| Lasse Hallstrom Interview, The Hoax
MoviesOnline recently sat down with Academy Award nominated director Lasse Hallström at the Los Angeles press day to promote his new film, The Hoax. The psychological thriller stars Richard Gere as the notorious author Clifford Irving who perpetrated one of the most audacious and outrageous hoaxes ever on the media and American public. Inspired by Irving's untrue story, the suspenseful thriller is based on a screenplay by William Wheeler and also stars Alfred Molina, Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, Stanley Tucci, Julie Delpy, and Eli Wallach. For Hallström, "The Hoax" marks an edgy departure back to his roots, a foray back into the darkly comic labyrinths of irreverence, obsession and deception. Having gained renown for his deft storytelling skills and sensitivity in working with actors, Hallström's recent body of work – including the award-winning "Cider House Rules" and "Chocolat" – has veered towards moving dramas.
Release Therapy
THE main question most people are asking is whether Release Therapy deserved the Grammy for rap album of the year. I was kinda wondering that myself. After all, when I first heard the buzz on Therapy, I wondered whether Ludacris had sold out and sacrificed his unique style to become just another gangsta rapper. I suppose the closest hes gonna come to an explanation as to why he ditched the humorous slant of his previous work in favour of a more serious approach is on Mouths to Feed. With lyrics like now the games changed, Im all about the hustle and Im all about my team, Im all about my green, it seems like Ludacris is sick and tired of being the clown prince of rap and wants to get respect to go along with all the bling and Benjamins he already has. I think hes made the transition from funnyman to straight-faced brother with great aplomb.
Hoima Eagerly Awaits Oil Boom
HE WALKS WITH CONFIDENCE along the murram road to his hotel near the shores of Lake Albert. Occasionally, people stop him for a chat. The women wave and the teenagers bow. A prominent man in his community, he could become a crucial player in the oil boom everyone is expecting. Ofungi Kasangaki is the Local Council (LC 1) chairman of Kyeihoro village, in Buseruka sub-county of Hoima district. The setting of Kyeihoro is similar to Kaiso, Tonya, Kiamboga and many others on the shores of the Albert. .
Thursday Newspaper Review - Irish Business News and International ...
The Irish Independent reports that One51, the diversified group led by Philip Lynch, declared its hand yesterday, stating that it had teamed up with Doyle Group, a Cork-based shipping firm, to mount a bid for ICG. The two said that their bid would value ICG at at least 20 per share, trumping an existing 18.50-per-share offer by a management team led by ICG managing director Eamonn Rothwell. One51 and the Doyle Group, who announced their plans yesterday morning, only had to wait until last night to find that the ICG independent directors had given them a place at the negotiating table. The independent directors said they had had "initial discussions" with the One51/Doyle group and postponed a series of shareholder meetings scheduled for next Thursday to consider the 18.50-per-share offer from the Rothwell group, which is called Aella.
Study: Immigrants Add To Bottom Line Of State
BENTONVILLE -- Immigrants in Benton and Washington counties contributed $6.1 million to the state budget's bottom line in 2004, a study released this week shows.The study, commissioned by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and conducted by the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., also showed Arkansas had the fastest-growing Hispanic population between 2000 and 2005, and about 51 percent of immigrants in the state are undocumented.The study is the first to take an in-depth look at the demographic characteristics and economic impact of immigration on Arkansas, a state that saw a 37 percent growth in immigrants during the first half of this decade to about 123,000.Northwest Arkansas experienced even higher immigrant growth rates. Benton and Washington counties saw 106 percent and 57 percent growth to 20,296 and 18,414 respectively, the study found.Bill Rahn, senior program manager with the Rockefeller Foundation, said the organization conducted the study to gather real numbers about a much-debated issue."We know there's this huge growth," Rahn said.
Area is less gloomy, more Bloomies
With little land left in San Francisco for new buildings, a handful of developers are rolling the dice on the underused area around the city's Old Mint that for decades has been home to a collection of parking lots, pigeons and many of the city's down-and-out. The neighborhood -- loosely referred to as the Mid-Market area and home to The Chronicle among other businesses -- has received a boost from projects like the expanded Westfield San Francisco Centre, the federal building on Mission Street and plans to turn the L-shaped alleys around the abandoned mint into a cafe-lined plaza. Next up are high-end hotels, million-dollar condos and ultra-modern apartments. "In a place that is as compact as San Francisco, there are very few neighborhoods that are up and coming -- there are many that have up and came and a few has-beens," said Chip Conley, founder and chief executive of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, a San Francisco boutique hotel company that has contracts to run four hotels on Seventh Street and is also providing services to a condo project called the Soma Grand.
Health savings accounts cost more for women
ATLANTA -- High-deductible health insurance plans favored by many employers often wind up being an unfair burden to women, a new study says, largely because women need many routine medical exams that quickly add up. The median expense for men under 45 in these plans was less than $500, but for women it was more than $1,200, according to a study by Harvard Medical School researchers. They also found that only a third of insured men in that age group spent more than $1,050 in annual medical costs, while 55 percent of women did. "'High-deductible plans punish women for having breasts and uteruses and having babies," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, the study's lead author. "When an employer switches all his employees into a consumer-driven health plan, it's the same as giving all the women a $1,000 pay cut, on average, because women on average have $1,000 more in health costs than men," she said.
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