UC Berkeley on Saturday was once again the crucible of the free speech debate. The birthplace of the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s hosted another iconoclast from the era, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whose speeches and writings have been denounced by critics for decades as bigoted, homophobic and anti-Semitic. Farrakhan was invited as a speaker for the ninth annual Afrikan Black Coalition Conference organized by the Black Student Union, and his appearance was denounced by other student groups and the subject of an online petition “opposing his hateful words and character” that garnered about 350 signatories. At least two opinion pieces authored by student leaders denouncing Farrakhan’s appearance were published in the campus newspaper, the Daily Californian, including one by Shawn Lewis, president of the Berkeley College Republicans, who wondered where was Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s condemnation of Farrakhan after the chancellor and others were quick to denounce as racist the college Republicans “Increase Diversity Bake Sale” last September to protest affirmative action-type policies. Even UC President Mark Yudof weighed in on the Farrakhan appearance, writing in an open letter that “we cannot as a society allow what we regard as vile speech to lead us to abandon the cherished value of free speech.” But that only required that people “condemn these merchants of hatred when they come into our community,” Yudof wrote. There were no protesters outside Wheeler Auditorium before Farrakhan’s speech, and only one after. That was Noah Ickowitz, a student senator who said Farrakhan had every right to appear on campus, and Ickowitz had every right to protest a speech he said advocated black empowerment at the expense of other groups. The Nation of Islam leader seemed to relish the controversy, telling the young crowd in the nearly full 700-seat auditorium that opposition to him addressing them was simply a sign of decades of slave-master mentality by white America. “To those who dare, who arrogantly thought that they could frighten this generation as they used to frighten our parents … so I ask you, ‘What are you afraid of?’ ” Farrakhan said. “What is it I might say to your students, or your slaves?” It was a theme he returned to on several occasions in a wandering speech that lasted about two hours and ran from foreign policy to the failings of an education system he said was designed to prevent young African Americans from becoming a threat to white dominance. Sadalia King, a 23-year-old UC Davis student, said she had come to hear the 78-year-old Farrakhan to witness someone she has studied. “Knowing he’s a controversial figure, I knew he was going to say something,” said King, adding that she sympathized with those who opposed his appearance. “I think there’s a generation gap … Just like your grandparents. You know they might say something a little crazy, but you’re still going to love and respect and appreciate them.” Source More On Bossip! Eff A Traveler’s Digest: 10 Countries With Beautiful BLACK Women Action! Stars That Were Offered Large Sums Of Money To Make Adult Movies…Did They Take It?! TwitterFiles: Tisha Campbell Says People Need To Leave Her Husband Out Of Will And Jada’s “Divorce” Crazy In Love: Women That Went A Little Cuckoo For The Men They Loved
‘We just want to see him shine and keep the Houston movement going, man,’ Thug tells Mixtape Daily. By Rob Markman Slim Thug, Marcus Manchild and Paul Wall Photo: MTV News Fire Starter: Marcus Manchild Houston, Texas’ Marcus Manchild is talented enough to make it in rap without any co-signs, but a little love from a couple of hometown heroes never hurt anyone. Marcus, who appeared in a Get in the Game segment on “RapFix Live” back in September, is getting ready to drop his Space Jams 2 mixtape. While Manchild is still a relative newcomer, he has been learning lessons from a couple of OG’s — Slim Thug and Paul Wall — for quite some time now. “I kinda like guide him, give him a little game, what to do, what not to do,” Thugga told Mixtape Daily of his relationship with Manchild. “It’s just like family, man, we just want to see him shine and keep the Houston movement going, man. That’s it.” As part of the AMG clique, Marcus has built quite the rep for himself, thanks to the rambunctious “Get Off Me” and his original Space Jams mixtape. MM’s latest single, “Problems,” features Bun B, so he clearly has no shortage of support. For Wall, it’s all about building positive relationships. He understands how quickly today’s up-and-coming rappers can become tomorrow’s superstars. “It’s good to build relationships, because when you come back to the city, you never know who you gonna