That’s Entertainment That’s Entertainment

RIP Roger Ebert

Aw, rotten news:

Roger Ebert, the popular film critic and television co-host who along with his fellow reviewer and sometime sparring partner Gene Siskel could lift or sink the fortunes of a movie with their trademark thumbs up or thumbs down, died on Thursday in Chicago. He was 70.

His death was announced by The Chicago Sun-Times, where he had worked for many years.

Mr. Ebert’s struggle with cancer, starting in 2002, gave him an altogether different public image — as someone who refused to surrender to illness. Though he had operations for cancer of the thyroid, salivary glands and chin, lost his ability to eat, drink and speak (a prosthesis partly obscured the loss of much of his chin, and he was fed through a tube) and became a gaunter version of his once-portly self, he continued to write reviews and commentary and published a cookbook he had started, on meals that could be made with a rice cooker.

Much more at the paper he wrote for for decades, The Chicago Sun-Times.

And he had a very funny and wise FaceBook presence, and the same on Twitter – where he was posting up until very recently.

Oh – just saw this: just two days ago Ebert announced that his cancer had returned – and that he was taking a “A Leave of Presence“:

Steve Martin, Edie Brickell Make Album

This could be real good:

Steve Martin and singer-songwriter Edie Brickell are set to release their first collaborative LP, Love Has Come for You, on April 23rd through Rounder Records. Comprising 13 new songs that combine Martin’s banjo work with Brickell’s lyrics and vocals, you can now get a taste of the record’s unique sound and take an exclusive look at this interview in which the duo discuss the making of the LP.

If you don’t recognize the name, Edie Brickell became famous in 1988 with her, “What I am is what I am is what you are or what?” song. (Then she married Paul Simon and got lost in the attic of one of his Manhattan mansions, we’re pretty sure.)

P.S. Is it just us or..

Three Other Rock Star Meltdowns

Earlier this month, Grammy-nominated singer Michelle Shocked went off on a bizarre diatribe near the end of a San Francisco performance. While her behavior may have, uh, shocked, fans, it’s not a first. Here are some other examples of rock star meltdowns.

Axl Rose. The Guns N’ Roses singer is a little unpredictable in concert. He’s been known to show up several hours late, for example, but the worst event happened at a St. Louis show in 1991 when he caught a fan filming the show. Rose’s response: He threw himself into the crowd, wrestled the camera away from the fan, and then stormed off stage. End of show. The audience responded by rioting. More than 60 people were hospitalized.

When Celebrities Meet Bad Guys

Former NBA rebounding champion (and all-around weirdo) Dennis Rodman recently made headlines during an ill-advised trip to North Korea to meet its “Supreme Leader,” Kim Jong-un.

While this sounds like a PR stunt or an article from The Onion, Rodman isn’t the first American celebrity to associate themselves with dubious elements. Here are a few more examples.

Patty Hearst. After being kidnapped by a far-left revolutionary group calling itself the “Symbionese Liberation Army,” newspaper heiress Patty Hearst succumbed to the effects of brainwashing and Stockholm Syndrome and willingly helped the SLA rob a San Francisco bank in 1974. Hearst was arrested in 1975 and imprisoned for two years before her sentence was commuted by President Carter.

Playing Music…With Ice

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Very cool!

A group of Siberian percussionists have become an internet hit with an exhibition of ice drumming on frozen Lake Baikal.

In minus 20C, they found by pure chance that the one metre thick ice has a distinctive and haunting rhythm all of its own, reported the Siberian Times.

‘I felt like we were playing on the drums that Nature has left out for us, alone under the sun on the frozen waters of the world’s most magnificent lake,’ said Irkutsk architect Natalya Vlasevskaya, 31, a mother-of-one and organiser of Etnobit percussion group.

• More here.

• Much more here:

Four Weird and Oz-Mazing ‘Oz’ Facts

Oz: the Great and Powerful crashes into movies theaters today harder than Dorothy’s farmhouse killed a witch. Brush up on your Oz knowledge before you go see the movie.

