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Zsa Zsa Gabor having surgery to replace broken hip - Washington Post
Source: Entertainment - Google News | 19 Jul 2010 | 4:15 am NBC hosting education summit in September (AP)AP - NBC News is convening its own summit with education and political leaders in September to talk about ways to improve schools in light of statistics showing the U.S. lagging in student achievement.Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 19 Jul 2010 | 3:50 am NBC hosting education summit in September (AP)AP - NBC News is convening its own summit with education and political leaders in September to talk about ways to improve schools in light of statistics showing the U.S. lagging in student achievement.Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 19 Jul 2010 | 3:50 am Filipino singer undergoes cosmetic fix for `Glee' (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 19 Jul 2010 | 3:48 am Paris throws off top while paparazzi shoots - Hindustan Times
Source: Entertainment - Google News | 19 Jul 2010 | 3:45 am Filipino singer undergoes cosmetic fix for `Glee' (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 19 Jul 2010 | 3:43 am Mel Gibson may move back to Australia with ex-wife Robyn and kids - New York Daily News
Source: Entertainment - Google News | 19 Jul 2010 | 2:14 am Jennifer Love Hewitt as a mom-turned-prostitute in Lifetime movie 'The Client ... - New York Daily News
Source: Entertainment - Google News | 19 Jul 2010 | 2:14 am Lindsay Lohan Thinks Jail Isn'ta Done Deal - TMZ.com (blog)
Source: Entertainment - Google News | 19 Jul 2010 | 2:12 am Industry Roundup: Tobias and Gob to Be Reunited, Simon Pegg In For MI4 Wilde Thing: Fox’s Running Wilde is essentially turning into a pseudo Arrested Development spinoff. David Cross (AD’s Tobias Funke) has been added to the Mitch Hurwitz (AD’s creator) comedy as a series regular (he'll be playing a "radical environmentalist"). The show stars Will Arnett (AD’s Gob Bluth) and Keri Russell, who didn’t appear on Arrested Development but is still awesome. [Live Feed/HR] Simon Says: Simon Pegg is in negotiations to reprise his role of lab geek Benji Dunn in Mission Impossible 4. Though the movie hasn’t been officially greenlighted yet, director Brad Bird is having actors read this week. With this and his Star Trek role, Pegg has solidified his standing as Hollywood's go-to guy for quick-witted techies. [Heat Vision/HR] Monkey Business: Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, has been added to the cast of the Planet of the Apes prequel Rise of the Apes. Felton will play the son of Brian Cox, the co-owner of an ape facility. The film also stars James Franco, Freida Pinto, Andy Serkis and John Lithgow. Just try to remember what you learned in Care of Magical Creatures and you should be fine, Tom. [Variety] Road Trip: Nia Vardalos is both writing and starring in Happy Mother’s Day, a comedy about four suburban moms who decide to take a road trip for Mother’s Day. The project is being fast-tracked with hopes of starting production before the end of this year. "It's about the pressure of doing it all: raising children plus working, while your gut's held in by Spanx," Vardalos said. [Variety] Read more posts by Josh Duboff Filed Under: the industry, david cross, dustin clare, happy mother's day, jaime murray, marisa ramirez, mission impossible 4, movies, nia vardalos, rise of the apes, running wilde, simon pegg, spartacus: gods of the arena, tom felton, tv
Source: Vulture | 19 Jul 2010 | 12:30 am U.S. rapper B.o.B tops UK singles chart (Reuters)Reuters - American rapper B.o.B climbed two places to claim the top spot on Britain's singles chart on Sunday with "Airplanes," featuring Paramore rocker Hayley Williams, the Official Charts Company said.Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 19 Jul 2010 | 12:20 am "Ramona and Beezus" an uninspiring kids adaptation (Reuters)Reuters - Ramona Quimby, author Beverly Cleary's little girl with the supersized imagination, leaps to the big screen courtesy of the cheerfully innocuous if generically uninspired "Ramona and Beezus."Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 19 Jul 2010 | 12:18 am Trippy happy people songs move crowd at MGMT show (Reuters)Reuters - Summer's here, and the time is right for dancing -- or at least bouncing up and down a lot -- at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles.Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 19 Jul 2010 | 12:18 am Starz casts "Spartacus" prequel (Reuters)Reuters - Starz is firming up the cast and story line for its "Spartacus" prequel series, whose subtitle will be the epic-sounding "Gods of the Arena."Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 18 Jul 2010 | 11:23 pm E! co-founder launches celebrity website (Reuters)Reuters - The co-founder of E! is launching a celebrity-focused online network complete with several programs in the hope of establishing a new brand in the entertainment programing space.Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 18 Jul 2010 | 11:20 pm Times Casts Light on "Frantic and Fatigued" Online Journalists Gawker's infamous "big board." In a survey that paints a pretty bleak picture for young college graduates with their hearts set on a career in online journalism, the Times takes a look at the daily grind young journalists face in this increasingly stressful and page views-obsessed industry. Using Politico as its main example, the paper describes a work environment where staffers actually believe an April Fools’ Joke that they are meant to arrive at work each day by 5 a.m., a place where the best way they can think of to create a “friendly workplace conversation” is by requiring employees to wear name tags. This is an industry - with the focus on cranking out “anything that will impress Google algorithms and draw readers their way” - that can wear down even the liveliest of young spirits. And there are quotes from professor-types to prove it! “When my students come back to visit, they carry the exhaustion of a person who’s been working for a decade, not a couple of years,” said Duy Linh Tu, coordinator of the digital media program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. “I worry about burnout.” Gawker is also cited as one of the pressure-cooker media environments, due in part to the “big board” on the wall that displays the ten most-viewed articles across all Gawker Media websites updated in real time, a detail which was probably worked in primarily as a way to include this amusing Nick Denton quote: “Sometimes one sees writers just standing before it, like early hominids in front of a monolith,” the Gawker Media founder says. “But the best exclusives do get rewarded,” he goes on, referring to page view-based bonuses.
