Your Ad Here

Friday, March 21, 2008

Vote Here ! Sinharaja Forest for "New 7 Wonders of Nature

Vote Sinharaja Forest for "New 7 Wonders of Nature"

The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources has called upon all Sri Lankans to vote for the Sinharaja Forest to be included in the "New 7 Wonders of Nature".

How to vote...*****************

******** Click the links below as follows

* Select the region (asia)

* Select Singharaja Forest from the nominee list

* click Vote Now...

* Fill in the essential info, you have seven votes so select asia from the drop-down box

* then Singharaja forest from the consequent drop-down box

* Finally submit...

Sources - Daily Mirror

New 7 Wonders of Nature

Welcome to the election of thenature_logo_landing 290x162

Please browse through the list of nature sites nominated to date by a click on the world map below. Or select one of the following options:

To see a list of nature sites nominated to date, click on the map.

click

What is "The New 7 Wonders of Nature"?
Read more about the new campaign of the New7Wonders!

Voting procedure for the New 7 Wonders of the World

flow_chart_12_2007 600x

Monday, March 17, 2008

BoyZone Re- Unite in May This Year

Boyzone hone in on Blickling

One of the biggest selling bands of the 1990s have revealed that they’re on their way to play an outdoor gig at Blickling Hall, near Aylsham, this summer.

Boyzone.

Boyzone have become men since their reunion

Take That have done it, the Spice Girls have done it, with Boyzone now following suit with a reunion and a tour which is coming to Blickling.

The Irish band – who announced they were getting back together in November last year – are to play an open-air gig in the refined parklands of the north Norfolk stately home on Sunday, 20 July, 2008.

All five original members of Boyzone will be reunited for the Back Again – No Matter What road trip – the group's first in seven years.

The Blickling Hall picnic-style concert has been added to the band's tour, which starts in May.

Boyzone got together in 1994 and had 16 top five hits on the trot, including six number one singles and five number one albums.

They split after Ronan Keating chose to work on solo material – with the Blickling visit a return trip for the singer, who performed a sellout gig at the venue in 2005.

The boys – including Stephen Gately, Shane Lynch, Mikey Graham and Keith Duffy – decided to reform after rehearsals for 2007’s BBC Children In Need show.

Ronan said at the time: "We've been talking about getting back together for some time now. I can't wait to be back on the road and all the guys feel the same."

The Boyzone gig is the second act to be revealed by the venue's concert organisers - a Pop Party featuring 11 acts from the '80s will take place on Saturday, 19 July 2008.

Tickets costing £37.50 went on sale on Friday, 8 February, 2008 on Ticketline on 0871 424 4444 (plus booking fee), Blickling Hall on 0844 800 4308 (plus booking fee – personal callers paying by cash or cheque won't get charged a fee).

all tour dates:

May 2008 ***************

30th - London, O2 Arena
31st - London, O2 Arena

June 2008 ************

1st - London, Wembley Arena
3rd - Nottingham, Arena
4th - Nottingham, Arena
6th - Cardiff, International Arena
7th - Cardiff, International Arena
8th - Cardiff, International Arena
10th - Birmingham, NEC
11th - Birmingham, NEC
13th - Manchester, Arena
14th - Manchester, Arena
15th - Liverpool, Arena
17th - Newcastle, Arena
18th - Newcastle, Arena
19th - Sheffield, Arena
20th - Sheffield, Arena
22nd - Glasgow, SECC
23rd - Glasgow, SECC


Two dates have also been added to the UK tour as follows:

Thu 29th May at Cardiff International Arena (tickets 02920 22 44 88) On sale Sat 9th Feb - 9 am.
Thu 26th June at Aberdeen ECC (tickets 08444 77 9000) On sale Sat 9th February - 9 am.
Also added is Newmarket Racecourse on Friday 15th August. Tickets on sale Friday 8th Feb.
boyz logo

See Video , Click Here


source: http://boyzonetour.com

BBC Criticised For Non-Censoring of Boyzone Single

By Turlough Delaney

boyzone.jpg
That one, whathisname, him, the other one and whatdyacallhim

The BBC has found itself under sustained criticism over the last few days for its decision not to censor an old Boyzone hit from 1998.

BBC bosses decided to put the ‘classic’ track No Matter What back on their radio playlist in recognition of the Irish boyband’s unwanted reunion earlier this month.

Most other mainstream radio stations had taken the decision to censor all Boyzone ‘music’ in protest of the untalented fivesome getting back together and organising a tour for next year.

However, so as not to offend the public, the BBC have been playing an edited version of the track with altered lyrics in order to offset the deep hypocrisy underlying the song and the its singers. The original chorus will now be replaced with the lyrics:

No matter what we tell them/No matter what we say/ No matter that we hate each other/Its about money at the end of the day/No, no matter/Money’s all that matters to me…

Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt has since come out and responded to furore. “Our decision not to censor Boyzone music and play their version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s No Matter What was based on requests to Radio 1 by a significant number of twentysomething single women to do so in the wake of the reunion.

“We believe the women’s desire to hear Boyzone again was a way of helping them to escape the misery of their present lives and wallow in the nostalgia of their long gone blissful teenage years. And being a public service broadcaster we felt a duty to accede to these requests.

“At the same time, we at the BBC are mindful of our responsibility not to damage the mental health of our young audience by overexposing them to the brain-rotting effects of the Boyzone back catalogue. That is why we are careful only to play No Matter What with the altered lyrics that acknowledges the purely monetary motivation on the part of the group’s members.”

