Langfield Entertainment
88 Bloor Street E., Suite 2908, Toronto, ON M4W 3G9
(416) 677-5883
langfieldent@rogers.com
www.langfieldentertainment.com
NEWSLETTER
Updated: March 16, 2006
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::TOP STORIES::
Papa San – Real and Personal
Source:
Sony/BMG Music Canada
In Jamaican culture, and the reggae music of the last two decades, few
names shine as brightly as that of Papa San. In the early 1980s, Papa
San was putting a highly rhythmic and rapped spin on the traditionally melodic
Reggae groove of Bob Marley, as well as others. Papa San was often
improvisational, intricate and extremely instrumental in forging what today is
known as Dancehall Music. Papa San’s irresistible style of rhythm and wordplay
became, and remains today, his trademark to millions of fans the world over!
On his new project, Real & Personal, Papa San continues his exploration of faith-based themes in his
fresh, sonically entertaining style for reggae fans everywhere. The CD,
produced by Papa San, Eddie Perez, Maurice Gregory and Rohan Harrison, is
notable in its musical accessibility and recognizable rapid-fire lyrics along
with solo highlights by special guests.
www.papasanministries.com
ole Signs Billboard Chart-Topping Ghetto Classics Collaborator
To Multi-Year Deal
Source: ole
(MARCH 13, 2006) TORONTO: ole, Canada's largest independent
music publisher, is thrilled to announce the signing of songwriter Derek Brin --
currently riding a hot streak as a co-author of Jaheim's "Daddy
Thing," a cut on the New Jersey R&B singer's recent No. 1
Billboard album Ghetto Classics -- to a three-year deal. The
Toronto-based Brin, president of Fierce Music Entertainment Inc., is one
of those exceptional multi-hyphenate talents --
producer/songwriter/engineer/film and video game composer/talent
developer/up-and-coming fashion designer -- who has amassed an
extensive list of gold, platinum and multi-platinum credits throughout
his career. His songwriting, programming and production work with such
artists as Billie ("Makin' My Way (Any Way That I Can)" from
the million-selling Top 10 soundtrack Pokemon: The First Movie), platinum
Canadian Idols Kalan Porter and Ryan Malcolm, R&B sensations Robyn
and Kelly Price and the phenomenal gold songstress Keshia Chanté has
brought him recognition in international circles.
Schooled in percussion and piano, Brin has not only
produced, mixed and remixed over 85 albums, but has also scored music to
over 1500 television projects ranging from movies and episodic series to
song placements in such popular programs as Traders, Psi-Factor and
Blue Murder. "Derek is a significant pop and urban songwriter who
also offers an extensive film and television body of musical work,"
says Ivan Berry, ole senior partner, International. "In the past few
years, Derek has made an amazing impact on the Caribbean Soca and calypso
charts and I'm pleased to announce that this deal also includes Derek's
future work over the next three years." Co-founder and principle member of
the Carib-Soca band Neu Jenarashun, Brin has served as programmer for
songwriter Diane Warren ("I Don't Want To Miss A Thing",
"Unbreak My Heart"); songwriter and producers Guy Roche (Cher,
Céline Dion, Brandy, "What A Girl Wants"); Jud Friedman (James
Ingram, Ray Charles, Chaka Khan); Allan Rich (Whitney Houston, 'NSYNC,
Natalie Cole); Dan Hill ("Sometimes When We Touch," "Can't
We Try") and Jörgen Elofsson (Britney Spears, Il Divo). Currently Brin is
enjoying success with his work on "Daddy Thing," his
collaboration with songwriter Balewa Muhammad ("Dirrty") and
Trakaddix's Tommy Oliveira ("Still Ghetto") that's on Jaheim's
chart-topping album Ghetto Classics. It's not the first time he's tasted
top-drawer status: In 2000, Brin topped the Billboard Hot Dance
Music/Club Play chart with the Kristine W. hit "Stronger."
More recently, Brin partnered with Rhode Island production
team Trakaddix and is developing Australian NuUrban wonder Che'Nelle with
Sir Charles Dixon for her upcoming Virgin Records debut later this
year. Derek Brin is also developing a stable of Caribbean artists for
his own Fierce Entertainment Inc., including Antigua's Kenne Bless,
Barbados' Olivia Waithe, Trinidad's Precious and St. Kitts' Jermul as
well as Toronto-based former In Essence singer Dru. Such networks as PBS,
The Playboy Channel, the CBC, Global, HGTV, CFMT, The Life Network and
WTN in North America and SACM in Mexico and APRA in Australia have
licensed his music. Brin has also provided stock music for TM Century (Imagio
Collection), Water Music and Nightingale Music, and music assembly
and editing for corporate clients ranging from McDonald's and Western
Union to the Toronto Sun and CHCH TV. For the past two years, The Bell
Mobility Celebrity Gala has relied on Derek Brin to create and provided
all music and performance tracks for Canada's largest charity event.
Branching out into ringtones and other 3G media, Brin recently completed
his first video game score with Nayan Williams for Digital Extremes/Brain
Box Games Marine Heavy Gunner and is aggressively hunting for future
projects. Brin is setting another precedent: He's the first ole family member
poised to launch his own line of clothing called RASSWEAR, demonstrating
a versatility and ambition that fits perfectly with ole philosophy.
"We're extremely excited to welcome Derek Brin to the
ole roster," says Robert Ott, ole co-founder and managing partner.
"Derek is a proven, world-class songwriter whose aggressive work
ethic is exactly aligned with the spirit at ole." For his part, the
Toronto-born Brin is also elated to join the ole family. “I think
what ole has accomplished in its first year is amazing," said Brin.
"Being a Canadian songwriter/producer, I’m grateful to be part of a
team that I can learn from, contribute to and with whom I can enjoy
worldwide success."
about ole
ole is a multi-national, Canadian-owned, full-service
independent music publisher with offices in Toronto, Los Angeles, London
and Nashville. Founded by Robert Ott (former VP/GM BMGMP Canada) and Tim
Laing, the company has initial financing of over $100 million dollars.
ole boasts an experienced team of some 18 industry professionals involved
in acquisitions, creative development and administration worldwide. The
ole catalogue includes over twenty thousand songs across all genres
ranging from pop, to country, to urban to rhythm & blues and soul.
ole has completed some 21MM USD in new acquisitions over the past year
including purchases of the, Balmur, Encore, Keith Follese, Dream
Warriors and David Tyson catalogues. Recent cuts include the lead-off
single "Shoes" by Shania Twain from Music Inspired by Desperate
Housewives, Sean Paul’s “Change The Game” and "He Ain’t Even Cold
Yet" by Gretchen Wilson. Additionally, ole has concluded publishing
administration agreements with film and television producers Nelvana,
Shaftesbury Films, Arcadia Entertainment, Devine Entertainment and
Slanted Wheel. ole is the Canadian administrator for the prestigious
Arc Music Group, a catalogue that includes songs by Jerry Butler, Chuck
Berry, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley and Otis Rush. The company has
signed songwriters Gerald O'Brien, Derek Brin, John Wesley Chisholm,
Ben Dunk, James Huff and Scarlett and struck a co-venture deal with
Last Gang Publishing a division of Last Gang Records bringing West
Coast rocker Panurge and Kinnie Starr to the roster. ole also recently
announced another co-venture with Roots Three Music, which includes
songwriters Denny Carr, Chris Thornsteinson and Dave Wasyliw. At ole
the goal is to be the home for the best songwriters, composers,
management talent and intellectual property investors and the first
choice music source for creators in all media. The ole website can be
found at www.majorlyindie.com
Pink: Fourth Album Exposes Maturity
Excerpt from www.billboard.com
- Tamara Conniff
(Mar. 10, 2006) Alecia Moore's father is a Vietnam
veteran and a staunch Republican. She is a devout Democrat. There was a point
when their
political differences almost ruined their relationship, until they decided not
to talk about the war in Iraq, abortion, the government's failure to locate
Osama bin Laden or any of President Bush's speeches or initiatives.
Then, Moore —- known to the world as Pink
-— wrote a simple song called "Dear Mr. President" with
songwriter/producer Billy Mann. Taking a young girl's perspective, Moore sings:
"Dear Mr. President/What do you feel when you see all the homeless in the
street?/Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?/What do you feel
when you look in the mirror?/Are you proud?" "This is one of
the smarter songs I've ever written," Moore says. "My way is usually
waving the flag and saying, 'You're wrong, burn in hell.' This is subtle and
provocative, and it's very innocent." "Dear Mr.
President," which features the Indigo Girls, may never be released as a
commercial single, but Zomba Label Group president/CEO Barry Weiss says it will
surely get critical acclaim and buzz.
"I'm Not Dead,"
Moore's fourth album, will be released April 4 in the U.S. via La Face/Zomba
and April 3 internationally. Weiss says Moore has matured with this release --
as a singer and a songwriter. "She is among the best singers in the world,
and people don't really realize it." Above all, this album is pure Pink: rebellious and
beautiful. Not to worry -- Moore does take out her flag and attack
stereotypes and negative images. The album's first single, "Stupid
Girls," is an assault on Hollywood's obsession with thin, blonde and
beautiful. In the video, which more than 8.6 million people downloaded as soon
as it was available on the Internet, Moore mocks the likes of Jessica Simpson,
Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, among others -- and in a very telling scene,
shows the repulsiveness and destructiveness of bulimia. In fact, shortly
after the video was released, the International Assn. of Eating Disorder
Professionals issued a statement saying the song "highlights the culture's
relentless and unrealistic pursuit of thinness and unattainable drive for
physical beauty." Moore, sitting in a New York bar, bounces in
her chair and sips a glass of red wine. She is excited that "Stupid
Girls," a song she fought for, a song her label did not want to release as
the first single, is inspiring dialogue and raising awareness. It is healing
for her, because she suffers, too. Moore has "fat days." She has days
when she gets depressed and feels like she is not good enough. She is not
superhuman, she is honest. She says writing and singing about it is cathartic.
She wants young women to know they are not alone. "I'm not trashing
everyone in 12 tracks," she says. "I don't pick a different group to
trash [in] each song. Most of the time, I'm just trashing myself."
The label changed its tune about "Stupid Girls" once it saw the
video. "God, did she hit a chord," Weiss says. Zomba Label
Group senior VP of marketing Janet Kleinbaum says that because Moore is such a
visual artist, the label actually released the video before going to radio with
"Stupid Girls." "Radio programmers went online to
download the audio from the video in order to get it on radio," Kleinbaum
says. "Lyrically, it's an important voice for her. It's a topic that a lot
of people have wanted to comment on, but haven't." Moore admits,
"The first single is always hard, because it's supposed to represent a
record that pretty much is like the first single. But with me, my only
consistent thread is my voice, not even my humour is the same. My albums are
just so eclectic. It's not all just funny, it's not all deep. It's everything
in between."
Moore's breakthrough album was her 2001 sophomore release
"M!ssundaztood," which sold more than 5.2 million copies in the
United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Her next effort, "Try
This," which hit stores in 2004, only sold 701,000 copies.
"'Try This' was my rebellion against deadlines," she says.
"Fine, you want your f***ing records, I'll write 10 songs in a week, and
you can press it and put it out. I don't have to think about it, I don't have
to get emotionally invested. I was tired of talking about divorce. I was tired
of talking about my life and talking about being lonely. I walked out of half
of my interviews crying. I needed to coast for a while, and that's what I
did." Moore did not just coast -- she got back to herself; married
her longtime boyfriend, motocross star Carey Hart; and spent time with her
dogs. When she was ready, she headed back to the recording studio to make the
album she wanted to make. For Moore, the most fulfilling part of
recording "I'm Not Dead" was her father's reaction to "Dear Mr.
President." "I saw goose bumps on his arms," Moore
recalls. "He said, 'I feel like I'm back in the '60s. Isn't it great that
you live in a country where you can say those things and they can be heard?
Good for you for exercising the right that we fought for.'" In
Moore's view, "Bush is the worst president the United States has ever
had." After hearing "Dear Mr. President," her father told her,
"I think you're right."
Walk Of Fame Inductees Include Game-Show Host
Excerpt
from The Toronto Star
(Mar. 9, 2006) Actress Pamela Anderson (above) and singer/songwriter (below)
Jann Arden are among this year’s
inductees into Canada’s Walk Of Fame.
Visitors from around the world will soon walk all
over Alex Trebek, Eugene Levy, and Pamela Anderson when their stars are set in
stone on Canada’s Walk Of Fame in Toronto. Trebek, Levy and Anderson are among
the Walk’s eight latest inductees, announced yesterday. In addition to getting
a sidewalk star in Toronto’s entertainment district, they’ll be honoured at a
June 3 gala at the Hummingbird Centre. New Walk of Famer Alex Trebek is so
famous as the host of TV game-show Jeopardy, he’s played himself in scores of
movie and television appearances. In a news release
yesterday, Trebek expressed his feelings Jeopardy-style: “The answer is: this
Sudbury native is very honoured and excited to be in the company of other Walk
of Fame inductees,” he said. “The correct question, of course, is: ‘Who is
me?’” Another star goes to comedian Eugene Levy, who used to spoof Trebek in
SCTV skits where the contestants were so moronic he would furiously disconnect
their buzzers. Levy later got into movies, and won a new generation of fans playing
the inept father in American Pie. And Pamela Anderson, as a regular on
Baywatch, helped millions of TV watchers around the world gain a greater
insight into the issues facing beach rescue-workers. Since then she’s been all
over movies and television shows, including V.I.P and Home Improvement.
Canada’s Walk of Fame has celebrated the country’s celebrity class since 1998.
This year’s other inductees are:
- Jann Arden: She’s sold more than two million albums worldwide and bagged eight Juno awards. Her 1994 hit song Insensitive is a mainstay of easy-listening stations that has provided countless Canadians with musical accompaniment as they shop for groceries.
- Paul Shaffer: He’s been David Letterman’s wisecracking musical director of 20 years. The one-time member of the Saturday Night Live band, Shaffer has appeared in movies including This Is Spinal Tap. He also co-wrote the immortal Weather Girls anthem, It’s Raining Men. Hallelujah.
- Robert Goulet: He became Broadway royalty as a singing Sir Lancelot in a 1960 hit production of Camelot. Since then the world-famous baritone has done theatre, movies, television, and recorded more than 60 albums.
- Brendan Fraser: He swashbuckled through summer movie blockbusters like The Mummy, but also found time to appear in weighty critic-pleasers like Gods And Monsters. Fraser has acted alongside cinematic greats Sir Ian McKellan, Sir Michael Caine, and Bugs Bunny.
- The Crazy Canucks: A quartet of downhill skiers named for their skill and recklessness. Ken Read, Steve Podborski, Dave Irwin and the late Dave Murray were international stars in the ’70s and early ’80s, celebrated as much for their speed as for their rag-doll tumbles down the slopes after spectacular wipe-outs.
This year’s inductees will see their star embedded in the sidewalk in June, but only temporarily. This summer every star on the Walk will be dug up and replaced with something new and different.
Quinn Loses Friend, Mentor
Excerpt
from The Toronto Star - Mark Zwolinski, Sports Reporter
(Mar. 10, 2006) Playing for the Atlanta Flames in the early to mid-1970s
wasn't the ideal stop for an NHL player. But for Leafs coach Pat Quinn, a chance to play five seasons
in the U.S. city with Bernie (Boom Boom) Geoffrion as his coach left a lasting impression. "I was
fortunate to cross paths with him when he was a coach in Atlanta. He was a good
experience in my life, one of the most up and caring guys I've ever met,"
Quinn said as the hockey world began mourning the loss of Geoffrion, who died
of stomach cancer yesterday at age 75. Quinn, who is guiding the Leafs
through the toughest season of his six years behind the Toronto bench, was
shocked to learn of Geoffrion's passing. Most NHL teams were conducting
their morning skates and were leaving the ice when news of Geoffrion's death,
only a week after being diagnosed with his illness, arrived. The Canadiens had
already planned to retire his No.5 sweater before last night's game in Montreal
against the Rangers. NHLers from Geoffrion's era have fond memories of
the legendary Montreal forward who is credited with popularizing the slapshot.
"I was a fan of his as a young player; you know, Doug Harvey and him used
to be a great pair on the Montreal power play, they could really pass the puck
around," Quinn said. Quinn broke in with the Leafs in the late
1960s, then played on the inaugural Vancouver Canucks team in 1971 before
moving on to Atlanta. During the three seasons that Geoffrion coached the
Flames (1972-75), he developed a close bond with Quinn that would later have an
influence on his coaching style.
"I have more vivid memories of his sense of humour and how he really
cared for his players and, in a caring fashion, motivated his guys to play
beyond where they might be playing at the time," Quinn said.
"For a short period of time, as much as a player and coach could be,
we were friends." Quinn and the Leafs were in Montreal last October
in a game that was marked with a ceremony to honour Geoffrion, Yvon Cournoyer
and Henri Richard. Geoffrion made his way over to the Leafs bench where he and
Quinn hugged, sharing a moment only they understood. "I watched how
he treated people," Quinn said yesterday, referring to a lesson he learned
from Geoffrion. "I felt it was an important way to help teamwork.
Coaches in those days didn't care as much as they do now about systems ... they
coached the people they had in the room." Similar sentiments flowed
from all corners of the NHL yesterday, including Atlanta, where Thrashers coach
Bob Hartley credited Geoffrion with helping shape his own career.
"Boom Boom was an incredible man who meant a great deal to me and
I'm fortunate to have called him a friend and mentor," Hartley said in a
statement. "I'm sincerely honoured to be a part of the same coaching
fraternity and to follow his lead as an NHL head coach in Atlanta."
::MUSIC NEWS::
Matthew Lien: Yukon Gold
Excerpt from The Globe and
Mail - Alexandra Gill
(Mar. 11, 2006) VANCOUVER — Unless you live in Whitehorse, you've
probably never heard of Matthew Lien, the Yukon-based musician and
environmental activist who incorporates the sounds of rolling icebergs, calving
glaciers and fierce peregrine falcons attacking grizzly bears into his
classical and pop world-beat recordings. Why would you? In Canada, the
experimental self-producer doesn't even have a distribution deal.
Yet over in Taiwan, where Lien's instrumental albums top the
charts and concerts pack stadiums with more than 30,000 fans, he's a superstar
bigger than Jesus. Or at least that's the cheeky message of a new ad campaign
in which he stars as the poster boy for the latest brand of suds from Taiwan's
largest brewery. The Last Supper billboard is a takeoff of the Leonardo da
Vinci masterpiece. Now rolling out in Taiwan, it features the long-haired,
bearded 40-year-old at a table surrounded by funky, young apostles drinking
Gold Medal King, a new brand of all-natural, rice-fortified beer from Taiwan
Tobacco and Liquor Corp. (TTL). Just don't ask me to turn rice into beer,"
Lien says with a laugh over the phone from Taipei, where he lives part-time,
has a small recording studio and drinks his fair share of Taiwanese beer. Lien
says he was initially concerned that some people might be offended by the ad,
part of a huge promotional campaign that includes more eco-friendly 30-second
TV spots of him swimming, drinking and recording the sound of a waterfall in
Taiwan's rain forest. But he notes that this East Asian country, still
considered a renegade province by the People's Republic of China, is not
predominantly Christian. And to him, the Christ-figure promotion just sounded
like a lot of fun. "The environmental and cultural issues I address can be
quite serious, so I feel it's good to lighten things up from time to
time," Lien explains.
"And if everyone does their patriotic duty, then you never know.
Maybe Taiwan could drink its way to independence," he laughs. Slightly
chubby and teddy bear cuddly, Lien might not be as sexy as rock-and-roll singer
Wu Bai, the company's previous celebrity spokesperson. But as TTL chairman Ray
Dawn told the Taipei Times, he's confident they made the right choice. "We
wanted to show how fresh the beer is and how natural the ingredients are. But
more importantly, we wanted to use an international image to prove that Taiwan
Beer is accepted by people everywhere, not only in Taiwan." Indeed, Lien
says he's drunk so much of the stuff he should be given corporate shares. This
is the first time the TTL, which accounts for 80 per cent of Taiwan's
$1-billion-a-year (U.S.) beer market, has used a foreign face to advertise its
products. Mind you, it wasn't much of a risk. In Taiwan, Lien is a household
name with international album sales that typically outpace Celine Dion and Eric
Clapton. For someone who first set foot in the country a mere 10 years ago,
Lien's list of achievements in his adopted home away from home is phenomenal:
Last year, he was the first foreigner to win a Golden Melody Award (Taiwan's
equivalent of a Juno, and his second nomination). In 1999, after an earthquake
devastated the island, he headlined a series of benefit concerts that raised
more than $600,000 (U.S.) for relief efforts. In 2000, his music was performed
at the inauguration ceremony for Democratic Progressive Party President Chen
Shui-bian. Last fall, the Taiwan National Chinese Orchestra premiered his
commissioned work, The Eternal Beauty of Taiwan, for a National Day
celebration commemorating human rights. And thanks to his environmental
commitments, he has been appointed a cultural ambassador by two provincial
magistrates and the central government, and is now directly involved in the overhaul
of the national park system to allow for aboriginal co-management. So why is
his music so popular in Taiwan, while in Canada he remains virtually
unrecognized, save for a few small awards? "Good question," he says
laughing long and heartily. "I like to think it's just good music. On a
more serious note, he says the appeal of his supernatural-sounding compositions
might have something to do with the insular nature of the country.
"Because of Taiwan's dilemma with China, it doesn't enjoy the same international
connectedness. Diplomatically and geographically, it's a very inward-looking
culture. Things are changing and people in Taiwan are very aware of what's
going on around the world. But I suppose they appreciate the composed quality
of my music. It expresses the sounds and feelings and emotions of a pure
wilderness far away." Taiwan's love affair with Lien began in 1995, when Bleeding
Wolves, Lien's second independently produced album, was picked up by a tiny
Taiwanese record company at a trade conference in France. The album, a mournful
lament inspired by the Yukon government's wolf-kill program, sped to the top of
the charts, reaching multi-platinum status in Southeast Asia within a year of
being released. (For its 10th anniversary, Lien remastered and re-released the
album in 5.1 surround sound. Sales have already topped 10,000 units in Taiwan).
His initial success was helped along by inmates at a federal penitentiary
who had written a best-selling book about their emotional responses to his
music. On his first trip to Taiwan, he performed a concert at the very same
Tingwan Prison in the remote Penghu Islands. "It was like staging a prison
break," Lien recalls. "Many of the inmates had their eyes closed as
they listened. I can't tell you how incredibly rewarding that is -- using music
to bring people into a beautiful place when their own place is so
miserable." During the cross-country tour that followed, Lien performed in
many small communities where Taiwanese musicians don't typically tread. Along the
way, he picked up a strong following among aboriginal people, who had
discovered a kindred spirit through their shared connection to the land. Lien
himself is of Norwegian, German and Iroquois descent. His most recent release,
the Golden Melody Award-winning A Journey of Water, was commissioned by
the Yi-Lan provincial government. Two years in the making, the double-CD
involved more than 90 musicians (including an old man singing in his tea field)
and 100 hours of unique nature recordings. Seamlessly weaving traditional
instruments with drips, gurgles and roars of water, it follows the pathway of
the northeastern region's ecosystem, from the 3,000-year-old Cypress forests in
the mountains of Chi-Lan, across the plains of Lan Yang and all the way down to
volcanic vents, located 40 metres beneath the sea at Turtle Mountain Island.
"The underground volcano is still spewing out gas and boiling hot water.
It makes an unusual sound," explains the self-professed tech geek. "I
had to find out if we could record it." Lien arranged the complicated
ocean dive, using specially manufactured hydrophones with extra-long cables.
But because sound frequencies move too fast underwater to discern location, the
team didn't even know until they got back to the boat if they captured anything
at all before the microphones melted. "It did work and it sounds so
cool," Lien exclaims. "There is a story from that island about a
great general being cast into the ocean by a dragon king. The thundering sound
of the volcano is supposed to be his heart still pulsating. To hear it so
clearly is amazing." Lien says he does find it somewhat perplexing that he
hasn't received much recognition in Canada, where he's been making similar
nature recordings since the 1980s. Originally from San Diego, he spent his
summers in Whitehorse, where his father lived. At 16, the self-taught guitarist
and pianist made a permanent move to the Yukon, surviving for many years by
playing popular pub tunes in smoky bars. His profile in Canada is largely
restricted to a comprehensive website, http://www.matthewlien.com,
but he is set to ramp up his Canadian visibility later this year to support the
release of a new album. Arctic Refuge is his latest project for the
Caribou Commons Project, a coalition of environmental and aboriginal
representatives working to protect Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
from oil and gas development. "It's still in peril," Lien says,
sounding deeply worried. But should he not succeed, he can always drown his
sorrows in beer.
André Previn - Eclectic Musician Takes Gould
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - John Terauds, Classical Music Writer
(Mar. 15, 2006) He plays both jazz and
classical piano, has written music for stage, screen and concert hall. In the
sixth decade of a distinguished
musical career, and just weeks from his 77th birthday, André Previn may be slowing down
physically, but his creative juices still flow strongly. Previn was in
Toronto yesterday to accept the seventh Glenn Gould Prize. The $50,000 award,
bestowed every three years, recognizes people who have left a particularly big
mark on Western music. Previous recipients include Oscar Peterson, Yo-Yo Ma and
Pierre Boulez. The ceremony was in the form of a concert, presented at
the Glenn Gould Studio in the Canadian Broadcast Centre. The roster of
performers tackling Previn's compositions last night included Nicole Cabell,
the soprano who won the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition last year,
members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tania Miller, jazz
pianist Don Thompson and the Oliver Jones Trio. Also present on stage was
young Quebec pianist David Jalbert, accompanying the evening's other
prize-winning guest, Romanian double bass player Roman Patkoló. The Glenn
Gould Foundation, set up in 1982 to keep Gould's legacy alive, asks its
laureate to select the recipient of a $10,000 City of Toronto — Glenn Gould
International Protegé Prize in Music and Communication. Previn chose
Patkoló. Previn's wife and regular collaborator, violinist Anne-Sophie
Mutter, had heard Patkoló play and insisted that Previn witness the
talent. "He is one of the strongest string players I've ever
heard," said Previn yesterday afternoon. The composer in him was so
impressed that he has just completed a double concert for violin and double
bass, which will get its premiere next season. "It's a light-hearted piece
and people will love him."
Previn's family arrived in Los Angeles after leaving Germany via France
just before World War II. As a teenager, he began to play jazz piano, arrange
film scores and, at age 19, he took up conducting. And although he has
tended to focus on different aspects of music over time, his eclecticism has
never changed. "I'm just happy when people give me the opportunity
to try different things," he said, summing up his approach to music.
Currently music director of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and busy playing
and recording with ensembles big and small, Previn said he favours composing
right now. "When you're performing, you're hemmed in by geography,
but when you're writing music you can do it anywhere — in a plane, in a hotel
room, in a car," he said. One of several current projects is a new
opera. His first opera, A Streetcar Named Desire (adapted from Tennessee
Williams’ 1947 play by Philip Littell) was premiered by San Francisco Opera in
1998, with American diva Renée Fleming in the role of Blanche Du Bois.
Rave reviews have kept Streetcar on marquees. "Just this week, the
opera is in its 17th production by its 17th opera house. It's been such an
unexpected pleasure," Previn said. The second opera "is
overdue," he said. "It's based on Brief Encounter, an old
British film" from 1945, with screenplay by Noel Coward. Previn said he is
about a third of the way through and is hoping it will get a premiere in the
2007-08 season, although he declined to name the opera house. In the
meantime, there will be more recordings, some more jazz and hours spent
conducting European orchestras in 2006. Previn said that, although he
knew Gould and is particularly fond of his first recording of J.S. Bach's Goldberg
Variations, he never had an opportunity to work with "such an
extraordinary man." But Previn's is the sort of eclectic, energetic
career that does justice to Gould's legacy.
Sting Returns To Road
Excerpt from www.billboard.com - Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
(Mar. 10, 2006) Sting will return to the road this spring as part of the Broken Music
tour, which has previously found him stripping down to a four-piece
setup and revisiting Police material he hadn't performed in years. The trek
will begin June 4 at the Rock in Rio Festival in Lisbon and run through July 26
in Moscow. Beforehand, Sting will drop by the Caribbean island of Tobago
(April 23) as well as Puerto Rico (April 27), in advance of a previously
announced April 29 appearance at the annual Tiger Jam in Las Vegas. The
artist will be backed on the road by guitarists Dominic Miller and Lyle Workman
(Beck, Tom Waits). Drummer Josh Freese, who was behind the kit for the 2005
legs of the tour, will be replaced this time around by Paul McCartney's touring
drummer, Abe Laboriel Jr. And while no details have yet been
announced about Sting's next studio album or the live DVD shot last spring at New York's Irving
Plaza, he recently recorded a duet with Sheryl Crow, "Always on Your
Side," a tune that originally appeared on her 2005 album
"Wildflower." The track, which can be purchased at Apple's iTunes
Music Store, is the top debut on this week's Billboard Hot 100 at
No. 35. A video has also been shot by director Nigel Dick.
Here are Sting's tour dates:
April 23: Plymouth, Tobago (Jazz Festival)
April 27: San Juan, Puerto Rico (Coliseo de Puerto Rico)
April 29: Las Vegas (Mandalay Bay; Tiger Jam)
June 4: Lisbon (Rock in Rio)
June 6: Pembroke, Malta (City Square)
June 10: Limassol, Cyprus (Tsirion Stadium)
June 12: Burgas, Bulgaria (Sunny Beach)
June 16: Salonika, Greece (Earth Theatre)
June 17: Athens (Terravibe)
July 7: Weert, Holland (Bospop Festival)
July 8: Werchter, Belgium (TW Classic Festival)
July 15: Aarhus, Denmark (Town Square)
July 17: Bergen, Norway (Koengen)
July 19: Molde, Norway (Jazz Festival)
July 21: Stockholm (Jazz Festival)
July 22: Pori, Finland (Jazz Festival)
July 24: St. Petersburg (New Ice Arena)
July 26: Moscow (Olympiski)
Pinkett-Smith Fronts Metal Act
Excerpt from www.billboard.com - Katy Kroll
(Mar. 8, 2006) She's best known for her roles
in "The Nutty Professor," "The Matrix Reloaded" and
"The Matrix Revolutions," and as wife of
rapper/actor Will Smith. But now Jada Pinkett Smith has taken on her most unexpected role to date: singer of the
metal band Wicked Wisdom. "As women, we wear many different hats,"
Pinkett-Smith tells billboard.com. "For me, it's just as simple as when I
go to the Oscars I wear one hat. When I leave that red carpet I take that hat
off and put on the hat for the rock video that I have to do. That's pretty much
my life, even when it's not in front of the camera. One minute you have to be
the sex kitten in the bedroom with your husband, then you have to put on the
mommy hat to go wake the kids up." That wardrobe change has paid off
for her and bandmates Pocket Honore (guitar), Rio Lawrence (bass), Cameron
Graves (guitar/keyboards) and former Fishbone member Phillip Fisher (drums).
Last week, Wicked Wisdom's self-titled debut on 100% Womon/Suburban Noize
entered Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart at No. 44. Melding speed metal,
funk and melodic vocals, Wicked Wisdom began making a name for itself on last
summer's Ozzfest tour. "This is something that we've kinda
done on a D.L., underground level," she says. "It's been kinda like
this unravelling, this little discovery about Jada that nobody knew about. This
music and this image is completely different from the persona that people know
me as. It's nice when you can break down those perceptions and change
ideas."
