24: Season Two Headed to DVD
Fox has announced details of the second season DVD of 24. The seven-disc set will retail for $69.88 and be released on September 23. It includes all 24 episodes, 44 deleted scenes, alternate endings, commentaries, and assorted making-of featurettes.
Death of Iconic Actress Hepburn Draws Eulogies
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The death of Katharine Hepburn, the first lady of American cinema who won a record four best actress Oscars, drew eulogies to the auburn-haired beauty known for her fiercely independent spirit.
Hepburn, who starred in classics such as "The African Queen" and who played opposite a galaxy of leading men including Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart, died on Sunday at her home in Connecticut aged 96 "surrounded by loved ones."
President Bush led tributes to the screen siren. "Katharine Hepburn delighted audiences with her unique talent for more than six decades. She was known for her intelligence and wit and will be remembered as one of the nation's artistic treasures," a statement from the president said.
Hepburn, whose health had been in decline for some time and had not spoken for several days, passed away peacefully, said her brother-in-law Ellsworth Grant.
"She's the greatest actress of her age and with her passing that whole galaxy of great movie stars has ended," Grant, who saw Hepburn just before she died, told Reuters, adding the cause of her death was "simply complications from old age."
Hepburn won best actress Oscar four times -- in 1933 for "Morning Glory," 1967 for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," 1968 for "The Lion in Winter" and in 1981 for "On Golden Pond."
Irreverent and feisty, Hepburn was voted America's most admired woman in a 1985 Ladies Home Journal survey. Her trademarks: high cheekbones, her hair and a voice redolent of her upper-class New England origins.
Monday's Washington Post spoke of her "breathtaking talent and unsurpassed durability."
PUT WOMEN IN PANTS
"She is the person who put women in pants, literally and figuratively," her biographer, Christopher Andersen, told Reuters in one interview. "She is the greatest star, the greatest actress, that Hollywood has ever produced."
The actress did not escape criticism. Her performances were sometimes called cold. Dorothy Parker famously said of Hepburn that she displayed "the gamut of emotions from A to B."
Other Hepburn classics included "Little Women," "The Philadelphia Story," "A Bill of Divorcement," "Adam's Rib," "State of the Union" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night."
She acted with James Stewart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda. But it is with Tracy that her name will be forever linked.
Hepburn made nine films with Tracy, and for 27 years was the "other woman" in his life. Tracy, a Roman Catholic, would not divorce his wife. Hepburn once said she loved Tracy but did not remember if he had ever told her he loved her.
She had a 1930s affair with billionaire Howard Hughes, but recounted in her 1991 biography "Me" that she never loved him.
Hartford, Connecticut native Hepburn in late 1996 gave up her New York townhouse that she had kept since the 1930s. She retreated to a family mansion in Fenwick, a smart borough in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, on Long Island Sound.
There she lived a reclusive life and was rarely seen in public. Friends said she suffered from short-term memory loss, but it was not clear if she had Alzheimer's Disease.
Despite her carefully guarded privacy, Hepburn surprised the world in March of 2000 -- two months before her 93rd birthday -- when she told a New York newspaper she was fine.
SUMMER SHOWDOWN
What will this summer's anthem be?
The season may be just eight days old, but the frontrunner is Beyonce Knowles' Staxx-influenced debut single, "Crazy in Love."
"It's all about Beyonce," says fan and fitness instructor Donell Redd. "She's got body, she's got booty and she can sing."
Though the single - featuring her boyfriend Jay-Z - has only been out for six weeks, it's everywhere - pumping out of cars, boomboxes and nightclubs. "The beat is hot, the lyric is good and it's something that gets you moving," says Charles Brown, who works at Tower Records downtown.
"Crazy in Love" has all the requirements of a summer anthem: it's relentlessly upbeat (the crescendo never lets up), it's about lust (despite the title), and has the same raw, sexy club appeal that made Nelly's "Hot in Herre" the unofficial summer anthem of 2002.
Still, the former Destiny's Child diva faces much in the way competition.
Two summers ago, Knowles and her Destiny's Child cohorts scored summer anthem status with "Independent Women Pt. 2" off the "Charlie's Angels" soundtrack; this summer, punk-pop princess Pink has a contender with her single, "Feel Good Time," from the soundtrack to "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle."
