The video’s been removed from most websites, but it may still be available on Gawker.
‘SNL’ Reveals Why ‘Game of Thrones’ Has So Much Nudity
Nelly Furtado Reveals the Title, Release Date of Her Fifth Album
Nelly Furtado just released the name of her fifth album and it’s…ready for it?…The Spirit Indestructible. The Spirit Indestructible will be released on June 19th with the first single, “Big Hoops (Bigger is Better),” debuting on April 17th.
Grammy winner Nelly Furtado has sold more than 16 million albums and 18 million singles worldwide. The Spirit Indestructible marks Furtado’s first English language album since 2006’s double-platinum Loose.
Furtado began working on writing the songs for The Spirit Indestructible around the time her Spanish album, Mi Plan, was released. “I was in a great headspace, feeling refreshed and ready to really deliver in English again,” explained Furtado. “This album is all about positivity, youth, good energy, and the relentlessness of the spirit. I want people to live this music the way we did when we wrote it. ?I want them to jump, dance, scream, laugh, cry, love, and vibe to it, and to turn it up very loud everywhere.”
Source: Interscope Records
Eli Manning to Host SNL
Unlike Peyton Manning, Eli’s not exactly known for his charming, outgoing personality. It’ll be interesting to see how Eli’s ratings compare to Peyton’s SNL gig (I’m betting not many TV sets in San Diego will be tuned to SNL on May 5th).
Source: NBC
Carlos Santana Shape Shifter Tour 2012 Details
Carlos Santana is kicking off his Shape Shifter Tour 2012 on July 7th at Grand Casino Mille Lacs in Hinckley, Minnesota. The tour is in support of Santana’s upcoming Shape Shifter album dropping on May 15th. Santana will also be performing classics from throughout the group’s 40 year long career during the tour which is currently scheduled through July 21st.
The new album – a 13 song instrumental set – features Chester Thompson on keyboards, Dennis Chambers on drums, Benny Rietveld on bass, Salvador Santana on keyboards, Raul Rekow on congas and Karl Perazzo on percussion.
Shape Shifter Tour:
July 7 Grand Casino Mille Lacs Hinckley, MN
July 9 Ravinia Festival Highland Park, IL
July 12 Fraze Pavilion for the Performing
Arts Kettering, OH
July 13 Soaring Eagle Casino Resort Mount Pleasant, MI
July 14 Molson Canadian Amphitheatre West Toronto, ON
July 15 DTE Energy Music Theatre Clarkston, MI
July 17 Bank of America Pavilion Boston, MA
July 18 Meadowbrook U.S. Cellular Pavilion Gilford, NH
July 20-21 Borgata Spa & Resort Event Center Atlantic City, NJ
More on Carlos Santana [Courtesy of Starfaith Records]
Since Santana emerged from the San Francisco Bay Area music scene in the 1960s, the group has sold more than 100 million records, reached more than 100 million fans at concerts worldwide, and been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Santana has won 10 GRAMMYs, including a record-tying nine for a single project, 1999’s Supernatural (including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for “Smooth”). With the 2010 release of Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time, Santana joined the Rolling Stones as one of only two music acts in Billboard history to score at least one Top Ten album in each decade from the 1960s on. Among other honors, Carlos Santana is #20 on Rolling Stone’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”–“Santana’s crystalline tone and clean arcing sustain make him the rare instrumentalist who can be identified in just one note.”
Source: Starfaith Records
‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ International Trailer Shows More Lizard
Sony’s rebooting the Spider-Man franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man, heading to theaters on July 3, 2012 and starring Andrew Garfield as the new Spider-Man. Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) directs and Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, and Sally Field co-star in this new look at Peter Parker’s teenage years.
The studio’s just released a new Japanese trailer for this latest take on the origin of the comic book character. And asked why there’s a new origin film after we’ve already seen the story in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, director Webb told About.com:
“We’re telling the story in a different way. And I think it’s really important when you’re redefining a character for the audience to experience things that they haven’t experienced from the ground up. I wanted to build a character. There’s just something about the movies that I see, like, I feel like point of view is a really crucial thing in the story and that you need to build up the sort of emotional building blocks so that you can experience all the other emotions in a very specific way, rather than just experience it in an intellectual way.
I mean, that’s why at the beginning of the movie there’s a story of his parents and them being pulled from him. I think you want to feel what that sense of abandonment feels like as an audience member so that you can readily and appropriately identify. And we’re creating a different universe with different rules and a different tone and different villains. We’re very careful to honor the iconography of Spider-Man, but we wanted to tell it in a new and different way.”
Gotye Performs Somebody That I Used to Know on SNL
I’m addicted to this song. Gotye performed his mesmerizing hit “Somebody That I Used to Know” on the April 14, 2012 Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Josh Brolin, delivering one of the best musical performances of the season.
