Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314825159?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Monday, June 24, 2013
Bottega Veneta weaves its summer footwear
MILAN (AP) ? For next summer Tomas Maier, the acclaimed creative director of luxury goods brand Bottega Veneta, is inviting customers to walk in his shoes.
In his latest menswear collection presented Sunday, the second day of Milan Fashion Week, Maier used the traditional Bottega leather weave for loafers, lace-ups and even sidewalk slippers. Usually, it's reserved for women's handbags.
The luxurious artisan footwear, which one runway male model defined as "awesome," came in brown or black and accompanied all of the outfits in the classic collection.
According to his fashion notes, "contrast" was the theme of Maier's 2014 preview collection.
The show opened with a series of suits with a soft shouldered, wide sleeved jacket and narrow pants. Contrast came in the white lines stitched into the classic look referencing the chalk marks used for fittings in bespoke tailoring, creating imaginary lapels and pockets.
Further into the show, the German designer who has been behind the label for the past 12 years, contrasted black and white in a checkerboard fashion game. For example, a black knit sweater is worn with checked trousers, or a checked sports jacket is matched with a pair of white trousers.
In an unconventional move, Maier paired black with brown, even in footwear, making the combination fashionably correct.
Although most of the collection is in the staple muted hues, which define the discreet Bottega Veneta look, Maier dabbles into, aubergine, brick red, and olive green to liven up his summer look.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bottega-veneta-weaves-summer-footwear-142756387.html
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Killing deepens concern over tight Albanian election
By Benet Koleka and Matt Robinson
TIRANA (Reuters) - An activist was killed and a politician wounded in a shootout during a closely contested election in Albania on Sunday that is being watched by Western allies worried about democracy in the NATO country.
The opposition left scents victory, which would deny Prime Minister Sali Berisha an unprecedented third successive four-year term since the fall of Albania's communist rule in 1991.
But the threat of a disputed result is rising, after a political row left the top electoral body, the Central Election Commission, short-staffed and unable to certify the result.
The shooting in the northwestern Lac region raised fears of confrontation in the Adriatic nation, which is deeply polarized between Berisha's Democrats and the Socialists of former Tirana Mayor Edi Rama and has seen election violence before.
Since 1991, Albania has never held an election deemed fully free and fair, and failure again would further set back its ambitions to join the European Union.
In Lac, television pictures showed bullet casings scattered across the street and the smashed rear window of a car. An opposition activist was killed and an election candidate of the ruling Democrats was wounded. Police said four guns were fired.
Berisha, a fiery former cardiologist, condemned the violence. "I voted No. 44 (Democratic Party), I touched fate, a feeling of pleasure engulfed me, a feeling I have not felt before," he said after voting in the capital, Tirana.
Opinion polls are unreliable, but point to a narrow victory for the Socialists of 48-year-old Rama. He has been buoyed by an alliance with a small leftist party previously in coalition with Berisha. Rama lost the last election in 2009, called protesters into the streets and four were shot dead by security forces.
DISPUTES, DELAYS
Berisha has dominated Albanian political life since the collapse of its Stalinist rule triggered a breakneck and sometimes violent transition to capitalism. At 68, defeat on Sunday could spell the end of his career.
Rama said the Lac shootout was an "effort to frighten people, to scare citizens away from the ballot boxes".
"I appeal for people to vote, because a decision that takes just a few minutes will decide not just the next four years but the fate of a generation," he said after voting.
Including Albanian migrant workers abroad, there are 3.27 million eligible voters. That is more than the official resident population of 2.8 million people, from Albania's rugged Alps in the north, down an Adriatic coastline still undiscovered by Western tourists, to the Ionian sea off Greece.
Polls close at 7 p.m. (1700 GMT). Official results are due in the evening, but a system by which party members count the ballots has repeatedly led to disputes and delays.
Rama pulled his three representatives from the seven-member Election Commission in April after the coalition government sacked a member whose party had switched sides to support the Socialists.
The Socialists and Berisha's Democrats differ little on Albania's goal of joining the European Union or its pro-Western policy. But their confrontational relationship does not sit easy with Brussels or Albania's NATO allies.
The EU says the election is a "crucial test" before Albania can draw closer to the 27-nation bloc, which Croatia will join in July. Albania applied to join four years ago but has not yet been made a candidate for membership.
The next government will take on an economy feeling the effects of the crisis in the euro zone, notably in Greece and Italy where about 1 million Albanians work and send money home. While Albania has avoided recession, remittances are down and public debt and the budget deficit are rising.
