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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Kevin Bacon Biography Current Hot News Profile Girl Friend Children Relationships Imdb Wife Family Pictures Wallpaper Online Video.

Date of Birth : 8 July 1958, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Birth Name : Kevin Norwood Bacon
Height : 5' 10½" (1.79 m)

Mini Biography
Kevin Bacon's early training as an actor came from The Manning Street. His debut as the strict Chip Diller in Animal House (1978) almost seems like an inside joke, but he managed to escape almost unnoticed from that role. kevin bacon x menyoung kevin bacon kevin bacon footloose kevin bacon daughter kevin bacon funny kevin bacon 2012.
 

Diner (1982) became the turning point after a couple of TV series and a number of less-than-memorable movie roles. In a cast of soon-to-be stars, he more than held his end up, and we saw a glimpse of the real lunatic image of The Bacon. He also starred in Footloose (1984), in She's Having a Baby (1988), in Tremors (1990) with Fred Ward, in Flatliners (1990), and in Apollo 13 (1995).

Thanks to the sudden celebrity born from his electrifying performance in "Footloose" (1984), actor Kevin Bacon was transformed from a virtual unknown into an unlikely heartthrob who graced the covers of magazines like Teen Beat - something he struggled in vain to live down for the rest of his career. Though he subsequently delivered strong performances in "JFK" (1991), "A Few Good Men" (1992) and "The Woodsman" (2004), Bacon was hounded by "Footloose" fans who recognized nothing else of his career beyond that iconic performance. Always gracious despite the desire to move on - he was known to have bribed DJs at clubs and parties to not play the Kenny Loggins song - the actor had on occasion obliged calls to recreate the famous warehouse dance scene, despite ever-present reservations. He was even more of a good sport with Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, a parlor game created by three college students in 1994, which claimed that any actor in the history of filmmaking could be connected to him in six links or less. Regardless of the strange trappings of his particular celebrity, Bacon remained a versatile actor capable of turning in exquisite performances in either leading or supporting roles.

Born on July 8, 1958 in Philadelphia, PA, Bacon was raised the youngest of six children by his father, Edmund, an urban planner who reinvented the city and was once dubbed "The Father of Modern Philadelphia," and his mother, Ruth, a teacher and political activist. Bacon knew all along that he wanted to be an actor, which led him to attend the Pennsylvania Governors School for the Arts. After continuing his dramatic training at the Manning Street Actor's Theatre in Philadelphia, he left for New York, where he became the youngest-ever apprentice at the Greenwich Village theater school, Circle in the Square. While there, he made his off-Broadway premiere in Marsha Norman's "Getting Out" (1978). He followed with his feature debut with a small, but memorable part in "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978). In two long-revered scenes, Bacon portrayed Chip Diller, a young ROTC soldier pledging the Omega Theta Pi fraternity, who receives a severe paddling during rush week while intoning, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" At the end of the movie, he pleaded for a frenzied parade crowd to "Remain calm all is well!" before getting trampled into the cement cartoon fashion.

Bacon moved on to several small supporting roles, making his television movie debut in the Christmas drama, "The Gift" (CBS, 1979) while appearing in features like "Starting Over" (1979), "Friday the 13th" (1980) and "Only When I Laugh" (1981). He gained his first serious exposure as a confused rich kid with a drinking problem in "Diner" (1982), Barry Levinson's directorial debut that also introduced the likes of Steve Guttenberg, Paul Riser and Mickey Rourke He elevated his career with an OBIE-winning performance on Broadway opposite Sean Penn in "The Slab Boys" (1983). But all was mere prologue to the insane amount of celebrity Bacon received for his performance in the smash hit "Footloose" (1984), an improbably popular riff on "Flashdance" (1983) that forever changed the actor's career. As the rebellious Ren McCormack, who moves from the big city to a small town where the local government has banned rock music and dancing, Bacon - who had up that point considered himself a serious dramatic actor - became an unlikely heartthrob, appearing on covers of all the teen magazines, including Tiger Beat, as well as more adult entertainment publications like People. Along with the hit title song by Kenny Loggins - which accompanied Bacon's famed warehouse dance scene - "Footloose" became one of the iconic cultural symbols of the 1980s.

Though he became an instant celebrity because of "Footloose," Bacon soon learned that his fame came with a price - namely that he would spend the rest of his natural born life being associated with the role no matter what else he did on screen. The other downside was the idea entering his mind that he was somehow invincible. But headlining mediocre fare like "Quicksilver" (1986) and "White Water Summer" (1987) dimmed his star considerably, offering the actor a large helping of humble pie. Even a pairing with director John Hughes as an overwrought yuppie dad in the contemporary comedy "She's Having a Baby" (1988) failed to set the box office on fire. By the time Bacon played a cold-blooded killer in the pretentious "Criminal Law" (1988) and a young filmmaker in the underrated satire "The Big Picture" (1989), his career was in serious jeopardy. Meanwhile, his personal life took a turn with the death of his mother and the sudden sense of responsibility brought on by the birth of his first child with actress Kyra Sedgwick.

After beginning the next decade with the uninspired "Flatliners" (1990) and the ridiculous, but fun horror flick "Tremors" (1990) - which spawned numerous sequels and incarnations - Bacon tried in vain to revitalize his waning career with the failed throwback romantic comedy, "He Said, She Said" (1991). But it was his next performance - a small supporting one at that - in Oliver Stone's "JFK" (1991) that began righting the course of his career. Bacon played the fictional Willie O'Keefe, a fascist-minded gay hustler associated with alleged conspirators David Ferrie (J Pesci), Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), and the only man officially accused of pulling the trigger, Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman), in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Though only onscreen for several minutes, including a memorable scene with New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) at a Louisiana prison, Bacon made an indelible impression on critics and movieg rs, who saw a completely different side of the actor. Soon he began to take on darker, more challenging roles like the serious dramatic actor he knew himself to be.

