The Couch Potato Report - January 9th, 2007
This week The Couch Potato Report shines the spotlight on five films, including one about some snakes on a plane.
Our first film this week is THE WAR TAPES - a superb but hard to watch documentary that was filmed by actual servicemen in Iraq.
Before heading to the war several members of the National Guard were given digital video cameras.
THE WAR TAPES is the film that was edited together from their footage and it provides a perspective on a complex and troubled conflict.
At times THE WAR TAPES is fascinating, frustrating, disgusting, and at other times it is insightful and dispicable.
But at all times it gives us an insiders look at the war in Iraq, and what it is doing to the people who are fighting there.
When this year's Academy Award nominations are announced on January 23rd THE WAR TAPES is likely to get nominated in the DOCUMENTARY FEATURE category. If that happens, everyone will be lining up at your local store to check out this movie. Don't wait, see it before the rush.
You might not be glad you did, but you will have experienced a one of a kind look at war.
Next up this week is THINGS TO DO. This is a small Canadian film that probably won't get an Oscar nod, but it is still fun to watch.
The plot in THINGS TO DO is as follows: A twenty-five year old office worker leaves the big city behind and go back to his childhood hometown to take stock of his life and try to resolve some past regrets.
And while that plot does have some unique twists and turns, the reason that THINGS TO DO is worth seeing, is because the two lead characters are so interesting and...well, boring.
These aren't movie people, they are people people, living lives that we can all relate to.
Not all conversations in real life sparkle or are peppered with pop culture references, sometimes - in real life - people just ask each other questions.
That is what happens in this movie too!
THINGS TO DO isn't for everyone, but if you are interested in a small film about small people with big problems, then search it out.
But you don't like films like that because matial arts films are more your forte, then track down Jet Li's FEARLESS.
It has hand fighting...Pole fighting...And even sword fighting.
FEARLESS is inspired by a real-life Chinese martial arts master.
Jet Li from ROMEO MUST DIE and HERO plays this legendary figure, whose martial arts style and fearless fight helped the people in China regain their pride in the early 20th century when China was intimidated and humiliated by the growing Western and Japanese powers.
Li is superb, and if you like films full of fighting, then FEARLESS is the movie you need to find this week.
The fourth of five films I have for you in this Couch Potato Report is a horror movie set in a cave.
It is called THE DESCENT.
In the film a group of female friends get trapped in a mountain cave due to a rockfall.
As they try and find a way out of the caves they start to realize that time, and lack of oxygen aren't their only enemies.
They are also being pursued by a strange breed of predators.
In a day and age when almost every film released stars and is for people between the ages of 18 and 25, the most positive thing I can say about THE DESCENT is the fact that it stars adults, making adult decisions...and trying to come to grips with the adult consequences.
Other than that, THE DESCENT is only, and I hate to say this, but the creativity of my statement is on par with the film itself - THE DESCENT is only a decent horror film.
It doesn't deserve to be buried under rocks, but I'm not sure everyone needs to see it on the shelves at your local store either.
Okay, the final release this week is a little known film about some SNAKES ON A PLANE.
Since this film was released in theatres back in August "professional critics" have been falling over each other to tell you how bad it is, why it doesn't work, how fake the computer generated snakes look, and anything else negative that they can say about it.
Truth is, this isn't a film for "professional critics."
It is a film for people who would be interested in seeing a movie called SNAKES ON A PLANE.
I saw this film sitting in a jam packed theatre the night it came out, and I watched it again this week at home on DVD.
I enjoyed it both times.
It is everything a film called SNAKES ON A PLANE should be!
If you think you'd be interested in seeing an action film with Samuel L. Jackson about snakes on a plane, then go ahead and enjoy!
Otherwise, there are plenty of other selections now available on DVD on the shelves at your favourite local home entertainment store, including the only decent THE DESCENT, JET LI'S superb martial arts film FEARLESS, the fun to watch Canadian film THINGS TO DO and the potential Academy Award nominee THE WAR TAPES.
Coming up in the next Couch Potato Report
Ricky Gervais followed up his superb BBC series THE OFFICE with the spectacular series EXTRAS and SEASON ONE is now available on DVD with guest stars Patrick Stewart, Kate Winslet and Ben Stiller.
