Futuristic Weaponry and “Red Dead Redemption”
Callan McAuliffe Talks Action in “I Am Number Four,” Futuristic Weaponry and “Red Dead Redemption”
“Going from shooting my friends online to actually shooting and blowing stuff up in I Am Number Four was pretty cool,” laughs Callan McAuliffe.
Callan got to live out every modern guy’s dream with his role as Sam in D.J. Caruso‘s I Am Number Four. He gets thrust into a paranoid, pulsating thrill ride rife with intense action and super cool weaponry.
I Am Number Four centers around John [Alex Pettyfer]. John has got something very special inside of him, but there’s a deadly enemy that wants to make sure he never realizes the full scope of his power. Three have already been knocked off, and he’s Number Four. Sam’s the outcast in John’s high school that’s along for the journey.
In this exclusive interview, Callan McAuliffe talks about I Am Number Four, getting to fire off some futuristic weaponry, favorite video games, film score and more!
MTV Does Music Again
Does MTV Care About Music Again? The MTV Music Meter Is A Good Start
Posted by Reid McCarter on December 16th, 2010 1:40 PM
We can be forgiven for thinking that, at times, MTV has lost touch with its roots. Between the constant parade of banal reality shows and Bigfoot-sighting frequency of music videos featured on the network it can seem as if the company has given up on actually trendsetting in the world of music. Luckily the release of the MTV Music Meter, an innovative and relevant new charting system, proves this theory wrong by displaying the company’s renewed commitment to current music.
The MTV Music Meter, only just launched in beta, puts the modern music charts where they belong — into the hands of a digital democracy. By accessing the Music Meter fans are able to view a daily list of the top 100 artists currently getting buzz around the internet and then carry on to check out any of the subject’s photos, videos, bios, tweets, music, similar artists and more.
The MTV Music Meter is, in this sense, just a charting system (albeit a more interactive one). What makes it noteworthy, however, is that it is a charting system that is determined by an algorithm (developed by MTV and EchoNest) that crawls the web for the most popular blog postings, video streams and other social media hype-machines. The daily top 100 is then composed from these findings, representing a traffic-driven approach to pop chart listings influenced by the real majority — that is, anyone with a computer and an opinion.
The Great Blake Edwards Gone
Director Blake Edwards dies at 88
December 16, 2010 | 10:01 am
Blake Edwards, the veteran writer-director whose films include the “Pink Panther” comedies, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Days of Wine and Roses” and “10” and whose legendary disputes with studio chiefs inspired his scathing Hollywood satire “S.O.B.” has died. He was 88.
Edwards, whose collaborations with his wife, Julie Andrews, included the 1982 comedy “Victor/Victoria,” died of of complications of pneumonia Wednesday evening at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, said Gene Schwam, Edwards’ longtime publicist. Andrews and members of their immediate family were at his bedside.
Edwards scored his first box-office hit with “Operation Petticoat,” a 1959 comedy about a World War II submarine crew starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. But a turning point in Edwards’ film career came in 1961 with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
Antikythera in LEGO®
Actually, Dianna Agron is a lot hotter than Hermione
‘I Am Number Four’ trailer: Is James Frey’s book-turned-film the next ‘Twilight’ or ‘Harry Potter’?
Dreamworks / In ‘I Am Number Four,’ Alex Pettyfer plays an alien who falls for ‘Glee’ star Dianna Agron.
With the “Harry Potter” franchise ending next summer and “Twilight” wrapping up a year later, it’s quite likely the wizard and vampire fads are on their way out. If so, a new sci-fi fantasy trend will have to take the reins.
Can we interest you in aliens, perhaps?
That’s the hook for “I Am Number Four,” the D.J. Caruso-directed film whose explosive second trailer was just released earlier this week.
Based on the novel co-written by “A Million Little Pieces” author James Frey (under the pen name Pittacus Lore), “Number Four” tells the story of a group of teen aliens who are hunted on Earth, but who can only be killed in a numerical sequence.
Stuff Mr. Rogers In Your Stockings
Statutory Rape In The Eye Of The Beholder
German man castrates teenage daughter’s 57-year-old boyfriend
An enraged father who disapproved of his daughter’s older boyfriend went to his home and castrated him with a bread knife.
Helmut Seifert, 47, an ethnic German originally from Russia, was enraged when he heard his 17-year-old daughter was having a relationship with Phillip Genscher, 57.
He went to police in the town of Bielefeld where he lives but officers said they were powerless to intervene.
“The man then recruited two work colleagues at his factory and then went to the house of the victim,” said police.
