Eliminated Ryan still has goals

Biggest Loser contestant Ryan Preuss was eliminated last night.

The Daily Mercury reports

Ryan Preuss holds record he is not proud of.

The 29-year-old from Brisbane was the heaviest Biggest Loser contestant in the history of the weight loss show.

With a starting weight of 240 kg he described hearing he held the record as "soul destroying".

But despite getting eliminated after yesterday's weigh in, Brisbane's Ryan Preuss is well on his way to reaching his goal weight.

On the show he lost 34kg and hopes to lose another 40 to 50kg before finale.

"I want to be 150-160kg, that would just be fantastic," he said with excitement.

"I think I will look pretty different.

"It's going to be hard work but I am on my way."

Before the show Preuss used to consume 6,000 calories a day, more than three times the recommended calorie intake for men.

In a week he devoured four cooked chickens, 12 chocolate bars, four family blocks of chocolate as well as pies, sausage rolls and litres of Coca-Cola.

These days what he eats is worlds apart.

Now is daily diet consists of two Weet-Bix for breakfast, 100kg of ham or chicken for a snacks, a ham salad for lunch and 200kg of chicken or pork with veggies for dinner.

"From the party food I was eating to eating this is a big change," he admitted.

"The funny thing is it is the food I was eating but without the junk food and in the correct quantities.

"I used to eat chicken and I still do, now I just eat the right amount.

"It's all about just replacing the junk."

It hasn't been an easy journey since leaving the house but he is not giving up.

"It's been a roller coaster, I'll be honest with you," he said.

"It's not as easy as I thought it would be but it builds character."

The hardest thing he has struggled with is the work/life/exercise balance.

"I thought it would be simple, I would go to the gym before work, work and then go to the gym after work but it's harder to do than I anticipated."

He works out everyday doing four sessions with his personal trainer and on the other days he sweats through 45 to an hour of cardio.

He said the biggest lesson he learnt during his time in the house was you can only control what you can control.

"You can't worry about everything else.

"Also I am a lot happier and more positive now which aids in weight loss."

Preuss entered the house looking for love and he said despite still being single he was on the right track to achieve that.

"It's about loving yourself first and I am learning to do that. I have more confidence."

Biggest Loser screens on Ten at 7pm Monday to Friday.

Kurbans - that's Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban - hit the beach

Happy to be back in Oz, the couple at the Golden Globes. Picture: Getty Source: news.com.au

The Daily Telegraph reports

A week after flying home to Sydney, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have emerged from their Lavender Bay sanctuary to enjoy a dip at Balmoral Beach.

The couple enjoyed an uninterrupted and brisk dip at the harbour swimming hole after leaving their daughters Sunday and Faith at home with a carer on Monday - the couple looking relaxed dressed in casual Aussie clobber of boardshorts, trackpants and thongs.

Sources said the pair are "absolutely thrilled" to be home and spending the next couple of months living near Kidman's parents, whom she misses terribly when back home in Nashville.

The actress will fly back to the US within the next 48 hours to attend the Oscars ceremony on Sunday and is expected to take her daughters and their nanny with her, but will return next month after attending to some publicity commitments for HBO's Hemingway And Gellhorn, in which she stars with Clive Owen.

Urban meanwhile is focused on a new episode in his career -- as a coach on Channel 9's The Voice.

This week he has also been celebrating news that he has made No. 1 in the US for the third consecutive time with the song You Gonna Fly from his Get Closer album.

Foxy ladies Kath & Kim to hit cinemas in September

The new Kath & Kim film will hit Australian screens in September.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports

They've charmed hearts on the small screen and in a telemovie, but TV's original foxy ladies, Kath & Kim, are set to take the silver screen by storm this year.

Their film, announced today as Kath & Kimderella, was shot in Melbourne and Italy and will be released on Australian screens in September.

"I have been up to pussy's bow working out what to wear for the Oscars next year, do I go ritzy or tizzy, indie ..." Kath bemoaned.

"I was made for the wide screen and like Avatar I will be working blue," Kim said.

Kath & Kimderella brings back the mother-and-daughter duo from Fountain Lakes, played by Jane Turner and Gina Riley, together with their original cast including Glenn Robbins, Peter Rowsthorn and Magda Szubanski, who recently came out as gay.

