Janet Jackson album set for September release
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Pop star Janet Jackson's new studio album, "20 Years Old," will arrive in stores September 26 via Virgin Records, with the first single, "Call on Me," featuring rapper Nelly, ready to hit U.S. radio outlets next week.
As previously reported, Jackson's latest collection was produced by her boyfriend, Virgin Urban president Jermaine Dupri, as well as longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis.
"20 Years Old," which is an apparent reference to the 20-year anniversary of Jackson's 1986 smash album "Control," is the follow-up to 2004's "Damita Jo," which was released during the fallout from her breast-baring Super Bowl halftime appearance.
That set debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 pop chart and has sold 987,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
CBC pulls Tommy Douglas movie over inaccuracy
REGINA (CP) - The CBC has pulled a movie about the life of medicare founder Tommy Douglas from its broadcast schedule, citing historical inaccuracies in the portrayal of an adversary in the film.
The corporation has also halted both home and educational sales of Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story while it tries to resolve concerns raised about how former Saskatchewan premier James (Jimmie) Gardiner comes off in the eyes of viewers.
CBC executive vice-president Richard Stursberg informed Gardiner's family of the decision in an e-mail, which became public Monday.
"We engaged an outside, third-part historian with no ties to CBC, your family or the Douglas family to assess the way in which Mr. Gardiner was depicted," Stursberg wrote.
"I regret to say that his conclusion was that the character created for the film does not reflect the accepted historical record."
The movie was first broadcast in two parts on March 12 and 13. CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said it was scheduled to run again in late June.
The decision to abort that was welcomed by Gardiner's family, who had fought to set the record straight.
"I am so relieved," granddaughter Marg Gardiner said in an telephone interview from her Victoria home. "It was very shocking, very unsettling, to see this kind of a distortion."
Douglas, a New Democrat, and Gardiner, a Liberal, both enjoyed distinguished political careers in Saskatchewan and Ottawa.
As leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, Douglas was a five-term premier of the province before becoming the first federal leader of the NDP. He is best remembered as the father of publicly funded medicare.
Gardiner was elected twice as Saskatchewan premier, first in 1926 and again in 1934. Federally, he held the agriculture portfolio for a record 22 years. Saskatchewan's Gardiner Dam on Lake Diefenbaker is named after him.
Historians say Gardiner was a passionate voice for the West and for agriculture.
He was hard-nosed and not always easy to get along with, but when he was portrayed as boorish, self-centred and vindictive, several prominent provincial politicians, including former NDP premier Allan Blakeney, rushed to his defence.
Historians pointed out that Gardiner was shown drinking in the movie, but in real life was a teetotaller.
Marg Gardiner said she was most upset by the way the character in the film seemed to be anti-immigrant, given that her grandfather grew up in a town made up of recent immigrants and was instrumental in fighting the Ku Klux Klan, which once tried to gain a foothold in the province.
"That was the most disturbing thing in the movie," she said. "Here we have someone who is a pioneer in the recognition of multicultural Canada and it was a total role reversal."
When reached by phone at the Banff Television Festival, the film's producer Kevin DeWalt was reluctant to comment on what he called a CBC decision.
"Read the disclaimer - we were very clear from Day 1 that this was not a documentary," DeWalt said. "It was a fictionalization and dramatization and it stated that quite clearly in the disclaimer and we stand by that disclaimer."
Saskatchewan's NDP government contributed $614,400 to the production of the movie as part of the province's 2005 centennial celebrations.
Premier Lorne Calvert appeared agitated when faced with questions about the CBC's decision Monday.
"This was a great centennial project, it honoured the greatest of Canadians," Calvert said.
"It was drama and this government will never, on any occasion, interfere in the editorial decision-making around artistic production."
Keay said it was too early to say how the movie might be changed so it could air again.
"In the context of the historical record we came to the conclusion that the way that Mr. Gardiner was portrayed was not consistent with the historical record," Keay said.
"I think the point that I would make here is that we certainly regret any discomfort that the Gardiner family has with the characterization of the former premier."
Pixar 'company player' Ratzenberger back
CONCORD, N.C. - He's been a piggy bank, a flea and the voice of a school of fish.
