Jimmy Valvano - Still Inspiring Us

The Jimmy V Men's Basketball Classic is the culmination of ESPN's "V Week," an annual event that raises money for cancer research. The week of festivities, and the tournament, are named after Jim Valvano, the legendary NC State coach.

Jimmy Valvano was a fighter. His coaching led to two National Championships. He always inspired his players to be at their very best. Winning NCAA tournaments for State was nothing short of a miracle. Their coach was emphatic about his team, and it's ability to do anything. All they needed to do was just put their minds to it. As seasons passed, Jim kept coaching North Carolina State basketball, but during his tenure, he contracted cancer. Jim Valvano was about to have the fight of his life.

He passed away in 1993 of cancer after delivering a touching, memorable speech at the ESPY Awards.
The inaugural Classic tipped off in 1995.

Here's a portion of Valvano's famous speech: "I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get you're emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm," to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality.

"I know, I gotta go, I gotta go, and I got one last thing and I said it before, and I want to say it again. Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever"

"To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.” Jimmy Valvano.

25 Years of AIDS awareness posters on Show.

 "Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters, 1985-2010" at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.


Selecting 153 posters from 44 countries from more than 3,000 choices, the college has brought together a representative sampling of styles, messages and strategies that let viewers understand the challenges artists faced. To qualify, posters had to about prevention or tolerance.


In the show's single most wrenching and controversial poster, emaciated and dying AIDS sufferer David Kirby is embraced by his father in a photo that became part of a United Colors of Benetton advertising campaign.

Mexican Poster

In China where AIDS is not well understood in vast rural areas, a one-word, one-image poster simple states "Stop AIDS."

And in several African countries like Kenya and Tanzania where gender equality is not yet established, posters show women asserting the need for condoms.

A South Korean poster

Some images require virtually no literacy like a 2007 Mexican poster depicting a colorfully dressed doll in the posture of death with a downturned mouth, black crosses for eyes and AIDS scrawled on a heart-shaped cap.

It is sobering to think that 25 years on this tragic disease is still endemic in parts of the world, and we seen to have lost the will to fight it. 

Warriors in Pink

NBC's 'The Biggest Loser' Teams Up  Ford  Warriors In Pink.

A great new incentive.
 

Sport and Weight Loss working together for the Fight against Breast Cancer.

Ford Warriors in Pink is enlisting a new team of Warriors in the fight against breast cancer by joining with the hit NBC reality show "The Biggest Loser" to show that the fight to get healthy and stay healthy requires the same Warrior spirit as the fight against breast cancer.

"Ford Warriors in Pink and ‘The Biggest Loser’ share common goal to empower people to take control of their health," said Connie Fontaine, Luxury and Nontraditional Marketing Communications manager for Ford Motor Company. "This is a show that creates Warriors, and we are proud to have the support of NBC and 'The Biggest Loser’ to help raise awareness and work towards a cure for breast cancer."

"The Biggest Loser" all-star trainers Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper with show host Alison Sweeney will do their bit by appearing in a national print and broadcast campaign that will hit newsstands and airwaves in November reminding everyone that breast cancer affects us all 365 days a year. The campaign encourages fans to support the cause and rally together in true Warrior fashion by logging on to www.fordcares.com and donning Ford Warriors in Pink gear. 100 percent of net proceeds from the gear goes to Susan G. Komen for the Cure all year long.

"With all major health challenges, it is Warrior-like strength that helps people overcome their challenges," said Chad Bennett, VP of Brand Development and Production for Reveille. "By working with Ford Warriors in Pink, 'The Biggest Loser' is able to again raise awareness around overall wellness and encourage its fans to live a healthy lifestyle."

Ford limited edition Warriors in Pink apparel and accessories are created for women, men and children and feature important symbols signifying the message of hope, strength and unity in the commitment to the fight against breast cancer. Ford commitment runs well beyond raising funds. The company is committed to making a difference 365 days a year by educating women that early detection saves lives,and encouraging them to become informed and visit their doctor regularly.  

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Reviews

The long goodbye for the most successful film series of the century thus far begins with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.

Deathly Hallows opens boldly. "These are dark times, there's no denying," intones Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour (Bill Nighy, acknowledging the fact that archvillian Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and his Death Eaters, having dispatched Dumbledore at the end of the previous installment, are on the verge of a complete takeover.

To find out more you will have to watch the film

So first - check out the reviews - they are mostly positive -  

Entertainment Weekly: “I don’t know which had the greater effect: my real melancholy at the thought of looming finality, or the elegance of this necessarily dark and serious penultimate film, in which characters/actors we have watched since childhood are now resourceful young adults. But I do know I felt a swell of love and awe wash over me from the very first wickedly creepy scene until the profoundly moving last one.”

Washington Post: “‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1′ can’t be anything but unsatisfying. As the first part of the last movie in a 10-year franchise that has taken on almost theological meaning for a generation of readers and filmgoers, it’s meant to leave audiences wanting more. It’s half of a really good movie, full of the enchantment, emotion and incident for which the Potter series has become so fanatically cherished.”