One such role was a compelling performance as a rock solid, no-nonsense Marine prosecutor trying a hazing ritual gone bad in Rob Reiner's feature adaptation of Aaron Sorkin's play, "A Few Good Men" (1992). He next played an American basketball coach who brings the game to an African tribe in "The Air Up There" (1994), a role that reinforced the fact that his name alone was not enough to carry a picture. But he returned to the winner's column playing a fugitive killer menacing Meryl Streep and her family in "The River Wild" (1994), which earned Bacon his first-ever Golden Globe nomination. While Christian Slater was top-billed for the historical courtroom drama "Murder in the First" (1995), Bacon delivered a strong performance as a Depression-era inmate at Alcatraz who suffers severe abuse, transforming him from a petty thief into a murderer. Many were disappointed with Bacon being shut out of award nominations for a role that was one of the best of his career. Also that year, he was appropriately cocky as astronaut Jack Swigert, who gets trapped aboard the doomed "Apollo 13" (1995) with Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) and Fred Haise (Bill Paxton).

Bacon made his directorial debut with the character drama "Losing Chase" (1996), starring wife Kyra Sedgwick, which got a theatrical release after its premiere on Showtime. If any traces of his teen idol image were still visible after "JFK," they were completely erased with his next project, "Sleepers" (1996), in which he played a guard at a 1960s reform school who - along with his fellow guards - systematically rape and beat four boys. Years later, the boys have grown into men and by chance find their chief tormentor, murdering him in broad daylight. Meanwhile, he earned his first song credit writing "Medium Rare" for "Telling Lies in America" (1997), in which he also starred as a brash disc jockey accepting payola. Bacon next picked up his first credit as executive producer with "Wild Things" (1998), a neo-noir that saw him play a police sergeant who becomes suspicious after a high school guidance counselor is accused of rape by two students, one Goth (Neve Campbell), the other rich and popular (Denise Richards), only to be acquitted when one of the girls admits she falsified her story, leading to a multi-million dollar settlement.

By this time in his career, Bacon had worked on a number of films that made it seem as though he had worked with everyone in show business. In fact, while conducting an interview with Premiere magazine, Bacon made a comment claiming that he had worked with everyone in Hollywood or someone who has worked with that person. The claim led to a game created by three Albright College students called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, which required players to connect him to any other actor in film history as quickly and with as few links as possible. The number of links would be the actor's Bacon number. For example, Tom Cruise worked with Kevin Bacon in "A Few Good Men," which meant that he had a Bacon number of one - the lowest possible. By the end of the decade, the game had become infused into popular culture, while a good-humored Bacon often played into the joke, even making mention of it in a cameo appearance as himself on an episode of "Will & Grace" (NBC, 1998-2006).

Bacon pursued other avenues of creative expression when he joined older brother Michael to form the aptly-named band, The Bacon Brothers, a country-rock outfit that formed in 1995 and released its debut album, Forosoco, two years later. Continuing his music trip, Bacon sang on the television special "Happy Birthday Elizabeth - A Celebration of Life" (ABC, 1997), which honored the life and career of Elizabeth Taylor, who herself possessed a Bacon number of two. He then shared credit for the music on the European feature "Solo Shuttle" (1998) and released a second Bacon Brothers album, Getting There (1999), which led to the band playing their first major concert at the venerable Town Hall in New York City in 2000. Of course, Bacon was full steam ahead with his film career, giving an exceptional performance as a working-class Everyman who takes a dangerously long time to comprehend his newly acquired psychic powers in David K pp's supernatural thriller "Stir of Ech s" (1999). Released in the shadow of the blockbuster thriller, "The Sixth Sense" (1999), which featured a similar plot line, the unappreciated film languished at the box office.

Bacon remained in the background as a gruff father in "My Dog Skip" (2000), allowing young Frankie Muniz to dominate the nostalgic tale of growing up in the Deep South of the 1940s. Later that year, he headlined Paul Verh ven's sci-fi thriller, "The Hollow Man" (2000), playing as a U.S. government scientist whose experiments on a secretive invisibility serum backfires, causing him to fade away and turn homicidal. It was a perfect part for Bacon, who provided the picture with a necessary edge amidst special effects and a big name director. Bacon next joined Courtney Love to portray a pair of professional kidnappers in Luis Mandoki's middling action feature "Trapped" (2002), costarring Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend. Bacon delivered one of his best turns to date when he appeared in director Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River" (2003), playing a homicide detective assigned to the murder of the daughter of a childhood friend (Sean Penn), while another friend from the neighborhood (Tim Robbins) is suspected of the crime.

He followed with an even more challenging role in "The Woodsman" (2004), playing a convicted pedophile who returns to his hometown to begin a new life after a dozen years in prison. Bacon's realistic and even sympathetic depiction was praised as one of his finest performances. But the controversial subject matter may have cost the actor some major award nominations. Still, he did earn an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Male Lead. Radically shifting gears, he enjoyed a scene-stealing supporting turn as an over-the-top hair stylist in the "Barbershop" spin-off "Beauty Shop" (2005). Scoring another coup, Bacon costarred with Colin Firth in director Atom Egoyan's sly and seductive show biz noir, "Where the Truth Lies" (2005). Bacon played Lanny Morris, the manic half of a 1950s comedy duo caught up in the mysterious murder of a beautiful blonde who turns up naked and dead in the bathtub of their New Jersey hotel room, leading to the dissolution of their partnership and a years-later investigation.

