In an unusual step, American Idol kicked Jermaine Jones off the show last night, following the discovery that the season 11 finalist had lied about a pair of arrests . How are fellow contestants reacting to the development? A few relayed their thoughts People : Phillip Phillips : “It was sad to see somebody go like that, with an awesome voice. It sucks.” Colton Dixon : “We found out what happened when you guys did. We were shocked, but at the same time, he’s such a great guy. We all love him to death. He’s truly the gentle giant. He handled himself so well, I’m proud of him.” Shannon Magrane: Jones “always has that great fun spirit, and he has always kept us laughing. He is so funny, we miss him already.” Hollie Cavanagh : “He’s going to do huge things in music regardless of if he’s on the show or not,” she said. “It’s just a little bump in the road. He’ll prevail, and he’ll do big things.” Heejun Han: “It’s a competition. I really want to be honest about it. I’m not like, ‘Oh, please don’t go, please don’t’ go!'”
Today in horrifying reboot news comes the stuff of past and future nightmares: “Michael Eisner’s The Tornante Company will finance and produce the development of a feature film based on Garbage Pail Kids , the trading card line published by Topps.” Viral video/shorts helmer PES will direct based on the terrifying 1985 trading cards, which were previously adapted into one of the worst feature films of all time featuring the most disgusting child characters ever created who scared an entire generation of youngsters into not judging their freaky looking but well-meaning peers by their looks alone. Or something. So… yay? [ Deadline ]
Pop star is also up for three awards, including Favorite Song (“Firework”) and Favorite Female Singer. By John Mitchell Katy Perry Photo: Theo Wargo/ Getty Images Katy Perry is one of the top nominees at the 25th annual Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards , and she’s just announced that she’ll also take the stage at USC’s Galen Center to perform at the awards show on March 31. The pop star, whose Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection special edition album hits stores March 27, is enjoying yet another hit with her new single “Part of Me,” which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 last month. The song is Perry’s seventh career chart-topper. One of her biggest hits, “Firework,” is up for the Kids’ Choice Award for Favorite Song. She is also nominated for Favorite Female Singer and Favorite Voice in an Animated Movie for her role in “The Smurfs.” “Katy Perry has doubly earned her position as kid favorite — through her music, of course — but also for reveling in an outrageous sliming on the show two years ago,” Marjorie Cohn, president of Original Programming and Development at Nickelodeon, said in a statement. “She works hard and plays hard, and that’s what makes her performance on the KCAs one to look forward to.” Perry will join host Will Smith and a powerhouse roster of celebrity presenters, including Chris Rock, Emma Stone, Andrew Garfield, Zac Efron, Victoria Justice, Big Time Rush and Cee Lo Green. Red-hot boy-band sensation One Direction is also performing at the show. Fans can now vote on who takes home the famous blimp award on the KCA website and on Facebook page. New this year, fans will also be able to vote for their favorite nominees on Twitter through the use of custom hash tags. Get all the info you need to support your favorite stars on Nick.com . The Kids’ Choice Awards air on Nickelodeon on Saturday, March 31 at 8 p.m. Whom are you voting for at the Kids’ Choice Awards? Let us know in the comments section! Related Videos MTV News Extended Play: Katy Perry Related Artists Katy Perry
Film journalist and biographer David Hughes has long written with authority on subjects from Stanley Kubrick to David Lynch. But few writers know more about the vicissitudes of that uniquely Hollywood phenomenon known as “development hell.” Hence the updated, revised edition of Hughes’s book Tales From Development Hell , which arrives in store and online today. And Movieline has an exclusive excerpt that you can browse now. Development Hell is chockablock with gossip, infighting, false starts and dirty little secrets that afflicted films both realized ( Indiana Jones 4 , Total Recall ) and abandoned ( Crusade , Crisis in the Hot Zone ), with a little bit of limbo thrown in for good measure ( Fantastic Voyage , The Sandman ). In this exclusive excerpt, Hughes revisits the Batman franchise’s tortured road back to respectability — by way of the stalled Superman franchise. Really. ======= Warner