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Friday, 27 June 2008
Back To Camp
Following its rare win over all broadcast networks with Camp Rock last Friday, Disney Channel is pulling out all stops to get a sequel on the air by next year -- possibly going into production by late spring or early summer, Reuters reported Monday. The TV movie aired on three Disney platforms over three consecutive days last week. On Friday it attracted 8.9 million viewers on the Disney Channel. On Saturday, it moved to ABC-TV, where it drew 3.6 million viewers. On Sunday, it ran on Disney Family Channel, where it attracted 3.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen research.
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Thursday, 19 June 2008
R. Kelly jurors resume deliberations
Jury room set up to allow review of sex tape
CHICAGO -- It took six years to get this far, but a jury in R. Kelly's long-delayed child pornography trial is now deciding whether the R&B singer is guilty of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl.
Jurors resumed deliberations Friday. The nine men and three women began deliberating Thursday and continued for three hours before being sequestered for the evening.
The panel includes the wife of a Baptist preacher from Kelly's Chicago-area hometown, as well as a compliance officer for a Chicago investment firm and a man in his 60s who emigrated from then-Communist Romania nearly 40 years ago.
As they left the courtroom Thursday to deliberate, jurors took the sex tape at the center of the trial with them, and a monitor was set up in the jury room in case they wanted to review it.
Kelly, who returned to the courthouse Friday morning, is charged with 14 counts of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl, who prosecutors say was as young as 13. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison. He also would have to register as a sex offender in Illinois.
The 41-year-old R&B singer, who has pleaded not guilty, was charged in 2002. His trial was repeatedly delayed, once because the judge seriously injured himself falling off a ladder and another time because Kelly had emergency surgery to remove his appendix.
Jurors heard closing arguments Thursday.
Kelly's attorney banged on the jury box with his fist, he yelled and he whispered, he laughed, and he pleaded for more than an hour in his emotion-filled closing.
At one point, Sam Adam Jr. referred to a defense argument made repeatedly during the trial that a mole on the singer's back proved he simply can't be the man in the video.
After displaying a freeze frame of the man's back in the video -- with no apparent mole -- Adam walked over to the defense table and placed his hand on Kelly's shoulder.
"The truth be told, there is no mole ... that means one thing," Adam told jurors, then paused and lowered his voice. "It ain't him. And if it ain't him, you can't convict."
Prosecutors wrapped up their arguments the same way they began them a month ago: by playing the entire graphic sex tape in open court.
The 27-minute film played on a monitor just outside the jury box -- the lights switched off and the blinds pulled across courtroom windows -- as Assistant State's Attorney Robert Heilengoetter read through sections of the indictment.
Both Kelly and the alleged victim, now 23, deny being on the tape. Neither testified at trial. But as the video played Thursday, Heilengoetter told jurors the man on the tape is Kelly and that he controlled the encounter.
At one point in the video, entered into evidence as "People's Exhibit No. 1," the female dances and urinates on the floor -- the man out of view. Back in view, he has sex with her. In one scene near the end of the video, alluded to in one count of the indictment, the man urinates on the female. At another point, the man hands her money.
Kelly sat across the room from jurors at the defense table in a gray pinstripe suit, his hands folded in front of him. As the sex tape played, he appeared tense, keeping his eyes on the monitor, his mouth drawn tight and his brow furrowed.
"The one person who is responsible is sitting right here," Assistant State's Attorney Shauna Boliker said, pointing at Kelly. "What you know now is that this is not a whodunit, but a he-did-it."
Over seven days presenting their case, prosecutors called 22 witnesses, including several childhood friends of the alleged victim and four of her relatives who identified her as the female on the video.
In two days, the Grammy winner's lawyers called 12 witnesses. They included three relatives of the alleged victim who testified they did not recognize her as the female on the tape.
During the trial, Kelly endeavored to make a good impression on jurors, always standing straight and folding his hands in front of him whenever they entered the courtroom.
Jurors, in turn, made a good impression on Judge Vincent Gaughan, who repeatedly praised their attentiveness. All appeared to take careful notes, even when testimony became highly technical.
CHICAGO -- It took six years to get this far, but a jury in R. Kelly's long-delayed child pornography trial is now deciding whether the R&B singer is guilty of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl.
Jurors resumed deliberations Friday. The nine men and three women began deliberating Thursday and continued for three hours before being sequestered for the evening.