Wizard of Oz• Published in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the first Oz book, and the basis for the classic 1939 film, but it’s not the first thing author L. Frank Baum ever published. Decades earlier, he was a chicken farmer, specializing in Hamburgs, a rare German breed. In 1886, Baum published a chicken raising guide called The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise Upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs. (The Oz novels are much more entertaining.)

RIP Alvin Lee

Reuters:

British blues-rock guitarist Alvin Lee, who was best known for his performance with rock band Ten Years After at Woodstock in 1969, died on Wednesday at age 68, his family said.

“With great sadness we have to announce that Alvin unexpectedly passed away early this morning after unforeseen complications following a routine surgical procedure,” the family said in a statement on the singer’s official website.

Ten Years After—”Spoonful”:

Lost TV Pilots & The Nat King Cole Show

Our Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader TUNES INTO TV, which had been a reader request for many years, has turned out to be a darn big hit. An excerpt from a review over at Amazon:

Some great articles here, there are brief histories on NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS. Inventors such as Smirnoff and Farnsworth are given their due, and since modern day tv wouldn’t be where it is without them, it’s wonderful that they’re mentioned.

I really enjoyed their piece about the 1968 showing of Heidi, and the uproar it caused. I would recommend this book, for any up and coming tv historians who need to get a quick overview of the medium. It helped refresh my memory, and introduced me to a few stories I didn’t know about.

JThree
Williston North Dakota

Why thank you, JThree, much obliged.

We thought you might like a look at what’s inside this book, so here are two excerpts for your reading pleasure.

First, some TV pilots you may not have heard about.

Monopoly “Iron” Token Out, “Cat” In

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Wow – hadn’t even heard they were doing this! We would have started a “toilet” token movement!

The Monopoly iron is going off to that giant linen closet in the sky.

The token, a staple of the Hasbro board game since the 1930s, is being retired after only garnering 8% of fan votes in a “Save Your Token” campaign. The Scottie dog was the clear choice for fans and game players from 185 countries, getting 29% of the vote.

While the iron leaves the game, a new cat will take its place passing “GO!” and collecting $200 going forward. The feline piece conquered its own competition in a separate vote on theMonopoly Facebook page, winning over four other proposed tokens — a toy robot, guitar, helicopter and diamond ring — with 31%.

Monopoly extras:

“George Clooney Paid Your Bill”

From the Huffington Post:

As the customer finished his meal at Grill Royal restaurant and went to pay, he learned the $134.66 bill had been covered, UPI reported.

The waiter told him George Clooney was behind the gesture. The actor thought he and his friends, who were seated at the next table, had disturbed the man.

“That’s not true at all,” the man told Bild newspaper. “They had behaved in a very cultivated manner. I was stunned.”

Uncle John Says:

See You Next Apocalypse!

Next Apocalypse: Zombie Survival KitLike every other Doomsday prediction before it, the world failed to end on December 21, 2012, due to the “Mayan Apocalypse.” Those who believed that the ancient race’s prediction of the end of a calendar cycle somehow equated the end of humanity were left embarrassed, especially those who did things like invest in underground bunkers or expensive survival gear. So, when is the next apocalypse? The good news, doomsayers (and bad news, everyone else): according to Dr. F. Kenton Beshore, founder of the World Bible Society, the world is scheduled to end in 2018. Pop psychic Jeanne Dixon, before her death, claimed 2020. And, of course, there’s the ever present threat of a looming zombie apocalypse. However and whenever it comes, get ready with some of these not-at-all ridiculous products.

James Bond Exposed?

James Bond Exposed
From Flickr | By brava_67

Skyfall hit theaters in November so it should be safe to finally talk about a popular (but strange) fan theory regarding James Bond. (If you still haven’t seen the latest—and best-reviewed and highest-grossing—Bond movie ever, there’s spoilers ahead.)

Theory: There is no one real James Bond. “James Bond” and “007” are just code names used by multiple spies over the years.

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