A Classics Teacher Turned Novelist And Took Home The Prestigious Orange Prize

American Madeline Miller, a classics teacher turned novelist, took home the prestigious Orange Prize for fiction on Wednesday for her debut book, "The Song of Achilles."
　　
The book retells the story of Patroclus and the legendary warrior Achilles from their first meeting as children to their deaths at the siege of Troy.
　　
Joanna Trollope, who chaired the judging panel, described Miller's retelling of the ancient Greek myth as "inventive, passionate, uplifting and different" at the awards ceremony in London's Royal Festival Hall.
　　
The book retells the story of Patroclus and the legendary warrior Achilles from their first meeting as children to their deaths at the siege of Troy.
　　
Joanna Trollope, who chaired the judging panel, described Miller's retelling of the ancient Greek myth as "inventive, passionate, uplifting and different" at the awards ceremony in London's Royal Festival Hall.
　　
Miller - who spent 10 years writing the book while working as a Greek and Latin teacher - said she was "overwhelmed" and "humble" by the 30,000 pound ($46,000) prize.
　　
Two other Americans had joined Miller on the six-book shortlist for the prize - Cynthia Ozick for "Foreign Bodies" and Ann Patchett for "State of Wonder."
　　
Miller received her prize - and a bronze figurine known as "a Bessie" - at an awards ceremony at London's Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday evening.
　　
The Song of Achilles was first published by Bloomsbury in September 2011.
　　
The story sees Patroclus, an awkward young prince, exiled to Phthia where he befriends the strong, beautiful Achilles.
　　
As their relationship deepens, word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped and the pair journey to Troy.
　　
The judges said the legendary love story of Patroclus and Achilles was "told with all the intensity and accuracy that this world of violence and superstition and romance deserves".
　　
Jonathan Ruppin, web editor of Foyles bookshops, said: "Word-of-mouth has been spreading steadily for this stylishly told and fascinatingly detailed story of classical-era same-sex romance involving literature's ultimate flawed hero."
　　
The Orange Prize for Fiction was set up in 1996 to celebrate and promote English-language fiction written by women throughout the worl

Men In Black 3 Has Got The MIB Mojo Back

Filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld, who worked with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones on the 1997 film 'Men in Black,' has united with the duo for 'Men in Black 3,' which will be released in theaters on Friday.

In the latest film in the franchise about the exploits of two secret agents who maintain order among aliens living on Earth disguised as humans, Smith's Agent J must travel back in time to 1969 to save his partner, Agent K, played by Jones in the present and Josh Brolin in the past.

"Men in Black 3" has got the MIB mojo back — well, most of it anyway. With Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones once again suited up and sporting shades as agents J and K, and a casting coup in Josh Brolin playing K's younger self, the latest alien crisis is good trippy fun as the fate of Earth, and '60s retro style, hang in the balance.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld, who's been onboard from the first film, has recovered some of the brashness and all of the unbridled affection for the weird, wonky otherworldly types that made the initial 1997 cosmic comedy such a kick. "3" is a more restrained affair, but it kind of suits the guys now that an entire decade has passed since the disappointing "Men in Black II." Let's just let that poor sap rest in peace.

Sonnenfeld spoke to Reuters about the latest collaboration, the addition of Brolin to the cast and the three films.

A few days before "Men in Black 3" opens in theaters across the U.S., its cast members and director took some time to discuss the big challenge of applying time travel as the major plot in the sci-fi movie. Chatting with MTV News, they admitted that applying "time travel" element in a movie was really tricky.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld also admitted that bringing back Smith and Jones to "MIB 3" was easier than working with the time travel concept. "Coming up with ideas and plots and stories for aliens was easy," he added, "but time travel was really hard." He said, "Every time you think you have it figured out, you would wake up at three in the morning and think, 'But wait, if I kill him, wouldn't he ....' You have to start all over again!"

Based on the Malibu Comic by Lowell Cunningham, "Men in Black 3" focuses on Smith's Agent J as he goes back in time to team up with young K. The action comedy movie is scheduled to open wide in the U.S. on May 25.

Fortunately, there are other reasons that the past is a blast, thanks to "3's" screenwriter Etan Cohen, a "Beavis and Butthead" alum and a co-writer of the dark farce "Tropic Thunder." Cohen likes messing around with convention and he does a nifty job letting a vintage vibe overtake most of the movie, with director of photography Bill Pope ("Matrix"), production designer Bo Welch (all "MIBs" and much more), Oscar-winning visual effects whizzes Ken Ralston and Jay Redd, and master creature creatorRick Baker more than happy to find themselves in a kind of retro heaven.

