Update: NBC to announce Jimmy Fallon as Conan’s replacement?
Roger Friedman is reporting that the rumors of Jimmy Fallon replacing Conan O’Brien as host of NBC’s Late Night are true, and that NBC will make the announcement next month (as you know, Conan is leaving to take over for Jay Leno next year, so his 12:35 gig is now open).
There are two reasons why I think this story might be wrong. One, it’s Roger Friedman, and scientific studies have shown that he’s wrong 9.2 times out of 10. Second, Friedman says that NBC will make the announcement at their upfronts in May. Well, the network already made their fall annoucements a few weeks ago.
But it could still happen. Maybe NBC will make the announcement when they make some other announcement about their schedules (a smaller presentation could take place the same week the other networks have their major upfronts). This rumor has been floating around for quite some time (even pushed by Fallon himself once, on Howard Stern’s radio show), so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. NBC seems to like Fallon; he filled in for Letterman a while back, and I’m sure NBC wants to make an announcement way ahead of time so there are no controversies.
Update: Looks like it’s true. NBC might announce it soon.
Rumor Killed: Two New Star Wars Television Movies
Earlier this month, Fox News reported that George Lucas would be making two Star Wars movies for television. The article quoted the Star Wars creator as saying:
“But they won’t have members of the Skywalker family as characters,” he said. “They will be other people of that milieu.”
We reported the news as fact because, well, if you can;t trust Fox News, who can you trust? (oh wait, did we just write that?) Well MovieWeb talked to Steven Sansweet, the head of fan relations at LucasFilm, who debunked this story.
“There is no truth to that whatsoever. I haven’t even seen that rumor. I can absolutely tell you that is not true,” Sansweet said. “No, no, no, no. There are going to be two more Star Wars television series. One of them is well into production. That is Star Wars: Clone Wars. It’s a CG animated show, which we suspect will be on the air sometime next year. And then George and Rick McCullen were just now starting work on a live action series. A drama. That will probably be coming out in 2009 or 2010. He is actively at work on both of those. But the CG animated series is more adult. It has a lot of humor in it. It is very cinematic.”
So it appears that Roger Friedman of Fox411 mistook news of the two upcoming television series as two television movies. So there you have it, Rumor Killed.
Tribeca Movie Review: Brando
The following movie was screened at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.
Brando
Special Event, Documentary
2007, U.S.A.
Dir: Leslie Greif, Mimi Friedman
It’s hard to believe that a man who established such a resonant and respected legacy within the world of film has been gone for three years already. Marlon Brando was the benchmark for acting in his lifetime. There was acting before Brando and there was acting after Brando. His influence can be seen in the actors considered to be his peers, spanning all the way to the actors getting work today. No one is safe from Brando’s awesome dominion.
This epic documentary pays homage to the life of a man recognized the world over for his impressive and diverse amount of characters portrayed. In typical bio-doc fashion, the film traces Brando’s timeline, beginning with his inception in Nebraska, through his years as a stunning young stage actor, to revered veteran actor, to family man, and in the end, worn down human being. In almost three hours, we get to see and know everything we ever wanted to about Brando, including his screen test for Rebel Without A Cause.
An extremely personal man who hated acting and regarded it as merely an unimportant task, Brando lived his life according to his own rules and mantras. He did what he wanted and how he wanted, and flushed out all his emotions onto the screen in his breathtaking performances. Having worked with some of the most important filmmakers of his time, such as Elia Kazan, Francis Ford Coppola, and Bernardo Bertolucci, Brando produced a monumental amount of work that is considered an important addition to the library of classic cinema. He will go down as one of the greatest actors in the annals of film history.
A wide variety of interviews with close friends, fellow actors, producers, and actors who looked up to him, the film bears down upon the viewer in recounting the life of a genius. At times longwinded and drawn out, the film seems interminable at times, but all for the glory of Brando. We see how his career flourished in the 1950’s, gaining him an Oscar for his performance in On the Waterfront, and then see how he decided to take more unconventional roles in the 60’s, almost single-handedly ruining his career.
And then the rebirth of Brando in the 70’s appears, as he gets picked for the role of a lifetime as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather. A time of important films for Brando, the 70’s gave him back the reputation he was known all along for.
Despite the intrusive length, the film paints a vivid picture of one of the greats. A man who truly was the sign of greatness, Brando will always go down in history for his accomplishments, and this film can only help in cementing his legacy in the minds of filmgoers all over.