The Couch Potato Report - June 29th, 2009

This week The Couch Potato Report peels a made-in-Saskatchewan movie that could have been great, and a fifty year-old film that still is.

When I read the synopsis for this week's first new release - our Hot Potato - I was very...very excited!!

Sure, the fact that it was made-in Bulyea, Craven, Qu'Appelle and Regina made it a must-see as well, but it was primarily the synopsis that had me excited.

Here it is:

"In the Autumn of 1960, a fluke atmospheric weather condition allows a young teenager, Parry Tender, to receive a radio broadcast from New York City.

Nestled in the Northern town of Goose Lake, Saskatchewan, Parry believes the contest the New York radio D.J. is running may be his ticket out of town, and away from a life to which he feels he never belonged.

When Debbie Baxter, a young girl from California, arrives in the town by way of her father's position with the military, Parry soon discovers love, loss, and the magic of rock and roll."

Now, that sounds like a great movie!!

Unfortunately, sometimes you can't just a DVD by it's cover either!!

45 RPM does feature the things that it's synopsis suggests, but as the movie plays out, the music and friendship elements of the story start to take a back seat to police brutality, child abuse, sexual assault, and several other subjects that take away from what the film could have been.

The truth is that the filmmakers decided to make their movie, with all of the extra story lines that aren't mentioned in the synopsis, and it was their movie to make.

My feeling is that had they focussed on the classic rock and roll music an dthe dream of these two friends getting out of Goose Lake, Saskatchewan to New York City, this could have been as good a movie as STAND BY ME, MY GIRL, THE GOONIES or THE SANDLOT, all great films about friends overcoming the odds of their situations.

45 RPM, is not a bad movie, but parts of it are...and so even though Saskatchewan loosk great on film, as always, I just can't recommend it.

I suggest you see STAND BY ME, MY GIRL, THE GOONIES or THE SANDLOT instead, if you haven't already.

I have four capsule reviews for you now, four films that I didn't like or dislike, but you might consider a good rental.

Like INKHEART, for example.

INKHEART is the film based on the young adult-child fantasy novel that is the first book of the Inkworld trilogy.

Canadian Brendan Fraser stars along with Paul Bettany, and Academy Award winners Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent.

Fraser plays the father of a young girl who discovers that he has the ability to bring characters to life from books just by reading out loud.

He must try to stop a freed villain from his plot of world domination!!

INKHEART is not awful, but there is nothing special about it. If you have a teenager who likes to read, get them the book instead.

Now, if you have a teenager who likes to shop...relax...that is normal!! We all liked to shop at that age...and some of us still do!

In CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC Isla Fisher from WEDDING CRASHERS and DEFINITELY MAYBE stars as a wannabe journalist who loves to shop, and is good at it too!!

I admit that even though I love Isla Fisher, and think she is a beautiful and talented actress, I didn't expect much from CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC, so I didn't mind it.

It isn't as good as THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, and it certainly isn't for everyone - but it isn't a bad little film.

I will say the same about THE PINK PANTHER 2.

It also isn't a bad little film.

I love and adore Steve Martin, but I didn't see his first PINK PANTHER film. I was a little embarassed that he felt the need to take over this iconic Peter Sellers role of Inspector Jacques Clouseau, so I stayed away.

I may have to go back and see it now as this second movie was sort of fun at times.

In PINK PANTHER 2 Clouseau is part of a team of International detectives who are working to try and stop a globe-trotting thief who specializes in stealing historical artifacts.

Some parts of THE PINK PANTHER 2 are simple silly and stupid fun, other parts of it are just stupid.

Ultimately, it isn't a bad little film. It isn't a classic, but it is okay.

This next release has an amazing cast, including Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd, all actors I like, but I have nothing positive to say about it.

I didn't dislike CROSSING OVER, I just don't have anything positive to say about it.

CROSSING OVER is a film with multiple story arcs that is primarily about immigrants struggling to live life and become American citizens in Los Angeles.

The cast, the stories, they are almost all interesting...however, this movie is so slow and boring at times that I found it hard to stay interested in them, or their stories.

As far as I was concerned, when it ended, it ended.

As this review now does because I am moving on, with an instantly recognizable TV show there song!

With the release of TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN to theatres this week, the time has never been better to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON of the animated television show.

Especially if you like quality - albeit dated at times - entertainment!!

I found the newest film to be a loud, useless film that was too noisy and pointless to enjoy, so I'm glad I had the simplistic television shows to watch this week, at at time when due to the hype and publicity machine behind the theatrical film, I have been craving some TRANSFORMERS.

If you've had that craving too, skip the film, and check out the three disc set for TRANSFORMERS - THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, which comes with a very interesting restrospective look back at how an advertising company came up with the characters in the first place, and it also features some of those great old commercials!!

Yes, it has been twenty-five years since the debut of the TRANSFORMERS...do you remember 1984?

How about 1988?

That was the year that a small Tom Hanks film went on to do some big things.

Tom Hanks' film BIG is now available in High Definition for the first time and the BLU-RAY BEACON shines it's spotlight on it this week because the new Blu-ray also features the EXTENDED EDITION of the film, with some interesting new scenes added in!

The Blu-ray of BIG doesn't feature any new features that weren't included on the DVD that came out a couple fo years ago, but it does allow you to see either the theatrical version, or the 26-minute longer EXTENDED CUT in High Definition.

For me...that is a big difference!!

Finally this week, talk about remembering 1984 and 1988, do you remember 1959?

That was the year the film THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK debuted.

Before the Holocaust films SOPHIE'S CHOICE, SCHINDLER'S LIST, and THE PIANIST there was this, harrowing story of a young Jewish girl who, with her family and their friends is forced into hiding in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.

What made and makes this one different is that we know this one is absolutely true!

It is said that THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK is second only to The Bible as the most widely read book in the world, and so many people know the story of this girl who hid in the attic with her family for two years.

But if you have never seen the film, this new 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION features some great retrospective looks back from Anne's family and friends, and the filmmakers and cast...including Millie Perkins, who played Anne.

THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK remains an important film, even fifty years after it's Academy Award winning release.

It is available now on DVD and Blu-ray, along with Tom Hanks' great comedy BIG, Steve Martin's okay comedy THE PINK PANTHER 2, the not bad CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC, and the not awful but nothing special film INKHEART.

The could have been interesting CROSSING OVER, THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON of the still fun animated show TRANSFORMERS, and the made-in-Saskatchewan film 45 RPM are all available now only on DVD.

Coming up in TWO WEEKS on the next Couch Potato Report

The Canadian films IT'S NOT ME, I SWEAR and THE MEMORIES OF ANGELS.

Plus, we will SKATE OR DIE and THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON of the television show PARKER LEWIS CAN'T LOSE debuts on DVD!!

I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in fourteen days.

For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!

'Lost' will last a little longer

If you're already preparing yourself for the departure of "Lost" in the spring of 2010, take heart. The series will go on a little longer than expected.

OK, it's only one hour longer, but we'll take what we can get.

An ABC rep confirmed Monday (June 29) that the final season of "Lost" will run 18 hours. That's an hour more than initially planned, although where that extra time fits in -- although a two-hour series finale seems pretty much like a given at this point -- is far from determined yet. "Lost" begins filming season six in Hawaii later this summer.

Considering the possibly game-changing events at the end of season five -- wherein Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) detonated a nuclear warhead in an effort to hit the Island's reset button and, in theory, prevent Oceanic 815 from crashing in the first place -- any extra time the show's creative team wants to take unraveling what happened could be welcome.

When ABC and executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof agreed to an end date for the show after season six, the network asked for three 16-episode seasons to wrap things up. The 2007-08 writers strike messed up that schedule somewhat, and only 14 episodes made it onto the air in the fourth season.

Last season ran 17 episodes (with the two-hour finale counting as two), and the final season was set to do the same thing. Adding the extra hour to the final season will bring the total number of episodes in the final three years to 49.

Michael Jackson Ticket Refund Details Announced By AEG

AEG Live has announced that full refunds will be given to fans who purchased tickets through authorized agents to Michael Jackson's 50 planned concerts at the O2 Arena in London, according to a news release from the promoter, which operates the O2 Arena. The refunds will include service fee charges.

On July 1, fans who purchased tickets to Jackson’s "This Is It" concerts will be directed to MichaelJacksonLive.com for information about how to receive full refunds. The refunds will be processed by authorized ticketing agencies, including primary ticketing company Ticketmaster and U.K. reseller Viagogo, among others.

Fans will be also given the option to receive the concert tickets as souvenirs in lieu of the full refunds. The tickets were printed with the lenticular process and were designed by Jackson, according to the release. The offer will be valid through Aug. 14.

"The world lost a kind soul who just happened to be the greatest entertainer the world has ever known," AEG Live president/CEO Randy Phillips said in a statement. "Since he loved his fans in life, it is incumbent upon us to treat them with the same reverence and respect after his death."

Jackson's planned 50-show run at the O2 Arena in London would have been the highest-grossing single concert engagement. More than $85 million worth of tickets had already been sold for the series of performances.

Jackson wrapped video before death

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 19 mins ago
LOS ANGELES – Two weeks before he died, Michael Jackson wrapped up work on an elaborate production dubbed the "Dome Project" that could be the final finished video piece overseen by the King of Pop, The Associated Press has learned.

Details on the project are scarce. Two people with knowledge of the project confirmed its existence Monday to the AP on condition they not be identified because they signed confidentiality agreements.

They said it was a five-week project filmed at Culver Studios, which 70 years ago was the set for the classic film "Gone With the Wind." Four sets were constructed for Jackson's production, including a cemetery recalling his 1983 "Thriller" video.

Shooting for the project lasted from June 1-9, with Jackson on the set most days. Now in post-production, the project is expected to be completed next month.

Producer Robb Wagner, founder of music-video company Stimulated Inc., did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the project.

Michael Roth, a spokesman for Jackson's Los Angeles-based promoter AEG Live, said he hadn't heard about the production but did not rule that it could be part of the company's contract with the entertainer.

According to one of the people with knowledge of the project, a willow-thin, pallid Jackson left a memorable impression on the crew, arriving in a caravan of SUVs with hulking security guards in tow. The person said Jackson introduced himself to workers on the set and walked with a spring in his step but at one point needed assistance as he descended steps off a stage.

Besides the cemetery, one set was draped in black with an oversized portrait of Jackson in his "Thriller" werewolf costume. Another set was designed to simulate a lush jungle, and a fourth was built to replicate a construction site, with a screen in the back to allow projection of different backgrounds.

Taping took place in marathon sessions ending early in the morning. One scene filmed on the construction site set included scantily clad male dancers wearing carpenter's belts.

It's unclear what final form or forms the video project will take.

According to Stimulated's Web site, the company was hired to produce screen content for Jackson's planned comeback concerts in London. Stimulated has worked with Def Leppard and the Pussycat Dolls, and produced content for the Academy Awards and the Emmys.

New Releases, June 30: Rob Thomas, Brad Paisley, Wilco, Moby, Levon Helm, and more!!

Rob Thomas "Cradlesong" (Atlantic)

The pop/rock star, who came to fame as the frontman for Matchbox Twenty, is finally ready to unveil his second solo record. The first single from "Cradlesong" is the track "Her Diamonds."

"Cradlesong" follows 2005's "...Something To Be," which made chart history when Thomas became the first male artist from a rock or pop group to debut at No. 1 with his inaugural solo album, according to a press release. In a broader sense, "Cradlesong" also follows his 2007 reunion with his Matchbox Twenty bandmates on "Exile On Mainstream," which was the first group effort since the 2003 six-song collection, "EP."

* * *
Brad Paisley "American Saturday Night" (RCA)

The mega-popular cowboy crooner/guitarist is back with a follow-up to last year's "Play." The first single from "American Saturday Night," Paisley's eighth studio album, is the hit song "Then," which holds the distinction of being the fastest-rising chart-topper of Paisley's career, according to a press release.

Paisley currently is supporting the new album with a major North American trek, dubbed the "Saturday Night Tour." The run will hit more than 40 cities and stretches well into October. His tour companions are fellow country singers Dierks Bentley and Jimmy Wayne.

In other news, Paisley had a huge night at the most recent CMT Music Awards. The country star tallied the most belt-buckle-shaped trophies this year of any entertainer, snagging Male Video of the Year for "Waitin' On a Woman," Collaborative Video of the Year with Keith Urban for "Start a Band" and Performance of the Year alongside Alan Jackson, George Strait and Dierks Bentley for their rendition of "Country Boy" on "CMT Giants: Alan Jackson."

* * *
Wilco "Wilco (The Album)" (Nonesuch)

The acclaimed alt-rock act is set deliver "Wilco (The Album)." The record is the Chicago-based group's seventh studio offering to date, and its first since 2007's "Sky Blue Sky."

Wilco co-produced the album with studio vet Jim Scott (who had worked as a mixer on some of the band's prior discs) during recording sessions in New Zealand and Chicago. "Wilco (The Album)" also includes the group's first-ever official duet, "You and I," which was recorded with Canadian singer Feist.

Wilco is currently touring in support of its new album--as well as a recently released concert DVD, "Ashes of American Flags"--and plans call for the band to remain on the road through an Aug. 23 appearance at Minnesota's 10,000 Lakes Festival.

* * *
Moby "Wait For Me" (Mute)

The electronica giant, who took the music world by storm with the 1999 dance manifesto "Play," plugs back in for his ninth studio album. "Wait For Me" follows 2008's "Last Night."

The first single from "Wait For Me" is the track "Shot in the Back of the Head," the music video for which was directed by David Lynch. Moby produced the album, then turned it over for mixing to Ken Thomas (Sigur Ros).

* * *
Levon Helm "Electric Dirt" (Vanguard)

The classic-rock legend, best known as a founding member of The Band, returns with his second solo offering. "Electric Dirt" was produced by Larry Campbell, who also worked the boards on Helm's 2007 Grammy-award winning "Dirt Farmer."

"Electric Dirt" features versions of The Grateful Dead's "Tennessee Jed," Happy Traum's "Golden Bird" and Randy Newman's "Kingfish." It also includes horn arrangements by Allen Toussaint and the Levon Helm Band.

* * *
More new releases:
Bjork, "Voltaic" (Nonesuch)
Jefferson Airplane, "Jefferson Airplane: The Woodstock Experience" (Sony)
Janis Joplin, "Janis Joplin: The Woodstock Experience" (Sony)
Killswitch Engage, "Killswitch Engage" (Roadrunner)
Lillian Axe, "Sad Day on Planet Earth" (Blistering)
Santana, "Santana: The Woodstock Experience" (Sony)
Sly & The Family Stone, "Sly & The Family Stone: The Woodstock Experience" (Sony)
Rod Stewart, "A Night on the Town" (Rhino)
Tanya Tucker, "My Turn" (Saguaro Road)
Twisted Sister, "Stay Hungry" (Rhino)
Various Artists, "Now That's What I Call Music, Vol. 31" (Sony)
Various Artists, "The Woodstock Experience" (Sony)
Johnny Winter, "Johnny Winter: The Woodstock Experience" (Sony)

Soundtracks and scores:
"Road Show" (Nonesuch)

Heath Ledger's Last Days – From His Friends

In the days leading up to his death, Heath Ledger battled chronic insomnia, pneumonia and exhaustion, according to several members of Ledger's inner circle – who paint a portrait of a tortured man who struggled with personal strife and professional indecision, reports the August Vanity Fair, on sale nationally July 7.

Apparently, one of the biggest struggles in Ledger's life was his deteriorating relationship with partner Michelle Williams.

"Heath was always blaming himself [about the relationship], asking 'what did I do wrong?'" says Ledger's friend and mentor, director Terry Gilliam. "Once it started going south, it went very quickly. He was overwhelmed by lawyers, and there were more and more of them, as if they were breeding."

Especially contentious were the custody issues surrounding the couple's daughter, Matilda. As the couple battled over the child, "there were definitely heated conversations," says one source, "and emotions were high."

The stress of his personal life left Ledger unable to sleep.

Chronic Insomnia

Gerry Grennell, a vocal coach who lived with Ledger during the filming of The Dark Knight, said that the actor used sleeping medication to combat chronic insomnia. "I'd say, 'If you can possibly bear it to stop taking the medications, do, because they don't seem to be doing you any good,' " recalls Grennell, who said that Ledger would spend his nights finding ways to occupy himself, such as rearranging the furniture.

Grennell also says that everyone has a different view on how Ledger died. "From my perspective, and knowing him as well as I did, and being around him as much as I was, it was a combination of exhaustion, sleeping medication … and perhaps the aftereffects of the flu," he says. "I guess his body just stopped breathing."

Grennell and other sources claim that Ledger was no longer using illegal drugs or alcohol when he died.

Professional Indecision

Despite the actor's eventual success – and posthumous Oscar – as the Joker in the The Dark Knight, Ledger's friend and agent, Steven Alexander, tells the magazine that Ledger "was always hesitant to be in a summer blockbuster, with the dolls and action figures and everything else that comes with one of those movies. He was afraid it would define him and limit his choices."

Friends say that Ledger agreed to join the Batman franchise because it would be such a long shot that it would give him an excuse to turn down other offers. Ledger reportedly had a pay-or-play deal for Dark Knight, meaning that he'd receive a paycheck no matter what, so he took creative liberties with the Joker.

According to cinematographer Nicola Pecorini, Ledger hoped his performance would be so over-the-top that he'd be fired.

Impressionist, Vegas headliner Fred Travalena dies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Impressionist Fred Travalena, a headliner in Vegas showrooms and a regular on late-night talk shows with his takes on presidents, crooners and screen stars, has died in Los Angeles. He was 66.

Publicist Roger Neal says Travalena died Sunday at his home in the Encino area after a recurrence of the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that first surfaced in 2002.

Travalena was known for the sheer volume of celebrities he imitated, leading to the nicknames "The Man of a Thousand Voices" and "Mr. Everybody."

His act included presidents from Kennedy to Obama, musicians from Frank Sinatra to Bruce Springsteen and actors from Marlon Brando to Tom Cruise.

The Bronx native started his career in Las Vegas in 1971.

A Lost Michael Jackson Tune...and His Final Concert?

Los Angeles (E! Online) – Michael Jackson never got around to recording that long-awaited comeback album, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of material.

E! News has obtained the King of Pop's recording of "Shout"—the first of what will likely be a slew of posthumous recordings unearthed in the next few years.

The tune, which puts a distinctive Jackson twist on the Isley Brothers' seminal 1959 hit, was cowritten by the New Jersey-based team of Cyph and Crystal and recorded in the fall of 2001 at Sony Recording Studios in New York City, but was never released.

"After the recording was done, we could see him dancing to the song," Cyph, who was introduced to the star by producer Teddy Riley, tells E! News. "He really was feeling that record, but, unfortunately, the record got rail roaded by politics within the album and the dispute between M.J. and Tommy [Mottola], so it got released as a maxi single to R. Kelly's "Cry." No one's heard "Shout" in the U.S."

Jackson's last studio album, Invincible, came out in 2001.

One of Jackson's biographers, Ian Halperin, claims the singer may have left more than 100 unreleased songs to his three children as a "personal legacy," according to the the Times of London.

Meanwhile, per TheWrap.com, Jackson's final Los Angeles rehearsal for his upcoming London concert series was recorded by AEG as part of his multimillion-dollar deal, and the concert promoter is reportedly planning to release it on DVD and CD as a "live concert."

Blu-ray to Attend a Grindhouse Double-Feature

A new listing at Walmart.com has confirmed an ongoing rumor regarding a reissue of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse films on Blu-ray Disc August 11.

Per the listing, the set is titled simply "Grindhouse" and will include the unrated versions of Planet Terror and Death Proof totaling 218 minutes in length.

There are two ways Genius Products could approach this two-disc set. They could simple bundle the previously released single versions of Death Proof and Planet Terror into a single package. Or preferably they could combine the two films with intermission onto a single disc leaving the second disc entirely for supplemental features.

We'll have more on this upcoming release as information is offered by the studio.

TWENTY YEARS AFTER 'DO THE RIGHT THING,' LEE AND HIS CO-STARS REFLECT ON HOW THEIR MOVIE MADE HISTORY

On Christmas Day, 1987, 30-year-old Brooklyn-based filmmaker Spike Lee started working on the script for his third feature, "Do the Right Thing." The film would examine the racial tension that enveloped New York City at the time, most of which was due to an incident that occurred in the predominantly white section of Howard Beach in Queens a year earlier: A group of white youths attacked three black men outside a pizza place for simply being the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood. One of the black men, 23-year-old Michael Griffith, was chased onto the Belt Parkway, where he was struck by a car and killed.

The movie wound up detailing how a single block in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant -- one with the white-owned Sal's Famous Pizzeria at its heart -- erupted in racial violence on the hottest day of the year. It featured a striking visual style, an idiosyncratic blend of comedy and tragedy, and an extraordinary ensemble cast including Danny Aiello as Sal, the pizzeria owner; Lee as Mookie, an unambitious deliveryman; and Ossie Davis as Da Mayor, the local drunk. It also instantly established Lee as a major talent who couldn't be ignored or dismissed.

When the film was released, audiences and critics were divided. Vincent Canby hailed it in the New York Times as "a remarkable piece of work," and Roger Ebert, in his four-star Chicago Sun-Times review, added that it came "closer to reflecting the current state of race relations in America than any other movie of our time."

On the flip side, Lee was criticized for presenting a crack-ravaged neighborhood as drug-free, and for being recklessly incendiary. In his review in the June 26, 1989, issue of New York magazine, David Denby said, "The end of this movie is a shambles, and if some audiences go wild, [Lee's] partly responsible." Jack Kroll in Newsweek called the film "dynamite under every seat." The critics' fears underestimated the audience -- no riots resulted.

The movie received two Oscar nominations (Supporting Actor for Danny Aiello and Original Screenplay), but no awards. The motion picture academy's political timidity was reflected in its choice for best picture, "Driving Miss Daisy," which featured Morgan Freeman as a Southern chauffeur. Lee, however, would have the last laugh. When the American Film Institute unveiled its list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time, neither "Driving Miss Daisy" nor "sex, lies, and videotape," which beat out Lee's film for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, were anywhere to be found. "Do the Right Thing" came in at No. 96.

On June 30, the film celebrates its 20th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Universal is releasing a two-disc special-edition DVD with hours of extras, including a never-before-seen documentary and new commentary from Lee. Since making "Do the Right Thing," Lee has averaged nearly a film a year -- his latest is the basketball documentary "Kobe: Doin' Work." But "Do the Right Thing" continues to be his most celebrated movie.

In this oral history, key members of the cast and crew, including Lee, who sat down for two lengthy interviews, were eager to discuss the controversy that accompanied the film, the tensions on the set and how the movie played a role in bringing our president and first lady together.

