Jumaat, 19 Julai 2013

The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz

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The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz

Emma Roberts in trouble

Posted:

Actress Emma Roberts has been arrestedfor allegations of domestic violence.

In her upcoming movie We're The Millers, Emma Roberts plays a street-wise toughie not afraid to mix it up, who then becomes part of a fake family that's helping smuggle pot across the Mexican border.

That scrappiness takes on a new resonance in the wake of allegations of domestic violence against the actress. According to TMZ, Roberts was arrested in a Canadian hotel on July 7 after a guest reported a fight in a neighbouring room and cops showed up to find Roberts' boyfriend, actor Evan Peters, with a bloody nose and a bite mark, in the room with Roberts.

The 22-year-old actress is key to bringing in a younger demographic for Rawson Marshall Thurber's We're The Millers, an R-rated comedy starring Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston that opens the first week of August in the United States. Even if she maintains the same media schedule she did before the arrest, the Roberts incident (Peters did not press charges) is likely to be a distraction for some reporters who would otherwise be talking about the movie. And most actors don't keep the same media schedule.

After an early film career embodying teen sweetness in the likes of Nancy Drew, Roberts has gone to a more mature place over the last few years, starring as a fragile-but-gritty high-schooler in It's Kind Of A Funny Story, a more duplicitous than you'd think girl-next-door in Scream 4 and now the street kid of We're The Millers.

How much do actors' real-life woes affect their box-office perception? In some cases it can bounce right off. Christian Bale's on-set rant to a cinematographer didn't ding Terminator: Salvation even after the rant went viral, in part because much of the young male demographic that the movie was aimed at dug the freak-out. The Rupert Sanders-Kristen Stewart affair only seemed to help Snow White And The Huntsman.

Then again, there's plenty of fallout when something like this happens right before a movie's release. Stars keep a low profile, media forget about the film and audiences can be left with a bad taste. It's hard to watch Roberts confronting street thugs on screen when that hotel image keeps lingering in one's mind. – Los Angeles Times/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Entertainment: TV & Radio

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The Star Online: Entertainment: TV & Radio

Jay Park here for laughs

Posted:

Singer Jay Park is not afraid to act silly as the host of Saturday Night Live Korea.

TOO many hip-hop artistes are overly concerned with being cool and tough, and want to be seen to have street credibility.

Not the Seoul-based Jay Park – he has no problems being a funny guy and he is not worried in the least that his Saturday Night Live Korea's hosting gig will conflict with his musical persona.

"I don't worry about portraying an image because when you have an image then you'll stress out about what to say and what not to say," says the 26-year-old Korean-American, who first rose to fame as a member of K-pop group 2PM, but went solo in 2010.

The host of Saturday Night Live Korea, a comedy sketch show, is excited about the comedic gig, especially now that it is getting more popular in South Korea.

It is a franchise of the iconic long-running American variety show, which has seen popular comics such as Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Will Ferrell and Tina Fey pass through its ranks.

Park hosted a few highly-rated episodes in Season 3 of Saturday Night Live Korea and went onboard full time for Season 4 early this year.

"It's becoming this show that everyone wants to watch or host and I'm really glad that I'm part of something like that," he says.

It was not all smooth-sailing for him, though.

"There's a language barrier. My Korean's not that fantastic and my humour's a bit different, so sometimes I don't get why something's funny until we rehearse it and then it's like, 'Oh this is funny!'."

The singer also revealed that the hardest thing he has had to do thus far on the show was pulling down his pants for a skit in which he was caught watching porn by an actress playing his wife.

Although Park seems quite willing to go pretty far for laughs, there are some lines he will not cross.

"I would never kiss a guy." – The Straits Times, Singapore/Asia News Network

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews

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The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews

Emma Roberts in trouble
Jungle Book reboots
Ad-Rock in talks to act in a film

Emma Roberts in trouble

Posted:

Actress Emma Roberts has been arrestedfor allegations of domestic violence.

Jungle Book reboots

Posted:

Mowgli and friends are returning ... to the big screen.

SEVERAL movie studios are simultaneously working on the famed adventures of Mowgli, first told in Rudyard Kipling's 19th-century fables, yet again for the big screen.

The Jungle Book has already been adapted numerous times, though the most famous version is still Disney's animated musical of 1967. Nonetheless, this collection of fables clearly hasn't yet exhausted the imagination of movie studios in Hollywood and abroad.

After adapting Alice In Wonderland (2010), Sleeping Beauty, Maleficient (due out in 2014) and Cinderella (directed by Kenneth Branagh and slated for 2015), Disney continues to co-opt the classics.

