No Sask stop for 'Canadian Idol'
REGINA - A move to drop Saskatchewan from the list of "Canadian Idol" audition locations has generated outrage in the Prairie province and even has the premier calling on fans to speak out.
The province of one million people has produced three top five performers in the first five seasons of the show, including Season 2 runner-up Theresa Sokyrka, but producers of the CTV hit say there wasn't room on the schedule this year for a Saskatchewan stop.
With the Juno Awards for the best in Canadian music being held in Calgary this year, supervising producer Mark Lysakowski said the show wanted to have auditions in that city as well as Edmonton.
Saskatchewan ended up on the bubble.
"We only have so much we can do in the allotted time from when we start our auditions and when we need to have the show on the air," Lysakowski said.
"We will be back. This is not to say that Saskatchewan has fallen off the 'Canadian Idol' radar forever. It's a place we want to come back to - we need to come back to."
It's the first time since Season 1 that an audition has not been held in either Regina or Saskatoon.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall was outraged when word of the change reached his office.
"I think it's more than a little bit ironic that we are apparently good enough for the Rolling Stones, but no longer good enough apparently for 'Canadian Idol,"' Wall said in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press.
In the fall of 2006, the Stones played two sold-out shows in Regina, thrilling thousands of diehard fans who felt privileged that the iconic rock band would stop in such a small Prairie city.
Wall encouraged Saskatchewan fans of "Canadian Idol" to voice their displeasure through the show's website. He predicted they would turn out in the same numbers they do when someone from Saskatchewan is in the top 10.
Equally outraged was Jackie Rapley, mother of Regina's Matt Rapley, who made it to No. 5 on the show last season.
"Maybe that is not their intent, but my feeling on it is that they are saying there is no talent in Saskatchewan - that is how I am taking it," she said. "I personally consider it a bit of an insult."
It's unlikely Rapley's son - a shy 18-year-old who was encouraged to audition by his music teacher - would have vied for a spot on the show had there not been a tryout in Saskatoon last year, she said.
Rapley himself said he also considers the move an"insult."
"I do take it personally a little," Rapley said. "I know a lot of talent came out of Saskatchewan in the last five years."
Producers may have dropped Saskatchewan because, outside of people like Rapley, the talent pool in the province was rather shallow during last year's auditions, Sokyrka said.
"I know there are a lot of people that have an extreme amount of talent, but I do know that a lot of people that had the talent last year were pretty freaked out about going and trying it out," she said.
Sokyrka is hopeful that anyone in Saskatchewan who thinks they can make will make the trek to one of the other cities. In Season 2, she said she was first turned down after going to Edmonton to audition and ended up making it when she came back to Saskatchewan.
"I know that even though they are not coming here, there will be someone in the top 10 from Saskatchewan. There is no question of it."
Without a Saskatchewan stop, hopefuls will have to make the trek to Edmonton, Calgary or Winnipeg to try out for the show. That means a day's travel each way.
Aside from Sokyrka and Rapley, Tyler Lewis of Rockglen, Sask., made it all the way to No. 3 on Season 4 of the show.
Peggy Pilsner runs a cafe in Rockglen and said the atmosphere in the town was electric when Lewis was making his run. You could buy buttons, window stickers, posters, T-shirts, mouse pads and pillow cases with Lewis's picture on them. Pilsner served up a hamburger in her cafe bearing his name.
"I don't really think it's fair," Pilsner said of the show's decision not to stop in Saskatchewan. "I'm sure they could make a stop somewhere in the province, especially when they are stopping on either side of us."
The 10-city audition tour begins Jan. 26 in Edmonton, and would-be stars are once again being invited to bring musical instruments.
Hamilton, Ont., the hometown of reigning Canadian Idol Brian Melo, will be among the stops.
It's the second year that performers can accompany themselves at the auditions. In 2007, almost half of the contestants who made it past the initial stage of competition chose to do so.
The show, which will return to the air in June, is hosted by Ben Mulroney, son of former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
CTV recently announced the younger Mulroney is engaged to Montreal clothing designer Jessica Brownstein.
Here are the cities, dates and locations, where available, of auditions:
-Edmonton, Jan. 26-27, West Edmonton Mall.
-Calgary, Feb 2-3, Sunridge Mall.
-Vancouver, Feb. 9-10, Metropolis at Metrotown.
-Winnipeg, Feb. 23-24, St. Vital Centre.
-Hamilton, March 1-2.
-Ottawa, March 8-9.
