4VF News – Daily News Channel

Armageddon is nigh.

New Zealand’s largest pop culture convention is en route to the capital, after a successful outing in Hamilton.

“There’s all the indicators that it’s going to be a killer weekend,” Armageddon Expo director Bill Geradts said.

He said films like Spiderman, X-Men and Ironman had made being a geek more socially acceptable and ticket sales were up by 10 per cent from this time last year.

He expected an attendance of up to 25,0000 over the three-day event.

Geradts was particularly happy with this year’s guest lineup.

“Last year we had 11 dwarves from The Hobbit. How the hell were we going to beat that” he said.

“Then we got the three Arrow guys including [New Zealander] Manu Bennett [also of Spartacus and The Hobbit fame], then at the last minute we got pretty much the entire cast of [New Zealand vampire film] What We Do In The Shadows, including Jemaine Clement – and they’re turning up in costume!”

Other guests will include five cast members from the Supernatural TV series, Christopher Judges from Stargate SG-1, Doctor Who’s Frazer Hines and J-Pop performer Chii Sakurabi. Various Hobbit dwarfs will also attend.

Geradts said Armageddon was New Zealand’s ComicCon – a fun, high-energy event where fans could dress up and mingle with each other, as well as their on- screen idols.

“People go to events all the time but tend to go in, look around and leave – there’s no emotion to it.

“Armageddon is an experience that people wait for, plan for, dream of. As a result, that pleasure and sense of happiness just permeates everything.”

Attendees could also look forward to celebrity guest panels, autographs and photos, as well as signings with animation artists, a zombie alley and a Cosplay contest.

Cosplay, short for “costume play,” had been an increasingly significant aspect of recent Armageddon events.

Geradts spent the Hamilton event dressed as John Snow from Game of Thrones.

Armageddon has been taking place annually since 1995, with events in Christchurch, Dunedin and Hamilton already this year. Armageddon, Westpac Stadium, Saturday, May 31, till Monday, June 2, 10am till 5pm. Tickets from Ticketek.

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– The Wellingtonian

Rowan Atkinson may have become famous playing characters of dubious value in a tight spot, but the English actor turns out to more useful in a real emergency.

The star best known for his roles as Mr Bean, Blackadder and Johnny English was in a group driving through the Italian countryside in their McLaren F1 supercars on Tuesday, when one of the cars, driven by a wealthy American businessman, crashed. The car ended up down a bank, on its roof, and against a tree.

Italian La Nazionale said the crashed vehicle had been in a four-car McLaren F1 caravan that included Atkinson, driving through Tuscany, when the driver of the white-and-red F1 lost control for reasons still unknown.

Atkinson was one of the first on the scene and was photographed picking up pieces of wreckage, The Telegraph reported.
The driver of the crashed car was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Pisa, where his condition was said to be not serious.

Atkinson crashed his own F1 into a tree in England in 2011. He escaped with minor injuries but the car cost

Evan Rachel Wood and Jamie Bell are separating after nearly two years of marriage.

The 26-year-old American Gothic star and 28-year-old English actor confirmed the news in a statement to UsWeekly magazine on Wednesday.

“Evan Rachel Wood and Jamie Bell have decided to separate. They both love and respect one another and will of course remain committed to co-parenting their son. This is a mutual decision and the two remain close friends,” a representative for the couple said.

Wood and Bell, who share a 10-month-old baby boy, met on the set of Green Day music video Wake Me Up When September Ends back in 2004.

The couple married eight years later, in October 2012, and welcomed their baby last July, although the tot’s name has never been revealed.

Us reports Wood opened up about the struggles of balancing motherhood and her career back in November during a screening of her film Charlie Countryman.

“I’ve been having separation anxiety because I’m so used to him being right here all the time. They kind of become a part of you, you know “It was my dream to be a mom, so I’m loving it. I love it,” she shared.

The outlet reports Wood and Bell last appeared together on a red carpet that same month, for the LACMA 2013 Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles.

A spokesperson for the couple declined to offer further details about the reason for the split.

However, a source suggested Wood and Bell had simply drifted apart.

“They love each other so much but it just wasn’t right,” the insider said.

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– Cover Media

The latest royal bumgate is just a bit of hot air compared to some scandals and intriguing affairs that have rocked the Windsor family over the years.

