Entertaining Posts

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Week 1: winners, losers in Michael Jackson trial

LOS ANGELES | Sat Oct 1, 2011 4:38pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The trial of the doctor accused of responsibility for the June 2009 death of pop star Michael Jackson ended its first week, after an emotional start covered on television and making headlines worldwide.

Dr. Conrad Murray denies a charge of involuntary manslaughter against him in the death of the "Thriller" singer through an overdose of the anesthetic propofol and prescription drugs.

Reuters spoke to trial watchers Marcellus McRae, former federal prosecutor; Mark Geragos, Los Angeles defense attorney who once represented Jackson; and Steve Kron, Los Angeles defense attorney, for their views on the early trial winners and losers. Below is a summary of their opinions:

MICHAEL JACKSON - WINNER

The trial has presented conflicting final images of the pop star lying dead, slurring speech in a voicemail, singing his classic hits in rehearsal video, then hooked up to an IV and urine collection device. His public image has long been mixed: famed singing star who was acquitted of child molestation charges. Has his image been damaged?

Geragos: "Michael had become such a caricature, and unfairly so, in the last 10 years, I don't think it harms him."

Kron: "Anyone looking at this rationally would have to say this is a picture of a guy who was on highs and lows and extremes of behavior and, if not addicted, then heavily dependent on drugs."

McRae: "All these idiosyncrasies spell one thing, which is vulnerability. Jackson is taken out of his iconic status and humanized as a person."

DR. CONRAD MURRAY - MIXED

The cardiologist appeared sympathetic at times. He wiped away tears in court. His supporters gathered outside, arrived holding hands with his mother, and was credited by one witness, a former patient, as having saved his life. But the circumstantial evidence against him was damaging. Keep in mind that prosecutors present their case first. Defense is second.

Kron: "The former patient who said Murray was a great doctor and did a terrific job could have been a witness for the defense. Why the prosecution brought that in baffles me."

McRae: "Murray is in a really tough spot. If he shows too much emotion, it may show contrition, and that may suggest culpability. If he shows no emotion what does that say? A failure to acknowledge the human tragedy."

PROSECUTION - WINNER

Prosecutors present their side of the case first, using slick video screen presentations, slides, photos.

Geragos: "The prosecution has come out strong. There have been some great visuals and audio so far."

McRae: "The prosecution is doing an effective job in focusing the case on trust and the duty of care of a doctor."

DEFENSE - LOSER

The defense team, which has not yet presented its case, has only cross-examined witnesses in bid to draw out inconsistencies. On Friday the judge imposed a gag order on attorneys after one defense counselor gave a TV interview. He could be held in contempt.

McRae: "It's been a difficult week for the defense (and their basic argument) that if it is not Murray, then it is Jackson. The defense won't be able to put Jackson's personality, or character, or all of his actions on trial."

Geragos: "The defense opening statement was compelling. Some of the cross examination has been effective."

JACKSON FAMILY - WINNER

Parents Joe and Katherine Jackson, sisters Janet and La Toya, and brother Randy have attended each day in a display of unity among the sometimes fractious Jackson clan. Court watchers heard how Jackson's young children, Paris and Prince, both witnessed their father lifeless in bed -- adding to the emotional tug favoring the family of the King of Pop.

McRae: "You not only have visual of the children mourning the loss of father, but the family in court on a daily basis reinforces that they are still grieving and that (Jackson's death) cries out for some measure of accountability."

Kron: "The jury might be dazzled a little bit by the star power, but after a while the impact they may have will be minimal."

Geragos: "I think it is very important to the jury to see they are there in support of their deceased brother and son."

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Philip Barbara)

Afghans rock at first music festival in three decades

By Martin Petty

KABUL | Sat Oct 1, 2011 2:04pm EDT

KABUL (Reuters) - Live rock returned to Afghanistan after three long decades on Saturday as young men and women cheered and leapt into the air to the sound of heavy bass beats and punk rock.

Bands from Australia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan served up a six-hour musical feast of blues, indie, electronica and death metal to hundreds of fans, many of whom had never seen live music before.

Sound Central was something new in a deeply conservative Muslim country where music was banned under the austere Taliban regime. Even now music shops are attacked in some cities and musicians taunted for their clothes or hair.

