stars, sex and nudity buzz : 09/26/2012

Lizzy Caplan Tackles "Masters of Sex"

Get ready to see a lot more of Lizzy Caplan, and not just because she’s got a series called “Masters of Sex” coming up.

Tell me about your TV show.

It's called 'Masters of Sex'. It's on Showtime. I don't know the air date. We shot the pilot but we haven't begun shooting the series yet. It's about Masters and Johnson, the famed sex researchers in the 1950s. I play Virginia Johnson and Michael Sheen plays William Masters. It's based on this book, this biography of the two of them, and it is one of the most fascinating stories I've ever read. It is so outlandish, what these two people did, and yet it all really happened. And so I'm very excited to make a show where if anybody's like, 'No, that's unbelievable.' It's like, 'Well, read the book.' Because these people did it. And they did it in real life in Missouri in the '50s.

How did you get your hooks into her? What helped you crack the code as to who she was?

Well, I read the book, and there were little things peppered throughout the book that were pretty strange coincidences. Just little tiny things that wouldn't be mind-blowing but that I started to feel sort of connected to her. And there was something so brave to me about this woman who was so comfortable with her sexuality at a time where women weren't. They had no ownership over their own sexuality. And she was this twice-divorced woman with two kids and a nightclub singer and she sort of hustles her way into this hospital and becomes this doctor's assistant all by virtue of her own moxie and personality.

And she becomes half of what is the most important sex researcher team that I think has ever been. Showing up on set with Michael Sheen, who's an actor who I respect so much – I refer to him as a real actor because he's like played Hamlet and is one of those trained actors. And it felt like the dynamic was already in place because I felt like this scrappy little comedy actress coming in and playing with this big gun. And that was how it was for the two of these people, so before we even started rolling it was like, 'Okay, whoever's casting this show is smart because they're setting up this like power situation like from the get-go.' And Michael and I have since become good buddies and we're gonna have a blast shooting the show. And I'm like ridiculously excited.

Crazy sex fact that you learned as a part of that gig?

The craziest sex fact that I learned as a part of that gig was that before Masters and Johnson kind of blew the lid off this, everybody considered the male orgasm to be the only important orgasm, the only one that mattered. And it's all Freudian s***, like the virginal orgasm was the only one that counted and a clitoral orgasm was bullshit. And like people really lived their lives like that. That's crazy. I'm gonna have to say the word 'clitoral' so many times in the next year.

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Hollywood scriptwriter David S Goyer says Swansea is the real deal
HOLLYWOOD scriptwriter David S Goyer says Swansea will become a key filming destination.

The US screenwriter and director, whose writing credits include the Dark Knight Rises and Blade, believes the 265,000 square feet of stage at Swansea Bay studios in Fabian Way is a huge draw.
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Mr Goyer, who first visited Wales on a bike trip when he was 16, is shooting the historical fantasy Da Vinci's Demons at locations in Swansea, Neath, Port Talbot, including Margam Castle, along with the studios.

It is the first joint production from the premiere cable channel Starz Entertainment and BBC Worldwide Productions and tells a story based on Leonardo da Vinci's life.

Mr Goyer said he was enjoying the experience of filming in Wales — despite the bad weather.

He said: "Wales is becoming more of a filming destination.

Mr Goyer said he would not have been able to film the series in the US as it isn't home to castles as Wales is.

The production has already given the local economy a £20 million cash injection and out of that figure a total of £12 million covers the cost of the wage bill.

A total of £750,000 has been spent on materials on set and the show has created 3,300 temporary jobs along with 163 permanent jobs.

Da Vinci's Demons stars English actor Tom Riley, who has previously appeared in Monroe and Bouquet of Barbed Wire, as the young Da Vinci and Laura Haddock, from Upstairs Downstairs, will play Lucrezia Donati, the mistress of Lorenzo Medici and lover of Leonardo da Vinci.

Mr Goyer, who is no stranger to working on films about comic book heroes, says the Da Vinci story would have a modern twist.

"We are treating Da Vinci as if he was the first superhero," he said. "It's one part Da Vinci and one part Sherlock Holmes — there's a lot more action than people expect.

"The Da Vinci story we have is based on historical fact and has a compressed timeline."

He revealed viewers can expect the show to be filled with mystery and sexual intrigue.

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Kylie Minogue bares her derrière in artist's short film.
Kylie Minogue has bared her famous derrière in a new short film by British artist Katerina Jebb.

In the seductive black-and-white short, entitled Simulacrum and Hyperbole, the 44-year-old singer can be seen climbing a staircase wearing a backless gown which exposes her rear.

