Month: April 2013

Categories
Books

Now! Now!! Now!!! I WANT IT NOW!!!!

Beastie Boys Sign Deal to Write Memoir

Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz will pen an atypical memoir — being described as a “multidimensional experience” — via a deal with Random House imprint Spiegel & Grau.

The Beastie Boys are ready to write their memoir — just don’t expect it to be your typical celebrity tell-all.

Michael Diamond (aka Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) — who along with Adam Yauch (MCA), who died last year of cancer, comprise the hip-hop group — have signed a deal with Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, for an as-yet-untitled book planned for a fall 2015 release, The New York Times reports.

The Beastie Boys are “interested in challenging the form and making the book a multidimensional experience,” Spiegel & Grau publisher Julie Grau tells The Times. “There is a kaleidoscopic frame of reference, and it asks a reader to keep up.”

The book will be edited by hip-hop journalist Sacha Jenkins and will be “loosely structured as an oral history” with a “strong visual component” as well as contributions from other writers, according to The Times.

Grau and Luke Janklow, the group’s agent, compared it to Grand Royal, the Beastie Boys’ short-lived magazine published in the 1990s.

“The first words out of Mike’s mouth were, ‘I don’t want to do a straight memoir,’ ” Janklow says.

Spiegel & Grau also published Jay-Z’s 2010 book Decoded. The Boys’ memoir will follow on the heels of memoirs from musicians including Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend.

Categories
Movies

The Summer Movie Season starts next weekend!!!

Box office report: ‘Pain & Gain’ leads slow weekend with $20 million; ‘Iron Man 3’ earns $195 million overseas

In the final weekend before Iron Man 3 kicks off the summer movie season in earnest, Michael Bay’s R-rated action comedy Pain & Gain topped a slow weekend at the box office with $20 million from 3,277 theaters, giving it an average of $6,103 per location. The Paramount film achieved only a fraction of the opening weekend grosses of Bay’s Transformers films, but it only cost a fraction — just $26 million — of those films as well. It’s well on its way to profitability.

Pain & Gain, which stars Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, redeemed both stars following unimpressive box office results for action films earlier this year. Wahlberg’s Broken City petered out with just $19.7 million, while Johnson’s Snitch fared only slightly better, grossing $42.1 million. While both those films had darker, more serious tones, Pain & Gain was marketed as a sunny, over-the-top black comedy. Unfortunately, audience reaction wasn’t particularly sunny. Polled moviegoers issued Pain & Gain a dreadful “C+” CinemaScore.

In second place, Tom Cruise’s sci-fi adventure Oblivion, which last week debuted with $37.1 million, dropped 53 percent to $17.4 million, giving it a 10-day total of $64.7 million. While the Universal film seems unlikely to reach Cruise’s one-time benchmark of $100 million domestically, its $134.1 million international total lifts prospects considerably. Still, a $198.8 million worldwide total versus a $120 million budget isn’t an incredible result after accounting for distribution and marketing costs.

Warner Bros.’ $40 million Jackie Robinson drama 42 scored another $10.7 million in its third weekend, representing a 40 percent decline. With a cumulative gross of $69.1 million so far, 42 is a big winner for Warner Bros., which badly needed a hit following flops like Beautiful Creatures, Bullet to the Head, and Jack the Giant Slayer. Yet most analysts expected the film, which earned an “A+” CinemaScore grade, to reach $100 million. That no longer seems plausible.

Star-studded romantic comedy The Big Wedding flopped in its opening weekend, with just $7.5 million from 2,633 theaters, giving it a sad $2,848 per theater average. The $35 million Lionsgate release got off to a weaker start than other recent wedding titles like The Five-Year Engagement, License to Wed, and The Wedding Date — and all of those were considered misfires upon release. The Big Wedding, which features performances by Robert De Niro, Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams, Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Katherine Heigl, Topher Grace, and Ben Barnes, garnered wretched reviews from most critics, and audiences, which were 77 percent female and 66 percent above the age of 30, gave it an ugly “C+” CinemaScore.

