THIS WEEK IN XENA NEWS... TWXN 107 09/05/97 Friday The advance sheet of XENA MEDIA REVIEW (XMR): http://xenafan.com/xmr Excerpts from the following cites will appear in future issues of XMR. From the editor: 1. I love it when I get mail. Heparin@wolfenet.com wrote on August 29, 1997: "About that article about Ngila Dickson in XMR...sigh! I loved reading more about this talented woman! Thanks to Kym, and to whomever passed the article along and transcribed it for us. Is someone going to interview HER for Whoosh? We can always hope!" Heparin! Thank you for writing. First of all, it was TWXN not XMR which carried the article, but that is splitting hairs, no? Second, yes, I agree. Dickson does not get as much press as one would expect. Methinks being in NZ significantly affects her stateside coverage. Third, thank you for your kind words. In this case, the transcription was done by some low-paid under-appreciated unknown somewhere out there in cyberspace. I got the article off the internet. Fourth, yes, her name is on the WHOOSH short list of people to interview who are in NZ. But, realistically, we will probably have to wait until after the 3rd season, or at the earliest, the latter half of the 3rd season. Again, thank you for writing. It brightened my day. 2. I am still deeply pondering how XANADU (the movie) ever got made. Has me stumped. If anyone has any idea, please spill the beans. I am beginning to have post- traumatic stress disorder from watching the film. I it disturbing. 3. Today we have the usual compliment of varied articles: Joe LoDuca, lesbians, dating tips for the 90's guy, GREASE, and the token off-the-wall reference. All in all, a regular issue of [turn on echo machine] THIS WEEK IN XENA NEWS [turn off echo machine]. 4. And what do we have to look forward to next week? Hey, I have relatives from out of town arriving on the doorstep Sunday AND then Wednesday I leave for NYC for a week so TWXN will probably be mega-sparse over the next 12 days. But when I get back I will no doubt drone on about the Rosie O. show, GREASE, the WHOOSH Annual gathering, the current state of the federal excise tax system (remember, insist upon no taxation without representation!), and more XANADU angst. Maybe we all need a vacation, you know? 5. Before signing off, I want to mention I will be in LA from September 22nd to the 24th. I will be free Monday and Tuesday nights. So, if anyone is interested in some sort of rendezvous, just holler. 6. OH NO! I almost forgot what is coming up in TWXN: a Good Morning America interview with LL, "Chicks show their chops" (aka "Babes with Blades"), Roseanne (remember her?), Xena is mentioned in an Arkansas courtroom (!), some more spooky Red Wings foreshadowing, SOMETHING SO RIGHT, more on the is she blond battle, and some inside scoop on Boston TV programming. Sounds too fun to miss, eh? Well, it will be released sometime. And the news... [ ] 04-30-97 THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. 762 words. "Tip of the ASCAP to composers" By By Marc Pollack COMMENTARY: Joe LoDuca, that award winnin' fool, gets more! EXCERPT: Music from "Ransom," "Jerry Maguire," "Space Jam," "Seinfeld" and "The X-Files" was honored Tuesday night at ASCAP's 12th annual Film and Television Awards. The event, which awards American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers' film and TV composer and songwriter members whose works have been the most performed during the past year, recognized James Horner ("Ransom"), Nancy Wilson ("Jerry Maguire"), James Newton Howard ("Space Jam"), Jonathan Wolff ("Seinfeld") and Mark Snow ("The X-Files"). Diane Warren, Whitney and Michael Houston, Coolio, Stevie Wonder, Marc Shaiman, Stephen Schwartz, Ed Alton, Bill Conti, Joe Henry and Michael Skloff were among those also praised.... ...In the categories of most performed themes, underscore and songs, recipients were determined by the greatest number of performance credits accrued from Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 1996. Top TV series were determined by Nielsen ratings and films by boxoffice receipts.... ...A complete list of winners follows.... ...Top TV Series... ...Joe LoDuca, "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" and "Xena: Warrior Princess"... ...Most Performed Underscore... ...Joe LoDuca... [ ] 04-30-97 THE SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER. Wednesday. Page A-2. 1080 words. "Happy Ellen day, now give me the remote" By Rob Morse. COMMENTARY: Interesting assumption going on in this article. REPRINT RIGHT NOW I'm sitting here watching "Xena: Warrior Princess," wondering why we need "Ellen." To give Ellen credit, though, she has achieved one-namehood like Xena. Unlike Xena, she has done so strictly by force of publicity, without anyone actually watching her show. While Ellen has been waiting to come out of the closet, other show -biz lesbians have jumped the gun on her. Even Ellen's new girlfriend, actress Anne Heche of "Volcano," has come out. At a White House Correspondents Association dinner at the White House on Saturday, Anne and Ellen were all over each other. A guy I know was there. The way he described the new young lovers, President Clinton could have rented them the Lincoln Bedroom for top dollar. While Ellen has become tedious, Anne has thrown Hollywood into a nervous tizzy. In Hollywood, studio executives' most courageous act is pinning ribbons on their tuxedo lapels. They wonder how a lesbian can play a romantic lead opposite a man. They know what a focus group is, but they forgot what acting is. They forgot that one of their own, Ronald Reagan, played a president for eight years. Other lesbians are coming out all over. Amanda Bearse is going both ways on "Married ... With Children," playing a new character who is the lesbian twin sister of her old straight character. "Friends" had a lesbian couple with a child. I don't know if the actors are really lesbian or not. It gets confusing, because one of them also plays a straight woman on "The Single Guy." Then there's the insie, not-quite-out stuff on TV. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but I'll bet a lot of other people are too, at least in San Francisco. Xena is a liberated warrior princess who rides a stallion around some ill-defined ancient land with Gabrielle, a comely young Robin to Xena's Batman. Now, I'm not saying they're lovers, but they are pretty tight. There's a lot of meaningful eye contact, when Xena isn't whacking men with her steel Frisbee, doing martial-arts handsprings or ululating. (Don't bother to look it up. Like the show, it isn't dirty.) Their relationship is wonderful, making the average heterosexual guy re-evaluate all those buddy shows with Glover and Gibson, Newman and Redford, and Seinfeld, George, Kramer and Elaine. Buddy shows are all closeted love stories. "Seinfeld" happens to be a four-fer. Forget the stupid, silicone-enhanced sexuality on TV. If you want real feelings, sexual or otherwise, you have to surf away from "Baywatch" and read them into a show yourself. I hope Ellen is allowed to be as explicit about sex as Seinfeld and his gang, a master of someone else's domain, to put it in Seinfeldian terms. I hope she's allowed to have a lover. She should at least get to gaze into a female friend's eyes the way Xena and Gabrielle do... ...It's going to be more interesting to see how Hollywood deals with the notion of women and acting. Will lesbian actresses who come out be lavender-listed? Will they be forced to play lesbian characters? We don't believe a volcano is really blasting out of the ground in Los Angeles, the place has worse problems. Why do we have to believe that the beautiful geologist in the movie really means it when she romantically gazes at Tommy Lee Jones? Jones is a family man in real life, a Harvard graduate, and he gets to play weirdo terrorists and dysfunctional husbands of country singers. Acting is acting. Let's hope they do some on "Ellen." Go ahead, put it up against Xena. [ ] 04-30-97 CHICAGO SUN-TIMES. Wednesday. Page 64. 570 words. 'Woman's picture throws cold water on phone flirting" By Jeffrey Zaslow COMMENTARY: Definitely a twist on the cultural reference. EXCERPT: ...Dear Zazz: With the current popularity of "Xena the Warrior Princess" on TV, would you suggest that I'd get further by asking a woman to dance, or by asking her to engage in a sword fight? '90S MAN Dear Man: Maybe you can suggest something in between. Why not take out your swords and dance the limbo? At the appropriate moment, you could yell "Heads Up!" then save her life and live happily ever after.... [ a] 05-01-97 ST. PETERSBURG TIMES. Thursday. Page 2B. 315 words. "Blige bumps B.I.G. from top of charts" Compiled from wire, staff reports COMMENTARY: Hey, the first press announcement! EXCERPT: ...Lucy Lawless, 29, star of the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess, will join the Broadway cast of Grease from Sept. 1 to Oct. 19... [ ] 05-01-97 NEW TIMES LOS ANGELES. Thursday. 4847 words. "Jokers Wild; From the plastic-surgery gawkers to the human- effigy barbecuers to the clown crucifiers, L.A. Cacophony Society members are just plain wacky" By Dave Wielenga COMMENTARY: This is so bizarre that I kept it in. Enjoy. EXCERPT: Los Angeles is burning again, and don't be consoled that the flames from this edition of the city's favorite catharsis won't spread beyond an after-dark party around the fire pits at Dockweiler Beach. The wacked-out jesters who are ranting and dancing as they stoke a funeral pyre to disturbing intensity at the Winter Solstice Human Barbecue are not beach people. Most of the members of the Los Angeles Cacophony Society live inland, among most of the rest of us. The inferno they are feeding with life-size effigies of Hollywood icons, low-down politicians, estranged lovers, former friends, and maybe even their next-door neighbors is merely the manifestation of the eerie internal combustion they have brought with them. They'll be taking it back home when they leave... ...The Winter Solstice Human Barbecue is about as close as the Los Angeles Cacophony Society likes to get to tradition, unless you count the Summer Solstice Human Barbecue. Don't say the T word too loudly, however. Cacophony Society members don't want the Human Barbecues to go the way of the tradition that was Burning Man.... ...They've emphasized the circus atmosphere of the original Easter weekend with a Klown Krucifixion, a re-enactment that might have been Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar except that the dialogue came straight from Scripture and the actors wore prosthetic noses and floppy shoes.... ... But nearly as many clowns surround a TV in the corner, watching with the sound down as a Korean-language drama unfolds above Chinese subtitles. Somebody asks to change the channel to Xena: Warrior Princess. "The town I live in El Segundo , it really f**** with people's heads if I even walk down the street dressed like this," says Sunshine. She has finished the spanking and is reclining on the sofa, a few feet from the TV. "But at least I don't sit home and watch videos all night." She is oblivious as Xena kicks the crap out of a bunch of guys in a cave.... Notices: All back issues of XMR and TWXN are available at (http://xenafan.com/xmr). We herein give praise and thanks to Tom Simpson for the space he has graciously donated from his spectacular, TOM'S XENA PAGE (http://xenafan.com). If you have never been there, you are **not** a xenafan! TWXN is the advance sheet for XMR, an annotated world press review of reports regarding the internationally syndicated television show XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS (1995 - 2000+?) and the castmembers, Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor. TWXN is not available for subscription, however it is posted Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on the XenaVerse, Hercules-Xena, and Chakram Mailing Lists (thank you Lucia! I am greatly indebt to you), the MCA NetForum, the Xenite Message Center, and alt.tv.xena. I also would like to thank sirvin@law.wfu.edu for assitance in collecting the newstories. For a free e-mail subscription to XMR subscribe by e-mail to ktaborn@lightspeed.net by stating somewhere in the subject or text "sub xmr".