MOONLIGHTING
David Letterman and his World Wide Pants Inc. set to produce Strangers with Candy: The Movie, the company's first feature film based on the Comedy Central show starring Amy Sedaris.
Get Some Wood
Buena Vista has just re-announced their Ed Wood: Special Edition for release on 10/19.
The disc will reportedly include audio commentary (with director Tim Burton, actor Martin Landau, the co-writers, the costume designer and the cinematographer), 5 deleted scenes, the Let's Shoot This F#%@R! documentary, a music video, 4 featurettes (including Making Bela, Pie Plates Over Hollywood, The Theremin and When Carol Met Larry) and the theatrical trailer. Video will be 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with audio in Dolby Digital 5.1.
Near as we can tell, it's the same as the disc that was originally (nearly) released earlier this year.
Where Will You Be?
The first big summer blockbuster has been announced for DVD release, and it is the Roland Emmerich eco-friendly epic The Day After Tomorrow. Due for release on October 5th from Fox Home Entertainment, this $180-mllion grossing hit will get separate anamorphic widescreen and full screen special editions, each with two audio commentary tracks by Emmerich and the effects team, deleted scenes, trailers, and a ROM exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette and more. The release will also come housed in a limited edition lenticular cover.
C-C-Changes
What would a day be without some Star Wars news? As fan anticipation for the upcoming DVD box set, due on September 21st, begins to reach near-fever pitch, the Lucasfilm PR machine is beginning to kick into overdrive. Fans will recall seeing the recent DVD trailer, but a new French DVD trailer has also been unveiled, which has mouths watering due to what have been described as noticeable CGI "enhancements" that were not in the 1997 Special Edition versions.
How much will Lucas really change this time around? We'll have to wait until September 21st to find out. But fans will recall that this is not the first time the digital pioneer has tinkered with his films, resulting in different video versions.
Idiot Box
Following the recent high profile merger of Universal and NBC, Universal Studios Home Video has announced to the trades that the deal will make way for the studios most extensive TV on DVD offerings in the format's history.
At last due for release on DVD, beginning this fall, is a very aggressive slate of some of the biggest TV hits of the past two decades. Titles due to in time for the holidays include first season sets of Miami Vice, The Munsters, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Bionic Woman, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Night Gallery and Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories.
More recent TV programming also set to make its debut this year include Donald Trumps' mid-season smash The Apprentice, plus Las Vegas, starring James Caan, more Law & Order, the all-new version of Battlestar Galactica, and the telefilms Traffic and Spartacus. Street dates, specs and pricing have not yet been announced, but watch this space in the coming weeks for further details.
Brits Said to Give Best Awards Speeches
LOS ANGELES - Come Thursday, newly announced Emmy nominees will have two months to think about the acceptance speeches they might get to deliver. A bit of advice: Start acting British. Please.
British award winners offer short, witty, self-deprecating remarks. Or, if they're in Laurence Olivier's league, they might recite lushly poetic monologues that leave us both agog and entertained.
Americans, on the other hand, can be garrulous, humorless and intent on thanking every one except their dog sitter and the valet who parked the limo.
Freed of scripts and cue cards, finally given the chance to speak for themselves, they appear intent on demonstrating why writers will always have a job in Hollywood.
The viewer, hoping for a spontaneous flash of personality from a favorite, is left to ponder just who Media 8, PMK, Newmarket and Toni G. are, and why they mean so much to lovely Charlize Theron (a South African native who clearly has adopted American ways as well as the accent). They all made it into her best-actress Oscar speech this year.
Lucky them. Unlucky us.
"Winners need to give a performance at the podium equal to the one they're being honored for, otherwise (voters) will think they made a terrible mistake," said Tom O'Neil, author of "The Emmys" and host of goldderby.com, an awards prediction Web site.
(Political outbursts may also make some question — or cheer — their choice, but that's another subject altogether.)
Perhaps we're being too hard on our homegrown artists out of some misguided deference to accented English. Maybe the British themselves find the comparison unfair.
Actually, no, according to one.
"I think they are quite different," said Welsh-born Hilary Mckendrick of Los Angeles, who worked in media and the arts.
American speeches are "much more personal and people do seem to stretch back in their memories to find people they've known from kindergarten to thank," she said. "The European habit is to be a bit more professional."
