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James Badge Dale Will Play Lee Harvey Oswald’s Brother

Roger Friedman
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James Badge Dale Will Play Lee Harvey Oswald’s Brother

James Badge Dale is going to play Lee Harvey Oswald’s brother in a new film called “Parkland.” It’s set between the time JFK was killed by Oswald and Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby in November 1963. Dale, the son of the late great star of “Nine” Anita Morris and choreographer Grover Dale, is hot as a pistol right now in “Flight” after starring in AMC’s “Rubicon.” Our PAULA SCHWARTZ caught  up with in New York:

James Badge Dale has seven minutes screen time tops in Robert Zemeckis’s “Flight.” He plays a dying cancer patient who bums a cigarette from Denzel Washington in a hospital stairwell and riffs on life, death, God, regrets. He’s spritzing words as fast as they materialize in his dying brain because he’s got maybe 24 to 48 hours of life left. The actor is so phenomenal that like me you were probably wondering, who is this guy? Turns out he’s been around a while, with parts in “Shame,” “The Grey” and the tv series “Rubicon,” but his role in “Flight” is something else, a game changer.

Dale was at a luncheon in honor of Zemeckis and screenwriter John Gatins at Circo restaurant in midtown. (They have a lot to celebrate; “Flight” is a big hit at the box office and has lots of Oscar talk.)

The handsome actor, who has red hair and a healthy build, is unrecognizable from the gaunt, sickly guy in the film. But looking healthy nearly cost him the part.

“I had to beg them to let me read that role,” said the 34-year-old actor. They also wanted someone younger. “They were going for early 20’s, and I understood that but I just fell in love with the role from the moment I read it.” He was persistent enough that they let him read the script and told him he could come back to read. Then they changed their mind.

“The morning of the reading we had this huge argument back and forth,” he said. “Just give me one take as the cancer patient,” he pleaded. After the reading, casting director Victoria Burrows told him, “Okay, now I get why you wanted to read that. Now I have to show this to Bob.”

Dale said he and Zemeckis talked for a long time. “I told Bob why I wanted to do this, that I have some very personal connections there and some reasons that I felt like I could understand what this is to the story.” The director gave him the part but told him to lose weight, “because you’re too healthy.” The already slender actor lost 20 pounds in six weeks.

I asked Dale about the personal connection he drew on for the role, and he told me that his mother died of cancer when he was 15 and that three to four days before her death, “there were moments when she became incredibly lucid and incredibly present even despite all the drugs and morphine and a lot of that was drawn from things that I witnessed.”

Dale’s mother was Anita Morris, the beautiful Tony-nominated actress who played Carla in the original production of “Nine,” and who died tragically at age 50 in 1994. (His father is dancer/actor Grover Dale.)

The actor is now on a roll with three big-budget action films coming out next summer. He plays “the dirty, older brother” of “The Lone Ranger” (Armie Hammer) in the Johnny Depp film. He’s also in Marc Forster’s “World War Z,” starring Brad Pitt, as a zombie ranger during a pandemic. Then there’s “Iron Man 3,” where he plays villain Eric Savin, who in the Marvel comic was a soldier who got fatally injured and then was resurrected.

“Ben Kingsley is the mouthpiece. Guy Pearce is the brain. I’m the muscle,” he said. Being in 200 million movies with CGI “is a weird departure” for him. “I’m more of a ‘put two guys in a room and we’ll just talk to each other’ style of actor. But I had a lot of fun. I learned to ride a horse. I got to beat up grown men in robot suits and shoot zombies with Brad Pitt.”

Barbra Streisand and Lainie Kazan In the Same Room at the Same Time

Roger Friedman
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Barbra Streisand and Lainie Kazan In the Same Room at the Same Time

It was a Hollywood party at a Beverly Hills four star eatery, but it was a New York night in so many ways. Paramount Pictures tossed itself a little Christmas party for its various films and stars at Wolfgang Puck’s spectacularly renovated Spago. Famed pastry chef Sherry Yard put out chocolate chip cookies and her other mouth watering desserts that smelled like sin. There were also piles of sushi, smoked salmon pizza, and teeny tiny cheeseburgers that melted in your mouth.

Who was there? Well, Barbra Streisand and her manager of 50 years, Marty Erlichmann, commandeered the middle booth on the left wall of the main room and that was it. She did get up and take a brief stroll through the place, but it ended with her exit. She missed fellow New Yorker and great singer from the same era Lainie Kazan, who arrived with Connie Stevens, Connie’s actress daughter Joely Fisher, and Sally Kellerman. “It’s possible,” someone said to Lainie, “it would be too much to have you and Barbra Streisand in the same room at the same time.”

