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The bear case for entertainment technology and large format film presenter IMAX hasn’t held much water as the stock has rallied in 2010, and pessimism took another hit Thursday after the company reported record fourth-quarter sales helped by the box office success of Avatar.

Toronto-based IMAX ( IMAX – news – people ) said it earned $4 million, or 6 cents per share, in its fourth quarter, up from a loss of $9 million, or 21 cents per share, in the final quarter of 2008. While profits were in line with analysts’ estimates, sales for the period ending Dec. 31 beat the Street, jumping 98% to $54.2 million, a quarterly best for the company. Analysts were predicting sales of $45.3 million.

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Investors have shorted the stock in recent months because of doubts over the company’s ability to take its digital-projection technology overseas, but IMAX squashed that concern Wednesday when it announced a deal with South Korea’s largest multiplex chain, CJ CGV, to outfit 15 theaters with IMAX technology.

Piper Jaffray analyst James March says he was “surprised at the size of this signing, having anticipated much smaller initial deals internationally.” Marsh noted that he was pleased to find that “the economics of the JV deal with CJ CGV are equivalent to those of the AMC and RGC deals.”

“The bear case for IMAX has been disassembled,” Marsh tells Forbes.

In addition to their apprehension about IMAX’s international-expansion potential, some analysts and investors were unsure as to whether Avatar’s success was a one-time score for IMAX and worried that the company couldn’t continue to deliver that level of performance. however, the recent success of Alice in Wonderland has disproved the skeptics over the past week, sending shares of IMAX up more than 30%.

On news of its stellar fourth quarter, shares of IMAX climbed 91 cents, or 5.7%, to $16.93 Thursday morning.

Avatar Helps IMAX break Records

By Kademlia
Filed under Ambient, Audio, Electronica

Download Torrent – MP3 Album
Download Torrent – OGG Album

As the band describes themselves on their MySpace:

Started in the mid 90s, Tracing Arcs conspired to mix the elements that they said wouldn’t. a respect and love for the “out there” of Miles electric period, the fragile beauty of Sylvian and the Blue Nile, that filmscore you heard that said more or married the images into something else. the sound adventures of Eno, Hassel, & Brook. the exploratory jazz/dub of John Martyn. Fran Kapelle : Vocals/Lyrics worked as a session & backing singer with many artists such as Brian Kennedy,Ian Shaw, an Emotional Fish,Eddie Reader, Mary Coughlan, Carol Grimes, the Film ‘the Commitments’ as well as running her own dance label.

Terry Pack : Double Bass terrypackbass.co.uk Previously bass player with the Enid, numerous session work with many artists/genres, including Johhny Marrs, and some of the best UK & European jazz artists.his own cd “what happens now” available on Symbol. Paul H.Addie : Keyboards/programming Yeh! just me……….

It is a chilled Electronica / Trip-hop / Ambient compilation with some beautiful lyrics. Enjoy

Fran Kapelle – vocals
Paul Addie – keyboards/programming
Terry Pack – acoustic bass
featuring Michael Spain, and a C Hill on guitars on track 8

Direct download available at Jamendo.com.

Tracing Arcs – ‘fin’ – remixes & lost children (Music)

From Page 99:

Now Evan and his very disgruntled guys were in a Baghdad neighborhood called Masbah, where Nolan was to meet up and conduct some business with a tribal chief who was a friend of Kuvan. They’d already passed the checkpoint into the wide main thoroughfare that was now choked with traffic. on either side, storefronts gave way to tall buildings. Pedestrians skirted sidewalk vendors who spilled over into the roadway on both sides of the road.

But in contrast to many of their other trips through the city, today they’d encountered quite a bit of low-level hostility. Kids who, even a week before, had run along beside the convoy begging for candy, today hung back and in a few cases pelted the cars with rocks and invective as they drove by. Older “kids,” indistinguishable in many ways from the armed and very dangerous enemy, tended to gather in small groups and watch the passage of the cars in surly silence. the large and ever-growing civilian death toll from quick-triggered convoy machine gunners – in Evan’s view, often justifiable, if tragic – was infecting the general populace. and in a tribal society such as Iraq’s, where the death of a family member must be avenged by the whole tribe, Evan felt that at any time the concentric circles of retribution might extend to them – all politics and military exigencies aside.

Riding along with Nolan on the big gun above him, Evan was more than nervous. He honestly didn’t know his duty. He hadn’t been briefed on this exact situation, and had no ranking officer above him to tell him the rules. should he have stood up to Nolan and forbade him to man the machine gun, alienating him from his men even more? Could he just continue to let him ride up there and hope the problem would go away? but playing into all of his ruminations was the fact that since the unauthorized raid into the BIAP neighborhood, everything about Nolan had him on edge.

