Month: January 2014

Categories
Awards

I love this show!! So casual, so relaxed!!!

Golden Globe Awards: nominations, photos, start time

One of Hollywood’s glitziest awards shows takes place this weekend with Sunday’s Golden Globes gala, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s annual celebration of the year’s best in film and TV.

On the film side, the searing slave saga 12 Years a Slave and the Abscam crime story American Hustle lead the movie contenders, while Breaking Bad, House of Cards and Behind the Candelabra are top nominees vying for television honours.

Canadian actors Tatiana Maslany and Michael J. Fox are also among the small-screen competitors, Maslany for the sci-fi drama Orphan Black and Fox for the sitcom The Michael J. Fox Show.

Woody Allen is this year’s recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement, though the iconic American filmmaker famously avoids award shows. Emma Stone and Diane Keaton, who appear in Allen’s latest and best-known films respectively, will be on hand to pay tribute to the New York director.

Hosted for a second consecutive year by comedy stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, the 71st Annual Golden Globe Awards take place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday, beginning at 8 p.m. ET and airing on NBC and CTV.

Nominees for the 71st Golden Globe Awards:

MOTION PICTURES
Drama: 12 Years a Slave, Captain Phillips, Gravity, Philomena, Rush.
Musical or Comedy: American Hustle, Her, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, The Wolf of Wall Street.
Actor, Drama: Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave; Idris Elba, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom; Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips; Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club; Robert Redford, All Is Lost.
Actress, Drama: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine; Sandra Bullock, Gravity; Judi Dench, Philomena; Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks; Kate Winslet, Labor Day.
Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity; Paul Greengrass, Captain Phillips; Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave; Alexander Payne, Nebraska; David O. Russell, American Hustle.
Actor, Musical or Comedy: Christian Bale, American Hustle; Bruce Dern, Nebraska; Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street; Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis; Joaquin Phoenix, Her.
Actress, Musical or Comedy: Amy Adams, American Hustle; Julie Delpy, Before Midnight; Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha; Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Enough Said; Meryl Streep, August: Osage County.
Supporting Actor: Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips; Daniel Bruhl, Rush; Bradley Cooper, American Hustle; Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave; Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club.
Supporting Actress: Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine; Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle; Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave; Julia Roberts, August: Osage County; June Squibb, Nebraska.
Foreign Language: Blue Is the Warmest Color; The Great Beauty, The Hunt, The Past, The Wind Rises.
Animated Film: The Croods, Despicable Me 2, Frozen.
Screenplay: Spike Jonze, Her; Bob Nelson, Nebraska; Jeff Pope and Steve Coogan, Philomena; John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave; Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell, American Hustle.
Original Score: Alex Ebert, All Is Lost; Alex Heffes, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom; Steven Price, Gravity; John Williams, The Book Thief; Hans Zimmer, 12 Years a Slave.
Original Song: Atlas (music and lyrics by Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland and Will Champion), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire; Let it Go (music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez), Frozen; Ordinary Love (music by Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr. and Brian Burton, lyrics by Bono), Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom; Please Mr. Kennedy (music and lyrics by Ed Rush, George Cromarty, T Bone Burnett, Justin Timberlake, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen), Inside Llewyn Davis; Sweeter Than Fiction (music and lyrics by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff), One Chance.

