Author: Ohart

We’re setting sail with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending Sept. 16, 2017.

We have one new song this week and it isn’t just a newcomer … it’s a game changer.

Number 5: Charlie Puth “Attention”

Let’s open in fifth place, where Charlie Puth holds with “Attention.” It’s a mid-tempo track and Charlie says that’s where he’s at now: no more love ballads.

The young singer-songwriter says his debut album “Nine Track Mind,” while filled with love songs, didn’t truly represent him — it was a case of others nudging him in a certain direction. Charlie’s sophomore album “Voice Notes” should arrive by the end of the year.

Number 4: DJ Khaled Featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller “Wild Thoughts”

DJ Khaled slips two slots with “Wild Thoughts” featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller. 

Rihanna was at New York Fashion Week, showing her latest Fenty x Puma designs. It all happened September 10, with the models upstaged by a team of motocross bikers racing across the stage… and, for the grand finale, Rihanna herself exited on the back of a motorbike.

Number 3: Cardi B “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)”

Cardi B holds in third place with “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves).” Cardi tells Billboard that she’s confident we’ll love her debut album, arriving in October. All that confidence left her, however, when she met Beyonce. The Bronx rapper says she was speechless and couldn’t breathe.

Number 2: Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber “Despacito”

Here’s something to leave you speechless: “Despacito” is no longer the number one single on the Hot 100.

Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber drop to second place, but Luis continues to enjoy the ride. He is currently on a world tour, and the Puerto Rican star says he’s been lucky enough to hit several countries for the first time. The list includes Italy, Turkey, and Egypt … where he says fans mobbed him on the street.

So, if “Despacito” isn’t No. 1, what is?

Number 1: Taylor Swift “Look What You Made Me Do”

Ladies and gentlemen, may we present Taylor Swift, who notches her fifth career Hot 100 win, as “Look What You Made Me Do” skyrockets from 77th to first place.

Taylor’s seventh album, “Reputation,” drops on November 10, and if history is any indication, it’s a shoo-in to become her fifth consecutive chart-topping album.

That’s yet to come … but one thing’s for sure: Ee’ll have a new singles lineup for you next week.
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Las Vegas never needs an excuse to party, and as an entertainment oasis a short trip from Mexico, the city will roll out the red, white and green carpet starting Friday to celebrate Mexican Independence Day.

A premier boxing match, a bell-ringing ceremony and more than a dozen performances by Latin megastars, including Ricky Martin and Alejandro Fernandez, were expected to attract tens of thousands of visitors, making the weekend once again one of Sin City’s busiest.

The holiday, often mistaken in the U.S. for Cinco de Mayo, over time has become a star-studded celebration of Hispanic culture.

“It has developed over two decades or more to become a staple. Las Vegas has the ‘ambiente’ — the fun, the excitement — all year long, and then you bring in Alejandro Fernandez, Pepe Aguilar and the ones who have the residencies like Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez,” said Rafael Villanueva, senior director of international business sales for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Celebration goes beyond Mexico

The celebration is so much wider it includes those superstars who aren’t Mexican, including Martin and Lopez, who both have Puerto Rican roots.

“If you talk to many people in Mexico, they’ll say if we are not going to the Ciudad de Mexico, we are coming to Las Vegas because of all the fun and all the entertainment,” he said.

The Sept. 16 holiday marks Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s call to arms that sparked the Mexican uprising against Spanish rulers in 1810. The rebel priest was killed the next year, but his words, known as the “Cry of Dolores” or “Grito de Dolores,” eventually led to independence from Spain in 1821.

What started as private entertainment shows for high rollers from Latin America has evolved into one of the city’s busiest weekends, with companies booking performers a year in advance and airlines adding direct flights from Mexico.

Concerts, boxing match

The concert lineup aims to appeal to a range of musical tastes and generations and includes Marc Anthony, Ricardo Arjona, Emmanuel, Enrique Iglesias, Carlos Santana, Mana, Marco Antonio Solis, Jesse and Joy, Gloria Trevi and Alejandra Guzman.

“Probably over the past 15-20 years, we have really embraced the holiday, bringing top-level, A-level acts and fights,” said Sid Greenfeig, vice president of entertainment and booking for MGM Resorts International, which is hosting seven shows and a megaboxing match across its properties. “We look definitely at diversity within the artists, and having arenas and large venues, we also look at acts that can fill these rooms.”

The city’s signature offering is a boxing match. So much so, Floyd Mayweather Jr., before he retired, made Mexican Independence Day his own holiday, fighting multiple times over the years. Promoters have traditionally offered fights featuring Mexican boxers on the El Grito and Cinco de Mayo weekends.

Mexico’s popular Saul “Canelo” Alvarez squares off Saturday against Gennady Golovkin in a long-anticipated middleweight bout at the sold-out T-Mobile Arena.

For the past three years, the tourist bureau’s occupancy rate records show hotels reached above 96 percent capacity during the three-day period associated with the holiday. In 2016, 98.4 percent of the city’s 149,000 hotel and motel rooms were booked, making it the year’s fourth busiest weekend.

On Friday, San Diego resident Esthela Pedrin will see Fernandez’ yearly Mexican Independence Day concert in Las Vegas for the tenth time. With so many options to choose from, she said she’s having a difficult time picking a Saturday concert to attend.

“I love celebrating it in Las Vegas, especially because so many people from all over our country of Mexico gather there,” Pedrin, a dual citizen of Mexico and the U.S., said. “(Fernandez) brings out the flag. We all sing.”

The festivities begin Friday night with a celebratory ringing of a bell by Mexican Consul Alejandro Madrigal Becerra at The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. Hidalgo, the rebel priest, rang a bell when he gave his famous speech, and Mexico’s president does it in Mexico City every year.
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CIA Director Mike Pompeo scrapped his appearance Thursday at Harvard University over the school’s decision to make Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of leaking classified information, a visiting fellow.

Pompeo called Manning an “American traitor.” He said he agreed with military and intelligence officials who believe Manning’s leak endangered the lives of CIA personnel.

Pompeo was scheduled to appear at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to discuss allegations of Russian involvement in last year’s presidential election, the nuclear standoff with North Korea and other global security concerns.

Pompeo letter released

Minutes after the event was to begin, Douglas Elmendorf, dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, took the stage and told the audience Pompeo was not there and would not speak.

“We will try to reschedule it as soon as we can, but the CIA director, is obviously, in charge of his schedule,” Elmendorf said. “We are not in charge of his schedule and he gets to decide when and where he speaks, of course.”

Several hours later, the CIA released a letter that Pompeo wrote to a Harvard official.

