In his speech at the annual National Rifle Association convention, conservative radio personality Glenn Beck likened New York City’s mayor to a Nazi.

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  Glenn Beck Likens Mayor Bloomberg to a Nazi

Beck took issue generally, it seems, with some of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s policies, such as the sugary drink regulation.

Beck also took issue with his “friends in New York City,” who may want to reconsider that friendship in light of Beck’s name-calling.

“I am amazed at how many of my New York friends have become absolute dopes,” Beck declared, emphasizing that last word, “and just will accept the soda ban, the popcorn ban, the salt ban.”

Maybe he meant frenemies?

We were previously unaware of a popcorn ban, so we checked with the mayor’s office: spokeswoman Samantha Levine assured us that there is, in fact, no popcorn ban.

Whew.

While many New Yorkers don’t hold back when it comes to complaints about the possibly-overprotective “Nanny Bloomberg” and his soda ban, some may feel a little protective of the mayor after the new ad campaign Beck pitched to replace Milton Glaser’s famous “I love NY” design.

The ad Beck displayed featured a graphic of Bloomberg, who happens to be of Jewish descent, making the Nazi salute.

Beck’s main gripe appeared to be Bloomberg’s fight for gun control, before he veered off into complaints about Bloomberg’s health initiatives and proposals to replace iconic artwork.

“When somebody argues for gun control, they are either living in self-imposed ignorance or they are just living an argument of control,” Beck said.

According to a recent poll for the Bloomberg-led organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns conducted by Republican Frank Luntz, 82 percent of gun owners, including 74 percent of National Rifle Association members, support criminal background checks for anyone purchasing a gun. In the congressional districts polled in New York, Luntz found that 94 percent supported those background checks. Such background checks have been the focus of many of Bloomberg’s recent “arguments of control.”

 Correction: It turns out Beck wasn’t likening Bloomberg to a Nazi.

In Beck’s own words, “this was actually the exact image ripped off Soviet propaganda art.”

So everyone calm down: Beck just meant Bloomberg was like Lenin — who, as Beck noted, “also killed a lot of people, yes.” Many of whom also were Jewish.

For what it’s worth, whether it’s Lenin or a Nazi, the pose is “a sieg heil salute,” per Beck’s own admission. And as an astute reporter on Twitter noted, the armband on the Bloomberg version is missing from the “ripped off” Soviet original, and does seem to recall the Nazi uniform.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Admittedly, for a time, said “hipsters” did like to go around wearing animal heads.

And “hipsters” also really like folksy songs … played by bearded British dudes … with … guitars? They like beards, right? Read that somewhere, maybe. (F’real though, the song by Alexi Murdoch that Sean and Mandy here chose to soundtrack this proposal video is super great. You guys have good taste in proposal video songs.)

But … that’s all we’ve got. Pretty sure getting married is not high on the list of ways to be nonconformist that the hipster canon demands, which brings us back to point A) The American Hipster is dead.

But we digress. The point here — that we were trying to make before getting distracted by spirit hoods and very decent indie-folk music — is that this proposal video, while undeniably adorable and heartwarming, if you’re into that kind of thing, is not hipster. We’d argue that enlisting a group of people in giant animal costumes to converge upon the unsuspecting object of your affection as a way of saying “I’ll love you forever and ever, want in?” is actually a little bit terrifying.

But maybe that’s just because that pink elephant is bringing back some disturbing flashbacks. But also, maybe that’s just us.

(Oh hey, Sean and Mandy, congrats by the way. You crazy kids are going to do great.)

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Police have released a video of eight men they are looking to speak with about a possible bias attack Sunday evening that left one man with a broken nose and another with a bruised hand. 

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  Eight sought in Midtown bias attack

A group of men approached two men in front of a McDonald’s on Eighth Avenue near Madison Square Garden at around 6:45 p.m. and shouted anti-gay remarks at them, cops said. The suspects then pushed the victims to the ground and punched one of them in the face.

