Although the filmmakers are guilty of a certain dishonesty in continuing to pretend that the events of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR actually happened, there is no doubt that the pretense of telling a “true” story had some benefits: The film presents a sort of everyday reality gradually turning nightmarish. because no one died in the house (outside of the prologue showing the murders of the previous), the story cannot descend into mechanical body count and must instead rely implied menace and uncanny manifestations. And rather slyly, much of the action (which mostly consists of step-father George Lutz falling gradually under the house’s evil spell) seems designed to suggest that the supernatural manifestations are actually a metaphor for a more realistic kind of evil, such as child abuse. (When George hacks up the family dog, the audience is invited to think, “Sure, he says the Devil made him do it, but maybe he’s just a sick bastard.”)
Visually, the film makes use of techniques we’ve come to expect in the horror genre, such as blurry, stroboscopic images flashing across the screen. Although effective, these techniques (which first gained prominence in 1999’s HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) are starting to look dated, especially after the flowering of a new style seen in Japanese films like RINGU and JU-ON: THE GRUDGE.
Despite its modest virtues, the film eventually collapses under the weight of its genre obligations. The source material is a thinly disguised pastiche of familiar material (notably THE EXORCIST), and the attempt to update the remake for a new audience adds another layer of familiarity, with scenes reminiscent of HELLRAISER, POLTERGEIST II, and HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, among others.
Finally, trapped with an anti-climactic ending (the family simply leaves the house), the script resorts to invention: the stepfather shifts into full monster mode, going after his family with an ax in a protracted scene that plays out like a combination of THE STEPFATHER and THE SHINING. unfortunately, Ryan Reynolds, who gives a good performance in the early stages, believably portraying a man trying hard to fit in with his new wife’s kids, is simply not a very effective bogeyman.
With no actual victims, the film resorts to some fake-out dream imagery in order to register a little bit of gore. after that, there’s even a CARRIE-inspired hands-reach-out-of-the-ground last-shot shocker involving the little girl ghost named Jodi (Jodi was apparently a Satanic pig in the book—so much for accuracy!).
TRIVIA
The real-life George Lutz was unhappy with the previous film version of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, and he was even more upset with the way he was portrayed in the remake. Lutz claims that neither version is an accurate account of the events described in the book; among other things, he points out that he had never killed the family dog.
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005). Directed by Andrew Douglas. Screenplay by Scott Korsar, based on the previous screenplay Sandor Stern, adapted from the book by Jay Anson. Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Jesse James, Jimmy Bennett, Chloe Moretz, Phillip Baker Hall
CNN’s new Sunday lineup will feature State of the Union in a new one hour block (instead of its original 4 hours) at 9 a.m., followed by Fareed Zakaria GPS at 10 a.m. and Reliable Sources at 11 a.m.
Below is the full announcement from CNN:
While there's no confirmation of the rumor, there's no reason to doubt that BestBuy may eventually sell the iPad. After all, BestBuy sells the iPhone. However, iPad BestBuy rumors over date are more in doubt.
The iPad BestBuy rumors, some say, point to an in-store release of early March or even late February. There are quite a few reasons that that makes no sense at all.
Gilyard’s one of the draft’s great stories, a player who’s gone from high school marijuana troubles to flunking out at Cincinnati to becoming one of the league’s best leaders. He’s been wildly productive on the field too (2,467 yards and 22 touchdowns in the last two years) and he’s a proven dynamo as a return man, which is always an added value come draft time. He has undeniably quick hands and feet, and in a phone conversation before practice started this week NFL Network draft expert Mike Mayock said, “He sure is fun to watch on tape.”
In person in Mobile, Gilyard’s been just as fun – and occasionally not. After running a lot of slants, bubble screens and crosses in college, he’s shown he can run solid NFL routes and ESPN analyst Todd McShay wrote that he “got off the line better than any other wideout” during press coverage drills early in the week. But he’s also dropped a lot of balls and Wes Bunting of the National Football Post echoed many voices who’ve worried over Gilyard’s – as Bunting called it – “frail” frame.
“He lacks the physicality needed to consistently fight his way through physical corners, (he) hasn’t looked real explosive out of his breaks and (he) has had a tough time separating vs. man,” Bunting wrote.