Like any actor turned musician, Pinkett Smith has found it challenging to
make a name for herself on the road. But unlike most, her struggle goes beyond
overcoming the fact that she's a celebrity trying to make a dent in the rock
world. "There aren't a lot of African-Americans. There aren't
a lot of women. Period," she says. "I think the celebrity aspect
overrides it all. That has been the most challenging part. I haven't even been
able to concentrate on the fact that I'm a black female because the celebrity
aspect overshadows every other strike I have against me. "You have
to give people time to decide whether it's something they want to be on board
with. They'll be some people that are like, 'God, I'm glad she's doing this
music, she's a better musician than she is an actress,' and some people will
say, 'She needs to stick to her day job' or whatever," she adds with a
laugh. "Yes, it's been difficult, but it's also been one of the most gratifying
experiences to just knock people's socks off, because what I'm doing is so
unexpected." It's clear that audiences are warming up to the idea of
Pinkett Smith as a rock vocalist, but what about husband Will?
"He's just been a wonderful asset in his undying support, and I can't ask
for anything more than that," she says. "I don't know how many
husbands could really flow like this. You know, total change of career, takin'
the kids on the road, goin' to Ozzfest. I know it's been difficult for him, but
he's handled it very well." In fact, he even lent a hand as
executive producer for the Wicked Wisdom album. In the end, the project was as
much of a surprise to Pinkett-Smith as anyone else. "I never
dreamed I'd be fronting a heavy rock band," she says. "I've always
wanted to. I grew up on rock. If somebody had a crystal ball and told me,
'Sharon Osbourne's gonna ask you to go to Ozzfest.' I'd have been like, 'You're
f***ing crazy; there's no way in the world. Yeah, you trippin' with that
one.'" Wicked Wisdom is on tour with Sevendust through the end
of March.
LL Cool J: 'I Do What Comes Natural, What I Love'
Excerpt from www.billboard.com - Gail Mitchell
(Mar. 8, 2006) Grow. That word pops up
frequently in conversation with LL Cool J. Indeed, since the rapper became the first Def Jam artist to
release a single some 20 years ago, it seems to have become part of his mantra.
His focus on professional and spiritual growth has resulted in a
slew of hit records, two Grammy Awards and noteworthy roles on TV (including
hosting the 2005 Billboard Music Awards in December) and in film. That still
does not take into account his numerous humanitarian efforts, his role as a
product pitchman or the recent launch of his Todd Smith clothing line during
New York's Fashion Week. "I'm having a great time, a real good
time," he tells Billboard. "Very thankful about where my career is
at. Hopefully, I'll be able to give people some good, quality music and film in
the future." Fresh off the success of his latest film with Queen
Latina, "Last Holiday," and on the eve of releasing his 12th Def Jam
album -- "Todd Smith," which comes from the rapper's given name,
James Todd Smith -- LL looks back on what has powered his double-decade career.
The theme of "Last Holiday" was all about possibilities in
life. This could be applied to your own. Did you think 20 years ago that you
would be where you are now?
Honest to God, I can tell you that the answer is no. I mean, where I'm at
was a fantasy back then. I guess I focus so much on trying to build and trying
to grow that maybe sometimes I don't even pay attention to where I'm at.
What was your aim starting out? Just to record and album and get on
the charts?
A: My aim was just to hear my record on the radio. I just wanted to hear
my record on the radio and get a Mercedes [laughs]. In that order [laughs].
That was it. I just kept working at it and God blessed me. I've just been
focusing on growing as a human being spiritually and as a businessman and as an
artist; To consistently go after new things and allow myself to mature. Let
more people into my life to help me creatively and on all levels. This all has
just been a growing process.
In the past you have said you feel you are at the beginning of your
career again because there are so many possibilities out there. Do you still
feel that is true?
Yes, of course. I'm still very young in dog years. I've just been doing
this a
long time in terms of being a professional. I still look forward to having a
lot more fun [and] introducing the world to some interesting things I have
going on in my life, [like] doing more films [and] working on more companies.
Since finishing your new album, "Todd Smith," how would you
compare the studio process then versus now?
If I had to choose whether or not it gets easier or harder, I would have
to say it gets harder. Well, you know what, maybe that's not correct. It's just
different. The challenge always becomes trying to do the best work you can,
trying to make the best music you can, trying to do something that's really
exciting -- and at the same time not repeating yourself.
On the album you have as guests Mary J. Blige, Lyfe Jennings, Freeway,
Jennifer Lopez again...
Also Mary, Mary, 112, Teairra Mari, Ginuwine. Juelz Santana.
What producers did you work with?
Bink, Trackmasters, Pharell Williams, Jermaine Dupri.
In such a youth-oriented industry, do you feel pressured to make
records that will attract that market?
I don't really know how to do that. All I can really do is what I do and
what comes natural, what I love. All I can do is make the best music I
can and hope that people enjoy it. Whatever project I'm involved with, I try to
make it positive and fun and cool. I just make it to my taste, in other words,
and go from there.
Along those lines, you're a father of four children whose ages range
from 5 to 16. The subject matter of hip-hop and videos has gotten much racier
over time. As your kids get older, how do you reconcile that with what you do?
A: Look, let's be frank about: it could be cleaner. There's room for a
little more positivity. I think women can be displayed in a way that's
beautiful without making them look like tramps. It is what it is. There's no
need in pretending that's not a problem. It is. Everybody has the right
to see what they want to see and at a certain age. God gave us free will, so
who am I to try and impose my will on someone else? But that being said, he gave
us liberty, but at the same time you still want to take responsibility for the
people you're influencing. That doesn't mean I won't do any sexy videos.
It doesn't mean I don't want to have beautiful girls in my videos or in the
stuff I'm doing. I just think it could be a little classier sometimes, that's
all. I don't want this to seem like I'm bashing my industry because I'm not.
The industry as a whole is in a good place. We've just got to take a few more
risks [and understand] that people would like something different.
What was your aim when you started out in this business?
I just wanted to hear my record on the radio and get a Mercedes. In that
order. [laughs] That was it. I just kept working at it, and God blessed me.
What has changed the most about the music industry in the last 20
years?
Rap music has become much more visually driven, much more money-driven
and even more producer-driven.
Is that a good or bad thing?
Just different. The visual thing is tough but not necessarily bad.
Nowadays, your video is as important as your song. So now you not only have to
be a person who can make great music, but you have to be able to deliver a
vision on it. But then again, that part is good, because it makes you really
have to dig deep as an artist. As far as it being more economically
driven, I mean, you know, that's good and bad. You make more money, but at the
same time it's a trade-off.
Do you think you could start in the record business today?
It's cool that's a question I'll never have to answer. [laughs] I'll let
you answer that. Whatever you say is right. How about no? That's even funnier.
After all these years, do you consider yourself a legend?
A legend? I guess I'd say no, only because considering yourself a legend
would mean letting your past hold your future hostage, and I don't do that. At
some point you embrace what you've done and [are] happy. If you've got your
hands on the plow and you look back, the lines won't be straight in the ground.
You've got to keep moving forward. But I definitely respect and
appreciate the amount of time I've been doing what I'm doing, and I know it's a
unique position to be in, and I don't take it for granted.
But it's still fun for you?
Absolutely. I love it. I love the creative and the people. The politics I
could do without. But the politics and the hard work just come with that.
Jay-Z once said no one wants to see a 45-year-old rapper. Do you agree
there is a shelf life, so to speak, for rappers?
We've got to see where this industry is going. As much as I respect that
sentiment, the reality is there will be 45-year-old rap fans. Who will they
want to see? So the question more importantly for me would be, do I want to be
doing this in 10 years? I can't answer that. I don't know what I want to do 10
years from now. I don't know if when I'm in my mid-40s I'll want to do what I
was willing to do in my mid- to late 30s.
For the past 10 years you have managed your own music career. Is it
hard juggling being an artist and a manager? Do people think they can take
advantage?
[laughs] Well, you can think what you want to think. Now whether or not
you can actually pull it off, that's another conversation. This ain't just
been... 20 years of champagne popping and going chain swinging. I prefer to
take a hands-on approach to my career; it just gives me a certain level of
comfort. I don't want to make it seem I'm the be-all, end-all and the buck
stops here all the time. I have a lot of people I consult with.
You have had your brushes with disses, and watched the feud between
Nas and Jay-Z play out. How do you feel about these types of feuds in the
hip-hop community?
Peace is always better than war. Competition is fun in hip-hop, but you
can be competitive by making good records. We don't have to dis one another.
But at the same time, there's nothing wrong with that either as long as it
stays [rooted] in fun.
Which of your albums represents the quintessential LL Cool J?
I don't think there is such a thing as quintessential. To use Michael
Jackson as an example, you could compare "ABC" to "Rock With
You" -- they are from different eras but equally important. On a
sentimental level, "Mama Said Knock You Out" is an important record,
because it was dedicated to my grandmother [who] passed away. Album-wise, I
don't really have a favourite. Maybe the "Mr. Smith" album to a
certain extent, just because it was a time of maturity and a time when I went
to a different level in my mind -- spiritually, emotionally, mentally, psychologically.
Art is funny. I don't have one [favourite] record. I have quite a few singles I
like lot. My favourite single is "Doin' It."
Who are your biggest influences?
I'm influenced by everything. As music changes, my influences change.
What influenced me in 1996 is not necessarily what influences me now. Right
now, I'm influenced by everything that's out now, that's going on now.
Madonna has been a strong influence on me in a lot of ways. I've always admired
the way she's handled her career. They counted her out, and she's caught up
right now. There's a very what-have-you-done-for-me-lately mentality in
the music business. But art and the music business are two different things,
and you can never count a great artist out.
Who haven't you worked with yet who is still on your wish list?
Those are the types of things I kind of let happen naturally.
Are you planning to tour?
I haven't toured on any of my albums since, like, "Mr. Smith,"
but I think I may tour on this one. I like it. I think it's worthy. Not that
the others weren't. But I think this one feels like a record that I want to get
out and tour on. It just feels right.
Do you like touring?
I like the actual concert. Everything in between I could do without.
[laughs] The airports, [going] in and out of the hotels, that's tough for me.
That's why I hardly tour. It's just so gruelling. But I think I'm going to go
ahead and give people some love on this one.
What is your take on the whole debate about rappers turning to acting?
It's our responsibility as human beings to maximize the use of all of our
talents. That's a biblical principal. You're supposed to use all of your
talents. If you don't put everything to use, then it will be taken from you. So
to limit yourself and not take advantage of everything you have the potential
to do is foolish.
Do you find yourself pigeonholed in terms of scripts because you are a
rapper?
People would only be able to pigeonhole me if I was greedy. I could work
a lot more as an actor doing stereotypical roles that people associate with
rappers, but I choose not to. It's not easy. They didn't think of me for
"Last Holiday," [because the role was] way, way different than
anything I've ever done. The studio had to be convinced. People don't associate
me with an everyday guy like the guy in the movie. It's not so much about the
degree of difficulty, it's about how far away it is from how people perceive
you. I've definitely been through that, and I still go through that. But I think
"Last Holiday" is a perfect example of me getting the opportunity to
get outside of that box.
This next question is for the ladies. How often do you work out to
maintain your physique?
I'm actually in the process of doing a book. We just put together a deal
for a workout book that will give people the ins and outs of how I do what I do
physically -- my diet, my workout, my philosophy, my ideology. It will probably
come at the top of next year.
Is there a second autobiography on the horizon?
I want to see what happens with this workout book. It has a lot of
material in there, [and] it will be very personal. We'll see what happens from
there. If, God willing, I live a little bit more, then we can address the
sequel.
Mezzo-Soprano's Honesty A Second Rare Gift Songbird
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - By John Terauds
(Mar. 12, 2006) You can make yourself crazy trying to figure out what
makes an artist great. Until you have a chat with Denyse
Graves. The
American mezzo-soprano, now in her early 40s, has gone from a childhood in one
of Washington, D.C.'s black neighbourhoods (the ones without the gleaming, wide
boulevards) to the toast of the world's stages. The diva, who will join a
glittering who's who to honour retiring Metropolitan Opera general manager
Joseph Volpe on May 20, has recorded pop, jazz, spirituals, art songs and
opera. She also hosts the weekly Voce di donna show on XM satellite
radio, which takes listeners backstage into the vocal world. Despite the
acclaim she commands, Graves comes across as remarkably down-to-earth during a
recent interview. It quickly becomes clear that the secret to her success boils
down to honesty in conveying music from stage to audience. "I try to mix
it up," she says. "I like to listen to a little bit of everything, so
I hope my audiences will, too." When she arrives at the George
Weston Recital Hall on March 16, the program will mix art songs with opera
arias and traditional spirituals. Graves, who spends roughly equal time in
opera productions and singing solo, loves the recital work. "Opera
is a collaborative effort. Usually, you're selling the ideas of the director.
You're selling a story whether you believe it or not. But in a recital, I can
do what I want and express it the way I want to express it." Graves
treats each song like a "mini opera." And she likes the challenge:
"You have to create atmosphere, sets and lighting with your presence on
stage." In a recital, she says, the performer must care; she must
"shoulder all the glory or all of the blame." In Toronto,
Graves will be joined by her husband, French clarinet player Vincent Thomas.
And perhaps backstage will be her 20-month-old daughter Ella Thaïs (Ella comes
from Fitzgerald, and Thaïs is a favourite character from French opera.)
She occasionally wishes she had a steady job. "But then, I tend to
get itchy feet after three or four days. I guess I'm conditioned to being on
the road." One of Graves's most significant recent achievements has
been in premiering the title role in the opera Margaret Garner. The
deeply serious work, with music by Richard Danielpour, stages Toni Morrison's
novel Beloved, the saga of a recaptured slave who kills her youngest
daughter so she won't have to experience slavery again. Margaret
Garner — and Graves's portrayal — met with rave reviews in Detroit last
May. "It fills me with a great sense of pride and honour to tell these
stories," she says. "This is a story from my own heritage, so felt I
really needed to get it right and to do it justice." The late
American poet Laura Riding, in a preface to a 1975 collection, wrote:
"Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating
truth." Denyse Graves ends up enhancing truth with her honest
artifice. It's a rare gift.
George Weston Recital Hall, Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge
St., March 16; 8 p.m.; $50-$150 at ticketmaster.ca or 416-872-1111.
Hip Hoppers Little Brother Bring Message To Youth Of Individual
Responsibility
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Ashante Infantry, Entertainment Reporter
(Mar. 11, 2006) Two-thirds of Little
Brother took the stage at The Phoenix with a
swagger that would make 50 Cent proud. Clad in baggy jeans
andT-shirts, emcees Phonte and Big Pooh (producer 9th Wonder was absent) didn't
scrimp on the cuss words while delivering rhymes from their major label debut The Minstrel Show.
With the sound off — or on, if you're deficient in hip hop-ese, the North
Carolina duo's hard-core posturing and propensity to rest the non-mic hand
about their general crotch region could have one believe they're drawing from
rap's gangsta well. In fact, the pair take that side of the genre to task
on The Minstrel Show, a soulful, satiric concept album organized like a
show on fictional television network UBN (U Black N---ers). Their songs
delve into such topics as parenting, romance and fashion, while dissing the
materialism, violence and
misogyny flaunted by some of their peers. Using as a metaphor the
vaudeville acts of yore in which whites in blackface would put on musical
performances mocking blacks, Little Brother posits that much commercial hip hop
and R&B do just that. "As rappers, we have to take
responsibility for what we say and the images we portray," Phonte says in
the group's publicity material. "If not, we're doing essentially what
minstrel shows did: perpetuating negative images and reinforcing those negative
stereotypes." They shared that commitment to individual
responsibility with the 70 local youth they met with at Scadding Community
Centre before last night's show. Big Pooh and Phonte sat on a panel with
Flow 93.5 FM personality Jemeni, Toronto spoken-word artist Dwayne Morgan and
the Argos Michael Fletcher for a discussion with the students of the Oasis
Alternative School. "My parents used and abused drugs ... my two
brothers are in jail — one for armed robbery, one for attempted murder — my
sister was pregnant at 13," revealed Compton, Calif., native Fletcher.
But the 2005 CFL East Division defensive player of the year encouraged
the teens, who had been expelled from their regular high schools for various
reasons. "Despite all that, I'm still living my dream," he
said. "You're not the first or last person to be in your shoes. But still
dream big and believe in yourself. If you work hard, someone will be there to
help you." Some of the youth responded with heard-it-all-before
smirks, others weren't buying the love-in given the presence of TV cameras and
photographers. "Is this a promotion or are you trying to talk to us?"
asked Clarisa, 17. "This is genuine; I'm not getting paid for
this," Phonte responded fervently. "We want to talk to you, see
what's on your mind. We have no control over the cameras. I have a better
chance of making the news by shooting somebody, truth be told."
Warner Music Canada's Steve Waxman hastened to explain that journalists were
present to "help get the message out," and that the label is in talks
with other record companies about making such forums the norm for visiting
hip-hop artists, given Toronto's rash of gun violence. "A lot of
what is happening in Toronto is the beginning of bad stuff," Waxman said.
"A group like Little Brother who grew up in areas where the bad stuff was
all around them and rose above it ... we want to encourage kids to keep working
to empower themselves rather than fall in with gangs." The
discussion continued with debates about the depiction of women and thuggism in
rap. When Morgan challenged the girls in the audience to stop supporting
artists who demean women in their songs and videos, a few interjected that the
scantily clad dancers and actors in the videos aren't being victimized because
they are paid for their services. "She might not be a victim, but
you might be or your sister might be," Morgan countered. "Because all
these guys that watch these videos are going to think it's okay to treat you
like that ...." Brian, 19, said he was tired of rap getting blamed
for its portrayal of women. "What about Hugh Hefner?" he asked. "Look
what he's done to women. Let those girls do what they want in the
videos." Aspiring rapper Hilal, 19, was confused about how to meld
his reality and his art. "If I rap about what I see in my neighbourhood —
my homies selling drugs or dying — does that make me a negative rapper?"
he asked. "You have to talk about the whole thing, not just the
money, the fame and the glamour," Big Pooh said. "Show all sides of
the spectrum and listeners will decide for themselves." As the forum
ended, Clarisa said: "To be honest, they didn't say anything new, but it's
good for them to refresh our memories and to keep our hopes up."
Hal Jackman Donates $5 Million
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Martin Knelman, mknelman@thestar.ca
(Mar. 9, 2006) It was one of the longest
courtships in the history of cultural philanthropy, but at last Hal Jackman has
stepped forward as a major donor to Toronto's new opera house. Jackman —
a former president of the Canadian Opera Company board — has pledged $5 million for the Four Seasons Centre for
the Arts. In recognition of his gift, the patrons' lounge (which
stretches along Queen St.) will bear his name. In the tradition of the
melodramatic, Jackman waited until the final act to make his move. Toronto's
long-awaited opera house at Queen and University is now within months of
completion, with opening gala concerts set for June. Why now?
"I had to be sure I had the money," Jackman said yesterday in a phone
interview. "I'm still paying off the $15 million I donated to the
University of Toronto. The timing of my gift to the opera house has a lot to do
with getting my affairs in order." Maybe, but to anyone involved in
the world of arts philanthropy, it would be unthinkable for Toronto to build an
opera house without a major gift from Jackman, and a significant naming
opportunity. That is not just because Jackman — former lieutenant
governor of Ontario and former chancellor of the University of Toronto — has
one of Toronto's 20 greatest fortunes (estimated by Canadian Business magazine
at more than $700 million). It is also because in Toronto opera lore,
Jackman is an almost mythic figure who started leading the fight two decades
ago to build a true Toronto opera house. He was a key figure driving the doomed
Bay and Wellesley ballet/opera house designed by Moshe Safdie. But the
cost escalated to $311 million, and the project was cancelled by newly elected
premier Bob Rae after board leaders rejected Rae's plea to scale back the
project. Its demise was such a painful blow to Jackman that he had some
hesitation getting behind the opera house that finally is being built —
designed by Jack Diamond on a budget less than half that of the Safdie
extravaganza. "Hal is one of our greatest supporters, and I'm
thrilled to bits," Canadian Opera Company general director Richard
Bradshaw said yesterday. "I just hope his leadership will encourage
others, including governments, to help ensure we not only finish the building
but also build a solid endowment fund."
What Bradshaw does not mention is that he has been involved in a dialogue
with Jackman for three or four years, and Waiting for Hal became a recurrent,
semi-humorous theme of the opera company's fund-raising team. One reason
Jackman opted to take his time: He was outraged and offended by the thought of
paying capital gains tax. But in the last election campaign, the
Conservatives promised to eliminate the tax in the case of charitable donors
giving money in the form of stocks. Donald K. Johnson, a former Nesbitt Burns
vice-chair who crusaded to kill the tax, says chances are strong the tax will
be eliminated in the Harper government's first budget. "There's no
guarantee but as a betting man I would say the odds are 10-to-1 the law will change,"
says Johnson. In that case, since Jackman has made his pledge but not
started payments, his gift will be tax-free. That should call for a joyful aria
or two — and inspire others waiting for the right moment to make a big
gift. For the opera house as well as the Art Gallery of Ontario and the
Royal Ontario Museum, this spring is definitely crunch time, with fundraisers
desperately scrambling for enough money to complete their projects without
crippling deficits. Bradshaw needs another $30 million or so to finish
the job — and that's not counting a crucial endowment fund.
Rock Star Hopefuls Take Their Shot At Stardom
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
- Guy Dixon
(Mar. 14, 2006) Vince Benenati, who already has some rock-star credentials, still had to wait
outside a downtown Toronto rock club startingat
7 a.m. yesterday, just one of the hundreds of would-be superstars lined up in
the early-morning drizzle. Everyone wound up having to wait five hours or so to
get inside just to sing one verse and one chorus to some TV producers in the
hope making it to the televised finals of the reality show Rock Star. This is serious business. The majority of those auditioning are
already in bands and work hard at their music. Most perform regularly in
Toronto or in home towns such as Guelph or Burlington. Benenati is also in a
rock group called Hello Libido, which gigs around Toronto and is planning to
record an album. Benenati, a 25-year-old auto mechanic, made it to the top 12
on CTV's Canadian Idol last season and is now taking another run at fame
with CBS's Rock Star, which will air this summer in Canada on Global.
"Whatever way it takes to get there, we will get there," he said
outside in the line, motioning to his friend and band mate Luca Caracciolo. In Rock
Star's first season last year, Toronto singer J. D. Fortune won, becoming
the new front man for veteran rock band INXS. Those auditioning yesterday had
no idea what band they are ultimately trying out for. Rumours in the music
industry -- and the industry does pay a lot of attention to these popular
reality shows -- speculated that it could be Van Halen looking for a new singer
or even Queen. Yesterday, the producers would only say that it wouldn't be a
long-standing act, but a super group comprised of famous rockers from past
bands.
As the auditions move from city to city for the rest of the month,
Vancouver on March 23 is the only other Canadian stop. Around noon, Benenati
finally got his turn and sang a few bars of Stairway To Heaven with
Caracciolo. They avoided the cringe factor by not trying to imitate
Robert Plant and, in fact, sang and harmonized well. Immediately after they
played, one of the producers walked over to them in the dark, noisy club, and
asked them to come to a callback on Wednesday. The two also had an
interview with Entertainment Tonight, which never lets a hyped-up,
reality-show mob scene go to waste. But there were many great auditions that
will never past the test. Call it the true reality behind the reality show.
There was Steve Curtis, 25 from Peterborough, Ont. An imposing figure on stage,
he sang the Peggy Lee standard Fever soulfully and without irony. It was
a gamble, he conceded afterwards, but, "If I can be the first big, fat,
gay guy to win Rock Star, then rock on!" Grant Erlick, 33, of
Burlington, sang the Star-Spangled Banner with maximum vocal gymnastics,
like a male Mariah Carey. He had waited since 6 a.m. to perform.
Joy Thompson, 27, a Toronto singer-songwriter who works in a call centre
by day, sang Oasis's Hello. A short black woman with long braided hair,
she sounded nothing like Oasis singer Liam Gallagher, but handled the song very
well. "It's really nerve-racking at first, because you're waiting in line
for so long. And then right before I'm going on, I completely blanked and I
forgot the words and everything. But I had to do it," she said. Then there
was musician Jason Taylor, 31, of Guelph, who performed pop-punk band Simple
Plan's Untitled and thought he utterly failed. Accompanying himself on
guitar, he nervously rolled his eyes at the occasional missed notes. Right
after breaking into the chorus, "How can this happen to me/I've made my
mistakes," he fell apart and even said into the mike how much he was
messing up. Taylor may have felt he had blown it, but it was perfect
rock-star timing, given the words he had just sung. "I practise a lot, a
lot, a lot and I totally messed up huge," Taylor said moments later, still
racked with nerves. But as a clever send-up of the whole audition process, the
performance was brilliant. When told this, and how fine his singing actually
was, his eyes lit up.
Meet 13 Year-Old Singing Sensation Tiffany Evans
Source:
Langston Sessoms / ThinkTank Marketing / langston@thinktankmktg.com/ www.thinktankmktg.com
"I really admire Whitney, Mariah,
Marvin Gaye, Billie Holiday, and Aretha Franklin. I have a real love of the
music that came before me because it just feels so real. Without it we wouldn't
have the music of today." -- Tiffany Evans
(Mar. 10, 2006) Like many girls her age, 13-year-old Tiffany
Evans
practices dance moves in front of the mirror, pours over fashion magazines,
goes to the movies, spends time reading (she's fond of history), and loves
hanging out with her friends. Though her interests might be typical for a teen,
her musical gifts are another story. Tiffany Evans, her eagerly-awaited debut
album on Sony Urban Music/Columbia Records, will show the world how special her
talents really are. Featuring songs and production from Grammy winners Salaam
Remi (Fugees) and Narada Michael Walden (Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin,
Mariah Carey) as well as Soulshock (Frankie J, Seal, Usher, Toni Braxton) and Karlin
(Nelly, Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston), Tiffany Evans showcases a young lady
blessed with determination, a multi-octave voice that's been compared to Patti
Labelle and Whitney Houston, and a heart-soaring passion for music. Recorded in
2005, Tiffany Evans reflects the timeless soulful sensibilities of her musical
influences. "I really admire Whitney, Mariah, Marvin Gaye, Billie Holiday,
and Aretha Franklin," Tiffany offers. "I have a real love of the
music that came before me because it just feels so real. Without it we wouldn't
have the music of today." Multiple Grammy-winner Narada Michael
Walden helped Tiffany craft a new version of his "Let Me Be Your
Angel," originally a smash hit in 1980 for the then-13-year-old Stacy
Lattisaw. Tiffany makes the song her own, infusing it with a fresh and
openhearted honesty.
Tiffany reworks other classics including a show-stopping rendition of
"And I'm Telling You," the "Dreamgirls'" signature song
first performed by Jennifer Holiday during the musical's original Broadway run.
Tackling musical staples might have been daunting, but Tiffany welcomed the
opportunity to put her stamp on familiar material. Produced by Salaam Remi,
"Who I Am," the album's inspirational first single, is a mid-tempo
song with an unusual history (it was originally a hit for Nashville star
Jessica Andrews). "At first I was like, 'A country song? How is that going
to fit for me?'" Tiffany admits. She proceeded to pour her heart into the
song, making its message relevant to her audience. "It tells young women
that it’s ok to be who you are," she says. "You can have your make up
off, you don't have to be trendy, you can just be who you are and show your
real personality. It's ok just to be real." The groove-drenched "Strong
Enough" is a song that will "…give young girls and women a sense of
confidence, sort of like my own version of (Destiny's Child's) 'Independent
Women.'" "Angels On Earth" is Tiffany's "favourite
song" on the album. "I listen to it whenever I'm down," she says
"It helped me realize that if I'm in a bad situation all I have to do is
just pray on it, keep my faith up and things will work out."
Thanks to faith, family and friendship, Tiffany's learned the importance
of courage and faith from first-hand experience. Born in the Bronx, one of ten
children, Tiffany was raised by caring parents who sang to their kids and
encouraged their artistic expressions. From a young age, Tiffany's been in love
with music. She would practice for hours and, before long, it became obvious
she was blessed with a special talent. But, the Evans family had hard times to
face before Tiffany would realize her dreams. When the house they'd been
renting was sold out from under them, Tiffany's father moved the family to
Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the hopes of securing work and a new home. To a
little girl born and raised in the Bronx, the faded elegance of Atlantic City
held out the promise of a new beginning. "When we got there--oh my
goodness--the lights looked like stars!" Tiffany remembers. As the family
toured the city, Tiffany noticed a hotel showcasing a room called the Tiffany
Lounge. "Oh, Daddy! Look!," she exclaimed, "It's named after
me!" Since the Tiffany Lounge was an all ages venue, Tiffany and her
father decided to check out a show. The master of ceremonies looked out into
the audience, saw Tiffany, stepped off the stage, handed the little girl a
microphone and asked her if she could sing. Tiffany responded with a
heart-stopping rendition of "I Will Always Love You" that left the
audience slack-jawed and mesmerized. Before long, Tiffany was working with a
vocal teacher who told the 10-year-old chanteuse she had "a gift from
God" and should audition for "Star Search." Tiffany went to New
York City to stand in line for four hours in the dead of winter before her
audition. Delivering a roof-raising rendition of "Stormy Weather,"
she aced the audition and secured a spot on the show. In February 2003, on her
fourth "Star Search" appearance, Tiffany Evans won the Grand Champion
title in the junior singer division, becoming the only performer in "Star
Search" history to receive perfect five scores on all of her appearances.
That same year, Tiffany sang for executives at Columbia Records and was
quickly offered a deal. With her musical career already on the upswing, she
landed a small role on CBS's "The District," and appeared in the hit
film, "The Diary of a Mad Black Woman," in 2004. Tiffany continues to
pursue acting with an eye on more film and TV work. "I hope people will
get to know who I am and get the chance to connect with me through my
songs," she says. "I've had some tough experiences but I've come
through it all. I know if you can dream it, you can achieve it." Take a
listen to her debut single "Who Am I" produced by Salaam Remi.
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Tony Terry Is Back: R&B/Pop Vocalist Set To Return With
Gospel CD
Source: Black Gospel Promo
(Mar. 10, 2006) Tony Terry has been wooing his fans all over the country for over a decade.
His smooth enchanting melodies have captured the
hearts of female and male patrons alike. Tony Terry's style transcends
age groups and his multi-selling hits, "She's Fly", "Lovey,
Dovey", "Forever Yours", "With You," "Everlasting
Love," "Head Over Heels," "When A Man Cries" and the
now classic - "With You" to name a few, continue to sell, and have
become timeless classics. In recent years he has performed live with Jodeci,
Boyz II Men, Gladys Knight, Celine Dion, Stevie Wonder and is currently touring
with Roberta Flack. Tony has collaborated with Gospel sensation Yolanda
Adams on a duet entitled, "You Gotta Have Love," as well as with new
Gospel artists, Denver Wright and The Collective on their hit "If You're
Gonna Worry, Don't Pray." Tony Terry is returning to recording with a new
image, new sound and two new hit albums entitled, "Changed!" Tony is
a pure example of desire and determination. He's evolved throughout his career
and still has been able to hold on to the essence of what he really is, a
"True singer. "I am grateful to God for all I've been able to
achieve, but I'm not finished yet," Tony exclaims! He wants his fans old
and new to experience an artist who is willing to give the best the he's got
and then some. "Changed!" is a testament of just that. Featuring
blazing tracks such as "Praise Him," "I Wanna Thank You,
Lord" and "Nobody Like Jesus" and soul-stirring songs like
"Look to the Hills," "Jesus to Hold" and "Come Child,"
Tony Terry is back and he's ready to give his listener's what they have been
missing.
In Stores April 18th!
Tony is currently signed to Studio 25 Recordings. The first single from
the new Gospel project is currently released and the forthcoming CD is
scheduled for a release April 18th in conjunction with the Jordan Entertainment
Group and Koch Entertainment.