"I hope and wish the elections will turn out to be very good," shopkeeper Teuta Muskaj, a mother of two unemployed law graduates, said after voting in Tirana. "I expect better for the future of my children."
(Writing by Matt Robinson)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/left-bids-unseat-albanias-berisha-tense-election-080432113.html
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New iOS App Lets You Record What You Heard Five Minutes Ago
Have you ever wished that you could record something that already happened? Your kid's first words. That perfectly timed comeback. The email address your boss told you to have those important documents sent to within the next 10 minutes. If only there was a way to record the important bits of your life, without having to record all of it. That's the idea behind Heard, a new app for iOS. Heard constantly records the audio around you into an ephemeral, self-destructing buffer, saving only those fleeting moments that you deem worthy.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/U24BXouPMAU/
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South Korea's Park set to charm China, show up the North
By Ju-min Park
SEOUL (Reuters) - When the presidents of China and South Korea meet in Beijing this week, they will likely use a rapport that blossomed eight years ago to find common ground on North Korea as well as seek ways to boost already vibrant economic ties.
With her self-taught Mandarin and interest in Chinese culture, South Korea's Park Geun-hye will get a warm welcome during a four-day state visit that begins on Thursday.
"I am sure this summit will be an unprecedented honeymoon for China and South Korea," said Woo Su-keun, a South Korean professor at Donghua University in Shanghai.
The contrast between China's relationship with South Korea and its testy ties with the erratic North could not be starker.
Beijing, the closest thing North Korea has to a major ally, has grown frustrated with Pyongyang and was heavily involved in U.N. sanctions imposed for the North's third nuclear test in February. Its annual trade with North Korea is a puny $6 billion, versus $215 billion with the South.
On top of that, ordinary Chinese love South Korean fashion, pop stars and soap operas. North Korea, by contrast, is seen as a dangerous liability, and Chinese refer to leader Kim Jong-un derisively on social media as "Fatty Kim".
Helping the mood music for Park, a slightly built and elegant 61-year-old, China's relations with Japan are also in the deep freeze due to a row over disputed islands in the East China Sea.
Park's trip follows two visits by North Korean envoys to Beijing in the past month. While North Korea offered talks on its nuclear programme during those visits, experts are sceptical Pyongyang is ready to make any concessions.
North Korea will be high on the agenda when she meets Chinese President Xi Jinping, who in a telephone call in March after both leaders took office called Park "an old friend of the Chinese people and of myself", according to South Korean officials.
Both are expected to agree Pyongyang must give up its nuclear weapons. Park might also be able to use her personal chemistry with Xi - who she first met over lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Seoul in 2005 - to get China to put more pressure on Pyongyang, experts said.
"Out of frustration and scepticism over a decade of North Korea's nuclear weapons development, China is now stepping up its push for denuclearization," said Lee Soo-hyuck, a former South Korean deputy foreign minister and its chief envoy to disarmament talks between 2003 and 2005.
However, China is highly unlikely to do anything that would cause the collapse of North Korea, which it sees as a strategic land buffer against American influence in the region.
TRADE BOOMING
Park and Xi will also focus on forging a stronger economic partnership.
The South Korean leader will take a big business delegation to China, including executives from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Hyundai Motor although it was unclear if any deals will be signed. Park's office expects a bilateral free trade pact under negotiation to be discussed.
China is South Korea's biggest trading partner. South Korea is also one of the few developed countries that runs a surplus with China - to the tune of $53 billion in 2012 according to Seoul - thanks to exports of cars, smartphones, flat screen TVs, semiconductors and petrochemicals.
South Korean imports to China overtook Japan last September, Singapore's DBS Bank said in a recent research note.
Hyundai and its Kia Motors affiliate are now the third biggest seller of cars in China, ahead of their Japanese rivals. Volkswagen AG and General Motors are the top two.
South Korean investment has also poured into China, exceeding $40 billion since 1988.
After meetings in Beijing, Park will visit Xi'an, an industrial city in northwestern China where Samsung, the world's top technology firm by revenue, is building a $7 billion chip complex. Hyundai has just completed its third plant in Beijing.
TIES THAT BIND
When China and North Korea sealed their relationship in blood fighting side by side in the Korean War, both were poor and isolated against the West. North Korea remains poor to this day while China is the world's second largest economy and South Korea is an industrial powerhouse.
Beijing only established diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, but ties have flourished since.
