شایعات پیرامون ستارگان عالم هنر، سیاست، ....

[Mohamad]

Erykah Badu sparkles, brighter than ever

Mick Stingley
Tue Jun 8, 2010 10:57pm EDT


NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Clad in a black trench coat and top hat, Erykah Badu stood before the sold-out crowd at New York's Roseland Ballroom on Monday crooning the atmospheric opener "20 Feet Tall." With four backup singers and a seven-piece band to accompany her, Badu was a smoldering torch who warmed and glowed as the night went on.
Entertainment | Music
She burned through "Out My Mind, Just in Time," which is also the name of this tour, supporting her March release "New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh." The song served as a theme for the evening as she sang, "I'd lie for you and cry for you ... I gotta do my love for you."
Self-referential, poignant, outlandish and strikingly beautiful, Badu commanded the stage. Under musical director R.C. Williams Jr., she waltzed through her music with the confidence of an accomplished jazz artist, improvising around the form of her recorded work. There was occasional dissonance -- whether scatting or tapping on her Roland drum machine -- but she segued effortlessly from one number to the next, quoting her own music (often, with "On and On") and others', circling back into a new song.
Her style owes more to jazz than that unfortunate moniker "Queen of Neo-Soul" as she incorporated danceable funk, gospel, R&B rhythm, hip-hop and rap textured with ambitious aural soundscapes throughout. No single term applies to her music.
She is the epic sum of her influences, and the appropriation of many is her art. The starchild of Marvin ***e and Pink Floyd, Prince and N.W.A., Billie Holiday and Laurie Anderson. Erykah Badu is a singular artist; she might just be out of her mind, but the woman can sing.
And she's a giver. "This is bigger than the government!" she sang on "The Healer" to resounding cheers. Badu worked the crowd, and the band -- with a wave of her hand she stopped the music, frequently -- and captivated during "Me" with her soft yet powerful voice. Her assertion early on in the show, "I'm an analog girl in a digital world!" might explain her self-perception and attitude, but it resonated with the room.
Slinking through numbers like Eartha Kitt as Catwoman, Badu concentrated much the night's performance on her pair of "New Amerykah" releases but favored the audience with plenty of gems. From the Giorgio Moroder-esque dance number "I Want You" to "Appletree" and "Love of My Life," Badu kept people moving and swaying. The hip-hop-flavored showstopper "Back in the Day" proved her old-school chops as she rapped bits from Whodini, Slick Rick, Doug E. Fresh and N.W.A. She followed with a cover of Outkast's "Liberation."
Badu closed the show at midnight with "Soldier" and wowed with her 2000 hit, "Bag Lady," though she did not perform her recent singles "Window Seat" and "Turn Me Away" because of time constraints. Regardless, at almost two hours in, Badu gave it her all.

[Mohamad]

New film undoes Joan Rivers' cosmetic makeover

Bob Tourtellotte
LOS ANGELES
Tue Jun 8, 2010 2:36pm EDT


Comedian Joan Rivers at the Kennedy Center in Washington November 10, 2008.
Credit: Reuters/Molly Riley




LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - If cosmetic makeovers mask our most unsavory features, then a new documentary has stripped away the many changes Joan Rivers has made to herself over the years and laid bare the comedian at age 77.
Entertainment | Film
"Joan Rivers - A Piece of Work" reaches movie theaters in major U.S. cities on Friday, and with it comes an unflinching look at the woman who rose through male-dominated comedy clubs in the 1960s to become a regular on U.S. television.
She famously saw her personal and financial life spiral downward after the suicide of her husband and manager, Edgar Rosenberg, in 1987. But Rivers regained her career footing as a commentator of Hollywood red carpet fashion and, perhaps with the aid of cosmetic surgery, found herself a rejuvenated star.
Rivers told Reuters that with the documentary, she wanted to "show age and how age can be a barrier to people" and said the biggest misconception about her is that she is all about the "Golden Past" when her current act "is sharper than ever."
"I also thought it might be a good time to show a slice of my life because I hadn't done an autobiography in 15 years, and this was sort of a lazy person's way of doing it," she joked.
But "A Piece of Work" is no joke. It was made by documentary filmmakers Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, whose past credits include a tale of the Darfur genocide, "The Devil Came on Horseback," and the story of a man wrongly convicted of rape and murder, "The Trials of Darryl Hunt."
In Rivers' life, they saw a universal tale of an underdog who finds huge success, tumbles from lofty heights and rebounds by reinvention. For her part, Rivers saw a pair of storytellers who would dig into psyche and show it -- warts and all.
"I loved them because they weren't going to do a puff piece," Rivers said. "There have been a few documentaries out there lately, and you knew nothing of the people at the end. So why do them? That was exactly what I didn't want," she said.
'CAN WE TALK'
Stern and Sundberg started filming Rivers on her 75th birthday and followed her for 14 months, which was no easy feat due to her heavy schedule. The pair describe a two-day period in which Rivers gave a morning speech, signed books, performed stand-up, flew across the United States for a talk show, then returned across country to hold a dinner party for friends.
While telling of her current life, the film flashes back to Rivers as a young stand-up, making it to late-night TV's "The Tonight Show" where she became fill-in for Johnny Carson.
It also tells how Carson, when Rivers jumped to a rival network in 1986 to start her own "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers," turned his back on her and never talked to her again, which Rivers chalks up to her being a woman in a man's world.
The most trying times came after Rosenberg died and Rivers found herself in financial ruin while still raising their teenage daughter, Melissa. When asked what was worse, losing her husband or having to work harder in life than she ever had just to regain her financial footing, she chose the latter.
"Of course, finances. You have no time to mourn when you have to worry how are we going to keep the house," she said.
Starting in the 1990s, Rivers' brash style of comedy that cut through the facade of how people act or what they say -- her first catch phrase was "Can We Talk" -- lent itself greatly to Hollywood and fashion.
Rivers began commenting on red carpet gowns and the antics of celebrities, often with Melissa by her side. She went back out on the road, wrote books and starred in a one-woman show.
She never stopped working and never stopped trying to regain her youth through cosmetic surgery -- a fact that has earned her much criticism in pop culture that she shrugs off.
"We're in a youth-oriented world. Men like to look at pretty pictures," Rivers said. "Anything that makes you get through life a little happier, do it. For God's sake, do it."
On what she wants audiences to learn from her life, as told in "A Piece of Work," Rivers is just as candid.
"My life has proven -- and I hope to others that go through things that seem insurmountable -- find another way in," she said. "You know, I like to say, they may take out a vein, but you find another way to keep the blood flowing."

[Mohamad]

"A-Team" a remake? That's "idiotic" says director

Iain Blair
LOS ANGELES
Wed Jun 9, 2010 6:22pm EDT


A tank is pictured at the premiere of ''The A-Team'' at the Mann's Grauman Chinese theatre in Hollywood, California June 3, 2010. The movie opens in the U.S. on June 11.
Credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni




LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In these days when remakes of old movies and TV shows are the rage among Hollywood studio executives, there is one director who thinks it is idiotic to consider his new film a redo, "A-Team" helmsman Joe Carnahan.
Entertainment | Film
Even though his movie is based on the 1980's TV show of the same name about a group of Vietnam war veterans working as mercenaries, Carnahan insists his film is a completely reworked story tailored to modern-day audiences looking for big-budget Hollywood action.
"I keep reading we're remaking 'The A-Team,'" the director told reporters recently, "but how the hell do you remake a TV series that ran four years? It's idiotic! You can re-engineer and re-imagine it, but it's definitely not a remake."
While the "A-Team" foursome on TV show, which ran from 1983 to 1987, blew up a lot of things and captured many bad guys, the show was perhaps better known for its campy storylines and the loud-mouthed, mohawk-wearing Mr. T, who played B.A. Baracus.
The "A-Team" movie is more action-packed and violent, which could be expected from Carnahan, whose previous work includes gritty films such as "Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane," "Narc," "Smokin' Aces" and sequel "Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball."
The premise of the film is relatively the same, four former U.S. Special Forces soldiers who are wrongly accused of a crime. But the modern times, place, story and cast help make the movie different, the filmmakers said.
The new "A-Team" has as its backdrop the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq in which the forces are accused of a crime, then set out to clear their names and turn the tables on the real culprits.
Carnahan, who also co-wrote the screenplay, based the plot on tales of Saddam Hussein looting banks before the Iraq war began in 2003, then ramped up the action.
He said he had "no interest" in just transplanting the TV show to the big screen. "I thought that'd be a disaster because while everyone remembers 'The A-Team,' times have changed," he said. "What worked 25 years ago won't work today."
FOUR FAST FRIENDS
The new "A-Team" is comprised of Bradley Cooper ("The Hangover") playing Templeton "Face" Peck, Sharlto Copley ("District 9") as H.M "Howlin' Mad" Murdock, martial artist Quinton "Rampage" Jackson in the Mr. T role, and Liam Neeson ("Taken") as leader Hannibal Smith.
Aspects that are similar in the movie and TV show is a great sense of camaraderie that exists within the group, as well as much humor built into the script.
"That's what I remember the most from the show," said the director. "I wanted to keep the humor as much as possible, and make it very organic and not one-line gimmicky. I wanted you to feel that these guys genuinely have a great time together."
The four actors said they worked well together and Copley even admitted to often sleeping in his trailer, rather than drive to the motel an hour away from the set.
Neeson, perhaps best known as a dramatic actor and not an action star, said that "A-Team" along with "Taken," had given his career a "whole new lease of life." And for Cooper, a star of last year's hit comedy "The Hangover," the new film represented a chance to do his first action flick.
All four said they watched the show as kids or young adults, and the only key person who hadn't, perhaps fittingly given his stance the film is not a remake, was Carnahan.
"It wasn't one of my favorites, although...I was a fan of the culture of the show," he said. "Everyone knew who the A-Team was -- and that always impressed me. But hopefully having that distance from the show helped me do a better job with the movie."
Early reviews are mixed, at best, but as a general rule the audiences of mostly young men who turn out for action flicks like "The A-Team" don't read criticism, which was noted in one write up from show business newspaper The Hollywood Reporter.
"Bottom Line: More like the D-minus Team," wrote veteran critic Kirk Honeycutt, "but Joe Carnahan fans won't mind

