Interview: X Games gold medal winner Kisa Nakamura comes out of nowhere

X Games came to a close this past weekend in Austin where hundreds of competitors competed in a variety of sports. There were two skateboard events for women this year, “Street” and “Park.” Even with inconsistent weather, and some cancelled sporting and music events both of the women’s competitions went off without a hitch.

Kevin Hannon

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KaBoom Entertainment, Kevin Hannon

One event that’s been absent since 2013 is the Women’s Skateboarding “Park.” Even though Lizzy Armanto was favored to take the gold medal, 16 year old, and Japan native Kisa Nakamura virtually came out of nowhere and out-performed everyone to take home the Gold Medal.

While visiting the practice the day before the competition I viewed all of the competitors and noticed one woman standing out above the rest. She was zooming around all the other girls, doing trick after trick and just not falling down. She caught my eye because of her skill, but also her dedication on the street course. I knew I had to interview her because from my completely novice point of view she looked like a real contender.

Allie Hanley: Hi Kisa; So I am excited to interview you because I went to college in Kobe which is where I hear you are from?

Kisa Nakamura: Yes, I am from Kobe.

AH: So, I went to school in Sanomiya.

KN: I am from Sanomiya! <giggles and points to her nose>

AH: So how has your experience been at X Games?

KN: It’s very big, and very hot.

AH: How long have you been skate boarding?

KN: I am sixteen years old, and I started when I was eight, so I guess for eight years now.

AH: Do other girls ride skate boards in Kobe and is it popular?

KN: No, not really at all. There are very few girls who ride skateboards.

AH: What about boys?

KN: It’s way more popular for boys than girls. I practice at home with the guy who won the silver metal.

AH: Do you get a lot of respect from the guys when you skate since you are one of the only girls?

KN: There really aren’t any other girls, and it doesn’t matter. They treat me the same. It’s really not an issue.

AH: So how did you get into skateboarding when there aren’t any girls doing it?

KN: When I was a child, my dad recommended it to me because he use to surf. He actually wanted me to surf but I was too small, so he thought I should start with skateboarding. I also snowboard in the winter.

AH: What are your expectations for X Games competition?

KN: I want to win a medal, -any of them would make me happy.

AH: How much time do you spend a day practicing?

KN: I practice three or four hours a day.

AH: Do you go to High School?

KN: I got to a special school that is for talented people. I am the only girl at my school with this talent.

AH: X Games is invite only, what did you do to get invited?

KN: I have been to other world competitions before and I wanted to come here. So, I contacted them letting them know I wanted to go and they invited me.

I’ve been here for six days and I haven’t had a chance to do anything but stay in the hotel and practice here at CODA. I have been to Jamba Juice and Starbucks. (Circuit of the Americas)

AH: Why do you think girls should get into skateboarding?

KN: It’s really fun… and you make a lot of friends outside of school. If you become really good and go to competitions you will make even more friends!

Don’t be discouraged just because you are the only one, you can still have fun!

<Interview was conducted with a translator>

Kisa won the Gold Medal the next day which is very impressive but I thought it would noteworthy to include that she had absolutely no fan or family support here onsite except for a translator. At the age of sixteen, she is very mature but has a wonderful energy about her and a magnificent smile. She is a competitor that has a bright future ahead of her and is potentially one of those rare people that would be good at anything they attempted. Kisa Nakamura is sponsored by GoPro, MAX, Casino Drive, Five Cross, OKAZAKI, ColorfulProject, and International Riders Collection Co.

You can follow Kisa on Twitter @Kisanakamuraa

Interview: X Games promotes women’s skateboarding Kim Woozy

Kim Woozy of Mafia.TV is an authority on Women’s Skateboarding.

Kim Woozy

This weekend the X Games is taking place in Austin, Texas and for the first time will feature both Women’s Skateboarding Park, and Women’s Skateboarding Street events. It’s also one of the few competitions where females win the same amount of money as men for their sports. The past few days contenders like Monster Sponsored Lizzy Armanto and 11 year old new comer Brighton Zeuner have been getting in a few practice runs preparing. Kisa Nakamura, 16 year old from Japan, is zooming by, and from my stand point she seems to be the fastest.

Watching the Women’s Park practice I caught up with Kim Woozy, VP of Women’s Skateboarding Alliance and host of Mafia.TV (a site dedicated to women’s sports) to get her take on the shift in Women’s Skateboarding from obscurity to popularity.

Allie Hanley: So you mentioned that Women’s Skateboard Park has been absent for a few years from The X Games. Why is that?

Kim Woozy: Honestly that’s a question for ESPN, but I think the events they choose have to do with representation. So, I think there is a rise in girls in the world wanting to skate and going to skate parks, so that’s probably why we have Skateboard Park back in the rotation.

AH: So it’s obvious why someone like Lizzy Armanto would be invited, but tell me about the process for someone like Kisa from Japan?

