Mathew Knowles’ Baby Mama Says He Threatened Her
According to TMZ, Matthew Knowles emailed an ominous threat to the mother of his 2-year-old son — or so the woman claims, and now she’s gunning for him in court.
Knowles’ baby mama Alexsandra Wright filed legal docs, asking the family court judge to up her child support to cover expenses for security to protect their kid. Mathew is currently on the hook for $12k a month.
Wright claims she needs security because of a “threatening” email Knowles sent her back in September 2011, in which he wrote, “You hurt my family. There’s a price to pay.”
According to the docs, Wright also wants additional dough to cover expenses for a secure, private school.
Sources close to Knowles tell TMZ … he faithfully pays child support, adding the only reason he hasn’t paid expenses for schooling is because they haven’t agreed on the school.
We’re told Knowles thinks Wright’s latest legal move could backfire because his income has drastically decreased since the original order was issued. As you know, Beyonce gave him walking papers in 2011.
Knowles believes the judge could actually reduce his monthly payments.
Source-TMZ
Chastain tops US box office with Mama and Zero Dark Thirty
Supernatural thriller Mama has topped the US box office with its star Jessica Chastain leading in this weekend's two top grossing films.
It opened above expectations, earning $28.1m (£18m) while Zero Dark Thirty, in which Chastain leads the hunt for Osama Bin Laden made $17.6m (£11m).
Continuing its success, the Oscar-nominated Silver Linings Playbook made $11.4m (£7m) after 10 weeks on release.
Rounding off the top five were crime films Gangster Squad and Broken City.
While horror films generally have a greater appeal with male audiences, Mama was a big hit with females, who made up 61% of its audience.
The weekend's other films included Broken City, Django Unchained, Gangster Squad and The Last Stand.
Female audience
"Never underestimate the drawing power of a PG-13 horror film," Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for movie tracker Hollywood.com said of Mama, which tells the tale of sisters Victoria and Lily who disappeared in the woods the day their mother was murdered by their father.
Elsewhere in the chart, Arnold Schwarzenegger's post-politics comeback failed to ignite cinema-goers. His action film, The Last Stand debuted with just $6.3m (£4m) to take the number 10 spot, making it one of the worst openings for the 65-year-old Terminator star.
While Schwarzenegger co-starred in The Expendables 2 in August, action comedy The Last Stand was his first lead role since he exited the California governor's seat in January 2011.
Quentin Tarantino had another successful week with his Oscar-nominated Django Unchained.
After four weeks on release in north America, the Spaghetti Western became the director's biggest box office success, outperforming his previous film Inglourious Basterds, by adding $8.2 million for a domestic total of $138.4m (£87m).
Internationally, the film did exceptionally well, taking in $48.1m (£30m) in its opening weekend.
Other Oscar favourites saw their largest boost internationally. Ang Lee's 3-D fantasy Life of Pi added $20.7m (£13m) to its huge $393.9m (£248m) international haul.
The international take for Tom Hooper's musical, Les Miserables, also grew to $150.5m (£95m) with $19.4 million on the weekend.
NORTH AMERICAN TOP FIVE
1. Mama $28.1m
2. Zero Dark Thirty $17.6m
3. Silver Linings Playbook $11.4m
4. Gangster Squad $9.1m
5. Broken City $9m
Source: Hollywood.com
Arnold Schwarzenegger is indestructible in 'The Last Stand'
The Governator is back! Retired from politics, Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking a leaf out of his "Expendables" buddy Sylvester Stallone's book and setting out to prove that he can still kick butt at 65.
"The Last Stand" represents his first starring role in eight years, and it seems there's plenty more gas in his tank. The timing for a primed, pumped, itchy-trigger-finger shoot-em-up leaves something to be desired, no doubt, but with Nicolas Cage unaccountably AWOL this January, Arnie has the knucklehead R-rated action field pretty much to himself. What's more, "The Last Stand" brings it. If you park your brain outside, and double-park any misgivings about vicarious gun mayhem right alongside, it's passable fun.
