Digest 0, originally sent Sat Jun 12 04:08:00 1999 : There are 6 messages in this issue. Topics in today's digest: 1. Welcome to XMR From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx 2. Media: The Press (Christchurch) (June 1, 1999) From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx 3. Media: PR Newswire (June 1, 1999, Tuesday) From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx 4. Media: TEXAS MONTHLY (June, 1999) From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx 5. Media: The Times-Picayune (June 1, 1999 Tuesday) From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx 6. Media: Variety (May 31, 1999 - June 6, 1999) From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 08:16:22 pst From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Welcome to XMR I am about to start distribution on the new and improved Xena Media Review. I am still working on the website (http://whoosh/org/xmr) but I have already started processing the news reports. If you want to unsub from this mailing list, please go to http://www.onelist.com and do so, immediately. If you have any questions, just write me at ktaborn@lightspeed.net Thanks! Kym Taborn Editor Xena Media Review _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 09:31:03 pst From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Media: The Press (Christchurch) (June 1, 1999) Media: The Press (Christchurch) (June 1, 1999) Location: 44 Length: 158 Headline: A man who loves Spyders Byline: ? Graphic: Caption: John Glass Commentary: Short article on John Glass, who played Joseph, husband of Mary, on XWP's A SOLSTICE CAROL. He was the guy who took the donkey Tobias off Gabrielle's hands. Article: Comedian John Glass, a co- host of Sun Direct Car Crazy (at 7.30pm on TV3) has a soft spot for four-wheel-drive vehicles but says he has "a very bumpy relationship" with his own. "It's definitely not my dream car," he says. "I got it because, when I turned the key, it started." His real dream car is the Alpha Romeo Spyder - which he discovered during an early episode of the new show - but he knows it is beyond his bank account. Working with real cars and real people on Car Crazy is a bit different from other TV work. He played Joseph in a special Christmas episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, and had to lead a donkey carrying Mary into the sunset. At first, the donkey kept doing one thing while Glass tried to persuade it to do another. During one of 12 takes, the donkey shoved him into a hedge. But he eventually built up a special relationship with that donkey. _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 3 Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 09:32:56 pst From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Media: PR Newswire (June 1, 1999, Tuesday) Media: PR Newswire (June 1, 1999, Tuesday) Location: Distribution - Entertainment and television editors Length: 905 Headline: Renaissance Pictures, Studios USA Team Up for 'Back 2 Back Action'; Series to Replace 'Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,' With Final Eight Episodes of that Show Slated for 1999-2000 Season; Big Series Finale to Air in November Byline: none Commentary: A press release issued by Studios USA about Renaissance Pictures new productions JACk OF ALL TRADES and CLEOPATRA 2525. Of interest is the conceptual background behind the "Back 2 Back Action" hour which will consist of two half-hour action shows. Action shows are traditionally an hour long. Article: Studios USA will team with acclaimed action producers Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi's Renaissance Pictures for the "Back 2 Back Action" hour, a weekly series debuting in January 2000 that will consist of the action-adventure shows "Jack of All Trades" and "Cleopatra 2525." The announcement was made today by Steve Rosenberg, president, Studios USA Domestic Television. (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990519/STUDIOSUSA ) The "Back 2 Back Action" hour will replace Tapert and Raimi's "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys," which will wrap up its spectacular five-and-a-half season run during the 1999-2000 season with eight new episodes. A big "Hercules" finale is scheduled to air the week of Nov. 15, with reruns continuing until the debut of Back 2 Back Action the week of Jan. 17, 2000. "With these two new 30-minute series, both rolled into a themed "Back 2 Back Action" block, Renaissance will break new ground by producing the only half-hour action-adventure shows on television," Rosenberg said. "The faster-paced stories and action will set them apart from the typical hour fare found on networks. And we believe no one is better qualified to reestablish the 30-minute action-adventure format as a TV staple than Rob and Sam, the team that pioneered the modern-day fantasy action-adventure genre in 1995 with the top-rated hits "Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess." "We have the same level of confidence in "Back 2 Back Action" as we had in "Xena" when it replaced the "Hercules" companion