BITS AND PIECES 03/22 Part 3
Billie
--Will 2002 be the year for Randy Newman? The composer received his 15th and
16th Academy Award nominations this year, but has never gone home with the
coveted honor. Newman's nominations are for best score from "Monsters, Inc.,"
as well as best original song, for "If I Didn't Have You" from the same movie.
His competition are Paul McCartney's "Vanilla Sky" from the movie of the same
name, Diane Warren's "There You'll Be" from "Pearl Harbor." Enya's "May It Be"
from "Lord of the Rings," and Sting's "Until" from "Kate and Leopold." The
record for most nominations without a win is 15, held both by composer Alex
North and art director Roland Anderson.The Oscars are Sunday in Los Angeles.
--Bonnie Raitt and the Doobie Brothers will perform at the annual Beale Street
Music Festival May 3-5. Other performers, announced Wednesday, include the
Isley Brothers, Kid Rock, Bar-Kays, Night Ranger, Ike Turner, Bobby Blue Band,
Hootie & the Blowfish, and Kirk Whalum. About 165,000 people attended the event
last year at Tom Lee Park. Beale Street Music Festival Web site:
http://www.MemphisInMay.org
--Presenters at the Academy Awards) will get a pricey thank you for ripping
open the envelope and announcing winners on Sunday. The Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences has assembled gift baskets packed with at least
$6,400 worth of luxury items each. The Academy keeps details of the baskets
secret, but some companies contributing to the packages say the final worth
could be as much as $20,000. Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez and Tom Hanks will
be among the dozens of presenters in line for the gifts. After the ceremony,
they can sniff $400 bottles of JOY Perfume while relaxing in $160 Loveletters
Loungewear spa clothes and sipping $100 samples of Mingcha Chinese tea. Later,
they can polish their smiles by cashing in $600 certificates for BriteSmile
teeth-whitening sessions and shield their eyes from glare with $250 TAG Heuer
sunglasses. Presenters include "Spider-Man" co-star Kirsten Dunst, "The Lord of
the Rings" supporting actor nominee Ian McKellen and Broadway star Nathan Lane.
The gift baskets reportedly include chocolate-wrap skin treatments, designer
handbags, certificates for $1,700 shape-conforming mattresses, $1,600 Ebel
Watches and $300 vouchers for Birkenstock shoes. The Academy Awards will be
telecast live on ABC from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
--The Oscar statuette has been transformed into a superhero on an official
poster advertising Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony. The sword-clutching golden
trophy is depicted as a shadowy, muscular figure peering down from a building
ledge at the lighted grid of nighttime Los Angeles. Spotlights spear the sky.
The text reads: "The Gold Knight Returns ..." in a reference to the show taking
place in the Hollywood area where it began in 1929. In recent decades, it has
been held in or near downtown Los Angeles. A popular 1986 graphic novel about
the superhero Batman was titled "The Dark Knight Returns." Advertisements for
the Oscars traditionally incorporate the award, but the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences wanted a more dramatic pose this year. Alex Ross, a
comic-book artist who has worked on anniversary tributes to Batman, Wonder
Woman, Superman and Captain Marvel, was chosen to draw Oscar. "I've painted a
lot of well-known superheroes in my career, and since Oscar is a hero to so
many in Hollywood, I wanted to work in that direction," Ross said. "When they
told me that Oscar was designed to represent a knight crusading on behalf of
the movies, I had my hook: The Gold Knight returning to reclaim his title as
Hollywood's resident superhero." Copies of the poster will be sold until April
9 on the official Academy Awards Web site.
--Recording commitments have forced Madonna to cancel the matinee performances
of her London stage debut "Up For Grabs," the show's producer said on Friday.
The star, who lives in London with her British movie director husband Guy
Ritchie, is playing an ambitious art dealer in the comedy at London's Wyndham's
Theater in the West End. The show opens on May 23 and runs for 10 weeks. "We
completely understand that Madonna has daytime recording commitments that can
not be rescheduled. As a result, we are determined to accommodate all matinee
ticket holders," producer Sonia Friedman said in a statement. All matinee
ticket holders will be offered the option of attending an evening performance
or getting their money back. Madonna's manager Caresse Henry said the star was
"thrilled to be doing the play." "Especially to be on stage in the legendary
West End," Henry said. Madonna, 43, has previously appeared on the New York
stage in David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow" on Broadway as well as in a limited run
of David Raab's "Goose and Tom Tom" at New York's Lincoln Center. "Up For
Grabs," written by Australian David Williamson, is a satire on the art world
which broke box office records when it opened in Sydney in February 2001.
