Entertaining Posts

Monday, September 26, 2011

Pink Floyd pig flies again to mark albums reissue

LONDON | Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:19am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - A large inflatable pig flew above London's Battersea Power Station on Monday in a stunt designed to mark the re-issue of British band Pink Floyd's 14 studio albums by record label EMI Music.

The animal, measuring 30 feet long and 15 feet high, was inflated with helium at dawn for the event, held 35 years after the making of the iconic album cover for "Animals" featuring a similar flying pig.

EMI had planned to use the same inflatable which had been kept at a workshop since the original shoot, but two weeks ago it was deemed not to be airworthy and a replica was made.

The artwork on the Animals album was a combination of the background of Battersea Power Station taken on December 2, 1976, and the pig photographed on December 4.

On December 3 that year, the pig slipped its moorings and floated into the Heathrow airport flight path before being recovered by a farmer in Kent, southeast England.

Under the banner "Why Pink Floyd ... ?," EMI Music is releasing all 14 Pink Floyd studio albums remastered and available digitally. They are also available as one Discovery Box Set.

Also on sale from Monday are special editions of one of the band's most acclaimed albums, "The Dark Side of The Moon," extended to feature unreleased music from Pink Floyd archives.

Pink Floyd, behind seminal albums The Dark Side of the Moon, "Wish You Were Here" and "The Wall," is one of the most successful rock bands of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million albums worldwide.

The group, also famous for its acrimonious split and one-off reunion at charity concert Live 8 in 2005, re-signed to long time record label EMI in January in a five-year deal.

The agreement also brought to an end a legal dispute between the sides over EMI's right to "unbundle" their records and sell individual tracks online.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Netflix edges out HBO for Dreamworks deal: report

LOS ANGELES | Mon Sep 26, 2011 1:59am EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Netflix Inc has won a deal to pipe Dreamworks Animation movies starting in 2013, the first time a major Hollywood studio has chosen Internet streaming over traditional pay TV, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told the newspaper the deal, worth $30 million per picture to Dreamworks over a number of years, was "game-changing" and represented a bet that viewers would soon no longer make distinctions between content streamed on the Internet or through cable.

The Netflix deal means Dreamworks -- the studio behind family friendly fare from "Shrek" to "Kung Fu Panda" -- is eschewing premium pay-TV operator HBO in favor of online streaming, the Times reported. HBO is a unit of Time Warner Inc. "We are really starting to see a long-term road map of where the industry is headed," Katzenberg was cited as saying to the newspaper in an interview.

The content agreement comes days after Netflix, which has seen its share price decline sharply after a series of missteps, sealed an agreement to broadcast TV shows from Discovery Communications Inc.

Netflix needs to add more content to its streaming service to keep drawing in new customers and fend off competition from the likes of Amazon.com, Google Inc and Apple Inc.

Shares of the one-time Wall Street darling have fallen 50 percent in two months. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has apologized for failing to explain moves adequately, from a surprise price hike in July to a separation of its DVD-mail from streaming services, and the company is trying to win customers back.

But adding customers is suddenly proving difficult, with Netflix on the receiving end of heated complaints from customers still upset over the price hike announced in July.

It cut its subscriber forecast by 1 million, saying it now expected to have 24 million subscribers at the end of the third quarter. The last time Netflix reported a subscriber decline was the second quarter of 2007, when Blockbuster was aggressively pushing a DVD rental package called Total Access.

According to the Times, Netflix was quick to pump up the Dreamworks deal.

"This is one of the few family entertainment brands that matter," Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was quoted as saying. "It's also a signal to people that we are in no way moving away from movies. Our programing is just reflecting more and more what people want."

Netflix and Dreamworks were not available for comment.

(Reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Jane Goodall stages unique live, film premiere

By Jill Jacobs

NEW YORK | Sun Sep 25, 2011 1:53pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - World renowned primatologist Jane Goodall began her groundbreaking research into chimpanzees over 50 years ago in Tanzania's Gombe National Park, leaving an indelible imprint on the way humans view animals.

On Tuesday this week, the 77 year-old animal researcher and United Nations Messenger of Peace, is featured in an unusual event in 500 movie U.S. movie theaters.

The one-night only "Jane Goodall Live!" features the U.S. premiere of documentary "Jane's Journey," about her life with appearances by Angelina Jolie, Pierce Bronson, and Charlize Theron. There also will be a live question-and-answer session with Goodall and her friend and musician Dave Matthews.

Reuters spoke to the anthropologist about the upcoming event, what people can do to make a difference in keeping the planet healthy, and what humans can learn from animals.

Q: What will audiences discover on "Jane's Journey?"

