A swarm of celebs including cast members turned out Monday night for the New York premiere of Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener starrer, Peace, Love & Misunderstanding at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The event, which benefited The Women’s Media Center, held its post-screening bash at the Royalton Hotel in Midtown. The party didn’t take a cue from the film’s hippie-vibe, but who needs bohemian when there’s champagne and sliders to guzzle! Along with Fonda and Keener, fellow cast members Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chace Crawford, NatWolff, Marissa O’Donnell and Maddie Corman joined in for the party hosted by Forevermark and The Wall Street Journal. Directed by Driving Miss Daisy director Bruce Beresford, the film, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall (followed by a U.S. debut at the Woodstock Film Festival – natch!) follows Manhattan lawyer Diane (Keener) who drives her teenage son Jake (Nat Wolff) and adult daughter Zoe (Elizabeth Olsen) to visit their Woodstock-bound hippie grandmother Grace (Fonda), who the kids have never met. Grace stages protests, smokes and sells dope, but their weekend getaway morphs into a summer adventure of romance, music and more. “It was amazing to have such veteran actors like Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener working alongside newcomers [at the time] Nat Wolff and Elizabeth Olsen,” Peace producer Claude Dal Farra told ML. “This was actually the first movie-set for Elizabeth and Nat.” Others at the party Monday included Robin Morgan, GloriaSteinem, Carol Alt, Ashleigh Banfield, Joshua Bell, Jewelle Bickford, Sandy Brant, Julie Burton, Ron Claiborne, Jamie Colby, Alan Cox ( The Dictator ), Rebecca Dayan ( Celeste & Jesse Forever ), Aleksa Palladino ( Boardwalk Empire ), Savanna Wise ( Smash ) and Casper Zafer ( The Vampire Diaries ). IFC Films will open Peace, Love & Misunderstanding beginning this Friday. [Photo credit: Amanda Schwab/Starpix]
Burke sentenced to prison for conspiring to distribute more than 100 kilos of marijuana. By Gil Kaufman Kareem ‘Biggs’ Burke Photo: Getty Images One of the co-founders of Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fellas Records, Kareem “Biggs” Burke, was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday after pleading guilty to conspiring to distribute more than
Bieber gets his dance on with new Believe track, which dropped Tuesday. By Jocelyn Vena Ludacris and Justin Bieber Photo: Getty Images Justin Bieber has re-teamed with his pal Ludacris on “All Around the World,” off his forthcoming album Believe , and this party track is a far cry from the sugary sweet puppy-love track “Baby.” Grinding, fist-pumping and produced by the Messengers, the song sounds a bit like it could have been recorded by Bieber’s mentor Usher. A likely contender for the song of the summer, he’ll no doubt have fans dancing along with the track. It’s a definite party anthem, full of bleeps, dubstep breakdowns and swirling production. “All around the world/ People want to be loved, yeah/ ‘Cause all around the world/ They’re no different than us,” Bieber proclaims on the club-banging chorus. When Luda pops in to drop his verse, he’s no longer rapping about first love as he did on “Baby.” He’s definitely upped the swagger for this track, mirroring Bieber’s more mature stance on the track. He spits, “Once again, dynamic duos are back!/ JB, Luda!/ I love everything about you/ You’re imperfectly perfect!/ Everyone’s itching for beauty/ But they’re just scratching the surface.” For the single’s artwork, Bieber is holding an acoustic guitar over his shoulder, standing on the surface of the world, the moon glowing behind him. The acoustic guitar is an interesting choice given how much of a dance song “All Around the World” is. This is the third song dropped ahead of the album’s release on June 19. He already has girls swooning with “Boyfriend” and “Die in Your Arms.” According to Aceshowbiz.com , Bieber will release another new track, “As Long as You Love Me,” on June 12. “All Around the World” isn’t just the name of a new Bieber song. It also happens to be the title of his prime-time special airing June 21 on NBC . The hour-long show will give fans a behind-the-scenes look at his global promotional tour in support of the album. And given the chaos he’s caused everywhere he’s been, including stops in Norway and Paris , it should make for some interesting viewing. Related Videos MTV First: Justin Bieber Related Artists Justin Bieber Ludacris
RELEASE: McCaskill Opens Kansas City Campaign Office at Event with Volunteers and Supporters Office Will Serve As Hub of McCaskill’s Grassroots Campaign in Support of Missouri’s Middle Class Families Kansas City, Mo. — Today, Senator Claire McCaskill joined supporters and volunteers at the opening of the Missouri Democratic Party’s Coordinated Campaign office in Kansas City. At the event, Claire thanked… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Show Me Progress – Front Page Discovery Date : 03/06/2012 16:35 Number of articles : 2
Ashley Biden, the daughter of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, got married on Saturday to Philadelphia surgeon Howard Krein before more than 200 friends and family. The couple wed at the steepled St. Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church, in Greenville, Delaware. It’s the same church where she was baptized. The ceremony combined the bride’s Catholic traditions and the groom’s Jewish ones. Afterward, the reception took place at the Biden family’s lakeside home in Wilmington, Del., for a reception and dinner served family-style in the backyard. The Vice President and his wife, Jill Biden, re-sodded the property and planted special fast-growing vines up the latticework around the party tent. Joe Biden escorted the bride , who wore Vera Wang, down the aisle and had prepared to be emotional about giving away the youngest of his three children. “I kept telling Ash, we’ve got to open up the church and practice walking up and down the aisle so I can handle it,” the V.P. said last week. He reminisced about the last time he saw Ashley Biden in a veil – at her First Communion. “I think to myself, aw, God, my little girl! This can’t have passed so quick.” Krein, 45, surprised his bride Biden, 30, on Saturday with their honeymoon destination, a family source said. They will make their home in Philadelphia. Ashley is a Delaware state social worker who works with troubled children. She met Howard in 2010, after meeting through Beau Biden, her older brother. Howard Krein proposed last October, at sunset on a cliff in Big Sur, Calif. – but not before getting “Pop’s” permission first, said the elder Biden. ” This is the right guy,” the V.P. said. “And he’s getting a helluva woman.” And a helluva father-in-law. Congrats to the whole family!
