'The Dead Don't Die' stars on the environment

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(Reuters) - Flesh-eating zombies terrorize a small town in Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die”, a comedy horror in which polar fracking sets off strange reactions and raises the dead.

72nd Cannes Film Festival - Photocall for the film "The Dead Don't Die" in competition - Cannes, France, May 15, 2019. Cast members Bill Murray, Chloe Sevigny, Selena Gomez and Tilda Swinton pose. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe

Reuters spoke with Bill Murray and Chloe Sevigny, who portray police, and Tilda Swinton, who plays a mysterious funeral parlor worker, about the film’s albeit lighthearted environmentalism.

Below are edited excerpts.

TILDA SWINTON

Q: Why is environmentalism such a key theme here?

  A: “It’s the landscape of the film, it very often is in zombie films ... (they) are a very useful kind of Trojan Horse to talk about society’s relationship with itself and the environment. But I would say it’s whatever anybody sees in it and this is a landscape that really concerns Jim and all of us.”

Q: What do you do personally to be environmentally friendly?

A: “I would like to fly a great deal less. I think we should all fly less anyway for about a million different reasons and not only to do with the effect of it on our planet but also on our bodies.”

BILL MURRAY

Q: What do you do to be environmentally friendly?

A: “I’m no hero but I tried to give up plastic bottles about three or four years ago. I think I’ve had about four since the situation arose, I either had to take medicine or something like that ... I realized I was drinking probably 100 plastic bottles of water a month. I thought, well, that’s 1,200 a year, at least. And that’s one person. So I gave up and stopped it and I find that glass bottle water tastes better.”

CHLOE SEVIGNY

Q: As someone associated with fashion, what do you do for the environment?

A: “I try not to use any single-use plastic and not use the dryer, take quick showers. It’s all the little things that one can do one hopes will accumulate in some way.

“Flying is always one of the worst and that’s unfortunately unavoidable in my line of work but I do compost in Manhattan and buy mostly recycled clothes. I’m trying to just not consume as much as maybe I have in the past and just try and spread that word to especially young girls. I’m somewhat of a fashion icon and I try encourage people to buy vintage or buy slightly used.”

Reporting by Hanna Rantala; writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; editing by Jason Neely

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Founder of K-pop label YG resigns amid drugs and sex scandals

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SEOUL (Reuters) - Yang Hyun-suk, founder of South Korea’s YG Entertainment which manages top K-pop performers, stepped down on Friday from his duties as chief producer, in the aftermath of drug and sex scandals involving his artists.

In March, a member of YG’s boyband Big Bang quit showbiz over sex bribery accusations, prompting police investigations and the resignation of four K-pop stars including him.

Allegations subsequently surfaced of a network of pop stars, businessmen and cops having colluded and enabled tax evasion, bribery and prostitution, exposing the dark side of the glitzy industry.

“I have waited out in patience this situation in which shameless and humiliating words are being thoughtlessly spread as if it is the truth,” Yang, a former legendary K-pop star, said in a statement.

“But I don’t think I can hold it in any longer.”

Yang said he was stepping down to avoid further damage to the firm’s artists over the accusations. These involved prostitution mediation, tax evasion and cover-up of a drug scandal, all of which he has denied.

YG’s top shareholder, Yang, founded the K-pop management firm in 1996. His brother Yang Min-suk, the agency’s chief executive, also stepped down, according to a regulatory filing.

On Wednesday, the leader of another one of YG’s boy bands, iKON, also exited show business over media reports that he was attempting to buy illegal drugs. He publicly apologized for his act and quit the band.

YG Entertainment is one of the top K-Pop record labels behind groups BlackPink and Big Bang, but its shares have slumped for months, hit by the scandals.

Shares of YG Entertainment closed down 5.6% on Friday, falling for a third consecutive session, while its affiliate, YG Plus, lost nearly 6%.

Reporting by Sangmi Cha; Editing by Ju-min Park and Clarence Fernandez

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Robbie Williams takes stake in college, sings mentoring's praises

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LONDON (Reuters) - Pop singer Robbie Williams, a judge on Britain’s “The X Factor” television show last year, is taking a stake in a performing arts college as he looks to mentor more “jazz hand people” like him.

