The Japanese collector who purchased Sam’s upright piano from Casablanca ‘s Parisian flashback for just $154,000 in 1988 is putting the piece of cinematic history up for auction. And as time goes by, movie memorabilia appreciates: On the auction block in December, the Casablanca piano could sell for as much as $1.2 million. Per THR and Gothamist , the piano from one of cinema’s most romantic films of all time appears in the Paris flashback scene as Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) prepare to part ways and he toasts, “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Just in time for Casablanca ‘s 70th anniversary , the piano is expected to sell via Sotheby’s on December 14 for “somewhere between $800,000 and $1.2 million.” A hefty price tag for most folks, but for the billionaire romantic out there it’s the perfect conversation piece for raising a glass, pulling a date close, and whispering “Is that cannon fire, or is it my heart pounding?” It could even be used as a (rather expensive) prop for Casablanca 2 … [ THR , Gothamist ]
Gabriel Aubry is telling a very different story than the one that’s been reported regarding his brawl and arrest for battery on Thanksgiving. With Halle Berry looking to get a restraining order against him, Aubry has already also obtained one against the actress’ fiancee, Olivier Martinez, saying in court documents that the French actor brutally beat him on Thursday after threatening him the day before. According to the Canadian model in a sworn declaration, this is what led to the Gabriel Aubry assault charges: At a school event on Wednesday, Martinez approached Aubry and told him – in French – that he wished he could “beat the sh-t out of him.” Fast forward to Thanksgiving around 10 a.m. and Aubry alleges that Martinez – as opposed to the nanny, which had been customary – met his enemy at the front door when Aubry dropped Nahla off to spend the day with her mother. From there, Martinez leaped off the stairs and went all Chris Brown on Aubry, beating him and yelling that Aubry cost him $3 million in his and Berry’s failed attempt to move Nahla to Paris . He slammed Aubry’s head against the driveway and eventually told him: “We called the cops… you’re going to tell them that you’re the one who attacked me, or I’m going to kill you.” Law enforcement officials tell TMZ that Aubry did not mention this threat when they initially talked to him at the scene. Berry’s side, of course, says that Aubry initiated the brawl, going “nuts” soon after dropping Nahla off for the day, according to the first report filed after this story broke. So it’s your basic case of He Said/He Said/This All Sucks for the Toddler Stuck in the Middle of It. Whose side are you on? Team Aubry Team Martinez View Poll »
Need some “Snow” for the holidays? Here ya go Young Jeezy Featuring Lil Lody “How It Feel” After dropping the video for his new song, “Get Right,” the Snowman strikes again with “How It Feel.” Young Jeezy enlists longtime production collaborator, Lil Lody, to play hypeman on this new joint called ,”How It Feel.” Jizzle has alluded to a new mixtape hitting the streets sooner than later with an album to follow up. Read more at Hip Hop Wired
Call her Bey-Casso cuz she’s nice with a brush! If Beyoncé ever decides to retire from the stage, she has a career as an artist ahead of her according to friend and fellow recording artist Alicia Keys. According to WENN reports : The “Crazy in Love” hitmaker stunned guests at a paint party Keys threw for her art collector husband Swizz Beatz by showing off her watercolor skills and the hostess is convinced the R&B superstar could make a living selling paintings. She says, “We had canvases everywhere and you did whatever you could – even if you could only splat paint on it… There was something so cool about that for people. Jay (Jay-Z) and B (Beyonce) came… Beyonce’s actually a really beautiful painter.” This actually isn’t the first we’ve heard of this talent. Bey talks about painting for relaxation’s sake all the time and back in February The UK Sun said she’d been honing her hobby at the urging of sister Solange: “Solange took painting lessons while living in Paris last year and has passed on tips to Beyonce and she’s really taken to it. “While her baby Blue Ivy is sleeping, she’s been getting the brushes out. “It’s a way for her to unwind. “She has already completed four canvases, including one of husband Jay-Z holding their daughter.” Would you buy a painting by BeyBey? WENN
