June 17, 2011
Black’s popular ‘Friday’ video pulled off YouTube
Derrik J. Lang, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Rebecca Black’s official “Friday” music video has been taken off YouTube.
The page where the video starring the 13-year-old singer once played now says it “is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Rebecca Black.”
Black’s spokesman says her team sent a takedown notice to YouTube because of a dispute over the video with Ark Music Factory, the company Black’s parents paid $4,000 to produce the song and video.
Earlier this week, the firm began charging viewers $2.99 to watch the clip.
Lawyers for Black and Ark Music have been haggling over who owns the rights to everything associated with “Friday” since it became a sensation earlier this year.
The video had amassed more than 160 million views and more than 3 million “dislikes.”
2011 Songwriters Hall inductees
John Carucci
NEW YORK (AP) – The Songwriters Hall of Fame has honored the likes of Garth Brooks, Leon Russell and Allen Toussaint at its annual gala in New York City.
Amid the famous faces, some of Thursday night’s inductees weren’t so familiar – that is, until you heard the songs they penned.
Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly might be able to walk the streets in anonymity, but they’ve written some famously catchy hits, including Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors,” Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional,” and The Pretenders “I’ll Stand By You.”
“It was pretty risque at the time,” Kelly said of the Madonna song. “It took us about a month to finally, accidentally fall into what it ended up.”
John Bettis, who wrote Madonna’s hit, “Crazy For You,” along with hit songs for the Carpenters, Diana Ross, and The Pointer Sisters, was another inductee. He wrote “Human Nature” for Michael Jackson, which Skylar Grey performed at the event.
Bill Medley, of The Righteous Brothers fame, was there to present Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil with the Johnny Mercer Award. The married duo wrote the mega-hit, “You Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.”
“We were just lucky that they wrote that song for us,” Medley said.
The song has had more than 14 million airplays, and still going strong.
As for the show, artists joined inductees on stage. Key performances included Dwight Yoakam performing “Superstar” with Russell; Boz Scaggs and Toussaint doing “What Do you Want the Girl to Do”; and Trisha Yearwood doing a Hal David Medley.
Chaka Khan sang Ashford and Simpson’s “I’m Every Woman,” and rapper Drake performed his hit, “Best I Ever Had.”
Billy Joel inducted Brooks, and later performed a duet of Brooks 1991 hit, “Shameless,” which was written by Joel. Brooks was ecstatic.
“You talk about songwriters, there’s one of the greatest songwriters of all time,” Brooks said of Joel. And he’s taken a day out of his life to do this, I feel very lucky.”
Joel loves the idea of other artist recording his material, but claims he never intended to be a rock star.
“I don’t even like my own voice, I don’t. I don’t think I’m a good singer. I think I’m a good songwriter,” Joel said.
Women in Film honors Annette Bening, Katie Holmes
Sandy Cohen, Entertainment Writer
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) – Annette Bening, Katie Holmes, CBS President Nina Tassler, director Pamela Fryman and cinematographer Reed Morano have been recognized as leaders in their fields by Women in Film.
The nonprofit group honored the women Thursday at its annual Crystal and Lucy awards ceremony in Beverly Hills.
In accepting her award, Bening said she is “entering into a new phase” and “beginning again” and hinted at some interesting projects in the coming year. Holmes thanked her parents, who were in the audience, and husband Tom Cruise, “whose commitment to his work and family inspires me daily.”
Tassler oversees primetime, daytime and late-night programming at CBS. Fryman is a director of “How I Met Your Mother.” Morano’s credits include 2008’s “Frozen River.”
Elizabeth Taylor was also recognized for her humanitarian efforts. Her granddaughter Naomi Wilding accepted the award.
Women in Film President Cathy Shulman dedicated the evening to Laura Ziskin, the “Spider Man” producer and Stand Up To Cancer co-founder producer who died earlier this week of breast cancer.
“Bridesmaids” star Melissa McCarthy sang and danced as host of the fundraising event at the Beverly Hilton hotel, where Martin Sheen, Geena Davis, Neil Patrick Harris, Elle Fanning and Jenna Elfman were among the celebrity guests.
