Canyon, newcomer Shane Yellowbird lead CCMA nominations
Newcomer Shane Yellowbird, from Hobbema, Alta., has earned five nominations for 2007 Canadian Country Music Association Awards, equalling the number for veteran country star George Canyon.
Yellowbird, whose feel-good tune Pickup Truck is the No. 1 music video on Country Music Television, released his debut album, Life is Calling My Name, in November 2006.
Now Yellowbird, a Cree whose parents participated in the rodeo circuit, has earned nominations for album of the year and the Rising Star Award, the CCMA announced Tuesday.
His album has been named for album of the year, and Pickup Truck has nominations for single of the year and earned a SOCAN Songwriter of the Year nomination for Joni Delaurier and Troy Kokol.
Nova Scotia-born Canyon, a perennial fan choice award winner at both the CCMA and East Coast Music Association Awards, has been nominated for male artist of the year and the fan choice award.
His Somebody Wrote Love is nominated for best album, and I Want You to Live, with its video showing soldiers serving overseas, has been nominated for both song of the year and video of the year.
Other multiple nominees for the CCMA Awards, to be presented Sept. 10 in Regina, include Paul Brandt, Doc Walker, Emerson Drive, Brad Johner and Carolyn Dawn Johnson, each with four nominations.
In the male artist of the year category, Canyon is competing against Calgary singer-songwriter Brandt, Vancouver-born Aarong Pritchett, hot soloist Johner, formerly a member of the duo The Johner Brothers, and Glasgow-born, Canadian-bred Johnny Reid.
Johnson, a Deadwood, Alta., native and multiple CCMA award winner, is named for female artist of the year, with Vancouver singer-songwriter Lisa Brokop, veteran star Terri Clark, Montreal's Patricia Conroy and newcomer Jessie Farrell.
The nominations for the top indie artists of the year — with Johner, Reid, Yellowbird, Brokop and Conroy turning up again — are so similar to the lists for male and female artist of the year that the CCMA is considering changing the criteria for the indie awards.
Heather Ostertag, chair of the CCMA, said the overwhelming move to independent recording by Canada's country artists has meant many well-established stars are turning up in the indie categories, originally created to give recognition to newcomers.
"It's one of the big discussions we have to have in Regina this year," she told CBC News. "Perhaps we might have to change the criteria for this award … so it focuses more on the emerging artists."
The other nominees for male artist of the year are Gord Bamford and Corb Lund, while Diane Chase, Lisa Hewitt and Beverley Mahood are on the nomination list of indie female singers.
Winnipeg band Doc Walker, a Fan Choice nominee, is also up for group or duo of the year, with country trio Ambush, Emerson Drive of Grande Prairie, Alta., Ontario's The Road Hammers and The Wilkinsons of Belleville, Ont.
Ambush and The Wilkinsons are also among the indie group nominees, with The Cruzeros, the Poverty Plainsmen and veteran band Prairie Oyster.
Country Music Week will be held Sept. 7-10 in Regina.
"We are excited to return to a community that the CCMA has not been to in 30 years," Ostertag said.
The award ceremony on Sept. 10 will be broadcast on CBC and CMT and here is the complete list of nominees.
Male artist
Paul Brandt
George Canyon
Brad Johner
Aaron Pritchett
Johnny Reid
Female artist
Lisa Brokop
Terri Clark
Patricia Conroy
Jessie Farrell
Carolyn Dawn Johnson
Group or duo
Ambush
Doc Walker
Emerson Drive
The Road Hammers
The Wilkinsons
Roots artist
The Cruzeros
Sean Hogan
Corb Lund
Prairie Oyster
Jimmy Rankin
Rising Star
Jason Blaine
Jessie Farrell
Jo Hikk
Brett Kissel
Donny Parenteau
Shane Yellowbird
Indie male artist
Gord Bamford
Brad Johner
Corb Lund
Johnny Reid
Shane Yellowbird
Indie female artist
Lisa Brokop
Diane Chase
Patricia Conroy
Lisa Hewitt
Beverley Mahood
Indie group or duo
Ambush
The Cruzeros
The Poverty Plainsmen
Prairie Oyster
The Wilkinsons
Best single
Driving With the Brakes On, Doc Walker
I Want You to Live, George Canyon
I'd Rather Be Lucky, Brad Johner
Moments, Emerson Drive
Pickup Truck, Shane Yellowbird
Best album
Countrified, Emerson Drive
Doc Walker, Doc Walker
Life Is Calling My Name, Shane Yellowbird
Love & Negotiation, Carolyn Dawn Johnson
Somebody Wrote Love, George Canyon
Johansson Won't Play Jameson
Scarlett Johansson has laughed off claims she will play porn star Jenna Jameson in a Hollywood biopic.
