This past Saturday, I attended “an exclusive day of Beauty, Health and Wellness” planned by the LA Times Magazine and held at the scenic Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes.
The day was filled with well-known guest speakers from Dr. Susan Love, to Tracy Anderson, to Katherine Schwarzenneger, to the entire cast of The Doctors (Dr. Travis Stork, Dr. Lisa Masterson, Dr. Jim Sears, Dr. Drew Ordon) to NFL star, Terrell Owens, each speaking on varied topics such as breast cancer awareness, body image and identity, health advice, and beauty prescriptions.
Terrell Owens with Cast of The Doctors
NFL Star Terrell Owens
T.O. and Me
Here is NFL star, Terrell Owens speaking about his reality show, The T.O. Show and his charity:
Cast of The Doctors
Dr. Travis Stork, Raha Lewis, Associate Editor, LA Times Magazine (R), and Me
You can watch what The Doctors had to say on such topics as health benefits of coffee, sun exposure without sun screen on the two videos below:
If all that weren’t enough, there were plenty of exhibitors and sponsors providing pampering services such as massages, facials and reiki sessions.
The event was organized by the following LA Times Magazine staff: Anna Magzanyan, VP of Marketing and Events, Nancie Clare, Editor in Chief, Raha Lewis, Associate Editor, John O’Loughlin, Head of Advertising, and was moderated by author Samantha Dunn.
Last night marked the opening night of the 3rd Annual Bel Air Film Festival which runs through October 19, 2010.
The Bel Air Film Festival is a blossoming showcase for films from around the world, including many world premieres. Movie screenings will be held at the UCLA James Bridges Theater where 58 films will be presented including 35 world premieres and 12 Los Angeles premieres.
The opening ceremonies were marked by presentation of four awards: Brian Austin Green (Best Actor), Kathy Najimy (Best Actress), Mark Rydell (Legendary Filmmaker Award) and Salaam Remi (Best Music in Film).
Here is a video of Brian Austin Green accepting his Best Actor award. He starts by referring to a 10-minute reel of his on screen achievements which was shown just before the award presentation:
Here is some of the interview with Brian Austin Green before the opening ceremonies:
Here is Kathy Najimy acceptng her award:
The opening night ceremony also showed a screening of Walk a Mile in My Pradas, a film by the festival’s headline sponsor Dream It Productions.
Cast of Walk A Mile In My Pradas
This “Work in Progress” feature film starring Nathaniel Marston, Tom Arnold, and Tom Archdeacon, tells a timely story about relevant issues such as Prop 8 and gay rights. The film offers messages of tolerance and acceptance, in a light and heart warming, comedic fashion and marks director Joey Sylvester’s feature debut.
The screening also presented my favorite of the night, the Los Angeles Premiere of the short film Turning Japanese, starring Brian Austin Green. Turning Japanese tells the story of a couple struggling with their finances that stumble upon an unknowing sleepwalker and exploit her nightly episodes by selling tickets. Brian Austin Green is well known from his role on the hit TV series Beverly Hills, 90210 as well as his performances in the sitcom Freddie, the films Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Domino and recurring roles on the TV series Smallville and Desperate Housewives.
Kathy Najimy introduced the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary The Last Elephants in Thailand and brought attention to a cause she personally supports: the fight to save the dwindling population of elephants in Thailand and expose the abuse of elephants in amusement parks and the way elephants are forced to paint. Named Ms. Magazine’s “Woman of the Year” in 2005 and known as the voice of Peggy Hill on 14 seasons of the animated series King of the Hill, she is also easily recognized for her roles in the films Sister Act I and Sister Act II, the animated film Wall-E and over 20 feature films including Hocus Pocus,Rat Race and The Wedding Planner. An active philanthropist, she has been recognized frequently for over 20 years of charitable efforts.
Mark Rydell (Middle) with Stuart Acher (R) and Eric Goldfarb
Mark Rydell received the Legendary Filmmaker Award, presented by Katharine Kramer. Rydell’s credits include: The Rose, On Golden Pond, and The River. In accepting his award, Rydell said, “I’d have a terrific life as an actor, director and hopefully, as an artist. I’d like to be remembered as an artist.”
Salaam Remi
Salaam Remi was recognized by BAFF for Best Music in Film. He has produced for Nas, The Fugees, Amy Winehouse, Alicia Keys and Ricky Martin among others and is responsible for the sounds of Sex and the City and Rush Hour 3. A favorite of directors Brett Ratner and Michael Patrick King, Remi is one of the most sought after producers in Hollywood. He recently finished scoring an upcoming documentary on Mike Tyson.