In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger [NYT] Read more posts by Josh Duboff Filed Under: blog-stained wretches, blogs, gawker, media, new york times, politico
Source: Daily Intel | 18 Jul 2010 | 10:55 pm Transportation Strike Could Shut Down Hollywood In what would be the third Hollywood work stoppage in the past three years, the industry’s transportation workers could be going on strike August 1, shutting down most television and film productions in Los Angeles, with the potential to affect sets in other cities as well. The Teamsters are looking for an annual raise of 3 percent instead of 2 percent when their contracts expire at the end of July, a difference representing millions of dollars per year. According to the Hollywood Reporter, there’s a real possibility this will actually happen, as “negotiations appear to be at an impasse" and “sources close to both the union and the producers say neither side will budge.” In other words, cherish the installments of Mad Men coming up since they may be the last new TV episodes you'll see for a long, long time. [HR] Read more posts by Josh Duboff Filed Under: labor disputes, movies, the industry, tv
Source: Vulture | 18 Jul 2010 | 10:22 pm Inception’s Dileep Rao Answers All Your Questions About Inception Over the weekend, Christopher Nolan's mind-bending Inception extracted $60.4 million from moviegoers, leaving many in a limbo-like state of confusion. Where to turn for answers? Today, Vulture had the pleasure of speaking with Dileep Rao, who plays Yusuf the chemist in the film (he was also in Avatar, which makes him, in terms of box-office bankability, the Indian Will Smith). Rao helpfully revealed everything he knows — and thinks he knows — about Inception's mechanics. SPOILERS ahead, obviously. Let's get the easy stuff out of the way first. Can you go over the rules of dreaming? Limbo is unconstructed dream space, unless one of the dreamers has been there — in our movie's case, someone has. And while you're in limbo, your brain can be destroyed. Like, you would be in a coma, or you could just leave your mind behind. Also, you can be in limbo for years and years, subjective limbo time, but in reality only moments have passed. Digging a little deeper now into the story now, can you walk me through whose dream is whose? There seems to be a rule of thumb, then, that whoever "sticks around" in a level, that person had to be the dreamer, right? It's why you're stuck driving the van and Joseph Gordon-Levitt chills out in the hotel. But that made me think the third level, the snow fort, was Eames' (Tom Hardy's) dream. You're right, it has to be Fischer's, because that's the level where they're planning to do the inception. That also means that in the hotel room, when Browning is talking to Fischer, we're actually watching — So how do Leo and Ellen Page get to limbo? So if it's a limbo party, it seems like limbo is a shared creative space, in a sense? I think a lot of people are confused by the ending/beginning where Ken Watanabe is an old man in limbo, but Leo is still super handsome. Is there anything to the idea that Leo knows he's in limbo? Ellen Page warns him something along those lines just before she leaves him in limbo... I kept thinking about how much he looks like Bizarro Chris Nolan. And if movies are the director's dream, that means Leo as Nolan is... Okay, well, can you explain how totems work? Oh good, because I want to get really speculative later. But first, as the chemist who invented the sedative, why is it important to synchronize the kicks, the triggers to wake you up? Hence at the top level, the van has the failsafe kick of falling and hitting the water? So at the end when they're sitting on the riverbank in Yusuf's dream, it's no big deal because they're not going to have to sit around too long... Any thoughts on how Cobb and Mal ended up in limbo way back when? I used to have this dream, or rather, this idea, that I'd just wake up at some point and I would be four years old again. And this life was just one trajectory my life could have gone on. But that's the thing that Mal got messed up by, because she lived so long on the lower level. Like, for me, how could waking up as a four-year-old seem real — jibe with what I've experienced as real? How do you believe in it, right? So what about the final shot, when the top seems like it could keep spinning before we cut to black. Let's call it the n-1 theory, where the whole film is all a dream, even the "reality" level. In other words, every level is one lower than we think it is. I felt a very dreamlike feeling when Cobb is being chased by the Cobol guys and Ken Watanabe shows up to save him. I mean, squeezing through the wall when they're coming for him, I've had so many nightmares like that. What if Leo is the one being "incepted" with an idea? We keep hearing the phrase "Do you want to become an old man, filled with regret?" and it's like someone — maybe Ellen Page's character because she's the catalyst of his emotional catharsis — has set this all up so he can let go of his regret over Mal's death. That's why at the end with Saito he offers to come back and be young again (not old, full of regret). Even the Edith Piaf song they use to signal ten seconds before kick translates to "No, I regret nothing." And there's so many scenes where Ellen Page is talking to Leo, getting him to reveal his issues, in the same way that Eames tricks Fischer into revealing his issues. Also, Leo's kids are the