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= = = Huntsville Fire = = = |
The Huntsville Fire was an American professional indoor soccer team based in Huntsville, Alabama. The Fire played in the Eastern Indoor Soccer League during both of the league's seasons from 1997 to 1998. They played their home games in the Von Braun Center. The team began the 1997 season as the Florida-based Daytona Beach Speedkings before financial struggles forced a sale early in the season. |
During their existence, the Fire/Speedkings played a combined total of 52 games, winning 29, two via shootout, and losing 23, two via shootout. They scored a total of 810 goals and allowed a total of 702 goals and notched 87 total standings points out of a possible 156 points. The EISL awarded 3 standings points for a win, 2 for a shootout win, 1 for a shootout loss, and 0 for a loss in regulation. |
The team, a charter member of the Eastern Indoor Soccer League, was founded as the Daytona Beach Speedkings. They played their home games at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, under the direction of coach Scott Cooper. The team played the first-ever game in EISL history, losing to the Savannah Rug Ratz in front of a "disappointing" crowd of 600 fans. Despite having a winning record (5–3) and the league's top offense, the team failed to draw fans and suffered financially. Before the season, team owner Blake Cullen told the "Orlando Sentinel" that the team would need to average about 3,000 fans per game to break even. The team's official home attendance average was 609 per game but the bulk of those were complimentary tickets with the SpeedKings selling fewer than 200 tickets per game. |
This failure prompted Cullen to sell the team to Major League Indoor Football, Inc., based in Clearwater, Florida, who announced the team would relocate to the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama. In just three weeks the new management headed by team president Bryan Dresden, moved the team from Daytona Beach opening to an inaugural crowd of over 2500 new fans in Huntsville, Alabama. The renamed Huntsville Fire finished the season with a record of 13 wins and 11 losses, including 1 shootout win. This gave the team a total of 38 points for the 1997 season and 4th place in the seven-team league. |
The Fire returned for the 1998 season. They finished the season with a record of 16 wins and 12 losses (including 1 shootout win and two shootout losses) for 49 points. This placed them 3rd overall in the seven-team league. The Fire made the playoffs, losing to the Mississippi Beach Kings 2 games to 1 in the semi-final round. The Fire averaged 2,535 fans per game, fourth-best in the EISL where the average league game saw 2,733 fans in attendance. |
Lee Edgerton was named EISL Most Valuable Player for the 1998 season. Ed Carmean was honored with the EISL's first Sportsmanship Award, presented to the player who "displays gentlemanly play and the ability to treat players, fans and officials with genuine respect and kindness." Huntsville Fire players named to the 1998 EISL All-League Team included midfielder Lee Edgerton and defender Ed Carmean. Players named to the EISL All-League Third Team included defender Carlton Williams. Players receiving All-League Honorable Mentions included defender Abraham Francois and midfielder Jamie Harding. |
After the season, in late September 1998, the team fired its five-person staff, including head coach Scott Cooper and general manager Jim Krause, citing "significant" financial losses. Team president Bryan Dresden said he would not move or fold the team but that additional local investors were required for the team to continue. This became moot when the EISL itself folded in late December 1998. |
= = = Clouds of Sils Maria = = = |
Clouds of Sils Maria (known simply as Sils Maria in some territories) is a 2014 drama film written and directed by Olivier Assayas, and starring Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloë Grace Moretz. The film is a French-German-Swiss co-production. Principal photography took place from August to October 2013, with most of the filming taking place in Sils Maria, Switzerland. The film follows an established middle-aged actress (Binoche) who is cast as the older lover in a romantic lesbian drama opposite an upstart young starlet (Moretz). She is overcome with personal insecurities and professional jealousies—all while sexual tension simmers between her and her personal assistant (Stewart). The screenplay was written with Binoche in mind and incorporates elements from her life into the plot. |
"Clouds of Sils Maria" was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival on 23 May 2014, and also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival. The film received positive reviews, with critics lauding the work as psychologically complex and praising the lead actresses' performances. It won the Louis Delluc Prize for Best Film in December 2014, and received six César Award nominations. Stewart received the César Award for Best Supporting Actress in February 2015. |
Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is an international film star and stage actress. She travels with a loyal young American assistant, Valentine (Kristen Stewart). Twenty years earlier, Maria got her big break when she was cast and successfully performed as a young girl "Sigrid" in both the play and film versions of "" by Wilhelm Melchior, a Swiss playwright who is now elderly. The play centers on the tempestuous relationship between Sigrid and "Helena," a vulnerable older woman. Helena commits suicide after Sigrid takes advantage of her, and dumps her. |