As it happens, 1969 was a very busy year with space travel, sports, hippies and more providing the filmmakers a lot of fodder to futz with. The main conduit for keeping this fairly complicated story straight comes in the form of Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg). The actor, who was excellent as the much-tested martyr at the center of the Coen brothers'"A Serious Man," is completely captivating here as a sweet alien nebbish whose special effect is his multi-platform memory — basically he knows all the possible scenarios for what happens next, depending on what happens now.

Smith has always been the glue that held MIB together, and he does so again in "3." Here's the difficulty. The very winning wide-eyed, wise-cracking rookie Smith introduced in the original "MIB" made for a hard act to follow, even for the actor. Both he and the movie get some of the swagger back here. But for fans, the exhilaration of experiencing the original's inventiveness for the very first time — well that ship has sailed. Still, 1969 turns out to be a pretty good year for the men in black, making "3" campy fun if not quite a classic.

Fischer-Dieskau, The Most Influential Singer Of The 20th Century Died

Once described as "the most influential singer of the 20th Century", he was famed for his performances of Winter's Journey (Winterreise) by Schubert.

Born in Berlin in May 1925, he emerged as a performer after World War II and was swiftly recognised as one of his generation's finest lyrical vocalists.

Benjamin Britten personally asked him to perform in the first performance of his War Requiem in May 1962.

The premiere famously took place in the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral, which had been destroyed in a bombing raid in 1940.

"To my generation, he was something so special that one was always awestruck," the English mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker told Sean Rafferty on Radio 3's In Tune programme.

"One just bows before the artistry and the sheer beauty of the sound he made."

Fischer-Dieskau was most famous for his interpretations of lieder - German art songs written for solo voice and piano.

He performed them around the world, rescued many from obscurity, and made scores of recordings that became the benchmark against which other singers' interpretations were judged.

Klaus Staeck, president of the German Academy of Arts, said his contribution to the German art song was "phenomenal".

Mr. Fischer-Dieskau (pronounced FEE-shur-DEES-cow) had sufficient power for the concert hall and for substantial roles in his parallel career as a star of European operahouses. But he was essentially a lyrical, introspective singer whose effect on listeners was not to nail them to their seat backs, but rather to draw them into the very heart of song.

The pianist Gerald Moore, who accompanied many great artists of the postwar decades, said Mr. Fischer-Dieskau had a flawless sense of rhythm and “one of the most remarkable voices in history — honeyed and suavely expressive.” Onstage he projected a masculine sensitivity informed by a cultivated upbringing and by dispiriting losses in World War II: the destruction of his family home, the death of his feeble brother in a Nazi institution, induction into the Wehrmacht when he had scarcely begun his voice studies at the Berlin Conservatory.

His performances eluded easy description. Where reviewers could get the essence of a Pavarotti appearance in a phrase (the glories of a true Italian tenor!), a Fischer-Dieskau recital was akin to a magic show, with seamless shifts in dynamics and infinite shadings of coloration and character.

Versatility was not the least of Mr. Fischer-Dieskau’s assets. He tackled everything from Papageno in “The Magic Flute” — who knew that a goofy bird catcher could have immaculate diction? — to heavier parts like Wotan in “Das Rheingold” and Wolfram in “Tannhäuser.” He recorded more than three dozen operatic roles, Italian as well as German, along with oratorios, Bach cantatas and works of many modern composers, including Benjamin Britten, whose “War Requiem” he sang at its premiere in 1962.

Mr. Fischer-Dieskau was married in 1949 to his sweetheart from his student days, the cellist Irmgard Poppen. They had three sons: Matthias, who became a stage designer;Martin, a conductor; and Manuel, a cellist. Ms. Poppen did not live to see them grow: she died of complications after Manuel’s birth in 1963. For her husband it was a profound, disorienting loss.

He was married again, to the actress Ruth Leuwerik, from 1965 to 1967, and again, to Christina Pugel-Schule, the daughter of an American voice teacher, from 1968 to 1975.

His fourth marriage, to Ms. Varady, the Hungarian soprano, in 1977, was a rewarding match. Like the many artists who studied with him more formally, Ms. Varady found him to be a kindly, constructive and totally unsparing mentor.

Of the many tributes he received over the decades, perhaps none was more heartfelt than that of the British music critic John Amis:

“Providence gives to some singers a beautiful voice, to some musical artistry, to some (let us face it) neither, but to Fischer-Dieskau Providence has given both. The result is a miracle, and that is just about all there is to be said about it.”

