Miss Connecticut wins Miss USA

 A 25-year-old contestant from Connecticut won the title of Miss USA in Las Vegas on Sunday night.

Erin Brady of South Glastonbury, Conn., won the beauty pageant at the Planet Hollywood hotel-casino after strutting in a white sparkly gown and answering a question about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding widespread DNA tests. Asked if she agreed with the decision, Brady said she did.

Brady gets the crown and a New York apartment for one year. She is expected to spend her title reign on a nationwide speaking tour and raising breast and ovarian cancer awareness, the organization's official cause.

During the swimsuit competition, the ladies threw off sheer wraps to reveal skimpy blue, gold and orange bikinis. They strutted in stilettos to the Jonas Brothers' live performance of "Pom Poms."

The women also strutted to Calvin Harris' electronica-infused "Sweet Nothing" in an array of spangled, flowing evening gowns. Trains, gauze and long wavy hair were the preferred looks.

Unlike the rival Miss America pageant, Miss USA doesn't ask its queens to perform a talent or choose a charity mission.

The judge's panel included over-the-top fashion designer Betsey Johnson, "Biggest Loser" star Bob Harper and "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me" personality Mo Rocca.

Rocca praised the pageant as a prime example of Americana backstage. He said he was looking to appoint a new Miss USA who reminded him of Abraham Lincoln "without the beard."

The pageant aired live on NBC, hosted by Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers pop act and Giuliana Rancic, co-anchor of "E! News." The Jonas Brothers and DJ Pauly D were expected to perform.

The winner will represent the United States at the Miss Universe pageant in the winter.

Last year's Miss USA, Olivia Culpo, won that international crown, becoming the first Miss USA to ascend to Miss Universe in 16 years. Meriwether, who had been first runner-up, took over for her for the remainder of the year.

The Miss USA hopefuls stayed at the Planet Hollywood casino for the past week, but the flashing slot machines and ubiquitous oversized novelty drinks have been little more than a background to a stuffed schedule of product tie-in media events, including hairdo contests and paddleboat competitions.

The animal rights organization People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals is using the pageant to stage a protest of fur and the tradition of awarding furs to winners of some state pageants.

PETA has made a provocative ad featuring four nude former Miss USA winners. The tagline is: "Feel Beautiful in Your Own Skin, and Let Animals Keep Theirs."

NEWS SOURCE:http://www.foxnews.com

Kim Kardashian gives birth to child with Kanye West

The reality television star Kim Kardashian has given birth to a girl, her first child with the rapper Kanye West.

Magazines in the US have posted the story online, citing unnamed sources confirming the birth of the couple's daughter.

Kim is thought to have given birth on Saturday, earlier than her expected due date, in a hospital in Los Angeles.

Representatives for the couple have yet to make a comment on the news.

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian began dating last year, after she split from her husband, the basketball player Kris Humphries in 2011. Their marriage lasted 72 days.

Kanye West revealed that the couple were expecting their first child at a concert in December.

He told a crowd of more than 5,000 people in Atlantic City by singing: "Now you having my baby."

The pair revealed the gender of their baby earlier this month on Kim's E! reality show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

"I'm so excited we're having a girl," the 32-year-old said. "Who doesn't want a girl? They're the best and I know that's really what Kanye has always wanted. He wanted a little girl."

In addition to her reality television programme, Kim Kardashian has a clothing line and several product endorsements.

Kanye West is an award winning rapper. His upcoming album, Yeezus, was leaked online earlier this week, ahead of its official release later this month.