[Mohamad]

Which sitcom actresses rarely watch their shows

Matthew Belloni
Thu Jun 10, 2010 12:18am EDT


Actress Courteney Cox poses at the Warner Bros./InStyle after party after the 67th annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California January 17, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni




LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Six of the funniest women on television gathered recently to share their insights on comedy, creative control and conflict.
Entertainment | Television
Wanda Sykes ("The New Adventures of Old Christine"), Jane Lynch ("Glee") and Sofia Vergara ("Modern Family") disclosed that they rarely watch their shows.
Patricia Heaton ("The Middle") no longer savors lengthy speeches, Courteney Cox ("Cougar Town") may have been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of an irksome writer, and Felicity Huffman ("Desperate Housewives") is still trying to figure out what comedy is.
WHO'S THE FUNNIEST WOMAN ALIVE?
Wanda Sykes: I would say Mo'Nique. Have you seen "Precious"? She was hilarious! (Laughs.)
Jane Lynch: Outrageous! I've been watching "Damages" lately and Martin Short is in it. Not that he's a funny woman, but funny people can do drama really well. Lily Tomlin is on "Damages" too and they're both fantastic.
Patricia Heaton: Don't you love seeing someone being cast completely out of type?
Lynch: If you can do comedy, you can really do anything.
WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST FRUSTRATIONS OF YOUR JOB?
Courteney Cox: It just happens so fast. You give three different versions just to give it a range and you don't really have time to go in and change (things). "Why did you pick that one? That's actually not good."
Heaton: You're producing, right?
Cox: Yes, it's great because I'm really hands on and this is the first time a show has been tailored to me. On "Friends," I was part of an amazing experience and cast but I didn't have a say in anything. Now I do and it's my baby and I want to be a part of everything.
HOW ASSERTIVE ARE YOU?
Cox: Pretty assertive. (Showrunner) Bill Lawrence is amazing about sharing. I didn't think he was going to be; he didn't want to have to share. But now that he's decided to go into business with me, he's been great.
Heaton: Are you in the writers' room when they're breaking stories?
Cox: No. We meet beforehand, we talk about directions and stuff.
Heaton: And then are you in the editing room?
Cox: Yes. The editing room is like 10 yards from my room, so I just pop in or give notes. Bill's really smart, so you can say, "In that scene, I think there's a better take."
Heaton: I don't know what's going on the other side of the camera. Sometimes they use a weird lens, like a fish-eye, and you're acting up a storm but you don't know how it's going to look. There was a scene (on "The Middle") where we'd forgotten our daughter's birthday and she's sitting at the table by herself with this balloon and we walk in and are so mortified -- and I'm doing all this feeling and recollection of all the crap I did to my kids that made me feel terrible. And when I watched it, I was way over on the other side of the room. And I thought, I would have loved them to pick something a little bit closer. If I had known it was going to be that -- maybe I should ask more questions -- I would have done something more than just standing there. But they may have decided to use the long shot because it was funnier. I'm not a producer so I have no say in that whatsoever.
Cox: But even if you are, when I read the script for "Cougar Town," I thought it was really funny. But when I went to watch the first cuts, I was shocked at how frenetic it was. It was just boom-boom; there was no time for moments; it was nothing like I thought it was going to be. And since then, the show has developed into something a little more calm. It's still fast and has whip-pans, but it's a completely different show now. (At first) I was completely taken aback, because that was not what I read at all, so that was kind of scary.
WHEN YOU WATCH YOUR PERFORMANCE, WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE
THING?
Felicity Huffman: My favorite thing is someone else's close-up -- and my least favorite thing is my lack of lips. (Laughs.) Driving home at the end of the day, you're like, "Oh my God, I know how I should have done that scene," so I find (the show) hard to watch. I watch like this with one hand over my eyes or I multitask so if I can make it through one pass without (thinking) the acting police should come get me, then I never see it again.
