Leonard Cohen named to U.S. rock Hall of Fame

Madonna, Mellencamp also make list of 2008 inductees

Canada's , Leonard Cohen, is among five acts who will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland next year.

Pop singer Madonna, British group The Dave Clark Five, '60s surfer boys The Ventures and singer-songwriter John Mellencamp also were announced as 2008 inductees on Thursday.

A panel of 600 industry figures selected the five artists who will be inducted March 10 in New York.

Dog's Best Friend: Willie Nelson

ATLANTA (AP) — Willie Nelson is looking to become dog's best friend. The country music star has filmed a television spot supporting an anti-dogfighting bill that is moving through the Georgia Legislature.
In the ad, Nelson looks into the camera while "Georgia on My Mind" plays in the background.
"Dogfighting is against the law in Georgia, but the laws are so weak, the beautiful state of Georgia has become a haven for dogfighters from around the country," he says.
The bill would make it a felony for anyone to sell, trade or transport dogs for the purpose of dogfighting.
Utah-based Best Friends Animal Society, a national animal welfare organization, produced the piece and asked Nelson to participate.
State Sen. Chip Rogers, the bill's author, hopes to get the spot on TV and radio around the time of the Dec. 10 sentencing for suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who pleaded guilty to a federal dogfighting conspiracy charge.
The bill has passed the state Senate and will go before a House committee in January.

10 guest curators pick films for festival

Feb 6, 2007 : 9:50 pm ET

Duke University professor and internationally known writer Ariel Dorfman is one of 10 people invited by the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival to select a film for screening at the 10th anniversary of the Durham-based event, April 12-15.

Each of the guest curators was asked to choose a film that reflects on or informs of the power of the past decade.

Dorfman chose the documentary "ABC Africa," by Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, presented at Full Frame in 2001.

Other invited curators and their choices are:

-- Charles Burnett, recipient of the 1988 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, selected "Empire in Africa," the story of Sierra Leone's civil war, directed by Philippe Diaz.

-- Cara Mertes chose "Tongues Untied" by Marlon Riggs along with a surprise underground cult hit.

-- Filmmaker St. Clair Bourne chose his own documentary, "Making Do the Right Thing," a behind-the-scenes social commentary and chronicle of Spike Lee's feature film, "Do the Right Thing."

-- Writer Walter Mosley decided on Lian Lunson's "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man."

-- Filmmaker Michael Moore's choice, Kazuo Hara's "The Emperor's Naked Army Marches on," provides a look at World War II from a Japanese director's perspective.

-- Mira Nair selected Gillo Pontecorvo's "Battle of Algiers."

-- Filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker chose Nicole Vendres' "La Vie Commence Demain."

-- Julia Reichert chose Michael Moore's "Roger and Me."

-- Martin Scorsese selected Haile Gerima's "Harvest: 3,000 Years," a fictional account of an Ethiopian farmer's family and struggle against capricious landowners.

Willie Nelson: We have a lot to learn from horses


By Willie Nelson
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Willie Nelson is a legendary singer and songwriter. His new CD is called "Songbird."
AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) -- Will Rogers said, "You know horses are smarter than people. You never heard of a horse going broke betting on people."
However, the horses are counting on the people more than ever now. Nearly 100,000 horses are killed annually in foreign-owned slaughterhouses in America for human consumption in other countries.
With the upcoming Senate vote on the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, Americans have a small window of opportunity to save a living legend.
Horses are all the things a truly evolved human should be. There are countless examples of their innate ability and desire to heal people.
Consider the therapeutic riding programs across the country, where horses can have more progress with children with various physical and mental disabilities than their own doctors. The most superhuman thing about horses is the contrast between their unearthly strength and inherent gentleness. Humans abuse their power while horses use theirs only for good. I'd rather be a horse.
With no disrespect to the eagle, I've always thought that the horse should be our national emblem. When horse accepted man onto his back and chose to carry his burdens, it changed the world. Horses have aided mankind through his most arduous and treacherous endeavors, from the sword to the plowshare. Humanity owes an incalculable debt to the horse. In Native American teachings, Horse enables shamans to fly through the air and reach heaven. To steal someone's horse is to steal their power.
Contrary to what some people are saying, slaughter is not a humane form of euthanasia, and these are not unwanted horses. The treatment of slaughter-bound horses is most often inhumane, and more than 90 percent of those slaughtered are young and in good health. Many are sold to slaughterhouses at closed auctions, while others are stolen pets.
Humans are not smart to eat horses. Horses are treated daily with products such as fly spray, wormers, hoof dressings, etc. These products have labels warning against use on animals used for food. Anyone with horse sense would not be exporting this toxic product.
The passage of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503/S. 1915) would put in place a permanent and immediate ban on both the slaughter of horses in the U.S. and the exportation of live horses for slaughter abroad.
Thanks to the Society for Animal Protective Legislation, which started the national campaign to end horse slaughter, and to those who got involved and called their legislators, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass H.R. 503. But the fight is not over. The Senate will vote on S. 1915, hopefully in November. Call or write your senators today. Each week our elected officials fail to act on this bill, thousands of horses are subjected to unimaginable cruelty.
For information on horse slaughter, to read my public letter to Congress and to find your senators, go to the Society for Animal Protective Legislation.
There has never been a better time to adopt. I just adopted 11 horses from Habitat for Horses. For information on how you can adopt a horse or give to this great cause, visit Habitat for Horses.
Join me and more than 500 leading horse industry groups, humane organizations, equine rescues and veterinarians in our effort to end horse slaughter.

