Fraggle Rock - A 2nd Season Set In September!
Muppet Central News is reporting that Fraggle Rock - Season 2 is being prepped by HIT Entertainment for release on DVD on September 5, 2006!!
Here is the word, direct via a Muppet News Flash from MuppetCentral.com:
HIT Entertainment has announced that Fraggle Rock Season 2 is officially coming to DVD. The scheduled release date is Tuesday September 5, 2006.
Fraggle Rock Season 1 was released last September and has sold well. Fans around the world will be thrilled that HIT is continuing with releasing subsequent Fraggle Rock seasons on DVD.
Over the weekend, Muppeteer Dave Goelz was the featured guest at a Fraggle Rock theatrical screening in Dallas. He confirmed that The Jim Henson Company has begun scanning the archives for bonus material for the second season box set.
Stay tuned for further updates and we'll keep you informed!
Ex-PM's in reality TV show
Stephen Harper may have the honour of being Canada's newest prime minister, but four of the nation's past leaders will have the great privilege of being judges in a new reality TV show.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, "The Next Great Prime Minister" will feature former prime ministers Kim Campbell, Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney and John Turner judging five young Canadians' public speaking and debating abilities.
The winner will receive an internship in a Canadian public policy think tank.
The show will air on CTV beginning Feb. 4.
Mozart Rules From Salzburg to Santiago
SALZBURG, Austria - This cobblestoned and turreted city of his birth is pulling out all the stops to celebrate Mozart's 250th birthday Friday. But not only Austria is seized with Mozart madness.
Symphony orchestras and opera houses worldwide are going through final rehearsals while radio program directors line up their Mozart CDs. Piano students are polishing pieces for Mozart marathons and puppeteers are preparing for jubilee performances as hundreds of cities across five continents prepare to pay their respects to the musical genius.
For many, Mozart Central will be Salzburg, where he was born on Jan. 27, 1756.
Always a trove for Mozart souvenirs, Salzburg has outdone itself this year. Store shelves are stocked with Mozart beer and wine, Mozart baby bottles, Mozart milkshakes, Mozart knickers and Mozart jigsaw puzzles — along with the usual T-shirts, calendars and coffee mugs.
But on Friday, the music's the thing. Among the most interesting Salzburg offerings: Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Vienna Philharmonic play Mozart's Piano Concert No. 18, before Riccardo Muti takes to the podium and leads the orchestra — and renowned signers — through their paces in a collage of his works.
Vienna, which claims Mozart in his later years, is staging a new production of his "Idomeneo" in one of the city's three opera houses and reviving "The Magic Flute" in another.
Both cities are offering either musical or culinary tours built around Mozart's works, his favorite restaurants, his friends and enemies, and his approach to art and love.
But the immortal Mozart will rule elsewhere as well.
He'll be the focus of a 12-hour Swedish documentary, his works will be performed by orchestras or opera houses in Moscow, Washington, Prague, London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Caracas, Quito, Havana, Mexico City, Taipei, Budapest and scores of other cities worldwide.
Even Nashville, more famous for country music than Mozart, will tip its hat to Amadeus, with the city's symphony orchestra performing his Piano Concerto No. 21.
And there are hundreds of other offerings.
Many classical radio outlets in the United States and elsewhere are reprogramming for the day to play only Mozart. Hundreds of marionettes will take to the stage in excerpts of his operas in the German city of Augsburg, where his father was born.
Vienna has set up 50 bright red "Calling Mozart" booths to allow visitors to listen to his works and information about his life and times. It will formally reopen the restored house where he wrote "The Marriage of Figaro."
Salzburg visitors are advised to watch the calories. Bakers were putting the icing Thursday on a gargantuan birthday cake — about 300 pounds.
Too much hoopla? Consider this: Mozart wrote his first symphonies before turning 10 and his first significant opera at 12. He was instrumental in changing opera into the form we know and enjoy today.
He was prolific like few others, creating nearly two dozen operas and other stage works and hundreds of solo and orchestral pieces before his death at 35. Other greats like Beethoven and Wagner publicly recognized their debt to him.
There is some comfort, however, for those who feel Mozart mania is out of control — he had his detractors.
