Entertaining Posts

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Ashley Judd talks of neglect, abuse in memoir

LOS ANGELES | Tue Apr 5, 2011 3:50pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Ashley Judd says in a new memoir that she had a lonely, painful childhood that included sexual abuse and thoughts of suicide while her mother Naomi Judd and sister Wynonna sought to build a career as country music stars.

In excerpts of "All That Is Bitter and Sweet", and in a TV interview on the "Today" show on Tuesday, Judd spoke of feeling neglected and emotionally abused while constantly moving homes with the Judd country legends.

"My family of origin, the one into which I was born, was also brimming with love but was not a healthy family system. There was too much trauma, abandonment, addiction and shame," the "Double Jeopardy" actress writes in the memoir, which was published on Tuesday.

Judd, 42, wrote that she was molested by a family friend as a teenager, witnessed inappropriate sexual behavior between her mother and her new boyfriends, and said drugs were regularly available in her home.

Many of the memories, including times when she played with her mother's gun after school and thought about shooting herself, were repressed and were recovered when Judd underwent therapy in 2006.

Judd told "Today" in an interview that the goal of her book was to better explain the humanitarian work she does around the globe involving impoverished and abused women in brothels, slums and refugee camps.

"I was really encouraged by people I trust to include some of my own story, because why I love (humanitarian) work really baffled people, and so I eventually got willing to put it there," the actress explained.

Naomi Judd said in a statement to "Today"; "I love my daughter. I hope her book does well."

Ashley Judd called her mother's attitude to the revelations "exquisitely gracious".

Naomi Judd and her country singer daughter Wynonna are set to reveal details of their own tempestuous relationship in a six part TV documentary series starting on the Oprah Winfrey Network on Sunday.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant, editing by Christine Kearney)

Police drummer, Monty Python comic turn to opera

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON | Tue Apr 5, 2011 12:33pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Police drummer Stewart Copeland and Monty Python star Terry Jones are the unlikely pair in a new operatic double bill which opens in London on Friday.

Copeland has set Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic horror story "The Tell-Tale Heart" to music and Jones provided the libretto for "The Doctor's Tale," a story about a successful doctor who is struck from the register just because he is a dog.

His words have been set to music by Anne Dudley, a member of the band Art of Noise and an Oscar winner for her score for the British comedy film "The Full Monty."

The trio has been commissioned to create the new works by ROH2, the Royal Opera House's contemporary arm, and the run opens this week in the company's smaller Linbury Studio Theater. Ticket prices range from 9.70 to 20.40 pounds ($16-33).

For Copeland it is his fourth opera outing, and comes 22 years after his debut "Holy Blood and Crescent Moon" met with a mixed response in the United States.

The 58-year-old American told Reuters he had tried to recreate the scale and power of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde."

"I think there was a review which sniffed at that a little bit and I took that very much to heart," he said in an interview during rehearsals. "You learn a lot from the good reviews, from the bad reviews, from the accurate ones and ... inaccurate ones.

"It was liberating because you think okay, that's right, Mozart already did that, Wagner already did that, so what new can be done?"

He said a change of direction paid off.

"I don't know, maybe I'm getting better at it or something, but I've been getting an easier and easier ride as time goes on.

"I suppose there's another thing that critics and everybody hates, that's sidestepping from one career into another. Everyone else in opera has paid their dues ... and I guess by now I'm getting an easier ride because I've sort of paid some dues -- this is my fourth opera, I've written three ballets.

"I've actually been working this for about 20 years and so it's not such a facile move for me to say 'I think I shall now write an opera'. Well, that would piss me off too."

"NOT A BIG OPERA FAN"

For Jones, opera can be overrated.

"I hadn't seen much," he told Reuters when asked if he was an opera fan before writing The Doctor's Tale.

Hamas suspect held in West Bank actor killing: Palestinians

By Mohammed Assadi

RAMALLAH, West Bank | Tue Apr 5, 2011 12:33pm EDT

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - A top Palestinian security official said police had arrested a member of the Islamist Hamas group over the assassination of award-winning Arab-Israeli actor and director, Juliano Mer Khamis.

"One of those arrested is a prime suspect in the killing, he belongs to Hamas and is being interrogated," the official, who declined to be named, said on Tuesday,

Jenin governor Qaddoura Moussa also declined to reveal details about the suspect in Monday's killing of Mer Khamis, 52, who was shot dead by a masked gunman, but he added that a number of other suspects had been held and were later released.

