“Producer: chef's mission 'wasn't all about Julia' - Chicago Sun-Times” plus 4 more

Producer: chef's mission 'wasn't all about Julia' - Chicago Sun-Times
Redbox and Lionsgate Sign Multi-Year Distribution Agreement - Earthtimes
Music festival that was a surprise hit still fascinates - Tuscaloosa News
Movie time on Friday at park - Post-Tribune
Movie review: It Might Get Loud - Huffingtonpost.com

Producer: chef's mission 'wasn't all about Julia' - Chicago Sun-Times

Posted: 12 Aug 2009 02:05 AM PDT

'JULIE & JULIA' | Child 'would be honored' by Streep portrayal

The big ''Wow!'' moment in "Julie & Julia" comes near the end, when moviegoers learn not only did blogger Julie Powell never meet Julia Child, but the groundbreaking TV chef reportedly was not pleased Powell had decided to cook all 524 recipes from Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking within 365 days -- and write a blog about it.

Is that critical scene in director Nora Ephron's new hit fact -- or fiction?

Powell confirmed to the Sun-Times that scene in the movie happened in real life. Yet, since Powell never spoke directly to the gourmet icon, she only can surmise from secondhand sources why Child ''was kind of a pill" about the project, as a Santa Barbara, Calif., reporter said when he phoned Powell to get a comment.

The reporter had called the cooking legend at her retirement home in Santa Barbara, to ask about the ''Julie & Julia'' blog -- after a story by New York Times food writer Amanda Hesser suddenly propelled Powell into the spotlight.

Powell said she never attempted to reach out to Child after the reporter's call, since she came to realize it wasn't Child herself ''but the idea of Julia that was in my head that I adored and idolized. ... If the real Julia didn't understand what I was doing, or understand it was simply my way to honor her, so be it."

In a blog entry Monday, Powell said she believed Child's reaction ''was less irritated than simply uninterested.'' The blogging project came to Child's attention near the end of its yearlong run, a year before Child's death at 92 in 2004.

However, Geoffrey Drummond, who produced two of Child's PBS series -- ''Cooking with Master Chefs'' and ''Julia's Kitchen'' -- has a different take on Child's aversion to the ''Julie & Julia'' blog.

''Julia was really very off on anything that drew attention to her,'' said Drummond, who remembers Child's unwillingness to connect with Powell.

''Julia's mission was inspiration and education, and it certainly wasn't all about Julia. It was not, 'I'm Julia, aren't I terrific?' When anything smelt of that, she would back away,'' Drummond last week told the Massachusetts Web site SouthCoastToday.com.

That said, Yankee magazine food editor Annie B. Copps, a onetime researcher for various Child TV shows, told the site Child would likely be happy with the movie. She was a fan of Meryl Streep and ''I think she would be honored by'' Streep's portrayal of Child..

Any displeasure may have come from a feeling that Powell was hitching her culinary wagon to Child's own success -- achieving fame and financial rewards from Julia's recipes, and not her own.

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Redbox and Lionsgate Sign Multi-Year Distribution Agreement - Earthtimes

Posted: 11 Aug 2009 06:05 PM PDT

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Music festival that was a surprise hit still fascinates - Tuscaloosa News

Posted: 11 Aug 2009 12:36 PM PDT

'Everything in my life, and so many others', is attached to that train,' Havens said.

The young hippies who watched the sun come up with The Who in 1969 are now eligible for early bird specials. Many of the bands are broken up or missing members who died. But Woodstock remains one of those events like the moon landing earlier that summer that continues to define the 1960s in the popular imagination.

Consider the bumper crop of Woodstock nostalgia marking the 40th anniversary. There's a new director's cut DVD of the concert movie, a remastered concert CD, director Ang Lee's rock 'n' roll comedy 'Taking Woodstock' and a memoir by promoter Michael Lang. There are also performances scheduled by Woodstock veterans at the old site, now home to a '60s museum and an outdoor concert pavilion.

The Woodstock legend stems from big names such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin playing at a show where everything went wrong but turned out right.

