Danny Puff

These are far from sunny days for the Sesame Street crew.

Kevin Clash, the beloved puppeteer behind Elmo and his memorable voice, has been accused of having a sexual relationship with a man that began when his accuser was 16 years old.

Although Clash has acknowledged his romantic dalliance with the unidentified man, he has denied any sort of underage hookup, and the puppeteer is now on leave from the iconic children's show.

He's not the show's first scandal: Here are eight other controversies that have no doubt ruffled Big Bird's feathers.

Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash exits Sesame Street, denies inappropriate relationship with 16-year-old boy


Katy Perry Flashes Her Muppets, Gets the Ax: The pop star got the hot-and-cold treatment from the show when, after shooting a "Hot N Cold" spoof with Elmo while wearing a sorta-racy dress, the show's execs pulled the plug on the segment for its, um, revealing content. That didn't stop a clip of the canned skit from going viral, and Perry herself spoofed the brouhaha with an appropriately boobalicious appearance on Saturday Night Live.


Bert and Ernie Aren't Gay,  They're Just Roomies: Sesame Street's perennial roomies, have been dogged by rumblings that they're secretly a couple for, well, since forever. In 1993, the show's producers went as far as to issue a statement insisting that the duo "do not portray a gay couple, and there are no plans for them to do so in the future." Things came to a head in 2002 when show honchos threatened to sue a filmmaker of a documentary spoof called Ernest and Bertram, about eerily familiar puppets who get hot and heavy with each other.

Million Puppet March rallies for PBS and Sesame Street following Mitt Romney's proposed budget cuts


Mitt Romney Flips the (Big) Bird: During the first presidential debate last month, the Republican candidate incited the ire of Muppet fans everywhere—not to mention advocates of public broadcasting—when he proposed to slash funding to Sesame Street's home network, PBS. Faster than you can say "Oscar the Grouch," critics were up in arms, spurring tons of memes that quickly went viral and prompting a Million Muppet March in Washington, D.C., to protest the proposal. Of course, Romney lost, and we can't help but think that somewhere, Elmo is tickled with laughter.


Kami Becomes the World's First HIV-Positive Puppet: The bright-yellow fuzzball, who debuted in 2002 on the show's South African edition, incited a storm of controversy for purposefully being created as an HIV-positive character. Kami, whose backstory includes a South African upbringing as well as a mother who died of AIDS, was meant to educate children on the disease. Her arrival fired up conservative critics, who accused the show of promoting homosexuality and prematurely educating youngsters on AIDS. But Kami had no shortage of supporters of her own, including Bill Clinton, who starred alongside the Muppet in an HIV/AIDS PSA.

Forget Big Bird: Five other Muppets we'd rather see get fired



Muppets Tackle Diversity, Come Under Fire for Racial Stereotypes: Muppets, they're just like us—they fight for equal-opportunity representation! Back in the early '70s, the show introduced an African-American Muppet named Roosevelt Franklin, who taught lessons like the African geography. But within five years, he was yanked after parents complained that the character, who was often portrayed as a rowdy kid stuck in detention, promoted negative stereotypes of black children. Thirty years later, the show would come under fire again, this time for its seeming lack of lead female Muppets. Enter Abby Cadabby, a fairy muppet with wings and a magic wand who was the show's big bid for Grover-level female stardom. Natch, Abby herself faced criticism for supposedly pandering to girlie stereotypes of pink-hued, fairy-dust fluff. Can't please everybody, huh?


Bert's Osama Bin Laden Connection: Poor, Bert: When he's not skirting gay rumors, he's being labeled a terrorist. The mild-mannered chap was literally used as hapless puppet in an anti-U.S. protest when he popped up next to Bin Laden on a placard at a 2001 rally in Bangladesh. Talk about keeping bad company! Needless to say, the folks behind Sesame Street were none too pleased, huffing that they were "outraged" at the Muppet's inclusion in the rally.

Sesame Street tells Obama campaign to take down Mitt Romney Big Bird ads



Cookie Monster Chucks the Cookies...Sorta: "Me want cookie," Cookie Monster famously chants. Parents, on the other hand, wanted anything but. After enduring rampant criticism for the blue glutton's high-calorie, high-sugar cravings, Sesame's Street's producers dramatically switched up his diet in 2005 with loads of fruits instead and also introduced a new theme song titled "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food." Eh? A rep for the show quickly rushed to Cookie Monster's defense, saying, "We're not taking cookies away from Cookie. It's about teaching moderation. We are not about intervention, we are about prevention." We still want those cookies, though.