Pompeo, who has a law degree from Harvard, said he didn’t make the decision lightly. He wrote that he would betray the trust of CIA employees if he appeared.

 

Manning was released from a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on May 17 after serving seven years of a 35-year sentence, which was commuted by former President Barack Obama in his final days in office. Obama said in January he felt justice had been served.

Manning, a 29-year-old transgender woman, formerly known as Bradley Manning, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in a recent interview that she was prompted to give the 700,000 military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks because of the human toll of the “death, destruction and mayhem” she saw as an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq.

Morell resigns position

 

In his letter, Pompeo reiterated his earlier claim that WikiLeaks is a U.S. adversary “akin to a hostile foreign intelligence service.” He stressed that his decision had nothing to do with Manning’s transgender identity.

 

“It has everything to do with her identity as a traitor to the United States of America and my loyalty to the officers of the CIA,” Pompeo said.

 

“Harvard’s actions implicitly tell its students that you too can be a fellow at Harvard and a felon under United States law,” he wrote.

 

Earlier in the day, Mike Morell, former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, sent a resignation letter to Elmendorf. Morell told Elmendorf he was resigning immediately over the school’s decision to invite Manning to be a visiting fellow at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics.

Morell said he could not be part of an organization that “honors a convicted felon and leaker of classified information.” Pompeo said Morell’s exit was “Harvard’s loss.”

Harvard also has invited former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. Harvard says Manning will be among fellows who will visit the campus for a “limited” number of events meant to spark campus discussion.

 
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Darren Aronofsky does not just want audiences to watch his new film mother! He wants to shake them up and leave them thinking about his genre-defying, surreal apocalyptic thriller.

“It’s very much a scary film. It’s very much a film that we want to shake audiences,” Aronofsky told Reuters.

“This is definitely a film that we want people to be talking about and giggling about and analyzing and thinking about for times to come,” he added.

An allegorical tale

Aronofsky, 48, mined the depths and descent of the human psyche in films such as Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan.

With mother!, released in U.S. theaters Friday, Aronofsky channels his fury with the state of the world into an allegorical story that reflects mankind’s selfish relationship with nature, gender, politics and religion.

The film centers on Jennifer Lawrence, a beautiful, naive young woman newly married to an older writer (Javier Bardem) suffering from writer’s block, and the two settle down into the writer’s secluded home.

As Lawrence’s character, an embodiment of Mother Nature, slowly renovates the property, two strangers, played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris, turn up at their doorstep and kick off a series of events that blur the lines of reality and escalate into chaos.

“I was interested in the home invasion genre — the kind of feeling of people coming into your home that won’t leave,” the director said.

“Turning that into a nightmare was the journey we wanted to take audiences on, and then we had this other big idea of like trying to capture what it feels like to be in 21st century America, which is a crazy time right now,” he added.

Reviews mixed

The film sharply split critics as it made the rounds at festivals in Venice and Toronto earlier this month, receiving both boos and cheers at screenings.

Aronofsky said he welcomed the mixed reaction because it meant the film had caught people’s attention.

“We wanted to make something big and loud and also something that’s immediate,” he said.

“I want everyone to know, ‘hey man, you only come if you want to go on the roller coaster and hold your arms up and scream into the abyss.’ That’s why it’s (the film title) got an exclamation point,” he added.
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The birth of a critically endangered Sumatran tiger cub in July at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington was celebrated, but less than three weeks later, his mother, Damai, began displaying aggressive behaviors toward him.
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The World Anti-Doping Agency has dismissed all but one of the first 96 Russian doping cases forwarded its way from sports federations acting on information that exposed cheating in the country.

 

The cases stem from an investigation by Richard McLaren, who was tasked with detailing evidence of a scheme to hide doping positives at the Sochi Olympics and beforehand.

 

The 95 dismissed cases, first reported by The New York Times , were described by WADA officials as not containing enough hard evidence to result in solid cases.

 

“It’s absolutely in line with the process, and frankly, it’s nothing unexpected,” WADA director general Olivier Niggli told The Associated Press on Wednesday at meetings of the International Olympic Committee. “The first ones were the quickest to be dealt with, because they’re the ones with the least evidence.”

McLaren uncovered 1,000 potential cases, however, and a WADA spokesperson told AP it is the agency’s understanding that sports federations are considering bringing some of them forward.

Tainted samples missing

 

Niggli cautioned that it will be difficult to pursue some cases, because the Russian scheme involved disposing of tainted samples, and the Russians were not cooperative with McLaren in turning over evidence.

 

“There are a thousand names, and for a number of them, the only thing McLaren’s got is a name on a list,” Niggli said. “If you can prosecute an athlete with a name on a list, perfect. But this is not the reality. There were thousands of samples destroyed in Moscow.”

The revelation of the 95 dropped cases comes with a deadline fast approaching to make a decision on Russia’s participation at next February’s Winter Olympics.

 

Two IOC committees that will decide the matter — one reviewing individual cases and another looking at the overall corruption in Russia — are due to deliver interim reports at the IOC meetings later this week.

270 Russian athletes cleared for Rio 

 

In resolving the case against Russia’s suspended anti-doping agency (RUSADA), WADA has insisted the agency, the country’s Olympic committee and its sports ministry “publically accept the outcomes of the McLaren Investigation.” Track’s governing body put similar conditions in place for the lifting of the track team’s suspension.

 

The IOC, however, has made no such move. More than 270 Russian athletes were cleared to compete in the Summer Games last year in Rio.

“The best we can do to protect clean athletes is to have a really good, solid anti-doping process in Russia,” said WADA president Craig Reedie, who is also a member of the IOC. “That’s our role and our priority. The rest of it, you have to go and ask the IOC.”

IOC president Thomas Bach said the committees are “working hard all the time.”

Russia blames WADA

Meanwhile, Russian officials are showing no signs of acknowledging they ran a state-sponsored doping program.

 

This week, the country’s deputy prime minister, Vitaly Mutko, blamed RUSADA and the former head of the Russian anti-doping lab, Grigory Rodchenkov, for the corruption, and suggested WADA was at fault, too. Rodchenkov lives in hiding in the United States after revealing details of the plot.

 

“We are rearranging the system but it should be rearranged so that WADA could also share responsibility,” Mutko told Russia’s R-Sport news agency. “They should have been responsible for (Rodchenkov) before, as they have issued him a license and given him a work permit. They were in control of him but now the state is blamed for it.”
…

This was one of those rare Olympic moments where everyone walked away a winner.

