Actor Mel Gibson, who turned a Latin script on the crucifixion of Christ into box office gold last year, is in Mexico to shoot his latest film: an action movie shot entirely in an ancient Mayan tongue. The star turned independent director was in the eastern state of Veracruz this week where he is to film Apocalypto, a thriller set in an ancient Mayan settlement and shot in the Yucatec dialect.
Also taking on a new project, actor Michael Caine has signed up to portray a master 19th century magician in the movie The Prestige with Hugh Jackman, according to Variety.
He will also feature in the science fiction movie The Children of Men about efforts to save mankind's last baby. That movie will be directed by Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan.
PHOTO: AP
Legal woes have been dogging several stars over the previous week. A judge on Friday refused to dismiss child pornography charges against Grammy Award-winning vocalist R Kelly, rejecting arguments that the period in which the offenses were supposed to have occurred was too vague. Judge Vincent Gaughan of the Cook County Criminal Court said the 14-count indictment against the 36-year-old entertainer would stand and "the evidence is sufficient for Kelly to prepare a defense."
Carl Morgan, a member of the So Solid Crew rap group, was jailed for life on Friday for shooting to death his love rival last year.
Carl Morgan, 24, was sentenced by the Old Bailey criminal court in London following his conviction last week for the murder of Colin Scarlett, who was shot outside his south London home on Nov. 6 last year.
PHOTO: AP
Judge Brian Barker ordered that Morgan should serve a minimum of 30 years before he can be considered for parole.
The shooting resulted from a trivial domestic love feud that spiralled within hours into an armed confrontation over perceived "disrespect", the court had heard.
And music producer Phil Spector has been hit with a legal setback after a judge ruled that his comments to police after his arrest can be used by prosecutors in his murder trial.
Spector has pleaded innocent to murdering B movie actress Lana Clarkson at his home in February 2003. But he allegedly told police immediately after his arrest, "I didn't mean to shoot her."
Spector's lawyer claimed the comments should be inadmissible as he was suffering from dependency on prescription drugs, according to reports.
Lawyers for singer Janet Jackson have launched a legal offensive in a bid to remove from the Internet a video showing their client sunbathing nude in her back garden, according to MSNB.com.
The video first surfaced last week, at the same time as rumors that she had secretly given birth to a daughter 18 years ago. The clip was shot through a hole in the fence through which the photographer spied the singer lounging in the nude in an outdoor enclosure.
American actress Brooke Shields, who battled publicly over post-partum depression with superstar Tom Cruise, is pregnant with her second child.
The former child star of the controversial movie Pretty Baby, Shields, 40, and her screenwriter husband Chris Henchy, 41, are expecting their new baby in the spring of next year, according to the US entertainment media.
The announcement came just three weeks after Cruise and his fiancee Katie Holmes announced they were expecting their first child together.
But neither star is likely to be keen on running into the other at their local obstetrician's office.
Earlier this year Shields and Cruise fought a very public battle through the US media over her use of anti-depressants to tackle a severe bout of post-natal depression following the birth of her daughter Rowan in 2003.
British model Kate Moss has left the exclusive rehabilitation facility she attended in Arizona after she was photographed snorting cocaine use, her modelling agency announced.
Moss left the US$4,000-a-night Meadows institute in Phoenix, Arizona earlier this week and is staying with friends in the US before returning to work.
"Kate is in excellent spirits and looking forward to getting back to work. She would like to thank everyone for their messages of support as they have played a major part in helping her," according to a statement from her Storm modelling agency.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s