Capsule reviews of new releases
• Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic
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“New Year’s Eve” This is the second in a remarkably shallow series of holiday-themed, celebrity-stuffed confections, following “Valentine’s Day.” Garry Marshall again directs a script by Katherine Fugate that weaves together a dozen or so plotlines that crisscross a holiday prone to sentimentalizing. If there is some kind of world record for schmaltz, this may have set it. Included here are first kisses, midnight rendezvous, dying fathers, newborn babies, husbands at war and trapped strangers. It’s narcotic mawkishness, with notes played on heartstrings like a 12-string guitar. Though it’s pure, rosy fantasy on screen, this is cynical, paint-by-the-numbers entertainment, sold with a gaggle of stars spread across its movie poster like a telethon lineup. Among them: Hilary Swank as a producer of the Times Square ball drop, Jon Bon Jovi as a rock star, Katherine Heigl as a catering chef, Abigail Breslin as Sarah Jessica Parker’s rebelling teenage daughter, Zac Efron as an ultra-confident courier, Jessica Biel as Seth Meyers’ pregnant wife and Halle Berry as the nurse of a dying Robert De Niro. Maybe the really good stuff will come once they get to “Columbus Day,” or maybe, just maybe, “Ash Wednesday.” PG-13 for language, including some sexual references. 117 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
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• Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” Gary Oldman is in a tough spot here. As the ironically named George Smiley, he’s an inherently reticent, veteran operative, given to revealing nothing personally or professionally. And yet, as the central figure in this adaptation of John le Carre’s best-selling 1974 Cold War novel, he must serve as our conduit, our guide through a shadowy and increasingly dangerous world where no one is to be trusted and nothing is as it initially seems. Because he’s Gary Oldman and he’s such a chameleon, he finds a slyness beneath the stoic veneer, a frightening intelligence that makes him a surprisingly formidable force. Oldman leads an excellent cast, a veritable who’s-who of top British actors working today, all of whom keep us guessing as to who the traitor might be among them. Tomas Alfredson, perhaps best known for directing the superb Swedish vampire thriller “Let the Right One In,” has crafted a precisely detailed, well-acted mystery. But he’s created a chilly mood that may be a bit too cold, a tension that may almost be too restrained. Smiley, who’s been forced into retirement by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, is rehired to uncover a mole among its ranks. Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Ciaran Hinds and David Dencik are the suspects. R for violence, some sexuality/nudity and language. 127 minutes. Three stars out of four.
“Young Adult” Gorgeous but damaged, conceited yet self-loathing, Charlize Theron dares you to like her, and the movie itself dares you to stick with an anti-heroine who makes no apologies for her deplorable behavior. It’s an exciting thing to see, this willful rejection of tidy character arcs and happy endings, and it actually makes you wish “Young Adult” had been even further fleshed out and gone on a little longer. This is not something we say about a movie very often. In re-teaming with “Juno” director Jason Reitman, screenwriter Diablo Cody dials down the snark that marked the Oscar-winning script that made her a superstar in her own right. She’s actually created the anti-Juno in a lot of ways while managing to retain much of the directness, the sharply drawn characters and the casual poignancy that are her signatures. Theron’s teen-lit writer Mavis Gary is as verbal as Juno MacGuff was, but rather than finding the perfect, clever quip at all times, she usually manages to say the rudest, most inappropriate thing. This trait is on vivid, horrific display when she returns to her Minnesota small town to pry her high-school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson) away from his wife (Elizabeth Reaser) and newborn daughter. Patton Oswalt is excellent as Mavis’ nerdy former classmate and the film’s voice of reason. R for language and some sexual content. 94 minutes. Three stars out of four.