'It's gonna be a scorcher'

Spike Lee [Mookie], actor, writer, producer and director: The Howard Beach incident had happened, and I wanted to explore the love-hate relationship between African-Americans and Italian-Americans. I also wanted to do something that took place on the hottest day of the summer.

Ernest Dickerson, cinematographer: Spike and I were sitting together on a plane to Los Angeles and he was writing a script on a legal pad. The title at that point was "Heat Wave." He then asked me, "How do you portray heat on film? How do you get the audience to really feel it?" I remember we talked about having car radiators boiling over, hot asphalt and steam.

Lee: Paramount was on track to make the film. Then, at the last moment, out of nowhere, they didn't like the ending. They wanted Mookie and Sal to hug, all happy and upbeat. I wasn't doing that, so I called up Universal executive Sam Kitt, who I had known from my independent days, and he gave it to Tom Pollock.

Tom Pollock, then-chairman, Universal Pictures: I liked "She's Gotta Have It." I thought, "Wow, this guy's really talented." So when Spike submitted the script for "Do the Right Thing," I felt it had the potential of being great. I also had never before seen a movie that dealt explicitly with race and what was then called a race riot from a black director.

Lee: Tom said, "Make the film the way you want to, but you're not getting a penny more than $6.5 million."

'My people, my people'

Danny Aiello [Sal]: I was in New York at a party for Madonna and as I was leaving, this little guy runs after me and says, "I have this script." So we started a dialogue, which led to our meeting in restaurants, going to a Yankees game, going to a Knicks game. We became close.

Lee: I was in a Los Angeles club called Funky Reggae at a party for my birthday. This young lady was dancing on top of a speaker, and since it was my party, if she fell and broke her neck, I was going to get sued. So I told her to please get off, and she jumped down and cursed me out. I had never heard a voice like that before.

Rosie Perez [Tina]: That's fiction. There was a bunch of African-American girls on the stage bending over. It was a contest to see who had the biggest butt. I jumped on the speaker and started screaming for the women not to degrade themselves. I wasn't dancing.

Lee: I love Rosie, but she was not on top of the speaker saying, "Women, we must rise against this!" She was the choreographer for "In Living Color," and all the Fly Girls did were shake their asses. That story is bull.

Giancarlo Esposito [Buggin Out]: I'm half-Italian and half-black, so I understood both sides on a deep level. And a hard part of growing up for me was that I didn't want to take sides. But for this character, I had to.

Roger Guenveur Smith [Smiley]: All of my work throughout the film was improvised. There's no Smiley in any script.

Lee: Matt Dillon turned down the role of Pino. His agent told him not to do it. Then I saw the film "Five Corners," in which John Turturro beats a penguin to death and throws his mother out a window. I was like, "That's the guy I want to play Pino."

John Turturro [Pino]: When I read the script, I thought, "This is what's happening." I grew up in Hollis, Queens, which was basically more black than white. So I knew both sides.

'Bed-Stuy -- do or die'

Turturro: The neighborhood had a lot of energy, but it was dangerous to drive through at night. You definitely didn't want to have a flat tire at 4 o'clock in the morning. There were a lot of hungry dogs out on some streets.

Lee: There were crack houses in the neighborhood. The NYPD was not thought of that highly in most black communities, especially Bed-Stuy, so we got the Fruit of Islam [Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam's security force] to watch the set.

Dickerson: It became the safest block in Brooklyn!

Richard Edson [Vito]: I tried to get through to the Fruit of Islam guys. It was kind of a challenge because I knew they had very strong racial feelings. So every morning, I would say hello and try to engage them. I don't think they ever even acknowledged me. I finally gave up after about four weeks.

Esposito: Those guys were hard-core. They just didn't like or hang out with white people.

Turturro: They talked to me all the time. They called me Brother John. I guess Richard is not as black as I am.

'Burn it down, burn it down!'

Aiello: It was sad to watch Sal's burn down. I thought it should have been preserved, almost like a landmark or tourist attraction.

Lee: I wanted to use three Frank Sinatra songs in "Jungle Fever," so I approached Tina Sinatra, who handled that stuff. She said, "Spike, I don't know. My father wasn't happy about his picture being burned in the pizzeria." It's funny -- Pacino never said anything, De Niro never said anything. I had to do some serious smoothing over with Frank.

'Always do the right thing'

Lee: To this day, no person of color has ever asked me why Mookie threw the can through the window. The only people who ask are white.

Edson: I don't think Mookie did the right thing. He did what he felt he had to at that moment. But then did Sal do the right thing by smashing the radio? I think there were a lot of wrong things.

Bill Nunn [Radio Raheem]: I didn't really understand why Mookie did what he did. Sal was doing the neighborhood kids a favor by staying open late. He was trying to do a good thing.

Esposito: Mookie did the right thing for Mookie. But I think he definitely made a mistake.

'Together, are we gonna live?'

Barry Alexander Brown, editor: I showed a filmmaker friend of mine the movie. And afterward, he said, "You and Spike are irresponsible. There are going to be riots and people are going to get killed."

Lee: People actually thought that young black Americans would riot across the country because of this film. That's how crazy it was. It was the furthest thing from my mind because I had faith in my people. But I still feel that some white moviegoers were scared to see it in theaters because they might be filled with crazy black people.

Edson: It incited discussion, that's what it incited.

Perez: The Latin community just blew a gasket over my depiction. They were bothered that I was a single mom, that I was -- whether they would admit it or not -- impregnated by a black man, that my accent was heavy. I would say, "If you don't believe that there is truth to my character, walk into a welfare office." And that pissed them off even more.

Lee: It disturbed me how some critics would talk about the loss of property -- which is really saying white-owned property -- but not the loss of life. "Do the Right Thing" was a litmus test. If in a review, a critic discussed how Sal's Famous was burned down but didn't mention anything about Radio Raheem getting killed, it seemed obvious that he or she valued white-owned property more than the life of this young black hoodlum. To me, loss of life outweighs loss of property. You can rebuild a building. I mean, they're rebuilding New Orleans now but the people that died there are never coming back.

Aiello: Spike brought attention to the film and that is, of course, good. But he was quite controversial in his press conferences, talking about Malcolm X and so forth. If it wasn't for that, I feel the film had a chance to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Dickerson: ["Driving Miss Daisy" winning Best Picture] still hurts. It definitely does.

Lee: I let it go. But let's be honest. If you look at the Academy voters 20 years ago, which movie are they going to like? One with characters named Buggin Out and Radio Raheem? Or one with a subservient, obedient, yassah-massa character?

Aiello: I love Denzel [Washington, who beat Aiello in the supporting actor category, for "Glory"], but that film was a joke. I look at it today and laugh.

'We had a great, great day'

Turturro: They don't make movies like that anymore, man.

Aiello: We made something special.

Lee: There was a benefit for Barack Obama on Martha's Vineyard when he was running for the Senate. I didn't really know who he was. He came over and said, "You're responsible for me and my wife getting together." Then he told me how they saw "Do the Right Thing" on their first date, and then went to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream and talked about it.

Smith: We're actually responsible for a whole new era in American political achievement.

Lee: I think he is a very smart man, because if he had taken Michelle to see "Driving Miss Daisy," things would have turned out a whole lot different.

Academy may silence original-song Oscar

Trophy will only be awarded if at least one song rates above new threshhold

Another shakeup in the Oscar rules makes it possible there will be no original song category in any given Academy Awards year.

The new rules, announced by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in a news release Friday, stipulate that at least one of the songs nominated for an Oscar in the original song category achieve a minimum score of 8.25 on a scale of six to 10 in nominations voting.

If no song ranks at least an 8.25, no Oscar will be presented in the category that year. If only one song scores that high, it and the next-highest-rated tune will be the finalists in the category. If two or more songs score above the threshhold, they will all receive nominations, up to a maximum of five tunes.

Bruce Broughton, head of the academy's music branch, said it is trying to improve the quality of songs that receive the award.

"There's been a lot of talk about the songs in films, the lack of memorability compared to songs in the past," he said. "This is an attempt to really make the songs as good as possible."

Last year, the academy limited Oscar song nominations to two per film.

The academy will also move its honorary Oscars, such as the Thalberg and Humanitarian awards, out the Academy Award ceremony and present them at a separate event.

Earlier in the week, the academy announced it will double the number of nominees for the best picture category to 10.

Nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards will be announced Feb. 2, with the ceremony to follow on March 7.

Michael Jackson May Be Buried At Neverland

What's the hold up with Michael Jackson funeral arrangements? I am told that there is right now a discussion going on within his family and advisors about burying him at Neverland Ranch in Los Olivos, California. Sources say that the proposal came from Tohme Tohme, Jackson's former manager, the non-doctor and special ambassador to Senegal. Tohme works with Colony Capital LLC, the firm that holds the mortgage note on Neverland. Their idea is to turn Neverland into Graceland, with Jackson's grave the central attraction.

This isn't so easy. For one thing, as lawyers have pointed out, you can't simply bury someone in your backyard. Permits are required. For another, the town of Los Olivos was sounded out about a "Graceland" idea a long time ago and rejected it. Neverland is on a two-lane country road across from a school way in the hills along the Santa Ynez Valley. The locals feel it's not equipped for that kind of traffic.

But the Graceland plan is being pushed by Colony and Tohme, as Tohme agitates for it within a split and confused family. Much discussion is going on right now, especially among Michael's brothers, about ways to maximize his estate -- in other words make money.

"Michael would be mortified to know this," one of his business associates said to me today.

'Transformers' takes to sky with $112M weekend

LOS ANGELES – Alien robots have transformed into box-office superstars with $200 million in domestic ticket sales in just five days.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" took in $112 million in the sequel's first weekend and $201.2 million since opening Wednesday, according to Sunday estimates from Paramount, which is distributing the DreamWorks movie.

It was well on the way to becoming the year's top-grossing movie.

That was a few million dollars higher than other studios were expecting for the movie, and the figures could change a bit when final numbers are released Monday.

Still, it was a colossal start for the "Transformers" sequel, whose opening five days amounted to nearly two-thirds of the $319 million domestic total the franchise's first movie did over its entire run in 2007.

Now playing in almost every other country except India, the movie added $185.8 million overseas, for a worldwide total of $387 million. That's well over half the $708 million global total for the first "Transformers."

That first movie began with a $70.5 million weekend. Based on how well the sequel has done, "Revenge of the Fallen" could join the handful of movies that have topped the $400 million mark domestically.

"I'd say given the momentum it has, it's got a real shot," said Rob Moore, vice chairman at Paramount.

For the first five days, the "Transformers" sequel was second only to last summer's "The Dark Knight" with $203.8 million.

This was the biggest opening weekend of this year, surpassing the $85.1 million debut of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" in early May.

The sequel began with $60.6 million on its opening day Wednesday. That also was second only to "The Dark Knight," which had the biggest box-office day ever with $67.2 million on opening day.

With $14.4 million at 169 IMAX theaters, "Transformers" set a record for a five-day opening in the giant-screen format, nearly doubling the previous best of $7.3 million set by "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

"Transformers" overcame harsh reviews from critics, who called it a visual-effects extravaganza without much story or human heart. Director Michael Bay has a history of bad reviews and big box office with "Armageddon" and "Pearl Harbor."

"Michael Bay knows how to build the perfect summer box-office beast," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "He squarely aimed right at the demographic, right at what summer movie-goers want, and he put it on the screen. And audiences can't seem to get enough of it."

The sequel broadened the franchise's fan base. Females accounted for just 40 percent of the audience for the first "Transformers" but 46 percent for the sequel, Moore said.

Much of that was due to the on-screen romance for the characters played by Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, who were relative unknowns when the first movie came out.

With a $13 million weekend, Disney and Pixar Animation's "Up" became the year's top-grossing film domestically at $250.2 million. It surpassed Paramount's "Star Trek," which did $3.6 million over the weekend to hit a $246.2 million total.
The reign of "Up" at the top of the year's box-office chart will be short-lived, though. The "Transformers" sequel should shoot past it in a matter of days.

The Warner Bros. melodrama "My Sister's Keeper," with Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin, had a so-so debut, coming in at No. 5 with $12 million. Breslin plays a daughter conceived as a donor for her older sister, who has leukemia.

Summit Entertainment's Iraq War drama "The Hurt Locker" had a strong start in limited release, taking in $144,000 in four theaters for an average of $36,000 a cinema. That compares to an average of $26,453 in 4,234 theaters for "Transformers."

Starring Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie as members of a U.S. bomb squad in Baghdad, "The Hurt Locker" has a chance to become the first real commercial success among recent war-on-terror movies, which audiences generally have avoided.

"The Hurt Locker" has earned stellar reviews since debuting at film festivals last year. It rolls out to more theaters on July 10.

Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," $112 million.
2. "The Proposal," $18.5 million.
3. "The Hangover," $17.2 million.
4. "Up," $13 million.
5. "My Sister's Keeper," $12 million.
6. "Year One," $5.8 million.
7. "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," $5.4 million.
8. "Star Trek," $3.6 million.
9. "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," $3.5 million.
10. "Away We Go," $1.7 million.

Michael Jackson's legacy honored at BET Awards

LOS ANGELES – The BET Awards became the official Michael Jackson TV celebration on Sunday, with joyous tributes to the King of Pop from a New Edition medley of Jackson 5 songs to host Jamie Foxx's tender monologue delivered in that classic red leather zipper jacket and white glove.

Joe Jackson, the singer's father, was on hand to represent the grief-stricken family. "I just wish he could be here to celebrate himself," he said. "Sadly, he's not here, so I'm here to celebrate for him."

Already an affair of major star wattage, the night's show at the Shrine Auditorium was thrown under a white-hot spotlight in the wake of Michael Jackson's death Thursday, adding attendees and guests, doubling the number of media requests, adding an extra half-hour to the telecast and even lengthening the red carpet to accommodate all who wanted to take part.

While Jackson's incredible influenced stretched across genres, races, and cultures, he had a very unique place in the world of black entertainment. His influence is arguably most visible in urban music, seen in stars like Usher who mimic his dance moves, to Ne-Yo, whose music is marked by its Jackson-isms. But that influence went beyond music: Jackson was black America's biggest star, who broke racial barriers that allowed for so many other superstars to follow.

Foxx kicked off the show with a re-enactment of the choreography from Jackson's iconic "Beat It" video in front of the star-studded crowd, on its feet from the start of the show. Throughout the night, Foxx wore some of Jackson's signature looks, like the wide-collar black leather outfit from "Billie Jean."

"No need to be sad. We want to celebrate this black man," said Foxx.

Producers of the annual awards show — which recognizes the best in music, acting and sports — revamped the show to meet the moment. While Beyonce and T.I. were the leading award nominees with five apiece, giving out trophies was an afterthought: Honoring Jackson was became the show's main focus.

While some performed their own hits, most made sure to incorporate some of the man who influenced them in their performances. A chant of "Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson" was heard while Keri Hilson performed, and Foxx's "Blame It" incorporated some of the Jacksons' dance hit "Blame It On the Boogie."

New Edition, the 1980s teen sensations who were considered that generation's Jackson 5 with their own version of bubble-gum soul, ran through several of the Jackson 5's greatest hits, from "I Want You Back" to "ABC," mirroring their idols right down to the group's original choreography. Ne-Yo sang one of Jackson's most sensual songs, "Lady in my Life."

"He's the man who made it possible for me to be on the stage; I love you and I miss you," he said later.

And winners acknowledged Jackson when they received their awards.

"We all know none of us in this in this room wouldn't be here for Michael Jackson," said Lil Wayne, as he picked up his award for best male hip-hop star.

"My heart and prayers go out to the whole Jackson family," said basketball star LeBron James, who won best male athlete. "What they did for us, ... for the whole world was amazing."

The Shrine stage was where Jackson's hair and scalp were burned during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in 1984 and the location for several of his Grammy and American Music Award performances.

Lisa Marie Presley: Michael Jackson Afraid He'd 'End Up' Like Elvis

Michael Jackson's former wife Lisa Marie Presley said on Friday the pop star was a tortured soul who once predicted that he would "end up" like her father, the late rock icon Elvis Presley.

Writing on her MySpace blog, Presley also ripped into reports in the media that her relationship with Jackson was contrived, saying they split because she could not save him from self-destructive behavior.

"Our relationship was not a 'a sham' as is being reported in the press," Presley, 41, wrote in the blog posting, which was verified by her spokesperson.

She called it an "unusual relationship" but added: "Nonetheless, I do believe he loved me as much as he could love anyone and I loved him very much."

Presley, the only daughter of the original "King of Rock 'n' Roll" and a performer in her own right, describes having a conversation with Jackson about her father's August 16, 1977 death. Elvis Presley died at age 42 of a heart attack after years of drug use.

"At some point he (Jackson) paused, he stared at me very intensely and he stated with an almost calm certainty: 'I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did.'"

Presley wrote that she tried to deter Jackson from the idea, but he shook his head and nodded "as if he knew what he knew" and would not be dissuaded.

"As I sit here overwhelmed with sadness, reflection and confusion at what was my biggest failure to date, watching on the news almost play by play the exact scenario I saw happen on August 16, 1977 happening again right now with Michael (a sight I never wanted to see again), just as he predicted, I am truly, truly gutted," she said.

Presley wrote that she and Jackson's family tried to save him from "the inevitable, which is what just happened" but she became overwhelmed and had to end their relationship.

"I became very ill and emotionally/ spiritually exhausted in my quest to save him from certain self-destructive behavior and from the awful vampires and leeches he would always manage to magnetize around him," she wrote.

NBC to host celebration of Ed McMahon on July 1

LOS ANGELES – Ed McMahon's publicist says a celebration of the late "Tonight" show sidekick, who died Tuesday at 86, is set for July 1.

McMahon's publicist, Howard Bragman, tells The Associated Press Friday that NBC will host the untelevised event, scheduled to be held at 6 p.m. PST at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in North Hollywood.

Bragman says details are still being finalized, including the guest list.

McMahon died early Tuesday at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Bragman says McMahon had a "multitude of health problems the last few months."

McMahon played second banana to longtime host Johnny Carson on NBC's "Tonight" show from 1962 until Carson retired in 1992.

Hayden on Movie Nudity: "You Never Know"

Los Angeles (E! Online) – Hayden Panettiere has no problem showing some skin.
In her new movie, I Love You, Beth Cooper (in theaters July 10), Ms. Panettiere stars as the most popular girl in high school who is the object of the school nerd's affection. In one scene, with her back to the camera, she drops her towel in the locker room to impress her geeky suitor, played by Paul Rust.

So just how naked was she? Read on to find out...

"I was really naked," the 18-year-old starlet tells me. "I had these little sticky petals on my boobs, but that was about it. My dad calls me such an exhibitionist. He always says, 'God, even when you were little, you were such an exhibitionist!' "

Even so, Panettiere has no plans to go frontal for the cameras...yet.

"I'm cool with my body, and I'm cool running around undressed and all that stuff, but there are just certain things that not everyone needs to know, that you need to keep somehow private and personal to you," she said. "But you never know, you never know. I could be 30 years old and just be like, 'Screw it—I want to take it all off. I better take a picture of this baby before it all goes.' "

Exact details of Jackson death still unclear

LOS ANGELES – The final act of Michael Jackson's life came into clearer focus Friday, a picture of a fallen superstar working out with TV's "Incredible Hulk" and under the care of his own private cardiologist as he tried to get his 50-year-old body in shape for a grueling bid to reclaim his glory.

While the exact circumstances of his death remained unclear, early clues suggested he may simply have pushed his heart too far.

Police said they had towed the doctor's BMW from Jackson's home because it may include medication or other evidence, and a source familiar with the situation told The Associated Press that a heart attack appeared to have caused the cardiac arrest that led to the pop icon's sudden death.

As grief for the King of Pop poured out from the icons of music to heartbroken fans, and the world came to grips with losing one of the most luminous celebrities of all time, an autopsy showed no sign of trauma or foul play to Jackson, who died Thursday at UCLA Medical Center after paramedics not could not revive him.

The AP source who said Jackson apparently suffered a heart attack was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. Jackson's brother Jermaine had said the pop singer apparently went into cardiac arrest — which often, but not always, happens because of a heart attack.

Authorities said they spoke with the doctor briefly Thursday and Friday and expected to meet with him again soon. Police stressed that the doctor, identified by the Los Angeles Times as cardiologist Conrad Murray, was not a criminal suspect.

"We do not consider him to be uncooperative at this time," Beck said. "We think that he will assist us in coming to the truth of the facts in this case."

Craig Harvey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner, said there were no signs of foul play in the autopsy and further tests would be needed to determine cause of death. He said Jackson was taking some unspecified prescription medication but gave few other details.

Meanwhile, a 911 call released by fire officials shed light on the desperate effort at the mansion to save Jackson's life before paramedics arrived Thursday afternoon. Jackson died later at UCLA Medical Center.

In the recording, an unidentified caller pleads with authorities to send help, offering no clues about why Jackson was stricken. He tells a dispatcher that Jackson's doctor is performing CPR.

"He's pumping his chest," the caller says, "but he's not responding to anything."
Asked by the dispatcher whether anyone saw what happened, the caller answers: "No, just the doctor, sir. The doctor has been the only one there."

The president of the company promoting Jackson's shows said Murray was Jackson's personal physician for three years. Jackson insisted Murray accompany him to London, said Randy Phillips, president of AEG Live.

Phillips quoted Jackson as saying: "Look, this whole business revolves around me. I'm a machine, and we have to keep the machine well-oiled." Phillips said Jackson submitted to at least five hours of physicals that insurers had insisted on.

On Friday, the autopsy was completed in a matter of hours, but an official cause of death could take up to six weeks while medical examiners await toxicology tests. No funeral plans had been made public.

Jackson had remained out of the public spotlight during intense rehearsals for the London concerts, but those with access said he was upbeat and seemingly energized by his planned comeback. Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of the Grammys, said he watched Jackson dance energetically as recently as Wednesday.

"There was this one moment, he was moving across the stage and he was doing these trademark Michael moves, and I know I got this big grin on my face, and I started thinking to myself, 'You know, it's been years since I've seen that,'" he said.

Lou Ferrigno, the star of "The Incredible Hulk," said he had been working out with Jackson for the past several months.

Still, Jackson's health had been known to be precarious in recent years, and one family friend said Friday that he had warned the entertainer's family about his use of painkillers.

"I said one day we're going to have this experience. And when Anna Nicole Smith passed away, I said we cannot have this kind of thing with Michael Jackson," Brian Oxman, a former Jackson attorney and family friend, told NBC's "Today" show. "The result was I warned everyone, and lo and behold, here we are. I don't know what caused his death. But I feared this day, and here we are."

Oxman claimed Jackson had prescription drugs at his disposal to help with pain suffered when he broke his leg after he fell off a stage and for broken vertebrae in his back.

