NEW YORK - Heidi Klum is hosting her own reality TV show, but that doesn't mean she's a big fan of the genre. The supermodel prefers to call "Project Runway" - a contest among 12 aspiring fashion designers that premieres Wednesday on Bravo - a documentary.
"We're going to show the public what it's like to be a designer. I think people will be interested to see what it's really like, how talented designers are. What we're looking for is who is talented, not who is the funniest, not who is good-looking," Klum told The Associated Press recently.
Klum, 31, has watched "America's Next Top Model" a few times because that show's creator and host, Tyra Banks, is a friend, and she's also caught Donald Trump's "The Apprentice" once or twice.
"Project Runway" brought contestants from around the country to New York for a series of "fashion challenges." Their work was judged by Klum, designer Michael Kors, Elle magazine's Nina Garcia and Constance White from eBay.
Viewers will see pre-taped episodes that whittle down the number of contestants to three finalists, who will appear in a live runway run-off contest in February during New York Fashion Week.
"You could see very, very quickly who wasn't going to be up to the challenges but then it got very difficult because (the remaining contestants) were equally good," Klum said.
Klum, who also serves as the show's executive producer, said she wanted to find wearable clothes. "The final thing comes down to talent. The winners have to be good, they have to represent themselves well and they have to be able to work with others."
The winner will receive $100,000 in seed money to launch a fashion line, according to Bravo's Web site.
On the Net:
http://www.bravotv.com/Project-Runway/
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CANBERRA, Australia - Australian rock star-turned-lawmaker Peter Garrett said he expects to return to Parliament Tuesday following a weekend health scare.
Garrett, former lead singer for the band Midnight Oil, collapsed Saturday as he waded from the surf at a beach in his southern Sydney electoral district. He spent 10 hours in a hospital undergoing tests that failed to explain his fainting spell.
The 51-year-old, known for his passionate environmentalism, rested at his family's country home when Parliament resumed Monday for the year's final two-week session.
Garrett issued a statement saying he intended to return to work Tuesday, and to have more tests in the next few days.
"After losing all my energy and fainting after swimming at Maroubra Beach on Saturday morning, I spent most of the day recovering and having checks conducted at the Prince of Wales Hospital," he said in a statement on his Web site. "There is no indication from checks so far of any serious health problem."
Garrett was elected in October as a lawmaker for the opposition Labor Party.
On the Net:
http://www.petergarrett.com.au
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CLEVELAND - Jim Belushi and Dan Aykroyd arrived on Harley motorcycles and also hammed it up with a performance of "Sweet Home Chicago" at the opening of the newest House of Blues in a renovated storefront.
More than 2,000 people turned out for Sunday night's gala opening. Belushi and Aykroyd arrived wearing black leather coats and escorted Mayor Jane Campbell into the concert and restaurant complex.
They also performed as the Blues Brothers, wearing black suits, white shirts, black ties and black fedoras, for the evening's finale, opening their set with "Sweet Home Chicago."
The club has a 1,200-seat performance hall, a 300-seat restaurant and six bars.
Aykroyd is a board member of the House of Blues, which also operates clubs in seven other cities. Belushi's brother, John, was a co-founder of the Blues Brothers.
On the Net:
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LONDON - "Gone With the Wind," the American Civil War saga starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, is the most-watched movie in British history, according to the British Film Institute.
Some 35 million people have seen "Gone With the Wind" since its release in Britain in 1940, according to a tally of movie ticket sales, the institute said Sunday.
"The Sound of Music" is in the No. 2 spot with an estimated 30 million tickets sold since its release in 1965, followed by "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," released in 1938 and seen by 28 million people, and George Lucas' "Star Wars," released in Britain in 1978, with 20.7 million tickets sold.
One-third of the films in the top 100 are British, led by the 1948 romantic comedy "Spring in Park Lane," which is in fifth place with 20.5 million tickets sold.
The institute compared ticket sales for films since the introduction of talking pictures in 1927 for "The Ultimate Film" TV show. For movies released before the 1970s, when official records weren't always available, researchers used anecdotal evidence and figures from trade publications.
"It might come as a surprise that this is the first time that we have had a list based on the films that people have most wanted to see, and some of the results might come as yet more of a surprise, especially some of those which date from a time when the cinema was even more important to lived experience in the country than it is today," said Ray Templeton, head of the BFI National Library, in a statement.
Rounding out the top 10 films: "The Best Years of Our Lives," released in 1947, 20.4 million; "The Jungle Book," 1968, 19.8 million; "Titanic," 1998, 18.9 million; "The Wicked Lady," 1946, 18.4 million; and "The Seventh Veil," 1945, 17.9 million.
On the Net:
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THESSALONIKI, Greece - An Iranian movie on the life of a man who prepared the dead for burial for 40 years has won the top award at the 45th Thessaloniki Film Festival.
Mohsen Amiryoussefi's "Bitter Dream" received the Golden Alexander for best international film, winning a cash prize of $44,400, organizers said Sunday.
