After the jump, check out my DT roundup of these 3 Penn alumni making news in the film world.
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Showing posts with label 1999. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1999. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
After the jump, check out my DT roundup of these 3 Penn alumni making news in the film world.
Read More......
Friday, August 5, 2011
Over the past couple of years on "Project Runway", we've seen this mega fashionista guest judge and this Penn alum appear as a contestant.
Last night a 3rd Penn alum appeared on the show and guest judged alongside Heidi Klum, Nina Garcia and Michael Kors. And we learned she's "not a fan of voluminous wee wee pads" and she "loves sparkle".
After the jump, learn more about Stacey Bendet (C'99) and her story from her fashion beginnings at Penn to becoming a web designer to running a 50 million dollar company!
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Have you been watching Penn alum Becki Newton's (C'00) new "Love Bites" show on NBC? If you have, on last week's episode, Becki shared the screen opposite another Penn alum and DT favorite, Vanessa Mizzone (C'99).
After the jump, watch the scene!
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Thursday, June 16, 2011
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| (l to r): Scott speaking with Ricky Mabe while shooting in the Canadian Rockies |
After the jump, preview the latest film he has directed and produced which airs tonight on MTV and learn how he is franchising!
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Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Recently, I covered Penn alum author Laura Dave (C'99) and her books The Divorce Party
We've learned that she doesn't write with one of these, but that seems to be okay because her book just got put on a prominent list you may have glanced at this past week!
Find out which list after the jump!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
, London is the Best City in America and now her new book The First Husband (read an excerpt here).After the jump, check out a new video from Laura and find out:
- how she does research for her books before she starts writing
- her alternate approach to writing without an outline
- how long (and how many drafts) it takes her to write a book
And for you Los Angelinos, tonight Laura will be doing a reading, Q&A and signing at the Barnes and Nobles in The Grove at 7 pm.
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Thursday, May 12, 2011
and London is the Best City in America
were going Hollywood and being developed by Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon's production companies.Today, Laura's new novel, The First Husband
comes out and it's another novel that I'm sure will catch the attention of Hollywood again!After the jump,
- learn more about her new novel
- read a passage from her book
- discover where the story of this book came from, and
- find out what exciting things are going on with her previously mentioned titles!
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Saturday, May 7, 2011
Photo credit: University Communications
After the jump, listen to John Legend's (C'99, Counterparts) stellar cover of a contemporary hit out now.
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Thursday, March 3, 2011
Recently, Ryan wrote a new horror-comedy film that stars an iconic horror comedy actor!
After the jump find out who, check out the trailer, ...and follow the 17 steps he took to turn this film into a reality (must read!)
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Thursday, February 24, 2011
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| (l to r: Michael Sluchan, C'91, Michael Rauch, C'90) |
Here's another goodie sent to me by USA network executive Michael Sluchan (C'93). Not only did Michael Sluchan help develop and now oversees "Royal Pains", but he also works on the show with another Penn alum, executive producer Michael Rauch (C'90).
And on tonight's season finale, a third Penn alum you all know joins them.
After the jump, more about who, his featured song on the show ...and about executive producer Michael Rauch's writing path from Penn and beyond.
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Thursday, February 17, 2011
In his documentary Truth in Numbers?
, Scott takes us on the journey about the phenomenon that Wikipedia has become.Check out his trailer after the jump and learn more about tonight's (Thursday, 2/17) Los Angeles screening and Q&A after the jump!
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Thursday, December 2, 2010
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| Kira and John |
Today, we launch a new contest to win some holiday chocolate goodness from a Penn entrepreneur doing all sorts of good in the world.
Co founders Kira Baker-Doyle (C’97, MSD’99, PHD’08) and her husband John created John & Kira’s, a socially innovative chocolate company dedicated to both making and selling world class confections and promoting positive social change.
More about her delicious chocolates and how you can enter to win a Chocolate Bee Tower after the jump!
...Or go right to the contest entry page HERE
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Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Actor Neil Hellegers (C'99, Arts House Theatre, Pi Lam) has quite an interesting story here...