The festival retained a distinctly Afghan accent, with alcohol banned, kebabs the only snacks and a respect for strong religious values amid the rock and roll.

Bands left the stage and the microphones were turned off twice in the late afternoon to allow the call to prayer to sound out uninterrupted from nearby mosques.

"Where I live, there's nothing like this. I heard about it so I had to come," said Ahmad Shah, dressed in a traditional white shalwar kameez and waistcoat, who traveled from Kandahar, a southern city roiled by insurgent violence.

"I came to escape the cancer of the Taliban and this makes a refreshing change." Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001.

Young Afghans lunged toward the stage, jumping and thrusting their arms into the air to the sound of local band White Page, and the handful of security guards were overwhelmed.

The crowd briefly parted when one man in jeans and a tight t-shirt took to the floor for an impromptu burst of back flips and break-dancing.

The festival was held under tight security in a corner of picturesque Babur Gardens, a normally tranquil park surrounding the centuries-old tomb of Babur, the first Mughal emperor.

The date and venue was kept a closely guarded secret until the last moment to ward off the chance of an insurgent attack.

Despite the secrecy, the concert attracted more than 450 paid-up revelers and scores more trickled in from street markets outside. A few elderly men with turbans and long beards appeared taken aback, but not entirely disapproving.

CHANGE THE WORLD

The crowd's enthusiasm persuaded even security staff and police to join in, nodding and moving their legs in time with the beat.

Loud cheers erupted when singer Sabrina Ablyaskina of Uzbek band Tears of the Sun jumped, gyrated and screamed into the microphone: "Kabul, my new friends -- let's rock!"

Tears of the Sun, now recording their sixth album, said they were surprised by the event's success.

"We didn't expect this crowd -- it's amazing, such energy," Ablyaskina told Reuters. "We love Kabul, more and more every day and we'll be coming back again, of course."

Guitarist Nikita Makapenko said: "Rock and roll will change the world, and we hope it will change Afghanistan too. This is historic, and it's just the beginning."

Sound Central was the brainchild of Travis Beard, an Australian photojournalist who joined a band when he moved to Kabul and was inspired by the talent and dedication of local musicians.

In the run-up to the festival, he held workshops to nurture the local talent showcased by Sound Central, and underground concerts to build the buzz and help bands rehearse.

The festival seemed to have served his goal of not just providing a day's entertainment, but kindling a love for modern music among young Afghans.

"We heard about the music festival from the radio, and when my friend asked whether we should go, I said 'Why not?'," said Lauria, a 19-year-old university student dressed in a bright headscarf, jeans and strappy sandals.

"This is great. I hope we can see more of it in Kabul," she said.

(Additional reporting by Zhou Xin; Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison and Robert Woodward)

Friday, September 30, 2011

Judge issues gag order in Jackson death trial

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES | Fri Sep 30, 2011 8:08pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The judge in the manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson's doctor issued a gag order for attorneys on Friday after a defense counselor appeared on a television show telling details about the case.

The judge's order came at midday on Friday, the fourth day of the widely-watched trial in which prosecutors are trying to prove that Dr. Conrad Murray is responsible for the drug overdose that led to the pop star's death on June 25, 2009.

Prosecutors brought to the courtroom paramedics who responded to the call for help, as well as other witnesses, to try to prove that Murray was negligent in his care and covered up Jackson's use of the anesthetic propofol, which is the principal cause of Jackson's death.

But the day's bombshell came with Judge Michael Pastor's gag order, which followed an appearance by defense attorney Matthew Alford on NBC's morning chat show "Today."

"The attorneys for the parties in this case ... are ordered not to comment to anyone outside of their respective teams either directly or indirectly regarding any aspects of this case, whether orally or in writing," Pastor said in court.

Alford said on "Today" that one witness had changed his testimony several times and declared Jackson was addicted to propofol.

In Friday's testimony, paramedics who rushed to the singer's bedside told jurors they were optimistic he might live because they arrived within five minutes of being called. But they soon saw Jackson was unresponsive.

"I knew that we got there very, very quickly. It meant we'd have a good chance of restarting the heart if that was the issue," said paramedic Richard Senneff.

COLD SKIN, DEAD EYES

But Senneff said that he quickly realized Jackson had been down for more than five minutes. "His skin was very cool to the touch," Senneff said. "When I took a first glance at him, his eyes, they were open and his pupils were dilated. When I hooked up the EKG machine it was flatlined."