While traveling to Zurich to accept an award on behalf of Wilhelm, and planning to visit him at home the following day at his house in Sils Maria – a remote settlement in the Alps – Maria learns of his death. His widow Rosa later confides that Wilhelm had ended his life and had been terminally ill. During the awards ceremony, Maria is approached by Klaus Diesterweg, a popular theater director. He wants to persuade her to appear on stage in "Maloja Snake" again, but this time in the role of Helena, the older woman. |
Maria is torn and reluctantly accepts. To prepare for the role, she accepts Rosa's offer to stay at the Melchiors' house in Sils Maria. Rosa is leaving to escape her memories of Wilhelm. Maria's discussions with Valentine and their read-throughs of the play's scenes evoke uncertainty about the nature of their relationship. A young American actress, 19-year-old Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz), has been chosen to interpret the role of Sigrid. Researching her on Google and the internet, Valentine tells Maria, who is out of touch with social media, that Ellis has been involved in numerous scandals. |
Questions soon multiply regarding aging, time, culture and the blurring line between the Sigrid/Helena and the Valentine/Maria relationships. Maria and Jo-Ann finally meet, but their relationship is complicated. Jo-Ann appears to be implicated in the attempted suicide of the wife of her new (and married) boyfriend. |
During their time at Sils Maria, Maria and Valentine spend much of their days hiking in the Alps. On one such final outing, they hike to the Maloja Pass – to observe a fascinating early morning cloud phenomenon that appears low in the pass (the "Maloja Snake" of the play's title, but also the "Clouds of Sils Maria" in the film's title). Valentine suggests that Helena may not commit suicide but simply walk away to start a new life. Maria protests that Helena walks into the mountains never to return and must therefore be dead. After suggesting that their approaches to the play are too different for her (Valentine) to be a useful assistant, a disconsolate Valentine disappears without explanation, never to reappear. |
A few weeks later, a young filmmaker who has previously sent a script to Maria visits her by appointment five minutes before the curtain rises on the opening night of "Maloja Snake" in London. Maria seems preoccupied, so near to curtain rise, and dismisses his suggested ideas about the proposed film role he is offering her as "too abstract for me". When she says the role he has written is too young for her and would suit Jo-Ann better, he suggests that the character is ageless and that he does not relate to his era with its internet scandals and trashy values. Clearly he admires her and her work. Maria does not give him a reply as to whether she will take part in the film. Then she is on stage, smoking and waiting for Sigrid. |
Principal photography of "Clouds of Sils Maria" began on 22 August 2013 and ended on 4 October. The film was shot on location in the titular village of Sils Maria, Switzerland as well as Zurich; Leipzig, Germany; and South Tyrol, Italy. |
In an interview, Olivier Assayas said that all the film's interiors were shot in Germany. The production moved to Sils Maria to film the hiking scenes, and moved again to film the scenes in and around the chalet in South Tyrol. |
The Chanel company debuted in film financing with this production. In addition it supplied the actresses with clothes, jewelry, accessories, and makeup, and the brand was scripted in as a provider of the same to Maria. Chanel provided some of the budget to allow Olivier Assayas to fulfill his dream of shooting a film on 35-mm film instead of digitally. |
Assayas has described the fictional play "Maloja Snake" as a "condensed, brutalized version" of "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant," a play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (it was later adapted as a film of the same name). |
The American title of the film is "Clouds of Sils Maria." In France the film was released as "Sils Maria," Assayas' original name. |
The first trailer for the film was released on 22 May 2014. Another international trailer followed on 7 July. |
The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival on 23 May 2014. It also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival. |
"Clouds of Sils Maria" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to positive reviews. |
Robbie Collin of "The Daily Telegraph" stated, "This is a complex, bewitching and melancholy drama, another fearlessly intelligent film from Assayas." He said, "Binoche plays the role with elegance and melancholic wit – her character slips between fiction and fact in a way that recalls her role in Abbas Kiarostami's "Certified Copy." But it's Stewart who really shines here. Valentine is probably her best role to date: she's sharp and subtle, knowable and then suddenly distant, and a late, surprising twist is handled with a brilliant lightness of touch." |
