By Iain Blair
Los Angeles, Sept 6 (Reuters) - After traveling the world and giving aspiring musicians a chance to jam with their favorite stars, the Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp announced Thursday it was setting up a permanent home in Las Vegas.
Starting in October, aspiring rockers who have dreamed of playing with their musical heroes can sign up for the camp's courses at the MGM Grand hotel and casino. Upcoming camps will feature rock legends as Roger Daltrey, Jack Bruce, Alice Cooper, Dave Navarro, Sammy Hagar, Gene Simmons and Vince Neil.
Camp founder David Fishof, a former manager and tour producer for Ringo Starr and The Monkees, said he had been looking for a permanent location for some time to cope with growing demand.
"It gets bigger every year," said Fishof. He estimated that since its start, over 7,000 rock star wannabes have attended the camps, which have been held...
Los Angeles, Sept 6 (Reuters) - After traveling the world and giving aspiring musicians a chance to jam with their favorite stars, the Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp announced Thursday it was setting up a permanent home in Las Vegas.
Starting in October, aspiring rockers who have dreamed of playing with their musical heroes can sign up for the camp's courses at the MGM Grand hotel and casino. Upcoming camps will feature rock legends as Roger Daltrey, Jack Bruce, Alice Cooper, Dave Navarro, Sammy Hagar, Gene Simmons and Vince Neil.
Camp founder David Fishof, a former manager and tour producer for Ringo Starr and The Monkees, said he had been looking for a permanent location for some time to cope with growing demand.
"It gets bigger every year," said Fishof. He estimated that since its start, over 7,000 rock star wannabes have attended the camps, which have been held...
- 9/6/2012
- by Reuters
- Huffington Post
By Iain Blair
Los Angeles (Reuters) - "Restless," the new film from Oscar-nominated "Milk" director Gus Van Sant tells a simple tale: boy meets girl, girl dies of cancer, boy mourns girl. But in Van Sant's hands, the film is anything but a sentimental four-hankie weeper.
Anchored by strong performances from Mia Wasikowska ("Alice in Wonderland") and newcomer Henry Hopper (son of Dennis Hopper), "Restless" hits theaters on Friday playing more like an intense adolescent romance than a tragedy.
Van Sant, whose credits include "Good Will Hunting," "Drugstore Cowboy," "My Own Private Idaho," "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," and "To Die For" spoke to Reuters about making the film and why he hates being photographed.
Q: This definitely has a touch of Romeo and Juliet and doomed young lovers about it. Was that the attraction for you?
A: "Yes, although I never thought of it as doomed love. It's more...
Los Angeles (Reuters) - "Restless," the new film from Oscar-nominated "Milk" director Gus Van Sant tells a simple tale: boy meets girl, girl dies of cancer, boy mourns girl. But in Van Sant's hands, the film is anything but a sentimental four-hankie weeper.
Anchored by strong performances from Mia Wasikowska ("Alice in Wonderland") and newcomer Henry Hopper (son of Dennis Hopper), "Restless" hits theaters on Friday playing more like an intense adolescent romance than a tragedy.
Van Sant, whose credits include "Good Will Hunting," "Drugstore Cowboy," "My Own Private Idaho," "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," and "To Die For" spoke to Reuters about making the film and why he hates being photographed.
Q: This definitely has a touch of Romeo and Juliet and doomed young lovers about it. Was that the attraction for you?
A: "Yes, although I never thought of it as doomed love. It's more...
- 9/15/2011
- by Reuters
- Huffington Post
By Iain Blair
Los Angeles (Reuters) - Indian actress Freida Pinto got her big break when director Danny Boyle cast the ex-model as the love interest in the 2008 Oscar-winning hit "Slumdog Millionaire." Now, she's hitting silver screens in her first big-budget, effects-driven Hollywood movie.
Since then, the 26-year-old has appeared on People magazine's "Most Beautiful People List," starred in smaller, art-house films for Woody Allen and Julian Schnabel, and is the current face of L'Oreal cosmetics.
In "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," which hits theaters on Friday, Pinto plays an expert in primate behavior opposite James Franco and a bunch of genetically enhanced chimps who prepare to take over the world.
The movie is a prequel of sorts to the popular "Planet of the Apes" movies of the 1960s and '70s, and it follows director Tim Burton's take on the series with 2001's "Planet of the Apes.
Los Angeles (Reuters) - Indian actress Freida Pinto got her big break when director Danny Boyle cast the ex-model as the love interest in the 2008 Oscar-winning hit "Slumdog Millionaire." Now, she's hitting silver screens in her first big-budget, effects-driven Hollywood movie.
Since then, the 26-year-old has appeared on People magazine's "Most Beautiful People List," starred in smaller, art-house films for Woody Allen and Julian Schnabel, and is the current face of L'Oreal cosmetics.
In "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," which hits theaters on Friday, Pinto plays an expert in primate behavior opposite James Franco and a bunch of genetically enhanced chimps who prepare to take over the world.
The movie is a prequel of sorts to the popular "Planet of the Apes" movies of the 1960s and '70s, and it follows director Tim Burton's take on the series with 2001's "Planet of the Apes.
- 8/4/2011
- by Reuters
- Huffington Post
By Iain Blair
Los Angeles (Reuters) - Neil Patrick Harris may be the most versatile star in showbiz. The Emmy-award winner can sing and dance, perform voice-overs, host award shows, and still finds to act in the TV show "How I Met Your Mother."
Now, he's working with little people in family film "The Smurfs," which mixes live-action characters with the blue animated creatures made famous in the cartoons.
