Enzo distances self from Aljur issue

Enzo Pineda

Young actor Enzo Pineda is mum on the issue of Kapuso colleague Aljur Abrenica who filed a Judicial Confirmation of Rescission of Contract complaint against GMA Network last week.

“No comment. People come and go sa showbiz (and it) depends on your decision. These things happen. Hindi ko na po problema ‘yon,” he said at the pocket presscon of GMA Artist Center for its talents who are part of the 10th Cinemalaya Festival.

Though he is “sad” about what’s going on, Enzo said that ultimately, it’s “none of my business” and that his lone concern is his own work.

His advice to Aljur: “Kung sakaling friend ko siya, I would tell him to don’t burn bridges. It’s a small industry, small world and you just have to be thankful to what is given to you…”

Staying loyal

As for himself, Enzo is staying put with GMA-7.

“I started out sa GMA (so) I want to do my best dito. As much as possible, I want to start and end my career here. ’Yung loyalty ko siyempre dito (sa GMA),” he said.

He thinks it’s all the same whatever network an actor is signed to.

“Parang parehas lang naman ang opportunity na ibinibigay sa ‘yo, so you just have to make the most out of it. Just do your best.”

Challenging role

In Cinemalaya entry “Sundalong Kanin,” Enzo plays a soldier which required him to learn Tagalog lines that are “medyo malalim” and to fully understand the character’s objectives.

“Sumali ako ng guerilla unit. I was able to spy because of my expertise, nagamit ko ang mga kapatid ko. Kailangan nilang tumulong kasi mga mahal nila mamamatay,” Enzo said of his role.

It may be a period film but the actor feels today’s kids can still relate to its story set post-war.

“It’s always good to watch something na part of your country’s history and has sense of nationalism. Ito ‘yung pinagdaanan ng mga lola at lolo natin so you have to appreciate what we have now kasi maraming namatay na tao para lang magkaroon tayo ng freedom.”

Discovery

Enzo realized many things in doing his first indie film.

“It is good to surround yourself with people na hindi mainstream (because you realize that you do things) for the art itself.

“Also, emotion is just a tool in acting. Hindi porke nakakaiyak ka na, malungkot ka na, nagagawa mo na ‘yung scene. You have to understand your character,” said Enzo starred in mainstream movies “Kontrabida Girl” and “The Basement” in the past.

Enzo distances self from Aljur issue

Source: Mb.com.ph (July 30, 2014 at 10:27AM)

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‘Sesame Street’ aims to teach lesson to Times Square Elmo

A person dressed as the Sesame Street character Elmo walks through Times Square in New York July 29, 2014. REUTERS/Shannon Stapletonreu

(Reuters) – Elmo and Cookie Monster have long delighted young viewers on TV’s “Sesame Street,” but the recent antics of New York street performers dressed as the beloved characters have drawn the ire of city officials and now the show’s producers.

Sesame Workshop, which owns the rights to Big Bird, Ernie and the assorted puppet monsters on the 45-year-old program, said on Tuesday it was drafting plans to stop performers who dress up as the characters from appearing in Times Square, where they pose for photos with tourists and then demand tips.

“Sesame Workshop has not authorized the appearance of any Sesame Street costumed characters on public streets in any city,” said the nonprofit group that produces the internationally broadcast children’s program. “We care about our fans and the image of our brand and, like everyone else, we care about public safety on our streets.”

The statement came days after a man dressed as Spider-Man was arrested in Times Square for punching a police officer who scolded him for demanding money from tourists.

The motley group of performers has drawn increasing complaints from city leaders and law enforcement officials who view them as a nuisance.

Last year, a man dressed as Cookie Monster was arrested on suspicion of shoving a 2-year-old child whose mother failed to tip him, and a man dressed as Elmo was arrested in 2012 after going on an anti-Semitic tirade.

Sesame Workshop said it had been meeting with other “concerned” groups, including the companies that own the licenses to some of the other characters appearing in Times Square, to decide what to do about unauthorized costumed street performers.

The group declined to answer questions about its plan or say whether it would file a lawsuit or back proposed legislation aimed at regulating the performers.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday he was considering new licensing requirements and other rules to rein in the costumed performers.

“This has gone too far, and it’s time to take some real steps to regulate this new reality,” de Blasio said. “Once we have regulation, we’ll be able to say very clearly to everyone who does that work: ‘Play by the rules or you won’t be working here anymore.’”