• Jake Coyle, AP Entertainment Writer
Celeb birthdays for the week of Jan. 22-28
Jan. 22: Actress Piper Laurie is 80. Actor Seymour Cassel is 77. Actor John Hurt is 72. Singer Steve Perry (Journey) is 63. Bassist Teddy Gentry of Alabama is 60. Actress Linda Blair is 53. Actress Diane Lane is 47. Country singer Regina Nicks of Regina Regina is 47. Rap DJ-actor Jazzy Jeff is 47. Singer Marc Gay of Shai is 43. Actor Balthazar Getty is 37. Actor Christopher Kennedy Masterson (”Malcolm in the Middle”) is 32. Singer Willa Ford is 31. Actress Beverley Mitchell (”Seventh Heaven”) is 31. Guitarist Ben Moody of The Fallen (and Evanescence) is 31. Actress Sami Gayle (”Blue Bloods”) is 16.
Jan. 23: Actress Chita Rivera is 79. Actor Gil Gerard is 69. Actor Rutger Hauer is 68. Singer Anita Pointer of the Pointer Sisters is 64. Bassist-keyboardist Bill Cunningham of The Box Tops is 62. Actor Richard Dean Anderson (”MacGyver”) is 62. Singer-guitarist Robin Zander of Cheap Trick is 59. Singer Anita Baker is 54. Bassist Earl Falconer of UB40 is 53. Actress Gail O’Grady (”American Dreams,” “NYPD Blue”) is 49. Actress Mariska Hargitay is 48. Singer Marc Nelson (Az Yet) is 41. Actress Tiffani Thiessen is 38. Bassist Nick Harmer of Death Cab for Cutie is 37.
Jan. 24: Actor Ernest Borgnine is 95. Cajun fiddler Doug Kershaw is 76. Singer Ray Stevens is 73. Singer Aaron Neville is 71. Singer Neil Diamond is 71. Actor Michael Ontkean (”Twin Peaks”) is 66. Country singer-songwriter Becky Hobbs is 62. Comedian Yakov Smirnoff is 61. Keyboardist Jools Holland (Squeeze) is 54. Actress Nastassja Kinski is 53. Drummer Keech Rainwater of Lonestar is 49. Singer Sleepy Brown of Society of Soul is 42. Actress Matthew Lillard (”Scooby Doo,” “She’s All That”) is 42. Actress Merrilee McCommas (”Family Law”) is 41. Actor Ed Helms (”The Office”) is 37. Actress Tatyana Ali (”The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”) is 33. Guitarist Mitchell Marlow of Filter is 33. Actress Mischa Barton (”The O.C.”) is 26.
Jan. 25: Actor Dean Jones is 81. Country singer Claude Gray is 80. Blues singer Etta James is 74. Actress Leigh Taylor-Young (”Peyton Place,” “Soylent Green”) is 67. Actress Jenifer Lewis (”The Preacher’s Wife,” “The PJ’s”) is 55. Actress Dinah Manoff (”Empty Nest”) is 54. Country drummer Mike Burch of River Road is 46. Singer Kina (Brownstone) is 43. Actress Ana Ortiz (”Ugly Betty”) is 41. Guitarist Matt Odmark of Jars of Clay is 38. Singer Alicia Keys is 31. Actor Michael Trevino (”The Vampire Diaries”) is 27.
Jan. 26: Actress Anne Jeffreys (”Topper,” “General Hospital”) is 89. Sports announcer-actor Bob Uecker is 77. Actor Scott Glenn is 73. Singer Jean Knight is 69. Drummer Corky Laing of Mountain is 64. Actor David Strathairn is 63. Singer Lucinda Williams is 59. Guitarist Eddie Van Halen is 57. Percussionist Norman Hassan of UB40 is 54. Comedian Ellen DeGeneres is 54. Guitarist Andrew Ridgeley (Wham!) is 49. Singer Jazzie B. of Soul II Soul is 49. Actor Paul Johansson (”One Tree Hill”) is 48. Gospel singer Kirk Franklin is 42. Drummer Chris Hesse of Hoobastank is 38. Actress Sara Rue (”Less Than Perfect”) is 34. Guitarist Michael Martin of Marshall Dyllon is 29.