The worldwide wave of mourning for Jackson continued unabated for the man who revolutionized pop music and moonwalked his way into entertainment legend.

"My heart, my mind are broken," said Elizabeth Taylor, who was one of Jackson's closest friends and married one of her husbands at a lavish wedding at the pop star's Neverland Ranch in 1991. She said she had heard the news as she was preparing to travel to London for Jackson's comeback show, and added, "I can't imagine life without him."

Hundreds made a pilgrimage to the Jackson family's compound in Los Angeles, leaving flowers and messages of love. They did the same at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and at the home in Los Angeles' Holmby Hills where Jackson was stricken. Some camped out overnight.

In New York, people stopped at Harlem's Apollo Theater, where Jackson had performed as a child with his brothers in one of rock's first bubblegum supergroups, the Jackson 5.

Scores of celebrities who knew or worked with Jackson — or were simply awed by him — issued statements of mourning. Some came through publicists and others through emotional postings on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, where countless everyday fans were sharing memories as well.

"I truly hope he is memorialized as the '83 moonwalking, MTV owning, mesmerizing, unstoppable, invincible Michael Jackson," said John Mayer. Miley Cyrus called him "my inspiration."

And Diana Ross, the former lead singer of the Supremes who introduced the Jackson 5 at their debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1969, said she could not stop crying. "I am unable to imagine this," she said. "My heart is hurting."

His two ex-wives both said they were devastated. One of them, Lisa Marie Presley, posted a long, emotional statement on her MySpace page in which she said her ex-husband had confided to her 14 years ago that he feared dying young and under tragic circumstances, just as her father, Elvis Presley, had.

"I promptly tried to deter him from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that," Presley said.

Presley's father, the King of Rock 'n' Roll to Jackson's King of Pop, died in 1977 at age 42 of a drug-related death.

At rehearsals for Sunday's Black Entertainment Awards show, stars like Beyonce, Wyclef Jean and Ne-Yo were frantically revamping their performances in an effort to turn the evening into a Michael Jackson tribute.

"There's a direct line from Ne-Yo to Michael Jackson," said executive producer Stephen Hill. "There's a direct line from Beyonce to Michael Jackson. There's a direct line from Jay-Z to Michael Jackson. I think they'll want to pay tribute in their own way."

When he was on trial on child molestation charges in 2005, Jackson appeared gaunt and had recurring back problems that he attributed to stress. His trial was interrupted several times by hospital visits, and Jackson once even appeared late to court dressed in his pajamas after an emergency room visit.

After his acquittal, Jackson's prosecutor argued against returning some items that had been seized from Neverland, the Santa Barbara County estate Jackson had converted into a children's playland. Among the items were syringes, the powerful painkiller Demerol and other prescription drugs.

Demerol carries a long list of warnings to users. The government warns that mixing it with certain other drugs can lead to reactions including slowed or stopped breathing, shock and cardiac arrest.

Within hours of Jackson's death on Thursday, fans were inundating Web sites that sell his music, and physical stores reported they had been cleaned out of Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 CDs. All 10 of the albums on Amazon.com's bestseller list Friday were Jackson's; the 25th anniversary edition of "Thriller," the bestselling album of all time, was at the top.

Meanwhile, fans were snapping up every Jackson recording they could get their hands on.

Bill Carr, Amazon.com Inc.'s vice president for music and video, said the Web site sold out within minutes all CDs by Michael Jackson and by the Jackson 5.

Jackson's albums accounted for all 10 of Amazon's "Bestsellers in Music" list Friday, with the 25th anniversary edition of the celebrated "Thriller" album taking the top spot.

Barnes and Noble Inc.'s Web site and retail stores also sold out most Jackson CDs, DVDs and books, and its 10 best-selling CDs were Jackson titles as well.
"They love him," said Bill Carr, Amazon's vice president for music and video.

"He's a legend, and they're anxious to make sure they have his music in their collections."

Michael Jackson, `King of Pop,' dead at 50

LOS ANGELES – Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop" who once moonwalked above the music world, died Thursday as he prepared for a comeback bid to vanquish nightmare years of sexual scandal and financial calamity. He was 50.

Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being stricken at his rented home in Holmby Hills. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him at his home for nearly three-quarters of an hour, then rushed him to the hospital, where doctors continued to work on him.

"It is believed he suffered cardiac arrest in his home. However, the cause of his death is unknown until results of the autopsy are known," his brother Jermaine said. Police said they were investigating, standard procedure in high-profile cases.

Jackson's death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music's premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage.

His 1982 album "Thriller" — which included the blockbuster hits "Beat It," "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" — is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide.

At the time of his death, Jackson was rehearsing hard for what was to be his greatest comeback: He was scheduled for an unprecedented 50 shows at a London arena, with the first set for July 13.

As word of his death spread, MTV switched its programming to play videos from Jackson's heyday. Radio stations began playing marathons of his hits. Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital. In New York's Times Square, a low groan went up in the crowd when a screen flashed that Jackson had died, and people began relaying the news to friends by cell phone.

"No joke. King of Pop is no more. Wow," Michael Harris, 36, of New York City, read from a text message a friend had sent him. "It's like when Kennedy was assassinated. I will always remember being in Times Square when Michael Jackson died."

The public first knew him as a boy in the late 1960s, when he was the precocious, spinning lead singer of the Jackson 5, the singing group he formed with his four older brothers out of Gary, Ind. Among their No. 1 hits were "I Want You Back," "ABC" and "I'll Be There."

He was perhaps the most exciting performer of his generation, known for his backward-gliding moonwalk, his feverish, crotch-grabbing dance moves and his high-pitched singing, punctuated with squeals and titters. His single sequined glove, tight, military-style jacket and aviator sunglasses were trademarks, as was his ever-changing, surgically altered appearance.

"For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don't have the words," said Quincy Jones, who produced "Thriller." "He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I've lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him."

Jackson ranked alongside Elvis Presley and the Beatles as the biggest pop sensations of all time. He united two of music's biggest names when he was briefly married to Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie, and Jackson's death immediately evoked comparisons to that of Presley himself, who died at age 42 in 1977.

As years went by, Jackson became an increasingly freakish figure — a middle-aged man-child weirdly out of touch with grown-up life. His skin became lighter, his nose narrower, and he spoke in a breathy, girlish voice. He often wore a germ mask while traveling, kept a pet chimpanzee named Bubbles as one of his closest companions, and surrounded himself with children at his Neverland ranch, a storybook playland filled with toys, rides and animals. The tabloids dubbed him "Wacko Jacko."

"It seemed to me that his internal essence was at war with the norms of the world. It's as if he was trying to defy gravity," said Michael Levine, a Hollywood publicist who represented Jackson in the early 1990s. He called Jackson a "disciple of P.T. Barnum" and said the star appeared fragile at the time but was "much more cunning and shrewd about the industry than anyone knew."

Jackson caused a furor in 2002 when he playfully dangled his infant son, Prince
Michael II, over a hotel balcony in Berlin while a throng of fans watched from below.

In 2005, he was cleared of charges he molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor at Neverland in 2003. He had been accused of plying the boy with alcohol and groping him, and of engaging in strange and inappropriate behavior with other children.

The case followed years of rumors about Jackson and young boys. In a TV documentary, he acknowledged sharing his bed with children, a practice he described as sweet and not at all sexual.

Despite the acquittal, the lurid allegations that came out in court took a fearsome toll on his career and image, and he fell into serious financial trouble.

Michael Joseph Jackson was born Aug. 29, 1958, in Gary. He was 4 years old when he began singing with his brothers — Marlon, Jermaine, Jackie and Tito — in the Jackson 5. After his early success with bubblegum soul, he struck out on his own, generating innovative, explosive, unstoppable music.

The album "Thriller" alone mixed the dark, serpentine bass and drums and synthesizer approach of "Billie Jean," the grinding Eddie Van Halen solo on "Beat It," and the hiccups and falsettos on "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'."

The peak may have come in 1983, when Motown celebrated its 25th anniversary with an all-star televised concert and Jackson moonwalked off with the show, joining his brothers for a medley of old hits and then leaving them behind with a pointing, crouching, high-kicking, splay-footed, crotch-grabbing run through "Billie Jean."

The audience stood and roared. Jackson raised his fist.

By then he had cemented his place in pop culture. He got the plum Scarecrow role in the 1978 movie musical "The Wiz," a pop-R&B version of "The Wizard of Oz," that starred Diana Ross as Dorothy.

During production of a 1984 Pepsi commercial, Jackson's scalp sustains burns when an explosion sets his hair on fire.

He had strong follow-up albums with 1987's "Bad" and 1991's "Dangerous," but his career began to collapse in 1993 after he was accused of molesting a boy who often stayed at his home. The singer denied any wrongdoing, reached a settlement with the boy's family, reported to be $20 million, and criminal charges were never filed.

Jackson's expressed anger over the allegations on the 1995 album "HIStory," which sold more than 2.4 million copies, but by then, the popularity of Jackson's music was clearly waning, even as public fascination with his increasingly erratic behavior was growing.

Cardiac arrest is an abnormal heart rhythm that stops the heart from pumping blood to the body. It can occur after a heart attack or be caused by other heart problems.

Billboard magazine editorial director Bill Werde said Jackson's star power was unmatched. "The world just lost the biggest pop star in history, no matter how you cut it," Werde said. "He's literally the king of pop."

Jackson's 13 No. 1 one hits on the Billboard charts put him behind only Presley, the Beatles and Mariah Carey, Werde said.

"He was on the eve of potentially redeeming his career a little bit," he said. "People might have started to think of him again in a different light."

'Charlie's Angel' Farrah Fawcett dies at 62

LOS ANGELES – Farrah Fawcett, the "Charlie's Angels" star whose feathered blond hair and dazzling smile made her one of the biggest sex symbols of the 1970s, died Thursday after battling cancer. She was 62.

The pop icon, who in the 1980s set aside the fantasy girl image to tackle serious roles, died shortly before 9:30 a.m. in a Santa Monica hospital, spokesman Paul Bloch said.

Ryan O'Neal, the longtime companion who had reunited with Fawcett as she fought anal cancer, was at her side, along with close friend Alana Stewart, Bloch said.

"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away," O'Neal said. "Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world."

She burst on the scene in 1976 as one-third of the crime-fighting trio in TV's "Charlie's Angels." A poster of her in a clingy swimsuit sold in the millions.

She left the show after one season but had a flop on the big screen with "Somebody Killed Her Husband." She turned to more serious roles in the 1980s and 1990s, winning praise playing an abused wife in "The Burning Bed."

She had been diagnosed with cancer in 2006. As she underwent treatment, she enlisted the help of O'Neal, who was the father of her now 24-year-old son, Redmond.

This month, O'Neal said he asked Fawcett to marry him and she agreed. They would wed "as soon as she can say yes," he said.

Her struggle with painful treatments and dispiriting setbacks was recorded in the television documentary "Farrah's Story." Fawcett sought cures in Germany as well as the United States, battling the disease with iron determination even as her body weakened.

"Her big message to people is don't give up, no matter what they say to you, keep fighting," her friend Stewart said. NBC estimated the May 15, 2009, broadcast drew nearly 9 million viewers.

In the documentary, Fawcett was seen shaving off most of her trademark locks before chemotherapy could claim them. Toward the end, she's seen huddled in bed, barely responding to a visit from her son.

Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith made up the original "Angels," the sexy, police-trained trio of martial arts experts who took their assignments from a rich, mysterious boss named Charlie (John Forsythe, who was never seen on camera but whose distinctive voice was heard on speaker phone.)

The program debuted in September 1976, the height of what some critics derisively referred to as television's "jiggle show" era, and it gave each of the actresses ample opportunity to show off their figures as they disguised themselves in bathing suits and as hookers and strippers to solve crimes.

Backed by a clever publicity campaign, Fawcett — then billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors because of her marriage to "The Six Million Dollar Man" star Lee Majors — quickly became the most popular Angel of all.

Her face helped sell T-shirts, lunch boxes, shampoo, wigs and even a novelty plumbing device called Farrah's faucet. Her flowing blond hair, pearly white smile and trim, shapely body made her a favorite with male viewers in particular.

A poster of her in a dampened red swimsuit sold millions of copies and became a ubiquitous wall decoration in teenagers' rooms.

Thus the public and the show's producer, Spelling-Goldberg, were shocked when she announced after the series' first season that she was leaving television's No. 5-rated series to star in feature films. (Cheryl Ladd became the new "Angel" on the series.)

But the movies turned out to be a platform where Fawcett was never able to duplicate her TV success. Her first star vehicle, the comedy-mystery "Somebody Killed Her Husband," flopped and Hollywood cynics cracked that it should have been titled "Somebody Killed Her Career."

The actress had also been in line to star in "Foul Play" for Columbia Pictures. But the studio opted for Goldie Hawn instead. "Spelling-Goldberg warned all the studios that that they would be sued for damages if they employed me," Fawcett told The Associated Press in 1979. "The studios wouldn't touch me."

She finally reached an agreement to appear in three episodes of "Charlie's Angels" a season, an experience she called "painful."

She returned to making movies, including the futuristic thriller "Logan's Run," the comedy-thriller "Sunburn" and the strange sci-fi tale "Saturn 3," but none clicked with the public.

Fawcett fared better with television movies such as "Murder in Texas," "Poor Little Rich Girl" and especially as an abused wife in 1984's "The Burning Bed." The last earned her an Emmy nomination and the long-denied admission from critics that she really could act.

As further proof of her acting credentials, Fawcett appeared off-Broadway in "Extremities" as a woman who is raped in her own home. She repeated the role in the 1986 film version.

Not content to continue playing victims, she switched type. She played a murderous mother in the 1989 true-crime story "Small Sacrifices" and a tough lawyer on the trail of a thief in 1992's "Criminal Behavior."

She also starred in biographies of Nazi-hunter Beate Klarsfeld and photographer Margaret Bourke-White.

"I felt that I was doing a disservice to ourselves by portraying only women as victims," she commented in a 1992 interview.

In 1995, at age 50, Fawcett posed partly nude for Playboy magazine. The following year, she starred in a Playboy video, "All of Me," in which she was equally unclothed while she sculpted and painted.

She told an interviewer she considered the experience "a renaissance," adding, "I no longer feel ... restrictions emotionally, artistically, creatively or in my everyday life. I don't feel those borders anymore."

Fawcett's most unfortunate career moment may have been a 1997 appearance on David Letterman's show, when her disjointed, rambling answers led many to speculate that she was on drugs. She denied that, blaming her strange behavior on questionable advice from her mother to be playful and have a good time.

In September 2006, Fawcett, who at 59 still maintained a strict regimen of tennis and paddleball, began to feel strangely exhausted. She underwent two weeks of tests and was told the devastating news: She had anal cancer.

O'Neal, with whom she had a 17-year relationship, again became her constant companion, escorting her to the hospital for chemotherapy.

"She's so strong," the actor told a reporter. "I love her. I love her all over again."

She struggled to maintain her privacy, but a UCLA Medical Center employee pleaded guilty in late 2008 to violating federal medical privacy law for commercial purposes for selling records of Fawcett and other celebrities to the National Enquirer.

"It's much easier to go through something and deal with it without being under a microscope," she told the Los Angeles Times in an interview in which she also revealed that she helped set up a sting that led to the hospital worker's arrest.

Her decision to tell her own story through the NBC documentary was meant as an inspiration to others, friends said. The segments showing her cancer treatment, including a trip to Germany for procedures there, were originally shot for a personal, family record, they said. And although weak, she continued to show flashes of grit and good humor in the documentary.

"I do not want to die of this disease. So I say to God, `It is seriously time for a miracle,'" she said at one point.

Born Feb. 2, 1947, in Corpus Christi, Texas, she was named Mary Farrah Leni Fawcett by her mother, who said she added the Farrah because it sounded good with Fawcett. She was less than a month old when she underwent surgery to remove a digestive tract tumor with which she was born.

After attending Roman Catholic grade school and W.B. Ray High School, Fawcett enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin. Fellow students voted her one of the 10 most beautiful people on the campus and her photos were eventually spotted by movie publicist David Mirisch, who suggested she pursue a film career. After overcoming her parents' objections, she agreed.

Soon she was appearing in such TV shows as "That Girl," "The Flying Nun," "I Dream of Jeannie" and "The Partridge Family."

Majors became both her boyfriend and her adviser on career matters, and they married in 1973. She dropped his last name from hers after they divorced in 1982.

By then she had already begun her long relationship with O'Neal. Both Redmond and Ryan O'Neal have grappled with drug and legal problems in recent years.

Wentz denies Fall Out Boy split

Fall Out Boy star Pete Wentz has denied the rockers are set to go their separate ways - even though they have no plans to make any more albums.

The bassist shocked fans earlier this week by taking to his Twitter.com Internet page to admit the band's last record, 2008's Folie a Deux, may be their "swan song."

But Wentz insists the band is set to continue - they just won't be making any new music.

He tells MTV.com, "No, we're not calling it quits, but we've no future album plans right now. We can't quit, we're waiting to get fired.

"I think it's all in context. There aren't any new Fall Out Boy songs because we don't write for the sake of it. We will stop doing Fall Out Boy when it stops being fun."

Neve Campbell rejects 'Scream 4'

Scream creator Kevin Williamson has been forced to re-write his screenplay for a fourth SCREAM movie, after the franchise's star Neve Campgell refused to reprise her role.

Director Wes Craven recently revealed Courteney Cox and her husband David Arquette were returning for a fourth instalment of the movie series, to shoot a screenplay written by Williamson.

The filmmakers hoped Campbell would reprise her role as Sidney Prescott for a fourth time - but the actress has turned down the offer.

Now Williamson has to go back to the drawing board.

He tells NYPost.com's PopWrap blog, "I've had numerous conversations with Neve. She's a friend. Nicest girl on the planet. It just ain't workin' out and it sucks for me. It was no cameo. I'd never play Sid out that way. And I ain't got no Sid-less scenario. So, I don't know yet what to do."

Star Trek for Oscar? Academy Expands Best Picture to 10

Los Angeles (E! Online) – It's a year too late for The Dark Knight, but maybe those Hangover guys will have something extra special to celebrate.

This year's Best Picture field will be expanded to 10 contenders, the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today.

The move could mean typically overlooked genres like sci-fi, comedy and animation could get a crack at the big prize—and could spell good news for this year's biggest hits, Star Trek, The Hangover and Up.

While the Best Picture category, like the rest of the Oscar fields, has traditionally been limited to five nominees in recent decades, it hasn't always been so.

During the early years of the Oscars, there were 10 (and sometimes more) nominees, up until Casablanca beat back nine rivals at the 16th Academy Awards at the 1943 ceremony.

Today's announcement comes as the Academy continues to mark the 70th anniversary of "Hollywood's Greatest Year"—1939 saw the release of such classic films as Best Picture winner Gone With the Wind, along with fellow Oscar nominees The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Ninotchka, Dark Victory, Love Affair, Of Mice and Men, Wuthering Heights, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

Nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards will be announced Feb. 2, 2010, with the ceremony set March 7.

Jive-talking twin Transformers raise race issues

LOS ANGELES – Harmless comic characters or racist robots? The buzz over the summer blockbuster "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" only grew Wednesday as some said two jive-talking Chevy characters were racial caricatures. Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact hatchbacks, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.

As good guys, they fight alongside the Autobots and are intended to provide comic relief. But their traits raise the specter of stereotypes most notably seen when Jar Jar Binks, the clumsy, broken-English speaking alien from "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace," was criticized as a caricature.

One fan called the Transformers twins "Jar Jar Bots" in a blog post online.

Todd Herrold, who watched the movie in New York City, called the characters "outrageous."

"It's one thing when robot cars are racial stereotypes," he said, "but the movie also had a bucktoothed black guy who is briefly in one scene who's also a stereotype."

"They're like the fools," said 18-year-old Nicholas Govede, also of New York City. "The comic relief in a degrading way."

Not all fans were offended. Twin brothers Jason and William Garcia, 18, who saw the movie in Miami, said they related to the characters — not their illiteracy, but their bickering.

"They were hilarious," Jason said. "Every movie has their standout character, and I think they were the ones for this movie."

In Atlanta, Rico Lawson said people were reading too much into the characters. "It was actually funny," said Lawson, 25, who saw the movie with his girlfriend in Atlanta.

That was the aim, director Michael Bay said in an interview.

"It's done in fun," he said. "I don't know if it's stereotypes — they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it."

Bay said the twins' parts "were kind of written but not really written, so the voice actors is when we started to really kind of come up with their characters."

Actor Reno Wilson, who is black, voices Mudflap. Tom Kenny, the white actor behind SpongeBob SquarePants, voices Skids.

Wilson said Wednesday that he never imagined viewers might consider the twins to be racial caricatures. When he took the role, he was told that the alien robots learned about human culture through the Web and that the twins were "wannabe gangster types."

"It's an alien who uploaded information from the Internet and put together the conglomeration and formed this cadence, way of speaking and body language that was accumulated over X amount of years of information and that's what came out," the 40-year-old actor said. "If he had uploaded country music, he would have come out like that."

It's not fair to assume the characters are black, he said.

"It could easily be a Transformer that uploaded Kevin Federline data," Wilson said. "They were just like posers to me."

Kenny did not respond to an interview request Wednesday.

"I purely did it for kids," the director said. "Young kids love these robots, because it makes it more accessible to them."

Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman said they followed Bay's lead in creating the twins. Still, the characters aren't integral to the story, and when the action gets serious, they disappear entirely, notes Tasha Robinson, associate entertainment editor at The Onion.

"They don't really have any positive effect on the film," she said. "They only exist to talk in bad ebonics, beat each other up and talk about how stupid each other is."

Hollywood has a track record of using negative stereotypes of black characters for comic relief, said Todd Boyd, a professor of popular culture at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, who has not seen the "Transformers" sequel.

"There's a history of people getting laughs at the expense of African-Americans and African-American culture," Boyd said. "These images are not completely divorced from history even though it's a new movie and even though they're robots and not humans."

American cinema also has a tendency to deal with race indirectly, said Allyson Nadia Field, an assistant professor of cinema and media studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"There's a persistent dehumanization of African-Americans throughout Hollywood that displaces issues of race onto non-human entities," said Field, who also hasn't seen the film. "It's not about skin color or robot color. It's about how their actions and language are coded racially."

If these characters weren't animated and instead played by real black actors, "then you might have to admit that it's racist," Robinson said. "But stick it into a robot's mouth, and it's just a robot, it's OK."

But if they're alien robots, she continued, "why do they talk like bad black stereotypes?"

Bay brushes off any whiff of controversy.

"Listen, you're going to have your naysayers on anything," he said. "It's like is everything going to be melba toast? It takes all forms and shapes and sizes."

Gone with the Wind gets a big fancy box

Following the upcoming Wizard of Oz Blu-ray box set, Gone with the Wind will also come from Warner in a similar large box filled with goodies.

