Pink Floyd's 'The Wall: Immersion Edition'

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Roger Waters performs "The Wall" in Philadelphia in November 2010.Immersion is a good way to characterize the grip and whirl of constructionThe seven-disc Immersion box set includes two CDs of demos The box set also includes a previously released recording of the 1980-81 stage show

(Rolling Stones) -- There was agreement, at first. In the summer of 1978, Roger Waters, Pink Floyd's singer-bassist and primary songwriter, presented the other members with two sets of demos and a choice: Pick one for the next album.

The rest of the Floyd wisely voted for Waters' bleak, enraged observation on emotional exile and totalitarian celebrity, provisionally titled Bricks in the Wall. (The other demos became Waters' 1984 midlife-crisis opera, The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking.) It was also a disastrous decision.

The Floyd fell into eventually fatal throes of conflict and division on the way to the 1979 album's grim, towering splendor. Waters designed, and the band built, The Wall too well.

Immersion is a good way to characterize the grip and whirl of construction recounted on the two CDs of demos in this seven-disc box, which includes a previously released recording of the 1980-81 stage show. (An Experience edition has the original album and a single CD of demos.)

Excerpts of Waters' early sketches are sequenced into a stark vertigo of his contempt ("Mother") and despair ("Goodbye Cruel World") at birth. Later band demos -- "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" as a crisp funeral march instead of disco revolt; "The Doctor," a prototype of "Comfortably Numb" -- and discarded ideas like the plaintive "Teacher, Teacher" and the static blues "Sexual Revolution" prove development came slow if steady.

It is obvious, too, that Waters' authoritarian drive was not enough to get this job done. The crucial difference between Waters' initial notion of "Run Like Hell" -- slow, snarky bullying -- and the perversely gleaming menace of the final version is in David Gilmour's demo of jangling commandant's-strut guitar.

See the full article at RollingStone.com.

Copyright © 2011 Rolling Stone.

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Jason Segel not in 'Muppets' sequel

"My goal was to bring the Muppets back and I did that, leaving them in very good hands," Jason Segel said.Jason Segel told Collider he won't be signing up for another round with Kermit and Co"It's true [that I won't be in the sequel]," said SegelSegel said he wants "to pursue more human-related projects"

(EW.com) -- Though a sequel for "The Muppets" has been greenlit, one star who was integral to bringing the franchise into the new millennium won't be a part of it, reports Collider.

Jason Segel told the site he won't be signing up for another round with Kermit and Co. "It's true [that I won't be in the sequel]," said Segel, "but it's totally amicable. My goal was to bring the Muppets back and I did that, leaving them in very good hands."

Segel said he wants "to pursue more human-related projects," adding, "All I wanted to do was to set the stage for them to do whatever they wanted. I'm sure I'll return in some capacity here and there, but that was half a decade of my life. Five years of hard work. I'm ready for a little puppet break."

See the full article at EW.com.

© 2011 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved.

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What exactly is 'The Hunger Games'?

"The Hunger Games" gives us a heroine named Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and her longtime pal Gale (Liam Hemsworth).Suzanne Collins is the mastermind behind "The Hunger Games" trilogyThe plot revolves around a dystopian societyOne boy and one girl must fight to the death until only one is left standingEditor's note: Amber James is an editor at Celebuzz.com

(CNN) -- Forget "Harry Potter" and "Twilight." In a few months, "The Hunger Games" phenomenon will be taking over the pop culture world.

Although it will be feeding off the tween demographic, this franchise will chew up those other guys and spit them out.

But what exactly is this "Hunger Games" wonder that has so many folks talking months before the movie (which just wrapped up filming earlier this month) is even released? Like many of the wildly successful film franchises these days, it began with a book.

Suzanne Collins is the mastermind behind "The Hunger Games" trilogy, which has been gaining momentum over the last few months for both its suspenseful plot and overarching message about society.

The plot revolves around a dystopian society where punishment for a previous rebellion has resulted in a televised event. One boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each district (there are 12 total) are selected at random and forced to participate in the Hunger Games, where "tributes" must fight to the death until only one is left standing.

"The Hunger Games" gives us a heroine named Katniss, a strong-willed and unwavering spirit, who volunteers for the games in order to spare her younger sister. Once inside the death match arena, she must get down and dirty to outlive her competitors, but there's one slight problem.

Her hot friend Peeta gets cast into the games, too. In the midst of all the slaying, Katniss finds herself embroiled in a love triangle with her longtime pal Gale, who is watching the games from his home, and Peeta, who confesses his love for her inside the arena. Katniss' emotional turmoil of love or death makes Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" look like child's play.

Apparently, Collins' twisted plot came to her one night while she was channel surfing between a competition reality show and a news program about the Iraq war. She blended the two shows and "The Hunger Games" was born.