Bacon sat back down in the director's chair for "Loverboy" (2006), a heartfelt drama about an iconoclastic woman (Sedgwick) who wants nothing more than to have a child. Meanwhile, he formed the charitable group, sixdegrees.org, which helped raise money for various causes through its partnership with companies like AOL and Entertainment Weekly. Back on screen, he played a doctor compromised by personal feelings while trying to save the life of someone he loves in the ensemble drama, "The Air I Breathe" (2008). In "Frost/Nixon" (2008), he portrayed John Brennan, a former Marine officer and the post-resignation chief of staff for disgraced president Richard Nixon (Frank Langella), who agreed to do a series of historic interviews with British broadcaster David Frost (Michael Sheen). Bacon delivered another exquisite performance, this time as a U.S. Marine who volunteers to bring back the remains of a 19-year-old soldier killed in Iraq in the real-life inspired drama, "Taking Chance" (HBO, 2009). The role earned him nominations for an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award and he won both. He next had a supporting role as a philandering band leader in "My One and Only" (2009), a comedic look at the early years of actor George Hamilton (Logan Lerman).

Brooke Shields Biography Current Hot News Profile Boy Friend Children Relationships Imdb Husband Family Pictures Wallpaper Online Video.

Date of Birth : 31 May 1965, New York City, New York, USA
Birth Name : Brooke Christa Shields
Nickname : Brookie
Height : 6' (1.83 m)

Mini Biography
"Want to know what gets between me and my Calvins? Nothing". If you hadn't heard of Brooke Shields before, this tag line from her Calvin Klein Jeans ad had to grab your attention.young brooke shields brooke shields pretty baby brooke shields and michael jackson brooke shields calvin brooke shields blue.


Not that she hadn't had a previous noteworthy resume. She was born in New York City in 1965 and, at age 12, she starred as a child prostitute in Pretty Baby (1978). Could this movie even be made today? It was considered risky and controversial in 1978. It was followed by another hit, The Blue Lagoon (1980).Brooke has proved herself to be so much more than her early films. Her broad range of work as an adult would be quite an achievement for anyone, especially given how difficult transitioning from child actor to adult often is.

She has never stopped working, whether it be a Bob Hope Christmas special, her own sitcom "Suddenly Susan" (1996) or as an author. She also managed to work on a degree from Princeton University. She has received a number of awards during her career, most notably The People's Choice award for 1981 through 1984 in the category of Favorite Young Performer. In 1997, she was honored again with The People's Choice award for Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series in 1997 for her work in "Suddenly Susan" (1996).

In her personal life, she was married in 1997 to tennis player Andre Agassi and was devastated when they divorced two years later. She married for the second time in 2001 to Chris Henchy. She has been open about using fertility treatments to become pregnant with their daughter, Rowan, born in 2003.

When suffering debilitating depression after the birth of her daughter, she made the decision to put her feelings down on paper. Her book, "Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression", takes a hard, honest look at what she and many other women experience after childbirth.

She still lives in New York, and is still sought after for work in movies, television, and on stage. Pretty nice list of achievements for the once Calvin Klein jeans girl.Actress. Born May 31, 1965, in New York City, to Terri and Frank Shields. Her father was a Revlon executive and her mother a model. Shields has been in the public eye from the very beginning, as she appeared in an Ivory Snow advertisement when she was a mere 11 months old.

In 1978, Shields made her film debut in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby and followed it up with high-profile roles in The Blue Lagoon (1980) and Endless Love (1981). Meanwhile, Shields caused a sensation with her advertisements for Calvin Klein jeans, in which she claimed that nothing came between her and her Calvins. Shields also endorsed Breck shampoo, Colgate toothpaste, and Band Aids.

Critics who claimed that Shields was more celebrity than actress were delighted when she flopped in Sahara (1983) and Brenda Starr (1989). Shields cut back on her acting to attend Princeton University in New Jersey and graduated in 1988. However, she couldn't totally resist the spotlight and wrote a much-publicized autobiography, On Your Own.

Shields starred in a string of TV-movies following college, before landing the title role in Suddenly Susan in 1996. With a great time slot between Seinfeld and ER, the show achieved moderate success and was later moved to Monday nights, where it began to struggle in the ratings. It was eventually canceled in late 1999. Shields' career remained on track, however, with starring roles in several independent films, including James Toback's Black and White (2000), co-starring Robert Downey Jr. In 2007, she appeared as Miley Cyrus's mother on the hit Disney show, Hannah Montana. The next year, she starred in the television drama Lipstick Jungle. After several promises of renewal, the show was canceled in 2009 after only two seasons.

Previously linked romantically to Michael Jackson, Liam Neeson, Prince Albert of Monaco, and Michael Bolton, Shields married tennis star Andre Agassi in April 1997. The two were separated less than two years later, and the marriage ended in divorce. In April 2001, Shields married ex-Suddenly Susan writer Chris Henchy. The couple welcomed their first child, daughter Rowan, in May 2003.

In the spring of 2005, Shields spoke out about her struggle with postpartum depression after Rowan's birth. She appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to publicize her book, Down Came the Rain which detailed her experiences with suicide, delayed bonding, and severe depression that came with her traumatic childbirth experiences. After speaking about her troubles, and reaching out to other victims of postpartum depression, she was openly criticized by actor and devout scientologist Tom Cruise.