Women in Film was established in 1973 to help women succeed in the entertainment industry by providing scholarships, classes and other services and support.
Online: www.wif.org
Debbie Reynolds auctions off Hollywood treasures
Lynn Elber, Television Writer
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) – Debbie Reynolds still knows how to make a splash.
She was a teenage charmer opposite Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain,” earned an Oscar nomination for her gutsy character in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” and, at 79, is going strong as a nightclub and theater performer.
On Saturday, Reynolds will demonstrate her flair with an auction of movie memorabilia she’s gathered over four decades and which includes costumes evoking some of filmdom’s greatest stars and roles.
Among them: The Marilyn Monroe dress that flirted with a subway gust in “The Seven Year Itch,” Audrey Hepburn’s stunning black-and-white Ascot race scene gown designed by Cecil Beaton for “My Fair Lady,” and Elizabeth Taylor’s pint-sized race togs from “National Velvet” and towering headdress from “Cleopatra.”
“I consider myself a fan. I’m a fan who was lucky enough to be among stars, so I collected them,” Reynolds said during an auction preview at the Paley Center for Media.
Profiles in History, the auction house, estimates the nearly 600 items could bring up to $10 million in the sale that will also be conducted online. More of Reynolds’ treasure trove is to be sold in December.
Taylor, who died in March, is among the best-represented stars in Reynolds’ collection – an irony, since Reynolds became the victim in one of Hollywood’s most famous love triangles when singer Eddie Fisher divorced her for Taylor.
The two women eventually appeared to put the past behind them: They co-starred in a 2001 TV movie, “These Old Broads,” and Taylor ended up contributing to Reynolds’ collection.
When a costume worn in “Cleopatra” by Taylor’s late ex-husband Richard Burton came on the market, Reynolds called Taylor for help in buying the expensive item. The pitch: it would be reunited with Taylor’s Cleopatra memorabilia.
“I really need it because I have you,” Reynolds recalled telling her in a phone call. “So she sent me the money for the costume.”
Other pieces up for grabs include costumes worn by Yul Brynner in “The King and I,” Greta Garbo in “Anna Karenina” and Marlon Brando in “Mutiny on the Bounty,” along with props such as a guitar used by Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music.”
Reynolds’ latest acquisition was the “My Fair Lady” gown, which she bought for $100,000 at auction.
There are a number of Monroe costumes, which hold appeal for Reynolds because she knew the actress (“A sweet girl,” Reynolds says) but also because they’re beautifully designed and made.
Hollywood designers and seamstresses clearly knew their stuff, but why did Reynolds decide to become a keeper of the flame?
“It was inspired by shock,” she said, when MGM decided in 1970 to auction off its vast number of costumes and props. “I was just emotional about it.”
Cringing at the thought of fabled costumes turned into Halloween party duds, Reynolds recalls raising her hand over and over at the weeks-long auction and raiding her bank accounts. More pieces came from subsequent Fox and Paramount studio sales, as well as individuals.
The auction represents the end of a dream. Reynolds’ combined casino-hotel and museum in Las Vegas closed and Reynolds planned to relocate the museum to Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Last year, Reynolds’ son, Todd Fisher, said the project had to file for bankruptcy protection and the collection would be sold to satisfy creditors.
Reynolds, still the petite, pretty blonde who captured Kelly’s heart in their 1952 musical, is regretful but not maudlin. She jokes about how her daughter, writer-actress Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” films) views her passion.
“She looks on it in amazement and awe and thinks we’re completely out of our minds,” said Reynolds, referring to herself and her co-conspirator son. Todd Fisher handled technology for the defunct museum and set up the auction display, including movie clips showing featured costumes.
Reynolds, who takes her act on the road 42 weeks a year to theaters, nightclubs, Indian reservations, “anywhere they hire me,” said the auction will give her breathing room.
She loves entertaining but also has been driven by the costly demands of her cherished collection.
