Summer 2010: Hollywood Hits & Misses

After a five-year absence, Eminem returned with two albums in less than 12 months and instantly reclaimed his superstar crown. In just eight weeks, his “Recovery” sold more than 2 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That’s a feat unheard of in this download era and reminiscent of the mid-’90s. Meanwhile, his late-2009 effort, “Relapse,” has sold more than 2 million itself. “Relapse” is more of a shock-and-awe album, but Eminem showed a bit more soul on “Recovery,” and audiences have responded in a more than positive manner.

-- Todd Martens  (Andrew Milligan / Associated Press)

Paula Abdul stirred the pot last year when she left her “Idol” post over a contract dispute, but that was nothing compared to the drama this summer. After Simon Cowell‘s heartfelt exit at the end of Season 9, two more judges left the show. First, Ellen DeGeneres announced she was quitting because it “didn’t feel like the right fit for me.” Days later, news spread that Kara DioGuardi would not be returning either. After weeks of speculation over their replacements, news broke that Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez would join Randy Jackson on the panel. We’ll have to wait for January to see how all this plays out, dawg.

-- Emily Christianson and Whitney Friedlander  (Michael Becker / Associated Press)

Who knew Chris Pine had it in him? Sure, we’ve seen the “Star Trek” actor in Neil LaBute‘s “Fat Pig” at the Geffen Playhouse in 2007 and in Beau Willimon’s “Farragut North” two years later at the Geffen. But the Irish accent? The violence? The comic timing? And his special way with cats? Pine was the man to watch in the Mark Taper Forum production of Martin McDonagh’s blood-soaked black comedy “The Lieutenant of Inishmore.” As crazed Irish terrorist Padraic, who was willing to shoot his own father over a mishap with his cat, Pine still managed to show off his charm. And, as Times theater critic Charles McNulty noted: “The conviction and fine-grained texture of his acting continue to impress, as does the exemplary way he’s been managing his career -- one of the few young box-office guns eager to enrich his talent every bit as much as his bank account.” Oh, and it didn’t hurt that Taper audiences had a bloody good time.

-- Lisa Fung  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Fans were not as kind to Sarah McLachlan‘s girl-power music festival as they once were. Ticket sales plummeted, and tour dates were canceled as big names like Norah Jones and Kelly Clarkson bailed. The L.A.-area show at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre was at barely over half its capacity. Click here to see what The Times’ staff thought of the music amid the crickets chirping.

Photo: Martie Maguire, Sara Bareilles, Emily Robison, Sarah McLachlan, Serena Ryder and Jill Hennessy attend Lilith Fair at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, N.J.  (Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty Images)

This Huntington Beach band survived a tragedy and documented it in full on record. Avenged Sevenfold confronted the unexpected death last year of drummer James “The Rev” Sullivan on its recently released “Nightmare.” The darkly personal hard-rock song cycle was instantly embraced by fans and gave the locals its best-ever sales week on the U.S. pop charts. “Nightmare” landed at No. 1 in early August, topping the chart with 162,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. After three weeks, the album was still in the top 20.

-- Todd Martens  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Director Lisa Cholodenko‘s tale of an everyday family of four (headed by a lesbian couple) whose lives get twisted around when the teenage children track down their biological father was a hit with fans and critics. Although a wide release wasn’t as kind to ticket sales, the film (which Cholodenko co-wrote with Stuart Blumberg) has a 94% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes.com, and Times film critic Betsy Sharkey wrote, “Whatever your politics, between peerless performances, lyrical direction and an adventurous script, this is the sort of pleasingly grown-up fare all too rare in the mainstream daze of this very dry summer.”

-- Whitney Friedlander  (Suzanne Tenner / Associated Press)

It seemed like a good idea on paper, right? Neil Patrick Harris, himself a veteran of the Ahmanson Theatre’s cast of “Rent” way back in 1997 and not to mention other musical-theater roles, took to the director’s chair to stage the late Jonathan Larson‘s Pulitzer-winning play at the Bowl. The “Rent” cast even included “names” like Vanessa Hudgens and Wayne Brady. But the venue’s space and rehearsal-time constrictions might have been too much, says Times theater critic Charles McNulty: “Harris can do almost anything in my book, but he wasn’t able to figure out the spatial and logistical challenges of mounting a full-scale musical at the Bowl.”  (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

The indie act, based in Canada, topped the U.S. pop charts with its third album, “The Suburbs,” awarding its label, Merge Records, its first-ever No. 1 album. What’s more, the Arcade Fire did so by outselling Eminem, moving 156,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The act has been ruling the digital sector, having sold 122,000 downloads in just two weeks (out of a total 209,000 sales over the span).


