NEW YORK (AP) — Critics and early viewers agree that “The Interview” is less than a masterpiece. But thanks to threats from hackers that nearly derailed its release, it has become an event.

Hundreds of theaters Thursday, from The Edge 8 in Greenville, Alabama, to Michael Moore’s Bijou by the Bay in Traverse City, Michigan, made special holiday arrangements for the Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Sony Pictures had initially called off the release after major theater chains dropped the movie that was to have opened on as many as 3,000 screens.

But with President Obama among others criticizing the decision, Sony officials changed their minds. “The Interview” became available on a variety of digital platforms Wednesday afternoon, including Google Play, YouTube Movies, Microsoft’s Xbox Video and a separate Sony website. Meanwhile, Sony and independent theaters agreed to release it in over 300 venues on Christmas.

“We are taking a stand for freedom,” said theater manager Lee Peterson of the Cinema Village East in Manhattan, where most of Thursday’s seven screenings had sold out by early afternoon. “We want to show the world that Americans will not be told what we can or cannot watch. Personally, I am not afraid.”

At Atlanta’s Plaza Theater, a sell-out crowd Thursday hailed the film’s release, washing down popcorn with beer and cocktails and uniting for a boisterous sing-along of “God Bless America” before the opening credits.

“This is way more fun than it would have been,” said Jim Kelley of Atlanta, who waited outside with his daughter, Shannon. The elder Kelley added, with mocking sarcasm, “This is almost dangerous, like we’re living life on the edge.”

Some venues showing “The Interview” were more likely to feature documentaries about North Korea than a low-brow comedy about it. At the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico, owned by “Game of Thrones” author George RR Martin, the schedule also includes the Spanish art-house release “Flamenco,” the locally made “The Twilight Angel” and an Italian film festival. The Film Society of Lincoln Center, which begins screening “The Interview” on Friday, will soon be hosting a tribute to “Force Majeure” director Ruben Ostlund of Sweden and a documentary about the late Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer.

The back story of “The Interview” has itself played out like a Hollywood satire, in which a cartoonish farce distracts from some of the holiday season’s most prestigious films: “Selma,” the drama about the 1965 civil rights march; Angelina Jolie’s adaptation of the best-selling World War II story “Unbroken”; and the all-star, big-screen version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.”

Security was light at many theaters, with the occasional police officer on hand. The possibility of violence was taken more seriously by the movie industry than by government officials. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security released a statement saying that there were no credible threats.

Meanwhile, Darrell Foxworth, a special agent for the FBI in San Diego, said Wednesday the agency was sharing information with independent movie theater owners showing “The Interview” out of “an abundance of caution” and to educate them about cyber threats and what help the FBI can offer.

Kim Song, a North Korean diplomat to the United Nations, condemned the release Wednesday, calling the movie an “unpardonable mockery of our sovereignty and dignity of our supreme leader.” But Kim said North Korea will likely limit its response to condemnation, with no “physical reaction.”

Decisions to show the movie through the Internet could open up companies to hacking. Xbox and PlayStation’s online gaming services were down Thursday afternoon but the cause was unclear. Meanwhile, YouTube and other Google products were not having any disruptions. A Microsoft spokesman confirmed the Xbox outage but declined further comment. Sony PlayStation representatives did not immediately respond to inquiries.

In Little Rock, members of an Arkansas family who say they otherwise would have never seen “The Interview” were among the first patrons at the Riverdale 10 theater. Kay Trice and her husband drove an hour from Stuttgart, Arkansas, to see the movie with their daughter and appreciated “the freedom to see it.”

“It should be shown in this country and somebody in North Korea should not have the right to scare us out of seeing this,” Trice said.

A few dozen people lined up early outside Tempe, Arizona’s Valley Art theater, where tickets for all five showings on Thursday had sold out. “There are a lot of people going crazy over (the controversy). It’s bigger than the movie,” said Omar Khiel, 20.

At the Cinema Village theater in Manhattan, the 10 a.m. screening was near capacity. Derek Karpel, a 34-year-old attorney, said that “as many people as possible should go see it. In fact, the government should subsidize tickets to make that possible.”

But he wasn’t about to call “The Interview” a national treasure.

“No one should go into expecting it to be a serious commentary on politics,” he said. “But it’s fun. People should go.”

