July 18-21, 2011
Ridley Scott: I’ll never work without 3-D again
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Ridley Scott is shooting his first film in 3-D, and he says he’ll always use the multidimensional approach in his future films.
The director appeared at Comic-Con via satellite from Iceland, where he is shooting the sci-fi thriller “Prometheus.”
Scott said 3-D doesn’t just enhance action sequences, it “opens up the universe of even a small dialogue thing.”
The filmmaker said, “I’ll never work without 3-D again.”
“Prometheus” star Charlize Theron appeared on stage at Comic-Con and co-star Noomi Rapace appeared alongside Scott in Iceland.
The film explores questions of alien DNA and is set for release next year.
Comic-Con continues through Sunday at the San Diego Convention Center.
Kim Kardashian sues Old Navy over lookalike in ads
By Anthony McCartney, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Kim Kardashian wants Old Navy to stop using a lookalike to advertise its clothing.
The reality show starlet and model on Wednesday sued the clothing store and its parent company, The Gap Inc., in a Los Angeles federal court alleging their ads violated her publicity rights with ads that feature a woman who looks like her.
A video of a broadcast ad featuring a smiling, dark-haired woman who bears a resemblance to the real Kardashian has been viewed more than two million times on Old Navy’s YouTube channel.
Kardashian’s lawsuit claims consumers may be confused by the ads and the model’s actual endorsements, which include her own clothing store and shoe line. A commercial, titled, “Super C-U-T-E,” began airing in February and Old Navy is still using some of the promotions, the lawsuit states.
The case cites all the benchmarks of modern celebrity: her eight million followers on Twitter, more than five million fans on Facebook and ranking as one of the most searched-for celebrities on the Internet.
Kardashian “has invested substantial time, energy, finances and entrepreneurial effort in developing her considerable professional and commercial achievements and success, as well as in developing her popularity, fame, and prominence in the public eye,” the lawsuit states.
Louise Callagy, a spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Gap said the company has not yet seen the case and had no comment.
Kardashian, 31, has rocketed to fame in recent years after gaining prominence as a friend of Paris Hilton and for having a sex tape. She appears along with her family on the E! Entertainment Television series “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and routinely graces magazine covers.
Her lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages and wants a federal judge to prevent Old Navy from using a Kardashian lookalike model in its ads again.
The model in the ads, Melissa Molinaro, is not named in the lawsuit. She expressed exasperation that the resemblance was being pointed out again. “Were (sic) still talking about this,” she posted on Twitter, noting the ad ran five months ago. “Some people have too much time on (their) hands.”
Comic-Con kicks off with fans, flicks, costumes
By Sandy Cohen, Entertainment Writer
SAN DIEGO (AP) – Calling all superheroes, zombies, space aliens, comic-book lovers and kids of all ages: Comic-Con is here.
The pop-culture convention, which annually draws thousands of costumed fans to San Diego, begins Thursday, but the die-hards (and those with weekend-long passes) were getting a peek at the colorful convention floor on Wednesday night
The line for badges to access the festival was already wrapped around the San Diego Convention Center by Wednesday afternoon.
Upon receiving their passes, conventioneers perused a 192-page event guide and toted oversized loot bags emblazoned with “The Justice League” as they milled about the streets of downtown San Diego in anticipation of the festival’s opening.
Gigantic movie ads wrapped nearby hotels: the Hard Rock was covered with “Spider-Man” symbols and the Hilton touted “Cowboys & Aliens.”
Hundreds of exhibitors and more than 130,000 guests are expected to pack the Convention Center for the sold-out, four-day event.
“The people who go through those doors, most of them are film fans and fans of pop culture, be it video games or movies or television shows, T-shirts or comic books, it’s all part of this big cultural stew,” says filmmaker Jon Favreau, who will premiere his latest flick, “Cowboys & Aliens,” at Comic-Con. “These are people who normally interact with one another through the Internet … Then when you finally open it up to meeting in person, it just concentrates that experience.”
At the Mattel booth, where fans clamored for collectibles including a “Back to the Future” toy DeLorean, marketing manager Scott Neitlich – as 12-year Comic-Con veteran – talked about the excitement of the convention.
“It’s a place where we can be ourselves and be excited about the properties and characters we love so much, and you’re surrounded by people who are just as passionate as you are,” he said. “Otherwise, we have our basements.”
Dylan Hishmeh, a 19-year-old from Santee, Calif., was excited to attend his eighth Comic-Con, where he proudly scored an exclusive “Gears of War 3” collectible game.
“It was one of 100,” he said, adding that the game won’t be released until September.
He said he was also excited to see Kevin Smith and to share his love of movies, video games and graphic design with other conventioneers.
“It’s a nice environment to be with people who are into the same things you are,” he said. “It’s easy to get to know people.”
Making friends with like-minded folks is one of the great perks of Comic-Con, said Derryl DePriest, a 35-year festival veteran who now works for Hasbro.
“I’ve seen it go from an event based on comic books to a celebration of pop culture,” he said. “The (toys) we make are fantastic, but it’s the camaraderie built around them that makes it special.
Hollywood continues to command a headlining presence at Comic-Con, and Tinseltown offerings are some of the most anticipated at the Con.
“Captain America” will play in San Diego for a full day before its nationwide opening Friday, and star Chris Evans is set to introduce the earliest screening. “Cowboys & Aliens” will hold its world premiere at Comic-Con on Saturday – a festival first. Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are coming to the convention to talk about “The Adventures of Tin-Tin”; Sony is offering a peek at “The Amazing Spider-Man”; and the “Twilight” trio – Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson – will again greet their fans at the Con.
TV-wise, “True Blood,” ”Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead” are big draws, while new shows such as “Person of Interest,” ”Grimm” and “Terra Nova” will present preview footage and introduce their casts in an aim to attract viewers before their fall premieres.
New video games are also expected to score big at Comic-Con, where players can get an early look at sci-fi shooters “Halo” and “Gears of War 3” and the latest “Batman” and “Spider-Man” games.
“Comic-Con is this incredible celebration of the arts, and the arts spans movies, television, video games – which are incredibly artistic now. It’s toys, it’s collectibles, it is straight comics and graphic novels,” says documentarian Morgan Spurlock, who made a movie about Comic-Con and will introduce its companion photo book at this year’s festival. “It is this cornerstone of pop culture that has so much influence now.”
‘Idol’ creator sues for stake in rival ‘X-Factor’
By Anthony McCartney, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The creator of “American Idol” sued the show’s broadcaster and producer claiming they have reneged on a deal to give him a stake in a rival competition show that is about to premiere in the United States.
Producer Simon Fuller is seeking an executive producer credit and the appropriate fees once “The X-Factor” – which was created by former “Idol” judge Simon Cowell – begins airing its U.S.-debut in September. His lawsuit is against Fox Broadcasting Co. and the show’s production company, FremantleMedia North America.
Fox will air both “Idol” and “X-Factor,” and FremantleMedia is producing both shows.
The lawsuit reignites longstanding tension between the forces that made “American Idol” one of the past decade’s most popular shows in the United States.
Fuller imported the format from Britain, where he launched “Pop Idol.” The U.S. version debuted in 2001 and featured Cowell as a judge whose biting remarks to contestants became a fixture and a ratings magnet.
Cowell created “X-Factor” three years later; it also premiered in England.
That prompted Fuller to sue Cowell for copyright infringement, and according to his lawsuit, Fox and Fremantle stepped in to preserve “American Idol.”
Fuller’s lawsuit claims he settled the case in 2005 against Cowell after Fox and Fremantle promised him that “X-Factor” would not air in the United States until 2011, Cowell would remain an “Idol” judge for five more seasons, and Fuller would be granted an executive producer credit on Cowell’s show if it ever aired in the United States.
“Despite the clear agreement to grant Fuller an executive producer credit and to pay him an executive producer fee, defendants have refused to honor their obligations and have further refused to negotiate in good faith,” the lawsuit states.
The U.S.-version of X-Factor will begin airing on Fox on Sept. 21.
The case is unlikely to be settled for anything remotely as cheap as a song, with both sides releasing dueling statements hours after the case was filed.
“Mr. Fuller has not been hired, nor performed any duties, on the U.S. version of ‘The X Factor,'” Fox and FremantleMedia wrote in a joint statement. “His suit seeks payment and credit as an executive producer despite his neither having been approved by the required parties, nor hired, as such. We believe this lawsuit is without merit and we expect to prevail.”
Fuller’s attorney, Dale Kinsella, called the companies’ position that Fuller needed to be approved as an executive producer on “X-Factor” absurd.
“Fox is contractually obligated to approve Fuller as executive producer and compensate him accordingly, and it is because of the breach of the 2005 binding agreement that the case was filed,” Kinsella wrote in a statement. “Fox appears to be admitting openly that they have failed to honor the contract terms.”
An initial hearing in the case is scheduled for Nov. 7 in Santa Monica, Calif.
‘No Country’ star calls for global actors rights
GENEVA (AP) – In the 2008-film “No Country for Old Men” Javier Bardem’s hitman character mercilessly collected unpaid debts with a deadly bolt gun.
When it comes to movie pirates, the 42-year-old Academy Award winner is more understanding.
“People don’t have money and movie tickets are sometimes too high,” Bardem told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. “I understand that.”
Still, Bardem says freeloading off others hurts the nine in ten actors who already struggle to pay the bills with their work.
“What I don’t agree with is the mentality of the people, that to do piracy is fine,” the Spanish actor said.
Bardem traveled to Geneva to support a new international treaty protecting actors rights across the globe. He was joined by Egyptian actress Esaad Younis, British producer Iain Smith and Indian director Bobby Bedi.
The World Intellectual Property Organization is currently hosting talks on a draft treaty that is expected to be approved by governments next year.
Bardem called for actors to get the same protection as musicians and writers, including the right to earn money from the use of their performance beyond a film’s original release. He also said he wants movie tickets to be cheaper – that way even would-be pirates go to see a film at the theater once in a while.
Has he ever downloaded a film or song illegally?
“I barely can put on my iPhone,” Bardem said.
A film for foodies: Culinary creativity at elBulli
By ocelyn Noveck, National Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – For a foodie, the new film about Spain’s renowned elBulli restaurant is a bit like an Angelina Jolie movie for a teenage boy.
That boy’s never going on a date with Angelina. And sorry, dear foodie, but you’re never gonna eat at elBulli.
Well, at least food lovers can now salivate via celluloid. “El Bulli: Cooking in Progress,” a meticulous exploration of how this famously avant-garde eatery comes up with its insanely inventive creations, may not be for everyone. But for those passionate about the artistry and indeed the science of cooking, it’s dangerously close to porn.
And for some, perhaps close to tragedy, too. Co-owner and chef Ferran Adria announced earlier this year that on July 30 he will close his restaurant, a winner of three Michelin stars and countless other honors. Citing financial struggles and a need to regroup after years of exhausting work, he said elBulli would become a think tank and research facility.
German filmmaker Gereon Wetzel had no inkling of this when he shot his film, training his cameras on elBulli’s creative team for 10 hours-plus per day, a week at a time, over 15 months in 2008 and 2009.
But the news, which came during editing, didn’t change his goal, which was to show the laborious, indeed painful, process of creating art – in this case, edible art, dishes for an ever-changing menu of 30 to 50 courses that can take three, four, maybe five hours to eat, for 50 lucky diners a night. Just a few names give you a sense of their unique nature: A gorgonzola tree. A parmesan crystal. A coconut sponge. Iced peppermint. “Vacuumized” mushrooms.
Or vanishing ravioli – with a pasta envelope, coated in maltodextrin, that literally disappears in front of your eyes.
“What fascinated me was the process,” Wetzel said in an interview this week from his home in Munich. “How do they do it? What does it take to get to these ideas?”
And so the 38-year-old director, who by the way professes not to be a foodie, spent most of his shooting time not at the restaurant, which is on the coast a few hours from Barcelona and is open only six months a year, but in its lab in the city. There, a few top chefs spend the other six months creating the next season’s menu.
The work Wetzel displays is more than painstaking. Adria’s main deputies, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch, labor and philosophize over the consistency of a mushroom. What happens when you “vacuumize” it? (A machine is used.)
And what can we do with a sweet potato that’s never been done? What can we extract from it? All this is shown with no narration whatsoever.
“This is very hard work, and I wanted people to see that,” says Wetzel. And so he didn’t shy away from the difficult moments, including one where chef Adria berates his team for having lost some data on a bad hard drive. The team protests that they still have lists on paper. “I don’t want it on paper, I want it on the computer!” Adria retorts. “This is a disaster.” At another point, he rejects a dish curtly: “Don’t give me anything that’s not good.”
There are also some unintentionally very funny moments, like when the two chefs go to the local market and ask for five single grapes for their testing – and three beans. “You get away with everything,” remarks the merchant.
At another market visit later on, they ask the merchant not to discard the tongue of a fish. Anything might be fodder for a new creation, after all. Wetzel notes how Adria’s team also works with the cartilage of a calf shoulder – something others would surely throw away. “For them, the way they work, this cartilage has value equal to caviar,” he says.
After the film has spent a good hour showing painstaking lab work – Rachael Ray’s cooking show, this is not – the action shifts to the coast, and opening day of the new season. We see an army of new workers, some of them interns, who have come from all corners of the world to work with these Spanish masters.
And as the staff revs up for the incoming crowd, Adria and his lieutenants are still refining, experimenting, tasting. Adria sits down for a rehearsal of new dishes. The tension is almost unbearable as he tastes one, then says nothing for many seconds.
We also see the birth of a new, typically elBulli dish: A silky cocktail of hazelnut oil, water and two crystals of salt. Testing such a cocktail at one table, a server comes back in a panic: Fizzy water has mistakenly been used, instead of still water. The chefs consult. Maybe they should keep it fizzy? Maybe that will make it even more interesting!
During three years of overall work on the film, there was one thing Wetzel and his team never did: Taste the famous food they were documenting.
But once shooting was complete, they finally got a table.
“To spend five hours doing nothing but thinking and talking about food – it was an experience,” he says. And a relief, too.
“After all that time and work, I was just so glad that it was really, really good,” he says.
Oneida Nation producing feature film in central NY
VERONA, N.Y. (AP) – The Oneida Indian Nation is producing a $10 million feature film telling the story of its alliance with American colonists during the Revolutionary War.
Ray Halbritter, the Oneida Indian Nation representative and CEO of Nation Enterprises, says the movie will be shot this fall in central New York. It will be produced by Alex Siskin, producer of “Mr. Deeds.” The executive producer is Sid Ganis, former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Kees Van Oostrum (CASE’ van-OH’-strum), Emmy-nominated director of “Miss Rose White” and “Gettysburg,” is the director.
The film, “First Allies,” is based on the book “Forgotten Allies” by University of Houston historians Joseph Glatthaar and James Kirby Martin.
Actor Ngoombujarra of ‘Australia,’ more films dies
SYDNEY (AP) – David Ngoombujarra, one of Australia’s best known indigenous actors whose films included “Australia” and “Rabbit-Proof Fence,” has died. He was 44.
The actor was found in a park Sunday and died at a hospital in Fremantle, near Perth on Australia’s west coast. Police have not determined the cause but said his death was not suspicious.
Two of his acclaimed films were “Rabbit-Proof Fence” and “Black and White,” both released in 2002 and based on true stories of Australia’s indigenous people.
“Rabbit-Proof Fence” won best film from the Australian Film Institute. Ngoombujarra won one of his three AFI awards for “Black and White,” in which he played an Aborigine convicted of killing a young white girl.
“Australia” star Hugh Jackman said on Twitter he was saddened by Ngoombujarra’s death. “His laugh, warmth and humanity will live on with all who knew him,” Jackman tweeted Tuesday.
Ngoombujarra also won AFI awards for “Blackfellas” in 1993 and the Australian television show, “The Circuit.”
His other films included “Ned Kelly,” ”Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles” and “Kangaroo Jack.”
Songwriter of hits by Rolling Stones, Joplin dies
NEW YORK (AP) – Jerry Ragovoy, a songwriter credited with songs made famous by the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin and others, has died at the age of 80.
Ragovoy died last week at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Jim Steinblatt, a representative for the performance rights group ASCAP, says he died of complications from a stroke.
Among some of Ragovoy’s most famous tunes were “Time Is On My Side” by the Rolling Stones, “Piece of My Heart” by Janis Joplin and “Pata, Pata” by Miriam Makeba.
Some of his songs were credited to a pseudonym, Norman Meade.
Over the years, his songs were recorded by greats like Elvis Presley, B.B. King and Aretha Franklin.
Ragovoy also was a producer for artists including Diana Ross and Dionne Warwick.
New FX drama ‘American Horror Story’ set for fall
By Lynn Elber, Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – An “American Horror Story” is coming to TV.
The FX channel said Monday it has ordered 13 episodes of a new drama it says has “reinvented the horror genre.” The show is from the producers of “Nip/Tuck” and “Glee.”
“American Horror Story” stars Dylan McDermott (“The Practice”) and Connie Britton (“Friday Night Lights”) as a couple who move their family from Boston to Los Angeles to, as FX put it, “reconcile past anguish.”
The drama also features Oscar-winning star Jessica Lange (“Tootsie,” ”Blue Sky”) in her first regular TV series role, along with Frances Conroy of “Six Feet Under”
“American Horror Story” was co-created by executive producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The drama begins production in Los Angeles next week and is set to premiere on FX in October.
Hollywood publicist slaying investigation closed
By Greg Risling
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Beverly Hills police say they have closed the investigation into the slaying of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, who was shot multiple times by an ex-convict last November.
The Police Department put out a release Friday saying detectives conducted an exhaustive investigation that included reviewing financial documents, thousands of emails and texts as well following up on many tips.
Police are confident after reviewing all the evidence that Harold Martin Smith acted alone in gunning down Chasen as she drove her Mercedes-Benz through Beverly Hills following the movie premiere of “Burlesque.”
The 43-year-old career criminal killed himself Dec. 1 when police arrived at a Hollywood apartment building to question him about the shooting.
Police say the gun used to kill Chasen was the same weapon Smith used to commit suicide.