Indeed.

Streisand is about to open in Paramount’s comedy “Guilt Trip” with Seth Rogen. But there were plenty of other Paramount players in the room to console those who missed the legend. David Chase came with James Gandolfini, the pair formerly of “The Sopranos” and with the cool music film “Not Fade Away.” “Did you see David and Jim?” asked Brad Grey, head of Paramount and one of the great studio chiefs of this generation. “It’s like old times.” Grey produced “The Sopranos” for HBO.

The much buzzed about for Oscar “Flight” was represented by Denzel Washington, who arrived on the late side, and Melissa Leo. Director Robert Zemeckis came with beautiful wife Leslie, a documentary filmmaker. Famed actor Robert Forster turned up, and gave everyone in the group a Christmas present– a sterling silver letter opener that works like magic. It’s become one of Hollywood’s mythic gifts. Forster hands them out on special occassions. I asked him, Do you have a closet stacked high with these?

“I have cartons,” he said, refusing still to say where he gets them. Forster is on his way to New York to film a new indie movie with Michael Parks and Dan Hedaya.

There were plenty of Academy voters and just good Hollywood friends, from Colleen Camp and Candy Clark to director Charles Shyer, songwriter extraordinaire Diane Warren hanging with super agent Risa Shapiro, , publicist Nancy Ryder, and her talented actor client James Badge Dale. (We have a story running about him on Monday on this site.)

Still the best thing I saw all night was Sacha Baron Cohen, there for “The Dictator,” meeting members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. All they want is a picture with a star. I was happy to see them since many were rumored deceased a long time ago.

“Some of them are,” joked one actor who winced as each one approached with a camera in hand.

Cohen shook each hand and listened attentively to their accents. He even spoke a little Egyptian to one member who didn’t care–he just wanted that photo.

This is Hollywood, kids.

Connie Steven is 74! She just directed her first movie, and it’s opening in New York and Los Angeles in the next couple of weeks. Joely Fisher is very funny. She and Carrie Fisher, half sisters, have very good senses of humor.

“We had good mothers,” Joely said. Their father was Eddie Fisher, who was featured in the Lindsay Lohan TV movie “Liz and Dick” this week.

“Did any of you see it?” I asked. There was a mixed response of yes, no, a little, and someone who said, “What happened to Lindsay Lohan’s face?”

Someone else said, “I liked it,” and there was a lot of guffawing.

PS Everyone is discussing going to screenings or watching their DVDs. It’s Hollywood’s annual homework assignment. Many mentioned Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln, and Sally Field. One well known successful director told me how much he loved David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook.” I don’t think it’s fair to give his name. He said, “It’s a great movie. It will win the Oscar.” Wow.

Stay tuned: tomorrow night is the Governor’s Ball for the Lifetime Achievement Awards at the Oscars. Jeffrey Katzenberg, DA Pennebaker, George Stevens Jr, and Hal Needham are being honored. Everyone in town is going. It’s a hot ticket in Hollywood. Sherry Yard is making the desserts. Game on.

 

 

 

Review: “The Central Park Five” Paints a Legacy of Injustice

Roger Friedman
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Review: “The Central Park Five” Paints a Legacy of Injustice

by LEAH SYDNEY for Showbiz411— “The Central Park Five” tells the story of the infamous Central Park jogger rape case in New York City on April 19, 1989.   The then unnamed jogger, a 28 year old investment banker, was viciously raped and left for dead just yards from the jogging loop around the Central Park reservoir.  The New York media dubbed it ‘the crime of the century,’ and the word ‘wilding’ came into the lexicon. This resulted in five young males– some were only fourteen–who were also black and Latino– being arrested in a modern day witch hunt and spending years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit.

Sarah Burns, the daughter of famed filmmaker Ken Burns, wrote a best-selling book on the Central Park Five. Now she’s written, produced and directed the film along with her husband David McMahon and Ken Burns.  This film will infuriate you by the blatant arrogance of power and hubris shown by the NYPD, the district attorneys at the time including Linda Fairstein, the media’s under-reporting and disregard for the truth, and the horrific racism that weaves through this case and pollutes everyone and everything in its path. Adding to the nightmare are the actions of then Mayor Ed Koch and Governor Mario Cuomo.

The Central Park Five, on an Oscar qualifying run,  grips and infuriates you from the beginning. The five suspects– now grown men tell their stories and struggles– and they are truly heartbreaking. Told in a no-nonsense, straightforward way, the film is spellbinding in its narrative of an outrageous blatant miscarriage of justice.  This incident is a true dark stain in New York’s storied history.  Sadly for the men and for the city’s character, the civil suit brought by the Central Park Five against the city in 2003 is still unresolved.

