Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter IV" falls short with critics (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Rapper Lil Wayne released his newest album, "Tha Carter IV," just after midnight on Monday to huge media hype following MTV's Video Music Awards, but early reactions show the record falling short of high expectations from fans and critics.

After several delays, "Tha Carter IV," hit digital music retailers at midnight, almost immediately following Lil Wayne's rowdy, rocked-out performance at VMAs.

The MTV honors show, where trophies are handed out in categories for best video among others, annually draws top stars in music and is a key promotional stop for singers trying to boost sales. Sunday's show drew a record 12.4 million viewers to the network, up from 11.4 million last year.

Fans watched Beyonce reveal she was pregnant with her first child, Lady Gaga dressed in male drag, Jay-Z and Kanye West perform a song from their new record "Watch the Throne," and the late singer Amy Winehouse remembered in a moving tribute.

Wayne closed out the show with his top 10 hit "How to Love," which with Weezy's crooning vocal, sounds as much R&B as hip-hop, and he performed "John," remixed over Black Sabbath's rock tune "Iron Man."

The crowd went crazy, and the show likely was a key factor in helping lift the album's 19-track deluxe edition, featuring an exclusive bonus track, to a fast start at No. 1 on iTunes.

Wayne's label mate and protege Nicki Minaj tweeted her support with a simple, "Buy the Carter IV."

Veteran rapper Busta Rhymes, who is featured on the album, was in a more celebratory mood tweeting that Wayne had "smashed the Vma's KRAZZZZYYYYYY!!!" Adding, "By the way CARTER 4

AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE RIGHT NOW!!!"

Critics, however, were not so enthusiastic.

HARD TO TOP 'CARTER III'

"Tha Carter IV" is the ninth studio album from the New Orleans rapper born Dwayne Carter, but the fourth in his career-defining Carter series.

Wayne, aka Weezy, released two albums last year, "I Am Not a Human Being" and his rock experiment, "Rebirth." Neither album came close to the first-week sales of 1 million copies for 2008's "Tha Carter III" whether due to a break from formula or to Wayne's being unavailable to promote the records while serving an 8-month stint for a weapons charge.

Billboard.com wrote that Wayne's most recent effort may have had unrealistically high expectations, saying in its review that "Tha Carter IV" "is not a bad album," but adding that it may be "may be more easily digested and supported by those largely unfamiliar with Weezy's antics and unaware of his previous highs (pun intended)."

Rollingstone.com gave the album a respectable 3-1/2 out of 5 stars but admitted, "Weezy doesn't have the same speed-demon intensity he had five years ago."

In its review, HiphopDX.com noted that more attention was being paid to a new lyrical jab Lil Wayne took at rap impresario and music mogul Jay-Z, who was a featured guest on "Tha Carter III," than on the album's music.

"The fact that most of us have spent a week debating what the fallout will be from Wayne's Jay-Z diss on "It's Good," instead of the album's wins, was probably a bad omen," HiphopDX.com wrote.

And a comical trending topic emerged on Twitter Monday with the hash tag, #ThingsBetterThanTheCarterIV. The answers offered ranged from a colonoscopy to "Watch the Throne."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Movie Scores: How the critics rated the new movies (AP)

LOS ANGELES – Conan is a fearless and muscular warrior, but he isn't winning the battle with film critics.

The remake of "Conan the Barbarian," with Jason Momoa in the role that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a major action star, is receiving below-average reviews in its opening weekend. AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire wrote in her one-star review: "The knowing sense of big, ridiculous fun that marked the 1982 original is gone, and in its place we get a self-serious series of generic sword battles and expository conversations."

Another remake that is faring far better with critics is the horror comedy "Fright Night," starring Anton Yelchin as a teenager who thinks his next-door neighbor (Colin Farrell) is a vampire. Lemire wrote: "This new version stays true to its origins by having a bit of cheeky fun, and the way it contemporizes the story is really rather clever." She gave the movie two and a half stars out of four.

Also debuting this weekend is the romance "One Day," based on the best-selling novel about two friends (Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess) whose lives intertwine over 20 years. Lemire wrote: "Maybe it was all more resonant, more poignant on the page: the many highs and lows and major life shifts that occur during the decades-spanning friendship/romance between Emma and Dexter in `One Day.'" She gave the film one and a half stars out of four.

