<snips> including news about "Million/Billion Dollar Hotel"


[email protected]
Thu, 23 Jul 1998 10:22:47 -0400


Wireworld - here it is; your daily news fix!

Daily Variety, July 23, 1998
complete article: Davies Joins 'Million' Cast
Jeremy Davies, the young thesp who has a featured role in Steven
Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," is set to star opposite Milla Jovovich
in Wim Wenders' "Million Dollar Hotel."
The $ 8 million pic --- based on a story by U2 frontman Bono and scripted
by Nicholas Klein --- begins lensing in January in Los Angeles. Deepak
Nayar will produce.
Film starts when a billionaire's son dies in a skid row hotel and a federal
agent turns the lives of the miscreant residents --- of
which Davies' Tom and Jovovich's Eloise are standouts --- upside down
during his investigation.
Davies, who is repped by CAA, recently wrapped roles in Fox 2000's
"Ravenous," starring Robert Carlyle; and Nick Stagliano's "The Florentine."
His other credits include "Going All the Way," "Spanking the Monkey" and
"Up at the Villa," currently lensing in Italy.

Irish Times, July 18, 1998
Article: The success of the movie The Wedding Singer has spawned a wave of
1980s nostalgia.
<snip>
In Ireland, however, it's a little bit different. Despite the invaluable
contribution of U2 to the Eighties Bad Taste file (Bono's hair is
particularly exemplary, and the band as a whole seemed inordinately fond
of those odd shirts with the diagonal button arrangements),
this country sat out the 1980s under a pall of gloom. The 1980s in fact,
were our 1970s. If you're looking for a decade of conspicuous consumption,
loadsamoney, property booms and smugness, after all, who needs a 1980s
revival when you're living the real thing in Nineties Ireland?
<snip>

The Mirror (London), July 22, 1998
complete article: Irish Music Stars Back Court Bid For Royalties
A U2-BACKED bid to force the American government to charge pounds 2
million-a -year royalties for the use of music by Irish composers has
failed. Behind the scenes talks between the Americans and the European
Commission have broken down. The row could now go to court, Irish Music
Rights Organisation bosses revealed last night.
"We are resigned to the fact that a case could be necessary to force the
American Government to act because of its lack of progress on the issue,"
IMRO director Eamon Shackleton said. "All our artists are well briefed
about what is going on and they are fully behind us."
The row centers on a 1978 act which exempted US bars, restaurants and shops
from paying royalties to songwriters. Since then Irish acts have lost more
than pounds 40 million in unpaid royalties, which amounts to about pounds 2
million-a-year. The acts include Thin Lizzy, The Chieftains, The Fureys,
The Boomtown Rats, U2, Sinead O'Connor, Enya, The Cranberries and Paul
Brady.
Despite the act, US authorities are bound by World Trade Organisation laws
to enforce copyright. The laws came into effect three years ago but the US
Government has refused to implement them. European trade representatives
began negotiations with their US counterparts in June 1997.
The talks were informal at first and there were plans to strike some sort
of a deal with the Americans, but they have refused to budge. Now
commissioners from each of the European Union's 15 member states want to
call in the WTO, which is charged with policing international trade.
"We cannot wait for ever," said a commission official last night. "We have
been trying to get the Americans to agree to some kind of compromise for
some time now. But they don't seem to be listening to us and unless they
come up with some kind of a proposal soon, the WTO will be handed the case.
We are all hoping that the fact that it is obvious we are prepared to go
all the way on this should provoke some action from the Americans.
It was IMRO bosses who alerted the Irish government to America's breach of
trade law several years ago. But the Department of Trade and Enterprise
failed to reach an agreement and the matter was passed onto the European
Commission instead.
"Acts like U2 and The Cranberries would get a big share of any royalty
pay-out if this case succeeds," an IMRO spokesman said. "But everybody else
right down the line will get something so it has got to be a good thing for
the Irish music business."

<end of transmission>

Teresa in Richmond
today's cd playlist: Leonard Cohen, Elvis Costello and U2; menu: gourmet
not-from-a-can tuna salad and homemade sourdough bread; fashion: polka dots
and a Barbie hair-do (it's hot here!)



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Thu Jul 23 1998 - 07:23:18 PDT