What to do in Oklahoma on May 27
Cecada
Today’s featured event:
NORMAN - Hear Tulsa-based indie-rock band Cecada with Panda Resistance at 11 tonight at The Deli, 309 White Street.
To hear a sampling of Cecada, go to www.myspace.com/cecadamusic.
For more information, go to www.thedeli.us.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
-BAM
“Toy Story” named Moviefone’s best animated film of all time
Buzz (Tim Allen) and Woody (Tom Hanks) in “Toy Story”
Pixar Animation Studios’ groundbreaking 1995 debut feature “Toy Story” has been named the best animated movie of all time by Moviefone.
“Animated films have given us some of celluloid’s most memorable characters from heroes like Shrek to villains like The Wicked Queen. These films can bring fairytale worlds and animals to life with a gusto that no other medium can. With this in mind, the editors of Moviefone have named the 25 best animated films of all time,” Kurt Patat of Moviefone said in an e-mail.
While the list shapes up to be a battle between Disney and its own Pixar division, the editors selected “Toy Story” for the top spot.
“From the eye-popping beauty of its then-novel computer animation, to the perfect setup of the rivalry between Woody and Buzz, to the pitch-perfect array of eccentric characters surrounding the battling duo, this 1995 breakthrough from Pixar was as perfect an animated entertainment, and parable about friendship, as one could ever hope for. And it still is,” he said.
The naming of “Toy Story” to the top spot happens the week that Disney/Pixar prepares to release its 10th animated feature, “Up,” which recently opened France’s presitigious Cannes Film Festival.
In honor of this occasion, I’ve been working on a retrospective story on Pixar’s work and influence.
Checking out the Moviefone list, I see a couple I wouldn’t have placed as high (“Ratatouille” and “Bambi”) and others I would have put closer to the top (“The Nightmare Before Christmas definitely should be higher than No. 22, in my opinion). And I’m pleased to see that “Wallace & Gromit” got some love on this list, but I would have liked to see the first “Ice Age” movie on here. I believe it’s underrated and offers a zany Chuck Jones quality that few features these days achieve.
Here is the full list from Moviefone. To see a slideshow of the films, click here.
25. Dumbo (1941)
24. The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
23. Lady and the Tramp (1955)
22. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
21. The Jungle Book (1967)
20. Princess Mononoke (1999)
19. Pinocchio (1940)
18. Toy Story 2 (1999)
17. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
16. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
15. The Iron Giant (1999)
14. WALL-E (2008)
13. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
12. Ratatouille (2007)
11. Finding Nemo (2003)
10. Fantasia (1941)
9. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
8. Spirited Away (2002)
7. Cinderella (1950)
6. The Little Mermaid (1989)
5. Bambi (1942)
4. The Incredibles (2004)
3. Shrek (2001)
2. The Lion King (1994)
1. Toy Story (1995)
-BAM
Kristin Chenoweth, other presenters announced for 2009 Tony Awards
Kristin Chenoweth
Oklahoma native Kristin Chenoweth is among the many presenters announced today for the 2009 Tony Awards.
According to a CBS news release, Lucie Arnaz, Kate Burton, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, Edie Falco, Will Ferrell, Carrie Fisher, Jane Fonda, Hallie Foote, James Gandolfini, Lauren Graham, Colin Hanks, Marcia Gay Harden, Nicole Kidman, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Lange, Frank Langella, Angela Lansbury, Audra McDonald, David Hyde Pierce, Piper Perabo, Oliver Platt, Susan Sarandon, Kevin Spacey, John Stamos and Chandra Wilson also will appear as presenters on the 63rd annual Tony Awards.
The awards will air live from Radio City Music Hall from 7 to 10 p.m. June 7 on CBS. As previously announced, Neil Patrick Harris, star of the CBS comedy “How I Met Your Mother,” will host the awards show.
For the first time, this year’s Tonys will be broadcast in high-definition television.
The 2009 Tony Awards, presented by Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of the League of American Theatres and Producers and the American Theatre Wing, have been broadcast on CBS since 1978. The Tonys were founded in 1947 as a memorial to Antoinette (“Tony”) Perry, the American Theatre Wing’s World War II chairperson.
This will mark the 12th year that the historic Radio City Music Hall is home to the Tonys.
