plus 4, Forum commenters divided over Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as Oscars ... - Los Angeles Times Blogs

Forum commenters divided over Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as Oscars ... - Los Angeles Times Blogs
'Basterds' arrive in Japan - Toronto Sun
Hallelujah for Handel's `Messiah' - WPVI
Hollywood eyes RISK movie - Straits Times
"The Men Who Stare At Goats" Movie Trailer (Video) - Gather.com

Forum commenters divided over Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as Oscars ... - Los Angeles Times Blogs

Posted: 04 Nov 2009 06:02 PM PST

Our forum commenters have been reacting to Tuesday's news that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are to host next year's Oscars. Unlike the Oscar bloggers -- who generally endorsed the academy's decision -- the commenters are more evenly divided as to the merits of these two men as co-hosts. We will get a sneak peek at how well Martin and Baldwin work together in the Christmas release "It's Complicated." They play rivals for the affections of Meryl Streep. While they might win over that Oscar darling, some of our commenters remain unconvinced.

seanflynn was the first to voice an opinion: Martin is a perfect choice, and Baldwin we'll see, but I have an open mind about him.

OnMyBirthday: the more I let it sink in, the more I can them having a nice rapport together. I just don't see how this gets Oscar those younger viewers it's after.

oscarnutlen: What a pleasant surprise to have steve and alec host the oscars..Doesnt that bode well for Meryl Streep...since her 2 co-stars of "It's Complicated" are hosting the oscars..wouldnt it be nice if she won her 3rd oscar...while steve and alec were praising her from the stage.

rl:emmy lover: i am very excited for this. i loved steve as host in the past and i think these two will be great playing against each other. it will be funny to see steve talk about not hosting alone this time.

LKMOscar: wouldn't be surprised if this was a very funny ceremony. Alec has been great on SNL, so we know he can do live. I am just nervous that this won't excite younger viewers.

puxzkkx: I loved Martin's hosting of the 75th ceremony. Hopefully this will be more fun than the last 6 years' shows.

awardshq: I don't like the idea of the two hosts and after Hugh Jackman did an amazing job, I think that having a great showman host. Neil Patrick Harris has been amazing the past 2 shows he has hosted and this should have been his job, I guess I can take some comfort in knowing that Tina Fey isn't hosting.

caresa: As much as I want this to work out, methinks this is going to be very bad. Yes, they've both been really successful at hosting duties at SNL but this is entirely an different animal. This is the Oscars! I don't know it this A & B combo will work out. They both have big egos and would want to have lots of air time. I know that at the end of the day, they'll probably share equal time, but I can easily see trouble arising ahead.

atypical: Steve Martin could have handled hosting duties alone. Don't like the 2 hosts idea at all.

Jassan: Steve Martin was on my list of possibilities. I figured with his album out and his current press tour, he wouldn't be opposed to getting back 'out there'. Glad to see him in the mix. Baldwin is hit and miss for me. Always has been. I hope Martin is the clear lead in the hosting duties. But I imagine they'll break it up pretty evenly.

outsider: I am disappointed with these choices. Alec Baldwin is often insufferable. His presence will probably diminish my enjoyment of the show. Of course my opinion doesn't mean anything. He is beloved in Hollywood and people here really like him. I just wonder why Adam Shankman thinks he has "such a young following". I was excited when I read they were going for a two-host format, but I never expected they would choose two white men over 50.

Bondzz: It will be interesting to see how these two will work together. I'm delighted that Steve Martin is taking up hosting duties again. Pairing with Baldwin might either be good or not. I'm sure that they will pair off well, if they have a healthy relationship off-screen. We have people like Billy Crystal/Robin Williams who could be a riot when paired up.

Photo: Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin and Lake Bell in "It's Complicated." Credit: Universal

Will Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin be winning Oscars hosts?

Gold Derby nuggets: Hugh Jackman hails new Oscar hosts | 'A Town Called Panic' calms Oscars toon race | Yea or nay to last-minute Oscar entries?