Cruise accused Shields of improperly medicating with the antidepressant drug, Paxil, and spoke out against her use of psychiatric treatment. The two actors became locked in a very public argument about the necessity of medication and psychiatry until Cruise privately apologized to Shields. Their friendship was quickly healed; Brooke and her husband attended Cruise's wedding to Katie Holmes in 2006.

Shields came into the public eye again on July l7, 2009, when she spoke at the memorial service for Michael Jackson at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. In her tearful eulogy she shared a number of heartfelt anecdotes about the pop star.

Anthony Weiner Photos | Anthony Weiner Infor | Anthony Weiner Bio | Anthony Weiner | Anthony Weiner Images

Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner has hired an attorney to investigate the hacking of his Twitter account after a lewd photo was sent to one of his followers, his office said on Tuesday.
"Look, this is a prank, not a terribly creative one and it's a distraction," Weiner said on NY1 TV.
His office confirmed to Reuters that the New York congressman, who has a high profile as an advocate of liberal causes, has hired an attorney to advise him on whether or not he could press criminal charges as a result of the alleged hack of his Twitter account.
Weiner said his account was hacked when a lewd photo of a man in bulging boxer briefs was tweeted to a 21-year-old female college student in Washington state over the weekend.
The posting was quickly deleted and Weiner made light of the incident on his Twitter page.
"More Weiner Jokes for all my guests!" he tweeted with the hashtag "Hacked!"

The student, Gennette Cordova, issued a statement to the New York Daily News that denied she personally knew Weiner but said, "I am a fan."

Snooki Rare Photos | Snooki Pics | Snooki Images | Snooki Event Photos | Snooki Info

Americans don't seem bothered enough by the country's growing wealth divide to do much about it, according to a recent Harvard Business School survey. In part, that's probably because they vastly underestimate the gap, believing the top 20 per cent own 59 per cent of the nation's wealth when they actually own 84 per cent.
But there's another, less obvious reason for our passivity — the hope and glory pushed by an all-pervasive news, gossip and star-driven celebrity culture.
The core of the American dream teaches us that the formula for achieving wealth involves hard work, determination and luck. Celebrities, and the coverage of them, seem to provide visible proof of this message every day: If it can happen to [Canadian] Justin Bieber, it can happen to me. So why change the system?

Just last week, in an obituary in the Los Angeles Times, the story was retailed again. Mary Murphy, who played the sweet small-town girl opposite Marlon Brando in "The Wild Ones," was "a package wrapper at Saks Fifth Avenue on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills when she was discovered at a nearby coffee shop by a talent scout."
The narrative persists like "once upon a time." Stories about contemporary celebrities — in fan magazines like Us Weekly and on star-driven websites like E Online — typically highlight how much stars were like us before making it big. We see their embarrassing high school pictures and read about their small hometowns, relationships, babies, body fat, marriages and divorces.
Oprah Winfrey is at least as famous for her rise from rural Mississippi to billionaire media mogul as she is for her "Live your best life" message. Teen sensation Bieber personifies overnight success — from YouTube video to a recording deal and platinum album. The very title of his remix album and biopic, "Never Say Never," echoes the American dream of limitless opportunities for anyone who refuses to give up.
The rise of the Internet and reality TV, which has made fame and fortune seem ever more accessible, has further strengthened the illusion that our class system is wide open. That Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi of "Jersey Shore" fame can command $32,000 for a Rutgers University appearance — $2,000 more than Nobel- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Toni Morrison received to deliver the university's commencement speech — is not just a commentary on the value we place on celebrity. It also reaffirms the possibility of social mobility for those with few skills.

The "has beens" who unwittingly star in these morality tales shore up a convenient notion of the American dream: that downward mobility — even during economic hard times — is about individual character traits rather than the social system or catastrophic societal and industrial changes.

Leann Rimes Rare Photos | Leann Rimes Pics | Leann Rimes Bio | Leann Rimes News Info |


Country cutie LeAnn Rimes is becoming an expert at getting a rise out of her 130,000+ Twitter followers.
On March 29, the seriously thin singer, who is currently on her honeymoon in Mexico with Eddie Cibrian,tweeted a series of provocative photos of herself in a blue string bikini, with her ribs clearly visible and hip bones protruding.
Naturally, her legion of Twitter followers chimed in, concerned about shrinking figure, including @AJPatterson1987 who tweeted, “Whoa, you’re scary skinny! Sorry don’t mean to offend but that’s a lot of bones showing through skin…”
Rimes defensively tweeted back: “Those are called abs not bones love,” adding after the fan once again voiced her concern, “Thx but this is my body and I can promise you I’m a healthy girl. I’m just lean. Thx for your concern but no need to be.”
Later, @AJPatterson1987 tweeted to another fan, “Love her and all but I agree, that’s not a good image to project & she’s in severe denial if she thinks that’s muscle!”
This isn’t the first time Rimes has caused alarm by posting bikini shots.

In April she took a photograph of her lower half in a yellow bikini with the caption, “First sun!!!!! SPRING!!!”

