Marcia Strassman Dead: Starred In ‘Welcome Back Kotter,’ ‘Honey I Shrunk The Kids’

Actress Marcia Strassman has died at the age of 66 after a long battle with breast cancer, her sister Julie Strassman confirmed. Though Marcia Strassman acted in a wide range of TV shows and feature films, she was best known for her lead roles in the TV show Welcome Back Kotter and the comedy feature Honey I Shrunk the Kids and its sequel, Honey I Blew Up the Kids. Strassman also served on the national board of the Screen Actors Guild.

“She was the funniest, smartest person I ever met,” said Julie Strassman of her sister. “And talented. She knew everything. Now I won’t be able to call her and ask her questions.”

News of Strassman’s death first emerged in online posts by long-time friend, ” Curb Your Enthusiasm director Bob Weide: “So sad that a sweet friend, kind person & wonderful actress Marcia Strassman lost her brave battle with cancer today.”

Another friend, singer/actress Cher, also tweeted: “Wanted U2 No,a Funny,Talented Friend Died.Not 4U 2feel sorry 4me,but she died alone, &Energy from U is powerful &Sends (love) ‘Marsha (sic) Strassman'”

Strassman was born Apri 28, 1948 in New York City, and grew up in New Jersey.

She came to Los Angeles when she was just 18, her sister said. She was initially a singer in the late 1960s with some modest local success, most notably with The Groovy World of Jack and Jill and The Flower Children. She also had a few TV roles, including three episodes of The Patty Duke Show. She left show business for a time before returning as an actress in a recurring role as nurse Margie Cutler in M.A.S.H.

In 1975, Strassman had a breakout role in the TV hit Welcome Back Kotter, opposite comedian Gabe Kaplan, playing his frequently exasperated wife Julie. That show, about a teacher returning to the tough high school and neighborhood where he grew up, ran through 1979.

Strassman worked steadily thereafter, most notably in major roles on several mostly short-lived TV shows, including Booker, Tremors, Third Watch, Providence, and Noah Knows Best and as a voice-over artist on the children’s animated show Aaahh!!! Real Monsters and elsewhere.

Her biggest film success came playing the wife and mother opposite Rick Moranis in Disney’s hit comedy Honey I Shrunk The Kids and its equally successful sequel, Honey I Blew Up The Kids. She also appeared in 1985’s The Aviator with Christopher Reeve and Roseanna Arquette.

Strassman was active in fundraising for various progressive and social causes, including breast cancer research and treatment even before she was diagnosed, her sister said. She was a member of the Screen Actors Guild national board, elected to a three-year term in 2010. Julie Strassman said her sister continued to sing, and had many other skills and a wide group of friends throughout Hollywood.

“She had more friends than anyone in the world,” Julie Strassman said. “She could do anything. She made clothes, made curtains, knitted sweaters for friends. She could dance.”

Strassman died Oct. 25 in her Sherman Oaks, Calif., home, after a seven-year fight with breast cancer. She is survived by her daughter, New York costume designer Elizabeth “Lizzie” Collector, whom Julie Strassman called her sister’s “great love.” She is also survived by brother Steven Strassman.

Services are pending, but Julie Strassman asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in her sister’s name to organizations fighting cancer.

Soul Power in Overdrive

‘Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown,’ on HBO tonight.

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There is one interview I remember from my early days as a reporter, and I often recite a line from it because it’s the best answer I’ve ever gotten and ever will get. Naturally, it came from James Brown.

It was in 1989, at the dark, wrong end of Brown’s career, when he was in prison for, among other things, capping a long bout of partying with a high-speed chase through Georgia and South Carolina that ended only after police officers shot out his tires.

I was a Time magazine reporter, and he was working in the prison cafeteria. The warden let me wave through a window at Brown, inmate No. 155413, as he wiped down tables in a cook’s white coat and cap, embellished by purple wraparound sunglasses and matching scarf. Brown was allowed to speak by phone.

I didn’t even know where to begin, so I asked how he was feeling.

“I’m well rested now,” he said, and waited a beat. “But I miss being tired.”

That reply is almost reason enough for watching “Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown,” an HBO documentary directed by Alex Gibney, on Monday night. But there are plenty of others. This is a smart, informative and compassionate look at the artist known as the Godfather of Soul, whose music changed America.

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“Mr. Dynamite” is an informative and compassionate look at James Brown, whose R&B, soul and funk altered American music. Credit Emilio Grossi/HBO

And you can dance to it.

Brown, who died in 2006, was a fascinating and confounding figure. Just this year, he inspired a biographical movie, “Get On Up,” with Chadwick Boseman as Brown, and there have been a steady stream of biographies, including two memoirs that he wrote with co-authors.

He was a magnetic, kinetic master of R&B, soul and funk, with roots in gospel and big-band music. He was a beloved performer and an often terrible boss and violent husband. (His third wife, Adrienne Lois Rodriguez, told me he once laid out her mink coat on the bed and then shot it.) He played an important role at critical moments in the civil rights movement and also shocked his fans by supporting Richard M. Nixon in 1972.

Of course, there is also the music.

The film opens with Brown sweating through a muscle T-shirt and chanting the opening words of “Soul Power” to a frenzied audience at the Olympia in Paris in 1971.

The narrative threads his scratch-poor boyhood dancing for nickels in the segregated South to his lasting influence on rock, hip-hop and rap. The film doesn’t dwell on his sad last days, but it does address his many contradictions — personal, musical and political. All of it is set to the beat of his music, which gets the last word.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who was a friend and protégé and contributed to one of Brown’s memoirs, tries to explain why his hero supported Nixon. “James Brown believed in bootstrap economics, lift yourself up,” he says, “so the appeal of Richard Nixon, which was a total, total atrocity to me, but to James Brown it was black capitalism.”

The camera cuts to Brown performing “I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing.”

Mick Jagger, a producer of “Mr. Dynamite,” also has a lot to say about Brown, an artist he copied early in his career. Mr. Jagger, of the Rolling Stones, has the grace to admit his debt, saying he tried “to steal everything I could possibly do.” But he also uses the occasion to correct a legend about “The T.A.M.I. Show,” a performance feature film shot in 1964, when the Stones followed Brown and were upstaged by his electrifying performance. Michael Veal, a musician and author, says he heard that while Brown blew up the room, Mr. Jagger stood watching on the side of the stage, “just being devastated and traumatized.”

Mr. Jagger says that although Brown did indeed “kill,” the concert was filmed as a movie, which was heavily cut and edited, and that the Stones’ performance was filmed hours later with a different audience. (In fairness, the Stones’ rendition of “It’s All Over Now” at that concert does not seem nearly as insipid and embarrassing as Gerry and the Pacemakers’ singing of “How Do You Do It?”)

Some of the most revealing moments come from the memories of less famous friends and colleagues, including Bobby Byrd, the musician who took in Brown when he got out of jail at 20 and who founded what was eventually known as Brown’s backup group, the Famous Flames. Other musicians who played in Brown’s band express joy and pride in their work and also deep disappointment with a boss who was aloof, a loner and a bit of a skinflint.

One time, when band members gathered to confront Brown, he stormed out. Another time, when band members said they were fed up, Brown brought a group of new musicians onto the stage, where the current band members were already preparing to play: It was their cue that they were all dispensable.

He was an important, thrilling voice during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. After Brown performed in Mississippi, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “This is black power, baby.” And Brown played a heroic role in Boston in 1968 right after Dr. King was killed. He went on with a scheduled concert and persuaded the enraged and distraught audience, and the entire city, to stay calm.

Not everything about him was admirable. Mr. Sharpton gets the second-to-last word, explaining, “What was his negative may have ended up being his strength.”

Last and best comes Brown, performing back when he felt good because he was feeling tired.

Howard Stern's long-anticipated interview with Neil Young was full of amazing revelations.

By Andy Greene | October 14, 2014

Howard Stern has been asked many times over the years to name his number one dream guest and his answer has never changed: Neil Young. His dream finally came true Tuesday morning when Young entered his studio at SiriusXM headquarters in midtown Manhattan for a 90-minute interview promoting his new book Special Deluxe: A Memoir of Life & Cars, his new digital music service Pono and his upcoming album Storytone. Here are 12 things we learned from the incredible interview.

1. Young was understandably nervous about appearing on the show for the first time. "I woke up this morning at 4:30," he said. "I was thinking to myself, 'God, what's he going to ask me about?' I couldn't go back to sleep. Some of the thing we got into in a very kind and nice way could have upset my family and my kids. We didn't do that, which I really appreciate. People say things without understanding the depth of damage they do to people's lives."

2. He's smoking weed again, occasionally. "I do it every once in a while," he said. "Just a little tiny bit." Stern gave it up years ago because it makes him paranoid, but Young had the solution. "Try black pepper balls if you get paranoid," he said. "Just chew two or three pieces. I just found this out myself. Try it."

3. He wasn't kidding last week when he said he's never going to perform with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young ever again. "Playing with Stills and Nash in that band was really great," he said, intentionally leaving out a certain other member. "I wish [Crosby] the best with his life. There's love there. There's just nothing else there. [A reunion] will never happen. Never happen, no, not in a million years….You have to think about things before you do them. If you make a mistake, you have to fix it right away. [A reunion] will never happen. You don't have to worry about it. It's easy to say 'no.'"

4. His relationship with Crosby remains strained, though he didn't get into specifics. "There's nothing to apologize for," Young said. "It was fixable, but it didn't get fixed." Stern asked if it was Young's fault it didn't get fixed. "Absolutely not," said Young. "I did everything I could to make sure it got fixed…We were together for a long time. We did some good work. Why should we get together and celebrate how great we were? What difference does it make? It's not for the audience. It's not for money, either. When you play music, you have to come from a certain place to do it and everything has to be clear and you don't want to disturb that. I like to keep the love there, and if the love isn't there, you don't want to do it."

5. Even 45 years later, he's still pissed about all the cameras onstage at Woodstock. "They didn't have to be right there on the stage," he said. "They're cameras, hello! Use zoom, dickhead. We were playing music and there's some jerk standing there in black clothes. We're playing music, get out of there."

6. He finds it difficult to tell stories about the old days without saying the name of a certain person. "I love the Woodstock movie," he said. "If you listen to when they introduce Crosby, Stills and Nash, you can tell…Wait a minute, did I say the full name of the band there? Okay, when the guy says, uh…I have to get this right…When he says, uh…Stills, Nash and Young, you can tell he cut. They had to take my name out." Later in the interview, he referred to Crosby's 1971 album If I Could Only Remember My Name as a work by "whatshisname." Stern joked that Crosby wouldn't like Pono and Young facetiously said, "This Pono player is poisonous. It's going to kill something? Isn't that what he said?"

Stern didn't understand what he was referring to there, but it was clearly these recent comments that Crosby gave to The Idaho Statesmen: "I happen to know that [Neil is] hanging out with somebody that's a purely poisonous predator now. And that's karma. He's gonna get hurt." Crosby isn't backing down, telling a fan recently on Twitter that he has "no regrets."

7. Bono gave him advice about how to write more commercial music. "I sung all the songs in Greendale," Young said. "And Bono commented that the songs needed hooks that went over and over again and more people could hear them." Young didn't take him up on the advice.

8. He's tremendously disappointed in President Obama. "He just opened up the Gulf of Mexico to fracking," he said. "Like the Gulf of Mexico didn't need a break…Politicians are empowered by the system to do nothing but take money from the corporations that control them. Obama campaigned on change and hope, and they're fracking in the Gulf of Mexico. Barack, hello! Wake up, buddy."

9. The first batch of Pono players are sold out. "We're going to try and make more in January," he said. "We're starting to build and scale up, but the demand for them was awesome…We're making this for people that want it. We're not making it for people that don't want it, but they may not know then want it until they hear it. It's a gentle revolution. We're not trying to bowl over the world. We don't think success is anything you can tangibly see. It's a smile."

10. His newest hobby is paddleboarding. "I'm going out paddleboarding with my girlfriend tomorrow morning," he said. "It's a beautiful thing…I can't worry about the paparazzi. You can't see them anyway. They are taking pictures from behind trees. You can't think about that."

11. He's psyched about his upcoming album Storytone. "It was a great experience," he says. "I was in a room with all these musicians. We did it all at once. There's no overdubs. Be great or be gone. That's what my producer David Briggs always said. You only have one shot at a time and you can't go fix it. I knew where I wanted to go with the songs, and the orchestra had charts and an arranger and everything…It was done with up to a 90-piece orchestra. We did it live in the room like Sinatra."

12. Sharing a Toronto apartment with Rick James in 1966 was nonstop fun. "We did some wild things," he said. "It's all very hazy to me now. I'm glad I made it through that stage. It got a little dicey. There were some drugs going on. I remember singing one song for about a day and a half."

Stephen King, John Mellencamp create 'Ghost Brothers' gothic musical headed to Detroit

elacy@mlive.com" /> By Eric Lacy | elacy@mlive.com

on October 23, 2014 at 10:01 AM, updated October 23, 2014 at 3:18 PM

This musical created by Stephen King and John Mellencamp is coming to Detroit's Fisher Theatre on Nov. 26. Courtesy photo

THURSDAY PM UPDATE: Check out MLive.com's interview wit...Mellencamp about the musical, his fondest Detroit memories and more.

DETROIT, MI -- A musical called "Goth Brothers of Darkland County" that's the brainchild of author Stephen King and musician John Mellencamp is headed to Detroit's Fisher Theater on Nov. 26.

Described as "southern gothic" and "supernatural" in a press release, "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County" was written by King and has music from Mellencamp, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member.

This musical, which starts actor Billy Burk and actress Gina Gershon, is a collaboration 16 years in the making, and blend of unique musical and staging styles, according to press release.

Its "eerie blues ‘n’ roots music" reveals the inner workings of the characters as opposed to just propelling the play’s narrative, with only a few songs directly advancing the plot."

The storyline involves "a haunting tale of fraternal love, lust, jealousy and revenge," and begins with a man reflecting on a past tragedy involving his two older brothers battling over a girl which ended in the unfortunate deaths of all three.

Now with the man, named Joe McCandless, as an adult and two boys of his own, he’s in an all too familiar scenario ready play out before his eyes.

With his sons at each other’s throats, McCandless' story in the musical is expected to will either save or destroy his family.

For more information about the musical, visit BroadwayinDetroit.com, aeglive.com or ghostbrothersofdarklandcounty.com.

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Stephen King's Revival - exclusive book cover reveal

Revivalist … Stephen King. AFP PHOTO / Getty Images

What is the mysterious image in the picture? Is it a tortured face or a demon from the dark side? All will be revealed as fans of Stephen King help to fill in the details of the cover for his latest novel.

Revival, out on November 11 from Hodder & Stoughton, is the 58th novel by King, who shows no sign of letting up as he approaches his 67th birthday. It will be the second book he has published this year alone, and marks a return to his horror heartland after his excursion into hard-boiled fiction in June with Mr Mercedes.

The cover will be revealed segment by segment today on a Facebook app hosted on King’s Facebook page, with each square unlocked when enough likes, comments and shares have been generated. Once the entire cover is uncovered, it will become interactive, enabling fans to discover extra clues about its creepy content.

Revival is set in a small New England town where, in the early 60s, a small boy falls under the spell of a charismatic minister. Decades later, the two meet up again and strike up a relationship which takes them on a devilish trip through rock and roll, addiction, religion and stage conjury.

'The Last Ship': Theater Review

Joan Marcus

Rachel Tucker and Michael Esper in "The Last Ship"

The Bottom Line

Far from a wreck but not exactly seaworthy either

Venue

Neil Simon Theatre, New York (runs indefinitely)

Cast

Michael Esper, Rachel Tucker, Jimmy Nail, Aaron Lazar, Sally Ann Triplett, Collin Kelly-Sordelet, Fred Applegate

Director

Joe Mantello

Sting returns to his childhood home in its dying days as a shipbuilding port in this allegorical musical about hope and redemption

He may not appear onstage, but there's no mistaking the voice of Sting in both wistful balladeer and rousing reveler modes in his stirring score for The Last Ship. Set against the demise of the shipyards in the composer's hometown of Wallsend in North East England, this melancholy musical is without doubt a heartfelt, intensely personal project. It's performed with vigorous commitment by an accomplished cast, robustly staged by Joe Mantello, and designed by David Zinn with a harsh beauty that seems salvaged out of the rusted hull of a once-proud sea vessel. Sadly, it's also a bit of a yawn.

For anyone who cares about the endangered species of the original Broadway musical, that's a regrettable shortcoming, particularly when so much love and artistry have been poured into the show. There's genuine feeling in the songs' exploration of the conflicted bonds between fathers and sons, and the crippling losses of men robbed of their work, thereby denied their dignity and pride.

So what's missing? It's easy to see the central figure of Gideon Fletcher as a romanticized alter ego of Sting (Gordon Sumner at birth). But the plodding book by John Logan and Brian Yorkey gives him too little psychological dimension to come alive. It also strands him among generic characters and clichéd situations seen in countless Brit films set in depressed industrial towns blighted by Thatcherism. What's worse is that it falls back on that old standby of using allegory as an excuse for a plot that — sorry — simply doesn't float.

As pretty as the songs are, this is the rare musical that needs fewer numbers and more book scenes. That's especially the case in the shuffling second act, in which serious anthemic overload takes hold.

There are two principal narrative threads that gradually entwine. One focuses on Gideon (Collin Kelly-Sordelet), who clashes with his father Joe (Jamie Jackson) over his refusal to take an apprenticeship in the shipyards. He flees up the River Tyne, promising his sweetheart Meg (Dawn Cantwell) that he'll come back for her.

Cut to the now-adult Gideon (Michael Esper) returning after 15 years away as a merchant seaman, two days too late for his dad's funeral. Meg (played as an adult by the appealing Rachel Tucker) gave up waiting and is now romantically involved with Arthur (Aaron Lazar). But despite Arthur's repeated offers to marry her and be a father to her 15-year-old son Tom (Kelly-Sordelet again), Meg keeps putting him off, unable to explain the reasons even to herself. Anyone who has ever watched a soap opera will guess Tom's paternity; only Gideon is unaccountably slow on the uptake.

The second strand concerns the unemployed shipyard workers, wallowing at the pub while refusing lower-paid job offers from the new owner, a scrap-metal company. The sole turncoat is Arthur, who serves as mediator with his resentful former colleagues. That group is led by the principled foreman Jackie White, played by the wonderful Jimmy Nail, who invests humanity and gravitas into the otherwise hackneyed plot, tackling his songs with a nice dash of Shane MacGowan-esque growl.

Given that no stereotype is too crusty for the writers, there's also a boozy, salt-of-the-earth Irish pastor, Father O'Brien (Fred Applegate), succumbing to cancer. In an inspirational sermon, he urges the disenfranchised men to occupy the yard and build one last ship to sail away as an act of defiant resilience, "borrowing" church development funds to finance the operation.

That blarney becomes the driving force of the narrative, along with a host of attendant questions. Will Gideon follow generations of men in his family and become a proud shipbuilder after all? Will Tom go against his mother's wishes and join the workers, risking arrest? And once the ship is built, will the lad sail off to an unknown destination with his new father and seemingly every other man in the town? Then there's Meg's wavering between dependable Arthur and the love of her youth who let her down.

Despite affecting moments, none of these questions acquires much urgency because the characters are not drawn with sufficient nuance to make them real. Esper has proven himself a soulful performer, both in musicals (American Idiot) and plays (The Lyons). But Gideon is shortchanged by the writers. While the reasons given for his flight from an ill-tempered father and a life in the yards are serviceable enough, there's no attempt to explore what kept him away so long, aside from vague allusions to him being the eternal drifter, torn from his roots by a culture of hardened men. And while we're meant to believe that he never stopped loving Meg, he adds insult to injury by telling her that he would have returned had he known about Tom. Gee, thanks.

That offhand treatment of the women characters is a constant; they are strictly cutouts, like "brassy zaftig barmaid" or "feisty community backbone," though there is one intriguing '80s refugee in the ensemble who looks like she escaped from a Flock of Seagulls video. (The show is set in a non-specific timeframe.)

Watch more Sting Tells All on Tantri...udio' Clip

Screenwriter and playwright Logan, who took charge after Yorkey's earlier drafts, clearly intends the ship to function as a symbol of hope, redemption and the battered but unbroken spirit of the blue-collar British male. But even on its own elastic terms, this glum fairy tale doesn't hold water. It has enough elements of gritty realism to leave audiences pondering such distracting questions as how a crew with only one experienced sailor is going to navigate a massive boat out to sea; where their months-long voyage will take them; and what they or their families back home will live on.

To be fair, there is some historical precedent in the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders occupation that thwarted Conservative government closures in Glasgow in 1971, but that doesn't make this fanciful variation more plausible.

On a visual level, the production is impressive, and Mantello keeps things moving as best he can in a bloated show that's at least a half-hour too long. Zinn's set, with its corroded walls, thick ropes and industrial scaffolds and gangways, is evocative, bathed in the shadowy textures of Christopher Akerlind's burnished lighting. Water imagery is a frequent motif, seen to gorgeous effect across a scrim through the opening number. The choreography, by poetic movement specialist Steven Hoggett, fits the material. But all the rowdy, hyper-masculine stomping and suspended gestures grow repetitive, unfortunately calling to mind the merciless Forbidden Broadway parody of Hoggett's work on Once.

The musical's chief distinction is Sting's score, which includes most of the 2013 album of the same name as well as a handful of pre-existing tracks ("All This Time," "Island of Souls," "When We Dance"). The artist's fans alone may be enough to constitute an initial audience. Even if his rhymes can be a touch insistent ("Life is a dance, a romance where ye take your chances/Just don't be left on the shores of regretful glances"), Sting's skill with musical narrative is unquestionable. If the numbers eventually wear out their welcome that has less to do with the quality and diversity of the Celtic-flavored score than with the problematic storytelling of Logan and Yorkey's book. The truth is that all the melodic tunes in the world can't save a show from the crucial failing of being dull.

Cast: Michael Esper, Rachel Tucker, Jimmy Nail, Aaron Lazar, Sally Ann Triplett, Collin Kelly-Sordelet, Fred Applegate, Eric Anderson, Craig Bennett, Dawn Cantwell, Jeremy Davis, Bradley Dean, Colby Foytik, David Michael Garry, Timothy Gulan, Shawna M. Hamic, Rich Hebert, Leah Hocking, Todd A. Horman, Jamie Jackson, Drew McVety, Matthew Stocke, Jeremy Woodard

Director: Joe Mantello

Music & lyrics: Sting

Book: John Logan, Brian Yorkey

Set & costume designer: David Zinn

Lighting designer: Christopher Akerlind

Sound designer: Brian Ronan

Music director, orchestrations, arrangements: Rob Mathes

Choreographer: Steven Hoggett

Presented by Jeffrey Seller, Kathryn Schenker, Kevin McCollum, Sander Jacobs, James L. Nederlander, Roy Furman, Herb Alpert, Jerry Moss

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Juan Luis Guerra, the award-winning Dominican singer/songwriter, has signed an exclusive contract with Universal Music Publishing Group, according to a spokesperson.

This is the first time the prolific songwriter assigns his catalog to a major music publisher for representation around the world, according to John Echevarria, executive VP of UMPG Latin America.

“He’s an icon whose songs are an indelible part of the fabric of contemporary Latin Music,” Echevarria said. “In addition, his humanitarian work and dedication to others makes him an example for all of us.”

Guerra’s music, known in the U.S. and beyond, catapulted the singer into the spotlight throughout Latin America after the release of his first album in 1984 along with his band 4.40. In the 1990s he took the bachata genre to a much larger audience, and to date, the arranger, composer and producer has sold more than 30 million albums in 30 years, according to his publisher.

“From the moment I arrived here I received unconditional support,” Guerra said in a statement. “I feel part of the family.”

In 2009, Guerra received an honorary doctorate from his alma matter, Berklee College of Music. Known for his versatility from R&B to Afro-pop and bachata, his lyrics have touched on many social causes and have include themes around history, romance and Christianity.

A winner of 15 Latin Grammys, three Grammys and two Billboard Latin Music Awards, Guerra’s accolades are plentiful, including Billboard’s Spirit of Hope Award in 2005. The entertainer has used his name to help build hospitals, churches and recreational centers in the Dominican Republic.

Guerra is in the studio currently working on his next studio album. This summer, he released his latest single, Tus Besos (Your Kisses), which mixes traditional bachata with rock ‘n’ roll arrangements from the ’50s and ’60s. The album will be released later this year by Capital Latin/Universal Music Latin Entertainment.

Guerra was previously self-published.

J.K. Rowling to Release New 'Harry Potter' Story on Halloween

The story about Dolores Umbridge will be released on Halloween on the site Pottermore. (Photo : Getty Images)

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Harry Potter fans will receive a very special Halloween treat this year: a new story from the magical wizarding world.

Author J.K. Rowling announced the story's release, sending Harry Potter fans all over the world into a frenzy.

Rowling announced the release of a new story on Friday Oct. 31, according to Rolling Stone. However, the story will not be about any of the books' heroes, but rather one its most maddening villains: Dolores Umbridge.

"Umbridge is not only one of the most malicious Potter characters, she is the only person other than Lord Voldemort to leave a permanent physical scar," said a statement about the story on the Harry Potter site Pottermore.

The statement went on to describe the upcoming story as a "rich, 1,700-word backstory about Umbridge's life, filled with many new details, as well as Rowling's revealing first-person thoughts and reflections about the character."

Umbridge first appeared in the "Harry Potter" series in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" when she became professor of the Dark Arts and then temporary headmistress of Hogwarts. She punished Harry by making him use a Blood Quill to write "I must not tell lies" until it was scarred on his flesh. In the films, she was played by Imelda Staunton.

According to the Independent, Rowling has released stories previously on Pottermore. In July, she released a story about a 33-year-old Harry Potter meeting up with friends Ron and Hermione as well as Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom during the Quidditch World Cup final. The story was so popular Pottermore crashed temporarily.

Earlier this month Rowling teased fans with a series of tweets hinting at a new story, according to the Guardian. However, it proved to be a teaser about the upcoming "Harry Potter" spinoff movie based on one of Harry's textbooks: "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."

The Daily Mail reports the film will be a trilogy with expected release dates in 2016, 2018 and 2020.

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Mexico and U.S. Channel Comedy: Cheech Marin Recalls Meeting Mexico's Most Beloved Comedic Star 'Cantinflas' Played by Mario Moreno

Cantinflas points proudly to a poster of himself at the Columbia film theatre on Shaftestbury Avenue, London, W1. Mexico's most beloved comedic film star of all time, Cantinflas (played by Mario Moreno) was considered to be "the best comedian alive," according to the great Charlie Chaplin. Today, his influence continues to thrive not only with Pantelion Films' recent release of his biopic, "Cantinflas," but with modern-day Latino comedic actors, such as Cheech Marin who recalled meeting Moreno in a Latin Post exclusive interview.

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Mexico's most beloved comedic film star of all time, Cantinflas (played by the late Mario Moreno), was considered to be "the best comedian alive," according to the great Charlie Chaplin. He's also considered a comedic pioneer of his time in Mexico, Latin America and the U.S.

Today, his influence continues to thrive not only with Pantelion Films' recent release of his Oscar-buzz biopic, "Cantinflas," but with modern-day, Latino comedic actors, such as Cheech Marin who recalled meeting Moreno in a recent Latin Post exclusive interview.

While the two are both very different in terms of their comedic delivery and material -- Marin is most known for his stoner comedy in "Cheech and Chong" in the '70s and '80s and for lending his voice to animated films and the children's music genre while Moreno is remembered for his clever wit, improvisation, signature Mexican accent and impeccable comedic timing in the late '30s to the early '80s -- they both have Mexican roots (Marin is Mexican-American and Moreno was born in Mexico), share a love for comedy and have put their stamp on pop culture, TV and film, but in different eras.

Although Marin pointed out that Cantinflas (Moreno) was more prominent during his parents and his grandparents' generations, he recalled meeting the legendary Moreno once, which left an impression on him.

"I knew him because my parents knew him. My parents were born in the United States, but my grandparents were from Mexico. We were in this Spanish household; I was raised speaking English, but I learned Spanish later, when I was 40," Marin explained to Latin Post.

While Marin hasn't seen the "Cantinflas" biopic just yet, he has seen Moreno in the flesh where he continued to bring the laughs. Marin, who also discussed his role in Jorge Gutierrez and Guillermo del Toro's new film, "The Book of Life," and the rise of fellow Mexican-American filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, reminisced about the time he met Moreno.

"I met him one time, we were doing a Mexican version of 'We Are the World,' and we were in L.A. and all the Latinos stars came in to sing. He was this quiet, little guy, Mario Moreno. Before he went on, he put on his moustache ... (Marin gestured wearing a little, funny moustache) and that was Cantinflas," he laughed.

Cantinflas (Moreno) is best remembered for co-starring as Passepartout with David Niven in the 1956 film "Around the World in 80 Days," which won five Academy Awards, including one for Best Picture. Moreno also won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture -- Comedy or Musical for the film.

The "Cantinflas" biopic, which will compete for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, stars Barcelona, Spain native Oscar Jaenada, who also shared his experience making the film and channeling the complexity of Moreno in a Latin Post exclusive interview.

Jaenada is best known for his roles in "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" alongside Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz, "Che: Part 2" and "Camarón: When Flamenco Became Legend," for which he received a Goya Award for Best Actor in 2005.

Latinos in TV and Film:

Being a big supporter of Latinos in the arts (and an avid Chicano art collector) and the fact that we're fresh off of celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, does Marin see a change for Latinos in the TV and film?

"It's just everywhere now ... the floodgates have been loosened," he said. He referred a recent study claiming that "50.6 percent of all children born in the United States last year were Latino."

"It's in every state simultaneously, not just the Southwest and Northwest..." he added. "It's this big demographic. You kind of could see it coming; it's like this big lava flow. You can stand in front of it, I wouldn't recommend it because it will swallow you," he joked," but it's how to incorporate it, how to benefit from it as a part of the country."

"Some people have a negative attitude about it, but it's inevitable. The Latino population is one of the main the threads of the cultural fabric," he pointed out. "It's not just like you have Cinco de Mayo and you have some nachos and a Corona and that's it, it's everywhere."

He added that this also holds true for other nationalities and ethnicities, such as Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans who have a long history here in the U.S., but that "Latinos are separated out by means of Spanish ... but that's being overcome," he said.

Jhené Aiko Announces “Enter The Void” Tour

Posted on October 22nd, 2014 by Ni'Kesia in NEWS |

Ladies, get your floor length skirts ready and fellas, call your weed man, because Jhené Aiko is going on tour!

Get the info after the jump!

Dec 12

Club Nokia @ LA Live Los Angeles, California

Taking to Twitter to reveal her plans to hit the road with SZA and The Internet, one of Cali’s favorite songstresses is ready to do her own thing this time around. After being apart of Drake’s “Would You Like A Tour” lineup and The Weeknd’s “King of the Fall” tour this year, Jhené is ready to give her fans a full set inclusive of her music.

Calling on SZA and The Internet to join her, Jhené has only revealed one date for the winter tour as of now. Scheduled to hit Club Nokia in Los Angeles on December 12, the tours additional dates will be announced soon.

Make sure you check back for more dates!

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Gabriel Iglesias Interview — Two Fluffy Men Talk Comedy

Posted 11:22 PM, July 25, 2014, by Josh Board, Updated at 03:35pm, July 26, 2014

A few weeks ago, a teenage girl was telling me how much she loved Channing Tatum. I talked about how nice he was when I interviewed him, and her eyes shot out of her head. She grabbed my arm screaming, “You were in the same room as Channing Tatum?!”

The only other time a person got close to that type of excitement was when I was with Joe Nelson, who runs SanDiegoRadio.org. I bring him to the horror movies I have to review, since he’s a fan of the genre. I told him at a screening I was going to be interviewing comedian Gabriel Iglesias. He went crazy, saying how it was his favorite comedian. He asked if I could get his autograph and I said, “Why don’t you just come with me, and you can meet him and get his signature.”

He couldn’t get out of work. So I figured I’d surprise him. More on that later.

I had 15 minutes with him at a hotel pool downtown. As I waited my turn to interview him, Scott Marks of the San Diego Reader was doing his interview. I heard Iglesias say, “Well, my mom died and…” (couldn’t hear the rest of what he said, but Scott quickly piped in)

“Yeah, I remember when I buried my mom….”

I wanted to stand up and scream, “Come on, Scott! He’s a comedian. Stop being such a downer. I don’t want Mr. Fluffy all depressed right before I interview him.”

When it was my turn to do the interview Marks warned Iglesias, “You’ll have to watch out for this guy!”

Iglesias looked a bit surprised, perhaps not sure if he was joking or not. I said, “Hey…I’m one of the few critics around that actually liked Haunted House 2!”

At least that made him laugh.

One of the hotel staff asked us if we wanted anything. He said, “Like what?”

She replied, “Coffee, water…” He smiled and held up a huge bottle of water and said, “I’m fine with this.”

He looked at me and said, “They gave me this missile of water. I should probably drink this before I get anything else.”

I replied, “Yeah, they put you up in this nice hotel and then ask you if you want anything. I’d be like ‘Yes, bring me a sandwich, a robe, a chalice filled with champagne…’

As those words left my mouth, I noticed he looked slimmer. I didn’t want to say that, because I felt like it might sound weird coming after this food conversation. Also, you never really know. Maybe TV really does add a few pounds. Maybe those Hawaiian shirts he wears make him look bigger. I found out from an interview he did with Fox 5’s Chrissy Russo, he actually lost over 100 pounds.

Josh Board: You were born in San Diego. How long did you live here?

Gabriel Iglesias: About 5 or 6 years. It was in Chula Vista. I still remember the apartments. When I was driving by, I saw they changed the Family Fun Center. It’s a Boomer’s now. I remember going in there all the time and playing Donkey Kong.

Josh Board: I always liked comedy concert films. I remember seeing the Richard Pryor one on HBO, when I was probably too young to have been watching it. I liked the Eddie Murphy ones.

Gabriel Iglesias: Yeah, I was young when I was watching the VHS of Eddie Murphy Raw. I wore that tape out. It was like my first look at what it was like to do stand-up, since I was really young.

Josh Board: I don’t recall ever seeing a stand-up movie that I didn’t like. Well…I didn’t care as much for Kevin Hart’s, but I do think he’s funny. How did your movie come about?

Gabriel Iglesias: Well, from Kevin Hart, strangely enough. The people behind his movie approached me and said they were crunching the numbers, and thought we could have similar success. They said the movies made millions, but they’re relatively cheap to film. They saw the strength of social media and YouTube and felt we were similar in all the social media aspects.

Josh Board: That must have been a thrill, especially when you think of the comedians that have had their stand-up on the big screen.

Gabriel Iglesias: It was. When you’re a comedian, the Holy Grail is an hour long HBO special. You’re happy with a show on Comedy Central. You’d even suck it up and settle for a Showtime special. The thing is…they wanted to start shooting right away, and I had just finished my second comedy special Aloha Fluffy. I needed to write all new material and there was all this pressure. I was flattered, but also didn’t want to take a big ol’ dump and disappoint everyone. You start thinking of all those comedy movies that have come out; Martin Lawrence, The Kings of Comedy…and thinking about being the first Latino to do one, and not wanting to let my people down. I was given this great opportunity.

Josh Board: When you’re writing new material, do you run things by your friends or your girlfriend?

Gabriel Iglesias: Oh no, never!

Josh Board: Because she won’t like being made fun of or certain subject matters?

Gabriel Iglesias: No, it’s because the only way you know if it’s really funny is if you try it out on stage. I’ve had times I think something is funny and ask my girlfriend and she says, “That isn’t very funny.”

Josh Board: What about asking other comedian friends?

Gabriel Iglesias: That doesn’t really work, because there are things we think is funny, that won’t always work on stage. We always have things other comedians think is funny, but not necessarily the crowd. I like the really blue material; the dirtier, the better. Jim Jefferies makes me laugh so hard I cry. But that’s not what I do.

Josh Board: Who are your favorite comedians?

Gabriel Iglesias: Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Eddie Murphy, Paul Rodriguez.

Josh Board: By now you’ve probably met all of them.

Gabriel Iglesias: Yeah, most of the comedians I admired. I am friends with Paul Rodriguez and he makes me die laughing. The time I met Robin Williams was when I was performing at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. They told me a special guest wanted to go on, and they wanted me to cut it short. I was standing there wondering who it was going to be…Chris Rock, Seinfeld. I found out it was Robin Williams. I told the crowd I was going to cut it short and they started booing. I said ‘Nah, nah…you’ll be happy when you find out why.’ They were still booing and I gave him this introduction [he does the intro holding a pretend mic]. The crowd erupted. They were just going crazy. I yelled into the microphone, ‘See! You forgot about me already!’ It was great to see him perform and meet him and chit chat afterwards. When I met Eddie Murphy, well…he wasn’t really there. It wasn’t like I got to talk to him or anything like that. I just said hi.

Josh Board: You are the type of famous person that has it the worst, because you’re so easily recognizable. In one of your routines, you talk about a cop recognizing you. You probably always have somebody yelling out, ‘Hey Fluffy’ at airports.

Gabriel Iglesias: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun.

Josh Board: Does it ever get annoying? Do you hate signing the autographs or taking pictures?

Gabriel Iglesias: No. I will always take pictures and sign autographs when I’m out. I could be in the mall, or where ever. Now, sometimes I’m with people that will give somebody a hard time if they keep bugging me.

Josh Board: What’s the weirdest autograph story you can tell me?

Gabriel Iglesias: Oh, in the bathroom. All the time. I’ll be at the urinal and arms are reaching over my shoulder, trying to hand me pieces of paper to sign. I’m standing there saying ‘Can I put my junk away first?’ I always tell them to just wait until I finish up. I’ve been sitting on the toilet and scraps of paper are slid underneath for me to sign. It’s so crazy.

Josh Board: Julia Roberts said the first autograph she ever signed was in a stall and somebody slid a piece of paper under the door. It must be harder now with cell phones and everyone wanting a photo.

Gabriel Iglesias: I don’t mind doing that. I’ll take photos with everyone. What I hate is when people want me to record things. They’ll tell me to do their outgoing message or something, and it just takes so long. I tried that, and then all the people that just got an autograph or picture…they now want me to record something. People want me to do a video for their friend or hold up their shirt.I’ll be there for 4 hours, so I finally had to say…no more phone calls or recording anything.

Josh Board: Well, that put me in an awkward position. I wanted to ask you to call my friend Joe Nelson. He’s a huge fan, and was excited about me interviewing you. I invited him to come along, but he couldn’t get out of work. Since he’s a welder, I thought you could call him up and say something about his welding, or possibly welding a lowrider for you or something. But…if you don’t feel comfortable doing that sort of thing, we don’t have to. I don’t want you to feel obligated because I put you on the spot.

Gabriel Iglesias: Well, I’ll tell you what. Instead of me calling him, I’ll record a message to him on your phone, after we finish up here. Then you can play that for him.

Josh Board: Thanks. That’s nice of you.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of Magic Mike, but I liked your performance in it. It was fun to see that you could act and didn’t just have to be the wacky neighbor or something. Don’t get me wrong…you were a funny neighbor in Haunted House 2. It’s just nice to see a serious role.

Matthew McConaughey (without a shirt, of course) and Gabriel Iglesias in “Magic Mike”

Gabriel Iglesias: I was going to turn it down at first. I wasn’t sure I could do a serious role and…I didn’t want to be the Latino that was playing a drug dealer. I didn’t need to fall into doing some stereotype. But I thought…it’s Matthew McConaughey, in a Steven Soderbergh movie. I had to do it. I met so many amazing people. It was great networking and it shows I can do other things.

Josh Board: You said earlier you don’t work blue. Are there any other topics you stay away from?

Gabriel Iglesias: Oh yeah. I won’t talk about religion, politics, or sports.

Josh Board: Why not sports? That seems like a perfect topic to cover when you want to work clean.

Gabriel Iglesias: It’s because you alienate half the room. Half the crowd will be against you no matter what you say. I had a guy in New York ask me that. I said, ‘Okay, watch this.’ I went onstage and said, “Alright…what about those Yankees?’

There was some applause, but I also heard ‘Yankees suck’ and ‘The Mets!’ You can’t win. I told the crowd, ‘I just said that to prove a point.’ I looked to the side of the stage and said, ‘See? That’s why I don’t talk about sports.’

Josh Board: It must be nice that you were disqualified from the show Last Comic Standing (for smuggling in a cell phone), and now you’re the most popular comedian to come from that show.

Gabriel Iglesias: Yeah, that’s nice, but…I still would’ve liked to have been asked to come back to say hi, or do a five minute set. It kind of bothered me that the show wanted all this drama. They tried to bait is into fighting with each other, to create all this tension. I liked the other comedians, so I wasn’t going to be doing all that.

Josh Board: I understand why reality shows do that, if it’s a show like the Kardashians, because they don’t have any talent. A show about comedians living together and competing…we get to see them be funny. I wouldn’t think all that would be necessary.

Gabriel Iglesias: Me neither, but…whatever.

Josh Board: Okay, I appreciate all your time. I hope the movie is a success. Now, let’s see if we can get a message to my friend Joe.

(At this point, we pull out my cell phone).

Josh Board: I have a really old cell phone. I’m not even sure how to record a message on here.

Gabriel Iglesias: Oh man, you don’t have an ipad? I’m not even sure how to work this thing.

He takes it and tries to figure it out; after a few minutes I tell him not to worry about it. I said, “That was nice of you to say you’d do that, but…he didn’t know I was going to do it, so he won’t be disappointed.”

Maybe I’ll score Joe a pair of tickets to see The Fluffy Movie, which opens this weekend. Go out and see; and if you ever ask him for an autograph…let him finish up in the restroom first.

Gabriel Iglesias can currently be seen on ABC TV Series Cristela.

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Showtime

“Penny Dreadful” proved a solid hit for Showtime in its first season in the summer. But it never hurts to try and build on that audience. With the DVD and Blu-ray sets now available for the eight-episode season, Showtime has partnered with Aol to make the first two episodes available for free streaming.

The 2014 Critics Choice Television Award winner for Most Exciting New Series was written and created by John Logan. It stars Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray, Rory Kinnear as Caliban, Harry Treadaway as Dr. Frankenstein. Other notable characters who've made their appearances include Abraham Van Helsing and Mina Harker.

The series also stars Timothy Dalton, Billie Piper, Josh Hartnett, Eva Green, Simon Russell Beale, Helen McCrory and Danny Sapani.

Also read: ‘Penny Dreadful’ Review: A Lovely, Lurid Study of Life and Death

Watch the first two episodes of “Penny Dreadful” below. The full season is available on DVD and Blu-ray, and Showtime subscribers can stream it via the “Penny Dreadful's” official website.

The 10-episode second season of “Penny Dreadful” premieres in 2015.

Episode 1-Click here to see the video.

2-Click here to see the video.

Video Of The Week:

Linda Ronstadt Mad Love Tour. Live at the HBO Studios, Los Angeles, CA; August 24, 1980.

(+Bonus) 2013 Interview:

SAN ANTONIO — British rocker Phil Collins watched from a few feet beyond the north wall of the Alamo as wooden crates the size of large amps were hydraulically lowered from a truck.

The songwriter of “Against All Odds” believed he had struck the perfect note by bringing home historical artifacts once owned by the defenders of the Alamo.

“I’m not sad,” he said Tuesday as the largest collection of Alamo memorabilia in the world was delivered. The 200-piece collection is worth between $10 million and $15 million. It took him two decades to assemble.

“I’m really happy that it’s going here, because this is the place where it should be,” said Collins, who gained worldwide fame in the band Genesis and as a solo performer. “This completes a journey for me.”

The collection will eventually be a key component to a museum. Some pieces returned to the Alamo for the first time in 178 years. They were scattered on March 6, 1836, when the garrison’s remaining force of 200 men fell to the overwhelming army of Mexican Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna after a

Collins said his fascination with the battle and the legends who fought it — Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, William B. Travis — began when he was about 6 years old, growing up in England but watching the American TV show Davy Crockett.

“From that moment, I was hooked on this story. It just stayed with me all the way through the music years,” he said.

It seemed a worthwhile obsession. “I decided to spend my money on that instead of Ferraris,” he said.

His collection also includes mementos from the Battle of San Jacinto, where Texas secured its independence, and a trove of historical documents.

There is Jim Bowie’s legendary knife and one of four existing rifles known to have belonged to Crockett, as well as his fringed leather musket ball pouch. There are letters from Alamo commander Travis, Santa Anna’s sword, the hats of Mexican officers and cannonballs.

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, whose office oversees the historical mission and who formalized the agreement with Collins, said the artifacts will be publicly displayed only a few at a time for the near future.

A foundation has been created to help raise $100 million toward a museum and visitors center to display the complete collection and present the story of the Alamo. Patterson estimated the project could take another five years.

Collins, 63, said finding a permanent home for his collection became important to him within the last year as he began organizing his estate.

Last February, he was visiting San Antonio, as he does frequently, looking for a museum that might be suitable. His friend Jim Guimarin, who owns the History Shop next to the Alamo, arranged for him to meet Kaye Tucker, the point person for the Alamo in Patterson’s office.

“Jim asked if I wanted to go to dinner with Phil Collins. I wasn’t going to pass on that,” she said.

Tucker said that over a meal of tacos and enchiladas, Guimarin told Collins there was something that Tucker wanted to ask. And so she ventured that the Alamo would love to have his collection.

“I was gobsmacked,” Collins recalled. “The idea of it coming back home…”

Arrangements were quickly made. Collins oversaw the shipping and delivery from his home in Switzerland.

Collins said holding little pieces of history — hats, guns, spurs of the Alamo fighters — connects him with the frailties and courage of the people who owned them.

“I would have some sadness and maybe thinking it was a mistake if it were going to a museum that didn’t have any emotional contact … with the Alamo,” he said. “This is the best thing that could happen to it.”

Collins, who has sold more than 100 million records, said that he has kept the passion of collecting and music separate in his life. The Alamo did not consciously color any of his songs.

“They’re all about my ex-wives,” he said with a laugh.

But maybe, he said, one song title came subliminally to him: “Do You Remember.”

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Melissa Etheridge sits inside her living room surrounded by guitars hanging on walls, a piano and a variety of percussion instruments. Instead of picking strings, however, she is pecking on a smartphone. "Oh, I got the right number!" she said, laughing with surprise.

Melissa Etheridge is hoping her new mobile game Take My Number based on her newest record, will prove that gaming can be a platform for distributing and selling music. Here she demos the game with Jane Wells.

The Grammy- and Oscar-winning singer-songwriter is playing her new mobile game, "Melissa Etheridge's 'Take My Number' Phonebook Challenge."

Sure, Kim Kardashian is making a killing branding a mobile game. But Melissa Etheridge? Do her fans play games?

"Yes," she said without hesitation. "I can play a solitaire game in a minute and 20 seconds."

And thus begins a great experiment in using games to sell music.

Etheridge has teamed with mobile game start-up HyperJamz, part of HyperPower Game Group, to create a game that's not only addictive, but also streams her music. The game is based on "Take My Number," the first single of Etheridge's new album, "This is ME."

In it, players basically do two things: earn points by clicking on the right groupings of falling guitar picks, while also trying to remember the phone numbers of people in their contacts file. All the while, the song "Take My Number" streams, and players are also directed to iTunes to buy the song.

"The app is free," Etheridge said. "You just pay $2.99 if you want the ads removed."

Harriet Taylor | CNBC

Melissa Etheridge

How did such an outside-the-CD-box idea happen? How did Etheridge and HyperPower Game Group come together? CEO Clark Nesselrodt said it was the result of an "aha" moment.

"Music and games live together on an ever-shortening list of things that can lift us out of the preoccupation of our own minds," he said. Nesselrodt is hoping that combining the two will create something better—and maybe more profitable—than the sum of its parts.

Once he heard Etheridge's new song, Nesselrodt said HyperJamz developed a phone book game concept in a few days that targets Etheridge's core demographic, "one of the most sought-after demographics of mobile gamers—the middle-aged female."

Think "Candy Crush." Mutual contacts put Nesselrodt in touch with Etheridge, whom he calls a "pioneer." She signed on in exchange for half of all revenue.

"I feel my career had kind of flatlined in the way that businesses can," said Etheridge. "I look at my career as a small business."

Latest CD 2014 Release This Is M.E.

A year ago, she left Island Records and went independent, hiring new management and looking for new ways to monetize her music. "Not only have I seen the record sales plummet—I mean serious plummeting every year, like an avalanche of plummeting," she said, "And yet I can go out and I can still play and fill halls."

The singer hopes a mobile game can reach not only core fans but new listeners. "It raises my awareness to people, and it also leads to the song," she said. "Then maybe they like the song, they might buy the album, and if they like the album, then maybe they want to come see me live."

While she's excited about being independent and producing her own album, Etheridge said it's also scary, "because all the risk is on me, and everything's upfront, and the money is different."

HyperJamz hopes to find other celebrities who can lend their star power to other games. It has reached an agreement with Tapinator, which has a catalog of games, including "Balance of the Shaolin," which Nesselrodt is reimagining in a tie-in with an upcoming Nik Wallenda special for the Discovery Channel. Also, "We have a new game coming out in a few weeks with rising star Cris Cab, who is Pharrell's protege."

It's all very early stage, very early funding, with no guarantees that it will work out. Kind of sounds like Etheridge's start in the music business itself. Decades later, and after much success, she's taking risks again. Melissa Etheridge said people still want music.

"How they get it," she said, "has changed."

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Ellis Marsalis Trio

On the Second Occasion

(ELM Records)

Ellis Marsalis plays Jazz Fest on Saturday, May 3—Zatarain’s/WWOZ Jazz Tent, 2:30 p.m..

Drive, lightning speed and boogie aren’t exactly terms generally associated with the style of pianist Ellis Marsalis. He’s more often thought of as an elegant player who executes each note with consideration and likes to swing. On the Second Occasion, a recently released album that was recorded in 2003, listeners have the opportunity to enjoy the Marsalis they might expect and experience the lesser-known side of this important artist.

He’s got his ace rhythm section with him on this adventure—the beautifully articulate Bill Huntington, Marsalis’ longtime bassist who moved following Katrina, and his talented son, drummer Jason Marsalis. The rapid-fire pace of the disc’s only original, Marsalis’ “Things You Never Were,” is no challenge for this tight-knit trio—they fly.

The album’s most surprising—and somewhat amusing—tune is the group’s interpretation of “On Broadway.” Yes, the song the Drifters made famous in 1963. It’s got a dance beat that moves from a little Latin groove to a boogie. Jason serves up a most unusual drum solo that is almost reminiscent of a marching-band drum cadence. On the familiar chorus, Marsalis manages to play a duet with himself and after a pause the song flows into a warm ballad.

Of course, Marsalis offers some moments of beauty as heard on the gentle sway of “Delilah” that are enriched by the album’s superior sound quality. On the Second Occasion continues and adds to Marsalis’ musical legacy.

Linda Komorsky Liker, Music Industry Veteran, Dies at 70

She worked with Graham Nash, Randy Newman, Danny Elfman and Sting

'Olive Kitteridge' focuses on 'traumedy' of life

Gary Levin, USA TODAY 10:40 a.m. EDT October 29, 2014

(Photo: Jojo Whilden, HBO)

13 CONNECT 34 TWEETLINKEDIN 1 COMMENTEMAILMORE

An earlier version of this story misstated the first name of the book's author, Elizabeth Strout.

Olive Kitteridge isn't an easy person to like.

But she's a force to be reckoned with in the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge (Sunday, 10 ET/PT and Monday, 9 p.m. ET/PT), based on Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of linked short stories, spanning 25 years, about residents of a coastal Maine town. At its heart is the troubled family of Olive (Frances McDormand), a retired math teacher; her extremely patient husband, Henry (Richard Jenkins), a pharmacist; and their son Christopher (John Gallagher Jr.), with whom Olive shares depression and a fractured relationship.

Director Lisa Cholodenko calls the miniseries, adapted by Jane Anderson, a "traumedy" that mixes serious drama with dry humor, and says McDormand, 57, embodied the essence of Olive, seen from age 45 to 70. "The irreverence of the character was part of Fran," she says. "She can take tragic and hilarious and try to weave them into something special."

Olive is combative and judgmental, casting a wary eye at Henry's employee and crush, Denise (Zoe Kazan), and Christopher's first wife Suzanne. But she's protective of a troubled neighbor and her son, a former student; has a soft spot for a fellow teacher; and, late in the film, finds an unlikely kindred spirit in widower Jack Kennison (Bill Murray).

She's "uncompromising," says McDormand, who won an Oscar for playing by-the-book police chief Marge Gunderson in Fargo, the 1996 movie directed by her husband Joel Coen and his brother Ethan. "I've made a professional reputation playing working-class, middle-class, American women. All of those characters kind of grew up to be Olive. There's a real sense of stoicism and pragmatism and strength and lyricism of a woman like that. Who wouldn't want to play her? She's fabulous."

Olive's demons explain her quirks: As readers know, "Olive's father suffered from depression and shot himself in the head when she was 13," McDormand says, and "she's deeply, subconsciously choked with fear that she's going to do the same thing to her son, so she does not ever really allow herself to attach to him. Some part of her thinks she's protecting him by keeping him away, (because) if she passes on this horrible thing, she can't live with herself."

HBO first tried to adapt Olive as a weekly series, but "we never wanted it to be that," says McDormand, who optioned the book and helped assemble the cast and crew, including Jenkins, who says that coincidentally, he was reading the book when she called; Cholodenko, who directed her in Laurel Canyon; and Murray, who played her husband in Moonrise Kingdom. After four years in development, "It became clearer and clearer that it was a really brilliant four-hour movie" that combined elements of six of the short stories into four parts and reassembled it in mostly chronological fashion.

In a few of the stories, Olive is a peripheral character, her name barely mentioned. "And I loved the way that jibed with my career, playing a lot of supporting roles to male protagonists," McDormand says. "I'm not resentful, because I've had a great career, but there's a resentment I think in women's lives, especially women like Olive, who are intellectuals and probably could have had a very different life if they hadn't been married and had a family in a small town in America."

But the marriage worked both ways. "They both got something from the other that they wanted," says Jenkins. "He was attracted to her brains and her ability to say things that he wouldn't." And she, in turn, was drawn to "his fairness, his kindness, even if sometimes it aggravated her."

Ultimately, McDormand says over a glass of wine at a favorite Italian restaurant, "We told the story of a marriage of two people in small-town America. It is surprising and complicated, it's suspenseful, it's dramatic, it's funny," she says. "Lo and behold, life can be interesting. Nobody's got a cape on, nobody has a mask, nobody's slitting anybody's throat," she says. "A couple of brains get blown out, but not on screen."

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‘Agent Carter’ First TV Spot; New Casting Details

Published 3 hours ago by Sarah Moran , Updated October 29th, 2014 at 5:28 am,

There’s no denying Marvel took the Internet by storm earlier today, unveiling the entire slate of films for Phase 3 of the studio’s cinematic universe, and in turn causing fans everywhere to collectively lose their minds. From new solo films (Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange), to sequels (Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok) and new franchises (Inhumans), to major crossover events that only a few years ago seemed impossible (Avengers: Infinity Wars Part 1 AND Part 2) – Marvel Studios has again proven how ambitious and serious it is are about superhero movies.

Yet, we shouldn’t discount the burgeoning Marvel TV Universe, though it resides in the shadow of the MCU and has even tougher competition from DC/WB’s slew of small screen properties – Arrow, The Flash, Constantine, and Gotham. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has basically reinvented itself in the wake of Captain America 2, becoming one of the fall’s must-watch series. And the studio’s next TV show – Agent Carter – has been eagerly anticipated ever since it was nothing more than a rumor on Hayley Atwell’s lips.

Now that Agent Carter is no longer rumor, check out the first TV spot for the new Marvel miniseries (above).

https://amp.twimg.com/v/8...a167528428

Clocking in at a mere 15 seconds, the TV spot may be our first look at footage from Agent Carter, but it doesn’t offer much. And what can be learned from the spot must be deciphered from its quick cutting and pacing. Still, the breakneck speed with which this short promo builds definitely implies Agent Carter will be a series brimming with fistfights, car chases, and more action than its mere eight episodes can easily contain.

This TV spot also plays (a little heavy-handedly) on what will be a recurring theme for Peggy throughout the series: struggling with being a woman in a man’s world. And while this promo makes that premise sound awfully cliched, there was in fact a difficult period of adjustment for many women post-WWII when they were basically told to leave the workforce and get back in the kitchen.

While we won’t see Peggy settle down in domesticity, she’ll still struggle with feeling “marginalized when the men return home from fighting abroad” and “stuck doing administrative work when she would rather be back out in the field,” as the series’ latest synopsis suggests.

In addition to the first TV spot for Agent Carter, there’s still more casting news as Deadline is reporting that Meagen Fay (Murder in the First) has joined the series in a recurring role, signing on for minimum of four episodes. Her character will manage the boarding house Peggy Carter will live at in New York City.

Fay joins Atwell along with Enver Gjokaj, Chad Michael Murray, Shea Whigham, Lyndsy Fonseca, James D’Arcy, and – reprising his role as Howard Stark – Dominic Cooper.

Are you excited for Agent Carter to premiere this January? What do you think of the show’s tone, and how will it fit with Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Sound off in the comments below!

Agent Carter will air Tuesdays on ABC in January 2015.

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'ABCs of Death 2' Director Alejandro Brugues on Why He Prefers Horror-Comedy Over Horror

4:15 PM PDT 10/28/2014 by Austin Siegemund-Broka

His 2011 'Juan of the Dead' started with a joke he made to his producer

Carla Orrego Veliz

Alejandro Brugues

Every day until Halloween, The Hollywood Reporter will be speaking to a notable horror director. Previously in this series: 'V/H/S: Viral's' Marcel Sarmiento.

Juan of the Dead is Cuba's first zombie movie, and its director, Alejandro Brugués, tells The Hollywood Reporter it was inspired by a joke he cracked while walking around Havana. People on the streets "kind of looked like zombies," he says. "I said to [my producer], 'we could make a film, a zombie film, with real people here in the streets and we wouldn't even need make-up.'"

"I looked at him and said, 'you know what, that’s going to be my next project,'" says Brugués. "Out of that joke, I had a theme, a subtext. I had everything."

Brugués, who directed 2011's Juan and his 2006 first film Personal Belongings in Cuba but recently moved to Los Angeles, says he likes horror with elements of comedy and social commentary, like the combination he crafted in Juan. He's bringing humor to his next directorial entry, the segment E is for Equilibrium in the horror anthology sequel The ABCs of Death 2, which will be released theatrically on Halloween.

The director tells THR his favorite zombie movie (hint: it's a zom-com) and how to shoot horror on a budget.

How'd you come up with your ABCs of Death 2 segment?

I'd never done a short film. When they got in touch with me I was still in Cuba and then I moved to the US, and it was a huge challenge. You don’t have much budget, so it was like, what can I do in a place where I still don’t have my production company, my crew. Here, I didn’t know anyone. I said, "boy, it’s not a budget where I can really do whatever," which is great. It’s one of the good things about the series.

I said, "let’s do something simple, but try to put as much story as we can in in here." They asked me, "do you want to do comedy or horror," and I said, "let me stick with comedy," because I’d never done a short. "Let me stick with what I know." I tried to do something funny, but it has lots of layers. I think it also has a theme and a metaphor.

Why do you think horror and comedy work well together?

I think the thing is that horror works by creating tension and then releasing it, and I think the comedy is an amazing way to release that tension. It’s like an orgasm for the audience. Horror is supposed to be like a rollercoaster, it’s supposed to create the tension, and with pure horror, the release is a jump. When it’s a horror-comedy, you can also laugh. You can laugh at how hilarious it was to be scared.

It’s great for us filmmakers. I think it’s a problem for people who have to sell the films, but not for the audience. When you see films at festivals, the one that are usually the audience's favorites are horror-comedies. In my year [with Juan] we got a lot of audiences awards, which are my favorites. This year, one film that’s doing great is What We Do in the Shadows, which is amazing. It’s so funny.

But you also try to layer horror with metaphor and social significance. Do you find horror works well to convey that kind of thematic material?

I think that's the best thing about horror, that it can serve as a commentary on current issues. It’s great for metaphors and subtext. I understand sometimes you just want to have fun and make a horror film because it’s fun, but I think a horror movie without a subtext is lifeless. What really breathes life into horror is what it really speaks to.

I don’t think there's the concern that fewer films are having that now; if you look at the history of horror films, it’s always been the same. You have the ones that stand out, the classics, that have subtext and touch deeper issues. But for each one of those, you have 20 that don’t, and some of those are also good.

What do you think makes great horror writing or directing?

You have to let the dread, the mood, invade you. When I’m writing something about horror, I’m the jumpiest person. I have to tell my wife not to come and talk to me because I’m going to have a heart attack. When you’re shooting and editing, too, you have to feel that tension. For example, in Juan of the Dead, we had some set pieces that involved 300 zombies, and some scenes just in a car or a room, and in both cases, it's about the suspense. It’s not the size that matters, it’s what you make of it.

There’s something that’s happening to me, and I hope it’s a phase and not that I’m getting older: Now, what really scares me are real-life monsters. Not the vampires or zombies, but the evil that man is capable of doing.

Juan of the Dead / Courtesy Alejandro Brugués

You must have watched a lot of zombie movies before and while shooting Juan. Which are your favorites?

When I was doing Juan, I saw everything. After doing my film, I kind of don’t watch them anymore, because I know how they do the prosthetics and how they do everything. It kind of took the magic out of it. But I love Day of the Dead, and obviously the comedies, like Brain Dead. Shaun of the Dead is probably my favorite zombie film ever. I used to love them all. I can’t watch them much anymore.

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AFM: IFC Picks Up Norwegian Drama 'The Sleepwalker'

3:43 AM PST 10/29/2014 by Scott Roxborough

'The Sleepwalker'

Christopher Abbott and Brady Corbet co-star in the U.S.-set film from Norwegian writer-director Mona Fastvold

IFC Films have picked up U:S. rights to The Sleepwalker, the debut feature from Norwegian writer-director Mona Fastvold.

Christopher Abbott, Brady Corbet and Gitte Witt star in the down-beat drama, set in rural Massachusetts. Fastvold and Corbet co-wrote the screenplay to Sleepwalker.

Read more AFM: Keanu Reeves to Star...'Replicas'

The film, which premiered at Sundance, was produced by Karin Juhlsrud and Turid Oversveen for Norway's 4 ½ Films. IFC will release the film Nov. 21 in the U.S. Level K is handling international sales on The Sleepwalker and will be present the project at the AFM in Santa Monica next week.

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Michael Stipe: Coming Out Made Me a Better Person

"In 1994, most people had a largely binary perception of sexuality – the message was complicated for them. I am thrilled to see how much this has changed in those 20 years"

Adam Berry/Getty

Michael Stipe at Astor Film Lounge on September 4th, 2014 in Berlin, Germany.

By Kory Grow | October 28, 2014

Michael Stipe came out, identifying himself as "queer," two decades ago last month. Now, in an article for The Guardian, the former R.E.M. singer has reflected on the positivity that he has felt since making his announcement as well as the way attitudes have changed over time toward gay, lesbian, queer and transgender people. "These 20 years of publicly speaking my truth have made me a better and easier person to be around," Stipe wrote. "It helped develop the clarity of my voice and establish who I would be as an adult."

When Stipe came out – saying that he had enjoyed sex with men and women throughout his adult life – R.E.M. had reached its commercial peak, having released the back-to-back blockbusters Out of Time in 1991 and Automatic for the People in 1992. The group was preparing to put out its Monster album and Stipe recalls needing to summon the strength and voice to define for the world who he was. The singer recalled a varying mix of reactions to his announcement.

Michael Stipe with R.E.M in 1994. (Photo: Ebet Roberts/Redferns)

"In 1994, most people had a largely binary perception of sexuality – the message was complicated for them," Stipe wrote. "I am thrilled to see how much this has changed in those 20 years. The 21st century has provided all of us, recent generations particularly, with a clearer idea of the breadth of fluidity with which sexuality and identity presents itself in each individual. Gender identification, and the panoply of sexuality and identity are now topics that are more easily and more widely discussed, debated and talked about openly. It’s thrilling to see progressive change shift perceptions so quickly."

Now when Stipe thinks about "queerness," he wrote, he has come to recognize it as "a state of mind brought about by an understanding: it is understanding difference, accepting your own truth, desire and identity, and lovely, lovely choice." Stipe closed his essay by reinforcing just how happy he has been to have let the world in on that part of his life.

Recently, Stipe recalled how afraid he was to get an HIV test in the Eighties during his speech at Logo TV's Trailblazers event, where he honored Ugandan civil rights activist John Abadallah Wambere. "In the early Eighties, as a 22-year-old queer man living during the Reagan-Bush administration, I was afraid to get tested for HIV for fear of quarantine, the threat of internment camps and having my basic civil rights stripped away," he said. "I waited five years to get my first anonymous test. I am happy that attitudes have matured and changed, and I feel lucky that I live in a country where acceptance, tolerance and policy toward HIV-AIDS and LGBTQ issues have advanced as far as they have."

John Abdallah Wambere and Michael Stipe attend Logo TV's 'Trailblazers' on June 23rd, 2014 in New York City. (Photo: Andrew H. Walker/Getty)

In other R.E.M. news, the group recently announced an 11-disc vinyl box-set collection of its singles, titled 7IN – 83–88, which will come out on December 9th. The collection contains reproductions of all of the singles the group put out between 1983 and 1988 on the I.R.S. label with reproductions of the original sleeve art; two U.K.-only titles will get their U.S. seven-inch debut – "Wendell Gee" and "Ages of You."

The release joins a spate of R.E.M. reissues this year, including Unplugged: The Complete 1...1 Sessions, two compilations of rarities comprising more than 150 hard-to-find recordings, a forthcoming six-DVD box set REMTV and a documentary, R.E.M. by MTV, which will appear in the REMTV box set and air on MTV's networks later in November.

1. E.M., 7IN – 83–88 Contents:

"Radio Free Europe" / "There She Goes Again"
"So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" / "King of the Road"
"(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" / "Catapult" (Live)
"Can't Get There From Here" / "Bandwagon"
"Driver 8" / "Crazy"
"Wendell G" / "Crazy" + "Ages of You" / "Burning Down"
"Fall On Me" / "Rotary Ten"
"Superman" / "White Tornado"
"The One I Love" / "Maps and Legends" (Live)
"Its The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" / "Last Date"
"Finest Worksong" / "Time After Time" (Live)

Happy National Cat Day!

Ready to rock! Meryl Streep and Rick Springfield share a kiss as they are pictured for the first time on the set of new film Ricki And The Flash

Published: 00:31 EST, 29 October 2014 | Updated: 03:46 EST, 29 October 2014

Looks like she's Jessie's Girl.

Meryl Streep and Rick Springfield have been pictured for the first time on the set of their new film Ricki And The Flash - and things were already heating up in New York on Tuesday night.

The 65-year-old pair was snapped in their full rocker regalia sharing a passionate kiss as the cameras rolled.

Still with his guitar in hand, Rick leaned in and pushed Meryl up against her vintage Volkswagen Beetle to lock lips.

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New film: Meryl Streep and Rick Springfield have been pictured for the first time on the set of Ricki And The Flash in New York on Tuesday night

While little is known about the project, seems fans will get to see both the Academy Award winning actress and the pop star in very different lights.

Before things heated up by her car, Meryl walked along with the Jessie's Girl singer throwing his arm around her.

In the film, the Into The Woods star plays Ricki an aging rocker and she certainly dressed the part.

For the scene, which saw her and her on-screen beau stroll through the darken streets of Yonkers, Meryl was dressed in a pair of tight black leggings with a sparky blue tank, the obligatory motorcycle leather jacket and a pair of buckled boots.

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Saucy scene: The 65-year-old pair was snapped in their full rocker regalia sharing a passionate kiss as the cameras rolled

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Dressed the party: Playing a rocker, Meryl was dressed in a pair of tight black leggings with a sparky blue tank, the obligatory motorcycle leather jacket and a pair of buckled boots

Carrying a suitcase, the iconic actress' look was made even more different to her usual appearance with the star wearing long blonde hair extensions that were braided on one side.

Meryl also wore heavy makeup and lashings of red lipstick.

Rick meanwhile, plays an as yet unnamed character who is a band member with a crush on Meryl's rocker by night grocery store clerk by day Rickie.

If their kiss is anything to go by, seems the pop star's character does get a chance to be with the object of his desire.

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Different look: Carrying a suitcase, the iconic actress' look was made even more different to her usual appearance with the star wearing long blonde hair extensions that were braided on one side

Sporting a beard and long hair, Rick dressed in the classic rocker look of black jeans, a band T-shirt and a leather vest.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ricki And The Flash is written by Juno's Diablo Cody and to be directed by Silence Of The Lambs' Jonathan Demme.

The film is due out next year and follows Meryl's character 'who chased her musical dreams at the price of her family - and is given one last chance to, perhaps, make things right' with her estranged daughter, played by Mamie Gummer.

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Character chameleon: Before she rocks, the Academy Award winner will be getting in touch with her evil side in Into The Woods

Also signed on is Kevin Kline as Pete, Ricki's ex-husband, and Sebastian Stan as Joshua, her estranged son.

Writer Diablo told THR Meryl had to learn the guitar, as the director insisted her band's songs are recorded live.

It was so important they delayed the film for it, the writer revealed: 'The reason we haven’t shot the movie yet is Meryl's been learning to play. Watching her come along has been really inspiring.'

'Everything you hear, the band has to play and Meryl has to play. You might hear some Lady Gaga in there.'

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Syfy plans to lure you back with these 5 shows

By James Hibberd on Oct 28, 2014 at 3:01PM

Syfy knows they messed up. Now they have a plan to win you back.

The cable network’s top executives won’t say this in such blunt language, but they acknowledge that somewhere along the line, the network missed an opportunity to have more great scripted dramas. It happened sometime after the name change from Sci Fi Channel to Syfy and the conclusion of Battlestar Galactica—the acclaimed series that was once mentioned by critics alongside titles like Mad Men and The Sopranos as representing TV’s top-tier of storytelling. Once the weary Battlestar crew decided to settle on Earth in the show’s 2009 series finale, Syfy did much the same thing by launching terrestrial-based dramas like Warehouse 13, Sanctuary, Haven, and Eureka.

Let’s be clear: Syfy executives do not regret those titles; many were successful. The mistake wasn’t the dramas Syfy made but the ones Syfy did not make—acclaimed, must-see high-end “serious” shows like Battlestar that would get a lot of buzz and super-passionate fans.

The post-Battlestar shift made sense on paper. Broad-targeted female-friendly fantasies like Twilight and Harry Potter were dominating the box office while breezy crime dramas on USA and TNT ruled cable. So Syfy doubled down on light, sci-fi-themed procedurals.

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Yet while Syfy was seeking TV’s version of Twilight (like Being Human), or an “Imagine Greater” version of Burn Notice (like Warehouse 13), other channels jumped into the serialized hard sci-fi/fantasy turf trail-blazed by Battlestar. AMC’s The Walking Dead—a premise that nobody in the industry thought would deliver a broad audience—became TV’s highest-rated series. HBO enjoyed huge hits with True Blood and Game of Thrones. FX unleashed American Horror Story, and A&E got in the game with Bates Motel.

“We saw an explosion of sci-fi/fantasy content across every cable and broadcast network out there,” said Syfy president Dave Howe. “Perceptions of the genre have shifted dramatically. What that speaks to is an opportunity to re-own the genre and be at the forefront of high-end buzzy, provocative storytelling — and the epiphany of that was Battlestar.”

Largely in the last year, Syfy has shifted its course. Howe hired new programming chief (Bill McGoldrick, who answers our burning questions in a Q&A below), obtained a larger programming budget from parent company Comcast, and has amassed a truly impressive development slate (the five shows Syfy is betting will lure you back are also listed below). “Because of the cumulative density of the announcements we have made, I think the audiences are recognizing that we’re deadly serious about this and we are determined work with some of the biggest names out there,” Howe said. “We want to be the destination for the smartest, most provocative [genre dramas].”

The first show that felt like it was part of that new wave was last year’s Helix, which reunited the network with Battlestar showrunner Ron Moore and returns in January (and to a less extent, the previous year’s drama Defiance fits in this category too). Another title executives are excited about is Syfy’s attempt to reinvent the time-travel drama with a series take on the Terry Gilliam film 12 Monkeys, airing in January.

But the two titles to really watch out for are space operas. The first is Ascension, a mini-series premiering in December starring Tricia Helfer (Battlestar again), about a space ark launched in the 1960s. The production includes a massive set that is four stories high. The second is The Expanse, based on James S.A. Corey‘s rollicking bestseller Leviathan Wakes, which is aiming to be the next great Star Trek/Firefly/Farscape space dramas. “It’s probably one of the best scripts I’ve read in the last three to five years,” Howe said of The Expanse pilot. “We fought off a lot of competitors to get it.”

EW spoke in depth to Howe’s head of original programming, Bill McGoldrick, about the network’s new direction. Like Battlestar‘s cylons, Syfy executives have evolved. And they have a plan.

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EW: Can you talk about the creative direction in terms of where you saw Syfy before and where it’s going now?
BILL MCGOLDRICK: In terms of where it was before with original content and some of the series that were on the air, maybe they were more procedural, more lighthearted in tone—and by the way, those shows worked really well for a long time. I’m referring to the Warehouses and the Eurekas. What we have in development now is more of a serious tone, more back to our roots. You’ve seen and probably heard about our desire to get back up to space. We have a couple really big shows that are trying to accomplish that—Ascension, The Expanse in particular, which play more toward I think the harder core sci-fi fan who used to be perceived as niche but is now mainstream and commercial in a way they have never been before. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish.

What was the sort of change point where you guys said, “Okay, we need to be embracing this stuff again?”
For a lot of the time you’re talking about I wasn’t there. I do think the thrust toward imagination was about broadening the programming. When you look at a show like Face Off, I think that that plays to the imagination and the rebrand in a way that does not alienate the hardcore sci-fi viewers. I do think there are instances where you have your cake and eat it too. But in terms of this new direction, I think when you look at the marketplace and you look at how passionate people are getting about shows—serialized shows specifically—the bar has been raised for the entire industry in terms of how well you have to execute your content to get that passionate core fan base that really acts as its own marketing in terms of word of mouth. And it’s not just genre—I do think you see certain similarities in Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad when you talk about really high-end, serious, modern cable TV execution. That’s where we’re going to try to play with the shows that we have coming up.

When you say “high-end,” I think of a larger budget. Are Syfy shows being given that larger budget to have that look-feel of those shows? I think one description of the previous Syfy shows is that they’re very “Canadian looking.”
When I was at USA we used to always have this phrase: “USA Network: Made in Canada,” because we shot a lot of stuff up there. A lot of people shoot up there. I know what you’re saying and the answer is Yes. We have bigger budgets now. We have budgets that could compete with anybody else in basic cable. Premium cable is a different story, obviously. The budget that HBO has—they’re playing a different game. But when you look at The Walking Dead or Breaking Bad or anything that I worked on at USA, we are at least at that level, if not above. We are trying to bring in directors, producers, you name it, that can execute. I certainly think our shows are already looking better than they have in the past because the corporation supporting us [Comcast], and the corporation understands that we should be investing in genre right now. That’s been the biggest pleasant surprise I’ve had since I’ve arrived — the amount of resources Comcast is providing and kind of everybody up the food chain is recognizing that to pull off sci-fi in the way that we really want to pull it off, you do have to spend. You don’t have to be a reckless drunken sailor, but you do have to sometimes even outspend basic cable competitors for the shows to look the way they will.

So do you now think space operas can attract female viewers?
I passionately believe that. When you see the things that are working … I just went to go see Guardians of the Galaxy and it was not an audience of guys. When you’re talking about big-hit content that we can provide, you’re going to get everybody. At times sci-fi skews more male, but I think that’s changing and that’s an antiquated prejudice. My wife enjoys Game of Thrones as much as I do. I think if the storytelling is good and you can relate to the characters, you’ll get both.

You talked about having more serious content. So if The Walking Dead wasn’t on AMC, could you make that show the way they made it? Although you’ve progressed to some extent, a show opening with a cop shooting a little zombie girl in bunny slippers—that was a very shocking scene in basic cable network when that premiered. In terms of the support you have, internally and from Comcast, how much creative leeway do you have?
We could absolutely do that. I think if you really looked at Defiance, Dominion and some of the content we’ve already done, there’s some pretty rough stuff in those shows. I think sci-fi can be more provocative than any other genre. We will push it wherever we think is appropriate. We don’t want to just do it to do it, to just show that, hey, we can kill a baby, or shoot a dog. If the content points you in that direction, you have to be true to the direction of the story. We’re not looking to shock people just to shock them, but when those moments arrive, I don’t feel any pressure to water it down.

What’s the mandate now in terms of reality and wrestling and the other things that drew sci-fi fan ire over the past few years?
I definitely feel that ire from time to time. I hired a new head of reality who I worked with at USA Network. She’s going to come over and be taking a look at things. The demands we get from our audience in reality are a little different than the demand of other channels, where some of those tried-and-true formats are very much what they want. On our channel, it’s going to have to be more distinctive. We are going to have to invent formats that are specific for our network. I think Face Off is a great example. It’s had a long run of success because it plays to the core [audience]. It’s not a show where people are screaming at each other in a house or some of the other things you associate with reality TV. We had a long run with paranormal shows like Ghost Hunters and Paranormal Witness. Our audience really rejects those derivative filler reality shows. We have to work harder with smart producers to give them a different flavor of reality TV.

I can’t believe you guys got away with Ghost Hunters for that long.
It’s still going.

It’s been 10 seasons, three spin-offs, and all based on: “I think I might have seen a ghost.” That show is one of the most amazing pull-offs in reality history.
Come on, though, would you say that to Discovery about Ice Road Truckers? I used to watch that show waiting for one of those trucks to fall through the ice but it never, ever did. Certain shows you just watch that way.

Right, and Deadliest Catch—they’re just pulling crabs into the boat. You watch and think: “How many crabs are in the next pot?” It’s almost like a slot machine. You’re waiting for the variations. Though to get back on track, to me it’s amazing that there hasn’t been new hit space opera since Battlestar, all these other seemingly tough-to-crack geeky genres from horror to zombies to fantasy have all been sort of revitalized. How important is it for you guys to sort of claim that area back before somebody else does?
It’s incredibly important. It really is. It’s a staple of science fiction programming. Maybe other networks are just sort of afraid of it. We’re not. I’m almost reluctant to talk about this too much in interviews because I’d like it to just be us doing this because I think we know how to do it. I think we’ve got some incredible material coming. I’m think specifically about The Expanse. It’s a space opera the likes of which I don’t think anyone has seen yet. And we’ve got a great cast that’s starting to be assembled, really smart writers. It’s a huge priority for us and we’re already on the runway.

Any chance of the brands we’ve previously seen like Stargate or Farscape or Battlestar retuning.
Never say never, but no immediate plans.

You’re sort of looking to do something new and cool.
Exactly. Battlestar and Stargate had their spinoffs. I think now it’s about giving our audience some fresh stuff. But I would never close the door completely on any of those that you mentioned.

And Ascension. It’s billed as a miniseries, but so was Battlestar at first. What do you think the odds are, from what you’ve seen so far, of that being upped to series?
Truly, it’s too early to tell. The set is spectacular. You’ll see the way this show looks. It’s going to speak to a lot of your first questions about the budgets.

And you have 12 Monkeys.
I was on the set for a couple days in Toronto. I really could not have been happier. Sometimes you come back from these early set visits and you’re like, uh-oh, we might have a problem. I’ve read pretty far into the season thus far. They’ve put together a really smart take on a time travel show with some actors that are really going to pop. It feels like a show that’s going to be special.

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Syfy’s battle plan to get you back: The cable network has projects adapted from beloved sci-fi novels (a series based on Lev Grossman’s novel The Magicians, a miniseries adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End starring Thrones’ actor Charles Dance), with talented writer-producer (like Oscar-winner Akiva Goldsman) and bigger budgets (the upcoming series The Expanse is the network’s most expensive show ever). Here are the five most promising that have been greenlit to air:

Ascension. Mini-series; possible series. Six hours. Stars Brian Van Holt, Tricia Helfer. The show sets up an alternate version of reality in which, in 1963, President Kennedy and the U.S. government, fearing the Cold War will become hot and lead to the destruction of the Earth, decided to launch a covert space mission. They sent 600 men, women and children into space on a century-long voyage aboard the Ascension, a massive, self-sustaining generation ship. Their mission is to populate a new world, known as Proxima, assuring the survival of the human race. Nearly 50 years into the journey (i.e. in the present), as they approach the point of no return, the mysterious murder of a young woman—the first homicide since their departure—causes the ship’s crew to question the true nature of their mission. Premieres Dec. 15, 2014.

12 Monkeys. Series, 13 episodes. Stars Aaron Stanford, Amanda Schull and Kirk Acevedo. A complete re-imagning of the Terry Gilliam film. A time traveler from a decimated future journeys back to present day in a bid to locate and eradicate the source of a deadly plague that will pretty much annihilate the human race. Premieres Jan. 16, 2015.

Childhood’s End. Mini-series, 6 hours. Stars Charles Dance. Based on Arthur C. Clarke’s sci-fi classic, follows a breed of aliens called the “Overlords,” who manage to peacefully invade and rule Earth, and create a pseudo-utopia that comes at the price of human identity and culture. Premieres 2015.

The Expanse. Series, 10 episodes. Based on the series of books by James S.A. Corey, a thriller set two hundred years in the future, The Expanse follows the case of a missing young woman who brings a hardened detective and a rogue ship’s captain together in a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history. No date.

Hunters. Series, 13 episodes. Based on Whitley Strieber’s novel Alien Hunter, a Philadelphia cop searches for his missing wife leads and discovers a secret government unit that assembled to hunt a group of ruthless terrorists who may not be from this world. Premieres 2016.

Elizabeth Norment, 'House of Cards' and stage actress, dies at 61

Elizabeth Norment, shown during a performance at Los Angeles' Odyssey Theater in 1996, died Oct. 13. She most recently appeared in the Netflix series "House of Cards." (Los Angeles Times)

By James Queally contact the reporter

Elizabeth Norment, actress who played Frank Underwood's secretary on 'House of Cards,' dies at 61

Actress Elizabeth Norment, who regularly performed on the Southern California theater circuit and recently appeared in the political drama "House of Cards," has died. She was 61.

Diane Bush, the owner of Leading Artists Talent Agency, which represented Norment, confirmed her death to the Los Angeles Times but could not provide additional details.

Norment died at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York on Oct. 13, according to a death notice that appeared in the Washington Post.

Norment graduated from Yale University in 1979 with a master's in fine arts, and performed several stage roles in Southern California in the 1980s and early 1990s. She portrayed three of Shakespeare's most famous female characters in "As You Like It," "Much Ado About Nothing" and "The Merchant of Venice" at the Grove Shakespeare Festival in Garden Grove in 1990 and 1991.

More recently, Norment played the role of Nancy Kaufberger, a secretary to Machiavellian politician Frank Underwood on the Netflix series "House of Cards."

She had several other television acting credits to her name, including appearances on "Law & Order," "Political Animals" and "St. Elsewhere."

Elizabeth Larrabee Norment was born Dec. 31, 1952, in Washington, D.C. Her survivors include her mother, Nancy Norment McCabe, three sisters and a brother, according to the death notice.

While she was in the midst of a string of performances in the Los Angeles area in the early '90s, Norment told The Times that the chance to perform as a Shakespearean heroine had "completely rejuvenated" her love of theater.

"It has certainly challenged my skills to the max. What Shakespeare's roles give back to you on your investment is just astonishing," she said. "The deeper you dig, the more there is. You will never hit bottom."

José González Announces New Album 'Vestiges & Claws' Via Internet Trailer [WATCH]

Jose Gonzalez (Photo : Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

José González only has two albums to his name over the course of an 11-year career, but the "Heartbeats" singer is finally adding a third in 2015.

Vestiges & Claws will be out Feb. 17 on Mute.

Here's the press release statement (via Stereogum):

It was no doubt a conscious decision to work without a producer. I didn't want this to be too polished, or too 'in your face.' Most of all, it's fun to be in complete control of the artistic aspect. Also, I was inspired by and picked up a lot of tricks from the producers I have worked with in the past. I like to use distortion and let things be a little overdriven, which gives things a warmer sound. Sometimes people complain that my music is too muddled, but I really do not want a modern crisp sound. I'd much rather aim somewhere between Shuggie Otis and Simon & Garfunkel.

González also posted a short album trailer, which features 30 seconds of instrumental guitar:

Gonzalez doesn't grant many interviews, but he spoke with Slave Magazine in February about his performing setup vs. songwriting setup.

Romeo Santos At The White House: King Of Bachata To Perform For Veterans At Obama Residence

By Maria G. Valdez | Oct 27 2014, 02:36PM EDT

Romeo Santos made it to the White House! The Bachata singer will perform alongside other famous names at the presidential residence in honor of the troops. Reuters

It’s your boy Romeo! Pretty much selling out two consecutive shows at the Yankee Stadium in the summer wasn’t enough for the King of Bachata and now he’s bringing his Dominican/Puerto Rican flavor to the White House. You read it right! Romeo Santos will join Mary J. Blige, Common, John Fogerty and Willie Nelson during the PBS music special “In Salute to The Troops, in Performance at the White House,” on Thursday, November 6, as part of the White House’s “Joining Forces” initiative.

“The President and First Lady will invite music legends, members of the U.S. military, military veterans, and their families ... for a celebration of the men and women who serve the United States,” the White House said. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will host the event on the South Lawn, to accommodate more guests, which will be broadcast a day later (Nov. 7) at 9 p.m. EST and then again on Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11 via the America Forces Network to American service men and women around the world.

We couldn’t be happier for Romeo, who has made a name in tropical music, breaking stereotypes and bringing Bachata to an international audience. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s slowly but steadily transitioning to film, with roles in the new Fast & Furious 7 movie alongside Vin Diesel, and another role in the movie adaptation of the “Angry Birds” videogame, expected to reach theaters in July 2016.

Eva Longoria's Documentary On Farmworkers 'Food Chains' Gets Version In Spanish

By Natalie Roterman | Oct 26 2014, 11:59AM EDT

A documentary called "Food Chains" looks into the conditions in which farmworkers make a living. Food Chains Film

Actress and producer Eva Longoria debuted her documentary on farmworkers in the Berlin International Film Festival, ‘Food Chains’ and now, it will simultaneously open in theaters in both English and Spanish, on November 21. The “Desperate Housewives” star, executive produced and appeared in the documentary alongside Eric Schlosser, who also produced documentaries such as “Food Inc.” and "Fast Food Nation". Other appearances include Dolores Huerta and Robert F. Kennedy and Demián Bichir, Alma Martínez and journalist José Ronstadt narrate the Spanish version of the documentary.

The documentary focuses on the agriculture industry in the US and the poor conditions in which labor takes place; a problem, which has tarnished the history of this country starting from the very beginning. The film takes place in South Florida, where farmworkers are trying to fight the global supermarket system and create conscience of who the people harvesting the food are.

The film, directed by Sanjay Rawal and produced by Smriti Keshari, Rawal and Hamilton Fish, has secured bookings at Maya Cinemas in several cities and Screen Media is handling the release of both versions. The English version will be available for download on November 27.

President Barack Obama speaking to this problem is the voice in the opening of the trailer: “We know our economy’s stronger when we reward an honest days work with honest wages. Let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works fulltime should live in poverty.”

Celia Cruz TV Biopic by Fox Telecolombia Network, Canal RCN Is Underway: Who Will Portray Legendary "Queen of Salsa?"

By Melissa Castellanos (m.castellanos@latinpost.com)

First Posted: Oct 28, 2014 01:38 PM EDT

Celia Cruz, the “Queen of Salsa” will be celebrated with a biopic TV series that Fox Telecolombia Network is developing with Canal RCN. (Photo : Flickr/Fernando Rodriguez)

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Celia Cruz, also known as the "Queen of Salsa", continues to reign and her extraordinary talent will be celebrated with a biopic TV series that Fox Telecolombia Network is developing with Canal RCN.

The highly-anticipated TV tribute, which has also been dubbed a "biopic-novela," will be made up of 80 one-hour episodes that will narrate the story of Cruz's fascinating life from her birth to the height of her fame.

Filming for the TV biopic reportedly began in September, but there are still many details that will follow. In the meantime, Cruz fans can yell, "¡Azucar! (Sugar!)," the sweet, iconic phrase sung by the legendary Cruz because some casting news has been revealed -- and it's pretty sweet given the talent that's slated to participate.

Who will be playing the iconic salsa legend?

Jennifer Lopez? While the icon was channeled by the multi-talented Lopez with a stellar performance at the American Music Awards last year, she would have been a good guess, but that's not the case. There will be three actresses/singers who will bring the razzle-dazzle to the small screen, all of which who resemble the beloved Cruz and bring forth some impressive talent. Each actress/singer will capture different stages of Cruz's life.

In January, it was announced that Isa Mosquera López was chosen to emulate Cruz in her early career," according to Remezcla. The Colombian former pop star is a regular in Canal RCN, and has appeared in a few of its variety shows, including "3 Milagros," "Latin America Idol," and "Popstars."

In addition, Jeimy Osorio has also been cast as "an incarnation of Cruz." Osorio, who has a background in film, has appeared in "Fast Five" and "Maid in Manhattan," in addition to a few telenovelas." To avoid confusion, "Jeimy is not related to Fernando Osorio, the Colombian singer-songwriter who composed the last track that Celia Cruz recorded before her passing."

Aymée Nuviola, a Havana-born singer and Latin Grammy nominee who's known as "La Sonera del Mundo" will portray Cruz at the height of her career.

She recently got the nod in the Best Tropical Album category for her 2014 album First Class to Havana. The ceremony is set for Nov. 20, airing on Univision, according to the Miami Herald.

Nuviola also has a musical lineage that includes: her sister Lourdes Nuviola, also a singer; her niece Paola Guanche, winner of Telemundo's La Voz Kids contest; her brother, percussionist Alexander 'Pupi' Carriera, who has occasionally played in her band; and her cousin Luis Bofill, also a local musician.

Who will play Cruz's husband of 40 years?

Modesto Lacén will portray Pedro Knight, who was also an accomplished musician in his own right. Lacén proved that he has the right stuff to bring it -- he previously starred as Knight in the successful off-Broadway production, "The Life and Music of Celia Cruz."

The TV biopic is reportedly scheduled to be filmed in Cartagena and Bogotá, Colombia and Miami. Cruz's homeland of Cuba, however, is not on the list of filming locations.

Currently, the plan is to air the show in its entirety in Latin America, Remezcla adds, but there is the hope that "HBO Latino or another network" brings it to the U.S.

The recent buzz surrounding "La Reina de Salsa" TV biopic coincided with the icon's birthday on Oct. 21, which marked what would have been Cruz's 89th birthday.

Born Ursula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso to a working-class family in Havana in 1925, Cruz began singing as a child, an interest later encouraged by her aunt, who introduced her to the world of Cuba's nightclubs, Billboard points out. A student of Cuba's Conservatory of Music, Cruz's career took off in 1950 when she joined La Sonora Matancera, one of Cuba's most prominent dance orchestras.

The vocal powerhouse embarked on a tour with La Sonora Matancera in 1960, shortly after the Cuban Revolution, and never returned to her "Cubita Linda." Sadly, when her father passed away, the Cuban government refused to let her return to the island to pay her final respects.

However, the United States welcomed her with open arms and she evolved into an international icon. Cruz launched a solo career with percussionist Tito Puente, and performed with the Fania All Stars in the 1970s. She became known for her enthusiastic stage presence and her catchphrase "Azúcar!" as well as her flair for the dramatic with brightly colored dresses and wigs.

Long Lost Daughters, Beach Boys, and Disco Toilets: The True Story Behind "Monster Mash"

By Drew Millard

Oct 27 2014

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Why Madonna's Unapologetic 'Bedtime Stories' Is Her Most Important Album

By Mary von Aue

Oct 24 2014

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By Kory Grow | October 29, 2014

With Craig Ferguson's final broadcast as host of The Late Late Show approaching, Metallica have booked a weeklong residency on the program to play him out in style. The band will sit for an interview with the Scottish comedian on November 17th and perform a song on the show every night that week. The group's appearance on the show coincides with the 10-year anniversary reissue of the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster, which will come out on November 24th, as well as a Record Store Day vinyl pressing of their new song "Lords of Summer," due out Black Friday.

"What better way to celebrate Craig's awesome tenure at CBS than to come and shake the rafters for a whole week," Lars Ulrich tells Rolling Stone. "Nothing to sell, nothing to promote (except a reissue DVD)...purely hanging at Craig's personal request. Bring it!"

After a decade as host of The Late Late Show, Ferguson announced his decision to step down as host of the program this past April, a few weeks after David Letterman revealed that he would be retiring as host of The Late Show. The Scot's final broadcast will take place on an as yet unspecified date in December. After that, British actor and comedian James Corden will take over the show.

In other Metallica news, the group will be performing at the video-game convention BlizzCon on November 8th. The concert will also be broadcast on DirectTV as part of BlizzCon's pay-per-view coverage. The group will also be performing as part of the Concert for Valor in Washington, D.C. on November 11th, alongside Bruce Springsteen, Rihanna, Eminem and Dave Grohl; the show will be broadcast on HBO. Additionally, Metallica have booked an appearance at the first U.S. Rock in Rio festival, which will also feature Taylor Swift and No Doubt and take place in May in Las Vegas.

In the meantime, the group is putting out vinyl editions of 27 concerts it played this year by the end of 2014 and spending whatever free time they have writing a new record. In April, Ulrich told Rolling Stone that he estimated the band was in the "fourth inning" of the writing process for the album.

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By David Fricke | October 29, 2014

The only note of sentiment during the Allman Brothers Band's October 28th concert at New York's Beacon Theatre – their last at that venue and anywhere else, at least for the foreseeable future – came after more than four hours of music: three sets and an inevitable encore, "Whipping Post." The seven members of the group – the surviving trio of founders, singer-organist Gregg Allman and drummers Butch Trucks and Jaimoe; the long-serving guitar team of Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks; and often overlooked veterans Oteil Burbridge on bass and percussionist Marc Quinones – lined up onstage and took a bow: a first at any Allmans-Beacon show I'd ever attended.

Then Gregg, pressed forward by the others, gave a short speech, another first, recalling the day 45 years ago that he first sang with the original Allmans lineup – led by his late brother, guitarist Duane Allman, and including guitarist Dickey Betts and the late bassist Berry Oakley – at a jam session in Jacksonville, Florida. Gregg cited the precise date, March, 26th, 1969, then said, in a low, worn voice, "Never did I have any idea it could come to this." He gazed gratefully at the crowd, still on its feet, clapping and cheering, at nearly 1:30 a.m. "Now," Gregg added, "We're gonna do the first song we ever played."

The Allmans got back in position and tore into "Trouble No More," the Muddy Waters rumble from Side One of the group's 1969 debut album, The Allman Brothers Band. It sounded nothing like goodbye: tight and gnarly, Derek and Haynes riding the triple-drum-kit surf with avenging poise. But it was.

The Unbroken Circle

Until that late acknowledgement of the occasion, the show was most remarkable for what didnt't happen. There were no special guests – a signature feature of the Alllmans' Beacon shows over the last decade – and the group did not throw in any of the extended-family covers (the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Dr.John, Derek and the Dominos) that came, often in medleys without warning, during the Allmans' annual spring runs at the Beacon. The closest they got to the latter: an elegaic swerve, at the end of the first set, through King Curtis's "Soul Serenade" in "You Don't Love Me," quoting a segue I've got on an August, 1971 live-radio bootleg; and the chase-scene extension of "Black Hearted Woman" in the second set, when the rhythm section switched accents and Derek and Haynes hit the chattering riff of the Grateful Dead's "The Other One."

Otherwise, the Allmans – who announced their retirement from touring after Derek and Haynes issued a statement earlier this year that they were leaving to concentrate on their own careers – made sure they performed as much of their classic catalog, from the five albums made between that '69 bow and 1973's Brothers and Sisters, as could be fit in one night. The end of the road actually began with a poetic rewind of Duane-time flashbacks: An introductory flourish of the guitarist's last composition, the acoustic "Little Martha" played by Derek and Haynes in electric harmony, quickly broke into "Mountain Jam," the guitarists citing Donovan's source melody, "There Is a Mountain," in languid, treble sighs. It was a literal replication of the closing sequence, on Sides Three and Four, of 1972's Eat a Peach, the album the Allmans were making when Duane died the previous October. That coupling erupted into another: the one-two punch of the Spencer Davis Group's "Don't Want You No More" and Gregg's eerily prophetic blues "It's Not My Cross to Bear" at the beginning of The Allman Brothers Band.

The Allmans' recurring cycles of ascension, tragedy, crash, recovery and determined performing triumph, in every era, were directly addressed in a first-set reading of "The High Cost of Low Living," from 2003's Hittin' the Note, the only Allmans studio album to feature Derek and Haynes. The third set was a loosely narrative charge through pilgrimage and celebration – "Revival," "Southbound" and more "Mountain Jam." The last gently dissolved into the Carter Family hymn "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," sung by Gregg as ragged pleading with Haynes riding shotgun, in decisively sunny harmony. But the finish extended the circle, taking everyone back to psychedelic church with another flash of "Mountain Jam" at "The Other One" velocity.

The End of the Road?

The talk in the balcony, before the show and during the breaks, was of Betts, who was fired in 2000: Was there a chance he would come out and play, completing one more circle on the last possible night? He didn't but was present in the songs – "Blue Sky," "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" – and in Derek and Haynes' ties, through their harmonies and soloing, to the standards of fraternal lock and empathic dialogue set by Duane, with Betts, right out of the gate, in 1969. As he did on other nights in this October run, Derek played Duane's own gold-top Les Paul – in the first set during Elmore James' "One Way Out" and Sonny Boy Williamson's "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl."

But there was a lot of blues-power Dickey cutting through the Duane in both Derek's raga-panic breaks and Haynes' modal skids during "Elizabeth Reed" and in that "Whipping Post." The younger men both played with Betts at different times in the Allmans, then together in the band for nearly fifteen years, five times longer than Betts and Duane did. There was never a suggestion – when Derek joined in 1999 and Haynes came back after Betts' dismissal – that either player had replaced the elders. The lightning, frenzy and swan dives in "Hot 'Lanta," "Statesboro Blues" And "Dreams," tonight as at every other Beacon show I saw, were acts of acknowledgement and summation, charged with pursuit of the unfinished.

That work, it seems, will stay undone. During the intermissions, a curious message appeared on the large video screen behind the band: "The road indeed goes on forever. So stay calm, eat a peach and carry on . . ." The individual members of the Allmans will certainly continue to play in some form and combinations. There may even be reunions. As for the guitarists, Derek's R&B juggernaut with his wife Susan Tedeschi, the Tedeschi Trucks Band, recently played a transcendant Beacon run in September, and Haynes' group Gov't Mule will make their traditional holiday stop at that stage on December 30th and 31st. I went to the former; I don't want to miss the latter.

But it will take more than a peach to get me through next March. It was never spring, I always said, until I saw the Allmans peakin' at the Beacon. Tonight was a generous, continually thrilling farewell. It will make the leaving that much harder to bear.

Set List

First Set
"Little Martha"
"Mountain Jam"
"Don't Want You No More"
"It's Not My Cross to Bear"
"One Way Out"
"Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl"
"Midnight Rider"
"The High Cost of Low Living"
"Hot 'Lanta"
"Blue Sky"
"You Don't Love Me"

Second Set
"Statesboro Blues"
"Ain't Wastin' Time No More"
"Black Hearted Woman"
"The Sky Is Crying"
"Dreams"
"Don't Keep Me Wondering"
"In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" (with drum solos)

Third Set
"Melissa"
"Revival"
"Southbound"
"Mountain Jam"
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken"
"Mountain Jam (reprise)"

Encores
"Whipping Post"
"Trouble No More"

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By Kristy Puchko 2014-10-30 10:19:22

"To erase the line between man and machine is to obscure the line between men and gods," warns the trailer for the upcoming sci-fi thriller Ex Machina. And the dangers that tagline implies are teased in a chilling promo that's as beautiful as it is unnerving.

Star Wars: Episode VIII's Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac star as two men involved in an experiment that could forever change man's interactions with machine. Isaac is the creator of the artificial intelligence machine Ava, played by Gleeson's Anna Karenina co-star Alicia Vikander. But rather than your typical robot becomes sentient, robot turns on human overlords narrative, Ex Machina suggests Ava is not the one to fear, setting up one of the strangest and most compelling love triangles we've ever seen teased.

With creepy music, clever cuts, and sneak peeks at some dazzling visual effects and a compelling story, Ex Machina's trailer has us wishing this movie were opening tomorrow. But alas, it's not hitting theaters until the spring of 2015. Making our anticipation downright unbearable is not only the combination of such incredible talent as Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, and Alicia Vikander, but also the film's director, Alex Garland. Ex Machina will be the English filmmakers directorial debut, but fans of Danny Boyle, or sci-fi, or zombie movies, know Garland well. He's the screenwriter who crafted Boyle's chilling horror movie 28 Days Later… as well as the cult-adored thriller Sunshine. Now, he's turning his keen eye for characterization and developing suspenseful stories into the realm of artificial intelligence sci-fi.

Yes, please.

A further suggestion that Ex Machina should be on your most anticipated of 2015 list is its distributor: A24Films. This company burst onto the scene in 2012 with Sally Potter's moody and melodious Ginger & Rosa and Harmony Korine's neon-colored and outrageous Spring Breakers. Since then, they've brought us such celebrated cinema as The Spectacular Now, The Bling Ring, Under The Skin, Locke, and Obvious Child. Basically, you should start looking to the A24 logo as a seal of quality cinema.

Ex Machina won't be opening until April 10th, 2015. But in the meantime, A24 is offering up lots of treats in time for this creepy thriller's Halloween trailer debut. First up, a poster that gives us a close look at what lies inside Ava.



And then, a literally different side to this A.I. creation, showing her curled up, vulnerable, and even looking distinctly human.



April can't come fast enough. Learn more about Ava here.

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By Sean O'Connell 2014-10-30 14:31:25

So far, in its early stages, the promotional campaign for next summer’s Terminator: Genisys has been… disturbing. Our first look at the cast placed them all in cheesy blockbuster poses. And that was nothing compared with the Smiling Terminator who was photobombing Matt Smith and Jason Clarke on the cover of the Entertainment Weekly. Seriously. A smiling Terminator. With teeth, and everything.

Well, that’s nothing compared with the cast portraits that EW shared today as part of its cover package. Again, they have a certain… enthusiasm, I suppose. The theme that we have been batting around the Cinema Blend offices is that the Terminator: Genisys is showing us their sexually charged "O Faces" in these heroic poses. Starting with Games of Thrones star Emilia Clarke at the top. Her pic leads into Matt Smith’s awkward "O Face" pose, which involves extending his gun arm and, of course, screaming.



Not one to be outdone, Hollywood’s new John Connor – Jason Clarke – lets out a bit of a bellow.



And Jai Courtney takes "aim" at all of the film critics who wrote about A Good Day to Die Hard while ALSO giving us his best "O Face." Yikes.



Don't these people know how it's supposed to be done?


All of which tells us nothing about the film. That’s what disturbs me the most. Directed by Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World), Terminator: Genisys is being billed as the sequel that is going to reinvigorate the dormant franchise. It’s going to kick start a new trilogy of Terminator movies, and it’s going to be so entertaining that we’re going to want to follow these new versions of come classic characters on whatever time-hopping adventure they decide to embark on. Except, all these images show us are Matrix-inspired, black-clothes-wearing, generic "soldier" characters pointing guns and screaming. This could be an ad for a G.I. Joe sequel. Except for that Smiling Terminator.

Some plot details tied to Terminator: Genisys were part of the EW article, and they raised more questions than answers. I’m thinking that a trailer for Genisys might be dropping soon, and that might clear things up. Because so far? No dice, O-Face film.

You want to see that Smiling Terminator again, don't you? OK, fine.

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By Adam Holmes 2014-10-30 14:15:40

Despite the new information and trailers we’ve gotten for Avengers: Age of Ultron, there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding newcomers Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Who are they? What’s their history? Why are they working with Ultron? However, the biggest question on fans minds is how they got their powers. The common theory is that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is making them Inhumans - and with the announcement of an Inhumans movie coming in the next few years, this doesn’t seem farfetched. Not only that, but if we look at all the details we’ve learned about these characters so far, it’s looking likelier that the Marvel Cinematic Universe could be setting Pietro and Wanda up to have a big role in the 2018 film

In the comics, the term "Inhuman" doesn’t just apply to the citizens of Attilan, where most Inhumans live. Anyone who is a descendant of the original humans that were experimented on by the Kree can become an Inhuman - and many of these people aren’t aware of their genetic history. Their physiology is already superior to a normal human’s, but it is exposure to the Terrigen Mist that awakens their inner power. Since the term "mutant" is off-limits to Marvel Studios, being Inhumans could explain how Pietro and Wanda have their powers in the MCU. For years they lived their lives like normal human, but somehow they were exposed to the Terrigen Mist and gained powers. Judging by the mid-credits scene for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, screencapped below, Hydra are probably the ones who ultimately expose the twins to the substance - or at the very least were able to figure out the source of their abilities.



Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has previously stated that the twins won’t be Inhumans, but that was long before the Inhumans was announced, meaning that his comments could have just been meant as misdirection.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron San Diego Comic-Con concept art suggests that the twins will eventually help the titular team take down their villainous robotic enemy - but perhaps by the end of the movie, the twins may leave their new teammates to travel and learn more about their unusual physiology. This is where Inhumans comes in. Like with most actors who sign onto Marvel films, Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson surely have multi-picture deals, so we can presume that Age of Ultron won’t be the only time we see them on the big screen. Feige did say we would see Easter eggs for the Inhumans before the actual movie comes out, so it’s possible that Marvel may be setting them up as our entry point into the 2018 film.

So how could this work? Perhaps the twins learn about Attilan and find their way to where the majority of Inhumans have been living for centuries. Rather than drop the audiences directly into this unusual society, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch will be the perspective characters of the film. We’ll be following them every step of the way as they meet the royal family, discover where the Inhumans originated from and learn about this city full of people like them.



With all the talk of how important they are to The Avengers: Age of Ultron, it’s doubtful that Marvel would set aside Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch until the Avengers: Infinity War movies. Inhumans may be Marvel giving the twins a chance to have a bigger role in the franchise beyond just their identities as Avengers. While the Inhumans themselves can be the connecting point between Earth and the cosmic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Wanda and Pietro can serve as the connecting point between the Inhumans and Avengers. Not only does this movie give an opportunity for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch to shine on their own (relatively speaking), but they would be the ones who could bring in the main Inhumans to help the other Marvel heroes fight Thanos or any other giant threat that comes along.

Marvel must have big plans for these characters, and not just because they want to outdo the 20th Century Fox versions (they may not outright say it, but that competition is there). The Inhumans are a unique Marvel property, but if the film drops viewers straight into this weird society without any familiar context, it may turn some people off. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s inclusion could easily prevent that.

Galway Kinnell, Plain-Spoken Poet, Is Dead at 87

By DANIEL LEWIS OCT. 29, 2014

Galway Kinnell in 1984. Mr. Kinnell was a poet whose works could encompass celebrations of East Village street life and meditations on mortality. His “Selected Poems” won a Pulitzer Prize in 1983; he shared a National Book Award the same year. Credit Bob Adelman/Corbis

Galway Kinnell, who was recognized with both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for a body of poetry that pushed deep into the heart of human experience in the decades after World War II, died on Tuesday at his home in Sheffield, Vt. He was 87.

The cause was leukemia, his wife, Barbara K. Bristol, said.

Mr. Kinnell came of age among a generation of poets who were trying to get past the modernism of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound and write verses that, as he said, could be understood without a graduate degree. He succeeded well enough that all of the volumes of poems he published from 1960 to 2008 — evocations of urban streetscapes, pastoral odes, meditations on mortality and frank explorations of sex — are still in print.

The Beats were contemporaries, as were adherents of the New Criticism, with their emphasis on the formal analysis of structure and meaning. But he was inclined to go his own way, developing a lyrical style influenced by the past. With his breakthrough poem, “The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ Into the New World,” published in 1960, admirers placed him in the footsteps of Walt Whitman.

The poem is a 14-part work about Avenue C in Manhattan, a mother lode of inspiration for someone with Mr. Kinnell’s photographic eye and intuitive sense of other people’s lives. In these verses and on this street, Jews, blacks and Puerto Ricans walked in the spring sunlight, past the avenue’s mainstays at the time — the Downtown Talmud Torah, Blosztein’s Cutrate Bakery, Areceba Panataria Hispano, Nathan Kugler Chicken Store Fresh Killed Daily and others. The vendors’ carts clattered on the cobblestones. In the gathering shadows,

wiped-out lives — punks, lushes

Panhandlers, pushers, rumsoaks, all those

Who took it easy when they should have been out failing at some-

thing.

And after dark, the crone who sells newspapers on the street:

Rain or stars, every night

She is there, squatting on the orange crate,

Issuing out only in darkness, like the cucarachas

And dread nightmares in the chambers overhead.

Mr. Kinnell said the poem came to him so easily that it seemed almost to write itself. Such was not the case over the next decade, when his preoccupation with mortality produced difficult, startling poems that remain among his most studied works. Notable among them are two pieces from the “Body Rags” collection — “The Bear” and “The Porcupine” — in each of which the narrator becomes, in some sense, the animal whose agonizing death he has been describing.

The bear swallows a hunter’s bait, a double-pointed bone coiled up in blubber, and wanders the Arctic wilderness dying slowly of internal bleeding. On the seventh day the starving hunter, following the trail of blood, comes upon the carcass:

I hack

a ravine in his thigh, and eat and drink,

and tear him down his whole length

and open him and climb in

and close him up after me, against the wind,

and sleep.

And dream

of lumbering flatfooted over the tundra,

stabbed twice from within ...

“The Book of Nightmares” is no less concerned with death — with how lives are to be lived with the constant awareness that everything begins dying from the moment of inception. But the perspectives are different from those in “Body Rags”: The book-length poem opens with the birth of his first child and closes with the birth of his second, and confronts, among other things, the Vietnam War: “Lieutenant! This corpse will not stop burning.”

After “Nightmares” was published, in 1971, Mr. Kinnell said he felt “an unsettling emptiness for a long time afterward.” Nine years went by before he published another collection, “Mortal Acts, Mortal Words.” Harold Bloom, writing in The New York Times Book Review, took the occasion to say, however kindly, that Mr. Kinnell had not quite vindicated the remarkable promise of “The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ Into the New World.” He thought that Mr. Kinnell was suffering from “a certain over-ambition that makes of each separate poem too crucial an event.”

In any case, Mr. Kinnell was moving on.

“I’ve tried to carry my poetry as far as I could,” he told The Los Angeles Times, “to dwell on the ugly as fully, as far and as long as I could stomach it. Probably more than most poets I have included in my work the unpleasant, because I think if you are ever going to find any kind of truth to poetry it has to be based on all of experience rather than on a narrow segment of cheerful events.”

When his “Selected Poems” won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1983, and a share of the National Book Award the same year, it amounted to a fresh appreciation of his best work over 25 years.

Mr. Kinnell was by then well established as a poet, translator, essayist and teacher, dividing his time between the country life in Vermont and Manhattan, where he was a professor and director of the creative writing program at New York University.

His later work became looser and more personal, with ample space for woodsy poems and flights of whimsy. In “Oatmeal,” for example, the mental-health implications of eating the stuff by oneself are such that he summons an imaginary breakfast companion, the dead poet John Keats:

Keats said I was right to invite him: due to its glutinous texture, gluey

lumpishness, hint of slime, and unusual willingness to

disintegrate, oatmeal must never be eaten alone.

Serious or droll, Mr. Kinnell was an imposing figure at poetry readings, a big, muscular man with powers of retention that enabled him to recite long pieces from memory, his own and other writers’ as well. One time, he confessed in an interview with Saturday Review, he even mesmerized himself. “I just folded my arms on the lectern and fell asleep,” he said. “I suppose the audience thought I had fallen into a poetic swoon.”

Galway Mills Kinnell was born in Providence, R.I., on Feb. 1, 1927, the son of immigrants, James Kinnell, a carpenter, from Scotland, and Elizabeth Mills Kinnell, from Ireland. He grew up in Pawtucket, R.I., one of four children. He was a reclusive youth whose ear for language — the poems of Poe and Dickinson, the hymns and sermons at the local Congregational church, his mother’s Irish lilt — gave him the sense of an inner life apart from the reality of that old mill town.

At 15 he went to Wilbraham Academy in Massachusetts (now Wilbraham & Monson Academy), and then to Princeton. His college roommate, the poet W. S. Merwin, introduced him to the work of William Butler Yeats, whose poems, along with those of Rainer Maria Rilke, exerted a lifelong influence. He also found a kindred soul in François Villon and made well-received translations of his poems from the French, a language he polished during a Fulbright fellowship in Paris and travels around Europe.

Mr. Kinnell’s education was interrupted for Navy service in World War II, but he returned to Princeton and graduated with highest honors in 1948. He received a master’s degree from the University of Rochester a year later.

He held several teaching positions early on, the first at the University of Chicago as a poetry instructor for correspondence students who mailed in their efforts for his appraisal. He also held overseas teaching jobs, including a tour in Tehran that led to the writing of his only novel, “Black Light,” a tale of an Iranian carpet-mender whose life is changed by a murder.

Mr. Kinnell was married in 1965 to the Spanish translator Ines Delgado de Torres. Their two children, Fergus and Maud, were named for figures in Yeats. The couple divorced after 20 years. Mr. Kinnell was married again, in 1997, to Barbara Kammer Bristol.

Besides his wife, survivors include his son, Fergus; his daughter, Maud Kozodoy; and two grandchildren.

“Galway Kinnell cares about everything,” the poet and novelist James Dickey once observed. Over the years he lent passionate support to the antiwar movement, to freedom of expression in repressive countries, to environmental causes and civil rights. In 1963 he went to work for the Congress of Racial Equality, helping to register black voters in Louisiana — an effort that got him thrown in jail, with a pimp and a car thief for cellmates.

Through it all, he held that it was the job of poets to bear witness. “To me,” he said, “poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment.”

Seeking the Queen’s Soul (Just a Little Bit)

‘Respect’ Tells Aretha Franklin’s Life Story

OCT. 29, 2014

Aretha Franklin Credit Sony Music Entertainment

Here’s a funny little story from David Ritz, who is filled to the gills with them. In 1999, Mr. Ritz ventriloquized a memoir called “From These Roots,” in the voice of Aretha Franklin. He never felt quite right about the book, because it was so sanitized. But then Ms. Franklin came back to him and said she thought a second book was needed. He was delighted, thinking she now wanted to tell the whole truth.

Unfortunately, that was not what she had in mind. Rolling Stone had recently named her the No. 1 singer of all time, and there were other new accolades. “These awards didn’t get the publicity they deserved,” was her concern.

Mr. Ritz includes that story in his introduction to “Respect,” a new, improved Franklin book, written as a biography in his own voice. He claims to have written the lyrics to “Sexual Healing” with Marvin Gaye (about whom he wrote a posthumous biography). And he has spent decades ghostwriting the memoirs of some of soul music’s most renowned figures, beginning with Ray Charles in 1978, and including Smokey Robinson, Etta James, B. B. King and Buddy Guy. He has done this so often because he’s good at it.

Photo

A poster from the 1950s promoted the Rev. C. L. Franklin and others, including his daughter Aretha. Credit Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

A deranged standout among his many other efforts to channel music business personalities is “Howling at the Moon,” in which he emphasized the spectacular arrogance of the drug-addled CBS Records executive Walter Yetnikoff. Sample anecdote: Mr. Yetnikoff imagines visiting Tahiti, and dropping the names of Billy Joel and Neil Diamond, and meeting Paul Gauguin. “Keep painting, Paul, and I’ll give you my leftovers,” Mr. Ritz helps Mr. Yetnikoff say.

In other words, you’ll be in the nimble hands of a pro if you read “Respect.” You’ll also be in the presence of a helpfully guilty conscience. Mr. Ritz managed to persuade Ms. Franklin that if she didn’t let him write his own gloves-off story, someone more meanspirited would do it.

Aretha 2.0 sometimes differs from her predecessor in “From These Roots” in the often inconvenient details. Initially, Mr. Ritz had to describe the marriage of her parents, Barbara Siggers and the very popular Detroit preacher and singer the Rev. C. L. Franklin, as unsullied by any complications. As this new book explains, Mr. Franklin fathered two children by two different women in 1939. And Barbara would have her own out-of-wedlock child, after which she abandoned Aretha, who was born in 1942, and the three other Franklin-Siggers children in Detroit and moved to Buffalo, taking her new son. Accounts vary as to how much Aretha later saw her mother, but not about the enormous sway Mr. Franklin held over her. Since he was such a public figure, the four Franklin siblings — Aretha, Carolyn, Erma and Cecil — were mostly raised by their paternal grandmother.

The girls all competed, as siblings, wanting Daddy’s attention, and as singers, wanting to shine. But Aretha easily emerged as the star of his gospel show in Detroit. Mr. Ritz can now write more freely about the adult influences to which this atmosphere, and her father’s own skirt chasing, exposed her. And “From These Roots” barely mentioned that the children’s mother died when Aretha was only 10. Nor was it any too specific about the fact that Aretha was herself the mother of two babies by the age of 14. It was not unknown that she had her first children early, but not anything she liked to call attention to, either.

Photo

David Ritz Credit Nicola Goode

Freed to be straightforward, Mr. Ritz can talk about the early mangling of Ms. Franklin’s recording career. To grasp how dire that was, just consider that she was a contemporary of the great Motown stars, and that she had those same sensational, “Respect”-ready pipes doing anything but hit making when Beatlemania overran America. She was stuck at Columbia Records, overseen by the brilliant but strait-laced John Hammond. And she was managed by Ted White, who thought she could hit it big singing the equivalent of show tunes and standards.

Mr. Ritz’s years of experience have given him both a panoply of connections to good sources and a library of old interviews with anybody who was anybody in a recording studio in those days. He can quote, for example, the singer Bettye LaVette (about whom he wrote a book), one of the people who speaks relatively kindly about Mr. White, who became Ms. Franklin’s first husband. “I’d call Ted a gentleman pimp,” she says of Mr. White, who left Ms. Franklin with visible bruises. He also was party to a notorious racial melee in Muscle Shoals, Ala., after Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler, a white Jewish blues magician, put together what he thought would be a felicitous, interracial group of studio musicians. Though Wexler was one of the great influences on Ms. Franklin’s career, this fight almost ended their collaboration before it began.

Ugly physical fights were not unusual between Mr. White and Ms. Franklin. But when she got drunk enough to brawl or fall, Jet magazine was there to do damage control. When she lost weight, Jet celebrated; when she got to looking large, the magazine diverted attention elsewhere. And when she simply dropped out of sight and missed scheduled performances, Jet published excuses that perhaps even the Franklin camp hadn’t even thought of.

As Mr. Ritz shows, she remained a fearful, secretive woman of few words throughout her career, though there was one realm in which she was always eager to verbalize. She earned her diva reputation by seldom missing a chance to insult a female rival, even if — especially if — that rival was one of her ever-envious sisters.

It may surprise Steely Dan fans to know that the song “Hey Nineteen,” with its affectionate reference to “ ’Retha Franklin,” gave her fits. The lead singer laments that he is dating a woman so young she doesn’t who the Queen of Soul is; the Queen saw that as an insult and felt down right litigious about it. As Ms. Franklin got older and tetchier, handling her became an ever more delicate art, in ways that the book discusses. She excitedly married the actor and acting teacher Glynn Turman in California, only to discover that he had more admirers than her ego could handle. When the marriage broke up, she fled home to the shelter of Detroit and has stayed here. When her father died in 1984, she nearly got into a fight with her sister-in-law who tried to walk close to his coffin.

“Self-reflection was never Aretha’s strong suit,” Mr. Ritz writes, in a remarkable bit of understatement, explaining just how any memoir got written at all. Before she hired a book agent to get the process rolling, Aretha appeared on “60 Minutes” in the late 1980s to be lightly grilled by Ed Bradley, who had the temerity to ask her about the sexual content of her songs. “Lust,” he said. “A feeling — a good feeling.” “You got me mixed up with somebody else, Ed,” she replied. Mr. Ritz writes that she said this “indignantly.” So he deserves some kind of thanks for writing not two Aretha Franklin books, or even a newly unadulterated one, but anything about her at all.

RESPECT

The Life of Aretha Franklin

By David Ritz

Illustrated. 520 pages. Little, Brown and Company. $30.

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The First Responder Is a Cameraman

‘Nightcrawler’ Stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an Obsessive

By A. O. SCOTT OCT. 30, 2014

The writer and director Dan Gilroy narrates a sequence from “Nightcrawler,” featuring Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo.

Video by Mekado Murphy on Publish Date October 30, 2014. Photo by Open Road Films.

Lou Bloom, the title character of “Nightcrawler,” is a youngish man who possesses a strong work ethic, tireless curiosity and very little in the way of conscience or human feeling. Played with a precise repertoire of tics by Jake Gyllenhaal, Lou usually smiles when he speaks, but that seems more like learned behavior than genuine friendliness, since he is too literal-minded to understand jokes or social cues.

Adrift in a violent and gloomy Los Angeles, where he lives alone in a small apartment, Lou hatches an ambition that quickly blossoms into an obsession. Learning that local television stations will pay good money for video of accidents, fires and crime scenes — the bloodier, the better — he sets out to corner the market. With a police scanner and a cheap video camera, he speeds through the nighttime streets, looking for horrible images he can sell.

In another sense, Lou aspires to be something much grander than a purveyor of grisly footage for the evening news. His dream — or rather the dream of Dan Gilroy, the writer and director of “Nightcrawler,” and perhaps of Mr. Gyllenhaal as well — is to join the ranks of Travis Bickle and Rupert Pupkin, classic ’70s and ’80s sociopaths, created by Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, who held a grim, unflattering, endlessly fascinating mirror up to the society that produced them. “Nightcrawler” is besotted by the sleaze and corruption that Lou both uncovers and represents, and it is also eager to turn his petty, predatory endeavors into raw material for social commentary.

Jake Gyllenhaal as a freelance videographer who specializes in grisly crime and accident scenes in Dan Gilroy’s “Nightcrawler.” Credit Chuck Zlotnick/Open Road Films

But a creepy disposition does not an antihero make, and “Nightcrawler” never attains anywhere near the gravity or the impact of “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy.” Its message — that the news media feeds a morbid fascination with atrocity — is hardly implausible, but the target is more than a little shopworn, and the stance of queasy outrage feels secondhand, not to say a bit hypocritical. Local news, embodied in a desperate, cynical producer played by Rene Russo, may be a snake pit of tawdry, ratings-driven exploitation, but in the age of TMZ, in which everyone with a smartphone is a potential video journalist, there is something quaint about the film’s hyperventilating sense of scandal.

Really, though, the chasing after important themes is a distraction. “Nightcrawler” is a modest and effectively executed urban thriller, suspenseful and entertaining in its clammy, overwrought way. Mr. Gyllenhaal’s performance, while not remotely persuasive, is disciplined and meticulous in its creepiness, and Mr. Gilroy keeps the audience off balance, fascinated and repelled, half rooting for Lou to succeed, and half dreading what he will do next.

As his business starts to grow, Lou tangles with rivals and hires a wide-eyed sidekick (Riz Ahmed), all the while explaining himself in the jargon of management and self-help. He is a fast learner, and his amoral zeal causes him to evolve from eager voyeur into something much worse. His earnest belief in himself is both funny and dismaying, and his complete indifference to ethical boundaries makes for some slightly guilty fun. But nothing much beyond that. “Nightcrawler” is a slick and shallow movie desperate, like Lou himself, to be something more.

“Nightcrawler” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Graphic violence and ugly language.

Nightcrawler

Opens on Friday

Written and directed by Dan Gilroy; director of photography, Robert Elswit; edited by John Gilroy; music by James Newton Howard; production design by Kevin Kavanaugh; costumes by Amy Westcott; produced by Michel Litvak, Jake Gyllenhaal, David Lancaster, Jennifer Fox and Tony Gilroy; released by Roadside Attractions. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes.

WITH: Jake Gyllenhaal (Louis Bloom), Bill Paxton (Joe Loder), Rene Russo (Nina Romina) and Riz Ahmed (Rick).

Albums From Jerry Lee Lewis and Daniel Lanois

Credit Brad Barket/Getty Images

JERRY LEE LEWIS

“Rock & Roll Time”

(Vanguard)

Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Rock & Roll Time” sounds like an after-hours session with famous friends, vintage guitars and a half-planned set list. Why not? Jerry Lee Lewis is a rebel, an authentic person; let him make an authentic record. Free him from restrictions!

It isn’t that simple anymore, if it ever was. A lot of great Southern singers from the 1950s and ’60s have made late-career records like this over the last 20 years, and gradually, authenticity has become artifice like anything else, a direct route to a Grammy Award. This one — timed for simultaneous release with “Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story,” an authorized biography by Rick Bragg — is roughly in the same line as Mr. Lewis’s last two studio albums, “Last Man Standing” (2006) and “Mean Old Man” (2010), and some of it comes from the same sessions, with Jim Keltner as the authentic-sounding drummer (and also one of its producers).

Those earlier records set up Mr. Lewis in duets with famous people. A few of those same people, including Keith Richards and Neil Young, are here again, but in secondary roles, rougher and more anonymous. You could hear this album’s version of Jimmy Reed’s “Bright Lights, Big City” and not know that Mr. Young played the guitar solo and sang harmony on it — or, for that matter, that Ivan Neville played organ on it. That’s an anti-contrivance and almost a concept, though it isn’t seen through; the lineup changes for each track, and sometimes the famous guests (Derek Trucks, Shelby Lynne) are easily recognizable.

The repertory? A couple of Kris Kristofferson songs, one rebellious and one sentimental; a blues written by Bob Dylan (“Stepchild”) ; and several three-chord blues and rock standards, including Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie” and “Promised Land.”

On all of them, Mr. Lewis sounds peaceful, steady-rolling; this is as easy for him as falling off a log. What’s missing is the thing he’s great at: creating a feeling of surprise or danger. That comes through on a different record, “The Knox Phillips Sessions,” taken from unreleased demo tapes recorded in the late ’70s and released last month by Time-Life Music; on it, Mr. Lewis is hoarse-voiced, inventive, powerful. It also comes through when he performs, and you should see him while you can. He will play at B. B. King Blues Club & Grill this Thursday. BEN RATLIFF

RUN THE JEWELS

“Run the Jewels 2”

(Mass Appeal)

Like-minded dissenters with opposite back stories, El-P and Killer Mike are each on, at minimum, their third act in the duo Run the Jewels. In the late ’90s, El-P was the clarion voice charting independent hip-hop’s anticapitalist turf and helping keep alive dissonance in a genre largely given over to melody. Killer Mike parlayed proximity to Outkast to become a roughneck firebrand.

No wonder each had a burnout period, and what good fortune that they found each other. “Run the Jewels 2” is their second collaborative album (third, if you count Killer Mike’s “R.A.P. Music” album, which El-P produced), and it’s a reconciliation of ideas that might not have been allowed in the same room a decade or so ago. But even though these two spent their spotlight years in different places, they both trace their aesthetic arcs back to Public Enemy’s chaotic bombast, and it’s that urgency that they bring to this album.

These are pummeling cyber-howls, these songs. They’re skeptical of the government, of complacency, of the opiated masses. On “Lie, Cheat, Steal,” Killer Mike tries to unpack the reality of power relations:

You really made it or just became a prisoner of privilege?

You willing to share that information that you’ve been given?

Like who really run this?

Like who really run that man that say he run this?

Throughout the album, it’s Killer Mike who hits the hardest, with the scathing, wounded indictment of police brutality “Early,” and the self-lacerating “Crown,” on which he details the guilt associated with selling drugs. Deep down, and now on the outside, Killer Mike is a righteous humanist. One of the starkest contrasts on this album is how that holds up against El-P’s natural fatalism. Also, how Killer Mike’s rhyme patterns are round like a barrel, while El-P raps in shards (though he does a convincing Southern cadence on “Lie, Cheat, Steal”).

Musically, this album — full of industrial-strength groans and vibrations, rat-tat-tat snares, and failing-spaceship noise — is a baronial assault, with production largely handled by El-P, who describes himself as “A dirty boy who come down on the side of dissonance/I can’t even relax without sirens off in the distances.” It’s a middle ground between the dustier but still anarchic work he did for Company Flow and his often paranoiac solo work.

In word and in sound, he’s given to imagistic extremism, but now he has a true partner in rhyme. Run the Jewels is two seen-it-all rappers who trust each other not to drop their shared vision. Note the frequency with which the two weave references to the group’s name and gun-and-fist logo into their verses, wanting to etch them in lyrics so as to make sure that they don’t go anywhere. JON CARAMANICA

DANIEL LANOIS

“Flesh and Machine” (Anti-)

There’s a reason for the word order of “Flesh and Machine,” which Daniel Lanois chose as the title of his atmospheric, process-driven new album. A collection of sonic assemblages, from clangorous abstraction to catchy, wordless pop, it evokes an oldfangled form of technological mediation: not a D.J. running programs on a laptop, so much as the wizard behind the curtain, twisting knobs.

Mr. Lanois has, of course, logged many hours behind that curtain, as a trusted producer for the likes of Bob Dylan, U2 and Neil Young. He has also pursued a looser ideal of live performance — in his band, Black Dub, and in his solo guises, drawing from multiple strains of folk music. “Flesh and Machine” is an attempt to merge those areas of expertise.

Most of these tracks began with electric or steel guitar, drums and piano, morphing in shape by way of electronic sampling and processing. This is hardly a new concept, but Mr. Lanois knows how to put an accessible stamp on his more experimental protocols.

“Opera,” with its low thrum and clattering drum programming, hints at 1990s drum and bass; “Iceland,” with its reflective, slow-moving melody, suggests the brooding side of indie-rock. On “My First Love,” a confectionary bite of vintage pop, Mr. Lanois uses the same Suzuki Omnichord that he played with Brian Eno more than 30 years ago.

The album’s most bracing moment arrives early, with “The End,” featuring a heated free improvisation by the drummer Brian Blade, against crashing waves of distorted guitar. It’s one of the handful of moments when you feel the presence of human variability on the album — and a good advertisement for the tour on which Mr. Lanois is about to embark. It reaches the Brooklyn Masonic Temple on Nov. 10. NATE CHINEN

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O Say Can You Hear?

Sphinx Virtuosi and Catalyst Quartet at Carnegie Hall

Sphinx Virtuosi, an ensemble of 18 African-American and Latino string players, concluding its 14-city national tour at Carnegie Hall. Credit Brian Harkin for The New York Times

Many composers would have been wary of a commission to write a tribute to the 200th anniversary of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Think of the potential traps. Do you write something suggestive of patriotism? Do you attempt to convey the gulf between the anthem’s aspirations and the historical realities of slavery and injustice?

The young violinist and composer Jessie Montgomery was offered this commission by the Sphinx Organization, founded in 1996 by Aaron P. Dworkin to promote diversity within classical music by training black and Latino students. An alumna of Sphinx, Ms. Montgomery readily accepted the challenge, writing an urgent, inventive piece titled “Banner” for Sphinx Virtuosi, the group’s ensemble of 18 string players, all prizewinning alumni.

Each spring these select musicians come together for a national tour, including a stop at Carnegie Hall, where on Wednesday night the Sphinx Virtuosi, along with the Catalyst Quartet (the four principal players from the ensemble, including Ms. Montgomery) ended this year’s 14-city tour. “Banner,” scored for a string quartet and string ensemble, concluded a rewarding 90-minute program of recent American works.

Ms. Montgomery’s solution to the tribute challenge was simply to claim the piece unabashedly as a composer and an American and let her imagination lead her. She structured the work, as she explained to the audience, in the manner of marching-band music, with a stretch of contrasting episodes and a heady finale. She daringly transforms the anthem, folding it into a teeming score that draws upon American folk and protest songs, and anthems from around the world, including Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban, to create a musical melting pot.

Fragments of “The Star-Spangled Banner” are used as motifs to generate an organic, hazy introduction. In one extended section, the music breaks into sputtering rhythms and scratching sounds. Now and then, a fleeting passage from the anthem emerges in plush harmonies, like a cosmic chorale. Over all, the multilayered busyness of the music draws you in, especially in this rhapsodic performance.

The Catalyst Quartet, whose other players are the violinist Karla Donehew-Perez, the violist Paul Laraia and the cellist Karlos Rodriguez, were also excellent on their own in Marcus Goddard’s atmospheric “Allaqi” for string quartet.

John B. Hedges composed “Raise Hymn, Praise Shout” to feature the brilliant bass player Xavier Foley, the first bassist to win the annual Sphinx competition. This inventive piece evokes an African-American church service with the bass as preacher and the string ensemble as the congregation.

The violinist Adé Williams, 17, a 2013 competition winner, had John Corigliano’s impetuous “Red Violin Caprices” all to herself and played it stunningly. The accomplished Sphinx Virtuosi also offered Gabriela Lena Frank’s pungent, folkloric “Coqueteos” and Mark O’Connor’s “Elevations, II,” with its bursts of country fiddling folded into music of plush harmonies and intricate textures.

During a break, Mr. Dworkin shared some encouraging numbers with the audience: Through its various programs, Sphinx is reaching some 80,000 young people from 60 cities in 30 states.

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Public Enemy in 1988. The group will reissue deluxe versions of 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back' and 'Fear of a Black Planet' next month.

By Kory Grow | October 30, 2014

As part of pioneering rap label Def Jam's 30th anniversary celebrations, the label has planned reissues of Public Enemy's 1988 breakthrough album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and their 1990 follow-up LP, Fear of a Black Planet, as multidisc deluxe reissues. Each reissue contains the album as it originally came out alongside a disc's worth of bonus tracks, comprising hard-to-find tracks and B-sides, as well as liner notes by the Roots' Questlove and Wax Poetics editor-in-chief Andre Torres.

The first bonus disc for Nation of Millions includes different mixes for "Bring the Noise," an instrumental version of "Rebel Without a Pause" and the horn-saturated soundtrack version of "Fight the Power," as it appeared in Spike Lee's 1989 movie Do the Right Thing. Another disc included in the Nation of Millions deluxe edition contains the group's previously out-of-print 1989 video release Fight the Power...Live as a bonus DVD, featuring the videos for "Fight the Power" (directed by Spike Lee), "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos," "Night of the Living Baseheads" and live performances.

"It completely upended the way records are made," Questlove wrote in his Nation of Millions essay. "It challenged the concept of reinvention in recorded music."

The bonus disc for Fear of a Black Planet features remixes of "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" and "Can't Do Nuttin' for Ya Man," as well as various instrumentals and additional mixes of "Fight the Power," a version of which closed out the original record. The mixes on the bonus track include the soundtrack version of the song, the "Powersax" mix, which plays up Branford Marsalis' contributions to the track and the dialog-heavy "Flavor Flav Meets Spike Lee" version, in which the hype man and director have a conversation.

"We needed an anthem," Spike Lee told Rolling Stone earlier this year about the inclusion of "Fight the Power" in his movie. "When I wrote the script for Do the Right Thing, every time when the Radio Raheem character showed up, he had music blasting. I wanted Public Enemy."

Fear of a Black Planet will also get a vinyl reissue that sports a "fade to black" 3D cover that turns black to reveal the group's cross-hairs logo when moved in the light.

Both reissues will come out on November 25th.

It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back Deluxe Edition Track List:

Disc One (The Album)

1. "Countdown to Armageddon"
2. "Bring the Noise"
3. "Don't Believe the Hype"
4. "Cold Lampin' With Flavor"
5. "Terminator X to the Edge of Panic"
6. "Mind Terrorist"
7. "Louder Than a Bomb"
8. "Caught, Can We Get a Witness?"
9. "Show 'Em Whatcha Got"
10. "She Watch Channel Zero?!"
11. "Night of the Living Baseheads"
12. "Black Steel In the Hour of Chaos"
13. "Security of the First World"
14. "Rebel Without a Pause"
15. "Prophets of Rage"
16. "Party for Your Right to Fight"

Disc Two (Bonus Tracks)

1. "Bring the Noise (No Noise Version)"
2. "Bring the Noise (No Noise Instrumental)"
3. "Bring the Noise (No Noise à Cappella)"
4. "Rebel Without a Pause (Instrumental)"
5. "Night of the Living Baseheads (Anti-High Blood Pressure Encounter Mix)"
6. "Night of the Living Baseheads (Terminator X Meets DST And Chuck Chill Out Instrumental Mix)"
7. "Terminator X to the Edge of Panic (No Need to Panic Radio Version)"
8. "The Edge of Panic"
9. "The Rhythm, the Rebel (À Capella)"
10. "Prophets of Rage (Power Version)"
11. "Caught, Can We Get a Witness? (Pre Black Steel Ballistic Felony Dub)"
12. "B-Side Wins Again (Original Version)"
13. "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos (Instrumental)"
14. "Fight the Power (Soundtrack Version)"

Disc 3 (Fight the Power...Live DVD)

1. "Countdown to Armageddon"
2. "Public Enemy Number One"
3. "Miuzi Weighs a Ton"
4. "Night of the Living Baseheads (Live)"
5. "Fight the Power"
6. "Bring the Noise"
7. "Don't Believe the Hype"
8. "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos"
9. "Rebel Without a Pause"
10. "Terminator X to the Edge of Panic"
11. "Night of the Living Baseheads" (Video)
12. "Prophets of Rage"

Fear of a Black Planet Deluxe Edition Track List:

Disc One (The Album)

1. "Contract on the World Love Jam"
2. "Brothers Gonna Work It Out"
3. "911 Is a Joke"
4. "Incident At 66.6 FM"
5. "Welcome to the Terrordome"
6. "Meet the G That Killed Me"
7. "Pollywanacraka"
8. "Anti-Ni***r Machine"
9. "Burn Hollywood Burn" (featuring Ice Cube)
10. "Power to the People"
11. "Who Stole the Soul?"
12. "Fear of a Black Planet"
13. "Revolutionary Generation"
14. "Can't Do Nuttin' for Ya, Man!"
15. "Reggie Jax"
16. "Leave This Off Your Fu*kin Charts"
17. "B Side Wins Again"
18. "War At 33 1/3"
19. "Final Count of the Collision Between Us And the Damned"
20. "Fight the Power"

Disc Two (Bonus Tracks)

1. "Brothers Gonna Work It Out (Remix)"
2. "Brothers Gonna Work It Out (Dub)"
3. "Flavor Flav"
4. "Terrorbeat"
5. Welcome to the Terrordome (Terrormental)"
6. "Can't Do Nuttin' for Ya Man (Full Rub Mix)"
7. "Can't Do Nuttin' for Ya Man (U.K. 12" Powermix)"
8. "Can't Do Nuttin' for Ya Man (Dub Mixx)"
9. "Burn Hollywood Burn (Extended Censored Fried to the Radio Version)"
10. "Anti-Nigger Machine (Uncensored Extended)"
11. "911 Is a Joke (Instrumental)"
12. "Power to the People (Instrumental)"
13. "Revolutionary Generation (Instrumental)"
14. "War at 33 1/3 (Instrumental)"
15. "Fight the Power (Soundtrack Version)"
16. "Fight the Power (Powersax)"
17. "Fight the Power (Flavor Flav Meets Spike Lee)"
18. "The Enemy Assault Vehicle Mixx (Medley)"

31 July 2014 Last updated at 18:16 ET

Broods: New Zealand's next pop export

By Mark Savage BBC News entertainment reporter

Broods only started writing music together last year, but the brother-sister duo are being tipped as New Zealand's next big musical exports. They speak to the BBC about talent contests, Grammy awards and growing up in public.

"Try not to ramble. Do not use the word journey. Never say it."

Caleb Nott is breaking the first rule of media training: You don't talk about media training.

"We've had the training, but we didn't listen," he says. "We just say whatever."

His sister Georgia tries to steer the conversation back on track.

"Media training is cool," she says. "It gets you thinking.

"But we still suck."

The candour is disarming, but it disguises the fact that the Notts - aka indie-pop newcomers Broods - are old hands at meeting the press.

They gave their first interview when Georgia was just 14, after an early incarnation of their band entered a talent show at a shopping centre in their hometown of Nelson, New Zealand.

"Mum made us do it!" laughs Georgia. "She entered us without even telling us!"

Playing a cover of KT Tunstall's Black Horse and the Cherry Tree, the siblings scooped first prize - $500 (£250) cash and a $1,000 (£500) voucher from the mall.

More importantly, their confidence got a turbo boost.

"I knew that I loved singing, but I didn't realise that other people loved my singing," says Georgia. "I was like, 'OK, maybe I should get going.'"

A brief stint in indie band The Peasants followed, but the duo decided to go it alone after finding the seven-piece stifling.

"A really big problem we found in bigger groups [is the] competitiveness," says Caleb.

"Everyone is competing to add something, whether it's absolute crap or not. In this project, if you've got nothing, it's all good. Whoever's got the mojo that day, you just back them up."

The siblings found their mojo pretty quickly - mining a rich seam of understated, melancholy electro-pop which, in turn, prompted the band's pun-tastic name.

"Broods refers to the fact that we're siblings, and that out music is very much inspired by us brooding," says Georgia.

The moniker seems obvious in retrospect, but the band went through "so many bad ones" before settling on it, Caleb says.

"One of them was 'Why July?' because Georgia and I and our other two sisters are all born in July."

"We even thought it'd be funny to call the EP Dirty October," he grimaces, picturing his parents doing things children should never picture their parents doing.

Thankfully, sense prevailed and the band's debut EP was given the sensible (if somewhat predictable) title Broods EP.

One of the last songs they completed was Bridges, a lonely piano ballad that plunges into a swirling synth chorus, as Georgia sings: "We're burning all the bridges now, 'Cause it was sink or swim, and I went down, down, down."

Little goes a long way

The band sneaked it onto Soundcloud late last year and watched, astonished, as the play count span so fast it blurred.

"It was pretty crazy because we literally put it up one day and it was being talked about on blogs the next," says Georgia. "We were like, 'Damn, we'd better finish the EP!'"

Luckily, the band were working with someone who had witnessed this sort of instant acclaim before: Joel Little, the guiding hand behind New Zealand's other hot pop export, Lorde.

The 31-year-old, a former singer in pop punk band Goodnight Nurse, steered Broods towards a darker aesthetic, working on their demos at the same time as he produced Lorde's Grammy-winning debut, Pure Heroine.

"He's been a huge part of the band. As big a part as we are," says Caleb.

"Not just as a musician, but as a mentor," adds Georgia, not for the first time finishing her sibling's sentence.

"He's an older brother who's been through it all. He's one of the main people we go to for advice, not just about the songs we write but the things we go through as musicians."

Broods affectionately call the producer their "musical father", and keep his ego in check following a double Grammy win, for Lorde's Royals, earlier this year.

"He'd like to be a badass but he can't," says Georgia, noting that Little will try to settle disagreements in the studio by casually saying, "Eh, do any of you guys know I won a Grammy?"

"He'd love to be one of those [arrogant] people like Kanye West," adds Georgia, "but he's too nice."

"The Grammy's very heavy, but it look less impressive than I thought it was going to be," Caleb adds.

"I thought there'd be hardcore detailing on there but no, it looks like something you'd get from the trophy store."

On the strength of their first EP, Broods signed to Polydor Records in Europe and Capitol Records in the US, and have been piecing together their debut album - Evergreen - amid a whirlwind of interviews, concerts and video shoots.

But rather than being stressed out by the schedule, they say it streamlines their songwriting.

"Because we're so busy and so tight on time, we have to just smash out the stuff that inspires us and let go of anything that doesn't," says Georgia.

"But I think that's better - if you have a song that isn't working, just flush it down the toilet."

One song that escaped the lavatorial graveyard was Never Gonna Change, a melodramatic break-up ballad, in which Georgia accuses her lover of "pushing down on my shoulders and emptying my lungs".

"I remember when I wrote those lyrics," the singer says. "I was at work, on a computer and I'd just broken up with my boyfriend and I was so gutted… I felt like all the air had come out of me. So I wrote those lyrics and kept going on it, even when I was supposed to be working."

Caleb picks up the story: "And then they got back together and have been together for over a year.

"It was a very short break-up, but we got a good song out of it. In the future, I'll be like, 'Jake, can you please break up with her just briefly next week? We need a song.'"

It's not the only song to be fuelled by anxiety and separation. The band's latest single, Mother and Father, was triggered by 19-year-old Georgia moving out of her childhood home.

"I don't want to wake up lonely," she sings over a strident synth beat, "I don't want to just be fine".

"The first time our mother heard it, she cried," Georgia says.

"We were playing with Ellie Goulding, and the last show was in Christchurch in New Zealand. It was the first time our parents had seen us play live and I dedicated that song to them. Mum was like 'Waaaaaa!'"

But Pauline Nott has no regrets about pushing her offspring into the limelight.

"Our mum's kept a scrapbook ever since we started playing music," says Caleb. "There's newspaper cuttings and everything."

"Oh, the photos," cringes Georgia. "Why?"

Her face momentarily flushes red - but the embarrassment explains why they've ignored the media training - when your baby steps are catalogued online, you can't deny your past.

"When we first started out we were so, so scared about what we should be saying," Georgia admits. "Are we supposed to be like this? Are we supposed to be like that?

"Then we came to the realisation that people don't want the 'fake us'. They just want to see who we are, so we don't have to try that hard.

"Random facts, that's all we talk about. And that's how we've got around the nerves."

Mother and Father is available now. Broods' debut album cover.

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[Edited 10/31/14 15:34pm]

Exclusive: Jodeci Releasing 'Nobody Wins,' First New Song in 18 Years

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - AUGUST 21: Jodeci performs as part of KMEL Summer Jam 2005 at Shoreline Amphitheatre on August …

"Sometimes it's just the wrong timing," Jodeci member Davlin "Mr. Dalvin" DeGrate tells Yahoo Music, explaining why the iconic R&B/hip-hop band has not released any new music since 1996's "Get on Up."

"You can fall into the trap that a lot of artists fall into by just putting records out there because fans are excited and start tarnishing your legacy and body of work you've created. People waited all these years for some quality music – not just throwing music out there. "

After an 18-year hiatus, the timing is finally right for the North Carolina quartet that changed the look and sound of popular urban music with three albums and hits "Forever My Lady," "Come and Talk to Me" and "Feenin'" to bless its audience with a new track.

Mr. Dalvin, DeVante Swing, K-Ci and JoJo will perform a snippet of their new song "Nobody Wins" on the Soul Train Music Awards 2014 when the event tapes in Las Vegas on Nov. 7 and airs on Centric and BET on Nov. 30. They are planning to release the record before the event.

"Nobody Wins"' chorus exhibits Jodeci's signature lush harmonies and the soulful music bed takes a more mature turn for the group. The ballad's synthesizer chords and kick drums draw refreshing, old-school R&B comparisons as the lyrics call for peace in relationships. They sing, "Nobody wins when we fight, fuss, and argue," and Atlanta rapper B.o.B contributes the song's verses.

The group felt now was a good time to put out a song discouraging domestic violence. "Domestic violence has always been an issue in relationships, but because of the caliber of people being charged recently, it's being brought to the forefront," Dalvin says about the song's content. "It's definitely something people are going to listen to because domestic violence should not be tolerated in any situation, not just between men and women, but people in general."

Despite recording dozens of songs together over the last 18 years, the group did not feel that they had a cohesive body of work for their fourth studio album. "We've recorded hundreds of songs, even if it's bits and pieces and fragments of songs that we could probably live off of for the rest of our lives," Dalvin says. "But when creating this album, we chose a body of work that really represents us as a group and represents what people are expecting to hear from Jodeci as a group. People will be pleasantly surprised."

Fans can expect to hear their artistic growth. "Some fans want 'Come and Talk to Me' Part 2, and that's not what it is, and we don't get pigeonholed by the radio and let our fans grow with us."

As with their earlier work, most of the music will be self-produced. However, Dalvin confirms that Timbaland, who was discovered by DeVante, will collaborate. "Timbaland, who started with us, I know he's going to be somehow involved in the project," he reveals.

The album release date is to be determined, but Jodeci is signed to Louis Burrell's Sphinx Music Entertainment, and they are considering options for distribution. Burrell, MC Hammer's brother and former business manager, booked Jodeci, TLC, and Boyz II Men on Hammer's 1992 2 Legit 2 Quit tour. "These guys are the black Beatles of R&B and Hip Hop," says Burrell who reteamed with Jodeci in December 2013. "I don't think there will be another Jodeci in my lifetime."

Jodeci has maintained friendships with many of their peers from back in the day, including the members of TLC. Dalvin laughs about being portrayed as T-Boz's cheating boyfriend in the VH1 movie CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story. "Oh man, don't even remind me," he says jokingly about the film that premiered last fall. "I spoke to T-Boz about that. I was like, 'Man, why y'all got to do me like that?' We're still really good friends. We still speak to this day. I felt they portrayed me a little wrong. There are three sides to every story – mine, hers and the truth."

As far as contemporary acts, Dalvin appreciates the love Jodeci has received. "It's cool. You can still hear our influence on people like August Alsina, Drake, J. Cole and Justin Timberlake," he says. "They always give respect where respect is due."

Mr. Dalvin is particularly appreciative of Drake's tribute "Jodeci's Back" with J. Cole and his recent "How About Now" that samples the group's "My Heart Belongs to You."

"Drake is one of my favorite rappers," he says. "He really shouts out to Jodeci. I look forward to working with him. He keeps the sound alive. And knowing that we are still relevant to this new wave of entertainers, to see their respect means a lot."

Jodeci dismisses the rumors that they broke up. "Over the years, even with K-Ci and JoJo's and my solo things and DeVante's producing we never stopped recording as a unit. We just didn't put out albums," Dalvin explains. "People thought just because we weren't seen together we had broken up, but that is a misconception."

The group has also been plagued with reports of bouts with drugs, alcohol, and internal conflicts. Dalvin says the group's personal dramas are normal. "I look at it like this, everybody in the world has issues," he says. "Nobody's perfect. Being that we live under a microscope, so to speak, it becomes 10 times magnified. People making a living off of negativity and are destroying lives and careers. At the end of the day, they have to live with that. Every man has a right to live the way he wants to as long as it's respectful to the law and other people. As far as issues, don't think there's nobody that lives amongst us that has none. Our group is the same as anyone. Whatever those issues are, I think people are smart enough to get them and fix them."

Dalvin also says that their concert at London's Wembley Arena last year did not turn out as planned. Only three members – Dalvin, K-Ci and JoJo – performed, and video posted online shows some booing from the audience. "It was on a verge of disaster," Dalvin says. "I don't want to blame nobody. But it's a fine line. It wasn't what we wanted it to be."

Dalvin is not worried about any such issues with their Soul Train Music Awards performance, their first U.S. date since 2006. "The circumstances are 1000 percent different," he says about the London show. "Those circumstances were totally different and we had no control over them. We tried to manage what we had control over. It was an opportunity where somebody could capitalize over it and they did. We had the short end of the stick."

In addition to performing a snippet of "Nobody Wins" on Soul Train Music Awards, Jodeci will sing a medley of their hits. Regarding their new look, the group that popularized the combinations of baggy jeans and Timbaland boots has already started discussing their award show style.

"You got to stay current," he says. "Jodeci has always been known for our fashion. We got to make a statement to be consistent with the Jodeci that people love and look forward to seeing."

By Andrew Leahey | October 31, 2014

Earlier this morning, while fans logged onto GhostTunes to hear free, 60-second clips of the 14 songs from Garth Brooks' forthcoming Man Against Machine, the singer hosted a more in-depth listening session at the headquarters of his new record label, Sony Music Nashville.

The setting — a renovated chapel that Sony currently uses as a listening room — was formal enough, but Brooks kept things casual, taking the stage/pulpit in blue jeans, sneakers, baseball cap and an oversized Nashville Predators sweatshirt. He got serious when it came to the music, though, visibly choking up during a live, acoustic performance of "Mom" — a ballad he described as "a conversation that goes on between God and this unborn baby who's about to go down to Earth" — and allowing the playback of several other songs, including "Send 'Em Down the Road" and the flag-waving "All-American Kid," to move him to tears.

Throughout the 90-minute event, he dished out plenty of praise for Nashville's songwriting community, whose members wrote the bulk of the album. Wynn Varble received the most shout-outs, with Brooks — who only co-wrote three of Man Against Machine's 14 songs, a significant drop from his previous records — emphasizing the fact that he's not just the singer of these tunes, but a serious fan, as well.

"The songwriters of today are way above the songwriters of the Nineties," he claimed, admitting that he "didn't trust [his] pen" in the face of such strong competition. "These kids are sharp. They blew me away."

Other album highlights included the closing track, "Tacoma," a bluesy, old-school R&B tune cut from the same cloth as Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman," and "Midnight Train," a minor-key anthem driven forward by the sound of a very different Sledge: session percussionist (and longtime Garth collaborator) Milton Sledge. Brooks credited his bandmates, including Sledge, guitarist Ryan Sutton and pianist Bobby Wood, for filling Man Against Machine's tracks with loose, natural and organic performances — rare things in the world of slick, major-label country music.

"We didn't use any click tracks," Brook said of the recording process, "but there are loops on this record — and they breathe. I've never heard a loop breathe before."

Before wrapping up the listening session and heading north to prep for this weekend's concerts in Lexington, Kentucky, Brooks also reminded everyone that Man Against Machine — originally intended to be a double album — will be quickly followed by another album, much of it compiled from the 15-plus songs that were recorded for Man Against Machine and ultimately axed from the final tracklist. Expect songs from that album to start hitting the radio in Fall 2015, with the full record arriving the following year.

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By Daniel Kreps | November 2, 2014

Guns N' Roses keyboardist Dizzy Reed believes the band's next album could be out "really soon." "There's a lot of material that's already done and I think it's in the process of being finished and eventually we'll pick out which songs need to come out with which other songs," Reed told VH1 Radio (via Blabbermouth). "So that's in the works. Hopefully it will be out really soon."

Reed previously told Rolling Stone that "if the new record is not done, then it's close to being done." The longtime keyboardist added that the band was in the process of going through "a shitload of songs," almost two albums worth, to determine which tracks would features on the next Guns N' Roses album.

Reed is the latest Guns N' Roses member to hint that a follow-up to 2008's Chinese Democracy is on the way. In June, Rose suggested that the band's next LP, a sequel to their last album, was already finished. "We recorded a lot of things before Chinese was out," Rose said. "We've worked more on some of those things and we've written a few new things. But basically, we have what I call the second half of Chinese. That's already recorded. And then we have a remix album made of the songs from Chinese. That's been done for a while, too."

While the singer didn't provide a timeline, guitarist DJ Ashba also confirmed that Rose was sitting on finished material, and that he's actually heard the music. "Axl has two full albums that he has recorded. He has played me a bunch of songs off of that that are incredible! I can't wait to get in and kind of dive into those as well," Ashba said. Guitarist Richard Fortus also said in April 2014, "Hopefully very soon we're going to have new stuff out. Well, in the next year."

Besides Rose, Reed is the only other member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band to stick around post-1997, so there is a little more weight when he says new music will arrive "really soon." At the very least, Rose has promised that the next Guns N' Roses album "will come out sooner" than the 15-year wait fans endured between 1993's The Spaghetti Incident? and Chinese Democracy.

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3 November 2014 Last updated at 10:32 ET

Simply Red to reunite for 30th anniversary tour

Hucknall, pictured in 2009, said he was "happy to celebrate" his band's anniversary

Pop group Simply Red are to reform next year for a 30th anniversary tour, five years on from their last performance.

"I like an anniversary and this is a big one," singer Mick Hucknall said. "It feels like the right time."

The chart-topping group, whose hits include Holding Back the Years and Money's Too Tight to Mention, signed off in December 2010 with a "farewell concert" at the O2 Arena in London.

The band will play 35 European dates in 2015 starting in Denmark on 20 October.

The Big Love tour will take in 10 cities in Germany and eight other countries before going to the UK and Ireland for 14 dates.

The comeback will come to an end with two dates at London's O2, almost five years to the day from their last appearance there.

'See you there'

The line-up will include the long-time Simply Red members saxophonist Ian Kirkham, guitarist Kenji Suzuki and bass player Steve Lewinson.

In a hand-written note on the band's website, Hucknall said: "Hello everyone. Am happy to celebrate with you our 30 years in music.

"We hope you're gonna enjoy the shows as much as we will. See you there!"

Formed in 1985, Simply Red have sold more than 50 million albums. The band's name was inspired by Hucknall's love of Manchester United, his left-leaning political affiliations and the colour of his hair.

Hucknall, now 54, went solo after the split and released a collection of American soul covers in 2012.

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3 November 2014 Last updated at 12:19 ET

Elvis Presley exhibition comes from Graceland to the UK

Some of Presley's outfits, including this black leather suit and American Eagle jumpsuit, will be on show

Elvis Presley's American Eagle jumpsuit and pink Cadillac are among the items of memorabilia that will leave his Graceland home for a UK exhibition.

Organisers say the nine-month show at London's O2 Arena will be Europe's largest ever retrospective of the singer, featuring more than 300 items.

It will display "as much of Graceland as will fit into the O2", they said.

The exhibition will include a virtual tour of the Memphis mansion where Presley died in his bathroom in 1977.

The pool table that he played on with The Beatles in 1965 and stage costumes including the black leather suit from his 1968 Comeback Special are also being brought from the museum in his old home.

"While each and every item contains a lifetime of memories, we are more than happy to allow these treasured memories to leave Graceland," said Priscilla Presley, who was married to the singer for six years.

The cars in the exhibition will include this red MG from the 1961 film Blue Hawaii

This cape was made for Elvis Presley's 1973 performance Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite

"Elvis meant so much to me and our daughter Lisa [Marie Presley], but we both know that our family truly shares him with the world," she continued.

Pieces leaving Memphis for the first time include the singer's wallet containing photos of his daughter, his front door keys and a TCB ring, which stands for taking care of business.

Some items, such as the American Eagle jumpsuit and Cadillac, will only go on show for a limited period during the exhibition's nine-month run.

Exhibition co-ordinator Nic Wastell said: "For people who can't get to Graceland, Graceland is coming to them."

Elvis At The O2: The Exhibition Of His Life will open on 12 December and run until 31 August.

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1 November 2014 Last updated at 23:37 ET

Boston Gliderdrome: Music venue marks 50 years

It is thought about 5,000 people watched Marc Bolan and T-Rex at the Starlight Rooms

A music venue which hosted Elton John, Stevie Wonder, T-Rex and Jimi Hendrix is celebrating 50 years.

The Boston Gliderdrome in Lincolnshire started life as a roller skating rink, but began to attract musical acts in the 1950s.

The venue's golden age came after it was rebuilt in 1964 following a fire.

The rink remained but the Starlight Rooms opened and the biggest names in pop headed to the east of England.

Steve Greenhough, 62, who is now a compere at the venue, said: "When I was growing up everyone in the charts you saw at the Glider - The Kinks, Small Faces, Jimi Hendrix, the list goes on and on.

Elton John and Bernie Taupin chat in the star dressing room of the Starlight Rooms

"To see these massive names play here in your home town was brilliant. I was here for Stevie Wonder, when he came out it was just fantastic."

Dave Peatling, who has written a book about the venue, said the queues to see the American singer-songwriter stretched a few miles into Boston town centre.

He said "bus loads" of people came in because the artist was only doing private shows at air bases at the time.

It was British rock band T-Rex that broke box office records at the Starlight Rooms.

Mr Peatling said: "[For T-Rex] if you can imagine all the balconies [people] were stood on tables and chairs, and everything, some of them were sitting on the balconies with their legs overhanging.

The unassuming frontage of the Gliderdrome hides a rich musical heritage

"There was a mass of people... You couldn't have had a dance if you wanted to."

Mr Greenhough said: "It was like a football match, all crammed in. It was rumoured [there were] about 5,000 people."

When the venue closed down not long after Elton John's show in May, 1973, the site was used for a bingo hall.

Nick Thompson, 62, who worked at the Starlight Rooms, blamed "unruly youth" and said much of his time was spent making repairs after gigs.

He said: "It just ran out of steam. Society changed, bands changed."

In recent years the venue, now known simply as the Gliderdrome, has undergone a rebirth according to owner Andy Malkinson who said the music side of the business has "taken off" again.

The 49-year-old said as many as four generations now visit for special rock and Motown nights, as well tribute acts, including one, ironically for T-Rex's Marc Bolan.

People still pack out the venue to see tribute acts

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The Official 2014 Poppy Appeal Single: Joss Stone [feat. Jeff Beck] – No Man’s Land (Green Fields Of France)

Posted Oct 23 2014

Grammy and Brit Award singer Joss Stone has teamed up with guitar legend Jeff Beck to record this year’s official Poppy Appeal single.

The single is a soulful cover of Eric Bogle’s ‘No Man’s Land (Green Fields of France)’ to mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War and to raise funds for the 2014 Poppy Appeal. Reflecting on the grave of a young man (Willie McBride) who died during the First World War, its chorus refers to two famous pieces of military music, “The Last Post” and “The Flowers of the Forest”.

Joss says about the new single “The song is about a soldier, Willie McBride, but when we started looking into who Willie was, we found no less than three men that it could have been – then we realised that finding him was not actually as important as what he and this song stand for, peace and the sacrifice made by so many.”

The Poppy Appeal is The Royal British Legion’s largest annual charity campaign. In a little over two weeks, some 45 million poppies will be distributed by 350,000 dedicated collectors with the aim of raising £40 million. www.britishlegion.org.uk

[Edited 11/3/14 10:41am]

2 November 2014 Last updated at 10:22 ET

Uma Thurman 'recruited for US Slap'

The Slap will be the second TV series Uma Thurman has worked on, after starring in musical drama Smash in 2012

Uma Thurman has been cast in the US TV version of Christos Tsiolkas's best-selling novel The Slap, according to reports.

TV Line said she will replace Weeds actress Mary-Louise Parker who was originally hired, but has had to pull out while recovering from pneumonia.

Thurman will take over the role of Anouk, a TV writer who is dating her show's young leading man.

The Slap charts the fallout after a man slaps another couple's child.

Published in 2008, the Booker-longlisted novel was previously made into an Australian mini-series in 2011 starring British actress Sophie Okonedo and former Home and Away star Melissa George.

George will also star in NBC's eight-part mini-series, reprising her role as overprotective mother Rosie.

Thandie Newton will take up the role first played by Okonedo, with Brian Cox, Peter Sarsgaard and Star Trek's Zachary Quinto also starring in the series.

Quinto will play Harry, the person who deals the fateful slap at a family barbecue.

Lisa Cholodenko, the Oscar-nominated director of The Kids Are All Right, is attached to direct the series.

It will be Thurman's second foray into television - she appeared in five episodes of musical drama Smash in 2012.

She most recently starred Lars von Trier's two-part big screen drama Nymphomaniac.

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'I'm Obsessed With You' Featuring 'House Of Cards' Star Rachel Brosnahan And More

By Kevin Jagernauth | The Playlist November 3, 2014 at 11:13AM

Once college is over, can you apply the same free-spirited lifestyle to the responsibilities that come with adult life? That's what director Jon Goracy explores in the upcoming dramedy "I'm Obsessed With You (But You've Got To Leave Me Alone)," and today we have the exclusive trailer for the film.

Starring Mannish Dayal ("The Hundred-Foot Journey"), Thomas McDonell ("The 100"), Rachel Brosnahan ("House of Cards," "Olive Kitteridge"), Genevieve Adams (who wrote the screenplay) and Jason Ralph ("A Most Violent Year"), the story follows four collegiate comedians who are forced to face their lives when a movie star crashes their party. Addiction, anxiety, love, and fleeting fame come to the surface for all involved as they try to pursue an unconventional life.

"'I'm Obsessed With You (But You've Got To leave Me Alone)' is a movie about falling in love with your friends," Adams told us. "I was surrounded by characters in college, and I felt this need to record them, their eccentricities, artistry and fierce loyalty, and share them with the rest of the world. We were so fortunate to have the incomparable Avy Kaufman's support in putting together such an incredibly talented and diverse young cast. They all brought such specific nuance and intelligence (not to mention heart and humor) to these very idiosyncratic, talkative characters.”

"I'm Obsessed With You (But You've Got To Leave Me Alone)" hits VOD on November 11th.

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Frankie Shaw Joins ‘Mr. Robot'; Nick Westrate In ‘Turn’

Frankie Shaw (Mixology) is set opposite Christian Slater in USA Network’s cyber-crime drama pilot Mr Robot. The project, from Universal Cable Prods, centers on a young programmer, Elliot (Rami Malek), who suffers from a debilitating anti-social disorder and decides that he can only connect to people by hacking them. He will find himself in the intersection between a cybersecurity firm he works for and the underworld organizations recruiting him to bring down corporate America. ICM Partners-repped Shaw will play Shayla, a hipster neighbor in Elliot’s (Malek) apartment building. In addition to ABC’s Mixology, Shaw’s recent credits include HBO’s Hello Ladies, Fox’s Mulaney and feature The Pretty One. She next will shoot Blue Mountain State: The Movie.

Nick Westrate has booked a heavily recurring role on the second season of AMC‘s Revolutionary War drama Turn, with an option for Season 3. Written by Craig Silverstein, based on the book Washington’s Spies and directed by Rupert Wyatt, Turn is set in the summer of 1778 and tells the story of New York farmer Abe Woodhull (Jamie Bell), who bands together with a group of childhood friends to form the Culper Ring, an unlikely group of spies who turn the tide in America’s fight for independence. Westrate, repped by Stone Manners Salners and Shachter Entertainment, also recently was cast in the feature Ricki And The Flash opposite Meryl Streep. His other credits include a starring role in Harvey Fierstein’s Tony-nominated Broadway play Casa Valentina and NBC pilot Hatfields & McCoys.

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Comedy From ‘Red Tails’ Director, ‘Dear White People’ Producer

by Nellie Andreeva • tip November 3, 2014 9:30am

HBO has put in development Bros, a comedy from director Anthony Hemingway (Red Tails) and TV production executive-turned-producer Mark Taylor’s Hemingway | Taylor shingle and Dear White People producer Lena Waithe.

Written by Ben Cory Jones (Hand of God) loosely based on his real life as a gay black man with his non-gay brothers, Bros centers on three African-American brothers, two straight and one gay, who are each dealing with love and dating. Hemingway and Taylor executive produce, Jones and Waithe co-executive produce.

Jones originally wrote the project on spec and gave the script to Hemingway. Then titled Bros Before Hos, the comedy shot a presentation earlier this year that starred Dijon Talton (Glee), Kevin Phillips (Red Tails), Tuffy Questell (How To Make it In America), Dana Sorman (Harry’s Law), Nia Jervier (Dear White People) and Kristofer Gordon. Here is a trailer; you can watch the full presentation below the post.

“Bros Before Hos isn’t a black story or a gay story – it’s a family story about three brothers, who happen to be black, and one who happens to be gay,” Jones said in an online interview during the filming of the presentation. “There seem to be more stories that deal with the interior lives of black women, but it’s hard to find stories that deal with the interior lives of black men. We’re either thugs or athletes, but there’s so much more to who we are that falls in between that spectrum. It’s ironic that in 2014, and even with a black president, one of the hardest things to be in this country right now is a young black man.”

In the same interview, Hemingway said that “this kind of material resonates deeply within both Mark and I as African-American men, as production friendly filmmakers and as industry professionals. We both know so many people, not just African-Americans, who question why there isn’t more programming that reflects the growing diversity of the American experience, so it’s incredibly satisfying to be a part of something that might otherwise be overlooked or ignored.”

In addition to directing the 2012 feature Red Tails, about a group of African-American United States Army Air Forces servicemen during World War II, Hemingway has directed the pilot for the Starz series Power and episodes of HBO’s Treme, The Wire and The Newsroom as well as Shameless, Orange Is The New Black and American Horror Story: Freak Show. He served as co-executive producer on Treme and the last season of The Newsroom.

Hemingway and Taylor are repped by WME and Hemingway’s attorney Tom Hoberman; Jones is repped by CAA and Fineman Entertainment; Waithe is repped by Paradigm and The Mission.

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‘Almost Human’ Fans Step Up Their Campaign For A Second Season

By Bea Kaye • 11.03.14

Via FOX

I figure since I bitched so mightily about the lack of effort that goes in to an “online petition” to try and bring a canceled show back (Veronica Mars fans had to be shaking their heads at Almost Human fans, I swear), I thought it only fair that I bring up a new campaign that has a lot more promise.

The blog “Almost Human Fan Con” has compiled a list of addresses at Warner Bros., with new VP of public relations Dee Dee Myers as their main target. (Warner Brothers produced Almost Human, so it makes more sense to request they take their show elsewhere then to try and complain to FOX.) There’s a pre-written letter you can copy and paste if you don’t know how to express your anger about your favorite amputee and his robot buddy cop being ripped from your airwaves. There’s also printable postcards and one of those is a little movable leg (fantastic) by illustrator thenizu.

Via thenizu

There have been “tweet-outs” and pushes to sign that online petition all summer, but just yesterday Almost Human Fan Con put out a fairly comprehensive list of who to target specifically at Warner Bros.

Bonus: With SyFy revealing their intention to go back to the kind of quality television they started with Battlestar Galactica, it only makes sense to try and get a second season of Almost Human placed there. It’s shot in Canada, after all, SyFy LOVES shows shot in Canada.

Dear SyFy, the average viewership of Almost Human was 5.5 million people. The finale of Battlestar Galactica brought in less than half of that. YOU TWO SHOULD TALK.

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Netflix November 2014 Releases: See What Movies, TV Series Are Coming Out!

By Latin Times | Oct 31 2014, 02:52PM EDT

Netflix video streaming service. Shutterstock

Netflix has revealed its movies and TV series list for the coming month of November. As expected there are a ton of content to look forward to. Some of the highlights coming this month for the TV series include season of the FX hit comedy series "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia," the fourth and final season of "Nikita" plus season four of "Portlandia."

In the movie department users will see Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass in "The One I Love," Alexander Payne's Midwestern ditty "Nebraska" — nominated for six Oscars, including ones for Bruce Dern and June Squibb. Also Netflix will be adding "Fading Gigalo" starring John Turturro, Woody Allen and Sharon Stone.

Please be advised this list is tentative and subject to change. Not all titles may be available on the specified date.

TV Shows

• "Bali," Season 1
• "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," Season 9
• "Portlandia," Season 4
• "Helix," Season 1 (Nov. 10)
• "Doc Martin," Series 6 (Nov. 15)
• "Workblood," Season 2 (Nov. 15)
• "Lilyhammer," Season 3 (Nov. 21)
• "Nikita," Season 4 (Nov. 22)
• "Bomb Girls," Season 3 (Nov. 26)
• "VeggieTales in the House" (Nov. 26)

Movies and Specials

• "Artifact" "Babes In Toyland"
• "Hell is for Heroes"
• "Kingpin"
• "The Rocketeer"
• "Trading Mom"
• "Spike"
• "Total Recall"
• "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement" (Nov. 3)
• "Altman" (Nov. 4)
• "Fading Gigalo" (Nov. 5)
• "Doug Benson: Doug Dynasty" (Nov. 6)
• "Virunga" (Nov. 7)
• "Louder Than Words" (Nov. 8)
• "Nebraska" (Nov. 8)
• "Not Yet Begin the Flight" (Nov. 11)
• "Quartet" (Nov. 11)
• "La Bare" (Nov. 12)
• "Small Town Santa" (Nov. 13)
• "Chelsea Peretti: One of the Greats" (Nov 14)
• "Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage" (Nov. 15)
• "Trailer Park Boys Live At The North Pole" (Nov. 15)
• "Dream House" (Nov. 16)
• "Sabotage" (Nov. 19)
• "Ida" (Nov. 22)
• "Snowpiercer" (Nov. 22)
• "Happy Christmas" (Nov. 23)
• "Beyond the Edge" (Nov. 25)
• "Running from Crazy" (Nov. 25)
• "War Story" (Nov. 25)
• "Bill Cosby 77' (Nov. 27)
• "The One I Love" (Nov. 29)
• "Trailer Park Boys 3: Don't Legalize it" (Nov. 29)
• "About Cherry" (Nov. 30)
• "The Grand Seduction" (Nov. 30)

Calling Georgia Dolenz

Posted on October 31, 2014 by admin

Talk about timing; With yesterday’s brouhaha about a woman enduring an endless streams of cat calls whilst roaming about New York City, Georgia Dolenz (Micky ‘Monkees’ Dolenz’s) daughter, has shot a video dealing with catcalling, but in this instance, the women begins catcalling to the men and becomes the aggressor … and, in several instances, starts following the men around.

Dolenz, with her comedy troupe, We’re Having A Panic Attack, are doing a show in L. A. next month … and, will re-try the clip again …. live!

Fox Developing Martial Arts Drama From 'Gang Related' Duo

1:00 PM PST 11/3/2014 by Lesley Goldberg

Robert Munic will reteam with Chris morgan for the brothers drama

Courtesy of Big Time PR

Robert Munic

Fox is putting a martial arts spin on the legal procedural.

The network is teaming with Gang Related's Robert Munic and Chris Morgan for an untitled martial arts drama, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

The drama is described as a fun, action-packed procedural and centers on two estranged brothers — one a former Marine-turned-Shaolin master, and the other a showboating, all-swagger Chicago cop — who come together in their hometown to form an unlikely law enforcement partnership.

Munic, who created A&E's The Cleaner and currently serves as a co-EP on TNT's Murder in the First, will pen the script and exec produce alongside Gang Related creator Morgan. The drama hails from 20th Century Fox Television, where Morgan and his Chris Morgan Productions banner is under an overall deal. Chris Morgan Productions topper Ainsley Davies will also exec produce. Morgan and Munic previously teamed on Fox's one-and-done summer drama Gang Related, where Munic was a consulting producer.

The project comes two months after Fox canceled Gang Related, which came close to a second-season pickup as the studio mulled moving the show's filming location from Los Angeles to either North Carolina, Austin or Chicago in a bid to trim costs.

Munic is currently writing a biopic about Baltimore Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom for Wonderland Sound and Vison and Crystal City, as well as the feature Double Take for Michael London with Katie Jacobs set to direct. He's represented by Verve, Management 360 and attorney David Fox.

The untitled martial arts drama marks Morgan's third sale this development season, with Greg Russo's Chop Chop and Patrick Aison's Disciple both also set up at Fox.

Morgan is repped by ICM Partners, DMG Entertainment and McKuin Frankel.

The Munic-Morgan drama arrives as AMC is plotting its own martial arts series with Badlands.

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Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea and Anthony Kiedis Host Music Conservatory Benefit, Bruno Mars Performs

9:38 PM PST 11/2/2014 by Emily Zemler

"Music shouldn't be defined by the zip code you're in," said Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti at an event held at Ron Burkle's Beverly Hills estate

Gary Leonard

Bruno Mars

“I did go to music school,” Rufus Wainwright professed Saturday night at the fourth annual benefit for the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, hosted by the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea and Anthony Kiedis. “I actually dropped out. But I think it’s important to have a music school to drop out of.”

Wainwright performed an eight-song set following dinner on the lawn of Ron Burkle’s Beverly Hills estate. The musician, seated behind a grand piano, offered a selection from his various releases, including his requisite cover of “Hallelujah” and “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk.” He kicked off the set with 2004’s “The Art Teacher,” a song that felt appropriate to the event’s intent.

The benefit's mission was to raise funds for the music school, which launched 13 years ago and currently counts 700 students, 200 of which attend for free. In his introduction, Flea noted that the school is presently constructing a new, larger building that will allow the Silverlake Conservatory of Music to double its enrollment. He told the crowd that the original intention of the school still stands, simply to teach music. “I’m an Angeleno,” Flea said. “I love this community and I just want to serve this community.”

Kiedis then brought Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti onstage, musing that the evening felt like “just a win-win situation.” Garcetti, who also spoke at 2013’s benefit event, recounted a story of how he moved a piano into his office because he felt like something was missing. “I sit down and I play the piano,” he said of searching for inspiration. “I have that gift because my mother was a musician and raised me playing the piano. Because music has permeated our lives I know what it does to you as a person.”

Garcetti added, “Music shouldn’t be defined by the zip code you’re in. We need music in every school in this city and we won’t stop until we get there.” In his speech Garcetti called Los Angeles “the creative capitol of the world,” and toasted to “music, to our souls and to the greatest city on Earth.”

Bruno Mars was next to take the stage and, like Wainwright, recounted a similar music school drop-out tale. Mars, who grew up in Hawaii, said he took a Polynesian music class as a kid, where they learned classics on the ukulele. “I remember watching the Chili Peppers on Woodstock ’99 and they played this Jimi Hendrix song and it blew me a way,” Mars told the crowd, which had gathered around the base of the stage to dance during his set. “I went into my class and tried to teach everyone the [chord] changes and my teacher kicked me out of my Polynesian music class.”

The singer ran through several of his hits, including “Treasure” and “Locked Out of Heaven,” but also took the private concert as an opportunity to have some fun. “We’re gonna wedding band out right now,” he declared before he and the band launched into a quick-fire series of covers. The group bounced through “Pass The Dutchie,” “Your Love,” “Poison,” “This Is How We Do It” and “Every Little Step.” Mars also revisited “Billionaire,” his 2010 single with Travie McCoy,” which he mashed with a cover of “Money (That’s What I Want).” Of the latter, he fittingly donated the song "to everyone with deep pockets.”

Indeed, the 500-person crowd heeded his call,particularly when it came to the event's silent art auction, a standout element. Donations came in from numerous artists, including Damian Hirst, Richard Prince, Raymond Pettibon, Cecily Brown, Ed Ruscha, Gus Van Sant, Charming Baker, Kim Gordon, Tim Armstrong and Shepard Fairey, and raised over $1.25 million for the conservatory. Armstrong, who had several pieces in the auction, attended with his son and spent the evening hanging out with Travis Barker. Other attendees included Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Danger Mouse and The Kills’ Alison Mosshart.

Gary Leonard

'Star Wars: Episode VII' Cast and Crew Celebrate at Huge London Party Amid Talk of Shoot Wrapping

Actor John Boyega posted several photos online of him celebrating with castmembers

Courtesy of ID-PR

J.J. Abrams

The Star Wars: Episode VII team descended upon London's Science Museum en masse Saturday night for a huge celebration many have speculated could be the film's wrap party.

J.J. Abrams, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, Andy Serkis and John Boyega were all in attendance, with Boyega posting several images an... Instagram of him with his co-stars. One showed him dancing to Stevie Wonder's Superstition with Ridley, while another saw him next to R2-D2, captioned "home time buddy." Regular Abrams collaborator Simon Pegg was also at the event, leading to further rumors that the actor-director could have landed himself a part in the film.

Read more The 'Star Wars' Effect: W... Abu Dhabi

Speaking on Oct. 16 at the opening of the London office for Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said the Star Wars shoot in London's Pinewood studios was just "three weeks off" completion, while industry sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Nov. 3 was the last day of production.

A note signed by Kennedy, Abrams and producer Bryan Burk that was photographed and posted on Twitter thanked the cast and crew for their participation in Star Wars: Episode VII's production.

Read more Warwick Davis Returns to ...isode VII'

"We are here to make a film that entertains millions of people, of all ages, for generations. To create an experience people will cherish watching as much as we will cherish having made it, together," it read.

"From the deserts of Abu Dhabi, to the Forest of Dean, to the stages of Pinewood, you have risen to every challenge and been as wonderfully kind as you are brilliantly talented," it continued.

According to an insider speaking to THR but unconfirmed by Pinewood, the production for the next as-yet-untitled James Bond film is due to move into the space previously occupied by Star Wars: Episode VII.

Last day on set for some friends today! #StarWarsEpisodeVII #StarWars pic.twitter.com/ydrxbdpGS5

— James Rose (@AdmiralPellaeon) October 31, 2014

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Micky Dolenz and "Weird Al" Yankovic both served as co-hosts at the Tribute to Stan Freberg last night at The Cinematheque Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

[Edited 11/3/14 14:32pm]

Marc Anthony 'is engaged' to model Shannon De Lima... and they're 'getting married this month'

By Iona Kirby for MailOnline

Published: 12:33 EST, 5 November 2014 | Updated: 16:24 EST, 5 November 2014

Marc Anthony certainly knows how to keep a secret.

The 46-year-old singer is engaged to girlfriend Shannon De Lima, 26, according to Us Weekly.

The website reports that Jennifer Lopez’s ex-husband popped the question back in March, and the couple are said to be planning on marrying in the Dominican Republic later this month.

Scroll down for video

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Wedding bells: Marc Anthony and Shannon De Lima are said to be engaged and getting married this month in the Dominican Republic. They are pictured here in May 2012

MailOnline has contacted Marc's representative for comment.

Marc and Shannon, a Venezuelan model, began dating in January 2012, six months after he split from J-Lo, but they broke up one year later.

They sparked rumours of an engagement in March of this year when Shannon was spotted with a huge diamond ring, but have kept the happy news under wraps since then.

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Sparking rumours: Shannon was seen wearing a diamond ring in March, when they apparently got engaged, but the pair have kept the happy news under wraps since then

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Her favourite accessory: The model gave a glimpse of her stunning engagement ring in this photo from March which she shared to her Instagram page

Before getting back together with Shannon and asking her to marry him, the Vivir Mi Vida crooner dated Topshop owner Sir Philip Green's 23-year-old daughter Chloe.

The couple called time on their relationship in February after one year together.

This marks the 46-year-old's third marriage. He was wed to Miss Universe Dayanara Torres for three years and the couple have two children together, sons Cristian, 13, and 11-year-old Ryan.

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Former flame: Marc was famously married to Jennifer Lopez (who he is seen with in June 2011) for seven years before they separated in 2011. Their divorce was finalised in June of this year

Marc is also a dad to 20-year-old daughter Ariana with his ex-girlfriend Debbie Rosado, and has six-year-old twins Max and Emme with Jennifer.

The famous former couple got married less than a week after Marc's divorce from Dayanara was finalised, and were wed for seven years before they announced their separation in July 2011.

Marc filed for divorce in April 2012 and it was finalised in June of this year - three months after he apparently got engaged to Shannon (who is mother to seven-year-old son Daniel).

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On and off: Marc and Shannon began dating in January 2012 and split one year later. They got back together in March of this year and got engaged that same, according to reports. The pair are seen here in December 2012

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Monkees fan site celebrates 20-year anniversary

November 4, 2014 7:53 AM MST

The Monkees

Wikimedia Commons

November 10 is the 20-year anniversary of Brad Waddell’s Monkees.net fan site, which has been a mandatory bookmark for Monkees information. Waddell says it was a fascination with the early days of the Internet that gave him the idea for the site.

“Early in 1992, the Internet was getting a lot of buzz and so as a computer programmer I had to get out there and see what was happening,” he said. “I re-discovered the Monkees fans from around the world hanging out on IRC chat and USENET (on the alt.music.monkees newsgroup) and proceeded to see what I could add to the mix. I created a Monkees mailing list and began to help in scheduling Monkees parties online at scheduled times in the chat.”

“In 1994 when the old menu systems of the Internet began to give way to the new form of HTML web pages, I built the first Monkees website and listed it on Yahoo and it was popular immediately because of the ability to share photos, recordings and a few videos.”

Waddell says he’s met fans from all over the world and feels flattered that his site has become something of a common ground. He’s even interfaced, not only with the members of the band, but also various resources the band has worked with.

“Congratulations for hanging in there with us through the years. Your support has not gone unnoticed nor unappreciated!,” Micky Dolenz said. “Brad’s done an amazing job of keeping current; cherishing the history of the group and their music,” said David Salidor, Dolenz's publicist. “Theirs is a totally unique story and their fans, young and old, have a perfect resource to go to.”

Waddell tells of a unique experience with one of the members of the band. “The high point of my involvement in this site was undoubtedly when Michael Nesmith invited me to his office in California to show him how this Internet thing worked, and having him follow up that meeting by beginning to write a novel on the web, page-by page, for all of the fans to watch. He really jumps into things with both feet and eventually he published the novel as ‘The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora’.”

His plans for his site next week is to run a contest with prizes, and to print several essays from some of the key-Monkee-resources, including authors Eric Lefcowitz (“Monkee Business”) and Mark Bego, who co-authored Dolenz’s 2004 book “I’m A Believer.” He says that the biggest joy and accomplishment is having met each of the band members and having them embrace his efforts.

“It has been 20 years and the Monkees still are in my music rotation bringing happy memories of Monkee weddings between fans, great friends and humorous romps like the true story of what happened to Mike’s wool hat,” says Waddell. “The Monkees were early stars of the Internet and Monkee.Net continues to have around 5,000 visits per day, which is not surprising as it has some of the most amazingly dedicated worldwide fan groups of any musical organization I have seen.”

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Interview with Tina Dico album "Whispers" and the upcoming tour in Germany

Sometimes I'm a small child of fortune For example, when I finally had the guts to ask Tina Dico, if they gave me answer a few questions for my blog and she agreed quite straightforward. And me in great detail and I personally find interesting and replied. Mange tak!

First of all the best for your wedding!
Thank you!

My first question: If you look back on your career so, then you have changed in the last time a lot: From restless travels around the world towards a life with house, husband and two children in Iceland. Do you miss the old days? Or parts thereof?

I've never been someone who looks back a lot and so I'm thinking not so much about it. But when I come to places of earlier back - Notting Hill in London, for example, where I have five of the most intense years of my career lived - I can feel all the dreams and thoughts of those days again. Or if I walk through New York, I can feel how exciting it was back then.
But then when I'm back home, then I do not think more about it. My life here still offers just as much excitement and adventure as it was then known as "restless troubadour". And how likely all young parents only sometimes missing me some time for myself; for simple times just to sit there and times to watch one hour only at the wall.

Let's talk about your music. The new album is indeed very quiet and acoustic If you look at all the albums, then it seems as if you always a quiet acoustic with a "pop" album abwechselst. Do you take out the front, or happens just like that?

Yes, because you have totally right. But that's not what I set my mind that just happens. Whenever I was a little quieter and closed, it feels like I have to then again be more direct - and vice versa.
In the past this was sometimes really difficult: Many listeners like much when I use the guitar tell my own stories. And still others, perhaps especially at home in Denmark, like my songs on the radio and come to the concerts with the band to sing and celebrate. So I try to give both his place, it is sometimes almost a bit schizophrenic ... (laughs)
I may well occur alone one evening in a beautiful, classic theater with my guitar and play for a quiet audience that listens to me well - and the next night with the band in a dirty club. And I like that! I take as the best of both worlds.
But at the moment I am concentrating mainly on telling my stories in quiet shows.

In recent years, you have indeed often only made ​​the album a tour with the band, then often followed by a more intimate acoustic tour. What will we see on the "Whispers" tour?

I've actually almost said. But more detail: I'm using three musicians on the go: Dennis and Helgi, who accompany me so many years on guitar, piano and trumpet. Moreover, even a woman doing that also sings and plays percussion. So we will have a quiet, acoustic atmosphere, but can sometimes give gas when it is necessary.
I am feeling much to our voices and about to sing together. I LOVE it so much, with Helgi singing together and having a third voice here makes it even more fun.
We will, of course, the songs of "Whispers" play but I am also always aware that most people also come to hear the old songs. So we play a lot of "hits" and are mainly trying to create a warm, good atmosphere.

(After the video you continue)

Your songs always seem very personal; on "Whispers" is now some songs from a man's point of view. How hard was the change of perspective?

Not at all! I've noticed that the themes are so universal in the music. That's why I can also songs from Coldplay, Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan play and they feel it, as if they were of me.
And I can also write songs from the perspective of a man, without losing touch with myself. It might be a bit led to something easier to write and not so overly emotional, if you know what I mean.

A question specifically for your German fans: When you were last autumn in Berlin, as it seemed on facebook as if you would really like the city. Could there be an option a move to Berlin?

Berlin is just amazing! And yes - if we wanted to leave Iceland, then Berlin would definitely be high on the list. Helgi would love it too - he is almost every month since, to work on the stage. Right now he starts a new project in Frankfurt, so I can get to know this city better perhaps.
But as I see it, Berlin really has everything you need.

A question to your fans: I once saw a video on the web - I think from the Danish breakfast television - in which a girl had a tattoo of a live text from you a few words. How does that feel for you, if someone wants to take your words in his skin?

This is really overwhelming, it is almost impossible to comprehend.
When I tell people what or if they helped them in difficult times mean my songs to my music, I always think, who do not believe me - they think the music. And music is something that is bigger than me. The music, which is then characterized into something special when they receive so much and make themselves into something private - you know what I mean?
But of course it makes me very proud, if someone wants to take my words as his motto for the rest of his life on his body with it. This is really great!

Back to the music: What is first in your mind when you start a new song? Words? A melody? A mood? What inspires you? And: Is working on a soundtrack since otherwise? And this has changed over the years?

When I was writing songs as a teenager, it was the feeling I had exactly in the moment - without a filter. This has changed a bit and I do not write so much about feelings, but rather about thoughts and ideas.
At the beginning are usually a few words, an idea of ​​a theme. At the same time I have music in my head and then there is this point where words and music meet and Bam !, it's a song.
Writing a soundtrack IS different, yes, and it is really incredibly inspiring. Do you write your songs in a finished into context - there already are all these moods and stories, these people and feelings: It's like a gift table full of things about which you can write. It's actually very liberating!

My last question: Dave Grohl once said something like: "If you want to understand your heroes, then they ask for their heroes." So: Who are your heroes? Who brought you to pick up the guitar and start singing?

Full I used pop bands such as Wham or Duran Duran heard - but at the same time, I often browsed in the record collection of my father and have the singers / songwriters, I found there felt very connected - Bob Dylan or Donovan for example. There was just something really special when me a voice and a guitar stories told as honestly and personally.
Then Tracy Chapman has released her first album and it felt like I had found my soul mate - and I began to play guitar and sing. Just like it: I just wanted to tell my stories acoustically.
I was very sure that these people somehow had something important to say. More important than "Wake me up before you go-go".
How it all started ...

Thank you for your time and for this interview!

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Netflix Adapting Lemony Snicket's 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' Into TV Show

11:46 AM PST 11/5/2014 by Philiana Ng

Author Daniel Handler will executive produce

Courtesy of Harper Collins

'Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'

Netflix is adapting popular book series A Series of Unfortunate Events into an original series.

The streaming service has acquired the rights to produce a new series based on the 13 best-selling novels published from 1999 to 2006 and written by Lemony Snicket, the pen name of author Daniel Handler.

Paramount Television, the TV arm of Paramount — the studio behind the 2004 feature that starred Jim Carrey, Meryl Streep and Jude Law — will produce the series in association with Netflix. Handler will serve as an executive producer.

A Series of Unfortunate Events tells the tale of orphaned children Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire at the hands of the villainous Count Olaf, as they face trials and tribulations, misfortunes and an evil uncle in search of their fortune, all in their quest to uncover the secret of their parents' death. More than 65 million copies have been sold in the series, which has been translated into 43 languages and spawned board games, card games, video games and albums.

“On the search for fantastic material that appeals to both parents and kids, the first stop for generations of readers is A Series of Unfortunate Events. We are proud to start work on a series for a global audience that already loves the books," said Cindy Holland, vp original content for Netflix. “The world created by Lemony Snicket is unique, darkly funny, and relatable. We can’t wait to bring it to life for Netflix members.”

“I can’t believe it,” Snicket said from an undisclosed location. "After years of providing top-quality entertainment on demand, Netflix is risking its reputation and its success by associating itself with my dismaying and upsetting books."

Netflix has been ramping up its scripted portfolio as of late, recently ordering Madagascar spinoff All Hail King Julien and Richie Rich from AwesomenessTV. Upcoming series hitting the service over the next several months include its ambitious team-up with Marvel (Daredevil will be the first to premiere), Marco Polo and Bloodline, among others.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is just the latest property to be adapted into a series, a move that has become increasingly commonplace as networks and creatives seek titles with established fan bases in an ever-evolving TV landscape. Other titles getting the adaptation treatment include Archie, In the Heat of the Night, Twin Peaks and Big.

Handler is represented by ICM Partners and Charlotte Sheedy. ICM Partners brokered the deal for rights. His latest book, Shouldn't You Be in School?, tells the story of Snicket's own childhood exploits. Handler's next adult novel is We Are Pirates.

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'The Game': TV Review

11:55 AM PST 11/5/2014 by Tim Goodman

The Bottom Line

BBC America's strong new spy miniseries could ultimately be an anthology — either way, it's a welcome diversion to 1972 Britain, as the Soviet threat hides in London streets

Airdate

Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on BBC America, beginning Nov. 5

Cast

Tom Hughes, Brian Cox, Victoria Hamilton, Jonathan Aris, Paul Ritter

Creator

Toby Whithouse

The Soviets look to be unveiling an aggressive new war plan and MI5 is caught off guard to the threat, as sleeper agents awake in 1972 London

Even before the success of FX's excellent drama The Americans, it was a mystery why television didn't delve more thoroughly into the uniquely compelling world of spies, historically, as the film world has done so well. But with the acclaim — and audience — of The Americans growing, it wouldn't be unexpected to see a rapid increase in spy vs. spy series popping up everywhere (never mind that FX already has a great animated spy series in Archer).

Of course, the Brits have always had a fondness for the genre, so it's with welcome and open arms that the six-part miniseries The Game arrives on BBC America. The network has dabbled in spies before, but the affinity of late has been for miniseries rather than serialized dramas. And that's fine, given that The Game can serve as a closed-ended story and yet come back for more as well (making it more of an anthology like True Detective and Fargo — but whatever the name, bring it on).

The Game is particularly British, but fans of BBC America understand inherently that's the conceit going into it — Anglophiles are willing to learn about history that isn't their own. And so it is that series creator Toby Whithouse (Being Human, Doctor Who) has set this particular story in 1972, based around escalating Cold War tensions among the British and the Soviets.

The series jumps into the fray (a wink and a nod there to inside-MI5 nicknames) rather quickly, with the discovery that the Soviet Union is waking up sleeper agents all across England in what the Brits rightly suss out to be something very dangerous. As with all Cold War stories, regardless of origin, it's important to remember what the tenor of the times was then — and it was fear, period. Nuclear war and the rise of communism were huge bogeymen for anyone involved.

The Game starts immediately with a tip from a Soviet informant that a large operation is already underway and British agents are a step behind in figuring out what the Soviets are up to. At first, there's doubt that the Soviets are truly engaging in something big — doubt and deception being the calling cards of espionage. But when the Brits get a whiff of the implications of the alleged Soviet plan, all bets are off on how to play the game, as spies call it (also "the great game").

In a nice little tweak to spy convention (and one that hints at real-life spy issues in England at the time), the miniseries opens with MI5 agent Joe Lambe (Tom Hughes) looking to make a dubious deal with the Soviets in an effort to save Yulia (Zana Marjanovic), whom Lambe not only turned against her country but fell in love with (spies are people too …). When the deal implodes, Lambe finds his life at a crossroads. He can go back to MI5 but it's with the interior knowledge that he'd been compromised and his loyalty put into question, no matter how few knew about it.

But Lambe is valuable and knows his foe, so he's recruited into a special task force by Daddy (Brian Cox, who should be in all spy stories). Daddy — which just gets creepier the more you hear it — is the complicated MI5 leader who knows that a win right now is essential to the survival of all of England. Along with Lambe, he recruits Sarah Montag (Victoria Hamilton), who looks to be in line to be the next head of MI5 — no small feat in the male-dominated world of spies and government agencies. In addition, the team has Alan Montag (Jonathan Aris), the shy, quirky technical whiz who is married to Sarah and thus hears all the slings and barbs about how odd their relationship is — her career in lights, his as more support-staff afterthought.

In one of the quirkiest bits of this spy series, there's another character, Bobby Waterhouse (Paul Ritter) whose connections to England's upper class have made him a powerful player — but not nearly as powerful as his own mother, Hester (Judy Parfitt), who degrades her grown son and, in one amazing scene, twists his ear so violently she floors him. It's little touches like this that lend additional intrigue to the already smart and well-paced Game.

Some viewers, however, may feel like Britain's MI5 in 1972 really needed a lot more firepower, as several crucial scenes play out with the thinnest of weaponry and less than a surgical-strike mentality we get in modern spy stories.

The Game, however, isn't about all of that — it's about characters and their slow unraveling along with the mystery at hand. Whithouse has assembled a superb cast of relative unknowns who support the main Hughes-Cox tandem and add layers (mother Hester, for example).

Having seen two of the six episodes, they were enough to want more in a hurry and foster a hope that The Game can, beyond this season, be a series or anthology that continues. After all, FX can't have all the great spy shows — and TV needs to lean into this genre a lot more than it has, historically. There's a rich load of drama to pay off here, no matter the year it's set.

Temptations and Four Tops to Hit Broadway

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The Temptations

The Motown superstar groups will play a special one-week double-bill engagement at the Palace Theatre in Times Square this holiday season

Broadway has been grooving to the Detroit sound since Motown the Musical opened in spring 2013.

But before that show wraps its initial run on Jan. 18, it will get a little competition at the box office from two legendary Motor City acts when The Temptations and The Four Tops play a joint one-week engagement over the holidays.

The vocal groups behind such hits as "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," "My Girl," "Baby I Need Your Lovin'," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," "It's the Same Old Song," "Get Ready" and "Reach Out I'll Be There" will team up on a double bill for seven performances at the Palace Theatre in Times Square, Dec. 29 to Jan. 4.

The show is billed as both a career retrospective and a celebration of hits that defined a generation. The limited engagement is presented by Robert Ahrens, Eva Price, Manny Kladitis and Live Nation Entertainment.

Broadway theaters have housed concert stints from various artists with great commercial success in the past decade or so, among them Duran Duran, Barry Manilow and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

The holiday-season booking of the Temptations and Four Tops show gives the Nederlander Organization a tenant at one of its largest venues for what is traditionally the highest-earning week of the year at the Broadway box office.

The Palace has been empty since the swift closing early this summer of the poorly received Tupac Shakur musical, Holler If Ya Hear Me. The theater's next open-ended run will be the new musical version of An American in Paris, which starts previews March 13 for an April 12 opening.

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Bette Midler Announces First Tour in More Than a Decade

6:21 AM PST 11/4/2014 by Elias Leight, Billboard

The tour will support 'It's the Girls!' — her first album since 2006

Jonathan Pushnik

Bette Midler

For the first time in more than ten years, Bette Midler fans will be able to catch the singer live. Midler announced that she will start a 22-date tour on May 8, 2015.

The tour will support her new album, It's the Girls!, out Tuesday — her first since 2006. Tickets will be available for purchase starting Nov. 17. Every ticket bought online will be accompanied by a copy of Midler's new album.

It's the Girls! takes on tracks from girl groups including the Supremes, the Shirelles and TLC. Recently, Midler's version of TLC's "Waterfalls" hit No. 5 on the Billboard Trending 140.

Check out a full list of the tour dates below.

May 08 Hollywood, FL Hard Rock Live On Sale Mon. Dec. 08
May 09 Hollywood, FL Hard Rock Live On Sale Mon. Dec. 08
May 11 Tampa, FL Amalie Arena On sale Mon. Dec. 08
May 13 Atlanta, GA Philips Arena On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
May 16 New Orleans, LA Smoothie King Arena On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
May 18 Houston, TX Toyota Center On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
May 20 Denver, CO Pepsi Center On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
May 22 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
May 24 Phoenix, AZ US Airways Center On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
May 26 San Jose, CA SAP Center at San Jose On Sale Mon. Nov. 17
May 28 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center On Sale Mon. Nov. 17
May 29 Anaheim, CA Honda Center On Sale Mon. Nov. 17
June 01 Seattle, WA Key Arena On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
June 02 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
June 07 St. Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
June 10 Detroit, MI The Palace of Auburn Hills On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
June 12 Boston, MA TD Garden On Sale Mon. Dec. 15
June 13 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun On Sale Mon. Nov. 24
June 16 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center On Sale Mon. Nov. 17
June 18 Chicago, IL United Center On Sale Mon. Nov. 17
June 20 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre On Sale Mon. Nov. 17
June 22 Washington, DC Verizon Center On Sale Mon. Nov. 17
June 25 New York, NY Madison Square Garden On Sale Mon. Nov. 24

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'The 100': Isaiah Washington on Jaha's One-Man Journey to Salvation

8:00 AM PST 11/5/2014 by Philiana Ng

"As long as he's alive, he's the chancellor of his people"

Katie Yu/The CW

'The 100'

Will Jaha reunite with his people on The 100?

At the end of the rookie season, the former chancellor of the Ark had sacrificed himself for the betterment of his people, allowing them to safely reach the ground and start anew while he remained in the deteriorating ship. But priorities shifted when Jaha began hallucinating another person on the ship (a baby first, his late son second), bringing him to a desolate desert — unsure of his next move.

See more 'The 100': Watch the Intr...ing Titles

Isaiah Washington talks to The Hollywood Reporter about Jaha's lonely journey, where he goes from here and the chances of a reunion with his people.

The 100 has always been about survival and Jaha is living that to the fullest. What has your experience been like this season to be on your own?

It was pretty easy for me. For any actor worth his salt, your obligation is to convey the idea of the writer and, even more importantly, the vision of [executive producer] Jason Rothenberg and his vision for the show. So my job was made easier because we have some pretty good scripts and some good characterizations that I can sink my teeth into, and what you see is pretty much what you get.

What was it like reuniting with Eli Goree?

It was good to work with Eli Goree again, but as you know, that storytelling comes from Jaha's imagination. Maybe he has some oxygen deprivation or maybe his mind is prepared to give up, but his actual soul and spiritual world is not going to align with that fact. That's pretty much the metaphor of what that scene is about. He still has to know what to do to keep things together, and he does everything he can do to survive — to get to Earth to be with his people.

Were you surprised that Jaha ended up in the desert at the end of the last episode? Might he encounter other people?

I don't need to know every nook and cranny [of] everything that happens. Jason invited me to play in this sandbox, it's really that simple. At this point, I just follow the lead and right now I'm getting a lot of good things [to play] as an actor and as a human being to be challenged by and to learn from and grow from.

How do you think this experience will shape or change Jaha's perspective on life and morality?

We'll have to all find out. I can't answer that question. I'll get a script and find out in that moment where the character is going, and so far, I'm in alignment with everything that's happened in Jaha's journey. It keeps me on top of my game, it keeps me fresh, it gives me a lot of wonderful notes to play. He's in love with his people. And at this point, that's all he has. That's one of his driving forces. He needs to be connected to something. He wants to live — human nature dictates that he wants to live. He has an extraordinary circumstance that requires extraordinary measures to get out of.

There was a moment that seemed straight out of Gravity, where Jaha was floating in space. Were there any particular challenges filming that?

All I had to do was sit in a dark room with a space suit on and pretend that I was in space and hopefully it doesn't come off in a way where I'm inauthentic. That's pretty much what we were going for, and that's a pretty cool comparison [to Gravity]. I'll take that.

With Jaha's people safely on Earth, how do you think he would be reacting if he was privy to all of the hierarchical changes?

That's the beauty of watching an episodic: You actually have to wait and see for yourself. I'm not a guy who's going to tell you everything that's going to happen or that I think is going to happen. If that's the case then there's no need for you to watch it.

But hypothetically, if he were there to experience the chasm growing between Abby and Cain, especially...

This is only hypothetical, but in his mind, he's the chancellor. As long as he's alive, he's the chancellor of his people. I'm quite sure that when we connect with him, that's what he has in his mind.

So there will come a time when he does eventually reunite with his people?

I hope so. I don't know how fast or how quickly it's going to happen. If anybody is going to do a spacewalk and survives that, puts himself in a missile and launches himself out of it and survives that, finds out that the baby is not real and that he actually got to Earth… Whether he lands in the area or not, he has to go find his people, that's his job. The whole season is [Jaha trying] to reunite with his people, no matter what, as long as he's alive.

How do you think that reunion would play out?

You'll have to wait and see!

When I spoke to Eliza Taylor a few weeks ago, she said that you guys hadn't worked together yet.

Yeah I'm very curious [to see where it's headed]. I'm looking forward to getting on Twitter and live-tweeting. I'm very excited to get the feedback.

The 100 airs 9 p.m. Wednesdays on The CW.

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U2 Books Weeklong 'Tonight Show' Residency

3:50 PM PST 11/4/2014 by Philiana Ng

The same week Metallica sets up shop on 'The Late Late Show'

Lloyd Bishop/NBC U2

U2 is heading back to The Tonight Show.

After appearing on the premiere of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Feb. 17, the rock band will return to the NBC late-night show for a weeklong residency from Nov. 17-21. That just so happens to be the same week Metallica will be visiting CBS' The Late Late Show for a one-week stint as Craig Ferguson readies for his farewell.

U2's residency is timed in support of the group's 13th studio album, Songs of Innocence, and promises to feature "numerous surprises" during the week. The band, led by Bono and The Edge, will also be expected to make appearances in comedy sketches and online exclusives.

U2 was one of Jimmy Fallon's first guests on the Tonight Show, performing atop the roof of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the middle of New York City.

When the band recently fielded questions about its most recent album, which was released in iTunes customers' libraries automatically, Bono apologized for the massive album dump. "Oops," he said in response. "I'm sorry about that. I had this beautiful idea — might have got carried away with ourselves."

Lorne Michaels is executive producer, along with Josh Lieb and Gavin Purcell.

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Johnny Depp's and Kevin Smith's Daughters Debut First Image of 'Yoga Hosers' (Exclusive)

6:00 AM PST 11/04/2014 by Pamela McClintock

Allan Amato

Harley Quinn Smith (left) and Lily-Rose Depp (right) in 'Yoga Hosers'

Depp stars opposite Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith in Smith's quirky horror film

Talk about a family affair.

The team behind director Kevin Smith's latest horror outing, Yoga Hosers, has released the first promotional still from the Tusk spinoff, and it doesn't disappoint. Now shooting in Los Angeles, Yoga Hosers stars Johnny Depp as a Quebec police detective who is enlisted by two convenience store clerks — played by Smith's and Depp's daughters, Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp, both 15. (All three actors are reprising their Tusk roles.)

The movie, also written by Smith, centers on two teenage yoga nuts who have an after-school job at a Manitoba convenience store called Eh-2-Zed. When an ancient evil rises from beneath Canada’s crust and threatens their big invitation to a 12th-grade party, the Colleens join forces with a legendary man hunter from Montreal named Guy Lapointe (Depp) to fight for their lives with “all seven chakras, one Warrior Pose at a time," according to the producers.

Smith and Depp have been friends for years, and the same goes for their daughters. "Their onscreen chemistry comes courtesy of a lifelong friendship: Harley and Lily have known each other since first grade," Smith tells THR.

"Acting is a job of making choices, and Harley and Lily were making their own character and delivery choices from day one on the flick," Smith continued. "At one point, I pulled them both aside to ask, 'You are making excellent choices without me saying anything. What adult is telling you to do these things behind my back?' The girls said they'd simply learned to act from watching movies and TV shows their whole lives. But in their case, acting and goofing around is in their blood. And it was thrilling to watch them both take their first steps in what's bound to be a lifelong passion for performance."

StarStream Entertainment is financing and producing Yoga Hosers in association with Invincible Pictures, Abolitta Productions and Smith’s SModcast Pictures. XYZ Films, which handled Tusk, is representing international rights and will update foreign buyers on the movie's progress at the upcoming American Film Market, although a promo reel won't be ready until Berlin's European Film Market in February.

Read more Watch Johnny Depp Play Gu...en Concert

"It is a broad commercial movie that could really break out and become a franchise. I know that Kevin, the girls and Johnny all want it to be something more than just a one-off movie," said XYZ co-founder Nate Bolotin.

Yoga Hosers also stars Tusk alums Michael Parks, Justin Long, Haley Joel Osment, Genesis Rodriguez, Ralph Garman and Harley Morenstein. New to the cast are Tony Hale, Natasha Lyonne, Austin Butler, Adam Brody, Tyler Posey and Jason Mewes.

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KISS Ditch Leather Outfits, Perform in Suits During 'Dressed to Kill' Kruise Performances [WATCH]

By Shawn Christ
Nov 04, 2014 07:59 PM EST

KISS (Photo : Paul Kane/Getty Images)

The members of KISS are known both for their iconic, personalized makeup as much as their leather jumpsuits and demonic platform shoes. For their recent KISS Kruise, the band decided to class things up a bit, wearing suits for two performances like they did on the cover of 1975's Dressed to Kill album.

As the official theme of the Kruise, Dressed to Kill was given some stage time with songs like "She" and the massive hit "Rock and Roll All Nite" being played over the weekend, Ultimate Classic Rock notes. Other acts on the bill included Cheap Trick and a night of CT frontman Robin Zander going at it alone. KISS also performed a no-makeup, unplugged set outdoors circa 1995.

The boys got off the open seas today (November 4) and had to hustle to Las Vegas where their month-long residency at The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino begins tomorrow night. "Whatever you're used to with Kiss, this will pump it up that much more," Stanley told USA Today. "If Kiss is on steroids, this is a double dose."

"The great thing about going into the Joint, it gives us the opportunity to add," the singer continued. "Much in the same way as a Broadway show, when you have a permanent installation, you're not breaking down every night to travel. So we can do things we wouldn't normally do."

All four original members of KISS were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, but not before fanboy Tom Morello offered a few words of praise. "I've known Gene and Paul for some time and I'm a huge fan of the band and have been an advocate — a noisy, fist-pounding advocate for years for KISS to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," Morello said. "One of the all-time great bands is being rightly enshrined.

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Maya Angelou's 'Caged Bird Songs' Album is Out, Late Author Discusses Record.

Maya Angelou (Photo : Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

One of November's wildly underrated releases arrived today (November 4) in the form of Caged Bird Songs, an album centered around the words and voice of legendary poet Dr. Maya Angelou.

"This project is important," Angelou said before her death. "It's woven into the tapestry of our lives, and we're being serious and giving and kind about it. So obviously, it's going somewhere. And we have to release it to go there." Aol is currently hosting a clip of Angelou talking about the project with such grace that it sounds like she's reciting a poem.

According to a press release, the album was produced by Shawn Rivera and RoccStarr. It features Angelou reciting poems like "Still I Rise," "On Aging," "Life Doesn't Frighten Me" and "Human Family" over a hip-hop landscape that contains elements of funk and rock. Angelou's voice is soft, yet demands attention as she delivers her words. Check out the tracklist and a few of the pieces below.

Rivera picked poems from the writer's body of work that contained a natural musicality already, Billboard notes. "Her life story rang a bell with me," the producer said. "I wanted to bring her message musically to her fans as well as a new generation."

Angelou won three Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word Album in 1993, 1995 and 2002. Her other musical endeavors included collaborations with Ashford & Simpson, Wynton Marsalis and Roberta Flack, among others. She also recorded a calypso album in 1957.

Her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, came out in 1969 and propelled the writer to notoriety.

Caged Bird Songs Tracklist
01. Human Family
02. Pow Pow
03. Sepia Fashion Show
04. Harlem Hopscotch
05. Pickin’ Em Up
06. On Aging
07. Ain’t That Bad
08. One More Round
09. Come And Be My Baby
10. The Thirteens
11. Africa
12. Life Doesn’t Frighten Me
13. Still I Rise

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By NME News Desk , November 5, 2014 12:40

Long-lost Paul McCartney song 'Love My Baby' surfaces online – listen

Singer originally recorded track in 1974 with Wings

Next Previous

Photo Gallery: Paul McCartney

A long-lost track recorded by Paul McCartney has surfaced online – scroll down and click to listen.

McCartney recorded the song, titled 'Love My Baby', with his band Wings for the 1974 documentary One Hand Clapping. The film, which featured the group performing some of their best-known hits along with a clutch of new tracks, wasn't released until 2010 and the lullaby-like 'Love My Baby' was still not included on the documentary.

The track was unveiled via Buzzfeed to coincide with the reissue of classic Wings albums 'Venus And Mars' and 'Wings At The Speed Of Sound', which came out earlier this week (November 3). Previously, McCartney shared another previously unreleased track from his archives: the song 'Beware My Love', which features Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham on drums.

Last month, McCartney held a Twitter Q&A in which he revealed that Kanye West and Jay Z's 'W...ourite gig and that he once twerked with Katy Perry.

In May, McCartney was taken ill and hospitalised in Tokyo, Japan. He subsequently postponed a series of shows in Lubbock, Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Nashville and Louisville on his 'Out There' tour.

McCartney's latest album 'New' was released in 2013.

:osten: https://soundcloud.com/paulmccartney/wings-love-my-baby-from-one-hand-clapping/s-9qtxv

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Robin Williams’ Christmas Film Re-Worked as a Tribute

Posted on November 4, 2014 by admin

The director behind Robin Williams’ posthumous Christmas film reworked the movie to make it a fitting tribute to the late funnyman.

A Merry Friggin’ Christmas was one of the final films Williams worked on before his suicide in August, and producers decided to make a number of changes to the movie before its release to honor the star’s memory.

Director Tristram Shapeero tells the New York Daily News, “We talked to (the) production company and we said, ‘We need to recut it, we need to restore it. We need to do some work to make it a fitting tribute to Robin’.”

Williams’ co-star Joel McHale adds of filming an emotional scene with the actor, who played a recovering alcoholic in the film, “It was pretty emotionally charged, and it was the first time I was ever asked to break down on camera, and we both were breaking down. We had to do it over and over again, and the emotion just burst out of Robin.”

A Merry Friggin’ Christmas is released in the U.S. this month.

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Dolly Parton Nominated For People’s Choice Award

Posted on November 4, 2014 by admin

Dolly Parton is the most honored female country performer of all time. Achieving 25 RIAA certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards, she has had 25 songs reach number 1 on the Billboard Country charts, a record for a female artist. She has 41 career top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and she has 110 career charted singles over the past 40 years. All-inclusive sales of singles, albums, hits collections, paid digital downloads and compilation usage during her Hall of Fame career have reportedly topped a staggering 100 million records world-wide. She has garnered 7 Grammy Awards, 10 Country Music Association Awards, 5 Academy of Country Music Awards, 4 People’s Choice Awards, 3 American Music Awards and is one of only five female artists to win the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year Award. Dolly was inducted as a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999. And the litany goes on. Now in 2014, Dolly has just been nominated for a People’s Choice award in the Favorite Female Country Artist category.

“I am so excited to be nominated for a People’s Choice award. It is always a good feeling to be recognized for whatever you do,” says Dolly Parton. “This year has been an amazing year! I released a new album Blue Smoke, traveled to Australia, Europe, and across America and even performed for 170,000 people at one show; woo that makes me tired just saying it. But seriously, I am honored to be nominated amongst these great gals.”

Dolly’s career has spanned nearly five decades and is showing no signs of slowing down. An internationally-renowned superstar, the iconic and irrepressible Parton has contributed countless treasures to the worlds of music, film and television. Some of her hit films have included Nine to Five, Steel Magnolias, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Rhinestone, Straight Talk, and Joyful Noise. Parton received two Oscar® nominations – one for writing the title tune to Nine to Fiveand the other for Travelin’ Thru from the film Transamerica.

Fans can begin voting now at: http://vote.peopleschoice.com/#!/home/all/62/3

People’s Choice Awards will air live from the Nokia Theater L.A. Live on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015 (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/delayed PT) on CBS.

Danny Trejo: Heart, Soul & Conscience of “Strike One,” Where Cruelty of Injustice Is Examined

Posted by Elia Esparza on November 5th, 2014 12:45 PM | FILM,

Filmmaker David Llauger-Meiselman’s award-winning indie Strike One, starring Danny Trejo, will have its west coast premiere at the Red Nation Film (RNFF) Festival on November 10, 2014, 8:45 PM at the Laemmle Music Hall Theatre in Beverly Hills, CA. Strike One also stars Billy Gallo, Alma Martinez, Maria Isa Perez, Johnny Ortiz, French Stewart, James Russo, Lawrence Smilgys, Reginald VelJohnson, and Zahn McClarnon,

Strike One is a family, coming-of-age, crime drama set in Boyle Heights—a Los Angeles community backdrop that comes to life as its own character—while the main characters deal with one family’s “life chose me” circumstances. Strike One is not a movie about gang bangers but rather an anatomy of the dangers of living in low-income and at-risk communities. It is also about the injustice of California’s Three Strike Law and how they devastate the lives of 80% of the youth living in these communities.

Film Producer, Felipe Alejandro, a Boyle Heights native, jumped on board because the film’s storyline resonates with the heart and pulse of the people living here and how the scale of justice is lopsided where fairness is determined by which side of the street you live on.

The making of this film was a labor of love. “I welcomed the opportunity to be a part of a project that also made my city a character in the movie. I was excited about engaging the community by using local talent, artists, and even using local high school students to serve as interns and work side-by-side with professionals and gain first hand filmmaking experience,” he said. Alejandro also is an actor who portrays an LAPD officer in Strike One. “Our movie deals with issues that are just as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.”

Danny Trejo delivers one of his best performances ever, where as the film’s narrator navigates viewers through the structure of how one becomes a gangbanger, how easy it is to be seduced into a life of crime and about how difficult it is to walk away. Trejo’s voice guides us as multiple storylines are delivered against the cultural backdrop of Boyle Heights famous murals. A very different role for Trejo, who is considered one of the best character actors of his generation and there could be no one better to narrate this film. Trejo’s road to success has been hard earned. He grew up on the streets of Los Angeles and despite spending part of his youth and early adulthood incarcerated, Danny rose to great accomplishment.

Strike One examines California’s cruel, unusual and unfair Three Strikes law and does it brilliantly through Trejo’s character “Manny Garcia.” Manny is a former gangbanger who is trying to redeem his messed up life by working as an actor. He is hired to portray a gangbanger on films and TV programs. Unfortunately, his former gang affiliations are not thrilled about his new career and are unwilling to let him walk way.

In an effort to protect his nephew, Juan Garcia (portrayed by breakout actor Johnny Ortiz), Manny agrees to do one final job that goes horribly wrong and backfires. Juan is caught in the middle of a mess he had nothing to do with nor had any prior knowledge of.

Civil rights activist and Three Strike Law expert Kathy Jurado a member of LULAC when they contributed to the report Latino Voices: The Impact of Crimes Criminal Justice, argues that films like Strike One are important. “The highest bails and longest sentences are for Latino youth. And they rarely get parole across the board. These kinds of truths are not taught in schools. It is our responsibility to get the truth out about the Three Strike Law,” she stated.

In addition, “it is incumbent upon us to share this information and if the only way to get it to vibrate with our youth is through film, then we must support the filmmakers and actors because they are providing through their stories and acting, the power of knowledge,” Jurado pleaded. “And by doing so, we might help reduce the 80-90 percent of our at-risk youth from ending up in federal prison for crimes they did not commit or for minor petty non-violent crimes.”

In addition, “it is incumbent upon us to share this information and if the only way to get it to vibrate with our youth is through film, then we must support the filmmakers and actors because they are providing through their stories and acting, the power of knowledge,” Jurado pleaded. “And by doing so, we might help reduce the 80-90 percent of our at-risk youth from ending up in federal prison for crimes they did not commit or for minor petty non-violent crimes.”

Screenwriters Lawrence Smilgys (who also portrays a criminal attorney in the film) and Howard Cohen (a former attorney) synthesized several real-life cases to craft the Strike One story. “The one incident that stood out most was about a young Latino who was an unknowing accomplice to a crime. Rather than take a plea deal, he decided to fight the charge and found the judicial system was more than eager to declare him guilty and level punishment,” said Alejandro.

Director Llauger-Meiselman states that the most important thing to him about Strike One is being able to bring a more realistic voice to a group of people that are generally ignored and for the most part are truly an important piece of American culture.

“Being Puerto Rican myself,” said Llauger-Meiselman, “I was raised in the inner city of Chicago during a time of great change, poverty, drugs and violence. I can easily identify with the struggles and decisions of a working class Mexican American family living today in one of the most affluent and internationally recognized cities in the world, Los Angeles. The people of East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights thrive. They live and prosper, like any other American community. This movie is an opportunity to express that and to show that making the right or wrong decisions will affect you and your family no matter what ‘barrio’ you live in.”

At RNFF, the film has been nominated in various categories including: Best Picture; Best Director, David Llauger-Meiselman; Best Actor, Danny Trejo; and Best Supporting Actor, Zahn McClarnon. Strike One won Best Feature and Best Director at the Orlando Urban Film Festival, heading next to Viva Latino Film Festival NYC International and the Miami Film Festival in March.

“Strike One is reverberating with Latino audiences because it is a story that is made by us, for us,” Alejandro proudly declared. “And, it’s about righting a very wrong law, and bringing justice to all the ‘Juan Garcia’s’ unfairly convicted and sentenced.”

Strike One
Feature | USA | 100 mins.
Toypurina Pictures | Boricua Films
Cast: Danny Trejo, Billy Gallo, Alma Martinez, Maria Isa Perez, Johnny Ortiz, French Stewart, James Russo, Reginald VelJohnson, Zahn McClarnon
Director: David Llauger-Meiselman
Writer: Lawrence S. Smilgys, Howard Cohen
Producers: Danny Trejo, Felipe Alejandro Ramirez, Roberto Longoria, Ric Aguirre, James Tumminia, David Llauger-Meiselman, Lawrence Smilgys
Music Composer: Johnny Wilson
For more info on film, visit: www.boricuafilms.com

Venue: Red National Film Festival | Laemmle Music Hall Theatre
Address: 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211
Date: Monday, November 10^th, 8:45 PM
Red is Green Carpet Arrivals, 8PM | Q&A Session (following screening with filmmakers and cast)
Admission: $10 per person
To more information and/or purchase tickets for Strike One, visit: http://www.rednationff.com/trejo/

About Red Nation Film Festival
Red National Film Festival & RNCI Red Nation Awards – The Authentic Voice of American Indian & Indigenous Cinema, is dedicated to breaking the barrier of racism by successfully replacing American Indian stereotype with recognition, new vision, arts, culture and economic prosperity by placing American Indian Filmmakers at the forefront of the entertainment industry. For more information on RNFF visit: http://www.rednationff.co...ival-info/

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'Guardians of the Galaxy' TV Show: Hit Marvel Film to Turn Into Cartoon Series

By Marcus Scott (staff@latinpost.com)

First Posted: Nov 05, 2014 03:44 PM EST

NEW YORK, NY - JULY 29: (L-R) Actors Lee Pace, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana and Vin Diesel attend The Cinema Society with Men's Fitness & FIJI Water host a screening of 'Guardians of the Galaxy' on July 29, 2014 in New York City. (Photo : Andrew Toth/Getty Images for FIJI Water)

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On Oct. 10, the NY Times reported that the company is giving Marvel Entertainment the green light to ensure Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon and their band of extraterrestrial misfits get their own animated television series.

Yes, you read that right: Marvel is producing a "Guardians of the Galaxy" animated series and it will air alongside another distinguished new series, Lucasfilm's "Star Wars Rebels," which began airing in October. The animated series will feature the same characters that appeared in the film, among them: Groot, Gamora and Drax.

"We have more exciting collaborations in the pipeline," said Gary Marsh, president of Disney Channels Worldwide. Disney XD is available in about 81 million American homes, according to the NY Times.

On Oct. 31, Comicbook.com also reported that Amazon, the online retail corporation, forwarded e-mail to consumers who had preordered copies of the multi-million dollar film and informed viewers that their copy would be available to watch on November 18. The Blu-ray and DVD are expected in stores on December 9.

"Thank you for your pre-order of "Guardians of the Galaxy" on Amazon Instant Video. "Guardians of the Galaxy" will be available to watch from Your Video Library on November 18, 2014," the mass e-mail read.

Since The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment, Inc. for $4.64 billion in 2009, the megacorporation has made quite the effort magnifying its Disney XD cable channel on the ratings map. The multinational mass media corporation bagged Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion in 2006 and later obtained Lucasfilm via $4.05 billion in stock and cash, from its founder George Lucas in 2012, positioning the conglomerate as the paramount mastermind behind in the world of Blockbuster animation, fantasy and superhero films, according to the NY Times.

Deadline reports that the live-action James Gunn-directed "Guardians Of The Galaxy" leapfrogged Disney's "Maleficent" to become 2014's second highest grossing movie at the worldwide box office, which grossed $757 million while Marvel's "Guardians Of The Galaxy" boasted over $765 million globally. This arrives just in time for the film has been honored with three nominations, including "Favorite Movie" and "Favorite Action Movie," according to ComicBook.com.

ComicBook.com also reports that a sequel, "Guardians of the Galaxy 2" is scheduled to be released in movie theaters on May 5, 2017.

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Ximena Sariñana 'No Todo Lo Puedes Dar' 2014: Singer Talks New Personal Album, Disappointment With Mexico

By Yara Simon (staff@latinpost.com)

First Posted: Nov 05, 2014 03:34 PM EST

(Photo : Instagram/Ximena Sarinana)

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Ximena Sariñana has come a long way from her days as a child actor on "Luz Clarita."

The 29-year-old singer's third album, "No Todo Lo Puedes Dar," was released worldwide on Nov. 4, and she has opened up about how this is her most intimate album yet.

"This material is probably the most personal, because I involved myself absolutely in the whole process," she said. "I produced 70 percent of it. All with a new direction led by me."

The singer put together the album in Mexico and Madrid, but she actually recorded it in Dallas and Texas. For Sariñana, being the producer was a difficult process. She would give herself a three-week deadline to get certain songs finished but didn't know if she would have something of a nervous breakdown trying to meet her goals.

The 11 songs on the album are supposed to reflect what it's like "leaving everything behind and then later rediscovering yourself." According to Sariñana, a breakup is a perfect example, as people find out who they are and push their own limits after ending a relationship.

Before her 2014 album, Sariñana released a self-titled English album in 2011 and was living in the United States. Eventually, however, Sariñana, who is the niece of Mexican first lady Angelica Rivera, decided she wanted to be back in Mexico.

"I returned to Mexico a couple years ago, with high expectations and having re-fallen for my country, doing stuff and helping my country," she said. "It's a beautiful characteristic of my generation. Yes, I have been tremendously disappointed, and it's not about the people or the country itself, but it has to do with the government that we have chosen for ourselves. I don't think we should ever lose our spirits, which is why I remain here. I will keep trying to make this country the best."

Sariñana also announced that she would be going on tour in 2015.

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Brazil TV News: New Soap Opera to Feature Diverse Cast, But Faces Criticism

By Yara Simon (staff@latinpost.com)

First Posted: Nov 05, 2014 03:12 PM EST

(Photo : Twitter/Jornal Tudo BH)

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Brazil will show its first African soap opera.

This is a reversal in the traditional flow of content. Africa normally airs Brazilian soap operas everywhere from Tunisia to South America, according to the Associated Press.

"Windeck," an Angolan soap opera, will air on TV Brasil network. The show first aired in 2012 and won an International Emmy Award. It features an almost entirely black cast, which is something that is not common in Brazilian soap operas.

The show follows employees of a fashion magazine in Luanda. The characters are mostly rich and successful, and as is common with soap operas, scheming.

The Ministry of Racial Equality said this soap is "an important framework for strengthening the identify of Afro-Brazilians."

Globo television, which is responsible for many of the country's soap operas, has been criticized for focusing on the lives of white people. Those who aren't white are either in the background or portrayed in less than flattering light.

Afro-Brazilian women took offense to the Brazilian version of "Sex and the City." The show is called "Sexo e as Negas," and the word negas can mean black women, but it can also be an inflammatory term.

Black women said the show played up hyper-sexualized stereotypes, and they accused writer Miguel Fallabela of being racist.

According to Young Voices, Fallabela said that those who were upset were just not intelligent enough to understand what he was doing.

Blogueiras Negras [Black Bloggers] joined forces to write an open letter to Fallabella.

"Your work, with a view to making financial profit, does little to create the dignified visibility of black women," the letter said. "It does the opposite. As is common in literature and dramaturgy made by white people about black people, we are treated as exotic study cases; people to be manipulated and observed."

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Power 105.1's Angie Martinez Becomes First Radio Personality to Sign Management Deal With Jay Z’s Roc Nation

By Anny Jules (staff@latinpost.com)

First Posted: Nov 05, 2014 03:08 PM EST

(Photo : Getty)

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It's been five months since noatble New York radio personality and self-proclaimed "voice of New York" Angie Martinez resigned f... at Hot 97 and moved on as a radio personality for Power 105.1. Now that she's made her mark at her new radio home, Martinez is ready to take on an additional business venture with Jay Z.

HiphopDX reports that on Tuesday, Martinez became the first radio personality to sign a management deal with Jay Z's Roc Nation. She will now be managed under Roc Nation, joining a list of artists that includes Rihanna, Rita Ora, J.Cole, Calvin Harris and Big Sean.

Roc Nation announced the news of its deal with Martinez via Twitter.

Martinez later retweeted Roc Nation's announcement and shared the news on her Instagram.

Martinez's decision to partner with Roc Nation might not come as a surprise because of her longstanding amicable relationship with Roc Nation founder, Jay Z Back in 2001, Martinez teamed up with Jay-Z, who was featured on her first single, "Mi Amor."

Jay Z also became Martinez' first guest on Power 105.1 and praised the New York radio veteran for her transition, HiphopDX reports.

"I really believe that what you are about to accomplish in the next phase of your life will dwarf everything that you've ever done," he told Martinez at the time. "Because, that's what people who are great do. You're not termed 'the voice of New York' for no reason. You're an institution in radio. That's a pretty special feat to accomplish."

Jay Z also added that Martinez's son was undoubtedly proud of his mother.

"Your son is somewhere at home," Jay Z continued. "He's so proud of you."

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Nathalie Tolentino Relishes Her Role in “La Amante del Libertador”

Posted by Elia Esparza on October 29th, 2014 10:35 AM | FILM

Natalie Tolentino co-stars as a rebel fighting for the liberation of Peru from Spain in 1820’s.

La Amante del Librador

Premieres October 30, 2014

A Love of Acting and Lima’s Historical Architecture Brings Out Best in Young Actress

Lima, Peru — It is not often an actress gets an opportunity to work on a film that combines all the elements of her two passions: Acting and Peruvian Historical Architecture. Actor/Filmmaker Nathalie Tolentino co-stars in Rocio Llado’s epic film, La Amante del Libertador, which premieres in Peru on Thursday, October 30, 2014. The Spanish-language film was screened in New York this past Spring.

Tolentino, Peruvian born, American-based, portrays “Violeta,” a Peruvian woman living in Lima during Peru’s fight for independence from Spain in 1821. Violeta’s love of Peru turned her into a rebel who fought hard battles and sacrificed her life for this country’s independence.

“It is an epic love story that includes a beautiful colonial estate in native land,” said Tolentino. “I have always been passionate about the preservation of Lima’s historical structures and architecture, especially during the 1800’s because they hold secrets and historical facts about all that our forefathers and mothers sacrificed for our independence.”

La Amante del Libertador is two different stories set in two era’s: eighteen-twenties and present day. The people in both stories have one thing in common: Love of country, independence and love of the home they live in—a beautiful colonial Peruvian mansion first built in 1820. The woman who once owned it still inhabits it as the resident ghost protecting it at all costs. She will not allow anyone or force to demolish it. Two era’s – 1820’s alternating with present day- a then and now tale about Lucia, a Peruvian journalist who is based in Madrid. She has found recognition and love next to Rodrigo, editor of the Spanish JetSet Magazine. After decades of being away, Lucia reluctantly returns to Lima to consider a huge development proposal but it requires the demolition of her sister’s colonial mansion. There is a huge obstacle: Lucia’s sister does not want to sell the property let alone demolish it. She claims she has been in contact with a ghost who has inhabited the house since 1821. Everything changes when she witnesses the presence of the ghost herself. La Amante del Liberador’s parallel story unfolds transporting Lucia a century back during the Spanish oppression. In the end, both stories intertwine and Lucia must make life-altering decisions.

“As Violeta,” explained Tolentin, “I am a rebel, a citizen of Lima who helps the cause and fights for Peru’s liberty against the Spaniards. Violeta fought hard, loved harder so when she is marched in front of the firing squad, she holds no regrets.”

The film holds great doses of mystery, romance that is narrated between two eras. “To destroy the colonial mansion would be to negate the sacrifices for those who fought for our liberation,” Tolentino added.

In addition to attending the premiere of La Amante del Librador, Tolentino is also in Lima premiering a film she executive produced, Edificio Central, which is an official section in competition at the International Short Film Festival FENACO Cusco Peru, November 12 to 15^th. Tolentino’s film has already won the prestigious Concurso Nacional de Corto Metrajes del Ministerio de Cultura de Peru.

Peruvian filmmaker and artist, Diana Daf-Collazos and Tolentino joined forces to create Edificio Central a film that chronicles the director’s childhood as she walks through the building in Lima that once dominated her youth.

“I was working with some other filmmakers in Peru looking for a unique topic for a new documentary and the idea for Edificio Central was brought to us by Diana [Daf-Collazos] who spent a lot of her childhood in the building,” said Tolentino. “Edificio Central is a collaborative effort produced with the team of DOCUPERU.”

Our film is a labor of love for the young Tolentino. “I have a special connection with the Historical Center of Lima. I admire the colonial and modern architecture since it’s the city I grew up in,” Tolentino said. For more information on Edificio Central, visit: http://www.festivalcinecusco.com

For Nathalie Tolentino being back in Lima working in an important film like La Amante del Liberador and premiering a film she executive produced, is a surreal and magical experience. “Historic preservation is very important to me. I am a lover of historical architecture. It is very exciting to seek to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes that hold such historical significance,” affirmed Tolentino. “My love of Lima and the beauty of our structures is something we must protect for future generations. The incredibly beautiful structures are part of Lima’s history and to destroy them would be tragic—they make up an inherent part of our Peruvian liberation.”

Nathalie Tolentino is a good actress and her role as Violeta demonstrates the versatility of her acting range. She can do it all on stage, on film, and on television. Tolentino is also a lover of historical architecture, especially that of her native Lima’s.

Whether she is acting in an important film like La Amante del Liberador or producing films to preserving historical landmarks, she is a woman who embodies her skill of craft without boundaries.

La Amante del Liberador
A film by Rocío Lladó
Executive Producer: Jeffrey Rosen
Production Companies: Comunicación Audiovisual, Triangle Entertainment
Screenwriter: Rocío Lladó
Cinematographer: Mario Bassino
Editor: Carlos Alvarez Pacheco
Sound Design: Rosa Maria Oliart
Music: Antonio Gervasoni

Cast: Wendy Vasquez, Ana Maria Estrada, Gonzalo Revoredo, Luis Galli, Christian Rivero, Nathalie Tolentino, Katherina D’onofrio, Claudio Calmet, Rossana Fernandez Maldonado, Monica Hoyos

About Nathalie Tolentino:
She is a multi-talented Actress, Producer, Freelance Film Editor and Human Resources Manager based in New York City. Originally from Lima-Peru she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts-New York, The Odin Theater in Denmark and Universidad San Martin in Lima. She divides her time working on Advertising, Theater TV & film projects in New York and Peru. http://www.NathalieTolentino.com

About “Edificio Central”:
Written and directed by Diana Daf-Collazos, executive produced by Nathalie Tolentino, a collaborative effort produced with the team of DOCUPERU. Edificio Central is narrated in Spanish with English subtitles and it’s a film that art lovers, historians and architectural aficionados will find a special connection. For more information on “Edificio Central” screening, visit:

https://filmfreeway.com/f...lFENACOPer

http://www.nathalietolent...-2014.html

About DOCUPERU
DOCUPERU is a Peruvian organization that has specialize in promoting independent documentary production in the country as well as in the consolidation of a space for documentary discussion. Their mission is to document, promote, produce and to encourage, decentralize documentary processes and products as an empowerment and expression tools aiming the improving of different Peruvian regions, with an educational, intercultural and collective development approach.

Elisabeth Moss and Alex Ross Perry listen up to some common notes

"Listen Up Philip" brought together actor Jason Schwartzman, filmmaker Alex Ross Perry and actress Elisabeth Moss. Perry and Moss plan more films together. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Elisabeth Moss, she of Peggy Olson fame on "Mad Men," was circulating last month in the airy living room of a country house. Coffee-table books and discarded beer bottles were scattered throughout the space. She stopped to joke with several young people hanging out in the room, including a hipster-thin man standing nearby.

"I couldn't imagine anything that seems less like making a movie right now," commented Moss' conversation partner Alex Ross Perry, to no one in particular, a moment later.

Moss worked on one of the most acclaimed television shows in an era of acclaimed television shows. Until last year, Perry was a Brooklyn twentysomething who had made a couple of indie movies, largely with his friends.

The trailer for the movie "Listen Up Philip."

Yet the pair have formed an unlikely partnership, shooting two films together and making plans for more. They share a dynamic of actor-director and muse-creator — but with a collective, collaborative spin, a Keaton and Allen for the Millennial generation.

The first of their efforts, the literary black comedy "Listen Up Philip," is set to hit theaters. It's about a misanthropic young writer (Jason Schwartzman as Philip) and his long-suffering (but equally misanthropic) photographer girlfriend Ashley (Moss). (Sample dialogue — Ashley: "You don't seem to be struggling." Philip: "I am. Just not in ways that you'd notice.")

Early in the story, Philip, burning bridges all around him with his cutting lines, decides to retreat to the country home of a famous writer, causing tension with the photographer paramour he leaves behind.

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With its scabrous wit and id-indulging dialogue, the movie offers a fresh perspective even in the twisted precincts of indie film; the characters have gone so far off the likability scale you both shudder and can't wait to see what they'll say next. When the movie debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, critics gushed.

Moss and Perry are very different personalities — she bubbly and social, he serious-minded with a touch of the neurotic. Yet they have bonded over a similar worldview, a kind of willingness to see and call out the harsh things people do to one another. They poured it into "Philip" and the film they were shooting last month, a psychological drama titled "Queen of Earth," in the Putnam County town of Carmel.

"Some people are just more content to see the world in a perfectly conflict-free way," Perry said in a joint interview with Moss in Manhattan shortly after they finished shooting. "And I don't see things that way. It's not like I'm walking around starting fights with people. But I also don't refuse to acknowledge there is negativity and ugliness and brutality in an artistic society these days, or anywhere.

But I also don't refuse to acknowledge there is negativity and ugliness and brutality in an artistic society these days, or anywhere. - Alex Ross Perry, director

"This film take place ostensibly in the publishing world but it could be Hollywood or anywhere else — there's a spirit of competitive anger sometimes, and my perspective is how difficult and unpleasant that can be, instead of this sunnier 'Isn't it nice we're all on this journey?'"

Added Moss: "Ya. And, 'Isn't it great we all just love each other?' I think Alex and I just connected with that."

The two met in a traditional moviemaking way. After her reps sent her a script for "Philip" — she was looking for more feature projects as "Mad Men" was winding down, while he was taking a step up after his previous and microscopic "Impolex" and "The Color Wheel" — she signed on. Moss showed up at a rehearsal in New York to find Perry and Schwartzman sitting at a long table with dozens of story index cards before them. She realized she was in for a very different filmmaking experience.

The three of them then hashed out lines ("There's something fun about saying things you would never say in real life, and yet it doesn't hurt anyone," Schwartzman said in an interview) — a process Moss and Perry would go on to repeat on "Queen of Earth."

"You can ask everyone to recite gospel," Perry said. "But for me that doesn't work as well as being like, 'What do I want out of this scene and how do you think you can get me there?'"

On the "Queen of Earth' set, he sauntered, without a headset, from Moss to the crew to actress Katherine Waterston, talking to them about the film's ending, which was still being decided just days before shooting wrapped.

Elisabeth Moss in the movie "Listen Up Philip." (Tribeca Film)

Moss seemed to enjoy the laid-back vibe, going from a slightly deranged character she was playing when the camera rolled to a kind of effervescence when it wasn't. Upon the cinematographer jokingly noting an off-color possibility for the ending, she quipped, "Everybody is suggesting an ending that's emblematic of their personality," before giving one of her trademark unself-conscious laughs.

This is, needless to say, a rather different filmmaking experience for a veteran like Moss, who in a few days will head to Australia to shoot the Dan Rather "Memogate" story "Truth" with Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett (she wrapped "Mad Men" earlier this year)--and who in her collaborations with Perry offers a refreshing counterpoint to those actors who seek to immediately cash in on television fame with the splashiest film roles their agents can find.

For his part, Perry made "Queen" because he wanted to shoot a movie even quicker and smaller than "Philip" — it had a crew of 10 compared with "Philip's" army of 50. He made it over a few weeks at a house he paid his cousin to use. The production was so small that no one had headsets because, as a producer dryly said, "there would be no one for any of them to talk to."

Though hardly likely to be called placid--Perry has an a seriousness of manner and purpose that's reminiscent of "True Detective's" Nic Pizzolatto--the director can take on a more relaxed vibe on set. Part of the so-called "Kim's Video" posse of indie filmmakers (named after the legendary defunct New York video store where Perry, his cinematographer Sean Price Williams and others worked while at NYU), he made "Philip" in part to channel his own angst about success.

And though he's far more gracious than his main character, it's easy to see some parallels between them.

Moss says the two talked a lot about those issues, and found, as they do with most things, common ground — a way of navigating the world with wry humor and blunt talk.

"The big difference between us, I think, is I like New Jersey and he likes New York," Moss said.

That is not a geographic disagreement but a fannish one — over the quality of respective "Real Housewives" shows, a passion that seems as likely for Perry as the idea that, say, Stephen Hawking has a favorite golfer.

But cable-reality interests are just a small part of their bonding.

Said Moss: "We have a lot in common."

Perry laughed sardonically. "Yes, we both believe some people are jerks."

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Network also announces return date for “Marvel's Agents of SHIELD”

ABC set premiere dates on Wednesday for “Marvel's Agent Carter” and “Galavant.” The network also announced a return date for “Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.”

Hayley Atwell's eight-episode miniseries “Agent Carter” will debut Tuesday, Jan. 6 at 9 p.m. ET; fairy-tale musical-comedy “Galavant” premieres Sunday, Jan. 4 at 8 p.m. and “Marvel's Agents of SHIELD” will return Tuesday, March 3 at its regular time of 9 p.m. ET.

See photos: 19 Best and Worst Superheroes to Hit TV: What's Flown? What's Blown? (Photos)

“Agent Carter” stars Atwell as Peggy Carter and Dominic Cooper (“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”), portraying Howard Stark, as they reprise the roles they established in “Captain America: The First Avenger” for this sequel series set in 1946.

But in a previous clip it loo... establish the direction of the miniseries, before handing off the main adventure to Atwell and Stark's butler, Edwin Jarvis, played by James D'Arcy.

Co-stars include Chad Michael Murray (“One Tree Hill”) as SSR agent Jack Thompson and Enver Gjokaj (“Dollhouse”) as Daniel Sousa.

Also read: John Stamos to Armor Up for ABC's ‘Galavant’

Billed as musical-comedy series, “Galavant” sees writer-producer Dan Fogelman (“Crazy, Stupid, Love,” “Tangled,” “Cars”) unite with Broadway composer Alan Menken (“The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast”) and lyricist Glenn Slater (“The Little Mermaid,” “Tangled”).

It focuses on a dashing hero, Galavant (Joshua Sasse), who lost the love of his life, Madalena (Mallory Jansen), to the evil King Richard (Timothy Omundson). Co-stars include Vinnie Jones as Gareth, Karen David as Isabella and Luke Youngblood as Sid.

Meanwhile, “Agents of SHIELD” will make a return from its Season 2 winter break after struggling in Oct. to attract viewers.

See video: ‘Marvel's Agents of SHIELD’ Star Chloe Bennet on Chris Pratt Crossovers and Peeing Her Pants (Video)

The series stars Clark Gregg (“The Avengers”) as Agent Coulson, Chloe Bennet as Sky, Ming-Na Wen as Agent May and Brett Dalton as recently uncovered HYDRA agent Grant Ward.

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Sophia Loren Opens Up About Jayne Mansfield’s Boobs And That Infamous Side-Eye

By Vince Mancini • 11.05.14

Getty Image

Okay, so we don’t have the rights to the picture in question, which I hate, but I guarantee you’ve seen it. It’s one of the most famous celebrity candids ever taken. It happened at the same Beverly Hills party in 1957 as the one above, which was meant to be the coming out party for Italian actress Sophia Loren, the Angelina Jolie of her day. Loren was sitting at her table when Jayne Mansfield, the Kate Upton of her day, sauntered over with her heaving breasts hanging everywhere, her nipples clinging to the last stitch of her dress like Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger. Mansfield sat down, and photographer Joe Shere caught Loren just as she gave Mansfield’s breasts the world’s most suspicious side-eye, as Mansfield smiled like an eager golden retriever, capturing an iconic moment of fourth-wall breaking years before that was even a thing.

The now 80-year-old Loren has a new memoir coming out, and recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the famous photo. Jayne Mansfield is dead, but the power of her tits lives on. Let’s learn from this.

EW: This photo was taken when you were still very new to Hollywood.
SOPHIA LOREN: Yes, Paramount had organized a party for me. All of cinema was there, it was incredible. And then comes in Jayne Mansfield, the last one to come. For me, that was when it got amazing.

What did she do when she got there?
She came right for my table. She knew everyone was watching. She sat down. And now, she was barely… Listen. Look at the picture. Where are my eyes? I’m staring at her nipples because I am afraid they are about to come onto my plate. In my face you can see the fear. I’m so frightened that everything in her dress is going to blow—BOOM!—and spill all over the table.

I’ve seen other photos from that same moment when you’re laughing and more light-hearted.
No, no. Well, there may be other photos, but this is the picture. This is the one that shows how it was. This is the only picture.

Can you remember the last time you saw it?
Actually, many, many times I am given this photo to autograph it. And I never do. I don’t want to have anything to do with that. And also out of respect for Jayne Mansfield because she’s not with us anymore. [EntertainmentWeekly]

It’s the ultimate testament to that photograph that everything Loren says about it is more or less redundant if you’ve seen the photo. It’s so rare for a paparazzi photo to have such lasting appeal – no one even remembers Alec Guinness telling that photographer from the Saturday Evening Post “suck my d*ck.”

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New ‘Better Call Saul’ Promo Brings Back Mike And Drops Hints About Returning Characters

By Dariel Figueroa • 11.05.14

#Breaking Bad

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AMC

Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spinoff that takes place five years before the events in the landmark series, is getting set to debut in February. In order to prepare us for show, AMC has been dropping short videos here and there, but today we’re finally getting a more in-depth look at the formative years of Saul Goodman.

There are several things to take note of here. First of all, MIKE IS BACK! Who would have thought we’d see him again, with his weathered and steely face, getting back into the game after Walt gunned him down? He may be one of the most unassuming badasses in TV history, so it’s quite the pleasure to know that Better Call Saul is bringing back this amazing character. (Who could ever forgot how he used BALLOONS to take ...e of goons?) Jonathan Banks also drops some subtle hints. “You kind of expect Aaron, or Bryan, *something unintelligible*, or Dean, or RJ, to walk around the corner.”

Banks also mentions that, “…most of our crew is the same.” Hmmmm.

Some other nugget: there will be “…some really nice surprises that Breaking Bad fans are going to eat up,” plus we’ll have “cliffhanger moments,” and “soul-bartering moments,” and as we all know, BB was a series about soul-bartering.

So, break out your stash of blue meth again, and get ready to, hopefully, see Tuco absolutely punch through someone’s face.

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Lindsay Lohan Almost Ruined A Top Secret ‘Mean Girls’ Reunion With This Tina Fey Selfie

By Stacey Ritzen • 11.05.14

Lindsay Lohan's Instagram

Back in August, Lindsay Lohan posted this selfie of herself and Tina Fey on Instagram, which she almost immediately removed. The whole thing was very mysterious, but I just chalked it up to Lohan being Lohan. As it turns out, the reason for her taking the picture off of social media was that for their reunion issue, Entertainment Weekly had been planning a surprise Mean Girls reunion celebrating the 10th anniversary of the film, and Lindsay Lohan nearly ruined it. I love that it didn’t even occur to Lindsay Lohan not to post pictures from a top secret, elaborately planned reunion.

In addition to the photoshoot, there’s an accompanying interview with the whole cast with some interesting behind-the-scenes stuff, but this was definitely my favorite tidbit of the thing, courtesy of Tina Fey:

I remember 17-year-old Lindsay was on a mission to find pink Uggs. That was, like, what she was working on. And there was one day where she tried to explain to Amy and me her beef with Hilary Duff, but we couldn’t crack it. But we were pretending we could follow it.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall while Lindsay Lohan described her love triangle with Aaron Carter and Hillary Duff to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. I’m nearly positive one day they’ll look back on it as an all time career highlight.

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EW's 'Mean Girls' reunion: The cast looks back on the 2004 hit

By Tim Stack on Nov 5, 2014 at 11:00AM

Image Credit: RUVEN AFANADOR for EW

One sure sign of a film’s legacy: Does it inspire its own holiday?

If you happened to be anywhere near the Internet on Oct. 3, you probably noticed an outpouring of nostalgia for 2004’s Mean Girls. The reason? A throwaway line uttered by Lindsay Lohan’s Cady: “It’s October 3rd.”

That may seem a pretty slim thread to hang an entire day on, but it’s indicative of the fervent fan base for this new-classic teen comedy. Written by Tina Fey and directed by Mark Waters (Vampire Academy), Mean Girls stars Lohan as a high school student at a new school who infiltrates the Plastics, a group of nasty popular girls led by queen bee Regina (Rachel McAdams) and her underlings: insecure Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) and dumb-as-a-stump Karen (Amanda Seyfried). The film became a surprise sleeper hit, earning $129 million worldwide and gaining an even bigger following on DVD. In the decade since, Mean Girls has joined Clueless and Sixteen Candles in the teen-comedy canon.

For its 10th anniversary, EW invited the film’s female leads to our own little pep rally, where they talked about their memories, behind-the-scenes magic, and what they think their characters would be doing now.

THE BEGINNING
In 2002, Fey was writing for and starring on Saturday Night Live when she discovered author Rosalind Wiseman and her nonfiction book Queen Bees & Wannabes, about teen-girl behavior. She thought it would be a natural for a comedic film and mentioned it to her boss, Lorne Michaels, who eventually became an executive producer.

TINA FEY (Ms. Norbury): When I first pitched it to Lorne, I was thinking I’d like to write a movie about what they call “relational aggression” among girls. He was like, “Okay, but could they also still have cool cars and cool clothes?” And I was like, “Oh, for sure!”

Image Credit: Everett Collection

THE CASTING
Fey planned to star as teacher Ms. Norbury. But finding the right actresses to play the titular mean girls proved to be more difficult.

LINDSAY LOHAN (Cady Heron): I had finished Freaky Friday with Mark Waters not long before. I had gone to Toronto and I was doing Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Mark came out to scout locations for Mean Girls and came to see me at my hotel and said, “Do you wanna do this movie?” I wanted to play Regina. I had just played—in Confessions and Freaky—not the cool girl in school. I was still 17 years old and I wanted to be the cool girl on set. So I had a war with him, and he goes, “No, Cady is the heroine, and that’s who you are.” Then I sat in all the auditions. Amanda auditioned to play Regina as well. It ended up being Rachel, and she’s wonderful.

RACHEL McADAMS (Regina George): Originally, I auditioned for Cady. Everyone was flipped around a little bit. I loved Regina—she seemed so deliciously wicked and borderline evil. I was quite a bit older at the time—I was, like, 24 or 25. Mark said, “I see Cady a little bit younger, but I think it makes sense if Regina kind of grew up a little too fast.”

FEY: At some point I was like, “Oh, should Lindsay be Regina?” And then Mark and Lorne had the good sense to say, “No, she gets to turn into Regina.” You work backward from that and you cast her as Cady, knowing she could get to that point of being Regina, but you let her be the innocent side, too.

LACEY CHABERT (Gretchen Wieners): I thought I was really wrong for Gretchen. The character description physically was very different from me. [She] was supposed to be really gangly. I loved how insecure she was. For me, the comedy came in her trying so desperately to please everyone and fit in and having no clue of her own identity.

AMANDA SEYFRIED (Karen Smith): Mark Waters was like, “You have something I want. Let’s see if you work for Karen.” He was so amazing. He saw comedic timing I didn’t see, and thank God for that. You only get so many breaks in your life. I just wanted to be in the movie. To be asked to play Karen, I was like, “Great! Whatever!”

Image Credit: Michael Gibson

THE PRODUCTION
The film was shot in 2003, with Toronto standing in for Evanston, Ill. The cast was filled out by Lizzy Caplan as surly Janis Ian, Daniel Franzese as sassy sidekick Damian Leigh, Jonathan Bennett as dreamboat Aaron Samuels, Amy Poehler as Regina’s inappropriate mother, and Tim Meadows as the school’s frustrated principal. Mean Girls was the first major movie for some of them, leading to a lot of on-set bonding.

FEY: We all stayed in the same hotel. The fire alarm would go off pretty much every night at some point—it was just a flaw of the hotel. At the time I was coming back and forth from SNL a lot from New York. I don’t remember if I was weird about flying or if it was the timing, but sometimes I would go do SNL, then I would get in a Winnebago at two in the morning and be driven to Toronto. It’s so stupid.

SEYFRIED: I had just graduated high school! It was terrifying. I don’t know what I would have done without Lacey Chabert. She was my angel. She took me in, and we’d hang out in her trailer and listen to Dido.

CHABERT: Amanda and I became very close very quickly. It was a very special time. I turned 21 while we were filming in the mall. The crew gave me a cake, and the entire mall sang “Happy Birthday” to me. I made this huge feast for Canadian Thanksgiving and invited everyone over.

SEYFRIED: Lacey taught me how to make pecan pie. She made my experience so magical and so safe for me.

FEY: I remember 17-year-old Lindsay was on a mission to find pink Uggs. That was, like, what she was working on. And there was one day where she tried to explain to Amy and me her beef with Hilary Duff, but we couldn’t crack it. But we were pretending we could follow it.

LOHAN: I had been online trying to get pink Uggs because I had a pink pleated skirt in the scene where I fall into the garbage can. I was like, “I need pink Uggs!” I mean, I was rhinestoning my phone at the time with Swarovski crystals. [Laughs] So it was somewhat Method.

SEYFRIED: One of my favorite scenes was when the little Chihuahua is biting the nipples off Amy Poehler. It was so fun.

McADAMS: They, like, pinned a piece of a cocktail wiener into her bra. I thought this dog was going to tear her apart. It was very effective. She was such a pro through it. She’s trying to do her lines and being so professional, and this dog is chomping on her fake boob. I’ll never forget that.

Image Credit: Paramount

THE LEGACY
Mean Girls opened on April 30, 2004, and became a word-of-mouth phenom. It’s one of the most widely quoted movies of recent years.

FEY: At the time we did want to start the conversation about the sequel, and for whatever reason I was like, “No!!! We shouldn’t do that!” Now I look back and I’m like, “Why?” But now, no—it’s too late now.

McADAMS: I was staying at a bed-and-breakfast recently in the-middle-of-nowhere Ireland. And one of the owners’ granddaughters came up to me, and she gave me a piece of pink paper and she goes, “Can you write down just a few of your favorite Mean Girls quotes?” It was so sweet. I couldn’t think of any of them! It’s been 10 years! So I said, “Well, what are your favorites?” So she literally fed me all these lines, like “Is butter a carb?”

FEY: I tried to use real names in writing because it’s just easier. My older brother’s good friend is Glenn Cocco. He’s a film editor in Los Angeles, and I imagine it’s a pain in the butt for him. Someone said to me you could buy a shirt at Target that says “You go, Glenn Cocco!” That was unexpected.

LOHAN: I was leaving the playhouse the other day. [Lohan is starring in a revival of Speed-the-Plow in London's West End.] These kids were outside, and someone said, “Do you know what day it is?” and someone said, “It’s October 3rd!” I was like, “What? I don’t understand!” I didn’t know what they meant. Then I realized it! [Laughs]

CHABERT: My new nephew was born on October 3rd. My brother came home from work and goes, “Everyone at work keeps going, ‘Oh, your baby is so lucky! Your baby is born on Mean Girls Day!’ ” He goes, “What is that? Can you explain that to me?”

LOHAN: Mariah Carey and I have the same makeup artist. Whenever I see her, she does always say, “On Wednesdays, I wear pink.” She loves that movie.

Image Credit: Paramount

THE FUTURE
EW asked each of the Plastics where they think their characters would be now, 10 years later.

SEYFRIED: Karen would manage or own a store that sells really cool dog attire, like Swarovski dog collars and Halloween costumes for animals. She’s probably really focused.

LOHAN: Cady’s with Oprah in Africa working at children’s schools with a family, teaching girls to be nice to each other.

CHABERT: Gretchen is probably running the Toaster Strudel empire. She is probably married and has, like, seven babies right now. She and Jason worked it out. She has very big curly hair.

McADAMS: Regina is a Real Housewife. She’d have too much time on her hands, for sure. She’s probably found all her other Reginas.

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Amazon Instant Video November New Releases: See What Movies, TV Series Are Coming!

Amazon Prime Instant Video November 2014 movie and TV series list revealed. Shutterstock

This looks interesting

[Edited 11/5/14 17:46pm]

purplethunder3121 said:

This looks interesting

[Edited 11/5/14 17:46pm]

Yeah PT looking forward to it. Something a bit different. Hope it does well.

Joss Stone to perform pre-game show at Wembley

Posted Nov 5, 2014

Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child and Laura Wright sing national anthems.

Joss Stone, one of Britain’s leading female vocalists, will perform the pre-game show at the NFL’s third International Series game at Wembley Stadium on Sunday, November 9 when the Jacksonville Jaguars host the Dallas Cowboys.

A double BRIT Award winner and Grammy Award winner, Joss will perform before the 6:00 p.m. kickoff of the eleventh NFL regular-season game to be played in London since the International Series began in 2007.

We advise fans to take their seats before 5:30 p.m. in order to watch the pre-game show.

Her pregame show will conclude with “No Man’s Land”, the official Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal single, which she has recorded with guitarist Jeff Beck. The performance will highlight the NFL’s partnership with the Royal British Legion for Remembrance, which will also see the Legion’s iconic Poppy logo on the players’ uniforms and helmets and various fund-raising activities around the game on behalf of the Poppy Appeal.

“We are very excited that Joss Stone will be performing before the final game of our Wembley season,” said Alistair Kirkwood, Managing Director of NFLUK. “Her pregame show will be one of the highlights of a very special day and I am sure that the performance of ‘No Man’s Land’ will be a memorable and poignant moment for fans in the stadium and those watching at home.”

Joss Stone, owner of one of most distinctive voices in British music, rose to fame in 2003 with the multi-platinum album “The Soul Sessions”. Following the 2004 release of “Mind, Body and Soul” she won the 2005 BRIT Awards for Best Female Vocal Artist and Best Urban Act. Having previously been nominated three times, she won her first Grammy Award in 2007 for Best R&B Performance by Vocal Duo or Group for “Family Affair” with John Legend and Van Hunt.

She currently has six album releases to her name, including four consecutive top 10 entries on the Billboard 200 in the US, with a seventh due to be released next spring.

Previous pre-game artists in the International Series have been: The Feeling (2007), Stereophonics (2008), Calvin Harris (2009), Goo-Goo Dolls (2010), My Chemical Romance (2011), Train (2012), Tinie Tempah (2013), NE-YO (2013), Def Leppard (2014), Little Mix (2014).

The US national anthem, ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ will be sung before the game by Grammy Award-winner Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child, one of the most successful female vocal groups in music history. She previously performed the US national anthem before the 2010 International Series game at Wembley.

The UK national anthem will be sung by best-selling soprano Laura Wright, who has performed ‘God Save The Queen’ at each of the International Series games this season.

The Jaguars-Cowboys game will kick off at 6:00 p.m. UK time (1:00 p.m. ET) and will be aired live in the UK on Channel 4 and Sky Sports and in the US on FOX.

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CMA Awards 2014 Winners List: Honors for Country Music's Biggest Stars