Findcate

BREAKING through the cobwebs to revisit a classic franchise whose last film was nearly 20 years ago was never going to be an easy challenge, even for intrepid adventurer Indiana Jones, who’s well-known for rediscovering old relics - but director Steven Spielberg has definitely pulled it off.

An ageing Harrison Ford dusts off his character’s fedora as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls takes some daring risks and manages to create a rip-roaring piece of summer entertainment with Ford’s charm, Spielberg’s cinematic magic and the excellent new addition of the surprisingly charismatic Shia LaBeouf.

The movie works as a piece of summer entertainment that can be proudly appended to the previous Indy outings, and the film-making is superb with some stunning visuals and action sequences.

This project was always going to get a mixed response - stick to the original formula and some cry that it’s too tired and dated; make radical changes and you risk people saying it’s no longer Indiana Jones. The finished film is very much in the spirit of the originals, with some additions (LaBeouf and a somewhat out-of-this-world storyline) to take it in new directions.

In the story, Indiana Jones and a new companion, biker Mutt Williams (LaBeouf, above right), battle Soviet agents led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) in a quest to find a crystal skull in Peru which is said to have untold power.

Where it falls short in places is in the writing. Even dismissing the usual Indy cliches (bullets that never hit the target, impossible stunts and death-trap temples), some comic moments feel contrived, some explanations don’t work and the fates of some of the baddies left me totally unsatisfied.

The audience seemed to enjoy the movie and, as I left, one man remarked: “I went in with trepidation but it was excellent” to nodding approval from those around, and that’s exactly how I felt.

I’ll take a look at some of the details of the movie below, so don’t read further if you don’t want to know all the shocks and surprises - instead, come back after you’ve seen the movie and tell me if you agree,

THE DETAILS

This is a genre which has exploded since the first three movies with other quest films such as Tomb Raider, The Mummy and National Treasure, so director Spielberg and co-writer and executive producer George Lucas clearly felt the need to take the story to the next level with Crystal Skull.

Elements of Spielberg’s classic E.T. have now entered the Indiana franchise with this latest movie featuring alien remains, a reference to the Roswell incident and ending with a full-blown flying saucer emerging from an ancient pyramid.

There was a lot of anxiety from some fans before the movie about taking Indy’s archaeological quests into extraterrestrial territory - it does work in the film, though seeing a living alien near the end seemed unnecessary.

And the final explanation of the ‘gold’ of the lost city being the treasure of knowledge didn’t feel right at all, more like a writers’ cop-out. Despite the amazing final scenes at the temple in south America, that explanation seemed phoney and misleading.

The death of Winstone’s treacherous character - who was irritating from the moment he stepped on screen - was largely unsatisfying as was the demise of Blanchett’s eccentric Soviet agent (with bobbed hair, leather boots and a boiler suit). They needed to die - but it should have been more gratifying to the audience and not so rushed. I’m at least relieved that Winstone won’t be annoying me in future Indy movies.

Ford and romantic co star Karen Allen are now decidely advanced in years and one wonders how the franchise can carry on with either of them in physical action roles. Indy’s new sidekick Mutt who turns out to be his son seems to have been there to plant the possibility of him being Jones’ replacement.

Tags: action sequences, baddies, cate, cate blanchett, comic moments, crystal skull, crystal skulls, death trap, director spielberg, director steven spielberg, dusts, finished film, ford, franchise, george lucas, harrison ford, hero, indiana jones, indy, intrepid adventurer, irina, karen allen, last film, mutt, national treasure, new companion, shia labeouf, soviet agents, spielberg, steven spielberg, story indiana, stunning visuals, summer entertainment, target

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A little more rugged and world-weary but still as handsome as when we were first introduced to him in The Raiders of the Lost Ark, Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones is back in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Now a card-carrying member of the AARP, things run a little more slowly and the over the hill jokes are a must. I was hoping that the film would capture the magic of the previous three, but alas, it did not.

indy.jpgMutt finds Indy on his way to London and tells him that Professor Oxley (John Hurt), a former classmate of Indy’s and friend of Mutt’s family, has gone missing down in South America on his search for a crystal skull. Mutt’s mom is down there and told her if she was in trouble to find Indy to help. Intrigued, Indy and Mutt venture down to Peru to find the two.

A college town chase scene ensues, followed later by a fun romp/chase through the jungles (reminiscent of the Endor speeder bike scene from Return of the Jedi). These are the elements most like the old Indy films.

While everyone, even myself, anticipated another Indiana Jones film after Last Crusade, I’m wondering now if the franchise was better left alone. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was, by far, my favorite film – with a far better story and a chemistry between Ford and Sean Connery that far surpasses the chemistry between Ford and LaBeouf.

It’s still a great popcorn flick, but so far Iron Man is the tops of my list of 2008 summer movies.