 

Paris for 2024. Los Angeles for 2028. And the International Olympic Committee for transforming an unruly bidding process to lock down its future by choosing not one, but two Summer Olympics hosts at the same time.

 

The IOC put the rubber stamp on a pre-determined conclusion Wednesday, giving Paris the 2024 Games and LA the 2028 Games in a history-making vote.  

 

The decision marks the first time the IOC has granted two Summer Olympics at once. It came after a year’s worth of scrambling by IOC president Thomas Bach, who had only the two bidders left for the original prize, 2024, and couldn’t bear to see either lose.

Both cities will host their third Olympics.

 

The Paris Games will come on the 100th anniversary of its last turn — a milestone that would have made the French capital the sentimental favorite had only 2024 been up for grabs.  

 

Los Angeles moved to 2028, and those Olympics will halt a stretch of 32 years without a Summer Games in the United States. In exchange for the compromise, LA will grab an extra $300 million or more that could help offset the uncertainties that lie ahead over an 11-year wait instead of seven.

 

Doing away with the dramatic flair that has accompanied these events in years past, there were no secret ballots and no dramatic reveals to close out the voting.

 

Bach simply asked for a show of hands from the audience, and when dozens shot up from the audience, and nobody raised their hand when he asked for objections, this was deemed a unanimous decision.

 

A ceremony that has long sparked parties in the plazas of winning cities — and crying in those of the losers — produced more muted, but still visible, shows of emotion. Paris bid organizer Tony Estaguent choked up during the presentation before the vote.

 

“You can’t imagine what this means to us. To all of us. It’s so strong,” he said.

Later, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo stood by Bach’s side and dabbed away tears as the vote was announced and the IOC president handed the traditional — but now unneeded — cards to she and LA mayor Eric Garcetti. One read “Paris 2024,” and the other “Los Angeles 2028.”

But there was no real drama. As if to accentuate that, the LA delegation wore sneakers to the presentation.

 

Bid chairman Casey Wasserman said the footwear “reflects who we are, and the unique brand of California-cool that we will bring to the 2028 Games.”

Bach asked the 94 IOC members to allow the real contests to play out at the Olympics themselves and turn the vote into a pure business decision — not a bad idea considering the news still seeping out about a bid scandal involving a Brazilian IOC member’s alleged vote-selling to bring the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janeiro.

 

 More than that, Bach needed to ensure stability for his brand.

 

The public in many cities, especially those in the Western democracies that have hosted the majority of these games, is no longer eager to approve blank checks for bid committees and governments that have to come up with the millions simply to bid for the Olympics, then billions more to stage them if they win.

 

That reality hit hard when three of the original five bidders for 2024 — Rome, Hamburg, Germany, and Budapest, Hungary — dropped out, and the U.S. Olympic Committee had to pull the plug on its initial candidate, Boston, due to lack of public support.

“This is a solution to an awkward problem,” said longtime IOC member Dick Pound of Canada. “Many of the (candidate) cities are not prepared. They say, ‘Let’s have an Olympics,’ but they haven’t done the background work, checked the finances. But I guess we have to share it and say, ‘Have you done A, B, C, and D?’”

Only two candidates made it to the finish line — Paris and Los Angeles, each with a storied tradition of Olympic hosting and an apparent understanding of Bach’s much-touted reform package, known as Agenda 2020. It seeks to streamline the Games, most notably by eliminating billion-dollar stadiums and infrastructure projects that have been underused, if used at all, once the Olympics leave town.

 

Can they deliver?

 

Paris will have the traditional seven-year time frame to answer that.

 

Only one totally new venue is planned — a swimming and diving arena to be built near the Stade de France, which will serve as the Olympic stadium. Roland Garros, which will host tennis and boxing, will get a privately funded expansion. In all, the projected cost of new venues and upgrades to others is $892 million.

 

To be sure, Paris already has much to work with. Beach volleyball will be played near the Eiffel Tower; cycling will finish at the Arc de Triomphe; equestrian will be held at the Chateau de Versailles. And what would an Olympics be without some water-quality issues? There will be pressure to clean up the River Seine, which is where open-water and triathlon will be held.

 

Los Angeles, meanwhile, will get an extra four years, though the city claims it doesn’t need them. All the sports venues are built, save the under-construction stadium for the NFL’s Rams and Chargers, which will host opening ceremonies. Los Angeles proposed a $5.3 billion budget for 2024 (to be adjusted for 2028) that included infrastructure, operational costs — everything. A big number, indeed, though it must be put into perspective:

 

 Earlier this summer, organizers in Tokyo estimated their cost for the 2020 Games at $12.6 billion. The London Games in 2012 came in at $19 billion.

 

Traffic could be a problem — it almost always is in LA — but the city will be well along multi-decade, multibillion-dollar transit upgrade by 2028, and those with long memories recall free-flowing highways the last time the Olympics came to town, as locals either left the city or heeded warnings to use public transportation or stay home.

 

Those 1984 Games essentially saved the Olympic movement after a decade of terror, red ink and a boycott sullied the brand and made hosting a burden. The city points to its Olympic legacy to explain a nearly unheard-of 83 percent approval rating in a self-commissioned poll — not an insignificant factor when the IOC picks a place to hold its crown-jewel event.

 

Along with Paris, LA is stepping in again to try to change the conversation about what hosting the Olympics can really be.

 

“It’s a unique opportunity to do two at the same time,” Wasserman said. “Hopefully, it’s an interesting paradigm for the world going forward. We’re two great cities, it’s two great Olympic hosts and it’s going to be two great games.”

 
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Urged on by dozens of stars who turned out to sing, tell stories and plead for support for hurricane victims in a one-hour televised benefit, organizers said more than $44 million was raised Tuesday and donations are still being accepted.

With Stevie Wonder singing “Lean on Me” and Usher and Blake Shelton joining for “Stand By Me,” the message was clear: Americans were being asked to help those whose lives were upended by wind and rain.

Justin Bieber, George Clooney, Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino, Lupita Nyong’o, Jay Leno and dozens of others sat at phone banks to accept donations. Beyonce, Will Smith and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson sent in taped pleas for support during the event, shown on more than a dozen television networks and online simultaneously.

Originally conceived as a benefit for victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, the “Hand in Hand” telethon was expanded to help people in Florida and the Caribbean devastated in recent days by Irma.

“We’re here to raise money, lift some spirits,” said Jamie Foxx, standing with actor Leonardo DiCaprio. “When tough times hit, this is who we are. We’re compassionate. We’re unstoppable.”