The more Evan reflected on it, the less defensible that attack seemed, the more like some variant of murder. Evan had been a cop long enough in civilian life that he was sensitive to the nuances of homicide and the raid had certainly been at the very least in a dark gray area.

Betrayal tells the story of two men who meet in Iraq, and the woman that both of them love. Evan Scholler is a policeman from Redwood City, California, whose National Guard Unit got called up in the first weeks after the invasion of Iraq. Ron Nolan, by contrast, was a career soldier, a Navy SEAL, and now works as a private contractor for Allstrong Security in the war zone. Evan winds up being assigned to ferry Ron around the wartorn country in his armored convoy.

Meanwhile, Tara Wheatley is a beautiful schoolteacher who breaks up with Evan Scholler because of his involvement in the war. He continues to write to her, hoping to reconcile, but he receives no answer. when Ron Nolan gets sent back to the States for a confidential mission, he tries to hand-deliver a letter to Tara as a favor to Evan. at first, she refuses to accept it, which doesn’t break Ron’s heart, since he’s incredibly attracted to her.

While, unknown to Tara, Evan is severely wounded and expected not to recover from a traumatic brain injury received during an attack on his (and Nolan’s) convoy, Nolan presses his case with Tara, and the two become romantically involved. Evan, however, does recover, and as he tries to reconnect with Tara, the lies that Ron Nolan had told Tara begin to come to light.

When Ron Nolan is killed, Evan Scholler is the main suspect.

Page 99, above, recounts the beginning of the climax scene of the first part of the book, as Evan’s convoy of HUMVEES, charged with protecting Ron Nolan, moves out into a dangerous neighborhood in Baghdad. I don’t think too many people would stop reading after starting on this page, as the tension in the scene is palpable. even if we don’t know Evan and Ron, it’s clear that Evan is very nervous about both Ron’s place in the convoy and about the neighborhood through which they’re travelling. Clearly, something big and portentous is going to happen, and I can’t imagine not keeping on reading until whatever that is becomes clear.

The Page 99 Test: John Lescroart's "Betrayal"

Corey Haim’s story is sadly familiar in Hollywood: a teen talent who discovered drugs as he tasted his first success and whose personal problems increased as his star-power faded.

Haim died Wednesday at 38, another chapter in Hollywood’s tragic history of careers ravaged by drugs.

Brittany Murphy’s career was rebounding when she died at 31 in December from pneumonia and prescription drugs.

River Phoenix was 16 when he starred in “Stand By Me” and 23 when he died of a drug overdose outside a Hollywood nightclub.

Haim died at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, his mother called paramedics after he collapsed while getting out of bed at his apartment.

Haim started working in TV commercials at 10 and was a big-screen heartthrob at 15. the star of 1987’s “The Lost Boys” discovered drugs while making that movie.

“I was working on ‘Lost Boys’ when I smoked my first joint,” he told the British tabloid the Sun in 1994. “I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack.”

Haim said he went into rehab and was put on prescription drugs. in 2007, he told ABC’s “Nightline” that drugs hurt his career.

“I wasn’t functional enough to work for anybody, even myself,” he said. “I wasn’t working.”

Haim had returned to the spotlight in recent years, appearing in the A&E reality TV show “The two Coreys” with “Lost Boys” co-star Corey Feldman. the show was canceled in 2008 after two seasons. Feldman later said Haim’s drug abuse strained their working and personal relationships.

Haim was ill with flulike symptoms before his death, and police said he was taking over-the-counter and prescription medications.

An autopsy will determine his cause of death. There was no evidence of foul play.

“He could have succumbed to whatever (illness) he had or it could have been drugs,” police Sgt. William Mann said. “He has had a drug problem in the past.”

Feldman said he wept when he learned Haim had died.

“This is a tragic loss of a wonderful, beautiful, tormented soul, who will always be my brother, family, and best friend,” Feldman said in a statement.

Troy Searer, an executive producer of “The two Coreys,” said Haim’s “heart and his potential were only outmatched by his demons.”

Dr. Drew Pinsky, an addiction-medicine specialist and star of VH1’s drug-treatment reality programs “Celebrity Rehab” and “Sober House,” said the lure of Hollywood attracts many potential addicts.

“There’s a higher incidence of addiction among celebrities,” he said. “It’s not the Hollywood-ness. It’s the fact that addicts show up in Hollywood and addicts are likely to die.”

