Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Scott Burns: Fearless Forecasts 2014 (AssetBuilder)
The Last Legitimate Child Will Be Born in America. An anthropologist/demographer will predict that the last American child born in wedlock will arrive no later than 2060, citing the accelerating trend of births out of wedlock over the last half-century. A descendent of the late President Richard Nixon, running for office in that year, will paraphrase his great great grandfather and gleefully say, "We're all Keynesians now," only he will use a popular expletive rather than the word "Keynesians."
Henry Rollins: Whitey Christmas (LA Weekly)
Dear Mr. Christ: I know that most people call you by your first name. While I am sure that's cool, having never met you, I thought it best to refer to you in the formal.
Amy Nicholson: Ten Best Films of 2013 (LA Weekly)
I could write a Shakespearean sonnet about each film on my Top 10 of 2013, but we know we're all here for the agreements and arguments. (Plus, have you tried writing about Joe Swanberg in iambic pentameter?) Ladies and gentlemen, let's begin.
Sherilyn Connelly: "In Honor of Night of the Comet, a Cult Time Capsule of '80s America" (LA Weekly)
The simplest logline would be something to the effect of: "In Los Angeles, two teenage girls and a truck driver find themselves the lone survivors of a comet that has disintegrated all life on earth-except for a group of devious scientists and scattered zombielike people on the streets." For starters.
Calem Marsh: Five of the Year's Best Films -- Which You Can Stream on Netflix Right Now (LA Weekly)
But one of the pleasant things about moviegoing in 2013 is that many of these titles, however minuscule their budgets, make their way to video-on-demand services, often in time for year-end catching up. With that in mind, here are five of the year's most accomplished and highly regarded movies, each of which is available to stream, for no extra charge, on Netflix Instant.
Jennifer Swann: Miley Cyrus' Twerk Team Addresses the Haters (LA Weekly)
In August, three young black female dancers unwittingly became the focus of an intensely nasty critical debate about race and culture.
Paul Constant: Her (The Stranger)
A Funny Relationship Drama About Your Love Affair with Your Phone.
Paul Constant: She Begs to Differ (The Stranger)
There's a playful, even joyous side to Arendt in these interviews that often failed to rise to the surface of her writing.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Displeased my back the other day - can stand almost upright now.
2014 Times Square Countdown
Sonia Sotomayor
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor will take center stage among about 1 million revelers in New York's Times Square to usher in 2014 by pressing the button to lower the iconic countdown ball, organizers said on Sunday.
New York native Sotomayor will join pop star Lady Gaga, boxing great Muhammad Ali as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton among those who have had the honor of starting the ball drop, which organizers said will be watched by an estimated 1 billion people around the world.
Sotomayor was chosen for her achievements and rise from humble beginnings in the Bronx to become the first Hispanic appointed to the country's highest court, organizers said.
The first Supreme Court justice chosen for the honor is scheduled to be in the global glare a few minutes after provocative pop star Miley Cyrus finishes a performance.
Sonia Sotomayor
Says Thanks
Robin Roberts
Robin Roberts thanked her longtime girlfriend, Amber Laign, in a year-end post published on the ABC News anchor's Facebook page on Sunday, confirmed Heather Riley of ABC. The message comes after Roberts' battle with a life-threatening illness.
This is the first time the "Good Morning America" anchor has publicly acknowledged her 10-year, same-sex relationship with Laign, a massage therapist from the San Francisco Bay Area.
The host reached a 100 day benchmark on Sunday following a bone marrow transplant she underwent in September 2012 to treat the blood and bone marrow disease.
In May, Grand Central Publishing announced Roberts will write a memoir telling the story of her battle with the life-threatening illness and the life lessons she continues to gather following her return to "GMA" in February.
Robin Roberts
New Album Accidentally Released and Removed
Bruce Springsteen
Fans eagerly awaiting Bruce Springsteen's new album were in for a treat yesterday when High Hopes briefly appeared on Amazon's mobile site more than two weeks ahead of its January release date.
Billboard reports that the album became available on Saturday for purchase as individual tracks in MP3 format. Although Amazon subsequently removed that option, presumably recognizing its mistake, the album has already made its way onto file-sharing websites through those who purchased it from the online retailer. Representatives for Springsteen and Amazon did not immediately respond for comment.
