AP - Authorities said Monday it appeared actress Brittany Murphy died of natural causes after becoming ill with flulike symptoms in the days before she collapsed in the bathroom of her Hollywood Hills home.
AP - Authorities said Monday it appeared actress Brittany Murphy died of natural causes after becoming ill with flulike symptoms in the days before she collapsed in the bathroom of her Hollywood Hills home.
AP - Authorities said Monday it appeared actress Brittany Murphy died of natural causes after becoming ill with flulike symptoms in the days before she collapsed in the bathroom of her Hollywood Hills home.
Pinned: Hunky werewolf Taylor Lautner is in talks to star in a remake of the 1985 coming of age tale Vision Quest. The film is about a high school wrestler who falls for an older drifter who temporarily moves into his house. She helps him with his moves...in the buff. [NYDN]
Revived: Forty-six years ago Martin Sheen received a Tony nomination for his role as a war vet who returns home to fighting parents in The Subject Was Roses. Now he's set to return to the play as the father. Frances Conroy and Brian Geraghty will co-star. Sheen should remain for the entire run of the play, which is replacing Speed the Plow at the Mark Taper Forum, as long as he avoids sushi. [Variety]
I Am Renewed: Starz has renewed action-drama Spartacus: Blood and Sand for a second season before the first has even premiered. Calling the move "a bold vote of confidence," the cable network said it was renewing the show based on how happy it is with the first season. Season two is set to be called Spartacus: Vengeance, which will be followed by season three, Spartacus: Dead. [THR]
Yay Stereotypes: ABC has handed a pilot order to Women Are Crazy, Men are Stupid, a multicamera sitcom based on a book by Howard Morris and Jenny Lee. The show revolves around a man and woman who get together after emerging from failed marriages. Based on the title, this sounds like it's going to be too long. [THR]
Lady Cops:CSI creator Anthony Zuiker is developing a female cop drama for CBS called Jax and Amber. The show focuses on two female detectives with a unique ability to solve crimes. That's fortunate, because a TV show about two detectives who were just okay at solving crimes would be a real snooze. [Variety]
Diane Sawyer quietly debuted on ABC's World News tonight by interviewing one of the world's craziest powerful men (or is it most powerful crazy men?), Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So, how'd she do? Pretty good, says the Times' Alessandra Stanley. Sawyer displayed her trademark "twinkly warmth," Stanley writes, while questioning Ahmadinejad on Iran's nuclear ambitions, but still managed to push him when he evaded her questions. In the end, Stanley says, Sawyer made it clear how she will handle her new job, by emphasizing "exotic travel and big 'gets.'"
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Since June, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences opened the best picture race to 10 nominees, Oscar has been waiting for a knight in... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 21 Dec 2009 | 10:22 pm
Simon Monjack didn't think "till death do us part" was coming any time soon.
"My world was destroyed yesterday," the widowed Brit told Access Hollywood Monday,...
AP - Organizers for the Venice Film Festival have honored John Woo with its lifetime achievement award, saying the veteran director transformed action movies both in his native Hong Kong and his current professional home of Hollywood.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Fox is going yellow for the home stretch of its "Simpsons" 20th anniversary celebration. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 21 Dec 2009 | 10:00 pm
You know how when you're riding a charlift to the top of a mountain with your friends and you start wondering what would happen if the chairlift just stopped and everyone around you suddenly went home and wouldn't return for another five days? Well, the trailer for Frozen has the answer. You would get cold, you would fall and the skin would get ripped off of your hand. Now you know.
RNC chairman Michael Steele is paid $223,500 a year but he's still got a gig on the side. The hippest Republican in the land gives speeches for money all around the country. Steele charges between $8,000 and $20,000 for the honor of listening to him talk, a practice that surprised some people who once held his current position.
"Holy mackerel, I never head of a chairman of either party ever taking money for speeches," said Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., RNC chairman under Ronald Reagan. Jim Nicholson, who held the position from 1997 to 2000, said the job "demands so much of your time that you can work 24/7 and not get everything done, so taking time out to speak for the benefit of one's own bank account is not appropriate."
Hip hop fan that he is, Steele is probably psyched about this newfound beef.
If you watched Kendra last night, you know the E! star gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
And if you follow the 24-year-old beauty on Twitter, you know Hank Baskett IV almost gave his...
You would expect a hockey player to know his ice.
And Carrie Underwood's future hubby, Mike Fisher, appears well-versed in the subject, judging by the rock his betrothed was sporting...
Organizers for the Venice Film Festival have honored John Woo with its lifetime achievement award, saying the veteran director transformed action movies both in his native Hong Kong and his Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 21 Dec 2009 | 9:10 pm
Wondering what's the official cause of Brittany Murphy's death? Well, we're just as clueless as you.
The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office has just completed its...
Taylor Swift, who has won every award this year except for the NL Cy Young, was named AP entertainer of the year today. The largely irrelevant award went to Tina Fey last year and Stephen Colbert the year before that. "I am so honored and so excited," Swift said as she jumped around her bed in her pajamas. [AP]
Oh, right. It was just days ago.
So imagine our surprise...
With a vote of 39-20, Mexico City's legislature changed the definition of marriage today from a union between a man and woman to a "free union between people." The city's mayor is expected to sign the bill, which also allows gays to adopt. And then, hopefully, he'll make a trip up here and show New York how it's done.
It's not easy being Britney for so many reasons. One is all the false news stories regularly written about the three-way-loving mother of two and the public's eagerness to consume them. In an effort to shame those who make up stories about Britney, her website has posted the stories it believes to be the "most ridiculous," including those that are "factually inaccurate...patently absurd, or...offensive to the sensibilities."
Among the winners are bits about Brit's meltdown in Australia, her purchase of a soul food restaurant for her father and her passion for gardening. Also, that story in the UK's Daily Star about how her fans were buying up squirrel, rabbit and possum meat to experience "a taste of her trailer park childhood" is apparently not true.
Brody Jenner hasn't found his queen of Malibu after all.
The reality-TV scion has parted ways with his Playboy Playmate girlfriend, Jayde Nicole, sources close to the ex-couple...
AP - "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" offers exactly two big laughs for its kiddo target audience — one involves passing gas, the other a shot to the crotch.
AP - In a case that has polarized public passions, director Roman Polanski did not win his freedom Monday for a 32-year-old sex offense, but an appeals court said in a strongly worded opinion there was probable judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in his case.
The City Council voted today to override Mayor Bloomberg's veto of a five-minute grace period for parking meters and alternate side parking rules. Now drivers will have five minutes between the time a parking meter ends and receiving a ticket. Same goes for the start of alternate side parking. Score one for the little guy! [NYP]
Reuters - Serbia's entry in this year's Oscar competition is an ambitious World War I epic, "St. George Shoots the Dragon," that boasts striking visual effects, a skillful cast and a story that sometimes gets in the way of the impressive production. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 21 Dec 2009 | 7:07 pm
Front Page: Blum, Hanson team on development of movie packages -- "Paranormal Activity" producer Jason Blum is teaming with Scott Hanson on a joint venture film fund to finance the development of studio-friendly film packages.
