November 5, 2010
Film About Suicide Wins Top Award at Rome festival
ROME (AP) – The Rome Film Festival has given its top award to a Belgian black comedy about suicide.
Organizers said Friday evening that Olias Barco’s “Kill Me Please,” shot in black and white, took the Marc’Aurelio prize for best film.
The Grand Jury Prize went to “In a Better World,” chosen last month by Denmark as its entry in the foreign-language film category at the next Academy Awards. Susanne Bier’s movie is about a doctor who returns to a small Danish town after working in a camp for refugees in Sudan.
Best actor honors went to Italy’s Toni Servillo, of “Gomorrah” fame, for “Una Vita Tranquilla.”
The entire female cast of Mexican film “Las Buenas Hierbas” won the best actress honors.
Nielsen: Nearly 1.5 million October Political Ads
NEW YORK (AP) – Television viewers were probably exposed to more political ads last month than ever before.
The Nielsen Co. said Friday that nearly 1.48 million political ads aired on local broadcast stations in October. That’s more than any other month since Nielsen began collecting that data in 2000.
Nielsen spokesman Aaron Lewis says the company is confident that there was no bigger number before that.
The previous high was 1.41 million ads in October 2008, a presidential election year.
The actual number of televised ads was higher. Nielsen’s count takes in 707 broadcast stations across the country, but does not include cable networks.
Music festival producer arrested on rape charge
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A man who produces two of New Orleans’ largest music festivals has been arrested on a rape charge.
Stephen Rehage (RE-haj), founder and producer of Voodoo Fest and producer of the Essence Music Festival, surrendered to police Friday. His bond was set at $10,000.
The Times-Picayune newspaper reports Rehage is accused in a police report of raping a woman he went on a date with in June.
This year’s installment of Voodoo Fest wrapped up Sunday after featuring performances by Ozzy Osbourne, Muse and My Morning Jacket. A former LSU football player, Rehage launched the festival in 1999. His company also took over production of the Essence Music Festival in 2008.
It was unclear whether Rehage has a lawyer. His publicist said she was preparing a statement Friday.
NYU Names Swizz Beatz Its Producer-in-Residence
NEW YORK (AP) – Music producer and rapper Swizz Beatz has been named the first producer-in-residence at NYU’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at the Tisch School of the Arts.
New York University said the appointment for the current academic year is immediate. Beatz will offer students one-on-one sessions, group lectures, songwriting critiques and mentoring.
His real name is Kasseem Dean. He is married to Alicia Keys and is a native of the South Bronx.
As a music producer, he has created hit songs for such artists as Beyonce, Lil Wayne, Metallica and Jay-Z.
The Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music provides professional business and artistic training toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
What? Online Video Distills a Don Draper Saying
NEW YORK (AP) – What?
On “Mad Men,” the Don Draper character has said it tersely, exasperatedly and tiredly.
Now a popular new online video has edited together all the times Golden Globe-winning actor Jon Hamm has said “What?” on the AMC show. More than 117,000 viewers have watched the clip on YouTube.
The video description claims Draper uses the word “as Van Gogh used color or Beethoven used sound.”
Hamm’s ad executive character has said “What?” at least 46 times with assorted inflections and variedly arched eyebrows. For Hamm’s often cutting ad executive, “What?” is often his sharpest verbal sword.
The video is reminiscent of an earlier online hit that assembled all of David Caruso’s opening one-liners on “CSI: Miami.” Nearly 5 million viewers have seen that video since it was posted in 2006.
‘Law & Order’ Finds Real Handgun During Filming
Lynn Elber, Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The discovery of a real gun brought real police officers to “Law & Order: Los Angeles” during location filming.
Series spokeswoman Pam Golum said the NBC crime drama was filming Wednesday in the Culver City area west of downtown Los Angeles when a cameraman spotted the weapon on a rock.
Los Angeles police spokeswoman Karen Rayner says the semiautomatic handgun was in working order. It will be test-fired, with the results logged for possible crime matches.
Skeet Ulrich and Corey Stoll, who star as detectives in the show, were on location for a scene in which they arrest a man for murder.
