Category Archives: Entertainment

Entertainment

MARK BURNETT: “THE BIBLE” MINI-SERIES

Mark Burnett has produced many things in his career including “Survivor”, “The Apprentice”, “Shark Tank”, and “The Voice”, but his upcoming project is in a whole different realm of reality TV. The History Channel will air the 10 hour mini-series he produced with his wife Roma Downey called “The Bible.” Downey also takes a starring role in the mini-series as Mary, the mother of Jesus

“The Bible” spans both the Old and New Testaments from Genesis to Revelations. The 5 part series will air starting this Sunday, March 3, with the episode entitled “In the Beginning” and conclude on Easter Sunday, March 31, with “Courage.” The stories will include Noah’s Ark, Abraham, Moses and the Exodus, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, King David and Bathsheba, and the stories of the life of Jesus, just to name a few.

Here is the extended trailer:

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IMDb “The Bible”
New Downey and Burnett Bible series to launch faith journeys

Entertainment

CHRIS DODD, FORMER SENATOR OF SANDY HOOK STATE, DEFENDS VIOLENCE IN MOVIES

Zero Dark Thirty, Violence in Entertainment

US News reported that Chris Dodd defends ‘Zero Dark Thirty’,  – Violence in Entertainment, and said that regulating content is a slippery slope.

The president of the Motion Picture Association of America, former U.S. senator Chris Dodd, praised the movie industry for its economic, cultural, and social contributions to the country on Friday, while speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. He discussed violence in the media and defended the entertainment industry against claims by the NRA (National Rifle Association), that it is to blame for the recent spate of mass shootings in America.

“I feel very strongly that this industry has been on the forefront of freedom of speech from its inception,” said Dodd, who represented Connecticut in the Senate. “Films that have challenged and provoked not always were received warmly.”

[READ: Zero Dark Thirty Review: In Search of a Hero]

He said he sees the industry’s role in the depiction of violence is providing the tools to people—particularly parents—to know what is in film, through the ratings system and other platforms of information.

“We provide choice for people, a remarkable choice for entertainment, not every movie is for everyone,” he said.

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Entertainment

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL: “SEXUAL COMING OF AGE”

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This year’s Sundance Film Festival will showcase a number of movies about the porn, addiction and sex industry. Insiders are dubbing the festival theme this year as the “sexual coming of age”.

Speaking to Reuters, the Sundance Director of Programming Trevor Groth said the films indicate a new audience ‘hungry for the taboo of sexuality and sexual relationships’.

More than a dozen of the movies featured in this years festival will deal with sexual relationships in all their various forms. The number of films of a sexual nature are “part circumstance, part coincidence,” says festival director John Cooper.

​”The themes and stories in films we show can be challenging to some, but ultimately, our mission is to show excellent and original work,” says Cooper.

“The times are changing, and relationships are changing,” adds Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford. “It would be a mistake to say this is sex for sex’s sake. The films are looking into sexual relations.”

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USA Today

Entertainment

HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES CALLED HYPOCRITES ON GUN CONTROL OUTREACH


Amanda Peet and other celebrities are shown in the “Demand a Plan” PSA and using firearms in films in a new response video – see below. Several big-name Hollywood stars appear in a new anti-gun public service YouTube video calling for Americans to demand that their elected officials come up with a strategy to curb gun violence.

In the video, celebs like Cameron Diaz, Paul Rudd, and Chris Rock read the names of the sites of the most horrific gun massacres, before calling on viewers to “demand a plan” to stop mass shootings. But now a new video called “Demand a Plan – Demand Celebrities Go F Themselves” has been created, that highlights the gun violence many of these same stars have taken part in in their movies and television shows.

The “Demand Celebrities” response video intersperses the original PSA with scenes of gun violence in movies starring the celebrities mentioned above, plus Jeremy Renner, Reese Witherspoon, Jamie Foxx, and others. For example, Jamie Foxx lists “Columbine” during the original PSA, after which the response video runs a montage of extreme gun violence from several of Foxxs movies. The response video closes with the message: “Hollywood is a culture of violence” along with slurs at the actors themselves. Warning, the violence is extremely graphic and may be NSFW and is not suitable for all audiences.

more at  Hollywood A-listers called hypocrites on issue of gun violence in ‘Demand a Plan’ response video | Fox News.

Entertainment

DRAGON NOGARD

Nogard is a world run by Dragons that possess the ability to take the form and live among the humans they protect and care for. Humans carrying Dragons blood contain some magical abilities that vary with the amount of Dragons blood running through their veins.

