‘3 Idiots’ movie sweeps annual Bollywood awar - Ev

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – The hit comedy film “3 Idiots” starring superstar Aamir Khan took home most of the awards at the annual Bollywood “Oscars,” including best Indian movie, in a ceremony in Sri Lanka’s capital that top actors did not attend amid a boycott call over the former civil war.

Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan received the best actor award for his role of a child suffering from progeria, a rare genetic disease that causes rapid aging, in “Paa.” Bachchan’s actor son Abhishek played the role of the child’s father.

But the two Bachchans along with many other Indian stars failed to show up at the International Indian Film Awards in Colombo on Saturday.

Last year, Sri Lanka’s military defeated Tamil Tiger rebels after a decades-long armed struggle for a separate homeland for minority Tamils, who have family and cultural links with the people of Tamil Nadu in India.

“3 Idiots,Evisu,” a film directed by Rajkumar Hirani that revolves around the lives of three engineering students, won 16 out of 31 awards,Citizens of Humanity, including best director.

According to U.N. documents, more than 7,000 civilians were killed in the last five months of the civil war. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people died during the conflict.

Those who did not show up in Colombo included big Bollywood names Aamir Khan, Shah Ruk Khan and Bachchan’s actress daughter-in-law, former Miss World Aishwarya Rai.

The IIFA awards were created a decade ago to promote Indian films to an international audience. Earlier ceremonies were hosted by London, Yorkshire, Malaysia, Dubai, Johannesburg, Amsterdam, Singapore, Bangkok and Macau.

Government troops were accused of shelling a small strip of land where hundreds of thousands of people were boxed-in during the last stages of the war, while the rebels were blamed for killing noncombatants trying to leave the area. The government has denied deliberately killing civilians.

Kareena Kapoor, who starred in “3 Idiots,” shared the best actress award with Vidya Balan from “Paa.”

Sri Lankan beauty queen-turned-actress Jacqueline Fernandez won the award for best female debut.

It won eight of the 12 technical awards, including best screenplay, best cinematography and editing.

They said they had prior commitments. However, some fellow actors and directors from India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu had asked them to boycott the ceremony, accusing Sri Lankan forces of killing ethnic Tamil civilians in the final stages of the long-running civil war which ended last year.

The next awards will be held in Canada next year.

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China’s NBA star Yao Ming becomes dad -

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – China’s star NBA center Yao Ming and wife Ye Li are the proud parents of a baby girl, a statement released by his US representatives on Friday said.

Yao and his wife returned to the USA earlier this year after spending several months in China as he recovered from a broken foot that forced him to miss the entire NBA season.

The baby was born in Houston on Friday and weighs 7 pounds, 9 Juicy Couture tracksuits ounces, according to the announcement from BDA Sports Management. Both mother and daughter are in good health.

The couple’s decision to return to their home in Houston, where Yao plays for the NBA’s Rockets, had sparked some debate among Yao’s fans in China, some of Juicy Couture tracksuits whom were dismayed by the idea the child could have an American passport.

"I am very excited about the arrival of our daughter," Yao said. "This is a very special moment in our lives and we thank everyone for their kindness and support."

Maya Angelou throws garden party for 82nd birthday

Angelou’s next effort, to be published later this year, is a cook book titled "Great Food All Day Long."

Singers Naomi Judd and Martina McBride sang "Happy Birthday to You" to Angelou, who sat at a table in her newly refurbished backyard garden, while hip-hop artist and actor Common improvised a song to honor her.

"I mean, this is our country," said Angelou, whose birthday was April 4. "This is a country of Republicans, of Democrats and of independents. And we are going to work together to make it better. Or we will not. And we will make it worse. And that’s dumb."

"It was always something that I could reference to at times when I was feeling down or doubting myself," he told AP. "I just thought of that phrase, ‘Still I Rise.’ And it still resonates with me."

Common said he first discovered Angelou’s poetry in the fifth grade on the South Side of Chicago, when her poem "Still I Rise" touched his soul.

Despite her generally upbeat attitude, Angelou said she finds the state of national politics to be tragic.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Poet Maya Angelou celebrated a Victorias Secret belated 82nd birthday Thursday with a few celebrity friends and a few choice words about political divisiveness in the United States.

"She inspires me to tell the truth," he said. "Her voice can’t be Victorias Secret any more powerful. And she inspires me to do better work, to dig deeper in my soul and do better work."

She declined say whether she blamed racism because President Obama is black or who she blames for the problems: "I can’t deal with it. Some of it is blithering ignorance. We look stupid in the world’s eyes. … It polarizes us more, and I’m not that. I don’t do that."