Tags: bike scene, cate, chase scene, classmate, crystal skull, endor, ford, franchise, henry indiana, hill jokes, indiana jones, indiana jones and the last crusade, indy, indy films, iron man, jungles, last crusade, mutt, oxley, popcorn flick, professor henry, raiders of the lost ark, return of the jedi, romp, sean connery, way to london

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Indiana Jones survived his first perilous outing in the Kingdom of Critical Knives on Sunday, winning a friendly round of applause at a press preview at Cannes and respectable reviews.

The world premiere of the fourth and latest installment in the adventure series, and the first in 19 years “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is the hottest ticket at this year’s Cannes film festival.

A packed crowd of hundreds, many wearing Indiana Jones hats, waved and cheered as Harrison Ford, 65, and co-star Cate Blanchett, who plays the villain, walked Cannes’ famed red carpet for the official world premiere.

Set in the late 1950s of the Cold War era, the two-hour movie sees its swashbuckling archeologist hero racing against Soviet agents to recover a mysterious pre-Colombian skull in the wilds of Peru.

The plot had been kept strictly under wraps and promotional stunts kept to a minimum as Hollywood heavy-hitters Steven Spielberg and George Lucas awaited the response to what is arguably this year’s most-anticipated movie.

“Smart, Sleek, Familiar,” ran the headline of an early review in Time magazine’s online edition, which offered an approving appraisal of the film’s veteran lead.

“Ford looks just fine, his chest skin tanned to a rich Corinthian leather; he’s still lithe on his feet, and can deliver a wisecrack as sharp as a whipcrack,” it said.

The Los Angeles Times said fears that the latest outing would prove an embarrassingly geriatric addition to the Indiana Jones franchise had proved unfounded.

“It turns out it’s one of the good ones, and everyone involved can breathe a sigh of relief,” the Times said, while People magazine concluded: “The magic is still there”.

London’s Telegraph critic David Gritten was less enthusiastic, however.

“It’s not that (it) is bad, exactly. But it’s undeniably creaky,” he said.

“He doesn’t wear the fedora with quite the same jaunty angle, his bullwhip doesn’t crack as smartly — and Harrison Ford looks all of his 65 years.”

Ford insisted on doing his own stunts, saying audiences could tell the difference between an actor and a stunt double.

“It needs to be an emotional event, like every moment on screen needs to be invested with real emotion, or pretend emotion,” he told reporters.

“That’s why it’s so gratifying that we were all happy to do the stunt sequences or the action sequences old-school. Human scale.”

Spielberg credited Ford with reviving the Indiana Jones juggernaut when the actor told him in 1994, after he presented the director with an Oscar for “Schindler’s List”, that he would be willing “to put the fedora back on”.

The director called Ford his “secret weapon” in making the movies.

“He’s concerned about the whole, he’s concerned about the story and other characters and he is a collaborator in the entire process of telling the story,” Spielberg, 61, said.

“That takes a lot of pressure and weight off my back to have this kind of a partner in the trenches every single day shooting the picture.”

Ford said he was less concerned with what the critics said than with the opinions of movie-goers round the world.

“This kind of film, it is such a celebration of the movies,” he said.

“I know that we made this movie to reacquaint people with the pure joy that can happen in a dark room with a bunch of other people seeing something that they haven’t seen before that will just kick your butt.”

This fourth adventure begins in 1957 as professor Jones returns to his US college to find he is under suspicion from the anti-Communist administration and is about to be fired.

On his way out of town he meets young Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), a bike-riding knife-flicking James Dean lookalike, who takes him off on a mission to find the Crystal Skull of Akator and to rescue his mother.

Hot on their heels is icy-cold but devastatingly beautiful Soviet agent Blanchett, who is also after the eerie skull which she says Stalin always dreamt of finding to wage “psychic warfare”.

Action-packed with car-chases, waterfall rides, man-eating ants and the usual secret underground temples, the film is chock-a-block with throw-away lines and droll quips.

Its “third dimension” style finale features a Spielberg-fathered ET character surfacing in a Mayan temple — an ending some critics said tested the audiences’ patience.

Tags: 1950s, action sequences, adventure series, applause, bullwhip, cannes, cannes film festival, cate, cate blanchett, crystal skull, david gritten, ford, franchise, george lucas, harrison ford, hats, heavy hitters, hero, hollywood, indiana jones, indiana jones hats, jaunty angle, liar, los angeles times, mutt, people magazine, red carpet, rich corinthian leather, secret weapon, shia labeouf, soviet agents, spielberg, steven spielberg, time magazine, whip, wilds, world premiere

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No, this buzz is all about hot new Hollywood in the shape of a 21-year-old actor whose name confuses the most intelligent reader, Shia LaBeouf.

So when he eventually bounds into the hotel where we’ve arranged to meet, it’s something of an anticlimax to find that he’s, well, just a 21-year-old guy, who’s desperate for a smoke. He immediately asks that we move all conversation to the patio, so he can puff.

