Country music artists seek more Grammys
NASHVILLE, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Several country music artists have expressed dismay over what they see as a shortfall of Grammy interest in country music.
Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney and Marty Roe from Diamond Rio, along with other Music Row veterans, are disappointed, the Nashville Tennessean reports, in the amount of country-genre music in the televised part of the program and said country music Grammys go too often to alternative or unknown artists.
Despite Diamond Rio's nomination for best country group performance for "I Believe," Roe won't attend Sunday's show.
"Unless our award was presented on TV or we were part of the TV portion, it's kind of a wasted trip for us to go," he said.
In recent years, country music has been represented with only one award and one or two performances as part of the CBS broadcast. This year, Martina McBride will sing her hit "Concrete Angel." Vince Gill will take part in a Beatles tribute.
Cult TV show Tanner 88 goes mainstream
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- The Robert Altman, Gary Trudeau and Michael Murphy collaboration "Tanner '88" is finally making it to mainstream television.
The 11-part mock documentary, made by the director of the just-opened "The Company," "Doonesbury" comic writer Trudeau and actor Murphy, was originally shot during the 1988 election year on the campaign trail, Zap2it reports.
Fake presidential candidate Jack Tanner, played by Murphy, was placed on the same cross-country trail, with cameo appearance from real-life candidates Bob Dole, Gary Hart and Pat Roberson. Episodes aired as they were edited on HBO, without any set slot.
Sundance brought "Turner '88" back to premium cable this week and will run it on Tuesdays through April 13. Freshly shot "Fireside Chats" with the characters played by Murphy, Cynthia Nixon and Pamela Reed recalling the events of the 1988 election, introduce each episode.
Said Altman: "I think it's probably the most creative work that I've done in my whole career."
Deborah Cox to star in B'way's 'Aida'
NEW YORK, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Recording star Deborah Cox will make her Broadway debut in the title role of Elton John and Tim Rice's musical, "Aida," later this month.
Discovered by famed music producer Clive Davis, Cox earned her place in music history when her single "Nobody's Supposed to be Here" went double platinum. With eight No. 1 Billboard Club records during the course of her career, Cox most recently held the top spot on the charts for her remake of Phil Collins' "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven."
Starting Feb. 17, Cox will co-star in "Aida" with Micky Dolenz, Will Chase and Lisa Brescia.
Cox is taking over for Destiny's Child star Michelle T. Williams and is the fourth R&B recording star to play the love-struck Nubian princess, following Williams, Heather Headley and Toni Braxton.
U.N. to allow movie making on site
UNITED NATIONS, N.Y., Feb. 4 (UPI) -- The United Nations in New York has agreed to become a movie set, a reversal of a long-standing policy barring Hollywood.
Shashi Tharoor, U.N. undersecretary-general for public affairs, has agreed to director Sidney Pollack's request to film parts of "The Interpreter" on the premises.
"It is a way of making the United Nations accessible to people who would not ordinarily think of the U.N," he said.
Ever since Alfred Hitchcock sought permission to film scenes of his 1959 "North by Northwest" at the United Nations and was turned down, the organization has refused to let its East Side Manhattan headquarters be used as a movie location.
Pollack's thriller will co-star Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn.
Kidman will play a Kenyan-born translator at the United Nations who becomes a target of assassins after she overhears them plotting to murder an African leader when he addresses the U.N. General Assembly.
Pollack is best known for such films as "Tootsie," "Out of Africa," "Three Days of the Condor," and "The Firm." He plans to start filming at the U.N. later this year.
Director: 'Tuscan Sun' not a 'chick flick'
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Just because its protagonist is a woman doesn't make "Under the Tuscan Sun" a "chick flick," filmmaker Audrey Wells said in California recently.
"This movie deals with somebody recovering from heartbreak and I don't consider that to be uniquely female territory," Wells told reporters.
"I have a lot of male friends and all of them have had to answer similar questions for themselves: Who am I going to be with? Am I going to have a family? How am I going to get myself out of this terrible hole I've fallen into?" she explained.
"Clawing your way back from disaster -- that doesn't just happen to women. So, I think that the subject matter of this film, which looks at what happens between that moment when you want to crawl into a ball and die, and the moment where you are happy to be alive again, I think that's a story men can be interested in, too."
Loosely based on Frances Mayes' best-selling memoirs and starring Diane Lane as a divorced writer making a new life for herself in Italy, "Under the Tuscan Sun" was released on DVD and home video Tuesday.
