REISSUE: Dennis Hopper on The Strip in 06

We're still on for today's recording of The Strip at 5 pm PT at LVRocks.Com, but I wanted to toss this up because I thought it'd be timely.

Dennis Hopper, the former chairman of the (hopefully just) mothballed Cinevegas Film Festival, died today. In his memory, we're re-issuing this episode from June 2006 featuring an interview with the legendary filmmaker and actor.

It was a really good conversation, bouncing around from his roles with James Dean and on "24" to his involvement with Cinevegas and his accomplished art career. You can listen download the episode by right-clicking on this link or click here and it'll just play. It's kind of fun vintage, opening as it does with our show's original theme music and featuring chatter from Miles and me about things like his low-carb diet and what MGM Mirage needed to do for the Monte Carlo.

The interview was recorded via Skype, though, and the sound quality isn't as good as how I do it now.

The show is UP: The Next Big Li'l Thing

I pulled rank as the producer of the MJ show to have the first serious interview with Elijah Johnson since he exploded on stage in the Pearl. Tomorrow I should have video to show those of you who weren't there what we all witnessed, but until then, here's this week's show with the revelation that Johnson leaves the cast of Lion King in October because he's outgrown the role. Seriously. His dad says the contract says he can't grow more than 2 inches. (!?!) Also, thanks MUCH to Dave McKee of Las Vegas Advisor for filling in for Miles at such short notice as co-host. So, anyhow, right-click on the date below and save it to your computer. Or you can subscribe (it's free!) via this iTunes link or via this Zune link.

Sept. 3: The Next Big Li'l Thing

If you were at the Palms on Saturday for the Michael Jackson tribute benefit, you might want to put your ticket stub in a safe place. Years from now, the concert may very well be remembered in the same light as Motown 25, a magical moment when the world witnessed the birth of a major talent. This time, it was Elijah Johnson, the 11-year-old star of the Lion King at Mandalay Bay, who flew onto the stage in a burst of energy and confidence and sang and danced with an exuberance that now has the Tonight Show calling. Johnson, who leaves the cast of Lion King in October, joined us this hour with his father in the studio to discuss that magical moment last weekend and what it could mean for his future.

In Banter: MJ benefit follow-up, Earl Turner's peeps are jerks, McKee's Carmen Electra infatuation, MGM Mirage's condo issues and more.

Links to stuff discussed:

Elijah "LilElijahJ" Johnson’s website
Dave McKee’s blog is Stiffs and Georges blog
Coverage by John Katsilometes and Norm Clarke of the Michael Jackson concert
Cinevegas’ podcast of the Moonwalker Q-and-A
VegasHappensHere.Com breaks the Viva Elvis title for Cirque’s new Aria show
McKee’s Carmen Electra infatuation
VegasHappensHere.Com on Bill Lerner’s Union Gaming Group report on MGM Mirage condo pricing
MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren’s CNBC interview
VegasHappensHere.Com on all the dirt behind the MJ event
The Myspace site and homepage of "Jersey Boys" star Travis Cloer, whose gorgeous cover of "The Music and Me" closes this episode

Is there FINALLY A Name For The Elvis Show?

[UPDATE: Further evidence is found here.]

There was loads of coverage of the MJ tribute benefit concert itself but precious little of the Moonwalker screening and Q-and-A that I helmed in conjunction with Cinevegas later that evening. That surprised me because this was, essentially, the coming out party in Las Vegas for Vince Paterson, the creator-director of the next Cirque du Soleil production on the Strip based on the music of Elvis. Paterson was the choreographer for a bulk of the film and took questions from me and the sell-out crowd alongside actress Kelly Parker.

Nobody's quite sure how any of the other elements of CityCenter will fare, but it's this show is widely seen as a the closest we come these days, even sight unseen, to a surefire hit.

Only one little problem: There's no officially announced name for it and it opens in about 15 weeks. In all the literature, even on the Aria and Cirque websites, it's known as "the Elvis show." Even when Cirque made a big media to-do of the cast's arrival at McCarran, they didn't have a name.

So I asked Paterson as we were about to begin the screening. And he answered. As far as he knows, the show shall be forevermore known as: Viva Elvis.

