89% The Lion King (In 3D)

All Critics (95) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (97) | Rotten (10) | DVD (55)

The story line is a Joseph Campbell hero-quest so stripped down to its basics as to become dull.

A computer-animated scene featuring a stampede of wildebeest is positively breathtaking.

The Lion King, more than any of the recent wave of Disney animated features, has the resonance to stand not just as a terrific cartoon but as an emotionally pungent movie.

The result is a step toward multiculturalism and ecological correctness, though not without a certain amount of confusion.

A crown jewel of modern Disney animation.

More so than the exuberant movie miracles that came before it, this latest animated juggernaut has the feeling of a clever, predictable product.

It's not hard to understand why The Lion King's good-vs.-evil adventure and high-spirited comic passages haven't lost their appeal. [Blu-ray]

It's an attractive film but altogether less interesting and more conventional than the Pixar productions that now dominate Disney's animated output.

"Hakuna Matata" would mean never having to be subjected to The Lion King ever again, much less having Simba's growing pains coming at your face in 3D.

It does exactly what it says on the tin.

Feel the love tonight. And see the colours, too.

The 3D technology adds some eye-popping moments but the best thing about this reissue is the chance for a new generation to see a modern classic on a cinema screen.

There are no gimmicks and the big emotional moments are almost entirely untouched.

However crass Disney's motivation may have been in rereleasing the film... it's cheering to see that... people still want to see great movies on a big screen with big sound...

Well worth another look, though it's a pity they're saving the newly made bloopers for the upcoming Blu-ray.

It didn't really need the 3D, but it's still a stunning, glorious family film, with the third dimension or otherwise.

While the core ideology behind The Lion King is extremely problematic and stands out even more today than it did in 1994, there is still much to admire about the film.

It's a wonderful treat to revisit and the 3-D is beautifully utilised, but it's perhaps not the classic that Disney purports it to be.

Art History stands out as one of Joe Swanberg's most visually and conceptually accomplished experiments.

More Critic Reviews

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lion_king/

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Nickelback Will Play Detroit Lions' Thanksgiving Game

After weeks of online protests from Lions fans, there's official word the band has been booked to play.
By James Montgomery


Nickelback's Chad Kroeger
Photo: Getty Images

Well, now it's official.

Two weeks after an irate Detroit Lions fan launched an online petition asking the team to remove Nickelback as the halftime performers for their annual Thanksgiving game, there is finally confirmation from the United Way — sponsors of said halftime show — that the Canadian quartet will be performing at the game.

"Nickelback will take the stage for the 2011 United Way Thanksgiving Halftime Show during the first game of the NFL's tripleheader when the Detroit Lions host the Green Bay Packers on Thursday, November 24, at 12:30 pm ET," the United Way said in a press release. "The game and halftime show will be broadcast live on Fox."

It marks the first actual confirmation that Nickelback will be performing at the game. On November 1, The Oakland Press reported that the band had been booked — a story that led to the creation of that online petition claiming there are better choices for the gig — but neither the NFL nor the Detroit Lions commented on the matter (a spokesperson for the league did not respond to MTV News' request for comment last week, and a rep for the Lions had no comment when reached).

There is no mention of the online outrage in the United Way press release — though they do announce that "American Idol" season 10 runner-up Lauren Alaina will be singing the National Anthem before the Lions/Packers tilt — but there is a quote from Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger, who thanked his fans in Detroit for their continued support of the band (petitions notwithstanding).

"We are honored to perform at the United Way halftime show on Thanksgiving Day," Kroeger said. "We always love playing in Detroit, our fans there have been tremendously supportive of us through the years and we can't wait to come back and celebrate an exciting day for the Lions and the city of Detroit."