IOS 5 Photos | IOS-5Info |


There goes all the fun rumors and wild speculation. Apple just released a press release detailing what’s coming next week at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. I’ll let that sink in for a moment. Apple pre-announced something — iOS 5 and OS X Lion to be exact. Oh, and something called iCloud, too.
It was already generally accepted that the two operating system were going to debut next week, but it’s rather strange that Apple would take to the wires with a pre-announcement. Please correct me if I’m wrong, save a teaser image showcasing a roman numeral and a large feline, the company hasn’t done this in recent history. The presser is after the break but it’s more of an advert for the developer’s conference. This pre-announcement either means Apple doesn’t have that much to show, or, hopefully, there’s so much that the company had to announce some ahead of time to make room in Steve’s keynote.

Portable Air Conditioner | Portable Air Conditioner Info


With a heat wave rolling across the country, it comes as little surprise that "portable air conditioners" is currently trending on Google. After a relatively cool spring in many parts of the country, Memorial Day weekend saw temperatures into the 90s in many parts of the southern and eastern United States. No heat-related deaths have been reported yet, but cities are already reviewing their plans to deal with the heat. One of the more controversial aspects of heat waves, sadly, is that certain parts of cities see higher mortality rates than others. Why is this the case?

Will Smith Rare Photos | Will Smith Pics | Will Smith Bio | Will Smith Images

Will Smith died? Sean Kingston in a jet skiing accident? Seems the holiday weekend has turned up the heat on the Internet gossip mill! Unfortunately the rumors are at least half right.
If you woke up to the news that Will Smith died Tuesday morning, you aren't alone. Word on the web is that the actor fell off a cliff while in New Zealand filming Men in Black III.
Yet as quickly as Twitter users can gasp, "Will Smith died?!?" reports are surfacing that the 42-year-old is still alive and kicking. NZ Herald reports, "Actor Will Smith last night became the latest celebrity to not fall to his death near the Kauri Cliffs resort in Northland. Internet hoaxes have plagued the five-star resort, located 17 km north of Kerikeri."
They continue, "In 2006, Tom Hanks didn't die there, while two years later, Tom Cruise didn't meet a similar fate. The fictitious curse also ensnared Jeff Goldblum and Orlando Bloom."
While we're happy to put the Will Smith died rumors to rest, we can confirm the Sean Kingston accident reports are terribly accurate.
As we reported on Sunday, Sean Kingston crashed his jet ski into a bridge over the holiday weekend. The Beautiful Girlssinger and a female companion were rescued from the water and taken to the hospital.

Basketball Wives Rare Photos | Basketball Wives Photos | Basketball Wives Pics | Info

The scripted new series “Single Ladies” packed in so many music references, I half-expected VH1 to resurrect “Pop Up Video,” with informative thought bubbles hovering over the heads of Stacey Dash, LisaRaye, and Charity Shea.
The cameos were in full effect on “Single Ladies,” an original two-hour movie turned TV series. First it was Eve. Then TLC’s Chilli stopped by. Then Common played a Mayor while Jermaine Dupri and the “Real Housewives” Kandi Burrusspartied in the background.
Related: 'Single Ladies' - Another 'Girlfriends' in the making?
Music even found its way into the character’s backgrounds, as LisaRaye plays a former video vixen.
So, it wasn’t really surprising that the “Single Ladies” premiere began with our three female protagonists having a music-related debate with the three men in their lives. Dash’s Val, LisaRaye’s Keisha, and Shea’s brotha-loving April argue over the merit of sexual songs and artists.
“Marvin Gaye is acceptable nasty,” says Val. “R. Kelly?”
“Just nasty!” says all three women in unison.
The music references continued, with Val giving her boyfriend of five years an ultimatum.
“If you like it, put a ring on it. If not, let’s stop wasting each other’s time,” demands Val.
And just like that, we have our first official single lady. Cue the Beyonce music.
“Single Ladies” features a huge cast of black actors, but the show plays less like “Sex and the City,” “Girlfriends,” or even Showtime’s “Soul Food,” and more like a scripted series of “Basketball Wives.” And while “Basketball Wives” is fun to watch (okay, check that, extremely fun to watch), you’d be hard-pressed to admit that the women of the series are likeable. You tune in every week to see who will pull someone else’s weave outta their head the fastest, not because you have an affinity for the “characters” or a vested interest in their lives.
Related: 'Basketball Wives' - More fights, more drama, more fun
That’s kind of how I felt when watching “Single Ladies.” Fun in a tawdry, melodramatic way? Yeah. A must-see series with likeable characters? Not really.
One thing that “Basketball Wives” does have? Chemistry. Whether it’s the friendship between Shaunie O’Nealand Jennifer Williams, or the genuine hate between Evelyn Lozada and Tami Roman, the passion is palpable.
“Single Ladies” feels like a first day rehearsal that happened to be caught on camera. There’s no genuine sense that Val, who has opened up her own boutique, has much in common with Keisha or April outside of their love for the lavish lifestyle.

The Brainiac (1962)

(This is a review I did for a roundtable over at Strictly Splatter.com, a bunch of cool guys who do the same thing I do.  Check 'em out!)

A lot of people take Mexico for granted.

Sure, just take a hop, skip and a jump across the Southern-most border of California or Texas and you're there.  But how much do we big, overfed Anglos know about our neighbor to the South?

If your knowledge of Mexican culture is limited to the local Taco Bell, you may be surprised to discover that Mexico is actually rich in history and art; the Porfirian Era fostered a surge in economic progress and peace, which in turn led to the development of a cultural identity based on the melting pot of all races best described as the mestizaje.  This led to the creation of well-received literature by such renowned writers as Alfonso Reyes and Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz, post-revolutionary visual arts from such creative souls as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and the creation of such indigenous music as Mariachi, Banda, Norteño, Ranchera and Corridos.