Hollywood talent manager Scooter Braun, who organized the event with Houston rap artist Bun B, said that after the show, all the celebrities manning the phone banks stayed to take more calls. “No one left,” he said. “Everyone just kept answering phones and answering phones and answering phones. People want to give. Like, people want to help. And you don’t have to be a celebrity to do it.”

For many of the stars, the storms hit close to home.

“I have family in Puerto Rico, I have family in Miami. I’ve been on the road. I haven’t been able to be there. So you can imagine how it’s been,” “Despacito” singer Luis Fonsi said after the show, adding that all his family, including his wife and young children in Miami, survived the storm and are safe.

“”Helpless – helpless is an understatement,” Fonsi said of being on tour and unable to be with his family. He noted that his experience paled in comparison to the pain the storms have caused for many.

“You can imagine how frustrating it is to not be able to sort of protect your own family,” he said. “Imagine all of these people that have nothing to do. The videos that you see online. So as an artist, as a singer, I think it’s part of our job, it’s part of our resume, to take time off and come together and do these kind of things.”

The quick-moving show took a form familiar to viewers since a sad template was set in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Celebrities requested donations, told heartwarming survival stories involving people caught in the storm and sang songs. Several organizations will benefit, including the United Way and Save the Children.

Stages in Los Angeles, New York and Nashville, Tennessee, were filled simultaneously, although the night’s final performance – a tribute to Texans by George Strait, Robert Earl Keen, Chris Stapleton, Miranda Lambert and Lyle Lovett – originated from San Antonio.

Fonsi and Tori Kelly sang “Hallelujah” together. Dave Matthews picked his guitar from a studio above New York’s Times Square, and Darius Rucker, Brad Paisley, Demi Lovato and Cece Winans sang the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends.” Wonder, backed by a gospel chorus, opened the show with the Bill Withers classic.

“Natural disasters don’t discriminate,” Beyonce said. “They don’t care if you’re an immigrant, black or white, Hispanic or Asian, Jewish or Muslim, wealthy or poor.” Cher and Oprah Winfrey told the story behind a frequently seen picture of strangers forming a human chain to save someone from flooding in Houston.

Usually competitive network morning personalities Matt Lauer, Norah O’Donnell and Michael Strahan stood before a satellite image of an ominous Irma to describe devastation the storm had caused.

Donations were announced from some deep pockets. Computer maker Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, pledged to match the first $10 million in donations Tuesday. They’ve given a total of $41 million to the Rebuild Texas Fund. Basketball star Chris Paul gave $20,000 and said the NBA Players Association would match donations of up to the same amount given by any NBA player.

Announcing Apple’s promise to give $5 million, comic Stephen Colbert quipped said it was coincidentally “also the price of the new iPhone.”

ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, HBO, MTV, BET and Univision were among the networks carrying the program, which was also streamed online.
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Serena Williams says on social media that she gave birth to a baby girl named Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr.

 

The tennis star posted about the birth on her Instagram and Twitter accounts.

 

She says the baby was born on Sept. 1 and weighed 6 pounds, 14 ounces. One posting also says about the newborn, “Grand Slam Titles: 1.”

 

The 35-year-old Williams won her 23rd Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open in January – while she was pregnant.

 
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Online bidding is winding down for dozens of items with direct connections to Britain’s late Princess Diana.

Eighty items being sold at auction 20 years after her death in a Paris car crash include articles of clothing, jewelry, signed papers and photographs. There’s even a piece of her wedding cake still stored in a commemorative box.

Boston-based RR Auction is handling the sale, which ends Wednesday evening.

Auction house executive vice president Bobby Livingston says interest in Diana memorabilia remains high because “she still resonates all over the world.” He says the items “give you a little snapshot into this beautiful woman’s life.”

The items include belongings Diana donated to charity months before her death on Aug. 31, 1997.

Bidding began last week.
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Andy Serkis, perhaps best-known for his role as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, intentionally avoided a somber tone in his directorial debut Breathe, he said Tuesday.

The film, which had its world premiere Monday night in Toronto, is inspired by the parents of producer Jonathan Cavendish, Robin and Diana (played by Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy), who defied medical convention after Robin was paralyzed by polio in his 20s and later blazed a trail as disability rights advocates.

“We took license, and I took license with elevating it and slightly lifting it,” Serkis said at a news conference following the premiere where it received three standing ovations, including one for the real-life Diana who was in attendance.

Early reviewers have been more critical, however, comparing the film unfavorably to The Theory of Everything, a biopic about Stephen Hawking for which Eddie Redmayne won an Oscar in 2015.

“This is very much a crude copy, its noble intentions hobbled by a trite script, flat characters and a relentlessly saccharine tone that eventually starts to grate,” a reviewer at the Hollywood Reporter wrote.

The pair are portrayed falling in love in an idyllic English countryside scene at the opening before honeymooning in Kenya and discovering they are expecting a child, Jonathan, just before Robin’s early-onset polio hits.

They later enlist a friend to create the first battery-powered mobile respirator mounted on a wheelchair, then push for them to be made widely available to those with polio.

“The essence of Robin and Diana was not drab in any sense, it was not murky or gray or somber, it was bright, they burned bright,” said Serkis, who also drew a personal connection to the film. His father was a doctor, his mother taught disabled children, and his sister has multiple sclerosis.

“This is a template of how any human being can deal with suffering, struggle and limitation,” actor Garfield said on the red carpet, later saying it was “strangely enjoyable” to play a character unable to control his body beyond facial expressions.

The Toronto International Film Festival is seen as an important stop for filmmakers showcasing their work in the long Hollywood awards season that culminates with the Oscars in March.

Serkis has also directed a Jungle Book film currently in post-production. Following its Toronto debut, Breathe will open next month’s London Film Festival before a broader October release.
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With five months to go before the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics open, the games are barely an afterthought for most South Koreans, with slow local ticket sales amid the biggest political scandal in years and a torrent of North Korean weapons tests.

South Korea wants more than a million spectators for the games, and it expects 70 percent to be locals. But if South Koreans are excited about the games, they didn’t fully show it during the first phase of ticket sales between February and June. There were 52,000 tickets sold — less than 7 percent of the 750,000 seats organizers aim to sell domestically.

International sales got off to a faster start, with more than half of the targeted 320,000 seats sold. But now there’s fear that an increasingly belligerent North Korea, which has tested two ICBMs and its strongest ever nuclear bomb in recent weeks, might keep foreign fans away from Pyeongchang, a ski resort town about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the world’s most heavily armed border.

