In the grand tradition of the late, great Robert Opel : “It’s long been rumored that Opel’s streak across the screen was not necessarily a unilateral act of transgression by Opel, and that he may have had a co-conspirator or two. The facts that he gained access to the backstage area in order to stage the streaking, and that he was given a post-show press conference, give rise to the suspicion that the event was set-up by the producers of the broadcast, maybe to give the long-venerated institution a little jolt.” [ The Awl ]
Next month brings the launch of The Hunger Games , one of the most-anticipated releases of the 2012 calendar and the first installment of a hopeful franchise based on Suzanne Collins’s bestselling young-adult adventure trilogy. In selling their film, studio execs at Lionsgate have ramped up all manner of marketing to immerse fans in the experience — and, in doing so, have made the least-populated jursdiction on the planet a financial beneficiary. The Hunger Games series features teenaged heroine Katniss Everdeen and concerns a North America remade into a dystopian dictatorship, renamed Panem and ruled by the governing body called The Capitol. As Lionsgate has expanded its promotional campaign, a wide array of affiliated websites has sprung up in an effort to make Panem as real as possible, many of those bearing obscure web addresses (e.g. www.Capitol.pn) to imply that the sites originate in the nation depicted in the film. This unique designation is not a studio fabrication, however. The .pn modifier is the domain offered up by the very real government of the Pitcairn Islands, a collection of four land masses comprising 18 square miles in the middle of the southern Pacific Ocean. This British territory rests over a thousand miles west of Easter Island and just as far east of Tahiti. So how did Pitcairn, with barely over 50 residents and intermittent electrical services, become the Internet home of a major Hollywood franchise? “It’s a happy coincidence,” Bill Haigh, governmental registrar for the island’s domain offices, told me in an e-mail correspondence. “Lionsgate have found .pn useful to them, and it has been helpful for bringing benefit to the island.” As the movie studio looked into creating an online presence for the film’s fictional nation, a functional domain was already in place. The Pitcairn government offers up these domains primarily for corporations to establish and/or protect their brand, and Haigh explained that the proceeds go a long way toward the islands’ infrastructural upkeep. “The sale of domain names is of great benefit to the 50 or so inhabitants of Pitcairn Island,” he said, “because revenue thus gathered is used to bring modern telecommunications to this extremely remote spot on the globe via satellite. This is quite an expensive process. And it is not only for telecommunications but generally for supply shipping, children’s education, medical care etc.” The result is that The Hunger Games has become a boon for this tiny territory, one that lacks a movie theater and receives but two cable channels — CNN and Turner Classic Movies. While Haigh declined to divulge the number of Web addresses purchased by the studio (Lionsgate reps did not respond to requests for comment), he did direct me to an online registry where one can inquire about the availability and ownership of various selections. Along with already established Capitol.pn, and CapitolCouture.pn, there are registrations for Panem’s various districts (District1.pn, through District13.pn), and each of the main characters have their own addresses (e.g. PresidentSnow.pn). Ultimately it’s impossible to deduce exactly how many Hunger Games characters, phrases and permutations thereof have staked a .pn claim. After browsing the registry for a while, however, it seems safe to assume that Lionsgate may have vastly more addresses collected than there are Pitcairn residents. And based on the fee of $100 NZ (appx. $75 US) per registered address, Hunger brings in revenues well into the thousands of dollars — a tidy supplement to the islands’ steady tourism business. As geographically remote as the Pitcairn Islands are, this Hunger Games dalliance does not make for their sole involvement with Hollywood. Most of the surnames found on the island are shared by characters from the oft-adapted novel Mutiny on The Bounty ; the book and numerous films are based on historical events that occurred on and around Pitcairn. For this reason cruise ships are a common sight in Bounty Bay, where visitors will find the outpost isle’s own capitol. However, as much of a windfall as Hunger Games may prove for the islands, it is doubtful “Everdeen” will appear anytime soon in the area phone books. Read Movieline’s full Hunger Games coverage here . 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 .
