Michael Jackson’s career is taking yet another inexplicable turn as news of his most recent project hits the public. According to friend and contributor David Gest, Jackson spent the last year recording an album, using the poetry of Scottish national bard Robert Burns as lyrics.
Are you ready for The Fly: The Opera?
With sales slowing and several high-grossing, summer blockbusters to contend with (most notably, The Dark Knight), Universal Pictures has resorted to an interactive gimmick in order to boost its Labor Day weekend revenue for Mamma Mia! A "Sing-Along Edition" of the movie premieres in select theaters nationwide on Friday, Aug. 29. This “unprecedented worldwide phenomenon” will feature, well, pretty much just subtitles—but also an exclamation-point-littered invitation from Universal to “sing and dance along.”
The band's gonna make it, Mom! I'm not going to be living in this basement forever!
In 1839, an American writer and explorer named John Lloyd Stephens was sent to Central America to serve as Special Ambassador. He traveled around the continent during his time there, and, after happening upon Mayan ruins at Copán, visited almost 50 other such sites, gathering material for a travelogue that has long been credited with enlivening modern interest in Mayan culture.
[Above: Brian May with his Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University]
Update: Turns out Spears won't be featured in Tarantino's film after all.
At this point in his career, it's become pretty apparent that Stephen Colbert is a baller. The man already has an airplane, an ice cream flavor, a hockey mascot and a bald freaking eagle bearing his name. As if that wasn't enough, he can now add a spider to the list.
While putting the finishing touches on The Red Album and kicking off a tour to support it, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo has been working on a side project of his own. Using YouTube to send videos to his fans, the singer has let folks submit every part of a new song from its chords to lyrics. The whole thing has been getting closer to completion after four months of work and, honestly, starting to turn out a really catchy power-pop song. When he wants to, that Cuomo knows his stuff.
Remember McDonalds' shameful Devo rip-offery? Please turn your attention to Hasbro, and the correct way to infuse Devo into children's products. It's Tooth Tunes, where the wacky New Wavers join the ranks of Hannah Montana, the Transformers theme song, Hilary Duff, Smash Mouth and other hygienically-sound, prepubescent-safe superstars.
We know what you're thinking...
Kanye West said it better than anyone ever could: "Wake up, Mr. West, Mr. West, Mr. Fresh, Mr. By-His-Self-He-So-Impressed." We already know 'Ye has a pretty good sense of humor, even if his ego soars to titanic levels at times. Now, Kanye is willing to share the secret to his success with you. What could it be? A magic bear-suit and pair of white sunglasses? Robotic augmentation by Daft Punk? No, the answer is much, much simpler and weirder: BeKanye.
Beards and other sundry facial hair formations may be en vogue now in the world of alternative music, but John Oates has more than a few words for that. The moustachioed half of soul-rock standard Hall & Oates wants to take you back to the day when all real rock-n-rollers needed was a doubleneck Rickenbacker, plenty of nag champa and a truly wicked 'stache. To get his message across, he's teamed up with Primary Wave Music Publishing, who recently greenlit the pilot to an animated series titled J-Stache that will see Oates "kicking ass, rocking out, and wearing tight pink pants."
When gravelly crooner Tom Waits stopped in El Paso on his Glitter and Doom Tour, he didn't expect to be greeted by the fuzz. "I paid all those tickets," he joked. "She was dead when I got there."
Kid Rock just wants to be a cowboy, baby. He's upping the ante from his recent endorsement of stealing music; now he's telling the kids to steal everything. In a curious public service announcement uploaded to YouTube, Mr. Bob Ritchie lambasts the music industry, Tommy Hilfiger, big oil, Apple and Microsoft, and Toyota Motors for the billions of dollars in collective profits they reap yearly. Nothing is safe from Kid Rock's anti-corporate ire: "I'm fuckin' rich," he rasps. "So how can I bitch about someone downloading a song or two?"
There's something satisfying about seeing two heavyweights slugging it out, something about the grandiloquence of conflict between two binary opposites writ large. Ali Vs. Frazier. The Celtics Vs. The Lakers. Obama Vs. Clinton. Abbott & Costello Vs. Frankenstein. This world of epic matchups is poised to add another brawl to its ranks: Odenkirk Vs. Rogue Wave. As previously reported, the ex-Mr. Show star and the alt-rock up-and-comers recently had a fake spat over Mr. Odenkirk's artistic vision for their "Chicago X 12" music video. Well, it looks like Rogue Wave has responded with a salvo of their own, leaving little in question about Odenkirk's mental state:
It's not like it's a new issue. That poetry affects daily life is, almost literally, the first rule in the book. (You know, Plato's book, from 2400 years ago.) In his Republic, he expelled poets because they lie and lead to immoral behavior.
Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth is being reworked into an opera by Giorgio Battistelli for Milan's famous La Scala opera house. Continuing in the grand tradition of other movies being turned into operas (Lost Highway, The Fly, Brokeback Mountain), the opera-ified version of the movie that is credited with launching the 'green' movement is set to be performed for La Scala's 2011 season.
Feeling nostalgic for those long-ago evenings you spent holding pseudo-séances in your neighbor’s attic, freaking each other with a Ouija board? (And hey, maybe it was actually last week; we’re not judging). You’re in luck, superstitious reader, you. Producers Michael Bay (Transformers, The Amityville Horror), Andrew Form and Brad Fuller of Platinum Dunes production company are working to turn the otherworldly board game into a movie for Universal.
We are currently in an age where books are adapted into movies, movies are turned into TV series, TV series morph into Broadway plays, and plays turn into running online commentaries authored by the actors. You just never know whether you'll see your favorite comic strip turn into a blockbuster or a Saturday morning cartoon first; it's a slow, gradual transformation from one medium to the next. Kind of like the Animorphs. But you know you've struck gold when your favorite b-list movie becomes a musical.
The elements of a quality Broadway musical can be difficult to master. It takes finesse, agility and poise. However, the elements of a Bruce Lee performance could prove even more difficult. Notwithstanding, for the 2010-11 season this martial arts master will see reincarnation in the form of a Broadway production called Bruce Lee: Journey to the West.
Jonah Hill was three-years-old when 21 Jump Street first aired in 1987. Now, the Superbad star is in negotiations to develop a big-screen version of the show, Variety reports.
The new version of the police drama will be co-produced by original series creator Stephen J. Cannell and Neal Moritz. Hill is in charge of developing the screenplay for Columbia Pictures and will serve as executive producer.
A biologist from East Carolina University has named a newly discovered species of spider after Neil Young, Gigwise reports. Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi, a trapdoor spider, was discovered by Jason Bond in Alabama.
It makes sense for the singers of one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time to pen a West End/Broadway musical. They’ll know how to do it, they’ll know how to show it. Don’t need no help for them to make it.
| Sep 7 Sun |
TV: 2008 MTV Video Music Awards TV: Entourage Season Premiere on HBO TV: True Blood Series Premiere on HBO |
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Episode 70
August 19, 2008
