December 30, 2011
Myanmar artists test recent freedoms through filmYANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Artists in Myanmar are testing new freedoms through films shown at a festival that for the first time in the country’s recent history were not censored.
“The Art of Freedom Film Festival” began screening films on Saturday that were not approved by the strict Film Censorship Board.
Myanmar’s new nominally civilian government has relaxed some draconian security measures, although films are still supposed to pass the censorship board.
The event was organized by comedian Zarganar, film director Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Zarganar, who uses one name, was recently released from three years in prison. He described the festival as freedom of expression through film.
HK builder’s investment in Legendary East on holdHONG KONG (AP) – A Hong Kong construction company said Friday that a plan to invest $220.5 million in a Hollywood-China movie production venture is on hold because of rocky financial markets.
Paul Y. Engineering Ltd. said it couldn’t raise enough money from selling new shares to investors before a year-end deadline for the proposed – and unlikely – investment in Legendary East Ltd.
The construction company has said previously that the deal for a 50 percent stake in Legendary East Ltd., which aims to make big budget films for worldwide audiences, was aimed at diversifying its business. Executives believe China’s increasingly lucrative film market has great potential.
Chairman James Chiu said although the share sale had a “positive and substantial response” from investors, it was not enough to complete the share placement.
“We anticipate that under the current difficult environment of the capital markets the placing will not be able to close before” the deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, Chiu said.
The company said it will try again in 2012 by working with the partners to modify the structure of the deal.
Under the originally proposed deal, Hollywood production house Legendary Entertainment would have been left with a 40 percent stake in Legendary East while China’s Huayi Brothers Media Corp. would have the remaining 10 percent.
Legendary East, a Hong Kong-based venture that was announced in June, plans to make one or two big budget movies a year starting in 2013 for global audiences that are also commercially viable in China. The movies will be mainly in English and feature themes based on Chinese history, mythology or culture.
Legendary Entertainment has produced global blockbusters including “Inception” and the two “Hangover” movies. Huayi releases include the hit Feng Xiaogang disaster epic “Aftershock,” the kung fu drama “Shaolin” and the Tsui Hark fantasy epic “Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame.”
Chinese box office takings surged 64 percent to $1.5 billion in 2010 and are expected to grow 30 percent this year to $2 billion.
Marvel wins NYC dispute over Ghost Rider rights
Larry Neumeister
NEW YORK (AP) – Comic book publisher Marvel Entertainment owns the rights to the Ghost Rider character in the fiery form that originated in the early 1970s, a federal judge ruled Wednesday as she rejected the claims of a former Marvel writer seeking to cash in on lucrative movie rights.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest tossed out 4-year-old claims brought by Gary Friedrich, who said he created the motorcycle-driving Ghost Rider with the skeletal head that sometimes had fire blazing from it. A Ghost Rider of the 1950s and ’60s was a Western character who rode a horse.
The judge said Friedrich gave up all ownership rights when he signed checks containing language relinquishing all rights to the predecessor companies of Marvel Entertainment LLC.
“The law is clear that when an individual endorses a check subject to a condition, he accepts that condition,” the judge wrote.
Forrest said her finding made it unnecessary to “travel down the rabbit hole” to decide whether the character was created separate and apart from Marvel, whether the company hired Friedrich to create the character and whether he had thoughts about what rights he wanted to retain from the outset.
She said he also signed an agreement with Marvel in 1978 relinquishing rights in exchange for the possibility of additional future freelance work. He had worked for Marvel prior to that year as both an employee and as a freelance writer.
Telephone messages left with lawyers on both sides of the dispute were not immediately returned. Friedrich’s phone number in Columbia, Illinois, was unpublished.
Forrest said Friedrich began seeking legal representation when he realized about a dozen years ago that there were plans for new uses of the Ghost Rider character, including in movies. In April 2004, his lawyers began asserting rights to try to get him a financial cut of the first of two motion pictures. They failed.
In 2007, when the film “Ghost Rider” starring actor Nicolas Cage as stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze came out, Friedrich sued Marvel in East St. Louis, Illinois, seeking to assert his rights and gain compensation for use of the character in movies, video games, toys and promotional products.
The lawsuit was moved to New York. The movie credited Marvel as the author of the Ghost Rider characters and story. A movie sequel, “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance,” is scheduled to be released in February.
