Sports Illustrated looked back on 22 years of Major League by interviewing nearly everyone involved in the making of the sports classic with one notable exception: the incarcerated Wesley Snipes . Not that he would have wanted to contribute anyway. “A couple years after Major League I saw Wesley,” recalled co-star Corbin Bernsen. “I said, “Hey, man, they’re gonna make Major League II !” And he was like, ‘You’re gonna do that?’ And I thought, ‘Wow, how quickly they forget.’ He’d become Wesley Snipes. That rubbed me the wrong way.” [ Sports Illustrated ]
Oscar winner, letter writer , Godfather… drum innovator? Turns out Marlon Brando was all of those things, an avid inventor with multiple patents to his name including one for a revolutionary tuning system for conga drums. Said prototype still sits in a storage facility in West L.A., which NPR visited recently to get the scoop on Brando’s secret scientific pursuits.
Stephenie Meyer, the dastardly empress of Twilight , is joining forces as a producer with Jerusha Hess (co-writer of Napoleon Dynamite ) for Austenland , a romcom about a woman who “spends her life savings on a trip to an English resort catering to Jane Austen-crazed women.” Keri Russell plays the woman, and she’s flanked by J.J. Field, Bret McKenzie, Jennifer Coolidge, and Jane Seymour. Factoid: Meyer and Hess are both Mormon. Eek! I was traumatized in high school by our district’s sole Mormon, who used to brag constantly that he never masturbated. Spoiler: He went bald at 19 and seems twitchy. Hold me, Dustin Lance Black! [ THR ]
She is a rich girl, now is living in Beijing … … her name is Ruan Weixi or nicknamed Big Child VC, known for her online shop “Big Child” on taobao.com. She was born at 90s in Shangyu, Zhejiang province, with height of 167cm. Ruan Weixi, who was in born in the 1990s and is from a wealthy family. Recently, some netizens exposed a girl photo on micro-blog, which is suspected to be mistress of Nicholas Tse, the gossip says that the woman has been kept by Nicholas Tse mistress for two years, tha
If you don’t already know who Abigail Clancy is, you should, the woman is quite a specimen. Here she is showing off her incredibly tight body in the pages of Esquire while she lounges on some lucky dude’s motorcycle. Awesome. I didn’t think you could show this much breast without actually showing the breast. Impressive. She’s managed to make these shots seem classy and trashy all at the same time. I love her.
Father Alberto Cutie , a bestselling author of self-help books and radio talk show host as well as a former Roman Catholic priest, will join the ranks of gabbers and host a daily show devoted to life matters. He is known in many circles as Father Oprah. 2011 BET Awards Disappoints Some & Angers Others “It’ll be everything from sex to salvation,” Father Alberto is triumphing with a smile from the tv screen . Hopefully it’ll invite “greater dialog” with the audience, he added. Sorta Oprah meets Dr. Phil meets Bishop Sheen , the only other religious personnage who ever fronted a national TV show. (And that was in the 1950s!) The show is being licensed by Debmar-Mercury and the first station group to step up for a launch test is Fox. MTV’s New Crop Of Teen Moms Need To Be Looked After [OPINION] The show will preview on a number in July. The Fox test markets will include N.Y. and L.A., the country’s top two markets. Other non-Fox outlets may be invited to join the test as well. Father Alberto left the Roman Catholic Church two years ago over ideological differences and to marry the woman he loved. Cutie is now an Episcopal minister. Here is the trailer: What do you think? I really do want to know.
