Exotic Foods

Archive for the ‘Entertainment’ Category

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Steve Jobs’ life will be brought to the big screen by Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin in a movie based on Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography of the enigmatic co-founder of Apple, maker of iPods and iPads.

Sony Pictures Entertainment on Tuesday unveiled plans to put Sorkin, who wrote Facebook film “The Social Network,” behind the screenplay of what will be a major release for the movie studio.

“There is no writer working in Hollywood today who is more capable of capturing such an extraordinary life for the screen than Aaron Sorkin; in his hands, we’re confident that the film will be everything that Jobs himself was: captivating, entertaining, and polarizing,” Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, said in a statement.

Sorkin will adapt Isaacson’s best-selling biography that topped book charts and became the top-seller of 2011 following Jobs’ death last October after a long battle with cancer.

Sorkin won a best adapted screenplay Oscar for his work on “Social Network” in 2011, and was nominated for a best writing Oscar in 2012 for “Moneyball.”

He also penned TV political drama “The West Wing” and is the creator of upcoming HBO’ “The Newsroom,” a behind-the-scenes look at a fictional cable news channel.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

LONDON (Reuters) – Rats “stream like hot metal, to the rim of the world” and children, lured by the music of a Pied Piper-like exterminator, disappear into a hillside in British composer George Benjamin’s eerie 2006 mini-opera “Into the Little Hill”.

Benjamin claims they’re still alive, and perhaps better off, inside that hill, where the “piper” leads them after the minister fails to pay him for exterminating the rats, but one can’t help but wonder how much oxygen they’re getting.

“Written on Skin”, his next opera and again a collaboration with British playwright Martin Crimp, will have its premiere at the prestigious Aix-en-Provence festival in France in July.

But despite its provocative title, and the unsettling nature of his first opera, Benjamin, 52, swears up and down nothing happens that is nearly as nasty as the title might suggest.

“People I’ve mentioned it to, particularly women, go ‘phwew’, as if it’s got something quite erotic about it,” he said in a recent interview at his London home, in a leafy neighborhood, with an environmentally friendly Toyota Prius hybrid parked in the narrow driveway outside.

A retrospective of his music this weekend at London’s Southbank Centre is the occasion for the chat, the fact that he is one of Britain’s leading composers is the reason.

“But the ‘skin’ we’re talking about is parchment, on the whole,” Benjamin continues. “Because it’s the story of an illuminator entering the kingdom of a lord in the 13th century in Provence, hence the premiere in Aix, and the lord’s wife becomes interested in him and trouble ensues, of a pretty extreme kind, eventually.”

More than that he’s not giving away, at least not in this interview at his home where he has a grand piano in the living room, and American soprano Renee Fleming’s latest CD on his stereo. He does briefly produce a copy of the score, as if to prove that a composer renowned for taking his time getting his notes on paper has done the job, long before opening night.

“I wrote 95 to 100 minutes of music in 26 months, and fully scored as well, so when the last note was written the piece was completely finished. So statistically I am accelerating,” he laughs. “But I still find it very hard. At least with opera, the blockages don’t last months, they last days or weeks.”

And what style of music would that be, for a composer who, despite his comparatively young age, is about to have a retrospective that is a London 2012 Festival countdown event — counting down, of course, to the Olympics which start in July?

Is it in the category of music which goes by the ghostly, or perhaps sci-fi-sounding name “spectral”, referring to compositions that emphasize tone color over harmony, melody and all that old-fashioned stuff? That’s how Benjamin’s music is described on the Internet, but he is having none of it.

“I don’t like the idea of joining any groups or being filed under any particular drawer. I think your job as a composer is to be independent…I am, after all, from this country and I believe in independence, being outside and doing your own thing.”

Music lovers can hear a whole weekend of Benjamin’s “own thing”, which is not a huge body of work, from his seminal orchestral piece “Antara” for chamber ensemble and electronics on Saturday, to his later “Palimpsests” for full orchestra on Sunday, with music of his hero, the late Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti, thrown in, at Southbank. But don’t go expecting to hear “Written on Skin”. Not a peep until July.

Here’s what else Benjamin had to say about his apprenticeship with France’s mystical and birdsong-loving musical giant Olivier Messiaen, how he’s yet another composer bowled over by movie director Stanley Kubrick and his use of music in films and why even if you’ve never heard of Benjamin or anything he’s written, he suggests you open your ears:

Q: Messiaen was your main teacher and you had a very productive apprenticeship with him in Paris in the 1970s. Apparently he helped you to avoid falling into the clutches of the Darmstadt school of music, which with its formalism and advocacy of 12-tone music — rather than lovely melodies — produced pieces that, for some people, gave music a bad name.

