The Matt Largo Show

Miami, Florida - For 2009, the Langerado Music Festival moves to one of Miami’s most scenic spots - Bicentennial Park on Biscayne Bay. It’s a new home for the seventh annual event, which will take place March 6-8, 2009; Langerado has enjoyed impressive success and growth in Broward County since 2002. The move to downtown Miami promises to make Langerado a City Festival that the Magic City can truly call its own.

“The City of Miami is utterly delighted to welcome the Langerado Music Festival for its inaugural show in downtown Miami’s Bicentennial Park. The festival’s move to a more urban environment heralds an important milestone in its growth; it will now be a more accessible community-oriented event. With a myriad of artists representing a great many musical genres, Langerado’s lineup will be as diverse as Miami’s population, and we are thrilled that Langerado has chosen Miami as its home,” said Robert Parente, Director of Film and Cultural Affairs for Miami’s Mayor’s Office.

The 7th annual Langerado Music Festival will host a variety of international headliners and hot up-and-comers on multiple stages throughout the weekend. Langerado’s past performers include R.E.M., Beastie Boys, The Black Crowes, My Morning Jacket, Matisyahu, Wilco, Ben Harper, the Flaming Lips, Sharon Jones &the Dap Kings, Thievery Corporation, Girl Talk, Ozomatli, 311, Ani DiFranco and many, many others.

In addition to world class music, Langerado will offer local arts and crafts, delicious food vendors, and a variety of festival activities for the whole family - all on-site at Bicentennial Park’s 30 acres of waterfront. Located in the heart of one of the United States’ most cultural cities, just minutes from Downtown Miami and Miami’s South Beach, visitors can enjoy easy access to Miami’s many hotels, international restaurants and sizzling nightlife. Taking advantage of Miami’s after-hours scene, Langerado will host official late night shows and parties at various local venues throughout Miami including world-famous South Beach, the Design District, Coconut Grove and beyond.

Initial artist lineup announcements and ticket information for Langerado 2009 - including VIP experiences, public transportation incentives and hotel/travel packages - will be announced in early November. Stay tuned to www.langerado.com for additional details as they become available.

For six years, the Langerado Music Festival has kicked off the United States’ burgeoning festival season with a full weekend of music and art in South Florida. Recognized by such national media outlets as the New York Times, Rolling Stone and Billboard Magazine, Langerado has grown enormously since it’s inaugural year; growing from 3,500 in attendance in 2003 at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, to nearly 25,000 per day in attendance at 2008’s event at the Big Cypress Indian Reservation.

The Langerado Music Festival is produced by Mark Brown and Ethan Schwartz. Brown is the managing partner of Jam Cruise (www.jamcruise.com ). Schwartz produces and promotes shows in the South Florida area. Together, the partners also produce the Caribbean Holidaze festival in Runaway Bay, Jamaica ( www.caribbeanholidaze.com).

As Fox’s big-ticket item this season, Fringe, J.J. Abrams’ new head-scratcher about FBI special agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) and her quest to crack a series of bizarre mysteries known as the Pattern, has been grabbing the attention of conspiracy fanatics jonesing for a juicy new mythology series to dissect.  Mind readers, psychic artists, reanimated Feds. This one even comes with its own mad scientist.

“He’s literally been pulled out of a cell where he’s been sedated, subjected to shock therapy – all the things that happen in an institution,” says Aussie actor John Noble, who plays gum-chewing doctor Walter Bishop.  And while Walter may be the brilliant, damaged Wizard to Olivia’s Dorothy, this all-knowing Oz is so fried from his 17-year stint in the rubber room, it’s still not clear if he’s part of the solution or the man who created the problems in the first place.

“Walter’s always remembering things, so he doesn’t really know how much he’s got to do with the Pattern,” Noble tells TV Guide.

“That gets revealed in bits and pieces, some that are wonderful and others that are horrific.”

An Aussie like Noble, Torv was building a respectable rep as an actress Down Under before Abrams saw her test reel and threw her right into the madness.  “I came in and read, [the producers] had a few little notes, and then we had a few phone conversations,” she tells TV Guide.  “I flew to Los Angeles and met with the guys, and then flew to Toronto in, like, a day to film the pilot.  It was all very, very fast.”

Dawson’s Creek graduate Joshua Jackson, who has been “socially friendly” with Abrams since they were both working at the WB, says he wasn’t so hot about returning to the grind.  “TV is a major bear,” he says.  “That’s what kept me away for the past five years.”  Still, he admits that the Bishop family’s plot-rich backstory, combined with his boss’ resume, convinced him to give TV another try.  “The thing I learned the last time – and what is so hard about television – is that you have to tell compelling stories well, over a long period of
time.  J.J. and his Bad Robot crew have a pretty good track record of being able to do that.  As an actor, it has to stay fun and, hopefully, it stays fun for the audience.”

To that end, the powers-that-be are determined to avoid going so far out there with the Pattern mythology that fans get, well, lost.  “We want to make sure that we’re telling stories that aren’t too simplistic or too complicated because we don’t want to exclude the casual viewers,” Abrams tells TV Guide.  “We also don’t want to use the deus ex machina of crazy-insane invention all the time, and yet part of the fun is watching these characters play with the idea of where science could go, not where it is already.”

Adds executive producer Jeff Pinkner, “One of the things The X-Files did the very best was that there was a controlling mythology to the entire series, but most of the episodes you could watch at any time, in any order, and you knew enough to enjoy the episode.

One of the mistakes we made in Alias is that the mythology overwhelmed the storytelling.”

The Site Features an Election-themed Original Web Series, Daily Blog, interviews and Webisode of ‘The Return of the Room’

“Voices on the Election” is a series of political blogs and exclusive content that will provide an independent look at the election on sundancechannel.com (http://www.sundancechannel.com/politics ). The site will feature five new original web series, several blog posts from Robert Redford, a daily blog written by Jamie Wong and Michael Turner and webisodes from ‘The Return of the War Room”.

The site will be updated several times a day and include contributions from celebrities such as Robert Redford, Ted Nugent, Ralph Nader and Isabella Rossellini, as well as news, op-ed pieces and original video related to the major issues of the election. The original web series will include:

- Attack Ads, a series of funny, irreverent, mock political advertisements by Amsterdam based comedy troupe Boom Chicago,

McCain: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1803302876/bclid1815816446/bctid181561934

Obama: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1803302876/bclid1815816446/bctid181561933

- Dave Hill’s Guide to Voting, which features fun tongue-in-cheek tips for surviving this election season by comedian Dave Hill;

- Project Vote, a series of mock U.S. primary elections held on the streets of Bombay, London and Mexico City by the Panty Raiders (Huffington Post Contagious Festival winner);

- Sometimes the Dream is Real, a mini-opera in three acts by comedian/songwriter David Driver (2008 Webby nominee) and

- The Naked Campaign, a series of animated, documentary vignettes profiling the presidential candidates by Gail Levin that features the work of New Yorker caricaturist, Steve Brodner.

The site will also feature daily blog posts from Jamie Wong, writer and political junkie who currently works at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and from Michael Turner, political analyst for RNN’s, “Richard French Live,” and “Real Politics Live”. The site will also include several blog posts from Robert Redford and celebrity contributions from Ted Nugent and Ralph Nader. Guest contributors will provide a glimpse into their political views and provide information about causes and groups they support.