TELEVISION
Drama: Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, The Good Wife, House of Cards, Masters of Sex.
Actor, Drama: Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad; Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan; Michael Sheen, Masters of Sex; Kevin Spacey, House of Cards.
Actress, Drama: Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife; Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black; Taylor Schilling, Orange Is the New Black; Kerry Washington, Scandal; Robin Wright, House of Cards.
Series, Musical or Comedy: The Big Bang Theory, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Girls, Modern Family, Parks and Recreation.
Actress, Musical or Comedy: Zooey Deschanel, New Girl; Lena Dunham, Girls; Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie; Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep; Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation.
Actor, Musical or Comedy: Jason Bateman, Arrested Development; Don Cheadle, House of Lies; Michael J. Fox, The Michael J. Fox Show; Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory; Andy Samberg, Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Miniseries or Movie: American Horror Story: Coven, Behind the Candelabra, Dancing on the Edge, Top of the Lake, White Queen.
Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Helena Bonham Carter, Burton and Taylor; Rebecca Ferguson, White Queen; Jessica Lange, American Horror Story: Coven; Helen Mirren, Phil Spector; Elisabeth Moss, Top of the Lake
Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Matt Damon, Behind the Candelabra; Michael Douglas, Behind the Candelabra; Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dancing on the Edge; Idris Elba, Luther; Al Pacino, Phil Spector.
Supporting Actress, Series, Miniseries or Movie: Jacqueline Bisset, Dancing on the Edge; Janet McTeer, White Queen; Hayden Panettiere, Nashville; Monica Potter, Parenthood; Sofia Vergara, Modern Family.
Supporting Actor, Series, Miniseries or Movie: Josh Charles, The Good Wife; Rob Lowe, Behind the Candelabra; Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad; Corey Stoll, House of Cards; Jon Voight, Ray Donovan.

Categories
Television

Awesome, awesome, awesome!!!

‘Better Call Saul,’ ‘Mad Men’ Get Premiere Dates

Ahead of its Saturday morning presentation at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, AMC announced premiere dates for Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul, Mad Men and its new dramas, while renewing The Walking Dead companion Talking Dead for a fifth season.

Better Call Saul, which focuses on the evolution of Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman before he became Walter White’s attorney, will debut in November. (A specific date has not yet been determined.)

The first half of Mad Men’s final season will bow Sunday, April 13 at 10 p.m., one week after the series debut of Revolutionary War drama Turn, which will get a 90-minute premiere starting at 9 p.m. on April 6.

Fellow freshman series Halt and Catch Fire, which centers on the personal computing era in the early 1980s, will launch in the summer at a specific date to be determined later. Western Hell on Wheels will also return later in the summer.

On the unscripted side, Game of Arms will premiere Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 10 p.m. followed by the May returns of Small Town Security and Freakshow.

Meanwhile, the Chris Hardwick-hosted talk show The Talking Dead has, unsurprisingly, been renewed for a fifth season after ending the first half of its fourth season with a series high among total viewers. (AMC renewed The Walking Dead for a fifth season last year and Hardwick earlier this week told critics that he’d host the series for as long as AMC would have him.) The Walking Dead — and Talking Dead — will again launch their seasons in October, with a formal date likely to be announced at Comic-Con.

“We are extremely excited about the 2014 lineup,” AMC president and GM Charlie Collier said. “Both the returning and new series reflect our commitment to serving passionate audiences with compelling, character-driven storytelling.”

Categories
Movies

AWESOME!!!

Cee Lo Talks New Album ‘Girl Power,’ Gnarls Barkley’s Return

While his duties as a coach on The Voice has kept Cee Lo Green rather busy over the past few years, the soul singer is planning on a rather fruitful year for his own projects, starting with his new album Girl Power, which is tentatively set for release in late-February or March. “I want an onslaught of music this year,” Cee Lo tells Rolling Stone.

He’s currently in the process of trimming down Girl Power from “40 or 50 songs” to around 13. “Technically and sonically, [I’m] working with new sounds,” he reveals. “I could be all artsy-fartsy describing it, but to me this is bare bones rock and roll; which at heart is who I feel like I am. I feel like I’m a rock artist. I don’t feel like I’m a pop artist. And I’m alt rock. I’m indie rock. I’m punk rock. Because it comes from the pots and pans. It’s a lot of me, but I’ve got multiple personalities.”

Meanwhile, his longstanding hip-hop group Goodie Mob is moving ahead as well. Cee Lo says they’ve recorded enough material for another record, and also have tracks to contribute to the re-release of 2013’s Age Against the Machine, due out this spring in concurrence with his new TBS reality show Cee Lo Green’s The Good Life.

Cee Lo also is confident that this year could see a return of Gnarls Barkley, his project with Danger Mouse. “I didn’t realize the importance of [a new Gnarls Barkley album] or the anticipation for it until recently,” he says. “I was going through an airport at about 5:45am on the way to Atlanta and a guy from TMZ asked me would I be working on another Gnarls. And I was like, ‘Yeah, next year.’ I was a little dismissive because I don’t want to get involved that early – but it just kind of went like wildfire. And I was like, ‘Wow, okay. People are still interested to see what we could do.’ And so am I. Gnarls Barkley is an alter ego and something like an out of body experience.”