In an official letter of protest to his employers BBC Radio 1’s resident slop-jock Chris Moyles, said their decision to play the song, no matter what version, was totally wrong:

“I thought Radio 1 had ended their policy of giving a forum for ‘boybland’ non-entities inflicting their offensively soulless ‘music’ on the public. I and many of my fellow BBC DJs believe the national broadcaster should not be encouraging such a deeply cynical exercise by Boyzone to cash in on the current trend for waste-of-space pop groups reforming by putting one of their old hits on the A list.”

Radio phone-in shows on the BBC’s other stations, as well as their website forums have also been jammed with irate members of the public venting their spleen that old Boyzone crap is back polluting the airwaves.

Said one poster: “When Take That reformed we tolerated it because they split up years ago and weren’t all that bad really. Soon afterwards the Spice Girls announced their reunion and by then many of us were starting to get a bit uncomfortable, but we let it pass…

“But now these rejects have followed suit when nobody – absolutely NOBODY - wanted it! This band shouldn’t have existed in the first place - they had nothing to offer back then and they have zero relevance now. If I were a religious person I would say that this was the work of the Devil. And the BBC is encouraging it! The BBC is in league with Satan!”

So far, none of the five members of Boyzone have been arsed commenting on the scandal.

Spice Girls Stop Their Reunion Tour

Spice Girls Stop Their Reunion Tour

The Spice Girls have played their final gig after their final reunion tour.

Spice Girls Stop Their Reunion Tour

The final stop on the girls’ whirlwind tour, which included 47 show in the US, Canada, Europe, was Toronto, where they ended the night with a group hug on stage.

Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Geri Halliwell and Victoria Beckham cut their “Return of the Spice Girls” tour.

On their website, the five wrote a short message to fans saying they hope “girl power” will live on through future generations.

She revealed, “Our time is up…we’ve come to the end of the road…there are tears of both sadness and joy,” they wrote, ending with the words: “mission accomplished.”

Each of the girls is thought to have new projects lined up, although Mel C. is expected to be the only one to release a solo album in the near future.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Sanath, Kamal join radio with 'Neth FM

Sanath, Kamal join radio with 'Neth'

By Susitha R. Fernando

Sanath with Neth team

Veteran actors Sanath Gunatilake and Kamal Addararachchi have joined 'Neth FM' to promote cinema and literature through radio.

Sanath, will appear in the evening programme 'Ridi Nimnaya' every Friday from 7 to 9 pm with entertaining and educative information related to cinema. The programme is to feature a variety of artistes including veteran filmmaker Sumithra Peries, actress Malani Fonseka, script writer and director Tissa Abeysekera while box office record producers like Neil Rupasinghe are also to take part.

'Ridi Nimnaya' is the first radio programme conducted by the acclaimed actor who has won a number of awards. Speaking about his selection for the programme, Sanath said educating the film audience through other media is very important for the development of cinema.

"Even though our cinema has given less attention to the film sound, the medium of sound or the radio is a very powerful channel to reach the audience," he added.

Actor Kamal Addararachchi is to voice the role of Sarath, the main character Sarath in the radio drama based on Kumara Karunaratne's novel 'Rathu Rosa', (Red rose). Kamal played the same role when the novel was made into a television drama. The drama will be aired everyday from 2 to 4 pm on Neth FM. The programme is a follow up of earlier radio dramas based on the famous novel 'Golu Handawatha' (Silent Heart) and 'Gehenu Lamai' (Girls) by Karunasena Jayalath.

"Twenty years ago I worked as a radio artiste but the present role as Sarath is going to be a challenging one," said Kamal describing his role.Asanka Jayasuriya, Chief Executive Officer, Neth FM describing the aim behind the novel programme said "Neth wants to support and promote not only cinema and radio drama but other mediums like music and theatre.

Final "Harry Potter" movie split into two parts

Final "Harry Potter" movie split into two parts

LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) - Warner Bros. has conjured up some Hollywood magic for the final installment of the wildly popular "Harry Potter" movies, splitting the seventh and final book into two films, the movie studio said.

J.K. Rowling

Part one of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will debut in late 2010 and be followed months later by part two."We feel that the best way to do the book, and its many fans, justice is to expand the screen adaptation of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' and release the film in two parts," Jeff Robinov, president of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, said in a statement.

The first five films in the series have been huge hits with a total global box office nearing $4.5 billion. The sixth movie is now being filmed. The movies are based on British author J.K. Rowling's best-selling fantasy novels about the adventures of boy wizard Harry Potter and his friends as they grow from kids into teenagers at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final book in Rowling's series, was published last July to huge fanfare, selling some 11.5 million copies in its first 10 days in the United States. But the final volume is a long saga at more than 750 pages, and it is filled with many twists and turns as Harry and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley wrap up their story lines. Harry faces -- once and for all times -- the dark Lord Voldemort who murdered his parents.

Because of the many adventures in "Deathly Hallows," Rowling, the movies' producers and Warner Bros. all agreed that two movies were necessary to truly tell the end story.

"'The Deathly Hallows' is so rich, the story so dense and there is so much that is resolved that after discussing it with Jo, we came to the conclusion that the two parts were needed to do it justice," said producer David Heyman, who first took the project to Warner Bros. in 1997. The books and movies also have been a huge money maker beyond theater box offices and DVDs. They have spawned products from toys to T-shirts to a planned theme park. By some estimates, "Harry Potter" represents a $20 billion business, so an eighth film will likely only expand the enterprise.

Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry, and his co-stars Emma Watson (Hermione) and Rupert Grint (Ron) are now filming the sixth movie -- "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." All three have said they would appear in "Deathly Hallows." Warner Bros. is a unit of media giant Time Warner Inc.



The Sunday Times

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Rambo : Rambo Review

Rambo Review

Rambo

The year 1988 was the last time we saw Rambo on the big screen. 20 years later Sylvester Stallone revisits one of the characters that sky rocketed him to fame, John Rambo. Rambo this time is going into Burma to rescue Christian aid workers who’ve been captured, tortured and killed by the brutal Burmese military. Aided by mercenaries, he takes on the Burmese in the only way he knows how, by becoming war and death itself.Rambo

Rambo may not be cinematic art, but Stallone makes Hell a fun thing to watch. A couple of years ago, when it was announced that Sylvester Stallone would be returning to the successful franchises of both Rocky & Rambo, people immediately rolled their eyes in disgust. After the success of Rocky Balboa, most viewers and critics had to eat their words, but at the same time, gave them hopes that a fourth Rambo film would actually please crowds the way Balboa did. Still, people, including myself, stayed cautious and skeptical at the thought of Rambo.

Going into this film, I can honestly say that I was pumped and excited to be there. I’m glad to say that now that I’m done watching Rambo, that feeling is still there, only now its intensified. The moment the opening credits and the amazing Rambo theme graced my ears, I was all smiles and as I’m writing this, I’m still smiling. In many ways its very difficult to actually write a in depth review, because the plot of this film is thin at best. This isn’t a rich story by any means, even though the civil war in Burma is a very real situation. That said, does a Rambo film need a rich story? The answer is a resounding no. This is Rambo, a brainless action film, yet not so brainless at the same time. There is two ways to explain that: Its brainless because its just glorious gory fun with some of the best action sequences I’ve see in long time. Its not brainless because the civil war in Burma is very real, very brutal, yet not many people know about it, or even heard of Burma. I admit, I didn’t either. Stallone educates us with real clips Ramboand news reels at the beginning of the film to set up the story.

As in all things, there is always the good and bad side of movies. The best thing about Rambo is the action. It can easily be described as intense and possibly realistic. I say ‘possibly’ because I have nothing to compare it to because I’m not solider and I’ve never seen war except in movies. Stallone for many months has said he wants to make this as realistic as possible, so I can only go on his word. That, and the fact that a 50 caliber machine gun has the capabilities of tearing a human body apart, so there is that. Rambo is extremely gory, but at the same time, its not over done like it is in some films. For example when an arm or leg gets blown off, there wasn’t an obscene squirt of blood spraying all over the place. I’m sure you know what kind of movies I’m referring too. What Rambo succeeds at is making me scarred as hell to die like that. Seriously, its horrifying. Something that is always key in movies is the music. The Jerry Goldsmith theme once again leads us in and out of Rambo. The score, composed by Brian Tyler, is a fantastic composition that honors both Goldsmiths original theme as well as Dan Hill’s song, “It’s a Long Road,” in which the theme is worked off of. I’ve always loved great musical scores ever since I was a little kid, and when used right in films it just makes the experience all that much better. Another thing I love about Rambo is the sentimental virtue. I’m such a sucker for using clips and voice over from past films, and just like Rocky, Stallone uses it again in a dream sequence that lasted somewhere around 30 to 45 seconds. Hearing Richard Crenna (Col. Trautman) telling Rambo who he is and seeing the action of the past Rambo films is simply amazing. That scene alone gets the viewer, or at least me, so pumped up for Rambo. That’s the point where you want to see Rambo kick ass, and that’s what he does. One of the things I was concerned over is the mercenaries and how they would fit in a Rambo movie. The thing is, whether they were there or not wouldn’t matter to the out come or the feel of the film. Still, I have to say that their involvement wasn’t distracting. Of course what makes Rambo so great is Rambo. Stallone once again steps into this role and continues the greatness of the character, the unsung hero, the warrior.Rambo

Its hard for me to point out what is bad in Rambo because, in my opinion, there isn’t much. I will say that it does take a little time to get into the big action and climax of Rambo. I’ve heard people complain that the beginning is boring. Well, it isn’t, but I do understand what they are thinking. Some of the set up did drag on just a little bit. The introduction of the mercenaries could have easily been shortened or just replaced with a little bit more action. Rambo movies are not known for their great dialog, and here that tradition carries. Some of the dialog in the beginning of the film is really weak. Especially the scenes with the interaction of Rambo and Sarah, played by Julie Benz. Sarah convinces Rambo to take them into Burma in the most unconvincing ways. You would expect some type of strong speech to convince Rambo to help them, but in the end it sounded like this, “…Help us, it’s the right thing to do,” Then Rambo would respond, “Ok…” The dialog really wasn’t like that, but when you see the unconvincing scene, that’s how it will make you feel. The bad dialog however is overpowered by the kick ass action, so dealing with that isn’t all that bad. The biggest weakness and most apparent weakness is the fact that there isn’t really plot. First Blood had a very rich story, where Rambo really doesn’t. Rambo is a simple story: Aid workers captured, Rambo rescues them. Also, if there is a moral to the story, it doesn’t show itself. I’m sure if I see it a few times and think about it real hard I could come up with something. If I had to say right now what the moral of the story is, I think it would have to be, Rambo “coming full circle,” as Trautman put in in Rambo III, and accepting who and what he is. Other then that, I can’t find anything.