Next month brings the launch of The Hunger Games , one of the most-anticipated releases of the 2012 calendar and the first installment of a hopeful franchise based on Suzanne Collins’s bestselling young-adult adventure trilogy. In selling their film, studio execs at Lionsgate have ramped up all manner of marketing to immerse fans in the experience — and, in doing so, have made the least-populated jursdiction on the planet a financial beneficiary. The Hunger Games series features teenaged heroine Katniss Everdeen and concerns a North America remade into a dystopian dictatorship, renamed Panem and ruled by the governing body called The Capitol. As Lionsgate has expanded its promotional campaign, a wide array of affiliated websites has sprung up in an effort to make Panem as real as possible, many of those bearing obscure web addresses (e.g. www.Capitol.pn) to imply that the sites originate in the nation depicted in the film. This unique designation is not a studio fabrication, however. The .pn modifier is the domain offered up by the very real government of the Pitcairn Islands, a collection of four land masses comprising 18 square miles in the middle of the southern Pacific Ocean. This British territory rests over a thousand miles west of Easter Island and just as far east of Tahiti. So how did Pitcairn, with barely over 50 residents and intermittent electrical services, become the Internet home of a major Hollywood franchise? “It’s a happy coincidence,” Bill Haigh, governmental registrar for the island’s domain offices, told me in an e-mail correspondence. “Lionsgate have found .pn useful to them, and it has been helpful for bringing benefit to the island.” As the movie studio looked into creating an online presence for the film’s fictional nation, a functional domain was already in place. The Pitcairn government offers up these domains primarily for corporations to establish and/or protect their brand, and Haigh explained that the proceeds go a long way toward the islands’ infrastructural upkeep. “The sale of domain names is of great benefit to the 50 or so inhabitants of Pitcairn Island,” he said, “because revenue thus gathered is used to bring modern telecommunications to this extremely remote spot on the globe via satellite. This is quite an expensive process. And it is not only for telecommunications but generally for supply shipping, children’s education, medical care etc.” The result is that The Hunger Games has become a boon for this tiny territory, one that lacks a movie theater and receives but two cable channels — CNN and Turner Classic Movies. While Haigh declined to divulge the number of Web addresses purchased by the studio (Lionsgate reps did not respond to requests for comment), he did direct me to an online registry where one can inquire about the availability and ownership of various selections. Along with already established Capitol.pn, and CapitolCouture.pn, there are registrations for Panem’s various districts (District1.pn, through District13.pn), and each of the main characters have their own addresses (e.g. PresidentSnow.pn). Ultimately it’s impossible to deduce exactly how many Hunger Games characters, phrases and permutations thereof have staked a .pn claim. After browsing the registry for a while, however, it seems safe to assume that Lionsgate may have vastly more addresses collected than there are Pitcairn residents. And based on the fee of $100 NZ (appx. $75 US) per registered address, Hunger brings in revenues well into the thousands of dollars — a tidy supplement to the islands’ steady tourism business. As geographically remote as the Pitcairn Islands are, this Hunger Games dalliance does not make for their sole involvement with Hollywood. Most of the surnames found on the island are shared by characters from the oft-adapted novel Mutiny on The Bounty ; the book and numerous films are based on historical events that occurred on and around Pitcairn. For this reason cruise ships are a common sight in Bounty Bay, where visitors will find the outpost isle’s own capitol. However, as much of a windfall as Hunger Games may prove for the islands, it is doubtful “Everdeen” will appear anytime soon in the area phone books. Read Movieline’s full Hunger Games coverage here . 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 .
It’s episode four of The Voice’s blind auditions, with Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton back in their red-spinning spaceship chairs yet again. How much fun is this show? American Idol likes to tout its star-creating power, and The Voice may not have an answer to that until it produces its own Kelly Clarkson … or even a Scotty McCreery. Still, it remains a far more entertaining show in many respects, from the diversity of the vocalists trying out, to the rapport between the judges and the unique format.
