Morning Report - News from July 23, 2002

POP/ROCK

Eminem, Elliott, P.O.D. Top MTV Nominees

Rappers Eminem and Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott and the rock band P.O.D. lead nominees for this year’s MTV Video Music Awards with six each, the cable channel announced Monday.

Eminem’s comic book-style clip for “Without Me,” in which he dresses up as a version of Batman’s sidekick, Robin, was nominated as video of the year, best male video and best rap video. Elliott’s “One Minute Man,” which features rappers Ludacris and Trina, is up for best hip-hop video and several technical categories.

P.O.D.’s “Alive,” which features an elaborate highway crash, was nominated for video of the year and best group video. The band’s other hit, “Youth of a Nation,” will vie for best rock video.

Other contenders for video of the year: “Fell in Love With a Girl,” by the White Stripes; “Gone,” by ‘N Sync; “In the End,” by Linkin Park, and “One Mic,” by Nas.

Jimmy Fallon of “Saturday Night Live” will host the awards ceremony Aug. 29 in New York City.

R. Kelly’s ‘Heaven’ Circulating on Airwaves

Chicago rapper R. Kelly’s song “Heaven I Need a Hug,” his response to his June 5 arrest on child pornography charges, was released to radio stations nationally on Monday by his label, Jive Records.

A Jive spokeswoman said there are no plans for the song to be released commercially as a single. Though it will be on Kelly’s next album, “Loveland,” no release date for the album has been set. The song first got airplay last month on Chicago’s WGCI-FM after the rapper gave a copy to the station exclusively.

In “Heaven,” Kelly sings: “It’s all because I’m famous/You know what I’m sayin’/I mean if I wasn’t famous/Then all this wouldn’t be happening....”

Kelly’s arrest stems from a 26-minute videotape circulated on the Internet and elsewhere. On it, he allegedly engaged in sexual relations with a girl said to be 14 when the tape was made. Kelly has denied the charges.

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TELEVISION

ABC-Fox Showdown ‘Not My Fight’: Mac

For weeks, Bernie Mac has remained mum about Fox’s decision to schedule his Peabody Award-winning sitcom opposite ABC’s “My Wife and Kids”--two of the few prime-time network TV series starring blacks. But fielding questions at a news conference in Pasadena on Sunday, he finally spoke out.

“Wherever I am, I have to play. I have to put on a good show,” he said. Moving the show to the 8 p.m. Wednesday slot, he said, was a business decision--something he can live with.

Damon Wayans, star of the competing program, doesn’t agree, he acknowledged. Wayans called to enlist his help.

“That’s not my fight,” Mac said he told Wayans, arguing that there’s room for both programs because they attract different viewers.

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MOVIES

Rapper Actors Don’t Cut It With Jackson

Actor Samuel L. Jackson doesn’t think much of the trend that is turning rap singers into movie stars.

“To take people from the music world and give them the same kind of credibility and weight that you give me, Morgan Freeman, Laurence Fishburne, Forest Whitaker--that’s like an aberration to me,” he said.

Jackson has appeared with rappers in supporting parts in films such as the upcoming “XXX.” And he applauds Will Smith as a rapper who has won credibility as an actor. But he won’t even look at a script that gives a rapper a starring role, he told the Sacramento Bee.

“It’s not my job to lend credibility to so-and-so rapper who’s just coming into the business,” he said. “I know there’s some young actor sitting in New York or L.A. who’s spent half of his life learning how to act and sacrificing to learn his craft but isn’t going to get his opportunity ... because of some actor who’s been created.”

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QUICK TAKES

Alfonso Cuaron, director of this year’s Spanish-language hit “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” has been picked to direct “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” the third movie in the Warner Bros. film franchise, to be released in summer 2004.... Ray Romano will make his feature film debut playing an accountant who gets hit in the head and thinks he’s his favorite action star, in New Line’s comedy “Action Abramowitz.” ... KNBC news anchor Paul Moyer has signed a six-year deal with the station that sources say will bring him slightly more than $3 million a year.... Phil Donahue’s ratings dropped throughout his first week on the air at MSNBC, and he wound up averaging 660,000 viewers per night, compared with 710,000 for CNN’s Connie Chung and 2.1 million for Bill O’Reilly on Fox News Channel.... Filmmaker-playwright David Mamet says he’s written a movie about the creation of the Israeli air force that he hopes to shoot in Israel.... Universal Studios has signed the Rock to star in a movie based on the videogame Spy Hunter, Eonline reports.... Tim Robbins will join Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon in “Mystic River,” a film about childhood friends whose lives become intertwined because of a murder. Clint Eastwood is directing.