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09-12-06 EUR ALL ON ONE PAGE
SPIKE LEE DEVELOPS POST-KATRINA NBC DRAMA: 'NoLa' will feature multi-cultural cast and focus on rebuilding in New Orleans.
*Following his critically-acclaimed HBO documentary about Hurricane Katrina and its sobering aftermath, filmmaker Spike Lee is developing a scripted drama for NBC set in New Orleans.
Titled "NoLa," the drama will feature a multi-cultural cast and explore the lives of New Orleans residents from various social and economic backgrounds in the wake of the disaster. Lee will executive produce and direct the project should NBC turn the pilot into a series.
The Brooklyn-born director, who will travel to New Orleans this week
with screenwriter Sid Quashie to meet with residents, says the style of the
pilot will mirror the feel of Italian neorealism, a 1942-52 movement in
Italian cinema reflected in the work of Vittorio De Sica ("The Bicycle
Thief") and Roberto Rossellini.
"It's our goal to make great cinema for television," Lee explained to
the Associated Press. "It's a show about the city trying to rebuild itself
and the people who are trying to put their lives together."
Like his HBO documentary, “NoLa” will include humor and some of the
more colorful folk from “Levees” -- like Phyllis Montana LeBlanc -- as
supporting characters or as fictional versions of themselves.
The pilot will be shot on location in New Orleans with minimal set
design needed. Lee explains: "We don't have to build sets. Things there
still look like the city's been bombed out."
MARIAH CLEANS HOUSE AT BILLBOARD R&B/HIP-HOP AWARDS: Mimi nabs five; Kanye, Foxx, Blige Jeezy also win.
*Just when you thought the Mariah Carey award hoopla had died down
for her album “The Emancipation of Mimi,” here comes the 2006 Billboard
R&B/Hip-Hop Awards to drop five more on the Grammy-winning disc, including
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Album of the year.
Currently in the midst of a U.S. tour, Carey also picked up top
R&B/hip-hop artist for both the overall and female categories, hot
R&B/hip-hop songs artist and top R&B/hip-hop albums artist for her
Island/IDJMG disc. (See full list of winners below.)
Kanye West earned top rap album for "Late Registration" and also won
hot rap track for "Gold Digger" featuring Jamie Foxx. Foxx, meanwhile, left
the building with top R&B/hip-hop artist -- male, while Young Jeezy took
home top R&B/hip-hop artist -- New.
In addition to winning top R&B/hip-hop songwriter and top R&B/hip-hop
producer, Jermaine Dupri was named the first recipient of the Otis Redding
Excellence Award for his achievements both in and outside the studio. The
award was launched this year to commemorate the 40th anniversary of
Redding’s death.
Public Enemy received the 2006 Hip-Hop Founders Award in recognition
of their long-standing influence throughout hip-hop.
Here is the full list of winners:
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Album: Mariah Carey, "The Emancipation Of Mimi"
(Island/IDJMG)
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Song: Mary J. Blige, "Be Without You" (Geffen/Interscope)
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artist: Mariah Carey (Island/IDJMG)
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artist - Male: Jamie Foxx (J/RMG)
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artist - Female: Mariah Carey (Island/IDJMG)
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artist - Duo Or Group: Destiny's Child (Columbia/Sony Music)
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artist - New: Young Jeezy (Corporate Thugz/Def Jam/IDJMG)
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Artist: Mariah Carey (Island/IDJMG)
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Artist: Mariah Carey (Island/IDJMG)
Top RAP Album: Kanye West, "Late Registration" (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam/IDJMG)
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Sales: Pussycat Dolls feat. Busta Rhymes "Don't Cha"
(A&M/Interscope)
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Airplay: Mary J. Blige, "Be Without You"
(Geffen/Interscope)
Hot RAP Track: Kanye West feat. Jamie Foxx "Gold Digger" (Roc-A-Fella/Def
Jam/IDJMG)
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Songwriter: Jermaine Dupri
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Producer: Jermaine Dupri
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Major Label: Island Def Jam Music Group
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Independent Label: TVT
DAVE CHAPPELLE STAYING PUT IN OHIO: Comedian has no plans to leave quiet farm town for return to Hollywood.
*Comedian Dave Chappelle says he prefers the down home folksy feel
of his home in Yellow Springs, Ohio and has no plans to trade it in for the
crazy politics of Hollywood, which he has blamed, in part, for his sudden
exit from Comedy Central last year.
"I used to be cable's hottest star and now I'm just a Yellow
Springs guy," said Chappelle, who threw in jokes as he introduced musicians
at a blues and jazz festival there Sunday.
