June 07, 2007

Mandy Moore is infused with her music persona this year through the release of "Wild Hope". She is willing to take a break from film to get on the road for a long enjoyable tour.

"I really just want to go on tour this fall," Mandy said. "I'd love to do a film, but it has to be something that makes sense and that I'm really passionate about to take me off the road, 'cause that's really what I want to do right now."

Paul McCartney's very sudden and secret gig has just been revealed. The singer will give an intimate show tonight (June 7) at the Electric Ballroom in Camden.

This show is intended to promote his latest effort "Memory Almost Full" in front of just few hundred people. The ticketing system is arranged based on first come first served method and starts opening 12.30 pm. Upon purchasing the tickets, fans are required to bring photo ID with them to be shown to the officials as there would be no physical tickets.

Two mysterious countdowns have appeared on one of Rage Against the Machine's websites. The time that is marked 'til August 24 has been associated to the date for their new album or presumably a series of concerts. The other one pointing to Monday is possibly the time to spread the "what's going on".

Speculation has been made previously that the newly reunited band will issue a live album that was taped from their first reunion stage act at Coachella Festival back in April. Meanwhile, some thinks, or more properly, wish that it could be a new studio effort.

Coming to probably the biggest stint in his screenwriting career so far, "I'm Not There" co-writer Oren Moverman has signed on to work on the script of large-scale drama "Empire", Warner Bros. Pictures' adaptation of Orson Scott Card's novel of the same title published last year.

Set in the near future, the novel finds America in a state of chaos. The assassination of the president and vice president plunges America into civil war, prompting a team of special-forces operatives to embark on a mission to unravel the conspiracy behind and save the country.

Apparently "Shrek 4" is not going to be the closing chapter of the green ogre tale as the story will still continue at least to the fifth installment.

DreamWorks Animation's head Jeffrey Katzenberg, the man behind all released "Shrek" series, has informed Courier Mail that work already is under way on both "Shrek 4" and "Shrek 5", which many of the 1400 artists employed at the studio are busily prepping for.

Seemingly on the run to be one of the busiest filmmakers working today, Spike Lee is set to direct "Miracle at St. Anna", an Italy-set World War II drama about black American soldiers fighting the German army in the mountains of Tuscany.

Made under the keen eye of Italian producers Luigi Musini and Roberto Cicutto, pic turns out to be a film adaptation of U.S. author Walter McBride's novel of the same name which presents the true life account of four members of the U.S. army's 92nd division of all-black soldiers. Trapped in a Tuscan village in 1994, the quartet not only had to deal with their racist, incompetent commanders, but the ruthless Nazi soldiers as well.

Delving into raunchy theme, Kevin Smith has come onboard to direct "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" which he described to the Los Angeles Times as "bawdy sex comedy with heart."

Project focuses on two friends who have managed to trudge into their 30s with a satisfying lack of accomplishment. However, a 15-year high school reunion and dire rent problems later prompt them to an idea of making together an amateur porn enterprise.

As expected, R. Kelly's "Double Up" opened at #1 on Billboard Hot 200 chart this week with nearly 368,000 copies sold. The release of this record makes his eight solo album to enter the chart at either #1 or #2.

With the exception of his debut album in 1992, R. Kelly has spawned continuous chart topping albums that are always beyond the 100,000 parameter. His sophomore effort "12 Play" debuted at #2 while the following self-titled album was treated better with #1 entry. The fourth, fifth and others entered the chart at either no. 1 or 2.

Giving a Hollywood touch to the project, Mischa Barton has given her agreement to star in Russian coming-of-age drama "Finding t.A.T.u, being cast alongside the likes of Shantel VanSanten, Anton Yelchin, Alex Kaluzhsky, and Helena Mattsson.

Based on Russian author A. Mitrofanov's novel "t.A.T.u come back", the project, set against a background of music, Internet chatrooms and hedonistic Russian nightlife, presents a story of a lonely American teenager in Moscow who becomes friends with a local girl over their shared obsession with singing duo t.A.T.u.