“Yes, I smoke,” he admits shamefacedly. “It’s probably the worst thing I do. I leave wet towels on the floor, too. I don’t think I’m the Find Cate Mandigo quintessential guy to look up to right now because I’m still building myself.”

He shouldn’t be too concerned, though. Films such as I, Robot, Disturbia and last year’s smash-hit, Transformers, have already built the foundation for what looks to be a career in a million. His role in Crystal Skull could catapult him into rarefied Brad Pitt or Will Smith territory, although, right now, he’s intriguingly not at liberty to say exactly what that role is.

Rumour has it he plays Indiana Jones’ son (albeit under the name Mutt Williams), but he simply takes another puff and says, “I can’t confirm or deny that.” What he can confirm – most vocally – is that working with Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and Cate Blanchett has been the most incredible ride.

His bond with Harrison is particularly interesting, with LaBeouf talking fondly and Find Cate Mandigo reverently of him as a father figure.

The actor’s own French-Cajun father, Jeffrey, was a clown from San Francisco who was also a heroin addict.

Their relationship was non-existent until LaBeouf landed a role on US TV series Even Stevens when he was 13 and needed a legal guardian onset. He says wistfully, “I had to rent my father back.”

Bad though it sounds, drug-free father and son now share a deep bond, formed over the nine years LaBeouf has spent playing the role of family breadwinner.

“He’s not necessarily the father I wanted, but I wouldn’t want anybody else,” he reveals. “He’s my best friend – as is my mother – they’re both wise people. But pain is the foundation of my father’s growth and I draw from him every time I do what I do.”

Cigarette smoked, LaBeouf asks to move inside. Looking all-American in his navy-blue, long-sleeve T-shirt and low-slung jeans, he takes a long gulp of vitamin water from the bottle he’s been carrying.

“Finance is a big reason that my family split up and that’s not a worry any more, but Dad was gone for a long time. I was five when my parents separated. I hated him for a long time, but from 13 years old to this point – it’s now a love affair. I’m lucky, because supporting my family has been a blessing.”

The Los Angeles native comes from a long line of artists and performers. As well as a clown for a dad, his mum, Shayna, was a dancer who studied ballet with the famous Martha Graham.

LaBeouf’s dad used to dress up the family as clowns and the three of them would perform and sell hot dogs in LA’s Echo Park.

However, nobody called LaBeouf found any real success until Shia took up acting. He made the decision, aged 10, after talking to a boy in Malibu, who was wearing all the latest designer gear, thanks to a role on Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman. LaBeouf’s schoolboy yearning for brand-name clothing paid off.

“My lineage is constant artwork never seen by the public, or just fluttered out,” he explains.

“My great-grandmother was a piano player on Lucky Luciano’s gambling boat; my grandmother was a lesbian beatnik poet who used to run with Allen Ginsberg – her poetry was never discovered. My father is this amazing pantomime clown, but nobody has heard of him and my mother is this amazing visual artist who danced and nobody has heard of her. My career is a culmination of a lot of prayers and a lot of work.”

That said, he admits that he looks towards others to fill the more Find Cate Mandigo traditional roles in his life. Harrison Ford is the latest addition to LaBeouf’s role models, alongside past co-stars, John Voight and John Hurt.

“Harrison and I became close on set, but he’s the kind of guy where you have to earn the hug,” he smiles.

“The day I got my first hug from Harrison was a big day. The hug came about through work and results. It’s not easy making these kinds of action movies – they’re very physical and emotional.

“Finding the right tone is the hardest part and once you find it, Harrison’s all over you.”

An important lesson LaBeouf has learnt from Ford is to not give away too much. The original Indy is notoriously private where LaBeouf, until now, has been happy to spill his guts.

“I have to stop that,” he says, looking at the tape recorder. “When I was younger, I was happy to tell people stuff because I was anxious to please. Now I realise that my favourite actors don’t give much away; they maintain a level of mystery and I think I have to work on that.”

He has spoken many times about his past relationship with China Brezner, the daughter of The Greatest Game Ever Played producer, Larry Brezner, whom he met while shooting the movie in 2004. His first real love, they were together until early last year.

“I was very open about my relationship with China. I’m sure that’s hurt her so I’m going to stop talking about it. Sure I have time for girls, but nothing is very serious right now. There’s no specifics.”

Would he say he’s a romantic kind of guy? “Oh yeah, I get into poetry and songwriting,” he laughs.

“I’ve flown across the country with flowers to hand-deliver, and I’ve made trails out of rose petals and put on the Jodeci music. I’ve also been known to put on some Meatloaf, which is so cheesy. I won’t say if it worked or not, but it was very funny!”

Being the next big thing probably makes it easier to get the girls, but it comes at a price. (Although, when I mention his ‘next big thing’ status, LaBeouf is quick to point out “some days I’m the next big thing, some days I’m the next worst thing”.)

His brushes with the law are well-documented. He was arrested in 2005 after ramming a neighbour’s car and threatening him with a knife; the second was last November, for trespassing in a pharmacy in Chicago. No charges were pressed for either incident.