The biggest concern for Rambo is making enough money to make the studio happy enough for a fifth film as there has been talk of another film. Rambo, as far as I know, is on a $50 million dollar budget. Even if they do decide to make this the last film, I do hope its successful in the box office, because it deserves it.

Overall, Rambo is just a kick ass film. If you can get through some of the bad dialog and a couple of dragged out scenes, you’ll thoroughly be entertain by this. If you’re a Rambo fan, you’ll love this movie. I really had a great time at the theater and I’m going to go see this again. I rate Rambo a solid, like Stallones arms, 8 out of 10.

-Phil

For photos from the past and present Rambo films, click the photo link.
Rambo

For a full preview of Brian Tyler’s score, go HERE!!

Rambo

Knight Rider - 2008 : TV Review

TV Review: Knight Rider (2008)

Written by
Jeffrey Williams

A decade from now, if you wanted an encyclopedic list of everything wrong with television in 2008, you'll need to look no further than NBC's back door pilot movie Knight Rider.

The original series aired on NBC from 1982 to 1986, and quite frankly, it hasn't aged well. Cheap production values, unsophisticated plots, and David Hasselhoff combined to create some first-rate cheese. Still, it was reasonably good-natured and just sophisticated enough to make every boy born between 1970 and 1974 drool over that wicked cool car and tune in every week.

Unfortunately, over the last twenty years, the bar has been raised for both television action and science fiction shows. And ironically enough, NBC/Universal's Battlestar Galactica is the current high water mark for science fiction (a series also reconstructed from the ashes of a twenty-year-old series created by Glen A. Larson). Even if you only count Knight Rider as half science fiction, it now is unquestionably the worst piece of sci-fi American television has seen in a long, long time, replacing the old title holder of last fall's Bionic Woman

It takes less than sixty seconds to parse the lack of subtlety, imagination, or creative inspiration behind Knight Rider 2008. An old man, living in a house chock full of the most sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms in the world casually lets a menacing pair of strangers walk into his house after a sudden power outage. This isn't just a failure of logic — the suspension of disbelief required to make this work would require your central nervous system to shut down completely. But it gets worse when the camera work - all medium shots and unrevealing pans - suddenly goes hand-held and leers into the face of a bad guy, using a dutch angle framing that went out of fashion when the first Knight Rider aired.

In short order, we meet a random lesbian/FBI agent; a brilliant scientist with hypnotically shiny lip gloss; and a tousle-haired ex-Army Ranger/race car driver who seems to spend his time having threesomes. When the most well-rounded, believable, and engaging character is a solar-powered morphing Ford Mustang voiced by Val Kilmer, you're watching a show that is running on fumes.

What's worse is that the clichés haven't really started piling up yet. The brilliant scientist in the opening turns out to - gasp - be a body double! Which gets revealed in a monochromatic, jumpy-camera flashback! The ex-Army Ranger (vaguely played by Justin Bruening) has a shocking family secret! And he's a big-stakes poker player! And he just happens to have harbored romantic feelings for the scientist's ultra-foxy daughter (Deanna Russo)! Who was heartbroken he left her years ago! And the local sheriff is in league with the villains! Who are a near omnipotent, Halliburton-inspired "private security company"!

Most pilots are exposition heavy and lumbering, but this whole venture is senseless and wholly devoid of fun. Way back in 1982, the idea of a super-intelligent talking car was balanced right on the edge of 'way out fantasy' and 'airbrushed van painting cool'. Now cars are coming equipped with talking GPS systems, and the outer edge of cool is somewhere beyond Facebook. Good television can't be any more than a half-step behind the mainstream. Good science fiction needs to be a couple of steps ahead of the mainstream. None of the factory spec elements of Knight Rider have any current relevance — the Bluetooth headsets, hipster lesbianism, and cheesy poker games already feel like dated cultural relics. Completely missing is that sense of cool, that 'gee whiz, wouldn't it be awesome if…' sensibility that fueled your imagination when you were young.

In a show this dismal, you can't entirely blame the actors, but Bruening lacks the porn-star-lite charm that Hasselhoff exudes with ease. The other actors are so devoid of character that it's hard to tell if they're even performing. There isn't a compelling image or coherent thought to be found. Shadowy conspiracies that seem to have only four employees, body doubles, mommy issues, absentee fathers, and hack cliffhangers all feel like something a twelve-year-old J.J. Abrams would come up with. Cheap digital effects work compounds the problems, with green screen spill very visible in a number of shots. There isn't even the thrill of sweet cars driving fast — a feat even The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift managed to achieve in spades.

Not every show needs to be as heady and grim as Battlestar Galactica. Sometimes bad television can be at least enjoyable to watch, and everyone has an over-eager twelve-year-old tucked away somewhere deep inside who deserves to come out and play occasionally. Damn the nostalgia, though, because your inner twelve-year-old boy is going to have to hold on to the slim hope that an inevitable A-Team re-make is much better.

