Kim Kardashian Vs Rosario Dawson In Green Gowns at 2012 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington

Kim Kardashian Vs Rosario Dawson in green gowns at 2012 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington.

Sofia Vergara For GQ Mexico Magazine May 2012

Sofia Vergara cover of GQ Mexico Magazine Photoshoot May 2012 issue

Rihanna New Hair Style

Rihanna new hair style

Rihanna Shows Her Arabic Tattoo In Bikini

Rihanna shows her arabic tattoo in a bikini while  holdiay in Hawaii,

Victoria Beckham Presenting New Range Rover Evoque Styles

Victoria Beckham has produced new work in the design. The iconic fashion diva and David Beckham wife teamed up with Land Rover to bring about the all new Range Rover Evoque ‘baby’ Limited Edition SUV.

The absolutely magnificent Range Rover Evoque ‘baby’ limited edition given a thrilling ‘stealth grey’ matt exterior paintjob, while the luxury SUV also comes with custom crafted 20 inch gloss-black forged alloy wheels that have been given subtle rose gold accents that come into play when the SUV is in motion. The rose gold accents that are so prominently featured on the both the interiors as well as the exteriors of the Range Rover Evoque ‘baby’ limited edition are known to have been inspired from a 400 Daytona Rolex watch, which is said to be quite a favorite of Mrs. Beckham. The extreme class and bespoke elegance of the new luxury SUV is further heightened with the use of mohair on the floor mats, a material that is usually used in the creation of luxury clothing.

Congrats...

On "The Painted Veil" (2006)

There were two things I loved about seeing The Painted Veil one weekday afternoon in New York City. One was the film itself.  The other was the sense of community with a few other audience members.  This was an mid-afternoon showing at the local cineplex in my former neighborhood.  It wasn't a packed house but you knew that the folks present would be paying attention to the film.  This was Edward Norton and Naomi Watts acting a screenplay based on literature by W. Somerset Maugham and set in the 1920s.  Top critics praised this picture.  But it got meager studio promotion.  A half hour into it, some of us strangers glanced at each other in the audience and mouthed "This is really good!"  The Painted Veil  was one of the finest films of 2006 that hardly anyone saw.

It reminded you of why we went to the movies.  We were transported by this big screen production.  Stellar acting, an intelligent script and complex characters we could connect to.  The cinematography was lush, the original score was lovely and memorable and the other production values were also first-rate.  Had this film been released in the 1970s or '80s, it would've racked up half a dozen Oscar nominations.  At least.  Including Best Picture.  Instead, The Painted Veil was one of the best reviewed films of the year and totally snubbed in Oscar nominations.  It opens with a majestic panorama of verdant countryside.  A man and a woman, well-dressed and with matching luggage, appear to be sophisticated travelers.  They stand silent with their backs to each other, distance between them.  That visual is film literature for emotional tension between the characters.

They are unhappily married Brits in China.  Kitty came from an upper class family in which a daughter was pretty much like goods on a store shelf.  The parents wanted her to marry well and move out because father couldn't afford to keep taking care of her.  Walter, a reserved and shy bacteriologist from   the middle class, falls madly in love with cynical and blunt Kitty.  He sees something dear in her that she perhaps doesn't even see in herself.  He will do anything to make her happy.  You like Walter.  You can see the love in his eyes for Kitty.  That love isn't mutual but she enters into a marriage of convenience with him nonetheless.  Walter's acquaintance, Charlie, is more Kitty's type.  Handsome, sexy, assertive, butch, brawny and upper class.  He's married too but he and Kitty make time for some steamy afternoon delight.