It's a modern-day Western -- a souped-up and dumbed-down "Rio Bravo," if you will -- with Schwarzenegger making like John Wayne as border town Sheriff Ray Owens, the last man standing between a runaway bad guy (Mexican drug baron Eduardo Noreiga) and his freedom. Charting a spectacularly erratic 24-hour course, the movie juggles self-consciously hokey small-town comedy with slick (or at least semi-slick) high-tech chase scenes as the road-racing desperado leads Forest Whitaker and the feds on a merry chase through the Southwest in his prototype Corvette 01.
The auto action seems a transparent pitch to sell high-end sports cars and inject a little momentum in a movie that's equally content to dawdle over its morning coffee, shooting the breeze with amusing (or at least semi-amusing) supporting players like Ray's deputies, ornery Mike (Luis Guzman in the Walter Brennan role), bumbling Jerry (Zach Gilford), and sexy Sarah (Jaimie Alexander).
Johnny Knoxville gets unaccountably prominent billing for little more than an extended cameo as a guy named Dinkum, a screwy gun nut with a penchant for cavalier headgear. He's excruciating, but almost puppy-like he's so eager to please.
The same might go for director Kim Jee-woon, a talented Korean known for macabre ghost stories like "A Tale of Two Sisters," whacky adventures ("The Good, the Bad, the Weird"), and grisly cop thrillers ("I Saw the Devil").
His first U.S. effort is full of bold, broad comic book strokes -- some of them pleasingly original, like a car chase through a cornfield, the husks of corn thudding against the windscreens like oversized bugs. Listen to how he picks out the sound of a helmet rolling across the pavement. That's a filmmaker alert to his environment and the tools at this command. But there's just as much that's ham-fisted or tin-eared. At best these are stereotypes we might recognize from other B flicks. There's never a whiff of authenticity, except maybe when Harry Dean Stanton appears for a cruelly brief bit part as a cranky local farmer.
The uninspired score by Kim's countryman Mowg doesn't lift the so-so climactic shoot-out any, but the movie's tongue in cheek humor will buy off most of the target audience. And Arnie? He's indestructible.
--CNN
Les Miserables soundtrack tops UK album chart
The soundtrack to Tom Hooper's Oscar-nominated Les Miserables has become the first cast recording to top the UK and Ireland album chart in 16 years.
It has knocked Brit-nominated Emeli Sande's best-selling Our Version of Events into second-place with newcomer Jake Bugg's self-titled debut in third.
The last musical to achieve a similar feat was the soundtrack to the film Evita, starring Madonna, in 1997.
Will.i.am and Britney Spears had the number one single for a second week.
Their track, Scream & Shout, held off competition from rapper 50 Cent, whose new release, My Life, featuring Eminem and Maroon 5's Adam Levine, entered the chart at number two.
Also failing to claim the top spot was singer-turned-actor Justin Timberlake, who released his first single in six years - Suit and Tie, featuring Jay-Z - earlier this week.
The last time Timberlake, who has recently starred in films including The Social Network and Friends with Benefits, had a UK chart hit was as a guest on rap producer Timbaland's Carry Out in April 2010.
The 31-year-old had to settle for number three with his latest release. Taylor Swift and Rihanna rounded off the top five.
'Songs missing'
Les Miserables's success was not limited to the album chart as actress Anne Hathaway scored her first ever UK Top 40 hit with I Dreamed A Dream, which climbed 58 places to number 22.
The soundtrack album contains highlights from the two-and-a-half hour film, including On My Own, Empty Chairs At Empty Tables and Suddenly, a new song written specifically for the film adaptation.
However, it is missing more than an hour of music, with the likes of Lovely Ladies, Who Am I and Do You Hear The People Sing omitted from the compilation.
Several fans have petitioned film company Universal Studios and record label Republic Records to release the full score.
Russell Crowe, who plays police inspector Javert, has joined the calls, writing on Twitter: "I know there has been talk of releasing the complete score and 48 tune soundtrack of #LesMis tell @UniversalPics you want it."
But not everyone is a fan of the album, which features live vocals recorded on the set of the film.
"I think it would have been better if they tweaked the sound a little bit on the voices," said stage veteran Elaine Paige on her Radio 2 show.
"It's all too naturalistic, overblown, over-acted for my taste".
The Telegraph's Emma Gosnell agreed, saying: "For me, at key moments in the score, the vocals just weren't raw and real enough."
