CineVegas Café Series, Angels & Demons Review, Opus Dei Mass, Shia LaBeouf Wants to Marry His Mother, Casey Anthony’s Deluded Parents, and more…

 

CineVegas Café Series at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

 

In anticipation of its 11th annual festival, CineVegas has teamed up with The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for the CineVegas Café Series, a weekly event featuring conversations with local film experts, giveaways and chances to win Locals Ticket Packages to this year’s Festival. All four events are held at different The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf locations around the Las Vegas valley and give film-goers and coffee-lovers the opportunity to enjoy their favorite drinks while learning about CineVegas 2009. Those who attend all four events will be entered to win a grand prize at the final event, which includes a pair of all-access Royal Flush passes and a hotel room to use during the Festival.

 

The series kicked off on Saturday, May 9 at The District at Green Valley Ranch with CineVegas Artistic Director Trevor Groth. On Saturday May 16, the Canyon Point location in Summerlin welcomed local screenwriter Sean Clark and local director Gary Nelson.

 

Continuing the series on Saturday, May 30 from 11am – 12 noon at the Town Square location is local writer/director/producer David Schmoeller. Schmoeller is currently an Associate Professor of film production at the UNLV and runs the Film Department’s UNLV Short Film Archive.

 

Concluding the series on Thursday, June 4 from 7pm – 8pm at the UNLV location of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf will be Mike Plante, associate director of programming for CineVegas.

 

About CineVegas.

 

The 11th Annual CineVegas Film Festival will be held June 10 – 15, 2009 at the Palms Casino Resort and Brenden Theatres in Las Vegas. The CineVegas Film Festival is a platform for artists and art lovers who are drawn to the edge. Held amidst the unique, unpredictable and intoxicating environment that is Las Vegas, the CineVegas Film Festival pushes the boundaries of cinema. Robin Greenspun (pictured) serves as the festival’s President, Trevor Groth serves as Artistic Director and Dennis Hopper serves as the Chairman of the Creative Advisory Board. For more information on the CineVegas Film Festival, please call 888-8VEGAS8 or visit www.cinevegas.com.

 

The 11th installment of Vegas Fest to open with World Premiere of Hue Rhodes’ “Saint John of Las Vegas” starring Steve Buscemi (pictured), Sarah Silverman, Romany Malco, Peter Dinklage, Tim Blake Nelson, John Cho and Emmanuelle Chriqui.

 

Angels & Demons.

 

A tedious bore. Too slow and too many words. A farfetched medieval history lesson. Robert Langdon saves the Catholic Church!

 

The Catholic Church has nothing to worry about with this second movie by Dan “The Da Vinci Code” Brown. It’s a tedious bore.

 

There are enough scientific blunders that even atheists will shudder. It appears that screenwriters David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman just got lazy and put every bit of dialogue and historical background from the book in the script. Instead of creating drama or building a thriller, the director, Ron Howard, had to goose up the film with loud, orchestrated music and lots of running.

 

Tom Hanks is back as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon. He got a haircut. Apparently, the Vatican, hit on its snout with a blasphemous secret previously exposed by Langdon, has forgiven him. The Vatican is being threatened by the Illuminati, a secret organization the Church squashed centuries ago.

 

They’re baaaack!

 

Langdon might be identified as a symbologist, but he’s really an authority on the Catholic Church. Sadly, it falls to him to tell us everything about the Church’s history, religious art, medieval painters, popes, the Illuminati, the Higgs boson, and the city map of Rome.

 

With a teasing symbol, a poem, and some mumbo-jumbo language to decipher, the Vatican summons Langdon to Rome via private jet. He goes, but what he really wants is access to the super-secret Vatican archives. All the medieval treasures are kept there, even Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s marriage certificate. It’s second only to the mythic royal library at Alexandria.

 

 

 

Julius Caesar burned down the Alexandria library; the Vatican library has Langdon. He brings a juicy, ketchup-dripping Whooper, coffee, cigarettes, a briefcase of junk, and a thieving scientist. He doesn’t bother with gloves as he manhandles priceless manuscripts and rummages through the bookcases. The Vatican Library has fired all archivists due to the economical downturn.

 

I will never lend Langdon a book of mine!          

 

The pope has died, and coincidentally, antimatter has been stolen from the Large Hadron Collider*. Italian scientist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer, pictured) is the only one who can stop the antimatter from destroying mankind or Vatican City. The Illuminati has stolen the antimatter and is threatening to kill four kidnapped cardinals. The clock is ticking: the antimatter’s battery is running out and a cardinal will be killed every few hours. 

 

Langdon is five minutes late to every killing! I’ve been to Rome many times, and traffic is a bitch! I understand. Pedestrians do not have the right-of-way.

 

We never get a sense about the threat posed by the Illuminati. Too bad, it could have been “Angels & Demons” sinister secret society like “The Da Vinci Code’s” Opus Dei. The cardinals, the priests, the Swiss guards, the Vatican police, and the dead pope are all formless, scene-crowding figures. Langdon and Vittoria are left running through Rome searching empty churches for clues.