Ang Lee ‘s Life of Pi is a doubled-edged argument for the transcendent capabilities of film. Its central section uses the latest technological achievements to transform the fantastical, fable-like tale of Yann Martel’s award-winning novel into some of the most innovative and wondrous images to flicker across the big screen this year. And in its framing story, one it returns to periodically as if needing to keep the audience from getting too caught up in the gorgeous abstraction of its narrative at sea, it provides a reminder of why we should trust more in those images, as it ploddingly trots out its source material’s heavy-handed and unnecessary delineation of its own themes. Those themes include faith and what fuels it. And in case anyone watching is in danger of not picking that up, Rafe Spall, in the role of a fictionalized version of Martel coming to interview the title character (played by Irrfan Khan as an adult) at his home in Canada, announces that he’s been promised a story that will make him believe in God. The nature of that God is a general one — Martel, and David Magee, who wrote the screenplay, are more interested in the idea of religion rather than one in particular. As a young boy, played by Ayush Tandon, Pi Patel becomes enchanted by Hinduism, then Christianity, then Islam, practicing them all with no sense that they need clash. As a grown man sharing his extraordinary tale of survival with a stranger who has come his way by chance, Pi remains a figure of strong but vague spirituality, though the film’s ultimate assessment of why people choose to believe in a higher power seems unlikely to please the devout. Life of Pi is also, more compellingly, about storytelling: the way we choose to present and frame the events that happen to us. Long before he’s stranded at sea with a tiger for company, Pi’s life is one that’s filled with strands of magical realism. Born in Pondicherry in French India, he’s named after a swimming pool in Paris that his uncle once visited. Its clear water is presented by the film as looking like air until swimmers ripple its surface as they dart across the screen. He and his brother Ravi (Vibish Sivakumar) spend their soft-focus childhood growing up on a zoo run by their reason-loving father (Adil Hussain) and their softer, more nurturing mother (Tabu). The animal inhabitants are showcased in a delightful opening credits sequence — all except the newest arrival, a Bengal tiger with the unlikely name of Richard Parker. The tragedy that strands a teenage Pi (played by perfectly adequate first-timer Suraj Sharma) in a lifeboat with Richard Parker in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is a terrifyingly realized storm that takes down the freighter transporting the Patel family and their menagerie to a new life in Canada. Water, whether in the form of a remembered pool or an angry sea swamping the deck of a ship, is the element that buoys the film along. Lee uses it as the medium for some unparalleled instances of 3-D, first in how our protagonist is thrown onto his tiny boat with a few panicked animals, riding giant waves that bring the larger vessel down to a resting place of haunting and tragic beauty. Later, as Pi and his dangerous companion struggle to reach some kind of accord that will allow for their mutual coexistence on a very limited space, the ocean stretches endlessly around them as a force of mystical capriciousness — sometimes it’s a mirror-still reflection of the sky, another time it offers up sustenance via a school of flying fish or takes it away in a dreamily alarming brush with a whale. The sea dwarfs the odd pair of travelers, the camera sometimes swinging out above the lifeboat to show it as a small blip in a vast body of water that resembles the cosmos. Pi’s continued existence and trials may be thanks to the whims of the universe — “I give myself to you!” he yells to whatever deity might be listening, “I am your vessel! Whatever comes, I want to know!” — but it’s his relationship with Richard Parker that provides the human side to this existential crisis. A seamless blend of real tiger and CGI, Richard Parker is a fully believable creation, and while Pi searches him for some sign of a soul, of some connection between living things, Life of Pi is careful not to anthropomorphize him. He’s a formidable beast, a potential killer, and the film’s best representation of its central question of whether there’s some design to existence or if it’s just a collection of chaotic and sometimes awful events. Unfortunately, Life of Pi also prods at this question during periodic returns to the present day with the grown Pi and Martel, and the scenes create the sensation of an author leaning over your shoulder as you read to point out all of the symbolism he doesn’t want you to miss. The story of Pi and Richard Parker already has the clean simplicity of a myth and really doesn’t require significant elaboration, but following in the footsteps of the source material, the film provides elaboration anyway, demonstrating a condescension to the audience that dulls the spectacle it punctuates. The past and the present day become an example of not just the contrast between the classic poles of showing and telling but of the fundamentally cinematic and the not. Pi’s reliability as a narrator is one of the key aspects of the story, but the heightened sensibility of his account is contrasted not with some underlying sense of another reality but of a framing story that’s only there as a vehicle for authorial exposition. Lee’s movie is a grand gesture of filmmaking pushed to its furthest technical edges, but hemmed in and confined by its fidelity to words on a page. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
