The
Year of the Rat, Chinese New Year’s Celebrations in Las Vegas, PK Party,
Sensual nightclub The Bank opens at Bellagio, Hawaiian Tropic Zone Opens
at PH, Juno’s Screenwriter Explains Movies, Movies This Week, and
more...
On Monday we celebrated Chinese New Year (or Spring
Festival) at the LV Hilton with a cocktail reception followed by the
live show. Divine Performing Arts sends two companies on the road for a
non-stop touring schedule encompassing 120 shows in 60 cities worldwide.
The grand celebration show features operatic vocalists, dancers,
performers and a live symphony orchestra. The costumes and sets were
extraordinary. The special one night only show was priced from $70-$120
(plus tax and service charge).
A time of reflection and renewal, the Chinese New
Year is the most important holiday of the year. Shared by virtually
every Asian country, it is an opportunity to reflect on one’s own
heritage and look ahead towards the future.
The Chinese New Year is celebrated appropriately in
Las Vegas with much pomp and extravagance. It’s a destination site for
Asians during the New Year. The MGM Mirage is offering ancient Chinese
culinary traditions in a seven-day feast modeled after banquets prepared
for emperors. In February, Diaoyutai State Guesthouse will partner with
Pearl Restaurant at the MGM Grand to present the Diaoyutai State
Guesthouse Culinary Festival. Recalling the imperial custom of Chinese
emperors, Diaoyutai will prepare traditional delicacies from the
Imperial Court.
The Gold Coast Hotel and Casino will celebrate the
Chinese New Year on February 12 with one of the largest traditional
Chinese Dragon Dances in Las Vegas. At 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. a traditional
Chinese lion and a 62-foot Chinese dragon will dance through the casino
to bring good luck to all in attendance. It is believed that the lion
will chase away evil spirits and bring good luck and prosperity. The
dragon represents wisdom and a long life. Kung fu practitioners from the
Lohan School of Shaolin will perform the dances.
http://www.goldcoastcasino.com
The American Board of Hypnotherapy held its annual
conference at the Alexis Park Resort in Las Vegas. The “Reaching Within”
conference was designed to help people discover their hidden potential,
unrealized dreams and passion in life. Their website says:
“We are combining the wisdom of the pioneers in the
field of hypnosis and a new generation of esoteric thinkers – providing
you with cutting edge knowledge. These teachers, authors and
practitioners will open your mind, providing you with numerous tools and
resources to take home and use in your practice or everyday use."
The ABH offered 3 pre-conference certification
workshops with keynote speakers Tad & Adriana James (experts in hypnosis
and NLP), Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas (hypnotherapist and trance channel)
or David Shephard (NLP Master). In addition, on Thursday evening our
friend Jack Houck taught his 388th PK 101 Party (more popularly known as
“spoonbending”) to well over 100 people. (http://www.jackhouck.com/pk.shtml).
Photo of just one of the participant’s success at “spoonbending” taken
by attendee Lynn Nicholson.
After bending spoons, we went to the VIP
Grand Opening of The Bank. Bellagio’s The Bank nightclub has been
designed specifically for catering to, as its promotional material says,
“a discerning audience with higher sensibilities.” In keeping with the
Five Diamond rated Bellagio, The Light Group’s newest venue boasts
European bottle service and an awareness that the nightclub will keep
Bellagio’s flawless position for excellence in Las Vegas. The Bank
intends to be the most desirable cosmopolitan nightclub in our city.
The Bank has a stunning 6,600 square foot space
elegant VIP booths that layer the dance floor in a multi-tiered
environment. A glass encased dance floor, set at the lowest tier, is
slightly raised creating a brilliant focal point in the center of the
room. The nightclub is gorgeous, but, very dark. How do partying girls
walk around in stiletto heels when in every nightclub, you can’t see one
foot in front of another? I’m going to bring my camp headlight next time
I venture into a nightclub.