At a deposition in St. Louis last April, Friedrich testified that he stopped doing freelance comic book writing in 1978 when his alcoholism got “completely out of control,” and he spent a year traveling across the country in a truck with a friend. He said he became sober in January 1979.
He said he thought he had given Marvel the rights to use Ghost Rider in comic books, but that he retained the rights for movies and anything else. “Was that understanding ever reduced to writing? Marvel attorney David Fleischer asked. “No,” Friedrich answered.
SAG Awards Ballot Instructions Will be Mailed on Friday
LOS ANGELES — Ballot instructions to choose recipients of the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® for the Outstanding Performances of 2011 in five film and eight television categories will be mailed via postcard on Friday, Dec. 30, 2011 to the nearly 100,000 SAG members who are eligible to vote for this year’s Actors®.
In keeping with the SAG Awards commitment to green practices which last year saved the Guild 300 tons of paper, ballot information will be sent via postcard to SAG all members who paid their November 2011 dues by Friday, Dec. 16. Online voting is encouraged. Paper ballots may be obtained by request only by calling toll free (877) 610-8637 before 5 p.m. (PT) on Monday, Jan.16th. A list of this year’s Actor® nominees maybe found at sagawards.org.
All votes whether cast online or via paper ballot, must be received by Noon (PT) on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012 at Integrity Voting Systems, the Guild’s official teller. There results will be tallied and sealed until the envelopes are opened onstage at the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, Jan. 29. The awards ceremony will be telecast live from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center by TNT and TBS at 8 p.m. (ET) / 5 p.m. (PT). An encore presentation will follow immediately on TNT at 10 p.m. (ET) / 7 p.m. (PT).
SAG’s members will also be casting ballots for the 2012 SAG Honors for outstanding action performances by film and television stunt ensembles, the recipients of which will be announced during the annual Red Carpet Pre-Show webcast on TNT.tv and TBS.com, which begins at 6:00 p.m. (ET) / 3:00 p.m. (PT).
Oscar voters: Your ballots are in the mailLOS ANGELES (AP) – Academy Awards season is officially on. Nominations ballots for the 84th Oscar show have just gone in the mail.
Oscar organizers mailed ballots Tuesday to 5,783 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Ballots are due back Jan. 13, and Oscar nominations will be announced Jan. 24.
The Oscar ceremony is set for Feb. 26, with Billy Crystal returning as host for the first time in eight years.
Among this season’s best-picture prospects are the black-and-white silent film “The Artist,” the Deep South drama “The Help,” George Clooney’s family tale “The Descendants” and Steven Spielberg’s World War I epic “War Horse.”
Cheetah the chimp from 1930s Tarzan flicks dies
PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) – A Florida animal sanctuary says Cheetah the chimpanzee sidekick in the Tarzan movies of the early 1930s has died at age 80.
The Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor announced that Cheetah died Dec. 24 of kidney failure.
Sanctuary outreach director Debbie Cobb on Wednesday told The Tampa Tribune (http://bit.ly/rRuTeJ ) that Cheetah was outgoing, loved finger painting and liked to see people laugh. She says he seemed to be tuned into human feelings.
Based on the works of author Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Tarzan stories, which have spawned scores of books and films over the years, chronicle the adventures of a man who was raised by apes in Africa.
Cheetah was the comic relief in the Tarzan films that starred American Olympic gold medal swimmer Johnny Weissmuller. Cobb says Cheetah came to the sanctuary from Weissmuller’s estate sometime around 1960.
Cobb says Cheetah wasn’t a troublemaker. Still, sanctuary volunteer Ron Priest says that when the chimp didn’t like what was going on, he would throw feces.
Ex-‘Saturday Night Live’ writer Joe Bodolai diesLOS ANGELES (AP) – Former “Saturday Night Live” writer Joseph Bodolai has committed suicide in a Hollywood hotel room, the Los Angeles coroner’s office said Tuesday.
Coroner’s office spokesman Craig Harvey said room service staff found the body of the 63-year-old Bodolai at 1:30 p.m. Monday in a room at Hollywood’s Re-Tan Hotel. He checked into the hotel Dec. 19.
Harvey said Bodolai drank a mixture of Gatorade and antifreeze. The death, first reported by celebrity website TMZ, has been ruled a suicide.
Besides writing on 20 episodes of “Saturday Night Live” in 1981 and 1982, Bodolai was the TV producer for 20 episodes of “The Kids in the Hall” Canadian sketch comedy troupe.