Def Soul's 'Baby Makin' Music' Gets New Date
Source: Langston Sessions / ThinkTank Marketing / langston@thinktankmktg.com / www.thinktankmktg.com
(Mar. 13, 2006) *Clad
in jeans and a checkered shirt, Ron Isley is warming up at the mike at The Henry Fonda Theater in Los
Angeles. It’s a
few hours before showtime: Ron’s riffing and it’s one of those trademark vocal
runs that have been seducing women and setting guys up for the seduction for decades
of baby-makin’ music…. Fast forward and it’s showtime. Ron, now fitted
out in a pale mauve suit hits the stage before a rapturous audience. “Between
The Sheets” is the perfect opener, Ron giving the crowd his smooth, soulful
best while brother Ernie, looking ever mysteriously hip and cool he lays down
those mean guitar licks. Midway through the set, he delivers the Isley
baby-makin’ classic “For The Love Of You”: women call out, the fellas nod
approval, everyone is singing along. Later in the show, Ron leaves the stage
for a brief outfit change. His musical alter ego, “Mr. Biggs” returns in a
bright red suit, gangster lean, hat to the side. It’s on… BABY MAKIN’ MUSIC, , a natural title for
a new album by The Isley Brothers featuring Ron Isley aka “Mr. Biggs” For, in
the annals of contemporary music, few groups or artists can lay claim to
creating as many slow jams and bedroom classics, classics that set the perfect
right mood for romance leading to seduction, seduction leading to passion and,
yes, in more than one instance, passion as a prelude to a rise in the birth
rate! “Yes, we’ve been making baby-makin’ music for quite a while,” Ron grins
with confidence, aware that his smooth-yet-soulful vocal style has brought
pleasure to millions of music lovers for five decades now. The Isleys’
catalogue, filled with funky grooves like “It’s Your Thing,” “Fight The Power”
and “Take Me To The Next Phase” is also rich with eternal love songs like “In
Between The Sheets,” “For The Love Of You,” “Summer Breeze,” “Smooth Sailin’
Tonight,” “Voyage To Atlantis” and in more recent times, “Floatin’ On Your
Love,” the 2001 pop/R&B smash “Contagious.” And for good measure, there’s
Ron’s now-firmly established musical character “Mr. Biggs” offering “Down Low
(Nobody Has To Know),” the 1996 hit collaboration with R.
Kelly, showing another side of love, the lyrical subject matter for more than a
few Isley standards… Now comes BABY MAKIN’ MUSIC, the team’s first CD for Def
Soul, following in the tradition of great Isley Brothers’ records, filled with
new love odes, hit cuts and future classics. From the album’s first single, the
inviting, instantly memorable “Just Came Here To Chill” - a tune Ron says
“sounds like vintage Isley Brothers” - written and produced by Troy Taylor
(known for his work with Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston and Yolanda Adams among
others) and Gordon Chambers (Grammy-award winning writer for Anita Baker and
producer for Aretha Franklin, Brandy and others) to the insistent “Blast Off,”
a new duet between “Mr. Biggs” and R. Kelly, completed just weeks before the
album’s release, BABY MAKIN’ MUSIC continues the Isleys’ legacy without missing
a beat.
The first Isleys Brothers’ album since 2003’s gold Body Kiss set and
Ron’s own 2003 solo album, Isley Meets Bacharach (a critically-acclaimed
masterful collaboration with the legendary producer, songwriter, arranger and
conductor), BABY MAKIN’ MUSIC begins the group’s incredible sixth decade in the
music industry. “It’s our sound with an updated twist, “ Ron comments. “We’re
always looking at new ways of interpreting love songs. On this album, I was
introduced to some producers and writers who wrote material especially for me.
I’d never worked with (producer) Jermaine Dupri before and I was anxious to do
that. He did three songs: the first one he played me I liked right away and
that was “Gotta Be With You” which tells the story of a guy who’s been in the
game for a while. Then he also did “Beautiful” and “Forever Mackin,’” which is
perfect for “Mr. Biggs”!” The ‘tough’ image associated with ‘Biggs,’ Ron’s
musical alter-ego is “just a part of me,” he smiles. “I got the name from the
younger artists telling me, ‘hey, you’re the man!’ It’s not so much that I’m
playing a gangster…more a musical ‘godfather’!” Producers Tim & Bob
(masterminds behind R&B sensation Bobby Valentino) wrote and produced the
infectious “You’re My Star” which features a sample of “The Makings Of You,”
the perennial 1974 recording by Gladys Knight & The Pips penned by the late
great Curtis Mayfield as well as “Pretty Woman,” which features Ron’s wife
Kandy on background vocals and brother Ernie adding his famed guitar licks to the
track. Ernie can also be heard on “Heaven Hooked Us Up” (produced by Troy
Taylor and “Zeke” Lewis) one of the standout ballads on BABY MAKIN’ MUSIC,
which Ron says is “dedicated to Kandy because she is like a true blessing in my
life.” Ron explains that he’d worked with producer Taylor on a duet with Patti
Labelle (“Gotta Go Solo”) a few years back: “When he heard about Kandy and I
getting married, he wrote “Heaven Hooked Us Up” and then “You Help Me Write
This Song,” which is like the follow-up to it. It reminds me of our wedding,
that first dance with Kandy at the wedding… I like to tell her she made me give
up being a playa!” Rounding out BABY MAKIN’ MUSIC are two special cuts
from Manuel Seal, Jr., (co-producer of Mariah Carey’s smash “We Belong Together”
and Usher’s smash hit, “My Boo” with Alicia Keys): the slow-building “Show Me”
is “real baby-makin’ music!” Ron grins, “tasteful but explicit!” In the same
vein, as its’ title implies, “Give It To You” gets straight to the point: “I’d
say it’s a 2006 version of “Between The Sheets,” a song about a guy who didn’t
get the chance to make love with his woman the last time they were together,”
Ron adds. “When they do, well, you can imagine the rest….” BABY MAKIN’ MUSIC
continues the unparalleled history of a group whose name has appeared on the
charts for each of the last five decades, a feat achieved by no other family
team in music history. The name “Isley” first graced the Top 50 in 1959 with
“Shout,” four years after the group was formed in Cincinnati, Ohio. The
original recording line-up included Ronald and older brothers O’Kelly and
Rudolph (a fourth brother, Vernon, died in the ’50s).
The ’60s began with another anthem, 1962’s “Twist And Shout.” The Isleys
went on to score with “This Old Heart Of Mine” (1966, their first Tamla/Motown
hit), and the massive, now classic “It’s Your Thing.” The R&B Grammy
Award-winning #1 R&B/ #2 pop hit single launched their self-owned T-Neck
label in 1969, and introduced younger brothers Ernie and Marvin and in-law
Chris Jasper into the line-up. The label’s first release, “Testify”, featured
Ernie Isley’s protégé, a young man by the name of Jimi Hendrix. T-Neck
went on to chart more than 20 pop titles in the ’70s (and nearly twice that
many on the R&B side), a litany of hits that included Stephen Stills’ “Love
The One You’re With”, “Spill The Wine” (originally recorded by Eric Burdon
& War), “That Lady,” Seals & Crofts’ “Summer Breeze,” the
message-driven “Harvest For The World,” funky groove “Fight The Power Part 1,”
classic slow jam “For the Love Of You,” “The Pride,” “Take Me To the Next
Phase,” and “I Wanna Be With You,” among the group’s many hit singles. >From
1973 to 1980, the group scored an amazing two gold and five platinum albums
(starting with the groundbreaking 3+3) and the platinum run continued in the
‘80s with Go All The Way and Between The Sheets, like five of their
predecessors, No. 1 R&B chart-topping albums. The ’80s also included hit
singles “Don’t Say Goodnight (It’s Time For Love)” and “Hurry Up And Wait,”
followed by “Inside You” and “Smooth Sailin’ Tonight.” In 1986, O’Kelly passed
away, and Rudolph subsequently retired to the ministry. The ‘Isley Brothers
Featuring Ronald Isley’ returned in 1990, and all six members were inducted
into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame two years later. The ’90s were marked by a
number of collaborations – with Angela Winbush (“Lay Your Troubles Down”),
Bobby Womack (“Trying Not To Break Down”), Quincy Jones (on his Q’s Jook Joint
album, 1995), and the #1 R&B/ #4 Pop smash of 1996, “Down Low (Nobody Has
To Know)” with R. Kelly and Def Soul label mate and former background singer
Kelly Price. With the new millennium, came Ronald’s discovery of the famed
vocal duo, JS, in 2003. 1996 also brought the Isley Brothers – Ronald, Marvin
and Ernie – to Island Records for the first time, on Mission To Please.
Contributing as producers and co-writers were Babyface, R. Kelly and Keith
Sweat, three of the many artists whose lives and music were inspired by the
Isley Brothers, whose line-up now comprises Ronald and Ernie, an accomplished
songwriter, guitarist and vocalist in his own right. In 2001, signed to
Dreamworks Records, the Isleys returned to the charts with the hit album
Eternal, featuring the crossover smash “Contagious,” written and produced by R.
Kelly and signalling the arrival of “Mr. Biggs,” Ron’s now-famous alter-ego.
Two years later, Body Kiss collaboration with Kelly) achieved gold status for
the Isleys and also in 2003, the group won an American Music Award for Favourite
Band, Duo or Group. 1996 recipients of a Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer
Award, The Isleys received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual BET
Awards gala in 2004. The same year, Ron suffered a mild stroke and after taking
some time off, he began workin on tracks for BABY MAKIN’ MUSIC. "It was a
little hard after the stroke because I felt I had to prove myself again,"
he reflects. "I took a year off and I didn't run through making an album
like I used to. But once we got started with "Gotta Give It To You,"
we were right back in the groove. And working with (Island/Def Jam CEO) L.A.
Reid has been really great because I don't have to worry. I know I'm working
with someone who understands what I do..." Feeling that the Isley
Brothers are finally getting their due recognition for decades of great music,
Ron says he still finds it hard to believe how so many of the group’s classics
are constantly being used in movies, as samples by new artists and on
television commercials. “I hear “Shout” more today than I heard it when we
first did it and I didn’t know songs like “It’s Your Thing” and “That Lady”
would have ‘legs’. You see, music has been my whole life. I listen to music
every single day. It’s our way of expressing ourselves,” Ron Isley says of
himself and his brother Ernie. And with a sumptuous new album in the form of
BABY MAKIN’ MUSIC, The Isley Brothers featuring Ron Isley (aka “Mr Biggs”) are
continuing – as the title of their 1996 hit album implies – their lifelong
‘mission to please,’ giving their loyal fans what they’ve come to expect from
this enduring group while creating classic cuts for a new generation.
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Donald Fagen - Black Days
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - James Adams
(Mar.
13, 2006) No, Donald
Fagen says, he's not on the line from the
foot of Mount Belzoni, nor is he high in the Custerdome. This afternoon he's
sitting somewhere in upper Manhattan, in the Sugar Hill district, in fact,
working the telephones, stoking the publicity machinery for an upcoming 20-city
concert tour and the launch of a new CD. There's no real Mount Belzoni or
Custerdome, of course. They're just the imaginary settings for two of Fagen's
most famous songs, 1982's The Nightfly and 1980's Gaucho. But for
a lot of Fagen fans, they're as palpable as the neighbourhood store or the
high-rise on the corner, as cinematic as anything Fritz Lang or Ernst Lubitsch
conceived. It's something Fagen has been exercising for almost 35 years, this
knack of blending idiosyncratic sophistication and highly personalized slang to
create places (Blues Beach, the Reefs of Kizmar) and persons (Hoops McCann,
Slinky Redfoot) as glamorous and unsettling as that cravat-wearing,
hashish-smoking dandy from your days at Gamma Chi who thought your date at the
frat barbecue had "a touch of Tuesday Weld" and would you mind if he
took her out? At 58, Fagen's latest conjuring act is Morph the Cat, the
eight-song CD that, upon its release tomorrow, will mark his first solo turn
since The Kamakiriad 13 years ago. As with that outing and his
solo debut, The Nightfly, it's a loosely thematic work, a
mortality-haunted New York hipster's exploration of the post-9/11 universe.
Fagen says there's "virtually no premeditation" in his deciding
whether what he's writing belongs on a Steely Dan record. Sometimes it happens
by a process of elimination or default: He'll write some lyrics and chord
changes and ask Walter Becker, the other, 56-year-old half of Steely Dan whom
he first met in college in 1967: " 'What do you think of this?' And if no
one answers, or Walter says, 'Y'know, that really doesn't speak to me,' then
it's mine."
The same goes for the conceptual frameworks of his solo work. Generally,
"the solo records are a little more personal or subjective, I'll put it
that way." But usually it's only after the fact that Fagen notices
resonances among the material. Take The Nightfly: "I just started
working up these songs . . . and the first couple I wrote seemed to be from the
viewpoint of an adolescent in the early sixties." Eventually, Fagen had
seven songs and one cover (Dion's Ruby Baby) for an album that seemed to
"represent certain fantasies that might have been entertained by a young
man -- i.e., one of my general height, weight and build -- growing up in the
remote suburbs of a northeastern city" during the hottest days of the Cold
War. With Morph the Cat, the wellsprings were both personal and
political. Personal in that his mother's death in January, 2003, from
Alzheimer's, was "a big shock" and an intimation that "Oh, I'm
in my late 50s, so I've got about 20 years to go, or something like that."
Another blow was the death a year later of one of his musical idols, Ray
Charles, at 73. The political dimension derives from the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001, the invasion of Iraq and the noise and paranoia that have been in the
ether ever since. Sometimes Fagen treats our life and times lightheartedly: Security
Joan, for one, is about a traveller who decides to miss his flight from
LaGuardia after he feels some sexual chemistry between him and the female
security officer who "sweeps her wand over me." For the most part,
though, there's mordancy and apprehension: In Mary Shut the Garden Door
-- inspired, Fagen says, by the Republican National Convention that New York
hosted in mid-2004 -- he sings of "Rough dreams/ Those voices in the
kitchen/ I woke up/ And sensed the new condition/ They won/ Storms raged/
Things changed." Fagen plans to perform most of the album live when he
visits Massey Hall in Toronto tonight with his first-ever touring band (he
played Ottawa's National Arts Centre yesterday). For most of their association,
Fagen and Becker have been profoundly averse to touring. In fact, between 1974
and 1993, the two Dans, as individuals and as a combo, were exclusively a
studio outfit. Inviting one top musician after another to play their
meticulously crafted songs, the duo would accumulate hundreds of reels of
unused tape and thousands of hours of outtakes along the way. Today, Fagen
insists such dedication didn't exemplify some perverse quest for perfection.
Bringing in a Wayne Shorter or Mark Knopfler, often to play a part that lasted
no more than 32 bars in the final recording, "happened in the process of
Walter and me searching for musicians for an ideal band. In the seventies,
there weren't that many musicians with equal facility in R&B and
jazz."
By the nineties, "we got closer to that vision and started keeping guys we
really started to jell with. And by 2000, we ended up with guys who seemed to
know what we're after." Indeed, the last two Steely Dan records, Two Against
Nature (2000) and Everything Must Go (2003), as well as Morph the
Cat, have a remarkably stable cast of support musicians, with only the odd
marquee player putting in a brief appearance. The late, great Mel Tormé was a
big fan of Fagen's, featuring at least two of his compositions, The Goodbye
Look and Walk Between the Raindrops, in live performances. In a 1996
interview, Tormé also lauded the whiny, nasalized croon that is Fagen's singing
voice -- "He's got a funny street approach that I love." But when I
tell Fagen that in that same interview Tormé also professed a fondness for
Billy Joel's singing, Fagen seems taken aback. "Well, that's damning with
faint praise," he finally mumbles, then slips into diplomacy mode:
"Mel was a great singer, is a great singer and it's great that he gave me
that compliment." Sarcasm and irony, of course, have long been staples of
the Steely Dan oeuvre. So not a few Danites were surprised when Fagen committed
matrimony with Libby Titus in 1993. Of course, it's always a mistake to
interpolate art and autobiography -- but then Titus had been the companion for
many years of Levon Helm, drummer and singer for one of the least ironic groups
of all time, The Band, with whom she had two children. And, in the early
seventies, she wrote one of the greatest weepies of all time, Love Has No
Pride ("If I could buy your love/Then I'd surely try, my friend. . . .
And love has no pride when there's no one but myself to blame/But I'd give
anything to see you again.") Fagen on several occasions has said that
marriage agrees with him. So would he ever cover Love Has No Pride in
concert, say? Or is it just too damn sincere and unguarded for his sensibility?
"Hey, I like that song a lot," he replies. "Bonnie Raitt did a
good version -- Linda Ronstadt, too, I think. But I don't think I could give it
the right, um, emotional reading. Hmmm, I'll think about it, that's
interesting. . . ." There's a pause, then he says: "It's really a
girlie song, a chick flick." Now, Donald, would your wife like to hear her
work described that way? "She has her cynical side, believe me."
Sliding a recent Steely Dan CD or even the new Fagen into the player can seem a
touch anachronistic. The guitars are in tune, the time precise, the chords rich
and smart, the production polished. It's music, in short, with no tips of the
hat to punk, hip hop or any other idiom that's commanded attention since Steely
Dan appeared on the scene in 1972. "I listen to the same 40 records I did
in high school," Fagen avers without apology. "Except now they're on
CD." Occasionally he hears "something I like that's
contemporary," but when he's asked to name an artist or two, there's a
good 10 seconds of hemming and hawing before he declares: "Martha
Wainwright, she's really good, a great singer. . . . My stepdaughter is pretty
good, too." That would be Amy Helm, who has done backup vocals for Steely
Dan and Fagen and serves as the lead singer for Ollabelle, an American
roots-music sextet. "I don't think there's been any innovation or players
that have added anything since [the late sixties and early seventies] or at
least since reggae," Fagen opines. "There have been many claims to
that. I mean, I was in the New York office of Warner Bros. a little while ago
and there was this big poster for some guy who does crunk music [sometimes
spelled krunk, it's a style of hip hop that surfaced about 10 years ago in
Tennessee and Georgia]. So I asked to hear it and," he chuckles, "I
just didn't see the innovation." Donald Fagen performs at Massey Hall in
Toronto tonight at 8 (416-872-4255). Morph the Cat is in stores tomorrow.
'Cat' Scratch Fever
Excerpt from www.billboard.com
- Edited by Jonathan Cohen
(Mar. 12, 2006) Finding love in an airport security line, a ghostly feline
hovering above New York and imaginary conversations with the late Ray Charles
are not usual topics addressed in rock'n'roll. But they are in the alternate
musical universe of Steely Dan principal Donald
Fagen, whose third album, "Morph the
Cat," arrives this week via Reprise/Warner Bros. This is Fagen's
first solo effort since 1993's "Kamakiriad," and his first away from
his main band since Steely Dan broke a 20-year hiatus from the studio with
2000's Grammy Award-winning "Two Against Nature." For more than
30 years, Steely Dan's music has been synonymous with a disconnect between the
mood it conveys and what its lyrics actually mean. And while a number of tunes
on "Morph" offer the usual blend of smooth sounds and sarcastic
sentiments, others strike a more unified chord, touching on such personal
subjects as death, love and mortality. "Sept. 11 on a global scale
and my mother dying on a personal level were the two major things that got me
thinking about all of this," the 58-year-old Fagen says. Tying it all
together is the title track, different versions of which bookend the
album. "I was walking along one day and had this image of a phantom
cat looking into people's windows," Fagen recalls of the "Morph"
concept. "It's a terrifying image, but at the same time, there's something
nice about the cat too. On the surface, it's something that would make you feel
really good, but there is something sinister about it as well."
Juvenile's 'Reality' Upends Ne-Yo At No. 1
Excerpt from www.billboard.com
- Katie Hasty, N.Y.
(Mar. 15, 2006) Rapper Juvenile scores the No. 1 spot
on The Billboard 200 chart for the first time in his career this week.
"Reality Check"
(UTP/Atlantic) sold 174,000 copies this week in the United States, according to
Nielsen SoundScan, and also takes over at No. 1 on Billboard's Top
R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Juvenile's previous peak was No. 2 with his 2001
album "Project English." "Reality Check," which
features the guest talents of Ludacris, Busta Rhymes and Fat Joe, bumps last
week's Billboard 200 No. 1, Ne-Yo's "In My Own Words," down to No. 5.
That set suffered a 62% sales decline from its opening frame, shifting 113,000
units compared to more than 301,000. James Blunt's "Back to
Bedlam," another Atlantic release, soars 9-2, a whopping 142% increase at
161,000 copies. In its 23rd week on the chart, "Bedlam" was boosted
by Blunt's appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," on which he
performed his hit single "You're Beautiful." The
soundtrack to Disney's television movie "High School Musical" slips
slightly (2-3) with 138,000 units, an 8% increase. Matisyahu's
"Youth" makes history this week by garnering the best opening sales
week for a reggae album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991.
The JDub/Or release debuts at No. 4 with 119,000 copies, slipping ahead of Sean
Paul's 2005 reggae set "The Trinity," which bowed at No. 7 with
107,000 copies. Only Matisyahu, Sean Paul, Snow, Shaggy, UB40, Damian "Jr.
Gong" Marley and his father, Bob Marley, have cracked the top 10 on the
big chart.
David Gilmour's Columbia set "On an Island" lands at No. 6 with
96,000 copies. The solo project is the first from the Pink Floyd principal
since 1984's "About Face." Carrie Underwood's Arista debut,
"Some Hearts," lingers in the top 10 in its 17th week, climbing 8-7
at 74,000 copies (+2%). The Johnny Cash collection "The Legend
of Johnny Cash" (Legacy/Columbia Nashville/American/Island) slips 6-8 with
70,000 units, a 12% dip. The soundtrack to the Cash biopic "Walk the
Line" (Fox), however, jumps 11-9 with 63,000 copies, an 11% increase. Jack
Johnson and Friends' Brushfire companion album to "Curious George"
rounds out the top tier, moving 7-10 with 60,000 units (-19%). Rap
veteran Scarface's "My Homies Part 2" (Asylum/Rap-A-Lot) enters the
chart at No. 12 with 58,000 copies, far behind the former Geto Boys' member's
best charting album, 1997's "Untouchable," which debuted at No. 1.
Van Morrison's country effort, "Pay the Devil" (Polydor/Lost Highway)
bows at No. 26 with 32,000 copies, the Irish rocker's 36th effort to impact The
Billboard 200. The soundtrack to Disney's "That's So Raven Too!"
bows at No. 44 with 22,000 copies, while the Little Willies' self-titled
Milking Bull debut enters at No. 48 with 20,000 copies. Alt-country chanteuse
Neko Case's Anti- release, "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood," debuts
at No. 54 with 18,000 copies, giving the artist her best sales week yet.
Exposure from the Academy Awards ceremony results in big jumps for the
soundtracks to "Hustle & Flow" (143-73) and "Brokeback
Mountain" (148-83). At 10. 7 million units, overall CD sales were
down by 2% from the previous week and down 1% compared to the same week a year
ago. Sales for 2006 are down 3% compared to 2005 at 108.5 million units.
Nya Jade's 'One Pill' Debuts On VH1 Soul
Source: Amina
Elshahawi, ThinkTank Marketing , E: amina@thinktankmktg.com , http://www.thinktankmktg.com;
AIM: Somaya22
“I’m such a fan of different forms of music,” Nya Jade says.
“My goal from the start was to make a record where no two songs sounded exactly
the same, with my voice tying it all together.”
(Mar. 15, 2006) As part of the re-launch
celebration of VH1 Soul, the 24-hour network that brings music lovers the
hottest soul, neo-soul and R&B hits
from the 90s and today, premiered the video from the remarkable new talent, Nya Jade. ONE PILL, the first single from
Jade’s debut album, MY DENIAL, saw it’s world premiere on February 27th and is
currently running every hour on the hour. In addition, VH1 Soul will add
the video to their power rotation. The channel which airs in 20 million U.S.
households, is currently airing videos by Alicia Keys, Jill Scott, Mary J.
Blige and Usher, to name a few. This San Francisco-based
singer/songwriter has already drawn acclaim throughout the Bay Area for her
unique music, a bold blend of sounds utterly unbound by genre, unified by
Jade’s passionate, perceptive vocals. MY DENIAL marks the emergence of a
resourceful and gifted young artist, one whose fierce intelligence burns as
brightly as her uncommon creativity. A Stanford University graduate who
once focused on a career in medicine, was forced to rethink her priorities when
she was hit by a speeding car her junior year of school. While recovering,
Jade’s guitar lessons became a crucial part of her physical therapy, while
songwriting helped her heal emotionally. Intent on going full on with her
music, Jade recorded a series of tracks with up-and-coming Bay Area producer
Tone (Green Day and Santana). The songs received airplay on the local
alternative station, Channel 104.9 FM, whose support led to Jade’s sharing the
stage with the likes of The Donnas, Evanescence, Ben Kweller and Maroon 5.
When the time came to record her debut album, Jade headed down to Los
Angeles to work with legendary producer Jack Douglas (Aerosmith, John Lennon).
Combining the Douglas-produced sessions along with those helmed by Tone, the
resulting MY DENIAL is unquestionably representative of Jade’s multi-faceted
personality. At turns poignant, humorous, and fraught with great beauty, Jade
explores the complex emotional terrain of interpersonal connections in all
their many permutations while cruising effortlessly through irresistible
ballads, buoyant rock, and soulful pop symphonies. Following the world
premiere of ONE PILL on VH1 Soul, Jade will be featured in Black Beat Magazine,
Right On! Magazine and VH1.com. ONE PILL will also be featured on the
influential AAA radio station, KFOG, a station that has made up the fabric of
the San Francisco music scene for over 15 years. MY DENIAL is currently
available on cdbaby.com and will be released nationwide May 16th on Katako
Records. Watch "One Pill" Video HERE on VH1 Soul. To hear more from Nya Jade
visit her official website www.nyajade.com. Jaheim ... Hooked On 'Classics'
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com -
*The buzz phrase of the music
industry for R&B is “new classic,” and nobody does it better than Jaheim. His 2002 debut “Ghetto
Love”
splashed onto the charts with the single “Just In Case,” and now, his latest
entry, titled “Ghetto Classics,” follows the path he’s laid of soulful
storytelling – started off by the single “Everytime (I Think Of Her).” The
track was first released on the Wendy Williams compilation CD “Wendy Williams
Brings The Heat, Vol. 1” It’s longevity success built the anticipation for
Jaheim’s second album, which hit the streets last month. “We snuck the
record out on the Wendy Williams compilation and it happened to be a good
thing,” Jaheim confessed. “A lot of people took to the record and just caught
on to it and here we are now. The record was on the bench for maybe two years.
We didn’t have a date to put the single out so we snuck the single to the
deejays, like, Wendy. We recorded it for the album, but we decided to
give it to Wendy because she dedicated her time to the record and promoted
it." It was a good marketing move to release a track on a compilation
before his album made its way to the shelves, but we’re not so sure it was so
much a business move as it was just that music fans desire to hear more from
the city soulster. After all, it’s been two years since his last project – and
that can be star suicide. “God don’t make no mistake. Some people just
take time off and just can’t come back. This record was anticipated for the
last year or so, and I think people were ready to hear Jaheim; I think they
been waiting. And I was ready to get back out there.” Jaheim’s hiatus was not
just so he could sit back and hang in the studio working on his craft – though
that’s pretty much what he did. “There was a big transition with things
in the world, and at Warner Bros. It was kind of a mess and I got caught up in
it. What I did was just stay in tune to what I do. Stayed in the studio and
dealt with things in the community” The singer says that he really didn’t
concern himself with what was going on at the label, as it merged into the
giant AOL media umbrella.
“I wasn’t concerned because I couldn’t control it,” he said. “When
it’s not in your hands and you’re just the artist – we just do what we do. The
label has the last say-so.” In a radio dial full of songs of no substance,
Jaheim has been heralded for the fact that his tunes often convey a story. He
credits that talent to his team of writers and his musical influences. “I
thank God I grew up under a good umbrella to where I was listening to Luther
Vandross and Sam Cooke. And having the right team around me, we were there
working hard and here it is: ‘Ghetto Classics.’” He says that this album “hits
every segment of what’s going on in the world today,” though the subject of
love is his forte. “We’ve been doing this for a while. And we’re
trying to let the world know we’re still doing it. I doubt you can get this
anywhere else.” Jaheim’s “Ghetto Classics” is in stores now. In the mood
for some Jaheim jams including "Just In Case," "Could It
Be" and “Everytime (I Think Of Her)” among others, then all you have
to do click over to his official website (www.jaheimmusic.com).
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MUSIC TIDBITS
Dixie Chicks Get Personal On 'Long Way'
Excerpt from www.billboard.com
- Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
(Mar. 10, 2006) The Dixie
Chicks will re-emerge late this spring with the
most personal album of their career. Due May 23 via Open
Wide/Columbia, "Taking the Long Way" opens with "Not Ready To
Make Nice," which addresses the controversy that ensued in March 2003
after singer Natalie Maines criticized President George W. Bush. Afterward, a
number of country stations refused to play the group's music. Lyrics for
the track, which was co-penned by the Chicks with former Semisonic leader Dan
Wilson, are available at DixieChicks.com. "Forgive, sounds good /
Forget, I'm not sure I could / They say time heals everything / But I'm still
waiting," Maines sings. "Taking the Long Way" was
executive produced by Rick Rubin and finds the Chicks backed by such musicians
as Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Heartbreakers members Benmont
Tench and Mike Campbell and veteran session multi-instrumentalist Larry
Knechtel. In addition to Wilson, who collaborated on six tracks, Pete Yorn and
the Jayhawks' Gary Louris contributed to the songwriting.
"Everything felt more personal this time," Maines says. "I go
back to songs we've done in the past and there's just more maturity, depth,
intelligence on these. They just feel more grown-up." Among the
album's selections are "I Hope," a co-write with blues artist Keb'
Mo' that served as a charity download for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, "Everybody
Knows," "Silent House" and "Lubbock or Leave
It." "Taking the Long Way" is the Chicks' first
studio album since 2002's "Home," which debuted at No. 1 on The
Billboard 200 and has sold more than 5.8 million copies in the United States,
according to Nielsen SoundScan. The group is expected to launch an all-arena trek in June, with details to be
announced.
Ne-Yo’s ‘So Sick’ Infects Billboard
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 9, 2006) *After shipping RIAA platinum last week, “In My Own Words,” the
debut album by Def Jam recording artist
Ne-Yo, debuts at No. 1 on both the
Billboard 200 and R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts with first week sales of
301,005 units. Def Jam President & CEO Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter
said of the young singer’s accomplishments: "Ne-Yo's use of the harmonies
and words has touched music lovers from all ages and backgrounds. He is the
true embodiment of the word 'artist.'" The set’s successful
debut is propelled by the sizzling single, “So Sick,” written about the
ex-girlfriend who left Ne-Yo after he cheated. Born Shaffer C. Smith in
Arkansas and raised in Las Vegas, Ne-Yo came to Def Jam's attention after he
penned tunes for a string of multi-platinum artists, including Mary J. Blige,
B2K, Faith Evans, Musiq, and Mario -- whose "Let Me Love You" (which
Ne-Yo co-wrote with Scott Storch) finished out 2004 as the No. 1 most-played
song of the year at radio. The 23-year-old promoted last week’s
release of “In My Own Words” through a string of TV appearances, including “The
Late Show with David Letterman,” “CD USA,” “The Tyra Banks Show” and “Live with
Regis & Kelly.” On March 18, he’ll open "The LL Cool J Custom
Concert" over the Oxygen Network (10:30 p.m. ET/ 9:30 CT); and March 27
will mark his debut on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Upcoming April
appearances include “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and “Showtime at the Apollo”;
followed by Teen People's "25 Under 25" special in May.