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter

NEWS SOURCE:http://www.bbc.co.uk

Oh, for the Days of a Courtly Vampire’s Love

Back at home in Bon Temps, La., momentarily safe from attack by vampires hungry for her tasty fairy blood, Sookie Stackhouse recalls the simple days of white dresses and well-mannered, if fanged, admirers. “I want to be that girl again,” she says, wearily. Fans of “True Blood,” hearing their heroine speak that line in the show’s Season 6 premiere on Sunday night, can only reply, Amen, sister

“True Blood,” HBO’s popular supernatural soap opera, went a long way down a bad road in its fifth season, chasing a labored and unconvincing allegory about religious fundamentalism that incorporated a vampire god and bible and jackbooted vampire storm troopers. The increasingly comical proceedings culminated in an episode that played like a parody of the standard cliffhanger finale, with a Rambo-like raid and shootout, exploding bodies and a blood-soaked resurrection.

Alan Ball, the show’s creator, stepped away after the season and was replaced as show runner by Brian Buckner, a “True Blood” writer whose previous experience was primarily in sitcoms (“Friends,” “Spin City”). Sookie’s desire to be the girl in the white dress once more could be taken as a coded message from the new regime: Stick with us. We can get this right.

“Right,” in this case, meaning as it was at the beginning, when Mr. Ball surprised us by showing that he could create a light and amusing combination of occult thriller, love story and murder mystery whose message about tolerance of minorities was clear but not obtrusive. But as the seasons went on, the storytelling lost some of its steam, and the various subtexts — sexual, religious, racial — moved into the vacuum, becoming obvious and heavy-handed in the fashion of Mr. Ball’s previous HBO series, “Six Feet Under,” and his screenplay for “American Beauty.”

The new season begins mid-cliffhanger, with Sookie (Anna Paquin) and the vampire Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) fleeing Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), the third leg of the Sookie-Eric-Bill romantic triangle and a newly risen, seemingly all-powerful vampire god. Along with their small crew of world savers, including Eric’s sister (Lucy Griffiths), Sookie’s brother (the hilarious Ryan Kwanten) and the bickering vampire couple Pam and Tara (Kristin Bauer van Straten and Rutina Wesley), they head back to the show’s rural-gothic base in the fictional hamlet of Bon Temps. Based on the evidence of the first three episodes, the action will be centered there again, good news after so much of last season was spent at the sterile Vampire Authority in New Orleans.

As to whether the show will get back on track, the early signals are mixed. Rutger Hauer joins the cast, perhaps playing two diametrically opposed roles, in a plotline involving Sookie’s family history and her parents’ death. That’s potentially a good thing, as is the continuing story of the half-fairy children of the bumbling Andy Bellefleur (Chris Bauer), which offers comic relief as well as tension — they are, after all, a new source of fairy blood.

On the down side, the none-too-subtle messagemongering continues, with the emphasis of the allegory shifting from fundamentalism back to racial and religious discrimination. The fine actor Arliss Howard also joins the show, playing a Louisiana governor who exploits the antivampire feelings in the wake of Season 5’s events. There are references to concentration camps and a repeated motif of vampires being dragged behind trucks. In case the liberal-progressive piety isn’t obvious enough, Mr. Howard’s slick politician encourages his constituents to buy guns, announcing, “This is still America, you have a right to defend yourselves and the people you love.”

There’s nothing wrong with a little social relevance, but that’s never been what made “True Blood” worthwhile — if the show isn’t fast, funny, scary and sexy, it’s nothing. You hope the writers will realize that one funny line from Mr. Kwanten — like “I’m sick of you bloodsuckers brain-raping me against my will!” — is worth more than all the sturm und fang.

NEWS SOURCE:http://www.nytimes.com

Laura Linney Slams Gender Inequality in Film Industry

Laura Linney was among the honorees at the 2013 Crystal + Lucy Awards in Beverly Hills on Wednesday night, June 12. As she received the Crystal Award for Excellence in Film, the three-time Emmy winner took the stage and delivered critical remarks on gender inequality in film industry through her acceptance speech.

"As an actress in film, it is very easy to become isolated just due to the ratio of gender inequality that exists," 49-year-old Linney told the audience. "Rarely do you have a scene with other women, very few women are on the crew, and what few female executives arrive tend to keep to themselves. You have fewer and fewer women to turn to for help or advice, and information is not easily shared."