Police released a photo of one of the suspects Tuesday. They released a new video Wednesday showing the same suspect walking with seven other men. Detectives are looking to speak with the men in the video regarding the incident. 

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577.

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In this video that made the front page of Reddit today, a Duncanville, Texas, student gives a teacher a piece of his mind before leaving the classroom after the teacher allegedly kicked him out.

The video, most likely captured on a cell phone by a student in the classroom, shows the student saying, “If you would just get up and teach ‘em instead of handing them a freakin’ packet, yo! There’s kids in here who don’t learn like that. They need to learn face to face. You’re just getting mad because I’m pointing out the obvious.”

The teacher can be heard saying the word “Bye” several times during the minute-and-a-half video. She also can be heard saying, “Just go” and “Close the door” when he leaves.

The student goes on to say: “You gotta take this job serious. This is the future of this nation. And when you come in here like you did last time and make a statement about ‘oh this is my paycheck’, indeed it is…but this is my country’s future and my education.”

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The Ottawa Senators were pounding the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 Sunday in Game 3 of a first-round playoff matchup when every player on the ice — yes, two entire lines — decided they hated each other.

What ensued was a scene straight out of the movie “Slap Shot.” Nine game misconducts were doled out, including a total of 236 penalty minutes (Ottawa, 107; Montreal, 129). Ottawa won the game 6-1 and holds a 2-1 series lead over Montreal.

Here you go …

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Governor Chris Christie flexed his noble muscle today and saved a classroom of terrified children from the dangers of a daunting arachnid.

Christie tweeted earlier in the day that his daughter’s 4th grade class was visiting the State House. What began as field trip meant to mold the inquiring minds of our nation’s youth, quickly unraveled at the unexpected intrusion of an eight-legged trespasser.

But tough-talking Christie set out once again to prove his bite is just as fierce as his bark – and it was all captured on video, making this tale that much more titillating..

“Where is he?” Christie demanded, as the children crowded a desk where the spider was spotted. “There he is,” Christie jeered, before he used his palm to squash the spider, which dared terrorize the children of New Jersey.

The room erupted in applause and the governor was heralded as an immediate hero. Christie basked in the limelight, declaring, “That’s the fun part of being a governor. Any bugs on your desk, you get to kill them, and not get in trouble.”

Is Christie trying to upstage Newark’s mayoral hero Cory Booker, who has literally been known to receive second degree burns while saving people from a burning building?

Is the room for two heroes in New Jersey? Only time will tell…

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Here are two things most everyone can agree on about Olympic swimming stud Ryan Lochte. He is easy on the eyes and he is not a member of the Mensa society. To put that in terms that even Ryan Lochte could understand, what we’re saying here is that he’s big hunk of not-so-smart but really buff man meat. One more thing that most everyone can probably agree on is that this video of Fox29 Good Day Philadelphia anchors Mike Jerrick and Sheinelle Jones interviewing (well, trying to interview – bit of a stone/blood thing going on here) Lochte – whose new reality show What Would Ryan Lochte Do? premieres tonight on E at 10 pm - then cracking the eff up over it when the camera stops rolling is really funny. As fellow journalists, we are required by the Society of Professional News People (that’s not a real thing) to shake a tsk tsk-ing finger at Jerrick and Jones over their rather unprofessional News People behavior. As internet consumers and supporters of things that are funny and make Sunday nights a little less painful, however, we’re similarly required to share this video with you. At least you can start off another long work week secure in the knowledge that you – probably – never made a lady almost laugh her fake eyelashes off at your expense. [The hilarity starts at 3:50, you're welcome.] For further hilarity, tune in to his show tonight. Or, you know, don’t.

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The NYPD has provided surveillance video showing the suspect chatting with the person of interest at the B12 at Albany Avenue and Rutland Road.

The conversation took place just before the third incident, when the suspect reportedly raped a 15-year-old girl in a building in Lefferts Gardens on April 11 at 8:15 p.m.

In the video, the person of interest is wearing light-colored pants, a light-colored jacket and a baseball cap.

Police estimate he is about 5-foot-10, 160 to 180 pounds and in his 20s.