A voiceover is heard asking: "Are your assets fully covered? Protect and cover the things that are most dear to you. Don't wait until tomorrow. Beautiful body of London."

The star, who premiered her new music video for 'Flowers' yesterday (September 25), is currently starring in the feature length movie Holy Motors.

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Singer Andy Williams Dies

“Moon River” singer Andy Williams died Tuesday at the age of 84. The cause was bladder cancer. Williams was one of the most popular singers of the 1960s after recording “Moon River” in 1961, written by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini. In the 1970s and ’80s, he sang on Christmas specials and hosted the Grammys, the Golden Globes, and the People’s Choice Awards. In the late 1970s he made headlines when he stood by his ex-wife, French-born singer and dancer Claudine Longet, was charged with fatally shooting her boyfriend in Aspen, Colo.


Mr.Williams suave touch on Frankie Valli's Can't Take My Eyes off You

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Camilla Belle                  Net Worth (2012): $2.5 Million

Born on: Oct 02, 1986 (Age: 25) Libra 

Born in: Los Angeles, California 

Marital status: Single  

Occupation: Actress

Though she is a modern and chic actress, Camilla Belle has been introduced to the world audiences as the prehistoric babe with a perfect body in 10,000 BC. Those who are a bit more into Hollywood and movies will also know her as the brave babysitter who fights against a psychotic intruder in the movie When a stranger calls.
With more than 25 titles in her filmography and 5 more at various stages of completion, acting is definitely the mode through which Camilla fills her wallet! Having a perfect, 'model' figure, she is also sought after for commercial endorsements. Till 2009, she was the face of the Vera Wang Princess perfume line. She has also shot a music video, Lovebug for Joe Jonas' band.
One cannot expect a lady who does not even depend on a professional stuntperson for doing her stunts to spend her parent's or boyfriend's money! She is very intelligent when it comes to spending. She has not lavished on a house for herself. However, she seems to have a weakness for cars and BMWs at that! She has been spotted at the wheel of the BMW Mini Cooper and the BMW 325i Convertible. Like any girl out of teenage years, she seems to love being a tourist and she has been spotted in Malaysia, riverside Indio and New York. One important aspect of her personality is her warm, caring and giving personality. She designs beautiful jewelry with Lori Leavitt, a designer, to support the poor children in Malawi via the organisation, H.E.L.P. She also supports Kids with a Cause, Free the slaves and Artists for Peace and Justice.
Ms. Belle's life has been one of focus and getting one's priorities right. She was born as a daughter to a fashion-designing mother and a construction company-owner father. She got her first exposure in a national print ad when she was 9 months old! That translated in her growing up into television shows (Deconstructing Sarah, Marshal Law etc.) even as a kid. The early success did not go into her head and deter her from studies. Along with her studies, she graduated into movies, doing good roles in Alfonso Cuaron's A Little Princess and Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park. She kept up with academics, taking piano lessons even as she continued with her acting success; Disney's Rip Girls which gave her a Young Artist acting nomination being a case to point. Then came a break of 3 years after which she returned strongly with The Ballad of Jack and Rose,When a Stranger Calls and 10,000 BC. She had a brief, 1-year relationship with Joe Jonas. The relationship ended but it looks like Belle's career is just taking off in the right direction.

* The rich and famous and their net value. All the details here

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Fans are making trailers like crazy featuring their favorite stars as Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele.

However, someone went out of their way to create an actual fan-made movie.

The short film, "Fifty Shades of Grey - We Aim to Please," has gained increased popularity.

Fifty Shades Film recently reposted the teaser, and full youtube trailers and first seven minutes of the short film.

According to the Facebook page, the low-budget film stars Emily Sandifer and TJ Dalrymple as Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. It was directed by Nicholas Acosta and made by Unrendered Media, Baku Pictures, and Hero Pictures.

Fifty Shades Film gave praise for the film:
"This small production company has done an AMAZING job at giving us a SMALL taste of what we might see on the big screen once the real movie is released!
We really love hearing all the iconic lines and getting a glimpse of our favorite scenes!!"

While this is not the real movie that will be released in theaters, it gives fans something to think about while waiting for more information about the hotly anticipated film.

The pictures on the Facebook page really give an inkling to how Anastasia will look while tied up with Christian's favorite Grey tie. They also give a hint into what might look like the bathtub scene.




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Rita Wilson says no to nudity on 'Girls'. What other actresses have no-nudity contracts?

