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| KISS, Peter Gabriel inducted by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 07:24 PM PDT  By Chris Michaud NEW YORK (Reuters) - Flamboyant rockers KISS and British singer-songwriters Peter Gabriel and Cat Stevens were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Thursday, but, as they had vowed, the four original members of KISS did not perform. The 1970s shock-rockers known for their outrageous costumes and makeup and hits such as "Rock and Roll All Nite," did not directly comment on the Hall of Fame's decision to honor only the band's the original members, leaving out current bandmembers Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer. "We are humbled to stand up on this stage," said founding member Gene Simmons, accepting the band's induction made by guitarist Tom Morello. Paul Stanley, who has also been critical of the Hall's induction process, focused on the band's fans, saying "for our fans, this is vindication." In his induction, Morello echoed that sentiment, noting "KISS was never a critics' band, KISS was a people's band." He also observed that the over-the-top theatrical band was noteworthy for, among other things, influencing acts ranging from Lady Gaga to Garth Brooks to Slipknot. Full Story | Top |
| Music labels follow movie studios in suing Megaupload Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 07:03 PM PDT  Four music labels filed a copyright infringement lawsuit on Thursday against the file-sharing website Megaupload and its founder Kim Dotcom, three days after several major movie studios did the same. The lawsuit says that Megaupload, Dotcom and other defendants "engaged in, actively encouraged, and handsomely profited from massive copyright infringement of music," according to a statement issued by the Recording Industry Association of America. The plaintiffs are Warner Music Group Corp, a unit of Time Warner Inc, UMG Recordings Inc, a unit of Vivendi SA, Sony Music Entertainment, a unit of Sony Corp and Capitol Records, also owned by Vivendi, and all RIAA members. Full Story | Top |
| Sans persona, new kind of Colbert steps up to CBS 'Late Show' Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 04:37 PM PDT  By Eric Kelsey LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A new kind of Stephen Colbert will be coming to late-night network television as he succeeds CBS's "Late Show" host David Letterman next year, capping the generational shift in late-night TV's landscape across U.S. networks eager to attract younger viewers and online followings. Colbert, 49, who made his mark satirizing political conservatives on his Comedy Central weeknight cable show "The Colbert Report," said on Thursday he would drop his known persona of a dim-witted, big-egoed conservative pundit. I'm looking forward to it," Colbert said in a statement. There is a measure of risk in abandoning a groundbreaking formula for the comedian whose Emmy-winning show has attracted a strong audience among young viewers, a coveted group that CBS is surely eyeing with its choice of Colbert. Full Story | Top |
| Universal bets on moneymaking Minions in LA theme park refresh Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 04:34 PM PDT  By Piya Sinha-Roy UNIVERSAL CITY, California (Reuters) - The adorable yellow goggle-wearing Minions of "Despicable Me" are not just taking over the Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood, they're ringing in a revamp of the film-themed park as it takes on competing resorts with blockbuster rides. "Despicable Me Minion Mayhem," which officially opens on Saturday at the Hollywood adventure park, brings to life the animated world of "Despicable Me," with both an indoor ride and an outdoor playground, both featuring detailed settings from the films. Chris Meledandri, the producer behind the "Despicable Me' franchise who showed Universal how to make big animated films with more modest budgets, said he wanted the ride to be "true to the movies themselves." "It was very important for us to have tremendous animation and the same kind of wit and irreverence," said Meledandri, who makes the films through his company Illumination Entertainment. "Despicable Me," released in 2010, is the story of evil mastermind Gru, voiced by Steve Carell, who adopts orphaned sisters Margot, Edith and Agnes as part of his scheme to steal the moon and become the world's most evil villain. Full Story | Top |
| 'Railway Man' revisits war prisoner's horror and forgiveness Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 01:35 PM PDT  By Patricia Reaney NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shortly before wrapping up filming for "The Railway Man," a World War Two drama about a former British Army officer and victim of torture, actor Colin Firth dreamt he was drawing a map of a railway but was bluffing and didn't know how to do it. Firth, 53, plays Eric Lomax, a man with a passion for trains and railway timetables who meets his wife on a train decades after he had been tortured as a prisoner of war during the building of the Thailand-Burma Railway, or what became known as the "Death Railway." The railway, built by the Empire of Japan in 1943 to support its attack on the British colony of Burma, used forced labor, including Asian civilians and Allied prisoners of war, many thousands of whom died of beatings, disease, starvation and exhaustion. Full Story | Top |
