NY exhibit pays homage to Apollo, black music greats

NEW YORK | Mon Feb 7, 2011 7:10pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - From Michael Jackson to James Brown, Harlem's The Apollo Theater is famed for helping launch some of the most successful figures in U.S. black entertainment and marking their influence in popular culture.

A new exhibit, "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing," displays images, videos and artifacts including instruments, shoes and costumes from music greats such as Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Sammy Davis Jr. who performed at the theater over the past 75 years.

From swing to Motown to hip hop, it details the 1500-seat music hall's history of propelling styles of music and artists that have graced its stage from Nat King Cole in the 1940s to its famed Apollo Amateur Night, which helped the careers of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix and The Jackson 5.

"The first time I appeared at the Apollo was during Amateur Night -- my gospel group during a gospel caravan show. And we won. And the next time was at the very beginning of my career in 1962," Dionne Warwick told Reuters Television.

"The Apollo Theater is the creme de la creme. And as is said, and is so true, if you can make it at the Apollo, you can make it anywhere," Warwick added.

The exhibit, held from Feb 8 to May 1 at the Museum of the City of New York, also explores Harlem's history as a hub of U.S. black culture and the theater's role in hosting memorial services for James Brown and a public tribute to Michael Jackson.

Jackson first performed at Amateur Night at age 9 with his brothers. Their group, the Jackson 5, won the competition in 1969, when the pop singer was 11 years old, performing Smokey Robinson's "Who's Lovin' You."

"When I think of a soundtrack for the second half of the twentieth century, it's the music that was launched by the Apollo," Susan Henshaw Jones, director of the Museum of the City of New York, said in a statement.

Letters from Martin Luther King and Frank Schiffman, the owner of the Apollo from 1935 until his death in 1974, are also included in the exhibit.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Oscar producers seek tweeting moms on awards night

By Bob Tourtellotte

BEVERLY HILLS | Mon Feb 7, 2011 7:35pm EST

BEVERLY HILLS (Reuters) - Oscar organizers rolled out the digital red carpet on Monday, unveiling their slogan "you're invited" for the upcoming film honors, detailing a Web-friendly show and inviting the nominees' mothers to tweet on Hollywood's big night.

At Monday's Oscar nominees luncheon, which is one of the most exclusive of the annual Academy Award gatherings, top stars such as Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem turned out to get their "class picture" taken, listen to tips on acceptance speeches and rub elbows with fellow stars.

Geoffrey Rush, Jeremy Renner and James Franco also were among 151 nominees gathered to hear Oscar producers Dan Jinks and Don Mischer explain how they want the world's top film honors to feel more inclusive to everyday movie fans.

To make people feel they are "invited," producers plan to show much of the program "through the eyes" of co-hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway, and they have expanded the pre-show TV segment to introduce the nominees to wider audiences.

The pair expect to include more Internet streaming of events ahead of the awards ceremony, which is why for the first time they streamed the luncheon on the Web.

Most important, the producers are inviting not just the nominees to be part of the show, but also the "mominees" -- mothers of the nominated stars -- to appear on camera and share stories of the celebrities as real people.

"The first thing they are going to be doing is tweeting," said producer Dan Jinks. "Now, some of your mom's may not tweet...but we will teach them how to do that."

Jinks, Mischer and Tom Hanks, who appeared in a pre-taped video, admonished stars to make acceptance speeches lively and under 45 seconds, rather than read from a list of 'thank you's.'

"We would really urge you to think about creating emotional and meaningful speeches. Those are the ones that work," Mischer said. "Speak from the heart. Pulling out a list has just been proven over and over again to be quite boring."

That is probably good advice for the numerous, first-time nominees in the audience, who included the likes of Jennifer Lawrence ("Winter's Bone"), Jesse Eisenberg ("The Social Network") and even Mark Ruffalo ("The Kids Are All Right").

Lawrence told reporters that last year at this time her life was "a little more boring" and that she and a friend of hers have always had a tradition on Oscar night.

"We eat linguini and take out," she said. "This is the first year I'm going to miss it.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Super Bowl overnight U.S. TV ratings tie record

DETROIT | Mon Feb 7, 2011 11:01am EST

DETROIT (Reuters) - Super Bowl XLV scored with viewers, tying for the highest-rated National Football League championship game according to overnight television ratings released Monday by Fox.

