Brosnan Watches a SUNSET
Pierce Brosnan has agreed to star in the action film AFTER THE SUNSET for New Line. Paul Zbyszewski wrote the script, which is about a thief (Brosnan) sailing to an island paradise after his last big job. However, an FBI agent, the thief's nemesis, tracks him to the island to ensure that he's really retired.
"Give peace a chance" at McCartney's Paris concert
PARIS,(AFP) - Former Beatle Paul McCartney added an unscheduled number to the first night of his European tour when a French audience of 15,000 struck up a spontaneous rendition of "Give Peace a Chance" by his late songwriting partner John Lennon.
McCartney had just completed "Here Today" -- a song he wrote after Lennon's murder in 1980 -- when the Tuesday night crowd at the Bercy sports centre in Paris broke into the celebrated peace anthem, originally penned to protest against the Vietnam war.
Visibly surprised, the former Beatle joined in the chorus but he otherwise made no reference to the war in Iraq, which is opposed by the overwhelming majority of the French public.
McCartney was kicking off the European leg of his world tour, in which he plays around 40 Beatles classics as well as hits by his second group Wings.
Actor Crowe Cheers Oscar Win for Kidman
SYDNEY, Australia - Russell Crowe cheered fellow Australian Nicole Kidman's Oscar win for "The Hours," saying her "dedication, brilliance, resilience and generosity has been lauded, applauded and finally handsomely rewarded."
Kidman, 35, became the first Australian to win the best-actress Oscar. She won the award, which was presented Sunday at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., for her performance as Virginia Woolf.
"I couldn't be happier for her, her family, her pets, everyone," said Crowe, who won the best-actor Oscar in 2001 for his role in "Gladiator."
Kidman said she was shocked when Denzel Washington announced her name.
"I just am very proud to have been nominated and to have actually won and I'm very proud to represent my country," she told Australian television's Nine Network in an interview during post-Oscar celebrations.
CNN Abruptly Drops Anchor Connie Chung
NEW YORK - CNN on Tuesday abruptly dropped one of its best-known anchors, Connie Chung, who had been hired only last spring as the centerpiece of a star-driven prime-time lineup.
"Connie Chung Tonight" had been criticized in some circles for its emphasis on crime and personality stories but had drawn strong ratings in a nondescript time slot.
Her show was temporarily replaced by an Aaron Brown-anchored news program after the war's start last week and she had asked management for a time when it would come back. Instead, she was informed Tuesday that the show had been canceled, CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said.
Chung was asked to stay at CNN in another capacity and declined, Robinson said.
She could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday night. CNN wouldn't provide a home number for Chung but said it would send a message to her producer seeking comment.
A major figure in broadcasting over the past 30 years, Chung was hired away from ABC News last year, where she primarily worked in newsmagazines and landed a high-profile interview with Gary Condit. CNN built a new studio for her in midtown Manhattan and the program launched on June 24.
She envisioned her show opening each night with a detailed look at one of the day's top stories, featuring newsmaker interviews, and highlighting emerging issues.
It evolved into a program concentrating heavily on crime stories, and this master of the taped interview occasionally seemed awkward in a live format. It didn't help when CNN founder Ted Turner, in an interview this winter, described her show as "just awful."
She also apparently became caught in the crosswinds of change at CNN. Turner Broadcasting chief Jamie Kellner wanted to attract viewers with well-known names, but he and CNN Chairman Walter Isaacson, who hired her, have since resigned.
Isaacson's replacement, Jim Walton, has sought a less flashy, more serious approach to the news and recently canceled the long-running afternoon talk show, "Talkback Live."
Chung's show had roughly half the audience of cable news' nighttime king, Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, but she averaged almost 1 million viewers a night and improved CNN's performance in the 8 p.m. ET time slot. And she lasted longer than MSNBC's big gun hired for the time slot around the same time — Phil Donahue.
CNN has not yet decided what will go in her time slot, Robinson said.
ABC Shortening Shows to Make Room for News
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The ABC network is shortening each hour of its prime-time shows by 2 1/2 minutes, starting Tuesday, to make room for war updates, lessening the need for costly program interruptions in the event of breaking news, the network said.
In addition, ABC has canceled its combat reality show "Profiles from the Front Line," the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced series documenting the exploits of American forces last year in Afghanistan, saying some viewers might confuse that show with current footage of the war in Iraq.
Those moves and other programming changes were revealed as ABC and other broadcasters scrambled to find the right mix of news and entertainment, adjusting to the unpredictable demands of war coverage.
Among the first shows to be trimmed by ABC for the sake of news are the John Ritter comedy "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter," the sitcom "According to Jim," starring Jim Belushi, and the hourlong season finale of Bonnie Hunt's show "Life with Bonnie."