The 32-year-old Iranian filmmaker describes how Abbas Esfandiar, who has accompanied the dead to their final resting place all his life, discovers his own mortality.
"Bitter Dream" is Amiryoussefi's first feature film. It won a special mention award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
On the Net:
http://www.filmfestival.gr/index-uk.htm
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LONDON - Former South African President Nelson Mandela says the United Nations' global fund to fight AIDS needs $10 billion a year to be effective.
Launching "46664," a book documenting a star-studded fund-raising concert held in Cape Town, South Africa, last year, Mandela said governments and drug companies must do more to stop the spread of HIV and to ensure that every person infected with the virus receives treatment.
"Only with the money and support will we be able to secure a future for everyone, everywhere free from AIDS," Mandela said at last week's event.
Mandela, 86, rested on a cane as he posed with several of his charity's musical ambassadors - Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox and Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens. All performed at the 46664 concert held at Cape Town's Green Point Stadium last November.
The U.N.'s global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, set up three years ago, faces a major funding gap. Donations have fallen far short of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's original call for the fund to receive between $7 billion and $10 billion every year.
Since stepping down as South Africa's president in 1999, Mandela has campaigned to raise awareness about AIDS, especially in Africa where about 25 million of the world's 40 million HIV-infected people live.
He also leads an AIDS foundation named 46664, his prison number under apartheid.
"The reality is simple. If we can help, we must. History has shown us that again and again," Mandela said.
On the Net:
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LEXINGTON, Va. - Scenes for the Martian-invasion film "War of the Worlds," directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise, will be shot in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, according to an area tourism official.
Jean Clark, tourism director for the Rockbridge County area, said she doesn't know exactly when or where the movie will be shot in the valley. But, "I know they're shooting something," she said.
Clark expects filming in the area will wrap up before the year's end.
Movie publicist Deborah Wuliger said filming is now taking place in New Jersey, and industry publication Variety reported that Spielberg is also shooting scenes in upstate New York.
Wuliger said she didn't know whether any commitments had been made for Virginia. But Clark said many production support people have been in the area preparing for filming.
When scouts came to the area in September, they looked at parts of Augusta County, Staunton and Waynesboro, said Sergei Troubetzkoy, Staunton's tourism director.
Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks are financing the movie, a modern version of the H.G. Wells novel. It is scheduled for release next summer.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand - New Zealander Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest and the first to drive a vehicle to the South Pole, described a U.S. highway to the pole as "terrible."
Work on the 1,020-mile "ice highway" from the Antarctic coast south of New Zealand to the South Pole is now in its third season.
The project will enable hundreds of tons of supplies and equipment to be hauled across the world's most inhospitable wilderness to Amundsen-Scott Base, a U.S. research station. It's planned for completion by the end of the 2006 polar summer.
Cargo planes now fly in scientists and supplies during the four-month summer.
Hillary, who's revisiting Antarctica this week, was blunt about the project: "I think it's terrible," according to local media reports.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff said the road is environmentally acceptable, but he understood Hillary's objections to the project.
"He spent weeks battling against the elements to get to the pole and it was an enormous achievement," Goff said.
"Now you've got the concept of a marked route that takes away the challenge and the adventure of getting there and that is anathema to Ed," he said.
Hillary led a small team 1,250 miles from New Zealand's Scott Base on the Antarctic coast to the South Pole by tractor as part of the first trans-Antarctic crossing in 1957.
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The University of Arkansas Press has published the first scholarly assessment of Bill Clinton's presidency, titled, "The Clinton Riddle."
The compilation of essays by 11 of the nation's top political scientists and historians concludes that Clinton was "a pragmatic and defensive player" who was at his best when under attack.
At the same time, it says 100 years from now, people still will be trying to figure out the lessons of the Clinton era.
The book promises to be more evenhanded than the presidential library and museum in Little Rock, which presents some of the controversies of Clinton's presidency squarely from his perspective. The library opened with a gala celebration last week and has already been criticized for downplaying impeachment, the Whitewater investigation and Clinton's sex scandals.
Jeannie Whayne said she and other editors of "The Clinton Riddle" worked hard to present an unbiased work.
"There have been good books written on Clinton, but nothing evaluating his presidency after the fact and coming at it from different scholarly disciplines," Whayne said.
But is it too early to make any assessment at all?
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist David Halberstam agreed that Clinton was pragmatic and at his best with his back against the wall, but he also was surprised to hear a historical review of Clinton coming out so soon.
"It's a bit precipitous, I think," said Halberstam, whose "War in a Time of Peace" looked at the shadow of Vietnam on American domestic and foreign policy. "It seems to be racing history and it comes perilously close to journalism."
Despite his skepticism, Halberstam said it was legitimate to make some "embryonic judgments" about Clinton's impact.
"The gifts were just awesome - to catapult someone with no money of his own, from a small state, all the way to the White House, particularly at a time of a relatively conservative flow tide," Halberstam said.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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