South Korean Olympic organizers reopened online ticket sales on September 5 and hope for a late surge in domestic sales as the games draw closer. Locals purchased nearly 17,000 tickets on the first two days of resumed sales.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Lee Hee-beom, president of Pyeongchang’s organizing committee, said the North is highly unlikely to cause problems during the games because North Korean athletes could compete in the South. This is not yet clear, though. North Korea is traditionally weak at winter sports, though a figure skating pair has a chance to qualify and organizers are looking at ways to arrange special entries for North Korean athletes.

Lee also linked his optimism about ticket sales to South Korean experience in managing past global events, including the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, three Asian Games and the 2002 World Cup soccer tournament.

“This is a country that sold more than 8 million tickets even for the Expo 2012 in Yeosu,” said Lee, 68, a former Cabinet minister and corporate CEO. “We can definitely handle a million tickets.”

Local apathy

Organizers have overcome construction delays, local conflicts over venues, and a slow pace in attracting domestic sponsorships. They must now figure out how to create genuine local excitement for the games and boost ticket sales.

The 1988 Olympics in Seoul were easier. Those games marked South Korea’s arrival on the world stage as a growing industrial power and budding democracy.

In what’s now the world’s 11th-richest nation, there’s no longer an obvious public craving for the global attention brought by hosting a large sports event. There’s also worry over the huge cost of hosting the games and maintaining facilities that might go unused once the party leaves town.

Or perhaps South Koreans, after a whirlwind past year, are simply too tired to be enthusiastic about the Olympics. Millions took to the streets last year and early this year over a corruption scandal that eventually toppled the president from power and landed her in jail, where she remains during an ongoing trial.

It also doesn’t help that South Korea has never really had a strong winter sports culture, said Heejoon Chung, a sports science professor at Busan’s Dong-A University.

“I don’t think there are many people who are willing to stay outdoors in the cold for hours to watch races on snow,” he said.

Lee, the organizing committee president, is, unsurprisingly, more optimistic. Most South Koreans tend to wait until the last minute to buy tickets, and the atmosphere will improve once the Olympic torch relay arrives in South Korea in November, he said.

November is also when organizers will start to sell tickets offline at airports and train stations. Kim Dai-kyun, director general of communications for Pyeongchang’s organizing committee, said strong advertisement campaigns are planned for television, newspapers, movie theaters and on the internet.

Strong ticket sales are critical, because organizers are currently 300 billion won ($267 million) short of the 2.8 trillion won ($2.4 billion) they need to operate the games. Lee expects new sponsors to sign on and help erase the gap.

Organizers also aim to raise 174.6 billion won ($155 million) by selling about 1.07 million tickets, or 90 percent of the 1.18 million available seats. The 229,000 seats sold during the first phase of ticket sales equal about 21 percent of the target. While this might seem modest, Lee said Pyeongchang has been selling tickets at a faster pace than Sochi was at a similar point ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Cost estimate

 

The Olympics will cost about 14 trillion won ($12.4 billion) for South Korea, including the 11 trillion won ($9.7 billion) being spent to construct roads, railways and stadiums for the games. This is larger than the 8 million to 9 trillion won ($7 billion to $8 billion) Seoul projected as the overall cost when Pyeongchang won the bid in 2011.

Lodging could be another problem as tourists are already complaining about soaring room rates. Officials hope prices will stabilize after five new hotels are built by the end of the year, adding more than 2,000 rooms. The government is also planning to add hundreds of apartment rentals, and a 2,200-room cruise ship will serve as a floating hotel in the nearby port of Sokcho.

Organizers say a new high-speed rail line will link Seoul and Pyeongchang in an hour, starting in December, and will also allow travelers from the Seoul area to visit the games and return home the same day.
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J.J. Abrams is returning to Star Wars and will replace Colin Trevorrow as writer and director of Episode IX, pushing the film’s release date back seven months.

Disney announced Abrams’ return on Tuesday, a week after news broke of Trevorrow’s departure. After several high-profile exits by previous Star Wars directors, Lucasfilm is turning to the filmmaker who helped resurrect the franchise in the first place. Abrams will co-write the film with screenwriter Chris Terrio, who won an Oscar for adapting Argo and co-wrote Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

As the director of The Force Awakens, Abrams rebooted Star Wars to largely glowing reviews from fans and more than $2 billion at the box office. Abrams had said that would be his only film for the franchise, but he’s now been pulled back in.

 

Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy said that Abrams “delivered everything we could have possibly hoped for” on The Force Awakens and added, “I am so excited that he is coming back to close out this trilogy.”

This move also means Abrams will be the only director aside from Star Wars creator George Lucas to direct more than one Star Wars film.

Final installment

Star Wars: Episode IX was originally slated to hit theaters in May 2019, but in the wake of the shift it has officially been pushed back to a December 20, 2019, release. It is the final installment in the new “main” Star Wars trilogy that began with Abrams’ The Force Awakens in 2015 and will continue this December with director Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi.

Lucasfilm has had a number of public fallouts with Star Wars directors over the past few years.

 

Earlier this year, the young Han Solo spinoff film parted ways with director Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and swiftly replaced them with Ron Howard deep into production. In 2015, the company fired director Josh Trank from work on another Star Wars spinoff. And extensive reshoots on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story led to widespread speculation that director Gareth Edwards had been unofficially sidelined by Tony Gilroy.

 

News of Abrams’ return was greeted warmly by fans on social media Tuesday. He hasn’t directed or committing to directing another project since The Force Awakens, and instead had been focused on producing.

“I’m very much enjoying taking a moment. Since I’ve done the show Felicity, I’ve gone from project to project. So it’s been 20 years since I haven’t been prepping, casting, shooting, editing something,” Abrams told The Associated Press in March.

 

That moment, however brief, is over. For Abrams, it’s time to go back to the Millennium Falcon and that galaxy far, far away.
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A documentary about the life of renowned guitarist Eric Clapton does not attempt to whitewash over the darker side of the hard-drinking musician’s life, even though it is directed by his longtime friend, filmmaker Lili Fini Zanuck said Monday.

Zanuck, who has known Clapton for 25 years, directed “Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars,” following the life of the 72-year-old British guitarist from childhood to international stardom, through his struggle with drugs and alcohol and the 1991 death of his four-year-old son.

“To watch myself going through that was not easy,” Clapton told reporters on Monday at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film made its debut.

“Right up until the time I stopped drinking, everything I said was complete blather,” he added, to laughter from the audience.

In his 2007 autobiography, Clapton described a 20-year drug and alcohol addiction that he said saw him spending about $16,000 a week on heroin in the 1970s. The death of his son Conor, in a fall from a New York high-rise, was the trigger to sobriety.

