Saturday, March 24, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
MOVIE REVIEW: The Hunger Games frenzy set to eclipse Twilight, fans’ appetites insatiable
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There are no wizards or vampires in The Hunger Games, but the phenomenon surrounding the series is poised to reach mass hysteria.
Set in a future dystopian North America, Suzanne Collins’ dark book trilogy is being hailed by critics as the next big franchise since Harry Potter or Twilight, fuelled by the hype surrounding the March 23 release of the first film adaption.
The series finds its overwhelming success in the post-Occupy climate of discontent, with young characters on a journey of self-empowerment as they’re forced to battle to the death in a televised game under an oppressive regime. Sixteen-year-old protagonist Katniss Everdeen, from impoverished District 12, is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect her family. In doing so, she’s characterized as both brave and painfully human: exposing the reluctant rebel in all of us.
It’s on the back of Katniss’s heroism that the first book went from a print run of 200,000 (originally bumped up from 50,000) in 2008, to more than 23.5 million printed copies of the trilogy in the U.S. The sequels Catching Fire and Mockingjay were released in 2009 and 2010 with great success.
In Canada, where a 5,000-copy print run is considered a bestseller, there are two million copies in print, according to Scholastic Canada.
For a series that’s been at the top of The New York Times children’s series bestsellers list for 80 weeks in a row, the upcoming movie, directed by Gary Ross, is riding a wave of success, with first-day ticket presales blowing past previous record holder The Twilight Saga: Eclipse on U.S. movie-ticket site Fandango.com.
If that success is any indicator, it bodes well for The Hunger Games films to keep pace with the five-part Twilight series that has seen openings upwards of $140 million (U.S.) and has collectively grossed more than $1 billion already.
And like blockbusters before it, when the movie deal was announced fans were snapping up merchandise — dolls, T-shirts, books and video games — while demanding to know when the next contest for movie tickets would be.“Our biggest hurdle is trying to break away from it being compared to Twilight.... It’s so much bigger than that,” said Joanna Miles, vice-president of marketing for Alliance Films, the Canadian partner for the movie release.
As articulated by the series’ biggest fans that have read and reread the trilogy, the books are more mature than recently released teen literature, featuring a better command of language and characters who are role models for any age.“I really enjoyed the complexity of the characters,” said 19-year-old Toronto resident Lauren Morrison, a student at the University of Guelph.
Since she discovered the series in December, she’s read through it twice and flips back to her favourite parts, which she’s been posting to Facebook in a countdown to the movie release.
She’s also a fan of Twilight and Harry Potter, but Morrison said The Hunger Games tops her list, with its social commentary on violence, propaganda and freedom of speech.
“One of the things that’s struck me the most, talking to both teen and adult readers, is that the meaning of the books isn’t lost on them,” said Collins’ editor David Levithan, publisher and editorial director at Scholastic Press. “It’s a fantastic vehicle to open up conversations about where we’re going as a society and a culture.”And unlike Twilight, Collins’ series uses a love triangle between main characters Katniss, Peeta and Gale not as a story arch, but as a way to make the books’ central themes all the more vivid.
The novels logically draw comparisons to Lord of the Flies and Battle Royale thanks to the forced kid-on-kid combat violence. But that’s where the comparisons end.
Collins told Scholastic her inspiration for the series came after flipping through TV channels, seeing flashes of reality shows and footage from the war in Iraq that fused together in a “very unsettling way.”“You’re not dealing with vampires, you’re not dealing with wizards,” Morrison said. “There’s a very raw aspect to it. It’s a very raw book.”
While the books were released on teen fiction shelves, they appeal to adults, too.
“I was a reluctant reader and I couldn’t wait to get to the end of the series,” said Bahram Olfati, vice-president of trade books for Indigo Books & Music. “I’ve handed it out to my own friends.”
Olfati attributes that success to Collins’ “masterful writing.”
“There’s always a handful of books, every month — they come across our desk with a very small publishing run and really no hype behind it — and all of a sudden you feel the ripple across the readers,” he said.
Cheryl Cowdy, an assistant professor in York University’s Children’s Studies Program, agrees the writing is pivotal to the trilogy’s success.
“There’s an awful lot of mediocre writing for young people that wants to be teaching them a lesson,” Cowdy said. “It answers that hunger that young people can have, to have books that are not talking down to them.”
It’s through that writing that readers find respect for Katniss, a new breed of female heroine, and one who is extremely relatable in her fears and misgivings.
“Katniss is a symbol of freedom, trapped under the thumb of the Capitol,” Olfati said. “She stands up for it, so it’s easy to cheer for her because she is a symbol of that.”
And it’s not just Katniss.
“Everyone could see themselves or could relate in some ways to one of these characters,” said Vancouver-born actor Alexander Ludwig, who plays the cutthroat Cato in the upcoming movie.
“There are no superpowers, there’s nothing like that. It’s just regular kids kind of thrown into this madness and this fight for survival.”
Ludwig himself was launched into madness when he was signed onto The Hunger Games, having previously appeared in smaller projects such as Race to Witch Mountain and The Seeker: The Dark is Rising.
