Sun Music Streams and News

Simon Cowell Tells Extra He Gets Bored with ‘X Factor’ Bickering

Fri, 24 May 2013 15:48:49 MST

*Simon Cowell talks straight in a recent interview with Terri Seymour of “Extra,” chatting about what great new things we can look forward to in the next season of “The X Factor,” especially with the addition of Kelly Rowland and Latin pop star Paulina Rubio. “I thought all these shows are beginning to look the [...]

The Canary Islands Government Allowed "Fast & Furious 6" To Destroy Their Highway With a Tank

Fri, 24 May 2013 15:43:42 MST

Fast & Furious 6Universal Pictures

130 minutes

Hands down, Fast & Furious 6 is by far the best movie ever made to feature Ludacris and Tyrese trapped in a Jeep dangling inches off the ground from an imperiled cargo plane.

And there is so, so much more to cherish about the film.

The Fast & Furious franchise has become genuinely fascinating over the last couple of years. One of the most fascinating things about the series is the addition of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as the ultra-brawny Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs, a character who seemingly cannot go ten minutes without torturing somebody for information. Another fascinating thing is that after a long stretch of churning out barely passable B-movies, the series somehow managed to produce critically acclaimed entertainment, starting with 2011's Fast Five. (The sixth film has received similarly high marks.) Credit for the newfound critic-and-crowd-pleasing goes to Taiwanese-born American filmmaker Justin Lin, who initially demonstrated the full extent of his directorial talents with the stereotype-subverting independent film Better Luck Tomorrow in 2002.

But the single most fascinating thing about the series so far is the enormous tank in Fast & Furious 6. The tank is arguably the main character in the movie.

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Let’s Talk Roundup: Budgeting Your Way Out of Debt

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:45:12 MST

Here's our roundup of @TheLoop21's weekly #LetsTalk Twitter chat! We discussed how to budget your way out of debt using #L21Success.

Kim & Alaska of ‘Newlyweds’: God Don’t Like Divorce

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:44:05 MST

*Viewers of Bravo’s new reality series “Newlyweds: The First Year” know that Alaska and Kim Gedeon of New York take the “honor and obey” portion of the woman’s traditional wedding vow very seriously. In the first episode of the season, Kim admits that she struggled with the whole “wives submit to your husbands” notion for [...]

Let’s Talk: You’ve Graduated-Now What?

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:43:49 MST

Join @TheLoop21 on Twitter 5/28 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST to discuss what happens after graduation.

Peter Hadar Casts A 'Magic' Spell

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:06:12 MST

It's been over a year since Peter Hadar dropped his EP Take Off Victoria on the masses, but he hasn't been resting on his laurels and chillin' in the cut since then. He's actually been busy at work...

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Nicki Minaj Spotted On Set Of ‘The Other Woman’

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:01:41 MST

Getting dropped from American Idol isn’t getting Nicki Minaj down because she’s too busy making that motion picture money. This week, she started filming her new movie, “The Other Woman” with Cameron Diaz and already her...

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The Hangover III in Theatres to Mixed Reviews

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:34:23 MST

The Hangover III is in theatres now.

"Fast and Furious 6" expected to beat out "Hangover"

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:31:09 MST

Reviews are in for the sixth installment of the "Fast and Furious" and they're good!

First Listen Live: Queens Of The Stone Age, '...Like Clockwork'

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:30:00 MST

Josh Homme presides over a dense, textured, unpredictable sound that's equal parts mystery, intensity, beauty and bluster. QOTSA performed ...Like Clockwork in its entirety, plus an assortment of older material, in a sold-out show at The Wiltern in Los Angeles.

Morgan Freeman Explains his Mid-Interview Catnap

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:04:24 MST

*After video of Morgan Freeman dozing off during an interview went viral on Thursday, the actor has come to say that he was not, in fact, sleeping. During an interview with FOX affiliate Q13 in Seattle, to promote his new movie “Now You See Me,” the actor had his eyes closed much of the time [...]