JANE AND WANDA, COMING FROM THE IMPROV AND STAND-UP WORLD,
DO YOU HAVE A GOOD SENSE OF WHAT IS WORKING WHEN YOU'RE DOING
YOUR SHOWS?
Lynch: With "Glee," yes, because everything I say is written so well. I don't touch any of the writing because I don't have time. I'm learning lines all the time because my character is rather verbose. But in other things, you just hope they (keep) the moments because sometimes the hilarity is in the moment and sometimes an editor might blow through that. When I do things other than "Glee," I cross my fingers, hoping that whoever is editing it knows how to edit comedy. Because they can really kill it.
Sykes: On "Old Christine," it's such a piece of cake for me because I don't have to mess with it. But on my show, because I'm doing everything, I'm more aware of "Well, is this funny?" And, you know, I just mug it up.
HOW DO YOU HANDLE A SITUATION WHEN THE MATERIAL IS NOT
FUNNY AND YOU KNOW IT?
Lynch: I've had moments in "Glee," some moments that are kind of iconic now, that I didn't think were that funny. But I'm one of those people: I'm tired, I'm not that ambitious anymore. (Laughs.) So a moment will come up and I'll just play it and do my best. Maybe it goes flat, but I don't take responsibility. I rarely watch what I do, I just walk away from it.
Heaton: You don't watch the show?
Lynch: Not much. I watched the Madonna episode of "Glee" last night. I was in bed with my dogs and my cats all by myself, laughing! I turned to my dog and said, "You're mommy's funny!"
WHY DON'T YOU WATCH IT MORE?
Lynch: (Not) because I don't like to watch myself. It's just that when I'm done, I'm done. I spent a lot of time when I was younger dissecting my performances, going: "Oh, I shouldn't have done that, what if I had done it this way," to the point where, just for my mental health, I had to stop watching myself. I was very critical. Now I just have as much fun in the moment and I really walk away.
Sykes: I used to watch everything. Now I TiVo "Old Christine" and I don't have time to go back and watch it. And also, because I'm not involved with the editing, it's like, I know what I did, they make their choices. But on my show, I stopped watching because I do the editing. I'm there all night. We shoot Friday nights and I get home at 6:30, 7 in the morning on Saturday. So it's like, I just watched it eight times.
SOFIA, DO YOU WATCH "MODERN FAMILY"?
Sofia Vergara: Sometimes. I have a 19-year-old son.
Lynch: Really? How is that possible?
Vergara: Plastic surgery. (Laughs.) Now, at his age, it's hard to find things to do with him. I realize his friends love the show and he loves the show, so I enjoy seeing him laughing and feeling like I'm part of them. Because usually he's so annoyed with me.
WHEN YOU WATCH YOURSELF, WHAT ARE YOU MOST CRITICAL OF?
Vergara: Well, I'm new to acting.
Heaton: What? You're new to acting?
Vergara: Like, five years.
Heaton: Really? I would never have known that. What were you doing before?
Vergara: I was a TV host. But it was a travel show -- not comedy, not acting.
Lynch: Wow, she's a natural.
Vergara: I never had time to train or go to acting classes, so it gives me a little bit of insecurity. Waiting for an audition, you see all these girls that have been preparing, working for eight years. Then I started saying, "Whatever, if they want me, they want me." So I did fool them.
Lynch: It's all fooling, isn't it?
DO ACTORS NEED AN EXTRA LEVEL OF CONFIDENCE TO DO COMEDY?
Huffman: I'm trying to figure out comedy, to tell you the truth. My husband (William H. Macy) and I sit there and watch ("Desperate Housewives"). He tries to give me pointers.
Vergara: You have to be not too afraid of looking like a fool or ugly or fat. You have to let go of all of that.
Lynch: It's about having confidence in your lack of confidence. It's being able to look silly and show the parts of you that aren't so sophisticated or shiny and allow that to come out, and not try to shape it to look good.
Heaton: I don't think you can learn it, though. If you're not funny, you can't learn it. For certain kinds of comedy, there's a musicality and a rhythm, and maybe you can learn that a little bit. And there are some people who are funny unintentionally. But, especially for comedians, you have to have it in your DNA to make it work.
Lynch: It's being able to go to the dark places, which is why comedy actors are good at drama. It's the same process. You're going to those dark places in the shadow, and that's the stuff that the people in the audience respond to.
Heaton: Comedy is all about pain and suffering -- but it's the take on it, finding something in it that connects with everybody.
Lynch: People feel better about themselves after a comedy. They don't realize they're seeing themselves or an aspect of themselves that they're laughing at, but they walk away feeling better about themselves.
Sykes: Comedy is ugly. But I do think you have to have confidence. Especially doing stand-up: If you get onstage and they see you're nervous, it makes the audience nervous. Same thing in acting, but you have to have a little vulnerability with that. They want to see a flaw to connect with themselves.
Heaton: An actor is somebody who has a big enough ego that they're willing to go out in front of a bunch of people, but also be vulnerable (enough) to fail in front of people. It's this very weird dichotomy. We're sick; it's a sickness.
Cox: And you've got to be willing to offend.
WHEN YOU GUYS HAVE DISAGREEMENTS WITH WRITERS OR PRODUCERS,
WHAT ARE THEY USUALLY ABOUT?
Vergara: Well, I just had one: I was supposed to shoot a wedding scene. Gloria, my character, is marrying Jay (Ed O'Neill) and so they do the (Colombian) wedding thing, and I arrive (on set) and there's people dressed like Mexican people! "This is a traditional Mexican outfit! Do a little bit of research! This is so annoying!" So now they ask me.
Heaton: Did they change it?
Vergara: No, it was too late. It was so painful. (Laughs.) Americans think every Latin person is the same. So at the beginning, I used to have a lot of fights -- not fights, but I was always complaining.
Cox: I get frustrated when I think something's really not funny and the writer-producer thinks it's hysterical. But you just don't want to battle, so you do it anyway. And then you watch it and you know you should have battled, because it wasn't funny.
DO YOU EVER GO BACK TO THEM AND SAY "I TOLD YOU SO"?
Cox: I say, "That's still not funny." (And they reply) "No, no, it's really funny." It's so subjective. That's when I really like to hear the words, "Well, I think it's funny." When someone says, "No, it's funny," it makes me crazy!
ON THE OTHER SIDE, DO YOU FIGHT TO KEEP TAKES THAT YOU
PREFER?
Cox: Yes. When I see a (take) that's been cut out, I'll say, "Please put that back in, it was really funny." And (they're) great with that.
Heaton: It's little, tiny things. Mostly changing the word so it sounds better. The laugh is really specific to what words you pick and how they are lined up. It's very orchestrated.
Lynch: Every once in a while, my character is rather heinous. She says awful, awful things. Sometimes, for my money, they go too far. Like once, something ended with me talking about skinning a cat, which I could not do because I have two cats. I just did a PSA for PETA so I could not say that. So (showrunner Ryan Murphy) rewrote it and the bit was fine. Ian Brennan writes most of my stuff. He's from Chicago and I'm from Chicago, so he's worked at the same theaters I've worked at. He's Irish-Catholic, just like I am. So it's really easy.
Vergara: And when do you learn your lines?
Lynch: All the time. I'm driving around town talking to myself. I have them on a tape recorder. This last episode, I had seven scenes all in one day and it was three days after I got the script. So my head was ready to explode. I woke up one day -- and I don't know if this is menopause or something, but I couldn't remember my name! I couldn't put a sentence together. Does that ever happen to you, where you don't know if you're at the preposition or the verb? So they made me cue cards, I have to admit. But I took a little estrogen that day and a little of that ginko and the next day I was fine.
Heaton: Remember when you used to look through a script when you were young and you had the big speeches and you were like, "Yes!" Now it's like "Oh, s---." (Laughs.)
Lynch: And what kills me is when they cut out half of the speech. (But) on our show, if you don't get every word in every take, they come after you. We have a really tight script supervisor. We actually warn people that come on as guest actors that you have to have it exactly as it is on the page.
Cox: I couldn't do that. One time, the camera was on my back, and one of the writers -- Bill's not like this, he doesn't care at all -- but this younger writer had the script supervisor come up to me and say, "Can you make sure you say whatever it was." And I was like, "Dude, it's on my f---ing back. No one's seeing my face! Someone save this writer 'cause I'm going to scream at him."
Heaton: That was the guy that disappeared, right? (Laughs.)
Cox: When writers care about that one little thing they wrote, it just drives me nuts. Or maybe I have a problem with control. (Laughs.)

