How USA Co-Presidents Will Move Beyond the 'Blue Skies' Programming (Q&A)

Spotify on Wednesday announced that it is launching Facebook-style apps that add certain features and functionality to its online music service.our editor recommendsSpotify to Launch Facebook-Style AppsGoogle Music Launch Unveils a Solid Competitor to Apple, Amazon, SpotifySpotify Boasts 458% Year-on-Year Revenue BoostSpotify: As Media Goes Gaga Over Launch, Pandora Stock FallsSpotify Usage Explodes After F8, Facebook Integration According to the company, developers can now create HTML 5 apps for Spotify. The apps announced included ones for THR's sister publication Billboard, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork as well as Songkick, a concert listings site, and TuneWiki, which that displays lyrics to a song as it's playing. PHOTOS: Apple Products in TV and Movies One app will display lyrics while a song plays, while another will generate a list of upcoming concerts by artists in a user's playlist and provide links that allow users to buy tickets. Stockholm-based Spotify's "app finder" is will include reviews from magazines and blogs that let users listen to albums as they read reviews. The apps will be free for paying and non-paying users. During the announcement in NY, CEO Daniel Ek touted the move as "bringing music to where it should have been." Meanwhile, the apps also could help differentiate Spotify amid growing competition from the likes of Google, Apple and Amazon.com. So what do the tech experts have to say about the announcement? CNET's Greg Sandoval was less than impressed. "Maybe because we're so used to the app platforms from iTunes, Android, and Facebook that Spotify's announcement today that it too is building such a platform doesn't inspire much awe," he wrote. "Or maybe it's because the new apps that the company demonstrated today at a press event here don't do much that's new." He also questioned" how much music fans care about new ways to interact with their music users will even be interested in the apps" as well as what motivation developers have "to build for the service when they won't be allowed to generate revenue from their wares like they can with iPhone or Android apps." STORY: Spotify to Launch Facebook-Style Apps Likewise, Gizmodo's Adrian Covert expected more from the announcement. "Many of these apps, only being developed in the past couple of weeks were minimal, and reps for each company promised more features in the near future," Covert wrote. "I'd definitely like to see more dynamic generation of lists and recommendations-- or even filters for general Spotify navigation -- based on a certain criteria unique to each sites content." On the other hand, Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk was more optimistic. "Ever since Spotify launched users have requested new features -- everything from 'DJ mode' to the ability to buy tickets," he wrote. "This strategy of outsourcing those new features to outside app developers makes a lot of sense from that point of view, because it allows Spotify to add a massive number of optional features that will be invisible to users who just want the vanilla version." He added: "Talk of [application programming interfaces mayseem like the stuff of technology wonkery, geekery or nerddom, but think about it: A kid coding away in a basement all night, anywhere in the world, can build apps within the most popular music subscription service in the world. Want to play your friends' Facebook preferences? Create a party playlist automatically based on the people attending? Tag songs to locations so that others can stumble across them? ... With Spotify's revamped API, and the ability to include the apps within Spotify itself, the sky is the limit." STORY: Spotify Boasts 458% Year-on-Year Revenue Boost TechCrunch's Josh Constine was similarly hopeful, writing that Spotify's "new integrations ... unlock the potential of its massive music catalogue." "The apps could inspire longer listening sessions that expose users to more ads, get them more attached to their paid accounts, and share more links that drive referral traffic from Facebook," he added. PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery Apple Products in TV and Movies Related Topics Facebook Spotify