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Angelina Jolie

First on our list is Angelina Jolie. This movie star has been featured in a wide variety of movies including Girl Interrupted and also Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Her amazing looks has been the center of attraction and media focus in several movies she has been featured in. Her luscious lips and stunning eyes help to contribute to her ranking on this ‘top ten list’. Jolie is without a doubt one of the world’s most beautiful women, She is divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Angelina Jolie now lives with actor Brad Pitt who she engaged to in April 2012. She is one of 2012’s Most Beautiful at Every Age according to People magazine.

Next on our top 10 hottest women list is pop star Rihanna. Rihannas island accent and culture all help to bring out her inner “beauty”. Her accent and naughty sexy looks makes her irresistible. Why don’t you get some of her videos to see how she radiates the stage with her sleek body frame combined with her swagger? Rihanna was voted the sexiest woman alive by Esquire magazine

Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis is another super hot woman who has made a spot on our list of the top 10 hottest women alive. Mila Kunis has a unique Russian background. She is only about 4’11 yet has tasteful features that will leave a man with his jaw dropped. Kunis has showed off her body in steamy sex scenes in movies such as Friends with Benefits and also The Black Swan. Kunis was named 2012’s Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire magazine. In 2012, she co-starred with Mark Wahlberg in the film Ted, which became a blockbuster commercial success grossing $500 million worldwide

Julianne Hough

Julianne Hough who is a dancer on dancing with the stars and an actress in the footloose remake has an incredible physique that really makes her hot. From starring in the remake of Footloose, to releasing a country album, Julianne has come a long way from growing up a little Mormon girl in a small town in Utah

Hayden Panettiere

Hayden Panettiere has been in Hollywood since she was fairly young. She started off as the awkward babysitter on Malcolm but advanced in her career, rising to be on the top 10 hottest women list, thanks to her hot looks in movies such as Bring it On and Scream 4.

Natalie Portman

Another hot and sexy young woman on our list of the top ten hottest women is Natalie Portman. Natalie Portman is a very well known actress in Hollywood due to her lucrative acting career; she has featured in movies such as V for Vendetta and who can forget about Black Swan. Born in Jerusalem, Natalie, posseses graceful looks, elegant beauty and charming smiles.

Sophia Bush

Television actress and movie star, Sophia Bush has made her fame by starring in the hit show ‘One Tree Hill’. She has amazing looks that have made her popular in movies such as John Tucker Must Die.

Jessica Alba

Jessica Alba has a rocking body and a beautiful face, this combination creates an adorable hot woman.The star of the Fantastic Four, beat Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria, Scarlett Johansson, Angelina Jolie and Girls Aloud star Cheryl Tweedy to the title “100 Sexiest Women in the World”. FHM’s 100 Sexiest Women in the World is the ultimate guide to the most beautiful women in the world.

Katy Perry

Another hot pop-star on this list is Katy Perry. This California girl did not get away from our list thanks to her rather gifted body and big blue eyes. Men’s Health declared Katy Perry to be the hottest woman of 2013

Megan Fox

She is known across America as one of the hottest women of all time. Megan Fox, 21, who starred in 2007 hit movie “Transformers,” grabbed the title from actress Jessica Alba, 26, topping online men’s magazine FHM Online’s (www.FHMonline.com) reader poll of the 100 Sexiest Women in the World for 2008.

By HT

Mumbai, Dec. 26 — Recently, Richa Chadda was involved in an unpleasant incident at a party. The actor, who was accompanied by Varun Dhawan and Ali Fazal, was apparently stalked by two men, who even passed lewd comments.

“Initially, Richa ignored them. But then the situation got out of hand when one guy tried to come really close to her, and took a picture standing next to her without even taking her permission,” says a source. This, angered Richa, who then gave the two men a piece of her mind. “The altercation drew the attention of the organisers, who then came forward and mediated.

Soon after, the two men were escorted to another part of the club,” adds the source. When contacted, Richa confirmed the news, saying, “Most people don’t see the difference between a public personality and public property. I don’t think one should ignore such indecent and rowdy behaviour. People should be told when they cross the line, and that’s what I did. Also, at a time when there’s so much debate on women’s safety around the world, I think women who are in the public eye must set an example.”