The musician, who is a producer on the film, spoke about his struggles with having his life documented on screen and doing interviews with Zanuck in a film that does not shy away from examining his faults.

“I do not like having my picture taken, I do not like talking to journalists. I love to play music,” Clapton said.

Zanuck, who won an Oscar for 1989’s “Driving Miss Daisy,” said Clapton did not second-guess the responsibility he gave her in telling his story.

“For me, the movie is about redemption — personal redemption, not necessarily what society thinks,” Zanuck told Reuters.

“No one got him out of despair, he did it himself,” she added.

With hits such as “Bell Bottom Blues,” “Cocaine” and “Layla,” Clapton has won 17 Grammy Awards, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He was ranked No. 2 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists of all time, behind Jimi Hendrix.

“Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars” will be released in North American theaters later this year and air on premium cable channel Showtime in February.
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Hurricane Irma may have shattered homes and flooded communities across Florida, but the Key West museum dedicated to acclaimed American author Ernest Hemingway and descendants of his beloved six-toed cats emerged unscathed.

Irma hit the Florida Keys as a powerful Category 4 hurricane early on Sunday, inflicting widespread damage on the archipelago off the tip of southern Florida.

The storm brought sustained winds of up to 130 mph (209 kph) and submerged the highway that connects the string of tropical islands with the rest of the state. Evacuees were told on Monday they could not return to their homes yet.

While Key West remains without water and electricity, the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, sitting on one of the highest points in the area, was undamaged, curator Dave Gonzales said on Monday.

“We were well prepared and very blessed,” Gonzales told Reuters by telephone.

All 54 cats on the property – six-toed felines descended from a tomcat named Snow White that the author adopted while he lived there in the 1930s – were accounted for, Gonzales said.

The museum keeps the bloodline of the original polydactyl cat intact, as well as the author’s penchant for naming the cats after famous people like actors Grace Kelly, Liz Taylor and Lionel Barrymore, Gonzales said.

Owned by a private group, the house and grounds were deemed a National Historic Landmark in 1968, seven years after Hemingway’s death, said general manager Jacque Sands, who lives in the main house and sheltered on the property with 11 staff members during the storm.

Built in 1851, the Spanish Colonial home was purchased by Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline, in 1928. The couple did extensive renovations to the house and grounds, including building the city’s first swimming pool.

Two of Hemingway’s iconic literary works, the novel “To Have and Have Not” and the short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” were written during the years he lived in Key West.

The museum is filled with Hemingway artifacts, including antique European furnishings, and mounted animal heads and skins Hemingway amassed while on African safaris and hunting trips to the American West.

Sands said she never considered evacuating the property as leaving would have meant abandoning the cats.

“The cats took care of us, or so they think,” she said.
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Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie says she never intended to step behind the camera, but traveling around the world for the United Nations opened her eyes to the conflicts that have inspired many of her most recent films.

“I never thought I could make a movie or direct,” Jolie told an audience at the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday, which is screening her Cambodian genocide film “First They Killed My Father” and Afghan film “The Breadwinner.”

Jolie said her first major film as a director, the 2011 Bosnian war drama “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” was prompted by her humanitarian work as a special envoy for the United Nations refugee agency.

“I wanted to learn more about the war of Yugoslavia. I had been in the region and traveling in the UN. It was a war I really couldn’t get my head around. … It was not a goal to become a director,” she said.

“The Breadwinner,” an animated film that she produced, is about a young Afghan girl who cuts her hair and poses as a boy in order to feed her family.

It “tells the sad reality of many girls having to work and not go to school,” said Jolie, who has made several trips to Afghanistan. “The people I have met over the years are truly my heroes.

The nice thing about being a director is to champion other people,” Jolie added.

Jolie said “First They Killed My Father,” was inspired by wanting to learn more about the history of Cambodia, the birthplace of her son Maddox, one of her six children.

She said she wanted “Maddox to learn about himself as a Cambodian in a different light.”

The film, which was screened in Cambodia earlier this year, tells the story of a young girl during the country’s 1970s genocide who is forced into the countryside to toil in rice paddies and then take up arms as a child soldier.

Jolie, 42, who won a supporting actress Oscar for “Girl, Interrupted” in 2000, shrugged off her status as a role model for women.

“I have a lot to learn and need role models myself,” she said.
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Rebel super-hacker Lisbeth Salander is back in the fifth book in the Millennium series, this time battling neo-Nazi prison gangs and honor killings as well as trying to uncover the secrets about her troubled childhood.

The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye is the long-awaited return of Salander, the small but combative computer wizard and hobby quantum physicist, that was introduced to readers in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, published in 2005.

The best-selling series, which made the “Nordic Noir” genre of gritty Scandinavian crime novels popular globally, was created by author and reporter Stieg Larsson who had completed the first three novels before he died in a heart attack in 2004.

Author David Lagercrantz was commissioned to write a fourth novel, published in 2015, and this time around he delves deeper into the mystery of her childhood where she often witnessed her mother being abused by her father.

“The big question is, of course, why does Lisbeth Salander have a big dragon tattoo on her back, and you can be sure that a girl like her wouldn’t [get] a dragon tattoo without a very good reason,” Lagercrantz said.

“I had to find something, you know, that was really heavy and mythical, and when I did, I sort of had a story. I’ve added more darkness to Lisbeth Salander.”

The book, which was released Thursday, also draws inspiration from issues Sweden has grappled with in recent years, such as a resurgent far-right movement and honor killings — both fiercely debated topics in the Nordic country.

“Sweden is now changing so quickly and that is something I have to deal with as well,” Lagercrantz said.

Sweden was shocked after members of a neo-Nazi cell conducted a string of bombings in the city of Gothenburg around the turn of the year, while the far-right Nordic Resistance Movement has stepped up its activity.

As a reporter, Larsson devoted much of his life to investigating Sweden’s far-right movement. In 1995, he co-founded the anti-Fascist magazine Expo and worked there until his death.

“That was the core of Stieg Larsson, to fight intolerance, racism and Fascism,” said Lagercrantz.

Honor killings have also been on the agenda. A recent report by Swedish public service radio showed 10 of the 105 murders in Sweden last year were honor killings. The government has launched an investigation and said it is reviewing relevant legislation.

The original three books have been translated into 50 languages and sold more than 80 million copies while the fourth sequel, the first penned by Lagercrantz, has sold 6 million.
…

Rebel super-hacker Lisbeth Salander is back in the fifth book in the Millennium series, this time battling neo-Nazi prison gangs and honor killings as well as trying to uncover the secrets about her troubled childhood.