Now, the folks at Pixar have turned John Ratzenberger into a tractor-trailer named Mack — a stock-car hauler charged with getting race car Lightning McQueen to Los Angeles for the final race of the NASCAR-style Piston Cup season in "Cars," the Disney-Pixar release that opened over the weekend with a supercharged $63 million in ticket sales.
Best known as the inanely garrulous postman Cliff Clavin on the long-running television comedy "Cheers," the 59-year-old Ratzenberger has enjoyed a second act to his career with Pixar, which pioneered computer animated movies with "Toy Story" in 1995. With the release of "Cars," Ratzenberger's voice has been featured in each of the studio's seven feature films.
Like Jay and Silent Bob in a Kevin Smith feature or Eugene Levy and Fred Willard in Christopher Guest's movies, Ratzenberger has become Pixar's company player. He's never the lead, but pops up in key supporting roles like the villainous Underminer in "The Incredibles" or the Yeti in "Monsters, Inc."
"I never take anything for granted," Ratzenberger said recently, a few days before the "Cars" premiere at Lowe's Motor Speedway outside Charlotte. "I realize how lucky and blessed I am that I get the call and show up, do a little work."
"Cars" is set in a world entirely populated by automobiles, right down to the tiny Volkswagen Beetles with wings buzzing around — they're the "Bugs," of course. Hard-charging rookie race car McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) ends up stranded in the forgotten Route 66 town of Radiator Springs after Mack loses him during a cross-country trip to the year's last Piston Cup race.
McQueen befriends a motley assortment of cars in Radiator Springs, including a loyal, broken-down tow truck named Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), a cute 2002 Porsche 911 ( Bonnie Hunt) and a 1951 Hudson Hornet with a secret past ( Paul Newman).
It's the kind of dense, detail-oriented universe found in all of Pixar's films, and within the world of "Cars," director John Lasseter — the Pixar chief for whom "Cars" is the first directorial effort since 1999's "Toy Story 2" — has placed two special tributes to Ratzenberger.
The first is his character, a truck named Mack who is, naturally, a Mack truck.
Lasseter knew that when Ratzenberger was growing up in Connecticut, his father was a truck driver. And early on during the production of "Cars," producer Darla Anderson asked Ratzenberger what kind of truck his dad drove.
"I said, `The Mack,'" Ratzenberger said. "They had already started talking to another truck company to make the (product placement) deal, but they stopped that process and went right to Mack. Without me knowing — I didn't ask.
"When you have people who care like that, that attention to detail ... It meant a lot to me."
The second tribute comes during the closing credits of "Cars," as Mack watches clips of other Pixar flicks — at a drive-in theater — and marvels at the genius of all the Ratzenberger-voiced characters. In keeping with the film's theme, all have become automotive versions of the original characters.
"That was a surprise to me, a wonderful surprise," Ratzenberger said. "I had recorded these voices and he (Lasseter) told me, `Well, we're going to do this thing' ... and I really didn't get it until I saw it.
"It was shocking — in a wonderful way."
Ratzenberger spends much of his time these days hosting the documentary series "Made in America" for the Travel Channel, which features everyday products made in the United States. The father of teenagers said he turns down plenty of film and voice roles he thinks send the wrong message, but always ends up back with Pixar because of the family-friendly content of their films.
"I only want to be involved in projects that I can sit there with my kids and not be embarrassed by, not be ashamed of," he said. "I just don't want to be part of that message that adults, authority figures, are stupid and only kids are smart because in the real world it doesn't work that way."
That's not an issue with Pixar and Lasseter, with whom Ratzenberger said he shares a curiosity about the world that has made them more than just colleagues.
"John does things the old-fashioned way," Ratzenberger said. "He'll work on a story for four years before they get to the animation part. That's what used to happen in Hollywood that unfortunately doesn't happen much anymore.
"Like in `Toy Story,' where the baseboard in the kid's room has scuff marks. ... He'll go right down to that detail. The research he did here, there's a passion for it."
Being asked to voice Hamm, the piggy bank in the original "Toy Story," was, said Ratzenberger, "like being invited into a good friend's sandbox."
He's been happy to stay and build sand castles ever since.