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Taylor Swift Fan Arrested After Swimming To Her Beach House

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Taylor Swift Watch Hill rhode island

A crazed Taylor Swift fan didn't just show up at the singer's door — he swam in the ocean to her beach-side Rhode Island home.

"A 22-year-old male from the Chicago area was taken into custody for trespassing after he admitted to swimming up to the beach in front of Swift's home around 2 AM," reports TMZ.

Apparently, the stalker-fan was spotted by local cops who asked him what he was doing in the ice-cold water about a mile from Swift's home and he told them "he had just completed a swim, in which he intended to meet Taylor."

"The man told cops he swam all the way to Swift's beach, but saw her security team and decided to swim back to where he came from," sources told TMZ. 

The unidentified man is currently in custody as the Westerly Police Dept. says "There is a zero tolerance policy for trespassers." 

Swift has remained mum about the incident on her Twitter account.

SEE ALSO: Thieves steal over $100K from Justin Bieber after Johannesburg concert >

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Dr. Dre And Jimmy Iovine Give USC $70 Million To Find The Next Startup Wunderkind

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Dr. Dre

Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are two of LA's biggest movie and business stars. They've turned artists like Lady Gaga and 50 Cent into celebrities and made clunky headphones popular by starting a business, Beats.

Now they want to help Los Angeles have an even bigger business presence.

The pair is giving University of Southern California $70 million to start an entrepreneurship program. The degree will teach students about marketing, design and product development, and it will include liberal arts courses. There's a portion of the curriculum called "The Garage" that will encourage students to create working prototypes and pitch classmates. The goal is to find students who are working on the next big things in tech.

“If the next start-up that becomes Facebook happens to be one of our kids, that’s what we are looking for,” Iovine told The New York Times' Jenna Wortham.

Dr. Dre seemed to agree. Wortham describes the pair's interaction:

"The rapper nodded often, ate chocolate chip cookies with evident pleasure, and chimed in occasionally."

While Dre told Wortham he never imagined starting an entrepreneurship program when he was younger, he's excited about helping kids change the world.

"I feel like this [endowment is] the biggest, most exciting and probably the most important thing that I’ve done in my career,” he said.

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CBS CEO Les Moonves: 'We Are The Center Of The Universe'

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Les Moonves CEO CBS Corp

The CBS Corp. CEO does not take kindly to jokes about his network. 

During ABC's upfront presentation to showcase its new slate of shows to advertisers Tuesday, Jimmy Kimmel took jabs at all of the competing networks, but may have been most harsh to CBS.

Via Deadline 

"Then we have CBS, those smug motherf------. Les Moonves told CNBCthat jokes about CBS skewing old are ‘over’. Sorry Les, but those jokes aren’t over til my grandma throws away her Mentalist hemorrhoid donut." 

Moonves later threw out some fighting words of his own to reporters at CBS' upfront saying he was flattered by Kimmel's words before ripping ABC apart. 

“You don’t call somebody ‘smug motherf------’ unless they’re smug and they’re winning, so we’ll try to be a little less smug and a little more gracious, but that’s hard for me, as you know. But anyway, Jimmy, ABC is still going to finish fourth in 18-49 … we had a phenomenal year in terms of ratings.” 

the big bang theoryMoonves added that the network's hit comedy "The Big Bang Theory" is the most popular comedy on both broadcast and syndicated on cable. 

“We are the center of the universe,” said Moonves. “This is where the shows start, then they go out to the world. We’re getting paid in so many different ways than we did before.” 

Moonves is essentially right when it comes to "Big Bang Theory." 

The show has a weekly steady stream of at least 15 million viewers. 

Here's how the competition will look this fall: 

ABC: "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland"
CBS: "The Big Bang Theory"
NBC: "Parks and Recreation"
FOX: "The X Factor" results show 

In comparison "Once Upon A Time," a Sunday evening show, started season 2 with more than 11 million viewers. By its season finale, the show had dropped to 7 million. 

So, even if ABC's "Once Upon A Time" audience came to Thursday evenings, it would still be below CBS' leading comedy. 

"Parks and Rec" doesn't leave a lot of competition for the 8 p.m. slot. The Amy Poehler comedy, which just ended its fifth season, has a small audience averaging at 3 million per episode. 

The peacock network may have had a better chance at stealing some viewers from CBS by airing Michael J. Fox's big return to television earlier in the evening. 

The network's "The Michael J. Fox Show" will also air Thursday evenings, but in a later 9:30 p.m. slot.  

The show will also feature Betsy Brandt, a big draw from AMC's hit show "Breaking Bad." 

Looking at the overall ratings per network, CBS is crushing the competition. 