It's unknown what those goodies are, but if they're comparible to The Wizard of Oz, it should be quite a set. The box arrives on November 30th with a suggested retail price of $84.99.

Soundgarden in talks for reunion?

Soundgarden are in talks to launch a comeback, according to Shinedown rocker Brent Smith.

The band split in 1997 and former frontman Chris Cornell recently admitted he would "never count out" the idea of a reunion, after previously insisting there was no chance they would get back together because it would never live up to his expectations.

He said, "My fear would be that we wouldn't tap into the greatness we felt when we were on our game."

However, a mini-reunion of former bandmates Kim Thayil, Ben Shepherd, and Matt Cameron at a gig in Seattle, Washington, in March forced Cornell to rethink his future - and now Smith reveals plans have been set in motion.

He tells Britain's Kerrang! magazine, "There's talk of a reuniting of Soundgarden in the States soon. I know actually someone specific who told me that, who is actually specifically in their organisation. Kinda told me that they're talking about it."

Cornell went on to form Audioslave after Soundgarden split, before carving out a solo career for himself.

Beastie Boys' 'Hot Sauce' Due Sept. 15

The Beastie Boys have confirmed that their eighth studio album, " Hot Sauce Committee Part 1," will be released Sept. 15 by Capitol. The set will include 17 tracks, including "Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win" featuring Santigold and "Too Many Rappers" featuring Nas, which the artists performed together at the Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tenn. on June 12. The album will be available in multiple configurations, including a 5.1 surround mix.

The first Beastie Boys headline date confirmed to follow the album's release, Sept. 24 at Hollywood Bowl, has sold out. Further dates will be announced as they are confirmed.

Meanwhile, the band has a busy summer ahead on the U.S. festival circuit, with headlining slots at events including Lollapalooza, All Points West, Outside Lands, and Austin City Limits. Prior to the Lollapalooza appearance, the Beastie Boys will perform at Chicago’s Congress Theater on August 6.

The Beasties have also announced they will release a remastered and expanded version of 1998 album "Hello Nasty," available as a 2-CD/vinyl box set beginning with an August 17 pre-order/digital release. The set will be in stores August 25.

A deluxe edition of 1994’s "Ill Communication" will be available for pre-order on July 6, with physical release on July 14.

Here is the "Hot Sauce Committee Part 1" track list:

1. Tadlock's Glasses
2. B-Boys In The Cut
3. Make Some Noise
4. Nonstop Disco Powerpack
5. OK
6. Too Many Rappers (featuring NAS)
7. Say It
8. The Bill Harper Collection
9. Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win (featuring Santigold)
10. Long Burn The Fire
11. Bundt Cake
12. Funky Donkey
13. Lee Majors Come Again
14. Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament
15. Pop Your Balloon
16. Crazy Ass Shit
17. Here's A Little Something For Ya

'Tonight' sidekick Ed McMahon dies in LA at 86

LOS ANGELES – Ed McMahon, the loyal "Tonight Show" sidekick who bolstered boss Johnny Carson with guffaws and a resounding "H-e-e-e-e-e-ere's Johnny!" for 30 years, died early Tuesday. He was 86.

McMahon died shortly after midnight at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center surrounded by his wife, Pam, and other family members, said his publicist, Howard Bragman.

Bragman didn't give a cause of death, saying only that McMahon had a "multitude of health problems the last few months."

McMahon had bone cancer, among other illnesses, according to a person close to the entertainer, and had been hospitalized for several weeks. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

McMahon broke his neck in a fall in March 2007, and battled a series of financial problems as his injuries preventing him from working.

McMahon and Carson had worked together for nearly five years on the game show "Who Do You Trust?" when Carson took over NBC's late-night show from Jack Paar in October 1962. McMahon played second banana on "Tonight" until Carson retired in 1992.

"You can't imagine hooking up with a guy like Carson," McMahon said in an interview with The Associated Press in 1993. "There's the old phrase, hook your wagon to a star. I hitched my wagon to a great star."

McMahon, who never failed to laugh at his Carson's quips, kept his supporting role in perspective.

"It's like a pitcher who has a favorite catcher," he said. "The pitcher gets a little help from the catcher, but the pitcher's got to throw the ball. Well, Johnny Carson had to throw the ball, but I could give him a little help."

"And now h-e-e-e-e-e-ere's Johnny!" was McMahon's trademark opener for each "Tonight" show, followed by a small, respectful bow toward the star. McMahon's style was honed during his youthful days as a carnival hawker.

The highlight for McMahon came just after the monologue, when he and Carson would chat before the guests took the stage.

"We would just have a free-for-all," he said in the AP interview. "Now to sit there, with one of the brightest, most well-read men I've ever met, the funniest, and just to hold your own in that conversation. ... I loved that."

When Carson died in 2005, McMahon said he was "like a brother to me," and recalled bantering with him on the phone a few months earlier.

"We could have gone on (television) that night and done a 'Carnac' skit. We were that crisp and hot."

His medical and financial problems kept him in the headlines in his last years. It was reported in June 2008 that he was facing possible foreclosure on his Beverly Hills home.

By year's end, a deal was worked out allowing him to stay in his home, but legal action involving other alleged debts continued.

Among those who had stepped up with offers of help was Donald Trump.
"When I was at the Wharton School of Business I'd watch him every night," Trump told the Los Angeles Times in August. "How could this happen?"

McMahon even spoofed his own problems with a spot that aired during the 2009 Super Bowl promoting a cash-for-gold business. Pairing up with rap artist MC Hammer, he explained how easy it is to turn gold items into cash, jokingly saying "Goodbye, old friend" to a gold toilet and rolling out a convincing "H-e-e-e-e-e-ere's money!"

Born Edward Leo Peter McMahon Jr. on March 6, 1923, in Detroit, McMahon grew up in Lowell, Mass. He got his start on television playing a circus clown on the 1950-51 variety series "Big Top." But the World War II Marine veteran interrupted his career to serve as a fighter pilot in Korea.

He joined "Who Do You Trust?" in 1958, its second year, the start of his long association with Carson. It was a partnership that outlasted their multiple marriages, which provided regular on-air fodder for jokes.

While Carson built his career around "Tonight" and withdrew from the limelight after his retirement, McMahon took a different path. He was host of several shows over the years, including "The Kraft Music Hall" (1968) and the amateur talent contest "Star Search."

He was a longtime co-host of the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon, a Labor Day weekend institution, and was co-host with Dick Clark of "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes."

McMahon and Clark also teamed up as pitchmen for American Family Publishers' sweepstakes, with their faces a familiar sight on contest entry forms and in TV commercials. McMahon was known for his ongoing commercials for Budweiser as well.

He had supporting roles in several movies, including "Fun With Dick and Jane" (1977) and "Just Write" (1997). He took on his first regular TV series job in the 1997 WB sitcom "The Tom Show" with Tom Arnold.

McMahon released his autobiography, "For Laughing Out Loud: My Life and Good Times," in 1998. In it, he recounts the birth of "Tonight."

"Let's just go down there and entertain the hell out of them," Carson told him before the first show. Wrote McMahon: "That was the only advice I ever got from him."

In 1993, he recalled his first meeting with Carson after they left "Tonight."
"The first thing he said was, 'I really miss you. You know, it was fun, wasn't it?'" McMahon recalled. "I said, 'It was great.' And it was. It was just great."

Besides his wife, Pam, McMahon is survived by children Claudia, Katherine, Linda, Jeffrey and Lex.

Bragman said no funeral arrangements have been made.

'Moneyball' can't find a place in Hollywood's lineup

At a time when expensive adult dramas keep striking out at the box office, it appears not even Brad Pitt and director Steven Soderbergh can entice a Hollywood studio to spend about $57 million on a baseball movie.

Pitt and Soderbergh, who were given a short window to set up their adaptation of the 2003 bestselling book "Moneyball" at a rival studio after Sony Pictures unexpectedly killed the project just three days before production was to begin today, have been turned down by Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, which shared concerns about the film's high budget and limited commercial appeal.

Sony movie chief Amy Pascal had given them the weekend to try and set the movie up at the two studios where they have the closest ties. Pitt's production company is based at Paramount, and the actor and Soderbergh have made the "Ocean's 11" movies at Warner.

On Friday, as first reported by industry trade paper Daily Variety, Sony's Pascal pulled the plug on the production after Soderbergh turned in a rewrite of the script by Steve Zaillian that she found unacceptable, according to people close to the situation. A person informed about the matter said that Pascal had liked Zaillian's adaptation of Michael Lewis' book about Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, but when Soderbergh's rewrite came in last Wednesday, she was surprised that there were "substantial changes."

Pascal met with Soderbergh in her Culver City office to see if he was willing to revise his take, but the two couldn't agree on a vision for the film. They also disagreed over Soderbergh's plan to shoot the film in a more improvisational documentary style, the person said.

She then made a last-minute decision to scrap the production, shocking those who were about to start shooting, said one individual involved in the project.

By Monday, Paramount and Warner Bros. had already decided to pass. Similarly budgeted dramas aimed at adults, such as "State of Play," "Duplicity" and "The International," have all fared poorly at the box office this year. "Moneyball" has the added burden of being about baseball, which would not only limit its appeal among women, but also overseas audiences. International receipts from theatrical, television and DVD sales typically account for more than half of a film's total sales.

As studios continue to tighten their belts, those added up to more than enough reasons to flash a red light.

"In light of the economic climate, Warner and Paramount said they weren't going to make the movie," said Pitt's manager, Cynthia Pett-Dante. She added that Pitt "totally supports Steven all the way" in his vision for the movie.

Soderbergh's manager, Michael Sugar, declined comment on behalf of the director.

One executive who had considered bringing the project to his studio said the movie would have had to gross more than $100 million at the domestic box office just to break even.

Sony is still weighing its options, which now appear limited to either convincing Soderbergh to alter his vision, proceeding with another director, or putting the entire project on the disabled list.

Either way, the studio will be on the hook for the nearly $10 million it has already spent on preproduction and screenplay development.

'Scrubs' to change its name & location next season, former TV star to be recruited

"Scrubs," the beloved series we said goodbye to last month when J.D. (Zach Braff) made his exit from Sacred Heart, will return to the schedule this winter, but it won't be the same show... not at all.

"Scrubs" e.p. Bill Lawrence told EW.com last week that when the sitcom comes back, it'll no longer take place in the hospital, but in a medical school with professors Cox (John C. McGinley) and Turk (Donald Faison) instead.

Sacred Heart won't disappear completely though. Dr. Cox and Dr. Turk's students will end up seeing several familiar faces while doing rotations there every now and then... Braff, Sarah Chalke (Elliot), Judy Reyes (Carla) and Ken Jenkins (Dr. Kelso) have signed on to appear as guest stars throughout the season.

The med students will be comprised of actors new to the "Scrubs" family, though casting has not yet begun. Lawrence did, however, mention that ABC is encouraging them to hire one big name, someone recognizable.

Sources close to the series tell me "Gilmore Girls"' Lauren Graham is currently at the top of their wish list.

As for last season's newbies, Eliza Coupe, Betsy Beutler, Sonal Shah and Todd Bosley, the interns who were once rumored to be "Scrubs" future, I'm told Coupe will likely be the only one considered to return in some regular capacity.
Neil Flynn (The Janitor) and Christa Miller (Jordan) have both landed series regular roles on new sitcoms, however Christa can do double duty on "Scrubs" since her new gig is Lawrence's other show, "Cougar Town," which will film right next door.

No, not next door to the abandoned hospital in the Valley. "Scrubs" has actually packed up shop, its sets will be built on a studio lot in Culver City.

Insiders tell me the producers are busy brainstorming a new name for the show as well... something that will probably include "Scrubs," but somehow distinguish that it's different from the show we've watched for the last eight years.

The Couch Potato Report - June 20th, 2009

This week The Couch Potato Report peels a week, a car, a musical festival and asks: Who ya gonna call?

After a week away I am back with more critical analysis of movies that are now available on DVD and in High Definition on Blu-ray.

Up first this week is the Canadian film ONE WEEK.

Joshua Jackson from the television shows DAWSON'S CREEK and FRINGE stars as Ben, a man who is diagnosed with cancer and given a slim chance of survival.

But instead of going into treatment, he decides to take a motorcycle trip.

Along the way, Ben makes new friends and he ponders his relationship with his fiancée, his job, and his dream of becoming a writer.

Since ONE WEEK is a Canadian film about a road trip across Canada, it features some of the unique places and things that can be seen along the Trans Canada between Toronto and British Columbia, and that includes Saskatchewan.

And that is why I liked this film! No matter what I say for the next minute, please remember that I liked this film.

Yes, I liked it because I have driven the roads this movie travels, and I have visted the same unique places and things that can be seen along the Trans Canada...but at times the film just goes from one place to the next, and Ben has little to no human interraction with people.

And I can tell you for a fact that when you visit small town Canada, people are friendly, and they will talk with you!

Plus, the best people in the world can be found in small towns, and there is a plot point that happens at the end of this film that would never happen!! It would never happen in a small town!!! I won't tell you what it is, but when that event happened, I was disappointed in the filmmakers...not the film, per se, but the filmmakers.

They obviously didn't spent enough time in the great small towns - like Kipling - where they were filming.

In the end, as I said, I liked ONE WEEK, primarily because of how much of Canada it showed me during it's 94 minute running time.

No, it is not a perfect film, but at one point the lead character says that he is "...just searching for moments.", and there are enough good moments in this film for me to recommend it.

From the Canadian film ONE WEEK, let's park now beside Clint Eastwood's latest...this one is called GRAN TORINO!

In this great movie Eastwood plays a widowed, racist war veteran who dislikes, and then befriends his neighbor, a young teenager, who tried to steal his prized possession: his 1972 Gran Torino.

After filming MILLION DOLLAR BABY in 2004, Eastwood had said that he was done with acting and he was only going to direct from then on.

I - for one - am glad that he decided to appear in this film as well as no one else could have played this character.

He is so racist at times that a person with a lesser screen presence would have made the character unlikeable...however, Clint gives us another superb performance, and film.

GRAN TORINO is a great movie with real characters and it is also very funny at times. You might even learn a thing or two!

It is one of the best films I have seen in the past year.

Alright, let's rock!! Let's rock at Woodstock!!

Believe it or not, it has almost been 40 years since the Woodstock Music & Art Fair took place.

It took place in the rural town of Bethel, New York from August 15 to August 18, 1969, and now WOODSTOCK: 3 DAYS OF PEACE AND MUSIC DIRECTOR'S CUT - 40TH ANNIVERSARY ULTIMATE COLLECTOR'S EDITION is the perfect way to relive it.

This set features more than three hours of extras - including two hours of rare performance footage with songs from Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Johnny Winter & Mountain who played at Woodstock but never appeared in any previous film version, plus a third hour of featurettes showcasing interviews from the filmmakers.

But it primarily features the music!

They say if you can remember the sixties you weren't really there, so if you'd like to experience what you missed, look for WOODSTOCK: 3 DAYS OF PEACE AND MUSIC DIRECTOR'S CUT - 40TH ANNIVERSARY ULTIMATE COLLECTOR'S EDITION.

I have two films to get to quickly now before I tell you about the comedy classic that is debuting on Blu-ray this week, up first is the wanna be comedy FIRED UP.

In FIRED UP the two most popular guys in high school decide to ditch football camp for cheerleader camp so they can meet new women.

This is a pointless, very predictable film that offers nothing new. I say skip it and check out BRING IT ON or the eighties classic PRIVATE SCHOOL. They are much better films.

Two actors I like topline this next film, Clive Owen from INSIDE MAN and Naomi Watts from THE RING films star in THE INTERNATIONAL.

They are working together to expose a high-profile financial institution's role in an international arms dealing ring.

THE INTERNATIONAL takes you to Berlin, Milan and New York City, but with one exception it doesn't offer up anything we haven't seen before, so it is ultimately unsatisfying.

That one exception? There is an extended shootout that takes place inside New York's Guggenheim Museum...well, not the real one, but still...it is pretty cool!

However, if you want to see cool shootout's in New York City's landmarks, along with ghosts, goblins and things that go bump in the night, I have a film that continues to satisfy, twenty-five years after it's debut.

Yes, if there's something strange, in your neighbourhood, who ya gonna call?

GHOSTBUSTERS was released to theatres on June 8, 1984, and this week the BLU-RAY BEACON shines on the 25th Anniversary Edition of the film.

Many of the special features that have been available on the various DVDs over the years are included on this new Blu-ray, but there are a few features that are brand new, including a trivia and behind the scenes option.

GHOSTBUSTERS remains one of my all-time favourite films, and I loved watching it in High Definition!!

Yes, if I haven't been clear, I do recommend this movie...I still recommend it!!

Finally this week, it is the FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD!!!

We head to Columbia this week for the film DOG EAT DOG about two hoods who break the unwritten code of the country's crime world.

Yes, you can lie, cheat, steal and kill, but don't break the code, for if you do, you sign your own death sentence.

DOG EAT DOG isn't a film with a happy ending, but it is full of some great action sequences and scenes. I was left with a few questions at the end, but I still enjoyed looking around a country that I have never been to, and I enjoyed the Columbian film DOG EAT DOG, which is available now on DVD.

The 25 Anniversary edition of GHOSTBUSTERS, the okay THE INTERNATIONAL, the wannabe comedy FIRED UP, the 40 Anniversary Edition of WOODSTOCK, Clint Eastwood's great GRAN TORINO and the Canadian travelogue ONE WEEK are available now on DVD and Blu-ray.

Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

I will talk about the made-in-Saskatchewan film 45 RPM, we'll hear about some CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC, and the BLU-RAY BEACON shines on the Extended Edition of the Tom Hanks' movie BIG.

I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!

Kodak is taking Kodachrome film away

Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak is taking your Kodachrome away.

The Eastman Kodak Co. announced Monday it's retiring its most senior film because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age.

The world's first commercially successful colour film, immortalized in song by Simon, spent 74 years in Kodak's portfolio.

It enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s and '60s but in recent years has nudged closer to obscurity: Sales of Kodachrome are now just a fraction of one per cent of the company's total sales of still-picture films, and only one commercial lab in the world still processes it.

Those numbers and the unique materials needed to make it convinced Kodak to call its most recent manufacturing run the last, said Mary Jane Hellyar, the outgoing president of Kodak's Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group.

"Kodachrome is particularly difficult [to retire] because it really has become kind of an icon," Hellyar said.

Simon sang about it in 1973 in the aptly titled Kodachrome.

"They give us those nice bright colours. They give us the greens of summers. Makes you think all the world's a sunny day," he sang."…So, mama don't take my Kodachrome away."

Vibrant colours

Indeed, Kodachrome was favoured by still and motion picture photographers for its rich but realistic tones, vibrant colours and durability.

It was the basis not only for countless family slideshows on carousel projectors over the years but also for world-renowned images, including Abraham Zapruder's 8-mm reel of President John F. Kennedy's assassination Nov. 22, 1963.

Photojournalist Steve McCurry's widely recognized portrait of an Afghan refugee girl, shot on Kodachrome, appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. At Kodak's request, McCurry will shoot one of the last rolls of Kodachrome film and donate the images to the George Eastman House museum, which honours the company's founder, in Rochester.

For McCurry, who after 25 years with Kodachrome moved on to digital photography and other films in the last few years, the project will close out an era.

"I want to take [the last roll] with me and somehow make every frame count … just as a way to honour the memory and always be able to look back with fond memories at how it capped and ended my shooting Kodachrome," McCurry said last week from Singapore, where he has an exhibition at the Asian Civilizations Museum.

As a tribute to the film, Kodak has compiled on its website a gallery of iconic images, including McCurry's Afghan girl and others from photographers Eric Meola and Peter Guttman.

Guttman used Kodachrome for 16 years, until about 1990, before switching to Kodak's more modern Ektachrome film, and he calls it "the visual crib that I was nurtured in." He used it to create a widely published image of a snowman beneath a solar eclipse, shot in the dead of winter in North Dakota.

'Incredibly realistic tones'

"I was pretty much entranced by the incredibly realistic tones and really beautiful colour," Guttman said, "but it didn't have that artificial Crayola colouration of some of the other products that were out there."

Unlike any other colour film, Kodachrome is purely black and white when exposed. The three primary colours that mix to form the spectrum are added in three development steps rather than built into its layers.

Because of the complexity, only Dwayne's Photo, in Parsons, Kan., still processes Kodachrome film. The lab has agreed to continue through 2010, Kodak said.

Hellyar estimates the retail supply of Kodachrome will run out in the fall, though it could be sooner if devotees stockpile. In the U.S., Kodachrome film is available only through photo specialty dealers. In Europe, some retailers, including the Boots chain, carry it.

Responding to photographers like Guttman, who refuse to go digital, Hellyar said that despite Kodachrome's demise Kodak will stay in the film business "as far into the future as possible," even though the company now gets about 70 per cent of its revenue from its digital business.

Hellyar points to the seven new professional still films and several new motion picture films introduced in the last few years and to a strategy that emphasizes efficiency.

"Anywhere where we can have common components and common design and common chemistry that let us build multiple films off of those same components, then we're in a much stronger position to be able to continue to meet customers' needs," she said.

Kodachrome, because of its one-of-a-kind formula, didn't fit in with the philosophy and was made only about once a year.

Green Day Let the Bullets Fly in Marc Webb’s “21 Guns” Video

Green Day’s video for “21 Guns,” the second single off the band’s acclaimed 21st Century Breakdown, premiered last night on MySpace Music. The video was directed by music video vet Marc Webb, who previously helmed clips for Weezer and My Chemical Romance and will make his feature film debut later this summer with (500) Days of Summer.

Like the “Know Your Enemy” video, “21 Guns” is a performance-heavy clip that has the band — including touring guitarist Jason White — rocking inside a bleak single room where a young couple are barricaded. Newspaper clippings and the lyrics to the song (as well as other Green Day songs, including “See the Light”) cover the walls, and before long bullets riddle the room, smashing glasses and everything else in sight. But the pair suddenly lose their fear and walk proudly to the middle of the room, where they kiss in a scene that echos 21st Century Breakdown’s cover art.

Drummer Tre Cool recently told Spinner the clip does indeed mirror the album art, and he thinks “It’s the perfect video for the song.” What’s more, “There’s a hot girl and a hot guy in it.” Cool said the video was filmed on a two-day shoot and promised a “lot of explosions, good times and gunpowder.”

“21 Guns” will be among the songs on Rock Band’s Breakdown download three-pack along with “Know Your Enemy” and “East Jesus Nowhere.” Fans will able to see “21 Guns” live this summer when Green Day embark on their full tour starting July 3rd in Seattle.

New CD Releases, June 23rd: Pete Yorn, The Mars Volta, Cheap Trick, Dream Theater, Regina Spektor, and more!!