The Croods spent its sixth weekend in the Top 5 with $6.6 million (a 29 percent drop), lifting the colorful Stone Age comedy to $163 million total. The Fox-distributed film, produced by DreamWorks Animation for $135 million, has carried even more cash into its cave internationally, and this weekend it passed the $300 million mark. Worldwide, The Croods has earned a terrific $471 million, and it will zoom right past the half-billion mark some time in the next two weeks. Unsurprisingly, a sequel is already in the works.

1. Pain & Gain – $20 million
2. Oblivion – $17.4 million
3. 42 – $10.7 million
4. The Big Wedding – $7.5 million
5. The Croods – $6.6 million

Despite the success of films like The Croods, Identity Thief, and Oz The Great and Powerful, the first third of 2013 hasn’t been a particularly good one at the box office. For the year to date, both attendance and revenue at the U.S. box office are down 12 percent, and Hollywood is now turning its attention to potential blockbusters like Iron Man 3, Fast & Furious 6, and Man of Steel to turn this year’s prospects around.

Iron Man 3, at least, seems like a safe bet. The superhero sequel debuted this weekend in 42 overseas territories (about 79 percent of the international market), where it earned an incredible $195.3 million — a higher figure than The Avengers‘ $185.1 million start. That figure is even more impressive when your realize that Iron Man 3 has yet to open in powerhouse territories like China, Russia, and Germany. Iron Man 3 achieved the best opening weekend ever in a number of Asian countries (Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore), which is a testament to the continent’s booming box offices, but perhaps also to Disney’s efforts to tailor the picture to better appeal to Asian filmgoers. The film opens in the U.S. on Friday and is expected to open above $150 million.

Categories
The Couch Potato Report

How about some movies for the weekend?

The Couch Potato Report – April 27th, 2013

A movie based on a Booker Prize winning novel is inside this week’s Couch Potato Report, and so are dinosaurs in 3D!

“Midnight’s Children” is a 1981 novel by Salman Rushdie. It won the Booker Prize – a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe – and it also won the “Booker of Bookers” Prize and was named the best all-time prize winner in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize’s 25th and 40th anniversary.

Toronto based director Deepha Mehta has now turned this beautiful book into an interesting movie.

MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN is about a boy named Saleem, one of 1,001 children who were born at midnight on the day of India’s independence from Britain.

Each of these children have an extraordinary gift, a gift that is both a blessing and a curse. For example, Saleem has telepathic powers and he can communicate with the other 1000 children even while he is alone in his room.

The other part of Saleem’s story in MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN is the fact that he was switched at birth. Instead of growing up the illegitimate son of a poor woman, he is raised as the offspring of a wealthy couple.

However, as his life goes on, destiny brings him together with the boy he was switched with, as they are both Midnight’s children.

MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN is an interesting film that looks beautiful as it moves through the years against the vast, colourful background of the India of this century.

But as interesting and beautiful as it was…I was never invested in it. I didn’t wish anyone harm, but I didn’t really care what happened to any of the characters in the movie.

MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN isn’t bad, and if you love the book you should see it, but if you only have time for one movie this weekend, this isn’t the one you should watch.

Instead, if you only have time for one movie this weekend, THE IMPOSSIBLE is the one you should watch.

Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor star in THE IMPOSSIBLE as a family – with their three boys – who are on vacation in Thailand and get caught in the destruction and chaotic aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Watts was nominated for Best Actress for her work here and she and the entire cast are amazing…and the special effects are also spectacular as the filmmakers recreate the disaster, both physically and emotionally.

THE IMPOSSIBLE is based on a true story and it is very, very dramatic. It is also very, very good. I highly recommend it.

There are parts of the natural gas drama PROMISED LAND that I would also highly recommend, but overall the film is a bit slow.

Oscar winners Matt Damon from GOOD WILL HUNTING and Frances McDormand, of FARGO play salespeople who work for a company that specializes in obtaining natural gas trapped underground through a process known as fracking.

The two are sent to a small Pennsylvania farming town to buy the rights to drill beneath the local’s land for the lowest price possible.

All is going well until a local teacher and an environmental advocate raises the question of the safety of fracking and what happens to the land afterward.

I have seen several documentaries about fracking and the results and after effects, the good and the bad, and while PROMISED LAND does delve into that, it isn’t a documentary. This is a movie, and some of it is very good.