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The Two Sides Of Roy Hargrove
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 9, 2006) *Hip hop jazz trumpeter Roy
Hargrove, on May 2, will release two
new albums on Verve Records via
his groups The RH Factor and The Roy Hargrove Quintet. The discs,
"Distractions" and "Nothing Serious" - from The RH Factor
and The Roy Hargrove Quintet, respectively – showcase two aspects of the
trumpeter/composer's musical diversity. The RH Factor is his
neo-soul/jazz fusion outfit which made its debut with 2003's successful
"Hard Groove." The Roy Hargrove Quintet is a hard-bop/pure, straight
ahead jazz group which has continued to tour as Hargrove experiments with
different sounds. Hargrove will continue to perform and tour with
both groups following the dual releases of "Distractions" and
"Nothing Serious." For dates and more information, visit www.ververecords.com.
Carmelo Anthony Launches Record Label
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 9, 2006) *Carmelo Anthony, a star on NBA’s Denver Nuggets basketball team, has started his
own record label called Kross Over Entertainment, with Atlanta-based rapper
Berg providing the company’s first single, “Hold Up,” featuring UGK. Kross Over
has also signed producer/artist "Soundz," and R&B singer Alesia
Miller, according to Allhiphop.com. Anthony, 21, is also investing his
money in a forthcoming wireless communications firm, reports the Web
site. Meanwhile, the NBA star was recently selected to join the USA
Basketball team that will compete in the 2008 Olympics. Anthony joins other
recent draftees Amare Stoudemire, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Gilbert Arenas and
others.
Miles Davis’ Family Cheers Rock Hall Induction
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 13, 2006) *The immediate family of jazz icon Miles
Davis is “extremely honoured” that he is being
recognized by the Rock & Roll Hall
of Fame during the organization's 21st Annual Induction ceremony, taking place
tonight (March 13) at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The late trumpeter’s
nephew, Vince Wilburn, Jr., along with immediate Davis offspring Cheryl and
Erin Davis, said in a statement: "We acknowledge the uniqueness of a jazz
musician being admitted into rock & roll's elite club. It is especially
noteworthy and meaningful to the family that this honour is being bestowed on
Miles as we celebrate his 80th birthday this year." Davis, who is widely
acclaimed to be one of the 20th Century's most creative artists, is credited
with changing the sound of popular music several times during his six-decade
career. His musical experimentation, which began in the late '60s, created a
highly innovative fusion of jazz with rock & roll, soul, funk and hip hop.
His 80th birthday will be celebrated this year on May 26, while the 15th
Anniversary of his passing will be recognized on September 21. As the
sole jazz inductee of the 2006 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he will be
honoured alongside Black Sabbath, Blondie, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Sex
Pistols. Davis fans may view several of his personal items now on loan
with the Cleveland Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. For more information, please
visit www.milesdavis.com.
Hidden Beach Recordings Goes International
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar.
13, 2006) **Santa Monica-based Hidden Beach Recordings,
home to such talent as Jill Scott, and Kindred The Family Soul, has
announced the launch of Hidden Beach International (HBI). The
primary mission of HBI is to hip the U.S. to an eclectic array of international
artists who are breaking new ground and challenging the industry status quo.
Artists on HBI will be able to create a body of work for a label that uses its
independence to venture into non-traditional marketing and creative arenas
frequently overlooked by conventional music imprints.
HBI’s first release will be “Jukebox – The Album,” from the
internationally-renowned Bent Fabric. The disc, available for purchase tomorrow
(March 14), will feature 11 new songs, including Fabric playing his Grammy
Award-winning original composition “Alley Cat,” and the added bonus of two new
remixes: “Alley Cat” by Hit & Run and “Jukebox” by legendary DJ and
remixer Ralphi Rosario. The album will also incorporate additional
enhancements such as the much-seen Cingular/iTunes commercial spot and the
animated video “Jukebox.” Both the “Jukebox” video and the
Cingular/iTunes commercial can be accessed via www.bentfabric.us
or by visiting www.HiddenBeach.com.
“Hidden Beach International will continue the legacy started by Hidden Beach
Recordings,” says Steve McKeever, President and CEO. “We feel that we
have created a recognizable brand where the consumer knows that if it’s on
Hidden Beach, it is good, quality music that may not necessarily fall into the
traditional genres of R&B or Pop. But in the end, that’s what we’re
all about. At Hidden Beach we try to think differently, and we enjoy taking
creative risks. We imagine music outside of the calculated forms that
results in signing artists whose musical styles are outside of the expected and
is something new. This is our primary mission.” Hidden Beach
Recordings also has among its roster Jeff Bradshaw, Lina and saxophonist Mike
Phillips. In the coming weeks, the company will announce the
new music slated for release in 2006.
Heather Headley Promotion In Full Swing
Source: Blackmon Entertainment Media / gospelinsider@aol.com, clubsocietyhills@aol.com
(Mar. 14, 2006) Woodland Hills CA -- Blackmon Entertainment Media,
Gospel Insider (125+ US Markets) Club Society Hills (National Youth Club),
RCA/BMG and J Records again join forces to present the exciting, Heather Headley “In My Mind” National
Promotion. RCA’s musical wonder, born in Trinidad, started playing
concert piano at the age of four. She studied communications and musical
theatre at Northwestern University. She parlayed her talent into starring
roles in Disney's production of The Lion King as well as Aida, which
earned her a Toney Award. She's also garnered Soul Train Music, NAACP Image and
Bet Awards. Headley's highly, acclaimed new CD “In My Mind” boasts the
spiritual contribution “Change” written by her, along with Warryn Campbell and
E. Dawkins Gospel Insider Listeners along with Club Society Hills (35,000
Members) are invited to email entries with the phrase “Heather Headley In My
Mind Promotion" to gospelinsider@aol.com or clubsocietyhills@aol.com. 25 winners will
receive a Heather Headley/J Records Gift Pack. Heather Headley will also be
featured on Gospel Insider’s Website www.dbbgospel.com (25,000+) Club
Society Hills “411” Newsletter, and website www.clubsocietyhills.biz.
Log on and win. Hurry deadline March 31, 2006. “In My Mind”
features guest artists Vybz Kartel and Shaggy. Producers include Warryn
Campbell (Am I Worth It?), Babyface, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and Shannon
Sanders. “In My Mind” is available everywhere on RCA Sony BMG Records, log onto
www.heatherheadley.com. For additional information contact Paula Blue at
Blackmon Entertainment Media via gospelinsider@aol.com, clubsocietyhills@aol.com
or call 818 349-0364.
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UMAC Announces Urban Music Showcases To
Take Place During Juno Weekend
Source:
www.umac.ca
UMAC is pleased to announce the line-ups for the official
JUNO Fest Urban Music Showcases taking place at Halifax's Waterfront Warehouse
on Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 1.
Friday, March 31 (starting at 10 pm):
Alpha Flight (Halifax-Based Hip Hop Group)
Universal Soul (Halifax-Based Hip Hop Group)
Eternia (JUNO Nominee)
Classified (JUNO Nominee)
Carl Henry (JUNO Nominee)
Saturday, April 1 (starting at 10 pm):
Nu Gruv (Halifax-Based Soul Band)
Senaya
(JUNO Nominee)
Blessed (JUNO Nominee)
Jah Beng (JUNO Nominee)
Odel (JUNO Nominee)
For more info on all JUNO weekend events, visit junoawards.ca.
Montreal Underground Gala To Recognize
Quebec Hip Hop
Source:
www.umac.ca
For the second year, the Montreal-Underground Crew presents Montréal-Underground Gala,
a celebration of the best in Québec Hip Hop. The awards will be handed
out at a ceremony taking place at Montreal's SAT on Saturday, March 18. Some of
the nominees include:
Best Album (Anglophone):
Book of Bless - Bless
The Burbs - Karma Atchykah
The Diamond Mines - South Squad
Heartcore - Billy Nova
Best Album (Francophone):
Duo du balcon - Accrophone
Les gars du peuple - L'Assemblée
Deluxxx - Atach tatuq
Leur médiums:le remedium - Monk-e
Best Single:
"J'aurais voulu" - Damien
"Australie" - Dee
"Jealousy" - Bless
"Laissez moi dormir" - Accrophone
Public's Favourite Artist:
Loco Locass
Damien
Catburglaz
Gage
Carl Henry
Atach tatuq
Frenchi Blanco
SP
Accrophone
Taktika
Roi Heenok
Bless
For more information and a full list of the nominees, visit www.galamu.com.
Gladys Knight Salutes Ella, Duke, Sammy
Excerpt from www.billboard.com -
Clover Hope, N.Y.
(Mar. 15, 2006) R&B veteran Gladys Knight will honour a host of
legendary vocalists with the release of a covers album, "Before Me."
Due
June 6 via Verve Records, the set features songs originally performed by Ella
Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Sammy Davis, Jr.,
among others. Grammy-winning producers Tommy LiPuma (Natalie Cole, George
Benson) and Phil Ramone (Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles) worked behind the boards
on the album. The Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and saxophonist David
"Fathead" Newman are among the contributing instrumentalists.
"As I was getting this music together, the title, 'Before Me,' just rang
in my head. I was impressed to make a reference to those glorious performers
that set the pace for me to be a part of this industry," says Knight.
"These people made great strides not just with their music, but because of
who they were as people." Knight's most recent album was 2005's
"One Voice" with the Saints Unified Voices. The artist has a handful
of upcoming shows on her itinerary, including tomorrow (March 16) in
Huntsville, Ala., and Saturday in Westbury, N.Y. A six-date European tour
begins June 30 in Birmingham, England.
::FILM NEWS::
Movie Titles Needed Rewrite, Says Haggis
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Martin Knelman
(Mar. 11, 2006) After his double triumph at the Academy Awards last
Sunday, you might expect Paul Haggis to be cocky. Instead, he
sounded surprisingly contrite in a phone interview yesterday. "David
Cronenberg is a terrific filmmaker, and I respect his talent enormously,"
Haggis said. "The last thing I'd want to do is upset him."
Earlier this week, Cronenberg told my colleague Peter Howell he was distressed
because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts not only failed to give any Oscars
to Cronenberg's A History of Violence but made matters worse by giving
the Oscar for best picture to a movie that stole the title of his 1996
adaptation of a J.G. Ballard novel. "I can understand his
feelings," says Haggis. "If I had half a brain I would have used a
better title." In France, the Haggis movie was called Collisions,
but he wanted the English title to be more visceral. Haggis confides he also
wishes he had come up with a better title for Million Dollar Baby, which
he wrote and co-produced in collaboration with Clint Eastwood. "I
regret using that crappy title," says Haggis. Nevertheless, it took the
Oscar as best movie of 2004, just as Crash did in 2005, making Haggis
the writer of back-to-back winners. Many would argue there's no need for
Haggis to apologize. If you do an Internet search for films called Crash,
you'll find not just two of them but about a dozen — including a weird 1977
occult drama in which Jose Ferrer as a jealous handicapped husband tries to
kill Sue Lyon as his witchcraft-practising wife. Indeed, Cronenberg's
1996 movie is getting some renewed attention at the moment thanks to the high
profile of the Haggis picture. It is being shown this month on the premium U.S.
cable channel HBO — which rarely airs 10-year-old movies. This clash of
the titles is just one aspect of an anti-Haggis backlash that has been brewing
since the envelopes were opened at Sunday's ceremony. Crash has been
belittled as a safe, conservative choice for those too timid to endorse Brokeback
Mountain. "I have to say I find that view hysterical and
absurd," says Haggis. "I thought Brokeback was a really good
movie but, if you decided to vote for it, the best reason would be you thought
it was a great movie about two human beings, not because it's a social
statement. "And if you wanted to see the gay community embraced by
Hollywood, well, the fact is that happened a long time ago. I mean, look at the
popularity of Will & Grace on television."
Haggis has been alternately attacked and embraced by both right and left
for the presumed politics of Crash. Haggis says he targeted
liberals because "I'm a liberal and I like to target myself. We like to
think we're good people. It's a kind of hubris — the sin of pride."
That sounds almost religious. Could the philosophy of the movie have
anything to do with his beliefs as a Scientologist? "That has
nothing to do with anything," says Haggis. Some of his detractors —
especially those who insist Los Angeles can't be comprehended by anyone who
wasn't born and raised in southern California — argue that Crash gets
L.A. wrong because it represents the views of an outsider from London,
Ont. On the other hand, chauvinists from his native land complained that
he failed to mention Canada. "I guess when I thanked all the people who
fight for tolerance and justice I could have added, `especially if they're
Canadian,'" Haggis retorts. Still, winning has taught him that weathering
the backlash isn't as challenging as surviving the flattery. "You
can be very vulnerable if you start believing you're as good as people say.
It's very seductive, and I never want that to happen." Handling
abuse is easier. "I like the fact that a lot of people are critical and
upset. I feel it's a good thing if something I've written upsets people. Any
artist who seeks to be loved is on the road to oblivion." Still,
there is one key way in which winning two Oscars has changed the life of Paul
Haggis. He is currently working on several movie scripts and a television pilot
— and he often likes to escape from his Santa Monica home and office by writing
on his laptop at some unfashionable, half-empty coffee shop. But during
the past week, he says, "It is getting a lot harder to find a coffee shop
where no one recognizes me."
Box Office Slumped In 2005
Excerpt from The Toronto Star
(Mar. 12, 2006) LOS ANGELES (AP) — The movie
business was down worldwide last year, final box-office figures show. Revenues in the United States dropped by six
per cent to $8.99 billion (all figures U.S.) last year, compared with 2004. The
worldwide market fell by 7.9 per cent to $23.24 billion from a 2004 all-time
high, the Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday. The number
of tickets sold in the United States also continued its three-year decline.
Total U.S. attendance fell by nine per cent to 1.4 billion — the lowest level
in nearly a decade. About 240 million fewer tickets were sold last year,
compared with 2004. At the same time, the average ticket price rose from $6.21
to $6.41. It also was more expensive for Hollywood to market pictures.
The average cost rose by about five per cent, from $34.4 million to $36.2
million. For specialty movies, such as the hits Brokeback Mountain and March of
the Penguins, marketing costs soared by 33 per cent, reflecting the increasing
competition for movies that often start in limited release. Despite the
success of independent and smaller movies, though, blockbusters continued to
draw the largest audiences. Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the
Sith was the top-grossing film with $380.3 million. Altogether, eight
movies grossed more than $200 million each. The good news for studios was
their average cost to make a movie dropped by about $2.5 million to $60
million.
However, that figure didn't count the often substantial contributions of
outside investors, which in some cases made up one-half of the budget.
Theatres have worried their ticket sales are being undercut by DVD sales for
home theatres. However, the MPAA announced results of an August study by
Nielsen Entertainment/NRG of 3,000 moviegoers that indicated theatres remain
popular. It found those who had the most DVD players, big-screen TVs,
digital cable and other high-technology movie options also saw the most movies
at theatres — an average of 8.2 a year. Also, 69 per cent of those polled
said they preferred to see a movie in a theatre, rather than at home — although
nearly one-third agreed their home offered "the ultimate movie-watching
experience." "Despite increasing competition for consumers'
time and entertainment dollars, theatregoing remains a satisfying constant in
people's lives," said Dan Glickman, MPAA chairman and chief executive
officer. "That said, we can't bury our heads in the sand. We do have
to attract customers and keep regulars coming back."
Anthony Hopkins Is Comfortable With His Fleeting Life
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - Simon Houpt
(Mar. 9, 2006) NEW YORK — It's funny, the twists that life can
take. Sixty years ago, Anthony Hopkins was an eight-year-old lad growing up above his dad's bakery in
Port Talbot, Wales. On weekends, he'd spend lazy days with his maternal
grandparents, playing a real-life role that at the time he didn't fully
appreciate: In the 1920s, they'd lost a 12-year-old daughter to diphtheria.
"It really knocked them sideways," he recalls now, seated by the
window of a Park Avenue hotel room in New York. "They were a tough
generation, but I became the surrogate child." His grandfather had a shed
at the bottom of the garden, where he would build contraptions to enchant young
Anthony. "He made me a crane once, a steel crane with a jib and a
boiler," Hopkins says with remembered delight. "Oh, I was devoted to
him." In the fall of 2004, Hopkins stepped into his grandfather's shoes,
figuratively speaking, when he spent a few months in Utah and New Zealand
shooting The World's Fastest Indian. In the film, an unabashed crowd-pleaser that opens tomorrow in
Toronto and Vancouver and later rolls out across Canada, Hopkins plays a
spirited Kiwi by the name of Burt Munro who spends the last years of his life
tinkering in his shed with a 1920s Indian motorcycle, obsessed with the idea of
setting a world land-speed record at the salt flats in Bonneville, Utah. The
film is based on a true story, although some liberties have been taken with the
tale -- such as the addition of a young boy, a neighbour of Burt's, who treats
the man as something of a surrogate grandfather. "When I got those
overalls on, and the boots, and was there with the vice, and the shed, I
thought: 'This is my grandfather,' " Hopkins says. " 'I've come back
to my grandfather.' "
At least on film. In real life, Hopkins will likely never have a chance to
be a grandfather. He has but one child, a 37-year-old daughter named Abigail by
his first marriage, which broke up when the little girl wasn't yet four. He
doesn't see much of Abigail, who lives in Britain. He decamped permanently to
California more than 30 years ago, and doesn't often get back to London or
Wales, although he is planning a trip with his third wife, whom he married a
few years ago. He's still got a few relatives in the old country, but there's
not much pulling him back: He was an only child, and his mother and father died
years ago. So when, in an early scene in The World's Fastest Indian, Burt
lingers over a photo album containing old black and white pictures of his
parents and dead twin brother, there are layers of melancholic reality at play.
"There's my dad there. My mother," Burt says. "They're all gone,
dead now. Eh, that's a long time ago, isn't it? My God, where's it all gone? It
all goes by so fast." Thinking now about the scene, which he partly
improvised, Hopkins launches into an exploration of the mysteries of time and
the meaning of life itself. "It meant something to me to say that,
because, as I'm getting older, I remember my parents, my grandparents, and it's
extraordinary what happens. Life turns and," -- he makes a flicking motion
with his right hand -- "it's all gone with the wind. Whoosh! "I think
it's kind of poetic and philosophical. It gives me a sense of richness in my
life, because that is life -- nothing is of any importance. Everything we do
here at this moment will one day be meaningless, in a few minutes it'll all be
a dream." Hopkins's serenity is relatively newfound. In previous
interviews, while his second marriage was still in its troubled, final throes,
he could be a simmering, gruff presence. Perhaps his equanimity is partly an
aid to help him accept his own sins -- his mid-career depression, his
alcoholism -- and the heartache he has caused others.
For he is not just mouthing humble platitudes; through the years, he has
consistently backed his modest statements with action. Although knighted in
1993, he does not insist on being addressed as "Sir," as some others.
(Hello, Ben Kingsley?) When he received the lifetime-achievement Golden Globe
this year, Hopkins acknowledged in his speech those who never make it into the
spotlight, including his long-time stand-in, and the crews on his various
films. The attitude stems from a blend of blue-collar upbringing and a British
sense of noblesse oblige. For this is the noblesse oblige time of his life. He
is dabbling in painting -- in an Impressionist style, although he has never
been formally trained -- and writing music, with the profits often going to
various charities. He reportedly has extended financial assistance to some
promising actors, although he refuses to discuss the details. And he teaches
acting at UCLA and UC Santa Monica, although he could make far more money
working on films. Lately, in the classes, he's been advising his students not
to make the same mistakes he did. For starters, they shouldn't take themselves
too seriously. "I say to these young actors: If you didn't act again,
nobody would care. The world would not stop, it would go on without you. That's
how important acting is. "Of course, you have to apply yourself, you have
to do your preparation, do your homework, whatever, learn the lines. Show up on
time," he adds. "But I just recently, in the last year, worked on a
movie, and the director said there were a couple of people on the movie who
would not come out of their trailers. Now, can you figure that out? The money
people are paid and they won't show up on set? That to me is insanity. And they
are complaining because their trailers are not big enough? That's bullshit.
"I mean, these people are being paid more money than anyone could even
dream of -- and they complain? Give me a . . . break. I mean, that's where I
part company with it. You're there to do a job, you're there to show up, be
polite, be pleasant to people, treat the film crew with respect and not think
that you're something different to anyone, because you're not. You're just
breathing oxygen just like everyone else."
Joy In The Midst Of A History Of Violence
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
- Gayle Macdonald
(Mar. 14, 2006) If the documentary on the "making of" A
History of
Violence is anything to go by, Toronto director David Cronenberg
had a damn good time -- all things considered -- making what was hailed as one
of last year's most disturbing pictures. The behind-the-scenes documentary Acts
of Violence, included in a recently released DVD of the critically
acclaimed film, was directed by Cronenberg's wife, Carolyn Zeifman, who has
been married to her subject for more than 26 years. And it's fascinating to
observe the man -- reputed over the years to be the king of cinematic depravity
because of his exploration of graphically violent and sexual themes -- walk his
actors through horrendous, brain-blowing scenes or brutal sex, simply by using
a considered, respectful approach. "The thing actors really want is to
know they're being observed," Cronenberg says in Zeifman's film. It's
clear after watching the one-hour documentary that the director managed to coax
riveting performances from his two stars, Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello,
because they respected -- and trusted -- Cronenberg to handle the risqué
subject matter with his trademark deft touch. "When David's shooting a
film, it's a very intense experience -- there are a lot of hours logged in a
very short time," explains Zeifman, who worked as an editor on some of her
husband's earliest films, such as The Brood, Fast Company and Rabid,
but quit in the early 1980s to raise their three kids. She decided to teach
herself how to edit on a computer, and direct Acts of Violence because
she wanted to chronicle the easy-going, familial mood that the long time, loyal
crew have long attested pervades a Cronenberg set. It's an experience that
becomes like a family," said Zeifman. "When you're doing it, you
become very connected. When your partner's in a situation like that, and you're
not, you feel like you'd like to share that. Also, I just enjoy the work. And
[this type of production] also sort of goes with my behind-the-scenes
personality. I like being on the set, folding myself into small places, and
shooting film."
A History of Violence is not easy to watch. Like most of
Cronenberg's films, it pores over "the beast within," which in this
case is Tom Stall's (Mortensen) hidden, violent past, which suddenly erupts
again and takes over a once seemingly wholesome family. Heads are blown off.
Husband and wife engage in first playful, then animalistic, sex. But when the
camera is not rolling, Zeifman's documentary shows a playful Mortensen who
picks up his own props (including a truly ugly fish head that sat on the
counter of Tom's diner), and also outfitted the entire cast and crew in
fish-themed T-shirts that he'd pick up -- and bring back each weekend -- after
visiting his folks in upstate New York. A tradition was born, Fish Friday,
where everyone -- from Bello to a camera grip -- would don their gaudy T-shirts
and strut around the set. Zeifman adds that New Line studio was extremely supportive
of her project. "I think they wanted to show that in the midst of all this
darkness and violence, there was this group of people who felt like a family,
could joke around, and have an easy time of it. "David really likes to let
his actors bring a lot to the role. He allows them to make a lot of
suggestions, to collaborate, and tell him what they feel comfortable doing. He
doesn't always listen to them, but he likes to hear what they have to say. He
also never story-boards. He never comes in with a pre-set notion of how things
should work." There is another shot, of Cronenberg climbing into bed
between Mortensen and Bello, who are just about to take on another steamy sex
scene. Again, putting his actors at ease, Cronenberg -- nestled between them --
quips: "I take the risks everyone dreams of." To help Mortensen's
character Tom morph into his violent alter-ego, Joey, Bello offered the
services of her Uncle Pete in Philadelphia. After a weekend of hanging out with
Bello's relative in the City of Brotherly Love, Mortensen returned with the
Eastern seaboard drawl down pat. The cast and crew also held a mock U.S.
election, since Mortensen -- a die-hard George W. Bush basher -- could not be
in the United States to cast his vote.
The tally came up 75 in favour of John Kerry, six for Bush, one for a dog
named Rosie, and one for Guy Lafleur. The hockey vote, Zeifman figures, was
Mortsensen's -- an avid Habs fan. Despite accolades from film festivals, the
Golden Globes and critics, A History of Violence was pretty much shut
out of the Oscar race. Zeifman said she was disappointed -- like her husband --
that it didn't make the cut. However, she added that "it had gotten such
wonderful critical acclaim . . . and that was really the important thing. I
think the Oscars are one of those things that when you're in the race, it's
exciting. But being left out of the race isn't necessarily a reflection of your
film." Cronenberg's film ends with many questions -- Is violence innate to
all of us? Do we ever really know anyone? Do we ever really know ourselves? In
the documentary, the director says he decided to do the film because of its
ambiguous ending. The final words of the script are "there's hope" --
although those words are never uttered on the screen. Zeifman says she's not
sure if she believes the film's final message adhered to that unspoken tag
line. "I haven't made up my mind. I felt that possibly there was hope for
that family. But on a bigger scale? I guess all I can say is, I hope there's
hope."
Genies Nuts For C.R.A.Z.Y.
Excerpt
from The Toronto Star - Peter Howell, Movie Critic
(Mar, 14, 2006) The Genies went nuts for C.R.A.Z.Y. last night, handing a
near-record 10 awards — including Best Motion Picture — to a small Quebec film
that helped prove just how popular Canadian movies can be in their own country.
Genie photo gallery
Montrealer Jean-Marc Vallée's coming-of-age story set in the glam-rock 1970s
swept most of the top prizes at the 26th annual event honouring the best in
Canuck cinema, taking all but two of its 12 leading nominations. The show was
at The Carlu, Toronto's elegant venue downtown and broadcast nationally by CHUM
Television. Besides the top prize, C.R.A.Z.Y. also racked up wins
for director, actor (Michel Côté), supporting actress (Danielle Proulx),
original screenplay, art direction, costume design, editing, sound and sound
editing, plus the special Golden Reel Award given to the film with the highest
domestic box-office revenue of the year. It's rare that the Genie for
Best Motion Picture and the Golden Reel Award for commercial success are given
to the same film, but C.R.A.Z.Y. is that rare
movie that attains both critical acclaim and box-office glory in Canada. It
made cash registers ring to the tune of $6.3 million — $5.8 million in Quebec,
$500,000 in the rest of the country — a record take for a Canadian film playing
in Canadian theatres. This exceeds $6.1 million by the previous national
champ, Quebec hockey comedy Les Boys, which was released in 1997 and
didn't do nearly as well in English Canada as C.R.A.Z.Y. did. It's
been a good year for homegrown movies. For the first time ever, Canadian films
accounted for 5 per cent of the total Canadian box office, which is
traditionally overwhelmed by Hollywood films. The Canuck film percentage
normally runs about 3 per cent. With its 10 wins, C.R.A.Z.Y. also
has the distinction of being the third-most successful Genie winner ever, after
Denys Arcand's Jesus of Montreal and Jean-Claude Lauzon's Un zoo la
nuit, both of which won 13 Genies. "I'm touched," Vallée
said of the accolades for his film, which took him 10 years to make.
"This has been a crazy experience." In the pressroom backstage,
he expressed frustration that more English Canadians hadn't seen the film,
because it appeared on so few screens outside of Quebec — including just two in
Toronto. But he said it's the same problem for English-language Canadian
films in Quebec, where screens are also scarce. "We don't know about
English-Canadian films, also."
Vallée's film might have won even more prizes, but main C.R.A.Z.Y. actor
Marc-André Grondin — who plays rock-obsessed teen Zachary — was competing with
his co-star Michel Côté for the Actor in a Leading Role prize, and only one of
them could win. Côté expressed "mixed feelings" that he won
instead of Grondin, because in other film contests — including Quebec's
upcoming Jutra Awards — he's in the supporting actor category so the two don't
compete. But the Genies insisted he compete as a lead actor. The only
category that C.R.A.Z.Y. was nominated for but lost to another film was
Achievement in Cinematography, one of three awards snapped up by Toronto
filmmaker Deepa Mehta's Water, another coming-of-age story and the night's
only other multiple winner. Set in the India of the 1930s, it tells the
story of an 8-year-old child bride whose husband suddenly dies, forcing her to
live as a virtual exile in a home for Hindu widows. Tamil actress Seema Biswas,
best known for her earlier lead performance in Bandit Queen, took the
Genie for Actress in a Leading Role. The third Genie won by Water was
for Mychael Dynna's original score. Water was another Canadian
success story at the movies last year. It has earned more than $2.2 million at
the domestic box office, a figure that dwarfs most other Canuck productions, C.R.A.Z.Y.
excepted, and which is likely to rise significantly with its recent release
on DVD. C.R.A.Z.Y. is also expected to do well with its DVD release,
scheduled for April 4. The combination of C.R.A.Z.Y. and Water made
this one of the most successful Genie Awards shows ever, judging by the number
of prizes that went to films that Canadians have actually seen. It recalls the
Genie show of 1997, when The Sweet Hereafter, The Hanging Garden and
Cube were all box-office successes and also prizewinners. But that
year's show wasn't telecast live — ironically because the CBC was worried about
low audience interest.
Genie Winners
The winners of the 2006 Genie Awards for the best in Canadian-made
cinema, as announced Monday by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television:
Best film: C.R.A.Z.Y.
Director: Jean-Marc Vallee, C.R.A.Z.Y.
Leading actor: Michel Cote, C.R.A.Z.Y.
Supporting actor: Denis Bernard, L'Audition.
Leading actress: Seema Biswas, Water.
Supporting actress: Danielle Proulx, C.R.A.Z.Y.
Art direction/production design: Patrice Vermette, C.R.A.Z.Y.
Costume design: Ginette Magny, C.R.A.Z.Y.
Cinematography: Giles Nuttgens, Water.
Editing: Paul Jutras, C.R.A.Z.Y.
Original score: Mychael Danna, Water.
Original song: Glenn Buhr, Margaret Sweatman, Seven Times Lucky — "When Wintertime".
Overall sound: Yvon Benoit, Daniel Bisson, Luc Boudrias, Bernard Gariepy Strobl, C.R.A.Z.Y.
Sound editing: Martin Pinsonnault, Mira Mailhot, Simon Meilleur, Mireille Morin, Jean- Francois Sauve, C.R.A.Z.Y.
Original screenplay: Jean-Marc Vallee, Francois Boulay, C.R.A.Z.Y.
Adapted screenplay: Atom Egoyan, Where the Truth Lies.
Documentary: ScaredSacred (Velcrow Ripper, Tracey Friesen, Cari Green, Harry Sutherland).
Live action short drama: Milo 55160.
Animated short: CNote.
Golden Reel Award: C.R.A.Z.Y.
Claude Jutra Award: Louise Archambault, Familia.
Cocktails and C.R.A.Z.Y
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Rita Zekas
(Mar, 14, 2006) The Genies have gone uptown. The venue changed from the Metro
Convention Centre to the art deco Carlu at Yonge and College so the Genie-al
set could get a quick fix of Winners downstairs — and maybe even buy a few
accessories — before they hit the seventh floor for the awards. Bumped
into Water director Deepa Mehta, decked in one of her fabulous
saris, at the elevator. The stunning Lisa Ray, star of the film and a
presenter, channelled Jean Harlow in a pale yellow Thien Le.
We didn't actually see her in the flesh at the pre-awards cocktailer, but
photographer Tom Sandler had snapped her earlier, "somewhere in the
building." Sorry, he couldn't be any more vague. Wardrober Soo
Luen Tom was also in Thien Le, accessorized either by a white Mongolian
wrap or her Bichon frise. Actor Ellen Dubin (Napoleon Dynamite)
was babelicious in a start-the-revolution-without-me lilac satin Arthur
Mendonça gown and vintage necklace she found in Los Angeles. Maria
Topalovich, head of the whole shootin' match, the Academy of Canadian
Cinema&Television, also went Canadian in a Chanel-ish black pant suit by
the young Canuck designer Jayn Simpson. Michel Côté, who
picked up the leading actor hardware for playing the patriarch in C.R.A.Z.Y.,
said that the success of the film, last night's big winner, was because it
appealed to the "simple people. The writing is great. They worked for many
years on the script and it shows." Côté had been nominated in the
same category in 1989 for Cruising Bar, but "it was the year of Jesus
of Montreal." This was obviously the year the Genies went C.R.A.Z.Y.