Not to mention mas movies than you can shake a quesadilla at.

It's the same as every other country in the world, though; Just like Italy, Japan, Russia, Australia and New Zealand, Mexico has a lot of movies under its collective sombrero that many of you have never heard of, I'll wager.  Dramas, romances, comedies, documentaries, the whole nueve yards.  As a matter of fact, there would be a lot more movies you've never heard of before if not for the works of one K. Gordon Murray.

Now here was an enterprising man: a producer from the States, Murray took it upon himself to find foreign movies to bring to our sunny shores and, with judicious dubbing and a vigorous marketing campaign, reintroduce them to the local theater in downtown Des Moines, Iowa for a whole new passel of thrill-seekers.

Fans of TV's "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (like me) will recognize Murray as the man who brought us Santa Claus, the story of the Jolly Old Elf who, from his Heaven-bound castle, fought the forces of Satan and his minions to bring Christmas to two children in Mexico.  Oh, and Merlin the Magician gets involved, too.

There's also the bright, bouncy musical Little Red Riding Hood Meets The Monsters, where everyone's favorite red-clad girl with a basket of goodies is beset by ogres and witches and demons, but fights them off with ingenuity and a biped skunk.  And there's songs, too.  Lots of 'em.  Maybe too many but it's all for kids so it's okay....

That's just two examples but you see what I'm getting at: Murray sought out not only unusual stories but also ones in which you didn't necessarily have to know the language or hold a doctorate in foreign relations to understand: just follow the bouncing visuals and you'd be good to go.

But what about horror movies, you may ask?

What about 'em, indeed?  Murray gotcha covered there, too, with a little number that was indeed under the right classification for "Horror" but also supplied us with sexy sexy women, shape-shifting monsters, brain cups, comedy relief cops, and The Spanish Inquisition!

(...weren't expecting that last one, were you?)

The Brainiac is only one title for this beauty, as you may already have guessed since most any foreign movie has at least one, maybe two, extra titles to toss around.  This one's also called Baron Of Terror (or El Baron Del Terror), which is actually a more apt title for this, since it has a Baron in it, and he is the focus of the movie's Terror...and there really doesn't seem to be any brainiacs of any type in it.

However, The Brainiac works for reasons you're about to discover, even if they are about the most far-fetched reasons you could grasp for.

Here's the plot del muerte: In 1661 Mexico, the Baron Vitelius d'Estera (Abel Salazar) is sentenced to be burned alive by the Holy Inquisition of Mexico for witchcraft, necromancy, getting the hootchie-cootchie on with many poor innocent hot little mamas, double parking and other crimes. As he dies, the Baron swears vengeance against the descendants of the Inquisitors...which evil barons were always doing back in the 1600s.  This kinda makes it safe for this evil barons' tormentors, I guess, since their descendants - which they won't even have to answer to - will do all of the suffering for them....

Sorry, was I nit-picking a script about witchcraft-practicing barons being burnt at the stake?  Let's continue.

Cut to 300 years later (that's 1961, if you don't want to do the math), as a comet that was passing overhead on the night of the Baron's execution returns to earth, bringing with it the Baron (Salazar again) who has this neat by-product of being able to hypnotize people (especially female people) into doing whatever his twisted, evil little heart desires...oh yeah, and every so often he morphs into a horrible, pulsing-headed, brain-eating monster that terrorizes the Inquisitor's descendants.

All that stands in his way are the efforts of two stalwart meteorologists researching the meteor...one of whom happens to be the great-great something-or other of one of the Inquisitors.  Oops.  And a lady, to boot.  Double oops.

This is a pretty intricate plot for any horror flick, let alone a K. Gordon Murray run-for-the-border dub job like this.  But The Brainiac has a lot more going for it than you average scary flick with brain-sucking demons has.  For one thing, we have a man (the Baron) who makes a deal with Satan for immortality, has power over women, can paralyze men with a look, eats brains out of what looks like The Holy Grail (no wonder Indiana Jones wanted it), and can turn into a big-headed, hairy demon thing with hands borrowed from Vincent Price's version of The Fly and a long forked tongue with which he can drain the gray matter out from the backs of his many victims' heads.  Plus he has to get revenge on all of those descendants of the guys who had him killed 300 years ago.  That's a pretty heavy workload for any villain, let alone an English-dubbed Mexican playing a 300+ year-old Spaniard.

Never mind the fact that he kinda looks like Sheldon Leonard, and I half-expected him to start throwing pixies out the door or through the window.

He also has a nice modern-day castle at his disposal, complete with an unexplained butler (Francisco Reiguera).  I hate unexplained butlers, especially when they don't do anything to help their master get brains or fight off gatecrashers.  Damned useless unexplained butlers.  What good is it to be a reincarnated demon if you can't get good help?

Director Chano Urueta does a good job of giving us what looks to be a fairly modernized Mexico, what with gentlemen walking around in nice gray suits and tuxedos, ladies in nice clean party dresses that Donna Reed would be proud to wear, and plenty of shiny late 50s-early 60s vehicles tooling about.  The decor is Old World elegant when it has to be and Art Deco when it should be, too.  And every scene has the look of a polished work of horror straight outta Hollywood, baby.  If not for the dubbing, you'd swear this were an art house picture or something up for an Oscar for Best Foreign Picture Featuring A Brain-Sucking Monster.