"Turns out you don't need $50 million to live around these parts,
just a nice smile and a kind way about you. You guys are the best neighbors
ever. ... That's why I came back and that's why I'm staying," he said.
Chappelle’s words were spoken during a festival sponsored by the
African American Cross Cultural Works, an organization that Chappelle's late
father, Bill Chappelle, helped found.
Two years ago, the comedian walked away from a $50 million contract
extension for his "Chappelle's Show" on Comedy Central. He took off to South
Africa for a "spiritual retreat" on the eve of the show's third season,
leaving the series in limbo. He has since returned to performing standup and
released the concert documentary "Dave Chappelle's Block Party."
MONICA GETS PERSONAL WITH NEW ALBUM: ‘Makings of Me’ deals with new maturity after hiatus filled with rumors, Young Buck and suicide.
*The three years between Monica’s last album “After the Storm” and
her upcoming fourth studio LP were marked with a fair amount of pain,
including the suicide of an ex-boyfriend, an emotional breakup and rumors of
a pregnancy.
The 26-year-old says her recent time away from music and the drama
she’s had to overcome have made her a different person – one whose newfound
strength and determination is expressed in her new album “The Makings of
Me,” due in stores Oct. 3.
"This album is very, very different from the other ones, because of
me personally," Monica told MTV last week from the VMAs. "The first album, I
was 13 years old. Now, at 26, the way I look at things, even relationships,
I was really able to involve more of my life experiences in the album. …And
that made for some crazy songs."
The Atlanta-born singer also spent her time away from music in a
brief relationship with Young Buck, according to MTV. Whose to say if he’s
the subject of a leaked track on her new album entitled, “Sideline Ho,”
which sports the lyrics: "It don't matter if he spends the night, his home's
somewhere else/ If you don't make his breakfast, you's a sideline ho!"
"That song has been shutting down a lot of Internet sites," Monica
told MTV. "Because I talk about when I was with someone back in the day who
cheated on me in the most malicious, deceptive ways. And when I referred to
the chick, I always referred to her as the 'sideline ho,' because she was
too comfortable with her position."
Other songs on “Makings” include the Jermaine Dupri-produced ballad
"Get Away," which details Monica's 10-plus years in the industry; "Thanks
for Tha Misery," written by Sean Garrett and the Missy Elliott-helmed "Dozen
Roses" — slated to be the follow-up to her current single, "Everytime Tha
Beat Drop." She calls the track, which samples Curtis Mayfield's "The
Makings of You," her personal favorite on the album.
"I think the honesty of the record is what will hopefully help people
gravitate to it," she said. "I don't want to do anything contrived. I want
people to know I've been through the same situations as them and that's why
I share so many of my personal experiences. In the process, I've still been
able to live my dreams, and I want people to see that side of it.
"I look back over the past decade of my life," she added, "and I took
everything — the good and the bad — and really made a musical diary."
AH’NOLD STILL APOLOGIZING FOR COMMENT: Calif. governor visits black church in East Oakland to make amends.
*Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, currently campaigning to keep his
job, knew he messed up when the Los Angeles Times published a recording of
him saying Cubans and Puerto Ricans are "hot tempered" because of their
mixture of black and Latin blood.
"I just want to say I'm sorry; I apologize. It was an off-the-record
conversation, and it was not meant to be [taken] in any negative way,"
Schwarzenegger said at a news conference Friday. "It made me cringe. It made
me feel uncomfortable."
‘
Two days after offering that public mea culpa, California’s head
honcho visited a mostly African-American church in East Oakland Sunday to
apologize some more.
"If we all work together we could eliminate all the problems,"
Schwarzenegger told the congregation of Allen Temple Baptist Church to
sustained applause. "And this is exactly what we need to d all of us
working together, Democrats, Republicans, church leaders, community leaders,
everyone."
Pastor J. Alfred Smith welcomed the governor with open arms, and said
the governor’s remarks were hardly offensive.
"I think the press blew it out of proportion, because I'm black and
proud," Pastor Smith said. "And I wish he would have said that J. Alfred
Smith is a dynamic, a little East Oakland leader, because of the rich
ancestral blood from the motherland, and of Africa, that flows through his
veins."
BLACK MAN BEHIND ‘DUBYA’ ASSASSINATION IN NEW FILM: ‘Death of a President’ is supposed to make a point about ‘rushing to judgment.’
*Imagine this: President George W. Bush gets assassinated and a
black man is eventually discovered to be the murderer. The scenario wasn’t
too far fetched for British filmmaker Gabriel Range, whose team from Film
Four in Great Britain made it the plot of their new mockumentary, “Death of
a President.”
The suspect was written to be African American in order to make a
point about America’s tendency to “rush to judgment” and how Arabs have been
treated in the U.S. since the World Trade Center disaster, according to
Range.
