Report: Michael Jackson to Be Father of Quadruplets
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Michael Jackson, facing a trial on child molestation charges, is about to become a father to four more children -- quadruplets -- by way of a surrogate mother, Us Weekly magazine reported on Tuesday.
Citing unnamed sources close to the self-proclaimed "King of Pop," the magazine said Jackson recently spent time with the pregnant mother-to-be in Florida, where he stayed in a $4,000-a-night luxury hotel suite in Miami Beach.
The magazine said Jackson's spokeswoman Raymone Bain declined to confirm or deny the story, saying, "We do not respond to these kinds of stories."
Bain could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters.
Jackson, 45, already has three children -- Prince Michael I and daughter Paris Michael by his former wife, Debbie Rowe, and Prince Michael II, the child he notoriously dangled from the balcony of a Berlin hotel in November 2002.
Jackson later revealed in a television documentary that Prince Michael II had been born to a woman who was essentially a stranger to him. "I used a surrogate mother and my own sperm cells," he told British interviewer Martin Bashir. "She doesn't know me."
It was in that same interview that Jackson ignited a public furor by saying he saw nothing wrong with having other children spend the night with him in the bedroom of his Neverland ranch home in California.
One youth who appeared in that documentary is now at the center of the child molestation case pending against the performer.
Jackson is charged in a 10-count indictment with committing lewd acts on a boy under the age of 14, as well as child abduction, extortion and false imprisonment. He has pleaded innocent, and a trial is set for Sept. 13.
'SURVIVOR: CANADA'?
"Survivor" could be headed to Canada, eh.
Series creator Mark Burnett says the venerable CBS reality show could be hitting the Great White North as soon as fall 2005, which would be its 11th installment.
"We could be heading to Canada for 'Survivor,' " Burnett told the Toronto Sun, but stopped short of making a definite commitment.
Should "Survivor" ever head up north, it would mark a radical departure for the show, which has always been set in hot climates.
The warm settings allows its female participants to scamper around in skimpy outfits — and some male contestants, like big, hairy Richard Hatch, to walk around buck-naked (much to the consternation of contestants and viewers alike).
Burnett is no stranger to Canada, having begun his career as a producer of "Eco-Challenge" in British Columbia.
The Couch Potato Report - July 20th, 2004
This week in The Couch Potato Report I'll talk about a classic TV show that has becomes a classic comedy and two other non-classic releases.
I admit it.
I've never seen an episode of the 1970's TV show STARSKY & HUTCH. I grew up in Germany and we didn't get American TV shows, actually for a few years we didn't even have a TV.
So I've never seen the show.
I do know that it ran from 1975 until 1979, and it was more dramatic than funny.
I also do know that tough Starsky and educated Hutch were plainclothes cops taking on dope dealers, muggers and other thugs.
I am also aware that the duo was aided by their red 1974 Torino and informant Huggy Bear and that both bachelors' private lives played a part within the show.
But I only know that because I read it on the Internet Movie Database.
So, since I've never seen the show STARSKY & HUTCH, I won't spend any time this week comparing the show to the just released on video and DVD film version.
I'm just going to spend this time talking about how much I enjoyed the film.
With Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson of MEET THE PARENTS and ZOOLANDER, along with Vince Vaughn from DODGEBALL and OLD SCHOOL and rap star Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear, the film version of STARSKY & HUTCH is blessed with a great cast.
Since it is a "buddy cop film" it follows the patented recipe where two cops, who are complete opposites, dislike each other to begin with, but end up finding a common bond that allows them to work as a team.
Luckily there are a few special ingredients in this cinematic recipe and there are some parts that will surprise you and make you laugh out loud.
Thus, the story isn't the point of this film. The mocking-yet-loving jabs at the '70s, including the homoerotic overtones of Starsky and Hutch's partnership, are what this movie is about.
More importantly, it's about making us laugh. And it does that quite often.
Sure, I've never seen one episode of the TV series, but I have seen and enjoyed the movie based on it.
And I highly recommend the movie version of STARSKY & HUTCH.
I can't recommend the film CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN, although it does contain a spunky, energetic performance from Lindsay Lohan of MEAN GIRLS.
Lohan plays Lola, the eldest daughter of a single mother who moves the family from New York City to New Jersey.
As if it isn't hard enough adjusting to a new suburban town and new school, a group of pretty, popular, snobby girls antagonize Lola from the day she arrives.
I am a 36 year-old male, and I Feel confident enough to say that this film wasn't made for people of my age and gender.
This is a film that's perfect for teenage girls, but almost no one else. Consider the fact that it's called CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN a sign.
