Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt decided to go on a trip to Japan with the U.N. their kids, and we finally got to take a close look at the twins, Knox-Leon and Vivienne-Marcheline.Also there, was Shiloh, Pax, Zahara and Maddox.
By the way, what’s with the letter X in all the boys’ names?
from : celebpulp.com
Ashlee Simpson just had to give her opinion about what people think of her sister being such a fatso. Today we could read on her (boring) blog:“Since when did a woman’s weight become newsworthy? (…) I am completely disgusted by the headlines concerning my sister’s weight. (…) All women come in different shapes, sizes, and forms and just because you’re a celebrity, there shouldn’t be a different standard. (…) How can we expect teenage girls to love and respect themselves in an environment where we criticize a size two figure? ”
One thing she doesn’t seem to get: Jessica Simpson is NOT a size 2. Well not anymore, anyway. How long has it been since you last saw your sister, Ash?
Plus it’s such a hypocritical thing to say from someone who once got a nose job…
from : celebpulp.com
Anne Hathaway swears she she's not one of those gals who obsesses about her dream wedding. But she does admit to thinking about at least one detail of the big day."I haven't thought about the food; I haven't thought about the look; I haven't thought about my dress. I haven't really thought about the guy," Hathaway says in the new issue of Modern Bride magazine. "But every once in a while, I'll listen to a song, and I'm like, 'I want that at my wedding.' "
What's on her playlist?
"Maps" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs and "Walken" by Wilco are a couple of her faves. And she has high hopes for "You Are the Best Thing" by Ray LaMontagne. "That's going to be, like the number one wedding song for the next 25 years," predicts Hathaway, who stars in next month's Bride Wars opposite Kate Hudson. "Trust me."
Hathaway names her gay brother's wedding to his partner as her favorite nuptials. "At one point, he and his husband were standing up there, and my mom got up to sing," she remembers. "She was beaming straight love into them and everyone felt it, and it was just this beautiful moment."
Sounds like mom's going to be on Hathaway's playlist, too.
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from : hot-lifestyle-news.com
Another baby has touched down at Angie Harmon's house.ÂThe former Women's Murder Club star and her retired NFL star hubby, Jason Sehorn, welcomed their third daughter Thursday, a "healthy baby girl" named Emery Hope Sehorn, Harmon's rep tells People.
Emery joins sisters Finley Faith, 5, and Avery Grace, 3, in the family nursery.
Sehorn, who popped the question to his wife of seven years during a Tonight Show taping, told the magazine in September that his older girls were "very excited" about the coming new addition, and that if it was a girl her siblings, "God bless her, will beat her down out of love."
But the couple didn't want their latest pregnancy to be a public affair—back when Harmon was about four months along, the couple specifically denied rumors that they were expecting, to "take back the right to release the joyous news themselves," the actress' rep said.
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from : hot-lifestyle-news.com
The man known as Deep Throat, the secret informant in the Watergate scandal that led to the downfall of president Richard Nixon in 1974, has died, the Washington Post said Friday. He was 95.Mark Felt, the "most famous anonymous source in American history," died in his sleep Thursday at a California hospice, reported Bob Woodward, one of the two Post journalists who exposed the Watergate affair.
Felt was associate director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) when he began helping the reporters. After revealing his identity in 2005, he said he never considered himself a hero, but was just "trying to help."
His daughter Joan Felt said he had a big breakfast before saying he was tired, and went to sleep, reported the Post.
"He slipped away," she said.
Felt was in poor health when he revealed he was the shadowy informant of late-night meetings in dark garages made famous in the book and movie "All the President's Men."
He kept his role secret for 33 years, not even telling his family.
It was with Felt's crucial input that Woodward and Carl Bernstein could write a series of investigative scoops about the Nixon administration's involvement in the June 1972 burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in the US capital.
The scandal -- including the White House's attempts at cover-up -- ultimately led to Nixon becoming the first US president to resign in disgrace in August 1974.
In a 2006 interview with CNN's Larry King, Felt was asked if he liked being called Deep Throat -- the name Woodward and Bernstein gave him in their book on the scandal.
Felt replied that he was "proud of everything Deep Throat did -- yes, I like being related to him."
