Langfield
Entertainment
40
Asquith Ave., Suite 207, Toronto, ON
M4W 1J6
(416)
677-5883
langfieldent@rogers.com
www.langfieldentertainment.com
NEWSLETTER
Updated: January 6, 2005
Welcome to 2005 folks!
In the wake of the tsunami disaster, it seems that lots of people stayed in this
year for New Years Eve. Please review
all the fundraising opportunities below under MUSIC NEWS to help out the
victims of this horrific ending to 2004.
IRIE is in the news –
Toronto Life news, that is. Check out
an except from the current edition below and remember that Irie is still the
hot spot on Monday nights – last week stayed in the tradition of a really fun
party!
You
HAVE to check out the upcoming television premiere of Hotel Babylon taking place on
January 25th. I saw an
advance screening this week – look for all the information under SCOOP. Note:
My good friend Awaovieyi Agie is the star of the show and gives a riveting
performance! Lots more year-end lists
below under different genres. Check
out the rest of the entertainment news below - MUSIC NEWS, FILM NEWS, TV NEWS, OTHER NEWS, and
SPORTS NEWS! Have a read and a
scroll!
This newsletter is designed to give you some updated
entertainment-related news and provide you with our upcoming event
listings. Welcome to those who are new members. Want your events
listed by date? Check out EVENTS.
::HOT EVENTS::
Irie Mondays
Monday nights at IRIE continue their tradition. What a great party last week!
The cold weather didn’t stop these Irie party patrons from coming
out. And the art! You just have to see it to believe it. Carl Cassell’s original art and IRIE itself
will be featured in the January 2005 issue of Toronto Life (SEE
EXCERPT BELOW)! It’s no surprise to me that Toronto Life has
chosen Carl Cassell, in their quest to reveal those restaurants that also offer
the unique addition of original art.
Let Irie awaken your senses.
Irie Mondays continue – food – music – culture.
MONDAY, JANUARY 10
IRIE MONDAYS
Irie Food Joint
745 Queen Street W.
10:00 pm
Irie in Toronto Life – January 2005
Excerpt from Toronto Life - By James Chatto
Perhaps the most
interesting place on the strip is Irie Food Joint. I first ate there last
September when Greg Couillard was guest chef for a week and slaving merrily
over a giant hardwood barbecue off the back patio. The night was hot, his food
was as thrilling as ever, and I loved the Afro-Caribbean ambience—flaming torches, tribal masks, charming
service and a pervasive mood so laid back it flirted with horizontal. The
owner, Carl Cassell-sell, built most of Irie with his own hands, largely, he
explained, as a space to exhibit his art. Was he responsible for those brooding
charcoal portraits inside the restaurant? "Not charcoal," he said
with a smile. "Look more closely." Cassell uses strands of synthetic
hair applied to rice paper to build his pictures, then frames and lights them
so that shadows are cast by the hair, adding depth. "Aren't they fabulous?"
enthused Couillard. "I love this place. In fact, I'm going to extend my
stay here indefinitely." Alas, it wasn't to be, A couple of weeks later, Cassell called to
say Couillard had moved two doors east, to Habitat, taking Irie's two chefs
with him. Cassell was admirably philosophical about the situation and assured
me his jerk chicken was still the best in town. I went back to check out the
claim and ended up agreeing with him. The breast and thigh were delectably
moist, infused with the sweet heat of a rich, complex jerk sauce and the charring
scent of the grill, cooled by a mango-pineapple salsa and perfectly textured
rice and black-eyed peas. Studying the menu (printed in the round and glued to
an old vinyl LP), I felt compelled to order festivals—sturdy, heavyweight
cornmeal patties like the corn dogs sold at the Ex. A starter of peppered
shrimp was less interesting, a slurry of soft little prawns, onions and
cilantro with a perky chili heat.
::SCOOP::
Hotel Babylon Serves Up The Drama
On Tuesday night I went to see the screening of Hotel
Babylon at the invitation of and featuring my friend,
the “Poitier-esque” Awaovieyi Agie. It turned out I was in for a gripping and
spectacular television drama that will make its world television premiere on Vision
TV on January 25th at 10:00 pm. The premise for the show is the brainchild
of Gerry Atwell whose concept
was born in Winnipeg. After many
dialogues with diverse taxi drivers, he discovered that many had degrees, even
doctorates and were professionals in their native countries but after coming to
Canada, had to accept meager positions in the workforce. This, in turn, channeled into the setting of
Winnipeg's Hotel
Zebulon where the employees are from diverse backgrounds and where some of the hotel crew find themselves
caught up in a series of events that will put their former talents to the test.
The cast of Hotel Babylon gave intense performances
circling around the investigation of a missing $25,000 bracelet. Awaovieyi
Agie heads the ensemble
cast as Azu Chidoka, maintenance man and former police detective. Azu gets help in his impromptu investigation
from Katia (Soo Garay), the hotel cook, and Delores (Brenda Kamino), the no-nonsense head of housekeeping. Rishma
Liv Malik (Bollywood/Hollywood) plays Krishni, the hotel owner's daughter,
and a stern manager who differs with her sentimental father over how “The
Babylon” ought to be run. Pedro Salvin, Tom Masek, Greg Odjig, Anne Nahabedian, Andy Marshall and Ted Whittall also star.
Created and produced by Gerry
Atwell and Glace
W. Lawrence, Charles
Officer directed from a teleplay and the script was
written by Annmarie Morais. Joan
Jenkinson and Chris Johnson are the Executive Producers in Charge of
Production for VisionTV.
St. Jamestown and Kink
in My Hair, the other
winning projects from the Cultural Diversity Drama Competition, aired in
October and November, respectively. All three shows will have encore
presentations in February, as part of VisionTV's Black History Month
programming.
If you want to see more
diversity on television, now’s your chance to vote for it. Hotel Babylon is
an excellent candidate for a television series, so please send in your support
after the January 25th world television premiere to audience@visiontv.ca.
For more info. on the show: http://www.visiontv.ca/Programs/drama_babylon.html.
::THOUGHT::
Motivational Note:
Choose Your Battles Wisely
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com - By
Jewel Diamond Taylor - e-mail JewelMotivates@aol.com
No matter how good or how right
you are, the reality is that some people don't want to see you shine. You may
have to work harder to prove yourself because of your gender, race, age,
education, achievements, family/friends, talent, gifts, charisma, favour,
social standing or your looks. It's not fair, but it happens. Once you have a
deeper sense of self-esteem, self- worth and purpose, it can intimidate
others...but it is also your strength. Jealousy is a cancer that is
unfortunately in our families, workplace, church, community and schools. Choose
your battles wisely. Hold your head up high. Don't give your power, peace, joy
or destiny away to small thinking people. Whether people are ignorant,
prejudice, insecure, malicious or jealous, you can't afford to allow them to
contaminate your soul. Others are watching to see how you cope with darkness.
Remember diamonds only sparkle because they go under pressure, through the fire
and polishing. Be like a diamond and let your light shine. I suggested to my
callers to listen to the words of a gospel song by Dorinda Clark-Cole.
"Trials come to weigh me down. It's okay I'm not gonna lose my ground. Got
the praise on my lips, word in my heart. I don't have to worry 'cause I'm
coming out of this. I'm coming out, with my hands up. All of the trials that
I've been through, it's only a test of being renewed. Nobody knows the story
behind all this glory."
::MUSIC NEWS::
Arden, Tom Cochrane To
Play During Tsunami Relief Drive
Excerpt
from The Globe and Mail
(Jan. 5, 2005) Toronto — The 32 radio and 33 television
stations of CHUM
Limited have stepped forward to raise money for the tsunami victims
in South Asia. In partnership with the Canadian Red Cross, CHUM designated
Wednesday as Disaster
Relief Day. Viewers and listeners were urged to call a toll-free
number (1-800-810-1408) that will be open for the next week. The radio
stations' daylong drive was to include hourly public service announcements and
interviews with Red Cross staff. Also scheduled was a live musical concert
featuring Jacksoul,
Tom Cochrane,
Kalan
Porter, Jim Cuddy and Jann Arden. "CHUM is committing our
considerable media resources across the country — as well as providing
financial support — to help the Canadian Red Cross reach Canadians to assist
those in crisis," said Jay Switzer, CHUM president and CEO. CHUM also announced
a corporate donation of $100,000 to the Red Cross to kick off the relief
initiative. "Our intention (is) really just to let all of our listeners
and viewers know this is an easy way to contribute," said CHUM Radio
Ottawa vice-president and general manager Chris Gordon, adding that CHUM never
thought of setting a financial goal. "We're just hoping people hear the
message and respond." CBC radio was planning a disaster relief special for
Thursday. The network's morning shows were to provide news from the site of the
tsunami disaster as well as updates on how Canadians can help. And on Saturday morning, VisionTV's faith
series West Indians United TV is to air a special report on the disaster's
aftermath and relief efforts being organized by Canadians. West Indians United
is broadcast in both English and Hindi.
FLOW 93.5 Lending A Helping Hand
Source: FLOW 93.5
The Tsunami in
Southeast Asia has had far reaching effects. To date over 150,000 people have
perished and at least one third of those are children. FLOW 93.5 and Save The Children Canada want
to make sure we can help. Join FLOW
93.5 FM and Save The Children Canada on site at the TD Centre concourse level
from 6 am - 5 pm Thursday January 6th as we attempt to raise $93,500 for
Tsunami relief. Donations can be made
in person, by calling 1-866-822-5667 or by going online at www.savethechildren.ca The Canadian Government has pledged that
every dollar raised will be matched.
For more information
please contact: Mike Dwyer, Promotions
Director FLOW 93.5 (416) 214 5000 x 294 E: miked@flow935.com
U.S. Tsunami Telethon Planned
For Jan. 15
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Vinay
Menon
(Jan. 4, 2005) LOS ANGELES (AP) — A benefit to aid tsunami victims will
air on seven NBC cable and broadcast outlets.
The hour-long program will be shown on Jan. 15 on the NBC network and on
the USA, Bravo, Trio, Sci-Fi, MSNBC and CNBC channels, the company said Monday. NBC Universal described the show as
"music and celebrity-driven" but did not announce details on
performers. Phone lines will remain
open throughout the evening for donations, NBC Universal said. Clear Channel
has agreed to promote the special on its radio stations across the United
States. The benefit is reminiscent of
the TV fundraiser held for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. That
program, featuring actors and pop stars, was an industry effort carried by more
than 30 TV networks including all major broadcasters. The tsunami, triggered by the world's most powerful earthquake in
40 years, has killed more than 139,000 people in Asia and Africa.
2004
- A Brief Year In Review<
Source: UMAC - By Wendy Vincent, UMAC Publicity
Chair
2004
was a special year for urban music in Canada. It marked the release of some
important product from top Canadian urban artists. For us, of course, the
highlight of the year on Canada's urban music calendar was the 6th Annual Canadian
Urban Music Awards, which toook place in Toronto on October 21.
The star-studded all-day celebration included an awards luncheon and evening
gala ceremony that was televised on CBC-Television on
October 28.
There
were lots of artist success stories to celebrate in 2004. Hot on the heels of
his win for Best International Artist at the 2003 Source Awards, K-OS delivered Joyful Rebellion
in August, a highly-anticipated project, which was launched off the strength of
the Canadian Urban Music Award-winning lead single, "B-Boy Stance". K-OS
hit the road to support the album and has been rocking shows across the
continent. The 13-track project is now on its fourth strong commercial single.
Keshia Chanté also dominated the airwaves with her
self-titled debut release, which was recently certified gold in Canada with
more than 50,000 units sold. The teen star stormed onto Canada's urban and pop
worlds with track after track of her deep, strong-beyond-her-years voice and
matched it with gigs across the nation and a foray into the US market care of
the BET charts and her first class video offerings.
Canada's
urban music industry has sharpened its teeth across cities and genres this
year. In Vancity, Kyprios
and Sekoya took up the
reigns for hip hop and jazz with "Say Something" and the self-titled
album from the former. The Killbloodclot Bill Vol. 1 mixtape/album
from Kardinal Offishall is
cutting through the pools and charts with "Bang Bang" featuring Melanie Durrant and the slamming collabo,
"Cowboy", with England's Taz, a track that needs to hit the airwaves
in North America. Straight from the underground, Pound contributor Mindbender gave us another independent
gem, his Mutant/Beautiful double disc, which he has hustled with his
solid live show. Nuff Respect!
Making
more waves for the biz, Fresh I.E.
from Winnipeg broke ground as Canada's first rap artist to be nominated for a
Grammy at the 2004 Grammy Awards in February for his 2003 release, Red
Letterz.
Also
in 2004, SKITZ, winner of
FLOW's 93.5's annual Soul Search talent competition, went on to take
the national crown at Canadian Music Week 2004's first ever "Urban Star
Quest". Urban Star Quest 2004 was a regional urban face off of sorts
between Canada's commercial urban stations. Skitz's competitors were Jeff
Hendrick from Edmonton's VIBE 98.5 and Jay Fletch
from Hot 89.9 FM in Ottawa. Canada's full format, commercial urban radio
landscape went through many changes in 2004 with Hot 89.9 (Ottawa), The Beat
94.5 (Vancouver) and VIBE 98.5 (Calgary) shifting to a Top 40/CHR programming
focus, so 2005 should be an interesting time.
New
independent labels opened shop with Soul Clap Records leading the pack with
distribution deals for Ray Robinson
and heavy hitting works from Jason Simmons,
the Rich London Project,
and Velvet Underground alumni Janelle.
Lead by the likes of Kevin "Jedi"
Barton (formerly manager of Universal Urban), Entreprenuer Wells Davis and Scott Boogie, former Music
Director/On-Air Personality at Hot 89.9 in Ottawa, Soul Clap is well on its way
to becoming a huge force in Canada's urban indie label world.
The
merger of Sony BMG Music, which became official at the end of July, was the
latest reconfiguration in the global major record label cosmos. Corporate moves
included Lisa Zbitnew
(former President of BMG Canada) assuming leadership of the Canadian arm of the
new conglomerate, and Denise Donlon's departure from the helm at Sony Music Canada.
In one of her first moves in the driver's seat, Ms. Zbitnew announced Sony
BMG's $57.5 million, five-year plan to develop and promote Canadian artists.
The new super label will continue without urban music pioneer and visionary Ivan Berry, who left the company in
December to pursue new opportunities in publishing acquisitions and artist
management and development.
Stay
tuned, because 2005 promises to be an even busier year for the urban music
industry in Canada!
Top 10 Concerts To Hit Toronto
Source: By
Jane Stevenson -- Toronto Sun
1.
LHASA
Feb. 24, Hugh's Room
At
the first of three sold-out shows, this Montreal-based singer-songwriter wowed
an enraptured audience with her usual dramatic flair. Think of her as Edith
Piaf of the Spanish language, even if she did add English and French to her
repertoire with her sophomore effort The Living Road. Always a powerful
presence, on-stage and off.
2.
DAVID BOWIE WITH THE POLYPHONIC SPREE
April 1, Air Canada Centre
It
was hard to say who was more riveting: The Thin White Duke, who "performed
a stunning, sometimes challenging," show which included classics like
Rebel Rebel and Fame, or his opening act the choral/symphonic pop group The
Polyphonic Spree from Dallas. The two dozen singers and musicians, who all
dress in white robes, "proved to be the perfect happy, bouncy musical
appetizer" to Bowie's meatier music set. Full marks.
3.
DAMIEN RICE
April 23, Convocation Hall
This
Irish singer-songwriter is getting renewed interest for the use of his pretty,
emotional song, The Blower's Daughter, in the new movie,
Closer. However, he is clearly a force to be reckoned with as a live performer.
I described his show as "an intense, passionate and primal blend of
delicate, melancholy ballads, screaming rhythmic rockers, and everything in
between." If you haven't picked up his Shortlist Music Prize winner, O, do
so immediately.
4.
ARETHA FRANKLIN
April 30, Roy Thomson Hall
As
part of what was believed to be her last tour ever, the Queen of Soul finally
pulled into town after three earlier postponements. Joined by an 11-piece band
and more than 20 members of the TSO's strings and brass, the 62-year-old legend
was not only a thrilling vocalist, despite complaining about the air conditioning
in her room affecting her voice, but she was also a sight to behold in a
shoulder-length blond wig and diamond-encrusted gold caftan that only Aretha
could pull off.
5.
JAMES BROWN
June 5, Molson Amphitheatre
The
Hardest Working Man In Show Business delivered some "super-dynamite
soul" despite only performing a 75-minute set with no encore. Helping the
71-year-old Brown out was an impressive 17-piece outfit that had the audience
in the aisles dancing. When The Godfather Of Soul returned in November for a
show at Massey Hall, it just wasn't the same. A couple of weeks later, he was
diagnosed with prostate cancer and operated on, saying, "I feel
good!" as he left the hospital.
6.
K.D. LANG
June 17, Roy Thomson Hall
During
the first of two shows, Lang's "thrilling voice" proved to be "a
powerful, seductive and startling instrument." Her two standout songs
-- Roy Orbison's Crying and the Patsy Clline hit Three Cigarettes In An Ashtray
-- were mind-blowing and her voice was sso captivating you often forgot about
the presence of an enormous string section sharing the stage. As one fan
shouted out: "K.D. for prime minister!"
7.
MADONNA
July 18, Air Canada Centre
Without
question, Madonna's
Re-Invention Tour was the concert event of the year as Esther, Madge or The
Material Girl - take your pick - played her first Toronto shows in 11 years.
During the first of three sold-out concerts, Madonna presented a "hi-tech,
flashy and fun affair that was tamer and slightly preachier than earlier
outings." It was crowd-pleasing nonetheless as the set list relied heavily
on re-worked hits including a tango version of her James Bond theme, Die
Another Day, and a bagpipes-and-kilt version of Get Into The Groove.
8.
PRINCE
July 27, Air Canada Centre
This
adopted Torontonian -- he and his wife have a place on the Bridal Path -- was
back to his "funky, fun and fabulous" former self during the first of
two sold-out shows. The idea was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his
seminal 1984 song and album, Purple Rain, and perform some his best-known hits,
apparently for the last time. In other words, say goodbye to classics like
Let's Go Crazy, Sign O' The Times, Pop Life, KISS, and When Doves Cry, etc.
9.
JILL SCOTT
Aug. 10, The Guvernment
The
neo-soul star was staggeringly good in concert, backed by a stunning six-piece
band which was equally adept at playing soul, jazz and R&B. Emotionally and
spiritually moving as a performer, "Scott's warm, almost operatic voice,
and powerful stage presence had the Guvernment crowd in the palm of her hand."
The good news is she's returning to Massey Hall on March 16.
10.
BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA AND MAVIS STAPLES
Dec. 23, Massey Hall
The
pairing of two soul/gospel titans set just the right spiritual mood two days
before Christmas. Staples, backed only by a pianist/organist (they were the
same person), did a heartfelt, sometimes funny tribute to her mentor,
"Mrs. Sister Mahalia Jackson," as Staples called her the first time
they met when Mavis was only 11 years old. She even threw in the Staple
Singers' classic, I'll Take You There. Meanwhile, the Blind Boys were simply
exquisite, performing an energetic set brimming with Christmas, gospel and
cover tunes.
Jane's honourable mentions
1.
Bette Midler, Jan. 12, Air Canada Centre
2.
Cyndi Lauper, March 6, Massey Hall
3.
Sarah Harmer, April 26, Winter Garden Theatre
4.
Bob Dylan And His Band, March 20, Phoenix
5.
Annie Lennox, July 14, Air Canada Centre
6.
The Hives, July 24, The Phoenix
7.
Morrissey, Oct. 12, Hummingbird Centre
8.
Dolly Parton, Oct. 22, Casino Rama
9.
John Fogerty, Nov. 18, Massey Hall
10.
Green Day, Nov. 2, Air Canada Centre
Jane's biggest disappointments
1.
Britney Spears, April 3, Air Canada Centre
2.
JC Chasez, June 3, The Guvernment
3.
Dido, June 8, Hummingbird Centre
4.
The Moody Blues, June 11, Hummingbird Centre
5.
Van Halen (with Sammy Hagar), July 3, ACC
6.
Nelly Furtado, July 15, Molson Amphitheatre
7.
Usher, Aug. 9, Air Canada Centre
8.
Sarah McLachlan, Aug. 19, Molson Amphitheatre
9.
Brian Wilson performs Smile, Oct. 6, Massey Hall
10.
R.E.M., Nov. 10, Hummingbird Centre
Concerts Jane wishes she'd seen
1.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Feb. 27, The Phoenix
2.
Elvis Costello, March 15, Massey Hall
3.
The Distillers, March 30, Kool Haus
4.
Kraftwerk, April 23, Ricoh Coliseum
5.
The Raveonettes, May 2, Lee's Palace
6.
Franz Ferdinand, June 14, Kool Haus (or Oct. 1 at The Docks)
7.
The Killers, July 16, Mod Club Theatre
8.
Wilco, Aug. 3, Mod Club Theatre (or Oct. 9 at Massey Hall)
9.
Doug & The Slugs, Aug. 19, Hard Rock Cafe's Club 279
10.
PJ Harvey, Oct. 15, Phoenix
iPods: Where's
Sam Roberts?
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
(Jan. 5, 2005) Many of
you who were gyrating around the Christmas tree with white earphones on and
digital players in hand, like the silhouetted dancers in the iPod ads, may be in for a surprise. When Apple
finally introduced its iTunes on-line music store in Canada in early December,
it sparked a mass rush on the company's revolutionary little players, which can
record and play back music from CDs (via your home computer) as well as music
downloaded from the iTunes store. But iPod users wanting to download some of
the most talked-about Canadian indie bands probably didn't have much luck
finding them on the Canadian iTunes site over the holidays. When I typed in the
name of the Montreal group Arcade Fire, which topped many critics' best-of-2004
lists, iTunes gave me only the unhelpful message, "Did you mean Alade
Fire?" Granted, Arcade Fire's much-hailed album, Funeral, released on the small indie label Merge Records, can be
hard to find even in conventional record stores. But when I input Broken Social
Scene, that ubiquitous band that the world sees as the defining group for Toronto's indie scene, iTunes once again
found no matches. And while both bands are on the American iTunes website,
their music can't be bought by Canadians from that site due to licensing
restrictions. For those ultra hip, silhouetted iPod people among us, it must
not have seemed like a stellar launch for the service. It's true that iPod
culture doesn't really need the iTunes store to survive. Just the ability to
store an entire CD collection in one tiny device has made the devices a hit.
Still, the gaps in the iTunes stock are worth noting, given that everything
else Apple has done has been so innovative and well thought out. In many ways,
iTunes, originally introduced in the United States in April, 2003, was a move
by Apple to legitimize its digital iPod player in the eyes of the recording
industry. Instead of treating Apple as a foe, the music business saw Apple as
an ally in the fight against unauthorized file-sharing -- and iTunes as a
promising new way to sell music for those players. So where are this year's
trendiest Canadian bands? The reason for their absence lies in the tangle of
sales agreements and other legalities needed to clear every act sold on the
service. Smaller record labels also have concerns. In Europe, indie labels have
fought against Apple's policy of treating small and large record labels under
similar terms, which some argue favour the majors, undoubtedly helped by their
larger economies of scale. "It just takes time," says Enrique Soissa,
who helps run the young indie label Paper Bag Records in Toronto. Universal
Music, which distributes Paper Bag, is essentially acting as an agent for the
smaller label, and is clearing Paper Bag's acts with Apple. Not all of Paper
Bag's acts are on iTunes yet, although its popular group Controller is.
Part of the slowness is due to publishing rights, adds Soissa.