Anyone with information regarding the suspect or the person of interest is urged to call the NYPD’s Crimestoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). All calls are confidential.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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The former secretary of state has shown support for civil unions in the past, but this is the first time she has publicly thrown her support behind same-sex marriage.

“I believe America is at its best when we champion the freedom and dignity of every human being,” Clinton said in the video.

She goes on to recall a conversation she had with a young Tunisian boy who asked how America could teach his country to respect the rights of LGBT citizens.

“That’s what was in my mind as I engaged in some pretty tough conversations with foreign leaders who did not accept that human rights applied to everyone — gay and straight,” Clinton said. “LGBT Americans are our colleagues, our teachers, our soldiers, our friends, our loved ones. And they are full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship — that includes marriage.”

“We are honored to have Secretary Clinton’s moving statement as part of our Americans for Marriage Equality series,” HRC President Chad Griffin wrote in a blog post. “Now that she has left office and can speak publicly about the issue that is so important to all of us, Hillary shares her experience as secretary [of state] and what she learned while representing our country around the world, and what she has come to believe.”

Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, also came out in support of gay marriage in an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on March 13. While in office in 1996, he signed into law an act defining marriage as between a man and woman; however, he wrote that the measure should be overturned by the Supreme Court.

Last week, Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman made headlines when he reversed his position and announced his support of same-sex marriage, attributing his “change of heart” to his gay son.

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments against the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act on March 27.

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In the grand tradition of science fiction, it is time we accepted it — computers have taken over. So says Bronwen Grimes, a technical artist at Valve.com and one of the many young entrepreneurs featured in a video in support of programming curriculum in schools by the nonprofit Code.org. The video has gone viral, reaching over 9 million views in one week.

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  Viral video says students need to learn to code

“Computers are everywhere,” Grimes says. “You want to work in agriculture, entertainment, manufacturing — it’s just all over.”
The video taps some big forces in software engineering — Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Drew Houston — alongside boldface names from outside of the computerverse, like singer will.i.am and basketball star Chris Bosh. They make the case that programming helped them learn how to problem solve and that anyone can do it.

Professor Lev Manovich teaches computer science at the CUNY Graduate Center and writes about technology and culture. He says that countries like China are getting ahead of the United States by teaching programming in high school, and that students should be taught not only how to code, but how to understand programming concepts like how a web browser or a search engine works.

“I think we need to take a larger and more expansive view that coding is not just the only thing you need to know. It’s one element and there’s a difference between writing a program that has five lines and learning how Gmail works — a program with 5 million lines of code,” he says.

The film is set to show in movie theaters this week. A curriculum that includes computer programming, however, has yet to go viral.

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Being female in NYC it’s natural to gravitate toward girl vocals and beats jumping off a city landscape. Being in the crowd at Maluca Mala shows with Das Racist or getting inspired by Santigold’s performance at Bowery Ballroom is a given. Sweating to MIA at Siren Fest in Coney Island or seeing Kudu play her weekly at Nublu. Natasha Diggs’ weekly crate-digging at Mobile Mondays on the Bowery. These are requisite city excursions.

So it’s no surprise a current favorite is Kilo Kish; cute-ing up the boy scene in the LES. Mashing a visual artist’s vision into her music career, Kish is this week’s Sauce.

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  K+ by Kilo Kish

Kilo Kish is pronounced key low keesh, like quiche, as in a thousand pounds of buttery egg tart. She hails from Orlando and came to Gotham on an art scholarship to Pratt. More artist than musician (think Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), she easily connects to a larger audience via fashion and press.

Kish released her new mixtape, K+ this month. She collaborates with local talent Smash Simmons and Flatbush Zombies, and with national names like Childish Gambino and The Internet. K+ is spoken word more than singing. Kish’s bedroom-worthy vocals remind me of Lady T (Tigra from L’Trimm). She is the first to admit she can’t rap but there she is rapping along as the backdrop to runway shows at Milan Fashion Week.