Also next week, in THE ILLUSIONIST a magician uses his abilities to secure the love of a woman far above his social standing and in THE NIGHT LISTENER a radio announcer begins communicating with his biggest fan, but when questions about the boy's identity come up, the host's life is thrown into chaos.
I always hate it when radio announcer's lives are thrown into chaos!!
I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some 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 time on The Couch!
Wonder Woman Sophia Bush
Freshly divorced, actress Sophia Bush may now be ready to take on a new role as Wonder Woman.
Moviehole.net reports that Joss Whedon's remake of the movie based on the DC Comic Wonder Woman has still to confirm an actress for the role of the leading lady.
Bush is the latest rumoured contender for the part, as she has yet to deny the buzz of her possible new character. When questioned about her participation in the movie, she simply answered, "Maybe."
Others rumoured for the part include Jessica Biel, Morena Baccarin, and Charisma Carpenter.
DGA Snubs Eastwood--Twice
Last year, Clint Eastwood was presented with the Directors Guild of America's ultimate honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award. This year, the Hollywood icon was presented with absolutely nada.
Eastwood got snubbed twice by the DGA on Tuesday as the group unveiled its nominee list for Best Director--make that, its Eastwood-free nominee list.
Martin Scorsese (The Departed), Bill Condon (Dreamgirls), Stephen Frears (The Queen), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel) and the tandem behind Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, all made the cut.
Eastwood (Flags of Our Fathers) and Eastwood (Letters from Iwo Jima) didn't.
Up until the DGA nominations, Eastwood seemed a safe bet for at least one Best Director berth at the Oscars. He did well at the critics awards (thanks to Iwo Jima, typically), and, at the Golden Globes, he scored directing nods for both World War II films.
But now, having been denied by the DGA (and his films having been denied last week by the Producers Guild), Eastwood will be fighting history--a tough task even for the Man With No Name.
Last year, the DGA field turned out to be Oscar's Best Director field, from little-known Bennett Miller (Capote) to big-winner Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain).
As the DGA perennially reminds, its feature-film directing award is an almost-flawless predictor of Oscar success. Since the DGA began dispensing trophies in 1949, 51 of 57 DGA winners to date have gone onto become Best Director winners at the Academy Awards.
While none of this is good news to Eastwood, all of this is good news to the usually luckless Scorsese, who brings experience, as well as a certain amount of angst, to a field of DGA nominee newbies.
Scorsese's nod for The Departed is his seventh. He's never won. A model of consistency, Scoreses has been nominated seven times for writing and directing Oscars, and never won.
Frears, whose credits include High Fidelity and Dangerous Liaisons, notches his first feature-film DGA nomination for The Queen. Back in 1991, Frears managed a feat that could give hope to all of Tuesday's snubees (including United 93's Paul Greengrass): He netted a Best Directing Oscar nomination for The Grifters without the benefit of a DGA nomination.
Bill Condon, the writer behind the Oscar juggernaut that was Chicago, is the director behind the Oscar juggernaut that could be Dreamgirls. An Academy Award-winning writer for Gods and Monsters, he's another first-time DGA nominee.
González Iñárritu has been compiling love letters from critics since Amores Perros made a splash at Cannes in 2000. His nomination for Babel, however, is his first sign of encouragement from the DGA.
First time was the charm for Dayton and Faris, the husband-and-wife team and music-video veterans who made their feature-film directing debut with Little Miss Sunshine. On the heels of their comedy's PGA Best Picture nomination, the little comedy about winning and losing looks like it may well get a chance to do both in Oscar's top categories.
With her shared nomination, Faris becomes the only the sixth woman to rate a DGA feature-film nod, and the first since Sofia Coppola was in the game for Lost in Translation in 2004.
The DGA winner will be announced at the guild's 59th annual dinner, scheduled for Feb. 3 in Los Angeles. Carl Reiner (The Jerk), Paris Barclay (NYPD Blue, Cold Case, etc.) and Taylor Hackford (Ray) are among those to be presented with special awards.
If Scorsese loses (again), he can at least take pride in the Best Director honor he scored Monday from the Online Film Critics Society. Other top winners in that contest: United 93, named Best Picture; and, per usual, The Last King of Scotland's Forest Whitaker and The Queen's Helen Mirren, named Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively.