The humans and the Dragons have always cohabitated together. Fact was the humans looked to the Dragons for everything in their lives from protection to provisions and in return the humans would pay homage to the Dragons.

More Dragon Nogard

Entertainment, FYI

FRENCH DOCUMENTARY ABOUT GAY SENIORS AIRS AS FRANCE DECIDES ON GAY MARRIAGE

Sébastien Lifshitz’s “Les Invisibles” (“The Invidables”) is a documentary about the lives of elderly homosexual and lesbian couples in France. The documentary is released this week at a time France is gripped by the debate about same-sex marriage and gay adoption.

The documentary looks at the lives of gay men and women and how they explored their sexuality through a time that same-sex marriage was not in the public consciousness.

Lifshitz has made name for himself creating gay-themed documentaries. Although he argues “Les Invisables” is not about the national debate in France surrounding same-sex marriage, he agrees his documentary is his contribution to the conversation.

French lawmakers are set to vote on same-sex marriage in a few months time.

Read More of France 24s interview with Sébastien Lifshitz

Entertainment

OLIVER STONE’S UNTOLD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES to Premiere on SHOWTIME & coming to a school near you !

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Monday, November 12, 2012 – 8:00pm

The Showtime Channel New York , NY 10012
See map: Google Maps

OLIVER STONE’S UNTOLD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
To Premiere On SHOWTIME® Monday, November 12th at 8 PM ET/PT

As Americans, do we really know and understand our shared and complicated history? How do we recall the small details and forgotten players that influenced some of the biggest events from America’s past? Will our children actually get the whole story from reading history books? And how will it affect the future of our country?

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OLIVER STONE’S ‘HISTORY’ TRASHES AMERICA, PRAISES LENIN, GORBACHEV

On the evidence of his new Showtime mini-series and companion book, Oliver Stone is both a communist and political moron, a redundancy to be sure.

Having previously celebrated a trio of evil-doers – Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat and Hugo Chavez – Stone now adds “The Untold History of the United States” to the cinematic garbage heap he has been piling up since “J.F.K.” and “Born on the Fourth of July.” Like them, this latest contribution is an unrelenting (and unrelentingly perverse) attack on America as history’s Great Satan, the root cause of worldly evil.

The heroes of this latest Stone fantasy are — I kid you not — Vladimir Lenin and Henry Wallace. Wallace is cast by Stone as the visionary of a planet without capitalism and war, and consequently as America’s missed opportunity to change the world.

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Oliver Stone and Martin Scorsese embrace the Dalai Lama and his message as the way forward for the USA and the world. Kind of a new world order or one world government or view point as it were.

 

Dalai Lama focused on film makers and school professors for over 30 years. Now Toronto Film Festival. And it is working ! Dave Lieberson is an HNN intern.

Since The Birth of a Nation, Hollywood has been trying to make history its own.  While some movies are loathed by historians (Troy) and others loved (Platoon) it is hard to find a movie or television show that sheds light on an entertaining subject and yet remains historically accurate.  Peter Kuznick and Oliver Stone are collaborating on a ten part Showtime series in an attempt to do just that.  The series focuses on the new, undiscovered aspects of many topics in American history, such as the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Vietnam War.

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Entertainment

Box office report: ‘Argo’ hits No. 1 with $12.4 million

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Ben Affleck’s C.I.A. thriller Argo is having quite the box office run.

After debuting at number two with $19.5 million, Warner Bros.’ Oscar contender dropped by just 16 percent last weekend to $16.4 million. This weekend, the film notched yet another impressive achievement: it climbed to number one with an estimated $12.4 million (a 25 percent drop) in its third frame, becoming the first film since True Grit to hop to first place in its third weekend.

Argo, which cost $45 million to make, has now earned $60.8 million total, and thanks to terrific word-of-mouth (the film earned an “A+” CinemaScore grade) and early awards buzz, Argo is eyeing a $100 million finish. Though it is running a tad behind Affleck’s last directorial effort, The Town, which had earned $64.1 million at the same point in its run en route to a $92.2 million finish, Argo is enjoying much better week-to-week holds. (The Town, which opened higher Argo with $23.8 million, fell 38 percent to $9.7 million in its third weekend.)