Walter volunteers to go to China to help combat a cholera epidemic.  He finds out about the affair.  Knowing that his image-conscious Londoner wife would not want him to file for divorce and charge her with adultery, he manipulates things so that she must appear to be a good wife and accompany him to China.  This is a young woman who thinks buying and arranging flowers is a bother.  Kitty:  "To put all that effort into something that's just going to die."  Imagine being dropkicked from your life of privilege into a poverty-stricken and plague-ridden foreign location.  Walter will inconvenience Kitty as payback.  Walter Fane is now one of my favorite Edward Norton roles.  He shows that you should never judge a bookworm by its cover.  Many of us guys can relate to him.  No matter which league you're batting in -- straight or gay -- if you're the polite, somewhat shy and dependable fellow, you've been kicked to the curb romantically by someone solely because you didn't appear to be the "bad boy."  This has happened to be and, in time, I admit that the rejections did toughen my heart up a bit.  I was interested in a guy for quite some time a few years ago.  The interest wasn't mutual because he liked muscular, sexy, darkly handsome dudes.  He found one.  He moved in.  Then he discovered that the handsome sexy man was a physically abusive drinker.  He called me one evening in distress.  My initial urge was to say, "Oh, I see.  Now that you're in a crisis, I've suddenly become beautiful.  Well, too late.  Find another place to stay tonight."  I didn't though.  But that flash of spitefulness I felt in myself surprised me.  I saw some of myself in Walter.  I saw some of how I wanted to be.  Walter hardens into an assertive, masculine "bad boy" by simply holding self-absorbed Kitty to her marriage contract.

The Painted Veil is a tale of infection.  Walter battles a virus that has infected China.  The Chinese hate foreigners whom, they feel, have infected their land politically.  Charlie, played by the square-faced and solid Liev Schreiber, has infected Dr. Fane's marriage.

Kitty has much to learn.  She will get wise life lessons for a worldly nun at a French convent in China.  In any other year, this rich and inspired performance by Diana Rigg would have landed her in the Oscar category for Best Supporting Actress.  Yes, the same Diana Rigg who was so marvelous as sleek  crimefighter Emma Peel on the classic 1960s British import TV series, The Avengers.

Rigg as Mother Superior comments to Kitty:  "When love and duty are one, grace is within you."  Will Kitty leave China in a state of grace?  That's a big question.  To me, this film is one of those remakes that's better than the original.  The previous version was a property powerful Hollywood studio MGM tailored for one of its top stars, screen legend Greta Garbo, in 1934. George Brent played the lover.

Herbert Marshall co-starred as Dr. Fane.  Marshall must've been Old Hollywood's go-to guy for W. Somerset Maugham screen adaptations.  He did MGM's The Painted Veil. 

He also did 1929's The Letter with Jeanne Eagels, the 1940 William Wyler remake of The Letter with Bette Davis, The Moon and Sixpence in 1942 and 20th Century Fox's Oscar-winning 1946 production of The Razor's Edge starring Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney and Anne Baxter.  Oscar-nominated actor Edward Norton further proved his versatility as Dr. Fane in his remake of The Painted Veil.  He was star and producer.  Norton isn't a celebrity regularly highlighted in entertainment news.  We don't know a lot about his private life. We do know his acting talent is a knock-out.   There's Fight Club.  There's his frightening and brilliant turn as the skinhead racist in American History X.  He did a Bobby Van-like musical comedy turn in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You.  He was outstanding as the delusional Southern California modern-day cowboy outsider in Down in the Valley.  Norton was Oscar-nomination worthy as Dr. Fane.  The same goes for Naomi Watts as the complicated Kitty.  Director John Curran gave us the kind of film that moviegoers got from Fred Zinnemann, William Wyler and David Lean decades ago.  I loved seeing it on a big screen.  I loved how it brought an appreciative audience together, turning strangers into a community for a couple of hours.  That's the power of movies.

Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee

I still hold firm to my opinion that the first Oscar nomination Sandra Bullock received should have been in the Best Supporting Actress category.  Bullock should've been in that category for her intelligent, subtle and nuanced performance as Harper Lee, the novelist who wrote To Kill A Mockingbird.  Today is Miss Lee's 86th birthday.  Sandra Bullock portrayed her in the 2006 film, Infamous.  It's another biopic about writer Truman Capote at the time he was researching his book, In Cold Blood.