KW: So the way these girls were selected and invited to compete is based on the other existing pro bowl or transition contests. One of the contests is called The Girls Combi which takes place in Orange County, California in January. That event has one of the biggest, most gnarliest bowls that exists, so if you do well there then it’s a good reflection that you can come here and skate this stuff and compete. And then there is another one that takes place in Hunting Beach over the summer, so most of these girls have done those contests and done well there. It’s not an official qualifier but it is a good indicator.

AH: How hard is it for a girl or woman skater to find sponsorship compared to a man?

KW: It’s definitely a lot harder for females to make a living off of professional skateboarding for a number of reasons. In the past it’s just been because of participation and there just haven’t been a large enough consumer market. And now, young girls are starting to skate and they are starting to see other examples of other girls skating, so it’s something that they feel like they wanna do, and can do.

And a lot of that is attributed to the internet. Before it was like you only had magazine and television, so there are gatekeepers there who decide what they can show; and traditionally of course, it’s been a male dominated sport. Now we have Instagram, YouTube, etc where you can see more girls skating which inspires other girls to get out there.

Now with sponsors they are slowly starting to see the value of putting their marketing dollars into these girls. Or, even if there was a really good girl, the idea of putting their marketing budget towards her was something that they really didn’t want to do because there wasn’t enough female customers. There whole thing is, -is there enough girls skating? The answer is yes and therefore they should market and put their marketing dollars towards females and that means bringing on a Pro-Skater.

So the tide is shifting right now, especially with the inclusion of events like this <Women’s Skateboard Park>. It really helps to have events like this because the exposure these girls get here will then translate to value for sponsors.

AH: I discovered that Lizzy Armanto is the only female pro sponsored by Monster Energy Drink. How does that open doors for someone like 11 year old competitor Brighton Zeuner?

KW: Anytime a sponsor brings on a female that’s opening doors for more females to get sponsored. Monster had a pretty large action sports program, not in skateboarding but they had a pretty good representation of female sponsored athletes but for whatever reasons they shifted and actually cut a lot of their female sponsored athletes; and then brought Lizzy Armanto on, which is a good indicator of what kids are doing right now and further -which athletes predict what is happening out there.

AH: Where do you see sponsorship/marketing dollars going for 2016-2017 for Women’s skateboarding?

KW: The value of Women’s Skateboarding marketing is growing. X Games doesn’t just add events in and out for any reason, I’m sure they look at the demographics, do their market research, look at the participants, and there are a lot of families that come here so I’m sure there’s some daughters in the crowd. So that value is growing for sure, but it’s also the type of thing that is new. It’s not new for these girls but it’s new in that a mainstream audience is yet to see a live demonstration of these girls skating on their boards or they’re definitely not household names yet. That’s an aspect that is new and exciting because its just something different than what X-Games has promoted traditionally. And it goes back to the demand that there are just more girls out in the world skating, so for them to have this contest going on here just makes total sense. It’s a reflection of what’s going on out in the market.

Interview: ‘Now You See Me 2’ Asian American director Jon Chu speaks out

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“Now You See Me 2” opens Nation wide this weekend. Official Trailer #2 (2016) – Mark Ruffalo, Lizzy Caplan Movie HD

Courtesy of Lionsgate

Opening June 10 is “Now You See Me 2” from Summit and Lionsgate. This time out The Four Horsemen, played by Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Jesse Eisenberg, and new comer Lizzy Caplan reunite under the leadership of Mark Ruffalo to do their biggest heist yet taking them across the world. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are also reprising their roles, alongside Daniel Radcliffe who joins the cast.

Courtesy of Lionsgate

Director (GI Joe: Retaliation) Jon M. Chu spoke to me about the film, and also being an Asian American director in a time where Hollywood is opening it’s eyes to the lack of diversity in the industry.

Allie Hanley: One of the most fascinating sequences in your film is when the Four Horsemen are in the safe retrieving their prize, which is attached to a playing card. They toss the card between themselves.

Jon M. Chu: To me that was one of those scenes that drew me to the project. It was sort of loosely written and the idea of being able to explore Cardistry was really very interesting to me.

If you look it up on Youtube or something it’s this amazing sub-culture of people who use cards to create sculptures with their flipping and tossing. <sample video>

AH: Wow, I never heard of it.

JC: Me too! I don’t know when it began or who coined the term but we had this amazing man, Andrew Jikh, on set and Blake Vogt to help create this process. So we story-boarded it at first. We wanted to do this big action sequence that takes place in this small space where it seems nothing is happening, but really everything is happening. It’s a psychological chess match as we are going into the sleeves, through the sleeves, through the whatever -ya know.

So I showed the story boards to our magicians, and said let’s find real ways that our cast can do these as I want them to do as much as possible in person. Luckily Dave Franco is really good, Woody is really good with cards because they had done some in the first movie. So when they trained a little bit in magic camp you could see that they were picking it up really quickly.

Then we got real world situations, -that I shot on my iPhone and where they would palm cards into their sleeves; How things come out and then I cut those into our story boards. Then we did a preview using those moments. I then showed it to my DP who helped shoot it again with my iPhone; And the actors actually got better. They were getting it down and could do more and more of it. So by the time we shot it, taking a week and a half in this small space, where you would have to just follow the camera.