Girls doesn’t return until January,  but we’ve got some new gossip coming out from the set to tide us over: Rita Wilson will be guesting on the show this season as Marnie’s (Allison Williams) mom.
While that’s exciting enough the real story is Wilson’s contract.  Reportedly, it stipulates that the actress won’t appear nude on a program that is buzzy for all the stripping down. “I [wanted] it put in my contract . . . [They] don’t want to see me nude,” Wilson told US Weekly. “That’s all I have to say. I’m like, ‘Don’t write in any nudity, please!”
If she’s a fan, Wilson knows what she is getting into. It’s not just the twenty-somethings who are constantly without pants on HBO’s Emmy-nominated hit.  Hannah’s (Lena Dunham) parents were on the show this past season, and they were nude in one seriously uncomfortable shower scene.
That got us thinking: What other actresses have a “no-nudity” clause in their contracts (We wanted to look at men as well, but information was much more scarce.) While many actresses have stripped down as part of roles to great critical acclaim (Kate Winslet, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams), below are just a few who’ve said they’ll never appear nude on camera:
1.)    Sarah Jessica Parker: The woman most famously tied to sex on TV never actually appeared nude on Sex and The City. People reports she has a strict no-nudity clause in her contract.
2.)    Jessica Alba: “I don’t do nudity. I just don’t. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won’t get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety” she told Elle.
3.)   Kirsten Dunst: She was asked about a no-nudity contract and said, “Yeah, I’m always very careful about that, definitely….I would never do that and [producers] knew that.” (Although later, she did appear nude in Melancholia.)
4.)   Isla Fisher: “I feel like if you have a female comic character and then you see her nipples, then she is no longer funny, which is clearly wrong, but that was my theory, and that’s why I didn’t want to do it” she’s said. (The actress used a body double in Wedding Crashers).
5.)   Allison Williams: If Wilson won’t appear nude, she won’t be alone on the HBO show. Reportedly, Allison Williams also won’t be showing her, err… girls. Obvious to anyone who watches the program – or even caught the Emmys Sunday – Dunham certainly has no such qualms.

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Fantastic Fest Review: Award-Winning 'Vanishing Waves' Is a Beautifully Trippy MelodramaBy definition, cinema implants experiences in the minds of its viewers, so it follows that movies about characters burrowing into the subconscious of unwitting subjects naturally fit the medium. From "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" to "Inception," contemporary movies have embraced this loopy fantasy by illustrating the improbable journey in exciting, magical terms. "Vanishing Waves," the sophomore feature from Lithuanian director Kristina Buozyte, takes the opposite tact, depicting a tragic story of impossible love by hitting dark, elegiac notes without negating the inherent trippiness of the scenario. Both disturbingly surreal and hauntingly beautiful, "Vanishing Waves" finds that the human psyche is a severely haunted house.

Then again, the mind in question is significantly more haunted than most. While the doe-eyed Aurora (Jura Jutaie) lies dormant in a coma in the wake of a debilitating auto accident, a group of enigmatic scientists cluster around her, attempting to inject their conscious subject Lukas (Marius Jampolskis) into her mind by attaching diodes to his head and dunking him into a damp sensory deprivation chamber. As the scientists scrutinize 3D models on old-fashioned computer monitors, "Vanishing Waves" takes the focus off the precise meaning of their study and instead foregrounds the impact it has on the unsuspecting Lukas.

Unlike the slow-burn experimentation found under similar circumstances in "Altered States," the scenario in "Vanishing Waves" yields instant success, and a startled Lukas finds himself not only literally gazing into Aurora's mind's eye but cavorting with her in the nude and quickly falling for her erotic appeal. Each bonding session with Aurora ends with a rude awakening, as Lukas is pulled out of his dream state and peppered with questions from the doctors around him. Both startled and aware that he may have crossed a vaguely defined ethical boundary, Lukas keeps the details of his missions into Aurora's mind a secret -- but we take the trip with him each time.

Little else happens in "Vanishing Waves," but Lukas' real life love affair suffers from the strain of his bizarre newfound attraction and as the researchers grow dubious about his motives, the stakes inch higher. In favor of prolonged exposition, "Vanishing Waves" frequently turns to a series of increasingly disorienting sequences depicting Lukas' encounters with Aurora. Although they exchange few words, their bond develops a profound dimension that Buozyte depicts with swirling camerawork and shadowy, inexplicable moments that take on an ominous edge as Lukas gets closer to Aurora's emotional core.

While he locks lips with her from their first encounter, as he gets further invested in her past, he discovers its creepier mysteries, at one point stumbling into a seething mass of nude bodies and getting trapped in a claustrophobic orgy of her own making. Although Lukas makes feeble attempts to fully comprehend the everything he sees, he knows that he has started to care and worry about her disturbed state. Jampolskis' nuanced performance draws out Lukas' increasing shift from confused lab rat to committed lover eager to rescue his damsel in distress from the specter of death.