He simply says, “I’m at ease at this point. I’ve had my moments and I guess the biggest lesson I’ve learnt with the press is to never say never.”

He makes eye contact and says, “I’ve had a couple of run-ins, but I can definitely say that I don’t want that kind of life. I surround myself with good people, but I’m 21 and I make mistakes. I’m learning to cope. I didn’t get into this business to be Captain America.”

So does he take downtime? “Why would I?” he counters. “I enjoy every moment and the bad things come up when you’re not working. The negative aspects of this industry happen in the off-time.”

But surely there has to be some time when he’s not onset? “I’ve spent more time at home recently because the last two movies I shot have been made in LA so, yes, I’ve had some time at home. I hang out with my dog, read and I’m into my sports. I have about five close friends and we sit and Find Cate Mandigo talk a lot.”

He shifts in his seat, before revealing that a lot of his old friends have fallen by the wayside. “You see, the people I’ve known for a long time, their mindset changed and they stopped being friends with me and started being friends with what I do.”

He pauses to contemplate the situation. “That’s been the hardest decision, losing friends and getting rid of the people who are bad eggs. But that’s what happens with transition. I could never have foreseen what was going to happen. Fame is a drug, it’s addictive. But this isn’t who I am, it’s what I do. You have to maintain separation or you lose your mind.”

Taking all that into consideration, is he prepared for what will surely be global Indiana Jones-mania?

“I don’t imagine things will change too much,” he says modestly. “I have a lot of people around me who keep me centred because I get haywire, too – but I’m pretty calm right now.” He laughs remembering how amazing it was to find himself on the set of such a hotly anticipated movie.

“Every day was like, ‘Omigod, I’m on the set of Indiana Jones!’ That feeling of excitement never went away, it just became something I would channel into the work. Steven (Spielberg) was amazing. He gives you a lot of room and trusts you to do exactly what he hired you for. There were never any bumps.”

Indeed, Spielberg, who suggested LaBeouf for the lead role in Michael Bay’s Transformers, returns the compliment, stating, “His talent has impressed not only his audiences, but the directors, producers and fellow actors who have worked with him.”

However, he remains tight-lipped on whether or not LaBeouf will continue to run with the Indy torch, saying simply, “We’ll see. He still has multiple Transformers films to do.”

The actor proved his commitment to Spielberg and the Indiana Jones franchise by going on a strict diet and fitness regimen, but his heart went out to co-star Cate Blanchett, who was pregnant while filming her very physical villain scenes.

“She’s kind, but the minute ‘action’ is called, she’s not Cate any more. She’s mean. She was pregnant and doing these crazy swordfights, but she held her own for hours. Honestly, she’s a bad ass.”

At 21, he has an old head on his shoulders. “I hope this year holds more of the same, and I hope that I have a lot more smiles and Find Cate Mandigo laughs. If it continues as it is now, I think I’m going to really enjoy my year.”

Tags: brad pitt, cate, cate blanchett, crystal skull, father and son, Find Cate, Find Cate Mandigo, ford, franchise, harrison ford, hero, hollywood, indiana jones, indy, mutt, rbi, shia labeouf, smile, spielberg, steven spielberg

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Omigod, you guys. Francine Pascal is working on an update of Sweet Valley High, which catches up with Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield now that they are in their 30s and living in a gated community. Stop it, you say. Get outta town. No way! Way: in an interview in Bust magazine, Pascal, who has the same feathered blonde hair-do as the twin characters in her books, promised that the new series, to be called Sweet Valley Heights, would be %26quot;outrageous%26quot;.
Back when some of us were of the age to be spending all our time thinking seriously about whether we should be getting behind Coke or Pepsi, and which member of Duran Duran was the dreamiest, our bookshelves wore the kicky pastel and citrus hues of Sweet Valley.
The books, the first of which came out in 1983, followed permanently-16-year-old twins: Elizabeth was the sensible one, who wrote for the school paper (The Oracle) and was more or less a crashing bore; Jessica was the self-absorbed, impulsive schemer, who shamelessly leveraged her position as co-captain of the cheerleading team. The twins were described, with hypnotic regularity, in the first few pages of each number: they had sun-kissed or sun-streaked or spun-silk blonde hair, blue-green or aquamarine eyes the colour of the Pacific Ocean and perfect %26quot;size six%26quot; figures. They wore matching gold lavalieres and were candy-stripers at the local hospital.
What went on at Sweet Valley High? Everything, and nothing. People had crushes and rivals. They played soccer, football and tennis. There were cookouts by the lake, surfing after school, pep rallies and dances. (The Californian idyll probably owed a great deal to Brian Wilson, since Francine Pascal grew up in Queens, New York and hadn%26#39;t actually visited Los Angeles when she dreamed the place up.) There was intermittent melodrama. Boys died in fights or car crashes. Girls died from terminal illnesses, and sometimes from drug overdoses after they%26#39;d fallen in with a bad crowd because they were hurt and angry over their parents separating, or because a boy had treated them shabbily.
Sweet Valley High books were disapproved of by stuffy librarians and interfering parents, who said they were no better than trashy romance novels. And they were right, but the books were also incessantly moralising. Often clumsily so. In Sweet Valley, you couldn%26#39;t climb onto a motorcycle without it crashing. And even the nastiest mean girls invariably wound up taking their medicine in the end.
%26quot;I was totally rapt by the pureness of the high school stereotype,%26quot; writes the keeper of one fan website. %26quot;Hunky football players, studious newspaper writers, scrawny dorks with no girl skills… this was like the mold that Saved by the Bell was cut from.%26quot;
The world of Sweet Valley High was perfect in every way. It was like nothing that exists anywhere on earth. Everyone could relate to it.