--Paris's Louvre is revamping its Web site so art lovers can view its entire
collection, including thousands of drawings unseen by museum visitors, without
ever setting foot in France. The Louvre Web site already displays some of the
museum's exhibits and gets six million visits a year, as many as flock to the
French capital to see Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and other famous works up
close. All 35,000 of its exhibits will be on show at the revamped site
announced on Friday. Directors hope the upgrade will give more people across
the globe access to the world's biggest museum. Online visitors will also be
able to see a further 130,000 drawings, which are too fragile for public
display and can only be seen by appointment. From next year visitors to the
site, almost half of whom are currently North Americans, will be able to see
the huge collection in a virtual, three-dimensional tour of the museum's
galleries. "This way the entire Louvre collection will be accessible to
everyone," Internet Director Catherine Jaques told Reuters after a presentation
of the site, adding the plan was to make the Louvre "the world's biggest
virtual museum." The 165,000 works will be online by 2003, before the museum
launches the second phase of the revamp, aimed at enabling websurfers to create
their own personalized Louvre Internet service, Jaques said. "It will be a case
of 'My Louvre' -- so if somebody is a big Mona Lisa fan they will receive
information about the Mona Lisa," she said. And those who make it to France's
most visited cultural site will eventually be able to immortalize their visit
by downloading information from portable audioguides onto handheld computers or
third generation mobile telephones. Museum chiefs hope the new site will push
hits up to between 10 and 15 million per year by 2010. It can be found at
www.louvre.fr.
www.zap2it.com...
--"Black Hawk Down's" Tom Sizemore is set to make his debut as a TV series
regular, landing the lead role in Michael Mann's ("Ali," "Miami Vice") cop
drama "Metro" for CBS. Sizemore will play a lieutenant in the Los Angeles
Police Department's robbery/homicide division in "Metro," according to The
Hollywood Reporter. It was written by Barry Schindel ("Law & Order"), who is
executive producing with Mann. Stephen Gyllenhaal will direct. Mann and
Sizemore have worked together before, on the 1995 movie "Heat." Sizemore's
previous TV experience includes the FX movie "Sins of the Father" and a
recurring role on "China Beach."
--Daniel Stern will try to rebound from this season's short-lived "Danny" in
"Regular Joe," a sitcom pilot for ABC. Stern starred in CBS' "Danny," which
earned the dubious distinction of being the first show of the 2001-02 season to
be cancelled. He's best-known for his roles in the "Home Alone" and "City
Slickers" movies, and as the narrator of "The Wonder Years." In "Regular Joe,"
he'll play the title character, a man whose quiet home life is disrupted when
his daughter and her new baby move back home. The pilot was written by David
Litt ("The King of Queens"), who's executive producing with Nina Wass and Gene
Stein. Eric Christian Olsen ("Get Real"), Estelle Harris ("Seinfeld") and John
Francis Daley ("The Geena Davis Show," "Freaks and Geeks") also star.
--He's nominated for best director at Sunday's (March 24) Oscars for "Gosford
Park." But Robert Altman's next project won't be coming to a theater near you.
Instead, they'll be coming to your TV set. Altman has directed a series of
promotional spots for cable network E! According to The Hollywood Reporter,
it's the first commercial work he's done in the United States. The 77-year-old
director of "The Player" and "Nashville" lined up a cadre of A-list talent to
appear in the spots, which will feature actors performing scenes from famous
movies while doing everyday chores. For instance, Dustin Hoffman will do lines
from "The Graduate" while examining his skin in the bathroom mirror, and "Will
& Grace" star Eric McCormack does "The Godfather" while making dinner. Other
spots will feature Ving Rhames, Lisa Kudrow and Minnie Driver. "We're thrilled
to be working with Robert Altman and top Hollywood celebrities on this
inventive image campaign," E! Networks president Mindy Herman says. The spots,
some of which will debut during E!'s pre-Oscar coverage Sunday, are part of a
new promotional campaign for the network, summed up in the slogan "Enjoy the
Show."
"STUPIDITY IS NOT A HANDICAP. Park elsewhere!"
AGC FAQ and FUN STUFF:
http://www.dreamwater.net/agc/mainpages/agcfaq.html
BLIND ITEM REHASH:
http://www.dreamwater.net/agc/blinditems/mainpage.html