“I won’t have so many children to take care of,” she said, “so I won’t have quite so much responsibility and I can rest a little more.”
Online: http://www.profilesinhistory.com
Judge delays ruling on access to Jackson footage
Linda Deutsch, Special Correspondent
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Lawyers for Michael Jackson’s doctor and Sony Pictures aired some of their dispute Thursday over release of unused footage from the star’s posthumous concert film, “This Is It.”
But the judge presiding over the involuntary manslaughter case of Dr. Conrad Murray delayed ruling on the issue, citing confusion about exactly what the defense wants to see.
Lawyers for Sony said the defense request had “changed radically” in recent days, and the entertainment company wanted more time to research the matter and file additional legal briefs.
Sony attorney Gary Bostwick said the subpoena for raw footage has now changed to a request for film from two of Jackson’s personal video cameras.
Defense lawyers said earlier they wanted all raw footage of Jackson’s rehearsals for what was to have been a live concert in London.
Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor said he was sensitive to whether the request is merely a fishing expedition. He said release of any footage would come with restrictions to prevent it from being disseminated on the Internet and elsewhere.
“If Michael Jackson materials are just out there, there could be amazing consequences for Sony and the Jackson estate,” the judge said. “I’m not inclined to order that they just turn them over.”
Bostwick added, “We will continue to be very concerned that anything shown in court leaks out and goes viral.”
But he acknowledged that once the video becomes a trial exhibit, it will be difficult to keep it secret
Prosecutors plan to use clips from the theatrically released, “This Is It” to show jurors in Murray’s trial that Jackson was in good health just before he died.
The defense wants to show otherwise. Those lawyers contend scenes showing Jackson in frail health during rehearsals may have been edited out of the movie.
Lawyers have said there are more than 100 hours of footage from which the movie was culled.
Murray lawyer Ed Chernoff said he learned recently that footage was recorded by Jackson’s personal camera crew operating two cameras.
“If it’s more than those two cameras, yes, we are asking for all the footage,” he said.
Another hearing was set for June 24, just before the second anniversary of Jackson’s death.
Murray has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Jackson’s death from an overdose of the anesthetic propofol and other sedatives. Trial is set for September.
Emmy-winning TV producer Bob Banner dies at 89
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Television producer and director Bob Banner, whose credits included the Dinah Shore, Garry Moore and Carol Burnett variety shows as well as the TV movies “The Darker Side of Terror,” ”My Sweet Charlie” and “Sea Wolf,” has died at age 89.
Banner died Wednesday of Parkinson’s disease at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement community in suburban Woodland Hills, family spokeswoman Lauren Cottrell told the Los Angeles Times.
Born in Ennis, Texas, Banner began his career in Chicago in 1948 as a production assistant on the children’s puppet show “Kukla, Fran & Ollie.”
In a Dallas Morning News interview in 2000, the Northwestern University graduate told of his initial embarrassment at working on the show.
“I didn’t want to tell the people at Northwestern that I had been assigned to do a puppet show. … A puppet show didn’t seem quite like theater at Northwestern,” Banner said.
When “Kukla” became a hit, however, Banner boasted of his role.
“I went around Northwestern saying I was on ‘The Kukla, Fran & Ollie’ show,” he said. “This show I didn’t want to admit I was involved with changed my life.”
He later produced and directed “The Fred Waring Show” and went on to be a director on “Omnibus,” hosted by Alistair Cooke.
Banner won a directing Emmy in 1958 for “The Dinah Shore Chevy Show.”
Banner went on to produce Burnett TV specials, including “Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall” and “Carol Plus Two,” before he became executive producer of “The Carol Burnett Show.”
Burnett said Banner talked her into opening the show with questions and answers.
“He said, ‘Carol, you can’t just go out and do sketches. The audience has to get to know you first as a person.’ I said, ‘I can’t do that. I’d be terrified that, A, the audience wouldn’t ask anything and, B, that they would.’ But he talked me into it, and it became one of my favorite things to do,” Burnett said in an interview.