[Mohamad]

Ricky Martin to star in "Evita" on Broadway

NEW YORK
Wed Jun 9, 2010 6:20pm EDT






Singer Ricky Martin arrives for the amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research) Inspiration Gala in New York June 3, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson




NEW YORK (Reuters) - Latin pop star Ricky Martin will return to Broadway in 2012 to star in a revival of "Evita," opposite Argentine actress Elena Roger who will portray the title role, producers said on Wednesday.
Entertainment | Music | Arts
Martin will play Che in the musical based on the life of Argentine political leader Eva Peron by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice that first appeared in London's West End in 1978 and on Broadway a year later.
Martin, 38, who made headlines in March when he announced he was ***, was among the biggest teen idols in Latin America and a singer in the band Menudo before scoring a major English-language hit with "Livin' la Vida Loca" in 1999.
Since then, the native of Puerto Rico has become a global superstar with numerous records. He previously worked on Broadway in a production of "Les Miserables."
In a statement, Martin said that while he has played on many concert stages, "I've never lost my love for the intimacy of the theater."
Roger returns in the role of Peron after rave reviews in a revival that played in London's West End in 2006. The musical has played in numerous productions around the world, and was made into Hollywood movie that starred Madonna.

[Mohamad]

Jack Johnson sets sail at No. 1 on U.S. pop chart

Keith Caulfield
Wed Jun 9, 2010 2:39pm EDT


Musician Jack Johnson performs at Apple's ''Let's Rock'' media event in San Francisco, California September 9, 2008.
Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith




LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Jack Johnson claimed his third No. 1 album on the anemic U.S. pop chart on Wednesday, despite suffering a large slide in sales.
Entertainment | Music
Johnson's "To The Sea" sold 243,000 copies during the week ended June 6, according to Nielsen SoundScan. His last studio set, "Sleep Through the Static," debuted at No. 1 in 2008 with 375,000 copies.
Still, the album breaks an eight-week long streak of No. 1s selling less than 200,000 -- where five of those weeks were sub-100,000 frames.
"To The Sea" helped perk up the overall market a bit, with 5.16 million albums sold last week -- up 4% from the woefully low 4.98 million the week previous. That tally was the lowest since Nielsen SoundScan started keeping records in 1994.
Year-to-date album sales stand at 130.6 million, down 11% compared to the same total at this point last year.
Downloads made up 114,000 of "Sea's" first week -- nearly half of the set's overall figure. In terms of download units, it's the biggest week for an album since late-January, when the digital-exclusive charity compilation "Hope For Haiti Now" set sold 143,000 downloads in its second week.
Overall, "To The Sea" is Johnson's fifth top 10 album. He achieved his first chart-topper in 2006, when the "Curious George" soundtrack bowed with 163,000 copies.
Last week's No. 1 album, "Glee: The Music, Volume 3: Showstoppers," fell to No. 3 with 45,000 copies. Justin Bieber's "My World 2.0" rose one to No. 2 with 52,000.
There was no change among the albums ranked at No. 4 (Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now," 41,000), No. 5 (Usher's "Raymond v Raymond," 35,000) and No. 6 (Lady Gaga's "The Fame," 33,000). Carole King and James Taylor's "Live at the Troubadour" rose two to No. 7 with 25,000.
New entries claimed the next two spots: Taio Cruz's debut album "Rokstarr" at No. 8 with 24,000 copies; and Clay Aiken's covers album "Tried & True" at No. 9 with 22,000. The "American Idol" finalist's last studio release, "On My Way Here," opened at No. 4 with 94,000 in 2008.