Why does Patrick Goldstein continue to bash Oscar bloggers?

Oscars predix for best pix from 16 experts

Oscars predix for best pix: Now the real experts pipe in â€" our forum moderators

Why Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin to host Oscars? Well, it's complicated.

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

'Basterds' arrive in Japan - Toronto Sun

Posted: 04 Nov 2009 01:37 PM PST

Share your story with the Sun!

Send us your photos, video or a quick note about something you've seen on the streets of Toronto.

Click here for more Your Scoop details

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Hallelujah for Handel's `Messiah' - WPVI

Posted: 04 Nov 2009 10:09 AM PST

NEW YORK (AP) - Novembert 4, 2009 (WPVI) -- Carl Drews still remembers the first time he heard the "Hallelujah" chorus. His parents had taken him to see "The Greatest Story Ever Told," the movie about the life of Jesus with a soundtrack including the famous chorus from Handel's "Messiah." It made the little boy feel that heaven was a place "where you sing the `Hallelujah' chorus forever and ever."

Years later, on a Habit for Humanity project in Nicaragua, the longtime choir singer sang the stirring words from memory under the newly built roof of a house, banana trees swayi

ng in the breeze, with two other volunteers on his work crew.

This December, Drews, a 49-year-old software engineer, will participate in the 27th annual "Messiah" sing-along in Boulder, Colo., one of hundreds of such events across the country in which an unrehearsed audience performs as the chorus in George Frideric Handel's baroque masterpiece.

"It's just really fun to be with people singing their hearts out," Drews said a few weeks after rehearsals began in Boulder for the core group of singers who support the audience. "And I am a Christian so I am singing what I believe."

But you don't have to be a Christian to love "Messiah." Tens of thousands of Americans from all different social and religious backgrounds will gather in churches, concert halls and living rooms beginning in mid-December to sing all or parts of the 2½ hour oratorio.

Many will have had some musical training, but others will barely be able to carry a tune.

In Chicago, some 7,000 people are expected at two performances of the Bank of America Do-It-Yourself Messiah, which will be performed at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park. As many as 3,000 people will pile into New York's Avery Fisher Hall when the National Chorale hosts its 42nd Messiah Sing-In. About 200 people will show up for each of three concerts in Boulder, and thousands more will participate in similar events at points in between.

The origin of the sing-along is a little murky. Similar unrehearsed performances where the audience serves as chorus occur in Great Britain, where they are known as "scratch Messiahs," as in cooking from scratch. Graydon Beeks, a music history professor at Pomona College and president of The American Handel Society, says sing-along Messiahs seemed to catch on big here in the late 1960s and early '70s. He remembers going to one such event with about 50 people when he was a college student in the late '60s - but that was in the home of a family friend who was a professional pianist.

Martin Josman, the founding director of the National Chorale, claims to have started the "Messiah" sing-along in the United States when he trademarked the name "Sing-In" for his annual event at Lincoln Center. He says he came up with the idea to draw attention to choral singing, and chose the name "Sing-In" because the late '60s was the era of "sit-ins" and "love-ins."

"It's the choral piece that is best known by choral singers," Josman said. "It creates a marvelous sense of community."

Although the American sing-along may have emerged as recently as the mid-20th century, there is an even longer tradition of large-scale performances that dates back to the late 18th and 19th centuries, when the chorus might have been sung by hundreds of people at a time who belonged to amateur choirs and singing societies.

"Messiah" holds an unusual place in music history because it has been performed continuously since Handel wrote it in 1741, according to Christopher H. Gibbs, a music professor at Bard College. It has remained famous since its debut in Dublin in 1742 and has been adapted in various ways - including by Mozart in 1789 for a bigger orchestra - to stay in the repertoire.

Part of the reason for its enduring popularity is that Handel, who had written dozens of operas before "Messiah," was used to writing for the theater. "He knew how to make something moving, theatrical, exciting," Gibbs said.

Perhaps none of the more than 50 movements is quite as thrilling as "Hallelujah," when the audience rises and the chorus begins to sing, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth."