First up, though, Cee Lo will appear on the winter season finale of Animal Planet’s Treehouse Masters, airing February 21st. For this episode, master builder Pete Nelson and his team constructed a treehouse studio at Bear Creek Studio, the recording spot nestled among the Woodinville foliage just outside of Seattle — a space that has helped birth many notable records, including the Lumineers’ smash self-titled LP and Built to Spill’s indie classic Keep It Like a Secret. As part of the episode, Cee Lo christened the new studio space with a performance of Goodie Mob’s latest single, “Amy.”

Still, he’s excited about his future output. “If I can release singles that coexist and don’t conflict with each other, then you’ll hear something new from Gnarls [this year] that will run concurrent with what I’m doing solo and with Goodie Mob,” he says. “Three totally different things.”

Categories
Concerts

Well done, Neil!!

Neil Young tells off audience for clapping at New York gig

Neil Young reportedly told off an audience in New York after they began clapping along during his performance at Carnegie Hall on Monday night (January 6).

The singer-songwriter was performing live in New York as part of four dates he will play at the venue this week. However, the show did not run smoothly with the New York Times reporting that Young chastised his audience on a number of occasions, both for clapping and also talking between songs.

“Wrong!” Young is reported to have shouted at the audience as they began clapping to the beat of ‘Ohio’, but not quite on the beat, of the song. “It’s something that you probably don’t know,” he continued, “but there’s a hell of a distance between you and me.”

Later on in the show, Young turned his ire toward audience members sitting on a balcony who were talking as he tuned a harmonica. “No, you paid real good money to get in here, so you should be able to listen to each other,” he is reported to have said.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse will return to the UK to headline a huge outdoor show at London’s Hyde Park later this year. They will be joined at Barclaycard British Summer Time on July 12 by special guests The National, Tom Odell, Caitlin Rose, Phosphorescent and Flyte.

Categories
Business

I still bought music in 2013, both from iTunes and from stores!!

Digital Music Takes a Dive as Record Sales Slip Again in 2013

Digital music sales, once believed to be the record industry’s savior after years of Napster-induced piracy, dropped for the first time since the iTunes store launched in 2003, according to new year-end data from Nielsen SoundScan. Track sales decreased 6 percent, despite massive hits such as Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” (at nearly 6.5 million) and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” (6.1 million), while overall album sales, including CDs, were down 8 percent. Streaming services including YouTube and Spotify picked up some of the slack, increasing 32 percent, to more than 118 billion total streams, which, according to SoundScan, is the revenue equivalent of 59 million in sales.

The bleak way to view the massive streaming numbers is that YouTube, Spotify and the rest are cannibalizing digital-music sales — a trend that is likely to accelerate as Beats by Dre and YouTube prepare new services as early as this month. But YouTube’s built-in ad revenue and Spotify’s $10-a-month premium subscriptions are also helping artists and labels make up for lost sales. “We’re still not at that inflection point, or tipping point,” Tom Corson, president of RCA Records, home of Justin Timberlake, told Rolling Stone late last year, before the data came in. “We haven’t seen that moment, but we’re confident it’ll come.”

One potential reason sales slowed down so much in 2013 — Adele’s 21 finally dropped off the charts after more than two years of dominance. It sold more than 5.8 million copies in 2011, and another 5.2 million in 2012, and nothing picked up the blockbuster slack last year. Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience was the best-selling album, with 2.4 million copies; after that came Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP2 (1.7 million), Luke Bryan’s Crash My Party (1.5 million), Imagine Dragons’ Night Visions (1.4 million) and Bruno Mars’ Unorthodox Jukebox (not quite 1.4 million). It’s easy to blame streaming for these comparatively low sales, but 2013’s releases clearly weren’t as strong, minus Adele (whose album recently became the first to hit 3 million in digital sales) or Taylor Swift.