Occupy Los Angeles: Hundreds of Protesters Planning to Defy Midnight Eviction

This story first appeared in the Dec. 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.our editor recommendsFrom 'The Artist' to 'War Horse,' 23 Awards Contenders That Prominently Feature Animals (Photos)The Making of 'The Artist''The Artist' Star Berenice Bejo to Wear Her 1920s Costumes on Red CarpetsHow Rin Tin Tin Ruined Any Oscar Shot for 'The Artist's' Jack RussellMichel Hazanavicius, the Artist Behind 'The Artist,' On the Great Crowd-Pleaser (Video) Somehow, Michel Hazanavicius managed to come up with something that even the French thought was loopy. For years, the Parisian writer-director -- an analytical guy who sees filmmaking as what he calls "playing with codes" -- had been captivated by an idea. But financiers got cold feet just hearing about it; the boutique television stations that typically fund sophisticated European films walked away. Even in a nation of cineastes and revival houses -- a country in which a major film movement was once launched by a band of movie critics -- his dream looked to be dead on arrival. PHOTOS: The Making of 'The Artist' "I wanted to make one for a long time," the director says about his fascination with doing a black-and-white silent set in the 1920s. His long limbs folded over a table at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills, he talks about his heroes like F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. "But it's even difficult to convince myself, or to convince anyone else, it is even possible. I found that some producers -- really all of them -- were a little bit cold." It didn't help that the 44-year-old Hazanavicius was known in France for the box-office-friendly, period-conscious OSS 117 spy parodies, in which a kind of Gallic Bond scampers through the 1950s and '60s. "What I needed was a crazy guy," he says. Enter Thomas Langmann, 40, whom Hazanavicius calls "the craziest producer in France." Langmann, the son of Oscar winner Claude Berri (who directed Manon of the Spring and produced Roman Polanski's Tess), worked a bit with Soderbergh and Coppola as a young man and produced some French smashes in his 30s. Langmann sees producing as a species of gambling. "It was always about betting on directors," he says of the philosophy his father passed down. "I knew if we made a film in black and white and we succeeded, it would be original." It took director and producer awhile to sync up -- early ideas such as a feature with an invisible protagonist didn't make the cut. "I really wanted to make an entertaining movie," Hazanavicius says, noting that many European silents were tragic romances. "I thought it was unfair to ask people to come to a black-and-white silent movie that was also dark -- it would be too much." But finally the two came up with an idea that worked: a film about a '20s matinee idol who struggles with the advent of talkies. PHOTOS: Behind the Scenes of our Directors Roundtable Photo Shoot With Michel Hazanavicius The movie that resulted is being talked about as the first silent film with real best-picture Oscar chances since Wings, the 1927 Clara Bow film that arrived soon before the talkies changed the game (it won). The Artist opened in the U.S. on Nov. 25 -- just two screens each in NY and Los Angeles -- but already has banked an impressive $12 million since its release in France in October. More important, the film took the best actor award at Cannes, where it played to rapturous audiences, and it has gone on to seduce judges at festivals around the world and sweep the season's audience awards from Chicago to the Hamptons to San Sebastien. "It is as wonderful a film as it is modern," says silent-film collector and producer Serge Bromberg, who has seen the movie six times at festivals, "with jaw-dropping cinematography, good acting, wonderful knowledge of classic cinema. And it has the flavor of the old. But it is not a film of the '20s; the pace is not the same, and its constant humor gives it some distance from what a film of the '20s would be." Hazanavicius was already an admirer of the silent era, but as he wrote, he immersed himself deeply for several months, reading actors' biographies, going to screenings of Murnau and Frank Borzage and early John Ford at Paris' Cinematheque, studying photographs and playing music of the '20s and early '30s. STORY: 'The Artist' Star Berenice Bejo to Wear Her 1920s Costumes on Red Carpets He wanted Jean Dujardin -- a bankable French star known mostly for comic roles -- to play the lead, Valentin. "Of course, I said: 'You're crazy. It's impossible,' " says Dujardin. Hazanavicius also asked his girlfriend, Berenice Bejo, the Argentina-born French actress who appeared in A Knight's Tale and in his OSS films, to play a studio extra named Peppy, shot into fame by a chance encounter. "I said, 'No way -- no way,' " recalls Bejo, who has two children with the director. "Not with me." The two eventually were persuaded, and their presence caused a change in the movie itself. The original vision for the film focused on Valentin's isolation. But as Hazanavicius got deeper into the film, Peppy began to seem major, and the movie became a romance. Dujardin had only ever scratched the era's surface. "I knew only the masterpieces of Keaton and Chaplin," he says. "It was a real discovery for me to find King Vidor's The Crowd," a film about a man lost in the big city of the 1920s that the actor calls "very modern, very touching; it helped me to assemble all the different references." PHOTOS: It's a Zoo This Season: 23 Awards Contenders Featuring Animals As a model for his character, he found Douglas Fairbanks -- the actor who started making films in 1915 and whose career faded as talkies ascended. "In all his films," Dujardin says, "he doesn't ask himself any questions," never straining against the limits of the swashbuckling style required by such films as Robin Hood and The Mark of Zorro. "It's pathetic when you know the talkies are coming, but he's also very generous. He's like my character George Valentin: He can be arrogant, but he has integrity. He believes in his art. He fights for it." (Valentin needs that integrity -- as he spirals downward, it's all he has, besides liquor and an attentive, scene-stealing dog to keep him warm.) Bejo's research found inspiration in Gloria Swanson -- who, unlike Fairbanks, excelled after the silent era. She fell for Swanson's autobiography, which describes a life very different from the desiccated former star she played in Sunset Boulevard. "She started in the silent period and then went to the talkies and then to TV," Bejo says. "I got a sense of the atmosphere of the period." To make a film about Hollywood, Langmann reasoned, you had to shoot there. By now he'd drawn some funding from French station Canal+ and invested considerably from his own company, La Petite Reine. But the costs of coming to America -- and surrendering French government subsidies -- raised the stakes substantially. (The film's eventual budget came close to $20 million.) STORY: 'The Artist': The Not-So-Silent Entry Shooting at the Paramount and Warner Bros. lots -- as well as locations like the beautifully lit center court of downtown L.A.'s 1893 Bradbury Building, known to film buffs for its role in Blade Runner -- inspired the crew over the 35-day shoot. (Dujardin was put up in an old house in the Hollywood Hills -- he thinks to amplify his isolation for his slide in the movie's second act.) "Hollywood, in my opinion, is the big star of the movie," says Hazanavicius. Also crucial to re-creating the era onscreen was the work of costume designer Mark Bridges, who worked on all of Paul Thomas Anderson's films, including Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood. Some of his vision for The Artist came from the MGM documentary 1925 Studio Tour. "You could see what the carpenters, what the plasterers wore," he says. "Even those guys in their bib overalls had a necktie. And a lot of hats, either for warmth or bad hair days." Surprisingly, director of photography Guillaume Schiffman shot the film in color because today's black and white is too sharp, not grainy enough. He used unusual filters to diffuse the whites and mute the blacks slightly -- and as the film went on, with its main character losing some of his sheen, the light got grayer. Although Hazanavicius deliberately had chosen very expressive actors -- Americans John Goodman, James Cromwell and Penelope Ann Miller round out the cast -- they found the limitations were difficult at first. For Bejo, working without lines threw her off. (The actors improvised in English while onscreen, to give their mouths something to do, mixed with a few of the "lines" shown to the audience on intertitles.) But she eventually found a way to inhabit the role. "If it was a talking movie, she would have been the same -- would have moved the same way, winked the same way, danced the same way," she says. "The challenge was to try to focus on the body language, but the rest of it was finding a way of being an American actress. I think of American actors -- they take up a lot of space, they talk really loud, they talk with their hands. So I had to find that, since being a French actor, everything is more petite." STORY: How 'The Artist's' Fashions Are Impacting the Red Carpet To keep communing with the past, the director kept the music of the era -- George Gershwin, Cole Porter -- in constant rotation while they shot, and he brought cast and crew to see films at the Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax, and to the Nuart for its revival of Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (a morality tale about the corrupting influence of the city Murnau made for Fox in 1927) . The director applied some of what he learned: Murnau, for instance, had instructed his protagonist from Sunrise to wear heavy, weighted shoes on set after he fell on hard times; Hazanavicius did something similar when he dressed his fallen star in suits slightly too big for him. "He's not as perfect as he was in the first act," he says. Hazanavicius credits the world's fascination with Hollywood for the film's international appeal, but the enormous enthusiasm of Harvey Weinstein is the reason it has exploded out of the gates during the festival season into the awards race. Weinstein, who had enjoyed the OSS films, had heard about the movie from Langmann and in March flew to Paris, where he saw the film alone in a screening room. Weinstein was not ambiguous in his praise. The Artist, he says now, "treasures the American cinema I love. It's an inspiration, everything about the movie -- where they shot the movie, the way they used American cast and crew. It's just a love letter to American cinema." Langmann was impressed with Weinstein's urge to pull the trigger without any associates along to vet the decision. It was still months before Cannes -- it was not even assured at this point that the film would be released in France -- but by the time of the festival, the deal to distribute in the U.S., the U.K. and other regions was done. The film ends with a tap dance that required more work than anything else in the film. "I think 95 percent of the preparation was for the tap dancing," Hazanavicius says. Bejo recalls her practice with both pleasure and exasperation: "Five months, every day." The film was shot in as close to real sequence as possible -- in part to give the actors time to learn to tap dance, and partly so they would travel the same journey as George and Peppy before arriving at the climactic scene. "The dance is all about their characters," Hazanavicius says. "If it's just a performance, it's not interesting." Bejo's attitude toward the conclusion captures some of the quality that makes her character -- and the film -- so winning. "I kept telling myself: 'Just smile, look at each other, enjoy the moment. The happier you are, the less people will look at your feet. Just act, don't try to be good -- your feet will follow.' " PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery The Making of 'The Artist' Related Topics The Artist 1 2 next last

