June Christy: Bossa Nova, 1963

If you search June Christy's discography for Bossa Nova, you'll see that the song was never released on an album, just as Capitol single. For years, the song has escaped Christy fans. The music was written by Christy's husband, Bob Cooper, and the words were by Rogers Turrentine, a television writer. Last summer, Turrentine uploaded the single and wrote this at YouTube:

"In 1962, Bill Miller of Capitol Records contacted Bob Cooper and me to write a single for June to record immediately due to some new trend from Brazil called the bossa nova. It was described as a variation on the samba, but wasn’t a dance. The flip side was to be a cover of “One Note Samba.” Along with Coop, the orchestra included Laurindo Almeida, Bud Shank and Shelly Manne. This turned out to be the last 45 that Christy (as Coop always called her) did for Capitol and has never been released in any other format to my knowledge. Since there’s a tribute to June and Bob scheduled on Sept. 17, 2015 in Hermosa Beach, I decided to upload Bossa Nova along with some vintage photos. – Rogers Turrentine"

Here's June Christy singing Bossa Nova...

 

And here's One Note Samba, on the flip side of the single...

One Note Samba

A special thanks to Bret Primack.

      

Related Stories

• June Christy: Funny That Way
• June Christy: Interlude, 1957

 

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Jonah Hill Making Directorial Debut With ‘Mid ’90s’

When Jonah Hill first burst onto the scene, he seemed like just another Seth Rogen type — indeed, one of his first breakout roles was as, essentially, a Rogen stand-in in Superbad. But over the years, he’s matured into a fine dramatic actor as well, scooping up a pair of Oscar nominations for Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street, and even branched out into writing with the Jump Street movies and the TV show Allen Gregory. Now he’s getting ready to open yet another new chapter in his Hollywood career, this time as a director.

Having worked with some pretty impressive directors over the years, from Martin Scorsese to Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Hill is preparing to step behind the camera himself for the very first time with Mid ’90s, a mid-’90s coming-of-age dramedy that he also wrote.

Variety reports that Mid ’90s centers on “a young boy coming up in Los Angeles in the mid-1990s learning life lessons with his skateboarding crew of friends.” Hill probably knows a thing or two about that topic, as he himself was a young boy coming up in Los Angeles in the mid-1990s (though we don’t know if he learned any life lessons with a skateboarding crew of friends). However, Hill does not plan on acting in his movie.

Powerhouse producer Scott Rudin, who worked with Hill on Moneyball, is on board, along with Eli Bush (Steve Jobs) and A24. There’s no word yet on when shooting will get underway, and with Hill’s crowded schedule it’s tough to guess where he’ll find the time. Hill was most recently seen in the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! and has two more films due out this summer, War Dogs and Sausage Party (the latter of which just had a work-in-progress screening at SXSW). In addition, he’s expected to return as Schmidt in the Jump Street / Men in Black crossover, and recently signed on for Maniac, a Cary Fukunaga-directed series that just found a home at Netflix.

Although Mid ’90s will be Hill’s first feature film as a director, his latest career move doesn’t come as a total surprise. Hill has hinted at directorial aspirations before, and in 2011 directed a music video for Sara Bareilles’ “Gonna Get Over You.”

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‘Batman v Superman’: Zack Snyder Explains How Robin Fits Into Batman’s Backstory

Ben Affleck proved to be an excellent Bruce Wayne. Even some of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice‘s harshest critics admitted the actor was suited for the role. We got an angrier, more vulnerable and more damaged Bruce Wayne. As depicted in the film, this version of Bruce Wayne has plenty to be angry about. In a new interview, Snyder discusses one particularly painful moment in Batman’s backstory.

Affleck’s Batman is more of a cynic, and rightfully so. The character has experienced plenty of heartbreaking losses. In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the loss of three innocent lives — his parents and Robin — mean a great deal to him. So it only makes sense that when he sees thousands of innocent people killed in Metropolis, it sets him off.