This was one of those things where we knew it was going to be really special, and everyone worked really hard. As simple and nonchalant as it feels, it was actually a very complicated sequence to pull off.

AH: So you blocked it out, and shot it with your iPhone first?

JC: Yes! It was real stuff, because at first it was just this thing from our heads… then we consulted with our real card experts. They said there was a lot more that could be done which was more than we expected. Some of the things they would say were pretty extravagant but then they would say “but if you do this, this could be,” So we would lean towards those sequences.

AH: So, a lot of it’s more on the realistic side?

JC: Yes, most of it is realistic; But obviously there’s a few instances, like when the card gets tossed and goes way around, that’s CG but even when we shot going down the sleeves and stuff, it was a combination of a lipstick camera going through, and we would tie that in with a CG card. So it was very realistic with touches of CG.

AH: The people in the audience were very excited and loved it.

JC: Ya, you never know when you are making it and you are spending a lot of time, is it going to be ridiculous or a lot of fun, -or almost dance like?

So in this movie we don’t have big shows, just some at the end. For the most part the first movie had 3 big shows, and that’s the sort of structure of it. While this one all the magic is happening on the ground. So with this one the challenge was how do we make a show that is happening in real time, and that’s not a show, -so that our audience gets to go into the mind of the magician and not be in the audience seat. So that was a thing that was tricky to do in this movie and we had to carve out moments to do this.

AH: So when you shoot a movie like this with so many well-known actors, and everyone is competing for that scene where they get to stand out, how did you manage that?

JC: I am really lucky because I think the first movie did a lot of the leg work of getting them all to know each other, so when I came in… they all knew each other from the first film, and they all loved each other. It was one of the most loving sets that I have ever been on.

They all loved working with each other, not one bad apple. They are all so good it’s like watching expert pianist toss back and forth and just rift, -and they loved that as all great actors do. So there really was no ego on that set. I was prepared for ego that would rise above, but there was so much respect on that set; And even for me, I didn’t know how they would feel with me coming into that set, they were so very respectful and kind. Everyone loved this movie. They don’t have to shoulder the responsibility of the movie, they get to share that as a team and you can feel that through the screen as you watch it, and that’s genuinely how they are and how we shot the movie.

All they wanted was truth in it, in their scenes. They would take less lines and less space if they could find more human truth to it because even though it’s flashy and a great big fun movie, that’s one of the reasons why it works.

When Mark Ruffalo comes into a scene, he would play it so genuine that you believe as ridiculous as the plot may be, you believe that the characters exist in that world. So that was our main goal, just making moments truthful even though it was spectacular and over-the-top.

AH: Shifting gears now. Lets talk about the movement right now in the industry – you know what I am going towards…

JC: Yes, I know.

AH: So there’s not a lot of Asian actors and directors represented in Hollywood right now. How do you see yourself as an Asian American and breaking through that barrier?

JC: It’s kind of amazing this summer that four Asian directors have big budget films coming out this summer. Two of them are Asian American, another I think is from Australia, and then Wong Lee is from China, so even that if you include all Asians to have four major studio films coming out this summer from Asian directors is pretty incredible. I don’t even know if that’s happened before. So, I think that there is progress being made.

When I started there wasn’t even Asian executives let alone Asian film makers… I mean there are Chinese film makers from China, but that’s a different thing. I think there is a new perspective and that represents the next generation of our sensibilities and that we have a unique voice.

It’s not a foreign voice, it’s from here. So, yes I think we are making progress. Social media is helpful. It helps wake people up and has direct impact in meetings that I am in literally. That kind of diversity talk is brought up, from the Oscar stuff to the white-washed stuff.

For me, I never thought that way. I always was sort of taught growing up to concentrate and my work, don’t worry about what’s not be given to you, do what you do best and everything will fall into place.

As I get old my perspective shifts. Coming out the other end, I realize that my experience has been smooth because other people have created that path for me. Even if the door wasn’t fully open, they cracked that door open for me. I acknowledge that more than I did when I was younger. I have responsibility to crack those doors open even more for the next generations of young film makers that are going to create amazing stories from a perspective that you haven’t heard from before. And as a film business, this is what we need right now with just all these super hero movies, we need diverse voices and from all walks of life, from all socioeconomic backgrounds. It makes sense. We need all those voices to make our business better. And then all the doors should be open for all those things to make our business better.

So I see those issues as even more important to me than a few years ago. As annoying as outrage can be on Facebook and Twitter when it fills up your feed, I think it’s an effective tool. That may not be my style on how I want to make a difference because I am in a position to make movies, and cast movies the way I want to, so I take my responsibility as doing that as my action.