Banner’s executive producer credits also included “The Jimmy Dean Show,” ”Solid Gold,” ”Star Search” and “It’s Showtime at the Apollo.”
He was also executive producer of the 1988 AIDS benefit concert “That’s What Friends Are For,” hosted by Dionne Warwick.
Banner is survived by his wife, Alice, and sons Baird, Robert and Chuck.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
Oscars to allow 5 to 10 best picture nominees
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has approved a change in the nominations process that will allow between five and 10 best picture nominees.
The board voted Tuesday to approve the change.
The number of nominees won’t be announced until the best picture nominees are announced in January.
Ten best-picture nominations were announced for this year’s and last year’s Oscars. In previous years it was five.
Says retiring Academy Executive Director Bruce Davis: “If there are only eight pictures that truly earn that honor in a given year, we shouldn’t feel an obligation to round out the number.”
Advertising Agency Settles Multi-State Attorney General Investigation Alleging False Advertising
By Jeff Greenbaum & Michael Schiffer, Frankfurt Kurnit Advertising Group
NEW YORK-Advertising agency Action Integrated Marketing recently entered into a settlement agreement with ten attorneys general, resolving allegations that the advertising agency created advertisements that misled consumers about the origins of cars that it was advertising. As part of the settlement, the advertising agency agreed to pay $150,000.
According to the allegations in one of the complaints, Action Integrated Marketing misrepresented that the cars were from “…some source other than the dealers’ normal used vehicle inventory by using such terms as, ‘The Repo Joe Sale,’ ‘Bought from Independent Appraisers,’… ‘Police Seized Vehicle Selloff.'” The attorney general group — consisting of the attorneys general from Washington, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — alleged that, not only were the advertising claims untrue, but they created a false sense of urgency to purchase.
Significantly, the multi-state investigation appeared to be directed only at the advertising agency, and not at the advertising agency’s clients, i.e., the auto dealers. This investigation is an important reminder that advertising agencies, along with clients, may be held liable for false advertising claims. This may also signal increased interest by regulators — which had waned in recent years — in pursuing ad agencies for their participation in the production of false advertising. .
This investigation is also a warning for ad agencies to review their in-house clearance standards and procedures.
Saxophonist Clemons suffers stroke
Nekesa Mumbi Moody, Music Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Saxophonist Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band has suffered a stroke.
A person who has worked with Clemons in the past confirmed Sunday night that Clemons had the stroke. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on the matter. The person had no additional information on Clemons’ condition.
Clemons, 69, is known as the Big Man in the E Street Band and his sax has been one of the most defining elements of the band’s sound. He has suffered from numerous ailments over the last few years. He had double knee surgery and even had to perform from a wheelchair at one point.
But his health seemed to be improving. Just last month, he performed with Lady Gaga on the season finale of “American Idol.”
Lady Gaga tweeted Monday morning that “my very close friend + musician on The Edge of Glory, Clarence Clemons is very sick. Can we all make some get well videos?”
Drummer and music industry executive Narada Michael Walden, whom Clemons has called a close friend and spiritual adviser, replied to an email query Monday about Clemons by responding, “Love and prayers to the Big Man! He is our Hero!”
Clemons’ nephew, saxophonist Jake Clemons, updated his Facebook status on Monday to say: “Please do not lose Hope!”
Kiley Armstrong in New York City contributed to this report.
Hollywood producer honors Shanghai roots in film
Min Lee, Entertainment Writer
SHANGHAI (AP) – Mike Medavoy walked the red carpet, mingled with Chinese studio executives and attended industry seminars. But unlike other Hollywood producers pressing the flesh at the Shanghai International Film Festival, he isn’t just shopping for projects in what is fast becoming America’s hottest foreign movie market.
For the producer who worked on films like “Rocky,” ”Apocalypse Now” and “The Terminator,” the festival is a homecoming of sorts. Medavoy was born in Shanghai in 1941 to Russian-Jewish parents and lived there for six years before moving with his family to Chile and then the U.S. His grandfather moved to Shanghai to avoid the pogroms of imperial Russia.
