Bring on the Lions: Riders edge Stamps
REGINA - The Saskatchewan Roughriders earned their first home playoff win in 30 years Sunday with a 26-24 victory over the Calgary Stampeders in the CFL's Western semifinal.
Kicker Luca Congi kicked six field goals and quarterback Kerry Joseph threw a touchdown pass to D.J. Flick on the second play of the game for the Roughriders, who hosted their first playoff game since 1988 but hadn't won one in Regina in since 1976.
Saskatchewan moves onto the Western final next Sunday in Vancouver against division-winner B.C. Lions.
The Stampeders lost in the Western semifinal for the third straight season.
Trey Young scored off an interception in the first half. Calgary quarterback Henry Burris twice threw touchdown passes to Ken-Yon Rambo in the second half. Stamps kicker Sandro DeAngelis kicked one field goal.
In the Eastern Conference semifinal, Troy Westwood's field goal gave Winnipeg a 24-22 win over the Montreal Alouettes. The Blue Bombers advance to Sunday's Eastern final against the Toronto Argonauts.
The Grey Cup is in Toronto on Nov. 25.
Burris's 16-yard pass to Rambo with 53 seconds left pulled Calgary with two points, but the Stamps weren't able to get the ball back for a field-goal attempt.
Congi was named to the CFL's West Division all-star squad last week, but was removed from it three days later in favour of Calgary's Sandro DeAngelis after a tabulation error was discovered.
He made six of eight attempts Sunday and his sixth, a 10-yarder at 9:29 of the fourth quarter, was the difference.
DeAngelis didn't get out onto the field for a field-goal attempt until late in the third quarter. He was good from 18 yards to pull the visitors within five points.
After a 7-for-13 first half, Burris threw his first touchdown pass early in the third quarter with a 39-yarder to Rambo.
The Stamps' pivot was stopped on a third-and-one-yard attempt for a first down later in the quarter, which gave the ball to Saskatchewan on Calgary's 38-yard line.
Calgary head coach Tom Higgins challenged the call, but the Roughriders kept the ball and Congi kicked his fifth field goal of the game from 37 yards.
Saskatchewan quarterback Kerry Joseph, the West's nominee for the league's MVP, found the holes in Calgary's secondary to work the Roughriders into field-goal position, which drew chants of ``M-V-P'' from the 'Rider faithful.
The Saskatchewan defence was superior in this game as they clamped down on Calgary's receivers and held Calgary running back Joffrey Reynolds to a handful of yards.
The game had been long sold out, with 28,800 tickets sold within 30 minutes of a general call to buy on Oct. 29.<
The temperature at kickoff in Regina was nine degrees and the skies were mostly sunny. The hard northwest wind gusting to 60 kilometres per hour across Mosaic Stadium died to barely a breeze by the fourth quarter.
Congi took advantage of the wind behind him in the first quarter for field goals from 48 and 49 yards and was then wide on a 50-yard attempt. He had the wind against him in the second quarter but was good from 16 and 40 yards.
The Stampeders' offence in the first half was limited to a touchdown off Dwaine Carpenter's interception in their end-zone. Carpenter ran the ball 74 yards out and tossed it over to Young, who finished the major with a 39-yard run.
Burris worked the Stamps 50 yards downfield in the first quarter only to have his attempted touchdown pass to Rambo picked off by Eddie Davis in the end zone.
Saskatchewan scored on the first play after the kickoff when Joseph connected with Flick on a 62-yard play for a touchdown.
Joseph completed 23 of 35 passing attempts for 391 yards and one touchdown pass. He also rushed for 109 yards.
Burris was 20-for-36 for 323 yards and two touchdown passes.
Westwood's field goal gives Winnipeg 24-22 win over Als in East semifinal
WINNIPEG - The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are off to the CFL's East final.
Embattled Blue Bombers kicker Troy Westwood kicked the winning 20-yard field goal on the last play of the game Sunday to give his team a 24-22 win over Montreal in the East Division semifinal.
Winnipeg faces the Toronto Argonauts next weekend for the right to go to the Grey Cup.
Sunday's win was Winnipeg's fourth of the season over the Als, who came into the game with their first losing record (8-10) since they rejoined the CFL in 1996. The Bombers were 10-7-1.
Montreal led for most of the game, which was played with swirling, gusting winds in front of a season-low crowd of 22,843 at Canad Inns Stadium.
The turning point came with 1:35 left in the game when Montreal quarterback Marcus Brady kept the ball on a third-and-one gamble and was stopped. A Montreal challenge was unsuccessful and the Alouettes turned the ball over for the fourth time in the game.
