Morning Report - News from June 15, 2002

MOVIES

Spielberg Puts ‘Challenge’ First

Steven Spielberg plans to shoot a fourth “Indiana Jones” movie in 2004, and he has directed a host of high-grossing fantasy and adventure films. But he passed on the chance to direct “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Spider-Man,” which hasn’t gone over well with his kids.

“[I told them] ‘This is Daddy’s time now; this is the time for me to do things that will challenge me,’ ” he recalled in an interview promoting his new film, “Minority Report,” starring Tom Cruise. “And those two films would not have been a challenge for me.”

Though commercial success is nice, adds the 55-year-old director, it’s not sufficient in itself:

“It’s always fun to see those huge grosses come in, but it’s not creatively stimulating to me anymore. Right now, I’m just trying to find things that really make me excited, not necessarily the things that make kids excited.”

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POP/ROCK

Anti-Indian Song Fuels Tensions in South Africa

South Africa’s most prominent black playwright has created a furor in his homeland with a song he wrote, accusing people of Indian ancestry of exploiting and abusing black Africans in that country.

Prominent Indians are calling him a racist, African National Congress legislators have urged radio stations to stop playing the song and former President Nelson Mandela has asked him to apologize, according to the New York Times.

Still, Mbongeni Ngema, who was responsible for such hits as “Sarafina!” and “Woza Albert!,” is standing firm. The song, he says, was written to start a dialogue between Africans and Indians, who entered South Africa as indentured servants in the 1800s and now make up 3% of the population. A hierarchy developed among the Indians and darker-skinned South Africans, leading to a series of violent clashes over the years.

“I knew I would be trampling on people’s toes,” Ngema says. “But the emergence of this song has given Africans hope that finally this can be spoken about.”

On Thursday, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, an industry regulatory group, will consider banning the song from the air on the grounds that it incites violence.

Ngema says he hopes to perform in concert with Indian musicians and to discuss the issue in public meetings.

It’s ‘Sir Mick’ to You Now, Mate

Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, the aging rock ‘n’ roll rebel renowned for his drug arrests and female conquests, will finally get some satisfaction from Britain’s establishment today when he is awarded a knighthood.

“Old Rubber Lips,” a boyhood hero of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s, won his knighthood “for services to popular music,” according to the list of honors published to mark Queen Elizabeth’s official birthday.

“I was very pleased. I was also surprised because I must admit I wasn’t expecting to get it,” Jagger told Reuters Television. “It is great to get an honor from your own country--although I have had honors from other countries. It also reflects really wonderfully on all the achievements of the Rolling Stones over the last 40 years.”

Newman Defends Rapper Eminem

Randy Newman was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York on Thursday night, along with Michael Jackson, Barry Manilow and Sting. And he took the opportunity to serve up some praise for the controversial rapper Eminem, who he said is someone he can “identify with.”

“He is not serious.... He’s a comic artist,” Newman, 58, said of Eminem, who has been criticized for using slurs against gays and women and for the violent imagery of his music. “And since that’s essentially what I am, he’s a kindred spirit in some kind of way.”

Newman knows what it’s like to be on the defensive. The singer-songwriter faced critics when “Short People” was released in the late 1970s. Many were infuriated by the song’s chorus, which contained the lyrics “short people have no reason to live.”

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QUICK TAKES

Liza Minnelli has signed a deal with Clive Davis’ J Records to release a live CD by October. The project, produced by Phil Ramone, will contain material from her “Liza’s Back!” New York shows and a fall concert in Las Vegas, where she’s returning after a five-year absence, USA Today reports.... The team of Richard Meier, who designed the Getty Center and the Beverly Hills branch of the Museum of Television and Radio, and Arata Isozaki, who designed Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, are among the three finalists to redesign Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. The others: Jose Raphael Moneo, who designed the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown L.A., and Sir Norman Foster, who is a finalist to design the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park.... “Let’s Make a Deal” host Monty Hall, 78, is expected to return home today after breaking his hip in a fall while putting on his pants after a medical checkup at Cedars-Sinai Hospital.... A 2,000-year-old sculpture known as the Jenkins Venus or the Barberini Venus sold at auction for $11.7 million, a world record for an antiquity, Christie’s auction house said.... gColumbia/TriStar Television has canceled Pamela Anderson’s “V.I.P.” series after four years.