Front Page: Oscar voters can reach beyond their home branch -- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will mail nominations ballots on Monday to 5,277 voting members, and for the first time approximately 200 members will have expanded voting rights.
A California appeals court denied Roman Polanski's request to have his case thrown out because of alleged misconduct by the case's original judge and prosecutor. But the three judge panel, which ruled unanimously, did say it was "deeply concerned" about the behavior of the now-deceased judge. Then it said what everyone is thinking: this whole mess needs to hurry up and end. [LAT]
At a press conference tomorrow Rudy Giuliani is expected to announce that he will not run for governor, or any other political office, in 2010. America's mayor will instead throw his support behind Republican gubernatorial hopeful Rick Lazio and concentrate on becoming more of a force within the GOP. His book, Going Rouge, will be out next fall. [NYDN]
Remember when Audrina Patridge posed in a gold bikini while eating a Carl's Jr teriyaki burger? Or when Paris Hilton stripped down to suds up a car for a Carl's Jr. spicy burger commercial...
Someone's getting hitched on Gossip Girl.
And someone is going to want to kick Jenny Humphrey in the shins. And it might be me.
Sources are spilling deets on what's...
• Diane Sawyer made her debut this evening as anchor of ABC's World News; Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the night's big attraction. [AP] • Avatar pulled in $73 million at the domestic box office (and $232 million worldwide), although it would have made more if it hadn't snowed. [LAT, NYT] • Yelp walked away from a deal to be bought by Google over the weekend. [TC] • Radio giant Citadel Broadcasting Corporation has filed Chapter 11. [NYT] • Jay Leno's already bad situation appears to be getting worse. [B&C, NYP] • Howard Stern is in the middle of tense contract talks with Sirius XM right now, which is why he's threatening to leave the satellite radio company. [AP] • Twitter will turn a profit in '09, although it still isn't worth $1 billion. [BN] • Kim Kardashian plug products on Twitter for $10K/tweet. No joke. [AdAge] • Useless year-end awards: Taylor Swift was named the AP's "entertainer of the year"; Madonna was deemed the "most famous celebrity of the decade."
The dissolving of LeAnn Rimes' marriage is moving along at a rapid clip.
Days after estranged husband Dean Sheremet filed for divorce, the former backup dancer filed additional...
Tom Cruise is the latest—and biggest—name to be sucked into the fray. The star was...
Alyssa Milano first went public with her disdain for the Jersey Shore phenomenon last week after seeing a trailer for the show on YouTube. However, her derisive slam — "It upset me. I was like, 'Turn that off!'," she told an Us magazine reporter — apparently did not resonate in the manner that she, a proud Italian-American, was hoping. So, Milano, the iconic star of Embrace of the Vampire, took her case to the popular viral-video factory for humor-challenged celebrities, Funny or Die. Her idea was a stroke of genius: She would parody the famous Dove "Evolution" ads, only this time, instead of using photo trickery to turn a marginally good-looking woman into a supermodel, she would do the exact opposite! She would use Photoshop not to make herself look better, mind you, but rather to make herself look shorter, plumper, and hairier. You know, exactly how she views our beloved Shnickers Snooki. It's moments like these when we sit back and count our blessings that celebrity crusaders like Alyssa Milano not only walk among us, but also care enough to try to make a difference.
Playbill - Actress Brittany Murphy, who starred in "Clueless" on the silver screen and A View From the Bridge on Broadway, died Dec. 20 in Los Angeles. She was 32. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 21 Dec 2009 | 4:01 pm
This weekend, while the world was shocked by the untimely death of one of Hollywood’s most sweetly admired starlets, another celebrity death rocked us to our emotional childhood core. Alaina Reed Hall, an actress whose face you have seen in dozens of shows but whose name never become household, passed away at the all too young age of 63 from breast cancer.
Today, we take a look back at Alaina’s life-altering career, in a list we had no choice but to call 5 Things That Made Alaina Reed Hall Awesome.
5. She Was Mary’s Sassy BFF Rose on 227.227 might be one of the funniest, most underrated shows from the 1980s, specifically one that centered around a stoop. And Alaina was at the center of the neighborhood drama, as Mary’s best friend Rose. Her work was unforgettable, and as this 227 minisode proves, hilarious. Take 5 minutes to watch as Maaaaary tries to set Rose up with her brother, only to have Soooondra steal him away.
4. She Was Married to Predator. It takes a pretty awesome woman to be in love to the Predator, played by the 7′2″ Kevin Peter Hall. He was also Harry in Harry and the Henderson’s, natch.
3. She Nearly Hosted The Greatest Cooking Show of Our Time. It appears as though this show never fully came to fruition. But let it be known that if some genius had had the sense to produce and develop “A Whole Lotta Soul,” Alaina’s soul food cooking show, we would have gladly watched and, as a result, gained roughly 50 pounds. Notable moments include 1:20’s “Girrrl!” and 2:01’s notable “*Grunt*.”
2. She Is The Only Actress To Have Appeared on Both Herman’s Head (in 1992) and Blossom (in 1993). Guess what these two things have in common?
Well if you read the sentence preceding that question, you would know that the answer is this:
According to our 1990’s Automatic Fame Algorithm, this puts Alaina somewhere in between John Stamos and the movie Ladybugs in terms of “Huge Deals.”
1. Two Words: Sesame Street. No lie, as I was searching Youtube for videos of Alaina as Olivia (Gordon’s younger sister) on Sesame Street, I found the following video of her performing “Sing!” alongside a deaf woman. And as God is my witness, I started to softly weep in a Geisha-like way I didn’t even know I was capable of.
On the brighter side, we’ve also found this incredible video from yesteryear of a handfull of muppet cows singing “Proud to Be a Cow,” featuring Olivia and a voice we think might be Mrs. Doubtfire.
In the meantime, we’ve spent the better half of our afternoon crying over Sesame Street clips, such as Big Birdlearning of Mr. Hooper’s passing, and Big Bird singing atJim Henson’s funeral. Yes, you will cry, you can be sure of that. But moments like these also remind you that the creators and actors who helped bring the Muppets and Sesame Street to life for you as a child have also led fulfilling, meaningful lives of their own partly as a result. Who even knows what I’m talking about, I’m sobbing under fluorescent lighting.
The Jersey Shore has given us many gifts this holiday season: the gift of nicknames; the gift of overwrought musculature; the gift of lesbianism for the sole purpose of getting attention; the gift of the fist pump; the gift of a puzzling-yet-spectacular aversion to shirts; and the gift of overstyled hair. Of all the highlights, crispy tresses, and teased crowns in that house, no do is more marvelous than Pauly D's. The way it glistens in the prism of moonlight reflecting off the vomit-infused hot tub and the Situation's glistening pectorals, the way it doesn't move after neither shower, nighttime slumber, nor brisk parasail. It's full of questions, such as, what's up with the faux cornrows? If you dripped melted ice cream onto them, would it even penetrate through to his scalp, or would it evaporate in the sunlight, thereby creating yet another shell to encrust and protect the cornrows from the elements at Headliners and Karma? The genius reporters at the Daily News went to Pauly D himself for answers, and they brought a video camera to capture the 25-minute magic that results in this most remarkable of coifs.
Are we the only ones starting to find these people charming?