Oscillating between the austere laboratory setting and the murky palette of Aurora's mind, "Vanishing Waves" threatens to bludgeon its dreary scenario into a lifeless state by way of redundancies. But with their joint commitment rendered in expressionistic terms, Lukas' investment in his attempts to save Aurora from certain death take root in a consistent stream of feelings rendered with poetic imagery. Constantly drawn to his dream life with Aurora, Lukas wanders through each scene in a dazed state, and we're stuck their with him. Rarely does a final credits sequence arrive like such a harsh wakeup call.

Criticwire grade: A-

HOW WILL IT PLAY? "Vanishing Waves" made its U.S. premiere over the weekend at Fantastic Fest, where it won a top jury prize. Artsploitation Films plans to release the movie early next year, but it will likely struggle to find an audience in North America due to its grim, arty sci-fi mold. It stands a good chance of garnering further acclaim on the festival circuit.


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Ellen Hollman
* for more go here

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I made more money waitressing than posing for the camera: One model reveals the financial realities of her career

by Sadie Whitelocks

A model has revealed the financial hardships that she faced as a result of her career and how she overcame them.Ashley Stetts from Toronto, Canada, was signed by Ford Models aged 18, and after graduating from university she moved to New York to pursue a modelling career.

But far from enjoying a high-flying lifestyle, she found herself struggling to make ends meet, and was shocked to discover that she could earn more as a cocktail waitress than she could on the catwalk.

Survival of the fittest: Ashley Stetts (center) has revealed the financial challenges she faced while working as a model in New York

Ms Stetts revealed in an article on the Huffington Post that once she moved to Manhattan, she decided to supplement her income doing bottle service at a popular club and started raking in more than $1,000 a night .

Meanwhile the standard day rate for a magazine shoot was usually around $100 to $400.

She writes: 'I was making more money working three nights a week than at any kind of entry-level job my degree could afford me.

'I happily settled into my role of the stereotypical New York model/waitress, making a combined income of a healthy six figures.'

During the eight years she has worked a model, Ms Stetts says she is disappointed with the way many designers offer clothing instead of paying cash to the men and women they recruit for their runway shows.

As a result many models are forced to live in tiny apartments with several others, just so they can pay the bills.

'In reality, most models spend their days schlepping to casting after casting, usually being rejected from each one,' she said.

'They live in model apartments with three other girls, and only eat celery for dinner because they can't afford much else.'

Career high: When she first moved to Manhattan Ms Stetts was paid $250 to front Women's Health Magazine

Size 4 Ms Stetts admits that over the years she has secured a number of financially rewarding modelling assignments.

In her late teens she was paid $250 to front Women's Health Magazine's Get Fit Faster! issue, posing in briefs and a cotton tee.

And today she gets consistent work as a fitting model - wearing prototypes so fashion designers can check the fit and drape of clothing before they go to market - which pays $250 an hour.

However she highlights that the high paying jobs are few and far between.

Luckily Ms Stetts' waitressing work - which she has since quit - helped her stay financially afloat and she has built up a healthy savings account.

She is currently modelling full-time while investing energy into her website The Frugal Model, which offers financial advice to other young people in her position.

Self-reflection: Ms Stetts says that now she is nearing thirty she is worried that her modelling days could soon be over

Bearing the strapline 'saving never looked this good' the site recommends everything from budget beauty tips to homemade hair treatments.

She says that the main reason many of her model friends have no money and a lot of debt, is that they have no idea how to invest their wages wisely.

'When you make money this easily, you don't value it as much - it's easy come, easy go. I know a lot of girls who have no savings and lots of debt:

'They get excited by the money, so they start buying expensive things, but then they lose their clients and freak out,' she revealed.

She adds that now she is nearing thirty she is becoming increasingly concerned that her modelling days will soon be over.

However with no relevant experience in a different industry, she fears that it will be difficult to change careers.

She reflects: 'Sometimes I wish I had graduated and taken an entry-level job at a company where I could have climbed the ladder... but I wouldn't have been able to enjoy my 20's and live it up in NYC the way I have - and that's an experience I wouldn't trade for the world.'

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Breasts: The Real Reason Men Love Them 

Jokes about breasts, and men looking at breasts, are such a comedy staple they've become a kind of go-to cliché. How many times have we seen a man talking to a curvaceous woman only to have her point to her own eyes and say "Hey, buddy, up here!"?

It's funny -- or, at least, it was funny the first dozen times we saw it -- because it's true. The male eye does have a way of drifting south. But why? Why are heterosexual men so fascinated by women's breasts that we sometimes act as if the breasts are the seat of the soul?