"Spy Kids: All the Time in the World," the fourth film in Robert Rodriguez's family friendly series, wasn't screened for critics before its opening, so reviews were still trickling in Friday. It wasn't looking good early, though — or smelling good, given that Rodriguez added AromaScope scent cards to the moviegoing experience — with positive reviews hovering around 9 percent.

Here's a look at how these movies fared on the top review websites as of Friday afternoon. Each score is the percentage of positive reviews for the film:

• "Conan the Barbarian": Metacritic, 37; Movie Review Intelligence, 42.8; Rotten Tomatoes, 25. Average: 34.9.

• "Fright Night": Metacritic, 66; Movie Review Intelligence, 70.5; Rotten Tomatoes, 76. Average: 70.8.

• "One Day": Metacritic, 48; Movie Review Intelligence, 54.4; Rotten Tomatoes, 30. Average: 44.1.

___

Online:

http://www.metacritic.com/

http://moviereviewintelligence.com/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

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U2 pass festival test, critics say, despite tax row (Reuters)

PILTON, England (Reuters) – Irish rockers U2 pulled it off with their Glastonbury music festival debut, critics said on Saturday, but the fallout from a protest over the band's tax status continued to rumble.

Bono and co. raced through U2 classics like "Mysterious Ways," "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "Pride" late on Friday on the main Pyramid stage, generally satisfying a crowd of tens of thousands of rain-lashed listeners.

The band admitted beforehand that the rare festival outing was a step away from the comfort zone of their record-breaking 360 Degree tour, and not everyone at Glastonbury was convinced they were the right opening night choice.

U2 had been due to play Glastonbury, one of the world's largest and most prestigious music festivals, in 2010, but an injury to Bono's back forced them to pull out.

"On unfamiliar ground, they reach for that fierce hunger and it's that sense of urgency - even a hint of nerves - rather than triumphalism that makes this such a charged and memorable set," wrote Dorian Lynskey in the Guardian.

Nick Hasted of The Independent gave a more mixed assessment.

"For all his songs' over-reaching grasps at wonder, Bono remains an uncharismatic performer, a great rock star by profession, not nature," he said.

Protesters angry about the group's decision to move operations from Ireland to the Netherlands for tax purposes raised a large inflatable with the words "U Pay Tax 2."

The balloon was forcibly removed, causing a brief scuffle, but witnesses said the incident was relatively minor and went unnoticed by most of the crowd.

COLDPLAY, BEYONCE TO COME

U2 passed the baton to Coldplay, the main act on Saturday night, although as ever there was a huge choice of alternatives from Spliff Richard and Alfred Lord Telecom performing in Bella's Field to Glasvegas on the John Peel stage.

London rapper Tinie Tempah is in action on Saturday, as are Elbow, Friendly Fires and Chemical Brothers.

Reviews landed for many of Friday's key performances that included festival favorites Radiohead and legendary blues guitarist B.B. King who still had what it took at the age of 85.

The closing headline act on Sunday night is Beyonce, following in the footsteps of her husband Jay-Z who won over the Glastonbury doubters with a rousing set in 2008.

Paul Simon appears a few hours earlier on the Pyramid stage, while Kaiser Chiefs and Queens of the Stone Age are on the Other Stage on Sunday.

The abiding memory for many of the festival's 150,000 paying customers will be the mud, caused by heavy rain this week.

Forecasters have predicted warmer, sunnier weather on Saturday and Sunday, when Glastonbury closes, but it is unlikely to be enough to dry out the shin-deep mud.

Turned into a giant camping site most years, Britain's most famous music festival is now in its fifth decade.

The event has grown from a humble gathering of 1,500 people on Michael Eavis's Worthy Farm in 1970, each paying one pound ($1.60) and receiving free milk, to a giant celebration of music costing 195 pounds for a basic ticket.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Bono's "Spider-Man" musical still weak, critics say (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Broadway's most expensive and ridiculed musical, "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark," suffered another round of crushing reviews on Wednesday, a day after its long-delayed official opening drew celebrities such as former president Bill Clinton and actor Robert De Niro.

The $70 million comic-book adaptation, featuring music by U2's Bono and the Edge, was lambasted earlier this year while playing in a record-breaking 180 previews as its producers struggled to overhaul the production.