Bros evidently saw a team-up movie as more than just a tantalizing possibility, but a viable way of bringing the Superman and Batman franchises out of the development mire. It was soon confirmed that the studio was excited about a script entitled Batman vs Superman , written by Se7en and Sleepy Hollow scribe Andrew Kevin Walker and subsequently “polished” by Akiva Goldsman ( Batman Forever , Batman & Robin , A Beautiful Mind ), in which the characters would begin as allies, albeit with radically different worldviews, before facing off in a showdown brought about by Bruce Wayne’s familiar desire to avenge the violent killing of a loved one. The story begins five years into Bruce Wayne’s life post-Batman, having put his costume back into the closet following the death of Robin. He has settled down, married a woman named Elizabeth, and is happier than ever. Over in Metropolis, however, Superman has not been so lucky in love, having been dumped by Lois Lane due to the myriad difficulties of being Clark Kent’s girlfriend. When The Joker, previously thought dead, kills Elizabeth with a poison dart, Bruce takes it hard. First, he blames Superman, because the Man of Steel saved The Joker from a fatal beating just before the murder; second, he resumes the mantle of Batman — not, this time, under any pretense of metering out justice, but for the sheer cathartic pleasure of beating up bad guys. Superman, who has been busy wooing his first love, Lana Lang, in Smallville, tries to talk Bruce out of his vengeful ways, an act which ultimately pits the two heroes against each other. Eventually, it transpires that Superman’s nemesis Lex Luthor was behind The Joker’s return, hoping that Batman and Superman would kill each other. Instead, the two heroes unite to defeat first The Joker, and finally Luthor, the man fundamentally behind Elizabeth’s death. Opinions from Internet script reviewers were divided, either over the details of the Walker and Goldsman drafts, or the very idea of having Batman and Superman go mano a mano . Responding to an unfavorable review of Goldsman’s rewrite by Coming Attractions’ Darwin Mayflower, Batman on Film reporter “Jett” said that, while he had not read the Goldsman draft, “I very much liked Walker’s original… I thought it was a very dark and powerful script and had a very clever way of pitting Batman against Superman. Mayflower flatly does not like the squaring off of Bats and Supes… [whereas] I found it quite exciting — plus you know that they are going to end up as allies in the end. Mayflower also has a problem with Goldsman’s (who many credit for the killing of the Bat-franchise with his p.o.s. Batman & Robin script) rewrites,” Jett added. “The only reason I can come up with why WB let Goldsman do rewrites was to lighten the script up a bit. Walker’s original — in my opinion — was dark. Perhaps WB thought too much so.” Nevertheless, the studio was sufficiently excited about the script to postpone its plan for a new stand-alone Superman film and a fifth Batman in order to fast-track Batman vs Superman for a 2004 release, with Wolfgang Petersen ( Das Boot , The Perfect Storm ) at the helm. “It is the clash of the titans,” the German-born director told Variety in July 2002. “They play off of each other so perfectly. [Superman] is clear, bright, all that is noble and good, and Batman represents the dark, obsessive and vengeful side. They are two sides of the same coin and that is material for great drama.” Petersen subsequently spoke to MTV.com about his love for the Batman and Superman films, “especially in both cases the first two. I saw them over and over again.” Batman vs Superman , he added, would be part of the lore of the films and the comics, “but it’s also different. First of all, the dynamics are different because if they are in one movie together it changes a lot of things and it gives you a new perspective on superheroes… You also have the look and feel of Metropolis, the bright golden city, and the feel of Gotham, which is a shadowy, sinister city, in the same movie. This is Superman/Batman of the time after September 11th, also. It takes place in today or tomorrow’s world.” Unsurprisingly, the announcement of a fast-tracked Batman vs Superman movie led to a surge of speculation as to which actors might don the respective capes. “We have a script that really very, very much concentrates on the characters,” Petersen told MTV.com. “It’s really material for two great actors.” Although he had previously cited Matt Damon as a possible star, Petersen later clarified that he was merely an example of the kind of actor he was looking for. “Someone