Fan Fare

Fans seek midnight romance under light of “New Moon”

Fans lined up Thursday night at movie theaters to be among the first to get bitten by the “New Moon” phenomenon, the sequel to last year’s “Twilight.” The vampire romance movie ended up setting a box office record of $26.3 million for those midnight screenings by drawing fans like the ones profiled in our Fan Fare video below.

Who will go to “New Moon?” Lots of teen girls, for sure, but also moms who are into the story, young women and the men they drag along on dates. Those groups are expected to snap up tickets to the tune of about $100 million at U.S. and Canadian box offices this weekend. That’s a lot of howling at the “New Moon.”

“New Moon,” of course, has generated plenty of buzz. Tracking firm Trendrr said that in the last three months, more than 100,000 “New Moon” related videos have been added to YouTube.com. Trendrr also said that on Thursday, Twitter.com received more than 91,000 posts related to “New Moon.”

But despite all that popularity, the Vatican is not on-board. This week, an official with the Catholic Church called the film “nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message.” This despite influential film critic Roger Ebert saying that the “Twilight Saga is an extended metaphor for teen chastity.” Who to believe?

For the uninitiated, “New Moon” is the second installment in the “Twilight” franchise based on the books by Stephenie Meyer. In the books and the movies, high school student Bella Swan (Kristen Stewartin the films) falls in love with the vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). But in “New Moon,” there’s another boy competing for Bella’s affection, and that is werewolf Jacob Black, played by 17 year-old actor Taylor Lautner, photographed above at right. As a result, some fans going to “New Moon” are on Team Edward and some are on Team Jacob. As if any fan support is going to change which way Bella’s vampire-loving heart really leans.

Check out the video below.

Jason Segel sings for love, or a one-night stand — whatever works

In an age when celebrities guard their privacy like gold, Jason Segel goes a different route. On Wednesday night, the “How I Met Your Mother” star stopped by a Swell Season show in Los Angeles, where he gave an impromptu performance and sang out what he said was his phone number, proclaiming that he wanted to use his “celebrity status to make love to a Swell Season fan tonight.”

Click here to see a video of the comedic performance, complete with Swell Season pianist/singer Marketa Irglova holding up a placard with Segel’s supposed number, with its Syracuse, New York, area code. Segel’s song featured lyrics that asked concertgoers to call him for a hook-up, but only if they’re “disease free,” and he made liberal reference to his full frontal nude scene in last year’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” which he said involved “no special effects.”

Before the song, Swell Season singer Glen Hansard introduced Segel by saying that he had bumped into the actor at a hotel bar, along with Paul Rudd, Segel’s co-star from the movie “I Love You, Man.” Hansard, who himself starred in a movie, the 2007 film “Once,” in which he and Irglova played struggling musicians trying to make one great album, said at the concert that he, Segel and Rudd had engaged in a bout of drinking, and things got “properly hairy.” Supposedly, the Segel performance resulted from that.

For the record, this is not Segel’s first musical foray, check out this link to him performing a comic serenade on Craig Ferguson’s late night talk show.

But it made sense for Segel to get on stage at a Swell Season show, since the band (pictured at right last year at a show in Prague) is all about celebrating the musical abilities of everyday folks, which was also a big theme in their film “Once.”

On nearly every song at his set at L.A.’s Wiltern Theatre, Hansard had the crowd sing along, not only inviting them to chime in but coaching them on how to do it. When one woman in the audience took the lead harmony vocal on one song, Hansard called her “beautiful.”

So in the spirit of amateur music-making, Segel sat at the piano and said he had asked Swell Season how to write a song, and that Irglova told him to “include as much personal information” as possible. Hence, the lyric with his phone number in it.

Michael Jackson estate administrators dismiss questions about legal will

Administrators of Michael Jackson’s estate on Wednesday dismissed questions about whether his legal will is valid, after the celebrity news website TMZ reported that his brother Randy Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, a Jackson family confidant, raised questions about whether the pop star was in Los Angeles to sign the will on the date stated in the document.

Howard Weitzman, an attorney for administrators of the Jackson estate John Branca and John McClain, said in a statement, “Despite any claims to the contrary, we are confident Michael Jackson’s will is valid, that he signed it and that it reflects his wishes. All three witnesses listed on the will recall being present when Michael signed it.”

The will is important, because it names Branca and McClain as administrators of Jackson’s estate, and a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has relied on the will since Jackson’s June 25 death to put the Branca, an attorney, and McClain, a music executive, in charge of the estate.

