Country Superstar Garth Brooks Will Skip iTunes, Release

by Roger Friedman

photos by Ray Tharaldson

all rights reserved 2014

Garth Brooks is back! The country superstar will release his first new album in years– literally eons– around the second Tuesday in November. That will be 13 years since his last new collection, Scarecrow, which went platinum five times.

The other big news is that Garth’s entire catalog will be available for downloading starting on Monday at his website, www.garthbrooks.com. Garth had previously been one of the few remaining holdouts, refusing to allow his songs on iTunes, amazon, or other services.

Now he’s going do it himself and cut out the middle man. I don’t know why more artists don’t do it this way.

A countdown clock is already running on the site. I hope they can handle the deluge when the downloading begins on Monday. Brooks is the biggest country star, and in the top 10 of all music stars.

As his fans know, Garth took a break from recording and touring to be with his wife, Trisha Yearwood, and his kids. And he really meant it. When I ran into him three years ago, Garth old me: “I’m not putting a new album out until all the babies are out [of the house]. I’m going to raise them and then hit it with a vengeance. We’ve got another three or four years.”

Well, that time is here. Garth will also launch a tour following release of the album. He said this week that he was already talking to Ticketmaster, which means in the concert biz that he’ll likely be promoted by Live Nation.

It’s not like Garth hasn’t been around. His multi-CD set, released on his own label last year, sold almost a million copies. The new album will be on his own label again, Pearl Records, via Sony’s RCA Nashville. That has to be a blow to Universal Music, which now owns Capitol, Garth’s old label. But Brooks took control of his catalog a few years ago. Even if Sony is just distributing Pearl, it will bring them a lot of good will and attention.

'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' Sees Strong Friday for $65M-Plus Debut.

by Pamela McClintock

The sequel is pacing well ahead of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," which debuted to $54.8 million in August 2011; Richard Linklater's "Boyhood" soars at the specialty box office.

Fox's sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is doing impressive business at the Friday box office, where it's on track to earn $25 million or more for the day for a pleasing weekend debut of $65 million-plus.

The critically acclaimed sequel is pacing well ahead of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which bowed to $54.8 million in August 2011. Thursday night, Dawn took in $4.1 million as it began rolling out in select theaters, compared to $1.3 million for Rise.

Directed by Matt Reeves, the sequel features Andy Serkis returning in the role of Caesar the ape, who has decamped to the forest of Marin County with hundreds of other genetically evolved apes and primates. When they are threatened by a band of humans who have survived a worldwide plague, a fierce divide erupts regarding whether peace can be restored, or whether war is the only way to determine who will emerge as Earth's dominant species. Peter Chernin's Chernin Entertainment developed and produced both Apes movies. The sequel, financed by Fox at an estimated $170 million, opens three years after origin movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes reinvigorated the iconic franchise. That film, directed by Rupert Wyatt, took in a strong $481.8 million at the worldwide box office, including $176.8 million in North America.

This time out, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Enrique Murciano and Kirk Acevedo are featured in the human cast. Reeves directed from a script by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, based on the characters created by Jaffa and Silver. VIDEOS Most Anticipated Summer Blockbusters of 2014 As with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the sequel is drawing widespread praise for its use of motion capture. It's also being released in 3D. Hollywood is hopeful the weekend will restore some balance to the domestic box office, where Fourth of July weekend revenue was down a steep 44 percent from last year, leading to a summer revenue decline of nearly 20 percent. Overseas, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes begins its initial assault, rolling out in 28 territories, including major markets Australia and South Korea. The tentpole is waiting to roll out in many larger markets because of the bottleneck created by the World Cup. PHOTOS Simian Cinema: The Best and Worst Movies Featuring Monkeys and Apes The specialty box office is also making headlines Friday thanks to the debut of Richard Linklater's high-profile indie drama Boyhood, for which he won the best directing award at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival following the film's world premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Boyhood, starring Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke and Ellar Coltrane, was shot intermittently over a 12-year period in order to chronicle the story of boy as he grows up in a divorced household. IFC Films is opening the movie in five theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The movie, drawing rave reviews, boasts a matinee screen average of roughly $9,500.

