(Entertainment Weekly)
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson strike sparks in "Twilight."
The moderator at a Sherman Oaks, California, movie theater was paying homage to Catherine Hardwicke. The director had just stunned "Twilight" fans by appearing for a surprise Q&A after a sold-out screening of her movie last Saturday night. The audience screamed as if Zac Efron -- or "Twilight's" own Rob Pattinson, for that matter -- had just strode on stage and dropped his drawers.
''OMG, OMG,'' the girls stuttered, trying desperately to remember their questions. Hardwicke cheerfully navigated the swarm on the way to the stage, comparing their united passion to what it used to be like following the Grateful Dead on tour -- and proceeded to dazzle them.
One 50-year-old woman asked the director what she thought it was about Pattinson's Edward that made women of all ages swoon. A "Twilight" mom in the audience shouted, ''He's gentlemanly and caring and unattainable and mysterious all at the same time!''
Hardwicke laughed and shrugged her shoulders. She said that when she brought her 70-year-old mother to the set she asked her mom if she'd like to meet Pattinson and his costar, Kristen Stewart. To which her mom promptly replied: ''Just Rob.''
The first movie to be adapted from Stephenie Meyer's breakout hit -- about the chaste romance between rebel vampire Edward and a shy high school girl named Bella -- left many, if not all, of the author's fans in a state of religious ecstasy. (The unconverted, though, most likely spent the weekend plugging their ears, willing themselves to their happy places where fangirls and vegetarian vampires never roam free.)
Made for less than $40 million, "Twilight" far exceeded box office predictions, pulling in a dizzying $69.6 million over opening weekend. ''Up until this week, everyone was thinking this would be a one-quadrant movie,'' says a top female studio executive. ''The men in this industry are still chasing the young boys -- even after 'Sex and the City.'''
--Source: CNN
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton has agreed to make public the names of more than 200,000 donors to his foundation as part of a deal with President-elect Barack Obama to clear the way for Sen. Hillary Clinton to become secretary of state, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
Citing Democrats close to Clinton and Obama, the newspaper reported Clinton had decided to publish his contributor list to avoid an appearance of conflict of interest with his wife's duties as secretary of state.
Her appointment is expected to be announced on Monday.
A member of Obama's transition team confirmed the conditions of the agreement as reported by the Times.
The contributors' list is one of nine conditions that Clinton agreed to in his discussions with Obama's representatives, the newspaper reported.
Clinton turned over the names of all 208,000 individuals and organizations that have given money since 1997, the Times said, while the agreement holds that his foundation will release them publicly by year's end.
Future donors will also be disclosed as long as Hillary Clinton is in the cabinet, it said.
The former president has also agreed to submit his speeches and business dealings in advance to State Department ethics officials for their review, as well as to the White House counsel's office if need be, the Times reported.
The Obama team said it expected Clinton's concessions would defuse any potential controversy, the report said.
BANGKOK POST AND AFP
The United States, Britain and the European Union have issued statements urging anti-government protesters to vacate Bangkok's airports, saying the rallies are inappropriate and "seriously damaging" Thailand's image.
The US statement by Gordon Duguid, acting deputy spokesman of the Department of State said: "The US is deeply concerned about the actions of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) in seizing Bangkok's international and domestic airports, preventing the free movement of people and goods.
"While we respect the right to freedom of expression, seizing an airport is not an appropriate means of protest.
"We urge the PAD to walk away from the airports peacefully.
"We hope that this situation can be resolved without violence and in accordance with the law."
Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister Bill Rammell said yesterday that the situation facing the many British nationals stranded in Bangkok is frustrating and deeply concerning.
"Our priority is to help them get home, and I am grateful for the support provided by the Thai authorities to those affected," he said.
"Our consular teams on the ground and in London are doing all they can to help. They are taking numerous calls and are meeting as many British nationals as possible. Our travel advice is regularly updated and I urge people to monitor it closely.
"I call on all parties in Thailand to take steps to resolve the crisis and restore public order, respecting the rule of law and the country's democratic institutions.
"The events of the last few days have damaged Thailand's international reputation, so I welcome the announcement that negotiations will take place with demonstrators tomorrow," Mr Rammell said.
A statement from EU ambassadors in Bangkok called on all parties to resolve the political crisis peacefully and in line with democratic institutions but it focused on the acts of the demonstrators.
"While respecting the right of protesting and without interfering in any way with the internal political debate in Thailand, the EU considers that these actions are totally inappropriate," the statement said.
"They are seriously damaging the international image of Thailand."
The statement said more than 100,000 passengers had been left stranded as a result of the anti-government protests.
The ambassadors "urge the protesters to evacuate the airports peacefully without delay in order to avoid a major consular crisis and its economic consequences for Thailand", the statement said.