In 2005, when Xi was Communist Party boss of the wealthy eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, he met Park for lunch.
Xi was keen to learn about the economic New Village Movement, a rural development program in the 1970s undertaken by Park's father, military ruler Park Chung-hee who is credited with building modern South Korea.
Park, according to South Korean media reports, later gave Xi two boxes of materials that included her father's speeches on the movement and a book about South Korean economic development.
She is an admirer of Chinese culture and her favourite book is a "History of Chinese Philosophy" by philosopher Feng Youlan. She has spoken fondly of her earlier trips to China.
"President Park has a soft spot for China," the official China News Service said. "This kind of friendly public diplomacy gives a good impression to Chinese people and is extremely important."
(Additional reporting Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Megha Rajagopalan in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Jack Kim and Dean Yates)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-koreas-park-set-charm-china-show-north-210748650.html
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Sunday, June 23, 2013
Plane believed to be carrying Snowden in Moscow
MOSCOW (AP) ? A former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory's government said Sunday.
An Aeroflot flight from Hong Kong believed to be carrying Edward Snowden landed in Moscow. Russia's state ITAR-Tass news agency cited an unnamed Aeroflot airline official as saying Snowden was on Flight SU213, which landed on Sunday afternoon in Moscow. The report said he intended to fly to Cuba on Monday and then on to Caracas, Venezuela.
Snowden had been in hiding in Hong Kong for several weeks since he revealed information on the highly classified spy programs. The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group said it was working with him and he was bound for an unnamed "democratic nation via a safe route for the purpose of asylum."
The White House had no immediate comment about the departure, which came a day after the United States made a formal request for his extradition and gave a pointed warning to Hong Kong against delaying the process of returning him to face trial in the U.S.
The Department of Justice said only that it would "continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."
The Hong Kong government said in a statement that Snowden left "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel."
It acknowledged the U.S. extradition request, but said U.S. documentation did not "fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law." It said additional information was requested from Washington, but since the Hong Kong government "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."
The statement said Hong Kong had informed the U.S. of Snowden's departure. It added that it wanted more information about alleged hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by U.S. government agencies which Snowden had revealed.
The signal that Hong Kong had let Snowden go on a technicality appears to be a pragmatic decision aimed at avoiding a drawn out extradition battle. The move swiftly eliminates a geopolitical headache that could have left it facing pressure from both Washington and Beijing.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, has a high degree of autonomy and is granted rights and freedoms not seen on mainland China, but under the city's mini constitution Beijing is allowed to intervene in matters involving defense and diplomatic affairs.
Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the U.S., but the document has some exceptions, including for crimes deemed political.
Russian officials have given no indication that they have any interest in detaining Snowden or any grounds to do so. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russia would be willing to consider granting asylum if Snowden were to make such a request.
Russia and the United States have no extradition treaty that would oblige Russia to hand over a U.S. citizen at Washington's request.
WikiLeaks said it was providing legal help to Snowden at his request and that he was being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from the group. Its founder, Julian Assange, who has spent a year inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about sex crime allegations, told the Sydney Morning Herald that his organization is in a position to help because it has expertise in international asylum and extradition law.
The Cuban government had no comment on Snowden's movements or reports he might use Havana as a transit point.
The Obama administration on Saturday warned Hong Kong against delaying Snowden's extradition, with White House national security adviser Tom Donilon saying in an interview with CBS News, "Hong Kong has been a historically good partner of the United States in law enforcement matters, and we expect them to comply with the treaty in this case."
Michael Ratner, Assange's lawyer, said he didn't know Snowden's final destination, but said his options were not numerous.
"You have to have a country that's going to stand up to the United States," Ratner said. "You're not talking about a huge range of countries here."
Ratner said a country's extradition treaty with the U.S. is "not going to be relevant" because the country he ends up going to will likely be one willing to give him a political exemption.
Snowden's departure came as the South China Morning Post released new allegations from Snowden that U.S. hacking targets in China included the nation's cellphone companies and two universities hosting extensive Internet traffic hubs.
He told the newspaper that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." It added that Snowden said he had documents to support the hacking allegations, but the report did not identify the documents. It said he spoke to the newspaper in a June 12 interview.
With a population of more than 1.3 billion, China has massive cellphone companies. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile network carrier with 735 million subscribers, followed by China Unicom with 258 million users and China Telecom with 172 million users.
Snowden said Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese University in Hong Kong, home of some of the country's major Internet traffic hubs, were targets of extensive hacking by U.S. spies this year. He said the NSA was focusing on so-called "network backbones" in China, through which enormous amounts of Internet data passes.