So Rihanna ‘s in the middle of doing her insane 7 cities in 7 days thing, and here she is performing the London leg of her 777 tour. One of the things I like best about Rihanna is that, unlike other pop stars, she’s obviously not obsessed with making a ton of dumb wardrobe changes during a show. It’s way better to just find an outfit that works and stick with it. And this one definitely works for me. » view all 48 photos Related Articles: Rihanna Has Paris Hilton Boobs Rihanna’s Got Milk Rihanna Knows How to Get Me Going Rihanna’s Breasts Might Be A Little Cold Photos: WENN.com
Quentin Tarantino has one of the most eagerly awaited films of 2012 and most audiences won’t get a first glimpse until Christmas, but that hasn’t stopped speculation that it may be an Oscar contender and may be one of the Pulp Fiction filmmaker’s best to date. Yet, Django Unchained may be the beginning of his filmmaking sunset, the director hinted. In an interview with Playboy , Tarantino said that he doesn’t want to be an “old-man filmmaker,” and saying flat-out that he wants to “stop at a certain point.” “Directors don’t get better as they get older. Usually the worst films in their filmography are those last four at the end. I am all about my filmography, and one bad film fucks up three good ones … When directors get out-of-date, it’s not pretty.” Tarantino, who has the big 5-0 staring him in the face said he wants to come out on a creative high-note, but he’s not quite sure when that end may come, though he seems to think he’s most of the way there. “I’m on a journey that needs to have an end and not be about me trying to get another job,” he said. “I want this artistic journey to have a climax. I want to work toward something. You stop when you stop, but in a fanciful world, 10 movies in my filmography would be nice. I’ve made seven. If I have a change of heart, if I come up with a new story, I could come back. But if I stop at 10, that would be okay as an artistic statement.” Beyond retirement, Tarantino gave some insight to his creative process and the use of an occasional (or maybe not-so-occasional) joint while tapping his creative juices. While he partakes, he said he’s completely grounded while in production. “I wouldn’t do anything impaired while making a movie,” he offered. “I don’t so much write high, but say you’re thinking about a musical sequence. You smoke a joint, you put on some music, you listen to it and you come up with some good ideas. …I don’t need pot to write, but it’s kind of cool.” Continuing, he added that he is apt to take liberties with history in order to give the audience an unexpected twist and to simply make stories his own: “You turn on a movie and know how things are going to go in most films. Every once in a while films don’t play by the rules. It’s liberating when you don’t know what’s happening next. …I thought, What about telling these kinds of stories my way – rough and tough but gratifying at the end?” Initially, Tarantino had sought out Will Smith as Django, the title lead in the film about a slave-turned bounty hunger who sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal plantation owner, but then momentum segued toward Jamie Foxx. “[Will and I] spent quite a few hours together over a weekend when he was in New York doing Men in Black 3 . …I think half the process was an excuse for us to hang out and spend time with one another. …It just wasn’t 100 percent right, and we didn’t have time to try to make it that way.” About Leonardo DiCaprio’s villain, Calvin Candie, Tarantino said that he despised the character, which is an about-face of sorts for the filmmaker who typically finds an affinity with his bad guys. “I hated Candie, and I normally like my villains no matter how bad they are. …what I’m always trying to do…is get you to kind of like these guys, despite on-screen evidence that you shouldn’t. Despite the things they do and say and despite their agenda. I also like making people laugh at fucked-up shit.” And should the filmmaker retire as he has hinted, might he settle down? Tarantino gives his take on a more domesticated – Quentin Tarantino: “If I had a wife, I would probably be more polite. She would make me write thank-you notes, which I won’t do on my own. I wouldn’t be such a caveman. If I want to live in Paris for a year, what the fuck? I can. I don’t have to arrange anything; I can just do it. If there is an actor or director I want to get obsessed with and study their films for the next 12 days, I can do that. The perfect person would be a Playmate who would enjoy that.” [ Source: Playboy ]
