We thought all the great vintage music documentaries were accounted for, but Murray Lerner’s look at the Newport Folk Festival in the mid-‘sixties is a terrific time machine to a kindler, gentler musical era. The mix of talent is broad and deep, and we get to see excellent vintage coverage of some real legends, before the hype & marketing plague arrived.
Festival: Folk Music at Newport, 1963-1966
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 892
1967 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 97 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 12, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Donovan, Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, Odetta, Ronnie Gilbert, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Theodore Bikel, Cousin Emmy, Horton Barker, Fiddler Beers, Mimi Fariña, Richard Farina, Mrs. Ollie Gilbert, Fannie Lou Hamer, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, John Koerner, Jim Kweskin, Tex Logan, Mel Lyman, Spokes Mashiyane, Fred McDowell, Brownie McGhee, Pappy Clayton McMichen,...
Festival: Folk Music at Newport, 1963-1966
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 892
1967 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 97 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 12, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Donovan, Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, Odetta, Ronnie Gilbert, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Theodore Bikel, Cousin Emmy, Horton Barker, Fiddler Beers, Mimi Fariña, Richard Farina, Mrs. Ollie Gilbert, Fannie Lou Hamer, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, John Koerner, Jim Kweskin, Tex Logan, Mel Lyman, Spokes Mashiyane, Fred McDowell, Brownie McGhee, Pappy Clayton McMichen,...
- 8/29/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Backstage had some great opportunities this week! Here are some varying auditions and gigs that could be a great fit for all different kinds of Backstage readers. “The Book Of Mormon”Written by “South Park” writers Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and directed by Broadway director Casey Nicholaw (“Aladdin”), this award-winning musical is on a national tour! This Equity gig is seeking future principal replacements, seven total, for the running shows. Auditions are Aug. 5 in NYC. “Peter Paul And Mary Alive”Calling all singers: This musical group is looking for a baritone singer who’s a great guitarist to sing the part of Paul Stookey. Rehearsals take place in the Thousand Oaks/Los Angeles, Calif. area. “Pineapple Express”Student films are good place to get your feet wet if you’re wanting to jump into the film/indie film scene. This Nyu film is casting two leads for an adaptation...
- 7/25/2014
- backstage.com
On September 16, after battling leukemia for many years, 72-year-old Mary Travers succumbed to cancer in Connecticut's Danbury Hospital. Joining singer-songwriters Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey in the early sixties, Travers completed the legendary folk-pop trio Peter, Paul & Mary, a group that had a profound effect on American culture. Though Pp&M achieved five Grammy® Awards, their influence on Baby Boomers went beyond hit albums and singles. They helped mold the opinions of millions, persistently trying to open the minds of everyone who listened to their recordings or saw them perform live. Over the years, "Puff, The Magic Dragon," "Blowin' In The Wind," and "If I Had A Hammer" were required learning for children while their parents belted out the big chorus of "Leaving On A Jet Plane" whenever it played on the radio. Mary Travers was that warm,...
- 9/17/2009
- by Mike Ragogna
- Huffington Post
The music world lost another icon with the passing of Mary Travers of the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary. Travers was 72 and died from complications from leukemia. She had continued to perform with her partners Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow throughout the years, playing to sold-out audiences. To read Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey's comments on the group's official web site click here...
- 9/17/2009
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
The 'Puff the Magic Dragon' singer was 72.
By Gil Kaufman
Peter, Paul And Mary's Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers and Paul Stookey in New York City in the mid 1960s
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/ Getty Images
Mary Travers, one-third of the legendary folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary, died on Wednesday (September 16) in a Connecticut hospital at age 72 after a long battle with leukemia.
With her golden hair and high, clear voice, Travers was the lone female voice in a group whose work helped popularize the folk-music scene of the early 1960s, singing on such landmark songs as "If I Had a Hammer," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Puff (the Magic Dragon)."