(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Scott Malone and Peter Cooney)

‘Sesame Street’ aims to teach lesson to Times Square Elmo

Source: Mb.com.ph (July 30, 2014 at 10:20AM)

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‘Lucy’ box office bonanza lifts Besson fortune by $5 mln

Actress Scarlett Johansson arrives at the UK premiere of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” in London in a March 20, 2014 file photo. Gun-toting thugs and a merciless Asian mob boss are no match for the brawn and brain of French director Luc Besson’s super-powered heroine in his sci-fi, action thriller “Lucy.” Scarlett Johansson (“The Avengers”) is Lucy, a woman tricked by a boyfriend into delivering a suitcase who becomes one of several unwilling drug mules dispatched around the globe by Asian mobsters. REUTERS/Paul Hackett/files

PARIS (Reuters) – French film director Luc Besson was over $5 million richer on Monday after his film “Lucy” starring Scarlett Johansson as a woman with a super-powered brain topped the North American box office at the weekend.

Shares in film making company Europacorp, in which he holds a 44 percent stake or some 12.94 millionshares, climbed 7.5 percent to 4.15 euros each, valuing his holding at 53.7 million euros, up by 3.75million ($5.04 million) from Friday’s stock market close.

“Lucy” collected $45 million at the weekend, Europacorp said in a statement, outmuscling “Hercules”, which took in $29 million for second place.

Johansson plays a woman who can stop traffic and move objects with her mind after a drug planted in her body causes her brain to operate at abnormally high levels.

The special effects-laden movie was released by Universal Pictures, a unit of Comcast Corp, and made for a relatively inexpensive $40 million, according to the movie site Box Office Mojo.

Gilbert Dupont analyst Jean-Baptiste Sargeant said even though royalties would not come through for two or three years, “Lucy’s” strong showing would have an instant image-related impact for Europacorp.

“It’s simpler to attract big cinema names when you can leverage a success,” he said. (1 US dollar = 0.7442 euro)

(Reporting by Andrew Callus and Alexandre Boksenbaum-Granier; Editing by James Regan)

‘Lucy’ box office bonanza lifts Besson fortune by $5 mln

Source: Mb.com.ph (July 30, 2014 at 10:16AM)

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Music aside, Aretha Franklin excited for fair food

FILE – In a Thursday, May 29, 2014 file photo, singer Aretha Franklin looks up while seated on stage during Harvard University commencement ceremonies, in Cambridge, Mass., where she was presented with an honorary Doctor of Arts degree. Franklin has some harsh words for a New York server at a at a Johnny Rockets restaurant in Lewiston near Buffalo who told the Queen of Soul she wasn’t allowed to eat her takeout inside the restaurant. A spokesman for Franklin says on Tuesday, July 22, Franklin ordered a hamburger after performing a sold-out show. But he says the server screamed at Franklin, saying she couldn’t sit down to eat because she had ordered takeout. A Johnny Rockets spokeswoman says the franchise owner is sorry for the actions of “a new and very young employee.” (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — There’s something beyond delivering a set packed with her hits that’s got Aretha Franklin jazzed about America’s summer fair season: the food.

Ahead of her Thursday performance at the Ohio State Fair, the Queen of Soul says she’s eager to track down some elephant ears, a fair staple of fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she says. “I love the state fair, and I love the elephant ears.”

There may be plenty of opportunities for fried treats ahead, given that her busy 2014 tour also includes performances at the Wisconsin and Minnesota state fairs.

Franklin says her Ohio performance will be packed with familiar songs, selections from an upcoming CD being produced by Babyface and Andre 3000, and “a few surprises; I love surprises.”

After some health issues, the R&B diva says she’s feeling as good as she did in her 50s but prefers not to focus on her age now.

“I am certainly old enough to be out after midnight,” the 72-year-old star says.

She says she’s planning a vacation to New York after her Wisconsin gig, including a stop at the U.S. Open. She also is taking French lessons and studying classical piano.

Franklin says she has begun to hear the classical training in her style and inflections and expects audiences will, too. She aspires to be as good as legendary classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz or jazz greats Art Tatum or Oscar Peterson.

“That is the level I want to be playing at,” she says.

Her upcoming recording doesn’t have a name yet, but Franklin says she’s six tracks and five vocals into it. She expects to finish the final three cuts in August.

It features pop hits such as “Midnight Train to Georgia,” ”What’s Love Got To Do With It,” Donna Summer’s disco classic “Last Dance” and Alicia Keys’ “Fallin’.”

Music aside, Aretha Franklin excited for fair food

Source: Mb.com.ph (July 30, 2014 at 10:13AM)

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James Brown biopic ‘Get On Up’ revels in drama and dance moves

Chadwick Boseman as James Brown in 'Get on Up'.

NEW YORK | At first Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer thought she was seeing early concert footage of James Brown but then was told it was a screen test by Chadwick Boseman to play the “Godfather of Soul” in the new biopic “Get On Up.”

From the gliding, intricate footwork to the hunched shoulders and fluid movements, Boseman had nailed Brown’s singular mannerisms and raspy voice.

