Fresh off the printing press, here's the first poster for Chris Rock's "Top Five." The hilarious new comedy -- which Rock plugged during his stint hosting "Saturday Night Live" this weekend and also in a new profile for The New Yorker -- is set for release on Dec. 12. It stars Rock, who also wrote and directed the film, as Andre Allen, a famous comedian who fears his funny days are behind him. Rosario Dawson, Tracy Morgan, J.B. Smoove, Jay Pharoah, Leslie Jones, Michael Che, Anders Holm, Gabrielle Union, Romany Malco, Kevin Hart and a handful of other really famous faces all co-star. Check out the poster, debuting exclusively here at HuffPost Entertainment, below.
Mexico celebrated the Day of the Dead with a new world record, as women in the country's capital dressed up as "Catrinas" and brought together the most "Skeleton Ladies" ever in one place.
The Skeleton Lady first appeared as a satirical engraving by artist Jose Guadalupe Posada sometime between 1910 and 1913. Posada originally created the character to poke fun at "people who pretended to be European, but weren't," Mercedes Sierra, a visual arts professor at Mexico's National Autonomous University explained to the Associated Press last year. "Skeleton" was a Mexican slang for someone too poor to buy food. However, the image was also a critique of social stratification. "Death is democratic. At the end, regardless of whether you are white, dark, rich or poor, we all end up as skeletons," the artist said at the time.
Hundreds of "Catrinas" showed up in the Mexican capital on Nov. 1.
Women dressed as iconic Mexican "Catrinas" gather in an attempt to set a record for the most Catrinas in one place during Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
A woman dressed as the iconic Mexican "Catrina" poses for photographers as she gathers with other women in costume in an attempt to set a record for the most Catrinas in one place during Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Women dressed as iconic Mexican "Catrinas" gather in an attempt to set a record for the most Catrinas in one place during Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Women dressed as the iconic Mexican "Catrina" gather in an attempt to set a record for the most Catrinas in one place during Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Totemo doesn't just break the rules of pop on her debut EP, "Heavy As My Dreams." She finds the line, crosses it, and then draws another one wherever she sees fit. Such is the nature of a progressive artist. What makes Totemo even more interesting is her diversity: The songs, in both composition and vocal performance, feel like they were written by separate people altogether.
Take the opening title track: The words slip from her mouth like glitches (the lyrics being very staccato at the start) making the song sound like its emanating from a gramophone that holds the memory of Totemo's existence. “Host" is a haunting, creaking and low rumbling terror of a track, all countered by her most intentional diction and off-beat delivery. And then there’s “Whois,” which sounds like Totemo flying through time and space without a care, wielding elongated notes that all string together into an echoing chorus.
Chatting with The Huffington Post, Totemo discussed how her name came to her in a dream, the importance of creating different characters within each of her songs and how a recently discovered medical issue has completely redefined the meaning and weight her EP's lyrics hold.
Why the name Totemo?
I dreamt it up. My birth name is Rotem, but while we were recording the EP I had a dream. In that dream, somebody, I’m not exactly sure who it was -- you know, how in a dream sometimes you see a figure -- but he addressed me as Totemo. I woke up with that name in my head. It really fit with the music and felt it was right. And then it turns it out it has a meaning in Japanese, “very,” which is nice. I like when things have meaning, but the meaning is not apparent.
What is the music scene in Tel Aviv and Israel at large like?
The music scene in Israel is concentrated within Tel Aviv. There’s definitely some music happening in Jerusalem and Haifa, but the core of it all is in Tel Aviv. An we’ve got it all; any genre you can think of, we probably have a scene for it. There’s this atmosphere of creating and community.
You worked with producer Roei Avital on the EP. What was it like collaborating with him and allowing someone else to add input into your music?
We took some time before we found Roei, and I’m glad we did because, as you said, it’s kind of weird to let someone into your creative process. With Roei, it was just very natural to me. I didn’t feel like he was taking over and I felt like we could create something together that was both me and him. And that’s a good collaboration in my opinion.
We found a balance. He did help me rearrange some of the songs, like in the structure. I think I have a tendency to be too progressive in my songwriting sometimes. Sometimes it’s a bit complex, and Roei has a very pop attitude toward songwriting, and together we found a good balance in that sense.
That reminds me a lot of my time with Polyenso in studio, whose producer balanced out their progressive nature by helping identify the chorus, or just helping to make it a little bit more catchy.
Exactly, and that’s not a bad word. Sometimes the more artsy attitude toward music would criticize that, but I think it’s really good. I think there’s a reason people are attracted to songs with choruses.
What does "Heavy As My Dreams" mean?
I feel like it’s about expectations, in a way. Expectations that you have for yourself, those that you receive from other people, and then how you deal with those expectations. (In general, I don’t like to interpret my own lyrics, but that’s vague enough.) I think it’s about coping with pressure that people put on you and you put on yourself.
What draws you to this progressive sound, and, if you would label it as such, trip-hop/trip-pop?
I really think that it has something darker about it. Dark, more interesting and less poppy, but still poppy. It’s very flow-y and airy; it’s not too condensed. You have room to breathe and everything is mysterious. That’s the music that I like to hear, so it’s the music I want to make.
Artists like to diversify their sound, but not only are your instrumentals varying, but your approach and tone to each song that almost creates these different people within yourself. What is it that pushes you to create such diversity in every bit of sound, even within an EP?
I fell like I get bored really easily. When I hear song, I like to hear things constantly happening and changing, and that includes my own vocals. One of my greatest influences, if not the greatest, is Kate Bush, and that is her speciality: creating a very large variety of characters within each song. And I love that.
What do you want people to take away from your EP?
I really care about aesthetics. The way things sound is the first impression, and the most immediate thing encountered when someone starts listening to anew artist. I also really like it when people dive in and listen to the lyrics, and read the lyrics and find layers that they haven’t noticed before. Take the time to interpret the lyrics because the combination between words and music does something to you, and it tells a story about your life, not just mine.