-Montreal, March 15-16.
-Halifax, March 29-30.
-St. John's, N.L., April 12.
-Toronto, April 19-20.
Auditions for "Canadian Idol" are open to all Canadians between the ages of 16 and 28 as of Jan. 25. For more information, registration forms, rules and regulations, visit idol.CTV.ca.
U2 headed to theaters in 3D
U2 fans will get a belated Christmas gift from the group this month in the form of "U23D," a concert film that creators are billing as "the first live-action movie shot and exhibited in breakthrough digital 3D."
Captured during the South American leg of U2's Vertigo Tour, the film will premiere Jan. 18 at Colorado's Sundance Film Festival, and then will hit theaters in select cities Jan. 23, according to the film's official website, which is hosted by National Geographic.
Culled from more than 100 hours of footage--shot with "the largest collection of 3D camera technology ever used on a single project," according to organizers--"U23D" features the band performing a set that includes hits such as "Pride," "New Year's Day," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Streets," "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" and "Vertigo."
The film will screen "in many of the 1,200-plus theaters around the world equipped with digital 3D projection systems, and will also be seen in IMAX 3D cinemas, which are located in 38 countries," according to the site.
"Previous generations of 3D film relied heavily on gimmicks, and the limits of the technology resulted in eyestrain--diminishing the life-like qualities," according to production company 3ality Digital, which, in an overview posted at the film's website, said it was shot using "cutting-edge technologies ... from artificial intelligence that aligns 'eye position' of a stereoscopic camera in real time, to first-ever high-res 3D systems with zoom lenses, robotic control, and integrated digital processing."
"I saw 'U23D' and I thought that the 3D effects were not just remarkable, but historic," screenwriter Frank Miller ("Sin City," "300") was quoted as saying at the film's website. "The film has ushered in a new era for 3D."
In related news, U2 has sweetened the pot for paying members of its U2.com fan club by issuing a members-only, limited-edition, double-live CD. Titled "U2 Go Home," the collection houses 20 live tracks.
In November, U2 marked the 20th anniversary of its hugely successful 1987 album, "The Joshua Tree," by issuing an expanded, remastered edition of the set, details for which are available at the group's site.
Last month, U2 picked up a pair of Grammy nominations in the Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals category for "Window in the Skies," a new song included on the best-of set "U218 Singles," and "Instant Karma," a cover song that appears on the Amnesty International Darfur benefit album of the same name.
U2's most recent studio album is 2004's "Vertigo." The group is currently working on a follow-up, the release date for which has not been announced.
DVD unit sales dropped 4.5 pct in '07, says data firm
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. DVD unit sales fell 4.5 percent in 2007, marking the first big year-over-year decline for the category since the disc format debuted in 1997, according to preliminary estimates released on Thursday.
After essentially flat trends for 2005 and 2006, sales of films and TV shows on DVDs fell from 1.144 billion units in 2006, to 1.092 billion units in 2007, said Tom Adams, president of Adams Media Research, a California-based entertainment data firm. The figures include next-generation DVD sales.
Unit sales in 2005 were down 0.3 percent from 2004, and inched up 0.2 percent in 2006 from 2005, Adams said.
According to Adams Media tallies, consumer spending on DVDs fell 4.8 percent to $15.7 billion in 2007 from $16.5 billion in 2006.
Adams noted that while unit sales were flat in 2005, spending also declined that year by about 1.5 percent.
Major studios had hoped for substantial sales gains in the fourth quarter of 2007 with the release of such hits as "Fantastic Four," "Ratatouille," and "Transformers."
But Adams said fourth quarter DVD sales essentially matched the fourth quarter of 2006.
"The main culprit has been the decaying sales of new releases," Adams said. "The average performance on new releases per box office dollar has been declining since 2003. And this year, sales of TV shows on DVD fell for the first time ever. Catalog sales also declined," he said.
Catalog sales are the sales of films that have been out on the market previously.
The DVD format was launched in 1997, when sales totaled about $6.2 billion.
The industry registered double digit sales growth each year for much of this decade, until sales hit about $16.6 billion in 2004.
Adams believes a combination of factors have contributed to the slowdown, including the fact that most households have slowed building their DVD collections after extremely aggressive pricing on catalog products drove huge gains over the past few years.
Adams believes the industry will likely suffer continued slowness in 2008 and 2009 as a format war for next-generation DVDs plays out and before next-generation DVD players become widespread. The industry will be back on a healthy growth track in 2010, as high-definition DVDs take off, according to Adams.