The singer of “Angels” and “Let Me Entertain You” will have a 20% stake in Liverpool’s LMA, which offers degrees in music, performing arts and games design.

Williams, who hails from Stoke-on-Trent, a city 56 miles (90 km) southeast of Liverpool, mentored a choir from LMA on “The X Factor” last year and said he really enjoyed the experience.

“I was looking into the eyes of all the students and I was like ‘They are me. That’s who I was and who I am’, you know, we sort of ‘jazz hand people’,” the 45-year-old singer told a news conference.

“It’s just that energy that I wanted more of and also I don’t mind saying I was surprised I was actually quite good at mentoring. It’s something that I want to carry on, in whatever capacity that is. I loved it.”

LMA’s plans include opening a new London campus next year.

Williams, a member of popular 1990s boyband Take That, will help drive LMA’s expansion in Britain and abroad.

“I’ll find out more as we go along. But I want to mentor. I want to be there. I want to find out how to teach ... I have a bit of experience in the business.”

Williams, whose wife Ayda Field was also a judge on “The X Factor” alongside series creator Simon Cowell, is working on an album and will not return to the show this year.

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“I’m going to be all over the place promoting that. We wanted it desperately to work with ‘The X Factor’ but it just wasn’t (to be),” he said.

“It’s a to-be-continued because myself and Simon are good friends, our family are good friends, the kids hang out all of the time and I think it’s just a pause on the relationship,” Williams said.

“This year I’ve got to go and promote my album to death. So that’s what I’ll be doing.”

Reporting by Hanna Rantala; writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; editing by Jason Neely

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Musicians lament reported loss of recordings in decade-old Universal fire

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Several big-name musicians voiced dismay on Wednesday that some of their recordings may have been among thousands of original masters that The New York Times Magazine reported were lost in the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot fire of 2008.

FILE PHOTO: A fire truck and firefighters are seen at Gate 2 of Universal Studios as smoke rises (background) from a fire that rages out of control at the backlot filled with movie sets in Universal City, California June 1, 2008. REUTERS/Fred Prouser/File Photo

The blaze, which gutted a popular “King Kong” attraction and a swath of the studio’s fabled outdoor lot, also destroyed nearly all the master recordings stored there in a Universal Music Group archive, a loss that has long gone undisclosed, the magazine reported on Tuesday.

Universal Music estimated in a confidential 2009 report that the loss encompassed about 500,000 song titles, the article said.

In a statement on Wednesday, the company called the incident “deeply unfortunate,” but said the Times story contained “numerous inaccuracies, misleading statements, contradictions and fundamental misunderstandings of the scope of the incident.”

The extent of the loss, documented in litigation and company records the article cited, was largely kept from the public eye through a concerted effort on the part of the music label, the magazine said.

Many of the artists whose own material was reported to have been destroyed expressed shock.

“Oh my Lord ... this makes me sick to my stomach,” singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow wrote on Twitter, posted with a link to the article. “And shame on those involved in the coverup.”

The rock band R.E.M said in a Twitter statement that concerned fans were making inquiries. “We are trying to get good information to find out what happened, and the effect on the band’s music, if any,” the group tweeted.

Original sound recordings of many of the greatest names in popular music since the 1940s - from Louis Armstrong and Judy Garland to Tom Petty and 50 Cent - are believed to have gone up in smoke in what the article described as “the biggest disaster in the history of the music business.”

Master recordings are typically owned and controlled by the music labels for the artists in their catalog. But they are seen as vital to musicians’ legacy as they are original, one-of-a-kind recordings considered the truest representation of sounds captured in the studio.

Masters are the source material for all reproductions, including re-releases and remixes, made for distribution, whether on digital medium or vinyl.

Universal Music Group, now owned by French media conglomerate Vivendi, said the fire “never affected the availability of the commercially released music nor impacted artists’ compensation.”

The New York Times article “ignores the tens of thousands of back catalog recordings that we have already issued in recent years, including master-quality, high-resolution, audiophile versions of many records that the story claims were ‘destroyed,’” Universal Music said.