The town of Woodstock didn't want the concert, and promoters were bounced from another site at the 11th hour. Lang settled on a hay field in Bethel owned by a kindly dairy farmer named Max Yasgur. The concert did come off Aug. 15-18, 1969, but barely. Fences were torn down; tickets became useless. More than 400,000 people converged on this rural corner 80 miles northwest of New York City, freezing traffic for miles. Then the rains doused everything.

It should have been a disaster. But Americans tuning in to the evening news that weekend saw smiling, dancing, muddy kids. By the time the concert movie came out months later, Woodstock was a symbol of the happy, hippie side of the '60s spirit.

It still is.

Baby boomers are the 'Woodstock Generation' not the 'Monterey Generation' or the 'Altamont Generation.' Bethel's on-site museum has logged more than 70,000 visitors since last summer, a fair number of them college students born well after Woodstock. A roadside monument there regularly logs visitors from around the world.

'It's almost a pilgrimage,' said Wade Lawrence, director of the Museum at Bethel Woods. 'It's like going to a high school reunion, or it's like visiting a gravesite of a loved one.'

From Lollapalooza to All Points West, there have been plenty of big festivals focused on youth culture. The continent-hopping Live Aid shows of 1985 did that and more, enlisting top names such as U2 and Madonna to fight hunger in Africa. None have the cultural cachet of Woodstock. Who would ever ask a Generation X-er: 'Were you really at Live Aid?'

People who went to Woodstock say the crowd set it apart as much as the music. The trippy anarchy of Woodstock has become legend: lots of nudity, casual sex, dirty (and muddy) dancing, open drug use. The stage announcer famously warned people to steer clear of the brown acid.

Many who were there recall Woodstock as an oasis of good vibes during a time of unrest over the Vietnam War. Ilene Marder, then an 18-year-old who hitched from the Bronx, saw people feeding one another and respecting one another. She knew she found her tribe.

'The music was nice, but it was being with so many people who looked like us, who looked like me,' said Marder, who later moved to Woodstock some 50 miles away. 'I remember telling myself, Don't forget this! Don't forget they way you feel right now!' '

Former Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten remembers hearing buzz at the nearby hotel where the band was staying that something special was up. The scale of the event sank in when the band choppered in over the mass of people. While artists like Joe Cocker and Santana boosted their careers at Woodstock, the Dead were notoriously flat.

Jerry Garcia, the band's late guitarist, told interviewers that his guitar was being hit with bouncing blue balls of electricity the kind that comes from bad wiring, not strong psychedelics. Constanten said he wasn't as bothered as his bandmates.

'Actually, I had a wonderful time. The guitarists were not. Because of electrical problems, they were getting shocks from their strings and all,' he said. 'Aversion therapy like that, no one needs.'

Constanten contends the music and spirit of Woodstock was not a revelation to the people there. But it was to the millions who saw the movie and listened to the album.

As they say now, Woodstock went viral.

'This juggernaut of a music scene burst in their awareness,' he said. 'It didn't feel different to us. It was their response.'

Woodstock has been resurrected a couple of times since then, at least in name.

Promoters staged a 25th-anniversary concert near Woodstock in 1994 that was a musical success. But a 30th-anniversary performance at a former Air Force Base in Rome, N.Y., ended in disaster after crowds lit bonfires and looted on the last night. The unrelenting heat and $4 bottles of water taxed any vestiges of Woodstock spirit.

Yasgur's old farm, meanwhile, has gone establishment in recent years. Local cable TV billionaire Alan Gerry quietly snapped up the land in the 1990s and started a not-for-profit foundation to run a museum and concert space. The gently sloping hill that provided a natural amphitheater in 1969 is nicely tended and fenced in.

Concerts are regularly scheduled over the hill from the original stage at a modern, 4,800-seat amphitheater.

Constanten and Havens are among the 1969 performers returning to the site on the 40th anniversary weekend. Havens will play a solo show that Friday, a day before a larger show featuring other Woodstock veterans such as Levon Helm, formerly of The Band, Ten Years After and Canned Heat. Though long separated from the Dead, Constanten said he'll play the band's songs that weekend.

No electric shocks are expected under the multimillion-dollar pavilion, and probably no generation-defining magic either.