Inside the ‘Christmas village’ of Yiwu, there’s no snow and no elves, just 600 factories that produce 60% of all the decorations in the world
There’s red on the ceiling and red on the floor, red dripping from the window sills and red globules splattered across the walls. It looks like the artist Anish Kapoor has been let loose with his wax cannon again. But this, in fact, is what the making of Christmas looks like; this is the very heart of the real Santa’s workshop – thousands of miles from the North Pole, in the Chinese city of Yiwu.
Our yuletide myth-making might like to imagine that Christmas is made by rosy-cheeked elves hammering away in a snow-bound log cabin somewhere in the Arctic Circle. But it’s not. The likelihood is that most of those baubles, tinsel and flashing LED lights you’ve draped liberally around your house came from Yiwu, 300km south of Shanghai – where there’s not a (real) pine tree nor (natural) snowflake in sight.
Christened “China’s Christmas village”, Yiwu is home to 600 factories that collectively churn out over 60% of all the world’s Christmas decorations and accessories, from glowing fibre-optic trees to felt Santa hats. The “elves” that staff these factories are mainly migrant labourers, working 12 hours a day for a maximum of £200 to £300 a month – and it turns out they’re not entirely sure what Christmas is.
“Maybe it’s like [Chinese] New Year for foreigners,” says 19-year-old Wei, a worker who came to Yiwu from rural Guizhou province this year, speaking to Chinese news agency Sina. Together with his father, he works long days in the red-splattered lair, taking polystyrene snowflakes, dipping them in a bath of glue, then putting them in a powder-coating machine until they turn red – and making 5,000 of the things every day.
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In the process, the two of them end up dusted from head to toe in fine crimson powder. His dad wears a Santa hat (not for the festive spirit, he says, but to stop his hair from turning red) and they both get through at least 10 face masks a day, trying not to breathe in the dust. It’s a tiring job and they probably won’t do it again next year: once they’ve earned enough money for Wei to get married, they plan on returning home to Guizhou and hopefully never seeing a vat of red powder again.
Packaged up in plastic bags, their gleaming red snowflakes hang alongside a wealth of other festive paraphernalia across town in the Yiwu International Trade Market, aka China Commodity City, a 4m sq m wonder-world of plastic tat. It is a pound shop paradise, a sprawling trade show of everything in the world that you don’t need and yet may, at some irrational moment, feel compelled to buy. There are whole streets in the labyrinthine complex devoted to artificial flowers and inflatable toys, then come umbrellas and anoraks, plastic buckets and clocks. It is a heaving multistorey monument to global consumption, as if the contents of all the world’s landfill sites had been dug-up, re-formed and meticulously catalogued back into 62,000 booths.

The two men produce 5,000 red snowflakes a day, and get paid around £300 a month. Photograph: China Daily/Reuters
The complex was declared by the UN to be the “largest small commodity wholesale market in the world” and the scale of the operation necessitates a kind of urban plan, with this festival of commerce organised into five different districts. District Two is where Christmas can be found.
There are corridors lined with nothing but tinsel, streets throbbing with competing LED light shows, stockings of every size, plastic Christmas trees in blue and yellow and fluorescent pink, plastic pine cones in gold and silver. Some of it seems lost in translation: there are sheep in Santa hats and tartan-embroidered reindeer, and of course lots of that inexplicable Chinese staple, Father Christmas playing the saxophone.
It might look like a wondrous bounty, but the market’s glory days seem to have passed: it’s now losing out to internet giants like Alibaba and Made In China. On Alibaba alone, you can order 1.4m different Christmas decorations to be delivered to your door at the touch of a button. Yiwu market, by comparison, stocks a mere 400,000 products.
Aiming at the lower end of the market, Yiwu’s sales thrived during the recession, as the world shopped for cut-price festive fun, but international sales are down this year. Still, according to Cai Qingliang, vice chairman of the Yiwu Christmas Products Industry Association, domestic appetite is on the rise, as China embraces the annual festival of Mammon. Santa Claus, says the Economist, is now better known to most Chinese people than Jesus.
The beaming sales reps of Yiwu market couldn’t sound happier with their life sentence of eternal Christmastime. According to Cheng Yaping, co-founder of the Boyang Craft Factory, who runs a stall decked out like a miniature winter wonderland: “Sitting here every day, being able to look at all these beautiful decorations, is really great for your mood.”
It’s somehow unlikely that those on the other end of the production line, consigned to dipping snowflakes in red-swamped workshops for us to pick up at the checkout for 99p, feel quite the same way.