Jan. 27: Singer Bobby “Blue” Bland is 82. Actor James Cromwell (”Babe”) is 72. Drummer Nick Mason of Pink Floyd is 67. Singer Nedra Talley of The Ronettes is 66. Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov is 64. Country singer Cheryl White of The Whites is 57. Guitarist Richard Young of The Kentucky Headhunters is 57. Actress Mimi Rogers is 56. Guitarist Janick Gers of Iron Maiden is 55. TV commentator Keith Olbermann is 53. Singer Margo Timmins of Cowboy Junkies is 51. Keyboardist Gillian Gilbert (New Order) is 51. Actress Bridget Fonda is 48. Actor Alan Cumming (”Spy Kids”) is 47. Singer Mike Patton (Faith No More) is 44. Country singer Tracy Lawrence is 44. Rapper Tricky is 44. Guitarist Michael Kulas of James is 43. Comedian Patton Oswalt (”King of Queens”) is 43. Actor Josh Randall (”Ed”) is 40.
Jan. 28: Actor Nicholas Pryor (”Risky Business”) is 77. Actor Alan Alda is 76. Actress Susan Howard (”Dallas”) is 70. Marthe Keller (”Marathon Man”) is 67. Actress Barbi Benton is 62. Guitarist Dave Sharp of The Alarm is 53. Singer Sam Phillips is 50. Guitarist Dan Spitz (Anthrax) is 49. Bassist Greg Cook of Ricochet is 47. Singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan is 44. Rap artist DJ Muggs with Cypress Hill is 44. Rapper Rakim is 44. Actress Kathryn Morris (”Cold Case”) is 43. Singer Anthony Hamilton is 41. Keyboardist Brandon Bush (Train) is 39. Singer Joey Fatone of `N Sync is 35. Singer Nick Carter of Backstreet Boys is 32. Actor Elijah Wood (”The Lord of the Rings”) is 31. Rapper J. Cole is 27. Actress Ariel Winter (”Modern Family”) is 14.
Actress who sued Amazon over age IDs herself
SEATTLE An actress who filed an anonymous lawsuit against Amazon.com and its Internet Movie Database for revealing her age identified herself in a federal court filing Friday.
Huong Hoang of Texas,Cheap Ed hardy t-shirts, may be better known by her stage name, Junie Hoang. She has appeared in such films as “Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver” and “Hoodrats 2: Hoodrat Warriors.”
The actress filed a million-dollar claim against Amazon last fall, saying the company mined her IMDb account to learn her age, 40, and then posted it on her profile causing her offers for roles to dry up.
The lawsuit caused a frenzy of online speculation over who the actress might be as well as a bit of soul-searching about ageism in youth-obsessed Hollywood.
Women over 40 make up 24.3 percent of the U.S. population, but a casting analysis by the Screen Actors Guild showed actresses over 40 get just 12.5 percent of roles for television and film. Men of that age are also about a quarter of the population, but nearly equal their ranks in casting.
Last month a federal judge in Seattle ordered the lawsuit dismissed, saying the actress had no grounds to proceed with an anonymous complaint. Hoang refiled it under her real name.
She did not immediately return an email seeking comment, nor did her lawyer immediately return a voice message left after business hours.
A lawyer and a spokeswoman for Amazon also did not immediately return calls.
Hoang’s IMDb profile says she got her start in dance at 16, was the salutatorian of her high school class and earned a degree in biomedical science from Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. It lists her at 5-foot-2, 100 pounds, and suggests she can play characters ages 26-33.
She played Sandy in “Gingerdead Man 3,” a sequel to a 2005 Gary Busey movie in which “an evil yet adorable gingerbread man comes to life with the soul of a convicted killer,” according to a description on IMDb.
Other credits include a part as a triage nurse in the television series “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant,” and as the part of Janet in “My Big Phat Hip Hop Family.”
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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle
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Online:
http://imdb.to/xyBLtv
http://www.juniehoang.com/122011
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MBIA fraud case vs. BofA’s Countrywide gets boost
(Reuters) A New York state judge made it easier for the bond insurer MBIA Inc (MBI.N) to pursue its $1.4 billion lawsuit accusing Bank of America Corp’s (BAC.N) Countrywide Financial unit of fraudulently inducing it to insure risky mortgage-backed securities.
New York State Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten ruled on Tuesday that to show fraud, MBIA need only show Countrywide misled it about the $20 billion of securities it insured, not that the misrepresentations caused its losses.
