CMG to sell Prime Ministers in Cannes

Moriah Films announced on Monday [29] that it has signed and recorded the voice talents of Michael Douglas, Christoph Waltz, Sandra Bullock and Leonard Nimoy for its latest film The Prime Ministers. CMG will handle international sales in Cannes.

Douglas recorded the voice of Yitzhak Rabin, Waltz has voiced Menachem Begin, Bullock has voiced Golda Meir and Nimoy recorded the voice of Levi Eshkol.

The two-part film written, produced and directed by Richard Trank and produced by Rabbi Marvin Hier is currently in production and is set to be completed later this year.

The Prime Ministers is based on the best-selling book by Ambassador Yehuda Avner and chronicles Israel’s history from its inception in 1948 to the present.

“We are excited to be working again with Moriah Films on The Prime Ministers,” said Cinema Management Group head Edward Noeltner. “This is an important film with a great all-star cast attached. We are once again honoured to be working with Richard Trank, Rabbi Hier and everyone involved with Moriah Films on their 12th feature documentary.”

Source: Screen Daily

Check Mate

Prince took his old personal checks, cashed and canceled, and posted them onto humongous, abstract canvases that are brushed crudely in chocolate- and mustard-colored paint. Dozens of saved checks, made out to luminaries such as Helmut Newton as well as more pedestrian types such as a local plumber and a house painter, have been clipped and painstakingly fitted within lines of text that spell out old jokes. 

“Checks are very autobiographical,” explains Prince. “You can, like, read a whole year’s worth of checks and pretty much tell what someone’s been doing.”  

Prince is showcasing the paintings at the West Coast outpost of the Gagosian Gallery. The exhibit, which opens tonight, also includes a few pieces from his previously celebrated series on nurses and pulp fiction. His work is a subversive, jocular snapshot of American pop culture based on cowboys, muscle cars and cocktail napkin jokes.  

The sale last May at auction of one of Prince’s first joke paintings for more than $700,000 piqued the interest of contemporary art buyers. But after three decades of relative obscurity, Prince appears unaffected by his newfound success. He lives in a farmhouse in Rensselaerville, N.Y., with his wife and two children. The artist is also in the midst of trying to sell a prefab home, situated nearby, that he bought in 2001 and set up as an unconventional gallery-cum-art work. 

As it always does with Prince, this latest series began with a collection. He started buying up canceled checks, written out by famous people, over the Internet and through celebrity auction houses. The pop-cultural reference of the autograph also appealed to him. “When you go into a memorabilia store, they always have a photograph of the star framed with the autograph.” Prince also “mimicked” that format with a group of checks from the likes of Leonard Nimoy and Pamela Anderson (who is expected tonight at host Larry Gagosian’s dinner for the artist at Mr. Chow) featured in a separate gallery room.

Prince then decided to use his own checks and he marveled at finding an online source where he could customize them from a range of images. His choice? Sponge Bob Square Pants, surfing. Besides checks of the kooky character, Prince also painted Sponge Bob on the thigh leg of an original Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers” album cover, complete with autographs from Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol, who designed the now-iconic art.  

Source: WWD

TIME TRAVELERS: Without his pointy ears,Leonard Nimoy, aka “Mr. Spock,” was just another guy at Yeohlee’s fashion show Monday. But 42 years after the sci-fi pilot first aired, he is still at it, playing his adult self in J.J. Abrams’ forthcoming feature, which is “a prequel to the entire franchise,” he said. Zachary Quinot shaved his eyebrows and spent some three hours each day to get the ear thing just right to act as the younger Spock. Watching the actor as his younger self was “wonderful,” said Nimoy, adding, “I handed off the torch,” extending his arm for effect. And dogged as those Trekkies may be, Nimoy isn’t giving any clues about what lies ahead for the USS Enterprise crew. Monday’s reason for being there was much more tangible anyway. “We’re the Yoehlettes,” he said of himself; his wife, Susan, and seatmate Calvin Tsao.

Source: WWD

West Watch: Yeohlee in L.A... Stymied Ports Plan...

YEOHLEE IN L.A.: Angelenos who admire New York-based designer Yeohlee Teng no longer have to leave town to purchase her gravity-defying clothes. Last week, Teng staged her first trunk show in Santa Monica with the help of local fan Susan Nimoy, the wife of Leonard Nimoy of "Star Trek." The show was held at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, amid exposed aluminum wall framing erected by conceptual artist Michael Asher. About 100 shoppers — including Liz Shatner, wife of Nimoy's co-star, William Shatner — ordered looks from the spring collection. Teng, who recently signed her first retailer in the region, Noodle Stories on West Third Street, said she plans more trunk shows in L.A. The navy microfiber number with a slashed Mobius neckline that Nimoy wore from her own closet became the trunk show's top seller.

Source: WWD

The Hammer Museum Honors Matt Groening

The Hammer Museum’s annual Gala in the Garden drew a lively crowd of supporters of the Westwood museum and its works gathered to honor “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening and artist Lari Pittman in Los Angeles on Saturday night.

Included in the crowd of celebrities and art enthusiasts were Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris, Will Ferrell and Viveca Paulin Ferrell, David LaChapelle, Frank Gehry, Monique Lhuillier, Gina Gershon, Jenni Kayne, Eli and Edythe Broad, Ruth and Jake Bloom, Maria and William Bell and Leonard Nimoy.

Source: WWD

Playboy Interview: J.J.Abrams (April 18, 2013)

PLAYBOY: It’s hard to be a Trekkie.

