Hasta La Gadget!

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Viacom Inc said on Saturday its board members have been unable to meet with controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone because his daughter Shari is blocking access to the media mogul.

Viacom’s criticism of Shari Redstone comes a day after Sumner Redstone, 92, removed Viacom Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman and Viacom board member George Abrams from the seven-person trust that will determine the fate of Redstone’s $40 billion media empire that includes Viacom and CBS Corp in the event of his incapacitation or death.

“It is clear that Shari Redstone has isolated her father and put his residence on lockdown, which provides clear evidence of her exercise of undue influence,” a spokesperson for Viacom said in a statement.

Many attempts by Viacom’s board to meet with Sumner Redstone have been denied, Viacom said.

In response, Shari Redstone said in a statement on Saturday: “I fully support my father’s decisions and respect his authority to make them.”

Reuters reported on Tuesday that Redstone, who turns 93 next week, had the power to remove certain members of his trust, including Dauman.

Sumner Redstone removed Dauman and Abrams as trustees and directors of his privately held movie theater company National Amusements Inc after he expressed concerns about Viacom’s performance to them and received no response, according to a statement from Michael C. Tu, a lawyer representing Redstone.

Viacom, like other media companies, has suffered from falling ratings at its cable networks as younger viewers migrate to online and mobile video.

A spokesman for Dauman on Friday called the steps to remove him from the trust “illegal and invalid.”

The move by the elder Redstone is a victory for his daughter, who is also on the trust and vice chair of CBS and Viacom, giving her more certain control to determine the fate of her father’s empire.

Shari Redstone and Dauman have clashed in the past. She opposed his elevation to the post of executive chairman of Viacom in February, a role her father supported.

The Sumner M. Redstone National Amusements Inc Trust owns about 80 percent of Redstone’s privately held National Amusements Inc, which in turn owns 80 percent of the voting rights in both Viacom and CBS.

After Sumner Redstone dies or is incapacitated, the trust will determine all matters that come to a shareholder vote at both companies, including potential mergers or acquisitions.

With the removal of Abrams and Dauman, Shari Redstone will have majority support among the trust’s members, who include Shari’s son, lawyer Tyler Korff, and David Andelman, another lawyer who is on the CBS board.

The trust’s other members are Norman Jacobs, Sumner Redstone’s divorce lawyer, and Leonard Lewin, an attorney who represented Redstone’s first wife, Phyllis, in her divorce from Sumner.

(Reporting by Anna Driver and Jessica Toonkel; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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HTC Vive and Oculus Rift owners generally have a lot in common, including access to many of the same apps and games. However, it looks like a gulf is opening up between the two virtual reality headsets. Oculus has released an app update whose improve…

I loved watching the latest Pedro Almodovar film, Julieta, based on three short stories by Alice Munro. It’s not that the story is particularly strong. It’s not. A fresh young beautiful girl (Adriana Ugarte), free and open to life, falls for a man she meets on a train, marries him, gives birth and then–when tragedy hits–goes into a deep depression. She becomes a new Julieta (played by the older actress Emma Suarez), one with regrets, and a deep sense of loss, which compounds when yet another tragedy hits, with her daughter.

Adriana Ugarte

What made this movie such a rewarding experience is that I felt in the hands of a sage older director, who cares about the wisdom he is sharing with us. In a nutshell: forgive the people in your life, because later it will be too late, and it will weigh on you.

“The past will show up for you to deal with,” Suarez told me. “In this film, the past shows up for Julieta. When it does, she has a choice. To either go to Portugal with her new companion, or deal with the past. She deals with it. In doing so, she gains dignity.”

The film is also about guilt, which Julieta suffers an inordinate amount of even before any personal tragedy hits. In an early scene on a train, an older grim man wishes to chat the pretty girl up, and Julieta quickly takes off–and hence meets the man of her life in the dining car. The older man in the meantime commits suicide.

The girl thinks it is her fault.

Could this be an over-abundance of Catholic guilt?

“Yes in Spain we have a strong sense of guilt,” the younger “Julieta” (Ugarte) told me earnestly. “In a certain way, I am like Julieta. Julieta feels guilty in a very deep way, in a violent way. Pedro once told me: ‘you feel guilty all day.’ I am always worried about the result and success in a scene. He said: don’t worry, you are a very good girl.”

“We humans all have a sense of guilt,” said the older Julieta. “I try to free myself of those feelings. I prefer to think about responsibility.”

The film has a lush, patient feel. Each scene has a rich sense of time, whether it’s Julieta’s fresh arrival to the sea-side house of her future husband, waiting for him in a sunny parlour, to the sad scenes of Julieta mourning for her daughter in her spartan Madrid apartment. While the story under-awes and key issues remain undeveloped, the passage of time bears weight.

It is a film that lingers.

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Time for your daily dose of space porn! Photographer Zack Grether posted photos on his blog of what he said was the landing of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

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The Preakness got off to a tragic start on Saturday, with two horses dying in the first four races and a jockey hospitalized with a broken collarbone.

Homeboykris died after a come-from-behind victory in the first race at Baltimore’s Pimlico Course. After leaving the winner’s circle, the gelding suffered an apparent heart attack and collapsed. A planned necropsy will determine the official cause of death. 

“The horse was in really good health for a 9-year-old horse. When we claimed him, I was really amazed at how good of health,” trainer Francis Campitelli told the Baltimore Sun. “He had no infirmities in his legs. He was just in such good health, you know?” 

Tragedy struck again soon after.

Pramedya, owned by Roy and Gretchen Jackson of Lael Stables, broke her leg during the fourth race and fell to the muddy track. The four-year-old filly was euthanized on the track. Pramedya’s jockey, Daniel Centeno, broke his right collarbone in the fall and was taken to Sinai Hospital.

The death of Pramedya comes 10 years after Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, another Lael Stables horse, suffered life-ending injuries at the Preakness. Barbaro broke two legs during the race and died after months of failed treatment.

Racehorse deaths are not an anomaly. The cardiovascular strain of the sprints and the susceptibility of horses’ delicate legs result in many injuries. Twenty-four horses die each week at U.S. racetracks, according to a 2012 New York Times report.

Following Saturday’s deaths, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals demanded the release of the horses’ medical records.

“Studies — and our own investigations — have shown that most breakdowns and deaths occur because horses have pre-existing injuries that are masked by the excessive use of legal medications. We want to know if that is what happened in the cases of Pramedya and Homeboykris,” PETA senior vice president Kathy Guillermo said in a statement. “In today’s racing drug culture, at least three horses are dying every day on U.S. tracks. The foolish use of muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory drugs, and other medications must end now.”

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