Sunday, May 25, 2008

Ky. museum to get Clooney's 'Leatherheads' uniform

Turns out, the museum for singer and actress Rosemary Clooney will get the leather headgear and the rest of the football uniform.

"This will be a nice addition," curator Steve Henry said. "In the future we are hoping to accumulate at least one costume from each of his new movies."

Clooney's uniform will be placed among his aunt's memorabilia. Henry said the new display at the Rosemary Clooney House Museum is scheduled to be unveiled June 7.

"We were at the premiere of 'Leatherheads' in March and were told the entire football costume, from the cleats and socks to the helmet we had originally asked for, was ours to have for the museum," Henry told The Ledger Independent of Maysville.

George Clooney is a Kentucky native. He stars alongside Renee Zellweger in "Leatherheads," a romantic comedy set in the world of 1920s professional football.

Henry, a former Kentucky lieutenant governor, and his wife, former Miss America Heather French Henry, bought and converted Rosemary Clooney's house into a museum after she died.

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Information from: The Ledger Independent, http://www.maysville-online

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Robbie Knievel jumps 24 trucks in Ohio

Evel Knievel

"Hopefully I'll see you after the jump," Knievel told the crowd before he climbed the start ramp.

Knievel, 46, had said he would need to be going 95 miles per hour at take off for the 200-foot jump, which began from a three-story tall ramp and was completed amid wild cheers, booming explosions and shooting flames at Kings Island amusement park near Cincinnati.

After touching down at the tip of the landing ramp, Knievel gave the crowd a thumbs-up, raced his bike back and forth and popped a wheelie.

"He took a really hard shot at the landing," said Knievel's business partner, Jeff Lowe. "But he's thrilled. We're all thrilled. He was a lot more nervous about this jump than he let on."

Evel Knievel jumped 115 feet over 14 buses at Kings Island in 1975 in an event that was watched by more than half of the nation's television viewers. He died last year at the age of 69 after suffering from failing health for many years.

Robbie Knievel dedicated his stunt to his father, U.S. war veterans and those serving in the military.

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'Indiana Jones' earns $56 million in first 2 days

Indiana JonesHarrison Ford

After earning $25 million in its Thursday debut, the Steven Spielberg-directed movie brought in another $31 million Friday.

"These are very solid numbers, no question about it. The fact that earnings went up on the second day is a good sign," Dergarabedian said. "Whether it's on pace to beat "Pirates'" numbers from last Memorial Day remains to be seen."

Last year, "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" set the record for a Memorial Day weekend opening, earning $153 million including Thursday night preview grosses.

"Indiana Jones" will need a strong weekend finish to top the year's biggest hit so far, "Iron Man," which pulled in $98.6 million domestically in its first weekend.

The film opened early Thursday in 4,260 theaters, according to Media By Numbers.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," the first film in 19 years about the archaeologist-adventurer, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this month to tepid reviews.

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On the Net:

http://www.mediabynumbers

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Paramount and Paramount Classics are divisions of Viacom Inc.

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TV's 'Laugh-in' comic Dick Martin dies at 86




By BOB THOMAS, Associated Press Writer



Martin, who went on to become one of television's busiest directors after splitting with Dan Rowan in the late 1970s, died Saturday night of respiratory complications at a hospital in Santa Monica, family spokesman Barry Greenberg said.

"He had had some pretty severe respiratory problems for many years, and he had pretty much stopped breathing a week ago," Greenberg said.

Martin had lost the use of one of his lungs as a teenager, and needed supplemental oxygen for most of the day in his later years.

He was surrounded by family and friends when he died just after 6 p.m., Greenberg said.

"Laugh-in," which debuted in January 1968, was unlike any comedy-variety show before it. Rather than relying on a series of tightly scripted song-and-dance segments, it offered up a steady, almost stream-of-consciousness run of non-sequitur jokes, political satire and madhouse antics from a cast of talented young actors and comedians that also included Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley and announcer Gary Owens.

Presiding over it all were Rowan and Martin, the veteran nightclub comics whose standup banter put their own distinct spin on the show.

Like all straight men, Rowan provided the voice of reason, striving to correct his partner's absurdities. Martin, meanwhile, was full of bogus, often risque theories about life, which he appeared to hold with unwavering certainty.

