Wednesday, 13 August 2008
August 13, 2008
The following feature-length motion pictures have been reviewed and rated by the Classification and Rating Administration pursuant to the Motion Picture Classification and Rating program. Each of the designated ratings is defined as follows under the Motion Picture Classification and Rating program.
G -- GENERAL AUDIENCES. All ages admitted.
PG -- PARENTAL GUIDANCE SUGGESTED. Some material may not be suited for children.
PG -13 --PARENTS STRONGLY CAUTIONED. Some material crataegus oxycantha be out or keeping for children under 13.
R -- RESTRICTED. Under 17 requires incidental parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 -- NO ONE 17 AND UNDER ADMITTED
Film Distributor Reason
Rating
1. Christmas Is Here Again
Screen Media Ventures, LLC
G
2. Eagle Eye
DreamWorks/Paramount Distribution Rated for intense sequences of action and violence, and for language.
PG-13
3. Fighting Rogue Pictures Rated for intense fight sequences, a sexuality scene and brief strong language.
PG-13
4 Haunting Of Molly Hartley, The
Freestyle Releasing, LLC Rated for violence.
R
5. Lords Of The Street
Peace Arch Home Entertainment Inc. Rated for force and language.
R
6. Machined Reborn Grindstone Entertainment Group Rated for sadistic wildness and agony, language and some sexuality/nudity.
R
7. Marie And Bruce Genius Products Rated for voice communication including sexual references, and some nudity.
R
8. Milk
Focus Features Rated for language, some sexual content and brief violence.
R
9. Ninja Cheerleaders
Peace Arch Home Entertainment Inc. Rated for nudeness, sexual content and some crude material.
R
10. Nothing But The Truth
Yari Film Group Releasing, LLC Rated for language, some sexual material and a scene of violence.
R
11. Phoebe In Wonderland Thinkfilm Rated for thematic material and brief strong language.
PG-13
12. Righteous Kill
Overture Films
Rated for vehemence, pervasive lyric, some sexuality and brief drug use.
R
13. Secret Life Of Bees, The
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. Rated for thematic material and some violence.
PG-13
14. Surviving Crooked Lake
NeoClassics Films Ltd. Rated for some disturbing flaming images, brief strong language, drug economic consumption and smoke.
PG-13
15. Sushi Pack The Movie
Kidtoon Films, Inc.
G
16. Tyler Perry's The Family That Prevs
Lionsgate Rated for thematic material, sexual references and brief violence.
PG-13
17. Vacancy 2: The Final Cut
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Rated for strong violence and terror, language and some sexual content.
R
18. World Unseen, The
Regent Releasing L.L.C. Rated for mature thematic material involving gender, and violence.
PG
Updated Wednesday, August 13, 2008.
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Wednesday, 6 August 2008
A captivating show from Sheryl Crow
You have to be versatile to go from singing stand-in for Michael Jackson to releasing your own country-tinged, often bluesy, pop-rock album.
Last night at the Bank of America Pavilion, Sheryl Crow place that versatility to serious use in a 90-minute set that was never dull, much astonishing and full of a enthralling roots aesthetic. Refreshingly, Crow has no diva airs - rather, she has a downward home vibration about her and a sense of real world struggle in her songs.
Things didn�t start off with a bang; they began with an acoustic �God Bless This Mess� in front of a peace sign, and then merged into �Shine Over Babylon� as Crow�s six-piece band and two computer backup singers appeared and Crow worked the stage care a cross between a tormented soul singer and a hardworking �American Idol� contestant.
After the good-time stomp of �Love Is Free,� Crow stirred into a series of songs off her debut album, �Tuesday Night Music Club,� including the down-and-out �Leaving Las Vegas,� a brilliant �Strong Enough� and �Can�t Cry Anymore.�
Crow�s birth certificate crataegus oxycantha say she�s 46, simply the tight, blond songstress looks at least 10 years younger, though the ache in her voice - on songs that require it, anyway - seems to be the kind that only comes with years of experience.
Crow wasn�t without social commentary, as in �Gasoline,� which morphed into a cover of the Rolling Stones� �Gimme Shelter.�
Though she didn�t spend practically time plugging her a la mode album, �Detours,� she did perform the folky title track ahead lighting into a incisive �Redemption Day.� Ominous as that vocal was, when Crow transitioned into the jubilant �Out of Our Heads� - which had more than a few crowd members dusting sour their rhythm - followed by the cheery �Soak Up the Sun,� it made sensory faculty; in price of both vocal great power and emotion, Crow moves from helen Newington Wills to sunny, jaded to jubilant with impressive ease.
Based on �You�re Beautiful� oversaturation, James Blunt may look treacly and one-dimensional, only he�s non. True, the sappy lay did make an appearance during his opening set, but it was sandwiched in between upbeat pop-rock numbers, a spirited run through the crowd and, well, other weakly emotional ballads.
The multi-instrumentalist, who took the microscope stage after ska-reggae collective Toots and the Maytals, regular managed to seem haunting on �Goodbye My Lover,� which isn�t nearly as corny as the deed implies.
