Innholdsfortegnelse for #044 i eNews Magazine

Cinema has always been fascinated by androids. From “Metropolis” to “Blade Runner,” the juxtaposition of humans next to their artificial form has provided endless hours of stories that can be as exhilarating as they are poignant. Tough moral questions about consciousness and humanity go down easier when hidden under the glossy sheen of genre, after all. With so many now-classics preceding it, “Ex Machina” might seem like just the latest flavor in the android movie shop. And yet, without necessarily expanding on this well-trod territory or innovating contemporary science-fiction, by going deep on a simple construct, “Ex Machina” establishes itself as a unique and deeply unsettling psychological thriller that’s both necessary and unforgettable. The construct in question: How good is this android? Writer-director Alex Garland in his feature debut tells…

It’s going to be “Groundhog Day” on Broadway. It’s going to be “Groundhog Day” on Broadway. A musical version of the story about an arrogant weather forecaster forced to live the same day over and over is slated to arrive in 2017, thanks to four creators of the hit “Matilda the Musical” - director Matthew Warchus, composer Tim Minchin, choreographer Peter Darling and set and costume design by Rob Howell. The story will be based on the 1993 film that starred Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell and Chris Elliot. The book will be by Danny Rubin, who co-wrote the screenplay with Harold Ramis. The producers are Whistle Pig Productions, Scott Rudin and Columbia Live Stage. No casting was announced. Previews will start in January 2017. On his blog, Minchin said the…

Even First Lady Michelle Obama has asked YouTube star Michelle Phan for beauty advice. “She asked me what kind of powder I liked,” Phan recalled in a recent interview. She traveled to Tokyo last month with Mrs. Obama as part of her “Let Girls Learn” campaign, which encourages education around the world. Phan, 27, herself has made a career out of sharing her beauty tips. She began by posting makeup tutorials on YouTube in 2007, just two years after the video site was founded, and today has 7.5 million subscribers. She has a subscription makeup business called Ipsy (“with more than 100 employees and we’re going to be making over $100 million this year,” says Phan). Now, she’s launching her own online network of original content called ICON. It features…

Future Hearts All Time Low The Baltimore pop punk group follows up 2012’s Don’t Panic with what has been described as a “logical next step” by vocalist and guitarist Alex Gaskarth. John Feldman takes the helm as producer, while Mark Hoppus and Joel Madden are enlisted as guest artists. The album has been promoted with the singles “Something’s Gotta Give” and “Kids In The Dark”. FIVE FACTS: Strange Trails Lord Huron The Los Angeles indie folk foursome Lord Huron came to prominence in 2012 with the release of their debut album Lonesome Dreams, which was based around a series of old adventure tales. Similarly, the follow-up sprung from the idea that group founder - and visual artist - Ben Schneider had of a feature film, based on characters living together…

Showtime is expressing hope of salvaging an updated version of “Twin Peaks” after its co-creator, David Lynch, announced he is leaving the project. The network said it was “saddened” by Lynch’s statement but still hopes to resurrect “Twin Peaks” with both Lynch and his co-creator, Mark Frost, on board. This reboot of the eerie 1990-91 ABC thriller was announced by Showtime last fall. Lynch and Frost were set to be back to write the new series, with Lynch slated to direct all nine episodes. But Sunday on Twitter, Lynch declared that after 16 months of negotiations Showtime still had not approved a budget that he considered sufficient. Showtime responded that it believed it had been making progress with him on “the few remaining deal points.”…

Business travelers are bypassing the taxi queue with greater frequency, choosing instead ride-hailing services like Uber Technologies. A new report by expense management system provider Certify shows that 47 percent of the ground transportation rides by its users in March were through Uber. That’s more than tripled from the 14 percent of rides that Uber had just over a year ago in January 2014. In a few cities, Uber now tops taxi rides for business travelers. “While we often see noteworthy market shifts - leading restaurant chains and hotels exchanging leadership positions, for example - it is unprecedented to see one vendor grow to take such a commanding market share within one year’s time,” says Certify CEO Bob Neveu. While taxis, limousines and airport shuttles still dominate the ground transportation…

A vigilante hacker, an invasion of Los Angeles and a doctor who gets into a gun battle with gang members are featured in dramas due to appear on a grittier USA network within the next year. The general-interest cable network, trying to halt a decline in ratings, revealed programming plans with a marked shift away from the lighter procedural fare of “Monk,” “Psych” and “Burn Notice” of a few years back. USA is turning to darker and, its executives clearly hope, more buzzworthy shows with ongoing stories. Two will begin in June: “Mr. Robot,” a hacker drama that features Rami Malek and Christian Slater, described as “The Social Network” meets “Fight Club.” The drama “Complications” is about a suburban doctor who intervenes in a drive-by shooting, picking up a gun…