Police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said there was no suicide note, however Bodolai apparently foreshadowed his suicide online.
The Los Angeles Times cited a lengthy post published Friday on a WordPress blog that appears to be registered to Bodolai. It was titled “If This Were Your Last Day Alive, What Would You Do?” and included Bodolai’s accomplishments and regrets.
A message on the Twitter account (at)joebodolai said “Goodbye” and had a link to the blog.
Independent verification as to the authenticity of the online posts could not be obtained.
TV producer won’t fight extradition to MexicoBy Linda Deutsch, Special Correspondent
LOS ANGELES (AP) – A reality show producer charged with murdering his wife during a Mexican vacation is dropping his extradition fight and will stand trial in Cancun, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Bruce Beresford-Redman’s attorney said the onetime “Survivor” producer has decided not to appeal a Los Angeles federal court ruling upholding his extradition to Mexico.
“He feels he is not going to prevail on appeal and he’d like to get moving on proving his innocence,” said attorney Richard Hirsch.
He said the producer could be sent to Mexico within 60 days following review of the extradition request by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Beresford-Redman, 40, is being held in a Los Angeles federal prison.
Monica Beresford Redman, 42, disappeared from a Cancun resort where the couple was vacationing with their two children last year. Her body was found stuffed in a sewer cistern.
“He is innocent and it is his hope that the court in Mexico will assure that he receives a fair trial in which, he is confident, he will be exonerated,” Hirsch said.
The family of Monica Beresford-Redman has said the couple went to Cancun to try to save their marriage. They claim Bruce Beresford-Redman, who is also the co-creator of the series “Pimp My Ride,” was having a long-term affair with another woman. His wife, originally from Brazil, owned and operated a restaurant in Los Angeles.
U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez upheld an extradition order earlier this month, saying that there are many pages of competent evidence supporting prosecution claims that the producer killed his wife.
“All of this evidence points to homicide committed by the fugitive,” said the judge’s ruling.
Prosecutors presented statements from hotel guests who said they heard loud arguing and cries of distress coming from the couple’s room on the night Monica Beresford-Redman went missing.
The producer’s attorneys have claimed the noises came from Beresford-Redman and his children playing loud games throughout the night. They introduced statements from the couple’s 6-year-old daughter to corroborate the claim, but judges who have reviewed the case were not swayed.
Beresford-Redman had been ordered to stay in Mexico after his wife’s body was found but he left and returned to his home in Los Angeles. He voluntarily surrendered to U.S. authorities after a warrant was issued in Mexico for his arrest.
Hirsch said that Beresford-Redman’s family has been in contact with a Mexican lawyer who will represent him at trial. Mexican courts do not have juries and the producer will be tried by the same judge who issued the warrant for his arrest, Hirsch said.
If he is convicted of aggravated homicide in Mexico, he faces 12 to 30 years in a Mexican prison.
His two small children have been placed in the custody of Beresford-Redman’s parents with visitation by their mother’s sisters.
LA’s ‘Wonderful Life’ Day honors Frank Capra filmBy John Rogers
LOS ANGELES (AP) – George Bailey can rest easy. He really did make a difference in the lives of people, including all 3.8 million in Los Angeles.
Bailey, for the one or two people who still haven’t seen the classic Frank Capra film “It’s A Wonderful Life,” is a man driven to the brink of suicide when he comes to believe his life never really mattered.
It’s up to his quirky guardian angel Clarence to set him straight by showing Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, what the world would have been like without him.
In honor of the film’s 65th anniversary, the City Council declared Friday “It’s A Wonderful Life Day” in Los Angeles.
To get people in the spirit, Councilman Tom LaBonge, several members of Capra’s family and a few others gathered at the director’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on a sunny holiday morning.
The section of the walk, it turns out, is one filled with cheesy souvenir shops and sex toy emporiums. They give it more the look of Pottersville, the disreputable place in the film that the evil banker Mr. Potter turns bucolic Bedford Falls into when Bailey isn’t there to stop him.
That didn’t dampen Friday’s celebration, however, which included Jimmy Hawkins, the actor who played Bailey’s 5-year-old son, Tommy.
As one of the last surviving cast members, the 70-year-old actor-producer said he considers it an honor to introduce new audiences to the movie.
