Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Frisky Norah
By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published September 14, 2004
Norah Jones wore a sleeveless peasant blouse Sunday at the Chicago Theatre that began sliding down past the PG zone. After getting a helpful red alert from an audience member, Jones blushed, made the appropriate adjustments and said, "So much for discreet."
It was by far the most risque move in Jones' comfortable 90-minute set. But the 25-year-old Dallas native's lack of boldness has proven to be anything but a liability. She's one of the new century's best-selling artists: Her low-key 2002 debut, "Come Away With Me," sold more than 8 million copies and claimed five Grammy Awards. The follow-up, "Feels Like Home," sold 1 million copies in its first week and has solidified her status as the voice of choice for wine-and-cheese parties and sleepy Sunday afternoons.
But Jones isn't content to remain background music for polite company. Once she seemed unsure of what to do onstage, a painfully shy performer who tried unsuccessfully to disappear inside her music. Now she's starting to loosen up a bit, and the combination of her subtlety, understatement and down-home charm qualify as downright breezy--several steps up from the monochromatic snooziness of her initial tours.
The biggest reason is the evolution of Jones' backing quintet, the Handsome Band, into genuine collaborators. On her own, Jones' pretty alto voice has a folksy drawl and rarely draws attention to itself. Her piano technique is equally understated; her harmonic choices aren't particularly adventurous and she avoids solos, but she ornaments her vocal lines with delicate chords and triplets that skip like pebbles on a placid pond. It's a pleasant sound that quickly wears thin.
But with her band she was occasionally coaxed from behind the keyboard, a blue jean-clad club singer searching for the Earth Mother within. The blues and country inflections in her music emerged more fully, with Robbie McIntosh's guitar approximating both Elmore James' wind-whipped Mississippi Delta howl and a pedal steel's lonesome whine. Drummer Andrew Borger proved an adept counter-puncher when allowed to modify the tempos, and guitarist Adam Levy summoned the spirit of eccentric folkies Richard Thompson and John Fahey.
Jones and the group achieved a shaggy, living-room intimacy on "What Am I to You?" that instantly brought a new dimension to the singer's once-demure music. The band drew closer around their raven-haired muse, the intimacy enhanced by the Jones' self-deprecating banter, until she was alone at the piano for Hoagy Carmichael's "The Nearness of You." She lived up to her billing on "Humble Me," stepping aside to let her guitarists command the song, and found a pulse that nearly got her fans out of their recliners on "Creepin' In" and Tom Waits' "The Long Way Home."
The set could have used even more rhythmic variety; a clunky version of The Band's "Life Is a Carnival" suggested she's still most comfortable in the ballad zone. But in her understated world of song, Jones is starting to show signs of friskiness. The world's placid chardonnay sippers have been warned.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
Wither Hollywood?
By Claudia Eller and James Bates: Los Angeles Times
Published September 14, 2004
Sony Corp. struck a tentative deal on Monday to buy Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. for about $4.8 billion, promising to spell the end of MGM's 80-year run as a stand-alone Hollywood movie studio.
The agreement by Sony and three investment partners came after five months of negotiations and a bidding war orchestrated by MGM. Sony and media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. jockeyed for position to acquire MGM and its valuable library of 4,000 movies, which includes the James Bond franchise, the "Rocky" film series and such recent hits as "Legally Blonde" and "Barbershop.
"Sony's victory came after it enlisted cable giant Comcast Corp. in a venture to create new channels that would feature MGM movies. That deal with Comcast, which also is expected to invest in MGM, was the impetus for Sony sweetening its bid and trumping Time Warner's $4.6 billion offer.
Once one of the movie industry's seven major studios, MGM in the past two decades has operated as a dramatically scaled-down version of what it was during Hollywood's golden era in the 1930s and `40s.
Today, as a pure movie studio, it is dwarfed by such media behemoths as 20th Century Fox parent News Corp. and Paramount Pictures owner Viacom Inc., whose empires also extend into television broadcasting, publishing and pay-TV.
Although Sony is expected to preserve the MGM name and its famed lion logo in a movie-production arm, the sale would eliminate a Hollywood studio at a time when the industry is tightening its belt because of escalating production and marketing costs."
As an agency, we like to see more buyers, not less," said International Creative Management Chairman Jeff Berg. "But this deal represents a further and inevitable consolidation of the film industry."
"It was once the premier studio of all time," said former MGM chief Alan Ladd Jr. "It's been dwindling away at a slow pace for years. There's nothing that can save it, so it's best to dispose of it."