who we so far did not really think of as a big action hero, who turned out to be a great actor who can also do great action… He’s one of these guys, but there’s a lot of these guys out there.” As far as the rumor-mills were concerned, Jude Law and Josh Hartnett were apparently front-runners to play Superman/Clark Kent, while Colin Farrell and Christian Bale — the latter previously connected with the Year One role — were widely mentioned for dual duties as Bruce Wayne and Batman. (“No, that’s Bateman , not Batman,” quipped Bale, referring to Patrick Bateman, his character in American Psycho .) Barely a month after the Variety announcement, however, Batman vs Superman seemed suddenly to have fallen out of favor with the studio, leading director Wolfgang Petersen to quit the project in favor of Troy , an epic retelling of Homer’s The Iliad starring Brad Pitt. The studio’s swift about-face was based on a number of factors. Firstly, on July 5, Alias creator J. J. Abrams had turned in the first 88 pages of a new stand-alone Superman script, designed to be the first of a trilogy. Bob Brassel, a senior vice president for production at the studio, called producer Jon Peters, urging him to read the work-in-progress. “I did,” Peters told The New York Times , “and it was amazing. In a world of chaos, it’s about hope and light.” Abrams delivered the remaining 50 pages of the script in mid-July, just as Spider-Man began its amazing assault on box office records, suggesting that light and airy, not dark and powerful, was the way to go with superhero flicks. At that point, Peters, Abrams and Brassel met in the offices of executive vice president for worldwide motion pictures Lorenzo di Bonaventura — the man behind the Harry Potter and Matrix movies, and a long time champion of Batman vs Superman — who said that he liked the script (“It had more epic ambition than earlier Superman scripts,” he said later), but that he planned to release Batman vs Superman first. According to Peters, Abrams said, “You can’t do that,” suggesting that it was akin to releasing When Harry Divorced Sally before When Harry Met Sally . Both sides had their points: with two iconic heroes for the price of one, Batman vs Superman arguably stood the better chance in a marketplace soon to be crowded with superhero films, ranging from Hulk to Daredevil , and more sequels featuring Spider-Man and The X-Men; however, if the darker sensibility of Batman vs Superman did not connect with audiences, it could effectively kill both franchises before they had had a chance to be revived. Besides, if either Batman or Superman failed, the studio would still have the team-up movie to fall back on. As studio president Alan Horn told The New York Times , “In reintroducing these characters we wanted to do what was in the best interest of the company.” Thus, in early August, Horn asked ten senior studio executives — representing international and domestic theatrical marketing, consumer products and home video — to read both scripts, and decide which of them stood the better chance in the post- Spider-Man marketplace. “I wanted some objectivity,” Horn explained. “Why not get an opinion or two?” At the meeting, di Bonaventura argued in favor of Batman vs Superman ; others, however, felt that Abrams’s three-part Superman story had better long-term prospects for toy, DVD and ancilliary sales. Besides, even if the majority had not favoured the Superman script, Horn had the casting vote. “I said I wanted to do Superman ,” he told The New York Times . “At the end of the day it’s my job to decide what movies we make.” The plan, Horn later told The Hollywood Reporter , was that Superman , the long-mooted Catwoman spin-off, and “a Batman origins movie” (presumably Year One ) would revive both franchises, paving the way for a team-up movie. “I’d like to think that each character will evolve so that when we have Batman vs Superman , the meeting of the two will feel more organic,” he said. Peters, the former hairdresser and Batman producer who had toiled through the development of a Superman film for eight years, was moved to tears when Alan Horn phoned to tell him the news. “I swear I heard the flapping of angel wings when Alan was talking,” he said. Peters, in turn, called Christopher Reeve, who had played Superman in four films between 1978 and 1987, and had recently guest-starred on the small-screen Superman show Smallville , despite a crippling spinal injury he suffered in a fall from a horse. “He told me that his original idea was to do a film of Superman vs Batman ,” Reeve later recalled. “They were pretty far into it, and then Jon saw that