Rating: PG-13 (for violence and some language)
Genre: Mystery & Suspense
Directed By: Jon M. Chu
Written By: Ed Solomon, Peter Chiarelli
In Theaters: Jun 10, 2016 Wide
Runtime: 1 hr. 55 min.
Lionsgate

Review: ‘Dark Horse’ is the trifecta of feel good documentaries

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Now playing in limited theaters from Sony Picture Classis.

Official film trailer

“Dark Horse” 2016

Rating:

Star

Star

Star

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Now playing in select theaters is the feel good documentary “Dark Horse” from Sony Pictures Classics. It’s the true story of an impossible dream that brings a small Welsh community together centered around a horse from writer/director Louise Osmond.

Horse breeding and racing has long been toted as the Sport-Of-Kings as the money required to break into the “club” has long been achieved only by those who themselves have pedigrees. So when a barmaid named Jan Vokes from a tiny Welsh village gets it into her head that she wants to breed a race horse, a lot of eye rolling and shaking of heads commenced.

The idea that a barmaid could purchase a mare, select the sire (and afford it), and produce a horse of such caliber that it could possibly compete with other horses that have been cultivated from 100’s of years of experience and pedigrees is quite frankly unfathomable; Yet somehow it happened.

Set amidst picturesque back drops of startling green scenery and gorgeous farms is the setting of a small mining village where opportunities are far and few. It’s a place where everyone knows your name, and mostly likely your business. This is where the “Syndicate” began; a group of 30 pub drinkers who committed ten pounds a week to the idea that they could somehow breed and train a horse capable of competing in the horse racing world. The story takes us from the beginning of the idea, through the birth, the training, the injuries and the victories. It’s a heart-warming story of how people can come together to achieve the impossible and their horse, Dream Alliance, making it all the way to the Welsh Grand National in 2009 and the Grand National in 2010. It’s simply a beautiful story or people, dreams, and a community forever changed by a horse and his will to win.

“Dark Horse” is the kind of documentary that someone in Hollywood is probably salivating over to turn into a drama. The idea that the common/everyday working class group of people could somehow enter the world where Kings and Queens, Sheikhs, and titans of industry play and compete is just to good to pass up. This truly is the story of where a “dream becomes a legend.” There’s a lot to appreciate and even learn from this story. Perfect film for the family when you want to escape the Hollywood machine of comic book super heroes and witness real life people coming together behind and idea and achieving it.

PG,1 hr. 25 min.
Documentary, Drama
Directed By: Louise Osmond
In Theaters: May 6, 2016 Limited
Sony Pictures Classics

Interview: ‘The Nice Guys’ and ‘X-Men Apocalypse’s’ John Ottman

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Buddy action comedy The Nice Guys opens nation wide today. The film, written and directed by action veteran Shane Black stars Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe as a couple of colorful Los Angeles characters investigating a missing girl in the 1970s….

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“The Nice Guys” starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe opens this weekend, and “X-Men: Apocalypse” next weekend. Both films share the same composer, John Ottman. He’s actually also the editor for “Apocalypse” which in itself is an accomplishment.

Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

John’s talented on both fronts as an editor and composer. Some of his composing credits include “Superman Returns” and “Valkyrie.” From a previous interview I discovered his friendship with Bryan Singers goes all the way back to college.

Interviewing him on both editing and composing is difficult because both are rarely achieved professionally in the film industry due to the technical and creative aspects both require. According to John, performing both can be “life destroying when it’s all said and done,” in a tongue-and-cheek way. Furthermore, doing both means all the aspects of your personal life can suffer. As an example, he shared that all his house plants died while working on both films, and that was a symbol of his personal life and relationships as the work is that demanding.

Allie Hanley: Last time we spoke you had just finished editing and composing “X-Men: Days of Future Past” which I loved, and you had described it as “going to war.” I thought perhaps I had caught you at a bad moment but I had the feeling that your days of editing and composing the same movie were over… And furthermore, I see this month you have two movies coming out, “X-Men: Apocalypse,” and “The Nice Guys.” What happened?

John Ottman: Right! <laughing> I always say that I am never going to do it again, and I always end up doing it again. My friends are really tired of hearing me say that, and they don’t believe me anymore.

Yes, it makes me look extremely prolific to have two films opening on the same week but I actually started work on “The Nice Guys” three months before I left for Montreal to shoot X-Men. When I finished it, it sat in post for a while, and it was actually in the can for quite a while (the film is complete and just waiting for it’s date to be released). So, I did end up scoring three reels just for that. Of course, when I was up there (Montreal) shooting, they ended up re-editing so all the reels ended up not working as I had originally composed. I ended up having to rework the themes. We would have Pow-Wows every night when I would get home from shooting (X-Men) at 11:30 and I’d fire up the good ol’ Skype. Sometimes I would use my mobile studio that I brought with me, so it wasn’t like I already had enough to do <laughing>.

I had this idea that I would write the entire score and then go to Montreal, but it never quite works out that way!

AH: There’s a lot of people out there that would love to do one or the other, which do you prefer editing or composing?