"It is a problem, it's unhealthy, the slow pace of progress for women. And I believe has something to do with the slow pace of progress women are making, not only in their artistic lives, but especially in their business lives. The news about inequality in pay between men and women, whether in film or television, seems to be worse than it was twenty years ago."

The Sammy depicter in "You Can Count on Me" then encouraged the audience to strengthen sisterhood for solving the issue. "I encourage everyone in this room to please mentor. Reach out to a younger actress, or junior executive, or crew person, or office worker or a student," she said.

"Take them to lunch, put in the time to talk and learn what they are encountering. Listen to their observations. Share with them your insight and your mistakes and share information so that our experiences are not wasted."

Also honored at Women in Film's 40th anniversary celebration were Hailee Steinfeld (the Women in Film Max Mara Face of the Future Award), Sofia Coppola (the Dorothy Arzner Directors Award) and George Lucas (the Nora Zarky Humanitarian Award).

Henry Cavill on 'Man of Steel': 'We're going to see Superman's soul'

Henry Cavill has said that Man of Steel will offer Superman fans a deeper look at DC Comics's flagship superhero.

Speaking to Digital Spy at the European premiere of the film, the British actor promised that the exploration of the character will go beyond the Christopher Reeve and Brandon Routh incarnations.

"We're really going to see the soul of Superman in this movie," he said. "In live-action before it hasn't been so obvious. We really explore why he does the things that he does and how he feels."

Cavill added that he felt most challenged by his workout regime on the film. "The physical training was incredibly difficult and it was one of those things that I spent all my time thinking about," he commented.

Producer Charles Roven, a veteran of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy, spoke of his admiration for Cavill and his commitment to the role.

"Henry brings it all. He's just an amazing actor. He completely transformed his body and mind for this character," he commented.

"He had a date with destiny on this, he had tried out for the project that never went forward; the JJ Abrams script about ten years ago. He had done an amazing reading for that and that brought him to our attention."
Composer Hans Zimmer revealed that he set his soundtrack apart from John Williams's classic score by introducing "kineticism and superhuman" through the use of 12 drummers.

"I wanted 15 drummers originally but we ended up with 12," he said. "It was pretty easy to phone someone and say, 'You could only get to do one Superman in your life'."

Zimmer added of Zack Snyder's finished movie: "I think there's a heart to this that people don't quite expect. That's one thing I know from all the screenings, people are always surprised to be moved and they don't know how it happened. That's a good thing."

NEWS SOURCE:http://www.digitalspy.co.uk

'300: Rise Of An Empire' Director Breaks Down Action-Packed New Trailer Noam Murro talks helming the epic sequel, battles at sea and taking over for Zack Snyder.

Days before Zack Snyder delivers the newest vision of Superman to the world with "Man of Steel," fans of the director's films are getting a glimpse at a follow-up to his first comic-book movie. "300: Rise of an Empire" continues the story that Snyder started in his 2006, this time under the direction of Noam Murro.

To celebrate the release of the first trailer for "300: Rise of an Empire," MTV News got on the phone with Murro to walk us through what's new this time around, what will stay the same, and how the new ocean battles made things more complicated for the sword-and-sandals sequel.

Zooming Out
"300: Rise of an Empire" largely takes place concurrently with the epic battles from the original "300," but as Murro explained, the scope of these battles are much bigger and consider a larger picture of ancient Greece.

"The idea of this movie was always that it takes place at about the same time of the first one," he said. "It's as if you zoomed out and saw a bigger time frame and told a bigger story of what happened in '300.' The first movie speaks to the detail of this sequel."

Taking a step back in the story also means that the battles will expand from the surprisingly small scale of the first film. "I think '300' was wonderfully done in an operatic way, one location almost, and explore that," Murro said. "This is a much larger palette, historically and geographically. It is larger in scale, and it takes place on water."

