On Day 3 of filming on location in the cloud forest surrounding the Arenal volcano, celebrated Hollywood director M. Night Shyamalan was taking a morning stroll towards a quiet spot to think about the set up of the day’s shots when he was stopped by a Tico crew member wearing a miner’s head lamp around his forehead. The crew member was holding a menacing-looking venomous snake in his hands.

“It spits, be careful”

“What’s the name again?”

“Jumping Pit Viper, or Atropoides Mexicanus, scientific name”

“Oh my goodness”

“What a beauty. Aarrgh!”

“Did it try jumping?  This is where we’re shooting”

M. Night Shyamalan filmed the ophidian encounter and promptly shared it with his thousands of Twitter followers, many of them film buffs, who critiqued his smartphone filming technique. “You should turn your phone sideways for landscape recording.” Tough crowd. Never mind that the day before the director had notified his followers that the weather was unpredictable, and that laying down tracks for dolly cam shots was difficult since it required bee and snake wranglers to clear the path ahead.

(more…)

Yesterday evening the family of Sir Richard Branson, Billionaire founder of the Virgin Group and Virgin Galatic, had dinner with former President of Costa Rica José María Figueres. Topics of discussion were the choice to abolish the army of Costa Rica, Tourism here, and doing international business.

You can read more about the story behind abolishing the Costa Rican army by reading this article here, which may be appealing to video game fans.

Richard Branson is the proud owner of an island called Necker Island, which is located on the East side of the Caribbean Sea. His accomplishments are known the world over, first starting with record stores and then diversifying into online gaming, commercial flights, and many other ventures. You can follow Richard Branson on Twitter and Facebook and read his official Blog.

You may already know: Miley Cyrus and her boyfriend Liam Hemsworth are on vacation in our beautiful Costa Rica.

As they hurried to get on a helicopter, Miley allowed some fans a few quick snapshots with her. Unbelievably, when she excused herself, one of them offended her for not having posed with all of them. In spite of this, Miley generously agreed to have more pictures taken when the flight got delayed.

After this unpleasant incident, Miley and company finally flew off to Guanacaste, as the rumour goes. Hopefully they will be able to enjoy the spectacular beaches and to relax in the sun.

(more…)

The beautiful Miss Costa Rica 2011, Johanna Solano, is currently one of the top contenders to take the title of the beauty queen with the best physique in the planet in 2011. The 21-year old stunner, who is a former Señorita San José pageant competitor, currently ranks at number six in the Reinas Universal Awards Best Body of 2011 list published by the online version of 20 Minutos, a leading news daily in Spain. Voting will continue through the end of the year.

Johana Solano has been one of the most celebrated Miss Costa Rica winners in recent history. Upon her arrival at the 2011 Miss Universe pageant in Brazil earlier this year, Johanna set the place abuzz not just with her arresting looks and charming personality, but also for her football prowess. At a friendly match between the pageant contestants organized in Sao Paulo, Johanna was the lead scorer. At the Missosology website, an online forum dedicated to the perennial debate over who is the most beautiful and refined beauty contestant in the world, Johanna has been nominated as one of this year’s Timeless Beauties.

(more…)

The sad passing of acclaimed British-American political writer and intellectual essayist Christopher Hitchens did not go unnoticed in Costa Rica. Besides the requisite obituaries published in La Nación and El País, there was a small flurry of activity in online social networks by members of Costa Rica’s digital literati.

Social psychologist and open source software advocate Carolina Flores name-dropped Hussein Ibish as a friend and shared his warm eulogy of Hitchens. Blogger Cristian Cambronero, 2009 recipient of the coveted Pío Viquez award for excellence in journalism also Tweeted about the writer’s demise. Juan Carlos Hidalgo, a scholar at the Cato Institute and columnist at El Financiero, remarked that even The Economist, a magazine not known for publishing obituaries joined in the mourning of Hitchens.

(more…)