Related Artists

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1674301/nickelback-detroit-lions-thanksgiving-game.jhtml

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Party Hub: Outdoor Grill with Deep-Fat Fryer

Real men grill. Even realer men grill and deep-fry. So, if you have the merest whiff of testosterone about you, you need the Blacktop 360 Party Hub, possibly the most accurately-named gadget ever made. As if an outdoor grill with a (20-ounce) deep-fat fryer at its center wasn’t cool enough, there are some extra-neat touches. For [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/OQ2g3zbRZ78/

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Mexico loss of 2nd in charge won't change drug war (AP)

MEXICO CITY ? President Felipe Calderon said Saturday the loss of Mexico's No. 2 official in a helicopter crash won't weaken the offensive against drug cartels and, if anything, will toughen it.

Speaking at a memorial service, Calderon said the best way to pay tribute to Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora and the seven others killed Friday when their aircraft smashed into a mountainside south of Mexico City is "to keep fighting with greater conviction for the things they fought for."

Blake Mora had been the face of the government's drug war, carrying a message to stay tough and bringing new offensives to states beleaguered by drug violence. He was on his way to a meeting of prosecutors when he died.

"The best way to honor these citizens is to step up the efforts to transform Mexico into the country they wanted," Calderon said at a military field where thousands of people, including Cabinet members, governors and relatives of Blake Mora mourned the crash victims.

As a military orchestra played a march, Calderon stood for several minutes on a red carpet next to Blake Mora's coffin, with the other seven caskets lined up behind him amid an honor guard of hundreds of soldiers.

The president then offered his condolences to Blake Mora's wife and children and gave them a portrait of Blake Mora and the Mexican flag that covered his coffin during the vigil.

Calderon had choked back emotion Friday when he announced the loss of "a great patriot ... a dear friend." On Saturday, he stood strong while delivering a speech telling Mexicans that despite their grief, the loss should inspire more action in the war against cartels, a conflict that has seen at least 35,000 deaths since late 2006.

Blake Mora's death has been a stunning mishap too odd for some Mexicans to accept as an accident, even with Calderon and officials saying bad weather may have been the cause of the crash. But just like the loss of another interior minister three years ago in a plane crash, Blake Mora's death won't change the course of the deadly assault on organized crime.

While the secretary of the interior is considered the government's second-in-charge, other Cabinet members are more central to carrying out the drug war: the secretaries of defense, navy and public security and the attorney general. The people currently in those positions have been with Calderon through most of his term. Blake Mora, 45, who was appointed in June 2010, was the fourth interior secretary since Calderon's election five years ago.

Mexico's interior secretary coordinates domestic policies such as security, human rights, migration and the president's relations with the legislature and opposition parties. The post has diminished in power over time. Under Mexico's old one-party system that ruled for 71 years, the secretary of the interior often went on to be president, but that changed when the autocratic Institutional Revolutionary Party lost the presidency in 2000.

In his short time in the job, Blake Mora embodied the government's get-tough attitude toward drug cartels and other gangs, publicly pledging not to back down.

"Organized crime, in its desperation, resorts to committing atrocities that we can't and shouldn't tolerate as a government and as a society," he had said.

He was heading to a meeting of prosecutors in central Morelos state, which has been hit heavily by violence among warring cartels, when the Super Puma helicopter crashed in a hilly area southeast of Mexico City.

The political impact of Blake Mora's death is "relatively minor," said historian Lorenzo Meyer of the College of Mexico, adding that the position of interior secretary "is not remotely what it was ... it lost power in the new system."

Still, the crash adds to the public sense of tragedy the drug war has brought.

"Polls have been showing that insecurity now tops poverty as the No. 1 concern among Mexicans," said George W. Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. "An event like this ... is going to increase the sense of uncertainty and insecurity."

The crash of the Super Puma helicopter, part of the presidential fleet, also killed the undersecretary for legal affairs and human rights, Felipe Zamora, two other interior officials, the chief of Blake Mora's security detail and three crew members, all air force officers who served in the equivalent of Mexico's Secret Service.