MGM confirmed the tentative deal in a terse statement issued late Monday.
The sale would mark the third exit from Hollywood and MGM for 87-year-old gaming billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, who has owned the studio twice before. Many in Hollywood have speculated for years that Kerkorian, considered by Wall Street to be one of the nation's savviest investors, would sell the Los Angeles studio for the right price.
But previous efforts, including a near miss by Time Warner late last year, unraveled. And MGM insiders had indicated that Kerkorian, who owns 74 percent of the studio, would not agree to unload it for anything less than $5 billion.
A host of final details must be worked out by Sony, which risks forfeiting a non-refundable $150 million deposit made to MGM if it is unable to complete the deal. Even if an agreement is reached, it could take months to clear regulatory hurdles.
The prospective $12-a-share acquisition would pay MGM shareholders $2.85 billion, $2.1 billion of which would go to Kerkorian. Another $1.9 billion would pay off debt taken on this year to pay stockholders a special $8-a-share, tax-free dividend. MGM is expected to recommend the deal to its board by Sept. 27.
Sony is expected to put up $250 million to $300 million of the $4.8 billion and would run the operation. Its investment team consists of Texas Pacific Group, Providence Equity Partners and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners. If Comcast joins in, sources said, it likely would kick in the same amount as Sony.
Sony is likely to take full control of MGM by buying out the other investors in the next three to five years.
Sony is eager to get its hands on the MGM library, which includes 10,000 TV episodes, at a time when DVDs and cable ventures have made such libraries golden.
Once lorded over by the likes of legendary moguls Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg, MGM boasted of having "more stars than there are in the heavens" and made classic films ranging from "The Wizard of Oz" to "Ben-Hur."
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
Sun-Times Journalists Authorize Strike
Paper's staffers sanction walkout
Scandal shapes Sun-Times talks
By Jim Kirk Tribune staff reporter
Published September 14, 2004
With an executive payment scandal weighing heavily on contract talks at the Chicago Sun-Times, unionized journalists voted Monday to authorize a strike at the newspaper when their contract expires Sept. 30.
In a hastily called vote Monday evening, reporters, copy editors and other newsroom employees represented by the Chicago Newspaper Guild voted to authorize a strike, according to Jerry Minkkinen, the union's executive director.
Minkkinen said that the strike vote passed 89-2. The union's 10-member bargaining team, which abstained from the voting, unanimously recommended the action. The Guild represents roughly 180 journalists at the paper.
Though staffers have voted to authorize strikes in past talks without taking action, there is more intrigue surrounding this negotiation. Several Sun-Times staffers say they are angry after having worked for meager wage increases under the ownership of Hollinger International Inc. over several years, during which former top executives now are accused of skimming hundreds of millions of dollars in company profits.
Former Hollinger Chief Executive Conrad Black and former Sun-Times Publisher David Radler were ousted in November after a special committee of Hollinger's board said they had paid themselves and other executives more than 95 percent of the company's profits in 1997-2003.
In the most recent Guild contract, the highest pay raise was a 1.25 percent increase over the past year, following a 1 percent hike in the previous year and no increase in the year before that.
The journalists are now asking for a four-year deal beginning Oct. 1 that includes a 9 percent increase in the first year. Union members are calling the first year a "make-up year" following the disclosure of the scandal and the ouster of the executives. They're also asking for 6 percent increases in each of the following three years.
"A lot of people are angry," said Minkkinen. "The leadership of Hollinger International misrepresented themselves in the last negotiation. A lot of [journalists] now feel they have a lost a lot of money, and they're right."
Sun-Times management has countered with a 1-year deal that includes a 2 percent wage increase and an additional $5 a week toward health benefits. Managers have told union staffers that they can't go higher while an internal investigation into the scandal continues.
John Cruickshank, publisher and chief operating officer of Hollinger's Midwest Group, couldn't be reached.
Negotiations, which started in August, continue Tuesday.
Striking a workable deal is key to the future of the Sun-Times. Hollinger executives, who are in the midst of selling assets, would seek to keep a lid on wage increases in order to make the paper more palatable to potential buyers in coming months.
It's unclear whether staffers are more determined this time around to hold out for a substantially bigger wage increase.
Insiders say they are more united in the wake of the payment scandal. But the journalists have failed to carry out threats of a strike in several recent contract negotiations.
The strike authorization will not affect the Sun-Times' planned move in coming days from its current headquarters at 401 N. Wabash Ave. to space several blocks west at the former Apparel Center.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