MBIA shares closed 8.1 percent higher.
MBIA accused Countrywide of misrepresenting the quality of underwriting for about 368,000 loans backing 15 financings it insured between 2005 and 2007, while the housing market was booming. It said it would not have provided insurance on the agreed terms had it known how the loans were made.
While not ruling on the merits, Bransten lowered the burden of proof on MBIA to show Countrywide committed fraud and breached its insurance policies.
“No basis in law exists to mandate that MBIA establish a direct causal link between the misrepresentations allegedly made by Countrywide and claims made under the policy,” she wrote, citing New York common law and insurance law.
The judge also said Armonk, New York-based MBIA may try to prove financial damages, while agreeing with Countrywide that it “will not be an easy task.”
She rejected Countrywide’s argument that MBIA’s only remedy was to void its insurance policies. MBIA had said that would be unfair to investors.
KEY DEFENSE REJECTED
“The importance of today’s ruling cannot be overstated,” said Manal Mehta, a partner at Branch Hill Capital, a San Francisco-based hedge fund.
“Bank of America has lost one of its key defenses in the ongoing litigation over mortgage putbacks by the monoline insurers,” he said. “It could become significantly more devastating for the banks if it becomes a precedent for putback litigation over private label securitizations.”
Bransten issued a similar ruling on Tuesday against Countrywide in a case brought by another insurer,wholesale Ed hardy belts, Syncora Holdings Ltd’s (SYCRF.PK) Syncora Guarantee unit.
Lawrence Grayson, a Bank of America spokesman, said the bank is reviewing the rulings.
“The insurers’ losses are due to the mortgage market collapse, a risk they agreed to insure,” he said.
Jay Brown, MBIA’s chief executive, said in a statement the insurer is “very pleased” with its ruling, which provides “a straightforward path to recovery of our losses.”
MBIA shares closed up 94 cents at $12.53 after earlier rising as much as 11.4 percent to $12.91. Bank of America shares rose 24 cents to $5.80.
BIG COSTS
Bank of America has incurred tens of billions of dollars of legal bills and writedowns tied to mortgages since the second-largest U.S. bank bought Countrywide in 2008.
In a November regulatory filing, Bank of America said unresolved litigation could “significantly” boost costs and materially impact future results.
It also said that, through September 30, it had resolved about half of the $6 billion of representations and warranties claims tied to monoline-insured transactions, including $2 billion in an April settlement with Assured Guaranty Ltd (AGO.N).
MBIA meanwhile was restructured by New York’s insurance department in 2009 after the company, which traditionally insured municipal bonds, incurred big losses from insuring mortgage debt. Bank of America and some other banks are challenging that restructuring.
The cases are MBIA Insurance Corp v. Countrywide Home Loans Inc et al, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, No. 602825/2008; and Syncora Guarantee Inc v. Countrywide Home Loans Inc et al in the same court, No. 650042/2009.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; additional reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York, Ben Berkowitz in Boston and Rick Rothacker in Charlotte, North Carolina; editing by Carol Bishopric, Gary Hill and Andre Grenon)
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Bachmann off, Perry on Republican rollercoaster
DES MOINES, Iowa/MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) Michele Bachmann was out, Rick Perry was back and Rick Santorum was up in the most volatile Republican presidential nominating contest in decades on Wednesday, as conservative Republicans searched for an alternative to frontrunner Mitt Romney.
Bachmann, a U.S. congresswoman from Minnesota, stepped down after a dismal sixth place finish in the first Republican nominating contest in Iowa, which was decided by a margin of 8 votes out of the 122,000 cast.
Perry, the governor of Texas, stayed in the race despite earlier hinting he would drop out.
Frustrated at conservatives’ failure to unite behind a single candidate, Christian conservative leaders planned a Texas meeting this weekend to thrash out strategy.
Their candidate may turn out to be Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, who came a close second to Romney in Tuesday’s Republican Iowa vote, which kicked off the 2012 presidential election cycle.
Santorum swept into New Hampshire buoyed by the Iowa result. His campaign said he had raised $1 million in the last 24 hours.