"There he is, there's my son, the star," he said, referring to Marc-André
Grondin, who plays his son in the film and was his rival in the acting
category. Katie Boland (Some Things That Stay), looked like
a million Euros in a little red number, and caught up with her Shania
director Jerry Ciccoritti. Preternaturally chic producer Denise
Robert, whose documentary Thieves of Innocence was nominated, was a
Prada girl, head to toe. Director Sturla Gunnarsson, whose
delightfully subversive film Beowulf & Grendel opened last weekend,
hung with his wife, former set designer Judy Koonar, who "directs
me now," he laughed. We walked into the middle of a heated
conversation in French which ended with one of the gents proclaiming at the end
of the sentence, "dry martini." Ah, booze, the universal
language. And someone tell me Faux Bono's 15 minutes have got to
be up. Now he's even got his own posse and camera people in addition to his
fake security guy. How sad is that, crashing a party on the coattails of a look-alike?
Isn't there a lounge act somewhere calling his name?
Montreal Festival Battles Persist
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
- James Adams
(Mar. 9, 2006) A wise general knows the importance of pressing the
advantage even when his foe already appears to be faltering under the slings
and arrows of outrageous
fortune. So it is with Serge Losique, founder of Montreal's
World Film Festival, set to mark its 30th
anniversary in August. Last month, Losique witnessed with satisfaction one of
the greatest debacles in the history of the Canadian movie industry, namely the
collapse, after just one year, of the New Montreal FilmFest. Bankrolled by
Telefilm Canada and Quebec's equivalent of the Canada Council, FilmFest was
created in large part to replace Losique's event, end his 30-year reign as the
major-domo of Quebec's involvement in the international fest circuit and begin
the reclamation of some of the lustre Montreal once shared with Toronto's
famous celluloid celebration. However, when FilmFest managed to lure less than
90,000 patrons for its inaugural run Sept. 18-27, 2005, not a few predicted it
wouldn't make a sophomore season. Even before this came to pass, however,
Losique had been in active pursuit of "all the people plotting against the
World Film Festival." And he continues to do so, with at least three suits
moving through the legal system. They are: A $250,000 defamation action,
initiated in 2003, against Montreal's La Presse for comments published May 31
that year that compared Losique with a famous U.S. gangster; A $2.5-million
suit, filed in late 2004, alleging an illegal conspiracy on the part of
Telefilm to put him out of business;
A $1-million suit, filed in February, 2005, against L'Équipe Spectra and
Regroupement pour un nouveau festival des films for "plotting to steal our
business," in the words of Losique lawyer Claude-Armand Sheppard. Spectra,
organizer of Quebec's popular annual jazz festival and FrancoFolies, and
Regroupement, an umbrella organization of film professionals, were given almost
$1.1-million by Telefilm and SODEC (Société de développement des entreprises
culturelles) -- dollars previously earmarked for the World Film Festival -- as
seed money for the inaugural FilmFest. Another defendant was added to the
action against La Presse last March when Losique served papers on Moritz de
Hadeln after he arrived in Montreal to serve as head of programming for the New
Montreal FilmFest. This suit was prompted by comments de Hadeln allegedly made
in May, 2003, while attending the Cannes Film Festival as head of the Venice
Film Festival. He allegedly complained that the World Film Festival, running
Aug. 25-Sept. 7 that year, was in conflict with Venice's Aug. 27-Sept. 26
schedule. He allegedly charged that Losique had set his dates without
consulting the International Federation of Film Producers Associations and was
acting like an American gangster -- comments that later found their way into La
Presse and other newspapers. Last month lawyers for Losique argued in Quebec
Superior Court for permission to interview, under oath, Charles Bélanger,
chairman of Telefilm's board. It was on Bélanger's watch in 2004 that Telefilm
and SODEC commissioned an analysis of Canada's major film festivals -- an
analysis that, upon its publication in July, 2004, proved critical of Losique
and started the process to establish a substitute Montreal festival.
That process came under attack recently when a member of Quebec's
National Assembly revealed that, in fall 2004, Telefilm and SODEC quietly
scrapped a points-based evaluation in choosing a parent group for the
substitute festival in favour of "a more qualitative type of
analysis." Under the points system, the Festival du nouveau cinéma was
named the best of the four applicants; with the "qualitative"
evaluation, Regroupement and Spectra got the nod. Sheppard, Losique's counsel,
expects a judgment later this month or in April on his motion to examine
Bélanger. However, as a Crown agency, Telefilm can designate who it wants to
serve as its respondent in a suit and in this instance, it's insisting its
director of communications, Jean-Claude Mahé, is the relevant individual.
Meanwhile, Sheppard is hoping to continue the questioning of de Hadeln that he
started last year. However, "Mr. de Hadeln has gone back to . . . Germany
and is proving difficult to reach," Sheppard said. (De Hadeln, executive
director of the Berlin Film Festival 1979-1981, established de Hadeln &
Partners Film Consulting in Berlin in 2001.) Sheppard said SODEC hasn't been
named in any of Losique's suits because "it's our view that SODEC was
always dragged along by Telefilm." Indeed, on Feb. 24, the head of SODEC
announced that Losique could apply to his organization for the $550,000 it
awarded last year to the now-defunct FilmFest. "We don't have a
blacklist," president Jean-Guy Chaput told Montreal's The Gazette. Losique
has indicated he plans to apply this month.
3 Wives Seems Almost Normal
Excerpt
from The Toronto Star - Vinay Menon, vmenon@thestar.ca
(Mar. 10, 2006)
"You awake?" Appropriately, this is
the first line in Big Love (TMN, Sunday, 10 p.m.), a new HBO drama that's already
generated plenty of pre-launch controversy with its dreamlike subject
matter. Big Love revolves around Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton)
who, on the surface, is not dissimilar to many clean-cut, suburban dads.
Bill lives in Salt Lake City. Bill drives an SUV. Bill takes an active interest
in his children. Bill is a doting husband. Bill is a religious man. Bill is the
savvy proprietor of Home Plus, a big-box emporium. Like the rest of us,
Bill worries about money, work, family — especially family. Because, well, Bill
has three. It's a peculiar situation. And one that's deftly captured in
this early scene: After a day at the office, Bill parks his GMC and
stumbles toward his manicured abode, toting a briefcase and the dry-cleaning. He
walks through the front door, kisses wife Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn), jokes with
a teenage daughter, hugs a young son, kisses wife Nicki (Chloë Sevigny), walks
into the kitchen and kisses wife Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), all in one
non-stop trajectory of amplified domestic bliss. The weird part? It seems
so ... normal. In fact, after you get over the startling conceit —
Bill has three wives and seven children? — you'll find that producers are not
interested in shining a tawdry spotlight on the polygamist subculture for the
purposes of salacious voyeurism. Inside the Henrickson household(s) —
three detached but contiguous homes that have a compound-feel thanks to the
removed party-fences in the backyard — the characters, especially the women,
are shot through with universal traits that render them entirely
sympathetic. Barb, Bill's first and oldest wife, is a substitute teacher.
She serves as the unofficial den mother to the extended clan. She has accepted
"The Principle" of multiple marriage, despite some obvious psychological
issues arising from an illness.
Nicki, the second wife, is a shopaholic who believes most convincingly in the
"celestial" arrangement, despite some obvious jealousy issues.
And then there's Margene, Bill's third and youngest wife, a former clerk at
Home Plus who has embraced the lifestyle despite some obvious self-esteem
issues. So what you get is a mix of the outlandish and the mundane, the
sacred and the profane. This is not surprising for a network that has
masterfully tweaked the conventions of "family" on shows such as Sex
and the City, Entourage, Six Feet Under, and The Sopranos.
But here's the kicker: Big Love may be HBO's most earnest, sincere,
non-judgemental, family-oriented drama to date. Which brings us to the
controversy. Although the Henricksons are not identified as Mormons, by the
third episode, there's no mistaking the show's connection to that faith.
The Mormon Church has even taken the unusual step of issuing a statement
pointing out that adherents who practise polygamy are excommunicated. Just so
there's no confusion, Big Love tags each episode with this epilogue:
"The Mormon Church officially banned the practice of polygamy in
1890." This disclaimer, in turn, has angered anti-polygamists, such
as the Utah-based Tapestry Against Polygamy, which claims that while the Mormon
Church explicitly forbids the practice, implicitly, it's quietly
tolerated. Producers are thus faced with a curious dilemma: they must
construct a series about Salt Lake City polygamists that doesn't tar one of
that area's dominant religious groups, while hoping to avoid whitewashing
something that's illegal and has been linked to criminal abuse.
The solution? Present polygamy in two separate made-for-TV contexts.
First, we have Bill and his wives, the present day polygamists — remember,
there are still approximately 20,000 to 40,000 practitioners in the United
States alone — who are trying to conceal their pariah status and integrate into
modern society. Second, we have Juniper Creek, an unsettling,
fundamentalist compound in the hills where Nicki's messianic father, Roman
Grant (the scene-stealing Harry Dean Stanton), rules among the squalor. Roman
epitomizes the malevolent, anachronistic polygamist, a "Prophet"
prone to extortion, violence, teen seduction, and perpetual menace as he
inveighs against the unfaithful while riding in the backseat of a Hummer.
By the end of Sunday's premiere, it is the uneasy relationship between Bill and
father-in-law Roman that seems destined to drive the conflict. Undoubtedly,
this Tom Hanks-produced series is sure to trigger more protests during its
12-episode run. But this is fiction. So the real question is this: do you
think Big Love will engage viewers with its themes and characters and
storylines? I don't want to sound like a polygamist, but "I do,"
"I do," and "I do."
A Three-Ring Circus
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail -
Liam Lacey
(Mar. 1, 2006) Big love. Beautiful love. Bad love. Bill Henrickson
(Bill Paxton), the hero of the big-buzz HBO series, Big Love,
knows them all. The series, which has its premiere tomorrow night following the
opening episode of The Sopranos' sixth and final season, is about one
American man's struggle to be a good father and husband -- multiplied by three.
Armed with his faith in the Lord, an overworked cellphone and a daily little
blue Viagra pill, Bill stays married to three women, which means not only three
times the sex, but three times the mortgages, cars, kids and in-laws. The
premise sounds titillating, but Big Love is aiming for something
grander: The show is the heir apparent to HBO's other two critically acclaimed
revisionist nuclear-family dramas, The Sopranos (89 Emmy nominations)
and Six Feet Under (39 Emmy nods), both of which have challenged film's
traditional reputation for being artistically superior to television. Like the
Soprano family, running its "waste disposal" business in New Jersey,
or the Fishers, maintaining the family funeral business in Pasadena, Calif., Big
Love adroitly mixes the banal and the bizarre. There are, in each of these
series, Shakespearian echoes of a lineage that has been broken, and a
fatalistic sense that the twining DNA chains are ladders of destiny. In each
case, the producers and writers, playing to a liberal intellectual audience,
peel back the pat conservative sticker "family values" to reveal a
tangled reality underneath. In an entertainment world where "edgy" is
a marketing cliché, Big Love also aims for genuine political
controversy. The show's creators, Mark Olsen and Will Scheffer, who are gay
Californians, are out to have some fun with the idea of alternative marriage in
the heart of red-state America: Not only are foreign-terrorist fundamentalists
multiple-marriage minded, so were the founders of America's only homegrown mass
religion, Mormonism.
Mormons introduced polygamy to the U.S. in the early 19th century. The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as it is also called, has formally
disowned the practice for the past 116 years. Its 12 million, often wealthy,
churchgoers voted 95-per-cent for George W. Bush in the last election. Members
include such prominent politicians as Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, Democratic
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and New Jersey Governor (and Republican
presidential hopeful) Mitt Romney, whose father, George, a three-term governor
from Michigan, was born into a polygamous community in Mexico. Polygamy is
still practised by somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 Americans, mostly Mormon
fundamentalists in Utah and Arizona. The anti-polygamy activist group, Tapestry
Against Polygamy (which has expressed concerns about Big Love), accuses
polygamous communities of abusing women and children, and chides the Mormons
for sending mixed signals on "plural marriage" and failing to do
enough for polygamy's victims. The church, after meetings with HBO
executives, insisted that every episode of Big Love begin with a
disclaimer declaring that Mormons are opposed to polygamy. The producers say
they always intended to include such a disclaimer. One of the keys to making
the series work was the casting of the central character, who had to be a
likeable, all-American guy. The easygoing Paxton is best known for parts in
such blockbusters as True Lies and Apollo 13. He has won critical
acclaim for smaller films, including his part as a sheriff in Carl Frankin's One
False Move (1992), but more recently the 50-year-old began forging a new
career as the respected director of two features, Frailty (2001) and the
golf drama The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005). He says he never
imagined that, at this stage, he'd be getting what he has called "the role
of my life" on TV.
We talked on the telephone the morning after the Oscars, which Paxton missed to
fly overnight to New York to do the talk-show rounds promoting Big Love.
("I was happy to miss it," he said. "I'm kind of with George C.
Scott, who described the Oscars as a beauty pageant in a
slaughterhouse.") By the time his agent sent him a script for Big
Love, Paxton thought he'd finally made the break from acting: "I
thought that was it, baby. Directing just lit me on fire. I always thought I
had the stuff, and I felt like I was emancipated. I was in Montreal in
preproduction on The Greatest Game Ever Played. We were getting the
casting together, counting down to shoot, and then I got this call from my
agent," who said he had something he thought Paxton should seriously look
at, and sent it by overnight post. He read it reluctantly, but after finishing
the last page immediately made a call to meet with the show's creators.
"They had a witty but very compassionate take on this material," he
recalls. "When you think of polygamy, you think of crazy, kooky people
living in the backwoods, not this idea of using polygamy as a weird lens to
view contemporary family and marriage." Because he still wasn't sure if he
could get free to shoot the pilot, says Paxton, he was relaxed -- free from the
"stink of desperation, or that habit of overingratiating yourself that can
ruin an audition." Before Big Love, Paxton had mostly avoided TV.
He had always believed that "in movies, the craft is of the highest order
and that's where the best people are," he says. "Then I discovered
they were filling this series up with movie people." Chloë Sevigny had
already been cast before Paxton. Next came Jean Tripplehorn, Harry Dean
Stanton, Mary Kay Place and Bruce Dern. There were other attractions. Paxton,
married for 19 years and with two adolescent children, says he had never been
cast as a romantic lead before, and "now I've got three romantic leads.
There's a fantasy element of having amorous fun with three sexy stars, and the
fun of juggling these different responsibilities. . . . I always imagine that
Bill's role model in life is Bill Clinton -- the ultimate multitasker."
Wife No. 1, named Barb, and played by Tripplehorn, is worldly and educated, a
cancer survivor, and mother of two teenagers, "who plays queen," says
Paxton, "to my king." Wife No. 2, Nicky (Sevigny) is a devout Mormon
fundamentalist with a bad credit-card addiction. Wife No. 3, Margene (Walk
The Line's Ginnifer Goodwin) is a frisky flibbertigibbet, who was
previously Bill and Nicky's babysitter. As well as the demands of the bedroom
and the bank account, Bill has other problems: Nicky's sinister father (Harry
Dean Stanton), an old-time Mormon fundamentalist known as the Prophet, demands
a 15-per-cent tithe on all of Bill's earnings from his hardware business. Then
there's the daily struggle to keep his home lives secret from his co-workers
and neighbours. The risqué domestic life that Paxton portrays onscreen is a
boon to his real-life one. The actor's wife, Louise (who he says resembles
Tripplehorn), is happy the series will allow him to be home with his family six
months of the year, while still having the chance to direct his own movies. She
also likes the series' bedroom scenes, though she has a pet peeve about shows
where the women are nude and the men aren't, "so," says Paxton,
"I try to show an equal amount of nudity as the woman. It's believable. I
try to do the love scenes differently with each woman: playful with the
youngest one, lights out with my oldest wife, that sort of thing . . ."
Paxton has also been discovering the pleasures of playing an evolving
character. "He's on a real spiritual quest," says Paxton. "You
start to enjoy the whole of the hero's journey, which has some parallels to
Michael Corleone's in The Godfather: He's the one who doesn't want to be
in the family, and the one the family doesn't really want, but it's inescapable.
The funny thing about it is, polygamy is the last thing Bill wants. For him,
the greener pasture is the simplicity of monogamy." As a viewer, Paxton
likens Big Love to serialized novels in the Dickens tradition. He
remembers his father, a Fort Worth businessman (who has had cameos in a few of
Bill's movies) avidly reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood when it was
serialized in The New Yorker in the sixties: "The idea that you can create
this story and then fine-tune it to the audience's reaction as it
unfolds," says Paxton, "seems wonderful to me -- a lost part of the
art of fiction." Big Love premieres tomorrow on Movie Central at 9 p.m.
PT, and The Movie Network at 10 p.m. ET.
What Happened To Infallible Brutes We Worship At The Box Office?
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Malene Arpe, Pop Culture Writer
(Mar. 11, 2006) When Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme made Universal
Soldier in 1992, Sylvester Stallone had already done his
last Rambo tour of duty and Arnold Schwarzenegger had moved into comedy
with Kindergarten Cop. The era of big guys fighting big evil with
big guns and big biceps was inching toward an end. Waiting in the wings were
acrobatic martial artists and guys who'd manage to be sensitive and caring
while beating up their enemies. Lundgren and Van Damme, the B-listers to
Stallone and Schwarzenegger's muscle royalty, got to take the bow on behalf of
the proto-action hero of the '80s. Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis were already at
the height of their respective games and, being smaller, leaner, wittier,
cleared the way for the self-doubting comic book heroes and the conflicted, the
afflicted, the reluctant.
How did we end up in a place where Matt Damon is an action hero? Where
someone like Tobey Maguire gets to fight injustice on behalf of the
downtrodden? Where Kate Beckinsale and Charlize Theron and Angelina Jolie's
never-ending who's-got-the-tightest-pants competition manages to make millions
at the box office? Where a good beating has to take place under the
hyper-cartoonish, we-all-know-this-isn't real auspices of Sin City or Batman?
Imagine for a moment, Schwarzenegger fighting Matrix-style or
Stallone as an Underworld-ish vampire. Wouldn't work. Would be funny.
But wouldn't work. Lundgren, sitting in a Toronto hotel restaurant with a
glass of juice, keeping an eye on the Swedish women's hockey team playing in
the Olympics, has a couple of ideas on the subject of action hero
evolution: "I think the political climate was part of it. And it
tends to swing from extreme to extreme. If you look at the '70s you have an
anti-Vietnam, anti-government, very liberal climate," he says.
"Clint Eastwood was a different kind of anti-establishment guy; he was an
anti-hero who didn't fight for the government, who didn't fight for ideas. He
was a cynical hero. And Steve McQueen, too. ``Then came Arnold and Sly,
and myself to some extent, and it was all gung-ho, flag-waving Reaganism. What
happened in the '90s is that you had the Eastern cinema come in, John Woo,
diving with two guns, everybody shooting sideways, and then everybody started
on the wires, doing back flips.
"Now you see some little chick beating up on 10 guys. Look, I don't
know what happened. I mean, cinema is evolving all the time.... Where there
used to be some kind of hefty-looking man, some athletic-looking big guy who
kicked ass, the guys got a little smaller and the women came in. Which I
thought was kinda cool. And it all got a little more ballet-like and athletic;
it was a new type of action." Lundgren is in town to explore the
possibility of making two movies here and to promote his sophomore directorial
revenge effort, The Russian Specialist (aka The Mechanik),
released directly to DVD. He is, at 48, still an imposing man. A fan walks over
to ask for a couple of autographs — for women friends of his who will be very
excited, as he's eager to explain — and is dwarfed by the big Swede. It's
clear it wouldn't work putting Lundgren in a harness and having him kick 25
villains to death. His physique, which gave him a career, also dictates that
few would buy him in, say, a role like Bruce Willis's current drunken,
broken-down cop in 16 Blocks — or Adrien Brody's bookish playwright hero
in the new King Kong.
The same can obviously be said for Stallone who has returned to both Rocky
and Rambo in what looks like a last-ditch attempt at geriatric
box-office dominance. Nostalgia may get boomer bums in seats, but the
likelihood of the coveted teenage audience checking out the sequels of a
59-year-old who, in both movies, comes out of retirement to fight, is probably
slim.Allan Gedalof, a professor of film studies at the University of Western
Ontario, for one, isn't bemoaning the loss of the sweaty, muscle-bound '80s
hero. "(W)e are now a little uncomfortable with that earlier
performance of hyper-masculinity by the likes of Schwarzenegger, Stallone and
so on," Gedalof says via email. "Our current action heroes are
supposedly more sensitive, less driven by steroid rage. These more contemporary
heroes are in fact more like the earlier ones ... Bogart, Jimmy Stewart and
Cary Grant. Those heroes talked a good game and could take a beating, but their
personas were not those of violent men. Violence might be thrust upon them, but
it was never their raison d'etre, their defining quality, as it is with
Stallone, Van Damme, and so on. "All of that is not to say that the
action hero has disappeared," Gedalof continues. "He (and she, we
should note) is still around, although part of the physicality of the action
hero has been displaced into the world of special effects, the super-powerful
extensions of the human body rather than the hyper-masculinized body
itself." Matt Damon as Bourne, Bruce Willis in Die Hard, Ben
Affleck as Jack Ryan in Sum of All Fears, Ralph Fiennes in The
Constant Gardener, Neo, Batman, Han Solo, Spider-Man and Superman are all
characters who, to varying degrees, have had violence thrust upon them and have
to dig a little deeper to get their rage on because someone — or the world in
general — needs saving. While these more multi-dimensional heroes can
occasionally become gleeful after slaughtering an adversary, you just know
there's going to be brooding later on. Where does that leave someone who,
according to body count website http://www.scms.ca, has more kills per movie
than Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Van Damme, Seagal, Bronson, or pretty much
anyone else you can think of? Lundgren, who may still be best known for
his turn as Apollo Creed-killer Ivan Drago in 1985's Rocky IV, has all
kinds of ambitions when it comes to directing.
The former chemical engineer likes the multi-tasking aspect of the job
and finds it challenging, as opposed to the "having fun" and
"playing around" of acting. But he realizes he has to capitalize on
his persona to raise the money required to make the movies he wants to
make. "I'm trying to find material I can act in and also direct so I
can get it financed. It's kind of a fine line I'm trying to walk, to find stuff
where the buyers know they're going to get some action, but where the story can
maybe be a bit more sophisticated." He cites A History of
Violence and Memento — both thoughtful thrillers very much of the
present decade — as models of what he'd like to do. "Those are the
kind of movies, where as a director you can go from action to drama, without
giving up the action, but with a complex, clever script." The week
Lundgren is in Toronto, fellow director (!) Sidney Lumet presents his Vin
Diesel starrer Find Me Guilty in Berlin. I read Lundgren a quote from
Lumet: "We're all, and I include myself in this, big snobs about
action heroes, we relegate them. It's what we used to do with beautiful
actresses.... If you're an action hero and a star it means you cannot act — and
all of this despite the fact that we know different." Lundgren nods
and expands: "If action heroes start directing, people have a very
hard time taking them seriously. It's almost like they don't want to believe
that Clint Eastwood is one of the most respected directors in the world and
that he produces, directs, acts and writes the score. And Mel Gibson, there's
another guy. And Kevin Costner, too. "It's almost as if when you're
an action hero, you play blue-collar characters, simple people who get involved
in extreme situations, and then it's hard to step away from that. You don't
think of Clint sitting there composing movie scores or Mel Gibson starting his
own distribution company." In case anybody should think he's full of
himself, Lundgren quickly adds: "I don't see myself getting places like,
for example, Mel Gibson. But if I can do it on my level, enjoy my career and
prove things to myself, challenge myself.... It takes some courage to get into
some of these things. And then we'll see what the industry says."
The tagline for The Russian Specialist reads: "They took his
family. Now he's out for revenge." Things blow up quite nicely and revenge
is achieved in a timely, manly, bloody and no-nonsense way. Lundgren, who says
he's "sick of CGI" and hopes "old-fashioned, old-school
movies" are coming back, is doing his best to almost single-handedly
continue the tradition of the stoic tough-guy hero who takes neither crap nor
sweet-talk from anybody. "There's no new generation [of
Lundgren-style action heroes]. Maybe it will have to skip a
generation." According to Gedalof, we may have to wait until such
time as the world is a bit more settled for a return to '80s form.
"Some of this has to do with the post-9/11, war-in-Iraq/Afghanistan world:
In times of peace, our species wages mimic wars in our movies; when we have
actual wars and supposed heroes and villains, we don't seem to need the
cultural rituals quite as much. And when the war and its aftermath are as
embarrassing and unresolved as the current situation seems to be, stock in that
image of masculine performance is hardly trading at a high level."
But Lundgren is optimistic. "I think it's going to change back again
a bit. With movies like A History of Violence and Damon's Bourne movies,
it's a little bit of a move back to brutal action. The pinnacle of the new
action was, of course, the Matrix movies, where you're running up walls
and doing back flips." He pauses. "You don't get any
points for that in a real street fight."
Interview: Steve Harvey’s Change Of Heart
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com - By Kam Williams
(Mar. 13, 2006) **Born
January 17, 1957, in Welch, West Virginia to Jesse and Eloise Vera Harvey, Steve (Harvey) got his start in
stand-up in
1985 after winning an amateur night competition at a bar in Cleveland. He then proceeded
to perfect his craft on the Chitlin’ Circuit where he put over 100,000 miles on
his jalopy making the rounds till he was tapped to emcee the syndicated
TV-variety show “It’s Showtime at the Apollo” in 1994. That same year,
the 6’2” funnyman landed a starring role on “Me and the Boys,” a TV sitcom
which was eventually spun-off into “The Steve Harvey Show.” With a winning
smile and a down-home charm, Steve soon blossomed into one of the most familiar
faces in America. A versatile entertainer, Harvey has also had his own HBO
special, hosted comedy and awards shows, handled both dramatic and comedic
roles on the big screen, supplied voicework for cartoons and animated features,
written a book, and made guest appearances on such television series as “The
Parkers” and “My Wife and Kids.” Plus he presently has his own syndicated radio
morning show emanating from New York City. In 2000, he toured with Cedric the
Entertainer, Bernie Mac and D.L.Hughley as one of The Original Kings of Comedy,
bring an off-color brand of humour to sold-out crowds in stadiums all across
the country. However, despite all the trappings of success, something didn’t
sit well with Steve, a six-time, NAACP Image Award-winner. He admits to having
had some misgivings about disappointing his parents, particularly his late
mother, with his use of salty language on stage. So, he recently returned to
the stage to perform a curse-free concert, which he’s turned into his latest
movie, namely, Don't Trip... He Ain't Through with Me. When I initially
interviewed Steve about his new film, I later learned that my recorder had
malfunctioned and that the tape was blank. Fortunately, he was gracious enough
about it to give me another interview the next day.
Kam Williams: Steve, first I have to apologize profusely. My tape
recorder malfunctioned somehow and I lost the original interview. And it was a
great one.
Steve Harvey: I’m so sick of you. You make me sick. [chuckles] No,
man, you’re all right with me. You’re cool with me, baby.
KW: Okay, let’s start over again. What interested you in taking on the
challenge of working clean in front of a spiritual congregation?
SH: Well, two things. She passed now, but I always wanted my mother to be
able to see me work clean. She’d always say “I sho’ wish I could come see you
perform, but you cussin’, and you know I don’t wanna hear that.” So, I wanted
to do something to honour her request. Besides that reason, I wanted to do it
for the under-served church community. I grew up in the church, so I understand
it. I’ve always understood the humour inside of church. I knew it would still
be a challenge for me to attempt to do something clean after 20 years of
standing around saying what I wanted to say, any kind of way I wanted to phrase
it. But I wanted to have a piece of work that I hope people will remember, when
it’s a wrap for me. I hope this is the one that people play when they say,
“Remember Steve Harvey? Remember how good he was?”
KW: Most people find it impossible to make it in show business at even
one thing. But you’ve flourished in a wide variety of endeavours. To what do
attribute that success?
SH: Number one, I’ve never gone outside of the one thing. It’s all very
relatable. I started as a stand-up comedian. It’s a microphone. I’ve never attempted
to make money another way, until I became an expert at the joke-telling
business. Then, I got on TV. After I learned how to work in front of cameras,
then I got into some movies. But I always kept stand-up in the forefront of all
my positions. It’s the staple of everything that I do, whether it’s a movie, a
TV show, a radio show, whatever. Stand-up is the core essence of that
performance for the most part, even when I give talks as a motivational speaker
in high schools and prisons around the country. I take that skill as a stand-up
with me, ‘cause while I’m talking, whether it’s a serious subject or not, I
always use humour to keep it alive and to hold their attention. So, I focus on
one thing, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it on a lot of different levels.
KW: So, how hard was it for you working clean?
SH: [exasperated laugh] I would be kidding for you, if I said it’s easy
for me to do, ‘cause it’s not. It very much was a challenge after 20 years of
doing it any way I wanted to suddenly have to be conscious of your words, and
of how you choose your words, and little phrases which have profanity in them
that you naturally throw out. You have to edit all that, and you have to make
sure that you’re developing punch lines that don’t have profanity in them,
because you can’t clean up a punch line. It is what it is. So, it was a bit
challenging, and it took me a while to write the material for the movie.
KW: Did you try it out in a club, first?
SH: No, the stuff had never been performed anywhere before. I just did it
all that night. And it turned out pretty well.
KW: I always think of comedians testing their material in tiny clubs
first, in order to be able to see what works and tweak the act.
SH: Yeah, that’s how they do it. But I don’t like working small rooms
anymore, because I can’t get hyped for it. The Kings of Comedy kind of ruined
that for me. The advantage I have over other comedians is that I have a daily
radio show which exercises my comedy muscle. It’s really working for four hours
every morning, creating comedy. So, when I go on stage, my timing is always
still good, because that comedy muscle has been working out everyday. So, when
I write a joke, all I have to do is have the faith that it’s funny. And,
anyway, after doing it for 20 years, you have a real good idea of what’s funny,
because I know what fits my style. I don’t have to wonder, “Man, will they
accept this joke from me?” No, I already know, because this fits the charisma
and style of the animal that I am on stage.
KW: How has your adjustment to living in New York gone?
SH: [snickers] This city, man. It’s such a pace up here. The people are
great. Some of the best people I’ve met anywhere live here in New York. People
are wrong about New Yorkers not being nice people. They’re honest. There are
some great people up here. But the street… the hustle and bustle… the traffic…
the cabs not caring that you’re crossing the street in the crosswalk, and you
have the light and the walk emblem. They don’t care. That don’t matter. They’re
turning anyway and blowing their horn.
KW: It’s a tough city.
SH: I saw this guy the other day feeding a pack of pigeons and this just
sums up how tough New York is. I was watching him and he snapped, “You wanna
feed the pigeons?” And I said, “Nah, no thanks.” He said, “You’re Steve Harvey,
right?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “You think New York’s tough, don’t you?” I
answered, “Yes, it’s been pretty hard on me.” Then, he said, “Well, let me ask
you something. You ever notice that you’ve never seen any baby pigeons?” I
said, “Wow, you know, you’re right, I’ve never seen a baby pigeon.” He said,
“You know why? Because when you come down here you’ve got to be ready!” And I
thought, that’s true, you’ve never seen a baby pigeon, because when you fly
down here onto the streets of New York, you’ve got to be ready. And that sums
up New York for me, when you come here, you’ve got to ready.
KW: Yesterday, you also told me that there’s quite a difference living in
an apartment when you’re used to living on 9 acres back in Texas.
SH: 95 acres.
KW: Whoa, 95 acres. That’s a lot of real estate.