'Then is then,' Constanten said, 'and now is now.'

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Movie time on Friday at park - Post-Tribune

Posted: 12 Aug 2009 02:05 AM PDT

As summer begins to dwindle to a close, here's one of the last chances to see a movie in the park.

Schererville Parks will present the recent hit "Bee Movie," starring Jerry Seinfeld as Barry B. Benson, a young bee and recent college grad who sees more in his future than making honey.

The whole family is invited to this animated comedy starting at dusk this Friday at Redar Park, Austin and Gregory streets.

Admission is free and the concession stand will be open. Don't forget a blanket or lawn chairs.

If pinochle is your game, Dyer is the place to be. The parks department offers weekly pinochle games from noon to 3 p.m. every Tuesday at the town hall meeting room, One Town Square.

Yearly dues are $1 with a weekly fee of 50 cents. Come when you can. All are invited. For more information, call Evelyn at 365-8665.

Summer concert

The last in Highland's Summer Concerts on Thursdays series begins at 7 p.m. tomorrow at Main Square Park, 3001 Ridge Road. Bring your lawn chairs and treat yourself to the sounds of Dave Carlson and his "Tribute to Elvis."

Admission is free for all ages and the concession stand will be open for summer night treats.

Bowling in Whiting

Don't let the end of summer be an excuse for inactivity. Whiting Parks offers open bowling from 3:30 to 8 p.m. each Tuesday and Thursday at the Whiting Community Center, 1938 Clark St.

Here's the best part -- every Tuesday is $1 game and shoe rental day. For more information, call 659-0860.

Dinner at Wittenberg

Seniors are invited for an evening of dinner and entertainment starting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 19, at Wittenberg Lutheran Village, 925 Luther Drive, Crown Point.

Hosted by the Crown Point Parks Department, the evening includes a catered dinner and events that range from music to comedy.

The cost is $7 per person, a bargain at any rate. Call 661-2271 to register.

Fishing derby

Whiting Parks is hosting a fishing derby from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Saturday at Wolf Lake Park, 701 Casino Center Drive in Hammond.

Fishing for ages 5 through 17 will take place from 9 a.m. to noon, followed by a hot dog lunch and the awards ceremony.

Entrance fees are $6 for Whiting residents or $7 for non-residents. Register at the Whiting Community Center, 1938 Clark St.

Contact Debbie Bosak at zocbo51@aol.com

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Movie review: It Might Get Loud - Huffingtonpost.com

Posted: 12 Aug 2009 01:58 AM PDT

It Might Get Loud is a documentary filmmaker's dream project: Pick an artist whose work you really love, then get them to let you hang out and film them talking about how and why they do what they do.

In the case of director Davis Guggenheim (Oscar winner for An Inconvenient Truth), his object of desire was a group of three electric guitarists: Jimmy Page, The Edge of U2 and Jack White of the White Stripes, Raconteurs and Dead Weather. Two out of three isn't bad.

Guggenheim constructs the film like a gunslingers' shoot-out - a generational confrontation between hot-fingered masters. What it becomes is a kind of guitar summit, with the three of them sitting around in overstuffed chairs on a platform in the middle of an L.A. soundstage, talking about electric guitars and playing them.

Their discussion inevitably leads to demonstrations - Page ripping out the fuzztone thunder of Whole Lotta Love or The Edge (real name: David Evans) demonstrating how he gets that distinctive tone to his lead on In the Name of Love.

The summit is punctuated by Guggenheim's real work: getting each of them alone on their own turf, to talk about the early days, the people and music that shaped them, the sounds they still listen to, the dreams they still chase.

Aside from a couple of guitar technicians, who point out the bank of buttons and switches that help process The Edge's sound, there are really no interviews with anyone else to put these musicians into perspective. Instead, Guggenheim relies on their memories of their early days, illustrated by archival footage: of Page as a young skiffle musician and Yardbird; of The Edge in the early big-hair days of U2; and of White with the White Stripes and the Raconteurs.

But mostly Guggenheim lets these guys speak for themselves or chat with each other. On that score, it's far from a meeting of equals.

For the rest of this review, click HERE to reach my website: www.hollywoodandfine.com.

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