Rowan Atkinson: Goodbye Mr Bean?

Mr Bean won’t be going on any ridiculous new adventures.

Rowan Atkinson, who played the blundering Mr Bean in a TV series and two films, says he’s too old to play the character now.



"I’ve got a feeling I probably won’t play the character again".


"Never say never but I just feel I’m getting too old for it. I’ve always like Mr Bean as a cartoon-like figure, who doesn’t really age much," said the 56-year-old.


"I’ve always seen him as an ageless and timeless being and I’m clearly not ageless and timeless".


"The older I get, I feel I am less qualified to play him."


Mr Bean first appeared in an ITV series in 1990 and despite drawing it’s fair share of critics, ran for five years and drew in viewing figures of more than 18 million.


Mr Bean was so popular that he also starred in two films. Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie (1997) and Mr Bean’s Holiday (2007), which earned over $450 million worldwide.


Rowan Atkinson has been in Australia with Gillian Anderson and Rosamund Pike to promote his new film Johnny English Reborn, the sequel to the 2003 James Bond spoof, Johnny English.

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Rugby World Cup fans book in wrong country

Majestic Hotel in Eastbourne, England

 

Two South African rugby fans scoured the Wellington suburb of Eastbourne for their hotel, only to find it was half a world away in the British seaside town of the same name.

Michael and Sunette Adendorff travelled to the New Zealand capital to watch the Springboks play Wales in the Rugby World Cup believing they has secured accommodation at the Majestic Hotel, the Dominion Post reported.

But instead of enjoying the "splendid" beach views advertised on Majestic's website, they found themselves wandering Wellington's streets unable to locate the hotel on their GPS navigator, the newspaper said.
The penny finally dropped when the pair asked for directions at a local shop and pharmacist Linda Burke explained the hotel was actually some 19,000 kilometres away on the British south coast.

Burke said Michael Adendorff, who made the online booking, told her he had thought it was strange when the hotel charged him in pounds sterling not New Zealand dollars.

Rather than see the pair without a roof over their heads Burke took them into her own home for two nights, taking them to a pub to watch the tournament opening ceremony on Friday before the Springboks's match Saturday.

While the Adendorffs lost about $NZ360 ($A280) on the booking mix-up, Michael said the hospitality they received more than made up for it, even though they had to endure some good-natured ribbing from locals.
"The welcome and the way we were treated was much better than if we have booked into a hotel," he told the newspaper.

"(Burke) took in two strangers and it all worked out well."
The pair, who are following South Africa around New Zealand during the tournament, will be back in Wellington for next Saturday's Springboks-Fiji match and said they had ensured their hotel was in the right country this time.

Tabloid claims Kate Middleton is pregnant with twins

Star/Getty

 

All eyes have been on Kate Middleton's non-existent baby bump since she married Prince William back in April, with the pressure well and truly on for the 29-year-old newlywed to produce an heir to the throne asap.
 
The Duchess's mid-section only seems to be getting smaller and smaller as far as we can see, but one magazine is calling it early, declaring that the royal couple is expecting twins.
Star magazine claims to have the "official announcement" on Kate's pregnancy. Not only is she expecting twins, but we already know it's a boy and a girl! *Cough* yeah right.
 
“William almost collapsed with joy — and relief — when Kate called to tell him she was pregnant," a source tells the mag.
 
Royal biographer Christopher Wilson adds, "Kate was under enormous stress to produce an heir quickly. If she delivers healthy twins, it will be wonderful news — a royal first."
 
We agree, it would be great if Wills and Kate really were expecting two little heirs. But really, twins? And they already know the sex? With a waistline like that, where on earth is she hiding them?

Source - http://entertainment.msn.co.nz/blog.aspx?blogentryid=893486&showcomments=true

The problem with TV ads

Too many commercials attempt to be funny or entertaining. But aren't ads supposed to tell you something about a product?

-By Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com editor at large

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Remember when commercials used to actually try and sell you something?
These days, it seems like many TV ads are more about getting laughs first. And if you can actually recall what the commercial was for after you saw it, then that's a nice little bonus.

Geico's caveman ads have proven so popular that ABC is developing a TV show pilot based on the characters.

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It's a disturbing trend for many large corporations, who may find that instead of boosting sales, they are wasting millions of dollars on advertising campaigns that simply boost the egos of marketing executives and ad agency types who dream of being the next Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen.
Advertising is increasingly morphing into another form of entertainment, and not as something that effectively conveys a company's brand message.
Some argue that, in an age in which people can easily zap past commercials with a digital video recorder or watch a commercial-free video on YouTube instead of ad-supported TV, this is a necessary evil.
"Telling and selling doesn't work as well as it used to because I'd literally just tune out the commercial. Because of that, the merger of entertainment and selling is inevitable. Unless there is entertainment value, why would I opt in?" said Jon Bond, co-founder of Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, an ad agency.

