Following a press conference in which the NRA lobbied for guns in school , organization president Wayne LaPierre appeared today on Meet the Press and defended his group’s position. “If it’s crazy to call for putting police in and securing our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy,” LaPierre told David Gregory, challenging the host by adding: “Most of the media, they’re protected by armed guards.” Wayne LaPierre on Meet the Press When asked if there was any gun legislation he would support, LaPierre refused to answer. Later on the show, Senator Chuck Schumer said LaPierre’s position is “so extreme and so tone-deaf, he actually helps the cause [of gun control]… He is so doctrinaire and so adamant, I think many gun owners don’t support him.” This issue, of course, is at the forefront of the country after Adam Lanza killed 26 people inside Sandy Hook Elementary School just over a week ago. Congress is allegedly working on an assault weapons ban , while President Obama and Vice President Biden appear dedicated to the passing some kind of major legislation. Would you be behind it? Do you support a change in the gun control laws? YES. Fewer guns, fewer tragedies! NO. It’s unconstitutional and won’t stop anything! View Poll »
Biography for Marilyn Ramos Born 1991 Klerksdorp, South Africa Height 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in) Title(s) Miss South Africa 2012 Major competition(s) Miss South Africa 2012 (Winner) Miss Universe 2013 Miss World 2013 Marilyn Ramos (born 1991) is a South African beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss South Africa 2012, becoming the official representative of her country to Miss Universe 2013 and Miss World 2013.Ramos will represent South Africa at Miss Universe 2013 Miss World 2013.
Carey Ng, competed in the country#39;s national beauty pageant Miss Universe Malaysia 2013, held on December 10, 2012 at the SP Setia City Convention Centre, where she became the eventual winner of the Miss Universe Malaysia title, gaining the right to represent her nation as the official representative of Malaysia to the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. Carey Ng was crowned Miss Universe Malaysia 2013 at the SP Setia City Convention Centre in Setia City outside Kuala Lumpur on Monday night of 10th
Mike Busey, who fancies himself as the “King of Rock and Roll Debauchery,” was arrested early Saturday during a house party at his Florida home he fondly calls the Sausage Castle. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Busey, who is the nephew of actor Gary Busey, was booked into the Osceola County jail on charges of selling alcohol without a licence. The paper says that on Friday night, an undercover investigator with the Osceola County Sheriff#39;s Narcotics Enforcement Team visited the Sausage
Biography for Cristina Marcucci Country/Territory:Guatemala Age:24 Height:1.70 Hometown:Ciudad de Guatemala Cristina Marcucci Girón was crowned Miss Earth Guatemala 2013 on October 9, 2012. The 24-year-old beauty from the Capital City is a student of food engineering. She will represent Guatemala in the Reinado Hispanoamericano 2012 and Miss Earth 2013 beauty pageants.
Biography for Isabella Agbor Ayuk Born 1986 Cross River, Nigeria Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) Hair color Black Title(s) Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria 2012 Major competition(s) Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria 2012 (Winner) Miss Universe 2012 Isabella Agbor Ayuk (born 1986) is best known for stirring controversy based on age grounds shortly after winning the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria pageant in 2012. Originally scheduled to represent her country at Miss World 2012, she is now Nigeria#39;
Daniel Barden, who played soccer and swam on the Newtown Torpedoes swim team, received a fireman#39;s funeral. “There#39;s a new playground in heaven, a playground with 20 beautiful, perfect little angels,” school-bus driver Gary Wheeler said in the packed church during the 10 a.m. service. “Daniel is one of those angels.” Daniel Barden of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., wanted to be a fireman when he grew up – only the 7-year-old doesn#39;t get to grow up. Honoring the first-
The Guilt Trip is a film as familiar as a mother’s voice, in more ways than one. Playing a frustrated son and his overbearing mother, Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand elevate a formulaic script with their easygoing chemistry in this road-trip mom com. They produce as many laughs as they do cringes, but the film’s feel-good message is undermined by its ultimate purpose: As a vindication of the rights of Jewish mothers to annoy their children as much as they please. Rogen plays Andy, a schlubby organic chemist who’s having trouble selling his invention, a nontoxic cleaning spray. The product, clumsily named Scieoclean, is a would-be bestseller, but Andy makes a worse salesman than Tiger Woods shilling monogamy. With the last of his savings he plans a last-ditch effort to drive across the country pitching Scieoclean to several big box stores. Andy spends the day before his Jersey-to-Vegas trip with his well meaning but tirelessly chatty mother. Joyce (Streisand) is the kind of older widow who’s found a routine that’s nice and busy enough for her post-retirement years, but one that doesn’t include the emotional risks of dating. Over dinner, Joyce confesses to Andy that the love of her life was the boyfriend she had before meeting his father. A quick Google search shows that this long-lost beau also happens to be an advertising exec in San Francisco, a discovery that leads Andy to suggest Joyce join him on the eight-day trip. Of course, he casually leaves out the detail that their final destination has been moved to California, and that he hopes her ex-boyfriend will help him market his floundering product. Joyce and Andy’s travels lead them through some very familiar road-trip movie situations. Their car breaks down during a freak snowstorm, one of them takes up the challenge to eat a big chunk of cow in a Texas steakhouse, and they wonder aloud about how long they’re supposed to respectfully marvel at the Grand Canyon. These are pleasant diversions, made enjoyable by Rogen’s gregariousness and Streisand’s twinkling, gamine eyes, but amount to very little. Their journey finally gets into gear when Joyce stops her mindless nattering about sock sales at the Gap and confronts her son about his semi-hidden scorn for her. Again, the emotional beats are entirely predictable, but the rapport between the actors make them convincing. Rogen has more to work with: Andy’s a focused and ambitious adult who hasn’t yet realized that he has more growing up to do. He has a lot of hurt in his life, and