Showing posts with label Entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Entertainment. Show all posts

"Bennifer" buried as Ben Affleck's star soars

It has taken 10 years of hard work and indie movies, but Ben Affleck finally has moved past his "Bennifer" nightmare. Affleck, 40, once a tabloid staple who risked becoming a laughingstock during his romance with Jennifer Lopez and their movie flop "Gigli," is back on top in Hollywood, winning accolades for his work both in front of and behind the camera. Fifteen years after Affleck shared an Oscar with Matt Damon for their first screenplay, "Good Will Hunting," buzz is building over a likely second Academy Award nomination next month. It would be Affleck's first since 1997. "Finally, people now are ready to go, 'Wow! He's at the very top of the food chain,'" Damon told Reuters. Affleck's latest film "Argo," a part-thriller, part-comedic tale of the real-life rescue of six American diplomats from Iran in 1980, this week picked up five Golden Globe nominations and a nod from the Screen Actors Guild for its top prize of best ensemble cast. The film, which Affleck directed, produced and stars in, has also delighted critics and brought in some $160 million at the worldwide box office. In "Argo," Affleck's clean-cut looks are hidden under a long, shaggy 1970s hair cut and beard as he plays CIA officer Tony Mendez, who devised a fake film project to spirit six hostages out of Tehran after the Islamic revolution. The kudos Affleck is now receiving follows the embarrassing headlines he attracted over his 2002-2004 romance with Lopez. "It was tough to watch him get kicked in the teeth for all those years because the perception of him was so not who he actually was," Damon said. "It was upsetting for a lot of his friends because he's the smartest, funnest, nicest, kindest, incredibly talented guy. ... So that was tough. Now I'm just thrilled. ... He deserves everything that he's going to get," he added. With a huge, pink diamond engagement ring for Lopez and gossip about matching Rolls Royces, the pair dubbed "Bennifer" starred in the 2003 comedy romance "Gigli," which earned multiple Razzie awards for the worst comedy of the year. SELLING MAGAZINES NOT MOVIES Damon, by contrast, was seeing his career surge with "The Bourne Identity," "Syriana" and "The Departed." But he recalls Affleck's pain. "He said (to me), 'I am in the absolute worst place you can be. I sell magazines, not movie tickets.' I remember our agent called up the editor of Us Weekly, begging her not to put him on the cover any more. Please stop. Just stop," Damon said. About a year after splitting with Lopez, Affleck married actress Jennifer Garner, had the first of three children with her, and started writing and directing small but admired movies like "Gone Baby Gone" in 2007 and 2010's gritty crime film "The Town." Last month, Affleck was named Entertainment Weekly's entertainer of the year, largely on the back of "Argo." The actor-turned-director said that managing the various tones of the film was his hardest challenge. "I had to synthesize comedic elements and the political stuff and this true-life drama thriller story. ... It was scary and it was daunting," Affleck told Reuters, saying he powered through by "overworking it by a multiple of ten." A trip to the Oscars ceremony in February is now considered a shoo-in by awards pundits, but Affleck is not convinced that success is sweeter the second time around. "It's harder. On the one hand, coming from obscurity, you have a neutral starting place. Because of the tabloid press and over exposure, I was starting from a deficit," he said. "It can be very unpleasant to be in the midst of a lot of ugliness. But I just put my head down and decided ... I was going to work as hard as I could, and I never let the possibility enter my mind that I might fail - at least consciously. Subconsciously, I knew I could fail and I was really scared, so it made me work harder.
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Norman Woodland, co-inventor of bar code, dies at 91