Roadshow will announce more details of additional cast members and guest stars closer to the release date.

Kath & Kimderella is released nationally on September 6.

AAP

Mel B puts daughter Phoenix in Rose Bay Secondary College and goes mute on Spice Girls reunion

Advocate for Sydney's publioc school but no so about a Spice Girls reunion ... Mel B with her husband Stephan Belafonte. Picture: Sam Ruttyn Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

Mel B hasn't exactly killed off a rumour that the Spice Girls may appear on the bill at the London Olympics opening ceremony later in the year.

The Channel 7 personality simply went mute when Eddie McGuire put the question on his Melbourne radio show.

After his colleagues fell about laughing at her silence, B said: "I'm a really crap liar," which only served to reignite speculation. However, her former band mates Victoria Beckham (Posh) and Melanie Chisholm (Mel C) have flatly denied that the Spice Girls was reforming for the Olympic Games or the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Mel B also spoke of her decision to put daughter Phoenix, 13, to Rose Bay Secondary College - a public school.

"The teachers are great, the kids are nice. There's always going to be a few little bad kids, hopefully mine doesn't turn out too bad," she said.

"The public schools are great in Sydney, so that's where they're staying and it's less cash for me."

21 Jump Street stars Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill cause a stir with young women at Sydney's Bondi Beach

Hunk ... Hollywood actor Channing Tatum goes swimming at Sydney's Bondi Beach. Picture: Splash Source: Supplied

The Daily Telegraph reports

Hollywood's "hunk and chunk" combo, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill made a splash at Sydney's Bondi Beach yesterday, with one of them causing quite a stir - but not the one you'd expect.

It was the chubby Hill who, Confidential is told, attracted most attention with girls spied chasing the actor along the beach after approaching him for photos and autographs.

Hill, who is nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Moneyball opposite Brad Pitt, has made headlines recently for his shrinking frame. The funny-guy actor is believed to have dropped about 25kg since back in his Superbad days.

Despite his impressive weight loss, Hill still opted to cover his new physique with a wet-shirt yesterday. Not so Tatum, a former male stripper turned Hollywood heart-throb, who was happy to go bare-chested, much to the delight of some volunteer lifeguards who swamped the actor for a group photo.

The actors, who dined together at Otto on Sunday night, are in town to promote their new flick 21 Jump Street.

Tatum's current film, The Vow, has maintained its stranglehold on the Australian box office for a second successive week.

Picture of the month - February

St Mark’s Anglican Church, Darling Point – Muriel’s Wedding

Mardi Gras dress-up a dying art

A reveller shows off a feathery headdress during the 2011 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade in Sydney. Sergio Dionisio: AAP

 

ABC News reports

As the final preparations are being made for this year's Sydney Mardi Gras, the man who introduced the over-the top costumes associated with the parade is worried the tradition of dressing up is dying out.

Ron Muncaster first began creating and wearing his outlandish costumes after seeing the very first political marches and thinking he could up the ante.

Some of the 75-year-old's creations are now housed in museums in Sydney and Canberra.

He says it is the costumes that make the parade.

"People love to see a bit of spectacle and sparkle," he said.

But he says the current crop of participants are not making enough effort.

"Most of the people in the parade do not even bother to dress up," he said.

"I think there should be a dress code on it. I think if you want to be in the parade, dress up."

The annual march down Oxford Street will take place on March 3.

Prince Australian Stadium Tour For 2012?

 

Prince

John Ritchie, Music Feeds, reports

There are strong rumours circulating that Prince will announce an Australian stadium tour for late 2012. It was first rumoured that Prince would be playing the 2012 Big Day Out Festival, however, that failed to eventuate. Big Day Out promoter Ken West confirmed they had spent a year working on the notion that Prince would headline and that the failure to obtain his signature had a part to play in the decline in ticket sales of the Big Day Out 2012 Festival.

Speaking with the New Zealand Herald in December, West Said:

We got asked a year ago, over a year ago — by Prince’s representation, saying ‘We really want to do the Big Day Out’, So we spent a year, working that forward… Neither happened. It just kept going to the end of the line and nobody actually ever said ‘No.’ It’s like, ‘A little bit more, I think I can do this, you can do that.’ So we started going with other options at the time.

