The machines rise again in tedious "Fallen"

By Ray Bennett
LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) - Designed to give devoted fans of the 2007 "Transformers," which grossed more than $700 million worldwide, more of the same, Michael Bay's sequel "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a nonstop whirl of flying, battling and crashing machinery.
Characters and comedy are in short supply in a plot that's basically an Indiana Jones-style search for a buried treasure, in this case a 1,000-year-old matrix that will give life back to Optimus Prime, one of the alien robots who is on the side of humans in their fight against the evil Decepticons who are out to destroy them.
With Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox back as the leads and massive battles involving ships, planes, tanks, rockets and industrial-level shape-changing machines, the Paramount release, which opens stateside Wednesday (June 24), will make another huge dent in the global box office.
With its intelligence at the level of the simple-minded, however, the film is not likely to attract moviegoers who seek something more than a screen filled with kaleidoscopes of colored metal. Fanboys will no doubt love it, but for the uninitiated it's loud, tedious and, at 147 minutes, way too long.
LaBeouf's nerdy character, Sam, is off to college in this one. He barely has time to meet his new roommates before the war games begin. Fox's hot-chick car mechanic, Mikaela, has come to visit, and the two are soon off on the international hunt for the missing matrix.
Sam's nitwit parents (Kevin Dunn, Julie White) are on holiday in Europe. They also get involved, along with college fellow Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) and Simmons (John Turturro), a former agent who now works at his mother's butcher shop. Rainn Wilson ("The Office") is wasted in one scene as a snarky professor.
Tyrese Gibson and Josh Duhamel return as stalwart soldiers, and there's the expected army of assorted vehicles and mechanical implements that can become nasty metallic beasts in a flash. The long climax takes place in the Egyptian desert, with ancient secrets to be found inside the pyramids and explosions all around.
Bay's team of four editors stitch together smashing but meaningless images, though it's as difficult to make out which machine is which as it is to tell what anyone is saying. The noise level -- not helped by Steve Jablonsky's relentless score -- is super-intense, and everyone yells lines at high speed. Because nothing they're saying makes any sense, it's hardly important.
LaBeouf gets little chance to show what charm he might have. Fox has little to do except look great in a tank top and tight jeans while running in slow motion through flying sand.

Source: Reuters

Cohen camps it up as Queen's guard for UK premiere

By Cindy Martin and Mike Collett-White
LONDON (Reuters) - British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen adopted his latest guise as an outrageous gay Austrian fashion reporter on Wednesday for the London premiere of "Bruno," which hits cinemas in most territories next month.
Hoping to replicate the success of his surprise 2006 box office hit "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," the 37-year-old has been typically over-the-top in promoting Bruno.
On Wednesday evening he led a brass band and dressed as a camped-up member of the Queen's guard, complete with towering bearskin hat, sleeveless red tunic revealing his midriff, ultra-tight black hotpants and knee-length boots.
Sticking to his habit of appearing only in character, he addressed the crowd in central London and called Bruno "the most important movie starring a gay Austrian since 'Terminator 2,'" a joking reference to Austrian Terminator star, and now California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Cohen has also appeared naked on the cover of the latest edition of GQ magazine and last month staged a successful publicity stunt at the MTV Movie Awards in the United States.
After spinning in a harness above the audience at the show, he landed face down in the lap of rap artist Eminem, exposing his naked buttocks in the process.
Eminem stormed out, although he has since confirmed that he was in on the joke.
Asked about the GQ cover shot, Cohen told Reuters at the premiere: "I didn't even know they were filming that. I would never have posed. I don't try to get attention myself. The last thing I wanted would be to be the most famous Austrian since Hitler."
Asked what he wanted to do next, he replied: "Ich really want to win a Nobel prize."
And of his previous big screen incarnation, he said:
"You know, I just saw this movie called 'Borat'. To be honest, I found it a really offensive portrayal of a foreigner. There's a guy who acts it apparently called Sacha Baron Cohen. That guy is clearly gay."
Fans flocked to Borat, a fake documentary about a Kazakh journalist traveling across the United States that used comedy to expose bigotry. It earned $128 million at U.S. and Canadian box offices and $133 million in other countries.
Bruno is also a "mockumentary" that follows the fashion reporter after he loses his job in Austria and goes to America looking to become a celebrity.
His unscripted encounters with everyday Americans and prominent figures, who think he is real, often prompt strong reactions to Bruno's in-your-face sexuality.
While Universal Pictures, the studio behind Bruno, has said the film's intention is to satirize homophobia, some gay advocates are worried that Cohen could reinforce negative stereotypes about homosexuals.
(Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: Reuters