Watch the video:
[NBC has removed the video so we’re substituting the official music video in its place]
Game of Thrones Season 2 Episode 3 – What is Dead May Never Die Video
The second season of Game of Thrones came out of the gate strong and, if the synopsis can be trusted, this third episode will see even more scheming, power plays and backstabbing. The plot: “At the Red Keep, Tyrion plots three alliances through the promise of marriage. Catelyn arrives in the Stormlands to forge an alliance of her own. But King Renly, his new wife Margaery and her brother Loras Tyrell have other plans. At Winterfell, Luwin tries to decipher Bran’s dreams.”
Game of Thrones Episode #13 debuts on Sunday, April 15th on HBO.
Watch the trailer:
The Cabin in the Woods Movie Review
Reviewed by Kevin Finnerty
“This isn’t right. We should split up…we can cover more ground that way,” says Curt (Chris Hemsworth). “Really!” responds Marty (Fran Kranz), sarcastically, to his best friend who’s not really himself after almost being killed by something terrifying in the woods in the horror/comedy, The Cabin in the Woods.
Curt and Marty are in an isolated cabin in the woods for a little R&R with their good friends Dana (Kristen Connolly), Holden (Jesse Williams), and Jules (Anna Hutchison) when weird and bizarre things start to happen. Almost every member of the group begins to act out of character after spending time in the cabin … everyone except Marty who slowly starts to suspect that something very strange and sinister is going on.
Marty couldn’t be more right as he and his friends aren’t alone at all but are being closely monitored and somewhat controlled by a group of people led by two men, Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) and Hadley (Bradley Whitford), situated in a control room. It’s these men who’ve arranged for the young friends to end up at the cabin and who have unleashed the horrifyingly evil things in the woods, creatures whose sole purpose is to attack and kill Marty and his friends. Together, Marty, Curt, Dana, and the others must try to find a way out of the death trap that’s been set up for them.
Eerie, creepy and hilarious, The Cabin in the Woods takes the classic horror story and turns it on its head. The film has a solid cast, with Chris Hemsworth (Thor, The Avengers) very effective as the smart, friendly jock leader of the group and Fran Kranz as the joint-smoking, conspiracy-believing jester in the group. He steals every scene he’s in and provides at least half of the laughs in the film.
Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford are wonderful as the two men creating all the chaos and terror for the young people. The scenes in the control room with their characters trying to maneuver the young people in the cabin into doing certain things to aid in their demise are both disturbing and funny, with the great banter written in the script. The movie also has one of the most original opening scenes in a horror movie ever put on film. It’s nothing anyone would ever expect.
Perhaps the only weakness in the film is the performance by the female lead, Kristen Connolly. She has zero chemistry with any of the cast members and doesn’t convey any emotional shock or true terror until near the end of the film when her character, Dana, discovers the shocking, mind-bending truth of what has really been happening and why.
Creative, original, and refreshing, The Cabin in the Woods has a perfect blend of scares and laughs, making it one of the most entertaining horror movies to come along in years.
GRADE: B-
The Cabin in the Woods hits theaters on April 13, 2012.
2012 Newport Beach Film Festival Just Weeks Away
By Roberta Valdez
This year’s Newport Beach Film Festival runs from April 26th to May 3rd and features 400 films from around the world, including shorts, documentaries, studio and independent films. This will be my third year attending the festival, and one of the striking things I’ve learned by participating in the festival selection process is how few films are chosen from those submitted.
I reviewed about 30 submissions last year and only three of those actually ended up on the program (each film is reviewed by three trained volunteers and two trained programming staff members). I was told by a staff member that that was a higher than average rate and, of course, many of those that are exhibited at festivals don’t find distributors. For example, Fort McCoy won awards at six festivals but I’ve found no evidence of a wider distribution. So, often festivals are the only opportunity to view some fine documentaries and feature films.
For a film buff, festivals are great experiences. Not only is it an opportunity to view good films that may enjoy only very limited theatrical releases – if they find distributors at all – but the Q & A sessions with directors, screenwriters, cinematographers, and actors are rare opportunities for the public to speak directly with those involved.
Often the filmmakers describe very personal reasons for making a film and the shoe-string budgets involved. One of my favorite films from last year’s festival was Fort McCoy, (Newport Beach Film Festival 2011: Fort McCoy), which won several awards on the festival circuit. The film starred Eric Stoltz and Kate Connor. In addition to playing one of the leads, Ms. Connor was the writer, a producer, and a co-director. She based the screenplay on her grandmother’s experience living on a military base in Wisconsin next to a German POW camp during World War II, and wanted to tell this unique and personal story.
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Check Out the Looper Trailer
Joseph Gordon-Levitt travels through time to kill people in the action thriller, Looper, from writer/director Rian Johnson. Heading to theaters on September 28th, Looper looks like it’s going to be a bizarre thrill ride of a film.
Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, and Jeff Daniels co-star.
The Plot:
In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good… until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination.
Watch the trailer:
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