Kristin McCall appointed Quantel U.S. Broadcast Product SpecialistNewbury, UK, 3 November 2010: Quantel is delighted to announce the appointment of Kristin McCall as Broadcast Product Specialist for Quantel’s North American operations. McCall will be responsible for presenting Quantel’s Enterprise sQ broadcast solutions, with particular emphasis on Sports, 3D and News applications.
Kristin joins Quantel from one of Quantel’s largest broadcast customers, ESPN, where she was a senior editor and part of their creative development program which had responsibility for developing the skills of all of ESPN’s editorial staff. As well as being an accomplished editor, Kristin is also an experienced broadcast motion graphics designer, and helped enhance ESPN’s on-air look.
MGM files for bankruptcy with support of lenders
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., the home of James Bond, says it has filed for bankruptcy protection as the culmination of a long process to restructure its finances with the support of lenders.
The “pre-packaged” bankruptcy plan should allow MGM to emerge quickly. It’s set to merge with Spyglass Entertainment, whose co-CEOs will lead the company.
MGM lenders will trade about $4 billion in debt for stock in the new company.
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn was involved in the run-up to the filing, first backing a rival takeover attempt by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., then throwing his weight behind Spyglass last week.
Daily Variety Editor Says He’s Been Fired
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The editor of Daily Variety says he’s been fired.
Leo Wolinsky tells the New York Times that he was dismissed Monday, less than a year after joining the venerable movie trade publication. He didn’t provide details.
E-mails left for officials of the Los Angeles-based publication and its London owner, Reed Business Information, weren’t immediately returned Tuesday.
Wolinsky joined Variety last December after more than 30 years with the Los Angeles Times, where he became executive editor.
Variety, which was once on the desk of every movie mogul, is struggling to compete with online rivals and has cut jobs. Its print rival, The Hollywood Reporter, recently changed to a weekly publication and its editor, Elizabeth Guider, stepped down last month.
Firm Denies It misled NC candidate on Freeman ad
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – A Los Angeles political firm denies it misled a congressional candidate in North Carolina about a radio ad for the candidate using an actor that sounded like actor Morgan Freeman.
MEI Political said in a statement Tuesday it made clear verbally and in writing to Republican B.J. Lawson’s campaign that it was using a voice double of Freeman for the ad.
Lawson apologized Monday to Freeman after falsely claiming the actor had done a voiceover for his campaign. The campaign blamed MEI Political for the incorrect claim about the ad.
MEI’s statement says it discussed with Lawson’s campaign that Freeman was a Democrat and would probably never do an endorsement for a Republican candidate.
Lawson faces U.S. Rep. David Price, a Democrat, in Tuesday’s election.
Springsteen Rocks Rome Film FestROME (AP) – Bruce Springsteen rocked the Rome Film Festival when he showed up for the screening of a documentary on his famous 1978 album “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”
Hundreds of fans gathered Monday night to greet the Boss as he walked on the red carpet.
Organizers had to scramble with a surge in demand for tickets when the news spread days ago that Springsteen would attend the event.
The documentary “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town” features contemporary interviews with Springsteen and his band along with rehearsal and studio footage as they made the 1978 record. The documentary by Thom Zimny premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
Producer In Del. Disputes O’Donnell Claim About Ad
By Ben Evans
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) – A half-hour television ad for Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell was finally being aired on a Delaware public access channel after a day of delays.
The tea party favorite’s campaign blamed the channel for the delays and suggested that politics was involved in the mix up, but Tim Qualls, an independent producer who booked time for the program on Comcast’s channel 28, said it didn’t run as scheduled because O’Donnell’s campaign was late getting him the video.
Qualls said the campaign approached him Thursday about running the program this weekend. He said the campaign had a Friday deadline for getting him the video but didn’t deliver it until Sunday night.
Qualls, a Republican who said he voted for O’Donnell in the primary, called on O’Donnell to clarify that the campaign was at fault so the incident doesn’t hurt his reputation. He said he has been bombarded by nasty phone and e-mail messages, some including threats.
