Apple plans iTunes video rentals
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Apple Inc. is planning to launch an online movie rental service by fall, although the company is meeting resistance from some Hollywood studios concerned about piracy, people familiar with the plan told The Associated Press on Monday.
Apple might try to launch the service sooner to coincide with the planned June 29 introduction of its iPhone, which will play video files, according to three people who requested anonymity because the talks are ongoing.
Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said the company "does not comment on rumor and speculation."
Apple already sells films from two major studios and a number of smaller companies. But it has not entered the online rental business, which so far has not been terribly profitable for companies such as Movielink and CinemaNow.
Several studios are reluctant to license films to Apple to rent because the company will not modify its software to make it recognize pirated content and prevent it from being transferred to an iPod or iPhone, according to the people familiar with the talks.
Those same reasons, plus objections to Apple's rigid pricing, have kept several studios, including Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric Co., Twentieth Century Fox, which is owned by News Corp., and Sony Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp. from selling its movies on iTunes.
Apple launched its online movie sales service last year with films from The Walt Disney Co.
Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs is Disney's largest shareholder and a board member. The two companies have a close relationship, with Disney being the first to sell TV shows on iTunes as well.
Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc., and a few other studios sells older titles on iTunes, as does Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
Only Disney sells films on iTunes the same day the titles are released on DVD.
TV's 'Mr. Wizard' Don Herbert dies at 89
LOS ANGELES - Don Herbert, who as television's "Mr. Wizard" introduced generations of young viewers to the joys of science, died Tuesday. He was 89. Herbert, who had bone cancer, died at his suburban Bell Canyon home, said his son-in-law, Tom Nikosey.
"He really taught kids how to use the thinking skills of a scientist," said former colleague Steve Jacobs. He worked with Herbert on a 1980s show that echoed the original 1950s "Watch Mr. Wizard" series, which became a fond baby boomer memory.
In "Watch Mr. Wizard," which was produced from 1951 to 1964 and received a Peabody Award in 1954, Herbert turned TV into an entertaining classroom. On a simple, workshop-like set, he demonstrated experiments using household items.
"He modeled how to predict and measure and analyze. ... The show today might seem slow but it was in-depth and forced you to think along," Jacobs said. "You were learning about the forces of nature."
Herbert encouraged children to duplicate experiments at home, said Jacobs, who recounted serving as a behind-the-scenes "science sidekick" to Herbert on the '80s "Mr. Wizard's World" that aired on the Nickelodeon channel.
When Jacobs would reach for beakers and flasks, Herbert would remind him that science didn't require special tools.
"'You could use a mayonnaise jar for that,'" Jacobs recalled being chided by Herbert. "He tried to bust the image of scientists and that science wasn't just for special people and places."
Herbert's place in TV history was acknowledged by later stars. When "Late Night with David Letterman" debuted in 1982, Herbert was among the first-night guests.
Born in Waconia, Minn., Herbert was a 1940 graduate of LaCrosse State Teachers College and served as a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot during World War II. He worked as an actor, model and radio writer before starting "Watch Mr. Wizard" in Chicago on NBC.
The show moved to New York after several years.
He is survived by six children and stepchildren and by his second wife, Norma, his son-in-law said. A private funeral service was planned.
Sandra Oh to host gay-themed Go radio show
Golden Globe-winning actress Sandra Oh will host the June 23 season finale of CBC Radio One's Go, titled "The Gayest Music of All Time" in honour of Gay Pride weekend across North America.
Go, usually taped before a live audience, was pretaped to accommodate the Nepean, Ont.-born star of popular medical drama Grey's Anatomy.
"She came in with her parents and had a ball taping it," said Go producer David Carroll.
The show features a mix of fun music associated with gay culture, including Cher, Pet Shop Boys, Madonna and Judy Garland.
It's one of an infrequent series on Go featuring guests hosts taking on unusual projects. Lister Sinclair once hosted a show about the masters of disco and Canadian Opera Company artistic director Richard Bradshaw hosted one featuring popular classics of love.
Oh trained at Montreal's National Theatre School and starred on the Canadian stage and in The Diary of Evelyn Lau before being drawn to the bright lights of Hollywood.
