The Tribune's fall movie preview: The world's largest 'release dates subject to change' disclaimer ever

Journalists hope that what they write resonates, remains true for all time — but we know a news story, that “first draft of history,” can be ephemeral.

A fall movie preview while the world still grapples with a pandemic turned out to have the lifespan of a mayfly. Not long after this preview was printed, several of the movie titles mentioned — “Black Widow” and “No Time to Die,” most notably — were whisked off the fall schedule and into next spring. And Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” moved an entire year, from this Christmas season to next.

So, as a time capsule of a more hopeful time — a whole two weekends ago — here’s my fall movie preview, on sltrib.com.

Peter Freed, one of the brothers who built Lagoon into a Utah playground, dies at 99

Every job has its ups and downs, but Peter Freed’s job took that literally — he was one of the brothers who ran the Utah amusement park Lagoon, famous for its roller coasters.

Freed died on Saturday, Aug. 29, at the age of 99. He was the last of the five Freed brothers, who reopened the shuttered Lagoon after World War II. His family still owns and operates the park.

I wrote this obituary for Freed — which includes a fire, a water park, and a Beach Boys song — for sltrib.com.

Provo's VidAngel strikes a deal to repay Hollywood studios whose copyrights it violated, dodging bankruptcy liquidation

I’ve been covering the saga of VidAngel, the Provo company that filters the naughty bits out of Hollywood movies and streams the “clean'“ versions to its customers, for awhile now.

It seemed like the end for VidAngel in 2019, when a California jury ordered the company to pay $62.4 million in damages to Hollywood studios — namely, Disney and Warner Bros. — for violating the studios’ copyrights and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act through the way it distributed its squeaky-clean versions of movies.

This week, VidAngel announced it reached a deal with those studios, cutting the payment to $9.9 million to be paid out over the next 14 years. VidAngel also agreed to drop its appeal of the original lawsuit, and to stop streaming any Disney and Warner Bros. movies.

If VidAngel had to pay the original judgment, it would have forced the company to liquidate, the CEO has said.

Read up on the latest — and possibly last — chapter in the VidAngel saga, here at sltrib.com. And read my Salt Lake Tribune story from 2018 that explains Utah’s tortured history with the R rating and movie-sanitization companies.

Salt Lake City music fans talk about the good old days of Bricks — aka In the Venue and Club Sound — before its planned demolition

Bricks was such a rundown, ramshackle joint that when a Hollywood movie was made there, they put a neon sign out front that said “Dive Bar” — and it seemed completely in character.

Music fans loved Bricks — later called In the Venue and Club Sound — as a dark, spacious place to see acts just before they hit the big time. For Salt Lake City’s LGBTQ community, Bricks was an 18-and-older gay dance club in a town that didn’t offer a lot of options for gay kids under 21.

The building will soon be demolished, making way for an apartment building in a downtown that everyone agrees needs affordable housing. That didn’t stop people — including two local politicians — from getting a little nostalgic about the old place.

Read their recollections, and enjoy the amazing photos of Bricks shows from Salt Lake Tribune photographers Rick Egan and Trent Nelson, at sltrib.com.

Utah Symphony musicians commission a young composer to write music for a video in support of Black Lives Matter

Thirteen members of the Utah Symphony, along with conductor Thierry Fischer, are featured in a new video, performing a brand-new orchestral work and showing their support for Black Lives Matter.

The video, featuring Texas composer Quinn Mason’s new work “Changes/Transitions,” was posted online Friday.

For the story about how the video came to be, it’s here at sltrib.com.

Director Armando Iannucci and actor Dev Patel talk about Charles Dickens, and broadening the mindset of casting, for 'The Personal History of David Copperfield'

A little behind-the-scenes story on writing about behind the scenes:

A couple weeks ago, I had the chance to be part of a “virtual roundtable” interview with Armando Iannucci and Dev Patel. They are, respectively, the director/co-screenwriter and star of “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” a comedy adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens novel, which is being released in U.S. theaters on August 28.

I learned, when the interview began, that “virtual roundtable” meant 20 reporters from various entertainment outlets on a Zoom call with Iannucci and Patel. We each got one question, in turn — and I wound up having to text mine, because my microphone was the one that didn’t work when I was called on. (There’s always one in every Zoom call, and this time it was me.)

Despite those limitations and frustrations, Iannucci (“The Death of Stalin,” “Veep”) and Patel (“Slumdog Millionaire,” “Lion”) said some fascinating things about the process of adapting Charles Dickens, casting an actor of color in a role usually reserved for white actors, and making something funny and heartwarming in the bleakest of times.