-BAM
“The Killer Inside Me” filming in Oklahoma; Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck reunite
Producer Andrew Eaton walks in front of a house on the set of the movie “The Killer Inside Me” Friday in Guthrie. (Photo By Bryan Terry/The Oklahoman)
Kate Hudson Casey Affleck Jessica Alba (AP Photos)
The Oklahoman/NewsOK Entertainment Editor Gene Triplett visited the set of “The Killer Inside Me” in Guthrie last week as the production moved from New Mexico to Oklahoma.
While he was on the set, Gene watched stars Casey Affleck and Elias Koteas film a scene and talked to the director, Michael Winterbottom (“A Mighty Heart”) and producer Andrew Eaton.
Winterbottom said part of the appeal to filming in Oklahoma was the state’s incentive package, but he also liked the look of what he found here.
It’s partly that the towns here are great, the look of the towns, the look of the buildings are very good for locations, to kind of get the feel of Texas in the ’50s,” he told Gene.
“And partly because Jim Thompson’s from Oklahoma, so it was an incentive to come and film in his home state,” the director said.
“The Killer Inside Me” is based on a celebrated 1952 pulp novel by Oklahoma-born author Jim Thompson, who also wrote “The Getaway” and “The Grifters,” both of which were adapted into hit movies. Affleck stars as a small-town deputy trying to conceal his homicidal nature, and Kate Hudson plays his innocent schoolteacher girlfriend.
The film also stars Jessica Alba, who plays a prostitute. She will join the production within the next five weeks as it moves from Guthrie to Cordell, Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Enid, Gene reports. The film also stars Simon Baker, Bill Pullman, Ned Beatty and Tom Bower.
Hudson told Gene was is pleased to reunited with Affleck, with whom she worked on 1999′s “200 Cigarettes” and 1998′s “Desert Blue.”
“I have a great character, and obviously the novel is famous,” said Hudson, who turned brunette for the part.
To read the rest of Gene’s great story, click here.
-BAM
Reba McEntire asks judge to be lenient on childhood friend convicted of conspiracy
Reba McEntire (Associated Press photo)
Oklahoma country star Reba McEntire is asking a federal judge to show leniency toward a Kiowa businessman she grew up with in the southeast Oklahoma town.
Steve Phipps pleaded guilty in 2007 to a federal conspiracy charge and is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Muskogee, according to the Associated Press.
Phipps admitted then he paid three legislators kickbacks in exchange for their efforts to steer state taxpayer money toward his companies.
According to the AP, McEntire is one of 46 people who have written a letter or affidavit to U.S. District Judge Ronald White on behalf of Phipps. She wrote that she and have Phipps have been friends since elementary school and that Phipps has helped with projects at Kiowa Public Schools. She also praised him as someone who has provided financial assistance and support to people in Kiowa who have faced hardships.
Phipps’ son is finishing an internship at McEntire’s Nashville, Tenn.-based company Starstruck, according to the AP.
Federal prosecutors also are asking White to show leniency on Phipps, crediting him with breaking the “code of silence” in a federal investigation into political corruption in southeast Oklahoma, the AP reported.
To read the full story, click here.
-BAM
New releases
All 43 episodes of the 1970s sci-fi children’s series “Land of the Lost” are available today in an eight-disc DVD set. The series was created and produced by the legendary Sid and MartyKrofft, who also were the wacky minds behind “H.R. Pufnstuf” and “The Bugaloos.”
The DVD release is timed to coincide with the release of the big-screen adaptation of “Land of the Lost,” starring Will Ferrell. The movie opens June 5.
Here is a list of the new CDs, DVDs and books out today. The list is compiled from Amazon.com, VideoETA.com and BarnesandNoble.com:
CDs
- Grizzly Bear, “Veckatimest.”
- Marilyn Manson, “The High End of Low.”
- Mandy Moore, “Amanda Leigh.”
- Johnny Winter, “The Johnny Winter Anthology.”
- Phoenix, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.”
- Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women, “Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women.”
DVDs
The Closer: The Complete Fourth Season
Designing Women: The Complete First Season
Falling Down
Killshot
Land of the Lost: The Complete Series
The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk
New in Town
Powder Blue
Books
- Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.
- Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits by Wayne W. Dyer.
- I’m Down: A Memoir by Mishna Wolff.
- The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly.
-BAM
Video: David Cook on “Jimmy Fallon”
“American Idol” Season 7 winner David Cook, who lived in Tulsa while starting his music career, performed Monday night on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” Cook performed “Come Back to Me,” the latest single off his self-titled album. Check out the performance, posted from YouTube.