holla at or who you gonna need or vice versa. You gonna be in a position to help them out,” he said. There are no ulterior motives, either: Neither Paul Wall nor Slim Thug have any formal business dealings with Marcus. They just truly appreciate his talent. “It’s a blessing. Just having them around, guiding me, what to expect and what not to do, how not to mess up in this game. It’s surreal,” Marcus said. “You can’t ask for nothing more than legends that’s in your city that really did something, that actually ventured off out of your city and made a name for themselves and actually are known worldwide and they’re here helping you out. It’s a great feeling.” For other artists featured in Mixtape Daily, check out Mixtape Daily Headlines . Related Artists Slim Thug Paul Wall
In February, a federal court threw out a suit filed by Stan Lee Media Inc. against Paradox Entertainment — a failed attempt for the plaintiff to regain the intellectual-property rights of the Conan comic character. It might seem odd enough that a company sues for a claim to the proceeds of a film that lost tens of millions of dollars last summer, but odder still is that Stan Lee himself — the comic-book mastermind responsible for The Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man, and hundreds of other iconic characters — was neither the plaintiff nor the defendant in that suit. As has been the case for over a decade, the legal wrangling surrounding Lee has been as convoluted and nonsensical as the script to Elektra , and it will only get more confounding on Thursday, when a new federal case comes to trial pitting SLMI against its namesake himself. That’s right: Stan Lee Media is suing Stan Lee over characters created by Stan Lee. Figuring out how an individual becomes a defendant in a case filed by the company bearing his name is an effort nearly as heroic as his own characters’ feats. It involves Lee bouncing between companies during repeated bankruptcies and determining where he was when activities took place. It also involves a company refusing to back down despite losing numerous judgments, and despite the exodus of the eponymous leader. Much of the acrimony dates back to the 1990s, when Lee was still the figurehead at the then-struggling Marvel. Throughout that decade the comic company over-leveraged acquisitions and hemorrhaged enough money to land in bankruptcy. By 1998, the company used that proceeding to end Lee’s contract of $1 million annual salary for life. Stan Lee left Marvel and started a new company , Stan Lee Entertainment (soon becoming SLMI) as a way to maintain control over his intellectual property. The company was started by Lee with a close friend, Peter F. Paul — a man with a checkered history of federal drug and conspiracy convictions for crimes including, but not limited to, selling $8.7 million worth of ” nonexistent coffee ” to Fidel Castro. Paul was to have an equally troubled future that would soon ensnare his new partner Lee. Initially the company made an impact with online animated comics, developing new characters on Web sites with the expectation of spinning them off into various media. The company enjoyed initial success. The creation known as The 7th Portal, for starters, had been acquired by Fox television for foreign broadcast, and was featured as a 3-D attraction for Paramount Theme Parks. Like so many digitally-based companies of the era, SLMI foundered with the bursting tech bubble. Then, after Peter Paul secured a bridge loan to prop up the struggling enterprise, he and numerous board members dumped large amounts of holdings ahead of the ultimate stock collapse. The Securities and Exchange Commission feared insider trading, and Paul feared the SEC — so he fled for Brazil. The company’s stock price plunged to $.13 per share by the end of 2000, and it filed for bankruptcy in February 2001. Two key events occurred during this time. Sensing both SLMI’s downfall and encroaching legal troubles, Lee founded POW! Entertainment — a new company that was strictly his own. He transferred the rights of his properties to POW! during bankruptcy and then departed SLMI. Additionally, in November of 2000, SLMI had negotiated for ownership of the Conan franchise. This came from purchasing all outstanding shares of rights-holder Conan Properties in exchange for SLMI stock, with a minimum price attached. It didn’t take long for this deal to become compromised: The next month, following the stock dump by Paul and other officers, SLMI was delisted from trading by NASDAQ . Sitting in possession of worthless holdings, Conan Properties sued for a reversal of the sale, and in 2002 a bankruptcy court returned the rights to the company. (It eventually sold those rights to Paradox, a Swedish entertainment