series "Vanishing Son." At the time of its cancellation, "Vanishing Son" was averaging a 4.2 rating, which today would qualify it as one of the top first-run hours in syndication. But we believed in "Xena" and the abilities of Rob and Sam, and were rewarded with a runaway hit. We believe history will repeat itself." Commenting on "Hercules," Rosenberg said, "'Hercules' has been an outstanding performer for us since it debuted as a weekly series in January 1995 after five 2-hour movies. It is the No. 2 action hour in syndication now behind "Xena" and we want it to go out on top. We wish star Kevin Sorbo and the rest of that very talented cast all the best in their future endeavors. It's been a great run." Added Tapert, "The 'Back 2 Back Action' hour will transport viewers to some very exciting times and places. It will be every bit as dynamic and groundbreaking as "Hercules" and "Xena," with the same broad action, strong drama, humor and sex appeal that has attracted both men and women to those shows. While "Hercules" has been a labor of love and we will certainly miss working with Kevin, Michael Hurst and the rest of the terrific cast, the time is right to move ahead with a new project that will allow us to explore many different creative avenues." "Jack of All Trades," created by Eric Morris ("The Pretender," "Spy Game," "Sliders," "The Outer Limits"), is a swashbuckling action series set on a Caribbean island in the 18th century, where the air is warm, the wine is strong and the fight for the New World is at hand. It revolves around an aristocratic "James Bond"-like spy in the British Secret Service named Jack Styles. But instead of 1999 it is 1699. He is aided by Emilia, a highly successful working class agent posing as the daughter of a long lost cousin of Governor Don Carlos. While their mutual goal is to serve the Crown, they each have polar opposite ways of accomplishing their objectives while getting tripped up in some very embarrassing and compromising situations. In "Cleopatra 2525," created by "Xena" co-executive producers Tapert and R.J. Stewart, an aspiring actress who moonlights as an exotic dancer in the year 2001 is cryogenically frozen. She is accidentally awoken and de-thawed in the year 2525 by two female warriors who lead her into a world taken over by evil robots. Worse yet, men are in short supply. Technologically, the world has evolved, but in every other respect it has devolved as the robots have driven humanity to endless floors and corridors beneath the Earth's surface. As the three tough, beautiful women fight to reclaim the scenic and wild surface of the planet, they encounter other cultures existing on various floors underground. While the two warriors, Cara and Sarge, educate Cleopatra in the ways of war, she likewise introduces them to the customs she left behind. Casting for both shows will get underway in the coming weeks. Famous for their imaginative style, Tapert and Raimi have earned widespread critical acclaim for the spectacular action, strong dramatic stories, cutting-edge special effects and tongue-in-cheek humor featured in their productions. The producer-directors have collaborated on the hit horror cult films "The Evil Dead," "The Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn," "Darkman" and "Army of Darkness." Among their other projects have been the action features "Hard Target" and "Timecop," two direct-to-video "Darkman" specials, the Sharon Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio theatrical action film "The Quick and the Dead," CBS' "American Gothic" and Fox's "Young Hercules." Studios USA, a USA company (Nasdaq: USAI), consists of first-run production and distribution, television movie and miniseries development and production, and network development and production. SOURCE Studios USA Domestic Television CONTACT: Jim Benson of Studios USA Domestic Television, 310-360-2506 _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 4 Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 09:33:47 pst From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Media: TEXAS MONTHLY (June, 1999) Media: TEXAS MONTHLY (June, 1999) Location: 98 Length: 1900 Headline: For eight years, fans of Twin Peaks -- led by two Arlington pals -- have been trying to keep the cult TV show alive. At least in spirit. Byline: Pamela Coff Graphic: Pictures 1 through 3, Soap springs eternal: A new Wrapped hits the stands in June. Commentary: Craig Miller and John Thorne publish and edit SPECULUM, an ecletic fanzine which was one of the first printed media to cover XWP in any depth. This article is about their interests in TWIN PEAKS and how this lead to SPECULUM. Xena is mentioned in passing when SPECULUM is briefly mentioned. This gives a good back ground on the influence fans can have. Article: EVERYONE'S STILL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT what the white horse means," Craig Miller explains. We are sitting in his makeshift office in Arlington: a gray, wall-to-wall carpeted, nearly windowless room filled with Maxfield Parrish art books, dog-eared X-Men