Quentin Tarantino has one of the most eagerly awaited films of 2012 and most audiences won’t get a first glimpse until Christmas, but that hasn’t stopped speculation that it may be an Oscar contender and may be one of the Pulp Fiction filmmaker’s best to date. Yet, Django Unchained may be the beginning of his filmmaking sunset, the director hinted. In an interview with Playboy , Tarantino said that he doesn’t want to be an “old-man filmmaker,” and saying flat-out that he wants to “stop at a certain point.” “Directors don’t get better as they get older. Usually the worst films in their filmography are those last four at the end. I am all about my filmography, and one bad film fucks up three good ones … When directors get out-of-date, it’s not pretty.” Tarantino, who has the big 5-0 staring him in the face said he wants to come out on a creative high-note, but he’s not quite sure when that end may come, though he seems to think he’s most of the way there. “I’m on a journey that needs to have an end and not be about me trying to get another job,” he said. “I want this artistic journey to have a climax. I want to work toward something. You stop when you stop, but in a fanciful world, 10 movies in my filmography would be nice. I’ve made seven. If I have a change of heart, if I come up with a new story, I could come back. But if I stop at 10, that would be okay as an artistic statement.” Beyond retirement, Tarantino gave some insight to his creative process and the use of an occasional (or maybe not-so-occasional) joint while tapping his creative juices. While he partakes, he said he’s completely grounded while in production. “I wouldn’t do anything impaired while making a movie,” he offered. “I don’t so much write high, but say you’re thinking about a musical sequence. You smoke a joint, you put on some music, you listen to it and you come up with some good ideas. …I don’t need pot to write, but it’s kind of cool.” Continuing, he added that he is apt to take liberties with history in order to give the audience an unexpected twist and to simply make stories his own: “You turn on a movie and know how things are going to go in most films. Every once in a while films don’t play by the rules. It’s liberating when you don’t know what’s happening next. …I thought, What about telling these kinds of stories my way – rough and tough but gratifying at the end?” Initially, Tarantino had sought out Will Smith as Django, the title lead in the film about a slave-turned bounty hunger who sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal plantation owner, but then momentum segued toward Jamie Foxx. “[Will and I] spent quite a few hours together over a weekend when he was in New York doing Men in Black 3 . …I think half the process was an excuse for us to hang out and spend time with one another. …It just wasn’t 100 percent right, and we didn’t have time to try to make it that way.” About Leonardo DiCaprio’s villain, Calvin Candie, Tarantino said that he despised the character, which is an about-face of sorts for the filmmaker who typically finds an affinity with his bad guys. “I hated Candie, and I normally like my villains no matter how bad they are. …what I’m always trying to do…is get you to kind of like these guys, despite on-screen evidence that you shouldn’t. Despite the things they do and say and despite their agenda. I also like making people laugh at fucked-up shit.” And should the filmmaker retire as he has hinted, might he settle down? Tarantino gives his take on a more domesticated – Quentin Tarantino: “If I had a wife, I would probably be more polite. She would make me write thank-you notes, which I won’t do on my own. I wouldn’t be such a caveman. If I want to live in Paris for a year, what the fuck? I can. I don’t have to arrange anything; I can just do it. If there is an actor or director I want to get obsessed with and study their films for the next 12 days, I can do that. The perfect person would be a Playmate who would enjoy that.” [ Source: Playboy ]
Leryn Franco is some Olympic track and field star from some country I am not gonna bother googling…who also does some modeling….and more importantly…sun tanning…on the beach in some amazing bikini bottoms…that showcase her abilities or at least potential capabilities as a javelin catcher….and by javelin…I mean cock. To See The Rest of the Pics FOLLOW THIS LINK
Tamara Ecclestone is a billionaire…or at least the heir to a billionaire…cuz her dad is a billionaire…making her richer than Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian and luckily equally tacky, attention starved and low level…I mean sure she doesn’t have a sex tape, but she’s from the UK, they are more sophisticated than that, they prefer to keep their smut less about penetration and more about showcasing their fake tits…in the low quality photoshoots the blue collar commoners can masturbate to when they aren’t sweeping chimneys…and the whole thing is funny…because she’s a fucking billionaire…and showcasing her fakers….is totally something she does not have to be doing…making it as much amazing as it is ridiculous.
