- September 8th- Fox Foundation funds Parkinson's disease cell lines-The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF) is leading a $2.2 million research initiative to produce a cell line specifically designed to advance the study and treatment of Parkinson's disease.
The desired cell line, or self-replicating colony of cells, would meet a number of pre-determined criteria of the mid-brain dopamine-producing neurons. These neurons are the type of nerve cells lost in Parkinson's disease — a chronic, degenerative neurological disorder affecting more than one million Americans. Once developed, the cell line will be made available to Parkinson's researchers worldwide.
"We are very excited about this proposal, which has been carefully thought out and aims to provide a significant boost to Parkinson's research," said J. William Langston, MD, Chief Scientific Advisor to the MJFF and Scientific Director of the Parkinson's Institute. "The availability of cells specifically tailored for Parkinson's disease will stimulate even more interest and activity in the field."
This unprecedented cell line initiative is one result of a strategic meeting the MJFF convened to assess the status and potential of cell-based therapies for Parkinson's. Co-chaired by Dr. Langston and the Salk Institute's Fred Gage, PhD, the "Cell Replacement Therapies for Parkinson's Disease" workshop included a select group of renowned cell biologists, neurologists, and neurosurgeons with expertise in Parkinson's and other neurological disorders. The meeting was the first in a series of research workshops that will assess potential high-impact areas of Parkinson's research and determine how the MJFF can best advance the state of the science.
"The Foundation seeks to take targeted actions that accelerate the search for a Parkinson's cure," said Deborah W. Brooks, the MJFF's Executive Director. "With expert guidance from our scientific advisors, we feel this initiative represents a dramatic step forward."
The initiative's focus is on the distinct qualities and performance of the cell line, not the source of the original cells. Proposals involving all types of cells — including adult, fetal, and embryonic human stem cells — are eligible for funding. Awards will be based on the scientific merit of the application.
While cell transplantation therapy may be the ultimate use of cells resulting from this initiative, many avenues of Parkinson's research will benefit from an available source of dopaminergic cells. Researchers will be aided in studying the causes of Parkinson's, developing appropriate models relevant to understanding and treating the disease, and producing innovative strategies to prevent, limit, or reverse the process of neuronal degeneration. A consistent source of identical cells will also increase the ability to compare data from various projects.
The $2.2 million award is comprised of a $1 million commitment from the MJFF, a $1 million contribution from an anonymous donor, and $200,000 from the Parkinson Alliance.
This dopaminergic cell line initiative is one element of the Foundation's research agenda to eliminate Parkinson's disease within the decade. Founded in May 2000, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research has established a strategic campaign to accelerate, expand, and focus funding of the world's best research targeting effective treatment and prevention of Parkinson's disease. The Foundation is dedicated to pursuing every possible avenue to increase federal funding and support aggressive fundraising efforts in both private and corporate arenas to ensure that this critical battle is won. For more information on The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, visit www.michaeljfox.org.
- September 8th- Speilberg's new movie-Ending weeks of speculation, Steven Spielberg is nearing a final decision to make his next project the Leonardo DiCaprio starrer Catch Me if You Can.
Spielberg is close to committing to the DreamWorks project, being eyed for an early January start, sources said. The involvement of the DreamWorks partner would give a long-awaited green light to Catch Me, which has been tripped up several times since last summer, when DiCaprio was set to star opposite James Gandolfini for director Gore Verbinski.
But DiCaprio's schedule pushed back the start date of the project because he was delayed in Rome shooting Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. That delay, coupled with the threat of a looming actors strike against producers, forced the package to fall apart, with Verbinski and Gandolfini dropping out. Since then, other directors — including Cameron Crowe, Milos Forman and Lasse Hallstrom — have circled the project along with Spielberg.
The most recent and serious contender was Hallstrom, who dropped out last month after what sources said was a tug of war between DreamWorks and Miramax, the latter of which has Hallstrom tied to a production deal.
- September 8th- NBC Late Night and encore movies-NBC Longform programming casts a wishful eye to favorite memories off in September with highlights that include: NBC’s two-hour special, 50 Years of NBC Late Night, hosted by late-night host Conan O’Brien; an encore presentation of the NBC comedy movie, Growing Up Brady; and the return of the theatrical favorite of Back to the Future, starring four-time Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winner Michael J. Fox.
- September 8th- Michael's (Pretend for Spin City)fiancee on Spin City-Michael J. Fox will have a fiancee when he returns to Spin City this fall: Olivia d'Abo.
The former Wonder Years star has signed on to appear in two of the three episodes Fox is slated to be in at the start of the season. Fox, 40, quit the show last year to spend more time dealing with his Parkinson's Disease, and announced his impending guest stint this summer.