Sheryl Crow with James Blunt and Toots and The Maytals At Bank of America Pavilion, last night.
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Thursday, 26 June 2008
Sam Sparro Announces Single & Robyn Support
Sam Sparro has been named as support for Robyn on tour this month and he'll be releasing '21st Century Life' as his next single.
After the success of his silver-selling hit single 'Black & Gold' and self-titled debut album, the newcomer is hoping for similar success when the release hits shops on July 21st.
As for those Robyn shows, the five-date tour kicks off tonight (June 7th) in Birmingham, with Sparro then set to play several festivals for the next few months.
* these gigs supporting Robyn
June Dates:
7th - Birmingham, Academy *
8th - London, Astoria *
10th - Manchester, Academy 2 *
11th - Norwich, UEA *
12th - Bristol, Academy *
25th - London, Bloomsbury Ballroom
27th - Wiltshire, Bowood House
29th - Glastonbury Festival
July Dates:
4th - Abersoch, Wakestock
5th - London, Wireless
26th - Long Marston, Global Gathering
Sept
6th - Bestival
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Thursday, 19 June 2008
Musician John Moore recalls several happy encounters with Bo Diddley
I was accompanied by my dad's friend, Peter Banham, who was responsible for my musical education. At the age of 10, when I'd first started having guitar lessons, he'd tired of my renditions of Streets of London, and given me some "proper stuff" to learn. Peter had been a teenager in the early 60s and had a fabulous collection of records - mainly purchased at Dobell's Jazz shop on Charing Cross Road in central London. While my schoolfriends listened to Showaddywaddy, Darts and the Rubettes, I had Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins and Bo Diddley for company.
Having only two small daughters, and delighted at the effect his record collection had had on me, Peter would borrow me from time to time to accompany him to gigs. By the time we got to see Bo Diddley, I was 16. Having somehow succeeded in gaining admittance to the dressing room, I sat quietly, awestruck about being in such close proximity to my hero. He was having his picture taken at the time. I listened to him talk and make jokes: he seemed to laugh a lot.
An American woman sat down next to me and we began to chat. I told her how much I loved Bo, and asked her what she thought my chances were of my getting to speak to him. She said he was very busy, and not to be too disappointed if I didn't get the chance, but she'd try for me. She introduced herself as his wife, Kay. As we waited, I told her I'd been to see where he was born in Mississippi, after persuading my mother we should go on a Freddie Laker Fly-Drive holiday whose itinerary, at my insistence, included the birthplaces of the great bluesmen and rock'n'rollers.
"You know what?" she said, " He's going want to know about that." As soon as he'd finished the photos, she called him over and introduced us, telling him, "This young man's been to McComb."
Talking to Bo Diddley was wonderful. The voice that shouted out "I'm a roadrunner honeyyyyyy" and "What you say man, quit mumblin' and talk out loud" was now directed at me. He told me he wasn't actually born in McComb, but in a tiny place along the highway called Magnolia, Mississippi. That was even better. We'd spent half a day there and he wanted me to tell him all about it. George White, who was writing Bo's biography, took our picture and promised to send it to me: as you can see, he was as good as his word. As we shook hands, I remember thinking how huge Bo's hands were, and his arm felt as if it were made of iron: no wonder he played rhythm guitar.
His tour was passing Reading that weekend, which was just three stops away from my home on the train, and he told me that if I wanted to come, my name would be on the door - an unimaginable honour - and to get there early and come and find him.
I followed his instructions, and backstage I asked him about the song Cops and Robbers -a song about being held at gunpoint by a short-sighted villain and made to act as the getaway driver in a liquor store heist in Chicago. Having robbed the store, the villain runs and jumps into the car, failing to notice it's the wrong one - a police car. This was, Bo told me, all true, except a line about a cigarette: he said he'd never smoked in his life, that he didn't like seeing young people smoke, and that I should quit. The best thing that night was that he let me play his famous rectangular guitar. It was tuned to open E, and he showed me the fingering he used. Moments later, somebody else picked it up without asking. "Nobody touches my guitar unless I tell them it's all right," he shouted.
As kind as he was, nobody could mess with Bo Diddley. He was funny and eccentric and made rock'n'roll records that made everybody feel good, but do anything to offend him and there was a big mean old bluesman waiting to get out. As we parted, his wife gave me their address in Florida and said anytime I was down that way to look them up. Bo then added that he was the sheriff of that town: "So if you mess around down there I'll have to arrest you." Then he laughed.
The next time I met him was seven years later in New York. By that time, having been a member of the Jesus and Mary Chain and fronted my own band, I was living the degenerate rock star life to the best of my abilities, and was not quite as fresh-faced as before. I felt rather guilty about seeing him, especially as he'd just made a heartfelt plea to the crowd at the Ritz not to take drugs - a thing I did from time to time. He was a bit suspicious of me at first: my hair was cropped and bleached, and I may have been wearing a nose ring, and I still hadn't given up smoking. I'd taken along the old photo of us together and passed it to him, asking him to sign it. As he looked at it, then at me, he began to laugh, and called his friends over to have a look. "What the hell happened to you, boy? You wait until my wife sees this." I can't remember whether of not he accused me of having been "whupped with an ugly stick", but I think that was on his mind.
