The Daily Collegian Ken Bums to appear on Big Ten Network By Lauren Ingeno COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER Fbr many Americans, documen tary filmmaker Ken Burns is responsible for changing the way they view their nation’s history. Now, Penn State students have the chance to watch Bums on the other side of the camera to find out what makes him tick. At noon today on the Big 10 Network, Bums will appear in an interview part of “Conversations from Perm State,” a WPSU-TV program that normal ly airs 12 different episodes per year. The station added an extra episode to its usual lineup to accommodate Burns, Betty White won an Emmy Award for best guest actress for her appearance in a “Saturday Night Live” episode. Other Emmy winners included Neil Patrick Harris, John Lithgow, Randy Newman and Anne Hathaway. Betty White scores Emmy win By Lynn Elber ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER LOS ANGELES The Betty White phenomenon keeps getting bigger. White won an Emmy Award for best guest actress in a comedy series for her turn as “Saturday Night Live” host. The honor came Saturday at the creative arts ceremony that is precursor to the main Aug. 29 Emmy show. The trophy is the fifth prime time Emmy received by the 88- year-old White, according to the TV academy. Her previous honors came for classic sitcoms including “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Golden Girls.” So far this year, besides the “SNL’ gig, White made a splash with the new TV Land sitcom “Hot in Cleveland,” scored with a clever Super Bowl commercial and played a mad librarian on ABC’s sitcom “The Middle.” She did not attend Saturday’s ceremony, which included pre senters Jane Lynch of “Glee,” Elizabeth Mitchell of “Lost” and Christina Hendricks of “Mad Men.” Neil Patrick Harris was a pre senter and winner, taking the tro Colbert to honor returning troops By Jake Coyle ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER NEW YORK Stephen Colbert is dusting off his camou flage suit The comedian will broadcast two special episodes of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” to celebrate the end of combat oper ations in Iraq and to honor returning troops. On Sept 8 and 9, the show will fill its audience with Iraq War vet erans and active duty service men and women. Others will be beamed in via satellite from Iraq, Afghanistan and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. “The Report,” which likes to parody over-the-top cable news graphics, is calling the episodes “Been There: Won That: The Retumification of the American- Do Thoopscape.” Guests will include Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb and the U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odiemo. Odiemo famously shaved Colbert’s head - ,on President Barack Obama’s orders - when the comedian broadcast four episodes of “The Report” from Baghdad last year. On that visit, Colbert donned a camouflage suit and reported from a desk sup ported by sand bags. ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT If you go What “Conversations from Penn State" with Ken Burns When: Noon today Where: Big Ten Network “Conversations” Lindsey Whissel said. “We heard he was coming to campus to speak at the College of Communications commencement in May,” Whissel said. “And he’s just such an icon for public TV It was a complete no-brainer to ask him to be part of the show.” Bums is a 30-year veteran of phy for best guest actor in a com edy series for his appearance on “Glee.” The guest acting trophies for drama series went to John Lithgow for “Dexter” and Ann- Margret for “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” which has won Emmy acting honors for six consecutive years. Harris, who stars in “How I Met Your Mother,” shared in another award. The Tony Awards show, which he hosted to critical acclaim, was recognized as best special class program. The top network winner was HBO with 17 trophies, followed by ABC with 15 and Fox with nine. CBS, NBC and PBS each claimed seven. “The Pacific,” HBO’s World War II miniseries, captured a leading seven creative arts awards. Four trophies went to “Disney Prep & Landing,” an animated Christmas special. Other big win ners, with three trophies each, were freshman sitcom “Modern Family,’’Saturday Night Live” and “The 25th Anniversary Rock And Roll Hall of Fame Concert.” Randy Newman won a trophy for original music and lyrics for “When I’m Gone,” written for the departed series “Monk.” Stephen Colbert will broadcast two special episodes of “The Colbert Report” to celebrate the end of combat operations in Iraq. One of those Iraq episodes earned “The Report” an Emmy nomination for writing for a vari ety, music or comedy series. The show has three nominations, including for outstanding variety, music or comedy series, heading into the Emmy Awards on Aug. 29. The 4th Stryker Brigade, . 2nd Infantry Division, which exited Iraq on Wednesday, officially was designated the last combat brigade to leave Iraq under Obama’s plan to end combat operations there by Aug. 31. Some 50,000 members will stay another year in what is designated as a noncombat role. documentary filmmaking. A hand ful of his numerous films and PBS series include “The Civil War,” “The War,” “Jazz,” “Baseball,” and “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.” Though Burns’ films have spanned such a wide variety of topics, he said they all cover com mon ground. “In some ways I’m making the same film over and over again,” Bums said. “They are all nonethe less trying to come to the under standing of who we are as Americans.” producer His Emmy award-winning films have had a heavy impact on Americans of all ages. Kristian Berg, a producer at WPSU-TV John Leverence, senior vice president of awards, received the Syd Cassyd Pounders Award for his service to the TV academy. The creative arts ceremony will air Friday on the E! channel. Next Sunday’s 62nd annual prime-time Emmy ceremony, with Jimmy Fallon as host, will air live on NBC. Other winners at the creative arts Emmys, which honor techni cal and other achievements, included: Host, reality or reality-competi tion series: Jeff Probst, “Survivor,” CBS. Voice-over performance: Anne Hathaway, “The Simpsons: Once Upon a Time in Springfield,” Fox. Reality program: “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” ABC. Commercial: “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like: Old Spice Body Wash.” Animated Program: “Disney Prep & Landing,” ABC: Nonfiction series: “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” PBS. Writing for a variety, music or comedy series: “The Colbert Report: 5076 (in Iraq),” Comedy Central. Music