Just so, agreed another Brit.
"It's something I think we do better," said journalist Richard Evans, an Englishman who works for the BBC and lives in Virginia. "These actors have been through training and taught to speak and express their thoughts. It's all part of the education."
Veteran Academy Awards producer Gil Cates diplomatically suggests another reason for the differences.
"The Brits are visitors, and visitors tend to be a little more careful," suggested Cates. "They're in our living room and Americans are at home."
The foreign eloquence makes our stars' uninspired, laundry-list approach even more conspicuous. And the trend is entrenched.
When Jack Nicholson won best-actor honors for 1975's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," he thanked his collaborators "Saul and Michael and Louise and Brad and Lawrence and Bo."
In 2002, best-actress winner Halle Berry's speech began with an emotional recounting of the role of black women in cinema, then devolved into a recitation of 17 supporters, including her lawyer, twice. And she still risked offending people by not naming them.
Such dry, often long and rambling speeches are so endemic that a frustrated Cates offered a $2,500 TV set in 2001 for the shortest Oscar speech.
"I have a television, so I'm going to spend some time here to tell you some things," said exuberant best-actress winner Julia Roberts, refusing to let the orchestra cut off her speech.
Compare Hollywood's brand of oratory to Olivier's lyrical acceptance of an honorary Oscar in 1979.
"In the great wealth, the great firmament of your nation's generosity, this particular choice may perhaps be found by future generations as a trifle eccentric, but the mere fact of it — the prodigal, pure, human kindness of it — must be seen as a beautiful star in that firmament which shines upon me at this moment," Olivier said, in part.
The entire speech by Oliver, who died in 1989, was less than 200 words, nearly a third fewer than Theron's but much more fulfilling.
Dry humor more your cup of tea? "I went to visit Jane Austen's grave in Winchester Cathedral to pay my respects and to tell her about the grosses," actress-writer Emma Thompson quipped on accepting an Oscar for the screenplay of 1995's "Sense and Sensibility," based on Austen's novel.
Even the American theater world can be upstaged, as an Irishman proved when he was honored for his work in the play "Frozen" at the recent Tony Awards.
"Any of the actors in this category would be standing here if they had my part," Brian F. O'Byrne said self-effacingly. Then, with boisterous charm: "I have the best part on Broadway. If you are listening at home on television, I've just said that, so it's true. So you better come and see our show."
A few more passionate words about how a drama like "Frozen" can wow theatergoers as much as the liveliest musical and then O'Byrne slipped away — leaving the audience sadly ignorant as to his agent's identity.
To be fair, American actors can rise to the challenge.
Phylicia Rashad, the one-time "Cosby" star who won a Tony for her work in a revival of "A Raisin in the Sun," made a lovely, heartfelt statement.
She's learned that achievement requires "effort and grace, tremendous self-effort and amazing grace," Rashad told the audience last month.
"In my life, that grace has taken numerous forms. The first was the family into which I was born. Parents who loved and wanted me and a mother who fought fearlessly, courageously, consistently, so that her children, above all else, could realize their full potential as human beings."
Spontaneity can be a distinctive hallmark of American performers.
Sometimes it's charming. "This is for all the fat girls!" exclaimed Camryn Manheim as she accepted an Emmy for "The Practice" in 1998.
Sometimes it's not. "I'd like to thank my husband Parker (Stevenson) for giving me the big one for the last eight years," Kirstie Alley said on winning a trophy for "Cheers" in 1991.
Manheim's speech was "genuine and reflected her attitude and personality," said Don Mischer, who will produce the Sept. 19 Emmy Awards airing on ABC. He advises nominees to speak "about how you feel ... what the award means in your life."
He also likes to remind potential winners the greatest speech in U.S. history, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, didn't break 300 words.
Still, the inclination to thank an endless array of family and friends is certainly American, noted Evans.
"There's a natural British reticence about one's personal life. All of us have moms and dads and Aunt Lucys, but you don't have to be so public about those kinds of emotions," he said. "You Americans wear all that on your sleeve."
Mom, and Media 8. Sounds like a winner.
VH1: O.J's Car Chase Iconic of the '90s
LOS ANGELES - O.J. Simpson's slow-speed police chase may be the iconic moment of the 1990s, but "Where's Waldo?" may be the funniest — at least according to the VH1 nostalgia series "I Love the '90s."