"It's so new that a lot of people don't have specific details in their
contracts with regards to digital distribution. So it's kind of a grey area for
a lot of smaller labels, because it's not something that we specifically will
go into in our contracts." Puretracks, the Canadian on-line music store
that has been operating since October, 2003, doesn't seem to have Arcade Fire
either. Nor does it have Broken Social Scene's 2003 You Forgot It in People to buy as a download. That album is only
available from Puretracks as a mail-order CD. To its credit, iTunes has
showcased a variety of Canadian acts recently that are just below the
mass-market radar, such as Toronto-based roots rapper k-os, Montreal-raised singer Rufus Wainwright
and Montreal rocker Melissa Auf der Maur (who has some exclusive tracks
available on iTunes). But using iTunes on my office PC, I found little sign of
such Canadian acts as straight-ahead rocker Sam Roberts; teen favourite
Alexisonfire; moody Smiths-inspired band, the Dears; downtown bashers Death
from Above 1979; the alt-romantics Stars; or even Leslie Feist. Popular in
Europe, Feist, with her Toronto-meets-Paris-chic sound, is all over the place
on various iTunes European sites, but not on the Canadian site yet. In an
e-mail message, Jeffrey Remedios, who runs Feist's label, Arts & Crafts
Records, wrote: "I've stressed to the good people at iTunes the need to
ramp us into their system quickly, and they expect to get us into Canada in early
'05." Is this slow-burn strategy enough to get us hooked? "Let's be
serious, if you were going to stock a store, would you have every record in the
world within four weeks of opening?" asks David Basskin, president of the
Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency, which works to secure the
royalties of those who own the publishing rights of songs.
Basskin explains that his organization, along with sister agency Société
du droit de reproduction des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs au Canada, has
been working to speed the process of clearing songwriting copyrights, given the
deluge of work to be done with new on-line music services. Yet Apple and the
other on-line services also have to secure copyrights for each individual
recording through the record labels in each country. It is a long process. But
from the consumer side, there's little sense of an inspired grand opening.
Record stores are like restaurants: If the menu is limited, we don't want to
gorge on whatever is on offer. We're looking for inspiration, an élan vital. Most of us probably aren't
looking for Beat This! The Best of the
English Beat, a greatest-hits package from the British ska-revivalists who
peaked in the early eighties. Sure, I might part with 99 cents to buy the
band's calling card Mirror in the
Bathroom. But seeing the English Beat highlighted with a banner display on
iTunes over the key Christmas holiday makes the service seem like a mall outlet
with an overshipment of back-catalogue remainders. On the other hand, a banner
ad this week for the Calgary-raised alt-folk duo Tegan and Sara seems a
promising step away from the obvious. It may be too much to think that iTunes,
Puretracks or any of the other nascent downloading services will ever carry the
same cachet as, say, Dusty Groove America, an on-line mail-order service and
touchstone of rarefied taste specializing in soul, jazz and international
releases. But it could soon rival a site like U.S. book-and-record retailer
Barnes and Noble's mail-order service, which has a surprisingly thorough
catalogue across genres, and is also a handy reference source -- more so even
than Amazon -- for simply listening to clips from innumerable records. There
may not be an abundance of rarities on Barnes and Noble, but there are few
obvious omissions. The fear is that unless iTunes fills in the gaps of its
catalogue with a few more carefully chosen releases, the elusive hipness of
iTunes could disappear -- and those bad-mamma silhouetted dancers could go off
dancing somewhere else.
The Year Of Usher
Excerpt from www.billboard.com - by Gail Mitchell
According to the Chinese calendar, 2005
will be the year of the rooster. Looking back at the year in music, 2004 goes
down as the year of Usher, not only in pop, but certainly in
R&B/hip-hop. The seemingly
invincible singer/songwriter is Billboard's top R&B/Hip-Hop artist of the
year, thanks to his album "Confessions," which is the No. 1 title on
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums wrap-up.
"Confessions" sold 1.2 million copies during its first week of
release, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That feat earned the album kudos for
the biggest sales week of the year for any album. Spending nine weeks atop The Billboard 200, the set spun off three
back-to-back No. 1 R&B/pop crossover hits: "Yeah!" featuring Lil
Jon and Ludacris, "Burn" and "Confessions Part II." A reissue of "Confessions" spawned
another R&B/pop No. 1 single, "My Boo," a duet with Alicia Keys.
On Usher's slate of future projects is the first release under his J Records-affiliated
label, Us Records. Alicia Keys' hit
"If I Ain't Got You" is one of four singles that have helped propel
the popularity of the artist's sophomore set, "The Diary of Alicia
Keys." The song claims the No. 1 spot on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles &
Tracks year-end chart.
CLICK HERE FOR BILLBOARD YEAR-END CHARTS.
Shaw, 94, Was Jazz Giant
Excerpt from The
Toronto Star - Reuters
(Dec. 31, 2004) LOS
ANGELES—Jazz clarinettist Artie Shaw, famed for his classic recordings of "Begin The
Beguine" and "Lady Be Good" as well as turbulent marriages to
movie stars Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, died yesterday at age 94, his manager
Will Curtis said. One of the giants of
swing-era jazz and a crusty, self-declared perfectionist, Shaw put down the
clarinet in 1954 and never played it again, saying he could not reach the level
of artistry he desired. Born Arthur
Jacob Arshawsky on May 23, 1910 in New York City, he took up the alto saxophone
at the age of 12. Within a few years he was playing professionally in a
Connecticut dance band. By the end of 1929, becoming a regular at after-hours
sessions, sitting in with leading jazzmen and establishing a reputation as a
technically brilliant clarinetist. His
1938 recording of "Begin The Beguine" made him a national figure and
a rival to another clarinet legend Benny Goodman. (Shaw's own compositions
include "Any Old Time" and "Moonray.") Shaw's bands in the
1930s and '40s featured a Who's Who of jazz greats, including Billie Holiday,
Buddy Rich, Roy Eldridge and "Hot Lips" Page. At his height, he
earned $30,000 a week, a huge sum for the Depression Era. Shaw called himself a difficult man, a view
his eight former wives, including actresses Evelyn Keyes, Ava Gardner and Lana
Turner, might have agreed with. He recalled once almost erupting when a woman
asked if he could play something with a Latin beat. In a 1985 interview, Shaw said he gave up playing when he decided
he was aiming for a perfection that could kill him. "I am compulsive. I sought perfection. I was constantly
miserable. I was seeking a constantly receding horizon. So I quit," he
said. "It was like cutting off an
arm that had gangrene. I had to cut it off to live. I'd be dead if I didn't
stop. The better I got, the higher I aimed. People loved what I did, but I had
grown past it. I got to the point where I was walking in my own
footsteps," he said in that interview.
So Shaw became a musical recluse, writing an autobiography and a novel,
travelling and lecturing. But in 1981, he reformed the band that bore his name
and played his music — but with another clarinetist, Dick Johnson, leading the
orchestra and playing the solos. Even
in later years, dealing with Shaw was not always easy. Toronto's Brigitte
Berman made a documentary about him — 1986's Artie Shaw: Time Is All You've
Got — with his co-operation. But after she won an Oscar for directing the
film, Shaw sued her in Ontario court for a share of the profits, $500,000 in
damages and control of the film. His efforts ended in failure in 1997.
Laila Biali Finds Her True Jazz Voice
Excerpt from The
Globe and Mail - By Mark Miller
(Jan. 3, 2005) There
are, in Laila
Biali's development as a jazz pianist and composer, passing
similarities to the emergence of three other Canadian women in the same field.
Like Jane Bunnett, Biali saw a career as a concert artist in the classical
world curtailed by physiological problems at the piano; like Bunnett, who
eventually switched to flute, Biali found comfort in jazz. Like Renee Rosnes,
also a classically trained pianist, Biali came under the sway of a North
Vancouver high-school music teacher, Bob Rebagliati, who nurtured her early
interest in jazz by gradually revealing to her the classic recordings,
beginning with Miles Davis's Kind of Blue.
And like Diana Krall, who was in fact the first jazz artist that Biali heard on
record, she has lately started to sing. Her debut CD, Introducing the Laila Biali Trio, which will be released during her
engagement at the Montreal Bistro in Toronto this week, includes several vocal
selections, three of them old pop standards. If that seems entirely as per La
Krall, though, Biali is quick to advise that "they're totally messed with."
She's talking on a cold Sunday afternoon at Toronto's fabled Pilot Tavern on
Cumberland Street, where her trio, with bassist Brandi Disterheft and drummer
Sly Juhas, has been the house band of late. At 24, Biali has something of
Bunnett's engaging warmth and energy, and something more of Rosnes's keen
intelligence; she can only hope to have something of Krall's success. Biali is,
in any event, already her own woman, a musician who expresses a "desire to
present music that is accessible but still pushes boundaries." To that
end, she has been a central figure in no less than four bands since her move to
Toronto in the late 1990s for studies at Humber College: the all-woman Without
Words, the Crossings Quartet, the Laila Biali Octet and now the trio. For good
measure, she's currently exploring the possibility of forming a big band with a
young Toronto musician.
"What I love about jazz is the collective experience," she
explains, of this flurry of activity. "The fact that you're interacting
with any number of people means that the music will be different every time;
different players will bring new elements and new sounds to the music, so you
can never really recreate it, and I love that. And I love that it's
collaborative, because I'm a real people person." People person or not,
though, her attraction to jazz wasn't immediate. "In all honesty, I didn't
love it when I first heard it," she admits, laughing lightly. "I
remember being sort of perplexed by [John] Coltrane." It was in fact yet
another Canadian, the trumpeter and composer Kenny Wheeler, who really turned
her head. Or rather it was his music. "To me his writing was like a total
fusion between classical music and jazz in a way I had not heard done before.
And Keith Jarrett also served as a bridge for me. That combination, Keith
Jarrett and Kenny Wheeler, showed me how to use the classical knowledge that I
had -- that background and those influences and those sounds -- to create jazz
and improvised music." Biali's transition from the formality of classical
music to the relative freedom of jazz, initially undertaken in high school, was
nevertheless not easy. "There's a real disconnect between what you're
hearing and how it translates through your body," she notes, "which
is strange for a classical pianist, because you have all this [technical]
facility on the instrument." She splays 10 finely manicured fingers and
pushes them awkwardly into one of the Pilot's shiny table tops to demonstrate
the disoriented effect. "It's especially humbling. My first inclination was,
'Oh, I'll play bass,' or 'I'll try some other instrument,' so I'd be starting
from scratch and approaching it as a totally new experience. Because to me, as
a pianist, this felt like a regression." Her turnaround and transition
certainly seems complete now, however, thanks in part to her studies with Don
Thompson at Humber College for two years, with Fred Hersch more briefly in New
York and now with Frank Falco privately, in Toronto.
Rosnes and Krall, of course, went to New York and stayed, many years ago.
Biali's neither so keen nor so quick to follow suit, even if Canada's jazz
industry hardly seems equipped to handle someone with her potential. "I
was shocked to discover that New York didn't fit me well," she remembers,
of her time there in 2003. "That may change. I'm getting the itch to go
back -- in bouts, concentrated bouts. It's an intense city." All in good
time, no doubt, although the real question is perhaps not "When?" but
"In what guise?" Will it be as the pianist and composer whose bright,
melodic octet writing, for example, works handily with the influences of
Wheeler, Maria Schneider and Duke Ellington? Or will it be as another Canadian
pianist and singer who, if even she is a dark, wavy-haired brunette, will
inevitably be compared to Krall? "I do get compared to her a lot,"
Biali admits. "It's tough, you know, because the music that she does, the
real straight-ahead standards, I actually love doing, too, and it gets a great
response. People love that kind of music rendered in that classic way. And
that's what I do at corporate gigs; it's not that I don't enjoy doing it, I
definitely do." Still, Biali obviously has much more to offer. "There
was a lot of resistance to me singing, initially, because my fellow musicians
know me as a pianist and composer, and I am definitely those things first. It
was like, 'Oh, no, not another piano player and singer!' " Oh, yes, but
one clearly with a mind of her own and a good sense of herself. "The
challenge for me, and it's a huge challenge," she says with convincing
confidence, "is not to compromise who I am musically. . . . I'll never
pretend to be someone I'm not."
The Laila Biali Trio appears at
Toronto's Montreal Bistro this Thursday to Saturday. It also performs most
Sunday afternoons at Toronto's Pilot Tavern.
2004: AllHipHop.com's Massive
Year-End Review
Excerpt from www.allhiphop.com -
By AHH Staff
Album Of Year: This Year Was A Good Year
Kanye West The
College Dropout (Def Jam)
Arguably the album that '04 will
be most remembered by. This collage of comedy, spirituality, lyricism, and just
party has borrowed from so many of the great albums past. Rightly, Kanye has
quietly been a part of some of the greatest albums in the last five years. For
a debut, Kanye has much to live up. But without a doubt...although AllHipHop
knew this would be big, nobody predicted a massive drop this amazing. Do ya
thing Mr. Dropout...you don't need no piece of paper to get a piece of the
music industry’s paper.
Masta Ace Long
Hot Summer (M3)
Another Indie major favourite.
The last of the great concept albums. This release was the sequel to Disposable
Arts, which similar support, respect, and praise. This time, there were no
battles or funny White roommates, but the production on this feature was the
best Ace has had since Marley Marl in the late 80’s. In an age where singles
outweigh the albums, Ace reminds us why he’s an outstanding entertainer. Sorry
about the retirement misinterpretations buddy, we want Ace forever.
Ludacris and T.I. The
Red Light District & Urban Legend (Def Jam & Atlantic Records)
All praise is dude to the
present Kings of the South, Ludacris and T.I. Call us chickens**t for putting
them on this list together, but we feel they deserve special recognition for a
number of reasons. First, they had beef during the course of the year, which
has since been resolved. Both represent Atlanta, the current creative hub of
Hip-hop. These two gentlemen represented everything we love (and that’s
lacking) in Hip-Hop – creativity and authenticity. In 04, Ludacris’ ‘bows got
bigger and his penchant for punch lines almost had us OD’ing with Red
Light District. No street
slouch, T.I.’s Urban Legend proved that shawty has a unique ability to
push units like weight, but remain in good standing his bourgeoning fan base.
(I didn’t hurt that these guys were backed by the finest beat maestros that rap
has to offer.) With T.I. and Luda, we were blessed with the best of both worlds
and they exemplified that commercial Hip-Hop doesn’t have to be pop corn beats
and watered down, clichéd rhymes.
De La Soul The
Grind Date (Sanctuary)
No big singles. No big label,
just Beyonce’s daddy. But most critics agreed, this was the first time in eight
years that De La Soul has made an album without a theme that fit into their
classic catalogue. Soulful production and more appropriate guests made for an
audible treat that will age like merlot on Hip-Hop lovers all around. De La
never really went anywhere, but as they've grown older, they've grown quieter.
JBeez, LONS, Monie Love, Tribe... what's really good?
Ghostface Killah The
Pretty Toney (Def Jam)
Like the projected Lil' Wayne
move, people assume that Def Jam will compromise a special artist's sound. The
Pretty Toney proved such a notion mostly wrong. While the music quality was a
little less hissy, this album proved to follow in Ghost's stellar discography.
Tons of samples, awkwardly sung hooks, rugged slang, and intricate detail gave
Ghost another great album even if the equivalent sales weren’t there. Was the
company in a position to handle Ghost? That’s up for grabs, but the Ghostdini
has an art that stands on its own. "Run" was as strong of a single as
you'll get, and the diehard fans rejoiced.
Indie Album of Year : Independent as WHAT!
K-Os Joyful
Rebellion (Astralwerks)
Last time K-Os dropped, he had a
strong single...but Kweli and The Roots albums bodied his. This year, it's the
reverse. While the sales may never match, K-Os is winning over fans all over
with his lightning fast but very careful wordplay, his up-tempo production, and
his medicating messages. This album was a favourite around the AHH corridor,
and everybody really has respect for Vancouver's finest.
Lil' Jon & Eastside Boyz Crunk Juice (TVT)
This was Jon's most anticipated
work, ever. Core fans might've felt cheated a bit, but Tuesday's record store
regulars had Jon on their grocery list. Ice Cube's presence on the album made
for a luminary classic, while Rick Rubin furthered his resurgence into Hip-Hop.
This album is a time capsule for Crunk's breakthrough into the mainstream, and
who knows it better than Lil' Jon?
Masta Killa No
Said Date (Nature Sounds)
After a ten-year hold-up and
label changes, Killa made his solo debut in the footprints of Ghost and GZA's
better work. Every Wu member joined the show, and RZA produced a heavy dosage
of this album's astounding beats. In roller coasters, the last seat gets the
greatest G-Force. While this album lacked the sales of its Wu peers, it soared
in critical acclaim. Well worth the wait.
Royce Da 5’ 9” Death
Is Certain (Koch)
Some of Eminem’s scariest Stan’s
might have missed Royce da 5’9” this year, but others were privy to unearth a
morbid gem called Death Is Certain. Royce finally shed his overt beefs
and channelled his energies into this well-balanced story backed by Carlos
Broady and others. With bangers like “Hip Hop,” “T.O.D.A.Y,” “Death Is Certain,
Pt. 2 (It Hurt's),” and “Something's Wrong With Him,” this is an epic tale of
fear, adversity, reality and gangsterism. Generic G’s, please step to the side.
MF DOOM & Madlib
Madvillain (Stones
Throw)
This album celebrated DOOM's
renaissance to the fullest. Madlib turned in some of his best work in five
years, as DOOM created a timeless character that brought in comic lovers and
cosmic lyricists alike for a celebration of grimy rhymes, distorted beats, and
an authentic style. Last year was kind to DOOM and promised much more, despite
two other solid releases, this experiment was the bigg'un.
New Artists : Make room!
Theodore Unit
Yeah we know, Ghost stole the
show on 718. But Theodore Unit gave way to a crew (if they keep the moniker) of
Trife, Wigz, and Solomon Childs that kept up with any Wu offspring of the
'97-'99 years. Many argued that as a unit, the crew made a better album than
The Pretty Toney Album. We don't care. We're just glad we got two solid Ghost
albums this year. And after Ghost gave his sweet sixteens, the rest of the Unit
kept it moving lovely. Solo's anyone?
Crime Mob & Lil’ Scrappy
With ‘04 the year that Crunk
affirmed itself nationally, why not add a few youngsters to the party? This
ain't no gimmick though, Crime Mob and Lil’ Scrappy made lots of noise that we
expect to be heard for years to come. Scrap made it evident that he’s the
Prince of Crunk and Diamond and Princess of Crime Mob proved that girls could
throw bows with the best of them. Just keep these eye-candies from your
pedophile uncle.
Saigon
Next year promises to be the
real rookie season for Sai. Still, off the strength of Warning
Shots, a host of guest stops
and mixtape drops, Saigon has set the stage to become the Yardfather outside
the walls. Inking a deal with Just Blaze and hob-nobbing with not only the
elite, but the proven greats of Hip-Hop, Saigon has already entered the game with
his own blueprint. We were hard with the review because the real debut, too big
to ignore.
Remy Martin
Love her or hate her, Remy
Martin of the Terror Squad came on the scene in full force in '04. The Bronx
rapper brought some heat with Fat Joe and, honestly, what would “Lean Back”
have been without that female touch to anchor it? In 2005, we hope to see Remy
and other females back on the frontlines of Hip-Hop.
Kazi/Oh No
Former Stones Throw 12"
artist teamed up with Oh No to create The Plague, a gem of an album that garnered respect all
over. Not much is known about Kazi, but just as the old days, the music spoke
for itself. As for Oh No, he easily surpasses the expectations that go with
being Madlib’s younger sibling with his precise lyricism and combustible beats.
Top Artists (Artistry): Miles of Styles
Nas
"The Thief's Theme" is
undeniably the eeriest single of the year. Whether or not you think the other
twenty-five joints on Street's Disciple measured up, Nasir's union with Olu Dara,
his free concerts, and his old-school savvy flow has made him the most talked
about artist with the least tele-time. It's your world Nas, we just send the
alerts to publicize it to the people. "Suicide Bounce" demonstrates
Nas' superb flow in its finest and “Getting Married” exemplified that rappers
can age gracefully. While he laid low until the last quarter, Nas extend his
reputation from two years ago as the smoothest, the wisest - the street's
disciple.
Masta Ace
Masta Ace makes better records
now than he did fifteen years ago. Like Bonds, Ace has kicked it into overdrive
to push the way an album is looked at, and the characterization an MC can use
to enhance his message. Masta Ace continues to do what Jay-Z did with
Reasonable Doubt - make records that feel like audio movies. Like Jay, Ace has
also made it clear he intends to step aside to run M3 Records, and develop
artists like Long Hot Summer supporting MC's Strick and Apocalypse. A
reported collaboration album with Wordsworth may also be in the cards.
The Roots
For a group that never seemed to
get anything but love, The Tipping Point was polarizing to audiences. It was loved or
hated. Either case, the Roots crew continued to make things fun again with
Black Thought getting back into the front of the band. The G Rap and Kane
imitations were crazy, the messages were positive and quite relevant, and the
music continues to be the top of the line. The Roots do so much for Hip-Hop.
The record company just needs to fall back on dropping Common, Roots, Kweli, Mos
Def, etc. so damn close together!
Cee-Lo
The unstoppable Cee-Lo continues
to make albums that defy listener expectation and still get crazy love. ...Is
the Soul Machine followed in
the veins of Outkast's banner 2003, without radio over-play or crazy videos.
Cee-Lo pushes Hip-Hop to brave new worlds, doing most of the work without crazy
production. It's all organic, and continues to provide the wise messages and
colourful displays that Cee-Lo is known for - with, or without Goodie Mob.
Don't sleep.
9th Wonder
It's rare to see a producer in
such a category. 9th had a quieter year than 2003, and 2005 promises to be. But
while pumping out solid work with his extended LB fan, 9th also made magic for
underground stars MURS and AllHipHop's own Jean Grae. The bootlegged Jeanius is arguably, 9th's finest work. Plus, our
boy dropped in on projects from Masta Ace and Consequence to keep it moving. In
2005, another Jean Grae collaboration album, a project with Buckshot, and that
new Little Brother (The Minstrel Show) promises to keep dude busier than Suge
Knight's attorney.
Top Artists (Commercial): Playerhater's Ball
Nelly
Still doing it - times two, this
year. Suit made a fool out
of Sweat, but Nelly
continues to move units like they got four legs. We can't knock the hustle,
Nelly. We just wish that the records had some punch in 'em like the old days.
Oh hell, there we go hating again. Do your thing Nelly.
Jay-Z
Like Nelly, Jay placed three
albums this year. The Black Album still went fast, then there was R. Kelly (Unfinished
Business), then Linkin Park
. Plus, movie tickets. Dang Jay, for a dude who's supposed to be not here, you
sure did yours.
Kanye West
The must-have, most memorable,
and longest running record of the year. Kanye moved his solo like crazy, while
he was behind so many other top-selling records. 2004 will be hard to beat for
Mr. West.
Eminem
If you drop it, they will come.
Eminem, late in the year, had immense impact on the game. Plus, D-12 had a
thing going for a minute. Nobody brings them into the stores, cash-in-hand like
Slim Shady.
Usher
R&B maybe, but un-ignorable
when it came to the receipts. Confessions surpassed damn near everybody with Usher's most Hip-Hop album yet. The
singles created themselves, and like Kanye - it was the most talked about
record of the year. When can we get that feature Ursh?
Producer : Old Friends and Some New
Lil’ Jon
He didn’t invent it, but Crunk
went from a Three-Six Mafia chorus to nationally accepted attitude and movement
courtesy of Mr. Yeah! What! Okay! Through bangers for Usher, Ciara, and others,
Jon kept R&B's (or Crunk & B’s) chest out while making potent club
pipe-bombs throughout the Hip-Hop industry. Everybody wanted him, and unlike
Dre or Primo - he always seemed to have time and an open hand, with a pimp cup
in the other.
Kanye West
While Jon stayed in predictable
places, Kanye got his hands in more pies than Wilt Chamberlain. Dilated Peoples
and Slum Village utilized the Chi-town sound to stay on the charts, while his
own album contained jewel after jewel. Kanye also gets crazy snaps for
"Jesus Walks", which lyrically stole the show from a rumbling beat
that just banged from start to finish. Prediction: Next year is Just Blaze's!
Heatmakerz
Few can afford the pristine
quality of a Just Blaze or Kanye West. The soul sample price to pay can come in
unique packages. Thanks to a strong Dip Set endorsement two years back, some
would argue that the Heatmakerz are better at high speed vocal sampling than
anybody. Although they roll with some major gangstas, these dudes also clear
their share of samples to show credit and love. Without a doubt, the best kept
secret since Diamond D.