The call for help was received at 12:22 p.m., paramedics arrived at 12:26 p.m. and made it to Jackson's bedroom one minute later and worked feverishly to revive Jackson.

Senneff testified that he was on the phone with doctors at a nearby hospital and they recommended at 12:57 p.m. that Jackson be declared dead. Murray demanded that Jackson nevertheless be taken to the hospital for further treatment.

The pop star was pronounced dead later that day at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angles.

In trying to prove Murray's negligence, prosecutors have spent much of this first week creating a timeline between when Jackson stopped breathing and Murray called for help. During those precious minutes, prosecutors claim Murray was trying to cover up evidence of Jackson's use of the anesthetic propofol, which ultimately caused the singer's death.

Earlier in the day, jurors heard a voicemail Murray left for one of his heart patients at 11:49 a.m. PDT (2:49 p.m. EDT) on June 25, 2009 -- seven minutes before he is believed to have found Jackson unresponsive in his bedroom.

Prosecutors seek to prove Murray failed to properly monitor Jackson after giving him a dose of propofol. They claim that instead of watching Jackson in the singer's bedroom, Murray was busy on his cellphone before discovering at around 11:56 a.m. that the "Thriller" singer had stopped breathing.

Murray admits administering propofol but denies involuntary manslaughter. His lawyers have argued that Jackson caused his own death by giving himself an extra dose of propofol, mixed with prescription sedatives, without Murray's knowledge.

Murray faces up to four years in prison if convicted.

Witnesses earlier this week described frantic scenes at Jackson's house on the morning of his sudden death, when the 50 year-old singer was found lifeless in bed and hooked up to an IV machine, a urine collection device and an oxygen feed.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

A look behind the making of "Terra Nova" dinosaurs

By Matt Hurwitz

LOS ANGELES | Fri Sep 30, 2011 6:57pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Everybody knows what dinosaurs look and sound like. After all, who hasn't seen the "Jurassic Park" movies.

So what if your boss is Steven Spielberg -- the guy who created that movie and is chiefly responsible for those dinosaurs? And he says that for his new TV show, "Terra Nova," make me dinosaurs but don't make them look or sound like "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs?

"You can see the dilemma," deadpanned Michael Graham, the supervising sound designer for Spielberg's new Fox series, "Terra Nova," which debuted on TV earlier this week.

"Everybody who's seen that movie knows -- that's what they sound like! That is the vocabulary of dinosaurs," Graham said.

In "Terra Nova," humans are sent back in time to escape the overcrowded and polluted future of 2149. And they go WAY back to prehistoric times with when massive animals with scaly skin, sharp teeth and names that end with "-aurus" ruled Earth.

The show drew a solid audience of 9.7 million viewers on its debut night last Monday, and reviews were mostly positive. The New York Times said the story was "lavishly produced by television standards, at a level of visual and technical sophistication" befitting its two years from script to screen.

The dinos of "Terra Nova" don't look or sound like their theatrical predecessors, and for good reason. Jack Horner, the show's paleontology expert who worked with Spielberg on "Jurassic Park" made sure of it.

"Jack set our show in the Cretaceous Period, 85 million years ago," explains visual effects supervisor Kevin Blank. "That's a period where the fossil record is the least defined. They only know about 10 percent of what existed at that time."

So Blank and his team were able to give audiences dinos that audiences may have heard of, like the menacing Carnotaur and the gentle, long-necked Brachiosaurus, as well as some we probably haven't.

NEW DINOS, LOUD ROARS

The Slasher Tails in the premiere episode, for instance, never existed but they might as well have, says executive producer Brannon Braga. "We needed a big, climactic dinosaur, so I thought, 'What's one that didn't exist but could have existed?' Then we just go for the Jack Horner seal of approval, in terms of appearance and behavior. We do that for any animal we create."

Creating the behavior of dinos is "the fun part" for the writers. "You can't just throw a dinosaur up on screen, especially if it's one you're making up," says Braga. "They have to have specific behaviors. Maybe they travel in packs, like the Slashers do. And maybe one scouts the area, and when it finds it's pretty, calls for others. First there are two Slashers ... and then there are a dozen others."