The 10-hour program, which started with two installments Monday and runs through Friday, devotes one hour to each year of the decade, chronicling all the pop culture touchstones from Sinead O'Connor to "Beverly Hills, 90210."
Producer Karla Hidalgo said the cornerstone of the era begins in 1994, with Simpson fleeing police before his double-murder arrest.
Since the "I Love the ..." series, which has also documented the 1970s and 1980s (twice), involves comedians and other pop-culture figures cracking wise about the past, the producers said they weren't sure they wanted to include the famed double-homicide in the retrospective.
"At first we weren't sure how to deal with that," Hidalgo said. "But when we started talking about it with our interviewees, what they remembered was mostly watching it and their initial reaction to it, everything from disbelief to `Go, O.J., go!' — not really grasping exactly what had happened."
She said one panelist described it as "the moon landing of the 1990s."
Hidalgo said she thinks the funniest moment in the series is supplied by the puzzle book "Where's Waldo?"
"People had fun with that book. We gave it to pretty much anyone who would participate in finding Waldo, and people could not find him. And finally when they did find him it was just this immense excitement from everybody, from J.C. Chasez the 'N Sync guy to Wendy the Snapple lady."
TV Favorites Vie with Newcomers in Emmy Race
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Prime-time politicians and gangsters are back in a crowded field of TV dramas vying for Emmy nominations this week, while the critically acclaimed but low-rated sitcom "Arrested Development" is looking to break through in the race for best comedy.
NBC's White House saga "The West Wing," a four-time winner for best drama, is heavily favored to clinch yet another chance at reelection as television's most honored dramatic series when Emmy nominations are announced on Thursday in Los Angeles.
"West Wing" is one of several perennial Emmy favorites widely expected to resurface as a contender for an entertainment award competition famous for its sense of deja vu.
"It would be a huge surprise if they surprise us, but they never do," said TV critic Ray Richmond of The Hollywood Reporter.
Other front-runners for this year's best-drama sweepstakes are three returning nominees bested by "West Wing" last year -- HBO mob series "The Sopranos," Fox espionage thriller "24" and television's highest-rated drama, the CBS detective show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
"The West Wing" could prove especially irresistible to the Emmy-sponsoring Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the midst of a heated, real-life presidential race, Emmy handicapper Tom O'Neil told Reuters.
Last year's most-nominated show, HBO's funeral home drama "Six Feet Under," is out of the running due to an extended hiatus between seasons, leaving room for a relative newcomer to snag one of the five remaining slots in the best-drama contest.
Emmy experts point to three likely first-time drama nominees -- the CBS missing persons series "Without a Trace," the FX cable network's plastic surgery tale "Nip/Tuck" and HBO's gritty western "Deadwood."
Other possibilities are NBC's long-running legal drama "Law & Order" and the FX cop show "The Shield."
CRITICS ROOT FOR ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
Perhaps the most watched Emmy race this year is in the category for best comedy series, where critics are rooting heavily for the offbeat Fox show "Arrested Development."
The series, starring Jason Bateman as a widower struggling to manage the affairs of his dysfunctional family when his dad lands in prison, is heading into its second season with rave reviews but low ratings and could use some Emmy attention to boost its fortunes.
"'Arrested Development is the big question this year," said O'Neil, author of "The Emmys" and host of the awards show Web site GoldDerby.com. "If the show is snubbed, we're going to hear an industry outcry."
Otherwise, the competition for best comedy is especially tight this year given the sentimental clout of three newly departed longtime hits -- NBC's "Friends" and "Frasier" and HBO's "Sex and the City." Richmond said all three have to be considered favorites to clinch Emmy nominations this year.
But O'Neil gives better odds to last year's comedy champ, CBS's "Everybody Loves Raymond," now headed for its ninth and final season, as well as HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm from "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David and NBC's "Will & Grace."
Younger-skewing critical darlings such as NBC's "Scrubs" and the WB's "Gilmore Girls" are considered relative longshots for recognition by the academy, which labors under "a notorious geezer age bias," O'Neil said.
The 56th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted by Garry Shandling, will be telecast live on ABC from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sept. 19.