Santorum told Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” that “we’re going to do surprisingly well” in New Hampshire. “We’re going to be a much bigger player than everybody anticipates.”
A CNN poll showed Santorum doubling his support to 10 percent in New Hampshire, although he remained far behind Romney, a former governor of neighboring Massachusetts.
Distrusted by conservatives, Romney has struggled to break above the 25-percent level in national polls of Republicans in the race to choose a challenger to President Barack Obama for November’s presidential election.
He has a solid campaign infrastructure and is favored to easily win the January 10 New Hampshire primary. Romney picked up the endorsement of Senator John McCain, who was the party’s nominee in 2008.
“I’m really here for one reason and one reason only, and that is that we make Mitt Romney the next president of the United States of America,” McCain said at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire. “And New Hampshire is the state that will catapult him on to victory in a very short period of time.”
SANTORUM’S PROBLEMS
An afterthought in the race until now, Santorum could have difficulty scaling up his campaign to compete in other states. On Wednesday, his website apparently crashed under a deluge of traffic.
Santorum has escaped close scrutiny so far, but rivals have plenty to work with if they want to attack him as a Washington insider at a time when anti-government anger is running high. As a congressional leader, Santorum led an effort to link Republicans closely with lobbying interests before voters threw him out of office by an 18-point margin in 2006.
His career out of public office could come under attack as well: his million-dollar-plus income in 2010 included substantial payments from a lobbying firm and a hospital group that was hit with two lawsuits for allegedly defrauding the federal government.
Conservative voters have boosted nearly every other candidate in the race to the top of opinion polls over the past six months.
Another hopeful who has seen his support crumble, Perry decided to stay in the race after earlier saying he would reassess his campaign after a fifth-place finish in Iowa.
“We are going to go into places where they have actual primaries and there are going to be real Republicans voting,” Perry told reporters, referring to New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The unsettled nomination race - which pollster Gallup said was the most topsy-turvy in 50 years - also leaves an opening for former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich or Perry if Romney can’t connect with more voters.
South Carolina’s January 21 primary is shaping up to be a crucial test.
“Iowa picks corn, New Hampshire picks campaigns’ pockets and South Carolina picks Republican presidents, and it is far from settled in South Carolina,” former state Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson, a Perry supporter, told Reuters.
Perry, a steady leader in the money stakes, has $3-4 million on hand to fund a multi-state campaign, according to a knowledgeable source.
Gingrich, who led opinion polls in December on the strength of his television debate performances, can look forward to two more debates on Saturday and Sunday in New Hampshire as he tries to return to the top tier.
At the end of September, Romney’s campaign had $14.7 million cash on hand while Santorum’s had $189,556, according to the candidates’ Federal Election Commission filings.
Romney can also point to the support of prominent leaders like South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and McCain.
Opinion polls show that Romney would fare best among the Republican candidates in a head-to-head matchup against Obama.
Still, he has yet to show that he can win the support of more than one in four Republican voters. His 25 percent showing in Iowa matched his 2008 vote total,Discount Burberry wholesale, and he has barely cracked that ceiling in national opinion polls.
“If Mitt wants to wrap this nomination up he has to get beyond establishment Republicans,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.
Undecided New Hampshire voter Karen Eastman said she was not swayed by the Iowa results.
“I think every state is different, so you really can’t go by what happens (in Iowa),” said Eastman, a 53-year-old seamstress.
“Once they get in office a lot of them don’t do what they say they’re going to do. It’s really hard to vote for anybody nowadays, it really is, because they don’t mean what they say.”
The volatility of the race may be good news for Obama, who is building a huge fundraising and vote-getting organization for the November general election. His poll numbers are improving as the unemployment rate, now 8.6 percent, declines.
Obama has won some tactical victories in Washington in recent months by taking a harder stand against Republicans in Congress.
On Wednesday, he said he would bypass Congress and install his picks to head a new consumer financial watchdog agency and serve on the National Labor Relations Board. Liberal advocacy groups cheered the move. Republicans, who had blocked the appointments in the Senate, questioned its legality.