“When I got to Vancouver and the Vancouver airport after Thanksgiving, and there (were) fans and people taking pictures there and paparazzi there, that’s kind of when it really hit me,” he said.With a fan base that grew up on Facebook, it’s hard to say whether the books have heightened the younger generation’s worldliness or if a heightened political awareness is what created such devotion in the first place. But together they’re beginning to represent a larger generational movement that’s learning they’re a long way from Hogwarts, one that tweets and posts about the injustices they see around them.
And unlike series before it, the elements that make it so popular also contribute to its shelf life, said Melissa Bourdon-King, general manager of Mabel’s Fables Bookstore in Toronto.
“We’ve been selling The Hunger Games consistently for four years,” Bourdon-King said. “The Hunger Games feels like a world that could very well happen tomorrow.”
Rosemary Stimola, Collins’ literary agent, says there’s no magic formula when it comes to writing a bestseller for teens.Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games have each touched us in different way: the boy who finds out he’s a wizard; the girl who stubbornly falls for the vampire; and Katniss, the girl on fire.
“The reluctant hero who literally changes the world,” Stimola wrote in an email. “What better hero for our times, our young readers, for all of us.”MORE HUNGER GAMES STORIES
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
TORI STAFFORD MURDER TRIAL: ‘We should never speak of this again’: McClintic describes how Tori's murder was covered up
Between sobs and a wavering voice, Terri-Lynne McClintic, 21, testified at the Tori Stafford murder trial.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT: A day after Terri-Lynne McClintic gave shocking testimony that she dealt the hammer blows that killed 8-year-old Tori Stafford, she told the jury how she and her then boyfriend tried to cover their tracks.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENTLONDON, ONT.—A day after Terri-Lynne McClintic gave shocking testimony that she dealt the hammer blows that killed 8-year-old Tori Stafford, she told the jury how she and her then boyfriend tried to cover their tracks.
“He did not say anything ... just we should never speak of this again,” said McClintic as she described the moments after Tori was raped and killed.
“There wasn’t much conversation,” she told Crown Kevin Gowdey on Wednesday morning. “I was very uneasy and I cannot really describe how I was feeling.”
They also discussed what they would say if questioned about Tori’s disappearance, she said.
McClintic is the Crown’s star witness in the Tori Stafford murder trial.
Tori, 8, was abducted while walking home from school on April 8, 2009. McClintic and Michael Rafferty, then a couple, were arrested a month later and charged with abduction and murder. McClintic pleaded guilty in Tori’s death and was sentenced to life in prison in April 2010.
Rafferty, 31, is accused in the first-degree murder, sexual assault and abduction of the Woodstock, Ont., girl. His trial began on March 5; McClintic took the stand on Tuesday.
After Tori’s body had been covered by rocks in a secluded spot near Mount Forest, they pulled into a nearby side road where McClintic said Rafferty told her he wanted to get rid of their shoes. McClintic tossed her shoes out, he threw out his. Rafferty then gave her a pair of men’s shoes that were too big for her, said McClintic.
He put on a different pair of shoes and changed his shirt because it had blood on it, she told the jury. The couple then drove to Cambridge.
In Cambridge, McClintic, who admitted to have taken a cocktail of drugs that day including OxyContin and Percocets, said Rafferty pulled into a self-serve car wash.
He washed the car thoroughly, and vacuumed and shampooed inside.
Earlier, McClintic said they had thrown her white jacket, Rafferty’s shirt, Tori’s clothes, her Bratz bag and the hammer used to smash the little girl’s head into garbage bags. They took them out of the trunk of the car and threw them into a dumpster and a trash can near the car wash station.
“There were maybe four or five bags,” she told Gowdey.
On Tuesday, McClintic, her voice halting and sometimes barely audible, gave horrific and heartbreaking testimony: how she lured Tori from Oliver Stephens Public School, pushed her into Rafferty’s car, who then drove off to Guelph. There they stopped for coffee, Percocet and a hammer and garbage bags. The next stop, said McClintic, was a secluded rural place near Mount Forest.
It was there that Tori was violently raped and killed, said McClintic.
Before McClintic said she struck Tori in the head with a hammer, she told the jury how the little girl begged for help. McClintic said after Rafferty had raped Tori once, the little girl, bleeding and crying, wanted to urinate. McClintic took her a few metres away from the car where Tori instantly pleaded for help. “She said, ‘Just don’t let him do it again,’” a tearful McClintic recalled.
McClintic told Tori she was sorry. And took her back to Rafferty.
Rafferty’s former girlfriend told a packed courtroom that she walked the child back to Rafferty but Tori wouldn’t let go of McClintic’s hand. “She asked me to stay with her. I tried to hold on to her hand but I couldn’t stay because I knew what was going to happen,” said McClintic.
“I couldn’t be there for that. I left.”
Tori was just wearing a shirt, there were no shoes on her feet.
A few minutes later, McClintic heard screams and when she went back to the car, Tori was on the ground.
With quiet prodding from Gowdey, McClintic acknowledges she put a garbage bag on Tori’s head and started kicking the child.
Tori was then struck with a hammer, she said.
“Who struck her with a hammer?” Gowdey asked.
“Me,” said McClintic.
“Which part of the hammer was she struck with?”
“Both sides.”
“What part of Victoria was struck with the hammer?”
“Her head.”
She and Rafferty then put Tori into garbage bags and carried her to a pile of rocks and put stones on her.
“There was no discussion,” she said.