same age at the end, right? The problem for me is that you're using negative evidence to support a story that isn't there. I don't know what to say about a character who only exists before and after the movie. You're talking about a character who isn't on screen. And I mean on one hand, it's awesome that this movie can sustain that kind of discussion. It shows you just how well-though-through and comprehensive it is, but I mean I don't know where that kind of speculation ends. It's like people who are convinced 9/11 is an inside job. It's a mental heuristic failure to think that one or two minor details explain absolutely everything. I mean, kids wear the same clothes all the time. To me, it's a far more elegant story if it's a vast job that Leo has to pull off. The threat is real, the growth is real, the adversary is real. The weakness of "It's all a dream" — why we hate that, why we feel cheated when narratively anything is revealed to be all a dream — is that you've just asked me to spend so much time and emotional capital investing in the stakes of this, and you've now swept it away with the most anti-narrative structuralism that doesn't have anything to substitute in its place. It's laughing at you for even taking it seriously. You don't want to feel like a victim of the narrative, and I don't think Christopher Nolan would do that. For me, though, this film could say "It's all a dream" and I would feel even more satisfied. Because the premise is "through a very complex dream, we can enact real change in a character." All of the sudden it's not a fake-out bullshit journey, if that's the case. In other words, if I'm satisfied by the success of Fischer's transformation, then Leo's growth is just as satisfying. Close your eyes and listen to the sound at the end. I really do think the top wobbles and that it's real. Cobb does go on a journey, because that's what movies are, and I think that's what leads audiences to this kind of speculation. Because of the story he chose to tell, Nolan is also commenting on the nature of stories themselves, all stories, which is why Leo's change can't be evidence that it's all a dream. To me, the real story all boils down to Saito's line in the helicopter. Leo wants to go home and see his kids. Saito says, "I can help you, but it'll have to be an act of faith." Leo has to trust Saito, and he does this while putting total faith in himself and the team, and everything goes apeshit wrong, but he has to believe that if he does the job, Saito will do what he promised. And they've grown, they've become friends, which is why Leo says "Come back and let's be young men together." Leo's follow-through on that act of faith is his transformation. He becomes a person who can take a chance. There's also kind of a beautiful negative symmetry between that leap of faith, and Mal begging him to make a similar leap of faith. After he did that with her, and the guilt plagues him, he can't function any more. He's exploring his memories in a dangerous unhealthy way, and he's going to let that go by the time the movie's over. Everyone's so concerned about whether the top falls or not, but no one seems to care that Leo walked away without caring. The moment he sees their face, he can walk away. That's testimony to the fact that he's gained that faith. Related: The Hidden ‘Inception’ Within Inception Read more posts by Nick Confalone Filed Under: chat room, answers, christopher nolan, dileep rao, inception
Source: Vulture | 18 Jul 2010 | 10:10 pm Setback In Spill Containment As Seepage Is Detected in Gulf Just when a potential end to the disaster seemed in sight, some pesky seepage has gotten in the way. The U.S. government said Sunday that seepage was detected at the bottom of the Gulf, which means there could be oil leaking from the seabed once again. U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen has informed BP in a letter that the seepage was discovered near the oil well, in addition to “undetermined anomalies at the well head.” If the well leak is confirmed, the cap would most likely be reopened to prevent the situation from becoming even worse, meaning oil would steadily flow into the ocean once again. Sigh. [Reuters] Read more posts by Josh Duboff Filed Under: cleaning up, bp, oil spill
Source: Daily Intel | 18 Jul 2010 | 10:07 pm 'Salt' shaker - Boston Herald
Source: Entertainment - Google News | 18 Jul 2010 | 10:03 pm Jolie, Zeta-Jones Interested In Elizabeth Taylor Role Taylor in 1958. According to a report from the Telegraph, Angelina Jolie and Catherine Zeta-Jones have expressed interest in playing Elizabeth Taylor in an upcoming film about the actress’ storied love life. Mike Nichols would reportedly make the movie, an adaptation of the book Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century, itself based on love letters from Burton and a draft of Taylor's autobiography. Sources have named Russell Crowe, Clive Owen and Colin Farrell as potential Burtons. While Zeta-Jones arguably more closely resembles a younger Taylor, Jolie may have a slight edge in that she's already set to take on one of her most iconic roles. [Telegraph via ONTD] Read more posts by Josh Duboff Filed Under: elizabeth taylor, angelina jolie, catherine zeta-jones, clive owen, colin farrell, movies, russell crowe
Source: Vulture | 18 Jul 2010 | 9:20 pm Jeremy London, Rachel Uchitel, Janice Dickinson Enter Celebrity Rehab Surviving an alleged kidnapping is one thing; surviving rehab with Dr. Drew Pinksy is another.