It’s really nice hearing that you are so open to that. I think it adds a lot of value to the music when someone releases it and others attach to it in their own way separate from the artist.
I gotta tell you, I wrote the lyrics a while back to some of these songs. Some five years ago, some three years ago and some from the time we started working on the EP. I’ve recently found out that I have a medical issue, and since then, every time I hear the lyrics or I need to sing them at shows, they kind of get this whole new meaning. I’m going to just tell you: I found out that I have breast cancer. I found out really early, it’s stage two, so I have like a 90 percent chance of getting out totally clean a year from now. It’s going to be a rough, tough, ugly year, but then I’m out. But the thing is I listen to the lyrics now, and it’s like somebody else wrote them for me. It’s creepy. I’m singing them and it’s like somebody else is singing them back at me with this whole new meaning bestowed upon them.
I’m so sorry to hear that. I can’t imagine how tough it must be at some times, but I’m so happy to hear you taking this positive, ready-to-kick-this-thing’s-ass attitude.
Yeah, I’m ready to fight this thing!
Hell yeah! So what made you sit on some of the songs for several years? Were you just saving some of those songs until you were in the right position?
Yeah, there was some of that, and also I felt like some of the songs, especially “Heavy As My Dreams” and “Host,” which are the older songs from the bunch, that they weren’t ready in their previous versions -- sound-wise and structure-wise. Things change, and sometimes songs are like people, they need time to blossom and evolve into themselves.
After concluding the interview, I asked Totemo if it was fine to include her breast cancer disclosure within the article. This was her response:
“You know what, I've decided I'm totally okay with that. I feel like there’s some secrecy when people have this disease. I think it’s really important that they don’t feel ashamed or embarrassed to put it out there because it’s not their fault. They shouldn’t have to deal with the disease and hiding the disease as well. Especially with breast cancer, which it is so important that young women know to check themselves. I found out myself, and that could save lives."
Before The Beat Drops is an artist introduction series dedicated to bringing you the rising acts before they make their break. Our unlimited access to music of all kinds is both amazing and overwhelming. Keeping your playlists fresh, we'll be doing the leg work to help you discover your next favorite artist.
Photographer Jessica Bender specializes in maternity, newborn, young children, and family photos. While she has documented vaginal births and delivered her own two children that way, photographing her friend's C-section was a first.
When Bender's friend Carly was pregnant, the mom-to-be asked her to be the back-up support person in case her husband Nathan couldn't be present for the C-section delivery, Bender told The Huffington Post in an email. The photographer told her friend she'd be ready with her camera should that situation arise. On the day of the procedure, Nathan needed to have emergency surgery (he's well now), so Bender headed to the hospital to fill the support role -- camera in hand, as promised.
Having never been present for a C-section, the photographer wasn't entirely sure of what to expect, but she found herself "riveted" by the procedure. "I could not take my eyes off the surgery site. There were moments where I almost forgot to take pictures, because I was so caught up in the amazingness of it all," she said. "I’ve never witnessed any kind of surgery, and this has got to be the best kind out there, so it was very special."
Bender also said that photographing a C-section changed her perspective on the procedure. "I learned that it can be a peaceful, and joyful experience for the mom, it doesn’t have to be something that is full of fear," she said. "Most women find themselves with a C-section delivery after not being able to progress with a vaginal delivery, and of course that does bring fear. But I would challenge them to leave that, and any feelings of 'failure' at the operating room door. I’d tell them to greet their baby as they would have if the birth plan had gone exactly the way they had envisioned it."
Bender's photos capture many aspects of the C-section delivery, from the actual procedure to the moment Carly meets her baby boy Elias. The photographer hopes that people who see these pictures come out with a new understanding of C-sections as well. "Whatever method of delivery that keeps mom and baby healthy, and safe, is a good delivery!" she said, adding, "C-sections are beautiful too. It is still a family, meeting their baby, it’s a miracle."
James Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is back in the fray over whether antiquities and other prized artifacts from Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cradles of Western civilization should remain in museum collections in America, Great Britain and other major collector nations or be sent back to the countries where they were created hundreds or thousands of years ago.
The latest salvo from the L.A. museum leader is an article he wrote for the November-December issue of Foreign Affairs magazine titled “Culture War: The Case Against Repatriating Museum Artifacts.”
Hans Zimmer has a huge following among cinephiles as the legendary musician who composed scores for such iconic films as "The Lion King," "Gladiator," "The Dark Knight" and, most recently, "Interstellar." Perhaps less expected is that he also has a huge following among EDM obsessives.
"The weird thing is all the DJs and all the electronic guys sort of think I'm still relevant because I am part of that world, and I can talk oscillators and filters and frequency shifters and stuff like that," Zimmer told HuffPost Live on Monday.
"In the '70s I started making music with computers because I thought, 'Wow, great, you can misappropriate these things which are designed for accountancy and you can actually go and make weird noises with them,'" Zimmer said.
And even today, those "weird noises" are often what makes the most powerful part of Zimmer's scores.
"If you look at something like 'Dark Knight' or 'Inception,' the thing that pins you to the back of your seat is a beautiful Moog synthesizer, designed by Bob Moog in 1964 or something. It's a beast," Zimmer said.
Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live's morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!
Happy Election Day, everyone! As votes roll in, government aids nationwide are probably sweating in their suits -- just like Josh Lyman was in the "West Wing" episode, "Election Night." That's the one when Toby plays a prank to make Josh think residents are accidentally invalidating their ballots left and right.
Check out the clip to get in the voting spirit, and make sure to avoid these rookie mistakes at the polls!
Jennifer Lopez writes candidly of the anxiety that plagued her as she split from both husband Marc Anthony and "American Idol" in her memoir, "True Love." But in an interview Tuesday with Arianna Huffington on HuffPost Live, the actress and singer revealed an additional episode she had faced in 2002, one that caused a frightening health scare which left a lasting impact on her.