Other parts are slow and predictable, but overall it is very good. Call that a mild recommendation.

The months of January, February and March have become dumping grounds for the movie studios. No matter how big the stars who are in the films released in those months are, they are not going to be great…with the exception of the ones left over from Academy Award Season.

I have two films that were dumped into 2013 for you now…AND two documentaries that weren’t that are actually worthy of your time.

I’ll save the best until the end, and start with the crime drama GANGSTER SQUAD.

GANGSTER SQUAD is set in Los Angeles in 1949. Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling lead a secret crew of police officers who are working to take down mob king Mickey Cohen, who runs the city.

Sean Penn plays Cohen…and when he is on screen, the film has some pop. The rest of the time, no pop…it doesn’t even snap or crackle.

Nick Nolte and Emma Stone are also in the cast of GANGSTER SQUAD, but it doesn’t matter. The film just isn’t very good…in fact at all times it just played to me like a poor imitation of the Academy Award winning 1997 film L.A. CONFIDENTIAL.

Now that is a great crime drama set in L.A.. GANGSTER SQUAD, not so much, so skip it.

And you also need to skip the film BROKEN CITY, even with the tremendous cast it has.

Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe and Catherine Zeta-Jones all-star here, along with the great character actor Jeffrey Wright.

Wahlberg is a former police officer, current private investigator. Crowe stars as the mayor of New York City and he hires the PI to investigate his wife and the affair he thinks she’s having…then she tries to hire him to stop.

Yes, BROKEN CITY has some interesting twists and turns, and it is a well-made movie with that great cast, but I just didn’t care…at all. In fact, I was so disinterested in the film that I went to get groceries in the middle of it, and met up with some friends, before I reluctantly returned home to finish it.

Unless you love this cast, and I mean LOVE them…you should skip this movie. You have better things to do…like get groceries, or meeting up with some old friends…which you might do to see some good movies, as the Summer Movie Season will soon be upon us!!

We’ve survived the dumping ground for yet another year!!

Luckily during the time the studios have been releasing less than high quality films in theatres there have been some great documentaries produced, including the latest from Ken Burns’, who also gave us The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The War (2007), Prohibition (2011) and now THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE.

This documentary examines the 1989 case of five black and Latino teenagers who were convicted of raping a white woman in Central Park.

They spent between 6 and 13 years each in prison before a serial rapist confessed to the crime.

Yet even though they were convicted of a crime they did not commit, and were wrongly imprisoned, THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE still haven’t reached a settlement with New York City.

They are still awaiting justice.

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE is a compelling and heartbreaking film. It is very difficult to watch at times, and even more difficult to believe that such a miscarriage of justice took place, and has yet to be resolved.

This documentary is a must see!

Up next is another documentary…actually, this one is a bike-umentary, according to the packaging.

PEDAL DRIVEN shows us the escalating conflict between mountain bikers and their desire to ride trails on their mountain bikes and the land managers who must protect the public lands from damage, ensuring their use for decades to come.

The main question in PEDAL DRIVEN comes from the lyrics of the song THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND: specifically the line: “This land belongs to you and me”. The people in this film wonder if the land does belong to them, and they also want to know why there doesn’t seem to be a place for mountain bikers?

PEDAL DRIVEN – A BIKE-UMENTARY is a very entertaining documentary that shows both sides of the issues at hand. It also features some amazing camera work from riders on trails in the U.S. and in Whistler, B.C.

Search this one out, it is only 63 minutes long and very worthy of your time!

Finally this week is Steven Spielberg’s classic 1993 film JURASSIC PARK! This still-great action film is turning twenty this year and was released to theatres converted to 3D, and that added dimension adds a lot as the dinosaurs look great as they are moving toward and running at the camera.

That 3D version is now available on blu-ray – and you also get the regular blu-ray and DVD as well – and even at home it looks great and the 3D conversion is exceptionally well done!!

As the dinosaurs get loose in the theme park and the people run for their lives, we the viewer get a great movie experience JURASSIC PARK 3D is worth the money and twenty years later the movie continues to be worth your time!!