comics, and pop culture ephemera -- a self-made oasis in the midst of the interchangeable prefab homes of the Mid-Cities. This is where Miller, 39, and John Thorne, 35, produce Wrapped in Plastic, a bimonthly fanzine about director David Lynch's short-lived television series Twin Peaks, and where we sit watching a pivotal scene in episode fifteen. The central mystery of the series -- Who killed homecoming queen Laura Palmer? -- has just been solved, and a white horse momentarily flickers across the television screen before fading away. "Everyone wants us to ask Lynch about the white horse," says Miller, who has unruly red hair and on this day is wearing (what else?) a Twin Peaks T-shirt. "It's kind of nonsensical, unanswerable. But new readers send us letters saying, 'Please explain the white horse to me. I'm dying to know.'" Episode fifteen first aired a good nine years ago, which makes it somewhat curious, if not downright strange, that Miller and Thorne are still consumed by such trivia. But they are hardly alone in their fanaticism about Twin Peaks, a surreal nighttime soap opera about the peculiar goings-on in a fictional Northwestern town of the same name. Though the series lasted for less than two full seasons on ABC before being canceled in 1991, Wrapped in Plastic has a devoted readership that spans the globe. Its print run of 3,500 regularly sells out at bookstores and comic shops, and back-issue requests come in fast and furious. (Miller and Thorne have started a spin-off zine. Spectrum, that covers current cult TV shows like The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Xena: Warrior Princess, but its readership only sometimes eclipses Wrapped in Plastic's.) Letters from Twin Peaks-crazed readers pour into Arlington from such exotic places as Jerusalem, Singapore, and South Africa, and Miller has been awakened more than once by a phone call from a reader in a far-flung time zone. Wrapped in Plastic is by no means the only publication of its kind; there are dozens of fanzines that dissect the finer points of shows with cult followings, from Star Trek to The Prisoner. But it is certainly one of the most widely read and best written. It is also one of the most esoteric. References to Kierkegaard and Carl Jung are strewn throughout essays with titles like "The Nine Billion Names of Windom Earle: The Hidden Ciphers of Twin Peaks," which finds meaning in the anagrams generated by the monikers of season two's crafty villain and other regulars. Such an obsessive examination of the series has given Miller and Thorne a kind of underground cachet; they are often asked to speak at the annual Twin Peaks conference and are footnoted in Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks (Wayne State University Press) alongside the likes of Umberto Eco and Sigmund Freud. Despite such recognition, though, they have no illusions that their venture might someday turn a profit, or that they might achieve some measure of mainstream fame. This is a labor of love, in which cheap paper stock and obscurity are accepted facts of life. The reward is one that only die-hard fans could savor: The assurances that others out there share the same preoccupation. Why does anyone still care about a show whose high point was a fifteen-minute dream sequence that featured a dancing lounge-lizard dwarf who spoke backward? For Miller and Thorne, at least, Twin Peaks broadened the possibilities of what television could be. "Twin Peaks is not a failed television experiment in weirdness," they wrote in an early issue of Wrapped in Plastic. "It is a successful example of the incredible quality that is possible -- though rarely accomplished -- in the ridiculed medium of television." Indeed, with its film noir-style visuals, complex plot lines, dozens of well-developed characters, quirky dialogue, and mesmerizing original score (by the great Angelo Badalamenti), Twin Peaks was brilliant and wholly original. But the series, which garnered comparisons to the films of Jean Cocteau and Luis Bunuel, was always a bit too avantgarde for prime time and seemed doomed for cancellation from the very beginning. Not that Miller and Thorne are willing to put it behind them. Twin Peaks was challenging and different, and its ambiguity made it so distinct," says Thorne, a former technical writer for Texas Instruments who has short brown hair and wirerimmed glasses. "It wasn't spoon-fed entertainment. Now people can't get enough of shows like When Pets Go Bad." The idea for Wrapped in Plastic was hatched by Miller and Thorne at the Dallas Fantasy Fair in 1991. ABC had just canceled Twin Peaks, which had been logging miserable ratings in its Saturday night time slot, and both men were upset. Thorne was speaking on a Twin Peaks panel, for which he had plotted a meticulous chart of the characters' relationships as well as a calendar of everything that had ever happened on the series. "I knew that Laura Palmer died on Friday, February 24, 1989," Thorne says, "and that every episode took place on a day following her murder" -- the second episode the next day, the