"I was working on a movie called 'Enough,' I was recording an album, I was doing videos on the weekend and I was recording at night," she recalled. "I had worked maybe 55 days in a row without a day off and shooting on a film, and I just one day was walking towards the set and -- literally every time I walked towards the set my heart would start beating and I would start getting frightened."
Lopez's was confused, but she soon then realized that it was her "mind and her body shutting down." Her vision became blurry and she found herself unable to move, forcing her to go to the hospital.
"The doctor was like, 'What have you been doing?'" she recounted. "And I started telling him my schedule ... and I had been doing this for years, and he was like, 'You have to take care of yourself.'"
This came as a surprise, as Lopez considered herself to be "active and healthy and so strong." In order to carry on, she knew she would have to institute a change:
The truth is, I wasn't taking care of myself at all. I wasn't loving myself at all. All I was thinking about was pleasing everyone else and showing everybody else that I could do all these things and that I was fine ... I have to take care of myself first before I can take care of anyone else.
Check out Jennifer Lopez's full HuffPost Live conversation with Arianna Huffington here, and catch the livestream of her 92nd Street Y conversation with Hoda Kotb here, airing Nov. 6 at 7:30 pm. ET.
Kendrick Lamar released the music video for "i," the first single from his untitled new album, on Tuesday. Directed by Alexandre Moors & the Little Homies, the video follows Lamar as he moves from a club to the roof to a car to the club again. He dances the whole time, and at one point meets up with Ron Isley of the Isley Brothers, from which "i" samples. Just try not to sing (and dance) along.
If you could change one thing about your body, what would it be?
In a powerful new video titled "Comfortable," 50 people of all ages were asked that question, and their answers were honest and touching.
But they were also telling. There's one significant difference between how grown-ups and children responded: the adults focused on flaws, some citing childhood teasing as the inspiration for the changes they'd make, while kids wished for things they could add to their bodies to make them even more special.
"Have a mermaid tail," responded one little girl.
"I want legs like a cheetah so I can run faster, like a cheetah," said a boy.
The video, a poignant reminder of how powerful and pervasive society's beauty standards truly are, was made by the Jubilee Project. The organization's goal is to produce short films, documentaries, and PSAs that inspire change.
Pentatonix released the music video for "Winter Wonderland/ Don't Worry Be Happy," off their holiday album, "That's Christmas To Me." Tori Kelly appears on the track alongside original group members Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Kirstin Maldonado, Avi Kaplan and Kevin Olusola, and together they star in the "Brady Bunch"-style video.
Back in May, Lionsgate announced that it would reboot the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers franchise for an upcoming movie. It's unclear if any of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers will reprise their roles for the upcoming movie, but The Huffington Post felt like it was morphin' time and reached out to early cast members to talk about the putty-fighting days. Ahead, 11 stories from the franchise that will make all fans want to blast the theme song and watch a YouTube video of the original rangers shouting, "Dragonzord! Mastodon! Pterodactyl! Triceratops! Saber-Toothed Tiger! Tyrannosaurus!" Now, Go! Go! (read about) Power Rangers!
Interviews were conducted separately. People interviewed in alphabetical order:
Karan Ashley = Yellow Ranger.David Fielding = Zordon.Walter Jones = Black Ranger.Austin St. John = Red Ranger.David Yost = Blue Ranger.
1. Austin St. John and Walter Jones lived in a Power Rangers party house together. One kegger even had a helicopter come shut them down.
Casts from other popular shows at the time would also make appearances (and apparently an agreement was made long ago to not disclose too much about the craziness that went down in the house), but here is some information on the legendary parties that continued even past the actors' original time with the show.
WJ: We had lots of different parties and there were lots of different people. And the parties were memorable: We had pool tables, we had a trampoline, we had a huge Burmese python that was 12-feet long, and we'd just have a good time. I'd come home sometimes and there were 150 people in our house that we didn't know. I'd be like, "Hey, what's going on" and I guess we're having a party.
ASJ: Oh man, our parties were always outrageous. At the time we were all single, we were all on the prowl. You know, we had a little bit of fame and we had an amazing house that sat on top of a hill in Glendale, California. It had a 360-degree view of the L.A. area. Pasadena. It was gorgeous.
DY: The funniest stories were about Walter's infamous parties. Those were always a good time. It was a frat house. When they'd do parties it was like the party to be at because it was a lot of fun. They know how to throw a good party.
ASJ: We had stunt guys there, some of them were professional dancers, like dancing on major tours. Like Janet Jackson. So when we had parties they would call their dancer friends, these girls, again professional dancers. So we always had these smoking hot girls at the house. We always had amazing guys at the house, too, if that's what the other guys were into. We had some parties that were so big. Multiple kegs. Inevitably somebody would call the police and a helicopter would show up and put a spotlight on the backyard where we had a volleyball net. A big trampoline. A cop would come knock on the door, "Excuse me, could you guys keep it down." That was just business as usual.
KA: Well, they would have a party what seemed like every month. And the funny thing was I didn't know them because they were off the show by the time I got there. So we'd meet briefly, but they had some great parties. Their house was like just the place to be. I met a lot of friends through that house.
2. The Power Rangers were paid as much as someone who "worked the window at McDonalds."
The original cast often talks about the long hours and little pay that was given to the actors. In a previous interview, Austin St. John said that production company Saban Entertainment's idea of treating the actors well was just providing a good food spread. It seemed that even getting Christmas off was unclear, and St. John once called surviving these working conditions "Power Ranger Stress Disorder." They were all grateful to have the job, but it was far from easy.
WJ: To be working on a television show and have a regular job, doing 40 episodes a season, that's not something to sneeze at. But when the show is making billions of dollars, when they made about a billion dollars in the first year off of merchandising, and when we have toys and parks and video games and comic books and all these things with our likeness, it starts to come into reason that this should be at least union, so it'll be fair.