He insisted on referring to his alter-ego in the third person.
Felt's daughter told King: "He's always said that Deep Throat is a personality that was created by Bob Woodward, a name that was created. He likes to say that he's the person that they called Deep Throat."
A Post editor had first come up with the Deep Throat moniker -- also the name of an erotic movie. The newspaper described it Friday as "a bit of wordplay based on the title of a pornographic movie of the time."
After confessing to his role in an article for Vanity Fair magazine, Felt was simultaneously hailed as a hero and denounced as a villain.
Felt's grandson, Nick Jones, described his grandfather as "a great American hero" and said his family hoped the country would see him the same way.
But not everyone did -- especially former Nixon aides.
G. Gordon Liddy, a Nixon operative who served four and a half years in prison for engineering the Watergate break-in, said Felt "violated the ethics of the law enforcement profession."
Former Nixon speechwriter and now TV news pundit Pat Buchanan bluntly labelled him a "traitor."
The Vanity Fair article told how Joan confronted her father about what a family friend, Yvette La Garde, had told her about his secret past.
Felt initially denied it, but after Joan told him what Garde said, he answered: "Since that's the case, well, yes I am."
When asked in an interview how he would like to be remembered, Felt however downplayed his role and the Deep Throat image.
"I want to be remembered as a government employee who did his best to help everybody. I would like a reputation of trying to help people," he said.
from : hot-lifestyle-news.com
After a fortnight of playing to near empty cinemas, Bollywood is breathing a sigh of relief as a new Shah Rukh Khan film pulls in audiences in a city still recovering from November's deadly attacks.Cinema audiences in movie-mad Mumbai fell to a trickle in the aftermath of last month's terror attacks in which 179 people were killed.
"People were so scared and the mood was so low that watching a movie at a theater was out of the question," said industry analyst Amod Mehra.
"In the last two weeks, theatres have been running empty, more so in Mumbai, but also in the rest of the country."
But Khan, Bollywood's most bankable star, has worked his magic at the box-office.
In his new romantic comedy, he plays a boring introvert who gets a makeover, turning into a snazzy dancer to woo his wife.
Reviews for "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi" (A Couple Matched by God) have been far from glowing but that hasn't stopped audiences from flocking to cinemas to see the 43-year-old Khan in action.
"Our theatres were full at around 60 per cent on Friday and then went up to around 85 per cent over the weekend," said Shonali Shroff of Fame Cinemas.Industry experts said even Khan would have been hard-pressed to save the film if it had opened two weeks earlier.
Coupled with the global financial crisis, the attacks came at a bad time for Bollywood.
Several productions had already been shelved, marketing budgets slashed and stars were asked to renegotiate pay packages.
But the success of "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi" has encouraged film producers.
The next feel-good flick is expected to be "Jumbo," an animated movie dubbed by some of Bollywood's biggest names.
The movie about a baby elephant will be released on Christmas day by businessman Shailendra Singh's Percept Picture Company.
"It's the festive season and a time for fresh beginnings," Singh said.
"Let's hope it heralds good things for the industry."
(Writing by Tony Tharakan; Editing by Gillian Murdoch)
by Steve RyfleAnd his relationship with his dad was hardly picture-perfect. Henry Fonda was far better at acting than he was at being a family man (he married five times), and when Peter became famous in his own right, as a drug-taking, chopper-riding delinquent-cum-counter-culture symbol in "Easy Rider," his father was none too pleased. "I dig my father," Peter once said. "I wish he could open his eyes and dig me."
Through the decades, Hollywood has produced a fair share of father-son sagas, many of them dramatic both onscreen and off.
Maybe it's not exactly a dynasty, but the Douglas clan has been dominating the box office for six decades. Kirk Douglas was one of the biggest stars of the fifties and sixties ("The Bad and the Beautiful," "Spartacus"), and his son Michael is both a bankable mega-star and a respected producer. They get along well now, but things weren't always so rosy between the patriarch and the prodigy.