[Mohamad]

Paramount revives hit film "Ghost" in Japan

Chris Gallagher
TOKYO
Wed Jun 9, 2010 2:40pm EDT






TOKYO (Reuters) - Paramount Pictures is bringing "Ghost" back to life with a Japanese version of the romance blockbuster, becoming the latest Hollywood studio to launch a local-language production as U.S. films stumble at Japan's box offices.
Entertainment | Film | Japan
The unit of Viacom Inc also is starting to dub more U.S. movies, such as "Shutter Island," into Japanese to lure elusive young audiences, an unusual step in a country where most foreign fare, apart from kids' films, is shown with subtitles.
Hollywood studios are increasingly eyeing the potential of local-language production, particularly in the $2 billion Japanese market where once-dominant American movies have been outgunned by local films the past three out of four years.
Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner Inc. is already an established player in Japan's local-language game and recently saw its animated movie "Gintama" grace the box office top 10 for five weeks.
Fox International Productions, part of News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox film studio, is planning a Japanese remake of the Cary Grant classic "An Affair to Remember," show business newspaper Variety reported.
"We have this great property" in our library, Paramount Japan marketing director Hisamichi Kinomoto said of "Ghost." "If the essence of that story appeals to Japanese, we should use it to attract new audiences."
"Ghost" was a smash hit in 1990 with its universal tale of a love that knows no boundaries such as real life and the after life. Swayze portrays a murdered man who must warn his loving wife (Demi Moore) that she is in danger, and it is most memorable, perhaps, for its scene of Moore making pottery as Swayze wraps his arms around her while the song "Unchained Melody" plays in the background.
The new "Ghost," which Paramount is making with Nippon TV and distributor Shochiku, is set for release in Japan this autumn. It will star Japanese actress Nanako Matsushima ("The Ring") in Moore's role and South Korean heartthrob Song Seung Heon (TV drama "East of Eden") in Swayze's part.
Paramount sees local production as one strategy to build its business, but it currently does not have any other Japanese productions in the works and will first see how it goes with "Ghost," he said.
LOST IN SUBTITLES
Hollywood ruled Japanese box offices for two straight decades into the mid-2000s, but has since struggled to compete as tastes change and audiences favor local films based on familiar "manga" comic books and TV series over the recent slew of U.S. superhero movies.
Homegrown franchises benefit not only from having built-in audiences but also the marketing muscle of the TV networks behind many of these movies, such as last year's top-grosser "Rookies," originally a manga about high school baseball adapted for TV by TBS and later the big screen.
Imported movies accounted for 43 percent of Japan's 206 billion yen ($2.25 billion) box office last year, far off a peak of 73 percent hit in 2002, according to the Motion Pictures Producers Association of Japan (MPAAJ).
Kinomoto said another reason for the decline may be an aversion to subtitles among the younger generation, which has grown up watching dubbed movies on DVDs and TVs that provide language-setting options.
"To those who are so used to watching dubbed movies at home on DVD, reading subtitles on the screen is somewhat of a hassle," he said, citing research that teenagers in particular find that subtitles make it hard to focus on the action.
In response, Paramount broke convention by dubbing into Japanese almost half of the 450 prints for the Martin Scorsese suspense thriller "Shutter Island," released in Japan in April, using a special editing process to ensure accurate translation and proper lip-syncing.
Paramount plans to step up its use of dubbing in Japan, and will use the same editing process for the action-fantasy "The Last Airbender," to be released in July, with about the same dubbed-subtitled ratio as "Shutter Island" or a little higher, Kinomoto said.
Hollywood movies so far look on track to overtake Japanese films in box office revenue this year for the first time since 2007, purely on the strength of 3D juggernauts "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland," MPAAJ figures show.
But the overall trend still looks tough: Of the top 10 movies at the box office last weekend, only three were U.S. films, according to box office tracker Kogyo Tsushinsha.

[Mohamad]

Shakira gives dance lesson in South Africa township

Serena Chaudhry
SOWETO
Wed Jun 9, 2010 1:39pm EDT









Colombian pop star Shakira dances with school children at the Isu'lihle primary school in Soweto, June 9, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Howard Burditt




SOWETO South Africa (Reuters) - Colombian pop star Shakira taught children in South Africa's biggest black township dance moves to the official World Cup song on Wednesday and called for the tournament's legacy to be education for all.
Entertainment
The Grammy-award winning singer-songwriter will join other music stars including Black Eyed Peas and Alicia Keys to perform at a concert on Thursday, the eve of the start of the first World Cup tournament on the African continent.
Shakira, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations childrens' organization UNICEF, visited Isu'lihle Primary School in Soweto as part of her philanthropic work to highlight the need to educate the young.
"It's (World Cup) a great opportunity to bring all the attention to issues as important as education," Shakira told reporters while touring the school.
"Seventy-two million kids around the world (are) not able to attend school, of which 32 million are African. So this is our chance to make this World Cup's lasting legacy education for all."
Shakira, best known for her hit singles "Hips Don't Lie" and "Whenever, Wherever" will sing the official World Cup anthem "Waka Waka (This time for Africa)" with local music group Freshly Ground at the concert.