Even Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the scheming bar owner Madame Thenardier, said she was underwhelmed by her own performance.
"I had lots of vocal training for Les Mis but I didn't improve as much as I thought I would," she said.
"I watched it and I thought I was going to be so much better, I thought my voice was going to be so much bigger.
"I practised and practised and practised but the thing with Les Mis is that it was real, so that's what we sounded like."
Elsewhere in the album charts, Manchester-based indie rockers Everything Everything - whose debut record Man Alive was nominated for the Mercury prize - enjoyed their highest-charting album to date, as Arc entered at number five.
Rapper and BBC Sound of 2012 finalist, A$AP Rocky, scored his first top ten album with Long Live A$AP, which debuted at number seven.
Other new entries were Irish folkster Villagers whose Awayland charted at sixteen and pop veterans New Order, whose Lost Sirens - made up of tracks recorded during sessions for their 2005 album Waiting For The Sirens' Call - landed at 23.
Original Batmobile sold for $4.2m at US auction
The Batmobile used by actor Adam West in the original TV series of Batman has sold for $4.2m (£2.6m) at a US auction.
The car was bought by Rick Champagne, a logistics company owner from Phoenix, Arizona.
The 56-year-old, who was just 10 when the high-camp TV series began in 1966, said it "was a dream come true".
The Batmobile design was based on a 1955 Lincoln Futura, a concept car built in Italy by the Ford Motor Company.
It was the first time that car had come up for public sale since it was bought in 1965 by car-customiser George Barris for a nominal fee of $1.
Barris then spent $15,000 (roughly £5,370 at the time) to transform it into the famous superhero vehicle, over a period of 15 days.
Adam West, now 84, played the caped crusader in 120 episodes in four years of programming, with Burt Ward starring as the "boy wonder" Robin and comedian and actor Cesar Romero as Batman's arch nemesis, The Joker.
The 60s show was camp in its portrayal of Batman. More recent incarnations of billionaire Bruce Wayne and his alter-ego - such as British director Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy - have had a much darker tone.
The newer Batmobiles have reflected the more brutal portrayal of Gotham City's saviour, such as the "Tumbler" of 2005's Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale.
It had a V-8 engine, arguably one of the first in-car phones, and parachutes, which were deployed to help Batman turn sharp corners.
Mr Barris told reporters at the auction: "The car had to be a star on its own. And it became one."
Since the show was cancelled in 1968, he has toured the Batmobile and was eventually housed in a private showroom in California.
Morgan Stanley swings back to profit
US bank Morgan Stanley has said it swung back to profit in the fourth quarter of 2012, a turnaround it described as a "pivot point".
It reported a net profit of $481m (£302m) in the last three months of the year, compared to a loss of $275m in the same period a year earlier. Revenue jumped 37% to $7.5bn.
The bank, which has been shedding staff, earned more in fees for financial services.
Shares jumped 5.5% in early trading.
The profit included a net tax benefit of about $155m.
Rival US banks Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase both reported sharp rises in profits on the back of strong performances by their investment banking arms earlier this week. Citigroup also said its profits rose despite $2.32bn in one-off charges.
But Bank of America reported a decline in quarterly profits after it took another financial hit on bad mortgage debt.
'Meaningful progress'
Over the year, it cut nearly 4,500 jobs, or 7% of its workforce. It plans to cut another 1,300 jobs, with cuts focused on the investment bank and senior-ranking employees.
"After a year of significant challenges, Morgan Stanley has reached a pivot point," said James Gorman, the bank's chairman and chief executive.
"We demonstrated meaningful progress in our wealth management joint venture, reaching the highest pre-tax margin since the inception of the joint venture."
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the bank plans to change how bonuses are paid to higher-paid bankers.
Bonuses, which are usually awarded in the first couple months of the year, will be paid in four instalments spread over almost three years, instead of one lump sum, the Journal reported.
Compensation was $1.5bn compared with $1.6bn in the same period of a year before, it added.
China growth shows signs of pick-up from 13-year low
China's economy, the world's second largest, is showing signs of a rebound that could help it emerge from its worst economic period in 13 years.
According to the latest government figures, growth picked up to 7.9% in the final three months of 2012, from 7.4% in the previous quarter.