Sony Pictures Animation’s $85 million Adam Sandler-voiced effort Hotel Transylvania jumped two spots into second place with $9.5 million in its fifth weekend. The film, which has scored slim drops since its robust $42.5 million debut in September, only fell 27 percent this weekend — the final frame before Halloween. It will be interesting to see whether Hotel holds up in the holiday’s wake, but it’s already a monster hit. With $130.4 million total, Hotel is already Sony Pictures Animation’s highest grossing film ever, above Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which grossed $124.9 million in 2009. It’s also given Adam Sandler a much-needed career boost following his back-to-back misfires, Jack and Jill and That’s My Boy.

EW DAILY POLL: ‘Cloud Atlas’ seems….

The pricey novel adaptation Cloud Atlas finished in third place with a weak $9.4 million. Remarkably, that was the best start of any of this weekend’s newcomers, which is a testament to the weakness of the frame. The heady drama, which follows six separate storylines and stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, and Hugh Grant in various roles, genders, and races, proved too difficult for mainstream audiences to latch onto. Audiences, which were 77 percent above the age of 25, issued the film a “C+” CinemaScore.

For Warner Bros., Cloud Atlas‘ failure is not the worst news — the studio acquired domestic distribution rights for a reported $15 million and marketed the film — but the real losers here are the Wachowski siblings and the foreign investors who financed the project. Cloud Atlas cost a whopping $100 million, and it has no chance of making that money back — at least not in the States. Another loser? Tom Hanks, whose box office clout has all but disappeared in recent years. Cloud Atlas arrives on the heels of two other box office underperformers: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close ($31.9 million) and Larry Crowne ($35.6 million).

In fourth, Paranormal Activity 4 dropped by a massive 70 percent — a high point for the Paranormal franchise (PA2 dropped by 60 percent in its second weekend. PA3 fell 65 percent) — to $8.7 million. After ten days, Paramount’s $5 million found footage sequel has earned $42.6 million, which is still $10 million less than PA3 grossed in its first weekend.

Taken 2 took fifth place, sliding 40 percent to $8.0 million, which gives Fox’s $45 million action thriller a $117.4 million total. Though the Liam Neeson vehicle is a huge hit, it’s becoming clear that it will not surpass the final $145 million domestic gross of the original Taken. In its fourth weekend, Taken, which opened with half of what Taken 2 made, earned $11.3 million. Taken 2 is falling much faster.

1. Argo – $12.4 million

2. Hotel Transylvania – $9.5 million

3. Cloud Atlas – $9.4 million

4. Paranormal Activity 4 – $8.7 million

5. Taken 2 – $8.0 million

for more visit  Box office report: ‘Argo’ claims No. 1 with $12.4 million; ‘Skyfall’ scores $77.7 million overseas | Inside Movies | EW.com.

Entertainment

The Dragon Prophecy: The Dragonology Chronicles, Volume 4 by Dugald A. Steer – Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

 

Brother and sister dragonology students Daniel and Beatrice Cook are looking forward to returning to their studies with Dr. Ernest Drake and Erasmus, their half-dragon tutor. But what they learn is that the evil dragonologist Alexandra Gorynitchka, who is bent on controlling (or destroying!) all the world’s dragons, is searching for the fearsome Hammer of the Dragons, an ancient weapon that can kill hundreds of dragons in a single stroke. So it is up to Dr. Drake and the children to pursue her to the Lost Isle, where Alexandra is amassing a large army of enslaved dragons. There the siblings learn of the Dragon Prophecy, which says that the return of the Hammer of the Dragons can only be stopped by two children “wise beyond their years in the ways of dragons.” Could Daniel and Beatrice be the children in the prophecy?(less)

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Entertainment, FYI

JK Rowling’s New Book For Adults Published

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JK Rowling the author of the Harry Potter series as written her first book for adults. The Casual Vacancy was published today, but has failed to live up to the high expectations. Parents who love the Harry Potter books may be shocked by the dark content of the adult novel, critics have slated the book for being dull and banal; although saying it was funnier than they would have imagined. Readers may be shocked by the graphic depictions of pornography and the use of the f-word, and c-word. The book shows the darker, grittier side of life in a small English village. The characters include a prositiute, a drug dealer, and teenage girl raped by her mum’s heroin dealer. The is the deaths of children and a teen suicide. The Telegraph’s literary critic remarks, “As for the ending, dear God, it is so howlingly bleak that it makes Thomas Hardy look like PG Wodehouse.”

When challenged in an interview about the novel, and any responsibility she may have as the world’s most famous children’s author Rowling said, “There is no part of me that feels like I represented myself as your children’s babysitter or their teacher. I’m a writer and I will write what I want to write.”