Jennifer Hudson's Movie 'Winged Creatures' Renamed 'Fragments'

 

After winning Oscars in 2006 for their roles in 'The Last King of Scotland' and 'Dreamgirls,' respectively, Forest Whitaker and Jennifer Hudson worked together on a film called 'Winged Creatures.'

With a cast that includes Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce, Jackie Earle Haley, Josh Hutcherson, Embeth Davidtz, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Robin Weigert, the movie seemed, at the the very least, promising. Not quite.

It was shelved for three years while producers tried to find a distribution company. Now, with its new title, 'Fragments,' this Rowan Woods-directed film will be released in a limited number of theaters on July 31, with a DVD release date set for Aug. 4.

Check Out Mary J. Blige's New Video For Lebron James Film

 

Lionsgate has released the music video for Mary J. Blige's newest single, 'Stronger.' The video features the talented players from 'More Than a Game,' a remarkable true-life coming-of-age story about friendship and loyalty in the face of adversity.

Five young basketball players from Akron, Ohio, who are coached by a charismatic but inexperienced father and led by future NBA superstar LeBron James, embark on an improbable seven-year journey that leads them from a decrepit inner-city gym to the doorstep of a national high school championship.

Along the way, the close-knit team is repeatedly tested on and off the court, as James' exploding worldwide celebrity threatens to destroy everything they've set out to achieve together.

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Black News: Michael Vick is a Hot Commodity?

by Jason Henry – www.BleacherReport.com

Let the Michael Vick sweepstakes begin.

In a report on ESPN.com today, Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff stated that the team wants to trade away the rights of former quarterback Michael Vick. The team has taken small steps to rid themselves of the troubled player since his subsequent jail sentence in 2007.

The Falcons drafted Matt Ryan third overall in last spring’s NFL draft, and that pick has worked out well for the team so far. They made an impromptu playoff run last season and have not looked back.

Since the Falcons have been able to get past the Vick distraction, they are now ready to move on completely without him. But you may think, “What team in its right mind wants to trade for a former player that has been sitting in prison for the last two years?”

Try a team that is in desperate need of a quarterback or a difference maker on offense.

Let’s not forget that Michael took the Falcons to the NFC Championship game some years back, and they either led the league or were near the top of the league in rushing when he was under center. Your favorite team’s wide receivers may not like him, but your running backs will.

With Vick in the backfield, he opens up so many opportunities for your offense. He may not warrant being the starter for your team, but he can run a version of the wildcat offense and play a little receiver. Vick may be able to return punts and kickoffs if he gains a little more muscle when he comes back into the league.

But what teams would actually think about trading for him?

 

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MY POLITICAL TV NEWS ADDICTION

By: Lisa Powell

A few months ago, I was a happy work-from-home mom. Each day was filled with caring for my kids, tending to the hubby, doing case work with my clients and squeezing in a few minutes for myself. Little did I know that a nightmare was coming from a villain that I would have never expected…the STOCK MARKET! In early October, the Dow Jones industrial plummeted as much as 800 points. Before this fateful day, I had never paid attention to the numbers. All of a sudden my world changed. I had to try to get a handle on what was going on around me.

Now, each morning my television is programmed to come on at 6:45am to MSNBC so that I can view all of the events that occurred during my slumber. You ask “what could possibly have happened by this early time”? I have no idea, but I don’t want to be taken by surprise. Although I am just a simple woman from Louisville KY, the world has changed in such a way that I must know what is happening in China, Japan and every other location on the other side of the globe. Watching MSNBC is like having a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. After seeing what happened overseas, I can start my day. If stocks rallied in other places, I get my daughters up for school, get them dressed and make pancakes. If things are a bit “off”, they get a bowl of cereal. Sorry kiddos. As the day goes on, I watch the ups and downs of the stock market. I am good at multi-tasking, so I just have every television in the house tuned in as I tend to my daily duties. Something in my brain snapped a few weeks ago when I made the awful mistake of taking a nap shortly 4pm. When I went to sleep, the Dow Jones was down a mere 200 points. You know how they say that 40 years old is the new 20. Well, now a 200 point drop in the Dow is the new 100 point rally. I have adjusted to some level of disappointment, due to the resent explosion. On that horrific afternoon, I woke from my peaceful slumber and I tuned into my favorite channel. The Dow had dropped nearly 700 points for the day!!! The panic overtook me and I wondered what had happened. I called my sister in TX who watches the news channels almost as much as I do. We talked for over an hour about what this means for the world. I just had this incredible feeling that I was falling and did not know where I would land. The world as I knew it felt as though it were crumbling beneath me. So much seemed to be at steak. That day began my total obsession with political news. I wake to MSNBC, move to CNN, get a taste of FOX and listen to NPR in the car (the kids can no longer listen to their Radio Disney cd as we go to go to Chuck E. Cheeses). While I am doing things for my job, I can’t help myself… I have selected stocks on a constant stream. I go to bed with the peaceful voice of Keith Oberman lulling me off to a land where there are no numbers.

