LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A day after their counterproposal to major studios' "final" contract offer was rebuffed, Screen Actors Guild leaders huddled on Friday to consider their next move in a Hollywood labor stalemate almost certain to drag into next week. In a brief statement released in the evening, SAG said its negotiating team "met behind closed doors throughout the day today discussing bargaining strategies. The negotiations team remains committed to continue to bargain for a fair contract."
But no further talks were scheduled, and SAG made no mention of how it might proceed to reopen negotiations now that management has taken the position that bargaining is over. It concluded by saying it would provide another update on Monday.
The contract at issue covers the work of 120,000 SAG members in prime-time TV and movies, an industry still reeling from a 100-day screenwriters' strike that ended in February. A strike by the actors union was seen as unlikely, for now.
The old SAG contract expired hours after studios' bargaining agent, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, presented the union their "final" offer as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition on June 30.
SAG nonetheless delivered a counteroffer during a four-hour meeting on Thursday that ended with the studios refusing to budge and insisting that SAG submit the industry's latest proposal to union members for a vote.
SAG leaders have so far been unwilling to do so, saying the studio offer -- mirroring terms endorsed on Tuesday by the smaller American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in a separate TV-only contract -- falls short in several areas.
SAG has, for example, sought higher residual payments for actors from DVD sales and to extend contract coverage to virtually all made-for-Internet programming.
The two sides even disagreed over whether they were still bargaining, or what constitutes a rejection.
"Our national negotiating committee did not, as has been erroneously reported, reject the AMPTP's offer," SAG said in its statement on Friday. "Instead, we made a comprehensive counterproposal that adopted some of their proposals and offered alternatives on others."
But AMPTP spokesman Jesse Hiestand responded by saying, "The counterproposal to a final offer is a rejection to a final offer. It can't be anything else."
How the status of talks is defined is more than academic. With the old contract now lapsed, the studios could declare a formal impasse in talks, freeing them to impose the terms of their latest offer, or to institute a lockout.
Both moves are widely seen as unlikely for now, in part because they could backfire on the studios by giving SAG a rallying point for its members.
So far, SAG leaders have played down the likelihood of a strike, a move that would require a 75 percent vote by members. Many industry watchers doubt SAG could muster the support needed in light of lingering fatigue from the writers work stoppage and a souring economy
2008年7月11日星期五
2008年7月6日星期日
Miley Cyrus Gives U.S. Troops a Shout-Out
Los Angeles (E! Online) - Teen sensation Miley Cyrus headlined America's Freedom Festival in Provo, Utah, on the Fourth of July. Known as "one of the largest patriotic celebrations in America," the sixth annual event was telecast live to the nation's troops around the globe. The concert, dubbed the "Stadium of Fire," was emceed by conservative political TV and radio commentator Glenn Beck.
Cyrus, 15, clad in a conservative all-white outfit of jeans and a tank top, performed in front of nearly 60,000 fans, singing her biggest hits and debuting songs off her new album. The reigning tween queen dedicated "Simple Song" to American troops.
"I want to take a minute to dedicate this song to all of our troops we got out there," she told the crowd. "I know God has an ultimate plan, so I'm stoked."
E! News is told that, prior to the show, Cyrus visited with kids from a local cancer hospital and signed autographs.
Missing from the Independence Day show was Miley's best friend and backup dancer, Mandy Jiroux. But Miley & Mandy fans need not worry about a BFF split: Jiroux couldn't make the show because she was performing in Boulder, Colo., this weekend with her girl group, the Beach Girlz, at a volleyball event.
Cyrus took in a fireworks show after her concert, despite her fears. In a conference call with reporters earlier in the week to promote the concert, Miley said: "I actually am really, really scared of fireworks so I would always sit in the car. Fireworks scare me so badly. Like, on my concert tour, any time pyro goes off, I'm like crossing my fingers. I really don't like it."
Following the concert, Cyrus flew back to Tennessee, where she is still filming the Hannah Montana movie, which is scheduled to wrap later this month.
