The queen of all media, Oprah Winfrey, fought back tears a short time ago as she confirmed to her talk show audience that her show will end in 2011. The Chicago Sun-Times writes writes:
"Twenty five years feels right in my bones and right in my spirit," she told her audience, at times tearing up during the announcement. "It is the exact right time."
"Why walk away?," she said at the end of her show, fighting back tears. "Here is the real reason. I love this show, this show has been my life, and I love it enough to know when it's time to leave."
Over at Monkey See, Linda Holmes predicts that "the next two years are going to be so insufferable that they will make you forget all about the multiple, tearful, overwrought, tooth-gnashing farewells to Brett Favre."
After hearing Los Angeles Times' Ken Turan's deeply negative review of the new film version of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book "Where the Wild Things Are" on "Morning Edition," one could be forgiven for believing director Spike Jonze had created an artistic disaster. Turan said:
It's painful to say this, and even more painful to watch it, but Maurice Sendak's beloved Where the Wild Things Are has been turned into a self-indulgent cinematic fable that neither parents nor children are going to like.
But Turan's view is far from the consensus of major reviewers. Reviewers for the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Washington Post for instance, are raving about "Where The Wild Things Are."
Truly, I am madly, deeply in love with the film version of " Where the Wild Things Are." Not since Robert Altman took on "Popeye" a generation ago, and lost, has a major director addressed such a well-loved, all-ages title. This time everything works, from tip to tail, from the moment in the prologue at which director Spike Jonze freezes the action (Max, fork in hand, tearing after the family dog) to the final scene's hard-won reconnection between Max and his mother at the kitchen table. Warner Bros. Pictures should be applauded for such a nervy and breathtaking achievement -- the rare adaptation that goes deeper, not dumber, in its page-to-screen translation of a children's classic.
Even a wealthy and famous conservative radio talk show host with a huge following can get thrown under the bus when he gets in the way of other wealthy guys trying to buy something as coveted as an NFL football team. Rush Limbaugh was purged from the investor group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams.
Rush Limbaugh won't be a part owner of the St. Louis Rams after all. (Bill Pugliano / Getty Images)
According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Limbaugh didn't jump, he was pushed from the group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams.
The Post-Dispatch has learned through league sources that Limbaugh has been dropped from the group. Limbaugh has been informed of the decision, according to league sources. The Checketts group subsequently issued a statement to that effect (complete statement is included at bottom of this story).
Harry Connick Jr. further added to his image as a good-guy celebrity by smacking down a group of performers who recently appeared on an Australian variety show in black
face.
It happened during the talent segment of the show Hey, Hey, It's Saturday. Connick was serving as one of three judges when six men appeared on stage as the "Jackson Jive," a parody of the late pop star Michael Jackson and his performing brothers.
The men wore afro wigs and blackface, except for the lead singer who, pretending to be the King of Pop, wore clown-like white makeup. After the men performed, the judges were asked for their scores. Connick gave them a fat zero.
Connick, looking like he had just eaten some bad gumbo, said:
"Man, if they turned up looking like that in the United States... it would be 'hey, hey, there's no more show.' "
By contrast, another judge, an Australian woman named Jackie, gave them a seven. She said:
"I thought you were very cute. Terrific choreography. Great singing. Fabulous."
To which I say, borrowing a line from Rep. Barney Frank: on which planet does she spend most of her time?
At the end of the show, host Daryl Somers apologized to Connick:
Robert Halderman, CBS News producer and alleged David Letterman blackmailer, appeared in a Manhattan courtroom on Friday, arms handcuffed behind him. (Marc A. Hermann / AP Photo)
By Frank James
Robert "Joe" Halderman, the CBS News producer accused of extorting $2 million from comedian and late night television fixture David Letterman, pled not guilty and was released on $200,000 bond Friday afternoon by a New York judge.
This story is certainly layered with irony. Halderman, a producer for 48 hours a true-crime show who is now charged with having committed a true-crime -- attempted first-degree grand larceny.
