Financially strugglying Showboat, two other Atlantic City casinos: closed.
49ers Ray MacDonald in (legal) heat for domestic abuse.
Six buildings total: five-alarm fire involves multiple homes in Chelsea, Ma.; it’s out now.
Russia invades Ukraine.
WH evaluating whether to hit ISIS targets in Syria; Congress wants a say?
Joan Rivers, in surgery, goes into cardiac arrest; revived, she is in critical condition, in an induced coma.
American hostage freed, as authorities close in on 40-yr.-old journalist James Foley’s British-accented killer.
Funeral of 18-yr.-old Michael Brown to be conducted this morning.
Napa County buildings damaged: Gov. declares State of Emergency as 6.0 quake hits California Bay Area, causing wide-spread power outages. The worst earthquake since 1989.
Holy pre-VMA shooting!
Meant to hit host Chris Brown, gunshots were fired at the a pre-MTV Video Music Awards party.
Major survivor: Brown wasn’t injured, but with one hit in the abdomen and one in the arm, this marks
the second shooting of Suge Knight at a venue. The suspected shooters have been
apprehended.
James Marsters (Buffy…, Smallville) on Witches of Eastwick? Looks like it.
Masterpiece Mystery features melodramatic miniseries of doctor/nurse relations and blackmail in the 1960s, and at least one marriage that has gone bad.
My anaconda don’t like none if you ain’t got the bun(s), hon’.
The MTV VMAs kick off with performances with semi-explicit dance moves (humping) and lyrics,
including a sampled vocal line from Baby Got Back. Carried on both MTV and VH1… I could not
stand it.
Frank Grande hosts his own Big Brother House Swap on BBAD, basically entertaining at the expense of the ‘evicted’ house guests, how it might appear if the survivors were the ones to go… the survivors acting like the booted, virtual diary room questions. Move over Frankie: we get to see Caleb’s Tyrone character; he can act.
TVGN presentation of You’ve Got Mail (Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks), before
Van Wilder (yet again).
I wrote this movie off over its horrendous title, taking after the AOL vocal chime, its crappy
romance device. But I’ve come to a point in my (non-)career that I would have written it! Except I
know that long distance relationships don’t work and the B.S. ending. “I wanted it to be you,” says
‘ShopGirl’ Kathleen Kelly (Ryan). “I wanted it to be you, so badly.”
Look no further than Catfish: the TV show (MTV) to see what real reactions to identity-reveals look like. Never pleasant, and almost 100% never a relationship further.
Commerical: Joel McHale with a (fake) mullet, literally bringing down the house (a small model). And there’s Gary, an obvious glasses-wearing stereotype of a nerd-father, applauding with the crowd.
Actor and Academy award-winning director Richard Attenborough, 90, dies.
As an actor, when he began his career, his love of country stood, as he landed a role in the war drama In Which We Serve (1942). He grew to acclaim with Brighton Rock (1947), his best early performance. But he really took off after The Great Escape (1963), the film that made Steve McQueen a household name, though it was Lord Richard’s RAF officer that was the brains behind the breakout. Remember the bearded “mad” scientist in Jurassic Park (1993)? That was him.
Dickie Attenborough was passionate about everything in his life,
said
Steven Speilberg, who worked with Attenborough, in a statement. Family, friends, country, and
career.
The two directors had come to a head at the 55th Academy Awards, between Ghandi
(1982), which won eight Oscar’s®, and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. But they became friends
in no time. Ghandi was a gift to the world,
Speilberg said. He was the perfect
ringmaster to bring the dinosaurs back to life. … He was a dear friend and I am standing in an
endless line of those who completely adored him.
Bombings in Iraq kill dozens, injure many more. ISIS target count, as far as U.S. strikes go, closes in on 100, but the group is still up and “strong.”
Cuban Fury ©2013 StudioCanal Ltd./British Film Institute/Channel Four.
Stars Nick Frost, Rashida Jones, Chris O’Dowd; has a small appearance by Frost friend
Simon Pegg. The word genuine was used in describing this movie, “with heart,” in the Making Of, but
the movie was rather loaded with gags, in the manner that it made me think of that Ben Stiller film,
where he played a joke of a super model. We get to see self-described ‘lump’ Frost quick on his
toes, already capable from the beginning (he can dance), but the writing of this movie is… what does
the viewer get out of it?
Iraq: 70 killed in mosque attack in Dlyala province.
Rpt.: ISIS is wealthier than al Qaeda was before 9/11.
Hamas carries out the ‘brutal’ execution of eighteen Palestinians, say they will offer “traitors” mercy if they come forward.
ISIL threatens to execute another American hostage.