Steven Spielberg’s classic action film JURASSIC PARK 3D; the very entertaining documentary…I mean bike-umentary PEDAL DRIVEN; Ken Burns’ compelling and heartbreaking doc THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE; the never awful but nowhere near great drama BROKEN CITY; the not great period piece GANGSTER SQUAD; the very strong natural gas drama PROMISED LAND; the superb Academy Award nominated drama THE IMPOSSIBLE; and Toronto based director Deepha Mehta’s interesting cinematic version of Salman Rushdie’s 1981 Booker Prize winning novel MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

Vancouver born actor Seth Rogen from KNOCKED UP and PINEAPPLE EXPRESS co-stars with Barbra Streisand in THE GUILT TRIP; HISTORY OF THE EAGLES is a three-hour documentary about the legendary band; THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION debuts on blu-ray; and Jennifer Lawrence won an Academy Award for her performance in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

Categories
Television

Great idea!!

Kristen Wiig and Ben Affleck to host ‘Saturday Night Live’

Former Saturday Night Live cast member Kristen Wiig is returning to her old stomping grounds to make her debut as host of the show on May 11, NBC has announced. Rounding out season 38 of the legendary sketch show will be Ben Affleck, who will make his fifth appearance on SNL‘s May 18 finale.

NBC has also confirmed the widespread rumor that Kanye West will make his fifth appearance as the show’s musical guest on the May 18 episode, though it remains unclear whether the rapper, who has been in Paris working on his next album, will premiere any new music.

Vampire Weekend will provide the tunes during Wiig’s hosting gig.

Both Wiig and Affleck have a busy few months ahead.

Wiig has multiple projects hitting theaters in the next few months, beginning with the summer’s animated sequel Despicable Me 2. Later this year, we’ll see her in the flesh in Girl Most Likely, Anchorman: The Legend Continues, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Affleck, whose most recent turn behind the camera Argo took home the Oscar for Best Picture earlier this year, is on screen now in To the Wonder and can next be seen in the September drama Runner, Runner.

Categories
People

So sad, awful news!! May he rest in peace!!

Country Legend George Jones Dies at Age 81

Musical legend George Jones died in Nashville Friday at the age of 81. The singer had been hospitalized last week as a result of fever and irregular blood pressure.

Jones, a native of Saratoga, Texas, began his recording career in the 1950s and charted his first Top 10 country single, “Why Baby Why,” in 1955. “The Possum” would go on to record more than 160 charting singles, more than any other artist in any format in the history of popular music.

Jones’s catalog is filled with beloved classics such as “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” “She Thinks I Still Care,” and “Walk Through This World With Me”; as well as duets with former wife Tammy Wynette such as “Golden Ring.”

He was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry, and was a Kennedy Center Honoree. He has won a score of awards for his work, including numerous accolades from the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music, as well as several Grammys.

Jones was survived by his wife of 30 years, Nancy, as well as his children and grandchildren, sister, and nieces and nephews.

Categories
People

Sad news, may he rest in peace.

‘M*A*S*H’ star Allan Arbus dies at 95

Allan Arbus, known to many of us at the psychiatrist Maj. Sidney Freedman from M*A*S*H, has died at age 95.

The actor, who was married to photographer Diane Arbus, died on Friday at his home in Los Angeles, reports The New York Times.

Arbus, who was born in New York, was a TV regular in the 1970s and ’80s, appearing on Taxi, Starsky & Hutch, Matlock and other shows. But it was his M*A*S*H character that became his best-known role.

But before he turned to acting, he married Diane Nemerov in 1941 and became passionate about photography. In 1946, they established a studio on West 54th Street for fashion photography and soon won a contract from Condé Nast to supply photos for magazines including Glamour and Vogue.

The couple separated in 1959 and divorced in 1969, when Allan Arbus moved to Los Angeles. Diane committed suicide in 1971. In 1976, Arbus married Mariclare Costello. She survives him, as do his two daughters from his first marriage, Amy and Doon; and a daughter from his second marriage, Arin Arbus, according to the Times.

Categories
The Couch Potato Report

Movies, movies, movies!!!

The Couch Potato Report – April 20th, 2013

There is a great documentary about record stores – remember them – inside this week’s Couch Potato Report, and Django is unchained.

