Anand Jon Alexander has been known until now because of his being an award-winning fashion designer. But it seems that he will be shortly forgotten, because of a lawsuit that is very likely to stain his image simply forever.
Anand Jon Alexander has been accused of sexually assaulting 18 young models in California and he has been charged with assaulting nine more women in New York, as the prosecutors have revealed on Wednesday.
According to the prosecutors, A Manhattan grand jury indicted Anand Jon Alexander, who is only 33 years old, with sodomy, rape and other charges involving young girls and women between 2002 and 2006.
The Indian-born fashion designer has created clothes for very important and famous persons such as the Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump, Mary J. Blige, Alanis Morissette and others. However, he is now in a Los Angeles County Jail and he is waiting for his trial.
“As he has in the past, (Alexander) has asserted his innocence,” Donald Marks, Alexander’s lawyer in California, said. In October, the designer pleaded not guilty to the California charges, but he has not posted the $2.1 million bail that a California judge set for him. If he did this, he might have been extradited to New York, according to the prosecutors.

Despite the Hollywood screenwriters’ strike, a New York judge has ordered on Wednesday a theater owner to reopen Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical.
State Court Justice Helen Freedman has granted an injunction sought by the popular musical’s producers, who argued that their contract was not subject to the strike and who had the backing of the stagehands union, who wanted the show to continue at the St. James Theater.
So, Jujamcyn Theaters LLC, the owner of the St. James Theater and of four other Broadway theaters affected by the strike, had decided to lock out the popular music until the new labor agreement was reached. But as no new talks scheduled and with the strike in its 12th day already, Jujamcyn Theaters LLC’s decision was likely to ruin the limited-engagement run for the holiday musical, which attracts lots of children from out of town and not only.
“I think that one Grinch in this city is enough,” Judge Helen Freedman said the courtroom, adding that “The interests of the public are overwhelming. For the sake of our city, I’m granting an injunction.”
The judge’s injunction saves 11 Grinch shows over the Thanksgiving weekend, which represents one of the busiest times of the years for Broadway. Then the show will continue until January 6.
In a separate case caused also by the strike, the producers of nine Broadway shows sued the striking stagehands of Local One of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and their president James Claffey Jr. for $35 million, seeking to recover their lost revenues.

According to a state media report, five Hollywood studios sued a Chinese online service and an Internet café, on accusations that they offered pirated downloads of “Pirates of the Caribbean”, as well as other more or less popular movies.
The Beijing-based web site Jeboo.com and an Internet café from Shanghai are now facing a legal battle in trying to defend themselves from five popular studios such as Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney, Columbia Pictures and Universal Studios.
The American movie-makers accused Jeboo.com of creating software that the Internet café was then selling; the studios are now demanding 3.2 million yuan ($432,000) in compensation.
Jeboo.com is a web site that promotes itself as “My on-line cinema” and claims to be China’s biggest film download provider, features up to 30,000 movies and television series that is customers could copy onto their computers. Xie Jiangping, a company officially, “refused to comment on whether it had violated the film companies’ copyright,” according to Xinhua.
However, a statement on the web site itself says that its vast range of entertainment is “legally obtained” through “content providing partners”, who have signed copyright contracts.
The legal war between the five major American studios and Jeboo.com is likely to become a real war between China and United States, symbolically speaking, as the United States have always accused the Chinese authorities to do far too little for stopping commercial pirates.
Washington has even complained to the World Trade Organization that the slipshod Chinese rules have allowed a booming industry in pirated American goods, which include movies, music and software and which cost the American firms billions and billions of dollars.
On the Chinese streets, the pirated DVD has started to cost as little as $1, much less than the legitimate copies sold in the wealthy countries. Web sites that offer downloadable entertainment are very popular among the country’s millions of Internet users, who are not used to being afraid of the authorities, despite the fact that the country claims its intellectual property safeguards meet the international standards and that the government is determined to stamp out piracy. Still, China admitted that the effort might take many years.
According to Xinhua, the five American studios accused Jeboo.com and the Internet café of distributing 13 movies without permission, including Night at the Museum and X-Men 2.
This is not the first time that the American companies have sued the Chinese copiers. In September, several studios sued and won damages from a Beijing business that was selling copies of “Lord of the Rings” and other popular movies.