Transportation Secretary Dionisio Perez Jacome said Saturday that the pilot was following visual flight rules, which requires always keeping eye contact with the ground and the craft wasn't being directed by air traffic control officials. He said the pilot chose an alternate route, presumably because of dense fog in the Ajusco mountain range south of Mexico City.

Perez said weather conditions were proper when the helicopter left the military base in Mexico City on Friday morning, but 10 minutes later officials lost track of the aircraft.

The Mexican government has asked the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and French aviation crash experts to help in the investigation.

NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said he was not allowed to discuss the crash because the U.S. agency was not the lead investigative agency.

"The federal government should open the investigation well beyond the secretary of communications and transport," said organized crime analyst Edgardo Buscaglia. "Three Cabinet secretaries falling from the sky is too much of a challenge to the laws of probability."

In 2005, during President Vicente Fox's administration, a helicopter crash blamed on poor weather conditions killed Mexico's top police official, public safety secretary Ramon Martin Huerta.

Despite tendencies to suspect a deliberate hit on a top Mexican official, initial indications are that Friday's crash was an accident, Calderon said. So far the investigation shows that when the helicopter hit the ground it was structurally complete, Perez said Saturday.

Calderon seemed to try to quell any suggestions of sabotage, saying that Blake Mora's helicopter "was always under guard" in the Secret Service hangar and that it had recently undergone maintenance.

Video of the wreckage suggested the helicopter plowed into the hillside and broke in half, but did not explode or burn. Perez said Saturday the craft had not exploded.

In what many Mexicans find hard to believe was an odd coincidence, a Learjet slammed into a Mexico City street in 2008, killing former Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino and 15 others. That was blamed on pilot error, with the government issuing a detailed report on that accident in the face of even more persistent rumors that it was a drug-cartel hit.

One of Blake Mora's last postings on his Twitter account commemorated the loss of Mourino. "Today we remember Juan Camilo Mourino three years after his death, a person who was working to build a better Mexico," he tweeted on Nov. 4.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111113/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_blake_mora

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Obama urges help for veterans in radio address

President Barack Obama greets attendees before the Carrier Classic NCAA college basketball game between Michigan State and North Carolina aboard the USS Carl Vinson, Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, in Coronado, Calif. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy, Seaman Apprentice Zachary Bell)

President Barack Obama greets attendees before the Carrier Classic NCAA college basketball game between Michigan State and North Carolina aboard the USS Carl Vinson, Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, in Coronado, Calif. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy, Seaman Apprentice Zachary Bell)

Veteran Robert Flick holds an American flag during a Veteran?s Day ceremony attended by President Barack Obama Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Maj. Gen. Michael S. Linnington, Commander of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington, places a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns during a Veteran?s Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Friday Nov. 11, 2011, (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama stands with Andy Katz of ESPN before his interview at the Carrier Classic NCAA basketball game between Michigan State and North Carolina on the USS Carl Vinson, Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, in Coronado, Calif. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama places a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns during a Veteran?s Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Friday, Nov. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

(AP) ? President Barack Obama says veterans of conflicts overseas should not struggle to find work once they return home, and he's urging the House to follow the Senate's lead and do something to help them.

"We ask these men and women to leave their families and their jobs and risk their lives to fight for our country. The last thing they should have to do is fight for a job when they get home," the president said in his weekly radio and Internet address. He recorded the message Friday, Veteran's Day, on board the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier anchored off the coast of San Diego, where Obama stopped en route to an Asia-Pacific economic summit that he was hosting beginning Saturday in Hawaii.

"Standing up for our veterans isn't a Democratic responsibility or a Republican responsibility ? it's an American responsibility. It's one that all of us have an obligation to meet," Obama said. "And the House should pass this bill as soon as possible so I can sign it into law."

Obama's beginning a nine-day trip through Hawaii, Australia and Indonesia aimed at strengthening ties and boosting economic opportunity back at home.