Marty Stuart's photos help keep country music's memories

by Peter Cooper

Vincent van Gogh and Lester Flatt.

Merle Haggard and Claude Monet.

Makes sense to Marty Stuart. He puts the work of all these men under the category of "museum-quality art." Lately, the museums are in agreement.

"The Frist is part of our spring world," says Stuart, the "Grand Ole Opry" star whose work behind camera lenses is the star of a new exhibit at The Frist Center for the Visual Arts called "American Ballads: The Photographs of Marty Stuart" and of a forthcoming (due for a July 4 release) Vanderbilt University Press book of the same name.

"Later this year, we're at the Smithsonian," Stuart says. "This fall, it's the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I've been working on getting our culture to be weighed in alongside jazz, ballet and theater. Now, these institutions are responding."

It's telling that Stuart's work as a photographer and documentarian and his subjects' work as performers of simple songs are recognized as entities of cultural significance. It's also telling that The Frist Center, which opened in 2001, is recognized as a place of international renown and a major museum worth mentioning in the same breath as the Smithsonian or the Met.

The artist and the museum have attained such status by embarking on similar missions: They each survey their immediate surroundings and the world at large with jewelers' eyes, seeking people and things that are special and then illuminating those people and things so that the rest of us can have a better understanding.

Inspired by his mother, Hilda Stuart, whose photographs are published in a Nautilus Publishing book called "Choctaw Gardens," Stuart began taking photographs when he was 11. His first one was of the headline performer at the Choctaw Indian Fair in Stuart's hometown of Philadelphia, Miss. That performer was Connie Smith. Today, she's a Country Music Hall of Famer, and Stuart is married to her.

Stuart moved to Nashville when he was 13, over Labor Day weekend of 1972, to work as Flatt's mandolin player. Soon, he found himself on tour with Flatt in New York, and he saw the striking, black-and-white photographs that Milt Hinton took of jazz greats Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday, Miles Davis and others. Stuart soon called his mother and asked her to mail him a camera.

"He knew he could do for country what Hinton had done for jazz, and the timing was perfect," writes Frist Executive Director and CEO Susan H. Edwards in her essay at the outset of the "American Ballads" book. "The arc of Stuart's career placed him no more than two degrees of separation from every legend of country music, living and dead. Moreover, Stuart was keenly aware of how quickly country music was changing, and he wanted to be the memory keeper."

Photos win raves

Stuart's musicality and affable personality afforded him access that a backstage pass never could. His attention and perspective allowed him to turn that access into art.

He took photos of "Father of Bluegrass" Bill Monroe on his Goodlettsville farm, the rare place where free-range chickens and late-model limousines intersected. He captured Jerry Lee Lewis, extending middle fingers over drinks in Paris, and Johnny Cash and Ray Charles howling with laughter at a Nashville recording session produced by Billy Sherrill.

He shot Hank Williams Jr. and his daughter, Katie, at the gravesite of Hank Williams, and he shot "King of Bluegrass" Jimmy Martin at Martin's own grave. (The King took a proactive approach to perpetuity.)

The most striking music portrait may be of Cash, addressing not the camera but his own mortality, on Sept. 8, 2003, four days before his death.

"American Ballads" is not exclusively devoted to country musicians. There's also a section called "Badlands," filled with portraits of the Lakota people of South Dakota, and another called "Blue Line Hotshots," filled with characters Stuart has met on the road.

"All of these are folk heroes to me," he says. "The common denominator between them and the country music masters is the fierce sense of individualism and independence they all share."

Edwards, who worked with Frist curator Kathryn Delmez (who edited the Vanderbilt Press book) on the exhibit, is a photography historian who has come to admire the work of country music-oriented Nashville photographers including Stuart, Les Leverett and Jim McGuire.

Stuart's status as a master musician didn't sway her opinion of his photographs: She was appropriately swayed as soon as Delmez showed her samples of Stuart's work.