documentary that my son made about me and how five years after the injury I started to move.” According to Reeve, Peters began to rethink the idea: “‘Why should [they] have two superheroes fighting? ’ The movie that Warner Bros is making now will be a much more uplifting and spiritual story.” In August, Warner Bros officially switched off Batman vs Superman ’s green light. Days later, on Sept. 4, its greatest champion, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, quit after 12 years at the studio, giving credence to the widespread speculation that Horn vs di Bonaventura — an epic battle of wills between two of the studios biggest guns over two of its biggest assets — had contributed to his departure. Where all this left the Batman franchise was unclear. Almost anyone, it seemed, was invited to apply for the vacancy of the next film’s screenwriter, and even Grant Morrison, author of one of the biggest selling graphic novels of all time, Arkham Asylum , threw his hat into the ring. “My own movie agent at Creative Artists Agency submitted a treatment I’d entitled Batman: Year Zero , which had a young Batman traveling around the world, slowly assembling the familiar components of his outfit and disguise in the year before returning to Gotham as its protector.” As a change from The Joker or the Penguin, Morrison’s villains were Ra’s al-Ghul and Man-Bat from Denny O’Neil’s widely acclaimed Batman stories of the 1970s. Although Morrison’s application was unsuccessful, the team which was assigned the restoration of the Bat-franchise evidently agreed with his approach, electing to return to Batman’s roots as part of their restoration effort. It was in early 2003 that Warner Bros revealed the new curator of the Bat-franchise: Christopher Nolan, director of the tricksy Memento and a well-received remake of Scandinavian thriller Insomnia . “All I can say is that I grew up with Batman,” Nolan commented. “I’ve been fascinated by him and I’m excited to contribute to the lore surrounding the character. He is the most credible and realistic of the superheroes, and has the most complex human psychology. His superhero qualities come from within. He’s not a magical character.” Although Variety also reported that both Year One and Catwoman — the latter scripted by John Rogers ( The Core ), starring Ashley Judd (later to be replaced by Halle Berry) and directed by visual effects veteran Pitof — were also on the cards, Nolan’s untitled Batman project seemed the most likely to move forward, although it remained unclear which script would form the basis of the film. Nolan, who knew Batman but was uncertain about his wider comic book context, turned to David S. Goyer, who scripted Dark City, The Crow: City of Angels , the comic book adaptation Blade and its sequels, and unused drafts of Freddy vs Jason , for help with the script. Ironically, Goyer, whose lifelong dream had been to write a Batman movie script, was unavailable, preparing to direct Blade: Trinity — but agreed to give Nolan some ideas pro bono . As Goyer recalls, “I said, ‘If I did do it, this is what I would do, and you can have my ideas for free.’ I talked for about an hour and spitballed a large amount of what the film is, and Chris said, ‘Wow, that sounds great.’ He went away again for a few more days, [then] I got a call saying, ‘You have to do this.’” Goyer carved out the time to write the first draft of the script. The Nolan-Goyer Batman set out to achieve something no comic book or film had accomplished thus far: tell a definitive origin story, charting the journey from the murder of young Bruce Wayne’s parents all the way to the formation of Batman as a masked vigilante. Drawing heavily on the comic book history of the character, Nolan and Goyer filled in the blanks, working with Nolan’s regular production designer Nathan Crowley to build a Batman story from the ground up — exactly the approach which Warner Bros wanted to re-boot its biggest property. Released on June 5, 2005, Batman Begins made just over $200 million at the US box office — $50 million (and a few million audience members) short of Burton’s Batman , but a healthy start to what would, with The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012) signal the return of the bat to box office dominance — not only among its comic book peers, but Hollywood in general. Sixteen years since Tim Burton’s Batman gave birth to the film franchise and Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin killed it off, the Dark Knight had returned — with a vengeance. The updated and revised Tales From Development Hell is available today in stores and online .