Pete Yorn "Back and Fourth" (Sony)

The alt-rock singer/songwriter is finally set to release his fourth studio album, which follows 2006's "Nightcrawler." "Back and Fourth" marks a production shift for Yorn, who played virtually all of the instruments on his first three albums, but worked with drummer Joey Waronker (Beck), pianist/arranger Nate Wolcott (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley), bassist Joe Karnes (John Cale), backing vocalist Orenda Fink (Azure Ray) and Jonny Polonsky (the guitarist in Yorn's touring band).

The New Jersey native will showcase the new material at a sold-out album-release show at LA's Roxy Theatre June 24. He'll then launch a two-month North American tour beginning July 9 in San Diego, CA.

Yorn also has plans to drop another studio effort this fall--"Break Up," an album of duets with actress/singer Scarlett Johansson. The nine-track record is set to hit stores on Sept. 8.

* * *
The Mars Volta "Octahedron" (Warner Bros.)

The psychedelic-inspired hard-rock band returns to the fray with the release of its fifth studio album. "Octahedron" follows 2008's "The Bedlam in Goliath," which featured the Grammy Award-winning song "Wax Simulacra."

Having appeared earlier this month at the mammoth Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, TN, the group will again see massive crowds when it shows up in August at the second annual Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival in San Francisco.

* * *
Cheap Trick "The Latest" (Cheap Trick)

The legendary classic rock band is ready to give fans "The Latest." This new disc, which follows 2006's "Rockford," was produced by Julian Raymond and includes a cover of Slade's "When the Lights are Out."

Cheap Trick--frontman Robin Zander, guitarist Rick Nielsen, bassist Tom Petersson and drummer Bun E. Carlos--will back "The Latest" by joining Def Leppard and Poison on the road. The 40-city trek kicks off June 23 in Camden, NJ.

Also of note, the group made headlines recently when it announced plans to interpret The Beatles' classic 1967 album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" during an engagement at the Las Vegas Hilton, which kicks off Sept. 13.

* * *
Dream Theater "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" (Roadrunner)

The prog-metal act, which formed in 1985 in Long Island, NY, is set to unleash its 10th studio album. "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" follows 2007's "Systematic Chaos."

The new offering will be available in several different formats. Along with the standard CD, the effort will also be sold as a vinyl LP and as a three-disc special-edition package with the full album, as well as a disc of instrumental mixes and one featuring six cover songs.

Dream Theater will support "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" with another round of "Progressive Nation" tour dates. The trek begins July 24 in Miami and will end Aug. 29 in Los Angeles.

* * *
Regina Spektor "Far" (Warner Bros.)

The Moscow-born singer/songwriter/pianist is back with a follow-up to 2006's "Begin to Hope." "Far" features work from four big-name producers--Jeff Lynne (Electric Light Orchestra), Mike Elizondo (Eminem), David Kahne (Paul McCartney) and Garret "Jackknife" Lee (R.E.M.). Spektor will support "Far" with a seven-city North American trek that begins Sept. 11 in Saint Paul, MN, and finishes Sept. 24 in Philadelphia.

* * *
More new releases:
Neal E. Boyd, "My American Dream" (Decca)
Shawn Colvin, "Live" (Nonesuch)
Dinosaur Jr., "Farm" (Jagjaguwar)
Kurt Elling, "Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman" (Concord)
Escala, "Escala" (Columbia)
Judy Garland, "Live at the Palladium" (Collector's Choice)
Michael Johns, "Hold Back My Heart" (Downtown)
Bob Marley, "B is For Bob" (Tuff Gong)
VNV Nation, "Of Faith, Power and Glory" (Red)

Soundtracks and scores:
"Hair (The New Broadway Cast Recording)" (Ghostlight)
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" (Reprise)

Nickelback golden at MMVAs

Alberta rockers Nickelback may have picked up a leading three trophies at the MuchMusic Video Awards last night, giving music critics across the country another reason to groan, but in the end it was all about Lady Gaga's "flaming boobies."

The critically unpopular group, who picked up three Juno Awards back in March, went into the televised street-oriented awards show -- which saw thousands of fans take over the blocks surrounding MuchMusic's Toronto Queen and John Sts. headquarters -- with a leading five MMVA nods, tied with R&B Toronto newcomer Danny Fernandes.

Nickelback's trio of trophies were for best video and best rock video for Gotta Be Somebody while the clip also got the nod for best post production.

"Wow," said frontman Chad Kroeger, arriving on the red carpet with his bandmates in a bullet-proof van to find out they'd already won two awards before the official show even began.

"I give it all to the fans. The fans have stuck with us, they've been amazing. We're just trying to sustain it."

Added guitarist Ryan Peake: "Couldn't be a better band for this (bullet-proof) vehicle."

Fernandes, whose debut disc, Intro, was produced by Palestinian-born, Ottawa-based rapper Belly, picked up a single trophy for best pop video for Private Dancer and busted out a dance move as a presenter alongside MuchMusic veejay Sarah Taylor.

Piano-rockers The Midway State, whose members hail from Collingwood and Thornhill, Ont., were surprise double winners, picking up two MMVA trophies for best independent video for Never Again and Ur Fave new artist for the same song.

Montreal pop-punk band Simple Plan won Ur Fave video for Save You.

Teen-pop sibling act the Jonas Brothers, who were also co-hosts for the evening, opened the show with their hit song, Burnin' Up, which later won the award for Ur Fave international video, and were immediately followed by St. Catharines, Ont., post-hardcore-screamo act Alexisonfire performing Young Cardinals in a wild contrast of music styles.

And while the trio of brothers can certainly sing -- they returned to sing their current hit, Paranoid, to screaming female fans -- a skit later in the show with celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton fell totally flat.

"You guys truly are the greatest fans in the world -- we love you so much," said Nick Jonas, upon accepting their award.

When it came to international winners, many were on hand to pick up their hardware as they were also MMVA performers.

Lady Gaga picked up best international video (artist) for her breakout single, Poker Face.

"You guys make it so hard to live anywhere else," said Lady Gaga in a gold braided outfit and matching headband.

"To God and the gays!"

But she really had people talking when she later transformed the MMVA stage into a New York subway station and wore a revealing black leather and silver studded ensemble that barely covered her nether regions for her performance of LoveGame/Poker Face that also included dancing NYPD officers and sparks flying out of a metal frame bra she was wearing by the end of the song.

Black Eyed Peas, who currently have the No. 1 album in Canada with The E.N.D., won for best international video (group) for that album's first single, Boom Boom Pow, which they also performed with female singer Fergie decked out in hot pants, thigh-high boots and long fake finger nails on one hand.

Kelly Clarkson also blew the roof off the joint -- okay so there was no roof outside -- with her big-voice and hit song, My Life Would Suck Without You, as she performed barefoot in jeans.

One Canadian group who did well last night was Billy Talent. The Toronto pop-punk outfit picked up the international video award (Canadian) for Rusted From the Rain, the first single from their new album, Billy Talent III, due later this summer, and performed the song during the MMVAs broadcast on an elevated platform.

"I don't have any flaming boobies," said Billy Talent frontman Ben Kowalewicz as he picked up the award, in reference to Lady Gaga's eye-popping performance which had just occurred.

Books by Martin Luther King Jr. to be republished

ATLANTA – Four books that have been long out of print by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will be published again under a new deal with Beacon Press brokered by King's youngest son.

Dexter King called it a historic partnership that will bring his father's words to a global audience. Beacon, a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association, publishes books on social justice, human rights and racial equality.

The Boston-based publisher will release new editions of "Stride Toward Freedom," "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?," "Trumpet of Conscience" and "Strength to Love" in 2010.

Under the agreement, Beacon will also compile King's writings, sermons, lectures and prayers into new editions with introductions by leading scholars.

'Curb Your Enthusiasm': Meg Ryan to guest along with 'Seinfeld' cast, but there's a catch

We're just three months away from the seventh season debut of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and the anticipation continues to build as the show has just added another big name guest star to their roster.

EW.com reports that America's rom com queen of yesteryear, Ms. Meg Ryan, will appear in an episode.

The cast of "Seinfeld," Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards, have also signed on to play themselves in a storyline that will span several eps.

This news was first reported by EW.com back in March, and was touted as the first time that all four actors will appear together in a scripted TV show since "Seinfeld" took its final bow more than a decade ago.

I am told that there is, however, a catch.

A source close to "Curb" says there isn't a single scene in the "Seinfeld" cast's entire "Curb" arc in which all four actors appear together.

So, yeah, that's not exactly the "reunion" we were expecting, is it?

Seinfeld, Louis-Dreyfus and Alexander have all made individual appearances on "Curb" -- which, of course, was created by and stars "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David -- in the past.

"Transformers" director rips studio in leaked memo

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Powerhouse Hollywood director Michael Bay, who returns to theaters worldwide on Wednesday with a "Transformers" sequel, has blasted the marketing efforts of the film's studio, Paramount Pictures.

In a memo sent last month to top brass at the Viacom Inc unit, and published on Sunday by celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com, Bay complained there was no buzz surrounding "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."

"Right now we are not an event. We are just a sequel, which is very different. There is no anticipation. Remember back to 'Spider-Man 2' -- it was everywhere," he wrote.

Bay added that advance word on the $200 million robot extravaganza in publications like Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times had been an "abject failure," and he described as "lame" a plan for him to preview a small clip at the MTV Movie Awards this month.

"I cannot figure if this is a cash issue with your company? Is there some clever idea why we are not spending? I'm not sure," he said. "I'm sure though the movie will do fine, but not to your internal expectations because right now we are fooling ourselves by being cocky."

But in a second e-mail, sent June 6, Bay compared Paramount to a family and thanked the executives for "busting your butts and bringing your 'A game' for the release of Transformers."

A Paramount spokeswoman declined to comment other than to point out that the latter e-mail "clearly speaks to a differing stance than the former." Two of the top production executives on Bay's e-mail list were coincidentally ousted on Friday amid a failure to speed up production of in-house movies.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is the follow-up to "Transformers," which earned $708 million worldwide in 2007. Bay, 44, recently told Forbes magazine that he earned $80 million from that film.

Early reviews of the latest film have been unfavorable. In Britain, where the film debuted at No. 1 this weekend, The Guardian newspaper said the 150-minute movie was "like watching paint dry while getting hit over the head with a frying pan."

Bullock's 'Proposal' woos date crowds with $34.1M

LOS ANGELES – Movie audiences accepted a proposal from Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, who scored the summer's first big romantic comedy hit.

Bullock and Reynolds' "The Proposal" took in $34.1 million to open as the weekend's No. 1 movie, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Disney flick delivered the biggest opening ever for Bullock, nearly double that of her previous best of $17.6 million for the 2007 paranormal thriller "Premonition."

Bullock stars as a ruthless publishing executive who coerces her put-upon assistant (Reynolds) into a fake marriage so she can avoid deportation back to her native Canada.

"I think the market was ready for a really fun, broad romantic comedy," said Mark Zoradi, president of Disney's motion-picture group.

"The Proposal" took over the top spot from the Warner Bros. bachelor-party comedy "The Hangover," which slipped to second place with $26.9 million. A surprise smash hit, "The Hangover" raised its total to $152.9 million.

Disney's animated adventure "Up" was No. 3 with $21.3 million, lifting its total to $224.1 million and following Paramount's "Star Trek" as the second movie of 2009 to cross the $200 million mark.

Debuting in the fourth spot with $20.2 million was Sony's caveman comedy "Year One," starring Jack Black and Michael Cera as Neanderthals on a road trip after they are banished from their village.

It was summer's second big-name comedy set in prehistoric times to take a back seat to a wedding-themed romp. Will Ferrell's "Land of the Lost" opened at No. 3 in early June, the same weekend "The Hangover" pulled off a No. 1 upset.

"June is officially comedy month at the theaters. Comedy is really ruling things," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com.

Woody Allen's latest comedy, "Whatever Works," had a strong start in limited release, hauling in $280,720 in nine theaters for an average of $31,191 a cinema. That compares to an average of $11,163 in 3,056 theaters for "The Proposal" and $6,684 in 3,022 cinemas for "Year One."

Released by Sony Pictures Classics, "Whatever Works" stars Larry David as a misanthropic New Yorker who forges unlikely relationships with a conservative Southern family (Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr.).

While some of June's comedies performed well, the month generally has been a downer for Hollywood, which tore through the first part of the year with a record box-office pace.

Revenues this weekend were up slightly compared to the same period a year ago, but that followed three straight weekends of declining box-office receipts.

For the year, revenue remains up a solid 10 percent, though summer ticket sales are dead even with last year's, Dergarabedian said.

That should turn around this coming weekend with the debut of the blockbuster sequel "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," which industry analysts say could deliver the year's first $100 million opening.

Paramount's "Transformers" sequel got off to a big start in Great Britain and Japan, where it opened this weekend in advance of its U.S. debut Wednesday, pulling in $14.1 million in Britain and $5.8 million in Japan.

Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Proposal," $34.1 million.
2. "The Hangover," $26.9 million.
3. "Up," $21.3 million.
3. "Year One," $20.2 million.
5. "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," $11.3 million.
6. "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," $7.3 million.
7. "Star Trek," $4.7 million.
8. "Land of the Lost," $4 million.
9. "Imagine That," $3.1 million.
10. "Terminator Salvation," $3.07 million.

Veteran CBS newsman Walter Cronkite reported ill

NEW YORK – CBS isn't commenting on reports that veteran newsman Walter Cronkite is gravely ill.

The 92-year-old former anchor of "The CBS Evening News," who has been ailing for some time, has reportedly taken a turn for the worse, according to TVNewser and other online sites.

CBS News spokesman Kevin Tedesco had no comment on Friday.

Bob Schieffer said, "All of us are praying for the best, and our thoughts are with Walter's family." The host of CBS' "Face the Nation" and a longtime Cronkite colleague, Schieffer noted that he had no current news on Cronkite's condition.

The face of CBS News for more than two decades, Cronkite was named "the most trusted man in America" in a 1972 "trust index" survey, and he ended each broadcast with the reassuring signoff, "And that's the way it is."

He left the "Evening News" anchor desk in 1981, but after that kept a busy schedule both in journalistic and other activities.

For 24 years, he served as onsite host for New Year's Day telecasts by the Vienna Philharmonic until ill health forced him to bow out earlier this year.

Cruise, Abrams prepare for new 'Mission'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams have chosen to accept another impossible mission.

Cruise and Abrams have signed on to produce a fourth installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise for Paramount. Abrams directed Cruise's last outing as covert operative Ethan Hunt in 2006's Mission: Impossible III.

While they have set 2011 as a target release date, it's still unknown if Cruise will star again or if Abrams will return to direct. According to studio spokeswoman Katie Martin Kelley, Cruise and Abrams are only attached as producers at this point.

It would mark a reunion for Cruise and Paramount after the studio cut the actor loose from a long-term development deal in 2006.

Sting Announces 'Winter' Album For Fall

Summer is just around the corner, but Sting has another season on his mind. The singer announced today (June 17) that his next album, "If On a Winter's Night...," will be inspired by his favorite time of year and feature two original compositions as well as traditional songs, carols and lullabies from the British Isles. The album is slated for release October 27 on Deutsche Grammophon.

"The theme of winter is rich in inspiration and material," Sting said in a statement. "By filtering all of these disparate styles into one album I hope we have created something refreshing and new."

"If On A Winter's Night" finds Sting collaborating with Robert Sadin, who produced and arranged Herbie Hancock's Grammy-winning "Gershwin's World," and a host of guest musicians including his longtime guitarist Dominic Miller. The artist's original compositions are entitled "Lullaby for an Anxious Child" and "The Hounds of Winter," and among the traditional songs being interpreted are the Newscastle ballad "The Snow It Melts the Soonest," the English "begging" song "A Soalin'," and "Gabriel's Message," a carol that dates back to the 14th century.

Of his deep affinity for winter, Sting explained, "Our ancestors celebrated the paradox of light at the heart of the darkness, and the consequent miracle of rebirth and the regeneration of the seasons."

Sting's 2006 album "Songs from the Labyrinth," inspired by the lute songs of English composer John Dowland, has sold 259,000 according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Fifth Indiana Jones movie planned

Shia Labeouf has confirmed movie bosses are planning to bring Indiana Jones back for a fifth time - a new film in the archaeologist adventurer series is in the works.

LaBeouf joined Harrison Ford in the movie franchise's fourth instalment, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, last year and played the history hero's son and sidekick Mutt.

After the global success of the film, which came nearly 20 years after 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, rumours began swirling that director Steven Spielberg planned to continue the franchise without Ford - passing the lead to the young Transformers star.

And now the actor has confirmed the legendary director is working on another Indiana Jones picture - but refuses to reveal any of the details.

He says, "Steve just said that he cracked the story on it, and I think they're gearing that up."

Ford and LaBeouf have both dismissed reports that the younger star will be leading the Indiana Jones franchise in the future, even though LaBeouf recently told Playboy magazine that his movie father handed him his iconic hat as a parting gift on the set of the last film.

Harold Ramis Doesn't Think Ivan Reitman Wants To Make Ghostbusters 3

Harold Ramis is doing the rounds of publicity for his upcoming comedy Year One, and you know what that means: more Ghosbusters 3 rumors! Ramis has confirmed that he's still waiting to see the first draft from The Office writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, and will see where things go from there.

"Everyone says they'll do it, they've all said they'll do it. No one has signed anything yet--we haven't signed anything either--but there's the spirit of willingness in the air."

Ramis also suggested that, whoever directs, the movie, it might not be either him or Ivan Reitman, who directed the first two. "I don't think he wants to; I'm not sure I want to (direct). It's just a lot of open questions. Until we see a script, I don't think anyone really knows how they feel about it. Everyone's open to doing it, that's the main thing, that's what got it moving forward."

I'm pretty sure it's not necessarily Reitman's potential direction, rather the participation of the original cast, that has everyone tentatively excited about this. Will the movie be better if Reitman or Ramis, now an established director himself, handles it? Maybe. But it's just as likely that, with a new cast taking the story in a new direction, a fresh face could handle things even better.

Colbert shaves head for troops

BAGHDAD - Wearing a camouflage suit and tie, Stephen Colbert took his show to Baghdad to entertain U.S. soldiers in Iraq. For openers, President Barack Obama appeared by video to thank the troops.

"You're welcome," the mock pundit answered.

"I wasn't talking to you," the president deadpanned.

To the roaring approval of hundreds of troops at Camp Victory, on the western edge of Baghdad, Colbert taped the first of four episodes of "The Colbert Report," in which he plays a pompous, blustering conservative TV host.

His first guest was the towering, bald Gen. Ray Odierno. When Obama and the U.S. commander suggested Colbert had to look like a soldier in order to be a soldier, the general took an electric razor to Colbert's perfectly parted cable-news coif.

The four shows are being taped in the domed marble hall at Saddam Hussein's former Al Faw Palace are to air this week starting Monday on Comedy Central.

Colbert has promoted the trip for weeks but only vaguely because the military urged caution. Instead, the pundit introduced segments with a jaunty theme: "Where in the World and When in Time is Stephen Colbert Going to Be in the Persian Gulf?"

At Camp Victory, Colbert was in typical, cluelessly egotistical form. He showed a clip pretending that he himself didn't know his destination until he got off the plane and somebody threw a shoe at him.

In another skit, he arrived at Fort Jackson, S.C., in a stretch limousine for "the full 10 hours" of basic training, then struggled to do push-ups and sit-ups while a drill sergeant barked at him.

And, concluding that the six-year war in Iraq must be over because nobody's talking about it anymore, Colbert said he would take it upon himself to make it official: "By the power vested in me by basic cable, I officially declare we have won the Iraq war!"

(To bolster his point, he offered a list of successes, including finding weapons of mass destruction - "easier than we thought" - and told the troops Obama should deploy them to General Motors.)

Odierno gently took issue with the self-sure pundit's suggestion the war had ended.

"We're not quite ready to declare victory," he said. "Things are moving forward but again, it's about bringing long-term stability."

Colbert, who sat at a desk propped up by sandbags painted to make up an American flag, responded by asking Odierno if he can bring long-term stability to the United States when he's done in Iraq.

The 45-year-old comedian, who travelled to Iraq from Kuwait on Friday on board a military transport plane, has said he decided make the trip when he noticed economic news coverage was eclipsing reports from Baghdad.

"It must be nice here in Iraq because I understand some of you keep coming back again and again," he joked. "You've earned so many frequent flier miles, you've earned a free ticket to Afghanistan."

He also joked about the economic crisis, congratulating one soldier in the audience who recently got his college degree while serving in Iraq for being the only 2009 graduate able to land a job.

Former Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, chided by Colbert throughout the campaign for his advanced age, made a surprise appearance, thanking the troops in a video for their service and reminding them to clean their muskets.

Many celebrities have visited Iraq to entertain the troops. But Colbert's series - "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" - marks the first time anyone has broadcast a taped, non-news talk show fully produced and broadcast from Iraq as part of a USO tour.

USO senior official John Hanson said the production faced a major setback when a sandstorm grounded the crew on Saturday, forcing it to cancel plans for an outing.

Both the character and the real Colbert are ardent supporters of the troops. He has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Yellow Ribbon Fund, which helps injured service members and their families, and is a board member of DonorsChoose.org, which is raising money for the education of children of military parents.

Colbert planned the trip after former Assistant Defence Secretary Bing West suggested it last summer following an interview "The Colbert Report." The show sent about 30 production workers, about a third of its regular staff, to Iraq.

Troops in the audience said they enjoyed Colbert's equal opportunity humour.

"Definitely the highlight was seeing him sacrifice his hair," said Spc. Ryan MacLeod, 35, of Greenville, S.C.

'Hangover' takes down `Up' for top box-office spot

LOS ANGELES – Hollywood had a bigger hangover this weekend than expected.

The Warner Bros. comedy "The Hangover" drew larger audiences than earlier projected to raise its weekend ticket sales to $45 million, about $1.8 million more than the studio estimated Sunday.

That made it the No. 1 draw for the weekend instead of Disney and Pixar Animation's "Up," which came in second with $44.1 million. Sunday studio estimates had "Up" edging "The Hangover" by about $1 million.

It's rare that the first- and second-place movies on Sunday flip-flop when final numbers come out Monday. But strong attendance Sunday allowed "The Hangover" to pull ahead.

With heavy matinee traffic, family films such as "Up" usually hold on better through Sunday than adult movies like "The Hangover."

Warner Bros. had expected Sunday's National Basketball Association playoff game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Orlando Magic to cut into business for the R-rated "The Hangover," the tale of four friends at an out-of-control bachelor party weekend in Las Vegas.

Yet more people turned up for the movie than anticipated, said Dan Fellman, Warner head of distribution.

"The Lakers weren't the only winners," Fellman said. "We had an unbelievable day."

Disney spokeswoman Heidi Trotta said the studio was happy to finish at No. 2 with "Up," whose final weekend total came in about $100,000 lower than the studio estimated Sunday.

"Up" has topped $137 million in just 10 days and is on track to become the latest $200 million blockbuster from Disney and Pixar, whose hits include "WALL-E," "The Incredibles," "Finding Nemo" and the "Toy Story" movies.

New CD Releases, June 9th: Black Eyed Peas, Sonic Youth, Iron Maiden, Dredg, Aventura, and more!!

Black Eyed Peas "THE E.N.D." (Interscope)

The R&B/hip-hop ensemble returns with its fifth studio effort. "The E.N.D."--which stands for "Energy Never Dies"--is the Black Eyed Peas' first original album since 2005's "Monkey Business."

The group--featuring Will.I.Am, Fergie, Apl.De.Ap and Taboo--is off to a quick start with this album. The set's first single, "Boom Boom Pow," has already hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

All told, the Black Eyed Peas have sold more than 20 million albums worldwide, thanks to such hit songs as "My Humps," "Pump It" and "Let's Get It Started."

* * *
Sonic Youth "The Eternal" (Matador)

Having released its last nine albums through Geffen, the seminal indie-rock act is set to go indie once again as it puts out its latest offering on the Matador label.

"The Eternal" was produced by John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr., Drive-By Truckers) and marks the debut of former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold as a permanent, full-time member of the group.

Sonic Youth will support "The Eternal" on the road. The 21-city tour is set to begin June 28 in Chicago and will finish up Aug. 2 in Oakland, CA.

* * *
Iron Maiden "Flight 666" (Sony)

This two-disc set documents the legendary metal band's 2008 world tour, which took the group from Mumbai, India and Melbourne, Australia to San Jose, Costa Rica and Sao Paulo, Brazil, and seemingly everywhere else in between.

In all, Iron Maiden's "Somewhere Back in Time World Tour" consisted of 23 shows in Asia, Australia, and North, Central and South America in just 45 days, according to a press release.

This double-disc offering serves as the soundtrack to the feature-length tour documentary, "Iron Maiden: Flight 666," which made its theatrical debut back in April.

* * *
Dredg "The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion" (Dredg)

These Northern California prog-rockers are set to drop their fourth studio effort, something that fans have been waiting for since 2005's "Catch Without Arms."

Dredg will support "The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion" during a co-headlining jaunt through North American clubs and theaters with fellow Californians RX Bandits. The trek begins and ends in Southern California; opening night is July 8 in Anaheim, CA, and the closing stand happens Aug. 30-31 in Los Angeles.

* * *
Aventura "The Last" (Sony)

The New York-based, Dominican boy band is back with its fifth album, which follows the 2007 live offering "Kings of Bachata: Sold Out at Madison Square Garden." The group is known for such Latin radio hits as "El Perdedor" and "Mi Carazoncito," as well as for serving as the opening act on Enrique Iglesias' 2008 tour.

* * *
More new releases:
Above & Beyond Presents: Oceanlab, "Sirens of the Sea Remixed" (Ultra)
Nanci Griffith, "The Loving Kind" (Rounder)
Teena Marie, "Congo Square" (Stax)
Johnny Mathis, "Rapture/Romantically" (Collector's Choice)
Johnny Mathis, "Those Were The Days/Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet" (Collector's Choice)
Johnny Mathis, "Up Up & Away" (Collector's Choice)
Rhett Miller, "Rhett Miller" (Shout Factory)
Placebo, "Battle for the Sun" (Vagrant)
Pleasure P, "The Introduction of Marcus Cooper" (Atlantic)
The Rolling Stones, "Emotional Rescue" (Universal)
The Rolling Stones, "Some Girls" (Universal)
The Rolling Stones, "Tattoo You" (Universal)
Todd Snider, "The Excitement Plan" (Yep Roc)
Paul Van Dyk, "Volume" (Ultra)
Various artists, "Originis: Live from Brasil, Nadja and the Assads" (NSS)

Bruce Springsteen, E Street Band Suit Up For Bonnaroo

It seems surprising to some fans, but Little Steven Van Zandt says Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are as well-suited to play massive festival dates as anyone else.

"I love that fact that we're playing to, I don't know, probably half of the audience who maybe never even heard of us -- certainly never heard us. That's nothing but fun and nothing but exciting," Van Zandt said during conference call with reporters regarding the group's June 13 stop at the Bonnaroo Music and Art Festival. Springsteen and company will also play the Glastonbury Festival in England on June 27.

"I'm hoping we do a whole lot more of these, and I think what I'm expecting...is just, I hope, a lot of young people that have never seen us before, and it's going to be fun."

Van Zandt said he's happy to see summer festival culture growing in North America -- "In Europe it's a festival almost every week in almost every country," he noted -- and dubbed it "a way of balancing out what has been a kind of isolated generation or two between computers and video games and that sort of thing."

As for Bonnaroo itself, Van Zandt said the E Street Band, with its lengthy and heavily improvised shows -- and some songs chosen off the cuff from fan requests -- fits in well with the "jam band" vibe that's still associated wtih the festival.

"We change things a lot normally," he noted. "Every night is different...There is a very wide variety of songs that we've done over the years that Bruce has written over the course of...30, 35 years. There's a lot of stuff to pick from. And then on top of that we build in a certain amount of spontaneity right into the show...The last two weeks we played Ramones, Clash and Tommy James...and all kinds of fun sort of bar band type songs.

"It just loosens everybody up and keeps the thing fresh. There's nothing like playing a song you've never played before and never rehearsed before 20,000 people. It's just kind of an immediate sort of electric sort of joke that kind of keeps everybody very awake."

Van Zandt does see something missing from Bonnaroo, however -- the garage rock that he champions on his syndicated radio show "The Underground Garage," with his Wicked Cool Records label and, he hopes, on a TV show in the near future.

"I took a quick look at the (Bonnaroo) list. I didn't see anybody that we play regularly in our format," he said. "I think as the genre starts to expand here...more young people will be starting to get to know this garage rock world. I think it's probably going to be the next generation that really embraces it. It's a little bit underground right now, still.

"So maybe in the next couple of years, Bonnaroo will start to have a underground garage stage or tent or some kind of garage rock day or some part of the festival. Maybe we can work something out in the future."

'Billy Elliot' wins 10 Tonys; `Carnage' best play

NEW YORK – "Billy Elliot," the big British musical about a coal miner's son who dreams to dance, bowled over Broadway on Sunday, winning 10 Tonys, including best musical and a unique best actor prize for the three young performers who share the title character.

The trio — David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish — traded off thank-yous during their acceptance speech, shyly thanking people associated with the show only by their first name. They also acknowledged siblings and parents. Finally, Kulish told the cheering crowd at Radio City Music Hall: "We want to say to all the kids out there who might want to dance, 'Never give up.'"

"Billy Elliot" collected eight other awards, including director of a musical, book of a musical and choreography, but its composer Elton John was upset for best score. That award was taken by "Next to Normal" — which seemed to stun "Normal" composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Brian Yorkey. Alice Ripley, who portrays battling mental illness in "Next to Normal," received the actress musical prize.

"God of Carnage," Yasmina Reza's savage comedy of manners about two liberal, middle-class couples whose children get into a fight, was named best play and picked up two other major awards, one for its director, Matthew Warchus, and the other for actress Marcia Gay Harden.

Reza, who previously won a best-play Tony for "Art," said: "Maybe you missed my accent; you wanted to hear it again. I'm very grateful for all the people who gave their best for the production."

"The Norman Conquests," Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy, received the revival-play prize, while "Hair," the iconic 1960s rock extravaganza roared to a win in the musical-revival category.

The director/musical award went to Stephen Daldry of "Billy Elliot."

"I have been blessed in my life to spend the majority of last 10 years of my life working on the story of 'Billy Elliot,'" said Daldry, who called it "a long, extraordinary journey."

He said the award belonged to everyone connected to the show and especially to "three great gifts of Broadway, our three little Billys."

"Billy" also received prizes for featured actor (Gregory Jbara), sets, lighting, sound and a tie with "Next to Normal" for best orchestrations, which Kitt shared with Michael Starobin.

Geoffrey Rush's extravagant portrait of a dying monarch in "Exit the King" took the top actor prize.

"I want to thank Manhattan audiences for proving that French existential absurdist tragicomedy rocks," Rush said.

Angela Lansbury received her fifth Tony, this time for her performance as the dotty medium Madame Arcati in a revival of Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit." Her win in the featured-actress category tied the record for acting prizes held by Julie Harris, who has five plus a special lifetime achievement award given in 2002.

"Who would have thought," the 83-year-old Lansbury began, drowned out by a standing ovation. "Who knew that (at) this time in my life that I should be presented with this lovely, lovely award. I feel deeply grateful."

An emotional Liza Minnelli accepted the prize for special theatrical event for her show "Liza's at The Palace."

"This is exquisite," Minnelli said, asking for a list of people to thank because she didn't think she was going to win. "Lastly, I want to thank my parents and the greatest gift they ever gave me, Kay Thompson," her godmother. Minnelli recreated part of Thompson's club act as part of her Palace entertainment.
Roger Robinson's portrayal of a mystical shamanlike character in "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" was honored with the featured-acting prize.

"It has taken me 46 years to come from that seat, up these steps, to this microphone," said Robinson, who thanked his mother in Bellevue, Wash., "who's 98 years old ... who encouraged me and raised seven children single-handedly."
Featured actress-musical went to Karen Olivo as the spitfire Anita in the revival of "West Side Story."

"I'm completely unprepared for this. ... I just want to dedicate this to everyone who has a dream," Olivo said, thanking the production's 91-year-old director, Arthur Laurents, and then dissolving in tears.

The Tonys twittered this year, with Mark Indelicato of "Ugly Betty" as the night's uber-tweeter from backstage. He offered such timely nuggets as "NPH's (host Neil Patrick Harris) favorite beverage while warming up for the start of Tonys? RED BULL, natch!" Jane Fonda, nominated for lead actress in a play, offered: "The trick is to be Zen about it. Winning is sometimes not the prize."

Bret Michaels injured himself in the show's opening production number when he rocked it out with a number from "Rock of Ages." The extent of his injury was not immediately known.

Broadway had a surprisingly robust 2008-2009 season.

Attendance during the 2008-2009 season slipped a bit (to 12.15 million from 12.27 million the previous year) but not as much as was feared because of the recession. And grosses for plays and musicals actually were a bit higher than a year earlier, setting a record of $943.3 million.

Forty-three shows opened during the season, the highest number of new productions since 50 opened during the 1982-83 season.

The awards were voted on in 27 competitive categories by more than 800 members of the theatrical community, including producers, actors and journalists. The Tonys are presented by the League and the American Theatre Wing, a nonprofit service organization. The Wing founded the Tonys in 1947.

Woodstock Box Set Unearths Famous Festival's Rarities

Thirty-eight previously unreleased recordings -- from groups such as the Who, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Jefferson Airplane -- will dot Rhino's "Woodstock -- 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm" box set, which will be released on Aug. 18.

Among the highlights of the six-CD, 77-song collection are a 19-minute rendition of the Dead's "Dark Star," "Amazing Journey" and "Pinball Wizard" by the Who, "Feelin' Alright" by Joe Cocker, CCR's "Bad Moon Rising," Blood Sweat and Tears' "You've Made Me So Very Happy" and tracks from Sweetwater, Bert Sommer, Tim Hardin, Ravi Shankar, Joan Baez, Melanie, Country Joe & the Fish, Sha Na Na, the Butterfield Blues Band, Johnny Winter and others.

The set, which lists for $79.98, also restores full-length performances of Canned Heat's "Woodstock Boogie" (to a whopping 30 minutes) and the Who's "We're Not Gonna Take It," and it includes the never-released Woodstock performances of Arlo Guthrie's "Coming Into Los Angeles" and Mountain's "Theme For an Imaginary Western," which were replaced by better-sounding recordings from other concerts for the original "Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music" soundtrack.

The track lineup is accurate to the actual running order of the legendary 1969 festival, and it also includes stage announcements (you still need to check the brown acid, apparently), Wavy Gravy's announcement of "breakfast in bed" for the crowd estimated at 500,000, Max Yasgur's famous speech to the crowd and audio of Abbie Hoffman's encounter with Who guitarist Pete Townshend.

"This will be the most comprehensive collection of Woodstock music yet," Rhino Vice-President of A&R Cheryl Pawelski tells Billboard.com. "The goal was to make it as real as possible...as authentic an experience as possible. It feels like dirt. It feels like a field. We wanted to take you there. We worked very hard to make it a true document of that time."

Co-producers Andy Zax and Mason Williams compiled "Woodstock -- 40 Years On" from the original multitrack tapes recorded during the festival. Their research also allowed them to put the songs and artists in the correct order of performance, and the accompanying booklet will include the accurate sequence complete with full set lists.

One performance is conspicuously absent; Pawelski says Ten Years After would not clear the use of its performance for the box, meaning the group's epic version of "Goin' Home" will not be included. The Band and Keef Hartley were the only other acts that opted out of the set.

"Woodstock -- 40 Years On" follows Rhino's re-release earlier this week of "Music From the Original Soundtrack and More: Woodstock" and "Woodstock 2." A new Woodstock.com web site also launched this week, and a new DVD edition of "Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music -- The Director's Cut" comes out Tuesday. And on June 30 Legacy adds to the onslaught with "Woodstock Experience" editions of seminal albums by five of the festival's acts -- the Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers," Janis Joplin's "I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama!," Santana's debut album, Sly & the Family Stone's "Stand!" and Johnny Winter's self-titled effort -- each with a second CD featuring the acts' complete Woodstock performances for the first time ever.

The full track listing for "Woodstock -- 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm" includes:

Disc 1: Richie Havens -- "Handsome Johnny," "Freedom (Motherless Child);" Sweetwater -- "Look Out," "Two Worlds;" Bert Sommer -- "Jennifer," "And When It's Over," "Smile;" Tim Hardin -- "Hang On to a Dream," "Simple Song of Freedom;" Ravi Shankar -- "Raga Puriya-Dhanashri/Gat In Sawarital;" Melanie -- "Momma Momma," "Beautiful People," "Birthday of the Sun;" Arlo Guthrie -- "Coming into Los Angeles," "Wheel of Fortune," "Every Hand in the Land"

Disc 2: Joan Baez -- "Joe Hill," "Sweet Sir Galahad," "Hickory Wind," "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man" (with Jeffrey Shurtleff); Quill -- "They Live the Life," "That's How I Eat;" Country Joe McDonald -- "Donovan's Reef," "The ‘Fish Cheer"/"I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag;" Santana -- "Persuasion," "Soul Sacrifice;" John Sebastian -- "How Have You Been," "Rainbows All Over Your Blues," "I Had a Dream;" Incredible String Band -- "The Letter," "When You Find Out Who You Are

Disc 3: Canned Heat -- "Going Up the Country," "Woodstock Boogie;" Mountain -- "Blood of the Sun," "Theme For an Imaginary Western," "For Yasgur's Farm;" Jerry Garcia and Country Joe McDonald -- Green Acid Advice (stage announcement); Grateful Dead -- "Dark Star;" Creedence Clearwater Revival -- "Green River," "Bad Moon Rising," "I Put a Spell On You"

Disc 4: Janis Joplin -- "Work Me, Lord," "Ball and Chain;" Sly & the Family Stone -- Medley: "Dance To The Music"/"Music Lover"/"I Want to Take You Higher;" The Who: "Amazing Journey," "Pinball Wizard," "We're Not Gonna Take It; Jefferson Airplane -- "The Other Side of This Life," ""Somebody to Love," "Won't You Try"/ "Saturday Afternoon," "Volunteers"

Disc 5: Joe Cocker -- "Feelin' Alright," "Let's Go Get Stoned," "With a Little Help From My Friends; Country Joe & the Fish -- "Rock & Soul Music," "“Love," "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine," "Summer Dresses," "Silver and Gold, "Rock & Soul Music (Reprise);" Johnny Winter -- "Leland Mississippi Blues," "Mean Town Blues;" Blood, Sweat & Tears -- "You've Made Me So Very Happy"

Disc 6: "Crosby, Stills & Nash -- "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Guinnevere," "Marrakesh Express," "4 + 20;" Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young -- "Sea of Madness," "Wooden Ships;" Butterfield Blues Band -- "No Amount of Loving," "Love March," "Everything's Gonna Be Alright; Sha Na Na -- "Get A Job," "At the Hop," "Get a Job (Reprise);" Jimi Hendrix -- "The Star Spangled Banner," "Purple Haze," "Woodstock Improvisation"

"Up" retains altitude, tops box office again

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – "Up," the story of a floating house, its grumpy 78-year-old owner and an inquisitive 8-year-old accidental stowaway, remained atop the weekend box office in North America, selling $44.2 million of tickets its second weekend in theaters.

The family-friendly Disney/Pixar animated release about a house lifted by colorful balloons and the odd couple's adventures showed surprising staying power. Its weekend gross was down 35 percent from its opening weekend but still made a strong showing for a film in its second week.

Movie industry analysts had predicted that "Up" would bring in less than $40 million.

"The Hangover," released by Warner Bros. Pictures, was a close second at $43.3 million. The film about a group of men trying to reconstruct what happened at a wild, Las Vegas bachelor party benefited from a good buzz and positive reviews. It also was the first big comedy released after a month dominated by action flicks.

Universal's "Land of the Lost," a new release starring Will Ferrell, finished a disappointing third at $19.5 million. It is a remake of a mid-1970s U.S. children's television series.

Four of the top five films attracted families with small children as recession-weary parents continued to seek entertainment at the movies.

"Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," collected $14.7 million and landed in the No. 4 spot. It made about $54 million when it opened two weekends ago, and has taken in $127 million overall.

"Star Trek," a Paramount issue, also showed staying power, finishing fifth for the weekend in its fifth week of release. It brought in $8.4 million. Its cumulative total stands at $223 million.

ANGELIC WORLD GROSS

"Angels & Demons," from Sony/Columbia, earned $6.5 million in North America during the weekend and its worldwide gross surpassed the $400 million mark, making it the No. 1 film in the world in 2009.

The film, based on Dan Brown's popular novel about conspiracy in the Catholic church, is the follow-up to the Brown novel and 2006 movie, "The Da Vinci Code."

Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution for Sony Pictures, said the weekend pushed the "Angels & Demons" international gross to about $405 million. "The Da Vinci Code" brought in about $540.7 million globally.

The website rottentomatoes.com, which aggregates movie criticism, showed that positive reviews for "The Hangover" helped it prevail over "Land of the Lost" in their debut weekends. "The Hangover" gathered 75 percent positive reviews, compared to only 28 percent for "Land of the Lost."

A reason for the resilience of "Up" may be the fact that it had a 98 percent rating on the website.

Third among new released and seventh for the week overall was Fox Seachlight's "My Life In Ruins," which took in $3.2 million. It suffered from negative reviews -- only 12 percent positive criticism according to rottentomatoes.com.

The Couch Potato Report - June 6th, 2009

This week The Couch Potato Report peels a Quebec film, a Saskatchewan Grandson, some fan boys and Paris, circa 1936.

Believe it or not I actually have ten releases to tell you about this week, primarily do to the release of some great films in High Definition on Blu-ray, so let me get right to this week's HOT POTATO...the made-in-Montreal film HONEY, I'M IN LOVE/LE GRAND DEPART.

This is the story of Jean-Paul, a 53-year-old doctor who leaves his family behind to start a new life with a younger woman...25 years younger.

But what he believed would be heavenly bliss quickly turns into a complete nightmare.

HONEY, I'M IN LOVE/LE GRAND DEPART is very serious and dramatic at times, but it also has some very funny stuff too as Jean-Paul tries to do what's right, and find a way to be happy again.

The film won't make you completely happy as it stalls toward the end and the last twenty minutes move at a snails pace, but the end result is a film that I thought was very good.

Not great, but very good.

Those words are true for HONEY, I'M IN LOVE/LE GRAND DEPART and they are also true for SEASON SEVEN of the television show 24.

Not great, but very good.

Since this is the seventh year of the show starring Tommy Douglas' grandson Keifer Sutherland, I won't recap the entire premise of the show, but I will tell you that in this season the show returned to the quality it had acheived in Seasons one to five. Season Six was a stinker, but I am happy - as a fan of it - to report that 24 is back on track!

This Season in the show is set in Washington D.C., after years in Los Angeles. Sutherland's Jack Bauer is on trial for all his misconduct and questionable interrogation tacticts.

Bauer's day takes an unexpected turn when the government is threatened and his expertise is needed once again.

SEASON SEVEN of 24 returned the show to glory by giving us great twists and turns and great action and dilemmas for it's lead characters.

If you are looking for some great action this Saskatchewan Weekend, check it out!!

If you are looking for a less than mediocre film starring some exceptionally likeable actors, well, skip 24 and look for HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU.

Personally, I think yous hould skip this film, but - like I said - if you are looking for a less than mediocre film starring some exceptionally likeable actors, than this one is for you!!

How is this for a cast, HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU stars Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Justin Long AND Ginnifer Goodwin, all nice, likeable people...in real life!

Their film is about modern day relationships and how men and women often misconstrue the intentions of the opposite sex.

That premise, that cast, that all sounds good to me...but this movie is not good, and let me be totally clear so you don't misunderstand my signals...this movie is not good.

I don't think that anyone, man or woman will enjoy sitting through it.

Yes, just so we are completely clear, I'm JUST NOT THAT INTO IT!!

Yes, the cast and most of the characters are likeable, but this movie doesn't give any of them enough screen time. Plus it isn't that funny, the drama is all too easily resolved, and in the end the film is a huge failure, regardless of how good the cast is.

So, if you want to see a film about love and relationships that features likeable characters who are all connected through with multiple stories, don't bother with HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU...look for LOVE ACTUALLY.

Now THAT is a great film, that I am totally into!!

Yes, I am into LOVE, ACTUALLY, and Joni Mitchell, and I am also totally into the STAR WARS films, and so when I heard that there was a movie coming out set in 1998 about four friends who were going on a cross country trip together to break into George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch to watch "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" before the movie's worldwide release, I was stoked!!

And when I heard that they were doing this drive together so they could see it with their dying friend, before it was too late, I thought that whatever this movie was, it would be great!!

Sadly, FANBOYS is not great...not at all!!

It is one of the most disappointing films ever!

That is the film's Director Kyle Newman, and if you watch the special features on the DVD, or listen to the film's commentary, it is obviou sthat he, an dthe rest of the cast and crew behind this film have a great affinity for STAR WARS and their fans.

However, their fantastic premise is poorly realized, the comedy fails almost every time, and the emotion of a dying friend is even missing.

It is not funny, not touching, and not good.

Yes, there are some funny sight gags, some great cameos, and Kristin Bell from VERONICA MARS and FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL.

FANBOYS is a failure, plain and simple. The combination of STAR WARS, the music of Rush, and friends hanging out should have appealed to me, but it didn't...and none of my friends liked it either.

Just skip it, the force is weak with this one.

I have five films to tell you about now because all of them are now available in High Definition on Blu-ray, and - for the most part - they all look and sound fantastic!!

The Blu-Ray beacon will first shine on the Oscar winning classic Fargo!

The Coen Brothers' movie looks a little grainy in High Def, but the writing and the characters are still as entertaining as ever and so I will keep this one in the new format.

And I will also keep THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

This was the very first film I ever watched on video, when my Dad brought home our very first Beta machine and some movies in the last 1970s.

Home viewing has come along way since then, but this version of the Clint Eastwood classic looks and sounds great!! It too is a keeper, because of the film itself, and due to the insightful retrospective documentary features too!

Not all of the James Bond films are classics, even though I do admire and like them all, but for me two of the worst ones are Roger Moore's THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and LICENCE TO KILL starring Timothy Dalton...and wouldn't you know it, they have both been released on Blu-ray at the same time!

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and LICENCE TO KILL might not be as good as some of the other films in this ongoing series, but they are still Bond films, and so their transfer to HD is welcome, and they look and sound very good.

AIR FORCE ONE is the final new to Blu-ray title this week, and while the film is still a very entertaining movie, the transfer to digital isn't a complete success as some of the special effects don't look very good when they are shown as clear as High Definition allows them to be.

But while the film might not excel in High Def, seeing Harrison Ford in action is always something I will enjoy, so I give it a passing grade!

Finally this week, let's head to Paris for this week's FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD.

FAUBOUG 36 is the small Foreign film I want to share with you this morning, while the big and loud releases of the Summer Movie Season explode on screens across the province.

The film take place in the Spring of 1936 - in a working-class district in the north of Paris.

Faubourg is the blue-collar neighbourhood where a once vibrant music hall is now closed and in disrepair.

Three unemplyed friends decide to rent the hall and begin to produce a "hit" musical that will allow them to buy the place.

FAUBOUG 36 is a great little film that features music, comedy and drama. At times it does move a little slow, but the Parisian scenery and interesting characters in the film don't allow that to happen for too long at a time.

I really liked this one.

This week's entry in the FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD is FAUBOUG 36 from France and it is available now on DVD along with the very good Quebec film HONEY, I'M IN LOVE/LE GRAND DEPART.

Harrison Ford's AIR FORCE ONE, the James Bond films THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and LICENCE TO KILL, the classic western THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, the Coen Brothers' great FARGO, the failed FAN BOYS, the very bad HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU and SEASON 7 of Keifer Sutherland's television show 24 are all available now on DVD and Blu-ray.

Coming up in Two Weeks on the next Couch Potato Report

ONE WEEK is the story of a man who finds out he is going to die so he takes a motorcycle trip from Toronto to the Pacific Ocean.

Also in two weeks, we will spend three days at WOODSTOCK

I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in fourteen days.

For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!

Clarkson blasts weight critics

Kelly Clarkson has lashed out at people who poke fun at her fluctuating weight - insisting she is happy with the way she looks.

The former American Idol champion has been spotted sporting a fuller figure in recent months, leading to internet bloggers to criticise her for piling on a few extra pounds.

But the star won't let the pressure to be thin faze her - insisting she has been forced to deal with the nasty jibes since she shot to fame in 2002.

She says, "For seven years it's been happening. It's like, 'Okay, cool the fat joke'.

"I love my body. I'm very much OK with it. I don't think artists are ever the ones who have the problem with their weight, it is other people."

Second City opens theatre venue named for John Candy

Toronto's Second City troupe officially raised the curtain Friday on a new performance space named after the late Canadian comedy great John Candy.

The John Candy Box Theatre opens Friday evening with a show featuring Second City alumni and faculty.

The cozy theatre space is part of Second City Toronto's Training Centre, which offers courses to the general public on improvisation, acting and writing. It will host regular pay-what-you-can shows and serve as a performance venue for Second City students.

Toronto-born Candy died of a heart attack in 1994 at age 43, during filming of the movie Wagons East.

His career included starring on the comedy-variety show SCTV, as well as a long string of Hollywood films throughout the 1980s and early 90s, such as Splash; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; Uncle Buck; Brewster's Millions; Spaceballs; Who's Harry Crumb?; Home Alone; JFK; Only the Lonely; and Cool Runnings.

During the 1990s, the lifelong football fan was also a minority owner of the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts team, along with hockey great Wayne Gretzky and majority partner Bruce McNall, including during the team's 1991 championship season. The team added Gretzky and Candy's names to the Grey Cup in a special ceremony in 2007.

Reitman Mulls Over Ghostbusters 3 Offer

Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman is considering returning to direct the long-awaited third installment of the spooky movie franchise.

Original stars Billy Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson are returning to the big screen for a second sequel - a full 20 years after Ghostbusters 2.

Reitman, who directed the first two films, has been offered the chance to complete the trilogy - but is waiting until he reads the script before he commits.

He tells MTV News, “I’ve never ruled (directing it) out. I certainly was responsible in every capacity for the first two movies so I certainly wouldn’t wander away from the third one - especially if it’s something we all think is worth doing.

“The script is going to be turned in a month or so and we’ll see. All the casting and directing speculation is really just speculation.”

Sad day for Ostanek as Grammys drop polka

Bad news for Canada's polka kings.

The Recording Academy, which puts on the Grammy Awards, has decided to eliminate the category for best polka album.

"I don't like to see it happen," legendary bandleader and three-time Grammy winner Walter Ostanek said Thursday from his home in St. Catharines, Ont.

"There's room for our music."

John Gora, who's been nominated four times in the polka category but has never won, was more blunt.

"That sucks," he said from Burlington. "Of course I'm disappointed."

In a statement, the academy said polka was scrapped to "ensure the awards process remains representative of the current musical landscape." Grammy organizers also split a folk category in two and combined two Latin categories into one.

There will be 109 awards handed out at next year's Grammys instead of 110. The ceremony takes place Jan. 31, 2010 in Los Angeles.

Polka was by no means the only obscure category at the annual music bash.

Trophies will still be handed out for best packaging, liner notes, surround sound album, classical crossover album, Hawaiian music album and zydeco or Cajun music album.

Gora blamed the polka decision on politics, pointing out that American bandleader Jimmy Sturr has won the category 18 times.

"You can't have a polka guy holding world records," he said. ``You can't have Jimmy Sturr winning more Grammys than Quincy Jones, for example."

But Sturr has long had competition from Ostanek, the undisputed Canadian polka king.

Ostanek's treks to Los Angeles have practically become an annual Grammy tradition – after all, he's racked up more than 20 nominations (his three wins came in consecutive years, from 1992-94).

In fact, the gregarious musician was nominated at this year's show but lost out to – who else? – Sturr.

Still, even though his category is gone, Ostanek, 74, didn't have a bad word to say about his experiences with the glitzy show.

"I personally don't have any regrets," he said. "I've met a lot of nice people. The Grammys have treated me good."

A member of Canada's Walk of Fame and the Order of Canada, Ostanek has appeared on The Tonight Show and some have speculated that he was the inspiration for SCTV's famed Shmenge Brothers.

Ostanek, who owns a music shop in St. Catharines, says the Grammys have given him tremendous exposure and lamented that young polka musicians would not receive the same boost.

"I personally have had a good ride and I feel sorry for the future artists coming up," he said. "There are fans out there and there will be more fans down the line. But that's the way it is."

Meanwhile, Gora worried about the effect the academy's decision could have on polka music in general.

"It's a bad thing (for polka)," he said. "A Grammy nomination just recognizes you, puts you on another level. It just recognizes the talent of the local guys that really don't have the big budget to operate but are still excellent musicians."

Gora, who plans to begin recording a new CD this weekend, said he intends to submit his recordings in the world music category now.

He certainly isn't giving up on trying to win his first Grammy.

"Why should I?" he said. "The guys work hard and we put out good material.

"I even have a new song about the crazy bailout that's going on with the financial and automotive companies. We have a new song about it. It's just a 2/4 beat and why shouldn't it be heard by others?"

Ostanek, who diligently collected autographs from his favourite artists during his trips to the Grammys, said the show made him feel special.

"Everybody wants to be a somebody," he said. "You're mingling with Tony Bennett and other people like him on a one-to-one basis .... I've had a wonderful ride."

'Land of the Lost' may be summer's first flop

If pre-release audience polling proves right, not many moviegoers will find "Land of the Lost" this weekend.

Universal and Relativity Media's $100-million comedy based on the 1970s TV show is tracking to sell $30 million to $35 million worth of tickets this weekend. That's in line with other recent films starring Will Ferrell, such as "Step Brothers." But for a big-budget summer event movie, it would be a weak debut.

The movie's marketing campaign doesn't seem to be drawing enough teenagers or adults. Its best hope is to draw families with older kids who aren't interested in "Up."

Universal surely picked this Friday to open the film in hopes it would launch in a dominant first-place position. But a movie that originally looked like counter-programming, "The Hangover," will probably end up close and could possibly beat it.

Warner Bros. and Legendary's modestly budgeted comedy is tracking to open in the mid-$20 millions. Both men and women seem to be drawn to the film's hilarious advertisements -- you can never go wrong with a baby in sunglasses -- despite the lack of a major star.

Regardless of which new movie comes out on top, the No. 1 film this weekend almost certainly won't be a new one. If it follows the pattern of previous Pixar animated features, "Up" will drop less than 50% on its second weekend in theaters, meaning it should gross close to $40 million. Strong weekday ticket sales as children start getting out of school have boosted "Up's" total gross to $86.9 million after a $68.1-million opening weekend.

Fox Searchlight is also opening the low budget Nia Vardalos comedy "My Life in Ruins." It will probably gross under $10 million.

In international markets, the major new release will be "Terminator Salvation." Sony Pictures is releasing the film in 61 countries on behalf of the Halcyon Co., which has to hope the fourth series entry will do better overseas than it has at home. After a two full weeks, "Salvation," which had a production budget around $200 million, has grossed only $95.9 million in the U.S. and Canada, suggesting its own salvation has yet to come.

Carol Burnett ready for your questions

Legendary comedienne Carol Burnett used to begin her TV variety show with a few questions from the audience, in a segment that both reinforced that the show was taped before a live audience and demonstrated her considerable skills as a spontaneous funny woman.

This June, she will take the stage in Winnipeg, Toronto, Regina and Saskatoon with a show Laughter and Reflection with Carol Burnett that recreates those Q&A sessions. She also returns to Vancouver this fall to headline the Comedy Festival.

The Q&A sessions, like the sessions in her TV variety show, which ran from 1967 to 1978, will be completely unplanned.

No planted questions "because that wouldn't be honest," Burnett said in an interview Thursday with CBC's Q cultural affairs show.

"They ask a lot. I get certain questions every place I go," she said. "Like how did you find Harvey [Korman] and Tim [Conway] and Vicki [Lawrence] and Lyle [Waggoner] — how did you get with them? How did you teach yourself the Tarzan yell? Why do you pull your ear at the end of every show that you do?"

The late Korman and fellow comedians such as Conway, Lawrence and Waggoner were part of the sketch team that made The Carol Burnett Show a hit for so long.

At 76, Burnett said she doesn't need to keep entertaining, but still welcomes the chance.

"The reason I'm doing it is a) I'm enjoying it and b) it keeps the grey matter ticking. I have to be on my toes as I never know what anybody's going to ask and I have to turn it around to make it entertaining to the audience," she said.

The idea for the Q&A session came from The Garry Moore Show, a New York variety show that Burnett worked on regularly in the 1950s.

In the beginning, she was terrified

"He would go out before the show and he would warm up the audience by having a conversation with them," Burnett recalled.

Harvey Korman holds the face of Carol Burnett during a routine on The Carol Burnett Show in 1967 in Los Angeles. (Associated Press)"When I got my own show, my executive producer Bob Banner said, 'You know, Carol, if you are going to be doing a lot of characters, it's really important for the audience to know you.' I said, 'I'm not a standup comic. I'm not going to come out there and do jokes or anything.'"

Burnett admits she was initially terrified at the idea of facing questions, but it soon became a favourite part of the show.

"I never knew what anybody was going to ask or want to do — sometimes we got people up on stage who would sing," she said. "It was a great opening for us to get know each other. Then we went on with the show."

Burnett is credited with blazing new trails for women in comedy. She has won the Peabody Award, Kennedy Centre Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

She still follows comedy keenly and admires how far female comedians have come since her day. But she regrets the loss of variety shows on network TV.

Nine variety shows were on the air at the same time as The Carol Burnett Show, including The Smothers Brothers and Laugh-In, she said.

"You couldn't do it today because of cost," Burnett said, adding that TV viewers are missing some of the "flat-out belly laughs," that made TV so much fun in the 1970s.

Laughter and Reflection with Carol Burnett starts June 10 in Winnipeg, followed by June 12 in Toronto, June 14 in Regina and June 16 in Saskatoon.

Whitney Houston Comeback Album Due Sept. 1

The wait is over -- Whitney Houston is finally making her comeback on Sept. 1 with an as-yet-untitled album on Arista Records. For her return, the label has set up a countdown on the New Jersey-bred artist's official site,

WhitneyHouston.com, which will also preview selected tracks slated to appear on the album in coming weeks.

Producers and songwriters said to aid with the set include will.i.am, Sean Garrett and Akon, although there is no confirmation on whether a duet with Akon, "Like I Never Left," which leaked last year, will make the cut.

"The voice is there; I don't think anyone could ever take that from her. As long as we apply that voice to hit records, she'll be right back where she left off," Akon told Billboard.com back in 2007.

Houston made her first high-profile public appearance at her mentor Clive Davis' pre-Grammy gala back in February, where she performed a four-song set that included brief renditions of "I Will Always Love You" and "I Believe in You and Me" plus a tent revival-style take on "I'm Every Woman."

Houston has been dogged in recent years by drug and health issues -- including rehab stints in 2004 and 2005 -- a legal dispute with her father, John Houston, rumored financial problems and a troubled marriage to fellow singer Bobby Brown that ended in divorce.

Houston's last album was 2002's "Just Whitney," which sold 737,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Blues queen Koko Taylor dies at 80

CHICAGO — Koko Taylor, a sharecropper's daughter whose regal bearing and powerful voice earned her the sobriquet "Queen of the Blues," has died after complications from surgery. She was 80.

Taylor died Wednesday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital about two weeks after having surgery for a gastrointestinal bleed, said Marc Lipkin, director of publicity for her record label, Alligator Records, which made the announcement.

"The passion that she brought and the fire and the growl in her voice when she sang was the truth," blues singer and musician Ronnie Baker Brooks said Wednesday. "The music will live on, but it's much better because of Koko. It's a huge loss."

Taylor's career stretched more than five decades. While she did not have widespread mainstream success, she was revered and beloved by blues aficionados, and earned worldwide acclaim for her work, which including the best-selling song Wang Dang Doodle and tunes such as What Kind of Man is This and I Got What It Takes.

Taylor appeared on national television numerous times, and was the subject of a PBS documentary and had a small part in director David Lynch's Wild at Heart.

In the course of her career, Taylor was nominated seven times for Grammy awards and won in 1984.

Taylor last performed on May 7 in Memphis, at the Blues Music Awards.

"She was still the best female blues singer in the world a month ago," said Jay Sieleman, executive director of The Blues Foundation based in Memphis. "In 1950s Chicago she was the woman singing the blues. At 80 years old she was still the queen of the blues."

Born Cora Walton just outside Memphis, Taylor said her dream to become a blues singer was nurtured in the cotton fields outside her family's sharecropper shack.

"I used to listen to the radio, and when I was about 18 years old, B.B. King was a disc jockey and he had a radio program, 15 minutes a day, over in West Memphis, Arkansas and he would play the blues," she said in a 1990 interview. "I would hear different records and things by Muddy Waters, Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, Sonnyboy Williams and all these people, you know, which I just loved."

Although her father encouraged her to sing only gospel music, Cora and her siblings would sneak out back with their homemade instruments and play the blues. With one brother accompanying on a guitar made out of bailing wire and nails and one brother on a fife made out of a corncob, she began on the path to blues woman.

Orphaned at 11, Koko — a nickname she earned because of an early love of chocolate — at age 18 moved to Chicago with her soon-to-be-husband, the late Robert "Pops" Taylor, in search for work.

Setting up house on the South Side, Koko found work as a cleaning woman for a wealthy family living in the city's northern suburbs. At night and on weekends, she and her husband, who would later become her manager, frequented Chicago's clubs, where many the artists heard on the radio performed.

"I started going to these local clubs, me and my husband, and everybody got to know us," Taylor said. "And then the guys would start letting me sit in, you know, come up on the bandstand and do a tune."

The break for Tennessee-born Taylor came in 1962, when arranger/composer Willie Dixon, impressed by her voice, got her a Chess recording contract and produced several singles (and two albums) for her, including the million-selling 1965 hit, Wang Dang Doodle, which she called silly, but which launched her recording career.

From Chicago blues clubs, Taylor took her raucous, gritty, good-time blues on the road to blues and jazz festivals around the nation, and into Europe. After the Chess label folded, she signed with Alligator Records.

In most years, she performed at least 100 concerts a year.

"Blues is my life," Taylor once said. "It's a true feeling that comes from the heart, not something that just comes out of my mouth. Blues is what I love, and blues is what I always do."

In addition to performing, she operated a Chicago nightclub, which closed in November 2001 because her daughter, club manager Joyce Threatt, developed severe asthma and could no longer manage a smoky nightclub.

Survivors include her daughter; husband Hays Harris; grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements will be announced, the label said.

Actor David Carradine found dead in Bangkok

BANGKOK – Much like the character that made him famous, David Carradine was always seeking, both spiritually and professionally, his life forever intertwined with the Shaolin priest he played in the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu."

Just as the character, Kwai Chang Caine, roamed the 19th Century American West, Carradine spent his latter years searching for the path to Hollywood stardom, accepting low-budget roles while pursuing interests in Asian herbs, exercise and philosophy, and making instructional videos on tai chi and other martial arts.

Carradine was found dead Thursday in Thailand. The 72-year-old actor appeared to have hanged himself in a suite at the luxury Swissotel Nai Lert Park Hotel, said Lt. Teerapop Luanseng, the officer responsible for investigating the death.

"I can confirm that we found his body, naked, hanging in the closet," Teerapop said. He said police were investigating and suspected suicide, though one of his managers questioned that theory.

"All we can say is, we know David would never have committed suicide," said Tiffany Smith, of Binder & Associates, his management company. "We're just waiting for them to finish the investigation and find out what really happened. He really appreciated everything life has to give ... and that's not something David would ever do to himself."

Carradine had flown to Thailand last week and began work on "Stretch" two days before his death, Smith said. He had several other projects lined up after the action film, which was being directed by Charles De Meaux with Carradine in the lead.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Michael Turner, said the embassy was informed by Thai authorities that Carradine died either late Wednesday or early Thursday.

"I was deeply saddened by the news of David Carradine's passing," said director Martin Scorcese. "We met when we made 'Boxcar Bertha' together, almost 40 years ago. I have very fond memories of our time together on that picture and on 'Mean Streets,' where he agreed to do a brief cameo."

Carradine came from an acting family. His father, John, made a career playing creepy, eccentric characters in film and on stage. Half-brothers Keith, Robert and Bruce also became actors, and actress Martha Plimpton is Keith Carradine's daughter.

"My Uncle David was a brilliantly talented, fiercely intelligent and generous man. He was the nexus of our family in so many ways, and drew us together over the years and kept us connected," Plimpton said Thursday.

Carradine was "in good spirits" when he left the U.S. for Thailand on May 29 to work on "Stretch," Smith said.

"David was excited to do it and excited to be a part of it," she said by phone from Beverly Hills.

Filming began Tuesday, she said, adding that the crew was devastated by Carradine's death and did not wish to speak publicly about it for the time being.

The Web site of the Thai newspaper The Nation said Carradine could not be contacted after he failed to appear for a meal with the rest of the film crew on Wednesday, and that his body was found by a hotel maid Thursday morning. It said a preliminary police investigation found that he had hanged himself with a curtain cord and there was no sign that he had been assaulted.

Police said Carradine's body was taken to a hospital for an autopsy that would be done Friday.

Carradine appeared in more than 100 feature films with such directors as Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman and Hal Ashby. One of his early film roles was as folk singer Woody Guthrie in Ashby's 1976 biopic, "Bound for Glory."

But he was best known for "Kung Fu," which aired from 1972-75.

Carradine, a martial arts practitioner himself, played Caine, an orphan who was raised by Shaolin monks and fled China after killing the emperor's nephew in retaliation for the murder of his kung fu master.

Pursued by revenge assassins from China, Caine wanders the American West in search of his half-brother Danny. His conscience forces him to fight injustice wherever he encounters it, fueled by flashbacks to his training in which his master famously refers to him as "Grasshopper."

Carradine left after three seasons, saying the show had started to repeat itself.

"I wasn't like a TV star in those days. I was like a rock 'n' roll star," Carradine said in an interview with Associated Press Radio in 1996. "It was a phenomenon kind of thing. ... It was very special."

Actor Rainn Wilson, star of TV's "The Office," said on Twitter: "R.I.P. David Carradine. You were a true hero to so many of us children of the 70s. We'll miss you, Kwai Chang Caine."

Carradine reprised the role in a mid-1980s TV movie and played Caine's grandson in the 1990s syndicated series "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues."

He returned to the top in recent years as the title character in Quentin Tarantino's two-part saga "Kill Bill." Bill, the worldly father figure of a pack of crack assassins, was a shadowy presence in 2003's "Kill Bill — Vol. 1." In that film, one of Bill's former assassins (Uma Thurman) begins a vengeful rampage against her old associates, including Bill.

In "Kill Bill — Vol. 2," released in 2004, Thurman's character catches up to Bill. The role brought Carradine a Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actor.

Bill was a complete contrast to Caine, the soft-spoken refugee serenely spreading wisdom and battling bad guys in the Old West.

"David's always been kind of a seeker of knowledge and of wisdom in his own inimitable way," Keith Carradine, said in a 1995 interview.

After "Kung Fu," Carradine starred in the 1975 cult flick "Death Race 2000." He starred with Liv Ullmann in Bergman's "The Serpent's Egg" in 1977 and with his brothers in the 1980 Western "The Long Riders." But after the early 1980s, he spent two decades doing mostly low-budget films.

Tarantino's films changed that.

"All I've ever needed since I more or less retired from studio films a couple of decades ago ... is just to be in one," Carradine told The Associated Press in 2004.