The will, which is available to view here, bears Michael Jackson’s signature dated July 7, 2002. Another page of the will bears the words, “We declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on July 7th, 2002 at 5:00 pm, Los Angeles.” But TMZ has posted photos that show Michael Jackson was in New York the day before on July 6, 2002, where he publicly protested against Tommy Mottola, the former head of Sony Music Entertainment, in a dispute over how he was being treated as an artist.

TMZ has other photos of Jackson in New York on July 8, 2002. In several of the pictures, Jackson is appearing with the Rev. Al Sharpton. So far, no photos have surfaced of Jackson in New York on July 7, 2002, the date in question when he is believed to have signed the will.

Sharpton has weighed in on the question, in a statement through his spokeswoman Rachel Noerdlinger.

“We have reason to believe that Michael may have been in NY on the 7th and Rev. Sharpton will address this after he discusses it with the Jackson family,” Noerdlinger said in the statement. “Michael Jackson was with us in New York City on July 6th at our Harlem Headquarters and again for a summit with Rev. Sharpton, attorney Johnnie Cochran and others around the issue of artist rights a few days later on July 9th.”

Venezuelan conductor gives lessons in geography

On his first day as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic,  Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel gave a lesson in geography, namely what constitutes America.

A reporter asked the 28-year-old classical music sensation what he had on  his iPod, to which Dudamel answered that he loved Latin music and was listening to the likes of Venezuelan salsa star Oscar D’Leon and Dominican crooner Juan Luis Guerra.

And then the reporter said: “You are in America now, what Americans?” Dudamel didn’t miss a beat and shot back ”I am talking about Americans!” — to which the room packed with journalists erupted in laughter and clapping.

That Latin America is indeed part of America is something that Dudamel brings up often, but always with good humor and patience.  At his news conference he reiterated that America is one — Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, the United States, all included. That message is likely to resound in Los Angeles, a city that is half Hispanic and home to millions who migrated from southern portions of the Americas.

Photo credit: Reuters/Fred Prouser (Gustavo Dudamel talks to journalists Sept. 30, 2009)

Natalie Cole performs comeback show after kidney transplant

Singer Natalie Cole on Wednesday night gave her first show since her kidney transplant, in a Los Angeles performance backed by an orchestra.

“I never thought I’d be standing here healthy, whole and 100 percent again,” Cole told the crowd, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Cole, a nine-time Grammy winner and the daughter of the late U.S. crooner Nat King Cole, received a new kidney on May 19, after suffering damage to her original kidney from the disease Hepatitis C. The R&B singer has said she probably contracted the disease from drug use decades ago.

Cole’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles featured her hit songs “This Will Be,” “Inseparable,” “Mr. Melody” and others. In the coming weeks, Cole is scheduled to perform at a tribute show for singer Lionel Richie, and at another event later this month honoring Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. She is scheduled to go on tour next month, starting with a show in Indiana, with later stops to include Detroit, Michigan; Bucharest, Romania; and Warsaw, Poland.

Opera meets politics in L.A. dust-up over Wagner

In the latest controversy over the operas of Richard Wagner , the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has voted to support a production of the composer’s “Ring,” but said that his anti-Jewish views would not be glossed over.

The question over the performance by the L.A. Opera, scheduled for next year in conjunction with a related festival, generated heated debate among the supervisors, who govern an area with a population of more than 10 million residents.

Supervisor Michael Antonovich argued it was “impossible” to separate Wagner the man from his music and that his ”music and racist writings inspired and then became the de facto soundtrack for the Holocaust.”

Stephen Rountree, chief operating officer of the L.A. Opera, countered that “the festival is not about Richard Wagner; it is about music and art in L.A.” 

In the end, the Board of Supervisors voted to approve a proposal from Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who is Jewish, to support the L.A. Opera’s planned production. Yaroslavsky said that Wagner, whose best known composition is “The Ride of the Valkyries,” has been “rightly reviled” for his racist views.

Wagner lived in the 19th century, before the rise of Nazism in Germany, but his anti-Jewish writings and his ideas influenced Nazi leaders who seized power in 1933 under Adolf Hitler. In Israel, Wagner’s music is not performed because of his association with the Nazis. David Stern, the musical director of the Israeli Opera, said last year that he will uphold the ban on Wagner’s work in the Jewish state. 

“I don’t think it’s such a great loss to Israeli audiences,” Stern was quoted in Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “I still conduct Wagner in other places around the world, but there are many other things that are worthwhile to conduct here.”