Sesame Street's YouTube Channel Hacked and Swapped With Porn: Cue those big bird jokes! In October 2011, visitors to the site's YouTube page got quite the shock when they discovered that not only had it been hacked but that all its content had been replaced with porn. The site was briefly shut down, but as soon as it was up and running, it posted a note that announcing that "our channel was temporarily compromised" and trumping the return of "the rest of the fuzzy, feathered, and googly-eyed friends you remember from childhood." No doubt, traumatized fans were still googly-eyed from the whole debacle.

Source : http://www.eonline.com/news/362339/elmo-puppeteer-kevin-clash-s-shocking-exit-and-8-other-infamous-sesame-street-scandals

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The father of modern sculpture's best-known masterpieces include The Kiss, The Thinker and The Burghers of Calais

Father of modern sculpture: Auguste Rodin

Google is celebrating the 172nd birthday of Auguste Rodin, the universally accepted father of modern sculpture.

The French sculptor's work was initially unpopular, but in his later years he became a world-renowned artist.

Today's Google doodle iincorporates one of Rodin's best-known works, The Kiss.

Tribute: Google's version of The Kiss

Here we take a closer look at Rodin's five most famous sculptures.


The Kiss

This 1889 marble sculpture of an embracing couple depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman Francesca da Rimini from Dante's Inferno, who falls in love with her husband's younger brother Paolo.

The couple are discovered and killed by Francesca's husband.

The lovers' lips do not actually touch in the sculpture, suggesting that they were interrupted and met their demise without them ever having kissed.

The Kiss

The Thinker

Probably the best known of Rodin's monumental works, this depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle.

First conceived circa 1880–1881 as a depiction of Dante, the image evolved to represent all poets and creators.

It now lives in the Rodin Museum in Paris, and is often used to represent philosophy.

The Thinker

The Burghers of Calais

Also completed in 1889, this sculpture serves as a monument to the moment in 1347 during the Hundred Years' War when Calais was captured by the English.

Edward III offered to spare the people if any six of the French port's top leaders would surrender themselves to him almost naked, with nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city and castle.

One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first, and five other burghers soon followed suit, stripping down to their breeches.

This poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice, and willingness to face imminent death was captured by Rodin in his sculpture.

Burghers of Calais

The Gates of Hell

This sculptural group work depicts a scene from "The Inferno" and contains 180 figures ranging in size from 15cm high up to more than one metre.

It was commissioned in 1880 and was meant to be delivered in 1885, but  Rodin continued to work on and off on the project for 37 years until his death in 1917.

Rodin worked on The Gates of Hell at the Hôtel Biron in Paris, and in 1919, two years after his death, the hotel became the Musée Rodin for the world to enjoy his work.

The Gates of Hell

The Age of Bronze

This bronze statue of a life-size nude man was first exhibited in 1877 in Paris, when Rodin was falsely accused of having made it by casting a living model.

He vigorously denied the charge, but the controversy benefited him, as members of the public were so eager to see his work and decide for themselves.

The figure was created to suggest heroism and suffering, what many of Rodin's countrymen went through while fighting in the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871.

The Age of Bronze

Source : http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/auguste-rodin-the-french-sculptors-five-1431964

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Francois-Auguste-Rene Rodin, better known as Auguste Rodin was born into a working-class family in Paris on 12 November 1840.

Auguste Rodin has an inclination towards art from his early age and pursued drawing and painting at the Petite Ecole, a school specializing in art and mathematics.

His first sculpture was displayed in 1864 with the subject The Man with the Broken Nose, to the Paris Salon. It was an unconventional bronze piece of art work that emphasized the emotional state and texture of the subject. But unfortunately, his first work was rejected.

Among his various works, the best known included The Thinker and The Kiss.

Today's Auguste Rodin doodle commemorates the sculpture The Thinker (1879-1889) which is among the most recognized creation of his works. It is a marble and bronze sculpture and is now in the Musee Rodin in Paris.

'The Thinker' depicts a man in sober meditation and often interpreted as philosophy. It is represented in many public places.

Rodin is appreciated for his manner of dealing with the subject and muse.

He hardly considered conventional academic postures as his inspiration rather preferred his sculpture to move naturally.

Rodin also emphasized to capture the intellectual force of his subject.

Thus to commemorate Rodin's artistic legacy and celebrate his 172nd birthday on November 12th, 2012, Google has displayed a doodle featuring The Thinker on its homepage.

Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/internet/Auguste-Rodins-172nd-birthday-Google-pays-tribute-with-The-Thinker-doodle/articleshow/17189630.cms

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Fantasy football owners usually have no one to blame but themselves when their teams struggles to put up points. Did you forget a bye week? Not realize that the San Francisco 49ers are the stingiest team in the league when it comes to opposing QB points? Or just pick the wrong running back in a timeshare? Regardless of the reason, fantasy football losses fall on the shoulders of armchair Lombardis out there.

Not this week.

With Yahoo! experiencing some technical difficulties, many fantasy football owners have a new scapegoat. Those who participate in fantasy football leagues hosted by Yahoo! were out of luck when they attempted to set their rosters before the 1 p.m. EST games began. As the confusion on social media blossomed into an uproar, Yahoo! acknowledged this issue.


As the afternoon wore on, updates were not promising.

 Before the beginning of the 2012 football season, Fox Business reported that fantasy football is now "generating profits in excess of $1 billion through cable deals, advertisements, draft guides, buy-in fees and various endorsements." Many of the people who laid out some of those dollars were not happy about their inability to make roster moves.

Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/11/yahoo-fantasy-football-servers-down-nfl-twitter_n_2114946.html

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People attending an Amendment 64 watch party in a bar hug after a local television station announced the marijuana amendment's passage, in Denver, Colo., Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012. The amendment would make it legal in Colorado for individuals to possess and for businesses to sell marijuana for recreational use. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

DENVER — Marijuana for all adults has long been the goal of legalization backers in Colorado. They got their way when they added taxes and regulation to the mix.

On Tuesday, voters in the state handily supported marijuana without a doctor’s recommendation. Exit polls showed the measure was supported everywhere in the state — not just big cities — and by both genders.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, who opposed the measure, quickly cautioned that marijuana use is still illegal under federal law. On Wednesday, he asked federal officials whether they plan to prosecute Coloradans who use marijuana.

John Walsh, the U.S. attorney for Colorado, issued a brief statement saying the Justice Department was reviewing the measure.

Suthers said he would help state officials implement the new measure but repeated his belief that legalizing marijuana on the state level ‘‘is very bad public policy.’’

The vote came just six years after Coloradans rejected legalizing pot in a 2006 vote. The difference? A plan to regulate the drug and keep it away from children, said the lead proponent of both measures, Mason Tvert.

Even the 2012 measure’s name — the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol — underscored that marijuana would be legal, but limited.

‘‘This was the time to bring up a well thought-out, viable system,’’ Tvert said.

The voter-approved amendment directs state lawmakers to tax the drug up to 15 percent, with the first $40 million going to school construction. Ads promoting the measure showed teachers and schools. One used the tag line: ‘‘Jobs for our people, money for schools. Who could ask for more?’’

At several debates about marijuana, backers of the amendment stressed that the drug would be tightly controlled.

‘‘We will take it off the streets and (put it) behind the counter where responsible business owners will ask for IDs,’’ argued Betty Aldworth in one televised debate.

That selling point persuaded some voters, like Stacie Packard, a 42-year-old mother of two from the Denver suburb of Wheat Ridge. She preaches to her children to stay away from drugs, but ultimately supported it because the first $40 million raised in taxes on pot would go to public schools.

‘‘I guess it’s kind of a shame that it’s come to this,’’ she said about the education funding.

Though lawmakers must still agree on a pot tax, along with extensive regulations for commercial sales, officials said those would get done.

‘‘It’s incumbent on the Legislature to honor the will of the people on that issue,’’ said Democratic state Rep. Mark Ferrandino, the presumptive incoming House speaker.

After approval by the Legislature, the pot tax would face final approval by voters.

Even if lawmakers and voters agree how to regulate and tax pot, however, significant questions remain about whether marijuana will truly be treated like alcohol. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and federal authorities have indicated no willingness to allow a state to experiment with pot outside of restricted medical uses.

Colorado’s governor gave a folksy prediction of the measure’s future.

‘‘Federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don’t break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly,’’ Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who opposed the measure, said in a statement.

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Veterans Day is an occasion to pause and do what we should do everyday -- remember those who have served and sacrificed. This year, coming on the heels of a national election, we also need to resolve to address some tasks ahead.

The president and Congress will need to determine just how to draw down our forces in Afghanistan. They must define the nation's military objectives for those forces who will serve there over the next two years. They must also do far more to support those who return.

This is also time to consider how the United States will remember those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and memorialize the now more than 6,600 who have died in those two wars. These veterans themselves and the families of those who were lost should have the primary voice in determining the form of national memory.