The first trailer for the Tony Gilroy-helmed spy sequel The Bourne Legacy has arrived, and it’s got everything you want: Bone-crunching action, fire extinguisher guns, Rachel Weisz as a hot lady doctor, and Jeremy Renner banging around doing his sensitive-strong mooney-eyed thing (and leaping out of rivers half-naked) as secret agent Aaron Cross. Okay, those are all the things I want from The Bourne Legacy , but the trailer gives us one more essential bit: Explanation as to how and why Renner’s been retconned into Bourne lore at all. Renner’s turn at the Bourne wheel isn’t a conventional sequel or reboot but a universe-expanding parallel storyline that seems to take place simultaneous to the events of the previous Bournes, with Matt Damon ‘s face popping up here and there — via photograph, a la Natalie Portman in The Avengers , or Robin Harris in House Party 2 — as the fugitive spy who upturned the Treadstone apple cart and set the spy world a’scramblin way back in 2002’s The Bourne Identity . So Renner’s Aaron Cross — and the comely agency doctor (Weisz) who patches him up between missions, then goes on the run with him — are freed from the singular mission that Jason Bourne was on. They can flee for their own lives, together. He can use his medically-enhanced super soldier skills to leap from buildings into tight alleyways when she calls his name. So romantic! And, also importantly, Renner’s Cross already seems like a much different man-spy than Bourne was. Damon played the tortured amnesiac thing well, but Cross doesn’t seem to be flailing about in some existential crisis; he knows what he is. That confident self-possession is magnetic. HE JUST WANTS TO LIVE, DAMMIT! At least, that’s what I got from these two minutes and change of trailer footage. And let’s not forget what else the trailer promises: Oscar Isaac. Ed Norton. No more shaky-cam! Verdict: In, obviously. From Universal: The narrative architect behind the Bourne film series, Tony Gilroy, takes the helm in the next chapter of the hugely popular espionage franchise that has earned almost $1 billion at the global box office: The Bourne Legacy. The writer/director expands the Bourne universe created by Robert Ludlum with an original story that introduces us to a new hero (Jeremy Renner) whose life-or-death stakes have been triggered by the events of the first three films. For The Bourne Legacy, Renner joins fellow series newcomers Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach and Oscar Isaac, while franchise veterans Albert Finney, Joan Allen, David Strathairn and Scott Glenn reprise their roles. The Bourne Legacy is in theaters August 3.