Michael Douglas's parents divorced when he was six and he only saw his dad on weekends. As a teen, he asked Kirk to help him break into the biz, but dad was adamantly opposed, believing that the acting life and all its uncertainty was no good for his spawn (which also included sons Joel, Peter, and the late Eric, all of whom made their careers in the biz). Michael proved himself, not just to his peers, but to his dad, who eventually embraced his son's accomplishments (which, to be fair, pretty much eclipsed Kirk's career long ago). "If I'd known what a big shot Michael was going to be, I would have been nicer to him when he was a kid," Kirk once said.
When "24" star Kiefer Sutherland was just two years old, "He ran in circles and hit his head against the wall," said his father, actor Donald Sutherland. "I told him to stop, but he said he was just trying to make me laugh." Turns out Kiefer may have been banging his head against the wall out of frustration, unable to connect with the dreaded Emotionally Distant Father. Another product of divorce, Kiefer lived with his mom, actress and social activist Shirley Douglas (who was once investigated for trying to buy guns for the Black Panthers). After Kiefer's acting career began taking shape in the 1980's, father and son reconnected and even appeared together in "Max Dugan Returns" and "A Few Good Men."
But not every Hollywood star wants his boy to grow up and get a real job. When they were just kids, Jeff Bridges and his older brother Beau were tutored by their dad, the late Lloyd Bridges, who cast them on his hit TV series "Sea Hunt." And at home, Lloyd taught them how to "stage fight," and one of their favorite boyhood pranks was to start a fake brawl in public, attract a big crowd of spectators, then bail just before police arrived.
Like Michael Douglas, Jeff Bridges surpassed his father's career arc by leaps and bounds; unlike Douglas, Bridges says his father was always a big supporter of his acting ambitions. "He encouraged his kids to go into show business, he loved it so much," Jeff says. "He taught me all the basics: how you always play a scene like it was the first time, how to let what the other actor is saying form your response, how to be part of scene and live it. All of it came from him."
Perhaps no clan of actors has more stories to tell than the family of "West Wing" star/political lightning rod Martin Sheen. The actor's eldest son, Emilio Estevez, was a signature member of the Brat Pack, and went on to a respectable career as both actor ("Men at Work," "Mighty Ducks") and indie director. Emilio got some play in the tabs a decade or so ago when he married Paula Abdul, but nothing can compare to his little brother Charlie Sheen's two decades of booze-soaked, rehab-studded, porn star and prostitute-loving shenanigans.
Martin Sheen has supported his kids (another son, Ramon, and daughter Renee, are also actors) in their thespian endeavors, and always tried to keep them grounded (which, in Charlie's case, probably wasn't easy). Says Emilio: "The most significant thing my father has taught me is that my job is no more or less important than someone else's. When I realize there are a billion people in China who don't know I exist, any flightiness is swept away."
That's just a sampling of the father-son acting tandems that have given nepotism a good name, dating all the way back to silent film star Douglas Fairbanks and his son, Douglas Jr. There's also Ben Stiller and his pop Jerry ("Seinfeld's" Frank Costanza), and "War of the Worlds" actor Jake Busey and his doppelganger dad Gary. And there's bound to be a new generation of sons to pick up where their fathers leave off, led by the likes of Lil' Romeo, heir apparent to the multi-platform artist (rapper-producer-director-actor-screenwriter) Master P.
By Dan WhitcombLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Brad Pitt says he's proud of his growing family with partner Angelina Jolie and that the Hollywood super-couple will consider marrying if they "feel it's important to our kids."
Pitt, who is earning early Oscar buzz for his role as a man who ages backward in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," told NBC's the "Today" show on Tuesday that the couple's six children enrich his life.
"I'm really proud of this family," Pitt said in an interview with "Today" show journalist Ann Curry.
"I look at my sons and my daughters, and one's from Vietnam and one's from Cambodia and one's from Ethiopia and there's this kid who was born in Namibia and France ... and they're brothers and sisters, man," Pitt said.
"And they're fighting and they're laughing and they're going into hysterics and they're staying up late and they're messing with their parents and they're driving me crazy," he said. "Truly I feel, I feel rich being around them. It's a rich home, and each one of them offers so much to the mix."
Pitt then deadpanned: "Surprising, though: Six kids is not as easy as you would think."
Asked by Curry if he and Jolie would marry, the actor, who said he was reluctant to discuss his personal life, responded:
"If we feel it's important to our kids, we'll do so."
