From orlandosentinel.com:
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In this undated Metropolitan Police handout, x-ray images show how a teenage boy cheated death when a five inch knife was plunged into his head. The 16-year-old and two other young men were injured when they tried to stop a friend being robbed at a bus stop. He was rushed to hospital with the kitchen knife still stuck in his forehead after the attack in Walworth, south London.
From orlandosentinel.com:
add to del.icio.usWho’s killing ABC Super Soap Weekend at Disney’s Hollywood Studios?
It’s not Zach Slater, the sometimes bad boy played by Thorsten Kaye on ABC’s All My Children. He has pledged to attend this year’s gathering of soap-opera stars on Nov. 15-16. So has John McBain, the sometimes suspect character played by Michael Easton on One Life to Live.
Yet as Walt Disney World prepares to host about 30 daytime-drama characters at this year’s Super Soap Weekend, there’s a shocking plot twist in sight: The event won’t return in 2009. Healthy and popular in this episode, it’ll be dead by the next.
Brian Frons, president of Daytime, Disney-ABC Television Group, appears to be the one writing Super Soap out of Disney World’s script after 15 years.
In a news release issued Monday, Frons said ABC wants to send its soap stars on a national promotional tour next year, rather than sponsor a single weekend at Disney World. “Our fans have told us they want us in their neighborhoods,” he stated, adding: “We thank Walt Disney World for being a wonderful host and partner, and look forward to our plans to send Super Soap off with a bang.”
Rilous Carter, Disney World vice president for Disney’s Hollywood Studios, is promising that this year’s event will be a fitting finale.
From lawfuel.com:
The former office manager of a union representing some 300 stage production members working at Disneyland and the Orange County Performing Arts Center has been charged with embezzling union funds.
Teresa Cora Luna, 34, of Anaheim, was charged late Friday with embezzling money from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 504 over an 8-month period. In a plea agreement also filed Friday, Luna agreed to plead guilty to the charge, admitting that she stole approximately $67,416 from the union. Read the rest of this entry »
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From lego.com:
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# Raiders of The Lost Brick
# Temple Escape
# Motor Cycle Chase scene
# Boulder Scene
# Staff of Ra Scene
# Horse Chase Scene(These little movies are actually well done and funny! - Dr. Disney)
From metoperafamily.org:
add to del.icio.usGerard Mortier, New York City Opera’s general-manager and artistic-director designate, announced today that the company has commissioned Philip Glass to compose a new opera based on the life of Walt Disney. The opera, titled The Perfect American, is scheduled to open the City Opera’s 2012-13 season, and will honor Philip Glass’s seventy-fifth birthday.
Based on Peter Stephan Jungk’s novel Der König von Amerika, in which a fictional Austrian cartoonist recounts the unseemly final months of Walt Disney’s life, The Perfect American will be staged in a production by the Improbable theater company, which took part in the Metropolitan Opera’s recent presentation of Glass’s earlier opera Satyagraha. The Perfect American will be Glass’s twenty-fourth opera.
“The story of the last days of Walt Disney, American icon and creator of perhaps the most pervasive fantasy world on our planet, is surprisingly gripping and at times disturbing,” Glass said in a statement issued today by City Opera. “But, on the face of it, how could it be anything else? The pulse of his life has to be the pulse of our own American culture. And, like other aspects of life here, it is unimaginable, alarming, and truly frightening. I am looking forward to beginning these collaborations with Gerard Mortier at the New York City Opera.”
From bloggingstocks.com:
add to del.icio.usI was disappointed with the performance of Disney’s (NYSE: DIS) Miracle at St. Anna. The Spike Lee war feature only grabbed about $3.5 million. It placed in spot number nine and even though it wasn’t in as many theaters as some of the biggies of the weekend, thus making its per-theater average heftier than some of the higher-ranking movies, I thought Miracle could have done a lot better considering its compelling marketing campaign. Would have been nice for Disney shareholders to have seen a big hit with this project.
Perhaps the long running time of 2 hrs. 46 min. affected its chances for success. I always say that execs should insist on movies with shorter run-times. That’s more shareholder-friendly to me. I don’t really care if an artist believes he needs a ton of time to tell a tale. Realistically, shorter movies reduce the risk of failure and can maximize the total return from the box office.
From comingsoon.net:
Last week, when Disney announced rather vaguely that Johnny Depp would be playing the role of Tonto in their big screen reinvention of The Lone Ranger, based on the popular ’50s television of the same name, it took the entertainment world by surprise.
Maybe people were just shocked that a superstar like Johnny Depp might play a sidekick in any movie he appeared in, not to mention the whole fact that traditionally, Tonto was a Native American who barely ever used prepositions. The real question was who would play Tonto’s better half and the title character in the movie that’s yet to name a director.
Well, now England’s semi-tabloid newspaper The Sun is claiming that Tonto’s Kemosabe will be played by none other than George Clooney! Read the rest of this entry »
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From orlandosentinel.com:
Walt Disney World’s first-ever hotel employee died Friday.
John Foster Curry, 78, was hired by Walt Disney in August 1966 as the company’s hotel planner, according to David Koenig, author of Realityland: True-Life Adventures at Walt Disney World.
Curry helped conceive of, construct and operate the Contemporary and Polynesian resorts at the Central Florida theme park. He researched hotels across the country, worked with U.S. Steel Corp. on the construction and hired the first executive hotel staffs.
“He was a kind, generous man,” Koenig said Saturday in a telephone interview. “Always with wonderful stories. He was a modest person, too.” Read the rest of this entry »
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From washingtonpost.com:
Paul Newman, 83, the actor and sex symbol who surged to stardom by playing loners as well as criminal and moral outlaws — anything to downplay his astonishing looks — died of cancer Friday at his farmhouse near Westport, Conn.
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Newman was an Academy Award-winning actor and acclaimed director, and he used his fame to propel his political activism, race car driving and philanthropy. He donated all the profits from his Newman’s Own food company — more than $250 million — to charities and social welfare organizations.Brooding and sinewy, with luminous blue eyes and a husky voice, Newman resembled a preppy Greek God in his earliest screen roles. He quickly rebelled against conventional casting that tried to turn him into a pretty-boy alternative to Marlon Brando and James Dean. He became known as an introspective and nonconformist performer — a perfect anti-hero idol for the socially rebellious 1960s and 1970s. Read the rest of this entry »
www.canadianpress.comadd to del.icio.usA family is suing Disneyland, claiming their toddler was mauled by a dog at the park’s petting zoo.
The suit filed Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, Calif., says the German shepherd-Labrador mix attacked two-year-old Lena Dickerson during a visit in 2006.
It says she was bitten several times on the face in an attack that left her permanently scarred.
The suit said the six-year-old dog was adopted from a local shelter by a Disneyland employee and brought to the theme park two weeks before the attack.
It claims the shelter described the dog as “not very social” and said it had a history of aggression.
Disney officials declined comment, saying they do not discuss pending litigation.