Peter Debruge of "Variety" said it was Assayas' "daring rejoinder, a multi-layered, femme-driven meta-fiction that pushes all involved—including next-gen starlets Kristen Stewart and Chloë Grace Moretz — to new heights." Matt Risley of "Total Film" called it "an elegant, intelligent drama, enlivened by strong performances by Binoche, Moretz and especially Stewart, for whom this will surely usher in a new dawn." |
Stephanie Zacharek of "The Village Voice" wrote: "But the movie's true center, the meteorological phenomenon that makes it so pleasurable to watch, is the half-prickly, half-affectionate interplay between Binoche and Stewart." Ben Sachs of "Chicago Reader" wrote: "This recalls Ingmar Bergman's chamber dramas in the intensity and psychological complexity of the central relationship, yet the filmmaking is breathtakingly fluid, evoking a sense of romantic abandon." |
However, Kyle Smith of the "New York Post" writes: "A backstage drama that has all the sizzle of a glass of water resting on the windowsill, [...] "Clouds of Sils Maria" mistakes lack of dramatic imagination for smoldering subtlety." Richard Brody from "The New Yorker" writes: "Clouds of Sils Maria, as the title suggests, is a sort of travelogue, a commercial for European cultural tourism, and, as such, it's the perfect image of the very system that created it. There's almost no independent filmmaking in France, and there isn't supposed to be. If there were, it would stand as a threat to the system that, by way of training, enticements, and restrictions, is the source of the comforts that the movie depicts and that the movie reflects. The mediocrity is stifling." |
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports a "Certified Fresh" score of 90% based on 169 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bolstered by a trio of powerful performances from its talented leads, "Clouds of Sils Maria" is an absorbing, richly detailed drama with impressive depth and intelligence." On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted mean score of 78 out of 100, based on 41 reviews from film critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". |
"Clouds of Sils Maria" opened in France on 20 August 2014 in 150 theaters for a $3,663 per theater average and a box office total of $549,426 as of 24 August 2014. The film expanded to 195 theaters in its second week of release, and the box office increased to an estimated $1,150,090. |
"Clouds of Sils Maria" opened in the United States on 10 April 2015 in three theaters and grossed $69,729 on its opening weekend for an average of $23,243 per. As of 4 June 2015, the film has grossed an estimated $1,743,577 after expanding theaters. |
The film won the Louis Delluc Prize for Best Film in December 2014. The film received six César Award nominations including best film, best director, best actress, best original screenplay, and best cinematography, while Stewart won for best supporting actress, becoming the first American actress to win a César and the second American actor to win after Adrien Brody in 2003. |
The film was released on DVD and Digital HD by Paramount Home Media on July 14, 2015; the company also handles the digital entertainment sales, with IFC handling the video on demand sales. |
The Criterion Collection released a DVD and Blu-ray edition on 28 June 2016. |
= = = Naked Raccoon = = = |
Naked Raccoon is an acoustic album by American indie rock band Silent Old Mtns, released on June 19, 2013. It is a companion album to Silent Old Mtns' previous record, "Velvet Raccoon", marking the one year anniversary of its release. The album contains all of the tracks from "Velvet Raccoon" performed acoustically, supplemented by poetry inspired by the album. It was recorded in June 2011 at the Key Facility in Monrovia Maryland, and produced by Myles Vlachos. |
On the day of its release "Naked Raccoon" was review by Trebuchet Magazine's Scott Ladauti. He writes... "Naked Raccoon works so well. A stripped down, track by track, acoustic replica of their first album. Released on June 19th, Naked Raccoon brings the curtain down on a full year of recording and touring under the ten tracks that we first heard on the plugged-in big brother, Velvet Raccoon. Most of the record’s focus is Brohmal’s voice and his guitar." |
= = = 2013 LPGA Championship = = = |
The 2013 LPGA Championship was the 59th LPGA Championship, held June 6–9 at Locust Hill Country Club in Pittsford, New York, a suburb southeast of Rochester. Known for sponsorship reasons as the Wegmans LPGA Championship, it was the second of five major championships on the LPGA Tour during the 2013 season. This was the fourth consecutive year the LPGA Championship was played at Locust Hill. |
Inbee Park, number one in the world rankings, won her third major title in a sudden-death playoff, defeating runner-up Catriona Matthew on the third extra hole, their 39th of the day. The third and fourth rounds were played on Sunday after play was washed out by heavy rain on Thursday. |
The win was the second consecutive major for Park; she won the Kraft Nabisco Championship in April and became only the third to win both in the same year, joining Pat Bradley (1986) and Annika Sörenstam (2005). |
It was the eighth playoff at the LPGA Championship and the first since 2008. |
The field included 150 players from 24 countries, with the 36-hole cut to the top 70 players and ties after the second round. |
"Thursday, June 6, 2013"<br> |
"Friday, June 7, 2013" |