While others waxed poetic about Angelou and her affect on them, Lee Daniels, the Oscar-nominated director of "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Lee Sapphire," kept his words simple.

The recipes are based on the idea of eating small amounts of food during the day, a way of eating that she said helped her lose 40 pounds over the last two years.

"I have an attitude of gratitude. Nobody promised me this day," Victorias Secret Angelou said in an interview with The Associated Press, explaining how she keeps writing.

Most of the day focused on the friends and family who gathered to honor Angelou, who wore a pink pantsuit, a printed top and a mauve hat, along with fuzzy socks that helped her walk. A tent with yellow and white drapes covered the tables where about 100 guests ate while Common and McBride told the crowd what Angelou meant to them.

Kuhn, Kudisch, Yazbeck and More Sing as Family in

For more information about Sycamore Trees, visit www.signature-theatre.org or call (703) 573-SEAT (7328).

Recipient of the 2009 Regional Theatre Tony Award, Signature Theatre is a non-profit professional theatre company dedicated to producing contemporary musicals and plays, reinventing classic musicals, and developing new work. It is under the leadership of co-founder and artistic director Eric Schaeffer and managing director Maggie Boland.

His works of musical theatre include My Life with Albertine, written with Richard Nelson for Playwrights Horizons (on CD from PS Classics); Dream True, written with Tina Landau for The Vineyard Theater (on CD from PS Classics); The Tibetan Book of the Dead, written with Jean Claude Van Itallie for Houston Grand Opera; Only Heaven, which uses poems by Langston Hughes, for Encompass Opera (on CD from PS Classics); and Morning Star, with librettist William Hoffman, for the Lyric Opera Of Chicago’s Opera Studio.

The May 18-June 13 production, directed by Tina Landau, a frequent collaborator of Gordon, features Farah Alvin (Nine, The Look of Love, Pirates!, G-Star  Kuni-Leml), Marc Kudisch (9 to 5, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Bells Are Ringing), Judy Kuhn (Rags, She Loves Me), Jessica Molaskey (Parade, A Man of No Importance), Matthew Risch (Pal Joey, Legally Blonde), Diane Sutherland (She Loves Me, 1776, Cats) and Tony Yazbeck (Gypsy, A Chorus Line, White Christmas).

Gordon’s current projects include commissions with librettist Michael Korie from the Minnesota Opera for a work to be based on the novel "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" and from the Metropolitan Opera for a work about Victor Hugo’s daughter, Adele in Nova Scotia. For Virginia Opera and The Virginia Arts Festival he has been commissioned to write Rappahannock County with librettist Mark Stephen Campbell.

Gordon’s opera The Grapes of Wrath, written with librettist Michael Korie and commissioned by The Minnesota, Utah and Pittsburgh Operas, premiered Feb. 10, 2007. It was recently performed in a concert version at Carnegie Hall in a sold out one-night-only event with an all-star cast and narrated by Jane Fonda. His Green Sneakers (Recording, Blue Griffin Records) was commissioned by Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. His Orpheus and Euridice (Recording, Sh-k-Boom) premiered at Lincoln Center as part of the Great Performers/New Visions Series, and G-Star   won an OBIE Award. Born in Oceanside, NY, and raised on Long Island, Gordon was in love with poetry and fascinated from an early age by all forms of opera and musical theatre. Consequently, his work blurs the line between musical theatre, opera and art song. He attended Carnegie Mellon University.

Landau’s recent directing credits include Tracy Letts’ G-Star  Superior Donuts (Broadway), Tarell McCraney’s The Brother Sister Plays (Steppenwolf), In the Red and Brown Water (Public Theater, McCarter), Wig Out! (Vineyard Theater), Chuck Mee’s Iphigenia 2.0 Off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre Company), Midsummer Night’s Dream (McCarter/Paper Mill) and Bells are Ringing (Broadway).

Long Island native Gordon said in production notes, "When my father came home from World War II in 1945, my family lived in a crowded tenement in the Bronx, poor and with bed bugs. Then my parents got the idea to move to the suburbs where the dream of life flowering in a clean and spacious environment promised to be the answer. It wasn’t. This is the story of a family and what happened to them…and music is its heartbeat and inner life."