PS On a similar note: “The Exonerated” ends it run at the Culture Project, 45 Bleecker Street, this Sunday. The final performance should be quite emotional, with many of the original, wrongfully convicted prisoners in attendance. Trudie Styler is coming back to reprise her role, as well, for just the last performance. Not to be missed.

 

More Sundance 2013 Entries Include James Franco’s Reimagining of Al Pacino’s 1981 “Cruising”

Roger Friedman
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More Sundance 2013 Entries Include James Franco’s Reimagining of Al Pacino’s 1981 “Cruising”

More Sundance 2013 entries include James Franco’s re-imagining of the missing 40 minutes from Al Pacino’s 1981 “Cruising”, plus “Mud” by Jeff Nichols (financed by Lisa Marie Falcone, wife of the now disgraced Wall Streeter), and Sarah Polley’s “Stories We Tell,” which showed in Toronto this past fall.

SPOTLIGHT

Regardless of where these films have played throughout the world, the Spotlight program is a tribute to the cinema we love.

Fill the Void / Israel (Director and screenwriter: Rama Burshtein) — A devout 18-year-old Israeli is pressured to marry the husband of her late sister. Declaring her independence is not an option in Tel Aviv’s ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community, where religious law, tradition and the rabbi’s word are absolute. Cast: Hadas Yaron, Yiftach Klein, Irit Sheleg, Chaim Sharir, Razia Israeli, Hila Feldman.

Gangs of Wasseypur / India (Director: Anurag Kashyap, Screenwriters: Anurag Kashyap, Zeishan Quadri) — Exiled and outcast for robbing British trains, Shahid Khan spurs a battle for revenge that passes down generations. Shahid’s son vows to get his father’s honor back, becoming the most feared man in the Indian town of Wasseypur. Cast: Manoj Bajpai, Nawazuddin Siddique, Richa Chadda, Huma Qureshi, Tigmanshu Dhulia. U.S. Premiere

The Gatekeepers (documentary) / Israel, Germany, Belgium, France (Director: Dror Moreh) — Since its stunning military victory in 1967, Israel has hoped to achieve a long-lasting peace. Forty-five years later, this has yet to happen. Six former heads of Israel’s Secret Service reflect on the successes and failures of the “peace process.”

Mud / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Jeff Nichols) — Two teenage boys encounter a fugitive and form a pact to help him evade the bounty hunters on his trail and reunite him with his true love. Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Reese Witherspoon. North American Premiere

No / Chile, U.S.A. (Director: Pablo Larraín, Screenwriter: Pedro Peirano) — When Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet calls for a referendum to decide his permanence in power, the opposition persuades a young advertising executive to head its campaign. With limited resources and under scrutiny, he conceives a plan to win the election. Cast: Gael García Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers, Luis Gnecco, Marcial Tagle, Néstor Cantillana.

Sightseers / United Kingdom (Director: Ben Wheatley, Screenwriters: Alice Lowe, Steve Oram) — Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world, but when events conspire against the couple, their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn. Cast: Alice Lowe, Steve Oram. U.S. Premiere

Stories We Tell (documentary) / Canada (Director: Sarah Polley) — Sarah Polley is both filmmaker and detective as she investigates the secrets kept by a family of storytellers. She unravels the paradoxes to reveal the essence of family: always complicated, warmly messy and fiercely loving.

PARK CITY AT MIDNIGHT

From horror flicks to comedies to works that defy any genre, these unruly films will keep you edge-seated and wide awake. Each is a world premiere.

Ass Backwards / U.S.A. (Director: Chris Nelson, Screenwriters: June Diane Raphael, Casey Wilson) — Loveable losers Kate and Chloe take a road trip back to their hometown to claim the beauty pageant crown that eluded them as children, only to discover what really counts: friendship. Cast: June Diane Raphael, Casey Wilson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Alicia Silverstone, Jon Cryer, Brian Geraghty.

Hell Baby / U.S.A. (Directors and screenwriters: Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon) — An expectant couple moves into the most haunted fixer-upper in New Orleans – a house with a demonic curse. Things spiral out of control and soon only the Vatican’s elite exorcism team can save the pair – or can it? Cast: Rob Corddry, Leslie Bibb, Keegan Michael Key, Riki Lindhome, Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel.