Here's a look at the top network's total viewers to date via EW: 

CBS: 11.9 million
ABC: 7.8 million
FOX: 7.1 million
NBC: 7 million 

While the other networks are down from last year, CBS made gains of 2%.

SEE ALSO: All the new shows coming to TV this fall >

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A Hilarious Parody Trailer For 'The Great Catsby'

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Ever wondered what Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby" would be like if acted by animated cats instead of Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan?

Guyism has done a mash-up of the 2013 film and the animated Disney classic
"The Aristocats" — all set to the most recent "Gatsby" soundtrack, which is filled with hip hop.

The combination is somehow spot-on, and kind of hilarious. Watch below:

SEE ALSO: 'The Great Gatsby' Soundtrack Debuts Online To Mixed Reviews >

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Former Victoria's Secret Model Reveals Why She Gave Up Lingerie Modeling For Jesus

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kylis bisutti victorias secretFormer Victoria's Secret model Kylie Bisutti just released a book about leaving the brand because of her Christian beliefs.

Bisutti told The Daily Beast about the incidents that spurred her leaving. 

"Already married for a few months, Bisutti wrote that 'Victoria’s Secret execs e-mailed to tell me that I’d caught the eye of one of the celebrities at the after party,'" reports The Daily Beast. "She says she refused the invitation, citing devotion to her husband."

She's also said that she was encouraged to downplay her marriage and act flirtatious. 

“As I continued modeling lingerie, my convictions grew about wanting to honor my husband and our marriage and not having other men see me in lingerie, and also my desire to be a better role model for girls everywhere,” she told The Daily Beast. 

Las Vegas-based Bisutti won a contest to walk in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in 2009. The gig led to a contract with IMG Models. 

But after walking in the show, she says she realized that wearing lingerie for the masses was disrespectful to her husband. 

Now, she's devoted her life to her Christian beliefs. 

Victoria's Secret didn't respond to the Daily Beast's request for comment. 

However, the brand slammed Bisutti last month, saying that her book exaggerated her involvement. 

"She was never a Victoria’s Secret ‘Angel,’" the company said in the statement. 

"And contrary to Ms. Bisutti’s claims, she was never offered any subsequent modeling contracts or opportunities with Victoria’s Secret despite her multiple appeals for further work."

Bisutti admits that she does still shop at the retailer. 

SEE ALSO: Meet The Model Who Could Take Miranda Kerr's Place At Victoria's Secret >

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Watching TV Makes Your Brain Cells Go Nuts

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kids watching tv

“I’m showing you slices of the brain,” Joy Hirsch, the Director of fMRI Research at Columbia University Medical Center tells me.

More specifically, she’s talking about some images of an fMRI brain scan she took while her subject was watching a video sequence.

“Every possible visual area is just going nuts,” she adds. What does this mean?

It shows that the human brain is anything but inactive when it’s watching television. Instead, a multitude of different cortexes and lobes are lighting up and working with each other to enable us, the viewer, to relate to the images flickering before our eyes and keep up with the subtleties of the plotline – to say nothing of the complexities in the incessantly twisting storylines of the likes of The Americans or Homeland.

Hirsch uses high tech fMRI machines, or Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, in her labs at Columbia and Yale to measure the brain’s activity in her participants when they’re watching video clips. The fMRIs work by tracking blood flow into and between the many different expanses of the brain.

The more blood, the more activity, which suggests that particular area of the brain is responsible for whatever activity is happening at the time of the scan – or so goes the theory.

Her research indicates that following the storyline of an edited film clip that depicts a visual action requires a complex and coordinated effort across multiple brain areas.

You might feel brain dead at the end of the workday when you plonk yourself in front of the TV and blissfully zone out with a beer and a favorite show, but Hirsch says that couldn’t be further from the truth.

In one of her studies, Hirsch suspects she might have pinned down the specific neural regions that are responsible for helping us to keep track of the storyline. She identified a “distributed cortical network” that’s only activated when the participant is shown a normal video sequence with a narrative flow – and crucially, not by random video shots or scrambled images.

“There’s a whole network of activity that goes on to interpret these narratives. What we observed was this enormous activity in the right hemisphere, that’s the visual area,” says Hirsch.

This system of collaborating cerebral constituencies consists of the "extrastriate, inferotemporal, parietal, posterior cingulate, and frontal areas,” which again are all predominant in the right hemisphere.

The right side of our noggin is also involved with producing an emotional response, says Hirsch, which might explain how we can become so emotionally invested in particular characters.

In addition to these areas, Hirsch says that there’s also a substantive amount of blood flow to the “short term memory areas, where [the subject is] remembering what had just happened in the video sequence and is connecting what is currently happening. I like to think of it as the visual narrative.”

