Followers

Powered by Blogger.
  • Home
  • Sarah Gadon In 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2': Actress Joins Cast Following Shailene Woodley's Exit

    One actress exits "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" and another enters. After it was revealed earlier this week that Shailene Woodley's role in the movie had been cut, "Cosmopolis" actress Sarah Gadon announced on "Entertainment Tonight Canada" that she will take on an unnamed part in the franchise.

    Woodley was slated to portray Mary Jane Watson, with her departure prompting rumors that another actress, 26, would take on the classic role instad. But director Marc Webb told Deadline.com that the character was being placed on hold until "The Amazing Spider-Man 3," rendering Gadon's impending contributions to the movie unknown. The Wrap's Jeff Sneider confirmed "100%" that Gadon will not take on the Mary Jane role.

    The actress even took to Twitter herself to clear up the speculation:

    Despite Woodley's exit, Gadon joins a bang-up cast that includes Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti, Sally Field, Martin Sheen and Chris Cooper. Gadon, who has been acting since she was 10, previously starred in "A Dangerous Mind," "Dream House" and "Cosmopolis."

    Jackie Stallone Reveals Latest Version Of Her Face After Admitting, 'I Look Like A Chipmunk'

    Jackie Stallone has shown off the latest version of her face in a new photoshoot, after revealing she isn't happy with the way her plastic surgery looks.

    The 91-year-old seems to have undergone further procedures since she famously appeared on 'Celebrity Big Brother' in 2005 as she poses for a series of new pictures.

    She told Reveal magazine earlier this week that she thought she looked "like a chipmunk" following her numerous operations, but refused to rule out further ones.

    "I've got too much. I look like I've got a mouthful of nuts... I feel I look like a chipmunk," she said.

    "I know it isn't normal. The papers in London are the worst. They say, 'She's the world's worst', that I look like a pet bulldog. I really do. I've seen too much bad work."

    Jackie has been out of the spotlight in recent years, and her looks caused confusion last year when a woman called Ivonne Weldon turned up at the premiere Sylvester Stallone's new film, and was mistaken for her.

    Google Nexus 7 Suffering Big Performance Drop-Offs 12 Months After Release?

    Google and Asus scored a huge win the the tech space last year with the launch of the Nexus 7. With its small and neat form factor, stock Android OS seven-inch screen, nice specs and - crucially - exceptionally low price, it was one of the first Android tablets to truly spark a light in the iPad-dominated market.

    Unfortunately, reports are starting to emerge that the tablet might be experiencing growing pains - or, possibly, a premature death.

    According to Dustin Earley at Android and Me, in a blog post widely cited in the tech media on Wednesday, the Nexus 7 is showing severe drop-offs in performance.

    "I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance," Earley writes.

    "I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps."

    And he's not alone. Beneath the piece dozens of Nexus 7 users say they have also experienced issues, while Google's own forums hold similarly dispiriting tales.

    "I have all the same exact issues. Horrific lag when doing anything in the browser, any simple multi-tasking, and at least one crash/reboot per hour," said one user, Kunal Patel.

    Not all users said they had experienced problems however, with some saying the tablet worked as well as the day they got it.

    Apple Insider (arguably not an unbiased source...) suggests that the issue might be down to cheap SSD memory. One Android app developer said it related to a well-known bug in Samsung's "flash controller firmware".

    We wouldn't hold off on purchasing a Nexus 7 based on these reports alone - the tablet is still an excellent device for the price.

    Amanda Bynes & Wyclef Jean: Actress & Rapper Not Collaborating For Bynes' Album

    Amanda Bynes' music career may still be in the works, but she's down one major producer.

    The 27-year-old former actress and current tweeter was rumored to work with the Fugees' Wyclef Jean on her supposed upcoming record deal. A representative from Jean's camp, however, has denied any involvement.

    Jean's team reportedly told TMZ that the producer and rapper hasn't spoken to Bynes about collaborating, nor has any plans to do so.

    Rumors of a Bynes-Jean team-up were sparked by a statement from the CEO of Chinga Chang Records, a company that reportedly offered Bynes a record deal. "I think it would be perfect," CEO Dan Herman told E! News. "Linking the two of them will be something major." He added that Jean was "receptive" to the idea of teaming up with Bynes, and spoke of arranging a meeting between the two of them earlier this week, which never took place.

    After retiring from acting, Bynes first publicized plans to begin a career in music last month. "Look forward to seeing me in music videos!" she announced on Twitter. "I'm looking forward to a long and wonderful career as a singer/rapper!"

    Bynes recently distanced herself from Chinga Chang Records, taking to Twitter to announce that her music career will begin after she completes various surgeries to remove the "webbing" between her eyes and to "shave the bridge down" of her nose.