Norman Woodland, co-inventor of the bar code, the inventory tracking tool that transformed global commerce in the 1970s and saved shoppers countless hours on the supermarket checkout line, has died, his daughter said. Woodland, 91, died Saturday from complications related to Alzheimer's disease in Edgewater, New Jersey, said Susan Woodland of New York. Today, five billion products a day are scanned optically using the bar code, or Universal Product Code, or UPC, according to GS1 US, the American arm of the global UPC standards body. The handheld laser scanner inventories consumer products, speeds passengers through airline gates, tracks mail, encodes medical patient information, and is in near universal use across transportation, industrial and shipping industries worldwide. Susan Woodland said her father and co-inventor Bernard "Bob" Silver were graduate students at an engineering school in Philadelphia when they devised the idea of the bar code. Silver overheard a supermarket executive asking the dean of the school - now Drexel University - to assign engineering students the task of creating an efficient way to inventory products at the checkout counter. "My dad really liked to think about interesting problems," Susan Woodland said. Woodland devised a code based on Morse code - a series of dots and dashes - that he had learned as a Boy Scout, she said. The pair applied for the world's first bar code patent in 1949. Woodland joined International Business Machines Corp in 1951, and in 1952 he and Silver received the patent. But it would be more than two decades before laser technology would advance to the point where it could be applied to the bar code, IBM said in a statement. Silver died in 1963, according to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which inducted the two men in 2011. "In some ways it was a disappointment to my dad that it took so long for the technology to catch up," Susan Woodland said. The first bar code scan took place on June 26, 1974, in Troy, Ohio, when a cashier scanned a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum for shopper Clyde Dawson, according to IBM. Cost: 67 cents. A revolutionary technology was born. The late 1970s were heady times for Woodland, known to friends as 'Joe.' "My dad was a really sweet, friendly guy and he just got the biggest thrill about having invented the bar code," Susan Woodland said. "He loved talking to the checkers at the supermarket, seeing what they thought about the bar code scanner, what were the problems with it and what they'd like to see changed," she said, laughing. "They always got such a kick out of him." Susan Woodland said her father was enthusiastic about perfecting the technology he had invented. "He was involved in with the whole design of the station - from how the person stood and how high the laser stood to how to protect peoples' eyes from the lasers," she said. "He was totally a perfectionist." Woodland also served as an historian on the Manhattan Project, the U.S. effort to build the first atomic bomb. But his bar code invention was closest to his heart, Susan Woodland said. Woodland is survived by his wife, Jacqueline Woodland of New Jersey, daughters Susan Woodland and Betsy Karpenkopf, brother David Woodland and granddaughter Ella Karpenkopf, 16.
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Actor Depardieu hits back at French PM over tax exile

Actor Gerard Depardieu, accused by French government leaders of trying to dodge taxes by buying a house over the border in Belgium, retorted that he was leaving because "success" was now being punished in his homeland. A popular and colourful figure in France, the 63-year-old Depardieu is the latest wealthy Frenchman to seek shelter outside his native country after tax increases by Socialist President Francois Hollande. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault described Depardieu's behavior as "pathetic" and unpatriotic at a time when the French are being asked to pay higher taxes to reduce a bloated national debt. "Pathetic, you said pathetic? How pathetic is that?" Depardieu said in a letter distributed to the media. "I am leaving because you believe that success, creation, talent, anything different must be sanctioned," he said. An angry member of parliament has proposed that France adopt a U.S.-inspired law that would force Depardieu or anyone trying to escape full tax dues to forego their nationality. The "Cyrano de Bergerac" star recently bought a house in Nechin, a Belgian village a short walk from the border with France, where 27 percent of residents are French nationals, and put up his sumptuous Parisian home up for sale. Depardieu, who has also inquired about procedures for acquiring Belgian residency, said he was handing in his passport and social security card. Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti said she was outraged by Depardieu's letter, adding that he had for years been supported financially by public money for the film industry. "When we abandon the ship and desert in the middle of an economic war, you don't then come back and give morality lessons," she told BFM-TV. "One can only regret that Gerard Depardieu doesn't make a comeback in silent movies." He said he had paid 145 million euros ($190.08 million) in taxes since beginning work as a printer at the age of 14. "People more illustrious than me have gone into (tax) exile. Of all those that have left none have been insulted as I have." The actor's move comes three months after Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury giant LVMH and France's richest man, caused an uproar by seeking to establish residency in Belgium - a move he said was not for tax reasons. Belgian residents do not pay wealth tax, which in France is now levied on those with assets over 1.3 million euros ($1.7 million). Nor do they pay capital gains tax on share sales. "We no longer have the same homeland," Depardieu said. "I sadly no longer have a reason to stay here. I'll continue to love the French and this public that I have shared so much emotion with." Hollande is pressing ahead too with plans to impose a 75-percent supertax on income over 1 million euros. "Who are you to judge me, I ask you Mr. Ayrault, prime minister of Mr. Hollande? Despite my excesses, my appetite and my love of life, I remain a free man.
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Pop star Kelly Clarkson announces engagement

