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"Treme's" Unique Star: New Orleans
Source:
Michael Ricci
The music, the food, the culture, the disasters. The show brings the Big Easy to life in a natural, jazzy way.
Shooting has just wrapped for the season on HBO's “Treme," and Khandi Alexander is packing up, trying to fit Zulu parade coconuts and Mardis Gras beads into her boxes along with an overflow of bittersweet memories. “What we've gone through down here in the past few months it seems surreal. I don't have the vocabulary to describe it," says ...
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Summer Screenings Jack Sheldon's "Trying to Get Good"
Source:
All About Jazz
“Jack was in the Edwards Air Force Base Band. He got sick and had to check into the base hospital. He went missing.
The faint sound of a trumpet could be heard and it was finally discovered in a dirty linen closet. Jack had covered himself in old sheets and blankets so he could practice. When a nurse opened the door, he asked her to 'turn out the lights.'
True story. I was in the same band. Jack ...
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Underscoring Richard Wagner's Influence on Film Music
Source:
Michael Ricci
You may not know his 'Ring,' but if you've seen 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Star Wars' you've entered his musical universe.
Max Steiner's application of music at a critical moment in “Gone With the Wind" can be compared to Wagner's use of Siegfried's funeral music late in “Gotterdammerung." Max Steiner, the pioneering film composer who wrote the music for “King Kong" and “Gone With the Wind," was once complimented as the man who invented modern movie music. “Nonsense," he ...
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Christopher Nolan's Dim View of a Hollywood Craze: 'I'm Not a Huge Fan of 3-D'
Source:
Michael Ricci
Christopher Nolan, speaking at the Hero Complex Film Festival, was cheered loudly by the audience when he made a moviegoer confession: “I'm not a huge fan of 3-D."
The director of “The Dark Knight" added that, after doing 3-D tests, his new film “Inception" will not be released in the trendy stereoscopic format because “we didn't have time to do it to the standards that I would be happy with." Then, the professorial 39-year-old filmmaker, who burst on the scene ...
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Federal Commission Approves Box-Office Futures Trading
Source:
Michael Ricci
Box-office futures have passed a final regulatory hurdle, clearing the way for the first bets to be placed in the near future, and overcoming objections by Hollywood that sought to block it.
In a 3-2 vote, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Monday afternoon approved a contract created by the company Media Derivatives that would allow traders to bet on the gross receipts that a movie pulls in during its opening weekend. Media Derivatives already won CFTC approval for the ...
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Simon & Garfunkel Come Together for Unexpected Mrs. Robinson
Source:
Michael Ricci
Hollywood's A-List turns out to celebrate Mike Nichols at AFI tribute
The ambiance at the Sony Pictures Studios soundstage, where Judy Garland once walked down the Yellow Brick Road, had a couple of differences from the Academy Awards: The tribute for the 78-year-old was more intimate and, as Helen Mirren said while waiting for her car after the festivities, “there was lots of love in the room."
How much?
Enough to warrant a surprise appearance by Simon & Garfunkel performing ...
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What is That Weird Hum During World Cup Games?
Source:
All About Jazz
Is there something wrong with your television set, or has a swarm of angry bees invaded the World Cup pitch?
Neither the strange noise you're hearing during today's World Cup games (and for the rest of the tournament, presumably) is the sound of thousands of vuvuzelas. But what, pray tell, is a vuvuzela? A vuvuzela is a long plastic horn popular with South African soccer fans, who blow them en masse during games. Played by producing a raspberry sound with ...
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Laurent Medelgi Scores New Michael Jackson Documentary "Gone Too Soon".
Source:
Michael Ricci
Laurent Medelgi scores new Michael Jackson Documentary “Gone Too Soon"(Reveille/Shine production). Appointed sole composer for this in-depth look at the last 6 months of Michael's Life with never-seen-before footage of the King of Pop and his entourage. “I had to move away from the hustle and bustle of New york City in order to really channel the energy of Michael in my work", says Medelgi. “This man was all about Love and suffered a great deal emotionally. It was clear ...
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