The Austin Times

A Multicultural News Source

Dreamworks’ MLK film back on track

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Plans for a feature film about civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. appeared back on track on Tuesday as DreamWorks Studios said it has hired Oscar-winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood to pen a script. DreamWorks announced in May that it had acquired life rights for the slain Nobel Peace Prize laureate, marking the first time a major biographical movie about King had been authorized by his estate. But the project, to be produced by Steven Spielberg, quickly bogged down over squabbling … [Read more...]

‘Book of Eli’: Denzel is back to save the world

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In the future, according to “The Book of Eli,” we’ll all dress like we’re in a Nine Inch Nails video. It is written. Most everyone wears goggles and leather in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of “The Book of Eli.” A meteorite and a subsequent war 30 years earlier has scorched the Earth and the population. The landscape (shot in New Mexico) is much like an old Western: bandits (albeit cannibalizing bandits) lurk the desert roads, while rough crowds take refuge in hardscrabble towns. At the … [Read more...]

Rapper Mystikal released from prison after 6 years

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Serving a six-year prison term for sexual battery and extortion, New Orleans rapper Mystikal was released from jail last week. “My feet back on the ground. Man it’s been a long time,” Mystikal -- famed for hits like “Shake Ya Ass” and “Danger (Been So Long)” -- told New Orleans’ Q93 radio station. “I’m back. I’m still trying to feel this reality. It feels like a dream. Watch how I’m going to shake this world up now. I want reparation!” Mystikal, born Michael Tyler, was sentenced to six … [Read more...]

Mexico’s Camila takes time with 2nd album

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Patience is a rare virtue in the music business. But Mexican pop trio Camila has benefited from taking things slowly not once, but twice. In May 2006, the group released its debut album, “Todo Cambio,” and watched it do next to nothing at first. It took a year for the release to enter Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart and then climb steadily to the top five, eventually selling nearly 400,000 U.S. copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But instead of quickly capitalizing on that success and … [Read more...]

Peligrosa All-Stars: The Renegades of Latin Funk

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Trey Lopez, Orion Garcia, and Patrick Murray, better known as the Peligrosa All-Stars, have been heating things up on dance floors throughout Austin over the years with their mix of cumbia, merengue, salsa, reggaeton, and Latin funk sounds. Fresh off the blue stage at Fun Fun Fun Fest and having played along side Monte Negro, Ozomatli, and John Speice, percussionist for Latin funk band Ocote Soul Sounds and cumbia rock outfit Kanko, it has been a busy year for Peligrosa. They ended 2009 with … [Read more...]

Acclaimed trumpeter Marsalis composes Blues Symphony

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Acclaimed trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, arguably the world's most prominent jazz musician, is set to premiere a major new project -- composing a Blues Symphony for orchestra. In keeping with a career that spans jazz, classical music, band leadership and high-profile advocacy for the arts, Marsalis' symphony is epic in scope -- to celebrate American history from Revolution to the present through the blues. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Morehouse College in Atlanta will … [Read more...]

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