“The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye” is the long-awaited return of Salander, the small but combative computer wizard and hobby quantum physicist, that was introduced to readers in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”, published in 2005.

The best-selling series, which made the “Nordic Noir” genre of gritty Scandinavian crime novels popular globally, was created by author and reporter Stieg Larsson who had completed the first three novels before he died in a heart attack in 2004.

Author David Lagercrantz was commissioned to write a fourth novel, published in 2015, and this time around he delves deeper into the mystery of her childhood where she often witnessed her mother being abused by her father.

“The big question is of course why does Lisbeth Salander have a big dragon tattoo on her back and you can be sure that a girl like her wouldn’t (get) a dragon tattoo without a very good reason,” David Lagercrantz said.

“I had to find something you know that was really heavy and mythical, and when I did, I sort of had a story. I’ve added more darkness to Lisbeth Salander.”

The book, which was released on Thursday, also draws inspiration from issues Sweden has grappled with in recent years, such as a resurgent far-right movement and honor killings – both fiercely debated topics in the Nordic country.

“Sweden is now changing so quickly and that is something I have to deal with as well,” Lagercrantz said.

Sweden was shocked after members of a neo-Nazi cell conducted a string of bombings in the city of Gothenburg around the turn of the year while the far-right Nordic Resistance Movement has stepped up its activity.

As a reporter, Stieg Larsson devoted much of his life to investigating Sweden’s far-right movement. In 1995, he co-founded the anti-Fascist magazine Expo and worked there until his death.

“That was the core of Stieg Larsson, to fight intolerance, racism and Fascism,” said Lagercrantz.

Honor killings have also been on the agenda. A recent report by Swedish public service radio showed 10 of the 105 murders in Sweden last year where honor killings. The government has launched an investigation and said its reviewing relevant legislation.

The original three books have been translated into 50 languages and sold more than 80 million copies while the fourth sequel, the first penned by Lagercrantz, has sold 6 million.
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Miss North Dakota, a 23-year-old who said President Donald Trump was wrong to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, was named Miss America 2018 Sunday night in Atlantic City.

Cara Mund topped a field of 51 contestants to win the crowd in the New Jersey seaside resort, where most of the 97 Miss Americas have been selected.

In one of her onstage interviews, Mund said Trump, a Republican, was wrong to withdraw the U.S. from the climate accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

“It’s a bad decision,” she said. “There is evidence that climate change is existing and we need to be at that table.”

In an interview with The Associated Press before preliminary competition began, Mund, who lives in Bismarck, North Dakota, said her goal is to be the first woman elected governor of her state.

She said she wants to see more women elected to all levels of government.

“It’s important to have a woman’s perspective,” Mund, who had an internship in the U.S. Senate, told the AP. “In health care and on reproductive rights, it’s predominantly men making those decisions.”

The first runner up was Miss Missouri Jennifer Davis; second runner up was Miss New Jersey Kaitlyn Schoeffel; third runner up was Miss District of Columbia Briana Kinsey, and fourth runner up was Miss Texas Margana Wood.

Earlier Sunday, as a deadly hurricane was slamming her home state, Miss Florida Sara Zeng sent a message of support to those in harm’s way _ and was then eliminated from the competition.

As judges were narrowing the field of 51 contestants (each state plus the District of Columbia), they interviewed Zeng, a 22-year-old from Palm Coast, Florida, who noted that her family is safe.

But she expressed concern and support for friends and strangers endangered by Hurricane Irma, which was tearing its way up the Florida gulf coast on Sunday.

“I’m thinking about everyone in Florida every single day, but I know that regardless what happens, we’ll all get through this together,” Zeng said.

Shortly after her speech, judges read the names of the remaining Top 15 finalists, which did not include her.

Earlier in the week, Miss Texas Margana Wood gave a shout-out to her flooded hometown, Houston; she won Wednesday night’s swimsuit preliminary.

Zeng won Friday’s swimsuit prelim, and promised she’d be part of the post-Irma cleanup and recovery effort, whether as Miss America or not.

The competition took place at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall, where it originated as a way to extend summer tourism to the weekend after Labor Day.

They were vying to succeed the outgoing Miss America Savvy Shields, who won the title last September as Miss Arkansas.
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Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, a dark fairy tale in which a mute cleaning lady falls in love with an aquatic creature, won the Golden Lion award for best film at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

The film beat contenders including George Clooney’s Suburbicon and Alexander Payne’s Downsizing at the end of a 10-day, high-quality and star-studded movie marathon that critics said showed Venice was now on an equal footing with the widely revered Cannes film festival.

“As a Mexican, I want to say this is a first for a Mexican storyteller, so I want to dedicate and give the prize to every young Mexican filmmaker or Latin American filmmaker that is dreaming to do something in the fantastic genre, as a fairy tale, as a parable, and is faced with a lot of people saying it can’t be done. It can,” del Toro said.

The runner-up Grand Jury prize went to family tragedy Foxtrot by Israel’s Samuel Maoz, while France’s Xavier Legrand was picked as best director for his divorce drama Jusqu’a la Garde (Custody).

Charlotte Rampling received the best actress award for her performance in Italian film Hannah, while Palestinian Kamel El Basha took the best actor prize for his role in The Insult.

The award ceremony brought down the curtain on the Venice festival, the world’s oldest, which is seen as a launching pad for the industry’s awards season.

Moviemakers will be hoping for a replay of the success of films such as musical La La Land, clergy sex-abuse drama Spotlight, space movie Gravity and backstage comedy Birdman, which all won Academy Awards after premiering in Venice.

‘Incredible day’

“This is an incredible day for Mexican film, for Mexican storytellers. The three amigos have now conquered the Lido, with Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) and Alejandro Inarritu (Birdman) both going on to Oscar gold after dominating Venice,” said Ariston Anderson, a film critic at Hollywood Reporter.

“While there’s no sure bet at this stage, there couldn’t be a better start for del Toro’s road to Oscar gold. And it will be very interesting to see what happens in March at the Academy Awards if he can continue the trend of Venice picking Oscar winners,” she said.

The big disappointment of the night was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, starring Frances McDormand, which won only the award for best screenplay. The film, a portrayal of vengeance in small-town America, was acclaimed by critics in Venice as a prime Oscar contender.

For all the quality of the Venice film fest, this year in its 74th edition, critics said there was no clear outstanding movie.

“My thoughts after having viewed the lineup are the same — a lot of strong Oscar contenders but no clear-cut winner, unfortunately, as we had in previous years at the festival,” Anderson said.

Still, she said Venice — which not too long ago was seen as being doomed in the face of strong competition from Cannes and Toronto — had once again shown its appeal.