Nathaniel Marston and Kristen Lea
Nathaniel Marston
Christina Collard (L-Actress, Emcee) , Manijeh Ahouraian (Bel-Air resident), Mitra Ahouraian (BAFF Board, Entertainment attorney)
Olivia Newton-John, popular 70’s-80’s actress and singer, was on Extra Friday talking with host Mario Lopez about her fight against breast cancer, her new CD and the 32nd+ anniversary of Grease.
Newton-John who has been cancer free for 18 years, says, “I am very lucky to be here, I don’t take anything for granted.” She was on Extra promoting a documentary called 1 a Minute, which is titled around the fact that a woman dies of breast cancer every 69 seconds. The documentary can be watched at 1aminute.com. Continue reading →
You have watched Mark Ballas perform as a professional dancer for the past several years on Dancing with the Stars. But did you know that he can sing too?
Ballas recently sang an intimate acoustic set at a local bar in Los Angeles, and below are videos of his live performances.
Bristol Palin was there front row and center cheering her dancing partner on! Here she is before the show started, getting words of encouragement from Ballas’ mom who is a world renowned dancer herself:
Ballas performing “Done” a song he wrote about a relationship gone sour. You can see Bristol Palin dancing to the song in this video:
Ballas performing “I Can’t Help:”
Ballas performing Pussycat Dolls “Giddy Up:”
Ballas Performing All Tied Up:”
You can watch and hear Ballas perform with a band every Monday night this month at The Mint in Los Angeles.
Maroon 5‘s lead singer, Adam Levine, and keyboardist, Jesse Carmichael, showed up at The Grove for an interview with Extra‘s Mario Lopez to push their new album, Hands All Over.
Lopez asked Levine if it’s true that Levine has promised a fan a motorcycle giveaway if the new album hits #1. Levine was quick to answer, “It’s ready to go. I shined it up!”
What did Levine have to say about the band’s video, Misery? “Misery…I get pummeled and beaten up and destroyed. And I get my butt kicked by my lady…my real lady. It made it extra fun for her,” said Levine.
Of course, Levine was speaking of his real-life girlfriend, SI swimsuit model, Anne Vyalitsyna. Levine said the key to maintaining a relationship with Vyalitsyna despite being on the road all the time is: “Communication. Fortunately for us, we have similar lifestyles, where we’re both traveling a lot and I think that helps.”
Ali Fedotowsky met up with Mario Lopez of Extra at The Grove to kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Ali encouraged everyone to purchase especially-marked pink-ribbon video on demand movies to help raise funds to find a cure for breast cancer.
Ali was wearing a beautiful pink dress and pink ribbon to raise awareness for breast cancer and looked way more beautiful in person than she even does on TV.
Of course Mario also asked Ali about her relationship with Roberto Martinez and the former Bachelorette said, “Things could not be going any better.” Ali also said, “Roberto is very romantic and likes to carry me around everywhere.” As for living together, Ali said: “We are starting to learn new things about each other, like, I am a lot messier than he knew.”
Mario also asked what Ali thought about Brad Womack being named as the next Bachelor despite Womack having chosen no one the last time Womack looked for love on The Bachelor. Ali said: “Of course I was skeptical at first. But, I have a great B.S. radar and after hearing Womack out, I believe he is very genuine and looking for love.”
Like I have said many times: The paparazzi disturb me me a bit. I absolutely think that they can go way beyond the bounds of decency to get that one “money shot.” And it doesn’t seem to matter to some of them who they hurt or literally step on or over to get their picture.
Now, I am not talking about just any photographer who likes to or who does take photos of celebrities highlighting the work and art of the celeb. Celebs want the publicity and we the fans crave the news. So, photographers definitely serve a desired purpose.
But I am specifically talking about those professional photographers who get paid top dollars for lying in wait for their celebrity victims to take shots of the celebs’ most private moments. The moments which for whatever reason, we, as a society salivate but have no right to see. So, I am not just blaming the paparazzi, we all share the blame in this game.
I really wanted to learn first hand what the life of a paparazzi is really like. So, I decided to live as paparazzi for one day to see what it is like doing what they do and to interact with them on their playing grounds. I needed a celebrity target. And just then, one of the most prized paparazzi targets just happened to fall into my lap: Brad Pitt. Well, Brad Pitt and his daughter, Zahara, which means an even bigger prize in the murky world of the paparazzi.
When I found out where Brad Pitt was on that particular day, I packed two cameras and headed to the shopping mall where I knew Brad was. Once there, I learned that Brad and Zahara were inside the American Girl shop, attending the private birthday party of rocker Chris Cornell’s daughter.