| Canada's CBC cuts 650 jobs, retreats from sports to trim costs Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 11:33 AM PDT  Canada's public broadcaster will no longer bid for professional sporting rights and will slash more than 650 jobs in the next two years as it tightens its belt following a slump in ad sales and previous cuts to its funding from the federal government. "As the media landscape changes, CBC/Radio-Canada will also need to re-imagine itself," the broadcaster's chief executive, Hubert Lacroix, said in a statement. CBC blamed its financial challenges on slumping advertising that has hit the entire industry, disappointing ratings for some programs, weaker-than-expected ad revenues from two radio stations, and the National Hockey League's decision to leave CBC to sign a broadcast deal with cable company Rogers Communications. Rogers, which is also Canada's largest wireless telecom company, last year signed a C$5.2 billion deal to lock up NHL rights for 12 years, elbowing out rival BCE Inc whose TSN sports channel had previously held most of the rights to show the country's most popular sport. Full Story | Top |
| Murdoch editor 'a man I would trust', ex-archbishop tells UK hacking trial Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 10:58 AM PDT  A former Archbishop of Canterbury took to the witness stand in Britain's phone-hacking trial on Thursday to tell a jury the ex-managing editor of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid was "a man I would trust". George Carey, the head of the Anglican church for 11 years until 2002, appeared as a character witness at London's Old Bailey court and said Stuart Kuttner was a man of integrity. Kuttner, 74, who was managing editor of the downmarket weekly tabloid for 22 years until 2009, is on trial with the paper's former editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson accused of conspiracy to intercept voicemails on mobile phones. Brooks, Coulson and the News of the World's former royal editor Clive Goodman, also face charges over illegal payments to public officials, which they deny. Full Story | Top |
| Nirvana, KISS among Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 10:21 AM PDT  By Chris Michaud NEW YORK (Reuters) - Grunge band Nirvana, flamboyant rockers KISS, country-rock singer Linda Ronstadt and chart-toppers Hall and Oates were among artists being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Thursday, at a ceremony marked by expectations that many inductees will either not perform or show up at all. Ronstadt, who revealed last year that she is battling Parkinson's disease, will not attend, while neither KISS nor the surviving members of Nirvana -- founder Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994 aged 27 -- is expected to perform. Full Story | Top |
| 'Star Trek' concert tour pairs films with symphony orchestra Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 09:22 AM PDT  Fans of "Star Trek" will soon be able to follow the adventures of the crew of the USS Enterprise in their favorite films as the popular franchise goes where it has never gone before, with screenings accompanied by a symphony orchestra. Director J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot of "Star Trek" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" will be shown on the big screen in high definition accompanied by live music. "The events will celebrate the extraordinary collaboration between film and music as Michael Giacchino's scores are brought to life on stage," organizers said in a statement. The "Star Trek: Live in Concert" tour will begin with two performances in Lucerne, Switzerland next month followed by three more in London before moving to Houston, San Diego and Philadelphia in July and Toronto next March. Full Story | Top |
| Telecom Italia inks content deal with 21st Century Fox unit Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 08:55 AM PDT  Telecom Italia has signed a deal with Sky Italia to sell pay-TV content for the unit of Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox to its clients from 2015, the companies said on Thursday. The deal could make Telecom Italia's broadband offerings more attractive at a time when the phone group is carrying out costly network upgrades to boost Internet speeds and help it win customers in a recovering domestic market. "The Sky offer becomes the key element of Telecom Italia's ultrabroadband strategy, and access to the new generation network allows Sky to benefit from an additional distribution platform for its programmes," they said in a joint statement. Customers of Telecom Italia will be able to get all content of Sky Italia, which includes top-flight soccer and movies, at the same price without subscribing to a separate satellite package. Full Story | Top |