“It was just him from the back, and then from the side, and it was all in silhouette with the hair. I could not believe it, and he had only been learning the dance for three days,” said Spencer, 44, who plays Brown’s no-nonsense, knife-wielding Aunt Honey in the film, which opens in U.S. theaters on Friday.

Spencer, the 2012 Academy Award winner for “The Help,” said Boseman immersed himself in the role of the three-time Grammy winner, who died on Christmas Day in 2006 at the age of 73.

“Things happen when they are supposed to. This was supposed to be Chadwick Boseman’s role,” Spencer said.

“Get On Up” follows the man and his music in flashbacks from his impoverished early years in a shack in rural South Carolina, to living in a brothel run by Aunt Honey and singing in a local church, to his early career performing with the Famous Flames and later international stardom.

Behind the glitzy costumes, pompadours and showman’s bravura, the film, produced by Mick Jagger and Brian Grazer, shows Brown as an industrious teen scrounging a living, a troubled, perfectionist musician, an egotistical performer and a shrewd businessman.

JAGGER WANTED TO DO ‘JUSTICE’

Bozeman, 32, is no stranger to playing iconic figures. In a break-out role, he portrayed black baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson in the 2013 biopic “42,” but bringing one of the most influential figures in popular music to the big screen was a challenge.

“I was scared of it. There was no part of it that was straightforward and easy,” said Boseman, who like Brown, hails from South Carolina.

Mastering the dance moves and getting past the caricatures of Brown, famously parodied by Eddie Murphy on the comedy sketch show “Saturday Night Live,” posed the biggest challenges.

Boseman worked with a choreographer, spent time in the South to get into the part and spoke to Brown’s family to capture the essence of the man.

For Jagger, finding an actor who could dance and depict Brown’s charisma with the audience in the film, which was directed by Tate Taylor (“The Help”) was important.

Musician Mick Jagger attends the premiere of 'Get on Up' in New York in this file photo taken July 21, 2014. (Reuters)

Jagger and the Rolling Stones played on the same bill with Brown in 1964 at a live concert in California. As a performer influenced by him, Jagger wanted to find just the right actor to play Brown.

“For musicians and for listeners and dancers alike I think he has made this huge contribution, this lasting contribution which goes on. I think this movie does, hopefully, that legacy justice,” said Jagger.

Judging from early reviews, the filmmakers got it right with Boseman.

“It’s that rare musician’s biography with a deep feel for the music. And in Chadwick Boseman, it has a galvanic core, a performance that transcends impersonation and reverberates long after the screen goes dark,” said the Hollywood Reporter.

Trade magazine Variety said whatever the film’s shortcomings, “one thing that’s faultless is its star, Chadwick Boseman, who plays Brown from age 16 to 60 with a dexterity and invention worthy of his subject.”

James Brown biopic ‘Get On Up’ revels in drama and dance moves

Source: InterAksyon.com (July 30, 2014 at 09:34AM)

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Eric Clapton pays musical tribute to long-time friend JJ Cale

Eric Clapton. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

LONDON | A year after the death of American cult singer-songwriter JJ Cale, his close friend Eric Clapton has launched a tribute with an album and documentary featuring the likes of Willie Nelson and Mark Knopfler.

“The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale” features 16 interpretations of Cale’s typically laid-back repertoire and is named after a 1972 release “Call Me The Breeze”. The documentary is being shown on U.S. cable networks.

Cale, who died on July 26, 2013 at the age of 74, was one of those musicians who, although not a household name, was highly influential with his peers and closely followed by groups of aficionados.

Two of his best-known songs — “After Midnight” and “Cocaine” — were covered by Clapton on the latter’s 1970 eponymous debut album and his 1977 album “Slowhand”, although neither appears on the latest offering.

The two men’s musical collaboration, stretching back to the 1970s, included recording a studio album together — the 2006 “Road to Escondido” — and Cale performing at the first Crossroads Guitar Festival, Clapton’s showcase for some of the world’s top guitarists.

Clapton, among the most acclaimed and high-profile rock guitarists since the mid-1960s, reckons Cale was underrated by the public. “I would like people to tap into what JJ Cale did – that’s the point (of the new album),” he said in a statement.

“I try to interpret things so that the public at large, or at least the people who listen to what I do, will become intrigued about where I got it from.”

As well as by Clapton, Cale’s work has been covered in some form over the years by musicians as diverse as “outlaw” country singer Waylon Jennings, southern hard rockers Lynryd Skynryd, and the neo-psychaedelic Spiritualized.

The new album is reminiscent of Clapton’s early days as a solo artist after his work with 1960s supergroups Cream and Blind Faith. It is less traditionally bluesy than the 69-year-old Briton’s more recent fare.

It harks back to the Tulsa Sound, a mix of lighter blues, country, rock and jazz that hails from Tulsa, Oklahoma, the state where Cale was born. Others notables of the genre are Leon Russell and Elvin Bishop.

