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Ra'mon Lawrence Coleman is the latest contestant to be kicked out of the competition on the Heidi Klum-hosted Project Runway.
In his several weeks on the show, he's either won that week's challenge or finished in the bottom two or three - including in last night's episode, where he finished in the bottom two after his sci-fi-inspired design.

He's not hurting for work though. He is the founder of Ra'mon Lawrence Designs and has three collections at the store Kohl's and he also designed actor James Francis Ginty's tuxedo and tie that he wore at the premiere of the film Surrogates last night in Hollywood.

Surrogates opens today.

James Francis Ginty in theaters today in 'Surrogates'

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Most young boys grow up watching the Indiana Jones and Die Hard movies idolizing the main characters and the actors who played them. James Francis Ginty also did that, but then he did what most people don't have the chance to do - appear in movies with both Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis before the age of 30.

After acting with Ford at age 21, Ginty now stars with Willis as well as Radha Mitchell, Boris Kodjoe and Ving Rhames in the sci-fi movie Surrogates, which opens today. The film is based on a graphic novel by Robert Vendetti and Brett Weldele and is directed by Jonathan Mostow, who has helmed Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines and U-571, among others.

The film is about a society of people who never leave their homes and live vicariously through sexier and better versions of themselves - called surrogates. After an extremely rare murder of a host and subsequent surrogate, Willis's character has to go into the real world as himself to investigate the crime and he eventually confronts a large population of robots.

Willis plays two versions of the FBI agent 'Greer,' with the surrogate wearing a comb over of blonde hair and is clean-shaven, while the 'real' version is the haggard-looking, unshaven, aged agent. While most surrogates look generally like their hosts and are approximately the same age, Ginty's character of 'Canter' is unlike most of the others - with Ginty playing a younger version and James Cromwell portraying him older.

For the part of the younger Canter, director Mostow cast Ginty obviously on his acting talent, but also on his varied arts background.

Ginty studied and performed ballet for seven years at The American Ballet Company, The Royal Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada. For his acting training, he studied at The American Drama Academy, The Royal Academy, Interlochen in northern Michigan and Julliard. All of that experience helped Ginty prepare for working on Surrogates.

"Mostow will pull whatever he can out of you," said Ginty, hours before the world premiere of the film in Los Angeles. "Doing this movie was an extraordinary experience."

As a filmmaker, Mostow tries to incorporate as many physical and practical action sequences into his films as he can, as does Willis as an action star/actor. Both of them encouraged Ginty to do the same throughout his performance, including doing some stunt work.

"There was a ton of practical stuff (real stunts) in the movie and there was certainly CGI also," said Ginty. "Bruce was a real mentor to me. He had a mentor playfulness about him. The whole cast was family through and through."

For the premiere of Surrogates at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Ginty teamed up with designer Ra'mon Lawrence Coleman of 'Ra'mon-Lawrence Designs,' who currently has three collections at Kohl's and appears on the Bravo series Project Runway.

Ra'mon - concidentally, a major sci-fi fan and an admitted 'Trekkie'- made Ginty a blue/black tuxedo with a combination sci-fi and an vintage-film look and both collaborated on the silver bow tie.


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"I wanted a re-invented Old Hollywood in the tuxedo that was appropriate for him (Ginty), said Ra'mon. "The look has to represent the person as well as the designer."

Surrogates is produced by Max Handelman, David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It was written by Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato.


Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus Review

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Forget Star Trek, Wolverine and Transformers, the biggest summer movie has already come out. And it has an octopus that makes a submarine look like a Q-Tip.

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In the spirit of Godzilla vs. Monster Zero and Gamera, The Asylum Home Entertainment has released Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus onto the world. And the world appreciates it.

Former teenage pop star-turned-Broadway star Deborah 'Debbie' Gibson stars in this monster movie as a scientist who originally wants to save the two giant creatures and Lorenzo Lamas as a (I think) military (or government?) guy who wants to kill them both. After the two enormous beings destroy a dozen or so military and non-military sea vessels and installations in between Japan and California, everyone wants to trap and kill the two.