According to the group's official Web site, Travers had successfully recovered from leukemia following a bone marrow transplant and succumbed to the side effects of one of her chemotherapy treatments.
"In her final months,...
By Gil Kaufman
Peter, Paul And Mary's Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers and Paul Stookey in New York City in the mid 1960s
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/ Getty Images
Mary Travers, one-third of the legendary folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary, died on Wednesday (September 16) in a Connecticut hospital at age 72 after a long battle with leukemia.
With her golden hair and high, clear voice, Travers was the lone female voice in a group whose work helped popularize the folk-music scene of the early 1960s, singing on such landmark songs as "If I Had a Hammer," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Puff (the Magic Dragon)."
According to the group's official Web site, Travers had successfully recovered from leukemia following a bone marrow transplant and succumbed to the side effects of one of her chemotherapy treatments.
"In her final months,...
- 9/17/2009
- MTV Music News
New York - Mary Travers - a Us folk-singing icon who was part of the famed 1960s trio Peter, Paul and Mary - has died at the age of 72 from leukaemia. She died Wednesday night in a hospital in the eastern Us state of Connecticut, her spokeswoman Heather Lylis told The New York Times. Peter, Paul and Mary was famous for such hits as If I Had a Hammer; Blowin' in the Wind; Puff, The Magic Dragon; I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane; and Lemon Tree. But Travers, Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey also were known for their political activism, which was based on strong opposition to the Vietnam War and support for the...
- 9/17/2009
- Monsters and Critics
By Wrap Staff
It’s now just Peter and Paul. Mary Travers, one-third of the popular folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died of leukemia at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday, her publicist Heather Lylis said. She was 72. With Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, Travers was at the forefront of the folk movement in the ‘60s, as well as at the forefront of that era's civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements. They were the first in the mainstream to discover Bo...
It’s now just Peter and Paul. Mary Travers, one-third of the popular folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died of leukemia at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday, her publicist Heather Lylis said. She was 72. With Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, Travers was at the forefront of the folk movement in the ‘60s, as well as at the forefront of that era's civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements. They were the first in the mainstream to discover Bo...
- 9/17/2009
- by Lew Harris
- The Wrap
By Wrap Staff
It’s now just Peter and Paul. Mary Travers, one-third of the popular folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died of leukemia at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday, her publicist Heather Lylis said. She was 72. With Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, Travers was at the forefront of the folk movement in the ‘60s, as well as at the forefront of that era's civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements. They were the first in the mainstream to discover Bo...
It’s now just Peter and Paul. Mary Travers, one-third of the popular folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died of leukemia at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday, her publicist Heather Lylis said. She was 72. With Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, Travers was at the forefront of the folk movement in the ‘60s, as well as at the forefront of that era's civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements. They were the first in the mainstream to discover Bo...
- 9/17/2009
- by Lew Harris
- The Wrap
That soaring voice, one of the most powerful of the 1960s, has been silenced. Folk music icon Mary Travers died today of leukemia at age 72, according to her publicist. As part of Peter, Paul & Mary, the singer had a string of hits during the folk-music boom of the 1960s, including "If I Had a Hammer," "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Puff (The Magic Dragon)." Political as well as popular, Travers and her musical cohorts Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey performed at the 1963 March on Washington in support of the civil rights movement, traveled through Alabama with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and protested against the Vietnam war. The trio disbanded in 1971, but...
- 9/17/2009
- E! Online
The Matrix star Laurence Fishburne is set to bring best-selling book The Alchemist to the big screen - directing and starring in a new Hollywood adaptation.
Fishburne has teamed up with movie mogul Harvey Weinstein to get the $60 million (GBP30 million) project into production.
The tome, by Paul Coehlo, which has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 67 languages, focuses on the story of a shepherd boy who travels across the Egyptian desert in search of treasure, but meets an alchemist who teaches him the meaning of life.
And Weinstein believes the movie's themes could help heal rifts between the Western world and the Middle East.
Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival, he says, "It is a book I have been truly inspired by and I have agreed to personally produce it. The Alchemist is simple and spiritual, and the screenplay will reflect that. The book means so much to people on a spiritual level yet there is also a great love story in it. It is an incredibly moving, emotional story.
"I think this story will act as a bridge to the Middle East. In the Middle East, the book has been an overwhelming success. That is a world that we need to know more about an extend a bridge to. This movie could be a healer in that region, bringing the West and the East together, especially the Middle East."
Fishburne is set to play the alchemist of the title, and Weinstein is keen to cast Penelope Cruz in his latest project: "One way or another I'm finding a part for Penelope Cruz."...
Fishburne has teamed up with movie mogul Harvey Weinstein to get the $60 million (GBP30 million) project into production.
The tome, by Paul Coehlo, which has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 67 languages, focuses on the story of a shepherd boy who travels across the Egyptian desert in search of treasure, but meets an alchemist who teaches him the meaning of life.
And Weinstein believes the movie's themes could help heal rifts between the Western world and the Middle East.
Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival, he says, "It is a book I have been truly inspired by and I have agreed to personally produce it. The Alchemist is simple and spiritual, and the screenplay will reflect that. The book means so much to people on a spiritual level yet there is also a great love story in it. It is an incredibly moving, emotional story.
"I think this story will act as a bridge to the Middle East. In the Middle East, the book has been an overwhelming success. That is a world that we need to know more about an extend a bridge to. This movie could be a healer in that region, bringing the West and the East together, especially the Middle East."
Fishburne is set to play the alchemist of the title, and Weinstein is keen to cast Penelope Cruz in his latest project: "One way or another I'm finding a part for Penelope Cruz."...
- 5/19/2008
- WENN
Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- Battle in Seattle is a dramatic freeze-frame of five days in 1999 when tens of thousands of activists took to the streets of Seattle and virtually shut down a meeting of the World Trade Organization in protest of globalization and environmental damage by multinational conglomerates and powerful governments. The film is something of a rarity for an American political film. While it makes no bones about where its sympathies lie, these fictional stories show a genuine fascination with the role politics plays on both sides of such confrontations and how things can spin out of control with no single person to blame.
Naturally, the film was made by a foreigner, Irish actor Stuart Townsend, who makes a remarkably confident writing and directorial debut. Political movies are always iffy at the boxoffice, but the time may be ripe this film: Mainstream concern over these issues today has caught up with the 1999 protest. And the weave of multiple storylines with an ensemble cast, not unlike Bobby or Crash, gives the film an immediacy that could attract concerned adult audiences.
Indeed the Hollywood shorthand for Battle in Seattle could be Bobby meets Medium Cool. Townsend and his team smoothly integrate archival news footage into stories of protestors, police, government officials, innocent bystanders and news people who experience five rough days in the final moments of the millennium.
First the activists come into focus. An amusing and prophetic opening sequence introduces one leader, Jay (Martin Henderson), as he rescues attractive tough girl Lou (Michelle Rodriguez), as the two dangle perilously from a crane to hang an anti-WTO sign. Soon everyone will be performing a high-wire act.
Jay and his good friend Django (Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 from Outkast) have spent months preparing for this conference to insure the protest is peaceful and successful in shutting down the conference.
Mayor Jim Tobin (Ray Liotta) -- a fictional stand-in for Paul Schell who was mayor at the time -- is equally concerned with the first goal. A former Vietnam protestor himself, Tobin wants to give a legitimate arena to free speech so long as no one gets hurt. But his police chief is wary.
Among the police on duty, Dale (Woody Harrelson) is preoccupied with the pregnancy of wife Ella (Charlize Theron). He barely notices the rah-rah bloodlust of fellow cops such as the hardhead Johnson (Channing Tatum).
On Day One, organizers outsmart Seattle's containment plan. Protestors, some dressed as endangered animals, jammed key intersections downtown, trapping delegates in hotel rooms and causing the cancellation of opening ceremonies. Then anarchists take over, destroying property and hijacking the protest from its peaceful organizers.