‘It was the first time you hear an artist from the mainstream singing bachata,’ former Aventura frontman tells MTV News of single ‘Promise.’ By Christina Garibaldi Lil Wayne Photo: Frank Micelotta/ Getty Images Romeo Santos , the former lead singer of the popular bachata group Aventura , has taken a new step in his career, venturing out on his own as a solo artist. Mixing his signature bachata flair with some R&B, he is showing fans a whole new side on his debut album, Formula, Vol. 1. Hoping to spread his unique sound and style to a mainstream audience, Santos enlisted Lil Wayne for his latest single, “All Aboard.” “This song ‘All Aboard,’ that tune allowed me to expand and kind of offer my audience something totally different because it’s not bachata — I’m singing English and that was really fun,” Santos recently told MTV News. “I was a little nervous about that, but people actually really accepted it.” Santos and Weezy recently shot the video for “All Aboard” in Miami; he called the clip “sexy,” “seductive” and “elegant,” but also revealed that this collaboration came very close to not making his album. “I was just like, I like the song but it’s missing something, and at first I couldn’t figure out what it was,” Santos said. “What we did was we left 16 bars open, and I was like, you know, who would rip this track? Lil Wayne. So we reached out. It barely made the album because he’s a busy dude, so he actually got on the record two months after we submitted it. It was like, if we don’t get his vocals in the next two days we hit, and we got it, so we made it and the song is just really great.” Wayne isn’t the only artist Santos pulled in for his album. On his last single, “Promise,” he teamed up with Usher , who last week joined him onstage at Santos’ first of three sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden. “I felt at that moment once again I was going to revolutionize bachata ’cause it was the first time that you hear an artist from the mainstream singing bachata,” Santos said. “It was a big deal.” What do you think of Romeo Santos’ solo debut? Let us know in the comments. Related Artists Romeo Santos Lil Wayne Usher
Katy Perry, Bon Iver, Bruno Mars and Mumford & Sons are also competing for the prestigious award. By Gil Kaufman Adele, Bruno Mars and Katy Perry Photo: Getty Images Every year has one: a runaway Grammy nominee who sweeps through the top categories and appears to be the juggernaut to beat. This year is no different. While Kanye West is the top nominee with seven nods, Adele is close behind with six nods, including bids in all of the top categories. And while we won’t know whose name will be called until Sunday night’s show, a look at the Record of the Year race is a fine example of why the British songbird might need some help packing her hardware up for the trip back home. Unless you spent time on another planet this year, and even if you did, chances are you heard Adele’s breakthrough hit, “Rolling in the Deep” a dozen or (many) more times. The stirring soul pop gem was the perfect showcase for the singer’s powerful, richly textured voice, and its ebb-and-flow dynamic packed a relationship’s worth of drama into 3:48. In addition to selling nearly 6 million copies of her album, 21, she also moved nearly 6 million copies of the “Deep” single, earning credit for helping to (slightly) pull the long-moribund U.S. record business out of a decade-long slump. But she has some formidable opponents in the Record of the Year race, one of the most prestigious awards handed out, which frequently honors the year’s most successful or notable songs. That might explain how Best New Artist nominee Bon Iver got into the mix with the ethereal “Holocene.” Leader Justin Vernon broke through to the mainstream in 2011 thanks to his own folk-and-AutoTuned compositions, as well as work with West. If “Rolling in the Deep” was inescapable, then Mumford & Sons ‘ “The Cave” was just a few notches below ubiquitous, but still all over the place. The banjo-picking, foot-stomping ditty from the English folk revivalists helped cement their status as a force to be reckoned with, while serving as a nice follow-up to their salty breakthrough, “Little Lion Man.” It also helped keep their multi-platinum debut, Sigh No More, a fixture on the Billboard 200 and iTunes charts throughout the year. Somewhere in between were two huge hits for Katy Perry and Bruno Mars that put a stranglehold on pop radio for much of the spring and summer. Perry’s inspiring “Firework” helped the singer reach elite company on the Billboard charts on her way to landing six top-five hits from a single album , not to mention empowering her young fans to embrace their unique identities. Any way you slice it, it was also a huge year for Mars, who also garnered six Grammy noms for his Doo-Wops & Hooligans debut as well as his producing/songwriting work on songs by other artists. But it was the sweat and toil he put into the endless love tune “Grenade” that made all that hard work pay off. “[We] worked extremely hard on ‘Grenade.’ That was the hardest song on the whole album to finish because we knew we had something, and to get all that emotion out,” Mars told MTV News in December. “I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we’re really happy that that song is being recognized because that’s like our trophy song.” Chaos! Profanity! Wardrobe malfunctions! Don’t miss Sway and James Montgomery live from the Grammys red carpet this Sunday, February 12, for a full three hours of mayhem, starting at 5 p.m. ET on MTV.com. And the fun doesn’t end Sunday: MTV News has you covered until the Grammy hangover wears off! Related Videos A Guide To The Grammys 2012 Adele’s ‘Magical’ Road To Success Related Photos 2012 Grammy Performers MTV Act | 2012 Grammy Nominees Who Give Back
