K-pop star Psy’s upcoming eighth album will feature notable artists from the singer’s agency YG Entertainment.
The track list for Psy’s new album, “4X2=8,” unveiled Sunday, showed Big Bang’s G-Dragon and Taeyang, Tablo of Epik High, iKON’s B.I and Bobby and actress Lee Sung-kyung, all from YG Entertainment, participating in the album.
“Only YG artists have worked with Psy this time, while the singer’s seventh album in 2015 featured artists from other agencies such as Zion.T, Dynamic Duo and JYJ’s Junsu,” said an agency official.
Artists including Park Jin-young, Bobby, B.I, Tablo and producer Yu Gun-hyung, the composer of the mega-hit song “Gangnam Style,” have also participated in writing and composing the songs.
B.I is reported to have participated in writing three songs on the album.
The album, which will be released at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, features double lead tracks “I Luv It” and “New Face,” according to the agency.
KYOTO – The draw for the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan will be held at the Kyoto State Guest House in Kyoto on Wednesday.
Executives from each participating national side will visit Shimogamo-jinja shrine, which is regarded as the birthplace of rugby in the Kansai region and is also a designated UNESCO World Heritage site.
The representatives will attend a ceremony at a monument in the precincts of the shrine that commemorates the birth of rugby in the region.
Members of one of the local rugby clubs are hoping the visit will promote the sport in Japan, with a representative saying, “We want to spread the fact that Kyoto is still one of the spiritual homes of rugby in the nation.”
Japanese rugby is said to have started in 1899, when a British language teacher introduced the sport to students at Keio University in Tokyo.
According to senior members of the Kyoto University Rugby Football Club, rugby was not widely played in the Kanto region initially.
A Keio student taught rugby to his relative and other students of Third High School (now Kyoto University) in the precincts of Shimogamo-jinja in 1910.
The following year, the nations’s second rugby club was established at Third High School.
Rugby has rapidly grown in popularity in Kyoto since the early days of the sport’s introduction in the region.
Kyoto’s Doshisha University established a rugby club in 1911; a junior high school and a commercial school in the city also established clubs soon after.
People from Kyoto who were involved in the sport also appear to have been responsible for establishing rugby clubs in the Kanto region, such as at Waseda University and the University of Tokyo, both in Tokyo.
Unfortunately, Kyoto failed in its campaign to host a match in the upcoming World Cup.
However, in November last year, the sport’s international governing body World Rugby selected Kyoto as the host city for the official draw, recognising the city as the centre of Japanese culture and history.
The Kansai Rugby Football Union, among others, has been lobbying the organising committee to invite head coaches from each participating national team and other national representatives to the hosting ceremony at Shimogamo-jinja.
On Wednesday, prior to the draw, former players from Third High School, representatives of Kyoto University and Keio University rugby football clubs, and World Cup representatives from participating nations will visit the monument and observe a traditional kemari ritual.
Attendees will also be invited to sign ema wooden plaques in the shape of a rugby ball.
Fumio Wada, 79, a former vice chairman of the Japan Rugby Football Union and also former chairman of the Kyoto University Rugby Football Club, said: “It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to state that Japanese rugby was developed predominantly based on the enthusiasm of Third High School players in the early days. It is poignant that the official draw of the first Rugby World Cup to be held in the nation will take place in Kyoto.”
Rugby’s World Cup champions are decided at a tournament held every four years. Twenty countries will participate in the 2019 event in Japan.
The pool-stage matches are planned to take place at 12 venues across the country, with the opening game scheduled for Sept. 20, and the final being played on Nov. 2.
Malaysia-born, Singapore-based comics artist Sonny Liew’s acclaimed graphic novel, The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, has received six nominations in the 2017 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, topping the list for the most nominations this year.
A post shared by Sonny Liew (@sonny_liew) on Jan 3, 2017 at 12:06am PST
The US edition of his book has been nominated in these categories: Best Graphic Album, Best US Edition of International Material – Asia, Best Writer/Artist, Best Colouring, Best Lettering, and Best Publication Design.