Mr. Amis continued, “Having used a few superlatives and described the program, there is nothing else to do but write ‘finis,’ go home, and thank one’s stars for having had the good luck to be present.”

New Girl Confronts The Realities Of Being Young, Broke, And Struggling To Gain A Toehold Into The Adult World

Deschanel was already a polarizing figure when New Girl launched last fall—your tolerance for both her and her character, Jess, likely hinges on how much you relate to the need to curl up in a ball and watchDirty Dancing on a loop post break-up. Or whether you are the kind of person who might own adult-sized footie pajamas. Early on in the season, Jess was a disappointingly one-note character, all cutesy eccentricity and little substance. In one episode she insisted on wearing fake hillbilly teeth to a wedding, and and in another she became so uncomfortable after accidentally seeing one of her three male roommates naked that she couldn't bring herself to say the word "penis." When she first moved in after discovering that her live-in boyfriend was having an affair, her roommates were understandably bewildered by this strange, doe-eyed creature who seemed capable of little more than weeping and bursting spontaneously into song.
　　
But as the season progressed, the writing became both warmer and sharper, focusing more on the talented ensemble cast and tempering Jess's excessive awkwardness with a much-needed dose of self-awareness. In one episode, she goes head-to-head with Julia, a tough-girl lawyer who dismissively refers to Jess's kittens-and-rainbows outlook as her "whole thing." In response, Jess proclaims: "I brake for birds. I rock a lot of polka dots. I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours...and that doesn't mean I'm not smart and tough and strong!" While this may not have won over all the skeptics, it was a smart choice to make Jess's foil a worthy opponent. Without dismissing the criticisms of both Deschanel and the character, it allowed Jess to show a tougher side to her personality and to make a case for her unique brand of femininity.
　　
New Girl isn't the only recession-era comedy to confront the realities of being young, broke, and struggling to gain a toehold into the adult world (2 Broke Girls and Lena Dunham's Girls both come to mind). But New Girl also stands slightly apart from its girl-titled peers in that its characters are all circling 30 (despite her ability to project childlike wonder through her giant anime eyes, Deschanel is in fact a fully grown woman), and the view is a little bit different four or five years into a quarter-life crisis.
　　
This in-betweener angst was crystallized in a recent storyline that centered around Jess dating a successful older man. Jess struggles to reconcile a functioning adult relationship with a guy her roommates refer to as "Fancy Man" and her world of party buses and co-ed bathrooms with faulty plumbing. On their first date, when the Fancy Man has to leave halfway through dinner to deal with an issue involving his daughter, he sends Jess off with money for a cab and an awkwardly paternal hug. She returns home to find Nick throwing a party with a group of college students. "Why is the cast of The Social Network in our apartment?" she asks. The answer: they are in awe of Nick's ability to make a Bay Breeze.
　　
"They don't know what Saved by the Bell is, and they've never felt pain," he cries plaintively.
　　
The roommates on New Girl aren't stumbling into adulthood so much as they're stuck on the threshold—clearly too old for the frat house but not yet financially or emotionally prepared to enter the world of fancy men (and women). As Jess declares in one of her less sunny moments: "30 sucks!"
　　
In this respect, New Girl is one of the more authentic portraits of young folks on television. The show's evolution from "adorkable" star vehicle to engaging ensemble comedy proves that, regardless of its characters credit scores, it's done a lot of growing up this season.
　　
A new comedy series from executive producer and writer Liz Meriwether ("No Strings Attached"), NEW GIRL features a young ensemble cast that takes a fresh look at modern relationships.
　　
After a bad break-up, JESS DAY (Zooey Deschanel) needs a new place to live. An online search leads her to a great loft...and three single guys she's never met before. But Jess moves in, and through her unique sense of self and the support of her new roommates, she learns to move on.
　　
Of her three new male roommates, NICK (Jake Johnson) is the most grounded...and also the most jaded. A law school dropout, he spends most of his time hiding under his hoodie and tending bar. SCHMIDT (Max Greenfield) is a hustling young professional who's pretty proud of his own abs. WINSTON (Lamorne Morris), is an intensely competitive former athlete who doesn't know what to do next-but whatever he does, he wants to win it.
　　
Rounding out the group is Jess' childhood best friend, CECE (Hannah Simone), a model with a killer deadpan. As their relationships progress, these five realize they need each other more than they thought they would and end up forming a charmingly dysfunctional - or strangely functional - family.
　　
NEW GIRL is produced by Chernin Entertainment in association with 20th Century Fox Television. The series is created and written by Liz Meriwether. Meriwether, Jake Kasdan ("Bad Teacher"), Peter Chernin (TERRA NOVA), Katherine Pope (TERRA NOVA), Dave Finkel ("United States of Tara," "30 Rock") and Brett Baer ("United States of Tara," "30 Rock") are executive producers. Kasdan directed the pilot and will continue to direct episodes of the series.