Record Store Day is an internationally celebrated day observed the third Saturday of April each year. Its purpose is to celebrate music and it brings fans and artists together at thousands of independent record stores across the world.

LAST SHOP STANDING – THE RISE, FALL AND REBIRTH OF THE INDEPENDENT RECORD SHOP is the official film of Record Store Day 2013 and it is an amazing piece of entertainment for all fans of music and record stores as it introduces us to some of the people who have survived, and continued to sell albums, even when the Record Companies tried to kill it off.

LAST SHOP STANDING is based on the book of the same name by Graham Jones and it features Jones having conversations with over twenty record store owners in the U.K., and some musicians who still love to shop in them, like Paul Weller, Johnny Marr, Norman Cook and Billy Bragg.

LAST SHOP STANDING is basically a love letter to people who work in and love record shops, but it is very entertaining and anyone who has ever worked in one will appreciate some of the stories.

LAST SHOP STANDING – THE RISE, FALL AND REBIRTH OF THE INDEPENDENT RECORD SHOP is a must see, not just for people who shop at Fred’s Records in St. John’s, Vertigo Records in Ottawa, The Vinyl Exchange in Saskatoon, Freecloud Records in Edmonton, or Beat Street Records in Vancouver, but for all music AND movie fans as it is informative, nostalgic and funny.

If you can’t find the film where you normally get your movies, visit your local independent record store as they may have it, especially if they are the last shop standing.

When I made my list of the top films of 2012, this next film was close to the top of the list. It’s Quentin Tarantino’s Academy Award winning DJANGO UNCHAINED.

Set in the antebellum era of the Deep South and Old West, Oscar winner Christoph Waltz plays a German bounty hunter here, who helps a freed slave – played by Jamie Foxx – rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays the villainous Calvin Candie.

Like all Tarantino films, DJANGO UNCHAINED is an exceptionally well written film – he did win Best Original Screenplay for it back in February – and it has some fantastic scenes of people just talking. But it is also has some scenes that are exceptionally violent. There are two that are so over the top that even I – someone who isn’t squeamish all that often – have to turn away from.

As much as I love Quentin Tarantino and his movies, I can’t deny that DJANGO UNCHAINED is not his best film…but it is still better than the majority of movies released over the past year. His worst is still much better than most director’s best.

Due to the violence, and the profanity and language contained within, it isn’t for everyone, but I still highly recommend it.

As much as I love nature documentaries – and I do love nature documentaries – not all of them are created equal.

Almost all of them feature spectacular visuals of animals and creatures we’ve never seen before, and may never see again…but it is the narration that sets them apart. Is it meant to inform us, or preach to us about how these creatures will die is humankind doesn’t change their ways.

Now I don’t mind warnings about how we all must work hard to save the planet, even repeated warnings, but I don’t want to hear nothing but that for ninety minutes. I just want to see things I’ve never seen before, like an octopus changing its colour as it moves through the ocean. That is the stuff I love!!

PLANET OCEAN is a nature documentary that features some spectacular visuals that look amazing and I really enjoyed it…at least most of it.

Sometimes, it was informative.

Too often though, it was preachy.

However, that extra preachy fact aside, I still enjoyed PLANET OCEAN enough to recommend it, and I do recommend it, primarily because the images and what it shows us are amazing.

Sci-fi fans…HUGE sci-fi fans who love the genre, and I mean LOVE IT so that the cheesier the film gets, the better… YOU will need to see this next film. Everyone else needs to skip JOHN DIES AT THE END at all costs!

At all costs!!

This is a movie set in a world that needs a hero. When people take a new street drug – called Soy Sauce – they have an out-of-body experience…but once they come down, they’re no longer human.

Yes, a silent otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero.

Instead of a hero, or even heroes, what the world gets instead is John and David, a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down jobs.

JOHN DIES AT THE END is never great, and if the whole thing sounds stupid to you…it is.

Sci-fi fans…as I said, this is one for you!! It is never great, but you’ll enjoy it enough to never feel like you are wasting your time.

Everyone else…you’ve been warned!!

