8.8 Earthquake in Chile - 8 Horror Pictures

SANTIAGO, Chile — Saturday’s massive quake left a Utah man vacationing in Chile in fear for his life.

Francisco “Pancho” Ovalle, a full-time youth coach who works for La Roca Soccer Club in northern Utah, was spending the night at a friend’s seventh-floor apartment near downtown Santiago when the rumbling started.

A native Chilean who is accustomed to occasional small temblors, Ovalle remembered the quake’s initial wave feeling fairly mild. Seconds later, the shaking turned violent. Read more …

Tsunami Watch Generated by the Earthquake in Chile Unbelievable Video!

Tsunami Watch 2010 Newport Beach Pier, California. February 27, 2:30 pm. We head down to the beach after lunch to take a walk on the beach and look for signs of the Tsunami. The rain has passed and there is some blue sky between the clouds. What a beautiful afternoon. It is a -1.37 low tide and 2-4 foot waves with a building WNW Swell. It should be good surfing tomorrow morning if the wind cooperates. It is hard to tell any signs of the Tsunami that was generated by the earthquake in Chile.

Our best thoughts and prayers are with the people of Chile and we will do what we can to help.

Massive 8.8-Magnitude Quake Hits Chile - 10 Horror Videos Compilation

TALCA, Chile—Shell-shocked Chileans struggled to deal with the aftermath of a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake that ripped through the southern half of the country early Saturday morning, killing at least 300 people as it shook the country for more than a minute.

The quake, one of the biggest ever measured, struck just after 3:30 a.m. local time, toppling buildings, collapsing roads and cutting off power and telecommunications services. At least ten aftershocks hit the region in the hours after the initial quake—felt 2,000 miles away in Sao Paulo, Brazil—and waves that swelled more than six feet above their normal height battered the country’s long coastline, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Read more …

DreamWorks takes tour of supernatural history museum

By Ace Fernandez and Borys Kit / No, it’s not a hot new sushi restaurant or Japanese beer.

Musunahi — familiar to Web denizens enamored with the spooky, suspicious and bizarre — is the blog otherwise known as the Museum of SuperNatural History. And DreamWorks Studios sees some feature potential there.

The museum’s curator, Ernest Lupinacci, considers his creation a “trans-media brand” designed to “be to the paranormal world what National Geographic is to the real world.” Read more …

Record Breaker ‘Avatar’ and ‘Hurt Locker’ Lead Oscar Field

LOS ANGELES— “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” took narrow leads in the Oscar race on Tuesday as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences scattered its honors among an unusually wide field of contenders. Each film received nine nominations, including best picture and best director for James Cameron (“Avatar”) and Kathryn Bigelow (“Hurt Locker”).

The anti-Nazi revenge fantasy “Inglourious Basterds” followed close behind with eight nominations, including best director and best original screenplay for Quentin Tarantino, and best supporting actor for Christoph Waltz. The harsh drama “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” had six nominations, including best picture, best director for Lee Daniels, best actress for Gabourey Sidibe Read more …

The Hobbit Delayed To 2012, or not?

Two years ago, the 40-plus-year run of New Line as a largely autonomous film entity came to an abrupt end with the ouster of founder Bob Shaye and a restructuring that brought the company fully under the mantel as a unit of Warner Bros. After a run of films that had seen less-than-stellar B.O. returns (”Shoot ‘Em Up,” “Nativity,” “Number 23,” “The Golden Compass,” “Tenacious D,” “Domino,” “Snakes on a Plane”) and Shaye’s attention diverted to his pet helming project, “The Last Mimzy,” New Line was given a new mandate: Go through studio toppers Alan Horn and Jeff Robinov for greenlights, make about six pictures a year and focus mostly on bread-and-butter genre and comedy fare … along with the occasional tentpole.

Now, with a leaner New Line having banked a run of solid performers (mostly romantic comedies such as “He’s Just Not That Into You” and “17 Again”) and a genuine blockbuster (”Sex and the City”), the division is looking to return to its glory days of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy with a pair of “Hobbit” prequels directed by Guillermo Del Toro.

In short, it’s tentpole time at New Line again — but with calculated bottom-line prudence shaping the rest of its slate.

Despite its longstanding reputation for seat-of-the-pants decisionmaking, president Toby Emmerich says the new New Line is a more calculating enterprise these days. With only six films a year — about half the pre-2008 slate — Emmerich and production president Richard Brener say no to much more than they used to. Read more …

The 82nd Annual Academy Award Nominations

Actress Anne Hathaway and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak announce the Best Picture nominations. (Chris Pizzello/Associated Press)

Actor in a Leading Role

• Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
• George Clooney in “Up in the Air”
• Colin Firth in “A Single Man”
• Morgan Freeman in “Invictus”
• Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker”

Read more …