A: “Messiaen said break away from Darmstadt…I’m glad I was 20 years old and I didn’t feel the obligation to become a Darmstadt-type composer. And it has to be said that it only really lasted in its tremendous pulling power for about a decade, if that…But Europe had been through the worst catastrophe in a thousand years, so some things had to be examined from the root. Seeing in an abstract way was a noble thing to do but it led to a form of music that was too esoteric and that became a form of really horrid academicism quite quickly.”

Q: So Ligeti, who did love a tune, and Kubrick, who used some of his music for “2001: A Space Odyssey” and other films, were more your style?

A: “Apart from (Disney’s) “Fantasia”, his (Kubrick’s) are the only films that really use music in a dignified and grown up way. I like the way he choreographs his apparently spontaneous narratives to music, literally. In “The Shining” the editing and the actors’ words are all inserted and timed according to the music underneath. It gives the feeling of being spontaneous and natural but it’s a ballet, in fact.”

Q: Why should anyone who thinks music began and ended with Pachelbel’s “Canon” come to your retrospective?

A: “The world changes, music changes, music has always changed, music will always change. Not every piece written is a glowing masterpiece…but if you’re sufficiently curious you come across some amazing pieces which will speak to you, if you have an open mind and ear.”

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Published May 11th, 2012 – 17:51 GMT

Jordanian artist Mais Hamdan dismissed the rumor of refusing to work with the renowned Egyptian director Khalid Youssef. She did concede that while it was not about the directo,  it was down to his ‘hot’ movie material and her objection to seductive roles.

Mais said in an interview with “Ba’adna Ma’a Rabea”  (Still with Rabea) on “Al Jadeed” Lebanese TV station on Thursday April 26th: “I enjoy a decent friendship with the Egyptian director Khalid Youssef.  We talk over the phone every now and then. But the idea of taking our dealings to a professional level by participating in one of his movies is not on the cards just because I don’t like to be involved directly seductive material or acting scenes.

I don’t do seduction

According to “Fee Al Fan” website, she elaborated a little with “I’m not against the hot scenes or anyone who’s doing them, but I pesonally just don’t have the capacity to take on these kind of roles because of the intimacy the two actors and the risks that things could develop……”.

As for her pipeline projects, Mais has recently finished filming 80% of her scenes for the series “Atteen wa Annar”  (Mud and Fire). She is done shooting half of her scenes for the “Keka Al Aali” (Top Cake) series and is shooting her role in “Taraf Thaleth” or (Third Party) series next week.

The company that owns the rights to Jimi Hendrix's music has responded to reports that a biopic of the guitar legend will shortly begin shooting.

Such a film, it said in a statement, would need "its full participation… were it to include original music or copyrights created by Jimi Hendrix".

Andre 3000 of hip-hop duo OutKast is to play Hendrix in a film entitled All Is By My Side, it was reported this week.

The Experience Hendrix company said it had not "ruled out" a Hendrix biopic.

Yet it insisted that "producing partners would, out of necessity, have to involve the company from the inception of any such film project if it is to include original Jimi Hendrix music or compositions".

According to Billboard, Haley Atwell and Imogen Poots will star alongside Andre 3000 – real name Andre Benjamin – in the proposed film.

It was reported this week it would start filming in Ireland later this month and chronicle the time Hendrix spent in England in the late 1960s.

A spokeswoman for its producers told the BBC News website earlier this week she could not confirm any details about the project.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Stevie Wonder’s nephew has been arrested and charged with an extortion scheme against the singer, Los Angeles prosecutors said on Friday.

Alpha Lorenzo Walker, 38, was arrested on May 2, along with another alleged conspirator, Tamara Eileen Diaz. The pair had threatened to reveal information they claimed would be embarrassing to the “Superstition” singer unless he met their demands, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office said.

Celebrity website TMZ.com, citing law enforcement sources, said the pair demanded $5 million from Wonder and threatened to go to the media with a tale of incest. They later lowered the sum to $10,000 and were arrested by undercover police posing as representatives of the musician.

The District Attorney’s spokeswoman declined to comment on the nature or details of the alleged extortion plot.