Scott Storch
On the strength of "Lean
Back" alone, Storch is a beast in '04. But through making stellar club
tracks with or without radio play, Scott Storch is proving to be the next go-to
guy. Like Alchemist's Dilated & Mobb affiliations, Scott is using his love
with The Roots & Aftermath together to win over a cross-section of fans
from all facets of Hip-Hop. Plus, away from the beats...Scott can co-sign
something that LL said way back, Kim's got a big ole' butt.
Pete Rock
The year opened with the
sweetest sound to many ears, "Appreciate" with Pete & CL. It
ended with not a Mecca and Soul Brother album, but an LP with Edo G that
received a great deal of love. In a year when Premier and RZA stayed low-key,
Pete Rock came back strong with his own album, Soul Survivor II plus lots of
out-sourcing. Pete is sounding as good as ever, and continues to work with the
creme de la creme. We're hoping Pete's all over that Monch album next year!
Disappointments : Oh No!
213 Three
Tha Hard Way (TVT)
Snoop, Nate Dogg, and Warren G
unveiled their super-project to decent sales. Still, after all those VH1 clips
and promises, this album was busted! The production was all out-sourced, and
Snoop and Warren slept on their lyrics. The album had one or two joints, but
this lineup could be outdone by the Cash Money Clique album, due 2007.
Talib Kweli The
Beautiful Struggle (Geffen)
Kweli's stock stood tall after
"Get By", the remix, and mind-blowing mixtape. But the hype all
crumbled on an album that lacked the lyrical intricacies that we've come to
expect. Like Eminem, Kweli relied too heavily on his social changes and new
status, and joints like "Black Girl Pain" and the title-cut were too
little, too late. We bought four copies each of the mixtape though. Maybe it's
those damn A&R's?
Eminem Encore (Shady/Aftermath)
Nas slipped hard with his fourth
album Nastradamus. Eminem
seems to have followed suit with a politically and socially charged album
marred by weak hooks and less edge. Dr. Dre production has always been more
available than during past years for Em releases. The complete package isn't as
needed, and dropped at a bad time for Hip-Hop records. Whatever the case, we
can count on Em and his squad to make videos that polish these lackluster
tracks into new understanding.
Method Man Tical
O: The Prequel (Def Jam)
First a bad TV show, then a bad
album. 2004 wasn't kind to the Iron Lung. Fans craved fresh material from Meth,
but received a poorly promoted, saturated concept that depended on word of
mouth. The Tical series has
dwindled and rans its course. Fans crave a sincere Meth to be himself, not a
character and return to that individual we loved so much. We know Meth isn't a
fan of Rap journalism, but we at AllHipHop want you to succeed big brother! Add
RZA to the speed dial.
Nelly Sweat
& Suit (Fo'
Reel/Universal)
A double album, sold separately?
History was made, but the result just seemed – Ouch. We just didn’t like the
silly, '87 Puffy sounding singles, cheap content, and relative lack of heat
that re-affirmed that Nelly is for the children. Plus, the whole "Tip
Drill" controversy couldn't save a song - nice video though. In any event,
Nelly's decadent approach to 2004 hurt him real bad. The sales are good, but
when the temperature suddenly drops, is it worth it. And it was just getting
hot in herre, damnit!
Best Videos : Vicseral Visuals
Jay-Z "99 Problems"
Ludacris "Step Back"
Ghostface Killah "Run"
Ja Rule, Jadakiss, and Fat Joe
"New York"
Kanye West "All Falls
Down" (Most of West’s videos could make this list)
De La Soul: Still Grinding
Excerpt from www.allhiphop.com -
By Martin A. Berrios
AllHipHop.com: The Grind Date has been already received as one of the better albums
in your catalogue. You’ve never made a poorly received album, but why do you
think the album came together so well?
Dave:
It comes in several ways for us, man. We don’t really stick to one way of
recording songs. Sometimes you’ll hear a beat and you’ll be inspired to write
rhymes, and hopefully those rhymes can fall under some theme or title.
Sometimes you’ll get an idea ‘cause of something you’ve seen, witnessed, or
experienced, or what have you. Like I want to write a song about how you know
how girls be getting guys top trick, and at the end of the day when you don’t
get anything out of it, leaving guys sexless if you want to say. So it’s like
what can we call it. We can call it ‘Shopping Bags’. Like wow I heard some
music that will match. So it can come in any way. The approach to us is, just
let it happen, oppose to trying to do it. You can’t think of a title and say
you know how’s the title going to work and how can you make it creative and
then you can find a beat to match that mood and then you start writing rhymes.
We allow the approach come whichever way it comes.
AllHipHop.com: Buhloone Mindstate is an amazing album. Ten years later, how do you
feel about it now? Why do you think it's so slept on?
Dave:
Ummm, me personally, I hated Buhloone Mindstate. That was one album I did not
like.
AllHipHop.com: Why Not? Can you go into this a little further?
Dave:
I didn’t like the album because I think we were just a little too creative. And
to me, you should never use the phrase ‘too creative’. But I think we took it a
little too far. You know I think there was a big influence on us at the time
from groups we were hanging out with. Like Tribe and so many others on the Jazz
tip. I just felt it went a little to the left or who we were as people and what
we were accustomed to at the time. Like some of the songs personally didn’t
want to do. ‘Patty Duke’ [and] ‘Area Codes’ I didn’t want to do.
AllHipHop.com: How about ‘Break A Dawn’?
Dave:
‘Break A Dawn’ I hated as well. I didn’t want that to be the first single.
That’s just me personally. Mase and Pos may be feel differently, but to me that
was an album I didn’t personally enjoy recording. I can’t even say so much the
music, I just didn’t enjoy recording at the time. But from what I hear, you
know a lot of De La fans feel that is their favourite album. That’s the album
feel most comfortable with, so I’m happy to feel to and to know even during the
time of disliking or not even feeling comfortable of what I was doing, I still
put my best work into it, so it’s cool.
AllHipHop.com: Now that you basically trashed Buhloone Mindstate, what’s your
favourite album out of the De La Soul catalogue?
Dave:
My favourite album would probably be Stakes Is High. I think [it] was just
giving a rebirth to ourselves and doing it on our own. The message we put out
on that album was important. We were obviously were in the game to establish
ourselves and make great career out of it. Money is definitely important, but
we come from another school - where Hip-Hop is important. I think that message
was heard and respected and even lead to some people getting heated or just
heeding to some of the messages we were bringing on that. That felt good too.
And also the production end of it, I think that record was Hip-Hop man. I think
you heard great beats, great rhymes, and also great artists like the Common’s,
people who basically featured on that record. It just felt good all the way around.
It felt that was the best album to me.
AllHipHop.com: You guys took an aggressive approach on getting that message heard on
that album. Did you catch any backlash from anyone of your peers?
Dave:
Yeah there were some people who maybe took offense to some things. Like you
know Treach thought Pos was dissing him on the intro, even Kane to an extent
came to me one day saying you know, ‘Were you dissing me on such and such
song?’ And I’m like first off those were Pos rhymes, so you know maybe you
should even realize who’s saying what they were saying what they were saying
what they are saying, know that first. Secondly it was no disrespect, we wasn’t
trying to diss anybody. We were trying to make a point we were trying to make a
point to say a lot about Hip-Hop, no one in particular. I don’t think there was
too much of a backlash. I think House Of Pain thought we were dissing them. I
think one time we were in Atlanta for the Gavin music conference and we
performed ‘The Bizness’ and ‘Stakes Is High’ and a lot of artists that
approached us on some you know what you guys are right. We don’t attack people
personally - we attack the game.
AllHipHop.com: What’s your relationship with Prince Paul now of days?
Dave:
We are cool with Paul. Paul will always be family with us. We’ve done so much
work on his projects from the Psychoanalysis to the Handsome Boy Modeling
School. We’re family. He was in some of our studio sessions for The Grind Date
and he was in the studio with us for the albums that came before that, like
Stakes Is High and AOI, so it’s love. He’s been a person who’s been in our
career ever since day one, so he taught us a lot. We’re in debt to him forever.
He’s a big part of why the reason why De La Soul exist. We are actually
recording AOI 3 in the near future and Prince Paul will be a co-producer on
that album. He’s going to come in and work with us on that album.
AllHipHop.com: You guys are noted producers in your right. What makes guys go
outside of your circle for production?
Dave:
We’ve always like to be apart of the producing end of things but I think like
just gets a little more heavy. There was a time we were young cats and we could
sit down in the studio for 15-16 hours a day, 2-3 days in a row, and feel the
freedom to create and produce. We’re away so much on the road, that the time at
home just has to come to a standstill from being in the studio, recording, and
producing. So luckily we have great producers like Dave West, 9th Wonder,
Madlib, Jake-One, and J-Dilla, who are on the same vibe and production ideals
that De La is on. And when they can supply us with great beats, we feel
comfortable with taking the backseat and not going into the studio and not
trying it on our own. We would love to do it in the near future. But, when you
have great artist pumping great music why deny yourself of it?
AllHipHop.com: Your music pioneered innovative sampling. Do approach sampling the
same way you would while you were making 3 Feet High & Rising?
Dave:
We go about it the same way. You don’t limit yourself at all, we are not afraid
of, ‘Oh they might sue you’, let’s just do it because it sounds good. We’ll
just work out the rules and details later. It doesn’t always have to be
sampling Soul records or from a certain record label or a certain artist. If
it’s a Johnny Cash record sitting there, or a Dire Straits record or a Marvin
Gaye Record. We’re going to take from all of them, and see what works and see
what sounds good. It’s the same approach. It will never change. Sampling is
important to us, it’s a big part of what we do and we will never deny ourselves
of it.
AllHipHop.com: What have you been listening to lately?
Dave:
Ummmmm…
AllHipHop.com: Kanye West?
Dave:
(Laughs) I haven’t been listening to too much man, I found that there’s some
artist that don’t do it for me. Expecting some great things from new releases
didn’t work out for me man. I haven’t been listening to anything new. The last
thing I was listening to was the new Best Of Both Worlds joint. It didn’t
really turn me on though. The last thing that I listened to that I probably
enjoyed was some of the Theodore Unit stuff.
AllHipHop.com: What did you think of The Pretty Toney?
Dave:
I didn’t like Ghost’s last album. I expected a lot more there. A lot of joints
on there I did like, but overall as an album - and maybe it’s unfair to not
respect it as its own entity, maybe I was trying to find the feeling and the
joints I heard on Bulletproof Wallets and Supreme Clientele. I just didn’t hear
the same thing. Right now Ghost and MF Doom are the artists I enjoy listening
to. These are the only dudes who I feel like who are really going out there and
doing Hip-Hop, challenging their art and doing it well. Everybody else to me is
trash. I don’t even listen to nobody else.
AllHipHop.com: What about outside of Hip-Hop?
Dave:
Outside of Hip-Hop, I would like to listen to that new Jill Scott record. I
listen to everything. I enjoy people like Coldplay, India Arie, R. Kelly. I
think R. Kelly’s record is great. I don’t deny music I think if it sounds good,
whatever genre it is, whether R&B, Hip-Hop, Classic Soul. Even what Latifah
just did on her new album. To me if it sounds good, it’s good.
Cherrelle Planning New Album
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Jan. 5, 2005) *You can’t possibly think back to the mid-eighties without
a Cherrelle song playing somewhere in
the background. The Los Angeles native, whose collaborations with
producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis led to such bonafide jams as “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On,” and the
Cherrelle/Alexander O’Neal classics "Saturday Love" and "Never
Knew Love Like This," will resurface this year with a new album, and a new
artist signed to her new company Peach Town Entertainment. “You know peach,
like Atlanta’s Peachtree St.,” says the songbird, whom we caught up with at a
recent Earth Wind and Fire concert in Los Angeles. I’m out here working with my
first artist Brit. Well, her name is Britney, but we call her Brit. [Her style]
is in between Cherrelle and Pebbles, but with a bite.” Brit must sound like
family, since Pebbles is Cherrelle’s cousin. Born Cheryl Week Norton in
1958, the budding singer met bassist/singer Michael Henderson when her family
moved to Detroit. He invited young Cheryl to the studio, where she would spent
time in the evenings after punching out of work at a bank. Imitating the
way her boss would angrily yell “Cherrrr-rellle” when she was late for work,
she decided to keep the pronunciation – as Cherrelle. After moving on to tour with Henderson, and later, Luther
Vandross, she recorded a demo that ended up on the desk of Tabu Records owner
Clarence Avant. Cherrelle’s father – a lawyer – negotiated the recording
contract with Avant's label that was distributed by A&M Records, and she
was teamed with producers/songwriters Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who had
already scored hits for Tabu recording act S.O.S. Band. You know what
happened next. “Fragile,” Cherrelle’s first album in 1984, spawned "I
Didn't Mean to Turn You On." Her second LP, 1986’s “High Priority,” housed
the number two R&B hit "Saturday Love," a duet with labelmate
Alexander O' Neal. The collaboration went so well that Jam and Lewis thought of
an idea for her third album, “Affair.” The songs, duets with O’Neal, would be
based around a romantic relationship that turned sour. The first single,
“Never Knew Love Like This,” peaked at number two on the R&B chart in early
1988. The next single, “Everything I Miss at Home,” reached No. 1 in late 1988,
followed by the title track, which climbed to No. 4 in early 1989. For
Cherrelle’s 2005 album, she will once again work with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
on some songs, as well as other producers.
“It is off the chain, and that’s all I’m gonna say,” affirms the singer
excitedly. “I’m working with different producers including my brothas –
you know I gotta do something with my brothas Jimmy and Terry.” Cherrelle’s last album, 1999’s “The Right
Time,” hit record shelves quietly without support from radio, something that
frustrates the singer to no end. “A lot
of people say, ‘[Old school artists] have an oldies station – 70s and 80s
music’ – and we hear it all day long,” she says. “But when we do something new,
we don’t hear it. Why? Because [the songs] don’t sound like the old [songs],
you see what I mean?” For those
of us who aren’t ready to let the old Cherrelle go quite yet, she promises that
her new album will have the classic Cherrelle sound that turned us all on
(without meaning to) back in the day. Its release will be followed by the
R&B/pop debut album from Brit, a Jacksonville, North Carolina native who
met her mentor in an Atlanta recording studio where the young singer was laying
down vocals. “I knew who Cherrelle was,” Brit says. “‘I Didn’t Mean to Turn You
On’ is one of my favourite songs. ‘Everything I miss at home’ [“Home”] – big
fan of that. Big fan of Cherrelle period. This is all a blessing. I’m very glad
she came my way.”
Jae
Millz MTV's First 'You Hear It First' Artist For 2005
Excerpt from www.allhiphop.com - By
David Lopez
(Jan. 4, 2005) Is Jae Millz the
next superstar to represent Harlem, New York? MTV thinks he will be.
The network will shine the spotlight on the rapper, presenting him
as the first MTV News "You Hear It First" artist of 2005. "You Hear It First" gives fans a
look at emerging artists. Others who have been featured on the segment include
Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Slim Thug, Little Brother and Anthony Hamilton. Millz, who generated a strong industry buzz
with the success of the track "No No No," has recently heated the
streets with a new banger, "Streetz Melting," produced by Swizz
Beatz. The single is catching on with deejays across the country. Jae Millz
full-length debut album, Back To Tha Future, will be released on Wanna
Blow Entertainment/Universal Records this Spring. "I named it (the album) Back
To Tha Future because I felt Hip Hop was missing Hip Hop," Jae says.
"I'm going to take it back when the game was about Hip Hop - when it was
about lyrics." Production on he project includes tracks from Omen, Ron
Browz, Scram Jones (who produced "No No No"), Emile, Swizz Beatz, and
Heatmakerz, while guest appearances include TI, Swizz Beatz and Slim Thug.
"Making an album is comfortable, it's like your diary," Millz
explained. "You don't even have to talk some bullsh*t, you can talk what
you go through." "As much as people want to hear you talk some funny
sh*t and floss and front, they want to know what you go through and know that
you're human," Millz said. "They want to feel like you're on the same
level as them. I try to put a lot of reality into my songs, and with this album
I want people to understand that I can spit and I do the battles and freestyles
and have fun, but I take my music very seriously."
Sisters In The Spirit Tour
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Dec. 30, 2004) What is it called when Yolanda
Adams, Martha Munizzi, Juanita Bynum, Kelly Price, RiZen and Sheila E to share
the same stage? If Sisters In The Spirit
comes to mind, you got it right. Sharing in c celebration of body, mind
and soul, Sisters In The Spirit tour will kick-off on February 1, 200d in
Columbus, OH and is currently scheduled to end March 6th in Austin, TX.
Gospel music superstars Yolanda Adams, Martha Munizzi and RiZen will dazzle the
audience with their musical sets while Sheila E is set to be the musical
director and Prophetess Juanita Bynum will deliver a message as well as song
during the concert. For a complete tour schedule and additional tour
information visit www.alwe.com.
Bishop Lauds Band Aid For Spreading Xmas Message
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - By Associated
Press
(Dec.
31, 2004) London — A charity pop single raising money
for African relief has done a better job than the church in spreading the
Christmas message, a Church of England bishop acknowledged this week. Band Aid,
the collective of pop stars gathered together by Irish musician Bob Geldof, had done what organized religion
"was not able to or did not want to carry out," said the Right
Reverend Carl Cooper, Bishop of St. Davids. The Band Aid song Do They Know
It's Christmas, featuring among other Robbie Williams and Bono of U2,
currently holds the number-one position in the British pop charts, with the
proceeds going to Sudan's conflict-wracked region of Darfur. It is a
rerecording of a song that topped the charts in 1984 in aid of famine relief in
Ethiopia. AFP
Kurtis
Blow’s Hip Hop Church
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Dec. 31, 2004) *Whatever happened to Kurtis
Blow, you ask? The pioneering rap star has instituted what he calls
“Hip Hop” church services at two Harlem parishes, reports the “New York Post.”
"The kids need to learn about God, but even the
ones who already know God don't like the church, because church is
boring," said Blow, whose pulpit is a DJ booth – literally. “What we do
isn't boring — it's energetic, it's uplifting, it's spiritual — and the kids
can relate to it. We speak the word of God in a language they can understand.”
Blow rocks the church mike at the services held Fridays at Harlem's Abyssinian
Baptist Church and Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion Church. In February 2005,
Blow plans to enroll at New York School Ministry to become a minister.
"When you're born again, all old things pass away. It's a totally new day
for Kurtis Blow,” Blow told the Post. "Rap is a great thing, but it's been
getting blamed for a lot of the brawls you see in sports and at shows and
gangsta rap has had its problems."
Chris Webber Making Beats Under An Alias
Excerpt from www.allhiphop.com
- By David Lopez
(Dec.
29, 2004) When
he’s on the court he is a highly paid superstar, but behind the sound boards Chris Webber tries to remain as anonymous as
possible. The Sacramento King
and NBA all-star has been making beats under a secret name for some time the
athlete revealed. “I make beats under an alias,” Webber told
Dime magazine in a recent interview. “It’s some well-known cats coming out
using my stuff right now. But it’s under an alias and hopefully the music will
speak for itself because it won’t have my name on it,” he continued.
This is
not Webber’s first foray into the music business. The 6-10 Michigan graduate is
also owner of Humility Records. “I have had a studio in my house for 12
years and I learned from some of the best,” Webber said. “I came out with an
album and that’s not something I wanted to do. Artists would come to my house
and I’d let them record for free as long as they did a song with me and I’d
rhyme over it….I didn’t promote it. But I don’t like to even be looked at like
I put out an album, because it was just for me.” Webber cited A
Tribe Called Quest’s Q -Tip’s classic line off “Check the Rhime” when talking
about the business end of the game: “Industry rule number 4,080? Record company
people are shady.” “I’m glad I don’t have to depend on that to
make a living, “he said. “It’s an honour to make beats and a way to keep my
love of music going and stay on the low.”
Snoop Admits Cheating On Wife
Excerpt
from www.eurweb.com
(Dec.
30, 2004) "I cheated on her. That's the worst
thing you could possibly do - lose somebody's trust who really loves you,"
Snoop Dogg laments in the latest
issue of “Rolling Stone” magazine. The
rapper filed for divorce from his wife Shante in May citing irreconcilable
differences, but as previously reported, he has since had second thoughts about
the break up. “I'm thirty-three
years old now,” he says. “I see a lot of things differently now than I used to.
I try to do more right than wrong and to keep God in everything I do and to
keep the devils away from me. But I know by trying to stay so right, the devil
is going to keep on working on me. That's going to be a curse around me all the
time. But I don't think it's going to get to me. I really don't think that it
is.” Snoop also told the music magazine about the first time he made love to
his wife, who had been his childhood sweetheart. “It was in this little cheap-ass hotel in
North Long Beach,” he says. “She made me wait a whole year. That's why I love
her so much.” Snoop revealed additional personal revelations, such as his need
to be the centre of attention. “When I'm not, it puts me on edge, like my
fingertips get sweaty.' He says that he's a good person "97.5 percent of
the time,' and that he lost his virginity in 1982, when he was 11.
Jerkins idol? Gives Aspiring
Writers Chance To Win A Record Deal With Darkchild
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Jan.
5, 2005) **Along with the
forthcoming instrumental solo album “Versatility” from producer Rodney Jerkins comes the chance for aspiring
songwriters to win a publishing, production or artist deal under Jerkins' Darkchild banner, reports “Billboard.” The
hopefuls must write a song to one of the set’s 12 original tracks, which range
from R&B and hip-hop to smooth jazz, dancehall ("Shock Wave"),
club ("Shake It for Me") and even marching band-flavoured
("Wake-Up Call"). The producer has also pondered the possibility of
reissuing "Versatility" with the winners' songs. “This really isn't about my tracks or my production
shining," Jerkins tells “Billboard.” “It's about giving people an
opportunity to do their thing as well as an outlet to get their material heard.
I want to create new avenues for new talent.”
::CD RELEASES::
Tuesday,
January 4, 2005
Gladys
Knight & The Saints Unified Voices,
One
Voice, Many Roads
Hall
& Oates, Best of Hall & Oates [Liquid 8], Liquid
8
INXS, Kick
[Deluxe Edition], Universal International
Mario
Winans, I Don't Wanna Know [Canada EP], Universal
International
Ol'
Dirty Bastard, Osirus,
Sure
Shot Recordings
Pat
Benatar & Neil Giraldo, Summer Vacation
Tour Live, Lemon
Sum 41, Chuck, Universal
International
Terror
Squad, Lean Back [EP], Universal
International
The
Mamas & the Papas, Anthology, Universal
International
The
Raspberries, Fresh,
RPM
The
Raspberries, Raspberries, RPM
Various
Artists, Pure Groove: 80's Slow Jams, Universal
International
Various
Artists, Rap-Along Tribute to 50 Cent's
Greatest Hits, Tribute Sounds
Various
Artists, Soul Classics [Northquest], Northquest
Various
Artists, Soul Searchin' [Northquest], Northquest
Various
Artists, String Quartet Tribute To Tupac, Vitamin
Various
Artists, Timeless Soul, Northquest
Young
Buck, Let Me In [EP], Universal
International
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Diane
Warren, Presents Love Songs, WEA
International
Sarah
McLachlan, Touch/Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, BMG
International
Sarah
McLachlan, Surfacing/Solace, BMG
International
The
Doobie Brothers, Minute By Minute, Audio
Fidelity
The
Mamas & The Papas, Gold,
Geffen
Destiny's Child, Destiny Fulfilled [Bonus Tracks], Sony International
Dionne
Warwick, Love Songs [Arista], Arista
Donna
Summer, Gold,
Hip-O
Gladys
Knight & The Pips, Love Songs [Buddha], Buddha
Johnny
Gill, Love Songs, Motown
Marvin
Gaye, Gold [Motown], Motown
Percy
Sledge/Eddie Floyd/Clarence Carter,
Soul
Troubadours, Fuel 2000
Ray
Charles, Brother Ray's Blues, Synergy
Ray
Charles, Live at the Olympia 2000, Mk2
Music France
Smokey
Robinson, For Lovers, Motown
The
Neville Brothers, Very Best Of, Snapper
Music Group
The
Temptations, Gold,
Motown
Various
Artists, R&B Years 1948, Boulevard
UK
Various
Artists, R&B Years 1949, Boulevard
UK
::FILM NEWS::
2004 In Film
Excerpt from The
Globe and Mail - By Liam Lacey
(Dec.
