Archive for the ‘Entertainment/Culture’ Category
Iron Man Air (Private Air: May/Jun 2008)
Iron Man Air: The creator of this summer’s most popular wearable aircraft tries his hand at something a little more spacious.
In Iron Man, when billionaire/genius inventor Tony Stark is kidnapped by baddies who try to force him to build WMD, he develops a suit of armor to fly through the sky like a missile. In Private Air, when the editors ask Phil Saunders, the concept co-designer behind all of the movie’s gadgets, to dream up a conveyance for battling the evils of commercial aviation, he develops this baby. Read the rest of this entry »
The Challenger (Private Air: Mar/Apr 2008)
The Challenger: Top Chef’s Casey Thompson
It was the crusher, the challenge that separated the woman from the boys. The final six contestants on Top Chef Season 3 were flown from their swank Miami pad to the Continental Airlines hangar at Newark airport, led to the comissary and given their assignment: wow the judges with a business-class meal on a Boeing 777. Read the rest of this entry »
Look-Alike Option (Trader Monthly Dec 2007)
Look-Alike Option: Ballsy Ivy Leaguers are back yet again in the latest from Ben Mezrich
A TWENTYSOMETHING Harvard Business School graduate visits a foreign country, romps with models, conducts some shady back-alley business and single-handedly revolutionizes the financial markets. Sound familiar? No, it’s not Ugly Americans Part Deux: The Smell of Fear — it’s Rigged, the latest from Ben Mezrich’s seemingly bottomless well of “nonfiction” novels chronicling the lives of young hot-shot Ivy League financial pirates out to take over the world. Read the rest of this entry »
Booking Profits (Trader Monthly Mar 2007)
Booking Profits: Literary trader David Breskin is both a Shakespeare and a Soros
Fund manager and writer David Breskin takes an interest in models. Quant models. Pricing models. And, uh, runway models. But his fascination with the latter, he insists, is less prurient than sociological. “The day after the [December 2004] tsunami, the New York Daily News headline was New York Supermodel Found,” Breskin says. “Three hundred fifty thousand people died, but the model in the tree” — Czech beauty Petra Nemcova, ultimately rescued clinging to a palm tree in Phuket, Thailand — “became the hook of the story. That pointed out that models are necessary for us. We need these kinds of icons.
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Third Time’s a Bomb (Unpublished)
Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines takes the guts and glory out of an action franchise
At the start of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, August 29, 1997 — “judgement day” — has come and gone without incident. Why, then, does a leggy blonde cyborg (Kristanna Loken) arrive naked in the window of a Rodeo Drive boutique and go on a killing spree of fast food employees and teenagers at house parties?
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Top Hats (Entertainment Weekly July 2002)
Top Hats: Forget what you thought about country singers. These seven guys are glamming up the honky-tonks — and female fans approve.
Girl’s Rule (34th Street)
Girl’s Rule: Julie Andrews and Anne Hathaway serve up a spoonful of sugar
What little girl doesn’t dream of finding out she’s really a princess? Wearing beautiful gowns and jeweled tiaras. Descending winding staircases at grand balls. Driving without a license with diplomatic immunity.
Prep School Secrets II (34th Street)
Prep School Secrets II: More soft porn hits theaters
In Lost and Delirious, Mouse (Mischa Barton) is a freshman assigned to live with two seniors when she arrives at her private boarding school. Her new roommates Tory (Jessica Pare) and Paulie (Piper Perabo) are free-spirits who smoke, spike punch and dance around in their underwear. But Paulie is the real angst-ridden wild child. Her signature phrase “rage more” is not just a pair of words. It is a way of life.
‘Blonde’ Ambition (34th Street)
‘Blonde’ Ambition: Reese Witherspoon is pretty, if predictable, in pink
What does a blonde do after her boyfriend dumps her? She, like, totally goes to Harvard. And then, like, wins a high-profile murder case. Oh, and gets a manicure. Duh!
‘Made’ to Order (34th Street)
‘Made’ to Order: But not fresh upon arrival
Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn have finally reunited on the big screen to follow up on their indie hit Swingers. In the crime-comedy Made, Vaughn and Favreau play Ricky and Bobby — two life-long friends who want to be boxers but actually work in construction for low-level mob boss Max (Peter Falk).