I searched the Web. The only place where this configuration is written as it pertains to Cirque is on, of all places, this Yelp.Com page. Odd, that.

So, Viva Elvis. Not terribly creative, to be sure. But we had a similar "huh?" when they named the Beatles show "Love." In fact, you'd have to reach all the way back to "Zumanity" and "O" to find Cirque names that anyone instinctively responded by saying, "Oh, cool!" I thought some sort of double play on the initials LV and how they sound when you say them out loud -- ell-vee -- might but fun. But I suspect this stuff is as much subjected to what copyrights are available as anything else, as we learned from MGM Mirage's adventure with the name Aria.

Oh, and one other thing. I asked Paterson during the Q-and-A -- which Cinevegas will be posting as a podcast any day now -- whether he had heard much chatter about Cirque doing a Michael Jackson-scored production. Paterson would be the logical guy for such a project, having known Jackson for decades and having appeared in "Beat It" and "Thriller" and having choreographed "Smooth Criminal" and countless others.

His response: "I'm not allowed to talk about that."

BREAKING: VOIGHT REVEALS 1981 ROY TIGER INCIDENT

At a Cinevegas screening of the recut version of the 1982 Hal Ashby film "Lookin' To Get Out" an hour ago, actor Jon Voight related a never-before-heard tale of a harrowing incident in which one of Siegfried & Roy's tigers tackled an elderly woman and had to be talked down by a member of the film crew.

In the movie, Voight and Burt Young play pals and gamblers who come to Vegas to try to make back money Voight's character lost in a poker game. The film was made largely at the old MGM Grand (now Bally's) and Ann-Margret plays a woman from Voight's past. The characters played by Voight, Young and Ann-Margret, attend a show in what is probably the Jubilee! Theater and Siegfried & Roy are among the acts shown.

According to Voight, Young was acting in the shot as though the tiger had startled him running about on the stage with Roy. Young was wearing sunglasses, and Voight surmised that the combination of Young's fake startling and the reflection of the lighting on the glasses caused the tiger to get scared and "he ran off the stage and on to a table."

Watch the 3-minute segment on this by clicking on the image below:


It's also on YouTube.

Here's the rest of Voight's tale:

"And the table fell and the tiger wound up sitting on top of an elderly woman. This is the truth! And Roy says, 'Everybody be calm.' And this little post man, he must’ve been about 5' 6", this little fella, he got up and he grabbed the tiger and he said, 'Get off her now, get off her.' And this post man saved the day. Unbelievable hero. Finally, Roy comes in and says 'Very good, everybody stay where you are,' and he calmed this animal down and got it out of there. And we had no injuries, maybe a bruise or two. ...

In crises, people handle themselves nicely. Everybody in that group, nobody was looking at the insurance policy, none of that. That’s a true story."

Uh, wow. Of course, about 21 years later, one of those tigers would maul Roy and end the Siegfried & Roy act. What was strange was how amused everyone was in the audience today as Voight told the story. Watch the video and you'll see; they laugh about the lady being tackled, even knowing what happened later. It would be like someone today giggling at the notion of a prop plane grazing the World Trade Center years before 9/11. Very odd.

Incidentally, the tiger act didn't appear in the film. But, on a totally unrelated note, Angelina Jolie Voight did, playing the daughter of Voight's character. It was her first role. I believe her first lines of her first film were, "Las Vegas, Nevada!"

Related: Jon Voight interview on TheStripPodcast.Com.

Cinevegas + WSOP = All In

As folks following my Tweets and Facebook statuses know, I've been running around like mad the past few days, working on a new piece for the Times that has sucked up a huge amount of time away from the computer and I've also been trying to keep tabs on Cinevegas because the lineup is the most interesting in all the years I've covered it.

I was a little concerned, though, after "Saint John of Las Vegas" yesterday. The opening night premiere, starring Steve Buscemi and Sarah Silverman, was a weird little flick that just didn't engage me and that distracted me by the several smaller details about its titular city that it got wrong.

But I knew there were a number of really good pictures in the lineup because I'd already seen all the gay-related ones for this Advocate.Com piece. In particular, "It Came From Kuchar" is wonderful and I'm looking forward to Friday's premiere and the Q-and-A session with the Kuchars on Sunday at 9 p.m.