In Fear / United Kingdom (Directed and story by: Jeremy Lovering) — Trapped in a maze of country roads with only their vehicle for protection, Tom and Lucy are terrorized by an unseen tormentor exploiting their worst fears. Eventually they realize they’ve let the evil in – it’s sitting in their car. Cast: Alice Englert, Iain De Caestecker, Allen Leech.

kink (documentary) / U.S.A. (Director: Christina Voros) — A story of sex, submission and big business is told through the eyes of the unlikely pornographers whose 9:00-to-5:00 work days are spent within the confines of the San Francisco Armory building, home to the sprawling porn production facilities of Kink.com.

The Rambler / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Calvin Lee Reeder) — After being released from prison, a man known as “The Rambler” stumbles upon a strange mystery as he attempts the treacherous journey through back roads and small towns en route to reconnecting with his long-lost brother. Cast: Dermot Mulroney, Lindsay Pulsipher, Natasha Lyonne, James Cady, Scott Sharot.

S-VHS / U.S.A., Canada (Directors: Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Edúardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Huw Evans, Jason Eisener, Screenwriters: Simon Barrett, Jamie Nash, Timo Tjahjanto & Gareth Huw Evans, John Davies) — Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his abandoned house and find another collection of mysterious VHS tapes. In viewing the horrific contents of each cassette, they realize there may be terrifying motives behind the student’s disappearance. Cast: Adam Wingard, Lawrence Levine, L.C Holt, Kelsy Abbott, Hannah Hughes.

Virtually Heroes / U.S.A. (Director: GJ Echternkamp, Screenwriter: Matt Yamashita) — Two self-aware characters in a Call of Duty-style video game struggle with their screwy, frustrating existence. To find answers, one abandons his partner and mission, seeking to unravel the cheat codes of life. Cast: Robert Baker, Brent Chase, Katie Savoy, Mark Hamill, Ben Messmer.

We Are What We Are / U.S.A. (Director: Jim Mickle, Screenwriters: Nick Damici, Jim Mickle) — A devastating storm washes up clues that lead authorities closer and closer to the cannibalistic Parker family. Cast: Bill Sage, Ambyr Childers, Julia Garner, Michael Parks, Wyatt Russell, Kelly McGillis.

NEW FRONTIER

With media installations, multimedia performances, transmedia experiences, panels, films and more, New Frontier highlights work that celebrates experimentation and the expansion of cinema culture through the convergence of film, art, and new media technology.

FILMS

Charlie Victor Romeo / U.S.A. (Directors: Robert Berger, Karlyn Michelson, Screenwriters: Robert Berger, Patrick Daniels, Irving Gregory) — An award-winning theatrical documentary derived entirely from ‘Black Box’ transcripts of six real-life major airline emergencies brought to the screen with cutting-edge stereoscopic 3D technology. Cast: Patrick Daniels, Irving Gregory, Noel Dinneen, Sam Zuckerman, Debbie Troche, Nora Woolley.

Fat Shaker / Iran (Director and screenwriter: M Shirvani) — An obese father and his handsome, deaf son share extraordinary experiences in Tehran. Then a beautiful young woman upsets the balance of their relationship, forcing them to renegotiate their position with each other and the world around them. Cast: Levon Haftvan, Maryam Palizban, Hassan Rostami, Navid Mohammadzadeh.

Interior. Leather Bar. / U.S.A. (Directors: Travis Mathews, James Franco, Screenwriter: Travis Mathews) — To avoid an X rating, it was rumored that 40 minutes of gay S&M footage was cut from the controversial 1980 film, Cruising. Filmmakers James Franco and Travis Mathews re-imagine what was in the lost footage. Cast: Val Lauren, James Franco, Travis Mathews, Christian Patrick, Brenden Gregory.

Halley / Mexico (Director: Sebastian Hofmann, Screenwriters: Sebastian Hofmann, Julio Chavezmontes) — Alberto is dead and can no longer hide it. Before surrendering to his living death, he forms an unusual friendship with Luly, the manager of the 24-hour gym where he works as a night guard. Cast: Alberto Trujillo, Lourdes Trueba, Hugo Albores.

The Meteor / Canada (Director: François Delisle, Screenwriter: François Delisle) — Forty-something Pierre, his mother and his wife are linked by crime, guilt and loneliness. Like casualties of love and desire, they are dying to stick their heads above water and breathe the air of life. Cast: Noémie Godin Vigneau, François Delisle, Laurent Lucas, Brigitte Pogonat, François Papineau, Andrée Lachapelle.