Gibson plays 'Emma MacNeil' who 'borrows' an underwater sea vessel to investigate whale migrations in frigid waters, then she accidentally crashes it into a giant ice block and breaks it - unknowingly releasing the two massive sea creatures.

She then gets fired for stealing the sub and then buddies up to her former college professor 'Lamar Sanders' (played by Sean Lawlor) after they discover a Megalodon is loose in the Pacific. (They don't say actually how big it is, but I would guess 200 to 300 feet long - judging from its size compared to other things in the movie)

A Japanese scientist who also knows Sanders - named "Seiji Shimada" (played by Vic Chao) then shares with Emma and Lamar his discovery of a giant octupus off the coast of Japan that completely destroyed an oil rig and then the race is on to find both creatures.

Obviously, you have to watch this tongue-in-cheek to enjoy it - which is not hard to do. This is pure low-budget entertainment at its best. Sure there are some cheesy visual effects (oddly, some of the effects are great, then some are not so much). If you can ignore any logic and watch it for what it is, it's a fantastic 90 minutes. Really fun. The best scenes - of course - are when the shark and the octopus fight each other, but it is fantastic to see the badass shark bite a huge chunk out of the Golden Gate bridge (best sequence in the movie) and jump out of the water and knock an airliner of the sky (second best scene).

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Funniest bits. Guy in the plane sees the shark flying up from the water to the airplane window and he says 'holy (stuff)!' and Lamas' acting - particularly after the shark bites through the bridge. Also, the way Lamas looks. Dressed in black mostly, sports jacket, PONYTAIL. Not sure if he's military or secret government - he was kind of doing things that could be considered both. It would have been cooler if he had his hair from Renegade, but I digress.

Again, this is a cheesy B-movie that happens to have recognizable people in it. Watch it with a grain of salt, then you'll love it. If you want realism, watch Shark Week on Discovery.

But, for what it is...its' great fun.

There is also a "Making of" section and a blooper reel, where apparently the shark bites through the wrong bridge and they had to do another take. Also, the octopus grabs Gibson right out of the blue.

You can buy it here or rent it at Blockbuster.

Mega Shark review..almost

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After a slight delay in getting a copy of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, the review will be coming in the next day or two.

(Couldn't find the movie in order watch it...)


more to come..........

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus - on DVD today

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On DVD today is the movie event of the summer.

Watch the trailer here. Review coming later this week.

It's singer Debbie (now Deborah) Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas. It's a shark so large that it bites a Golden Gate-sized bridge in half (as well as a ship) against an octopus so big that one of its tentacles knocks a fighter plane out of the sky.

Brilliant.

An example.

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Jason Segel and Forgetting Sarah Marshall...

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What you do know is that Jason Segel's movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall - that he wrote and stars in - came out on Friday. What you might not know is that he is a Harvard-Westlake School graduate and was part of the Wolverines state basketball championship team in the 1995-1996 season. In fact, Segel actually quit playing ball in his senior season to focus on trying to be an actor - then he appeared in the movies Can't Hardly Wait, Dead Man on Campus and SLC Punk! two years later. His big break came in 2000 when he met Judd Apatow and began appearing in his many projects including the shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared and the movie Knocked Up, among others. He is now a regular on the TV series How I Met Your Mother, which recently featured guest star Danica McKellar - also from Harvard-Westlake.

In a story about Segel that appeared in the Daily News on October 30, 1996, Segel said that he would invite his then-basketball teammates - including now-NBA players Jason and Jarron Collins - to his first movie premiere. I wonder if he did.

Oscar nominees and winners....

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The 2007-08 Oscars have been handed out and whether you agree with the winners or not, you have to admit, this had to have been the most interesting and diverse group the Academy has ever nominated.
Here's the scorecard of some of the more interesting elements of some of the nominees.

Diablo Cody - winner, Best Original Screenplay - a former stripper with a big visible tattoo of a scantily-clad woman on her arm. Right after the Oscars, semi-nude photos of her showed up on the internet and were labeled 'controversial.' Uh, that shouldn't have surprised anyone. Hello...stripper?