[Mohamad]

Glee’s New Directions Journey to regionals

Jun 9, 2010 13:47 EDT

Just when you feared fame may have stripped some of the charm off Fox’s hit show, “Glee”, it sent fans into the summer hiatus with a finale bursting with heart, drama, a few tears, and the magic and chills of the pilot episode.

After a year together, the ageless Glee kids of McKinley High found inspiration with the group and song that started it all, Journey and their hit, “Don’t stop believin’”.

Rachel, Finn and the rest of the New Directions gang were initially dejected and convinced a loss was guaranteed after learning their nemesis, acerbic cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester, would be one of the “celebrity” judges at the highly anticipated regional competition.

It was nothing a classic Mr. Schue pep-talk couldn’t cure, however. Inspired, they performed a heartfelt and uplifting medley of Journey songs at regionals: “Faithfully”, “Any way you want it”/”Lovin’, touchin’, squeezin’” (mash-up), and “Don’t stop believin’”.

But the competition was just a backdrop to an eventful episode: Finn told Rachel he loved her, Quinn’s estranged mother showed up to give her support (and confessed that she kicked out her husband for “having an affair with some tattoed freak”), rival Vocal Adrenaline blew away the competition with Queen’s “Bohemian Rapsody”, Quinn gave birth to a baby girl with Puck and Mercedes by her side, Mr. Schuester told Emma he loved her, and Shelby Corcoran adopted Quinn’s baby before the hour was even finished — only on TV! Phew.

The finale brought back some guests from earlier this season to act as the other “celebrity judges”. Olivia Newton-John and Josh Groban reprised their roles, posing as egomaniacal versions of themselves. Their condescending attitude toward small town Ohio (”underachievers with delusions of grandeur”) drove Sue to defend and secretly vote for New Directions. It was one against three, however, and the club couldn’t even place, having been also beaten by the “not-at-all stupidly named ‘Aural Intensity’”.

It was a smart decision to not have New Directions win. This is TV after all — viewers knew if the Glee Club got canceled — which it was, briefly — it would be short-lived. And as Mr. Schuester said, “Who cares what happens when we get there, when the getting there was so much fun?”

The kids summed up their changes over the last year to Mr. Schuester with Lulu’s “To Sir, With Love” while Sue got teary eyed behind the scenes.

She later forced Principal Figgin’s to reinstate the club, but not before delivering a string of one-line zingers..

“But what kind of a world would that be, Will? A world where I couldn’t constantly ridicule your hair. A world where I couldn’t make fun of you for tearing up more than Michael Landon in a sweeps week episode of Little House on the Prairie?”

The season closed with Mr. Schuester and Puck singing Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of “Over the rainbow.”

Now that “Glee” has wrapped until September, what did you think of the finale? Are Vocal Adrenaline’s best days really behind them? Have we seen the last of Jesse St. James? Will Shelby Corcoran change her mind about coming to teach at McKinley High? Can Quinn’s frindship with Mercedes last or will she return to her old self now that the burden of her pregnancy is gone? Find out in September

[Mohamad]

Goodbye Speidi. Or just another Heidi and Spencer game

Jun 8, 2010 20:06 EDT

Speidi is no more.

(Maybe)



Heidi Montag, the plastic surgery enhanced star of MTV’s “The Hills”, has filed papers for a legal separation from her husband of 14 months, Spencer Pratt.

Montag conveniently managed to get herself photographed leaving a Santa Monica court house on Tuesday clutching a bundle of papers which quickly made their way to the TMZ.com website. Montag, 23, cited irreconcilable differences for the split and, we’re told, “filed the legal docs in her own handwriting”.

Montag first moved out the home she shared with the scheming Pratt a couple of weeks ago saying she “needed some alone time.” But with no divorce or other papers to back up her claims, friends and much of the media weren’t buying the split and saw it more as a publicity stunt. Moreover, she moved in with her “Hills” friend Jennifer Bunney, with whom she just happens to be filming a new reality show about… relationships.

Despite some of the more outrageous claims about Pratt’s behavior from the Heidi camp (controlling, isolated her from friends etc.), Montag pointedly filed for separation rather than divorce. And separations can be undone.

Montag’s cast mates from “The Hills” have mostly dismissed the stories of a split as a publicity stunt.

“I think it’s a joke,” Audrina Patridge said at the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday (pictured at right). “I don’t believe it. They’re inseparable and in love.”

Whether Heidi’s separation is as fake as her new chest remains to be seen. But whatever the truth of the matter, the pair are getting just what they seem to crave.
Publicity