Knight Rider Review

February 18th, 2008 · 4 Comments

KITT

Over 25 years ago David Hasselhoff became the iconic television character, Michael Knight, as the lead in a new high tech crime fighter series Michael Knightcalled Knight Rider. Knight Rider was among some of the best television programing of our time and ran from 1982 till 1986. Since 1986 there has been many efforts to reincarnate the series is some form, whether it was on TV or the big screen. Finally in 1991 Knight Rider return with a less then entertaining sequel to the original series ultimately failing to please viewers. Since then there has also been a couple of different tryouts and takes on the legendary series, but all of them falling short, mainly because they were just simply terrible. Here in the beginning of 2008, another incarnation and direct sequel to the original series makes its way on to television, bearing the same name. Commissioned with a two hour backdoor pilot, Knight Rider returns with Mike Traceur (played by Justin Bruening) the son of Michael Knight. Also starring Deanna Russo as Sarah Graiman, Bruce Davison as Charles Graiman and Sydney Tamiia Poitier as Carrie Ruvai. Poitier is of course the daughter to the famous actor Sidney Poitier. Voicing the high tech Mustang Shelby GT500, Val Kilmer as KITT.

I’ll admit right now, my expectations for this were never that high but at the same time, I expected something fun and entertaining. With the expected cameo of David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight I became even more pumped up for this. Ever since Knight Rider was announced, I’ve been looking forward to this even though I was very skeptical. Contrary to popular opinion, I wasn’t skeptical about KITT being a Mustang… In fact, I thought KITT was bad ass however it still would have been great to see KITT as a Trans AM. With all of that out of the way, I was skeptical, didn’t expect much, but at the same time excited and hoped for a fun TV movie. Unfortunately at the end, I was very under whelmed.

Knight Rider is very boring:

Mike TraceurIts not that Knight Rider is not a well made movie, in fact, its done very well in my opinion. Even so, the story was very boring. For the most part, there really isn’t any action to speak of and with a series like this, with its history, you would expect some kind of a action packed movie, a movie that is considered a pilot to a series. Most of the film is taken up by long drawn out dialog that really took up a tremendous amount of time. With almost every pilot or movie, it is expected that the first half hour is usually for set up. Knight Riders set up was an hour and a half long, with a very under whelming climax! To add to the lackluster film, some of the secondary characters really just didn’t need to be involved. Wayne Kasserman plays Dylan Fass, Mike Traceur’s roommate. This character did not need to be in this film. He would sporadically be shoved into a couple of scenes that should have been cut to begin with. Hopefully, if this series continues, they’ll forget about this character and we’ll never have to see him again. As much respect I have for Sidney Poitier, his daughter Sydney Tamiia Poitier was really annoying and not very good. I can understand the need for a secondary character like this, but she really didn’t need to be in almost the entire thing. When she was on screen all I did was role my eyes at her performance, because I really wasn’t impressed. Lets not forget to mention the Knight Rider theme. Now I never expected them to keep the exact version from the Original Series and I was impressed with how the theme starts off the way it use to, but they totally ruined it with the rest of the theme. This new Knight Rider theme is terrible and I really don’t like it. All of that said, there are probably more things I could complain about, but lets move on.

Despite all of the things that made me dislike Knight Rider there are however a few redeeming quality’s. KITT itself, was awesome in many ways. The choice to use a Mustang was, in my opinion, the best choice possible. The visual effects used for KITT in various scenes were done very well, and to my surprise, the CGI did not look like a bad SciFi channel movie. I honestly found it impressive and almost flawless. Most of the acting was acceptable: Justin Bruening and Deanna Russo seemed to fit with their characters, although they need to find their footing with those characters. Most of the set peice’s used where visually pleasing and Val Kilmer is a good fit for the voice of KITT, although it would have been amazing if William Daniels came back.Sarah

It turns out that the coolest thing was the return of Michael Knight. However, I did find that scene frustrating because I felt David Hasselhoff wasn’t in his best condition at the time, and interfered with his performance. Still, its Michael Knight, so who’s complaining.

Overall, I wasn’t impressed with Knight Rider. I expected more from it, but walked away under whelmed and unimpressed. If Knight Rider gets picked up for series, I’ll continue to watch with hopes that it will get better. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give Knight Rider a 4.5 out of 10.

-Phil
Knight Rider Cast

newfilmdimension.com

American Pie 5 ?



Overview

Director:
Andrew Waller
Writers:
Adam Herz (characters)
Erik Lindsay (writer)
Release Date:
26 December 2007 (USA) more
Genre:
Comedy more
Tagline:
The most outrageous slice of pie!
Plot Summary:
Erik, Ryan, and Cooze start college and pledge the Beta House fraternity, presided over by none other than legendary Dwight Stifler... more
User Comments:
Worst movie of 2007 more

Cast

(Cast overview, first billed only)

John White ... Erik Stifler

Christopher McDonald ... Mr. Stifler

Jake Siegel ... Mike 'Cooze' Coozeman

Alexandria Galante ... Hot Girl #1

Meghan Heffern ... Ashley
Dan Petronijevic ... Bull (as Daniel Petronijevic)

Nic Nac ... Bobby

Christine Barger ... Margie

Steve Talley ... Dwight Stifler

Italia Ricci ... Laura Johnson

Moshana Halbert ... Sara Coleman

Sarah Power ... Denise

Vasanth Saranga ... Bandhu

Joe Eigo ... Dexter
Tyrone Savage ... Edgar
more

Additional Details

MPAA:
Rated R for pervasive strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity, language and excessive drinking.
Runtime:
85 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Certification:
USA:R / Germany:18 (DVD rating) / Singapore:R21 (cut) / UK:18 / Argentina:Atp
MOVIEmeter: ?
V 7% since last week why?