With the band (apparently) calling it quits after 25 years, Bigger Than the Sound offers a eulogy. By James Montgomery Dean Ween Photo: Chris McKay/ WireImage In my review of Ween ‘s 2007 album La Cucaracha (which also happens to be the last time they were mentioned on this website), I referred to them as “musical cockroaches,” the kind of scurrying, scrounging band that — much like the titular (and totally gross) arthropod on the record’s cover — was capable of surviving nuclear holocausts and subsisting on a bar of soap for weeks at a time. “In essence, Ween are indestructible,” I wrote. “They will be here long after you and I are gone.” It turns out, I was wrong about that last point. Because on Tuesday, Aaron Freeman, better known to bong-rippers and Scotchgard-huffers everywhere as Gene Ween, told Rolling Stone that he was retiring the mantle and ending Ween, saying, simply, “It’s been a long time; 25 years. It was a good run.” Of course, this apparently came as a surprise to Freeman’s partner for the past quarter-century, Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo, who reportedly wrote on his private Facebook page that the band’s breakup “is news to me, all I can say for now I guess.” There’s been no official announcement on Ween’s site , and as late as 2010, the duo were talking about entering the studio to begin work on the follow-up to Cucaracha, though, from the sound of things, those sessions probably didn’t go all that well … if they ever happened at all. But if this really is the end of the band, well, most fans probably saw it coming. After an infamous onstage meltdown at a Ween show last year, Freeman entered rehab (and just released a solo album, Marvelous Clouds ), and in recent years, Melchiondo has devoted most of his time to his side-job as a fishing guide (he describes himself as both a “pretty good conversationalist” and “fully insured”). Still, none of that makes the news any less of a bummer, especially for folks like me, who grew up with Ween, got sh–faced at their live shows — a genuine rite of passage for any fan — spent endless smoky nights dissecting their wildly divergent back catalog and, as a result, would go on to process popular music through their own uniquely cracked spectrum. Freeman is right: It was a good run. And that’s why it’s taken me almost a day to write this column. After all, how does one encapsulate their 25-year career, which began in eighth-grade typing class and has encompassed tape-machine schlock, bizarre, brain-addled semi-hits — 1993’s “Push Th’ Little Daisys” — critical acclaim and Pizza Hut commercials (and master classes in old-school country & western, nautical prog, Beatles-y psych, Buffett-y calypso and, uh, Philly Soul, to name just a few of the dozens of genres they’ve skewered)? Because of all that, they most certainly rank up there as one of weirdest acts of all time, earning their rightful place alongside the likes of Zappa, Spike Jones, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Captain Beefheart … though, to me, Ween were always something more: They were an entry point to all that oddity, the first of their kind. The moment I heard “Dr. Rock” or “The Stallion, Pt. 1” (from 1991’s The Pod ), I could practically feel my musical consciousness being expanded, and from that moment on, everything was different. In a lot of ways, Ween made me. I followed them through every twist and turn, often as puzzled as I was delighted ( 12 Golden Country Greats and The Mollusk remain two of my favorite albums ever). But through it all, Ween remained an important band for me, an old favorite, a reminder of the good times when I didn’t know better and when it was socially acceptable to wear basketball shorts and sit cross-legged in smoky dorm rooms all day long. And while nothing I write can effectively eulogize them, I do think that, in closing, it’s important to defend them in one regard: No matter what anyone tells you, Ween were never a “joke” band. They were a terrific band, one adept at doing anything — mostly because they wanted to — and brilliant enough to carry it out to the nth degree. The attention to detail on albums like White Pepper or Mollusk was the kind of thing only true musicians (and music aficionados) could muster — if Ween were gonna do a prog record, you’d better believe it was gonna sound like a prog record — and that held true to the very end. On what might very well end up being their final album track (the smooth-jazz-slaying “Your Party,” from La Cucaracha ), not only did they nail the buttocks-clenching uprightness of the genre, but they went out and got none other than David Sanborn to play satin-sheet sax on the thing. That goes beyond mere humor; it’s pure genius. And that’s what Ween were, to me, and to a whole lot of other people too: musical geniuses. They just managed to hide it for 25 years — though those of us who worship at the altar of the Boognish knew otherwise. Ween may not have lasted forever, but the memories they’ve soundtracked certainly will. It’s a Brown day, indeed. Related Artists Ween
Having effectively won through attrition weeks ago, Mitt Romney officially wrapped up the Republican nomination for president last night with a win in the Texas primary. Romney’s win put an end to the GOP primary as the former Massachusetts Governor began to ramp up his general election message against President Obama. Just after 9 p.m., he Tweeted: “#1144. Thank You. Whatever challenges lie ahead, we will settle for nothing less than getting America back on the path to prosperity.” Despite surpassing the 1,144 delegate threshold, it was just a token evening for the presumptive nominee, whose rivals exited one by one over a month ago. Only Ron Paul is still fighting for delegates. With the White House out of reach, he seeks a prominent role at the party’s convention and in shaping its future. Romney didn’t make a speech last night, but the win was nonetheless symbolic, making him the first Mormon to be a major-party candidate for the presidency. The timing couldn’t have been better, as he is now being treated as an equal to Obama by the national media in what is sure to be a very close 2012 election. He’s pulled almost even with the president in voter surveys, currently trailing by just two percentage points in aggregated national polls, 45.6 to 43.6 percent. Romney probably has a 50-50 chance of being the 45th President of the United States. He’ll distance himself from Donald Trump if he’s smart. Just saying. If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?
Speaking of hot nobodies, here’s Ashley Tisdale working it in her sexy little workout gear. I like it. I assume she’s just heading to the gym, that’s all she does these days, but I happen to like a girl in yoga gear. Who doesn’t? I just spent the better part of the afternoon sitting outside the local pilates studio. If anybody asks, that was someone else with a telephoto lens and an awkward package in his sweatpants.
Here’s that chick Holly Henderson in some sexy lingerie shots for something, I’m calling these lingerie shots, but she’s basically just hanging out in her underwear. And I for one am alright with it. If you don’t remember who she is, she’s the busty British chick who’s got some show called, ‘Sex, Lies And Rinsing Guy’ about big breasts bimbos who use men for money. Apparently since the first episode aired she’s been getting a lot of flack for her “disgusting” behavior and has even received death threats. Nice boobs though.