And the shiny mantel pieces don't stop coming. The Golden Globes are Monday. Oscar nominations are due out Jan. 23.
Ripken, Gwynn elected to Hall of Fame
NEW YORK - Mark McGwire fell far short in his first try for the Hall of Fame, picked by 23.5 percent of voters while Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. easily gained baseball's highest honor.
Tarnished by accusations of steroid use, McGwire appeared on 128 of a record 545 ballots in voting released Tuesday by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
Ripken was picked by 537 voters, appearing on 98.5 percent of ballots, falling just short of the record percentage of 98.84 set by Tom Seaver when he was selected on 425 of 430 ballots in 1992.
Gwynn was just behind with 532 votes, 97.6 percent.
LG offers dual-format DVD
LAS VEGAS -- A new high-definition DVD player is offering a glimmer of hope for those hopelessly confused by the Betamax-vs.-VHS-style format war currently being waged in the arena of next-generation living room entertainment.
But the hope comes at a steep price.
At the kickoff of this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, LG Electronics announced it will be releasing a high-definition DVD player that will play both Blu-ray and HD DVD movies, meaning film fans will be able to buy movies in either of the competing formats and have them play on a single device.
"Through the dual-format HD player, LG has eliminated the fear of having to commit to one technology and made this innovation accessible to everyone," LG Electronics Canada spokesman Frank Lee said yesterday.
The LG SMB-007 -- Super Multi Blue player -- will be available this spring for $1,499.
While the cost of the all-in-one player will certainly cause some eyes to water, Lee said it's not uncommon for a new technology to come at a premium price. "We need to remind ourselves that no more than 20 years ago an entry-level mono VCR was being sold at $1,199," he said.
Apart from the sticker shock, the Super Multi Blue player comes with another caveat -- it's less a perfect melding of the two technologies than it is a Blu-ray player that also happens to support HD DVD playback. The much-touted interactive menu features of the next-gen DVD formats will be functional only for Blu-ray movies played on the device, not HD DVD flicks.
The ongoing format war between the Blu-ray and HD DVD technologies has been compared to the Betamax versus VHS dust-up of the late '70s and early '80s. So far, HD DVD players have seen better sales, although the Blu-ray format enjoys greater support from the major Hollywood studios.
Lee said the consumer will ultimately decide whether Blu-ray or HD DVD emerges triumphant in the format war, but that the new hybrid player will serve the needs of those who want to cover both bases without buying two devices.
The sprawling LG booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center drew throngs of curious onlookers yesterday, many of whom were gathered around a Super Multi Blue display showing a Blu-ray movie running on one of the new players and an HD DVD movie on another. Even Hollywood megaproducer Jerry Bruckheimer stopped by briefly to check the device out.
'Bon Cop' tops Genie nominations
TORONTO (CP) -- The bilingual cop action film "Bon Cop, Bad Cop," one of the top-grossing films in Canadian history, picked up a handful of Genie nominations on Tuesday, including best picture and best actor nods for its two male stars.
But it was "The Rocket," the moving film about hockey legend Maurice Richard and the rise of Quebec nationalism, that received the lion's share of nominations, receiving 13 nods in 19 Genie categories, including best picture.
Roy Dupuis also got a best actor nomination for his turn as the beloved Habitant.
Three other films rounded out the best picture category: "Trailer Park Boys: The Movie," "La petite guide de la vengeance (The Little Book of Vengeance)," and "Un dimanche a Kigali (A Sunday in Kigali)."
"Bon Cop's" Colm Feore and Patrick Huard, who play bickering cops from Ontario and Quebec, respectively, as they try to solve a chain of hockey-related serial killings, join Dupuis in the best actor category. Olivier Gourmet in "Congorama" and Luc Picard in "Un dimanche a Kigali" were also nominated. It was Picard's second nomination in as many years; he got a nod last year for his work in "L'Audition."
In the best actress category, 12-year-old Jodelle Ferland, the Vancouver actress best known for her turn in "Silent Hill," was nominated for her starring role in the stomach-churning "Tideland." The Terry Gilliam horror film was funded in part by Telefilm Canada and was one of the most critically reviled movies of the year.
Julie Le Breton also got a nod for "The Rocket," Fatou N'Diaye for "Un dimanche a Kigali," Ginette Reno for "Le secret de ma mere" and American actress Sigourney Weaver for "Snow Cake."