JO: Well, I prefer composing. First of all, it’s not 100% life destroying, because you are in and out of it in a number of weeks rather than a year, or a year and a half. Also, you only have one thing to worry about, composing.
I look at my composing peers, who will go through hell composing a movie, and I think, -dude, you only have one thing to worry about, -writing the score! Don’t complain!
As we’ve talked before, doing the multiple of tasks is just too much.

AH: Have you noticed a trend in scores that’s happened over the course of the last few years? For me, I’m seeing more and more techno-like music.

JO: Well, there was a trend that started a number of years ago, to do the sort of wall-paper effect, with strong ostinatos <a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm>, and to be less thematic and more in your face, and more “sound designy;” and that’s a general statement because there are still nice lyrical scores written today here and there.

I would say that is one of the major changes in film music. In my opinion the bar has been set maybe a little lower the past few years. So, now when someone creates a musical score with a little theme in it, it’s like they have created some unique piece of music, but it’s only because the bar has been set so low as of late. So now it’s perceived as something so profound when someone actually writes a thematic score.

AH: I’m seeing more and more sound tracks that sound like techno music at a club. Have you noticed that?

JO: Along with what I was just saying, it’s the wall-paper effect. The back drop to that, is that it’s all synthesizer. I guess, it’s the whole thing about it’s all climax, and there’s no four-play in a lot of scores.

Today, they think everything has to be at the top decibel level for everything, the effects and the music. There’s no longer those peaks and valleys.

For me, part of telling the story are those moments of silence and having something lyrical.

Yes, you are right, and that’s born from budgetary and from things that are synthesized; and also you can push that shit so loud. What’s funny, as that sort of film scoring got more popular and the quality of the television synthesizer work got better and better, -I just feel like, the lines have become so blurred between a motion picture score and a “CSI” episode. So this is where I lament the theatrical lyrical scores that separate a movie from a lot of television.

With that being said, after slamming some scores that sound like that, not every score should be something lyrical or orchestral because sometimes the best choice for a score is to do 180 degrees different from that. So, take my criticism of recent scoring with a grain-of-salt because sometimes one long boring drone of a sound effect, is the best choice to make some scene interesting and that can be better than some orchestral version.

AH: The last X-Men movie you edited and scored was just packed tight with a lot of action scenes. That scene with “Quicksilver” was extra-ordinary. What can we expect this time out?

JO: This one is very different in respect, it’s a more linear story because we aren’t dealing with time travel. But sometimes a linear story is more difficult. You can’t just leave the time frame and go work on something different. This one, unlike the other movies we have done has a very defined villain while the other movies have always been a struggle between Charles and Eric, and their philosophical differences… and sometimes there’s an outside source like Trask in the last movie. But this one has a villain that sort of comes out of nowhere and has his agenda. Then there is the inevitable third act, where the good guys have to destroy the bad guy which everyone knows you are heading too. So that becomes the biggest challenge, because in a film like that, it’s been done so many times. How do you make that final confrontation clever in some way?

AH: Did you do something special for “Apocalypse?”

JO: Yes, I sort of like to score villains from a sympathetic point of view because they were babies and had parents at some point of their life. So I like the music to be born from the mystique around them, or almost from their point of view and that’s what I did with Apocalypse. I wanted the music to be from his point of view. He sees himself as some sort of God from the Old Testament. So I had these religious like chords that are very seductive, and I used those for his seduction… and he has this very noble and conquering type theme that feeds into his narcissism but it’s dark enough where it lets the whole audience in to the fact that he’s a megalomaniac.

Both films are different as night and day but equally good. You can see “The Nice Guys” this weekend, and “X-Men: Apocalypse” next weekend, May 27th wide.

‘The Darkness’ and Britt Griffith to host first ever live and online séance

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Kevin Bacon stars in this spooky film, “The Darkness” opening May 13.

Courtesy of BH Tilt

Announced today is a first ever online event. It looks like you don’t have to leave the house to attend a séance, -seriously! In celebration of the new horror film, “THE DARKNESS” starring Kevin Bacon, which opens Friday the 13, the film will be hosting a Live digital séance this Friday, May 6, at 7 PM PST on their Facebook page.

Ginsberg Libby

The new LIVE feature on Facebook is going to make this first ever, online séance possible. What you need to do is go to “THE DARKNESS” Facebook page on Friday to witness celebrity medium, Mistica Maria Louisa and “Ghost Hunter’s” paranormal investigator, Britt Griffith at the Botanica San Simon in Los Angeles, as they reach out to the ancestral Anasazi tribe as well as do readings from select Facebook fans. Britt is bringing his gear, so be sure to keep watching as he will be continuously monitoring the room to select online attendees to participate.

More about the online event host and paranormal investigator Britt Griffith from the event press release:
“Britt’s lifelong hobbies is investigating claims of the paranormal, which led him to a friendship with Jason Hawes. In 2008 Jason reached out to Britt and asked if he would like to assist on an important case they had coming up. Britt said yes, and now finds himself working all over the world in front of the camera investigating the paranormal. Britt makes appearances at multiple guest events all over the country, where he lectures and leads paranormal investigations. He has also worked on Ghost Hunters, the Food Network Challenge, Run This Town, RWG, and can be seen in Two De Force, Chillerama, and Azinda.”