Belgium-born singer talks about the song’s growing success and stripping down for its very naked music video. By James Montgomery Gotye in his “Somebody That I Used to Know” music video Photo: Eleven You might not know who Gotye is, but you’ve definitely heard his song. It’s a tidy little ball of emotional wreckage called “Somebody That I Used to Know,” and it’s currently burning up both the Billboard Hot 100 and Modern Rock radio (and it’s becoming a go-to track for the CW’s stable of teensploitation programming). The thing you might not know is that the roots of the Belgium-born (Australia-raised) singer/songwriter’s signature hit actually stretch back more than a year … when he was struggling to finish his Making Mirrors album. Though now, as Gotye begins his U.S. press push, he’s more than happy to tell you the backstory. ” ‘Somebody That I Used to Know,’ like a lot of the record, was a bit of a struggle to finish,” he told MTV News. “It was written fairly quickly — I wrote it in November 2010 — but it took six months to find Kimbra [who features on the track] and really realize she was the right vocalist to make the female part come to life. There were constant hurdles.” Then again, that’s been a fairly common occurrence. Because the making of each of his studio albums has been a battle, though Gotye is quick to chalk that up to the way he chooses to work. And “Somebody” is a prime example of what happens when he pushes through his struggles. “Sometimes I’ll have sections that I’m not quite sure how they fit in the puzzle of a tune, they’ll get moved around; what I think was originally a verse ends up becoming the chorus, or what’s an intro gets dropped as a hook, things get shifted around a lot,” he explained. “That song was written in a very linear fashion; and then I hit this brick wall of not knowing where to go with this one person’s story, and that prompted me to add another perspective.” And then, as his legions of female (and male) fans around the world are surely aware of, there’s the matter of the “Somebody” video, which features Gotye and Kimbra sans clothing … but loaded down with body paint. And yes, making the clip certainly presented a rather unique set of challenges. “The shots I did by myself, I chopped up a pair of my underpants and had them sort of gaffer-taped strategically around certain areas. But at one stage it just became a bit absurd, because the gaffer tape would just keep coming off, and my friend James, who was actually filming behind the scenes on the video, he’s got some pretty incriminating footage,” Gotye laughed. “There was just a point where the cinematographer of the clip was a bit more vicariously embarrassed for me than I was, because the underpants would just fall open and I’d be like ‘Let’s just keep going, there’s nothing nobody hasn’t seen here before.’ “We shot it over two very full days … I quite clearly remember driving home at 9 a.m., after shooting all day, in a bathrobe, with bodypaint all over my face, and going through McDonald’s drive-thru,” he continued. “I ordered a coffee to make sure I didn’t crash on the way home. And the girl working there, she didn’t even bat an eyelid. I guess it’s a regular thing down in Hastings [Australia] McDonald’s.” What do you think of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” video? Leave your comment below!
‘It’s groundbreaking TV,’ actress tells MTV News of the found-footage series, which premieres tonight. By Josh Wigler Eloise Mumford in “The River” Photo: American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. There’s magic out there … you just need to ford “The River” to find it. “Paranormal Activity” mastermind Oren Peli is back with another found-footage fright-fest, but this time, it’s playing out on the small screen in the form of “The River,” a new supernatural series debuting on ABC on Tuesday (February 7). “The River” stars “Star Trek” actor Bruce Greenwood as Dr. Emmet Cole, a television personality and famed explorer who vanishes without a trace while seeking magic in the depths of the Amazon. Six months later, new evidence regarding Emmet’s whereabouts comes to light, leading his wife, Tess (Leslie Hope), and son, Lincoln (Joe Anderson), to the Amazon with a television crew in tow. What they find there is darker and more inexplicable than anything they expected — and as promised by the missing Dr. Cole, there is indeed magic out there, deadlier than the rabbits-from-hats variety. Actress Eloise Mumford, who stars on the show as adventurer Lena Landry, dropped by MTV News this week to talk about the premiere of “The River,” and why it’s a television event that fans of found-footage absolutely can’t miss. “It’s ‘Paranormal Activity’ meets ‘X-Files,’ ” she told MTV about the premise of the show. “The conceit is that it’s all shot as a TV show — you’re aware that it’s not just a TV show on TV, but that the whole thing is being shot as a TV show within a TV show. It’s really fun, because it’s all shot as a documentary. You see the camera guys; they’re characters. Sometimes we had up to 13 cameras rolling at once. It’s groundbreaking TV in that sense. It’s taking this age of technology right now and taking full advantage of that.” Indeed, though found-footage is a prominent part of pop culture today, it’s a device that’s rarely explored in scripted genre television. Mumford said that the unique perspective will help set “The River” apart from other shows currently on TV. “If you’re flipping through the channels, you’re going to go, ‘Whoa!’ It’s such a different look,” she said. “And the storytelling of it is so much faster. There’s really unique points of view in all of it.” “It’s in line with the youth of today,” she added of what makes “The River” relevant. “We’re used to shooting our own stuff on our cellphones. We’re used to capturing everything. To be able to have that as a TV show is going to be really fun for people to watch.” “The River” flows on ABC tonight (February 7) at at 9 ET/PT (8 Central). Are you excited for the premiere of “The River”? Leave your comment below.