Before he left Washington, the Senate acted in unusual bipartisan accord to pass a small portion of the president's jobs bill, voting overwhelmingly to approve legislation to award tax credits of up to $9,600 to companies that hire disabled veterans who have been job-hunting for at least half a year, and strengthen employment counseling and training programs for vets and troops about to leave the military.

The House is expected to approve the bill next week, which would send it to Obama. The president's signature would make the veterans tax credits the first fragment of his $447 billion jobs package to be enacted ? although it will accomplish little to boost the sagging economy, or solve the deficit problems that a congressional supercommittee is struggling with. Those problems are sure to await Obama when he returns to Washington on Nov. 20, days ahead of a deadline for a proposal from the supercommittee.

Republicans also devoted their weekly media address to veterans, with Nevada Rep. Joe Heck, an Army reservist, calling for leadership from Obama to do more for veterans and support House-passed legislation to help them.

"We owe it to our veterans to ensure they come home to a strong economy, so they can transition into civilian life and support their family with a good paying job," Heck said.

"With unemployment still much too high, we just can't wait to take bipartisan action that will help put Americans back to work," he said.

___

Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: www.youtube.com/HouseConference

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-12-Obama-Veterans/id-92a18766969e4c68938e9be59a6064ab

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Women see naked men differently, too

ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2011) ? For both men and women, wearing revealing attire causes them to be seen as more sensitive but less competent, says a new study by University of Maryland psychologist Kurt Gray and colleagues from Yale and Northeastern University.

In an article published Nov. 10 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers write that it would be absurd to think people's mental capacities fundamentally change when they remove clothing. "In six studies, however, we show that taking off a sweater-or otherwise revealing flesh-can significantly change the way a mind is perceived."

Past research, feminist theory and parental admonishments all have long suggested that when men see a woman wearing little or nothing, they focus on her body and think less of her mind. The new findings by Gray, et al. both expand and change our understanding of how paying attention to someone's body can alter how both men and women view both women and men.

"An important thing about our study is that, unlike much previous research, ours applies to both sexes. It also calls into question the nature of objectification because people without clothes are not seen as mindless objects, but they are instead attributed a different kind of mind," says UMD's Gray.

"We also show that this effect can happen even without the removal of clothes. Simply focusing on someone's attractiveness, in essence concentrating on their body rather than their mind, makes you see him or her as less of an agent [someone who acts and plans] and more of an experiencer."

Objectification vs. Two Kinds of Mind

Traditional research and theories on objectification suggest that we see the mind of others on a continuum between the full mind of a normal human and the mindlessness of an inanimate object. The idea of objectification is that looking at someone in a sexual context-such as in pornography-leads people to focus on physical characteristics, turning them into an object without a mind or moral status.

However, recent findings indicate that rather than looking at others on a continuum from object to human, we see others as having two aspects of mind: agency and experience. Agency is the capacity to act, plan and exert self-control, whereas experience is the capacity to feel pain, pleasure and emotions. Various factors -- including the amount of skin shown -- can shift which type of mind we see in another person.

In multiple experiments, the researchers found further support for the two kinds of mind view. When men and women in the study focused on someone's body, perceptions of agency (self-control and action) were reduced, and perceptions of experience (emotion and sensation) were increased. Gray and colleagues suggest that this effect occurs because people unconsciously think of minds and bodies as distinct, or even opposite, with the capacity to act and plan tied to the "mind" and the ability to experience or feel tied to the body.

According to Gray, their findings indicate that the change in perception that results from showing skin is not all bad. "A focus on the body, and the increased perception of sensitivity and emotion it elicits might be good for lovers in the bedroom," he says.

Their study also found that a body focus can actually increase moral standing. Although those wearing little or no clothes -- or otherwise represented as a body -- were seen to be less morally responsible, they also were seen to be more sensitive to harm and hence deserving of more protection. "Others appear to be less inclined to harm people with bare skin and more inclined to protect them. In one experiment, for example, people viewing male subjects with their shirts off were less inclined to give those subjects uncomfortable electric shocks than when the men had their shirts on.," Gray says.

However, Gray and his coauthors note that in work or academic contexts, where people are primarily evaluated on their capacity to plan and act, a body focus clearly has negative effects. Seeing someone as a body strips him or her of competence and leadership, potentially impacting job evaluations. "Even more than robbing someone of agency, the increased experience that may accompany body perceptions may lead those who are characterized in terms of their bodies to be seen as more reactive and emotional, traits that may also serve to work against career advancement," they write.

Even the positive aspects of a body focus, such as an increased desire to protect from harm, can be ultimately harmful, the authors say, pointing to the "benevolent sexism" common in the United States in the 1950s, in which men oppressed women under the guise of protecting them.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Kurt Gray, Joshua Knobe, Mark Sheskin, Paul Bloom, Lisa Feldman Barrett. More than a body: Mind perception and the nature of objectification.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011; DOI: 10.1037/a0025883

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111110142100.htm

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Guess Nobody Dared Tell Gov. Goodhair About the ?Closet? Rumors? (Balloon Juice)

CME offers $300M to help unfreeze MF Global funds

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, a sign for MF Global is displayed at an office building, in New York. Defunct trading company MF Global Inc. said Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, it is terminating its entire workforce of 1,066 employees. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, a sign for MF Global is displayed at an office building, in New York. Defunct trading company MF Global Inc. said Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, it is terminating its entire workforce of 1,066 employees. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? A futures exchange that handled trades by failed broker MF Global said Friday that it will cover as much as $300 million to help speed the release of funds frozen since the firm filed for bankruptcy protection.

CME Group's announcement that it will provide a "financial guarantee" to the trustee overseeing the liquidation of the brokerage unit of MF Global followed the trustee's disclosure that he fired all of the unit's 1,066 employees.

CME said it was providing the funds to give the trustee "greater latitude" to distribute $4 billion in customer funds. The funds were frozen by a bankruptcy judge as he evaluates competing claims for the money. MF Global is facing a legally complicated liquidation. Some $600 million of customer funds is missing.

MF Global collapsed after making a disastrous bet on European debt. The company traded derivatives contracts whose value was based on the value of an underlying asset, like interest rates, oil prices or currency rates. It filed for bankruptcy protection on Oct. 31.

MF Global was one of the biggest players in the derivatives market. Regulators are investigating whether the firm used money from clients' accounts as its own financial condition worsened. That would be a violation of securities rules.

The company has already transferred $1.5 billion in funds from 17,000 customer accounts to other derivatives and commodities merchants, the trustee said. Its parent company, MF Global Holdings Ltd., is involved in separate insolvency proceedings, he said. Some of the remaining money is cash that customers deposited with MF Global to allow them to trade derivatives. Big derivatives clearinghouse IntercontinentalExchange Inc. has asked that that money be returned immediately.

CME said its "financial guarantee" would kick in if the trustee found it had distributed more money than allowed in a final accounting of the bankruptcy. It would cover the trustee up to $250 million. Another $50 million would go directly to CME customers who are missing money.

"We look forward to seeing the details of the CME proposal and hope it might help use as we devise an expedited claims process," said Kent Jarrell, a spokesman for the court-appointed trustee.

Earlier Friday, James W. Giddens, the trustee in the case, said in a statement that he cut MF Global workers in accordance with a bankruptcy court mandate. Between 150 and 200 former employees are being re-hired to assist with the liquidation and court proceedings.

"These people were chosen because they had special skills and expertise needed for the company wind down," said Jarrell, the trustee spokesman.

MF Global did not immediately return a call seeking comment. It said in a statement that all the employees were notified of their termination Friday. The company said it is working to vacate its headquarters in New York as soon as possible and will close the facility. It said it would rent cheaper office space to house the small group of employees working on the liquidation.

___

AP Business Writer Bernard Condon contributed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-11-MF%20Global-Terminations/id-f892e5617b8049ed9f2b86a321ab08df

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