Post-Van Halen Hagar Is 'Livin' It Up'
Sammy Hagar is gearing up for summer with a new album and a tour about to begin. Two years removed from a Van Halen reunion tour, the Red Rocker says he realized the importance of performing the band's classic material, so he's bringing VH bassist Michael Anthony out on the road for a nightly mid-set digression, billed as "The Other Half," into all things Van Hagar.
"We're really having fun with stuff and after the last Van Halen reunion, it doesn't feel much like that may ever happen again for all kinds of reasons," Hagar says. "But I just think I need to play those songs, the fans need to hear those songs and it's just unfair to let it sit and die."
Current plans call for Anthony to arrive on stage about an hour into the Hagar and Wabos (recently shortened from Waboritas) set with his legendary bass solo extravaganza, before the two Van Halen members jam for 60 minutes in a retrospective filled with hits and even a few obscure tunes. Hagar says the idea for "The Other Half" stems from last year's annual Cabo Wabo Cantina birthday party in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, when Anthony showed up onstage unannounced.
As for his next studio album, dubbed "Livin' It Up," the 58-year-old artist says he's shopping it to labels. However, fans will hear about a half-dozen of the songs on the 36-date tour, which begins May 5 in Lake Tahoe, Nev.
"'Livin' it Up" is really a lifestyle record," Hagar says. "It's not a metal record at all. I would say it's more American country rock than heavy metal rock, which is the type of music I've always played from Montrose through Van Halen. My intention was to just make a real honest record."
Written over the past year at his home in Cabo San Lucas, the album features original songs such as "One Sip and You'll Surrender" and "The Way We Live," as well as a rocking honky-tonk cover of Toby Keith's "I Love This Bar" and his version of the Staple Singers' "I'll Take You There."
While Hagar's solo prospects appear bright, that's not the case with Van Halen.
"There were some real problems in the band," Hagar says, referring to the reunion tour. "I have to tell you, there were nights I didn't know what song Eddie [Van Halen] was playing. There were times I wanted to kill that guy for what he was playing. I would have left that tour in the middle of it if it wasn't for the professional aspect. He's never going to see my ass again unless he goes and gets himself some help."
Hollywood's Academy Awards back to February
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Oscars are moving back to February.
The 79th annual Academy Awards will be held Feb. 25, 2007 — the last Sunday of the month — at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre. It will be televised by ABC-TV.
This year's show was moved to the first Sunday in March to avoid going head-to-head against NBC's broadcast of the Winter Olympics' closing ceremonies.
Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, announced the key Oscar dates on Monday, noting that the February show means nominations and the balloting process will take place earlier than they did this year.
Oscar nominees will be announced Jan. 23. Final ballots will be mailed Jan. 31 and will be due Feb. 20.
Rock Hall Opens Roy Orbison Exhibit
CLEVELAND - His was the voice of heartache and the lovelorn in the world of early rock'n'roll. Roy Orbison, who died in 1988 at age 52 of a heart attack, has been a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 1987, a testament to his long popularity derived from his way of blending rock and country music.
An exhibit that opens to the public Wednesday called "Haunting & Yearning: The Life and Music of Roy Orbison" offers a glimpse into his rockabilly career and his personal struggles.
The exhibit is not traveling. It was put together for the Rock Hall, said Barbara Orbison, Roy Orbison's widow, who came to Cleveland from Nashville on Tuesday for the opening.
"I'm proud of it," she said. "It has a lot of private things. I think Roy's legacy is alive. He's so well known and respected. There's always a radio station somewhere playing him. And Roy was fond of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was Bruce Springsteen who inducted him. Roy said to me that was so wonderful."
The display coincides with what would have been Orbison's 70th birthday, April 23. Included are letters Orbison wrote to himself making vows to take better care of himself, committing to exercise and stopping smoking. There are model airplanes he built as his hobby. A poster for a 1963 show in England shows the Beatles were the warm-up band for Orbison.