At 22, Kilo Kish is getting nods from Vogue magazine and taking her downtown shine on tour to the UK. Artistic tendencies are showcased on the video K+, documenting an exhibit of the making of her mixtape. She is all subject, in charge of her image and enjoying the ride with her bff Kitty Cash, DJing. Upbeat and sonically smoothed out, these downtown It Girls are easy to get behind.

The post Kilo Kish: Downtown pretty appeared first on Metro.us.

With heavy rain expected to hit the city the next few days, New Yorkers are longing for hot, summer days.

Watch this pretty cool time-lapse video, photographer Samuel Orr created, which shows a summer day in New York City in all its glory.

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  Time-lapse video gives a glimpse of a ‘New York Day’

“I shot this film over 4 trips to NYC 2011-2012,” Orr wrote on his YouTube page.

The time-lapse sequence was made mostly from hundreds of thousands of still images. Orr used Canon 7D and T3i cameras.

The video shows the hustle and bustle of the city including people rushing through Grand Central, cabs racing down the streets, people walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and landmarks such as the New York Stock Exchange, Times Square, Radio City Music Hall and Washington Square Park.

The video is approximately four minutes long but Orr wants to make it into a 20-25 minute short film. The short film, made again mostly of time-lapse sequences, will cover a year in the life of New York City.

Orr has created a Kickstarter page to fund the project.

On the fundraising page he writes, “This project means … to create (through time-lapse imagery and sounds) a film that is exhilarating (and just plain fun!) as it presents a year in the life of the greatest city on Earth …. To be able to finish the longer film, I need to spend more time in the city and region, in particular during key seasonal shifts (snowfall, spring plant growth, fall colors). Up to now it has been a self-funded project, but I need support and patronage to be able to spend the 12 weeks or more required to capture fleeting moments of weather and events that are difficult of impossible to anticipate in advance.”

A few things Orr says he wants to capture on film include: tidal flats in Jamaica Bay as Horseshoe crabs creep ashore, fog and mist along the rivers, fireworks over the Hudson, marathons and parades.

To donate to the project click here.

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

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How many times have you been on the subway and someone comes in preaching about God, Jesus and the Bible. How many times has it been hateful?

A video has been making its way around the web showing just that: a hateful preacher attacking homosexuality.

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  Gay man stands up to subway preacher

Most people would just turn up the music playing through their earphones and wait until he moves to another train. Not this straphanger, though.

The man wearing the khaki coat and big hat in the video stood up to the man “preaching” about religion and homosexuality.

The two and a half minute video isn’t the best quality but toward the end you can hear the young man say, “I’m a man, and I’m a good man. And I’m a gay man and Jesus loves me! Jesus loves me!”

His fellow commuters seemed to love him, too. The passengers gave the anonymous man that stood up to hate a round of applause.

 Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

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The Academy Awards are usually tightly scripted events, but sometimes even Oscar gets a taste of the unexpected. Here are some of the curious moments when things veered off course on the red carpet.

REFUSING OSCAR

A few Oscar winners have felt compelled to turn down their prizes over the years. The first was screenwriter Dudley Nichols, who refused his Best Screenwriter award for “The Informer” in 1936 because of conflicts between the Screen Writers Guild and the Academy. Marlon Brando famously sent a proxy to refuse his 1972 Best Actor Oscar for “The Godfather” on his behalf (and to deliver a 15-page speech on Hollywood’s mistreatment of Native Americans while she was there).

The all-time greatest rejection, though, goes to George C. Scott, who denounced his Best Actor nomination for “Patton,” calling the awards “offensive, barbarous and innately corrupt.” Scott was quoted as calling the ceremonies “a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons.” When he won the award, he was 3,000 miles away at home, watching a hockey game on TV. Brilliantly, Scott’s high moral tone was strangely absent when, two years later, he let it be known that if the Academy felt like nominating him for Best Director for “Rage,” he wouldn’t object. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t much feel like it.

Ten years later, Scott was so keen on the idea of an offensively barbarous two-hour meat parade that he bought last-minute tickets for the 1982 ceremony, and would have gotten away without incident had he not been spotted by a columnist from Variety and heckled on the red carpet.