Kelly Clarkson, who became the first contestant to win "American Idol" a decade ago and went on to several chart-topping successes, has gotten engaged to her boyfriend, the singer said in a Twitter message on Saturday. Clarkson, 30, previously revealed she had been dating talent manager Brandon Blackstock since early this year. Blackstock is the stepson of country singer Reba McEntire. "I'M ENGAGED!" Clarkson said on Twitter. "I wanted y'all to know!! Happiest night of my life last night!" She then followed that by posting a link to a photo of her canary yellow diamond engagement ring on a website. She wrote that her boyfriend helped design it and that she "can't wait to make Brandon's ring." Clarkson's album "Stronger" hit No. 2 last year on the Billboard 200 sales chart, and she in previous years topped pop charts with her songs "My Life Would Suck Without You" and "A Moment Like This." The Texas-born singer won the Fox television singing contest "American Idol" in the show's debut year in 2002, and has had more success than many of the show's stars from following years. Clarkson has burnished an image as an artist willing to speak her mind, even confessing to feelings of loneliness. Last month, in an appearance on the "Ellen DeGeneres Show," Clarkson said she had been dating Blackstock since earlier this year and was thankful to have him. "I am not alone for the first time for Thanksgiving and Christmas and I'm very happy," she said on the show. In the same November appearance, Clarkson said she expected to get engaged to Blackstock. "We will totally, probably elope," she told DeGeneres.
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Gabby Douglas, Adele among brightest young stars -Forbes magazine

Fashion designer Carly Cushnie, actress Kate McKinnon and videogame creator Kim Swift may not be household names yet, but they are destined to do great things and will be tomorrow's young stars, Forbes magazine said on Monday. Along with Olympic Gold medalist gymnast Gabby Douglas, rapper Wiz Khalifa and researcher Josh Sommer, they have been chosen by the magazine for its "30 Under 30" list of top achievers under 30 years old in their fields. They are considered the top 30 achievers in 15 categories ranging from education, energy, music, science and healthcare to sports, technology games and apps and marketing. "This is a celebration of youthful ambition and success. These are really amazing people and they are doing amazing things. It makes you very hopeful about the world," Michael Noer, the executive editor of Forbes, said in an interview. Many on the list, including singers Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber, as well as actresses Ashley and May Kate Olsen and fashion designer Alexander Wang, the newly appointed creative director at the French fashion house Balenciaga, are already well known. Some are returnees to the list that was launched last year - like British singer and new mother Adele, the 24-year-old multiple Grammy Award winner, and American entrepreneur Kevin Systrom. Noer said there has been a 60 percent turnover since 2011, so there are plenty of new faces on the list drawn up by Forbes staff and industry experts. "I think there are a lot of interesting names on the list," he said. In energy, it is 28-year-old Leslie Dewan, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate and co-founder and chief science officer of Transatomic Power. "They are developing a new type of nuclear reactor that uses nuclear waste," said Noer. In music, Pittsburgh-bred Khalifa, 25, topped the list. Swift, the 29-year-old creative director at Airtight Games, was noted for creating hit videogame Portal. "Kate McKinnon, the actress from 'Saturday Night Live' who just joined in April is our Hollywood selection. She is being hailed as the next Tina Fey," Noer said. Sommer, the executive director of the Chordoma Foundation which raises funds for research into chordoma, a rare, slow-growing bone cancer most commonly found in the spine, is another young achiever, according to Forbes. Sommer created the foundation with his mother after being diagnosed with the disease while a student at Duke University in North Carolina. "He was diagnosed with a rare type of bone cancer, dropped out of school to find a cure and he has made some progress," said Noer. The full list will be published in the January 21 issue of Forbes and can also be found at www.forbes.com/under 30 .
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