A massive fireworks display has taken place in Sydney, Australia, with some 5000kg of explosives sent up around around the famous harbour bridge.
Gossipcheck wishes all its readers a happy & prosperous new year
December 31, 2009
Thriller added to US film archive
Michael Jackson’s Thriller has become the first music video to be added to the US national film archive.
The 1983 zombie classic is among 25 films which will be preserved for their cultural importance.
The Muppet Movie, from 1979, and Bette Davis’s black and white classic Jezebel are among the other new entrants to the Library of Congress film registry.
The archive, established 20 years ago, ensures important films are “preserved for future generations”.
Oscar-winning films which made the cut include Jezebel, which won Davis her second Academy Award.
Mrs Miniver (1942) won the Academy Award for best picture among its haul of six trophies.
Science fiction classic The Incredible Shrinking Man has been added to the archive, while the oldest film is Little Nemo from 1911.
Steve Legett, the National Film Preservation Board’s (NFPB) co-ordinator, said “the time was right” for Thriller’s inclusion after Jackson’s death earlier this year.
“Because of the way the recording industry is evolving and changing, we thought it would be good to go back to the development of an earlier seismic shift, the development of the music video,” he added.
The landmark video, which was directed by John Landis and features Jackson as a werewolf and zombie, helped the star to promote his album Thriller around the world.
The final 25 films are picked every year from hundreds of public nominations and consultation with the NFPB.
They are not necessarily the biggest box office hits or major award winners, but are considered to be of national significance.
“By preserving the nation’s films, we safeguard a significant element of our cultural patrimony and history,” said Librarian of Congress James H Billington.
December 28, 2009
Brad, Angelina and the Kids Spend Holidays in NYC
Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and the kids spent the holiday in New York City.
Five days before Christmas, the clan enjoyed hot chocolate at NYC’s Café Metro. Pitt — who turned 46 Dec. 18 — “waited in line like all the other patrons,” a witness tells UsMagazine.com, while Jolie, 34 (who is in town for Salt reshoots), gabbed with Zahara, 5, Maddox, 8, and Shiloh, 3.
A few days later, the family was spotted again picking up gloves, hats and scarves at a street vendor.
Pitt and Jolie were also in the giving spirit this holiday season.
They donated $100,000 to the American SOS Children’s Villages, an alternative foster care organization with locations in the U.S. in Illinois and Florida.
“We have seen firsthand the remarkable job SOS does to raised orphaned and abandoned children and keep families together,” Jolie said in a statement. “No one “ages out” of an SOS Village. Vocational training, advanced education, living assistance and more support are there forever.”
‘Avatar’ Defeats ‘Sherlock Holmes’ At Record-Breaking Holiday Box Office
Despite his brilliant deductive reasoning and combat proficiency, Sherlock Holmes proved no match for the Na’vi of Pandora as James Cameron’s “Avatar” won first place at the box office for the second weekend in a row. Still, victory wasn’t entirely effortless for the 3D science fiction epic, as “Avatar” surrendered Wednesday night to the debut of “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” and also succumbed to “Sherlock Holmes” on Friday.
But a closer look at the numbers reveals that “Avatar” never had much to worry about, as the film lost to “Alvin” on Wednesday by a mere $2.4 million and an even smaller margin of $1.4 million against “Sherlock” on Friday. Those leads proved too small for the ten-foot alien warriors of “Avatar,” which ultimately finished at first place with $75 million. The result was nearly $10 million more than “Sherlock” and $25 million more than “Alvin,” proving that even if Cameron’s latest isn’t the king of the world, it’s certainly the king of the box office right now.
Given current trends, “Avatar” should continue to enjoy plenty of success. The movie experienced a small 2.6 percent drop in ticket sales from last weekend’s $77 million total, dipping to a low of $11.3 million on Christmas Eve and a high of $28.5 million on Saturday. “Avatar” ‘s total intake currently stands at $212.2 million domestically and $615.2 million worldwide. With yet another holiday weekend looming — without any new major releases, mind you — it’s very likely that “Avatar” will continue to top the competition.
Even though “Sherlock” and “Alvin” lost to “Avatar,” both films still performed very well at $65.4 million and $50.2 million respectively. “It’s Complicated,” the weekend’s other newcomer starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, earned $22.1 million, a respectable outcome given the stiff competition. Meanwhile, Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” expanded by nearly 2,000 theaters, resulting in a fifth-place finish worth $11.8 million. Even smaller releases performed admirably, with Heath Ledger’s final film, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” producing the weekend’s highest per-screen average of $32,500 across only four theaters.
But the most important result of the holiday weekend went far beyond any one movie. The combined efforts of “Avatar,” “Sherlock Holmes” and other competitors yielded not only the single best Christmas box-office performance of all time, but also the domestic box-office’s biggest weekend ever with an estimated $285 million total, trumping the $260 million opening weekend of “The Dark Knight” in July 2008. Clearly, Santa Claus had the film industry on his “nice list” this year.
Miley wants Taylor Swift to get tattoo
Teen sensation Miley Cyrus is trying to coax her pop singer friend Taylor Swift into getting the same tattoo as her.
The 17-year-old reportedly wants Swift to get the words “Just Breathe” which she has inked under her left breast.
Taylor on the other hand has no body art and is said to be horrified at the thought of getting a tattoo.
“My mom would kill me! Besides I hate needles,” Swift, 20, reportedly told Cyrus.