Reba McEntire and Blake Shelton (Photo Provided by CBS)
Country music fans, circle April 1, 2012 on your calendars. CBS announced they’ll be airing the 47th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards on that date, live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas (proving not everything that happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas). Reba McEntire and her good friend Blake Shelton will return as co-hosts.
In addition, the Zac Brown Band will be hosting the 2nd Annual ACM Fan Jam on the same date but at the Mandalay Bay in Vegas. Sugarland hosted the first event which allows fans to be a part of the Country Music Awards and watch performances live from this remote location.
CBS also announced ACM Presents: Lionel Richie and Friends – A Lifetime of Hits concert, which will be taped on April 2nd and broadcast at a later date. Ritchie will perform duets from his upcoming Tuskegee album at the special musical event which will raise funds for Lifting Lives, a non-profit working to “improve lives through music.” The event will also feature Jason Aldean, The Band Perry, Kenny Chesney, Lady Antebellum, Martina McBride, Rascal Flatts, and Kenny Rogers performing some of Ritchie’s hits.
Proving that the Force is still strong, the Star Wars live-action TV series is moving forward – according to producer Rick McCallum – and even has a title now (although it may be just a working one at this point). In an interview with IGN, McCallum says the new series could be called Star Wars: Underworld and confirms “50 of the most unbelievable scripts” are done, as well as confirming the time frame in which the series will take place in. Right now, it seems the hold-up just has to do with the budget.
You can feel Sonia Leigh’s story throughout 1978 December, her soulful, deep Country debut. She wrote eight of these songs on her own and the other two (“If You Won’t Tell” and “Roaming”) with Zac Brown, who guests on the latter, ska-seasoned cut. Her raw, stripped-down delivery makes each lyric feel urgent, personal and real.
Leigh’s ears were wide open even at age 4, when she responded to a song at a Loretta Lynn concert by shouting, “Now, that’s Country, Dad!” — a portent, perhaps, of Leigh’s future working as many as three jobs, dealing with her parents’ divorce, traveling with her father as he pursued odd jobs on the road and eventually striking out on her own at 17.
She’d gotten a good head start. A song she’d written at 14 prompted a management deal three years later. While burning up the club circuit in Atlanta, Leigh befriended another local up-and-comer, Zac Brown. When she cut an indie album, Run or Surrender, Zac Brown Band bassist John Driskell Hopkins served as producer. And after Brown signed her to his Southern Ground Artists label, he and Matt Mangano co-produced, along with Clay Cook and Hopkins.
Backed by what sounds like a tight, gig-toughened bar band, Leigh belts the up-tempo songs with a full-throated, Southern-tinged rasp on the first single, “My Name Is Money,” a sly paean to what a fully-loaded bankroll can buy. With similar conviction she recounts lessons learned from the death of a close friend (“Ain’t Dead Yet”), the comforts of “jumping off this wagon” (“Bar”) and, on the other tracks, the beauties hidden within the rougher rites of life.
MUSICAL HERO
“I have so many! Hank Williams, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Sean Costello, Bob Dylan, Loretta Lynn …”
CD IN YOUR STEREO
“I only have a record player. I think Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark at the Moon is on the table right now.”
BOOK ON YOUR NIGHTSTAND
“Steven Tyler’s Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? A Rock ‘n’ Roll Memoir.”
PET PEEVE
“Messy cooks — or putting a plate in the fridge uncovered with a fork. That is so gross!”
SOMETHING WE’D NEVER GUESS ABOUT YOU
“I never feel like I am good enough. And I am a huge Tupac fan!”
Van Halen just released the music video for “Tattoo,” the group’s first song with David Lee Roth in the lead in 27 years. Wow. And yes, they do look older than they did the last time Roth led the band – but who wouldn’t (other than maybe Cher, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, or any other fan of plastic surgery)? “Tattoo” is pure Van Halen, a pounding tune that could have been a hit for the group 30 years ago. The video’s not all that spectacular, but the song’s catchy enough.
Watch the music video:
“Tattoo” is the first single off their upcoming A Different Kind of Truth album due to drop on February 7, 2012.
Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW) revealed the title and cover image for Summer 2012's biggest book release, The Serpent's Shadow, the final book in The Kane Chronicles series by best-selling author Rick Riordan. (Graphic: Business Wire)
Rick Riordan’s final book of The Kane Chronicles series is hitting stores on May 1, 2012, and Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW) has just released the cover art (see above) and title for the last book in the bestselling trilogy. The publisher’s ordered a 2 million copy first printing of The Serpent’s Shadow due to the demand by fans for the upcoming book.
“Fans eagerly await learning the fate of Carter and Sadie Kane in this final book,” stated Suzanne Murphy, vice president and publisher, Disney Publishing Worldwide. “Rick, the master of mythology, gives fans a nail-biting conclusion with his signature blend of humor and nonstop action.”
Riordan is the bestselling author of three successful franchises: Percy Jackson & the Olympians, The Kane Chronicles, and The Heroes of Olympus. Combined, the franchises have sold more than 30 million books.
The Basic Plot: Carter and Sadie Kane return for more explosive encounters with Egyptian gods in the final book in the Kane Chronicles trilogy. Nothing less than the mortal world is at stake as the Kane family fulfills its destiny in this thrilling conclusion.
Eric Roth - Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures
The Writers Guild of America, West’s 2012 Laurel Award for Screen will be given to Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) at this year’s awards ceremony taking place on February 19, 2012 in Hollywood. The Laurel Award for Screen is the Guild’s name for their Lifetime Achievement award and is given to a screenwriter for his/her outstanding writing for films.
Past recipients of the WGAW’s Laurel Award for Screen include Horton Foote, David Mamet, Lawrence Kasdan, Robert Benton, Budd Schulberg, Barry Levinson, and, most recently, Steven Zaillian.
“In a career that spans over four decades, Eric Roth’s work – from Forrest Gump to The Insider, Ali, The Good Shepard, Benjamin Button, and this year’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – has traced the larger span of our history and the smaller, individual arcs of the human life. With poetry and humor, he has illuminated time and love and moral responsibility. He has made going to the movies both a stirring emotional education and a true joy,” stated WGAW President Christopher Keyser in the press release.
Eric Roth’s Biography and Screen Credits [Courtesy of the WGAW]:
Acclaimed for his screenwriting skill in both adapted and original work,
Roth won both Academy and Writers Guild Awards for his adapted screenplay for the Oscar-winning Best Picture Forrest Gump (based on the novel by Winston Groom), also earning Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for his work on the film. In December, Forrest Gump was among 25 iconic films selected by the Library of Congress for the 2011 additions to the National Film Registry for preservation due to “their enduring significance to American culture.”
Roth shared his second Oscar, Golden Globe, and WGA nominations with director Michael Mann for the adapted screenplay of the Best Picture Oscar-nominated film, The Insider (written by Eric Roth & Michael Mann, based on the article “The Man Who Knew Too Much” by Marie Brenner). Roth & Mann also earned both the WGAW’s Paul Selvin Award, honoring scripts which embody constitutional and civil rights, and the Humanitas Prize in 2000. In 2006, he shared Oscar, Golden Globe, and Writers Guild Award nominations for the adapted screenplay of the Academy Award-nominated for Best Picture Munich (screenplay by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, based on the novel Vengeance by George Jonas) and, in 2009, for his screen adaption of the Academy Award-nominated for Best Picture The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (screenplay by Eric Roth, screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord, based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.)
Roth’s first produced feature screenplay was for the film The Nickel Ride, which premiered at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. His subsequent writing and co-writing credits over the years have included Suspect, Memories of Me (written by Eric Roth & Billy Crystal), Mr. Jones (written by Eric Roth and Michael Cristofer, story by Eric Roth), The Horse Whisperer (screenplay by Eric Roth and Richard LaGravanese, based upon the novel by Nicholas Evans), Ali (screenplay by Stephen J. Rivele & Christopher Wilkinson and Eric Roth & Michael Mann, story by Gregory Allen Howard), The Good Shepherd, and Lucky You (screenplay by Eric Roth & Curtis Hanson, story by Eric Roth). According to Roth, one of his proudest career accomplishments was having written for legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa on one of Kurosawa’s last films, 1991’s Rhapsody in August.