| ABC News names James Goldston president Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 08:48 AM PDT (Reuters) - ABC News on Thursday appointed James Goldston as president, succeeding Ben Sherwood, who was named co-chairman of Disney Media Networks and president of Disney/ABC Television Group. Goldston is currently the senior vice president responsible for content and development at ABC News and has worked closely with Sherwood over the past three years. Goldston joined ABC in 2004 after leading Britain's current affair program "Tonight with Trevor McDonald." He served in several positions at ABC, including executive producer of Nightline, catapulting the program to first from third place. ... Full Story | Top |
| Rupert Murdoch can see all-digital N.Y. Post in 10 years: report Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 07:36 AM PDT  (Reuters) - Media mogul Rupert Murdoch can envision his tabloid newspaper the New York Post as an all-digital publication in 10 years, he said during an interview with Fortune magazine published on Thursday. Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp and 21st Century Fox, acknowledged that the paper lost $40 million in 2012, hit by declines in advertising revenue. We are working very hard on the digital edition," he said. Murdoch gives the Wall Street Journal, which he purchased in 2007, at least 20 years before it goes all-digital. Full Story | Top |
| Hollywood heavyweights put climate change manifesto on TV Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 05:30 AM PDT  By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As temperatures continue to rise and habitats come under threat, a group of Hollywood heavyweights is seeking to bring the spotlight back on climate change with a new documentary. "Years of Living Dangerously," a nine-part documentary beginning Sunday on CBS Corp's premium cable network Showtime, chronicles the human impact on the global climate and the consequences for humans of climate change. From the disappearing forests of Indonesia to the increasing frequency of California's wildfires and the crippling Texas drought, the documentary wants to put the focus back on an issue that has lost visibility since the days of the 2006 Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." "This is such a critical time," said James Cameron, best known as director of blockbuster films "Titanic" and "Avatar" and an executive producer on "Years of Living Dangerously." "The devastation to the planet that we'll be experiencing in the next century is really, I think, pretty unfathomable for most people, and I think that what the series can do is to bring it home and make it real, make it real in people terms." To do that, Cameron appealed to well-known Hollywood actors to act as correspondents, including Harrison Ford, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Jessica Alba, Michael C. Hall and Arnold Schwarzenegger, also an executive producer on the documentary. Full Story | Top |
| Crime king Jo Nesboe's tale of revenge has echoes of his own father Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 02:28 AM PDT  By Gwladys Fouche OSLO (Reuters) - Jo Nesboe, one of Scandinavia's most successful crime writers, explores revenge and father-son dramas in his latest thriller "The Son", which tracks his own story of learning his father had fought with Hitler's army. Together with Sweden's Stieg Larsson and fellow Norwegian Karin Fossum, Nesboe is one of the biggest stars of the Nordic Noir genre that has enthralled legions of international readers by exploring the darker side of these prosperous societies. Full Story | Top |
| Mummified singer is star of new British Museum exhibition Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 02:26 AM PDT  By Michael Roddy LONDON (Reuters) - A singer is the star of the show in a new exhibition of mummies at the British Museum for which modern medical scanners have been used to examine eight bodies and find out what they looked like, how they lived and how they died. The technology has helped the researchers to look through bandages and inside mummy cases that have never been opened, take images of amulets and statues stored with the body, and reproduce those objects for display at the exhibition "Ancient lives, new discoveries" which opens on May 22. "We're getting much greater precision," said John Taylor, assistant keeper of the museum's Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, from which the eight mummies forming the exhibition were taken. Full Story | Top |
| Book Talk: Actor Robert Wagner on his long career in Hollywood Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 02:05 AM PDT  By Billy Cheung NEW YORK (Reuters) - Six years after releasing his best-selling autobiography, veteran actor Robert Wagner recalls his early years and favorite haunts in Hollywood in a new memoir, "You Must Remember This." The book, written with Scott Eyman, chronicles not only Wagner's favorite places as he gained fame as a television and film actor but also the historical development of Hollywood and greater Los Angeles prior to becoming a movie-star destination. He is married to actress Jill St John. Wagner's former wife, "West Side Story" actress Natalie Wood, drowned in 1981 at the age of 43. A: My co-author, Scott Eyman, is so knowledgeable about Hollywood and he knows the background. Full Story | Top |
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