SH: Oh yeah. I got a lot of space. My front door is a half mile from the
road. I can walk outside naked and nobody would know it. I got three lakes dug
on it, plus I have huge Lake Lewisville that I live off of. Man, that gives you
space, and it’s great. It’s where I go bass fishing, and just lay around. I
wear t-shirts, and let go for a minute. It’s a breath of fresh air. No people.
KW: I was surprised in the movie to hear you mention that you’d been in
jail, you’d been shot, and that you’d lived in your career for a couple of
years when you were younger. Is all that true?
SH: Oh, yeah, very much so. Some of the film had to be edited for time
restraints. So, the live audience got more of an explanation about what
actually happened in jail. All that other stuff has been one of those lives for
me. And living in my car was a part of it that people don’t know about. I never
told anybody about. I just did what I had to do. I was just trying to make it.
I wanted to be something so badly that I was willing to go through some things
to get here. People just see the end results. They look up there and see you on
stage. They just see that part. They don’t know really what it cost, and what
it takes, and what you may have to go through to get here which makes you
appreciate it.
KW: So, what advice, then, do you have for anyone who follows in your
footsteps?
SH: My advice is, if you can get yourself an education and a good job, do
it. This is rough. This is the New York City of entertainment. [shouts] If you
come down here, you gotta be ready! [laughs] I tell my son, who wants to be a
comedian, “Hey, man, this is not what you want to do.” It’s just such a tough
business, man. It’s so difficult to get through all of the cracks and stuff. I
recommend that you just follow your gift. Don’t worry about what you have a
burning desire to be. You’ve got to match that up with your gift. See, I
had the wrong desire when I was young. I had a burning desire to be in the NBA,
but a few things kind of slowed that up, like dribbling, shooting and running.
KW: At the end of this film, it looks like you were emotionally drained
and maybe even crying on stage. Was that actually the case?
SH: Yeah, it was emotional for me. When the lights went out and they came
back up, I tried to walk back out and say something to the crowd, but I was
overcome. It was a big night for me. I had finished. I had done it without
cussing. There was a lot of pressure on me. A lot of expectations, a lot of
judgment that I was fighting against. And, at the same time, there was a lot of
love. The last piece, my introduction of God, had really affected me while I
was doing it.
KW: Why so?
SH: Because I was feeling the reaction from the crowd to this piece that
I had never done before in front of anybody. It was just a very emotional and
overwhelming experience for me. I couldn’t talk at the end. I just had to stop.
Then when I walked off, I went into my dressing room and cried for 20 minutes.
I couldn’t pull it back together. It was just the emotion of the night and
being able to accomplish it. I had a feeling my Mom was watching.
A lot of that was in my head at the time, so it was really deep for me
for me to know that she was finally able to watch me work and that she was very
proud of me at that moment. All of that was going on inside in me.
KW: Well, Steve, thanks again for giving me the do-over. I really
apologize.
SH: It’s no problem, man. You’re a good guy.
KW: I promise to do a good job spreading the word about the movie.
SH: I sho’ appreciate it, man.
KW: Later, bro.
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Is South By Southwest Going Hollywood?
Source: Christy Lemire,
Associated Press
(Mar. 10, 2006) With Robert Altman's star-studded A Prairie Home
Companion making its North American premiere on opening night Friday
and celebrities including Charlize Theron, Ray Romano, Brad Garrett and Erykah
Badu appearing throughout the week, observers might be forgiven for thinking
the
South by Southwest film festival has gone Hollywood. Organizers
say the festival will maintain the same laid-back, small-town atmosphere for
which Austin, Tex., is known. "It's definitely bigger, definitely more
people, definitely more premieres than we've ever had before, more films than
we've ever had before, more filmmakers than we've ever had before,"
festival producer Matt Dentler said. From Friday through March 18, 230 features
and shorts are on the schedule, 60 of which are world premieres. They include 95
Miles to Go, a documentary about Romano's stand-up comedy tour, and East
of Havana, a documentary Theron helped produce about Cuban rappers. John C.
Reilly is expected to appear with A Prairie Home Companion, based on the
longtime Garrison Keillor radio program, which co-stars Meryl Streep, Lindsay
Lohan, Woody Harrelson and Kevin Kline. Also arriving in Austin to take part in
discussions of their careers are veteran rocker Henry Rollins and Peter Bart,
the longtime editor-in-chief of Variety.
Despite the presence of these high-profile celebrities and others,
"I don't think it'll change at all," Dentler said. "I think
people know they can come to South by Southwest and stay under the radar, blend
in and mingle," he said. "South by Southwest is one of the rare
festivals where you can look out at the audience and see five or six incredibly
important figures in the entertainment business, all sitting next to each other
— maybe they know each other, maybe they don't know each other — but they're
just hanging out. There's just a friendly, communal vibe in Austin."
Dentler said festival planners didn't realize Theron was involved with East
of Havana when they became interested in it. South by Southwest always
features a large number of documentaries and features about music, since it
overlaps with the more established South by Southwest music festival, now in
its 20th year. (The film festival is in its 13th year.) "This one struck
us and we didn't even know it was produced by Charlize Theron," Dentler
said. "Then we did a little homework and said, 'Is this THE Charlize
Theron?' It's interesting that this Oscar winner, arguably one of the biggest
movie stars in the world, would get behind a camera to produce a Cuban hip-hop
documentary." Other music films include world premieres of the
documentaries lo udQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies, which follows the
influential band's hotly awaited reunion tour; Air Guitar Nation, which is
about exactly what the title suggests; and Before the Music Dies, a
historical piece featuring interviews and performances from Badu, Eric Clapton,
Dave Matthews and Bonnie Raitt. An all-star musical line-up also can be found
in Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, making its U.S. premiere. The
documentary, which depicts heavy metal as a long-misunderstood art form,
includes Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Dee Snider, Vince Neil and many more.
Sam Dunn, who directed and produced the film with his longtime friend and
fellow Canadian Scot McFadyen, started out listening to Twisted Sister, Motley Crue
and Van Halen in the '80s, then moved onto Iron Maiden and Judas Priest,
followed by harder thrash and death metal. He's still a fan at age 31.
"I've grown up with this music since I was very young and most metal fans
grow up feeling somewhat on the outside by virtue of, this music marks you
immediately as being different," he said. "I think that's a hard
thing for a lot of kids. This is very special music to a lot of people. It's a
big part of their identity." McFadyen added: "This is the perfect
place to premiere a documentary about music. You have true music fans in the
U.S. who all seem to come together for a week and a half." Annabelle
Gurwitch also has amassed a cross-section of stars for Fired! a documentary in
which people talk about — you guessed it — being fired. The actress-comedian,
who hosted the TV series Dinner and a Movie, was inspired to make the
film after being fired from Woody Allen's off-Broadway play Writer's Block
— or rather, as she was informed, they were "going in another direction."
"That firing led me to really think about what it means to get fired in
America today in every profession," Gurwitch said. "Being fired by a
cultural icon is pretty big. You'd like to think, 'Oh, I never have to hear
from that person again. Who are THEY?' Well, THEY is Woody Allen." As the
film's producer, Gurwitch interviewed actors David Cross, Illeana Douglas and
Tim Allen, former White House executive chef Walter Scheib III, columnist and
speechwriter Ben Stein and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who told her:
"Every industry is becoming more and more like show business, where you're
a freelancer and you go from job to job to job." Here's what Gurwitch has
learned from her new job: "Making documentaries is a great way to hemorrhage
money doing something you feel really passionate about."
ESPN Airs Rags-To-Riches Story Of Sebastian Telfair
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 10, 2006) *On Sunday (March 12) at 8 p.m., ESPN will premiere the
film “Through the Fire,” a documentary that follows high school
basketball sensation Sebastian Telfair through his tumultuous senior year in high school. The
Brooklyn-born cousin of NBA star Stephon Marbury, Telfair is shown in the film
trying to lead his Coney Island high school team to the championship while
deciding whether to attend college at the University of Louisville under famed
coach Rick Pitino; or go pro, secure an endorsement deal and move his family
out of the projects. The youngster was all set to attend college, but the
shocking murder of two former teammates in the hallway outside of his family’s
apartment changed his mind. Telfair, all of five-foot-ten, would be the
first player under six feet to attempt a jump from high school to the
pros. The 92-minute documentary, directed by Emmy award-winning
producer and director Jonathan Hock, came about after HBO had asked the
filmmaker to shoot a piece about a subject that would air on Bob Costas’
program the night LeBron James was drafted in 2003. “I said I know of a
kid in Coney Island who they are talking about as maybe the next one. So
I went out and hunted him down,” Hock told us. “After spending two days with
[Telfair] shooting a short, I learned about his older brother, I learned about
his mother, I learned about the family and what was really riding on
him.”
Hock sensed a story much bigger than a film short after learning of the
family’s previous NBA-related letdown involving Sebastian’s older
brother. “Their mother wouldn’t have anything to do with anything that
hyped her son for basketball because Sebastian’s older brother, her older son,
was supposed to be a first-round draft pick in the NBA and was not selected.
And it kind of broke everyone in the family’s heart, especially hers.” As Hock
was filming the Telfair brothers, he suggested the idea to turn the piece into
a movie, and requested to follow them around for a year to capture the life of
a young, African American basketball star on the verge of sure NBA
superstardom. Hock recalled: “Sebastian just kind of looked at his big brother,
and his big brother said, let’s make a movie. So we shook hands, and for the
next 15 months we followed Sebastian through one of the most remarkable
emotional years that I’ve ever witnessed in the world of sports.” With only a
three-man crew, Hock began filming without any distributor or financial
backing. “We just committed to making this movie, really, just the
three of us, going out to Coney Island every day,” said Hock. And to have the
opportunity now to see it air three years, almost, from that date, on this
network that’s going to reach more sports fans than anyone in the world, it’s
really a thrill.” Today, the 20-year-old Telfair, now six-feet tall, is a point
guard for the Portland Trailblazers averaging 8.7 points per game. He was
selected in the first round of the 2004 draft. “Through the Fire” – a
2005 “Audience Favorite Award” winner at the American Film Institute Film
Festival and 2005 “Best Documentary Award winner at the 9th Annual Urbanworld
Film Festival – will be available on DVD Tuesday (March 14).
The Pixies Inside And Out
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
- Christy Lemire, Associated Press
(Mar. 15, 2006) AUSTIN, TEX. -- Twelve
years after breaking up, the Pixies were more popular and influential
than when they were together. So
filmmakers Steven Cantor and Matthew Galkin knew they had the potential for a
great documentary when the band announced they were reuniting for a world tour
in 2004 -- and sold out the concert sites within minutes. The result is loudQUIETloud:
A Film About the Pixies, which made its world premiere at the South by Southwest
(SXSW) film festival. The documentary provides astonishing access to four
musicians who were known as much for their reclusiveness and infighting as they
were for their unique sound: a mix of punk rock, surf guitar, screaming vocals
and sometimes discordant harmonies impossible to classify. Kurt Cobain admitted
that when he wrote Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana's first hit, he was
basically trying to rip off the Pixies. Radiohead also has pointed to them as
an influence, and Bono and David Bowie have praised them as one of the best
bands ever. "When we first heard they were getting back together, our
first reaction was, 'Oh my God, we have to get tickets,' " said Cantor, an
Oscar nominee for the 1993 documentary short Blood Ties: The Life and Work
of Sally Mann. "I think while we were on the phone getting tickets
from Ticketmaster, we said, 'Wait a minute -- we're filmmakers. This would make
a good film.' " Galkin added: "Steven and I both felt that, because
they were so influential but also so underdocumented when they were around --
there is virtually no intimate footage of the Pixies -- we both felt there was
a beautiful opportunity to actually document something intimate with this band
that had such a mystique about them that was fascinating to us."
Cantor and Galkin followed the Boston-based band from its first hesitant
rehearsal -- where bassist Kim Deal can't recall how many times to sing the
word "chained" at the end of Hey -- to its thunderous final
shows at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. They rehearse and perform such
favourites as Gouge Away, U-Mass, Bone Machine and Here
Comes Your Man. And the way they sound, you'd never know they'd been apart.
After their 1992 break-up -- which lead singer Charles Thompson announced on
BBC Radio to the surprise of his band mates -- Deal formed the Breeders with
her sister, Kelley, and went through rehab. Thompson launched a solo career
under stage name Frank Black. Drummer David Lovering became a magician and
guitarist Joey Santiago wrote documentary scores. "I was basically eking
it out," Santiago says at the film's start. "[The reunion] couldn't
have come at a better time." Both Cantor and Galkin said they were
surprised to find that the band members were "shockingly normal" --
at first. "Early on, they were much more regular people, and as the tour
went on they became the Pixies, they became rock stars, they became more
reclusive and they talked to each other less," Cantor said. "I think
they very quickly slipped into the same roles they always played," Galkin
added. "They haven't changed that much in 12 years." At a party after
the SXSW premiere, Santiago said he and the others let Cantor and Galkin in on
intimate moments during the tour because they were "shooting a documentary
and we knew they had to do that." But, he added, "I would bet that
more than half of the bands don't hang out with each other that much and don't
talk to each other that much. I mean, the only one I can think of is the
Monkees." And he'll get that feeling again soon: Lovering said that, while
they're not necessarily reuniting for good, the Pixies are planning to go on
another European tour this summer.
FILM TIDBITS
Sophie Okonedo, Mos Def Line Up Black Panther Pic
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 10, 2006) *Mos Def and Sophie Okonedo are in final talks to
topline
the independent drama "Stringbean and Marcus," a story written and
directed by first-time feature helmer Tanya Hamilton. Mos Def and Okonedo will
play two former Black Panther members dealing with a broken love affair in
1978. The story unfolds through the eyes of an adolescent girl. "It's not
so much about the idea of race," Hamilton told the Hollywood Reporter.
"I just wanted to show this world of ordinary people living under
extraordinary circumstances, trying to outrun this past they all
have." Shooting is scheduled to begin in July in Philadelphia. Mos
Def and Okonedo, have not officially signed on the dotted line, but
"they've committed to the project," says one of the producers, Sean
Costello. Contracts are not likely to be finalized until June, he added.
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Quebec Launches Inquiry Into Funding Of Filmfest
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail -
James Adams
(Mar. 10, 2006) Toronto -- A former Quebec culture minister will
lead an inquiry into how the province's main culture agency ended up awarding
the now-defunct New Montreal FilmFest to a Montreal company, L'Equipe
Spectra, and a movie-industry coalition. Quebec Culture Minister Line Beauchamp
named Denis Vaugeois, Parti Québécois cultural-affairs minister from 1978 to
1981, to the probe just one week after she told Quebec's National Assembly such
an investigation was unnecessary. His report is due April 11. The Société de
développement des enterprises culturelles awarded more than $500,000 last year
to L'Equipe Spectra and the coalition as part of a $2-million start-up package
from provincial, municipal and federal bodies, including Telefilm Canada. Last
month the PQ's culture critic discovered that another Montreal organization,
not the Spectra group, had scored highest in the initial evaluation to find an
organizer for the Montreal FilmFest, designed to replace the World Film
Festival. The new festival's debut last fall was a disaster, drawing fewer than
100,000 patrons and running a deficit of close to $900,000. A 2006 edition has
been cancelled.
Crash’ Landing Gives Ludacris Much ‘Game’
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 10, 2006) *Still basking in the afterglow of a best picture Academy
Award for “Crash,” the film’s co-star, Chris
“Ludacris” Bridges, has signed on to lend his
voice to a new documentary about a Seattle high school girls’ basketball
team. “Heart of the Game,” due in June, tells the story of the
Roosevelt Roughriders, and one teammate’s struggle to maintain her eligibility.
"My stock has definitely gone up," Ludacris told
AllHipHop.com of his post-Oscar film prospects "People can get used to
seeing me on the big screen more in the future [as I] continue to choose
projects that I feel will change people's lives." The Atlanta
rapper-turned-actor has also scored a role in NBC’s “Law & Order: Special
Victims Unit.” Luda will appear in several episodes beginning in May.
Meanwhile, his new album, “Release Therapy,” is due this summer.
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Film By Atanarjuat Director To Open T.O. Film Fest
Source: Canadian
Press
(Mar. 9, 2006) A new movie by Zacharias Kunuk, who
directed the acclaimed Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), has nabbed the prestigious opening night spot
at the next Toronto International Film Festival. The Journals of Knud
Rasmussen, directed by Kunuk and Norman Cohn, examines the history of the Inuit
people from the perspective of a father and daughter. "Zacharias Kunuk
and Norman Cohn have created a truly visionary work of art," festival
co-director Noah Cowan said Wednesday in a statement. "They have
again redefined the scope and visual palette of Canadian film, while telling a
profound and moving story." The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, a
Canadian-Danish co-production, will screen in Inuit communities in Canada and
Greenland before it comes to the festival, which runs Sept. 7-16. Five
years ago, Kunuk won the Golden Camera prize for first-time directors at the Cannes
Film Festival for Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), a story of two Inuit
brothers. Made for $2 million, it was the first feature-length fiction
film written, produced, directed and acted by Inuit in the Inuktitut language.
Biggie’s Mom Confirms Fuqua For Son’s Biopic
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 13, 2006) *“Training Day” director Antoine
Fuqua has been chosen by the mother of slain
rapper Notorious B.I.G. to direct a film that will detail
his life story. According to allhiphop.com, Fox/Searchlight is funding the
untitled project from Biggie’s mother, Voletta Wallace, and his former
managers, Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts. "The film [will be] directed by
Antoine Fuqua - a very nice director. He's very talented. Who is gonna play
Biggie? I don't know yet. Who is gonna play me, I don't know yet. But we are in
the process of casting now," Mrs. Wallace told the website. Biggie, a.k.a.
Christopher Wallace, was shot and killed in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997. His
murder is thought to be linked to the killing of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas,
however, both murders remain unsolved.
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Fishburne To Be Honoured By Showest
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 13, 2006) *Laurence Fishburne
has been selected to receive the
Distinguished Decade of Achievement in Film Award at the annual ShoWest
exhibitors convention, which begins its run Monday (March 13) in Las Vegas. The
actor, who will next appear in the Lionsgate film “Akeelah and the Bee,” is to
be given the honour during ShoWest’s closing-night ceremony Thursday at Bally's
and Paris Las Vegas hotels. "Laurence Fishburne is an
outstanding actor with the ability to captivate audiences and display great
depth in his portrayal of confident and powerful characters, earning his
performances long-standing critical acclaim and his movies box office
success," said Mitch Neuhauser, co-managing director of the
event. Fishburne’s film credits include "Apocalypse Now,"
"The Color Purple," "Boyz N the Hood," "What's Love
Got to Do With It," "Mystic River" and the "Matrix"
trilogy. He will also be seen in the upcoming "Mission: Impossible 3.
Cube Bringing ‘Welcome Back Kotter’ To Big Screen
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 15, 2006) *Ice Cube as Mister Kot-taire? The rapper’s company, Cube Vision
Productions, just inked a deal with Dimension Films to bring
“Welcome Back, Kotter”
to the big screen with the “Barbershop” star in the title role. "There was
no bigger fan of the original show than me, and I'm very excited to be able to
put a new twist on it," said Cube, who will star in the remake as high
school teacher Gabe Kotter, a slacker who returns to his inner-city alma mater
to light a fire under the school’s apathetic students. The original
series ran from 1975-79 with John Travolta rising to superstardom as the
clueless cutie Vinnie Barbarino, a member of a band of students in Kotter’s
class nicknamed The Sweathogs. Other ‘hogs included the smooth-talking
Freddie "Boom-Boom" Washington, played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs; the
proud “Puerto Rican Jew” Juan Epstein (Robert Hegyes) and bonafide nerd Arnold
Horshack (Ron Palillo). No word whether any of the stars from the series will
make cameos in the film. Production is likely to begin this fall following the
completion of Cube’s next project, “Are We Done Yet,” a sequel to last year’s
hit “Are We There Yet.” The sequel, also a remake loosely based on the Cary
Grant film “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse,” begins filming this June in
Vancouver. Cube’s next rap album, “Laugh Now, Cry Later,” is also due in
June.
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Don Cheadle In Talks To Star In Miles Davis Biopic
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 15, 2006) *Don Cheadle has been in negotiations to star in a new
biographical film about jazz legend Miles Davis. Members of Davis’
family announced the news backstage at Monday’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
ceremony, where the late trumpeter received a posthumous induction. "It
could touch on many things [like] the way he changed music in different
decades," Davis' nephew, Vince Wilburn, said of the project. "From
Bird to bebop to hip-hop and in between. Wilburn added that filmmaker
Antoine Fuqua was in discussions to direct the project, but noted, "First
of all we have to get a script." In the meantime, Sony's Legacy
imprint will release several archival CD and DVD projects from Davis, including
material from his various performances at Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival.
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Kanye Conjuring Feature Film Debut
Excerpt from www.billboard.com -
Borys Kit and Sheigh Crabtree, The Hollywood Reporter
(Mar. 15, 2006) Kanye West is digging for big screen gold. The rapper has
teamed up with Anonymous Content and New Line Cinema to produce a feature film
inspired by his music. West also will appear in the film, which will
create a multi-perspective portrait of the United States as seen through the
eyes of West and several filmmakers. George C. Wolfe, the Broadway figure who
directed "Lackawanna Blues," will oversee the creative process on the
film. The producers are assembling about six writers and 10-12 directors to
craft short stories, not music videos, that will be linked by a central
narrative. The movie will feature new and old music from West. The
untitled project will be produced by Richard Brown and Steve Golin
("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"). West, West's manager G.
Roberson and Wolfe will serve as executive producers. "This project
will synthesize Kanye's vision with a fantastic group of filmmakers and create
what will be a one-of-a-kind film experience," Brown said.
::TV NEWS::
The End Of The Sopranos Finally Begins
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Rob Salem, Pasadena
Just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in.
— Michael Corleone, The Godfather: Part III
(Mar. 12, 2006) Some of us have been waiting almost two years
for this — the return of The Sopranos, the critically acclaimed, audience adored,
industry honoured cable drama, starting its sixth and final season tonight at
10 on The Movie Network. It's been a long wait — but then, it'll be a
long season, with a dozen regular episodes running through the end of May, and
then an additional eight "bonus" shows, which should start shooting
about a month after that, to air next January. But if you think you've
had it tough waiting for The Sopranos, imagine what it must be like to
be one. The scrutiny. The secrecy. The uncertainty. The endless heaping
plates of pasta. Months of intense 16-hour shooting days ... followed by many
more months of enforced inactivity. "It's terrible,"
acknowledges Vince Curatola, better known in Soprano circles as the family's
New York liaison, Johnny "Sack" Sacrimoni. "We finished
production of the fifth season in December of 2003. It came on the air March
'04, and came off the air early June '04. Then we did not go back to work until
April 29, '05. "It's tough. You're home a lot. You're washing your
car a lot. It's like, `Gee, am I really on television? Because I don't feel
it.' The cheques are there, but that's it. You still want to work."
And, in between Sopranos seasons, there is only so much work you can
do. "We're all under contract," Curatola says, "so we can
only do little bits of television — we can't be series regulars or anything
else during that. You can maybe do a movie, if one comes your way. But that's
about it." And even then, when you do come back to work, on The
Sopranos you never can quite be sure of what you're coming back to. Or for
how long. The show has an unusually high mortality rate.
"You just don't feel you're in the groove," the actor allows.
"You never know what you're going to be doing. Anything can come at you
from out of left field." But, even in a worst-case scenario, you at
least get a good meal out of the deal — invariably at Il Cortile, a small,
family-owned restaurant in New York's Little Italy, traditional site of what Sopranos
insiders morbidly refer to as "the whacking party." It is a
longstanding cast tradition when someone's character is scheduled to die.
"We take them to dinner," confirms Michael Imperioli, the actor (and
occasional screenwriter, on and off screen) who plays the newly minted Soprano
captain, Christopher Moltisanti. "Lots of rituals (on the show)
revolve around food. But when you're asked to dinner, it's not such a good
thing. You gotta remember that." "Actually," muses his
erstwhile mob boss, series star James Gandolfini, "I think we may owe a
couple ..." Nobody laughs. At this level, among the regular,
less at-risk actors (not coincidentally, the ones who tend to get the movie
work), there is an understanding that these inordinately long lay-offs are
essential to their visionary creator/producer, David Chase. A notorious
hands-on micro-manager, Chase insists on — and is happily given — ample time to
map out and plot the entire season himself before work even starts on the
scripts. "He's never taken a hiatus," Gandolfini marvels.
"Maybe once ... but even then, I'm sure that somewhere, some part of his
brain is thinking about it 24/7." "I know that everybody was
always not very happy with us with our long hiatuses," concedes co-star
Lorraine Bracco, a.k.a. Soprano therapist Dr. Jennifer Melfi. "But I
also think that it's also been extremely healthy for everyone. Besides, you
know, the writing process, which David needs, because he edits and writes
... "But I think it's been good for all of us, too. I mean, it's not
like, you know, 11 months out of the year we're on the dole." Still,
21 months is an awfully long time to wait for anything — within the same
elapsed period, a woman could produce two entire children and have another one
well on its way. Is it too long to wait for a mere TV series?
Particularly one now only 20 episodes away from saying "Ciao"
forever?
"I have no idea," shrugs Chase. "I really don't know. When
I talk to people, they seem to want it to come back. But if somebody wants to
watch another show, that's great." "Yeah," agrees Edie
Falco, a standout once again this season as the long-suffering Mob wife,
Carmela Soprano. "Nobody signed anything committing to watch this
for as long as it's on the air. If they find something else, then God bless
'em." But really, what are the chances of that? We're already all
emotionally invested. We're not about to give up on The Sopranos —
especially not this close to the end. The end. Needless to say, a closely
guarded secret. No one but Chase knows where this is all leading — not even the
Sopranos themselves. Nor do they wish to. "I don't know what
he's got planned for the ending ... and I don't want to know," Gandolfini
insists. "I would never want to know," agrees Falco. "I
wish I didn't even know that we were ending when we're ending, because now I
have this sort of gravity about the time I'm spending with these people I love
that I wish I didn't have. But it's inevitable." And no one is quite
ready to consciously confront how that is going to finally feel.
"Right now, it's just about being with these people one more year,"
echoes Gandolfini. "This is the year we have, and let's enjoy it and
really look at it and remember it." "There's still a lot of work
to be done," says Chase. "I'm just sort of still in the middle of it.
So I'm not really there yet with any kind of emotional reaction. "I
think we're all going to be really sad when it's ended. I mean, everybody, I'm
sure, will feel relieved and, to a certain extent, hopefully feel that we've
done good work. There won't be that huge amount of responsibility and work to
do anymore. But I'm sure we're all going to be very sad." At least
they'll have each other. "We're a very close cast," Curatola
affirms. "I don't think two weeks go by where we don't each see three or
four of the others. We're on the phone constantly. We do a lot of travelling
together. We do appearances. We all hang out together in Manhattan. That will
continue. We're like an extended family." The show, then, would be
their family legacy. "That in and of itself is a great calling
card," acknowledges Curatola. "It's made every one of us
famous." None more so than James Gandolfini. "A lot of us, when
we started out — well, except for Lorraine (Bracco) — but a lot us were
reasonably unknown," Gandolfini says. "You learn so much from all the
stuff that happened through this ... about success and money and celebrity, all
kinds of stuff. It's been an incredible life lesson that none of us, I don't
think, would have ever had if we hadn't had this opportunity."
From Teen VJ To TV Mom
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Vinay Menon, vmenon@thestar.ca
(Mar. 14, 2006) Amanda Walsh knows what she wants. But in the mercurial world of show
business, where the gatekeepers are as
capricious as they are conniving, "knowing" doesn't always translate
into "getting." So when the Quebec-born Walsh bid adieu to
MuchMusic in 2004 — abandoning a high-profile VJ gig to pursue an acting career
— more than a few eyebrows were raised. "It was a very difficult
decision," says Walsh, in Toronto for last night's Genie Awards. "But
when I started working at Much, I knew it wasn't somewhere I was going to stay
forever." In fact, while wowing Much's youthful demo — at 19, Walsh
was the youngest VJ in station history — the vivacious blonde was already focused
on a bigger trophy. Walsh would save vacation time and decamp to Los
Angeles for auditions, entering the thrashing jetstream that is pilot season.
There were readings and screen tests and callbacks and close calls. And, well,
many reasons for the plucky optimist to lose faith. But she didn't.
Last year around this time, after another round of baptism-by-fire auditions —
"I can't even count, I went to so many!" — Walsh landed a role on a
new American sitcom. Sons & Daughters (ABC, Citytv, 9 tonight) is a
"hybrid comedy" about an extended family living in Ohio. Co-created
by Fred Goss, who stars, the series boasts the imprimatur of Saturday Night
Live's Lorne Michaels, who serves as executive producer. On the show,
which premiered last week and continues tonight with back-to-back episodes,
Walsh plays the winsome Jenna, a single mother and Goss's half-sister.
With its single-camera, documentary-style shooting and no laugh track,
comparisons are already being made to Curb Your Enthusiasm, Scrubs and Arrested
Development. There are also some strange parallels between Amanda and
Jenna: Amanda was a music station personality, Jenna dreams of becoming a pop
star. Jenna works as a waitress, Amanda was discovered while doing the same in
Hudson, Que. For the actors, the improvised show presents its own
challenges. "We do really long takes that can go off track at times,"
says Walsh, who also stars in the feature These Girls, which opens March
24. "But that's how you find the genuinely funny moments." For
Walsh, a background in sketch comedy — she was a member of the gold medal team
at the 2000 Ontario Improv Games — has lessened the anxiety one might expect
from a relative newcomer to the cut-throat world of U.S. television.
"I've been acting since I was 11," says Walsh, who started on
Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark? and, more recently, had a
guest role on Smallville. Production has already wrapped on the 11
episodes of Sons & Daughters. A decision about renewal is expected
by May. For now, though, the 23-year-old Libra is just trying to stay balanced:
"I have moments where all of a sudden everything hits me and I get really,
really excited." Who can blame her? Walsh has, in fact, bucked the
dream-making odds by finding success so quickly in a city where the tribulations
vastly outnumber the triumphs. "When you're going through (the
audition process) it always seems like a really long time," says Walsh.
"But I definitely recognize how this has happened pretty fast for me. I'm
very fortunate because things have panned out well in the last year and a
half." So Walsh is adjusting to her new life. She's been jetting
between Toronto and L.A. where, as of September, she has a new apartment in
West Hollywood, equipped with a gym she's been forcing herself to visit. Walsh,
who didn't own a car in Toronto, now has her licence and is driving around
L.A., a sprawling metropolis that's impossible to navigate without wheels. And
let's not forget, she headed west with virtually no leads or contacts.
"It's been a pretty big adjustment," she says. "Because outside
of the people I work with, I know about two people in the entire
city." The weather is great in L.A., a fringe benefit for the
outdoors-loving Walsh. In her beloved Montreal Canadiens shirt, she's spent
recent weeks playing tour guide to visiting friends and family. Which
raises a final question: has Canada lost another bright light? "Maybe
they'll move the whole show up here," Walsh says, laughing. "That
would be my dream."
MTV Live Unveils Its New Line-up Of Hosts
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
- Scott Deveau
(Mar. 15, 2006) They may be just fledgling stars now, but
you can expect their celebrity status to skyrocket in Canada next week with the
launch of MTV Live. Seven
hosts of MTV Canada's flagship program were announced Tuesday, and while
most have some experience on the small screen, none are exactly household
names. "These hosts are going to be the first stars of MTV and soon,
Canada will know all of them," MTV vice-president of production Mark
McInnis said Tuesday. Perhaps the most recognizable would be Gemini Award
winner Daryn Jones, who received the honour for his work on
the Comedy Network series Buzz. He was also a writer and on-air
correspondent for the Rick Mercer Report. Unveiled last month, MTV
Canada will be broadcast from downtown Toronto starting March 21, and will be
produced in partnership with CTV Inc. MTV Live will focus on in-studio
guests, debates and webcam interviews about fashion, relationships and celebrities.