Mayock had Gilyard pegged as an early second round pick. He may have some work to do come combine time to prove that’s where he stays.
Former Philadelphia Eagle and NFL analyst for CBS Sports Tom Brookshier died Friday at the age of 78. Brooksheir was partnered with Pat Summerall and called three Super Bowl games in his career.
Former CBS Sports host Pat O'Brien shared these thoughts about Brookshier with Eye on Sports Media a few minutes ago:
PLANO, Texas — Defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat is going to be a Texas Longhorn.
The nation’s No. 2 recruit on the ESPNU 150 rankings ended the suspense Friday morning with an announcement in the Plano West High School gymnasium in front of a cheering student body. He said he finally came to the decision only days ago.
“It’s definitely a relief,” Jeffcoat said. “There’s been a lot of speculation. People think they knew what I was thinking. No one knew what I was thinking except my family.”
Jeffcoat had family to consider in his decision. The 6-foot-5, 225-pounder, who had 68.5 tackles, 8.5 sacks and two interceptions as a senior, had narrowed his finalists to three schools: Texas, Oklahoma and Houston.
Jacqueline Jeffcoat, his twin sister, already had committed to play basketball at Oklahoma. His father, former Dallas Cowboys defensive end Jim Jeffcoat, is on the coaching staff at Houston.
Arizona State, his father’s alma mater, didn’t make the cut. Neither did USC and Florida. A five-star talent, Jeffcoat was named to the First-Team Class 5A All-State team and was the defensive player of the year in District 8-5A.
“I felt most comfortable at Texas. It’s not that I didn’t feel comfortable anywhere else; everywhere else was great. That’s why it was such a hard decision and it took so long,” Jeffcoat said. “All these schools are great schools. I just felt right with Texas.”
At Texas, he said he hopes to follow in the footsteps of Brian Orakpo, a Pro Bowler in his rookie season with the Washington Redskins, and Texas senior Sergio Kindle, who attended Dallas’ Woodrow Wilson High School and is projected to be a first-round pick in April’s NFL Draft.
He might also follow in the footsteps of former Texas power forward P.J. Tucker. Jeffcoat said he hopes to join the Longhorns basketball team after football season. He said Texas coach Rick Barnes has given him the green light to pursue becoming a two-sport athlete.
“Basketball’s my first love,” Jeffcoat said. “It’s so fun to play and it helps you so much with football. I’ll just have to see how my body feels after football.”
Jeffcoat, who made his announcement seated next to his father, mother and two sisters, said deciding not to play for his father, the defensive line coach at Houston, was difficult.
“I believe my dad is the best coach in the country, but I didn’t feel like it was the right place for me,” Jackson said. “My dad has always been there for me and he always will be there for me.”
Jim Jeffcoat said from the beginning of the recruiting process he vowed to provide his son advice, but he would let him make his own decisions.
“It was his decision. We run basically similar schemes (at Houston),” Jim Jeffcoat said. “It was what he wanted to do. It was all about him.”
Jeff Caplan covers colleges for ESPN Dallas. You can follow him on Twitter or leave a question for his weekly mailbag.
taken from:
The website for Bank of America has been malfunctioning all morning. Attempts to load the page produce nothing at all.
A tipster speculates that it is possible that Bank of America has been the victim of a cyber-attack. For now, we're assuming it is a much more mundane problem. All websites occasionally go down.
A call to a spokesperson for Bank of America was not immediately returned.
Fake antivirus, which is also known as scareware, encourages web users to part with their hard-earned cash and download hoax security software.
Panda said alerts are now being distributed through Facebook's messaging service and being forwarded on to friends or being published to users' 'walls'.
Web users searching for 'un named app' are being presented with malicious links
The message tells social networkers they can speed up Facebook by deleting an app called 'un named app' from the applications added to their profile.
The security vendor says that while no malicious link is included on the massage, web users searching for more information about the app could find themselves navigating through to malicious websites designed to encourage the fake antivirus software to be downloaded.
Panda advised social networkers not to forward on the message to their friends to prevent "the propagation of this fake virus warning".
Source >>iPad search results may contain poisoned links that lead to rogue antivirus software, as fraudsters unleash a favorite malware-pushing tactic.