On the second day, calls from the police chief, White House and an impatient governor overrule the mayor's best judgment. Police in riot gear respond to crowds with tear gas, pepper spray and brutal tactics. Later, the National Guard is called in, forcing news reporter Jean Asbury (Connie Nielsen) to switch from covering key issues such as delegate Dr. Maric's (Rade Sherbedzija) campaign for low-cost medicine in developing countries to covering what is essentially a police riot.
This is not the film's only terrible irony. The most horrific moment comes this second day when Ella gets caught in the riot and one of her husband's fellow officers throws a contemptuous baton into her stomach, causing a bloody miscarriage. This triggers a fierce reaction by Dale the next day against a taunting protestor, who is Jay.
Hundreds swept from the streets wind up in jail, creating a dilemma for the mayor, who understands that worldwide news coverage and the sheer impossibility of sending each and every case to court have tied his hands. There is no way to save face.
The personal stories -- Jay and Lou's romance that falters on the barricades, Dale and Ella's tragedy, the mayor's predicament and Jay's own dicey legal status when he lands in jail -- are caught only in snatches and suffer from occasional contrivances. Yet they do humanize the conflict and raise the stakes all around. The film may not have the knockout energy of Paul Greengrass' docudrama Bloody Sunday, but it doesn't have the superficiality of Bobby either.
Townsend has a good grasp of what happened in Seattle and how to convey these events in personal stories. He catches people under enormous stress that brings out the best and sometime the worst in them. Tempers flare, belligerence rules and physical and emotional pain ensues.
The 1999 issues on display have not gone away. If anything, things are much worse. Another Seattle may not happen because governments have learned how to better prepare. But public anger, corporate greed and worldwide unrest continue unabated. Battle in Seattle catches the opening skirmish.
BATTLE IN SEATTLE
A Hyde Park Films presentation of an Insight Studios/Remstar production in association with Proud Mary Entertainment and Redwood Palm Pictures
Credits:
Writer/director: Stuart Townsend
Producers: Mary Aloe, Kirk Shaw, Maxime Remillard, Stuart Townsend
Executive producers: Julien Remillard, Ashok Amritraj, Vanessa Pereira
Director of photography: Barry Ackroyd
Production designer: Chris August
Costume designer: Andrea Des Roches
Music: One Point Six
Editor: Fernando Villena
Cast:
Ella: Charlize Theron
Dale: Woody Harrelson
Mayor Jim Tobin: Ray Liotta
Jay: Martin Henderson
Lou: Michelle Rodriguez
Dr. Maric: Rade Sherbedzija
Django: Andre Benjamin
Jean: Connie Nielsen
Abasi: Isaach de Bankole
Johnson: Channing Tatum
Running time -- 98 minutes
No MPAA rating...
TORONTO -- Battle in Seattle is a dramatic freeze-frame of five days in 1999 when tens of thousands of activists took to the streets of Seattle and virtually shut down a meeting of the World Trade Organization in protest of globalization and environmental damage by multinational conglomerates and powerful governments. The film is something of a rarity for an American political film. While it makes no bones about where its sympathies lie, these fictional stories show a genuine fascination with the role politics plays on both sides of such confrontations and how things can spin out of control with no single person to blame.
Naturally, the film was made by a foreigner, Irish actor Stuart Townsend, who makes a remarkably confident writing and directorial debut. Political movies are always iffy at the boxoffice, but the time may be ripe this film: Mainstream concern over these issues today has caught up with the 1999 protest. And the weave of multiple storylines with an ensemble cast, not unlike Bobby or Crash, gives the film an immediacy that could attract concerned adult audiences.
Indeed the Hollywood shorthand for Battle in Seattle could be Bobby meets Medium Cool. Townsend and his team smoothly integrate archival news footage into stories of protestors, police, government officials, innocent bystanders and news people who experience five rough days in the final moments of the millennium.