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Producers had to train the actors in the "pinch pop" method of unhooking bras for the fiction frat competition. more
Goofs:
Continuity: When Cooze enters Eric's bedroom (as Eric is performing the Heimlich maneuver on Margie), it shows he is dropping the box he is holding, but as it cuts back to him leaning up against the door the box is still in his hands before he drops it. more
Movie Connections:
References Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) more
Soundtrack:
Won More Time more

My Favorite subject was Geography' - Shahrukh Khan..

My Favorite subject was Geography' - Shahrukh Khan..

Shahrukh Khan who will soon be anchoring the new reality show on Star Plus, 'Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hai?'faces his set of primary grade questions... Check out whether the star is smarter than the fifth grader..


As the countdown to the one of a kind reality show, 'Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hai?' starts, viewers are waiting patiently to watch their favourite actor return to television as a host. Yes we are talking about none other than the Badshah of Bollywood, Shahrukh Khan, as he hosts the amazingly conceptualized show on Star Plus.

The game show is based on the international show 'Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader' in which grade school level questions are put to adults, wherein they go thro' the pressure of keeping their reputation high.

But as of now, there is a twist in the tale as we have put the host, Shahrukh Khan on the 'Hot Seat', facing the music of primary grade questions..

When asked which subject he enjoyed the most in school, Shahrukh replied, “I loved Geography and Biology, but somehow Geography was my favorite subject. Plateau, plain, stalagmites, stalactites; how lava is formed, fascinated me".

Immediately popped up the next question, so what is Geography? "Geography is the science that you can feel around you everyday”, comes the King Khan's reply. And when asked what the boiling point of water is, “100 degree celsius and 212 degree in Fahrenheit”, replied SRK.

Well, indeed SRK is surely smarter the a Fifth Grader, what say folks?

Author: Melanie

/www.india-forums.com

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Britney . Out of control

Out of control



In just a couple of years, Britney Spears has gone from pop queen to psychiatric patient. It's like a Victorian melodrama, says Lisa Appignanesi, author of a landmark new history of women and madness - except that we're all implicated in her very public fall

Monday March 10, 2008
The Guardian


A younger Britney Spears in happier times

Around the time of the release of her debut album, Baby One More Time, at the bright age of 18, Britney Spears apparently commented, "I want to be an artist that everyone can relate to, that's young, happy and fun." The title song of the album, infectious in its pop rhythms, rap-inflected, was the second most charted song of all time and the album sold 25m copies worldwide. The accompanying video shows a wide-eyed, uniformed schoolgirl jauntily baring her midriff with Lolita-like provocation, a blend of warrior maiden and blonde cheerleader.

Rock and roll on some nine years and the "young, happy and fun" Britney has been transformed into the mad, bad and sad woman of psychiatric wards and courtrooms - a woman confined by her father's legal order of "conservatorship", which puts him in charge of her life and estate. Were it not for the tabloid headlines, the websites screaming "skanky whore" and the hundred pursuing paparazzi waiting with cameras by her door, we might almost be in a Victorian melodrama scripted by Wilkie Collins. Then as now, it seems, men can be wild and bad, transgress bounds, enter the revolving doors of what we casually call "rehab", without incurring the stigma and constraints of madness, whereas women, certainly once they have reached the maturity of motherhood, cannot. Being a bad, rebellious girl, in the style of Amy Winehouse or Lily Allen, may just about be permissible, but the socially defined limits of what is considered "sane" quickly narrow with the arrival of babies.

So what has happened to Britney Spears? And since we are somehow implicated in the life of our celebrity icons, what has happened to us all that we bay with schadenfreude at the fall of Britney from jubilant girlhood to a womanly madness that seems to warrant a paternal straitjacket?

Raised in smalltown Louisiana by an ambitious schoolteacher mum and a hard-drinking, building contractor, soon to be bankrupt, dad, Britney, it is said, already liked to perform when she was two. She took up acrobatics, sang in the local baptist church choir and, at the age of eight, was taken to audition for television's long-running Mickey Mouse Club. Too young for a part, the audition nonetheless got her a New York agent, three summers at the Performing Arts School, off-Broadway parts and a juicier one in the musical Ruthless!. A second audition, at age 11, saw her through the Disney doors. For two years, she was part of the young singing-and-dancing cohort, which like all Disney productions aims to be all-American and all-inclusive. This is the club that enjoins all young America to belong to its upbeat good cheer. The vivacity stayed with her. The inclusiveness did not: a display of troubled maternity is not what America likes to see in its star mothers.

There is nothing mousey about Mickey Mouse clubbers. Britney's later beau, Justin Timberlake, was right there beside her, performing for the cameras and for millions of child viewers. Indeed, it would be perverse to think that such histrionic habits laid down early and reinforced by success could lead to anything other than a love affair with image, the camera and the applause that meets an exhibition of the self.

