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Breaking Dawn

Last week turned out to be a vampire week.

We saw Underworld the prequel (also known as The Rise of the Lycans) for an hour and a half with Sbarro pizza and lasagna in our stomachs. The movie may be as twice as bloody as Frank Miller’s 300, but director Patrick Tatopoulos somehow managed to keep all those throat-slashing combats and rolling heads a bit more bearable to look at than Kill Bill. If you’ve watched the two sequels, you know the movie is not just about murdering creatures. It does have a story to boot filmed in a fast paced sequence that hardly left us blinking. Otherwise, you’d miss out certain scenes and spend another hour going through it again.

If you’d ask me if there’s one or two movies I would love to watch over and over again, it’s “A Walk To Remember” and “Becoming Jane”. I’m certainly a fan of tragic or sad endings with a good set of realizations. I think that keeps you believably human.

Renz gave me a thick Breaking Dawn book and a Hair Doctor for an advance birthday gift. I never owned a copy of the Twilight saga, but I’ve read all first 3 books through dial-up internet downloads. That explains it. And the comb? I rarely do comb my hair except every after bath. It’s one reason why I decided to give my hair some sort of an Outer Banks vacation by having it re-bonded last month.

Wentworth Miller: Fish Anyone?

July 25, 2007 Culture club

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Wentworth Miller is Michael Scofield, the genius behind the notorious escape from Fox River Penitentiary. And there is no way you can ignore this guy – his powerful performance in Fox TV series Prison Break makes him one of the world’s most sought-after guy to date.

wentworth miller

Here’s Prison Break’s all favorite fish on silver platter:

The strikingly handsome and refined British actor Wentworth Miller gained his greatest notoriety as Michael Scofield on the Fox network’s serial drama Prison Break. Born June 2, 1972, in Chipping Norton, England, as the son of a Rhodes Scholar, Miller moved to Brooklyn with his parents as a boy; his family relocated to Pennsylvania’s Quaker country during Miller’s adolescence. After high school, Miller attended Princeton University and studied English, but — despite a love of acting that he had harbored since boyhood — he reportedly gravitated away from drama in the pro-business atmosphere of the university. Following graduation, Miller moved to Los Angeles and held down jobs as an assistant at a film production company and a bookstore clerk while he gradually realized his own desire to act and started attending auditions. He debuted before the cameras in a one-episode role, as Gage Petronzi on the hit syndicated series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and landed another one-time stint as Mike Palmieri on ER. But he was poised to break through to more prominent roles with his turn in the 2003 Robert Benton-directed, Nicholas Meyer-scripted drama The Human Stain. That picture casts Anthony Hopkins as Coleman Silk, a Negro who has spent all his life passing as a Jew; Miller plays the young Silk, and delivers some of the most effective scenes in the film. (One memorable bit has him climbing into the boxing ring and beating a black opponent senseless, out of self hatred). Unfortunately, despite outstanding craftsmanship and winning performances all around, the public mysteriously rejected The Human Stain, and thus inadvertently held Miller back from A-list stardom. (The critics were particularly vicious about Miller’s inclusion in the film — The New York Times’ A.O. Scott unfairly complained that Miller looked nothing like Hopkins, and cynically remarked that his juxtaposition alongside coal-black parents reminded one of Steve Martin in The Jerk).

Miller’s determination doubled, however, and he became notoriously selective, even turning down less esteemed roles to hold out for more respected films and parts. The gamble paid off: after a solid turn as Dr. Adam Lockwood in the sci-fi action thriller Underworld (2003) and a best-forgotten contribution to the embarrassing action thriller Stealth (2005) — as the voice of the computer EDI — the thesp landed second billing on Prison Break. His Michael Scofield is a structural engineer whose brother Lincoln sits on death row in a local penitentiary, for a crime he did not commit. Armed with a full blueprint of the prison and an outrageously complex escape plan, Michael commits a crime to have himself incarcerated and assist his brother with a breakout. The program premiered in late 2005 to solid ratings; Variety observed of the program: “Thus far, easily the most compelling element is Miller, who with his steely intensity conveys a guy capable of outwitting, outlasting, and outplaying whatever the prison and its gruff warden (Stacy Keach, billed as a guest star) can throw at him.”

Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Miller’s sterling performance in Prison Break earned him a nomination as Best Actor in 2005 Golden Globe Awards. At one time, he also auditioned for the role of Clark Kent/Superman in Superman Returns.

Filipinos in Hollywood

July 16, 2007 Culture club

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A partial list of Filipino-Americans who made it bigtime in Hollywood according to Wikipedia.

Phoebe Cates

Cates was born Phoebe Belle Katz in New York City, New York to Lily and director and producer Joseph Cates (born “Joseph Katz”) on July 16, 1963. Her uncle is producer/director Gilbert Cates and her stepfather was Marshall Naify, a horse breeder.[2] Cates’s maternal grandfather was of Chinese/Filipino descent, and her father as well as her maternal grandmother were of Russian Jewish origin. Cates attended the Professional Children’s School and the Juilliard School. She is currently married to actor Kevin Kline.

Lou Diamond Phillips

Phillips was born Lou Diamond Upchurch on February 17, 1962 at the Subic Bay Naval Station in the Philippines, the son of Lucita and Gerald Upchurch, a naval officer. His father was an American of Scotch-Irish, Hawaiian and Cherokee descent and his mother was a Filipina of Spanish, Chinese and Japanese descent. Phillips was named after Marine legend Lou Diamond and adopted his surname, “Phillips”, from his stepfather.

Tamlyn Naomi Tomita

Tomita was born on January 27, 1966 in Okinawa to Shiro and Asako Tomita. She is of one quarter-Filipino descent (her mother is half Filipina, half Japanese). Before becoming an actress, she won the title of Queen at the Nisei Week Pageant in Los Angeles in 1984, and Miss Nikkei International in 1985. In 1986, Tomita made her acting debut in The Karate Kid, Part II, playing the love interest to Ralph Macchio. She also starred in the movie The Joy Luck Club.

Kirk Hammett

Kirk Lee Hammett (born on November 18, 1962) is the lead guitarist in the thrash metal band Metallica. Hammett is one of the better-known students of guitarist and instructor Joe Satriani. In 2003, he was ranked 11th in the Rolling Stones “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”. Born in San Francisco California to a Filipino mother and an Irish Merchant marine father.

Rob Schneider

Robert Michael Schneider (born October 31, 1963) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch-comedy series Saturday Night Live, Schneider went on to a career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedies Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and The Hot Chick. Schneider was born in San Francisco, California and grew up in the nearby suburb of Pacifica. He is the son of Jewish-American real-estate broker Marvin Schneider and Pilar Monroe, a former kindergarten teacher and ex-school board president; his maternal grandfather was a European-American soldier and his maternal grandmother was Filipina.

Jocelyn Enriquez

Jocelyn Enríquez is a dance singer from San Francisco, born in December 28, 1974. She is of Filipino descent: her parents are from the province of Pangasinan. She has recorded a couple of Billboard Top 100 hits.

Paolo Montalban

Paolo Montalbán (born May 21, 1973 in Manila, Philippines) is a Filipino American actor and singer. He most notably played Kung Lao in Mortal Kombat: Conquest along with Daniel Bernhardt and Kristanna Loken. Paolo is best known for his performance in the 1997 version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella as the prince, opposite Brandy as Cinderella. He reprised that role in a 2001 stage version of the musical. Paolo was also cast in the films The Great Raid as Sgt. Valera, and American Adobo, as Raul.

APL

Allan Pineda Lindo, (b. 28 November 1974) better known as apl.de.ap, is a hip hop musician and member of the The Black Eyed Peas. He was born in the Barangay (Barrio) of Sapang Bato, Angeles City, Pampanga, in the Philippines, to a Filipina mother and African-American father.

apl.de.ap is an original member of the hip hop group The Black Eyed Peas where he is the main composer. His father, who was a U.S. serviceman stationed at nearby Clark Air Base, abandoned the family shortly after his birth. His mother, Christina Pineda, raised him and his four brothers and two sisters on her own in their small barrio. Music had always been part of Apl’s life, his early influences having been Stevie Wonder, The Eagles, The Beatles and the popular Filipino rock/folk group, Asin. Hip-hop soon came into the picture via the breakdancing, “I would take the jeepney all the way to Angeles City, and that’s how I got introduced to break dancing,” he said. “I would see kids at the corner break-dancing and I’m like, ‘I wanna do that.’”