Among her movie work, Oh had a major role in Sideways, which won a best screenplay Oscar for her former husband American filmmaker Alexander Payne.
Oh earned a Golden Globe for her role on Grey's Anatomy, where she worked with Isaiah Washington, the actor who earned a rebuke, and was eventually fired, for a slur aimed at a gay colleague.
Tool Tossing Around Ideas For 'Surreal' Movie
With Tool entrenched on the road in support of its latest effort "10,000 Days," guitarist Adam Jones tells Billboard.com the alt-metal act is tossing around ideas for a band movie.
"It has to be a collective thing as far as the band members," says Jones. "Everyone has to be very happy and it has to be done in a way where people would see integrity and hard work and not just something thrown together or home movies or some sh*tty filmed live show.
"It's a selfish thing," he continues. "There's that selfish quality of what we want versus what everyone else wants. But I think at the end of the day if we get what we want, it's reflective in what other people see in that."
Jones, who is the visionary behind many of the group's music videos, says movie discussion is nothing new to the Los Angeles-based band. If the right financial backer entered the picture, it could become a reality sooner than later.
"We all have ideas about it," Jones says. "If I had my way, it would be a narrative story in a surreal fashion with as much money and special effects we could throw at it. I think some of the other guys would like to do pockets of all of that or something that's live or we're playing. It's just talk right now."
Something more concrete and far less pleasant to the band is a lawsuit filed by visual artist Cam De Leon, whose work has been closely aligned with Tool for over a decade.
"He had done some artwork that we paid him to do in the past for our band and he came with this ridiculous lawsuit saying he's the fifth member of the band and a partner and he was head of our art department," Jones says. "There is no art department. I just feel like it's total extortion. We've been fighting it and it's been really burning a hole in my stomach. It's just been very distracting."
In the meantime, Tool is busying itself on the road. After finishing a North American tour next month, the band heads to Europe for dates in August and September. "I think the album is doing well," Jones says. "We're really happy with it, people are happy with it and I think we can keep going."
Sopranos creator: movie no sure thing
NEWARK, N.J. - "Sopranos" fans who thought the series' open-ended conclusion was a setup for a movie may be in for disappointment: creator David Chase says it isn't so.
Chase went to France before the airing of the much-debated finale of the HBO series because he wanted to avoid what he called "all the Monday morning quarterbacking." But like a true New Jersey loyalist, he granted one interview to The Star-Ledger of Newark, which posted his comment early Tuesday on its Web site.
"I don't think about (a movie) much," he told the paper. "I never say never. An idea could pop into my head where I would go, `Wow, that would make a great movie,' but I doubt it.
"I'm not being coy," he added. "If something appeared that really made a good `Sopranos' movie and you could invest in it and everybody else wanted to do it, I would do it. But I think we've kind of said it and done it."
Chase said he would leave it to fans to interpret the show's last scene for themselves. It featured the members of the Soprano family arriving for dinner as Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" plays. Others in the restaurant include a man in a Member's Only jacket who goes to the bathroom, which some fans have interpreted as a nod to the scene in "The Godfather" in which Michael Corleone retrieves a gun from the bathroom before a shooting.
As the music and tension build, the screen suddenly goes silent and dark.
"I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there," said Chase, 61, who grew up in North Caldwell.
"People get the impression that you're trying to (mess) with them, and it's not true. You're trying to entertain them," he said. "Anybody who wants to watch it, it's all there."
Another problem with a movie is that so many characters died in the last season. Chase said he has considered "going back to a day in 2006 that you didn't see, but then (Tony's children) would be older than they were then and you would know that Tony doesn't get killed. It's got problems."
Chase also elaborated on how he decided to make the Journey classic the last music played on the series.
"It didn't take much time at all to pick it, but there was a lot of conversation after the fact. I did something I'd never done before: In the location van, with the crew, I was saying, `What do you think?' When I said, `Don't Stop Believin',' people went, `What? Oh my God!'
"I said, `I know, I know, just give a listen,' and little by little, people started coming around."