Britney rose to rare heights for a female pop artist - one groomed and managed by a showbiz machine that wanted to keep her pure, fresh and innocently slutty. Her second album, Oops ... I Did it Again, sold more copies in its first week than any other chart album. A stream of Billboard Music awards and Grammy nominations followed. Her third album, Britney, also debuted at No 1 in the US. She co-wrote five of the tracks and topped Michael Jackson in the ratings. She hadn't yet hit 20. By 2002, Forbes magazine ranked her the world's most powerful celebrity. In the Zone (2003) once more started out at No 1 - a record four in a row, out-performing any previous female singer. What matter if the critics carped, unconvinced by Britney's unsteady transition from teen virgin to sexualised woman? By now, she was earning extra multimillions by cashing in on her celebrity: there was an ad campaign for Pepsi, merchandising, touring, DVDs, even a book, written with her ever-present mother. Soon there would be highly lucrative perfume endorsements.

Only Madonna - her older material girl icon and never, like Britney, a self- and manager-styled virginal girl-next-door, but a big-city lass who knew her men and her onions - matched Britney's global fame. In 2003, in Me Against the Music, the two performed together. The accompanying video shows Madonna luring Britney through the labyrinth of an underground club, then disappearing just as Britney reaches close enough to touch. Later that year, when Britney kissed Madonna during the 2003 MTV awards, the gesture might well have marked her sense that she had now overtaken her. She, too, could now be in control. "Maybe she was my husband in another life," Britney is reported to have said.

By June 2002, Britney's much publicised relationship with Timberlake had ended. On a drug-fuelled Las Vegas weekend in January 2004, she suddenly entered into a marriage with a childhood friend, Jason Allen Alexander. This lasted all of 55 hours before her mother railroaded an annulment on vague grounds of incompatibility. Six months later, Britney announced her engagement to Kevin Federline, a back-up dancer for Timberlake, and a sometime rapper and model, professionally known as K-Fed. He had just split from his wife, who had recently given birth to their second child - a portent of things to come, one might say.

The couple married quietly in September and soon Britney announced that she would be taking a break to devote herself to the making of a family. The word "family" carries as much symbolic freight as the word "virgin" and its moral power was to bear down on Britney with a particular vengeance. By the time her first child, Sean Preston, was born in September 2005, a reality TV show, Britney & Kevin: Chaotic, that she and Federline had made about their courtship and wedding had been screened. They released it on DVD a few weeks after the child's birth. Not surprisingly, the show has Britney interrogating people about their views on love, sex and marriage. The tagline interrogates: "Can you handle our truth?"

In the wake of her encounter and identification with Madonna, Britney had joined the Kabbalah Centre. Now she left it publicly, announcing: "I no longer study Kabbalah. My baby is my religion." Religions, often enough, demand icons. They also demand adherence and come with generalised rules about behaviour. Motherhood and the family are no exception. Britney was a dab hand at the icons, but she fell foul of the second and is still reaping the punishments.

To mark her participation in the religion of mother and baby, a pregnant Britney posed nude for Harper's Bazaar, appearing on the cover of its August 2006 issue. Her hair now queenly dark, her belly perfectly rounded and airbrushed free of veins and stretchmarks, she is the very apogee of poised, yet still emphatically sexy, motherhood. Her face doll-like, she lies bared against what looks like a soft, furry-white, nursery blanket in the pose of a soft-porn, but pregnant, Venus. In a take on the iconography of virgin and child, she balances her first son on the perfect arch created by her unborn second. His naked puckered flesh creates a juxtaposition to the smoothness of her back, bare to teasing buttock, from which the folds of a black dress fall.

Britney just about got away with it. After all, Demi Moore had been there before her. But posed images rarely have much to do with the messy realities of everyday life. Nor, it seems, as Princess Diana sadly learned, can the press simultaneously be wooed and kept away.

On September 12 2006, two days before her older son's first birthday, Britney gave birth to her second, Jayden James. By November she had filed for divorce: Federline, who liked to party and hang out with male friends, was not living up to hopes. She asked for physical and legal custody of her children. Federline, apparently taken by surprise, counter-sued. In response to her original text message asking for divorce, he had scrawled on a nightclub bathroom wall: "Today I'm a free man - Fuck a wife, give me my kids, bitch." Kids, of course, come with generous payments from the Britney treasure-trove.

Two children under 18 months, let alone the postpartum hormonal blips that all women are subject to, compounded with the obsessionality that the failure of a relationship inevitably brings, a custody battle, the milling paparazzi at the door - these are hardly a recipe for calm behaviour. Not much wonder that Britney's actions were erratic and, as an increasingly condemnatory media noted, "unstable". She was still only 25. But the once cheerful Mouseketeer had let American motherhood down and the public's representatives, the media, were moving in to prevent Britney - now "unfitney" - from getting up again.

Marilyn Monroe, that icon of a previous era who spent a good part of her last years on the analyst's couch, once said, "I'm always running into people's unconscious." Saucy virgin Britney ran into the unconscious that doesn't like sexualised, transgressive mothers, and she began to pay the price.

She also now seemed to relish a perverse rebellion against all the expectations that her former golden-girl image had so carefully fostered. She went wild and bad. She partied on the LA scene, drinking, snorting, vomiting, hanging out with Paris Hilton, chain-smoking, swearing at reporters, screaming at fans. In January 2007, her favourite aunt had died of cancer. A few weeks later, pressured by her mother, she took herself into rehab at Eric Clapton's Crossroads in Antigua. She checked out a day later. The following night, February 17, she walked into a beauty parlour back in California and demanded that they shave her hair off, a heavily freighted feminine gesture. There would be no more lushly fertile Britney, no more Britney sporting the locks of sexual availability. When the hairdresser refused, she took her razor in hand herself, and performed the task.