The form and voice of memorializing have varied significantly over the years. Following WW I there was a great emphasis on "living memory" -- public facilities and infrastructure. Since WW II the focus has been more on physical memorials -- but each of the three national memorials completed in this period has had a quite different theme.

This Veterans Day we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. Today the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national treasure, visited by over three million people annually. In 1979 Jan Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran, proposed a memorial honoring those who had sacrificed there. It moved forward remarkably quickly and in 1982 it was dedicated. But quickly does not mean it moved easily: 30 years ago critics found it somber and unheroic. Ross Perot led criticism of the memorial and Tom Wolfe wrote in the Washington Post that the memorial was "a tribute to Jane Fonda" and to antiwar activism.

The Vietnam Memorial broke from the iconic, heroic, memorial pattern by remembering the individual lives that were lost. Of course most local monuments dating from the 19th century featured the names of those who had been lost in the wars. For many in 1982 the model of the ideal memorial was the Marine Corps Memorial a few miles away in Arlington, a Felix de Weldon statue based upon the Joe Rosenthal photograph of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima in 1945.

This Marine Corps Memorial did not mention the 22,000 Marine casualties on the island -- including 6,000 dead. It did not indicate that three of the six men raising the flag later died on Iwo Jima. Critics of the Maya Lin design persuaded Secretary of the Interior James Watt to approve the Vietnam Memorial only upon the condition that the site would also include a statue and an American flag. Frederick Hart who created the "Three Infantrymen" statue had studied with de Weldon.

In the early 1980s some Korean War veterans proposed a memorial for their forgotten war. In 1986 Congress approved fundraising for a site on the Mall, across from the Vietnam Memorial. General Joseph Stillwell was the chair of the group of veterans who planned memorial. He did not live to participate in its dedication in 1995. The Korean War veterans sought to remember all who had served, as well as the 36,000 who had died in that theater. Col William Weber, a leader of the Koran Veterans group, said "It's not a memorial of grief. It's a memorial of pride." Black granite walls display sandblasted images of men serving in Korea. The memorial features nineteen figures walking through a field. Their expressions show the faces of men in combat. The wall at the end of this grouping memorializes those who died in that war. Currently there is sentiment on the part of many Korean War veterans to add the individual names of the fallen at the site.

The last of the three modern war memorials created is that of WWII. It is ironic that it was the last completed given that it was the first war -- and it was of a scale that finally engaged nearly all Americans and was concluded with a clear sense of victory. In 1987 Roger Durbin a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge proposed a memorial to the war. It took six years for Congress to authorize the memorial and 17 years to complete it. Durbin did not live to see the memorial. Neither did eleven million other WW II veterans. At the groundbreaking for the Memorial, war hero Senator Bob Dole said his generation was moving "from the shade to the shadows."

The WW II Memorial is more traditional than the other two post war memorials on the Mall. The Vietnam Memorial honors sacrifice and the Korean War Memorial evokes the experience of war. The WW II memorial records the triumph of democracy. It remembers successful campaigns and victories. Four thousand gold stars, each representing 1,000 Americans who died, symbolize the cost of those victories.

This Veterans Day is a good time to initiate a conversation about a memorial to those veterans who have fought our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our longest wars. We still do not have a monument to WWI and its 53,000 battle deaths. The last living veteran of WWI, Frank Buckles, hoped to see such a memorial. He died in February 2011. We can do better than this. Jan Scruggs and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund intend to honor these latest comrades in the interim in the new Education Center.

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans need to tell us how they want our nation to remember their wars and how to memorialize those who died in these conflicts. There is no clear model. And perhaps they will want to move beyond granite and marble. But the human face of these wars needs to become part of our nation's memory -- wars do have real human costs. Forgetting wars is bad history. Forgetting sacrifice is irresponsible history.

Source  : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-wright/veterans-day_b_2103624.html

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With few exceptions, Manziel was one step ahead of the Tide all day long in Tuscaloosa. (US Presswire)

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The "Roll Tide" chants inside Bryant-Denny Stadium in the fourth quarter were loud enough to wake up Alabama football ghosts from Birmingham to Montgomery.

Surely Alabama was still going to win. Had to. It's science. SEC normalcy. As expected as grown men in jerseys and jeans in the stands on Saturdays.

Down with eight minutes left, no problem. AJ McCarron would orchestrate The Drive, Part Deux and the Tide defense would get a stop. This is the monster Nick Saban had created, after all.