In the film, George W. Bush is murdered after making a speech in
Chicago on Oct. 19, 2007. Dick Cheney becomes president and seven months
later, a Syrian-American is tried and convicted for the assassination.
Meanwhile a black soldier has recently returned from Iraq.
Eventually, he was suspected of the assassination but later dismissed. His
brother died in the war and their distraught father committed suicide
because of it. In examining his father’s personal effects, the soldier
realizes that his grieving dad was Bush’s real killer. He held the president
responsible for his son’s death.
“Death of a President” debuted to such hype at the Toronto Film
Festival last weekend that “publicists at the Paramount theater had to make
a human chain to block out gate crashers,” noted Fox411.com’s Roger
Friedman.
No word yet on possible distribution to theaters in the U.S., but
considering the film’s content, don’t expect to see it at the local
multiplex anytime soon.
WOODARD, MERKERSON, POUNDER CLIMB ‘MOUNTAIN’: Actresses to portray three sisters in upcoming film.
*Alfre Woodard, S. Epatha Merkerson, CCH Pounder and Regina Taylor
are set to begin production on the new feature film “Up the Mountain,” a
drama about the importance of sibling bonds.
The movie, which follows three sisters at crossroads in their lives,
was written and will be directed by Kevin Arcadie, executive producer of
Showtime’s "Soul Food" and co-creator of "New York Undercover." His script
was adapted from the award-winning play of the same name.
Also starring Harry Lennix, “Up the Mountain” is described as a
“sometimes funny and bittersweet examination of three sisters who have
chosen completely different paths in their lives and now, in one emotional
and trying weekend, must try to reconcile the past so they can move forward
in their lives.”
Principal photography is slated to begin in late October in
Asheville, North Carolina, with 2nd Unit photography to be shot in West
Virginia. Pounder, Arkadie and Forrest Murray (“Spitfire Grill,” “Bob
Roberts”) are producing the project, which is being financed through Ivory
Coast Pictures and private investment.
REAL ‘GRIDIRON GANG’ COACHES TO BE HONORED: Los Angeles to salute real-life L.A. County Probation staff.
*Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and rapper Xzibit, co-stars of the
upcoming film “Gridiron Gang,” will appear with the film’s producers,
executive producers and members of the real-life coaching staff that
inspired the film at a presentation event to be held this morning in Los
Angeles.
Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke and her board colleagues will pay tribute
to the real-life L.A. County Probation Department staff: Sean Porter,
Malcolm Moore, Jack Sims and George (Elex) Williams, the subjects of the
Columbia Pictures film, due in theaters this Friday.
The film is based on the Emmy Award-winning 1993 television
documentary chronicling the rise of the Camp Kilpatrick Mustangs as they
bonded together to play in their league's championship game. The movie
follows the juvenile detention camp probation officers who turned a group of
hard core teenage felons into a high school football team in four weeks,
despite being confronted with gang rivalries and bitter hatred between his
players.
The effort also overcame internal resistance from supervisors and
coaches at rival high schools who didn’t want their players on the football
field with convicted criminals.
Through relentless pursuit and a jolt of inspiration, the team fights
their way to redemption and a second chance in life, sending a message even
the most hopeless kids in our society can change the course of their lives
through hard work, commitment and bold leadership.
Black. White.: DVD Features Families Swapping Skin Color in Reality-TV Series
by Kam Williams
*Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk around in a
different color skin? This is the social experiment at the center of "Black. White," a riveting reality series which originally aired on the FX Network this past Spring.
The show stars two families, one black, one white. The Sparks,
Brian, Rene, and their 17 year-old son, Nick, are African-American, while The Wurgels, Bruno, Carmen, and their 18 year-old daughter, Rose, are Caucasian. But not for long, since the idea of the program is to allow each to get a good idea of how the other half lives.
So, every day for the duration of the series, they all lived together and underwent elaborate transformations in order to be able to pass. For
instance, the debut episode featured Brian buying shoes as a white man, and
being shocked to have an affable salesman happily help him slip samples on
and off. Later, he takes a job as a bartender and is quite surprised to hear
a customer go on endlessly about the virtues of living in a lily-white
neighborhood.
Rose, meanwhile, who, by the way, actually looks better black than white, ventures into South Central, where she takes a course in poetry slam. Thoughshe's the only one whose make-up leaves her looking human, she is apparentlythe most conflicted about trying to trick strangers into believing she's really black.
Her step-father, Bruno, however, decides to gets some lessons from the
Sparks before venturing into the world as a brother, boning up on Ebonics,
learning how to shake hands, putting a swerve into his stride, and even
adding the N-word to his lexicon. Curiously, he turns out to be the villain
of the series, since episode after episode he remains convinced that he has
not encountered any racism as an African-American.