Director Landau explained the project this way in production notes: "In Sycamore Trees, an American family speaks directly to the audience as they tell, and re-live, their stories in the second half of the 20th century. The piece is very intimate, and deeply personal, yet it also has a historical sweep as it places these characters in the tumult of the times - the chaotic ’60s, the pressurized ’80s, and so on. It’s exquisite - in its sense of longing and loss, and the profound ties that bind family together. Above all, the piece has a form which is completely unique - unlike any other show I can think of. It’s highly inventive and idiosyncratic in its storytelling - constantly surprising, creating and breaking its own rules. The whole piece feels like a poem - some haunting combination of memory, music and dream."

The creative team includes scenic designer James Schuette, costume designer Kathleen Geldard, lighting designer Scott Zielinski and sound designer Matt Rowe.

According to Signature, "Sycamore Trees is the moving story of [Gordon's] family’s struggles and their reliance on each other through good and bad."

Opening is May 30. Performances play the 276-seat MAX Theatre in Signature’s complex. Tony Award winner Bruce Coughlin (The Light in the Piazza) wrote orchestrations. Musical direction is by Fred Lassen (Broadway’s South Pacific and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels).

Sycamore Trees is the second Signature production in the G-Star  American Musical Voices Project, sponsored by The Shen Family Foundation. This is the largest single musical theatre commissioning and producing initiative at a U.S. non-profit theatre.

For more information about the composer and his works, visit www.rickyiangordon.com.

Sycamore Trees has music by Gordon, and book by Gordon and dramaturg Nan Mankin.

Award-Winning Director Cromer Conducts ‘Streetcar’

Writers’ Theatre is at 325 Tudor Court in Glencoe, IL. For information, call (847) 242-6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

The production also features Danny McCarthy (Mitch), Laguna Beach Jenn Engstrom (Eunice), Loren Lazarine (Steve), Esteban Andres Cruz (Pablo), Stacy Stoltz (Stella), Carolyn E. Nelson (Colored Woman/Matron), Derek Hasenstab (Doctor) and Ryan Hallahan (Young Collector).

Writers’ Theatre, run by artistic director Michael Halberstam and executive director Kathryn M. Lipuma, "is a professional company focusing on the Word and the Artist," according to its mission statement. "Remaining true to the intention of the playwright and nurturing the artist stand at the center of the mission. Now in its 18th season, the company both revives classic scripts and cultivates new works and adaptations while invigorating them with fresh Laguna Beach energy in the intimacy of its venues. Founded in 1992, Writers’ Theatre performed exclusively at Books on Vernon, 664 Vernon Avenue for the first 12 years. In the fall of 2003, the organization opened a new 108-seat performance venue at 325 Tudor Court. Today, Writers’ Theatre continues to produce in both spaces, maintaining an intimate theatrical experience for audiences."

Cromer returns to Writers’ Theatre, where he directed Picnic, Booth, The Price and Oscar Remembered. His current production in New York City is Off-Broadway’s Our Town at Barrow Street Theatre. When the Rain Stops Falling played at Lincoln Center Theater’s Off-Broadway Mitzi Newhouse in the spring. He also staged the acclaimed Off-Broadway productions of Orson’s Shadow and Adding Machine, and the short-lived fall 2009 Brighton Beach Memoirs.

Cromer was recently announced to be the director of the Broadway production of the musical Yank! The revival Streetcar, the Tennessee Williams play about a broken woman who cannot reconcile past and present, features Natasha Lowe as Blanche and Matt Hawkins as Stanley. Performances play to July 11.

David Cromer, the award-winning regional and New York Laguna Beach City director who won a 2010 Lucille Lortel Award for his direction of Lincoln Center Theater’s When the Rain Stops Falling, has returned to his Chicago roots to stage Writers’ Theatre’s new production of A Streetcar Named Desire, which opens May 13 after previews from May 5 in Glencoe, IL.

Zero Followers Twitter Fixes ‘Force Follow’ Bug -

"Hackers i send a warning…u have now pissed off over 2 million teenage girls. They are more dangerous than Navy Seals," Bieber tweeted.

Twitter noted that "protected updates did not become public as a result of this bug."

Twitter on Monday fixed a bug that allowed users to "force" others to follow them and prompted the micro-blogging site to temporarily set all users’ follower and following numbers to zero. Follower numbers have since been restored.

Bieber and Kutcher have since had their 2.3 million and 4.8 million respective Twitter followers restored.

"We identified and resolved a bug that permitted a user to ‘force’ other users to follow them," Twitter wrote earlier on its status blog.

"Twitter is being hacked by some turkish hacker. haha I have 0 followers," Kutcher wrote, before being made aware of the glitch.

The bug in question reportedly allowed users to type "accept [username]" as a tweet, and that person would be signed up as a follower. Do you want Oprah as a follower? Want to send her a direct message? For a short time, typing "accept Oprah" into the Moncler Twitter.com update box did just that. The glitch did not appear to have worked on third-party apps.