31, 2004) In the year when movies became weapons in
the American cultural wars, theologians and political pundits became the real
authorities on the movies. To talk about whether a movie was well or badly made
was almost quaint. Please! It's bigger than that. Mel Gibson's The Passion
of the Christ was, if not the best, the most socially important movie of
the year. It proved there's a congregation out there that Hollywood forgot
about. A graphic and relentless portrayal of Jesus Christ's final agonies, with
subtitles and a barely known cast, the movie proved to be a mainstream
box-office phenomenon (currently the ninth-biggest movie of all time). Many
Catholics and evangelical Protestants said The Passion heightened their
appreciation of Christ's suffering for humankind and believed the movie was an
evangelizing tool. For others, the film was nothing less than an exercise in
heavy-handed sadism in the name of piety -- the "Jesus Chainsaw
Massacre," as critic David Edelstein called it. Reviewers were mostly
repelled by its violence and the movie's potential anti-Semitism. The culture
wars found a new battleground. The Passion, with its emphasis on bloody
sacrifice and implacable villains, was embraced by the right wing. Commentators
from journalist Robert Novak to columnist Ann Coulter and Fox television host
Bill O'Reilly championed the film, denouncing the critics from the so-called
liberal cultural elite. Newt Gingrich went so far as to say the November
elections in the United States came down to supporters of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit
9/11 versus Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Moore, a regular
churchgoer, has said Christ inspires his film as well, citing "his message
about questioning those in authority, of being a man of peace, of loving your
neighbour." Moore, too, found a devout following: He busted his own Bowling
for Columbine record for a best-selling documentary ($119-million in the
United States and Canada, another $101-million internationally) and kept alive
the burgeoning new field of political docs. Gibson's film did a little better
($370-million and an additional $240-million internationally).
Both films found favour in the Arab Middle East.
Moore's film apparently was cited by Osama bin Laden on one of his tapes and The
Passion was viewed, in some quarters, as evidence of Jewish perfidy. As
critics feared, The Passion opened the door to some shocking
anti-Semitism, wrapped up as anti-Hollywood, anti-liberal sentiments. William
Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and
one of the biggest supporters of The Passion, said recently on the MSNBC
show Scarborough Country: "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews
who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a
secret, okay? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie.
It's about Jesus Christ." The alarming thing is that Donohue has some real
power. He was responsible for having Miramax drop director Kevin Smith's
Catholic satire Dogma. (Smith, like Michael Moore, is a practising
Catholic who has distanced himself from Gibson's movie.) There are undoubtedly
a lot of Jews working in Hollywood, but Donohue's conclusions are otherwise
exactly opposite to the facts. As is convincingly argued in Neal Gabler's An
Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, the Jews who founded
Hollywood had fled the violent anti-Semitism of Eastern Europe and they helped
shape the myth of the United States as a land of tolerance, democratic ideals
and opportunity. This myth of the U.S. as beacon to the world was challenged
repeatedly in films this year. Take Dogville, for instance, by Lars von
Trier, another moral provocateur, and a Catholic convert. Starring Nicole
Kidman in her best performance yet, Dogville is a kind of a gangster
tale, set in a Depression-era mountain town, that serves as an allegory about
American ideology and isolationism. It ends in spectacular violence that is,
implicitly, a judgment from God. In another of the year's best films, Guy
Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World (also set in the Depression,
this time in Winnipeg amidst an international competition for the world's
saddest music), an American impresario co-opts all the sorrow in the world into
a hideously cheerful musical extravaganza. Maddin takes as his subject the
manipulation of family life and national tragedies. Contemporary political
themes are also pervasive elsewhere: In Oliver Stone's epic failure, Alexander,
Alexander the Great is something like George Dubya Bush, while King Darius of
Persia, who hides in the mountains, is another Osama bin Laden. Jonathan Demme
revived the cold-war spy thriller The Manchurian Candidate, replacing
Communists with a military conglomeration much like Halliburton, the
controversial Texas-based oil company. Even a film as simple-minded as M. Night
Shyamalan's The Village, with its colour-coded warnings and guarded
borders, served as a liberal allegory of rule by fear and isolation. The
summer's favourite hit, Spider-Man 2, managed to offer many weighty
pronouncements about the nature of gifts, duties and the call to heroism, as
well as having a wounded Spidey in a crucifixion pose.
Perhaps at a time when people are gingerly weighing the
pros and cons of strong men as leaders, movies about flawed heroes dominated the
latter part of the year. There was the womanizing, drug-addicted musical genius
Ray Charles in Ray; the pioneering sex doctor stuck in his head in Kinsey;
the world-conquering hero who couldn't deal with his nutty mom in Alexander;
and the high-flying aviator who locked himself in rooms in fear in The
Aviator. None of this should obscure the fact that some of the most popular
films of the year were escapist fantasies. An intensely aesthetic revenge yarn,
Kill Bill: Vol. 2, the second most violent film of the year, emerged out
of Quentin Tarantino's brain with a vacuum-packed indifference to the real
world. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is positively pagan. The
animated film Shrek 2, the highest-grossing movie of the year by a long
stretch (at $436-million), is a meet-the-in-laws tale. And no film was as
flat-out fun as another family movie, The Incredibles, Pixar's latest
triumph about a clan of superheroes with the middle-class blahs. So far,
critics groups in various cities (Toronto, Boston, New York, Chicago, Los
Angeles) have given their laurels to idiosyncratic love and buddy stories with
skewed temporal qualities. These include Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind, Richard Linklater's Before Sunset and Alexander
Payne's Sideways. Of course, the dirty little secret of critics groups
is that many of the members do not see most of the films released each year and
their picks are often safe consensus choices. Foreign releases, in particular,
get remarkably short shrift outside of press reviews. While it's fun to munch
popcorn to Zhang Yimou's visually sumptuous martial-arts films Hero and House
of Flying Daggers, it's important to remember there's much more out there.
Some of the most moving or incisively made films of the year are Jafar Panahi's
Crimson Gold from Iran; Julie Bertuccelli's Since Otar Left from
the Republic of Georgia; Alan Mak and Andrew Lau's savvy Hong Kong cop drama, Infernal
Affairs; and Gyorgy Palfi's gratifyingly eccentric Hungarian film, Hukkle,
a murder mystery with only a few hints of dialogue. For foreign films and most
Canadian films, the studio-dictated January-to-December schedule is
meaningless. For all the developments in digital technology, even a lauded film
can take months or years to get from a festival showing to theatrical release,
by which time the most fervent audience has probably found a DVD version. Of
course, this is not the best year to complain that subtitled films can't get a
break, when that Aramaic-Latin release, The Passion of the Christ,
turned all conventional wisdom upside down.
Winning Combo: Ensemble Casts, Good Chemistry
Excerpt from The
Toronto Star - Peter
Howell, Movie Critic
(Dec. 31, 2004) Conventional movie
wisdom took it on the chin in 2004, and not just because Clint Eastwood
surprised everyone with a hit movie about boxing. Films that were deemed too controversial to release — Mel
Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit
9/11 — became the movies everybody wanted to see. Genres considered outside the mainstream, such as Gibson's
religious drama and Moore's documentary, were suddenly packing the multiplexes,
allowing a slumping box office to hold its decline to less than 3 per cent this
year over last, which was also down from 2002.
And remember all those predictions about indie films fading in
popularity? Napoleon Dynamite, Super Size Me, Garden State,
Open Water and other unheralded wonders launched at the Sundance film
festival last January and went on to do impressive business throughout the
year. Filmmakers considered past their
prime, including Eastwood (age 74) and Martin Scorsese (62) came back with Million
Dollar Baby and The Aviator, winning year-end critical kudos. Both
are expected to do well at the Oscars and Golden Globes. Red-hot actors Brad Pitt, Colin Farrell and
Jude Law cooled with the flops Troy, Alexander and Alfie,
while forgotten talents like Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) and
Virginia Madsen (Sideways) proved career obits are often written too
soon. My list of favourite films of
2004, topped by Alexander Payne's sublime wine tour Sideways, also
sidesteps the status quo. For Sideways, as for most of the movies on my
list, it wasn't about a single actor or actress. It was the quality of the
chemistry between two or more actors that really counted. If you ask me,
ensemble films are the hottest trend going as we head into 2005. Howell's Top 10 For 2004:
1. Sideways A bottle of bubbly, a road map,
a great story and the year's finest acting team — they all come together for a
memorable movie that is as knowledgeable about wine as it is about human
nature. Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen and Canada's own
Sandra Oh make the case that it's time for the Oscars to uncork an award for
ensemble acting.
2. Before
Sunset A night in Paris is really
quite romantic, but how about an afternoon there tinged with regret, filled
with conversation and fraught with promise? In Richard Linklater's outstanding
sequel to the lustful Before Sunrise, Ethan Hawke's and Julie Delpy's
amorous characters pick up where they left off a decade ago, older but not
necessarily wiser.
3. Million
Dollar Baby A lot of people told actor/director Clint Eastwood that a movie
about a female boxer couldn't find an audience. Good thing he didn't listen to
them, and don't be fooled by the boxing theme or glib suggestions of romance.
Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman star in roles they will all be proud
to remember, this is a movie with much love and heart, but ultimately it's
about courage.
4. The
Saddest Music In The World Trust Guy Maddin to turn
misery, poverty and sadness into performance art, and to make us bust a gut
laughing at it. Winnipeg's Wizard of Weird gets as close to the mainstream as
he ever will, with a Dirty Thirties fable that turns grief into song, melodrama
into mayhem and Isabella Rossellini's beer-filled glass legs into the sexiest
appendages since Mae West's boa constrictor.
5. Closer Who's afraid of a little frank sex talk? Not director Mike
Nichols, who reignites the relationship bonfire for one of the best films of his
long career. Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen make love
and wage war with a ferocity that leaves us dazed, confused and utterly
drained.
6. The
Aviator Like the massive Spruce Goose
that was Howard Hughes' grandest vision and greatest folly, Martin Scorsese's
sprawling biopic of the billionaire madman Howard Hughes shouldn't get off the
ground, but it literally soars. With Leonard DiCaprio as the unlikely but
award-worthy lead, Scorsese packs adventure, drama and wild hubris into three
hours of thrills — and he only gets as far as 1947!
7. Super
Size Me Morgan Spurlock had a crazy
idea for a documentary. What if he ate all of his meals at McDonald's, and only
McDonald's, for a solid month? The result is both a comedy and horror show
about the effects of massive amounts of salt, sugar and fat on the human body,
but the payoff is a film that is as entertaining as it is instructive. Do you
think it was a coincidence that McDonald's canned super-sized portions this
year?
8. Collateral Tom Cruise plays a hit man visiting L.A. with a few hours to
kill, and with Jamie Foxx as his cab-driving hostage. That one-line summary
turns into something special as the two actors play off unrealized reserves of
dark energy, lensed by director Michael Mann with a high-tech digicam that
reveals the City of Angels in all its midnight glory.
9. Eternal
Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind Can
we ever really forget the people we love, even if they are no longer in our
lives? Can the heart truly conquer all? Just a couple of the cosmic connections
made in Michel Gondry's offbeat but frequently heart-rending tale of love's
labours erased, featuring career-peak performances by the charismatic couple
Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Next to Before Sunset, this is the most
romantic movie of the year.
10. Team America: World Police
You've got to give Trey Parker and Matt Stone credit. They could have kept
right on making South Park sequels until their fans cried uncle, but
instead made a wonky kind of cinematic history by crafting a Jerry Bruckheimer
blockbuster parody acted entirely by puppets. The result is weird, wonderful,
frequently gross and always a hoot, with the most outrageous sex scene ever to
slip past a censor. Runners-up: Vera Drake, The Motorcycle Diaries,
Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Hotel Rwanda, Festival Express, Dogville,
Kinsey, The Incredibles, The Return, Goodbye Lenin!,
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter.... And Spring, Touching The Void. Guilty
Pleasure: Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy. Looking Forward
To: The Big Red One: The Reconstruction. I Wish They'd Stop ... making
movies about how awful Christmas is.
Old Black U.S. Movies Get New Life
Excerpt from The
Toronto Star - Sylvia Moreno, Washington
Post
(Jan. 1,
2005) DALLAS—They are big-screen films that only segregated Americans got to
see in the 1930s, '40s and early '50s.
There's the story of Daisy Mae Walker, a fresh-faced girl who leaves
tiny Texas town to find fame as a singer in big (bad) New York City. Another
film features two down-and-out rascals who arrive in Dallas with nothing more
than a quarter between them, but enough smarts to con free room and board out
of the family of an aspiring beauty pageant contestant, Honeydew Holiday. There
is the reluctant draftee, who opposes World War II but ends up a patriotic
hero. Once thought lost, the "race
movies," as they were known, which were shown mostly in the segregated
movie houses of the old South, have been reissued in a three-DVD box set and
distributed to 1,000 poor school districts and African-American museums in
Texas. There are tales about
entrepreneurs, lawyers, novelists, preachers, musicians, cabdrivers and
farmers. And, yes, the movies include gangsters, swindlers, bumblers, compulsive
gamblers and plain mean folks. In plot,
they're not much different from other Hollywood films of the pre- and
post-World War II eras, but white society was never meant to see them. Some were produced by African-Americans, all
were written and directed by blacks, and, with very few exceptions, they
featured only black actors. This was the black response to white Hollywood
during a time of legal segregation: produced on shoestring budgets, shot in one
take and starring polished actors — Clarence Muse and Spencer Williams, for
instance, who went on to Hollywood careers — alongside complete amateurs. Seven feature-length films and seven shorts
and newsreels were put on the three DVDs through a digitization project overseen
by Southern Methodist University. The
set, which includes scholarly introductions to each movie or short, is also
available for sale to libraries and the public by SMU's Hamon Arts Library,
home of the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection. For these films — called the Tyler, Texas,
Black Film Collection — it represents a new life, once again. The first
resuscitation came in 1983, when thousands of 35mm film canisters were
discovered in a dusty corner of an old warehouse near Dallas. One summer day,
the warehouse manager telephoned Jones, then the director of the Southwest
Film/Video Archives at SMU.
"Would
your archives be interested in taking a look at what appear to be some old
films which have been sitting in one of our warehouses for a long time?"
Jones recalled being asked, in his 1991 book, Black Cinema Treasures: Lost
And Found. "Nobody here wants them, they're taking up a lot of space
and we're getting ready to dispose of them unless you want them." Jones did. What he found in the stacks of
octagonal steel film cans were reels of flammable pre-1950 nitrate stock in
various stages of decomposition. Jones salvaged more than 100 features and
shorts, most prints of standard Hollywood movies from the 1930s and '40s. But
among them were 22 black-audience films, including a movie by Oscar Micheaux,
the dean of black filmmakers, and some titles believed to have been lost
forever. "It's a miracle that any
of this film survived," said Tinsley Silcox, director of the Hamon Arts
Library, which owns the Tyler Collection. Jones taught film and video at SMU
for 27 years and died in 1993. He also co-directed and wrote a documentary in
1990 called That's Black Entertainment, featuring the Tyler films and
other examples of the approximately 200 to 400 race films made in the first
half of the 20th century. Within a year
after the warehouse discovery, Jones obtained a grant to transfer the volatile
stock to 35mm safety film. Since then, the Tyler Collection has been shown
intermittently at black film festivals and in selected libraries and museums
across the United States. With advances in technology and a state grant of
$65,000 (U.S.) to digitize some of the restored collection, many of the films
are now available for wide distribution — a goal that Jones did not live to see
realized. "He felt there was a
moral imperative to preserve and enhance these films," Silcox said.
"They really are a rare glimpse of black life (from the 1930s to the
1950s) devoid of Hollywood stereotypes."
And that, said one scholar, makes these films informative, too. "They show what people were wearing,
how they moved, how they talked," said Jacqueline Stewart, an associate
professor of English and a member of the Committee on Cinema and Media Studies
at the University of Chicago. "It teaches us about black style at that
time, and it's not just an imitation from Hollywood."
‘Rwanda's
Schindler': Enter The Hero
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Richard
Ouzounian, Entertainment Reporter
(Jan. 5, 2005) It's the machete scars that Don Cheadle will
always remember. Ask the 40-year-old
star of Hotel Rwanda what he recalls most vividly from the filming of
Terry George's movie about the 1994 genocide that claimed nearly a million
lives and his answer is immediate.
"Even though we shot the picture in South Africa, a lot of the
extras came down from Rwanda. You didn't have to ask which ones they were. You
could tell from the machete scars on their legs. "If it were me, I don't know if I could face reliving the
horror again. I asked one of them why he was putting himself through that
torture and he said `So that I will never forget; so that the world will never
forget.'" Cheadle's eyes are
filled with pain. "I guess that's why we made the movie." Hotel Rwanda, which opens in Toronto
on Friday, is based on the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of
Hotel Des Milles Collines, a luxury resort owned by Sabena Airlines in central
Kigali. On April 6, 1994, President
Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda was killed when his plane was shot down. He had
been the country's first democratically elected leader and was a member of the
majority Hutu tribe. His assassination
caused the centuries-long conflict between the Hutus and the rival Tutsis to
explode into increased violence. Over the next three months, almost a million
Tutsis were slaughtered by machete-wielding Hutus, and eventually more than a thousand
people fled to the Milles Collines. Rusesabagina kept them alive with a
combination of courage, cunning and hair-trigger diplomacy. The Western world was slow to notice what
was happening in Rwanda and even slower to respond to the slaughter. Rusesabagina
was caught in a deadly struggle against time.
"He was an amazing man," relates Cheadle, in an interview
during the Toronto International Film Festival, where Hotel Rwanda won
the AGF People's Choice Award. "Just a decent guy who found his whole world
turned around. The kind of person who never knew he had greatness inside him
until the situation demanded it."
In a way, you could say the same thing about Cheadle. Although one of
Hollywood's best-liked and most-employed supporting players, Hotel Rwanda marks
the first time he's had to play a leading role on the big screen. "I tell you, friend, you never know
what it's like until you're actually doing it. The good part about being the
star of a movie is that you're in every scene, but that's the bad part, too.
When you're the man, well, you're the man, that's it. "As the shooting went on, I got more and more exhausted, but
that all worked for me, because it's also what happened to Paul. He told me
once that, every day during that time, he had to struggle to open his eyes,
because he thought it might be his last day on Earth." Rusesabagina, the man who has been dubbed
"Rwanda's Schindler," was present during the shooting and Cheadle
concedes it was a blessing as well as a curse. "Sure, it makes you nervous
when the man you're playing is standing a few feet away from you, but on the
other hand, it meant that his spirit was with me all the time and that helped
me in many ways." Cheadle fits so
perfectly into the character of the dapper, precise Rusesabagina it's hard to
imagine the film without him, but that's nearly what happened.
"It was Don that I thought of when I wrote the movie,"
admitted writer-director Terry George, "but I was straight with him and
told him that there was a lot of pressure to hire a big-name star." "I appreciated Terry's honesty,"
says Cheadle, "and by the time I read the script, it had already been
offered to someone else. But I told him I believed in the project so much, I
would do anything to help it reach the screen." Incidentally, the first choice for Paul was Denzel Washington who
had starred in Devil in a Blue Dress, the 1995 film which served as
Cheadle's major breakthrough. But
Washington's schedule didn't work out, nor did that of Will Smith, the other
bankable option, so George wound up with his first choice, a grateful
Cheadle. "I really wanted to play
this part, more than any other one I've come across in my career. Not because
it was the big-deal star thing, but because this story had to be
told." Over the years, Cheadle has
had his share of excellent roles, so his devotion to Hotel Rwanda is no
empty exercise. In addition to his
attention-grabbing turn in Devil in a Blue Dress, Cheadle has stood out
in movies as varied as Bulworth, Boogie Nights, Traffic
and Ocean's 11 and 12. On
television, he's been nominated for four Emmys and he's appeared in major
theatre roles in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. It all began in Kansas City, Mo., where he was born in 1964. His
father was a psychologist, his mother a bank manager and young Don knew he
wanted to be a performer from the age of 5.
After graduating from the California Institute of the Arts, he quickly
got cast in the TV series Fame and went on to guest shots on Hill
Street Blues and Night Court before landing a role on the sitcom The
Golden Palace. He followed that with two seasons as a regular on the
popular Picket Fences. But it
was the character of the lunatic Mouse in Devil in a Blue Dress that
shot him to the front of the line, earning such positive buzz that many people
— Cheadle included — were surprised when he failed to get an Oscar
nomination. "I know it's all
politics, man, so I try not to let it bother me. It was a great role and I
loved doing it. The only problem was that everyone wanted me to play psychos
after that and I just kept saying no."
He did play a porn star in Boogie Nights and a crook in Out of
Sight, garnering more praise in the process. Then he won a Golden Globe for
his performance as Sammy Davis, Jr. in HBO's The Rat Pack and he found
that an illuminating experience as well.
"The more research I did on Sammy, I discovered that there
was so much anger, so much pain in his life that he never let anyone see. But
it was always there, underneath, so I used it. That's what gave his singing and
his dancing such an edge." The
non-stop Cheadle had two other films besides Hotel Rwanda on view at
last September's film festival: The Assassination of Richard Nixon opens
on Jan. 28 and Crash — written and directed by Canadian Paul Haggis, creator
of Due South — is scheduled for April. And this past fall, he was also
represented on screen by After the Sunset and Ocean's 12. He recently received a Golden Globe
nomination as best actor for Hotel Rwanda, and there is serious Oscar
buzz happening as well, but none of that matters to Cheadle. "You know what's really important? I
got to play a great man, Paul Rusesabagina. I got to tell the world about his
strength and his courage. That's enough of an award for me."
Rwandan Rescuer: I'm No Hero
Source: Los Angeles Daily News - Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Bob Strauss, Special To
The Star
(Jan. 5, 2005) Paul Rusesabagina still
claims that heroism had nothing to do with it.
When Hutu extremists began slaughtering members of the minority Tutsi
group in Rwanda 10 years ago, the Hutu assistant manager of the Hotel Mille Collines in Kigali
initially just wanted to save the lives of his wife Tatiana — a Tutsi — and
their children. Once his Belgian bosses departed for safer territory, however,
Rusesabagina wound up taking control of the hotel. He safely billeted more than
1,200 Tutsis and moderate Hutus for some 100 days, while nearly a million of
their countrymen were murdered outside the hotel grounds. Played by Don Cheadle in the movie Hotel
Rwanda, the 50-year-old Rusesabagina shrugs off any suggestion that he'll
receive wider fame for his harrowing humanitarian efforts. "I never expected to see my private
life exposed on a big screen," says Rusesabagina, who moved his family to
Belgium several years after the Central African genocide and now runs a
trucking company on his former home continent. "But I take it to be a good
idea. This movie is kind of a wake-up call to the international community. We should,
all of us, know what happened. And is happening today.'' Noting that a similar ethnic calamity is
currently unfolding in the Darfur region of Sudan, Rusesabagina laments that a
stronger United Nations peacekeeping army could have prevented his nation's
tragedy and future genocides of a similar nature. "I believe that, for instance, a quarter of the Los Angeles
Police Department could have stopped the massacre in Rwanda. What encouraged
the killers there was the fact that they scared the international community
away." As for his own wily
contributions to the survival of so many, the ever-smiling and solicitous
Rusesabagina (he was in the hospitality business, after all) insists, "I'm
not a hero. I'm a normal person who has done his duties and obligations. And
who has maybe accomplished his responsibilities in a given period of time. "Maybe you can call me an employee.''