Bullock's work as Harper Lee in this look at Truman Capote's life really touches something in my soul.  There's a wisdom and honesty about it.  At the end, she gives voice to a certain unexpressed weight in the heart of artists -- anyone who works hard, digs down deep inside to be raw, true and give a good performance of some sort.  Catherine Keener was a Best Supporting Actress contender for her portrayal of Harper Lee in 2005's Capote starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. He won the Best Actor Oscar for playing Lee's best friend and fellow writer.

Bullock gave her interpretation of Lee opposite Toby Jones as Truman Capote in Infamous. 

 In Hollywood history, it's rare for studios to release two biographical pictures about the same famous modern figure at about the same time.  In 1965, Paramount Pictures highly promoted Carroll Baker as the late 1930s Hollywood sex symbol, Jean Harlow, in Harlow.

That same year, in an independent film release, Carol Lynley also played the platinum blonde movie superstar in a biopic also called Harlow.

As I recall, Warner Brothers pushed back the release of its Capote biopic because the indie feature with Philip Seymour Hoffman was wowing the critics and building up major Oscar buzz.  I'm pretty sure the studio didn't want "Dueling Capotes" in the same year.

I was a movie critic on national radio when I saw Infamous.  The studio seemed be giving it mild promotion.  Odd, because Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig are co-stars. When the movie was over, I left the screening room and told the publicist present that the studio should campaign for Sandra Bullock as Best Supporting Actress.  I put those sentiments for Sandra in my review.  But that didn't help turn up the heat any for the movie's publicity.  Studio promotion remained lukewarm.  And Bullock wasn't the only actor who gave a praise-worthy performance in it.

The two movies have different tones.  Capote drives us to that questionable media intersection of celebrity, crime and journalism.  We see how lines get blurred.  Think of the O. J. Simpson trial.  A crime involving a celebrity.  People who had to take the witness stand, like Kato Kaelin, became celebrities.  People who covered the case, like Star Jones, became celebrities.  Infamous is more about Truman Capote's internal tug-of-war with truth and fiction.  It's about truth vs. self-deception.  It's about the painful process of trying to be creative, about giving the public a good and emotionally honest product.  And then trying to give the public another one.  That's what I loved about Sandra Bullock's turn as Harper Lee.  She stays on her course. She's an honest friend. A voice of reason.  She knows why Truman has recreated himself in Manhattan and why he hungers to be a celebrity while being an artist.  But, unlike him, she realizes that there could be land mines under that Red Carpet he craves to walk.  She will use a real life crime and trial (the race hate murder of black teen Emmett Till) to inspire her famous work of fiction, To Kill A Mockingbird.  He will take researched facts and alter them to suit his masterpiece non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, based on a real life murder case in Kansas.  Truman will make those alterations in his art and in his life.  Daniel Craig plays one of the killers Capote interviews for his book.

Harper senses that her friend's self-deception and neediness will lead him to cross a line that should not be crossed.  He can't be an objective journalist/writer if he develops romantic feelings for his subject.

Bullock's Harper Lee is complex.  She's an honest and loyal friend but that's not all there is to her.  There's a dissonance behind her eyes.  And we sense an occasional jealousy.  She struggles to come up with the next thing after her hugely successful first novel.  We don't get that element from Keener's Lee in Capote so much.  In Infamous, Harper (Truman calls her "Nell") watches Truman change quotes to make them more interesting.  She does not approve of that.  Yet he's produced more work.  They argue.  They love each dearly.  These are friends who know each other well.  She's knows Truman perhaps better than he knows himself.