Terrence Howard Issues A Bold Challenge To Idris Elba, Morris Chestnut Denies Black Panther Role

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:03:33 MST

With the original cast from the 1999 cult classic The Best Man currently shooting the sequel, The Best Man Holiday, VIBE caught up with scene-stealer and unmitigated quote monster Terrence Howard. One subject that came up was the recent purchase of the U.S. rights to the film Winnie Mandela by Image Entertainment, set for targeted release this fall. Winnie Mandela, which details the personal and political life of the wife of renowned activist and former South African President, Nelson Mandela, has been on and off of the shelf for two years. Which is why the Oscar-nominated Howard, who plays Mandela opposite Winnie's Oscar-winning singer-actress Jennifer Hudson, was taken aback by the news.

“Oh, ain’t that a bitch [laughs],” Howard joked to VIBE. “That’s great…that’s this year?”

When asked about the prospect of a showdown between himself and Idris Elba, who will also be playing Nelson Mandela in the upcoming Nov. 9 biopic Long Walk Home, a playful Howard issued this challenge. “They are stupid to even try to compete,” he muses. “Who they have doing the Long Walk Home? Idris? He ain’t going to come nowhere near what I did.”

Not to be outdone, Howard’s The Best Man Holiday costar Morris Chestnut officially put the rumors to bed that he is on the list to play Marvel superhero the Black Panther in the much-anticipated sequel to the billion dollar-plus grossing The Avengers. “Not for me,” he says. “I don’t think so.”

The Best Man Holiday, starring Howard, Chestnut, Nia Long, Taye Diggs, Sanna Lathan and more, is set to hit the big screen November 15, 2013. —Keith Murphy (murphdogg29)

Do TV Shows Need Trigger Warnings?

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:51:05 MST

I see a lot of murders every week. I love police procedurals, and homicide is, generally speaking, a prerequisite of the genre. It’s the rough equivalent to a bout of dizziness in a medical drama or the arrival of a good-looking stranger in a soap opera—a familiar event that jump-starts the plot machinations. The poor victim is just an excuse for the cops, criminologists, and consulting detectives to show off their smarts.

That’s why I wasn’t too outraged back in April when Vulture’s Margaret Lyons looked at this season’s scripted TV dramas and found that 109 of the 125 shows had “depicted or described in detail a rape or murder.” It’s a shocking statistic, but as a fairly sensitive viewer, I know that all murders are not created equal. I can’t watch creepy psychopath series like The Following, Hannibal, or Criminal Minds—and, on the other hand, cozy mysteries like NCIS and smart procedurals like The Good Wife wouldn’t give anyone nightmares.

This week, though, television kept me awake on a couple of occasions. The season finale of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit focused on a psychopath who broke into the homes of women who tried to bring him to justice. The episode went into what felt to me excessive detail about the horrors he inflicted on a 60-year-old woman who had served as a witness against him. I won’t spoil the surprise ending, but let’s just say that it would cause viewers to wonder if anyone is safe in their own apartment. Earlier in the week I’d watched the first episode of The Fall, a BBC series featuring Gillian Anderson and Archie Panjabi that will be available on Netflix next Tuesday, which also centers on a psychopath who attacks women in their homes. I would’ve hit the trifecta, but I learned my lesson after two sleep-deprived workdays; when the plot summary for the season premiere of Motive, a Canadian show airing on ABC, mentioned “home invasion,” I decided not to watch, despite my deep love of Canuckian television.

I suppose we all have our triggers. My sensitivity to these home-invasion stories probably has something to do with their airing coinciding with my partner taking an out-of-town trip. Or maybe some things just set us off. I’m not a parent, nor am I even particularly fond of children, but PBS’s Call the Midwife—one of the 16 shows on Vulture’s “no rape or murder” list—makes me so anxious I simply can’t watch it. Every week babies and pregnant women are in peril, and though I love the show’s pro-NHS message, I can find no pleasure in that tension. Similarly, I can’t handle shows in which animals are hurt. I know it’s not entirely logical, since a) I love bullfighting, and b) I didn’t bat an eye when a small boy was thrown off a tower and crippled on Game of Thrones, but I canceled my DVR season pass when a direwolf was killed. (Others who share my aversion to animal cruelty in scripted entertainment should consult the great website Does the Dog Die?)