The Chinese government has not commented on the extradition request and Snowden's departure, but its state-run media have used Snowden's allegations to poke back at Washington after the U.S. had spent the past several months pressuring China on its international spying operations.
A commentary published Sunday by the official Xinhua News Agency said Snowden's disclosures of U.S. spying activities in China have "put Washington in a really awkward situation."
"Washington should come clean about its record first. It owes ... an explanation to China and other countries it has allegedly spied on," it said. "It has to share with the world the range, extent and intent of its clandestine hacking programs."
____
Chan reported from Hong Kong. Sylvia Hui in London, Paul Haven in Havana, and Anne Flaherty and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/plane-believed-carrying-snowden-moscow-132626347.html
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Graphene-based system could lead to improved information processing
June 21, 2013 ? Researchers at MIT have proposed a new system that combines ferroelectric materials -- the kind often used for data storage -- with graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon known for its exceptional electronic and mechanical properties. The resulting hybrid technology could eventually lead to computer and data-storage chips that pack more components in a given area and are faster and less power-hungry.
The new system works by controlling waves called surface plasmons. These waves are oscillations of electrons confined at interfaces between materials; in the new system the waves operate at terahertz frequencies. Such frequencies lie between those of far-infrared light and microwave radio transmissions, and are considered ideal for next-generation computing devices.
The findings were reported in a paper in Applied Physics Letters by associate professor of mechanical engineering Nicholas Fang, postdoc Dafei Jin and three others.
The system would provide a new way to construct interconnected devices that use light waves, such as fiber-optic cables and photonic chips, with electronic wires and devices. Currently, such interconnection points often form a bottleneck that slows the transfer of data and adds to the number of components needed.
The team's new system allows waves to be concentrated at much smaller length scales, which could lead to a tenfold gain in the density of components that could be placed in a given area of a chip, Fang says.
The team's initial proof-of-concept device uses a small piece of graphene sandwiched between two layers of the ferroelectric material to make simple, switchable plasmonic waveguides. This work used lithium niobate, but many other such materials could be used, the researchers say.
Light can be confined in these waveguides down to one part in a few hundreds of the free-space wavelength, Jin says, which represents an order-of-magnitude improvement over any comparable waveguide system. "This opens up exciting areas for transmitting and processing optical signals," he says.
Moreover, the work may provide a new way to read and write electronic data into ferroelectric memory devices at very high speed, the MIT researchers say.
Dimitri Basov, a professor of physics at the University of California at San Diego who was not connected with this research, says the MIT team "proposed a very interesting plasmonic structure, suitable for operation in the technologically significant [terahertz] range. ? I am confident that many research groups will try to implement these devices."
Basov cautions, however, "The key issue, as in all of plasmonics, is losses. Losses need to be thoroughly explored and understood."
In addition to Fang and Jin, the research was carried out by graduate student Anshuman Kumar, former postdoc Kin Hung Fung (now at Hong Kong Polytechnic University), and research scientist Jun Xu. It was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
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Europe tests reusable spaceship
PARIS |
PARIS (Reuters) - The European Space Agency is preparing to launch an experimental reusable spaceship next summer following a successful atmospheric test flight this week, officials said at the Paris Airshow.
A mock-up built by Thales Alenia Space was dropped from a helicopter flying 1.9 miles above the Mediterranean near Sardinia on Wednesday to check its handling and parachute system, company officials said.
The 14.4 foot long (4.4 meter) craft, known as "IXV" as it is an intermediate experimental vehicle, splashed down in the ocean and was retrieved by an awaiting ship.
The test flight clears IXV for a follow-on demonstration run beyond the Earth's atmosphere in August next year. That program, in turn, paves the way for an orbital prototype dubbed "Pride", slated to launch in 2018.
The aim is to help Europe develop an autonomous atmospheric re-entry system that could be used on vehicles flying experiments in space, Roberto Provera, director of space transportation programs for Thales Alenia Space, told Reuters.
"It's the first time in Europe that we've tried something like this," Provera said, adding that it could eventually be used to carry people.
The vehicles are similar to but smaller than the U.S. military's X-37B Orbital Test Vehicles, built by Boeing. Like NASA's now-retired space shuttles, they have "lifting body" designs shaped to produce lift without airplane-like wings.
For its next test, Europe will launch another IXV vehicle on a Vega rocket from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana.