A suspect was arrested Wednesday night in connection with the death of Little Rock, Arkansas, television news anchor Anne Pressly, police said.
[Anne Pressly, 26, was a popular morning news
anchor at KATV-TV in Little Rock, Arkansas]
She died days later in a hospital. She had been sedated and unable to speak to police or family members, and suffered massive brain swelling, her family said. Her condition had seemed to be improving shortly before her death.
Police earlier said Pressly might have been the victim of a burglary because her purse was missing. Her credit card was used at a gas station sometime this week, police said.
Pressly's left hand was broken, possibly as she tried to fight off her attacker.
During the investigation, detectives combed the area around Pressly's home in the Heights neighborhood, a mix of bungalows and mansions near the Little Rock Country Club. Source: CNN
SHELBYVILLE, Ind. (AP) — Edna Parker, who became the world's oldest person more than a year ago, has died at age 115.
Edna Parker holds a rose that she was given during a birthday party for her in Shelbyville, Ind., in this Friday, April 18, 2008 file photo. Parker passed away Wednesday Nov. 26, 2008 at a nursing home in Shelbyville, Ind., UCLA gerontologist Dr. Stephen Coles said. Parker was born April 20, 1893 and was 115 years, 120 days old. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
UCLA gerontologist Dr. Stephen Coles said Parker's great-nephew notified him that Parker died Wednesday at a nursing home in Shelbyville. She was 115 years, 220 days old, said Robert Young, a senior consultant for gerontology for Guinness World Records.
Parker was born April 20, 1893, in central Indiana's Morgan County and had been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest person since the 2007 death in Japan of Yone Minagawa, who was four months her senior.
Coles maintains a list of the world's oldest people and said Parker was the 14th oldest validated supercentenarian in history. Maria de Jesus of Portugal, who was born Sept. 10, 1893, is now the world's oldest living person, according to the Gerontology Research Group.
Parker had been a widow since her husband, Earl Parker, died in 1939 of a heart attack. She lived alone in their farmhouse until age 100, when she moved into a son's home and later to the Shelbyville nursing home.
Although she never drank alcohol or tried tobacco and led an active life, Parker didn't offer tips for living a long life. Her only advice to those who gathered to celebrate when she became the oldest person was "more education."
Parker outlived her two sons, Clifford and Earl Jr. She also had five grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and 13 great-great-grandchildren.
"We don't know why she's lived so long," Don Parker said before his grandmother's 115th birthday. "But she's never been a worrier and she's always been a thin person, so maybe that has something to do with it."
Parker taught in a two-room school in Shelby County for several years after graduating from Franklin College in 1911. She wed her childhood sweetheart and neighbor in 1913.
(This version CORRECTS that Parker graduated in 1911 and got married in 1913 instead of both events happening in 1913.))
Source: CNN-Sean Penn and Gus Van Sant have a proposition for us: a biopic dedicated to the memory of San Francisco activist and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, who was murdered by a fellow supervisor in 1978.
[Sean Penn plays San Francisco City Supervisor
Harvey Milk in "Milk," directed by Gus Van Sant.]
The subject may be a tricky sell, but the timing feels right -- a few weeks late to save Californians' same-sex marriage rights, admittedly, but the need to keep on fighting through adversity may be Milk's most important legacy.
And "Milk" is a powerful movie that will stir more than a few hearts and minds.
An audiotape Milk records "just in case" is screenwriter Dustin Lance Black's convenient structuring device, foregrounding the story's tragic outcome and allowing Milk to narrate his own life story.
In this telling, it's a life that begins at 40 -- when he picks up Scott (James Franco), falls in love, comes out and drops out. The year is 1970, and San Francisco beckons. Their Castro Street camera store soon becomes a focal point for the booming gay community, and it's not long before Milk makes the first of several unsuccessful runs for district supervisor.
Civic elections might seem like small beer, but the persecution that compelled Milk to run for office is no trivial matter. The gay rights movement's most critical accomplishment, the film suggests, is how it liberated gays to be themselves.
As Milk tries to explain to his heterosexual colleague Dan White (Josh Brolin), this isn't about principles, it's about people's lives -- three of his lovers had threatened suicide. One of them, Jack Lira (Diego Luna), goes through with it. The political can't get more personal than that. Ironically, the devoutly "normal" White is the one who is truly messed up.
Here's another irony: To earn the recognition and validation of the voters, Milk has to shed his reborn hippie uniform and ponytail, put on a suit and get a haircut. Making the same calculation, director Gus Van Sant has axed the long takes and experimentalism that made "Elephant" and "Paranoid Park" arresting but decidedly marginal experiences and turned in his most conventional movie since "Finding Forrester." In other words, he's playing it straight this time.
