Concert promoter sued over Michael Jackson death
By Jill Serjeant
LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson's mother and his three children filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Wednesday against the promoters of a series of planned concerts by the singer before his death last year.
The civil lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Katherine Jackson, accuses promoter AEG Live of "putting its desire for massive profits" over the health and safety of the "Thriller" singer.
It said that AEG was liable for the actions of Jackson's personal doctor and alleged that the promoter had failed to provide proper life-saving equipment for Jackson.
"AEG's action and inactions led to Michael Jackson's death on June 25, 2009," the lawsuit said, accusing the promoter of negligence, breach of contract and fraud.
A spokesman for privately held AEG Live, a subsidiary of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, said he had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.
Jackson died of cardiac arrest at age 50 in Los Angeles in June 2009 after returning from rehearsals just days before the planned start of 50 London concerts.
Los Angeles coroner's officials have ruled Jackson's death a homicide and said he died mainly from a powerful anesthetic used as a sleep aid, as well as other sedatives and painkillers.
"The purpose of this lawsuit is to prove to the world the truth about what happened to Michael Jackson, once and for all," Katherine Jackson's lawyer Brian Panish said in a statement.
The singer's personal physician Dr Conrad Murray, who was hired by AEG Live, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's death and is awaiting trial in Los Angeles.
Jackson's family have previously expressed disappointment at the criminal charge against Murray, saying it does not go far enough. The singer's father Joe in June filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Murray but did not name AEG.
Kenny Ortega, director of the planned "This is It" series of concerts, was also named as a defendant in Wednesday's lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.
The suit claims that Jackson appeared drugged and disoriented at rehearsals in the days before his death and that on June 24 he was shivering. AEG, it claimed, was aware of his condition but did not postpone any rehearsals or alter his "grueling schedule."
The civil action also seeks damages for emotional distress on behalf of Jackson's oldest son, Prince Michael, who the lawsuit said had witnessed his father injured and dying and "has suffered great trauma and severe emotional distress."
Jackson's sudden death caused a worldwide outpouring of grief and sent sales of his many hit records soaring after a career slump that had followed the entertainer's 2005 trial and acquittal on charges of molesting a young boy.
Legendary UK TV pub landlady bows out
LONDON (AFP) - – One of Britain's best-loved television characters, pub landlady Peggy Mitchell, bowed out on Friday after 16 years at the heart of long-running BBC soap "EastEnders".
Mitchell was played by 73-year-old actress Barbara Windsor, who found fame as a buxom blonde in the "Carry On" movies of the 1960s and 1970s.
Since 1994 Windsor has played the loveable, no-nonsense landlady of the Queen Victoria boozer in the show, set in east London. Mitchell's catchphrase was screeching "Get out of my pub!" as another unwelcome customer got the boot.
"EastEnders", the BBC's most popular domestic programme, is celebrating 25 years on television this year.
In Thursday's episode viewers were left with a cliffhanger as the Queen Vic, which has in the past counted Queen Elizabeth II among its customers, went up in flames following a typically explosive family row.
The BBC, which broadcasts the show in Britain and on BBC Worldwide, had been tight-lipped about how Mitchell would leave the show.
But the matriarch walked out of the soap's Albert Square on Friday, after a turning round for a farewell glance at the charred Queen Vic.
She begged her crack addict son Phil to leave with her but after he accused her of having put the pub before him, she bade a string of emotional goodbyes and left alone to start afresh.
She delivered her final line with a tear in her eye, telling Phil: "Go back inside, love. Go on, I'll be fine. Go on, darling, go back inside."
Deneuve, Depardieu at Venice filmfest
VENICE (AFP) - – French cinema icons Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu came together again at the Venice film festival on Saturday as the oddest of couples in a farce with attitude: "Potiche".
Based on a play of the same name, the comedy relates the unlikely transformation of bourgeois housewife Suzanne Pujol (Deneuve) into company executive and her complex relationship with Babin, a dyed-in-the-wool unionist played by Depardieu, 61.