We know, because it%26#39;s on her website, that Francine Pascal%26#39;s favourite colours are beige and blue and her favourite food is Maryland crabcakes, but like Thomas Pynchon and J D Salinger, Francine Pascal is often described as both elusive and reclusive.
This is perhaps an exaggeration. While she is photographed at parties less than, say, Salman Rushdie, you can get a good sense of Pascal from an LA Times story that came out back in 1986, when she was starting to get some success. Pascal studied journalism at New York University before she had jobs making stuff up for True Confessions and Modern Screen, somewhat tawdry and old-hat magazines. It is hard not to like her because throughout, the LA Times sounds scandalised by her and Pascal makes droll, flip comments about everything:
On the soap opera The Young Marrieds, on which she and her husband (fellow journalist John Pascal) were employed as writers in the mid-1960s: %26quot;It wasn%26#39;t hard money, but the hardest part was having to watch it every day.%26quot;
On the distinction of their having churned out, in 30 days, the first book about Patty Hearst%26#39;s trial: %26quot;It was the first time that I had ever done real nonfiction.%26quot;
The story also reveals Pascal%26#39;s creative process, at home in her %26quot;gigantic%26quot; Manhattan apartment next to a Fluffy Donuts store. She gets to the typewriter by 10am, and writes four pages. %26quot;I never write three, I never write five. I don%26#39;t do rewrites. I put all the pages in a pile next to the typewriter.%26quot; She only allows herself to get up for %26quot;bodily necessities%26quot;, %26quot;but I can stop in the middle of a sentence if it happens to be at the end of the fourth page.%26quot;
Thus, she explained airily, %26quot;you just let them pile up, those four pages, and before you know it you have a book.%26quot;
Of course Pascal only wrote-wrote six of the 400-odd books in the franchise, which eventually expanded to include six more spin-off series (Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley University, etc), as well as a TV show and a board game. The actual writing was farmed out to anonymous ghostwriters, who used a %26lsquo;Bible%26#39; that contained all the plot threads and character descriptions, maintained by Pascal.
%26quot;The same way that some people can play the piano,%26quot; she told Bust, %26quot;I can do plots! They just come!%26quot; She would hold meetings, she explained, where the writers %26quot;would take notes and everything%26quot;. They would then draft an outline and, once Pascal had approved it, they would get cracking, presumably at a speedier rate than four pages a day.
Lizzie Skurnick, one such former ghostwriter, is now a blogger and a well-regarded poet. Another, Eileen Goudge, struck it rich writing adult romance novels. Her Trail of Secrets sounds a hoot: it%26#39;s set between the uppercrust equestrian set and the blue-collar world of New York%26#39;s mounted police. Amongst the other ghost-writers is an editor at Random House, a motivational speaker, and a writer of history books for young adults - all occupations that speak to the schoolmarmish heart that, in retrospect, was beating beneath so many of the Sweet Valley books.
The last ever Sweet Valley High book was written by a man who appears to be anonymously selling religious icons on a website which gives, as its sales pitch, an account of life as a depressed, overweight, despairing 37-year-old, living in a cramped Manhattan apartment and eating junk food all the time, just for the sugar high. His work (presumably churning out young adult fiction) was frantically busy, %26quot;but not challenging or interesting%26quot;.
%26quot;After work, either I drank myself into oblivion, or got high on marijuana and vegetated in front of the TV, or I found meaningless sexual encounters online.%26quot; Eventually, nudged out of a Scotch-induced slumber by his cats one night, Jesus appeared to him and instructed him to take special pictures of him (Jesus), which he now sells for $US3.99 a pop, payment via Paypal.
In the end, over 20 increasingly thin years, we also tired of the franchise. And we got older. We put away our Sweet Valley High books and pretty soon we had forgotten all about Elizabeth and Jessica, about class clown Winston Egbert and snobby Lila Fowler, about poor Regina Morrow, born deaf (because her mother, a model, had been taking diet pills during the pregnancy), but nevertheless beautiful enough to model in Ingenue magazine and kind enough to melt the icy heart of dashing arrogant tennis star Bruce Patman, but who was ultimately to cark it when she tried one line (just one line!) of cocaine at a party and dropped dead from a heart murmur. We would forget all about Sweet Valley%26#39;s hot-sounding band, The Droids, and the machinations amongst the bitchier members of its sorority, Pi Beta Alpha.
But until Harry Potter came along, Sweet Valley High was the biggest selling teen series in history. And since it%26#39;s arguable whether Harry Potter is really a teen series (some would class it as fantasy), perhaps it still is. Sixty million copies sold and Pascal, who Forbes estimates made $15 million from Sweet Valley, now lives between Manhattan and Cannes.