The Green Bay Packers' 31-25 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers earned a 47.9 market rating in 56 metered U.S. markets, an increase of 3 percent over last year's game on CBS and tying it with Super Bowl XXI in 1987, according to News Corp's Fox.

A ratings point is a percentage of U.S. television households that watched the program.

Research firm Nielsen will release national ratings and viewer numbers for the game later Monday, but the early numbers suggest another record viewing audience may have been set.

Last year's Super Bowl victory by the New Orleans Saints over the Indianapolis Colts set the record for largest U.S. TV viewing audience at 106.5 million, which topped the 106 million who watched the finale of the comedy "M*A*S*H" in 1983.

The ratings for this year's Super Bowl capped a strong year for the U.S. sports league. The NFL's 2010 regular-season games were watched by a record 207.7 million unique viewers, according to Nielsen.

For the first time ever, an NFL game was the most-watched show among all programs in each of the season's 17 weeks, and league games accounted for the 19 most-watched TV shows among all programing last fall as well as 28 of the top 30.

This year's Super Bowl scored a 59.7 overnight rating in the Pittsburgh and Milwaukee markets, tied for the second-highest rating in a single market in Super Bowl history behind the 63 in Chicago for Super Bowl XX in 1986, Fox said.

In Dallas, the host market for this year's game, the overnight rating was 53.7, while it was 42.6 in New York, 40.1 in Los Angeles and 51.4 in Chicago, Fox said.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit, editing by Matthew Lewis)

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Ballet-loving Russia roots for "Black Swan" Oscar

By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya

MOSCOW | Mon Feb 7, 2011 8:31am EST

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is rooting for "Black Swan" to win at the upcoming Oscars, as the Hollywood melodrama finds resonance with ballet's master of heritage.

Starring Natalie Portman as the black swan ballerina in "Swan Lake" -- a ballet composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky in the 19th century and treasured by Russians -- the film premiered in the capital late on Friday to enormous applause.

"I would be so happy to see a movie about ballet win," said Anastasia Volochkova, one of Russia's most famous ballerinas, who has performed in "Swan Lake" several times.

"What have we got in Russia? The Russian soul, Russian ballet, Russian vodka... Out of those, ballet is the most worthy because it has beauty, grace, fulfillment," she told Reuters as she flicked back her long blonde hair.

Directed by Darren Aranofsky, "Black Swan" has already made $120 million worldwide and grabbed five Oscar nominations, including best picture and Portman for best actress. The awards ceremony will take place on February 27.

"The movie will be better received here and in Europe than in the United States because we relate to ballet and this music," 20th Century Fox distributor Yekaterina Romanenko told Reuters as five ballerinas dressed as the black swan twirled to Tchaikovsky's music behind her.

Later, a male-female duo from the Kremlin Ballet Theater performed a short piece on a small stage near the screen.

Russia prides itself as the epicenter of the ballet world, which is little wonder considering the list of Russian stars reads like a who's who of ballet over the last 100 years, with names such as Balanchine, Pavlova, Danilova, Nuriyev, Baryshnikov and many others.

But critics say its rigid ideas about classical dance have also put a damper on innovation. Last month the U.S.-Russian modern ballet "Reflections" took a risk when it premiered to a sold-out audience at the Bolshoi.

The theme of ballet, however, is one that will always find appeal amongst Russians.

Business FM radio station has already placed "Black Swan" at the top of its weekly film charts, even thought the mass release in Russia doesn't start until February 10.

"Now it is the Russian film-goer's turn to come out of the dark cinema hall with tears in their eyes, and whisper that they have felt perfection," cinema news portal proficinema.ru wrote.

The film has even helped a ballet troupe from Voronezh, some 1,420 km (885 miles) east of Moscow, go to the United States on tour to perform "Swan Lake," a cultural magazine for the city said, adding that the film's popularity in the U.S. has drawn attention to Russian ballet abroad.

Russia's discerning ballet elite found Portman had many shortcomings in her actual dancing, but they applauded her for accurately depicting the harsh life a ballet dancer can face.

"There were many mistakes immediately visible to a ballet person," said prima ballerina Natalia Osipova, of Moscow's famed Bolshoi Theater.

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