The 23-year-old released his first solo album, My Girl, in March this year, joining fellow SS501 members Park Jung Min, Heo Young Saeng and Kim Hyun Joong in the solo market. He penned the lyrics for two of his songs in the album – Another Woman and Heaven – dedicating the latter to his friend Park Yong Ha, who passed away last June. Korean pop idol Kim Hyung Jun almost broke down during the recording of his song Heaven, a song he wrote and dedicated to the late actor-singer Park Yong Ha. B
Songs in A Minor was ‘just my truth at that time,’ Keys says on 10th anniversary of album’s release. By Rebecca Thomas Alicia Keys performs onstage during the BET Awards ’11 Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images By the time 20-year-old Alicia Keys came on the scene in 2001, a 21st-century “around the way” girl from New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen, reigning rap&B princess Lauryn Hill seemed to be coming undone. Just a month after Keys’ classic Songs in A Minor was released, Hill taped an edition of MTV’s “Unplugged” during which she told the audience her “public persona had held her hostage.” Eventually, Hill gave up battling fame and retreated from the industry altogether. And it was in this landscape that Keys made her debut. For girls looking for a different voice, Keys, a corn-rowed beauty who still walked with a tomboy’s gait, proved to be that figure. When MTV News caught up with Keys last week, on the eve of the 10th anniversary re-release of the piano-driven A Minor (collector’s and deluxe editions will hit e-tailers and retailers on Tuesday), she told us why she thought fans connected so deeply to her and the Grammy-winning album she calls her “coming of age.” “I think that people related to Songs in A Minor because it was just my truth at that time,” Keys reflected of the J Records album helmed largely by her and production partner Kerry “Krucial” Brothers. “And I really wanted to just be me. I didn’t want to be anybody else, I didn’t want to be, you know, that girl with all the super fancy dresses, and all the, like, big … hair!” she said, bursting into laughter. Indeed, Keys favored midriff-baring tops, snug jeans and the (relentlessly copied) variations on zigzag spider braids, coming off as just a more polished version of the girls you bumped into riding the subway. Even now, one of the best-selling recording artists of her generation, Keys endearingly sprinkles her speech with street dialect. “I just wanted to be myself, and being myself was like being every girl I knew, you know? Being every girl in Harlem, in Brooklyn, in Queens. So I think people really could, hopefully, feel that.” Keys will make a hometown stop with her piano-only mini-tour on Thursday at New York’s Beacon Theatre, where she’ll revisit mega-singles like “Fallin’ ” and “A Woman’s Worth,” as well as her personal favorite “Troubles” and some tracks from the Songs sessions that fans will find on the new editions. What’s your favorite track from Songs in A Minor ? Tell us in the comments! Related Videos MTV News Extended Play: Alicia Keys Related Artists Alicia Keys
Critics grade Cameron Diaz’s irreverent flick as it enters a mixed bag of summer comedies. By Eric Ditzian Cameron Diaz in “Bad Teacher” Photo: Gemma LaMana As “Bad Teacher” opens this weekend, it joins a mixed bag of summer comedies. While we’re still giggling over certain “Bridesmaids” moments and can’t wait to take in a second viewing on DVD, “The Hangover Part II” left us reaching for a copy of the original film to remind us why we were so taken with that boozy cinematic bunch. But hey, the second “Hangover” has grossed almost $500 million worldwide, so what the heck do we know? The Cameron Diaz-starring laugher , according to the critics, falls closer to the letdown that was the second “Hangover” than the revelatory “Bridesmaids.” Reviewers have criticized the film for plot holes galore and poor character development, even as most have admitted it delivers a hefty helping of laughs. Read on for a deeper dive into the critics’ take on “Bad Teacher.” The Story “Director Jake Kasdan coaxes some laughs out of the film, but only Jason Segel, as a cynical gym teacher, seems like a real person instead of a caricature. Everyone else seems like they’re trying just a touch too hard. Elizabeth Halsey (Diaz) gets dumped by the rich guy she was going to marry for money, forcing her to come back for another year of teaching junior-high English. But she is not without goals; her immediate one is to figure out how to get enough money to pay for breast implants, which she thinks will help her more easily land a replacement sugar daddy. The operation is tough to afford on a teacher’s salary, of course. But one day handsome Scott Delacorte (Timberlake), the heir to a watch-making fortune, shows up as a substitute teacher, giving Elizabeth a suitable target.” — Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic The Performances “The movie, of course, belongs to Diaz. She’s always projected a sort of girlfriend-gone-wild sass that suggested she’s a hell of a lot of fun after a couple of mango margaritas; ‘Bad Teacher’ is one of the few films that’s allowed her to show that. And not only does she show it, she flaunts it, from a wardrobe that’s tighter than next year’s school budget to a vocabulary that’s definitely not on any standardized test. But she’s not alone. The wonderful Lucy Punch — the gold digger from ‘You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger’ — is a nagging toothache as a too-perfect teacher. Comic actors such as Thomas Lennon drop by for brief but marvelous scenes, and Jason Segal is a menschy gym teacher. Justin Timberlake, however, remains too cool to really commit to his oddball character, a substitute teacher that the man-hungry Diaz fixates on.” — Stephen Whitty, New Jersey Star-Ledger The ‘Bad’ Comparisons ” ‘Bad Teacher’ wants to be ‘Bad Santa’ but it’s afraid to go as far as Billy Bob Thornton’s gleeful middle finger to holidays and proper treatment of children. So it ends up trapped in a nowhere middle-ground, somewhere between ‘Bad Santa’ and the equally hilarious but family friendly Jack Black movie ‘School of Rock.’ Both of those movies had somewhere to go and a way to get there, but ‘Bad Teacher’ just goes and doesn’t really seem to know where it’s going. The script has its moments and the cast has a few too.” — Josh Tyler, Cinema Blend The Missteps “The main problem with ‘Bad Teacher’ is that it’s really just one joke, which is stretched further than the uneven script by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (vets of TV’s ‘The Office’) will permit. Jake Kasdan’s flat direction doesn’t help. … ‘Bad Teacher’ has its amusing moments, but also many where you can’t help wondering about the comedic choices. If you’re going to have the hung-over instructor getting her young charges to watch movies all day, aren’t there funnier picks than just a succession of teacher-themed movies? And if you’ve already decided your film is going to get an American ‘R’ rating — the profanity alone guarantees that — then why not take a few more risks with your comedy?” — Peter Howell, Toronto Star The Final Word ” ‘Bad Teacher’ does not always connect with every joke, and there’s one character in particular that seems to have been abandoned by the screenwriters midstream, but when the film works, it contains some wicked belly laughs, and I’ll give Cameron Diaz credit for this: she seems delighted to play a total a–hole.” — Drew McWeeny, HitFix Check out everything we’ve got on “Bad Teacher.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘Bad Teacher’ Related Photos ‘Bad Teacher’ Premieres In New York
‘I feel like I’m definitely more creative,’ singer says of her music and motherhood. By Rebecca Thomas Alicia Keys Photo: Akshay Bhansali/MTV News If Alicia Keys was a little tired this week, it would be understandable. The wife of Swizz Beatz and new mommy to 8-month-old Egypt has been on a non-stop promo run to celebrate the 10th-anniversary re-release of her seminal, multi-Grammy-Award-winning debut, Songs in A Minor, that includes a transatlantic mini-tour, a live performance at this Sunday’s 2011 BET Awards and a spate of sit-downs with outlets like MTV News. But are you even surprised that the woman who penned a song called “Superwoman” wasn’t the least bit tired when MTV News caught up with her on Wednesday? In fact, the resplendent Keys (sporting some sun-kissed tan lines when we saw her) said she’s feeling “amazing.” “I never was one to get a lot of sleep anyway, because of the nature of what I do and how much we fly and how much we work,” Keys told us. “So honestly, I’ll tell Egypt, ‘That’s all you got?! You only got waking up every three hours, that’s it? C’mon!’ ” she joked about her unbreakable stamina. “I guess in a way, I was built for it,” she added of motherhood. Because whereas new moms often lament the onset of “brain mush” brought about by relentless nighttime feedings and a dearth of zzz’s, A.Keys said the changes in her life have only stirred up her creative juices. “The past year has been incredible; just so many blessings, being able to be a mommy, being able to be a wife and just really finding my center and my place of comfort. … Being a mom is like, spectacular. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had, period. I feel like I’m having more fun that I’ve ever had in my whole life,” she said. “I feel like I’m definitely more creative. I’m more thoughtful about my plans and the things that I do, so overall everything is like a hundred times better.” The Songs in A Minor 10th-anniversary edition is set to drop on June 28, and Keys’ intimate, piano-only show hits New York’s Beacon Theatre on June 30. Related Videos MTV News Extended Play: Alicia Keys Related Artists Alicia Keys