“The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale” features Clapton, Nelson, Knopfler, Tom Petty, Albert Lee, John Mayer, Don White and Jim Keltner among others.

Eric Clapton pays musical tribute to long-time friend JJ Cale

Source: InterAksyon.com (July 30, 2014 at 08:34AM)

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'Die Hard,' 'Flower Drum Song' actor James Shigeta dies aged 81

Actor James Shigeta, best known for his roles in 'Die Hard,' and 'Flower Drum Song,' has died, a representative for the actor said on Tuesday. He was 81.



'Die Hard,' 'Flower Drum Song' actor James Shigeta dies aged 81

Source: ABS-CBNNews.com (July 30, 2014 at 07:05AM)

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'Sesame Street' aims to teach lesson to Times Square Elmo

Elmo and Cookie Monster have long delighted young viewers on TV's 'Sesame Street,' but the recent antics of New York street performers dressed as the beloved characters have drawn the ire of city officials and now the show's producers.



'Sesame Street' aims to teach lesson to Times Square Elmo

Source: ABS-CBNNews.com (July 30, 2014 at 07:04AM)

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Sarah G bares 'beauty secret'

Bukod sa masayang love life at coach ng kauna-unahang "Voice Kids" grand champion, tinanghal naman ngayon ang "Pop Princess" na "most beautiful star in 2014" ng isang showbiz magazine.

Sarah G bares 'beauty secret'

Source: ABS-CBNNews.com (July 30, 2014 at 02:12AM)

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Justin Bieber grants wish of kid with cancer

Si Justin Bieber, nasa balita na naman. Pero this time, good news na ito dahil may tinupad siyang wish ng batang may cancer.



Justin Bieber grants wish of kid with cancer

Source: ABS-CBNNews.com (July 30, 2014 at 01:56AM)

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'PBB': Fifth throws tantrum, trends online

"Pinoy Big Brother" contestant Fifth Pagotan drew laughs online with his emotional outburst over a task involving snakes, among other animals, in the episode of the reality show aired on Tuesday.



'PBB': Fifth throws tantrum, trends online

Source: ABS-CBNNews.com (July 30, 2014 at 01:23AM)

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Nikki Gil: Staying a virgin is my choice

A year after her controversial breakup with singer-host Billy Crawford, and despite being supposedly "made fun of," Nikki Gil said she stands by her decision to not have sex until after she gets married.



Nikki Gil: Staying a virgin is my choice

Source: ABS-CBNNews.com (July 30, 2014 at 12:33AM)

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Tom on how to die 7 times

Edge of Tomorrow is a 2014 military science fiction film starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt and we have to confess we were only attracted to watch the film



Tom on how to die 7 times

Source: Philstar.com (July 30, 2014)

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2014 Philpop makes a millionaire out of Jungee

The Philippine Pop Music Festival 2014 or Philpop last July 26 made a millionaire out of Jungee Marcelo.



2014 Philpop makes a millionaire out of Jungee

Source: Philstar.com (July 30, 2014)

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GMA considers Aljur’s complaint ‘unfortunate’

When news about his filing a “rescission of management contract” against GMA, the network that built him up, hit that headline over the weekend, Aljur Abreni



GMA considers Aljur’s complaint ‘unfortunate’

Source: Philstar.com (July 30, 2014)

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Taiwanese singer Dick and Cowboy at RWM

MANILA, Philippines - Another world-class act is set to perform at the Resorts World Manila (RWM) as Taiwanese singer Dick and Cowboy (left) take the stage o



Taiwanese singer Dick and Cowboy at RWM

Source: Philstar.com (July 30, 2014)

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My Puhunan on businesswoman in multimillion-peso soap biz

MANILA, Philippines - Karen Davila details the story of how businesswoman, Elizabeth “Beth” Bacani (photo), coped with and moved on from a failed marriage by



My Puhunan on businesswoman in multimillion-peso soap biz

Source: Philstar.com (July 30, 2014)

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Denzel proud of his Fordham Fil-Am scholar

Did you know that Denzel Washintgon has a Filipino scholar who recently graduated?



Denzel proud of his Fordham Fil-Am scholar

Source: Philstar.com (July 30, 2014)

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Marital row caught on cam

Unknown to Controversial Star and Poor Partner, a domestic altercation has been caught on camera. In the privacy of their home, they fought in front of a picture window within the range of a clueless neighbor’s CCTV unit.



Marital row caught on cam

Source: Inquirer.net (July 30, 2014 at 12:16AM)

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Lyca can go to school now

Grand champion Lyca Gairanod of “The Voice Kids” cannot read. She learned the songs she performed on the talent search program just by listening to them.



Lyca can go to school now

Source: Inquirer.net (July 30, 2014 at 12:15AM)

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