Antivirus makers Trend Micro and Panda Security, along with the threat-tracking Internet Storm Center, have posts warning about malicious results for search terms such as "apple tablet announcement." Crooks have for years used such SEO poisoning to snare unwary surfers.
According to Trend, clicking one of the malicious links leads to rogue antivirus software, another online scam that uses fake but professional-looking software to warn of nonexistent infections. Victims are exhorted to purchase a license for the worthless software to clean up the supposedly discovered malware.
While Trend includes a screen shot of a malicious result that it says appeared on the first page of search results, I don't see that particular link returned when I run a current search. Let's hope that means Google and the other search engines are already filtering out the scams.
And in the meantime, if you're after real iPad news, PC World has an abundance of articles for you, including a video and hands-on picture tour.
Mr. Salinger’s literary representative, Harold Ober Associates, announced the death, saying it was of natural causes.
Published in 1951, “The Catcher in the Rye” became Mr. Salinger’s most famous work with its distinctive depiction of its angry, iconoclastic teenage protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Mr. Salinger frequently dealt with the subject of precocious youth in his short stories of the Glass family, as well as “Franny and Zooey,” a collection of two long short stories. He had not published a new work since 1965, and lived in near-total isolation, having refused the attention of the literary world and the news media for decades.
In their statement, Mr. Salinger’s representatives said that “in keeping with his lifelong, uncompromising desire to protect and defend his privacy, there will be no service, and the family asks that people’s respect for him, his work and his privacy be extended to them, individually and collectively, during this time.”
The statement added: “Salinger had remarked that he was in this world but not of it. His body is gone but the family hopes that he is still with those he loves, whether they are religious or historical figures, personal friends or fictional characters.”
A full obituary for J. D. Salinger can be found here.
I'm no Apple fanboy, but seeing Steve Jobs on stage in person is exciting, and it isn't just about his personal magnetism. Apple has $29 billion in the bank and Steve seems determined to spend it building really cool stuff. The iPad certainly fits that bill. Just a little slab of a display lets you play games, browse the Web, watch movies, view pictures, read eBooks, get directions, send e-mail, manage your calendar, and, well, anything else developers want to write applications to do. But after the ridiculously hyped build up and the dramatic launch event, I'm still not sure what most people will use it for. What's the iPad's killer app?
Most of us already carry a laptop and smartphone. I don't think the iPad will replace either one. I know Steve wants the iPad to slide neatly between the two, but I'm getting on a plane tomorrow and my bag is already hurting my back. I can't carry more. So, again, what is the iPad for?
Kindle Killer?
Yes, it can certainly replace the Kindle I'm carrying. Granted, the Kindle is half the weight and offers, probably, 10 times the battery life. Still, for color pages and all the added functionality, I think the Kindle gets left at home—and possibly re-gifted to a less technologically-sophisticated relative. (When is Mother's Day, again?) So yeah, the Kindle has to change or die.
Can the iPad replace my iPod? No, because I already ditched my iPod. I listen to all of my music on my Palm Pre. Besides, it isn't like you can bring the iPad to the gym. What about GPS? Again, I use my phone. Can it replace my phone? Not really. Although, the iPad does support Bluetooth and with an unlimited data plan…wait, it still uses AT&T. Never mind.
What about replacing my laptop? Honestly, I like keyboards too much, as does everyone that has used virtual one. And despite the addition of touch-enabled versions of Keynote, Numbers, and Pages, it isn't a work system. Yes, you can give presentations on the iPad, but it isn't designed to replace primary systems. So, what is left for the iPad to do? Quite a lot actually.
I think Apple getting into the ebook business is hugely disruptive, but I will address that in another column. Instead, I would say that the iPad is going to be used as a flexible, interactive window on our digital lives. In case you don't know, your "digital life" includes what you read, what you watch, what you write, what you share, who you know, where you have been, and where you are going. Remember, everything that runs on the iPhone will run on the iPad. That means every recipe finder, work-out tracker, social media updater, language translator, photo viewer, guitar-chord tuner, and finger painting app available in the App Store will work on the iPad.
So, really, there isn't a single killer app for the iPad for the same reason that there is no killer app for the personal computer or the iPhone. The iPod and the Kindle had killer apps because they were single-function devices. The iPad is a platform, and although it won't change everything, it will change a lot.