'Twilight' bests holiday beginners

'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Beginning -- Part 1'Despite the Thanksgiving glut of B.O. champion "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Beginning - Part 1" along with a trio of kidpics, brought by Disney's "The Muppets," overall domestic box office still was lower roughly 10% versus. last year's extended holiday play period.In 5 days, "Breaking Beginning" collected $62.3 million for any cume of $221.3 million, while "The Muppets" settled for second place, having a debut of $42 million through Sunday.Neither pic could match last year's top game titles: "Harry Potter and also the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" made almost $75 million in 5 days "Twisted" bowed with $68.7 million.The 2010 other debut VIP's, including new records "Arthur Christmas" and "Hugo," handled to keep their very own, though large budgets might make that it is hard for either film being lucrative. "Arthur Christmas," which cost you a reported $98 million, arrived in the high-finish of anticipation, by having an believed $17 million. "Hugo," meanwhile, was created by GK Films for north of $150 million and obtained a five-day take of $15.4 million (substantially much better than pre-weekend forecasts within the low-double numbers)."Hugo," distribbed Stateside by Vital, were built with a relatively reserved rollout at 1,277 locations, which 75% from the weekend gross originated from roughly 1,000 three dimensional locations. In comparison, "Arthur Christmas," which released at 3,376 locations, gained 53% of their total from 2,378 three dimensional playdates.Componen vice chairman Take advantage of Moore said on "Hugo's" release strategy, calling it "a great rollout for any movie that are more expensive than $100 million." He added that "this movie has certain assets that warrant another type of release pattern," namely, reviews that are positive and reactions from kudos groups.Componen intends to expand "Hugo" to a lot more than 2,000 locations by 12 ,. 9.Overseas grosses can help both "Hugo" and "Arthur Christmas." The first kind pic launches next weekend within the U.K., where "Arthur Christmas" already continues to be carrying out extremely well for 3 days, having a local cume of $12.7 million. As a whole, "Arthur Christmas" has cumed $22.3 million from 24 marketplaces outdoors the U.S.Warner Bros.' second-week Stateside holdover "Happy Ft Two" could beat both "Arthur Christmas" and "Hugo," landing within the No. 3 place by having an believed $18.4 million in 5 days. Pic's Stateside cume now stands at $43.8 million.Despite the fact that overall totals lagged, no-one can blame the small men.Fox Searchlight saw an outstanding expansion for "The Descendants," which cracked the very best ten because of its second straight week - this time around, grossing a five-day $9.two million from just 433 locations.Also carrying out well was the Weinstein Co.'s niche set of "My Week With Marilyn" and "The Artist," the second which bowed at four locations for that weekend's greatest per-screen average in 72 hours at $52,604. "My Week With Marilyn," which bowed Wednesday at 123 engagements, obtained within the lengthy weekend an overall total $2.a million, using the weekend's best Friday-Saturday bump of 31%. (Pic broadened to 244 playdates on Friday.)The new sony Pictures Classics' new entry "A Harmful Method" first showed Wednesday at four locations, calculating an outstanding $60,236 per screen for 5 days. Contact Andrew Stewart at andrew.stewart@variety.com

'Cole Project' bows in Queens

Director-choreography Chet Walker, one of the co-creators of the 1999 terp tribute revue "Fosse," is at work on a new dance-centric outing, "The Jack Cole Project," set to have its world preem this spring at Queens Theater in the Park. Walker's latest tribute tuner focuses on choreographer Jack Cole, whose work is best known from his dance numbers in classic pics including "Some Like It Hot," "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "Gilda." Cole's Broadway credits included "Kismet" and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," and he's considered an influence on legit names including Fosse and Jerome Robbins. "Cole Project" aims to re-create dances in Cole's style as well as incorporate new numbers based on Cole's work in Hollywood, on Broadway and in nightclubs. Show follows in the footsteps of another musical, "Chix 6," which recently debuted at Queens Theater, a troupe in the midst of a new-tuner push that's unusually ambitious for an outer-borough company. Walker's troupe Walkerdance is the resident dance company at Queens Theater. Cast has not yet been set for "Cole Project," which is skedded to open May 3. Contact Gordon Cox at gordon.cox@variety.com