Haldeman allegedly told the married Letterman that he would expose his sexual affairs and that his world would "collapse around him" but it is Halderman's world that appears to be in ruins.
Letterman admitted on the air that over the years he had sex with women on his show's staff.
Garrison Keillor, public radio's biggest star, explains in an Associated Press video what it feels like to have a minor stroke of the sort he recently had.
And he tells it in that uniquely Keillor way of telling stories, with that sonorous voice and deliberate pace that draws listeners in.
He said:
Labor Day morning and you're running errands in Minneapolis and you're talking on the cell phone and suddenly your mouth goes berserk and your speech becomes very slurred and mushy, as if you had had four martinis, and it's numb as if you had been to the dentist and had four martinis. And you feel this odd disconnect. And you have a balloon in your head...
... People are always ready to give you advice 'You should take it easy.' But taking it easy makes me restless and unhappy. I don't really know how to do that. I'm not a collector of things. I don't have hobbies. I don't play tennis anymore, I used to. So work is what I do. If I didn't do that, what would I do, go and visit people in the hospital? I don't know.
Larry Gelbart, the Hollywood writer, died at age 81 of cancer at his Los Angeles home today.
Larry Gelbart, the creator behind MASH, died Friday at age 81. (Ryan Miller / Getty Images)
Perhaps best known for developing and writing for his hit 1970s and 1980s television sitcom MASH, Gelbart also wrote for Broadway and film, co-writing the Broadway musical "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" and the movie "Tootsie."
MASH was more than your average sitcom. With America's participation in the Vietnam War still continuing when the show started in 1972, it was a way to deal with the the ambiguities of a controversial war, Vietnam, by focusing on another murky Asian conflict in which the U.S. found itself immersed, Korea in the early 1950s.
The show was beloved by millions and its last episode "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" in 1983 was viewed by about 106 million, a record.
NPR's Felix Contreras reported the following for the network's newscast:
Larry Gelbart's days in television go all the way back to radio.
At the tender age of sixteen, he was a writer for "Duffy's Tavern" a radio comedy that included, among others, Bob Hope.
He followed Hope overseas to entertain troops and then moved on the television and Ceaser's Hour with comedian Sid Caeser.
In the mid 1960's he moved on to Broadway and earned a Tony as the coauthor of "A Funny Thing Happened ON The Way To The Forum".
A coroner's car enters the residence of Michael Jackson following the death of the pop icon on June 25, 2009 in Los Angeles. (Gerhard Burkhart / AFP/Getty Images)
By Frank James
Update 3:28 pm: Los Angeles Police say they will refer the Michael Jackson case to prosecutors for possible criminal charges.
------------ original post below ----
Even though the Los Angeles Coroner's conclusion that pop star Michael Jackson's death was a homicide was leaked last week and every media outlet on earth breathlessly reported it, media outlets are today breathlessly reporting that it's official.
An excerpt from a Reuters story:
In a statement, the coroner said propofol, a powerful anesthetic, and the sedative Lorazepam were the primary drugs responsible for Jackson's death. Other drugs detected in his system were Midazolam, Diazepam, Lidocaine and Ephedrine.
The drugs found in Jackson's body are consistent, more or less with what Dr. Conrad Murray, the entertainer's personal physician, told law-enforcement officials he administered to Jackson in the hours before his death.
On the morning Jackson died, Murray tried to induce sleep without using propofol, according to the affidavit. He said he gave Jackson valium at 1:30 a.m. When that didn't work, he said, he injected lorazepam intravenously at 2 a.m. At 3 a.m., when Jackson was still awake, Murray administered midazolam.
Over the next few hours, Murray said he gave Jackson various drugs. Then at 10:40 a.m., Murray administered 25 milligrams of propofol after Jackson repeatedly demanded the drug, according to the court records...