Fear, anger, disgust, sadness and joy have taken over Pixar headquarters, and things are going great. The Oscar-winning animation studio is celebrating the completion of “Inside Out,” a film that features each of those emotions as personified characters controlling operations inside in a little girl’s head. Sculptures, sketches, paintings and other concept art from the film 5 1/2 years in the making fills a gallery at the studio’s resort-like headquarters in Northern California. Some 350 artists and technicians collaborated under the direction of Pete Docter (“Up,” “Monsters, Inc.”) to bring the imaginative adventure to life. “Inside Out” tells a story of two worlds - the external, human world and the internal landscape of the mind - and how they influence one another. As 11-year-old Riley navigates the human world, including…

Giuliana Rancic isn’t making any promises that she’ll return to “Fashion Police” in the fall. The E! Entertainment personality appeared on the “Today” show Monday to promote her new book, “Going off Script.” And she also seemed to go off-script at the interview’s conclusion, when host Savannah Guthrie asked if Rancic “will be there” when “Fashion Police” airs again in September. Hedging, Rancic said only, “We’ll see.” The show, formerly hosted by the late Joan Rivers, has recently been in turmoil with the abrupt departures of panelist Kelly Osbourne and new host Kathy Griffin. Before that, Rancic took heat for a wisecrack about actress Zendaya’s dreadlocks that some viewers, including the actress-singer, deemed racist. But Rancic repeated her explanation that the joke was misinterpreted after editing removed the context.…

The odds were stacked against Eleanora Fagan, who was born to unwed teenage parents in Philadelphia on April 7, 1915. But she would become perhaps the most influential jazz singer ever, Billie Holiday, whose centennial is being celebrated with new albums honoring her legacy. Unlike Ella Fitzgerald, Holiday lacked the vocal technique that would have gotten her past the early rounds of “American Idol.” But nobody did it better when it came to interpreting and plumbing the emotional depths of a song. “Billie Holiday - The Centennial Collection” (Columbia/Legacy) offers an excellent introduction to 20 of Holiday’s finest recordings from 1935-44. Holiday likened her voice to a horn, and her inventive phrasing and sense of swing enabled her to seamlessly mesh her vocals with the instrumentals. These recordings pair Holiday…

In “The Clouds of Sils Maria,” Kristen Stewart’s celebrity has been inverted. The paparazzi rush right past her. She plays the efficient, constantly emailing assistant to Juliette Binoche’s famed European actress. Reading tabloid stories about a Hollywood starlet (played by Chloe Grace Moretz), she shrugs: “It’s celebrity news. It’s fun.” When she’s running through possible roles for her boss, the former “Twilight” star describes one film as having werewolves “for some reason.” “I had to seriously harness the glee that was exploding across my face when I was saying some of those lines,” Stewart said in an interview. “I don’t think that’s what the movie is fully about. It’s not a commentary about the insane nature of the media in the States, especially. But no one knows about that more…

Taken 3 (Unrated) Liam Neeson reprises his role as Bryan Mills for this third installment of the Taken trilogy, for which the former government operative is forced to depend on his skills one last time when he is framed for a murder. He is soon pursued by a savvy police inspector, Frank Dotzler - played by Forest Whitaker. Can Mills both evade the authorities and hunt down the real killers? FIVE FACTS: Big Eyes Walter Keane rose to prominence in the 1950s as the acclaimed painter of vulnerable, large-eyed waifs, only to soon be exposed as a fraud, the actual artist being his wife, Margaret. This latest Tim Burton drama, starring Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz, tells the true story of one of the last century’s most extensive art scams.…

Jeri Vargas put her elderly mother on the "Do Not Call" list years ago. So why is the 88-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease still getting several recorded phone calls a day pitching her everything from vacation cruises to medical alert devices and fire extinguishers? The Federal Communications Commission has been asked to consider the question of whether phone companies could do more to stop the onslaught of "robocalls," the automated phone calls favored by scammers. Since the convergence of Internet and phone lines, it's become easy to blast out hundreds of thousands of calls in a matter of minutes to see who takes the bait. The question of whether these calls can be blocked has never been more pressing than around tax season, when many pretend to come from the…

New York City jail health workers say their medical ethics are often compromised by the demands of treating patients who are also prisoners, such as when they witness guards’ use of force or are asked to approve stints in solitary confinement, according to a first-of-its-kind city study. The two-year study at New York’s sprawling Rikers Island jail complex concluded with a bold recommendation to remove health workers entirely from the most contentious issue they face - whether to put an inmate in solitary. That’s because many doctors believe the confinement, which involves 23-hour stretches of isolation, could harm inmates. “Whatever the security reasoning for placement in such units, the participation of health staff in this process is cumbersome, time intensive, of questionable value and does not reflect a patient-health provider…