Last year Alloy Entertainment, the marketing firm that packages Sweet Valley High books, confirmed that the promised Sweet Valley Heights series was in progress, but had changed its title to Sweet Valley Confidential.
Intriguingly, the first few numbers of the Sweet Valley High series (Double Love; Secrets; Playing With Fire; Power Play and All Night Long) were re-released in the UK last year and are to trickle out in the States from next month. They have not been given the conservational treatment such hallowed works deserve: they have been updated to include cellphones, emails and blogs and presumably many of the original details that gave the series its hyper-1980s lustre will have been flattened out or painted over: %26quot;I can%26#39;t stop thinking about the past and trying to figure out how it all snowballed so quickly,%26quot; writes reformed bad-boy George Warren to former squeeze-turned-dweeb Enid Rollins in Secrets (#2). %26quot;It%26#39;s like the time we took all those bennies, and before we knew it we were cooking along in the GTO doing eighty or ninety…%26quot;
The publisher cannot confirm whether this brush-up is in advance of Pascal%26#39;s hot new %26lsquo;reboot%26#39;, but surely, something is afoot.

Tags: blogger, cannes, Food, franchise, job, journalist, melodrama, soap opera

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Five months after an inferno gutted the Night %26#39;n Day store on Queenstown%26#39;s Rees St, franchise-holders Dan and Debbie Turnbull were yesterday putting the finish-ing touches on their new Camp St shop.
The early morning November 14 fire, caused by an electrical fault, destroyed Queenstown%26#39;s only all-night convenience store and the adjacent Opal Centre.
Now the new shop, opposite the Queenstown police station, is set to open in the next few days.
The couple were delighted to be opening again within such a short space of time. %26quot;Just finding a decent size premises in this town is so hard,%26quot; Mr Turnbull said.
He said when Pizza Hut decided to move out of the building they snapped up the lease.
There was a flurry of activity in the store yesterday as the premises was readied for opening. %26quot;We%26#39;ve got new staff training, people stacking, builders building and sparkies sparking,%26quot; Mr Turnbull said.
The premises was about 50 square metres larger than the Rees St store, however, most of the extra space was in the food-preparation area, not the shop floor.
Six staff who worked at the previous store had returned to work for the Turnbulls and they would be joined by about nine others.
New products and services would include fresh deli sandwiches made-to-order, hot chickens, milkshakes and a range of desserts.
The site of the old Night %26#39;n Day store is set to remain undeveloped for seven months. Land owner Skyline Enterprises had planned to construct a new two-storey building on the site in autumn. However, managing director Ken Matthews said the date had been set back.
%26quot;The issue is that we have to provide notice to the tenants of the Wakatipu Arcade and for the majority of those people we cannot get access to their tenancies until November 23.%26quot; It is understood the Opal Centre, currently in Beach St premises, will move back to its original location once the new building is completed.

Tags: Food, franchise, mr turnbull, pace, premise

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Latest figures from the Ministry of Social Development show the total number of people living in crowded conditions in the city increased more than 4000, to 22,000, between 2001 and 2006.
The ministry says a house is counted as being crowded if it requires one or more extra bedrooms for those living there.
There was also an increase in crowded housing in the Ashburton, Queenstown Lakes and Dunedin areas.
Community groups say those on low incomes often have to cram as many as they can into a property as they cannot afford high rents.
%26quot;It is a huge issue,%26quot; said Christchurch Tenants Protection Association manager Helen Gatonyi.
%26quot;The cost of rent is an issue, as is the changing profile of the tenant. There are larger families and larger ethnic groups,%26quot; she said.
%26quot;There are the other costs related to renting which have to be taken into account — power costs, food costs. It is cheaper to live in a group than to be single.%26quot;
Rent has been increasing steadily, with the average rent in Christchurch now around $150 a week for a room and more than $400 for a three-bedroom flat.
Apart from the money issues, Gatonyi said people had trouble finding properties owing to a poor record paying rent or issues such as drug abuse.
Large families of immigrants with little money also ran into problems.
%26quot;When there are cross-generational families, that is when the real problems arise,%26quot; Gatonyi said.
She said the tight conditions also led to increased stress, which could be a trigger for domestic violence.
%26quot;The solution is not more housing; it is about making housing more accessible and affordable,%26quot; Gatonyi said.
%26quot;It%26#39;s also about the complex issues involved with these people like disengagement and being disenfranchised.%26quot;
City Missioner Michael Gorman said the number of people going to the City Mission suffering from cramped housing was on the increase.
%26quot;We have a lot of people come to us who are living in garages,%26quot; he said.
%26quot;We also have people who come who live in sheds that they rent for about $70 or $90 a week. What%26#39;s that going to be like in the winter?%26quot;

