Elton John to Be a Fixture in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS - Elton John promised the sequins will fly again when he kicks off a three-year gig at Caesars Palace in February.
"I cannot do this show anywhere else in the world except here," the entertainer said at a news conference Tuesday. "It's back to costume changes and Velcro."
The 56-year-old has signed a deal to perform 75 shows at The Colosseum at Caesars beginning February 2004, five times a week for five weeks a year in a deal reportedly worth more than $50 million.
John and hotel officials wouldn't confirm contract details.
"Let's just say, I'm very well paid," the entertainer joked.
Clad in purple sunglasses and a pinstriped suit, John described a production filled with an eclectic mix of songs and costumes, saying "there are not ostrich feathers, but there will be sequins flying around."
"The wild and wacky days are here again," said famed photographer David LaChappelle, the show's production designer, alluding to John's flamboyant stage shows of the past.
The Grammy-winner dismissed reports about throat problems, saying he canceled a recent event because of a minor medical procedure. To illustrate his health, John burst out singing, "My voice is fine."
Tickets for the performances were priced at $250, $175 and $100. The show is expected to generate $61 million in total ticket sales, Caesars Palace President Mark Juliano said.
The $95 million, 4,100-seat Colosseum was built for singer Celine Dion and her extravaganza "A New Day." It has hosted performances by Mariah Carey, Tim McGraw and Gloria Estefan. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is scheduled in December.
John will perform his show, "The Red Piano," when Dion is on vacation from her three-year, $100 million contract.
Today's New Releases!
This week there are three of the best films ever made and one of the worst films of 2003.
I know I am supposed to measure my enthusiasm when I write these things and offer an impartial look at the films that are coming out. I'll be honest with you, I'm not doing that this week.
This week I am going to gush about three movies I love.
I'm also not going to pull any punches about a movie I hate.
And since love usually precedes hate, I'm going to start with THE ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES COLLECTION. It contains three films I love.
Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford the collection contains the films Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That latter film upped the ante by introducing Sean Connery as Indiana Jones' father.
These movies have been available on video for years but they are debuting on DVD for the first time this week. All three have been painstakingly remastered to look and sound better than ever before, and a disc full of new documentaries featuring rare archival material rounds out the four-disc box set.
As with Star Wars, the George Lucas-produced trilogy are not just movies that people remember fondly from their childhood but an act of nostalgic affection toward a lost phenomenon: the cliffhanging movie serials of the past.
Set in the late 1930's and early 40's the films are episodic in structure and fate hangs in the balance about every 10 minutes.
The final film in the trio - INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE - was released in 1989 and there have been rumours for years that another is supposedly in the works, but young films fans can have the same fun that I did, and still do, picking out numerous references to Hollywood classics and B-movies of the past.
So don't hesitate, pick up this trilogy now and relive the thrill of snatching a golden idol from a temple full of traps; riding in a coal car with Short Round: and outwitting the Nazis in the search for the Holy Grail with THE ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES COLLECTION.
They are three prime examples of why we love movies in the first place.
On the other hand of love is CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE.
Boy did I hate this movie! Based on the TV series I know its supposed to be harmless fun. The kind of movie where you just shut off your mind and enjoy it. But I just couldn't. I'm sorry, but I just didn't get it.
Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu star and they do the best that they can, but the silly stuff isn't silly, the action isn't interesting and the story and the plot are so irrelevant that I won't even waste your time by recapping them.
Sure, the three main actresses are great to look at, and Demi Moore has reinvigorated her career by appearing scantily clad in the movie, but aren't we past the point where just showing a little skin makes something worth watching?
Maybe you will be able to enjoy CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE now that I have lowered your expectations. If so, then good for you! You were able to see the movie as mindless, entertaining fun. I saw it as pointless and a total waste of my time.
Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you about 28 DAYS LATER. The people who made TRAINSPOTTING gave us this small horror film about a small group of virus survivors who try to save humanity.
It is a horror movie, so if you don't like the genre don't watch the movie. But if you don't mind a few scares and some gore, you will get a rush of entertainment out of 28 DAYS LATER.
THE ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES COLLECTION, CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE and 28 DAYS LATER are available now on video and DVD.
COMING NEXT WEEK
The Hulk - A man exposed to radiation goes through changes. (Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly and Sam Elliott)
Whale Rider - A young woman faces challenges to her destiny. (Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rawiri Paratene, Vicky Haughton)
Enjoy the movies and I'll see you on the couch!
Today's New Releases
After a few weeks of music releases that weren't even worth writing about today brings some discs that are actually worth mentioning.
Foremost worth a mention is the new BARENAKED LADIES disc "Everything To Everyone." Sure, its as fun as you would expect it to be, but it is also moving and poignant. The track "War On Drugs" is the prime example of that.
I love this disc and think it is the Ladies best work yet. Well done, boys!
The discs from RUSH and PINK FLOYD are live, but also worth mentioning. Especially if you are a fan of the bands.
Which I am.