third the day after that, and so on. "They never say it's Saturday in the second episode, but the kids aren't in school. And they never say it's Sunday in the third episode, but they're in church. The internal consistency!" Alas, the consistency finally gave out. "Late in the second season," he continues, "the calendar was slightly off. The Miss Twin Peaks Contest should have fallen on Easter Sunday." When Thorne presented these and other findings at the Fantasy Fair, Miller sat in the audience rapt. He was impressed that someone else had such a thorough knowledge of the show. After-ward he approached Thorne and asked whether he would be interested in collaborating on a Twin Peaks fanzine, and Thorne said yes. It proved to be a good partnership. As a cartoonist who had majored in art at the University of Texas at Arlington, Miller had an eye for design, and he had learned the rudimentary skills of desktop publishing while putting out catalogs for his then-employer, Lone Star Comics. Thorne brought his own particular fetish for details to the table along with an academic sensibility; he holds a master's degree in television production from Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, where he wrote his thesis on narrative theory in the TV series Homicide. Not long after they joined forces, they settled on the name Wrapped in Plastic, a reference to Twin Peaks' most enduring image: the lifeless, blue-lipped body of Laura Palmer, which was found bundled in a tarp by the side of a lake. ("She's dead," announces a fisherman who stumbles across her body in the first episode. "Wrapped in plastic.") The debut issue -- 24 pages, with a simple design -- was priced at $2.95, and it arrived in comic shops in October 1992. It began with the exhortation: "Think of it as a nationwide living room where we're all hanging out talking about the television series." Though it bore the noncommittal "published occasionally" on its cover, orders from distributors and letters from readers quickly convinced Miller and Thorne that they had hit upon something. "At the time," Miller says, "we weren't sure we'd get past issue two or three, much less forty." What they had hit upon was a thriving Twin Peaks subculture, whose denizens still flock every August to Snoqualmie, Washington -- where the series was shot -- for three days of cherry pie eating, coffee drinking, and schmoozing with actors who once played such peripheral characters as the Log Lady and the One-Armed Man. Of course, such obsessiveness was in vogue when the series was still on the air: A Los Angeles supermarket sold out of cherry pies on the day that the second season's premiere aired; the Gray Line regularly ran Twin Peaks bus tours out of Seattle; and the New York Times reported that on Halloween 1990, "a thousand Audrey Hornes sashayed in pleated plaid skirts, tight sweaters, and saddle shoes, as multiple Agent Coopers, hair plastered down with Stiff Stuff, gripped their coffee mugs and dead-panned in Peak-speak" (Audrey was a femme fatale who was a schoolmate of Laura Palmer's; Cooper was the FBI man who investigated her death and came to appreciate the town's "damn fine coffee"). But even Miller and Thorne have been surprised by the extent to which the subculture is still intact years later. In response, they have published evermore-exhaustive examinations of the series -- from essays such as "Moving Through Time: The Twin Peaks Cycle," about the circular imagery in the show ("Even the doughnuts so beloved to Agent Cooper . . . can be seen as parodic rings"), to an episode guide for Invitation to Love, the soap that Twin Peaks characters watch religiously. There are also updates on the current projects of Twin Peaks actors (among them, the then-unknown David Duchovny) and spirited discussions of Lynch's work ("David Lynch as Vengeful Auteur"). But Miller and Thorne draw the line at interviewing the show's creator. "David Lynch's nightmare, his image of hell, is probably being trapped in a room with Twin Peaks fanatics," Miller emphasizes. "We're not going to get into the minutiae of plot details with him. We're not going to ask him, What does the white horse mean?' Besides, if we interviewed Lynch, what would we do next?" What Lynch is doing next, however, greatly excites Twin Peaks fans -- even if they're not getting exactly what they want. "Ever since they brought Star Trek back, there's been hope that Twin Peaks might get a second chance too," says Thorne. "But it's extreme fan naivete. It's not going to come back. It's a pipe dream." Still, Lynch himself is expected to return to prime-time TV this fall with Mulholland Drive, a two-hour pilot for a drama set in Los Angeles and starring, among others, Academy award-nominated tough guy Robert Forster, stage actress Ann Miller, and achy-breaky country singer Billy Ray Cyrus as a pool boy with bedroom eyes. Though little else is known about the series, ABC has described it as "vintage David Lynch, very much reminiscent of Twin Peaks." Understandably, Miller and Thorne can't wait for the series to air, though they will