It’s worth noting that for this particular research, Hirsch was only using fairly simple video sequences with an absence of any sound to simplify matters, which she thinks–stressing that she has no evidence – that without sound the brain is more active because there’s more inferring needed to make sense of what’s happening.

Interestingly, Hirsch says that “you don’t see a whole lot of variation,” between study participants. The same regions of the brain seem to be stimulated scan after scan, which grants a consistency to her results.

Research similar to that of Hirsch’s labs – looking into the brain’s engagement with video clips–has even piqued interest in the marketing and advertising worlds, where they could potentially use techniques to produce infomercials and commercials that mesh with the way our brains perceive, digest and understand moving images.

Many have scrutinized the scientific vigor of fMRI brain scans with less than kind eyes, most notably for the controversial (and hyped) suggestion that the technology could be used as a lie detector, possibly even in a court of law one day.

Hirsch says it’s a fashionable trend for other scientists to bash her method, yet it remains true that for all the technique’s revolutionary applications, it’s also still a burgeoning and somewhat rudimentary science often dismissed as ‘best guess science’.

“It’s offensive to people who do incredible brain imaging in a field in which people have done decades of research to get us where we are. It incites provocation. Yes, of course, people who have done traditional research are threatened by us,” retorts Hirsh, “but they needn’t be, fMRI doesn’t exclude other sciences.”

Returning to the first “brain slice” she mentioned, Hirsch says, “In this person, the posterior cingulate gyrus is active.” This particular subject was watching a simple video montage of some boys playing outdoors when a bee nest suddenly falls from the tree causing the kids to run away.

“This person is relating to someone in the sequence,” she says, because the middle part of his brain is active – “the part of the brain used for self reference.”

Hirsch speculates that maybe the participant had a similar experience when he was young and – whether consciously or subconsciously – his brain is recalling and relating what happened all those years ago.

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How Set Designers Make Your Favorite Period Piece TV Shows Feel Realistic

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mad men season 6 megan draper don

America has fallen in love with TV shows set in times-gone-by, whether it’s the opulence of Downton Abbey’s 1920s England, the mythological middle ages of Westeros, or the political intrigue of early-80’s Soviet spies in The Americans, viewers are lapping up the diversion that only a decent period drama can give them.

Even Newt Gingrich is smitten.

“I think people like to get away from where they are, with The Americans, Boardwalk Empire, etc. [the time period] gives an other layer to the escapism of television,” says John Mott, Production Designer on The Americans. It’s his job to make sure you believe that’s really how the inside of FBI HQ or a typical suburban home looked some 30-odd years ago.

Success hinges on mountains of research and an attention to detail that borders on the neurotic, as well as a certain amount of panache and subtlety that enables the designers to convince the viewer to buy into the show without thinking twice. It’s not always obvious to the average viewer when designers get it right but “when it’s wrong it can be really distracting,” says Jenny Gering, costume designer for The Americans.

It’s not uncommon (as was the case with The Americans) for a pilot to be produced and then be sent out to a flurry of production and costume designers like Mott and Gering. If it interests any of them then they talk with the creators of the show about becoming part of the team.

“When I was told it takes place in 1981, I couldn’t have been happier,” remembers Gering, “for me that was godsend.” Indeed, the show’s setting in the early days of the Reagan era is quite unique.

Mott has designed props and sets for productions set in more theatrical times from the Medieval to the Roman. But he says working on The Americans presented him with a different challenge altogether. “I lived though it, the tension of the Cold War,” he says “and the pilot brought all that back to me.”

Both the designers lived through the 80s (though Gering was only 13 at the time of The Americans) and the temptation is to “think you know it all–but you don’t’” says Mott. The two of them constantly took efforts to ensure they didn’t let the complacency of their own experiences and memories seep into their set and costume designs–one of the reasons they both spent an ungodly amount of time buried in their research.

Mott starts by looking at the macro trends of the era: what was happening politically, socially and culturally, and how they might have influenced the aesthetics and product choices in each scene. “The Cold War was still pretty cold. It wasn’t anywhere near thawing yet, and fear is a constant subtext,” he says.

Then he hones in on more specific examples like particular artists of the time. “Art in the early 80s expressed a lot of inner angst. I’d even go as far to say that the Punk movement is a manifestation of this.”

The Americans was Gering’s first venture into the period design world and she started her research undertaking on a more serendipitous note. “I happened to be in a Brooklyn vintage store and believe it or not they had a stack of Playboy magazines from 1981. I snapped them up. They have adverts and also feature articles on fashion, all of which helped,” she says. “From there it was just take your pick online,” where she could access or order innumerable different magazines or catalogues from the time. The 1981 Sears catalogue proved to be particularly useful, she says, because it gave a prime example of what people were wearing off the catwalk.

