New Mr. Bean film to be his last
MONTREAL (CP) - Better get your fill of Mr. Bean in his new movie because it's probably the last time you're going to see him.
Rowan Atkinson says that with the completion of "Mr. Bean's Holiday," his dim-witted character will probably fall silent for good. "I think it is true that it might be his last outing," Atkinson said as he arrived for the North American premiere of the movie on Tuesday. "I think it's unlikely that I will do any more Mr. Bean, highly unlikely.
"It's not impossible. You must never say never, so I'm never going to say never but I think it's unlikely."
If the character has run his course, as Atkinson suggests, he's had a full life. Mr. Bean has gone from sketch comedy on stage, to international stardom on TV, before making the jump to the big screen in two films, all without uttering a full sentence.
With his reliance on physical rather than verbal comedy, Mr. Bean has been catapulted to pop culture icon status. Atkinson has even been dubbed the modern Charlie Chaplin for his loopy exploits.
Appropriately, "Mr. Bean's Holiday" premiered at Montreal's Just for Laughs comedy festival, the same place North Americans got their first look at Mr. Bean during an appearance by Atkinson in 1987.
Fans have gone without new Bean adventures for a few years, but Atkinson chuckles when it's suggested the character has been off the cultural radar.
"He tends to appear quite constantly on television repeats, but in filmic form we haven't seen him since 1997."
Atkinson says he decided to revisit the character for a movie because he wasn't completely happy with the 1997 film "Bean."
"We were determined that one day we would make another movie because I always felt that the first Mr. Bean movie lacked in certain areas," he said.
"It was very successful and I think it's quite a funny movie, but it was a very American style movie whereas I think this is a slightly more European style. I think it's still funny, but it's got quite a different tone to the first film."
In "Mr. Bean's Holiday," the hapless Bean wins a vacation trip to France as well as a video camera.
But it's not just the language barrier that Bean has to hurdle when he reaches France. Things as simple as carrying coffee on a train, tackling a seafood platter or driving - a Mr. Bean staple - throw him for a loop with chaotic results.
The plot thickens when he accidently separates a Russian film director and his son at a train station as they head for Cannes and then tries to reunite them, only to have the vacation footage from his video camera screened at the famous film festival.
Atkinson chuckles when he's asked if he or the ever-silent Mr. Bean picked up any French making the movie, which was shot in France. In it, Mr. Bean answers "Gracias" when he's complimented on his French, which seems to consist simply of "oui" and "non."
"Sadly despite the fact that "Mr. Bean's Holiday" was shot almost entirely in France and I was there for three months with an entirely French crew, I managed to advance my French-speaking almost not at all."
Crowds lined up for the premiere Tuesday as Atkinson fielded questions in a series of rapid-fire interviews. He said he's not surprised at Mr. Bean's popularity or longevity.
"If I had to be honest, no, it hasn't surprised me very much because in many ways that's why he was conceived. He was conceived to be a timeless, ageless character with international appeal.
"I always felt sort of deep inside me that it had the potential to have a global acceptance, you might say, and so it has turned out to be."
"Mr. Bean's Holiday" goes into wide release next month.
Vintage AC/DC, Nirvana still big-sellers
NEW YORK - Much of the rock 'n' roll and pop canon is well established.
Buying the albums of `60s and `70s acts like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley is akin to a rite of passage for any young music fan. These are the artists that baby boomers love to keep buying, and with whom seemingly every teenager at some point experiments. (Remember A.J. hearing Bob Dylan for the first time in the "Sopranos" finale?)
Now that the `80s and `90s are ancient history, what albums are people still buying from those decades? Do critical favorites like Radiohead and the Pixies grow more popular with time? Or do the Backstreet Boys and Madonna still rule the charts?
The short answer is that, above all, people are buying vintage Metallica, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Guns 'N Roses and, well, Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
AC/DC's "Back in Black" (1980) last year sold 440,000 copies and has thus far sold 156,000 this year, according to the Nielsen SoundScan catalog charts, which measure how well physical albums older than two years old are selling. (All figures for this article were provided by Nielsen SoundScan.)
Those "Back in Black" numbers would make most contemporary CDs a success. Metallica's self-titled 1991 album is altogether the second-biggest selling album of the Nielsen SoundScan era, which began in 1991. "Metallica" sold 275,000 copies last year.