One speculation to another, fans can only count Spice Girls' reunion rumor based on each statement made by the members. While the only opposition comes from 'Sporty Spice' Melanie C, 'Posh Spice' Victoria Adams boldly said "definitely".

The singer -now referred as Victoria Beckham- believes that reunion will come in the coming months. Giving her statement after receiving Glamour's Woman of the Year award she said, "We'll see what turns out, but between you and me, I'm really hopeful that it definitely will happen."

Sienna Miller has a new calling, Tod's spokesperson.

The actress was tapped by the luxury Italian fashion house to represent their latest products, posing for its fall-winter 2007-2008 advertising campaign. Her being tapped marks the first time the accessories and ready-to-wear brand uses celebrity to endorse its line of bags, shoes and clothing collection.

The eight-cycle of Latin Grammy Awards is now heading to Las Vegas. The event that appreciates Latin music will be held at Mandalay Bay casino-hotel on November 8.

The reason to choose Las Vegas is explained by organizers to be the perfect spot to allure Hispanics. Travel Industry Association of America estimated that around 2.4 million U.S. Hispanics visited Las Vegas last year.

Brought together again after their latest collaboration in "Stranger Than Fiction", Oscar-winning thespians Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson are both poised to topline "Last Chance Harvey", a romantic drama coming from Overture Films.

Written by Joel Hopkins, the flick concerns a man down on his luck who finds an unlikely female companion as he comes to London to attend his daughter's wedding. It is reported that Hopkins worked on the script with Hoffman and Thompson in mind for the characters.

Beyonce Knowles made a nice surprise for Oprah Winfrey Show audience on Sunday (06/03/2007). The singer who is rumored to be engaged to Jay-Z gave out two tickets for each audience attending the show.

Not only given free, the tickets are labeled "V.I.P.". Beyonce announced, "I have a surprise for everyone in the audience. Everyone has V.I.P. tickets to The Beyonce Experience... and you can take a friend."

The Television Critics Association (TCA) has on Tuesday June 5th announced numbers of nominees for this year annual award event. Among the programs vie for Program of the Year prize are "American Idol" (Fox), "Friday Night Lights" (NBC), "Heroes" (NBC), "Planet Earth" (Discovery), "The Wire" (HBO), and "When the Levees Broke" (HBO).

For Outstanding Achievement in Comedy category, NBC leads with two, mainly for its "30 Rock" and "The Office" to compete with HBO's "Entourage", Comedy Central's "The Daily Show", and ABC's "Ugly Betty". For the Outstanding Achievement in Drama, NBC earns two for "Friday Night Lights" and "Heroes", while HBO also gets two for "The Sopranos" and "The Wire", in race with ABC's "Lost".

Two ambitious film projects are on the line to get brewed at Warner Bros. Pictures. The giant studio has successfully obtained rights to make both "The Elfstones of Shannara" and "Thundercats" under its banner, Variety has reported.

The former, set to follow the massive success of the company's "Harry Potter" franchise, will be a big screen adaptation of the second part of the best-selling "Shannara" series by Terry Brooks, known to be the second biggest-selling living fantasy book writer after J.K. Rowling.

Her best friend Paris Hilton has been sentenced to 23 days in jail for violating her probation. Such fact is enough to make skinny socialite Nicole Richie shakes. The TV reality star does afraid of being put behind bars, spills the bean to David Letterman during a taping for his talk show on Wednesday June 6th.

"I'm just keeping my fingers crossed, and, you know, of course, I'm scared also, but, you know, I'm willing to face whatever consequences come my way, and I take responsibility for what I've done," Nicole said revealing her fears.

Widely recognized for its productions of fantasy and family-friendly flicks, Walden Media now is aiming to spawn a rather different film feature.

The Los Angeles-based company reportedly is on the track to develop a teen mayor comedy in association with Phoenix Pictures and has appointed "License to Wed" director Ken Kwapis to assume the helming duties for the project.