Every genre dropped significantly in album sales, with the exception of R&B (an increase in 1.2 percent, perhaps owing to Beyoncé’s surprise end-of-2013 release, which sold a total of 1.3 million) and hip-hop (which increased 2.2 percent, thanks to Eminem as well as Jay Z’s Magna Carta . . . Holy Grail, which hit more than 1 million in sales, not counting the millions of free copies Samsung packaged with its new smartphone over the summer). And even as the record business shifts from CDs to downloads to streaming, throwback vinyl sales continue to rise — LPs increased 33 percent in 2013.

Categories
Awards

What!?!? No Spike Jonze or the Coen brothers?!?!

Directors Guild Nominations: Steve McQueen, Alfonso Cuaron, David O. Russell, Martin Scorsese and Paul Greengrass

Steve McQueen, Alfonso Cuaron, David O. Russell, Martin Scorsese and Paul Greengrass have been nominated for the top feature-film award by the Directors Guild of America, the DGA announced on Tuesday.

McQueen was nominated for “12 Years a Slave,” Cuaron for “Gravity,” Russell for “American Hustle,” Scorsese for “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Greengrass for “Captain Phillips.”

Missing the cut in a competitive and crowded year: Alexander Payne for “Nebraska,” Spike Jonze for “Her,” Joel and Ethan Coen for “Inside Llewyn Davis,” Jean Marc Vallee for “Dallas Buyers Club” and John Lee Hancock for “Saving Mr. Banks.”

Cuaron, McQueen and Greengrass have never before been nominated for the DGA Award. Russell was nominated for “The Fighter,” while Scorsese has 10 previous nominations.

The choices from the near-15,000 member Directors Guild reinforce that “12 Years a Slave,” “Gravity” and “American Hustle” are near the top in this year’s awards race; they make it clear that “Captain Phillips” is a guild favorite as well; and they show that the recent flurry of manufactured controversy over “The Wolf of Wall Street” has not dampened the enthusiasm that those who make movies and vote for awards have for Scorsese.

The DGA Award is normally one of the most reliable predictors of the Oscars — though last year, shockingly, only two of the five DGA nominees went on to receive Oscar nominations.

Over the years, though, about 80 percent of DGA nominees have been honored by the Academy. And the winners almost always agree: Last year’s DGA winner, Ben Affleck (“Argo”), was only the seventh DGA winner in 65 years not to win the Best Director Oscar.

The nominees:

ALFONSO CUARÓN
“Gravity” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
This is Mr. Cuarón’s first DGA Award nomination.

PAUL GREENGRASS
“Captain Phillips” (Columbia Pictures)
This is Mr. Greengrass’s first DGA Award nomination.

STEVE McQUEEN
“12 Years A Slave” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
This is Mr. McQueen’s first DGA Award nomination.

DAVID O. RUSSELL
“American Hustle” (Columbia Pictures)
This is Mr. Russell’s second DGA Award nomination. He was previously nominated in this category for The Fighter in 2010.

MARTIN SCORSESE
“The Wolf of Wall Street” (Paramount Pictures)
This is Mr. Scorsese’s eleventh DGA Award nomination. He won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film in 2006 for The Departed, and has also been nominated in that category for Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004) and Hugo (2011). Mr. Scorsese also won the DGA Award in 2010 for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Television for Boardwalk Empire and he was nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary for George Harrison: Living in the Material World in 2011. In 1999, Mr. Scorsese was presented with the Filmmaker Award at the inaugural DGA Honors Gala, and he was honored with the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

Categories
Television

Congrats to her!!

Sasheer Zamata Joins ‘Saturday Night Live’ As New Cast Member

Three years after she graduated from the University of Virginia, Sasheer Zamata is landing a very big break — the young comedy performer has been selected to join Saturday Night Live as a new cast member.

Zamata will make her debut on the venerable NBC late-night sketch comedy series on its next live show slated for January 18 with Drake as host and musical guest.

Zamata, who trained at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York, becomes the first black female Saturday Night Live cast member in five years since the departure of Maya Rudolph. The lack of female black performers on the show stirred a debate last fall while SNL boss Lorne Michaels had been quietly conducting a talent search.

