Wow! YOUR 3rd Season Set May Be One of 100 With Cast-Autographed Lithographs!
Buena Vista Home Entertainment Offers Exclusive Premium Item Limited Edition "Scrub-ograph" Available In 100 "Scrubs: The Complete Third Season" DVDs
Limited Edition Lithographs Are Hand-Signed By The Cast
DVD Premieres May 9
BURBANK, Calif., April 24, 2006 - Buena Vista Home Entertainment will offer "Scrub-o- graphs" - lithographs of the principle 'Scrubs' cast - inside every SCRUBS: THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON DVD, available on May 9. One hundred of these "Scrub-o-graphs" will be hand-signed by the cast, and embossed with a "Certified Scrubs Signatures" seal of authenticity. The 100 exclusive "Scrub-o-graphs" will be packaged separately in select DVDs, available day and date at random retailers. Signatures included on the "Scrub-o- graph are Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalke, John C. McGinley, Neil Flynn, Ken Jenkins, and Judy Reyes.
SCRUBS: THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON stars Zach Braff as J.D., a medical resident at Sacred Heart Hospital. The comedy received four Emmy nominations in 2005 including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor (Zach Braff) in a Comedy Series. "Scrubs" won the 2005 Emmy Award for Outstanding Multi-Camera Editing. Packed with non-stop hilarity and outrageous day dreams, the hysterical third season also features guest stars including Michael J. Fox and Tara Reid and exclusive bonus features only available on the DVD. SCRUBS: THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON DVD box set is available for $39.99 (S.R.P.) from Touchstone Television and Buena Vista Home Entertainment.
Street Date: May 9, 2006
Suggested Retail Price: $39.99 (3-disc DVD)
Total Episode run time: Approximately 477 minutes
DVD aspect ratio: 1.33:1 formatted 4x3
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Language: English audio
SCRUBS is created by Bill Lawrence ("Spin City") and produced by Touchstone Television.
Touchstone Television has established itself as one of the television industry's leading providers of quality entertainment by developing and producing a diverse slate of popular, critically acclaimed and award-winning programming for broadcast and cable. The 2005-06 season became the most prolific in the studio's 20-year history with 20 new and returning projects receiving series orders including the Emmy award-winning drama "Lost," Best Comedy Golden Globe winner "Desperate Housewives," and the critical and consumer phenomenon "Grey's Anatomy."
Buena Vista Home Entertainment, an industry leader, is committed to showcasing great television on DVD. BVHE has responded to consumer demand by providing an ever-increasing amount of quality television entertainment in the collectible DVD format. BVHE's superbly mastered DVD box sets include "Alias," "Scrubs," "Tilt," "The Golden Girls," "Home Improvement," "Felicity," "Popular," "Boy Meets World," "Sports Night," "Once And Again," "Sweet Valley High," "Desperate Housewives," "Lost," "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and "Grey's Anatomy."
Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. is a recognized industry leader. Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. is the marketing, sales and distribution company for Walt Disney, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax, Dimension and Buena Vista videocassettes and DVDs.
Young's 'War' Marching Online First
Neil Young's newly recorded protest album "Living With War," including a song calling for the impeachment of President Bush, will be posted for free Internet streaming next week. Starting April 28, fans can log onto Young's Web site and listen to the 10-track set, according to Reprise spokesperson Bill Bentley.
The album will first become commercially available as a digital download beginning May 2, "and we plan to get it into retail stores as soon after that as we can get them manufactured," Bentley said.
He said the label anticipates getting the album into retail outlets between May 5 and May 15. "Neil wants this album out there as soon as possible," Bentley added.
The Canadian-born Young, 60, who has tackled social and political themes through four decades as a singer/songwriter, wrote and recorded his latest studio offering over a two-week period this month, backed by a 100-member choir, according to his longtime manager, Elliot Roberts.
Much of the album conveys a sense of outrage, vowing repeatedly in the title track "to never kill again," mocking Bush's conduct of the Iraq war in "Shock and Awe" and calling for his removal from office in a provocative song titled "Let's Impeach the President."
The album also strikes a chord of empathy with soldiers separated from their families, and features lyrics ridiculing America's consumer culture, political corruption and religious fundamentalism.
Juxtaposed to "Let's Impeach the President" is one of the album's more hopeful selections, "Lookin' for a Leader," with such lyrics as: "Someone walks among us ... and I hope he hears the call. And maybe it's a woman, or a black man after all." The album closes with an a cappella version of "America the Beautiful."