Read the story here, at sltrib.com. And you can read the review of “The Personal History of David Copperfield” here, also at sltrib.com.

Hollywood studios and Utah theater operators try to navigate a COVID-19 safety landscape — and they hope moviegoers will come back after five months

Are you ready to go back to the movies?

Hollywood is ready. After five months of shutdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, studios are starting to release major motion pictures again. This weekend, the Russell Crowe revenge thriller “Unhinged” and the young-adult drama “Words on Bathroom Walls” came out. More movies, like director Armando Iannucci’s “The Personal History of David Copperfield” and the long-delayed Marvel movie “The New Mutants,” arrive next weekend. Then, on Labor Day weekend, comes the frequently rescheduled Christopher Nolan thriller “Tenet.”

The movie theaters — most of them, anyway — say they’re ready. They’re putting in COVID-19 safety protocols, like limited seating, distancing in the concession lines, and making everyone wear masks.

The big question remains: Are the moviegoers ready?

That’s the question I explored in a wide-ranging feature, with comments from Hollywood creators, Utah theater operators and public-health experts.

Read it at sltrib.com.

A study finds saliva tests are 'just as effective' at detecting COVID-19 as the swab up the nose

I had to learn the word “nasopharyngeal,” so now you have to learn it, too.

That’s the adjective for the swabs that go up the nose and to the back of the throat, to collect samples for COVID-19 tests.

Starting soon, though, University of Utah Health will start taking saliva samples for COVID-19 tests, after a study by U. of U. Health and ARUP Laboratories found the spit test is ‘just as effective’ as the nasopharyngeal swab test.

Read about it here, at sltrib.com..

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Here’s what else I’ve been writing about in COVID-19 news:

• The Natural History Museum of Utah reopened on August 15, five months after its new executive director, Jason Cryan, had to close the place as his first official action. I talked to Cryan about the challenges of reopening, and what the museum is doing to make the museum’s interactive exhibits safe.

• The Utah Museum of Fine Arts announced it plans to reopen on August 26.

• The Utah Shakespeare Festival announced its 2021 season, in which five of the eight plays were ones that were canceled along with the 2020 season.

• The organizers of the Twilight Concert Series are planning a fund-raiser, and virtual benefit concert, to help musicians hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Utah high-school quarterback reinvents himself as MASN, an indie-pop singer-songwriter whose first song was a TikTok smash

As a sophomore quarterback at Westlake High School in Utah County, Mason Rupper broke his collarbone. It messed up his throwing arm, and within a year he quit football.

Rupper says he “just randomly decided that I wanted to do music.” So he did, and one of his first tracks, “Psycho,” became a viral hit on TikTok.

Now, Rupper — under a stage name, MASN — has released his first EP, “How to Kill a Rockstar,” which includes the original of “Psycho,” a remix featuring rapper Trippie Redd, and five more songs, including the single “Hate Me.”

I interviewed Rupper about his music. Here’s the story, at sltrib.com.

New York nurses come to Utah, to 'give back' for the help they got during the worst of the Big Apple's COVID-19 battle

A lot of news about COVID-19 in the last couple weeks.

The most positive story I wrote — and, indeed, one of the happiest stories of this entire pandemic — was getting to meet a group of ICU nurses from New York. They came to Utah last week to share their skills and experiences with the Intermountain Medical Center.

The exchange is a “thank you” to Intermountain, which sent some 100 nurses to New York to help out this spring, when “the city that never sleeps” was getting hammered by an influx of COVID-19 cases.

Read the story here, at sltrib.com.

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Other news about COVID-19 that I’ve written lately:

• The Sundance Institute is starting to firm up its plans for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. It will be seven days, instead of the usual 11, and start a week later than planned. It also will be in fewer venues, and serve only about a quarter of the usual theatergoers.

• The Great Salt Lake Fringe festival, a showcase for experimental theater, got even more experimental by necessity this year — as it went online-only.

• The Days of ‘47 Parade, a staple of Utah’s Pioneer Day celebration, didn’t happen this year. The last time that was the case was during World War II — and before that, in World War I. I looked at the parade’s history of cancellations.

• One industry to be especially hard hit by the pandemic and lockdown is the people who put on live events — like concerts, sporting events and conventions. About 100 people, representing stagehands and related jobs, marched on the Utah Capitol to call some attention to their plight.

• Covering the day-to-day case counts, I’ve written about the virus’ impact on Utah’s Pacific Islander population, the drive to process tests faster, and Gov. Gary Herbert’s call to reduce the daily average number of cases in the state.