Western powers, including the United States and European Union view Hamas as a terrorist organization. It took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 in a brief war with security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"The security forces have arrested a number of people, there is an ongoing investigation," Moussa told Reuters.

Mer Khamis, the son of a Jewish mother and Christian Arab father, ran the Freedom Theater in Jenin's refugee camp in the northern West Bank for several years. He was driving his car near the theater with his infant son and a babysitter when the gunman ordered him to pull over and shot him.

Palestinians in the Jenin area and in the West Bank seat of government in Ramallah held memorial vigils for Mer Khamis.

"This is a sad day for the Palestinian people, you cannot find anyone here who is not against the killing except for the killer," said Qasem Ahmad from Jenin refugee camp.

Mer Khamis' project generated hostility from some Palestinians. In an interview in 2009 after the Jenin theater was torched he said: "We are under attack from a small group of people who think the arts are undermining the Palestinian struggle," he said.

"They put out leaflets calling me a Zionist Jew whose hands should be cut off."

His documentary entitled Arna's Children about his mother and the theater group won the Best Documentary Feature in the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival.

The Jenin refugee camp, where Mer Khamis lived with his partner and children, is home to some 16,000 Palestinians. It was the scene of some of the fiercest Palestinian-Israeli fighting in the second intifada, or uprising, in 2002.

The United Nations Middle East envoy, Robert Serry, said in a statement: "I am shocked and saddened by the murder of Juliano Mer Khamis, he was a unique, talented actor and director and was also a symbol of co-existence and peace."

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the murder as an "ugly crime."

Born in the Israeli-Arab city of Nazareth Mer Khamis served in the Israeli army as a paratrooper and portrayed Israeli Jews in many of his roles both in film and on stage.

He appeared in almost 30 movies, including "The Little Drummer Girl" a 1984 American thriller based on the John Le Carre book of the same name that starred Diane Keaton.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Writing by Mohammed Assadi, Editing by Ori Lewis and Matthew Jones)

Monday, April 4, 2011

Show's potions and props bring Harry Potter to life

By Patricia Reaney

NEW YORK | Mon Apr 4, 2011 3:00pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stroll into Hogwarts, visit the Gryffindor common room and see Harry Potter's bed in the dormitory he shared with Ron Weasley in a new exhibition at Discovery Times Square.

The hundreds of artifacts, dozens of costumes, props and furniture from the film franchise used in "Harry Potter, The Exhibition" will transport fans of the boy wizard to the world where Harry, Hermione and Ron battle the evil Lord Voldemort.

Stretch out in Hagrid's oversized easy chair in the hut he shares with his dog Fang before creeping into the Forbidden Forest inhabited by unicorns, centaurs and Thestrals.

Sit beneath the floating candles of the Great Hall, where the sorting ceremony, feasts and Yule Balls are held.

Even those visitors not familiar with the J.K. Rowling books -- a publishing phenomenon credited with introducing a new generation to reading -- and the blockbuster film franchise based on them, are bound to be impressed by the artistry and detail of the more than 200 artifacts and props in the show.

"It's like your day at Hogwarts," said Eddie Newquist, the chief creative officer for Las-Vegas based Global Experience Specialists, Inc. (GES).

"You feel like you stepped into the movie."

The exhibition, which was years in the making and includes items from the final film, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" which is to be released in July, is in New York until September 5, the final stop on its U.S. tour before moving overseas.

"We wanted to give fans something they have never seen before," said Newquist. "There is no better way to celebrate the imagination and creativity of the Harry Potter film series than to actually walk among the iconic costume and props that helped bring the world of the film to life."

Divided into several sections, the 14,000 sq ft (1,301 sq meter) exhibit covers all aspects of Harry's magical world and his adventures with Ron and Hermione.

The portrait gallery where the painting of The Fat Lady guards the entrance to the Gryffindor common room is recreated and the contents of Harry's trunk -- his glasses, family photo album and acceptance letter to Hogwarts -- are displayed.

Interactive displays in the Herbology class and in the section on Quidditch, the most popular wizard sport, also enable visitors to feel part of Harry's world.

"It is all real. They are all the things used on the sets," Newquist said.

CBS says talks on with Couric amid reports she's leaving

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