Play was washed out on Thursday due to heavy rain, course flooding, and occasional lightning. Chella Choi shot a 67 (−5) on Friday on a soggy course to take the first round lead; major winners Morgan Pressel and Jiyai Shin were one stroke back at 68. |
Source: |
"Saturday, June 8, 2013" |
Pressel grabbed the lead with a 70 (−2) for 138 (−6), and world number one Inbee Park shot 68 to move into tie for second place with first round leader Choi, two strokes back at 140 (−4). The cut was at 150 (+6) or better, with 77 players advancing to play the final two rounds on Sunday. |
"Sunday, June 9, 2013 (morning)" |
One-over for the round after the first eight holes, Park then made five birdies and five pars for another 68 (−4) to total 208 (−8), one stroke ahead of Pressel. |
"Sunday, June 9, 2013 (afternoon)" |
Following the third round in the morning, the groupings were kept the same for the afternoon's final round. The top three players after 54 holes, Park, Pressel, and Shin, all shot 75 (+3) and came back to the field. Matthew recorded a 68 (−4) without a bogey for a 283 (−5), which tied Park and forced a sudden-death playoff. Suzann Pettersen, the champion in 2007, started the round eleven strokes back, in a tie for 31st. She carded a tournament best 65 (−7), but finished one stroke back at 284 (−4), tied with Pressel for third place. |
"Final round" |
"Cumulative tournament scores, relative to par" |
The sudden-death playoff began on the 18th hole and alternated with the 10th hole, both par fours. Both players parred the first two holes, with Matthew scrambling for par on the second after finding the rough and pitching out to the fairway. She drove into the rough again on the third hole while Park hit the fairway. Matthew failed to chip in for par from and Park sank her birdie putt for the championship. |
= = = Flaminio Obelisk = = = |
The Flaminio Obelisk (Italian: "Obelisco Flaminio") is one of the thirteen ancient obelisks in Rome, Italy. It is located in the Piazza del Popolo. |
It is 24 m (67 ft) high and with the base and the cross reaches 36.50 m (100 ft). |
The Nineteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Sety I quarried this obelisk from granite quarries in Aswan. Before his death, artists inscribed one face of the obelisk, which Sety intended to erect in the Temple of Re in Heliopolis. Sety's son and successor Ramesses II completed its inscriptions and set it up in Heliopolis; it was brought to Rome in 10 BC by command of Augustus, together with the Obelisk of Montecitorio, and placed on the "spina" of the Circus Maximus, followed three centuries later by the Lateran Obelisk. Like most Egyptian obelisks, the Flaminio Obelisk was probably one of a pair, but no trace of its mate has ever been found. In Sety I's dedicatory inscription on one side of the shaft, the king boasts that he would "fill Heliopolis with obelisks." |
The obelisk was discovered in 1587, broken into three pieces, together with the Lateran Obelisk; and it was erected in the Piazza del Popolo by Domenico Fontana in 1589, at the command Pope Sixtus V. |
In 1823 Giuseppe Valadier embellished it with a base having four circular basins and stone lions, imitating the Egyptian style. |
= = = The Giver (film) = = = |
The Giver is a 2014 American social science fiction dystopian film directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Jeff Bridges, Brenton Thwaites, Odeya Rush, Meryl Streep, Alexander Skarsgård, Katie Holmes, Cameron Monaghan, Taylor Swift, and Emma Tremblay. The film is based on the 1993 young adult novel of the same name by Lois Lowry. |
"The Giver" premiered on August 11, 2014, and was released theatrically in the United States on August 15, 2014, grossing $67 million on a $25 million budget. It received a People's Choice Award nomination for "Favorite Dramatic Movie". However, it received generally mixed reviews from critics. |
Following a calamity referred to as The Ruin, society has been reorganized. Conflict, pain, and suffering have been mostly removed from human experience, but emotion, love, freedom, individuality, and joy have also been removed. Babies are brought into being through genetic engineering, and sexual desire is chemically suppressed. All memories of the past are held by one person, the Receiver of Memory, for the purpose of shielding the rest of the community from pain. The Receiver of Memory and his/her protégé are the only persons able to see in color, an ability otherwise eliminated from the community to prevent envy. The community is ruled by elders, including a Chief Elder. |
Jonas is a 16-year-old boy whose best friends are Asher and Fiona. On graduation day, Jonas is told that he will become the next Receiver of Memory and will progressively receive memories from his predecessor, the Giver. During his training with the Giver, Jonas gradually learns about the past and about joy, pain, death, and love. Jonas stops taking his daily injections and begins to experience emotion. Those who leave the community are said to have been "released to Elsewhere", but Jonas learns that this is really a euphemism for death by lethal injection. Jonas also learns that the Giver's daughter, Rosemary, had preceded Jonas as Receiver of Memory. When she began her training, however, Rosemary became so distraught from the memories she received that she asked to be euthanized. |