Irving Azoff, manager for the group Steely Dan, said in a statement that the musicians had “been aware of ‘missing’ original Steely Dan tapes for a long time now.”

“We’ve never been given a plausible explanation,” Azoff said. “Maybe they burned up in the big fire. In any case, it’s certainly a lost treasure.”

Krist Novoselic, a founding member of the 1990s grunge band Nirvana, responded to a fan on Twitter asking whether the Times article meant that the masters for the group’s landmark “Nevermind” album were gone. He wrote: “I think they are gone forever.”

Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler

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Samoa bans 'Rocketman' over gay scenes: media

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FILE PHOTO: Cast member Taron Egerton attends the UK premiere of the Elton John biopic 'Rocketman' in London, Britain, May 20, 2019. REUTERS/Simon Dawson/File Photo

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Samoa has banned “Rocketman”, the movie-musical based on the life of British musician Elton John, over its depiction of homosexuality, the South Pacific island’s censor has said.

The film was banned last week because it clashed with Samoa’s “culture and our Christian beliefs”, the censor, Leiataua Niuapu Faaui, told the Samoa Observer newspaper on Monday.

About 97 percent of Samoa’s nearly 200,000 people are Christians and sodomy is a crime in the island nation.

“Rocketman” starring Taron Egerton, tracks Elton John’s first steps in the music business, from his piano playing as a child to his explosion onto the U.S. scene and its drug and alcohol-fueled party world.

Scenes involving gay sex and drug taking were cut from a screening in Russia, drawing criticism from John and the film’s makers.

The movie, which has won warm reviews, began its worldwide rollout late in May.

“Unfortunately due to censoring issues we have had to cancel ‘Rocketman’,” Apollo Cinemas, in the Samoan capital Apia, said on its Facebook page.

Reporting by Tom Westbrook; editing by Darren Schuettler

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U.S. appeals court to revisit Led Zeppelin 'Stairway' decision

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(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court decided on Monday to review its recent decision regarding whether Led Zeppelin stole the opening guitar riff for its 1971 anthem “Stairway to Heaven,” but the plaintiff’s lawyer still expects a retrial to go forward.

FILE PHOTO - Members of British rock band Led Zeppelin (L-R) bass player John Paul Jones, lead singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page and drummer Jason Bonham, who replaces the band's original drummer his father John Bonham, arrive for the premiere of their film "Celebration Day", in New York October 9, 2012. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

The rock band, lead singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page had been accused of copyright infringement for stealing the riff from “Taurus,” a song written in 1967 by the guitarist Randy Wolfe of the lesser-known band Spirit.

A jury in Los Angeles ruled in favor of Led Zeppelin in June 2016, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 last September that errors by the trial judge required a new trial.

Francis Malofiy, a lawyer for the trustee representing Wolfe’s estate, said the 11-judge appeals court panel that will reconsider the case under Monday’s order will focus on whether to broaden copyright protection for “Taurus.”

He said the three-judge panel erred in deciding that a sheet music “deposit copy” of “Taurus,” rather than sound recordings by Spirit, defined the scope of what could be copyrighted under the federal 1909 Copyright Act.

“It deals with an iconic song that defined a generation,” said Malofiy, a lawyer at Francis Alexander. He said the trustee, Michael Skidmore, will get a new trial “no matter what.”

A lawyer for Led Zeppelin had no immediate comment.

Led Zeppelin had sought a broader rehearing by the appeals court. Malofiy said the court never asked him to respond, as would be required under its rules before granting the band’s request.

The lawsuit is among the music industry’s most closely watched copyright cases, potentially exposing Plant and Page to millions of dollars of damages. Wolfe drowned in 1997.

The case is Skidmore v Led Zeppelin et al, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 16-56057.

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler

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Woodstock 50 loses NY site for anniversary music festival

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(Reuters) - The troubled Woodstock 50 music festival on Monday lost the site of a planned anniversary event in August, the latest setback for the weekend marking the famed 1969 “peace and music” festival, but organizers said they were pursuing a new location.