High Hopes, Springsteen's 18th studio album, is slated to hit shelves on January 14th. In a rare departure for the rocker, the record is made up entirely of cover songs, outtakes, and major reworkings of songs from earlier albums and tours.
Springsteen and the E Street band, along with Tom Morello, recorded the album over the past year between shows on their worldwide tour. A few week's after High Hopes' official release date, the band will hit the road again, kicking off a five-week tour of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Bruce Springsteen
Barracks Returned To Poland
Auschwitz
Half of a historic Auschwitz-Birkenau barracks that was on loan to the U.S. has been returned to Poland after two decades and long negotiations, officials said Sunday.
The Nazi barracks was one of the main items at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, which wanted the lease extended. But Poland asked for it back after adopting new regulations in 2003 that limit the loan of all historical and art works to a maximum of five years. That led to years of negotiations between the museums and U.S. and Polish governments that ended in October, when the Holocaust Museum agreed to return its portion of the barracks.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau museum said on its website that the wooden structure arrived at Poland's Baltic port of Gdynia on Sunday. The barracks will undergo conservation and be joined with its other half in Birkenau. The procedure may take up to three years, according to Rafal Pioro, deputy director of Poland's Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Barracks No. 30 is the only one left of the wooden barracks that were built before September 1943 at the so-called family camp, where the Germans brought Jews from the Theresienstadt ghetto across Poland's southern border. It housed hospital wards for women and children.
Auschwitz
Hacker Took Over Server
BBC
A hacker secretly took over a computer server at the BBC, Britain's public broadcaster, and then launched a Christmas Day campaign to convince other cyber criminals to pay him for access to the system.
While it is not known if the hacker found any buyers, the BBC's security team responded to the issue on Saturday and believes it has secured the site, according to a person familiar with the cleanup effort.
Reuters could not determine whether the hackers stole data or caused any damage in the attack, which compromised a server that manages an obscure password-protected website.
It was not clear how the BBC, the world's oldest and largest broadcaster, uses that site, ftp.bbc.co.uk, though ftp systems are typically used to manage the transfer of large data files over the Internet.
The attack was first identified by Hold Security LLC, a cybersecurity firm in Milwaukee that monitors underground cyber-crime forums in search of stolen information.
BBC
Doc Bombs
'Believe'
How Justin Bieber's fortunes have fallen at the box office.
The performer's second concert documentary Believe is turning in a dismal performance at the Christmas box office, where it has earned only $3.1 million in its first three days. On Friday, it fell below $1 million to $790,000 for a 14th place finish.
Believe is now only expected to take in $4.5 million over the course of its five-day debut (Wednesday through Sunday), including a meek weekend haul of $2.2 million. Granted, the movie is said to have cost only $5 million to make, but Believe will do only a fraction of the business that Bieber's Never Say Never enjoyed in February 2011.
Never Say Never, opening to $29.5 million in North America, posted a lifetime domestic gross of $73 million, making it the most successful concert film of all time domestically. Most box office observers say Believe may only hit $10 million.
'Believe'
Woman With An Opinion
Caterina Simonsen
An Italian woman who declared in an internet posting that she owed her life to medicines developed from testing on laboratory mice has gone on national television to answer abuse from animal rights militants.
Caterina Simonsen, 25, received insults and abuse, which politicians rushed to condemn, after posting a defense of animal testing on Facebook.
"Without it, I would have died when I was nine," wrote Simonsen, whose story has dominated Italian newspapers and television reports.
Shocked by the tone of the messages, Simonsen, who has a respiratory illness requiring her to be attached to oxygen tubes, made a video that was played repeatedly on national media on Sunday.
"I have received messages saying that the lives of 10 rats are more important than mine. I don't know what planet these people live on and who raised them," she said, breaking into tears. "I am alive thanks to doctors, to medicines and to animals who had to be sacrificed."
Caterina Simonsen
Struggles Against New Film Meccas
Hollywood
In the old days, filmmakers flocked to Hollywood for its abundant sunshine, beautiful people and sandy beaches. But today a new filmmaking diaspora is spreading across the globe to places like Vancouver, London and Wellington, New Zealand.
Fueled by politicians doling out generous tax breaks, filmmaking talent is migrating to where the money is. The result is an incentives arms race that pits California against governments around the world and allows powerful studios -with hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal- to cherry-pick the best deals.