Bon Jovi's greatest hits collection "Cross Road" last year sold 324,000 copies, while Guns 'N Roses "Appetite for Destruction" (1987) sold 113,000. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" (1996) continues to be a holiday favorite; it was bought 289,000 times last year.
Greatest hits compilations are counted as catalog releases, and account for the majority of vintage best-sellers. Artists that commercially peaked in the `80s or `90s that have had lucrative best-of collections include Garth Brooks, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tim McGraw, Creed, Queen, Tom Petty, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Def Leppard, Aerosmith and Lionel Richie.
U2, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Celine Dion, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Dave Matthews Band and the ever-touring Jimmy Buffett also all continue to sell large amounts of old records.
Michael Jackson, of course, still has one of the most desirable back catalogs. His best- selling "Thriller" moves over 60,000 copies a year and his "Number Ones" collection yielded 162,000 sales last year.
Avid fans may be buying everything their favorite artist puts out, but there's more than nostalgia fueling vintage sales.
"Young fans aren't excluded from catalog sales — especially the ones who really get interested in music, there's always that sense of discovery," says Geoff Mayfield, the director of charts at Billboard Magazine.
Not everything maintains long-term success. Asia's self-titled 1982 album was the biggest seller of 1982, but only sold 5,000 copies last year. Whitney Houston's 1985 debut, also self-titled, was 1986's top album, but now sells about 7,000 discs a year.
The same trajectory has befallen past mega-hits like Ace of Base's "The Sign," Bobby Brown's "Don't Be Cruel" and the Spice Girl's "Spice." Though one of the best selling artists of all time, Mariah Carey's self-titled debut sold a measly 5,000 copies last year. The Backstreet Boys' "Millennium" managed only 9,000 sales.
Alas, the turning wheel of fortune isn't always kind to boy bands.
"The only thing that kept coming to mind to me was that line in the Bruce Springsteen song: `Someday we'll look back at this and it will all seem funny,'" recalls Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke.
Now, some critical hits that were trounced on their initial release by the likes of 'N Sync can claim a measure of commercial superiority. The Flaming Lips' "Soft Bulletin," often hailed as one of the best albums of the `90s by critics, sold a solid 38,000 copies last year.
Radiohead's legendary "OK Computer," currently celebrating its 10-year anniversary, last year sold 94,000 copies. Nirvana's "Nevermind" has done even better; it sold 143,000 copies in 2006.
Current events can alter the charts. When Ray Charles died, his older albums spiked for months, says Mayfield. A new album from Alanis Morissette would surely increase sales of her 1995 disc "Jagged Little Pill," one of the best selling albums of the past 20 years.
Likewise, recent reunions of the Police and Genesis can be expected to increase sales of their catalogs. The Police's 1986 compilation "Every Breath You Take" has already doubled its already strong 2006 sales by selling 107,000 copies so far this year.
Many well-regarded albums continue to do healthy business, including: U2's "Joshua Tree," Dr. Dre's "The Chronic," Beck's "Odelay," Wu-Tang Clan's "Enter the Wu-Tang," the Clash's "London Calling," Weezer's "Weezer," and the Pixies' "Doolittle." Each sold at least 20,000 copies last year.
Still, many albums that are consistently revered on critic top-ten lists of the `80s and `90s have not sold much. Joy Division's "Closer," the Smiths' "The Queen is Dead," My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless," and REM's "Murmur" all sold 12,000 copies or less last year.
Labels often reissue classic releases to capitalize on the devotion of die-hard fans and to attract a new audience. In the past few years, revered indie label Matador Records has released Pavement's first three albums, including "Slanted and Enchanted," a disc frequently ranked among the best in the `90s.
"It's almost like a new release for us," says Matador founder Chris Lombardi. "We probably sold in a one-year period, pretty much what those records sold in their first year period when they were initially released."
Though hip-hop continues to rule today's charts, many of its most historic albums don't enjoy the catalog sales that those from rock's heyday do. Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" sold 15,000 copies last year; Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique" sold 22,000; and Run DMC's "Raising Hell" sold far less than both.
So far this year, catalog sales are down 11.7 percent, but that's stronger than overall sales, which are down 14.7 percent, according to Billboard. It's a major portion of the music business. This year's total catalog sales of 95.6 million copies accounts for about 40 percent of all albums sold physically.