Jonas begins to teach his findings to Fiona and shares the concept of emotion with her. Jonas then tells her to stop taking her daily injection. The next day, he kisses her; kissing is an antiquated action that is unknown to the community and which Jonas learned about through memories received from the Giver, and touching a non-family member is against the rules. Jonas also shares his memories with a baby, Gabriel, who was brought home by his father. He develops a close relationship with Gabriel after discovering that he shared the birthmark Jonas has—the mark of a potential Receiver of Memory. |
Appalled by the deception of his community and by the Elders' disregard for human life, Jonas comes to believe that everyone should have memories of the past. Eventually, the Giver and Jonas decide that the only way to help the community is for Jonas to travel past the border of their land into the area called "Elsewhere". Doing this would release memories and color back into the community. When Jonas tries to leave his neighborhood, he encounters Asher. Asher tries to stop Jonas, but Jonas punches him. Jonas retrieves Gabriel—who is to be "released" for having failed to meet developmental markers—at the Nurturing Center; Fiona kisses Jonas and helps him escape with Gabriel. |
Meanwhile, Jonas' mother and Asher go to the Chief Elder to tell them Jonas is missing. Jonas steals a motorcycle and drives away with Gabriel. Asher is assigned by the Chief Elder to use a drone to find Jonas and "lose" him. When Asher finds Jonas and Gabriel in the desert, Jonas implores Asher to trust him and let them go. Instead, Asher captures them with the drone, but then sets them free by dropping them into a river; when questioned by the Chief Elder, Asher lies and says that he has followed her orders. |
Fiona is condemned to be "released" for helping Jonas. Just as she is about to be "released" by Jonas's father, the Giver tries to persuade the Chief Elder that the Elders should free the community. Unmoved by the Giver's arguments, the Chief Elder asserts that freedom is a bad idea because left to their own devices, people make bad choices. |
Jonas and Gabriel enter a snowy area. Jonas falls to the ground, overcome by the cold weather. However, he sees a sled like the one that he rode in a memory he received from the Giver. Jonas and Gabriel ride the sled downhill and cross the border into Elsewhere, freeing their community. This action saves Fiona's life, as Jonas's father realizes what he is doing and stops short of "releasing" her. Jonas realizes that he has succeeded in his quest. |
Jeff Bridges initially wanted to film the movie in the mid-1990s, and a script was written by 1998. Various barriers marred the production of the film, including when Warner Bros. bought the rights in 2007. The rights then ended up at The Weinstein Company and Walden Media. |
Bridges originally intended that his own father, Lloyd Bridges, would play the title character, The Giver, but he died in 1998. |
Principal photography began on October 7, 2013 in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Meryl Streep had some of her scenes shot in England, where she also filmed Rob Marshall's "Into the Woods", before doing additional filming two months later in Paarl, a town near Cape Town. The filming was completed on February 13, 2014 in Utah. |
The score for "The Giver" was composed by Marco Beltrami. The song "Ordinary Human" by OneRepublic was featured in the movie. The film also features Tori Kelly's "Silent". The soundtrack was released on August 5, 2014 by Interscope Records. |
The first official trailer for the film was released on March 19, 2014. On April 11, 2014, more footage from the film was revealed. A second trailer was released on June 4. |
On July 11, 2014, it was announced that The Weinstein Company and Walden Media would be teaming up with Fathom Events to stream the red carpet premiere to more than 250 theaters in the US on August 11, four days before its official release. Ziegfeld Theatre hosted the film's premiere in New York City. |
"The Giver" grossed $45.1 million in North America and $21.9 million overseas for a worldwide total of $67 million, against a production budget of $25 million. |
The film earned $4.7 million on its opening day. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $12.3 million, finishing in 5th place at the box office. |
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 35% based on 160 reviews with an average rating of 5.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Phillip Noyce directs "The Giver" with visual grace, but the movie doesn't dig deep enough into the classic source material's thought-provoking ideas." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 47 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." |
Richard Roeper gave the film a "C" and stated that "the magic [of the novel] gets lost in translation". |
= = = Juan José Madrigal = = = |
Juan José Madrigal Pacheco (born March 8, 1974) is a Costa Rican former swimmer, who specialized in breaststroke events. He is a two-time Olympian (1996 and 2000), and a Costa Rican former record holder in the 50,100 and 200 m breaststroke (long course and short course). |
Madrigal made his Olympic debut at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, where he competed only in the 100 m breaststroke. Swimming in heat two, he held off Namibia's Jorg Lindemeier by three hundredths of a second (0.03) to pick up a third seed in 1:05.47. |