entity which shepherded the latest Conan film to the screen with Lionsgate.) The latter events coincided with Marvel’s incredible comeback. Led by Vice Chairman (and longtime Marvel power broker) Isaac Perlmutter, the company had climbed out of bankruptcy by licensing the film rights for several of its highest-profile characters including Spider-Man (which Sony would soon develop into a box-office behemoth), X-Men and the Fantastic Four (both successfully adapted by Fox). In light of this swift, lucrative reversal of misfortune, Lee brought suit against Marvel for terminating his contract and demanding payment on the promise of 10 percent of profits earned by characters of his creation. Yet even while he pursued this lawsuit, Lee — and his intellectual property — returned to Marvel. Here is where the dispute regarding rights to Lee’s characters, and whether they ever actually left Marvel, is focused — a dispute SLMI has been trying to win for years and which this week’s trial will attempt to settle once and for all. In 2005, Marvel and Lee settled their case before going to jury; the court records were sealed, although Marvel later reported a $10 million write-down with regard to Lee. Meanwhile, that same year, Peter F. Paul was extradited from Brazil, earning four years of house arrest and 10 years imprisonment after separate plea deals in his SLMI stock-manipulation case. Once he returned to the States, a new group of his acolytes organized as board of directors for SLMI. Since then the company has been rather adept at filing — if not quite winning — lawsuits. Routinely, its legal attempts at securing the rights to comic characters have been denied or dismissed entirely in courts from New York to Los Angeles to Colorado. One suit sought to unseal the 2005 Lee/Marvel settlement in search of proof that Lee left Marvel in 1998 with the rights to his characters. Such a discovery would seemingly prove that Lee brought those rights to SLMI after Marvel spiked his contract and before fleeing SLMI with them illegally. Ultimately SLMI wants to prove that Lee was colluding with Marvel to cover the rights transfer in their 2005 settlement, thus entitling Marvel to full rights while Lee shared in huge profits. In dismissing that case in February 2011, U.S District Judge Robert Sweet summarized the lack of standing SLMI held as the intervening party, writing, “Their alleged mutual misrepresentations regarding the action’s real party in interest, and their mutual mischaracterization of the nature and effect of the Marvel/Lee Employment Agreement have not been established.” Lack of standing has done little to stop SLMI in its legal lurches. It took nine years following the bankruptcy ruling before the board decided to spring up suddenly with its claim to the rights of Conan; it cannily filed that lawsuit the very day Conan debuted in theaters last August. The judge in that case last month rejected the company’s claims, stating that SLMI could not demonstrate proper standing and harm. That makes sense: The company dissolved one month following the Conan rights deal and had no funds to create any product; hard to show harm when you have nothing to show at all. Rather than a formidable archenemy from Lee’s imagination, Stan Lee Media Inc. instead resurfaces with all the predictability and impotency of a villain defeated repeatedly in a serialized superhero saga. Nevertheless, SLMI forges ahead undeterred with its legal process — largely because the company has nothing to lose; it has not produced anything in over a decade. It doesn’t even have a functioning Web site . Making a play for some of the most lucrative properties in Hollywood is all Stan Lee Media Inc. has in its arsenal, and the potential windfall is enough to motivate continuous torts. In a bit of understatement, Judge Sweet alluded to this possible perpetuity when he wrote, “Because of the success of the characters and the conflicting claims concerning their rights, it has been difficult to achieve finality.” Should a loss in this week’s case send SLMI away for good, it still won’t be the end of the lawsuits regarding these properties. The estate of Jack Kirby, a former collaborator of Lee, has also taken to the courts regarding copyrights of characters he also had a hand in creating. Expect Marvel and its corporate parents at Disney to be gathering an Avengers team of lawyers in their defense for years to come. Brad Slager has written about movies and entertainment for Film Threat, Mediaite, and is a columnist at CHUD.com . His less insightful impressions on entertainment can be found on Twitter . [Photos via Shutterstock ; Illustration: Movieline]