Cyrus, 15, clad in a conservative all-white outfit of jeans and a tank top, performed in front of nearly 60,000 fans, singing her biggest hits and debuting songs off her new album. The reigning tween queen dedicated "Simple Song" to American troops.
"I want to take a minute to dedicate this song to all of our troops we got out there," she told the crowd. "I know God has an ultimate plan, so I'm stoked."
E! News is told that, prior to the show, Cyrus visited with kids from a local cancer hospital and signed autographs.
Missing from the Independence Day show was Miley's best friend and backup dancer, Mandy Jiroux. But Miley & Mandy fans need not worry about a BFF split: Jiroux couldn't make the show because she was performing in Boulder, Colo., this weekend with her girl group, the Beach Girlz, at a volleyball event.
Cyrus took in a fireworks show after her concert, despite her fears. In a conference call with reporters earlier in the week to promote the concert, Miley said: "I actually am really, really scared of fireworks so I would always sit in the car. Fireworks scare me so badly. Like, on my concert tour, any time pyro goes off, I'm like crossing my fingers. I really don't like it."
Following the concert, Cyrus flew back to Tennessee, where she is still filming the Hannah Montana movie, which is scheduled to wrap later this month.
2008年7月4日星期五
Headstone Swiped from Joy Division Singer's Grave
Los Angeles (E! Online) - Ian Curtis wasn't around long but he left quite an impression Someone has stolen the memorial gravestone that marks the late Joy Division singer's final resting place in a West England cemetery, British authorities said Thursday.
Curtis, who was recently played by Sam Riley in the well-received biopic Control, hanged himself May, 18, 1980, at the age of 23, right before his band was about to embark on its first U.S. tour. The post-punk visionary's body was cremated in Macclesfield, where he grew up.
The more than 20-year-old stone marking the spot where his ashes are buried is inscribed with "Ian Curtis, 18-5-80" and bears the signaturely gloomy sentiment, "Love Will Tear Us Apart, " the title of Joy Division's biggest song.
A spokesman for the Cheshire Police said in a statement that the theft occurred sometime between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.
"There is no CCTV in the area and there are no apparent leads as to who is responsible for the theft," Inspector Gareth Woods said. "This is a very unusual theft and we are confident that someone locally will have knowledge about who is responsible or where the memorial stone is at present."
"We had to break the news to Debbie [Woodruff, Curtis' widow] and she was shocked and found it difficult to take in. She is in a state of disbelief and shock," said a spokesman for the Macclesfield Borough Council.
Woodruff penned the memoir Touching From a Distance on which Control was based.
New Order drummer Stephen Morris, who formed his current band with his Joy Division mates after Curtis' death, told Britain's Telegraph newspaper that the thief probably swiped the stone as a "sick souvenir.
"We've all been wild and reckless in our time, but surely this represents a new low. It's probably a fan who has taken it, and I would appeal to them to return it or leave it at the nearest police station."
Curtis, who was recently played by Sam Riley in the well-received biopic Control, hanged himself May, 18, 1980, at the age of 23, right before his band was about to embark on its first U.S. tour. The post-punk visionary's body was cremated in Macclesfield, where he grew up.
The more than 20-year-old stone marking the spot where his ashes are buried is inscribed with "Ian Curtis, 18-5-80" and bears the signaturely gloomy sentiment, "Love Will Tear Us Apart, " the title of Joy Division's biggest song.
A spokesman for the Cheshire Police said in a statement that the theft occurred sometime between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.
"There is no CCTV in the area and there are no apparent leads as to who is responsible for the theft," Inspector Gareth Woods said. "This is a very unusual theft and we are confident that someone locally will have knowledge about who is responsible or where the memorial stone is at present."
"We had to break the news to Debbie [Woodruff, Curtis' widow] and she was shocked and found it difficult to take in. She is in a state of disbelief and shock," said a spokesman for the Macclesfield Borough Council.
Woodruff penned the memoir Touching From a Distance on which Control was based.