The film hits theaters Friday with Harris playing a marketing executive whose life and career are thrown into chaos when the Smurfs magically appear in his New York apartment.
Harris spoke to Reuters about his outrageous behavior in the "Harold and Kumar" movies and how he avoided the traps of Hollywood stardom as a child actor.
Q: Were you a Smurfs fan as a kid?
A: "I watched the cartoons, but I wasn't a rabid fan like a lot of people,...
Los Angeles (Reuters) - Neil Patrick Harris may be the most versatile star in showbiz. The Emmy-award winner can sing and dance, perform voice-overs, host award shows, and still finds to act in the TV show "How I Met Your Mother."
Now, he's working with little people in family film "The Smurfs," which mixes live-action characters with the blue animated creatures made famous in the cartoons.
The film hits theaters Friday with Harris playing a marketing executive whose life and career are thrown into chaos when the Smurfs magically appear in his New York apartment.
Harris spoke to Reuters about his outrageous behavior in the "Harold and Kumar" movies and how he avoided the traps of Hollywood stardom as a child actor.
Q: Were you a Smurfs fan as a kid?
A: "I watched the cartoons, but I wasn't a rabid fan like a lot of people,...
- 7/27/2011
- by Reuters
- Huffington Post
It's a shame that with all the year-end awards being dished out by critics, awards where groups of individuals do their best to do the cinema world proud by honoring greatness, that one can't be devised to recognize articles that make us all look bad. Case in point: Iain Blair's Wednesday article in Variety about the disconnect between audiences and film critics, particularly where Oscar is concerned. His next article on tap is supposedly entitled "Water's Wet, Sky's Blue, Women Have Secrets." Every now and then some film journalist decides to write such an article, which is basically the same as the last one only with changed titles and tries to remind us how we occasionally don't approve of a film we deem poorly made to be smattered with an embarrassment of riches. Nothing we haven't heard before. Rarely though does one of the first sentences smack of the...
- 12/18/2009
- by Erik Childress
- Cinematical
By Iain Blair
Director/producer/choreographer Rob Marshall is no stranger to the challenges of making successful musicals and movies. He triumphed with “Chicago,” which won six Oscars, including Best Picture, and another three for “Memoirs of a Geisha.”
His new musical is titled “Nine, ” based on the Tony Award-winning 1982 Broadway production of “Nine” that was based on Federico Fellini's classic "81/2," sta...
Director/producer/choreographer Rob Marshall is no stranger to the challenges of making successful musicals and movies. He triumphed with “Chicago,” which won six Oscars, including Best Picture, and another three for “Memoirs of a Geisha.”
His new musical is titled “Nine, ” based on the Tony Award-winning 1982 Broadway production of “Nine” that was based on Federico Fellini's classic "81/2," sta...
- 12/17/2009
- by Lew Harris
- The Wrap
• Oscar winner Peter Jackson ("The Lord of the Rings") tells Iain Blair that test audiences demanded a more gruesome ending for one character in the upcoming "The Lovely Bones." As Peter explains, "We got a lot of people telling us that they were disappointed with this death scene, as they wanted him to see [the character] in agony and suffer a lot more. They just weren't satisfied." The solution, says Jackson, was to "go back to the editing room and use digital effects to add shots where [the character] bounces against the cliff on the way down. We had to create a whole suffering death scene just to give people the satisfaction they needed."...
- 11/18/2009
- by tomoneil
- Gold Derby
In an unusual composer spotlight, industry magazine Variety focuses four articles on composer John Debney this month. Jon Burlingame and Iain Blair has written the pieces, and in one of them Debney talks about the expanded version of his “Passion Oratorio,” based on his Passion of the Christ film score. The work is scheduled to be performed in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican in June next year, by a 500-voice ...
- 11/12/2009
- by Mikael Carlsson
- MovieScore Magazine
By Iain Blair
You can usually set your calendar by Roland Emmerich and one of his huge summer disaster spectacles, such “The Day After Tomorrow” or “Independence Day.”
But this year something’s off with his timing – appropriately enough, it turns out, as his latest mega-disaster, “2012,” is based on doomsday interpretations of the Mayan calendar and its apparent prediction that a cataclysm of epic proportions awaits the earth in 2012.
Obviously this sort of thing can’t be handled by governments and scientists. It takes...
You can usually set your calendar by Roland Emmerich and one of his huge summer disaster spectacles, such “The Day After Tomorrow” or “Independence Day.”
But this year something’s off with his timing – appropriately enough, it turns out, as his latest mega-disaster, “2012,” is based on doomsday interpretations of the Mayan calendar and its apparent prediction that a cataclysm of epic proportions awaits the earth in 2012.
Obviously this sort of thing can’t be handled by governments and scientists. It takes...
- 11/7/2009
- by Josh Dickey
- The Wrap
By Iain Blair
New Zealand writer-director Jane Campion, whose few but impressive credits include “The Piano,” which won three Oscars including Best Screenplay for Campion, “The Portrait of a Lady” and “An Angel at my Table,” has always marched to the beat of her own drummer, and always liked a challenge. She certainly found one with her latest film, “Bright Star,” the story of the passionate affair between an unknown 23-year-old English poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and the young, flirty fashionista next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbi...
New Zealand writer-director Jane Campion, whose few but impressive credits include “The Piano,” which won three Oscars including Best Screenplay for Campion, “The Portrait of a Lady” and “An Angel at my Table,” has always marched to the beat of her own drummer, and always liked a challenge. She certainly found one with her latest film, “Bright Star,” the story of the passionate affair between an unknown 23-year-old English poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and the young, flirty fashionista next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbi...
- 9/19/2009
- by Lew Harris
- The Wrap
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