The title posed a special challenge to translators: they rendered it as "trophy wife" in English -- though the elegant Suzanne is a stay-at-home first wife -- and a sarcastic "my brilliant wife" in Italian.
In any case, Deneuve's character rejects the role and plunges headlong into running her ailing husband's umbrella factory and mollifying the workforce before going on to run for mayor -- against Babin.
"The situation for women has improved, but slowly" since 1977, when the action of "Potiche" takes place, Deneuve told reporters, noting that "men and women are still treated differently today, especially in terms of salary."
The 66-year-old French legend, though clearly at home in the role of Suzanne and a veteran of numerous other comedies, insisted she was not a comic actress.
"It's a genre I like very much which is very difficult," said Deneuve, radiant in a white suit.
Director Francois Ozon, 42, who first worked with Deneuve in "8 Women" the 2002 film that won him international acclaim, said he was surprised to have a comedy selected for the competition.
"In France, people love comedies, but they don't respect them," he said.
Ozon is among several young directors in a decidedly youthful line-up selected by festival chief Marco Mueller for this year's Mostra, which runs through September 11.
The world's oldest film festival kicked off on Wednesday with 41-year-old US director Darren Aronofsky's psychological thriller "Black Swan", while Sofia Coppola, 39, unveiled her father-daughter drama "Somewhere", set in Hollywood, on Friday.
Still to come in the competition for the coveted Golden Lion here is "Promises Written on Water", about a girl with a terminal illness, by 49-year-old Vincent Gallo.
Also in the under-50 crowd is Quentin Tarantino, 47, who heads the jury.
Saturday featured another comedy, "La Passione" by Carlo Mazzacurati of Italy starring the prolific Silvio Orlando.
He plays a washed-up filmmaker forced to set his last-chance project in Tuscany after a plumbing disaster at his country home damages a 16th-century fresco in a neighbouring chapel.
As a bizarre form of compensation, the mayor asks him to lead Good Friday ceremonies -- so the story of the Passion becomes his film, starring a local actor who happens to be an egomaniac.
Mazzacurati said the film offered portraits of "creatures who because of their sensitivity are exposed more than others to life's difficulties."
He added: "Sometimes they make you laugh, but my tendency is to be moved by them."
"Ovsyanki" (Silent Souls) by Russian director Aleksei Fedorchenko is the sombre story of a member of Russia's minority Merya culture who, accompanied by a friend and some caged birds, drives thousands of miles to bury his wife in a sacred lake.
"At first these characters seem simple and common, but in fact they harbour an internal richness that you can see only if you look closely," said Fedorchenko, who won a documentary award here in 2005 for "First on the Moon".
On Sunday, the Mostra, now its 67th edition, will present US director's Kelly Reichart's "Meek's Cutoff" about the American frontier culture; Hong Kong New Waver Tsui Hark's epic mystery film "Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame"; and "Post Mortem," set in Chile during the 1973 coup, by Pablo Larrain.
Egypt antiquities chief slams Ramadan TV Cleopatra:
CAIRO (AFP) - – A television series about ancient Egypt's Queen Cleopatra, broadcast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, has sparked the ire of the country's antiquities supremo for being "unrealistic."
"The series does not depict historical reality, and the events described have nothing to do with those that marked the time of Cleopatra in Egypt," Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told AFP.
The first Arab-produced series to focus on the legendary queen had been highly awaited, with the title role played by Syrian actress Sulaf Fawakherji.
"The way of life depicted in the series does not correspond with that in Egypt after it merged with the Greco-Ptolemaic civilisation," Hawass added, criticising the costumes and sets in the production.
Egypt's Tarek Siam, who produced the series, has said he had no intention of making a historically accurate depiction of ancient Egypt in Cleopatra's time, but meant to focus on the queen's personality.
This has not mollified the critics, however.
One of Egypt's best-known cinema critics, Tarek al-Shennawi, slammed the production as "an offence against art."
Cleopatra, famously portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 Hollywood blockbuster "Cleopatra" in which her Roman lover Mark Antony was played by Richard Burton, reigned in Egypt more than 2,000 years ago.