(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington, Scott Malone in New Hampshire, Jane Sutton and Steve Holland in Iowa and Karen Brooks in Texas, Writing by Andy Sullivan, Editing by Alistair Bell and Christopher Wilson)
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Debut authors dominate Costa Book Awards
LONDON (Reuters) Three of the five 2011 Costa Book Award categories were won by debut authors Tuesday, while Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes lost out to Andrew Miller for the best novel honor.
Poet and first-time biographer Matthew Hollis scooped the Costa biography award for “Now All Roads Leads to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas” about the war poet who died in action during World War One.
Christie Watson,Discount D&G wholesale, a children’s nurse, was named 2011 debut novelist for “Tiny Sunbirds Far Away” about a Nigerian family forced to leave a comfortable urban life for poverty in the countryside.
And Moira Young won the children’s book category for her first novel “Blood Red Road” set in a lawless future land where Saba sets out to find her missing twin brother.
In the novel category, Andrew Miller won with his sixth novel “Pure,” beating Barnes whose “The Sense of an Ending” was the Booker Prize winner in October.
And poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy picked up the poetry prize with her latest collection “The Bees.”
The winner of each category receives a cheque for 5,000 pounds ($7,800). The overall winner, who earns a further 30,000 pounds, is announced on January 24.
Since the introduction of the Book of the Year award in 1985, it has been won nine times by a novel, four times by a debut novel, five times by a biography, seven times by a collection of poetry and once by a children’s book.
The 2010 Costa Book of the Year winner was “Of Mutability” by poet Jo Shapcott.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
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Check Out Paychex’s Good Numbers
Payment processor and human resources services provider Paychex (Nasdaq: PAYX - News) recently posted higher-than-expected profits in its second quarter. The company benefited from better revenue per check. Given the high unemployment rate in the U.S., results that exceeded expectations are a welcome development. However, the company remains cautious about the slow economy.
Let’s dig deeper.
Economy matters
Paychex provides human resources and benefit services to small- and medium-sized businesses. Owing to a weak global economy, these businesses have been facing tough times. Paychex acts as a performance barometer for such smaller companies. The company has expressed concerns regarding its future sales due to weakness in its customer base. Growth in checks per client is expected to be moderate in 2012.
However, things may not be as bad as they appear. The company earns nearly 70% of its income from its payroll service business. By the year’s end in May,wholesale Ed hardy belts, revenue from this business is expected to grow at an average rate of around 6%. Moreover, revenue from human resource services is expected to grow at an even steeper rate of 12% to 15%.
The quarterly roundup
Revenue increased to $545.7 million, a 7% rise compared to the prior-year quarter, as the number of checks per client increased. Net income surged to $140.4 million, a 5% increase compared to last year.
Revenue benefited from price increases and lower discounting with clients. Smaller HR services helped the numbers by expanding the company’s client base by 12% as it added clients and existing clients’ employee counts increased.
Rival Insperity (NYSE: NSP - News) also posted a robust 32% growth in its earnings per share. The second-quarter results of competitor Automatic Data Processing (Nasdaq: ADP - News) are expected next month.
Paychex also expanded its software-as-a-service offerings by introducing a new single sign-on page for online users and an iPad application.
The Foolish bottom line
Paychex posted good numbers despite a sluggish economy. At the moment, the company remains threatened by the poor performance of small- and medium-sized companies. However, hiring is picking up. The number of jobless claims is declining. That’s all good news for this payroll service provider.
Click here to stay up to speed on Paychex by adding it to your Watchlist.
Fool contributor Navjot Kaur does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned in this article. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Paychex and Automatic Data Processing. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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To Kick Off the Year of Damien Hirst, Gagosian Will Blanket the World With the Artist’s Spot Paintin
NEW YORK In 2012, the year of the Mayan apocalypse, an outbreak of spots is going to spread across the world. And Damien Hirst is to blame.
That’s right, next January the Gagosian Gallery will mount simultaneous shows of the YBA’s “spot” paintings in of its 11 outposts around the globe, displaying the complete collection of the works produced between 1986 and 2011. Only about half of the collection will be for sale,Replica Affliction, with the rest on loan.