When people switched from cassette tapes to compact discs, catalog sales received a windfall as people re-bought their collections. The onset of digital downloading hasn't had that affect because CDs can easily be downloaded to your iPod, but digital stores do have the advantage of unlimited (virtual) store space to sell older music.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has pegged catalog downloads as 64 percent of all download sales in the U.S. (Apple declined to share its iTunes data on catalog sales.)
That still leaves illegal downloads unaccounted for, as well as a more important quantity: cultural impact. Though bands like Sonic Youth, the Ramones and Public Enemy may never sell as much as other acts, their influence remains immeasurable.
"Impact is not strictly about sales," says Fricke. "Otherwise everyone would be running around forming bands that sound exactly like Poison."
Raincoast pleads with Potter fans to keep final book a secret
TORONTO (CP) - Raincoast Books is pleading with Harry Potter fans to keep the boy wizard's final adventure a secret.
"We would want to make a public appeal for fans around the world to be patient until the end of this week when everybody will discover the secret together," Raincoast spokesman Jamie Broadhurst said from Vancouver.
The request came Monday after rumours that a Vancouver man had discovered the manuscript for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on a file-sharing website.
Broadhurst wouldn't comment on that specific case, but said that any potential breach of security surrounding the final Potter book - to be released Saturday at 12:01 a.m. - is being investigated.
"There will be lots and lots of speculation online. It happens every time," he said.
"There are many, many, many rumours. All those rumours do get explored."
Raincoast has gone to great lengths to keep a lid on Potter secrecy in the past. Measures have included legal action to prevent the contents of the books from being revealed before the official publication date.
New Releases, July 17: Suzanne Vega, 'Legally Blonde,' Garbage
Suzanne Vega "Beauty and Crime"
The singer/songwriter returns with her first new studio record in nearly six years. "Beauty & Crime," Vega's seventh album, follows 2001's "Songs in Red and Gray."
The new disc, which marks Vega's debut on prestigious jazz label Blue Note, was produced by Jimmy Hogarth (Sia, Corinne Bailey Rae) and features the leadoff single "Frank & Ava."
Vega will launch a tour in support of the new CD Sept. 15 in Poughkeepsie, NY.
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Various Artists "Legally Blonde (2007 Original Broadway Cast)"
Most of us know the story of Elle Woods, the pretty-in-pink sorority gal who, on a whim, decides to give law school a try. Its first incarnation came as a popular Hollywood film that starred Reese Witherspoon. It later became a musical, which had its debut in San Francisco before moving on to much success on Broadway.
Fans can now enjoy Elle's adventures on their home stereos, thank to this 2007 original Broadway cast recording. The disc features all the fan favorites, including such fun ditties as "Omigod You Guys."
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Garbage "Absolute Garbage"
The Grammy-nominated pop-rock band releases its first ever retrospective, a 17-song disc that features such well-known tracks as "Queer" and "Only Happy When It Rains." "Absolute Garbage" is also available as a limited-edition 2-CD set, which includes remixes by such big names as Massive Attack, Crystal Method and U.N.K.L.E.
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Colbie Caillat "Coco"
The SoCal singer/songwriter made a name for herself thanks to the wonders of MySpace. Now, Caillat will attempt to jump from Internet celebrity to mainstream success story with the release of her full-length CD, "Coco."
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The Chemical Brothers "We Are the Night"
The electronica pioneers crank up the samplers and keyboards once again for "We Are the Night." The band is looking to further solidify its status as one of the top electronica acts in the business, which the Chemical Brothers earned with the release of such acclaimed albums as 2005's "Push the Button" and 2002's "Come With Us."
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Other new releases:
A Fine Frenzy, "One Cell In the Sea" (Virgin)
Behemoth, "The Apostasy" (Century Media)
Canibus, "For Whom the Beat Tolls" (Micclub)
Judy Collins, "Judy Collins Sings Lennon & McCartney" (Wildflower)
Minnie Driver, "Seastories" (Zoe)
Editors, "An End Has a Start" (Fader)
Emerson Hart, "Cigarettes and Gasoline" (Manhattan)
The Knife, "Silent Shout" (Mute)
Raul Malo, "After Hours" (New Door)
Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy, "Cornell 1964" (Blue Note)
Nile, "Ithyphallic" (Nuclear Blast)
Rooney, "Calling the World" (Geffen)
Teddy Thompson, "Up Front and Down Low" (Verve Forecast)
Various Artists, "Music From the Mound" (EMI)
Various Artists, "Now, Vol. 25" (UTV)
Yellowcard, "Paper Walls" (Capitol)