Gossip: Couplings and uncouplings


Kim and Kanye did it as flamboyantly as possible, Brad and Angelina may have done it in secret, George wants to do it in a castle, but Beyonce and Jay Z may be about to undo it.

Even more than usual, the gossip mags this week are a catalogue of couplings and uncouplings.

No surprises that the coverage is dominated by the extravagant nuptials of reality television star Kim Kardashian and rapper Kanye West.

For $20 million they got a wedding ceremony at a historic fort in Florence, Italy, after a pre-wedding dinner at the Palace of Versailles near Paris.

Tenor Andrea Bocelli sang Ave Maria, and the whole event took its inspiration from the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William.

The long-sleeved lace gown worn by Kardashian, 33, may have cost more than $3m, while getting Lana Del Rey along to sing three songs reportedly cost $3.3m.

Woman’s Day features the wedding most prominently, promising to get “inside the wedding of the year” with 28 exclusive photos.

Drama had bubbled beneath the glamorous facade, it said.

Kardashian’s 27-year-old brother, Rob, went to the events in Paris but then insisted on flying home to Los Angeles, apparently in tears.

Having put on 20 kilograms in recent months, he was said to be so depressed about his weight gain that he could not bear the thought of being in the limelight.

Rob reportedly told Kim he was “sickened” by the ostentatious display of wealth, calling it “superficial b…….”.

Also absent was 36-year-old West’s best friend, Jay Z, whose wife, Beyonce, said she and her husband did not want to steal the limelight at the wedding.

Insiders said the real reason was wedding guest Rachel Roy, 40, who may have been behind the celebrated lift attack launched by Beyonce’s sister, Solange, against Jay Z last month.

Solange apparently accused Jay Z of getting “flirty” with Roy.

The way New Idea told it, both Jay Z and Beyonce may have “strayed”.

Beyonce’s other man was her bodyguard, Julius de Boer, with whom, it was claimed, she spent a lot of time behind closed doors.

All the turmoil had led Beyonce to put plans for a second baby on hold.

George Clooney, the one-time confirmed bachelor, is considering marrying hotshot lawyer Amal Alamuddin at an estate made famous as the place where television series Downton Abbey is filmed.

New Zealand Woman’s Weekly said Clooney was making inquiries about the availability of Highclere Castle after his bride-to-be fell in love with the estate. The couple are expected to marry in September.

New Idea believes Jolie and Pitt were secretly married in a Sydney harbourside mansion this year.

The couple were in Australia with their six children while Jolie, who turns 39 this week, directed World War II movie Unbroken.

Whatever Jolie’s marital status, she was still embroiled in a long-running “bitter feud” with one of Pitt’s previous partners, former fiancee Gwyneth Paltrow, Woman’s Day said.

“Angelina has an irrational hatred of Gwyneth and even way back in 1999, when Gwyneth won her Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, Angelina was calling her cheesy and hammy behind her back, saying she didn’t deserve the award,” a close source said.

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A source also revealed that after Jolie and Pitt, 50, got together in 2005, Paltrow, 41, told pals: “He’d come back in a second if I wanted him. I’d whistle and he’d come running.”

Apparently that claim left Jolie “smouldering with anger”.

An insider said Jolie had banned Pitt from even talking to Paltrow.

In the latest broadside, Jolie ridiculed Paltrow’s comments about how hard it was to be away from her children for three weeks at a time while making a film.

In an interview for her new movie, Maleficent, Jolie said: “I actually feel that women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain.

“Consider all the people who really struggle and don’t have the financial means – don’t have the support – and many people are single raising children. That’s hard.”

Another of Pitt’s previous partners, 45-year-old ex-wife Jennifer Aniston, dominates the cover of New Idea with the words “Jen’s Baby Shock”.

There’s also a small inset of someone carrying ultrasound images and the words “Picture Proof”.

Inside the magazine it is revealed that the hand carrying the ultrasound images belongs to model and horror makeup artist Adriane Hallek, 24, who is dating Aniston’s 24-year-old half-brother, Alex, known as AJ.

After years of trying to conceive naturally, Aniston was believed to now be exploring a surrogate option, New Idea said.

While she struggled, it looked as though her much younger brother would be giving her father, John, a much-hoped-for grandchild.

– Stuff

Want to learn Dothraki?


Vasterat Dothraki No Neither do we.

But now you can do a course that will help you master the language.

The course in the fictional Game of Thrones language Dothraki is being offered by the online language lab Living Language, which also offers more traditional tongues such as French, Russian and Mandarin.

In the hit HBO series Dothraki is the language of the nomadic horse warriors who live along the Dothraki Sea in Essos.