Ferguson: bitterness toward authority, more violence erupts after 2nd police fatal shooting. AG Eric Holder to land in the MO area Wednesday…
Home Run features Vivica A. Fox. A baseball player suffers from alcoholism, falls out with the mother of his son (Emma), goes to A.A., rather a Christian equivalent, becomes a substitute coach. Things really turn around when important things are revealed to him., but ‘Emm’ is slow to trust him.
Ferguson: after more looting, Molotov cocktails, shooting at police, Gov. Nixon calls on the National Guard, catching the W.H. off guard; only one day since the shooting hasn’t had violence in the demonstrations.
In a press conference going into 11 a.m. (“just the media” allowed to take questions), Dr. Michael Baden said some of the claimed witness accounts were inconsistent with the forensics findings, examining the two autopsies. A shot to the head passed through producing three(?) holes. Brown may have turned, and may have rushed the officers. The presumed final head shot(s) (out of six) were indubitably fatal.
Texas: Gov. Perry calls the felony charges against him a “farce”; he will be printed and booked, but not jailed.
R-turned-I Congressman James Jefferson(?), 80, dies.
First night of curfew in Ferguson: 7 arrested last night; 1 shot in critical condition—police say it wasn’t them.
Stupid social media blame for Williams’ death, Zelda leaves twitter.
Ferguson heats up again as police release footage of Michael Brown, the unarmed teen that was shot dead, robbing a convenience store, slapping the owner, taking cigars.
A one-year anniversary of the massacre that occured 2013.08.14 in Egypt at Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square (Nasr City district). Fire barricade(s) were mounted for a sit-in by Islamist supporters of Mohammed Morsi (removed by the military a month earlier). The sit-in was crushed by security forces, amounting to a death toll of over 624 in only half a day.
A war zone in Ferguson, Missouri: first riots, now Molotov cocktails, tear gas…
Twelve: India sets age limit for Krishna human pyramids— a popular Hindu celebration that for the purpose of breaking a “Dahi Handi” pot of yogurt has seen deaths and injuries in past years.
A Night in Mexico stars Robert Duvall. His house forclosed, evicted, he refuses to go to a trailer park, travels from TX, sees his grandson, where his grandson takes him to a party. Drug money left in the back seat of the vehicle, trouble occurs, overshadowing his crotchetiness. He smashes the grandson’s watch, to the tone of, ‘I don’t want you counting the seconds I have left.’
U.S. sends 100 additional “non-combat” troops to Iraq to aid religious people in harm’s way.
The Pres. loosens the ban on lobbying in govt.
Over a lawsuit, Obama Allows lobbyists to serve on advisory boards. 70 previously-registered as
lobbyists already there…
Press conference discloses detail on Robin Williams’ death. Fans and friends placed bouquets, candles and personal notes in front of the locked gates of Williams’ house— Associated Press.
One neighbor said he was always friendly, and talkative, enough that she was
comfortable enough to approach him on the subject of his rehabilitation. He was very open about
it,
said Noreen Nieder, of Tiburon, the waterfront he lived in for eight years, according to
neighbors. He told me he was doing well.
Daughter, actress Zelda tweeted: “I Love You, I Miss You.” To her, several weeks prior, Robin tweeted with a b&w photo of him and her, “#tbt and Happy Birthday to Ms. Zelda Rae Williams!” “Quarter of a century old today but always my baby girl. Happy Birthday @zeldawilliams Love you!” One day before her birthday, 7.31, “25 tomorrow … Other than the blond, not much has changed. Thanks for the 9 month womb residency mama! All my love.”
Susan Schneider asked for privacy, and wanted people to remember Williams for
countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions.
This morning, I lost my
husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human
beings. I am utterly heartbroken.
Crazy Ones co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar said he was like a “father I always
dreamed of having.” My life is a better place because I knew Robin Williams.
Good Will
Hunting co-star Ben Afleck says he owes “everything” to his late friend.
Dictator Ilham Aliyev indiscriminately shells, adding another conflict to the list: Armenia and Azerbaijan
CNN: Russia and Iran attack ISIS jihadists.
Fox News Latino: Mexican drug cartel violence is spreading to rural U.S. as police crack down in big cities.
We Want Our Economic Fugitives Back.
Business Insider: China claims that over 150 citizens wanted for corruption, other economic
crimes have fled to the U.S., which has no extradition treaty with China.
AFP, Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin on promises Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to speed up the delivery of billions of dollars in arms sales and invited Cairo to forge free trade ties with a Moscow-led customs bloc.
Asbestos pushed in Asia as product for the poor.
AP: it saves lives and brings roofs, walls and pipes to the poor, the booming
industry says.
Greece govt.: archaeologists unearth a vast ancient tomb in the northeast Macedonian region, distinguished by two sphinxes and frescoed walls, dating 300-325 B.C.