"High-definition is the ray of hope for the industry," he said.
Is Jay Leno subverting his union?
NEW YORK - The striking writers union told member Jay Leno on Thursday that he violated its rules by penning and delivering punch lines in his first "Tonight" show monologue in two months on NBC the night before.
The union did not immediately say what, if anything, it intended to do about it.
The scolding came despite Leno's own public support for the union, including delivering doughnuts to a picket line. Leno also paid his employees' salaries — except for the writers — while he was off the air and "Tonight" writers were pointedly absent from a picket line outside his studio Wednesday.
Leno is "busying himself with the show," his publicist, Dick Guttman, said Thursday when asked if the comedian had any comment.
Meanwhile, viewers thirsting for laughs welcomed their favorites back in their first shows since the strike took them off the air Nov. 5. Late-night leader Leno's "Tonight" show on NBC was seen by 7.2 million viewers while David Letterman had 5.5 million people watch the "Late Show" on CBS. For Letterman, the audience was 45 percent more than his pre-strike average this season; for Leno, it was a 43 percent bump and his biggest audience in two years, Nielsen Media Research said.
Much of Leno's first monologue discussed the strike that kept him absent, and he poked fun at NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker's "mansion." But there were also standard monologue jokes about Paul McCartney's divorce, the weather in Iowa and Britney Spears.
Leno said he wrote his own jokes and that he didn't turn to "outside guys."
"I'm doing what I did the day I started," he said. "I write jokes and wake my wife up in the middle of the night and say, `Honey, is this funny?' So if this monologue doesn't work it's my wife's fault."
He maintained: "We are following the guild thing. We can write for ourselves."
The East and West Coast chapters of the Writers Guild adopted strike rules that prohibit guild members from "performing any writing services during a strike for any and all struck companies." Leno's 19 writers remain on strike.
"This prohibition includes all writing by any guild member that would be performed on-air by that member, including monologues, characters and featured appearances, if any portion of that written material is customarily written by striking writers," the rules state.
Jonathan Handel, an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles and a former counsel to the writers' guild, said the guild's contract "is notoriously difficult to interpret."
For instance, past contracts have specifically allowed people to perform their own material, he said. He's unsure if the issue has been brought before a guild arbitration board, which could fine a member or throw the person out of the union.
It's doubtful that would happen to Leno, he said.
"That would probably be an outrage," he said. "It is not something as a matter of policy that you're going to want to do — throw one of the highest-profile guys out of the guild."
The union rules could present a host of issues: if a guild member is prohibited from performing in a character for which writers normally provide material, what to do about Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, who performs his entire show in character? Colbert's program, and "The Daily Show," return to the air without writers on Monday.
Leno received support from fellow late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who criticized WGA members for picketing Leno and NBC's Conan O'Brien. "I don't want to depart too much from the party line, but I think it's ridiculous," Kimmel said on Wednesday's show. "Jay Leno, he paid his staff while they were out. Conan did the same thing. I don't know. I just think at a certain point you back off a little bit."
While Leno's writers are on strike, Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company reached a separate deal to bring writers back. Through the deal, writers were also back at work at Craig Ferguson's "Late Late Show" on CBS.
At least on opening night, viewers were more intrigued by O'Brien's attempt to navigate without writers than Ferguson's work with his full staff. O'Brien's "Late Night" had 2.8 million viewers, up 37 percent from his pre-strike average, Nielsen said. Ferguson was seen by 2.2 million people, up 28 percent.
The night was essentially a wash for Kimmel, who is working without writers. His ABC audience of 1.8 million was slightly down from his season average.
British boy pees on brother's Wii for spite
Four-year-old Ellis Emsley from Fleetwood, England desecrated his brother's newly gifted Wii with liquid discharge after the latter refused to play together.
"It seems Ellis got fed up with Danny being obsessed with the Wii and refusing to play with him," said Mrs. Emsley, courtesy of the Metro. "He was told it was his turn on the Wii next, but he took it a bit too literally and used his secret weapon to sabotage the machine."
Indeed, the humiliated Wii was left water-logged and out of order after the incident. Father Darren, who spent months procuring the highly sought-after console, is hoping the "accident" will be covered by his home owner's insurance.
"It must surely be counted as a leak," he said.
Styles Converge On new k.d. lang Album
k.d. lang hasn't treated her fans to new original material in eight years, but that'll change on Feb. 5th, when she releases "Watershed" (Nonesuch). The 11-song set was written and recorded over several years and is the first set of material to be produced by lang herself.