As more people use DVRs and thus have access to episode descriptions, it’s easier to predict the presence of a trigger. I know people who won’t watch episodes whose log lines mention serial killers—even if it’s on a show that is typically gentle and comforting. But fiction thrives on surprises—especially at the end of the TV season. In recent weeks, television has experienced a spate of traffic accidents; as Liana Maeby tweeted earlier this week, “65% of car crashes are caused by season finales.” In the cases I can think of, the crashes represented a shocking plot twist, so there’s no way they’d be revealed in a plot summary. Nevertheless, I’m sure these collisions are traumatic to folks with first-hand experience of car accidents. That’s why I hope that some day in the future, DVRs will feature some kind of trigger-tagging mechanism. I’ll tell my TiVo I can’t handle direwolves in danger or psychopaths with lock-picking skills, and episodes that feature such things will be demarcated somehow in my to-do list. Let’s face it, I’m too invested to skip the season finale of SVU, but I’d like know if I should leave the lights on.

Sherry Davis Shines Like A 'Star' On Her Debut EP

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:48:08 MST

Singer/songwriter Sherry Davis emerged last summer with her Omar Lye-Fook produced cut "Ain't That Love" adding herself to the bumper crop of soul songstresses that flourish out of...

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Kanye West Plans More Projections This Weekend

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:45:13 MST

Kanye West premiered his new track "New Slaves" by projecting visuals on 66 buildings across the glo[...]

Trayvon Martin's Photos, Text Messages Released as Evidence

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:45:00 MST

Photos, texts depict guns and marijuana.

Jennifer Hudson Confirmed as ‘American Idol’ Judge?

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:42:24 MST

*E! News says it has confirmed that the first “American Idol” alum turned judge will be Jennifer Hudson. The Oscar winner, according to E!, has signed a deal to join the judges panel for season 13, and the other two spots may be filled by former “Idol” contestants Kelly Clarkson and Adam Lambert or Clay [...]

Spoiler Special: Behind the Candelabra

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:36:50 MST

On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate movie critic Dana Stevens talks in detail about new and forthcoming movies with a guest. You can listen to past Spoiler Specials here, and you can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Note: As the title indicates, each installment contains spoilers galore.

In this week’s episode, Dan Kois, Slate’s Senior Editor and resident Steven Soderbergh Completist, joins Dana to discuss Soderbergh’s last film, Behind the Candelabra, which will air on HBO on Sunday. Does Michael Douglas succeed in embodying the notoriously flamboyant Liberace? Is this film a fitting finale for Soderbergh’s long career?

This and many other questions are debated in the podcast below. Elsewhere on Slate, you can read about the film’s accuracy and Liberace’s piano skills. Enjoy.

Previous Spoiler Specials: Star Trek Into Darkness Before Midnight The Great Gatsby Iron Man 3 Pain & Gain Evil Dead Oz the Great and Powerful A Good Day to Die Hard House of Cards Side Effects Les Misérables

The Funniest And Strangest Celeb Quotes Of The Week

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:33:23 MST

Chris Rock Giving Away Walk-on Part in Next Film

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:30:50 MST

*Chris Rock is giving one fan the chance to play a bit part in his upcoming film “Finally Famous,” which also stars Rosario Dawson and Gabrielle Union. The winning bidder will be invited to bring a friend for a meet-and-greet with Rock, and they will be treated to an exclusive tour of the set. Rock’s [...]

Obama's Drug Czar Cites Useless Stat to Dismiss Legalizing Pot

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:05:24 MST

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), dismissed calls for pot legalization on Thursday, citing a recent study by his agency to claim that marijuana is the drug most commonly linked to crime. During an Urban Institute panel discussion, while calling for a "21st century approach to drug policy reform," Kerlikowske rejected legalization as a "bumper-sticker approach." But the study (PDF) doesn't actually show a causal relationship between pot and crime: Marijuana is far and away the most commonly used illegal drug, so it stands to reason that it would show up most often in drug tests.

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Oops! Man Butt Dials His Murder Plot to 911

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:03:15 MST

*Crimes are normally reported to 911, so that help can be sent to the crime scene as soon as possible. But the culprit committing the crime usually is ready to go to jail and is remorseful if they feel compelled to make the call…but not this time. A couple young men, Scott Simon, 24, and [...]

Weekend Rock Question: What Is the Best Billy Joel Album?

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:00:54 MST

Billy Joel spent the last three years in virtual hibernation but this year he's finally poking his h[...]

Early Summer 2013 New Music Playlist (Mixed Media)

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:00:00 MST

New tunes from Vampire Weekend, the National, Telekinisis and more, plus notes.