The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is a biography showcasing the life and work of the fictional Chan Hock Chye, a pioneering but largely forgotten comics artist in Singapore.
With a career spanning more than five decades, from pre-independent Singapore through its three prime ministers, Chan’s work reflects the changing political and economic environment in the island state.
The Singapore edition published by Epigram Books has previously won a number of local awards, including Book of the Year at the 2016 Singapore Book Awards, and Best Fiction Title at the Singapore Literature Prize in the same year.
The US edition made The New York Times bestseller list for graphic novels, as well as numerous year-end must-read lists by overseas publications such as The Economist and The Washington Post.
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards is widely considered the comic book industry’s equivalent of the Oscars, and this year’s nominees involve 120 titles from 50 publishers worldwide.
The following is a selected list of nominees in other categories.
Best Single Issue/One-Shot:
Babybel Wax Bodysuit by Eric Kostiuk Williams (Retrofit/Big Planet)
Beasts Of Burden: What The Cat Dragged In by Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer & Jill Thompson (Dark Horse)
Blammo #9 by Noah Van Sciver (Kilgore Books)
Criminal 10th Anniversary Special by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips (Image)
Sir Alfred #3 by Tim Hensley (Pigeon Press)
Your Black Friend by Ben Passmore (Silver Sprocket)
Best Continuing Series:
Astro City by Kurt Busiek & Brent Anderson (Vertigo/DC)
Kill Or Be Killed by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips (Image)
The Mighty Thor by Jason Aaron & Russell Dauterman (Marvel)
Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan & Cliff Chiang (Image)
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples (Image)
Best Limited Series:
Archangel by William Gibson, Michael St John Smith, Butch Guice & Tom Palmer (IDW)
Briggs Land by Brian Wood & Mack Chater (Dark Horse)
Han Solo by Marjorie Liu & Mark Brooks (Marvel)
Kim And Kim by Magdalene Visaggio & Eva Cabrera (Black Mask)
The Vision by Tom King & Gabriel Walta (Marvel)
Best New Series:
Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire & Dean Ormston (Dark Horse)
Clean Room by Gail Simone & Jon Davis-Hunt (Vertigo/DC)
Deathstroke: Rebirth by Christopher Priest, Carlo Pagulayan, et al (DC)
Faith by Jody Houser, Pere Perez & Marguerite Sauvage (Valiant)
Mockingbird by Chelsea Cain & Kate Niemczyk (Marvel)
For more information on the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2017, visit the San Diego Comic-Con International website at tinyurl.com/Star2-Eisner.
Okay, let’s just come right out and say it. I’m not sold on Ridley Scott’s efforts to get us to bother about the Engineers – the alien “gods” that created humanity as seen in his 2012 opus Prometheus – and their legacy, an attempt to create a larger backstory to the original classic Alien.
The saga Scott began with underwhelming impact in Prometheus is now being stretched into a trilogy, of which Alien: Covenant is the middle part.
It now seems there is almost zero chance that District 9 auteur Neil Blomkamp’s vision of an “Alien 5” – which was to sidestep Alien3 and Alien Resurrection and reportedly continue Ripley, Hicks and Newt’s story – will get made.
Alas, all the spending money is going to Sir Ridley and his trilogy, so we can look forward to one more instalment where – I’ll be blunt – stupid characters bring catastrophe down upon their own stupid heads.
Small spoiler: Seriously, I’d imagine that in Alien’s grim and gritty universe, people landing on an exoplanet – even one with human-friendly atmospheric conditions – would at least wear freakin’ masks or filters or something to keep unknown toxins out.
No matter how hard the Covenants a cappella group tried, they just couldnt disprove the adage that in space, no one can hear you sing. Photo: 20th Century Fox
It’s not like flap caps are the greatest item of survival gear in the universe, duh?
Also, that such space crews would be sufficiently trained in common sense so they would. Never. Stoop.
To sniff at sinister, mangosteen-like globes. Least of all when they’re on the soggy floor of a freakin’ alien vessel. Don’t even get me started on how the film’s first Facehugger victim becomes a Facehugger victim to start with.