Recently, Neil shot a commercial for Newsday (Long Island/NYC local paper) for their new IPad
application. In the spot, Neil demonstrates that the new Newsday Ipad app is better than the newspaper in all kinds of ways, except for one... In a matter of 4 days, the video became viral and reached 1,000,000 hits!After the jump, watch the video and find out about its controversy and why it was soon abruptly removed from the web!
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Friday, January 22, 2010
Did you watch the "Hope for Haiti" fundraiser last night? If you missed it, check out John Legend's (C'99, Counterparts) moving performance above!
And if you are able to, donate to Haiti at http://www.hopeforhaitinow.org
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Friday, December 11, 2009
Specifically, based on the show's announcer.
In this video, "Price Is Right" announcer Rich Fields trains hard with coach Lou Ferrigno, aka "The Hulk", to become the greatest announcer of all time. As a result, he can't turn it off, and drives his wife crazy!
...Speaking of gameshows, remember my post on THIS Penn alum on "Jeopardy"?
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Thursday, November 26, 2009
Another great video from Matt Johnson (C'99, Mask and Wig, Phi Kappa Sigma) ...and on this Thanksgiving Day, he wants to teach you how to do the newest dance craze, The Turkey Jerky! Matt edited this "Apple Sisters" video together and is also the announcer in it as well! (you can actually see Matt in his other viral sensation as "Mike Schwartz" HERE)
Happy Thanksgiving everyone and remember to turkey jerk!
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Friday, October 30, 2009
Let's not forget about the other musical "World Series"-related Penn act I covered yesterday!
This performance is surely up there with some other great memorable John Legend ("Penn") performances we've covered HERE and HERE.
All DT coverage on John Legend HERE
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Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Now, as part of our "Winning Women" series, I've got news that Julie recently released her second book, After You.
This novel will surely resonate in the heart of anyone who's had a best friend, a love lost, or a past full of regrets...
Read more about the synopsis of After You HERE +/-
The complexities of friendship. The unraveling of a neglected marriage. And the redemptive power of literature...Julie Buxbaum, the acclaimed author of The Opposite of Love, delivers a powerful, gloriously written novel about love, family, and the secrets we hide from each other, and ourselves.
On a cobblestone street in Notting Hill, Ellie Lerner's life-long best friend, Lucy, is stabbed to death in front of her eight-year-old daughter. Ellie, of course, drops everything - her job, her marriage, her life in the Boston suburbs - and travels to London to pick up the pieces of the life Lucy has left behind. While Lucy's husband, Greg copes with his grief by retreating to the pub, eight-year-old Sophie has simply stopped speaking.
Desperate to help Sophie, Ellie turns to a book that gave her comfort as a child, The Secret Garden. As the two spend hours exploring the novel, its story of hurt, magic and healing blooms around them. But so, too, do the secrets Lucy kept hidden, even from her best friend. As Ellie peels back the layers of her friend's life, she's forced to confront her own as well - the marriage she left behind, the loss she'd hoped to escape, and the elusiveness of the place we choose to call home.
Read an Excerpt from After You HERE +/-
EXCERPT
Chapter One
Let’s pretend that things are different. That in the last couple of days, I haven’t become the kind of person who resorts to wishing on eyelashes, first stars of the night, and the ridiculous 11:11, both a.m. and p.m., in earnest and with my eyes closed. That Lucy and her family haven’t transformed into tabloid stars with a full picture on the cover of the Daily Mail with the headline Notting Hill Murdergate!, and the lead story on the BBC evening news. Let’s pretend that I am home, on the right side of the Atlantic, the one where I understand the English language, and that tomorrow will be just like early last week, or the week before that one, when the days were indistinguishable. That it’s not necessary to resort to memories—to a time before—when I think of Lucy.
How about this: Let’s just pretend that Lucy is not dead.
That she will not continue to be dead now, even though that’s what that means—dead.
