It’s actually true! The ones who thought they had bought fancy faux fur jackets found out that those famous Sean John pieces were made from dog fur! This is at least what some very important persons from the Human Society of the United States said. The organization concluded that those garments were made from some Asian dog, called the “raccoon dog”.
Macy’s are accused that they have been advertising for these jackets as being made of faux four. The second problem is that the raccoon dog fur was sourced from China, the place where many of these raccoon dogs and other (strange-furred) animals are being killed in terrible ways!

However, the raccoon dog is not a domestic animal; it’s having its origins in Asia, including Japan and eastern Asia. It has just been raised in large number as its fur resembles the raccoon fur.
Sean “Diddy” Combs, the musician but also the designer, stated that he was completely unaware of the nature of the fur, but that the garments were pulled of the shelves and web site as soon as they have found out. He said that the production of garments using the raccoon dog fur would be ceased.
Macy’s were not the only ones caught with this “innocent misunderstanding”. The Humane Society of the United States conducted tests on a range of fur-trimmed jackets from retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue, J.C. Penney, or Bloomingdale’s, and also from clothing lines and designers like Calvin Klein, Baby Phat, or MaxMara. The tests revealed that nine out of ten jackets labeled as made from raccoon or coyote fur were in fact made from raccoon dog fur. And this is a violation of the federal law of the United States!
What remains to be said? Maybe just that the poor raccoon dog has been finally put in the lights as the true hero that supplied all of the great fashion labels with its fur! Let’s hope its memory won’t be harmed by some stars’ complaints about how awful it is to think you wear raccoon, and later find out it was in fact raccoon dog!

Starting with the 22nd of December 2006 a new funny movie will draw the attention of the kids and not only in the US cinemas. It’s “Night at the Museum”, a comic movie featuring Ben Stiller! The film is about just everyone’s childhood fears and nightmares including museum images: that all those things that are standing still during the day are coming to life after the sun sets and visitors are gone and the doors closed.
Well, Ben Stiller is playing Larry Daley, who’s just a loser. Divorced, without anything of his own, excepting a son that he just doesn’t want to let go of. Anyway, he’s finally getting this job at the museum as a night guard. He will be replacing three old guys (Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs).
So after the sun sets the museum really comes to life and Daley is being chased by all kind of creatures and finally gets in the middle of a war between some tiny railroad builders and a vast army of Roman soldiers. Owen Wilson is leading the railroaders.
Ben Stiller is doing a great job in the movie and the movie seems to be on the top for this Christmas. Although it will be a little too scary for the little kids. But for the others, it will be just the perfect funny movie for the ending of the year!

Technorati Tags: Night at the Museum, Ben Stiller, Christmas, Box Office, Larry Daley, Owen Wilson

The former pop star Scary Spice, also known as Mel B, has just hired these days one of the most important lawyers from L.A., Don Engel, to represent her in court against Eddie Murphy. How has this happened? Well, it all started like in the stories: Scary Spice was just a single mother and Eddie Murphy was just a divorced guy. It doesn’t matter anything excepting these very facts.

They met and hang around together, Mel B got pregnant and now Eddie said the baby couldn’t be his.
The most interesting thing is that in spite of going together (or separated) for a DNA test, Mel B and Eddie Murphy started a trial. So Mel B didn’t wait too much and hire $500 an hour lawyer Don Engel, so that Eddie Murphy not to get him first.
Anyway, why Eddie said that the baby wasn’t his can not be guessed. The only thing the media found out was that after the two of them met and Mel got pregnant, Eddie wasn’t too faithful to her and started dating the film producer Tracey Edmunds without telling Mel B about it.

And this had been happening for about a months, when Eddie did the wrong step and accidentally told in a show that he was not with Mel any more and also that the baby was not his. However, Mel B could swear that he was the father, although she has been seen not alone on holiday just before she met Eddie.
However, the happiest guy in the story seems to be Don Engel who’s being paid $500 an hour just for being Mel B’s lawyer. As far as he’s concerned he’s doing his job… almost nothing, as Eddie Murphy and Mel B are still screaming one to another without the help of any lawyer at all.