Divergent stars Shailene Woodley and Kate Winslet. In another “teenage” role, Woodley’s character in a literary series is “divergent,” having certain abilities, and is hunted for that reason. Among a group of youths, the boy that helps and befriends her is also divergent, but tells no one of that fact…
Actress Lauren Becall, 89, dies of massive stroke in her longtime Upper West Side apratment building The Dakota.
Born Betty Joan Perske, the only child of secretary Natalie (Weinstein-Bacal) and William Perske, who worked in sales.
Even as a teenage fashion model she was considered ‘iconic’ in some of her appearances, such as the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Still a model in 1941, at 16, she took lessons at the American Academy of Dramatic arts, where she was at one point classmates with Kirk Douglas.
She made her acting debut in Johnny 2 x 4 (1942). But it was her eighteen-year-old self the Harper’s Bazaar cover that got the attention of Nancy, Howard Hawks’ wife. She urged Hawks to have her take a screen test for To Have and Have Not (1944), and by mistake his secretary sent her tickets to Hollywood for an audition. Before long, Hawks signed her a seven year personal contract, and changed her screen name to Lauren Bacall.
Also unintentional was “the look,” when she put her head down and eyes up for the camera; she did it to surpress her nervous quivering in the To Have and Have Not screen test.
With her nervousness lessened, on set, the nineteen-year-old initiated a relationship with her then-married co-star, Humphrey Bogart, and married him a year later. She was so young in contrast, then twenty, to a forty-five-year-old man, that she was called “Baby.” They remained married until his death in 1957 of esophageal cancer.
Into the ’50s she turned down scripts she found ‘uninteresting’ to the point of being called ‘difficult,’ and began to ‘mix’ with people outside of the acting circle, becoming friends with author/historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and journalist Alistair Cooke. Written on the Wind (1956), a movie in which she played a career woman whose life is turned by an oil magnate, may now be considered a ‘classic,’ but she didn’t think much of it.
Into the ’60s her film career waned, and she went on Broadway to win two Tonys, for Woman of the Year, and Applause, which Bette Davis said Bacall’s role could only be played by the model-turned-actress. Entering the ’70s, she worked the Chicago theatre (where she recieved a Sarah Siddons Award, in 1972 and ’84), but returned to film to costar with John Wayne in The Shootist (1976), his last movie appearance before his death. Despite their differences (including the fact that she was a staunch liberal Democrat), they became friends.
A decade passed with poorly-received films, until her small role in Misery (1990). Finally she was recognized for her work, as the now-Golden Globe winner got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar® nod for her role in The Mirror Has Two Faces. That year, in 1997, Bacall received the Kennedy Center Honors. And in 1999, she was voted one of the 25 most significant female movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute.
Entering the new millenium, she took on larger projects, with The Walker, and two films costarring Nicole Kidman, Dogville (2003) and Birth (2004). 2006 became another big year for her, not only being seen in the Sopranos as herself, but to become the recipient of the first Katharine Hepburn Medal and on stage at the 78th Annual Academy Awards to introduce a film noir montage. In 2009, the woman with a household name finished her role in The Forger, and was selected by the Academy of Motion Pictures for an Honorary Academy Award.
Over the course of her life she wrote two autobiographies, Lauren Bacall By Myself (1978), and Now (1994). The first volume of By Myself was later reprinted with an extra chapter as By Myself and Then Some (2006). In her final years she did mostly voice work, for Ernest & Celestine (2013) and Family Guy (“Mom’s the Word,” 2014).
Surviving is her son, Stephen Humphrey Bogart, a documentary film maker and news producer; daughter Leslie Bogart, a yoga instructor; and another son, actor Sam Robards (with Jason Robards, Jr., married 1961-69).
Mid-East: temporary cease-fire talks expected today in Cairo; much of the cease-fire underway is working.
Spanish missionary priest with Ebola dies; was in Liberia; death toll passes 1,000 mark.
Rasmusen (phone) poll: only 3% think that the War on Drugs isn’t a failure.
Third ESPN suspension in two weeks: Max Kellerman, for talking about domestic abuse.
Riots in Missouri.
After the death of a teen in St. Louis, protests were followed by riots, left with convenient
stores with broken windows, theft; 32 arrested.
Conan O’Brien broke the news of Robin Williams’ death on Conan (TBS), final segment.
Award winning actor/comedian Robin McLaurin Williams, 63, dies of suicide (hung himself by belt). Before the call of the witness (his male personal assistant) a quarter of noon, Williams, with a return to rehab at the Hazelden Addiction Treatment Center in Minnesota this year for a “tune-up” was recently seen at the likes of a Dairy Queen. Some two hours later, he was pronounced dead. His widowed wife, Susan Schneider, said he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. She thought he was still asleep when he left.