Finally this week is a mostly made-in-Toronto-and-Northern Ontario drama called A DARK TRUTH, starring Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker, Andy Garcia from THE GODFATHER III, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES’ Eva Longoria, Saskatoon’s Kim Coates, Toronto’s Deborah Kara Unger and Steven Bauer from SCARFACE.

All good actors, who have done good work, but with this film, even though the story is interesting at times, it seems that the main instruction director Damian Lee gave them was to be as boring as possible.

Andy Garcia plays a former CIA operative turned political talk show radio host in A DARK TRUTH. He is hired by a woman to expose her company’s cover-up of a massacre in a South American village.

A DARK TRUTH isn’t awful, but with everyone doing their best to under-act, and how predictable their actions are most of the time, it all doesn’t amount to much and so it isn’t worthy of your time.

If you see it on the shelf, or available to watch online, just skip it.

The made-in-Northern Ontario action thriller A DARK TRUTH, the goofy pretty good sci-fi flick JOHN DIES AT THE END, the informative but a bit too preachy nature documentary PLANET OCEAN, Quentin Tarantino’s DJANGO UNCHAINED, which is not his best, but is still very entertaining, and the official film of Record Store Day 2013: the very entertaining documentary LAST SHOP STANDING – THE RISE, FALL AND REBIRTH OF THE INDEPENDENT RECORD SHOP are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

Toronto based director Deepha Mehta gives us a cinematic version of Salman Rushdie’s 1981 Booker Prize winning novel MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN; Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts stars in THE IMPOSSIBLE – about the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Oscar winner Matt Damon stars in PROMISED LAND and JURASSIC PARK will be available for home viewing in 3D!!

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

Categories
Awards

It has been a great week of music in Regina!!

Carly Rae Jepsen dominates Junos

No maybes about it — Carly Rae Jepsen was the big winner at unday’s Juno awards.

The pop star, who had garnered five nominations, took home three trophies, including best album for Kiss and best single for her uber-hit, Call Me Maybe.

“I’m moved beyond words,” said Jepsen backstage. “It’s an incredible feeling. Being at home and being recognized in a country that made me it’s the greatest feeling ever.”

The Mission, B.C., native also won best pop album Saturday night at a non-televised gala ceremony.

Jepsen, 27, was stopped in her tracks for a sweep by none-other-than 78-year-old Leonard Cohen who picked up artist of the year on Saturday, along with songwriter of the year during the TV broadcast.

Cohen, who had a show in St. John’s Sunday night, had his trophy picked up by presenter son Adam Cohen who joked: “I feel so used.”

In the fan choice of the year category, Jepsen lost to superstar Justin Bieber. That was the only award the 19-year-old hitmaker snagged, despite four nominations.

The Biebs — who’s been having a rough time on his European tour — also lost to Cohen for artist of the year and to Jepsen for best pop album and best album.

Jepsen’s reaction to beating Bieber in three categories?

“It’s a shared thing for us for the fact that he has really been my main supporter,” said Jepsen, who said she will undertake her first Canadian headlining tour this summer.

“He signed me with Scooter Braun to School Boy Records and because of that I was able to make the record Kiss … So I have nothing to say to him other than thank you and I know that’s he’s been rooting for me as much as for his own self. It’s more of a shared triumph.”

Group of the year honours went to Vancouver pop-punk act Marianas Trench, besting the likes of prog-rock trio Rush who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week.

Rush, however, didn’t go home empty-handed, winning best rock album Saturday night for Clockwork Angels.

Monster Truck was named best breakthrough group, trumping such acts as Walk Off the Earth, who became YouTube sensations last year with their version of Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know.

Mumford & Sons picked up the prize for international album of the year for Babel.

Toronto-based singer-songwriter Serena Ryder’s Harmony won adult alternative album of the year over critical faves like Kathleen Edwards’ Voyageur and Bahamas’ Barchords.

“I’m almost started crying before I left my seat, that’s not cool,” said Ryder when she got on stage.

Besides Cohen the only other double Juno winner was Toronto R&B star The Weeknd, who won best breakthrough artist and best r&b-soul recording for Trilogy.

Also with reason to celebrate? Indie rockers Metric, whose Synthetica won best alternative album. Band member James Shaw won the Jack Richardson producer of the year award and Justin Broadbent won best recording package, both for their work on Synthetica.