Obviously, I could not just walk into the store and snap my pictures, so, I had to find some paparazzi and learn from them. I walked around and saw a handful of men with cameras larger than anything I have ever seen standing by a white SUV parked outside of the back private entrance to American Girl. I knew I had hit jackpot. So, I found my spot–the spot I thought would best serve for my photo and video footage once Brad came out of the large gated door and I stood there, holding my ground. Waiting. And waiting. Minutes went by and then hours went by and more and more paparazzi showed up. A couple of them even had a young child with them each, with the child perilously sitting on each of their shoulders as they held cameras in their hands.
As more paparazzi came, more pedestrians stopped to ask who the paparazzi were waiting for. Some of the paps said nothing and just remained emotionless, ignoring the pesky questions directed to their faces. Others were very friendly and happily answered the inquisitors. And so the crowd grew. And grew.
As more time went by, the swelling crowd became more and more antsy. And louder and louder, annoying some of the paps who had been there for hours. And so, some of the paps turned on the non-professionals. If any non-professional dared to stand in front of the paps, the paps would push them away and say, “You have no right to stand in my way,” as if the paps held a legitimate claim to the private property owned by someone else. I found this particular exchange pretty disturbing:
Pap to fan: “Don’t get your damn cell phone camera in way of my camera.” Fan to pap: “I have to take my picture too.” Pap to fan: “Oh right, with your pathetic cell phone camera.” Fan to pap: “At least I am not a loser who wastes my life waiting to take pictures of people for a living.” Pap to fan: “Right, you are just a loser waiting here to take a picture for free with your useless cell phone.”
Even though most of the paps thought of me as a fellow pap since we had time to discuss why I was there with the ones who were actually either friendly enough to talk to me or who were hitting on me (more on that later) I myself was not immune and was shoved, poked, and pushed by pap men twice my size; a behavior which would or should never be allowed in any other setting; yet, as a so-called paparazzi, it was OK to push and be pushed. My gender or size or the fact that this behavior is unacceptable anywhere else was of no importance.
If I wasn’t being pushed around, I was incessantly being hit on by a couple of extremely crude men who I assume are used to mostly seeing only their gender in this field. As part of their charm, they were trying to impress me by telling me things such as: “I got paid $200K for the video of Lindsey Lohan doing blah blah blah.” The monetary figures boasted for various “money shots” were shocking.
Now, let me say, the paps were not the only ones there who were being a bit unreasonable. There were fans there with very young crying children who were begging their parents to leave after a while on that particularly hot day, but the parents refused to leave for hours for the chance of taking one picture of Brad with their phones. Guess that is why there is a need for the paparazzi: We the fans feed the machine.
After all was said and done, four hours had gone by. It was extremely hot, it was boring, it was hellish. I had sweat of unfamiliar people all over me since we were all packed like sardines to get as close to Brad’s car as possible. Throughout the ordeal, the security guards and Brad’s bodyguard kept moving Brad’s car around and to different places, in the hopes of dispersing and confusing the crowd, but it never worked. The crowd always returned, and in larger numbers. There were many false alarms as the gated door was opened at least 50 times by people who were not Brad, each time almost inciting a frenzied riot of camera flashes, followed by a series of, “Ah’s,” or “No’s.”
Finally, when I thought I was gonna give up my experiment and leave because the tension in the crowd was palpable and quite frankly grown a bit scary, Brad Pitt and Zahara came out. Hand in hand. And the paps went crazy. Brad took care to safely put Zahara in the child seat in the back and then proceeded to the driver’s seat. The paps shoved anyone in their way and rushed the car and surrounded it, without any care that a young child was inside or that Brad, the father and driver, was trying to safely get himself and his daughter out of what must have been a terrifying situation. Brad somehow kept his cool and calm. I know I would not have been able to if the tables were reversed.
Here is my video documenting the whole day. As it turned out, most of the people there, including myself, ended up with a bad angle once Brad came out. My video is a mess on purpose with no major edits so it can show the true frenzy of that day, especially for a non-professional paparazzi. I have cut out anything which would show Zahara out of respect for children’s privacy.
Dancing with the Stars‘ Florence Henderson needs no introduction. We know she’s a multi-talented actress, talk show host, recording artist, author, Broadway veteran and philanthropist. But all we keep screaming excitedly in our heads is: “It’s Mrs. Brady!!!!!” At least I did when I met her recently.
Florence played “America’s Favorite Mom” and matriarch Carol Brady, on the classic hit TV series The Brady Bunch, which aired for five seasons (1969-1974), has never been off the air in this country, and currently airs in 122 countries around the world.
