February 26, 2009

Amidst speculations of Cate Blanchett replacing Sienna Miller as Maid Marion in "Robin Hood", a new report broke out that the award-winning actress has been set to take on the part. Variety has reported that the Brad Pitt's co-star in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" will star alongside Russell Crowe, who will portray the titular character.

Imagine Entertainment's Brian Grazer, who will serve as the film's producer, commented that Blanchett was "a strong match for Crowe". He also added that putting her and Crowe together will make one enjoyable film. "They are both highly accomplished dramatic actors who are taken seriously playing rich characters in period pieces, but each has the ability to show you fun," so he claimed.

The ultimate course has won a man the title of "Top Chef". On the finale of the cooking competition, two were unable to satisfy the panel of judges consisting of twelve people, as much as Hosea Rosenberg. His final three courses beat those by Carla Hall and Stefan Richter.

"It felt amazing to win, but to have it come down neck and neck with Stefan just made it all that sweeter," Hosea gushed after the winning. "That was the icing on the cake. This is one of the biggest accomplishments of my life. I know a lot of people are going to be proud of me for this. I could not be happier."

Zac Efron has been named ShoWest 2009 Breakthrough Performer of the Year and he will be presented with the honor at ShoWest's Final Night Banquet and Award Ceremony on Thursday, April 2, at Bally's and Paris Las Vegas. The announcement was made by Mitch Neuhauser, co-managing director of the event, through the press release outed on Thursday, February 26.

"When Zac Efron made his debut, with the cast of 'Hairspray' at ShoWest 2007, many in attendance took notice of this young actor's incredible talent," Neuhauser explained on the reason ShoWest chose the 21-year-old. "His undeniable onscreen presence and charm have connected with fans around the world, and with the impending release of the comedy '17 Again', Zac Efron is poised to break out as a true Hollywood star."

Salli Richardson has given birth to a baby boy, her second child with actor husband Dondre Whitfield, back on Saturday, January 24. The infant, named Dre Terrell Whitfield, weighing in at 7 lbs., 7 oz at time of birth.

Dre joins Salli and Dondre's eldest child, daughter Parker Richardson Whitfield. Salli and Dondre themselves have been married since September 8, 2002.

For the first time in years, Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon were on the stage together. It has been nearly a decade since the break up of their band Blur, but both musicians made up to it on the stage of Shockwaves NME Awards which was held at London's Brixton Academy on Wednesday, February 25.

Although missing the other two personnel, Alex James and Dave Rowntree, the performance was a surprise to the audience since it was not announced in prior. Albarn on the piano and Coxon on the guitar, they performed an acoustic piece of "This is a Low" which can be found on their 1994 album "Parklife". After the set, Albarn and Coxon left the stage arm in arm.

The ceremony of Shockwaves NME Awards 2009 has been wrapped up and it is unveiled that Oasis and Jonas Brothers are among the recipients for the annual music awards show for two completely different reasons. While Oasis were given the ultimate honor of being Best British Band, Jonas Brothers were handed out two of the Worst titles, Worst Band and Worst Album.

On Wednesday, February 25, at the O2 Academy Brixton, the Manchester band Oasis came out victorious over Muse and Radiohead among others. Though unable to attend the ceremony due to live commitments in Europe, the band sent acceptance video featuring also host Russell Brand. "This is ironic, we're being given Best British Band by the second best British comedian," Noel Gallagher jokingly said. "Thanks to all the readers who've voted... This has turned into a right bad idea..."

Amidst the many rumors claiming Natalie Portman has a crush on Robert Pattinson after meeting him at the 81st Annual Academy Awards on February 22, the "Twilight" heartthrob himself confesses he is "really fascinated by the grace and beauty of" the actress. Both stars, according to various sources, met again after the prestigious awards show at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, which was held later that day.

In another Robert Pattinson news, he reportedly is expected to attend the 22nd Annual Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards, which is slated to be held at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion on March 28. It is not yet known what part he will have during the event.

The chance of Jewel Kilcher winning "Dancing with the Stars" is dimmer as she has revealed a health problem before the show even premieres on TV. Writing on her blog, the singer said that she has been diagnosed with tendinitis after feeling pain on her knees during rehearsals.