'Harry Potter' Stays Put at Top of Home Entertainment Charts

Industrial Light and Magic/ParamountJ.J. Abrams' 2009 "Star Trek" Paramount has plotted a course for May 17, 2013, for its next Star Trek sequel, which it plans to shoot in 3D. The release date slots the sci-fi franchise into a very busy tentpole-filled May 2013, coming right after Marvel/Disney's Iron Man 3 and Warner Bros.' Guillermo del Toro-directed Pacific Rim.our editor recommendsComic-Con 2011: 'Terra Nova' EPs Talk 'Star Trek' Memories, Killing Captain Kirk and Their Hopes for the Upcoming Fox DramaHollywood's A-List Redefined PHOTOS: Hollywood's A-List Redefined Earlier this year, director-producer J.J. Abrams, who directed the first Trek reboot, was tied up with Super 8 and hadn't committed to directing the new episode, forcing the studio to abandon its original date of June 29, 2012. But the studio's announcement of a new release date for Summer 2013 indicates that Abrams is happy with the status of the script from Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof. The 2009 Star Trek movie grossed $386 million worldwide. Paramount, looking to the way Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. relaunched the Batman franchise with Batman Begins, is hoping the newly refurbished Starship Enterprise will reach even greater heights with this second installment. PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery Hollywood's A-List Redefined J.J. Abrams Paramount Pictures Star Trek

Jimmy Fallon Apologizes to Michele Bachmann for 'Late Night' Song Intro

Bloomberg/Getty Images Jimmy Fallon has apologized to Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann for the introduction that was played when she appeared on his show Monday.our editor recommendsMichele Bachmann Slammed with Song by 'Jimmy Fallon' BandMichele Bachmann's Campaign Manager Calls CBS News Producer a 'Piece of S---' Amid 'Media Bias' Allegations PHOTOS: Hollywood's Memorable Mea Culpas When the Minnesota Congresswoman came out to greet Fallon, the Late Night With Jimmy Fallon house band, The Roots, greeted her with the 1985 Fishbone song called "Lyin' Ass B--ch." Fallon tweeted Tuesday, "I'm honored that @michelebachmann was on our show yesterday and I'm so sorry about the intro mess. I really hope she comes back." PHOTOS: Michele Bachmann on the Campaign Trail The song choice was criticized by many, including Fox News' Todd Stames, who wrote, "Could you imagine if the network had pulled a similar stunt with First Lady Michelle Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? NBC is not commenting and Fallon doesn't appear to have the fortitude to respond. So allow me to fill in the blanks: NBC, you disgust me." Stames went on to slam Fallon, "As for Fallon, what's there to say about a man who earns his living playing make believe? He's a sniveling, inurbane court jester who degrades women." PHOTOS: 10 Entertainers Democrats and Republicans Love to Hate Democratic Congresswoman Nita Lowey called the incident "insulting and inappropriate" in a statement Tuesday, "The choice of song to introduce Michele Bachmann on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon last night was insulting and inappropriate. I do not share Michele Bachmann's politics, but she deserves to be treated with respect. No female politician -- and no woman -- should be subjected to sexist and offensive innuendo like she was last night. The Roots, Jimmy Fallon, and NBC should apologize." The Roots' drummer Questlove had alerted his Twitter followers of the pending song choice on Monday. He told The Hollywood Reporter that Fallon and producers had not been told about it in advance, "The performance was a tongue-in-cheek and spur of the moment decision. The show was not aware of it and I feel bad if her feelings were hurt. That was not my intention." Jimmy Fallon Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Politics Michele Bachmann

Covert Matters Exclusive Sneak Look: Joan Notifies Annie to get the job done in the Nice Way!

Kari Matchett and Piper Perabo Joan, who's been very challenging to Annie on Covert Matters, will need another approach now.Hidden Affairs' Chris Gorham on Auggie's new girlfriend: It's a very complicated relationshipAfter an resource is destroyed in Russia, Annie (Piper Perabo) has reservations about considering the main suspect: the daughter from the ex-CIA analyst whom she'd been designated with monitoring. Enter Joan (Kari Matchett) to once again talk her into happening the mission. But unlike her past orders, that certain is really a lesser stern edict plus much more of sweet heart-to-heart.Watch the clip: Covert Matters airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on USA.