If you would like an event reminder: Go to this link and RSVP

‘Star Trek’ celebrates 50th Anniversary with Go Beyond Contest starting today

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Contest runs Tuesday through this Friday (May 5 to 8).

Paramount Pictures

Announced today from Paramount Pictures and “Star Trek Beyond” director, Justin Lin, is a new fan contest giving the winners a ticket to attend an exclusive event taking place in Hollywood. The event is in celebration of “Star Trek‘s” 50th Anniversary and the release of “Star Trek Beyond” this summer.

Beginning today through Friday, May 6, fans can submit a 50-second video to the official “Star Trek Beyond” Facebook page and Twitter account to share how “Star Trek” has inspired them to “Go Beyond.” Each day, the best 50 entries will be selected to receive a ticket to the “Star Trek” fan event on May 20 at 7:00 PM at the historicParamount Pictures Studios in Hollywood. The highest judged video of each day will be awarded the grand prize, a fully paid trip to the event.

The one-time-only event will include the premiere of the newest “Star Trek Beyond” trailer, an exclusive first-look of never-before-seen footage from the upcoming film, a Q&A with director Justin Lin and the cast and crew, special guest appearances, and other surprises.

No formal announcement on which celebrities will be in attendance.

How to enter the Star Trek Beyond Fan Event Contest:
On Facebook: Fans can share their videos as a comment on the Star Trek Movie Facebook Page with the hashtag #StarTrekContest and links for Australia; UK.

More guests announced for iHeartCountry Fest in Austin this Saturday

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We caught up with Sam Hunt on the Red Carpet at The 58th GRAMMYs.

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iHeartMedia announced today the addition of several more celebrities who will be participating in the free daytime event, and the ticketed night event in Austin this Saturday. Joining already announced Bobby Bones is actress and model Brooklyn Decker who will co-host the 2016 iHeartCountry Festival. The event is bringing together Country music’s biggest superstars all on one stage at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas on Saturday, April 30.

courtesy of IHeart Media

This year’s night event lineup includes Florida Georgia Line, Brett Eldredge, Sam Hunt, Thomas Rhett, Cole Swindell, Miranda Lambert, Lee Brice, Chris Young, Keith Urban and Zac Brown Band as well as special guest appearances by Minka Kelly, Ashley Greene, The Bachelor’s Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell, American Idol’s Trent Harmon and more.

Those not attending can watch the performance which will air on the AT&T Network (U-verse) May 13, 9 PM ET.

Outside of the Erwin Center will be the first ever Daytime Village at the iHeartCountry Festival from 3-6 p.m. CT set up in the North Box Office Plaza. The free daytime event will feature live performances by Bobby Bones and The Raging Idiots, Granger Smith, LoCash, Chris Lane and Maren Morris. The Daytime Village will also feature fan zones and interactive experiences by iHeartRadio’s brand partners.

The iHeartCountry Festival will video stream live exclusively oniHeartRadio.com/WatchATT on April 30 at 8 PM CT. It will also broadcast live on iHeartMedia Country radio stations across the U.S. on Saturday, April 30 at 7 PM CT. The iHeartCountry Festival will air on the AT&T AUDIENCE Network on May 13 at 9 PM ET/PT via DIRECTV Ch 239 or U-verse Ch 1114.

Proud partners of the iHeartCountry Festival include Aaron’s, Inc., AT&T, Firestone®, Flonase® Allergy Relief, Mountain Dew®, State Farm®, and Tito’s Handmade Vodka. For more information visit iHeartRadio.com/countryfestival.

For tickets go here

Exclusive Interview with show runner Glen Mazzara discusses his ‘Damien’ TV show

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From E-3, “The Deliver;” Damien shares with Ann his birthmark that resembles the numbers 666. As a reward for Ann gaining Damien’s confidence, she is given a “spontaneous orgasm” according to E.P. Glen Mazzara.

Video from A&E’s TV show “Damien”

What if Satan’s son was walking among us right now? What would he be like? Would he be evil, or would he be seen as a good, moral man? Would he be aware that he was the Devil’s spawn; and if so, would he embrace it, or try to reject his destiny?

Something evil is about to happen on the creepy show “Damien.” <Que the operatic singers> A menacing black rottweiler aka, Hell Hound is seen in the shadows. A black bird slams to its death against the glass of a window…. SPOOKY!

It’s seven episodes into its ten episode run, and chances are you haven’t seen it yet. That’s okay. Word of how good this show is spreading, and like a plague of locusts, it’s unstoppable.

Glen Mazzara, show runner of the A&E thriller/horror TV show “Damien,” likes his horror to almost be possible. He’s worked on several shows including “The Shield” and he did two seasons on “The Walking Dead” so it’s safe to assume he knows what makes people get excited and scared at the same time.

