Friday, July 22, 2011

Blush - Undivided - 110721 Live

Oh, the highs and lows of cracking the US TV and music markets. Last night girl group Blush -- themselves the product of a reality TV talent search -- made their US TV debut on 'So You Think You Can Dance,' a pretty major gig in anyone's book.

However, their performance of 'Undivided' featuring Snoop Dogg has been slated by critics. Hardly the reception the girls were looking for on their first outing.

'EW' referred to them as "Pussycat Dolls Lite," adding that "The obvious similarities were unfortunate, especially since their routine was even more mind-numbingly boring than Nicole Scherzinger's performance last week. ... Seriously, though, who did Snoop get high to get those girls on the show?"

'The Los Angeles Times' blasted the band's name -- "more 1981 than 2011" -- and said "their music was forgettable (despite a boost from Snoop Dogg) and their look and stage presence needs some work. (Less winking, to start.)"

Yahoo criticized the girls' "truly horrendous" vocals and scathingly noted that their dancing "wasn't even good, which is pretty important when performing on a show called 'So You Think You Can Dance.' ... If this performance were on 'America's Got Talent' all three Xs would have been lit up within a minute into the performance." Ouch.

Blush Slammed by Critics After Their US TV Debut on 'SYTYCD' (VIDEO)


Commenters on Twitter were just as forthright: "Wow, never thought I'd willingly want to hear Snoop Dog, but Blush was so bad I wanted him to keep going."


Billed as "The World's First Pan-Asian Girl Band," Blush is the product of 'Project Lotus,' a 'Making the Band'-type talent search in Asia. After being searched and auditioned from each of five representing countries -- India, China, Japan, Korea and Phillipines -- the successful contestants were put through an intensive girl band bootcamp in Asia and the US.

They've also worked with a number of heavy-hitting producers and writers including Eliot Kennedy (Spice Girls, S Club 7, Celine Dion), Shaznay Lewis (All Saints) and Una Healy (The Saturdays).

Do you think their performance was really that bad? Watch it here:

Jeffree Star - Blush

Jeffree Star - Blush

Monday, July 18, 2011

JUNO Trailer

JUNO Trailer

juno

Juno Poster
MOVIEmeter
Top 500
Up 68 this week

Juno (2007)

PG_13  96 min  -  Comedy | Drama | Romance   -  25 December 2007 (USA)
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  
Users: (171,750 votes) 816 reviews | Critics: 341 reviews Metascore: 81/100 (based on 38 reviews from Metacritic.com)

Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, an offbeat young woman makes an unusual decision regarding her unborn child.

Director:

Jason Reitman

Writer:

Diablo Cody

Juno MacGuff, the title character of Jason Reitman’s new film, is 16 and pregnant, but “Juno” could not be further from the kind of hand-wringing, moralizing melodrama that such a condition might suggest. Juno, played by the poised, frighteningly talented Ellen Page, is too odd and too smart to be either a case study or the object of leering disapproval. She assesses her problem, and weighs her response to it, with disconcerting sang-froid. It’s not that Juno treats her pregnancy as a joke, but rather that in the sardonic spirit of the screenwriter, Diablo Cody, she can’t help finding humor in it. Tiny of frame and huge of belly, Juno utters wisecracks as if they were breathing exercises, referring to herself as “the cautionary whale.” At first her sarcasm is bracing and also a bit jarring — “Hello, I’d like to procure a hasty abortion,” she says when she calls a women’s health clinic — but as “Juno” follows her from pregnancy test to delivery room (and hastily retreats from the prospect of abortion), it takes on surprising delicacy and emotional depth. The snappy one-liners are a brilliant distraction, Ms. Cody’s way of clearing your throat for the lump you’re likely to find there in the movie’s last scenes. — A. O. Scott 