Zack Snyder‘s film doesn’t go into great detail about Robin’s death, and nor does it need to. The shot of the sidekick’s suit, marked with bullet holes and the Joker’s scribbles, was all that really needed to be said. Snyder explained the significance of Robin’s death to IGN:

In my mind, it was that Robin had died 10 years earlier, during some run in with a young Joker (Jared Leto). To me, it was a fun backstory there to play with. The whole idea was that there had been loss and sacrifice. In a weird way, he scarified everything to be Batman, right? He doesn’t really have a life outside of the cave. I thought by including Robin — a dead Robin — it would help us understand he’s been on quite a little journey.

Even when Bruce Wayne is at a party, he’s always on the clock. Besides Alfred (Jeremy Irons), he has no real personal connections in the film. This Bruce Wayne wouldn’t let anyone get close to him. Wayne’s anger and isolation makes complete sense, and Affleck sells it well.

Perhaps we’ll see Robin’s death in the solo Batman film Affleck has written. Just today Affleck’s agent, Patrick Whitesell, who actually had a role in Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups, confirmed the solo Batman film is still a possibility:

He’s contracted to do at least Justice League One and Two, so at least three times wearing the cape … There’s a script that he’s written that is a really cool [Batman] idea, so that’s out there as an option.

The actor, writer, and director is currently collaborating with the chief creative officer at DC Comics, Geoff Johns, on a project, which we’re presuming is the Batman spinoff. It was rumored we would see the Affleck-directed Batman film in 2018, after he finishes up work on his next directorial effort, Live by Night.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is now in theaters.

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The Last Remaining ‘Back to the Future: The Ride’ to Close in Japan

Back to the Future: The Ride, which many theme park enthusiasts consider to be the finest attraction ever built, closed its doors at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood in 2007. And let’s be honest – it was probably the right move. The beloved motion simulator thrill ride first opened in Florida in 1991 and California in 1993 and, well over a decade later, it was starting to show its age in a big way. Not even a time travel ride can remain young forever.

One version lived on, though. Back to the Future: The Ride opened at Universal Studios Japan in 2001 and it became the last place on the planet that fans could experience this attraction. But alas, all good things must come to an end: Universal has announced that the final incarnation will shut down soon.

This news was reported by Inside the Magic and they have the apparent date of the closure: May 31, 2016. That means you have approximately two months to make a pilgrimage to Osaka, Japan if you want to experience this thing one more time. It’s not clear what will replace the attraction, but since both American versions were replaced with The Simpsons Ride, we can make a pretty good guess.

Back to the Future: The Ride was directed by the brilliant visual effects visionary Douglas Trumbull and it represents a pinnacle of theme park technology. This was as good as it got before computers started to get involved. Sure, it’s not as immersive as newer attractions like Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey or The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, but you’ll never find practical effects this impressive in any other theme park ride. More importantly, you’ll never find another ride that better captured the thrill of inhabiting a beloved cinematic universe. The ride was definitely dated when it closed, especially when compared to other offerings in the Universal parks, but it was an impressive achievement until the end.

You can watch the complete footage from the ride online, but it’s not the same. Trumbull’s meticulous effects and thrilling filmmaking are on display, but it’s missing the part where you’re actually sitting in a ride vehicle shaped like a DeLorean. You miss how the room fills with fog to mask your vehicle’s ascent out of the loading area. Most of all, you don’t get the thrill of finding yourself staring down an enormous OMNIMAX dome screen that envelopes your vision. A YouTube clip can deliver the plot points of the surprisingly story-driven ride, but it can’t capture the scope and grandeur of the experience.

The Simpsons Ride is very good and it utilizes the same technology to supply riders with a very different experience. Heck, it even features a few fantastic Back to the Future references and Easter eggs. But this really does feel like the end of an era. Between this and the closure of Jaws: The Ride and Disaster! (formerly Earthquake), the Universal Studios of yesterday is officially gone. Sure, the new stuff is great, but let’s get melancholy and pour one out for the old school fans. This one stings.

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Watch Joseph Kosinski’s Live-Action ‘Doom’ Trailer, Chock Full of Gunfire and Monsters

Director Joseph Kosinski did a decent enough job bringing to life the virtual world of TRON for the once long-awaited sequel TRON Legacy. However, Joseph Kosinski is no stranger to bringing video games to life in a very cinematic way having directed outstanding commercials for video games like Halo 3 and Gears of War. And now he’s helping to bring the video game Doom back to consoles properly, by way of a cool new live-action trailer for the latest franchise installment.