Jeremy London, who calls his drug addiction a "day-to-day struggle," has signed on...
Source: E! Online (US) - Top Stories | 18 Jul 2010 | 9:00 pm Young fans lift 'Inception' to No. 1 - Los Angeles Times
Source: Entertainment - Google News | 18 Jul 2010 | 8:54 pm Sarah Palin Weighs In On Ground Zero Mosque, Compares Herself To Shakespeare Though you might think Sarah Palin would be a bit preoccupied this weekend, the former governor found the time to tweet up a storm Sunday, taking to her Blackberry to touch on the Ground Zero mosque controversy, as well as the English language. “Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real,” she posted, adding, “Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing.”
"'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' 'wee-wee'd up.' English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!"
Palin, Shakespeare and the Ground Zero Mosque [The Caucus/NYT] Read more posts by Josh Duboff Filed Under: ground zero mosque, america's sweetheart, neologisms, sarah palin, twitter
Source: Daily Intel | 18 Jul 2010 | 8:45 pm 'True Blood' review: The 'Trouble' with humor - Entertainment Weekly
Source: Entertainment - Google News | 18 Jul 2010 | 8:40 pm The Hidden ‘Inception’ Within Inception As pretty much everyone knows by now, Inception's titular concept is the placement of an idea into a character’s subconscious — a notion that the film presents as being more or less unprecedented. And the plot mostly concerns the efforts of our heroes, led by master dream extractor Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) to somehow convince Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the heir to a major energy titan, to split up his father’s empire, without realizing that the idea came from them. But since this is a Christopher Nolan movie, we’re not convinced it’s all that simple; the director’s films almost always turn in on themselves. We think there might be another inception going on in Inception. Needless to say, there are spoilers here, so you should probably not read this if you haven’t seen the film. (Though if you haven’t seen the film, you probably won’t know what the hell we’re talking about anyway.) The process of inception works, we’re told, by placing the simplest form of an idea deep into a character’s subconscious as they're dreaming, through a series of suggestions that effectively lead the character to “give himself the idea” (in the words of Tom Hardy’s master forger Eames). And the subconscious, we’re told, is motivated by emotion, not reason, and that a positive emotion trumps a negative one. The very deepest level of the subconscious is represented by a safe or a vault, inside which the mind keeps its most private thoughts and/or memories. “Do you want to become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?” These words (or something close to them) are uttered three times in the film. The first time, the words are those of Saito (Ken Watanabe), in his helicopter in Kyoto, when he first approaches Cobb about the possibility of inception. The second time, it’s in the first level of Fischer’s dream, after Saito has been shot, and Cobb tries to tell him that he’s not going to die: “You’re gonna become an old man,” Cobb says, and Saito replies, “Filled with regret.” Cobb completes the thought: “Waiting to die alone.” Already, it’s clear that this dialogue has to do with more than this particular moment in the film. It’s also significant that this happens just as Eames (Tom Hardy), pretending to be Browning (Tom Berenger) is trying to plant the idea (“incept”?) into Fischer’s head that his father may have wanted to split up his company. Fischer’s and Cobb’s fates seem strangely intertwined through the film. (“The deeper we go into Fischer, the deeper we go into you,” Ariadne says to Cobb.) The final utterance happens near the end of the film, in Limbo, as Cobb finds the aging Saito. This time, Saito begins the exchange: “I’m an old man,” he says. “Filled with regret,” Cobb replies. There’s something specially poignant about this scene, coming as it does on the heels of Cobb having told the shadow of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) that they did grow old together in their dream together on Limbo, many years ago, and that he has to let her go. This may well be the real “inception.” Cobb’s character has been consumed by regret — regret at what he’s done to his wife, regret at having abandoned his children, regret at not being able to return home. In his dreams he’s built an elevator (literally!) that stops at floors, each defined by a moment he regrets and that (as Cobb himself explains to Ariadne) he has to “change.” This elevator, and its forbidden Basement floor, which opens to the hotel room where his wife leaped to her death, could be seen as the vault in which Cobb keeps his innermost thoughts, much like the hospital/hangar where Fischer imagines his father’s deathbed, or the safe in Saito’s dream-fortress from the earlier scenes of the film. Interestingly, in Nolan’s first film, Following, one of the characters is a thief named Cobb who breaks into people’s homes and likes to say, “Everybody has