting health company if you look for an affordable health insurance and maybe you need a “co-payment” option, with a specific charge that your health insurance plan may require for a specific medical service or supply. For example, your health insurance plan may require a $15 co-payment for an office visit or brand-name prescription drug, after which the insurance company will pay the remainder of the charges.

Also Blindcntr.org is interesting in coinsurance options, “Coinsurance” is the term used by health insurance companies to refer to the amount that you are required to pay for a medical claim, apart from any co-payments or deductible.

Health group policies are not nearly as flexible as individual policies. Individual policies allow you to choose from a variety of deductibles. If you are not a parent, you can remove maternity coverage. Individual plans are also the easiest to renew, whereas an employer can cancel a group policy at any time. Regarding general benefits, group insurance is usually more generous. Yearly mammograms are covered and trips to the chiropractor are generally covered.
Source: www.blindcntr.org

Happy 20th birthday, Kat Dennings!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Michael Cera (Movie Star)

Reese in Tokyo


Jun. 11 - Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon takes part in a Japanese tea ceremony, serving green tea for breast cancer survivors in Tokyo.

Wearing a traditional Japanese kimono, Witherspoon was taught the tea-making procedure in which powdered green tea, or matcha, is ceremonially prepared and served to others.

The Legally Blonde star is an Avon Global Ambassador promoting women's health and safety, a project supported by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

She is visiting Japan this week to raise awareness of breast cancer and domestic violence. A study shows only 12% of Japanese women get regular screenings for breast cancer". Source: www.reuters.com
Source of pictures: tressedoutcelebs.com


"The Tea Ceremony, which is a multi-faceted traditional activity designed to capture the spirit of healing the body, mind and soul, offered an open forum to discuss breast cancer issues and needs in Japan, which is a critical topic due to a high rate of breast cancer in the country and the Asia Pacific region. At the Tea Ceremony, Ms. Witherspoon met Dr. Matsuda, Chairman of the Japan Breast Cancer Association, and three Japanese breast cancer survivors, and talked with them about the lack of breast cancer awareness and screening facilities."As Avon's Global Ambassador, I'm honored to have this opportunity to meet with such extraordinary women, and experience a highlight of Japanese culture" said Ms. Witherspooon. "While their courage is inspiring, I was
saddened to hear that only about 12% of women in Japan receive regular breast cancer screening. The lack of testing equipment and breast cancer experts in Japan means that many women here do not have access to the medical technology and care that is critical to diagnose and fight this deadly disease."
Source: www.prnewswire.com

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Brokeback Mountain Opera

"The New York City Opera commissioned Charles Wuorinen to compose an opera based on "Brokeback Mountain," the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx that became the basis for a 2005 movie that won three Academy Awards.

The opera is scheduled to premiere in spring 2013, City Opera said Sunday. It will be City Opera's second Wuorinen premiere, following "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," which was based on a Salman Rushdie novel and opened in October 2004.

"Ever since encountering Annie Proulx's extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera on it, and it gives me great joy that Gerard Mortier and New York City Opera have given me the opportunity to do so," Wuorinen said in a statement".

Source: www.msnbc.msn.com"Yep, 12-tone gay cowboys ... It's not a hoax ...

When word emerged this week that an operatic version of Brokeback Mountain is in the works, with a score by Charles Wuorinen, a lot of people in the classical music world weren't sure what to think. For a start, the news appeared in the Rush and Molloy gossip column in New York's tabloid Daily News — not a place the industry thinks to look for breaking developments. And the combination of material, medium and music seemed wildly improbable: a spare short story by Annie Proulx about inarticulate Wyoming sheepherders — which, granted, had been made into a film that was very compelling but was far from histrionic — translated into the most histrionic of art forms? With a composer who's one of America's last major unrepentant modernists?

"I think it's a marvelous idea," Wuorinen's manager, Howard Stokar, told Playbill Arts. "And so did Annie Proulx ... she liked the idea of it being an opera, and she liked the idea of Charles composing it."

There's no commission or opera house involved just yet — says Stokar, "Right now, it's really just under discussion. Who knows what's going to happen?" — but Proulx's approval means that one major hurdle that fells many worthwhile projects has been cleared. (Leonard Bernstein, for instance, is said to have worked on a treatment of Nabokov's Lolita but couldn't get rights to the story.)