While the play would take years to turn a profit, tourists and other intrigued theatergoers could keep it on Broadway far longer than usual for productions with such withering notices.

Technical problems had delayed the opening six times since it began previews last year, and the show was suspended at one point after a rash of on-stage injuries and bad publicity ultimately led to the departure of its iconoclastic director Julie Taymor.

Many critics said that while the show had changed dramatically from its initial run under Taymor, it was still hobbled by a weak plot and bad music.

New York magazine said the musical had "deteriorated from mindblowingly misbegotten carnival-of-the-damned to merely embarrassing dud."

And the New York Times said, "this singing comic book is no longer the ungodly, indecipherable mess it was in February. It's just a bore."

Somewhat embarrassingly for the high-profile rockers in one of the world's biggest bands, the music was uniformly panned.

"It's their mediocre score, as much as anything, that makes this third-rate entertainment," said the Hollywood Reporter, describing a couple of tunes as "shockingly inept."

Added New York magazine: "No amount of mulch or manure can cover up the music, which is, by far, the show's greatest weakness."

Some critics were kinder. USA Today said "the new Spider-Man is ... more in line with the winking musical adaptations of famous films and brands that have lined the theater district in recent years." The paper concluded, "it might just make it."

Even Clinton, hitherto unknown as a theater critic, jumped to its defense. In a statement he described the play as "fabulous."

The musical was originally due to open late last year. Aside from the numerous technical and creative challenges that stumped producers, a major cast member quit and the U.S. Department of Labor accused it of serious violations of workplace safety rules.

And in February, with the musical playing to packed houses for so many months, critics broke the customary embargo on running reviews before the official opening to deliver an initial round of blistering reviews.

But regardless of the latest reviews, the official opening still drew an A-list crowd. In addition to Clinton and De Niro, the audience included Taymor, Bono and The Edge, actors Matt Damon and Steve Martin, director Spike Lee, model Cindy Crawford and artist Jeff Koons.

The show features impressive stunts with "Spider-Man," played by Broadway newcomer Reeve Carney, often flying high above the audience into the top tiers and climaxing with a mid-air fight between Spider-Man and his enemy the Green Goblin. In previews the characters often got stuck mid-air.

The show's woes provided its writing staff with an opportunity to insert a few in-jokes.

"I'm a $65 million circus tragedy," the Green Goblin says at one point in the show. "Well, more like 75 million."

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by XXXX XXXXX)

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Bono's "Spider-Man" musical still weak, critics say (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Broadway's most expensive and ridiculed musical, "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark," suffered another round of crushing reviews on Wednesday, a day after its long-delayed official opening drew celebrities such as former president Bill Clinton and actor Robert De Niro.

The $70 million comic-book adaptation, featuring music by U2's Bono and the Edge, was lambasted earlier this year while playing in a record-breaking 180 previews as its producers struggled to overhaul the production.

While the play would take years to turn a profit, tourists and other intrigued theatergoers could keep it on Broadway far longer than usual for productions with such withering notices.

Technical problems had delayed the opening six times since it began previews last year, and the show was suspended at one point after a rash of on-stage injuries and bad publicity ultimately led to the departure of its iconoclastic director Julie Taymor.

Many critics said that while the show had changed dramatically from its initial run under Taymor, it was still hobbled by a weak plot and bad music.

New York magazine said the musical had "deteriorated from mindblowingly misbegotten carnival-of-the-damned to merely embarrassing dud."

And the New York Times said, "this singing comic book is no longer the ungodly, indecipherable mess it was in February. It's just a bore."

Somewhat embarrassingly for the high-profile rockers in one of the world's biggest bands, the music was uniformly panned.

"It's their mediocre score, as much as anything, that makes this third-rate entertainment," said the Hollywood Reporter, describing a couple of tunes as "shockingly inept."

Added New York magazine: "No amount of mulch or manure can cover up the music, which is, by far, the show's greatest weakness."

Some critics were kinder. USA Today said "the new Spider-Man is ... more in line with the winking musical adaptations of famous films and brands that have lined the theater district in recent years." The paper concluded, "it might just make it."

Even Clinton, hitherto unknown as a theater critic, jumped to its defense. In a statement he described the play as "fabulous."