    Linda Cardellini On 'Mad Men' What Went On Behind The Scenes When Sally Walked In

    The "Freaks & Geeks" alumna joined the critically-acclaimed AMC series as Don Draper's (Jon Hamm) mistress and neighbor Sylvia Rosen. In a recent "Mad Men" episode, the s*** hit the fan when Sally (Kiernan Shipka) walked in on the two of them having sex, prompting young Sally to explode at her father.

    "Well, the good thing about that is that when Kiernan walks in, what you see on screen isn't actually what she sees on set," Cardellini explained of the shocking "Mad Men" scene during a recent visit to HuffPost Live. "What we were doing while she was reacting to that is not exactly as explicit as it is on screen. So that's the nice thing about acting sometimes is that you don't have to actually experience the things as the characters do."

    Shipka recently opened up about the traumatic scene, telling Vulture, "The whole thing about acting in general, whether other actors are there with you or not, is that it's about your imagination. You can draw from real-life experiences, but obviously nothing, unless you're doing some biography, is going to be exact to your life.

    "That's what's fun about it. It's not real life. I have a little bit of a wild imagination, so I could imagine anything I wanted to see there even if it wasn't really there," she said with a laugh.

    But Sally's reaction to what she saw between Don and Sylvia led her to start drinking, smoking and enjoy watching boys fight over her while staying overnight at Miss Porter's boarding school in the penultimate episode of Season 6. "Sally walking in on her father with this other woman is a very complicated experience," "Mad Men" creator Matt Weiner explained in a behind-the-scenes video from AMC. "Her response is she wants to get as far away from her father as possible."

    Brazil Protests To Continue Despite Government Concessions Rolling Back Transit Fare Hike

    More than a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 cities Thursday in this week's largest anti-government demonstrations yet, protests that saw violent clashes break out in several cities as people demanding improved public services and an end to corruption faced tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets.

    At least one protester was killed in Sao Paulo state after a car rammed into a crowd of demonstrators, the driver apparently angered about being unable to drive along a street.

    In Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators swarmed into the seaside city's central area, running clashes played out between riot police and clusters of mostly young men, their T-shirts wrapped around their faces. But several peaceful protesters were up in the crackdown, too, as police fired tear gas canisters into their midst and at times indiscriminately used pepper spray.

    Thundering booms echoed off stately colonial buildings as rubber bullets and the gas were fired at fleeing crowds.

    At least 40 people were injured in Rio, including protesters like Michele Menezes, a wisp of a woman whose youthful face and braces belie her 26 years. Bleeding and with her hair singed from the explosion of a tear gas canister, she said that she and others took refuge from the violence in an open bar, only to have a police officer toss the canister inside.

    It exploded on top of Menezes, tore through her jeans and dug out two quarter-sized holes on the back of her thighs while also perforating a rash of small holes in her upper arm.

    "I was leaving a peaceful protest and it's not the thugs that attack me but the police themselves," said Menezes, removing her wire-rim glasses to wipe her bloodshot eyes.

    She later took refuge in a hotel along with about two dozen youths, families and others said they had been repeatedly hit with pepper spray by motorcycle police as they too took refuge inside a bar.

    Despite the crackdown, protesters said they would not back down.

    "I saw some pretty scary things, but they're not going to shake me. There's another march on the 22nd and I'm going to be there," said 19-year-old university student Fernanda Szuster.

    Asked whether her parents knew that she was taking part in the protests, Szuster said that "they know and they're proud. They also protested when they were young. So they think it's great."

    She added, though, that she wouldn't tell her father the details of the police violence she was a victim of. "If he knew, he would never let me leave the house again."

    In Brasilia, police struggled to keep hundreds of protesters from invading the Foreign Ministry, outside of which protesters lit a small fire. Other government buildings were attacked around the capital's central esplanade. There, too, police resorted to tear gas and rubber bullets in attempts to scatter the crowds.

    Clashes were also reported in the Amazon jungle city of Belem, in Porto Alegre in the south, in the university town Campinas north of Sao Paulo and in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador.

    "This was meant to be a peaceful demonstration and it is," said artist Wanderlei Costa, 33, in Brasilia. "It's a shame some people cause trouble when there is a much bigger message behind this movement. Brazil needs to change, not only on the government level, but also on the grass roots level. We have to learn to demonstrate without violence."

    On World Refugee Day, Syria Is Calling, But Is It Loud Enough?

    By Fairuz Taqi-Eddin, CARE's Regional Director of Partnerships in the Middle East, based in Jordan.

    The Syrian crisis is different from all other humanitarian crises that I have known. In my 11 years as a fundraiser with CARE, I have been involved in humanitarian emergency responses of large magnitude, including the Tsunami, the Pakistan floods, the Haiti earthquake, and the Horn of Africa food crisis.