Enrique Iglesias

Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler (born May 8, 1975, in Madrid, Spain) is a Grammy Award and Latin Grammy Award-winning Spanish-born, Miami-based singer and is of Asian and european ancestry.His Asian ancestry comes from his mother’s side of the family. Iglesias is the son of the famous Spanish singer Julio Iglesias and the Filipina socialite Isabel Preysler.

Shannyn Sossamon

Sossamon was born on October 3, 1978 in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Sherry Sossamon and Todd Lindberg, grew up in Reno, Nevada, and attended Galena High School there. She is of French, Hawaiian, Dutch, English, Irish, Filipino and German descent; her maternal grandmother is Hawaiian-Filipino, and her maternal grandfather is English-German. The y in her first name was an adolescent addition in 1995. The day after her high school graduation, Sossamon moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in dance.[1] Sossamon appeared in television commercials and had DJ gigs in local clubs. In 1999, Sossamon was discovered by casting director Francine Maisler, while assisting a friend DJ at Gwyneth Paltrow’s birthday party. She appeared in the movies 40 Days And 40 Nights opposite Josh Hartnett and A Knight’s Tale with Heath Ledger.

Nicole Scherzinger

Nicole Elikolani Prescovia Scherzinger (also known as Nicole Kea) (born June 29, 1978), is an American singer, dancer, songwriter and occasional actress best known for her work as the lead vocalist for the Pussycat Dolls. Scherzinger was born in Hawaii, to a Filipino father and Hawaiian/Russian mother. Her mother, Rosemary, separated from her father and then moved to Louisville, Kentucky with her German American stepfather Gary Scherzinger, and sister Ke’ala.

Victoria Recaño

Victoria Recaño is an Emmy Award-winning American television personality, best known for being a correspondent on such programs as The Insider and Inside Edition. Recaño was born in St. Louis, Missouri, one of six children. Her father was Filipino and Spanish having emigrated to the United States to pursue a career in medicine. Her mother was German-Hungarian. She studied dancing and piano, and attended high school at Cor Jesu Academy.

Vanessa Minnillo

Vanessa Joy Minnillo (born November 9, 1980) is an American television personality. A former Miss Teen USA, she is mostly known for recently hosting Total Request Live on MTV from 2003-2007 as well her past reporting as a New York-based correspondent for Entertainment Tonight. Vanessa Minnillo was born at Clark Air Base in Angeles City, Philippines to Vincent Minnillo, a U.S. Air Force aircrew member, and Helen Berecero. Her father is of Italian and Irish descent and her mother is–according to an October 2006 interview with Maxim magazine–of Polynesian descent, although a past article refers to her as Filipino. Because of her father’s military career, her family moved numerous times and resided in California, Nevada, Florida, Germany and Japan before eventually settling in Charleston, South Carolina.

Vanessa Anne Hudgens

Vanessa Anne Hudgens (born December 14, 1988 in Salinas, California) is an American actress and singer. She made her screen debut in 2003 and appeared in the Hollywood films Thirteen and Thunderbirds, before coming to fame in the 2006 hit Disney Channel film, High School Musical. Hudgens also began a music career and released her debut album, entitled V, in 2006. In 2007, Hudgens is the new spokesperson for Neutrogena. Vanessa Anne Hudgens was born on December 14, 1988; her sister, Stella Hudgens, is also an actress. She has been home-schooled since the seventh grade. Her parents are Greg Hudgens and Gina Guangco[citation needed]. In regards to her ethnic background, Vanessa was quoted: Pretty much I’m Filipino and Caucasian, but within that, I’m Spanish, Chinese, American Indian, Irish.

Brandon Baker

Brandon Baker (born April 28, 1985 in Anaheim, California) is an American actor. He is known for the made-for-tv movies, such as Disney movies Johnny Tsunami and its sequel, Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board as well as for his role on the short lived NBC sitcom One World. In 2002, he appeared in an episode of the Disney Channel original series Even Stevens. He was born in Anaheim, California. He is part English, German, and Filipino.

Underworld and Breaking Dawn

Wentworth Miller: Fish Anyone?

Filipinos in Hollywood

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