"I fell naturally into the production role, in the initial performances that went on tape ... I felt that's where the real creative essence lay, and I wanted to preserve those and bring those forward into a beautiful sounding record," lang tells Billboard.com.
"I think what was liberating is that it's really hard to translate your vision in audio to other people," she continues. "It gets interpreted in so many different ways. In some ways it can be enhancing, but [on 'Watershed'] there is sort of a convergence of all the different styles I have tackled and listened to. There's essence of country, there's essences of pop, there's essences of Brazillian."
lang describes the process as being very "mobile," from recording in her dining room, painting studio and also on the go, utilizing her laptop and Pro Tools. lang also cites her recent work with Tony Bennett and covering Canadian songwriters as helpful in creating "Watershed."
"The Tony record was rehearsed in his living room, overlooking Central Park. And it was actually recorded live off a stage, in a theatre," she recalls. "It was very much play the song and record it. But it made me very focused on the performance and not any overdubbing."
lang will be on tour for most of the spring, with dates covering most of the United States and Australia confirmed so far.
Here is the track list for "Watershed":
"I Dream of Spring"
"Coming Home"
"Once in a While"
"Thread"
"Close Your Eyes"
"Sunday"
"Flame of the Uninspired"
"Upstream"
"Shadow and the Frame"
"Jealous Dog"
Hathaway New Face of Lancome
Actress Anne Hathaway has reason to smile in 2008 - she's been announced as the new face of Lancome. The Devil Wears Prada beauty, 25, will front a new advertising campaign by the cosmetics giant for a new fragrance which will be launched later this year.
A spokesperson for Lancome says of her appointment, "Anne Hathaway is a radiant young woman who perfectly embodies modern femininity. We know she will portray all the passion and excitement of our new fragrance, to be launched throughout the world in September 2008."
Golden Globes at risk as strike heats up
LOS ANGELES - The Golden Globe Awards were thrust into deeper jeopardy Wednesday when the striking writers guild refused to negotiate with Globe organizers about staging a picket-free ceremony.
The actors union then said it would advise celebrity nominees and presenters to boycott the show, which is scheduled to be televised Jan. 13 on NBC. That would rob the boozy, informal affair of the star power that makes the Globes the official kickoff to Hollywood's awards season.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which stages the Globes, had hoped last-minute negotiations with the Writers Guild of America would allow the show to go on. But the guild said Wednesday afternoon that striking writers still intend to picket.
"The WGA has great respect and admiration for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but we are engaged in a crucial struggle that will protect our income and intellectual property rights for generations to come," it said in a statement. "We will continue to do everything in our power to bring industry negotiations to a fair conclusion."
Jorge Camara, president of the HFPA, said in a statement earlier Wednesday that the organization was negotiating with the guild to reach an "an interim agreement" that would "ultimately permit the Golden Globe Awards to be broadcast as scheduled, without picket lines."
Twenty million people watched last year's ceremony on NBC. The network had no comment Wednesday.
Some Hollywood observers have theorized that without scripts and celebrities, awards shows might have to return to the relatively private affairs they were before television rather than risk embarrassment. Yet the organizations behind the Oscars and Globes are heavily dependent on the tens of millions of dollars their broadcasts bring in from network licensing deals, which may force them to televise their shows anyway.
The Globes organizers sought an agreement similar to the one reached Friday by David Letterman's production company. It allows guild members to write for "The Late Show With David Letterman" despite the strike, which began Nov. 5. Letterman's show returned to the air Wednesday night.
"'The Late Show with David Letterman' and the 'Golden Globe Awards' are similar in structure and are administered in the same way" because each is produced by an independent company and neither is owned by the networks that broadcast them, Camara's statement continued.
Letterman's show is produced by Worldwide Pants. The Golden Globe Awards are produced by dick clark productions.
The guild statement said dick clark productions is among those that have been struck.
"As previously announced, the Writers Guild will be picketing the Golden Globe Awards," it said.
Celebrity nominees and presenters are unlikely to attend the ceremony, according to a statement issued Wednesday by Screen Actors Guild President Alan Rosenberg.
"Unless and until there is an agreement between the WGA and HFPA, we will advise our members of their rights with respect to not crossing WGA picket lines and/or not appearing on programs using non-union writers," he said.
Rosenberg said a meeting with Golden Globe actor nominees was scheduled for later this week.