This holiday season, Demi Lovato is hoping to make a difference in honor of her father Patrick Lovato, who died in 2013.
Demi, who’s been outspoken about her struggles with an eating disorder and bipolar disorder, says that she decided to found the Lovato Treatment Scholarship Program after her father died to raise awareness about mental illness that goes untreated.
“He suffered from mental illness,” she told People magazine. “I believe that it was actually bipolar-schizophrenic, and he didn’t have the resources that he needed to get help.”
Now, Lovato is pairing with nonprofit organization Regular Hero to tackle the stigmas associated with mental illness by designing t-shirts, 100 percent of the proceeds of which go toward the Lovato Treatment Scholarship Program.
“In honor of my dad and other people that couldn’t afford mental healthcare, I wanted to create a way for people to help others get the help that they need,” she said.

New Delhi, Dec. 25 — At 21, Alia Bhatt already has three hits to her credit, and now she wants to work with the Khans (Aamir, Shah Rukh or Salman), who are much older than her. However, the actor feels that age doesn’t pose as a problem nowadays, as Bollywood is increasingly churning out experimental scripts that result in unusual pairings.

You have not been keeping well of late.

I am feeling much better now. Actually, after I fell sick for the first time, I had recovered completely but was unwell again. The entire year has been really hectic for me. Sometimes, I feel that since I have had so many major illnesses this year, it only means I must have worked very hard. So, I will be happy if people say that 2014 belongs to me.

You recently said that you want to work with the Khans…

What I meant to say was that nowadays filmmakers are making different kinds of movies, so it is possible for me to work with different actors. It (working with the Khans) might have sounded impossible 10-15 years back (keeping the age difference in mind), but since new-age directors are not scared of experimenting with innovative stories and scripts, there is much more scope to work with the Khans now.

A few days back, reports suggested that you had arrived at a party alone, but left with Sidharth Malhotra?

I have video proof that I entered alone and stepped out with a director friend. I didn’t come out with Sid. And even if I did, people just put two and two together to make something completely unimaginable. I seriously feel that there are more important things happening in the world than who’s coming out with whom.

So, you are not seeing anyone right now?

No, not at all. I have absolutely no time right now for anything else except for work. For the past six to seven months, my focus has been completely on films.

Your name is attached to so many films…

What can I say? I can’t do so many movies (at the same time), right? Officially, I can confirm two films – the first one is with Shahid (Kapoor), which I have shot, and then Ayan’s (Mukerji) next with Ranbir (Kapoor). I haven’t signed or confirmed anything else yet.

MUMBAI: Aamir Khan-starrer ‘PK’ earned Rs 95.21 crore at the box-office in the weekend, according to the producers.

‘PK’, directed by Rajkumar Hirani and co-starring Anushka Sharma, released on December 19 in around 6000 screens all over including 5200 in India.

“PK collected record Rs 38.24 cr on Sunday which is 30 per cent growth from Saturday, taking the film’s total weekend net collection to Rs 95.21 crore (Friday: 26.63 crore; Saturday 30.34 crore and Sunday 38.24 crore),” said a statement from the film’s producer.

The film got positive response from the audience and critics for its gripping storyline and powerful performances.

Produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Hirani and UTV, the film also stars Sanjay Dutt and Sushant Singh Rajput in pivotal roles.

New Delhi: ‘Amplifier’ singer Imran Khan, who has lent his voice for a song in upcoming film ‘Tevar’, says the new-age rappers might have become a rage with the listeners but they have not given quality music to Bollywood.

Imran has made his debut in the Hindi Film industry with the ‘Lets Celebrate’ song and said he does not like the music of many hit hit hip-hop artists and rappers. “Personally I don’t like their music. I feel it is just over-hyped. These Punjabi rappers and artists, who have entered Bollwyood from outside, have destroyed its image. Bollywood music is not about hip-hop but it is more about colours.

“Hip-hop should be left to others. And if one attempts that, it should be done in a proper way but the current fusion of hip-hop and Bollywood, in my opinion, is not good. I will bring a change in this scene now. ” Imaran told PTI in an interview. The popular Punjabi singer said before ‘Tevar’ he had turned down many offers by Bollywood filmmakers but Boney Kapoor (producer of ‘Tevar’) made him feel at home and he felt an instant connection with him.

“Several producers and actors had approached me earlier but I rejected the offers as I felt that they just wanted to use me. I did not feel right about it. I am not a greedy person so I knew if I would make Bollywood debut I will make with a good project. When Boney
Kapoor came to me, I felt like I met my lost family in India. He, Arjun (Kapoor) and everyone made me feel comfortable. I liked the film’s story. I am glad to have made my Bollywood debut with this film,” he said.

‘Tevar’, starring Arjun Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha in lead, is hitting theatres on January 9, 2015.