A: "The film was long in the making by German independent filmmaker, Lorenz Knauer, and it's been running in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain other European countries for several months. The audience response is similar to the response I receive at my lectures, as they leave teary-eyed, saying, 'What can we do?'

"We haven't been doing enough to help the planet." The message of let's wake up and take care of this planet, we've been stealing from our children before it's too late, is the message I hope that audiences will embrace."

Q: At what age did you know that working as an animal conservationist would be your life's calling?

A: "From a tiny, tiny age I loved animals, observed animals, went on nature walks, watched "Dr. Dolittle" and fell in love with Tarzan. I was 11 when I decided that I would go to Africa and live with animals and write books about them.

"It was in Africa that I met Louis Leakey, the late renowned paleontologist, who gave me this opportunity to go out and study chimpanzees. I had no degree of any sort then. What an amazing and extraordinary journey it really has been."

Q: Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron and Dave Matthews are just a few of the high-profile celebrities who are helping to get your message out. How does it feel to have a whole new generation of people becoming familiar with your work?

A: "I find it really necessary. I wouldn't mind if they weren't familiar with my work, per se. The important thing is to understand that every one of us makes a difference, every day, and we can live with a lighter ecological footprint.

"When you have people like Angelina Jolie getting behind the film, that can attract some people who might not otherwise be interested and then hopefully they get the message, too. In fact, that's what's been happening. In Europe, the film received the 'Green Oscar.'"

Q: What can we humans learn from the animal world?

A: "First of all we should learn a bit of humility, that we are of course different, but not as different as we may think. From chimpanzees, I have substantiated my belief of the tremendous importance of the first couple years of life and the kind of experiences a child has. The human child psychologists have been talking about that for a long time. In chimpanzees, it's so easy to trace the effects of a traumatic experience, because unlike us, they don't try to hide the way they feel, they just act the way they feel."

Q: If chimps could talk what would they tell humans?

A: They would probably tell us to leave them alone, get out of the forest and protect the forest. That's probably what they would tell us to do.

Q: So what can one person do to make a difference?

A: "Each person can just spend a little bit of time each day thinking about the consequences of what you buy, what you eat, what you wear and how you interact with people. If millions of people think about the consequences, they start to change and then we achieve the kind of change we must see on this planet."

Q: What do you think has been your greatest achievement and what are you most proud of in your work?

A: "People from all over the world continue to tell me that, 'In The Shadow of the Man,' published in 52 languages, has had a lasting impact on them. Also helping people understand that animals do have personalities, minds and feelings and that they matter as individuals.

"The other accomplishment I'm most proud of is starting Roots and Shoots so we involve young people for caring for our planet before it's too late."

More information can be found at the following websites:

www.rootsandshoots.org/

www.JaneGoodallLIVE.com

www.fathomevents.com/jane

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Jon Katz new book explores life after pets die

By Zorianna Kit

LOS ANGELES | Sun Sep 25, 2011 1:56pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Best-selling author and animal advocate Jon Katz has been writing about dogs for over a decade. Many of his own, past a present, have taken center stage fiction and nonfiction books such as "The Dogs of Bedlam Farms," "A Dog Year," "Izzy and Lenore" and "Rose in a Storm."

Katz wrote his latest, "Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die," which comes out on Tuesday, to provide guidance, support and advice for people on how to handle the loss of a pet.

Reuters spoke with Katz to discuss his new book and how people can cope with life when the family pet passes away.

Q: What was the biggest surprise for you in researching books about pets and grieving?

A: "I found that almost every book had to do with the afterlife. Not a single book said, 'This is what is known about things that will help you grieve.' So I started talking to vets and psychologists and gathering information and interviewing maybe 200 different people about what was helpful to them."

Q: And what did you find?

A: "People need to bring rituals into grieving. Memorial services, remembrances, pictures -- those are concrete things that make grieving tangible. The Internet offers all kinds of opportunities for this like making digital albums and Facebook pages. People used to have to hide grief. You couldn't go to your boss and say, 'I need a week off, my cat died.' You probably still can't, but you do need to say, 'I'm having a tough time.'"

Q: No doubt your own personal experience went in to this.

A: "I'm one of those people who has always struggled with emotions and revealing them. When my dog Orson died, I did this very male thing of 'It's just a dog and I'll just move on.' I was very slow to grasp the emotion. But Orson is the reason I started writing about dogs. He's the first (dog) book I wrote and HBO did a movie about him ("A Dog Year"). Writing this book inspired me to go back and look at the impact of his loss and on my life, as well as other dogs that I've lost."

Q: You ended up putting Orson down. How does one deal with the guilt of making such a decision?

A: "It's important to remember that the animals are not grieving with us. They're very accepting. They're not lying there thinking 'How could you do this to me? Why aren't you keeping me going?' Pets don't do the human things of guilt and anger and recrimination that we do. They come and go with great acceptance.