The course was compiled by David J Peterson, the linguist hired by HBO to create an entire fake language out of phrases George R.R. Martin included in his books.

From October 2014, GOT fans willing to pay $US30 (NZ$35.5) will have access to progressive lessons with more than 500 Dothraki vocabulary words and hundreds of phrases, as well as an extensive pronunciation guide.

“This book will take you from arakh to zhavvorsa in no time, and the audio samples will help you perfect your pronunciation,”

Goss: Couplings and uncouplings


Kim and Kanye did it as flamboyantly as possible, Brad and Angelina may have done it in secret, George wants to do it in a castle, but Beyonce and Jay Z may be about to undo it.

Even more than usual, the gossip mags this week are a long catalogue of couplings and uncouplings.

No surprises that the coverage is dominated by the extravagant nuptials of reality television star Kim Kardashian and rapper Kanye West.

For $20 million they got a wedding ceremony at a historic fort in Florence, Italy, following a pre-wedding dinner at the Palace of Versailles in Paris. World famous tenor Andrea Bocelli sung the Ave Maria, and the whole event took its inspiration from the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William.

The long-sleeved lace gown worn by Kardashian, 33, may have cost more than $3m, while getting Lana Del Rey along to sing three songs reportedly cost $3.3m.

Woman’s Day features the wedding most prominently, promising to get “inside the wedding of the year” with 28 exclusive photos. But the magazine was still not pulling any punches.

Dramas had bubbled beneath the glamorous facade, it said.

Kardashian’s 27-year-old brother Rob went to the events in Paris but then insisted on flying home to Los Angeles, apparently in tears. Having put on 20 kilograms in recent months he was said to be so depressed about his weight gain that he could not bear the thought of being in the limelight.

Rob reportedly told Kim he was “sickened” by the ostentatious display of wealth, calling it “superficial bullshit”.

Also absent was 36-year-old West’s best friend Jay Z and his wife Beyonce, who said she and her husband did not want to steal the limelight at the wedding.

But insiders said the real reason was wedding guest Rachel Roy, 40, who may have been behind the celebrated lift attack launched by Beyonce’s sister Solange against Jay Z last month.

Solange apparently accused Jay Z of getting “flirty” with Roy.

The way New Idea told it, both Jay Z and Beyonce may have “strayed”. Beyonce’s other man was her bodyguard Julius de Boer, with whom, it was claimed, she spent a lot of time behind closed doors.

All the turmoil had led Beyonce to put plans for a second baby on hold.

George Clooney, the one-time confirmed bachelor, is considering marrying hotshot lawyer Amal Alamuddin at an estate made famous as the place where television series Downton Abbey is filmed.

New Zealand Woman’s Weekly said Clooney was making serious inquiries about the availability of Highclere Castle after his bride-to-be fell in love with the estate. The couple are expected to marry in September.

New Idea believes actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were secretly married in a Sydney harbourside mansion earlier this year. The couple were in Australia with their six children while Jolie, who turns 39 this week, directed World War 2 movie Unbroken.

Whatever Jolie’s marital status, she was still embroiled in a long-running “bitter feud” with one of Pitt’s previous partners – ex-fiance Gwyneth Paltrow, according to Woman’s Day.

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“Angelina has an irrational hatred of Gwyneth and even way back in 1999, when Gwyneth won her Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, Angelina was calling her cheesy and hammy behind her back, saying she didn’t deserve the award,” a close source revealed.

A source also revealed that after Jolie and Pitt, 50, got together in 2005, Paltrow, 41, told pals: “He’d come back in a second if I wanted him. I’d whistle and he’d come running.” Apparently that claim left Jolie “smouldering with anger”.

An insider said Jolie had banned Pitt from even talking to Paltrow.

In the latest broadside, Jolie ridiculed Paltrow’s comments about how hard it was to be away from her children for three weeks at a time while making a film.

In an interview for her new movie Maleficent, Jolie said: “I actually feel that women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain. Consider all the people who really struggle and don’t have the financial means – don’t have the support – and many people are single raising children. That’s hard.”

Another of Pitt’s previous partners, ex-wife 45-year-old actor Jennifer Aniston dominates the cover of New Idea, with the words “Jen’s Baby Shock”. There’s also a small inset of someone carrying ultrasound images and the words “Picture Proof”.

Inside the magazine it is revealed that the hand carrying the ultrasound images belongs to model and horror make-up artist Adriane Hallek, 24, who is dating Aniston’s 24-year-old half brother Alex, known as AJ.

After years of trying to conceive naturally, Aniston was believed to now be exploring a surrogate option, New Idea said. While she struggled, it looked as if her much younger brother would be giving her father John a much-hoped-for grandchild.