“The man was forced to remove his trousers and, fully conscious, he was castrated. The severed testicles were taken away by the perpetrator.”
The man was close to bleeding to death but managed to call police. His life was saved but he remains a eunuch for life.
Mona Lisa’s Eyes
The real-life Da Vinci Code: Historians discover tiny numbers and letters in the eyes of the Mona Lisa
By NICK PISA and LUKE SALKELD
Intrigue is usually focused on her enigmatic smile.
Hidden symbols: This eye is thought to contain L and V, the artist’s initials
But the Mona Lisa was at the centre of a new mystery yesterday after art detectives took a fresh look at the masterpiece – and noticed something in her eyes.
Hidden in the dark paint of her pupils are tiny letters and numbers, placed there by the artist Leonardo da Vinci and revealed only now thanks to high- magnification techniques.
Interview With God
EW exclusive: God the Almighty dishes on his new memoir, Twitter page, and Justin Bieber
Image Credit: Mehau Kulyk/SPL/Getty Images
Sometimes as an entertainment journalist, you’ll get a great interview assignment, whether it’s Matt Damon or Michael Caine, but rarely are you offered a one-on-one with a figure so prestigious, so well-known, and with such staying power as I was recently. In order to promote His upcoming memoir from Simon & Schuster, as well as His recently launched Twitter page, the big cheese Himself, God, deigned to speak from the heavens directly into the ear of this humble servant of Time, Inc. (All right, he may have had some help from former executive producer of The Daily Show David Javerbaum.) Like many in my field, I’ve interviewed aliens before, but this is a totally different deal. Read our entire sacrilicious exchange below.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Why a memoir, and why now?
GOD:
Lo, I grew weary of being misinterpreted, and blasphemed, and relegated to sneeze detail; and I longed to telleth all; and it was a matter of urgency, for on April 23, 2013, I shall bring about on Earth an event of such cataclysmic… well, ye will have to read the book.
Nice tease. And what other topics will Thee be addressing?
My topics shall include: The secret history of Adam and Steve; what it was like working with Moses, St. Peter, Mohammed, and other legends of the field; which sports teams I truly root for (hint: Go Blue Jackets!); and, because I can see everyone at all times, I will have much to offer by way of celebrity gossip. It will be in a section that I will call “God-sip”! Getteth it?
Yes.
Like “gossip,” but with “God”?
It’s very clever.
I make this covenant with ye, Keith: This will be a juicier book of revelations than any since The Book of Revelation.
Literarily speaking, who are your influences?
Aesop, The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and James Frey.
SOUR MIRROR – The Most Incredible Music Video Ever Created
Keith Richards De-flowers Librarian Named Marie
Keith Richards Kills Orchid (and His Dream of Becoming Librarian)
Posted By: Deb Sperling
It seems that, even though the rest of us aren’t allowed to so much as close our eyes at the New York Public Library, Keith Richards can do whatever he wants.
Shortly before giving a talk at the Cullman Center, the Rolling Stone lit up a cigarette in Deputy Director Marie d’Origny’s office. He then stubbed it out on a clay saucer he grabbed from underneath her precious orchid. Just to make sure the famously hard-to-care-for flower was really dead, he had someone open the office window to let in a breeze.
IMAX for I AM NUMBER FOUR
DreamWorks’ “I Am Number Four” and “Real Steel” to unspool on digital screens in 2011
TORONTO — Imax Corp. has pacted with DreamWorks Studios and The Walt Disney Studios to release two Touchstone Pictures releases, I Am Number Four and Real Steel.
“The inclusion of two live-action DreamWorks titles in our 2011 slate enables us to expand the range of content available to Imax theatres and extend our brand deeper into our growing 18-34 audience segment,” Imax CEO Richard L. Gelfond said in a statement.
D.J. Caruso‘s I Am Number Four, set to be released on Feb. 18, 2011, is an action thriller about an extraordinary teen, played by Alex Pettyfer, who is hunted by ruthless enemies.
Timothy Olyphant and Dianna Agron (Glee) also star.
When The Butt Drag Goes Bad
“Richard plays the creepiest, twitchiest guitar solo we’ve ever heard.”
New Full-length trailer: I AM NUMBER FOUR
‘I Am Number Four’: Trailer
By WSJ Staff
The first project from James Frey’s so-called “fiction factory,” “I Am Number Four,” is set to hit the big screen soon. The film adaptation of the bestselling fantasy book tells the story of nine baby aliens who are raised on Earth. Frey wrote the book along with co-author Jobie Hughes. Here’s a look at the trailer.