There is still a chance the iPad will be on someone's shelf 2 years from now as a $500 photo frame, but at this point, my bet is that the iPad succeeds. If not, Mother's Day is May 9th.
By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
The blog reviews of President Obama's first State of the Union speech are in, and they're not good. The president's speech drove his online buzz down 2 percentage points, with bloggers especially harsh on his approach to unemployment and terrorism.
"Heading into yesterday's State of the Union address, President Obama's online buzz was 52 percent positive, which was 32 percent lower than it was on Jan. 27, 2009, when it peaked at 84 percent positive. Since giving his State of the Union speech last night, President Obama's overall online buzz reputation continued to drop and is currently registering at 50 percent positive overall—a 2 percent total reduction in less than a 24-hour period," says a spokesman for Zeta Interactive, a digital marketing agency that mines millions of blogs to judge the buzz on a subject for Washington Whispers.
Below is its post-speech memo to us, but the highlights seem to show that for many, the Obama thrill is gone. For example, the negative buzz on blogs increased when he talked about his new signature issue, unemployment. It also dropped on his approach to the wars.
But Obama scored on his threats to banks, his education promises, and his push for an energy plan.
The memo:
We decided to take a more in-depth look at blogosphere reaction following the State of the Union last night and not just look at how the President's reputation fared, but also how the topics he discussed were received.
First things first though. Heading into yesterday's State of the Union address, President Obama's online buzz was 52% positive, which was 32% lower than it was on January 27, 2009, when it peaked at 84% positive. Since giving his State of the Union speech last night, President Obama's overall online buzz reputation continued to drop, and is currently registering at 50% positive overall – a 2% total reduction in less than a 24 hour period.
The blogosphere is a fickle environment and one that can change on a dime based on huge public groundswell of support or a controversial topic that ignites a deluge of "venting". There were several chances for either of these scenarios last night, sometimes cancelling each other out in terms of online feedback.
Even though President Obama's overall online reputation dropped by 2% since the speech, he did receive a very warm reception in some of the topics and plans he addressed last night. Here's the breakdown of what subjects/topics of last night's speech received the most positive and negative "buzz", and how this compared to the buzz for each subject before the speech:
Most Positive Buzz.
Obama's approach on:
Financial industry/banks
Pre-State of the Union: 73% positive
Post-State of the Union: 84% positive
Change: +11% positive
Education plan
Pre-State of the Union: 82% positive
Post-State of the Union: 83% positive
Change: +1% positive
Energy plan
Pre-State of the Union: 72% positive
Post-State of the Union: 78% positive
Change: +6% positive
Most Negative Buzz.
Obama's approach on:
War on terror/overseas troops (48% positive)
Pre-State of the Union: 50% positive
Post-State of the Union: 48% positive
Change: –2%
Unemployment/jobs plan (53% positive)
Pre-State of the Union: 52% positive
Post-State of the Union: 45% positive
Change: –7%
As you can see, certain topics like national security dipped a bit in tone because of less time dedicated to the discussion by the president. Other issues, like unemployment, remain so heated online that they are unlikely to be helped by anything short of a full economic recovery at this point.
Overall, we can deduce that there were no dramatic shifts in public opinion on the blogosphere as people are still waiting to see how President Obama's plans turn out. Interestingly, three of the five most popular words associated online about Obama before last night's speech were "American", "first year", and "plan". Following the speech? The three most popular words associated were "promises", "hope", and "old".
The prices: Leading up to today's event, pricing rumors were all over the map, but most touted estimates in the range of $700 to $1000. So it was quite a shocker to learn that the iPad would start at just $499 for a 16GB Wi-Fi model. Let's put that in perspective: it's the same price as a 32GB iPod touch just two years ago, and only $200 more than the current 32GB touch, despite having a much larger screen, more powerful hardware, and more features. But perhaps the more telling comparison is that Amazon's similarly-size Kindle DX, with its non-color, non-touch-sensitive screen and much more limited functionality, is priced at $489. Unless you're a hardcore e-ink fan, the iPad seems like a relative bargain in comparison.
Of course, if you want to spend more, you can: $599 for a 32GB iPad or $699 for a 64GB model. And you can tack on $130 to any model to get 3G wireless support.