INSTALLATIONS

Cityscape 2095

Artists: Yannick Jacquet, Mandril, Thomas Vaquié [AntiVJ]

AntiVJ artists Yannick Jacquet and Marc Ferrario blend painting with light projection to transform the walls of New Frontier into a luminous, three-dimensional cityscape that feels strangely familiar yet impossible to locate. With its disorienting sense of time and space, Cityscape 2095 places spectators on the observatory deck of a skyscraper, where they take in a sprawling, imaginary city as it glitters over the course of one day.

Coral: Rekindling Venus

Artist: Lynette Wallworth

Inspired by the first collaboration among the international science community to witness the celestial transit of Venus in 1761, Lynette Wallworth’s visually stunning Coral: Rekindling Venus is an augmented-reality and full-dome planetarium presentation designed to nurture an emotional connection between a global audience and the planet’s endangered coral reefs. This epic project features original deep-sea photography, augmented-reality artwork and music by Antony and the Johnsons. Presented at the New Frontier venue in Park City, Salt Lake City’s Clark Planetarium and other locations nationally. Details to be announced.

E.M-bed.de/d, Datamosh, Augmented Real

Artist: Yung Jake

Rap artist Yung Jake is Net art incarnate, flowing lyrics about tweet culture, data-moshing, hashtags, and memes as he blows up on Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, and Instagram in his HTML5 music video, E.M-bed.de/d. This MC drops unexpectedly into your browser sessions, streams into Festival screenings, Skype-bombs live DJ performances, and pops out of floors and magazines in augmented-reality music videos.

Eyjafjallalokull

Artist: Joanie Lemercier [AntiVJ]

Inspired by the 2010 Icelandic volcanic eruption that wreaked travel havoc across Europe, Eyjafjallalokull is a stunning, three-dimensional, audiovisual mapping installation that challenges audiences’ perception of space by creating an optical illusion that transforms the walls of New Frontier into a sweeping digital vista that artistically recreates the seismic event.

North of South, West of East

Artist: Meredith Danluck

North of South, West of East enhances narrative storytelling by wrapping the film around the entire room. Presented to an audience in swivel chairs, Meredith Danluck’s remarkable four-channel narrative feature deftly unspools a darkly humorous tale of small-town folks as they try to make sense of a posthope America. Shot on location in Detroit, Michigan, and Marfa, Texas, this unique film features fantastic performances by Ben Foster, Stella Schnabel, and Sue Galloway, and a soundtrack by Marfa local punk band Solid Waste.

Pulse Index

Artist: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s beautifully resonant, interactive media installation swaths the central lounge of New Frontier with images of the warm, breathing flesh of its visitors. Pulse Index records the heart rates and fingerprints of participants and exhibits them in a beautiful Fibonacci pattern. Place your finger into the custom-made sensor, and your fingerprint appears on the largest cell of the display, pulsating to your heartbeat. Your print then travels down the sequence to join those of all the others who have visited the room, immersing the community space with the radiant glow of the human touch.

What’s He Building in There?

Artists: Klip Collective

Ricardo Rivera and the Klip Collective transform the entire front of the New Frontier venue into an interactive, 3-D projection-mapped parable, inspired by the Tom Waits song. Sip a hot beverage in the outdoor lounge and watch the walls and windowpanes dissolve into a story about a man on a mysterious mission inside the building. Use the X-ray flashlight to peek at what he is up to.

Joseph Jackson May Have Had a Stroke, Randy Jackson Leaks the News to Gossip Site

Roger Friedman
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Joseph Jackson May Have Had a Stroke, Randy Jackson Leaks the News to Gossip Site

What do you do when your father has a stroke? In the Jackson family, you call the gossip site you’re most connected to. There’s a “report” that Joseph Jackson, the, uh, patriarch of the Jackson family-Michael and Janet’s father, etc– has had a stroke in Las Vegas. How do we know? Why, a gossip item popped up in x17online.com. This is the site that Randy Jackson uses when he wants to get a story out. He used them last summer during the so called kidnapping of his mother Katherine. Now x17 is not only reporting that Joseph has had a stroke but reiterating a falsehood from last summer, that Katherine Jackson had had a mini stroke. We’ll see what develops. Despite Joseph Jackson’s spectacularly despicable behavior in almost any situation, we wish him well if he’s ill and a speedy recovery. I am told he was accompanied to the hospital by his pal, Majestyk the Magician. (No kidding, really.) Calls to his eldest daughter Rebbie are difficult because I am also told her landline has been shut off.