“I want something coming from her office saying something on this,” he said. “Don’t make me look like I forgot … I got like 200 e-mails from people cussing me out.”
O’Donnell’s campaign released a statement Monday afternoon calling it a “misunderstanding” that also involved a third-party broker.
“Mr. Qualls is being incredibly cooperative now,” the statement said. “We are sincerely sorry for any misunderstanding that has transpired.”
Qualls said the video is now running twice Monday and four times Tuesday.
O’Donnell’s campaign, which last week feuded with a conservative talk show host and has repeatedly fought with the state’s largest newspaper, had notified supporters that the promotional video was scheduled to run Sunday night and twice Monday.
When it didn’t, she sent a Twitter message saying she was told the station “‘forgot’ to air it both times … even though we paid for the time slot last week.”
“Dirty politics again?” another message said.
The ad features O’Donnell supporters talking about their struggles in the weak economy and criticizing the policies coming from Washington.
CNN Hires Former CNBC Exec Producer to Produce Morgan
NEW YORK (AP) – Former CNBC and NBC executive Jonathan Wald is CNN’s choice to be the backstage man in charge of CNN’s new Piers Morgan talk show.
Wald left as senior vice president of CNBC last year after five years running the business network’s news operation. Previously, he was executive producer of NBC’s “Today” show and “NBC Nightly News” when Tom Brokaw was anchor.
Morgan, a veteran British journalist known primarily in the U.S. as a judge on “America’s Got Talent,” was picked by CNN to replace Larry King in CNN’s prime-time lineup. His show at 9 p.m. Eastern will debut in January.
Wald said Monday that he hopes to produce a show that will “live in the center lane of American conversation.”
Eckhart Says Filming ‘Rabbit Hole’ Was Challenging
By Alessandra Rizzo
ROME (AP) – Aaron Eckhart, who plays a father in mourning in the drama “Rabbit Hole” opposite Nicole Kidman, said Monday he prepared for the movie by going to a “harrowing” session of a grief group, but turned to the Internet to avoid intruding on others’ private pain.
Eckhart said he can’t even pretend to come close to the feeling of someone who has lost a child, as his character experiences in the film, but he and Kidman tried to show how a couple can be intimate but unable to communicate with each other at that point in their relationship.
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell, “Rabbit Hole” looks at how each of the parents copes with the loss of their 4-year-old son and what impact it has on them as a couple. Eckhart’s Howie holds on to reminders of his son; Kidman’s Becca tries to throw them away and seeks to sell their house.
“I don’t pretend to even come close to that feeling,” Eckhart told The Associated Press at the Rome Film Festival, where the movie was presented. “As an actor if you haven’t experienced it first hand, then you make substitutions.”
One day Eckhart went to a grief group – as his character does in the movie – under the pretext that he was a grieving parent. He said he found that “harrowing and somewhat unethical” and didn’t go back. Instead, he watched video blogs posted by people after suffering a loss.
“They are very intense and very heart-wrenching,” he told a press conference in Rome. “It’s easy to be an actor after you’ve watched those video blogs because the pain just permeates them.”
Filming was intense, he said, and at one point some of the cast was sharing a house in Long Island to get to know each other. On set, the actors tried to keep the tone light, but still “there were times we were all crying all during the day.”
The 42-year-old actor also spoke of his relationship with Kidman, who produced the movie, and of the main challenge he faced in the role.
In the movie, the two characters are grieving at different paces and are unable to connect emotionally or sexually. They seek connection with other people – Becca with the boy who killed her son in a car accident; Howie with a fellow parent who attends his grief group.
“What I wanted to achieve in this movie with Nicole was the intimacy – a relationship over 10-20 years, having the physical and emotional intimacy and yet not being able to connect with each other,” Eckhart said. “On a daily basis, that was the challenge.”
“Rabbit Hole” also stars Dianne Wiest as Kidman’s mother and Sandra Oh of “Grey’s Anatomy” as the grieving parent in Eckhart’s group.