it doesn’t help that Joyce’s idea of keeping in touch mostly consists of her (unknowingly) reminding him of his professional and romantic failures. Rogen also does the comedic heavy lifting here. His sarcastic one-liners are so spontaneously and perfectly delivered they have to have been improvised on the spot. (Streisand reportedly improvised some of her lines too, but she lacks her co-star’s effortless droll wit.) Streisand has much less to do, but manages to add spark to her limited material. She sells Joyce’s phobia of dating with just a few gestures and skillfully mines the character’s contradictions. There’s a lovely moment halfway through the trip when a handsome stranger approaches to court her. Andy watches the scene unfold from some distance and gently teases her about it afterward. Flustered by the unexpected male attention, Joyce squeaks out an admonishing but embarrassed, “Don’t be disgusting,” even though she’d shown nothing but eagerness to discuss his girl troubles. The script needs more of those intimate, role-confusing moments to pull the character out of her shell and make her more than just “Andy’s mom.” That we have no idea what Joyce has done in the three decades since meeting Andy’s father and taking this trip is a particularly glaring omission. Though Andy undergoes the bigger transformation, it’s safe to say it’s the Jewish mother — the archetype, not Joyce — who gets her revenge in the film. She fights dirty too, by appearing in the guise of a nice, attractive sexagenarian without a sadistic bone in her body. As the latest iteration of the Oedipal nightmare that is mothers who try to stuff their sons back into their wombs, Joyce is only an honorary member in that pantheon of disapproving control freaks. She isn’t a Talmudic scholar on the art of maternal passive aggression like Debbie Reynolds in Albert Brooks’ Mother or the sharp-eyed crones in Woody Allen films — she’s much too harmless and boring. But if Joyce isn’t much of a scold, the film sure is. In fact, The Guilt Trip can feel like one long, occasionally funny, occasionally haranguing reminder to love your mother. It dings Andy pretty hard for being exasperated by his mother’s penny-pinching and cluelessness, and the basic lesson he learns from their week together is that his mother has all the right answers to everything. The film even lays the source of Joyce’s most wounding behavior, her inadvertent twists of the knife already lodged deep in Andy by life and failure, at his feet. If you’d only call , the film says, I’d know not to hurt you . Oy vey. Inkoo Kang is a film critic and investigative journalist in Boston. She has been published in Indiewire, Boxoffice Magazine, Yahoo! Movies, Pop Matters, Screen Junkies, and MuckRock. Her great dream in life is to direct a remake of All About Eve with an all-dog cast. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Most Hated Celebrities Of 2012 2012 has been quite a tough year for some people. There are millions of people in the country and it’s difficult to peeve all of them off. Somehow, these people managed to earn the hatred and anger of most of the country. They tried hard, succeeded and became the most hated celebrities of 2012. So, so sad. Feel free to add to the list and see who you want to throw shade at.
Quentin Tarantino says slavery continues in the United States. The outspoken filmmaker — whose spaghetti southern Django Unchained unflinchingly depicts the brutality of slavery — stoked the debate on race Tuesday night when he appeared on the Canadian television talk show George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight to suggest that the United States’ “war on drugs” and its “mass incarcerations” of black men is “just slavery through and through.” Tarantino didn’t cite these figures, but he could have: According to the New York Times, half of the 2.3 million Americans in prison or jail are black, an astonishing figure when compared to 2011 U.S. Census information that indicates blacks comprise only 13.1 percent of the country’s population. In other words, he’s got a point, and this is a conversation our country should stop avoiding. Tarantino was promoting Django Unchained , which opens Christmas Day, on Stroumboulopoulos’ CBC show when he made the controversial comments, and it will be interesting to see whether they get any traction in the U.S.— especially since the national debate is now focused on gun control in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. shootings. A spokesman for George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight provided Movieline with a video clip of Tarantino’s segment and a transcript of his comments. Check them out below and let me know whether you agree with Tarantino’s remarks in the comments section. George Stroumboulopoulos: So you know this film is gonna deal with the conversation about race in America today, people will talk about it. What do you feel about where it’s at? Quentin Tarantino: Uh… It’s… You know, there is… On a day-to-day, day-in, day-out basis for most people in America, it’s okay. Things have gotten a lot better. People are a little too sensitive to talk about stuff, and that’s a drag, but you know that’s, that’s how it is. But on a bigger level, it’s very depressing. This whole thing of the, this “war on drugs,” and the mass incarcerations that have happened pretty much for the last 40 years has just decimated the black male population. It’s slavery, it is just, it’s just slavery through and through, and it’s just the same fear of the black male that existed back in the 1800s. And uh, you know there’s a reason – I mean, especially having even directed a movie about slavery, and you know the scenes that we have in the slave town, the slave auction town, where they’re moving back and forth. Well that looks like standing in the top tier of a prison system and watching the things go down. And between the private prisons and the public prisons, the way prisoners are traded back and forth. And literally all the reasons that they have for keeping this going are all the same reasons they had for keeping slavery going after the whole world had pretty much decided that it was immoral. GS: Right. Business first. QT: Because it’s like, because it’s an industry. And one, what are we gonna do with all these people that are let loose, you know, these black people let loose, and two, what are we gonna do about all of the people that make money off of this industry? READ MORE on Django Unchained: Quentin Tarantino Defends Violence in ‘Django Unchained’ Samuel L. Jackson Says He Burned Off Jamie Foxx’s Nipples In Cut ‘Django Unchained’ Scene [ George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight , New York Times , U.S. Census Bureau ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