Florence’s partner is Corky Ballas, the father of fellow DWTS cast member, Mark Ballas! Corky was also Cloris Leachman’s partner previously on DWTS. Corky has been dancing since he was six years old.
Growing up his father owned and operated one of the largest dance studios in the world and eventually invented the Weed Eater. His mother was a famous Flamenco Dancer who appeared in films and studied alongside Carmen Amaya.
Corky only started training for International Latin Dancing when he was 22. Here he met his dance partner Shirley (Mark’s Mom) who also trained him and would eventually become his wife. Together Corky and Shirley made up one of professional competitive Latin Dance’s most successful couples ever.
Corky & Florence with me 🙂
Corky is known worldwide for his choreography, music editing, music creation, costume design and much more. His achievements include: 7 time undefeated US International Latin Champion; 1996 Open To The World International Latin Champion; 2007 Pro Am Champion.
Together, Corky and Florence are known as Team Florky. If you want to vote for them to stay on this week, call: 1-800-868-3409.
Here is Team Florky meeting me and the Paparazzi at a recent acoustic show Mark Ballas sang at in Los Angeles:
Season 7 of Desperate Housewives premieres on ABC tonight and Eva Longoria-Parker met with her good friend, Mario Lopez of Extra to talk about the new season.
Eva says of her new cast members: “Vanessa Williams basically plays me in real life on the show….Brian Austin Green will play Marcia Cross’ new boy toy.”
Mario commends Eva on her philanthropic work and Eva jokes by calling herself, “Super Mexicaaaan!”
Eva and Mario also talk about Mario’s new baby. Watch the video below for excerpts from the full interview which aired in full on Extra.
As for the show, which of last season’s cliff hangers should you expect to be resolved right away on the Desperate Housewives premiere tonight?
We will find out whose baby was switched at birth
Paul will disclose his motivations for returning to Fairview, but a surprise guest will give his story an extra layer. And, by the way, yes, he’s still very creepy
Orson (played by Kyle Mclachlan, who is leaving the show) does return to wrap up his storyline with Bree
And Bree (Marcia Cross) does decide whether or not she’ll tell Gaby (Eva Longoria-Parker) that Andrew (Shawn Pyfrom) was behind her mother-in-law’s hit and run
Season 5 of Brothers & Sisters premieres tonight at 10/9c on ABC, finally providing a resolution to the many cliffhanger tragedies happening to various cast members.
Last season ended with a disastrous car crash that seemed to kill off departing cast member Rob Lowe’s character, Robert McCallister. It also left William Walker’s ex-mistress Holly (Patricia Wettig) in similarly critical condition. If that all wasn’t traumatic enough, Saul (Ron Rifkin) revealed that he was HIV-positive and Justin (Dave Annable) and Rebecca (Emily VanCamp) came to a crossroads in their young marriage.
How is Brothers & Sisters going to take care of all of this mayhem this season? With a jump-ahead-in-time plot of course!
Executive producer David Marshall Grant tells TVGuide.com: “There are a lot of things we need to catch the audience up on, and there’s a lot of closure we need to acknowledge and let the audience share in. We are doing a lot to deal with that finale and get us into a place where we feel that we understand what happened and move beyond it, just as the Walkers are beginning to move beyond it.”
Grant says the jump in time will quickly allow the viewers to move on and grow. “We are starting these characters in new worlds,” he says. “These characters are really trying to reinvent themselves or to get through some really significant hurdles. I think we’re going to really hold these characters’ feet to the fire in terms of figuring out what they need to deal with and what they need to get past.”
I recently met up with two of the show’s stars, Rachel Griffiths (Sarah) and Gilles Marini (Luc)at the 2010 ABC Red Carpet Premiere Event. Check out the photos and video of Rachel and Gilles below.
What will the show have in mind for this duo? Sarah will debate what to do with the Narrow Lake land, which could lead to a lot of money for all the Walker family members. Luckily, her rocky love life seems to be on solid ground. “They’re very much in love. It’s become a great relationship for us,” Grant says. “They seem to have the same kind of chemistry as Scotty and Kevin, and it’s just been really fun to watch.” Lucky for you ladies, look to see a lot of Luc, as he has become an underwear model. After seeing Gilles Marini as Samantha’s outdoor-showering neighbor in Sex and the City: The Movie, and as runner-up in Season 8 of Dancing with the Stars, we know Gilles as Luc can certainly pull off his new model gig. Need more proof? Here is a picture of Luc as an underwear model which Gilles Tweeted recently:
