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Sunday, November 3, 2013

Combustion: Mumbai Review

The Bottom Line

Rebels without any claws.

Venue

Mumbai Film Festival (Celebration of Spanish Cinema)

Cast

Alex Gonzalez, Adriana Ugarte, Alberto Ammann, Maria Castro, Christian Mulas

Director

Daniel Calparsoro

Screenwriters

Carlos Montero, Jaime Vaca, Daniel Calparsoro

Nostalgists will remember Daniel Calparsoro as the director of abrasive, tough little social commentary movies with loads of soul, but that’s all over now. An efficient, strikingly superficial thriller that does what it does and isn’t interested in doing anything more, Combustion is pure, unashamed product. Welding together automobiles, muscles, mini-skirts and music into a slick flick about people being nasty to each other, the film delivers its ingredients as a slightly low-rent Spanish derivation of Fast and Furious 6, which underplayed at home but has generated brisk sales offshore. Job done.

Brutish, sneering Navas (Alberto Ammann, best-known outside Spain for playing the innocent jailbird in Cell 211) drives a black car, which he races illegally. To raise more cash he also breaks into the houses of the wealthy by using Navas' girlfriend Ari (Adriana Ugarte) as bait for the male owners.

The plan for their big final hit is to rob the store of jewelry heiress Julia (Maria Castro), engaged to former racing driver Mikel (Alex Gonzalez, driving a white Porsche a la James Dean), forced into retirement and trying to settle down into a more conservative lifestyle. But things go awry when Ari starts to fall for Mikel. When he takes her out in his private plane, she starts to realize that she could have lots of money without having to rob any more, though this is not said: the question of whether it’s Mikel or his cash that she’s falling for is left interestingly ambiguous.

Sometimes the characters desire sex, sometimes money and sometimes car thrills, but their desires never escape this triangle, which leaves them all looking like cardboard, albeit quite nice-looking cardboard. Mikel’s troubled past makes him vulnerable and therefore attractive to Ari, but there is always the nagging doubt that it’s his plane rather than Mikel himself that’s really doing it for her.

Ari dominates the first half of the story but is quickly dropped when Mikel and Navas begin to bond over their vehicles, sitting side by side appreciating the Porsche’s purring engine and doing a testosterone-raising chickie run. Unable to compete with the cars for the boys’ attention, Ari meekly retires to the status of ornament. Meanwhile, the despicable way that the boys treat the hapless heiress Julia (oddly, the film both fetishizes and criticizes wealth) removes any lingering sympathy that the audience may have felt for her, so the film’s finale represents a victory not so much for good over evil as a victory of the bad over the very bad.

Dialogue is entirely predictable and borrowed. Daniel Aranyo’s busy photography dutifully goes to the ground whenever cars or Ari’s long legs are in his viewfinder, then swoops high over the races and chases, while endless cityscapes aim at redrawing Madrid as a place where such things might actually happen. Carlos Jean’s score is practically omnipresent, occasionally surging into uplifting pop songs with lyrics that fuse the banal and the incomprehensible into an entirely new language.

Production companies: Antena 3 Films, Canal+, La Sexta, Zeta Audiovisual
Cast: Alex Gonzalez, Adriana Ugarte, Alberto Ammann, Maria Castro, Christian Mulas
Director: Daniel Calparsoro
Screenwriters: Carlos Montero, Jaime Vaca, Calparsoro
Producers: Francisco Ramos, Mercedes Gamero
Director of photography: Daniel Aranyo
Production designer: Anton Laguna
Music: Carlos Jean
Costume designer: Loles Garcia
Editor: David Pinillos, Antonio Frutos
Sound: Sergio Burmann, James Munoz, Nicolas de Poulpiquet
Sales: Film Factory Entertainment

No rating, 104 minutes

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/reviews/film/~3/famz_9tKxmM/combustion-mumbai-review-651543
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Kentucky is No. 1 in preseason poll

Kentucky head coach John Calipari watches his team during their Blue-White NCAA college basketball scrimmage, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, in Lexington, Ky. The Blue team won 99-71. (AP Photo/James Crisp)

