Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
from Photographers Blog:
Hatching a plan to cover Lady Gaga’s egg
I've covered all of the big Los Angeles based award shows and multiple Grammy Award shows, but I've never seen something like this. Was Babylon 5 making a comeback? Nope - just Gaga being Gaga.
I started to set up my equipment at my assigned spot on the 53rd annual Grammy Awards red carpet around 10:15am. My assignment was to cover red carpet arrivals with Lucy Nicholson photographing the show and Mario Anzuoni backstage photographing winners with their awards. Arrivals began at 12pm and lasted until 5pm. At about 10:45am we had a visit from an organizer saying that 1pm would be a bad time for a bathroom break. We started to ask questions and the answers were vague such as variations of "believe me you will want to be here, trust me." We began to deduct through cryptic messages that it was regarding Lady Gaga's arrival as that was everyone's best guess and it made sense after covering her in the past.
As more photographers started to show up, the word circulated about the 1pm slot and we were told that the red carpet would be cleared for "something". Words with question marks floating around included a vessel, a cocoon, a carriage, an enclosure. Eventually the cryptic Lady Gaga talk ceased and all of us photographers were told that her enclosure would stop in the center of the backdrop, she would be inside and she would not come out of it to pose for photos. Would we even be able to see her? What is it? How large is it? We weren't sure. Photographers were trying to come up with ideas of what was possible. Would she walk with a transparent cage around her? Would she be encased in a glass dome? Was it something attached to her? People were asking everyone to try to gather a clue on what to expect. For some reason I started to envision her inside a huge hamster ball or some sort of plastic balloon like how some gift basket companies package stuffed animal gifts.
My main concern was not really what it would be, but how big it would be so that I could be prepared with the correct lens. The enclosure would be about 10 feet from us and if it was large I had to be ready with a wide angle lens. I was asking if it was vertical, was it horizontal, was she standing, was it about her height, was it larger than the backdrop, etc, but I couldn't get a concrete answer. We weren't allowed to walk around to get different angles, which is standard at award shows and other red carpet events. Only those with red carpet roaming access can move around on the carpet, which is usually reserved for the event's official photographers. I had to shoot from my fixed position and I needed to be as creative as I could be from that position - as prepared as I could be to adapt to wherever something happened on the red carpet. What I could see from my position was all the opportunity I would get to capture a strong image.
“Paranormal Activity” scares up most movie frights at Halloween
Vampires may be one of the most popular current themes in entertainment, but movies that feature exorcisms and Satan give audiences the biggest scare.
With Halloween fast approaching, a poll on website Movies.com found that vampires give moviegoers less of a fright than creepy kids or Zombies.
Miley Cyrus — too sexy for her shirt?
“Who Owns My Heart” ponders Miley Cyrus in her new single.
Certainly not Disney, judging by the latest writhe and grind music video from the teen who found fame, and millions of tween girl fans, as “Hannah Montana”.
Cyrus has spent most of the past year trying to distance herself from her Hannah Montana alter-ego, even though the TV series is still running on the Disney Channel.
Glee, God, Gays and Grilled Cheesus
It’s hard to think of a primetime U.S. network TV show (not to mention a comedy) that has managed to combine philosophical arguments about God, teen sexual angst, parents, mental disability with music by Barbra Streisand, The Beatles and Billy Joel into an hour of entertainment — and still get in a few laughs along with the tears.
But “Glee” managed to pull it off in its “Grilled Cheesus” episode, and without apparently offending any of the above mentioned groups. And the show did it just a week after the fun-filled exuberance of its Britney Spears themed tribute.
Families urge boycott of suicide bomber comedy
Families of some of the 52 victims of the July, 2005 suicide attacks in London have called for a boycott of a controversial new comedy “Four Lions”, which follows a group of hapless would-be jihadis who target the London marathon. The BBC has quoted two relatives – Grahame Russell and Graham Foulkes — as criticising the movie and calling for cinemas not to show it when it is released on Friday. For Foulkes, although humour has its place in exploring serious issues, the events of five years ago are “still too raw”.
Watching the film is certainly an uncomfortable experience. It is full of funny one-liners and farcical gags, including an ill-fated trip to a training camp in Pakistan which ends in ignominy and a failed attempt to use crows to fly bombs through windows. You find yourself laughing and then wonder whether it’s appropriate, and presumably that is one of the objectives of film maker and satirist Chris Morris.
Live blog of MTV Europe Music Awards
Welcome to the Reuters live blog of the MTV Europe Music Awards in Berlin – hosted by U.S. pop singer Katy Perry (photo).
A dozen Reuters reporters, photographers and television crew will be covering the event, one of the pop world’s biggest nights. From the news conference on Wednesday to the after-show party on Thursday we’ll bring you the highlights and low-lights. We’re using the #mtv as the hashtag if you want to follow us on Twitter:
Catch Bull at Cropredy
The gradual return of Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, to mainstream rock reached another milestone at the weekend when the 1970s singer-songwriter hit the stage at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention, telling the crowd that this was, remarkably, his first festival gig in 37 years.
Now performing as simply Yusuf, the singer’s appearance at the Oxfordshire festival was beautifully crafted, but in some ways as tentative as his emergence from decades of self-imposed exile as a devout convert to Islam.
from Global News Journal:
Blood-suckers and blood-thirsty revenge: an interview with South Korean director Park Chan-wook
South Korean director Park Chan-wook talked vampires and the movie industry at an interview with Reuters in Seoul this week as his movie “Thirst” prepares to enter the competition at the Cannes International Film Festival which opens today. Park’s movie “Oldboy” won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2004 and this is his first film in competition since then.
"Thirst" stars Song Kang-ho and Kim Ok-vin 
as a priest turned vampire and a femme fatale respectively.
from FaithWorld:
This time around, Dan Brown hero is Vatican ally
After exposing a Church cover-up in "The Da Vinci Code," symbologist Robert Langdon returns to the big screen as an unlikely Vatican ally in the latest movie adaptation of a novel by author Dan Brown.
"Angels & Demons," again starring Tom Hanks as Langdon and directed by Ron Howard, premieres in Rome on Monday at a theatre a mile (0.6 kilometer) away from Vatican City. It's due to open in the United States on May 15.
Jeremy Piven starts rehearsals for Broadway debut
“Entourage” star Jeremy Piven started rehearsals this week on another show about the inside world of show-business, only this time it’s on a Broadway stage.
Piven is starring in a revival of David Mamet’s play “Speed-the-Plow,” billed as a “scathing portrait of the film industry and the people who are willing to sell their souls for sex, fame and fortune.”