This just in at Movieline HQ: “With the return in popularity of the moustache, the organizer of New England’s largest moustache pageant is introducing the world’s first known International Moustache Film Festival in 2012.” And, with a whole $100 in prize money, so remunerative! I’d have preferred the Stache d’Or, but hey. Here’s a video call for submissions, with full press release and submission details below. Beware: Hipsters ahoy! ================= International Moustache Film Festival – The World’s Hairiest Film Festival Portland, Maine– With the return in popularity of the moustache, the organizer of New England’s largest moustache pageant, No Umbrella Media, is introducing the world’s first known International Moustache Film Festival in 2012. The festival will be be held immediately before the fifth annual Stache Pag on March 30, 2012. The film selection committee must receive all film submissions by March 24, 2012. This festival is open to film makers the world over. The finalists will have their 8 minute or less films shown and judged at the festival. The winner will be chosen and awarded a cash prize. Dr. Lou Jacobs, director of The New England Bureau of The American Mustache Institute will be the host of the film festival. “This is an important moment in moustache history,” says Dr. Jacobs. “Never has there been a film festival dedicated to the unique art of filming the mustached male (or female). The American Mustache Institute would like to congratulate the IMFF for it’s efforts to preserve the mustached arts.” Silly as this may sound, the festival is quite serious. The beneficiaries of the festival and 5th Annual Stache Pag will be Northeast Historic Film, MENSK and Mystache Fights Cancer. The events put on by No Umbrella Media are designed to preserve the arts and save lives. Some of the many film categories will be: Best Foreign Moustache Film, Best Growth Story, Best Collection of Moustaches in One Film and Best Fake Moustache Movie. Video announcement is located at www.stachefilmfest.com No Umbrella Media is Portland, ME-based video production company specializing in authentic storytelling through video. www.noumbrella.com The American Mustache Institute has been “protecting the rights of, and fighting discrimination against moustached Americans, by promoting the growth, care, and culture of the moustache.” AmericanMustacheInstitute.org Details: Date: March 30, 2012 Venue: Port City Music Hall – 504 Congress Street, Portland, Maine. Film Festival Begins: 7:30pm Stache Pag Begins: 10pm For more information, including ticket info, and how to enter the Moustache Pageant or Film Festival, please visit the websites. ###
During a live video web chat with Marie Claire , Angelina Jolie revealed that she had a “complete meltdown” recently and that Brad Pitt found her crying in the shower. When we heard that, several theories came to mind: She was devastated by the plight of refugees Jennifer Aniston is pining for Brad again Angelina Jolie is pregnant for reals Turns out it was something much simpler: Nerves. Before production began on her directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey , she felt the task was too daunting: “I thought, ‘Who am I to take this on?'” “I had a complete emotional breakdown in the shower and Brad [Pitt] found me crying,” Jolie revealed. “I felt this huge responsibility and I felt very small.” “I didn’t plan to become a director, and I still have trouble saying I’m a director. I just wanted to tell this story and I ended up by default being the director.” “It was a pleasure, to say the least, but I wonder if it would be a pleasure with another cast and crew, and a subject matter that wasn’t so special.” Jolie’s film is nominated for a Golden Globe. [Photo: WENN.com]