Walt Disney museum to focus on man behind brand

By Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Walt Disney is a global brand with film studios and theme parks bearing his name, but now his family are unveiling a museum to tell the story of the animation pioneer they say has been lost behind the trademark.
The Walt Disney Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization established in 1995 to promote education and writing about Disney as well as scholarships in his name, will open the Walt Disney Family Museum on October 1 in San Francisco.
"My father's name is probably one of the most well-known names around the world, but as the 'brand' or trademark has spread, for many, the man has become lost," Disney's daughter and museum founder, Diane Disney Miller, said in a statement.
The museum will trace Disney's life from his birth in Chicago and childhood in Missouri to his move to California in 1920s, where he married and his animation career took off with the creation of the "Mickey Mouse" character.
Among the exhibits on display will be early animation drawings, film clips, scripts, cameras and many of Disney's numerous Academy Awards, including an honorary Oscar in 1939 for his first feature length animation film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
There will also be a model of the Disneyland theme park he first envisioned, quite different from the park that opened in California in 1955, and a model of the Lily Belle train that ran on half a mile of track around his Hollywood home.
"Visiting my grandpa was pretty fun," Walter Miller, the foundation's president, recalled at a launch of the museum in New York on Wednesday.
REVOLUTIONIZED ANIMATION
"Perhaps my grandfather's greatest gift, without question his greatest pleasure, was to bring imagination to life," he said. "He never lost that childhood sense of wonder and of curiosity."
Disney, whose other movies included "Cinderella," "Bambi" and "Mary Poppins," which mixed live action and animation, died in 1966.
John Canemaker, an Academy Award winning animator and animation studies professor at New York University, said at the launch that Disney's development of "personality animation," beginning with Mickey Mouse, revolutionized the industry.
"Within a remarkably short period of time, a mere decade, Disney set the course for animation in the 20th century and beyond," Canemaker said.
"There would be no 'Toy Story' and no Pixar (Walt Disney Co's animation studio) without Disney personality animation, nor other studios that yield to the pantheon of stories and characters that fascinated throughout the years," he said.
Richard Benefield, executive director of the museum, said the Walt Disney Co had made their resources and archives available to the foundation and loaned several exhibits to the museum.
"Walt Disney reached people because he was a magical story teller," he said. "Now it's our turn to tell his story, to narrate the life of someone whose name is often confused with a brand and to present him simply as a human being with an extraordinary vision."
(Editing by Paul Simao)