Macau City of Dreams

Macau City of Dreams

Macau

Wynn Second-Quarter Profit Jumps on Return of Gamxlers to Macau, Las Vegas

Wynn Resorts Ltd. (WYNN) said second- quarter profit more than doubled, beating analysts’ estimates as the owner of the Wynn and Encore casinos expanded in China and benefited from a recovery in Las Vegas.
Net income climbed to $122 million, or 97 cents a share, from $52.4 million, or 42 cents, a year ago, Las Vegas-based Wynn said today in a statement. Profit excluding some items was $1.60, beating the $1.03 average of 23 analysts’ estimates.
Macau is booming while Las Vegas recovers from its steepest gamxling and convention decline. Wynn opened Encore Macau in April 2010, doubling its presence in the world’s biggest gambling market, where casino betting surged 58 percent last year and 45 percent in the six months ended June 30.
Second-quarter cash flow, measured as adjusted property earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, jumped 59 percent to $447 million, beating the $353.7 million analysts estimated. Ebitda for Macau climbed 45 percent to $314.3 million and for Las Vegas, the biggest U.S. casino city, doubled to $132.7 million.
Wynn rose $2.27 percent to $164.89 at 4:30 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Wynn Macau Ltd. rose 25 Hong Kong cents to HK$26.45 in Asia. Wynn listed part of the Macau unit in October 2009.

Macau Resorts

Revenue jumped 37 percent in Macau and 23 percent in Las Vegas, boosting total sales 32 percent to $1.37 billion and beating the $1.27 billion analysts projected in a Bloomberg survey.
Gambling in Macau has surged since the government ended Stanley Ho’s 40-year monopoly and let other companies, including Wynn, Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) and MGM Resorts International (MGM), build resorts that attract Chinese mainlanders.
Overall Las Vegas Strip gambling revenue climbed 29 percent to $580.4 million in May, according to data from the Nevada Gaming Commission. Visitation rose 4.7 percent in the first five months of 2011, led by an 8.1 percent increase in convention attendance, which has increased room rates and occupancy, according to the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority.
Wynn said its Las Vegas average daily room rate rose 22 percent in the second quarter. Occupancy fell to 89.2 percent, from 92.6 percent a year earlier.
To contact the reporter on this story: Beth Jinks in New York at bjinks1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net

Macau

 Wynn Second-Quarter Profit Jumps on Return of Gamblers to Macau, Las Vegas

Wynn Resorts Ltd. (WYNN) said second- quarter profit more than doubled, beating analysts’ estimates as the owner of the Wynn and Encore casinos expanded in China and benefited from a recovery in Las Vegas.
Net income climbed to $122 million, or 97 cents a share, from $52.4 million, or 42 cents, a year ago, Las Vegas-based Wynn said today in a statement. Profit excluding some items was $1.60, beating the $1.03 average of 23 analysts’ estimates.
Macau is booming while Las Vegas recovers from its steepest gambling and convention decline. Wynn opened Encore Macau in April 2010, doubling its presence in the world’s biggest gambling market, where casino betting surged 58 percent last year and 45 percent in the six months ended June 30.
Second-quarter cash flow, measured as adjusted property earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, jumped 59 percent to $447 million, beating the $353.7 million analysts estimated. Ebitda for Macau climbed 45 percent to $314.3 million and for Las Vegas, the biggest U.S. casino city, doubled to $132.7 million.
Wynn rose $2.27 percent to $164.89 at 4:30 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Wynn Macau Ltd. rose 25 Hong Kong cents to HK$26.45 in Asia. Wynn listed part of the Macau unit in October 2009.

Macau Resorts

Revenue jumped 37 percent in Macau and 23 percent in Las Vegas, boosting total sales 32 percent to $1.37 billion and beating the $1.27 billion analysts projected in a Bloomberg survey.
Gambling in Macau has surged since the government ended Stanley Ho’s 40-year monopoly and let other companies, including Wynn, Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) and MGM Resorts International (MGM), build resorts that attract Chinese mainlanders.
Overall Las Vegas Strip gambling revenue climbed 29 percent to $580.4 million in May, according to data from the Nevada Gaming Commission. Visitation rose 4.7 percent in the first five months of 2011, led by an 8.1 percent increase in convention attendance, which has increased room rates and occupancy, according to the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority.
Wynn said its Las Vegas average daily room rate rose 22 percent in the second quarter. Occupancy fell to 89.2 percent, from 92.6 percent a year earlier.
To contact the reporter on this story: Beth Jinks in New York at bjinks1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net