Watch the new Doom trailer after the jump.

It seems strange to call this a live-action trailer when nearly everything in it has been created with visual effects, but the same can be said about movies like TRON Legacy and Avatar as well. But this trailer also makes me wish that a decent movie would have come from adapting the video game Doom back in 2005. Instead, what we got was a sci-fi action movie that tried to pander to fans by having some first-person shooter sequences that didn’t do much to help the quality of the movie. But the filmmakers behind Hardcore Henry seem to have figured out how to do it right.

Joseph Kosinski just seems to have a gift for getting people excited about video games with cinematic trailers. Here’s a couple of his other commercials that have garnered acclaim:

It’s just a shame Joseph Kosinski doesn’t have the same knack for storytelling as he does for stylish visuals and exciting sci-fi action. TRON Legacy was gorgeous but it could have used a more inspired story that wasn’t blown away by the visual and soundtrack. At the end of the day, it’s a miracle that the movie was even made. But it just goes to show you that Joseph Kosinski knows how to get people excited with a few minutes of footage and a decent budget to make it look good.

Anyway, in case you didn’t know, the new Doom video game is basically a reboot of the franchise, and it’s bringing many of the signature monsters back for the most advanced version of the game yet on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. For me, the most exciting aspect of the new title is the multiplayer gameplay:

Maybe if the game is a big enough hit again, we might see movie studios ready to take another crack at a proper film adaptation.

Doom is available on May 13th.

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Snow White’s Sister Rose Red Is Getting Her Disney Live-Action Fairy Tale Movie

Disney’s live-action fairy tales fall into a couple of different categories. There are the remakes, like Cinderella and the upcoming Beauty and the Beast, which might make a few changes to the story but mostly take their cues from the Disney animated classics that came before them. And then there are the reimaginings, like Maleficent, which put an entirely different spin on the familiar story by showing it through the eyes of an entirely different character.

The studio’s latest new fairy tale falls into the latter category, except that it strays even further than usual from the source material — it centers on a character who didn’t even exist in the original story. Disney has picked up Rose Red, which retcons an estranged sister into the classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs story. 

The Hollywood Reporter writes that Disney has picked up Justin Merz‘s script Rose Red, and set Evan Daugherty to rewrite. Merz’s Rose Red originally had nothing to do with Snow White, but Daugherty pitched a revision that would turn it into a Snow White “companion piece.” The new movie reworks the familiar fairy tale so that after Snow White bites the poison apple, thus falling into a death-like slumber, Rose Red joins forces with the Seven Dwarfs on a dangerous journey to break the curse and bring her sister back to life. Tripp Vinson will produce.

While there is a Grimm fairy tale about two sisters named Snow White and Rose Red, it’s completely unrelated to the more famous Snow White story that Disney’s 1937 film was based on; the Snow Whites are two separate people. Disney isn’t the first to combine the characters, though — the Vertigo Comics series Fables blended them into a single character with a twin sister named Rose Red. The Grimms’ Snow White and Rose Red tale involves a cranky dwarf and a bear who’s really a prince in disguise, so don’t be surprised if those elements surface in the Rose Red movie.

Daugherty already has experience writing Snow White movies that aren’t really about Snow White, as he previously scripted Snow White and the Huntsman. (The sequel The Huntsman: Winter’s War, which Daugherty did not write, goes a step further and ditches Snow White altogether.) His other credits include Divergent, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot. Vinson, meanwhile, seems to have a thing for minor characters in fairy tales. Besides Rose Red, he’s also working on the Aladdin prequel Genies, and a Prince Charming spinoff.

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The ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Movie Stops by the Tavern, Adds ‘Goosebumps’ Director to the Party

The beauty of a Dungeons & Dragons movie is that it can be anything. The beloved role playing game series, first published in 1974 and now in its fifth edition, is a framework for telling stories. A wily Dungeon Master can take their players on unforgettable, hilarious, thrilling, and even emotionally crushing journeys. If you haven’t fought back a tear or leapt out of your seat to cheer while playing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, you aren’t really playing Dungeons & Dragons.