Source: Reuters

Black Eyed Peas dominate U.S. charts

By Keith Caulfield
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - The Black Eyed Peas scored their first No. 1 album on the U.S. pop charts on Wednesday, buoyed by heavy promotion for their first release in four years, and also claimed the top two spots on the singles chart.
The hip-hop act topped the Billboard 200 with "The E.N.D.," which sold 304,000 copies during the week ended June 14, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the group's best sales week ever.
Their previous set, 2005's "Monkey Business," bowed at No. 2 with a then-best 291,000. Believe it or not, the Black Eyes Peas have hit the top 10 only twice: their first two releases -- 1998's "Behind the Front" and 2000's "Bridging the Gap" -- both missed the top 50. It wasn't until the group recruited Fergie for "Elephunk" in 2003 that it hit the big time. That album, powered by three top-40 singles, peaked at No. 14 and spent 106 weeks on the chart.
It was hard not to know that the Black Eyed Peas had a new album last week, thanks to heavy promotion from Target. The retailer carried an exclusive version of the album that featured additional tracks and flooded the airwaves with a commercial touting the new set.
Over on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, the Peas debuted at No. 2 with "I Gotta Feeling" and held at No. 1 for an 11th week with "Boom Boom Pow." It's the first time any act has occupied the top two slots on the Hot 100 with songs from the No. 1 album of the week since OutKast did it in February 2004. They were Nos. 1 and 2 on the Hot 100 with "Hey Ya!" and "The Way You Move," respectively, while "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" spent its seventh (and final week) atop the Billboard 200.
Last week's albums champ, the Dave Matthews Band's "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King," slipped to No. 2 in its second week with 128,000. Eminem's "Relapse" was down one at No. 3 with 87,000, while "super group" Chickenfoot's self-titled debut album was unchanged at No. 4 with 79,000 copies.
Latin quartet Aventura entered the Billboard 200 at No. 5 with "Last." The disc sold 47,000 copies, the act's best sales week ever.
Lady GaGa's "The Fame" climbed two slots to No. 6, also with 47,000, while the "Hannah Montana" movie soundtrack slipped one to No. 7 with 46,000. Green Day's "21st Century Breakdown" dropped three to No. 8 with 41,000 (down 21 percent).
Mos Def's newest, "Ecstatic," started at No. 9 with 39,000 -- his second top 10 set. Former Pretty Ricky member Pleasure P's solo debut, "The Introduction of Marcus Cooper," entered at No. 10 with just under 39,000.
Overall album sales totaled 6.34 million units, down 0.6 percent compared to the sum last week (6.39 million), but down 31.7 percent compared to the same sales week of 2008 (9.29 million). (Why down so much? It's partly because Lil Wayne notched the biggest sales week of 2008 for an album when his "Tha Carter III" bowed with 1,006,000.)
Year to date album sales stand at 161.4 million, down 14 percent compared to the same total at this point last year (188.6 million).
(Editing by Dean Goodman at Reuters)

Source: Reuters

Judge halts "Catcher in the Rye" spin-off for now

By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge on Wednesday temporarily halted publication of a novel using characters from J.D. Salinger's classic "The Catcher in the Rye" written without the original author's permission.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts issued a temporary restraining order against publication for 10 days at which time she would rule on whether to grant Salinger's legal request to ban its publication in the United States.
The case involves a book entitled "60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye" by a Swedish author, Fredrik Colting, written under the nom de plume John David California that was due to come out later this year.
The new work features a character named "Mr. C" based on Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the 1951 classic.
Salinger, 90, who has lived for decades out of the public eye, sued this month to block its publication.
"This is a case where a sequel has been created without the author's permission," his lawyer, Marcia Paul, told the judge.
Paul said the case was about the right to keep Holden Caulfield "frozen" under Salinger's copyright.
But a lawyer for Colting argued the book came under a fair use exception because it was literary commentary or parody.
"Over the past 60 years he may have become famous ... but that doesn't make him a specially copyrighted character," Edward Rosenthal said of Holden Caulfield.
"This book does comment on Catcher in the Rye and J.D. Salinger and Holden Caulfield," Rosenthal said.
Colting's book examined the fictional relationship between Salinger and Mr. C and was therefore not a sequel.
"The Catcher in the Rye" has been hailed as a classic coming-of-age novel and is commonly taught in American high schools. It begins with Caulfield leaving the boarding school he's been kicked out of and spending a few days wandering around New York. Colting's book begins with Mr. C leaving a retirement home 60 years later. Both end near a carousel in Central Park.
The judge called the books "substantially similar," noting other characters contained in both books and similar sayings and settings including New York parks and museums.
But Rosenthal, who admitted that Mr. C was based on Caulfield, said Colting's book was "not about what happened to Holden Caulfield but it is about J.D. Salinger trying to deal with this character."
Salinger, who has health problems, was not present in court. Since publishing two novellas in 1963, the reclusive author has published little, although a former lover said he wrote every day and had completed two novels. Continued...
Source: Reuters