Did IQs drop sharply well before Ripley even went away?
Unlike in Prometheus, the story here could have actually progressed without such acts of colossal moronicity (yeah, I’m not sure that’s really a word either, but I beg your indulgence) on its characters’ part.
You see, there is some sort of intent and purpose to the harrowing times they get put through, as opposed to the dumbness-driven events of the previous film.
And Covenant turns out to have a greater bearing on the original Alien, while it also sorts out some of the baffling moments in Prometheus.
Story-wise, it’s pretty basic – strictly paint-by-numbers for the franchise.
Alien: Covenant starring Katherine WaterstonPhoto:Â 20th Century Fox
Some years after the Prometheus went missing, a colony ship called the Covenant is heading to a distant star when it intercepts a transmission. And so, here we go again.
In terms of its sub-themes and undertones, though, this one may have more in common with Blade Runner than Alien.
Creations meeting their creators, ruminations on the nature of existence, a creation’s purpose in life, a strongly symbolic opening sequence where Michael Fassbender’s David (from Prometheus) meets his creator, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) and clearly has disdain for this “higher” power … we’re just missing Brion James asking Harrison Ford how long he has to live.
That’s all well and good, and indeed, if Alien: Covenant had gone a little more in-depth into all the symbolism and parallels it throws at us – to name a few, the ship’s scripturally-significant name, its captain being a man of faith, the iconoclastic impulses that partially drive the film’s villain – it might have been a more rewarding effort.
Because all the story subtext is just skimmed over in a rather shallow manner, it becomes a vehicle for irony instead of profundity.
Visually, it’s as gorgeous as you would expect of a Ridley Scott movie, and the creature scenes – there’s an even ghastly-looking thing dubbed a “Neomorph” here – are shocking and bloody in their savagery.
Character development, or even definition, has become a cursory exercise in the franchise by now, so expect to give zero hoots for all but a couple of the folks here, human or synthetic.
Instead, Scott spends too much time trying to shoehorn two different types of story in here: one a philosophical musing on creations aspiring to be worthier than their creators; and the other, a monster-in-the-crawlspace horror piece.
Set photo of director Ridley Scott with male lead Michael Fassbander in the background.Photo: 20th Century Fox
They don’t fit nicely, and neither half is satisfyingly developed.
There is a riveting scene around the mid-way point when the android David and the Covenant’s synthetic person Walter (Fassbender again, as an “improved” model) meet, and a music lesson follows.
It’s a fascinating moment, not only for the way it highlights the subtle differences between David and Walter (kudos to Fassbender for that!), but because, for one rare instant, you hold your breath, unsure of what is going to happen next.
By the arrival of the film’s telegraphed twist ending, though, that fleeting gem seems such a distant memory amid the betrayal, obligatory gore, cluelessness and tacked-on shipboard bug hunt. Lost in time, like … tears in rain?
As South Koreans go to the polls to elect their 19th president, they are set to watch the day unfold while snacking on fried chicken, a survey conducted by Realmeter revealed Saturday.
Voting began at 6 a.m. and will continue until 8 p.m., with the National Election Committee set to announce the result about 2 a.m.
Among the 502 respondents above the age of 19 who answered the survey, 34.7 per cent said they wanted fried chicken followed by pork feet (9.2 per cent) and roasted pork belly (8.4 per cent).
Other popular snacks include steamed pork (6.4 per cent), sweet and sour pork (5.6 per cent), ddeokbokki (3.6 per cent), pig intestines (2.1 per cent) and fish cakes (2 per cent).
Categorized according to their preferred presidential candidate, those who supported Yoo Seong-min and Moon Jae-in especially leaned towards fried chicken, while Hong Joon-pyo supporters went for pork.
The survey found that the more politically progressive the respondent identified himself or herself, the more likely they went for fried chicken.
When broken down by age, those in their 30s preferred chicken, followed by those in their 40s, 20s, 50s and over 60s.