Some history books depict his tenure in Salzburg ending ingloriously in 1781 with a kick in the bottom from a servant of Mozart's patron, the city's imperious archbishop, after Mozart refused to follow orders on how to compose.
But for mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager, Mozart is "a gift from God" and "the light I orient my life around."
Others describe him in more down-to-earth terms (and his letters certainly reveal an exuberant personality and scatological sense of humor) as they explain why he can reach out even to those normally immune to classical music.
Two 'Narnia' versions to hit DVD in April
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Disney has big DVD plans for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," preparing two versions of the blockbuster hit for release on April 4.
Both the single-disc version ($19.99) and a two-disc edition ($29.99) will include two commentaries with director Andrew Adamson, one in which he's accompanied by other filmmakers and the other, by children. Both versions also will come with pop-up windows throughout the film with facts on the movie and "Narnia" author C.S. Lewis.
The double-disc "Narnia" also will come with a booklet, concept art, storytelling diaries of the filmmakers, a "making of" featurette, an interactive map of Narnia and other extras.
Also in the works from Disney is a single-disc version of "Chicken Little," the studio's first computer-animated film produced in-house rather than by Pixar. The DVD will be out March 21 and include music videos, "making of" featurettes on the animation process and the vocal talent, and deleted scenes, including an early take in which Chicken Little is a girl voiced by Holly Hunter.
Disney also has begun showing an 11-minute preview of the direct-to-video sequel "Bambi II" on the film's Web site (http://www.bambi2DVD.com) in advance of the February 7 street date. The belated sequel to the 1942 animated classic will be in stores only 70 days before it is placed on moratorium.
Kidman Accepts Role As Goodwill Ambassador
UNITED NATIONS - Nicole Kidman has a new role — working to advance women's rights around the globe as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. The Oscar-winning actress will work with the United Nations Development Fund for Women, UNIFEM, on critical gender concerns such as ending violence against women.
"I hope that I can act as a conduit, that I can be the person who tells some of these stories," Kidman told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. "The way in which I was raised and the things I've seen in my life has led me toward this."
Kidman, 38, looked relaxed throughout the interview, wearing a fitted black pants suit and wearing a ring on her left ring finger. The actress, who is divorced from Tom Cruise, has been romantically linked to country singer Keith Urban.
When asked what led her to volunteer for what she says will be a lifetime commitment to women's causes, Kidman said her parents were a big influence during her childhood in Australia.
"My family, we sat around the dinner table, we had political conversations. My father always said, `You need to be involved. Don't be a voyeur, be a participator,'" Kidman said.
She first heard about the work of UNIFEM after her mother listened to a BBC report about the group's work in Cambodia and told her about it.
Additionally, her work on the movie "The Human Stain" — in which she played a woman exposed to abuse — led her to real-life brushes with the issue.
"I went to meet with a lot of women in shelters — abuse shelters — and the stories I heard there ... were so disturbing," Kidman said at an earlier news conference Thursday.
She said that experience led her to try to find a way to help such women.
Since the 1950s, U.N. agencies have enlisted the help of prominent personalities from the arts and sports worlds to highlight key issues, including Angelina Jolie, who has traveled widely as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. refugee agency.
Kidman said she didn't know if she would be able to travel as much as Jolie. Having older children in school makes it more difficult, she said, but she hopes the actresses' celebrity status might work together to benefit their respective causes.
"Angelina is dealing with a certain issue, I'm dealing with different issues. I hope all of it comes together in some way," she told the AP.
The first countries Kidman plans to visit are Sudan, Congo, Liberia, Afghanistan and Cambodia.
UNIFEM's Executive Director Noeleen Heyzer said Kidman will help greatly with the group's cause.
"She's a very profound actress and artist and I was very, very touched by her commitment to make sure she used her gifts for women everywhere in the world," Heyzer said.
Heyzer noted that it was Kidman who contacted UNIFEM and that her decision to work with the group has already generated a lot of attention from women around the globe.
"I have to say that today many women celebrate this event and welcome you as a sister, a sister of commitment," Heyzer said. "I've been receiving messages from all parts of the world to say that this is a special day to them as well."
Kidman won an Oscar for her role in 2002's "The Hours."
Her screen credits include "The Interpreter," a 2005 thriller in which she played a U.N. interpreter caught up in a cloak-and-dagger assassination attempt.