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5 Things You Need to Know About Alexander Wang (omg!)

Editor - Entertainment News — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:28:04 +0000

He may share the same surname and industry as the famed Vera Wang, but Alexander Wang (unrelated to Vera) is a breakout fashion designer on his own. Besides boasting a celebrity fan base like Mary-Kate Olsen and Gwyneth Paltrow, the 28-year-old has seen the success of his line skyrocket to popularity in just four years. Here’s what you need to know about the Californian-born style star.

PHOTOS: See Gwyneth Paltrow in Alexander Wang

He’s a college dropout. After moving to NYC to attend the prestigious Parsons The New School for Design, Wang began to ditch classes and officially withdrew from the college his sophomore year. Just two years later, he launched his first women’s collection, Alexander Wang, in 2007. (His diffusion line, T by Alexander Wang, hit stores in 2009.)

Rural residents strike back at Lucas film empire (omg!)

Editor - Entertainment News — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:27:59 +0000

NICASIO, Calif. (AP) — Luke Skywalker would be proud. A rebel alliance has formed in the hills north of San Francisco to fight a perceived Evil Empire.

The alliance is a group of Marin County homeowners. Their phantom menace is George Lucas, the world-renowned filmmaker whose Star Wars Trilogy sky-rocketed him to acclaim and fortune.

The plot is simple: Lucas wants to expand his filmmaking empire in the quiet valley that has been home to his Skywalker Ranch for three decades, building a 270,000-square-foot digital media production compound on historic farmland known as Grady Ranch. Neighbors say the massive structure will constrain their lifestyle with additional noise, traffic and harmful environmental impacts on the pristine countryside.

But the plot thickens. Other neighbors say Lucas has been a stellar neighbor and a steward of the land who has protected massive swaths of agricultural acreage from housing developments, while

Norwegians seek A-ha! moment in North Korean music (AP)

Editor - Entertainment News — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:27:55 +0000

OSLO, Norway – An arts festival in northern Norway is offering a rare glimpse into North Korean culture this weekend, including performances by musicians whose accordion version of A-ha’s megahit “Take on Me” has become an online sensation.

Organizers said the five North Korean accordion players provided the soundtrack Saturday as 250 Norwegian border guards formed a human canvas by holding up colored cards in shifting patterns — a tradition in the reclusive communist country.

The performance at the “Barents Spektakel” festival in Kirkenes, on Norway’s Arctic border with Russia, was choreographed by two North Korean directors.

Artist Morten Traavik, who recorded the YouTube clip and invited the musicians to Norway, said he wants to challenge “negative perceptions” of North Koreans.

“For many it is a revelation that North Koreans open up and play Western pop music with such great joy,” Traavik told The Associated Press.

The video showing the five musicians playing the 1980s

Rural residents strike back at Lucas film empire (AP)

Editor - Entertainment News — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:27:40 +0000

NICASIO, Calif. – Marin County’s planning commission will hear arguments for and against allowing filmmaker George Lucas to expand his movie-making empire in the quiet hills just north of San Francisco.

Some Marin County residents are balking at the planned 270,000-square-foot digital media production compound on historic farmland known as Grady Ranch. They worry the facility will constrain their lifestyle with additional noise, traffic and harmful environmental impacts on the pristine countryside.

But Lucasfilms officials insist the compound will be similar to the Skywalker Ranch, a sound facility hidden in hills for 32 years without complaint. They will hide the new digital filmmaking structure in the hills and work to mitigate traffic while protecting hundreds of acres from further development.

Both sides will face off at the planning commission on Feb. 27.

Barbie’s wardrobe celebrated at Fashion Week bash (AP)

Editor - Entertainment News — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:27:37 +0000

NEW YORK – Barbie threw open the sparkly, pink doors of her dream closet to rock a party she hosted for her fellow fashionistas.

She (well, actually the Mattel marketing machine that has kept Barbie dolls a bestselling toy for more than a half-century) hired a DJ to keep the beat and made sure the drinks flowed Friday night as models — the real-life kind — worked the balconies of a Lincoln Center atrium dressed in some of Barbie’s watershed looks.

Guests mingled alongside a wall of pink-heeled pumps or stood before large computer screens to virtually rummage through the 53-year-old icon’s wardrobe, from career to couture. The technology produced parting gifts of photos for her New York Fashion Week friends to preserve their Barbie moments.