Well, we happen to be heterosexual men. We also happen to be men interested in biology -- one of us, Larry, is one of the world's leading experts in the neuroscience of social bonding. So we've been thinking about this, and, in our new book, The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex, and the Science of Attraction, we propose an answer.

Biologically speaking, this human male breast obsession is pretty weird. Men are the only male mammals fascinated by breasts in a sexual context. Women are the only female mammals whose breasts become enlarged at puberty, independent of pregnancy. We are also the only species in which males caress, massage and even orally stimulate the female breasts during foreplay and sex.

Women do seem to enjoy the attention, at least at the right moments. When Roy Levin, of the University of Sheffield, and Cindy Meston, of the University of Texas, polled 301 people -- including 153 women -- they found that stimulating the breasts or nipples enhanced sexual arousal in about 82 percent of the women. Nearly 60 percent explicitly asked to have their nipples touched.

Men are generally pretty happy to oblige. As the success of Hooters, "men's" magazines, a kajillion websites, and about 10,000 years of art tell us, men are extremely drawn to breasts, and not because boys learn on the playground that breasts are something that they should be interested in. It's biological and deeply engrained in our brain. In fact, research indicates that when we're confronted with breasts, or even breast-related stimuli, like bras, we'll start making bad decisions (and not just to eat at Hooters).

For example, in one study, men were offered money payouts. They could have a few Euros right away, or, if they agreed to wait a few days, more Euros later. In this version of a classic "delayed gratification" (also called intertemporal choice by behavioral economists) experiment, some men watched videos of pastoral scenes while others watched videos of attractive women with lots of skin exposed running in slo-mo, "Baywatch" style. The men who watched the women's breasts doing what women's breasts do opted for the smaller-sooner payouts significantly more often then men who watched the pastoral scene.

This likely indicates that parts of their brains associated with "reward," the pleasure centers, and the sites of goal-directed motivation, were shouting down the reasoning centers of their brains, primarily the pre-frontal cortex. Neurochemicals were activating those reward and motivational circuits to drive men toward taking the short money.

So breasts are mighty tempting. But what purpose could this possibly serve?

Some evolutionary biologists have suggested that full breasts store needed fat, which, in turn, signals to a man that a woman is in good health and therefore a top-notch prospect to bear and raise children. But men aren't known for being particularly choosy about sex partners. After all, sperm is cheap. Since we don't get pregnant, and bear children, it doesn't cost us much to spread it around. If the main goal of sex -- evolutionarily speaking -- is to pass along one's genes, it would make more sense to have sex with as many women as possible, regardless of whether or not they looked like last month's Playmate.

Another hypothesis is based on the idea that most primates have sex with the male entering from behind. This may explain why some female monkeys display elaborate rear-end advertising. In humans, goes the argument, breasts became larger to mimic the contours of a woman's rear.

We think both of these explanations are bunk! Rather, there's only one neurological explanation, and it has to do with brain mechanisms that promote the powerful bond of a mother to her infant.

When a woman gives birth, her newborn will engage in some pretty elaborate manipulations of its mother's breasts. This stimulation sends signals along nerves and into the brain. There, the signals trigger the release of a neurochemical called oxytocin from the brain's hypothalamus. This oxytocin release eventually stimulates smooth muscles in a woman's breasts to eject milk, making it available to her nursing baby.

But oxytocin release has other effects, too. When released at the baby's instigation, the attention of the mother focuses on her baby. The infant becomes the most important thing in the world. Oxytocin, acting in concert with dopamine, also helps imprint the newborn's face, smell and sounds in the mother's reward circuitry, making nursing and nurturing a feel-good experience, motivating her to keep doing it and forging the mother-infant bond. This bond is not only the most beautiful of all social bonds, it can also be the most enduring, lasting a lifetime.

Another human oddity is that we're among the very rare animals that have sex face-to-face, looking into each other's eyes. We believe this quirk of human sexuality has evolved to exploit the ancient mother-infant bonding brain circuitry as a way to help form bonds between lovers.

When a partner touches, massages or nibbles a woman's breasts, it sparks the same series of brain events as nursing. Oxytocin focuses the brain's attention to the partner's face, smell, and voice. The combination of oxytocin release from breast stimulation, and the surge of dopamine from the excitement of foreplay and face-to-face sex, help create an association of the lover's face and eyes with the pleasurable feelings, building a bond in the women's brain.

So joke all you want, but our fascination with your breasts, far from being creepy, is an unconscious evolutionary drive prompting us to activate powerful bonding circuits that help create a loving, nurturing bond.

For more, including the male side of this equation, see our book, "The Chemistry Between Us."

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