Pinsky added: “Young Hollywood only reflects what’s going on in the culture at large.”

Jennifer Gimenez, an actress and recovering drug addict and alcoholic who appears on “Sober House,” said Hollywood’s ultra-competitive environment can lead some people to seek escape in substances.

“I don’t feel like Hollywood takes you down,” she said. “I just feel like it co-signs it a lot.”

Gimenez found success at 14 as a model and suddenly had to shoulder adult-sized responsibilities. Add the pressure of working in a competitive industry, and a person predisposed to addiction succumbs, she said.

Successful actors are not immune to the dangers of addiction. Heath Ledger was poised for superstardom when he overdosed in 2008 at age 28. he posthumously won the Oscar the following year for his work as the Joker in “The Dark Knight.”

Haim’s career outlook had been improving in recent months, and his neighbors told reporters the actor was looking healthier and getting stronger.

He had a role in the 2009 Jason Statham action flick “Crank 2: High Voltage” and was making appearances to support his new film “American Sunset,” billed on his Web site as the first film he had starred in “since he left the business on a sabbatical.”

Haim’s agent mark Sterling and producers of “American Sunset” did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

Searer said he last spoke to Haim about six months ago, when the actor “seemed incredibly positive.”

“He had done a few smaller films and things seemed to be on the upswing for him,” Searer said.

Haim, however, seemed sadly prophetic when he was interviewed by CNN’s Larry King in 2007, calling himself “a chronic relapser for the rest of my life.”

'Lost Boys' actor Corey Haim dead in Burbank at 38 – KansasCity.com

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – as the ground shook and buildings swayed, conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera took office as Chile’s president on Thursday, tasked with rebuilding after a massive earthquake killed hundreds just 12 days ago.

A series of strong aftershocks rattled central Chile minutes before Pinera swore in at the Congress building in the coastal city of Valparaiso. Latin American presidents and other dignitaries looked nervously at the ceiling but the inauguration went ahead as planned.

Pinera said initial reports were of significant damage in the city of Rancagua 100 km (60 miles) south of the capital Santiago. Workers in the capital briefly evacuated swaying office towers and took refuge in the streets.

In Constitucion, which was heavily damaged in the 8.8-magnitude quake on Feb 27, residents scrambled for the hills on Thursday after the navy issued a tsunami alert and ordered people away from beaches.

The earthquake 12 days ago killed nearly 500 people and damaged infrastructure across much of south-central Chile, threatening Pinera’s election pledges to boost economic growth to 6 percent a year and to create a million jobs.

“It’s time to get to work,” Pinera said after taking office, adding that he had ordered his interior minister to personally oversee the recovery work of state emergency office Onemi, heavily criticized for its handling of the earthquake and an ensuing tsunami that devastated coastal villages.

Chileans hope that Pinera, a Harvard-trained economist, can use his business acumen to help one of Latin America’s most stable economies rebound from the devastating earthquake.

“The main challenge is to identify priorities to swiftly start the reconstruction effort. That will be the key variable that will be evaluated during his administration,” said Alberto Ramos, senior economist with Goldman Sachs in new York.

“This could be the Katrina of President Pinera … in terms of how the population perceives the relief and reconstruction effort,” he said, referring to the powerful hurricane that struck new Orleans in 2005. The slow relief effort damaged U.S. President George W. Bush’s popularity.

While mines were mostly unscathed in the world’s top copper producer, the February quake seriously damaged Chile’s key wine, fish and paper pulp industries.

Some analysts see the damage shaving 0.5 to 2.0 percentage points off this year’s economic growth, while others are holding to their original GDP forecasts of around 5 percent.

State-owned copper miner Codelco, the biggest copper miner in the world, said none of its mines were damaged in Thursday’s aftershocks. one, a powerful magnitude 6.9 centered about 124 km (80 miles) south-west of the capital, was nearly as powerful as the quake that devastated Haiti in January.

Pinera, a 60-year-old former senator who made a fortune on a credit cards business and an airline, ranks no. 437 on Forbes’ richest list, which estimates his fortune at $2.2 billion.

To fund reconstruction, the new leader is likely to issue international bonds and dip into the country’s copper savings.

Survivors are praying that he gets it right.

“He is a businessman … and that is what we need right now. Someone who can create jobs for our kids,” said Carlos Fuentes, a 47-year-old fisherman who lost his home and boat when giant waves rolled over the town of Curanipe after the quake twelve days ago.

The continued rumbling has frayed nerves, particularly in hard hit Constitucion, where the new president was planning to visit later in the day.