Justin Marks, who wrote The Raven (2012) and Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun-Li (2007), has been attached to script a live-action Jungle Book for Disney.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros has put its own scribe on it, attaching Steve Kloves, who has adapted all but one of the Harry Potter series, to write and direct this project.

As if that weren't enough, DQ Entertainment (Ireland) Limited is planning to start up its own features department with a 3D adaptation in 2014.

So the next few years are going to be chock-a-block with little jungle boys raised by she-wolves, along with happy-go-lucky "bare necessities" bears, benevolent black panthers and bloodthirsty tigers. – AFP Relaxnews

Del Toro's monster

BRITISH actor Benedict Cumberbatch, known for the BBC series Sherlock and as Khan in this year's Star Trek Into Darkness, is set to play the Mary Shelley classic in a remake which Guillermo del Toro has been developing for years.

According to the Daily Telegraph, del Toro has not given up on his idea of adapting the novel for the silver screen. The project was initially supposed to star his longtime collaborator Doug Jones (Hellboy), but apparently the director has finally opted for Cumberbatch instead.

The English actor, who'll also be starring in del Toro's gothic haunted house flick Crimson Peak, has the advantage of already having played Frankenstein on stage.

In 2011 director Danny Boyle had Cumberbatch and co-star Jonny Lee Miller take turns playing Dr Frankenstein and his creature at the Royal National Theatre in London.

Before del Toro's project gets under way at Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox is already planning its own version by 2014, featuring Daniel Radcliffe as Dr Frankenstein's assistant Igor. – AFP Relaxnews

Ad-Rock in talks to act in a film

Posted:

Adam Horovitz, aka Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys, is in discussions to join Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts in Noah Baumbach's indie movie While We're Young, an individual familiar with the New York-set project has told TheWrap.

Horovitz made his acting debut as a troubled Los Angeles youth opposite Donald Sutherland in the 1989 drama Lost Angels, though he hasn't tackled a substantial movie role in two decades. Written and directed by Baumbach, While We're Young stars Stiller and Watts as a married couple that strikes up an unlikely friendship with a free-spirited younger couple, to be played by Adam Driver (Girls) and Amanda Seyfried (Lovelace).

Schedule permitting, Horovitz would play a married friend of Stiller and Watts' characters who just had a baby and can no longer relate to the childless couple or why they feel the need to hang out with twentysomething hipsters.

Scott Rudin and Eli Bush are producing the long-gestating project, which will start production this fall.

After Lost Angels, Horovitz went on to tackle a supporting role alongside Matt Dillon and Max von Sydow in the 1991 thriller A Kiss Before Dying, as well as appear in the 1992 road trip movie Roadside Prophets.

He recently played himself in a 2009 episode of 30 Rock and starred in the Beastie Boys concert documentary Awesome: I F***** Shot That, as well as Spike Jonze's Funny Or Die short Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win.

On the music side, the Beastie Boys had songs on the soundtracks for both of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies. Horovitz also provided music for The Ben Stiller Show in 1992. He's represented by WME. — Reuters

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf

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The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf

Mystery Girl

Posted:

THE main character in David Gordon's 2010 debut thriller, The Serialist, was a novelist hired to write a serial killer's memoirs.

Now, in Mystery Girl, he introduces a new protagonist, a failed experimental novelist named Sam Kornberg who finds work as an assistant to a private detective.

Gordon writes about writers because one of the things his books are about is the nature of storytelling itself.

"Does your life work like that?" Sam snaps when asked why he doesn't write "regular" stories.

"Do the thoughts in your head sound like a normal book? Is there a narrator saying she did this and did that? ... Does your life have a plot?"

Fortunately for readers, Mystery Girl does have a plot – an intricate one in which Sam's obese and not entirely sane employer assigns him to tail a mysterious young woman. What seems at first to be a simple job soon snares Sam in a murder case that takes him on a wild ride from Los Angeles to a poor village in rural Mexico and involves Satanists, free love advocates, doppelgangers and underground filmmakers.

The result is a darkly comic, stylish literary thriller peppered with references to literature (Shakespeare, Proust, Kafka) and classic movies (Vertigo, The Wild Bunch, They Live by Night).

This description of a rural church in Mexico is a good example of the author's fine prose:

"Like many poor churches, it was magnificent and overwrought, festooned with glitter-and-marble icing, bedoodled with arches, niches, flying angels, singing saints, and hailing Marys.

"It stunned us with its space and height and cool silence, offering the people a tangible vision of heaven, a working model of the miraculous to comfort them as they died face down in the dirt and sun."