"I guess I really over did it on the rehearsal front!" she writes. "My knees have been hurting so badly that I finally broke down and talked to (husband Ty Murray's) knee doctor yesterday. He said I have tendonitis in my knees and that I have to start a course of medicine to try and bring the swelling down. Yuck! It's mainly my left knee, and I can't believe I hurt it so badly."

Soon after director Jon Favreau revealed that she won't be taking the Black Widow part in "Iron Man 2", Emily Blunt comes up with a response, confirming the claim and expressing her disappointment. Responding to Roger Moore of The Orlando Sentinel's assuring words that sequel is almost never as good as the original, she says, "I'm glad you said that, not me. It's a little disappointing is all I can say."

Though bummed by the result, the 26-year-old actress still keeps a positive attitude towards "Gulliver's Travels". "I'm okay," the Norah Lorkowski of "Sunshine Cleaning" shares. "Because I just have to do this Fox movie, and it's fine and I'm gonna have fun. The whole beginning of the year has been rather dramatic, so I'd just rather go in with fresh eyes and know that I've made the right decision. You just don't know until it's all finished and done with, do you?"

Kate, Jack, Hurley and the other Oceanic Six are back on the island and what happen next can be found on the next episode of "Lost". Called "LaFleur", this episode that airs March 4 takes its spotlight on Sawyer and will unveil shocking turns and surprising twists.

Sawyer perpetuates a lie with some of the other island survivors in order to protect themselves from mistakes of the past. Starting this episode, Reiko Aylesworth will play Amy, a woman many men find attractive and likes qualities of each of her suitors but is looking for the whole package. She will be in at least 4 episodes.

Contrary to his nowadays fame and heartthrob predicate, Zac Efron admits he "was not in that ultracool circle" during his high school years. Though having a lot of friends, "I was average. I was a bit of a class clown - I guess to get through the tedium of the quadratic formula! I thought everyone was fair game," the actor tells the April issue of Family Circle Magazine, going on sale on March 5.

On arguing with his parents during his teen years, Zac recalls, "Oh man, it seemed like every weekend I was in trouble for something! Our disagreements were over small things like curfew." He goes on detailing, "If I got home late, I would get chewed out ... I fought a lot with my little brother [Dylan]. We were brawlers and I would always get grounded. If I had big plans with friends for the weekend-camping or boating or surfing at the beach-I wasn't allowed to go."

Cities and dates for No Doubt's highly-anticipated tour with Paramore have been unraveled on Wednesday, February 25. Being the ska-punk band's first tour since going on hiatus five years ago, the tour will start with the band's performance at the Bamboozle Festival in East Rutherford, New Jersey on May 3 and wrap up in Orange County, California, on August 1.

Visiting amphitheaters and arenas from coast to coast across North America, it will make 45 cities stops along the way and end with a two-night stand at Irvine, California's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. The tour dates also include a performance at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, for Tiger Woods' annual Tiger Jam charity event on May 16. In addition to Paramore as the band's opening act, The Sounds, Janelle Monae and Bedouin Soundclash will serve as support on select dates.

Pre-empted by President Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday, February 24, "American Idol" is back to air the second wave of Top 36 performance the next day. Highlights from this second batch of performance is the Broadway -sounded Adam Lambert, the young divorced mother Megan Corkrey and the man with double personality Nick Mitchell aka Norman Gentle.

Spotted in the audience seat are the three finalists, Alexis Grace, Michael Sarver and Danny Gokey, who have advanced to the next round through last week's live votes. Host Ryan Seacrest opens with "Where else can you find a bartender, a font designer and a comedian?" The judges are seen not in their usual seating arrangement.

"The silver lining to this, however, is that I have a wonderful family and a great group of friends who really showed their support and encouragement, and for that I am truly grateful," Kate Walsh tells the March issue of Redbook magazine about life after separating from estranged husband Alex Young. "Alex and I still care for each other, and I wish him nothing but the best," she claims.