Once at an altitude of about 199 miles, the IXV will separate from the rocket and climb to about 267 miles before slamming back into the atmosphere at a speed of about 4.7 miles per second and parachuting into the Pacific Ocean.
Several U.S. firms are also developing reusable spaceships. Designs include traditional capsules, as well as "lifting body" vehicles.
SPACE STATION
Privately owned Sierra Nevada Corp., for example, is testing a vehicle called Dream Chaser that has NASA backing.
The U.S. space agency, which retired its space shuttles in 2011, is seeking commercial options to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, a permanently staffed research outpost that flies about 250 miles above Earth.
Virgin Galactic, a U.S. offshoot of billionaire Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group, is testing a suborbital passenger vehicle called SpaceShipTwo, expected to start flying next year.
The U.S. military has two experimental unmanned reusable spaceships developed under its X-37B program. One is in orbit.
President Vladimir Putin told astronauts in orbit in April that Russia would send up the first manned flights from its own soil in 2018, using a new launch pad he said would help the once-pioneering space power explore deep space and the moon.
Thales Alenia said it has not yet finalized a price for Pride with the European Space Agency, but expects it will cost about the same as the IXV program, or roughly 200 million Euros ($264 million).
Thales Alenia Space is a joint venture owned 67 percent by France's Thales and 33 percent by Italy's Finmeccanica.
($1 = 0.7590 euros)
(Editing by James Regan)
Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/3-YbsRZlukE/story01.htm
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Michelle Nunn: Even in Divisive Times, Service and Volunteering Bring Us Together as One America
At Points of Light's Conference on Volunteering and Service in Washington, D.C. this week, the crowd of 5,000 saw something you don't see every day. And it wasn't just right-leaning strategist Karl Rove dancing on stage with left-leaning strategist Donna Brazile.
In the heart of our nation's capital, Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, corporate executives and grassroots organizers got together to agree on one thing: Despite our differences, we can make a difference together.
It's all part of the launch of One America, a nationwide, yearlong campaign Points of Light is leading, with founding support from JPMorgan Chase, to bring together rivals in politics, entertainment and sports with the goal of inspiring millions to unite in service to their communities.
Unlikely allies on stage included conservative talk show host Bill O'Reilly and liberal political strategist Donna Brazile, plus former adviser to President George W. Bush Karl Rove and former adviser to President Obama David Plouffe.
Senior Adviser to the President Valerie Jarrett was on hand to announce that President and Mrs. Obama will host a special White House ceremony in July to honor the 5,000th Daily Point of Light Award -- a volunteer recognition program begun by President George H. W. Bush in 1993.
At the close of the session, rival marching bands from D.C.'s Eastern and Duke Ellington high schools led thousands of delegates to a cavernous room where they assembled 100,000 mac-and-cheese kits for those in need in the nation's capital.
At the historic Sewall-Belmont House & Museum on Capitol Hill, 200 volunteer leaders assembled 600 school supply kits for area children. During the service project, sponsored by Altria, volunteers were joined by several members of Congress, including Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI).
Summing up the spirit of One America, Peter Scher, executive vice president and head of corporate social responsibility at Chase, recalled the words of Abraham Lincoln: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." In today's world, Scher said, "We know that what really matters to our nation's future is not what divides us, but what brings us together. And what brings us together here today is what brings us together in neighborhoods across the country - service."
So which unlikely allies would you like to see unite in service? Tom and Jerry? Larry Bird and Magic Johnson? Kanye West and Taylor Swift?
Visit www.one-america.org and let us know. We'll collect the best pairings and let you vote on which ones we'll ask to come together to serve.
We may live in divisive times, but service unites.
?
Follow Michelle Nunn on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@pointsoflight
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Friday, June 21, 2013
James Gandolfini: A remembrance
The actor, who died at age 51 on Wednesday, leaves behind a life and career that extends beyond The Sopranos
James Gandolfini died of an apparent heart attack on Wednesday while on vacation in Italy. He was 51 years old, which is far, far too young ? but he leaves behind both a remarkable career and a remarkable life.
Let's start with the obvious. James Gandolfini simply can't be separated from his leading role as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, which catapulted him from small but memorable roles in films like True Romance and Get Shorty into the mainstream. And the HBO show didn't just transform Gandolfini from supporting player to leading man; it transformed television itself.