Technorati Tags: Eddie Murphy, Divorce, Mel B, Don Engel, Spice Girls, Showbiz

Although he’s made himself a name by not being so talkative and voluble, Robert De Niro talked to the media about his second directorial outing, “The Good Shepherd”. The movie is in fact a story from the earliest days of the CIA and Matt Damon plays the character of a fictionalized agent.
Because this attitudinal change of De Niro’s is considered as being linked with his trying to promote the new movie, De Niro was also willing to share with the media other pieces of information, starting with the differences between acting and directing to his recent choice of roles.
Talking about the movie, Robert De Niro explained that he had been interested in the Cold War and espionage for a long time, as he found them a very fascinating part of the history. And when Eric Roth gave him the script of “The Good Shepherd”, De Niro seemed pleased, although the story takes place in an earlier period: 1939-1961.
The movie is about politics, public affairs, but also about personal touching problems, like Edward Wilson (played by Damon) neglecting his wife (Angelina Jolie) and his son. De Niro said he liked this personal approach of the story.
He traveled to Afghanistan, Moscow and not only, for the research for the movie. He also spent some time with an ex-consultant of CIA’s, Milt Bearden, who worked there for 30 years.
De Niro tried to keep everything in this movie equilibrate and believable. For example the killings were kept not too bloody and also not too gory, as the director said. One should feel the influence that Scorsese had on De Niro’s directing skills. They worked together when De Niro was an actor and was directed by Scorsese, in movies like “Taxi Driver”, “Goodfellas” and others.
Robert De Niro stated that he always tried to do his best in everything he was doing. So this applies also to this movie. “The Good Shepherd” features great names, the story is interesting and everyone seemed to be a pro. One should not miss it!

Technorati Tags: Robert De Niro, The Good Shepherd

A football movie that is not really about football! It sounds interesting, at least!
“We Are Marshall” is based on a true story of the 1970 Marshall University team, whose members died in a place crash. Anyway not all of them died, just the majority. Jamie Linden and Cory Helms, two first-timers, wrote the script in that manner that the watcher will find out that football means everything in Huntington, W. Va., but this is not showed, nor felt during the scenes.

Also, excepting the character of Anthony Mackie, the watcher barely gets to know any of the players. Matthew McConaghey stars as Jack Lengyel, the coach who volunteered to take over the Thundering Herd after the plane crash took place and no one else wanted to. Lengyel will try to make team with Red Dawson, a surviving coach, but this will be difficult because of Dawson feeling guilty of not dieing with his team. He survived only because he was not in the plane, as he was traveling by car. Dawson is played by Matthew Fox, the star of the TV series “Lost”.
The problem of the movie is that the story would have been a good starting point for a good movie, but it didn’t quite have this chance. Although some of the actors are well rated, this was not speculated how it should have been, and the movie is rather a disappointment, than a success.

Technorati Tags: We Are Marshall, Matthew Fox, Matthew McConaghey, Lost

Although one should wonder whether Stallone wanted to mock of himself, the new Rocky movie is ready to be launch in the US cinemas. Sylvester Stallone, who is in his 60s, suggested to some studio executives this new Rocky movie project, but they laughed about him.
However, “Rocky Balboa” will be launched next week in the US cinemas. The gossiping and comics are still making fun about the 60-year-old Stallone, but he seems to pretend with this new project that Rocky was not only a story, but also his life. He will try to win the fight although he’s old in a world of famous youngsters.
Sylvester Stallone stated that he felt an incredible resistance against the ones who are trying to re-appear on the scene. However he hopes the new movie will be on the taste of the fellows that liked the other Rocky movies, at least.
With this movie, Stallone will appear for the sixth time in front of the watchers playing the character of Rocky Balboa. It will also be for the first time since 1990.
Stallone is in great shape, if one considers his age. He is one of the many ageing action stars that had to re-invent themselves for keeping in touch with the scene. He previously failed to do this, as the movies “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot” and the remake of “Get Carter” were very unsuccessful.
The other famous character played by Stallone was Rambo. He will be getting a revival as well as Rocky the next year, when a new movie will be released. It seems that the endless “reincarnations” of these two characters hasn’t stopped, but one hopes that these new projects won’t be so embarrassing like the others.

Technorati Tags: Rocky Balboa, Rocky, Sylvester Stallone

The Hawaii home of Evangeline Lilly burned down on Wednesday morning, the 20th of December 2006. So the actress started picking up the pieces after the blaze, being helped by her boyfriend, Dominic Monaghan. The latter is also Lilly’s mate from the popular TV series “Lost”.
The house was not owned by Lilly; she had just rented it and at the time of the disturbing incident there wasn’t anybody home, so there were no victims. However, the family, friends and colleagues of Lilly’s and of her roommates’ are going to help them, as all their things were lost in the fire. They lost all their clothes, pieces of furniture, electronics etc.

Although it seems that she was lucky for not being there when the fire destroyed everything, Lilly is very upset because of her loosing many personal things, from photos to paintings and so on. These pieces could not be ever replaced, she said, but she also realized that they were less important than the lives of the potential victims.