Viva las tatas! Plastic surgeons lobbying hard for the exclusion of the "Bo-tax" can rejoice, for our elected officials declared today that cosmetic procedures should continue to be provided tax free, so that the unrealistic, cartoonish standards of beauty this country has championed can continue to be upheld and women of a certain age will still be able to get work. But the victory for the saggyboobed comes at the expense of the pasty.
The Wall Street Journal informs us:
Amid pressure from doctors, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided to remove a proposed 5% tax on elective cosmetic surgery in the health bill that was expected to raise $5 billion over a decade. In place of what was known as the Botax, he added a 10% tax on indoor tanning services.
This feels wrong to us, and not just because our politicians again caved to an industry supported by powerful lobbyists. (What'd you trade for this, Reid? A brow lift? Some work around the chin? We bet you did, you old schnauzer.) This is not only a tax on the pasty, it's a tax on the poor, the chubby (everyone knows a tan makes you look thinner), and, we suspect, yet another attempt to marginalize the cast of Jersey Shore. End Guido discrimination now!
If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're in love with the breezy, beautiful compositions of New York Fashion Week's favorite master of florals, Thakoon Panichgul. Well, thanks to Panichgul's new partnership with Japanese jeweler Tasaki, there's finally an accessory line perfectly formulated to match the up-and-comer's butterfly dresses and colorful gowns. Available in April, the line actually makes pearls look cool. [WWD]
Divorce lawyers in England claim that Facebook is cited as a factor in up to 20 percent of the divorce petitions filed in the UK these days. [Telegraph]
On Saturday night, Chloë Sevigny attended the premiere of My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done in L.A., where the weather was probably the opposite of what was going on here and, therefore, perfectly appropriate for sandals.
But are leopard-spotted, drop-crotch, high-waisted pants ever appropriate in any weather?
Hollywood's leading box-office prognosticator, one Perez Hilton, is not happy with Avatar's opening-weekend grosses! "There's $500 million dollars shot to hell!" he screamed, before adding that "The most expensive movie ever made has FAILED at the box office." Sorry, James Cameron, looks like you'll have to turn in your HMFIC cap to the nearest authorities. [Perez Hilton]
AP - Let's raise a cup of Christmas cheer to the return of "Ernest in Love," nearly 50 years after this delightful little musical first graced an off-Broadway stage.
Front Page: Ruling allows studios to choose own Chinese partners -- The World Trade Organization has upheld a ruling requiring China to allow Hollywood studios the right to partner with Chinese distributors of their choosing on theatrical and DVD releases.
For obvious reasons, director Kathryn Bigelow is the name most closely associated with The Hurt Locker. But it’s also a fact that the film would not have existed without co-producer and screenwriter Mark Boal. As a journalist, Boal reported from the front lines in Iraq, and his screenplay for The Hurt Locker was based in part on the time he spent with an elite bomb-disposal unit. (Another article he wrote formed the basis for Paul Haggis’s In the Valley of Elah.) Pretty impressive, huh? Your first screenplay out the gate, and it happens to be The Hurt Locker. Boal spoke to Vulture about reconciling the demands of journalism and filmmaking, war movies in general, and about what the subjects of The Hurt Locker think about the film itself.
You initially worked in Iraq as a journalist. Was it a challenge to then turn around and go from reporting facts to making a dramatically satisfying fiction film?
It was actually exciting to have the freedom and imaginative power of fiction. It allowed me to go deeper into the war than I could as a reporter, because I could tell a story through the eyes of those three soldiers. I’ve always been a fan of books that create an interesting blend of fact and fiction — whether it’s Norman Mailer, or The Short Timers, or In Cold Blood. I’m a fan of that genre. So it was a question of how that can work in a movie, and to keep the tension always increasing.
The Hurt Locker has a fairly episodic structure, where the characters go from one bomb to another.
I wanted to be as realistic as possible and shine a light on the war. So the structure came out of that — for guys on the bomb squad, it really is kind of a daily battle with multiple bombs. At the same time, I also had the precedent in the back of my mind of Apocalypse Now, which is also told in chapters. It definitely captured a certain sensibility about the Vietnam War. I thought it would be a good way to make their reality seem convincing. It was more of a tonal question than a narrative one, for me. That structure was always there. You can never fully capture in any movie the horror of war, so it was a challenge to capture that and also the kernel of humanity of these guys.
What was your working relationship with Kathryn like?
We collaborated closely, and we produced the movie together. I was on set as the writer, which is somewhat unusual, but terrific for me and useful for Kathryn and the cast. I guess I’m a little spoiled by it. We had spirited, creative conversations from time to time, but by and large, the challenges we faced were financial, in terms of getting the movie made. No studio wanted it, and none of the mini-majors or specialty divisions wanted it. I don’t want to beat my chest too much about it, because every movie’s hard to make. But there really wasn’t a commercial appetite for it.
Why is that, do you think? Is it just that so many films about the Iraq War had failed at the box office?
Those films hadn’t come out yet. I think it’s mostly that there wasn’t a history. There were about 40 or 50 Iraq-themed films in development. By the time they had come out, we’d already started shooting, so their lackluster performance then made finding a distributor really hard. But to be honest with you, I don’t think a lot of these studios even bothered to read the script. “An Iraq spec? No, thank you.” Plus, Kathryn wanted to cast it with fresh faces, so that took out an element that might have helped get financing.
It’s also been an interesting phenomenon that so many films have been made about the Iraq War, especially given the fact that they haven’t made much money. After all, it wasn’t until some years after the Vietnam War ended that narrative filmmakers really started tackling it.
I’m proud to be part of a community of people who rolled up their sleeves and did that, whether the movies performed financially or not. One big, glaring difference I can think of between Iraq and Vietnam is the news coverage. During the Vietnam War era, you had TV coverage of the war saturating the airwaves every night, and that coverage wasn’t put through a military filter at all. So people had a very visceral sense of what was going on, a very concrete visual sense of the bloodshed. By contrast, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were covered in a much more controlled and antiseptic way on TV. The news media cheered the invasion of Iraq on — they helped whip the country into a really nationalistic fervor.
So, you think these films may have been a response to the watered-down coverage on TV?
At least, that’s what was on my mind; I don’t want to presume to speak for other filmmakers. But in some ways, I do think these films helped to be a counterweight to that and show what’s going on. People knew about the war, of course, but there were no images of the wounded. I remember the first time I saw a picture of a wounded soldier on the front page of the Times, and it was something like 2007! And until this year, there were no pictures of the coffins or funerals allowed in the media. Which is astonishing. I was in the U.K. promoting Hurt Locker over the summer, and you turn on the news, and every other news segment is about a funeral or showing these images. We were living in a strange news black hole, and I think that’s why filmmakers jumped in.
Although war movies show a lot of awful things, there is a school of thought out there that suggests that war movies — even the ostensibly antiwar ones — can’t help but romanticize war to a certain extent. Was this ever something you were concerned about?
I actually think every war movie is an antiwar movie in its own way — with the exception of some of the propaganda movies. I know Anthony Swofford made a big deal of this in his book, but the fact that soldiers talk about war movies and watch them isn’t really that surprising. I mean, cops watch cop shows. I’m a fan of movies about journalists, but I didn’t start working for newspapers because I saw All the President’s Men. The fact that they watch them and enjoy them … I never thought that was quite the telling psychological statement that some people make it out to be. It’s an oversimplification to say that they have that kind of influence on somebody’s life.