The first film of the franchise is slated for release on March 23, 2012, while the second film is already booked for November 2013. Fans can only hope director Gary Ross doesn't soften the book, because the twists and turns will make for an edge-of-your-seat thriller. At this rate, the film is set to have more passion than "Twilight" and more action than "Harry Potter."

The film has already faced some controversy.

When Lionsgate announced that Jennifer Lawrence had been cast to play Katniss, both fans and critics questioned the choice, believing she was too old, too blond and too pretty to play a ruthless warrior. However, if her success in "Winter's Bone" and "X-Men: First Class" is any indication of her range, Lawrence has the potential to nail this role and pave the way for kick-butt female heroines.

The movie's lead male stars will likely rise to instant fame, just as Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner did with "Twilight." The relatively unknown actors Josh Hutcherson (Peeta) and Liam Hemsworth (Gale) will provide plenty of eye candy for the film. Other stars on the bill include Woody Harrelson (Haymitch), Stanley Tucci (Caesar Flickerman) and Lenny Kravitz (Cinna).

The film was originally meant to be low budget, however the hype has pushed the movie to a nearly $100-million production, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The cast and crew wrapped filming earlier this month after an 84-day shoot, and a recently released teaser trailer has given fans a taste of what's to come. The hype may have escalated the budget, but the film may still exceed all expectations -- and be one lucrative franchise that reaches audiences of all ages.

Now, with only a few months until the first film's release, you still have plenty of time to pick up the book if you haven't read it. But be warned, once you finish the addictive read, you'll probably hunger for more.

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Guest list grows for Lionel Richie TV concert

A whole bunch of Lionel Richie hits from his upcoming country duets album "Tuskegee," will be addressed throughout the night."ACM Presents: Lionel Richie and Friends in Concert" will have many country starsLuke Bryan, Sara Evans, Tim McGraw, and Jennifer Nettles are the night's newest additionsThe concert will feature a variety of offerings, from solo performances to duets

(EW.com) -- Lionel Richie's got once, twice, three times the friends you do.

As previously reported, CBS will be airing "ACM Presents: Lionel Richie and Friends in Concert" after the Academy of Country Music Awards telecast April 13.

And while the special event already boasted an impressive roster of country stars -- including Kenny Chesney, Jason Aldean, Lady Antebellum, Kenny Rogers, Rascal Flatts, The Band Perry, and Martina McBride -- it turns out there are even more guests waiting in the wings.

Luke Bryan, Sara Evans, Tim McGraw, and Jennifer Nettles are the night's newest additions, the ACM and Dick Clark Productions announced today.

The concert will feature a variety of offerings, from solo performances to duets with the man of the hour. Naturally, a whole bunch of Richie hits from the man's upcoming country duets album "Tuskegee," due March 27, will be addressed throughout the night; here's a peek at the itinerary:

Jason Aldean, "Say You Say Me"

The Band Perry, "Penny Lover"

Luke Bryan, "Running with the Night"

Lady Antebellum, "Truly"

Martina McBride, "Still"

Jennifer Nettles, "Hello"

Rascal Flatts, "Dancing on the Ceiling"

Kenny Chesney with Richie, "My Love"

Tim McGraw with Richie, "Sail On"

Kenny Rogers with Richie, "Lady"

The concert will tape April 2 at Las Vegas' MGM Grand Garden Arena, a day after the Awards ceremony.

See the full article at EW.com.

© 2011 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved.

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Mean girls: Fighting on reality TV

Sammi Giancola and Jenni Farley fight during the third season of "Jersey Shore."Sammi Giancola engaged in a bar fight on Thursday's episode of "Jersey Shore"Catfights have become standard for many cable and network reality series"The Bachelor," "Mob Wives" and "Love & Hip Hop" feature such aggressive behavior

(CNN) -- Table flipping. Hair pulling. Name calling. Glass chucking. Fist throwing.

Who needs scripted dialogue when women are willing to physically and emotionally exchange blows for the camera?

MTV's "Jersey Shore," the mega-hit known for both male and female brawls, featured yet another bar fight on Thursday night's episode. Despite hyping the altercation between cast member Sammi Giancola and a female club-goer in a promo for the show, the scene was treated like any other segment.

Catfights have become practically de rigueur for many cable and network reality series. Shows like "The Bachelor," "Mob Wives," "The Real Housewives" and "Love & Hip Hop" all seemingly rely on female cast members' aggressive behavior for ratings.

The genre has become more about shock TV than reality TV, said Steve Carbone, who runs the spoiler site Realitysteve.com. That said, "If you're shocked by what you see (on reality TV), you shouldn't be," he said.