Still, I was unprepared for how much I enjoyed "All In: The Poker Movie" tonight. Premiering as it did during the early stages of the 2009 World Series of Poker across the street from the Palms at the Rio, it drew some poker stars who are also in the film including WSOP commissioner Jeffrey Pollack and two-time bracelet winner Howard Lederer...



Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth were supposed to be there, too, but they were doing so well in one of the WSOP tourneys they couldn't. Occupational hazard. Amarillo Slim was there, however.

As for the film itself, let me first say that I'm someone who became interested in poker in the first place because it's a perennial story that someone is asks me to cover each year. We also get huge download numbers whenever we have poker stars on "The Strip." (We've had Chris Moneymaker, Jamie Gold, Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, Phil Hellmuth, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Hachem, Jerry Yang and Greg Raymer over the years, all of which can be found at TheStripPodcast.Com.)

But "All In" tonight really taught me something else: The poker boom is about as American as anything ever was. The variation on the game itself -- Texas Hold 'Em -- is an American invention. Risk-taking is the foundation of our capitalist society. And the ingredients that turned it into what it is today include new technology (hole-card cams, Web poker) and anyone-can-succeed chutzpah (Moneymaker) that have deep roots in our national traditions.

It wasn't just that it was a sweeping, artful film. It was that, although some of the blurry camera angles and odd tics of speakers could be grating. But from dignified Doris Kearns Goodwin to cool-cat Matt Damon, from Southern-fried Slim to lovably goofy Phil Laak, from scholarly Dr Dave Schwartz to curmudgeonly Frank DeFord, documentarian Douglas Tirola really cast a very wide net of diverse voices to explain where this phenomenon came from and who it impacts. I also appreciate that not everyone is likeable -- World Poker Tour's Steve Lipscomb comes across as a total, arrogant prick -- and that not everything is positive, as when Tirola delves (briefly) into recent online poker cheating scandals.

That said, there are gaps: No discussion of problem gambling or sexism in the game, no serious effort to allow anyone who objects to online gambling or gambling in general to offer a cogent argument for their side. And Ira Glass? Really? Blech.

But even without all that -- it's not a Ken Burns PBS special after all -- it's really a compelling movie that needed to be done and done with this sort of maturity. If you're near the Palms on Friday at 12:30 p.m., check it out. Too bad it's not on over the weekend. Also too bad I cannot find a YouTube trailer of this film or even a website to point you to.

Meanwhile, Cinevegas has really taken over the Palms. The Lounge, where we did the Vegas Podcast-a-Palooza (and are waiting for the OK to do again in October) last year has been transformed into a headquarters for media and film folks. There's video games...


...and a pool table...


...and music...

...and fun couches.


Finally and appropriately, I was stuck behind this on the way home...

The Show is UP: Jon Voight

I didn't know what to expect from Jon Voight, but what I got was an extremely expansive, very chatty movie icon willing to go pretty much anywhere with me. So with Miles still not feeling right and a longer-than-usual interview to contend with, we made this the focus of the interview and forewent the rest of the usual features of the show. Hope you enjoy it. You know the drill: click on the date below to listen or right-click and save to your computer. Or subscribe (it's free!) via this iTunes link or via this Zune link. -sf

June 4 : Jon Voight Likes To Talk

Actor Jon Voight ‘s roles in Midnight Cowboy, Deliverance and Coming Home made him one of the most iconic movie stars of the 1970s. He’s also the father of one of the most iconic movie stars of this era, Angelina Jolie. Voight is being honored with the Marquee Award at Cinevegas at a June 14 ceremony where an overhauled version of his 1982 Vegas-set comedy “Lookin’ To Get Out” will be screened. The film also stars Ann-Margret and was Angelina Jolie’s first film role. In this conversation, Steve and Jon Voight discuss his experiences with everything from Midnight Cowboy to Coming Home to Seinfeld. Then Voight explains how he turned from being an anti-Vietnam War activist to a fan of George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. He also has some harsh words for President Barack Obama.

TONIGHT: ALL JON VOIGHT! JOIN US!