Strangely enough Gering used the late Princess Diana “like a sort of fact-check.” If anyone would query or question whether a particular costume was typical of the era, she’d look back and try and find an example of the when the princess was wearing something similar.

But designers aren’t always blessed with such a stylish fact-checking device and Mott says “while the research is very important … we have to draw a line between total reality, which is probably pretty dull, and total fantasy.”

Much of The Americans is shot within the FBI’s headquarters, the entirety of which is made up from Mott’s imaginings, based on the style of the period. He had no idea what it looked like from the inside but because he’d done his homework, the viewer is none the wiser. In fact, he reckons it was decidedly blander that the set he designed.

There are other occasions when “you’re forced by circumstances to go against history.” For example, some sets for other shows and movies just need electricity even though it’s set before it outlets wires were actually commonplace, says Mott, “do we fudge it sometimes? Yes.”

Making an error or oversight that doesn’t get caught before an episode is aired keeps Gering up at night. “I’m a big fan of blogs. I look at the comments and I’m terrified to see someone say that something wasn’t right with the costumes. I’d be mortified.”

But, she concedes, “it’s not just about getting it right.” The role of a good designer is to enhance the visual experience and help actors delve into the time period and character they’re portraying. “Mad Men is a great example. Each character is an individual and the costumes are so descriptive of who’s wearing them,” says Gering.

As for our current obsession with period shows, it’s “just like in the 1930s during the depression when there were all those movies about rich heiresses,” says Gering. It makes sense that during hard times we want to re-visit the good times.

Mott and Gering spend most of their time making it look like they were never there but occasionally the props or costumes surprise you and stick out–but not it a bad way. “The spy tools and the spy stuff in The Americans is something that we tried really hard to get right,” says Mott, but you might be taken back by just how sophisticated their technology really was three decades ago. “That’s a good example of doing your research and finding out that they had more than you assumed they did–it wasn’t just an agent with a tape recorder.”

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How Angelina Jolie Became The Most Famous Actress In The World [PHOTOS]

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Angelina Jolie red carpet

On Tuesday, Angelina Jolie published an op-ed in the New York Times revealing she has undergone a preventative double mastectomy.

The news was a surprise, for however hard Jolie tries to keep her private life just that, the actress and her fiancé Brad Pitt are often front page fodder.

From her scandalous beginning with Pitt to her most current medical confession, see how Angelina Jolie went from wild child indie actress to celebrated humanitarian and arguably the most famous woman in the word.

Angelina Jolie was born in 1975 in Los Angeles to actor parents, Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. She was raised primarily by her mother, who quit her career to raise Jolie and her brother, essentially as a single mother.



Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in "Lookin' to Get Out" in 1982.



But her film career truly began a decade later with the low-budget production "Cyborg 2" in 1993.



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5 Celebrities Who Have Also Had Double Mastectomies

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Angelina Jolie Brad PittAngelina Jolie revealed in a New York Times op-ed she underwent a preventative double mastectomy in order to lessen her chances of contracting breast cancer.

Jolie learned she carried the BRCA1 gene which would make it highly likely she would develop the cancer.

The actress's mother passed away at age 56 from the disease.

Today, Jolie revealed she will also be removing her ovaries as another precaution.

Many have since shown their support for the actress

Jolie's not the first famous name to have the preventative surgery. 

Here are five other celebrities who have undergone the same procedure and what factored into their decision.

Sharon Osbourne (2012)

Last year, Osbourne revealed to Hello! magazine last year she had the preventative surgery after learning she had the gene for cancer.

"For me, it wasn't a big decision, it was a no-brainer. I didn't want to live the rest of my life with that shadow hanging over me. I want to be around for a long time and be a grandmother to Pearl ... I just wanted to be able to live my life without that fear all the time. It's not 'pity me', it's a decision I made that's got rid of this weight that I was carrying around."

Kathy Bates (2012)

After battling ovarian cancer, the Oscar-winning actress told People she underwent the surgery after learning she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

"Luckily, I don't have to undergo radiation or chemo," said Bates. "My family call me Kat because I always land on my feet and thankfully this is no exception."

Giuliana Rancic (2011)

Rancic told NBC's Today she decided to have the surgery after previous lumpectomies didn't rid of her cancer.

"At the end, to be honest, all it came down to was just choosing to live, and not looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life," said Rancic. 

Wanda Sykes (2011)

Sykes revealed on The Ellen Show she opted for the surgery after learning she had cancer. 

"It sounds scary up front, but what do you want? Do you want to wait and not be as fortunate when it comes back and it’s too late?"

