'Best of TBH Politoons'
Jeff Crook
Jackson and The Hobbit (update)
Zaentz Rings in Jackson for Prequels
As Lord of the Rings fans mounted a protest following word that New Line had dropped Peter Jackson from consideration as director of The Hobbit and another Lord of the Rings prequel, producer Saul Zaentz has given assurances that Jackson will indeed direct the two films. A German website, Elbenwald.de, posted an interview with Zaentz, who acquired the rights to the works of the late Rings writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, in 1976 (the Saul Zaentz Company owns Tolkien Enterprises), in which Zaentz says, "It will definitely be shot by Peter Jackson. ... Next year The Hobbit rights will fall back to my company. I suppose that Peter will wait because he knows that he will make the best deal with us. And he is fed up with the studios: to get his profit share on the Rings trilogy he had to sue New Line. With us, in contrast, he knows that he will be paid fairly and artistically supported without reservation." (The preceding quotation is a translation that appeared on TheHobbit-Movie.com from the German interview posted on Elbenwald.de.)
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast and cooler.
Transmission went out on the car. Ack.
Replica Guitar On Sale For $24,000
Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton paid about $300 for his famed "Blackie" guitar in 1970. Beginning Friday, hardcore fans can buy an official replica of the Fender Stratocaster for a mere $24,000.
Blackie was Clapton's primary stage and studio instrument between 1970, when he built it from the best parts of three Stratocasters bought for $100 each, and 1985, when it entered retirement.
Just 185 of the replicas -- including faux worn wood and cigarette burns -- will go on sale in the United States, at Guitar Center stores. The retailer paid $959,500 for Blackie at a 2004 auction that benefited Clapton's Crossroads rehab center in Antigua. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the replicas will also go to Crossroads, according to a Guitar Center statement.
Eric Clapton
French Film Producer Sues
Google
The producer of "The World According to Bush" has taken legal action against Google for distributing the film for free, becoming the latest media company to seek compensation for lost business on the Internet.
French production house Flach Film said on Thursday it had issued a writ against the U.S. Internet search engine and its French arm, Google France, for copyright infringement before a Paris commercial court.
"The World According to Bush" is a two-hour film investigating resident George W. Bush's administration and the Bush family, including its connections with the Bin Laden family.
Google
Top-Grossing Tour Ever
Rolling Stones
Though they'll surely live to fight another day, U2's brief stint holding the title of top-grossing tour ever is over. That distinction returns to the Rolling Stones, whose A Bigger Bang tour is now the top-grossing tour in history.
From March 28, 2005, to March 2, 2006, U2's Vertigo tour rang up grosses of more than $333 million. That put U2 ahead of the Stones' $320 million Voodoo Lounge tour of 1994-95, and the band's 10 stadium makeup shows this month will take the total to 121 shows and a gross of about $377 million.
But the Stones' numbers from their global A Bigger Bang tour shatter that mark. Since the fall of 2005, the band has grossed a staggering $437 million and drawn 3.5 million people to 110 shows. In addition, an estimated crowd of 2 million saw the band perform at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro back in February. The tour, like every Stones trek since 1989, is produced by Michael Cohl under the Concert Productions International banner, with Live Nation.
Rolling Stones
Deserves Prize
Borat
A leading Kazakh writer has nominated actor Sacha Baron Cohen for a national award for popularizing Kazakhstan. Novelist Sapabek Asip-uly called on the Kazakh Club of Art Patrons to give Baron Cohen its annual award, according to a letter published by the Vremya newspaper Thursday.
Baron Cohen's fictional character Borat "has managed to spark an immense interest of the whole world in Kazakhstan, something our authorities could not do during the years of independence," said Asip-uly.
Government officials in the former Soviet republic have been enraged by Borat's unflattering portrayal of Kazakh life in the spoof documentary, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
"If state officials completely lack a sense of humor, their country becomes a laughing stock," Asip-uly said.
Borat
Model For Character
Kenny Kramer
The first call came from the Midwest. Before long, the phone was ringing, and ringing, and ringing again: Satellite radio. Fox News. Extra. Yada, yada, yada.
For Kenny Kramer, role model for the "Seinfeld" character who shared his surname, each call was a reminder of the intersection between his real life and his sitcom doppelganger. Actor Michael Richards - the on-air Cosmo Kramer - made headlines this week with a racist rant in a Los Angeles comedy club.
"I know the guy," the real Kramer said of the faux Kramer. "He's not this outgoing ball of fun that people would expect Kramer to be. They think he's be exciting, lovable, laughable. But he's quiet, introspective, even paranoid. He's a very wound-up guy. But I don't think he's a racist."
"The things that really annoys me is that The Drudge Report, Michael Savage, are saying Kramer's a racist,'" the real Kramer said on a real phone from a real location in Manhattan. "Kramer is a fictitious character. Michael Richards is an actor who played that character."
Kenny Kramer
Seek Apology, Pay Off
Hecklers
Two men who say they were insulted by actor-comedian Michael Richards during his racist rant at a comedy club want a personal apology and maybe some money, their lawyer said Friday.
The men, Frank McBride and Kyle Doss, said they were part of a group of about 20 people who had gathered at West Hollywood's Laugh Factory to celebrate a friend's birthday. According to their attorney, Gloria Allred, they were ordering drinks when Richards berated them for interrupting his act.
Allred, speaking by phone from Colorado, said Richards should meet McBride and Doss in front of a retired judge to "acknowledge his behavior and to apologize to them" and allow the judge to decide on monetary compensation.
"It's not enough to say 'I'm sorry,'" she said.
She did not mention a specific figure, but pitched the idea as a way for the comic to avoid a lawsuit.