... Other drugs that were confiscated in the search included valium, tamsulosin, lorazepam, temazepam, clonazepam, trazodone and tizanidine. They also found propofol in Murray's medical bag. Murray told detectives that he was not the first doctor to administer the powerful anesthetic to Jackson.
In Los Angeles, a judge has sentenced singer Chris Brown to 180 days of "community labor," which -- according to the BBC -- includes "clearing rubbish, washing cars and grounds cleaning." He will also have to pay a $2,500 fine and enroll in a year-long counseling program.
After Brown pleaded guilty to felony assault, he posted a video message on his website, asking his fans for forgiveness:
Chris Brown and his attorney, Mark Geragos, at the Los Angeles Superior Court on Aug. 5.(Kevork Djansezian / AFP/Getty Images)
By David Gura
Later today, at 5:00 p.m. ET, singer Chris Brown will be sentenced for felony assault against his former girlfriend, Rihanna, the Los Angeles Times reports.
"Brown reached a plea deal with L.A. prosecutors in June that is expected to limit his sentence to probation -- and no jail time. Under the agreement, Brown, 20, will serve five years' probation and take a yearlong domestic violence prevention class. L.A. County Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg also ordered him to stay at least 50 yards away from Rihanna, 21, for the next five years."
Brown pleaded guilty to "physically attacking his former girlfriend earlier this year as the two were driving to a residence in Hancock Park," a Los Angeles neighborhood.
Updated at 4:31 pm ET -- The Associated Press is reporting that a law enforcement source has told it the Los Angeles County Coroner has ruled pop superstar Michael Jackson's death a homicide.
---------------- original story below -------------------
The Los Angeles County Coroner's office found deadly levels of the surgical anesthetic propofol in the body of pop star Michael Jackson at the time of his autopsy, according to the Los Angeles Times.
L.A. County coroner's officials found lethal levels of the powerful anesthetic propofol after examining Michael Jackson's body, according to a search warrant affidavit unsealed today in Houston.
According to the search warrant, Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, told LAPD detectives that he had been treating Jackson for insomnia for about six weeks. He had been giving Jackson 50 milligrams of propofol every night using an intravenous line, according to the court records.
Pop superstar Michael Jackson's physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, has issued a videotape message to his friends to explain why he hasn' t responded to their e-mails and phone calls. He's afraid to.
The doctor, reportedly under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department for Jackson's death, has been largely silent. He didn't mention the probe in the video directly though he seemed to allude to it in the following comment:
"Because of all that is going on, I'm afraid to return phone calls or use my email."
He also said the encouraging messages of friends and patients have sustained him, and that he would be all right because of his faith in God. He also said he had told the truth.
"I have done all I could do. I told the truth. And I have faith that truth will prevail."
The gap between pop star Michael Jackson's July 7 funeral and his burial is apparently about to end.
Plans are for his burial to take place on his birthday, Aug. 29. at a private ceremony at Forest Lawn-Glendale in what's called the Great Mausoleum.
According to the Associated Press:
Spokesman Ken Sunshine says Jackson will be buried at a private ceremony at Forest Lawn-Glendale on Aug. 29.
Details about the ceremony have been tightly guarded. The announcement Tuesday comes a day after the New York Daily News reported comments by Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, that his son would be buried on what would have been his birthday.
Some developments on the Michael Jackson front today. The Los Angeles County Coroner's office said it has completed its investigation into how the late pop star died but that it won't be releasing its final report at the request of police who are continuing their criminal investigation.
Michael Jackson gestures during a press conference of the MTV Video Music Awards Japan 2006 in Tokyo, May 27, 2006. (Koji Sasahara / AP Photo)
The Los Angeles Police have asked for and received a clamp on information from coroner's office essentially since soon after Jackson's death in June.
According to numerous news reports and observable police activity, the LAPD and other law-enforcement agencies have been investigating the physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, who was at Jackson's rented house and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation there on the singer before paramedics arrived.
John Hughes, one of Hollywood's most successful directors and screen writers, whose movies during the 1980s helped to define that era and became cultural touchstones, has died at age 59.