"Our hosts are talented, clever, genuine individuals that are
representative of Canada and of our audience," McInnis said. "And
they reflect the MTV Brand - they're fun and passionate, they have attitude and
style, they're emotional and they're leaders - which is what sets MTV apart
from its competition." MTV Canada has been off the air since last year
when its deal with Craig Broadcasting ended after the broadcaster was bought by
CHUM Ltd., which owns Canadian rival MuchMusic. The other six hosts announced
Tuesday are:
-- Jessi Cruickshank, whose previous television experience includes two
seasons as the host of YTV's Weird on Wheels and principal roles in The
Pretender, Virtuality, For Hope and Alive!
-- Nicole Holness, whose R&B girl group X-Quisite earned a 2003 JUNO
nomination for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year and snagged nominations as
Best New Artist at the 2002 Urban Music Awards of Canada and Best New Artist
(CHR) at the 2002 Canadian Radio Awards.
-- Daniel Levy, who is said to bring an everyman perspective to the show.
He describes himself as "slightly OCD" with an almost disconcerting
knowledge of the city's best pizza.
-- Gilson Lubin, who has spent the last couple of years racking up an
impressive resume of accolades including a scholarship for Humber College's
Comedy Performance and Writing program and a nomination for the Phil Hartman
Award. He went on to win Chicago's Laugh Across America contest and the Las
Vegas Comedy Festival and last year he picked up the best newcomer Canadian
Comedy Award before taping his own Comedy Now! special.
-- Diane Salema who was "discovered" by MTV while working at a
Toronto retail outlet. When approached to audition for one of the host
positions, Diane thought the offer was a scam, but she decided to give the
audition a chance.
-- Aliya-Jasmine Sovani, a former television producer for Chum, who says
she owes her existence to rock 'n roll because her parents met and fell in love
at a Kiss concert.
Prairie Giant's Scheduling Snafu
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
- Roy Macgregor
(Mar. 11, 2006) It was never intended as irony.
The scene was straightforward enough: Upstart Saskatchewan Premier Tommy
Douglas taking on the establishment with
revolutionary legislation that would prevent banks from foreclosing on
destitute farmers. If the Eastern banks and their friends in Ottawa don't like
it, he decides, he'll go directly to the people in a public broadcast. Not so
fast, the spunky premier is told, the CBC won't give airtime to anyone about
"to criticize the federal government." Twenty years after Tommy
Douglas's death, the CBC was still denying him airtime. But not, mercifully,
forever. Prairie Giant: The Tommy
Douglas Story, the four-hour miniseries that
was bumped from its originally scheduled broadcast so that it wouldn't
interfere with the recent federal election, will finally be shown tomorrow and
Monday. The people, the CBC appears to have decided, are now far enough removed
from the voting booth to be reminded of a Canadian politician with integrity, a politician driven to bring about genuine change, a politician
capable of moving oratory, a politician with -- how long has it been? -- genuine
wit. John N. Smith, the Montreal filmmaker and director of this luminous
miniseries, still seethes when reminded of the decision to keep his film away
from the election. "I was horrified," he says. "I reacted with
absolute outrage." What galled Smith was that he was chosen for the
project in part because of his great success for CBC with The Boys of St.
Vincent (1992), a controversial examination of priests and pedophilia that
became a long, and successful, legal battle in defence of freedom of expression.
"I spent a year of my life going to the Supreme Court trying to
establish freedom of speech," Smith says. "If this could happen for
this reason, who is to say next time it couldn't be somewhere else for some
other reason? To me, this was the thin edge of the wedge." While Smith was
somewhat mollified by CBC's decision to reschedule, his preference would have
been for the series to run as planned at the time of the election call. "I
think it would have made for a more interesting campaign," he says.
"It would tell our history, tell us where we came from and tells us the
values that Tommy Douglas lived his whole life for and espoused." He
fought the CBC decision, but "no one ever returned my calls." They
will likely be calling next week, though. And the call will be to congratulate
Smith and his scriptwriter son, Bruce N. Smith, on a remarkable and moving
portrayal of the little prairie premier who is known as "the Father of
Medicare." It is difficult to comprehend the hold Tommy Douglas has
on this country. Slight, bespectacled and remembered for, of all things, legislation
-- the 40-hour work week, government auto insurance, North America's first bill
of rights, hospitalization -- Douglas was selected more than a year back as
"the Greatest Canadian" in a contest run by the same CBC that bumped
him in afterlife. He was, arguably, the least known of the finalists
beyond Canada's borders, the others in the top 10 being Terry Fox, Pierre
Trudeau, Sir Frederick Banting, David Suzuki, Lester Pearson, Don Cherry, Sir
John A. Macdonald, Alexander Graham Bell and Wayne Gretzky. In fact, to younger
Canadians, his story has faded dramatically. Michael Therriault, the
32-year-old lead actor in the miniseries, had never even heard of Douglas when
the part came around. "This," says director Smith who, at 62, has
vivid memories of Douglas as Saskatchewan premier and, later, as national
leader of the New Democratic Party, "is a man who changed the world."
Today, Therriault would agree. The young Shakespearean actor, with no
previous film experience, immersed himself in Douglas's character to a point
where he is now encyclopedic on the topic. He plays the part magnificently, the
passion burning through but not, curiously, with the very distinctive
sing-songy and clipped manner of speaking Douglas had. The odd time, in
speeches, the actor rings like the original -- saying "me-di-cal
care" in the Regina legislature -- but for the most part Therriault's
voice is his own. He can, on the other hand, perfectly mimic Douglas, but Smith
dissuaded him of following that route, convinced the mimicking was getting in
the way of the acting. "He was 'parroting' too much," says Smith. No
matter, by part two, Therriault is Tommy Douglas. The series covers the
Saskatchewan years -- the arrival of Douglas as a Baptist minister, his
relationship with wife Irma (nicely played by Kristen Booth), the 1931 Estevan
miners' strike, Tommy's politicization, his five majority governments, the
bitter doctors' strike and the birth of medicare -- and is shot mostly on
location with genuine Saskatchewan faces and equally realistic Saskatchewan
light. It is not a portrayal to everyone's liking -- Douglas's daughter
Shirley, the original force behind the film, departed after "creative
differences" with the script -- but it is a fascinating history lesson for
those who don't know the story and a welcome reminder for those who do. It is
also a sharp rebuke to what has become of politics in this country. In other
words, airtime richly deserved.
Wayans Bros Wheeling And Dealing
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 9, 2006) *It’s been nothing but serious business for comedic
siblings Keenen Ivory, Damon, Shawn
and
Marlon Wayans in recent days. The
brothers put down a $150,000 security deposit toward the development of their
long-planned entertainment complex in Oakland, and have also inked a deal to
bring their first animated project, a series of cartoons titled “Thugaboo,” to
the kids channel, Nicktoons. Keenen Ivory, Damon, Shawn and
Marlon paid the security deposit and signed a negotiating agreement last week
to develop 70 acres of vacant land on a defunct Army base, said family
spokeswoman Kay Carney. As previously reported, the siblings are looking to
build a movie studio and theme park on the abandoned lot. The City
Council voted eight months ago to give the brothers exclusive rights to analyze
the site for possible development. The agreement was delayed for a while to
accommodate their busy schedules, Carney said. The next step is to
analyze the site and come up with more specific plans, Carney said. The
brothers have also floated the idea of building posh retail stores and a luxury
hotel in the space in addition to the studio and theme park. Meanwhile,
the Wayans are also hoping to launch a following in the animation world with
“Thugaboo,” a series of three specials – one hour-long and two half-hours –
that feature nine very different kids growing up in the inner city. Each will
learn valuable lessons about everything from the importance of friendship to
never giving up on a dream.
Shawn said he and his brothers have been looking for an animated project
based on their childhood experience. "(The characters) are dealing
with universal themes like going back to school, falling in love, friendship,
dreaming and that kind of stuff," said Shawn. "We're giving life
lessons through the characters, (so the viewers) will be able to maybe make
better choices when they are put in certain situations. . . . The content is
unique and funny and has a heart, so I think kids will really like it.
The Wayans will produce, write and lend voices to "Thugaboo." The
specials will also feature appearances by Michael Rapaport, Tracy Morgan, David
Alan Grier and Kim Wayans, and each will end with a special musical number
played out in music video format.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Thugaboo” will premiere on Nickelodeon
first, followed by their debuts on Nicktoons. The first instalment will have a
back-to-school theme and is targeted to premiere in August, while the second
will be a Christmas-themed special. The details of the third special are still
being planned.
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We'd Prefer Old Elaine To Old Christine
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
- Andrew Ryan, jaryan@globeandmail.com
(Mar. 13, 2006) At
long last, Elaine has come back to us, but then again, not really. Former Seinfeld
diva Julia Louis-Dreyfus returns to
television this evening, and happy to report she's adorable as before. She's
still exactly like Elaine, not that there's anything wrong with that. Elaine
was a grand TV character and Louis-Dreyfus seems to be a sharp lady. So why
does she keep signing on to comeback shows that are obviously a bad idea? The New Adventures of Old Christine
(CBS, CH, 9:30 p.m.) is the latest comeback vehicle for Louis-Dreyfus. Her
former cast-mate Jason Alexander has so far tried to shake the post-Seinfeld
curse with two sitcoms -- both bombs. Seinfeld player Michael Richards,
aka Kramer, gave up after one sitcom attempt; Jerry retired to raise a family.
This is Louis-Dreyfus's second kick at the can and while I'm convinced everyone
wants her back on television, Old Christine falls short of the task. She
tried it three years ago with NBC's Watching Ellie. It was a strange TV
experiment that started out as a real-time comedy without a laugh track and
quickly evolved into a slapstick sitcom with Louis-Dreyfus way out of her
element as a dizzy club singer. The writers even gave her a cadre of wacky male
friends, in a limp effort to recapture the Seinfeld dynamic. Ellie
was truly awful, but at least Louis-Dreyfus had a chance to sing -- she's
surprisingly good -- and she was playing a single woman unlucky in love, which
elicited brief flashes of Elaine. There's precious little of Elaine evident on Old
Christine, which miscasts Louis-Dreyfus as a single mother. The cumbersome
title pretty much spells out the setup: She is the Old Christine, whose husband
has paired up with another woman named Christine, which makes her the New
Christine. This leaves Old Christine to raise a precocious eight-year-old son,
which mom squeezes in between her job owning and operating a health club. Stop
me when any of this starts to sound like Elaine. Louis-Dreyfus, bless her, is
at least game for the challenge. You can actually see her trying to work some
of that old Elaine spunk into the show, but she can't pull it off. And it's
traceable to the source: CBS is the TV repository for safe, old-school sitcoms
-- like Everybody Loves Raymond, Yes, Dear et al. -- in which
families goof around but deep down they really love each other a whole bunch.
In the case of Old Christine, it's jarring to see Louis-Dreyfus as
the woman who, let's say it, was dumped and left with the kid. At the same
time, Old Christine appears to be cranked out of the same feel-good assembly
line as Raymond and it's unsettling to see her situated among such decent
people. Everybody on the show is painfully nice. The patrons at the gym are
nice. The ex-husband is a super guy and supportive father who shows up at the
son's first day of school. Aw. The New Christine is, of course, a babe, but
she's a babe with a good heart, so even Old Christine can't help but like her.
We are family. Everyone on Old Christine is so darn nice that Elaine
never has a chance to surface. Viewers will forever know Louis-Dreyfus as
Elaine and associate her only within the Seinfeld tableau. And Elaine
was always in control, more or less, in that world. She was the take-charge New
York gal who inspired either fear or desire in her weak male companions.
Sometimes both. Elaine was a tough cookie, but Old Christine is just tired.
Elsewhere, kindly observe a moment of silence for the loss of a loved one.
There has been a death in the immediate family on 24 (Fox, 9 p.m.;
Global, 10 p.m.) and life simply won't be the same any more on the real-time
drama. Edgar is gone. The untimely demise of Edgar Styles was one of this
season's most stunning TV events, qualifying right up there with last night's
sixth-season opener of The Sopranos. Certainly it was a shock seeing
what happened to Tony Soprano, but the death of Edgar was somehow a more
poignant affair. Last week's 24 was a two-hour outing, which almost
always means bad news for someone on the show. It was genuinely nerve-wracking
television. In the closing moments, the CTV building was under nerve-gas attack
by terrorists; all the principal characters scampered into an enclosed area --
except for computer whiz Edgar (Louis Lombardi). Edgar stumbled in too late,
took one last, longing look at his co-worker Chloe (Mary-Lyn Rajskub) through
the Plexiglas shield and then he dropped like a stone. It was a dark day for 24
fans. Edgar was a cuddly, bearlike character and one of few regulars carried
over from the previous season. He was simply an average guy who was very good
at his job. He even looked and acted like someone named Edgar. And you just
know he was secretly in love with Chloe. From the stricken expression on her
face last week, Chloe cared about Edgar, too, in her own abrasive way. Killing
off such a beloved character may seem an odd way to hold an audience, but
Edgar's death was not without purpose.
In storytelling terms, the coldness behind Edgar's death is in keeping
with the 24 tradition of giving that big midseason jolt to viewers,
presumably to keep them engaged for the next 12 hours. Remember: Around this
time last year, the midway point of 24 was marked with another two-hour
episode that concluded with terrorists scoring a direct missile hit on Air
Force One -- with the President aboard. He survived, but the sheer audacity of
the act certainly had people talking. It wasn't the sort of story twist you
normally saw on TV -- particularly after Sept. 11 -- but it surely kept viewers
coming back. It's the sort of shrewd, near-ruthless strategy that continues to
pull in new 24 followers, who likely want to see what everyone else is
buzzing on about. That's why each episode opens with a concise recap of the
previous week's activities. Events continue to unfold at breakneck pace on tonight's
follow-up, in which the CTU staffers are faced with the problem of escaping an
enclosed office surrounded by nerve gas. Sadly, there will be no time to mourn
Edgar, but the big fella shall be dearly missed. Dates and times may vary
across the country. Check local listings.
The Fresh Face Of CBC Comedy?
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
- Alexandra Gill
(Mar. 13, 2006) Out with the old, in with the new. Having recently
cancelled Da Vinci's City Hall, This Is Wonderland and The
Tournament, CBC
Television has ordered two new half-hour pilot episodes of This Space for
Rent. The Vancouver-based comedy about a group of twentysomething
roommates originally aired as a one-hour pilot in January during the network's
Comedy Week. The ensemble show centres around the ironically named Lucky (Dov
Tiefenbach), who falls into a funk after his novel is rejected and holes up in
his slummy apartment, driving his roommates and girlfriend crazy. It didn't
achieve the highest ratings of the three pilots that aired that week (only
188,000 viewers, compared to Rabbittown's 251,000). And the new episodes
won't go directly to air -- they'll be tested with focus groups before any
decision is made about turning the show into a permanent series. But according
to Anton Leo, CBC Television's head of comedy, This Space for Rent is an
example of the kind of show the network is looking for.
Last month in Ottawa, Richard Stursberg, CBC's vice-president of
English-language television, told a conference of independent film producers
that CBC's mix of genres will henceforth be driven by a new
"audience-first" development strategy, with shows that aim to attract
a minimum of one million viewers and are "fast-paced, accessible and
escapist." This Space for Rent, says Leo, "possesses a
number of characteristics that are in line with what Richard was talking about.
It has some lovely comedic situations, strong character and some outright funny
lines. So much comedy now comes from either extreme discomfort or tremendous
darkness. That's not what this is and not where we want to go." Television
critics were deeply divided about the pilot episode, even here at The Globe and
Mail. Henrietta Walmark called it a "knockout comedy" in Globe
Television, the paper's Toronto-area TV magazine. Critic John Doyle, on the
other hand, found the show's "stoned-slacker" attitude "deeply
irritating." Leo agrees there were problems with the initial pilot: The
pacing was too slow, some of the characters were underutilized and the tone wasn't
sufficiently upbeat. That's why he asked for new scripts. "We had lots of
positive audience reaction about the universe these kids inhabit, the look of
the show and the independent soundtrack," says Leo. "These are good
things to build on."
Aging Gracefully -- Isn't That An Oxymoron?
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - Andrew Ryan
(Mar. 14, 2006) Nobody wants to get older, but we are an aging nation and
despite what you may have heard, there's no graceful way to ease into
your twilight years. The march toward official senior-citizen status remains as
inexorable as time itself, and even if you're lucky enough to reach 65, it's
not such a great deal. From what I've observed, one day you're a productive
part of society and the next you're watching The Price is Right and
having a coffee at the mall with other retired people. I really hope I'm not
around for it. But few of those cold realities are addressed in Dr. Andrew Weil's Healthy Aging
(PBS, 8 p.m.). The two-hour special espouses the same lifestyle doctrine of
clean living and nondescript inner peace that has made the feel-good guru a
very wealthy fellow over the years. Dr. Weil is the New Age Dr. Phil. Dr. Weil
is neither diet doctor nor religious figure, but he's still a top-ranked
celebrity in America. He's lesser known in this country, where our only healthy
lifestyle role models are Tim Horton and the Participaction couple.
The bushy-bearded Dr. Weil has made the cover of Time magazine. He
appears on Larry King Live at least twice a month, and on other talk
shows whenever lifestyle themes arise or he has a new book out. The ladies on The
View just love the big bear. Dr. Weil is a wildly prolific author and his
books have been filling the self-help shelves since the early seventies, for
heaven's sake. His sales numbers rank right up there with Deepak Chopra and
Dale Carnegie. Like them, Dr. Weil is an unsolicited life coach and the eternal
optimist and in this special he asks us to believe that good times await us all
in the declining half of lives. Don't believe the hype. The TV special, you
see, is a direct adaptation of Dr. Weil's most recent book, Healthy Aging: A
Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Wellbeing, which came out
last year. The first wave of sales have come and gone in the U.S., so tonight's
program appears to be a two-hour infomercial push for the book. Dr. Weil is 64,
in case that matters, and still quite capable of tailoring his sales pitch
toward the geezer set. In his calm yet quick-talking manner, he recycles his
spiel about merging mind, body and spirit and outlines a 12-point program
designed to ease viewers into healthy aging. It all sounds terrific, but what
does it mean? The galling aspect of Dr. Weil's life plan is the simplicity and
vagueness of his regimen. I'm not certain of the origins of Dr. Weil's specific
spiritual mantra, but most of it seems yoga-related. And the short version of
his good-health plan: Eat grains, get exercise. It's information most of us
picked up in Health Canada booklets back in public school. And it would be
easier to accept Dr. Weil's plan if he weren't a rather stocky fellow himself.
He was called out on exactly that fact, tactfully, in an interview with Evan
Solomon on CBC News: Sunday last year. The good doctor chuckled and said
something about different body types. I think it might be those snacks kids
leave out for him each year. Dr. Weil preaches a benign lifestyle doctrine, and
more power to him and the other hucksters subsisting on American dysfunction.
It's putting their kids through college and presumably keeping people off
Prozac. There's not much doubt following Dr. Weil's program will lead to better
health, but so will taking the stairs instead of the elevator. And like
everything else, that gets tougher as you get older.
Also tonight: A sweet outing on Style by Jury (W Network, 8:30
p.m.) demonstrates why the Canadian-made series has twice the heart of U.S.
makeover shows. Unlike the extreme makeover measures of, say, ABC's Extreme
Makeover, Style by Jury takes a kind approach. The personal-style
appraisals come from an assembled jury of regular people, who can occasionally
be harsh but are usually spot-on, after which comes the requisite revamps via
fussy stylists and beauty professionals. There's no radical plastic surgery or
total body overhauls performed on Style by Jury, and every so often they
really do make someone's life a little better. Tonight, the show focuses on a
terribly unhappy schoolteacher named Robin, who is 41 but judged to be at least
in her mid-50s by the jurors. Robin has deeply discoloured teeth and a
shock of hair not unlike Napoleon Dynamite's. She's painfully self-conscious
about her appearance, especially her teeth, which in the past have prompted
students to give her a toothbrush and toothpaste. The in-house experts are
presented with the case of Robin. Her skin is sun-damaged. Her wardrobe is full
of odd beaded clothing from the countries where she's worked. The stains on her
teeth are unfixable through conventional means. And where to begin on the hair?
Robin is taken to a spa for a facial, followed by a shopping trip for a new
wardrobe. The hairstylist drops the ball by giving Robin an inappropriately
sassy Georgie Girl hairstyle -- and then stands by fuming when she
washes it out in the nearby sink. More important, Robin's teeth get shiny white
veneers, and she's immediately brought to tears when she first witnesses her
new smile. She truly does look and feel better. In her follow-up assessment,
before a different jury, Robin is judged to be a confident career woman, with
possible ties to high society. The Style by Jury process has gently
transformed her into a different woman and all it took were some new clothes
and dental work. Sometimes it's just that simple. Dates and times may vary
across the country. Check local listings.
Maureen Stapleton, 80: Earned Rare Grand Slam Of Acting
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Jim Bawden, Entertainment Columnist
(Mar. 14, 2006) Maureen Stapleton was sitting quietly in her mobile dressing room on the set of the
TV miniseries Little Gloria, Happy At Last
(1982). The shoot was at the McLaughlin Estate in Oshawa, made to look like
the Vanderbilt home in Newport, R.I. Her door was open as she listened to
fellow co-star Glynis Johns give a crew member a whole lot of grief. "Last
week we had Bette Davis and Angela Lansbury, too," she smiled. "That
was a very active set indeed." The thing was Maureen Stapleton, who
died yesterday at her home in Lenox, Mass., at age 80, made little fuss about
acting. "I just get out there and do it," she sighed. "Work is
work, I always do the job. When Reds (1981) started they gave me Emma
Goldman's autobiography, but it was too heavy to read." Stapleton
was a legendary smoker and died from chronic pulmonary disease. One of 10
performers to get the acting grand slam, she had an Oscar (Reds), Tony
(1951's The Rose Tattoo) and Emmy (1967's Among the Paths to Eden).
She won a second Tony for The Gingerbread Lady (1971). She was
Oscar-nominated for Lonelyhearts (1958), Airport (1970) and Interiors
(1978).
Stapleton was born in Troy, N.Y., June 21, 1925. After high school, she
worked in an armament plant and left for New York City in 1943; she was a
billing clerk at Hotel New Yorker. She first acted in the summer of 1945,
in summer stock. "This was a time when Broadway was booming. I saw
all the plays, usually from standing room. An unknown guy named Marlon Brando
was always around me in those days; we had such fun trying to sneak into the
theatres after the lights dimmed." Brought up in a strict Catholic
family with an alcoholic father, it was not surprising that her own life was
chaotic. In an autobiography, she candidly described bouts of drinking, two
failed marriages and a feeling of being isolated from her two children. Cocoon
(1985), she told me, was the movie people remembered her in. "You
never know what'll strike people. I once asked Laurence Olivier — I was his Big
Mama in a TV version of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof — what constituted great
acting. He said an ability to read the lines, of course, but also the art of
listening. So I've been listening really hard ever since."
TV TIDBITS
Mike Wallace To Quit '60 Minutes'
David Bauder, Associated Press
(Mar. 14, 2006) NEW YORK — Mike Wallace, the hard-driving reporter often seen as the symbol of CBS' 60 Minutes, said Tuesday he will
stop
being a regular correspondent for the show. Wallace, 87, was careful not
to say he's fully retiring and CBS News President Sean McManus referred to him
as a "correspondent emeritus.'' But it is clear an era is coming to
a close at television's leading newsmagazine, which Wallace joined at its start
in September, 1968. "I've often replied, when asked, `I'll retire
when my toes turn up,'" Wallace said. "Well, they're just beginning
to curl a trifle, which means that, as I approach my 88th birthday, it's become
apparent to me that my eyes and ears, among other appurtenances, aren't quite
what they used to be.'' Wallace has said for years that he was cutting
back on stories at 60 Minutes, but his competitive instincts made it
difficult for him to follow through. Wallace said that "CBS is not
pushing me" and that he'll keep an office at the CBS News
headquarters. "Mike Wallace has been the heart and soul of this
broadcast since he and Don (Hewitt) started it almost four decades ago,'' said
Jeff Fager, 60 Minutes executive producer. "Millions and millions
of Americans have tuned in to 60 Minutes on Sunday night over all those
years to see him in action and to find out what questions he would be asking
each week." A relentless reporter, Wallace was often the last person
anyone accused of wrongdoing would want to see on his doorstep. Wallace's
television career dates back to the late 1940s, and he was even a game show
host in the 1950s. Night Beat, a local news show in New York that was a
series of one-on-one interviews, gave him his reputation as a tough
interrogator. But it was at 60 Minutes where he achieved his
greatest fame. Wallace has done six stories for 60 Minutes this
season, including a profile of actor Morgan Freeman and a story on Iraq war
veterans who had lost their limbs.
Diddy Inks TV Deal For Cooking Show
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 14, 2006) *With “Dancing with the Stars” and “Skating with Celebrities”
drawing viewers by combining famous faces with experts, it was only a
matter of time before the popular concept wafted into the kitchen. Next
month, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Reville’s Ben Silverman will bring to NBC “Celebrity Cooking
Showdown,” a five-night reality
miniseries described as a cross between Food Network’s “Iron Chef America"
and ABC's "Dancing With the Stars." “Showdown” will pair
celebrities with such famous chefs as Wolfgang Puck, Cat Cora (Food Network's "Kitchen
Accomplished") and Govind cq Armstrong (executive chef at Table 8 in L.A.)
to create a dish for competition. "The sexiest trend
going on right now is young men learning how to cook," said Diddy.
"There's nothing more sensual than a man cooking for his woman. We wanted
to do something that fit that trend in the marketplace." Also
an attraction for Diddy is the show’s kitchen setting, a venue always ripe for
drama. "Cooking is a lot of pressure," he said, noting a
chef risks complete disaster "if you cook something one second too long or
measure something one millimetre of a spoonful too much." NBC
was so hyped on the “Showdown” concept pitched by Silverman that it agreed to
fast-track the program over five nights beginning Monday, April 17.
Several celebs are close to signing on for the show, but as of late Sunday,
deals were not ready to be announced, Silverman said. Silverman
approached Diddy to join the project, noting the rap mogul’s successful track
record producing such TV shows as HBO's "The Bad Boys of Comedy" and
MTV's "Making the Band" and "Run's House."
"We've been desperate to do cooking in primetime," Silverman told
Daily Variety. "And who's more primetime than Diddy?"
CRTC Approves Channel Aimed At Retirees
Excerpt from The
Toronto Star
(Mar. 15, 2006) CALGARY (CP) — The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced approval Tuesday for Calgary-based 50+ TV, a new specialty
digital channel aimed at seniors. In a news release, officials with the
channel said it would be devoted to "all aspects of an active retirement
lifestyle." Original Canadian programming would include talk shows,
open-line and information programs and consumer, health and legal shows.
Topics to be covered will include grandparenting, mature second relationships,
second careers, exercise and food. Other programs will look at rock and
roll music of the '50s through the early '80s, along with comedy, drama, movies
and documentaries. Lynne Kellner, president and CEO of 50+ TV, worked
with the CBC for 31 years as producer, director and production manager, and was
part of the launch team for Newsworld. "We want to give all
Canadians `of that certain age' across the country a place to kick back and
talk, learn, laugh and just enjoy each others' company," she said.
In South Park, Isaac Hayes Is Chef No Longer
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
(Mar. 15, 2006) New York -- Isaac Hayes has quit South
Park, where he
voices Chef, saying he can no longer stomach its take on religion.
Hayes, who has played the ladies' man/school cook in the animated
satire since 1997, said in a statement Monday that he feels a line has been
crossed. "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time
when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of
others begins," the 63-year-old soul singer and outspoken Scientologist
said. "Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times
should be respected and honoured," he continued. As a civil rights
activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those
beliefs and practices." AP
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Isaac Hayes Leaves ‘South Park’ For Religious Reasons
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Mar. 14, 2006) *Isaac Hayes has decided to quit his 9-year
gig as the voice of Chef on the animated series “South Park,” stating he can no
longer tolerate the show’s take on religion. Hayes, a proud member
of the Church of Scientology, said Monday that creators Matt Stone and Trey
Parker - who regularly skewer religion on the show - have recently crossed the
line. "There is a place in this
world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and
bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins," the 63-year-old said
in a statement. "Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times
should be respected and honoured. As a civil rights activist of the past 40
years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and
practices." Stone, meanwhile, questioned Hayes’ motives for leaving in an
interview with the Associated Press Monday, stating, “This is 100 percent
having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem — and he's
cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians." The
Church of Scientology and its celebrity followers, including Tom Cruise and
John Travolta, started becoming a favourite target of “South Park” in November
with an episode called, "Trapped in the Closet." It featured
Stan, one of the show's four lead characters, being hailed as a reluctant
saviour by Scientology leaders, while a cartoon Cruise locks himself in a
closet and won't come out. Stone told The AP he and co-creator Trey Parker
"never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He
wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is
where intolerance and bigotry begin." The "South Park"
cartoon character Chef was voiced by Isaac Hayes
::THEATRE NEWS::
When Harry Met Kelli
Excerpt
from The Toronto Star - Richard Ouzounian
(Mar. 11, 2006) NEW YORK—At its best, a
Broadway musical can make you grin from ear to ear without ever really knowing
why. And these days,
the lucky audiences attending the Roundabout Theatre's giddily enjoyable
revival of The Pajama Game are sitting in their
seats at the American Airlines Theatre with permanent — if slightly goofy —
smiles attached to their faces. Who would have thought that a piece of
52-year-old theatrical cotton candy could prove to be so tasty? When the show
was first announced, the amount of eye-rolling that went on among the Gotham
smart set was formidable. Sure, The Pajama Game had been a hit
back in 1954, but its one major revival, more than 30 years ago, had been a
flop. And the show's plot, dealing with a strike at a Midwestern pyjama
factory, hardly set the pulse racing — even back in its original
production. So why is it such a treat this time around? You can pretty
much thank everyone connected with it, because this is one of those times at
bat when the whole team is hitting close to 1,000. The set, the lights, the
costumes, the orchestra — everyone is in on the fun and singing from the same
frayed but fabulous hymn book. But if you had to single out three people, they
would be stars Harry Connick Jr. and Kelli O' Hara, as well as
director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall. As she's proven many times
before (most notably in her champagne revival of Wonderful Town),
Marshall knows how to get the old-fashioned charm of a musical just right. She
keeps it bright, she keeps it moving and she keeps it lighter than air.
Marshall believes in the wink and the nudge, rather than the leer and the
pratfall. Her work is sly and stylish, but never over the top into egregious
campiness. You laugh with her people, not at them, and that may be her biggest
secret weapon.
But knowing how to pull some surprising pieces of casting out of your
sleeve doesn't hurt either. Kelli O'Hara has built up a sturdy reputation as a
sweet, slightly frosty ingénue. I once referred to her as "a vanilla
frozen custard," but boy, that's not the case here. As Babe, the
head of the Union Grievance Committee, she's got spunk and sass and the
sweetest kind of belting voice. What she does with "I'm Not At All in Love"
is an object lesson on how to sell a song with just enough oomph. And
when Harry met Kelli, things got even better. Everyone knows Connick is a
dynamite singer and knockout pianist. If you've seen his films, you even know
he's a more than credible actor. But no one could have predicted what a
complete musical comedy hero he is. He plays swaggering Sid Sorokin, the
macho factory manager, and manages to make this prehistoric chauvinist
positively appealing. It's worth the price of admission just to hear him croon
that standard "Hey There" into a Dictaphone. But if you want to
know what makes the whole show explode with joy, then visit the showstopping
"Hernando's Hideaway" number in Act II. It starts with Megan
Lawrence's guileless Gladys going from zero to 70 in 30 seconds with an amazing
display of comic virtuosity as she takes us to the sleaziest nightclub in the
Midwest. Next, Marshall marshals her troops into a slinky Latin American
dance that manages to be sexy and funny at the same time, while keeping the
storyline moving ever forward (which is what all the best directors do).