Taking To The Sea
As the trailer shows, much of the action in "300: Rise of an Empire" will take place on ships at sea, and the change of venue made digitally creating a believable environment more difficult. "The challenges are numerous in a sense that as technology develops, what happens is we shot this entire movie dry, meaning there was no water involved," Murro said. "You are really in a situation that you have to create a sense that the boats are really moving and sense that they are really in water, but they're not. It's a challenge from a technological point of view, from a visual point of view, also for the actors and also for me in terms of trying to simulate what that would feel like."

The Look
The big aspect the separated Snyder's "300" was the CGI-heavy aesthetic of film, and when returning to the world, Murro had an eye on advancing the look without leaving it behind entirely.

"I think that was the great thing about working with Zack and working with the studio. The idea was always to create a point of reference of the old movie, but technologically and visually push it further up the hill," he said. "It really is quite a difference in the way that it feels and looks. It does happen in water, and geographically, it is open. I think we've pushed it from a visual spectacle uphill, but the roots of this tree are grounded in the '300' world. We wanted to create different styles of battles, and there are very distinct ones in this movie. There's the fire battle and the fog battle."

A Hero And A Villain
Even though the source material for "300: Rise of an Empire" comes from a Frank Miller graphic novel called "Xerxes," the Persian king takes a back seat to the new hero, Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton), and a new villain, Artemisia (Eva Green). "The two new characters here are Themistocles and Artemisia. Those two characters are at the heart of this movie and are really driving it," Murro said. "I don't want to spoil it, but the heart of the movie is between these two characters."

But that doesn't mean you would see much of Rodrigo Santoro, who is reprising his role from the first film. "You'll feel Xerxes' presence, but it's really Themistocles and Artemisia's movie," Murro said. "From a thematic point of view, he's truly important part of this movie."

Check out everything we've got on "300: Rise of an Empire," out in 2014.

NEWS SOURCE:http://www.mtv.com

'This Is The End': The Reviews Are In! Critics call the film 'stupidly hysterical' and fall tired of the actors' immaturity.

The apocalypse doesn't seem like much of a laughing matter, but in "This Is The End," Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg enlist all of their movie-star pals for a look at the last days of Earth that's as hilarious as it is harrowing. The co-writers and directors take a long and semi-serious look at Hollywood friendships while documenting what might happen if you put Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride in one location and then unleashed hell — literally — outside the front door.
But with a who's who of Hollywood's hottest comedians burning up the same silver screen, are critics on board with the actors satirizing the end of days? MTV News assembled a roundup of reviews from across the Internet to see if the movie is a comedic masterpiece or Hell on earth.
First Of All, Is It Funny?
"From the clockwork comic timing to the movie's salty mix of the ridiculous and the reflective, 'This Is the End' is stupidly hysterical and smartly heretical. Cross my heart and hope to die, it's funny as hell." — Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times
How Are The Actors At Playing Themselves?
"The actors are all pretty great sports, making fun of themselves without giving off an air of how pleased they are with satirizing their image. They're not playing themselves so much as they are playing their personas, but their personas are funny, particularly when they're trapped inside Franco's house and all hell is breaking loose outside." — Tim Grierson, Deadspin
How's The Group's Historically Great Improv?
"It's a hit-and-mostly-miss affair: For every gut-buster like McBride and Franco's lengthy exchange about drenching each other in seminal fluid, there's a fall-flat gag, such as an improvised-into-oblivion riff on raping special guest star Emma Watson, that quickly stifles the giggles." — Keith Uhlich, Time Out

What Does It Have To Say About Hollywood?
"The film, at its phoned-in worst and also at its riotous best, has a terminal feeling. It suggests that a comic subgenre based on the immaturity, sexual panic and self-mocking tendencies of men who should be old enough to know better has reached its expiration date." — AO Scott, The New York Times
Does It Work?
"Great as it often is, the movie falls short of being a classic. Rogen and Goldberg's problems, also evident in their script for 'Pineapple Express,' are pacing, plotting, pruning: That movie, while funny, went on way too long and confused itself with an action flick." — Kyle Smith, New York Post
NEWS SOURCE: http://www.mtv.com