I had the privilege of having breakfast ( that turned into lunch and almost dinner) with my old college buddy Dr. Boyce Watkins today. Since he is a doctor, I thought that I would tell him about the psychological damage that is being caused by my obsession with political television news. Hey, he is a financial wizard, business professor, and doctor (to name only a few titles), so I thought that I would give him a chance at being a psychiatrist. I began by telling all of my sundry symptoms and how it was affecting my life. I could no longer watch SpongeBob with my kids. It was quickly discovered that they simply do not appreciate being manipulated into watching a fun filled episode of “Hardball” no matter how funny I tell them that Chris Matthews can be in the evening. Due to my addiction, I sit in the kitchen at the island during meals with the TV on instead of being at the kitchen table with everyone else. You just never know when some BREAKING NEWS might come on. Most of the conversation that I have with my husband have been surrounded by the new names that Obama is being called, what Palin did today (or what she is wearing), whether McCain has suffered another “senior” moment (you know that the day that he said “I couldn’t agree with him more…” at a rally was funnier than some of the SNL shows) and if Joe Biden was going to take his jacket off again and exclaim to his opponents “where I come from, you tell it to a guy’s face…”. This stuff can be better than any comedy show, scarier than any horror movie and have more cliff hangers than the best drama.

Back to the worst of them all…the stock market. The roller coaster is truly more terrifying than any Six Flags ride I have ever been on. The one and only question that Dr. Watkins asked was “why do you watch it so much?” All good therapists ask questions to make you figure out the answers to the problems yourself. I was totally stumped. To tell the honest truth, I have no idea what all of those numbers really mean. I did some research on all of the information and I might was well have been reading a foreign language. I am a social worker by profession and can only understand things by feeling. The only way that I can describe what the mean to me, is that it a financial gauge to understand how people are feeling. Do you know what I mean? There will be Breaking News that the Big Three auto companies are having trouble and the number falter. An hour later, someone will report that there might be yet another 100 KABILLION dollar AIG bailout and the number move again. A short time after someone says that the outlook on the futures of a favorable stock is positive and we end the day rallying. Although the day ends wonderfully, we have to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again…well, unless it is a weekend. On those two days I am in a coma. There was a time in my life that seems to far away that I used to take a break and relieve some stress. Now I sit and wait for the other side of the world to flip the lever on the financial roller coast once again.

As we listen to the frequently bleak financial and political news, we are all terrified of so many different things. These fears most times involve money and numbers. We are terrified of losing our homes, our stocks, our jobs, our savings…our minds!! Since Dr. Watkins and I are “talkers”, we spent more time discussing my issues and he nearly missed his plane flight. It was therapeutic simply to get it all out and ponder an escape. With that said, I have come to the realization that someone might need to unplug me, like Neo from The Matrix. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel as though they have entered another world…as if the life you had just over a month ago was a dream? So, until Morpheus comes along to pull me from the shell that I lie in, I will continue to tune in. However, I do promise that my girls will get pancakes or waffles each morning for breakfast and I will eat at the dinner table with my family…I will just turn the television up really loud. Is there a 12 step program for this?

Barack Obama Visits Across the World

KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama met Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Sunday, Reuters reported, the second day of a visit to Afghanistan that is meant to bolster the senator’s foreign policy credentials.

Obama has previously criticized Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the hardline Islamist Taliban in 2001, but said the purpose of this trip was to listen rather than deliver strong messages.

Obama, part of a congressional delegation, was at the heavily guarded Afghan presidential palace in the capital Kabul and was having lunch with Karzai, a palace official said.

The Illinois senator will also visit Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and Britain on a foreign tour he hopes will help answer Republican criticism that he does not have the experience to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Crticized Obama
Obama last week criticized Karzai in an interview with CNN.

“I think the Karzai government has not gotten out of the bunker and helped to organize Afghanistan, and the government, the judiciary, police forces, in ways that would give people confidence. So there are a lot of problems there,” he said.

Once the darling of the West, Karzai has come under increasing criticism at home and abroad for failing to take tough action to clamp down on rampant corruption, tackle former warlords and stamp out record-breaking drug production — all factors that feed the growing Taliban insurgency.

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