Black
Film Critics Choose 'Ray'
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Dec. 31, 2004) *Jamie Foxx will need an extra room in his house to hold all
of the awards – from “Ray” alone. The African American Film Critics
Association (AAFCA) has given its “Achievement Honour” to Jamie Foxx for his
starring role in “Ray.” The award crowns the filmmaker who made the biggest
impact in 2004. Foxx
starred in “Collateral” alongside Tom Cruise and Jada Pinkett-Smith earlier
this summer, and also portrayed a Nobel Peace Prize winning former gang-leader
in the made for TV movie “Redemption: The Stan ‘Tookie’ Williams Story” in
February. The AAFCA has also chosen “Ray” as the Number One film of the
year. “The story of Ray Charles and the
challenges he went through to be successful in life is a universal story that
inspires many,” said AAFCA Vice President Wilson Morales. “The performances
given by Jamie Foxx and the entire cast are extraordinary. [Director] Taylor
Hackford has taken a lifelong dream and made it into a reality.” Major
Hollywood studio films such as the Martin Scorsese-helmed epic “Aviator” and Rodney
Evans’s independent art-house flick “Brother to Brother” are also included in
this year’s list. “The films selected this year boldly reflect a cross-section
of perspectives that captures the essence of humanity,” said AAFCA President
Gil Robertson, IV. “2004 was another ground-breaking year for African American
talent as seen by the impressive performances given by Morgan Freeman, Don
Cheadle and Jamie Foxx in the films that are included on our list.’
Here is the complete list of AAFCA’s Top Ten Films of
2004:
1. “Ray” (Universal)
2. “Hotel Rwanda” (United Artists)
3. “Finding Neverland” (Miramax)
4. “Aviator” (Miramax)
5. “Sideways” (Fox Searchlight)
6. “Baadasssss!” (Sony Picture Classics)
7. “Brother to Brother” (Wolfe Video)
8. “Woman Thou Art Loosed” (Magnolia Films)
9. “Million Dollar Baby” (Warner Bros.)
10. “Collateral” (Dreamworks)
Andre
Lavelle’s ‘Fantasy’ Celebrates Black Sensuality
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Dec. 31, 2004) *Visual artist Andre LaVelle, a one-time illustrator and
graphic artist, has poured his admiration and respect for the African
American body into a new original film that is generating lots of heat – in
more ways than one. The erotically charged “Creating
the Fantasy: The Art of Lavelle,” a 64-minute celebration of African
American sensuality that recently screened at Sandra Evers-Manly's BHERC Film
Festival in Los Angeles, is referred to as a “docutainment piece” by its
director. “It’s a mix of documentary and entertainment dealing with our image,
showing people of colour in a romantic, sensual way,” explains the Chicago
native who has made his home in Los Angeles for the past 15 years. “I think
people of colour, we don’t see ourselves in that light. We don’t see the
romance, we don’t see the beauty of making love. Everything nowadays is so
overt, thrown in your face. What I desire personally in a relationship, I guess
it kind of translates personally into my art.” The idea for “Creating the Fantasy” was rooted in a calendar
LaVelle shoots every year called Fantasy. “I did the first one in 2000; it’s published through ‘Shades of
Colour’, and I always videotape my photo shoots,” says LaVelle. “We started out
with the concept of doing a simple behind the scenes [video], an accompanying
thing to go along with the calendar. And it just morphed as we began to show it
around – listening to the comments, listening to suggestions – and it took on a
life of its own. Wanting to do something different, not your standard
documentary, we created a hybrid. Something that you can watch that’s
tastefully done with your significant other and kind of get a jump start, so to
speak.
LaVelle’s artistic eye dates back to childhood, when
comic books, superheroes and muscle mags anchored a deep appreciation for the
human anatomy. “I started as an
illustrator and I went to draw comic books and it was just a natural
progression – from drawing it to capturing it,” says LaVelle of his
talent. As “Creating the Fantasy”
continues to generate buzz throughout the festival circuit, LaVelle is on the
hunt for a distribution deal. “It’s
been difficult because it doesn’t really fit into a category,” he says. “It’s
somewhat of a hybrid so people don’t know how to classify it.” LaVelle says the
sexual content of the film has resonated more with women than men. In
fact, ladies make up 80 percent of the people who have purchased the film. “Men don’t usually get it,” he laughs. “It’s
not pornographic, it’s not sex, it’s sensuality. And women lean more [toward]
sensual and romantic, versus men. It’s more like a couples
thing.” “Creating the Fantasy”
has already been submitted to the folks at Showtime, HBO and Pay-Per-View. DVDs
of the film will soon be available on his website AndreLavelle.com.
Quebec Government Acts On TV, Movie Tax Breaks
Excerpt from The
Toronto Star - Canadian Press/Staff
(Dec.
31, 2004) QUEBEC— The Quebec tax credit for film and television shows will increase to 20 per cent from 11 per cent to help attract
foreign productions, Finance Minister Yves Seguin announced yesterday. The increase will help keep Quebec
competitive in the industry, Seguin said.
"This rapid intervention reflects the government's firm desire to
maintain Quebec's position as an ideal film-shooting location for foreign
producers," Seguin said in a statement.
Quebec acted after the Ontario government recently announced a
$48-million package of tax credits for that province's film and television
industry. Ontario's Film and Television
Tax Credit for domestic productions will increase to 30 per cent from 20 per
cent. Ontario will also increase tax
credits for foreign productions to 18 per cent from 11 per cent, and maintain a
10 per cent regional bonus credit on productions based in Ontario but shot
outside the Greater Toronto Area.
Michel Trudel, one of the heads of a large studio in Montreal, said 2004
was a quiet year for productions in Montreal.
"I'm telling you, the city was dead for eight months," Trudel
told CBC Radio. The Ontario
government's actions followed high-profile lobbying by the province's film and
television production industry, including a demonstration at Queen's Park. TV and movie production has declined in the
province in the wake of the SARS scare, the rising Canadian dollar, competition
from other provinces and countries plus a campaign against "runaway
productions" in California.
‘Albert’ Below
Expectations; ‘Rwanda’, ‘Woodsman’, ‘Baby’ Strong; Ebert & Roeper Picks
Excerpt
from www.eurweb.com
(Dec.
30, 2004) *Even Twentieth Century Fox had low
expectations for its holiday release “Fat Albert,”
but the film starring Kenan Thompson even failed to meet the $12.7 the studio
had estimated. The movie ended up pulling only $10 million, placing it in third
place instead of second in the box office race, according to the final
tally. Meanwhile,
Oscar contenders in limited release had strong showings over the weekend.
Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby,”
co-starring Morgan Freeman, took in $212,104 on eight screens. “Hotel Rwanda,” starring Don Cheadle, drew
$110,999 in seven theatres, or $15,857 per theatre. And “The Woodsman,” starring Kevin Bacon, Eve, Mos
Def and David Alan Grier, earned $61,200 on six screens, or $10,200 each.
“Million Dollar Baby,” starring Hilary Swank as a boxer yearning to become
heavyweight champ, was chosen by both Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper as one of
their top ten films of the year.
Ebert's favorites, from the top, are: "Million Dollar Baby,"
"Kill Bill: Vol. 2," "Vera Drake," "Spider-Man
2," "Moolade," "The Aviator," "Baadasssss!" "Sideways,"
"Hotel Rwanda" and "Undertow." Roeper's Top 10
are: "Hotel Rwanda," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind," "The Aviator," "Sideways," "House of
Flying Daggers," "Million Dollar Baby," "The
Terminal," "Kill Bill: Vol. 2," "Spanglish" and "Collateral."
King
Gears Up For ‘Congeniality 2’
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Dec. 31, 2004) *“It's fun to be in a movie where you can co-star and
you're not somebody's wife or love interest,” Regina
King says in Marilyn Beck’s “Celebrities” column. The actress, who
has earned critical praise for her role as Margie Hendricks in “Ray,” will next
be seen in the sequel “Miss Congeniality 2,” reprising her role as FBI agent
Sam Fuller opposite Sandra Bullock’s Gracie Hart. The
roles in “Ray” and “Congeniality 2” couldn’t have come at a better time for
King. “For a while I got stuck in the
wife land and I vowed that I wasn't going to play a wife again, but 'Daddy Day
Care' came up and Eddie [Murphy] asked me to do it, so that's how I got back
there,” said King. “So these two new roles came around at a perfect time."
With all of the Oscar and Golden Globe attention lavished upon "Ray,” King
says, "This is one movie I haven't gotten tired of talking about. I'm
riding it until the wheels fall off, and when the wheels fall off, I'm going to
get out and push."
Travolta
Looks Long In The Tooth In The New Film
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail
(Jan. 3, 2005) Los Angeles -- John Travolta is almost unrecognizable when
he's first on the screen in the drama A Love Song for Bobby Long. His
hair is white, and his face is drawn and beaten. In A Love Song for Bobby
Long, Travolta plays a former literature professor whose life has taken an
alcohol-fuelled nosedive. He sits on the front porch of a dilapidated house outside
New Orleans, drunk all day on cheap vodka. "I was never a heroin addict or
a hit man, either, do you know what I mean," the 50-year-old actor
recently said. "In Pulp Fiction, I had my obligation there to
portray that character; if you're a mirror of humanity, that's your job, and
I'm doing it." AP
Denzel,
Will Smith In Money-Making Poll
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Jan.
3, 2005) *In yet another year-end poll, Denzel
Washington ranks sixth on a list of stars whose films have generated
the most box office revenue for 2004.
Quigley Publishing Company's 72nd Annual
Top Ten Money-Making Stars Poll, which surveys film exhibitors, recognized
Washington for his box-office numbers surrounding “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Meanwhile, Jamie Foxx and Scarlett Johansson were named “Stars of
Tomorrow.” Tom Hanks tops the
list of cash cows, having appeared in three films last year. Tom Cruise
finished second with his performance in “Collateral.” Leonardo DiCaprio finished
in third place, followed by Nicholas Cage at No. 4 and Jim Carrey at No.
5. Following Denzel at #6 are
Julia Roberts #7, Will Smith #8, Brad Pitt #9 and Adam Sandler #10. Long regarded as one of the most reliable
indicators of a Star's box-office draw, the Quigley Poll has been cited in
hundreds of publications and appears annually in Quigley Publishing Company's
International Motion Picture Almanac.
Snoop,
Lil Jon, Trina Cast In ‘Boss N’ Up’
Excerpt
from www.eurweb.com
(Jan.
3, 2005) *Now here’s a cast to put "Soul Plane" to shame. Snoop Dogg
and Lil Jon (both "Soul Plane" vets) will join Miami rapper Trina for
a new film called “Boss N’ Up,” reports “Production Weekly.” Snoop will play
Corde, a certified player who sees better opportunities in the street hustle.
He’s mentored by Orange Juice, a street vet who happily takes Corde under his
wing. Lil Jon plays Sheriff, a club owner who becomes one of Corde’s business
partners. Trina, the self-proclaimed "baddest b*tch," plays
Dominique, Corde’s lawyer who helps spring him from prison. Production on this
gem is slated for early January.
::TV NEWS::
Orbach, 69, Stage And Screen Star
Excerpt from The Toronto
Star - Richard
Ouzounian, Theatre Critic
(Dec. 30, 2004) He was a tough guy to
the very end. Jerry Orbach, best known as the
street-wise Det. Lennie Briscoe on Law
& Order died in Manhattan on Tuesday night after a courageous battle
against prostate cancer. He was 69.
Orbach had been diagnosed with the disease last spring, but he continued
into production for the new spin-off series Law &Order: Trial By Jury while
undergoing treatments. His condition
remained secret until a few weeks ago, when he began regular hospital visits in
an attempt to treat the cancer.
Although it was his 12 seasons on Law & Order that made
Orbach a household name, he had already gone through two other distinct
careers, having spent 30 years as a Broadway leading man and 10 years as highly
regarded character actor in movies. He
was born Jerome Orbach in the Bronx on Oct. 20, 1935. His father Leon ran a
restaurant and his mother Emily worked for a greeting card company. Both of them had tried careers in show
business (Leon as a vaudevillian, Emily as a radio singer) and were sympathetic
to their son's lifelong desire to be a performer. The family moved frequently when Orbach was a child, finally
settling in Waukegan, IL. After high school, he spent a summer acting in a
local stock company, went to the University of Illinois for a year and finally
began theatre studies at Northwestern University. But by 1955, the family had run out of money and Orbach quit
school before his last year, heading straight to New York to start his
career. He immediately was cast in the
hit off-Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera and stayed with the
show for more than three years, finally taking over the leading role of Mack
the Knife.
He turned down several Broadway roles to
create a part in a quirky off-Broadway musical that appealed to him. That show
was The Fantasticks, Orbach originated the role of El Gallo and he
became the first person ever to sing "Try To Remember." Following that, producer David Merrick cast
him as the male lead in his hit musical Carnival! But then Orbach's
career stalled for a few years and it took a 1965 revival of Guys And Dolls in
which he appeared as Sky Masterson to put him back on everyone's radar. The next few years saw two of his most
memorable successes: as a tortured Jewish intellectual in Bruce Jay Freidman's Scuba
Duba and as the sad-sack hero of the hit musical Promises, Promises.
For that role, Orbach won the coveted Tony Award in 1969. After a commercial success opposite Jane
Alexander in the comedy 6 Rms Riv Vu, he created the role of shyster
lawyer Billy Flynn in the original production of Bob Fosse's Chicago,
starring opposite Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera while introducing the classic
Kander and Ebb song, "Razzle Dazzle." Orbach's last Broadway show was to be the hit 1989 revival of the
musical, 42nd Street, in which he played the megalomaniacal director,
Julian Marsh. After that, Orbach left
the stage for films, and during the 1980s, he was seen memorably in pictures
like Prince Of The City, Dirty Dancing and Woody Allen's Crimes
And Misdemeanors. He also provided
the voice for Lumiere, the dancing candlestick in Beauty And The Beast,
leading the giant showstopper "Be Our Guest." On television, he was known for his
appearances on Murder, She Wrote and The Golden Girls, the latter
providing him with the first of three Emmy nominations. The other two were for
Neil Simon's Broadway Bound and for Law & Order, where he
first appeared in 1990, stepping up to regular status in 1992 after Paul
Sorvino's departure from the series.
Orbach was married twice: to Marta Curro (1958-1975) and Elaine
Cancilla, who was with him from 1979 on. He has two sons from his first
marriage. It seems fitting that the
lights of Broadway dimmed last night in tribute to Orbach, a man whose final
appearance on stage in 42nd Street found him delivering a heartfelt
tribute to "Musical comedy ... the two most glorious words in the English
language." Because Law &
Order may have made him famous, but it was song and dance that made him
happy.
Morgentaler Finds CTV Biopic
Awkward
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Matthew Hays, Special To
The Star
(Jan. 5, 2005) MONTREAL - It's safe to say that Dr. Henry Morgentaler has
been through a number of odd and harrowing experiences in his 81-year
life. He survived the Nazi death camps
in Europe during the Second World War.
He immigrated to Canada where, by the late '60s he became an outlaw,
providing illegal abortions to his patients. He was so committed he even went
to prison in 1975, serving 10 months in a Quebec jail. But Morgentaler says the experience of
sitting through Choice:
The Henry Morgentaler Story, the made-for-TV movie about
his life that airs tonight on CTV, managed to contend as one of the strangest
experiences of his life. "It is
odd," he says, with a laugh. "It's a very unusual experience to see
things you've gone through dramatized in this way. It's a very difficult
sensation to describe." And the
team behind Choice certainly had a lot to describe. Morgentaler's life
has been extremely eventful and colourful, to say the least, and filmmaker John
L'Ecuyer — who also directed last year's hit Prom Queen: The Marc Hall Story
— says they decided not to whitewash Morgentaler's life. "There is a
tendency to deify people when making films like this," L'Ecuyer says.
"But that doesn't make for a very interesting film, ultimately. We wanted
to show Henry in all his dimensions."
Choice clearly illustrates Morgentaler's pivotal role in the
evolution of abortion law in Canada, from his early days as a family
practitioner, who began providing abortions as a matter of conscience in the
late '60s, to his victory in the Supreme Court, which finally deemed
anti-abortion legislation unconstitutional in 1988. Having fought for decades to break down a series of legal
barriers against abortion, his name has become entirely linked with the issue
of abortion in this country. Depending on which side of the debate you come
down on, Morgentaler is either a virtuous crusader or a misguided villain. But while we see Morgentaler (brought to
life effectively by David Eisner) fighting for a woman's right to abortion, we
also see his tendency towards adultery, his egocentric nature and a painful
rift with his brother. Morgentaler's time in Nazi concentration camps is echoed
through haunting flashbacks, but not depicted in any great detail. "It was rather uncomfortable for me to
have my personal life and many of my failures put in the film," confirms
Morgentaler. "But that's the price you have to pay for notoriety I
suppose." And the film, he says, is pretty much true to the details of
reality: "It's not 100 per cent accurate, there are a few things that have
been changed for the script. But not much — on the whole it's pretty much on
target."
And as expected the film reflects Morgentaler's repeated clashes
with the anti-abortion movement, highlighting the philosophical differences
between the two sides. Morgentaler says
the description of abortion as a holocaust is especially hurtful. "It's a personal insult to me. I
survived the Holocaust and the concentration camps. To be accused of being part
of a Holocaust was particularly offensive to me. Unfortunately these people use
this kind of insulting language, which is completely at odds with reality. To
say that a fertilized egg is already a baby is absurd and unscientific, but
we're dealing here with religious fanaticism and it's impossible to argue with
them." Morgentaler notes the
growing rift between Canada and its southern neighbour on various social
issues, including abortion. American anti-abortion activists were buoyed by the
re-election victory of George W. Bush in November. "I feel very optimistic about Canada, and very glad we're
not following the path of the U.S. There are many more religious
fundamentalists in the U.S. who are opposed to the rights of women. The
government is run by fundamentalists, whereas in Canada we've chosen a more
divergent path, we're much more reasonable, much more rational, much more
democratic and respectful of minorities. Canada is following the good path
while the United States is going into a dark age." Choice also acknowledges
Morgentaler's many critics, some of who saw him as a self-centred
grandstander. "I'm not sure I know
what the word grandstander means," he says. "But I would say that I
enjoyed the role of spokesman, a leader of a movement for a cause that
transcended me. This cause was part of my secular transcendence, because I
don't believe in a god or an afterlife. But I feel we need some kind of
transcendence, to be drawn to a cause that is bigger than ourselves. For me,
abortion rights was that cause."
Does he have any regrets?
"Not really. I'm getting to be an old man, and no man can go
through life without mistakes. But I'm quite proud of my achievements. I have
made this society a better place than it was when I was born. Women are now
safer, they are no longer subject to danger when they need an
abortion." Choice contains
a few scenes where Morgentaler is referred to as a murderer or a baby killer.
Does this nasty scene still play itself out?
"That's very rare. That was many, many years ago. My recent
contacts are usually quite pleasant. Women will come up to me, shake my hand
and thank me for all that I've done."
Ex-Boss Znaimer Basted, Loved
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Vinay
Menon
(Jan. 5, 2005) They're calling it a roast. But it's more a
potluck of love. Can you believe 20
months have passed since Moses
Znaimer resigned as president and executive producer at Citytv and other
CHUM stations? MosesTV
(Citytv, 8 p.m. tonight) is a one-hour retrospective and round-table that
reunites some of Znaimer's friends, associates and former colleagues. They fete
the visionary maverick and heap redolent praise on the man who used an
inimitable mix of artistic élan, media prophecy, and outside-of-the-idiot-box
thinking to revolutionize television.
"What I remember most about that evening is that while it was
ostensibly about me, one of the things that made the energy so profoundly
memorable was that there was a quality of a reunion," Znaimer told me
yesterday. Indeed, it's strange to
watch as past and present Citytv and MuchMusic personalities Jeanne Beker,
Monika Deol, Sook-Yin Lee, Gord Martineau, Sonia Benezra, Ziggy Lorenc and Mary
Garofalo sit at a circular dining table, sipping wine, suppressing tears and
reminiscing about the personal impact Znaimer had on their professional
lives. Watching the special — which was
filmed a year ago, when Znaimer's resignation reverberated with greater
intensity — there are ephemeral moments where he seems to be having an
out-of-body experience. "In a
strange way, that's a good way of putting it," he says. "When people
look back they romanticize, they glamorize." Znaimer appears, by turns, flattered, embarrassed, introspective,
confused, even mildly horrified. Maybe this is to be expected from a man who
spent his life looking forward and was forced, at least for one night, to look
back. "There's always that little
disturbing sense of, `Wait a minute. It's too early for the
retrospectives,'" he says. To call
Znaimer a demanding boss would be like calling the Pope a pious man. If you
read between the lines, mining the disjointed recollections, a portrait emerges
of a leader not averse to "pushing buttons" and operating with
Machiavellian impulses. Former
MuchMusic veejay Erika Ehm uses the term "psychological warfare." She
says "his whole way of dealing with people is forcing them into difficult
situations to see how they handle it."
The most telling outburst belongs to Beker who, in an almost
dreamy trance, declares, "Moses, I love you, I hate you, I love you, I
hate you, I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you." While there's a plaintive, raw energy to her
staccato observation, it still comes shrouded with diplomacy and respect. As Joel Goldberg, who produced MosesTV,
told me yesterday: "The diplomacy comes from the fact that while he might
have been a f---ing asshole to you sometimes, you also learned. And he gave so
many people so much. He gave people amazing opportunities." I pressed Znaimer about the muted comments,
the ones that hinted at a tumultuous environment at Queen and John Sts. "What I think people may not understand
is, frequently the kind of work I did was masked by a business title," he
says. "I was very determined, very insistent, to put a creative title next
to the business title. And in creative work, relationships are tremendously
intense. "Sometimes you get very
close to the nub of people. Sometimes it requires you to listen. Other times,
to kick their ass. Sometimes both, in the course of one evening." Watching MosesTV, another truism is
obvious: Some people are born to lead while others are born to follow. Znaimer
often has no shared access to the intense flashbulb memories imprinted in minds
of people he has dealt with over the years.
"Sometimes I'm listening to a story that I have no recollection
of," he says. "It may be vivid in that person's mind or it may be a
total fabrication. I still run into people who insist they grew up with me and
went to school with me in Winnipeg. And they'll have a fight with me about it.
And I'll say, `Okay, that's all well and good. But I never lived in
Winnipeg.'" As Goldberg observes,
when it comes to Znaimer, "there is a melding of myth and
reality." Znaimer is still affiliated
with Citytv and its sister stations. The resident scholar at Massey College
serves as a consultant for CHUM and serves as board chairman of Learning and
Skills Television of Alberta Limited (LTA).
He also continues with several personal projects, including
ideaCity and the MZTV Museum of Television.
Life, he says, did not stop when he resigned in April of 2003. "Once people consider that you may be
available to do things that never seemed possible before, the tempo of events
speeds up," he says. "Activity is a hard habit to break." The same might be said of
"control," something he had to relinquish for tonight's special. "I had nothing to do with it," he
says. "It takes some re-educating because I'm a relentless improver of
things and of the people around me."
Znaimer co-founded Citytv in 1972. You could argue that, more three
decades later, when it comes to vision and innovation, he remains in the
company of one: Why hasn't Canada produced more Moses Znaimers? He won't accept the interrogatory premise,
insists there are others. "The
rising tide is not with broadcasting," he finally concedes. "The
people who are in it now are more interested in `keeping' rather than
`getting.' That `getting' phase appears to be done and it's all about
consolidation and proper reporting.
"That's always the tension. Creative vision is intuitive and
personal and often highly focused around a single individual when things start.
Then when they succeed, it's the iron law of oligarchy. Companies and those who
report on them want predictability. Management no longer directly related to
the material starts to hire consultants and do focus groups. That's the natural
biology of things. "I was aware of
the challenge and did my best to make the transition ... But one of those great
struggles is the struggle within. And companies constantly need to remind
themselves where they came from and what made them soar. And somehow find a
middle path between that and the demands of Bay Street." You can make of that what you will. So what's next for Moses Znaimer? "There is this intense rush of
tantalizing new ideas and propositions that take time to work through," he
says. "I read recently a little maxim and it's unattributed, anonymous.
But it says, `First secure an independent income. Then practise virtue.' "I've probably achieved the first part.
Maybe it's time now to focus on the second."
