| Vatican attacks Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Kapur and the film's Aussie stars, Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and Abbie Cornish, today faced the media to promote the second film about the life of Queen Elizabeth I, which opens here on November 15. And Kapur hinted a third and final film about the monarch was on the cards. "There's an assumption there's a trilogy. I think I started that," Kapur said. As titles like Elizabeth: The Last Hours or The Final Days were thrown around, Kapur described the progression of the trilogy through the life of the Queen. "The first one was a very personal film about a woman," he said. "She ends (the film) by saying 'I am the Virgin Queen' and almost trying to replace the Virgin Mary and declare herself divine. "So the second one is, if you've declared yourself divine and you're a woman with natural human desires and needs how are you going to handle it? So it ends with her finally becoming divine." A third would explore how she lives with that, and how we as people cope with a living divine being, Kapur said.
Willy Northpole and the Phoenix hip-hop scene explode
At first glance, this car is just a pile of rust and junked parts. The roof has been torn off, the seats ripped out. There's no steering wheel. But inside the tiny two-stroke engine bay of this East-German communist-era relic is a shiny new American-made V8. With the flip of a switch, the car comes to life, expanding to the size of an El Camino. Another switch gets the car jumping on both front- and rear-wheel hydraulics. The mechanic can talk all day about engines and drive shafts, brake-light switches and "servicing the shifter" just like any auto man worth the grease under his fingernails. Except this Dickies-clad figure is not a guy or a real mechanic. She's Liz Cohen, a photographer, who has decided to build a car and call it art. She's turning a Trabant, an East German car popular before the Berlin Wall fell, into a hybrid lowrider that transforms into a Chevy El Camino.
Sprint Tries to Connect With Other Firms
Since taking over in December, he has authorized the dismissal of about 4,000 employees and the shuttering of 125 Sprint-branded retail shops. He has also let go three members of senior management, including Chief Financial Officer Paul Saleh, who served as interim chief executive before Hesse took over. Sprint insiders said yesterday that nothing has been finalized about the plans to form a new venture, though one official said a decision could come within a few weeks. The new venture may involve Sprint spinning off its WiMax division and merging it with Clearwire, or spinning off its WiMax division into a new venture in which Clearwire, Intel and others invest. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak about the private talks.
N.J. colleges try for faster, cheaper
The Newark Housing Authority will tear down the 66-year-old Baxter Terrace housing project starting next year, saying the obsolete structure would cost $67 million to repair. One of the first projects of the newly created Newark Housing Authority in 1938, Baxter Terrace opened in 1941 to provide housing for the poor. But over the last several decades it has devolved into a dangerous and drug-ridden property and has been the site of at least four murders since 2005. The average yearly income of residents is a little more than $9,800 and only 355 of the 502 units are occupied. Wood boards cover windows in some vacant units. Continue reading "Newark's Baxter Terrace project to be torn down in '08" » .
Queens-born John Paulson makes fortune on home foreclosures
John Paulson made billions betting that you could lose your home. The Queens-born hedge fund titan scored big by making complex investments that would reap huge profits if housing prices drop and mortgage foreclosures rise. As the housing market tanked, Paulson made $2.7 billion in the first nine months of 2007 to lead all hedge fund bosses. Things are looking even better for him in '08 as real estate prices crumble and millions of Americans struggle to stay in their homes. "I've never been involved in a trade with such unlimited upside," Paulson, 52, boasted to The Wall Street Journal. The publicity-shy Paulson, who is not related to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, eschews the workaholic Wall Street ethos and tries to get home to his $15 million townhouse on the upper East Side in time for dinner.
Video: Jerry O'Connell Tom Cruise Parody
Did lovable actor Jerry O'Connell hone his Tom Cruise impersonation skills while he starred alongside with him in Jerry Maguire? Jerry O'Connell did a spoof of Tom Cruise's now famous Scientology video. The actor merged two hot topics – the writers' strike and the Cruise video – in this parody clip from Will Ferrell's funnyordie.com site. The parody, complete with "Mission: Impossible" music in the background, has been viewed thousands of times since it surfaced. .
Nov. home prices fall, but remain costly
U.S. home prices plunged by a record 8.4 percent in November, marking two years of slowing returns, according to a key index released Tuesday. However, housing is only slightly more affordable for many American workers, a separate study found. The decline in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 10-city composite home price index was the biggest year-to-year drop since a 6.7 percent decrease in October. The November performance was the 11th straight monthly decline. The index tracks prices of existing single-family homes in 10 metropolitan areas. "Nothing in these numbers suggest a bottoming out. The numbers universally are disappointing," said David Blitzer, S&P's managing director and chairman of the index committee. "Maybe when we get into the spring/summer home-buying season and with lower interest rates, maybe it will all come together." The broader 20-city composite index also was down year-over-year, falling 7.7 percent in November.
Home sales tumble in 2007 Housing still struggling to find bottom in ...
The housing market in Las Vegas ended the year with a whimper, tallying just 1,340 new-home sales in December for a total of 19,670 in 2007, down 45.6 percent from the previous year, Home Builders Research reported. Existing-home sales were equally weak, with 1,339 escrow closings in December, bringing the year's total to 24,838, a 40.7 percent decline from 2006. Las Vegas' housing recession is struggling to find the bottom in a "totally unique cycle," Home Builders Research President Dennis Smith said. The only hope is that the market reaches bottom by midyear and sales start to climb entering 2009, he said. .
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