"His work holds up, or it wouldn't be in a museum," she says. "Marty Stuart is a serious photographer, and his photographs transcend his renown. He would be considered an outstanding documentarian in any genre. That he happens to live in Middle Tennessee is our good fortune."

Reach Peter Cooper at 615-259-8220 or on Twitter@tnmusicnews.com.

If You Go

What: "American Ballads: The Photographs of Marty Stuart" exhibit

Where: Conte Community Art Gallery, The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, 919 Broadway

When: Today through Nov. 2

Admission: Access to the Conte Community Art Gallery is free and does not require Frist admission.

Best John Wayne Quote - ever!

‘Transformers’ Earning More in China Than U.S.

by Brent Lang
“Transformers: Age of Extinction” is a bigger hit in China than it is in the United States, according to numbers released Tuesday by China Movie Media Group, a partner in the production.

So far the film has made $134.5 million in the People’s Republic in its first five days of release compared with $121 million domestically after five days in theaters. The film brought in $10.5 million Stateside on Monday and $10.4 million on Tuesday, so it’s doubtful it will match those figures after Wednesday’s grosses are tallied.

Moreover, the film has now shattered the record set by a China-Hong Kong production, “The Monkey King,” which grossed $133 million over 11 days, and it has done it in half the time.
China Movie Media Group said “Transformers: Age of Extinction” is on track to surpass “Avatar’s” record $217.7 million haul from the country.

It’s almost unheard of for a Hollywood film of this size and scale to surpass its Stateside gross in a foreign country, particularly a fiercely protectionist market such as China, which often takes steps to safeguard its local productions by giving foreign films unpalatable release slots.
However, Paramount Pictures, the studio behind the franchise, took great pains to incorporate Chinese elements into the film — shooting parts of the picture there, casting Chinese star Li Bingbing in a key role and partnering with local companies to help promote the film.

China Movie Media Group, the country’s largest distributor and film promoter, collaborated for the first time with a U.S. studio, providing ad, online ticketing and other forms of support.
The previous “Transformers” film grossed roughly $165 million in China.

FILED UNDER:   Box Office China Transformers 4 Transformers: Age of Extinction

Ernest Borgnine, Star of ‘McHale’s Navy,’ Dead at 95

By Dean Schabner
Ernest Borgnine, who began his career playing the heavy but won an Oscar for the gentle comedy “Marty” and may be best known for his starring role as the lovable, often aggravated skipper in the TV series “McHale’s Navy,” has died. He was 95.

His longtime spokesman, Harry Flynn, told The Associated Press that Borgnine died of renal failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, with his wife and children at his side.

“It’s a very sad day.  The industry has lost someone great, the caliber of which we will never see again.  A true icon,” his manager Lynda Bensky said.  “But more importantly the world has lost a sage and loving man who taught us all how to grow ‘young’. His infectious smile and chuckle  made the world a happier place.”

Borgnine’s smile was indeed infectious, spread from ear to ear across his large round face, but his early roles capitalized on his powerful frame, playing gladiators, thugs and toughs, such as in “From Here to Eternity,” when he may have earned the hatred of Old Blue Eyes’ legion of fans, beating Frank Sinatra’s character to death in the World War II epic.

But it was in “Marty,” the 1955 story of a lonely butcher who lives with his mother and looks for love with his hapless friend, that Borgnine proved that he was more than a character actor.

“The Oscar made me a star, and I’m grateful,” Borgnine told an interviewer in 1966. “But I feel had I not won the Oscar I wouldn’t have gotten into the messes I did in my personal life.”

Borgnine went through four wives, including singer Ethel Merman — a marriage that lasted less than six weeks in 1964 — before he wed Norwegian-born Tova Traesnaes in 1973, and that one took.

In 2007, when the couple had been married 34 years, Borgnine told The Associated Press: “That’s longer than the total of my four other marriages.”

“McHale’s Navy,” in which Borgnine played Lt. Commander Quinton McHale, ran from 1962 to 1966, and spawned a movie.

“I didn’t have to reach very far for McHale because, I’ll tell you, I spent 10 years in the Navy,” he said. “Now, I had seen some rough and tumble officers and I also saw some officers that didn’t want to get their little panties wet, you know, and I played the rough and tumble kind.”