McClintic, who earlier admitted to being high on OxyContin or morphine most days, told the jury she met Rafferty at a New Orleans Pizza in Woodstock in February 2009. The same evening, they were having sex in his car, McClintic said.
She saw Rafferty a couple of times a week and regularly helped get OxyContin pills for him.
McClintic’s testimony is expected to take all week.
Rafferty, as he did on Tuesday, appeared to listen intently and scribbled notes.
ALSO FROM THE STAR:
Tori Stafford murder trial: Woman describes killing little girl, by Rosie Dimanno
Tori Stafford murder trial: Puzzle finally revealed as portrait of murder, by Rosie DiManno
TV REALITY SHOWS EN CHILE: Mundos Opuestos se alza como el programa más rentable de la TV
Es el programa más exitoso de la televisión en términos de rating y, como consecuencia, ahora lo está siendo en recaudación de dinero. Mundos opuestos aumentó este mes sus tarifas publicitarias y el número de marcas asociadas a él. Así, si hasta febrero cobraba $ 2.600.000 por un spot de 30 segundos, de lunes a jueves, y $ 2.800.000 los domingos, ahora se debe pagar $ 3.100.000 y $ 3.500.000, respectivamente. El dato que entregan en Canal 13 es revelador: el lunes pasado, el espacio de telerrealidad promedió 29,6 puntos y las tandas comerciales -cuatro cortes de cinco minutos cada uno- marcaron 25 puntos de rating, lo que evidencia la fidelidad de sus seguidores.
Actualmente, son 11 los auspiciadores del programa y hay cinco más que entrarán en los próximos días. Cada uno de ellos paga $ 400 millones por estar en el ciclo completo (el programa estará al aire hasta el mes de junio), lo que ha permitido que el reality ya haya cubierto su inversión inicial de US$ 6 millones, como reconocen en Canal 13, durante sus primeros dos meses.
Actualmente, el programa de telerrealidad está recaudando entre $ 140 y $ 150 millones de pesos por capítulo, lo que lo convierte en el programa más rentable del momento en la televisión chilena. Cada uno de sus episodios tiene un costo que va entre los $ 40 y $ 50 millones, por lo que el margen de utilidades es amplio para la televisora de Andrónico Luksic y la Universidad Católica.
"En el área comercial del canal están muy contentos. Además, hemos logrado levantar al resto de los programas, como el matinal y Alfombra roja, así que ganamos todos", resume el productor general del programa, Juan Pablo Planas. Respecto de la incorporación de las marcas en el reality (placement) como parte de la cotidianidad de los participantes, señala que "hemos sabido integrarlas muy bien a las actividades, porque son nuestros auspiciadores y tenemos que cuidarlos".
El productor destaca, además, que los contenidos del espacio les permite hacer capítulos más extensos, sobre las dos horas, como sucedió la noche del lunes. "En ese sentido competimos bien, porque lanzamos las tandas recién después de la segunda mitad, cuando la competencia ya está baja. Eso fue lo que hicimos contra el Festival de Viña del Mar, por ejemplo".
Bajo ese esquema, el programa ha logrado algunos de sus peak de sintonía. El último de ellos lo anotó el jueves de la semana pasada, cuando la confesión de inifidelidad de Michelle Carvalho a José Luis Bibbó ("Joche") marcó 39,4 unidades. Otro de los episodios más vistos fue el del domingo pasado, con la previa del ingreso de los nuevos participantes, que anotó 31,8 puntos de sintonía, muy por sobre toda su competencia.
Antecedente previo
No es primera vez que un reality show logra levantar las arcas de Canal 13. Sucedió anteriormente con 1810, que llegó a recaudar $ 120 millones por capítulo, $ 30 millones menos de lo que alcanza Mundos opuestos. Su costo, eso sí, era notablemente inferior -alrededor de los US$ 3 millones-, y eso se explica por varios factores: la locación fue una casona que ya se había utilizado, mientras que el actual show se debió montar una escenografía para darle vida al pasado y al futuro, siendo este último más caro por el uso de la tecnología que integra. Por otra parte, Mundos... se emite cinco días a la semana (con numerosos rostros "conocidos", que han cobrado tarifas altas por permanecer en el encierro en Pirque) y 1810 lo hizo cuatro.
HOT CELEBRITIES: Roxana Muñoz constata lesiones tras riña con Jorge "Kike" Acuña
La modelo fue escoltada por Carabineros hasta el Hospital El Salvador, donde constató lesiones tras una dura pelea con el futbolista, que se produjo esta tarde en el departamento de la ex concursante de Fiebre de Baile.
por Karina Vergara y Angelina Leal - 13.03.2012
Roxana Muñoz a bordo del vehículo de Carabineros en el que fue trasladada al Hospital El Salvador para constatar lesiones tras la riña con "Kike" Acuña.
La modelo sólo fue acompañada por su amigo y representante Mario Brisso en el trámite de constatar lesiones. 
© Cristian Phillips La modelo hizo todo lo posible por evitar ser fotografiada mientras era conducida por Carabineros al Hospital El Salvador.
Hace un par de horas Roxana Muñoz contestaba el teléfono desconsolada. No podía dejar de llorar. Carabineros la acompañaba en su departamento en Providencia, intentando calmarla tras la riña más violenta que ha vivido con el futbolista "Kike" Acuña. El deportista recién había salido de allí tras una pelea que llegó a la agresión.