Jess is such a people person that she even tries to broker a dinnertime truce between Russell and his ex, Ouli. But the two of them seem to have a smoldering hate-on for each other. They fight through the whole meal, only pausing to gaze furiously into each other’s eyes. Jess tries to distract them by tap-dancing and singing Cheap Trick, which is how she handled her divorced parents growing up. Ultimately, though, she realizes that she’s jealous. She wants to feel that sort of passion for Russell.
　　
The problem is that there’s only one main New Girl character who really meshes powerfully with Russell, and that’s Nick, who opens the episode musing, “Jess, you’re dating a man I could see myself growing old with.” Jess tries to goad Russell into having some sort of high-drama sex showdown, but even when she throws coasters at him, he won’t take the bait. “Passion’s overrated,” he says. Uh-oh. Maybe that’s why Zooey Deschanel and Dermot Mulroney never seemed to have much chemistry in the show; their characters don’t either.
　　
Having failed at relationships, Nick is trying to cultivate tomatoes. He’s not a good gardener, but he’s great with the props, threatening the birds with a scarecrow and chasing Winston off the roof with a pitchfork. (Later, watching Nick try to stuff the scarecrow in the trash, Winston asks, “What is this, Martin Scorsese’s The Wizard of Oz?”)
　　
Winston is driving Nick crazy because he’s in the middle of a honeymoon period with the pleasantly bland Shelby. Eventually he’s able to convince Nick that he can’t just give up on women completely. Since Winston has found love with a girl he used to date, he talks Nick into calling his own ex, Caroline.
　　
Jess comes back from her date just as Caroline is leaving Nick’s bedroom without any pants on, which means it’s time for a completely deranged confrontation. Jess tells Nick he doesn’t have the courage to be alone, kicking off a yelling match and some serious sexual tension. I would definitely have bet money on them making out, and I would have lost that bet, because instead of giving us the obvious cathartic “Here’s the passion Jess was looking for” moment, the show chooses to get weird. Nick starts shaking his ass at Jess, Jess starts shaking her ass back, and then the two of them compete to see who can shake faster. Their fighting styles are so complementary that it feels like further evidence that they’re perfect for each other. Even if Jess does storm off in the end.

James Franco Reveals Inspiration Behind Cornrows Character

Despite the young actresses with Disney roots starring in Harmony Korine's "Spring Breakers," the film is far from just another teen rom-com about traipsing on the beach and falling in love with long-haired surfer boys. This movie's stars — Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson — are seduced by a grungy rapper named Alien, played by "127 Hours" actor James Franco.

When Gomez tweeted a photo from the set, we barely recognized Franco in character. Dressed in a bright Hawaiian shirt and donning tattoos, massive sunglasses and a gold wristwatch, this isn't the scholarly, unkempt actor we're used to spying in set photos. But what stood out the most were the cornrows neatly aligned on the top of his head. When MTV News' Josh Horowitz caught up with the actor at CinemaCon 2012, he asked Franco what inspired the cornrows for "Spring Breakers."

"That's a character that Harmony and I have been talking about for over a year," Franco said. "Harmony is one of the best, kind of, researchers that I know, and we just went through a series of looks. You know, people have said, like, K-Fed or Riff-Raff, but that character really is kind of an amalgamation of a lot of different people and inspirations."

Korine's films are notoriously gritty and provocative, and "Spring Breakers" is no different. It's a big departure from Disney's "Wizards of Waverly Place" for Selena Gomez and "High School Musical" for Vanessa Hudgens. And while Ashley Benson's "Pretty Little Liars" is a tad more scandalous, the ABC Family hit series isn't nearly as graphic as "Spring Breakers" is expected to be.

The film follows four girls who rob a restaurant to fund their spring break trip. When they're bailed out by Alien, a drug and arms dealer, they find themselves seduced into plotting and helping him with a murder. Gomez recently told Interview magazine that leaving behind her stereotypical good-girl characters is what attracted her to this role. "I was getting kind of repetitive in terms of the roles I was picking, and I really wanted to do something completely different," she said. "I want to be taking myself seriously as an actress, and this was definitely a stretch. I mean, I'd never smoked a cigarette before in my entire life. It was really funny — they had to show me how to do it."