Anchovy and Bleu Cheese Toasts
Rolling In The Deep
Gawker Artists
“An art brand”: Gawker Artists looks at the image beyond the display ad
Five years ago, Chris Batty, until this week Gawker’s vice president of sales and marketing, was looking to fill un-purchased ad space on the site. He wanted to forgo the “horrendous creative” of ad networks that litter sites with penny stocks and would keep his sales teams pushing buttons instead of building relationships. Batty sought something prettier, more intimate, more unique for the company’s growing real estate. At the time, he was living with a woman who worked for Christie’s art house, and he prodded her to find artists to fill the empty space. She didn’t act on Batty’s inspiration, but he did — bringing images of artists’ work to stand alongside Gawker’s blog posts.
The result was a workaround that gave Gawker full control over its pages’ aesthetics. Born as a stopgap to complement blog posts, Gawker Artists is now taking on an unexpected life of its own — it became a standalone site in 2006 — in large part by thinking of art not merely as a pretty placeholder for text but as something that could survive on its own. Something that could be modeled and monetized. “Gawker Artists is an art brand rather than an editorial brand,” Gawker Media’s director of marketing, Erin Pettigrew, points out. That’s a major distinction in an industry that uses the word “art” as shorthand for photos, infographics, cartoons, and any other visual.
G.A. curators — working with more than 1,400 artists with 35,000 images — tailor and export work to media partners like Elle, Curbed, and The Atlantic. They hang pieces at Gawker’s notoriously bit-focused office, and are in talks to curate work for the headquarters of another high-profile startup. G.A. organizes sponsored exhibitions and events and collaborates with brands on creative projects. Soon, it will launch an art shop that sells limited-edition prints.
I AM NUMBER FOUR Street Sheet
Mo’ Picasso
Staggering Picasso trove turns up in France
PARIS – Pablo Picasso almost never stopped creating, leaving thousands of drawings, paintings and sculptures that lure crowds to museums and mansions worldwide. Now, a retired electrician says that 271 of the master’s creations have been sitting for decades in his garage.
Picasso’s heirs are claiming theft, the art world is savoring what appears to be an authentic find, and the workman, who installed burglar alarms for Picasso, is defending what he calls a gift from the most renowned artist of the 20th century.
Picasso’s son and other heirs say they were approached by electrician Pierre Le Guennec in September to authenticate the undocumented art from Picasso’s signature Cubist period.
Instead, they filed a suit for illegal possession of the works — all but alleging theft by a man not known to be among the artist’s friends. Police raided the electrician’s French Riviera home last month, questioned him and his wife and confiscated the disputed artworks.
New One Sheet for I AM NUMBER FOUR
Terry Richardson’s Diary
Live Group Sex Tonight
Rauschenberg: “More than 6,000 works of art, some of preposterous size and ambition.”
Fruitful Talent Who Made Art World Multiply
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
“Robert Rauschenberg,” a survey at Gagosian Gallery, includes “Palladian Xmas” (1980), with acrylic, fabric and collage on wood. More Photos »
By HOLLAND COTTER
Robert Rauschenberg, the subject of a chock-a-block time capsule of a show at Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, was an optimist and a doer. He not only did what artists normally do: make paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs. He also did the work of performers, musicians, philanthropists and career politicians.
He danced, composed, gave away money and initiated diplomatic missions, always on behalf of art. He believed that if he, or we, or anyone could just produce enough art, then art and life would be the same thing, and the world would change for the better. So, committed universal citizen that he was, he kept trying to make enough.
He made a lot. He was blessed with sunny energy, immense talent and an unstoppable creative flow, the equivalent of stream of consciousness in literature. For years on end, that stream rushed forward, turning whatever it swept up — childhood memories, art history, street junk, nature, the daily news — into gold. Then for stretches, and quite lengthy ones, it meandered and pooled. Even then, the flow never stopped. In a six-decade career, Rauschenberg turned out more than 6,000 works of art, some of preposterous size and ambition.
All I Want For Xmas Is A GG Allin Bobblehead Doll
Happy Thanksgiving
“Four years after Oprah attack…”
James Frey forced to defend literary ethics, four years after Oprah attack
Following Oprah reprimand over first book, the controversial US writer is now accused of exploitation for group writing project
James Frey, the bad boy of American letters who was given a very public dressing-down by Oprah Winfrey over his first book – in which he passed off fiction as memoir – is back in the headlines over his latest venture, a collective writing project that some have accused of being brutal and Dickensian.
Wherever Frey goes, controversy is never far behind. Back in 2003, A Million Little Pieces, sold 8m copies but landed him in trouble after bits of it were found to have been invented.