From a king who gave up power for a married American to a prince who dreamed of becoming a tampon one day (no, seriously), they’ve got it all. Take a look at modern British royal family scandals sure to make royal-watching more entertaining.

Tampongate

As you see pictures of Charles and Camilla at official functions, you might not be able to forget the details of “Camillagate,” aka “tampongate.”

As they carried on a romantic relationship from the 1970s and into their marriages to other people, a flirty conversation between Camilla and Charles was caught on tape and published in 1992. The tapes included an exchange in which Charles said he wanted to be Camilla’s tampon:

Charles: “Oh god. I’ll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be much easier!”

Camilla: (Laughs.) “What are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers” (Both laugh). “Oh, you’re going to come back as a pair of knickers.”

Charles: “Or, God forbid, a Tampax. Just my luck!” (Laughs.)

Camilla: “You are a complete idiot!” (Laughs.) “Oh, what a wonderful idea!”

Needless to say, it was embarrassing for Princess Diana and the royal family, as well as Charles and Camilla.

No Fairy-Tale Princess

As the younger and less serious sister of the future Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret had a glamorous and controversial reputation.

Around the time of her sister’s coronation, Margaret fell in love with a divorced man, Peter Townsend, who was 16 years her senior. The Church of England, the royal family, and the government made it clear she would have to give up her royal life if she chose to marry him; she ultimately decided not to.

Instead, she married photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960, who became the Earl of Snowdon, but quickly the marriage collapsed in front of the public’s eyes. There were rumours of affairs, drug use, and heavy drinking as well as questions about his sexuality. When the princess was photographed with a young lover, her husband took it as a chance to divorce, playing the victim. It later came out that Lord Snowdown may have fathered a child months before their marriage.

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Sisterly Love

Princess Diana met her future husband, Prince Charles, at the age of 16 – when he was dating her older sister! You would think his prior romance with a Spencer sister would raise eyebrows, but after his royal relatives’ penchant for divorc

James Blunt

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, May 27

Reviewed by Colin Morris

Well, it’s not hard to see why James Blunt is as successful as he is. He gave the audience 100 per cent, playing all the hits to an audience of mainly couples – couples who have probably met through his music. I wondered once or twice if we will see an increase in the Wellington population in nine months or so.

At 1.7 metres tall, Blunt is diminutive, his army nickname was “Weener” and with a slightly effeminate voice one wonders how he could, in the rank of officer, bark orders to a group of squaddies. Still, when he takes command on stage, as he did early on, you could feel there was only one person on stage, the band were certainly relegated to playing second fiddle.

The show starts with that old chestnut from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey heralding the band walking on to the stage to Richard Strauss’ Thus Spake Zarathustra and it is a pity Blunt did not see fit to look at Nietzsche’s lyrics as a guideline to his own writing skills, for it is here that Blunt often lets himself down.

With lines like “Will you be my shoulder when I’m grey and older” (High) and “Now I’m dancing with a broken heart/Ain’t no doctor who can make it start” (These Are The Words) you get the feeling a job with Hallmark Cards is just around the corner. And Miss America, we are told, is a tribute to Whitney Houston making Candle in the Wind sound like an opera aria. There is a formula to Blunt’s songs – Blue on Blue, Goodbye My Love and These Are the Words all deal with a failed love affair. Death rears its head in Miss America and Carry You Home and loneliness is central to Satellites.

Then just as I am getting the urge to run screaming from the auditorium I find several songs have registered – Postcards perfectly captured the essence of a British seaside resort and 1973 felt true to its essence. Blunt is amiable, immensely likeable, very self-assured and a huge audience pleaser.

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– The Dominion Post

Rowan Atkinson may have become famous playing characters of dubious value in a tight spot, but the English actor turns out to more useful in a real emergency.

The star best known for his roles as Mr Bean, Blackadder and Johnny English was in a group driving through the Italian countryside in their McLaren F1 supercars on Tuesday, when one of the cars, driven by a wealthy American businessman, crashed. The car ended up down a bank, on its roof, and against a tree.

Italian La Nazionale said the crashed vehicle had been in a four-car McLaren F1 caravan that included Atkinson, driving through Tuscany, when the driver of the white-and-red F1 lost control for reasons still unknown.