For almost a decade, viewers have watched 25 to 30 women vie for the attention of one man each season on ABC's "The Bachelor." And if the majority of catfights on reality TV have taught us anything, it's that viewers love watching women fight over a man.

So what's shocking about the current season's villain, Courtney, who said she'd like to "verbally assault" and "rip another girl's head off"? Carbone rhetorically asked. "People, two years ago, were saying the exact same thing about Vienna."

Mary McClelland, who contributes to the reality TV site Reality Tea, said viewers are still shocked by cattiness and girl-on-girl violence despite no longer being appalled by it.

"Viewers almost revel in it ... in an excited way," she said, adding that stories about catfights on reality shows elicit the most comments on Reality Tea.

Judging by the comments, people seem to be annoyed by the constant cattiness on such shows, McClelland said, adding, "Maybe people like the cringe factor."

And so producers routinely cast women who will be controversial.

As Shaunie O'Neal, the executive producer and star of VH1's "Basketball Wives," wrote in a commentary for CNN.com in July, "I'm not a big supporter of the bickering, drink throwing and fighting, but when you put a group of strong, independent and vocal women who are going through or just came out of a bad relationship together, there's bound to be a little drama."

"More and more people are starting to realize how scripted some of this stuff is," Carbone said. "Not in terms of words, but in unscripted drama. They're not telling people what to say, but they're giving them a situation where they know what's going to arise."

That's exactly what happened when VH1's other reality hit "Love & Hip Hop" found Chrissy Lampkin and Kimbella Vanderhee in the same room. What began as a verbal disagreement ended with flying fists and exposed lady parts.

"Viewers like to find a character to dislike," McClelland said. "People like to have sides. Like with 'The Real Housewives of New Jersey' -- Caroline (Manzo) vs. Teresa (Giudice). Fans are into that."

Who could forget Giudice's infamous "last supper," in which she flipped a table over.

"There's over 100 (reality shows) with all of the cable programs," Carbone said. "You almost have to outdo the others to get noticed."

The aggression appears to have amped up recently. A study out of Brigham Young University published in 2010 stated that "reality-television programs contained high levels of verbal and relational aggression, but almost no physical violence. Such 'meanness' is so frequent, that it is almost expected in reality programs."

And shows like Oxygen's "Bad Girls Club" are built around mean girls and fights.

These shows clearly have an audience. However, Carbone said, that doesn't mean viewers are desensitized to girl-on-girl violence. If they were, he said, producers would move on to a new attention-grabbing storyline.

Which raises a frightening question: What does a show have to do for us to say, "Oh, we've never seen this on reality TV before"?

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'Hunger Games' inspires everyday style

"How-to-dress like Katniss" web pages, blog posts and articles are being bookmarked and pinned up by girls of all ages.Katniss Everdeen of "Hunger Games" has made a huge style splash on the webAn InStyle editor says that the popularity of Katniss' style stems from its adaptabilityThe movie costume designer says one of the key aspects to Katniss' look is the practicality

(CNN) -- A single braid down the back, a light hunting jacket, a pair of sturdy leather shoes and a small golden pin; not exactly a culmination of things you would call fashionable.

But these are the key accessories to one of the hottest new characters to hit the big screen: Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss, the arrow-slinging, tribute-hunting teenager from the upcoming movie "The Hunger Games," based on Suzanne Collins' bestselling book, has made a huge style splash on the Web. Dozens of "how-to-dress like Katniss" web pages, blog posts and articles are being bookmarked and pinned up by girls of all ages. But when did hunting gear and cotton dresses become so fashionable?

For the same reason the little black dress from Audrey Hepburn's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is still a staple today: It's not just the look that audiences are responding to, but what that character represents, explains Teen Vogue's News Fashion Editor, Jane Keltner de Valle.

In the case of Katniss, "Hunger Games" costume designer Judianna Makovsky kept in mind that the character's style had to tell the story of a distinctively strong young woman who doesn't yet know her own strength.

After all, Makovsky says, Katniss is a character who's "just trying to survive."

So when she created those costumes, she looked to the past for inspiration, creating items for Katniss' home of District Twelve by incorporating themes from the Great Depression.

As a result, "Katniss has practical clothes -- it has to make sense where she got them," Makovsky says. "District 12 is American work wear, and that is what she would wear while she hunted."

Katniss isn't the only recent movie character to rev up the fashion scene.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's" Lisbeth Salander enthralled viewers with her distinctive punk style, and even "Twilight's" Bella Swan gained fashion popularity with her simple wedding dress seen in "Breaking Dawn" and Northern Pacific coast fashion.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's" dark urban look was recreated for consumers by Swedish retailer H&M, which released a limited edition Lisbeth Salander-inspired line, featuring key leather pieces, torn and worn shirts and hoodies, all tied together with an industrial color scheme.