%26quot;I know of one family of 10 who live in a three-bedroom house,%26quot; Gorman said.
He said he was worried by plans by the Christchurch City Council to raise social housing rents by 24 per cent.
%26quot;People say it may only be a few dollars a week, but that makes an enormous difference when you are on benefits,%26quot; he said.
%26quot;The common denominator is poverty. There does need to be more affordable property to provide somewhere to live for those who have a very low income.%26quot;
Council city housing manager Kevin Bennett acknowledged there was a problem.
%26quot;We know there is an issue out there in terms of overcrowding,%26quot; he said.
The council would refer families who go to it for help to Housing New Zealand, which tries to find them a property.
%26quot;Usually it is to do with money or they have been in a situation where they need some family support and so they move in together,%26quot; Bennett said yesterday.

Tags: Food, ford, franchise, ups, zeal

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Latest figures from the Ministry of Social Development show the total number of people living in crowded conditions in the city increased more than 4000, to 22,000, between 2001 and 2006.
The ministry says a house is counted as being crowded if it requires one or more extra bedrooms for those living there.
There was also an increase in crowded housing in the Ashburton, Queenstown Lakes and Dunedin areas.
Community groups say those on low incomes often have to cram as many as they can into a property as they cannot afford high rents.
%26quot;It is a huge issue,%26quot; said Christchurch Tenants Protection Association manager Helen Gatonyi.
%26quot;The cost of rent is an issue, as is the changing profile of the tenant. There are larger families and larger ethnic groups,%26quot; she said.
%26quot;There are the other costs related to renting which have to be taken into account — power costs, food costs. It is cheaper to live in a group than to be single.%26quot;
Rent has been increasing steadily, with the average rent in Christchurch now around $150 a week for a room and more than $400 for a three-bedroom flat.
Apart from the money issues, Gatonyi said people had trouble finding properties owing to a poor record paying rent or issues such as drug abuse.
Large families of immigrants with little money also ran into problems.
%26quot;When there are cross-generational families, that is when the real problems arise,%26quot; Gatonyi said.
She said the tight conditions also led to increased stress, which could be a trigger for domestic violence.
%26quot;The solution is not more housing; it is about making housing more accessible and affordable,%26quot; Gatonyi said.
%26quot;It%26#39;s also about the complex issues involved with these people like disengagement and being disenfranchised.%26quot;
City Missioner Michael Gorman said the number of people going to the City Mission suffering from cramped housing was on the increase.
%26quot;We have a lot of people come to us who are living in garages,%26quot; he said.
%26quot;We also have people who come who live in sheds that they rent for about $70 or $90 a week. What%26#39;s that going to be like in the winter?%26quot;
%26quot;I know of one family of 10 who live in a three-bedroom house,%26quot; Gorman said.
He said he was worried by plans by the Christchurch City Council to raise social housing rents by 24 per cent.
%26quot;People say it may only be a few dollars a week, but that makes an enormous difference when you are on benefits,%26quot; he said.
%26quot;The common denominator is poverty. There does need to be more affordable property to provide somewhere to live for those who have a very low income.%26quot;
Council city housing manager Kevin Bennett acknowledged there was a problem.
%26quot;We know there is an issue out there in terms of overcrowding,%26quot; he said.
The council would refer families who go to it for help to Housing New Zealand, which tries to find them a property.
%26quot;Usually it is to do with money or they have been in a situation where they need some family support and so they move in together,%26quot; Bennett said yesterday.

Tags: Food, ford, franchise, ups, zeal

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Louise Arbour said that public outcry and headlines tend to concentrate on egregious cases of female genital mutilation, punishment of rape slavery, and degrading treatment of all sorts.

But it is lower intensity discrimination, often sanctioned by law, that condemns millions of women to daily hardship and suffering.

Beyond sparse and mainly ritual condemnations, such pervasive conditions continue to fly below the international radar.

A recent study, commissioned by the UN, underscores that this occurs despite the fact that the rights of women to equality and non- discrimination are enshrined in a number of international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter and, most extensively, in the Convention on the Elimination of All Form of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), she said.

Under this normative canvass, which is complemented by regional human rights treaties and national legislation, States have the obligation to enact and implement effective measures to promote and protect the rights of women, including repealing discriminatory laws.

One hundred and eighty five States have accepted CEDAW, suggesting almost universal endorsement of its norms. However, the persistence of laws and customs that make women second-class citizens or expose them to abuse paints a different picture.