Fans are excited for cult comedy’s return, but reshuffling ‘Parks and Recreation’ could mean trouble for the network’s lineup. By John Mitchell Amy Poehler in “Parks and Recreation” Photo: NBC Fans of cult comedy “Community” are rejoicing at the news that the show is set to return to NBC’s schedule after a three-month hiatus. It will rejoin the Thursday night lineup at 8 p.m. on March 15 to complete its third season, though no decision has been announced as to whether the low-rated, critically acclaimed comedy will get a fourth season. The show’s return will bump “30 Rock,” which has been pulling down series-low numbers in the 8 p.m. time slot since retuning on January 12, to 8:30 and “Parks and Recreation” will go on a five-week hiatus until “Up All Night” completes its season in April. “The Office” will hold on to its 9 p.m. slot. NBC has had a difficult time attracting viewers to what is easily the best comedy block on network TV, but it’s certainly not the first net to have that problem (Fox couldn’t keep “Arrested Development” on the air). This latest decision, however, seems unlikely to help for a few reasons. It was a mistake to pull “Community” in the first place; the show is so full of callbacks and self-referential asides that removing it for any length of time was bound to hemorrhage casual fans who are not as familiar with the storyline as die-hards. And sacrificing the much more welcoming “Parks,” which itself has struggled in the ratings despite widespread acclaim, to bring “Community” back is not going to pull in more eyes. Instead, it’s only going to weaken the already low-rated lineup. Here’s why. “Community” is not a welcoming show for new viewers. I am an avid TV watcher and a big fan of NBC’s smart Thursday comedies, but I’ve never been able to get into “Community” because I missed the boat early on. I’m not questioning its quality — by all accounts it’s a witty and wonderfully weird show — but it is loaded with callbacks and winks to a now three-season-long narrative arc, and if you haven’t been onboard since the beginning, you’re shut out. I’ve tried and failed to get into the show, even though it should be on my must-see list. Consequently, I suspect it is going to perform even worse in its old 8 p.m. time slot than when it left it in December. If it flops at 8, the results will be disastrous for “30 Rock,” which, without a strong lead-in, seems likely to lose even more viewers at 8:30. “Parks and Rec” currently outperforms its “Rock” lead-in; it has its own devout fanbase, many of whom seem to skip “Rock” and tune in specifically for “Parks.” “30 Rock” is arguably past its prime (though last week’s episode was admittedly the best in recent memory) and it is an expensive show to produce. Some expect that NBC may even announce that next season will be its last and that it will be a truncated 13-episode run at that. Matching “Community” with “30 Rock” from 8 to 9 is going to create an hour-long ratings void for NBC that is likely to negatively impact “The Office,” which already has been losing viewers since Steve Carell’s departure, though it remains NBC’s top Thursday comedy. As for “Up All Night,” it’s been managing numbers comparable to “Parks” at 9:30. Though, that means the well-reviewed family comedy is losing 30 percent of it’s lead-in. It’s a foolhardy move to temporarily shelve the only show that is really building on its lead-in (that’d be “Parks”) — I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that “The Office” ratings function pretty independently of “Parks'” — especially when it’s being done for a show that seems unlikely to rope in new viewers. The reason for the shake-up, I suspect, is rooted in the network’s knowledge that the ends of “30 Rock” and “The Office” are near. They really want “Community” to work, and they trust enough that the brief absence of “Parks” from the schedule is unlikely to alienate viewers enough that they’ll abandon the show. (And they’re right. As upset as I am that “Parks” will be gone for five weeks, there’s no way I won’t be there when Leslie, Anne, Tom and Ron Swanson return on April 19.) A smarter choice would have been to move “Up All Night” to 8 p.m., where its star power (Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, Maya Rudolph) and subject matter — a onetime party couple adjusting to parenthood — might attract viewers who normally may look to CBS for Thursday night entertainment. Keep the often-heartwarming “Parks and Rec” at 8:30. “Parks” is, like “Rock” and “Community,” a little weird, but it’s the most accessible of the three and thus the most likely to keep the “Up All Night” audience and maybe build on it. “Community” is simply going to be an awkward fit anywhere on the schedule and is unlikely to ever be strong enough in the ratings to be a top-of-the-hour lead-in. If the net insists on keeping it — though it might want to consider a deal similar to the one reached to keep “Friday Night Lights,” another little-watched but much-loved show with a fervent fanbase, alive — it should consider moving it to 9:30, where it would benefit at first from “The Office.” NBC would be wise to greenlight a 13-episode season for “The Office” to let it wrap up story lines and depart the airwaves on its own terms before it is forced off by flagging ratings. It’s already had a great eight-season run; let it go out with grace. Conclude “The Office” big at Christmastime (the show has always shined with its holiday specials) and bring “30 Rock” back to conclude its own run with a 13-episode season in the spring of 2013. And for goodness’ sake, stop shifting everything around so often. Shuffling your best shows like this makes it difficult for current fans — and especially people who do not follow the ins and outs of entertainment industry news — to find the shows they already like. Do you agree with NBC’s decision to put “Parks and Rec” on a five-week hiatus for “Community”? Leave your comment below.