One Los Angeles store sold out of the line in 10 minutes after the line went on sale, according to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's" costume designer, Trish Summerville, who worked in conjunction with H&M to create the line.

Teen Vogue's Keltner de Valle also notes how that theme resonated on the runway during the fall fashion season in 2011. "For so long, designers were collaborating with mass retailers, [but] a new trend could be costume designers collaborating with mass retailers to create [a] character-inspired wardrobe. It almost seems like a no-brainer."

And yet, while Summerville created a character-inspired line with Lisbeth Salander, Makovsky said that's currently not her intention.

"I didn't want the fashion to take over, [because] that is not what the movie is about," she said. "The movie is about a girl's journey. That is what a costume designer does, we tell the character's story."

Whether the clothing ends up being crafted specifically for fans or not, it's always that story told through a character's costume that the consumers cling to. To dress like Katniss, in some regard, is to adopt her trademark characteristics, and the popularity of her clothing points to a characterization that's hit home.

"There was a time when being powerful and being pretty were mutually exclusive, and these strong female archetypes are becoming really popular and girls are really responding to that," says Keltner de Valle.

InStyle.com entertainment editor Bronwyn Barnes agrees, positing out that the look and feel of characters like Katniss and Lisbeth are so appealing to audiences because these characters are in charge of their own destinies.

"I think these characters struck the right time in pop culture," Barnes said. "People are looking for the modern day heroine."

And to dress like one, too.

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How ABC's 'Revenge' snuck up on us

Emily VanCamp and Gabriel Mann star in ABC's "Revenge."Modern day "Count of Monte Cristo" reels audiences in with love/hate characters Amanda Clarke, disguised as Emily Thorne, returns to the Hamptons to take revenge ABC was lucky to find a new female-driven drama that resonates with viewers

(CNN) -- Most of us haven't partied with the bunnies at "The Playboy Club," or fought crime like "Charlie's Angels." And with the NBC and ABC programs canceled after just a few episodes, we'll never have the chance.

But in the time it took for one alphabet network drama to get the axe, another garnered 8 million viewers and a full season pickup.

After all, "Revenge" is a language we all understand.

The modern day "Count of Monte Cristo" reels audiences in with characters viewers seem to love -- and love to hate. Not to mention plot twists to die for. Still, the primetime soap doesn't venture into campy territory. Not even while playing with traded identities and crimes of passion.

The concept is simple: Amanda Clarke, disguised as Emily Thorne, returns to the Hamptons to take revenge on the people who destroyed her family when she was a little girl.

And "Revenge" couldn't have come at a better time as far as its network is concerned.

With "Desperate Housewives'" eighth and final season underway, ABC was fortunate to find a new female-driven drama that so far appears to resonate with viewers. "Revenge" even has its own insightful narrator. (Thank you, Mary Alice Young. You can go now.)

"For the truly wronged, real satisfaction can only be found in one of two places: Absolute forgiveness or mortal vindication," narrator and protagonist Emily Thorne, played by former "Brothers and Sisters'" cast member Emily VanCamp, coos at the beginning of the pilot. Before even making the acquaintance of her victims, she's got the audience on her side.

That's not to say everyone is a fan of her narration.

With "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy" in mind, one HitFix reviewer wrote, "ABC has an in-house style that says that having your female lead narrate nothingness at the start of every episode is a worthy strategy."

But whether you're a fan of Thorne's philosophical musings or not, the numbers don't lie. About 7.3 million viewers tuned in to "Revenge" on Thanksgiving Eve -- better known as the biggest bar night of the year.

Now nine episodes in, the series began in a predictable fashion -- with Emily targeting and conquering one victim every week. Each episode even ended with Emily marking a red X over the victim of the hour in a posed photograph of the Hamptons royalty.

"Revenge" has since taken a more complex turn, with the introduction of new characters, telling flashbacks and plans gone awry -- a change welcomed by some critics.

"The show has wisely realized that it needs to mix it up when it comes to 'revenging,' and it's also fruitful to have plans backfire and have unexpected complications emerge," AOL TV critic Maureen Ryan wrote in her column, "Stay Tuned."

One complication being antagonist Victoria Grayson, played brilliantly by Madeleine Stowe.

Let's just say Emily isn't the only character seeking revenge.

The perfect present day villain, Victoria is out to get her son's new love interest, her daughter's inept boy toy, her unfaithful husband and the frenemy who led him astray.

"I can believe that this person would be doing these things," Stowe told the Sioux City Journal. "It's easy for me to slide into her."

As if Stowe and VanCamp weren't enough of a sell, the show's portrayal of the Hamptons royalty might be.

"We are dealing at a particular time right now in American history where I think the average American is going to want to see the takedown of the rich," Stowe said.

Nothing like a show about rich people who hate their lives to keep one entertained during a recession.

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