You should also consider the fact that there are virtually no extra features on the DVD of the film THE HUMAN STAIN as a sign.
A sign that the three main actors involved in the picture wanted to put this failure behind them and not acknowledge it by looking back at it or commenting on it.
Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman and Ed Harris are the heavyweight actors behind this cinematic failure.
THE HUMAN STAIN is the story of a professor with a terrible secret whose affair with a young female janitor is uncovered, unleashing a secret that he had harboured for over fifty years.
Once the secret is out, there are a series of devastating consequences.
Devastating as also an apropos word to use to describe the film.
Devastatingly horrid.
Anthony Hopkins looks like he can't wait for it to be over. Nicole Kidman looks great, as always, but is she trying to be sultry? Sexy? A femme fatale? I sure couldn't tell. Even the always-reliable Ed Harris is wasted in this picture.
If you are curious about THE HUMAN STAIN, my suggestion is you read Philip Roth's acclaimed novel and skip this cinematic catastrophe.
STARSKY & HUTCH, CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN and THE HUMAN STAIN are all available now at your favourite local video store.
COMING UP IN THE NEXT COUCH POTATO REPORT
In the movie version of the comic book HELLBOY the son of Satan is raised on earth to fight evil. Ron Perlman and Selma Blair star in this film that is, obviously, not a documentary.
The 4-disc box set for SLEDGE HAMMER! Features all 22 episodes of Season One of the mid-80's TV cop show parody. It also has a commentary from creator Alan Spencer; the unaired pilot; "Go Ahead, Make Me Laugh" * a new 32-minute documentary on the series with new interviews of cast and crew and a 16-page booklet.
Finally next week is the film THE WHOLE TEN YARDS. This sequel to the very funny film THE WHOLE NINE YARDS is so bad, so awful, and so much a waste of your time. I'd skip it all together, but its important for you to hear just how bad it is so you don't waste your time, like I did.
Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Natasha Henstridge and Amanda Peet should all have to do hours and hours of community service to make up for how bad this thing is!
I'll have more on it, and those other releases, in seven days.
For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next week on The Couch!
Inside Move: 'Hobbit' could end up nestling with 'Rings'
With Sony apparently unable to construct a final offer for MGM, it's looking increasingly likely that Time Warner will swoop in and grab the prize.
Bagging the Lion would give Time Warner a nice little bonus -- worldwide theatrical and television rights to J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit." What a sweet addition to New Line's "The Lord of the Rings" franchise. Hey Peter Jackson, what are your plans after "King Kong"?
The conglom's deal is cleaner -- one buyer offering Time Warner stock -- and more tax-efficient. It would be chairman-CEO Richard Parsons' first major acquisition after a string of asset sales to cut debt.
Sony Corp. chairman Nobuyuki Idei, speaking at an event in Korea Thursday, acknowledged "some complications" in the Japanese giant's merger talks with MGM. Reuters quoted Idei as saying, "It's up to the MGM management now."
The statements, which one insider ascribed to a "lost in translation" effect, caused a mild tizzy at both companies, which are still talking -- particularly since the holdup isn't on the MGM side at all, but still resides at Sony. The conglom and its two equity partners, Texas Pacific and Providence Equity, are struggling to get onto the same page. Since Sony isn't the one putting up the cash, it can't control the process.
Van Halen Is Back!
For years I've waited for Sammy Hagar to rejoin Van Halen.
He's finally back, although we still haven't been given an explanation, and Van Halen is now on tour!
And today, THREE NEW SONGS are available on the new 2 disc "The Best Of Both Worlds" compilation.
Here's the complete track listing!
Disc: 1
1. Eruption
2. You Really Got Me
3. Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love
4. Jamie’s Cryin’
5. Runnin’ With The Devil
6. Beautiful Girls
7. Dance The Night Away
8. And The Cradle Will Rock...
9. Everybody Wants Some
10. Unchained
11. Dancing In The Street
12. (Oh) Pretty Woman
13. Hot For Teacher
14. Jump
15. Panama
16. I’ll Wait
17. Why Can’t This Be Love
18. Dreams
19. Best Of Both Worlds
20. Love Walks In
Disc: 2
1. When It’s Love
2. Finish What You Started
3. Feels So Good
4. Black And Blue
5. Poundcake
6. Runaround
7. Right Now
8. Top Of The World
9. Can’t Stop Loving You
10. Not Enough
11. It’s About Time (NEW!)
12. Learning To See (NEW!)
13. Up For Breakfast (NEW!)
14. Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love (Live)
15. Jump (Live)
16. Panama (Live)
And for all you fans, here's another Van Halen related story:
Summer Concerts: Playing and Paying
Van Halen and back-again lead singer Sammy Hagar are selling thousands of tickets for their summer tour, and that means big-time cash for… former lead singer David Lee Roth? That's right, because top musicians don't have to play onstage to get well paid. It's all about doing the rights thing, and as the summer concert season heats up, so are the rights fights.