The novel explores not only storytelling but also issues of faith, personal identity, friendship and the decline of civilisation.

"While the book is not a hard read, Gordon does ask more of readers than the typical thriller requires. He's not just fooling around.

Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, is the author of Cliff Walk and Rogue Island.

Born Weird

Posted:

CANADIAN author Andrew Kaufman's work can best be described as quirky and off-beat.

His debut effort, the novella All My Friends Are Superheroes, used superheroes to discuss relationships.The Tiny Wife, his second novella, used a shrinking woman as a metaphor for a crumbling relationship and diminishing love. His debut novel, The Water-Proof Bible, was a meditation on forgiveness, family, and relationships.

To tell this latest story, Kaufman introduces an amphibian woman as one of his main characters and a biblical flood (with cues taken from Noah's ark).

And yet, apart from the eye-catching title, Born Weird has to be – comparatively – Kaufman's most straightforward novel.

The Weird children – Richard, Lucy, Abba, Angie and Kent – have always been a little strange but they have accepted their eccentricities, and they have never thought they were cursed. When the novel opens, their grandmother, Annie Weird, announces to Angie that grandma will die at 7.39pm on April 20. Then Annie informs Angie that she had cursed all five siblings at their birth. Annie had meant to bless them but each blessing has ruined their lives, in her view.

And finally, Annie tells Angie that if all five siblings are present at her time of death, the curses will be lifted.

Though the instructions may seem simple enough, they aren't in reality because the Weird family members have never been close knit, and it is up to Angie to travel across Canada to convince her siblings to gather by grandma's bedside on April 20.

And she has exactly 13 days to do the deed.

It is during Angie's journey to collect her siblings that readers get to know the Weird family.

We learn that the family is dysfunctional. The children's father, Besnard, died in an automobile accident in 2002. Their mother, Nicola, suffers from an unidentified mental illness and stopped being their mother soon after her husband's death. Each of Angie's siblings has not had much better luck in life. Richard can't maintain relationships (he is on his third marriage), Lucy is promiscuous, Abba believes she is a queen, and Kent lives like a homeless person in his own home.

Angie, being Annie's favourite grandchild, is the main focus of the story – and she is pregnant for three-quarters of the novel and wondering if she truly loves the father of her child.

Once the five Weird children are reunited, the novel becomes a road trip-cum-bonding session of sorts, with the siblings working together to first get from Toronto to Vancouver by road in time (a total of 51 hours driving non-stop at break-neck speed) to witness their grandmother die and have their blessings/curses lifted, and secondly to find out more about their father's death.

As a subplot that works surprisingly well, Kaufman injects a sense of mystery into Besnard's death. Told in flashbacks, readers learn that Besnard – owner of a taxi service that belonged to his parents before him – may have abandoned his wife and children by faking his death. It is this subplot that drives the last quarter of the novel, with the Weird siblings making another road trip, this time from Toronto to Sydney, Halifax, on the eastern coast of Canada.

However, the storyline involving the Weird siblings and a car accident seems a little overdramatic and unnecessary. And the ending seems a little rushed, as though Kaufman did not know what to do with his characters, or how to end his novel.

Despite these shortcoming, one word to describe Born Weird is charming. The plot may at times be a little surreal (Annie blessing her grandchildren which turns out to be curses; the scenes in the hospital involving Annie, her death and her grandchildren), but on the whole, the story is told in a charming and straightforward – for Kaufman, any way! – manner.

Kaufman manages to keep Born Weird both light-hearted and serious at the same time, and he does understand off-beat comic timing, which is plentiful in this novel.

Though he may have striven for surreal realism, with Born Weird Kaufman has instead presented the dynamics of a large family, and believable sibling interactions.

The language that Kaufman uses is simple and the narrative fairly linear, which makes it easy to read compared to The Water-Proof Bible, which never actually explained the bible of the title or why amphibian-like creatures are able to drive Hondas in downtown Toronto....

Readers who enjoy novels with a twist of surreal realism or who liked Kaufman's previous works will definitely enjoy Born Weird.

That being said, the only weird thing about Born Weird is how ordinarily straight forward this novel is compared to Kaufman's previous offerings. In short, it is well worth checking out both Born Weird and Kaufman.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Lifestyle: Health

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The Star Online: Lifestyle: Health

Sensorised teddy bear tracks your baby’s health

Posted:

Teddy the Guardian is a plush toy made from organic cotton and wool and equipped with sensors that measure heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels, and temperature, while relaying the data via Bluetooth to a parent's smartphone.