Giving more details about her separation from the film executive after just 14 months of marriage, Kate openly reveals that she never thought her wedding would come to an end very quickly. "I don't think anyone gets married thinking that they will get divorced. We certainly did not," the TV actress says.

Zac Efron's Mike O'Donnell wrestling with his daughter's jock boyfriend in a brand new international trailer for "17 Again". Providing a better look at the comedy film, the promotional video lasts for about two minutes and shows what the film is all about.

Unhappy of how his life turn out to be, 37-year-old O'Donnell wishes that he could live up his teenage year all over again and in a weird coincidence, his wish comes true but not in the way he expects it to be. Getting a second chance in life, he is transformed back to his 17-year-old self in the present time. With a 30-something soul trapped in a 17-year-old body, O'Donnell must find a way to get closer to his two teenage kids and win back his estranged wife before he really loses the best things that ever happened to him.

The limited release date of "Little Ashes" has been moved. Recent reports exposed that Regent Releasing have recently shifted the U.S. theatrical date of the drama movie, which sees "Twilight" star Robert Pattinson as Salvador Dali, from March 27 to May 8.

With the changes, "Little Ashes" won't be heading into theaters head-to-head with "Adventureland", a comedy movie starring another "Twilight" star Kristen Stewart, and "Monsters vs. Aliens", the Paramount Pictures animation voiced by Reese Witherspoon among others. And, on the new date, it is yet to have any serious competition.

The high anticipation of Eminem's come back has been eased by the release of a still from his new music video. It has been confirmed previously that the rapper who took more than 4 years hiatus, has shot a music video for a single off his new effort "Relapse" with Syndrome as the director.

On Wednesday, February 25, Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg posted the picture of a homeless person, dirty and holding a liquor bottle wrapped in a brown bag, in his blog. This would be one of the scenes found in the video which Rosenberg said is "going to be bananas". The video will be premiered "within a couple of weeks." 50 Cent who is featured in the song, mentioned previously that there were plans of making it an animated video.

Britney Spears' ex-husband Kevin Federline is in talks with Gerard Guez about a licensing deal for a children's clothing line. To support the future project, he even stopped by The Project Trade Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday, February 25, hoping to get the inspiration he might need to start his own collection.

"It's a really tough business, I'm trying to take it seriously and make a quality product for kids but not have parents pay like $500 or something ridiculous for a pair of jeans," K-Fed has been quoted as telling Women's Wear Daily. "You buy your kids a pair of True Religions then they roll around in the dirt like kids do and a $200 pair of jeans is gone. With this economy, I'm looking to do something much more reasonable."

Miramax Films have debuted the new red-band trailer for "Adventureland" via IGN. Providing another sneak peek at the comedy movie, the less-than-two-minute video footage presents the naughty parts of the film, from some profane words to be heard to the rather raunchy scenes to be viewed.

Opening this red band trailer is an explanation that what the viewers about to see is the red band trailer for the movie with definition of what red band means. While the explanatory words in it claim that the movie won't contain any profanity or sex and show no drinking or drug use, the footage displays the exact opposite.

"Hannah Montana" will return full speed in March and a promo for the episodes airing on the particular month has been released. Starting March 1, the show will air its episodes weekly on Sundays, kicking it off with "Welcome to the Bungle".

In the episode, Hannah says that she dislikes carrots on the "Mack and Mickey" show so her fans stop eating them. She returns to the program to explain herself, but ends up making things worse. Meanwhile, Jackson and Oliver model for a brochure but find out that they weren't chosen to model for the reason they thought they were chosen.

Becoming a pop star, apparently, isn't Kevin Jonas' one and only dream job as he has openly admitted that he once wanted to model for clothing retailer GAP. "Especially when those Gap jean jackets were madly in style and you didn't want to take 'em off. That was pretty awesome," so the eldest of the Jonas Brothers told Access Hollywood's "Dish Of Salt" Laura Saltman at the Hollywood premiere of "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience" on Tuesday, February 24.

Kevin's brother Joe Jonas, who was also in attendance during the event, addressed on another topic, which was about the screaming fans who always hound the Jonas boys. "You hear it so much that you get immune to the screaming," so Joe told Laura. "It's like, once you leave you're still hearing it and you're talking really loud." Though so, "you never get sick of it because it's amazing", Joe quickly added.