As entertainment attorney Barry Littman explains, Roth gets paid even though he's not touring with Van Halen because, legally, he is a composer of all of Van Halen's early original work.
"If you have an immensely successful concert that's focused on David Lee Roth-Van Halen tunes, he's going to see more money than if Van Halen never went on tour," Littman notes. "The composers of the song are listed and each of them will have the right to get paid for anybody else performing their song live."
Equal legal credit is a common practice in the music industry. A lot of bands, like REM, U2 and Coldplay, their big thing is to make all of the band members the owners of the songs. That way, there's no confusion, no dispute over who owns the songs. They can all perform them, they all get the royalties and they all get the money.
But some bands, like The Calling, who made it big with "Where Ever You Will Go," don't share the credit equally. Last year, The Calling's ex-bassist Billy Moeler and ex-drummer Nate Wood slapped singer Alex Band and guitarist Aaron Kamin with a lawsuit, after Moeler and Wood claimed they were not being compensated fairly for their work on The Calling's 2002 tour.
When you look at the songs on ‘Camino Palmero,' which was The Calling's first album, (the credits are) Alex Band and Aaron Kamin. They own the songs, so when they perform them in concert, or whatever they do from here on out, they don't have to pay anybody.
"So much of the money in music is in the writing of the songs," says songwriter Seth Swirsky, who's penned hits for artists like Celine Dion and Taylor Dayne. Seth is also a Beatles aficionado who recognizes the financial importance of having your name right next to the title of the song. "If you notice the song writing credits, it's Lennon-McCartney," Swirsky observes. "This is why John Lennon and Paul McCartney made so much more money than George Harrison and Ringo Starr."
Meanwhile, this summer, Slash and Duff McKagan, formerly of Guns N' Roses, hope to make money when they tour as the band Velvet Revolver, with Stone Temple Pilots front man Scott Weiland. And, as Littman reminds us, "Slash can play any Guns N' Roses song with any band that he wants to put together."
So even though Sash and Duff are currently in the middle of this bitter lawsuit against Axl Rose, they will still make him money all summer long by playing Guns ‘N Roses tunes on the road.
New Tunage
Here are the (other) new music releases for Tuesday, July 20, 2004:
ANCIENT Night Visit (Metal Blade)
ASHLEE SIMPSON Autobiography (A&M)
BY DIVINE RIGHT Sweet Confusion (Linus Entertainment)
CATTLE DECAPITATION Humanure (Metal Blade)
DJ SHADOW In Tune & On Time (Island)
DREAM THEATER Images and Words: Live in Tokyo/5 Years in a LIVEtime (MVA)
HILARY & HAYLIE DUFF Our Lips Are Sealed (Hollywood)
HOWIE BECK Howie Beck (True North)
INCAPACITY Ninth Order Extinct (Metal Blade)
INXS I'm Only Looking: The Best of INXS (MVA)
JET Rare Tricks (Elektra)
KOMEDA Kokomemedada (Stockholm)
LESS THAN JAKE B is For B-Sides (Warner)
LLOYD Southside (Def Jam)
OST She Hate Me (Milan)
OST A Home At The End Of The World (Milan)
PAUL SIMON Paul Simon (Expanded) (Rhino)
PAUL SIMON There Goes Rhymin' Simon (Expanded) (Rhino)
PAUL SIMON Still Crazy After All These Years (Rhino)
PAUL SIMON One Trick Pony (Expanded) (Rhino)
PAUL SIMON Hearts And Bones (Expanded) (Rhino)
STATIC-X Beneath, Between, Beyond (Rarities) (Warner)
TAL BACHMAN Staring Down The Sun (Sextant Records)
THE HIVES Tyrannosaurus Hives (Universal)
Just Die Already!!
DIE HARD 4, originally titled DIE HARD 4: DIE HARDEST, has gone through some changes. Doug Richardson (HOSTAGE, DIE HARD 2) has come on board as screenwriter on DH4.0 (or D.H. Four Point Oh).
Yes, that's seriously the title. Filming is expected to begin between spring and summer 2005. Reginald Vel Johnson will also return as Al Powell.