But it is most important that even the made-up dinosaurs look real to audiences. "If a six-year-old who loves and studies dinosaurs spots something that doesn't look right, they'll cry 'Fake!' And Jack says he gets those letters all the time," said Blank.

And that all leaves one critical question. How do the special effects wizards create the sound of a dinosaur?

They're a mixture of sounds, it turns out, but one element is common, they all roar.

"You can use a bear, a lion, a cougar, and we manipulate them so that they fit the size of the creature," said Graham.

For the Carnotaurs, Graham and his team sought to come up with a new terrifying sound. "That was a challenge. The producers definitely didn't want to hear the T. Rex sound. So we had to create a new, intimidating dinosaur sound."

Rick Steele, Graham's chief dino sound designer, injected the sound of a bird -- a condor, in this case -- into the Carno. "You hear it at the tail end when they attack," he explains.

"The hardest part," Steele said, "is to try and create a personality," making the dino vocalizations match the expressions the animators put on their faces.

"Remember, these aren't monsters - they're characters."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Cancer comedy "50/50" hits home for Anjelica Huston

By Zorianna Kit

LOS ANGELES | Fri Sep 30, 2011 5:00pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar winning actress Angelica Huston has often played quirky roles in films like "The Addams Family" and "The Royal Tenenbaums." This weekend, the 60 year-old Hollywood star plays her most "normal" character to date in the cancer comedy "50/50."

The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a young man whose life changes drastically when he is diagnosed with cancer. Huston plays Diane, his overbearing mother.

Huston's own husband, sculptor Robert Graham Jr., died three years ago, and she talked to Reuters about that life-changing event and how it impacted her character in "50/50." She also revealed she's working on a memoir.

Q: It takes a minute or two to even recognize you in "50/50." What made you decide to wear a frosted wig?

A: "The way I look in life is a bit dramatic for what I wanted for her. Certain roles demand that you take a big step outside yourself. I wanted her to be a middle class woman living in Seattle who shops at the mall, wears blazers and probably would have played golf if she weren't having to go through this ordeal with a son who's sick and a husband who has Alzheimer's."

Q: Did you draw on your own experiences for the role?

A: "I lost my husband a year before I made this movie. So it came from a deeply personal place. I took everything -- all of my experience from the five months I spent with him in (intensive care) to day-to-day occurrences in the hospital -- which was kind of ludicrous at the same time as being heartbreaking. I think so much of what a caregiver does is to bring love and humor to a situation in which they have absolutely no power. That's what I was kind of channeling for Diane."

Q: Is that one of the reasons you accepted the role?

A: "It was coincidental. I don't think it hurt that I'd had the experience. Although, God, I prefer not to have had the experience, no question about that. I didn't accept the role because it was cathartic, I accepted it because it really touched me. I fell in love with this woman who is going through this horrible ordeal, whose presence was suffocating to her son. I understood it from quite a few points of view, from his point of view as well as my own, and the character's."

Q: Were there days on the film that hit too close to home?

A: "Yes. Not to talk about cancer when cancer is in the room is not to talk about the elephant in the room. To be able to talk about the elephant in the room was for me quite a relief at the time. At the same time that it's painful, it's also a wonderful way of exorcising demons and pulling in the demons to have a closer look at them."

Q: Switching gears. You're currently filming the upcoming TV drama "Smash" set in the world of Broadway. Is this your first time doing a TV series?

A: "I've guested a few times, but I've never done a series. I play a Broadway producer and I'm shooting in New York, so I'm out of my comfort home and ground, Los Angeles."

Q: What made you decide to take a series?

A: "Well, I'm a single woman now. I think work is very important for me right now. Something to do with my time, particularly since my life has changed so radically over the last couple of years. But it's good. It takes my mind off other things."

Q: In what way?

A: "The death of a parent is one thing. But the death of a chosen mate is very different because it's the life that you've chosen, not the life that was given to you. The surprise factor when it doesn't go your way is really life changing. You're never prepared for it. You're given hope until the last minute and that's part of what makes it shocking."

Q: You've lived quite a life. Any plans for a memoir?

A: "I started writing my memoirs last year, and I think the publisher is looking at (a publication date of) 2013. I've been asked to write it through the years and this seemed like a good time to do it."

Q: What can we expect to see in it?

A: "So far its memories, dreams, reflections. I'll see what shape it takes."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)