"You're always going to rub someone the wrong way when you sing, 'Let's impeach the president,'" Young told the Los Angeles Times. "But that's what this country's all about -- being able to express your views."
Boss Gets Folkie With 'Seeger Sessions'
ASBURY PARK, N.J. - Bruce Springsteen, rock 'n' roll icon, stands on a cramped Jersey shore stage surrounded by 16 musicians. There's a fiddle, a banjo, a tuba, an accordion — and not a single electric guitar.
The music swells, a glorious noise, as Springsteen leans into the microphone and sings a familiar song: "He floats through the air with the greatest of ease, the daring young man on the flying trapeze."
The vintage tale of a high-flying, womanizing circus star is followed by "Poor Man," a reworking of a Blind Alfred Reed song from the 1920s. This is the music of the moment for Springsteen: folk songs from decades past as he releases an album of songs culled from the Pete Seeger catalogue.
Bob Dylan once went electric. This is Springsteen going eclectic.
"The songs have lasted 100 years, or hundreds of years, for a reason," Springsteen explains in a spartan dressing room after rehearsing with his new big band. "They were really, really well-written pieces of music.
"They have worlds in them. You just kind of go in — it's a playground. You go in, and you get to play around."
"We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" arrives Tuesday, with a tour to follow (including a trip to New Orleans for the Jazz and Heritage Festival). Springsteen, still damp with perspiration from his rehearsal, sat backstage for a 40-minute interview with The Associated Press that covered his musical past, present and future.
The new album is Springsteen's most sonically surprising since the spare "Nebraska" in 1982. Springsteen compares its variety with his second album, "The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle," where the music veered from straight rock ("Rosalita") to jazz ("New York City Serenade") to oompah ("Wild Billy's Circus Story").
Leaning back on a couch, Springsteen said he was intent on getting out more music, including a group of songs already written for the E Street Band and a follow-up to "Tracks," his collection of unreleased studio cuts. He was working on the latter before deciding to do the new record.
"After a long time, you get a lot more secure about what you're doing," Springsteen said between sips from a bottle of water. "I spend much less time making decisions. Incredibly less. It used to be, like, there's a line in a song that I sang a certain way.
"I might mull it over for three days. Maybe longer, right? Now, you know, it's very different. I realize it's not necessary. You know your craft better."
"The Seeger Sessions" featured Springsteen making an album in record time. The rock Hall of Famer, who in the past went years between releases, did the new album in three days. The 13 songs, plus two bonus tracks, were recorded inside the living room of a farm house at Springsteen's New Jersey home — with the horn section playing in the hall.
There were no rehearsals, no arrangements, no overdubs. Springsteen wasn't even sure if the results would become an album.
"It was just playing music," Springsteen said of the sessions. "I didn't have any intention for it. I knew that I enjoyed making this kind of music. ... It was really just purely for the joy of doing it. It was a lot of fun."
Springsteen, 56, is coming off a busy year when he toured extensively behind his Grammy-winning solo album "Devils & Dust." Last year also marked the 30th anniversary of "Born To Run," the classic album that turned the local hero into a worldwide star.
Springsteen first connected with the Seeger songboook in 1997, when he recorded "We Shall Overcome" for a tribute album. His interest grew as he delved into the material — sturdy songs like "John Henry," "Erie Canal" and "Oh Mary, Don't You Weep."
"I wasn't aware of the vast library of music that Pete helped create and also collected," said Springsteen, who was more familiar with the work of Woody Guthrie. "Just this whole wonderful world of songwriting with all these lost voices. Great stories. Great characters."
Like Seeger, Springsteen is well-known for his role as a social activist. In 2004, Springsteen campaigned for John Kerry and criticized the Bush administration for bringing the country to war in Iraq. He's been a longtime advocate for local food banks, and played benefits for union workers, flood victims and other causes.
Seeger paid a heavy price for his beliefs. During the McCarthy era, he was summoned by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as it investigated supposed subversive influences in entertainment. He refused to cooperate and was blacklisted for the next decade.
So was releasing an album of Seeger's songs during President Bush's second term a political statement?
"I'll let somebody else sort that part of it, I guess," Springsteen said. "But a lot of 'em seem pretty applicable, you know? `Mrs. McGrath' is basically an Irish anti-war song, but it's ripped right out of the headlines everyday today."
The songs once sung by Seeger "shine a continuing light on a whole set of not just wonderful stories, but obviously a lot of social issues, the direction the country is going down," he continued. "There's still a place for a lot of that music."
Once Springsteen decided to forge ahead with the project, he called Seeger with the news. Seeger asked which songs would be on the record.
