italian fashion designer Mila Schoen dies at 91

Fri, Sep 5 07:15 PM

Milan, Sep 5 (DPA) Italian fashion designer Mila Schoen known as the 'Lady of Elegance' for the stylishly stark and simple tailoring of her clothes, has died. She was 91.

Schoen died Thursday night, according to a spokeswoman for Brand Extension, the company that owns the Mila Schoen label.

'She was a woman who valued work and good taste,' designer Mariella Buriani told television news channel Sky TG24.

Born as Maria Carmen Nutrizio in 1917 to aristocratic parents in Dalmatia - now part of Croatia - Schoen moved to Italy's fashion capital Milan following her marriage to luxury goods merchant, Aurelio Schoen.

Schoen held her first fashion show for some friends before establishing her own fashion house in 1958, when she began attracting wide attention for her designs and fabric combinations.

By the 1960s she was presenting her collections in the United States, and in 1971, Schoen launched her men's line and a women's ready-to-wear collection.

While many of her designs were aimed at affluent, private customers, Schon also created uniforms for airline staff: Italian carrier Alitalia in 1969 and Iran Air in 1972.

In 1992 the Mila Schoen label was licensed to the Mariella Buriani Fashion Group, but Schoen still had a say on the style of clothes bearing her name.

In 2007 the label was sold to Brand Extension, by which time the veteran designer had retired from the fashion world.

NYT: Obama to dispatch female surrogates

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Gov. Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain , dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and creating a rapid-response team to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said on Thursday.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign event in Florida, her first for Mr. Obama since the Democratic convention last month, will include a forceful response to the searing attacks and fresh burst of energy that Ms. Palin injected into the race with her convention speech on Wednesday night, Obama aides said.

With the McCain-Palin team courting undecided female voters, including some who backed Mrs. Clinton in the Democratic primaries, Obama aides say they are counting on not only Mrs. Clinton but also Democratic female governors to criticize their Alaskan counterpart, Ms. Palin — and, by extension, Mr. McCain — including Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.

McCain: End ‘the constant partisan rancor’ Republican nominee says Obama doesn’t have a record to run on

By Alex Johnson

Reporter

MSNBC

updated 11:57 p.m. ET Sept. 4, 2008

Sen. John McCain of Arizona accepted the Republican presidential nomination Thursday night with a dual message: Sen. Barack Obama does not have the judgment to govern the nation, whereas he himself can reach across party divisions to “get this country moving again.”

In an address at the party’s national convention in St. Paul, Minn. — briefly interrupted when three yelling anti-war protesters were hustled out of the hall as delegates chanted “U.S.A., U.S.A.” — McCain promised to “reach out my hand to anyone to help me.”

“Americans want us to stop yelling at each other,” McCain ad-libbed as he called for delegates to ignore the disruption.

DEATH RACE

The world's hunger for extreme sports and reality competitions has grown into reality TV bloodlust. Now, the most extreme racing competition has emerged and its contestants are murderous prisoners. Tricked-out cars, caged thugs and smoking-hot navigators combine to create a juggernaut series with bigger ratings than the Super Bowl.
The rules of the Death Race are simple: Win five events, and you're set free. Lose and you're road kill splashed across the Internet.
International action star Jason Statham leads the action-thriller's cast as three-time speedway champion Jensen Ames, an ex-con framed for a gruesome murder. Forced to don the mask of the mythical driver Frankenstein, a Death Race crowd favorite who seems impossible to kill, Ames is given an easy choice by Terminal Island's ruthless Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen): Suit up and drive or never see his little girl again.
His face hidden by a hideous mask, one convict will enter an insane three-day challenge in order to gain freedom. But to claim the prize, Ames must survive a gauntlet of the most vicious criminals -- including nemesis Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson) -- in the country's toughest prison. Trained by his coach (Ian McShane) to drive a monster Mustang V8 Fastback outfitted with 2 mounted mini-guns, flamethrowers and napalm, an innocent man will destroy everything in his path to win the most twisted spectator sport on Earth.

MIRRORS

A young girl with a seemingly normal mother and father discovers a household secret that leads to some startling revelations about her family past in this tense meditation on voyeurism starring Kelly LeBrock and Erin Cahill. Nina Theophilus (Cahill) is the daughter of an adoring father (Thaao Penghlis) and a popular actress (LeBrock). While on the surface Nina's family seems about as normal as one might expect for a family with showbiz ties, the discovery of a mysterious hidden room behind one of the bathroom mirrors soon leads to a series of dark revelations involving betrayal, greed, lust, and murder.

TAKEN

An ex-soldier (Liam Neeson) traveling through Europe embarks on a frantic quest to rescue his daughter (Maggie Grace) after the young girl is abducted by slave traders in District B13 director Pierre Morel's contemporary thriller Taken. Robert Mark Kamen joins the screenwriting team, which also includes Morel and longtime collaborator Luc Besson, who produces as well

SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS 2

In the first film, four best friends miraculously found a pair of jeans that fit each one perfectly. Using the pants as a way to stay close together as they journey away to college, the four girls mail the heavily decorated jeans back and forth to one another as a good luck charm, and plan to meet up during their summer breaks. Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) works at a video store, and struggles with commitment to her boyfriend. Lena (Alexis Bledel) is studying figure drawing, and is attempting to keep her mind off of a heart-wrenching breakup. Bridget (Blake Lively) is invested in sports and archaeology, but remains troubled over the death of her mother. And Carmen (America Ferrera) is a stagehand for school plays, who isn't quite sure of what to do with her future.When summer finally rolls around, the four girlfriends realize that each has their own goals and agendas, and that time spent together has become more difficult and seemingly less important. Their coven-like rituals of sharing adventures has steadily lost its meaning, and the foursome discovers that their summer is going to be drastically more independent. But as Lena confronts her ex, Tibby deals with a contraceptive malfunction, Carmen's mother goes into labor, and Bridget reunites with her long lost grandmother, the four girls rediscover their friendship and the importance of sticking together.The ideals are nothing new, the events that frequent each storyline are generic, and the revelations are simplistic. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 is an average coming-of-age film that fails to muster up any reasons justifying its existence. It is a continuation of familiar character's lives, and its strongest asset is in its storytelling approach. Whether or not each girl is appealing or relatable, and although many references to the original are made, their stories are plotted out with enough detail that watching the first film is not a prerequisite.Two love triangles arise, endurances are tested, and miracles are summoned. Jealousy rears its ugly head, betrayal emerges, and every supporting character is physically picture perfect. As each young woman undergoes many trivial and unemotional plot developments, the picture begins to drag. Sisterhood 2 becomes an unnecessarily long film, which constantly reminds the audience that none of the diminutive, unmoving events amount to anything special. For a film with so many lead characters and so many tales to tell, it couldn't be more pointless.