After the incident Lilly and Dominic Monaghan went there and started searching in the ashes. As it was late in the night they were armed with flashlights; however there were few things that they could found intact. Till she will be able to find another home, Lilly was invited by Monaghan to stay with him.

Technorati Tags: Evangeline Lilly, Lost

On the 21st of December 2006, Scholastic Inc., J.K. Rowling’s publisher, has finally announced how the most expected children book of the year will be entitled. So, the finale piece of the Harry Potter very popular series is named “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”!
However, the publisher hasn’t mentioned also other important details about the book, like the publication date, for example. The author, J.K. Rowling is still working on her masterpiece. She stated that she’s experiencing mixed feelings about the fact that “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” would be the last book from the series. However, she promised she would finish the book, although this will make her both happy and sad, at the same time.
The Harry Potter series has been the most popular books and movies for children and not only. The way the producers managed to put on act the fantastic images of the book was quite… fantastic, so that one should expect “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” to become also the subject of a movie in the next months or years.

Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Lara Flynn Boyle named herself famous for being around very important and popular people like Jack Nicholson, or David Spade, for example, but now she showed the world her believing in romantic love stories (with non-VIPs).

On Sundary, the 17th of December 2006, Lara Flynn Boyle has married Donald Ray Thomas, just a John Doe, from the point of view of the media. It seems that the wedding from Texas has come as the result of her dating Thomas for about six months.

The skinny actress had many famous lovers, and that was a fact that made her famous, rather than her appearances in TV shows, movies and so on. However, to return to the question “Who is this Thomas guy?”, one could find a supposed answer on the web. So Thomas’ identity swings between a 71-year-old Republican law-maker and a 57-year-old dead guy who passed away ten years ago…

Technorati Tags: Lara Flynn Boyle, Donald Ray Thomas, Jack Nicholson

The film is between bad and retarded. Sometimes the dramatic nature is so exaggerated, that you’d start laughing. For example, there is a wounded man who’s been running continually for 2 days, there is an aquatic birth, there are also some “hard to stomach” scenes that could have just been missed. The movie is just an impossible mix, realized in the cheaper manner ever.

Briefly, the movie is about a small Maya people village, a village whose inhabitants will be taken hostages by some other Maya people. The latter are yet “townsmen” Maya. The poor fellows are taken to a very imposing temple, where they would be sacrificed so that the gods to placate. But just before he was to be captured, the main character of the movie, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), succeeded to hide his family in some… hole.
The road from the jungle small village to the Maya temple could be compared with Jesus’ ordeal from “The Passion of the Christ”. In fact, there are about 30 minutes in which the poor fellows are being tortured in all sorts of manners, so that you’ll ask yourself: “What’s the point?”

However, Jaguar Paw is a lucky one. Because of this un-hoped timing, he will slip the enemy’s knife thanks to a solar eclipse. He will manage to run away back to the jungle for saving his family (in fact for fetch them out of the hole), but he will need to kill the son of some important Maya fellow, who has just started following him. This way, the Maya guys start following one another in the jungle, completely forgetting about the Spanish threat. And they keep running, for about 2 days, while our hero manages to get rid of some chasers. Finally, the last 2 chasers and Jaguar Paw will reach a beach and they will see the Spanish ships; so the 2 chasers will immediately forget about Jaguar Paw and they will be going towards the ships and our hero will go back to his saving the family from their hole. What I’ve forgotten to say is that during these adventures, Paw’s wife will give birth to a baby in some rain water, because meanwhile a rain has started over and the hole has been cramming with water.

So the scenario is retarded. With this movie, Mel Gibson tried to make the portrait of the Maya civilization on the wane, but he hasn’t been very good. I wonder if the historical truth was fairly respected in the movie, because the facts seem to be much exaggerated with every new action. It’s difficult to guess what Mel Gibson wanted to express with “Apocalypto”, excepting the ubiquitous bloody scenes (a pattern that was used for showing us that the Maya civilization was on the wane).

Mel Gibson has forgotten that the Spanish were maybe more cruel than the Maya people in the following years. But the Spanish were Catholics, Mel Gibson is also Catholic and it seems that it was not quite right to show what the conquerors did. It was easier to show the conditions (more or less true) of the Maya decline so that the Spanish to represent the salvation.

Talking from the cinematographic point of view, the movie is well made and the scenes are powerful until everything becomes just grotesque, when you watch the chopped heads and the bloody hands and you’re still be able to laugh at Mel Gibson’s exaggerations.

Haven’t seen yet “Apocalypto”? You haven’t missed a thing!

Technorati Tags: Mel Gibson, Apocalypto, Maya