"There isn't anything that Anthony Hopkins or Clint Eastwood or Sean Connery or any of those old guys are doing that I couldn't do," he said. "All that was ever required was somebody with Quentin's courage to take and put me in the spotlight."

In the 2004 interview, Carradine talked candidly about his past boozing and narcotics use, but said he had put all that behind him and stuck to coffee and cigarettes.

"You're probably witnessing the last time I will ever answer those questions," Carradine said. "Because this is a regeneration. It is a renaissance. It is the start of a new career for me.

"It's time to do nothing but look forward."

At 25, `Tetris' drops into place as gaming icon

With its scratches and sticky brown beer stains, the "Tetris" arcade machine near the back of a Brooklyn bar called Barcade has seen better days. Which makes sense, given that the machine was made in the 1980s.

Even today, though, it's not hard to find 20- and 30-somethings plucking away at its ancient controls, flipping shapes made up of four connected squares and fitting them into orderly patterns as they descend, faster and faster as the game goes on.

"You could just play infinitely," said Michael Pierce, 28, who was playing against Dan Rothfarb, also 28. Both have been fans since they — and the game — were young. "Tetris" has its 25th birthday this week.

Pierce recalls playing "Tetris" on a Nintendo Game Boy that was on display in a department store when his family couldn't afford the unit. Rothfarb played on his Nintendo until the game wouldn't go any faster.

Completed by a Soviet programmer in 1984, "Tetris" has come a long way from its square roots. It's played by millions, not just on computers and gaming consoles but now on Facebook and the iPhone as well.

"Tetris" stands out as one of the rare cultural products to come West from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And the addictive rhythm of its task-by-task race against time was an early sign of our inbox-clearing, Twitter-updating, BlackBerry-thumbing world to come.

In her book "Hamlet on the Holodeck," Georgia Tech professor Janet Murray called "Tetris" the "perfect enactment of the overtasked lives of Americans." The game, she wrote, shows the "constant bombardment of tasks that demand our attention and that we must somehow fit into our overcrowded schedules and clear off our desks in order to make room for the next onslaught."

Many people who grew up with "Tetris" haven't stopped playing.

"I'd stay up, wait for my parents to go to bed, smuggle my Nintendo into my bedroom, hook it up to my television and play this game until all hours of the morning," said John Clemente, another player at Barcade. "Tetris," he says, was the only game to drive him "to the point of insanity." As a child, he once kicked his Nintendo across the room.

"It was a very love-hate relationship," he said.

"Tetris" is easy to pick up. Rotate the falling shapes so that you form full lines at the bottom of the screen. Fit the shapes so there are as few open spaces left as possible. Aim for a Tetris: four lines completed in one swoop. Repeat. Watch your score zoom.

But Tetris is hard to master. Because the shapes — technically known as tetrominoes — come in a random order, it is hard to predict the best way to organize them so that they can form neat rows.

In fact, in 2002, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers determined that the potential combinations are so numerous that it would be impossible even for a computer to calculate the best place to put each falling shape. Erik Demaine, an associate professor of computer science, praised the game's "mathematical elegance," which perhaps stems from the background of its developer.

Alexey Pajitnov was 29 and working for the Moscow Academy of Sciences when he completed "Tetris" on June 6, 1984, for a Soviet computer system called the Elektronika. A computer programmer by day who researched artificial intelligence and automatic speech recognition, Pajitnov worked on the game in his spare time.

"All my life I liked puzzles, mathematical riddles and diversion," Pajitnov said in a recent interview from Moscow. "Tetris," he said, was just one of the games he made back then. The others are mostly long forgotten.

Pajitnov's creation spread in Moscow through the small community of people who had access to computers. Word filtered through computer circles to the West, where the game drew the interest of entrepreneurs. A company called Spectrum HoloByte managed to obtain PC rights, but another, Mirrorsoft, also released a version. Years of legal wrangling followed, with several companies claiming pieces of the "Tetris" pie — for handheld systems, computers and arcades.

Complicating matters, the Soviet Union did not allow privately held businesses. The Soviet state held the "Tetris" licensing rights and Pajitnov had no claim to the profits. He didn't fight it.

"Basically, at the moment I realized I wanted this game to be published, I understood that Soviet power will either help me or never let it happen," he said.

It wasn't until 1996 that Pajitnov got licensing rights. Asked whether he made enough money off the game to live comfortably, he says yes, but offers no more details. Today, he is part owner of Tetris Co., which manages the game's licenses worldwide.

Nintendo Co. was an early and big beneficiary of the game, which stood out from its mid-'80s peers because it had no characters and no shooting.

When Nintendo was preparing to release its Game Boy device in 1989, the company planned to include with it one of the games that are also classics today: "Super Mario," "Donkey Kong" and "Zelda." But Nintendo wanted something everyone would play — a "perfect killer game" that would sell the Game Boy, said Minoru Arakawa, the president of Nintendo of America from 1980 to 2002.

The solution was "Tetris" — though Nintendo needed help from Henk Rogers, a U.S. entrepreneur.

Rogers had spotted "Tetris" at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and bought the rights to a PC version of the game in Japan from Spectrum HoloByte. In February 1989, he went to Moscow on a tourist visa to try to get the rights for Nintendo. He spent his first day in a taxi with a driver who didn't speak English, communicating by gestures and trying in vain to find the ministry of software and hardware export. The next morning, he hired an interpreter and things went more smoothly, and "Tetris" got bundled into the first Game Boy.

Since then, "Tetris" has expanded to all kinds of devices and inspired a generation of knockoffs. Tetris Co. says 125 million copies have been sold in various incarnations.

Pajitnov says "Tetris" could stick around another quarter-century.

"I hope so, why not?" he said. "Technology changes a lot, but I can't say people change a lot."

McCartney to play first show at Shea's replacement

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Forty-four years after he and the rest of the Beatles played the first major arena show in rock history at New York's Shea Stadium, Paul McCartney will perform next month at the new baseball field that replaced it.

Tickets go on sale next Monday for two McCartney concerts set for July 17 and 18 at Citi Field, marking the first musical performances scheduled at the new home of Major League Baseball's New York Mets, organizers said on Wednesday.

The concert is being touted as the latest performance linking Britain's McCartney, 66, with New York City and the Mets, starting with the Beatles' landmark appearance at Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965.

That performance, attended by more than 55,000 fans, many of them hysterical, screaming teenage girls, was the first ever concert at Shea and launched the era of outdoor stadium rock shows. The Beatles' first live U.S. show actually took place more than a year earlier, in February 1964, at the Washington Coliseum, an indoor venue in Washington, D.C.

McCartney returned to Shea last July for a surprise guest performance at Billy Joel's "Last Play at Shea" concert, closing that show with a rendition of "Let It Be."

"The Beatles were the first to play at Shea Stadium and along with Billy Joel, I was the last to sing at the old Shea," McCartney said in a statement. "I am really looking forward to a buzzing show."

Organizers said McCartney's set list for Citi Field would feature hits from his days with the Beatles, Wings and his solo career, as well as selections from his latest album, "Electric Arguments," released under his musical alter ego, The Fireman.

MTV's Eminem-Bruno Stunt Was Completely Staged, Says Host Andy Samberg's Head Writer

Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno gave Eminem a "new moon" preview of his own.
The "face-off" between Sacha Baron Cohen's bare backside and Eminem's mug came as a surprise to the viewers of Sunday's MTV Movie Awards, but just how shocked was the rapper also known as Marshall Mathers?

To hear host Andy Samberg's head writer, Scott Aukerman, tell it, not at all.

Ending nearly 24 hours of silence from all involved parties, Aukerman took to his blog to set the record straight: "Yes, the Eminem-Bruno incident was staged. They rehearsed it at dress [rehearsal] and yes, it went as far as it did on the live show."

As previously reported, Cohen's "Bruno" alter ego landing in Eminem's lap was of course a prearranged stunt. "There's no way it was an accident," an industry insider who was seated a few rows in front of Eminem told TVGuide.com. "You don't let two stars collide without a detailed plan."

As such, Bruno's airborne entrance was purposely detoured by speakers that were lowered into his path during the previous commercial break. That bit of equipment manipulation — coupled with the director's cut to Eminem several seconds before Bruno's "fall" — made for the first "smoking gun."

What about the appearance that tensions escalated when Cohen thrust his bare derriere in Eminem's face? While a spokesperson for the recording artist has not yet responded to multiple requests for comment, head writer Aukerman's blog now confirms that it was all for show. (When considering Eminem's compelling performance, remember that he did collect the occasional accolade for his acting debut in the semibiographical 2002 film 8 Mile.)

"Everyone was laughing about it during the next break," says our eyewitness, "especially the MTV staffers."

While it is true that Eminem, after "storming out" in disgust, never returned to his seat, that was the M.O. of many a star who shone at the awards show.

"Most of the big celebs came, did their thing and left," reports our onlooker.

MTV reps declined to comment on the incident.

New CD Releases, June 2: Dave Matthews Band, Neil Young, Rancid, Elvis Costello, Ryan Bingham, Chickenfoot and more!!

Dave Matthews Band "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King" (RCA)

The multi-platinum rock act is on an impressive run: Its last four studio outings have all debuted in the No. 1 slot on the US album charts. Now, the Dave Matthews Band is looking to make it five in a row with the release of "Big Whiskey and the GooGrux King."

The set, which follows 2005's "Stand Up," is DMB's first release since the death of founding member LeRoi Moore. The saxophonist died in August from complications resulting from an ATV accident that occurred on his Virginia ranch. The second part of the album's title, "GrooGrux King," is said to be a reference to Moore.

The album was produced by Rob Cavallo (Green Day, My Chemical Romance) and its first single is the track "Funny the Way It Is."

The Dave Matthews Band is currently on tour in support of the album. Currently, the group has shows booked through the start of October.

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Neil Young "Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972" (Reprise)

Nearly two decades in the making, the first volume of Young's ambitious "Archives" project is finally ready to hit shelves. The multi-disc collection will be available in three different formats: Blu-ray, DVD and CD.

This volume--which spans 10 discs in the Blu-ray and DVD configurations, and eight discs in the CD version--covers the first 10 years of Young's legendary body of work. An interactive-timeline feature allows the viewer to follow the singer-songwriter during this period of his career, beginning with his high school band The Squires and continuing up through his landmark albums of the early '70s.

The release of the first volume of "Archives" quickly follows a new studio offering from Young. The Northern California resident can be heard singing the praises of eco-friendly transportation on "Fork in the Road," which hit stores in early April.

* * *
Rancid "Let the Dominoes Fall" (Epitaph)

The San Francisco Bay Area punk rockers are back with the long-awaited studio follow-up to 2003's "Indestructible," a work that peaked at No. 15 on The Billboard 200 and spawned the modern-rock hit "Fall Back Down." The band's most recent offering was 2007's "Rancid B Sides & C Sides," which included previously unreleased material alongside songs that have been featured on compilations, soundtracks and B-sides.

"Let the Dominoes Fall" is the group's seventh studio album, and it was produced by longtime collaborator Brett Gurewitz. "Let the Dominoes Fall" is available in several different formats, including a single-disc CD, a double-vinyl LP set and an expanded multi-CD/DVD combo, which offers such bonuses as an acoustic version of the album.

Rancid will let the "Dominoes" fall while serving as the main support act on Rise Against's North American headlining tour. The trek gets underway June 4 in Vancouver, BC, and is currently scheduled to run through a July 31 date in Toronto.

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Elvis Costello "Secret, Profane and Sugarcane" (Hear Music)

The Grammy-winning singer/songwriter is set to drop his 25th studio album, which trails last year's "Momofuku." The 13-track record was produced by the legendary T Bone Burnett, who also co-wrote two of its numbers, "Sulphur to Sugarcane" and "The Crooked Line."

"Secret, Profane and Sugarcane" also features guest-star vocalists Jim Lauderdale, Emmylou Harris and Loretta Lynn. The album was recorded over three days at Nashville's Sound Emporium Studio, and will be sold at participating Starbucks locations in the US and Canada, as well as through traditional music retailers.

Costello will tour with the musicians who backed him in the studio for the new album. Dubbed The Sugarcanes, the lineup includes Jerry Douglas on dobro, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Mike Compton on mandolin, Jeff Taylor on accordion and Dennis Crouch on double bass. The run begins on June 9 in Red Bank, NJ.

* * *
Ryan Bingham "Roadhouse Sun" (Lost Highway)

The alt-country troubadour returns with a follow-up to his 2007 major-label debut, "Mescalito." "Roadhouse Sun" was produced by former Black Crowes guitarist Marc Ford, who was also at the dials on the singer's previous record.

Bingham spent the spring helping to create a buzz about the new album's release. Notably, he appeared on both the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." Also, his song "Southside of Heaven" was featured in an "ER" episode.

* * *
Chickenfoot "Chickenfoot" (Fontana)

Exiled from Van Halen in favor of David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen's teenage son, singer Sammy Hagar and bassist Michael Anthony have gotten themselves another guitar legend and powerhouse drummer--this time in the form of Joe Satriani and Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers). Originally a just-for-fun trio featuring Hagar, Anthony and Smith--who joined forces a couple of years ago during an impromptu jam at Hagar's Cabo Wabo nightclub in Mexico--the group went legit by recruiting six-string wizard Satriani and recording an album with legendary producer Andy Johns (Led Zeppelin, Van Halen).

Hagar raised eyebrows when he commented in an interview last year that Chickenfoot's music could rival that of Led Zeppelin; Smith recently defused that bomb while making an on-camera Zeppelin reference during a track-by-track, "Chickenfoot" video documentary that is available at the group's website.

"I know we're not supposed to talk about Led Zeppelin since Sammy got drunk and said that we were better than Led Zeppelin," Smith joked. "We're not better than Led Zeppelin, and Sammy was drunk when he said that, OK? So let's put that s--- to rest."

* * *
More new releases:
Stephanie J. Block, "This Place I Know" (PS Classics)
Jeff Buckley, "Grace--Around the World" (Sony)
Crosby Stills & Nash, "Demos" (Rhino)
Eels, "Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire" (Vagrant)
IQ, "Frequency" (Inside Out)
Paolo Nutini, "Sunny Side Up" (Atlantic)
Iggy Pop, "Preliminaires" (Astralwerks)
Eros Ramazzotti, "Ali E Radici" (Sony)
Taking Back Sunday, "New Again" (Reprise)
311, "Uplifter" (Volcano)
UFO, "The Visitor" (Steamhammer)

Soundtracks and scores:
"The Story of My Life" (PS Classics)
"West Side Story: The New Broadway Cast Recording" (Sony)

Beatles Reveal 'Rock Band' Details At E3

The surviving members of the Beatles unveiled new details about their upcoming "Rock Band" videogame at the E3 videogame conference in Los Angeles.

Joined by Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr disclosed 10 of the 45 songs expected in "The Beatles: Rock Band" when it comes out Sept. 9.

The tracks are "I Saw Her Standing There," "I Want To Hold Your Hand," "I Feel Fine," "Taxman," "Day Tripper," "Back In The USSR," "I Am The Walrus," "Octopus's Garden," "Here Comes The Sun" and "Get Back."

Additionally, they said the entire "Abbey Road" album will be available for purchase and download, as will other tracks from the band's catalog, after the game's release, and "All You Need Is Love" will be released exclusively for Xbox 360 users as a downloadable song the day the game hits retail shelves. The proceeds of the single will be donated to Doctors Without Boarders.

Different venues played by the Beatles will be recreated for the game, including the Cavern Club in Liverpool (where they got their start), the Ed Sullivan Show, Shea Stadium and the Budokan in Japan.

The game will take fans into the studio experience after the band stopped touring through "artistic visual expressions known as Dreamscapes, intended to transport players to the imaginative environments that capture the essence of The Beatles' genre-busting musical and fashion transformations during their later years," according to the release.

From a gameplay perspective, the release will break from existing music-based games that allow for only one singer, and add three-part vocal harmonies. Content will also include previously unreleased recordings of the bandmates talking between takes during studio sessions recorded at Abbey Road.

A demo version of the game is available for attendees of the E3 conference to play.

Conan O'Brien makes debut on 'The Tonight Show'

NEW YORK – Conan O'Brien debuted as host of "The Tonight Show" Monday with a "run" across the country to Los Angeles and other comedy bits emphasizing his entry into a strange new culture.

He joined a line of predecessors — Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and Jay Leno — on television's most historic late-night franchise.

"I think I've timed this move perfectly," he said in his opening monologue. "I'm on a last-place network, I moved to a state that's bankrupt and 'The Tonight Show' is sponsored by General Motors."

O'Brien spent 17 years as host of NBC's "Late Night" in New York, and the move up one hour has been in the works for five years. Leno, his immediate predecessor, will do a weeknight prime-time show on NBC. The workaholic Leno will start "in two days, three days tops," O'Brien joked. Actually, it's in September.

O'Brien christened a new studio on the Universal City lot with a handsome art deco look. The stage has a blue glass background for the opening monologue, before O'Brien retreats to a desk in front of a sparkling backdrop of Los Angeles.

From the top, O'Brien showed the silly comic style that sets him apart from Leno, with more comedy skits filmed earlier and less reliance on jokes in front of the studio audience. The first one showed O'Brien marking off a to-do list with "move to L.A." left undone, as a camera panned a New York skyline outside his window.

A frantic O'Brien went out in the street to find a cab. When he couldn't, he began running. He ran out of New York, and sprinted through various spots across the country — across Wrigley Field in Chicago, past the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, by the Rockies and through the desert to Las Vegas. Finally he arrived at the locked door to his new studio, only to realize he'd left his keys behind.

In other segments, O'Brien commandeered a tram filled with tourists on a Universal Studios lot tour and took his used green Ford Taurus for a ride into the car-obsessed culture. Fabio complimented him on his ride.

O'Brien appeared nervous at the long-awaited opening night, pacing onstage during his monologue and mugging with his red pompadour.

"I remember watching Johnny Carson when I was a kid and thinking: That's what I want to be when I grow up," O'Brien said. "I'm sure right now in America there is likely a kid watching me, thinking: 'What is wrong with that man's hair?'"
Longtime sidekick Andy Richter slid smoothly into the role Ed McMahon once played for Carson, standing at a podium to the side of the stage and loudly laughing at his boss' jokes.

Over at CBS, David Letterman slyly made mention of NBC's transition.

"I'm still here," he said. "I knocked off another competitor."

He said he got a call from his mom and she said, "Well, David, I see you didn't get 'The Tonight Show' again," a reference to Letterman losing out to Leno to become Carson's successor.

Comic Will Ferrell was O'Brien's first guest, his appearance less manic than some of his memorable "Late Night" visits. He offered O'Brien some "tips" for L.A. living, including a good burger joint in Pasadena "called Burger King."

Pearl Jam was the musical guest, debuting a song off an upcoming album.
Ferrell sang his own song in tribute to O'Brien, a version of "Never Can Say Goodbye" that "bewildered" the host. Why sing a goodbye song on the first night?

"Don't get me wrong," Ferrell said. "I'm pulling for you. But this little thing is a crapshoot at best."

Get professional, Nas tells promoters after failed St. John's gig

U.S. rapper Nas laid the blame for his no-show at a St. John's-area gig on the Canadian promoters, who left him unpaid hours before the start of a St. John's-area gig.

Nas refused to take the stage Thursday night at an arena in Torbay, just north of St. John's, after promoters informed him they did not have enough money to pay his $47,000 fee.

Fans rebelled when local promoter ODC — which is blaming a Halifax company for failing to come up with its share of Nas's payment — told them Nas would not perform, with the police arresting several rowdy fans.

In a message posted this weekend to the hip-hop site Global Grind, the New York rapper fired back at the promoters who lured him to make the trip.

"Bad business is bad business," Nas wrote. "Now, I don't usually leave my crib unless all the business is handled first. But I love my fans in Canada so I said cool. But of course it wasn't cool."

Nas cooled his heels at the bar at St. John's International Airport after he was informed there wasn't enough money to pay him. He wrote that the promoters also cancelled the hotel rooms for his party.

"So we what we had to do and did was get up out of there. But to all of Canada make sure u know I roll with ya hard!" Nas wrote. "It's all love."

Craig Cantwell of ODC Productions told CBC News that the company paid Nas about half of his fee, and thought that Lux Entertainment of Halifax had paid the rest. Instead, he learned that the money was not available. As well, Cantwell said that Lux even failed to procure return air tickets for the show's opening act, Canadian hip-star Kardinal Offishall.

Nas said he had little time for what happened.

"My advice to wannabe promoters anywhere they are [is to] take business serious," he wrote.

"Learn about being professional. Always. It's very important to be real with people. Don't continue to pull these 1950-style ways of doin' business. It's wack."

Jay-Z and Eminem spin a musical game out of 'DJ Hero'

The upcoming DJ Hero video game just landed two heavy hitters as MCs: Jay-Z and Eminem.

Both rappers are bringing their music to the newest offshoot of Activision's successful $2 billion Guitar Hero franchise. The game, played with a turntable-shaped controller, is due out this fall for PlayStation 3, PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii (no price or rating yet).

A special edition comes with the rappers' new greatest-hits CDs, possibly including previously unreleased tracks, plus an advanced version of the controller, a DJ stand and metal traveling case. Jay-Z and Eminem will serve as consultants to Activision and the game's developer, FreeStyleGames.

The complete list of tracks the rappers are providing is still being worked out. Jay-Z plans on including Izzo (H.O.V.A.) and Dirt Off Your Shoulder for sure. Also possible: tracks from his in-the-works Blueprint 3 album. "I have a ton of content, I just need the pipeline," he says. "I love the freedom of (DJ Hero). I could wake up tomorrow morning with the idea for a song and call the guys at Activision and start working on getting it out."

Eminem is more cryptic about his contributions. "I don't want to give away any surprises yet," he says in an e-mail interview. "DJ Hero will include my music, and I'll be providing additional material as downloadable content by the end of the year."

Players use the features on the game's controller — a rotating record platter, sampling buttons, an effects dial and a cross fader — to match streams of song tracks, create effects and add personal touches to score points.

"You actually get lost doing it," says Jay-Z, who has played the game. It creates "a DJ's universe," he says.

In addition to single-DJ action, two players can compete or play cooperatively. Special mixes will let players use the Guitar Hero controller. The game spans hip-hop, electronica, R&B, soul and pop/rock with songs by 50 Cent, Beastie Boys, KRS-One, Blondie, N.E.R.D., Gorillaz and David Bowie. Superstar DJs such as DJ Shadow, DJ Z-Trip and DJ AM will contribute, too.

"You are going to get over 100 songs from 80 artists and 80 brand-new mixes that have never been heard before, including one with Eminem and Jay-Z (together)," says Guitar Hero president and CEO Dan Rosensweig.

"This is a game I can see myself actually playing," Eminem says. "DJ'ing is fundamental to rap music, so it's a great fit."