Atkinson was one of the first on the scene and was photographed picking up pieces of wreckage, The Telegraph reported.
The driver of the crashed car was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Pisa, where his condition was said to be not serious.

Atkinson crashed his own F1 into a tree in England in 2011. He escaped with minor injuries but the car cost

It’s every teenager’s dream – Katy Perry will be coming to New Zealand in December.

The singer will perform two Auckland shows at Vector Arena on 19 and 20 December.

The Roar and Teenage Dream singer will come from Australia, where she is performing 23 shows on The Prismatic World Tour.

The last time Katy Perry was in New Zealand she sold out two Vector Arena shows in Auckland and one TSB Arena show in Wellington.

The tour is in aid of her album PRISM, which debuted at number one when it was released here in October last year.

Tickets will go on sale at 9am on 6 June, with pre-sales available from 9am on 3 June.

The Australian leg of Perry’s Prismatic World Tour has sold out, and New Zealand will be the last leg of a tour that is taking in more than 40 venues across the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico and Australia.

The show is being promoted as a “visual extravaganza,” with lavish production and a state-of-the-art stage that brings Perry closer to her fans.

Swedish singer Tove Lo has been announced as a supporting act.

Perry, who released her first album Teenage Dream aged 25, has won 11 Grammy awards, and holds the record for the most weeks in the singles charts ever.

She suggested she might be coming our way in Feburary, tweeting that New Zealand tour dates will be announced soon.

Maya Angelou, a poet and author who rose from poverty, segregation and the harshest of childhoods to become a force on stage, screen and the printed page, has died. She was 86.

Angelou died on Wednesday morning (local time) at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, her son, Guy B Johnson, said in a statement. The 86-year-old had been a professor of American studies at Wake Forest University since 1982.

“She lived a life as a teacher, activist, artist and human being. She was a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace,” Johnson said.

Tall and regal, with a deep, majestic voice, Angelou defied all probability and category, becoming one of the first black women to enjoy mainstream success as an author and thriving in virtually every artistic medium. The young single mother who performed at strip clubs to earn a living later wrote and recited the most popular presidential inaugural poem in history. The childhood victim of rape wrote a million-selling memoir, befriended Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr, and performed on stages around the world.

An actress, singer and dancer in the 1950s and 1960s, she broke through as an author in 1970 with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which became standard (and occasionally censored) reading, and was the first of a multipart autobiography that continued through the decades. In 1993, she was a sensation reading her cautiously hopeful On the Pulse of the Morning at former President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration. Her confident performance openly delighted Clinton and made the poem a best-seller, if not a critical favourite. For former President George W Bush, she read another poem, Amazing Peace, at the 2005 Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the White House.

She remained close enough to the Clintons that in 2008 she supported Hillary Rodham Clinton’s candidacy over the ultimately successful run of the country’s first black president, Barack Obama. But a few days before Obama’s inauguration, she was clearly overjoyed. She told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette she would be watching it on television “somewhere between crying and praying and being grateful and laughing when I see faces I know”.

Obama said her death has dimmed “one of the brightest lights of our time”.

He added: “A childhood of suffering and abuse actually drove her to stop speaking, but the voice she found helped generations of Americans find their rainbow amidst the clouds, and inspired the rest of us to be our best selves.”

Angelou was a mentor to Oprah Winfrey, whom she befriended when Winfrey was still a local television reporter, and often appeared on her friend’s talk show programme. She mastered several languages and published not just poetry, but advice books, cookbooks and children’s stories. She wrote music, plays and screenplays, received an Emmy nomination for her acting in Roots, and never lost her passion for dance, the art she considered closest to poetry.

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“The line of the dancer: If you watch (Mikhail) Baryshnikov and you see that line, that’s what the poet tries for. The poet tries for the line, the balance,” she told The Associated Press in 2008, shortly before her birthday.

Her very name as an adult was a reinvention. Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St Louis and raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and San Francisco, moving back and forth between her parents and her grandmother. She was smart and fresh to the point of danger, packed off by her family to California after sassing a white store clerk in Arkansas. Other times, she didn’t speak at all: At age 7, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend and didn’t speak for years. She learned by reading, and listening.

“I loved the poetry that was sung in the black church: