August 5, 2011
Golden Globe group doles out $1.5M to boost artsSandy Cohen, Entertainment WriteWriter
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) – The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is giving away more than a million dollars.
The group behind the Golden Globe Awards presented $1.5 million in grants to dozens of arts organizations at a private luncheon Thursday at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon, Taylor Lautner and Lea Michele helped present and accept the gifts, which were given to 46 nonprofit and educational organizations including the American Film Institute, FilmAid International, the New York Stage & Film Company and Ghetto Film School.
Michele said she was “humbled by the generosity” of the international reporters group, then beamed as she introduced and hugged “Twilight” hunk Lautner. He admitted to “blushing up here a little bit” as he accepted a grant on behalf of the Sundance Institute.
Moments earlier, Wahlberg saluted the young actor as a screen successor to himself and DiCaprio.
“He’s better looking than you, he’s in better shape than me, so we’re both out of a job, dude,” Wahlberg said after being introduced by DiCaprio. “It’s over, dude. ‘Titanic’ and ‘Boogie Nights’ was a long time ago.”
Wahlberg, whom DiCaprio introduced as “Marky Mark,” accepted grants for film programs at six American universities.
Other stars on hand to accept grants at the luncheon included Gerard Butler, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Elizabeth Moss, Hugh Dancy and Japanese musician Yoshiki, who gracefully struggled through his presentation in English.
“For Japanese people, it’s so hard to pronounce L and R,” the soft-spoken rocker said.
The new officers of the HFPA were also introduced at the annual luncheon.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has given away more than $13 million in grants and scholarships over the past 17 years.
Lil Wayne sued for $15 million over ‘Bedrock’NEW YORK (AP) – Rapper Lil Wayne faces a $15 million legal battle over allegations he stole the hit song “Bedrock.”
Georgia-based production company Done Deal Enterprises is suing Wayne, Universal Music Group, Cash Money Records and Young Money Entertainment for copyright infringement.
Lawyers for the rapper and representatives for Universal Music didn’t return a request for comment Thursday. Lil Wayne has been ordered to appear in court Oct. 12.
The song, which featured appearances by Drake, Nicki Minaj and Lloyd, peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was on the compilation 2010 CD “We Are Young Money.”
The lawsuit, filed Friday in the Southern District court, is the latest legal woe facing the rapper, born Dwayne Carter Jr. He also has been sued by several producers over unpaid royalties.
Marilyn Monroe film to be centerpiece of NY festNEW YORK (AP) – “My Week With Marilyn,” starring Michele Williams as Marilyn Monroe, will be the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival.
Simon Curtis’ film is about a fleeting encounter between a film set assistant and Monroe in the summer of 1956. The young assistant, Colin Clark, was working on “The Prince and the Showgirl,” which starred Monroe and Laurence Olivier. Monroe had recently married Arthur Miller.
“My Week With Marilyn” is based on Clark’s diary of the week. Kenneth Branagh plays Olivier and Dougray Scott plays Miller. Eddie Redmayne stars as the 23-year-old Clark.
The film will premiere Oct. 9 at Alice Tully Hall. It’s to be released by the Weinstein Company on Nov. 4.
The 49th New York Film Festival runs Sept. 30 through Oct. 16.
Academy defends Winfrey as honorary Oscar winner
Sandy Cohen, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Film academy president Tom Sherak is coming to Oprah Winfrey’s defense.
Sherak says Winfrey is “one of the most philanthropic performers in the world” and thus deserving of the academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted Tuesday night to present Winfrey with an Oscar statuette at the annual Governors Awards in November. James Earl Jones and makeup artist Dick Smith will also receive honorary Oscars at the private ceremony.
Blogs have been abuzz with criticism over the selection of Winfrey for the award since the announcement was made late Tuesday. In an article published Wednesday, Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein calls the academy decision “a boneheaded move.”
“Winfrey has done good work in the world, but that’s not enough to merit an Oscar,” he writes, and plenty of anonymous Internet posters on Wednesday agree.
Sherak says the Hersholt Award recognizes an individual who “exemplifies giving back to the community, the world, society in an extraordinary way.”
“Oprah has given and given and given,” he said, adding that she has contributed more than $500 million of her own money to charitable causes. “She’s a member of the academy, she was nominated for an Academy Award and she has produced movies. This is not about personality. This is about a person who has come from the depths, risen to the heights and given back. That’s a perfect example of why this award was created.”
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award was established shortly after the death of the actor in 1956. Previous winners include Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Quincy Jones and Jerry Lewis.
The award is presented periodically when the academy’s board of governors believes there is a worthy recipient, Sherak said.
Goldstein and Deadline.com’s Nikki Finke say Winfrey belongs more to the world of television than that of film. She was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for 1985’s “The Color Purple,” produced and appeared in “Beloved” in 1998 and was an executive producer of 2009’s “Precious.”
Finke asks in her post if “no one among the philanthropic film bigwigs deserved this award more than her this year? Or is this merely a matter of another of the rich and powerful just throwing their weight around and buying the Governors Award honor for ego feed?”
Sherak said many philanthropists belong to the film academy, but its governors “felt very strongly” about honoring Winfrey this year despite her limited work in film.
“We have a lot of people who are TV people who have made movies,” he said. “It doesn’t matter that they do other things… She is definitely one of us. What really counts is her contribution to humanity.”
Goldstein suggests that race played a role in the academy’s decision to honor the 57-year-old media mogul: “It is a way of guaranteeing that some people of color will be taking home Academy Awards, even if the honors aren’t actually presented on Oscar night.”
Winfrey’s camp did not immediately respond to a phone call and e-mail seeking comment Wednesday.
Jones and Smith will receive their honorary Oscars alongside Winfrey at the Nov. 12 ceremony at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland. The two men are being recognized for their outstanding film careers.
Jones has appeared in more than 50 films. The 80-year-old actor – voice of Darth Vader – was nominated for an Academy Award in 1971 for “The Great White Hope.” His other credits include “Field of Dreams,” ”Patriot Games” and “The Hunt for Red October.”
Smith was NBC’s first makeup man when he started his career in 1945. He won an Oscar in 1984 for his work on “Amadeus” and was nominated again in 1989 for “Dad.” Known as the “godfather of makeup,” he also worked on “The Godfather,” ”The Exorcist” and “Taxi Driver.” Smith also helped train many of today’s top movie makeup artists.
The Governors Awards are not televised, but excerpts from the evening could be included in the Academy Awards telecast in February, 2012.
Lost Hitchcock film discovered in New ZealandDavid Germain, Movie Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Alfred Hitchcock is still surprising his fans.
Film preservationists said Wednesday they’ve found the first half of the earliest known surviving feature film on which Hitchcock has a credit: a silent melodrama called “The White Shadow.”
The first three reels of the six-reel film, made in 1923, were discovered by the National Film Preservation Foundation at the New Zealand Film Archive.
“The White Shadow” was directed by Graham Cutts, and the 24-year-old Hitchcock was credited as writer, assistant director, editor and art director.
Hitchcock made his own directing debut two years later with the chorus-girl melodrama “The Pleasure Garden.” He went on to direct such suspense classics as “Psycho,” ”The Birds,” ”Rear Window” and “Vertigo.”
“The White Shadow” is a “missing link, one of those few productions where we are able to bridge that gap of Hitchcock, the young guy with all these ideas, and Hitchcock the filmmaker,” said David Sterritt, author of “The Films of Alfred Hitchcock.”
“Even though he didn’t direct it, he was all over it.”
Foundation Director Annette Melville said the three “White Shadow” reels – about 30 minutes – were found among films donated to the archive by the family of New Zealand projectionist and collector Jack Murtagh.
No other copy of “The White Shadow” is known to exist.
The film stars Betty Compson in a dual role as twin sisters, one angelic and the other “without a soul,” according to Melville.
“At the time, people said the plot was improbable. I’m putting a polite spin on it. Many said it was ridiculous,” Melville said. “It’s a totally crazy, zany plot with soul migration back and forth and all these improbable meetings.”
A restored print of “The White Shadow” will be shown Sept. 22 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater at Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences headquarters in Beverly Hills. The program also will feature two recently rediscovered short films, including one directed by and starring silent-era superstar Mabel Normand.