"The Beatles had gotten so popular so fast that they demanded a switch and Roy went along," opening up for the Fab Four instead, said Howard Kramer, Rock Hall curator.
In 1990, Orbison posthumously won a Grammy for best male vocalist for his concert performance of "Oh, Pretty Woman" in 1988. But well before that, Orbison influenced a broad range of rock stars who were his contemporaries, such as Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers and John Lennon.
"His one-of-a-kind voice and ethereal songs set him apart from all of his contemporaries and made for a diverse set of followers," Kramer said.
The exhibit runs until Oct. 29. It is small in comparison to the Rock Hall's ongoing salute to rock music icon Sam Cooke. An exhibit featuring a 10-year period of Bob Dylan's career is planned to open May 20.
A video screen in the exhibit shows Orbison performances. He usually wore big-framed glasses beneath thick, black hair.
From the release of "Only the Lonely" in 1960 to "Oh, Pretty Woman" four years later, he was often near the top in the pop music charts with his brooding songs lime "Crying" and "It's Over."
He later lived through personal crises. His first wife, Claudette, died in a motorcycle accident in 1966, and two of his three boys died in a house fire in 1968.
The exhibit also coincides with the release of Legacy Records' Roy Orbison Reissue Project. The first Legacy release is "Black & White Night," the 1987 Orbison concert originally aired on cable TV.
"What I hope young people get out of it is that Roy came from a small town in Texas against all odds and with a dream in his heart and a melody on his lips," Barbara Orbison said. "That's what it really is about, making your dream come true."
Cruise, Holmes Have Baby Girl Named Suri
LOS ANGELES - The Tomkitten has arrived. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, the public lovebirds dubbed TomKat by the media, had a baby girl Tuesday, said Cruise spokesman Arnold Robinson. The baby, named Suri, weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces and measured 20 inches long, he said.
"Both mother and daughter are doing well," Robinson said in a prepared statement.
The name Suri has its origins in Hebrew, meaning "princess," or in Persian, meaning "red rose," the statement said.
The baby was born in Los Angeles but the exact location was not disclosed.
"Yay, yay, yay," said actress and fellow Scientologist Kirstie Alley. "Bring her over so I can meet her."
The news was announced just in time for Jay Leno to pass along word during taping of his "Tonight" show monologue.
"I just got a phone call that Tom Cruise had a baby girl about two minutes ago. No joke," Leno said.
It's the first child for Holmes, 27. Cruise, 43, has an adopted daughter and son from his marriage to Nicole Kidman.
Details surrounding the birth, which was planned under the tenets of the Church of Scientology as a silent procedure, weren't disclosed.
Scientologists believe words spoken during times of pain are recorded by the "reactive mind" and can potentially cause problems for mother and baby later in life.
A spokesman from the Church of Scientology International declined comment and referred inquiries to Cruise's publicist.
Ironically, Suri was born the same day as Brooke Shields' newborn daughter, Grier Hammond Henchy.
Shields and Cruise had a public spat last year after he criticized the actress for taking antidepressants following the birth of her first child.
Appearing on the "Today" show, Cruise said there was no such thing as chemical imbalances that need to be corrected with drugs, and that depression could be treated with exercise and vitamins.
About a dozen reporters and photographers stood by outside the Beverly Hills home where Cruise and Holmes live. Security officers inside the compound videotaped the journalists.
A publicity blitz for Cruise's new movie, "Mission: Impossible III," was set to begin Wednesday but the actor canceled all press appearances, a Paramount representative said.
It was just about a year ago that Cruise's romance with Holmes became a world sensation.
Cruise hopped up and down on a couch during an interview with Oprah Winfrey as he professed his love.
"I can't be cool. I can't be laid-back," Cruise declared at the time. "Something happened and I want to celebrate it."
The antics were widely mocked but Cruise was unfazed and continued to avow his affection for Holmes.
He and Holmes, a star of TV's "Dawson's Creek," had been first photographed together in Rome in April 2005.