John Hughes in 1984. ( AP Photo)
Hughes, who directed the "The Breakfast Club;" "Ferris Bueller's Day Off;" "Sixteen Candles", and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," died of a heart attack during a walk while he visited family in Manhattan, according to reports.
I'll add more details as I get them.
--------------------------
Another entertainment star has died, this time Gidget the Chihuahua of Taco Bell TV commercial fame. At one time she was arguably the nation's most famous dog.
The Associated Post reports:
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Handlers say Gidget the Chihuahua, whose Taco Bell commercials made her a star, has died. She was 15.
The owner of Studio Animal Services in Castaic says Gidget suffered a massive stroke late Tuesday at her trainer's home in Santa Clarita and had to be euthanized.
Gidget was the sassy mascot in Taco Bell commercials from 1997 to 2000. While other dogs had bit parts, it was her bug-eyed, big-eared face that is seen pronouncing, in a dubbed male voice, "Yo quiero Taco Bell."
Security for Jackson's memorial service cost Los Angeles a reported $1.4 million. John Moore/Getty Images
By Laura Conaway
The Los Angeles City Council is meeting today to discuss the price tag for Michael Jackson's July 7 memorial service. The LA Times reported this morning that the Council is expected to order an audit of city expenses, with special attention on the $48,826 spent on 3,500 lunches for police officers on security detail.
Now we've just seen a wire report that the Council has gone into closed session "after City Attorney Carmen Trutanich revealed that his office's investigation into the use of taxpayer resources during the Michael Jackson memorial tribute had 'taken an unanticipated turn that raises both civil and criminal aspects.' "
Trutanich reportedly declined to go into detail during the public session, though he did say he had talked to an attorney for the Staples Center, where the memorial was held.
The wire report says Trutanich declined to go into detail during the public session, but said "in regards to the civil litigation, rest assured that before I file any lawsuit to recoup taxpayers' costs, I will confer with you (the City Council) in closed session, to brief you and obtain your concurrence on any decision that is made."
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has said the city will cover what looks to be $1.4 million in police and other expenses for the memorial. That was before the LA Times reported that a concert promoter got an offer of $50 million for 1,200 hours of rehearsal footage for a planned 50-gig run by Jackson in London. Trutanich, the city attorney, has been looking into how the city came to agree to pay for security services.
Bruno, er, Sacha Baron Cohen, talks to the media at Bruno's Australian premiere. Mark Kolbe/Getty Images
By Laura Conaway
Brüno: The Movie, the latest feature from satirist Sacha Baron Cohen, aims to offend. By that measure, it's a growing success. Officials in Ukraine are planning to ban the tale of its gay caricature journo before it can open there next week. The Guardian has a theory, which I'll post after the jump in an effort to improve our rating to PG:
One of our worst tendencies as Americans is our habit of looking forward to such a degree we forget how we got where we are.
So we don't remember, if we ever knew, all those people who set the stage for what we recognize as modern American culture. It's a form of collective amnesia, and we're all the poorer for it.
For instance, students or even just curious fans of television sitcoms should know about Gertrude Berg, creator and star of "The Goldbergs," first an extremely popular radio show in the 1930s and 1940s which later made a successful transformation to TV.
I'll use myself as an example. I've heard of "The Goldbergs" and even heard part of a show or two. But I had no idea of importance of Berg, the woman behind it. She created a show with tremendous crossover appeal, presaging The Cosby Show of a generation later.
Documentarian Aviva Kempner means to snuff out such ignorance. He new film about Berg, "Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Greenberg" is an attempt to bring this seminal figure in American entertainment history out from the shadows.
Robert Siegel, an "All Things Considered" host, talked with Kempner. She made these key points:
KEMPNER: Before Martha Stewart, before Oprah, there was a woman with a media empire with a very popular radio show, TV show. She had a column. She had a comic strip. She had a vaudeville show. She even had her own clothing line... She won the first Emmy as an actress and later she won a Tony. She was a force of life genius who wrote, can you imagine, 12,000 scripts...