The fact is that war films, by their very nature, are pitched at a high dramatic range. Apocalypse Now is a movie that’s designed to be thrilling. It’s designed to show you the rock-and-roll aspect of war gone haywire. In some ways, so is Platoon. They’re not meant to be quiet movies. To me, the baseline question is: Do they capture some essential element of the war that they’re attempting to portray? That’s probably true of any movie that attempts to portray something historical. And if you can answer that question in the affirmative, then you can ask whether it’s a work of art. Those are the two burdens, I think.
In writing the screenplay, I was trying to show the logistical futility of the war, despite the fact that it’s decent people trying to do their best in horribly screwed-up circumstances. I was thinking of the Vietnam War, which was basically over by the time I was born. I’d seen news footage of it, sure, but I really learned about it from the cinema of the seventies and the eighties — The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket. So my motivation was that we might make a movie that will hopefully be around for a while, and will help people learn about this war.
Private jets are now "making a comeback," according to the Wall Street Journal. One thing that isn't: sampling caviar and champagne while in flight. "I'm here to tell you no one is eating lobster," says the owner of a catering company that supplies the corporate jet industry. "A quick turkey box lunch to slam down while flying to meetings is the order of the day." Let's all take a moment to commend the CEOs who are foregoing life's little pleasures and bravely soldiering on regardless, shall we? [WSJ]
FRAGRANCE
• After revealing her love of the smell of diapers last month, Sarah Jessica Parker has a new, um, unusual fragrance inspiration: body odor! "I really like BO and I think it's sexy. I wanted to figure out a way to make it palatable to everybody." No. Just, no. [dlisted via Just Jared]
• Diddy gave Madame Tussauds wax museum a bottle of his I Am King fragrance to spray on his new wax figure. Because what's the point of having a wax replica of yourself if it doesn't smell like you? [Spoiled Pretty]
MAKEUP
• FabSugar has a great tribute to Brittany Murphy, highlighting some of her best beauty looks over the years. [FabSugar UK]
• Ellis Faas Cosmetics will launch in the U.S. in January. French Vogue named Faas, who has worked with Karl Lagerfeld and Lancôme, "one of the most influential makeup artists of her time." Her makeup line was previously only available in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and includes products for skin, lips, and eyes. [StyleList]
HAIR
• England's Advertising Standards Authority ruled that Virgin Media had to pull an advertisement that was prejudice against redheads and likely to offend them. This isn't the first anti-redhead case the agency has dealt with this year. [BBC News via Beauty Counter/Style.com]
• Apparently Kim Kardashian imparted five good beauty lessons this year, including that finger waves are cool and chicks shouldn't be afraid to try new hair dos. [Girls in the Beauty Department/Glamour]
• L'Oreal Professionnel will bring European products stateside when the Série Naturelle collection launches in the U.S.. The line is sulfate-, paraben-, and silicone-free and made with 100 percent natural fragrances, colors, and recycled packaging. However, the line costs more than traditional products, at $23 to $33 per item. [StyleList]
Over the weekend, the Senate amended the health-care bill by replacing the proposed 5 percent tax on elective plastic-surgery procedures with a proposed 10 percent tax on indoor tanning. The American Medical Association lobbied hard against the Bo-tax, arguing it discriminated against women. Either the tanning associations of America have little clout among easily sunburned legislators, or the tan tax presumably discriminates against both sexes equally, probably in the highest concentration along, say, the Jersey Shore. Man. We've been dreaming of an orange summer over there. A white-ish one just won't be the same. [WSJ]
Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund and Danielle Chiesi, the analyst who was caught on tape fretting that she would end up like "Martha fucking Stewart" if she got caught giving him tips, entered not-guilty pleas today to criminal charges against them at their arraignments in Federal District Court. We're not convinced, but one thing we can exonerate them for on the basis of today's appearance are crimes of fashion. Raj showed up looking spiffy (and dare we say it, slightly trimmer?) in a suit and tie, and Chiesi, for her part, made up for the bulky white sweater and home dye job she sported in her perp walk by showing up in a cape, high heels, and Jackie O. sunglasses. “She acted like a movie star,” one of the photographers said, after she bowed into a silver Lexus, according to the Times.
The Wall Street Journal today offered the following anecdote as an example of how James Gorman, Morgan Stanley's new CEO, is an exemplar of the new, more cautious era on Wall Street.
Before his first day at Morgan Stanley in 2006, James Gorman went to Las Vegas to play poker. He watched Texas hold 'em for hours, without ordering a drink. Once he started playing, he won hundreds of dollars, says a person who was there. It isn't much of a gambling story, especially by Wall Street standards. But it explains why the 51-year-old Mr. Gorman is about to become the first postcrisis CEO on Wall Street.
That's pretty awesome. It's kind of like if one of his friends said, "Sure, he had sex with prostitutes, but they were definitely 18 and he always used a condom."
Not so long ago, during that recently deceased time we now refer to as the "Luxury Era," Fashion Weeks sprang up everywhere, inviting both debutantes and Dubai oligarchs alike to follow a never-ending series of posh events with hot local designers, beautiful women, and free Bumble and Bumble products. Well, the dream is dead and, if you need proof, look to our Antipodean friends who have just seen their Australian Swim Fashion Week sink to the bottom. Canceled owing to a lack of financial backing, the death of this swimwear week begs the question: If Queensland, a place where women live cradle to grave in their beachside attire, can't survive, what will happen to Miami's bikini-heavy Fashion Week?
James Cameron is renowned and heralded for filling his movies with strong female characters (Ripley, Sarah Connor, Titanic’s Rose). And Avatar is no different: Sigourney Weaver's scientist, Dr. Grace Augustine, is a hard-nosed, chain-smoking scientist, the most renowned in her field. Yeah! And yet, when she slips into her blue Pandora avatar, the latest Cameronian nod to girl power (in Weaver’s case, at least) gets a lot more iffy.
Here's how Pandora works: The male characters’ avatars are the strongest, most powerful versions of their current selves, but they share their respective human's facial structure, general build, and age. Leading man Jake Sully’s (Sam Worthington) blue doppelgänger can walk, run, fly, and mate — things his crippled human self is unable to do, and cowering science-geek Norm Spellman’s (Joel David Moore) avatar is a macho action man. But looking at them, you can see right away that they’re Sully and Spellman’s blue twins. But then look at the avatar for Weaver's Dr. Augustine: When we’re introduced to her, the slinky alien is wearing a belly-baring Stanford T-Shirt and sporting beaded dreadlocks, a marked difference from her usual lab coat and fine lines. So Augustine transforms from a 60-year-old scientist into a college-age Outward Bound instructor?