The panel includes the wife of a Baptist preacher from Kelly's Chicago-area hometown, as well as a compliance officer for a Chicago investment firm and a man in his 60s who emigrated from then-Communist Romania nearly 40 years ago.
As they left the courtroom Thursday to deliberate, jurors took the sex tape at the center of the trial with them, and a monitor was set up in the jury room in case they wanted to review it.
Kelly, who returned to the courthouse Friday morning, is charged with 14 counts of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl, who prosecutors say was as young as 13. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison. He also would have to register as a sex offender in Illinois.
The 41-year-old R&B singer, who has pleaded not guilty, was charged in 2002. His trial was repeatedly delayed, once because the judge seriously injured himself falling off a ladder and another time because Kelly had emergency surgery to remove his appendix.
Jurors heard closing arguments Thursday.
Kelly's attorney banged on the jury box with his fist, he yelled and he whispered, he laughed, and he pleaded for more than an hour in his emotion-filled closing.
At one point, Sam Adam Jr. referred to a defense argument made repeatedly during the trial that a mole on the singer's back proved he simply can't be the man in the video.
After displaying a freeze frame of the man's back in the video -- with no apparent mole -- Adam walked over to the defense table and placed his hand on Kelly's shoulder.
"The truth be told, there is no mole ... that means one thing," Adam told jurors, then paused and lowered his voice. "It ain't him. And if it ain't him, you can't convict."
Prosecutors wrapped up their arguments the same way they began them a month ago: by playing the entire graphic sex tape in open court.
The 27-minute film played on a monitor just outside the jury box -- the lights switched off and the blinds pulled across courtroom windows -- as Assistant State's Attorney Robert Heilengoetter read through sections of the indictment.
Both Kelly and the alleged victim, now 23, deny being on the tape. Neither testified at trial. But as the video played Thursday, Heilengoetter told jurors the man on the tape is Kelly and that he controlled the encounter.
At one point in the video, entered into evidence as "People's Exhibit No. 1," the female dances and urinates on the floor -- the man out of view. Back in view, he has sex with her. In one scene near the end of the video, alluded to in one count of the indictment, the man urinates on the female. At another point, the man hands her money.
Kelly sat across the room from jurors at the defense table in a gray pinstripe suit, his hands folded in front of him. As the sex tape played, he appeared tense, keeping his eyes on the monitor, his mouth drawn tight and his brow furrowed.
"The one person who is responsible is sitting right here," Assistant State's Attorney Shauna Boliker said, pointing at Kelly. "What you know now is that this is not a whodunit, but a he-did-it."
Over seven days presenting their case, prosecutors called 22 witnesses, including several childhood friends of the alleged victim and four of her relatives who identified her as the female on the video.
In two days, the Grammy winner's lawyers called 12 witnesses. They included three relatives of the alleged victim who testified they did not recognize her as the female on the tape.
During the trial, Kelly endeavored to make a good impression on jurors, always standing straight and folding his hands in front of him whenever they entered the courtroom.
Jurors, in turn, made a good impression on Judge Vincent Gaughan, who repeatedly praised their attentiveness. All appeared to take careful notes, even when testimony became highly technical.
Friday, 13 June 2008
R Kelly trial: Day Eight
R Kelly.'s former employee testified today (May 27) that she recognised her ex-boss in the sex tape at the center of his child pornography trial.
Lindsey Perryman, Kelly's personal assistant from approximately 2000 to 2007, said that she believed the R&B star was the man who appeared in the graphic 27-minute video.
"The image I saw looked exactly like Mr. Kelly," she said, adding she was "shocked" and "disturbed" by the video, reports the Associated Press.
Perryman also identified the alleged victim in the tape, whom she saw come and go from Kelly's Chicago music studio several times. It is believed that the girl in the video was approximately 13 at the time the sex tape was made.
Additional witnesses identified the alleged victim in the Chicago courthouse today, including Tjada Burnett who said she recognised her friend because of her facial structure, nose and cheekbones.
Kelly faces child pornography charges for allegedly videotaping himself having sex with a minor some time between 1998 and 2000.
If Kelly is found guilty of the charges, he could face up to 15 years in prison.
The Grammy-winning artist is due to release a new album in July.
--By our Los Angeles staff.
Find out more about NME.
Lindsey Perryman, Kelly's personal assistant from approximately 2000 to 2007, said that she believed the R&B star was the man who appeared in the graphic 27-minute video.
"The image I saw looked exactly like Mr. Kelly," she said, adding she was "shocked" and "disturbed" by the video, reports the Associated Press.