Walker and Diaz have pleaded not guilty to extortion but are being held in jail awaiting a preliminary hearing next week that will determine whether there is enough evidence for a full trial.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Mariah Carey and her husband Nick Cannon are putting together a cartoon for their two-year-old twins, Monroe and Moroccan.

"Yeah, we actually got some stuff in development that we’re working on, some animated stuff that her and I are putting together. So you’ll definitely see her in that space too," femalefirst.com quoted Cannon as saying.

"Oh yeah, it’s just something that we both enjoy, and even more so than that, we’re both kids at heart. So we love those types of stories and fantasy/fairytale type of stuff," he said.

Article continues below

Story By: by The Associated Press

Marvel’s The Avengers total worldwide haul is estimated to be $641.8 million in barely a week. The U.S. opening has set a new record at $200.3 million.

Hulk, smash.

That’s what Captain America tells the Incredible Hulk to do in The Avengers, and that’s what the Marvel Comics superhero mash-up did at the box office, smashing the domestic revenue record with a $200.3 million debut.

It’s by far the biggest opening ever, shooting past the previous record of $169.2 million for the debut of last year’s Harry Potter finale.

The Avengers added $151.5 million overseas over the weekend to bring its total to $441.5 million since it began opening internationally a week earlier.

That raised the film’s worldwide haul to $641.8 million in barely a week and a half, more than its Marvel superhero forerunners Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America took in during their entire runs.

If distributor Disney’s domestic estimate Sunday holds when the final weekend count is released Monday, The Avengerswould be the first movie ever to haul in $200 million in a single weekend.

While the number could dip below $200 million come Monday, Disney spent the weekend revising its forecasts upward as business kept growing.

“There aren’t even words, to be honest. I’m running low on double takes. Every time we looked at a number, it just got bigger than what we could have hoped for in the best-case assumption,“ said Dave Hollis, Disney’s head of distribution. “With this film, this weekend, anything is possible.“

The Avengersstarted with solid midnight crowds Friday, though nowhere near a record. Then it did $80.5 million for the full day Friday, second only to the “Harry Potter“ finale’s $91.1 million first day.

Revenues held up much better than expected with $69.7 million Saturday, and Disney estimated that the film would bring in $50.1 million more on Sunday.

The record weekend was the culmination of years of careful planning by Marvel Studios, which has included teasers for an Avengers dream team collaboration in its solo superhero adventures.

Directed by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), The Avengersfeatures Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury.

A $200 million total for every movie in release is considered a great weekend for the business as a whole, so The Avengers redefines the standards for a blockbuster debut.

“If The Avengers is any indication, we’re going to see a leap rather than a gentle little nudge into new territory, and the lineup is there to justify it going forward,“ said Greg Foster, chairman and president of the huge-screen IMAX cinema chain.

Crowds were so anxious to see the film on IMAX’s giant screens that Foster said the company had only one problem: it ran out of seats to sell.

Overall domestic revenues came in at $248 million, climbing 49 percent compared to the same weekend last year, when Thor opened with $65.7 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. The Avengers accounted for four-fifths of the weekend’s domestic receipts.

Story By: by Felix Contreras

La Santa Cecilia

Gustavo Arellano writes the weekly syndicated column “Ask A Mexican!”

We here at Alt.Latino are big into the idea of obliterating borders while maintaining cultural pride, and our Cinco de Mayo collection is no exception.

Take Radio Jarocho’s track “Café, Café” as an example. It’s part of a larger turn to jarocho (music from the Mexican port city of Veracruz) by bands trying to stretch the sonic boundaries of that music. Radio Jarocho does it very much by the numbers but infuses this track with an edgy attitude.

Songwriter and vocalist Alejandro Escovedo comes from a musical family with roots in Afro-Caribbean music, but he’s blazed a trail all his own through Austin’s alt-country scene with echoes of Mexican music. He dusts off his Spanish this week with a classic bolero that has Jasmine ordering a shot of tequila to wash down the melancholy.

And a 1960′s tortured love song redone by an ’80s techno band, then reinterpreted by a group of Mexican-American musicians dedicated to folk? That’s “Tainted Love” by La Santa Cecilia, an Alt.Latino favorite from Los Angeles.

Genres are just starting points for Alt.Latino. And to bring it full circle, so is Cinco de Mayo. It’s become a time of year when activists lobby for rights of all kinds within the immigrant communities and second and third and fourth generation Mexican Americans connect to their culture, if for only one day a year. It’s also a chance to market Cinco de Drinko parties.