New York Times: “The movie, in other words, belongs solidly to Mr. Radcliffe, Mr. Grint and Ms. Watson, who have grown into nimble actors, capable of nuances of feeling that would do their elders proud. One of the great pleasures of this penultimate ‘Potter’ movie is the anticipation of stellar post-’Potter’ careers for all three of them.”

Florida Times-Union: “In this next-to-last installment in the routinely splendid Potter franchise, the title is the only thing clunky. Some of the previous six films, as fine as they are, have tended to meander; a lot of things happen in them, but the plot barely budges.

“Not here: This story rushes ahead as it takes our young heroes across a desolate Britain that’s almost post-apocalyptic, so pervasive is the dark work of Voldemort.”

Vancouver Sun: “What should have been the breathless first half of the Harry Potter finale wraps with the promise of a stirring exit, but David Yates’s initial navigation of the Deathly Hallows odyssey runs into a few structural squalls. Yates does a pretty good job with the heavy lifting, but there’s not much poetry to this clean-and-jerk exercise that brings the story of the boy wizard one step closer to its ultimate conclusion.”

NDTV Movies: “This is the dreariest Harry Potter movie yet but what’s more problematic is, that it’s also the most arcane. Viewers who haven’t read the books or seen all the previous films will be lost in the complex plot, which involves the search for Horcruxes which are objects into which Voldemort has hidden parts of his soul and the search for the Deathly Hallows, three objects which make the person who possesses them death-proof.”

Eva Longoria divorce reports false

 

Who knows how the Eva Longoria divorce rumors got started, but a rep for Eva Longria has squashed them, noting that the Tony Parker and Eva Longoria divorce stories are all false. 

 According to a representative for Longoria, Tony did not file for divorce and does not have a lawyer.

The Eva Longoria divorce rumor appears to be traceable to TMZ, who reported earlier today that Tony Parker filed documents in Texas.  Oops. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t check your sources 

It seems that the Eva Longoria divorce rumor is false.

The shocking news spread online on Tuesday but the "Desperate Housewives" star's aides are insisting the report is "absolutely false."

The reports suggested basketball player Tony filed for divorce in Texas on Monday.        

The couple wed in France in 2007.

Oprah reunites Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford 37 years after 'The Way We Were'

Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford together again.  This is the first interview the pair have given together since making the film 37 years ago.

Oprah hadn't told Barbra that she was planning on bringing Redford out, and the 68-year-old singer was delighted to see him and after giving each other a warm hug, the pair sat down to talk to Oprah.

When Barbra asked Redford why they had never done an interview in all the years since they made the film, he joked: 'Because I never thought I'd get a word in.'

'True,' responded Barbra.
Redford said he has no regrets about not making a sequel.
He said: I just felt certain things should be left alone, and this was one of them.'

Barbra and Redford played star-crossed lovers Katie Morosky and Hubbell Gardiner in the 1973 box office hit 'The Way We Were'.

The movie earned Barbra a Best Actress Oscar nomination, as well as winning the Academy Award for Best Original Score and Best Original Song.

Tamara Drewe - shades of Thomas Hardy

"Tamara Drewe" 
The film is loosely based on Thomas Hardy’s book“Far from the Madding Crowd” about the effect of a beautiful woman and the men who desire her, and is adapted from a graphic novel by Posy Simmonds.

Tamara, a posh girl raised in a Dorset manor and remembered by the locals as a neurotic girl with a massive nose, has moved to London, where she gets her nose bobbed. She returns to her childhood home, after becoming a successful London newspaper columnist, with a gorgeously remodeled nose and suddenly she excites the attention of men to whom she once was invisible.

The film stars Gemma Arterton as the title figure who drives men wild and women to fits of envy when she returns to Dorset to sell the family house. She becomes the talk of Ewedown, her village, where all the creatures are in rut.
Tamara dazzles former boyfriend, strapping Andy Cobb(Luke Evans),once the Drewe stable boy, who still fancies the girl he seduced as a teenager, and brainy Nicholas Hardiment (Roger Allam), a famous crime writer and serial philanderer, who has Tamara in his sights, much to the dismay of Beth his long-suffering wife and muse whom he scarcely bothers to hide his infidelities from. Beth (Tamsin Greig) runs a writer's retreat in their home, for which she makes mouthwatering meals and desserts, and gives a notable performance as a sad-eyed and betrayed wife.
However London rock god Ben Sergeant (Dominic Cooper) gets in first with Tamara, much to the dismay of some local teenagers who worship him and resent Tamara for coming on the scene and stealing him.

“Tamara Drewe" glides from slapstick to subtle personal drama, moves on to romance and sorrow, and bounces back to buoyant optimism, and has a dry, ironic fondness for even the worst of its characters. The characters scheme against one another and act cruelly, but the crimes they commit are all in the name of love.

Not everyone lives happily ever after, but almost everybody gets what he or she deserves. This film is about as satisfying as it gets.