A spokeswoman for the Walt Disney Co.-owned network said producers of ABC's prime-time entertainment shows had been asked to shave a minute and a quarter from each half hour, or 2 1/2 minutes per hour, from all first-run episodes and reruns slated to air for at least the next two weeks.
"By asking our producers to deliver shorter episodes, we've addressed the need for news updates while also protecting the integrity of our prime-time content," ABC spokesman Kevin Brockman told Reuters.
RIVALS ALSO MAKING CHANGES
Paring down episodes lessens the chance of having to break into programming with unscheduled preemptions that would require the network to give up commercial or promotional time to advertisers. But network officials said the planned war updates did not preclude ABC News from interrupting programming if developments warranted.
In other schedule changes linked in part to the demands of war coverage, ABC said it has placed two new series on hiatus -- the George Hamilton-hosted reality show "The Family" and the father-and-son archeological adventure "Veritas: The Quest."
Both shows have struggled in the ratings, and ABC said the spate of recent news preemptions and scheduling changes had made it too difficult to promote and build audiences for them.
"The Family," in which a group of 10 relatives living together in a Florida mansion compete with each other for prize money, will be relaunched this summer, ABC said. Remaining episodes of "Veritas" are expected to air later in the year.
Among ABC's broadcast rivals, NBC said it was cutting promotional time, not program time, to accommodate news updates. CBS and Fox said they had no plans to abbreviate their entertainment offerings in advance, though CBS was making other alterations in its prime-time schedule.
CBS added a special edition of its news magazine "48 Hours" to its Tuesday lineup in place of the courtroom drama "Judging Amy" and planned to air an extra hour of prime-time news this coming Saturday in place of its espionage drama "The Agency."
NBC is owned by General Electric Co., CBS is a unit of Viacom Inc., and Fox is a unit of News Corp. Ltd.
Rocker Kravitz Releases Peace Song with Iraqi Star
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rocker Lenny Kravitz released a peace anthem with an Iraqi pop star on Tuesday, joining a growing list of recording artists to release protest songs directly to the Internet to bypass a cautious and sometimes hostile radio market.
R.E.M., the Beastie Boys, John Mellencamp and former Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha have all released anti-war songs via the Internet in recent weeks.
Kravitz issued his song, "We Want Peace," which he recorded last week in Miami with popular Iraqi musical star Kadim Al Sahir, on the Web site of Rock the Vote, a national organization which encourages young people to become involved in politics.
Kravitz, who in 1991 put together an all-star ensemble to cover John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance," said he had chosen to tie up with Rock the Vote "because of its strong stance with young people as defenders of free expression."
With opinion polls showing a majority of Americans supporting the war against Iraq, radio companies have been cautious to play anti-war songs.
Earlier this month, country music superstars the Dixie Chicks were hit by a nearly 30 percent drop in airplay on country music stations after they criticized President Bush's war plans in Iraq.
ANTI-WAR SONG NOT POPULAR IN TIME OF WAR
"Anti-war songs usually are not a very popular choice for program directors during a time of war. Program directors follow the lead set by their listeners. In this case, two-thirds of the American public say they back the war," said Rich Meyer, president of Mediabase, a division of Premiere Radio Networks. "It could be a dangerous move for stations to step out and take a stand against."
Premiere is a unit of Clear Channel, which syndicates 60 programs to more than 7,800 radio affiliates. One of its biggest personalities, Glenn Beck, has been leading pro-war demonstrations called "Rally for America," across the country.
The one notable success for the anti-war movement on the radio airwaves has been "Peacekeeper," a new Fleetwood Mac single recently debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at 93.
Other artists, however, have sought to steer clear of controversy. Handlers for the soon-to-be-released Madonna single, "American Life," are saying the song is not "anti-war" but intended to promote peace.
"Madonna's single, 'American Life', is not at all anti-war or political in any way shape or form," her spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg said.
The song's controversial video, however, reportedly shows the diva in military fatigues, tossing grenades while images of fashion models, soldiers and bloody babies flash on screen.
Kravitz too stresses his song is about peace, not war. The song features Palestinian musician Simon Shaheen on strings and Lebanese artist Jamey Hadded on percussion.
Kravitz is currently signed to EMI Group Plc's Virgin Records, but the record label had no participation in the single.
RADIOHEAD Announce "Hail to the Thief"
RADIOHEAD have officially announced a June 10th release date for their sixth album, "Hail to the Thief."
The 14-track CAPITOL Records release, which the band produced with Nigel Godrich, features the tracks "2 + 2 = 5," "Sit Down. Stand Up," "Sail To The Moon," "Backdrifts," "Go To Sleep," "Where I End And You Begin," "We Suck Young Blood," "The Gloaming," "There There," "I Will," "A Punch-Up at a Wedding," "Myxamatosis," "Scatterbrain," and "A Wolf At The Door."
Beginning in mid-May, the band will embark on an extensive world tour, which should bring them to North America in late summer.