I saw Bo Diddley play many times with various backing bands. He was never less than enthralling: even the last few times where he was evidently too old to really cut loose, you still felt that he might. And now my daughter loves him, with virtually no prompting from me. She's even got a rectangular guitar. Having listened to his songs and seen his picture, she said that he looked like a very nice man, and she liked his sound because it made her feel fizzy inside. I know what she means.
While he was recuperating from illness last year, I sent him a photo and a film of her singing along to Who Do You Love?, along with a copy of the old photo from the Halfmoon in Putney. I hope he got them. Anyway, my story is not so rare. Over the years, Bo Diddley met and inspired thousands of teenage twangers who made it to his dressing room and remembered their manners. Some of them even went on to make records of their own.
Bo Diddley was a one-off. He was a lean, mean, lovable, dangerous, gun-slinging, guitar-playing genius, and as my daughter pointed out, a very nice man. Bo Diddley RIP.
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Tuesday, 10 June 2008
Rapper Lil Wayne's new CD 'Tha Carter III' fails to live up to his own hype
More than most rappers, Lil Wayne is a master at self-mythologizing. Like his predecessors the Notorious B.I.G. and Jay-Z, Wayne claims of no longer writing down his lyrics before recording. Given the volume of record-stealing guest appearances and the flood of mixtapes since his last studio album, "Tha Carter II" (2005), that free-association songwriting approach seems all the more remarkable. So much so that he has claimed to be the best rapper alive.
Now with the release of "Tha Carter III," Wayne attempts live up to his own hype, but falls short. The disc is a frustratingly uneven effort that's filled safe songs aimed at commercial radio and a few quirky cuts that feature Wayne's bizarre sense of humour and inflated opinion of his rap skills. The best of the latter is "A Milli," a bizarre, breathless rundown of Wayne's self-worth: "Threw the pencil and leak on the sheet of the tablet in my mind/Cause I don't write (expletive) cause I ain't got time/Cause my seconds, minutes, hours go to the all mighty dollar." He gets conceptual on the jazzy, Swizz Beatz-produced "Dr. Carter," on which he diagnoses and cures rap's ailments. Later Kanye West lends a soaring soul sample under Wayne's staccato, twangy flow on "Let the Beat Build." And on "Phone Home," he channels E.T. in a semi-robotic cadence: "We are not the same/ I am a Martian."
However, it's obvious that Wayne's rap ambition is more dependent on radio play than true experimentation. Hence, there are Auto-Tuned throwaway ditties - "Got Money" with T-Pain and the ubiquitous first single, "Lollipop" featuring the late Static Major. And he further tempers the out-there moments with conventional R&B hooks and smoothed-out grooves - Robin Thicke, Bobby Valentino and Babyface all make appearances. Ultimately the gloss seems to dull Wayne's potential to be one of rap's true innovators.
Check out this track: On the clever "Dr. Carter," Wayne plays Dr. Phil urging rappers to "stand out like Andre 3K" and then offers to put "more vocab in your IV."
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"Tha Carter III"
Lil Wayne (Universal Motown)
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Wednesday, 4 June 2008
Marco Scherer
Artist: Marco Scherer
Genre(s):
Trance: Psychedelic
Discography:
Live at Metamorphix Pi-Club Berlin 11.02.2006
Year: 2006
Tracks: 1
 
Hudson confirms dramatic Corrie exit
Friday, 30 May 2008
Blu Cantrell
Artist: Blu Cantrell
Genre(s):
Other
R&B: Soul
Discography:
From L.A. To L.O.
Year: 2004
Tracks: 11
Bitter Sweet
Year: 2003
Tracks: 12
As she grew up in Providence, R.I., with her basketball team siblings, Blu Cantrell was toted from one jazz performance to another to observe her mother sing. From that point fore, she knew what she precious to do, and began auditioning for outspoken gigs and displaying her dynamic alto at talent shows. On a visit to Atlanta in 2000, Cantrell played her demonstration tape for A&R executive Tab and producer C. Stewart (aka Tricky) of RedZone Entertainment. They were so impressed that they immediately provided studio work to the loretta Young isaac Merrit Singer, and she panax quinquefolius backgrounds for artists including Gerald Levert, Faith Evans, Puff Daddy, and Aaron Hall. Meanwhile, Cantrell began recording tracks for what would at long last suit her showtime full-length album. Upon hearing the abridge "Public treasury I'm Gone," L.A. Reid, the CEO and president of Arista Records, signed Cantrell. Before the discharge of the full-length, the single "Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)" occupied the numeral two situation on the Hot 100 number. The bombilate was forbidden and Cantrell was invited to do on home television system programs. Her full-length debut, 2001's So Blu, reached the Top Ten on the album charts. Her side by side record, 2003's Bittersweet, didn't do as considerably on the charts merely did take in Cantrell a Grammy nomination for best R&B album.
Lisa Edelstein - House Spin-off In The Works