Meanwhile, Spin producers say Farrah Fawcett has also agreed to appear in a couple of episodes sometime during the season. Spin, now in its sixth season, will air Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. this fall on ABC.
- September 8th- Toyota to promote Universal Studios-Vivendi's Universal Studios unit plans to announce a global marketing alliance with Toyota Motor Corp. that will integrate Toyota with the promotion of Universal theme parks, movies and music, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition.
The newspaper said the deal will result in Toyota sponsoring theme-park rides, placing its cars in Universal movies and distributing, via Toyota dealerships, special promotional CDs filled with Universal music.
The three-year deal, with an option to extend for two additional years, calls for Toyota to pay a fee described by Universal as "tens of millions" of dollars for the right to link its brand to Universal's products across the board, the paper said.
Toyota also will spend $50-80 million on advertising to support the joint promotions, the report said.
A Universal spokeswoman told the newspaper the cornerstone of the deal is promotions involving the Universal theme parks in California, Florida, Japan and Spain, through which Toyota will sponsor several attractions, including Back to the Future...The Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood and Adventures of Spider-Man at Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Fla.
In the film arena, Toyota will have a "first look" deal to place cars in Universal films, meaning it will have the right to claim such "product placements" before other auto makers, the newspaper said.
On the television front, Toyota will sponsor certain programmes on Universal's cable and satellite channels in Europe and Latin America, the report said, also receiving a 30 percent discount on advertising it purchases on those channels.
- July 23rd-Just as we had been forewarned months ago, it appears that those earlier reports were indeed true: Universal Studios Hollywood will be closing the "Back to the Future Special Effects Stage" at the end of this month.
We spoke recently with a source within the theme park who chooses to remain nameless regarding these reports, and our fears became reality with the following news which backs up reports given to us earlier by other park sources:
"A drop in attendance this year over last summer has forced us to close The World of Cinemagic, which houses the Back to the Future Special Effects Stage forever after July 26. The decision was recently made to close three of the park attractions. Besides Cinemagic, the Shrek Live stage show will close on July 22, and the Rugrats Magic Adventure show will close in September."
"The final performance at The World of Cinemagic will be Thursday, July 26. Anyone wishing to see the show one last time before everything (including all the original props from Back to the Future Part II) is put into storage, has only a matter of days."
As for the future of Sound Stage 32 (where Cinemagic is performed), we are looking at opening a brand NEW attraction in Spring 2002. Tentively, it will be an informative attraction about how movies are made and/or a history of movies. It is still in the very early planning stages, so something entirely different may end up there.
It's a pity that the BTTF portions of the Cinemagic show couldn't be preserved or upgraded to continue running, but it's had an extensive run and I know that it's just everyday business to Universal. Times & tastes change, and when there's not a lot of room for expansion, you've just got to clear out older attractions that may not be packing them in like they used to. The Back to the Future Special Effects Stage has been a part of Cinemagic for the last 11 years of the 20-year-old attraction. Too bad most of us won't get another chance to check it out one last time before it closes its doors permanently 10 days from now.
For those who cannot take in the attraction one last time, we've got the next best thing — close-up behind-the-scenes photos from the attraction. Check out our exclusive photographs in the Media Gallery.
Elsewhere in the park, I'm also told that the BTTF Courthouse Square will be seen in a couple of upcoming movies. Apparently Pay or Play, starring Frankie Muniz from Malcolm in the Middle filmed there a couple of months ago. Portions of this movie apparently takes place at Universal Studios Hollywood, so many of the backlot sets will be seen as well as the trams and several areas of the theme park.
Another movie that filmed in the same location about a month ago is DreamWorks' remake of The Time Machine with Guy Pearce and Mark Addy. It actually filmed one street over from Courthouse Square on Brownstone Street, but cameras were set up on one side, so we might be able see the building that housed the Cafe '80s, but from a different angle.
- July 23rd- Steven gets the winning bid on Bette Davies Oscar-Steven Spielberg was the anonymous bidder who paid $578,000 at a Christie's auction Thursday for the Best Actress Oscar that Bette Davis won in 1938 for Jezebel, published reports said today (Friday).
Spielberg reportedly plans to turn the statue over to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He had previously bought — and returned to the academy — Clark Gable's Oscar for It Happened One Night, for which he paid $607,500.
- July 23rd- Spielberg's worth 1.2 billion- DreamWorks is searching for a British insurance agency that will cover the life of Steven Spielberg for $1.2 billion, Britain's Independent Television News (ITN) reported today (Tuesday).
According to the report, DreamWorks is seeking such a record-breaking policy because it feels Spielberg's death would cost it at least that much in lost earnings.
Spielberg is a principal owner of the studio.