Is it possible to love a piece of dead fish more than you love people? That’s the question asked, implicitly if not directly, by David Gelb’s documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi , a portrait of 85-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono that is itself as meticulous and carefully formed as a piece of nigirizushi . The movie’s title comes from an interview with Jiro, who speaks of waking up in the middle of the night with new ideas for perfecting and enhancing his craft. Then we see him standing stiffly behind the bar at his Tokyo restaurant, waiting with an air of placid annoyance for a customer to consume one of his precise and studied creations: With his hands, he has made a dream you can eat. And he wants you to know it. Gelb’s documentary is tactile in the same way. In fact, it’s so strictly visual – as opposed to sensual – that unlike most well-made movies about food, it may not send you walking out hungry. A food-critic friend and I were discussing this phenomenon: It could be, as my friend posited, that sushi, though among the most beautiful of all consumables, is just “not very food porny.” And it’s true: I left Jiro Dreams of Sushi wanting not to eat, but to make jewelry, preferably with the most colorful, carefully polished beads or stones available. Jiro, as he himself tells us in the film, has been mastering the art of making sushi nearly his whole life. For years he has run Sukiyashi Jiro, a 10-seat sushi restaurant in Tokyo, and though the place is just a modest – if elegant – dinerlike strip, it was the first restaurant of its kind to be awarded three Michelin stars. His eldest son, Yoshikazu, works in the restaurant with him, and though it’s strongly hinted that his skills are nearly as well-honed as those of his father, Jiro shows no signs of being ready to pass the torch along. A younger son runs another sushi restaurant on the other side of town, an enterprise Jiro talks about with gibing pride. He himself, as it turns out, struck out on his own before he was even a teenager, supporting himself any way he could. When his younger son decided to start the restaurant, Jiro told him he had better succeed, because he had no home to go back to. He derides the idea of parents who reassure their children they can always come home. “When parents say stupid things like that,” he says, “the kids turn out to be failures.” That gives us a few clues to his parenting style. And yet Jiro’s grudging love for, and pride in, his children shines through, even though it’s something he’d rather not advertise. (At one point he concedes, “I wasn’t much of a father,” and no mention is made of the children’s mother, though we see her in a photograph or two.) That’s one of the strengths of Gelb’s understated technique – he never tells when he can show, letting Jiro do most of the talking, though we also hear from Tokyo restaurant critic Yamamoto (who informs us plainly that in the dozens of times he has eaten at Sukiyabashi Jiro, he has never had a disappointing meal) and the fish dealer who proudly supplies Jiro with those all-important raw ingredients (although Jiro, who used to do all the marketgoing himself before suffering a heart attack, now leaves the daily shopping to Yoshikazu). Mostly, though, we see Jiro at work, sometimes supervising his devoted but slightly cowed restaurant workers, but more often just making the stuff: The precision of his hand movements is something to behold, as he forms a small dollop of rice into a suitable bed for a piece of glistening salmon or mackerel. As he cuts through a slab of tuna, the pieces fall away in thick, red ribbons – this is what velvet would look like if you could slice it. Jiro’s quest for perfection is all-consuming and, the film suggests, won’t be quelled until he draws his last breath, or until his limbs stop working, whichever comes first. At its simplest level, Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a portrait of a master. In its deeper layers, it explores what drives us to make things: Beautiful, jewel-like things, or things that delight our palate – or, in this case, both. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Trae tha Truth, Don Trip, Eldorado Red and Lil Wayne’s Short Dawg also get nod from Mixtape Daily this week. By Rob Markman Curren$y Photo: Daniel Boczarski/ WireImage Don’t Sleep: Necessary Notables The hip-hop team at MTV News has been all about Trae tha Truth this past week. Maybe we’re still riding off the high from the Street King hooking up with the King of the South and signing a joint venture with T.I.’s Grand Hustle Records . Whatever the reason, Trae’s King of the Streets: Freestyles mixtape has been banging through the News office, but that’s not all. There have been quite a few tapes — some new, some old — we’re just getting hip to that have caught our ear.