The lovers committed suicide after their joint forces were routed by the Roman Emperor Octavian in the sea battle of Actium.
Each year Ramadan in the Middle East is marked by television specials broadcast during the hours of darkness when Muslims gather at home with family to break their fast with the iftar meal and to socialise.
Multiplexes to add 200 screens as realty sector picks up steam
NEW DELHI: Multiplex chains are expected to add over 200 screens before March 2011 as some of the mall projects that were delayed due to the downturn in the real estate sector are being completed now.
Many of such projects were pending due to lack of demand for space from retailers as well as funds with property builders to complete construction due to the economic slowdown. Although some see it as an early sign of a recovery for the retail segment of real estate, others believe multiplex owners will face fresh hurdles to expansion in the next two years as developers are still cautious in initiating new mall projects as retailers are not expanding so furiously.
Rajeev Talwar, executive director at DLF said: “It will take another successful festive season and monsoon to assure developers to expand their retail business further, which is expected to happen in the next fiscal.”
Although this has not stopped top multiplex players including Big Cinemas, PVR and Inox Leisure from chalking out big expansion plans, Milan Saini managing director of Mexican firm Cinepolis, one of the recent entrants to the business said the future looks tough. “Going by the cautious approach of developers to take on new mall projects we are not sure if our targets of adding screens would be met at the pace we would like it to be,” he said.
The largest multiplex operator Big Cinemas plans to add 60 screens in India this year to its existing 263 screens . Tushar Dhingra, COO at Big Cinemas said, “The multiplex industry could face a mismatch between supply and demand in the next 24 months due to paucity of fresh mall development.”
Recovery in the retail segment of real estate is dependent on two factors: availability of space at competitive rates and improvement in consumer sentiment. With improving job opportunities, consumer spending has already perked up with sales of cars and other big ticket items like LCD televisions growing at high double-digit rates.
Fresh supply of space in malls went up by as much as 54% to 4.17 million square feet in the first half of this year largely due to real estate firms chalking out expansion plans to complete their pending projects, as per estimates of real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield. The company’s managing director Anurag Mathur said, “Retail real estate has picked up but it has not reached the same frenzy of the boom period of 2006-07.”
After the economic slowdown led to sharp correction of asset prices, realty firms had shifted focus to affordable housing category over the last two years. Although sales in residential segment have recovered, demand for commercial and retail real estate is yet to perk up significantly as companies are cautious on expanding.
Aamir Khan's midas touch strikes gold for Peepli Live.
Aamir Khan Production's Peepli [Live] made a table profit of Rs 40 million and proved to be a profitable venture to its producers even before its release. The film was made on a budget of approximately Rs 100 million (including marketing costs) and recovered its investment even before its release by selling its satellite rights for Rs 100 million and music rights for Rs 40 million. So whatever the film earns from its theatrical revenues will add to its profits.
Forget stars, the cast of the film has no known names (excluding Naseeruddin Shah in a special appearance). Yet the midas touch of Aamir Khan is such that the film struck gold at the box-office on its opening day raking up about Rs 70 million. The weekend was very strong with collections getting better on Saturday and Sunday. "Peepli Live has opened extremely well. What is surprising is the reaction from single screens - it opened to almost 90 to 95 percent in single screens," said a source close to Aamir.
Aamir in a statement said, "Initially, we had planned to open with 200 screens. But the reaction to the promos and trailers has been most encouraging. We are trying to react to the perceived demand to the film". Peepli Live had the widest film release ever for a non star cast Hindi film. It hit 600 screens in India and 100 in overseas markets, except Britain on Friday.
It is important to mention here that though the film is extremely good on content, had Aamir Khan's name not been associated with the project it wouldn't have got as humongous response like it has got now. Though the actor is not involved creatively with the project, the widespread reach and the brand value that he brings to the product has clearly given more exposure and added to the revenues.
Peepli [Live] was screened at several prominent international film festivals from Sundance, Berlin, Melbourne and Durban. But unlike most festival films that only win applause and lose on commerce, Peepli [Live] is doing good business. That's also got to do with the fact that the film is not outright arty but is a social satire that tickles the audiences' funny bone to a large extent. Finally a good film is a good film!
