“Jackson’s financiers have high hopes for film - Worcester Telegram & Gazette” plus 4 more

Jackson’s financiers have high hopes for film - Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Sci-fi film 'Surrogates' is robotic - Detroit Free Press
Travolta's 'robin-hood scammer' - New York Post
Dunst testifies that purse stolen in burglary - Charleston Daily Mail
Live-Action Barbie Movie Coming - Coming Soon!

Jackson’s financiers have high hopes for film - Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Posted: 26 Sep 2009 01:26 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES — As dozens of buoyant Michael Jackson fans queued up in the Nokia Plaza to be among the first to see their idols last performance, others watching the scene expressed mixed emotions.

Tim Leiweke, president of AEG, which bankrolled Jacksons This Is It tour and is a key player in the film, recalled the moment he got the news of Jacksons death.

Well, at first it lets all the air out of you, and you sit here and youre stunned at how quickly it happened and occurred. Youre in denial. You cant believe it. Youre looking around, saying, What happened?

Zip ahead some three months, to Thursday afternoon about an hour before the opening of the nearly two-and-a-half-day waiting line for advance tickets to Michael Jacksons This Is It concert documentary.

Leiweke reunited with musicians, singers and dancers from the tour in a press conference held in the plaza, which is directly across the street from the Staples Center, the site of Jacksons rehearsals, the last of which took place just hours before his death June 25.

Its mixed feelings, first of all, to see these guys again, and to be in this space, said singer Darryl Phinnessee. You know, we finished rehearsing at quarter to midnight the night before Michael died, and he was energetic and up and doing his thing, as youll see in the movie.

Crafted from more than 100 hours of rehearsal footage, This Is It is directed by longtime Jackson collaborator Kenny Ortega, who had been working with Jackson on the concerts.

You see the music, the studios, the rehearsals, the dancers, the auditions, the costumes, Leiweke said. You see all of the behind-the-scenes, and then you finally see the last few days of the dress rehearsals, and you begin to see the genius of Michael: the dancing, the singing, the choreography and his concept of creating a one-time performance that no one would ever forget.

Leiweke said the movie also will provide proof that AEG had Jacksons well-being in mind.

I think we still are hurt, Leiweke said. Some of the things that people have said about us, which are so untrue, this movies going to restore his legacy, and prove that we, in fact, gave Michael a second chance here. And an opportunity to make the kind of comeback he was dreaming of.

This Is It is set to open in cinemas worldwide Oct. 28.

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Sci-fi film 'Surrogates' is robotic - Detroit Free Press

Posted: 26 Sep 2009 02:01 AM PDT

Surrogates is a workmanlike sci-fi action film with few pretenses, a movie that hints at much but grapples with little.

Set in the near future, its about the ways technology disconnects us from reality and humanity, about the obsession with physical perfection, the death of privacy, corporatization and (not really a stretch) the U.S. techno-war against radical primitivism.

Thats a lot to cull from the Robert Venditti-Brett Weldele comic book, which was a much more succinct commentary on our cell-phone-Facebook-avatar lives, with the idea that this tech fixation is going to kill us.

In the Surrogates future, everybody whos anybody has bought a better version of themselves sleek, sexy robots with TV anchor-Barbie hair and Disney Channel skin. These alternates work, flirt and play in our place while we lie, in our pajamas, in a stim chair, watching and sensing everything our younger, cooler and perfect selves do. People are free to be as impulsive, reckless and feckless as they want. Accidental deaths in civilian life have gone the way of killed-in-action in the surrogate military.

Crime has disappeared. The world seems a safer, cleaner place save for those who resist the temptation to walk the Earth as digital improvements on themselves.

But somebody is sneaking about, shorting out surrogates and the people who own them. That prompts FBI agent Greer (Bruce Willis, leaner, hairier and younger than hes been in 30 years) to mutter: We may have ourselves an actual homicide here. He and his partner (Radha Mitchell, perfect at portraying the physically perfect) chase down clues through the inventor of surrogates (James Cromwell, and younger proxies) all the way to the Rez, Bostons independent enclave of surrogate-hating, technology-eschewing survivalists led by a well-cast Ving Rhames.

Greer soon stops investigating the case through his surrogate and starts running around in his bald, battered old body. That means hes running the risk of actually getting killed on the job.

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Travolta's 'robin-hood scammer' - New York Post

Posted: 26 Sep 2009 01:33 AM PDT

NASSAU, Bahamas -- A paramedic on trial for allegedly trying to shake down John Travolta for $25 million was caught on tape telling one of the actor's lawyers that he needed that much money to help the needy.