“White Shadow” director Cutts was a workmanlike director concerned with delivering movies on schedule and “making sure the camera was in focus,” said Hitchcock expert Sterritt.
The influence of Hitchcock, a meticulous planner and control freak once he began directing himself, can be seen throughout the images that have been released from “The White Shadow,” Sterritt said.
“The images are just awfully expressive and terrifically interesting to look at,” Sterritt said. “It has a look – I don’t want to call it a Hitchcock look – but I’d call it a more atmospheric and nuanced and effective look than Graham Cutts probably could have injected into a film.”
Hitchcock, who died in 1980, broke into filmmaking in his native London in 1920, working as a title-card designer and working up through the ranks as a writer and assistant director.
His own directing output during his British years, before moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s, included “The 39 Steps,” ”The Lady Vanishes” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” a film he remade in the 1950s.
Hitchcock’s first Hollywood film was 1940’s “Rebecca,” the best-picture Academy Award winner that he made for producer David O. Selznick. Lewis J. Selznick Enterprises, run by Selznick’s father, had released “The White Shadow” in the United States 16 years earlier.
“The White Shadow” was found during the second of two searches by the U.S.-based film foundation, which received grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to send an archivist to sift through American films preserved in the New Zealand archive.
The previous search turned up 1927’s “Upstream,” a previously lost feature-length film directed by John Ford (“The Searchers,” ”The Quiet Man”).
Other finds in the New Zealand collection included an early feature with silent star Clara Bow, but film foundation researchers are not expecting to uncover any other gems there.
“We’ve gone through every foot of American film there, and I can tell you, there’s nothing more in the American collection,” Melville said.
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Alice Cooper inspires Universal Studios attraction
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Alice Cooper is inviting theme park visitors into his nightmares this Halloween season.
Universal Studios Hollywood announced plans Tuesday to construct an attraction based on the macabre rocker’s album “Welcome to My Nightmare,” and its upcoming sequel “Welcome 2 My Nightmare.”
The maze will feature Cooper’s music as well as “guillotine decapitations, electric chairs, a sadistic insane asylum, predatory snake and giant black widow spiders.”
The walk-through experience will be part of the theme park’s annual “Halloween Horror Nights” event, which begins Sept. 23 and continues on select nights through Oct. 31. Other attractions planned for this year’s event include mazes based on director Eli Roth’s “Hostel” horror movies and Universal’s upcoming prequel to “The Thing.”
Hog-hunting TV series delayed due to Texas heatNEW YORK (AP) – The Texas heat is forcing the A&E television network to call “time out” on a new series about hunting hogs.
The network’s “American Hoggers” series was set to premiere Aug. 16, focusing on the Campbell family of central Texas. They hunt wild boar seen as a scourge by some residents and ranchers.
A&E said Wednesday that producers have cut back on the filming schedule due to high heat. The series will instead premiere sometime in fall, at a date to be determined.
David McKillop, executive vice president of programming at A&E, says that “in this record-breaking heat, even the hogs can use a break.”
Oprah Winfrey, James Earl Jones to receive Oscars
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Oprah Winfrey, James Earl Jones and makeup artist Dick Smith have been picked to receive honorary Oscars.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says the three will be honored with Oscar statuettes at the Governors Awards in November. The academy’s Board of Governors voted Tuesday to recognize the entertainment industry veterans.
Winfrey will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, which honors philanthropic and humanitarian contributions. The 57-year-old media mogul, who was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for 1985’s “The Color Purple,” supports various charitable and educational causes, including her own namesake foundations and Academy for Girls in South Africa.
Jones and Smith will receive honorary Oscars for their outstanding careers.
Jones has appeared in more than 50 films. The 80-year-old actor – voice of Darth Vader – was nominated for an Academy Award in 1971 for “The Great White Hope.” His other credits include “Field of Dreams,” ”Patriot Games” and “The Hunt for Red October.”
Smith was NBC’s first makeup man when he started his career in 1945. He won an Oscar in 1984 for his work on “Amadeus” and was nominated again in 1989 for “Dad.” Known as the “godfather of makeup,” he also worked on “The Godfather,” ”The Exorcist” and “Taxi Driver.” Smith also helped train many of today’s top movie makeup artists.