David Cross once took a hit of cocaine while sitting just a few feet away from President Barack Obama. The Arrested Development star makes this admission in the March issue of Playboy , referring to the 2009 White House Correspondents Dinner and explaining to the magazine: “I ducked under the table and did it. It wasn’t like I got high. The jolt was similar to licking an empty espresso cup. It wasn’t about that. It was just about being able to say that I did it, that I did cocaine in the same room as the President.” The White House Correspondents Dinner is an annual event, hosted by comedians such as Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert, during which the President lets loose with a joke-laden speech that typically takes aim at opponents such as Donald Trump . Why did Cross make such a daring move during it? For specifically that reason: he and a friend had a wager over who could be the most audacious. Cross doesn’t regret his actions, but he does feel bad about dragging girlfriend Amber Tamblyn into it. “I was her date, her plus-one, and she got dragged through the mud because of what I did,” the actor said. “She had nothing to do with it. She didn’t know I was going to do it. And because of that, she’ll never be invited to the White House again. That’s not cool.” The March issue of Playboy goes on sale this Friday.
“We don’t call ours stars ‘Fatty’ anymore, and studios don’t (officially) ban stars from Hollywood. But we do let stars take on our personal anxieties, and shun them when they fail to embody them in ways that please us. We blind ourselves to corporate machinations that allow individuals to take the fall, and we make it easy to associate outsized bodies with the grotesque. Libel laws are more stringent these days, and stars are, in general, more circumspect. But I’m still terrified by what humans are eager to believe of one another, especially when class, gender, and body size intersect.” [ The Hairpin ]
The Berlin Film Festival and European Film Market are getting underway as we speak, exposing an all-new crop of good, bad and WTF-inducing projects we’ll be hearing and/or seeing about in the year or two to come. But there are also revelations to be found regarding more familiar titles. Take Lars von Trier’s already notorious , sexually explicit Nymphomaniac , for example. /film points us all to the film’s refined description in the EFM guide: NYMPHOMANIAC is the light and poetic story of a woman’s erotic journey from birth to the age of 50 as told by the main character, the self-diagnosed nymphomaniac, Joe. On a cold winter’s evening Seligman, an old bachelor, finds Joe semi-unconscious and beaten up in an alleyway. After bringing her to his flat he sees to her wounds while trying to understand how things could have gone so wrong for her. He listens intently as she over the next 8 chapters recounts the lushly branched-out and multifaceted story of her life, rich in associations and interjecting incidents. Said “erotic journey” will reportedly be populated by porn-star stand-ins doing the dirty work for the more mainstream stars, including leading lady Charlotte Gainsbourg, who recently drew a broad line regarding her role: I haven’t read the script; I sort of had to commit to doing the film without reading it. I know he wants to use porn actors as doubles, like we did in Antichrist , so they would do those shots but then we’d do the rest. I don’t know up to what point, but I know I have limits. I had limits on Antichrist – I remember, he asked me to jerk off the porn actor, and that’s when I said I couldn’t. So we will see what my limit is for the next one. Shooting should commence this summer, with hardcore and softcore versions expected to follow down the line. Generally this kind of thing would be timed to premiere at Cannes, but we all know how that went last time . So… Berlinale 2013? SXSW? Who’s up for Lars-BQ and Lone Stars? Ugh, forget it. [ /film ] Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