And that doesn’t even touch on the music. “The Suburbs” is a full album experience, with themes and sounds shifting in and out from song to song. It’s quieter and less anthemic than past efforts from the act, but over the course of 16 tracks, the Arcade Fire crafts a novel-like look at a residential life populated with broken dreams and sprawling strip malls.  (Cory Schwartz / Getty Images)

One man on a sparse stage offering up a history lesson. Perhaps not the easiest sell for a theater production. Unless the man is Laurence Fishburne and the history lesson revolves around the U.S. Supreme Court‘s first African American justice, Thurgood Marshall. Reprising the role that earned him a Tony nomination for his performance in the 2008 Broadway run of George Stevens Jr.‘s “Thurgood,” Fishburne proved this wasn’t just a Hollywood vanity project. Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote of the Geffen Playhouse production: “He salutes the man (winking affectionately at his appreciation of a stiff drink and fine looking women) and pays homage to the civil rights legend, allowing us to see how the injustice of growing up in the ‘separate but equal’ Jim Crow South prompted Marshall to become a champion for justice.”

-- Lisa Fung  (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

Pop vixen Katy Perry waited till the end of summer to release her “Teenage Dream” (Aug. 24), but she’d been inescapable in the three or four months prior to that. After cavorting with Snoop Dogg in her “California Gurls,” she scored a second Top 5 single with the album’s title track -- a glossy and nostalgic look at young love. Yet don’t be fooled. “Teenage Dream” the album is largely about lust.

-- Todd Martens  (Joseph Nair / AFP / Getty Images)

Al Pacino‘s role as money-lending villain Shylock in New York‘s Public Theater production of the Shakespeare comedy was the talk of the city, said Times theater critic Charles McNulty, who added, “It’s also the most intriguing element in veteran director Daniel Sullivan’s handling of a play that is as curiously compelling as it is notoriously troubling.”

-- Whitney Friedlander  (Joan Marcus / Associated Press)

After finding mainstream success with her “Paper Planes,” a heavily licensed, Clash-sampling cut that won the border-hopping electronic artist a Grammy nomination, M.I.A. seemed poised for superstardom with her “Maya.”

That hasn’t quite panned out, as the first glimpse of the album, “Born Free,” was far more punk than dance and came with a controversial, extremely violent video. Soon after, the New York Times painted a not-so-flattering picture of the artist, contrasting her posh life with her political ideals, and M.I.A. responded by posting the reporter’s phone number online. All this overshadowed the release, which in five weeks has fallen out of the top 100 and doesn’t look likely to cross the 100,000 sales mark anytime soon.

A shame, as The Times’ Ann Powers wrote, “It feels like a serious artist’s sometimes tentative but very promising step toward a broader vision of herself. In its 12 tracks, M.I.A. explores both what it means to serve as a sexual/romantic ideal in the Beyoncé way and what happens when a self-consciously political artist like herself confronts the sentimental streak deep within.”

-- Todd Martens  (Leon Neal / AFP / Getty Images)

Comic-Con International doesn’t really get bigger and bigger as most people keep saying. They reached capacity, with sold-out tickets earlier and earlier, a long time ago. It’s just the coverage that seems to grow.

Big stars and big projects continue to come, and this year did not disappoint (except maybe the “ Harry Potter” fans). Appearances by Harrison Ford, Natalie Portman, the whole new cast of the eagerly awaited “Avengers” movie, a pairing of con greats in the Joss Whedon-J.J. Abrams hour, the Seths (Green and McFarlane), triple comic-book movie threat Ryan Reynolds, Jeff Bridges and “Tron,” Bruce Willis uniting with Sylvester Stallone and the men of “The Expendables” ... Star overload. Star overload.  (Clockwise from top left: Denis Poroy/Associated Press; John Shearer/Getty Images; Associated Press; Getty Images; Associated Press)