While it worked to fix abuses of the bug, Twitter Moncler put the number of people users were following - and their number of followers - at zero, prompting some concern from popular celebrities that their accounts had been hacked.

How many Twitter followers did you have earlier today? The Moncler same as Oprah? As many as Justin Bieber? Are you running neck and neck with Ashton Kutcher and CNN? For a short time Monday morning, the answer was yes - everyone on the site had zero followers.

Discount Abercrombie&Fitch Cable worries about Web

Such high stakes have led to ugly fee negotiations in recent months. Stand-offs include Time Warner Cable Inc versus News Corp’s Fox Networks as well as Cablevision Systems Corp versus Scripps Network Inc. Two months ago, ABC local station signals went dark on Abercrombie jackets Cablevision due to a dispute with ABC parent Walt Disney Co.

One reason for this is the long-running fear that customers will tire of paying more, give up cable TV and cut the cord.

But these battles over fees have been bad for the industry, and cable companies have dedicated marketing dollars to explain programing fee hikes as the reason for rising cable bills.

"The affiliate deals between cable networks and operators have been increasingly contentious over the last six months," said Thomas Eagan, analyst with Collins Stewart. "There’s got to be some realization that the ecosystem works if they work well together. It falls apart if their negotiations are disruptive."

Until recently, cable investors argued the average American family isn’t prepared to sit around a laptop to watch HBO. But a proliferation of new devices and services has made it easier to watch PC content on flat screen TV sets.

"You’re going to see an accelerated cord-cutting beginning this Christmas season with Web-enabled TVs and games consoles," said Todd Mitchell, analyst at Kaufman Bros.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Richard Chang)

CORD-CUTTING

Retransmission fees are the amount broadcasters charge to distributors who deliver the free-to-air signals to their subscribers. Broadcasters have in the past allowed cable companies to carry those signals for free but as advertising rates fall they been pushing for this alternative revenue.

But there could be an even more dramatic change if the cable companies themselves decide to transform their Internet-Protocol-based cable systems to deliver programing over the Web.

CBS Corp CEO Les Moonves, a keynote speaker at the Cable Show, has been among the biggest champions of retransmission fees and shows no sign of backing down.

It is not yet clear that consumers will make that move. Collins Stewart’s Eagan points out that pay-TV additions for cable,Discount Abercrombie&Fitch, phone and satellite customers Abercrombie jackets have outpaced customer losses for the last two years. He expects the same this year in spite of the growth of Web video.

Many industry watchers have long argued these are two sides of the same coin. They say if cable distributors keep passing along the higher programing fees to subscribers, then those subscribers will eventually seek out entertainment elsewhere. One likely place would be online video.

"If it’s all IP-based what’s to stop Comcast delivering a mini-package of Discovery, ESPN and CNN to a customer?" said Mitchell. "They could aggregate programing at a more effective price than cable outsiders."

Standoffs between programmers and distributors are almost a staple of the American media business in a tough economy. But a particularly weak advertising market and the recent introduction of retransmission fees have further complicated matters.

Meanwhile, companies like Netflix Inc and Sony Corp’s PlayStation have started streaming movies in competition with cable’s video on-demand services. PlayStation is also offering live Major League Baseball games.

Programmers have also been holding talks with Apple Inc to stream cable-type programing packages to its devices like the iPad. Such packages could allow an Apple subscriber to buy a cheaper, smaller package of their favorite TV channels or shows unlike current cable offerings.

The cable industry is aware of the threat. Comcast Corp and Time Warner Inc launched TV Everywhere at last year’s Cable Show, which allows paying subscribers to watch their favorite cable shows on-demand via the Web. The service has been rolled out gradually. but has yet to fully capture the imagination of everyday cable subscribers.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When executives gather for the annual Cable Show industry event in Los Angeles this week, two issues will be near the top of the Abercrombie jackets agenda: rising programing fees and the growing threat of new Web video services.

wholesale Ed hardy Nintendo Wii sales plummeting

And perhaps that is why no one is buying any more Wii consoles. Nintendo is now in a bit of a pickle, as its Buddha-belly-sized coffers are shrinking, thanks to rapidly decreasing interest in the Wii.

Everyone loves that Nintendo Wii, don’t they? Why, just this weekend I went to a housewarming party, and sure enough, Wii Sports was up and running for the Abercrombie jeans kids to play with. You can’t get away from it. Wii is everywhere.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, for the second year running, Wii sales have fallen, and the company is now missing sales forecasts. Nintendo’s net income is declining, too, estimated to fall 13 percent this year, on top of an 18 percent drop last year.