Brian and Bruno butt heads often and the tension mounts as the show builds towards its dramatic finale. It's just too bad that Rose is the only
participant in this experiment who doesn't look like she stepped off the set
of White Chicks. Yet, somehow, the questionable makeup doesn't diminish the
entertainment value of this absolutely absorbing social experiment.
Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
Running Time: 273 minutes
Studi Fox Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: Makeup application featurette, the Sparks' and Wurgels' casting
videos, study guide DVD-ROM, Rose's Poetry Slam, Ice Cube's title song music
video.
SPORTS BITS: Holyfield’s next bout; Woods and Federer become friends.
*Evander Holyfield’s return to the ring continues with an upcoming
bout against 33-year-old Fres Oquendo, scheduled to take place Nov. 10 at
the Alamodome in San Antonio. "I am asked all the time why I still fight,"
Holyfield, 43, said at a news conference Thursday. "My answer is always the
same. I want to reach my goal. And that goal is to become a world champion
one more time. When I do, I'll sit down. Until then, I'm going to be in the
battlefield." The “Real Deal” Holyfield stopped Jeremy Bates in the second
round on Aug. 18 in Dallas. Oquendo, a Puerto Rican who fights out of
Chicago, is 26-3 with 16 KOs. In February, he returned from a two-year
layoff to stop Brazil's Daniel Bispo in the ninth round.
*While the rest of the world was watching football on Sunday, Tiger
Woods was busy in New York making a new friend. The golfing phenom was a
personal guest of Roger Federer and sat in his box at the U.S. Open to watch
him beat Andy Roddick in the Men’s Finals. On Wednesday, Federer said he
followed Woods' career and someday hoped to meet him. The two champions are
represented by the same agency, and only met each other before the match
began. Woods, wearing a baseball hat turned backwards, sat in the box
between his wife and Federer's girlfriend. Woods, meanwhile, will face
fellow American Shaun Micheel in the first round of the World Match Play
Championship on Thursday.
ITTY BITTY BITS: Dash’s custody drama; ‘Nip/Tuck’ numbers; Buffie the Body;
Simmons’ BlackBerry?
*Damon Dash is reportedly due in court on Sept. 28 for the latest
round in his custody battle over 14-year-old Damon Dash Jr., his son with
former girlfriend Linda Williams. The hip hop mogul won custody of the boy
in 2002 and the youngster continues to live with his father, reports the New
York Post. According to Dash, Junior has no desire to move in with his mom.
Williams, meanwhile, claims Dash is turning their son against her. On the
28th, Williams and her father will seek visitation rights.
*Last week’s fourth season premiere of FX’s “Nip/Tuck,” featuring new
cast member Sanaa Lathan as the wife of a tycoon played by Larry Hagman,
drew a healthy 4.8 million viewers to tie it with “The Shield” as the cable
channel’s fourth most-watched episode ever. Fans of the show can look
forward to 14 more episodes of "Nip/Tuck" this fall, concluding in
mid-December.
*Music video vixen Buffie Carruth, a.k.a. Buffie the Body, is one of
the featured models in the latest campaign from Azzure Denim, a denim
clothing line for men and women. Best known for her work in Tony Yayo’s “So
Seductive” video, Buffie says the campaign will “give people the opportunity
to view me from a somewhat different perspective. It shows that I can sell
ads with my clothes on as well as off.”
*A woman in New York is reportedly trying to get money from the New
York Post for a lost BlackBerry she claims belongs to hip hop mogul Russell
Simmons. The wannabe hustler says she found the phone at a Fashion Week
event in NYC, and told the Post’s Heather Gilmore that she’d hand it over to
the paper for a nice price. The offer was turned down. The BlackBerry
supposedly contains “steamy e-mail messages,” the Post reported.
EVENT CALENDAR:
*Visions: “Words of Wisdom,” a rock opera that puts to music the
words and speeches of such legends as Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa, Cesar
Chavez, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, will be staged Sunday, Sept. 17 at
the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood, CA (2580 Cahuenga Blvd.
East). Tickets are $25; full time students and children under 12, $12. Box
Office: 323-461-3673 or http://tickets.com/.
*The Tribeca Film Institute today announced the continuation of its
screenplay development program with a call for scripts. The Tribeca/Sloan
Screenplay Development Program seeks screenplays that have a scientific or
technological theme and story line or have a leading character who is a
scientist, engineer, or mathematician. Individuals interested in applying
should visit www.tribecafilminstitute.org for official guidelines and
required submission materials. Submissions will be accepted until December
15, 2006 (postmark deadline).