I just got off the line after an astounding, incredible 90-minute interview with Oscar winner Jon Voight that went from the secret behind his "Midnight Cowboy" physique to Angelina Jolie's first film role to his Bush-Palin love. SO...we're playing all of it tonight in lieu of a proper episode because a sickly Miles remains out of commission anyway. Voight is receiving the Vanguard Award at the Cinevegas Film Festival later this month at the Palms.

Join us in the chat at LVRocks.Com to listen to the interview and discuss it. I'll be in chat, too. We'll get started at about 6:30 p.m. so we can fit most of it in. Otherwise, grab the podcast edition when it's posted by Thursday morning. Subscribe (it's free!) in iTunes.

Caan: NBC Sacrificed "Las Vegas" for the NFL

On this week's episode of "The Strip," actor James Caan confirmed a long-held suspicion of mine that the doom of the successful TV soap "Las Vegas" was the move to Friday nights to sate the NFL. NBC had just paid big bucks for Sunday Night Football, but the NFL nonetheless managed to bar the not-so-mighty network from promoting the show during Sunday's games.

"Their thoughts were that we’re not allowed to even mention Las Vegas according to the NFL," Caan told me. "Like God forbid somebody should gamble. I mean, I didn’t know that people gamble on football! So they put a show there they could promote, Sunday night for Monday and moved us to Friday, which is like a death sentence."

There's much more in that interview, including Caan's complaints about the creative problems with the show and his explanation for why he appeared on it in the first place. Plus, he disses his own new film, "Get Smart," and he offers his thoughts on "Honeymoon in Vegas" co-star Sarah Jessica Parker's status as a star.

Click here to hear it or right-click here to download the show and listen whenever you want. Or subscribe via iTunes here or via Zune here:

Here are this week's show-notes links:

Download the Deutsche Bank look at Vegas building progress here
James Caan's Wikipedia page is here
Watch him make Kathy Bates "eat it!" on YouTube here
Find out all you want to know about CineVegas here
See the site for Xanadu The Musical here
Find our chat with Mel Brooks here
Read the R-J piece on their room tax poll here
Hear the disastrous George Wallace show here
Read about whores giving people gas here
The LV Weekly's take on the Hank Greenspun flick is here
See our coverage of the I-Bar's Microsoft Surface tech here
Read Steve's USA Today piece about Fontainebleau's Apple plans here

NEWS: Cinevegas Awards Star Line-up!

I've had this info for weeks and was only told to keep it to myself through the first week of May, so I'm ready to put it out there since I haven't seen it reported anywhere else...

This year's Cinevegas Film Festival is going to be HUGE. They've had a few solid stars in the past, but this time the wattage is off the charts, befitting its host city. It's already well-known that the Vegas premiere of "Oceans 13" will kick off the 10-day event on June 6 with Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle and Ellen Barkin all in tow. The producer of the film, Jerry Weintraub, will received the festival's Vanguard Producers Award and the opener will benefit Weintraub's Darfur charity.

But...now it can be told. Here are three other awards:

Vanguard Director: Mike Newell (Harry Potter IV, Donnie Brasco, Four Weddings and a Funeral). Also, they'll show a preview of his latest, "Love in the Time of Cholera."

Half-Life Award (bestowed on a successful actor at mid-career): Oscar winner Charlize Theron, who stars in the Oscar-bait Paul Haggis flick "In the Valley of Elah" due out this fall.

Marquee Award: Oscar winner Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Closing night is June 16, when they'll show the world premiere of "You Kill Me" starring Luke Wilson, Tea Leoni and Ben Kingsley. No telling which stars will attend, but odds are high it could be all of them.

Congrats to everyone involved. Cinevegas has come a long, long way from the days when they were reduced to play old films to round out the schedule. This year they've got 91 films on the lineup from indy foreign stuff to shorts from UNLV students.

Here's hoping they dispense with the sort of pretentious, anemic live interviews that Elvis Mitchell committed with Julian Schnabel a few years back after a screening of "Before Night Falls." God, that was awful. And I actually enjoy some of the podcasts of Mitchell's KCRW show "The Treatment." That sort of pretention just plays better on the radio when you can't SEE how full of the conversers are.

Speaking of podcasts, we had Dennis Hopper, chairman of Cinevegas, on "The Strip" last year. Hear that show here now or right-click here and listen to it whenever you want.