Part Of A Balanced Cable Diet
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Vit
Wagner, Guest Column
(Jan. 1,
2005) Here's a prospect that would have seemed utterly implausible as recently
as a decade ago: a TV channel devoted entirely
to the preparation of food — and on that channel a show hosted by
someone apparently incapable of stringing together three expletive-free
sentences. It was impossible not to
marvel at the sheer absurdity of this unlikely recipe for prime-time viewing as
I sat glued to Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares when the series first aired
on Food Network Canada in November. It also served as confirmation that next to
The Simpsons and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, Food Network
Canada was easily my third favourite reason for owning a TV. Watching cooking shows works for any diet —
filling without the calories. For starters, I'll turn to almost anything that
involves the preparation of Italian food, so that has led to a passing interest
in Everyday Italian, even if chef Giada De Laurentiis's surroundings are
a little too squeaky and beige for my taste.
New York super chef Mario Batali is also back with a new series, Ciao
America. It deals with the commercial side of food preparation — comparing
how pizzas are made in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, for instance — which
is less interesting to me than the home-kitchen approach. Batali's Molto Mario was one of the
shows that hooked me back when the network was launched here. Among other
things, it was the first time I had seen anyone demystify the proper preparation
of an artichoke — which hardly sounds like steamy primetime viewing, but most
TV chefs won't venture to challenge the audience with anything that can't be
done simply and quickly. As an obsessive and somewhat adept kitchen hobbyist,
I'm less interested in following recipes than observing techniques or moves. I
don't need a TV in my kitchen so I can slice, dice and sauté in time with perky
Rachael Ray as she hurries to put dinner on the table in half an hour. Then there are shows like Ramsay's
Kitchen Nightmares, which is less instructive than it is cautionary. It's a reminder, whenever I think I missed
my calling, that cooking for six is not the same as cooking for 60 or 600. Gordon Ramsay is one of the planet's most
celebrated chefs, a Scottish-born, English-bred culinary wizard whose
Michelin-rated restaurants are perennially ranked among the worlds best. He is
also given to peppering his monologues with extremely colourful language — a
vestige, perhaps, of his former career as an aspiring professional soccer
player who once signed with the Glasgow Rangers. Compared to Ramsay, Tony
Soprano expresses himself with the prim politesse of an Emily Post Institute
novitiate.
Ramsay's
Kitchen Nightmares —
all four hour-long episodes are being rebroadcast tonight beginning at 9 p.m. —
affords its dyspeptic, molten-mouthed star ample opportunity to vent. In each
segment, Ramsay arrives at a touristy English locale to set straight a formerly
grand but now failing establishment. He'll succeed or curdle the management's
ears trying. The first step on the road
to recovery necessarily involves the dressing down, in no uncertain terms, of
the restaurant's undeservedly self-regarding staff. If being fired by Donald
Trump looks like an ego-shrivelling proposition, check out the head chef at a
supposedly posh West Yorkshire eatery being reduced to a lump of quivering
gelatine by one of Ramsay's emasculating tirades. Sure, the drama of the show is largely contrived. But anyone who
has ever worked in a restaurant kitchen will perceive a greater commitment to
veracity on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares than on most of what passes for
reality TV. The same was true of Jamie's
Kitchen, a reality-themed, viewer-discretion-advised series that aired on
Food last season. On that occasion, Jamie Oliver, TV's most boisterous and
ubiquitous cook, attempted — unsuccessfully for the most part — to school a
bunch of unemployed dropouts in the mastery of mis en place. The series
is now being made into a Hollywood movie, which probably means that instead of
descending into failure, the would-be chefs wind up getting diplomas from the
Culinary Institute of America, followed by jobs at Spago. Granted, not everything on Food is
appetizing. Two shows guaranteed to put me off my feed are Top Five
and Unwrapped, little more than glorified promotional videos for the
fast- and junk food industries, respectively.
Otherwise, like most food-related things, it's largely a question of
taste. Just watching The Barefoot Contessa's Ina Garten dump mounds of
butter and vats of cream into an artery-arresting recipe for mashed potatoes is
enough to send your cholesterol into the stratosphere. But the audaciousness
alone makes it way more fun than witnessing Cooking Thin's
Kathleen Daelemans put a family of suburban Ohioans on a strict regimen of
celery sticks and low-fat smoothies.
The English, despite their historical fondness for gastronomic
atrocities such as "pigs in a blanket" and "bubble and squeak,"
consistently turn out the best TV chefs. In a string of series starting with The
Naked Chef, Oliver strikes an easy balance between amusement and technique,
a trick mastered with equal charisma by his voluptuous and irreverent
counterpart, Nigella Lawson, on Forever Summer and Nigella Bites.
I
suppose some would lump the voluble Emeril Lagasse in the chef-as-rock star
camp, but the whole business of pandering to a sycophantic audience has always
struck me as unwatchably embarrassing. Maybe it's because I grew up in a house
where we ate garlic as a matter of course, without fetishizing it. Happily, Emeril
Live! has been moved to the afternoon, when I am seldom home to watch. Now
the show has a more fitting ratings foe: Dr. Phil. The entertainment expectations of cooking
shows have increased dramatically since Julia Child first taught her audience
that there was more to cordon bleu cuisine than slapping a slice of
cheese between two pieces of pounded veal. That said, there is no reason why
food shows shouldn't retain some of their instructive purpose. Christine Cushing, Toronto host of the
program that bears her name, makes me wince reflexively whenever she describes
one of her dishes as "cool" or "wicked," but I wouldn't be
surprised if she's had a role in elevating the variety and quality of
sustenance brought to the Canadian table at dinnertime. David Rocco's Dolce
Vita, hosted by a Canadian living in Florence, is instructive without being
dryly didactic. An inexperienced cook could probably go directly from the TV to
the kitchen and whip up the same simple but appetizing pasta dish Rocco
demonstrated moments before. In the
opposite corner is Iron Chef, an unaccountably popular Japanese import
in which master cooks are forced to humble themselves by coming up with a
five-course meal based on a single ingredient. In my estimation, the show
reached a culinary nadir from which it never recovered when one of its regular
kitchen warriors, Hiroyuki Sakai, settled on trout as an appropriate flavour of
ice cream. If only Gordon Ramsay had
been one of the judges. He would have had just the right words for that
innovation.
Discovery
Channel Looking For Canada's Worst Drivers
Source:
Canadian Press
(Jan.
3, 2005) Guelph, Ont. — Guelph drivers will have a chance to try out for a
national reality television show. There is one catch — you have to be a menace
on the road. Guelph is one of several cities in Ontario where the Discovery Channel is conducting a search for Canada's Worst Driver. "We want to
identify the most appalling drivers that we can," said Guy O'Sullivan,
director of the upcoming series Canada's Worst Driver. "We are trying to
find people who have a broad range of driving problems and then we will try and
fix them." With filming for the eight-part series beginning in Toronto in
February, O'Sullivan and his crew have begun the task of inviting people to
nominate potential contestants. "We are looking for people with
reputations," said associate producer Chris Williamson. "Their family
or friends will see this bulletin and that person's name will immediately come
to mind. We are looking for drivers that are really horrendous."
To
nominate the person in your life who can turn a peaceful country drive into a
white-knuckle fright show, you can call 1-877-598-9120. "Then I have the
job of driving with that person to see how bad they really are," said
Williamson. "I should be getting danger pay." Once the final eight
contestants are chosen, they will have to complete different driving
challenges, and the last driver left will claim the title of Canada's worst
driver. "They will have to go through different obstacle courses where we
will have braking tests, or fake road kill will leap out at them," said
O'Sullivan. "However, this show is opposite to most reality shows because
we kick off the drivers who have improved the most and allow them back on to
the streets. People are desperate not to be tagged with this title so they try
hard to get better." The same reality series has been produced twice in
Britain, and also in Australia, Switzerland and Denmark, and a series is
planned in the United States, said O'Sullivan. While Guelph has its share of
bad motorists, police Sgt. Ron Lord said the city isn't overpopulated with
demon drivers. "I think in general drivers in Guelph are courteous. Our
accident rate isn't anything extraordinary."
Missy
Elliott's Reality Show Set To Premiere, Show’s Road Manager Talks
Excerpt from www.allhiphop.com
- By Clover Hope
(Jan. 4, 2005) Viewers of Missy Elliott's new
UPN reality series The Road to Stardom, premiering Wednesday (Jan.
5), will catch a strong dose of real tour life as music hopefuls compete for
money and recognition on the quest for the next big sensation, said the show's
road manager Steve Lobel. "Everybody
just watches TV and sees these artists in videos and they think it's just about
that," Lobel told AllHipHop.com. "They forget about the people behind
the scenes, all the managers, the road managers and the tour managers who keep
everything going day to day." The Road to Stardom spotlights the gritty
realities of touring as thirteen aspiring rappers and singers travel on a dingy
tour bus and contend for $100,000 and a recording contract. The group is introduced to music industry
executives and insiders as the cameras roll, and presented with various
challenges under Missy's supervision. Lobel, the manager of all members of Bone
Thugs-N-Harmony excluding Bizzy Bone, can be seen in promos for the reality
show badgering the promising hip-hop prospects. "In the beginning, the first couple of episodes and the
first couple of days I met these kids, I needed to get these kid's
respect," Lobel said of his tutelage. "Otherwise they would think I'm
just some joke or some actor." Lobel added that severe training is a
necessary step for these new performers hoping to hit it big. "They haven't sold a record yet. You
gotta let them know it's not just about their talent. They gotta be in
shape," Lobel said. "They have to know how to wake up on time. They
have to be healthy, eat right. The road is not easy." The battle-tested
Lobel has been in the music industry for 20 years and said he has no gripes
about his portrayal on the show.
"God has given me the opportunity now to show the world on
primetime TV, what a road manager does on the road with an artist," said
Lobel, who's worked with Run-DMC, Fat Joe, Eazy E, Big Pun, and The Outlawz
among others. "I'm not acting. I'm not changing it up. As you see in the
commercial, people who know me [know] that's how I am on the road." Missy
serves as co-executive producer of the series and judges the budding talent
along with R&B singer Teena Marie, producer Dallas Austin and Violator
Management President Mona Scott. The panel eliminates one contestant each
episode until one remains. Missy will sign the winner to her record label and
release his/her first single.
Barbershop Coming To Showtime As Series
Excerpt from www.allhiphop.com
- By Nolan Strong
(Dec.
29, 2004) The
hit movie franchise "Barbershop," which starred Ice Cube, will be
developed into a half-hour comedy series, utilizing the films’ original
producers and writer John Ridley. Ridley penned the screenplays for
“Undercover Brother,” “Three Kings” which starred Ice Cube and UPN’s short-lived
“Platinum” series, which focused on the exploits of a Hip-Hop record label.
"'Barbershop'
has come to stand for irreverent, one-of-a-kind, character-driven comedy, and I
can think of no better brand to take Showtime further into the single-camera
comedy business," Robert Greenblatt, President of Entertainment at
Showtime said in a statement. “Barbershop” was a sleeper hit in September
of 2002. The film and the sequel, “Barbershop 2: Back in Business” grossed
hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office.
Original
“Barbershop” producers Robert Teitel and George Tillman Jr. will executive
produce the show. The pair are also behind the "Barbershop" spin-off,
"Beauty Shop." Tillman also directed “Soul Food,” which
was later picked up by Showtime.
MTV’S
La La And Carmelo Anthony Engaged
Excerpt
from www.eurweb.com
(Jan.
3, 2005) *Fat Joe was paying extra-special compliments to your girl La La
(Vasquez) during MTV’s New Year’s Eve special. Now we know why. The MTV V.J.
was still basking in the afterglow of her Christmas Day engagement to boyfriend
Carmelo Anthony of the Denver Nuggets. Melo, who won a
national championship in his only season at Syracuse, popped the question to
Ms. Vasquez with a nine-carat ring. Her acceptance and their impending wedding
– of which a date has yet to be set – is some much-needed good news for the
Nuggets’ second-year star. In
October, Melo was charged with misdemeanour drug possession in October after
airport inspectors found weed in his backpack. The charge was dropped after a
friend said the stuff was his. In November, three men were arrested on
suspicion of trying to extort $3 million from Anthony with videotape of a bar
fight, which erupted after someone spit a drink on La La in Manhattan in
September. In early December, Anthony’s mug popped up on a homemade DVD
circulating in Baltimore, his hometown, called "Stop Snitching."
Someone else on the DVD warns that people who tip police about drug deals
"get a hole in their head." Anthony said he had nothing to do with
the DVD and condemned the message. As
recently as Monday, Anthony had denied he and La La were engaged. In a
statement issued Thursday, Anthony explained that he “wasn't ready for everyone
to know.”
15 Film Foul-Ups Fingered
Source: Hollywood Reporter
(Jan. 4, 2005) LOS ANGELES—Buried under the avalanche of
year-end lists is one that won't make continuity supervisors very happy. The
web site MovieMistakes.com has
named and shamed its 15 favourite errors of 2004. The selections are based on the site's system of visitor scoring,
but they're also weighted at the discretion of proprietor Jon Sandys ``so that Harry
Potter (and the Prisoner of Azkaban) and Spider-Man 2 didn't fill
the list themselves," as he put it.
Sandys chose some mask difficulties from his list of Spidey problems, in
particular a bit that gets blackened during the famous train scene but
mysteriously becomes clean. In Harry
Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the room containing the Monster Book of
Monsters changes proportions to accommodate the action. Other moments making the list include a
sandwich with multiplying crusts in Kill Bill Vol. 2, a flexible shovel
in Secret Window, a popcorn bowl that refuses to empty in Mean Girls,
a self-healing car in The Bourne Supremacy and a sun that rises in the
west during Troy. Sandys makes
no claims for the accuracy of his spotters' submissions but happily removes or
amends things as necessary when the need is brought to his attention. MovieMistakes.com gets more than 20,000
visitors a day, he said, with traffic increasing dramatically following the
release of a new blockbuster.
::THEATRE NEWS::
Lights Brighter On Broadway's Box Office
Source: By Michael
Kuchwara, Associated Press
(Dec.
30, 2004) NEW YORK -- Broadway's box office
inched upward in 2004 and attendance increased slightly, according to figures
released by the League of American Theatres and Producers. In 2004, Broadway
productions grossed $748.9-million (U.S.), up from $725.4-million the previous
calendar year, the League said Tuesday. The number of theatregoers attending
plays and musicals also rose, from 11.09 million in 2003 to 11.3 million this
year. "From a business point of view, it was a very solid year," Jed
Bernstein, League president, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"Last winter was a hard time, but things were very strong in the spring
and summer. Then it [business] tailed off again in the first half of the fall,
although the last month or so has been much stronger." Much of that
late-fall boost can be attributed to 700 Sundays, Billy Crystal's stage
memoir, which has proved to be the most potent performer among the five
one-person shows that arrived since October. The others, featuring such
disparate artists as Mario Cantone, Eve Ensler, Whoopi Goldberg and Dame Edna,
have met with varying degrees of success. Crystal's show, with a hefty
top-ticket price of $101.25, reported more than $600,000 in single-ticket sales
the day after its Dec. 5 opening. Other shows demonstrating box-office muscle
in 2004 were the musicals Wicked and Avenue Q and the revival of
Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, which brought Sean Combs, as
well as a new, younger audience, to Broadway. On a season-to-season comparison,
things were a little different. Comparing the first six months of the 2004-2005
season to the same period last year, grosses are down slightly, from
$422-million to $419-million. And attendance was basically flat, with 6.34
million tickets sold during the first six months of the 2003-2004 season,
compared to 6.32 million for the first six months of this season. Bernstein
said he was surprised at the speed with which overseas tourists have come back
to Broadway. In the 2002-2003 season, they accounted for about 6 per cent of
ticket sales. The following season that figure climbed to about 11 or 12 per
cent of the ticket sales. "Certainly tourists were very important to
Broadway and particularly overseas tourists, who are now back at the same
numbers as they were prior to Sept. 11," Bernstein said. And spring sounds
promising. There are a half-dozen musicals planned, including Little Women,
Monty Python's Spamalot and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. And such big
names as Natasha Richardson in A Streetcar Named Desire, Kathleen Turner
in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Denzel Washington in Julius
Caesar are also scheduled to make appearances.
Women's Work
Excerpt
from The Globe and Mail - By Kamal Al-Solaylee
(Dec.
31, 2004) If there's a recurrent theme to year-end
roundups of Toronto theatre, it's the
usual carping about the under-representation of women and ethnic communities on
the stages of one of the world's most diverse cities. It's undoubtedly a real
concern, and addressing the issue takes us perilously close to such dirty words
as sexism, racism and quotas. (Since 7 was launched in September, I have talked
about gender disparity on stage in two separate columns.) Yet if the proverbial
Martians were to descend on Toronto in January, they might well wonder what all
the fuss is about. January is women's month on stage and, even better, women of
various ethnic backgrounds -- women playwrights, women directors and, in one
case, an all-black, all-female cast. We'll resume discussions of gender and
ethnic segregation on our stages at a later date -- as Charles Bronson might
have said, "This ain't ovah" -- but, for now, let's celebrate the way
the stars and artistic directors have aligned. In order of opening nights,
first up is an expanded and rewritten version of Keira Loughran's 2002
SummerWorks hit, Little Dragon, a story of a Chinese-Canadian woman's
cultural awakening, directed by Marion de Vries. Then comes Claudia Dey's
gothic tale Trout Stanley, about two sisters in a remote community in
British Columbia, directed by Eda Holmes. And finally, there's playwright and
director Trey Anthony's 'da Kink in My Hair, which gives voice to the
different experiences of black women (more on this in upcoming issues) and is
the first Canadian play to be staged at the Princess of Wales Theatre. "I
think it's regrettable that it's still exotic to have a number of women on
stage at the same time, working in various capacities," Dey notes.
"To be mathematical, 50 per cent of the population, of the talent, is
women. So it's not so much about evening the playing field as it's about
reinventing it."
For Dey, reinvention means creating a structure for
working with a director like Holmes, also a personal friend, that replaces the
need to infiltrate male bastions of power. Dey's previous plays (Beaver,
The Gwendolyn Poems), where strong women have roamed the stage
uninhibited, are the dramatic equivalent of direct action. "The place
where my voice is strongest is in my work," explains Dey. "My action
-- and it's not a response as much as itt's an action -- is in creating heroines
who are unafraid to invent their own mythologies." Take, for example, the
female twins at the centre of Trout Stanley. Sugar (Melody Johnson) is
the "housewife" who has not left home for 10 years. Grace (Michelle
Giroux) is the "husband," a regular, rowdy fixture in town. On their
30th birthday, the twins wake up to the news that a woman has gone missing and
to a visit from a stranger, the titular Trout Stanley (Gord Rand). As befits a
woman who gives life to new worlds on stage, Dey compares her cast members to
newborns. "They're so open and so true," she says of their appetite
and commitment to the play's universe. As for director Holmes, Dey has an
analogy that may sound unflattering at first. "You know how in owls the
eyes take up half of their skull? Eda is like that. She has an incredible sense
of sight and cognition. She's infinitely rigorous but it's friendly
rigour." Loughran is equally rhapsodic about de Vries (former artistic
director of Cahoots Theatre Projects), with whom she co-directed the first
production of Little Dragon in 2002. "I feel like she's a godsend.
It's really amazing to have someone who's been involved with the play from the
beginning. She's great with new scripts because she doesn't impose her own
vision on it. It's about serving the vision of the playwright." The play
was inspired by Loughran's first visit to China in 2000. Although it revolves
around the experiences of a Chinese-Canadian woman whose introduction to
martial arts leads her to believe Bruce Lee is the father she never knew, it's
also about identity as a gender-defying, ethnicity-transcending experience. You
can't call it a Chinese play in the historical sense that, for example,
Marjorie Chan's China Doll is. "This play is not written for a
Chinese audience," explains Loughran. "It was written originally for
anyone who's ever felt outside the mainstream."
Trout
Stanley previews from Jan. 4, opens Jan. 8 and runs to Feb. 6. $12 to $34.
Factory Theatre Mainspace, 125 Bathurst Street, 416-504-9971. Little Dragon
previews from Jan. 4, opens Jan. 6 and runs to Jan. 30. $16 to $34. Theatre
Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Ave., 416-504-7529. 'Da Kink in My Hair previews
from Jan. 11, opens Jan. 13 and runs to Feb. 27. $25 to $65. Princess of Wales
Theatre, 300 King St. W., 416-872-1212.
Keira Loughran: Enter
The Dragon
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Richard
Ouzounian
(Jan. 3,
2005) "There's a whole world I belong to that I don't know anything
about." Writer/actor Keira Loughran made that discovery on her
first visit to China in 2000 and it started a chain of events that climax this
Thursday, when her play, Little Dragon,
in which she appears, opens at Theatre Passe
Muraille. The 30-year-old
actress with the voice of ice and spine of steel has been electrifying Toronto
audiences since her first appearance as a Fairy in CanStage's A Midsummer
Night's Dream back in 1996.
Remember the feisty wench Nancy in YPT's Oliver Twist? Or the
scary stripper Cat in Sarah Martyn's Sheroes? Or the iron-willed servant
Ma-Ma in Marjorie Chan's China Doll?
Loughran stretches out on a sofa in the Passe Muraille lobby on a break
during a recent rehearsal and allows herself an ironic smile when asked if
she's like any (or all) of those characters.
"Theatre is a safe environment for me to explore the anger that I
feel about a lot of things. I like characters who let me explore experiences
that I would never want to live."
An early version of Little Dragon was first produced at Summerworks
in 2002 and my colleague Robert Crew's review was typical of the critical
praise it received when he called it "a totally engaging piece about
exploring your cultural identity."
In it, Chinese-Canadian Jennifer Macdonald goes on a search for her
racial identity that leads her to discover what her Asian heritage really means
to her.
Like
Loughran, Macdonald's Chinese father died when she was very young and her
mother remarried to a Caucasian. But, from that point on, Loughran insists that
"the rest of what happens is totally different." Loughran was born in North York in 1974 and
grew up in what she called "a very suburban, multi-cultural neighbourhood.
I was as ethnic as anybody else. I had Caucasian friends who ate Chinese food
more often than I did. We were a strange combination of homogeneity and
diversity." Interested in theatre
from an early age, Loughran went to Claude Watson School for the Performing
Arts, followed by Earl Haig Secondary.
"The whole Asian-being-pushed-harder-in-school thing wasn't part of
my life. When I first indicated I wanted to go into theatre for a career, I was
told that if I went into law instead I could still experience the drama of the
courtroom, but that's as far as it went."
She continued her studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and
encountered the perils of ethnic stereotyping for the first time. "I was going into my third year,"
she recalls. "It was our final show and I still hadn't played a leading
role. We were doing Twelfth Night and I desperately wanted to play
Viola. I connected with her character and I did a really good
audition." Ten years later, the
disappointment still shows on her face. "I got cast as Maria, the servant
and one of the other girls pointed out to me that I had been cast as servants
in practically every show. Suddenly, it made a difference to me. "When I asked my teachers about it they
told me, `In the real world, you can't expect certain roles,' and I said `I
don't give a damn about the real world. I'm here to learn.'" That don't-mess-with-me look she uses to
such great effect on stage suddenly flashes behind her eyes.
"After
all that, one of them asked me, `So, do you think Maria is Chinese?'" No wonder that after her graduation in 1996
she came to Toronto vowing that, "I didn't want to pigeonholed as an Asian
actor. I crashed auditions, I wrote directors. That was a period when Toronto
theatre was doing a lot of colour-blind casting and I got my share of breaks
because of that." But Loughran
felt a certain lack of wholeness inside her and wound up making a trip to China
at the end of 2000. "I didn't
think I was going there on a personal quest. I thought I wanted to see a
Communist culture in action, a country with underlying different political
views than those I had spent my whole life with. "I started up north in Beijing, but then I journeyed to the
south, where my ancestors were from, to Guangdong province. My family didn't
want me to go there," she laughs, "because they said it was really
violent and expensive. "But I went
back to village where my grandfather came from and I ended up discovering my
roots in spite of myself. Everyone there looked like me. I felt I
belonged." Loughran came back with
a desire to learn more about Chinese-Canadian culture and to spread that
knowledge. "The complexity of
China gets distilled into a series of simplistic stereotypes: the Yellow Peril,
the Commie Threat, the Hong Kong Money. Not all the Chinese came to Canada to
work on the railroad, or look for Gold Mountain; there's so much more to us
than that." Loughran is aware that
"as a Chinese-Canadian, there's a lot of turning the other cheek, sucking
it up, trying to prove through your work that you're a good member of society." And yes, she feels there is a subtle kind of
prejudice still at work in this country.
