Archive for the ‘Los Angeles Times’ Category
Los Angeles County gearing up for same-sex marriage licenses – Los Angeles Times
Posted on: May 17, 2008
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Supervisor Yaroslavsky wants the county to be ready as soon as possible to comply with the Supreme Court ruling. It will be at least 30 days before licenses are issued, officials say.
Marriage license officials across Southern California scrambled Friday to prepare for an anticipated crush of same-sex couples rushing to the altar now that the Supreme Court has lifted the state’s gay marriage ban.
In Los Angeles County, supervisors asked Dean C. Logan, acting registrar-recorder and county clerk, to report back Tuesday on what needs to be done before the order takes effect.
Did Tom Cruise’s humbling before Oprah Winfrey improve his Oscar chances? : Gold Derby by Tom O’Neil : The Envelope – Los Angeles Times
Posted on: May 6, 2008
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There something’s weird about the timing of Tom Cruise groveling before Oprah Winfrey this past week. Why now? I think it’s no coincidence that it comes just a month or so after the news that the release of his next big pic, “Valkyrie,” got bumped from this fall to next spring — and therefore out of Oscars competition.
Sure, Tom Cruise appeared on Oprah’s show to celebrate his 25th year in films. But if the powwow had been, say, two months ago, back when “Valkyrie” was still skedded to launch the next Oscar derby, I don’t think we would’ve seen Tom so eagerly gobble up a dozen humble pies. He would’ve done damage control for his ole couch dance, yes, but in the past few days we’ve witnessed a surrender that has, I’m convinced, an underlying Oscar message.
In the past, Cruise was the kind of guy who never backed down, even daring to bully poor Matt Lauer on the “Today” show. But at Oprah’s knee these past few days, he caved on every point. He admitted that he shouldn’t have badgered Matt about kids taking psychiatric medication. Parents should make that decision for themselves, Tom now says. He shouldn’t have attacked Brooke Shields either. He regrets that his Scientology videos were “taken out of context.” Etc. Etc.
Just eight weeks ago “Valkyrie” was still skedded to launch Oscar derby season this fall and confident Cruise was poised to make another run for the gold he’s lost three times (“Magnolia,” “Jerry Maguire,” “Born on the Fourth of July”). But I think Tom learned a scary lesson over the past two months and he saw it through Oscar’s eyes.
At first glance, “Valkyrie” looks like pure Oscar bait. It’s based upon a real, heroic person during wartime — even better, one with a handicap (that eye patch) — being the story of a Nazi officer who schemed to bump off Hitler. Seems like a perfect vehicle for a superstar ridiculously overdue for a chunk of academy gold, eh? (CLICK HERE – read MORE!) Early buzz within United Artists was that the actual film by wunderkind director Bryan Singer (who got an Oscar for Kevin Spacey in “The Usual Suspects”), was great, so it seemed like a no-brainer to sked its release at the start of the derby season.
But back in February there were early warning signs of trouble. At the end of the Razzies ceremony, “Valkyrie” was not only flagged as a film widely expected to be in the running next year, but the audience howled and cheered when a pic was shown of Tom Cruise donning that eye patch. (READ MORE)
U.S. terrorism report finds Al Qaeda attacks rose in Pakistan – Los Angeles Times
Posted on: May 1, 2008
The State Department’s annual report says the group killed four times as many people last year from its haven in a tribal area.
Al Qaeda used a haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas to double the number of attacks in that country and kill four times as many people there in 2007, says a State Department report to Congress released Wednesday.
At a news briefing, Ambassador Dell L. Dailey, the State Department’s top counter-terrorism official, stopped short of blaming Pakistan for the increase and said the terrorist network was “weaker now than it was at the 9/11 time frame.”
The annual terrorism report itself, however, says that a primary reason for the terrorist network’s resurgence is a much-criticized cease-fire last year between the Pakistani federal government and tribal leaders beyond its authority near the border with Afghanistan. The agreement enabled Al Qaeda to more freely travel, train and plan attacks around the world, the report says.
Overall, there were nearly the same number of terrorist attacks worldwide in 2007 as the year before — about 14,500. But many more people were killed, especially as the number of suicide bombers rose, says the 312-page report, which is required by Congress and compiled using statistics from the National Counterterrorism Center.
Suicide bombings worldwide were up about 50%. Attackers have shifted their tactics, more often traveling on foot and using explosives-laden backpacks to strike in crowded areas rather than relying on vehicles that could be deterred by heightened security.
“I think it’s a fair statement that around the globe people are getting increasingly efficient at killing other people,” said Russell E. Travers, deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, at the news briefing.
One such attack in December in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, killed at least 20 people, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as she campaigned for elections.
Overall, an estimated 22,685 people were killed in terrorist attacks around the world in 2007, a 9% increase from 2006. The number of injured increased 15%, to 44,310, the report says. The numbers do not include military personnel on active duty or anyone working in an official capacity on behalf of the U.S. government.
As in previous years, the majority of terrorist attacks chronicled in the report occurred in Iraq. The number there dipped slightly in the last year, but still accounted for 60% of worldwide terrorism fatalities, including 17 of the 19 Americans killed, the report says. Two other Americans were killed in Afghanistan.
The report is considered to be the U.S. government’s benchmark in objective data on terrorist attacks, with some analysis on trends included to inform Congress and other policymakers, the American public and U.S. allies.
‘The Forbidden Kingdom’ – Los Angeles Times: “Martial arts veteran Jet Li
MARTIAL ARTS VETERAN: Jet Li plays a somber monk and squares off against Jackie Chan for the first time.
Despite pairing Jackie Chan and Jet Li, the kung fu film goes easy on the action.
‘The Forbidden Kingdom’ is kung fu light, the kind of martial arts family film that results when the director who made ‘Stuart Little’ and ‘The Lion King’ gets to work with Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
Of course, the great martial arts films of the past didn’t exactly feature scripts by Ingmar Bergman or Graham Greene. What they did have was a hard-core integrity that reveled in exhilarating action and didn’t worry overly much about market share.
However the presence of high-profile executive producers like Ryan Kavanaugh, Raffaella De Laurentiis and Jon Feltheimer in addition to producer Casey Silver and director Rob Minkoff signals that ‘Kingdom’ has been envisioned as a major international moneymaker that, in De Laurentiis’ words, ‘will appeal to both the East and the West.’
Rowling seeks to stop ‘The Harry Potter Lexicon’ from being published – Los Angeles Times
Posted on: April 18, 2008
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Rowling seeks to stop ‘The Harry Potter Lexicon’ from being published – Los Angeles Times: “J.K. Rowling
EXITING COURT: Author J.K. Rowling says a fan’s planned encyclopedia on Harry Potter violates copyright laws.
The trial features tears, lectures on Latin roots and one reluctant judge. It’s a lot for a mere muggle to decide.
Now that the petty wrangling, emotional outbursts and mind-numbing duels over Latin words roots have ended, the federal judge in this week’s Harry Potter trial faces a daunting task: How do you balance an author’s right to protect her copyrighted novels with a publisher’s right to produce a new book that borrows heavily from these bestselling texts?
Based on his comments during the trial, U.S. Judge Robert S. Patterson Jr. would rather not be deciding the case at all, which pits J.K. Rowling, author of the seven Harry Potter novels, against RDR Books, a Michigan firm hoping to publish ‘The Harry Potter Lexicon,’ an unauthorized encyclopedia. Indeed, the judge seemed at times to long for a wand — perhaps to conjure one of Hogwarts’ magical spells like ‘Silencio,’ causing people to fall silent.
‘Litigation isn’t always the best way to solve things,’ Patterson told Rowling, who”
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