She had previously been engaged to actor Chris Klein; Cruise had been married to Mimi Rogers as well as Kidman, and had dated Penelope Cruz for several years.
In June, Cruise announced to a Paris press conference that he had proposed to Holmes atop the Eiffel Tower.
"Today is a magnificent day for me, I'm engaged to a magnificent woman," he said.
No wedding date has been disclosed.
Dupuis captures hockey history
(CP) - Roy Dupuis wept and he didn't know why.
Like many people on the night of March 11, 1996, the Canadian actor was moved by the ceremony commemorating the last game at the Montreal Forum, and by the long and heartfelt ovation reserved for Maurice (Rocket) Richard.
"I was at home watching that, it still moves me," Dupuis, a lump in his throat, said in a recent interview.
"You're talking about a 16-minute ovation. On TV. No one cut it. I had never seen that. I didn't know the guy yet, didn't know the real story. I remember thinking after that ovation . . . what just happened? Why am I crying?
"It's what we call in French l'inconscient collectif (the collective unconscious). Three-quarters of the people that were there never saw him play."
But they knew of the man, and why he meant so much to Quebecers.
The Rocket, a film by director Charles Biname and distributed by Alliance Atlantis, does a remarkable job of telling that story. A hit in Quebec after being released last fall, the English-language version of the movie hits theatres in the rest of the country starting Friday.
"This movie is going out in 150 theatres across Canada, that's never happened for a Canadian movie, never, it's like Maurice has done it again," said Dupuis, who stars as the Rocket.
The fact the French-language version of the film was warmly embraced in Quebec is no shock. After all, it's the story of a blue-collar superstar hockey hero who helped carry an oppressed French-Canadian society on his shoulders. Before the Quiet Revolution, there was Rocket.
"This guy gave pride to his people," said Dupuis, who first played the role of Richard for a Heritage Canada TV vignette and a 1999 miniseries. "At the time we were second-class citizens, that's what we were, that's the reality.
"And then this guy, at the right time, happened. He became the greatest in something that was accessible to everybody - hockey. And all those people who thought they were second-class citizens thought: 'Geez, we can be somebody.' And that's where it all started."
There are reminders throughout the film that being French wasn't a cakewalk in those days, from the fence that separated the poor French-Canadian fans from the elite (mostly English) of Montreal at the Forum during games, to Richard's tormentors - first the English factory boss, to Habs head coach Dick Irvin, and of course league president Clarence Campbell.
And the feeling among the players that a French-Canadian skater had to be three times better than his English counterpart to make the Habs.
"One of the concerns that Ken Scott (the script's author) and I had, was that we didn't want to demonize the English," Biname said during a recent press stop in Toronto. "There were a certain number of things that were irritating and frustrating, a certain of number of events that happened, and we just put them together.
"The interesting thing is that Dick Irvin, who's supposed to be the real bad guy in the story, because he pushes Maurice to the end, insults him, uses whatever at hand to make him go crazy - he's the one who has the vision for the man. He's the one, you realize through the film, who believes in him in spite of everything else. So you have a great character opposing the hero which is actually the one that makes him the hero."
Irvin is played brilliantly by Nova Scotia actor Stephen McHattie (most recently in A History of Violence). McHattie studied for the part by phoning up Irvin's son Dick Irvin Jr., a longtime Hockey Night In Canada broadcaster, and by reading books Irvin had authored on his father.
"His son quotes him in a book saying the worst part of the job was having to hurt the guys that he really loved," McHattie said in an interview. "He knew right away that the Rocket played best when he was angry."
The Rocket's life was too eventful for two hours so Biname had to choose where to start and end it. He starts with a 17-year-old Richard, bent on making it big in hockey while also supporting his family while working as a machinist.
Nowhere in the film do we see Henri Richard, the Rocket's younger brother who goes on to win 11 Stanley Cups with the Habs.
"Such a huge age difference," said Biname. "Maurice had left the house and was almost finishing his career when Henri came in.