Christina Applegate (2008)

Applegate explained on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" she had a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer at age 36 and finding out she tested positive for the BRCA gene.  

"It came on really fast. It was one of those things that I woke up and it felt so right," she said. "It just seemed like, 'I don't want to have to deal with this again. I don't want to keep putting that stuff in my body. I just want to be done with this.' & I was just going to let them go."

SEE ALSO: The tons of support Jolie received for her 'brave' decision >

SEE ALSO: Angelina Jolie will also have her ovaries removed >

AND: Brad Pitt's response to his wife's mastectomy >

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Google Trends Pinpointed The Exact Date Kim Kardashian And Paris Hilton Stopped Being Friends

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Kim Kardashian Paris HiltonKim Kardashian first rose to fame (well, other than that sex tape) as Paris Hilton's dark haired counterpart. 

They had matching metallic purses and oversized sunglasses, they shopped together, clubbed together, and bragged about being BFF's.

But as Hollywood lore goes, when Kardashian's fame began to overshadow Hilton's thanks to her family's E! reality show, the hotel heiress started to snub her former friend.

There was no on-screen feud, no punches were thrown late at night on the dance floor of a Hollywood club, the girls' friendship simply faded (albeit with a few jabs here and there) and it wasn't long before Kardashian usurped Hilton's throne on the cover of the tabloid magazines.

In case you've been clutching your copy of Us Weekly wondering where it all went wrong, HuffPost Celebrity thinks they have pinpointed the exact month and year the starlets stopped being pals.

"The two were last publicly photographed together during fashion week in February 2009, and our best guess is that the friendship was officially dead by August 2009," writes HuffPo. "That's the first time there were more people searching Google for news about Kim than Paris -- a trend that continues to this day."

HuffPost Celebrity cites this Google Trends chart to back up their theory:

Paris Hilton Kim Kardashian google chart

View the full report in Google Trends >

SEE ALSO: How Angelina Jolie became the most famous actress in the world >

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Diddy Tweets He Joined The Cast Of 'Downton Abbey'

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On Wednesday, Diddy tweeted some surprising news to his nearly 8.7 million followers  that he has joined the cast of hit PBS show "Downton Abbey."

As the internet scrambled to make sense of the casting news, the network denied Diddy's claim, saying “It’s simply not true.”

We're not sure why the musician is toying with our emotions, but he sure does seem excited:

Diddy made sure to hammer home the point with his new Twitter background:

Diddy Twitter Downton Abbey

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Dos Equis Paid Comedian Michael Ian Black For A Tweet, Chaos Ensued

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Michael Ian Black twitter

Earlier this week, comedian Michael Ian Black tweeted a dry message about a Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" app to his 1.9 million fans.

When followers noted that this seemed like a paid message written by an unpaid intern, Black surprisingly confirmed that he made thousands for the 120 characters.

You've gotta love honesty.

While it's not uncommon for celebrities with huge followings to get paid to promote products, Dos Equis certainly got more than it paid for after Black continued to respond to every single hater that bashed the comedian for shilling tweets. Even Chrissy Teigen got involved!

At 3:07 p.m. May 10, comedian Michael Ian Black tweeted an uncharacteristically dry message about Dos Equis.



When a follower noted that this seemed like a pre-packaged tweet, Black admitted yeah ... it was. And he made boatloads for it.



There's no question why Dos Equis wanted Black to tweet. He has almost 2 million followers and is a self-proclaimed "Noted expert."



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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15 Must-See Movies At The Cannes Film Festival

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Behind the Candelabra

Over the past two years, the Cannes Film Festival brought the debuts of such films as “Moonrise Kingdom,” “The Tree of Life,” “Rust and Bone,” “Melancholia,” “On the Road” and the Oscar winners “Amour,” “Midnight in Paris” and “The Artist,” in addition to a number of acclaimed arthouse movies.

What will join the Cannes honor roll this year? We’ve singled out 15 movies from the Cannes lineup – 10 that could be in competition for the Palme d’Or, and five more outside the main competition section of the festival.

'Behind the Candelabra': Liberace's story made for HBO.

Steven Soderbergh won the Palme d’Or with his first film, “sex, lies and videotape” in 1989, and he’s back in the running for his final film, a Liberace story he made for HBO when he couldn’t get a studio to back it.



'The Immigrant': A historical drama set in 1920s New York City.

James Gray has competed at Cannes with “The Yards,” “We Own the Night” and “Two Lovers,” and is back with his historical drama set in New York in the 1920s, with a powerhouse cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Renner and Joaquin Phoenix.



'Inside Llewyn Davis': Set in Greenwich Village's 1960s folk scene.