-BAM
What to do in Oklahoma on May 26
Today’s featured event:
NORMAN – See the fully restored pages of a rare collection of Kiowa calendar art in the special exhibit “One Hundred Summers: A Kiowa Calendar Record” at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, 2401 Chautauqua Ave.
“One Hundred Summers: A Kiowa Calendar Record” features hand-drawn illustrations by renowned Kiowa artist and calendar-keeper Silver Horn. The illustrations represent 100 years of Kiowa tribal history. The exhibit will be on view through Aug. 23.
The traditional Kiowa calendar uses pictorial images to represent events in the tribe’s history. Each year is represented by two images – one for the summer and one for the winter. The events depicted are agreed upon by tribal elders and drawn and maintained by designated tribal calendar-keepers. The calendar records were originally kept on hides or cloth, but eventually were copied into ledgers.
Silver Horn was born in 1860 (“The Summer That Bird Appearing was Killed,” according to his calendar). Both his father and older brother also were calendar-keepers for the tribe. He was a prolific artist and created hundreds of drawings representing Kiowa history and tradition before his death in 1940.
Only one other full Silver Horn calendar is known to exist today. It was created by Silver Horn in 1904 specifically for the archives of the Smithsonian Institution and covers the period from 1828 through 1904. The Silver Horn calendar at the Norman museum also begins in 1828, four years earlier than Kiowa calendars by other artists, and continues through the winter of 1928-29. It includes more than 200 drawings on 80 pages.
Candace Greene, a Smithsonian scholar and expert on Silver Horn’s work, prepared explications of each image for the exhibition. Greene is also the author of a new book about the calendar. “One Hundred Summers: A Kiowa Calendar Record,” will be published this spring by the University of Nebraska Press.
“Entries in this calendar are probably the last drawings that Silver Horn made,” said Greene in a news release. “Before this book was found, I thought he had quit producing in the 19-teens because he was going blind. But obviously he was very committed to continuing this work. There are a few other calendars that continue into the early 1900s, but this one, with entries well into the 20th century, offers a unique perspective on that period of history.”
The calendar on view in this exhibition was donated to the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in 2001 from the estate of Nelia Mae Roberts, who ran an Indian trading post in Anadarko. The museum subsequently received a Save America’s Treasures Grant that provided for the conservation and restoration of the calendar’s fragile pages by a professional paper conservator. The process took more than a year, but the restored pages are now available to be viewed for the first time by museum visitors.
-BAM
Paseo Arts Festival offers treats for the senses
Oklahoma City artist Thomas Stotts works on his latest painting while crowds mill about Monday at the Paseo Arts Festival. (BAM photo)
Mr. BAM and I decided to spend our Memorial Day off trying to remember what it was like when we went places without our children. Dispatching our boys to various relatives, we headed out for a day of kid-free fun.
We started out at the final day of the 33rd annual Paseo Arts Festival. If you didn’t make it out this year – or worse, if you’ve never been – I highly recommend you add the free event to your 2010 calendar. We’ve made it a tradition over the last few years, and it’s now hard for me to imagine the unofficial first weekend of summer without our jaunt down to the historic arts district.
Our first order of business was to hear Spiritful Voices Community Choir perform down on the wimgo.com (south) stage. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the group lately, and I wanted to hear the music. The lively group of adults enthusiastically belted a variety of songs, from a medley from “A Chorus Line” to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The performance was definitely worth the wait as sound system issues delayed the start of the music.
Then, it was time for lunch, and the festival offered many choices along the usual fair food lines. My husband, Patrick, went the traditional corn dog route, while I noshed an Oklahoma and personal favorite, the Indian taco. It was one of the best I’d ever eaten, with perfectly cooked fry bread. Big cups of tea helped stave of thirst caused by the bright sun and rising temperatures.
While we were eating, I struck up a conversation with local painter Thomas Stotts, who was working on his latest landscape outside Adelante! Gallery, where shows his work in Oklahoma City. We chatted about his current project, featuring a farmhouse reportedly owned by one of his ancestors, and about his use of a textured, wraparound canvas for the painting.
The more than 80 juried artists exhibiting along the Paseo provided a wide variety of artwork to peruse, from Dana Forrester’s amazing watercolors of vintage cars to Scott Gamble’s colorful glasswork to Connie Baker’s beautifully textured stucco art tiles of shells and fruits. Another favorite was Suzy Toronto’s whimsical “Wonderful Wacky Women” illustrations, one of which echoed my fashion philosophy – “Life is too short to wear panty hose.”
