01/24/2012
01/20/2012
Lana Del Rey Moves Past 'SNL,' Plans U.S. Tour
Lana Del Rey Moves Past 'SNL,' Plans U.S. Tour
Singer also looks forward to the release of her major-label debut.
By James Montgomery
Lana Del Rey
Photo: MTV
It's been a rather interesting couple of weeks for Lana Del Rey, beginning with the rather robust online debate over her "Saturday Night Live" performance, and then the subsequent fallout following that performance, in which everyone from "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams to comedian Whitney Cummings weighed in, voicing both derision and support for the singer.
Not surprisingly, Del Rey would prefer to put the matter behind her and focus instead on her upcoming major-label debut, Born to Die (due January 31). As she told MTV News, the album represents her attempt to "re-create myself in song form," a majestic, maudlin collection of dramatic torch songs that recalls everything from Thomas Newman's "American Beauty" score to "[Bruce] Springsteen's summertime sadness."
"Sonically, I always knew exactly what I wanted," Del Rey said. "That's really the only thing I do know. The rest of it was sort of up in the air. I've been a writer for a really long time, and a sort of bad composer, but a composer nonetheless. It was something I did alone for some time and then became a collaborative effort as I met better and better people."
Those people include Brit Justin Parker, who composed much of the music on the album, Philadelphia legend Larry Gold, who's arranged strings for the likes of Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake, and producer Emile Haynie, best known for tracks by Kanye West and Eminem. Del Rey calls them "her crew," and they helped shape her ideas into an album that mixes both the light with the dark, the sadness with the sweetness.
"Justin started lacing the tracks with melancholic chords, brought out the bittersweetness that I wanted, and Emile kind of kept it really dark and f---ed up with his heavy beats, and Larry kept it soaring and gorgeous with his strings," Del Rey explained. "Everyone knew the direction I was going in, and it was very much a collaborative effort."
And of course, though she's been suffering the slings and arrows of her critics following her "SNL" performance, Del Rey is most definitely planning on spending the next few weeks promoting Born to Die with a spate of TV appearances. And she's also making plans for a full-blown tour tentatively scheduled for October — one that she's already making special arrangements for. And given the past few weeks, perhaps that's a good idea.
"I'm capping every venue at 900 [capacity], because I don't want to perform for more [people] than that," she said. "So what I want to do is do three nights in New York, at like Irving Plaza, and then three nights at the El Rey in L.A., and then, in between, do 15 cities, and cap it at 900 venues. And everybody [at her label, Interscope] is onboard, so that's what we're going to do."
What did you think of Lana Del Rey's "SNL" performance? Sound off below!
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'In The Land Of Blood And Honey': The Reviews Are In!
'In The Land Of Blood And Honey': The Reviews Are In!
'No one should be surprised that Angelina Jolie is as capable behind the camera as in front of it,' one critic says of globetrotting Oscar winner.
By Kara Warner
Zana Marjanovic in "In the Land of Blood and Honey"
Photo: GK Films
For her directorial debut, "In the Land of Blood and Honey," Angelina Jolie chose to helm a harrowing, unrelenting drama set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War that highlights the horrors of the ethnic conflict that ravaged the region in the 1990s. To say that it is not a feel-good film is an understatement.
The critics are almost completely divided on whether Jolie's effort, which scored a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film, is a success. Read on as we sift through the reviews of "In the Land of Blood and Honey."
The Story
"Eight years ago Jolie starred in a film, 'Beyond Borders,' in which she sashayed around global hot spots in elegant outfits like a fashion model on a shoot. Almost as if in atonement, 'Blood and Honey' is nothing like that, quite the contrary, in fact, as it centers on the queasy relationship between a captor, a Serbian army officer responsible for rounding up Muslims or otherwise making them disappear in Bosnia, and a female prisoner, a woman he was interested in prior to the war and is now able to exploit, but also protect, as his 'personal property.' " — Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter
The Direction
"Because Jolie is known for her very public passions, which have progressed from the relative simplicity of the carnal to a globally-oriented expression of the maternal, the relatively sedate tone of 'In the Land of Blood and Honey' is unexpected. The systematic use of rape as a weapon of war is depicted with discretion (the brutality was far more vivid in 'The Whistleblower,' another 2011 Bosnian war-themed release). Jolie might show a shrieking woman being carried away by a soldier in the background, but she keeps much of the horror offscreen, at a remove from Ajla. Meanwhile, her scenes with Danijel read as lovers taking pleasure in each other's company, legs and limbs tangled languidly in the sheets. ... No one should be surprised that Angelina Jolie is as capable behind the camera as in front of it; why wouldn't she be? Here's an Oscar winner who travels the world on behalf of the United Nations listening to horror stories from refugees; processing pain is a regular sideline for her." — Mary Pols, Time
The Performances
"Jolie's actors [Zana Marjanovic, Goran Kostic, Vanesa Glodjo], all from the former Yugoslavia and unknown in the West except for the superb veteran character actor Rade Serbedzija, give magnetic, raw performances. Their commitment helps us through a movie that is often harrowing, never less than intense but important, one unafraid of moments too many have chosen to forget." — Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News
The Final Word
"Considering the historical, ethical and technical challenges in the mix — a first-time director recreating a war of ethnic cleansing on a bombs-and-bullets level, with charged issues or power and abuse, along with the challenge of shooting in a second language in a foreign land — it is not patronizing to suggest that Ms. Jolie's first film is an ambitious step forward that promises more, and better, in the future. The film may have more in ambition than it does in execution, but it deserves to be taken seriously as a debut by someone who may yet be as natural and assured behind the camera as she seems to be in front of it." — James Rocchi, MSN.com
Check out everything we've got on "In the Land of Blood and Honey."
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