The most recent iteration of the phenomenon came earlier this month when James Cameron announced plans to shoot and produce the next three "Avatar" sequels largely in New Zealand. What Cameron gets out of the deal is a 25 percent rebate on production costs, as long as his company spends at least $413 million on the three films.
The deal was "the best Christmas present we could have possibly hoped for," says Alex Lee, an Auckland, New Zealand-based entertainment lawyer. The news is especially welcome because the local screen industry is facing a potential drought: The Starz pay TV series "Spartacus" finished this year and Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" trilogy is set to wrap next year. Thanks to the "Avatar" sequels, the 1,100 workers at Weta Digital Ltd., the ground-breaking digital effects house Jackson co-founded in 1993, can keep plugging away through 2018.
Hollywood
Weekend Box Office
"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"
Over the bustling post-Christmas weekend, Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" continued to lead the box office, landing in the No. 1 slot for the third weekend in a row.
The Warner Bros. prequel earned $30 million, bringing the domestic gross to $190.3 million, according to studio estimates on Sunday.
Disney's animated adventure, "Frozen," took the No. 2 position, earning $28.9 million over the weekend and $248.4 million domestically after six weeks at the multiplex.
Paramount held two slots in the top five over the weekend, with the comedies "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues," starring Will Farrell, and "The Wolf of Wall Street," featuring Leonardo DiCaprio. Sequel "Anchorman 2" came in at No. 3 with $20.2 million, and Martin Scorsese's dark comedy, "The Wolf of Wall Street," took the No. 5 spot, earning $19 million after opening at No. 2 on Christmas Day with $9.15 million.
At No. 4, Sony Pictures corruption saga, "American Hustle," made $19.6 million. David O. Russell's entertaining take on the Abscam investigation of the 1970s, starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, has grossed $60 million domestically and gained seven Golden Globe nominations.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday:
1."The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," $30 million ($98.3 million international).
2."Frozen," $28.9 million ($50.5 million international).
3."Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues," $20.2 million ($8 million international).
4."American Hustle," $19.6 million ($1.7 million international).
5."The Wolf of Wall Street," $19 million ($6.5 million international).
6."Saving Mr. Banks," $14.3 million ($300,000 international).
7."The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," $13 million ($27.2 million international).
8."The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," $10.2 million ($9 million international).
9."47 Ronin," $9.9 million ($13.8 million international).
10."Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas," $7.4 million.
"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"
In Memory
Wojciech Kilar
Wojciech Kilar, a Polish pianist and composer of classical music and scores for many films, including Roman Polanski's Oscar-winning "The Pianist" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula," died Sunday. He was 81.
The composer died in his hometown of Katowice, southern Poland, following a long illness, according to Jerzy Kornowicz, head of the Association of Polish Composers.
A modest man who often avoided public attention, Kilar's main love was composing symphonies and concertos, and he always put that above movies, even though he wrote the scores of dozens of films. He drew inspiration from Polish folk music and religious prayers and hymns, which he had learned in Latin as an altar boy.
But it was film music, especially for Coppola's 1992 erotic horror movie, that brought this prolific vanguard composer to the world's attention and commissions from other celebrity directors, including Jane Campion and her "Portrait of a Lady." Kilar once said the three criteria that made him write film music were, in this order: the name of the director, the salary and the script.
In a 2007 interview with PLUS, a journal about Polish-American affairs, he recalled asking Coppola in Los Angeles what kind of music he was expecting and the director replied: "I did my part. You are the composer. Do what you want."
Kilar wrote music for more than 130 movies in Poland and abroad, but "Dracula" won him the Best Score Composer award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1992.
A turning point came in 1974 with "Krzesany," a symphonic poem for an orchestra, inspired by highlander music of the Tatra mountains region of southern Poland. From then on, Kilar drew inspiration for his classical music from Polish tradition and Catholic church music.
Kilar was born on July 17, 1932, in Lviv, a former Polish city now in Ukraine, to a doctor and an actress. The family moved to Rzeszow in southeastern Poland, then to Katowice in the south, where Kilar continued the musical education that he had started in Rzeszow.
He studied piano, music theory and composition in Rzeszow, Krakow and Katowice before graduating in 1955 with top honors from the State Music Academy in Katowice.
His wife of over 40 years, Barbara, died in 2007. They had no children.
Wojciech Kilar
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