"We had Henri in there for a while (in the original script), we had a line in there for him, and then I thought: 'It's a plug, it's not right.' I don't like that. If it's not going to serve the story, why do that."
The film builds up to the famous Richard riots of 1955, when Campbell suspended the Rocket for the rest of the season - including the playoffs - for assaulting a linesman during a brawl in an incident that was sparked when Boston's Hal Laycoe two-handed Richard on the head with a vicious high stick.
What helps sell the film is that Dupuis is no slouch on skates. He played hockey growing up and plays his own scenes in the movie. No stunt actors needed. And Dupuis doesn't look out of place.
Another nice decision by Biname is letting the characters speak in their native tongue, Rocket in French, Irvin in English, and so on.
French subtitles in the Quebec release last fall translated the English characters. Now English subtitles tell us what Rocket is saying. It keeps the movie real, because that's exactly how it was then. Dubbing the actors would have taken away from the realism.
The real test for Dupuis was pulling off the Rocket both on and off the ice, a task he took extremely seriously.
"I met Maurice many times when I did the TV series at first. He became a friend, he opened up to me," Dupuis said of the Rocket. "Because of the kind of man that he was, that meant he agreed to the fact that I was playing him. What happens when you have access to the person you're going to play, you become very intimate with him, because you're trying to understand him and get inside of him. I think we became very close. And then he died (in May 2000).
"So when they came up with the idea of doing a movie about him, it's like they told me they wanted to do a story about my best friend and they wanted me to play him. I said yes but I needed to read the script first and agree, I needed to see in that script the man I know. And that's pretty much what I saw."
Gottfried Tops List of Unsexiest Men
BOSTON - The voice of the AFLAC duck has been named the Unsexiest Man in the World.
Comedian Gilbert Gottfried tops the list compiled by the Boston Phoenix's website. The list is a mix of entertainers, sports stars, even terrorists. Osama bin Laden is number eight on the list.
Others on the unsexy list include Michael Jackson, Jerry Seinfeld, Ron Howard, Clay Aiken and Britney Spears' husband Kevin Federline. He ranks 99th.
Sneaking in at No. 100 is Brad Pitt. He made the list because of rumors about bad hygiene.
Heigl getting "Knocked Up" in Apatow comedy
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Grey's Anatomy" star Katherine Heigl is set to get "Knocked Up" in writer/director Judd Apatow's follow-up to "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."
The Universal Pictures project revolves around the unexpected pregnancy and other consequences of a man's (Seth Rogan) one-night stand.
Heigl steps into the role vacated by Anne Hathaway ("The Princess Diaries"), who left because of creative reasons.
Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann also have been cast. As with Rogan, they starred in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."
Heigl's feature film credits include "The Ringer" and "Bride of Chucky."
Cruise, `Da Vinci' Kick Off Summer Films
LOS ANGELES - There's something really wrong with Hollywood if it can't get off to a better start than it did during the dreary summer of 2005.
Last year's first big May releases: The historical snoozer "Kingdom of Heaven" and the forgettable comedies "Kicking and Screaming" and "Monster-in-Law."
This year's summer lead-ins: "Mission: Impossible III," pitting Tom Cruise against supervillain Philip Seymour Hoffman; "Poseidon," a remake of "The Poseidon Adventure" directed by Hollywood's king of the sea, Wolfgang Petersen ("The Perfect Storm," "Das Boot"); the animated "Over the Hedge," an animals-against-humans comedy from the makers of "Shrek"; and "The Da Vinci Code," reuniting Tom Hanks with director Ron Howard.
A globe-trotting mystery, the adaptation of Dan Brown's best-seller follows a symbologist (Hanks) and cryptographer ( Audrey Tautou) racing to uncover clues about the murder of a member of a shadowy society harboring deep secrets about Christianity.
The film was shot at churches, cathedrals and landmarks around the world, including the Louvre in Paris, where the story begins.