Pre-paid, no-contract, unlocked 3G: There were plenty of rumors about 3G wireless support, but the big surprise was the iPad's options for getting 3G service. Unlike the iPhone, where you're locked into a two-year contract at $30 a month, AT&T will offer two iPad data plans: $15 a month for 250MB of data, or $30 a month for unlimited data. The kicker? These are pre-paid, no-contract rates, and you can activate service at any time right from the iPad itself. So you can, say, enable 3G service before a big trip and cancel service when you get back.
Of course, these plans get you 3G service with AT&T--the mention of which drew audible groans from those in attendance at Apple's event. But the other part of the 3G surprise was that 3G iPad models will ship unlocked. Which means you should be able to plop in a SIM card for another GSM 3G network provider and avoid AT&T altogether, as well as use your US iPad overseas by buying a prepaid SIM card. (Update: It's actually a Micro SIM card, which not all providers currently offer.)
External keyboard support: Macworld editors have been aching for Bluetooth keyboard support on the iPhone since the first model was announced in January 2007. Despite the small screen on the iPhone and iPod touch, being able to use an external keyboard for "real" typing tasks would make the device much more useful, and even let us leave our laptops at home for some trips. Sadly, with each new version of the iPhone OS, we've been disappointed by this omission.
The iPad's huge screen--which has the potential to be great for working with email and text--and the announcement of iWork for iPad (see my next item) had several Macworld editors crossing their fingers that Apple wouldn't hold back on this obvious feature. This time around, Apple didn't disappoint. Not only will the company sell a dedicated Keyboard Dock, which holds the iPad upright while providing a full-size (but no-keypad) Apple aluminum keyboard, but the iPad will also work with standard Bluetooth keyboards. I am very, very pleased.
iWork for iPad: If the iPad really was just a big iPod touch, certain segments of the tech-buying public--business users and education, especially--may not have seriously considered purchasing it. But with the announcement of iWork for iPad, the iPad became a device that will also let you create, edit, and present Keynote presentations; work on spreadsheets and word-processing documents; and create newsletters and other basic page-layout documents. And support for Microsoft Office documents means you can import and work with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. It remains to be seen how well iWork for iPad handles these types of files, and what features it does and doesn't support, but with a real "office suite," a 9.7-inch screen, and the aforementioned support for external keyboards, the iPad is a much more capable tool than it's smaller sibling--and for many people, possibly a laptop replacement.
ePub support: Most people expected the iPad to double as an e-book reader. But Apple's announcement that the iPad's iBooks e-reading app will support the ePub standard was big news. Adopted by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) as an open-standards-based format for digital books, ePub allows publishers to create books in a single format for distribution to various e-book resellers and for use on any device that supports ePub. With more and more publishers and hardware vendors adopting the ePub standard, this news means it will be easier for publishers--big and small--to make their e-books available for the iPad and other e-readers.
(Questions still remain, however: Will Apple apply FairPlay copy protection to books you purchase through the iBookstore? Will you be able to import unprotected ePub documents into the iBooks app? We'll be working on the answers to these questions going forward.)
Bonus surprise: the iPad name: OK, so "iPad" was on many lists of possible names, including my own. Nevertheless, it was a bit of a surprise. As I noted in that article, you could argue that iPad is too close to iPod, that it sounds a bit gaming-centric, and that popular TV parodies had tainted the name. On the other hand, I wrote: "[iPad is] a simple, tablet-inspired play on the known-everywhere-in-the-world iPod name. 'Pad' would be a good brand for a tablet-style device that lets you record and explore your creative ideas." In other words, iPad was obviously going to be a love/hate name. But Apple went with it, and on the whole, I like it--it's already growing on me.
Updated 1/27/10, 3:11pm: Updated with information about Micro SIM card.
Washington (CNN) -- President Obama's State of the Union speech Wednesday will be a tough sell for millions of Americans struggling under the weight of an economic recession, political analysts said. "The president will respond as he always does to emergencies: with a speech. In this case, it's his State of the Union address," said David Frum, a CNN contributor and former speechwriter to President George W. Bush. "The Obama team always assumes the best remedy for any Obama difficulty is more Obama."