"He'd start giving me the history of each song," Springsteen said. "He actually knows about all those things. So it was an enjoyable conversation, and I hope he likes the record."
Springsteen had no concerns about audience reaction to his foray into a new musical landscape. He expects "the adventurous part of my fans" will enjoy the album. And he considers change a requirement for any successful musician.
"Your job as an artist is to build a box, and then let people watch you escape from it," Springsteen explained. "And then they follow you to the next box, and they watch you escape from that one. ... Escape artistry is part of the survival mechanism of the job.
"If you want to do the job well, you have got to be able to escape from what you've previously built."
There's one other major difference between "Seeger Sessions" and all of Springsteen's previous work: He didn't write a single song for this project.
"A real pleasure," he said of the break from writing. "Once we put it together, it was like, `Wow. I can make records and I don't have to write anything.' There are thousands of great songs sitting out there waiting to be heard, and I know a way to act as an interpreter on these things."
In between finishing up the album and preparing for the tour, Springsteen was inducted into another Hall of Fame — at his alma mater, Freehold High School. Springsteen, whose mother attended the ceremony, was bemused by the award.
"The high school hall of fame was, I suppose, less expected," Springsteen said between smiles. "I was at best a mediocre student, and I was an outcast. I didn't even attend my graduation. I went back in the middle of the summer and picked up my diploma across a desk and I went home.
"It's a little on the ironic side, I'd have to say. But it was nice."
'Silent Hill' Makes Noise at Box Office
LOS ANGELES - A real scary movie bumped off the spoof variety at the box office. Sony's fright flick "Silent Hill," set in an eerie ghost town, debuted with $20.2 million. It took over the top spot from the Weinstein Co. comedy "Scary Movie 4," which slipped to No. 2 with $17 million in its second weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The White House assassination tale "The Sentinel," a 20th Century Fox thriller starring Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland and Eva Longoria, opened in third place with $14.65 million.
The weekend's other new major debut, Universal's George W. Bush-"American Idol" parody "American Dreamz" featuring Dennis Quaid and Hugh Grant, debuted a weak No. 8 with $3.7 million.
After two weekends in limited release, Jennifer Aniston's comic drama "Friends With Money" expanded nationwide and came in at No. 10 with $3.55 million. Aniston plays a down-on-her-luck housecleaner with three well-to-do pals (Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener and Joan Cusack).
Lifted by box-office leaders that included 20th Century Fox's animated hit "Ice Age: The Meltdown" at No. 4 with $12.8 million, Hollywood revenues rose for the fifth-straight weekend.
The top-12 movies took in $100.4 million, up 22 percent from the same weekend last year, when "The Interpreter" debuted at No. 1 with $22.8 million.
After a prolonged dry spell in 2005, when movie attendance fell 8 percent, Hollywood is on solid footing this year heading into a potentially big summer. A surge over the past month has attendance running 4 percent ahead of last year's, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
"This is exactly where the industry wants to be as we approach the biggest moviegoing season of the year," Dergarabedian said. "It's night and day from where we were last year."
The industry has a stronger early-summer lineup this time compared to last year, when Hollywood got off to a slow start with "Kingdom of Heaven," "Kicking and Screaming" and "Monster-in-Law."
Coming over the first three weekends this May are Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible III," Tom Hanks and Ron Howard's "The Da Vinci Code," the animated comedy "Over the Hedge" and "Poseidon," a remake of "The Poseidon Adventure."
"Not only has the box office continued to be up, and up significantly the last several weeks, but we're headed into what looks to be a terrific May," said Rory Bruer, head of distribution at Sony, which is releasing "The Da Vinci Code."
Sony scored its fourth No. 1 opening of the year with "Silent Hill," starring Radha Mitchell as a mom hunting for her ailing daughter in a mysterious town. Along with "Silent Hill," two of Sony's other top debuts were horror movies that were not shown to critics beforehand, part of a growing trend where studios skip critic screenings when they expect bad reviews.
Two-thirds of the audience for "Silent Hill" was under 25, an age group less likely to pay attention to reviews, and the horror genre tends to pull in fans over opening weekend no matter what the critics say.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Silent Hill," $20.2 million.
2. "Scary Movie 4," $17 million.
3. "The Sentinel," $14.65 million.
4. "Ice Age: The Meltdown," $12.8 million.
5. "The Wild," $8.05 million.
6. "The Benchwarmers," $7.3 million.
7. "Take the Lead," $4.25 million.
8 (tie). "American Dreamz," $3.7 million.
8 (tie). "Inside Man," $3.7 million.
10. "Friends With Money," $3.55 million.