When it debuted in theaters in 1946, “It’s A Wonderful Life” was actually a commercial and critical flop. But if that bothered Capra, he never let it show.
“My father always said that ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ was the best movie that he ever made,” Tom Capra said. “As a matter of fact, he said it was the best movie ever made.”
The film, whose story takes place at Christmas, became a holiday classic with the dawn of television, when families began to gather each holiday season to watch it.
“It carried with it the message that you can find in each of my dad’s films. The message of hope,” Capra said. “Maybe like George Bailey, we should pause for a brief moment and examine our lives and see if we can make a difference as long as we never give up.”
Richard Gere to receive George Eastman AwardROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) – Richard Gere is getting a George Eastman Award in upstate New York for his contributions to movies and humanitarian causes.
The star of such films as “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “Pretty Woman” will be honored Feb. 16 during a ceremony at Rochester’s George Eastman House, the restored home of the founder of photography pioneer Eastman Kodak Co.
Gere has appeared in more than 40 films. In 1991, he founded the Gere Foundation, which gives grants for public health, education and emergency relief in Tibet. He has long been prominent in the fight against HIV-AIDS.
Past recipients of the George Eastman Award include Lauren Bacall, Martin Scorsese and Meryl Streep.
Several US states weigh in on cigarette label suitMcihael Felberbaum, Tobacco Writer
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Several states and U.S. territories are weighing in on a lawsuit over proposed graphic cigarette warning labels that include a sewn-up corpse of a smoker and a picture of diseased lungs, saying the federal government should be allowed to require the labels for the “lethal and addictive” products.
The 24 attorneys general filed a friend of the court brief on Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington in support of the Food and Drug Administration’s challenge of a lower court ruling in the case.
Last month, a U.S. District Court judge granted a request by some of the nation’s largest tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Lorillard Tobacco Co., to block the labels while deciding whether the labels violate their free speech rights. The judge ruled it is likely the cigarette makers would succeed in a lawsuit to block the requirement that the labels be placed on cigarette packs next year.
Representatives for R.J. Reynolds declined to comment. Officials with Lorillard did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Saturday.
The tobacco companies have questioned the constitutionality of the labels, saying the warnings don’t simply convey facts to inform people’s decision whether to smoke but instead force the cigarette makers to display government anti-smoking advocacy more prominently than their own branding. They also say that changing cigarette packaging will cost millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the FDA has said that the public interest in conveying the dangers of smoking outweighs the companies’ free speech rights.
In the filing Friday, the attorneys general said that the First Amendment does not prevent the government from requiring that “lethal and addictive products carry warning labels that effectively inform consumers of the risks those products entail.”
“Over forty years’ experience with small, obscurely placed text-only warning labels on cigarette packs has demonstrated that they simply do not work,” they wrote. “The warning labels reflect the unique magnitude of the problem they address, the deadly and addictive nature of the product, and the unparalleled threat this product and its marketing pose to America’s youth.”
The brief was filed by attorneys general from Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, the Virgin Islands, Washington and West Virginia.
In June, the FDA approved nine new warning labels that companies are to print on the entire top half of cigarette packs, front and back. The new warnings, each of which includes a number for a stop-smoking hotline, must constitute 20 percent of cigarette advertising, and marketers are to rotate use of the images.
One label depicts a corpse with its chest sewn up and the words “Smoking can kill you.” Another shows a healthy pair of lungs beside a yellow and black pair with a warning that smoking causes fatal lung disease.
Joining North Carolina-based R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard in the lawsuit are Commonwealth Brands Inc., Liggett Group LLC and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Inc.
Richmond-based Altria Group Inc., parent company of the nation’s largest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, which makes top-selling Marlboros, is not a part of the lawsuit.
The free speech lawsuit is separate from a lawsuit by several of the same companies over the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. That law, which took effect two years ago, cleared the way for the more graphic warning labels. But it also allowed the FDA to limit nicotine and banned tobacco companies from sponsoring athletic or social events or giving away free samples or branded merchandise.
While the tobacco industry’s latest legal challenge may not hold up, it could delay the new warning labels for years. And that is likely to save cigarette makers millions of dollars in lost sales and increased packaging costs.
Tobacco companies are increasingly relying on their packaging to build brand loyalty and grab consumers. It’s one of few advertising levers left to them after the government curbed their presence in magazines, billboards and TV.