Smith, Jones and Winfrey will receive their statuettes on Nov. 12 at the 3rd annual Governors Awards dinner at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center, just above the Kodak Theatre, where the Academy Awards are presented.
Judge hears arguments over Globes broadcast rightsAnthony McCartney, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Attorneys for the organizers of the Golden Globe Awards and its longtime producers sparred Tuesday over whether an 18-year-old agreement gave the company a perpetual right to work on the show as long as it airs on NBC.
If the agreement is interpreted as the producers want, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association argued that it would lose crucial rights to its signature property – a glitzy awards gala that is worth millions of dollars each year.
The producers, dick clark productions, however, claimed they received a now-disputed perpetuity clause in part for resurrecting the show after a scandal knocked it from airwaves in early 1980s.
After six hours of arguments, U.S. District Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank, said she planned to issue a ruling this week. She gave no indication of how she would rule and asked few questions.
In a filing Monday, she asked attorneys to address whether the producers’ interpretation of a 1993 agreement with the HFPA – that it had rights to work on the show as long as it aired on NBC – would result in an “absurdity.”
“It would plainly result in an absurdity,” HFPA attorney Daniel Petrocelli argued. “We would be at their mercy. Forever.”
An attorney for the production company, also known as dcp, argued that courts have long upheld the rights of parties to enter into agreements that might seem strange to outsiders. In the case of the nearly 30-year history between the HFPA and dcp, the perpetuity clause made sense, attorney Brad Phillips said.
The production company “had accomplished essentially miracles for this show,” Phillips said. “There is nothing absurd about it at all.”
At stake is not only of Hollywood’s highest-profile awards shows, but also tens of millions of dollars. Tax records for 2009, the most recent year available, show that HFPA received $7.5 million for the Globes.
HFPA and dcp split revenues from the Globes 50-50 under their agreement, which was first entered in 1983. Their relationship began months after CBS canceled its contract to air the show after a controversy emerged over the HFPA, long criticized for being too cozy with the stars it honored, was accused of impropriety in awarding a newcomer award to Pia Zadora.
HFPA President Aida Takla-O’Reilly, seated in the front row at the hearing, shook her head as Phillips recounted the scandal.
The association of roughly 80 foreign journalists sued the production company in November, claiming it negotiated an extension for the Globes to air on NBC through 2018 without proper permission.
Phillips earlier in the day urged Fairbank to reject HFPA’s claims, arguing they should have sued years ago.
Petrocelli said the association had to wait until dcp acted improperly – by signing a new deal with NBC – before it could sue.
Both sides highlighted language from the 1993 agreement and numerous discussions about it since then to try to sway the judge.
Phillips said that as recently as 2009, the HFPA tried to negotiate its way out of the “perpetuity” clause, but rejected a proposal that the groups enter into a 30-year deal.
If the judge does not rule for either side, a jury trial to decide the broadcast rights ownership will begin on Aug. 30.
The HFPA has said there is plenty of time to plan next year’s show, regardless of whether they win this round in court or have to take their case to a jury.
Latin jazz players file suit over cut Grammy awardDeepti Hajela
NEW YORK (AP) – A group of Latin jazz musicians has filed a class-action lawsuit in New York against the organization that gives out the Grammy Awards.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. It says the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has harmed members who record Latin jazz by eliminating it as a separate category in next year’s awards.
The academy announced in April that the number of categories would go from 109 to 78. Among the changes was doing away with the category of Best Latin Jazz Album. That means musicians who would have been in that category now have to compete in a larger jazz category.
The lawsuit calls for the category to be reinstated. The academy says the lawsuit is without merit.
Scripted series not a big summer draw for networksDavid Bauder, Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Television viewers aren’t too interested in scripted shows during the summer, at least not the shows that broadcast networks are offering.
Mostly, they’re reruns, and viewers are looking elsewhere.
Only three scripted series ranked among the Nielsen Co. top 10 last week: reruns of “NCIS” and “The Big Bang Theory” on CBS, and the summer cop show from Canada, “Flashpoint.” The paucity is even more pronounced among those ages 18 to 49, where the only scripted show in the top 10 was a cartoon, “Family Guy.”