Franco — whose usual attire doesn't include cornrows — also noticed how the character came to life with the help of Korine's direction and the small details to which he paid close attention.

"I can say this: As soon as the woman in Florida put [the cornrows] in, the character was alive. We both knew. We looked in the mirror and it was like, 'Oh my, God. He's here.' "

Justin Bieber Wanted 'Boyfriend' Video To Be 'Mature'

From the back of a Shelby Mustang right to a showroom filled with classic cars, Justin Bieber premiered his highly anticipated "Boyfriend" video on Thursday (May 3) during "MTV First: Justin Bieber." The sexy, sunny, Director X-directed clip certainly had fans in the room cheering.
The video comes to life with shots of Bieber driving a muscle car, snuggling with his beautiful co-star and getting his dance on alongside his pals, all while they chill out at a rooftop party somewhere in Los Angeles. It's a more mature look at the growing pop star, who in only a few short years has gone from strumming his guitar on the streets of his Canadian hometown to full-fledged international pop-star status, where he fills arenas all over the world.

"I kind of switched it up from all the teasers," Bieber told MTV News' Sway Calloway about what fans saw of the video before its premiere. "I switched up the whole video on them, and really, I think it's super cool. I wanted to do something a little bit more mature."

The video is full of swaggy images, ranging from his varsity jacket to his cool car, but what left one fan in the "MTV First" audience most intrigued were the gold sneakers he sports in the video. "I did pick out those swaggy gold shoes," he laughed. "They spray-painted them gold. That's what I'm going to do: I'm gonna start wearing gold shoes all the time."

With the video's focus on cars and friends, the 18-year-old chatted about his own personal car collection. "I have a Range Rover and a Fisker. And I have a Smart Car. It just helps me get from point A to point B. I call it my little 'swag car,' " he said.

While Bieber made it clear that his off-time doesn't look a lot like the party in the video, he did share what he does on the weekends: "I work. ... If I'm with my friends, we like to do regular stuff," he said, before opening up about what he does to unsuspecting pals in an elevator. "We have this game where basically we hit each other in the balls."

If you are reading this, then you are probably aware that Justin Bieber turned 18 back in March. I only mention it now because it helps explain JB's brand-new "Boyfriend" video, which premiered Thursday night (May 3) on MTV and is pretty much an 18-year-old male's fantasy in every conceivable way (or at least most of them).

Filled with cool clothes, hot cars and even hotter women, "Boyfriend" — directed by the mysteriously named Director X (née Lil X) — is the stuff of every newly minted heterosexual adult's dreams ... only on overdrive. It's not enough to have a few cool cars; let's get 50! And some of them should be vintage! Why stop at one female love interest when we could get a baker's dozen? As if the icy, decidedly sophisticated strains of "Boyfriend" weren't enough to tip you off, with the video, Bieber very clearly serves notice: He's all grown-up.

And while that maturation was inevitable — Bieber's been saying for months now that his Believe album would push the boundaries — it remains to be seen if his fanbase (which, speaking in the broadest of terms, is predominantly female, not to mention predominantly pre-teen) can handle his transformation. Not to mention that now, for the first time, he's not the only heartthrob on the block. Sure, the guys in One Direction may be his pals, but they'd like nothing more than to eat his lunch. And those dudes in the Wanted? Well, let's just say we wouldn't take our eye off them, either.

In short, Bieber's career is now at a crossroads. He cannot stop the advance of age, nor does it seem like he really cares to — he's making the kind of music his 18-year-old self wants to make. His fans will either embrace this new chapter or they won't. Maybe he'll lose some of them to the nefarious clutches of 1D. But the Biebs is moving on regardless. One can't sing "Baby" forever now, can they?

Of course, watching the "Boyfriend" video, you can't help but think that Bieber couldn't care less about any of those things. It's a cool, confident clip, and, given where he's at right now, it's also an important one. He's itching to get on with the business of being an 18-year-old dude, like it or not. But you probably will — honestly, how can you deny the sheer grown-up-edness of the whole thing?

In addition to opening up about the video and his unusual take on riding in an elevator, he also talked about working with pals Drake, Kanye West, Usher and Taylor Swift for his brand-new album, Believe, out June 19. "Boyfriend" is the lead single from the highly anticipated release.

But with the music world conquered, he also teased his forthcoming work in Hollywood. He gave an update on his in-the-works basketball movie with Mark Wahlberg, as well as his blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in "Men In Black 3." He noted, however, "Right now I'm focused on my album and Believe."