ASJ: We weren't paid a lot, at all. I could have worked the window at McDonalds and probably made the same money the first season. It was disappointing, it was frustrating, it made a lot of us angry. [Haim Saban] just had absolutely zero conscience about making billions using our faces because it was his idea and he owned it. He felt like, screw us. I don't want to put works in his mouth but he could not have cared less about making all this money, because he had this ownership. The hell with everybody else who was helping him make that money. That's the way it's always been.
WJ: Right before the film they decided that we would receive contracts. They were not great contracts. They were all non-union, and for a number of films and another 40 episodes, they just weren't suitable. I figured after two seasons we deserved to be a union show and the conversation basically went that we should all get together and talk to representation and have someone represent us for these contracts as group. And that didn't work out. So three of us ended up negotiating and three of us stayed. And eventually what happened is that we just negotiated out of the contracts and moved on.
KA: We worked so much we didn't have time to hang out. When we first got on the show we were doing six days a week, 12 to 15 hour days. So, you had a Sunday. You missed quite a bit of your life just trying to keep up with the production schedule and keep up with the things we had to fulfill in our contracts. I remember I'd go to set and it'd be dark, I'd leave set and it was dark. You were like a machine. You just kept pushing through. I've never worked that hard in my life. it was like the good the bad and the ugly, we kind of got it all.
ASJ: We had a lot of fun. We worked around the damn clock. We worked long, long hard hours on a non-union show. And we'll just never be paid what we should have been paid. And Saban is never going to have a problem about paying us. It is what it is.
3. Austin St. John had to live in his Jeep after he left.
Immediately following the show, the actors weren't left with much to live off. St. John, in particular, had a rough time. But for what it's worth, the actors do feel like it was a worthwhile learning experience.
ASJ: There was a period where I did OK, while I was doing appearances. But once the appearances were over, I pretty much hit rock bottom. That's when I met the starving actor thing. I had a huge success, at least industry success, but was never paid for it. Then I had to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had learned some hard life lessons. I ended up sleeping out of my jeep for awhile with my dog. We found some spots in the Arizona desert while I was bouncing at the time, just bouncing, teaching martial arts. I was sleeping in a riverbed for awhile until a friend of mine took me in and helped me out. Then I slowly had to learn how to be an adult and grow up and handle my responsibilities. Definitely a hard lesson. It was good for me. I hated it at the time, but it was good for me, in retrospect.
4. The Power Rangers would prank each other all the time while on set.
Being a group of young actors forced to hang around each other all day, they'd often try and cut loose and joke around. Jason David Green, the green Power Ranger, was a particularly big prankster on set, tricking David Yost into eating a fly in a sandwich, drawing on Yost's trailer couch and breaking a brush over his head. Walter Jones and Austin St. John's pranks were often more testosterone-fueled.
DY: Well Jason, he and I were like best friends. He had two kids and I often babysat both of his boys so he and his wife could go off and have date night. So, I considered myself their godfather on some level. We were really close and he would prank me all the time. Some of his pranks, they seem extreme, but they are funny. In terms of pranking him back, I don't think I ever did. But he was often the jokester on set for sure.
ASJ: I was definitely the youngest, so I had some foolish teenager moments where I'd be pulling shenanigans. There might have been times i was making noise off set to try and distract them while they were shooting. Other times I'd do something foolish like throw a carrot over the top of the wall into where I knew they were actively shooting and I was just waiting to see what i could disrupt. Walter and I, we pranked one our production assistants by the name of Nick Kellis a lot. We were always getting at one other, somehow somewhere, cracking jokes or beating each other up in the hallway, playfully of course. It was never sinister. It was just a big family so there was a lot of that stuff going on.
WJ: Nick Kellis was a PA that worked on the show. He was just a poor guy trying to do his job coming to get us to take us to the set, and Austin and I would attack him in the hallway. Not to hurt him, just playing. And he was an amazing wrestler, this guy, so there was just a lot of testosterone on the set. We'd just be like punching and little kicks, just tapping, nothing that was going to hurt anybody. He knew anytime he came to pick us up, it was coming. And it became a fun part of our day. Nick was a good sport for always playing a long with it, in fact we're all really good friends to this day.
5. The process to audition for "Power Rangers" was absolutely crazy.
To cast "Power Rangers," Saban held large, open casting calls where thousands of hopeful actors showed up. Members of the winning cast even just showed up on a lark, with Austin St. John, in particular, attending the audition on a dare from a friend. Eventually the actors were whittled down until a few different teams of Power Rangers auditioned against each other. Notably the Black Ranger could have been a "Michael Jackson" type. Moonwalking around putties could have been a possibility. Zordon could have had a crazier voice, although David Fielding's audition was just him versus one other actor. The cast that won originally had a different Yellow Ranger, with actress Audrey Dubois winning the role that would eventually go to Thuy Trang. When Trang left the show along with St. John and Walter Jones, Saban had another huge casting call where they found Karan Ashley.
KA: When I was first auditioning I didn't know much about it. My friend was telling me you got to go audition, so I show up and there are thousands of people at this open call audition. And of course with that, I had to wait in line for quite a few hours. So luckily for me there was a guy who knew all things Power Rangers in line a couple spaces a head of me. And he just basically was so geeked to be there, I just sat and listened to him all day talk about the show. So it gave me a good idea of what the show was.
DF: I had assumed it was going to be just another cattle call like everything else where you go and stand in a line with 500 guys, read a couple lines and then go home and never hear anything. And when I got to the offices of Saban in Burbank, California, I went up to the floor where they were having the audition and it was just me and this other guy in the waiting room. I thought, "Well, this is strange." We got the lines and kind of went to our separate corners and read them. He went in first and did his thing. About 20 to 25 minutes later, he came out and I went in and they had all the original cast and the director and the producers. They had me stand on a table and read the lines. After I had gotten through the lines about handing the kids their powers and stuff, I remember Austin just turning to everybody and going, "I think we found our Zordon." Well, at the time the character was called Zoltar. Then I went home and like an hour and a half later I got a phone call saying I got the part.