This was driven by state investment in infrastructure projects and efforts to get consumers and companies to spend.
Economic stability is seen as vital for China as its new leaders take over.
"It is obvious that the slowdown in the Chinese economy has halted for the moment," said Fraser Howie, an economist and co-author of Red Capitalism.
"But one has to be mindful that any recovery will be limited in its scope, not least because of the various headwinds that China is facing," he added.
"The new leaders, who take charge in March, will now have to find the right balance between trying to prevent the formation of a property bubble and keeping a healthy growth rate going."
That may prove tricky, not least because China's economic growth has slowed significantly from the highs of previous years, and analysts warn that state stimulus measures may wane.
On Friday, the statistical office reported that gross domestic product, the main measure of growth, increased by 7.8% in 2012, down from 9.3% in 2011.
That was the slowest annual rate of growth since 1999.
But it is still way above the anaemic growth rates experienced by most other major economies last year. Figures for the US, the world's largest economy, and Japan, the third largest, are expected to show growth of about 2%.
The 17 members of the eurozone are collectively expected to contract by about 0.4%.
Algeria oil industry: 'Dark cloud' over production
The situation with oil workers taken hostage in Algeria puts a "dark cloud" over the country's production, an international energy body has said.
Several hostages have been killed.
The International Energy Agency said that "political risk writ large" dominates much of the energy market, "and not just in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya or Venezuela".
The IEA also raised its forecast for global oil demand this year on the back of Chinese and US demand.
"The 16 January kidnapping and murder of foreign oil workers at the In Amenas gas field has cast a dark cloud over the outlook for the country's energy sector," it said.
"Production at the field was shut in, including an estimated 50,000 barrels per day of condensate."
The In Amenas field is operated as a joint-venture between Algeria's Sonatrach, Norwegian operator Statoil and UK energy giant BP.
The agency raised its forecast for global oil demand this year following greater demand in the last three months of 2012 by the two biggest economies in the world. The forecast is now 240,000 barrels per day more than its estimate in December, up to 90.8 million barrels per day - 1% more than in 2012.
Islamist militants are continuing to hold a number of hostages at a gas facility in the Algerian desert. One Briton was killed when militants ambushed a convoy on Wednesday.
BP said hundreds of workers from international oil companies had been evacuated from Algeria on Thursday and that many more would follow.
'Wrong' maple leaf on Canadian banknotes
Canada's new plastic banknotes feature Norway maple leaves, instead of the Canadian sugar maple leaf, according to botanists.
They argue the leaf shown features more sections and has a more pointed outline than the Canadian version.
The maple leaf is featured on the new C$20 (£13), C$50 and C$100 notes, which were introduced in November.
Bank of Canada officials say the image is a "stylised" leaf, created with the help of a botanist.
"I think it's just an after-the-fact excuse," said Sean Blaney, senior botanist at the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre, who first brought the image to the attention of the broadcaster CBC.
The Norway maple, however, is a popular tree in central and eastern Canada, after being imported from Europe.
"It has naturalised to Canada," Mr Blaney said.
"This could not be confused with a native species of Canada," Julian Starr, a botany professor at the University of Ottawa, told the CBC.
The leaf on Canada's flag is stylised, but in such a way that it still looks like the native species, Mr Starr later told CTV.
In August, the Bank of Canada apologised for removing an image of an "Asian-looking" woman from the design of the new $100 bank note.
The polymer banknotes have also faced criticism for not working in many vending machines
Inauguration Day: Obama sworn in for second term
Barack Obama has officially been sworn in for his second term as US president in a small ceremony at the White House.
Mr Obama took the oath in the Blue Room to meet the 20 January date set out in the US Constitution.
Given this fell on a Sunday, a public inauguration with pomp and circumstance will take place on Monday.
Vice-President Joe Biden was sworn in for a second term at a small ceremony at his official residence earlier on Sunday morning.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office to Mr Obama, witnessed by First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Sasha and Malia as well as some family members and reporters.
Resting his hand on a Bible used for many years by his wife's family, Mr Obama vowed "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States".
He will repeat those words during Monday's public inauguration, in which he will also set out his plans for the next four years.
Mr Biden will also repeat his oath publicly on Monday.