Joel and Ethan Coen won the Palme d’Or with “Barton Fink” 22 years ago, while “Fargo” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There” also picked up best-director awards at Cannes. They could mine a (typically twisted?) vein of nostalgia with this look at the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene, with a lead character loosely based on Dave Van Ronk.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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How Much Tony Stark's 'Iron Man' Toys Might Cost In The Real World

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iron man robert downey jrYou’d have to be a billionaire to equip yourself like Tony Stark, but it’s not entirely impossible. 

Tony Stark is back. After helping his fellow Avengers save the world against a Norse god and vicious aliens, he spent years working on his technology, because at heart, Stark is an engineer.

Marvel president Kevin Feige told GeekyTyrant.com that Stark has a whopping 42 new suits of armor in Iron Man 3, including “a prehensile suit that allows each individual piece of the suit to fly separately and latch on to him.” That suit is called the Mark 42, a significant upgrade from the last intelligent armor we saw him in in The Avengers, the comparatively tame Mark 7.

And what a weekend Tony had. His battle with the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) was a bonafide smash–both on our shores and globally. People love seeing Robert Downey Jr. do his thing, but they also love all those incredible toys.

That got us thinking—Tony Stark is clearly the greatest engineer in the superhero universe, so it might be fun to break down his inventions and see how much all this would cost, and what, if any of his technology, might be possible in the real world. 

A Financial Breakdown of Being Tony Stark


Iron Man Suits

Thanks to the gang at Mashable, who posted this great infographic by MoneySupermarket.com, we have a decent sense of what it would cost Stark to create his suits and fill up his Hall of Armor.

A single Iron Man suit is like a super high-tech Swiss Army Knife—it has just about every tool you could possibly need to fight bad guys or impress Pepper Potts.  A brief summation, thanks to MoneySupermarket.com’s infographic, includes:

-Gold-titanium exoskeleton suit: This is the latest in Stark’s ever-evolving exoskeleton technology, which helps him repel bullets, missiles, and the rough effects of g-force on the human body. Cost: $15 million.

-Helmet with projected holographic HUD (heads-up display), which includes his HAL-like artificial intelligence butler JARVIS (Just a Rather Very Intelligent System). Cost: $55 million.

-Arc reactor nuclear power source. This clean nuclear power source protects Stark’s heart from the shrapnel in his chest that he earned during the first Iron Man, while a prisoner in Afghanistan. Cost: $36 million.

-Brain-controlled armor: Stark built the Mark 42 using nanotechnology, which allows his suit to assemble around him, piece by piece, via a remote synaptic link. Like Magneto calling all available metal to his hand, Stark can gather the various pieces of his armor to his body using his brain. Cost: Unknown.

-Repulsor jet packs: One of the coolest parts of Iron Man’s suit is, of course, his jet boots. He also has jets built into the palms of his hands, which he uses to stabilize himself, something he has to do an awful lot. $13.8 million.

-Shoulder-mounted anti-personnel guns and forearm-mounted anti-tank missile launchers: Well the man does need firepower. His shoulder-mounted guns and forearm-mounted missiles are controlled via his helmet, and the missiles are, of course, heat-seeking. $1.9 million

And what about the Stark Mansion, which itself is wired with artificial intelligence (not to mention a garage with some of the greatest cars in the world)? 

Stark lives in Malibu in a palatial, cliff side mansion on Point Dume, that overlooks the Pacific Ocean (in real life, Point Dume is a protected State Preserve, so no one can build there). Movoto Real Estate crunched the numbers on their blog, and did their level best to assess what the actual cost would be. They estimated the Stark Manse is roughly 25,000 square feet and based on the designs of architect John Lautner.

With the average price per square foot in the Malibu area being around $3,750, Movoto added an additional 25% because of his stunning view of the ocean (they say views can add up to 30% to a home’s price), which brings Stark’s house to a grand total of, wait for it, $117 million.

If you were to combine all of Stark’s toys–his Iron Man suits, his house, his cars (which include a Tesla Roadster, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, and an Audi R8 Spyder), MoneySupermarket.com estimates the total would be around $10 billion.

Applicability in the real world

Believe it or not, a lot of the amazing features audiences gape at during an Iron Man film are either already here or in the process of being built. Granted, they’re not as powerful and incredible as what you’ll see on the big screen, but some of this technology is reality.  

SmartPlanet did a deep dive on the question of whether an Iron Man suit could exist last year, asking E. Paul Zehr, a professor of kinesiology (the study of human movement) and neuroscience, and the author of “Inventing Iron Man: The Possibility of a Human Machine.”

Professor Zehr lets reporter Christie Nicholson know that we already have exoskeletal suits, such as the HAL (hybrid assisted limb) robot and ReWalk robotic skeleton (which can allow paraplegics to walk at almost the same speed as people who have use of their legs). Zehr pointed out that the Iron Man-like technology we already have is more akin to the very first Iron Man suit he built while being held captive in Afghanistan in the first film.