Pocos minutos después, la ex participante de Fiebre de Baile, en Chilevisión, salió de su edificio con el rostro cubierto con una tela negra y abordó una patrulla de Carabineros. El vehículo se dirigió rumbo al Hospital El Salvador, donde Muñoz llegó para constatar lesiones.
Luego del trámite, la ex Playboy TV fue conducida en el mismo vehículo policial de regreso a su domicilio. Siempre evitando las cámaras y tratando de taparse. La única persona en la que Muñoz confió fue en su amigo y representante, Mario Brisso, quien había llegado al departamento tras la riña y estuvo siempre con ella.
Fuentes del edificio donde habita la joven aseguraron que Acuña abandonó el departamento poco antes de que arribara Carabineros. Mientras que cercanos a Muñoz dicen que se había reunido con el futbolista para discutir los detalles del divorcio. La pareja celebró en secreto su matrimonio por el Civil el pasado lunes 30 de enero. Hace apenas 43 días.
HOT CELEBRITIES: Jessica Biel on her reckless youth: ‘I was always apologizing’, topless posing at 17
W MagazineForget rebelling against her parents. When Jessica Biel was a teenager, she put her entire cast of "7th Heaven" through the ringer, including the wholesome show's producer, Aaron Spelling. "I cut my hair super short and dyed it blonde," the "New Years Eve" actress says in the April issue of W magazine. "I had to apologize to Aaron Spelling for doing that. He wasn't happy."
But changing up her hair proved to just be the tip of the raging hormone iceberg. In March 2000, Biel appeared topless on the cover of Gear magazine, which sent "7th Heaven" producers into a tizzy because the actress was under 18 when the photos were taken. The show later took legal action against the magazine, and Biel later said she regretted that poor decision. Around the same time, "a really obnoxious friend sent a stripper to the set" for her birthday, she also tells W. "I had to apologize for that, too. The show was all about family values, and they took that position seriously. I was always apologizing."
W magazineGrowing up in Colorado, Biel, now 30, was nothing like her current sexy self in her late teens. She describes her parents as "outdoorsy mountain people" who expected their children (Biel has a younger brother, Justin) to be the same. "My father would always say, 'Go out and don't come back until you have something to show me.' Which meant he wanted me to come back with a scraped knee or an injury. When I went out to play, I felt like I'd better get hurt." Despite the tomboy behavior, Justin Timberlake's fiancee says she still indulged her girly side by playing with dolls. "But it was always, 'Let's play sex with Barbies!' My Barbies were usually naked. Once, I took their heads off, cut their hair, drew on their short, spiky hair with some markers, then stuck the heads on Christmas lights. Every year, we'd string our tree with those Barbie heads. It looked demonic."
W MagazineBiel gets to revisit her physical side in her upcoming sci-fi action flick, "Total Recall," in which she has a butt-kicking girl-on-girl battle with Kate Beckinsale. Although neither actress is a stranger to fight scenes on the big screen, Biel says the two were extra cautious with each other. "Kate and I usually fight men in movies, and when you knock into a man, he doesn't care," she explains. "But every two seconds, Kate and I were saying, 'I'm so sorry — are you okay?' We were both so nervous about fighting another woman. Which is strange, because I have no problem fighting with a guy … Our fight scene isn't overtly sexy: just two trained fighters who happen to be women kicking the s--t out of each other."
Also on the Web:
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
MOVIE DIRECTORS: Iran cancela homenaje a director de película que ganó premio Oscar por "Una Separación"
Asghar Farhadi no será reconocido en su país debido a los temas tratados en su película "Una separación", que molestaron a las conservadoras autoridades locales.
12/03/2012
Las autoridades iraníes cancelaron una ceremonia en honor al director ganador del Oscar, Asghar Farhadi, pese a que el gobierno había festejado su victoria como un triunfo sobre un competidor israelí.
Aunque no se proporcionaron detalles sobre la razón por la cual se habría negado un permiso, se ha filtrado que las autoridades conservadoras del país estaban molestas por los temas que aborda la película: la agitación local, la desigualdad de géneros y el deseo de muchos de irse del país.
Ilna dijo que dos grupos, el Centro de Directores de Cine Iraní y el Alto Consejo de Productores de Cine Iraní, emitieron un comunicado criticando la cancelación. Todos los eventos públicos en Irán deben ser antes aprobados por el gobierno.
"Nuestra intención era tener una reunión simple y amistosa para decirle 'gracias' por su gran logro para Irán y el cine iraní, pero los custodios culturales no nos permitieron hacerlo", dice el comunicado, dirigiéndose a Farhadi. "Lo lamentamos profundamente"
Farhadi no emitió una respuesta de inmediato.
Irán había acogido el Oscar de Farhadi cuando su película se impuso sobre otros cuatro filmes que incluían uno israelí, describiéndolo como una conquista para la cultura iraní y un golpe para la percibida influencia de Israel en Estados Unidos.
Pero los iraníes de línea dura también se enfurecieron porque la cinta ventila los problemas en la sociedad iraní a través de la historia de una pareja cuyo matrimonio se derrumba.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
HOT CELEBRITIES: Actress Molly Ringwald: I Feel Like "the World's Oldest Teenager!"