It will mark the beginning of a gargantuan comeback attempt by the artist, whose Tate Modern retrospective opening in April — which will coincide with the 2012 Summer Olympics in London — will allow crowds to take in the full breadth of work by the former bad-boy artist. His output in recent years has been overtaken by his evidently growing obsession with the art market — a market he became synonymous with after his $200 million one-man Sotheby’s sale in 2008.
Hirst claims to have been batting around the idea of a major spot retrospective of his spot paintings for a long time, and even had a show planned years ago in two venues in London — the Saatchi Gallery and the Tate Britain — but they never happened. When Hirst recently proposed the idea to Larry Gagosian, the megadealer recognized an opportunity. Gagosian rarely has a show span two of his galleries, let alone 11, but such is the star power of Hirst.
If the exhibition succeeds in gathering the full collection, the art world will finally be able to solve the mystery of how many spot paintings Hirst’s factory has produced. While many guess the number is in the high hundreds, even 1,000, no one knows for sure.
While the transnational show is certainly an attention-getting concept, the lingering question is how it might affect the market for Hirst’s work. Clearly, it’s a risk to flood the market with an extraordinary supply of similar paintings. Then again, it has been well-known for years that Hirst mass-produces his spots, and that doesn’t seem to deter collectors from paying over $1 million for them. Last February, “Arginine Decarboxylase,” a Hirst spot painting from 1994, sold for over £880,000 ($1.4 million) at Christie’s in London, 50 percent above its high estimate.
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Deep Gulf drilling thrives 18 mos. after BP spill
ALAMINOS CANYON BLOCK 857, GULF OF MEXICO Two hundred miles off the coast of Texas, ribbons of pipe are reaching for oil and natural gas deeper below the ocean’s surface than ever before.
These pipes, which run nearly two miles deep, are connected to a floating platform that is so remote Shell named it Perdido, which means “lost” in Spanish. What attracted Shell to this location is a geologic formation found throughout the Gulf of Mexico that may contain enough oil to satisfy U.S. demand for two years.
While Perdido is isolated, it isn’t alone. Across the Gulf, energy companies are probing dozens of new deepwater fields thanks to high oil prices and technological advances that finally make it possible to tap them.
The newfound oil will not do much to lower global oil prices. But together with increased production from onshore U.S. fields and slowing domestic demand for gasoline, it could help reduce U.S. oil imports by more than half over the next decade.
Eighteen months ago, such a flurry of activity in the Gulf seemed unlikely. The Obama administration halted drilling and stopped issuing new permits after the explosion of a BP well killed 11 workers and caused the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
But the drilling moratorium was eventually lifted and the Obama administration issued the first new drilling permit in March. Now the Gulf is humming again and oil executives describe it as the world’s best place to drill.
“In the short term and the medium term, it’s clearly the Gulf of Mexico,” says Matthais Bichsel, a Royal Dutch Shell PLC board member who is in charge of all of the company’s new projects and technology.
By early 2012 there will be more rigs in the Gulf designed to drill in its “deep water” defined as 2,000 feet or deeper than before the spill.
In November, Perdido began pumping oil from a field called Tobago; the well begins 9,627 feet below the surface of the Gulf. No other well on the globe produces oil in deeper water and that’s about as deep as the Gulf gets. For drillers, that means the entire Gulf is now within reach.
“We are at the point where … depth is not the primary issue anymore,” says Marvin Odum, the head of Royal Dutch Shell’s drilling unit in the Americas. “I do not worry that there is something in the Gulf that we cannot develop … if we can find it.”
From a distance, Perdido looks like an erector set perched on an aluminum can. This can, or “spar,” is a 500-foot-tall steel cylinder that sits mostly underwater, serving as a base for the equipment and living quarters above. It is stuffed with iron ore to lower its center of gravity, keeping the whole operation from bobbing in the water like a cork. The spar is tethered to the sea floor 8,000 feet below with ropes and chains.