“Want some more?” I ask Sophie, Lucy’s eight-year-old daughter, but she seems uninterested in the elaborate bowl of ice cream I’ve doused with concentric circles of whipped cream. She sits with her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. An upright fetal position, a pose that has been as reflexive for her as irrational wishing and pretending has been for me. Striped pastel pajamas ring her legs—pink, blue, yellow stripes—and on top, she wears a long-sleeved T-shirt with a decal of a purple horse with a silver mane. Her socks have abrasive soles that scratch and swish along the kitchen tiles, a sound I haven’t heard since my own childhood and that I associate with my younger brother, Mikey, asking for a glass of water before bedtime.
She shakes her head no.
“Is it good?”
She stays noncommittal. Her tiny glasses slip down her nose and are caught by her finger, pushed back up with an efficient tap. They are tortoiseshell frames, brown on the outside, pink along the inner edges, like an eyelid, and they magnify her already large brown eyes, so that she always looks just a tiny bit moony.
Sophie has not been speaking much since the accident. That’s what we’ve been calling it—Greg, Lucy’s husband, and I—“the accident,” a comforting euphemism despite the fact that there is nothing accidental about what happened. The word homicide is one that no eight-year-old should ever have to hear. Using accident makes us feel better too. As adults, we can handle an accident; that’s in our repertoire.
I am not sure when Sophie last spoke out loud. She was interviewed by the police on Thursday, right afterward, and somehow Lucy’s little girl found the strength to use her words and describe the unspeakable. When I arrived less than twenty-four hours later, blurry from grief and the red-eye, she said, “Hi, Auntie Ellie,” before putting her arms around my waist and burying her face in my shirt. But since then, since that first greeting, spoken in her crisp British accent, I can’t remember the last time I heard her voice. Did she say good night to Greg before he went upstairs and knocked himself out with Xanax?
“Soph?”
A shrug.
“Where did you get that shirt? It’s pretty. And that horse has really cool hair.”
Another shrug.
“Soph, sweetheart, are you not talking?”
Sophie just looks at me, her eyes burning in a silent protest.
Shrug number three. She looks impossibly small and thin, the stringiness of her arms and legs exaggerated by the unforgiving cotton of her pajamas. I wish she’d eat more. I want to feed her cookies and sugar cereal too. Tomorrow, first thing, I’ll replace their two percent milk with full fat.
My mother, a therapist, warned me this might happen to Sophie. That kids often go quiet for a while in the wake of a traumatic loss. Their only way of exerting control in a world in which they clearly have none.
It’s been only twenty-nine hours since Lucy’s funeral, an event so improbable that pretending still works. Surreal, too, like the news vans that are idling out front of her house, waiting for a sound bite. I want to scoop Sophie up into my arms and let her cry into my shoulder, but she is not the sort of kid you just scoop up. She would know that I was doing it more for my comfort than for hers.
“Okay,” I say, as if she’d actually answered me. “It’s all right if you don’t want to talk for now. But not forever, right? I love that voice of yours. Cheerio. Let’s take the lift and go to the loo,” I say in my best British impression, which used to be a surefire way to make her laugh.
“Speak like me, Mummy, Auntie Ellie!” Sophie used to demand of Lucy and me when I would come to visit, and the two of us would go back and forth, spitting out all of the British expressions we knew. Even after nearly a decade in London, and despite a husband and child whose inflections were as posh as the Queen’s, Lucy’s Boston accent had barely softened. She always paa’ked her caa’ in Haa’va’d Yaa’d.
Today, Sophie ignores me and looks around like she’s not sure whose kitchen this is. We are in the breakfast nook, with its Americana diner style, the sort you would see in a cornflakes commercial: two kids, two bowls of cereal, and two glasses of orange juice, with two parents—always two cheerful parents—rushing everyone out of their red pleather seats and off to school after their nutritionally balanced breakfast. I can picture Lucy deciding to put a booth in the corner, knowing that making your house look like a home is the first step.