What’s even more interesting is what’s already happening in the world of brain-controlled technology, like the Mark 42 suit in Iron Man 3. Zehr tells Nicholson that Stark’s brain-controlled Mark 42 suit does correspond to the experimental neural prosthetics of today, which can connect to the nervous system to control an artificial limb. “We have vastly improved our ability to record neural patterns from the brain,” he says, but the problem would be not only controlling an artificial limb, but an entire suit of armor. “We have over 100 billion neurons with roughly 100 trillion synaptic connections. You need to extract that information and then wire that through some interface to the suit of armor.”

Right now, the most state-of-the-art technology available has simultaneously recorded about a 500-cell sample of neurons in the brain using an electrode implant…again, out of 100 billion. “We’re still a long way from getting all the information we need to control something as sophisticated as the Iron Man suit,” Zehr says. In order to control an Iron Man suit you’d need electrodes implanted into your body, and they’d have to stay in.

Okay, so let’s move away for a second from building a brain-controlled suit of armor and just look at some individual pieces of the suit and see what’s out there.

The great entertainment and science website io9.com did a piece on building a real Iron Man suit, and they have some pretty great facts in there.

The Helmet

First off, that HUD helmet that Stark uses to control his suit (along with JARVIS’s help, of course) could be easily compared, io9 writer Annalee Newitz writes, “to helmet-mounted displays currently under development for fighter jets like the F-35.” Fighter pilots use heads-up displays to guide their jets like how Stark uses his HUD to guide his suit. The website Defense Industry Daily reported that a joint venture between Elbit Systems/Rockwell Collins and Vision Systems International announced $54 million in contracts to begin production of their Helmet-Mounted Display System (HMDS) which will equip all American and exported F-35 fighters.

Newitz points out there are several companies and labs that are developing Starkian exoskeletons that might not give the wearer superpowers, but would certainly make him or her stronger. UC Berkeley, for instance, has created several different types of exoskeletons in their Robotics & Human Engineering Laboratory.

The above video showcases the Austin project, which is their series of low cost, accessible exoskeletons for people with mobility disorders. They also make a Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC) which incorporates their ExoHiker and ExoClimber which can take up to 200 lbs. without impeding the wearer. Raytheon’s XOS 2 Exoskelton “increases the human strength, agility, and endurance capabilities of the soldier inside it,” Army-Technology.com writes. The suit uses high-pressure hydraulics to allow the wearer to lift heavy objects at a ratio of 17:1 (actual weight to perceived weight).

Arc Reactor Nuclear Power Source

Arguably the most radical of all of Tony Stark’s inventions is his nuclear heart. Where is this technology being used? Try on Mars. “Tony’s nuke heart can be compared to the energy source in the new Martian rover Curiosity,” Newitz writes, “a nuclear generator called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator,” will power the Curiosity’s cumbersome body and its built-in lab for years to come. The MMRTG has 10 pounds of plutonium dioxide, which is more than one would assume Stark has in his heart.

Jet Boots

While there are no boots out there like Stark’s, there is Yves Rossy, who you can see in the video above is doing his best to fly like our favorite superhero.

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'The Office' Finale Is Tonight — Here's What You Missed Since You Stopped Watching 3 Years Ago

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jim and pam the office

The series finale of NBC's "The Office" airs tonight at 9 p.m.

While you may tune in to bid farewell to the Dunder Mifflin crew, you most likely bid adieu to the comedy long ago.

While viewership went down after Steve Carell's departure in season 7, the series noticeably began losing viewership the season prior. 

After averaging at least 8 million viewers in seasons 2 through 5, viewership began to dip below 7 million eyeballs toward the end of season 6.  

Now, in its ninth and final season, "The Office" has been averaging around 4 million per episode

If you plan to watch, you most likely need a refresher. 

Since Michael's departure, Andy lost his marbles, Kelly left, Angela had a baby, and Dwight finally achieved his goal of becoming regional branch manager.

Plus, golden couple Jim and Pam were nearly on the outs.

Yes, a lot has happened.

Will Ferrell stepped in briefly as the new manager after Steve Carell left.



Andy succeeded him as new regional manager.



James Spader joined the show as demeaning new company CEO Robert California who divided the office coworkers into "winners" and "losers."



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Wade Robson Says Michael Jackson Sexually Abused Him For 7 Years—Here's Today's Buzz

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wade robson today show

Watch Robson's "Today" show confession below:

SEE ALSO: "The Office" series finale is tonight. Get caught up now >

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Here's The Real Reason Diddy Tweeted About Joining 'Downton Abbey'

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On Wednesday, Diddy confused his nearly 8.7 million Twitter followers after posting: 

But turns out the rapper isn't actually joining the cast of the hit PBS series.