Weaver graduated from Stanford in 1972, so perhaps the shirt is a wink … but again, it’s a wink to a much younger Weaver. Why is Augustine the only one whose transformation involves a face-lift and seventies chic? Granted, both of the male leads are somewhere in their early thirties to begin with, and there’s no telling what Cameron would have done with an elderly male avatar. But it seems suspect that in Avatar’s female-empowerment universe (Zoe Saldana’s Na'vi character, Neytiri, is the true hero of the story), that Augustine emerges as an alien who’s 40 years younger. Is Cameron hinting that in their most idealized versions, women want to have the wisdom of a long life, but the body of a 20-year-old? We'd like to think that's a genderless issue. And for the record: We wouldn’t go running around in a belly tee, no matter what world we were living in.
The impending financial disaster at Stuyvesant Town has gotten plenty of ink — including our new behind-the-scenes breakdown — but it may only be the beginning of a nightmare for tenants citywide. Housing advocates say overpriced buildings all over the city are in or near default, leading not only to rotten conditions, but raising the spectre of widespread abandonment.
In boom times, Wall Street investors and buyers of commercial, mortgage-backed securities planned to squeeze 20 percent profits from residential buildings. The tenants who paid their rents and followed the rules are increasingly feeling Wall Street's folly trickle down, as these investors default on loans or even go bankrupt, and maintenance and services simply disappear.
Lisa Lopez is wearing out the phone calling 311 on her landlord. The 35-year-old tenant-association president, who lives at 820 Jackson Avenue in the Bronx, says it's nearly impossible to get the management company to make repairs: “My neighbor, her ceiling and her wall are separating so much, every time it rains, it rains inside. Another neighbor, she's got mildew just growing on the walls. Growing on the wall! And her daughter's asthmatic.” Don't even get her started on the mice and rats. “The rodent problem is ridiculous. From the time I brought my [2-year-old] daughter home from the hospital, I couldn't put her in the crib. I find droppings in there. And I'm a clean person, but this is a problem. The new owner, it's like their sole purpose is just to let the building deteriorate.”
Problems started in 2007, when Normandy Real Estate Partners, a private-equity-backed investor, bought the Sharon and two other buildings in the neighborhood. At $131 million, the purchase price was far beyond what the income of South Bronx apartments filled with rent-stabilized tenants could sustain. Ms. Lopez and organizers at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board say in order to make their mortgage and pay investors, the new owners simply stopped doing maintenance. Unsurprisingly, conditions in the buildings nosedived, and Ms. Lopez and her neighbors put the city's housing inspectors on speed dial. The rats, mold, and leaks are so bad that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is now threatening to withhold its Section 8 payments.
Max Stein, a consultant who manages government services for the Normandy portfolio, says the landlord takes tenant requests for repairs seriously. "The owners are more than happy to make repairs," he says. "There is a program for addressing conditions in the buildings, as long as tenants communicate with the owners. He checks into it, and it’s done."
Stein says he is unaware of any concern from HUD over the physical conditions of the buildings or any threat to withhold Section 8 subsidies. "I never heard anything about that," he says.
In March, ten buildings — home to 600 families — in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx went into foreclosure. They were owned by Milbank, another private-equity-backed developer, according to UHAB. In West Harlem, it was the Riverton Apartments, now in default. In El Barrio, it was the Dawney Day buildings. The owner is bankrupt.
The Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers, a nonprofit that does research and advocacy on affordable housing, says hundreds of buildings like Ms. Lopez's are in danger of defaulting on their mortgages. An ANHD report from November suggests that if that happens, neighborhoods across the city — the same ones that suffered neglect and abandonment a generation ago — will see a wave of disrepair and abandonment.
Executive director Ben Dulchin estimates that as many as 100,000 apartments could go into default in the next few months. “If the genie is out of the bottle, it will have a very destructive impact on a lot of good, stable, working-class neighborhoods,” he told us.
NHD tracked ten portfolios of private-equity-backed apartments like the Sharon for the past year. All ten were on industry default watch lists.
“The banks need to restructure these loans. They need to take a hit,” Dulchin says, arguing that banks violated their own lending standards when they underwrote wildly inflated purchase prices. “There are some portfolios out there that will default and really be a mess. But in most of these buildings, there can be an orderly de-leveraging,” he says. The struggle ANHD and other affordable-housing advocates see in the next several months is convincing the banks, and to a lesser degree investors, that they lost their bet and now need to get the buildings responsible mortgages — and responsible landlords.
That's a tough sell in a city where someone is always willing to take a real-estate gamble, especially in a down market. If buildings are simply sold at a slightly lower price, but one still unsupported by the rent, the cycle will continue, Dulchin says. “This speculative model will continue. We thought it died with the economic crisis. But it didn't.”
Italian geologist Antonio Moretti (R) organises bones presumed to be part of baroque artist Michelangelo Merisi (also known as Caravaggio), at the Porto Ercole cemetary on December 21 in Porto Ercole,... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 21 Dec 2009 | 1:48 pm
Over the weekend, Rush & Molloy reported that money manager Jeffrey Epstein recently settled a lawsuit that had been brought against him by one of his alleged victims, an unnamed woman who says the pervy billionaire forced her to be his sex slave from the ages of 15 to 19. The terms of the settlement weren't disclosed. (Word has it Epstein has offered other accusers "a minimum of $150,000" in the past.) But his legal problems are far from over: A dozen other women, who all claim Epstein took advantage of them when they were minors, still have lawsuits pending against him.
Bradley Edwards, an attorney for three of those women, recently questioned Epstein's pilot, Larry Visoski, about plane passengers who might have witnessed Epstein in the company of young girls. Mentioned in the deposition were Bill Clinton, Britain's Prince Andrew, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former Colombian President Andrés Pastrana Arango, Obama economic adviser Lawrence Summers, billionaire Ron Burkle, and actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker. (While none of them has been accused of wrongdoing, any could be subpoenaed.)
Visoski corroborated that minors from other countries traveled on Epstein's plane but insisted he never suspected his boss of having sex with them.
The woman Epstein just settled with, who is identified in court papers as Jane Doe 102, made similar allegations in her suit, although she went on to suggest that some of Epstein's pals actually participated in the "sexual exploitation," too. One other tidbit she included in her suit: That Epstein refused to have anything to do with black women. The relevant passage from Jane Doe 102's just-settled suit is below, as is the full lawsuit, just in case you're looking for some tawdry reading this afternoon.
The recent uproar over the change in Facebook privacy settings was based mostly on the ham-handed way the company went about it: In their announcement to users, the social network implied that the changes would make profiles more private, but in fact made many profiles less private by exposing friend lists and photos. Which means more users will have the ability to click on more pieces of information, making for a potential page-view bonanza. But that motivation aside, the move signals yet another blow to the concept of online anonymity, moving us closer to the reality of personal transparency. And when forced to identify themselves as, well, themselves, people are a lot more careful about what they say online — and the Internet starts to become a more friendly, and perhaps cloying, place. Welcome to Mayberry Online.
For years, the Internet operated in the vein of the classic 1993 New Yorker cartoon that was captioned, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Anonymity — whether in a chat room, on a blog, or in a comments section — was the norm. No longer. It's a move that's being driven both by users, who have been moving away from having "online" identities to operating with their "IRL" (in real life) identities, and by the founders of social-media platforms like Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, who see advantages in encouraging people to be their "real" selves. But one of the perhaps unintended byproducts of the shift is a new culture of online politeness that some see as long overdue and others find to be obnoxiously saccharine.
Take what happened a few weeks ago, when Slate blogger Mickey Kaus noticed something odd about Twitter. He'd posted a tweet ribbing CNN President Jon Klein for canceling Crossfire, but when he checked back to see if Klein had responded, he noticed that his post didn't show up in Twitter's search function. The results were mostly, Kaus wrote, "a tame (and lame) series of attaboys, welcome-backs, and this-is-what-he-saids." Then Kaus tried another experiment: He searched the names of celebrities on Twitter, like Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, and Alyssa Milano, and found that nearly all were blandly pleasant. And so Kaus surmised that Twitter was "curating" the search for its celebrity tweeters. He was never able to get a confirmation or denial from anyone at Twitter (the company was likewise unresponsive to Daily Intel's requests for comment). But what if Twitter isn't censoring? ("That would confound my faith in the bad behavior of the American people," says Kaus.) It seems like an almost scarier proposition — the idea that the freewheeling, anything-goes ethos of the Internet has given way to a bland echo chamber of ego-stroking. But maybe that's what's happened: On Facebook, we can only "like" things that people post; on Tumblr, there's likewise only a "heart" button to indicate our approval. Twitter has a star. When people write things on Facebook or Tumblr or Twitter that we disagree with or simply find disagreeable, we can block them without their knowledge of our disapproval, and we never again have to see their posts about how much Going Rogue speaks to them.
In this new world of nice netiquette, technology is designed to make it easier for everyone to love one another. After all, if you're not your "real self" online, how will Leighton Meester know it's you who loved her dress at the Teen Choice Awards? Or take what's happened with online reviews: The average score across the web is now 4.3 stars out of 5. And the more people have to stand behind their real identities, the harder, it seems, it is for them to be consistently critical. It's much easier to play nice.
Allison Mooney, vice president of emerging trends at media consulting firm Mobile Behavior, says that there's also a generational divide at work. "I think Gen X is a very sarcastic generation, and sarcasm doesn't really translate online," she says. "Gen Y has grown up interacting with people online. They've developed different social skills, a different rapport. Being sort of dry, sarcastic, snarky — that's not going to get you any friends online." Making friends — whether that's counted in the number of followers you have on Twitter or Tumblr, your Facebook friends, or how many people "like" something you write — has become the goal. "Social currency is only built around positive interactions," says Mooney.
"It's actually why a lot of those [negative] blogs moved over to WordPress," says Karp. "[They] looked so out of place on Tumblr. It's just not that kind of environment."
Last week, the house of Emanuel Ungaro announced that a top name was leaving the company. Surprisingly, the top name was not Lindsay Lohan, the recently acquired adviser whose collection (co-designed with Estrella Archs) has become a favorite chew toy of fashion critics. Rather, it was CEO Mounir Moufarrige, the very man who hired LiLo. When Moufarrige was in talks to bring on Lohan, then-designer Esteban Cortazar bailed on the line, hinting that he refused to work with the troubled actress. Naturally, those in the know speculated that LiLo's disastrous debut, which was followed by less-than-stellar sales, was the CEO's main reason for leaving. Not so, says Moufarrige, who's been at the company eighteen years. The departure “has nothing to do with Lindsay Lohan at all ... The strategy is set for Ungaro and that’s it.” How wonderfully polite and noncommittal of him. Anyways, Moufarrige will still have a finger (if not a hand) in ongoing operations at Ungaro.
"When I was in first grade I did a play about being a crayon. I was yellow. It was pretty amazing." —Joe Jonas on his early acting resume [MTV]
"We went there to get a feel for the real tropical environment that Jim was going to generate in the computer. But, since we were pretending to be Na'vis, he made us wear fake pointed ears and flimsy g-strings and run around basically half-naked pretending to be our characters. Suddenly, some guy walked around a tree and said, 'What are you doing here?' I said, 'We're filming a movie.' He looked over and there was Jim with a little Handycam taking some pictures. He said, 'Is that James Cameron? Good God, he's gone a long way down since Titanic, poor guy.' We had a good laugh over that one." —Sam Worthington on doing Avatar research in Hawaii [Parade]
"I sang as a choirboy in a local church when I was a schoolboy, but other than that, I hadn't done any singing to speak of. Rob Marshall convinced me, really against my better judgment, that I would be able to pull it off. I really tried to think of every excuse I could not to do it because I felt he needed somebody else. I think I gave him a few names actually, but he kept saying, 'No, I think you can sing.'" —Daniel Day-Lewis on doubting himself for Nine [Parade]
"It felt like a giant demolition ball in a way. The impact of it was so hard." —Susan Boyle on her instant fame [Showbiz Spy]
"It's important not to be too confident as an actor. I don't want to get to the set and feel like I know what I'm doing and be very secure. That would really scare me." —Penélope Cruz on keeping her self-esteem low [Parade]
"We are going to try and get Tiger Woods for the second one ... and help him regain his image." —Todd Phillips will rescue Woods with the sequel to The Hangover [HollyScoop]
Styling is the dream job of the naughties for little girls, according to the London Times. They could be right. Dream jobs usually aren't dream jobs unless it's basically impossible to make a decent living off them and only an infinitesimal number of pursuers make it far enough to make that living. The core task of a dream job must also be theoretically fun, and picking out outfits for people is a theoretically fun thing to do for many women. Dream jobs also usually come with fame potentia, and with Rachel Zoe going from dressing red-carpet walkers to walking among them herself, albeit on an inherently lower level, styling certainly falls into the "dream career" category.
So no longer are the stylists insignificant creatures crouched on floors in photo studios picking up pins and unpacking garment bags and helping models put their shoes on; they are real people — with names. And ... Bravo reality shows. However, stylists are not safe from residing in the underbelly of the high-fashion world. In the entertainment industry you have soap stars and Oscar-nominated actresses. 10 magazine editor Sophia Neophitou, also the creative and fashion director of British Harper’s Bazaar, notes that in the styling industry, you have celebrity stylists and high-fashion magazine stylists.
Neophitou says it is the likes of Zoe who encourage young girls to hanker after a career as a stylist: “They see it as glamorous, working with celebrities,” she says, although she is at pains to point out that dressing celebs is not the same thing as directing a photoshoot. “In terms of credibility, that’s something you just don’t want to become. Celebrity stylists seem to ride on the coat-tails of that celebrity.”
Well, in Zoe's defense, she rides on the coattails of many celebrities and has done that well enough to have people riding on her coattails, too (or at least Brad Goreski — we're not sure if Roger counts but we're leaning toward no).
But celebrity style is becoming increasingly less boring in the age of Lady Gaga, when every diva except Taylor Swift seemingly feels like they have to wear hooves and stuffed animals and garbage pails just to keep up. Maybe in the next decade finding crazy outfits for celebrities will be the new finding crazy outfits for models for avant-garde European magazines. As Gaga's main stylist, Nichola Formichetti, the creative director of Dazed & Confused and fashion director of Japanese Men's Vogue, tells the Times, dressing Gaga is like creating "a living fashion magazine." If she's the walking Dazed, Rihanna must be the walking Flare-Purple hybrid.
Remember the "botax" that Congress was thinking about including in the health care bill, which would impose a five percent tax on cosmetic surgery procedures? It was dropped from the bill over the weekend as part of a concession to the American Medical Association, which had lobbied hard against its inclusion for obvious reasons. The nation's tanning salons don't have as much of a presence on Capitol Hill, apparently, because the 10 percent tax on "indoor tanning services" was kept in, and is expected to contribute $2.7 billion to fund health care reform over the next decade. [NYDN, WSJ]
An inside view of the 5th century BC Parthenon temple, part of the Acropolis monument complex in Athens, taken during a media tour of the site in 2005. Workers have removed scaffolding from the monumental... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 21 Dec 2009 | 12:17 pm
SALES ENDING TOMORROW
• Shop wholesale prices at the Tucker studio sale. 423 W. 14th St., nr. Tenth Ave., Ste. 3R, buzzer 8; F (8–8), M–T (8–8).
ONGOING
• Shop discounts of up to 80 percent off on fur vests, scarves, jackets, hats, throws, and pillows at the Adrienne Landau holiday blowout sale. Through 12/23. 519 Eighth Ave., nr. 36th St., twenty-first fl.; M–W (10–6).
• Find final markdowns on cocktail dresses and gowns from Donald Deal, Pamella Roland, Melinda Eng, and more. Through 12/23. 519 Eighth Ave., nr. 36th St., twenty-first fl.; M–W (10–6).
• Shop the recently extended Rebecca & Drew sample sale, featuring skirts, shirts, and dresses all under $100 (originally $150–$800). Through 12/23. 344 W. 13th St., nr. Eighth Ave.; M–W (10–6).
• Victor Hugo's exotic-skin handbags are up to 80 percent off. Through 12/23. 519 Eighth Ave., nr. 36th St., twenty-first fl.; M–W (10–6).
• Shop discounts on fall 2009 Kooba handbags and Tocca apparel. The Natasha suede shoulder tote with contrast piping is $320 (originally $645), the classic floral-print silk dress is $85 (originally $286), and the Courtney leather clutch with a side bow is $120 (originally $245). Through 12/23. 261 W 36th St., nr. Seventh Ave., second fl.; M (11–7), T (11–6), W (11–5).
• Donate a used coat to Barbour's coat drive and receive 25 percent off a new Barbour jacket. Donated coats will go to local residents in need. Through 12/26. 1047 Madison Ave., at 80th St. (212-570-2600); M–S (10–6), Su (noon–5).
• Select items from the Built by Wendy fall collection are 30 percent off. The glitter madras plaid V-neck blouse is $109 (originally $156), the silk floral scoop-neck minidress is $168 (originally $240), the Marine wool leggings are $102 (originally $146), and the wool-hooded car coat with brown-leather trim is $220 (originally $315). Through 12/30. 46 N. 6th St., nr. Kent St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn (718-384-2882) and 7 Centre Market Pl., nr. Broome St. (212-925-6538); M–S (noon–7), Su (noon–6).
• Merchandise from Henrik Vibscov, C.Neeon, Rodebjer, and more is 50 to 60 percent off at Eva. The Henrik Vibscov leather dress is $325 (originally $795), the TV hooded sweater is $195 (originally $408), and the TV crochet corset is $125 (originally $288). Through 12/31. 355 Bowery, nr. 4th St. (212-925-3890); daily (noon–8).
• Select men's and women's clothing is 30 percent off at Rogan, including outerwear. The women's silk dress is $209 (originally $296), the women's bomber jacket is $319 (originally $456), and the men's peacoat is $409 (originally $595). Through 12/31. 330 Bowery St., at Bond St. (646-827-7567); M–S (noon–8), Su (noon–7).
• Select merchandise is 50 percent off at First Among Equals during the holiday sale. Through 12/31. 177 Orchard St., Stanton St. (212-253-2202); M–F (1–9), S–Su (noon–8).
• Select fall 2009 womenswear, menswear, jewelry, shoes, and accessories are 25 to 40 percent off at Bird. The Alexander Wang viscose Goddess dress is $379 (originally $625), the Thakoon floral twist-front dress is $499 (originally $845), and the Zero + Maria Cornejo Marla dress is $359 (originally $598). Through 12/31. Various hours and locations.
• Womenswear and shoes are 25 to 40 percent off at Project No. 8. The Margiela gray Replica heels are $573 (originally $765), the Stephan Schneider purple-and-black knit cardigan is $198 (originally $284), and the yellow VPL dress is $327 (originally $545). Through 12/31. 138 Division St., nr. Orchard St. (212-925-5599). T–Su (1–8).
• Menswear and shoes are 25 to 40 percent off at No. 8b. The Margiela Flocked sneakers are $386 (originally $515), the Stephan Schneider gray cardigan is $161 (originally $269), and the Aspesi jacket is $201 (originally $268). Through 12/31. 38 Orchard St., at Hester St. (212-925-5599); Tu–Su (noon–7).
• Eyewear by Dior, Gucci, Tom Ford, Lafont, and more starts at $50 at James Leonard Opticians. Through 12/31. 1010 Second Ave., nr. 53rd St. (212-753-7733); 209 Smith St., nr. President St., Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn(718-222-8300); M, W, F (10–7), T, Th (10–8), S (10–6).
• Get 20 percent off everything on Digby & Iona's website, including the new fall collection, by entering "holiday" in the promo section at checkout. Through 12/31. digbyandiona.com.
• Balenciaga is offering 40 percent off select merchandise. Short-sleeve silk cowl-back dresses are $469 (originally $795), gray cloque jackets are $1,189 (originally $1,995), and the black-leather woven platform booties are $679 (originally $1,145). Through 1/1. 542 W. 22nd St., nr. Tenth Ave. (212-206-0872); daily (11–7).
Hong Kong filmaker John Woo arrives at the 28th Hong Kong Film Awards (HKFA) presentation ceremony in Hong Kong on April 2009. Woo will receive a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at next year's Venice... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 21 Dec 2009 | 12:10 pm
Reminding us the recession is anything but a distant memory, Phi has announced it will shutter owing to economic conditions. Susan Dell, wife of Michael Dell of computer fame, founded the label in 2003. It developed a cult following in New York, where its runway shows were held. The clothes were great, so this is sad news for the city's fashion scene.
The Phi store on Greene Street in Soho will probably close at the end of next month. The pre-spring delivery which arrived earlier this month will be the last. WWD reports:
"It's a really challenging climate right now for luxury goods," said Phi chief executive officer Julia Hansen. "There is not so much confidence in that market going forward."
The label will offer staffers "transitional support" as operations wind down.
A judge just sentenced Brooke Astor's conniving son, Anthony Marshall, to one to three years behind bars, and he will be required to report to prison on January 19. [NYT]
A giant European Union flag is unfurled over the facade of Barcelona's La Pedrera building, the emblematic modernist building by architect Antoni Gaudi. Barcelona has given Shanghai a replica of the statute... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 21 Dec 2009 | 11:27 am
Behold, Spoon Chopsticks: A solution for everyone who’s been trying to eat soup by throwing a single chop stick at it while singing Blur’s “Song 2″ (i.e., everyone)…
Now if only there were an easier tool for eating non-liquid food — perhaps some sort of four-pronged stabbing device that’s also capable of scooping? We could call it a Blaxnorffff. Also it would shoot lasers.
After the jump, see this so-called “Spoon” (named after the band?) in action:
I believe the applicable Apu quote would be…
You’ve got to start charging more than a dollar a bag… we lost three more men on this expedition!
If you can think of a better way to get ice, I’d like to hear it.
A few months ago, while making on appearance on It’s On with Alexa Chung, I noticed a slight, underaged boy wandering around backstage in the tiniest of hipster suits. “Isn’t that sweet?” said my brain with clasped hands, “Someone brought their newborn child to work and put it in a suit!” And within seconds, a dozen or so handlers walked out of a door like a sight gag from a post-Millennial Groucho Brothers movie and began primping and spraying this veritable zygote before my very eyes.
That was when I first learned of Justin Bieber, the 15 year old Canadian pop star with the voice of an angel, discovered on Youtube by the masses, and eventually signed by Usher back in 2007. And even though Justin has all the sexual swagger of a Teletubby, he’s become quite a hit with the underaged ladies — especially considering Zac Efron has finally undergone puberty.
Sadly, Bieber broke his foot about a month ago after falling off of a stage (teenagers!). He even sang through the broken bone fiasco! But that hasn’t stopped the Bieber express from continuing to make the tweens swoon with quasi-sexual delight. He’s opening for Taylor Swift on tour, and is going to give Dick Clark a whiff of his underaged soul on Clark’s legendary “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.”
Below, we have an extensive gallery of Justin performing with broken foot and all at the Radio Disney concert at Celebration Town Center in Orlando, FL.
"What we're trying to do now is make art without fear"
Look back at the decade in our new issue, on stands now: the 100 Best Albums and Songs, Top 10 Movies and much more.
The Rolling Stone editors picked eight stars — from Bruce and Beyoncé to Radiohead and U2 — who not only made the best music but also led the way as Artists of the Decade in our
A few years ago, I became obsessed with the idea of ear candling: Sticking a lit candle in your ear, which in turn then sucks the most undesirable of aural waxes out of your earholes and out for the world to marvel at. Imagine how deliciously loud everything would seem without all that pesky wax that lives beneath the reaches of your everyday Q-tip. And all it would take is turning your head into a veritable Looney Tunes murder gone right? Sold.
Sadly, I never actually went through with this fantasy ear candling scenario because a. people claim it doesn’t work and b. the only place it seemed one could buy ear candles was (my new favorite) website Earcandles.com, which, no thank you.
But bless, it appears the Christmas Spirit has brought us a short video of pure, unadulterated ear waxtacular joy! Because Jessica Simpson’s BFF4LYF Ken Paves gave the pop star ear candles for Christmas! And J-Simps was brave enough to demonstrate just what a fun activity ear candlin’ can be for the whole family. And by “fun,” what we mean is, you will be bent over a table with a lit piece of dynamite stuck in your ear screaming for mercy with only a Papa Johns box to protect your insured visage.
On the bright side, Jessica looks almost unrecognizably fresh and adorable sans makeup. Her head + candle = Jesus’ dream B-day cake!
Congrats, Jersey Shore — only took you three episodes to land an SNL Weekend Update appearance. When was the last time MTV generated this much buzz this quickly for something this actually awesome? Beavis and Butthead? The title cards with that astronaut? I Love Lucy?
And the real-life Situation definitely has backabs:
AP - "Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong," (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 512 pages, $30), by Terry Teachout: With his fun-loving stage persona and his mastery of music, he was beloved by people as varied as Johnny Cash, Jackson Pollock and Orson Wells. But there was more to Louis Armstrong than his artistic talent.
AP - "Hidden Empire" (Tom Doherty Associates Book, 335 pages, $24.99), by Orson Scott Card: A favorite among sci-fi readers and video gamers, the prolific Orson Scott Card has taken on a topic closer to real life than usual — and with more of a Christian tone.
AP - "Rewilding the World: Dispatches From the Conservation Revolution" (Metropolitan Books, 401 pages, $28.50), by Caroline Fraser: A prominent biologist has estimated that there are 10 million to 20 million different plants and animals, and says half may disappear by the end of the century.
Avatar grossed $73 million domestically in its opening weekend, which fell short of the industry projections, but which also isn’t bad considering the entire northeast looked like the movie Hard Rain if it was a movie about snow instead of rain.
Kevin Jonasmarried his longtime girlfriendDanielle Deleasa over the weekend, and finally fulfilled his brothers’ long-standing dare to bang her through his promise ring.
U2 bassist Adam Clayton is taking legal action against his personal assistant who he claims stole over £1.6 million from his accounts. Gee, I wonder who’s gonna win the “Best Legal Action Against Embezzlement” Grammy this year.
Tiger Woods was named the PGA’s “Player of the Year” on Friday, but I can’t think of any jokes about Tiger Woods being named “Player of the Year”.
And finally, Suri Cruise was voted “Most Stylish Celebrity Child” by whatever awful people vote on that.
AP - Fashion designer Tom Ford has made a seamless transition to filmmaker with "A Single Man," the soulful, immaculately styled story of a grieving college professor in 1960s California.
Simon Monjack didn't think "till death do us part" was coming any time soon.
"My world was destroyed yesterday," the widowed Brit told Access Hollywood Monday,...
If you watched Kendra last night, you know the E! star gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
And if you follow the 24-year-old beauty on Twitter, you know Hank Baskett IV almost gave his...
You would expect a hockey player to know his ice.
And Carrie Underwood's future hubby, Mike Fisher, appears well-versed in the subject, judging by the rock his betrothed was sporting...
Wondering what's the official cause of Brittany Murphy's death? Well, we're just as clueless as you.
The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office has just completed its...
Brody Jenner hasn't found his queen of Malibu after all.
The reality-TV scion has parted ways with his Playboy Playmate girlfriend, Jayde Nicole, sources close to the ex-couple...
Remember when Audrina Patridge posed in a gold bikini while eating a Carl's Jr teriyaki burger? Or when Paris Hilton stripped down to suds up a car for a Carl's Jr. spicy burger commercial...
Someone's getting hitched on Gossip Girl.
And someone is going to want to kick Jenny Humphrey in the shins. And it might be me.
Sources are spilling deets on what's...
The dissolving of LeAnn Rimes' marriage is moving along at a rapid clip.
Days after estranged husband Dean Sheremet filed for divorce, the former backup dancer filed additional...
Over the weekend, Rush & Molloy 
A few months ago, while making on appearance on It’s On with Alexa Chung, I noticed a slight, underaged boy wandering around backstage in the tiniest of hipster suits. “Isn’t that sweet?” said my brain with clasped hands, “Someone brought their newborn child to work and put it in a suit!” And within seconds, a dozen or so handlers walked out of a door like a sight gag from 
A few years ago, I became obsessed with the idea of ear candling: Sticking a lit candle in your ear, which in turn then sucks the most undesirable of aural waxes out of your earholes and out for the world to marvel at. Imagine how deliciously loud everything would seem without all that pesky wax that lives beneath the reaches of your everyday Q-tip. And all it would take is turning your head into a veritable Looney Tunes murder gone right? Sold.