And how was standing on that table?
DF: It wasn't awkward. It kind of made sense to me because I got the impression from reading the character description that he was supposed to be a larger than life figure and a mentor to these kids. When I was in the other room going over the lines and overheard the other gentleman practicing his take on the voice, it was crazier than mine. The one that I used, that ended up being used in the show, was much more of a deeper tone. The idea that I had in my head at the time was that he was a very Zeus-like figure, but in a kindly way, not in a vengeful, god-like way. Somebody that was going to be nurturing for these new superheroes.
6. All of Zordon's footage was shot in one day over just a few hours.
DF: For budgetary reasons they never filmed the character again. They just reused the footage over and over. And from a production standpoint, that is great. From an actor's standpoint ... They shaved all my hair off and glued my ears back. And used makeup to make my eyebrows stand out, and then painted the top half of my chest and shoulders green. I sat in front of a green screen while they filmed me because they were just going to use my head and that was it. My recollection is that I was in the chair for three or four hours. Just going over the lines, doing it a number of times and also doing a number of pickups where they would just film my reactions: turning of the head, looking this way, or looking down. And if you watch the character in the show, his movements and his actions seem to be really sort of out of synch with everything. I guess that was sort of their idea -- because the character was trapped in a time warp, in a time bubble, he was trying to communicate with everybody as best as he could.
Top Images: Courtesy of David Fielding. Middle Image: Austin St. John Facebook.
7. The Power Rangers would occasionally go to dance clubs after long days on set. Walter Jones was the best dancer.
Although multiple Power Rangers talked about how exhausted they would be after filming all day and would often have to simply reset at home by watching television and falling asleep, occasionally the cast would go out on the town together.
DY: The first season we'd go out to bars after work on Fridays. Or we'd get dinner on Saturday nights and hang out at whatever the popular dance club was. Walter, hands down, is the best dancer, because he was a professional dancer. Karan could dance, too. I'd probably come in third out of everybody as best dancer.
WJ: If there was dancing to be had, I was probably the best dancer in the group. It's something that I've always done and a passion of mine.
8. Many of the Power Rangers were actually into martial arts and would create their own moves for fight scenes.
All of the actors were chosen for their Power Ranger roles because Saban thought they would be able to fight adequately on screen with little direction. Austin St. John, Jason David Frank and Walter Jones had martial arts backgrounds. To save money, many of the scenes were filmed quickly, which led to little notes as far as fighting and allowed the actors to kind of do their own thing. Walter Jones was given the direction to create a "hip-hop kido" from Saban, but what that meant day to day was mostly up to him.
WJ: It was [Saban's] idea of hip-hop combined with martial arts and dancing. It was something I had to go put some thought to and figure out why I was doing what I was doing and how it would be most effective. Taking a break-dance swipe move -- where you go and you do a flip towards the ground and use your feet to sweep the ground and the air -- is a way to effectively kick two or three people and come to the ground and sweep them. But I'd have to come up with how would this work and how would it be applied. That was one of the funnest parts of the job for me, coming up with new ways to dance and fight at the same time.
The Power Rangers really didn't have much time to figure these fight sequences out.
WJ: It wasn't like a film production where you get two weeks to do a fight and it's choreographed properly. It was like, "OK, so in the script today, you're going to be fighting in the park. Hey, how about you fight on this park bench, can you come up with something?" And so I got 15 minutes, 20 minutes, a half hour, to figure out what I wanted to do. They give me a couple putties. So I put a putty here and I'll do this and he can swing at me and I'll jump down on the seat and do a spin, come back up and punch him. Drop him off, go back up, play like king of the mountain and have another putty come. I'll jump over him, I'll flip over this guy. It was all really improvised and choreographed spontaneously.
9. Why did Zordon want "teenagers with attitude?"
Besides being good fighters, according to the opening sequence, the Power Rangers were supposed to be "teenagers with attitude" as well as "overbearing and over emotional humans." David Fielding explained why he felt Zordon wanted these particular types of people to be chosen for the Power Rangers.
DF: In the opening sequence [the line is something like] "Alpha, teleport to us teenagers with attitude." Then in the actual lines of the show it becomes, "Send me several overbearing and over emotional humans." So he doesn't actually call them teenagers in the lines of the show. But I enjoyed the "teenagers with attitude." It kind of serves as a dual purpose. On one hand, every teenager has an attitude, because they're teenagers; on the other, I think what Zordon was talking about was that he wanted specific personalities to serve as the superheroes. They would be not only capable, but also wouldn't back down. And I think that's an important message for young kids and teenagers: to have somebody who believes in you, and who sees that your attitude can be a strength rather than just something that gets in your way. I think that's what it meant.
10. David Yost was called homophobic slurs on set causing him to eventually quit the show and join a "pray the gay away" program.
David Yost has said that he only missed one day on set over the seasons, but he eventually walked off the show due to years of apparent homophobia from producers and the crew. Eventually, unbeknownst to the other Power Rangers and his close friends, Yost entered a "pray the gay away" program and then checked himself into a hospital.
DY: I was struggling with my sexuality for the majority of my life up to that point. People would say things and there were rumors about my sexuality on set. Or people would make up lies about things I was doing and it would just become upsetting. Because I just wanted to go to work and do my job. I didn't think it was anybody's business what I was doing in my personal life. I can honestly say I wasn't doing anything in my personal life. I wasn't dating anybody or any of that. I do know that a couple of my co-stars were questioned about my sexuality at one point and that was really upsetting to me.
Yost initially tried a religious therapy, but eventually accepted himself.