WHILE sensorised health tracking devices are a hot trend for adults, what about babies?

A new start-up based out of Zagreb, Croatia, has developed and launched a new sensorised teddy bear for tracking the health stats of young children.

TechCrunch reports that the bear's sensors are located in various places around its body – sensorised paws can track heart rate and oxygen levels, for example.

One of the benefits of the bear is that it can help provide accurate, consistent data on a baby's vital signs, which sometimes can become skewed at a doctor's office where a child may become stressed. Plus, busy parents can keep tabs on their child's stress levels over the course of a particular day.

Future versions include sensors for tracking blood sugar levels for diabetic children.

While no launch date is set, Teddy the Guardian's sensors have already received FDA approval and the company, IDerma, hopes to seeks CE approval, plus they've received interest from markets in China and India – the increase in disposable income in rapidly developing countries has resulted in an interest in spending more money on a family's first-born child, IDerma co-founder Josipa Majic told TechCrunch. – AFP Relaxnews

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Metro: South & East

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The Star Online: Metro: South & East

South Korea tycoon charged
Licence tenure of childcare centre reduced
Licence of hawker who passed off beef as mutton revoked

South Korea tycoon charged

Posted:

SEOUL: The head of South Korean food and entertainment giant CJ Group was charged with embezzlement and tax evasion, prosecutors said, as Seoul seeks to rein in family-controlled business groups.

Lee Jae-hyun, 53, allegedly stashed away undeclared assets worth about 96 billion won (RM273mil) and evading taxes worth 54.6 billion won (RM155mil) since 2004.

"This is a case where a business tycoon illicitly pocketed funds diverted from listed companies and evaded tax," prosecutor Park Jeong-shik told journalists yesterday.

Lee created some 10 shell companies in foreign countries including Singapore and Hong Kong to avoid tax, he said.

Three other former and current executives of the group were also charged as accomplices.

CJ group said the accused accepted the result of the investigation and had apologised.

Lee is a nephew of Lee Kun-hee, chairman of the Samsung Group.

CJ, which started out as a food company, has been expanding aggressively to other businesses such as entertainment and retail.

The indictment comes as President Park Geun-hye's government is seeking to prevent all-embracing conglomerates from extending into small businesses.

Combined revenue of the group, including the country's largest food company and cinema chains, amounted to 26.8 trillion won (RM76bil) last year.

Business tycoons in South Korea have often got off lightly for their wrongdoing, with courts recognising their contribution to the economy as a reason for leniency.

Lee's uncle – convicted of tax evasion – was pardoned in 2009.

Chung Mong-koo, the head of the country's top car maker Hyundai, was also pardoned in 2008 after being convicted of embezzlement and other charges. — AFP

Licence tenure of childcare centre reduced

Posted:

THE licence tenure for NTUC My First Skool in Toa Payoh Lorong 4 has been reduced from 24 months to six months.

Acting Minister of Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing announced this after a visit to KLC School of Education yesterday.

The childcare centre is where a part-time teacher allegedly abused a three-year-old boy on July 5.

The teacher has since been arrested and sacked.

The childcare centre was issued a warning letter on Wednesday.

Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) chief executive Lee Tung Jean said the centre will have to provide more support and training for teachers, and have clearer procedures in place for incident reporting.

She said ECDA officers will conduct more frequent visits to the centre, and its licence could be renewed if the centre demonstrates that it complies with the remedial measures. — The Straits Times/ Asia News Network

Licence of hawker who passed off beef as mutton revoked

Posted:

A hawker was fined S$3,000 (RM7,570) and had the operating licence of his stall revoked with effect from July 18 for passing off beef as mutton.

In a statement yesterday, the National Environment Agency (NEA) said that it had investigated Haja Maideen Mee Stall, which is located at ABC Brickworks Market and Food Centre in Jalan Bukit Merah, following public feedback on Feb 18.

It conducted DNA tests on samples of mutton mee goreng from the stall and found beef, although subsequent sampling of mutton dishes sold there did not find any adulterated meat.

Shaul Hameed, the licensee of the stall, was brought to court, and he pleaded guilty to a charge under the Sale of Food Act on July 16.

He will be barred from holding any food retail licence issued by NEA, and will not be allowed to register as a food handler.

The NEA said that it will continue their sampling programme and follow up on feedback it receives. — The Straits Times/ Asia News Network

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

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The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

New from Kings Of Leon

Posted:

Kings Of Leon releases a brand new single.

American rock band Kings Of Leon yesterday released a single called Supersoaker, taken from its upcoming album Mechanical Bull.