“America’s Got Talent,” ”The Bachelorette” and “Big Brother” were big draws last week, Nielsen said.
But not every unscripted show is a hit. Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” is fading, and ABC’s “101 Ways to Leave a Game Show” hasn’t taken off. Both are winners compared to Jerry Seinfeld’s “The Marriage Ref” on NBC, which ranked No. 87 for the week with fewer than 3 million viewers.
Storm damages Ohio oak from ‘Shawshank Redemption’MANSFIELD, Ohio (AP) – A large oak tree that played a key role near the end of “The Shawshank Redemption” was heavily damaged during a storm last week.
The 1994 movie was filmed in and around the former Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield in north-central Ohio. The tree is where Morgan Freeman’s character finds money and a note left by Tim Robbins’ character.
The tree was hit Friday by straight-line winds that split it down its rotted middle and took out one side, Malabar Farm State Park manager Louis Andres told the News Journal of Mansfield (http://bit.ly/nMG68r ).
The tree near the state park is popular with tourists and is part of the local convention and visitors bureau’s “Shawshank Trail” that also includes the former reformatory that closed in 1990 and is now a museum. The trail leads travelers to 12 sites where the movie was filmed.
Lee Tasseff, president of the Mansfield-Richland County Convention and Visitors Bureau, called the damage to the tree “tragic.”
“It’s a very sentimental part of the trail,” he said.
Trail travelers can look to the left just past the state park entrance and see the site where Freeman’s character walked along a hayfield and removed stones from a rock wall where the money was buried. The movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including best actor for Freeman and best picture.
“There’s all kinds of people who have taken pictures at the tree,” Tasseff said.
He said some people had asked if they could propose under the tree or have a picnic under it, but that isn’t allowed because the tree is on private farmland.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the damaged tree would have to be cut down, the News Journal reported.
Judge tells Zediva to stop web streaming of movies
LOS ANGELES (AP) – A federal judge in Los Angeles issued a preliminary injunction favoring the Motion Picture Association of America in its copyright infringement lawsuit against video-streaming startup Zediva.
The MPAA said in a statement that Judge John Walter issued the order Monday against Zediva, whose founders believed they discovered a legal loophole to allow early instant viewing online by having customers rent DVDs physically located in Silicon Valley.
MPAA Senior Vice President Dan Robbins calls the decision a great victory for workers in the film and television industry.
Zediva said in a statement it intends to appeal, calling the ruling a setback for consumers looking for an alternative to Hollywood-controlled video services.
The MPAA, representing Hollywood studios, in April sued Zediva’s parent company WTV Systems and founder and CEO Venkatesh Srinivasan.
Studio sues pair over leaked ‘Twilight’ imagesLOS ANGELES (AP) – The makers of the “Twilight” movies have sued two people they claim are responsible for leaking images of unfinished scenes from the series finale “Breaking Dawn.”
A lawsuit filed Monday by Summit Entertainment in federal court in Los Angeles accuses Daiana and Hector Santia, who live in Argentina, of hacking into secure computers, stealing images and posting them on social networking sites.
The pair are accused of posting multiple images from “Breaking Dawn” online on March 31.
Attempts to reach them were not immediately succesful.
The lawsuit claims others who have not been identified may also be responsible.
Summit has blasted the leaks, saying it is unfair to the majority of “Twilight” fans to have unfinished work posted online.
Bunny costumes suit ‘Playboy Club’ actressesBEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) – The legendary Playboy bunny costume can be pretty snug, but it puts a wearer in the mood.
The actresses who star as those alluring waitresses in NBC’s “The Playboy Club” say dressing for the role made it easier to play.
Amber Heard plays Bunny Maureen in the upcoming series and says that when the suit goes on, “you are instantly transported back to that time.” The show is set in 1961.
During a meeting with reporters Monday, co-star Jenna Dewan Tatum agreed that it’s like “playing dress-up every day.”
Executive producer Chad Hodge confirmed the costumes are faithful re-creations of the circa-1960s originals, but they have ” a couple of invisible modifications” to provide a bit more comfort than before. He didn’t get specific.
“The Playboy Club” premieres Sept. 19.