Allie Hanley: Your show on A&E, “Damien” falls in the genre of a horror/scifi/drama based on the original film “The Omen.” It’s had a solid first start with seven character building episodes. You’ve been able to get a strong narrative going with your main character, Damien, played by Bradley James, who we assume at this point truly is the son of Satan… but is Damien truly evil?

Glen Mazzara: I think he’s fighting being truly evil; but I would say yes. Like all of us, Damien has true evil within him. You will see that evil side of him come out this season. I think it’s part of a longer arc as he continues to fight it.

Damien is the anti-Christ. He is evil. We do not plan to play games with that and we are going to embrace that.

Allie: Damien has people dying left and right all around him.

Glen: Ya, it’s a bummer <laughing>.

Allie: These deaths seem to be giving him an identity crisis. Will he be definitively learning that he is indeed the anti-Christ anytime soon? <episode 7 just aired, 3 episodes left>

Glen: Well, you know, you will just have to wait and see how that plays out. We even have twists with that arc. People have an expectation of what this show is supposed to be, but one of the things I want to put out there, is that the Anti-Christ, or The Beast, as promised in the book of Revelation is first seen as a messiah, as a savior. Not necessarily as a tyrant. So there is a step that as Damien embraces his path, -his destiny – as the evil tyrant, the anti-Christ – first people have to worship him – people have to believe he is the new messiah.

So that is a new part of the story that’s never been told. That wasn’t told in the trilogy… so he pretty much went to evil despot right away I feel in “Final Conflict.” So we are sort of fleshing out that entire story with all sorts of twists and turns that I don’t think people are expecting.

The arc people are expecting overall is of a guy who embraces his role as the anti-Christ, and the guy who tries to bring about the apocalypse, which is the story we are telling.

Allie: Going back to when this was just an idea, what was it about “The Omen,” and it’s sequels that drew you to the story possibilities?

Glen: There were two things. One, it felt somewhat plausible. It didn’t have a lot of supernatural trappings, and not a lot of special effects. It just felt like a very creepy tone of odd events taking place in our world. So I liked that. That’s the kind of horror I enjoy. Something that feels somewhat believable and gets under your skin; and why I think that’s why that movie holds up.

And also, it’s a character piece. It’s a story about Gregory Peck’s character Robert Thorn who tries to do the right thing, it ends up being the wrong thing; And he finds out that his son is the son of the devil. We’ve just taken that story and stitched it onto the Damien character himself. Damien is trying to do the right thing but no matter what he does it ends up being the wrong thing. And he learns that he is the son of the Devil, and what does he do?

We’ve just taken that character arc and put it in TV form, stitched it onto a different character. Ultimately “The Omen” was a family story, it has some heart to it. And that is where TV lives, we love and care about our characters. It just seemed like the perfect starting point for a TV series. We felt it gave us a lot to work with. As a fan of horror and that particular film I jumped at the chance.

Allie: A stand out actor on the show for me so far, has been Barbara Hershey who plays Ann Rutledge. I saw her in the movie “The Entity” when I was a kid, and that film stayed with me for many years. What is it about her that initially drew you to casting her?

Glen: Barbara was my choice for this role because she’s intelligent. She conveys power. She coveys mystery. She’s sexy. And she’s a tremendous actress and out of all the actors I’ve worked with, Barbara is a pro’s pro. She works on the material like no one I’ve seen. She really puts everything into her lines, and she’s incredibly thoughtful. I absolutely love collaborating with her. She brings so much.

She blew me away her first day on set, which is the first day she meets Damien. Her first line was something like, “You think they would be appreciative of a boy so obviously gifted.” And just the way she says that one line, she works like 5 or 6 things into that line. I never saw an actor do that before.

So once we cast her, we really wanted to write for her and give her as much complicated stuff as possible. And she just always nails it. So it’s been a pleasure to write for her and to design the character around her. We had ideas about her <the character Ann> but when she came in we were able to write directly to what she was doing.

Allie: Ann Rutledge is really struggling with solidifying her relationship with Damien… where is that heading?

Glen: Now, she does have a complicated relationship with Damien and she’s surprised by that. She’s been focused for decades on bringing the plan to fruition. Making sure he embraces the role of the anti-Christ; but now that she’s connected to him in a personal way she sees that he’s a decent guy. He has some humanity; And I think she is surprisingly affected by that; And that complicates things.

So now she has two different things going on –she has an internal conflict in which she has her mission, and that mission may or may not be right for Damien; And, how that conflict plays out you’ll see by the end of the season. We will flip over all the cards that have been dealt.

Allie: On episode three when Ann Rutledge was confronted by the man in her group that wanted to wash his hands of the plan, and later was chased by Damien through the subway, and then he dies horribly on the escalator… that was a brilliant part of the story because she didn’t wield super-natural powers but in affect she manipulated them. Will we see more of that or things along that line?