Singapore’s Media Development Authority, which represents the institution that regulates and censors media and arts in this country, has scored an unexpected hit on Google’s popular video sharing web site YouTube with a rap video about the city-state’s media ambitions.
The YouTube posting has received until now more than 11,000 hits, as well as string of snide postings and comments.
The government body wants to promote the growth of the media industry from this county, to promote “core values” and to also safeguard consumer interests, according to its web site. Through this rap video Singapore’s government body hopes to showcase its potential to be a “vibrant media city”.
However, this comes somehow in contradiction with the country’s regular censorship of films and theatre, or with the many defamation lawsuits its government has launched against foreign media, and critics have emphasized on this.
In the rap video, middle-aged executives could be seen moving and shaking to a rap tune, mouthing lines from a corporate brochure.

A portrait of Queen Elizabeth I that is thought to be the earliest such piece that was commissioned to help the English monarch “advertise” herself to potential suitors was sold yesterday for the huge amount of 2.6 million pounds, or $5.3 million.
The life-sized painting was created by an artist from Antwerp, Steven van der Meulen, who later became an important English court painter.
Van der Meulen’s old painting was expected to fetch between 700,000 and one million pounds, according to auctioneer Sotheby, so the amount of 2.6 million pounds seems to have been incredible even for the auctioneers.
“Like her father, Henry VIII, she was incredibly conscious of how important her image was,” Emmeline Hallmark, the head of the Sotheby’s British painting department, said, adding also that “This painting is so pretty and decorative, and the symbolism alludes to the fact that she is in the ripeness of her life.” Emmeline Hallmark said that the painting is likely to have been made when Queen Elizabeth I was around 30 years old.
The painting that was sold for 2.6 million pounds is almost two meters tall and depicts the pale-skinned queen standing in a crimson satin dress adorned with colored gems and pearls.
Elizabeth had in her right hand a carnation, which Emmeline Hallmark said that could symbolize a future betrothal. In her left hand she had a glove, which symbols power and health.
The entire portrait was emphasizing her youthful appearance and that the depiction of fruit and scented flowers in the background reinforced her allure.

Although they haven’t been quite smash hits in the theaters worldwide, the movies “We Are Marshall” and “Death Proof” seem to have claimed the top two spots on the latest DVD sales chart.
According to the data that have been issued on Wednesday on the third spot from the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart for the week ended the 23rd of September one could find the fifth volume of the “Family Guy” episodes. And “Superman: Doomsday” and “Barbie as the Island Princess” have been the next top choices in the DVD sales chart’s data.
On the No. 6 spot, one could find “Smallville: Season 6”, which has just debuted on DVD and which has been followed by the action thriller “The Condemned”. The third season of the “Grey’s Anatomy” series, which was the previous week’s top selling DVD has fell to the No. 8 position.
“We Are Marshall” has been a leader also in the rental stores, where its estimated revenue was of $4.6 million, according to the Home Media Magazine. “The Condemned” has bowed at the No. 2 spot with $4.2 million, as it has bumped the previous week’s top renter, “Blades of Glory” to the No. 3 spot. “Death Proof” has been next, on the No. 4 place, with about $2.9 million in earnings.
For the high-definition disc charts, the long reign of “300” atop both the HD DVD and Blu-ray disc appears to have come to an end. On the HD DVD chart, the crown has gone once again to “We Are Marshall”.