Pitt and Jolie, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for her performance in the 1999 film "Girl, Interrupted," met while filming the 2005 thriller "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."
In July, Jolie gave birth in France to twins, a girl named Vivienne Marcheline and a boy named Knox Leon.
In addition to the twins, Jolie and Pitt are parents to four other young children -- adoptees Maddox, Pax and Zahara, and their first biological daughter, Shiloh.
The actress said in an October interview that the family intends to keep up its nomadic, Earth-wandering lifestyle, at least for the present, and hinted that they may adopt a seventh child.
Jolie told the BBC in November that she will ultimately "fade away" from Hollywood so she can spend more time raising her family.
12/02/08 19:40 © Copyright Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Reuters Ltd.
NEW YORK (AP) - Patrick Swayze is angry about tabloid reports that say he doesn't have long to live. The actor, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier this year, issued a statement Tuesday affirming that so far he is winning his fight against the disease and responding well to treatment.
Says Swayze: ``They're reporting that I'm on my last legs and saying goodbye to my tearful family! ... It's upsetting that the shoddy and reckless reporting from these publications cast a negative shadow on the positive and good fight I'm fighting.''
Swayze, who stars in the upcoming A&E series ``The Beast,'' says such coverage is tantamount to ``emotional cruelty,'' and angers him ``when hope is so precious.''
By Kit Bowen | Monday, December 01, 2008Thursday, November 27, 2008
Burlesque star Dita Von Teese is baring it all for the December issue of German playboy.
Posing in stockings and suspenders, as well as PVC boots, the star certainly lives up to her sex symbol status.
But Von Teese's cover is just one in a long list of stars that have graced the famous men's magazine. And if anyone knows a thing or two about sexy stars, it's Hugh Hefner!
Many of his girls have gone on to fame and fortune after gracing the cover of his magazine. And conversely, some of Hollywood's biggest stars have boosted Playboy's sales with alluring, enticing cover shots. There are even those celebrities who are so rich and famous that only minimal skin was required to join the party.
Here's our list of our favorite celebrity cover models over the years. Sexy or not, here they come.
Love was ageless and evergreen for Babs in 1977: "A Star Is Born" earned her an Oscar, a Golden Globe, numerous Grammys, a Barbara Walters interview, and a Playboy cover. Her pose was mildly alluring, but we're guessing the inside photo spread of a nude Nureyev with Michelle Phillips was a little more Hef's speed.
9. Madonna, September 1985
The cover might not be anything to make the Material Girl blush, but the nude pics inside brought Madonna to court. Seems the photographer who she posed for before she was the Queen of Pop sold the photos to Playboy and Penthouse. Madonna had not consented
What she did eventually consent to was the huge amount of free publicity that helped propel her to superstardom.
8. Sally Field, March 1986
Mention the name Sally Field and sexpot is not necessarily the first word that comes to mind (think Gidget, The Flying Nun, Brothers & Sisters). But back in the day, Sally had it going on.
In 1986 she was between films, but she got a little career boost, Hef-style, with her cover pose in bunny tail, fishnets, and all.
7. Burt Reynolds, October 1979
Burt has been on the cover of Playboy only once, fully clothed. But from 1973 to 1983 he was featured seven times in Playboy's famous annual "Sex Stars" pictorials. Still, probably his best-known spread isn't in Playboy at all; it's that unforgettable Cosmo shot on the bearskin rug.
6. Joan Collins, December 1983
Joan was 49 when she posed for a 12-page pictorial and the cover of Playboy. That same year she starred in a made-for-TV movie called Making of a Male Model, in which she seduces a young man half her age. At the time she was often called "The World's #1 Sex Symbol."
Today we'd just call her a cougar.
5. Farrah Fawcett, December 1978
It's probably not as well known or as scintillating as her famous bathing suit poster, but we're sure this cover was the favorite of many a teenage boy when it appeared in '78. Still, despite the sexy cover, Farrah refused to pose nude for the pages of the magazine at least until 1995. That issue became the best-selling one of the '90s, selling four million copies.
4. Dolly Parton, October 1978
Here she comes again, and here we go. Dolly graced Playboy in full bunny attire: tail, ears, and double-Ds. That same year she won a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. We're thinking the provocative cover boosted her career more than the award did.