While Ricky, Bubbles and Julian were shut out in the acting categories, their "Trailer Park Boys" co-star, Hugh Dillon, picked up a best supporting actor nod for his portrayal of Sonny, the sinister owner of the boys' favourite strip club.
"Bon Cop, Bad Cop" -- considered the top-grossing Canadian film of all time if inflation isn't taken into account ("Porky's" would still be ahead in today's dollars) had a total of 10 nominations, "Un dimanche a Kigali" had seven and "Tideland" had six, most of them in production categories.
The Genies, honouring the best in Canadian cinema, will be handed out Feb. 13 in a gala to be broadcast on Citytv.
...The 2007 Genie nominees
BEST MOTION PICTURE
BON COP, BAD COP - Kevin Tierney
GUIDE DE LA PETITE VENGEANCE / THE LITTLE BOOK OF REVENGE - Roger Frappier, Luc Vandal
MAURICE RICHARD / THE ROCKET - Denise Robert, Daniel Louis
TRAILER PARK BOYS: THE MOVIE - Barrie Dunn, Mike Clattenburg, Michael Volpe
UN DIMANCHE A KIGALI / A SUNDAY IN KIGALI - Lyse Lafontaine, Michael Mosca
ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTION/PRODUCTION DESIGN
JEAN BECOTTE - Bon Cop, Bad Cop
MARY-ANN LIU, ATHENA WONG - Eve and the Fire Horse
MICHEL PROULX - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
FRANCOIS SEGUIN - La Rage de l'ange / Angel's Rage
JASNA STEFANOVIC - Tideland
ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN
MICHELLINE AMAAQ - The Journals of Knud Rasmussen
SANDY BUCK - Eve and the Fire Horse
FRANCESCA CHAMBERLAND - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
MARIO DAVIGNON - Tideland
ANNIE DUFORT - La Vie secrete des gens heureux / The Secret Life of Happy People
ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
BRUCE CHUN - Bon Cop, Bad Cop
STEVE COSENS - Snow Cake
PIERRE GILL - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
JAN KIESSER - Beowulf & Grendel
NICOLA PECORINI - Tideland
ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTION
ERIK CANUEL - Bon Cop, Bad Cop
JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT - Guide de la Petite Vengeance / The Little Book of Revenge
CHARLES BINAME - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
ROBERT FAVREAU - Un dimanche a Kigali / A Sunday in Kigali
STEPHANE LAPOINTE - La Vie secrete des gens heureux / The Secret Life of Happy People
ACHIEVEMENT IN EDITING
MICHEL ARCAND - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
JEAN-FRANCOIS BERGERON - Bon Cop, Bad Cop
FREDERIQUE BROOS - Congorama
MICHEL GROU - Cheech
LESLEY WALKER - Tideland
ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC - ORIGINAL SCORE
NORMAND CORBEIL - Cheech
MICHEL CUSSON - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
PIERRE DESROCHERS - La Vie secrete des gens heureux / The Secret Life of Happy People
HILMAR ORN HILMARSSON - Beowulf & Grendel
JEAN ROBITAILLE - Sans elle / Without Her
ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC - ORIGINAL SONG
BRAMWELL TOVEY, RICHARD BELL - Eighteen - In a Heartbeat
DAN BIGRAS - La Rage de l'ange / Angel's Rage - L'Astronaute
PATRICK WATSON, CAROLINE DHAVERNAS - La belle bete / The Beautiful Beast - Trace-Moi
ERIC LAPOINTE, STEPHANE DUFOUR, JAMIL - Bon Cop, Bad Cop - Tattoo
JENNIFER KREISBERG - Unnatural & Accidental - Have Hope
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
ROY DUPUIS - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
COLM FEORE - Bon Cop, Bad Cop
OLIVIER GOURMET - Congorama
PATRICK HUARD - Bon Cop, Bad Cop
LUC PICARD - Un dimanche a Kigali / A Sunday in Kigali
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
HUGH DILLON - Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
ROBERT JOY - Whole New Thing
CHAN CHIT MAN LESTER - Eve and the Fire Horse
STEPHEN MCHATTIE - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
MICHEL MULLER - Guide de la Petite Vengeance / The Little Book of Revenge