Up to now, he has never seemed that fazed by the opprobrium heaped upon him. As an author in a crowded US literary market, there is, after all, no such thing as bad publicity.
But judging by his reaction, the reception of his new project, Full Fathom Five, has got under his skin this time.
Frey genuinely sounds peeved at the attack he has come under for what detractors say is exploiting young, unknown writers. “People like to make me out to be a villain. I don’t love that. I really have no interest in being cast as a bad boy in this case.”
The idea for Full Fathom Five emerged, he says, from his passion for the Harry Potter series. “I loved the Potter books, I read every one the day they came out. I think books are important and I wanted to help keep young people reading them like I did as a kid.”
Frey saw collective writing as a way to get around the conundrum of having umpteen ideas for clever commercial book series but never enough time to write them. He also liked the idea of applying the model of an art studio along the lines of those run by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons to the book world.
So he came up with the concept of a book-writing factory that would go beyond the basic model of existing companies such as Alloy, which use teams of writers to produce books to order.
Ideas for books, or ideally series of books, would either come from him or an author recruited to the Full Fathom Five stable. Then Frey would hold the writer’s hand, providing critical feedback as they wrote.
The finished product would be sold to publishers and/or film studios, and the writer would be given a share in the royalties as incentive to produce their best work.
He started to appeal through colleges and writing courses for budding young writers prepared to write for little upfront, in the hope of fame and riches down the line.
Frey now has 30 in his stable and has sold 12 books of three separate series. The first series, Lorien Legacies, which is hung around the conceit of a teenager alien landing in Ohio, has already been launched in the US and in the UK by Michael Joseph/Puffin and is being made into a film by DreamWorks.
The others are The Montauk Project, which centres on a 16-year-old girl who stumbles into a time machine in an old military base that really exists at the end of Long Island, and The Other World Chronicles, a modern retelling of the Arthurian legend which has been optioned by Will Smith’s film company.
The good news for Frey is that with such deals already in the bag, Full Fathom Five is off to a flying start. The bad news is the drumbeat of criticism that is building.
It began with one of the lead authors of the first volume of the Lorien Legacies, I Am Number Four, calling in lawyers to represent him in his dealings with Frey. Writer Jobie Hughes complained that he has not been credited for the book, which appeared under a pseudonym. Then New York magazine published an article by a young woman who had been in negotiations with Frey to join his factory but had been dropped by him. The magazine also revealed what it described as the “brutal” terms of the contracts offered to writers.
The contentious elements include: an upfront payment of just $250 (£156) to the writer for an entire book, which is pitiful unless the book is sold, at which point they get 30%-40% of any royalties obtained; the fact that Frey retains all final creative control and the copyright of the work in his company, with total power to decide what happens to the book; and a system of fines if the writer breaks the terms of the contract. A publishing lawyer told New York magazine that he had never seen a contract like it in his 16 years of negotiations.
Frey insists the portrait of him as a ruthless exploiter of youthful talent is wrong on several counts. First, his contracts vary according to the degree of experience of the writer and according to whether the idea for the book came from him or them.
He estimates that the central storyline of about 85% of the books under way originated with him.
Second, the contract is no more nor less “brutal” than standard contracts you would find in the law or film world. “I’m running a business in a highly litigious society. The contract is simply designed to protect Full Fathom Five and our partners like DreamWorks.”
As for the credit issue, he says many of the books he will commission will have the authors’ real names fully credited. But some will not, as fits the story in question.
I Am Number Four was written in the voice of a 16-year-old alien called Pittacus Lore, and so had that name attached to it to enhance the literary device, as was fully agreed by Hughes, Frey says. Similarly, the character of the 16-year-old girl at the heart of The Montauk Project is credited as the author as a fictional trick.
What seems to have irritated Frey most intensely is the depiction of him as money-grabbing exploiter-in-chief. That is not his motivation at all, he says: “I know I’m the bad boy of American literature, but that’s not what this is about. I’m doing this because I love books.”
For someone with a reputation as controversial as his, Frey runs the risk of sounding as though he protests too much. Watch this space: this particular controversy has the potential to run and run.
Roasting Richard Prince
ROASTING RICHARD PRINCE
The roast of artist Richard Prince at the Friars Club on East 55th Street in Manhattan on Nov. 17, 2010, turned out well, by all accounts. RoastmasterGlenn O’Brien gave a masterful speech, toasting the guest of honor with witty one-liners — some borrowed from Prince’s own paintings — and a comic reading of the actual jokes contained in Sigmund Freud’s Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious. “Many of us consider Uncle Miltie to be the originator of appropriation,” O’Brien noted. “He was really an archivist, he assembled the Milton Berle Private Joke File, which contains over 10,000 jokes, only a small percentage of which have been appropriated by Richard Prince, the Milton Berle of art.”