... The most popular TV shows ever are Seinfeld, Friends, Honeymooners and Lucille Ball. They're all about walking in and out of the apartment building. And who invented it? Gertrude Berg on The Goldbergs, and she doesn't get the credit.
Video images of a young Michael Jackson loom over a crowd outside of Staples Center before a scheduled memorial service Tuesday, July 7, 2009, in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
By Frank James
The memorial service for pop superstar Michael Jackson is due to start at 1 pm eastern time and The Two-Way will be live-blogging it all the way.
The 20,000 seat arena will be packed with family, friends and fans as a number of stars perform in celebration of the King of Pop's remarkable achievements as an entertainer of global reach whose "Thriller" album remains the all-time best seller. Some of the celebrities expected to participate in today's service include Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Brooke Shields, Usher, Lionel Richie, Kobe Bryant, Jennifer Hudson, John Mayer and Martin Luther King III.
Join us as we follow today's events from Los Angeles, a day that should certainly be long remembered in the nation's pop-culture history.
The list of participants scheduled to participate in Michael Jackson's Staples Center memorial service on Tuesday has been announced by the late pop star's family.
Here are the names that TMZ, which appears to be the definitive source for all things Michael Jackson, is reporting:
Ron Boyd (family friend), Kobe Bryant, Mariah Carey, Andrae Crouch Choir, Berry Gordy, Jennifer Hudson, Shaheen Jafargholi (finalist on Britain's Got Talent), Magic Johnson, Martin Luther King III, Bernice A. King, John Mayer, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Brooke Shields, Pastor Lucious Smith (family friend), Usher and Stevie Wonder.
Rep. Peter King may be speaking for a lot of people with his tirade against the media for devoting so much time to Michael Jackson's death. Even some of us media people are wearying of the some of the excessive cable TV coverage.
King, a Republican congressman who represents a conservative Long Island, NY district, is especially ticked because all this attention is being bestowed on a man he calls a "pervert" and "low-life" who, he allows "had some talent" but really wasn't to be trusted around children.
In a YouTube video King, whose New York accent and I-call-it-as-I-see-it attitude will likely remind many of Archie Bunker, begins by saying that as he spent time back in his district for the July 4 congressional break, the Wantagh, NY American Legion hall and firehouse got him to thinking. He said:
It really reminded me of the great men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country. People fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today. Cops, firefighters, teachers, none of them who get much credit. And yet for the last I don't know how long now this low life Michael Jackson his name, his face, his picture is all over the newspapers, television, radio. It's all we hear about, Michael Jackson.
And let's knock out the psychobabble. This guy was a pervert. He was a child molester. He was a pedophile. And to be giving this much coverage to him, day in and day out. What does it say about us as a country? I just think We're too politically correct. No one wants to stand up and say we don't need Michael Jackson.
Sonari Glinton, an All Things Considered producer, has a deftly done appreciation of Ed McMahon. It's clear that Sonari really gets why McMahon worked for so many of us.
The long-time Tonight Show sidekick was the everyman wingman. He was the guy so many of us have been, the second fiddle to the "star," that handsome friend of ours who was always the life of every party or had spectacular athletic talent.
Sonari writes:
Ed seemed amazingly self-aware. His job was to announce and laugh. He would host a talent show, but not be on one. He knew his talent was limited, and in many ways he wasn't anything special. He lived an extraordinary life for a man of no discernible talent. He was a lucky SOB; he got paid to laugh. And now that he's gone, he'll be remembered for laughing. Think how lucky he was -- and how lucky we were to laugh with him, or at him. He didn't care, as long as people were laughing.
And to that, I like to think he'd say, "You're correct, sir."
Anyone of a certain age remembers the music of The Ventures, the seminal instrumental group whose sound defined a certain 1960s surfer groove.
