Music supervisor Andrea von Foerster on 500 Days of Summer and other great romantic comedy soundtracks

There comes a moment in almost every movie romance when words no longer suffice and the music must rise to the occasion. From the initial meet-cutes to the heated arguments and all those third-act sprints to win back the girl, a movie’s soundtrack often does the heavy lifting, providing all the needed passion, heartache and poetry. The romantic comedy Days of Summer, with a soundtrack ranging from Wolfmother to Carla Bruni, hits all the right notes, with a few surprising ones thrown in .

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Yearning for Zion: Texas Polygamists Prep for Criminal Trials

As courtroom drama goes, the upcoming trials in the quiet West Texas oasis of San Angelo should be humdingers: a dozen male members of a Mormom polygamist sect have been indicted on a bevy of charges, ranging from bigamy to sex with a child, stemming from a raid last year in which protective service officials removed more than 400 children from the Yearning For Zion compound. The trials are set to begin in October. But as every lawyer knows, this summer’s crop of pre-trial motions, however boring they may sound, will greatly shape the jury verdicts — or any possible plea bargains — by largely determining what is allowed to be used in the trials and what isn’t

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Box Office Weekend: G-Force Overruns Potter

Draco Malfoy and the slimy kids of Slytherin couldn’t have wreaked more damage on Harry Potter than a bunch of commando guinea pigs did to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this weekend. G-Force, the live-action and CGI action comedy, earned $32.2 million this weekend at the North American box office, besting the $30 million take of the sixth Potter film, according to the usual movie-studio estimates of the weekend frame. Final numbers are posted Monday.

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‘G-Force’ beats ‘Ugly Truth’ and ‘Potter’ at box office

Neither the magic of Harry Potter nor the combined star power of Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler was enough to keep a crew of wise-cracking guinea pigs from scurrying to the top of the box office this weekend. Disney’s family comedy “G-Force,” produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and featuring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Will Arnett, and Penelope Cruz as a team of world-saving rodents, made an estimated $32.2 million in its debut. Despite opening hot on the heels of the one-week old “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the animation/live action hybrid pic was a hit with young audiences, pulling 55 percent of its viewers from the under-18 crowd.

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Train Chaos Brings Berlin to a Standstill

Germany’s reputation for efficiency is under serious threat, as work on Berlin’s main suburban train networks has brought the city to a grinding halt. At the height of tourist season and with Berlin playing host to the World Athletics Championships in just a few weeks, the resulting chaos could not have come at a worse time for the cash-strapped capital. For the first time in its 85-year history, Berlin’s S-Bahn system has slashed services after most of its trains were pulled off the tracks for safety checks.

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Obama forges ahead with health care push

President Obama took his push to overhaul health care to a national audience Wednesday night, but he gave little assurance that Congress would agree to a plan before its August recess. With a voice of urgency, Obama said that if nothing is done, health care costs will double in the next decade and more Americans will lose their coverage.

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