Against this backdrop, audiences were taken from scene to scene by quick, sometimes psychedelic-looking visual cuts, where they might see Hawn, Worley and other women dancing in bathing suits with political slogans, or sometimes just nonsense, painted on their bodies. Other times, Gibson, clutching a flower, would recite nonsensical poetry or Johnson would impersonate a comical Nazi spy.

"Laugh-In" astounded audiences and critics alike. For two years the show topped the Nielsen ratings, and its catchphrases_ "Sock it to me," "You bet your sweet bippy" and "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall's" — were recited across the country.

Stars such as John Wayne and Kirk Douglas were delighted to make brief appearances, and even Richard Nixon, running for president in 1968, dropped in to shout a befuddled sounding, "Sock it to me!" His opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was offered equal time but declined because his handlers thought it would appear undignified.

Rowan and Martin landed the show just as their comedy partnership was approaching its zenith and the nation's counterculture was expanding into the mainstream.

The two were both struggling actors when they met in 1952. Rowan had sold his interest in a used car dealership to take acting lessons, and Martin, who had written gags for TV shows and comedians, was tending bar in Los Angeles to pay the rent.

Rowan, hearing Martin was looking for a comedy partner, visited him at the bar, where he found him eating a banana.

"Why are you eating a banana?" he asked.

"If you've ever eaten here, you'd know what's with the banana," he replied, and a comedy team was born.

Although their early gigs in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley were often performed gratis, they donned tuxedos for them and put on an air of success.


Associated Press writer Andrew Dalton contributed to this report.

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22 films vie for top honors at Cannes festival




By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer
1 hour, 10 minutes ago


Among critical favorites at the 12-day festival, which presented some solid entries though no obvious standouts, was Eastwood's "Changeling," starring Jolie in the true-life story of a Los Angeles woman battling corrupt police to find her missing son after authorities return the wrong boy in his place.

Other warmly received tales among the 22 in the festival's main competition included:

• Laurent Cantet's "The Class," a classroom drama shot in a French school using real students and teachers;

• Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas' "Linha de Passe," a tale of four brothers in a Brazilian slum;

• Ari Folman's "Waltz With Bashir," an animated documentary about war in Lebanon in the early 1980s;

• Matteo Garrone's "Gomorrah," a study of the criminal underworld in Naples;

• Paolo Sorrentino's "Il Divo," a lively portrait of former Italian Premier Giulio Andreotti and accusations against him of mafia ties;

• And Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Three Monkeys," a subtle drama about a family's hard choices coming home to roost.

The competition also featured "Lorna's Silence," a drama about an immigrant woman who enters a sham marriage to gain Belgian citizenship, from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, two-time winners of the Palme d'Or, the top Cannes award.

Another past Cannes winner, Steven Soderbergh, was in the running with "Che," his two-part, four-hour epic about Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara, starring Benicio Del Toro. Soderbergh, who won the Palme d'Or for 1989's "sex, lies and videotape," received mixed reviews for "Che" from Cannes critics.

A film from Kazakhstan, Sergey Dvortsevoy's "Tulpan," won a secondary competition called "Un Certain Regard." "Tulpan" is the story of an aspiring shepherd on the isolated Kazakh steppes who must wed before he can enter his chosen trade but is refused by the only prospective bride because she thinks his ears are too big.

Bosnian director Aida Begic's "Snow," a drama about villagers struggling with the decision to leave their war-ravaged town, won top honors in another Cannes competition overseen by critics.

Some high-profile films screened out of competition, including "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," which premiered at Cannes four days before its worldwide theatrical release. The film pulled in $56 million (€36 million) at the U.S. box office in its first two days.

Also playing outside the Cannes competition were Woody Allen's romance "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and Jack Black's animated comedy "Kung Fu Panda."

While Cannes presented few outright bombs this time, critics found the lineup a bit tepid. Last year's competition included such films as Joel and Ethan Coen's "No Country for Old Men," which went on to win the best-picture Academy Award, and Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's animated coming-of-age tale "Persepolis," which was nominated for the animation Oscar.

Last year's top prize went to Cristian Mungiu's Romanian abortion drama "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days."


http://www.festival-cannes.fr

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