What you make of the holiday depends on your own beliefs. While you contemplate them, turn up the sound on our show to give you some music to think or drink or celebrate by.

———————————————————————————————————————-

English / Spanish

Esta Semana En Alt.Latino: La Verdad Acerca Del Cinco De Mayo

(Y Escuchamos Nueva Música Mexicana)

Esta semana estamos observando Cinco de Mayo, un feriado sumamente bicultural. Pero tal como hablamos en el programa, existe la pregunta constante de si en realidad se trata de una oportunidad para que los comerciantes hagan campañas publicitarias y los bares vendan más tragos.

El Cinco De Mayo se siente muy distinto aquí en la costa este de los Estados Unidos que en California. Creo que existe una desconexión del orgullo cultural que implica esta fecha- más bien parecería ser una excusa para tomar margaritas.

Pero ni modo. Es un feriado que es existe para que uno haga con el lo que quiera: ocupar un parque, bailar, comer y escuchar música.

Orale, dale gas vato.

Iniciar una clase de ballet folclórico en el colegio de tus hijos…. eso suena aún mejor.

O escuchar buena música hecha por artistas mexicanos y mexicano-americanos. Ahí es donde entramos nosotros.

Aquí en Alt.Latino nos encanta la idea de borrar las fronteras pero mantener el orgullo cultural de cada pueblo, y nuestro programa especial para Cinco de Mayo no es ninguna exepción.

Por ejemplo la canción “Café, Café” del grupo Radio Jarocho. Hay un resurgimiento de la música jarocho (música de Veracruz, México), liderado por bandas que buscan ampliar sus horizontes musicales.

Por otro lado el cantautor Alejandro Escovedo viene de una familia de músicos fuertemente arraigados en la música afro-caribeña, pero ha sido un pionero en mezclar la música alternativa, country y tradicional mexicana. Esta semana estrenamos su interpretación de un bolero clásico… que tiene a Jas practicamente tomando tequilas para apaciguar su melancolía.

Además tenemos una reinterpretación de una drámatica canción de los años 60, popularizada en la década del 80 por una banda de synth pop.

La canción “Tainted Love” suena muy distinta, pero bellísima en manos de La Santa Cecilia, una de nuestras agrupaciones favorites de Los Angeles.

Los géneros musicales son tan solo puntos de partida en nuestro programa, y podríamos decir lo mismo acerca de Cinco De Mayo. Se ha convertido en una fecha que les permite a los activistas una plataforma para sus causas, y también una oportunidad para que las personas de herencia mexicana se conecten con sus raíces, aunque tan solo sea por un día. Y es cierto, también se usa para hacerle marketing a las ventas y el consumo de alcohol.

Lo que cada uno hace con sus feriados tiene que ver con sus creencias personales. Mientras lo piensas, subelé el volumen al show: tenemos mucha música y conversación para estimularte.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A second unidentified masseur has joined a $2 million lawsuit against John Travolta claiming the actor sexually assaulted the men in two separate incidents during private massages, according to amended court documents filed on Tuesday.

The second unnamed man, a resident of Georgia referred to as John Doe No. 2 in court papers obtained by Reuters, claimed that Travolta rubbed his legs, touched his genitals and tried to initiate sex at a private appointment at the actor’s room inside an Atlanta hotel on January 28.

The allegations echo those of John Doe No. 1, a resident of Texas, who filed the initial complaint late last week and accused Travolta of sexually assaulting him during a private massage at the Beverly Hills Hotel on January 16.

“This second ‘anonymous’ claim is just as absurd and ridiculous as the first one,” said attorney Martin Singer, who represents the Hollywood actor.

“Our client will be fully vindicated in court on both of these absurd and fictional claims.”

Travolta’s spokesman has called the lawsuit “complete fiction and fabrication.”

The plaintiff’s attorney, Pasadena, California-based Okorie Okorocha, told Reuters that since the initial complaint was filed last week, he has had many more potential victims come forward with similar complaints.

“I will file for every single victim. Mr. Travolta has been able to evade justice, and he’s going to challenge it with me. but I’m not afraid … I’ll stand up to him,” said Okorocha.

He said that the men did not go to the police because they did not think the police would believe them.

Travolta, 58, rose to fame in the 1970s on the television sitcom “Welcome Back Kotter,” then became a movie star with hits such as “Saturday Night Fever,” “Grease,” and later, “Pulp Fiction.” He has been nominated for two Academy Awards and has been married to wife Kelly Preston since 1991.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Mohammad Zargham)

Beastie Boys rapper Adam Yauch has died at the age of 47, his publicist has confirmed to the BBC.