“Now I’m nervous!” said Delfina Fuentes, 60, on a nearby hilltop on Thursday after abandoning her home, which was damaged by the February quake.

Following the tsunami alert, the historic downtown of Constitucion was deserted aside from troops and police who patrolled the streets.

The handover of power from popular center-leftist Michelle Bachelet was celebrated with an austere midday ceremony, toned down out of respect for the dead.

Pinera joins a small group of conservative leaders in Latin America, where most presidents are leftists or center-leftists. he is the first conservative leader in Chile after two decades of center-left rule that has consolidated the country’s status as the most developed country in Latin America.

Bachelet, a pediatrician-turned-politician, left office with a record high 84 percent approval rating even after criticism of delays in government aid for victims.

Her government was also slammed for a faulty tsunami warning system, botched death toll estimates and hesitating to send in troops to quell violent looting. Pinera has promised a total overhaul of the country’s emergency response office.

(With reporting by Alonso Soto in Curanipe, Fabian Cambero in Valparaiso and Rodrigo Martinez and Simon Gardner in Santiago; Writing by Brian Rhoads; Editing by Fiona Ortiz and kieran Murray)

Billionaire Pinera takes power as quakes rattle Chile

Brody Vercher | April 13th, 2007 Email Share

Gary Allan’s music is highly esteemed by me, so when I found out that he revealed what happened to his wife for the first time in People magazine I went out and bought a copy. It’s a depressingly detailed account and gives fans a glimpse into what Allan must have been feeling and the effect it had on his music. “He poured out his agony in the studio, resulting in 2005’s heart-wrenchingly personal Tough All Over. ‘It was scary,’ says his close friend and songwriting partner Odie Blackman, ’seeing him go through it and knowing that the music was some kind of therapy.’”

The article is written in the first person from Gary Allan’s point of view. He starts from the point he met his wife, Angela, for the first time and asked her to marry him in 2000. They moved to Tennessee in 2003 where Angela suffered a lot of allergies which triggered migraines.

Her migraines were so bad that she would black out and have to go lie down. She was depressed, but because the depression seemed to start with the migraines, she never really got properly treated for the depression. She got treated for the migraines.

He then goes on to talk about the night that she died. He says she was physically sick and he had just got home. He ended up taking the kids to a Halloween party and tucked them in bed when they got back. Allan mentions that his wife was acting out of character.

She asked me to check on one of the kids. I said, “I just put them to bed, everyone’s fine. I took care of it all.” She sat there for a minute, and she said, “Would you go get me a Coke? I feel like I’m sick.” so I went into the kitchen and heard a loud pop. It sounded like she had thrown something. I had a gun safe underneath the bed, and she had taken out a pistol, stuck it in her mouth and pulled the trigger. She was on the bed. She was gone.

In the rest of the article he talks about the way life has been since that night. He didn’t do anything for his depression at first, then he found therapy in writing, took an anti-depressant, and went to counseling with his kids. He says “the toughest part is just letting go of the guilt. She never told me she was thinking about killing herself, ever.”

• The 9513’s review of Gary Allan’s 2010 Album Get off on the Pain
• Gary Allan’s Tough All Over the #7 album of the decade

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Gary Allan Opens Up to People Magazine About his Wife's Suicide …

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“Tron Legacy,” sequel to the classic 1982 science-fiction film, will attempt to cash in on the 3-D craze launched by “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland.” Judging from the new trailer, it will be a wild, techno-punk ride that can only be likened to Disney World’s Space Mountain on acid.

“Tron” veteran Alan Bradley, played by Bruce Boxleitner, returns to tell young Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) that he’s received a signal from Sam’s missing father, Kevin, played by Jeff Bridges.

Bridges just won the Academy Award for best Actor for his role in country western movie “Crazy Heart.”

Kevin, a computer-programming protagonist in the first film, has a secret, and Sam figures it out after visiting his father’s old arcade.

After discovering his dad’s workroom, Same is drawn into a digital world of brutal competitions and ruthless combatants.

He dons the white-and-blue uniform of his father and eventually encounters a broken man from the distant past.

The trailer, which offers the first real preview of characters played by Hedlund and Olivia Wilde is being screened in theaters before Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” on 3-D, IMAX and regular screens.

“When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see,” “Tron Legacy” director Joseph Kosinski told MTV News.

“For me, it was taking what I loved about the first film, which was the design elements that Syd Mead and Moebius [a.k.a. Jean Giraud] did, which I feel is timeless, and extrapolate it forward 28 years.

“We’re saying in the world of the computer, it’s been thousands of years and it has evolved,” he explained.