The track is currently available today on iTunes, Amazon and other digital retailers.

Supersoaker takes listeners back to the band's earlier days, when lead singer Caleb Followill's heavy vocals would push through strong guitar riffs and an uncomplicated melody.

The new album is set for a release on Sept 24.

Angst from Aberdeen

Posted:

Nirvana changed pop music forever with a single song.

IN the history of pop music, there are certain bands, albums and songs that changed everything. Just like in your own life, it's tough to recognise the impact of a turning point as it happens – you just know that something big is going on. And in the fall of 1991, something huge was happening with Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Nirvana, led by singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain, was a band out of Aberdeen, Washington. Prior to Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana was like countless other small bands, treading water during the last wave of college rock ("underground" music that played on university radio stations). Some of the most popular college rock bands, such as Cobain favourite R.E.M., had gone from releasing albums on tiny, independently owned record labels to receiving big-money contracts from major labels owned by corporations.

And in 1990, Nirvana did this, too. After putting out their debut, Bleach, on Seattle indie label Sub Pop, Cobain and his band signed to DGC Records for their second release. Nirvana moved up a floor – but no one had any idea that they'd blow the roof off the building.

In the early 1990s, pop radio was wall-to-wall balladeers (Michael Bolton and Mariah Carey), rappers (MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice) and Jacksons (Michael and Janet). The closest thing to rock was still several universes away from the world inhabited by Nirvana.

It's not like Cobain didn't have great affection for pop music. He was a huge admirer of The Beatles, and many of his punk, metal and college rock heroes had a knack for burying beautiful melodies under raging guitars or murky noise. Nirvana's new drummer, Dave Grohl, could even sing harmony.

Nirvana would record Nevermind, the band's major label debut, with producer Butch Vig in the spring of 1991. Smells Like Teen Spirit would end up being the album's lead track. Cobain was responsible for the song's charging guitar riff. While playing his new riff with bandmates Grohl (drums) and Krist Novoselic (bass guitar), the trio experimented with quietening down the riff for the verses, creating a loud-quiet-loud dynamic that would be endlessly copied by those influenced by Nirvana.

Of course, the band didn't come up with the idea out of nowhere. Cobain later admitted that Teen Spirit was an attempt to write a song in the style of The Pixies. The Nirvana frontman had loved the first album by the college radio stars (if such a thing ever existed), because of their roaring guitars, dynamic shifts and strong melodies.

And then there's the song title, which Cobain took from a message spray-painted on his wall by Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna. The singer had written "Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit," namechecking the deodorant that Cobain's girlfriend wore, called Teen Spirit. The story goes that Cobain was unaware of the brand name, and thought Hanna was referencing some sort of youth revolt.

Indeed, some fans have interpreted the song's lyrics as being about the indifferent teenage experience: "I feel stupid and contagious. Here we are now, entertain us." Grohl had dismissed this, saying that Cobain chose the words for how they sounded, not what they meant.

In September 1991, DGC released Teen Spirit to college radio as the album's first single, just to stir up attention about Nirvana and Nevermind. The label executives thought that another song, Come As You Are, had more hit potential, and that Teen Spirit would simply be a way to introduce Nirvana's sound.

Boy, were they wrong. From September until the end of the year, Teen Spirit grew in popularity – from college rock fans to mainstream rock fans to, well, almost everybody. What was expected to be a modest college radio hit became a mainstream smash, earning play on radio stations worldwide.

The specific reasons why the song became such a hit are unknown. Faced by a wasteland of wimpy ballads and overly synthetic music, perhaps listeners craved something edgier. The song's conventional structure and catchy riff helped smooth over the noisier elements for fans of slicker pop. Of course, the music video (in constant rotation on MTV by the end of 1991) featuring Nirvana playing at an anarchistic high school pep rally, only helped the song become a titanic moment in rock history.

And then, in early 1992, came the coup de grace: Nirvana's Nevermind took over the No. 1 position on the Billboard Albums Chart from Michael Jackson's Dangerous. The King of Pop was dethroned by a raggedy rock band. You couldn't have written the fairy tale any better.

Sadly, Cobain wouldn't live this fairy tale for very long. About two and a half years after Teen Spirit found a fanbase, the troubled musician would commit suicide.

Smells Like Teen Spirit ushered in a new era. Loud and angry rock had a home on pop radio. College rock's funeral pyre gave way to "alternative rock," which would bring more interesting and varied strains of rock and roll into the mainstream. Young kids today, inspired by Nirvana's punk ethos, continue to pick up guitars and start their own bands.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Jumaat, 19 Julai 2013