Several dozen actresses were seen in multiple cities. Zamata, whose name had been floated as a suitable SNL candidate before, was among 12 who received callbacks and were invited to test on the SNL stage on December 16. She will now be a featured player on the show that has launched the careers of a slew of young comedians.

Categories
Awards

Eurythmics are a great place to start!!

Sweet dream: Eurythmics uniting at Beatles tribute

NEW YORK (AP) — The Eurythmics are reuniting — to pay tribute to the Beatles.

The Recording Academy announced Monday that Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart will perform as a duo for “The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles.” The event will be taped at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Jan. 27, a day after the Grammy Awards.

Longtime Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich, who is also producing the Beatles special, thought the Eurythmics would be ideal to honor the iconic group.

“When it came around to booking this show, what I felt was important was to try and find those artists who not only would be able to interpret Beatles songs, but would also have an … understanding of what they meant,” he said in an interview.

The Eurythmics, who sold millions of albums and whose hits include “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” released their debut in 1981. Ehrlich said Lennox and Stewart, who have launched successful solo careers, are thrilled to perform in tribute to the Beatles.

Ehrlich wouldn’t say which Beatles tune the British duo would perform, but John Mayer and Keith Urban will pair up to perform “Don’t Let Me Down,” while Alicia Keys and John Legend will perform a duet on “Let It Be.” Maroon 5 also will hit the stage.

The special will air on CBS on Feb. 9 — exactly 50 years after the Beatles made their U.S. debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” An estimated 73 million viewers tuned in to watch the event, which has become one of the world’s top cultural moments.

“They really did change people’s lives, so what I’m hoping this show … gets across is the message that occasionally in history we are touched by certain artists who have a profound effect on us beyond just the music that they make,” Ehrlich said.

Ehrlich wouldn’t confirm if Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr would attend the event, though the Beatles will be honored with a lifetime achievement award two days earlier at the Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards in Los Angeles.

The special will include about a dozen performances, Ehrlich said. More performers will be announced at a later date.

Categories
Television

He was good the last time, hope he is good again!!

Jonah Hill Will Host SNL Again

Jonah Hill will host Saturday Night Live for the third time, NBC announced today. He’s slated to host on January 25, with musical guest Bastille.

As previously announced, Drake is doing double duty on January 18.

Hill previously hosted in 2008 and in 2012, and he did a perfectly fine job both times, but if anyone from Wolf of Wall Street should be in studio 8H, it’s Leonardo DiCaprio. He has never hosted SNL! He should! It would be interesting to see Leonardo DiCaprio perform comedy that isn’t Growing Pains.

Categories
People

May he rest in peace.

Legendary Producer Saul Zaentz Dies at 92

He won Oscars for producing three best picture winners — “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Amadeus” and “The English Patient” — after a great career with Fantasy Records and feuds with John Fogerty.

Saul Zaentz, who parlayed a successful career in the music business into a Oscar-winning second act as an independent movie producer, died Friday at his home in the San Francisco area from complications of Alzheimer’s. He was 92.

His nephew Paul Zaentz, a fellow producer, confirmed the news.

“He was an extraordinary man,” Paul Zaentz, who worked with his uncle for 37 years, said. “He had a lot of guts, a lot of integrity.”

After presenting such major acts as Creedence Clearwater Revival on his Fantasy Records label, Zaentz moved into producing and shared three Academy Awards for best picture — for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984) and The English Patient (1996).

Zaentz then received the Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1997 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his “consistently high quality of motion picture production.”

Incredibly, two of his best picture Oscars were his first two films: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus. His third film was the internationally acclaimed The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), nominated for a pair of Academy Awards.

He teamed with fledgling producer Michael Douglas on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The Jack Nicholson-starrer based on Ken Kesey’s novel earned Zaentz his first Academy Award, which he shared with Douglas. The film took home the top five Oscars, a rare achievement.

Befitting his music-industry background, his second best picture was music-based. Amadeus was based on the life and music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the jealousy his talent inspired. That film hauled in eight Oscars, including one for F. Murray Abraham as the envious Antonio Salieri.