New Order drummer Stephen Morris, who formed his current band with his Joy Division mates after Curtis' death, told Britain's Telegraph newspaper that the thief probably swiped the stone as a "sick souvenir.
"We've all been wild and reckless in our time, but surely this represents a new low. It's probably a fan who has taken it, and I would appeal to them to return it or leave it at the nearest police station."
Paisley says working with Griffith a highlight
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Brad Paisley says he got to mark a biggie off his wish list when Andy Griffith agreed to be in the video for his new single, "Waitin' On a Woman." "He has influenced my life more than most people that I grew up with — more than most people that I actually knew my whole life," Paisley said recently. "I wrote Andy a letter telling him what he has meant to me over the years and asked him to be in the video."
In the video, which began airing this week, the 82-year-old star of the long-running TV series "Matlock" and "The Andy Griffith Show" plays a kindly gentleman who advises Paisley's character to be patient when waiting for a woman.
"Andy heard the song and wanted to commit to working the long hours necessary to get the video right, and he really adopted this music video as if it was his own," said Paisley, whose past videos have featured Jason Alexander, William Shatner, Maureen McCormick, Jerry Springer and others.
In the video, which began airing this week, the 82-year-old star of the long-running TV series "Matlock" and "The Andy Griffith Show" plays a kindly gentleman who advises Paisley's character to be patient when waiting for a woman.
"Andy heard the song and wanted to commit to working the long hours necessary to get the video right, and he really adopted this music video as if it was his own," said Paisley, whose past videos have featured Jason Alexander, William Shatner, Maureen McCormick, Jerry Springer and others.
Spielberg group gives $1M to Pa. Jewish museum
PHILADELPHIA - A foundation created by Steven Spielberg is giving $1 million to the National Museum of American Jewish History. The money from the Righteous Persons Foundation will go toward a new, five-story museum building being built in Philadelphia.
With the donation, officials say the museum's capital campaign has raised $111 million toward its $150 million goal. The new museum is set to open in 2010.
Spielberg helped establish the Righteous Persons Foundation in 1994 after directing his Oscar-winning Holocaust film "Schindler's List."
The museum was established in 1976 and is dedicated to telling the story of the American Jewish experience. It is constructing the new building in hopes of raising its profile and increasing the number of visitors.
With the donation, officials say the museum's capital campaign has raised $111 million toward its $150 million goal. The new museum is set to open in 2010.
Spielberg helped establish the Righteous Persons Foundation in 1994 after directing his Oscar-winning Holocaust film "Schindler's List."
The museum was established in 1976 and is dedicated to telling the story of the American Jewish experience. It is constructing the new building in hopes of raising its profile and increasing the number of visitors.
Lost footage of "Metropolis" surfaces in Argentina
BERLIN (Reuters) - Film historians had doubted they would ever find the missing portions of "Metropolis" -- until three reels of the science fiction film made in Germany a long time ago, were discovered in a country far, far away. Two film fans in Argentina uncovered the fragile footage in a small museum earlier this year -- over eight decades after Fritz Lang's dystopian classic first began to shed scenes.
With its cold, monumental vision of mechanized society, "Metropolis" forged a template for generations of science fiction cinema, and its enduring influence has been cited on films from "Blade Runner" to "Fahrenheit 451" and "Star Wars."
"We were overjoyed when we heard about the find," Helmut Possmann, head of the foundation which owns the rights to the film, the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, told Reuters.
"We no longer believed we'd see this. Time and again we had had calls about supposed footage but were disappointed."
"Metropolis," which depicts a tumultuous class struggle in a vast, urban society, was the first film to be entered into UNESCO's Memory of the World Register -- which aims to preserve cultural achievements of outstanding significance.
Released in 1927, set a century later, the silent film was not a commercial success and nearly ruined the studio behind it. According to some estimates, it still ranks as one of the most expensive movies ever made once inflation is factored in.