Winnipeg took over at the Als' 44-yard line.
Running back Charles Roberts ran three times for 24 yards and quarterback Kevin Glenn ran for three yards to set up Westwood's kick.
Westwood, whose inconsistency this season put him in head coach Doug Berry's doghouse, had earlier missed a go-ahead 39-yard field-goal attempt with about five minutes left in the game.
The 17-year veteran, who likely won't be back next season, said before the game he relished having the opportunity to make the winning kick.
Winnipeg got its TDs on a 19-yard reception by Milt Stegall and 19-yard run by Roberts, who missed the past two games with a deep thigh bruise.
Westwood also booted field goals from 18 and 33 yards and added a 74-yard punt single.
Westwood now has 45 career playoff field goals, moving him into third place on the CFL's all-time playoff list.
Montreal's scoring came off a one-yard run by fullback Kerry Carter and a 65-yard TD reception by Kerry Watkins. Damon Duval connected on field goals from 43 and 20 yards and Winnipeg conceded a safety.
Montreal led 16-10 at halftime after a first half that featured two Montreal turnovers and one by Winnipeg.
After the Bombers scored on their first possession with the TD toss to Stegall, Montreal receiver Ashlan Davis appeared to score on a reverse early in the second quarter.
However, a Bombers challenge reversed the call and it was ruled Winnipeg linebacker Ike Charlton had pulled Davis down before the ball crossed the goal-line.
With third and one yard to go, Brady handed the ball to running back Jarrett Payton, who was stuffed by Bombers linebacker Barrin Simpson.
Payton left the game late in the third quarter after a rib injury that kept him out of last week's game flared up.
The Bombers used the turnover on downs to claw their way close to midfield, but Glenn's throw to O'Neil Wilson bounced off his gloves into Montreal cornerback Davis Sanchez's hands.
The Als took over at Winnipeg's 50-yard line and it became the Eric Deslauriers show.
The rookie Montreal receiver made a leaping grab and stayed in bounds for a 39-yard reception and then hung onto a low 10-yard throw at the one-yard line.
After Brady was stopped on the next play, fullback Kerry Carter plunged in for the tying TD at 6:15 to make it 7-7.
Late in the second, newly acquired Als kick returner Bashir Levingston fumbled a punt return. Winnipeg linebacker Neil McKinlay recovered the ball at Montreal's 35, leading to Westwood's 18-yarder.
On Montreal's next possession, Brady fired the ball to Watkins, who got a good block from offensive tackle Luke Fritz and ran 65 yards for the TD and 14-10 edge at 13:19.
Westwood, who also did the punting in place of Pat Fleming (sore leg), conceded a safety to finish the first-half scoring.
Turnovers also played a role in the second half.
Glenn threw his second interception of the game (15th of the season) midway through the third quarter when Als DB Randee Drew stepped in front of a pass intended for Stegall.
After a drop by Watkins cut the drive short, Duval booted his 43-yarder and made it 19-10 at 7:48.
Roberts scored his TD at 9:27 of the third to finish off a four-play, 75-yard drive aided by Montreal penalties for a face mask and pass interference.
Bombers cornerback Juran Bolden, who missed the past three games with a back injury, stretched out and intercepted Brady six minutes into the fourth quarter.
Westwood ended up kicking the 33-yarder.
After missing his 39-yard attempt, he closed the lead 22-21 with a 74-yard punt single at 12:52.
Murray to duet with Furtado, Twain, Dion
TORONTO - So much for retirement.
Canadian songstress Anne Murray had pretty much convinced herself she wouldn't put out another album or embark on another cross-Canada tour after releasing her intended swan song disc, "I'll be Seeing You," in 2004.
But now the 62-year-old finds herself on a jam-packed media blitz, promoting an album of 17 duets with some of the biggest names in the music industry and revealing a shrewd marketing acumen that has her praising the likes of such incongruous colleagues as Madonna and Rufus Wainwright.
Nevertheless, Murray frankly admits she "had to be dragged kicking and screaming into this project."
"The last two albums, actually, I've been dragged kicking and screaming," Murray says.
"I thought that the last one that I did was my last, but the record company convinced me that this duets album would be the thing to do and they were right. I'm glad I did it."
The new disc, "Friends and Legends," melds Murray's honeyed vocals with those of music's biggest female performers, including Celine Dion, Nelly Furtado, k.d. lang, Shelby Lynne and Shania Twain.
