With idled entertainment industry workers and Oscar-nominated actors among the interested observers, striking writers and studios are talking again after weeks of bargaining silence.
The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers started informal discussions Wednesday aimed at full negotiations and an end to the nearly 3-month strike.
In a goodwill gesture, the guild said it had decided against picketing the Feb. 10 Grammy Awards.
PHOTO: EPA
Both sides said a media blackout would be in place during the discussions.
Tom Cruise is set to be a presenter at the Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG) ceremony Sunday, joining a roster of A-list stars appearing on the show.
Cruise, a three-time Oscar and SAG Awards nominee, will help hand out the coveted trophies at the Shrine Auditorium. Cruise appeared as a presenter at the Academy Awards last year but has never performed those duties at the SAG Awards.
PHOTO: AP
The 45-year-old actor and movie mogul made news this month as the subject of an "unauthorized biography" and a four-year-old video that surfaced on the Internet in which he extols the virtues of Scientology.
Previously announced SAG Awards presenters include Steve Carell, Russell Crowe, Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, Forest Whitaker and John Travolta.
The SAG Awards will recognize performances in five film and eight television categories.
Ethan Coen's play Almost an Evening, a slight yet tantalizing collection of three short plays, suggests the co-creator of such acclaimed films as Fargo and No Country for Old Men could have a future on stage, too.
If these snippets are brief (80 minutes), the production by off-Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company at its tiny Stage 2, does not skimp on the quality of the cast. The company includes such first-rate performers as F. Murray Abraham, Elizabeth Marvel, Mark Linn-Baker and Jonathan Cake.
Now jumping off screens at IMAX theaters, U2 3D was shot during the Mexican and South American legs of U2's 2005-06 Vertigo tour. The 85-minute film, viewed through 3-D glasses, offers a dizzying, you-are-there quality that not only puts the viewer front and center, but behind, above and next to Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. It also places audiences amid the adoring crowds jostling in the stadiums of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Mexico City, Mexico.
If you're the kind of U2 fan who has longed to count the beads of sweat on Bono's noble brow or inspect the nap of Edge's knit cap, then you'll be happy to know technology puts you as close to the band members as a guitar tech.
Jose Canseco, the former major league slugger and admitted steroid user who exposed other players in his 2005 best-selling book, Juiced, offered to keep a Detroit Tigers outfielder "clear" in his next book if the player invested money in a movie project Canseco was promoting, according to a person in baseball with knowledge of the situation.
Four people in baseball confirmed that referrals were made from Major League Baseball to the FBI regarding Canseco's actions relating to the six-time All-Star Magglio Ordonez, who was not mentioned in Canseco's earlier book or in any other report on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. All four insisted on anonymity because they didn't have authority to speak about the events.
The FBI did not open a formal investigation because Ordonez said he did not want to pursue the complaint.
Canseco denied that he, or any associate of his, ever asked Ordonez for money to keep his name out of the upcoming book titled Vindicated.
"Absolutely not," Canseco said in a phone interview on Wednesday. He also said he had not been told about being the subject of FBI referrals.
Reached at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Ordonez said he didn't want to talk in detail about Canseco. Although he criticized him for writing his tell-all book, he said he didn't want to get involved with any formal investigation.- agencies
Feb. 17 to Feb. 23 “Japanese city is bombed,” screamed the banner in bold capital letters spanning the front page of the US daily New Castle News on Feb. 24, 1938. This was big news across the globe, as Japan had not been bombarded since Western forces attacked Shimonoseki in 1864. “Numerous Japanese citizens were killed and injured today when eight Chinese planes bombed Taihoku, capital of Formosa, and other nearby cities in the first Chinese air raid anywhere in the Japanese empire,” the subhead clarified. The target was the Matsuyama Airfield (today’s Songshan Airport in Taipei), which
China has begun recruiting for a planetary defense force after risk assessments determined that an asteroid could conceivably hit Earth in 2032. Job ads posted online by China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) this week, sought young loyal graduates focused on aerospace engineering, international cooperation and asteroid detection. The recruitment drive comes amid increasing focus on an asteroid with a low — but growing — likelihood of hitting earth in seven years. The 2024 YR4 asteroid is at the top of the European and US space agencies’ risk lists, and last week analysts increased their probability
For decades, Taiwan Railway trains were built and serviced at the Taipei Railway Workshop, originally built on a flat piece of land far from the city center. As the city grew up around it, however, space became limited, flooding became more commonplace and the noise and air pollution from the workshop started to affect more and more people. Between 2011 and 2013, the workshop was moved to Taoyuan and the Taipei location was retired. Work on preserving this cultural asset began immediately and we now have a unique opportunity to see the birth of a museum. The Preparatory Office of National
On Jan. 17, Beijing announced that it would allow residents of Shanghai and Fujian Province to visit Taiwan. The two sides are still working out the details. President William Lai (賴清德) has been promoting cross-strait tourism, perhaps to soften the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) attitudes, perhaps as a sop to international and local opinion leaders. Likely the latter, since many observers understand that the twin drivers of cross-strait tourism — the belief that Chinese tourists will bring money into Taiwan, and the belief that tourism will create better relations — are both false. CHINESE TOURISM PIPE DREAM Back in July
RSS