Rihanna Rocks Essence Festival Stage
Rihanna Rocks Essence Festival Stage
Opting to work on Independence Day, Rihanna took the stage to perform at the Louisiana Superdome during the 2008 Essence Music Festival on Friday (July 4).
The New Orleans based festival, which kicked off yesterday and runs until Sunday, “celebrates black music and culture and moved to Houston in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans. It returned in 2007, and organizers say Essence is now re-establishing its place in the city.”
According to AP reports, “an estimated 200,000 people attended the festival last year, supplying a needed injection of business into the city’s hurricane-hammered tourism industry.”
“The festival is so special to New Orleans,” said Irma Thomas, a resident who’s still struggling to rebuild her home from Katrina-related damages.
Meanwhile, the festival will be honoring Patti LaBelle tonight - as the soul diva will enjoy “performances by two original members of LaBelle — Sarah Dash and Nona Hendryx — as well as performances by Chaka Khan, Angie Stone, Ledisi, Chrisette Michele, Ruby Amanfu and Thomas.”
Blindness International Movie Trailer
Alliance Films has released the international trailer for Fernando Meirelles’ Cannes hit Blindness.
Adapted from Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago’s masterwork, BLINDNESS is a harrowing tale about the fragility of mankind. Directed by the Academy Award® nominated (City Of God) Fernando Meirelles, from a screenplay by the Tony Award® winning (The Drowsy Chaperone) Don McKellar, BLINDNESS stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal.
Evocative of the recent SARS epidemic, or occurrences in the New Orleans Super Dome during Hurricane Katrina, BLINDNESS takes place in a city which is ravaged by an epidemic of instant “white blindness”. Those first afflicted are quarantined by the authorities in an abandoned mental hospital where the newly created “society of the blind” quickly breaks down. Criminals and the physically powerful prey upon the weak, hording the meager food rations and committing horrific acts.
There is, however, one eyewitness to the nightmare; a woman whose sight is unaffected by the plague follows her afflicted husband to quarantine. There, keeping her sight a secret, she guides seven strangers who have become, in essence, a family. She leads them out of quarantine and onto the ravaged streets of the city, which has seen all vestiges of civilization crumble. Their voyage is fraught with danger, yet their survival and ultimate redemption reflect the tenacity and depth of the human spirit.
BLINDNESS reminds us of the shocking fragility of our social institutions, the thin veneer of our “civilized” world, and the responsibility for every individual to protect their dignity at all costs.
Petra Nemcova is the New Face of Otto
Petra Nemcova is the New Face of Otto
Playfully posing for photographers on hand, supermodel Petra Nemcova made her first appearance as the spokesperson for Otto, a German mail order company in Hamburg, on Monday (June 30).
And with the money that’s rolling in from her numerous endorsement deals, the 29-year-old Czech cutie has been helping out those in need, as well.
According to a recent press release, Petra donated over 150 computers - along with other educational technology equipment - to The Andrew H. Wilson Charter Elementary School in New Orleans a week ago.
“While the Happy Hearts Fund has provided children and schools in disaster-stricken, underprivileged communities with computers around the globe, the Andrew H. Wilson Charter School is the first recipient in New Orleans, and in the U.S.,” Nemcova told.
“It’s evident that after disaster strikes, once the cameras disappear, so does much of the help. Each and every one of these students is a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, and we hope that by supporting them, not only will their lives and educational opportunities improve, but also those of future Wilson School students,” she added.
Solange Knowles: "I Don’t Have a Life in Hollywood"
Solange Knowles doesn’t want her three-year-old son, Daniel, to go into the family business.
“I’d love for him to be talented in other things,” Beyoncé’s 22-year-old little sister says. “I hope that he wants to be a…computer engineer.”
Since giving birth to Danielwhen she was just 18we haven’t seen or heard much from Solange…
But these days, she’s everywhere, because she has a new album to promote. Her sophomore effort, Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams, will be released August 26.
This is as fabulous as it gets for Knowles. “I don’t have a life in Hollywood,” Knowles told me the other day while running errands in L.A. “I don’t do s–t. Just work. I come home and take my son to the movies. I don’t go out. It’s only like the BET Awards or something like that, that I actually do something.”
Then there’s her serious side. Just look at the video for the new album’s first single, the Pharell Williams-written “I Decided.” Depicted throughout are archival footage and photographs from key moments in American history, like the Civil Rights movement.
“6 O’Clock Blues,” a collaboration with Amy Winehouse’s Grammy-winning producer Mark Ronson, hits on Hurricane Katrina and poverty, among other issues.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m political, but I’m definitely aware,” Knowles said.
But in the very next breath, she cooed, “I do have Obama fever.”
She met the presidential hopeful at a dinner not too long ago. “It was crazy because I had all these questions I wanted to ask him,” Knowles recalled. “But once I got in the midst of his presence, I totally felt like I was meeting a rock star.”
Unlike her obsessively private older sister, Knowles has no problem opening up about her personal life. She married football player Daniel Smith while she was pregnant with their son, but they divorced about three years later. However, she won’t let that spoil her dreams of finding love again. “I got married at 17, so I won’t judge from that one experience,” she said with a laugh.
So more kids on the horizon? “Yeah,” she said. “Maybe I’ll have two or three…or four!”