People.com, which viewed the tape, reported yesterday that Tarino Lightbourn -- one of the first medics on the scene in early January when Travolta's 16-year-old son, Jett, died -- asked the actor's lawyer, Michael McDermott, for the sum in exchange for his silence about a "damaging document."

"I was poor all my life," Lightbourn told the lawyer. "I wanted to do things for charity all my life."

"You're a Bahamian Robin Hood, man!" McDermott said with a laugh.

The conversation -- which co-defendant Pleasant Bridgewater apparently listened in on via speakerphone -- was recorded by Royal Bahamian Police, according to People.

Bridgewater, a former Bahamian senator, and Lightbourn were trying to get the actor to pay up in return for their keeping quiet about a "do not transport" form Travolta had signed when he was deciding whether to take his dying son to an airport instead of to a local hospital after the teen suffered a seizure.

Lightbourn eventually agreed to take a $15 million payout on the tape, but refused McDermott's suggestion that it be paid in installments.

"I can't do installments," Lightbourn reportedly said.

"I want to get this behind me. I don't want to see you anymore . . . I'm thinking, how do I know if I go to the States one day the feds don't pick me up? How do I know if I go to the States one day, it's not a hit on me?"

On the tape, the men worked out a "deal" in which Lightbourn would be wired funds, according to People.

Once Lightbourn got the money, McDermott said, "I want those damn documents . . . and [you] have a wonderful life."

"Exactly," Lightbourn agreed. "Once this is closed, it's buried deeper than the Titanic."

A month after the alleged shakedown, Travolta filed a complaint with Bahamian police.

At the pair's trial yesterday, Bahamian politician Obie Wilchcombe, a Travolta friend, testified that Bridgewater approached him shortly after the death, claiming to represent a client with a damaging document.

The document was on the letterhead of the hospital where Jett was taken the night he died.

"I said, 'This is bull- - -,' " Wilchcombe testified. "Your client should jump off a roof and kill himself."

Bridgewater never named her "client" or asked for money, he said.

"She said she didn't want any harm to come to the Travoltas."

Wilchcombe said he contacted two Travolta lawyers after speaking with Bridgewater.

reuven.fenton@nypost.com

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Dunst testifies that purse stolen in burglary - Charleston Daily Mail

Posted: 25 Sep 2009 08:32 PM PDT

NEW YORK (AP) - Greeting judge and jurors with a friendly "Hi!," Kirsten Dunst served as a star witness Thursday against a man charged in the theft of her designer purse while she was on a movie set.

The "Spider-Man" actress gave a matter-of-fact rundown of the Aug. 9, 2007, theft at the SoHo Grand Hotel. She was there on an overnight shoot for the 2008 comedy "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People."

James Jimenez, 35, is charged with burglary. His lawyer has blamed the incident on a co-defendant.

The case has offered a backstage look at the workaday details of moviemaking, with Dunst and co-star Simon Pegg describing the night of the theft down to their hours, midnight dinner (takeout from the high-end sushi purveyor Nobu) and visitors, including film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Dunst said that after shooting the night's final scene, she returned around 5 a.m. to a penthouse suite that actors used to rest between takes. She found someone had taken her $2,000 Balenciaga bag and its contents, including $2,000 - a week's worth of "petty cash" for daily expenses while filming, she explained.

The purse was eventually mailed back to her manager with her wallet and credit cards, but she never recovered the rest - the cash, sunglasses "and probably a lip balm," Dunst, 27, said with a throaty laugh.

The purse was returned "a little wrecked" and torn inside, said Dunst, wearing a loose black tuxedo-style blouse, skinny black pants and spike heels. "I definitely had to get it fixed."

Pegg testified that his cell phone, camera and iPod also disappeared from the suite, located on a floor designed to be accessible only with special key cards. Only the phone was returned, said the 39-year-old British actor, whose films include "Shaun of the Dead" and this year's "Star Trek."

The theft disrupted an otherwise congenial shoot, he said.

When not on the set, "we were watching YouTube clips, chatting ... it was a very amiable atmosphere," he recalled.

Neither Dunst nor Pegg specifically pointed to Jimenez, but prosecutors have said he and co-defendant Jarrod Beinerman took advantage of the commotion surrounding the movie set to sneak around the hotel and into the suite. Beinerman was sentenced last September to 4 1/2 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted burglary.

Jimenez's lawyer, Daniel Hupert, said during opening statements Tuesday that Beinerman misled his client into thinking they had a legitimate reason to be there.