The death of the 30-second TV commercial

Sure, that may help stop people from fast forwarding commercials with their TiVos (Charts). But at what cost?
"There are some spots on TV where people say, 'Gee, that was really cool. But what was the product?'" said Neal M. Burns, professor of advertising at the University of Texas at Austin.
Amusing people has gotten so critical for companies that many have lost sight of what the purpose of advertising should be.
Look, for example, at what happened with online recruitment site CareerBuilder after the Super Bowl. The company's new ad campaign for this year's Super Bowl, which substituted its lovable monkeys with an office as the jungle motif, flopped. The ads were rated poorly in several post-Super Bowl commercial reviews.
CareerBuilder subsequently decided to put its ad account up for review, a decision that enraged Chicago ad agency Cramer-Krasselt, the firm that not only created the new ads but was also responsible for the highly popular CareerBuilder chimp ads. Cramer-Krasselt wound up resigning the CareerBuilder account rather than go through a review.
Peter Krivkovich, president and CEO of Cramer-Krasselt, said he was disappointed that CareerBuilder decided to put its account up for review based on what he called the results of "unscientific polls." He added that he is concerned about the future of advertising since there is too much emphasis on entertainment.
"People have gotten confused between what is entertainment for entertainment's sake and what is actually smart marketing messaging. The YouTube generation of advertising has forgotten that," he said. "You can have a brilliant, unique, funny ad, but if it's not coupled with insight it will be forgotten."
To that end, one series of ads that many experts think have been effective in pairing humor with actual promotion of a brand is the spots for Geico car insurance that feature a group of hip, urbane cavemen who are frustrated by the fact that they are perceived as being, well Neanderthals.
"The two places to err in a commercial are all entertainment and no selling or all selling and no entertainment. Everyone watches and nobody buys anything or nobody watches. Finding the overlap is the issue," Bond said. "Geico has done a great job."

30-second spots that cost $50

I'll admit that these ads make me chuckle, particularly the ones where one aggrieved caveman, being taken to a fancy lunch by an apologetic Geico exec, orders the "roast duck with the mango salsa" and a more recent ad showing a caveman at a therapist's office who, after his cell phone starts to ring, declares, "My mother's calling. I'll put it on speaker."
Funny 30-second spots, to be sure. And I do easily identify the cavemen with Geico. But here's a troubling development. Due to the popularity of these characters, the Walt Disney (Charts)-owned ABC television network has decided to order a pilot for a sitcom about the cavemen.
This is not a guarantee that a caveman show will ever make it to prime-time. But still, is Hollywood so devoid of new ideas that people think a 30-second commercial could wind up being the basis for a 30-minute television show?
What's next? The Aflac duck getting his own show on Animal Planet? How about the Mac and PC guys from the Apple (Charts) commercials starring in an update of "The Odd Couple?"
Or maybe the Nasonex bee could star in a romantic drama about a woman afflicted with nasal allergies, played by Melanie Griffith? That would be perfect casting since her real-life husband Antonio Banderas is the voice of the animated bee. I've even got a title..."Beauty and the Bee!"
Bond said that one risk for Geico is that if a caveman show makes it to prime-time, the characters could easily wind up quickly becoming overexposed.
"They could wear out the advertising idea due to oversaturation. Now they'll have a challenge in trying to find the next caveman. Like anything, ads eventually lose their surprise value and people will no longer pay attention to it. Doing a TV show will accelerate that process and shave life off the campaign so it might not be worth it," he said.

Super Bowl ads disappoint

So big corporations should keep in mind that ads don't have to be 30-second cinematic experiences to get our attention. The lesson to be learned is that ads need to be relevant. That's why online advertising works so well.
Boring blue text links on Google (Charts) or Yahoo! (Charts) may lack the glitz and sex appeal of a slickly produced commercial but they get the job done. Sure, a big difference between a search ad and a TV ad during say, "Heroes" or "Grey's Anatomy" is that the consumer is choosing to look for something. A TV ad, more often than not, is an interruption.
"TV advertising is essentially an uninvited guest. You are watching '24', the world's about to blow up, and suddenly there's a damn commercial," said the University of Texas' Burns.
Still, Burns said that companies can make TV spots more relevant to consumers as long as they mix entertainment with actual details about the product or service.
Despite the increasing popularity of DVRs, many viewers are still conditioned to watch commercials and Burns argues that what turns people off on ads is not their presence but the fact that they often leave people wondering what the ad was actually trying to sell.
"The idea that advertising is an exchange of information is a valuable one. Humor has to have a connective relevance to the brand. I talk to people starting ad agencies and quite frankly, sometimes they don't get that," he said.