Checking out artwork in the late May sun is warm work, so we cooled down with scrumptious homemade gelato from Bella Crema. I’d heard raves about Bella Crema’s creamy concoctions, but they didn’t prepare me for the delightful taste and texture of my scoop of mint chocolate chip. And my husband liked the caramel so much, he only very reluctantly shared a bite. Bella Crema gelato is a favorite at local festivals and also can be found at the Buzz coffeeshop in downtown’s First National Center.
We followed our trip to the Paseo with a second viewing of J.J. Abrams’ awesome reboot “Star Trek.” Even though the movie opened last weekend, we actually had trouble getting into a matinee screening. It was worth making the effort to drive to another theater when the first cinema we tried had already sold out the 2 p.m. screening.
Most parents of young children will tell you that the rare opportunities for a couple’s day are not to be missed – and are made all the sweeter when your toddler grins at you when you reappear and then gives you an extra-long hug at bedtime. And if you can spend a date day at one of Oklahoma’s terrific arts festivals, so much the better.
- BAM
Box office report
It seems the Terminator isn’t so unstoppable after all.
The family-friendly sequel “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” won the top spot at the Memorial Day weekend box office, beating out “Terminator Salvation,” the dark fourth film of the long-running R-rated franchise.
The second “Night at the Museum” film, starring Ben Stiller, Amy Adams and Hank Azaria and distributed by 20th Century Fox, earned $70 million over the long weekend, according to the Associated Press. It far exceeded the debut of the first “Night at the Museum” movie, which made $30.4 million in its three-day opening in December 2006.
Warner Bros.’ “Terminator Salvation” raked in $53.8 million over the four-day holiday weekend – plus $13.4 million from Thursday screenings. That brought director McG’s take on the post-apocalyptic action series, starring Christian Bale, Anton Yelchin and Sam Worthington, to second place and a total of $67.2 million since debuting.
The three-day total of $43 million ranks the fourth movie in the “Terminator” series behind “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” the last of the franchise’s installments to star California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The third chapter generated $44 million in its first weekend in 2003.
“I think people expected it to be No. 1 because of that ‘Terminator’ name alone,” box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian of Hollywood.com told the AP. “If you look at it objectively though, it’s a sci-fi action film that played to an older audience. It didn’t have the broad based appeal of ‘Night at the Museum.’”
The weekend’s other wide release, Paramount’s over-the-top spoof “Dance Flick,” took the No. 5 spot with $13.1 million. So far, it is the worst movie I have seen in 2009, so I think even that is too much.
But Paramout’s “Star Trek” seems to be capitalizing on its great reviews and word of mouth, and I couldn’t be happier about its success. It was in third place but made another $29.4 million, raising its total to $191 million. J.J. Abrams’ reboot of the venerable franchise sits on the cusp of becoming the year’s top-grossing movie so far, approaching the $193.5 million gross of the animated “Monsters vs. Aliens.”
It appears that “Star Trek” is living up to its initial promise as this year’s “Iron Man” – a big blockbuster with legs. My husband and I ventured out to see it a second time today and found a 2 p.m. screening sold out at one local theater, forcing us to drive to another cinema.
“‘Star Trek’ is living long and prospering,” Dergarabedian told the AP. “It’s just one of those movies we knew would hold up. People are enjoying it and talking about it. It’s unusual for a summer blockbuster to be propelled by word of mouth, not just the typical marketing push for a big opening weekend. I think it’s going to continue to do well week after week.”
The previous weekend’s No. 1 movie, Sony’s “Angels & Demons,” fell to fourth place with $27.7 million. Its domestic take is now at $87.8 million.
Movie theaters continue to draw large crowds, as they have throughout this year of recession. Dergarabedian told the AP that the year-to-date attendance is running at a nearly 12 percent increase over last year. But 2007 remains the top Memorial Day weekend in box office history; the third installments of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Shrek” and “Spider-Man” all opened over the holiday two years ago.
Here are the top 10 movies from Friday through Monday, according to the AP:
1. “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” $70 million.
2. “Terminator Salvation,” $53.8 million.
3. “Star Trek,” $29.4 million.
4. “Angels & Demons,” $27.7 million.
5. “Dance Flick,” $13.1 million.
6. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” $10.1 million.
7. “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” $4.8 million.
8. “Obsessed,” $2.5 million.
9. “Monsters vs. Aliens,” $1.9 million.
10. “17 Again,” $1.3 million.
-BAM