And the story, scripted by Federico Curiel, Adolfo López Portillo and an uncredited Antonio Orellana (why was Antonio uncredited?  who knows; maybe he was negra-listed) moves at a quick clip with plenty of dramatic pauses and sinister looks from our man Vitelius.  In fact, even dubbed/rewritten as it is by we Amerikanners, the story matches the visuals quite well, methinks.  Not to mention the fact that it's hard enough to make a story so supremely silly as this one a plausible affair.

I guess what can be said of the acting is that, even with dubbed voices, the effect of the actors' physical presence comes through.  Salazar's leers and sneers come through 100%, even though he looks incredibly uncomfortable eating what indeed looks like real brains (calf brains, maybe) from that chalice of his.  Ah, the sacrifices of acting.

(One thing, though: WHY is the Baron eating brains to begin with?  Does it give him power?  Does it keep him alive?  Was it part of the contract between him and Satan?  Did he not have a "no-brains-eating" clause in his deal for this film?  My guess: if you're gonna call your movie The Brainiac, you might as well show your villain doing something like this or being really, really smart.  I'll bet he was praying for a scene where he explained quadratic equations instead of chowing down on brains al dente.  Again, my guess.)

Our lead heroes/romantic interests/professors/star-gazers Reinaldo (Rubén Rojo) and Victoria (Rosa María Gallardo) do their noble best to fight for truth, justice and the Mexican way and come across just a hair shy of being the Mexican answers to Pat Boone and Anita Bryant, in terms of wholesomeness and acting. 

Then we have the police detectives of this piece; one is the Chief (David Silva) who is gruff and no-nonsense, and the other is Detective Benny (Federico Curiel) who is fluff and all-nonsense.  They provide exposition, unnecessary cut-aways and comedy relief when needed, which by the script's decision, is far too often.  Seriously, between the Chief's sour observations and Benny's clomping about and striving for that unattainable Huntz Hall vibe, this is probably as close as Mexican cinema ever got to Abbott and Costello Meet The Brainiac.  Yarsh.

They do, however, provide the most hilarious end to a movie like this; an ending that you, the uninitiated, could never ever expect.  Not in a thousand years.  It's appreciated, believe me, because without it, this thing would have probably lasted far longer than its 77 minutos.  I won't spoiler it for you in this review - since it is seriously something that must be seen to be believed - but I will say that if you watch The Brainiac with a crowd, there will be laughter and cheers to spare.  Trust me on this.

In the end, The Brainiac is a more-than-enjoyable film.  I'd go so far as to proclaim it a necessity for anyone who wants to know what foreign films are all about.

Forget La Dolce Vita.  Forget Amelie.  Forget The Tin DrumThe Brainiac is where it's at - goblets of brains and all.  You think you're gonna find meteors and demons in L'Avventura?  You gonna get your fix for brain-sucking necromancers in Y Tu Mama Tambien?  Will you discover all your needs for hypnotized professors crawling into fiery kilns by watching The Burmese Harp?  Well, maybe...but The Brainiac does it all far more succinctly for you.

On a final note, I notice that in director Chano Urueta's filmography, he has had a long career which included directing such films as The Witch, The Revived Monster, The Seductor, Tigers of the Ring, Machine Gun Man and no less than three Blue Demon masked wrestler movies. 

It's good to see that in his work Urueta remained, if nothing else, admirably consistent. 

And to that I say, Eso hará, Chano; eso hará.

ΔΕΙΤΕ ΠΡΩΤΟΙ: To νέο video clip της Rihanna "Man Down"


The JUNE'11 soundtrack! Καλοκαίρι στην καρδιά κι άσε να βρέχει ο Θεός!

Θα τον τσακίσω όταν ανέβω εκεί πάνω!!! Μα καλά συνέχεια καρπούζι τρώει ο Θεός και μας έχει κάνει παπάρα με τόση βροχή φέτος? Όπως και να'χει, το καλοκαίρι έκανε την επίσημη πρεμιέρα του σήμερα κι εμείς θα το παρακολουθήσουμε με τα μαγιό και την καλή μας διάθεση!
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Καλό μήνα everyone!!!!





BEST SONGS OF THE MONTH
@ 3 DOORS DOWN Every time you go
@ ALESSANDRA AMOROSO Dove sono I colori
@ ALESSANDRA RASSIMOV The time of my life
@ ANAIS I love you   <---ROCK SONG OF THE MONTH
@ ANOUK I’m a cliche
@ ANTONIO CARMONA feat. NELLY FURTADO El camino de los suenos   <---LATIN SONG OF THE MONTH
@ ARMIN VAN BUUREN feat. LAURA V Drowning (Avicii radio edit)
@ BEYONCE 1+1
@ BLONDIE Love doesn’t frighten me
@ CAMILLE JONES Stay gold
@ CEDRIC GERVAIS feat. MYA Love is the answer
@ CHARICE Louder
@ CHRIS BROWN Should’ve kissed you
@ CHRISTINA AGUILERA & CEE-LO GREEN Nasty
@ CHRISTINA PERRI Bang bang bang
@ CLARE MAGUIRE Bullet
@ DIONNE BROMFIELD Foolin’
@ ELISA TOVATI & TOM DICE Il nous faut!   <---ACOUSTIC SONG OF THE MONTH
@ GRAVITONAS Everybody dance