- July 23rd- Johnston knows how to beat the top compettitors- How does a movie director beat Steven Spielberg at his own game of scaring the wits out of audiences with thrillers like Jaws and Jurassic Park?
It's not easy, but director Joe Johnston, who made the new Jurassic Park III, thinks he knows: go back to the original, update the technology, darken the story, and make the monsters more — far more — meaner.
"I just want people to know there is a lot more to see that they haven't seen," Johnston said in an interviews.
Jurassic Park III, a follow-up to the first box office hit movie and Spielberg's sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park," debuted in theaters around the country last Wednesday, and there's no doubt Johnston's handling of Spielberg's babies will draw comparisons from critics and movie fans alike.
Spielberg's Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan won Oscars, and Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and the Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park flicks combined sold billions of dollars worth of tickets.
Lost World remains the record-holder for the highest-grossing, three-day opening of film with $72 million earned over Memorial Day weekend in 1997.
Johnston's filmography as a director lists only movies ranging from 1989 comedy Honey, I Shrunk the Kids to 1999's well-liked but little seen, October Sky.
To be fair, he directed special-effects hit Jumanji, and he has a long background in visual effects dating back to 1977's Star Wars and Spielberg's Raiders of the Los Ark in 1981.
But the main reason he was chosen to direct the third Jurassic Park is because he was a huge fan of the first one and has been courting Spielberg ever since to direct one for himself.
"The great thing about the first one," said Johnston, "is the people going to the island really don't know what they're in for."
T. REX, THE WIMP
For the third film, Johnston went back to that same idea of being chased by an unknown enemy with a cast of characters that is new to the story, except for dinosaur expert, Dr. Alan Grant (played by Sam Neill).
Nearly every other character, however, has a shady reason for being on the Pacific island 200 miles west of Coast Rica where dinosaurs — made by man from the DNA of fossils — still roam the Earth.
In Jurassic Park III, The blood-thirsty Velociraptors not only think on a human level, but communicate verbally with their gang. And T. Rex is not the biggest or baddest animal in the dinosaur 'hood. That title goes to a hungry Spinosaurus.
Finally, instead of sticking to huge animatronic dinosaurs for close-up shots and computerized versions for faraway shots of herds, the third film mixes digital dinos in the same scenes as the "live" ones, giving audiences a greater sense of a dinosaur's potential mobility and flexibility.
"You have to say to yourself, 'I'm not going to (make a sequel) ever the way I did it in the last movie because that would be boring and the audience is going to notice,"' said Stan Winston, one of Hollywood's top experts in film robotics.
It's been eight years since Dr. Grant and a group of scientists visited the tropical island where an experiment in building a theme park around the genetically re-created dinosaurs failed miserably, leading to the death of many people.
Funding has dried up for Grant's dinosaur expeditions, and he is becoming something of a fossil in his own field when a wealthy adventurer named Paul Kirby (William H. Macy) and his loving wife, Amanda, (Tea Leoni) offer to pay him any amount of money to show them, from an airplane, the dinosaurs.
SURPRISE TWISTS, TURNS IN PLOT
Desperate for cash, Grant agrees. But the trip quickly turns deadly when the plane in which they are flying lands on the island and is attacked by bad boy Spinosaurus.
Shortly, Grant learns Kirby and his wife are not who they pretend to be. They are a divorced couple searching for their son who was lost near the island. Kirby's not a rich man, either, but the owner of a paint store in Oklahoma.
Finally, the "guides" who flew them in were mercenaries, but their huge guns are no match for Spinosaurus. They find this all out rather early in the movie.
Indeed, if there is anything to know about Jurassic Park III, it is that the basic set-up happens fast, and the remainder of the flick is a straight-out thrill ride to see who gets off the island and who becomes dinosaur food.
For Jurassic Park and Lost World, Spielberg and his long-time producing partner Kathleen Kennedy had the novels by Michael Crichton on which to base the movies, but for No. 3, there was no blueprint.
Instead of taking liberties with the details established in the first movies or going off in a new direction, however, Kennedy said she, Spielberg and Johnston wanted to work within the parameters set up by the original movies.
While Johnston has given Jurassic Park darker and more sinister characters, Spielberg dreamed up the basic idea of a plane crash on the island with people struggling to survive, and he was involved in developing the script, Kennedy said.
Johnston said Spielberg visited the set during production and was always there if Johnston needed any advice.
But about the pressure of following a titan of Hollywood moviemaking with all the awards and box office power to prove it, maybe the best advice Johnston said he got was this: "Just go and make the best movie you can," Johnston said of Spielberg's advice, "and don't worry about it."
Jurassic Park III is rated PG-13.