Hecklers
Bigamist Busted
Douglas 'Dude' Cigarette
A man who dresses up as a giant cigarette and uses hip-hop music to encourage children in Lynchburg and beyond to avoid smoking pleaded guilty Tuesday to bigamy. Phillip Dale Williams, 37, had as many as four wives at the same time, Chuck Felmlee, deputy commonwealth's attorney, said.
Williams' fourth wife, Lashawn Stevenson, became suspicious earlier this year when her husband began receiving child support notices in the mail. When the couple wed in 2003, he told her he had never been married, Felmlee said.
Stevenson's investigation led her to a Vallejo, Calif., woman, Antoinette Borum, who told Stevenson Williams left her in 2002 with two children and no child support. When Stevenson confronted Williams, he told her he had married Borum and two other women before her, Felmlee said.
Williams was known locally for playing "Douglas 'Dude' Cigarette," a character he created in 1996. He has performed in about a dozen states.
Douglas 'Dude' Cigarette
California Visit
Arctic Gull
A small white gull with an ordinary name had bird watchers flocking to the Salton Sea for what they call a "mega-rarity."
The Salton Sea, a 35-mile-long lake stretching across the Imperial and Riverside county line, is a popular stop for birds heading south, and Guy McCaskie, co-author of "Birds of Salton Sea," believed he spotted a Ross' gull there a week ago.
The appearance of the arctic bird nearly 100 miles east of San Diego would be the first reported in California and would place it hundreds of miles farther south than it had ever been seen.
The gull, which normally breeds in Siberia or Greenland, rarely appears south of Alaska, and is only spotted in even the northern part of the lower 48 states every few years.
Arctic Gull
Hermitage Art Exhibit Visits London
'The Triumph of Eros'
Risque 18th century French paintings which teeter on the line between eroticism and pornography are going on show in London from Friday -- some for the first time ever.
The works on display at "The Triumph of Eros" exhibition at Somerset House are on loan from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
The exhibition features a recently discovered collection of rare French erotic engravings collected, probably in secret, by Tsar Nicholas I in the 19th century.
Also on display will be two small 1732 paintings by Pierre Subleyras showing scenes from tales by Jean de la Fontaine which were considered so scandalous, they have never been displayed in public before.
'The Triumph of Eros'
In Memory
Betty Comden
Betty Comden, whose more than 60-year collaboration with Adolph Green produced the classic New York stage musical "On the Town," as well as "Singin' in the Rain," has died. She was 89.
On Broadway, Comden and Green (the billing was always alphabetical) worked most successfully with composers Leonard Bernstein, Julie Styne and Cy Coleman. The duo wrote lyrics and often the books for more than a dozen shows, many of them built around such stars as Rosalind Russell, Judy Holliday, Phil Silvers, Carol Burnett and Lauren Bacall.
They won five Tony Awards, with three of their shows - "Wonderful Town," "Hallelujah, Baby!" and "Applause" - winning the top prize for best musical. The duo received the Kennedy Center honors in 1991.
The two were never married to each other, although many thought they were, considering the longevity of their working relationship.
They wrote screenplays for "Good News," starring June Allyson and Peter Lawford, and the film version of "On the Town," which scrapped most of Bernstein's melodies, replacing them with music by Roger Edens. It even sanitized the lyrics to "New York, New York." Yet the movie, starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, was a huge hit.
At MGM, Comden and Green also scored their biggest critical success, writing the screenplay for "Singin' in the Rain" (1952). The film placed No. 10 on the list of 100 best American movie of the century, compiled in 1998 by the American Film Institute.
In 1953, they had another film hit with "The Band Wagon," starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. In his memoir, "Steps in Time," Astaire said Comden and Green were "noted for their brilliant readings" when introducing scripts to cast members. He recalled the time he and a co-star, at one session, "flipped with delight and said we'd have a hard time following them in the parts."
Their longest running show, "The Will Rogers Follies," opened in 1991, a Ziegfeld-styled retelling of the life of the famous humorist. Keith Carradine played Rogers in this lavish production, which was directed by Tommy Tune and had music by Cy Coleman.
Comden was born in Brooklyn in 1917, the daughter of Leo and Rebecca Comden. Her father was a lawyer, her mother a schoolteacher. She graduated from New York University in 1938.
Comden married accessories designer Steven Kyle in 1942. He died in 1979. They had two children, Susanna and Alan; her son died in 1990.
Betty Comden
In Memory
Philippe Noiret
Philippe Noiret, a beloved French actor featured in the popular "Il Postino" ("The Postman"), died Thursday, the Culture Ministry said. He was 76.
Noiret was among the most familiar faces in French cinema, making more than 125 movies in a career that spanned more than half a century. Among his first big successes was Louis Malle's 1960 film "Zazie dans le metro" (Zazie in the Metro).
With a face and a bearing that could portray both the middle class man or the elegant aristocrat - but not a romantic hero - Noiret conquered his audience with his exceptional skills as an actor.
Above all a French star, Noiret had his share of international acclaim, notably in Guiseppe Tornatore's 1988 "Cinema Paradiso" and in the 1994 hit "Il Postino," (The Postman) in which he played Pablo Neruda, a poet and diplomat who councils his mailman.
Noiret won his first Cesar, the French version of the Oscar award, in 1976 for the dramatic "Le Vieux Fusil" (Old Gun) with Romy Schneider and gained a second in 1990 with "La Vie et rien d'autre" (Life and Nothing Else).
Born Oct. 1, 1930, in the northern city of Lille, Noiret began his life as an actor with theater studies, touring with the Theatre Nationale Populaire in Paris.
Noiret is survived by his wife, Monique, and a daughter, Frederique.
Philippe Noiret
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