A LONG WALK TO THE STAGE

Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American to win an Academy Award, for her portrayal of Mammy in the 1939 film “Gone With The Wind” – as mentioned by George Clooney in his 2006 “Isn’t Hollywood progressive?” Oscars speech.

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  George Clooney winning Best Supporting Actor

MINISKIRT BAN

In her 1967 classic “How to Dress for Success,” Oscar-winning designer Edith Head said, “Even the most beautiful legs – Marlene Dietrich’s, for instance – look better when the kneecap is covered.” To back up the sentiment, Head, who served as a special adviser to the Academy, banned miniskirts from the 40th Academy Awards in 1967, saving the nation from the indignity of knees it suffered in 1966 (like the shocking mid-leg areas of Inger Stevens – although to be fair, that IS more of a swimsuit than evening wear).

THE STREAKER

Daring to show a little more leg (and a lot more of everything else) than even the poor, oppressed miniskirt lovers of 1967 was Robert Opel, who in 1974 became the only person to have appeared naked onstage at the Oscars.

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  The Streaker at the Oscars

THERE’S NO HOSTING LIKE … WELL, NO HOSTING

There have been good hosts, bad hosts, really bad hosts and really, really bad hosts, but the all-time worst ceremony was one with no host. Few people who saw the 1989 awards show’s opening number – a duet between an actress playing Snow White and non-singer Rob Lowe – will ever forget it. … no matter how much they might want to, or how hard they might try. It wasn’t the first time the show had gone without a host; there was a three-year run in the late ’60s after Bob Hope’s tenure, when no one could follow his masterful act. But 1989 was the last time that happened.

BANNED!

After the Academy caught wind of Sasha Baron Cohen’s plan to turn up dressed as his leading role in “The Dictator,” rumors flew in the weeks leading up to the 2012 Oscars that Baron Cohen would be barred from the ceremony. The Academy, however, said he had never been banned, just warned that the red carpet was no place for stunts. Apparently, Baron Cohen didn’t get the message; he arrived in full costume, carrying an urn containing, he said, the ashes of Kim Jong-il, which he then proceeded to spill over Ryan Seacrest before being escorted off the premises. Actual bans from the Oscars are harder to come by – but not impossible. Just ask Nicholas Chartier, who was reportedly the first nominee ever to fall that far afoul of Oscar, for sending an email to a group of people including Academy members encouraging them to support the film he produced (“The Hurt Locker”) and disparaging another nominated film.

VALUE OF THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS STATUETTE: $1

Much to the disappointment of some faded stars, there’s no profit to be made from an old Oscar. Since 1950, the Academy has made every recipient of the little golden man sign a “winner’s agreement.” If you fall out of love with fame and one day wish to sell you statuette, you have to offer it to the Academy first for $1. That doesn’t mean that Oscars never surface in auctions – Steven Spielberg has spent more than $1.1 million on two used pre-winner’s-agreement Oscars – Clark Gable’s in 1996 and Bette Davis’ in 2001, in order to return them to the Academy. There’s nothing someone with a shelf of real Golden Men likes less than someone else trying to buy their way into the club.

THE SHIFTING STATUETTE

The modern award is 13.5 inches high, weighs 8.5 pounds (3.85 kilograms) and is made of gold-plated britannium, a pewter-like alloy, on a black metal base. But it has not always been so. Before World War Two, the base was stone; during the war, statuettes were made of plaster as a nod to the war effort (though winners could swap them for metal ones once the war was over).

Until the 1950s, child actors who won Oscars were given miniature statuettes. This was not because they were too tiny and weak to carry the big ones off the stage but because it was thought unfair to the adults that they would have to compete with kids.

When ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy got an honorary Oscar in 1938, he was given a wooden Oscar statuette with a movable mouth.

AUSTERITY OSCARS

In 1944, as part of the war effort, the Academy took the 16th Academy Awards to Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the first time for the Oscars in a big public venue. Men and women in uniform were given free tickets for the ceremony, and in a show of solidarity some were given seats on the stage. However, as this video will attest, some of them did look a little bored.

