Fall Out Boy Takes Flight For Release Day Shows
Fall Out Boy is reviving a tried-and-true promotional gimmick for Feb. 6, the day its new Island album, "Infinity on High," hits stores. The group will play shows in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles in the course of 24 hours, all of which will be documented by MTV.
The first stop will be the network's New York studio for a performance on "TRL," which the band will also host. In late afternoon, Fall Out Boy will play Chicago's House of Blues, and will wrap the day with a set atop a rooftop in downtown Los Angeles.
Fans can gain entry to the shows via radio stations in each market and FallOutBoy.MTV.com. A separate contest at MTVFlight206.com will reward two people the chance to fly with the band throughout the day.
In addition, Fall Out Boy will perform on the first episode of the new show "MTV Live," premiering commercial free on Feb. 6.
As reported last week, the band scored the highest bow for a band since radio-only titles joined the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1998 by debuting at No. 2 with the single "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race."
Chevy Chase is Fletch
After Chevy walked away from Saturday Night Live fame, he hit the big screen for several hits and misses, but everyone remembers Fletch. Universal is presenting a special edition DVD coming later this year.
The DVD itself will contain upgraded sound and picture with anamorphic widescreen adn Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, but so far no extras have been announced.
On May 1st the Jane Doe Edition arrives, just make sure it isn't in disguise.
High body count clouds sequel to "The Departed"
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It's hard to imagine a sequel to a movie like Oscar-nominated crime drama "The Departed," which ends in such a spasm of violence that hardly any of the lead characters are left alive.
But almost anything is possible in Hollywood when enough money is at stake. So it should come as no surprise that a follow-up to Martin Scorsese's cops-and-gangsters thriller, the biggest box-office hit of his career, is already in the works.
A person close to the situation said on Wednesday that the screenwriter behind "The Departed," William Monahan, was outlining a film script that would bring back a surviving character played by Mark Wahlberg and introduce a new role envisioned for Robert De Niro.
Neither Monahan's spokesman nor Warner Bros. Pictures, which distributed "The Departed," had any comment on sequel plans. One studio spokeswoman called talk of a possible follow-up "premature."
Representatives for Wahlberg and Scorsese could not immediately be reached. And De Niro's publicist said he was not aware of any talks involving his client, who is good friends with Scorsese.
It was Wahlberg who told MTV on the red carpet of the Golden Globe Awards earlier this month about the possibility of enlisting De Niro to star in a "Departed" follow-up.
Wahlberg earned an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor for his role in the film as a hot-headed, foul-mouthed police detective. Scorsese was nominated as best director for his work on the film.
The movie itself, adapted from the 2002 Hong Kong film "Infernal Affairs," about an undercover cop who infiltrates a crime gang to root out a police department mole, was nominated as best picture and is considered a front-runner to win Hollywood's top honor on February 25.
According to sources cited by The Hollywood Reporter, Scorsese would need to approve any plans for a new film before it could move forward.
Scorsese has never directed a sequel to any of his films, though his 1986 pool hall drama "The Color of Money" was a follow-up to 1961's "The Hustler" directed by Robert Rossen.
The original "Infernal Affairs" was followed by a "prequel," involving events leading up to the first movie, and a third film that combined elements of the first two. According to The Reporter, the idea of a prequel for "The Departed" has not been ruled out.
"The Departed" has so far grossed $125.8 million in U.S. ticket sales alone, making it by far the biggest box-office success among the five films nominated for an Academy Award as best picture.
Man arrested in Boston marketing ploy
BOSTON - Several illuminated electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. Most if not all of the devices depict a character giving the finger.
Peter Berdovsky, 29, of Arlington, was arrested on one felony charge of placing a hoax device and one charge of disorderly conduct, state Attorney General Martha Coakley said later Wednesday. He had been hired to place the devices, she said.
Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless.
Turner Broadcasting, a division of Time Warner Inc. and parent of Cartoon Network, later said the devices were part of a promotion for the TV show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," a surreal series about a talking milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball.
Authorities are investigating whether Turner and any other companies should be criminally charged, Coakley said. It wasn't immediately clear Wednesday who might have hired Berdovsky.
"We're not going to let this go without looking at the further roots of how this happened to cause the panic in this city," Coakley said at a news conference.
Those conducting the campaign should have known the devices could cause panic because they were placed in sensitive areas, she said. Turner did not notify officials of the publicity campaign until around 5 p.m., nearly four hours after the first calls came in about the devices, she and others said.
At least 14 of the devices were found, Coakley said.
"The packages in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger," Turner said in a statement.
It said the devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston; New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Atlanta; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; and Philadelphia.
"We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger," the company said. As soon as the company realized the problem, it said, law enforcement officials were told of their locations in all 10 cities.
The marketing firm that put them up, Interference Inc., has been ordered to remove them immediately, said Phil Kent, Turner chairman.
"We apologize to the citizens of Boston that part of a marketing campaign was mistaken for a public danger," Kent said. "We appreciate the gravity of this situation and, like any responsible company would, are putting all necessary resources toward understanding the facts surrounding it as quickly as possible."
Interference Inc. had no immediate comment. A woman who answered the phone at the New York-based firm's offices Wednesday afternoon said the firm's CEO was out of town and would not be able to comment until Thursday.
There were no reports from police Wednesday of residents in the other nine cities spotting similar devices.
Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke praised Boston authorities for sharing their knowledge quickly with Washington officials and the public.
"Hoaxes are a tremendous burden on local law enforcement and counter-terrorism resources and there's absolutely no place for them in a post-9/11 world," Knocke said.
Authorities said some of the objects looked like circuit boards or had wires hanging from them.
The first device was found at a subway and bus station underneath Interstate 93, forcing the shutdown of the station and the highway.
Later, police said four calls, all around 1 p.m., reported devices at the Boston University Bridge and the Longfellow Bridge, both of which span the Charles River, at a Boston street corner and at the Tufts-New England Medical Center.
The package near the Boston University bridge was found attached to a structure beneath the span, authorities said.
Subway service across the Longfellow Bridge between Boston and Cambridge was briefly suspended, and Storrow Drive was closed as well. A similar device was found Wednesday evening just north of Fenway Park, police spokesman Eddy Chrispin said.
Wanda Higgins, a 47-year-old Weymouth resident and a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, heard about the threat as she watched television news coverage while preparing to leave work at 4 p.m.
"I saw the bomb squad guys carrying a paper bag with their bare hands," Higgins said. "I knew it couldn't be too serious."
Messages seeking additional comment from the Atlanta-based Cartoon Network were left with several publicists.
"Aqua Teen Hunger Force" is a cartoon with a cultish following that airs as part of the Adult Swim late-night block of programs for adults on the Cartoon Network. A feature length film based on the show is slated for release March 23.
The cartoon also includes two trouble-making, 1980s-graphic-like characters called "mooninites," named Ignignokt and Err — who were pictured on the suspicious devices. They are known for making the obscene hand gesture depicted on the devices.