"It was an almost out-of-body experience filming there," director Howard said. "The building itself is a monument, and you're surrounded by the works of so many of the great masters. Being there at 2:30, 3 o'clock in the morning to film eerie, suspenseful scenes in this environment, it was one part heaven and the other part kind of almost haunted house. You didn't want to wander away from the rest of the film crew, let me put it that way.
"I did have a moment all alone with the Mona Lisa in the wee hours, and that was pretty fantastic."
After stumbling out of the gate last year, when summer movie attendance fell 12 percent to its lowest level since 1997, Hollywood seems to have a more crowd-pleasing lineup to lure audiences back to theaters.
A look at key summer releases:
LOOKING FOR ACTION: Tom Cruise's first two "Mission: Impossible" capers were heavy on action and style. "Mission: Impossible III" director J.J. Abrams, creator of TV's "Lost" and "Alias," said he aimed to balance action with character interplay in the spirit of the television show on which the movies are based.
"The thing I loved about the show is watching these incredibly accomplished operatives seamlessly working together to pull off a very specific goal," Abrams said. "I honestly felt that as entertained as I was by the first two `Mission' films, they didn't embrace that aspect, which to me was the fundamental thing of the series."
Wolfgang Petersen is back on the water with "Poseidon," starring Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss and Josh Lucas in a remake of the 1970s disaster flick about a luxury liner overturned by a tidal wave.
"It was a chance to do a film reflecting our phobias today, our fear of terrorism or disaster, like 9/11 or whatever nature can do to us," Petersen said. "A natural disaster like this is sort of a metaphor for the impossible and most disastrous thing you can imagine, and what would we do when it hits?"
Also returning to the water: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley and director Gore Verbinski with "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," the follow-up to their 2003 blockbuster.
"Dead Man's Chest" has Depp's woozy pirate Jack Sparrow trying to weasel out of an old debt — his soul, which he owes to the sea devil Davy Jones.
Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell star in "Miami Vice," written and directed by Michael Mann, creator of the 1980s cop show and Foxx's director on "Collateral" and "Ali." Farrell and Foxx take on the roles originated by Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, playing undercover cops who infiltrate a South Florida drug ring.
The TV show was known for glitzy fashion and hip music, but Mann's new take is a grittier glimpse of cops on the street, Foxx said.
"It's heavy," Foxx said. "Heavy in a way that there's a real sense of danger, a real sense of what these guys go through as undercover cops. Tempted either to work for the other side or get caught up in the different characters they create."
SUPERHEROES ON PARADE: Fighters for truth, justice and the rights of Mutant-Americans are back, led by "X-Men: The Last Stand," the third installment in the franchise about the gang of super freaks, and "Superman Returns," with the Man of Steel suiting up for his first big-screen adventure in almost 20 years.
Bryan Singer, who made the first two "X-Men" movies, directed "Superman Returns," which introduces Brandon Routh as Krypton's favorite flyboy.
Co-starring Kevin Spacey as villain Lex Luthor and Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, the movie has Superman back on Earth after a prolonged absence. Though not a sequel to the Christopher Reeve "Superman" flicks, the film borrows from the look and mythology created in that series.
Routh said he fashioned his performance to match, injecting his own personality into the character while trying to stay true to Reeve's Superman.
"Chris did such an amazing job. You can change things, but if you do it could be horrible," Routh said. "When somebody does something so great, there's certain things you can tweak, but to change it just to change it sometimes is dangerous."
The "X-Men" sequel, directed by Brett Ratner (the "Rush Hour" movies), reunites all key cast members, including Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn and Famke Janssen.
Driving the action this time is the discovery of a "cure" for mutancy. Jackman said the movie will wrap up the "X-Men" trilogy, though another film is in the works centered on his Wolverine character — the bushy-haired mystery man with metal claws and rapid healing powers.
"He's that reluctant hero, and he's a fairly classic version of it," Jackman said. "He reminds me of characters I always liked, Mad Max, Dirty Harry, Han Solo, where there's more going on than what they're letting on."