The Aug. 16-19 festival was to have taken place at the Watkins Glen motor racing venue in upstate New York with a line-up including Jay-Z and Miley Cyrus.

On Monday, Watkins Glen said in a statement it had “terminated the site license for Woodstock pursuant to provisions of the contract. As such, (it) will not be hosting the Woodstock 50 Festival,” the site owners said in a statement.

Watkins Glen did not say why it had decided to pull out.

Gregory Peck, one of the organizers of Woodstock 50, said the team behind the festival was “in discussions with another venue” to host the event and looked “forward to sharing the new location when tickets go on sale in the coming weeks.”

Woodstock 50 is backed by the co-producer of the original 1969 Woodstock festival, which was billed as “three days of peace and music” and is regarded as one of the pivotal moments in music history.

The anniversary festival was thrown into chaos in April after the lead Japanese investors abruptly pulled out. It has been plagued with other problems, including obtaining permits and arranging security and sanitation.

Tickets for the festival, expected to attract about 60,000 people, have not gone on sale.

Organizers said last month they had obtained new funding and expressed confidence that the show would go on.

Woodstock 50 announced in March that more than 80 musical acts, including 1969 festival veterans John Fogerty, Canned Heat and Santana, would take part. Some 100,000 fans, including campers, were originally expected to attend, but that number was later reduced to 60,000.

The nonprofit Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, the current owner of the field where the 1969 Woodstock festival took place, has also scaled back plans for a three-day anniversary event. It said in February it will instead host separate concerts by Ringo Starr, Santana and the Doobie Brothers.

Watkins Glen has a larger crowd capacity and is some 150 miles (240 km) distant from Bethel and about 250 miles (400 km) north of New York City.

Reporting by Jill Serjeant; editing by Tom Brown, Cynthia Osterman and Dan Grebler

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'Central Park 5' tell Oprah of pain and redemption after Netflix series

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The five men wrongly convicted of raping a jogger in New York’s Central Park in 1989 said on Sunday that a new Netflix Inc series about their case revived the pain from their ordeal but, for some, brought a sense of redemption.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, the men who became known as the “Central Park Five” said they were grateful that the four-episode dramatic series called “When They See Us” humanized them and used their story to spotlight injustice.

“It’s bittersweet,” said one of the men, Kevin Richardson, as he sat on stage with the others. “Watching this is painful, but it’s necessary. It needs to be watched.”

The five men - Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise - were 14 to 16 years old at the time of the rape and confessed after lengthy police interrogations. The victim was white and the defendants all black or Hispanic.

Each soon recanted, insisting they had admitted to the crime under coercion from police officers. But they all were convicted and served prison terms of six to 13 years.

Their convictions were overturned, in 2002, after another man confessed to the crime and DNA tests confirmed his guilt. In 2014, they settled a lawsuit against for $41 million.

“It brought back a lot of pain,” McCray said of the series. “I thought I was over it.”

McCray, who broke into tears during the discussion, said he did not feel any sense of redemption and still suffered from the trauma of being falsely accused and imprisoned.

“Even to this day, I’m damaged. I need help. I know it,” said McCray, who added that he has rejected his wife’s request that he go to therapy. “The system broke a lot of things that can’t be fixed.”

Asked if had forgiven his father, who urged him to confess to the crime, McCray said: “I hate him. My life is ruined.”

“No, it’s not,” an audience member shouted.

The interview, part of a Netflix campaign for television’s Emmy awards, was recorded and will premiere on Netflix and on Winfrey’s cable channel OWN on Wednesday.

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Salaam said he believed the series was helping people to “realize that we didn’t have to go through this. This is how the system, despite the wheels of justice, mowed us down.”

He said he used to feel like he was walking around with his head down. Now, “I’m proudly raising my head,” Salaam said to applause.

Winfrey, an executive producer of the series, said the world had known the men as “a derogatory headline for decades” but now she hoped they would be known as “the exonerated five.”

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Without pop culture contenders, Tony awards audience slumps to all-time low

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FILE PHOTO: 73rd Annual Tony Awards - Photo Room - New York, U.S., 09/06/2019 - The "Hadestown" cast and crew pose backstage with their Best Musical award. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The television audience for Broadway theater’s Tony awards slumped to an all-time low in the absence of pop culture juggernauts like “Harry Potter” and “Hamilton.”