Accompanying O’Brien on the piano was jazzman Robert Aaron. Second on the dais was Stuart Parr, Eminem’s producer, who read what purported to be congratulatory telegrams from Larry Gagosian, Peter Brant, Silvio Berlusconi, Arnold Scwharzenegger and other notables, hilarious impersonations that were all done in the proper accents.
Among the attendees, seated around half a dozen tables in the “Milton Berle Room,” dining on halibut or veal chops, was Prince himself, of course, with his wife, Noel, plus Guggenheim Museum curator Nancy Spector, artist Dan Colen, photographer Terry Richardson, Sotheby’s chief Lisa Dennison, neurosurgeon Dr. Frank Moore and his wife Nina, Cynthia Rowley and husband Bill Powers, Alberto and David Mugrabi, Tony Shafrazi, Rachel and Jean-Pierre Lehmann, writer James Frey, and Adam Lindemann and his wife, dealer Amalia Dayan.
“His methods of destruction varied by gadget.”
Destroyed Apple Products
This makes me wince a little because of my love of apple products but the results look very cool, a series of smashed, mangled, shot up and melted apple products are the subject of a recent photography project by a san francisco graphic designer who said he’s trying to make people think about their relationship with these universally beloved gadgets.
Michael Tompert said he had spent the last several months purchasing the newest in apple consumer technology and then creatively destroying the pricey toys. the results, which he photographed, briefly went on display at a gallery exhibition that ran over the weekend at the small gallery in San Francisco. Tompert said the idea for the project came to him after he gave each of his two sons an ipod touch for christmas. He said the two boys fought over one of the devices, which had a certain game on it. fed up with the quarrel, Tompert said he grabbed one of the ipods and smashed it on the ground. ‘they were kind of stunned – the screen was broken and this liquid poured out of it. I got my camera to shoot it, my wife told me that i should do something with it.’
His methods of destruction varied by gadget. to destroy an iphone 3g device, he used a heckler & koch handgun to blow a hole through it. to obliterate a set of ipod nanos, he placed the devices on a train track so that a locomotive would run over them.
Hugh Hefner, Martin Amis and James Frey were standing at the urinal reading a Playboy from 1973, when…
A REPORT: PEN USA / JAMES SALTER / PLAYBOY
I was in a thrift store buying some clothes last week and under the counter I saw a stack of old Playboy magazines. Although it’s hardly possible to be an adult in America and not have at least a passing acquaintance with hardcore pornography, I realized I couldn’t remember ever having looked inside an actual copy of Playboy. So for $5 I bought the copy on top of the stack, the June 1973 issue featuring Marilyn Cole, playmate of the year, with fiction by Joyce Carol Oates, Robert McNear, and George MacDonald Fraser (yes, the issue contains three short stories).
where is she now?
A few days ago, a friend asked if I wanted to go to the PEN USA awards. Knowing absolutely nothing about the year’s nominees or awards, I said I’d love to. It was last night. I got in a car accident on the way (not at fault), but everything was fine, no harm no foul. The first person I recognized at the awards was James Salter, who I love. I’d recently reread his extraordinary Paris Review interview. (“Salter at one point estimated that he has had eighty-seven hundred martinis in his life.”) A collection of his letters with Robert Phelps, Memorable Days, came out this summer and is lovely. Dusk, his first short story collection, was also just re-released by Modern Library. He said he and his wife Kay had flown out just for this event, at which point I realized that he was one of the evening’s two main honorees. The other was Hugh Hefner.
Hefner was to get an Award of Honor and a First Amendment Award. Old issues of Playboy were being auctioned off. Some for a lot of money. I wondered if mine was worth a lot of money. (It isn’t.) Hefner was a gravitational presence in the room. Everybody who spoke mentioned him. All these men seemed giddy that they were in a room with “Hef” (who wore a black suit with a red shirt and was accompanied everywhere by his two blonde girlfriends and his bodyguards). None of the women did, except one smart and lovely woman who said, “Hef is here… oh God, how do I get his attention? I just want to be a Playmate,” as if she were joking, except secretly I think she wasn’t joking. I went to the bathroom and was at the urinal and Hefner came in, bringing to three the number of famous men I have urinated near (the other two being Martin Amis and James Frey). The bodyguards came in, too. It made me nervous.