their box,” referring to a box into which people always place seemingly random objects that are of sentimental value to them. In Inception, too, everybody has their box — be it a safe, a fortified hangar surrounded by armed guards on skis, or a stop on an elevator on which no one is allowed. In other words, the hotel room where Cobb last saw his wife, which is the forbidden floor on his Dream Elevator of Regret, is his “box.” Regret is the idea that defines Cobb (which makes his recurrent use of the Edith Piaf song “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” as a musical countdown to the end of a given dream rather ironic and touching), and in order for him to be free, he has to defeat it. The second part of the message that Cobb and Saito exchange in their final scene in Limbo — “Take a leap of faith. Come back, so we can be young men together again” — is in direct contrast to Mal’s desire to pull him further into his dream so that they can grow old together. Cobb defeats his regret by finally telling Mal that the two of them did grow old together in their shared dream. In other words, he fulfilled his wedding promise to her. This is, perhaps, the thing that Cobb once knew but had forgotten; it’s also a positive thought that trumps the negative feeling that he betrayed his wife. It seems like a realization on his part when he actually says it to her; but it’s been basically suggested to him through Saito’s repetition of the “old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone” meme. So, is Cobb being pulled back to reality by this thought, or is he being prodded further into his dream? That depends, perhaps, on how you view the very end of the film: At this point, Cobb seems to be finally freed of his regret and of his memory of Mal, and has been reunited with his children. The final shot seems to indicate that he may be still dreaming (because his totem keeps spinning). If so, then he has either lost himself in Limbo entirely, or Mal was right all along, and his world was always a dream. But whether he's still dreaming may ultimately be irrelevant: The important thing is that Cobb has been freed of his demons, and can now be reunited with what to him appear to be his real children — be they a projection or reality. Or, as the old man in Mombassa puts it, referring to the opium den of dreamers in Yusuf’s basement: “They come here to be woken up. Their dream has become their reality. Who are you to say otherwise?” Read more posts by Bilge Ebiri Filed Under: theory, christopher nolan, inception, movies
Source: Vulture | 18 Jul 2010 | 8:35 pm Bristol and Levi: A tale of two magazine stories (People vs. Us) - Washington Post (blog)
Source: Entertainment - Google News | 18 Jul 2010 | 8:26 pm Your Box Office Explained: Inception Blows Many Minds, as Predicted. The Sorcerer's Apprentice Doesn't, as Predicted THE WEEKEND'S WINNERS: Christopher Nolan's widely-praised Inception lived up to weeks of advanced buzz by opening to an estimated $60.4 million, a figure in line with the most optimistic pre-release projections. On the heels of last week's surprisingly strong showing by Despicable Me (which continues to pull in throngs of minions, already making its way to $118.4 million), this could be a sign that audiences really are okay with movies that aren't sequels, remakes or extensions of a pre-existing toy brand. Meanwhile, even more critically beloved The Kids Are All Right continues to live up to its title: In its second week in release, the Sundance smash made just over $1 million on just 38 screens (total tally: $1.8 million). HOW IT ALL WENT DOWN: Warner Bros. has been hyping Inception since last summer, playing up Nolan's connection to the film in a bid to build fanboy buzz (the first trailer was attached to prints of geek god Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds). The studio wisely lifted the embargo on reviews early two weeks before the movie's opening (after one critic jumped the gun), allowing the mostly positive reviews — and handful of dissenting ones — to become fodder for the entertainment blogosphere. Also, the film played on a record number of IMAX screens, whose higher ticket prices offset the fact that this was the increasingly rare blockbuster not shown in 3-D. Read more posts by Josef Adalian Filed Under: box office, inception, movies, the sorcerer's apprentice
Source: Vulture | 18 Jul 2010 | 8:25 pm Zsa Zsa Gabor To Have Surgery Monday After Fall The 93-year-old actress had a major scare this weekend when she broke her right hip after falling out of bed while reaching for a ringing telephone in her home. She is scheduled to undergo hip replacement surgery early Monday morning in Los Angeles. Gabor is said to be “in good spirits” and surrounded by her family, including husband Frederic Prinz von Anhalt. [LAT] Read more posts by Josh Duboff Filed Under: zsa zsa gabor,
Source: Vulture | 18 Jul 2010 | 8:14 pm Holy Inception! Christopher Nolan Scores With Leonardo DiCaprio—and Without Batman Christopher Nolan has more than one trick up his utility belt.
Inception, the Caped Crusader director's latest, ruled the weekend box office with a bigger-than-expected,...