SEE ALSO: WATCH: John Oliver ribs Obama on his foreign love-quest
It's impossible to overstate the part The Sopranos played in defining the modern TV landscape, though countless articles have attempted to do so. But for all the show's strengths, the whole series would have floundered without the right man in the lead. Gandolfini's performance is one of those rare, spectacular times when an actor is so perfect for a role that their work actually lives up to the oft-repeated clich?: A role someone was born to play.
Gandolfini's performance as Tony Soprano is so indelible that on Wednesday night ? more than six years after The Sopranos went off the air ? Holsten's, the New Jersey restaurant where the instantly polarizing, instantly legendary final scene in the HBO series was filmed, was packed with fans. The booth occupied by Gandolfini and his TV family was empty, marked by a "Reserved" sign. The Sopranos is the linchpin of Gandolfini's legacy; when you've delivered one of the most singular and impressive performances in television history, you deserve to be remembered for it, and it's clear that he always will be.
SEE ALSO: The last word: He said he was leaving. She ignored him.
But as I reflected on Gandolfini's impressive body of work, I was surprised to find my mind drifting away from The Sopranos. I'd love to share my favorite scene from The Sopranos with you, but I couldn't begin to choose. (If you have the time, just commit the next 86 hours of your life to watching the whole series again.) Instead, I'd like to highlight a performance that relatively few have seen ? the opening musical number from 2005's Romance & Cigarettes, in which he leads a chorus of blue-collar workers in a rendition of Engelbert Humperdinck's "A Man Without Love":
SEE ALSO: 32 TV shows to watch in 2013 [Updated]
Romance & Cigarettes was not a wholly successful movie ? but it almost works, thanks to a terrific performance from Gandolfini in a rare post-Sopranos lead role. (Gandolfini actually filmed Romance & Cigarettes at the height of his Sopranos fame in 2005; it was finally released in September 2007, just a few months after The Sopranos ended.) The tenderness that occasionally showed through Tony Soprano's gruff exterior throughout eight years is on full display here, and it's mesmerizing.
I had a similar reaction earlier this year when I saw Gandolfini ? as himself ? in the documentary Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, where he described his unlikely friendship with the 88-year-old Broadway icon of the title. Gandolfini grinned as he talked about their first meeting, when she paid him a compliment for his performance in The Sopranos; after he had thanked her and turned away, she screamed, "Don't condescend to me, you son of a bitch!" They had been close ever since.
SEE ALSO: How typeface influences the way we read and think
Gandolfini spent the rest of his post-Sopranos years in supporting roles that drew far less attention, even as he displayed far more range than he ever got credit for; in between, he devoted his time and attention to projects like Alive Day: Home from Iraq, a documentary which gave injured Iraq War veterans a chance to tell their stories. Though he appeared in a number of acclaimed movies, including In the Loop, Killing Them Softly, and Zero Dark Thirty, he shied away from the attention that he'd attracted during his years on The Sopranos, which had always, clearly, made him uncomfortable.
The genius of James Gandolfini on The Sopranos ? as series creator David Chase rightly called it ? was his ability to play a monster and make us care about him anyway. But the bar was much lower for caring about Gandolfini himself. We've lost one of our great living actors, but there's no doubt that we'll remember him.
SEE ALSO: Ben Bernanke to Wall Street: It's the beginning of the end
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/james-gandolfini-remembrance-065000133.html
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Universal Sets Mini-Budgeted 'Stretch' For March 2014
By Todd Cunningham
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Universal is getting back in the mini-budgeted movie business, announcing Thursday that it would distribute the $5 million action comedy "Stretch" in the United States and U.K.
The studio has set a March 21, 2014, release date for the film, which is produced by Jason Blum via his Blumhouse Productions. Universal and Blum are scoring big at the box office this summer with the horror thriller "The Purge," which was made for $3 million and has taken in $55 million.
"Stretch is directed by Joe Carnahan ("The Grey") and stars Patrick Wilson, Ed Helms, Chris Pine and Brooklyn Decker. The plot follows an L.A. limo drive (Wilson) who, with one shift left to play off a big debt, picks up a reclusive billionaire (Pine) who can provide the big tip.
Tracy Falco produces, along with Blum and Carnahan.
That March 2014 weekend is getting crowded. Disney has the action film "Need For Speed" on that date, along with Film District's R-rated romantic comedy "Walk of Shame."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/universal-sets-mini-budgeted-stretch-march-2014-002118061.html
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Samsung Has a Mutant Windows 8-Android Convertible Tablet
At Samsung's event in London today, they took the lid off of two new Windows 8 tablets. One is very normal. The other is very weird. We're pretty excited about the weird one.
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