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
JODELLE FERLAND - Tideland
JULIE LE BRETON - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
FATOU N'DIAYE - Un dimanche a Kigali / A Sunday in Kigali
GINETTE RENO - Le secret de ma mere
SIGOURNEY WEAVER - Snow Cake
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
CAROLINE DHAVERNAS - Niagara Motel
MARIE GIGNAC - La Vie secrete des gens heureux / The Secret Life of Happy People
EMILY HAMPSHIRE - Snow Cake
CARRIE ANNE MOSS - Snow Cake
VIVIAN WU - Eve and the Fire Horse
ACHIEVEMENT IN OVERALL SOUND
DANIEL PELLERIN, GASHTASEB ARIANA, JEFF CARTER - Eve and the Fire Horse
CLAUDE HAZANAVICIUS, CLAUDE BEAUGRAND, LUC BOUDRIAS, BERNARD GARIEPY STROBL - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
DOMINIQUE CHARTRAND, GAVIN FERNANDES, NATHALIE MORIN, PIERRE PAQUET - Bon Cop, Bad Cop
DAVID LEE, DOUGLAS COOPER, ROBERT FARR - Tideland
MARIE-CLAUDE GAGNE, CLAUDE LA HAYE, HANS PETER STROBL, BERNARD GARIEPY STROBL - Un dimanche a Kigali / A Sunday in Kigali
ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING
PIERRE-JULES AUDET, GUY FRANCOEUR, GUY PELLETIER - Cheech
CLAUDE BEAUGRAND, OLIVIER CALVERT, JEROME DECARIE, NATALIE FLEURANT, FRANCINE POIRIER - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
CHRISTIAN RIVEST, VALERY DUFORT-BOUCHER, TCHAE MEASROCH - Bon Cop, Bad Cop
MARIE-CLAUDE GAGNE - Un dimanche a Kigali / A Sunday in Kigali
JANE TATTERSALL, BARRY GILMORE, DAVID MCCALLUM, DONNA POWELL, DAVE ROSE-Beowulf & Grendel
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
PHILIPPE FALARDEAU - Congorama
KEN SCOTT - Guide de la Petite Vengeance / The Little Book of Revenge
KEN SCOTT - Maurice Richard / The Rocket
MARTIN GIRARD, GHYSLAINE COTE - Le secret de ma mere
STEPHANE LAPOINTE - La Vie secrete des gens heureux / The Secret Life of Happy People
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
MIKE CLATTENBURG, ROBB WELLS - Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
FRANCOIS LETOURNEAU - Cheech
ROBERT FAVREAU, GIL COURTEMANCHE - Un dimanche a Kigali / A Sunday in Kigali
BEST DOCUMENTARY
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES - Jennifer Baichwal, Nick de Pencier, Gerry Flahive, Daniel Iron, Peter Starr
LA PLANETE BLANCHE / THE WHITE PLANET - Jean Lemire, Thierry Piantanida, Thierry Ragobert
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT DRAMA
BIG GIRL - Renuka Jeyapalan, Anneli Ekborn, Michael Gelfand
HIRO - Matthew Swanson, Oliver-Barnet Lindsay
JACK ET JACQUES - Marie-Helene Copti
LE ROUGE AU SOL / RED - Maxime Giroux, Paul Barbeau
SNAPSHOTS FOR HENRY - Teresa Hannigan, Charlotte Disher
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
THE DANISH POET - Torill Kove, Lise Fearnley, Marcy Page
HISTOIRE TRAGIQUE AVEC FIN HEUREUSE / TRAGIC STORY WITH HAPPY ENDING - Regina Pessoa, Patrick Eveno, Abi Feijo, Jacques-Remy Girerd, Marcel Jean
Apple unveils long-awaited phone, TV box
SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday unveiled a new mobile phone that downloads and plays music as well as a set-top box that allows people to stream video from their computers to their televisions.
Jobs said Apple's iPhone would "reinvent" the telecommunications sector and "leapfrog" past the current generation of hard-to-use smart phones.
"Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," he said during his keynote address at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo. "It's very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. ... Apple's been very fortunate in that it's introduced a few of these."
Apple shares jumped 5 percent on the announcements.
Jobs demonstrated the phone's music capabilities by playing "Lovely Rita, Meter Maid," from the Beatles' "Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band."