Known for his quick wit, improv and welcoming presence, the hard worker, stand-up comedian and avid sports fan said he was rather quiet and shy as a child. Overcoming his shyness in signing up at his high school drama department, he went on to become only one of twenty students accepted at Julliard. The master of dialects was one of only two accepted by John Houseman into the Julliard Advanced Program. The other student, whom he befriended, was Christopher Reeve. They remained good friends until Reeve’s death.
Williams got his big break on the TV show Happy Days when his humanoid alien character was good enough to launch the spin-off Mork and Mindy (1978–82). Behind the scenes though, partying with friend John Belushi, he’d turned to drugs and alcohol. Into the eighties, with the death of Belushi and the birth of “Zak,” he swore off cocaine for good, and only began drinking again in 2003. He admitted to being an alcoholic.
The comedian got parts, but struggled through much of his career, needing work, reminding himself to work hard to get work. He gained severe depression but kept at giving what people wanted. He performed at the USO, at charities, even giving proceeds of his “Weapons of Self Destruction” act in Christchurch in donation to the victims of the 2010 Canterbury earthquake. After Reeve’s horse-riding accident, Williams brightened Reeve’s mood by acting much like the Russian-accented doctor in Nine Months, claiming he’s there to perform a colonoscopy.
Williams went on to receive numerous awards and nominations, and was the recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille in 2005, alongside Anthony Hopkins (2006), Al Pacino (2001) and Martin Scorsese (2010). For two years in a row he won the Primetime Emmy for Individual Performance, in 1987 and ’88, multiple Golden Globes (Best Actor, Spoken Word—Live 2002, alongside Maya Angelou in 2003), two Saturns and a SAG Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role (1997, for the psychiatrist in Good Will Hunting).
Among his vast number of roles, including himself on Comic relief (1986) and on Louie (2012), he’s known as the fictional comic version of Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), teacher John Keating in Dead Poets Society (1989), Genie in Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Teddy Roosevelt in Night At the Museum (2006) and the smiling man in the music video of Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry, Be Happy. For his dramatic acting roles, Jakob in Jakob The Liar (1999), writer/killer Walter Finch in Insomnia (2002), Seymour Parrish, the obsessed photo development technician in One Hour Photo (2002) that literally bled from his eyes in a dream, Rainbow Randolph in Death to Smoochy (2002), and Henry Altmann in the R-rated The Angriest Man in Brooklyn (2014).
Married to Valerie Velardi (1978-88), nanny Marsha Garces (1989-08) much in part due to her pregnancy with Zelda, and graphic designer Schneider in 2011, Robin Williams leaves behind his ‘extraordinary’ children, Zachary Pym, Zelda Rae and Cody Alan. Zelda was, in fact named after the princess in the video game The Legend of Zelda.
Among the projects at or near completion with Williams, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014, a sequel), Phase Four, and the indie Merry Friggin’ Christmas.
Tony Stuart hits, kills driver Kevin Ward Jr. on dirt track; no word on whether any charges will be filed.
Borders closed Nigerian Pres. apologizes for Ebola outbreak, death toll; she pledges $18 mn.
The Angriest Man in Brooklyn (2014) stars Robin Williams, Mila Kunis, Peter Dinklage, Melissa Leo, and has appearances by Richard Kind and James Earl Jones. His doctor tells him he has an aneurysm, gives him 90 min. to live; he still messes up in his anger. Lots of f-bombs.
U.S. continues aerial bombing of ISIS target(s); civialians struggle to survive under ISIS threat, especially Christians, who were told to convert or leave (certain threat of death). ISIL/ISIS now threatens the White House in particular, calling the violence against one another “humiliation.”
Monday’s gunshot death of James Brady, fmr. Secretary under Pres. Reagan, ruled a homicide, by Hinkley; the attempted assassin was found not guilty by reason of insanity, though.
Afghan gunman opens fire, kills U.S. General (highest ranking officer to die in a conflict since Vietnam), wounds several others; Taliban calls gunman hero but does not claim responsibility. Shooter shot from building window, hiding in bathroom, nearly 100 yards away.
Rupert Murdoch withdraws bid for Time Warner— the Co. opposed, left a bad taste in his mouth.
My neck of the woods: Hail Storm! Lightning and hail! Holy mother! The lights flickered when the bolts struck and the hail was loud.
Ukrainian troops advance on Donetsk.
Landslide hits Utah: 27 evacuated in SLC, one home destroyed.
Flash floods in Las Vegas.
Scrable adds 5,000 new “new” words to its official dictionary; includes: chillax (which isn’t even used as a word).
Hamas breaks 72-hr. “truce.” No surprise there.
Disclaimer:
Though, here, there are aims for accuracy, obligatory as it used personally, perform fact
checking anyway for yourself. Only put trust in sources respective to their originator. Most
often information is more empirical than scientific.
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