Magic show ‘The Illusionists’ returns to NY
The 88th annual Hollywood Christmas Parade, one of Hollywood’s oldest traditions which sees film and TV stars gather on Hollywood boulevard, kicked off on Sunday night.
Pre-parade performers included singers Dionne Warwick, David Archuleta, Brandon Jenner, Phil Vassar, Jesse & Joy and Bret Michaels.
“This a wonderful event for me to do at Christmas time,” Dionne Warwick, who performed her classic hit “What the World Needs Now is Love” during the event, told the Xinhua News Agency.
Meanwhile, Bret Michaels received the Hollywood Parade organizer’s “Humanitarian of the Year Award,” for his extensive charity relief efforts in storm-torn areas of Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.
The parade was hosted by a range of TV stars, including Erik Estrada, Laura McKenzie, Dean Cain, Elizabeth Stanton and Montel Williams, as well as Mario Lopez, who launched the opening ceremony.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti showed up to wish everyone a very merry Christmas on stage. “Nobody does Christmas quite like the Hollywood Christmas Parade!” he later tweeted.
Costumed characters from the Star Wars and Batman franchises also took part in the parade.
“We love Christmas and sharing it this way with our big Batman family – which is the whole world,” Burt Ward, who played Robin in the classic Batman TV series, told Xinhua.
Iconic vehicles featured in Hollywood hits were another highlight of the parade, including appearances from the likes of the Back to the Future DeLorean, the Mustang featured in Charlie’s Angels, the Jurassic Park Jeep and the Ghostbusters car.
“The cars are so cool and are so specifically Hollywood. You’d never see them in any other parade,” said Shelly Bates, one of
The world-famous touring magic show The Illusionists: Magic of the Holidays has returned to New York with a batch of new magicians and their mind-boggling tricks.
Already in its fifth holiday season on Broadway, the show gathers six of the hottest names in today’s magic world, dazzling audiences with a mix of the most outrageous and astonishing acts ever to be seen on stage.
The new cast include Dom Chambers, “The Showman”; Eric Chien, “The Manipulator”; Chris Cox, “The Mentalist”; Paul Dabek, “The Trickster”; and Kevin James, “The Inventor.”
Chien, who was born on the island of Taiwan and currently lives in Beijing, made his Broadway debut with the
the many attendees. Enjoying the parade has become a tradition for local families. Many attendees said that they had been brought to the parade by their parents when they were young, and were now bringing their own kids.
The event’s TV producer, Lindsay Isom, who has taken her own kids to the parade with her since they were born, said that “this whole idea... with a huge red carpet down the center of Hollywood boulevard... gives you a great feeling of nostalgia.”
The annual event is co-sponsored by the US Marine Corps’ “Toys for Tots” program, which sees Christmas presents given to needy kids whose families cannot afford to buy any.
“We gave away about 23,000 toys in our area last year,” said a Marine corporal. close-up card and coin tricks that helped him win the 2019 TV show Asia’s Got Talent season 3.
Performing on a table with superior sleight of hand, Chien easily changes the cards’ colors, turns them into coins and makes them disappear ultimately, in the blink of an eye.
The 27-year-old psychology major dropped out of a US college after his sophomore year to focus on magic. In 2016, he started his magic career as a consultant for a top magician in China.
Two years later, he became the first Asian to ever win the title of FISM World Champion of Close Up Magic Grand Prix.
Chinese domestic comedy Two Tigers topped the Chinese mainland box office Monday, according to data from the China Movie Data Information Network Tuesday.
The film raked in about 16.28 million yuan ($2.32 million) on its fourth day of screening, accounting for over 30 percent of the daily total.
The film tells of the dark humor of a kidnapped businessman, played by renowned Chinese actor Ge You, who turns the tables on his kidnapper.
It was followed by US murder mystery drama Knives Out, which grossed about 13.19 million yuan.
Coming in the third was Frozen II, a sequel to the 2013 Disney animated blockbuster Frozen, pocketing nearly 9.5 million yuan on its 11th day of screening.