Also in the running: Joe Budden's "Pump It Up" and Sean Paul's dance-hall hit "Get Busy" - like Knowles', both can be heard pumping out of cars at all hours.
" 'Get Busy' certainly has the right feel," says Sean Ross, editor in chief of Airplay Monitor. "But it was a few weeks too early to really be a summer anthem."
Ross, however, thinks that "the timing is right for Lil' Kim's 'Magic Stick,' [featuring 50 Cent] and for Lumidee's 'Never Leave You - Uh Ooh, Uh Oooh!' " And Z100's Romeo says that reggae-inspired tunes like "Get Busy" and "Never Leave You" are always way more popular in New York City than anywhere else in the country.
Fanny Pack, an all-girl teenage trio from New York, has one edge: so far, theirs is the only single of the summer that's pure novelty. Their obscenely hilarious "Camel Toe" - an ode to the dangers women face when they wear their pants or shorts too tightly - is a huge hit. It may be too huge - Airplay's Ross thinks that it's already in danger of being played out.
And then there are the wild cards. Z100's Romeo thinks that Junior Senior's effervescent "Move Your Feet," which is just beginning to get airplay, is "a potential big hit."
Then there's the unstoppable 50 Cent. If it hadn't been released two months ago, his dance track "In Da Club" would have undoubtedly fought it out with Knowles' "Crazy in Love" for summer supremacy.
Still he's got some other beats in the running: "If I Can't" is quickly climbing Billboard's hot R&B/Hip-Hop singles charts, and his mellower "21 Questions" is currently at the top of Billboards Hot 100, which ranks singles based on airplay and sales.
"Anything he puts out is gold," says Ross. But "21 Questions" may be too much of a lyrical drag - 50 asks his girlfriend, if she'd still love him if he were in jail- to qualify as a frothy, infectious summer anthem.
Ultimately, says Romeo, a true summer hit will make you want to do only two things: "take your top down if you have a convertible, and crank up [the radio] on the way to the Jersey Shore or the Hamptons."
And maybe fall in love - or lust.
Nobody Likes Avril Lavigne
Hilarie Burton, an MTV VJ, said of Avril Lavigne in the August 2003 issue of CosmoGirl: "Nobody wants to interview Avril Lavigne. I haven't met a single person who likes her. We wanted her to come on TRL, and as a dare, we wanted her to dress really girlie. So I'm standing there, and my boss says to Avril, 'We'll just put you in some of Hilarie's heels and skirts-you know, you guys are like the same size.' And she looks at me, and she goes, 'I don't wear that sh*t!' And I'm like, 'Hell no. No you don't.' If you look at her, you'd think she's in a band like Rancid. But she's not. I don't like when this girl is talking about punk music, and she doesn't know a thing about it. And when she came on MTV for New Year's Eve, she was just bossing people around. And she's not good to her fans. She makes fun of posers and says, 'I hate people who are posers.' Except all of her fans dress just like her. They're all posers. I think she's very apathetic, and for someone in her postion, that's an irresponsible thing to be."
Dido Hoists 'Flag' For Sophomore Disc
Uberbabe Dido will follow up her wildly successful debut album, "No Angel," with "Life for Rent," due Sept. 30 from Arista. The set will be preceded by the single "White Flag," which will debut Sunday (June 29) via AOL's "First Listen" initiative and arrive July 7 at U.S. radio outlets.
"White Flag" was produced by Dido and her brother Rollo, of the band Faithless (with whom Dido has also recorded). Rollo has other production credits on the new album, which was recorded at The Church, a London recording studio owned by the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart.
The full track list for "Life for Rent" has not yet been finalized, but among the tunes expected to make the cut as "Sand in My Shoes," "This Land Is Mine" and "Mary's in India."
It has been four years since the release of "No Angel," which got a boost when eventual single "Thank You" was sampled on Eminem's hit "Stan." The debut would reach a peak of No. 4 on The Billboard 200 during 69 weeks on the chart, on its way to selling 3.8 million copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The album was also a huge hit internationally and in Dido's native U.K., with worldwide shipments exceeding 12 million, according to Arista.
Help Hojo!
We Simpsons fans are one of a kind. One of us has actually compiled a massive archive of the show's monkey references and posted it online.
'Angels' Ascend to No. 1, 'Hulk' Tumbles
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The angels have lost a little of their kick but they can still pulverize the opposition, even if he's big and green.
"Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" debuted with $38 million, off $2.1 million from the opening numbers the first movie put up in November 2000, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, "The Hulk," fell to second place, free-falling 70 percent from its $62.1 million opening. "The Hulk" took in $18.4 million to squeak past the $100 million mark after 10 days in theaters.
"Finding Nemo" held up well in third place with $13.9 million. With $253.9 million in the bank, the animated adventure is on track to pass "The Matrix Reloaded" as the year's top-grossing movie.
The British fright flick "28 Days Later" lacked the huge advertising blitz of "Charlie's Angels" and "The Hulk," but it managed to take fourth place with an unexpectedly strong $9.7 million while playing in barely a third as many theaters as the big-studio movies.
Overall Hollywood revenues fell for the third straight weekend. The top 12 movies grossed an estimated $111.3 million, off 15 percent from the same weekend last year.
Summer revenues are virtually even with last year's, but domestic grosses for all of 2003 are down 3.5 percent from 2002, when the industry took in a record $9.32 billion, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
"There's a little malaise out there in the business," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal, which released "The Hulk." "Hopefully, in the next few weeks it'll pop up again."
This week brings two eagerly awaited sequels, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" and "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde," plus the animated family film "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas." All three open Wednesday to get a jump on the Fourth of July weekend.
Universal executives were disappointed with second-weekend numbers for "The Hulk," though the movie still will turn a profit, Rocco said.
Adapted from Marvel Comics' "The Incredible Hulk," the movie took a more dark and dramatic approach than other recent comic-book flicks. Reviews were mixed.
Sony, which released the "Charlie's Angels" movies, hopes strong weekday business will help the sequel catch up to the first movie, which had a total gross of $125.3 million, said studio vice chairman Jeff Blake.
The movie opened strongly in some overseas markets, including Japan, where its $6.2 million take was double that of the first one, Blake said.
Both "Angels" movies star Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu in an update of the 1970s TV detective series.
Factoring in higher admission prices since 2000, "Full Throttle" sold roughly a million fewer tickets domestically than the first "Charlie's Angels."
The new movie also played more widely than the original "Charlie's Angels." The first opened in 3,037 cinemas, averaging $13,213 a theater, while "Full Throttle" debuted in 3,459 theaters for a $10,986 average.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," $38 million.
2. "The Hulk," $18.4 million.
3. "Finding Nemo," $13.9 million.
4. "28 Days Later," $9.7 million.
5. "Bruce Almighty," $6.2 million.
6. "2 Fast 2 Furious," $5.7 million.
7. "The Italian Job," $5.4 million.
8. "Rugrats Go Wild," $3.5 million.
9. "Hollywood Homicide," $3 million.
10. "Alex & Emma," $2.7 million.
Country Women Lose Hit Magic
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - While country music has worked hard to dismiss age-old cliches about pick-up trucks and hard drinking, the music's iron attachment to another old-fashioned notion -- the men's club -- appears to be making a comeback.
After enjoying a high profile throughout the late '90s, female country artists have become a fading presence. Chart-topping hits have been declining for at least two years, even for the format's established female stars.
"There was a time when many of the male acts had identity issues -- meaning the audience had difficulty telling one artist from another," WUSN Chicago PD Justin Case says. "The same may be true now with females. You need either a distinctive sound or a no-brainer hit song to stand out. There is a lot of sameness out there right now."
KMPS/KYCW Seattle PD Becky Brenner says, "We have been struggling to get a more passionate response to the female records we are playing. The audience seems to be much more passionate about the males in the format. A few years ago, they were more passionate about the females. I think the male audience is liking the grittier male acts and their music and the women are, too."
During the first six months of this year, female artists accounted for only four of the 34 top 10 hits on the Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. Of those four, only Dixie Chicks managed to top the chart.
While that is not a marked evolution from the first six months of last year -- which saw five top 10s by female artists, including two No. 1s -- it is a startling change compared with the same periods in 2000 and, especially, 1998.
The first six months of 2000 brought 10 top 10 records by female artists, three of which went to No. 1. Jumping back to 1998, women scored 14 top 10s, half of which went to No. 1.
Among this week's top 20 country singles, there are only two by female artists (Shania Twain at No. 9 and Wynonna at No. 18). And it has been 15 months since a solo female topped the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.
WHAT'S GOING ON?
