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American Morning
Showbiz Today Reports: Weekend Movies Are Good Reasons to Stay Home
Aired April 27, 2001 - 11:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, when you see that animation, you know it's time for Laurin Sydney to bring us up-to-date on showbiz.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it looks like she's in Los Angeles today.
Good morning.
LAURIN SYDNEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning you two survivors.
And today, of course, we are talking "Survivor" -- it's Friday. One more down and two to go before the final survivor will be revealed. With just one week left before the $1 million winner is revealed, 23-year-old Elisabeth Filarski got the boot. The Massachusetts native says that her fellow survivors didn't want her to get into the final two because they were afraid that she would win. Colby won both immunity and reward challenges last night, for a change, winning a new car and a surprise visit from mom. The final tribal council will take place next Thursday during a special live broadcast.
OK, here's a morning riddle for you: What musical act is all- male, all-related and now, in it's third decade performing is perfecting the art of "Stayin' Alive?" That was a good hint. If you guessed the Bee Gees, you are right. The brothers Gibb have a new CD out and will appear tonight on A&E's "Live By Request."
Michael Okwu chatted with them after a New York press conference, where they discussed their new CD, their longevity, and the recent craze over boy bands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MAURICE GIBB, "BEE GEES": There will be great stars coming from that era, coming from this period. Right now it's boy groups and girl group and mixed, you know. We happen to be mixed.
BARRY GIBB, "BEE GEES": We're a man band.
MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So I'm here with the Bee Gees, whom I believe is a man band, is that right? M. GIBB: That's true. Well, my wife likes to think that.
OKWU: The new album is called, "This is Where I Came In." Is there any special significance to that title?
M. GIBB: Sort of, because we've always said over the years, you know, this is where I came in -- I've heard that song before in a different way or -- so we feel that our music has come full cycle, and people are still listening to it. So it's sort of a humorous title, and our titles usually are.
ROBIN GIBB, "BEE GEES": But basically the album is -- a lot it's harking back to the original way of recording in the late '60s. More live, more human feel -- acoustic in a lot of the songs. So we wanted to get back to that -- less-production mode.
(MUSIC)
OKWU: Did you approach, in terms of writing or producing this album, any differently than in your past albums?
R. GIBB: Well, insomuch as that we had three separate identities. Three -- that we all went off into different studios, different parts of the world to record our own way, and did different songs. And then we got back together and recorded songs together.
M. GIBB: You get a better impression of each brother. You know, you get to figure out who likes what and who does what, you know. So it's a bit of artistic self-expression, if you will.
B. GIBB: It was sort of on impulse that we decided to do it this way, that we's both -- each one of us would go off and cut two tracks and come back and then we'd all get together and redo the rest of the album.
M. GIBB: We've made a lot of albums, so we wanted to do something different; we wanted to approach the album different rather than just all go in the studio and start recording.
OKWU: Now you've been making music, now, in your fifth decade...
M. GIBB: At the beginning of it, yes.
OKWU: I offer you my hardy congratulations.
M. GIBB: Thank you, sir; thank you.
OKWU: But I have to ask you -- you're so deeply associated with a particular era.
M. GIBB: I can't understand which one it would be -- Blues?
OKWU: Do you ever think you have trouble shaking that?
R. GIBB: No, we don't want to shake it. We're proud of it. It's influenced a lot of people and it's still continuing to influence a lot of major acts today.
B. GIBB: Oh, it just doesn't stop.
R. GIBB: Love it. We just keep moving forward. You know, we wouldn't do things we did back in the '70s now. We write songs always ahead.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYDNEY: And happy anniversary to the man band.
And when we come back, another man -- Peter Travers -- will let us know what is playing at the movies this very weekend. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SYDNEY: It's about that time to check out what is new on the big screen this weekend. And among the new flicks that you can check out is "Driven." Here's some of the action.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "DRIVEN")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Good luck today.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I have a rookie driver, his name is Jimmy Blye; he's won five races. All you have to do is help this kid.