Jameson herself prompted reports at the Comic Con convention in San Diego, California in July, when she said of the actress' performance in Lost In Translation, "I remember thinking to myself, this girl has such a sexuality without even really trying to be sexy. I was like, 'This girl could play me.' I love her. She's amazing. She's smart, she's funny. ... She's stunning. I don't want someone who's going to go in there and be like bouncing around. I want someone who can bring some depth."
But Johansson knows nothing of the film project - based on Jameson's book How to Make Love Like A Porn Star - which is to be titled Heartbreaker.
Her representative tells People.com, "Scarlett has never seen a script nor been approached about this project. She also has no interest in playing this role."
China passes on Chan's `Rush Hour 3'
HONG KONG - Jackie Chan's new action comedy, "Rush Hour 3," won't be shown in China.
"We think the market for the movie is relatively weak," Xiao Ping, a vice president at state-run China Film Group's import and export arm, said Tuesday.
The Chinese government carefully screens foreign media content and allows only about 20 foreign films a year to be shown.
Ping said "Rush Hour 3" was up against some tough competition.
China has already imported several Hollywood blockbusters, including "Transformers," "Spider-Man 3" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."
But Hollywood trade publication Variety reported on its Asian Web site Tuesday that Chinese officials believe "Rush Hour 3," which stars Chan and Chris Tucker as buddy cops taking on a Chinese crime family in Paris, is "fundamentally anti-Chinese."
Xiao said she didn't know whether film executives were concerned about scenes of Chinese gangsters.
New Line Cinema said it had no comment.
Chan, 53, and Tucker, 34, have co-starred in all three "Rush Hour" movies. The trilogy, directed by Brett Ratner, began in 1998.
The loss of the China market isn't a major blow to filmmakers. Chinese box-office income remains much smaller than in the U.S. A movie that makes tens of millions of U.S. dollars in China can be considered a hit, while U.S. box office winners can make hundreds of millions.
"Rush Hour 3" is set for release in the U.S. on Aug. 10.
Movie critics' Web site to post reviews
CHICAGO - Thanks to the Web, the balcony will never close. Clips of movie reviews from the TV show that made the thumb the most prestigious of digits are being posted online.
More than 20 years of televised reviews by newspaper film critics Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel and columnist Richard Roeper will be available beginning Thursday at the Web site www.AtTheMoviesTV.com.
The site is touted as the largest collection of video-based movie reviews online. Searchable by movie title, director or actor, it features about 5,000 lively — sometimes very lively — discussions of movies that always end with the reviewers' "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" evaluation.
"For years, this was a dream," Ebert said in a statement. "Now I am exhilarated that it is a reality, thanks to the enormous effort of digitizing something like 1,000 programs."
Visitors to the Web site can see just how often Siskel, the Chicago Tribune's film critic, and Ebert, his counterpart at the Chicago Sun-Times, disagreed and how passionately they did so on "Siskel & Ebert at the Movies." They also can watch "Ebert & Roeper," the show Ebert and the Sun-Times columnist have taped since 2000, the year after Siskel's death.
The site includes recent shows featuring Roeper and guest reviewers, such as Jay Leno and New York Times film critic A.O. Scott, who have appeared while Ebert recovers from serious health problems.
"It is always fascinating to go back and see what was being said about a film before it opened," Ebert said.
The 65-year-old Ebert has had a series of surgeries in recent years, including a tracheostomy, which left him unable to speak. He has written that he is waiting for another operation that he hopes will restore his speech.
Since last summer, Ebert has not appeared on "Ebert & Roeper." But he has written some reviews in the Sun-Times, where he has been the film critic since 1967 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975.
Whoopi officially joins ABC's `The View'
NEW YORK - Whoopi Goldberg, officially named Wednesday as the new moderator of "The View" as the show puts Rosie O'Donnell in its rearview mirror, said her new job is a "big ol' thrill for me."
Goldberg jogged down the aisle of the New York studio, slapping hands with the audience, when the announcement was made live on the air by show creator Barbara Walters.
"I love this show," said Goldberg, one of a select few performers to win an Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy award. "I love coming on it. I love hanging out with you guys."
O'Donnell announced this spring she was leaving ABC's daytime talk show after less than a year filled with controversy and feuds with Donald Trump and co-star Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Despite O'Donnell's polarizing presence — or maybe because of it — ratings went up last year.
Goldberg, 51, gives "The View" a big name to fill the slot of moderator, who generally steers the discussion.
She may not reach O'Donnell's level, but Goldberg is no stranger to political controversy. She was dumped from a Slim-Fast advertising campaign in 2004 after making a speech mocking the Bush administration at a political rally, at one point using the president's surname as a sexual reference.
"The View" is in "ongoing discussions" with several people for another cast slot, a spokesman said. That would fill the chair left unoccupied since the stormy departure of Star Jones Reynolds last year.
Among the candidates for that role is actress Sherri Shepherd, who has appeared on "The View" as a sub several times over the past month.