What also helped Peepli [Live] do decent business is the fact that the other release of the week Help went unnoticed. Despite having bigger stars (Bobby Deol, Mughda Godse) in it's cast as compared to Peepli Live (Raghuveer Yadav, Omkar Das Manikpuri), Help was low on publicity and Aamir Khan was a bigger brand. Being a shoddy horror film added to its woes.
Last week's Aisha showed a drop in its business. Milan Luthria's Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai is still playing in theatres in its third week - a rare feat in present times.
The coming week sees the release of Yash Raj Films' Lafangey Parindey. Starring Neil Mukesh and Deepika Padukone in lead roles, this film directed by Pradeep Sarkar is an action drama. The other two releases are no competition to this YRF film.
Amol Palekar's And Once Again starring Antra Mali, Rituparna Sengupta, Rajat Kapoor caters to the arthouse audiences. The other film Kis Hudh Tak about a rape victim falls in the B-grade category
"Eat Pray Love" marks writing debut for actress.
Writer Jennifer Salt arrives for the premiere of "Eat Pray Love" in New York August 10, 2010.
By Jenelle Riley
LOS ANGELES - Jennifer Salt has the distinction of breaking into and succeeding in the competitive world of the entertainment industry twice.
Her first go-round was as an actor, appearing in such classic films as "Midnight Cowboy" and starring as spoiled Eunice Tate on "Soap."
But Salt says she eventually "lost the love" for acting and turned to writing, where she found even greater success. After seven seasons as a writer and producer on Ryan Murphy's "Nip/Tuck," Salt now finds herself in theaters with her first produced screenplay, "Eat Pray Love." Salt and Murphy adapted Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir about leaving her comfortable marriage and journeying to three countries -- Italy, India, and Bali -- to find herself. Salt, her own life marked with opportunities and coincidences, seemed destined to write the film.
She was born in 1944 to actor Mary Davenport and screenwriter Waldo Salt, who survived the Hollywood blacklist and won two Academy Awards, for his scripts for "Coming Home" and "Midnight Cowboy." All her life, people had told Jennifer Salt she would make a good writer, but she resisted.
"I never wrote," she says of her early years. "I also never really thought about being an actor. But when it was time to go to high school, we couldn't afford private school, so I tried out for all the special schools in New York."
With a monologue her mother coached her on, Salt auditioned for a performing arts school and got in. After that, she attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she became friends with actor Jill Clayburgh and director Brian De Palma, who was a graduate student.
Though Salt got "great parts" at Sarah Lawrence, upon graduation, she says, "I lost my nerve about going out there and auditioning and supporting myself as an actor." She took a day job instead. "It was a very, very unhappy time," she admits. "Fortunately, Jill Clayburgh was a member of the company at the Charles Playhouse in Boston, and she brought me to meet the head of the playhouse, Michael Murray, who kindly cast me in a very small role in a production of 'MacBird!'"
A political satire starring Stacy Keach, "MacBird!" moved to Off-Broadway. Regional theater followed, though Salt says those roles were nothing of note. Then her father wrote the screenplay for "Midnight Cowboy," and Salt met director John Schlesinger. "My dad had thought of this little part for me, almost an extra part," she recalls. "But when I met with John, he cast me in a bit of a larger role." The role of "Crazy Annie" was largely physical, as the character appears in flashbacks making love with Joe . So Michael Childers, who was Schlesinger's lover and assistant, shot footage of Salt running through the park and talking in a Texas accent, which served as her screen test.
Salt soon found herself living the Hollywood life, dating Voight, hanging out with Martin Scorsese, and at one point living with Margot Kidder. Other roles followed, including "Murder a la Mod" and "Sisters," both directed by De Palma.
She went on to spend five years on "Soap." But when the show ended in 1981, Salt was a single mother, approaching 40, in a business that valued the hot new thing. "I was doing nice guest shots on TV, but it just wasn't happening in a creative and fulfilling way," she says. "The roles I was up for -- mostly mom roles -- were dreary. And my enthusiasm for working on them and for auditions was very low."