It's helmed by renowned record producer Phil Ramone, who's diverse body of work includes recordings with Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon and Burt Bacharach.
The eclectic pairings tackle Murray's best-known songs and other pop favourites, such as "You Needed Me" (Twain), "When I Fall In Love" (Dion), "Snowbird" (Sarah Brightman), and "Daydream Believer" (Furtado).
It's a May-December formula that's worked well for other artists in the autumn of their careers, and Murray makes no pretence of knowing where she stands with today's youth-obsessed market.
"At my stage in my career, there's no point in putting out an album with new songs on it because people would just ignore it," Murray says simply.
"It's hard to sell albums in this day and age and I think you have to come up with something new and different every time you're out of the box. And how you do it, I don't know, but the last few records that I've done have been specialty records - one being (the 1999 collection of devotionals) 'What A Wonderful World.'... That album did great. I mean, I was in shock."
After four decades in the business, Murray says she's bewildered by a rapidly changing landscape that can either snuff out or vault careers overnight.
The former gym teacher from Springhill, N.S., says she's learned to sometimes surrender to such unexpected marketing choices as hawking CDs on cable TV.
"There was a time when I never would have considered, ever, doing television commercials for records. I would never do that. That was something that you did for K-Mart," says Murray, whose TV pitch for "What A Wonderful World" helped push sales to more than two million copies worldwide.
"Well now, without television and things like that, I wouldn't have a career. Because that is the way to get to people. People who buy my records don't go into music stores - music stores which are fading before our very eyes."
Murray has built a career on a laid-back country style that's often at odds with the fads of the day, so perhaps it's not surprising when she spontaneously expresses admiration for iconoclasts such as Wainwright and Madonna for carving out a patch in the spotlight.
"She doesn't sing like Barbara Streisand...(but) she dances like a son of a gun," Murray says of the Material Girl.
Canada's other favourite songbird gets good marks, too, for playing the fame game well.
"Nelly Furtado has the right idea in reinventing herself," Murray says of the "Promiscuous Girl"'s sexy comeback last year.
"At first, people were very resistant but you know what? Good for her. Whatever it takes. You want to be in the business? You want to do well? So you do whatever it takes to get people's attention. That's what she's doing. People are paying attention, too."
For her part, Murray says she is throwing herself with gusto into a fresh go-round with the charts, displaying an ambitious drive that betrays her casual delivery and reserved public image.
"Right now, I've got my eye on the ball," says Murray, a golf nut recently named "Golf For Women" magazine's top female celebrity player.
"I've got this album of duets, I'm gonna promote the hell out of it, I'm gonna tour, I'm gonna do all the things that I'm supposed to do when I release an album and then I'll see what happens."
"Friends and Legends" comes out Tuesday, with a cross-Canada tour planned for the spring.
'Great chronicler' and giant of American writing, Norman Mailer dies at 84
Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Norman Mailer, lionized for his creative non-fiction style and his combative nature, died early Saturday at the age of 84, his literary executor said.
Mailer, who had undergone lung surgery in October, died of renal failure at New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital, said J. Michael Lennon, who is also the author's official biographer.
Mailer was a prolific writer who explored all forms of the written word, from novels and screenplays to essays, poems and many works of non-fiction.
"Obviously, he was a great American voice," said a tearful Joan Didion, who struggled to speak upon learning of Mailer's death.
"He could do anything he wanted to do — the movie business, writing, theatre, politics," author Gay Talese said Saturday. "He never thought the boundaries were restricted. He'd go anywhere and try anything."
Many other writers weighed in on Mailer's oeuvre as a great American novelist.
"He was really the great chronicler of his time, the champion of personal reportage. His output was prodigious, his range of interests very wide," said writer E.L. Doctorow.
"To me, it's like a thousand people just left the room," noted journalist Pete Hamill, who added that Mailer never repeated himself and "always made us imagine other lives, other choices, other varieties of human folly, grandeur and capacity for evil."
Imagined self as 'Prince of Truth'
"I become an actor, a quick-change artist, as if I can trap the Prince of Truth in the act of switching a style," Mailer wrote in his collection of essays and letters, Advertisements for Myself (1959).
A celebrated author who often courted controversy, Mailer captured the Pulitzer twice and received the National Book Award in 1968 for The Armies of the Night.
In 2005, the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Mailer catapulted to fame in 1948 with The Naked and the Dead, a novel based on his experiences in the U.S. army as a rifleman in the South Pacific. The book stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 11 weeks.