Most recently, Roth adapted Jonathan Safran Foer’s 9/11-themed bestseller Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close into a feature film for Warner Bros., directed by Stephen Daldry and starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.
Currently, Roth is at work penning an original outer space-themed feature film for Warner Bros., as well as serving co-executive producer on David Milch’s new HBO drama series Luck, starring Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte, and Roth is also executive producing the political suspense series House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, directed/executive produced by David Fincher, produced by Media Rights Capital (MRC), and distributed by Netflix, marking the company’s first major venture into original series programming.
Born in 1945 in Manhattan, raised in Brooklyn, and a WGAW member since 1971, Roth attended the University of California, Santa Barbara (where he was given a Distinguished Alumni Award), Columbia University, and UCLA, where he received the Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award in 1970. In 2008, he was honored with the Distinguished Achievement in Screenwriting Award from UCLA’s School Of Theater, Film and Television. In 2010, Roth received USC’s Scripter Literary Achievement Award for “his sustained contributions to the art of the film adaptation.”
Roth has five children and six grandchildren. His daughter, documentary filmmaker Vanessa Roth, earned a 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short for her film Freeheld. Roth lives in Malibu with his wife, Debra Greenfield, a lawyer and bioethicist who is an Associate Professor at UCLA in the Society and Genetics department.
Fans of animated TV have a reason to celebrate. Fox is putting together a new late-night animation block, creating a new group to shepherd the development and production of “alternative animated series, shorts and user-adapted material” for the new programming block.
Nick Weidenfeld, a guy who knows his way around the world of animated TV as the former head of program development for Adult Swim, will be in charge of the new unit. Hend Baghdady (Warren The Ape, The Andy Milonakis Show) was named the executive in charge of production for the new division.
Weidenfeld and Baghdady will be overseeing the development and production of original animated shorts and series to run both on-air and online. According to Fox, this new late-night animated programming block will air Saturdays (11:00 PM-12:30 AM ET/PT) and will include four new animated series per season starting in January 2013.
Kevin Reilly, FOX President of Entertainment, made the announcement, stating, “This may be the first time a network is building a clear bridge for talent to develop and grow ideas in the digital/alternative arena and organically move them into the mainstream. These new late-night series will be assets in their own right – but the clear possibility exists for a breakout digital success to graduate to primetime.”
“Nick had an incredible track record at Adult Swim and is a dynamic guy with the instincts to cultivate and produce inventive and irreverent series that animation fans love. Together with Hend, they are the perfect partners for us in this exciting new venture,” Reilly continued.
Elizabeth & Richard: A Love Story will, as the title suggests, focus on the turbulent on-again/off-again relationship between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Elizabeth Taylor passed away in March 2011.
Lohan had at one point been attached to a Linda Lovelace project but was bumped from that in the midst of her legal problems. Malin Akerman eventually took over that starring role in one of the two Lovelace projects currently in some state of production (Amanda Seyfried stars in the other Lovelace film).
The Black Keys, Radiohead, Dr Dre, and Snoop Dogg headline Coachella 2012 taking place April 13-15 and 20-22. Other acts heading to Indio for the annual festival include Florence + The Machine, Artic Monkeys, Swedish House Mafia, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Feist, and The Hive.
Tickets go on sale on Friday, January 13th at 10 a.m. (PT) on Coachella.com.
The Academy has tapped Jennifer Lawrence, a 2011 Oscar nominee for her breakthrough role in the gritty indie drama Winter’s Bone, to help announce the nominees for the 84th Academy Awards. The nominees will be revealed on January 24, 2012 at 5:30am PT by Lawrence and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak.
Newbie Academy member Lawrence and Sherak will reveal 10 of the 24 categories during the news conference in Beverly Hills. The remainder of the nominees will be released to the world via the media and the official Academy Awards website, www.oscar.com.
Lawrence will next be seen starring as Katniss Everdeen in one of the most anticipated films of 2012: The Hunger Games.
Source: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