DY: I had just come to a point where I wasn't in a good place mentally. I just thought it was best that I walk away from the show, because I didn't want to be in an environment anymore that was adding to my stress and adding to me not liking myself. So I left the show and I did try several things to correct being gay, if you will. I tried therapy and that was very unsuccessful and it caused me a lot of emotional stress, more emotional stress than I already had. I ended up having a nervous breakdown and had to check into the hospital for five weeks. After that I started getting my head back together and accepting myself for who I was. Accepting that I was a gay man and that was OK.
11. For the most part, the Power Rangers were there for each other and had each other's backs.
All the Power Rangers I spoke to had fond memories of their cast mates. This was an experience they were happy to get through with each other. Austin St. John and Walter Jones lived in a house together, but they've also said that Jones was sort of a big brother to St. John on the set, and the two would look out for each other if either were acting too foolish. What kinds of foolish things would they get up to?
ASJ: You know, silly stuff, we would just go out and have a couple beers and just be ridiculous. Insanity. Crack jokes, a lot of times at our own expense. Just everybody laughing and having a good time. Sometimes, one of us would get a little too carried away and the other one would be like, "Hey, we should probably reel this in for just a hot second..."
WJ: When he came into the house [St. John] was just turning 18, so he was really young and not experienced and hadn't really acted before. It was kind of a fluke that he got it because i think he came into the audition on a dare. So there was a lot for him to learn and i was a little older than him so i watched his back but he also watched my back. So if either one of us were out of line or just doing a thing that somebody needed to speak about, then we'd take each other to the side.
Karan Ashley has been interviewing people in a series called "Uncensored Talk" and told HuffPost that a video with George Takei is coming soon. What inspired the project? Ashley said, "Luckily for me, I'm meeting all these amazing people at each convention and I'm like, why am I not talking to them."
Random Fact From Interview: "I hoard Aisha barbie dolls."
Random Fact From Interview: After being invited to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the king of Nigeria's reign with other celebrities, the king "gave [them] honorary chieftaincy."
Austin St. John recently returned from working almost four years in Kuwait as a medic. Before that he'd worked as an EMT and fireman in the Washington D.C. area. Lately, he's been re-embracing his connection with the Power Rangers "family."
Random Fact From Interview: On "rare occasions" people he would save as an EMT would ask him if he was Jason and ask, "Holy crap, were you the Red Ranger?"
David Yost has transitioned into producing and was notably a segment producer for "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills." He has also been a proponent of the NOH8 Campaign.
Random Fact From Interview: Despite his character, Billy Cranston, being named after the "Breaking Bad" actor, Bryan Cranston, who provided voices for the show, the two only crossed paths one or twice in the recording studio.
The Huffington Post was able to set up these interviews through Galactic Productions who represent many of the early cast members and manage their convention appearances. Original Power Rangers not spoken to are not members of Galactic Productions. All cast members spoken to are part of the of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, however Karan Ashley joined the cast after the first season. The original Yellow Power Ranger, Thuy Trang, died in a car accident in 2001.
WASHINGTON -- The 2014 midterm elections have been described as among the nastiest and most negative in modern memory. They're also the most expensive. The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that the total price tag for the 2014 election cycle will be at least $3.7 billion -- a sum that includes cash from individual contributors, dark money groups, party committees and political action committees.
In fairness, the stakes are high. Majority control of the Senate hangs in the balance, with voters in 36 states going to the polls Tuesday to elect a senator. Still, that $3.7 billion -- much of which has come, directly or indirectly, via billionaires and thinly veiled corporate interests enjoying the liberties of a post-Citizens United world -- could be spent in a lot of other ways, some of them very worthwhile. Here's what else we could do with $3.7 billion or less.
1. Fight Ebola. Total federal spending on Ebola research dropped from $59 million in 2006 to $42.5 million in 2013, according to Bloomberg News.
Congress recently released an additional $750 million to combat the deadly epidemic, which has claimed nearly 5,000 lives in West Africa. Still, the new allocation plus the existing funding adds up to less than a quarter of the midterms' $3.7 billion price tag.
2. Address the crisis of unaccompanied minors at the border. As it happens, the Obama administration requested $3.7 billion this summer to safely and humanely handle the influx of unaccompanied minors entering the U.S. from war-torn Central American countries. Republicans in the House approved just $659 million -- less than one-fifth of what was requested -- and did so only on the condition that anti-trafficking laws be updated to make it easier to deport children from the United States. As of Tuesday, two competing bills to address the humanitarian crisis remained stalled in the House and Senate.
3. Carry out the Endangered Species Act. Credited with saving the bald eagle and the gray wolf from extinction in the United States, the Endangered Species Act cost $1.7 billion to administer in 2012.
4. Fund the entire federal arts and culture budget. This is the money that funds everything from the Smithsonian Institution to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to the Holocaust Museum. For 2013, the arts and culture budget expanded from $1.5 billion to $1.57 billion -- still less than half of what the 2014 midterms have cost.
5. Feed 2 million Syrian refugees. The U.N. World Food Program needs $352 million before the end of the year to keep Syrian refugees from starving, "as it has completely run out of funds," as an Agence France-Presse report puts it. For those keeping score, $352 million = less than 10 percent of $3.7 billion.
6. Fund a landmark bill to prevent violence against women. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was reauthorized in 2013, allocating $1.6 billion in funding for a number of services, including domestic and sexual violence prevention efforts and hotlines and crisis centers for victims.
7. Save Brazil's Atlantic rain forest. Only 8 percent of the original Atlantic rain forest, one of the world's most threatened ecosystems, remains in eastern Brazil. Researchers estimate it would cost $600 million over three years in order to preserve the region's biodiversity.
Of course, if saving the world isn't your thing (and there's nothing wrong with that), here are a couple more ways to spend $3.7 billion.
8. Buy a few NFL franchises. Earlier this year, after businessman Terry Pegula purchased the Buffalo Bills for $1.4 billion, Forbes magazine estimated that the Carolina Panthers, rumored to be for sale, could fetch up to $1.7 billion.