Although the tradition is said to have started after King George II stood at one of Handel's London performances, there is no evidence he ever attended a performance of "Messiah," according to Fred Fehleisen of The Julliard School.

Recently, Michael Marissen, a music professor at Swarthmore College, created a stir by suggesting that modern, secular audiences might be unnerved if they knew what they were standing for. Although the work is now traditionally performed around Christmas, Handel actually wrote "Messiah" for the Easter season. The oratorio is in three parts: the first tells about Jesus' birth, the second about his suffering and the destruction of his enemies, and the third about the promise of eternal life through Jesus.

Although "Hallelujah" is widely understood today as a moment of rejoicing at the birth of Jesus, it actually comes at the end of the second part, following passages that chide non-believers for refusing to accept Jesus and urge Jesus to break them "with a rod of iron."

Marissen says that Handel's audience would have understood those passages as referring to the Jews. And when they heard the "over-the-top triumph" of "Hallelujah," they would have seen it as a celebration of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 A.D., which was seen by Christians as divine punishment for the Jews' refusal to accept Jesus as messiah. Such an anti-Jewish interpretation was standard in 18th century England, Marissen says, though "most Christians now don't think of it that way."

Marissen, who isn't Jewish, says he received hundreds of angry e-mails filled with anti-Semitic slurs after he published the article in The New York Times in 2007. He says he undertook the research to remind modern audiences that in its time, the oratorio wasn't appreciated only as a piece of gorgeous music as it is now for so many - rather, it was comparable to a Christian battle cry.

But like so many others then and now, Marissen is a huge fan of "Messiah," admiring the masterful way Handel expressed the range of human emotions musically, building a series of riveting climaxes on his way to an inexorable goal.

"Aesthetically, at least, it really is fantastic," he said.

E-Mail story
Print Article

Sponsored Content

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Hollywood eyes RISK movie - Straits Times

Posted: 04 Nov 2009 07:13 PM PST

LOS ANGELES - SONY Pictures Entertainment is eyeing global domination after acquiring rights to make a movie version of the classic boardgame RISK, a statement said on Wednesday.

Columbia Pictures president Doug Belgrad said the popular game - which sees players attempting to conquer the world by eliminating rivals - would be developed by toymakers Hasbro and Overbrook Entertainment.

'Hasbro has already seen tremendous success with Transformers and G.I. Joe and audiences have shown a great desire for films that bring to life everything that has made these franchise properties stand the test of time,' Mr Belgrad said in a statement.

'The strategic thinking and the tactical gambles that players must take in the game are what make RISK a classic, thoroughly engaging game.

'Those elements translated into an action-packed, thrilling story are what will make this a uniquely exciting movie.' Columbia Pictures is a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

RISK was invented in 1957 by French film-maker Albert Lamorisse under the title La Conquete du Monde (The Conquest of the World). The game was published by Parker brothers in the United States in 1959 as RISK. In the game players compete on a map of the world building armies in an attempt to occupy ever territory on the board. -- AFP

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

"The Men Who Stare At Goats" Movie Trailer (Video) - Gather.com

Posted: 04 Nov 2009 07:13 PM PST

"The Men Who Stare At Goats" went on to my must see list as soon as I saw the movie trailer. How can you go wrong when you team up George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey and throw them into a story about a secret force of psychokinetic soldiers that use their minds to beat the enemy?

The movie is loosely based on the Jon Ronson book of the same name. Ronson's book was a non-fiction piece and explores the U.S. Army's experimentation with psychic powers and mental telepathy. I may have to read the book as well. The synopsis on Amazon.com states Ronson's "The Men Who Stare at Goats is his bizarre quest into "the most whacked-out corners of George W. Bush's War on Terror"".

The movie trailer seems like the film puts more of a dark comedy spin on Ronson's story and is a movie I will definitely be seeing when it comes out on November 6. Has anyone read Ronson's book? What did you think?

"The Men Who Stare At Goats" Movie Trailer

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.