"I
think the biggest problem with racism in Canada right now is that we all think
we know what it is, but we really don't. There's too much overcompensation
that's masking feelings hidden deep inside.
"We're treating symptoms, rather than looking at the
cause." And Loughran hopes that,
in its own way, Little Dragon will open the door to a serious
examination of the problem. "The
arts have to take a leading step in challenging those kind of beliefs. That's
why I choose to work in the theatre."
Et Tu, Denzel As Brutus, Cast
With Colm Feore
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Richard
Ouzounian
(Jan. 4, 2005) When Denzel Washington hits Broadway this spring as
Brutus in a new production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, his co-star
will be one of Canada's leading actors, Colm Feore.
Feore, a long-time veteran of the Stratford Festival, has been cast as Cassius, the
man with "the lean and hungry look" who persuades the noble Brutus to
join the conspiracy to assassinate Caesar.
It's a role that Feore has played before at Stratford, during the 1990
season. He also appeared as Cinna in the festival's 1982 production of the
play. Although Feore spent his
formative years as a stage actor, more recently he's been seen exclusively on
screen, in projects such as Pearl Harbor, Chicago and last summer's
The Chronicles of Riddick. He
also appeared on the New York stage as Claudius opposite Liev Schreiber's
Hamlet. Washington's last major
Shakespearean role was in the title role in Richard III, at the N.Y.
Shakespeare Festival in 1990 under the direction of Robin Phillips. Julius Caesar — with film veteran
William Sadler in the title role — will open on Broadway on April 3, with
previews starting March 8.
LA
MUSICAL COMMEDIA E FINITA: After finishing a successful run last spring in The
Last Five Years, Tyley Ross flew to England to work on a Master's in voice
studies at London's Central School of Speech and Drama. The successful young performer who made his
name a decade ago in the title role of Tommy had felt the need to get
away from the stage and take some time to work on his craft. So what happened? A music project he started
working on several years ago has suddenly kicked into high gear and finds him
commuting from London to New York on a regular basis. Ross and fellow Canadian Peter Kiesewalter created a group called
The East Village Opera Company, devoted to doing rocking versions of classical
arias. They've become a favourite at Joe's Pub at the N.Y. Public Theatre, have
signed with a major management team and are about to ink a serious record
deal. Ross and Kiesewalter are bringing
their unique sound (and the 11 musicians who help them make it) up to Toronto
for one night only at The Mod Club Theatre (722 College St.) on Feb. 26. It's
worth saving the date. For more info,
go to http://www.eastvillageoperacompany.com.
BRAVE
NEW WORLD: Five years ago, Toronto saw an all-too-brief production of Jason
Robert Brown's haunting piece of musical theatre, Songs for a New World. That same magical collection of songs will
be back in town for one night, featuring the same dynamite cast (Tracy
Michailidis, Thom Allison, Sharron Matthews, Jason Knight), with Noreen Waibel
at the keyboards. This mini-revival is
well worth seeing on artistic grounds alone, but it also is serving the
worthiest of causes. Michailidis's
father recently had his life saved by a heart transplant at Toronto General
Hospital and, in gratitude, she's offering this performance as a benefit
concert for the TGH. It will take place
on Sunday, Jan. 30 at 8 p.m. at the Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles St. Tickets are only $25 and all proceeds go to
the Toronto General Hospital Transplant Foundation. Seats are available starting Thursday, either by calling 416-504-7529
or going online at http://www.artsboxoffice.ca.
I can't think of a better way to spend an evening.
::SPORTS NEWS::
A
Gold Rush Of Goals
Excerpt
from The Globe and Mail - By Tim
Wharnsby
(Jan.
5, 2005) Grand Forks, N.D. — Canada completed its stress-free skate through the
2005 world junior hockey tournament last night with one final dominating
display that ended a painful seven-year gold-medal drought. Canada defeated
Russia 6-1 before the mostly Canadian capacity crowd of 11,862 at the Ralph
Engelstad Arena, near the campus of the University of North Dakota. "To
have that much fan support is unbelievable," Canadian forward Ryan Getzlaf
said. "They spent a lot of money to be here and we appreciate that. It was
awesome. A lot credit has to go to them." The fans saluted the Canadian
juniors by chanting "Ca-na-da" after the game. The players, who went
into celebration mode in the final seconds of the game throwing their sticks
and gloves in the air, could barely contain themselves when Wayne Gretzky
presented Canadian captain Michael Richards with the championship trophy.
He later shook hands with the players, coaches and training staff after the
gold-medal presentation. "We will enjoy this one for years to come,"
Getzlaf said. Most National Hockey League scouts agreed that this was the best
junior team to represent Canada and likely the best from any country in the
event's history. Although this edition was the third Canadian team to go
through a world junior with a perfect record — in 1995 Canada was 7-0, followed
by a 6-0 record in 1996 — this team was never threatened.
The
Canadians never trailed in any of the six games, scored at least one goal in 16
of 18 periods, outscored the opposition 41-7 and held a 259-107 advantage in
shots. For all the bravado that the Russians demonstrated in their semi-final
victory over the United States on Sunday, they never mounted a serious
challenge against Canada. Russian standout Alexander Ovechkin, who predicted
his team would score often on untested Canadian goalie Jeff Glass, watched the
third period standing at the end of the bench area with his right arm in a
sling. "I didn't want to get into a war of words [on Monday]," Glass
said. "But I guess we're the ones leaving with a gold medal around our
necks." Ovechkin was a non-factor in the game. Canada's youngest player,
17-year-old Sidney
Crosby, slammed the Russian forward with an open-ice hit midway
through the first period. Ovechkin said his injury was not from the Crosby hit,
but that he felt too much pain to continue early in the second period. The
victory was sweet revenge for a dozen of the Canadian juniors, who were reduced
to tears last year in Helsinki when they blew a 3-1 lead in the third period of
the gold-medal final against the United States, losing 4-3. Twelve of the 18
points registered by the Canadians last night were scored by one of those
returning players. Patrice Bergeron was selected the tournament MVP and to the
all-star team. He was joined on the latter by defenceman Dion Phaneuf and
forward Jeff Carter. Czech goalie Marek Schwarz, Ovechkin and U.S. blueliner
Ryan Suter rounded out the team. Bergeron, who played for the Boston Bruins
last year, became the first player to win a world senior gold medal before
winning a world junior gold. He is one of a handful of the Canadian players who
would have been in the National Hockey League had there been no lockout this
season. It was the 135th victory for Canada at the world junior tournament and
its 11th gold medal.
"They
are gold medalists because they deserve to be, not only by the scores but
because they acted like professionals in every aspect," Canadian head
coach Brent Sutter said. The Canadians spent the past 24 days together after
gathering in Winnipeg on Dec. 12 for the selection camp. They arrived last
night 2 hours 17 minutes before game time ready to get down to business and win
Canada's first gold medal since 1997. Canada again displayed superior defensive
positioning and dominated the face-off circle. Canada's penalty killing was
again solid. The team killed off 34 of 38 penalties in the tourney and last
night was put to test in the first period, successfully killing off a 1:12
two-man disadvantage. Russian defenceman Alexei Emelin was able to sneak a shot
through traffic on power play in the final minute of the opening 20 minutes to
make the score 2-1 for the Canadians. Canada received first-period goals from
Getzlaf and defenceman Danny Syvret and then broke the game wide open with
goals in the second period from Jeff Carter, Bergeron, Anthony Stewart and
Phaneuf. Canadian defenceman Cam Barker, who left the team last Friday after
being diagnosed with mononucleosis, returned from Winnipeg to take in the game.
Perdita Gets Back On Track
Excerpt from The
Toronto Star - Randy
Starkman, Sports Reporter
(Dec. 30, 2004) Perdita Felicien woke
up crying that night and once the torrent began she couldn't hold back. She had been so composed during the day,
following the horrible night before when her Olympic dreams came crashing down
with the first hurdle in Athens. At a packed news conference, Felicien had been
calm, poised and confident, although still at a loss to explain what had gone
so wrong. Now, in the privacy of the
room in the Olympic village she shared with fellow hurdler Priscilla Lopes, she
no longer had to keep up the façade.
"I was crying and crying," recalls Felicien. "I tried to
be quiet because Priscilla was sleeping. She just came over and she said,
`It'll be okay.' She hugged me and started rubbing my back. She was really there
for me. I broke down, of course, in that moment. But the fact she was there for
me ... was just amazing." Life
after Athens has been more than a plaintive chorus of "What
happened?" for Felicien, though there's certainly been a good share of
that, too. It's a question that seems
destined to follow her all the way to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. But in the months since that disastrous
evening in Greece, one of the most shocking sports moments of the year, there
has also been plenty of comfort and encouragement — sometimes from unexpected
places. "I could wallpaper my new
apartment with some of the kind things people have sent to me," Felicien
says. "There's an 11-year-old
named Rebecca Graham who is doing rehab in Pickering and her mom gave me this
picture she made, an 8x11 picture with this big yellow flower and it said, `You
are the gold.' "That's something
that really touched me because her message is, `You didn't bring home the
hardware but you are our piece of hardware.'"
Medals have arrived in the mail, too — one
made from construction paper and pipe cleaners, another of yarn and a wooden
one painted gold. Just the other week, there was a huge box of Mardi Gras beads
from a family. Almost all the letters
and packages at her family's home are simply addressed: Perdita Felicien,
Olympic hurdler, Pickering, Ontario.
When she and Pinball Clemons introduced Alicia Keys at her recent
concert, the Argo head coach — who made sure to call the Felicien household
right after the Olympic crash — told her "You have a fan for
life." She is approached by
well-wishers wherever she goes. As she tucks into her ackee and dumplings while
doing an interview over lunch at a Scarborough restaurant, the Pickering native
is approached by people who know her vaguely from the area and also by complete
strangers. "Keep up the good
work." "We're proud of
you." One man rolls his window
down as Felicien leaves the restaurant. He wishes her well and asks when the
next Olympics are. "Beijing, in
2008," says Felicien, almost making it sound as if it's not so far
away. Felicien says her crash in Athens
isn't haunting her, but she still can't bear to watch a replay of the race or
even talk about it with her coach, Gary Winckler. "Even now it's still hard to think about," she says.
"I haven't looked at it. I probably won't look at it for a very long
time." Her original plan after
Athens was to return to her new apartment in Champaign, Ill., where she trains
under Winckler at the University of Illinois. Instead, she took refuge with her
family for two months in Pickering, sleeping in the same bedroom in which she
had grown up. While the heel injury she
suffered in Athens limits her training, she's still active. When she went to
Vancouver for a week of treatment with chiropractor Wilbour Kelsick, she did
things she'd never done before — kayaking, hiking, horseback riding and
spotting black bears. She went on
vacation to Mexico with a friend, Nicole. But even there, inevitably, she had
to face "the question." This
time it came from the man playing catch with his son in the Cancun pool.
Usually, the questioner fumbles for the right words — many intent on asking the
question without quite knowing how.
"It's a sensitive subject. They don't know me. I don't know
them," she said. "They don't know how to react to me. What's the
right words to say. What not to say."
How does a world champion hurdler smash
into the first hurdle on the track at the Olympics — a mistake she had never
made in her life? It's also the
question Felicien has wrestled with constantly since that devastating evening
in Greece. Her best guess is that her
leap from the starting blocks was simply too powerful, fuelled by adrenaline,
faster than ever before and too much speed to harness. It meant she mistimed
the first hurdle. "I know everyone
has had their take on it or whatnot, but I know my body better than anybody
else," she says. "I just know I was on fire." While she's not been willing to confront the
video evidence of her fall, she has seen all the photos. Two garbage bags full of newspapers sat in
the corner of her room in Pickering for two months. They were saved for her by
family and friends during the Olympics.
"Every time, I would look at some of the things, I just got this
feeling of `Ohhhh, I cannot believe this happened to me.'" She waded through all of it and filled five
scrapbooks. Now her next test is to run
again. While Winckler has recommended she skip the indoor season to let her
injured heel fully mend, Felicien can't fathom not racing again until the
spring. She is anxious to defend her
world outdoor title next summer in Helsinki and knows everyone will be watching
to see if she can rebound. One conversation
that stands out for Felicien in the months since Athens is the one she had with
confidant Tonja Buford-Bailey, an assistant coach at Illinois and former
Olympic 400-metre hurdles bronze medallist
"She told me `Girl, this is one of the things that can ruin
people's careers,'" Felicien recalled.
"`This can devastate someone. You can just always concentrate on it
and never come back from something like this.'
"So I ask myself the question," added Felicien, "Am I
going to be one of those people that it just hangs over them for the rest of
their life and they never get over it?'"
Felicien already knows her answer.
"There's no way, because I've hardly started and I want this to be
a long career. I think the answer is there's lots more for me to accomplish and
for some reason this has been the catalyst for me to be a little more motivated
and to tell me there's something better and bigger ahead."
::OTHER NEWS::
Do's and Don'ts of 2004...It Was A Wild, Wacky, Weird And Wonderful Year For Celebrity
Gossip!
Source: Canadian
Press - Claire
Kilgour- Email Claire
(Dec.
31, 2004) For a column that celebrates shallowness, bad behaviour and
triviality, 2004 has been a fabulous year!
The year was neatly bookended by two Britney weddings. It brought us
baby announcements for Apple, Phinnaeus and Coco. We endured two Jackson family
scandals. We saw both Paris Hilton and Bill Clinton write books. The Olsen
twins finally celebrated their 18th birthdays. Ashlee Simpson was caught in a
lip sync scandal. And Jennifer Lopez took the plunge with hubby No. 3 (we
think). If you're a Michael Moore fan,
2004 was as successful as ever. The same goes for those of you who have a
passion for Jesus Christ and Mel Gibson. Dubya got re-elected. So did Paul
Martin. Partisan politics took centre stage, while the NHL retreated from
centre ice. We saw poor Martha Stewart start serving six months' in the
slammer. And finally, no words can properly pay due respect, but Ronald Reagan,
Ray Charles, Christopher Reeve and Jerry Orbach will be missed. All in all it was a glorious year for
celebrity absurdity. So here then, is a look at we've learned from the most
memorable players of 2004:
Do pull off a secret wedding
The
year began with an "I do" when Britney
Spears -- in ripped jeans and baseball cap -- married childhood chum
Jason Alexander. Oops! She had it annulled 55 hours later. But that was hardly
the end of 2004's clandestine chapel business. As we questioned Britney's morals and mourned the Bennifer
break-up, Jennifer Lopez was busy preparing to pull off her most dramatic
"I dos" to date. On June 5, J.Lo tied the knot with former flame Marc
Anthony after inviting just 35 close friends and family for a 'party' at her
Los Angeles home. Wedding cake was served but Lopez and Anthony still haven't
confirmed their marital status. It really makes us wish for her headline
grabbing days with Ben Affleck. Oh wait, no it doesn't.
Speaking
of headlines, 21-year-old Nicky Hilton
managed to steal the spotlight from her tacky older sister when she took the
plunge with money manager Todd Meister, 33, on Aug. 15. The impromptu 3 a.m.
Las Vegas nuptials echoed Britney's trip down the aisle earlier in the year,
but this union lasted much longer -- almost two whole months. The newlyweds
inexplicably filed for an annulment in October and Paris regained her rightful
place as the Hilton's most headline-worthy heiress.
On
Sept. 18, determined to be a bride and stay a bride, Britney married dancer
Kevin Federline in a secret ceremony in L.A. This time around she did wear a
wedding gown, but things got complicated when it was revealed they didn't have
a marriage license. Oops! The legal snafu was cleared up two weeks later, but
that still doesn't change the fact that the wedding reception -- excuse me, "after-party"
-- was held at a Hollywood nightclub andd that the bride and groom donned velour
sweat suits emblazoned with "Hot Mama" and "Pimp Daddy."
All this and she still can't sing.
Most
recently, it was rumoured Anna Kournikova
and Enrique Iglesias had wed on the
beach in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. But despite the glittering diamond ring on
Anna's finger and her own admission that "Enrique is great. Everything is
awesome. We are married," it all turned out to be a prank.
Don't forget to wear a bra
It was
the nip that launched a thousand fits. Who will forget the stunning Super Bowl
half-time show this year, when Justin Timberlake
ripped off Janet Jackson's top to
reveal her right breast adorned with a large silver nipple stud? While Middle America collectively choked on
their Budweisers, the rest of the world chuckled over Janet's "wardrobe
malfunction." The FCC's Michael Powell expressed his shock and outrage
that children -- yes, children!
-- had been exposed to a split-second off boob between commercials for Viagra
and beer. Janet was banished from the
Grammys and issued a public apology, while CBS ended up being fined more than
$550,000, and even the Oscars were broadcast for the first time with a
five-second delay. Janet later reneged
on her apology and pointed the finger at George W. Bush: "I truly feel in
my heart that the president wanted to take the focus off of him at that time,
and I was the perfect vehicle to do so at that moment," she said
afterwards.
Too
bad Tara Reid was either too drunk or
too dumb to pay attention to the mammary mishap. The blonde starlet experienced
a boob brouhaha of her own when she arrived at P.Diddy's birthday party in NYC.
Tara's gown slipped down on the red carpet to reveal what appeared to be a
surgically enhanced left breast. The incident fell short of Jackson's
Nipplegate, but the scene was ugly in its own right: photographers gleefully
snapping away until her publicist finally alerted her to the over exposure.
Regrettably,
ABC also failed to take notice of cultural revolution started by the Super Bowl
and aired a racy Monday Night Football opening skit with Philadelphia Eagles
wide receiver Terrell Owens and a
nearly naked Desperate Housewives
star Nicollette Sheridan.
Meanwhile,
gratuitous violence in video games and x-rated music videos went largely
unnoticed.
Do give your baby an unusual name
We
knew it was going to be a strange year for baby names in May, when trendsetter Gwyneth Paltrow bestowed the Apple moniker on her beloved newborn. Sure
it's unusual, but we bet it will start turning up in kindergartens across the
country in the next few years.
It
already inspired Claudia Schiffer:
just months after Gwynnie's fruity pick, the supermodel called her new daughter
Clementine. Then, in December, Liv Tyler named her first son Milo, which turns out to mean Apple in Greek.
Speaking
of Greek, Debra Messing, Harvey Keitel
and Cate Blanchett all named their
sons Roman. While other celebs opted
for more exotic than ancient; Helen Hunt
dubbed her daughter Makena'lei and Geena Davis christened her twins Kian and Kaiis.
In
June we thought Courteney Cox Arquette
was a little cuckoo when she named her daughter Coco.
But then in July singer Erykah Badu
-- herself a member of strange-name teamm -- had a child named Puma. The sporty namesake is only slightly
less odd than Seven, the name of the
child she had with Andre 3000 of
OutKast.
But
the babies that caused the most commotion were Hazel
and Phinnaeus, the newborn twins of Julia Roberts and her husband, Danny Moder.
In June, Roberts' publicists confirmed that she was pregnant with twins
and expected to give birth in early 2005. But she was restricted to bed rest
late in October and gave birth on Nov 29. Both babies were six weeks premature
and spent their earliest days in an incubator before they and their mother were
released in early December. As the buzz
about her curious choice of names quiets down, Hazel Patricia is starting to
sound rather lovely, but we wonder how brother Phinnaeus Walter will fare in
high school? Although come to think of it, Phinn could make a kinda cool
nickname, and besides, his mom is Julia Roberts.
Don't underestimate the power of a celebrity perfume line
The
weapons were rose water, sandalwood and ylang-ylang, and the foot soldiers the
spray-happy sales clerks behind department store perfume counters, but
celebrities waged a scent war in 2004. From reality star Jessica Simpson to real estate tycoon Donald Trump, and even Wimbledon champ Maria Sharapova, the rich and the famous rushed
to market signature fragrances to unsuspecting fans.
Elizabeth
Arden would be proud of her successors for bringing Britney
Spears into the company's fragrant fold. The pop star's premier
perfume Curious, which claims to
embody "the brilliance, beauty, and strength of all women who dare,"
is selling surprisingly well. Never mind that the bottle would make Aladdin's
genie jealous.
Seizing
any opportunity to lick her luscious lips, Jessica
Simpson launched her Dessert Beauty
Deliciously Kissable Fragrance in April, promising: "You'll
feel as delicious as you'll smell." And while we're still not entirely
sure if that's a good thing, teen girls didn't seem to mind.
In
September, Estee Lauder signed a
multi-year deal to establish billionaire Donald Trump's eponymous scent, Donald Trump: The Fragrance. Fellow
hotel-heir-turned-reality-show-star Paris Hilton also joined the celebrity
perfume parade launching her namesake fragrance a few weeks later.
Other
celebs touting scents this year included Charlize
Theron as spokeswoman for J'adore; Scarlett
Johannson as the fetching face of Calvin Klein's Eternity Moment
perfume; and Beyoncé in grainy black
and white, exemplifying Tommy Hilfiger's True Star. Marilyn Monroe, of
course, was Chanel No 5's greatest celebrity mouthpiece, declaring that all she
wore in bed was "just a few drops of No 5," but Baz Luhrmann's lavish
mini-movie for Chanel No 5, starring Nicole Kidman might just give Ms. Monroe a
run for her title.
If
nothing else, 2004 will be remembered for the sweet smell of excess.
Do bow out in style
We
cried into our Cosmopolitans as our favourite fashionable foursome hung up
their Manolo Blahnik's for good. The near-perfect finale of Sex and the City was rewarded with a slew of awards,
notably Emmys for Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon. And even rumours of
catfights with Kim Cattrall couldn't taint the fabulous farewell.
It was
time to bring out the tissues again a few months later as the Friends gang chugged
their final round of coffees and went their separate ways, too. The show that
for many defined a generation, bowed out gracefully and we were glad.
Naming
Conan O'Brien as replacement for Jay Leno on The
Tonight Show was a smart and smooth move by NBC. Sure it won't
happen until 2009, but at least it won't be like when Johnny Carson retired and
a battle broke out between Leno and David Letterman over who would ascend to
the late-night throne.
Then,
just when we thought it was time to throw out our TV sets and start living our
lives again, Lost and Desperate Housewives emerged making ABC a
prime-time player for the first time in several years.
2005
is already shaping up to be quite a year! Have a happy and healthy New Year.
Joseph
Boyden: The Publishing World Is
Already Buzzing Over His First Novel
Excerpt
from The Toronto Star - Judy
Stoffman
(Jan. 1,
2005) Joseph Boyden grew up in
Toronto and Georgian Bay, and for many years taught communications in the
aboriginal studies program of Northern College, which has campuses in Timmins
and Moosonee. But it was not until he
moved to Louisiana six years ago — he now teaches creative writing at the
University of New Orleans — that he found a way to pour his love of the north
and understanding of aboriginal history into his first novel, a book the
publishing world is abuzz about though it's not due out until April 23. "I was up and down the James Bay Coast
on these isolated Cree reserves and I maintain close friendships there — I'm
going up with my son (who is 13) to do some ice fishing there over the
holidays," says the 38-year-old author in an interview in his publisher's
office in Toronto. "I write about Canada but I can do it better when I am
removed from it." Three Day
Road, to be published by Viking Canada (part of Penguin Group), is the tale
of two Cree snipers in World War I, Elijah and Xavier. Only one returns alive,
morphine addicted, broken in body and spirit. We also meet the wise, tough old
Niska, who is Xavier's aunt and the narrator of part of the story. The characters are fictional but inspired by
the legendary Francis Pegahmagabow — a real World War I Cree sharpshooter whom
Boyden heard about from his father during the Georgian Bay summers of his
childhood ("his descendents still live on Parry Island") — as well as
Henry Norwest, a Métis marksman from Alberta who fought at Vimy Ridge and was
killed a month before the Great War ended.
Boyden's manuscript was the hit of the London book fair last March.