Instead, Diddy was hyping a Funny or Die video called "Downton Diddy."

In the sketch, he proclaims, “I’m the first black cast member on Downtown – Downton Abbey – whatever the [bleep] it’s called.”

Watch the spoof below:

SEE ALSO: Diddy tweets he joined the cast of "Downton Abbey" >

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A Fourth Grader Secretly Filmed His School Lunches To Prove A Point To His Parents

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Zachary Maxwell Yuck! School Lunch

Zachary Maxwell may only be 11 years old, but he has an award-winning short film that will be screened at the Manhattan Film Festival this year.

It's called "Yuck! — A 4th Grader's Short Documentary About School Lunch," and it exposes the dark side of the NYC Department of Education's lunch program.

Click here to jump to the lunches >

In the fall of 2011, then-fourth grader Zachary asked his parents if he could start packing and bringing his own lunch to school. His parents insisted he keep eating the school's hot lunch, which was not only free, but sounded delicious on the NYC Department of Education's menu on its website.

With options like chicken nuggets with glazed carrots and beef ravioli with zucchini, Zachary's parents weren't sure he could provide himself the same well-balanced meals.

So to convince his parents things were not as they seemed, Zachary snuck a small HD camera into the lunchroom in his sweatshirt and eventually gathered six months worth of "inside" footage of what his lunches really looked like.

The result is "Yuck!" a 20-minute film narrated, written, and directed by Zachary and edited by CJ Maxwell, Zachary's dad.

The film may sound cute and innocent, but what Zachary uncovered in the cafeteria of PS 130 in Little Italy was actually quite shocking. According to a review in The New York Times, which calls Zachary the "Michael Moore of the grade-school lunch room":

Among the 75 lunches that Zachary recorded – chosen randomly, he swears – he found the menus to be “substantially” accurate, with two or more of the advertised menu items served, only 51 percent of the time. The menus were “totally” accurate, with all of the advertised items served, only 16 percent of the time. And by Zachary’s count, 28 percent of the lunches he recorded were built around either pizza or cheese sticks.

A spokeswoman for the NYC Department of Education told The Times that school lunches are healthy, and that perhaps Zachary wasn't choosing the vegetable option each time. Zachary denies the claim.

But the documentary has made one substantial change — Zachary now brings his own lunch to school.

This is Zachary Maxwell, the star, director, and narrator of "Yuck — A 4th Grader's Short Documentary About School Lunch."



To prove to his parents that the school lunches at his NYC elementary school weren't as healthy as they sounded on the Department of Education's lunch calendar, he snuck a camera to school every day to document his lunch.



This is the "Pasta Party" with "Neapolitan meatballs, whole grain pasta, and herbed marinara sauce." The "garlicky green beans" are missing.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone Gets Money From Bono And Al Gore For His Mysterious New Startup, Jelly

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Biz Stone at Chirp

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has a new startup called Jelly, and he just raised a Series A round of investment for it. The amount was not disclosed.

The round has a few traditional investors, such as Spark Capital and SV Angel. It also involved strategic angel investors such as politician Al Gore and musician Bono. Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Emmy-winning director Greg Yaitanes, author Steven Johnson, Obvious Corp's Jason Goldman and business woman Roya Mahboob also invested.

Stone hasn't revealed what Jelly is yet, but he has dropped a few hints.

"As mobile devices have taken an increasingly central role in our lives, humanity has grown more connected than ever—herein lies massive opportunity," Stone writes. 

The name Jelly – as in jellyfish – was chosen to reflect the community-minded product Stone is building. "Neurologically, [a jellyfish's] brain is more 'we' than 'me,'" he writes. "Jelly will be for everybody, it will be developed first and foremost for mobile devices, and it will be free."

Stone says he'll use the cash to hire more talent. One of his recent hires is Kevin Thau, who led Twitter's music app project. 

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Jimmy Kimmel's Audience Gave J.J. Abrams Advice For The Future Of 'Star Wars'

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J.J. Abrams stopped by "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" to discuss his new film, "Star Trek Into Darkness."

Of course, Abrams is also directing Disney's new "Star Wars" film, too. 

While we don't know much about the film set for a 2015 release, Abrams told Kimmel he's currently getting through a case of writer's block.

To help out, Kimmel offered up some audience suggestions for the future of the series.

Abrams didn't find them very helpful.

Note that if you've seen Kimmel's earlier interview with Harrison Ford on the same matter, it was more or less a followup.

SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know before "The Office" series finale >

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