Anyway, here are the new music releases for Tuesday, October 21, 2003:
* BARENAKED LADIES Everything To Everyone (Warner)
* CRASH TEST DUMMIES Puss 'N' Boots (Maple Music)
* DISTILLERS Coral Fang (Warner)
* DOVES Lost Sides (Virgin)
* EDIE BRICKELL Volcano (Universal)
* JOEL PLASKETT EMERGENCY Truthfully Truthfully (Maple Music)
* LUDACRIS Chicken-N-Beer (Def Jam)
* MANDY MOORE Coverage (Sony)
* MARIAH CAREY The Remixes (Columbia)
* PAUL WESTERBERG Come Feel Me Tremble (Vagrant)
* PINK FLOYD Live At Pompeii (DVD) (Universal)
* RUSH Rush In Rio (CD/DVD) (Anthem)
* SHINS Chutes Too Narrow (Sub Pop)
* SOMETHING CORPORATE North (Geffen)
* SWOLLEN MEMBERS Heavy (Nettwerk)
* THE STILLS Logic Will Break Your Heart (Atlantic)
* THE STROKES Room On Fire (RCA)
* VAN MORRISON What's Wrong With This Picture? (Blue Note)
Larson leaves the heavy lifting to 'Complete Far Side'
By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY
Cartoonist Gary Larson calls his 20-pound opus — a two-volume set that includes every Far Side cartoon in its 14-year twisted history — "a hernia giver." But, he says, the heft has mostly to do with the quality of the glossy paper. "I don't think the cartoons weigh that much."
The Complete Far Side (Andrews McMeel, $135) will be published today, nearly nine years after Larson retired as a daily cartoonist. Or, as he puts it, "I hung up my eraser, the most essential tool I owned."
Has he thought about where readers will put the set of books?
"I don't know," he says by phone from his home in Seattle. "I hope it's on something well supported."
The set opens with his first syndicated cartoon, from New Year's Day 1980, of two crabs eyeing two kids building sand castles. One crab says, "Yes ... they're quite strange during the larval stage."
It concludes with a cartoon that Larson drew in 1999 for the Science Times section of The New York Times of a wolf, next to a casket in the woods, addressing a gathering of other wolves:
"Yes, we'll all miss him, but we must not forget: Louis was shot while slaughtering chickens, so we can take solace in knowing that he died doing what he loved."
It was that kind of macabre humor, which Larson avoids explaining, that both delighted and upset readers. The book, which reprints complaints, notes that many of the newspaper polls that placed Larson among reader favorites also put him on their most-hated list.
At the height of his popularity in 1994 (in more than 1,900 newspapers), Larson quit because of a "fear that if I continue for many more years, my work will begin to suffer or, at the very least, ease into the Graveyard of Mediocre Cartoons."
Looking back at more than 4,000 cartoons, Larson says he's pleased by how much of it holds up, but recalls how "something changed inside. You need a balance of fear and confidence, and not have one overpower the other. I thought I might lose the fear and start to coast."
In one of his 14 essays in the book, Larson writes that he doesn't miss cartooning: "As they say, been there, done that.
"Plus, for me, there was always this unforeseen nature of this thing, which no doubt made it easier to eventually let it go. (When Career Day comes to your high school, you don't go around looking for the Cartoon Guy.)"
At 53, he doesn't consider himself retired. "I'm just not drawing."
He says he spends several hours a day playing jazz guitar, "the demon that keeps chasing me." He takes lessons and jams with friends, limiting performances to "sneaking into little gigs, just the guitar player in the background, just for the fun of it."
Actor Alan Alda Hospitalized in Chile
SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Actor Alan Alda, who starred in the hit U.S. television comedy "M*A*S*H," was recovering on Monday from emergency surgery in northern Chile after falling ill while filming a TV documentary.
Alda, 67, host of the PBS series "Scientific American Frontiers" for the past seven years, had surgery early on Sunday for an intestinal obstruction and was recuperating at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in La Serena, 290 miles north of the capital, Santiago.
Hospital Director Julio Rojas told Chile's Cooperativa radio station that Alda had asked for no visitors and was expecting his wife to arrive later on Monday.
Alda was working on an astronomy documentary for "Scientific American Frontiers," part of which was being filmed on location at a huge telescope in the Chilean Andes.
A stage, film and television performer in a career dating back to the 1950s, Alda is best known for his Emmy Award-winning role as Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, the insubordinate Army doctor on "M*A*S*H," which ran on CBS for 11 years in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The son of actor Robert Alda, the "M*A*S*H" star went on to appear in numerous TV and film projects, including three Woody Allen movies -- "Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Manhattan Murder Mystery" and "Everyone Says I Love You."
Other film credits include Robert Mulligan's 1978 adaptation of the romantic comedy "Same Time, Next Year," opposite Ellen Burstyn, and the 1981 ensemble comedy-drama "The Four Seasons," which he directed, wrote and co-starred in with Carol Burnett.
More recently, he appeared in five episodes of NBC's hit medical drama "ER" as a prominent physician in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, and returned to Broadway last year as a physicist in the one-man play "QED."
Oscar-Winning Actor De Niro Diagnosed with Cancer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro, 60, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, but his prospects for a full recovery are good, his publicist said onMonday.
"Doctors say the condition was detected at an early stage because of regular checkups," publicist Stan Rosenfield said in a statement. "Because of the early detection and his excellent physical condition, doctors project a full recovery."
Rosenfield declined to give further details about the actor's condition or course of treatment, but said De Niro planned to fulfill his commitment to start shooting his next film, "Hide and Seek" for 20th Century Fox early next year.
De Niro won an Oscar as best actor in 1981 for his role as the emotionally self-destructive boxing champion Jake La Motta in "Raging Bull." He was named best supporting actor in 1975 for playing the young Mafia patriarch Vito Corleone in "The Godfather: Part II."
The native New Yorker, who shot to prominence in Martin Scorsese's 1973 film "Mean Streets," has received four other Oscar nominations as best actor in "Cape Fear" (1991), "Awakenings" (1990), "The Deer Hunter" (1978) and "Taxi Driver" (1976).
Best known for his tough-guy roles, De Niro was last seen in movie theaters reprising his comic turn as mobster Paul Vitti in the film "Analyze That" with Billy Crystal.