Source: E! Online (US) - Top Stories | 18 Jul 2010 | 7:40 pm Author of Al Qaeda Magazine Reportedly An American Citizen The principal author of a new online Al Qaeda magazine has a fairly unexpected background. CNN is reporting that the man behind the articles in the 70-page magazine (called Inspire) is in fact a 23-year-old American citizen who left the U.S. for Yemen in October 2009. Inspire is sort of a People Magazine for the terrorist set, with articles on bomb-making and encrypting electronic messages, as well as interviews with the likes of notorious Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al Awlaki. The author, identified as Samir Khan, was born in Saudi Arabia, moved to Queens, New York, with his family when he was 7, and then eventually relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina. Law enforcement officials said Khan attended meetings of the Islamic Thinkers Society when he was in New York, which aims to achieve an ideal Islamic society through “intellectual [and] political non-violent means.” U.S. citizen believed to be writing for al Qaeda website, source says [CNN] Read more posts by Josh Duboff Filed Under: al qaeda, magazines, media, samir khan, terrorism
Source: Daily Intel | 18 Jul 2010 | 7:32 pm Amerie Buys A Vowel, Now Goes By "Ameriie" Imagine you are a female R&B star who peaked with a mega-hit pop song in 2005 and hasn’t been able to reclaim any sort of buzz since. You’ve tried releasing some other great songs. That didn't work. You don’t want to stoop to a VH1 dating reality show. You’re not quite ready to give up all your cred and sign on for Dancing With The Stars. What would you do to drum up some chatter and maybe even get yourself onto Twitter's Trending Topics list? Well, if you answered “Add a vowel to your name,” you and Amerie are of the same mind. The “1 Thing” singer has added an “i” to her name and will now be called “Ameriie.” The announcement comes as she continues work on her upcoming album (of course), titled Cymatika Vol. 1. Here’s her explanation for the change: “I operate on vibes and intuition, and I believe everything is energy; the vibration of the double I is right for me. Slightly different spelling, completely same pronunciation!” [Rap-Up via JustJared] Read more posts by Josh Duboff Filed Under: ameriie, amerie, music
Source: Vulture | 18 Jul 2010 | 7:18 pm Alvin Greene's First Speech Surprisingly Without Incident Perhaps the most surprising thing about Alvin Greene’s first speech since his unlikely primary win weeks ago was that there was nothing really that surprising about it (and that, disappointingly, there were no plugs for action figures). The Senate candidate for the most part avoided any major gaffes in the six-and-a-half minute speech he delivered Sunday at the NAACP’s monthly meeting in Manning, South Carolina. Greene stuck to three pretty straight-forward talking points: jobs, education, and justice; and the speech was laden with platitudes and vague goals, the AP reports, such as “Let's get South Carolina and America back to work and let's move South Carolina forward” and “Parents need to take more of a part in their children's education, especially parents of underperforming students,” without any subsequent specifics about, you know, how to actually make that happen. Though he avoided the long, awkward pauses that defined his earlier interviews, the AP says, he wasn’t able to hide his nerves entirely: “the candidate occasionally fidgeted, wiped his brow and intently studied a black spiral notebook where he apparently wrote his remarks.” Well, better he literally read from his own notebook when giving a speech than figuratively take a page from Sarah Palin's. Read more posts by Josh Duboff Filed Under: weird al greene, alvin greene, politics
Source: Daily Intel | 18 Jul 2010 | 6:41 pm The American Folk Art Museum’s New Curator Problem — and Its Old Art-Space Problem The I begrudgingly wish Anderson and LACMA the best. Begrudgingly because this leaves the AFAM in very tricky straits, and suggests that the beleaguered institution is now at another one of its many star-crossed turning points. For a sense of the checkered history of this special place, go back to December 2001. After years of moves (once occupying an icky anonymous ground floor lobby opposite of Lincoln Center) and confusing name changes (from the Museum of Early American Folk Arts to the Museum of American Folk Art to the current title), the AFAM opened a spanking new 30,000 square foot building at 47 West 53rd Street, right next door to Museum of Modern Art. The location was amazing, the mood ebullient. It was two months to the day after September 11; the city yearned for a good piece of art news, not to mention a great piece of architecture. These wishes became self-fulfilling. Reviews of the new museum were over the moon. Designed by the firm of Tod Williams Billie Tsien & Associates, the inside and the outside of the building was called astonishing -- a shrine, a temple, a Zen masterpiece. Everyone was happy -- except lovers of art. By now it’s clear to fans and foes alike that the current building is disaster. (Before he died, Herbert Muschamp, the Times’ architecture critic at the time, sighed to me that I was “probably right” to dislike of the building.) Clad in grayish angled panels, from the outside it looks like a giant upturned Kleenex box. And the interior is worse. Not only is it jammed with differently textured materials, staircases of many scales going in different directions, and nooks and niches that lead nowhere, much of the art is shown in hallways, corridors, landings, and staircases. It is hard