Like all of Britney's acts, this one hit the headlines. Beautiful, virginal Britney had now become madwoman Britney - her prototype those haunted faces of inmates in the early 19th-century French asylums, like the revolutionary Théroigne de Mericourt.

A few days later she was back in a treatment centre in Malibu, and stayed for almost a month, before re-emerging to continue her bout of badness. She drove her car wildly, racing against the paparazzi, who were ever ready to pursue, stopping to allow them to click, and then re-engaging in a chase. She was snapped to reveal no knickers under her dress. "Britney's Badger Goes Free-Range," shouted the headlines. She attacked one of the paparazzi with an umbrella. She started an affair with another, hating and loving at the same time. The money they made from her snapped image ran into millions: her pictures accounted for 20% of paparazzi agency coverage that year. On the internet search engine Yahoo, her name topped the search charts.

In late September, after she had been charged with a hit-and-run incident, and had as a result lost custody of the children in yet another court hearing, Britney appeared at the MTV Video Music awards. She was nervous. Her hair was less than six inches long and she battled against wearing the prepared wig. She also determined not to don the appointed corset-style dress. She would appear wearing only a glittering black bikini and her unabashed nakedness. See and take me as I am, seemed to be the message. The response to her visibly rounded post-pregnancy body as she danced and sang Gimme More was less than kind. There were jeers and hoots.

We do not want our pin-ups to wear the very signs of what their sexuality is - in part at least - most certainly for: reproduction. Britney could only be "mad" for challenging our ambivalence about the female body in that adamantly upfront way. Other celebrity mums - Victoria Beckham comes to mind - hide the hated signs of maternity in anorectic thinness, reproducing, instead, an eternal girlhood, no matter how many children they have in tow.

There is a song on Blackout, the album that, despite all the travails, came out last October, which in its humour should make us question Britney's purported madness:

I'm Mrs Lifestyles of the rich and famous

I'm Mrs "Oh my God, that Britney's shameless" [...]

I'm Mrs "You want a piece of me?" Tryin' and pissin' me off

Well get in line with the paparazzi

Who's flippin' me off

Hopin' I'll resort to startin' havoc

And end up settlin' in court

Now are you sure you want a piece of me?

Disturbed, unhappy, wild, maybe. But utterly deranged and needing the confinement of paternal "governance", certainly not.

Nonetheless, earlier this year after she refused to return the children to her husband, now known as Fed-Ex, and barricaded herself in the bathroom, scores of police broke through the ranks of photographers in front of Britney's gated home to take her off to a hospital where she was held for an "involuntary" evaluation. She lost custody of the children. Some weeks later, on January 31, the scene was repeated late at night when paramedics, the LAPD and a fire engine once more rushed to the camera-filled scene and carted Britney away to the UCLA Medical Centre's psychiatric care facility, this time at the behest of the Spears family and their psychiatrist, on a "5150 involuntary psychiatric hold".

Daddy had now taken charge, and despite his daughter's release from the hospital a week later, he had also taken charge through the courts. In a statement, Jamie Spears said that he feared for his daughter's life. He called her "an adult child in the throes of a mental health crisis". The statement won him court permission to fire Britney's manager, take over all her documents, records and assets, and effectively to take legal control over her life - and her millions.

Is it likely that a father would have dared proceed in the same way with an adult son and received such ready acquiescence from the courts and a good part of the media? No fathers have appeared to take legal charge of the countless male pill-popping pop stars whose language and behaviour are less than clean and who live out some of the wildest dreams of the adult children we all sometimes are. But women, it seems, like their Victorian great-grandmothers, still need to be taken in hand and charged with madness.

In 2006, Britney had written a poem about the "sins of the father" and told friends he was emotionally abusive: "The guilt you fed me/Made me weak/The voodoo you did/I couldn't speak."

Let's hope Britney, however troubled, fights back and doesn't succumb to her father's "fears for her life". Let's hope the media help her. That would really be an iconic victory.

· Lisa Appignanesi's Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present is published by Virago/Little Brown.

Monday, March 10, 2008

The Super Model In The World - Gisele Caroline

Gisele Caroline Nonnenmacher Bündchen :
The Super Model In The World

Gisele Bündchen

Birth name Gisele Caroline Nonnenmacher Bündchen
Date of birth July 20, 1980 (1980-07-20) (age 27)
Place of birth Horizontina,
Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Height 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Hair color Sandy blonde
Eye color Blue
Measurements 34-24-34 (US)[1]
Weight 128 lb (58 kg/9.1 st)
Dress size 6
Shoe size 38 (EU), 9(US)
Agency IMG Models
Alias(es) Gise, The Midas Quee

Gisele Caroline Nonnenmacher Bündchen (born July 20, 1980) is a Brazilian model. According to Forbes, she is the highest-paid model in the world and also the sixteenth richest woman in the entertainment world,[3] having earned $33 million in 2007 alone, adding to her estimated $150 million fortune. She is dating mega-hottie Tom Brady. Also, she is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "world's richest supermodel". Gisele is the face of more than 20 brands internationally.
- Extracted by, wikipedia
http://images.askmen.com/galleries/model/gisele-bundchen/pictures/gisele-bundchen-picture-6.jpg


Click Here To Watch her Videos

Star Lanka Online TV Channel on Justin TV

Watch live video from starlankaonline's channel on Justin.tv Watch Star Lanka Online TV From The Web.

Place Youe Own Ad Here

Facebook > Fans