Nielsen data on Monday showed that just 5.5 million Americans watched Sunday’s ceremony broadcast on CBS from New York, down 20 percent from 2018 when “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” took home six Tonys and rocker Bruce Springsteen won a special award for his sold-out one man show.

It was the first time the television audience for the annual awards show that celebrates the best of theater fell below 6 million.

Sunday’s TV audience also marked a sharp drop from 2017 when viewership reached a 15-year high, fueled by the success of rap musical “Hamilton.”

In Sunday’s ceremony, “Hadestown,” about a young couple’s dark trek to the underworld, took home a leading eight awards, including best new musical. The award show was hosted by late-night talk show host James Corden.

Other winners included best play “The Ferryman,” set around the sectarian struggles in 1980s Northern Ireland, and Bryan Cranston, who played the unhinged TV anchor in the stage version of the 1976 film “Network.”

The new low in the television audience marked a sharp contrast with box office receipts on Broadway, which hit a record $1.8 billion this past season.

Ticket sales for “Hadestown” increased by more than 1,300% on Sunday thanks to the Tony exposure, online booking platform TodayTix.com said.

Sunday’s show took place against stiff competition from the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup on rival NBC, which drew 6.1 million viewers, and the much anticipated season 2 premiere on HBO of female-dominated drama “Big Little Lies” starring Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman. Audience data for “Big Little Lies” was not available on Monday.

Reporting by Jill Serjeant in Los Angeles; Editing by James Dalgleish and Matthew Lewis

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Rapper Bushwick Bill dies at 52 after four-month battle with cancer

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Bushwick Bill, best known for his work with the Houston-based trio Geto Boys, has died after a four-month battle with pancreatic cancer, Billboard magazine reported on Monday.

The 52-year-old recording artist, publicly acknowledged in a video statement posted on May 1 by the celebrity website TMZ.com that he had been diagnosed with stage-4 pancreatic cancer in February.

Citing a statement from his publicist, Billboard said Bill died on Sunday evening at a Colorado hospital.

“His family appreciates all of the prayers and support and are asking for privacy at this time,” the statement said.

Reuters was unable to reach a representative for Bill to confirm the report.

In his May 1 video message, Bill said he wanted to record some new music before he died to provide additional “residual income” for his loved ones.

A video posted on Bushwick’s Instagram page over the weekend showed the rapper in his hospital bed, saying he had been hospitalized since May 24 with pneumonia attributed to chemotherapy he had been undergoing for his cancer.

Born with dwarfism in Jamaica as Richard Shaw, the diminutive performer started out as a warmup dance act for the original Geto Boys in 1986, performing as Little Billy, according to an Allmusic.com biography posted on the rap group’s website.

He joined a reconstituted lineup of the group as a rap singer in 1988 under the new stage name Bushwick Bill. The group’s debut album that year, “Making Trouble,” was initially blocked from release over a controversial track dealing with necrophilia and murder.

Bill made headlines again in 1991 when he accidentally shot himself during an argument with his girlfriend, losing his right eye. A photo of him being wheeled through a hospital hall on a gurney by his bandmates, Willie D and Scarface, was used as the cover art for the group’s 1991 second album, “We Can’t Be Stopped,” an LP that ultimately went platinum.

The shooting incident, which Bill admitted at the time was fueled by PCP and alcohol, was the subject of his single “Ever So Clear,” off his 1992 solo album “Little Big Man.”

The Geto Boys broke up in 1994, but regrouped a year later for a new album “The Resurrection.” Bill teamed up again with Willie D and Scarface on the 2005 reunion album “The Foundation.”  

Over the years, Bill appeared on seven of the Geto Boys’ eight albums in a collaboration whose brand of provocatively violent and sexist imagery influenced southern hip-hop and rap’s “horrorcore” genre, according to Rolling Stone magazine.

Allmusic reported that the trio had returned to the studio to record another album together after a 10-year hiatus.

Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, additional reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Susan Thomas

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