The musical was originally due to open late last year. Aside from the numerous technical and creative challenges that stumped producers, a major cast member quit and the U.S. Department of Labor accused it of serious violations of workplace safety rules.

And in February, with the musical playing to packed houses for so many months, critics broke the customary embargo on running reviews before the official opening to deliver an initial round of blistering reviews.

But regardless of the latest reviews, the official opening still drew an A-list crowd. In addition to Clinton and De Niro, the audience included Taymor, Bono and The Edge, actors Matt Damon and Steve Martin, director Spike Lee, model Cindy Crawford and artist Jeff Koons.

The show features impressive stunts with "Spider-Man," played by Broadway newcomer Reeve Carney, often flying high above the audience into the top tiers and climaxing with a mid-air fight between Spider-Man and his enemy the Green Goblin. In previews the characters often got stuck mid-air.

The show's woes provided its writing staff with an opportunity to insert a few in-jokes.

"I'm a $65 million circus tragedy," the Green Goblin says at one point in the show. "Well, more like 75 million."

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by XXXX XXXXX)

Yahoo! News

Critics weigh in on "Oprah"'s swan song (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Oprah Winfrey ended her show after 25 years on Wednesday without celebrities or car giveaways. Instead, she addressed her audience solo from her studio in Chicago, alternating between tears and laughter and recounting her life lessons. What did the critics think of her send-off?

"The hour perfectly embodied how complex it is to analyze or critique the woman behind the message," wrote The Hollywood Reporter's Tim Goodman on his Bastard Machine blog. "On the one hand, it's hard to argue how deeply Oprah has touched her massive audience and how much good the self-help emphasis has done for so many people, celebrities included. On the other hand, for those outside the sphere of influence that Oprah holds over her worshippers (they are too numerous to be a cult), it's impossible to miss some of the God-complex patina that she wears so proudly."

Still, Goodman joked about Oprah's religious and at times over-the-top message. "Freeze-frame the DVR yourself: No bongs in sight."

The New York Post's Michael Starr also called out Winfrey's religious undertones. "And On The Final Day, she wept," he wrote. "Oprah Winfrey signed off yesterday after 25 years as TV's reigning daytime queen -- sounding more like an evangelist than a talk-show host.

"Coming out to a standing ovation from her rapturous, squealing studio audience, Oprah held court on stage, alone, for the show's full hour, striding back and forth and spewing fluffy, New Age-y aphorisms offset by occasional clips from past episodes," he went on.

But the Washington Post's Sally Quinn lauded Oprah for her religious leaning. "Oprah's final show was a sermon. She finally came out as a true religious leader, an image she has skirted around for these last 25 years," wrote Quinn. "She is America's high priestess."

"This is ministry at its best and something that more religious leaders should pay attention to," she added. "She managed to touch something in a lot of people and changed countless lives by giving her audience a spiritual message that they could apply to their own lives. Her message was inclusive and pluralistic rather than exclusive. Everyone belonged. Everyone had value."

"The pope couldn't have done better," Quinn ended.

The U.K. Guardian's Hadley Freeman didn't think Oprah spent enough time on "any of the new age baloney she has increasingly peddled" -- and she was grateful for that.

"The celebrity dazzle might have brought more media attention but that is not her true appeal," Freeman also noted of her decision to not have guests on her last show, which aired after two-days of major celebrities wishing her farewell in Chicago's United Center, packed with 13,000 audience members.

"There were plenty of needlepoint truisms -- 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you' -- but she keenly emphasized the social issues she has focused on over the years (sexual abuse, alcoholism) and the words 'Jonathan Franzen' were not mentioned once, nor, thank heavens, was any of the new age baloney she has increasingly peddled," wrote Freeman

(Editing by Chris Michaud)

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Anne Hathway coping with Oscar critics

Poor Anne Hathaway. First you land the job of a lifetime and then everyone tells you you’ve done it wrong. The actress played host at the recent Oscar awards, which critics have slated as the worst in the ceremony’s long history. We don’t remember how bad it was because we were too busy enjoying staring at her co-host James Franco for hours on end, but whatever the pair of them did, they didn’t impress the US establishment, which takes the Oscars extremely seriously.

Like a proper showbiz trouper, though, Anne’s refusing to let the negative press get her down and keeping her eye on the people who did enjoy the show. Anne says,

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