The show may have been a success with TV viewers, but the Navy wasn’t amused, at least not at first.

“We had a technical expert that came down the very first day, you know, and he was standing there and at the end of the first day he said, ‘Ernie, what are we making here?’ I said, ‘McHale’s Navy.’  He said, ‘Yeah, but this isn’t the Navy.’ I said, ‘It’s McHale’s Navy.’  And he said, ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you,’ and he left.”

But Borgnine said that when it became clear how popular the show was, he got an invitation to Washington from the Navy’s top brass.

“I was invited down to Washington one day and was invited by the secretary of Navy to 
come to his office, where he congratulated me personally for having so many men join up into the Navy simply because they had seen ‘McHale’s Navy,’  and hoped that there was a McHale’s Navy somewhere that they could join,” he said.

The move to TV didn’t end Borgnine’s film career. He went on to play tough-guy roles in such movies as “The Dirty Dozen,” “Ice Station Zebra,” “The Poseidon Adventure,” and perhaps his greatest performance after “Marty,” in Sam Peckinpah’s end-of-the-west classic, 
“The Wild Bunch.”

Starring alongside a cast that included William Holden, Robert Ryan, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson and Edmund O’Brien, Borgnine drew on both his comedic talents and his tough-guy pedigree in Peckinpah’s violent yet elegiac and tender portrayal of a group of aging outlaws pursuing one last big score, knowing that their way of life is ending.

Borgnine continued acting, mostly in supporting roles, on TV and in movies nearly until his death. Youngsters who might not know his face would still know his distinctive voice from his role as Mermaid Man on “SpongeBob SquarePants.” He was also the oldest actor ever nominated for a Golden Globe and received the lifetime-achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2011.

“I keep telling myself, ‘Damn it, you gotta go to work,”‘ Borgnine said in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press. “But there aren’t many people who want to put Borgnine to work these days. They keep asking, ‘Is he still alive?”
‘

Jeff Robinov Close to Deal With Investors Worth Up to $300M

by Clifford Coonan, Kim Masters
Chinese conglomerate Fosun will provide the bulk of financing while Huayi Brothers may also invest in the former Warner Bros. executive's Studio 8, which will distribute its films through Sony.

Former Warner Brothers executive Jeff Robinov is closing in on a deal to raise as much as $250 million from Chinese investors, and an announcement could come as soon as next week, according to individuals with knowledge of the situation.

Sources maintain that Chinese conglomerate Fosun will invest as much as $200 million, and Huayi Brothers, previously said to be the lead investor, may remain involved with a $50 million commitment. Sony Pictures could inject an additional $50 million, giving Robinov $300 million.

One source says Robinov has been offered more than the $300 million in equity that he was seeking. He is said to be assembling that amount in various increments from interested parties. In addition to Chinese companies, he also is in talks with potential European investors and strategic partners.

"Jeff is trying to build a real production company, not just a slate of films, similar to what Legendary or Skydance have done," said a source attending the Shanghai International Film Festival.

Robinov has declined to comment on ongoing negotiations due to the fluidity and complexity of such deals.

The original Huayi deal would have injected up to $150 million into Robinov's Studio 8, which would have been one of the biggest China-Hollywood team-ups so far.

Robinov has also had talks with the e-commerce company Alibaba, which is about to go public in the biggest tech listing ever and is keen to expand its involvement in the film business. There have also been discussions with the L.A.- and Beijing-based production company DMG and the Chinese distribution and production outfit Bona.

An announcement that a deal was done had been widely expected at Cannes.

Huayi Bros. was formed in 1994 and has grown into an entertainment conglomerate, with interests in film, TV, music, advertising and talent management. The company is known to have been seeking co-production and co-financing partners abroad.

Huayi had announced a deal with Legendary Pictures in 2011, but the deal foundered.

The company was behind two of 2013's biggest movies at the Chinese box office, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons and Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon. The company's 2013 net profit more than doubled to $109 million.