to describe how sad it is to see such great art in such confining, confusing, heartless space. Really, AFAM should just sell its building to MoMA. MoMA could then either tear it down and build something new, or transform it into offices. AFAM, meanwhile, could take the proceeds and open a beautiful space in an enormous old renovated industrial building on the far west side of Manhattan. None of that will happen, of course. (AFAM would have to admit a terrible mistake, and remain in psychic limbo for an interim period. And it would be dicey, to say the least, for MoMA to tear down a once-praised building.) Which brings us back to Anderson’s departure. AFAM now must do two things: Find not just an able academic or good bureaucrat to replace Brooke Davis Anderson, but a curator with vision and passion, someone able to light a fire under the museum. Then it has to salvage that enervating interior -- there are many people who could carry out a renovation on a building like this one. Both of these things are possible. Both are difficult. AFAM simply has to be as fearless, audacious, and as out-there as the art it is so committed to showing. Read more posts by Jerry Saltz Filed Under: art, american folk art museum, museums
Source: Vulture | 18 Jul 2010 | 6:02 pm Are More Rats Than Usual Running Around the East Village? Eeeeeeeeeep! As if it isn't enough that we're living through the summer of bedbugs, Gothamist is now wondering if the East Village has been hit with a ratdemic. In April, a scary number of rats were found on the Upper East Side, perhaps owing to the Second Avenue subway project. Now NY1 is telling the tale of a building on East 10th Street where there are suddenly rodents "in the halls, elevators, and ceilings all day and night." (Ceilings!?!) Some rats in the building are even eating through the walls. "It's so bad that certain people can't even sleep because you're terrified. I mean this lady had 24 rats in the front of her kitchen. How can you live like that?" said one tenant. This is, obviously, disgusting and unhealthy, but with all the bedbugs, the aphrodisiac heat waves, and now rats-gone-wild, this summer is starting to feel sort of Old New York–y, without the increased crime rate. [Gothamist] Read more posts by Mike Vilensky Filed Under: rats, animals, east village, neighborhood news
Source: Daily Intel | 18 Jul 2010 | 3:38 pm HBO Shopping True Blood Reruns HBO, which previously sold The Sopranos to A&E for over $2 million, is already shopping True Blood to cable networks, reportedly asking for $800,000 per episode. No word yet on which networks are taking the bait, but the show would likely be watered down and a lot less naked and bloody, which sort of defeats the purpose. Then again, True Blood in syndication would still beat a lot of the typical eleven o'clock fare, like Everybody Loves Raymond or equally non-naked Sex & the City episodes from 1999. [NYP] Read more posts by Mike Vilensky Filed Under: true blood, hbo, syndication, tv
Source: Vulture | 18 Jul 2010 | 2:59 pm Zsa Zsa Gabor breaks hip in fallActress Zsa Zsa Gabor broke her hip after falling out of bed, her husband told CNN early Sunday.Source: CNN.com - Entertainment | 18 Jul 2010 | 2:50 pm Zsa Zsa Gabor to have hip replacement surgery (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 18 Jul 2010 | 12:53 pm Joe Biden: Tea Party ‘Not Racist’ Last week, the NAACP demanded that Tea Party leaders "repudiate [the party's] racist elements," but on ABC News this morning, Vice-President Joe Biden sort of disagreed: "I wouldn't characterize the Tea Party as racist," he said. "There are individuals who are either members of or on the periphery of some of their things, their protests, that have expressed really ... unfortunate comments. But it is not a racist organization." Interestingly, shortly after Biden's comment, the Tea Party itself admitted that, come to think of it, maybe some of its members are racists, formally expelling conservative commentator and former Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams. Why? For writing a blog post in response to the NAACP that satirized a fictional letter from "Colored People" to President Abraham Lincoln. (It read: "We Coloreds have decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves ... that is just far too much to ask of us Colored People!") Tea Party spokesman David Webb called the post "clearly offensive." Perhaps the party has yet to inform Sarah Palin that Williams actually is, by their own account, quite racist. She remarked, earlier this week, "I am saddened by the NAACP's claim that patriotic Americans who stand up for the United States of America's Constitutional rights are somehow 'racists.'" 'Tea Party Federation kicks out Williams over blog post' [CNN] Read more posts by Mike Vilensky Filed Under: tea time, david webb, joe biden, mark williams, racism, sarah palin
Source: Daily Intel | 18 Jul 2010 | 12:37 pm 'Inception' earns dreamy reception with $60.4M (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 18 Jul 2010 | 12:01 pm "Salt" adds flavor to summer movie menu (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 18 Jul 2010 | 11:58 am Major League Star James Gammon Dies at 70 James Gammon, best known for his role as exasperated coach Lou Brown in Major League and its sequel, has died at the age of 70.
Gammon passed Friday at his daughter's home in...
Source: E! Online (US) - Top Stories | 18 Jul 2010 | 11:47 am Kim Kardashian's Twitter Jitters In this week's episode of Kourtney & Khloé Take Miami, Kim Kardashian comes to town to bond with Kourtney. While there, she also has a photo shoot for Shape...