I say this because a talented filmmaker given access to the Dungeons & Dragons world is really being given access to a gigantic fantasy playground where anything and everything is possible. A movie based on this material can literally be anything that you want it to be, as long as there are, you know, dungeons and dragons. I can’t say for sure what Rob Letterman‘s ultimate fantasy adventure looks like, but since Warner Bros. has hired him to direct the Dungeons & Dragons movie, I hope it’s something truly spectacular.

The news of Letterman’s hiring comes to us via The Tracking Board, so we should take all of this with a grain of salt until we hear something from an official channel. I personally have no strong opinion on Letterman as a filmmaker. Sure, he directed the entirely forgettable Shark Tale and the ghastly endurance test that is Gulliver’s Travels, but he also directed the fun and colorful Monsters vs. Aliens and the shockingly entertaining Goosebumps. So he’s about even in my personal book of Opinions on Working Filmmakers.

The Tracking Board also notes that Warner Bros. wants a “Vin Diesel-type for the film’s lead character,” which may be code for them actually wanting Vin Diesel. The Fast and Furious star is, after all, a lifelong Dungeons & Dragons fan who could bring a certain amount of geek cred to this production.

Serious development on a Dungeons & Dragons movie began late last year (after some messy legal entanglements were resolved) and the studio seems to be moving forward with David Leslie Jones’ screenplay. Details remain scarce, but the studio is said to be aiming for a tone similar to that of Guardians of the Galaxy. I take that to mean “irreverent but warm and exciting,” but let’s see what the suits think that means.

There is no release date set for Dungeons & Dragons quite yet, but now that a director is set, that will probably change very soon.

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Purina feed mill workers exposed to falls, grain dust and machine hazards

March 31, 2016 Purina feed mill workers exposed to falls, grain dust and machine hazards Employer name: Land O Lakes Purina Feed LLC, doing business as Purina Animal Nutrition414 E. 18th St., Wichita

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‘The Intouchables’ Remake Adds Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart

The Intouchables may have grossed a paltry $10 million in the United States, but it was a massive hit everywhere else in the world, earning $416 million from international markets. The lesson here was clear: Americans won’t respond to critically acclaimed, award-winning, crowd-pleasing movie if they have to read subtitles. The only solution: a remake, of course.

And while an American version of Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s 2011 comic drama has been in the works for some time now, the film has set its sights on two leading men. Are you ready for Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart to form an unlikely duo and embark on a journey where they embrace life to its fullest? Sure, why not?

The news of Cranston and Hart circling the project was first reported by Deadline. Variety added a few additional details, including word that Woman in Gold and My Week With Marilyn director Simon Curtis is on board to helm the film, following in the footsteps of Tom Shadyac and Paul Feig, who wrote a draft of the screenplay before departing. Naturally, this is the tenuous stage where everything could fall apart, so don’t go about treating any of this like gospel quite yet.

The original film starred François Cluzet as a wealthy aristocrat who hires a young black man (Omar Sy) from the projects to be his caretaker after he’s paralyzed in an accident. Naturally, they develop an unlikely rapport and become close friends as they learn all kinds of valuable life lessons. It sounds like it could be a sentimental mess, but the reviews were kind, the box office enormous, and the film was a major player at the César Awards, where Sy took home the Best Actor award. Here’s the trailer: 

Bryan Cranston, who just received an Oscar nomination for his work in Trumbo and who already has a shelf full of Emmys for his work on Breaking Bad, sounds like a fine choice for the Cluzet role. It’s the Hart news that stands out as being a bit strange. That’s not because Hart is a bad actor – whether you like his style of comedy or not, the man has charisma to spare. It’s just that the diminutive, freewheeling comedian seems like an odd fit for a role that was previously played by such a physically imposing actor. Chris Tucker was considered for this part at one point, so it looks like we dodged a bullet no matter what.

Additional details about The Intouchables remain unknown, but you’ll be able to see Cranston next in HBO’s All the Way, where he plays President Lyndon Johnson, and you’ll be able to see Hart in this summer’s Central Intelligence, where he plays a comic foil to Dwayne Johnson.

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