Frum said Obama's new populist tone, which he said emerged after the Democrats' surprising loss in the Massachusetts special Senate election, might work short-term if he uses it in Wednesday's speech, but it won't work over the long haul.
"If so, it would be a big mistake. It may win the president an immediate bounce in the polls by exciting downcast liberals and progressives," Frum said in a CNN.com commentary. "But that bounce will prove limited and short-lived, and it will come at the expense of more trouble not very far down the road."James O’Keefe, who posed as a pimp for undercover sting videos that badly damaged the credibility of ACORN, has been arrested for apparently trying to pull a sting on the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).
FBI Special Agent Steven Rayes alleges that O’Keefe aided and abbetted two others, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, who dressed up as employees of a telephone company and attempted to interfere with the office’s telephone system.
A fourth person, Stan Dai, was accused of aiding and abetting Basel and Flanagan. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.
O’Keefe had become a conservative media star since the ACORN sting. I just talked to Lisa De Pasquale, director of CPAC, who said that O’Keefe, along with co-stinger Hannah Giles and Andrew Breitbart, is (or was) under consideration for the annual conservative conference’s coveted Reagan Award.
Mike Flynn, the editor of Big Government–where the ACORN videos originally appeared–told me that the conservative news site had no knowledge of what O’Keefe was up to.
“We had absolutely no clue what he was up to,” said Flynn, “and now you see why! It’s a complete surprise to us. We’ll just see what happens.”
UPDATE: The FBI’s press release on the case:
Four Men Arrested for Entering Government Property Under False Pretenses for the Purpose of Committing a Felony
NEW ORLEANS—JOSEPH BASEL, age 24; ROBERT FLANAGAN, age 24; JAMES O’KEEFE, age 25; and STAN DAI, age 24, were charged in a criminal complaint with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, announced the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
According to the complaint, which was unsealed earlier today, the arrest of FLANAGAN, BASEL, O’KEEFE, and DAI took place after BASEL and O’KEEFE attempted to gain access to the New Orleans office of United States Senator Mary Landrieu on January 25, 2010, while posing as telephone repairmen. According to the complaint, FLANAGAN and BASEL were each dressed in blue denim pants, blue work shirts, light green fluorescent vests, tool belts, and construction-style hard hats when they entered the Hale Boggs Federal Building, located at 500 Poydras Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70130. Once in the building, FLANAGAN and BASEL sought access to the offices of Senator Landrieu. O’KEEFE was already present in the office, holding a cellular phone so as to record FLANAGAN and BASEL. Once inside Senator Landrieu’s reception area, FLANAGAN and BASEL told a member of Senator Landrieu’s staff that they were telephone repairmen, and they requested access to the main telephone at the reception desk. FLANAGAN and BASEL then manipulated the telephone system. FLANAGAN and BASEL next requested access to the telephone closet because they needed to perform work on the main telephone system. They were directed to the main office of the United States General Services Administration, also inside the Hale Boggs Federal Building, where they again represented themselves to be employees of the telephone company and stated that they needed to perform repair work in the telephone closet. Both FLANAGAN and BASEL stated that they had left their credentials in their vehicle. In addition, the complaint alleges that O’KEEFE and DAI assisted FLANAGAN and BASEL in the planning, coordination, and preparation of the operation. The men were apprehended by the United States Marshal’s Service soon thereafter.
If convicted, FLANAGAN, BASEL, O’KEEFE, and DAI each face a maximum term of 10 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three (3) years of supervised release following any term of imprisonment.
The United States Attorney’s Office reiterated that the complaint is merely a charge and that the guilt of the defendant must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
The investigation is being conducted by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Deputy Marshals with the United States Marshal’s Service. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jordan Ginsberg.
Dreams of a talent show superstardom have been shattered for one American Idol contestant, who has been cut from the ninth season of the TV talent competition after his father violated a confidentiality agreement by talking to a local newspaper.
Michael Lynche, known as Big Mike, was reportedly forced to leave Idol after his father revealed to their local Florida newspaper that Lynche had made the Top, a new report claims. The elder Lynche revealed to his local Florida paper, The St. Petersburg Times, that Michael had made the top 24 — a violation of the show’s rules, which require the singers and their families to keep the Hollywood week results a secret until they’re broadcast. The confidentiality agreement ensures the Top 24 results are not revealed until the Hollywood week episode airs.