The strategy is sound; the execution, nearly flawless. Van Sant captures the time and the place with unobtrusive precision, seamlessly mixing in reams of archival news reports. (She may not know it, but Anita Bryant has a co-starring role in this movie.)
Penn is studied and thoughtful, impassioned and immediately sympathetic as Milk. It's easy to see how he attracts so much support -- and how his drive and commitment don't leave enough time for a "real" life. When Penn smiles, there's always pain there -- it's almost a wince -- and he smiles a lot here.
"Milk" may be a little too homogenized for some tastes. Like "Philadelphia" and "Brokeback Mountain," it's careful how it advances its agenda (and it does have one).
But it's not just a single-issue movie. In its conviction that "change" isn't effected through rhetoric alone, but through the hard slog of campaign work, persuasion, inspiration, inclusion and good old, bad old politicking, "Milk" says something about how progress is achieved in America. In that respect, it evokes the best aspirations of the country -- and, for that matter, of filmmaking.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama is already making presidential history by naming -- or at least his transition team is leaking to the press -- his Cabinet picks faster than nearly all of his predecessors.
[N.Y. Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for treasury secretary.]
With an economic crisis spiraling out of control and a lame duck in the oval office, presidential scholars say the next commander in chief simply had no choice.
"This is really unprecedented. But it's an unprecedented situation," said Larry Sabato, a presidential scholar at the University of Virginia. "Obama is doing what the public and the markets demand be done -- and that is to show that the next president is really in charge before he even takes the oath of office."
The conventional wisdom by observers was that the Obama transition team's vigorous vetting requirements would slow down the selection process, or scare away talent altogether.
After all, in addition to the already invasive FBI background check, the Obama team is requiring prospective candidates to complete a seven-page questionnaire that requires the disclosure of nearly every last private detail.
In addition to the obvious questions involving past criminal history, candidates are asked about personal diaries, past blog posts and the financial entanglements of extended family members.
"This questionnaire they've been giving to people who are thinking about signing up for a government job is extremely invasive," said David Gergen, a CNN senior political analyst and adviser to four past presidents.
"I've never seen anything like this at the presidential level before -- the FBI asks these kind of questions, but to have the presidential transition team asking these questions requires ... great volumes of records that have to be checked out."
The most recent victim of the process appears to be Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker, the longtime Obama supporter and major Democratic fundraiser who was said to be the president-elect's top choice for commerce secretary.
Pritzker publicly took herself out of the running on Thursday, issuing a statement saying she had submitted no information to begin the vetting process and citing "obligations here in Chicago that make it difficult for me to serve at this time."
Sources close to the Obama transition say Pritzker's decision is not surprising given the nature of the vetting process, one they themselves have described as stressful.
Nonetheless, potential Cabinet and high-level White House posts are filling up fast.
Sources close to the Obama transition team say New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson accepted Obama's offer to be commerce secretary; Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano has also been tapped and agreed to become the nation's next homeland security secretary.
"Nobody believes that these individuals, Larry Summers for example, has produced every e-mail that might be embarrassing to the president-elect or the new administration. There simply wasn't enough time," Sabato said.
In recent times, only President George H.W. Bush moved more quickly, but that was to name confidant James Baker to secretary of state just days after the election.
Both Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton waited until December for their first picks.
But two of Clinton's choices for attorney general -- Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood -- were scuttled over revelations they had hired undocumented workers.
The embarrassing debacle came at the worst time for the new president, already facing criticisms over his shaky and seemingly disorganized transition.
"You'd rather have a smooth transition than a bumpy one," said Paul Begala, a former top aide to President Clinton and an analyst for CNN. "But a bumpy start does not necessarily presage a bad presidency."
The Obama team, observers said, started early to avoid getting blindsided by unexpected problems.
"There's no question that plenty of work was done in anticipation of victory," said Kenneth Gross, a vetting attorney for political appointees.
It's a delicate balancing act. But vetting experts said the early rollout of Obama's economic team Monday could calm markets -- as long as there aren't any surprises.
After the announcement Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 397 points, or 4.9 percent, after having been up 552 points earlier in the afternoon.
The market also rallied Friday when news leaked that Obama would name his economic team. The two-session gain of 891.10 points was the biggest two-session gain ever, according to Dow Jones.
"I think calling it a high wire act is a good term because this is high stakes," Gross said. "These are high-profile positions and the last thing you want is something to blow up in your face."
Obama is not out of the woods yet. There are confirmation hearings coming. And one prominent Republican is promising an old-fashioned Capitol Hill grilling, saying in times of crisis, the public deserves nothing less.