PROFILE | Director Lian Lunson
Shes the woman for Im Your Man
Lunsons agenda: Bring a new audience to Leonard Cohen.

By ROBERT W. BUTLER
The Kansas City Star


F ilmmaker Lian Lunson is on a mission to make Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen as familiar to todays young listeners as Christina Aguilera or Eminem.

My hope is that people, especially younger people who havent heard of him, will see my movie and say to themselves, Who is this man who writes these amazing songs?? Lunson said in a recent phone interview.

Her movie, the documentary Leonard Cohen: Im Your Man, opens Friday at the Tivoli. It mixes interview footage of the 71-year-old Cohen with concert performances by Nick Cave, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Antony, Linda and Teddy Thompson and others performing Cohen classics such as Sisters of Mercy, Famous Blue Raincoat, Im Your Man, Bird on a Wire, Everybody Knows, Suzanne and Chelsea Hotel No. 2.

For director Lunson and singer Martha Wainwright, early exposure to Cohen introduced them to the possibilities of music.

I first heard him during the punk era in Australia, Lunson recalled. Back then everybody had a Sex Pistols record and a Leonard Cohen album. It was all about poetic alienation. The punks were out there with their language and behavior, and while Leonard may have dressed well, emotionally he was pretty out there. It was amazing to realize that this really cool, dapper, beautiful man could write wrenching lyrics like this.

In the movie, Bono has a good take on that. He says that Leonard takes you up to the edge as far as you can go, and then laughs out loud at what hes found. He takes you to the desert but somehow assures you that at the end of the day itll be OK.

Wainwright daughter of folkie legends Loudon Wain-wright III and Kate McGarrigle said her introduction came with the discovery of Cohens album Im Your Man when she was 13: I found a cassette of it in the house, and while I didnt understand a lot of what he was talking about, Id listen to that tape four or five times a day. Over several months, the poetry opened itself up to me. There are a lot of different meanings, and Leonards songs can be taken in several different ways. Thanks to him, thats something Ive always tried to accomplish with my own music.

Initially Lunson decided to get footage of a Sydney tribute concert in which performers sang Cohens compositions. At the time she didnt know if Cohen would approve of her making a movie about his music or participate in it. Nor was Cohen involved in a series of Hal Willmer-produced tribute concerts featuring his compositions.

After seeing and filming the concert, I realized that even if Leonard refused to participate it could still be a good film, Lunson said. All these different people treated his words with such reverence. That was something pretty special. But I also felt that all these performances were part of a patchwork that made up Leonard, that each song was a piece of his life.

Lunson showed some of her footage to Cohen, and the two struck up a friendship.

He learned the sort of person I was and the kind of movie I wanted to make, she said. Plus hed seen my film about Willie Nelson and had liked it. So he started talking to my camera and, without any planning, the film just grew from there.

Although it contains biographical material, Leonard Cohen: Im You Man is less about facts than impressions.

I wasnt interested in objective journalism, Lunson said. I was more interested in capturing the effect the man and his music have on me.

Wainwright described the concert as a love-in. Most of the performers had participated in earlier Cohen tributes in New York City and Brighton, England, and the evening had many of the trappings of a class reunion.

What everyone had in common was a love affair with the beauty of Leonard Cohens songs, she said. I mean, we obsessed over their beauty and how best to express it. It was unlike any other concert Ive been involved in. When the musicians werent performing, they were in the wings hanging on every note. Nobody was backstage partying or in their dressing room obsessing at that moment, we were all complete Leonard Cohen fanatics.

Wainwright, who has known Cohen for nearly 20 years, said that in recent years he has been more devoted to writing poetry and novels. A practitioner of Zen Buddhism who spent a good chunk of the 90s in a monastery, Cohen has his ego under control, she said.

I think Leonards immune to flattery. He leads a very fulfilling personal life thats important for his writing. And while honors and praise are nice for him, I dont think it goes to his head.

Or, if it does, hes very good at hiding it.

Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man opens wide this weekend.
Check out Theater listings for Landmark cinemas in your city and also read a piece I wrote on Leonard Cohen.

Click here to read

Read the New York Times review of Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man

Click here to read the review