Neither FOX nor Lynch has commented. Lynch has been replaced.
"They edited that," she wrote during a Twitter conversation with Basement Affair contestant Cathy. "To make it look like I was EXTRA reserved, when it wasn't like that."
Basement Affair editors might have also been exaggerating when they chose to blur the photo that led to Jenny being eliminated by Frank the Entertainer. (See the photo posted by Jenny here.)
"So what if I can take a sexy pic?" Jenny wrote. "I wasn't naked n the blurred out pic was over the top. Lol I was no where near naked."
And that's not all. Jenny also had another complaint while tweeting on Sunday. "Editing is a mfo!" she wrote. "Why would I EVER say the girls r jealous of RENEE?????"
Well, we can't say we're surprised to find out that a reality show went overboard in the editing room, but it's always good to hear from the contestants themselves. Gotta love Twitter for bringing us those instant updates.
Photo: Jenny From Frank the Entertainer in a Basement Affair. © VH1
Technology stocks started the week on an upbeat note, as most sector leaders closed with gains Monday on a day highlighted by the upcoming first- quarter earnings report from
Apple (AAPL) shares rose
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters estimate Apple earned
Apple's earnings report is expected to kick off a big week of attention on the tech giant. The company also has scheduled an event for Wednesday at which it is expected to unveil a tablet version of the Mac computer.
Semiconductor giant
The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) ended the day with a gain of 5.5 points to close at 2,210. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) climbed 1.4% and the Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) also ended the day in positive territory.
Gains also came from
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-25-10 1617ET
Copyright (c) 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Source
PARK CITY, Utah — The starkest picture to emerge from the opening days of this year’s Sundance Film Festival may be of an independent film business forced to stretch in untested directions because its old distribution model no longer works.
Standard operating procedure over the years at Sundance, the cinematic bazaar now under way in this resort town, has been simple: show your film and hope it plays well enough to attract a theatrical distributor or, if the movie is particularly small and arty, a video-on-demand deal.
If no deal happens — and this is where more than 75 percent of Sundance offerings landed last year — you go home and try Internet downloads, DVD and foreign television sales.
But even that risky blueprint is being redrafted. With more art-house theaters closing and most of the big studios no longer interested in distributing specialty films, a theatrical release is becoming increasingly hard to secure. So some filmmakers are trying to turn that system on its head, using Sundance not just as a sales tool but also as a platform for immediate digital delivery.
“We just want to encourage people to throw the traditional model out the window,” said Michael Mohan, the writer-director of “One Too Many Mornings,” a coming-of-age comedy that had its premiere here on Friday.
Simultaneously, Mr. Mohan let users at OneTooManyMornings.com download the movie for $10 and started selling DVDs for $20. For $35, customers get a DVD, a poster and a piece of the sofa featured in the film. Mr. Mohan is also selling the theatrical rights via the Web site for $100,000. “Forget a bidding war,” he said. “Whoever gets to their laptop the fastest gets it.”
YouTube introduced its long-awaited movie rental option at this year’s festival by offering five Sundance films as soon as they had their premieres. The rentals — including “One Too Many Mornings” and “Bass Ackwards,” another film that bypassed the theatrical window — will cost $3.99.
And for the first time, Sundance will make films available in about 40 million homes through cable and satellite on-demand services simultaneously with premieres. The program, Sundance Selects, includes “Daddy Longlegs,” about being torn between adulthood and childhood.
“We are on a march to make more of this occur,” said Joshua Sapan, chief executive of Rainbow Media, the subsidiary of Cablevision that owns the Sundance Channel, AMC and IFC Entertainment.
As expected in this economy, deals at the festival have been slow to take off. But distributors started to nibble over the weekend, particularly on films like “Catfish,” an unconventional documentary about a photographer who is drawn into a mystery through Facebook. Also winning sales attention was “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil,” a Canadian comedy about college students who mistake a pair of backwoods rustics for psychotic killers.
Mr. Sapan, who helped create Sundance Selects, called the traditional distribution system for indie films “completely restrictive and choking” and said digital technologies — like his own company’s video-on-demand business — would continue to “dramatically increase the footprint of availability for these films.”
Readmore >>