3. Sharon Stone, July 1990
Until 1990 Sharon Stone was not a household name. But after "Total Recall" with Arnold Schwarzenegger and a cover and nude photo spread in Playboy, Sharon was off and running to major Hollywood stardom. But was it her acting prowess or the buff bod from all those hours in the gym that did the trick? Since Playboy listed her in the "Top 25 All-Time Sexiest Stars of the Decade," we're guessing the latter.
2. Ann-Margret, October 1983
The same year that Ann-Margret made a TV movie playing a dying mother of ten children, she posed for her Playboy cover. Now there's two ends of the spectrum for you. She won the Emmy for Who Will Love My Children?, and we're guessing she won a few hearts for this cover.
1. Raquel Welch, December 1979
Welch's career might have been waning in 1979 (her career highlight that year? A two-part guest appearance on Mork and Mindy), but her sex appeal was still at an all-time high. The cover headline read, "A Celebration of the Decade's Most Desired Women."
Raquel definitely tops our list
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
LOS ANGELES — Brooke Burke waltzed away with the mirror ball trophy on the "Dancing with the Stars" finale.
The 37-year-old TV personality and mother of four dominated the seventh season of the popular ABC dancing competition and bested former NFL player Warren Sapp and former 'NSync member Lance Bass during the Tuesday night finale, in which she reprised an emotional Viennese waltz routine that earned her a perfect score from the show's panel of judges.
"Unbelievable," was all Burke could muster after winning amid a flurry a confetti.
From the outset, the slinky former host of E!'s "Wild On" and CBS' "Rock Star" commanded the ballroom this season, coming in first place eight out of 10 times and receiving a 10 — the judges' top score — 16 times. Burke was crowned the latest "Dancing with the Stars" champion after the judges' scores — 88 out of 90 — were combined with viewers' votes. "I actually can't believe it," said Derek Hough, Burke's professional partner, who's never won the competition. "I really can't. I honestly can't. The journey's been so long. It's been tough. It's been wonderful. It's been everything I could ever hope for. Wow. I can't believe we actually did it, girl." Burke maintained an eight point lead over Sapp, the charismatic 35-year-old fan favorite whose technique was consistently criticized by the judges. Sapp still managed to hustle his way into second place with professional partner Kym Johnson, despite receiving one point less from the judges than the third place finisher, 29-year-old singer Bass. "From the moment you start, you make me smile," head judge Len Goodman told Sapp. Bass and his professional partner, Lacey Schwimmer, were upbeat about their loss. The pair danced away after their dismissal. And he's not hanging up his dancing shoes just yet. The former boybander will join professional dancers and other former contestants for the 38-city "Dancing with the Stars" tour, which is set to kick off Dec. 17 in San Diego. "You never took the safe road once," judge Carrie Ann Inaba told Bass during the finale. Previously dismissed celebrities — actor Cody Linley; sprinter Maurice Greene; actresses Susan Lucci and Cloris Leachman; chef Rocco DiSpirito; reality TV star Kim Kardashian; actor Ted McGinley; and comedian Jeffrey Ross — also returned for a last dance. Injured volleyball player Misty May-Treanor and singer Toni Braxton remained off their feet.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008Tom Cruise admits the fallout from his infamous sofa-leaping antics on Oprah Winfrey's TV show greatly “affected” his family.
The Top Gun star regrets proclaiming his love for now-wife Katie Holmes in such hyperactive fashion, but can’t understand why he was critically mauled for it.
Click here to see photos of Tom Cruise.
Tom went on the chat queen’s show in 2005, and spent much of the interview jumping on the guest sofa, telling the world of his love for a “magnificent” woman.
He told the U.K.'s Hello! Magazine: “I guess I did court her kind of aggressively."
“There were things I did at the time that I look back and think, ‘Well, okay, I could have handled a couple of moments better.’"
“But I was surprised by some of the things that were said about me at the time."
“It affected us all, and as a father and a husband you want to protect your family.”
Tom insisted he’s learned from his mistakes, but he’ll never stop shouting from the rooftops his adoration for Katie, their daughter Suri and his adopted kids with Nicole Kidman.
from:FOXnews.com
Allie @ Gone Hollywood | Monday, November 24, 2008Celebrating her birthday at new L.A. hot spot Luau with Desperate Housewives costars Felicity Huffman, onscreen husband Neal McDonough and Kyle MacLachlan, the newly single Sheridan at first played it coy with her man of the evening.
“They arrived separately and even started dinner at different booths,” says an onlooker. It was a familiar scene: The duo were spotted a couple of weeks ago at the restaurant’s opening, where they spent the night in deep conversation. This time, though, things got a little more intimate.
“They cuddled and kissed,” says an onlooker. “They were full-on making out in a booth.”
Decked out in a sequined gold frock, the birthday girl sipped on lychee martinis throughout the night and giddily enjoyed a specialty cake that read “Happy Birthday Princessa.”
While a source insists the two aren’t dating, the onlooker said that “David winked at her and stood by her side while she blew out the candles on her cake.”
Monday, November 24, 2008LOS ANGELES — Chris Brown was the big winner, but it was Kanye West's night at the American Music Awards.
Instead of his typical tantrum — a trend West started four years ago when he lost the favorite new artist prize — the rapper claimed two trophies Sunday and called on his colleagues to up their game.
"It's our responsibility as musicians to keep pushing each other," West said. "We will be the new Beatles, the new (Jimi) Hendrix. I want to be Elvis."
West was named favorite male rap/hip-hop artist and his CD, "Graduation," won favorite rap/hip-hop album.
Brown took the night's top honors — artist of the year — as well as favorite male artist in both the pop/rock and soul/R&B categories.
"I was shocked," the 19-year-old crooner said backstage. "I'm so thankful and grateful. I thought Coldplay should have won the award, but I'll take it."
Brown's gal pal, Rihanna — who wore chains and a leather corset to perform her love ballad, "Rehab" — was named favorite female artist in both the pop/rock and soul/R&B categories. Alicia Keys was another double winner: Her CD, "As I Am," was both pop/rock and soul/R&B album winner.
The American Music Awards traditionally centers on its performances, and Sunday was no exception. The show featured high-energy sets from Miley Cyrus, Ne-Yo and Beyonce, though a pair of lackluster medleys opened the program at the Nokia Theatre. Christina Aguilera channeled Madonna and the New Kids on the Block channeled an earlier version of themselves as each sang their latest singles and greatest hits. Pink's new track, "Sober," was awkwardly introduced by slurring rocker Scott Weiland, formerly of the Stone Temple Pilots. Also performing were The Jonas Brothers, the Pussycat Dolls, Coldplay and Annie Lennox, who won the Award of Merit. "I never thought I would live to see the day that I could be 53 years old standing on a stage," Lennox said as she accepted the trophy from Justin Timberlake. "It's been an incredible journey. Music: my friend, my accompaniment through life." Other winners included Brad Paisley for favorite country artist, Taylor Swift for favorite female country act, and Rascal Flatts for favorite country favorite band, duo or group. "I didn't really think that I had a chance at winning," Swift confessed backstage. "I thought, yes, it's good to be nominated, but I honestly didn't think I was going to win this award. I can't believe that I did. I can't believe that the fans did that for me. Everybody on MySpace, they're the reason I am holding this award right now." Fans chose the night's winners through online votes.
Saturday, November 22, 2008DES MOINES, Iowa — Don't expect to hear these Bible stories at church.
Cannibalism, rape, a bear that mauls children — this is the Bible?
They're among six stories from the Old Testament acted out in "Terror Texts," a musical at Northwestern College in Orange City.
Adding to the shocking nature of the stories are the theatrics, with actors decked out in Goth attire, a rock band and a mosh pit.
Theater professor Jeff Barker said the obscurity of the stories belies their value.
"We believe we have discovered something that has been lying dormant for many, many centuries," said Barker, who created and directs "Terror Texts."