– Stuff

Game of Thrones’ explosive episode


An explosive episode – in more ways than one – leaves our Game of Thrones bloggers’ jaws on the the floor as season four builds to a thrilling climax.

Hi Kate,

It was a sensitive night for one of the least sensitive shows on television that remarkably managed to have one major character’s head exploded in front of a crowd, a man flayed alive, and some satellite town for Castle Black destroyed by Wildlings. It has been a while since we sat together and watched Game of Thrones, and I felt like it was making up for lost time.

Things I was not expecting tonight:

1. Loads of nude unsullied.

I feel for the fanbase maybe this isn’t exactly what they were expecting, and having Daenerys and Missandei having that chat about the unsullied seemed like a tacit acknowledgement of the large amount of women who are watching the show.

We had some really sensitive Celtic music, and then out of nowhere a relationship might be blossoming. I felt like this was largely because Missandei needed a little bit more development. I am hoping the series will go there with some details on their relationship as it has been coy about it thus far. I had the overwhelming impression it was a Home and Away subplot.

2. Heaps of Theon Greyjoy.

Don’t really know where Theon is going, and I feel the series has invested a lot of time into his character development for little net gain. The camera hold on him when they ask “who are you” elicited some definite sympathy for the wee guy as did the line “only a whipped dog would speak this way, or a woman”. I got the distinct impression this episode was all about having balls.

3. Baelish not sitting on some sort of regal throne with a crown placed on a slight angle on his head.

I felt that with his murder of the Lady of the Vale Baelish would just take up her power, lands, and wealth, but apparently he has to justify himself to three oldies.

Sansa let it all out last night – but with a few key adjustments to the truth. In a long speech she did an admirable job of covering for Baelish. Both characters were playing a tricky game. The scene could only have been improved with Sansa cheekily winking at Baelish at the end.

4. The end of Ser Jorah

Talking about playing a tricky game – Ser Jorah Mormont has been spying, or at least spying at one point. Apparently he was pardoned by Robert Baratheon, but a long time ago. It’s quite hard to tell the time scale of when things have been happening in Game of Thrones.

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Daenerys doesn’t really look like she has changed too much, but boy has she been betrayed by Mormont, you can sense the director tried to overemphasise this with that protracted shot of her staring off into the distance. It’s a bit of a shame to lose the Ser Jorah character as his lack of sexual chemistry and his pining after Daenerys was always, at the very least, reliable.

5. Lack of “The Lion King” music when Bolton was playing his best Mustafa and talking about his vast kingdom.

Ramsay Bolton has got a new father and it was pretty touching. But, to be honest, I am not really invested in either character. Ramsay has been a jerk since we first set eyes on him, and him getting some good news isn’t exactly thrilling, but at least, as we learnt, he is going to have a bath.

Yours sincerely,

The Sex Factor is like The X Factor for porn


For the past half century, talent shows have been a fixture of television, and never more so than today. What they’ve all lacked, from Young Talent Time to Top of the Pops to American Idol, is sex. At least according to the benefactors of the latest contest, The Sex Factor.

Conceived at the 2014 AVN Awards (the Oscars for porn stars), The Sex Factor will feature eight guys and eight girls, all vying for the grand prize: US$1 million dollars and the chance to appear in a scene with porn star Belle Knox.

All 16 contestants are amateurs, but will receive tutelage during the series. Similar to the way Joel Madden spouts platitudinal nonsense at hopeful young singers on The Voice, except instead of a piano he’ll be leaning on, like, a casting couch. “Well, you have a really big d**k, so I’m expecting a

The biggest onscreen age differences


It’s kind of like the Matthew McConaughey character Wooderson’s dream has come true in Hollywood, because leading men seem to be getting older, while their love interests stay the same age: young.

This week, Tom Cruise is matched up with Emily Blunt, who’s quite a bit younger than him, but that’s nothing compared to some of the age differences you’re about to see.

And keep in mind that these are from movies where the age difference isn’t part of the movie’s plot, or necessarily mentioned as an obstacle to their relationship.

Click through our gallery, and let us know which differences surprise you the most.

-Popsugar.com.au

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Oliver Stone to make Edward Snowden film


Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone will be adapting the story of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden for the big screen, from a book written by Guardian journalist Luke Harding, the British newspaper said in a statement.

Stone, 67, with his production partner Moritz Borman, bought the film rights to Harding’s The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man, that delved into the events surrounding Snowden leaking numerous top-secret NSA surveillance programs to media.

“This is one of the greatest stories of our time. A real challenge. I’m glad to have the Guardian working with us,” Stone said in a statement.

The filmmaker, who has won Oscars for directing 1986’s “Platoon” and 1989’s “Born on the Fourth of July,” will write and direct the film and also include materials from the Guardian journalists who broke the story.