KIP PARDUE, ACTOR: I can't do this. I thought I could handle it.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You can and you will.
SYLVESTER STALLONE, ACTOR: Don't overdrive the car. There's maybe 20 guys in the world that can drive these machines right. I think when he can get it together off the track, he'll come together on it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SYDNEY: "Rolling Stone" magazine's Peter Travers joins us now from New York with his thoughts on what is new on the big screen.
And Mr. Travers, I know that you were not exactly driven to Sylvester Stallone's performance in this particular flick.
PETER TRAVERS, "ROLLING STONE" MAGAZINE: Well, I'll tell you, Laurin, I was driven all right: I was driven a little crazy by this movie. You can tell -- there were a lot of screeching tires, a lot of crashes, a lot of spinouts. That's what this movie is about, sadly. Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay, and you can see how much dialogue he wrote -- can you hear it above that roar that's in this movie?
The thing that intrigues me about it is that everybody except Stallone in the movie seems to be blonde. The two leads, played by Kip Pardue and a German actor named Til Schweiger -- they're blonde. Estella Warren, the babe they both fight over, she's blond. And the only one who isn't blonde beside Sly is Burt Reynolds, who has a toupee that's movie white now.
And this movie has no reason for being -- am I making myself clear?
SYDNEY: I think we heard you all the way across the country, loud and clear.
TRAVERS: OK.
SYDNEY: OK, Peter, first of all though, there's nothing really wrong with blondes, but we'll discuss that later.
TRAVERS: Not at all.
SYDNEY: Live Tyler, "One Night at McCool's": not a blonde. Correct me if I'm wrong.
TRAVERS: Not a blonde, but it still doesn't help her with this movie. This is a movie that was produced by Michael Douglas, who has a very small role in it. And he steals whatever there is in this movie to steal as a hit man with a penchant for bingo. He really does like to play bingo.
The central part of the movie is three men falling in love with Liv Tyler's femme fatale. And they're played by Paul Reiser and John Goodman and Matt Dillon. So we have a lot of noise, we have a lot of Liv Tyler trying to be all things to all men, and not achieving that. So, again, it's one of those weekends at the movies where you say to yourself, what happened? When are they going to give us some good ones?
SYDNEY: Well, I know that TV has given us a good one, and you are madly in love with "61*."
TRAVERS: I am so madly in love with "61*" because I want to say something about Billy Crystal, who directed this movie and his love for baseball. This is a movie about that great moment in 1961 in history when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's home run record, 61 for a season. But he -- took him six more games to do it in, and so that's why that asterisk is next to the title.
But what Billy Crystal is doing in this movie: he's evoking a time and he's showing us two men who are so different in personality. Thomas Jane plays Mickey Mantle, who was the easy guy, the boozer, the womanizer; and Barry Pepper, who was in "Saving Private Ryan" is Roger Maris, who's the homebody -- the guy who wasn't colorful enough for the media. They didn't want him to break Babe's record because he just wasn't a colorful enough guy.
And we live in this world today; things haven't changed. We want so much from our heroes. And what Billy Crystal is showing us is a really decent guy who had a wonderful friendship with Mantle and is not playing into any of the sensational aspects that we get in most movies, especially TV movies. So here's a movie that knows it's subject and it knows its people.
And I want to say a word about Billy Crystal's daughter, who has the role of Roger Maris' wife in this movie. You would think nepotism; instead, she gives a lovely performance in this movie. So Billy Crystal didn't do the Oscars this year, but he had his triumph right here at home.
SYDNEY: And Peter, just a little note for you, she was cast and they actually did not know that she was Billy's daughter when she was cast.
TRAVERS: I would guess that he knew, though. I'm going to say that he knew.
SYDNEY: But he actually didn't make the decision...
TRAVERS: Right.
SYDNEY: ... but Peter, thank you so much; you're a really decent guy, too.
TRAVERS: Oh, thank you.
SYDNEY: You're welcome. I'm going to go dye my hair now.
FRAZIER: Gee, all that good feeling out there in the Hollywood area; I don't know what to do.
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