You may not have known it was The Ventures you were listening to, but you'll recognize their sound which seemed to be everywhere because of hits like "Walk, Don't Run" and the theme from "Hawaii Five-0," the popular cop show starring Jack Lord.
The man responsible for much of the group's success, co-founder, composer and lead and bass guitarist Bob Bogle, died Sunday at 75.
The Ventures were not only the best-selling instrumental band of all time but their approach to the guitar had a huge influence on many other important musicians.
Britannica.com says the group "served as a prototype for guitar-based rock groups." Many famous guitarists acknowledged the group's influence on their playing.
The trailer for Duncan Jones' new sci-fi movie "Moon" does precisely what it's meant to; it gets you wanting to see the film.
NPR movie critic Bob Mondello's review, however, suggests if you do, you'll come away with the sense that the movie failed to measure up to its trailer.
An excerpt from Bob's on-air review heard on All Things Considered today:
Sam Rockwell is such an engaging presence, in fact, he may well convince audiences that the film is what it means to be - a brain-teaser for the thinking-sci-fi fan. The problem is that the thinking-sci-fi fan's brain may rebel at the tease's premise, a bit of corporate chicanery that practically begs not to be looked at too closely. I'm as willing as the next guy - more willing maybe - to believe that greed leads corporations to devalue the humanity of their workers. But if you start figuring out how expensive this greedy corporation's unique form of devaluing would have to be, the movie stops making sense.
Still, that trailer looks pretty darn good. Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie an 84 percent rating based on 45 reviews, 38 in the "fresh" category and 7 in "rotten."
Dave Brubeck is one of the last giants we still have with us from the golden era of jazz, the period before rock surpassed it in popularity.
Jazz legend Dave Brubeck in July 2007. AP Photo/Richard Drew
At age 89, he's still playing the music. He stopped by NPR this week to talk withAll Things Considered host Michele Norris and maybe to sell a few CDs since his famous "Time Out" album featuring one of jazz's best known compositions, "Take Five," has been reissued to mark the 50th anniversary of its release.
Brubeck also discussed his work in the 1950s with the Real Ambassadors. a group of jazz luminaries who traveled the world as cultural emissaries for the U.S. (NPR's A Blog Supreme jazz site has a sample of from of the Real Ambassadors' sound.)
While Brubeck is closer to hitting the century mark than most of us, he still retains more youthful spirit and hipness than many people half his age. How many near do you know talk about people "tripping?" He said
"You were brought up playing in four-four," Brubeck says. "Everybody could walk to it and dance to it. Put an extra beat on it -- everybody's tripping."
Michele asked Brubeck, a pianist, about his hands. A lot of people's hands start "talking" to them when they get to old age, meaning the pains of arthritis and other ailments slow and dull finger movements. A problem for the average person, that can be devastating for pianists.
To which Brubeck said:
The more you get to play, the better it is. Just play as you can while you can. I can't wait for the next job so we can play.
Stephen Colbert getting haircut normally wouldn't get much notice. But the edgy political comedian getting his locks shorn by no less than Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of coalition troops in Iraq, during Colbert's taping of his Comedy Central show there as part of a U.S.O. morale trip is definitely interesting. It looks like the general gave him a high and not so tight.
Stephen Colbert gets a military style haircut from General Raymond Odierno, Commander of the Multinational Corps, Iraq, Sunday, June 7, 2009.AP Photo/ Steve Manuel, HO
From the Associated Press report, it's clear Colbert apparently didn't shave his humor for the troops, keeping it real in terms of his "truthiness."
An AP excerpt:
"It must be nice here in Iraq because I understand some of you keep coming back again and again," he said during the taping of the first show on Sunday. "You've earned so many frequent flyer miles, you've earned a free ticket to Afghanistan."
Ouch.
The New York Times reports Colbert decided to stick to his over-the-top conservative talk-show host persona.
"The best way I can show gratitude is to do my show the best I can and make them laugh," he said. "If I tried to tailor my material to people in the Army, there'd be two things. A, that'd be patronizing. And B, I'd be wrong."