Also Saturday night, East coast rapper Classified took home hardware for best rap recording for Inner Ninja featuring David Myles, Vancouver artist Grimes won electronic album of the year for Visions, and the team responsible for The Tragically Hip’s Bobcaygeon won music DVD of the year.

The Juno broadcast saw performances by host Michael Buble, Jepsen, Metric, Hannah Georgas, Ryder, Billy Talent, Marianas Trench, The Sheepdogs and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee k.d. lang.

Lang was inducted by presenter Anne Murray saying of the Snowbird singer: “I had the biggest crush on her – I still do.”

“I think the fact that I’m standing here receiving this award actually says more about Canada than it does about me,” she continued. “‘Cause only in Canada could there be such a freak as k.d. lang receiving this award. … Only in Canada could there be people like Stompin’ Tom Connors and Rita MacNeil … It is OK to let your freak flags fly and embrace the quirkmeister that is in all of us.”

Categories
Television

Not again!!

‘Futurama’ cancelled again

Animated comedy series Futurama has been axed again, three years after returning to the small screen.

The show, created in 1999 by The Simpsons mastermind Matt Groening, was initially scrapped by bosses at America’s Fox network in 2003 following a sharp decline in ratings.

It was revived by Comedy Central executives for a new series in 2010, but now they have announced that its current season seven will be its last on their channel.

The remaining episodes will air this summer before wrapping up for good on September 4, according to EW.com.

However, Groening is hopeful Futurama will be picked up by another network for the future: “We would love to continue. We have many more stories to tell.”

Categories
People

May she rest in peace.

Divinyls Singer Christina Amphlett Dies at Age 53

Christina “Chrissy” Amphlett–frontwoman for the Australian rock band the Divinyls, whose “I Touch Myself” went to number four on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1991–died Sunday at her home in New York. Amphlett was 53 years old.

Amphlett’s husband of 14 years, former Divinyls drummer and multi-instrumentalist/producer Charley Drayton, confirmed in a statement that the charismatic singer died after battling multiple sclerosis since 2007 and breast cancer since 2010. “Chrissy’s light burns so very brightly,” Drayton stated. “Hers was a life of passion and creativity; she always lived it to the fullest…With her force of character and vocal strength she paved the way for strong, sexy, outspoken women.”

Drayton also revealed that Amphlett had “expressed hope that her worldwide hit ‘I Touch Myself’ would remind women to perform annual breast examinations.”

The Divinyls formed in 1980 in Sydney, Australia, and they recorded five albums (with various lineup changes) between 1982 and 1996. While “I Touch Myself” marked their international commercial peak, they became stars of the early-MTV era thanks in no small part to Amphlett’s sexy, fearless, tough-girl persona in music videos like “Boys in Town” and “Pleasure and Pain.” One of the Divinyls’ later songs, 1996’s “Human on the Inside,” was covered by another feisty rock ‘n’ roll female, Chrissie Hynde, on the Pretenders’ 1999 album Viva el Amor. In 2001, the Divinyls’ 1982 single “Science Fiction” was named one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time by the Australasian Performing Right Association, and the band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006.

In March 2012, Amphlett took to her Facebook page to share sad news about her ongoing health issues. “Unfortunately the last 18 months have been a real challenge for me having breast cancer and MS and all the new places that will take you,” she posted. “You become sadly a patient in a world of waiting rooms, waiting sometimes hours for a result or an appointment. You spend a lot time in cold machines…hospital beds, on your knees praying for miracles, operating rooms, tests after tests, looking at healthy people skip down the street like you once did and you took it all for granted and now wish you could do that. I have not stopped singing throughout all this in my dreams and to be once again performing and doing what I love to do.

“My illnesses have really exhausted this little body of mine that I have thrown from one end of a stage to another and performed thousands of shows that sadly some of you missed. With that said I am getting stronger but there is still some fine tuning and work to be done on myself…I look after myself and my husband has been through this with me every part of the way and I cannot imagine what I would have done without him and his kindness…I will sing again, I will perform again…”

Drayton said Amphlett was “surrounded by close friends and family” at the time of her passing, including her cousin, 1960s Australian pop star Patricia “Little Pattie” Thompson.