Why the disinterest? Aside from the obvious issue that these consoles have already saturated the market, the Wii continues to suffer from a lack of good games. The only really hot titles are still those produced by Nintendo itself — mainly continuations of the Abercrombie jeans Mario and Zelda saga — and there’s really only so much milk that can be squeezed from that teat.

With Wii-mania fading, the company is now focusing on its upcoming 3-D DS handheld console, which was announced earlier this year and has a targeted release date in early 2011. Nintendo launched the original DS in 2004 and has tweaked it bit by bit ever since, but it hasn’t seen a major upgrade since the start,wholesale Ed hardy, and the no-glasses 3-D capabilities of the new handheld could be a compelling sell.

Unfortunately, Nintendo, once the leader — by far — in a two-horse mobile-gaming race alongside Sony, now has every cell phone to deal with as competition, as players have turned to iPhones and Droids to game their way through flight delays and post-office lines. And now there’s the iPad to contend with as well: It’s not just a Web browser and e-book reader; it also makes a pretty good gaming device with a giant screen.

So while its work is cut out for it in the portable space, what does Nintendo do with the home-game-console market? The Wii isn’t dead, but it’s already looking like it needs an upgrade, and a big one. Something to attract serious gamers, developers, and even more of that casual market. What about 3-D? Why not extend what’s going on with the Abercrombie jeans handheld into the world of the television … or is that just not possible?

Wholesale Abercrombie Flush collectors ready to sp

Auction houses responded by slashing operations and paring down sales by half as they labored to wrest consignments from sellers reluctant to go to market when prices were plummeting.

Attracting intense interest are works that seldom come to market by artists Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, along with Rothko and Johns.

"Collectors," Gyorgy said, "are also now more inclined to see Seven art as a hedge against inflation.

"I think we’re going to be surprised by buyers’ excitement," he said. "The&nbsp,Wholesale Abercrombie; Seven  international money exists, and there has been a secular recovery in the U.S., particularly in capital markets. Wall Street has had a really good year."

With the rare, virtually unseen master works up for grabs, pent-up demand has collectors anxious to get in on the action.

Christie’s is offering a smaller version from the late writer Michael Crichton’s collection, conservatively estimated at $10 million to $15 million, given the Flag series’ rarity.

"Our collectors are really rich again," said one auction house official.

"You’re going to see records set," said Baird Ryan, managing director of the private financial and consulting services firm Art Capital Group.

Earlier this year one of the most powerful hedge managers, SAC Capital Advisors founder Steve Cohen, bought a Johns’ signature Flag painting from a New York dealer for about $110 million.

Top hedge fund managers — who played no small role in the sustained art market boom that ended precipitously with the 2008 financial crisis — recorded their best year ever in 2009. The annual ranking by AR: Absolute Return + Alpha showed the top 25 managers earned more than $25 billion.

Suzanne Gyorgy, head of Citi Private Bank’s Art Advisory Service, which works with collectors, said some were reluctant to be seen as flaunting wealth at a public Seven auction during dire economic times.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Fueled by international collectors and Wall Street investors reaping soaring profits, the beaten-down art market appears poised for a Seven remarkable comeback after an 18-month stumble.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Todd Eastham)

Assessing the damage to their own portfolios in the downturn, the super-rich — those capable of spending millions on a single canvas — largely passed on recent seasons.

Philip Hoffman, chief executive of the art-investment house Fine Art Group Fund, said he expected top lots such as the Picasso to "go through the roof."

Still, the bottom did not fall out of the market. November’s leaner sales largely met or exceeded expectations, even if totals were a fraction of what they had been.

Sellers were spooked by falling prices, but they are coming back, Gyorgy said. "We’ve had clients who have been sitting it out but are now ready to sell."

Then in February two determined bidders drove the price for a Giacometti sculpture to $104.3 million in London, setting a record for any work at auction.

Rare buying opportunities to buy works by such modern masters as Jasper Johns and Mark Rothko will spur stiff competition and hefty spending by deep-pocketed collectors at the critical spring sales hosted by auction powerhouses Sotheby’s and Christie’s, art experts predict.

Much of the action, such as Cohen’s "Flag" purchase, moved to the private market.

The global art market took a solid hit in 2009 as the financial crisis extended its grip to the rarefied arena, seen as a lagging indicator. Reported revenue was half the $9.3 billion posted in 2007, according to market monitor Artprice.