“Because of recent successes, we’re seeing more big studio films shift over to Venice for their international launches, so it will be interesting to see if this trend will continue over the next few years.”
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Country music singer Don Williams, one of the biggest stars of the 1970s and 1980s, died on Friday at the age of 78, his publicist said.

Williams, known as “the Gentle Giant” because of his 6-foot, 1-inch frame, mellow voice and low-key profile, had hits with Tulsa Time, I Believe in You and It Must Be Love over the course of a 50-year career.

He died on the same day as Troy Gentry, one half of the country music duo Montgomery Gentry, who was killed in a helicopter crash in New Jersey.

“2 legends lost at once. Troy Gentry and Don Williams will be missed so much. Praying for their families and may they rest in peace,” country-pop band Big & Rich wrote on Twitter.

The statement announcing his passing said Williams died of an undisclosed illness but gave no further details.

Williams was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2010 and released his last studio album, “Reflections,” in 2014.

Two years later, he announced his retirement from touring, saying it was “time to hang up my hat and enjoy some quiet time at home.”

Williams was a big influence on other musicians, spanning country to rock. Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend were among those who have recorded his music.

In 2016, a tribute album, “Gentle Giants: The Songs of Don Williams,” was released featuring performances by Alison Krauss, Trisha Yearwood, Garth Brooks and many others.
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Troy Gentry, one half of the award-winning country music duo Montgomery Gentry, died Friday in a helicopter crash just hours before a concert, according to a statement from the band’s website. He was 50.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the helicopter crashed into a wooded area near the Flying W Airport in Medford hours before Montgomery Gentry was due to perform at a resort that is also housed at the airport.

The band’s website called Gentry’s death “tragic” and said details of the crash are unknown.

“Troy Gentry’s family wishes to acknowledge all of the kind thoughts and prayers, and asks for privacy at this time,” the website said.

Medford Township Police Chief Richard Meder told NJ.com that police got a call at around 1 p.m. about a helicopter that was “distressed.”

He said crews were able to remove the passenger from the wreckage, but he died on the way to a hospital. The pilot died at the scene and crews were working to remove his body, Meder said.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Gentry was the pilot or the passenger.

Gentry was born on April 5, 1967, in Lexington, Kentucky, where he met bandmate Eddie Montgomery and formed a group based off their last names.

Montgomery Gentry had success on the country charts and country radio in the 2000s, scoring No. 1 hits with Roll With Me, Back When I Knew It All, Lucky Man, Something to Be Proud Of and If You Ever Stop Loving Me. Some of the songs even cracked the Top 40 on the pop charts.

The band mixed country music with Southern rock. It was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2009. The group released their debut album, “Tattoos & Scars,” in 1999.
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Hugh Jackman, Lupita Nyong’o, Aaron Paul and Demi Lovato will co-host this year’s Global Citizen Festival, an annual free event held in New York’s Central Park.

Performers at the Sept. 23 event include Stevie Wonder, Green Day, The Killers, The Lumineers, The Chainsmokers, Pharrell Williams, Big Sean, Andra Day and Alessia Cara.

The organization announced Friday that Frieda Pinto, Connie Britton, Deborra-lee Furness, Joan Smalls, Kal Penn, Malin Akerman, Mark Cuban and others will also co-host the multi-hour event. It will air live on MSNBC and Comcast NBCUniversal.

Fans can earn their free tickets for admission by joining the movement at globalcitizenfestival.com.

Last year, Jackman co-hosted the event with Neil Patrick Harris, Chelsea Handler and others. Performers at the 2016 concert included Rihanna, Eddie Vedder, Kendrick Lamar and Metallica.
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Graydon Carter, the longtime editor of Conde Nast’s culture magazine “Vanity Fair,” will be stepping down in December after 25 years at the helm, the publication said on Thursday.

Carter, 68, who has steered Vanity Fair through the shifting journalism landscape and expanded it onto a successful digital platform as well as print edition, will oversee the magazine’s 2018 Hollywood issue, the publication said.

“I’ve loved every moment of my time here and I’ve pretty much accomplished everything I’ve ever wanted to do,” Carter said in a statement, adding that he was “now eager to try out this ‘third act’ thing.”

Carter said in an interview with The New York Times published on Thursday that he wanted to “leave while the magazine is on top.”

“I want to leave while it’s in vibrant shape, both in the digital realm and the print realm. And I wanted to have a third act – and I thought, time is precious,” he told the Times.

The Times said no replacement has been named yet for Carter, who earns a “seven-figure salary” at the magazine, but suggested that New York magazine’s editor-in-chief, Adam Moss, and Janice Min, former editor of The Hollywood Reporter, are potential candidates.

Carter, appointed editor of Vanity Fair in 1992, and turned the magazine’s focus to crime, culture and celebrities. He nurtured revered writers such as Christopher Hitchens and Dominick Dunne, humorists Fran Lebowitz and James Wolcott, and photography great Annie Leibovitz.
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Movie fans attending a special screening of the movie It in Bangor, Maine, got a bonus: Author and local resident Stephen King joined them.

King’s radio station, WKIT-FM, sponsored the special showing Wednesday night, and King received a standing ovation. He told the moviegoers: “You’re going to be scared out of your seats anyway, so you might as well sit down.”

It is based on King’s book about a sewer-dwelling, homicidal clown in Derry, Maine. King has said the fictionalized town is based on Bangor.

The new adaptation of King’s novel will be previewed in many select theaters Thursday before it opens nationwide Friday.
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As new smartphones hit the market month in month out, one Slovak technology buff is offering visitors to his vintage cellphone museum a trip down memory lane – to when cellphones weighed more than today’s computers and most people couldn’t afford them.

Twenty-six year-old online marketing specialist Stefan Polgari from Slovakia began his collection more than two years ago when he bought a stock of old cellphones online. Today, his collection boasts some 1,500 models, or 3,500 pieces when counting duplicates.

The museum, which takes up two rooms in his house in the small eastern town of Dobsina, opened last year and is accessible by appointment.

The collection includes the Nokia 3310, which recently got a facelift and re-release, as well as a fully functional, 20-year old, brick-like Siemens S4 model, which cost a whopping 23,000 Slovak koruna – more than twice the average monthly wage in Slovakia when it came out.

“These are design and technology masterpieces that did not steal your time. There are no phones younger than the first touchscreen models, definitely no smartphones,” said Mr Polgari.

“It’s hard to say which phone is most valuable to me, perhaps the Nokia 350i Star Wars edition,” said Mr Polgari – who uses an iPhone in his daily life.
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