So what's going on here? Label rosters seem to have plenty of female artists. New artists are being introduced all the time, and veteran hitmakers Wynonna and Patty Loveless are back on the radio with promising new singles.
Why, then, has it become so hard for women to have hits?
Among the factors cited by country radio programmers are the fallout from the Dixie Chicks' anti-war stance and radio's well-documented objections to what some programmers perceived as the pop direction of the latest albums from superstars Faith Hill and Shania Twain.
More telling, programmers also cite a lack of substantive songs being recorded by women and more interesting music coming from male acts.
Gary Overton, executive VP/GM of EMI Music Publishing in Nashville, suggests another factor. "There are not enough women in decision-making roles in this hit-making process," he says. "While there are a few female A&R people at the record labels, the number of females who are record producers, promotion and marketing execs and programmers at country radio is far overshadowed by the number of men in these positions."
CROSSOVER CROSSFIRE
"There's no mistaking the feminine void, that's for sure," WMZQ Washington, D.C., assistant PD/music director Jon Anthony says. "It could be the whole 'crossover' thing finally catching up to some of them. Those that made a deliberate attempt to find new fans outside of country music -- Faith Hill, LeAnn Rimes, Shania Twain, Lee Ann Womack -- seem to be those who are suffering most.
"The research has been consistent with these artists in that their gold catalog still tests very well," Anthony continues. "But the just aren't buying their new sound anymore.
"Martina McBride, who has repeatedly said she doesn't want to cross over, is the undisputed queen of the format right now, because she's still singing about real life and identifying with the average woman.
"The Dixie Chicks really could've been the No. 1 everything if they would just stop alienating so many fans with their bellyaching," Anthony adds. "The feminine void wouldn't be as vast if they weren't putting country radio PDs in so many sticky situations."
Meanwhile, the hot male acts have gone in the other direction, toward a more traditional sound that seems to be what the audience is craving, Anthony says.
"It feels like we're coming back toward the core and roots of the format, and the guys are running up the score on the ladies," he observes. "I hope history repeats itself, because the last time we had so many male superstars, in the early '90s, country music took off."
Keymarket Communications VP of programming Frank Bell offers another explanation. "I knew females at country radio were in trouble last year when I first saw the covers of the Faith, Shania and LeAnn Rimes CDs," he says.
"All three images were either drenched in sweat or wearing their underwear in an attempt to fulfill some 30-year-old guy's vision of what a pop star should look like. Did they not understand that their fan base -- the people who made them popular in the first place -- were adult women with a family-oriented lifestyle?
"The four biggest female country artists in recent memory are Faith, Shania, LeAnn Rimes, and the Dixie Chicks," Bell adds. "The first three all sold their souls artistically and made slick-sounding techno-pop records in an attempt to become the next Celine Dion. The Chicks made a brilliant country album, then committed the biggest PR gaffe in the music business since Milli Vanilli."
The lack of female hits has not gone unnoticed by the label community, according to Lyric Street Records senior VP of A&R Doug Howard. "However, it is not because we are not trying," he says. "I must admit that we have had a couple of misses with some of our releases, but we are confident that we have truly unique and extremely talented women making relevant music for our format."
Howard does admit concern for the fact that the country format is often guilty of embracing one type of country music "while ignoring everything else. Hopefully, we can prevent drawing lines so deep that we refuse to recognize the amazing array of country female artists in our community."
Paige Levy, senior VP of A&R at Warner Bros. Records, is not overly concerned about a lack of hits, as long as female artists continue to sell records. "While a No. 1 record would be nice, most record companies are focused on getting enough airplay to generate sales and not necessarily throwing a lot of money at a record just to win a chart position," she says.
"Established female artists such as Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Sara Evans and Shania Twain continue to sell good numbers without having a top-charting single."
THE TRUTH ABOUT MEN
The quality of female repertoire is also a concern among country music insiders.
Tonya Campos, assistant PD/music director of KZLA Los Angeles, thinks "the lack of women on the charts is simply because of a lack of good songs for females. Good material seems to be the reason that male artists that were not known a few months ago now have hit songs on the charts."
Brenner agrees that "the male artists seem to be coming up with more songs of substance and more songs with true meat. The women seem to be recording pop -- fluff songs."
Renee Bell, senior VP of A&R at RCA Label Group, adds, "I have felt since Sept. 11 that the audience wants substance. Everything that's really been hitting has been real substance songs."