We’ve come to the point where hand-drawn animation almost seems like a forgotten art, lost in the gaudy shuffle of motion-capture slickness a la The Adventures of Tintin and the sleek technical sophistication of pictures like Rango and Kung-Fu Panda 2 . That’s why it’s such a glorious relief to greet the arrival of an old-school -– but very grown-up — animated picture like Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando’s Chico & Rita , a romance that opens in late-1940s Cuba and uses a thumbnail history of midcentury Latin jazz as its backdrop. It’s gorgeous to look at — the images are stylized and detailed at once, as fluent in capturing the movement of human bodies as they are in portraying the luxe deco excitement of ‘50s Havana, New York and Las Vegas. And the story, sultry and bittersweet, is bracingly adult: This is the kind of sophisticated storytelling you rarely get even in live-action movies these days, full of unexpected turns and unruly human complications. There is also, of course, the music, much of it performed by Cuban jazz pianist, bandleader and composer Bebo Valdés, whose own life provided the rough inspiration for the film. Chico & Rita is the story of aspiring jazz pianist Chico (voiced by Emar Xor Oña) who meets the woman of his dreams one evening in a Havana club. Rita (Limara Meneses) is a singer, and Chico falls hard both for her voice and for her knockout figure, but he comes on too strong for her liking — she immediately brands him a country boy. Before long, though, they’ve tumbled into bed and into an on-again, off-again affair as well as a professional partnership. Together, with the help of Chico’s pal and manager, the charming, level-headed Ramón (Mario Guerra), they win a talent contest and embark on a blazing career as a duo, complete with a hit record. But Rita is lured away to New York with big dreams of success, and though she wants Chico to accompany her, a misunderstanding separates them. Chico eventually does make his way to New York on his own, where he slips into divey basement clubs to bask in the presence of his idols, people like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. (Their cartoon versions are wonderful and charmingly accurate, even if Parker is drawn playing a tenor and not an alto.) There, Chico also joins the ranks of other Latin artists like Chano Pozo and Machito, performers who made their way to New York and met with quick and explosive fame during the midcentury Latin jazz craze. Chico and Rita’s careers occasionally intertwine, only to once again veer off into separate corners. The plot doesn’t follow the standard rags-to-riches template (though it wouldn’t be a liability if it did). Instead, the story — the script is by Trueba and Ignacio Martinez de Pisón — treads softly but boldly into unexpected places, touching upon, for example, the fast living and violent death of Chano Pozo, and giving some sense of what the Jim Crow laws of the pre-Civil Rights-era South meant for black jazz musicians. Trueba is the director of the 1992 Belle Epoch; he also made the 2000 Latin jazz documentary Calle 54 , the development of which brought Valdés to his attention. (Like so many musicians of his generation — and like so many from his culture — Valdés had, by the 1990s, lapsed into obscurity: He was forced out of Cuba after the revolution and moved to Sweden, where, years later, he was rediscovered playing piano in a Stockholm restaurant.) Calle 54 also marked the beginning of Trueba’s professional partnership with Spanish artist and graphic designer Mariscal. (Mariscal designed Cobi, the half-bear, half-possum mascot of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.) Together with animator Errando, Trueba and Mariscal worked out the look and feel of the film, reconstructing a vision of the vibrant, long-lost 1950s Havana (with the help of archival photographs kept by the city government) and re-creating a grayish, bustling ‘50s New York whose chief source of color is an aural one — in the movie’s vision, it’s a place where the music flows from basement clubs like a life-giving river. The music in Chico & Rita is just as vital as the visuals are: When Chico sits down at the piano, it’s Valdés’s notes that stream out, leaping and shimmering like trout in a stream. Idania Valdés (no relation to Bebo) provides Rita’s singing voice, luminous and smoky at once. The music that these characters make, separately and together, is as much a part of them as their own blood, and the drawing in Chico & Rita captures that essence: Just after their first meeting, Chico takes Rita to a bar that’s been closed for the evening and sits at the piano, ready to prove himself to her. She likes what she hears and begins to dance — her yellow dress swirls around her legs, her swiveling hips. Chico keeps playing, but he can’t, of course, keep his eyes on the keys. How do you portray something as delicate as a sexual frisson in a cartoon? Somehow, Chico & Rita pulls it off. The picture has a seductive, casual eroticism. Chico & Rita – which was