FRESH FACES
Kiefer Sutherland will be the only 24 regular returning for the fourth season, which premieres on Fox in January. Meanwhile, former 24 cast member Reiko Aylesworth is joining CSI in a recurring role as a lab-based detective.
Network Says Profile of Director Shyamalan Was Hoax
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Sci Fi cable network and parent company NBC Universal acknowledged on Monday that a special purported to be an unauthorized documentary on director M. Night Shyamalan was really part of a "guerrilla marketing" hoax that went too far.
The three-hour program, which aired on Sunday, was falsely promoted as a "disturbing expose" of the filmmaker that Shyamalan first cooperated with, then tried to have shut down when producers delved too deeply into his personal life.
It turns out Shyamalan was in on the entire production, cooked up to generate publicity for his upcoming film, "The Village," a supernatural thriller set for release July 30 by Walt Disney Co.-owned Touchstone Pictures, according to Sci Fi Channel and NBC Universal.
The faux documentary, titled "The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan," was concocted as part of a "guerrilla marketing" campaign emulating a promotional strategy that helped turn the low-budget 1999 thriller "The Blair Witch Project" into a box office hit, Sci Fi spokeswoman Jean Guerin told Reuters.
In this case, the strategy worked a bit too well, leaving a number of entertainment journalists grumbling after they were duped into writing stories reporting the purported conflict between Shyamalan and "documentary" producers as fact.
Guerin said Sci Fi has often presented its promotional campaigns and ads as "a puzzle for people to figure out."
"The intention is never to hurt the press, to have them go along with you, so I think that's where it sort of took a wrong turn," she said.
By aiming to deceive journalists, "this particular campaign went one step too far," NBC Universal spokeswoman Rebecca Marks said. "It's not consistent with our publicity and marketing policy. It's misleading."
Sci Fi insisted that Touchstone was not involved in the campaign, but studio officials were not immediately available for comment.
Shyamalan, whose previous films include "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs," issued a statement suggesting the cable channel merely got carried away "by thinking out of the box."
"I was, of course, involved in the production of the special but had nothing to do with the marketing of it," he said. "If the Sci Fi Channel erred in their marketing strategy, it was totally out of enthusiasm."
Marks said development of "Buried Secret" began before the Sci Fi was acquired by NBC as part of the broadcaster's recent merger with Vivendi Universal Entertainment. NBC Universal is owned by the General Electric Co. .
Asked when NBC Universal became aware of the nature of the special, Marks said, "They're reviewing the situation to find out and taking steps to make sure it doesn't happen again."
The special was directed Nathaniel Kahn, who earned an Oscar nomination for a documentary about his father, the late architect Louis Kahn.
Apple Rolls Out Cheaper iPods
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. on Monday introduced lower-priced versions of its iPod digital music player with longer battery life, positioning itself against rivals trying to use lower prices to undercut iPod sales.
Apple said the new model iPod has up to 12 hours of battery life, compared with eight hours in previous models. Poor battery performance in some iPods has drawn criticism.
The 20-gigabyte model, which can hold about 5,000 songs, has a list price of $299, lower than the previous price of $399 for a 20-gigabyte iPod. The 40-gigabyte model costs $399.
"Apple is closing the pricing gap between iPod and competitors," said Steve Lidberg, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. "Combined with a longer battery, Apple addresses the two biggest issues it had with the product."
The Cupertino, California, company, best known for its Macintosh computer, has turned to digital music as it has failed to make major gains in the highly competitive personal computer market. But in digital music players, Apple also faces strong competition from Dell Inc. and Sony Corp.
iPod claims a 50 percent market share in digital music players. Its sales almost tripled in the previous quarter. Analyst Lidberg expects shipments of 1.2 million iPods this quarter, more than tripling its sales last year.
Greg Joswiak, vice president of hardware product marketing at Apple, said it expects "a very strong growth" in the third quarter, helped by the upgrade. Traditionally the third quarter is stronger than the second quarter due to back-to-school sales, he said.
Joswiak shot down market rumors of 60-gigabyte models in the pipeline. "We have no plans in regard to announcing 60-gigabyte models," Joswiak said. "We are trying to create a much more compelling lineup with two models for 20 and 40 gigabytes at extremely compelling prices."
As part of a pilot program, Duke University plans to give iPods loaded with school calendars and other information to its 1,800 incoming freshmen. Students can download class materials to listen to anything from audio examples of textbook exercises to Spanish songs.
iPod users can now change the playback speed of audio books. The new iPods, which are thinner, also offer improved menu programs.
Apple's iTunes online music service is the most popular legal download site, claiming 70 percent of all songs bought online.
The stock fell 23 cents, or less than 1 percent, to close at $31.97.