Kentucky men's coach John Calipari speaks to the audience waiting for the start of the NCAA college basketball team's Big Blue Madness, Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, in Lexington, Ky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

Kentucky head coach John Calipari watches his team during their Blue-White NCAA college basketball scrimmage, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, in Lexington, Ky. The Blue team won 99-71. (AP Photo/James Crisp)

Michigan State head basketball coach Tom Izzo responds to a question during the Big Ten Conference NCAA college basketball media day Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, in Rosemont, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo listens to a question during the Big Ten Conference NCAA college basketball media day Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, in Rosemont, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Every time Kentucky coach John Calipari starts to praise his latest crop of talented freshmen, he's just as quick to point out that it is a work in progress.

As the Wildcats take the first step toward coming together, Calipari will also have to remind his players to get through those growing pains quickly, because they are now the team to beat in college basketball.

Kentucky — with a collection of high school All-Americans — is ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press' preseason Top 25, a significant step considering the Wildcats finished 21-12 last season and were upset by Robert Morris in the first round of the NIT.

It's Kentucky's third preseason No. 1 and first since 1995-96 when the Wildcats won the national championship. The other preseason No. 1 was in 1980-81.

Kentucky was ranked for just one week in the final 16 polls of last season but Calipari enters this season with a roster featuring two returnees — Alex Poythress and Willie Cauley-Stein — and six freshmen who were selected McDonalds All-Americans last season.

To say that a ninth national championship is this year's goal is an understatement considering Kentucky has social media and blogs suggesting an unbeaten season is possible.

Calipari would just like to get to the Nov. 8 opener against North Carolina-Asheville first. The Wildcats begin the exhibition season Friday.

"It's a nice honor, but it's way too early to figure out who's the best team in the country," Calipari said. "We may be very talented, but I can't imagine us being the best team in the country at this point."

Kentucky beat out Michigan State in a close vote from the 65-member panel.

The Wildcats received 27 first-place votes and 1,546 points in the poll released Thursday. The Spartans, who return four starters from the team that lost to Duke in the NCAA tournament's round of 16, snared 22 first-place votes and 1,543 points.

It won't take long for the schools to settle the issue. Kentucky and Michigan State meet on Nov. 12 at the State Farm Champions Classic in Chicago.

If their rankings hold, it'll set up the earliest meeting between the top two teams. No. 1 Indiana beat No. 2 UCLA 84-64 on Nov. 29, 1975 in St. Louis, Mo.

The polling also enhances what already figured to be a strong showdown between two heavyweights.

"A 1-2 matchup is a win-win deal," Spartans coach Tom Izzo told the AP. "If you win, you understand where you are and what you have as a team. If you lose, you've got time to figure out what you need to do to get better. I'm not sure, though, how kids and fans will react to winning or losing that game."

Of his team's ranking, Izzo added, "it's exciting because it means a group of people think we're good, and we've got a chance to be great."

Defending national champion Louisville received 14 first-place votes and was third while Duke, which received the other two No. 1 votes, was fourth.

Kansas was fifth, followed by Arizona and Michigan. Oklahoma State and Syracuse tied for eighth and Florida rounded out the Top Ten.

Ohio State was 11th and was followed by North Carolina, Memphis, VCU, Gonzaga, Wichita State, Marquette, Connecticut, Oregon and Wisconsin.

The last five ranked teams were Notre Dame, UCLA, New Mexico, Virginia and Baylor.

The last preseason No. 1 not to be ranked in the final poll of the previous season was Indiana in 1979-80.

Indiana was the preseason No. 1 last season and the Hoosiers were fourth in the final poll.

Gonzaga was No. 1 in the final poll last season and 18 teams in that final poll were in the preseason Top 25.

The Atlantic Coast Conference had the most teams in the preseason Top 25 with five and the Big Ten had four. The new American Athletic Conference, the Big 12 and Pac 12 all had three ranked teams.

Though Kentucky's objective is winning its second NCAA title in three seasons, playing like it's the nation's best is also a priority for the Wildcats a year after falling from the poll weeks after starting No. 3.

"It's a blessing to be No. 1, but it means we have a (target) on our backs now and we really have to stay focused," Kentucky 7-footer Dakari Johnson said Thursday. "That's not the main thing we're focused on. We're just trying to be the best team that we can be."

Michigan State senior guard Keith Appling echoed that sentiment, especially since the Spartans came within three votes of being top-ranked.

"That has to be one of the things to drive us to work harder," he said.

The consensus is that Calipari landed his best in a series of No. 1 recruiting classes. The group features Julius Randle, James Young, Johnson, Marcus Lee and identical twin guards Aaron and Andrew Harrison, along with in-state standouts Dominique Hawkins and Derek Willis.

Along with Cauley-Stein, Poythress and senior reserves Jarrod Polson and Jon Hood, Kentucky has a mix of experience somewhat similar to the 2011-12 title team led by Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.

The season will determine whether Kentucky is able to deliver, and Willis said the Wildcats are just focused on being on top at the end.

"There's a lot of talk about 40-0 and all that stuff," Willis said, "but we're just working on ourselves and not worrying about what the media is saying right now."

AP Basketball Writer Jim O'Connell In New York, and AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in East Lansing, Mich., contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-10-31-T25-College%20Bkb%20Poll/id-d20d17cf48604c358353053ea01dc86a
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Kerry in Egypt on first visit since Morsi ouster

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry prepares to board his aircraft at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, Nov. 2, 2013. Kerry is in Cairo pressing for reforms during the highest-level American visit to Egypt since the ouster of the country’s first democratically elected president. The Egyptian military’s removal of Mohammed Morsi in July led the U.S. to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. It seems the State Department expected a frosty reception for Kerry ahead of Monday’s scheduled start of Morsi’s trial on charges of inciting murder. (AP Photo/Jason Reed,Pool)

CAIRO (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry says that U.S.-Egypt relations should not be defined by assistance.

At a joint news conference following a meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, Kerry said that the suspension of aid to Egypt is not a punishment. He was referring to the legal requirements for withholding more than $1 billion in assistance after the Egyptian military in July toppled the democratically elected government.

Kerry said the topic was mentioned only briefly in his meeting with Fahmy and that he believed Egyptian authorities understood that rationale.

Kerry made an unannounced trip to Egypt Sunday on the first leg of a nine-day trip to the Mideast and Europe. This is Kerry's first trip to Egypt since the military's action.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-11-03-United%20States-Egypt-Kerry/id-b82776f9c7404fac89f69440ed262974
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NSA reportedly tapped into Google, Yahoo data centers worldwide without telling either company

It's a top secret plan with a fittingly supervillain-esque codename: MUSCULAR. That tool, part of a partnership between the NSA and the UK's GCHQ, has been used to infiltrate Google and Yahoo data centers across the world, according to documents revealed by Edward Snowden and confirmed by sources at ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/kiUi46ng1n8/
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Google: Samsung Galaxy Nexus won't get updated to Android 4.4 KitKat

From the horse's mouth, we're hearing some unfortunate news: Google has taken to its Spanish support pages to announce that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is not on the list of devices to receive Android 4.4 KitKat. This seems a bit odd, given the new update's focus on "the next billion" and offering solid performance to other budget devices, but at the moment things aren't looking up for owners of the phone -- or any older Nexus devices, for that matter. We've reached out to Google for clarification on this and will update you if and when we hear back.

Google Samsung Galaxy Nexus won't get updated to Android 44 KitKat

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/31/google-galaxy-nexus-kitkat/?ncid=rss_truncated
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Oprah Winfrey's Out-of-This World Yardsale

Selling hundreds of personal possessions she has accumulated over the past 30 years, the legendary Oprah Winfrey set up an epic yardsale, taking up three tents on the polo grounds in Santa Barbara, CA. She got rid of treasures and trinkets from her homes in Hawaii, Indiana and California at a giant sale Saturday (November 2).

"I've been accumulating things since 1985," the 59-year-old told Entertainment Tonight. "It's just too much stuff. I talk about it a lot in [O] the magazine. We talk about decluttering. And I realized, I need to declutter my own life. It is very freeing. I am downsizing."

There has also been a great deal of speculation about the former talk show host's doll collection. She commented on it, saying, "People come to stay with me, and they say they get scared with all the dolls. You wake up, and there's like 12 dolls staring at you."

It's never easy to be rid of items that you have always had, and this Oprah knows. "I'm trying not to be attached to things," she said. "I'm trying to live the life that I talk about, like not letting things define you. But it's hard."

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/oprah-winfrey/oprah-winfreys-out-world-yardsale-954262
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Tobacco Firm Burned for Running Ad in Kids' App

Today in international tech news: A UK-based tobacco company apologizes after one of its ads ends up in a children's iPad app. Also: Google's competitors don't seem all that impressed with its most recent round of European antitrust remedies; a Brit is arrested for hacking into U.S. government computers; Obama's Twitter account gets hacked; and Apple had a good (relatively speaking) quarter in China.

British American Tobacco issued an apology after an ad for its e-cigarette brand, Vype, popped up in an iPad app for children.

The Vype banner appeared inside the "My Dog My Style HD" game and was spotted by author and educator Graham Brown-Martin, who took to Twitter with a screenshot of the kiddy cig advertisement.

British American Tobacco, based in the UK, pulled its online advertising for Vype and issued an apology: "It's unacceptable and we're taking the issue seriously," it said.

The snafu was likely caused not by British American Tobacco targeting kids, but rather by a mixup (or downright negligence) with an advertising network tasked with placing the company's ads.

[Source: The Guardian]

Google Competitors Unswayed by Company's EU Concessions

A group of Google's competitors say that the company's most recent attempt to appease European Union antitrust complaints is insufficient.

The EU's antitrust investigation into Google has spanned three years. The saga has included:

Android being added to Europe's list of grievances;

Google's competitors pleading with the European Commission to hurry up;

Europe's competitors rejecting Google's first go-around at concessions earlier this year.

Google has reportedly offered to let competitors display their logos on Google result pages as part of its new strategy. However, FairSearch, a group of companies led by Microsoft, has said that such concessions are too similar to the ones that have already been rejected.

Google currently controls more than 90 percent of the search market in Europe -- it's about 70 percent in the U.S. -- which is probably part of the reason other companies are so prickly about this.

Joaquín Almunia, the European Union's Competition Commissioner, said he wants a final settlement reached by the spring. Then again, the EU gave Google a January 2013 deadline last year, and look what good that's done.

[Sources: The Associated Press; The New York Times]

Brit Arrested on US Hacking Suspicions

A British man was arrested for hacking into U.S. military and government computer systems, including NASA, the EPA and more.

U.S. authorities say the man, 28, placed so-called "back doors" in hacked networks, thereby enabling him to thieve data.

The FBI reportedly teamed with the UK's National Crime Agency to execute the arrest. Three more people are believed to be involved.

[Source: BBC]

Obama's Twitter Account Hacked

The pro-Assad Syrian Electronic Army hacker group claims to have wormed its way into President Obama's official Twitter and Facebook accounts.

That claim jells with what happened to Obama's Twitter account, which on Monday linked to a YouTube video from the Electronic Army. Obama's reelection site, donate.barackobama.com, was also infiltrated, as users were redirected to the Syrian Electronic Army site.

The Syrian Electronic Army has also taken credit for hacks carried out against CNN, Time and other media outlets.

[Source: The Hacker News via The Register]

Apple's China Numbers Rebound

After a slow summer, Apple sales in China have rebounded somewhat, spiking 24 percent over the past three months from the previous quarter (but just 6 percent from a year earlier).

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple has generated almost US$27 billion in revenue from China in the 2013 fiscal year, a 14 percent increase from the year before.

Earlier this year, Apple had to contend with state-run media reports decrying the company's products and service in China, but an apology to Chinese consumers may have helped smooth things over.

[Source: Tech in Asia]

David Vranicar is a freelance journalist and author of The Lost Graduation: Stepping off campus and into a crisis. You can check out his ECT News archive here, and you can email him at david[dot]vranicar[at]newsroom[dot]ectnews[dot]com.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/79300.html
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