But Texas A&M had something stronger, a potent concoction that flipped college football's most powerful league on its head for a day and left an elite defense wondering what the heck just happened.


It took a chameleon quarterback to get it done. Freshman Johnny Manziel is part unearthly skill set, part anonymous slinger (A&M freshmen can't talk to the media), part Halloween cartoon dog.

He's still scrambling right now -- all the way out of Bryant-Denny Stadium with Alabama's national championship hopes.

It took a team ready to flog anyone who says one more time that A&M isn't ready for the SEC in its first year in the league. "People doubted us," said receiver Ryan Swope, who broke off 111 yards of understatement on Saturday.

It took a team that bottled up all those second-half meltdowns under Mike Sherman last year, and got fed up with coughing up leads in recent struggles against Florida and LSU this year.

"We're a different team," said first-year coach Kevin Sumlin, the clubhouse leader for SEC coach of the year.

All at Alabama's expense. Texas A&M combined an opportunistic defense with an efficient no-huddle attack in a stunning turn of events in the SEC.

Just when it looked like A&M couldn't deliver the knockout punch (thanks in part to kicker Taylor Bertolet's missed field goal and extra point), A&M's defense forced two turnovers in the fourth, including cornerback Deshazor Everett's interception of McCarron on fourth-and-goal from the 2.

Not exactly typical Tide football.

After A&M's 20-0 first quarter (three more points than the Tide had given up in a game all season) and plenty of missed chances, Alabama still had a chance to win, preparing to suck the life out of A&M in the final minutes.

A wild third-down scramble by McCarron, stopped by corner Dustin Harris, left Alabama with one play left from the 2.

McCarron rolled to his right, threw to Kenny Bell toward the sideline and Everett jumped the route. McCarron had 201 passing yards in the fourth quarter, but he needed two more.

"Just go for it," Aggies linebacker Sean Porter recalls the message in the huddle before the play. "This is what we'll be remembered by."

These Aggies will be remembered. Manziel is making sure of it.

Shrugging off previous second-half struggles against LSU and Florida, Manziel waited until the biggest stage to orchestrate his masterpiece. Alabama hadn't given up more than 60 yards rushing to a quarterback in almost three years, but Manziel cleared 80 in the first half.

He completed 24 of 30 passes for 253 yards and two touchdowns, along with 92 rushing yards on 16 carries. But the numbers don't fully illustrate the creativity he wielded on this day, scooting across the field to buy time until he squeezed passes into closing passing lanes.

His video-game moves on A&M's second touchdown were worth double-takes -- running into his own offensive lineman, the ball popping out of his hands for a brief second, sprinting to his left before firing to a wide-open Swope in the back of the end zone.

Alabama had trouble containing Manziel in the pocket and making him one-dimensional. When the defensive end would rush too deep on the outside, Manziel would slip to his left or right for a sizable gain. When he had time in the pocket, he delivered seamless passes through tight windows.

Alabama came with more blitzes in the second half, to some success. Somehow Manziel was sacked four times. Should have been 12, if you count arm tackles that Manziel craftily escaped.

The nation was waiting for this performance. No, really. Ask South Carolina athletics director Eric Hyman, who said he got a call from a New York friend this week saying Manziel was a primary topic on NYC sports talk radio this week.

Saban paid Manziel the ultimate respect. He called him by his number, not his name.

"The best way to defend No. 2 is when he's not out there," Saban said.

No. 2 should also get familiar with No. 78, the number of years in the Heisman Trophy's existence -- all without a freshman winner.

Defense helped the Aggies preserve a lead they never relinquished. They caused a timely T.J. Yeldon fumble to set up Manziel's 24-yard touchdown strike to Malcome Kennedy in the corner of the end zone with 9:01 left that sealed it.

The run-heavy Tide offense only rushed 14 times for 35 yards in the second half.

Alabama didn't go away quietly after the Kennedy TD. The Tide responded with a 54-yard touchdown pass to Amari Cooper with 6:09 left and forced a three-and-out to get the ball back, down 29-25 in the final five minutes. But two of the Tide's final three drives resulted in a turnover.

The early 20-0 hole was far too cavernous. This was the Aggies' night, and they'll have plenty more of these. Manziel and standout receiver Mike Evans are both freshmen.

The road for Alabama seems clear-cut: It needs at least two of the three unbeatens (Oregon, Notre Dame, Kansas State) to lose to restore title chances.

Saban is holding out hope.