While The Bank is sensual and the wait-staff young,
tiny, and gorgeous, the music was horrible. If no one is dancing, I
think that should be a hint to the DJ: Change the music! No dancing and
no talking since the anti-dance music was so loud I got a seizure and
had to be guided out by my husband, who learned how to walk in pitch
blackness.
http://www.bellagio.com/nightlife/the-bank.aspx
After having dinner with Jack
Houck and his lovely wife Jean (pictured) at McCormick & Schmick’s, we
stopped by Planet Hollywood for restaurateur Dennis Riese and celebrity
chef David Burke’s (I love his restaurants) Grand Opening For Invited
Guests Only of the Hawaiian Tropic Zone Las Vegas venue with live
performances by The Forbidden World of Don Tiki, Little Steven Van
Zandt’s “The Chesterfield Kings” and the exotic Hawaiian Tropic Zone
Dancers.
Exotic
and friendly Hawaiian Tropic models serve as “table concierges” to
assist with guests’ every dining need as well as participate in nightly
beauty pageants! Each night the models take part in a beauty pageant
where diners get to vote for the new reigning queen who only gets to
serve for 24 hours unless she's voted the next night's winner again.
The Miss Hawaiian Tropic International beauty pageant
will be held April 4-5 at the Mirage. Hawaiian Tropic Zone is located
inside Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.
Well, Rambo (Number 4) opened this past Friday but without a promotional
or press screening. In fact, I heard that for the press junket for the
movie, interviews were done but press was not shown the movie! There was
a Red Carpet and highly vetted attendee screening in Las Vegas at Planet
Hollywood but only for friends of PH. No press were invited to the
screening!
There was a promotional screening for “Untraceable”
last week. I liked it and yes, it was hard to watch for the murders were
grizzly.
Are you horrified that “Untraceable” depicts a killer
who kidnaps victims and broadcasts his sadistic, yet imaginative,
torture of them online in real time? The more people who watch, the
faster the victim dies. Millions of people log on to watch the victim
die.
It’s not that far off. It’s really only one step
away. Have you seen 2 Girls 1 Cup? It’s a phenomenon. It’s garnered a
cottage industry of spoofs and YouTube videos showing people reacting to
watching it. “2 Girls” has become the benchmark defining our culture. It
is already on the official timeline for the collapse of Mankind.
Wikipedia says: “The video was featured on VH1's Best Week Ever, where
the video's existence and propagation was declared to cause "Moral
Bankruptcy" to have the "Best Week Ever!"
I’ve watched the first 4 seconds of it. I still can’t
cleanse those 4seconds from my mind. I need a karma purging. I’m going
to the Jordan River and get dunked by a Chinese Christian sect. And
whenever my friends talk about man’s spiritual evolution I’m going to
direct them to “2 Girls.” And then I’ll direct them to WalMart and
Costco that showcases Mankind’s physical devolution.
I thought a movie’s three-act
structure was set in stone. There’s the ticking clock action-thriller
scenario – the hero has a short number of hours or minutes (see Al
Pacino’s upcoming film, “88 Seconds”) to stop the bomb from going off or
his pre-teen daughter from being raped by a serial killer. See “The
Secrets of Action Screenwriting” by William C. Martell. There isn’t an
action movie without the ticking clock recipe. My favorite was “Crank”
(2006). Yet, now comes the definitive analysis of how to structure a
winning screenplay. From the New York Post’s Page Six comes this item:
“STRIPPER-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody (pictured)
still has sex on the brain. Cody - who's nominated for a Best Screenplay
Oscar for Fox Searchlight's smash "Juno," about a pregnant schoolgirl -
tells the Times of London: "I heard that films are structured around the
male orgasm, the way they climax. Though, if it were modeled on the male
orgasm, it would just immediately cut to black."
Even
though Chev Chelios died a violent death in “Crank,” there will be a
“Crank 2.” Chelios, a hit man, was given a Chinese cocktail injection by
a rival madman. He has 60 minutes to live. He is told there is no
antidote. The poison will kill him unless he keeps his adrenaline on
high. Chelios gets his revenge, but at the end of “Crank” he jumps from
a helicopter, slams into the roof of a car and bounces off onto the
pavement. The last shot of Chelios is a close-up of his eyes wide open
as the screen goes black.
But a huge hit means sequel.
In the sequel, Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who
has stolen his nearly indestructible heart (so he survived!) and
replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of
electricity to keep working.