Promoter Michael Chugg was in the Gold Coast on the weekend discussing a possible Coldplay show at Metricon Stadium. An article published on Goldcoast.com.au today mentions the fact that a Prince Australian tour is on the cards for 2012. Other rumoured tours that are mentioned in the article include Bruce Springsteen,Radiohead and The Rolling Stones.

According to reports, the Big Day Out promoters had also approached Eminem for the 2012 line-up, however he decided to play his own stadium shows instead when Paul Dainty put a lot more cash on the table. It appears Prince has decided to do the same; if he does turn up in 2012, it will be his first visit to Australia in over 8 years.

Wild weather can't dampen spirits as winner adds some fizz to Tropfest

Crowds enjoying the films Photo: Quentin Jones

Garry Maddox, The Age, reports

In the race between the films and an approaching thunderstorm, the films won - but only just - at the 20th Tropfest in the Domain last night.

In heavy rain and intermittent lightning, a judging panel that included Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman, Toni Colette, Asher Keddie and John Polson gave the top prize at the country's biggest short film festival to Alethea Jones for Lemonade Stand, a comedy about a man and his grandfather whose efforts to sell lemonade bring a clash with an officious council officer.

She collected her prize in a near-deserted Domain, without a working microphone, amid a few hundred hardy souls sheltering in the VIP tent.

Jones said she was ''absolutely thrilled'' and ready to take the next step in her filmmaking career. Asked whether she planned to step up from shorts to a feature film, Jones said: ''I've got five ready to go.''

She is the third woman to win in the past five years, winning two weeks after signing up for the dole.

In a year in which the 700-plus entries were required to include a ''lightbulb'' as the signature item, Jones's prizes include a trip to Los Angeles to meet film industry executives, a $6000 camera and $10,000 cash.

Second prize went to actor Rupert Reid for Boo!, a comedy about an elderly couple who play tricks on each other, while Michael Noonan's Photo Booth, about soldiers who stumble on a mysterious photo booth, was third.

The festival was almost a repeat for Marie Patane, whose film How Many Doctors Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb? was washed out during the dramatic storm that closed down Tropfest in 2006.

The sequel to that film, How Many More Doctors Does it Take To Change A Lightbulb?, was the final film to screen in torrential rain last night. She won the women in film award.

Veteran Don Reid was named Best Male Actor for Boo!, which also won the Crowd Pleaser Award.

Best Female Actor went to Kate McNamara for the comedy Kitchen Sink Drama, about a proposal gone wrong.

The stellar guest list included Baz Luhrmann, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Gia Carides and Rachel Ward.

On the black carpet, Blanchett said she was ''shellshocked'' by how the festival had grown since the early years at the Tropicana Cafe in Darlinghurst.

''It's more than just the films, we're celebrating the whole industry and it's future,'' she said.

Just back from the United States, Kidman said short films were important for actors as well as filmmakers. ''Each little step is a chance to learn and a chance to grow,'' she said.

The Trop Jr competition was won by two 15-year-old school friends from Melbourne, Max Barden and Tim Sheehan, with Let's Make A Movie, a comic short about choosing a genre to enter the competition.

Tropfest Film Festival judge Nicole Kidman says she is more of a mother athan a film star nowadays

More of a mother than an actress at this time ... Nicole Kidman at the 2012 Tropfest Film Festival at The Domain.Picture: Noel Kessel Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

She recently completed two films and has four more in development but Nicole Kidman says she is much more of a mother than a movie star nowadays.

Supporting her fellow thespians last night at the Tropfest Film Festival in The Domain, Kidman - who can command $13 million per flick - said she has chosen to produce rather than play while her daughters Sunday and Faith are young.

"It takes a lot now for me to want to act," she said.

"I have a one-year-old and a three-year-old. It takes a lot to drag me out of home."

Kidman, in town while hubby Keith Urban works on The Voice, said Tropfest was an important occasion.

"This is how we all got our start, all the people working on the jury and obviously John Polson.

"It's all about film and young filmmakers and giving people a chance. It's fantastic."

Geoffrey Rush, Cate Blanchett and Toni Collette all walked the "black carpet" before the screening of the 16 finalists.

Kidman, Rush, Blanchett and Collette are judging the competition this year, along with actress Asher Keddie, Tropfest founder Polson, 2011 winner Damon Gameau and Australian directors Kieran Darcy-Smith and Alex Proyas among others.