IPhone uses a patented touch-screen technology Apple is calling "multi-touch."
"We're going to use a pointing device that we're all born with," Jobs said. "It works like magic. ... It's far more accurate than any touch display ever shipped. It ignores unintended touches. It's super smart."
The phone automatically synchs your media — movies, music, photos — through Apple's iTunes digital content store. The device also synchs e-mail content, Web bookmarks and nearly any type of digital content stored on your computer.
"It's just like an iPod," Jobs said, "charge and synch."
IPhone is less than a half-inch thin — less than almost any phone on the market today. It comes with a 2-megapixel digital camera built into the back, as well as a slot for headphones and a SIM card. Jobs did not immediately provide details on price or availability.
Jobs also said the company will begin taking orders Tuesday for $299 video box, called Apple TV. It will be available in February.
The gadget is designed to bridge computers and television sets so users can more easily watch their downloaded movies on a big screen. A prototype of the gadget was displayed by Jobs in September when Apple announced it would sell TV shows and movies through its iTunes online store.
The product could be as revolutionary to digital movies as Apple's iPod music player was to digital music. Both devices liberate media from the computer, allowing people to enjoy digital files without being chained to a desktop or laptop.
"It's really, really easy to use," Jobs told the crowd at San Francisco's Moscone Center before demonstrating the system with a video clip of "The Good Shepherd." "It's got the processing horsepower to do the kinds of things we like to do."
Apple TV will come with a 40-gigabyte hard drive that stores up to 50 hours of video. It features an Intel Corp. microprocessor and can handle videos, photos and music streamed from up to five computers within the wireless range.
Jobs also said Apple has sold more than 2 billion songs on its popular iTunes music download service, catapulting the company into the top ranks of music sellers worldwide. Apple, which sells 58 songs per second, or 5 million songs a day, sells more songs than Amazon.com and ranks behind only Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target as a music retailer.
"We couldn't be happier with the growth rate of iTunes," Jobs said.
He said Apple will sell digital movies from Paramount. Apple has partnered with Disney for several months, offering about 100 movies on iTunes. With Paramount's selection, it will have 250 movies available for downloading on the site.
With Tuesday's launches, it remains to be seen whether the leading seller of digital music players can colonize an entirely new category of gadgets. Apple could use a megahit along the lines of its iconic iPod to divert investors' attention from the stock options-backdating scandal that has tainted its reputation.
The backdating of stock options, which has been widespread among Silicon Valley companies, involves pegging stock options to favorable grant dates in the past to boost the recipients' award. It isn't necessarily illegal, but securities laws require companies to properly disclose the practice in their accounting and settle any charges that may result.
In a December filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Apple said Jobs was aware of, or recommended the selection of, some favorable grant dates but he neither benefited financially from them nor "appreciated the accounting implications."
Apple shares were up $4.29 to $89.76 in midday trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $50.16 to $93.16.
Piven and Cusack friendship may be over
NEW YORK - Jeremy Piven played second banana to his friend John Cusack until his recent breakthrough in HBO's "Entourage," winning an Emmy Award last year for his role as sharklike agent Ari Gold.
Now Piven and Cusack, who studied acting at Chicago's Piven Theatre Workshop, which was run by Piven's parents, appear to be on the outs, or so Piven suggests in an interview in the February issue of Best Life magazine, on newsstands Friday.
"No comment. I mean, you could fill in the blank, I bet," the 41-year-old actor says when asked how Cusack has handled Piven's recent success.
Piven played supporting roles to Cusack in films such as "Say Anything," "Gross Pointe Blank" and "Runaway Jury" before getting his big break on "Entourage."
"... I was always proud of him, and I was always in his corner," Piven says of the 40-year-old Cusack. "Always."
The Associated Press was attempting Tuesday to reach a representative for Cusack, who stars in "Grace Is Gone," which will be shown at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, later this month.
Piven, who co-stars with Ben Affleck in the upcoming film "Smokin' Aces," a Universal Studios release, says he values loyalty.
"It just says so much about a person if he has space for other people's success," he says.
"I have always been so proud of my friends' success. I own that proudly because I come by it naturally. I was raised on that spirit of collaboration. ... You start getting into trouble in life when you start comparing and contrasting your life to anyone else's. You don't win when you do that."