The musical was first performed at the 1,200 student Christian college in northwest Iowa in February and came back for an encore this fall, with a last performance slated for this weekend. Barker uses the King James version of the Bible, and actors speak each verse word-by-word. It is not an interpretation or adaptation, like "Godspell" or "Jesus Christ Superstar." "There's tremendous power waiting when you simply speak and act these stories aloud with faithfulness to the text, not trying to adapt them or add a lot of bits, but just simply play what's written there," Barker said. Barker views the Bible as a "repository of ancient plays," and when performed they can be seen in a whole new light — even the dark stories. "I was looking for terror text, stories I can say are thematically tied together because they are frightening and mysterious and terrifying," Barker said. "That's part of what we're saying with this whole project that life and God himself are mysteries." William Dyrness, a professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., specializes in visual arts in relation to religious tradition. He said biblical scholars have proposed that much of the Old Testament is poetry and was designed to be sung, especially in the temple as part of worship. "It's not far from that to think of it as a play," he said. "Theologians have argued the best way to understand the Bible is in terms of it being a great dramatic performance." He called "Terror Text" a creative variation of that idea. "This is obviously a very Protestant approach where you're attempting to understand this story so that you can see the way the Bible applies to your life," he said. "You carry it on in your life. You become part of the story." Student Hannah McBride has several roles in the performance, including as a virgin who gets kidnapped at the end of a story of rape, murder and war. McBride said it has shown her something about herself. "This particular project has affected the way I view negative emotions — grief, anger, bitterness and spite and hate. We are meant to be emotional people. The Bible in a lot of ways shows us that that's OK," she said. "We need to embrace that we're going to be very, very sad and we won't know what to do with that." In her role as a virgin, McBride wears a wedding dress that has been destroyed. She describes her look as a "corpse bride." "It has that image of what could have been great, I ruined," she said. In a world in which religion often is practiced privately or individually, Barker said he hopes people will understand the Bible better through his performance. "These mysterious, dark stories of the Old Testament, they bring us face-to-face with the suffering of the world," Barker said. "It says we are capable of great evil and we must not forget these stories and we have some serious things to be accountable for in our own lives as a group and individually."
Saturday, November 22, 2008BUFFALO, N.Y. — John Lennon was forgiven by the Vatican for his 1966 comment that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, Reuters reported.
"The remark by John Lennon, which triggered deep indignation mainly in the United States, after many years sounds only like a 'boast' by a young working-class Englishman faced with unexpected success, after growing up in the legend of Elvis and rock and roll," Vatican daily Osservatore Romano said.
After Lennon made the comment to a London newspaper, some Christians in the United Stated became infuriated, and burned the Beatles' records in huge gatherings.
The Vatican newspaper article forgiving Lennon went on to praise the Beatles.
The fact remains that 38 years after breaking up, the songs of the Lennon-McCartney brand have shown an extraordinary resistance to the passage of time, becoming a source of inspiration for more than one generation of pop musicians," it said, according to Reuters.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Cate Blanchett says "spooning" in bed is the secret to a happy marriage.
The Oscar-winning actress, who has three sons with husband Andrew Upton, told Oprah Winfrey: "Someone once said to me, and I think it's quite true, that if your bodies actually fit together when you're sleeping in bed — I'm not going to get into too much detail — you're in good stead.
"When you can spoon with someone, then you're OK. Because you might not vote the same way, you might not have the same politics, but sometimes that works for people."
Blanchett and playwright husband Andrew Upton have three sons: Dashiell, 6, Roman, 3, and Ignatius, who was born in April.
The Academy Award-winning actress appeared with Harrison Ford in the movie "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," which was a summer hit.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
When Axl Rose and Paul McCartney started their careers, music was released primarily on vinyl albums, and lines of fans snaked for blocks from the front doors of record stores when the latest Beatles and Guns N' Roses albums were released.
Things are different now.
Both the ex-Beatle and the current Guns N' Roses frontman (with a completely new backing band) are releasing their latest music on the online social network MySpace. McCartney is debuting "Electric Arguments" with his side group The Fireman, and Guns N' Roses is finally releasing "Chinese Democracy," seventeen years in the making.
MySpace members will be able to listen to the new songs, but won't be able to download them. Geffen Records will release "Chinese Democracy" on November 23 at Best Buy stores. "Electric Arguments" is due in stores, and onMySpace Music, on November 25.
The title track of "Chinese Democracy" debuted this week at No. 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