And now the veteran producer has found the perfect project to honor his Chinese roots – an adaptation of a Chinese love story set against World War II-era Shanghai, where many European Jews sought refuge from persecution.
Medavoy announced on Monday that he and partner Shanghai Film Group will turn Chinese author Bei La’s “The Cursed Piano” into a feature film and shoot an accompanying six-hour TV miniseries exploring the Jewish experience in Shanghai, based on the Daniella Kuhn story “Tears of the Sparrow.”
“I feel a great deal of responsibility to get this story told,” Medavoy said.
“My fear of course is based on the fact that I have to measure up not only to the standards that these gentlemen have set for the project,” he said, referring to his Chinese partners, “but I also have to measure up to my own standards and the standards my parents brought to me when they decided to have me born here.”
Medavoy said he hoped to complete the project while his 90-year-old mother is still alive.
He received a vote of confidence from Bei.
“I think he will create something outstanding by pouring in his own emotions and his parents’ emotions,” Bei said.
Medavoy shared vignettes from his family history. He said his father became a car mechanic in Shanghai at age 12 before shifting to a telephone company. When the Medavoy family moved to Chile, his employment options were limited because he didn’t speak Spanish – but he could fall back on the car repair skills he had picked up in Shanghai.
Medavoy’s Shanghai heritage has cropped up quite a few times since the festival kicked off on Saturday.
He proudly told a red carpet interviewer at the opening ceremony that he was born in Shanghai.
Speaking at a panel discussion on film finance on Sunday, he described his parents’ emotional return to Shanghai 18 years ago, when they traveled with him to the inaugural Shanghai International Film Festival.
“As soon as I got down (from the plane) and my father started walking out of the Shanghai airport, he started to cry,” Medavoy said.
Asked why he was so upset, his father responded, “I’m crying because this is the place that saved our lives. I don’t think any of us would have existed without the friendship of the Chinese people during the war.”
“The Cursed Piano” is not Medavoy’s first Shanghai-related project. He also developed the script for the 2010 film “Shanghai,” a World War II-era thriller starring John Cusack, Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li and Ken Watanabe, but later sold it to fellow American producer Harvey Weinstein.
“Sommersby” and “The Human Stain” screenwriter Nicholas Meyer is to pen the “Cursed Piano” script.
Murdoch urges China to open up film market
SHANGHAI (AP) – Hoping that the record-breaking Chinese revenues from “Avatar” can be replicated many times over, Rupert Murdoch has urged Beijing to further open up its movie market at the country’s leading international film festival.
Murdoch and his Chinese-born wife, Wendi Deng, walked the red carpet at the Shanghai International Film Festival’s opening ceremony Saturday alongside Hollywood stars including Susan Sarandon and Matt Dillon. A day later, pageantry gave away to tough talk.
Speaking before a panel discussion on film finance attended by a top Chinese film regulator, the Australian-born media mogul said Sunday that “the promise” of China’s huge investment in screen infrastructure “has not been fully realized because market access remains so restricted.”
US, Chinese stars usher in Shanghai film festival
Min Lee, Entertainment Writer
SHANGHAI (AP) – Susan Sarandon cracked jokes with Chinese actor Zhang Guoli. Matt Dillon tried out his Mandarin and Rupert Murdoch touted the new movie his Chinese-born wife is producing.
Hollywood’s elite joined China’s biggest stars at the Shanghai Grand Theater to usher in the 14th edition of the country’s leading international film festival on Saturday – in a sign of respect for what is fast becoming one of the American movie industry’s key foreign markets.
Chinese box office numbers surged 64 percent to hit $1.5 billion in 2010. And despite import restrictions that effectively limit the country to 20 foreign blockbusters a year, American movies are doing brisk business. Last year, the James Cameron 3-D sci-fi epic “Avatar” – distributed by the Hollywood studio Fox, a unit of Murdoch’s media company News Corp. – brought in $204 million as it became China’s top-grossing release in history.