continue to write about the one that first intrigued them nearly a decade ago. The forty-first issue of Wrapped in Plastic, which is currently in production, will feature a comparison of Lynch to another director, Peter Weir. "We'll stop publishing the magazine when we run out of ideas," says Miller. "We'll give it up when we're reduced to publishing the kinds of stories that the Star Trek 'zines were publishing before the sequel series came out -- feature stories like 'I Took Out Gene Roddenberry's Trash.'" Thorne nods in agreement. "Our friends' reactions are, 'You're still doing that? What could you possibly have left to say?'" he says. "To them, it's just a television show." _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 5 Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 09:34:25 pst From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Media: The Times-Picayune (June 1, 1999 Tuesday) Media: The Times-Picayune (June 1, 1999 Tuesday) Location: C2 Length: 266 Headline: NAME THAT MILLENNIUM BABY XENA OR PUFFY OR QUENTIN Byline: Cox News Service Commentary: Baby names book includes Xena in the title and mentions the name in passing. Article: You know you've thumbed through one of those dogeared, pink paperbacks searching for your moniker's derivation and deep meaning. Jennifer: Celtic, "white wave." But a new baby-name book has been born, this one lime green and with an attitude: "Puffy, Xena, Quentin, Uma and 10,000 Other Names for Your New Millennium Baby." Jennifer's out. So's Kimberly, Ashley, Matthew and Robert. Also passe: Otherwise sane names spelled weird "that will create a lifetime of headaches for the DMV." Jaeyne and Mychell, for instance. The tots of tomorrow, just to name a few, are Jabot, Ide and Quon. Baize, Ingo and Zafion. The first three are in the girls section, but we sense a unisex trend. Written by Joal (dad John + mom Alice) Ryan and in stores June 7, "Puffy, Xena" is more than a bland roster. It's also a commentary. Ryan divides names into, among other categories, "Pocket T's" -- durable classics: Paige, Vanessa, Eric, James. "Peanut-Butter-and-Jelly Sandwiches" -- easily digestible: Jill, Karen, Alan, Keith. "Trendy Suspenders" -- flashes in the pan: Gwyneth, Whitney, Frasier, Garth. "So it's come to this, has it?" writes Ryan, 32. "You, with the living room full of cheap Swedish furniture, a decade-old college debt and an expansive video-game collection. You, friend, have just had your ticket to Grown-Up Land punched. So, what are you gonna name the kid?" The author stresses that "everyone's got an opinion on what's good, bad and why. "In the end," she says, "there are no rights and wrongs. Just degrees of therapy bills." Sure hope little Puffy has insurance. _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 6 Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 09:39:27 pst From: ktaborn@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Media: Variety (May 31, 1999 - June 6, 1999) Media: Variety (May 31, 1999 - June 6, 1999) Location: Pg. 36 Length: 277 words Headline: I'LL MAKE YOU HAPPY Byline: David Stratton Commentary: XWP vets Jodie Rimmer (Seraphim & YOUNG HERCULES), Ian Hughes (various), Michael Hurst (Iolaus), Jennifer Ward-Lealand (Boadica), and Lucy Lawless (Xena), all appear in a film called CAPER COMEDY. Here is a review. Article: (CAPER COMEDY -- NEW ZEALAND) An Ample Films production, in association with the New Zealand Film Commission, with the assistance of the South Australian Film Corp. (International sales: New Zealand Film Commission, Wellington.) Produced by Liz Stevens. Directed by Athina Tsoulis. Screenplay, Anne Tsoulis, Athina Tsoulis, based on an original story by Anne Tsoulis. Camera (Atlab color), Rewa Harre; editor, Chris Plummer; music, Michael Lawry, Shayne O'Neill; production designer, Simonde Norden. Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (market), May 17, 1999. Running time: 92 MIN. With: Jodie Rimmer, Carl Bland, Ian Hughes, Michael Hurst, Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Rena Owen, Sandy Ireland, Raybon Kan, Lucy Lawless. Sisters Anne and Athina Tsoulis scripted, and latter directed, this breezy comedy about sex workers who decide to rip off their sleazy pimp. Though international theatrical prospects are slim, there are bouncy possibilities for ancillary markets, where this chirpy outing should keep couch potatoes happy. Jodie Rimmer is sweet as a teenage prostitute who shares an apartment with an older man (Carl Bland) who is both hypochondriac and agoraphobic. She overhears her boss (Michael Hurst) plotting a drug deal, and enlists the help of various friends and fellow prosties to steal the loot. The caper involves a funny sequence in which a dominatrix (Sandy Ireland) "entertains" a police officer while his uniform is being used elsewhere. Pic is modestly packaged and the basic plot terribly familiar, but Rimmer is an attractive heroine and director Tsoulis keeps the action bubbling along cheerfully enough, backed by some lively music. _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________