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  1944 16th Academy Awards Oscars

THE OSCARS’ OSCAR

The late Walt Disney currently holds the record for winning the most, with 26 awards given to him personally (22 Oscars, three Special Awards and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award).

On the flip side, sound re-recording mixer – it’s a real job, apparently – Kevin O’Connell has been named the Oscar’s most unlucky nominee, having been nominated 20 times without winning.

Meanwhile, there has only ever been one Oscar to win an Oscar. Songwriter Oscar Hammerstein II, fittingly, won two.

The post VIDEO: Strange but true stories from Academy Awards past appeared first on Metro.us.

Shilpa Ray makes powerful, dark melodies in the spirit of PJ Harvey with a full band. She is homegrown NYC and will floor you with her live show. Shilpa Ray has a singular prowess straddling the stage playing an Indian harmonium and howling sharp lyrics in a gorgeous bluesy moan. She commands a fire-y chemistry with her band. They easily build tension throughout their set and leave the listener awestruck, having bended to the whim of a petite music mistress.

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  Shilpa Ray – Nocturnal Emissions (Official Music Video)

Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers shared the stage with Patti Smith at Brooklyn’s late great Southpaw. There, Shilpa owned the room and wooed new fans through minor melodies and jazzy vocals rife with political punch. Her slight frame wields a heavy message through heady lyrics and new takes on old struggles. A video made this past fall heeds a feminine battle cry in the Brooklyn streets. Depicted are hard-boiled women taking charge of the reproductive debate with stilettos and whips, captured in black-and-white as a silent film.

Though her sound and image are dark and treacherous, Shilpa’s music and presence exude that cat woman kind of sexy that couldn’t care less what you think; all claws, cat eyes and Gotham.

Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers play Shea Stadium BK, Thursday, March 7 @8pm

The post Shilpa Ray and her Happy Hookers: Concrete forest appeared first on Metro.us.

“Escape from Planet Earth” stars Jessica Alba and Rob Corddry sit down with Metro World News to talk about their new animated film and what sorts of family movies they like to show their kids — but things get silly pretty fast. And Alba has a special message to kids: Don’t be too popular in high school.

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  Jessica Alba and Rob Corddry get silly

METRO: You guys have been doing this together for a bit. At what point do you just start messing with each other in interviews?

Rob Corddry: God no!
Jessica Alba: I don’t know. No, I would never do that. That’s, like, so rude. Plus, he’s like my elder, so I just try not to be disrespectful.
RC: That’s true. So you sense the wisdom, and you just want to sort of bathe in it. You want to bathe in my wisdom.
JA: Yeah. I do. I mean just the fact that I’m even here is… it’s a blessing. I’m very lucky. I’m pinching myself. Is this a dream?
RC: This is really good for me, thank you.

This movie is another one of those things where the plot sort of hangs on the smart guy saving the day. How many times do you think audiences need to be told before they finally figure out that smart people should be respected?

RC: That it’s a good thing, being smart? Well, this is like a very good time for nerds in general. So hopefully you’re seeing it a lot more because it is more pervasive now, and kids will want to be smart.
JA: Like, anyone who peaks in high school is, like, a loser in life. So don’t peak in high school.
RC: Yeah, do poorly in high school.
JA: Socially! Don’t peak socially. Just make sure you’re unpopular. Right?
RC: Oh God, yeah. I hope my kids are just nerdy introverts.
JA: Nerd-burgers.

What do you look for, as parents, in a family film, in what you’re taking your own kids to?

RC: I like to enjoy it myself. It makes it a lot easier, right?
JA: Something that you don’t hate is awesome as a parent.
RC: Because you’re going to watch it a lot. We’re lucky, too. I think it’s a good time to be parents in terms of media. Like, I missed the whole… what are the Australian dudes that sing?
JA: The Teletubbies? And the Wiggles. And the Barney.
RC: The Barney. We missed all of that. We have Pixar, and ["Escape from Planet Earth."] So that’s great.