A reworking of the classic horror movie “Halloween” has beaten up all the box offices records. Rock star and writer and director Rob Zombie’s movie has been launched on the 31st of August and has been the hit movie of the Labor Day holiday weekend, which has marked also the traditional end of the lucrative summer movie going session. And thanks to “Halloween” the summer has seemed to end up in the same box officer record breaking rhythm as it has started. This way the overall ticket sales for 2007’s lucrative summer movie going period have reached a new record peak.
“Halloween” has been estimated by its studio on Monday of having sold during the weekend about $31 million worth of tickets since its opening from the 31st of August. This way it has been easily beating the forecasts of a $20 million bow for the four-day period.
“Halloween” has broken the old box office record for a Labor Day holiday weekend opening, which was set two years ago by “Transporter 2” that opened to $20.1 million. The horror movie has even beaten the all-time record for this holiday, which was set in 1999 by “The Sixth Sense”, which grossed $29.3 million after five weekends since its release.
Rob Zombie, the writer and director behind the box office record-breaking horror movie, seems to be the secret ingredient for its success. Rob Cummings, publicly known as Rob Zombie, has become famous back in the 1990s when he was singing with the heavy metal band White Zombie. Then he has made his movie directing debut in 2003 with “House of 1000 Corpses” and has shortly become very famous among the fans of the horror movies genre.
So, Rob Zombie’s new “Hollywood” movie offers a fresh back story of the taciturn killer Michael Myers, who has already starred in nine movies since John Carpenter’s 1978 original one.
“Obviously Michael Myers is a serial killer (but) it doesn’t play like those other movies.” – has said Bob Weinstein, the co-founder of Weinstein Co. about the emblematic “Halloween” character Michael Myers, also nicknamed as “The Shape”, whose weapon signature is represented by the kitchen knife.
Bob Weinstein has also said that the new horror movie from the popular “Halloween” series cost about $15 million to make. So just from its first week, Rob Zombie’s movie could be called a successful one.

The new acquisition of a majority stake that Live Nation has made in the annual multiday music festival from New Jersey’s metropolitan area Bamboozle seems to represent a meaningful U.S. property for the company.
It remains to be seen however whether the festivals will continue to be priority for the Live Nation company. But the move is also significant as a bigger stage for the self-called “kids of Jersey”, who founded the Bamboozle festival five years ago, led by the festival creator John D’Esposito.
So John D’Esposite started The Bamboozle back in 2003 at the Stone Pony from Asbury Park, New Jersey, which is the club that represented the launching pad for such popular artists as Bruce Springsteen or Jon Bon Jovi.
“The first year we weren’t very successful at the Stone Pony, so we decided to change the philosophy and move it to Convention Hall and basically incorporate the town of Asbury with multiple venues. […] We outgrew Asbury and had to move to a new venue. We looked at a bunch of options and chose the Meadowlands.” – has said the famous festival creator.
And in 2007, The Bamboozle festival that has taken place in May at the Meadowlands Sports Complex has featured 187 bands on no less than eight stages. It has drawn more than 85,000 fans and has grossed in excess of $2.6 million. My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park, the controversial Finnish band Lordi, Muse, MC Hammer, Taking Back Sunday and even “Weird Al” Yankovic have performed at the festival.
“We don’t usually go out and get a big headliner. […] We usually try to develop within as they grow. Fall Out Boy started on the small stage and eventually headlined to over 30,000 people. Same thing with My Chem. Hopefully this year we’ll have another one like Paramore or the Jonas Brothers.” – has said D’Esposito.
And as success has started to quite hit the music festival Live Nation has probably question why sell such a successful property and not become its major owner The company has backed The Bamboozle since it has moved out from Asbury Park; so why even thinking to sell it?
“They do this every day, and we’re just some kids from Point Pleasant, N.J. […] We got over our heads. There was a point where as an entrepreneur you have to look at something and say, ‘I can do it myself and fail, or I can go and get somebody with the experience and the resources.’” – D’Esposito has replied.
However, thanks to Live Nation’s growth plans the festival will represent also the beginning of the Bamboozle West in Lost Angeles in April. “From there we will tour across the country with a property called the Bamboozle Road Show.” - D’Esposito said. “We’ll take the best young (acts), put them on a package and tour them from L.A. to New Jersey. We’re also looking at a Bamboozle in London next October.”
Live Nation represents already a producer for many successful festivals in the United Kingdom and Europe, such the prestigious multiday events as Reading, Leeds and Download in the United Kingdom, Werchter in Belgium and Lowlands in Holland. And given the boom market for festivals from the United States too, it’s not very surprising that the company would like to strengthen its position as a festival producer also in the United States.