Akon gets into trouble again. The R&B singer once again found himself at the center of a controversy after he was caught on tape tossing a young fan into the crowd during a concert at radio station WSPK's KFEST in Fishkill, N.Y. over the weekend. He's not charged, but is under investigation for that encounter.

On that incident, it is said that the "Smack That" singer was performing on Sunday June 3rd, when suddenly someone in the crowd threw an object at the stage in the direction of the singer. He then asked the crowd to point out the individual who did that and ordered security to bring the audience member on stage.

She's still in rehab and has yet completed her stint there. But that wouldn't stop Lindsay Lohan from partying, or is it safe for us to say she won't be stopped by that somehow? The troubled young celebrity still planning a big 21st birthday bash, it has been reported.

Talk is heating up that she's been told by advisors to cancel the bash for good. In fact, the actress-singer insists to hold a 21st birthday blowout to coincide with her July 2nd birthday. It seems that Lindsay really does want to "milk it" as she previously said during an interview in "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", "I'm going to milk it. It's a big birthday and I think it's been a long time in coming for my friends in L.A. who have clubs (soon they won't) have to worry about getting in trouble because I'm underage".

Advancing further in the development process of the project, Happy Madison has picked up Fred Wolf to helm its untitled college campus comedy that Anna Faris is set to topline for Columbia Pictures to distribute.

The one-time SNL writer thereby will direct from the script penned by "Legally Blonde" scribes Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, who both are also on duty to executive produce alongside Faris. Filming is said to begin late this summer with Heather Parry producing and Sony's Sam Dickerman plus Adam Milano overseeing for the studio.

Presenting a theme rarely brought up to the surface nowadays, Walt Disney Pictures is about to make a movie about treasure hunt with Chris Bender, J.C. Spink, Adam Shankman, Jennifer Gibgot, and Mason Novick to all produce.

Project comes from the original idea hatched by Novick which then was made into a screenplay by Amy Pocha and Seth Cohen. It afterwards was brought by Offspring's Matthew Mizel to Kristin Burr at Disney that finally picked up the rights to turn it into the big screen.

She will never stop making media headlines in addition to creating frenzy with her every move. Paris Hilton still makes money when in prison, not for herself but for you. It has been reported that tabloids are in race to get her first pictures in jail.

While a mug shot of the heiress has been made public all over the world, the US publications want more. With a tempting $500,000 reward, they are trying to get the first snaps of Paris inside jail.

Mystery solved. Jennifer Aniston's new man revealed. The handsome mystery man the actress dating is British model Paul Sculfor.

It was reported earlier before that Jenn was seen dining with an unidentified handsome man over the Memorial Day weekend at Santa Monica's One Pico restaurant in the Shutters Hotel, where the man was seen rubbing her back as they were waiting for a table. And now the identity of the hunk is revealed.

Justin Timberlake and his team in Tennman Records have pointed their first artist to be signed under the label. YouTube star Esmee Denters inked the deal and will carry on becoming the opening act for a handful of Timberlake's European gigs.

"Esmee is a remarkable talent with a story that anyone with a dream can relate to - it is no wonder she has such an enthusiastic following already," Tenman president Ken Komisar said in a statement. Beside opening act, Denters will also have her studio album released later this year.

Ten years not releasing any Christmas album apparently has left Toby Keith restless. The project only get its way this year after the completion of his June 12 released album "Big Dog Daddy".

"I've been meaning to do another (Christmas album) for 10 years," Keith revealed. "I'm not an extremely religious guy, but I am a Christian, and I do know what the meaning of Christmas is. It's time for me to do one." The project is already underway and will be released in the fourth quarter this year via his label Show Dog Nashville.

On contrary to his packed discography in the last five years, Kenny Chesney hasn't produced any new album in two years. He was taking the time to "search his soul, dig a little deeper and look for ways to tell the truths, moments and feelings of people like him." The time ends, "Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates" is at the other end.

"I tried on so many titles," Chesney said. "But in the end, it was the simplest name that fit this record the best. Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates pretty much says it all. At the end of the day, you strip it all off, and that's what it comes down to: great songs that are about the smallest things and people who're living just beyond the rules."