Perryman also identified the alleged victim in the tape, whom she saw come and go from Kelly's Chicago music studio several times. It is believed that the girl in the video was approximately 13 at the time the sex tape was made.
Additional witnesses identified the alleged victim in the Chicago courthouse today, including Tjada Burnett who said she recognised her friend because of her facial structure, nose and cheekbones.
Kelly faces child pornography charges for allegedly videotaping himself having sex with a minor some time between 1998 and 2000.
If Kelly is found guilty of the charges, he could face up to 15 years in prison.
The Grammy-winning artist is due to release a new album in July.
--By our Los Angeles staff.
Find out more about NME.
Friday, 6 June 2008
Kitsch in the Balkans
LA La La. Boom Bang-A-Bang. Ding-A-Dong. It's that time again.
The Eurovision song contest, a shameless celebration of pure kitsch with its tacky songs, camp singers and outrageous outfits, will culminate with a glitzy finale in the Serbian capital of Belgrade on May 24. But however trite the lyrics get and however shamelessly Eastern Europeans keep voting for each other, the annual mishmash of power ballads and bubblegum pop shows no sign of flagging.
"The more people knock and criticise it, the bigger Eurovision gets," says John Kennedy O'Connor, author of an official history of the contest.
"It is the biggest one ever this year, with 43 countries compared to just seven in the first one in 1956. It is growing and growing," he said before flying out to Belgrade for Eurovision 2008.
Winning can even do wonders for a state's morale.
Marija Serifovic's victory in 2007 caused an outpouring of national pride in Serbia, more used to rebuffs over its wartime past than to accolades. Serbs took to the streets with flags, tooting horns and chanting her entry, Molitva (Prayer), until the early hours.
Sweden's Abba were Eurovision's most famous winners, Ireland's Johnny Logan won three times -- twice as a singer, once as a composer. Celine Dion won for Switzerland.
Spain triumphed in 1968 with a song using the word "La" 138 times - and now it is ranked as a notorious winner.
A Spanish documentary claimed British singer Cliff Richard was robbed of victory after Spanish dictator Francisco Franco fixed the vote.
The bane of 21st-century Eurovision is tactical voting, but O'Connor insists it is cultural, not political.
"With the Balkans, I genuinely don't think it is political allegiance, as 10 years ago they were trying to wipe each other off the planet," he said.
Eurovision's official king of trivia says "I take it all with a pinch of salt. I enjoy lots of the songs but about half I never want to hear again".
So who'll win in Belgrade?.
He proudly boasted: "I get it right every year . . . This year it is between Ukraine, Russia and Ireland." - REUTERS
The Eurovision song contest, a shameless celebration of pure kitsch with its tacky songs, camp singers and outrageous outfits, will culminate with a glitzy finale in the Serbian capital of Belgrade on May 24. But however trite the lyrics get and however shamelessly Eastern Europeans keep voting for each other, the annual mishmash of power ballads and bubblegum pop shows no sign of flagging.
"The more people knock and criticise it, the bigger Eurovision gets," says John Kennedy O'Connor, author of an official history of the contest.
"It is the biggest one ever this year, with 43 countries compared to just seven in the first one in 1956. It is growing and growing," he said before flying out to Belgrade for Eurovision 2008.
Winning can even do wonders for a state's morale.
Marija Serifovic's victory in 2007 caused an outpouring of national pride in Serbia, more used to rebuffs over its wartime past than to accolades. Serbs took to the streets with flags, tooting horns and chanting her entry, Molitva (Prayer), until the early hours.
Sweden's Abba were Eurovision's most famous winners, Ireland's Johnny Logan won three times -- twice as a singer, once as a composer. Celine Dion won for Switzerland.
Spain triumphed in 1968 with a song using the word "La" 138 times - and now it is ranked as a notorious winner.
A Spanish documentary claimed British singer Cliff Richard was robbed of victory after Spanish dictator Francisco Franco fixed the vote.
The bane of 21st-century Eurovision is tactical voting, but O'Connor insists it is cultural, not political.
"With the Balkans, I genuinely don't think it is political allegiance, as 10 years ago they were trying to wipe each other off the planet," he said.
Eurovision's official king of trivia says "I take it all with a pinch of salt. I enjoy lots of the songs but about half I never want to hear again".
So who'll win in Belgrade?.
He proudly boasted: "I get it right every year . . . This year it is between Ukraine, Russia and Ireland." - REUTERS
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