Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Shirtless Obama



orget Barack Obama’s staff making contact with a governor charged with corruption. What’s got everyone talking is the president-elect’s fine first form.

“FIT FOR OFFICE: Buff Bam is Hawaii hunk,” the New York Post gushed on its cover Tuesday above a photo of the future president strolling without a shirt in Hawaii. The Drudge Report called him “President Beefcake” while TMZ said the president-elect is “still humble enough to do laundry — ON HIS ABS!”

The photos were distributed by Bauer-Griffin, a photo agency more typically found on the corners of Hollywood. Photographer Chris Behnke simply strolled along the beach to get the shot, said agency co-owner Frank Griffin.

Obama “wasn’t hiding. He was completely out in the open,” Griffin said. “We didn’t by any stretch of the imagination expect to get the images we got.”

Griffin said Behnke had gone to the beach to get general views of the estate where Obama is vacationing, but instead found easy access to a view of the first family hitting the beach. “We use the expression, ‘He gave it up,’ ” Griffin said.

Members of the press corps traveling with Obama have been careful to respect his privacy. A spokesman traveling with Obama in Hawaii did not have immediate comment.

Griffin said he doesn’t expect his agency to stake out Washington on a regular basis, but added that Obama is “now the world’s biggest celebrity, just after Angelina and Brad. I guess they’re neck and neck right now.”

The celebrity description is apt, even if Obama faces a plummeting economy and two wars upon entering office. He’s seen as often on “Access Hollywood” as on the nightly news, and appears in “Us Weekly” with the regularity of a Jennifer Aniston.

And should we really be surprised?

When John F. Kennedy was pictured shirtless, there were media accounts fretting about the threshold we had crossed as a country, said David Greenberg, a professor at Rutgers University who is working on a history of political spin.

“There was John F. Kennedy by the beach, shirt off, this young, glamorous president,” Greenberg said. “So in a way this is 48 years old now that we’re having this.”

Since then we’ve had Lyndon B. Johnson lifting his shirt to show reporters his surgery scar and pictures of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in swim trunks.

“It was kind of an erosion of what had been boundaries of formality between the president and the public,” Greenberg said. “We’ve had ‘boxers and briefs’ and a real acquaintanceship with a personal side, an uninhibited side, an unclothed side of the president.”

Obama’s physique has been well-exposed; photographers snapped him body surfing in Hawaii during the campaign. He was on the November cover of Men’s Health and detailed his workouts for the magazine: 45 minutes, six days a week, alternating weights and cardio.

Peter Moore, editor of Men’s Health, called Obama focused and disciplined about his workouts and what he eats. “I’d say he has a four-pack, rather than a six-pack, but most of us are working with a full keg,” he said.

He said Obama has buffed up since his days on the road during the campaign: “It’s heavy lifting to form your Cabinet, that’s for sure.”

Combine the increased interest in a president’s personal life with an increasing hunger for celebrity photos and a chiseled presidential body, and Obama becomes an obvious target for paparazzi. Apparently the Obama Girl isn’t the only one with a crush.

“Comments have been 95 percent positive, everything from ‘helllooo president’ to a 65-year-old lady who said she had to wait this long to find a president who she finds attractive,” Griffin said.

Earlier on his vacation, Obama was cranky as reporters snapped pictures through a chain-link fence and bushes, asking “OK, guys. Come on. … How many shots do you need?”

But such personal shots — dropping the girls off at school, hitting the gym, practicing his golf swing — also serve to humanize the president. Greenberg can see why Obama might allow the beach photos to be taken.

“I’m sure if he didn’t do it on purpose, he’s not exactly crying in his coffee about it,” he said. “I don’t see any downside.”

Well, maybe one: Might world leaders take the president less seriously if they can picture him in his underwear?

Fortunately, French President Nicolas Sarkozy beat him to it with stripped-down beach photos. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was pictured shirtless on a fishing expedition.

“In some ways we’re entering a more casual international environment, too,” Greenberg said. “But if he’s sitting down with Putin, he has to project gravitas.”

Griffin has submitted his photo agency for credentials for Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20. He said it’s too soon to estimate how much Bauer-Griffin will earn from the beach photos “within tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.”

Friday, December 19, 2008

Movie review: Seven Pounds


The trailers and ads for the new Will Smith movie, Seven Pounds, are about as vague and ambiguous as for any film in recent memory. The most you can get out of them is that Smith feels bad about something, wants to help certain people, and supposedly has the power to do so.

So the anticipation going into the film is obviously to find out what the big secret is and how said secret influences the plot as a whole. The only problem is that Smith and director Gabriele Muccino (who also directed Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness) take their sweet time letting the audience in on the mystery. The first half of the film consists of multiple scenes of Ben (Smith) at various points of time, though the film flashes backward and forward so often that it's often difficult to figure out exactly when or where he is.

Ben most often introduces himself as an IRS agent, but there's also a brief scene showing him seemingly in charge of a meeting at an aeronautical firm. Brief snippets show him with a very pretty woman who appears to be a girlfriend/wife, but then later he shows more-than-normal interest in Emily (Rosario Dawson). He also makes mysterious angry calls to his brother (Michael Ealy) and a man named Ezra (Woody Harrelson), with whom he seems to have only a passing acquaintance. And that's not to mention meetings with Dan (Barry Pepper) that always seem to end with Ben saying, “Do what you promised.”

Eventually things settle down to the point that Ben is focusing most of his attention on Emily, who is dealing with issues of her own, including owing back taxes, which is how Ben comes into her life. He spends an inordinate amount of time around her for an auditor, though, so it's clear early on that he has something deeper in mind. What that is, however, remains hidden until the end of the film.

Vagueness and ambiguity often work well in trailers and ads because they serve to heighten people's interest in a movie. But when it comes to the film itself, keeping an audience in the dark for much of the running time leads to frustration, not anticipation. Muccino and first-time screenwriter Grant Nieporte seem to have no sense of this, stringing the audience along with a plethora of bite-sized clues. There's so much going on and so many different characters in the first half of the film that it's next to impossible to make heads or tails of it all.

So it's with equal frustration that Muccino and Nieporte drop heavy-handed clues around the midway point that all but telegraph exactly where the story is heading. The signs are so clear so as to almost negate the impact of the ending, as the general gist (minus details) has been clear for some time.

Smith is a good actor and does well when given the right material. He doesn't do a poor job, but his character is so one-note for much of the film that he doesn't get an opportunity to stretch. It doesn't help that much of his communication is made via cell phone, so there's no one else to play off of. Dawson helps keep the film going when it threatens to get too caught up in its secrets; she deserves another chance at a romantic role.

It appears that Smith, Muccino, and Nieporte believe that a big “twist” ending in Seven Pounds is more than sufficient to satisfy an audience after two hours of teasing them. But when the first half is so confusing and the ending is virtually given away well before it happens, you've greatly overestimated how good your film is.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

world most beautiful bridge

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

world largest water falls

Sunday, December 7, 2008

funny catwalk videos

World's Largest Butterfly


(Atlas or Prince of Darkness) - is the largest butterfly in the world.
Many subspecies like the Emperor butterfly exists.
(the wings magnitude reach over 32 cm).
Quirky curved edge of the front wing shape and colour imitates snake head.
This discourages many predators.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

vodafone dog


Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Awesome advertisement

"I can't follow you everywhere..."



"Avoid using mobile while driving"





 

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