“We’re going to be okay, you know,” I say, and run my fingers through Sophie’s curly dirty-blond hair; they get caught on a knot. I remember the first time I held her, when she was less than a week old, bald and tiny, and how she would sleep with her mouth opening and closing against my arm, her dreams, no doubt, filled with glorious imaginary milk. She had seemed so fragile then, so far from a real person, that looking at her now, a fully formed little girl, beautiful and tough and exerting her power in the only way she can, makes me glow with a vicarious pride for Lucy. My best friend did a lot with her thirty-five years on this planet; her exposé on the corruption in the Chilean government should have won her a Pulitzer. But of one thing I am sure. Making this creature, this fierce mini-Lucy, is my favorite of all.
***
When did I start speaking a language I don’t recognize as my own? I dismiss the stalking reporters with copied phrases I’ve learned from watching TV, please respect our privacy during this very difficult time; reassure Sophie with silly platitudes, we are going to be okay; lie to all the well-wishers at the funeral Greg and I hastily planned, Lucy spoke so highly of you. I guess when your world blows up, when you lose the person you were closest to for thirty-one years—almost my entire life—language skills are the first to go.
Here is what happened: Lucy woke up a few days ago, happy and healthy, trapped in a tent of all the clichés of a perfect modern adult life, with the international glamour of an American ex-pat thrown in to boot, and one hour and forty-five minutes later, while walking Sophie to school, she died. Just like that. No, she didn’t die, just like that. She was murdered. Apparently, there was a knife and a meth-head overly interested in her two-carat diamond ring, some idiotic resistance on Lucy’s part, and then it was over.
And, yes, there is a worst part of all: Sophie saw the whole thing.
I am not surprised Lucy fought back—she’s always had an inhuman amount of courage—but I am surprised she fought back for that ring. She hated that ring.
“Who buys a diamond-shaped diamond?” Lucy would say. It was one of her favorite bits when Greg wasn’t around. “I mean, seriously, a diamond-shaped diamond? It’s so redundant. I swear, all men think about is size.”
And now I am here, in her kitchen, sitting next to her daughter—my goddaughter—trying to adjust to this new world we have entered. After Lucy. I am sipping tea because, from my experience over the last few days, that seems to be what the British do in situations like these. As if consuming mass quantities of flavored hot water with a spot of milk and sugar will make everything better. But it’s too late for stopgap measures. The grief has started to burrow into my skin like a parasite, slow and steady, in inverse proportion to my disbelief.
“Soph, what do you want to do? You want me to be quiet, too, for a bit? We can just sit here.” I get a nod, slow, as if she wants to say, Yes, please. I can tell simply by looking at her that we both want exactly the same thing. For it all to stop for a little while.
And so the two of us do the closest thing I can think of. We sit in the booth and stare straight ahead at nothing in particular. I pull her in closer, and her head rests against my shoulder.
We pass the next hour this way. Silent and watchful. Like we are waiting for a bus that may never come.
Excerpted from After You by Julie Buxbaum Copyright © 2009 by Julie Buxbaum. Excerpted by permission of The Dial Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Julie's path to becoming an author is an interesting and inspiring one..especially for anyone who has dreamed of quitting his/her days jobs to pursue their passion.
Julie's path from Penn undergrad to author HEREGet After You HERE
More Penn authors HERE
More "Winning Women" alumni HERE
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Last week I covered Reg Tigerman (C'07, Mask and Wig) and Matt Johnson's (C'99, Mask and Wig) hot new viral video, "Twitteleh"
Check out the CNN coverage above! Classic!
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Friday, September 18, 2009
Reg and Matt put it up this past Monday expecting 10 people to watch it. They're now up to 20,000 after Demi Moore tweeted it last night, and now, barring breaking news, it was supposed to be featured on CNN's Situation Room in the 4PM hour, eastern time (1PM west coast time.)
You should watch it, enjoy it and wear a sweater.
Wishing all of you a happy and sweet new year!
(...If you enjoyed the clip above, then you'll also love THIS clip!)
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