Source: E! Online (US) - Top Stories | 18 Jul 2010 | 11:31 am Get Ready, Angelina Jolie's Coming to Comic-Con! After all the speculation, the will-she, won't-she, we finally have an answer. Angelina Jolie will indeed make an appearance at Comic-Con International this week in San Diego, hyping her new...
Source: E! Online (US) - Top Stories | 18 Jul 2010 | 11:00 am WY professor compiles book on coal-bed natural gas (AP)AP - A University of Wyoming professor has compiled coal-bed natural gas expertise from UW and from around the world into a book.Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 18 Jul 2010 | 10:24 am Zsa Zsa Gabor Hospitalized After Falling From Bed Looks like we can blame Alex Trebek in part for Zsa Zsa Gabor's hospitalization this weekend.
While watching a certain game show in her Bel-Air home Saturday evening, the 93-year-old...
Source: E! Online (US) - Top Stories | 18 Jul 2010 | 10:21 am Ruth Madoff Now Delivers Meals to the Disabled in Florida The Post has searched the globe and found Ruth Madoff, the vitriol-inspiring wife of incarcerated Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff, living at her sister's place in Boca Raton and delivering meals to the homebound. Madoff now drives "a 14-year-old clunker," the Post reports, "a 1996 Infiniti with a parking placard in the back seat that reads, 'homebound delivery volunteer driver.'" She's not totally out of the city though (she was recently spotted at Le Pain Quotidian in midtown), traveling between Manhattan and Florida regularly, with "frequent pit stops in North Carolina to visit her jailbird hubby." The Post has determined that she's "seeking redemption," but a free pad in Florida and rewarding volunteer work just sounds kind of nice. [NYP] Read more posts by Mike Vilensky Filed Under: made-off, boca raton, ruth madoff
Source: Daily Intel | 18 Jul 2010 | 10:02 am Report: Mel Gibson Planning Move to Australia With Ex-WifeDisgraced Hollywood actor Mel Gibson is planning a move to Australia with his soon-to-be ex-wife, the Daily Telegraph reported Sunday.
Source: FOXNews.com | 18 Jul 2010 | 10:00 am New Oil Spill: Red Hook, Brooklyn The spill. Oil gushed into the Valentino Pier in Red Hook on Friday night, staining the water for at least two miles with what's believed to be about fifteen gallons of diesel. A tipster tells Gothamist: "You can't even go there, the smell is terrible and you get headaches from it. People in Red Hook are extremely upset. There are dead starfish and other creatures washing up on the shore." A 45-foot Coast Guard response vessel with a crew has been deployed to the spill for a cleanup, which hopefully goes more smoothly than that other one. According to the Redhookd Twitter, "Kayaking at Valentino Pier has been canceled" today. [Gothamist, Coast Guard News] Read more posts by Mike Vilensky Filed Under: neighborhood news, brooklyn, oil spill, red hook
Source: Daily Intel | 18 Jul 2010 | 9:15 am Pandora of News Plans to ‘Deliver the Final Blow’ to Newspapers, Somehow Two former Google staffers and a Bing engineer have formed the start-up Hawthorne Labs and launched Apollo for the iPad (and soon perhaps the iPhone) to personalize news. Apollo uses an algorithm that includes "factors such as time spent on articles, sources favorited, articles liked/not-liked as well as social elements like Twitter and Facebook mentions and similar peoples’ tastes" to help filter and deliver news to its users the way Pandora Radio does with music. While it sounds like it could definitely take off, its founders, perhaps as a joke or just for attention, claim the app can "deliver the final blow to the newspaper industry," which doesn't make a lot of sense if it relies on newspapers and news sites to exist in the first place. [TechCrunch] Updated: In a blog post, Apollo founder Evan Reas said, "To be clear, we definitely do not want to destroy content providers (and are very aware that if they didn’t exist, neither would Apollo). We also are relying on user-created content from many of the newer social media sites. What I was trying to express is that the traditional newspaper (and system that surrounds print news) is dying." Read more posts by Mike Vilensky Filed Under: media metamorphoses, apollo, media, newspapers, pretty standard media posing as really new media, tech
Source: Daily Intel | 18 Jul 2010 | 8:52 am Ciara, CC Sebathia And Debi Nova Reflect On 'When I Was 17''To this day, even when I perform, there's still a cheerleader in me,' CiCi says of her pom-pom days.By Kara Warner Ciara on "When I Was 17" Photo: MTV News Did you know that hip-hop siren Ciara...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 18 Jul 2010 | 7:00 am Soup Top 5: Lady Gaga Defiles Hello Kitty It's been another humdinger of a week in Soupland, what with all the humming and dinging that just doesn't let up around here. So, in case you were somehow not paying rapt attention, we...
Source: E! Online (US) - Top Stories | 18 Jul 2010 | 7:00 am Hollywood stars on BroadwaySource: CNN.com - Entertainment | 18 Jul 2010 | 5:02 am
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