EXCLUSIVE Oscar winner Nicole Kidman on making “The Paperboy”: “I wanted to go to a place that was dangerous”

Roger Friedman
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0
EXCLUSIVE Oscar winner Nicole Kidman on making “The Paperboy”: “I wanted to go to a place that was dangerous”

Okay, kids, listen up: Best Supporting Actress is a hot category this year. We’ve got Sally Field in “Lincoln,” Jennifer Ehle in “Zero Dark Thirty,” Anne Hathaway singing her guts out in “Les Miz,” and Amy Adams in “The Master.” Jacki Weaver is sensational in “Silver Linings Playbook.” But wait there’s one more: Nicole Kidman’s sexy, incendiary performance as hot hot hot Charlotte Bless from “The Paperboy.”

Millennium dropped the ball on this film, which Lee Daniels directed specifically to look like a freaky Southern gothic circa 1968 with zoom in closeups and a kind of muddy patina to the film. But there is an Oscar DVD, and it’s gone out to Critics Choice voters and everyone else. If you’ve got it, watch it for Kidman’s work. It would be a shame to let it fall through the cracks.

Charlotte is one of Kidman’s best characters. She’s completely out there, wild, uninhibited, afraid of nothing. She looks like a young Ann-Margret. Charlotte is in keeping with Kidman characters from her many forays into indie filmmaking, like “Fur” or “Birth” or “Dogville” or “Rabbit Hole,” for which she was Oscar nominated. And let’s not forget her back-to-back home runs in “The Others” and “The Hours.” No other “movie star” takes so many risks doing small budget, edgy character work as Kidman.

I talked to the Oscar winner from Belgium where she’s been shooting “Grace of Monaco,” about Grace Kelly, with Olivier Dahan, the man who steered Marion Cotillard to accolades in “La Vie En Rose.” She told me she’s trying to wrap up and get to Australia where her sister Antonia is having baby number 6 in a couple of weeks. She’s 42. “It’s not a big deal in my family. My grandmother had her last at 49,” Nicole told me. She also said she will only have another child (she has two with Tom Cruise and two with Keith Urban) “if I get pregnant, if it happens.”

By the way: contrary to the tabs, Nicole is very much in touch with her older kids, Connor and Isabella. She says they’re doing great, but she tries to respect their privacy. Connor is in “Red Dawn.” Isabella is in school in London. That’s it.

But back to Charlotte Bless. Kidman did a Daniel Day-Lewis, and stayed in character for the entire shoot. When she (as Charlotte) and John Cusack (as her psychopath husband) meet in a prison waiting room and have sort of “psychic sex,” the actors had never met before and didn’t talk about what they would do in the scene. It’s so hot the paint peels off the prison walls. “John and I didn’t even talk to each other the movie was over,” Nicole told me.

“What I liked about the character was toughness. And I was always fighting for her fragility, her humanity. Lee (Daniels, director) brought out the sexuality. But I didn’t want to censor myself. In terms of being an actor, I wanted to go to a place that was dangerous. That’s the kind of stuff you try to find and don’t want to be frightened of doing. I’m trying to move out of my comfort zone.”

As for roles like “The Paperboy”: “This is where my heart is. I try to support independent filmmaking. And Charlotte is raw. This part is physically raw. I never got to play someone so damaged.”

After “Grace” is completed, and Kidman and Keith Urban spend the holidays in Australia, Nicole heads home to L.A. She’ll play the part of Urban’s wife (you know, real life) while he’s judging singers on “American Idol.” “I’ll cook,” she said. “I don’t how good it will be, but I’ll be doing it!”

 

 

 

 

 

Oscars: Academy Voters Get Extended Deadline, and Electronic Kiosks Are Coming

Roger Friedman
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Update on Oscar voting, attention Academy voters:  the deadline to register for paper balloting has been extended to December 14th. If you really don’t have access to a computer or email in 2012, this is for you. But if you don’t register for the paper ballot by tomorrow, I am told, that’s it. You will still be able to register at any time for electronic voting by email or in person at Academy theaters in Los Angles, New York, and London. And get this: the Academy is getting so modern and cool that they will have kiosks–like ATMs– in the lobby at their theatres where voters can log in and vote on the spot. I mean, how easy is that? Call the Academy office if you have questions.

Jeff Zucker Could Make CNN Exciting Again

Roger Friedman
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Jeff Zucker Could Make CNN Exciting Again

CNN has named Jeff Zucker to run the famed cable news network. He replaces Jim Walton. Zucker now has to do something difficult but not impossible: he’s got to turn CNN around. Zucker can do it. He steered the “Today” to its greatest success and laid the foundation for the Matt Lauer era. It’s not his fault that that goodwill was squandered subsequently. Zucker got caught in a squeeze play over Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, but that was also because he was involved in entertainment programming. His real instinct is news. He’s had a solid launch with Katie Couric’s talk show. And while “Katie” may not be doing “General Hospital” numbers yet, the new talk show is number 1 among all the other debuts, and it’s holding its own. The show comes off best when Katie handles news features like survivors of Hurricane Sandy– she did a great job. That’s Zucker’s forte. He could make CNN exciting again.