She had an epiphany. "Over the course of your life, you realize more and more who you are and how you want to spend your time," she reflects. "And it became clearer and clearer that I was very unhappy as an actress and didn't feel comfortable in my own skin. When I was younger I thought it was because I wasn't successful enough. But as I got older I realized it had more to do with the fact that I just didn't love it."
Salt's father died 1987. Shortly thereafter, she enrolled in her first writing class. "I think in some ways his presence and his talent were so enormous that there had been no room for me to find my own voice," she notes. "Not that he had ever crowded me out deliberately; it was just the nature of it. He was so brilliant and awe-inspiring to everyone around me that I just wouldn't have known how to find my way." Over two years, Salt wrote her first screenplay, "Ain't Over Til It's Over," about a woman turning 40 who recently lost her father and finds her life is up for grabs. It landed Salt an agent, meetings, and her first two paid screenwriting jobs.
Salt was soon supporting herself as a writer, even though none of her screenplays were produced. She also became active in a writers group. "It's been my saving grace, my way of surviving the loneliness of being a writer in isolation," she notes. One day, a member of the group brought in Murphy, who immediately clicked with Salt. When Murphy created "Nip/Tuck," he invited her to come on board the writing staff.
One day in 2006, Murphy mentioned to Salt that he was reading "Eat Pray Love" -- the book was not yet the worldwide phenomenon it would become -- and said the character reminded of him of Salt. "He meant her voice," she explains. "Her self-deprecating humor. And he also knew that I had a past as a quote-unquote seeker." Salt and Gilbert had more in common than Murphy knew: The guru who taught Gilbert was a protegee of the guru Salt studied under in the 1970s.
Murphy signed on to direct "Eat Pray Love" and asked Salt to co-write the script with him. It wasn't an easy translation from page to screen; sections of Gilbert struggling to meditate weren't necessarily filmic. And Salt admits there was concern about making Gilbert . Says Salt, "How do you make that someone you want to know and want to watch? How do you create a marriage that isn't one-sided where he's just a big jerk?" Salt says the scene was written over and over again. "And as good as we got it, Billy Crudup made it even better," Salt notes. "He truly found that character."
Salt is currently adapting another book, "While I'm Falling," about a mother-daughter relationship. She is also working on a pilot for HBO based on Rachel DeWoskin's expatriate memoir "Foreign Babes in Beijing." Perhaps the only regret of Salt's writing career is that her father didn't have the opportunity to witness her success. "I feel like he knew I was waiting to discover myself as a writer," she says. "He always told people I had a gift."
Kristen Bell cast in indie ballet comedy.
By Borys Kit
LOS ANGELES - Kristen Bell is putting on her ballet slippers for "Dance of the Mirlitons," giving the indie black comedy a second shot at the big screen.
With the "Gossip Girl" actress on board, writer/director Evan Greenberg and producers Daniel Dubiecki and Joel Michaely are now focusing on their a nationwide casting search for a young actress to play a precocious 10- to 12-year old.
"We're looking to discover an unknown," said Greenberg, adding he hopes to go down the route of movies such as "Billy Elliot" and "Little Miss Sunshine," both of which uncovered talented youngsters .
Greenberg's script centers on an ambitious, slightly overweight ballerina with an overbearing mother who will stop at nothing to become a star. The girl enters a "Mean Girls"-type environment when she has to prove her worth in class.
The story's first iteration was as a short story Greenberg wrote in middle school, which he turned into 50 pages of a script while attending NYU film school. "Mirlitons" generated enough heat to get picked up by Warner Independent, but when that division shuttered in 2008, the script became homeless.
"It took me a few years to get the rights back," said Greenberg. "Once I got the rights back, it was about the right partner."
That's when he met Dubiecki and Michaely. Dubiecki is an Oscar-nominated producer for "Up in the Air," and is a producer on "Passion Play," the Mickey Rourke-Megan Fox pic that will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival next month. Michaely is an actor who is moving into the producing world.