    I have seen people suffering and their lives shattered but as a Syrian-American woman, this crisis is personal to me; it has made me much more aware of my Syrian roots. Both my paternal grandparents were born in Damascus and the majority of our extended family is still living in Syria. This crisis is affecting family members both in Syria and in Jordan directly. My relatives who are still back in Syria and those who have escaped the conflict and fled to Jordan have made this crisis real by bringing to my life the extent of pain and upheaval that they have been feeling. Several of my relatives lost their lives. Homes and businesses of relatives were destroyed. These are some examples of how one family −- my family -- is being affected.

    In Jordan, through my work with CARE, I have visited the Zaatari refugee camp and met with countless Syrian refugee families living in Amman. I have seen the impact this crisis has been having on the Syrian women, men, mothers and children. As a mother, I can easily relate to a refugee mom who constantly worries how she will keep a roof over her family's head, how /when her children would go to school or how many meals she could secure for her kids. The list goes on.

    There are good people and organizations on the ground like CARE doing their best to respond to this crisis. But it has just not been enough, and there is so much more that needs to be done, especially with no end in sight to this tragedy.

    On the 7th of June the UN launched a $4.4 billion humanitarian appeal -- the largest aid request in the organization's history -- in order to be able to assist the growing number of people suffering the effects of the crisis in Syria. The UN estimates that 6.8 million people need urgent help inside of Syria whilst more than 1.6 million Syrians -- the latter is twice the population of San Francisco where I used to live and work -- need urgent help in the neighbouring countries where they have been taking refuge and continue arriving. I feel the responsibility and the commitment to do my part and fundraise for this crisis of unprecedented scale.

    Unlike with other crises, the political aspect of this emergency has overshadowed the humanitarian aspect, and raising funds and having the focus on the continuous and increasing humanitarian needs of both people within Syria and Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries have been challenging. Also, due to the multitude of forces with different allegiances in Syria, raising funds is complex. In my role, I am constantly working on finding ways to help people affected by this huge crisis and assure donors that their funding reaches those who have been most affected, and is allocated to respond to the humanitarian needs created by the conflict.

    The 20th June, this week, marks World Refugee Day, a day established by the UN to recognize and honor the strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homes to escape persecution, conflict, natural disasters and violence. An increasing number of the world's refugees today are from Syria, with the number of Syrian refugees continuing sadly to grow fast and steadily.

    On this important day, I urge that we don't forget the plight of the Syrian people who have already suffered so much, and help those most in need: over 1.6 million Syrian refugees as well as nearly seven million Syrians who are not refugees but are in urgent need of help inside Syria. This crisis is a clear case where aid will bring solace to uprooted refugee families forced to live in increasingly difficult conditions, and will alleviate the suffering of countless families.

    CARE is working to help refugees meet their most urgent needs and protect their dignity. While our efforts to help Syrian refugees and host communities began in Jordan -- where we have reached more than 110,000 refugees -- we are also on the ground in Egypt and Lebanon, working with a range of partners to help refugees and host communities. To find out more or to donate, please visit: http://care-international.org

    Bio: In her role, Fairuz manages and develops partnerships and donor relations for CARE in the Middle East region. Fairuz joined CARE in 2002. Prior to her move to the Middle East in spring 2008, Fairuz was a major gift fundraiser for CARE in San Francisco and Silicon Valley and worked with key corporations and Foundation such as CISCO, GOOGLE, GAP Foundation and Visa. She has ten years of experience in fundraising, media and communication work. Fairuz is passionate and committed towards women empowerment work and promoting cultural understanding. A volunteer for several philanthropic organizations, Fairuz was instrumental in the setting up of Spark, a San Francisco based organization that engages young professionals around women issues around the globe.

    2013 Alaska Heat Wave Record-Breaking Temperatures Bake 49th State

    A heat wave hitting Alaska may not rival the blazing heat of Phoenix or Las Vegas, but to residents of the 49th state, the days of hot weather feel like a stifling oven — or a tropical paradise.

    With temperatures topping 80 degrees in Anchorage, and higher in other parts of the state, people have been sweltering in a place where few homes have air conditioning.

    They're sunbathing and swimming at local lakes, hosing down their dogs and cleaning out supplies of fans in at least one local hardware store. Mid-June normally brings high temperatures in the 60s in Anchorage, and just a month ago, it was still snowing.

    The weather feels like anywhere but Alaska to 18-year-old Jordan Rollison, who was sunbathing with three friends and several hundred others lolling at the beach of Anchorage's Goose Lake.

    "I love it, I love it," Rollison said. "I've never seen a summer like this, ever."

    State health officials even took the unusual step of posting a Facebook message reminding people to slather on the sunscreen.

