4VF News – Daily News Channel

Kris ”ChristopherKris” Lal

Marvel introduces a new crop of heroes, Douglas and Keaton unite and the Coppola clan’s next generation makes her debut.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (M, 122mins *****)

Home and Away

With its huge cast of characters, detailed history and constantly changing allegiances, considering it difficult to explain the story of Game of Thrones is totally understandable.
Now, imagine if you’d never seen it before.

The hilarious, blunt responses are accurate enough to make us worry about how much we talk about Game of Thrones. Take a look at some of our favorite answers below.

George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin have supposedly posted their wedding banns.

The Hollywood heartthrob proposed to his British girlfriend in April and it seems the pair are preparing to walk down the aisle soon.

According to UK newspaper The Mirror, Clooney and Alamuddin stopped by the Chelsea Register Office in London two weeks ago to post their wedding banns.

The couple reportedly paid the customary

The President of the US, Barack Obama, is so Fancy and can rap just like Iggy Azalea, if an internet mash-up is anything to go by.

A YouTube account called baracksdubs has posted a video of Obama appearing to rap over Azalea’s hit song, although, admittedly, it’s a compilation of the President speaking at various events.

So while Obama himself didn’t go out and cover the Mullumbimby rapper’s hit, the mash-up is a convincing enough version of what it would be like if he did.

In the video, Obama’s speeches are spliced together so he appears to be rapping: ” First things first, I’m the realist. Drop this, let the whole world feel it.”

“And I’m still in the murder business. I could hold you down, like I’m giving lessons in physics.

“You should want a bad b***h like this. Drop it low and pick it up just like this.”

Obama has never actually dropped the “b” word however the person behind baracksdubs has somehow made it sound like he has with some clever splicing.

The President even appears to rap the chorus “I’m so fancy”.

Other videos on the account show Obama taking on other hits such as Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way.

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– AAP

Alexis Bledel and Vincent Kartheiser have secretly married.

The couple first met when former Gilmore Girls actress Bledel guest starred on Mad Men in 2012 as his mistress. Kartheiser plays Pete Campbell in the hit 1960s series and their on-screen chemistry soon developed behind the cameras.

The lovebirds announced their engagement in March last year but on Wednesday it was confirmed they had tied the knot quietly two months ago.

“The two exchanged I do’s during a hush-hush ceremony in California back in June,” People magazine said after confirmation came through from Bledel’s rep.

Unconfirmed reports state that the 32-year-old wore a floor-length gown, while her 35-year-old beau looked smart in a grey suit. Kartheiser even supposedly cried when he saw his wife walk down the aisle. Guests included his Mad Men co-star Jon Hamm. It is the first marriage for both actors.

The newlyweds didn’t get together straightaway after meeting on the show.

“We were completely professional,” Kartheiser previously revealed. “We never saw each other out. We never – it was nothing, it was just work.”

The former Angel actor didn’t leave all the wedding details to his other half either. Alexis told Us Weekly soon after their engagement was announced they were working as a team.

“We’re doing it together,” she smiled at the time, before adding that her fianc

Wellington may be in for a big boost with a series of new “mini-festivals” and special events every year, run by the New Zealand Festival.

The festival revealed today that it is to investigate the viability of developing new events, some which may be “mini-festivals”, in Wellington every year.

The plan, backed by the festival’s trust board, is instead of pushing for the festival – held in February and March every two years – becoming an annual event.

A feasibility study, commissioned by the Wellington Regional Amenities Fund and being considered by the region’s mayors, had noted that there were other options for the festival than going annual.

Festival executive chairwoman Kerry Prendergast said the New Zealand Festival would continue to be held every two years at the same time. But the new events or mini-festivals would mean the New Zealand Festival could bring additional international and domestic acts to Wellington on a 24-month cycle.

A possibility was one mini-festival or event the same year as the New Zealand Festival in 2016, with at least two more events or mini-festivals each year the main festival is not run.

Prendergast said the mini-festivals could be at times when Wellington had fewer other events.

The mini-festivals or events would probably be tailored to grow new audiences and tap into niche areas.

She cited American indie band Bon Iver, who played two shows at the Wellington Town Hall in the 2012 festival.