This was on NBC's Today show this morning, and it is truly moving. It's a video of Air Force Master Sgt. Joseph Myers, just back from Iraq, who surprises his 10-year old daughter in her fourth grade classroom.
I understand that many of my postings make you cry. But this is different.
Blues great Koko Taylor has died at age 80 following surgery, according to reports out of Chicago. No doubt there'll be many blues lovers in Chicago and elsewhere pitching "a wang dang doodle all night long" in her honor.
The Associated Press reports:
CHICAGO (AP) - Koko Taylor, the Grammy-winning "Queen of the Blues," has died after complications from surgery. She was 80.
Marc Lipkin, director of publicity for Alligator Records, says Taylor died Wednesday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after surgery May 19 for a gastrointestinal bleed.
Taylor was born Cora Walton on a sharecropper's farm near Memphis, Tenn. She and her five brothers and sisters played the blues on homemade instruments.
She moved to Chicago in 1952 with her soon-to-be-husband, Robert "Pops" Taylor. They frequented the city's blues clubs and Koko sat in with some of the bands. In 1965 she had a hit "Wang Dang Doodle."
Taylor won a Grammy in 1984 for a guest appearance on the compilation album "Blues Explosion." Her most recent album, 2007's "Old School," was also nominated for a Grammy.
NPR's "All Songs Considered" blog has this post on Taylor. Meanwhile, here's a link to NPR Music's artist page on Taylor.
"Slumdog Millionaire" director Danny Boyle poses with the film's child stars Rubina Ali, 9, right, and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, left at a press conference in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, May 27, 2009. AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade
Life continues to imitate art in the case of the "Slumdog Millionaire" child actors who hail from a Mumbai slum.
When we last heard about them, Rubini Ali and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail's homes had been demolished in the Indian government's pre-monsoon demolition drive meant to get rid of illegal shanties.
Today, the film's director, Danny Boyle, met with the children and promised them new houses and more. But there was drama worthy of the movie.
As the Associated Press reports:
MUMBAI, India (AP) - The makers of "Slumdog Millionaire" have met in India with the film's two impoverished child stars -- at least, until the father of one child stormed out in anger.
Relations have grown tense between the filmmakers and the children's families since the movie's phenomenal success. It's grossed more than $326 million and earned eight Academy Awards. Meanwhile, the film's nine- and 10-year-old stars have continued living in their Mumbai
slum homes, until they lost those homes earlier this month.
Director Danny Boyle says he and his producer have been trying to move the families to better homes "for a long time."
But Rubina Ali's father rejects that argument, saying they could move the children "in two days" if they wanted.
The filmmakers say they've set up a trust to ensure the children get proper homes, education, and a nest egg when they finish high school. They're also pledging to spend up to $100,000 to buy the families new apartments, and donating nearly $750,000 to a charity to help slum children across Mumbai.
A documentary about what's happened to these kids since the movie could be as riveting as the film itself.
More bad news for the Mainstream Media -- the broadcast networks had their worst ratings last week during a so-called sweep period.
The Associated Press reports:
NEW YORK (AP) - NBC made history last week in the TV ratings - the kind it would like to forget.
Nielsen Media Research says an average of 4.4 million people were watching NBC during prime time last week. Only one time before has Nielsen recorded a lower number for NBC - during the dog days of August 2007.
Never before have ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox had such a small audience in a week when the ratings sweeps were on. The 2008-09 TV season officially concluded after Wednesday night last week.
NBC's "Nightly News" had a bigger audience last week than any of the network's prime-time shows.
You know it's bad when the "Nightly News" out performs NBC's entertainment shows. As an NPR colleague said when she learned the news, this is the kind of trouble not even Jay Leno's new prime-time show will be able to fix.