Dubiecki and Michaely made casting the mom a priority, figuring that a name lead would get the ball rolling in terms of securing financing.
"Kristen's combination of comedic timing and authenticity will bring this character to the next level, and give this crossover appeal," said Dubiecki.
The producers are location-scouting and hope to begin shooting in winter. Greenberg attributes his dedication to staying with the script to his unique connection with it. "I've never felt about anything like I do about this. It's etched in my psyche.
"I hope that one day people will talk about how it was one of those movie that came together, fell apart, came together again. The best projects are the ones that take the most elbow grease to get made."
US-ENTERTAINMENT Summary
Charlie Sheen's wife feared for life during assault
LOS ANGELES - Brooke Mueller, the wife of actor Charlie Sheen, feared for her life as the Hollywood star pinned her to their bed and put a knife to her throat during a Christmas Day argument last year, according to a newly released police report. Last week, Sheen pleaded guilty to assaulting Mueller during the argument in Aspen, Colorado, and he was ordered to serve 30 days in drug and alcohol rehabilitation in California. The police report details the extent to which Mueller was hurt and tells how Sheen, star of hit sitcom "Two and a Half Men," reacted when being questioned by police.
Witherspoon moving from June Carter to Peggy Lee
LOS ANGELES - Reese Witherspoon is working her way through the classic American songbook. The actress, who won an Oscar in 2005 for portraying June Carter in "Walk the Line," is pulling together an untitled biopic about Peggy Lee with writer-director Nora Ephron, reports Variety. Though Witherspoon is still negotiating to star, she is producing the Fox 2000 project with Marc Platt.
Can anything derail "Glee" from Emmy glory?
LOS ANGELES - It's a sign of just how much the genre has shifted recently that the front-runner in the best comedy series Emmy Awards category -- for the first time in more than a decade -- is an hourlong comed-drama. Overlooked are such classic three-camera, laugh-track vehicles as "Two and a Half Men," "How I Met Your Mother" and "The Big Bang Theory," none of which made it into the final six nominees this year, despite the growing popularity of the latter in particular.
Portia de Rossi aims to change name to DeGeneres
LOS ANGELES - Comedian Ellen DeGeneres' spouse Portia de Rossi has filed a legal request to change her name to "Portia Lee James DeGeneres," according to a court document. The request was filed on August 6 in Los Angeles, but the document, which was posted on the Internet by E! Online, shows that de Rossi signed it in late March.
"Jersey Shore" cast never planned on stopping work
LOS ANGELES - The "Jersey Shore" cast was never going to stop
Levi Johnston to run for mayor in reality pitch
LOS ANGELES , which confirmed it is shooting a pilot with Johnston and pitching the concept to networks.
Vampires reign at Teen Choice awards
NEW YORK - The fascination with vampires continues to reign over U.S. pop culture as blood-sucking stories dominated the Teen Choice awards with the "Twilight" films and "The Vampire Diaries" TV show winning the most surfboard trophies. "The Twilight Saga" films scored twelve wins, including choice fantasy movie for sequel "New Moon" and best summer movie for the series' third film, "Eclipse," as well as awards for its stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.
Rod Stewart, Penny Lancaster expecting second child
LOS ANGELES - Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Rod Stewart is expecting a second child with his wife, model-photographer Penny Lancaster, Stewart's spokeswoman said on Monday. The couple's first child is 4-year-old Alastair Wallace.
Accused Jennifer Aniston stalker gets stay away order
LOS ANGELES - A California court official on Monday issued a stay away order against a man accused of stalking Jennifer Aniston and laying in wait for the actress with a sharp object, a bag, duct tape and written messages for her. Santa Monica Superior Court Commissioner David A. Cowen ordered 24-year-old Jason Peyton to stay away from Aniston's home and anywhere she is working for the next three years.
"Avatar" sequels could shoot back-to-back
LOS ANGELES - Deals for an "Avatar" sequel -- or two -- are being worked on. First though, creator James Cameron told MTV that he is focused on finishing his "Avatar" novel before getting started on a sequel. Cameron hinted that the final two parts of the planned trilogy could be lumped together into a single production