Here’s the press release from CNN:

Jeff Zucker will join CNN Worldwide as president of the multi-platform global news enterprise, it was announced today by Phil Kent, chairman and CEO of CNN parent company Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.  In January 2013, Zucker will assume executive oversight of a portfolio of 23 branded news and information businesses that includes CNN/U.S., CNN International, CNN.com and HLN and reaches more than 2 billion people in some 200 countries around the world.  Zucker will report to Kent and will be based at CNN in New York.

Zucker started his 25-year career with NBC as a researcher for NBC Sports’ coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games and rose to president and chief executive officer of NBC Universal.  He was named executive producer of Today in January 1992; under his eight-year leadership, the program was the most-watched morning news show and the most profitable program on television.  Zucker went on to executive-produce NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw and the network’s coverage of the Persian Gulf War, the 1993 and 1997 presidential inaugurations and the 2000 elections.  He was promoted to president of NBC Entertainment, president of the NBC Entertainment, News & Cable group and president and CEO of the NBC Universal Television Group.  Currently, Zucker is executive producer of the syndicated daytime show Katie.

“Jeff’s experience as a news executive is unmatched for its breadth and success,” said Kent.  “He built and sustained the number-one brand in morning news, and under his watch NBC’s signature news programming set a standard for quality and professionalism.  As a programmer, a brand-builder and a leader, he will bring energy and new thinking to CNN.  I couldn’t be happier to welcome him or more excited about what he’ll accomplish here.”

“I am thrilled to join the distinguished team of journalists across the worldwide platforms of CNN,” said Zucker.  “The global reach and scale of the CNN brand is unparalleled in all of news.  Outside of my family and the Miami Dolphins, there is nothing I am as passionate about as journalism.  I spent the most rewarding years of my career as a journalist, and it’s where I look forward to spending many more.  I am grateful to Phil Kent for this opportunity, and I’m excited to return to daily newsgathering and compelling storytelling in a place that values those above all else.”

The original 24-hour news network, CNN has the greatest reach of any domestic news network.  The CNN brand on television extends to 100 million households in the U.S. and 265 million households abroad, with significant online and mobile reach and a global newsgathering network with 45 locations.  CNN signatures include Anderson Cooper 360, The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Piers Morgan Tonight, State of the Union, Amanpour and Quest Means Business, as well as award-winning documentaries, unrivaled breaking news coverage and peerless political reporting.

CNN Worldwide, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, is the most trusted source for news and information. Its reach extends to nine cable and satellite television networks; one private place-based network; two radio networks; wireless devices around the world; CNN Digital Network, the No. 1 network of news Web sites in the United States; CNN Newsource, the world’s most extensively syndicated news service; and strategic international partnerships within both television and the digital media.

Barnes & Noble Closing Greenwich Village Store, Their Destruction of Book Biz Nearly Complete

Roger Friedman
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20
Barnes & Noble Closing Greenwich Village Store, Their Destruction of Book Biz Nearly Complete

A sign has gone up in the window of the Barnes & Noble on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth St: they are closing on December 31st. In the mid 1980s, Barnes & Noble swallowed up Marboro Books, Bookmasters and B Dalton, among other booksellers. They killed off small booksellers all over the country, eventually destroying business for many beloved New York landmarks like Colosseum, Books & Co., Gotham, Doubleday, and many others. St. Marks Bookstore, in its reduced form, is rumored to be downsizing and moving again.

B&N wanted to rule the world. They took over the B Dalton store at what used to be the gateway of Greenwich Village, but also added a behemoth store at 21st and Sixth (now gone), Lincoln Center (now gone), and downsized the famous main store at Fifth Avenue and 18th st. On upper Fifth Avenue, they ravaged Scribner Books, the best bookstore in New York, which became Rizzoli and is now a Benetton or some clothier.

Now B&N is in such reduced circumstances that they’ve slinked (slunk?) down Fifth Avenue from their original spot near 48th St. to something far less glamorous on the east side of the street near 45th.

I was working at the B&N outpost on Third Avenue and 59th St. in 1979 when the destruction began. I was in college, and had been reassigned from Marboro on West Eighth St. when B&N bought that chain and killed it. You could see the future: at that moment, truck drivers and maintenance people had been promoted to store managers by the hippie HR guy who thought it was all very funny. No one knew anything about books. No one cared. A customer once walked into our store and asked for “books by Singer”– meaning Isaac Bashevis Singer. He was directed by our night manager to the Singer sewing store on 57th and Third.