Mailer pioneered, along with Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe and Didion, a new style of non-fiction writing called New Journalism or creative non-fiction. The Naked and the Dead remains one of the classics of New Journalism.
"[Mailer] is a great and obsessed stylist, a writer to whom the shape of the sentence is the story," Didion once said of her friend.
Born Jan. 31, 1923 in New Jersey to Fanny Schneider Mailer and Isaac (Barney) Barnett Mailer, young Norman grew up in the scrappy neighbourhoods of Brooklyn.
He graduated from high school in 1939 and entered Harvard University at the age of 16. Four years later, Mailer had a degree in engineering and in 1944, was drafted into the army.
After the critical acclaim of The Naked and the Dead, Mailer's next two novels — Barbary Shore (1951) and The Deer Park (1955) — floundered critically and commercially. He then turned to journalism and helped found The Village Voice, writing a weekly column.
He returned to the novel with An American Dream in 1965 and Why Are We In Vietnam? (1967), which was nominated for a National Book Award.
"A really great novel does not have something to say," he once said. "It has the ability to stimulate the mind and spirit of the people who come in contact with it."
A year later, The Armies of the Night won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, returning Mailer to form.
Provoked with views on U.S. political life
Over the next decade, Mailer wrote constantly, publishing a book on the Apollo 11 moon landing (Of A Fire on The Moon), a critical essay on the women's liberation movement (The Prisoner of Sex) and a detailed description of the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman fight in Zaire (The Fight) in 1976.
Mailer cemented his iconic New Journalism status during the 1960s with a series of Esquire columns, essays and political reports.
"In America few people will trust you unless you are irreverent," he said, and he satisfied the appetite for irreverence with counter-cultural essays on violence, hysteria, sex and crime.
Always pugnacious and trained as a boxer, he was a thorn in the side of several U.S. administrations. His Armies of the Night is an examination of a celebrated Vietnam war protest in which Mailer himself is arrested.
His coverage of both Democratic and Republican conventions exposed the dark underbelly of American politics. His acid pen castigated corporate greed, plastics, the decline of political debate and the rape of nature.
"America is a hurricane," he once wrote, "and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate, if incredibly stupid and smug, White Protestants who live in the centre, in the serene eye of the big wind."
Challenged leading feminists
His disagreements with feminists are legendary. He took on Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem in Prisoner of Sex, defending machismo while criticizing the new political correctness of the 1970s.
He called feminist critic Kate Millet "the Battling Annie of some new prudery" and a "literary Molotov" for questioning the value of writers such as Henry Miller, D.H. Lawrence and Mailer himself.
Mailer was always searching for the next thing to do, to broaden and deepen his skills and to reach out to the public.
"The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people," he said.
In 1979, he published The Executioner's Song, a non-fiction novel on the life and death of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, who would become the first person in the U.S. executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
It won Mailer his second Pulitzer and many accolades and distinctions.
The book was turned into a TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones, with a script adapted by Mailer himself. He received an Emmy nomination for his screenplay.
Mailer then waded into the world of films, producing and directing an adaptation of his book The Deer Park. Wild 90 (1967) opened to less-than-stellar reviews. A year later, his second film, Beyond the Law, got better reviews but paltry audiences and his third film, Maidstone (1971), based on The Armies of the Night, had mixed reactions.
His 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe was contentious because its final chapter contends she was murdered by FBI and CIA agents due to her supposed affair with Robert F. Kennedy.
Mailer had better luck on the screen in 1987, when he wrote and directed Tough Guys Don't Dance, adapted from his murder mystery novel of the same name.
His massive tome, the 1,310-page Harlot's Ghost, was highly lauded if typically sprawling. The novel chronicles the people and the plottings of the CIA during crucial historical moments in American history.
Mailer's first new novel in 10 years was published this year. The Castle in the Forest is a fictional re-telling of Adolf Hitler's boyhood through the eyes of Dieter, a devil assigned by Satan to develop the young Adolf.
The Guardian called the book "electrifying and peculiar" while the New York Times hailed Mailer as a writer who "doesn't inhabit these historical figures so much as possess them."
Mailer's personal life was always sticky. A man who literally and figuratively loved to box and spar, he made enemies in the women's movement, in politics and was involved in many feuds, litigations and imbroglios.
Mailer wed six times and had nine children. He is survived by his sixth wife, painter Norris Church, whom he married in 1980.
Canadian Greenwood to captain Enterprise in new Star Trek film
Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood is the latest team member to be joining the crew of the new Star Trek film, directed by J.J. Abrams.