Author James Patterson stands at a round pine table in a small second-floor office, where he mostly writes, in his home May 3, 2006, in Palm Beach, Fla. AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
By Frank James
Best-selling writer James Patterson has written a lot of books, about 50, give or take. I've never read one but that doesn't mean I won't. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.
But tens of millions of people have read them, especially at the beach if my unscientific survey is any guide.
All Things Considered host Michele Norris has an author interview with Patterson today in which he explained how he writes so many books -- he's expected to churn out nine this year. He essentially does it by committee. So when you read a Patterson book, you're actually reading a Patterson & Co. book.
When people hear this, they give Patterson the distinct impression that they think his approach is somewhat odd. Not so, Patterson says. Think of his books the way you would think about TV shows.
Says Patterson:
"Because it's a little unusual in books, (people) get a little flaky about it. "If you think about it almost all television shows, some of which are quite good, are done by teams of writers. So it's not as unusual as people think it is."
Patterson tells Michele he also does a lot of first-hand research, especially when the location needing to be researched is someplace relaxing like Hawaii. On the other hand, if it's a South Bronx crack house, he sends a researcher who takes notes. Good move.
The Smithsonian Institution had better have a plan for dealing with all those visitors who will come to the museums expecting to find Auguste Rodin's sculpture "The Thinker" or Grant Wood's painting "American Gothic."
Both are imaginatively placed in Washington, D.C. in the new movie comedy "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" starring Ben Stiller which opens Friday. (The Rodin is in Paris, the Wood painting in Chicago.)
NPR's Elizabeth Blair reported onMorning Edition today that Smithsonian officials had to right to approve the script and that they gave the filmmaker the right to put anything in the movie. And from the trailer, it appears Shawn Levy did just that.
Blair also reports there was initially some resistance among institution staffers to the movie. But they relented and even embraced it after a while.
The attraction to the Smithsonian? Millions of dollars worth of free publicity. As Blair put it:
But here's the thing. The Smithsonian is a taxpayer funded institution that has been running a deficit for years. By having its name in the title of a major Hollywood movie, the Smithsonian is getting exposure it could never afford on its own -- on billboards, commercials, Milk Duds, Happy Meals, Kraft Macaroni'n'Cheese.
Claire Brown, a spokeswoman at the Smithsonian, told Blair:
I think with Kraft that's 41 million packages, and kids eat a lot of mac'n'cheese.
Wayne Allwine, the voice of Mickey Mouse, with wife Russi Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse, at the Walt Disney Studios in October 2008 in Burbank, California Stephen Shugerman/Getty Images
By Frank James
Wayne Allwine, the man who provided Mickey Mouse's voice since 1977, passed away at age 62 on Monday, according to a Disney website.
In a 2006 NPR interview, he explained the history behind the voice of the world's most famous mouse, a character first "voiced" by Walt Disney himself.
And here's a fact almost too good to be true. According to his bio on the Disney website:
Allwine is married to Russi Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse and many other popular characters. They head their own production company, Taylor-Allwine Associates, and share four children including three who think they sound like Mickey, too.
Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG studio has obtained the rights from the estate of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for a biographical movie on the civil-rights icon.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr at a 1963 press conference at the Ritz Hotel, London, England. William H. Alden/Evening Standard/Getty Images
The studio says Spielberg will be joined in producing the biopic by Suzanne de Passe, a long-time Hollywood executive, and Madison Jones, who has produced documentaries on King and Robert F. Kennedy.
Spielberg's participation in this project obviously provides it with the kind of Hollywood titan one would expect for such a monumental undertaking, a major feature film the life of one of the nation's most historic figures.
De Passe is much less known generally but is also a Hollywood figure of some significance. As a writer, she won early praise for her "Lady Sings the Blues" screenplay.
But she made a huge impact, especially as an African American woman, when she optioned the Larry McMurtry novel "Lonesome Dove," then produced the hugely successful television miniseries.
DePasse and Jones also have a connection to President Barack Obama: they co-produced the 2009 Commander in Chief's Inaugural Ball, according to the DreamWorks press release.
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