The problem, Bell says, is that it has been hard in recent years to find such songs for women artists. For the past five years or so, she says, "a lot of what was being written in town was fluff." That's because prior to Sept. 11, a lot of the songs that did become hits for women were, in fact, "fluff," and songwriters tend to emulate styles that are working.
"We at EMI advise our songwriters to write what they are compelled to write," Overton defends. "Hence, sometimes the songs are passionate ballads, sometimes lighter fare. But I can assure you that we have never run short of passionate, meaningful songs to play for artists."
Other programmers agree that the dominant male trend is part of a format cycle, and some agree with Bell that it's one that might be cycling back in the near future.
Not long ago, Hill, McBride, Twain, Wynonna, Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire, Deana Carter, Pam Tillis and others were dominating the music scene, Cumulus Broadcasting regional operations manager Tim Roberts says. "I remember really concentrating on editing music logs to avoid too many female artists. I think that Music Row saw this, began signing male acts and started releasing more male singles, and thus we're now in a male-dominated cycle."
Levy -- who has several new female artists in varying stages of development at Warner Bros. -- counters: "I don't believe the labels are purposefully signing fewer female artists. Producing compelling music on each artist, regardless of gender, has become increasingly difficult for A&R. We're not going to throw out singles on new females just because we need a new female. We feel the timing is right for a new female to bust through, and, to increase our chances, we will take plenty of time searching for hits, recording and experimenting."
Doug Montgomery, operations manager of WBCT Grand Rapids, Mich., says that despite the perfect storm that engulfed Hill, Twain and the Chicks, "if Wynonna and Martina continue with the success of their current records, Reba follows through with her plan to release a new album and the Dixie Chicks' controversies subside, this will come back to historical norms in a few months."
Miller Emerges as New Voice for Bush Re-Election
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - A new voice has emerged in the re-election campaign of President Bush, that of Dennis Miller, who is gaining a reputation as a conservative comic by attacking Democrats with biting humor.
Miller flew on Air Force One from San Francisco to Los Angeles with the president on Friday, and later gave a stand-up routine at a Bush fund-raiser in Los Angeles.
"I spent an amazing couple of hours with Dennis Miller," Bush said during his Los Angeles speech after Miller's routine. "He keeps you on your toes."
He added: "I was also honored to meet his wife, Carolyn. Like me, he married above himself. It may not be all that hard, in his case. But I'm proud to have his help."
Miller, who was an analyst on ABC's "Monday Night Football, had an HBO comedy show and does commentary for Fox News, adds a celebrity touch to Bush's re-election campaign, much like actor Bruce Willis did in 1992 when Bush's father ran for re-election.
Bush remained offstage until after Miller's often caustic comic performance during the fund-raiser that drew in $3.5 million, most of it in $2,000 checks from 1,600 people.
For instance, he took aim at West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, a Democratic elder statesmen who has questioned the Iraq war and its chaotic aftermath.
Even some in the crowd of Republican loyalists booed when Miller said of Byrd: "I think he must be burning the cross at both ends."
Responding to the boos, Miller said: "Well, he was in the (Ku Klux) Klan. Boo me, but he was in the Klan."
He likened the nine Democratic presidential candidates running to unseat Bush in 2004 to the 1962 New York Mets, perennial losers, and called them an "empty-headed scrum."
He had a special barb for one candidate, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who has questioned the Iraq war, comparing him to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who followed a policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany in the years before World War II.
"He can roll up his sleeves all he wants at public events, but as long as we see that heart tattoo with Neville Chamberlain's name on his right forearms, he's never going anywhere," Miller said.
Lenny Kravitz Forms Label
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Lenny Kravitz has formed Roxie Records, an imprint named for his late mother, Roxie Roker, that will be distributed through Warner Bros.
He remains signed to Virgin Records as a recording artist and will release a new studio album, "Funk," in the fall, according to a spokesperson.
"Lenny and I have a long-term relationship," says Jeff Ayeroff, Warner Bros. "creative czar," as he refers to himself. Ayeroff worked with Kravitz when he was co-chairman of Virgin Records America. "Lenny and I have always talked about the next phase of his career. This is what I call his Quincy Jones phase," Ayeroff says.
Among the first signees to Roxie is vocalist Dan Dyer, who is at work with engineer Matt Knobel on his debut album. Knobel worked behind the scenes on Kravitz's 2002 album, "Lenny."