UN Information Center said quoting Mrs. Arbour that many States have taken full advantage of their right to enter reservations to CEDAW, which allow them under international law to withhold consent or postpone adoption of specific treaty provisions.

Indeed, among human rights treaties, CEDAW has been one of those subjected to the largest number of reservations, although this attitude is now changing.

Not surprisingly, most misgivings of States revolve around control of the private life of women. A key aspect of women’s legal disenfranchisement in many countries is the limitation placed on their ability to own or manage property, and their lack of entitlements to property, including inheritance, following divorce or the death of kin.

Many States still grant nationality and citizenship of children exclusively through the male line. Women’s freedom of movement is hindered in some States by laws which require male guardianship.

A dearth of legal protection or lack of law enforcement often allows violence against women and girls, including rape, to go unpunished.

The reality check at the regional level is also far from reassuring. Although some regional normative frameworks have built and expanded on CEDAW standards, both the interpretation of these standards and their application at the national level leave serious protection gaps.

Latin America has introduced some of the most progressive and pioneering regional legislation for the protection of women, including in 1994 the first ever human rights convention focusing on violence against women.

Yet ten years after the adoption of the convention, Amnesty International noted that the situation of women in the region had not improved significantly because States parties were failing to fulfil their duties under this treaty.

In Africa, despite widespread ratification of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa , which enshrine and pledge protection for the whole spectrum of women’s rights, discrimination and harmful practices, such as human trafficking, violence in armed conflict, and female genital mutilation, persist.

Asia, the largest and most populous continent is also the most diverse with regard to progress on women’s rights.

The region counts some vibrant National Women’s Commissions.

Recently enacted legislation has advanced women’s rights in India and elsewhere.

However, much ground remains to be covered in terms of implementation and even formulation of laws in key areas, including human trafficking.

An extensive regional human rights regime and regional and national jurisprudence has not made Europe immune from many of the inequalities that hold women back.

The Equal Opportunities Commission in the UK has noted that, at the current rate of progress, it will take 200 years before Parliament has equal representation of men and women.

Even Norway, which has consistently topped the UN human rights development and gender indices, registers gaps in remuneration and access to employment between the sexes.

Clearly, the conditions of oppression and lack of voice and opportunity are as much a part of the discrimination that women experience as are the laws that hamper the enjoyment of their rights.

The combination of these incapacitating factors accounts for the fact that 70 percent of the world’s poor are women; that two out of three children not in school are girls; and that women own only one percent of the world’s titled land.

Real equality demands that international obligations be upheld both in law and in practice. At a minimum, States should review, amend or repeal discriminatory legislation, and address the negative effects that these laws have on women.

Without such political initiative, as well as dedicated financial resources, much needed and long overdue change will not happen.

Governments must tangibly show their determination to empower more than half of the world’s population, and thus enable women to claim and enjoy their human rights and contribute to the welfare of all. –IRNA

Tags: attitude, cate, endor, europe, franchise

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The lunchtime rush turned into an emergency after staff noticed smoke building up around the ceiling of the restaurant at the corner of Elles Rd and Tay St shortly before 1pm.
The smoke prompted the evacuation of the restaurant while customers waiting in the drive-thru were also sent packing.
The nine staff working at the time stood on the footpath on Elles Rd as the fast-food outlet filled with acrid black smoke.
%26quot;It%26#39;s just gone on fire in the vent, we don%26#39;t know anything,%26quot; one staff member said.
Invercargill Fire Service acting chief fire officer Neil Ladbrook said at the scene the sandwich construction of the ceiling and roof of the building was a concern because its construction meant %26quot;flash-over%26quot; could happen easily %26mdash; possibly leading to collapse.
Two appliances initially attended the blaze with Mr Ladbrook calling a second alarm meaning a further two were shortly on the scene.
Elles Rd between between Forth and Tay streets was closed to traffic with diversions in place.
Firefighters equipped with breathing apparatus entered the building with a thermal imaging camera to ascertain the extent of the blaze while a positive pressure ventilation fan was used to evacuate smoke from the restaurant, Mr Ladbrook said.
Incident controller at the scene Alan Goldsworthy said the cause of the fire had been traced to a large extractor fan in the ceiling that had been disconnected to allow repairs, but a broiler in the kitchen that was not supposed to be used was in use at the time.
%26quot;It was in use causing heat to build up, igniting fat deposits.%26quot; However, a spokesman for the restaurant brand%26#39;s parent company TPF Restaurants Ltd disputed that claim, saying the fan and broiler could not be used in isolation from each other.
TPF Restarants Ltd general manager Glenn Corbett said once damage to the restaurant was assessed the company hoped to re-open it within a week.
Firefighters stayed at the scene for two hours monitoring the situation while damage was limited to the ceiling and roof surrounding the extraction fan.
Unlike other fast-food outlets, Burger King was not a franchise-based operation in New Zealand, being owned by TPF Restaurants Ltd.

Tags: Food, franchise, romp, zeal

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