“Tron Legacy” hits theaters nationwide on December 17, 2010.

Tron Legacy Tackles Alice, Avatar 3-D Effects (new trailer)

CHICAGO – Rains and warmer acclimate this anniversary could activate calamity in portions of the Midwest atom belt, bidding apropos of delays to acreage assignment advanced of agriculture the blah and soy crops, a diviner said on Monday.

Farmers in top atom states like Iowa and Illinois commonly activate burying their blah and soybean crops in April.

“This is the alpha of flood season. The snow is melting and rain is accepted to abatement on top it,” said Mike Palmerino, a diviner at DTN Telvent in Boston.

“The soils are already saturated and they can not blot abounding added damp into the ground,” he said.

Heavy blast beyond abounding of the United States this winter has aloft the accident of springtime floods and burying delays.

The affliction calamity in the Midwest in decades in 2008 helped to actuate atom prices to almanac highs that year.

The National Acclimate Service issued a flood admonishing for areas forth the eastern bound of Iowa and the western bound of Illinois abreast the Wapsipinicon and Skunk rivers, accessory rivers of the Mississippi River.

No calamity has occurred yet but accessory to abstinent calamity is forecast, the NWS said.

Over the weekend 0.10 to 0.5 inch of rain fell in the western Blah Belt. Light rain will abide on Monday with 0.5 to 1.5 inches accepted to abatement Tuesday through Friday beyond the U.S. Midwest.

Temperatures are accepted to ambit amid 40 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit (4 to 10 Celsius).

“Just like the aftermost brace of years producers are activity to attempt to get acreage assignment and burying done,” Palmerino said.

Planting in top blah and soybean states like Iowa and Illinois about does not activate until mid-April, but atom traders are already starting to adviser abiding acclimate outlooks.

The wet acclimate and accessible calamity will be a bullish agency for grains prices, said Jack Scoville, chief analyst at The amount Futures Group in Chicago.

“Its alone March, but the botheration is aftermost Abatement producers got little acreage assignment done and a lot of precipitation will not advice accepting into in the fields in a appropriate manner,” Scoville said.

At the Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures were aerial by close awkward oil, anemic dollar and short-covering afterwards the amount declines backward aftermost week. meanwhile, blah futures were technically anemic and beneath all key affective averages and the abounding accumulation of augment grains weighed.

(Reporting by Meredith Davis; Additional advertisement by Naveen Thukral in Singapore; Editing by David Gregorio)

SciTechBOX – Rain, balmy acclimate could atom Midwest flood

NEW YORK, NY.- The New-York Historical Society presents the first large-scale exhibition of materials from the Grateful Dead Archive. Drawn almost exclusively from the Archive housed at the University of California Santa Cruz, Grateful Dead: Now Playing at the New-York Historical Society, chronicles the history of the Grateful Dead, its music, and phenomenal longevity through an array of original art and documents related to the band, its members, performances, and productions. Exhibition highlights from the archive include concert and recording posters, album art, large-scale marionettes and other stage props, banners, and vast stores of decorated fan mail. On view through 4 July, 2010.

Together, these materials provide unique glimpses into the political and social upheavals and artistic awakenings of the 1960s and 1970s, a tumultuous and transformative period that has shaped our current cultural and political landscape. the exhibition examines how the Grateful Dead’s origin in northern California in the mid-1960s was informed by the ideology and spirit of both the Beat Generation and the burgeoning Hippie scene, including experimentation with LSD and the Acid Tests. the exhibition also explores the way in which the band’s refusal to follow the established rules of the record industry revealed an unexpected business savvy that led to both innovations in a rapidly changing music industry and also a host of consumer-driven marketing enrichments that kept fans in frequent contact with the band. the Grateful Dead’s time in new York is viewed in the context of cultural traditions and events unique to new York, but also as yet another stop on a long, strange touring trip that included dates in new York, San Francisco, and everywhere in between.

The Grateful Dead’s two core philosophies—an emphasis on live, spontaneous performances and a singular dedication to their fans—inspired the band’s almost continual touring, another key part of their identity. as the band crisscrossed the country, from coast to coast, they played in and around new York City on a regular basis, from early dates at Greenwich Village coffeehouses, impromptu performances in Central Park and at Columbia University during the 1968 Student Strike; to concerts at mid-sized venues, including the Fillmore East, the Academy of Music and the 46th Street Rock Palace in Brooklyn during the 1970s; and, ultimately, to performances at larger halls and stadiums such as Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden and Giants Stadium.

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Grateful Dead: Now Playing at the New-York Historical Society …