We don't think ever of Harper Lee frustrated while trying to produce something to follow her acclaimed novel.  When Bullock as Lee says "It just not coming together," I felt a certain twinge of connection in my heart.  It made her so much more real to me.  The film adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird is very faithful to her novel.  It's a classic film based on classic modern literature.  I wish one of the three senior networks would air it annually in prime time like it does It's A Wonderful Life -- like it used to air The Wizard of Oz.  There are lessons in To Kill A Mockingbird that we need to learn again.

Lawyer Atticus Finch (as superbly played by Gregory Peck) needs to be an American role model and deserves as much prime time network exposure one night as "The Bachelor" gets.  More so, in fact.  I remember being  a youngster and watching To Kill A Mockingbird on NBC with my parents.  It would be wonderful if families could gather and watch this film as a once-a-year special network presentation nowadays.

Happy Birthday, Harper Lee.  Thank you for Atticus, Jem, Scout, Dill, Tom Robinson, Boo Radley and all the other memorable characters in your novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.  What a fascinating friendship you must have had with Truman Capote.  (Look at the two writers in this pic below.  He's autographing copies of his best-seller, In Cold Blood.)

Sandra Bullock -- excellent work as Harper Lee in Infamous.  Your challenged yourself in that character role.  It's not the Sandra Bullock of Speed, While You Were Sleeping or Miss Congeniality.  It was solid dramatic work that should've made you an Oscar contender before The Blind Side did.  Your tender monologue at the end of Infamous always puts a tear in my eye.  What you say as Harper is so...right. 

The most insane water slide on the Planet

Deadly slide in Brazil. Horror

World Journey of a giant inflatable duck

Florentin Hoffman - Dutch artist who lives in Rotterdam. He is known worldwide for its gigantic sculptures that are made in the form of articles of everyday use. Florentin now busy creating the project, which is called the "DuckTales" - the central object of which is a giant yellow inflatable duck, toy, familiar to children around the world. The artist has created a lot of ducks of various sizes, the largest of them appeared to St. Nazar, France, and its height was 26 meters. Today we offer a selection of photos of giant inflatable ducks from Florentina Hoffman, performing a triumphal voyage around the world.

1. Here is how their project by the artist himself: "The inflatable rubber duck has no concept of" boundary ". An inflatable rubber duck is not related to discrimination on any grounds. He does not carry any political color. In the inflatable duck a positive charge, it can reduce an existing today between the different countries of the world power. Inflatable Duck - a cozy, soft, fun and suitable for all ages. "Osaka, Japan. - 2009. Dimensions: 10h11h13 meters (32h36h43 feet). Inflatable Duck, pontoon and generator.

2. St. Nazar, France. - 2007. Dimensions 20h20h32 meters (85h65h105 feet). Inflatable Duck, pontoon and generator.

3. Oakland, New Zealand. - 2011. Dimensions 12h14h16 meters (39h46h52 feet). Inflatable Duck, pontoon and generator.

4. Elst, The Netherlands. - 2009. Dimensions 5h5h6 meters (16h16h20 feet). Inflatable Duck, pontoon.

5. Sao Paulo, Brazil. - 2008. Dimensions 12h14h16 meters (39h46h53 feet). Inflatable Duck, pontoon and generator.

6. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. - 2007-2008. Size 5 x 5 x 6 meters (16 x 16 x 20 feet). Inflatable Duck, pontoon.

7. Nuremberg, Germany. - 2008. Size 5 x 5 x 6 meters (16 x 16 x 20 feet). Inflatable Duck, pontoon.

8. Rotterdam, The Netherlands. - 2008. Size 5 x 5 x 6 meters (16 x 16 x 20 feet). Inflatable Duck, pontoon.

9. Wassenaar, The Netherlands. - 2008. Size 5 x 5 x 6 meters (16 x 16 x 20 feet). Inflatable Duck, pontoon.

10. Hasselt, Belgium. - 2009. Dimensions 12 x 14 x 16 meters (39 x 46 x 52 feet). Inflatable Duck, pontoon and generator.