Jim Loach’s Debut Film Deals With Child Abuse
By Alessandra Rizzo
ROME (AP) – The first feature film by Jim Loach looks at the true story of the deportation of thousands of children from Britain to Australia and the abuse they suffered. The director said he sees it as a tale of survival and the indomitable human spirit.
Loach, English director Ken Loach’s son, told The Associated Press on Sunday that he was fascinated by the woman who uncovered the scandal and is at the center of the movie: a social worker who worked doggedly to reunite families and bring authorities to account. He became fascinated by the personalities of the former child migrants, some of whom he met, and questions of identity.
Ultimately, he felt the story needed to be told.
“The story itself was shocking and appalling and amazing,” Loach said at the Rome film festival, where “Oranges and Sunshine” was presented. “We couldn’t believe that it had happened and we were amazed that so little had been said about it.”
Under the program, between 1920 to 1960s, an estimated 150,000 British children were sent to Australia and other distant colonies. The program was intended to ease pressure on British social services and provide the children with a fresh start (“oranges and sunshine”), but many of them ended up in institutions where they were physically and sexually abused, or were sent to work as farm laborers.
Both Australia and Britain have apologized recently for the child migrant program.
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this year that he sorry for the “shameful” and “misguided” program. In Australia, Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called the caretakers in Australia “a ring of pedophiles” as he apologized last year for his country’s role in the scheme.
In the movie, the story is told through the eyes of social worker Margaret Humphreys, played my Emily Watson, the Oscar-nominated British actress.
Humphreys almost stumbles across the story.
On one night in No ttingham, she is approached by a woman who says she was put on a boat to Australia when she was a little girl in a children’s home. She wants to find her true identity. From that moment on, Humphreys discovers hundreds of cases, hearing about the horrific abuse and hardship the children, now adults, lived through. She travels to Australia and confronts authorities, at the detriment of her own personal life and health.
“She was battling to overcome the odds,” said Loach. “For us it was a survivor’s story. It was about the human spirit.”
Watson told reporters in Rome this week that, as she was reading the script, she became “emotionally involved by the end of page 2.”
Loach met with Humphreys, who’s written a book about the case, and with several former child migrants. As he heard about their “utterly compelling and shocking” stories, he started combining different aspects of their personalities to form the characters in the movie.
He said his father has watched “Oranges and Sunshine” and liked it. He also helped with the script and in the cutting room.
Speaking of his father’s influence, Loach said that growing up he was always encouraged to have an inquisitive mind and search out stories, especially ones “that were inherently contradictory and dramatic and important to be told.”
MGM Says Creditors Approve Spyglass Merger
By Ryan Nakashima, Business Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Creditors of struggling Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. have voted to approve a merger with Spyglass Entertainment, MGM said.
The approval came with the backing of billionaire investor Carl Icahn, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The person was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Icahn, a significant holder of MGM’s debt, voted for the Spyglass plan even though he had publicly supported a rival bid from Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., in exchange for representation on MGM’s board, the person said.
More than half of the creditors, holding more than two-thirds of the $4 billion in debt outstanding, needed to support the plan.
The news of Icahn’s support for the plan was earlier reported by the Los Angeles Times.
In a statement late Friday, MGM said the secured lenders voting in the process had “overwhelmingly approved its p roposed plan of reorganization.”
The plan had included a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy. MGM said it would move “expeditiously” to implement the plan.
Spyglass co-CEOs Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum are now set to head the storied studio behind the James Bond franchise which also owns half the rights to the upcoming movies based on “The Hobbit.”
Icahn, who also holds more than a third of Lions Gate’s shares, had been buying up MGM debt in order to better control the outcome of the vote.
Lions Gate, upset at Icahn’s strategizing, sued him Thursday for first opposing its deal, the backing it after he had bought up stakes in both sides of the deal in order to maximize his profits. Lions Gate said Icahn had obtained $500 million in debt at cut-rate prices without notifying other shareholders of his intentions.
Lions Gate had pressed its case strongly in the past week, detailing its proposal in a securities filing and touting its management’s expertise even in its suit against Icahn.