First the activists come into focus. An amusing and prophetic opening sequence introduces one leader, Jay (Martin Henderson), as he rescues attractive tough girl Lou (Michelle Rodriguez), as the two dangle perilously from a crane to hang an anti-WTO sign. Soon everyone will be performing a high-wire act.
Jay and his good friend Django (Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 from Outkast) have spent months preparing for this conference to insure the protest is peaceful and successful in shutting down the conference.
Mayor Jim Tobin (Ray Liotta) -- a fictional stand-in for Paul Schell who was mayor at the time -- is equally concerned with the first goal. A former Vietnam protestor himself, Tobin wants to give a legitimate arena to free speech so long as no one gets hurt. But his police chief is wary.
Among the police on duty, Dale (Woody Harrelson) is preoccupied with the pregnancy of wife Ella (Charlize Theron). He barely notices the rah-rah bloodlust of fellow cops such as the hardhead Johnson (Channing Tatum).
On Day One, organizers outsmart Seattle's containment plan. Protestors, some dressed as endangered animals, jammed key intersections downtown, trapping delegates in hotel rooms and causing the cancellation of opening ceremonies. Then anarchists take over, destroying property and hijacking the protest from its peaceful organizers.
On the second day, calls from the police chief, White House and an impatient governor overrule the mayor's best judgment. Police in riot gear respond to crowds with tear gas, pepper spray and brutal tactics. Later, the National Guard is called in, forcing news reporter Jean Asbury (Connie Nielsen) to switch from covering key issues such as delegate Dr. Maric's (Rade Sherbedzija) campaign for low-cost medicine in developing countries to covering what is essentially a police riot.
This is not the film's only terrible irony. The most horrific moment comes this second day when Ella gets caught in the riot and one of her husband's fellow officers throws a contemptuous baton into her stomach, causing a bloody miscarriage. This triggers a fierce reaction by Dale the next day against a taunting protestor, who is Jay.
Hundreds swept from the streets wind up in jail, creating a dilemma for the mayor, who understands that worldwide news coverage and the sheer impossibility of sending each and every case to court have tied his hands. There is no way to save face.
The personal stories -- Jay and Lou's romance that falters on the barricades, Dale and Ella's tragedy, the mayor's predicament and Jay's own dicey legal status when he lands in jail -- are caught only in snatches and suffer from occasional contrivances. Yet they do humanize the conflict and raise the stakes all around. The film may not have the knockout energy of Paul Greengrass' docudrama Bloody Sunday, but it doesn't have the superficiality of Bobby either.
Townsend has a good grasp of what happened in Seattle and how to convey these events in personal stories. He catches people under enormous stress that brings out the best and sometime the worst in them. Tempers flare, belligerence rules and physical and emotional pain ensues.
The 1999 issues on display have not gone away. If anything, things are much worse. Another Seattle may not happen because governments have learned how to better prepare. But public anger, corporate greed and worldwide unrest continue unabated. Battle in Seattle catches the opening skirmish.
BATTLE IN SEATTLE
A Hyde Park Films presentation of an Insight Studios/Remstar production in association with Proud Mary Entertainment and Redwood Palm Pictures
Credits:
Writer/director: Stuart Townsend
Producers: Mary Aloe, Kirk Shaw, Maxime Remillard, Stuart Townsend
Executive producers: Julien Remillard, Ashok Amritraj, Vanessa Pereira
Director of photography: Barry Ackroyd
Production designer: Chris August
Costume designer: Andrea Des Roches
Music: One Point Six
Editor: Fernando Villena
Cast:
Ella: Charlize Theron
Dale: Woody Harrelson
Mayor Jim Tobin: Ray Liotta
Jay: Martin Henderson
Lou: Michelle Rodriguez
Dr. Maric: Rade Sherbedzija
Django: Andre Benjamin
Jean: Connie Nielsen
Abasi: Isaach de Bankole
Johnson: Channing Tatum
Running time -- 98 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 9/14/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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