This poll was commissioned to Realmeter by TBS radio programme, “Kim Eo-jun’s News Factory.”
The margin of error for this poll was 4.4 per cent with credibility rate of 95 per cent.
A 27-year man was arrested at Hiriwadunna, Habarana for killing his mistress on Sunday.
He was taking her body in a mini truck presumably for disposal at the time of his arrest.
The victim, K. D. Kanchana Dilrukshi (28), was a mother of one.
She had been cohabiting with the suspect, police said.
The suspect, a resident of Sinhagama, Habarana, had lived together with 12 mistresses including the victim since his wife left him a few years ago, unable to bear frequent beating at his hands, police said.
Eleven of his mistresses had also fled due to domestic violence and he had beaten the last one to death following a heated argument, investigators told The Island.
Neighbours of the suspect said they had seen him beating the victim mercilessly, but they had not intervened to save her as they feared him.
After he had put her into his truck and driven away, one of the neighbours alerted the Habarana police, who put up roadblocks.
The suspect sped away without heeding orders to stop and police gave chase and stopped him at Hiriwaduna.
Upon being questioned, the suspect said the victim was his wife and he was taking her to hospital as she was not well.
But, he had already driven past the hospital in the area.
Police took him into custody.
Police said the suspect would be produced before courts soon.
From May 16, passengers who book a GrabShare will either be assigned a fixed fare taxi or car for sharing.
File photo of a line of taxis.
(Updated: )
SINGAPORE: Ride-hailing app Grab is bringing taxis onboard its commercial carpool service GrabShare, it announced on Tuesday (May 9).
In a news release, Grab said from May 16, passengers who book a GrabShare will either be assigned a fixed fare taxi or car for sharing – whichever that is best matched to the passenger’s destination.
Previously, the service that pairs two passenger bookings for a cheaper ride at a fixed rate only offered rides by private hire cars.
The addition of taxis to the fleet of carpooling vehicles will provide passengers with faster bookings and shorter waiting times, Grab said in the news release.
Taxi drivers under HDT Taxis, Premier Taxis, Trans-cab and SMRT are eligible for GrabShare and can opt in for the service after attending training, the company added.
Taxi-sharing was introduced to Singapore in 1997 when the Land Transport Authority launched a taxi-sharing service, Share-a-Cab, that allowed commuters to share taxis through information panels at selected taxi stands. The service has since been discontinued.
“Grab is excited to bring taxi-sharing back to Singapore through our platform,” Head of GrabTaxi Singapore Melvin Vu said.
Mr Vu said that since launching GrabShare in December, the company has been studying trip data and refining their matching algorithm to better match passengers with similar routes to the nearest available driver.
“We are confident that the combined strengths of taxis and cars will result in greater transport efficiency while creating more income opportunities for driver-partners.”
According to Mr Vu, taxi drivers using the platform reported a 30 per cent increase in ride bookings since the launch of its fixed-fare booking service JustGrab in March.
Grab said its JustGrab service alone has brought 92,000 additional ride bookings to taxi drivers, worth over S$1.1 million in fares, on a daily basis.
Justin Bieber’s India tour has been making headlines for quite some time and now there’s more.
Word has it that Bieber may be hanging out with Karan Johar on his show Koffee with Karan.
After his list of demands went viral, we wonder whether Bieber will be accommodating enough to feature on the show!
While KJo’s previously interviewed Hollywood actor Richard Gere on the show, the source claims that “this will be the first time an international celebrity of Bieber’s calibre will be featuring in an Indian chat show format.” (We don’t know how Richard Gere would feel about that statement.)
In addition to this, Karan has chatted with numerous international celebrities like Maria Sharapova, Hugh Jackman and Christian Louboutin at world forum panels. “He will definitely do full justice to this one-on-one exchange if Bieber actually does decide to reserve a time slot for it in his busy schedule,” said the source.
Justin Bieber’s ‘Jio Justin Bieber Purpose Tour’ begins on Wednesday May 10 and has the star travelling to Mumbai, Delhi, Agra and Jaipur.
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File photo of a line of taxis.