composition for a series (original dramatic score): “24: 3 p.m. - 4 p.m.,” Fox. Though Colbert’s normal mode is satire, he’s a strong supporter of the troops. With the Wrist Strong bracelets he’s promoted since falling while running around his desk and breaking his wrist, he has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Yellow Ribbon Fhnd, a charity that assists injured service members and their fami lies. He’s a board member of DonorsChoose.org, which is raising money for the education of chil dren of parents in the military. “Sometimes,” CoL t said ear lier to The Associated Press, “my character and I agree.” said Bums’ films inspired him to make documentaries on history in his own region. “He was really a game-changer. He wasn’t the first one to use that style, but he was the one to first plant it in the public’s imagina tion,” Berg said. “He was able to tell stories in a way that people hadn’t seen before.” Student filmmaker Max Simone (sophomore-film and video and English) said he used to watch Bums’ series “The War” and dis cuss it at the lunch table the next day at school. “He’s been able to take some thing mundane and make it inter esting,” Simone said. “Every stu dent film uses the Ken Bums ‘The Expendables’ crowns box office with $16.5 million By David Germain ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER LOS ANGELES Sylvester Stallone’s “The Expendables” fought off an onslaught of new comers to finish on top of the weekend box office again. Lionsgate’s “The Expendables” remained No. 1 for a second straight weekend with $16.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. Directed by and starring Stallone, the action romp about mercenaries aiming to overthrow a dictator raised its total to $64.9 million. Five new wide releases debuted to crowd the market, but none managed to pack in huge audiences and knock off “The Expendables.” “Given all that competition in the marketplace, I don’t think there was any guarantee we would hold this strong, but we did,” said David Spitz, head of dis tribution for Lionsgate. Leading the newcomers was 20th Centuiy Fox’s “Twilight” spoof “Vampires Suck” with $12.2 million, raising its total to $18.6 million since it opened Wednesday. The movie mocks the block buster franchise with a parody about a moody schoolgirl in a love triangle with a vampire and a werewolf. “Vampires Suck” was in a photo finish for the No. 2 spot with Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press Haitian-born singer and presidential candidate Wyclef Jean, second left, walks surrounded by security after Haiti’s Electoral Council reject ed his candidacy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Wyclef Jean to appeal rejection of candidacy By Tamara Lush ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Hip-hop singer Wyclef Jean said Sunday he is not abandoning his presidential bid just yet and will tiy to get the courts to overturn a decision disqualifying him from the race. Speaking to The Associated Press by telephone from his home in Croix des Bouquets, Jean said his lawyers will file an appeal with the national electoral dispute office. Jean said that he has a docu ment “which shows everything is correct” and that he and his aides “feel that what is going on here has everything to do with Haitian politics.” “They are trying to keep us out of the race,” he said, referring to Haiti’s political establishment. Haiti’s elections board rejected Jean’s candidacy Friday night presumably because it decided he didn’t meet residency require ments, although the board did not cite a specific reason. Under Haitian law, a presidential candi date must have lived in the coun try for five consecutive years leading up to the election. Jean has argued that he was not required to comply with the Monday, Aug. 23,2010 I 15 effect. It’s common knowledge to all filmmakers and it has helped a lot of videos.” The “Ken Bums effect” is a filming technique Bums uses in his documentaries in which he zooms and scans still images. Bums said his documentaries can spark a greater interest than a history class or a show on the History Channel. “The Histoiy Channel is rela tively superficial,” Bums said. “In our films we like to present a com plex history. And a complex histo ry is a history that can be a guide to where we are and where we’re going.” To contact reporter: ImlsolB@psu.edu another holdover, Julia Roberts’ drama “Eat Pray Love.” The Sony film about a divorced woman traveling the world in search of fulfillment pulled in $l2 million to lift its total to $47.1 mil lion. The Warner Bros, comedy “Lottery Ticket,” featuring rap per Bow Wow as a young man besieged by neighbors after he wins a $370 million jackpot, opened in fourth place with $ll.l million. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg’s cop comedy “The Other Guys” held up well in its third weekend. The Sony release took in $lO.l million and boosting its total to $88.2 million. “The Other Guys” was in a tossup for No. 5 with the Weinstein Co. horror remake “Piranha 3D,” which opened with $lO million. Inspired by the low-budget 1978 “Piranha,” the update is set at a lake where spring-break partiers are consumed by prehistoric man-eating fish. Universal’s sequel “Nanny McPhee Returns,” with Emma Thompson back as the homely title character whipping a wartime family into shape, opened at No. 7 with $8.3 million. The first film, 2006’s “Nanny McPhee,” debuted in fewer the aters but managed to pull in $14.5 million over opening weekend. law so strictly because after President Rene Preval appointed him as roving ambassador in 2007, he was allowed to travel and live outside the country. Some officials in Haiti worried about political unrest among Jean supporters after his candi dacy was rejected. But the singer asked his fans to stay calm, and there were no significant elec tion-related protests or violence over the weekend although rumors swirled about a large protest planned for Monday. Many people in Jean’s hometown of Croix des Bouquets, a suburb of the capital Port-au-Prince, cheered the singer Sunday in his quest for the presidency. “I love what Wfyclef is doing,” said Paul Jean Augustine, a 27- year-old mechanic. “We’re ready to die for Clef, and without him there’s no election. We are with him 100 percent” Although he issued a state ment late Friday saying that “I respectfully accept die commit tee’s final decision,” the 40-year old singer said Sunday that he is appealing the Haitian board’s decision on the basis that it rejected his candidacy before the national electoral dispute office, or BCEN, could issue a final rul ing on the residency issue.
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