- July 23rd- Etta James returns to the limelight- One of the world's classiest singers takes on the classics as Etta James returns to the spotlight with Blue Gardenia, her new Private Music Records collection of immortal jazz standards to be released on August 21st. You might recognize her name from the BTTF soundtrack. She sang, "Roll With Me Henry." Featuring a cross section of American jazz and pop hits from the 30's, 40's and 50's, Blue Gardenia pairs Etta with many of the songs she grew up with, sung with all her customary passion and soul. Produced by John Snyder, Blue Gardenia arrives in stores August 21st. Songs included are: "This Bitter Earth," "He's Funny That Way," Duke Ellington's "In My Solitude," "There Is No Greater Love," "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying," "Love Letters," "These Foolish Things," Harold Arlen's "Come Rain Or Come Shine," "Don't Worry 'Bout Me," "Cry Me A River," "Don't Blame Me," "My Man," and the title track "Blue Gardenia." Able backing Etta is her band, which features Josh Sklair on guitar (and arranger of "Love Letters"), pianist (and arranger) Cedar Walton, bassist Tony Dumas, drummer Ralph Pendland, Red Holloway on tenor saxophone, George Bohannon on trombone, and Ronnie Buttacavoli on trumpet. Special guests include Etta's mother Dorothy Leatherwood who sings with her daughter on the album's title track.
Since launching her recording career in 1955, Etta has created a dozen Top 10 R&B smashes and more than 25 chart hits. They include such soul classics as "All I Could Do Was Cry" (1960), "At Last" (1961), "Trust In Me" (1961), "Stop the Wedding" (1962), "Tell Mama" (1967), "I'd Rather Go Blind" and "Security" (1968). She ranks third, just behind Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick, as the most prolific female R&B hitmaker of that era.
A six-time Grammy® Awards nominee, Etta's music came to a new generation of listeners on soundtracks such as Back to the Future (1985), Reform School Girls (1986), Miami Vice (1987), Taps (1988), Rain Man (1989), Rooftops (1989), and Sister Act (1993). In 1993, she was inducted into the Rock 'Roll Hall of Fame, and the next year, Etta earned her first Grammy® award.
During the past several years as a Private Music artist, Etta has demonstrated her mastery of jazz and standards with Mystery Lady and Time After Time; a fresh take on country music with Love's Been Rough on Me and her enduring stature as a great stage entertainer with Live from San Francisco. In 1998, she returned to her blues roots on the incomparable Life, Love & The Blues. That same year, she recorded her first holiday album, The Twelve Days of Christmas. Her most recent Private Music release was Matriarch of the Blues, a 12-track set of new and classic blues/pop songs.
- July 23rd- Sequels and Remakes- This year plenty of sequels have been released at the movie theathers, with follow- up films that include The Mummy Returns, Dr. Dolittle 2, Jurassic Park III, Rush Hour 2 and Hannibal coming to theaters during 2001. In addition to these sequels, remakes like Planet of the Apes will hit the big screen this summer. Just in time for this flood of follow-up films, Blockbuster has released its list of the 10 best renting sequel series.
Consumers heading to theaters to screen the new sequels this summer need look no further than their local participating Blockbuster store for a refresher on the first films in a sequel series. To make finding and renting these titles easier, select Blockbuster stores will feature a special display of these movies on the New Release wall through Sept. 4.
According to the latest rental data from Blockbuster, here are the top 10 renting sequel series, listed in alphabetical order:
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1994 & 1995)
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and The Spy Who Shagged Me (1997 & 1999)
Back to the Future: Part II & Back To The Future: Part III (1989 & 1990)
Crocodile Dundee and Crocodile Dundee II (1986 & 1988)
Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II (1991 & 1995)
Godfather - Part II and Godfather Part III (1974 & 1990)
Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and Honey, I Blew Up The Kids (1989 and 1992)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Jaws and Jaws 2 (1975 & 1978)
Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: The Lost World (1993 & 1997)
"When a sequel hits the theatre, we're finding that a lot of customers want to rent earlier titles in a series before they see the new film to remind them what happened, or, if they haven't seen the earlier movie, rent it to see if they find the story appealing," said Joyce Woodward, senior vice president and general merchandising manager for Blockbuster. "By prominently displaying video titles that correspond with sequels in theatres this summer, we hope to make it easier for consumers to find series films, revisit, compare and enjoy these epic entertainment journeys."
- July 23rd- Universal and Amblin Universal host world premiere- Pictures and Amblin Entertainment have hosted the world premiere of Jurassic Park III this past Monday, July 16 at the Universal Amphitheatre. A pre-screening light supper reception was held at 6 PM with the screening that followed at 7:30 PM.
Jurassic Park III continues the series that began with Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Directed by Joe Johnston and produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Larry Franco, the film stars Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan
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