Among the stores B&N helped coax into oblviion  was the legendary Wilentz Books on Eighth St. just a half block east of the red brick former Dalton edifice. For a while, Shakespeare & Co. has barely held on, on lower Broadway. Somehow, Three Lives Books–with different owners than the ones I knew–has clung to life in the West Village. But they are very small and off the beaten track. Otherwise, B&N has managed to wreck what used to be a thriving book life in Greenwich Village.

And now, come January 1st, there will be no book store in our neighborhood, known the world over as home to legendary writers from Mark Twain and Dawn Powell to Edna St. Vincent Millay. Congratulations to the Riggios. You ushered out an entire culture and it only took 30 years. Everything will be downloaded onto a Nook. The smell of books, the feel of them, the communal experience of choosing books from piles and stacks, has been decimated. Good work! (I can’t hold amazon accountable for this–they didn’t start with brick and mortar stores.)

I will never forget Ralphie, the manager of the Third Avenue store, who told the staff one night that if his rules were too “astringent” we could leave. There was also a sign on the freight door from the inside that read: “This door is alarmed.” So was I. And now, more than ever.

“Django” Soundtrack Has James Brown-Tupac Mashup, Plus Tarantino’s Actual Records (LPs)

Roger Friedman
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0
“Django” Soundtrack Has James Brown-Tupac Mashup, Plus Tarantino’s Actual Records (LPs)

The soundtrack to “Django Unchained” is going to be very interesting. For one thing, it includes lots of cool music including a posthumous mashup of James Brown and Tupac Shakur. That alone would be wild. But Quentin Tarantino has also enlisted his star, Jamie Foxx, for vocals and production on other tracks. And there is new music from John Legend, who also wrote two great songs on the new Alicia Keys album.

And: Tarantino chose a lot of music for the movie from his collection of vinyl, LP, records. Instead of getting the masters, now digital and all cleaned up, Quentin used his own records. He says in a press release: “I want to thank all the artists who contributed original songs (a first for me) to the picture. Most of these contributions came out of the artists’ own inspiration and their illustration of the film’s soul is invaluable.”

He continues: “In addition to the new original songs I am also using a lot of older recordings on the soundtrack – many of which came from my personal vinyl collection. Instead of having the record companies give me new digitally cleaned up versions of these recordings from the 60’s and 70’s, I wanted to use the vinyl I’ve been listening to for years – complete with all the pops and cracks. I even kept the sound of the needle being put down on the record. Basically because I wanted people’s experience to be the same as mine when they hear this soundtrack for the first time.”

The soundtrack to “Jackie Brown” is still  my favorite of the Tarantino movies because it includes “Natural High” by Bloodstone. But this one sounds very, very promising.

Here’s the tracklist:

1. WINGED
2. DJANGO (MAIN THEME) – LUIS BACALOV, ROCKY ROBERTS
3. THE BRAYING MULE – ENNIO MORRICONE
4. IN THAT CASE, DJANGO, AFTER YOU…
5. LO CHIAMAVANO KING (HIS NAME IS KING) – LUIS BACALOV, EDDA DELL’ORSO
6. FREEDOM – ANTHONY HAMILTON & ELAYNA BOYNTON
7. FIVE-THOUSAND-DOLLAR NIGGA’S AND GUMMY MOUTH BITCHES
8. LA CORSA (2ND VERSION) – LUIS BACALOV
9. SNEAKY SCHULTZ AND THE DEMISE OF SHARP
10. I GOT A NAME – JIM CROCE
11. I GIORNI DELL’IRA – RIZ ORTOLANI
12. 100 BLACK COFFINS – RICK ROSS
13. NICARAGUA – JERRY GOLDSMITH FEATURING PAT METHENY
14. HILDI’S HOT BOX
15. SISTER SARA’S THEME – ENNIO MORRICONE
16. ANCORA QUI – ENNIO MORRICONE AND ELISA
17. UNCHAINED (THE PAYBACK/UNTOUCHABLE) – JAMES BROWN AND 2PAC
18. WHO DID THAT TO YOU? – JOHN LEGEND
19. TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG – BROTHER DEGE
20. STEPHEN THE POKER PLAYER
21. UN MONUMENTO – ENNIO MORRICONE
22. SIX SHOTS TWO GUNS
23. TRINITY (TITOLI) – ANNIBALE E I CANTORI MODERNI

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