Keen to gain exposure in this blossoming market, American stars were well-represented on the red carpet that kicked off the Shanghai International Film Festival in the eastern financial center.
It was Sarandon’s first visit to China, but she wasted no time in picking up on local cultural cues. After receiving a lifetime achievement award from festival organizers, she jokingly asked veteran actor Zhang to give her acceptance speech on her behalf. Zhang had just finished delivering a lengthy ribbing to Chinese director Feng Xiaogang, who was honored for outstanding achievement to Chinese cinema.
The “Thelma and Louise” star then invited Zhang to a game of table tennis. Sarandon owns several table tennis clubs and bars in the U.S.
“Maybe he’ll play pingpong with me if we open one in Shanghai. And that would be a good excuse to come back to China,” she said.
Zhang stood up and obliged and joked that he was an ace player.
“My acting is much better than my pingpong. Maybe you can wear a blindfold,” Sarandon responded.
Sarandon’s appearance is telling because she has been critical of the Chinese government in the past, joining other Hollywood celebrities in signing letters urging Beijing to ease up on film censorship and calling on Washington to scrutinize China’s human rights record.
Earlier, Dillon stumbled through the Chinese greeting “Shanghai Film Festival: Here I am” on the red carpet and then thanked fans for braving the heavy rain.
Mischa Barton from the American teen TV drama “The O.C.” also greeted fans.
Barton, Dillon and Sarandon were in Shanghai just to attend the opening ceremony. None of the three is promoting movies at the festival.
Murdoch also attended with his third wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch, and was quick to mention the upcoming film she is producing, Chinese-American director Wayne Wang’s adaptation of the novel “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” which stars Chinese actress Li Bingbing and South Korea’s Jun Ji-hyun.
“I’m very proud of my wife and her film ‘Snow Flower,'” Murdoch said.
Murdoch and wife and Fox Film Entertainment Chief Executive Jim Gianopulos are also scheduled to speak at a panel discussion on film finance on Sunday.
An American director is chairing the jury for the Shanghai festival’s Golden Goblet prizes. “Rain Man” director Barry Levinson is leading a seven-person panel that also includes British screenwriter Christopher Hampton, Japanese director Yoichi Sai, French-Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung, Spanish actress Paz Vega, Chinese director Wang Quanan and Chinese actress Zhang Jingchu.
A second panel headed by Japanese filmmaker Shunji Iwai will hand out prizes to promising young Asian directors.
The Shanghai International Film Festival runs until June 19.
Online: http://www.siff.com
‘King’s Speech’ actor Colin Firth honored by queen
Meera Selva
LONDON (AP) – British actor Colin Firth won an Oscar for portraying King George VI in “The King’s Speech,” and now the king’s daughter Queen Elizabeth II will give him another prize.
Firth, who won acclaim for his portrayal of a troubled monarch working to overcome his stutter to make a radio broadcast at the beginning of World War II, will be named a Commander of the British Empire or CBE in the Birthday Honors List published Saturday.
Queen Elizabeth II turned 85 in April, but she has traditionally celebrated an “official” birthday on June 11.
Britain’s honors are bestowed twice a year by the monarch – at New Year’s and on her official birthday in June – but recipients are selected by committees of civil servants from nominations made by the government and the public.
In descending order, the honors are knighthoods, CBE, OBE and MBE – Member of the Order of the British Empire. Knights are addressed as “sir” or “dame.” Recipients of the other honors have no title but can put the letters after their names.
Most of the honors go to people who are not in the limelight, for services to their community or industry, but they also reward a sprinkling of famous faces. This year, 965 people will receive awards. Bank of England Gov. Mervyn King will receive an enhanced knighthood – a Knight Grand Cross. Robert Edwards, who won a Nobel Prize in 2010 for his work on in-vitro fertilization, will also receive a knighthood.
Singer and songwriter Bryan Ferry will also receive a CBE while golfer Lee Westwood and cricket captain Andrew Strauss will each receive an OBE or Order of the British Empire.
Artist Sam Taylor-Wood and jazz singer Claire Martin will also receive OBEs.