"Two of the three national championship teams I coached lost a game," Saban said. "There's still a lot for this team to play for."

As for A&M? The only chant they hear is their own.

"We just tried to make a statement," Swope said. "I think it showed we can compete with any team in the country."

Source : http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/jeremy-fowler/20926415/johnny-manziel-texas-am-ride-perfect-storm-through-alabama-setting-sec-on-ear

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The Lakers let go of Coach Mike Brown on Friday, stunning the players who were informed by General Manager Mitch Kupchak at what was supposed to be the team's standard game-day shoot-around.

"I mean, it was just shocking to me," said forward Jordan Hill.  "I've never experienced anything like that.  I pulled into practice, and I saw coach.  We walked in together.  It was just a normal day."

"Then 20 minutes later we got the news," continued Hill.  "It was definitely unexpected."

Guard Jodie Meeks may benefit with the coaching change given he had fallen out of Brown's rotation.

"I had no idea so, just like everybody else," said Meeks. "We respected him and played hard for him."

Rookie center Robert Sacre addressed expectations that surround the team.

"We are the Lakers," said Sacre.  "We have that across our chest.  We are supposed to have 'Ws', and that's it."

Naturally Metta World Peace had a different take on his coach's firing, noting "every video person in America, in the world right now, would want to be like Mike Brown."

Brown started as a video coordinator before working his way up as an assistant and then head coach to both LeBron James (Cleveland Cavaliers) and the Lakers.

World Peace spoke about how blessed players and coaches are for the lives they have.

"I think it's a good life and it's a good job, at the end of the day," World Peace said.  "I get the chance to go out there and have fun."

As far as what happened to the Lakers this season, starting 1-4 before Friday night's victory over the Golden State Warriors, interim head coach Bernie Bickerstaff had a simple answer.

"Yeah, there was something missing . . . [Steve] Nash."

Point guard Nash is recovering from a non-displaced leg fracture that will keep him out at least another week, if not longer.
The big question is who will replace Brown permanently.  Phil Jackson may be the favorite but for now, it's Bickerstaff until it's officially resolved.

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The zombie apocalypse is officially on, and this first preview will show you how it starts.

After quite a long wait, we have finally set our eyes on at least some piece of the ginormous zombie flick, "World War Z," starring Brad Pitt. The only thing that might seem confusing about the teaser trailer is the "zombie" part.



The hordes of sprinting crazies are never identified as the undead, brain chompers that we've grown very familiar with in the last few years, but the teaser trailer curiously never even hints that the masses might be zombies. But as this is an adaptation of the book by famous zombie author Max Brooks and the "Z" stands for "zombie," you can rest assured that the undead will make an appearance in the movie.

Aside from that, what will certainly strike you about "World War Z" even from the trailer is the sheer scale of the thing. We start simply, as most of these movies do, with Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, a U.N. employee, as he sits in his car with wife, played by "The Killing" star Mireille Enos, and two daughters. Soon, their guessing game in the car turns dark when helicopters begin to circle and the street ahead of them explodes.

From there, the war against the zombie horde begins, and Lane is asked to play a vital role in assault against the undead, having to leave his family behind. The scale on which "World War Z" is working is largely new for the genre, which tends to focus on a small group of survivors holed up in a shopping mall or country house. Here, we get a tower of bodies piling up to scale a wall instead.

"World War Z" comes from director Marc Forster, who previously directed "Quantum of Solace." Reports of extensive reshoots and a number of rewrites made headlines after the movie was pushed from its initial release in December of this year. It is now scheduled to open in theaters on June 21.

Source : http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1697067/world-war-z-trailer.jhtml

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Brad Pitt fights a horde of zombies in the new trailer for "World War Z," a film that had its fair share of conflict off-screen as well.

Paramout was originally set to release "World War Z," an adaptation of Max Brooks' novel about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse on Earth, in December. The film was shifted to June of 2013 after "significant reshoots" were requested by the studio. In June, Damon Lindelof ("Lost," "Prometheus") was reportedly hired to work on the script -- with specific focus on the ending -- despite the fact that "World War Z" finished production in 2011. (In the end, it was never confirmed that Lindelof did work on the script.) Meanwhile, as Vulture reported, the messy post-production process was exacerbated further by the fact that Pitt and director Marc Forster ("Quantum of Solace") weren't on speaking terms.

Yet the first trailer looks strong, with Pitt trying to save his family from the zombie epidemic that's plaguing the world.

Watch the trailer below.



Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/world-war-z-trailer-brad-pitt_n_2094292.html

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