With back-to-back roles in Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink on her resume, '80s teen queen Molly Ringwald still feels like a kid at heart.
"I'm the world's oldest teenager!" Ringwald, now 44, joked at The Secret Life of the American Teenager's 100th episode party in Burbank, Calif. Thursday.PHOTOS: Hollywood's red hot redheads
Now that she's older, Ringwald's roles have matured -- and she's happy to have found a new audience.
"I think teenagers really, really love [the show]. And I've heard that there's also people in my demographic who have gotten really hooked on it."
VIDEO: The Secret Life of the American Teenager cast models for Us Weekly
The show also helped launch Shailene Woodley's career long before she played George Clooney's daughter in The Descendants. "I don't really think that I need to give her advice," Ringwald said, adding that Woodley, 20, is on track to become "a superstar."
"She's really got it together," Ringwald explained. "She comes from a great family and she has a great foundation, so I totally trust her."
Working on The Secret Life of the American Teenager has been especially rewarding for Ringwald, who has three children with husband Panio Gianopoulos.
PHOTOS: Stars with twins
"When I came here, I had a 4-year-old daughter who is now 8, and I became pregnant with twins. Brenda Hampton wrote it into the show so I could continue working, so it's very special to me."
"I wish I would've been a little bit more attractive while I was pregnant! I was not one of those pretty pregnant people!" Ringwald laughed to Us. "But I did have these giant twins inside of me. And everyone was so loving and so supportive of me, so it was a very special time in my life."
ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN: Sexist jeans in the UK offend women everywhere: Boys, do your own laundry
Washing machine instructions on a pair of pants give offensive advice to women. Comment is 'embarrassingly outdated'
Jeans sold at the UK store Madhouse made headlines this week after British journalist Emma Barnett picked up her boyfriend's jeans while tidying the house.
On the washing-instructions tag, she read "machine wash warm." Under that was the washing advice that would quickly set off a Twitter firestorm:
"OR — GIVE IT TO YOUR WOMAN, IT'S HER JOB."
Yep. She did what any good journalist would do: she took a photo of the tag, tweeted it, then wrote about it in The Telegraph. And then CNN picked up the story:
"If the comment had been remotely funny, I would have been the first to laugh and shrug it off, as it really wouldn't have bothered me enough to photograph it, tweet it and then write about it," Barnett wrote in The Telegraph. "But it was the lack of any implied humor and the horrible surprise of such an incongruous message hidden away inside some trousers, that left me just plain stunned."
Twitter responses ranged from disgust to amusement.
The Cut called out the attempt to be funny as "embarrassingly outdated":
"There's also the question of how single dudes should deal with cleaning the pants — because, after all, living in a cave does get dirty," Alex Rees writes.
Madhouse took to Twitter to apologize, claiming the jeans were manufactured by a brand they stock and that they were unaware of the offending tag:
"There was never any intention to offend it is obvious that we need to be a lot more careful when proofing sold goods," Madhouse posted. "If we had noticed the label the items would never of been put in our stores. A mistake was made and we apologize for this."
Neither Barnett nor Madhouse named the brand.
What do you think? Are the jeans funny or offensive?
Note: This story wouldn't have made international news if Barnett's boyfriend had picked up his clothes off the floor. Maybe it's time we expect more domestic prowess from our significant others. Men, do your own laundry.
More from THE web
Model wins lawsuit over 'big hips'
Urban Outfitters shirt sparks racism claims
See the $2M gold handbag
Previous
(via @Emmabarnett)
On the washing-instructions tag, she read "machine wash warm." Under that was the washing advice that would quickly set off a Twitter firestorm:
"OR — GIVE IT TO YOUR WOMAN, IT'S HER JOB."
Yep. She did what any good journalist would do: she took a photo of the tag, tweeted it, then wrote about it in The Telegraph. And then CNN picked up the story:
"If the comment had been remotely funny, I would have been the first to laugh and shrug it off, as it really wouldn't have bothered me enough to photograph it, tweet it and then write about it," Barnett wrote in The Telegraph. "But it was the lack of any implied humor and the horrible surprise of such an incongruous message hidden away inside some trousers, that left me just plain stunned."
Twitter responses ranged from disgust to amusement.
The Cut called out the attempt to be funny as "embarrassingly outdated":
"There's also the question of how single dudes should deal with cleaning the pants — because, after all, living in a cave does get dirty," Alex Rees writes.
Madhouse took to Twitter to apologize, claiming the jeans were manufactured by a brand they stock and that they were unaware of the offending tag:
"There was never any intention to offend it is obvious that we need to be a lot more careful when proofing sold goods," Madhouse posted. "If we had noticed the label the items would never of been put in our stores. A mistake was made and we apologize for this."
Neither Barnett nor Madhouse named the brand.
What do you think? Are the jeans funny or offensive?
Note: This story wouldn't have made international news if Barnett's boyfriend had picked up his clothes off the floor. Maybe it's time we expect more domestic prowess from our significant others. Men, do your own laundry.