The musician, director and Tibet activist was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer in 2009.

Yauch underwent surgery and radiation therapy but said in 2011 reports he was totally cancer-free were "exaggerated".

Under the alias MCA, he formed part of the band that eventually became the Beastie Boys, selling 40 million albums worldwide with Mike D and Ad Roc.

Tributes have already been paid to the star on Twitter, with the likes of De La Soul, Ice T, Joe Satriani and Common passing on their condolences.

Rapper Biz Markie, who collaborated with the Beastie Boys on their Ill Communication album, wrote: "My brother, you are truly going to be missed. My heart is heavy."

Fellow New Yorker Moby added: "I'm very, very sad to hear of Adam Yauch's passing. He was a wonderful, generous, remarkable, and inspiring man and friend."

In a nod to the scope of the group's fame, New York Senator Chuck Schumer also tweeted his condolences: "Born and Bred in Brooklyn, U.S.A., they call him Adam Yauch, but he's M.C.A. RIP Adam."

Justin Timberlake said he was "crushed" by the news, while Nirvana's bassist Krist Novoselic thanked Yauch for his "Sabotage bass riff and many other great grooves".

The Beastie Boys started out as a hardcore punk outfit called The Young Aborigines in 1979 but switched to hip hop in 1984.

Two years later they launched their critically-acclaimed debut album Licensed To Ill, which spawned the hit singles (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) and No Sleep Till Brooklyn.

Fusing rock guitars with lo-fi hip-hop beats, Licensed To Ill was one of the first rap records to cross over to a mainstream audience – and the first to top the US charts.

But the band became equally well-known for their bratty, bad-boy personas.

They were lambasted in the British press for their stage show, which featured giant inflatable phalluses and cage dancers.

And, when they began to wear the Volkswagen emblem on chains around their necks, it reportedly led to a rise in vandalised cars.

Their obnoxious behaviour undoubtedly started as an in-joke but became something of a self-fulfilling prophecy as their fame increased.

Over the years, however, the Beastie Boys rehabilitated their image.

Their second album, Paul's Boutique, was retrospectively considered a masterpiece, its genre-bending sound collages paving the way for the likes of Beck and The Avalanches.

Later records saw them play their own instruments and expand their horizons beyond hip-hop.

In 1996, they released The In Sound From Way Out! – a collection of jazz and funk instrumentals, while the group collaborated with reggae legend Lee "Scratch" Perry on 1998's Hello Nasty.

But they are best remembered for their hardcore rap tracks – Sure Shot, Sabotage and the crossover hit Intergalactic.

Yauch was the band's filmographer, directing several of their videos under the pseudonym Nathaniel Hornblower.

He also directed the band's concert movie Awesome… I Shot That, which stitched together footage from dozens of audience-members.

The rapper grew up in Brooklyn, and was fascinated by electronics and explosives at a young age, building small home-made bombs from fireworks he had hoarded at home.

Aged 14, he removed himself from a Quaker school to join a public high school in New York. "I felt I was leading too much of a sheltered life," he told Rolling Stone in 1998.

There he taught himself bass guitar, after discovering punk through The Clash's debut album.

His new schoolfriends also introduced him to his future bandmates for the first time.

In addition to his rap career, Yauch was heavily involved in the Free Tibet movement, and co-organised several fundraising concerts in the 1990s.

"I think that movies and CDs… they affect the way people think," he told PBS in 1997. "I know they've radically affected the way I think."

He revealed he had cancer in a salivary gland in his neck in July 2009, which led to the scrapping of a tour and an album – Hot Sauce Committee, Pt 1.

In an email to fans later that year, he said the tumour had been removed and he was feeling "healthy, strong and hopeful".

Yauch travelled to a Tibetan community in Dharamsala in India after surgery.

He told fans: "I'm taking Tibetan medicine and at the recommendation of the Tibetan doctors I've been eating a vegan/organic diet."

But in January 2010, he was forced to deny press reports that he was fully recovered.

"I'm continuing treatment, staying optimistic and hoping to be cancer free in the near future," he said in a statement.

The Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month, but Yauch was not able to attend. On the night, The Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated their performance to Yauch.

He is survived by his wife, Dechen Wangdu, and their daughter, Tenzin Losel, as well as his parents Frances and Noel Yauch.