Glen: Yes, she doesn’t have any super-natural power herself but she knows there is a super natural power. She trusts, and has faith, -a religious faith in that evil power, and that it’s going to work out according to what she understands the plan is going to be. <reader… this may be a hint that what she thinks the plan is… is not what the actual plan for Damian is!>

So she is a religious figure who has faith, but it’s faith in Satan. She is also the person who takes risks, and she stirs stuff up. I think that’s what she was doing. She wasn’t only orchestrating a test for Damien, but she also wants to push Damien further down a particular path. She says in the last episode “The power wants what it wants.” And she is in service to that power.

You know, that power touched her. She had an orgasm in the end of that episode (#3 Deliverer). She has a spontaneous orgasm in his hallway, -the power touched her. In a sense, the power rewarded her for doing what she did. <See video>

So she knows this power exists, and her part is to bring Damien along, but she also realizes that when he goes to commit suicide that it’s taken a toll upon him and that’s her dilemma.

Allie: The show airs on Monday night with a lot of competition, even in the same genre, and going up against some shows on network TV that are hitting their viewership ratings out of the park. “Damien” seems to be struggling even while earning solid ratings from fans… has the network considered moving it to a better time slot, is that on the table or is there even a worry?

Glen: Ok, so obviously we would like the ratings to be higher. As far as the programming goes, that’s A&E’s call so I won’t speak for them.

What I will say is the enthusiasm of the fan base, even the fact that we have a fan base has been very gratifying.

The fans are very excited and they are invested; emotionally, they are crying at the right places, screaming at the right places, and horrified, we just had the ending on episode 7 that really shook a lot of people because it was very violent. So the audience is going along on that ride and there has been a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. I feel like the show is a success.

As an artist you try to connect emotionally with an audience. When you are sitting there at 3 AM and you are working on a scene and you think – I trust the audience is going to get this and the fans will appreciate this, when in fact you don’t even have any fans yet because you are just writing it.

I’ve been thinking about it lately. It’s sort of like when you see band that is playing in a small venue and people tell their friends “Oh my God, you gotta see this band, before they make it big!” Who knows if we will make it big, or not because there is a lot of competition out there.

I am telling the story that I wanted too. A&E and Fox are very supportive of the show. I know we have three great episodes coming up, and when people hear that it all comes together and it pays off and it’s not some disappointing cliffhanger at the end or something like that.

Everything all comes together and as word of mouth gets out there and people start binging it –because people’s viewing habits have changed, so sure would I love to have the type of rating people have on network, yeah, who wouldn’t. I do know that are fans are excited about the show, and they continue to show up, and we continue to entertain them week after week.

Allie: The show’s viewership ratings haven’t taken a dip like other shows that start off big, and then drop off. Your show is solid. Will you make it back to San Diego Comic Con?

Glen: I don’t know, but I would love too. You know we just did Wonder Con. It was so much fun to connect with fans now that the show has been out there. It’s one thing before a show airs because everyone has an expectation and stuff, but to be able to talk about people’s scenes and people’s characters it’s just that much more exciting.
Hopefully, we’ll be picked up for a season two, and we’ll be back at Comic Con. Anytime we connect with fans it’s always fun and at that point the entire season would have completed It’s run, so there will be a lot to talk about.

AMC officially back tracks on texting in theaters

Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Theatres, changes mind on texting.

Courtesy of AMC

With Cinemacon wrapping yesterday in Las Vegas a lot of news has filtered out about upcoming films and who’s going to be starring in the next blockbuster. However, the tidbit that shocked many and seemingly coming out of nowhere, was a statement made by recently named AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron. He announced that he would consider allowing texting in AMC Theaters in an interview with Brent Lang of Variety. After a backlash from moviegoers, and statements from other theater chains like Alamo Drafthouse‘s Tim League who reiterated their commitment to keeping theaters dark and quiet, it appears AMC is recanting the idea of texting in theaters.

In a statement sent to AMC Stubbs members (their reward program) via email this afternoon,

“With your advice in hand, there will be NO TEXTING ALLOWED in any of the auditoriums at AMC Theatres. Not today, not tomorrow and not in the foreseeable future.”

So much for that idea. AMC Theaters also went on in their email that they were committed to delivering the most amazing movie experience in their theaters and would continue to seek innovation.

“…we’ll focus on our other ideas to delight and entertain you. In the next few years, we intend to invest more than $1 billion to continuously enhance our theatres and systems. At AMC, you’ll feel our commitment to providing you with the absolute best in sight and sound technology, a significant increase to the number of our large screens including the incomparable experiences created by IMAX and Dolby Cinema, much more comfortable seating including our hugely popular recliners, new sumptuous food and beverage offerings, a more engaging AMC Stubs program, as well as dramatically richer content in an enhanced web site and more functional smartphone app. These are all in our immediate future- and yours — across the country at AMC.”

CEO Adam Aron comes from the travel industry where he has served as CEO and co-owner of the Philadelphia 76’ers basketball team, chairman and CEO of Vail Resorts, and president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line. He has also held senior executive positions with United Airlines and Hyatt Hotels and was part of an investor group which owned the then privately-held AMC Theatres.