More from THE web
Model wins lawsuit over 'big hips'
Urban Outfitters shirt sparks racism claims
See the $2M gold handbag
Previous
(via @Emmabarnett)@YahooShineCA on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook
Friday, March 9, 2012
2012 GENIE AWARDS ROUND-UP: The big winner of the night was Monsieur Lazhar, Canada's official entry in the best foreign film category at this year's Oscars
| Mar 9, 2012 |
The big question going into this year's Genie Awards was, "Would all the major awards once again go to nine-time Genie Award winner David Cronenberg, who seems to have the same relationship with Genie voters that Meryl Streep has with Oscar voters, or to one of the nominees that few mainstream filmgoers have heard of?"
Somewhat surprisingly, Cronenberg walked away empty-handed. His A Dangerous Method, by far the most high profile of the nominees, took home a total of five awards, including best supporting actor (Viggo Mortensen) and best score (Howard Shore). It was nominated for 11 awards.
The big winner of the night was Monsieur Lazhar, Canada's official entry in the best foreign film category at this year's Oscars (it lost to A Separation from Iran). The acclaimed Québécois film took home six awards, including best picture, best director (Philippe Falardeau), best actor (Fellag), best supporting actress (11-year-old Sophie Nelisse), and best adapted screenplay.
Perhaps the only highlight of Thursday's telecast occurred just moments in when Viggo Mortesen took a Montreal Canadiens jersey out of his back pocket and dedicated his award to the team. "Next year we'll be back with a vengeance," he said to massive applause.
The rest of the ceremony mostly consisted of figure skating (Jamie Salé and David Pelletier were trotted out at every available opportunity) and lame stage banter between presenters that made the stage banter at the Oscars look like it could've been from a long lost Oscar Wilde play. The ceremony was one hour long, but it felt more like seven.
The complete list of winners is printed below.
Best Picture
Monsieur Lazhar, Luc Déry, Kim McCraw, producers
Best Director
Philippe Falardeau, Monsieur Lazhar
Best Actress
Vanessa Paradis, Café de Flore
Best Supporting Actress
Sophie Nélisse, Monsieur Lazhar
Best Actor
Fellag, Monsieur Lazhar
Best Supporting Actor
Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method
Best Original Screenplay
Ken Scott, Martin Petit, Starbuck
Best Adapted Screenplay
Philippe Falardeau, Monsieur Lazhar
Best Feature-Length Documentary
La nuit, elles dansent/At Night, They Dance, Lucie Lambert, Isabelle Lavigne, Stéphane Thibault
Best Short Documentary
Sirmilik, Zacharias Kunuk, Joel McConvey, Kristina McLaughlin, Kevin McMahon, Michael McMahon, Geoff Morrison, Ryan J. Noth
Best Live-Action Short Drama
Doubles With Slight Pepper, Ian Harnarine, Ryan Silbert
Best Animated Short
Romance, Georges Schwizgebel, René Chénier, Marc Bertrand
Best Original Score
Howard Shore, A Dangerous Method
Best Original Song
Carole Facal, "Quelque Part" (from Starbuck)
Best Cinematography
Jean-François Lord, Snow & Ashes
Best Art Direction
James McAteer, A Dangerous Method
Best Editing
Stéphane Lafleur, Monsieur Lazhar
Best Costume Design
Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt, Funkytown
Best Makeup
Christiane Fattori, Frédéric Marin, Café de Flore
Best Overall Sound
Orest Sushko, Christian Cooke, Jack Heeren, Reinhard Stergar, Don White, A Dangerous Method
Best Sound Editing
Wayne Griffin, Rob Bertola, Tony Currie, Alastair Gray, Andy Malcolm, Michael O’Farrell, A Dangerous Method
Best Visual Effects
Marc Côté, Stéphanie Broussaud, Gary Chuntz, Vincent Dudouet, Cynthia Mourou, Eric Normandin, Martin Pensa, Luc Sanfaçon, Sylvain Théroux, Nathalie Tremblay, Café de Flore
SPECIAL AWARDS
Claude Jutra Award
Anne Émond, Nuit #1
Golden Reel Award
Starbuck, André Rouleau, producer
Perhaps the only highlight of Thursday's telecast occurred just moments in when Viggo Mortesen took a Montreal Canadiens jersey out of his back pocket and dedicated his award to the team. "Next year we'll be back with a vengeance," he said to massive applause.
The rest of the ceremony mostly consisted of figure skating (Jamie Salé and David Pelletier were trotted out at every available opportunity) and lame stage banter between presenters that made the stage banter at the Oscars look like it could've been from a long lost Oscar Wilde play. The ceremony was one hour long, but it felt more like seven.
The complete list of winners is printed below.