Viggo Mortensen - nominee, Eastern Promises - along with an actor, he's a very accomplished photographer and painter as well as a published poet. His paintings were seen in his movie A Perfect Murder (1998). Speaks several languages, including Danish. The mother of his son is a famous singer from a punk band. Never mind the Lord of the Rings stuff.

Daniel Day-Lewis - winner, Best Actor - Like Mortensen, an extreme Method actor. Day-Lewis sequesters himself during movie shoots. He lived in the wild for a month before he shot The Last of the Mohicans (1992) and not only learned how the shoot that giant rifle he carried thoughout the movie, but he also learned how to hunt and skin animals and he built his own canoe. He is also a skilled woodworker and worked as a cobbler during a long break between movies.

Johnny Depp - nominee - Nothing needed here. We know about him. Particularly his playing the cross-dressing, classically-bad director Ed Wood in the movie of the same name; his creating the Jack Sparrow character by combining Keith Richards and Pepe Le Pew together and the characters of Willy Wonka, Edward Scissorhands and real-life writer Hunter S. Thompson. Just the tip of the iceberg with this dude.

The Coen Brothers - winners for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director - very interesting material in each movie. Fargo (1996) illustrates the banality of living in the South Dakota/Minnesota area. While writing Miller's Crossing (1990) they got writer's block and turned to writing something else - which became Barton Fink (1991) - to solve the problem. Barton Fink is about a writer with writer's block (among other things). When they write their scripts, every single sound said by the actors in the film - including the pauses and the 'uh's,' 'um's' and the swearing - is scripted exactly. In each movie, they do everything themselves and together. They edit their own movies under the pseudonym 'Roderick Jaynes.' Even though it's them under an alias, they talk about Roderick Jaynes like that's a real person - an angry and bitter 80ish curmudgeon who they say was bitter about losing in the Best Editing Category.

George Clooney - He was Batman. Like Depp, started on television in the 80's. Was on two different shows about a hospital in Chicago. One called ER and one called E/R. His Dad Nick was a newscaster in a variety of places, including Ohio, where he also hosted a daytime talk/variety show. Aunt was Rosemary.

Paul Thomas Anderson - nominee, as writer and director - his Dad Ernie was an actor who created and popularized the character 'Ghoulardi,' the host of a horror night on a local Cleveland television station. Nevermind that the younger Anderson made Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999). What's with the frogs raining down on people in Magnolia?

Tilda Swinton - winner, Best Supporting Actress - openly admits to having a open relationship. Is in a relationship with a painter who is 18 years younger than her, but yet lives platonically with the father of her twins - who is 20 years older than her.

Saorise Ronan - nominee, Best Supporting Actress - nominated at age 13. Her father is actor Paul Ronan. Paul acted with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own (1997).

Jason Reitman - nominee, Best Director - son of director Ivan Reitman

Tony Gilroy - nominee Best Director and Best Screenplay - His father Frank is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and writer.

Tamara Jenkins - nominee, Best Screenplay - after being a performance artist, wrote an autobiographical script that became the film The Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) that she directed. Her husband Jim has already won an Oscar for writing the film Sideways (2005).

Julian Schnabel - nominee, Best Director - also a painter and artist. Painted the album cover of a Red Hot Chili Peppers album By The Way. Directed Javier Bardem to his first Oscar nomination in the early 2000's.

Javier Bardem - winner, Best Supporting Actor - third generation in a family of actors. His grandfather performed at the beginning of Spanish cinema and his mother as still active in her career. Bardem doesn't actually drive, but yet did in No Country For Old Men.

Cate Blanchett - twice nominated in acting categories this year - at age 38, already been nominated five times. Twice for playing Queen Elizabeth I in two different movies that weren't related to each other and were ten years apart. Won for playing another Oscar-winning actress (Katharine Hepburn) and nominated for playing musician Bob Dylan in a movie where not only was she Dylan, but so was Heath Ledger and so was a black kid.

Ruby Dee - at age 83, became the second-oldest Oscar nominee.

We all know about Tommy Lee Jones going to Harvard with Al Gore. Oh and don't forget about Marketa Irglova - the young girl who won for Best Song and got the rare opportunity to come back out to do her acceptance speech after Bill Conti chased her off with music. Today's her 20th birthday.


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