Cover of the magazine’s Freshman issue also features Iggy Azalea, the first female MC to make the cut. By Rob Markman The cover of XXL ‘s Freshman issue Photo: XXL Class is back in session, and XXL magazine continues its yearly tradition of cherry-picking new rap talent for their annual Freshman issue. Lupe Fiasco, B.o.B, Wiz Khalifa, J. Cole and Mac Miller have all at one time appeared on the annual cover, and this time out, XXL inducts 10 more artists for the fifth year in a row with their April issue. MTV News’ 2011 Hottest Breakthrough MC, Machine Gun Kelly, stands front and center on the cover alongside his Bad Boy labelmate French Montana. Atlanta hitmaker Future and hook master Roscoe Dash also made the cut along with Detroit’s Danny Brown and Memphis, Tennessee, MC Don Trip. While most of this year’s freshmen have been fixtures on various blog sites and the mixtape circuit, others like Macklemore, Hopsin and Kid Ink may be lesser known, but they’ve more than earned their keep. Macklemore has already sold out countless shows across the country, while Kid Ink and Hopsin have built quite a digital following. Australian-born raptress Iggy Azalea makes history as the first female MC to grace the cover of the Freshman issue. The blond-haired Interscope beauty made waves with her 2011 mixtape Ignorant Art and has since hooked up with T.I. to produce her upcoming debut album The New Classic . Like it does every year, this latest Freshman class has already caused a fuss on the Web, with fans and industry ilk both supporting the list and wondering why their favorite artists didn’t make the cover. What do you think of XXL ‘s 2012 Freshman Class? Tell us in the comments! Related Videos Mixtape Daily: French Montana ‘RapFix Live’ With Machine Gun Kelly And Kendrick Lamar ‘Hottest MCs In The Game VII’ Related Artists French Montana Machine Gun Kelly
Ridley Scott may or may not be spilling details on how Prometheus factors into the Alien franchise, but a new clip from the film sheds a few shards of light on the connection, and cleverly so: Watch Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland (CEO of Weyland Corporation, to become the future Weyland-Yutani Corp.) give a riveting TED Talk, circa 2023, promising a bright new future to the tech set. In the clip (directed by Luke Scott) Weyland touches on the Greek mythology of the fire-stealer Prometheus and the sacrifices humanity must suffer in the name of progress, hooking into Alien lore with mentions of a looming developments in lifelike “cybernetic individuals.” “We are the gods now,” he boasts, stirring the crowd. “I will settle for nothing short of greatness, or I will die trying.” Something tells me the latter might just happen (at least to Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, or Noomi Rapace) once the spaceship explosions and still-ambiguous scares start raining down on the intrepid crew of the Prometheus. On the TED Blog , Weyland’s TED Talk is described thusly: Peter Weyland has been a magnet for controversy since he announced his intent to build the first convincingly humanoid robotic system by the end of the decade. Whether challenging the ethical boundaries of medicine with nanotechnology or going toe to toe with the Vatican itself on the issue of gene-therapy sterilization, Sir Peter prides himself on his motto, “If we can, we must.” After a three year media blackout, Weyland has finally emerged to reveal where he’s heading next. Wherever that may be, we will most certainly want to follow. “Sir Peter’s” bio, meanwhile, reveals his pedigree: Sir Peter Weyland was born in Mumbai, India at the turn of the Millennium. The progeny of two brilliant parents; His mother, an Oxford Educated Professor of Comparative Mythology, his father, a self-taught software Engineer, it was clear from an early age that Sir Peter’s capabilities would only be eclipsed by his ambition to realize them. By the age of fourteen, he had already registered a dozen patents in a wide range of fields from biotech to robotics, but it would be his dynamic break-throughs in generating synthetic atmosphere above the polar ice cap that gained him worldwide recognition and spawned an empire. In less than a decade, Weyland Corporation became a worldwide leader in emerging technologies and launched the first privatized industrial mission to leave the planet Earth. “There are other worlds than this one,” Sir Peter boldly declared, “And if there is no air to breathe, we will simply have to make it.” All of the above would seem to support rumors filtered out of Hungarian press this week citing Scott as explaining Weyland’s role as connective tissue between Prometheus and the Alien films; the reports suggests that ruthless, progress-hungry capitalist Weyland is the person responsible for sending the Prometheus crew out to investigate the origin of mankind in the first place. Prometheus hits theaters on June 8. [ TED Blog ]