Soon after its premiere, the movie was heavily cut to make it more accessible, and several new versions emerged. A series of efforts were made to restore the film over the years but roughly a quarter of it was believed to be lost.
However, there were those in Argentina who knew better.
NO HOAX
According to the magazine of German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, Buenos Aires film distributor Adolfo Z. Wilson acquired a long version of "Metropolis" in 1928 which survived as a copy, and finally ended up in the archive of a local film museum.
Having heard talk of the Wilson reels, a couple of cinema aficionados -- one of whom had just taken charge of the archive -- discovered the canisters containing them earlier this year and brought a DVD of the contents to Germany for analysis.
The director of the Buenos Aires Film Museum, Paula Felix-Didier, told reporters on Thursday the film in Buenos Aires was a copy of the original version that premiered in Germany and was adapted for use on a 16mm-projector.
Possmann at the Murnau foundation said the experts had no doubts about the authenticity of the reels.
"We're not being fooled," he said. "The film can now be shown more or less as Lang originally intended it. In terms of understanding what it's about, we'll be seeing a new film."
Although estimates of its original length vary depending on the speed at which it is shown, Possmann said "Metropolis" was conceived as a film lasting just over 2-1/2 hours.
Around 20 to 25 minutes of footage that fleshes out secondary characters and sheds light on the plot would be added to the film pending restoration, he added. But around 5 minutes of the original were probably still missing, he said.
Due to the poor condition of the film stock, it was too early to say how long restoration would take, Possmann said.
"It's taken several years with similar films," he added.
With its cold, monumental vision of mechanized society, "Metropolis" forged a template for generations of science fiction cinema, and its enduring influence has been cited on films from "Blade Runner" to "Fahrenheit 451" and "Star Wars."
"We were overjoyed when we heard about the find," Helmut Possmann, head of the foundation which owns the rights to the film, the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, told Reuters.
"We no longer believed we'd see this. Time and again we had had calls about supposed footage but were disappointed."
"Metropolis," which depicts a tumultuous class struggle in a vast, urban society, was the first film to be entered into UNESCO's Memory of the World Register -- which aims to preserve cultural achievements of outstanding significance.
Released in 1927, set a century later, the silent film was not a commercial success and nearly ruined the studio behind it. According to some estimates, it still ranks as one of the most expensive movies ever made once inflation is factored in.
Soon after its premiere, the movie was heavily cut to make it more accessible, and several new versions emerged. A series of efforts were made to restore the film over the years but roughly a quarter of it was believed to be lost.
However, there were those in Argentina who knew better.
NO HOAX
According to the magazine of German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, Buenos Aires film distributor Adolfo Z. Wilson acquired a long version of "Metropolis" in 1928 which survived as a copy, and finally ended up in the archive of a local film museum.
Having heard talk of the Wilson reels, a couple of cinema aficionados -- one of whom had just taken charge of the archive -- discovered the canisters containing them earlier this year and brought a DVD of the contents to Germany for analysis.
The director of the Buenos Aires Film Museum, Paula Felix-Didier, told reporters on Thursday the film in Buenos Aires was a copy of the original version that premiered in Germany and was adapted for use on a 16mm-projector.
Possmann at the Murnau foundation said the experts had no doubts about the authenticity of the reels.
"We're not being fooled," he said. "The film can now be shown more or less as Lang originally intended it. In terms of understanding what it's about, we'll be seeing a new film."
Although estimates of its original length vary depending on the speed at which it is shown, Possmann said "Metropolis" was conceived as a film lasting just over 2-1/2 hours.
Around 20 to 25 minutes of footage that fleshes out secondary characters and sheds light on the plot would be added to the film pending restoration, he added. But around 5 minutes of the original were probably still missing, he said.
Due to the poor condition of the film stock, it was too early to say how long restoration would take, Possmann said.
"It's taken several years with similar films," he added.