The star-studded music video from Jamie Foxx has been released via BET on Wednesday, February 25. This would be the video of "Blame It" that features T-Pain and is lifted from his third studio album "Intuition" (2008). The video itself is another project by Hype Williams.

Foxx mainly lined up awards winners from his movie realm, such as Ron Howard, Samuel L. Jackson, Forest Whitaker and Jake Gyllenhaal. Not stopping there, cameos are also made by Quincy Jones, Cedric the Entertainer, Morris Chesnut, Clifton Powell, Alex Thomas, Tatyana Ali, Bill Bellamy, Clarence Avant, Tommy Davidson and more.

Demi Lovato is interested in making music for "The Twilight Saga's New Moon". In an interview with MTV News, the Mitchie Torres of "Camp Rock" revealed that she would love to be a part of "Twilight" sequel's soundtrack. "I think it'd be cool to be in the soundtrack," so she said at the world premiere of "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience" on Tuesday, February 24.

Expressing more of her hope, Lovato added, "Maybe, but ... it's like anything that would happen that'd be awesome. I don't know if I'd make a good vampire or a good werewolf." On the occasion, the star of "Sonny With A Chance" also dished that she would love to pen a love song for Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner's characters. "Edward Cullen - I would write a love song to him," she fessed up. "Or Jacob Black!"

After three short promos were released for "Gossip Girl" return earlier this week, The CW have now dropped the full version, showing the kiss between Blair and Chuck, the slap from Serena and more. The show will be back on March 16 with "The Age of Dissonance".

Chuck is having trouble dealing with the mystery of the person his father was and how he spent his spare time. Meanwhile, Nate catches Vanessa flirting with another guy, and in a moment of desperation, reluctantly turns to Blair for help which turns out not as he expected.

Dealing with the battery case he's been facing after allegedly assaulting girlfriend Rihanna during a heated argument on February 8, Chris Brown reportedly is seeking help from professionals that is by taking anger management class. Per New York Daily News, he already attended his first class on Monday afternoon, February 23 in Glendale, Calif.

Chris reportedly decided to enroll in the anger management class after being advised by his recently hired publicist, Michael Sitrick. "Chris doesn't actually have to go by law," a source tells the Daily News. "But he believes it will make him look better to the public, and he wants to try to get in a few classes before March 5," his next court hearing.

The changes have been made and "American Idol" has four voices in the judging panel, but one apparently disagrees on the concept. Paula Abdul is not so keen on the idea of Kara DioGuardi as the additional judge, mainly because it brings down the pace of the show.

She said to OK Weekly, "It takes up so much time for each of us to give our opinion that it slows down the pace of the show." To this she explained further that they had tried to go with four judges before DioGuardi, putting Hot 97 DJ Angie Martinez on the panel, but "it doesn't work". Martinez bailed out before the second season kicked off.

Samuel L. Jackson will definitely be Nick Fury in "Iron Man 2" and many other Marvel's upcoming and future movies. Regardless the actor's earlier remark about the possibility of him not portraying the S.H.I.E.L.D. director, he has reportedly signed an unprecedented nine-picture deal with the studio to reprise his cameo role in "Iron Man".

Aside from securing the 60-year-old's return to the "Iron Man" sequel, the nine-picture deal contains an option for him to star as Fury in "The First Avenger: Captain America", "Thor" and "The Avengers" as well as potential sequels. The deal also opens door for the star of "Resurrecting the Champ" to topline a "S.H.I.E.L.D." movie, which is allegedly in development.

Holly Madison, the former girlfriend of Playboy's boss Hugh Hefner, has split from her magician boyfriend Criss Angel. A "conflict of schedules" has been cited as the reason that prompts them to go separate ways after nearly four months of dating.

"She felt she couldn't devote 100 percent of her time in Vegas and his career at the expense of her career and her goals," a source close to the now-former couple tells E! News, which is the first to report the couple's separation. "She was very much in love with him, and they're still very close friends."