released in Europe last year but is only just now appearing in the United States — has been nominated for an Academy Award, in a category that has snubbed much more lavish features like Cars 2 and Rio ; a recent Hollywood Reporter article suggested that we may be seeing a backlash against motion-capture and other kinds of computer animation. ( Chico & Rita is mostly hand-drawn, though it does use some computer imaging.) There may be no need to draw such a stark dividing line in the sand: Computer animation certainly has its uses and benefits, and the spirit of any piece of animation depends so much on the guiding sensibility behind it, anyway. But Chico & Rita is organic and vital in a way that it might not be had it been fully composed on computer screens. There’s so much depth and warmth in both the story and in the drawing: This is animation that implies movement instead of merely showing it. It also keeps the spirit of this one particular branch of the jazz canon burning in its heart. Chico & Rita may, in its deceptive simplicity, be the wave of the future. At the very least, it’s something to be grateful for in the present, a picture that conjures new life out of old grooves. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Rosa Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called “the first lady of civil rights”, and “the mother of the freedom movement.” Born February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama, Parks grew up when racism and discrimination was a norm in African American cultures. She made a name for herself in civil rights circles when she refused to obey a white bus driver and move to the back of the bus, so someone white could take her seat in the front of the bus. Parks’ act of defiance became a major player in the civil rights movement and caught the attention of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. Click HERE to read Rosa Parks Bio Below we take a look at the life of Rosa Parks through a timeline of the major events in her life… 1913 – This Rosa Parks timeline starts on February 4, 1913 when Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents were James McCauley, a carpenter and Schoolteacher Leona McCauley 1928 – She attends Booker T. Washington High School for ninth grade, but drops out when her grand mother becomes seriously ill and subsequently dies 1932 – December 18: Marries Raymond Parks, a barber, at 19. 1945 – WW2 ends and Rosa Parks receives her certificate for voting after three attempts 1946 – June 3: The U.S. Supreme Court banned segregation in interstate bus travel Aug 10 : Race riots occur in Athens, Alabama 1949 – Rosa and her husband Raymond work with Montgomery branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP’s) programs. Rosa Parks acts as secretary and later a youth leader 1955 – August: Rosa Parks meets Martin Luther King November 25: The Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation in buses and all waiting rooms involved in interstate travel December 1: Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give her seat on the bus to a white passenger. She is arrested, fingerprinted, jailed by police and fined $14. December 5 : She stands trial and is found guilty of breaking the segregation laws. December 5 : Martin Luther King becomes the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which was organized due to protest against the incident involving Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott begins which will last 381 days. 1956 – January: Rosa Parks loses her job as a seamstress at Montgomery Fair December 21: The Montgomery buses are desegregated and black passengers could legally take any seat on the city’s buses 1979 – Rosa Parks receives NAACP’s Spingarn Medal 1987 – Rosa founds the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development with long time friend Elaine Eason Steele which offers guidance to young blacks 1992 – Rosa publishes her first book, “Rosa Parks My Story” 1998 – April 21: The Rosa Parks Museum and Library is opened at her arrest site in Montgomery, Alabama September 2 : The Rosa L. Parks Learning Center is opened. Rosa is also inducted into the International Women’s Forum Hall of Fame 2003 – October 29: Rosa Parks is honored with the International Institute Heritage Hall of Fame Award. She is then diagnosed with progressive dementia. 2005 – October 24: Rosa Parks dies on in her Detroit home “I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free… so other people would be also free.” – Rosa Parks