Best Picture
Monsieur Lazhar, Luc Déry, Kim McCraw, producers
Best Director
Philippe Falardeau, Monsieur Lazhar
Best Actress
Vanessa Paradis, Café de Flore
Best Supporting Actress
Sophie Nélisse, Monsieur Lazhar
Best Actor
Fellag, Monsieur Lazhar
Best Supporting Actor
Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method
Best Original Screenplay
Ken Scott, Martin Petit, Starbuck
Best Adapted Screenplay
Philippe Falardeau, Monsieur Lazhar
Best Feature-Length Documentary
La nuit, elles dansent/At Night, They Dance, Lucie Lambert, Isabelle Lavigne, Stéphane Thibault
Best Short Documentary
Sirmilik, Zacharias Kunuk, Joel McConvey, Kristina McLaughlin, Kevin McMahon, Michael McMahon, Geoff Morrison, Ryan J. Noth
Best Live-Action Short Drama
Doubles With Slight Pepper, Ian Harnarine, Ryan Silbert
Best Animated Short
Romance, Georges Schwizgebel, René Chénier, Marc Bertrand
Best Original Score
Howard Shore, A Dangerous Method
Best Original Song
Carole Facal, "Quelque Part" (from Starbuck)
Best Cinematography
Jean-François Lord, Snow & Ashes
Best Art Direction
James McAteer, A Dangerous Method
Best Editing
Stéphane Lafleur, Monsieur Lazhar
Best Costume Design
Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt, Funkytown
Best Makeup
Christiane Fattori, Frédéric Marin, Café de Flore
Best Overall Sound
Orest Sushko, Christian Cooke, Jack Heeren, Reinhard Stergar, Don White, A Dangerous Method
Best Sound Editing
Wayne Griffin, Rob Bertola, Tony Currie, Alastair Gray, Andy Malcolm, Michael O’Farrell, A Dangerous Method
Best Visual Effects
Marc Côté, Stéphanie Broussaud, Gary Chuntz, Vincent Dudouet, Cynthia Mourou, Eric Normandin, Martin Pensa, Luc Sanfaçon, Sylvain Théroux, Nathalie Tremblay, Café de Flore
SPECIAL AWARDS
Claude Jutra Award
Anne Émond, Nuit #1
Golden Reel Award
Starbuck, André Rouleau, producer
Saturday, March 3, 2012
MMA HOT CELEBRITIES: Ronda Rousey’s Strikeforce title bout against Miesha Tate could vault her to MMA stardom
Ronda Rousey is, as she often is, smiling. She’s surrounded by a group of young men at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, all eager to gain her attention and speak with her.
She knows it and clearly revels in the attention. She’s confident, composed and in charge of the situation. She handles their advances with aplomb, as if she’s done it for years.
Rousey, 25, is wearing a dark dress with a plunging neckline and high heels. She’s fully made up and her long blonde hair curls down her chest.
Ronda Rousey won a bronze medal in judo in the 2008 Olympics.
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)
The men, most of them in their 20s, are clearly entranced.
The scene is not unlike those that play out nightly in the trendy night clubs along the Las Vegas Strip.
This, however, is not what you may think.
Rousey is one of the world’s finest female mixed martial arts fighters and, on Saturday in a bout televised nationally by Showtime from Columbus, Ohio, she’ll fight Miesha Tate for the Strikeforce bantamweight title.
She’s not in a night club and the men talking to her aren’t suitors, but, rather, MMA reporters conducting interviews.
“She’s quite the sassy gal,” said Gareth A. Davies, a longtime combat sports reporter for the London Telegraph. “She’s incredibly charming and she has all the qualities and the back story to become a star. I came away from that interview with her utterly intrigued. I like her.”
There is much to like about Rousey, who may be on the verge of becoming a massive star.
A bronze medalist in judo at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Rousey is a fierce competitor who has yet to need longer than 57 seconds to defeat an opponent. She is 4-0 as a pro after a 3-0 amateur career, but despite that success, some have speculated that the title shot is too much, too soon.
Tate, long one of the best fighters in the world and the reigning champion, is one of those. She sneers at the attention Rousey has received and says Rousey is getting the title shot ahead of more qualified women because she talked her way into it.
“There’s a lot of hype coming to this fight,” Tate said. “As always with [ex-UFC heavyweight champion] Brock Lesnar, he had a lot of hype, and I think that Ronda has a lot of hype, as well. At 4-0, I don’t feel she’s as deserving as some other people, like Sarah Kaufman, for instance, and even Alexis Davis. ”
“Now, it doesn’t mean that her skill set’s not great. And maybe she’s going to be the next world’s greatest fighter or whatever. But I don’t feel that she’s earned this title fight. I do not feel she’s earned it at 4-0, and never [having] fought at 135 [pounds]. But it’s an entertainment business, and this is the fight that the fans want to see, and from that aspect, I can understand why it would want to be put together and why it’s been so promoted and getting so much attention.”
Rousey is popular for a variety of reasons, the first of which has been the impressive start to her career. Forget for a second that it’s been barely 18 months since she first stepped into a cage.
Ronda Rousey is 4-0 as a pro after a 3-0 amateur career.
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)
This is a Rousey fight: The bell rings, the fighters touch gloves, Rousey moves forward and grabs her opponent. Suddenly, there’s a loud, piercing shriek and, just like that, the bell rings again as Rousey hops up from the floor and bounces on her toes, smiling and waving to a crowd that is still not quite sure what happened.
It took her a total of 103 seconds, or an average of 34.3 seconds a fight, to win her three amateur fights. As a pro, it’s been a total of 148 seconds, an average of 37 seconds per match.
She has all of four minutes, 11 seconds inside the cage in the seven matches combined. One round in MMA is five minutes.
She’s doing things in the sport that are almost unimaginable, and so, despite her lack of a lengthy record, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker had no qualms about offering her a title fight.
“I’ll tell you, it was a very simple process,” Coker said of putting the bout with Tate together. “If you consider the fights that Ronda has fought and who she’s fought, the results that were created, I mean, it’s pretty amazing. We felt good about putting the fight together.”
One of the many things that make her unique is her ability to engage the media. And as she’s been pressed about her relative lack of experience, she’s quickly and easily handled the question.