Oil and natural gas are pumped to Perdido from nearby wells drilled by an onboard rig and from faraway wells drilled by satellite rigs. Water and other impurities are then removed from the oil and gas, which gets sent hundreds of miles through an undersea pipeline to terminals and refineries along the Gulf coast.
Perdido, which pumps the equivalent of 60,000 barrels of oil and natural gas a day, will eventually yield 100,000 barrels per day from 35 wells in a 30-mile radius, according to Shell. It will likely produce oil for decades in all, as much as 360 million barrels of oil and 750 billion cubic feet of natural gas, according to Wood Mackenzie.
As global oil demand climbs past 89 million barrels a day and traditional onshore and shallow water fields are depleted, the deep waters of the Gulf and off the coasts of South America, West Africa and Australia are playing an increasingly important role.
In 2000, 1.5 million barrels of oil per day were produced from deepwater fields around the globe, or 2 percent of global production. In 2011, that number grew to 5.5 million barrels, or 6 percent of global production. By 2020, deepwater oil will account for 9 percent, according to IHS CERA.
The Gulf is attractive for many reasons. Its oil fields are enormous; it straddles the world’s biggest consumer of oil; it’s in a politically stable part of the world; and drillers can easily tap into a vast network of pipelines and refineries. Also, despite industry complaints,Wholesale True Religion, the cost of royalties, taxes and regulation in the U.S. are among the lowest in the world.
“Everybody wants to be there,” says Mohammad Rahman, the lead Gulf analyst for Wood Mackenzie.
By early 2012, there will be 40 deepwater rigs in the Gulf, up from 37 before the BP spill, according to Cinnamon Odell of ODS-Petrodata. BP received its first permit to drill in late October.
The Gulf produces an average of 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, according to Wood Mackenzie. That’s 27 percent of U.S. output and 8 percent of U.S. demand.
Thanks to more accurate imaging technologies, drillers are able to see under geologic formations that used to confound geologists. In June, ExxonMobil Corp. said it found 700 million barrels of oil one of the biggest discoveries in the Gulf in last decade. In September, Chevron and BP also announced major finds, thought to be in the hundreds of millions of barrels of oil.
Many of the Gulf’s recent discoveries are in a geologic formation known as the Lower Tertiary, formed between 23 million and 65 million years ago. Perdido, which is operated by Shell and owned jointly by Shell, Chevron and BP, is the first to produce oil from this formation. Analysts say it could hold 15 billion barrels of oil.
As the BP disaster made clear, drilling in deep water presents difficulties and dangers. Last month a Chevron well in the deep waters off of Brazil ruptured and spilled 2,400 barrels of oil into the Atlantic after Chevron underestimated the pressure of the oil field it was tapping.
Perdido only recently reached its monthly production target after a year of operation because of difficulties getting oil and gas from the seabed to the platform. New devices designed to separate oil and gas on the sea floor have not performed as well as Shell hoped. It has taken months of adjustments made by underwater robots and other equipment on the platform to fix the problems.
Challenges like this have helped push the average cost of producing oil in the deepwater Gulf to $60 a barrel, according to IHS CERA, near the highest level ever. But with oil close to $100 a barrel, the expense is well worth it.
After all 35 wells are drilled for Perdido, its owners will likely have spent $6.2 billion on the project, according to Wood Mackenzie. But along with the risks, the Gulf offers great rewards: Perdido could ultimately generate $39 billion in revenue and $16 billion in profits.
Jonathan Fahey can be reached at http://www.facebook.com/Fahey.Jonathan.
In: Christian Dior · Tagged with: Wholesale True
Recessionista Mini Trend Alert! - UsMagazine.com
Purchase info: Buy it here.
I know, I know…it’s not the same…the precision, the details, the materials, etc. But for this minute, I can get the look now and for less!
In the meantime, twin-o-mom was amused when our accessories editor, Hannah Deely, suggested these $33 “Cartier” watches that look pretty damn cool. And hello: They lovingly named the replica the “Carter” watch. Hilarious!
I love me a Cartier watch — do not get me wrong — but this mom has to pay for day camp and soccer for two, so certain things are not in the budget.
This season, rose gold is the new underdog in metals and this particular replica makes us chuckle.