Well, I like to see that you’re not actually tearing each other apart.

JA: Just wait till you leave. It’s on.

As a bonus, Metro also caught up with “Escape from Planet Earth” co-stars Sofia Vergara and William Shatner. While Vergara had some kind words for her fans back home in Colombia, things got a little weird with Shatner:

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  Sofia Vergara’s message to Colombia

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  Weird questions for William Shatner

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View Video

TV Station’s News Alert System Hacked, Broadcasts ZOMBIE Warning

You survived December’s much-heralded Mayan apocalypse, but now fear the “zombie apocalypse” and its deadly attacks? Don’t worry. It was a fake, the artwork of hackers in Montana.

Hackers infiltrated the emergency broadcast system of local station KRTV in Great Falls, Montana, a CBS affiliate, and issued the zombie alert, the station said on Tuesday.

Viewers were warned of a so-called zombie apocalypse and advised not to tangle with the monstrous creatures, the station said.

Engineers at the station were investigating the incident, which occurred during a Monday afternoon broadcast, said Jon Saunders, vice president of the station’s parent company, Cordillera Communications.

Video posted to the Internet shows the transmission interrupted a local broadcast of the Steve Wilkos talk show.

No images flashed across the screen during the hoax. But a male voice told viewers: “Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from the grave and attacking the living.” The voice warned not “to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are extremely dangerous.”

Saunders said early reports suggest similar but separate attacks were launched in the past 24 hours against emergency alert systems for TV stations elsewhere, including Michigan.

“It appears to be more widespread than we thought,” he said.

The hoax caused several humorous-minded residents in Great Falls to call authorities to inquire if guns were an adequate defense against zombie hordes.

“We didn’t get any serious calls on it,” Great Falls Police Department spokesman Bill Hunter said.

Local law enforcement has not been asked to investigate the hack into the Montana station, he said. Hunter said it was not immediately clear why hackers had sought to get a rise out of a zombie scare.

“It’s been a real chuckle,” he said.

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  Viva Young – 2013 Taco Bell Game Day Commercial

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Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras said yesterday that a man tried to lure a child two times recently in her East Elmhurst community.

“He is a predator on the loose and has now tried multiple times to harm young women in our community,” she said, adding, “Please be safe and alert.”

Cops released two reports of luring.

They said that on Friday around 7 a.m., a Hispanic male about 30 to 35 in a Cadillac Escalade drove by a 13-year-old girl on Northern Boulevard.

He engaged her in a conversation, cops said, and when she realized she did not know him, she walked away.

The man then got out, and grabbed her arm as she walked away. The girl fled.

The man is described as Hispanic, light skinned, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-9, 170 pounds and in a black jacket, dark pants and blue-collared shirt.

The same day, cops said, around 8 p.m., a man in the same type of car drove alongside a 14-year-old girl, again on Northern Boulevard.

He motioned her to approach the vehicle, but she would not, and he kept following her. His girl fled as well, cops said.

Anyone with information can call 800-577-TIPS.

The post VIDEO: Cops release sketch of Queens man luring children to car appeared first on Metro.us.

The 25-year-old actor, who plays the supporting role of wolf shape-shifter Jared in “Twilight,” has caused quite a stir with a video that surfaced showing him urinating… in public… in an airport… on the floor… in front of dozens of people.

Pelletier, who appears visibly intoxicated to say the least, is seen stumbling around as a security guard tries to steady him. He suddenly unzips his pants, exposing himself for all to see, and proceeds to urinate on the floor for a good 40 seconds.

Just when you think this pee will never end, two more security guards approach Pelletier, bringing him to the ground (dry ground, that is) and cuffing him.

He reportedly tried to deny the incident, but was charged with misdemeanor and could spend six months behind bars, if convicted.

Didn’t Pelletier get the memo? The “Twilight” saga is over — he needs to get those animal instincts under control.

The post VIDEO: ‘Twilight’ actor Bronson Pelletier takes drunken pee on floor of LAX terminal appeared first on Metro.us.