Argentines find lost 'Metropolis' scenes
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Lost scenes from the sci-fi classic "Metropolis," recently discovered in the archives of a Buenos Aires museum, were shown to journalists for the first time in decades on Thursday. A long-lost original cut of the 1927 silent film sat for 80 years in a private collection and then in the Museum of Cinema in Buenos Aires, where it was discovered in April with scratched images that hadn't been seen before.
Museum director Paula Felix-Didier said theirs is the only copy of German director Fritz Lang's complete film.
"This is the version Fritz Lang intended," said Martin Koerber, a curator at the Deutsche Kinemathek film museum in Berlin, Germany.
"Metropolis," written by Lang and his actress wife Thea von Harbou, depicts a 21st century world divided between a class of underworld workers and the "thinkers" above who control them.
Soon after its initial release at the height of Germany's Weimar Republic, distributors cut Lang's three-and-a-half-hour masterpiece into the shorter version since viewed by millions worldwide.
But a private collector carried an original version to Argentina in 1928, where it has stayed, Felix-Didier said.
In the 1980s, Argentine film fanatic Fernando Pena heard about a man who had propped up a broken projector for "hours" to screen "Metropolis" in the 1960s. But the version of the film he knew was only one-and-a-half hours long. For years, he begged Buenos Aires' museum to check their archives for the man's longer version.
This year, museum researchers finally agreed and in April uncovered the reels in the museum's archive.
In June, Felix-Didier flew with a DVD to the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation in Wiesbaden, Germany, which owns the rights to "Metropolis." Researchers there confirmed that the scenes were original.
News of the find excited film enthusiasts worldwide.
"This is a movie that millions and millions of people have seen since its release and yet, in many ways, we've never seen the true film," said Mike Mashon, head of the Moving Image section of the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington.
"Metropolis" was reissued in the U.S. in 2002 by Kino International Corp., which owns the rights to distribute the film domestically, Kino's general manager Gary Palmucci said.
Kino may rerelease the new, complete version of the film, although Palmucci said it is too soon for details.
Meanwhile, Buenos Aires' Museum of Cinema is holding its treasure tight.
"The film hasn't left the museum and it won't leave until the city government and the Murnau Foundation decide what to do," Felix-Didier said.
Museum director Paula Felix-Didier said theirs is the only copy of German director Fritz Lang's complete film.
"This is the version Fritz Lang intended," said Martin Koerber, a curator at the Deutsche Kinemathek film museum in Berlin, Germany.
"Metropolis," written by Lang and his actress wife Thea von Harbou, depicts a 21st century world divided between a class of underworld workers and the "thinkers" above who control them.
Soon after its initial release at the height of Germany's Weimar Republic, distributors cut Lang's three-and-a-half-hour masterpiece into the shorter version since viewed by millions worldwide.
But a private collector carried an original version to Argentina in 1928, where it has stayed, Felix-Didier said.
In the 1980s, Argentine film fanatic Fernando Pena heard about a man who had propped up a broken projector for "hours" to screen "Metropolis" in the 1960s. But the version of the film he knew was only one-and-a-half hours long. For years, he begged Buenos Aires' museum to check their archives for the man's longer version.
This year, museum researchers finally agreed and in April uncovered the reels in the museum's archive.
In June, Felix-Didier flew with a DVD to the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation in Wiesbaden, Germany, which owns the rights to "Metropolis." Researchers there confirmed that the scenes were original.
News of the find excited film enthusiasts worldwide.
"This is a movie that millions and millions of people have seen since its release and yet, in many ways, we've never seen the true film," said Mike Mashon, head of the Moving Image section of the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington.
"Metropolis" was reissued in the U.S. in 2002 by Kino International Corp., which owns the rights to distribute the film domestically, Kino's general manager Gary Palmucci said.
Kino may rerelease the new, complete version of the film, although Palmucci said it is too soon for details.
Meanwhile, Buenos Aires' Museum of Cinema is holding its treasure tight.
"The film hasn't left the museum and it won't leave until the city government and the Murnau Foundation decide what to do," Felix-Didier said.
订阅：
博文 (Atom)