[Related: MMA fighter Ronda Rousey makes positive change in judo world]
She rarely stutters or stammers when answering a question. She’s thought of everything ahead of time, it seems, and knows the message she wants to convey.
“I think it’s funny that people are saying, ‘You’re winning your matches too quickly. We don’t know if you’re that good,’ ” Rousey said. “Really? OK. Never mind. I just think it sounds dumb.”
She then points out that Kaufman lost the bantamweight title to Marloes Coenen, who was fighting for the first time at 135 pounds. She adds that Coenen then lost the title to Tate, who will defend it against her Saturday.
“I think the reason everyone is making such a big stink about it is that Sarah Kaufman wants a title shot and Miesha never wanted to fight me from the beginning,” Rousey said.
Rousey’s beginnings were a struggle. When she was born, her face was blue and everyone in the delivery room was concerned she’d died. The umbilical cord had wrapped around her neck.
She struggled to speak as a child and would get frustrated by her inability to communicate. She had to go to numerous speech therapists.
“I think what she got from that was an ability to handle and deal with frustration,” said her mother, AnnMaria Rousey De Mars, one of the great female judokas in American history. “She was trying so hard to learn how to speak and, for a long time, she wasn’t able to do it. But she kept trying and, in the end, it paid off. As a parent, you want everything to be perfect for your kid, but sometimes it’s those difficult things that make them strong enough to be successful later in life.”
De Mars, who was the first American woman to win a judo world championship, holds a doctorate in psychology. Her sister and brother, Rousey’s aunt and uncle, have doctorates as well.
De Mars wasn’t sure about her daughter getting into MMA, given that education is so important to the family. But from her earliest years, Rousey was extraordinarily active, said her mother, and had energy to burn. She was frequently beaten up on by her older sisters, Maria and Jennifer, but was never fearful.
“She went through some years as a teenager where the only reason we didn’t set her on fire and throw her in the ocean was that there was a law against it,” De Mars said.
But as athletic as Rousey was – she once was a promising swimmer but lost interest in the sport after the death of her father – she also was bright.
And De Mars, who works for the state university system in California, wanted to see her daughter take advantage of her intellect and not go into a job where getting punched and kicked in the head was an occupational hazard.
“I thought it was a really bad idea,” De Mars said of Rousey’s decision to become a professional MMA fighter. “Ronda is really smart, and she did extremely well in math and science in school. I was at [the University of California at Santa Barbara], so she could have gone to any one of about 500 colleges and universities for free. That’s without even the whole Olympic medal thing.
“Here, she had the opportunity to pick up where she left off, get a good education and go on and have a solid career and maybe do something very good with her life. I told her, ‘Go find a cure for AIDs or save the whales. Let other people, who are not as bright as you go punch each other in the face.’ But you know how well kids listen to their parents.”
As it turns out, this may be one of those times where daughter knew best.
Gina Carano parlayed a brief but successful career as an MMA fighter into becoming a movie star. She had the lead role in the 2011 Steven Soderbergh film, “Haywire,” a film that also featured Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas.
That success for Carano came despite the fact that she lost her biggest fight, a 2009 match with Cris “Cyborg” Santos.
[ See more photos of MMA fighter Ronda Rousey]
If Rousey beats Tate, and the odds favor Rousey by better than 3-1, it could be a life-changing moment.
“I know what I can do,” she says, chuckling. “I know. There is no doubt in my mind of what I’m capable of doing. I’ve got a lot ahead of me, but I know I’m capable of doing big things. If people don’t like it, hey, I don’t care. That’s not my problem. It’s theirs.”
Still, she has perspective. She is not, she says, a celebrity just yet.
“Hey, it’s not like I’m at the gas station filling up my car and people are running up to me asking for my autograph and wanting to take pictures,” she said. “I’m known within this very small world [of MMA], but outside of that, I’m just another normal person.”
If she performs in the cage, though, she ‘will be the verge of becoming a major star.
History, it seems, is in the making for women’s MMA.
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- Ronda Rousey used her voice to get her a title shot. She will take on Miesha Tate for the Strikeforce bantamweight belt on Saturday in part because she persistently asked for the fight. She knows how to use her mouth to get what she wants. This isn't new for her. Before becoming the first U.S. woman to win a judo medal in the Olympics, Rousey used her mouth to make a positive change in the judo ...sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ronda-rousey-history-using-her-voice-change-151925991.html
- Ronda “Rowdy” Rousey will metaphorically rip the arm off Meisha “ Takedown ” Tate in her quest to capture the women’s bantamweight title when the two go head-to-head in the main event of Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey . The animosity between these two female combatants is as real as it gets, and because of that, the fanzine are in for one hell of a fight for as long as it lasts, which in Rowdy ...bleacherreport.com/articles/1089416-strikeforce-tate-vs-rousey-why-ronda-rousey-will-tap-out-meisha-tate
- Photo: Rondamma.com "Rowdy" Ronda Rousey is much more than a pretty face. Beneath those good looks lies a woman that will rip your arm off given the opportunity. The 2008 judo Olympic medalist began her professional MMA career in 2011 and has amassed a record of 4-0--with all of her victories coming via arm bar in [...]clutch.mtv.com/2012/03/01/strikeforce-ronda-rousey-interview/
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