Those who read it compared Three Day Road to Pat Barker's Regeneration
and Sebastien Faulks' Bird Song, celebrated British novels of trench
warfare and shellshock, though Boyden says he did not read these books until
after he had completed his own.
His agent,
Nicole Winstanley, quickly sold rights to Albin Michel in Paris, and to
publishers in Brazil, Spain, Holland, Italy and England. In Canada, six
publishers bid to publish it (Penguin won with an offer well into six figures)
and in the U.S., three took part in an auction. Film companies have also come
calling. Though he has some Métis
heritage, along with his Scottish-Irish roots, Boyden makes no claims to being
Indian. He was one of 11 children of a
military family. His father, who died when he was 8, had served as a front-line
doctor in the Italian campaign and became the most decorated medical man of
World War II. Military history became the future author's preferred reading as
a way of trying to get close to his deceased father. "Native men had a very high volunteer rate in both world
wars and often the native soldiers took the jobs of scouting and sniping,"
says Boyden. Hunting had taught them to be still, to be vigilant and to
camouflage themselves. Still, he says,
"When they came home, they suffered in silence. There was no special
recognition of them." He would be
honoured, he says, if his novel could change that.
2005's Classy Ways To Get Creative
Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Christopher
Hutsul
(Jan. 2,
2005) All in all, it's been a good holiday. You had some laughs, made nice with
your surly great aunt, and emerged from the chaos of it all in a warm, mellow
daze. Enjoy it now, because tomorrow,
cursed tomorrow, it's back to work. If you don't love your job, it's going to
be a long day, and a cruel sampling of what lies ahead for another long year. So shelve the fickle resolutions you cooked
up New Year's Eve and promise yourself that in 2005, you'll grow, explore,
learn, and do the things you love to do.
In short, you'll take some courses.
"If you're living, you're learning, so you'd might as well take
charge of it and organize your learning," says Douglas Chaddock, publisher
of the newly launched Taking Courses magazine (http://www.takingcourses.com).
"Courses are a good way to do that.
"As adults, we're reluctant about learning. We get to a certain age
and we think, `I'd like to do this, but ... ' And everything that follows that
`but' are reasons we don't go and learn ... " Think back to long before your current career ever recruited you.
You were a high school drama star, or a painting whiz, or a ceramics prodigy.
You wouldn't mind rekindling that flame of creativity, but you worry about
compromising the security provided by your job. Chaddock reminds us that with
many of the weekend and evening continuing education courses available in the
city, you can reacquaint yourself with your craft without compromising your
stability. "People want to get a
taste of a course — like a little spoonful of training," says Chaddock.
"Maybe I loved photography in school, but my position in life has changed,
and I just want to go for one afternoon to be reacquainted and brought up to
speed, without having to take a six-week course." As Torontonians, we have access to an
amazing range of courses — especially in the arts and entertainment fields. So
here, with the help of the free Taking Courses website, are some options that
could make this year one of the best ones yet.
GEORGE BROWN COLLEGE: (http://www.gbrownc.on.ca)
A
great place to start when looking for continuing education courses is George
Brown College, in the heart of Toronto. Currently, about 50,000 people are
registered for continuing-education programs at the college, which range from
screenplay writing to jewellery making to bakery arts. And by no means is this
program designed for only young 'uns. Cheryl Dunn, manager of communications
for Continuing Education, estimates that the average age of people taking
"con ed" courses is around 35.
"For a lot of them, courses here aren't just about advancing in
their careers, but to change careers and try something else out," says
Dunn. Some of the school's most popular
offerings are its photography courses. They expose students to the basics of
conventional SLR photography, and also offer training in more specific subjects
such as portraiture and wedding photography. George Brown also introduced a
digital photography course this September, much to the delight of its
registrants. Dunn says that, next to
the school's convenient downtown location, its greatest asset is it teachers,
all of whom are actively working in their fields. "What's great about continuing education is that our
teachers are very current, they're very up to date, they're involved in the
community, and in some cases, they provide networking opportunities," says
Dunn. Courses run throughout the year,
ranging from five to 42 hours in length. Fees and schedules and course
descriptions are listed on the website.
TORONTO IMAGE WORKS: (http://www.torontoimageworks. com)
For
anyone working in photography and imaging, TIW has been an invaluable resource
for nearly 20 years. The studio is known for its high-end framing and photo
printing services, but it also offers a handful of specialized courses that
cater to both professional and amateur designers and photographers. Its managing director, Jeannie Baxter, says
that many print designers are taking Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver courses
to meet the online needs of their clients. For the hobbyist, meanwhile, there
are courses that explain the fundamentals of black-and-white printing as well
as one revealing the basics of digital photography, aptly named Digital
Photography Demystified. "We actually
take you from beginning to end," says Baxter. "We say, here's your
digital camera, do you actually know how to use all the functions? Is it full?
How do we upload? How do we file them? How do we set up a gallery ...
?" She believes TIW has an edge
over other programs because it has the flexibility to hire instructors with the
most up-to-date training. "Because
we're small, we can change our curriculum very easily," she says. And
because of the specialized curriculum, a lot can be learned in a short
time. "We're able to fast track
because were working with mature students," she says. "They don't
need to take electives, they don't need to do the pub-crawls ... They just want
to hunker down and learn. There really is something to say for adult
education."
TRINITY SQUARE VIDEO: (http://www.trinitysquarevideo.com)
As a
headquarters for Toronto video artists, Trinity Square Video has the personnel
and equipment to accommodate those looking to break into the world of
videomaking. The artist-run centre offers an intriguing list of courses at
reasonable prices for would-be producers, camera people and video editors. "There are a few advanced courses, but
mostly they're aimed at people who've never used a camera or done any editing
before," says Ian Jarvis, TSV's technical director. Some of the courses offered include editing
workshops, sound and lighting workshops, documentary workshops, and one course
called, ahem, I Want To Make A Porno.
"We'll teach people how to put video on the web, how to get work
into a film festival, how to write a budget, and how to write a grant,"
says Jarvis. "Generally, after a two-day workshop, people are pretty
confident and ready to start." In
order to be accessible for people who work during regular business hours, most
of TSV's courses are two-day programs, often taking place on Saturdays and
Sundays, or on a series of evenings. Best of all, though, is that once you've
got the skills, you can use their video editing suites for a mere $8 an hour.
That is, as long as your using them for non-commercial purposes. "It's an artist-run centre, so the
stipulation is that you can't do Coke ads," says Jarvis.
EDITH SEREI SCHOOL OF ADVANCED AESTHETICS: (http://www.edithserei.com)
If
you're looking for a more in-depth program, consider studying makeup arts for
film and video and photography at a specialized school like Edith Serei. Its
weekly program starts in early March and carries through to November. Instructor Kim Lum had been working for a
brokerage firm before she decided to return to the arts background she'd
fostered as a youth. She went back to school to study makeup in 1995, and
landed a teaching job at Edith Serei in 1997.
"This industry is a great environment," says Lum. "You
never know where you're going to be, what you're going to do — there's never a
boring moment." The program
introduces students to the fundamentals of bridal makeup, day and night makeup,
makeup for colour and black-and-white photography, as well as runway
"smoky eye" makeup and false lashes. Lum has also added a "prom
makeup" component to the course to respond to the growing demand for the
service. "It's not as easy as
people think it is," warns Lum. "Some people call us `pink collar'
workers, but there's a lot involved in doing makeup. You do have to have some
talent and some kind of art background to do this job."
LIAISON OF INDEPENDENT FILMMAKERS OF TORONTO: (http://www.lift.on.ca)
With
more than 600 members, LIFT has established itself as Toronto's foremost
resource for independent filmmakers. If you've harboured a secret desire to get
behind a camera or to produce an independent film, this is a good place to
start. "You can learn the basics,
and learn the language of filmmaking, as well as be introduced to the business
behind it all too," says Roberto Ariganello, LIFT's executive
director. "It's an open-door policy
here; we design the courses anticipating that there will be people who are
absolute beginners. We encourage people who have no experience but who do have
the desire to get involved with filmmaking." Ariganello says many of their courses let people get their foot
in the door of Toronto's hot-and-cold film industry. And for those looking to
produce a film, LIFT also offers invaluable training in business and legal
matters. "People generally don't
know what exactly goes into making a film, the amount of money and support
they'll need," he says. One
popular course at LIFT is Filmmaking For Visual Artists, which introduces
painters and sculptors and the like to ways that film can be integrated into
their artwork.
RECORDING
ARTS CANADA: (http://www.recordingarts.com)
Recording
Arts Canada offers registrants complete digital immersion. Students have the
choice of taking either the sound and music stream — which touches on audio
postproduction, sound design, music landscapes for film, ambiance music, and
sound effects recording — or the digital media program, which focuses on the
fundamentals of design, Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver as well as 2D and 3D
animation. Program director Tricia
Cosby says the majority of students are in their early 20s, and are aiming to
turn their musical proficiency into something more secure and lucrative than
being a performing musician. Others are a little older, and are looking to get
reacquainted with their musical inclinations.
"Those are people who've always had a passion for music and always
wanted to get involved with it, but they felt they had to go into business or
IT," says Cosby. "They're not happy in their jobs or able to express
their creativity, so they come back to the thing they love the most, which is
music." "There aren't too
many office workers who will tell you that being behind a computer 40 hours a
week is what they envision doing with the rest of their lives."
Joseph C. Phillips: A Year Of
Life-Changing Events
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Dec. 30, 2004)
It was a year of continuing war in Iraq. The nation mourned the death of former
president Ronald Reagan and celebrated the Boston Red Sox finally exorcising
the curse of the bambino. It was a year filled with stories
both big and small that will impact the lives of Americans for many years to
come. Quite possibly the biggest story of the year is the resounding victory of
President Bush in the November elections. Bush was faced with an economy
surging in fits and starts; an unpopular war besieged with scandal, kidnappings
and beheadings and a national cultural divide that seemed more profound than
ever before. In the end, however, Bush received more votes than any other
president in history; was the first candidate since 1988 to win more than 50%
of the popular vote, and became the first president re-elected while gaining
seats in the house and senate since 1936. Some have been reluctant to
describe the victory as a mandate, however it is characterized, the victory was
decisive. The president now has a cache of political capital that he will spend
over the next 4 years to battle Islamic terror, transform social security, to
shape the Supreme Court and ultimately shape the world in which the next generation
of Americans lives their lives. The death of Palestinian authority leader
Yassar Arafat was arguably as significant as the president’s re-election.
Arafat was a terrorist with the blood of thousands of Israelis and more than a
few Americans on his hands. He was a thief who stole from the Palestinian
people. But most importantly, he was the impediment to peace with Israel
and prosperity for Palestine. Arafat’s goal was the destruction of Israel and
the “establishment of an entirely Palestinian state.” Peaceful resolution
of the Palestinian conflict largely depends on the Palestinians recognizing
Israel’s right to exist. Arafat negotiated with no less than 10 Israeli
administrations --both conservative and liberal -- and was unable to reach a
peace accord with any of them. Former Palestinian Prime minister Mahmoud
Abbas has emerged as Arafat’s possible successor. He is a more moderate
and pragmatic voice and is talking peace. The terrorist group Hamas has also
softened its rhetoric. It is far too early to be overly optimistic, but we can
be cautiously hopeful. A democratic Palestine living in peace with Israel will
cast a long shadow on the Islamic fanatics who are stoking the fires of western
hatred and anti-Semitism. If we also find some measure of success in Iraq we
will have won major battles in the war on terrorism. Finally, the year saw the advent of the
alternative media as a real political force. Democrat Howard Dean used
the Internet to muscle his way into contention for his party’s presidential
nomination and raised more money than any other Democratic primary
candidate. Dan Rather and CBS announced the existence of documents
purported to prove President Bush attempted to skirt his National Guard duty.
Within hours Internet blogs had broken the story that the documents were in
fact fraudulent. The mainstream media largely ignored the charges of the
swift boat veterans who spoke out against John Kerry. The story was
driven onto the front pages of the news by talk radio and the Internet.
Regular folks empowered by the Internet, AM talk radio and cable news have
changed the political landscape by changing forever the way in which news is
reported and campaigns are mobilized.
2004 began with Janet Jackson exposing her breast during half time of
the super bowl and ended with the re-election of a president. In between there
were celebrations, tears and countless examples of the way in which world
events can transform our lives.
Obba
Babatunde Talks Politics
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Jan. 3, 2005) *In the wake of the November election, Obba Babatunde would like to get some issues
off his chest. The veteran of film and television is fed up with the lack of
passion among some African Americans in this country when it comes to issues
affecting our community. “We’re
so comfortable in our own individual lifestyle, that we somehow allow ourselves
to be subjugated to what the result of a situation is, rather than taking
action – at the smallest thing,” Babatune says. “Case, point and example - if I
make a comment that is somehow implying in someone’s mind that I might be
saying something either homophobic or anti-Semitic, people from those
communities immediately go crazy and they come after me. [The African American
community doesn’t] do that. We’ll say, “Man, that don’t bother me, but if
someone steps to me personally, etc…” But as a group, as an organized body, we
don’t do it. And that greatly concerns me.” The native of Jamaica, Queens, New
York says Bush’s re-election is the result of Republicans “being organized as
never before in terms of record numbers coming out to the polls.” Whether it
was a general malaise with politics or a lack of an organizational effort to
get Kerry supporters into the voting booths, Babatunde is convinced that apathy
exists among too many African Americans – evidenced by the lack of outcry
surrounding the Internet rumour of blacks losing the right to vote in 2007. In
1982, according to the story, Ronald Reagan amended the Voting Rights Act of
1965 for another 25 years - until 2007. At that time, congress would
revisit the issue and in addition to congressional approval, there needs to be
the approval of 38 states for the law to be extended.
“Whether it happened or not is my point,” says
Babatunde of the Voting Rights Act expiration rumour. “My point is that [the
Act] was amended. The maturation date was extended. To date, we have not
said, ‘Wait a minute, this is ridiculous. Why is it that the thing was simply
the maturation date was extended, rather than the fact that it wasn’t entered
into law?’ The right to vote is ours. Period. The end. Why are we on a
pass? And again, that is the example that I speak to. Whether it happens or
whether it doesn’t is debatable. But what is not debatable is that when it was
voted to be extended, there was no great uprising, and there still has not been
any to date.” [Editor's note: The
Internet rumour was ultimately a hoax. According to the United States
Department of Justice, both the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, guarantee that no person can be prohibited from
voting because of race or colour. That guarantee is without expiration.
However, lawmakers did add some provisions that are up for review in
2007. Those include things like a ban on poll taxes, allowing the
government to register voters if local registrars of voters refuse to do it,
and monitoring of elections where there may be concern over everybody getting a
chance to vote.] Compounding
Babatunde’s frustration are the differences between today’s reaction to
injustices and the steps taken by members of the Civil Rights movement during
the 60s. “Years ago, there were organizations that took to the streets,
literally,” he says. “We boycotted the buses and there was something that
people could actually involve themselves in – to really feel they were a part
of it. We don’t have that at this time. We are completely polarized. We
have more individual wealth and less collective power than we’ve ever had
before.” With two films on the
horizon for 2005 – “The Celestine Prophecy” and “The Black Man’s Guide to
Understanding Black Women” – the busy actor’s success in Hollywood has not
clouded his concern for the political future of the black community. “I don’t mean to speak cavalier and make
this sound like this is an easy problem to solve or resolve, but I’m saying it
has to have a starting point,” he says. “And it is something that certainly I
believe at least deserves a dialogue in pursuant to the specifics of this
election.”
We Remember Shirley Chisholm
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Jan. 4, 2005) *Funeral
arrangements are expected to be made public today for political pioneer Shirley Chisholm,
a powerhouse in the struggle for women’s rights and the first African American
woman elected to Congress. Chisholm died on Saturday in Florida at the age of
80. Details of her death were not yet known, but a former member of her staff
told “The New York Times” she had suffered several recent strokes. In Congress,
Chisholm represented an impoverished district in Brooklyn, NY, and was one of
the first women ever to seek the presidential nomination of a major party,
winning 151 delegates to the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami. She
served in Congress until 1982. "She was a great trailblazer, not only for
African Americans but for women,” said civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who
had known Chisholm since he was an 18-year-old working as a youth director on
her presidential campaign. "If not for her I don't think Condoleezza Rice
would ever had existed," he told Reuters, referring to President Bush's
national security adviser and secretary of state designate. The daughter of a
factory worker and a seamstress from the Caribbean islands, Chisholm was also
one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus and the National
Organization for Women. She hired an all-women staff during her first term in
Congress and spoke out for civil rights, women's rights and against the Vietnam
War. "She was a hero to those of us who wanted to see blacks advance to
their rightful place in politics," George Dalley, chief of staff to New
York Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, said on Monday. Sharpton added: "She
broke the barrier down for black women in the highest circles of power in
Washington and she did it with dignity and did it effectively and did it with
no fear."
‘Essence’ Confronts Hip Hop’s Attack On Sistas
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Jan. 4, 2005) *Essence
magazine is firing up a movement entitled “Take Back The Music,” designed
as a year long in depth look at the way black women are depicted in popular
music (especially rap and hip-hop), movies, television , videos and the media.
“In videos we are bikini-clad sisters gyrating around fully clothed grinning
brothers like Vegas strippers on meth,” the editors of “Essence” say in a
statement. “When we search for ourselves in music lyrics, mixtapes, DVDs and on
the pages of hip-hop magazines, we only seem to find our bare breasts and
butts. And when we finally get our five minutes at the mic, too many of us
waste it on hypersexual braggadocio and profane one-upmanship.” Entertainment
journalist Ayana
Byrd and “Essence” editor Akiba Solomon interviewed various players in
the music industry: a video director, a choreographer, a rapper, a psychologist
and others. The magazine plans to explore this issue throughout the year, and
invite readers to express their opinions in e-mails to letters@essence.com. “The damage of this
imbalanced portrayal of Black women is impossible to measure,” the editors say.
“An entire generation of Black girls are being raised on these narrow images.
And as the messages and images are broadcast globally, they have become the
lens through which the world now sees us. This cannot continue.”
Mobile Co. Zingy Delivers Kanye, Aaliyah Ringtones
Excerpt from www.eurweb.com
(Jan. 4, 2005) *On the ringtone front,
mobile media company Zingy on Monday announced deals to deliver voice
recordings by Kanye West and songs from Aaliyah to mobile phone users, with a
portion of funds from the late R&B singer’s purchased content earmarked for
the Aaliyah Memorial Fund, which supports Alzheimer's, AIDS and breast cancer
research. Zingy will exclusively
distribute previously-unreleased Aaliyah mobile content, including her
recording of "Ave Maria." The deal marks the first time mobile
content is being used to benefit a charitable organization and the first time a
new Aaliyah song was first released as a ringtone. Folks can also buy Kanye screensavers, wallpapers, voicemail
greetings, voice ringtones and "voice ringback tones," which replace
the sound that signals a phone is ringing on the other end. Zingy has previously struck content deals
with Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Ludacris, D12, Fabolous, Prince, Michelle Branch,
Jurassic 5 and other artists.
::FITNESS NEWS::
Your New Year Workout!
By Michael Stefano, Special for
eFitness
(Jan.
3, 2005) Hold on to your fat! It’s time for that barrage of gym commercials and
other high-pressure ads designed to get you to join this or buy that. But like
clockwork, millions of Americans do put on a few extra pounds every winter, and
come January 1, advertisers can count on their desperate desire to lose
weight. It’s normal and healthy through
the course of your life, and even from season to season, to experience a small
up and down fluctuation in body weight. While a single five-pound jump is
nothing to panic about, the cumulative effect of a consistently upward trend
can cause long-term problems, and send us running for the weight room every
spring. You don’t have to be a math
scholar to calculate that just a three- or five-pound annual surge in body
weight after the age of 25 will result in a 20-pound overall weight gain real
quick. That’s the equivalent of walking around with 80 quarter-pound burgers
stuck to your thighs, hips and belly.
Why do so many of us fall prey to this roller coaster ride of weight
gain and the inevitable struggle to get back in shape,
and even more importantly, what can we do to minimize this viscous cycle?
To Err Is Human
Around
the holidays, the social aspect of breaking bread with family and friends
causes much overeating. We make less-than-perfect food choices that relate to
cherished traditions and happy child memories. But, sometimes it’s simply
because those little tasty treats are everywhere. Our days become filled with decorating, late-night parties and
mobbed malls, leaving less time for taking care of ourselves. Longer hours
indoors translates into less activity and more time spent a few feet from a
refrigerator that’s stuffed with cakes and cookies. The tendency to be more of
a couch potato during the shorter days is biological as well. A lack of daily
light signals our bodies to go into a conservation mode, preparing for a winter
food shortage that will (thankfully) never come.
To Forgive Is Divine
Let
yourself experience the joys of winter without completely sabotaging what
you’ve worked so hard for all summer long. Everything in moderation is the
motto of the season. Forgive yourself when you slip, as the tendency to let one
mistake turn into a total slide is probably what hurts us most. Keep on your exercise program as best you
can. Shorter, abbreviated workouts will hold you over on days you just don’t
have enough time or energy to spend even a half an hour at the gym. Come
January, refresh
your workout program with a new plan. Break from whatever it was you were
doing pre-2004 and beat the doldrums that come with the same old workout
routine.
Below
is an exercise plan that’s designed to jump-start a stale routine.
2005 Start-Up Workout
· 5 minutes of cardio (warm up)
· 5 minutes of resistance training (lower
body/abs)
· 5 minutes of cardio (moderate intensity)
· 5 minutes of resistance training (upper
body)
· 5 minutes of cardio (cool down)
Trainer’s
Notes:
Your
cardio can assume any mode you choose. Brisk walking or jogging (treadmill or
outdoors), stationary bike, stepping or even jumping rope all work very well
(you can even use all three in one session). Your first cardio sequence is
performed at a relatively low intensity (heart rate no greater than 70 percent
of maximum), the mid-sequence at a moderate intensity (no greater than 80
percent of max), while the cool down reverts back to a lower intensity. There are two resistance sequences.
Lower-body work consists of two or three exercises for the legs and core area,
such as squats, lunges and crunches performed to muscle fatigue. The upper body
sequence incorporates two basic moves like the bench press or push up, and bent
over row or pullover also performed to some level of muscle fatigue (in the
10-20 repetition range). This start-up
routine is designed to be performed two or three days per week, but always with
at least 48 hours of rest in between workouts. After a few weeks, and once you
adapt to the program, you can move on to a more advanced version that includes
either more cardio or resistance work, and that incorporates a few flexibility
exercises into the program as well.
EVENTS
–JANUARY 6 - 16, 2005
SUNDAY, JANUARY 9
SOULAR
College
Street Bar
574
College Street (at Manning)
10:30
pm
$5.00
EVENT
PROFILE:
Featuring Dione Taylor, Sandy Mamane, Davide Direnzo, Justin Abedin, Dafydd
Hughes and David French.
MONDAY, JANUARY 10
IRIE MONDAY
NIGIHT SESSIONS
Irie Food Joint
745 Queen Street W.
10:00 pm
EVENT PROFILE:
Monday nights at IRIE continue their tradition. Carl Cassell’s original art and IRIE itself will be featured in the
January 2005 issue of Toronto Life!
It’s no surprise to me that Toronto Life has chosen Carl Cassell, in
their quest to reveal those restaurants that also offer the unique addition of
original art. Let Irie awaken your
senses. Irie Mondays continue – food –
music – culture.
VIP JAM WITH
SPECIAL GUESTS
Revival Bar
EVENT PROFILE: REVIVAL IS
CLOSED UNTIL JANUARY 14, 2005
SATURDAY, JANUARY 15
THE
A-TEAM
The
Orbit Room
College
Street
10:30
pm
$8.00
EVENT
PROFILE:
Featuring Wade O. Brown, Shamakah Ali, Rich Brown, Adrian Eccleston, David
Williams.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 16
SOULAR
College Street Bar
574 College Street (at
Manning)
10:30 pm
$5.00
EVENT PROFILE:
Featuring Dione Taylor, Sandy Mamane, Davide Direnzo, Justin Abedin, Dafydd
Hughes and David French
Have a great week!
Dawn Langfield
Langfield
Entertainment
www.langfieldentertainment.com