His third best picture winner, The English Patient, based on an unpublished novel that Zaentz acquired, won nine Oscars — director Anthony Minghella and actress Juliette Binoche were among those honored — and received BAFTA’s best film award as well.

He produced an animated version of The Lord of the Rings (1978), directed by Ralph Bakshi, as well as Payday (1972), Three Warriors (1978) and At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) and executive produced The Mosquito Coast (1986), directed by Peter Weir.

More recently, Zaentz produced Goya’s Ghosts (2006), directed by Milos Forman, his man on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus. Forman earned Oscars on those films as well.

Zaentz received the Producers Guild of America’s Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award in 1997 for The English Patient and received the PGA’s Vision Award for the film. Most auspiciously, the guild presented Zaentz with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.

He also accepted BAFTA’s Academy Fellowship in 2003 for his career achievements.

In 1980, Zaentz created the Saul Zaentz Film Center in Berkeley, Calif., an editing and sound-mixing facility. It housed the Saul Zaentz Co., Fantasy Studios, Concord Music Group and the Berkeley Digital Film Institute as well as other production companies.

Not averse to litigation, including suing studios over profits sharing, Zaentz was involved in acrimonious litigation with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty over song rights. Zaentz’s contention was with two songs on Fogerty’s 1985 Centerfield album for Warner Bros. Records. Zaentz argued that the song “Zanz Kant Danz” was a slur on him. He filed suit, and Fogerty responded by changing the first word to “Vanz.”
Zaentz filed a second lawsuit, contending that Fogerty used the same chorus for “The Old Man Down the Road” as “Run Through the Jungle,” which Fogerty had recorded while on Zaentz’s Fantasy Records label. Fogerty ultimately prevailed after surreal courtroom testimony that, essentially, absolved him of plagiarizing himself.

“The way I view Saul Zaentz and his henchmen, shall I say — well, that probably gives it away,” Fogerty said in a New York Times interview in 2005. “I still view them in the same light. If I was walking down the street and those rattlesnakes were walking towards me, I would give them a wide berth.”

In September 2011, he sued Disney and Miramax for $20 million in profits from The English Patient.

Zaentz was born in Passaic, N.J. on Feb. 28, 1921. He ran away from home at 15, landing in St. Louis, where he worked as a peanut vendor at Cardinals baseball games. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II in the European and Pacific theaters.

After the war, Zaentz attempted to make a living at chicken farming and spent a semester studying animal husbandry at Rutgers. After six weeks on a farm, he decided to pursue other options and returned to St. Louis, where he studied business for two years, then headed to San Francisco.
There, Zaentz landed a job with jazz impresario Norman Granz and managed the company’s concert tours, going on the road with such jazz greats as Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck.

In 1955, Zaentz joined Fantasy Records, which recorded Creedence Clearwater Revival, led by former Fantasy warehouse worker John Fogerty and his brother Tom. Zaentz and a group of investors purchased Fantasy in 1967 and propelled it into the world’s largest jazz label.

Buoyed by his success with CCR, Zaentz decided to enter another creative domain, the movies, and aspired to produce the adaptations of two acclaimed novels of the 1960s: Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and At Play in the Fields of the Lord, by Peter Matthiessen.

In late 2004, Zaentz and his partners sold the Fantasy label and all its studio equipment to Concord Music Group — owned by an investment outfit led by producer Norman Lear — for about $90 million.

“Passion is [the] immeasurable, indescribable factor that separates movie from movie,” Zaentz said in his Thalberg acceptance speech. “Passion moves freely across borders, speaks every language and flourishes in every culture. The movement of passion is the most gratifying satisfaction in any moviemaker’s life. This happens when you see and hear people all over the world share their laughter, their crying and their sudden gasps at identical screen moments.

“Samuel Hoffenstein, a poet and screenwriter, poetically wrote, ‘The Holy Grail is not in the finding, it is in the journey.’ The Irving Thalberg Award memorializes a giant among giants who brought us a sense of film history. This belongs to the many with whom I have shared dreams and journeys. My cup is full. Thank you.”

Zaentz is survived by his four children, Dorian, Joshua, Athena and Jonnie, and seven grandchildren.