9. Contribute 3 percent to the annual sales of Koch Industries. That's right, the oil refinery conglomerate owned by billionaire brothers and conservative mega-donors Charles and David Koch reported $115 billion in annual revenue in December 2013, according to Forbes.
The success of Koch Industries, America's second-largest privately held company, has enabled the brothers to build an unparalleled network of conservative political and nonprofit groups. Aided by like-minded donors, the Koch-backed network is on track to spend over $400 million influencing this election.
Sam Stein, Laura Bassett, Mike McAuliff, Kate Sheppard, Nick Wing and Igor Bobic contributed reporting.
Talen Rowan isn't a World War I flying ace, but he sure wears the look well.
The 5-month-old Ohio boy has to wear a helmet for the next seven months as a result of plagiocephaly, a medical condition where flat spots develop on an infant's skull. Thanks to tattoo artist Greg Chadwick, the cranial helmet isn't an awkward medical device -- it's a fashion statement even Snoopy would envy.
Paula Strawn, an artist who paints baby helmets for a living, says the spiffy headgear serve more than a cosmetic purpose.
Instead of adults avoiding contact with the child because of helmet-based awkwardness, she told The Huffington Post in an earlier interview, "Often, it creates an opportunity to have a conversation and explain what the helmet is for and that it is not a scary situation."
Basically, that means there's more to the space than meets the eye. After some sliding and unfolding, that becomes very clear. Watch the video above for proof.
What would Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams' "Drop It Like It's Hot" music video sound like if they dropped the all the music from the track? Well, now you can find out.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City's big-ticket auctions of impressionist and modern art get underway Tuesday night.
Among the blue chip offerings is a still life by Vincent van Gogh painted weeks before his death. There's also a rare sculpture by Alberto Giacometti that could set a new auction record for the Swiss artist. Sotheby's predicts "Still Life, Vase With Daisies and Poppies" could sell for $30 million to $50 million. Van Gogh painted the bouquet of wildflowers at the French home of his physician, Dr. Paul Gachet, in 1890. It's one of the few works the Dutch artist sold during his lifetime.
One of the founders of the Museum of Modern Art, A. Conger Goodyear, acquired it in 1928. It remained in the family for decades and was on permanent exhibition at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, for 30 years. It was purchased by the current owner around 1990.
The auction record for van Gogh is $82.5 million.
The sale also features a major work by Giacometti. "Chariot," a 1951 bronze sculpture of an elongated goddesslike figure perched atop a wheeled chariot, may eclipse the $104.3 million auction record for the artist. Sotheby's predicts it could sell for over $100 million.
The 1951 piece, embellished with paint to enrich the textural quality of the bronze, has been in the same collection for over 40 years. Giacometti made six casts of the "Chariot" during his lifetime. The one for sale is one of only two painted examples.
Another important sculpture at the sale is Amedeo Modigliani's "Tete." The deitylike elongated head was carved in 1911 and 1912 from a block of limestone scavenged from a Paris construction site. It has a presale estimate of $45 million. The auction record for any work by Modigliani is $69 million.
The auction house Bonhams, which is selling more than 700 items from the homes of Lauren Bacall, is offering two Henry Moore sculptures from her collection on Tuesday. The legendary actress' other artwork, jewelry and furniture will be offered for sale in March.
The major fall sales continue Wednesday at Christie's. Among the highlights is a celebrated portrait of a Parisian actress by Edouard Manet. "Spring" has a presale estimate of $25 million to $35 million.
One day before Disney unveils the final "Into the Woods" trailer, the studio has released a slew of character posters from the film, featuring stars Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp. The twist? The posters kind of move! Collect all 10 below; "Into the Woods" is out in theaters on Christmas Day.
FKA Twigs' U.S. network TV debut was one for the books. She brought a powerful, sexy performance to "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" and sang her single, "Two Weeks," from her debut studio album "LP1." Fabric -- "air sculptures" designed by Daniel Wurtzel -- trailed behind her and a mesmerizing light added to the otherworldly feel. Trained as a professional dancer, FKA Twigs' moves were as beautiful as what we've come to expect from her this year.
The following article is provided by Rolling Stone.
By GAVIN EDWARDS
While reporting my recent Rolling Stone feature on Bill Murray, I spent a weekend in Toronto, attending the world premiere of "St. Vincent," going to a screening of "Ghostbusters" at the official "Bill Murray Day," talking to his friends and collaborators, partying with the star at a Toronto nightclub, and conducting an interview with him the next morning. Murray eyed my shirt, which was different than the one I had worn the night before: "You changed," he said, genuinely surprised. We sat in a suite on the 22nd floor of a luxury hotel; he seemed visibly skeptical of the notion of being interviewed, but willing to talk, since we had both ended up in the same room.
Here are 10 things I learned about Bill Murray that weekend that didn't make it into the article:
1. He's moved by his own work.
Not that he wants people to know. Watching "St. Vincent" for the first time with a crowd, he was pleased to discover that they were responding to the story of a crusty, hostile veteran and the young boy next door he ends up befriending. Then he realized he was getting emotional himself: "Oh my God, I'm starting to get tears in my eyes. I'm thinking if the lights come up and I'm crying, that's really bad. That's a really bad moment that I will become infamous for. I'd rather start stabbing myself in the stomach with a pen than cry. I really had to pull it together."
2. He wants to return to the theater.
Asked what he wants to do that he hasn't done yet, Murray immediately said, "Oh, I'd like to write a play." Murray started out doing theater — both in Chicago, where studied with improv guru Del Close, and in New York, where before "Saturday Night Live" he appeared in the theatrical revue "The National Lampoon Show." "It resonates with me," Murray said. "It's where I started and I think it's all theater, in a funny way." Acting in movies suits his short attention span, but he appreciates the immediate, visceral impact of being live in front of an audience: "Writing is stepping back from that because it's mental, it's just words on a page." So does he have a specific play in mind? "Absolutely not," he said, laughing. "That's the problem. I feel like my destiny is to do that, but I haven't gotten around to it.
