WORLD - ALL

Here, I am talking about "substance" in the sense of what the story is about: the ideas, rather than as opposed to the execution of those ideas.

1. The weird opener & the unintegrated opener.

   "Sarah walked down the aisle, still unclear why she had agreed to marry a giraffe. The groom, waiting patiently at the altar, resplendent in black tie, spats and spots, swung his long neck around to watch her approach, all the time placidly chewing his cud." Pretty wild, huh? The whole intention of that opener is to make you, the reader, wonder how such a thing could have come to pass. Well, I wrote it, and I haven’t the faintest idea. Don’t let this happen to you.

   
   

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NEW YORK Sep 7, 2006 (AP)— A "terribly wrong" miniseries about events leading to the Sept. 11 attacks blame President Clinton’s policies, former Clinton administration officials said in letters demanding that ABC correct it or not air it.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Clinton Foundation head Bruce Lindsey and Clinton adviser Douglas Band wrote in the past week to Robert Iger, CEO of ABC’s parent The Walt Disney Co., to express concern over "The Path to 9/11."

The two-part miniseries, scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday and Monday, is drawn from interviews and documents including the report of the Sept. 11 commission. ABC has described it as a "dramatization" as opposed to a documentary.

Hal Leonard has introduced a line of TrackPaks, Apple Loops versions of classic songs.

These loop collections are very different than any others that we’ve seen previously. Instead of being royalty-free collections, like most loop libraries, these are faithfully recorded loop-based versions of classic tunes. That means that you can’t take these loops and use them in music that you intend to distribute, without arranging for licensing.

An exhibit of photographs related to Sept. 11 is coming next year to central Ohio, with a couple of other shows about to open:

• Joel Meyerowitz, who photographed the World Trade Center site unimpeded for almost nine months after the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, will exhibit some of those photos at Otterbein College in January.

Last week, Green Day promised they’d be unveiling a "big announcement" very soon, and they weren’t kidding.

Late Thursday night, the band posted on GreenDay.com that they’ll be heading into the studio with none other than U2 to record a cover of "The Saints Are Coming," a tune by late-’70s-era Scottish band the Skids (one of whom went on to form Big Country), to benefit Music Rising, an organization that replaces instruments lost by musicians in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

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LOS ANGELES - The first fall weekend is sometimes a surprise at the North American box office.

While the top performers usually don’t rack up big numbers, occasionally a film will pop up and take the weekend to new heights, as was the case last year when the low-budget horror The Exorcism of Emily Rose opened to $30 million. This, however, is not shaping up as one of those weekends.

Three new films will enter the fray, but none is likely to top $10 million: the horror flick The Covenant, the Los Angeles-based thriller Hollywoodland, and the Thai action film The Protector. Reigning champ Invincible earned $15.4 million during the four-day holiday weekend.

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‘Hollywoodland’ explores Superman’s life off screen

It’s called the dream factory. But what happens when the dreams are defective?

What do you do with the spoiled, the seconds, the damaged goods? What do you do with the would-have-been glamour queen who never gets beyond third-girl-on-the-left? What do you do with the could-have-been matinee idol whose right profile went wrong? Where do they go?

The scene of the crime. It’s like a scene in a goddamn Otto Preminger flick. Black and white. A shriek. Sumner, Methuselan, looking more than a little rickety, holding the smoking gun. His smile is more a skeletal ricktor. Producers who will speak on the record, but ask not to be identified because they work frequently with Paramount. The beloved Tom Freston, bloodied. Les Moonves, enveloped in shadows, chiaroscuro: Only his Cheshire smile in evidence. Over in the corner, that’s the previously inscrutable Brad Grey, scared fucking shitless.

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HOLLYWOOD - Tom Cruise’s mother burst into tears when celebrity photographer Annie Leibowitz captured the perfect sunset family shot of her son cradling his baby daughter Suri.

The movie star took family members and the Vanity Fair crew to a favorite spot near his Telluride home in Colorado for what Leibowitz hoped would provide the setting for the new magazine cover shot that the world is talking about.

But the magic moment proved too much for Cruise’s mother, Mary Lee, who in turn sparked a teary few moments as Vanity Fair features editor Jane Sarkin looked on.

She recalls, "We went up to a favorite spot of the Cruise family, which is called The Lookout–in the background are the Rocky Mountains, the sun was setting, the baby was looking straight at the camera.

"At that moment everyone became a little bit emotional because we knew we had it; that was definitely going to be the cover.

"Tom’s mother was looking at her granddaughter and her future daughter-in-law and she started to cry and then all of us started to get really emotional and Tom was fighting back the tears.

"It was all so much and the beauty of the place, it was incredible."

Article source: Entertainment News Network

HOLLYWOOD - Pop star Jessica Simpson has fired her longtime publicist Rob Shuter after last week’s debacle surrounding her supposed relationship with John Mayer.

Both People and Us Weekly magazines ran cover stories suggesting the pair were dating, and People even quoted Simpson as saying, "I’m in love!"

According to news website TMZ.com, reports began surfacing this week that Mayer was furious with the coverage and felt used by the Simpson camp to help boost album sales.

Simpson appeared on talk show The View Tuesday, where she desperately tried to do some damage control, stating, "I am actually not dating John Mayer."

Sources tell TMZ the Simpson camp had been unhappy with Shuter for some time and that the Mayer fiasco "was the last straw" in a series of events leading up to the sacking.

Mayer posted a message on his official website last Thursday, soon after the story broke, saying simply, "Really enjoying this song," above a picture for Public Enemy’s hit “Don’t Believe the Hype.”

Article source: Entertainment News Network

[NDS, in cooperation with Intel and Viasat, will be demonstrating the first ever live pay-TV broadcast over WiMAX at IBC delivering content to laptops and handhelds.]

London, International Broadcasters Conference (IBC) — NDS, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, today announced that it will be demonstrating at IBC 2006, the first ever live pay-TV broadcast over WiMAX in co-operation with Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, and Modern Times Group’s Viasat Broadcasting (Viasat), a leading digital satellite pay-TV broadcaster in the Nordic region. The demonstration is part of an NDS-Intel pilot program designed to look into the feasibility of delivering TV over WiMAX and the viability of WiMAX TV as a business model.

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