ABRAMS: It can be. The key in everything we did was to embrace the spirit with which Star Trek was approached in the 1960s. So the design of the props, the locations and certainly the characters themselves couldn’t be mockeries or impersonations but had to be as deeply felt as Leonard Nimoy felt and applied to his interpretation of the character in his time. Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock, had to do his own version of that, just as we never wanted Chris Pine to do a Shatner parody. Audiences pick up on that stuff. Not only are we post–Star Trek the series and movies, but we’re post–Galaxy Quest, post–Saturday Night Live spoofs. We were coming at this post–Trek satire, so we needed to be earnest in the right places and funny in the right places or people would have made fun of us. 

PLAYBOY: Did Leonard Nimoy or William Shatner drop by the set?

ABRAMS: Leonard did. I love him; he’s always a joy. The cast and crew got to applaud him and give a fraction of the thanks he deserves. He’s just an absolute gentleman. Shatner? [sighs] I haven’t spoken with him in a long time, but I did read something where he gave me a fantastic underhanded compliment. Something like our movie was a fun action ride and maybe one day it’ll have heart. A great compliment only to pull the rug out in a way that only Shatner can do. I adore him.

Source: Playboy

Quinto: The limitations [of expressing emotion] are pretty strong as an actor, but it gives me an opportunity to cultivate an interior life which I think is at the heart of [Spock]. I just saw Leonard [Nimoy] a few days ago–we were giving an interview about the character–and it was one of the things we both connected to with Spock. It is an erroneous notion that he doesn’t have an emotional life. This movie gives me an opportunity to explore that in many ways and also to be much more physical than I was in the first movie…Spock’s journey in this movie is learning how to be accountable to the people he cares about and loves ultimately.

Leonard Nimoy, Terry Gilliam, Neil Gaiman, 'Goonies' added to EW CapeTown Festival

Leonard Nimoy, Terry Gilliam, Richard Donner, John Carpenter, Neil Gaiman and Edgar Wright are among the starry names that will bring universes of imagination together at the EW CapeTown Film Festival (April 30 – May 6) in Los Angeles, the editors of Entertainment Weekly announced Friday.

Those guests, along with the previously announced appearance by Kurt Russell and the anniversary screenings of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, represent a powerful line-up for the inaugural CapeTown festival, which shares its name with EW.com’s recently launched hub for sci-fi and fantasy coverage.

CapeTown has covered the news in pop culture’s most vivid sectors since January, but now it is making news with the appearance of Nimoy, the television and film icon who returns from retirement for one night and one night only on May 6, the finale night of the festival. Nimoy will be interviewed on stage by Geoff Boucher, the EW senior writer who programmed the festival, and the Q&A will have a tie-on screening of Star Trek, the 2009 J.J. Abrams hit that represents Nimoy’s farewell to the cinematic universe of Starfleet.

Source: EW.com

Live long and prosper, indeed! Entertainment Weekly’s CapeTown Film Festival has added some interesting talent to its lineup, the editors announced on Friday. The legendary Leonard Nimoy, Terry Gilliam, Richard Donner, John Carpenter, Neil Gaiman and Edgar Wright have joined the film festival that will bring what EW calls “universes of imagination together” during the festival being held from April 30 - May 6 in Los Angeles. Kurt Russell was previously announced as a guest of the festivities as well.

The film festival boasts that it will hold the anniversary screenings of Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi as one of its many draws for attendees for its inaugural run, which apparently gets its name from the magazine’s recently launched hub for sci-fi and fantasy coverage. CapeTown, for the most part, has since January covered the news for pop culture’s most interesting and vivid sectors but is now gathering some notoriety with the scheduled appearance of the reclusive Nimoy, who is stepping out from his retirement for one night only on May 6, which is said to be the night of the finale of the festival. 

Nimoy is set to be interviewed by Geoff Boucher, and the interview will have some kind of tie-in with J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek,which fans recognized as Nimoy’s adios from the Star Trek cinematic universe. The festival will be staged at the historic Egyptian Theater, known for introducing the world to Tinseltown’s tradition of rolling out the red carpet at world premiere back in 1922 for Douglas Fairbanks’ Robin Hood  (a little history for you Hollywood buffs). 

Source: PopWrapped!

“We were doing tests out in Culver City, and when lunch came along, we had to go out for lunch and Leonard Nimoy had just had the ears put on and they were funny, he was funny with this green face and he had eyebrows that came out to here and the costume which were difficult to get in and out of, so we just put robes over them, and walked outside the lot in order to go get some lunch and of course cars [were] screeching to a halt and yelling things out to us. And so there’s Leonard, he looks like a pointy-eared hobgoblin and we go into a restaurant and the whole place starts yelling and screaming because we looked so funny.”

This was summer of 1995. I called every hotel in the greater Philadelphia area, pretending to be with Creation Events, to see if I could find him. That is only stalker-like action I have ever taken against another person. Every person there hung off every word out of his mouth. Don’t recall many other people commanding a room the way he did. Source: startrekaday

 

 

Digital Archives | Aug 4, 1969 | 2:38
Leonard Nimoy explains the Spock Pinch

Shortly after the cancellation of Star Trek in 1969, Leonard Nimoy chats with CBC-TV host Barbara Frum.

TV Guide Magazine is celebrating its 60th Anniversary with its latest issue, and to commemorate six decades of TV reporting, the magazine is publishing six collectable covers spotlighting the most influential shows of each era.

The Huffington Post has an exclusive first look at the six designs, which are formed from a mosaic of other covers from that decade and, as a challenge for fans, one of the covers in each mosaic has been flipped in a nod to artist Al Hirschfeld -- who created covers for the magazine in the past, and always hid his daughter's name in his works as an Easter Egg for fans. Source: Huffington Post