Summer also offers superhero comedies. Ivan Reitman's "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" stars Uma Thurman as the ultimate woman scorned, a superhero who uses her powers to exact revenge on the boyfriend ( Luke Wilson) who dumped her.
"Zoom" stars Tim Allen and Courteney Cox in an "Incredibles"-like tale of a former hero gone soft.
"Tim plays a retired superhero, and I play a kind of comic-book-obsessed, nerdy scientist. We're trying to find people to train kids to become the next round of superheroes," Cox said of her first big-screen leading role since she and her "Friends" gang called it quits.
SEPT. 11: Nearly five years after Sept. 11 comes the first major wave of big-screen films dealing with the terrorist attacks.
"United 93" mostly features a cast of unknowns in a gut-wrenching docudrama about the passengers who fought back and lost their lives during one of the Sept. 11 hijackings.
Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" stars Nicolas Cage in the story of two policemen trapped in the rubble of the collapsed towers.
On a smaller scale, "The Great New Wonderful" features Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tony Shalhoub and Olympia Dukakis in a sketch of five New Yorkers a year after the Sept. 11 attacks.
ANIMATION MANIA: Featuring the voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman and Bonnie Hunt, "Cars" is the latest from computer-animation pioneer John Lasseter, who directed the "Toy Story" movies. The film follows a haughty race car (Wilson) who learns to slow down and make time for friends after he's stranded in a sleepy town.
Summer's animated tales also include "Barnyard," a farm fable featuring the voices of Kevin James, Courteney Cox, Danny Glover and Andie MacDowell; the bug story "The Ant Bully," with Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep among the vocal cast; and the spooky-building adventure "Monster House," with Steve Buscemi, Nick Cannon and Maggie Gyllenhaal providing voices.
Led by voice stars Bruce Willis as a rascally raccoon and Garry Shandling as a cautious turtle, "Over the Hedge" is the story of a family of critters coping with new neighbors — humans.
How did Willis find his inner raccoon?
"I found that a lot of David Addison bled into the character," Willis said, referring to the crafty private eye he played on TV's "Moonlighting." "Wily and intrepid and a loner and gets a pretty big kick out of life. It's only when in this particular film that he is confronted with a family situation that he starts to find himself on shaky ground."
JUST FOR LAUGHS: In the comedy "You, Me and Dupree," Owen Wilson's the house guest from hell, who takes up permanent residence with his newlywed pals ( Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson).
Vince Vaughn, Wilson's "Wedding Crashers" comrade, and Jennifer Aniston star as ex-lovers living in hostile territory when neither will move out of the condo they share in "The Break-Up."
"Click" features Adam Sandler as a family guy who finds the remote control of his dreams, giving him magical power over his work and home life — until the device starts acting up.
Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly hit the NASCAR circuit in "Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby," playing a duo that almost always finishes first and second in races until an upstart comes along.
"My character holds the record for most second-place finishes in the history of NASCAR," said Reilly, who also co-stars with Garrison Keillor, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan and Woody Harrelson in Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion," a fanciful look at Keillor's radio show.
CREEPY AND CRYPTIC: Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has made late summer a Halloween prelude with such eerie hits as "The Sixth Sense," "Signs" and "The Village."
Shyamalan is back with "Lady in the Water," the tale of an apartment manager ( Paul Giamatti) who discovers a water nymph ("Village" star Bryce Dallas Howard) living beneath his complex's pool and trying to escape creatures preventing her return to her own world.
"Lady in the Water" began as a bedtime story Shyamalan made up for his children, but it grew to an epic that took a month to tell — and a year to retell as the kids asked to hear it again and again.
"That one was so vivid," Shyamalan said. "It became this kind of haunting story that stuck with us as a family. The movie is very original for the story being told, because it's so absurd and not like anything you've heard before."
Also on the fright front: "The Omen," with Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow and Liev Schreiber in an update of the 1970s Antichrist tale, and "An American Haunting," starring Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland in the story of a 19th century family tormented by a supernatural presence.