“We suddenly got this amazing group of people come to that and it sold out. They are not normal festivalgoers and I’m not sure that they necessarily came to this last festival.

“The next stage of research is to find out exactly what our audiences want,” she said.

Overseas, niche or boutique-style festivals were attracting new audiences, including Sydney’s two-day Festival of Dangerous Ideas and Hobart’s 11-day Dark Mofo, both held in winter.

The New Zealand Festival runs the four-day Wellington Jazz Festival in June, which was very successful this year.

It doubled the number of events staged in 2012 to 108 and increased its audience from 9000 to 15,000. Ticket sales to the headline international acts doubled.

Prendergast said more festivals would also help retain experienced staff. Under the present setup, the festival had up to 40 fulltime-equivalent staff for the three-week festival, but that dropped to seven once it finished.

“In the meantime we lose really good people and they get offered fulltime work – and we’ve grown them.”

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– The Dominion Post

REVIEW:

You’ve seen this film before. Rob Reiner’s latest is no more than a generic amble through the countryside of a late-age rom-com.

Think of a wild animal, a colour and a number.

If your answers were lion, red and seven then, according to mentalist Timon Krause, you are in the majority and pretty easy to read.

It’s one of many techniques he uses to read minds, these simple questions can show what kind of person someone is and predict their response to future questions.

“You’re a different kind of thinker,” he tells me when I say elephant, maroon and eight.

Little does he know (or does he) that earlier our videographer had tested me, telling me not to say seven because that’s the number everyone would say.

We also settled on the less-known colour of maroon if I was asked to think of a hue (sorry Timon).

But the 20-year-old Dutch Champion of Mentalism had us stumped when he correctly guessed my four digit number (8140), my little sister’s name (Amy), and, even more spectacularly, was able to melt my 20 cent coin – on camera.

So how does he do it

Krause reads minds and hypnotises people on stage, not just for entertainment but also for coaching purposes. He’s been doing it since he was impressed by a hypnosis show at 12-years-old.

“Because I was so young, no one would teach me so I just taught myself and copied what was on stage.

“Ever since, it’s just been trial and error – developing my own techniques and attitude to hypnosis.”

Throw out your images of those evil villains using mind-control powers that run rampant through comic books.

Instead, mind reading and hypnosis is more like Patrick Jane in USA television series The Mentalist.

Experts in human psyche, mentalists deeply study subliminal messaging, body language reading and are masters in the art of suggestion.

Jane uses it to catch criminals; Krause uses it to travel the world. The Amsterdam-born mentalist has already written a book (at 16-years-old) and is quickly gaining international recognition as someone to watch.

Back in the 1920s mentalists were seen as some cloak-draped circus-act, waving crystals and incense. Now the friendly modern-day mind reader is a lot more relatable – this one is even willing to share some of his secrets.

“A technique I frequently use is ideo-motor movement, movement that is subconsciously activated by the mind without you actually doing it.

“It means you might give yourself away and give your thinking away by body language.”

By being aware of another person’s subconscious physical responses, Krause can discover their thoughts.

He makes sure our fingertips touch – not in a bid to look like some eerie Divinity professor from Hogwarts but because through the slightest twitch I can, apparently, communicate what’s going on in my head.

Put simply, this type of mind reading is about following the direction of least resistance in a person’s finger movements. Despite knowing this as Krause rattles away numbers to guess my four-digit pin my fingers still manage to do the talking and he gets it right first time.

It’s along the childish lines of “don’t think of a blue elephant” (you probably just did).

When Krause asks me not to think of the first digit of my number (8) the request triggered a physical response.

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“And then when I ask people not to think of the second number, they usually think of the third one and give that away.”

In hypnosis Krause uses techniques that include confusion and “pattern interrupt” where a conscious pattern is shaken to confuse the subject.

“Other techniques include relaxation and different techniques from a communication model called NLP [Neuro-linguistic Programming] just to build a good connection with people.

“It’s mainly about the connection, the relationship that you build up with other people quickly.”

He’s had his fair share of cynics but Krause says most people who are sceptical have the wrong idea about mindreading and hypnotism.

“[They think] that hypnosis is a sort of power that you impose on someone, which you force onto someone – that’s not hypnosis.