“Shrek the Third”, the third part of the green ogre and his family and friends’ famous story, has reclaimed the No. 1 spot at the foreign box office because of an estimated weekend haul of $17.2 million, which has lifted its overseas total to no less than $436 million.
The animated comic movie, which has begun its overseas rollout on the 17th of May, has posted No. 1 debuts in Italy ($10.8 million), Norway ($1.9 million), Denmark ($1.8 million) and Sweden ($1.4 million). It has been playing however in 24 different countries.
“The Bourne Ultimatum” has finished the competition on the second place with $15.1 million, as it has enjoyed six No. 1 openings, which have been led by Australia with $5.1 million. “The Bourne Ultimatum” has led Britain for a third consecutive weekend with $4.6 million, and has also retained the lead in Spain and New Zealand. With 24 more other territories yet to play over the next three months, “The Bourne Ultimatum” has earned $75 million overseas. It is also to open in Mexico on Friday.
And third in the past weekend’s overseas box office race has been “Ratatouille”, which grossed $10.1 million from 30 territories and has lifted this way its international total to $189 million. It hasn’t been surprising that the overseas grossing has been led by the French box office for a fifth consecutive weekend, tally $51 million.
And for the fourth place, another animated movie: “The Simpsons Movie”. This film has taken $7.7 million from 48 markets, which has lifted the comic animated movie’s overseas’ earnings to $303.2 million. The United Kingdom has led this time with $74.9 million.
Last but not least, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” has got to the fifth position. It has whipped up only $6.5 million from 58 markets, but its total international gross has risen to $625 million.

It if weren’t for her new book, Shoko Tendo’s secret wouldn’t have been found out by so many people. The woman seems normal and quite good looking like any other similar Japanese woman. But this is till you see her naked or just wearing a T-shirt or some short pants.
Shoko Tendo, however, has decided to “undress” in front of the whole world, who will find out many other interesting things if reading the 39-year-old old Japanese woman memoir book.
Through “Yakuza Moon”, Shoko Tendo reveals the vivid tattoos that cover her back and most of her body and she as well tells her story for everybody who is interested in reading it. The elaborate tattoos that cover the woman’s most part of the body include dragons and phoenixes, as well as a medieval courtesan with one breast bared and a knife between her teeth; they are all the symbol of the author Shoko Tendo’s childhood as the daughter of a “yakuza” Japanese gangster and also of her youth as a drug-using gang member.
Shoko Tendo, the author of the best-selling memoir that has just gone out in English, says also that the police’s efforts to eradicate the Japanese gangsters have merely made them harder to track. “The more the police push, the more the yakuza are simply going underground, making their activities harder to follow than they ever were before.” – has said Tendo for Reuters.
However, the police has said that the full-fledged membership in the yakuza groups has fallen to 41,500 in 2006, down from 43,000 in 2005, which is a decline they attribute to tighter laws against the organized crime.
But more shocking for the Japanese people has been the recent handful of fatal shootings by yakuza, which includes the killing of the mayor of Nagasaki from earlier this year. In Japan the gun-related crimes are rare, but Tendo has said that the shootings have been a result of the legal crackdown on yakuza, which has made it harder for them to ply their traditional trades of drugs, prostitution and bid-rigging.
“They’re being forced into a corner, their humanity taken away. […] All the things they used to do for a living have been made illegal, so life has become very hard.” – Shoko Tendo has also said.