A baffling career move

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), May 9, 2002

NEW YORK (AP) -- Lauryn Hill was on top of the music world with her last album. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill wowed critics, sold 6 million copies, earned five Grammys and influenced an entire school of new soul singers.

Wait till you hear what she's done next. On her new album, Hill dramatically changes her style, intersperses songs with sermons and doesn't hide a raspy voice. It instantly becomes one of the most baffling career moves in music history. The music industry is closely watching to see whether fans view MTV Unplugged 2.0 as brave or crazy, and whether it torpedoes a promising career.

When released four years ago, the solo debut by the former member of the rap trio the Fugees was praised for its incisive lyrics and groundbreaking synthesis of rap and soul. It won the 1999 Grammy for album of the year. So MTV was excited last summer when Hill approached with the idea of taping a version of its long-running Unplugged series, said Tom Calderone, senior vice president of music and talent programming. "We had no idea when we sat down to do the show what kind of direction she was going into," Calderone said.

Hill came armed only with an acoustic guitar. She sang none of her hits, instead debuting all new songs in a folk style. She spoke at length about personal and artistic problems between the songs. MTV aired a one-hour edited version of her performance last week, and its spinoff MTV2 channel has shown the whole thing. The album is an unadorned recording of the entire concert.

Calderone called it a "bold move in a day when album releases and videos are calculated, strategized and analyzed." Yet the initial critical reaction is mixed, at best. Calderone said the disc is more likely to appeal to Hill's dedicated fans, not the masses turned on by Miseducation. It's unclear whether MTV will regularly air songs from Unplugged as videos.

What's allowed, what's not

WASHINGTON (NYT) -- The Transportation Security Administration has updated its list of things that passengers may and may not bring on board a plane. You may carry on: walking canes and umbrellas, nail clippers and nail files (which previously were being confiscated), tweezers, safety razors and disposable razors, syringes with proper medical labeling, and eyelash curlers. The list of forbidden items is long, from ammunition to toy weapons. It includes real weapons, knives of all sorts, most hand tools, sports bats, golf clubs and -- just in case there was any doubt -- hand grenades, dynamite and rifles.

A challenged juggernaut

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Its last installment proved a critical disappointment. Once the trendsetter on visual effects, it lost out in that category to an edgy upstart at the Academy Awards the last time around. Surrounded by fresh-faced film serials, it no longer holds clear claim as the year's most anticipated movie.

Star Wars may have rusted a bit in the 25 years since Luke, Han, Leia and Obi-Wan blasted into theaters. Yet as Star Wars: Episode II - - Attack of the Clones arrives next week, George Lucas' creation remains the Cadillac of film franchises, the surest sure thing that a blockbuster-minded movie industry can deliver. Its previous chapters account for four of the top 13 grossing movies of all-time domestically. Fans camp out at theaters a month or more before a Star Wars film opens to be first in line to see it. And consider Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace. After waiting 16 years for the first prequel to the original trilogy, audiences almost universally found something to deride in Phantom Menace, a critical dud that sacrificed story to special effects and introduced the loathed buffoon Jar Jar Binks. What other film franchise could produce a mediocre movie that disappoints the most loyal fans yet still rakes in more than $900 million worldwide and $431 million in the United States and Canada alone?

What happens next sounds more promising than Phantom Menace, with early buzz from people who have seen Attack of the Clones hinting that it's a better film. Even the cast is more enthusiastic this time. "I really love it. I personally like this film a lot better," said Natalie Portman, who returns as Padme Amidala, reunited with her Jedi pals Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and the now grown Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). "I get really bored in action movies, but I was at the edge of my seat with my mouth open," said Portman, who saw the finished film last weekend. "It's so gorgeous. It's got a great story, a real arc. You really care about the characters."

In the past, Star Wars sequels or prequels clearly were the film events of the year. Given the record opening of Spider-Man and anticipation for this fall's Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings sequels, Star Wars now has heavy competition for the title of most hotly awaited movie.

Unlike the 3,000-theater-plus launches of today's Hollywood, with its fixation on huge opening weekends, the original Star Wars premiered on just 32 screens on Wednesday, May 25, 1977. The procedure then often was to start slowly, letting positive buzz on a film spread as the release widened to more theaters. It worked perfectly on Star Wars, which distributor 20th Century Fox expanded to 43 screens by that Friday, with the film grossing $1.5 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations Co. As it expanded, its total take during that initial run hit $221.3 million, the equivalent of about $560 million when the 1977 average ticket price of $2.23 is adjusted for inflation. Star Wars was such a phenomenon that it took in $101 million more in four reissues within just five years after its debut.