Reports say the 51-year-old Greenwood will play Capt. Christopher Pike, the first commander of USS Enterprise. Actor Jeffrey Hunter originated the role in the unaired 1966 pilot of the series created by Gene Roddenberry.
Abrams (Lost, Mission: Impossible 3) has kept details of the film under wraps. Shooting is set to begin in November.
Greenwood's addition comes just as Variety reported Friday that Winona Ryder has been brought on to play the mother of a young Spock.
The Quebec-born Greenwood was recently in the HBO surfing series John From Cincinnati and has appeared in numerous television shows and films in his 25-year career including the medical drama St. Elsewhere and movies such as I'm Not There, Being Julia, Double Jeopardy and I, Robot.
The newest instalment of the film franchise will follow James T. Kirk, Spock, engineer Scotty, Uhura and Sulu just after they graduate from Starfleet Academy.
Other stars who have signed on include Zachary Quinto of the TV series Heroes as a young Spock, British comic Simon Pegg as Scotty, John Cho as Sulu, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Anton Yelchin as a young Chekov and Chris Pine as the young Captain Kirk.
Eric Bana plays the villain Nero and Leonard Nimoy, the original Spock, is also on board.
There's still no word about beaming up William Shatner to reprise his role as Kirk. Shatner recently complained that he hadn't been invited to join the crew. Abrams has remained silent on the issue.
'Bee Movie' stings 'Gangster' again
LOS ANGELES - Jerry Seinfeld turned more honey into money as his animated comedy "Bee Movie" buzzed to the top of the box office in its second weekend.
The DreamWorks-Paramount flick, which had debuted at No. 2 behind Universal's "American Gangster" the previous weekend, packed in family crowds to pull in $26 million, raising its total to $72.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
"American Gangster," starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, was a strong No. 2 with $24.3 million in sales, lifting its total to $80.7 million.
"We don't often see a movie start out in the No. 2 position then move up to No. 1," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "It just shows how strong the word of mouth is on this movie and that families are really enjoying it."
Adult audiences had put "American Gangster" ahead on Friday, but weekend matinee crowds lifted "Bee Movie" to the top spot. "Bee Movie" is positioned well for Thanksgiving next week, when children will be out of school.
"This is terrific playing time for this movie," said Anne Globe, head of marketing for DreamWorks.
Two of Hollywood's biggest cultural icons — Santa Claus and Tom Cruise — had to settle for also-ran debuts.
The Warner Bros. family comedy "Fred Claus," with Vince Vaughn as the black-sheep brother of Santa (Paul Giamatti), opened at No. 3 with $19.2 million, on par with last November's $19.5 million debut of Tim Allen's holiday tale "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause."
Cruise's "Lions for Lambs," co-starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in a drama interlocking three stories in the war on terror, premiered at No. 4 with $6.7 million. The movie directed by Redford was the first release by the rejuvenated MGM banner United Artists since Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner took it over last year.
Costing a modest $35 million to produce, "Lions for Lambs" was aimed at an older, thinking-person's audience compared to the crowds that turn out for Cruise's action movies. Just over two-thirds of the audience was 35 or older, according to MGM.
"Older audiences don't necessarily come out the first weekend, so we're looking to get a very solid run all the way through the Thanksgiving holiday," said Clark Woods, MGM head of distribution.
Summit Entertainment's "P2," starring Wes Bentley and Rachel Nichols in a thriller about a woman trapped in a parking garage and terrorized by the attendant on Christmas Eve, opened at No. 8 with $2.2 million.
Joel and Ethan Coen's crime tale "No Country for Old Men" got off to a great start in limited release, taking in $1.2 million in just 28 theaters for an average of $42,929 a cinema.
By comparison, "Fred Claus" averaged $5,336 in 3,603 theaters and "Lions for Lambs" did $3,029 in 2,215 cinemas.
"No Country for Old Men," a Miramax release, is one of the year's most acclaimed films, starring Tommy Lee Jones as a weary Texas sheriff, Javier Bardem as a ruthless killer and Josh Brolin as a man on the run after making off with $2 million from a drug deal gone violently wrong.
Here is the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Bee Movie," $26 million.
2. "American Gangster," $24.3 million.
3. "Fred Claus," $19.2 million.
4. "Lions for Lambs," $6.7 million.
5. "Dan in Real Life," $5.9 million.
6. "Saw IV," $5 million.
7. "The Game Plan," $2.4 million.
8. "P2," $2.2 million.
9. "30 Days of Night," $2.1 million.
10. "Martian Child," $1.75 million.