July 15, 2011
Movies companies snuff on-screen smoking
By Mike Stobbe, Medical Writer
ATLANTA (AP) – A new study shows three film companies have drastically reduced smoking from their movies aimed at children and teens.
The three companies have in recent years adopted policies to cut on-screen tobacco use. Over the past five years, scenes involving tobacco dropped from an average of 23 to one per film and most of their youth movies had no smoking at all.
At companies without policies, the decline was less – from an average of 18 to 10 incidents per film.
In all top-grossing movies, the researchers said Thursday that smoking continued to drop last year.
Studies suggest that movies influence early decisions about smoking. Experts say the more times average teens see smoking on film, the higher the odds they will try tobacco.
Lady Gaga’s YouTube account is suspended For Copyright Issues
By Jake Coyle, Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Even one of online video’s biggest stars isn’t immune to copyright claims.
Lady Gaga’s YouTube account was suspended Thursday. The notice read that the suspension was due to “multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s copyright policy.”
By late Thursday, the account had been restored, much to the glee of Gaga’s Little Monsters.
The Google Inc.-owned YouTube declined to comment. It’s YouTube policy to remove accounts after three copyright violations.
Reports have suggested that the infringing video was a recently uploaded clip of Gaga’s performance on Fuji TV. Messages left with Gaga’s publicist and record label, Interscope, weren’t immediately returned Thursday.
The account, “ladygagaofficial,” is one of two for Gaga. The removed channel is run by Gaga’s camp, while she also has an unaffected Vevo account.
The Vevo account, which has more than 1.6 billion views, generally debuts her music videos. Co-owned by Universal Music Group and Sony Entertainment, Vevo is a music video platform that also distributes videos on YouTube.
On Thursday, Gaga’s HBO concert special “Monster Ball Tour at Madison Square Garden” earned five Emmy Award nominations.
AP writer Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report.
Promoters wary after Missouri music festival bust
By Alan Scher Zagier
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) – Jimmy Tebeau figured a shuttered youth camp deep in the Missouri Ozarks would be the perfect venue for his Grateful Dead tribute band – and to host other touring musicians and thousands of free-spirited fans.
Since 2004, his 350-acre campground – named Camp Zoe – has featured performances from his own band, the Schwag, as well as top acts such as the Roots and Los Lobos.
But the music recently stopped at Zoe, and now the dreadlocked dad – once considered a savvy impresario among concert promoters and festival organizers in the lucrative improvisational music world- is accused of being a purveyor of an illicit drug scene.
The Zoe, located about 150 miles southwest of St. Louis, staged its last concert on Halloween of last year. The federal government sued Tebeau in November 2010, hoping to seize the campground and nearly $200,000 in profits from his Schwagstock concert series, when his own band performs.
A four-year investigation by the state Highway Patrol, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service found “open sales” of cocaine, marijuana, LSD, Ecstasy, hallucinogenic mushrooms, opium and marijuana-laced food at Camp Zoe in a Middle East bazaar-like atmosphere where drug vendors shouted sales pitches to passers-by along campground roads and walking trails, according to court documents. Undercover agents made more than 100 drug purchases.
Tebeau declined to discuss the case, on the advice of his lawyers. But his lawyer, Emmett McAuliffe, calls the federal action an overzealous reach that could establish a troubling legal precedent – not just for music festival promoters, but other business owners in the sports and entertainment industries. The civil action is on hold pending the criminal case.
“It’s unprecedented. It’s inequitable. They’re putting a burden on him that no one can fulfill,” said McAuliffe. “Is there any concert promoter in America that would be completely free of the knowledge that there might be drugs being used at his event? Any football team owner?”
The June 17 complaint accuses Tebeau and camp workers of being in the “immediate area” and taking “no action to break up or prevent these known gatherings” and seeks a civil asset forfeiture under a federal law that forbids business owners from “profit(ing) from or make available for use” for drug-related activities.
The Ozarks land is valued at $600,000. A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan declined comment.
Highway Patrol Sgt. Marty Elmore, a spokesman for the district that includes Tebeau’s Shannon County property, said his agency routinely saw a surge of illegal activity on Schwagstock weekends since Tebeau took over the property in 2004. Arrest records from a series of safety checkpoints at a highway intersection several miles north of the campground show nearly 1,000 felony and misdemeanor drug arrests as well as underage drinking citations, seat belt violations and other offenses.
“Certainly, when Camp Zoe was in full swing, we did experience a large number of drug arrests and a lot of drug activity,” Elmore said.
But a Nov. 1 raid of the campground by an estimated 80 federal agents and local law enforcement – one day after the “Spookstock” Halloween festival – yielded no drugs, McAuliffe said: “Not a single (marijuana) roach.”
Tebeau hired private security guards to work festivals, but his efforts to recruit off-duty sheriff’s deputies and state troopers were unsuccessful, according to McAuliffe.
“If there were a problem from lack of safety at the camp, there were many other ways the government could have gone about making the camp safe,” he said. “They could have made whatever drug busts they wanted to make.”
News of the Camp Zoe bust spread quickly in the jam band scene, a genre that has driven the nationwide revival of summer music festivals such as Tennessee’s Bonnaroo and Coachella in the southern California desert.
Few festival producers and concert owners contacted were willing to speak publicly about the incident. But Rebecca Sparks, promoter of the annual High Sierra Music Festival in northern California, said the industry is keenly watching the Missouri case.
“It’s definitely chilling,” she said. “I’m anxious to see how it all shakes out.”
At the same time, Sparks noted that “each festival is unique, and has its own relationship with local authorities.” In the case of High Sierra, now in its 21st year, that’s meant a working relationship with a local sheriff’s department after a more tumultuous stretch several years ago when Sparks said concert-goers were targeted for arrest.
“It did give us pause, but we didn’t go running for cover,” she said of the Missouri case.
Tebeau, who lived on the seized farm with his wife and two young children, returned to St. Louis but lives mostly on the road, performing five to six nights a week on a tour both with the Schwag and in another group headed by Melvin Seals, a one-time Jerry Garcia collaborator.
He admits that in hindsight, a band name synonymous with low-grade marijuana was not the wisest choice.
“If I was going to do it over again, I’d probably pick a different band name.”
TV’s ‘Rescue Me’ donates 9/11 items to Smithsonian
By Brett Zongker
WASHINGTON (AP) – Denis Leary donated props, costumes and other objects from his TV series “Rescue Me” to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History on Thursday because of the show’s connection to New York City firefighters after Sept. 11.
Leary’s firefighter costume, helmet and tools are the first items included in the museum’s entertainment collection relating to 9/11 as the 10th anniversary approaches. The FX firehouse drama is about firefighters dealing with the grief of losing friends and relatives at ground zero.
The show would have been impossible without help from New York firefighters to help the cast create fire scenes, learn their humor and see their work, Leary said.
“The thing that was attractive to me was brave men and what they do,” Leary told The Associated Press, recalling how he created the show after his cousin died on duty as a firefighter and how he had admired the firehouse culture that helped them carry on amid tragedy.
Leary also knew firefighters who were at ground zero on Sept. 11. About a year after the attacks, he and co-creator Peter Tolan moved forward with the idea of a firehouse drama.
“Because it was 9/11, it had a real national shadow of grief about it,” he said. “Peter and I were both attracted to the idea of having a long shot of repeatedly being able to examine these guys.”
The show had its final season premiere Wednesday night. It ends its seven-year run just before the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
Its “tough and gritty portraits” of the lives of firefighters drew the museum’s attention, said Dwight Blocker Bowers, curator of the entertainment collections.
“The situations on the show perhaps add a little bit of soothing to the people who lived through 9/11 because the leading character is haunted by memories constantly,” he said.
The donation is the first in a series of events at the museum to mark the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 and examine how it will be remembered and how life has changed.
Curators also have collected more than 350 real Sept. 11 objects from the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon, and the site of the Flight 93 plane crash in Pennsylvania, and some will be shown for the anniversary in September. The museum, which Congress designated as the national repository for 9/11 objects, also is seeking items that are still held as evidence in ongoing FBI cases relating to the Guantanamo Bay prison and others.
There are no immediate plans to display the items from “Rescue Me,” though Bowers said he expects the museum will find a space. He said it’s an opportunity to examine the impact of Sept. 11 on popular culture and how TV can mirror real concerns in American life, delving into issues of depression and alcoholism.
Tolan, the show’s executive producer, said “Rescue Me” won’t be the last to examine 9/11.
“I think, if anything, we were a little bit before our time,” he said. “Once enough time has passed, and people are able to look at this tragedy and embrace it a little bit more, this will be seen as just a small step in the road to healing and acceptance for an awful day in American history.”
Leary said he hopes the show’s props and costumes at the museum will be a reminder of the firefighters and “how great these guys are.”
“This is one of the few things in my career, my life that impressed my mother when I called and told her,” Leary said. “Thank you for allowing me to impress her at least one time.”
‘Treme,’ a winning show, suffers Emmy neglect
By Frazier Moore, Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Problem solved?
It would’ve been embarrassing to overlook Melissa Leo when handing out the Emmy nominations this year. After all, just five months ago, she won herself an Oscar. So on Thursday, she got a well-deserved nod for the HBO miniseries “Mildred Pierce.”
That got Emmy voters off the hook. In the process, it spared them the burden of examining Leo’s work in “Treme,” the HBO drama series of which she is one of many Emmy-worthy cast members.
Leo was probably the best shot “Treme” had at recognition. But, instead of landing even one nomination – for acting, writing or anything else – the series got the back of Emmy’s hand.
What a shame. “Treme” is easily among the best drama series on the air, and takes a backseat to no show for the breadth and excellence of its cast. One more thing that makes “Treme” praiseworthy: its uniqueness.
For viewers (and, apparently, a crop of Emmy voters) who don’t know, “Treme” is set in post-Katrina New Orleans and follows a broad sample of its residents coping with the disaster’s aftermath and otherwise living their lives. If “Seinfeld” was famously a show about nothing, “Treme” is a show about everything. Everything human. Which it manages to pull off without feeling overstuffed, overwrought or artificial.
“Treme” is not dense or dark or difficult, which were words that seemed to attach themselves to a previous extraordinary series created by David Simon. Instead, “Treme” is hopeful and, befitting its setting, filled with music and stout-heartedness.
Moments big and little comingle in its narrative, the way they do in real life. In the exotic, challenged world that is New Orleans after the storm, “Treme” identities the common themes that unite its characters with its audience.
The actors make the whole thing look easy. They are a diverse crowd, diverse without a sense of satisfying any quota. However beautiful or ordinary-looking, each of them seems part of a relatable community – not members of a heightened actors’ class.
Consider, just for starters: Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters (both memorable from “The Wire”); Kim Dickens (“Deadwood”); Khandi Alexander (“CSI: Miami,” HBO’s “The Corner”); Steve Zahn (“Riding in Cars With Boys”); and Melissa Leo. All of them belong on Emmy’s lists of nominees.
But “Treme” has no exaggerated violence, sex, villainy or glamour. It just feels natural. And natural can be a tough sell in TV drama. So on Thursday, just as last year at this time, “Treme” lost out.
Of course, “Treme” wasn’t alone among the sadly snubbed. But it stands tall as the saddest. And as this year’s towering example of the Mariska Hargitay Syndrome.
Nothing against Mariska Hargitay, who, for the record, won an Emmy in 2006. But for the past eight years and counting, she has been nominated for the same leading role (Detective Olivia Benson) in the same show (NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”), a show and a performance that by now are both on automatic pilot.
Hargitay is lovely, reliable and furnished with plenty of scenery to chew on. By now, watching her is as much a habit for the audience as performing the role seems to be for her. And as habitual for the Emmy voters who select her.
In the process, a show such as “Treme” (as if another show were like “Treme”) gets the cold shoulder, along with its stars.
Behind the increase: Why Netflix is raising prices
By Chip Cutter, Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Why is Netflix raising its prices? In part, because the company miscalculated how many people still want to receive DVDs by mail each month, a more expensive service to provide compared with its streamed Internet videos.
Netflix has been trying to lure subscribers away from its DVDs by offering cheaper plans that include movies and TV episodes delivered over its Internet streaming service. In November, it began offering a streaming-only plan for $8, its cheapest option at the time. Yet Netflix customers aren’t flocking to Internet video as quickly as some analysts said the company expected.
Many consumers are unwilling to give up the signature red envelopes. DVDs feature newer titles and the latest theatrical releases that aren’t available through the company’s streaming service.
So the company is adjusting its pricing to reflect the cost of its DVD business and to help bring in more money to cover growing expenses for streaming content.
Under the new plan, customers who want to rent DVDs by mail and watch video on the Internet will need to pay at least $16 per month. Netflix had been bundling both options in a single package for as low as $10 per month. But that bundled plan “neither makes great financial sense nor satisfies people who just want DVDs,” wrote Jessie Becker, Netflix Inc.’s vice president of marketing, on a company blog Tuesday.
The price hike serves multiple purposes, analysts say. It will likely push more people into the streaming service, which will help Netflix to lower its postal expenses. The cost of shipping a DVD can be as much as 75 cents per disc, while analyst Mike Olson of Piper Jaffray estimates that it costs just 5 cents to 10 cents to deliver a movie over the Internet.
At the same time, Netflix needs additional revenue to build up its streaming service. In the first three months of this year, Netflix spent $192 million on streaming rights after putting $406 million into the library last year. Licensing costs are expected to jump to $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion next year, said Arash Amel, research director for digital media at IHS Screen Digest.
“Netflix is under enormous pressures from the content owners to write bigger and bigger checks,” Amel said. “It had to find the money from somewhere.”
Netflix had 23.6 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada at the end of March, double the amount from the same period two years ago. Its stock has more than doubled in value over the past year, compared with a 21 percent gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
Movie studios and television networks want to capitalize on Netflix’s success by getting the company to pay more for content.
In an example of the growing tension, Sony movies were pulled from the Netflix online streaming service last month because of what Netflix described as a “temporary contract issue” between Sony Corp. and its pay TV distributor, Starz. The issue remains unresolved.
Netflix’s contract to receive content from Starz ends next year, and analysts say Netflix will likely pay a significant amount to renew it. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said it “wouldn’t be shocking” if Netflix paid more than $200 million per year for Starz’ service, far more than the estimated $30 million a year it is paying currently.
Netflix also wants to bring in more money because, as the company has grown, it is making less per subscriber. It got a monthly average of $11.97 per subscriber in the first quarter of this year. At the end of 2006, before Internet streaming was launched, the average amount paid per subscriber was $15.87 per month.
Still, the increased pricing has alienated Netflix’s customers, who have taken to Facebook and Twitter to complain about the company’s move. Amel, of IHS Screen Digest, said Netflix had tarnished its brand image by surprising customers with the pricing change. But he said consumers should expect Netflix to push them toward Internet streaming going forward.
“Netflix’s future is not in the DVDs,” he said. “Netflix’s future is in the business of premium pay television delivered over the Internet.”
AP Business Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Jake Gyllenhaal on scene of LA gang shooting
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena got a front row seat to Los Angeles gang violence.
The actors, who were on riding along with police on patrol in South Los Angeles, were on the scene of a gang shooting late Wednesday. The actors are researching police work for their roles in the upcoming movie “End of Watch.”
Sgt. Angela McGee says a gang member shot a rival, who is hospitalized with a grazing bullet wounds above his lip and on an arm. Two suspects walked away and there are no arrests.
McGee says the actors were on patrol with 77th Street Station officers. KTTV Fox 11 video shows the actors talking while officers investigate nearby.
“End of Watch” is a drama that focuses on the partnership of two police officers.
NBC gets new executive with portfolio of hits
LOS ANGELES (AP) – NBC Entertainment has a new president, an executive plucked from Twentieth Century Fox Television.
NBC announced Wednesday that Jennifer Salke is its entertainment chief, effective immediately. She reports to NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt and is responsible for primetime and daytime programming.
Salke is part of the struggling network’s reorganization following Comcast Corp.’s takeover of NBC Universal. The post of entertainment president had been held by Angela Bromstad, who left upon Greenblatt’s arrival in January.
During nearly a decade at Twentieth Century Fox Television, Salke was involved in the development of hit series including “Glee” and “Modern Family.”
Salke and Greenblatt have done business together since the early 1990s. She worked at Aaron Spelling Productions and Greenblatt was with the Fox channel, which aired “Melrose Place” and other Spelling series.
TV producer to be sent to Mexico to stand trial
By Anthony McCartney, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – A former “Survivor” producer was ordered Tuesday to be returned to Mexico to stand trial in the killing of his wife while the couple was on a luxury vacation with their young children to repair their troubled marriage.
However, the ruling was unlikely to bring a swift resolution to the case that has played out on both sides of the border since Monica Beresford-Redman’s naked body was found in a sewer cistern at a swank Cancun resort in April 2010.
Bruce Beresford-Redman’s attorney, Richard Hirsch, said he would appeal, and federal prosecutors said it could take months or even a year before the Emmy-nominated producer might be sent to Mexico.
Beresford-Redman has been jailed since November. His attorneys have repeatedly criticized Mexico’s investigation and argued he was under no obligation to remain in Cancun while they finalized their case.
After nearly two hours of arguments, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian said Tuesday the evidence presented by prosecutors supported Mexico’s aggravated homicide charge, which could send the producer to prison for 12 to 30 years if he is convicted.
Hirsch had urged the court to use common sense and said there were numerous inconsistencies in the Mexican investigation, including the time and place of death, and whether human blood was found in the family’s hotel room.
“Before the court sends an American citizen to Mexico, it should require more than what the government has shown here,” Hirsch said.
Chooljian, however, said she had considered all the evidence and determined there was probable cause to determine Beresford-Redman had killed his wife.
The couple had gone to Cancun with their two children, then ages 3 and 5, to try to reconcile after he had an affair with a co-worker.
His wife had threatened to divorce the producer, changed the locks on the couple’s home, and frozen his access to some bank accounts.
Prosecutors contended those circumstances- along with communication with his mistress while in Mexico – led to the killing.
“The fugitive had a motive to murder his wife to reclaim his assets, to take sole custody of his children and to possibly continue his relationship” with a mistress,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Justine Rhoades argued during the hearing.
The prosecutor noted that some of the strongest evidence came from statements obtained by British tourists staying in an adjacent hotel room who reported hearing noises that sounded like a woman in distress.
Alison Triessl, an attorney for her family, said the victim’s sisters were happy with the result but realize it is another step in a long process.
“They know there will probably be appeal after appeal,” Triessl said. “It’s an important day for justice. It’s an important day so they can rebuild their lives.”
Chooljian’s ruling came after defense lawyers withdrew a request to call as a witness the 6-year-old daughter of Bruce Beresford-Redman amid unspecified concerns about the girl’s ability to testify in defense of her father.
Statements filed by her therapist and one of Bruce Beresford-Redman’s attorneys suggested the girl would have testified that she never saw her father act violently toward her mother during the Cancun vacation.
The girl also told the therapist and attorney that she recalled her mother leaving the hotel room to go shopping on the day she went missing.
Bruce Beresford-Redman’s attorneys have for months accused Mexican authorities of basing their case on a possible motive rather than physical evidence.
Hirsch expects his client to be acquitted but said he had concerns about how he would be treated in Mexico.
“It’s very disturbing what’s going on in Mexico right now,” he said, noting that verdicts are rendered by a judge, not a jury. “I’ve seen accounts of trial in Mexico, and they’re rather arbitrary.”
Tuesday was not Beresford-Redman’s last appearance in a Los Angeles courtroom. He is expected to testify later in the week in a probate court that will determine the validity of his late wife’s will.
He will remain in the custody of U.S. marshals during that appearance.
‘Restoration’ wins Czech film festival
PRAGUE (AP) – The Israeli movie “Restoration” has won the top prize at the 46th International Film Festival in the western Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary.
The film, directed by Joseph Madmony, is a psychological study of characters in the contemporary Israeli society. It examines problems of an owner of an antique furniture restoration shop with his son and business after his business partner dies.
The movie was chosen from 12 contenders for the Crystal Globe by the festival’s grand jury, led by Hungarian director Istvan Szabo
Saturday’s award also comes with a $30,000 cash prize.
Noted film producer signs on as Quinnipiac mentor
HAMDEN, Conn. (AP) – A film producer and director whose work includes the hits “Home Alone” and “Mystic Pizza” has signed on as a mentor for students in Quinnipiac University’s School of Communications.
Scott Rosenfelt will be a professional-in-residence in film, video and interactive studies for the 2011-12 academic year.
In addition to “Home Alone,” his prominent films include “Teen Wolf” and “Extremities.” He has also produced and directed several award-winning independent films.
Rosenfelt’s work at Quinnipiac will include critiquing students’ projects, giving guest lectures and helping students win internships in Los Angeles and New York. He will also launch a weekend workshop for aspiring producers.
He said in a statement released by Quinnipiac that he wants to help students develop their own visions without being hindered by the industry’s myths and roadblocks.