    Some people aren't so thrilled, complaining that it's just too hot.

    "It's almost unbearable to me," said Lorraine Roehl, who has lived in Anchorage for two years after moving here from the community of Sand Point in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. "I don't like being hot. I'm used to cool ocean breeze."

    On Tuesday, the official afternoon high in Anchorage was 81 degrees, breaking the city's record of 80 set in 1926 for that date.

    Other smaller communities throughout a wide swath of the state are seeing even higher temperatures.

    All-time highs were recorded elsewhere, including 96 degrees on Monday 80 miles to the north in the small community of Talkeetna, purported to be the inspiration for the town in the TV series, "Northern Exposure" and the last stop for climbers heading to Mount McKinley, North America's tallest mountain. One unofficial reading taken at a lodge near Talkeetna even measured 98 degrees, which would tie the highest undisputed temperature recorded in Alaska.

    That record was set in 1969, according to Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the online forecasting service Weather Underground.

    'Bad Teacher 2' in development with Columbia Pictures

    The expansion of the Bad Teacher universe knows no bounds. On top of the announcement that CBS had added a Bad Teacher spinoff series to their fall roster, Columbia Pictures announced Thursday that they’d begun development on a sequel to the 2011 Cameron Diaz film.

    Bad Teacher may have been a critical dark horse (it boasts a 44% Rotten Tomatoes score), but the raunchy comedy, which also starred Jason Segel and Justin Timberlake, was a runaway summer box office success, bringing in $216.2 million worldwide on an estimated $20 million budget.

    According to the announcement, the project is being developed for Diaz, but she has not officially signed on for the sequel yet. The busy actress is currently at work on The Other Woman with Leslie Mann and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and has a number of projects lined up, including Agent: Century 21 with Benicio Del Toro and Jake Kasdan’s Sex Tape.

    Kasdan (Orange County) will return to direct the sequel off of a script from Justin Malen, a screenwriter best known at this point for making the 2011 Black List for his screenplay Bastards. The first film was co-written by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, who both wrote for The Office.

    GET EW ON YOUR TABLET: Subscribe today and get instant access!

    “We love Justin’s take on the material,” said Columbia Pictures President of Production Hannah Minghella in the press release. “It hits all the notes that made the first film such a breakthrough hit and also takes the characters in a new direction that is fresh and fun.”

    Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas Expected To Draw 115,000 Per Night

    Up to 115,000 partiers are expected each night this weekend for a dusk-to-dawn sensory salad of electronic dance music, lights, partying and mingling at a sprawling speedway complex outside Las Vegas.

    Electric Daisy Carnival officials said Wednesday that all 345,000 available tickets had been sold for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday night event at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

    The festival founder, Insomniac Events CEO Pasquale Rotella, likes to call the fans and the revelry the headline attraction at his nocturnal gatherings, which drew criticism in Los Angeles before moving to Las Vegas in 2011.

    "That's one of the biggest spectacles of the entire event, 115,000 like-minded people all dressed up and having a good time," said Simon Rust Lamb, Insomniac chief operating officer and general counsel. "We want to create moments and memories that are full of joy and that help people create and connect with the people around them."

    Hundreds of artists and theatrical performers like fire-twirlers and stilt-walkers are slated to roam the nearly 2-square-mile festival grounds, along with "art cars" blasting music from rolling mock-ups like a pirate ship or a boom box.

    Fireworks are planned. Twenty art displays and three graffiti walls are being erected, along with a brightly-lit amusement park featuring several Ferris wheels. Performers include the collaborative fire art group Flaming Lotus Girls and a Rotella creation, Night Owl Experience.

    Don't call it a concert. It's a carnival. And don't call it a rave, Lamb said, because that connotes an illegal underground warehouse party.

    "The common thread is electronic music," he said. "There's nothing illegal, underground or warehouse about what we do."

    The nonstop lineup on seven stages features more than 200 music producers and deejays, including Afrojack, Tiesto, Above & Beyond, Calvin Harris, Madeon, Armin van Buuren, Bloody Beetroots and former Swedish House Mafia member Steve Angelo.

    Pat Christenson, whose role as Las Vegas Events president is to attract events to the city and tourists to the hotels, called Las Vegas uniquely able to handle the festival because it has years of experience hosting large events and a remote venue with parking for hundreds of thousands of fans.

    "The footprint is big. The music is loud. But it's miles from downtown," Christenson said, "and the way the grandstand is, it's hard to hear the sound outside the speedway."

    Insomniac Events has tried to expand the event – and the number of people booking hotel stays – by promoting pool parties, nightclub events and EDMbiz, a $500-per-ticket two-day conference on the business of dance music and culture. It began Wednesday.

    Total Pageviews