It took an enormous act of stomach-pen-stabbing will not to quote back his lines from "Tootsie," where he nailed his supporting role as a frustrated playwright: "I wish I had a theater that was only open when it rained" or "I don't like it when people come up to me after my plays and say, 'I really dug your message, man' or 'I really dug your play, man, I cried.' You know, I like it when people come up to me the next day, or a week later, and they say, 'I saw your play. What happened?'"
3. His performance in "St. Vincent" contains elements of his own family.
"I see the whole family lineage in the body, the way everyone moves. I see my brother, my father. I wasn't thinking so much of my grandpa, but he's definitely a formative influence. He used to pop his choppers out. He got his teeth knocked out somehow, and he could make his lower bridge come out and scare the hell out of small children."
4. He doesn't need a morning ride from a Teamster.
Theodore Melfi, the writer and director of "St. Vincent," says while the movie was shooting in New York, Murray gave the production back the money that was allotted for his hotel budget, and stayed instead in the spare room of a friend in Williamsburg. "He rode his 10-speed bike to the set pretty much every day, about a 40-minute ride. He would come to the set sweaty and then just throw on a shirt."
5. Murray's learned how to pace himself onscreen.
Asked if he's improved as an actor (his first lead role in a film was "Meatballs," in 1979, Murray says, "Oh yeah, I'm much better than I was. Sometimes it's hard to look at the old stuff. But that stuff was kind of fiery. It was like an explosion of performance, especially the early improvised ones. I used a lot of energy to get that out. It was great fun." And now? "I'm more efficient doing it. You're still exhausted when you're done, you just track the energy differently. And hopefully there's more depth to everything. You're not in a hurry for it to move — you're comfortable watching it."
6. His feud with Harold Ramis mystified people who knew them both.
Famously, Murray had a huge falling out with Harold Ramis, who had directed him in "Caddyshack" and "Groundhog Day," reconciling shortly before Ramis's death in February. Ivan Reitman, who had collaborated with both of them on "Stripes," "Meatballs," and "Ghostbusters," said, "I still couldn't tell you what the issue was with Harold. Bill could never articulate it to me. I've asked him about it. I even started defending Harold to him. I know he reconciled with Harold before he died, which I was really happy to hear about. But I think [Bill] was going through these big personal changes, and at the same time, he had achieved all the financial success and fame that he wanted in his life — he wanted to be more satisfied as an artist. I think he undersold a bit the sheer artistry of a movie like 'Groundhog Day' or 'Ghostbusters' We don't recognize the brilliance of these performances until 30 years later."
7. He has a system for handling bad actors.
Asked what he does when he's in the middle of a film shoot and he knows it's not going well, Murray said, "Golly, that's hard. It doesn't happen that often, but maybe there's an actor that doesn't get it — you have to adjust a lot, and you try all kinds of things to shake someone out of it without appearing to be attending to them. But if someone's just not on the same page, you have to adjust the relationship, make it a different relationship than the ones in all the rest of the movie. You can't match what they're doing, but you make a movie within the movie with this one character."
8. His attitude to law enforcement has evolved.
"I remember Danny Aykroyd saying a long time ago, 'I embrace the police,' and I thought that was the funniest thing ever. It was so nuts, because he's such a crazy person. But when you're a teenager, the police are only going to get you in trouble. But now I see police, and at the top of their game, they're there to serve and protect. It's like, where's a cop when you need one? Well, you are going to need a cop sometime. You need a cop, and you need safety, and you need order. There can't just be chaos."
9. Murray has reconsidered "The Razor's Edge."
Asked about a mistake he made, Murray hemmed and hawed, but ultimately reached back three decades. "Really, it was a choice. And I don't regret it. I mean, I guess it is a regret, but I don't think it was a wrong thing." The movie in question was "The Razor's Edge," the 1984 adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's autobiographical novel — known as Murray's first real dramatic role, and a movie that he remembers fondly for the location shooting, which included time in Paris, London, and India. Murray says the studio asked if they could retain the story but update it from World War I to the modern era. "John Byrum [the director] wanted to make it in the period," the actor said, "and he was my guy, and the only way I could have done things at the time was to be with my guy. But I saw later that there was something to what they said — I didn't know the people of that era, and the fall of the Archduke [Ferdinand]. But I saw people of the Vietnam era in that book, and that's one of the reasons it touched me. So I guess that was a mistake. I wasn't thinking clearly enough to have a conversation as opposed to rejecting it with ego. The problem with studios is you get this attitude of us versus them: we're the artists and they're just these money-grabbers. But the crazy thing is sometimes they're right."
10. Melissa McCarthy has tried to apply Bill Murray's example in real life.
McCarthy co-stars with Murray in "St. Vincent" (she plays the divorced mother next door) and like Murray, the actress has converted an improv-comedy background into a gloriously unpredictable film career. Still, she was completely overwhelmed by meeting him. "You want to impress him," McCarthy confided. "But don't think you're going to out-funny him, because that's not going to work out well for you. Just because I have basketball shorts on, I'm not going to impress Michael Jordan."
On the last day of shooting "St. Vincent," McCarthy had to leave slightly early — she was scheduled to depart at 5 p.m. so she could make a plane to L.A. and get back to work on "Mike & Molly." Murray didn't just rib her for cutting out: He presented her with a large cake, inscribed "To Melissa, thanks for staying as long as you did." McCarthy relished the moment — and enjoyed it even more after she missed her plane because she stayed on the set late to finish work.
One night after the film wrapped, she and her husband Ben Falcone had two choices for the evening: They could do practical household chores, or they could sit in their backyard "and stare at nothing and talk about nonsense," McCarthy says. "We chose the nonsense. Thank you, Bill Murray, for making me choose randomly and not practically."
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