 

Hanks let his trust in Howard override what he surely knew was too much dialogue for his character. That’s Screenwriting 101 – the star never explains!

 

As for Robert Langdon, he’s back at Harvard but I understand that he’ll be investigating a rogue group of Catholic priests who have reinstated The Inquisition.

 

I’ve been watching The Large Hadron Collider and believe it is The Doomsday Machine.

 

Some scientists went to the European Court for Human Rights to put a halt in turning on the collider. These troublesome scientists sought “a restraining order for fear that it may create a black hole that will suck life and could swallow the Earth”. That’s right! Suck life and could swallow the Earth.

 

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) laughed at the thought of creating a black hole or stranglet that could destroy the planet. The LHC, the world's largest energy particle accelerator complex, was turned on September 10, 2008.

 

We got a reprieve! The LHC went offline in September 2008 when a faulty electrical connection between two of its magnets caused a malfunction in the cooling system that led to a helium leak. By CERN’s latest reckoning, the system will be turned on again in late September 2009.

 

Get ready for the End of the World parties!

 

Opus Dei.

 

Most people know about Opus Dei (The Work of God) from Dan Brown’s hysterical The Da Vinci Code book and movie. Remember that crazy-eyed albino, self-flagellating assassin-monk? (Opus Dei is not a monastic order and has no monks.) Brown’s vicious attacks on Opus Dei and the prelature’s responses can be found by going here: http://www.opusdei.us/art.php?p=6437. Opus Dei’s main activity consists in offering its members, and other people, the spiritual means they need to live as good Christians in the midst of the world.

 

The Las Vegas Opus Dei will hold a day of recollection for ladies on Saturday, May 23, at 9:00 am. The recollection will be held at the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer (http://www.lasvegas-diocese.org/parishes_shrine_holy.html). It will consist of two spiritual talks given by a priest of Opus Dei, a class given by a lay person, and Holy Mass. There will be opportunity for Confession and spiritual direction beginning at 8:30 am. The activity should end around noon.

 

I’ve been to an Opus Dei mass and I can assure you that, if you are interested or just curious, there is no attempt to solicit donations or members.

 

Casey Anthony’s Deluded Parents.

 

If, like me, you are obsessively following the Casey Anthony saga (www.thecayleedaily.com) and are furious about the way the “alleged” Tot Killer’s parents (and Casey’s hyena laughing brother Lee) are cashing in on the death of their granddaughter Caylee, please go to http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-air-time-for-anthony-family.

 

Cindy and George Anthony were on Larry King Live on Wednesday, May 12, and the petition (as of Wednesday there were 1,108 signatures) was started to alert the media about how angry the public was about the Anthony’s deceitful ploy to tell lies and influence the jury pool. Cindy and George have started a charity, The Caylee Marie Anthony Foundation, and brought a boat to search for missing children! Their granddaughter never “went missing”, but was “allegedly” killed and the body hidden by their daughter – at least this is what America thinks. They are underestimating the public’s hatred for their daughter.

 

At the end of Larry King’s show, 95% of people answered “YES” to the quick vote question: “Do you think Casey Anthony will be convicted of murder?”

 

Also, if you want to start your own petition, www.thepetitionsite.com is the website for you.

 

Shia LaBeouf Wants to Marry His Mother!

 

Shia is the young star of “Transformers”, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and the “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” co-starring the newest sex goddess, Megan Fox. (Manufactured Megan will soon overtake Angelina Jolie as the sexiest woman on our planet and she brags she is bisexual! No actual talent is expected or required.)

 

Shia is the new Ben Affleck and by that I mean he will be a mega-movie star because someone in power in Hollywood has ordained it. The public hasn’t been consulted. It is not up to ticket buyers. It has been ordained by Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay.

 

Under a headline that reads “Shia LaBeouf’s Childhood Deserves an NC-17 Rating," Star celebrity magazine reports that the "Transformers" star tells Playboy in its June issue that his mom is the sexiest woman he knows. How brave and wonderful of Shia to defend his mother’s appearance in an environment that puts such harsh judgments on one’s physical appearance.

 

"She's an ethereal angel," he says of his mother, a former ballerina. "Nobody looks like that woman. If I could meet my mother and marry her, I would. I would be with my mother now, if she weren't my mother, as sick as that sounds."

 

In a candid new interview, LaBeouf reveals how his hippie mother would often walk around their home naked — even when he had friends over to play.

 

"The nudity was weird, especially when her friends came over," he tells Playboy. "All of them would just be naked around the house. That was strange for me, and it was really bizarre when my friends were there.

 

"You've got your little buds over, and Mom's, like, playing naked connect the dots or whatever. She's in the middle of goddess-group time, where it's literally a bunch of naked women tracing auras around one another's bodies with incense and then sitting together and humming for prolonged periods of time."

 

Okay, that part is weird!

 

LaBeouf also reveals how his parents were open about their drug use. "I grew up with a bunch of hippies, and marijuana was always around," he says. "Pot was never looked at as a negative thing. I could smoke it on holidays with my parents, and we were all good. I like pot. It has never been a monster for me. I can put limits on it. But I definitely saw from a very young age what drugs can do to you."