"One idea that I advocate is the dealing with guilt directly. Acknowledge the good life, remember the good things you did with your pet -- the places you took them, the affection you showed them. Remind those who have lost a pet that they generally gave their pets a good life and that's a good thing, so don't forget that."

Q: Is there any way to prepare for a pet's death?

A: "If you're going to love animals and have a life with them, the odds are you're going to lose them. It's helpful when you get a dog to accept the fact that this dog is not going to be with you your whole life."

Q: Is getting another dog acceptable in getting over the previous one? It's not a betrayal to the one you lost?

A: "I'm always happy when people choose to get another dog because it's a healthy and healing thing to do, and there are millions of them needing homes. But there is no single time frame to do it in because grieving is an intensely personal experience. In my case, I get another dog as soon as I feel ready. As a dog lover, it is right for me to have them.

"With children, I don't think it's good if you go out and immediately get another dog or cat. Animals are not disposable any more than people. Children need to see that the loss is important, and the family should take time to honor that."

Q: Is grief more difficult if you rescue an animal?

A: "When you rescue something, it's very different than if you adopt or buy. Rescuing implies saving. When you rescue something and then lose it, it can be a huge factor in the intensity of the grief. I have two rescues, Izzy and Frieda. I'm working on a book about Frieda now, 'Frieda and Me: Second Chances.' She opened my eyes to that world of dogs that nobody wants who are often the dogs you love most."

Q: The pet industry is bigger than ever, and it seems like people grieve over the death of animals more so today than ever before. Do you agree?

A: "Today people are developing very powerful relationships with animals. The whole idea of community is breaking down. American culture is being increasingly disconnected and fragmented. Families are breaking up and Americans spend so much time in front of screens that they're not spending time with each other."

Q: And that means...

A: "We need connection. We need support, love, affection. We need to bond and animals are filling this hole. And they're doing great work at it -- unconditional love, nonjudgment

and companionship you can absolutely rely on. It's a little troubling to think they are doing this instead of people."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Friday, September 23, 2011

Jury selected for Jackson doctor's trial

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES | Fri Sep 23, 2011 8:38pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 12-person jury was selected on Friday to hear the manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson's former doctor in a process one prosecutor likened to "speed dating."

The panel of seven men and five women includes one man who said he briefly met Jackson when he worked at Walt Disney Co in the 1980s and the singer was starring in a "Captain EO" film that was a Disney theme park attraction. That juror told attorneys he could approach the trial fairly.

The jurors have a wide range of professions, including a bookseller, school bus driver, paralegal and professor, according to questionnaires released after the selection.

Half of the panelists selected were Caucasian and five were Hispanic. The panel also includes one African American juror. Jackson was black and so is the defendant, Dr. Conrad Murray.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor limited the amount of time lawyers for both sides could question potential jurors on Friday, when the first day of direct questioning began. He aimed to seat the panel quickly and stay on track to begin the trial's opening arguments on Tuesday.

Friday's proceeding is the culmination of weeks of close scrutiny of the jury pool. Earlier this month 370 potential jurors completed a 30-page questionnaire, beginning the process of narrowing the pool to the 12 people now selected.

Murray is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the "Thriller" singer's death on June 25, 2009, at age 50.

Prosecutors said Murray caused Jackson's death by giving him the powerful anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid at the singer's Los Angeles mansion and not properly monitoring him.

Defense attorneys are expected to say Jackson administered a fatal dose himself while Murray was out of the room.

FAMILIAR CASE

At the start of Friday's questioning, all the potential jurors said they were familiar with the case, and on Friday some of them were asked to speak about their views of Jackson in open court.

One woman said she remembers him from his days as a singing child star with the Jackson 5 decades ago. Murray's lead defense attorney, Ed Chernoff, asked if she thought Jackson was particularly childlike as an adult. The woman said "no."

Chernoff also asked potential jurors if they believed that, due to a childlike nature, Jackson was less able to make reasonable decisions.

"Does anyone think Michael Jackson should be held to a different level of responsibility?" Chernoff asked the potential panelists. None of them said Jackson should.

The answers to that question could be a key determining factor for Murray's attorneys if they seek to show the "Thriller" singer bore some responsibility for his own death, which medical examiners have said resulted from an overdose of propofol and sedatives.

Deputy district attorney David Walgren used an analogy to jurors: Imagine a drunken driver listening to music and hitting a pedestrian who was also not paying attention as he walked into the street.

That hypothetical appeared to be an attempt to elicit views of whether Murray or Jackson was most at fault. Potential jurors' responses varied, but some of them said the driver might be guilty if he bore some responsibility for the death.

Murray faces a maximum sentence of four years in prison if convicted.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Cynthia Johnston)