And then, greatness: Connick steps up to the battered upright piano in the
corner of this dive and breaks into a display of the barrelhouse style he grew
up with in New Orleans. He does all of this while trying to seduce Lawrence's
Gladys ... all in the name of labour relations. It's one of the best
sequences around and it serves as a reminder why this particular Pajama Game
ought to be around for a very long time.
Hana's Tale Takes On New Life
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Judy Stoffman, Entertainment Reporter
Hana's Suitcase
By Emil Sher. Directed by Allen MacInnis. Until Apr. 23 at Lorraine
Kimsa Theatre for Young People, 165 Front St. E. 416-862-2222
(Mar. 13. 2006) Hana's Suitcase is one of the most astonishing success stories in the annals of
Canadian children's publishing. Last week, a
stage adaptation of the story opened at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young
People, another step — and not the last — in the afterlife of the book.
It began as a CBC radio documentary by Peabody award-winner Karen Levine, who
was inspired by a story in the Canadian Jewish News about George Brady,
a Holocaust survivor of Czech origin in Toronto. Brady had been contacted
by a Japanese museum curator with questions about his sister Hana, who died at
Auschwitz at age 13 and whose suitcase and drawings were in the museum's
collection. Brady was able to provide family photos and fill in the gaps.
Levine turned her documentary into a book in 2001, which went on to win 16
awards and sell 100,000 copies in Canada and about the same in Japan. It has
been published in 38 countries and has been translated into 20 languages.
Writer Emil Sher has adapted the story faithfully for the stage. He has
slightly altered the sequence of Levine's story so that we learn a good deal at
the outset about the Tokyo Holocaust Education and Resource Centre, its
remarkable director Fumiko Ishioka, and Maiko and Ikira, two children who
frequent the centre, before we know more than the bare facts about Hana Brady.
Ishioka's quest through Europe and Canada, in person and by mail, to find the
answers to the children's questions about the owner of the battered suitcase
provides the play's tension. Jean Yoon plays Ishioka with quiet dignity,
furrowed brows and steely resolve. Richard Lee and Siu Ta try hard but are less
believable as Ikira and Maiko, the inquisitive Japanese children. They never
quite get the body language right.
When Hana finally skips on stage, she is not a heroine but an ordinary,
high-spirited girl who just wants to skate and play with her friend Maria. The
bewilderment of the brother and sister at why they, as Jews, are suddenly
forbidden to go to school or attend a movie is made palpable by Paul Dunn as
George and Jessica Greenberg as Hana. Designer Teresa Przybylski
incorporates images of the camps and of Hana and her family in happy times in a
sophisticated, yet economical, set. A shoji rice paper screen is sometimes the
door of the Holocaust education centre and sometimes the doors of the train carrying
Hana to Auschwitz. But Hana's death is not dwelt on, and the play draws
to an upbeat conclusion with Maiko and Ikira deciding to promote tolerance by
re-enacting her brief life for other children. More Hana's suitcases are
on the carousel. Quebec film company Christal has bought rights to make a
dramatic film. And Rhombus Media is in discussions with Second Story Press to
make a feature-length documentary, to be directed by Larry Weinstein.
"Though the book is youth-oriented we'd hope the film would attract an
adult audience," said producer Jessica Daniel. "It could resemble
Larry's film Beethoven's Hair, which traced a lock of hair and
incorporated stock footage and re-enactment. It might use some
animation." Ironically, the suitcase in the Tokyo museum, sent to
Ishioka by the museum at Auschwitz, is not authentic. It was George Brady's
daughter Lara who noted two years ago that its handle did not match the handle
in a photograph of the original. After the original was lost in a fire in
Birmingham, where it was being exhibited, the Auschwitz museum found a similar
valise and inscribed it with the same name and information.
Second City Home To Get Second Life
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Richard Ouzounian
(Mar. 13. 2006) It looks like there's a second life for the second home
of the Second City. In an exclusive
interview with the Star, producer Jeffrey
Latimer revealed that he will reopen the theatre at 56 Blue Jays Way, which has
remained dark since the comedy company left it in April 2005. The
408-seat mainstage venue will be re-inaugurated April 21 with the preview of BoyGroove,
the biggest hit of last summer's Toronto Fringe Festival. That's great
news for the downtown entertainment scene, but so is the added info that the
100-seat Tim Sims Playhouse will be reopened as well. "We're going
to be working closely together with Jeffrey," said Andrew Alexander, the
head of Second City, "and we'll be continuing the tradition of developing
local comedians in that space." Interestingly enough, it was
Alexander's own ups and downs that gave rise to this new situation. From
1973 through 1997, Second City operated successfully from the Old Firehall on
Adelaide St. In 1997, Alexander moved the company to the sleek new facility at
56 Blue Jays Way and almost immediately slid into red ink. After
struggling for eight years, Alexander finally gave up and crossed the street to
a smaller space at 99 Blue Jays Way. Since reopening there last fall, Alexander
pronounces himself "thrilled" with the size of his audiences. A
private investor who wants to remain anonymous purchased the space at 56 Blue
Jays Way and waited for the right offer. It finally came from Latimer, who had
been looking for a venue since he sold his longtime interest in the New Yorker
Theatre to Live Nation in 2004. "There's no name for the facility
yet," said Latimer. "We're currently calling it the Theatre on Blue
Jays Way. We are courting people right now regarding naming rights. The
interest is mainly from alcohol companies because the space has potentially
three great cabaret bar spaces."
BoyGroove (officially opening April 27) is the ideal project to
relaunch this venue. In reviewing it last July, I called it "a
zappy, happy deconstruction of the whole boy band phenomenon" and
suggested that "it would only take the slightest bit of reworking to move
comfortably into a mid-sized house for a nice commercial run."
That's exactly what local lawyer and producer (Game Show) Michael
Rubinoff thought. "This show appeals to everybody: either those who
have ever swooned over a boy band or harboured absolute hate towards
them," Rubinoff said. "BoyGroove is a smart and hilarious look
at our obsession with building up and destroying our pop idols."
Rubinoff, working in co-operation with another prominent local legal-theatrical
double-tasker, Derrick Chua, will be reuniting the cast and director of the hit
Fringe version to polish the show before it faces the general public.
Although Latimer is planning to do some renovations to the space, he believes
he can reopen both theatres for less than $200,000. "We want this to
be not only a place where you go to see a show," says Latimer, "but
one where you come after a show or a game and always find something fun going
on."
THEATRE TIDBITS
Eric McCormack To Star In Off-Broadway Play
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
(Mar. 11, 2006) New York -- Will & Grace is ending its long
television run in
May, and Eric McCormack already has
his next job -- going off-Broadway to appear with Maura Tierney, another TV
favourite, in Neil LaBute's play Some Girl(s). In
it, the Toronto-born McCormack portrays a soon-to-be engaged man who is saying
goodbye to four ex-girlfriends. The play opens June 8 at New York's Lucille
Lortel Theatre. Some Girl(s) was a hit last year in London. Tierney,
best known for her roles on ER and NewsRadio, portrays one of the
four women. Casting is under way for the other three. AP
::OTHER NEWS::
New Vision At Harbourfront
Excerpt
from The Toronto Star - Susan Walker, Dance Writer
(Mar. 11, 2006) After more than 20 years
of presenting a dance season, including international and Canadian dance
companies, Harbourfront
Centre has announced two new programs for
dance and theatre. The money-losing Harbourfront Dance Season will not be
renewed this fall. International dance companies will now be presented as part
of the New World Stage, a series of 11 to 15 shows, encompassing all forms of
theatre, running in its first year from January to April 2007. All Canadian
dance shows booked into Harbourfront's Premiere Dance Theatre and Harbourfront
Theatre Centre will come under the banner of NextSteps, running from September
2006 to May 2007. Harbourfront dance programmer Jeanne Holmes estimates
as many as 20 dance companies, including the DanceWorks series and those that
only rent Harbourfront's theatres, will benefit from a program brochure
offering packages to ticket buyers. The change means that groups like Esmeralda
Enriques Spanish dance company will benefit from the same promotion given those
performances formerly presented in the Harbourfront Dance Season, such as
Toronto Dance Theatre. The New World Stage program will contain the kind
of shows formerly imported for the World Stage Festival, as well as dance
performances.
The program, says Holmes, "aligns theatre and dance in a way we've
never done before. It gives us the opportunity to show works of different
scales as we would do in a festival." Smaller companies and events that
could not sustain a five-night run at the Premiere Dance Theatre might be
accommodated on a shorter run or combined with other shows running the same
day. The two new programs will not be sold as subscription series, but
Harbourfront will offer packages catering to dance viewers or to allow patrons
to mix and match their selections. "They'll still get the same benefits as
subscribers," says Holmes, allowing discounts on tickets and advance
booking. Harbourfront's market research is showing less interest in
subscription buying among theatregoers. In audience terms, dance at
Harbourfront is in a trough. "There's no money in presenting international
dance. In some ways our numbers are softer than they've ever been."
Instead of being packed into three weeks of the World Stage festival,
international theatre can now come to Harbourfront throughout the year,
allowing programmers to co-ordinate with presenters in other cities. Details of
the NextSteps and New World Stage programs will be announced later in the
spring.
Haunted Hart House
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Peter Goddard
(Mar. 11, 2006) Hart House,
near the very centre of the University of Toronto campus, is remarkable for one
decidedly non-academic reason
— its over-the-top theatricality. "A strange elation" is the way its
library was described in a Morley Callaghan novel. Put the emphasis on
"strange." Hart House's sandstone, pseudo-Gothic,
bats-in-the-belfry quality gives an extra kick to "HIC: Installations and
Interventions at Hart House," to be found throughout the various nooks and
crannies of this student centre. An exhibition by 17 solo artists and
Quebec collective BGL, "HIC" offers metallic spiders hunkered down
inside a narrow tower stairwell, a book that flaps its pages at you from the
ceiling and a frozen pool of black vinyl surrounding Darth Vader's helmet,
leaving the Star Wars villain looking more like the molten Wicked Witch
of the West from The Wizard of Oz. Given to U of T in 1919 by the
Massey Family, and named after Hart Massey, Hart House epitomizes the glory
days of old WASP Toronto. The logo of its legendary theatre was designed by
J.E.H. MacDonald of the Group of Seven, the Canadian WASP's art movement of
choice. The Group is not likely to be confused with the group behind the
current installation, the Hart House Installation Collective (HIC).
"HIC" also gets its name from the Latin word for "here,"
recognition on the part of the artists of "classical education's ancient
roots," according to a HIC brochure. Actually, "HIC" could also
be taken in the more familiar context of "hiccup," to indicate the
abrupt and unexpected interruptions in the daily Hart House routine. Hart
House's own art collection is estimated at around $20 million, most of it
wrapped up in its paintings. But HIC's mandate is to show "that what's
great about art in Toronto right now is what's happening outside of
galleries," says HIC curator Gordon Hatt. HIC colleagues include artists
Lyla Rye, Carlo Cesta, John Dickson, Catherine Heard, Lisa Neighbour and Max
Streicher, whose Clouds installation floats over the heads of the
marvelling swimmers in Hart House pool.
"We wanted to explore the buildings and to talk about what recent
Toronto art is about," says Hatt. Two
years in the making, with a threadbare $20,000 in grant money to work with,
"HIC" pops up around Hart House like a lost ghost. A guide is
available for visitors at Hart House, although its colour coding indicating
each art site is difficult to use. Guided tours are available free on Mondays
at 7 p.m., Wednesdays at 4 p.m. and Saturdays at 1 p.m. But the preferred way
to tour the installation is to wander and let things happen. Getting
spooked is part of the effect. Look up into the vaulted ceiling over one
stairway from the first to second floors and you find yourself facing the
devilish grin of Beasts, actually a number of soft and floppy-looking
mixed-media pieces made by Toronto artist Catherine Heard using human hair and
glazed earthenware. Try going downstairs from the outside and you're
caught in the infinity of reflected images in John Dickson's Smoke and
Mirrors. Two large mirrors face each other outside a doorway in this
imaginative installation, each one with three young trees in front. You're
immediately in an imaginary forest bigger than anything Tom Thomson ever
experienced. "HIC" continues to April 16. Sarah Stanners is
moderating next Thursday's panel discussion from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Hart
House Music Room.
MAGGS: A Life In Two Parts
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
- Sarah Milroy
(Mar. 15, 2006) OSHAWA, ONT. — Arnaud
Maggs's current touring exhibition celebrates the phenomenon of
colour, and there's an irony in
that. The 79-year-old Toronto photographer -- one of the just-announced
recipients of the Governor-General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts -- is the
very apotheosis of black and white. He even looks black and white, with
his silver hair, his slate-grey eyes, his pale North Sea complexion and his
all-black artist's attire cladding his sparrow-light frame. Meeting him for lunch last week at the Robert McLaughlin
Gallery in Oshawa to talk about his most recent works (on show there), I had to
admit he seemed superbly art-directed, a study in grisaille. The only touch of
colour was his handsome tortoiseshell Gucci sunglasses, a self-administered and
characteristically understated perk of seniority, perhaps, for one of Canada's
most respected artists. Colour is something he has avoided since his first
days, he says, and he is fond of a quotation from the photographer Paul
Outerbridge. "He said: 'With black and white you can suggest, but with
colour you have to be certain, absolutely certain.' " Maggs adds:
"For many years, I just didn't think there was a need for it. Colour
doesn't help most photography." Since he left his career as a graphic
designer and fashion photographer at the age of 47 (that was in 1973), Maggs
has admitted only the occasional touch of colour, and only after 18 years of
art making. His earliest work, titled 64 Portrait Studies (1976-78), was
a suite of rigorous black-and-white portrait studies of friends and colleagues
from his artistic milieu -- from his daughter, Caitlin, to Mavis Staines (who
now heads the National Ballet School) -- observed with a systematic,
laboratory-like detachment from the front, side and back. Other portrait series
followed.
Subsequent works in black and white have catalogued French hotel signs
(which were fascinating to him for their variety of typefaces and designs), and
the Complete Prestige 12" Jazz Catalogue (just the numbers,
reproduced in Franklin Gothic Condensed typeface, "one of the most
beautiful faces ever done"). Later works involved photographing various
historical documents, and presenting them on a large scale. Increasingly,
colour has crept in, but only, he says, because it was needed. His Travail
des enfants dans l'industrie (1994) documents the paper tags on which the
working hours of child textile-factory workers were recorded. "The tags
are soft pink, beigey, soft yellow," Maggs says. "You get that dirty
kind of pale colour, which is lovely. Then came his Notifications
series. The black-bordered envelopes that were used for 19th-century death
notices were often stained and sealed with blood-red wax; Maggs shot in colour
to show us that. In all these cases, the things that Maggs places before us
seem to stand in for something larger, something more amorphous, and intangible
-- the hidden dramas that unfold behind the façade of a hotel, the motivations
and conflicts that lie behind a human countenance, the life of a small child
working in a textile mill, leaving his or her little trace behind on a
dog-eared section of card before disappearing into historical oblivion. Maggs
delicately points to our limitations in accounting for things, focusing instead
on the oddly reassuring charms of those signs and symbols we can hold on to.
His new work, in the Oshawa show, seems particularly to revel in all this. One
series of 13 images draws its title from a 19th-century book that it documents,
Werner's Nomenclature of Colours.
The little volume (with a title too enormous to give in full here) --
written in 1816 and presented in this show in a cabinet alongside Maggs's
photographic homage -- was used by Charles Darwin on his expedition aboard the
Beagle as a kind of field guide to colour, providing what was hoped to be
standard names for the colours observed in nature. Describing its charms, Maggs
suddenly turns rapturous. "It takes in everything. It takes in the world,
and there's that wonderfully 19th-century vision of things. It's a colonial
view, isn't it?" he adds, referring to how European touchstones were used
to describe and categorize New World unknowns. "From our standpoint today,
it seems very naive." Originally the work of a mineralogist named Werner,
the Nomenclature was added to and refined by his subsequent editor
Patrick Symes, an amateur botanist and flower painter. Thus the resulting
volume describes colours by animal, vegetable and mineral equivalents, with a
small watercolour sample of each pigment appended to each description. This
produces an array of strange contiguities. Snow White is, variously, described
as the colour of the "breast of the black-headed gull," "the
snow drop" and "Carrara marble." Skimmed Milk White, on the
other hand, is the colour of the "back of the petals of blue
hepatica," "common opal" and "white of human
eyeballs." The referents can be, by turn, madly esoteric ("inside
quill feather of the kittiwake"), magic seeming ("belly of a warty
newt"), poetically ambiguous ("gold fish lustre abstracted") and
even shockingly vague ("flint"). Drawing our attention to these
inscriptions, as Maggs does, he teases us with the futility of Werner's
encyclopedic attempt at knowing and cataloguing. How can we presume to share a
frame of reference that would make such comparisons meaningful? Like all
attempts at universal language, it is imperilled from the start. Maggs's other
work in the current show also deals with colour, but here the emphasis is on
theory, rather than direct observation. The book under scrutiny here is a study
by Michel-Eugène Chevreul's called Cercles Chromatiques, written in
1861. (Chevreul's ideas greatly influenced French painting, Maggs says, in
particular the work of Paul Seurat and Robert and Sonia Delaunay.)
Maggs's sequential work replicates, in 10 prints, Chevreul's study of the
72 colours he identified as pure, revealing their modulation through the
incremental addition of black, in 10 distinct phases. Looking at the works
installed on the wall, you see radiant dials of colour dampened down, step by
step, to blackness, an entropic falling away of vitality that Maggs describes
as a "passage from day to night, from positive to negative, from life to
death." Is Maggs musing on mortality here, luxuriating in the glow of
colour, and mourning its passing? It seems incongruous with the man -- fit as a
fiddle and bursting with stories of his latest projects and passions. This,
however, is not his only act of mourning. These days, he's shooting all the
SX-70 Polaroid film he can get his hands on -- a technology that he says is
soon to slip into obsolescence. He's also printing as many of his portrait
studies as possible on the old-fashioned photographic papers he favours, which
are also rapidly becoming obsolete. (Ilford Cold Tone paper is his favourite.)
Maggs laments, too, the passing of the solitary artisanal craft of the
darkroom. "Now you have to look over somebody's shoulder and he's
pushing buttons," he says, recalling the making of his most recent pieces,
which have involved cosmetic tweaking. "It's incredible what you can
do," he adds, deferential to the new technology. "But I don't quite
like it." Arnaud Maggs Nomenclature continues at the Robert McLaughlin
Art Gallery in Oshawa, Ont., until March 26 (905-576-3000) and travels on to
Gallery One One One, in Winnipeg, McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, and the
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal.
NABOB To Honour Entertainment Elite
Source: Chrissy Murray / Cprmedia2@aol.com
(New York, New York) – The National Association of Black
Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) and the NABOB Foundation holds their 22nd Annual Communications
Awards Dinner,
Friday, March 10, 2006, 7:00 p.m., at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, 2660
Woodley Road NW, in Washington, D.C. Comedian and radio personality Steve
Harvey hosts a star-studded evening honouring African-American legends and
leaders in entertainment and broadcasting. The NABOB 2006 honourees
include: Oscar-nominated actor Terrence Howard; nine-time Grammy Award winner
Alicia Keys; Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG award winning actress S. Epatha
Merkerson; Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and music icon Etta James;
beloved author/poet Dr. Maya Angelou; the Queen of Gospel Albertina Walker and
Robert L. Johnson, founder and Chairman, BET and the RLJ companies. The
legendary Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin will provide the entertainment.
Presenters for the evening will be announced as they are confirmed. NABOB
is a non-profit corporation and the only trade organization representing the
interests of African-American owners of radio and television stations across
the country. The NABOB Foundation was created to develop the next generation of
broadcast station owners and managers. For Sponsorship or Ticket
Information: DeSane Associates / 201-342-0909
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::SPORTS NEWS::
Ontario Women Are National Hockey Champs
Excerpt
from The Toronto Star
(Mar. 12, 2006) SYDNEY, N.S. (CP) — Team Ontario
defeated Team
Quebec 2-1 Sunday in the final of the Esso women's national
championships. It was the third straight title for Ontario, represented
by the NWHL's Brampton Thunder, and 10th gold medal overall for the
province. Vicky Sunohara of Toronto scored with seven seconds left in the
second period, converting a pass from Jayna Hefford for the game-winner.
Sunohara said Hefford looked like she was going to shoot but found her with a
pass near the goalmouth. "She saw me on the far post, made a great
pass across and caught (goalie) Charline (Labonte) out of position,"
Sunohara said. "I just basically had to tip it in." Kristie
Zamora of Oshawa, Ont., opened the scoring in the first period. Quebec replied
midway through the second on a goal from captain Lisa Marie Breton of St.
Zachary, Que. Cindy Eadie made 26 saves for Ontario. Annie
Desrosiers of St-Antoine sur Richelieu, Que., assisted on the lone Quebec goal.
She finished with 14 points and was named tournament MVP. Hefford, of Kingston,
Ont., was named the tournament's top forward. Labonte, of Boisbrand, Que., made
38 saves and was named top goaltender. "Charline Labonte is a real
tough goalie to beat, that's for sure," Sunohara said. "Our team
played well. They had a few 5-on-3 power-play opportunities but we shut them
down on that. "The whole team played awesome." In all,
six players from Canada's gold-medal winning team played in the final — three
from each team. Sunohara, Hefford and Gillian Ferrari of Thornhill, Ont., were
on the Ontario squad while Labonte, Gina Kingsbury of Rouyn-Noranda, Que., and
Caroline Ouellette of Montreal played for Quebec. In the bronze medal
game, Alberta defeated New Brunswick 7-3. Kaley Hall of Calgary paced
Alberta with a hat trick and an assist. Heather Logan of Napanee, Ont., scored
twice while Monica Dupuis of Memramcook, N.B., and Laura Fridfinnson of Arborg,
Man., added singles. Carole Leblanc of Grande-Digue, N.B., and Kristine
Labrie of St. Quentin, N.B, scored for New Brunswick, who secured their highest
placing at the event since they won bronze in 1996.
Nash Returns To Lead Suns Over T-Wolves
Source: The Canadian Press
(Mar. 12, 2006) The Phoenix Suns resumed their winning ways Saturday
night with star guard Steve Nash back
in the line-up. Nash tied a season high with 31 points and added 11
assists to lead the Phoenix Suns past the Minnesota Timberwolves 110-102. On
Thursday night, with Nash out due to an ankle sprain, the Suns dropped a 117-93
decision to the San Antonio Spurs that snapped their 11-game win streak.
"He's pretty good," Suns coach Mike D'Antoni said. "I don't know
if you've noticed that." Phoenix is 2-6 without Nash the last two
seasons, and 114-44 with him. Elsewhere, it was: Washington Wizards 110,
Detroit Pistons 92; Chicago Bulls 95, Atlanta Hawks 90; Orlando Magic 103,
Golden State Warriors 92; Charlotte Bobcats 116, New York Knicks 109; Los
Angeles Clippers 106, Milwaukee Bucks 98; and Dallas Mavericks 90, Utah Jazz
87. In Phoenix, Nash helped the Suns win despite a big night by
Minnesota's Kevin Garnett, who led the Timberwolves with 28 points and 10
rebounds. But Garnett's numbers didn't improve his mood. He blasted teammates
for clowning in the dressing room after the team's fourth straight loss.
"I guess frustrating would be the right word here," Garnett said
after snapping at teammates. "I don't like to speak from a frustrated
mind. "There's no way — we're playing one of the best teams in the
league, and you're not hyped, you're not up. The atmosphere in here is like we
won. (It) hurts. I try to keep things in house. There's a certain tone in here,
man, and we're going to keep that. If you can't abide by that tone, you won't be
here. You won't play." "I don't sign anyone's cheques, but you
have to be prepared and ready to play," Garnett said. "And I don't
know that as a team every night we're ready to do that. The focus is that it's
got to hurt when you lose."
While Garnett stewed, Nash and the Suns celebrated his return to the
line-up. Nash sprained his right ankle Monday night against New Orleans, but he
said he felt no ill effects Saturday night. "I
was lucky," Nash said. "I felt great. "I felt pretty
confident before the game, but there was definitely still some uncertainty. As
the game went on, I definitely gained confidence and didn't feel any problem
with it." While Nash missed Thursday's game, so did his backup
Leandro Barbosa, who had a groin injury. Both players returned Saturday
night. As if to underscore his importance to the Suns, Nash scored
Phoenix's first six points. He scored, drew a foul on Marcus Banks and made the
free throw. Then he hit from the beyond the arc. The Timberwolves decided
to stick with the Suns' shooters and make Nash beat them off the dribble, which
is precisely what he did. "They were more or less saying, `Hey,
we're going to stay on the shooters, and let's see if you can beat our guy,'
" D'Antoni said. ``He'll do that. "He just reads the situation
so well, and he takes what they give him." Nash had a hand in 17 of
the Suns' 28 first-quarter points. Phoenix trailed 54-48 at halftime, but Nash
scored seven points in the first 3:29 of the third quarter to help the Suns
pull even 61-61. Nash either scored or assisted on 25 of the Suns' 30
points in the third quarter, when they outscored the Timberwolves 30-22 to take
a 78-76 lead into the fourth. The Timberwolves have seen this before.
Nash also burned them for 31 points here Feb. 6.
NASCAR Legend's Life Is Back On Track
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Donovan Vincent, Sports Reporter
(Mar. 12, 2006) For many retired sports figures, a crooked nose,
missingteeth or scars from a past surgery are the "war wounds'' that
remain with them. Former NASCAR star Bobby Allison's permanent limp is one of his
reminders. It's a result of breaking his left leg in a 1988 crash at Pocono
Raceway in Pennsylvania, a collision that forced him to retire at age 50. The
crash left another, less visible injury — serious memory loss from a concussion.
Listen
to Allison interview (mp3)
But the sport has dealt far worse wounds to Allison and his family. His
younger son Clifford died in 1992 during a Busch Series practice at Michigan
Speedway. Son Davey was killed 11 months later after crashing his helicopter
while trying to land at Talladega Super Speedway in Alabama. Davey Allison, a
renowned racer with a Daytona 500 victory and 19 other wins under his belt, had
flown to Talladega to watch another driver test a car. Still, Bobby
Allison, 68, gets a gleam in his eye as he
shares anecdotes from a long and colourful career behind the wheel. And what a
career it was. In 33 years he had over 2,400 starts and more than 700 wins, 85
in NASCAR. He won the Daytona 500 three times, was a three-time runner-up in
the event, and was the Winston Cup Series champion in 1983. In 1999, he was named
one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers. But despite career earnings of more
than $7.6 million (all U.S. figures) he admits he didn't plan for his
retirement and still needs to bring in cash. He was in town recently to
promote a project he's involved in, the new NASCAR DVD board game. Allison, who
has two surviving daughters, nine grandchildren, and lives on a lake in North
Carolina with his wife, took time out to chat with Unplugged about "pit
lizards,'' life after the NASCAR circuit and country singer Reba
McEntire.
You've had a lot of injuries.
I had a few injuries along the way, but the first serious injury I had
was many, many years ago at a short track in Minnesota, where I crashed into a
wall and I broke 12 bones in my feet, five ribs, had a fracture to my right eye
and 40 stitches to my face. I started to race the following week. I got out of
the hospital on Thursday. They made me some orthopedic shoes, so I cut the
casts off my feet. Broken ribs were something we put up with, and the fellow did
a nice job on my face, as you can see (chuckles).
Have there been any moments in your career where you felt total fear,
or saw your life flash before your eyes, as they say?
No, I have not. I had a few times where the situation was pretty serious,
where I was pretty alarmed, but no fear.
NASCAR is very popular now. Why do you think it's become so popular?
NASCAR racing has always been about racing the family car, which is so
attractive to so many people. It's attractive to women, children, older folks.
... The car is the most common piece of equipment we all have. To go out and
compete in this car was such a great idea.
If we were to jump into your family car right now, what kind of music
would you have on?
I like country music. I was a Marty Robbins fan, a friend of Marty
Robbins while he was alive. I like a little of the modern stuff, but more to
earlier country.
The modern artists you like are?
I'm a big Reba (McEntire) fan, Alabama, Brooks and Dunn.
You've had some tragedies in your life.
Both my sons were killed 11 months apart. My older son Davey, the
world-renowned racing hero, was killed. Then, after 36 years of marriage, my
wife Judy and I divorced. Then, four years later, we reunited. We're really
doing good, enjoying each other. We were reunited through an incredible tragedy
on somebody else's part. Richard Petty's grandson Adam was killed. (Judy and I)
happened to be at our son Davey's widow's wedding that Saturday. Adam was
killed on the Friday. As I came out of the church, Judy said to me we should
put our differences aside and go try to help the Pettys. I said, "You're
right'' and we've been back together ever since.
How are things financially for you now?
Judy and I are comfortable. We have very low debt. We don't have a lot of
toys. We have a nice little pontoon boat at our place in North Carolina. And I
have a little fishing rig, a pontoon pedal boat I fish off. I was able to keep
a 1988 Reatta, with 120,000 miles on it. It's really nice, and that's my little
toy. I've done very little to it. We have Buick sedans we drive.
What about a pension?
No pension. We're talking now about trying to get something worked out
for the old racers.
You're hoping the board game will help?
Hoping that will at least contribute, but also bring some (awareness).
See, part of the reason I don't have all the things I ought to have is because
I spent my life (racing) and working on race cars instead of working on the
financial picture and retirement and all these other things we should be
responsible for.
When was your first race?
I (was in) south Florida. I got my own racing going and built a modified
car. A 1934 Chevy with a V-8 Chevy engine with three carburetors. One week I
went to Alabama just on a whim. Two friends had decided they wanted to go look
for racetracks. They'd gone up through Georgia and hadn't found anything they
liked and came back home. They heard Alabama had nice tracks so we went
(there), and the second week I was in Alabama I won the first feature event of
my career.
A paid event?
Yup. It was $300. In 1959 that was lots of money.
Your Pocono injury. You're still feeling the affects of that. It's a
reminder of your career, but also slows you down.
I have a small limp because my left leg was broken badly, and it ended up
healing back shorter than my right leg. So I have a very small limp. It
(causes) a bit of discomfort. But I have some memory loss. The memory loss has
done really well. I got an awful lot back. Early on I couldn't remember good
friends. When I first started coming back into reality I didn't know which year
it was, I didn't know where I was, didn't know which state I was in ... In
1988, on Thursday I won the 125-mile qualifying race at Daytona. Saturday, I
won the Busch 300 race. On Sunday, I won the Daytona 500 for the third time in
my career at 50, with Davey running second to me. What I remember is winning a
fishing contest Wednesday, and there was a big party at a restaurant Sunday night
for something. I have no personal memory of any of the racing events. It's
weird because I do know it happened, but I have no personal memory of it at
all.
We've all heard the stories about women and their attraction to race
car drivers.
There always were the beauty queens and the lady fans, all the way to the
pit lizards — the ones that got classified as pit lizards — the girls around
areas trying to get a date with any driver. They were there, but I came from a
Catholic background, a good Catholic family, good Catholic parents, brothers
and sisters. So I had a little bit of support from that part of my upbringing.
Then I had a wife (who) was very attractive and a very special person to me. So
that helped me avoid at least the main, heavy part of this. When Judy and I
divorced, it was over the grief of our sons. It wasn't directly attributed to
some other person in either one of our lives.
What gives you the most pleasure now?
I would say activities with my grandchildren.
What do you do?
So many things. Two of my granddaughters I just walked up the aisle for
their weddings because their father (Clifford) is deceased. I had the honour
and privilege to walk them up the aisle.
What's your biggest pet peeve?
People who think the world owes them a living.