The dream closet tech was a demonstration of what kids can do at home on their own computers if they visit BarbieWow.com and have webcams.

“Everything’s awesome. I

Mafioso and murderer tackle Shakespeare in new film (omg!)

Editor - Entertainment News — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:26:27 +0000

BERLIN (Reuters) – Drug dealers, a Mafioso and a murderer are cast in the roles of Caesar, Brutus, Cassius and others in “Caesar Must Die,” a docu-drama about inmates at a tough Italian prison who take on a Shakespeare tragedy.

The movie, which has its world premiere at the Berlin film festival on Saturday, was shot at the Rebibbia prison on the outskirts of Rome, some of it in the high security wing.

Directed by veteran Italian film makers Vittorio and Paolo Taviani, “Cesare

Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan undergoes surgery (omg!)

Editor - Entertainment News — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:26:23 +0000

NEW DELHI (AP) — Bollywood’s biggest star Amitabh Bachchan underwent abdominal surgery on Saturday and was recovering well in a Mumbai hospital, his son said.

The 69-year-old actor has a history of stomach ailments following an intestinal injury he suffered while filming a movie in 1982.

His son, Abhishek Bachchan, said the surgery went well and his father was resting. He tweeted thanks to Bachchan’s fans for their prayers and get well wishes.

Affectionately known as “Big B,” Amitabh Bachchan has acted

Stars come out to honor Paul McCartney (AP)

Editor - Entertainment News — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:26:18 +0000

LOS ANGELES – Coldplay, Katy Perry, Tony Bennett and Neil Young plumbed Paul McCartney’s vast songbook in taking the former Beatle on a musical journey of his more than 50-year career.

They joined James Taylor, Diana Krall and Foo Fighters among others in launching Grammy weekend Friday night by honoring McCartney as the MusiCares Person of the Year.

McCartney, who turns 70 in June, was toasted for his musical achievements and philanthropic work two days before the Grammy Awards. “It’s great for me to be here,” he told the crowd in the Los Angeles Convention Center. “It’s fantastic to hear all these fantastic artists doing my songs.”

The dinner menu even reflected his vegetarian lifestyle, from the tomato and fresh mozzarella tower to the main course of grilled seitan and roasted vegetables in puff pastry. Seitan is a wheat gluten used as a meat substitute.

The former Beatle singled out Young’s rowdy version of

Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan undergoes surgery (AP)

Editor - Entertainment News — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:26:11 +0000

NEW DELHI – Bollywood’s biggest star Amitabh Bachchan underwent abdominal surgery on Saturday and was recovering well in a Mumbai hospital, his son said.

The 69-year-old actor has a history of stomach ailments following an intestinal injury he suffered while filming a movie in 1982.

His son, Abhishek Bachchan, said the surgery went well and his father was resting. He tweeted thanks to Bachchan’s fans for their prayers and get well wishes.

Affectionately known as “Big B,” Amitabh Bachchan has acted in around 180 films in a career spanning four decades in Bollywood, the home of India’s prolific movie industry.

In 1982, when Bachchan was injured on the set of his Hindi film “Coolie,” or ‘The Porter,” thousands of fans across the country prayed for his recovery. Two even committed suicide, hoping to trade their deaths for his life.

Over the last decade, Bachchan has endorsed a slew of products — from hair oil to

Spartacus, Episode 3: Things That Made Us Go "Ew!" (omg!)

Editor - Entertainment News — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:35:59 +0000

In Friday’s Spartacus: Vengeance, the rebels split into two factions, and it’s revealed just who helped Lucretia survive her nearly fatal wound.

After attacking a wagon transporting slaves, Spartacus’ men Agron and Nasir interrogate one of the Roman guards and then report that Naevia is dead. Crixus, teeth a-gnashing, is appropriately bereft to learn the fate of his lost love, but soon it’s revealed that Naevia is actually alive and working in the slave mines. You see, Agron lied “for the greater good” so that their gang could advance to Vesuvius instead of chasing after a woman. Oh no! Dissent among the ranks! Agron splits off, while Spartacus and other loyal rebels go to save Naevia. Unfortunately, in the process, Crixus is captured.

Spartacus, Episode 2: Things that made us go “Ew!”

Meanwhile,