@ HEATHER NOVA Higher ground
@ IIO All I need   <---CLUB SONG OF THE MONTH
@ JASON DERULO Don’t wanna go home
@ JENNIFER HUDSON Everybody needs love
@ JENNIFER LOPEZ Hypnotico   <---POP SONG OF THE MONTH
@ KT TUNSTALL Alchemy
@ KYLIE MINOGUE Silence
@ LADY ANTEBELLUM Just a kiss   <---BALLAD OF THE MONTH
@ LADY GAGA The edge of glory   <---SONG OF THE MONTH
@ LAURI Heavy
@ LEANN RIMES Give   <---COUNTRY SONG OF THE MONTH
@ LENKA Sad song
@ LIAM BAILEY It's not the same   <---SOUL SONG OF THE MONTH
@ M. POKORA A nos actes manques
@ MATTHEW MORRISON Hey
@ MELANIE C Rock me
@ MICHAEL BOLTON & DELTA GOODREM I’m not ready
@ MILOW Little in the middle
@ MOBY The right thing
@ MOHOMBI feat. NICOLE SCHERZINGER Coconut tree
@ MORNING PARADE Your majesty
@ MY MORNING JACKET Holdin’ on to black metal
@ NATASHA BEDINGFIELD A little too much
@ NE-YO Cause I said so
@ NICKO Break me


@ NICOLE SCHERZINGER Club banger nation
@ NKOTBSB Don’t turn out the lights
@ PETER LUTS The rain (NBG remix)
@ PITBULL feat. NE-YO, AFROJACK and NAYER Give me everything (tonight)
@ RHIAN BENSON Better without you   <---JAZZ SONG OF THE MONTH
@ RYE RYE feat. ROBYN Never will be mine
@ SALINA Ύπνος
@ SHAYA On the video
@ SIMON CURTIS Superhero
@ SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR On & off
@ STEVEN TYLER (It) Feels so good
@ SYKE-N-SUGARSTARR feat. COSMO KLEIN No satisfaction
@ TAKE THAT Love love
@ THE PIERCES Glorious
@ THE SOUNDS Something to die for
@ TIM BOOTH Buried alive
@ TINIE TEMPAH feat. ESTER DEAN Love suicide   <---R'N'B SONG OF THE MONTH
@ TYGA feat. ADELE Reminded
@ WILDBOYZ feat. AMEERAH Touching a stranger
@ WITHIN TEMPTATION In the middle of the night


@ ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΣΑΜΠΑΝΗΣ Μεταξύ μας
@ ΔΗΜΟΣ ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΙΑΔΗΣ Τάσεις καταστροφής (κόβω τη νύχτα στα δύο)
@ ΕΛΕΝΑ ΠΑΠΑΡΙΖΟΥ Ό,τι νιώθω δεν αλλάζει   <---GREEK SONG OF THE MONTH
@ ΕΛΕΝΗ ΤΣΑΛΙΓΟΠΟΥΛΟΥ Χρώματα
@ ΗΣΑΙΑΣ ΜΑΤΙΑΜΠΑ Θέλω ναμαι (ό,τι θέλεις εσύ) (Alex Papaconstantinou remix)
@ ΚΑΛΛΙΟΠΗ ΒΕΤΤΑ & ΚΑΙΤΗ ΚΟΥΛΛΙΑ Ό,τι πονάει
@ ΛΟΥΚΑΣ Για πρώτη φορά
@ ΜΙΚΡΟ Είμαστε όλοι μαζί
@ ΜΥΡΩΝΑΣ ΣΤΡΑΤΗΣ Μικρή μου αγάπη
@ ΝΙΚΟΣ ΚΑΡΒΕΛΑΣ Αλήθεια γυμνή
@ ONIRAMA Αυτός
@ ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ ΜΙΧΑΛΑΚΑΚΟΣ Μη χαθείς


BEST ALBUMS OF THE MONTH
@ Lady GaGa BORN THIS WAY (pop) (8)
@ My Morning Jacket CIRCUITAL (psychedelic rock) (8)
@ Έλενα Παπαρίζου GREATEST HITS & MORE (pop) (8)
@ Morning Parade UNDER THE STARS EP (rock) (8)
@ iio EXIT 110 (dance/electronic) (7)
@ Tim Booth LOVE LIFE (rock) (7)
@ Hayley Westenra PARADISO (classical) (7)























ΕΤΣΙ ΚΙ ΕΤΣΙ
@ Deadmau5 DEADMAU5 (electronica/neo-trance) (6.5)
@ Heather Nova 300 DAYS AT SEA (rock/acoustic) (6)
@ The Pierces YOU & I (alternative/acoustic) (6)
@ Moby DESTROYED (electronic/ambient) (6)
@ Matthew Morrison MATTHEW MORRISON (pop) (6)
@ Καλλιόπη Βέττα ΞΑΦΝΙΚΗ ΒΡΟΧΗ (έντεχνο) (6)
@ Soundtrack GLEE: THE MUSIC, VOLUME 6 (pop) (6)
@ NKOTBSB NKOTBSB (pop) (6)


ΕΥΧΑΡΙΣΤΩ ΔΕ ΘΑ ΠΑΡΩ!
@ Blondie PANIC OF GIRLS (rock) (4)
@ Journey ECLIPSE (rock) (4)
@ Salina ΤΟ ΚΑΙΝΟΥΡΙΟ ΣΟΥ ΟΠΛΟ (rock/pop) (4)
@ Christina Perri LOVESTRONG. (pop/acoustic) (4)
@ Anouk TO GET HER TOGETHER (rock/pop) (2)
@ KT Tunstall THE SCARLET TULIP EP (acoustic) (2)
@ Eddie Vedder UKELELE SONGS (folk/acoustic) (2)