The idea for a Brokeback opera was all Wuorinen's. "He wanted to work on a dramatic piece," said Stokar, "and this seemed like the perfect subject."

After Haroun and the Sea of Stories, the composer's adaptation of Salman Rushdie's novel for children which premiered at New York City Opera in 2004, Wuorinen was eager to create another stage work. "He was very impressed with the movie adaptation of the short story," said Stokar, "and he thought it would be quite marvelous as an opera. In a way, it's a good old-fashioned love story."

Would Proulx's taciturn characters fit best in a chamber opera? "It would be a big piece," Stokar said, "something for an actual opera house."

Wuorinen is certainly aware of the problems involved in translating the story for the stage. "What's impressive about the film adaptation is that it really has an excellent screenplay," Stokar pointed out. "Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana did a terrific job of turning this little work of prose" — the original "Brokeback Mountain" is barely more than 10,000 words — "into a two-hour movie. Something similar would have to be done for an opera — for example, the language in the film is not language you can use in an opera. Who that's gonna be [to write the libretto], of course, it's much too early to say."

Source: www.playbillarts.com

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Kirsten in green

"It was another afternoon of shopping in NYC for Kirsten Dunst, on a break from filming All Good Things on Sunday. Judging from that smile, it doesn't look like the heat wave on the East Coast was slowing her down any. Now that Kirsten's opened up about depression being the reason behind her trip to rehab, we're glad to see her looking happy and healthy — hopefully a little retail therapy is just what the doctor ordered.
Source: popsugar.com

More romance rumours

May 24 - Out to Lunch with Reese in Los Angeles.

Reese Witherspoon has reportedly refused to move in with her partner Jake Gyllenhaal.

The actress will not live with Gyllenhaal until they are married, according to Now magazine.

Actor Jake Gyllenhaal is desperate to settle down and start a family with girlfriend Reese Witherspoon, according to reports.

The Brokeback Mountain hunk has been romantically involved with divorced mother-of-two Witherspoon since meeting on the set of their 2007 film Rendition.

The couple has been inseparable since, and, according to U.S. magazine Ok!, Gyllenhaal has made his intention to begin a family with Witherspoon clear - despite having yet to propose.

A source says, "He knows he might be jumping the gun thinking of kids, but he knows that Reese is the one. He laughs and says he needs to propose and do this the right way. It really is first comes love, then comes marriage...

"(Reese) reminds him that it's more than just coming over to take the kids to the park. Your entire life has to change. She's admitted that he has grown from when they first met into this very dependable dad type. He is ready to have his whole life change."

Witherspoon's eight-year marriage to actor Ryan Phillippe ended in 2006, and their divorce was finalised on 5 October. The former couple has two children together, eight-year-old Ava and four-year-old Deacon.
Source: www.imdb.com/news via wenn.com"Witherspoon is apparently a believer in strong family values and doesn't want her children, Ava, 8, and Deacon, 4, to change home unless she is wed.

"Reese doesn't want to live with Jake until they're married," said a source. "She has very traditional values.

"The thing that's convinced her that she wants to spend the rest of her life with Jake is how well he has fitted into family life.

"He is a good influence on her children and they have just a very strong relationship. Expect an engagement announcement any day now."

Gyllenhaal allegedly purchased a $7 million mansion in California for Witherspoon and her kids earlier this month". Source: www.digitalspy.co.uk

Monday, June 09, 2008

Jake (Gay Icon)

"Jake Gyllenhaal has seen off competition from famous hunks David Beckham and Brad Pitt to land the title of hottest gay icon.

The Brokeback Mountain actor, who starred in a camping love scene with the late Heath Ledger in the 2005 film, has topped the poll for the second year running.

Soccer ace Beckham and Pitt only managed 12th and 15th respectively, while Torchwood actor John Barrowman and Brothers and Sisters star Luke MacFarlane scooped second and third place respectively.

The poll was compiled by gay website AfterElton.com.
Comedienne Tina Fey claimed the top spot in the Hot 100 gay women list on sister site, AfterEllen.com. Source: www.imdb.com/news