Lohan, Coldplay on SNL season finale
NEW YORK (AP) - NBC's Saturday Night Live will close out its 30th season on May 21 with Lindsay Lohan as host and Coldplay as the musical guest.
It will be Lohan's second appearance as host, the network said Wednesday. Coldplay, also making its second appearance on SNL, will perform songs from its upcoming album, X & Y, scheduled for release next month.
Lohan, 18, co-starred with SNL Weekend Update co-anchor Tina Fey in the comedy Mean Girls. Her upcoming films include Herbie: Fully Loaded, with Breckin Meyer and Matt Dillon, which will be in theatres June 22.
Miller Time over at CNBC
Dennis Miller has something new to rant about.
The comedian's daily CNBC talk show has been canceled due to low ratings.
Dennis Miller will tape its final episode Friday in Burbank, leaving CNBC with a prime-time slot likely to be filled by a new business-themed program in the third quarter of this year.
A repeat of CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer will air in its place in the meantime, according to an internal CNBC memo obtained by MediaBistro.com.
Dennis Miller bowed in January 2004 to lukewarm reviews and mediocre ratings, which have slipped in recent months to around 114,000, per Nielsen Media Research. Overall, the show has averaged 168,000 viewers, which, to be fair, is nowhere near as low as John McEnroe's canned CNBC yakfest, McEnroe, a show that sometimes registered an abysmal 0.0 rating.
Miller's show is the second CNBC cancellation in a week, following former Talk magazine editor Tina Brown's show, Topic A with Tina Brown, furthering speculation that CNBC is getting back to its business roots amid reports that Roger Ailles and his Fox News are seeking to capitalize on CNBC's weak ratings with the launch of a new Fox all-business channel.
"I wanted to let you all know that we will be expanding our signature Business Day programming up to primetime on the East Coast and will be adding an additional airing of Mad Money with Jim Cramer at 9 p.m. ET/PT," CNBC president Mark Hoffman said in an email to employees Wednesday.
Hoffman acknowledged that Miller would be a casualty of CNBC's decision to shore up its business audience in the memo.
"I have spoken with Dennis Miller about these plans and he has let me know that his strong preference is to leave his program immediately," Hoffman said. "Therefore, the final episode of Dennis Miller will air this Friday."
"Dennis is an exceptionally talented comedian with an unmatched wit and he and his team consistently delivered a very entertaining program," Hoffman added.
There was no immediate comment from Miller or CNBC.
Miller's previous foray into the talk-show format, HBO's Dennis Miller Live, ran from 1994 to 2002 and snagged the premium cable network its first-ever Emmy for an original series.
Foos Rock Hard, Sing Softly On New Album
The Foo Fighters present two distinct sides of their musical personalities on "In Your Honor," which offers one disc each of electric and acoustic songs. The 20-track project is due June 14 via RCA; first single "Best of You" is No. 5 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart in just three weeks.
"Can you hear me? / Hear me screaming?," asks frontman Dave Grohl at the outset of the rock disc's first tune, "In Your Honor," during which Rush-style guitar work eventually gives way to the speed-metal riffage of Grohl's Probot side project.
The disc is highlighted by "Free Me," the riff of which sounds like a metal-leaning version of "Theme From Peter Gunn." It's one of the few tracks that recall the intense, harder-rocking material that dominated the 1995 self-titled Foo Fighters debut.
Grohl's lyrics seem obsessed with moving on from unknown problems; "there's no way back from here / but I don't care," he says during "No Way Back," while in "The Last Song," he promises, "this is the last song I will dedicate to you / made my peace and now I'm through."
Although an oft-circulated acoustic version of the 1997 hit "Everlong" proved the Foos were capable of toning down the volume, the softer second disc of "In Your Honor" may still surprise fans on its first few listens. Throughout, the band nods to acoustic-tinged rock forefathers like Pink Floyd, the Eagles and Led Zeppelin, even drafting the latter band's John Paul Jones to play piano on "Miracle" and mandolin on "Another Round."
"What If I Do" imagines the Foos as the house band at a country bar, sending patrons home after a long night with a breezy, rainy day number. A handful of tracks feature little or no drumming, although Grohl reclaims his spot behind the kit for the Replacements homage "Cold Day in the Sun," sung by drummer Taylor Hawkins.
Much has already been made of the Norah Jones collaboration "Virginia Moon," which could easily have made the cut for one of her own albums. With its jazzy tempo and come-hither lyrics ("In the morning when we're through / and tomorrow rescues you / I will say goodnight"), the cut could wind up being the Foo Fighters' very own "The Girl From Ipanema" -- or an affront to devotees of the band's louder music.
Other guests on the acoustic disc include Petra Haden (violin on "Miracle), Queens Of The Stone Age leader Josh Homme (guitar on closer "Razor"), the Wallflowers' Rami Jaffee (keyboards on six tracks) and photographer Danny Clinch (harmonica on "Another Round").
The Foo Fighters' only North American dates at present are three radio station-sponsored festivals (Saturday (May 14) in Baltimore, May 21 in Irvine, Calif., and June 10 in San Francisco). A more extensive tour is on tap for this summer.
Here is the track list for "In Your Honor":
Disc one:
"In Your Honor"
"No Way Back"
"Best of You"
"DOA"
"Hell"
"The Last Song"
"Free Me"
"Resolve"
"The Deepest Blues Are Black"
"End Over End"
Disc two:
"Still"
"What If I Do"
"Miracle"
"Another Round"
"Friend of a Friend"
"Over N' Out"
"On the Mend"
"Virginia Moon"
"Cold Day in the Sun"
"Razor"
Chappelle Reportedly Checks Into Facility
NEW YORK - Comedy Central star Dave Chappelle has checked himself into a mental health facility in South Africa, the magazine Entertainment Weekly reported on Wednesday.
The comedian's whereabouts and condition have been unknown since Comedy Central abruptly announced last week that the planned May 31 launch of the third season of "Chappelle's Show" had been postponed and production halted.
Chappelle flew from Newark, N.J., to South Africa on April 28 for treatment, said the magazine, quoting a source close to the show it would not identify. Entertainment Weekly said it had corroborating sources for its story.
"We don't know where he is," Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox said. "We've heard about South Africa. We don't know. We haven't talked to Dave."
Chappelle's spokesman, Matt Labov, would not comment on the magazine's story.
"It seems like the issues he's contending with are really quite serious," said Dade Hayes, a senior editor at Entertainment Weekly. "It isn't a case of him spending a weekend someplace recuperating from exhaustion."
The magazine's sources say Chappelle is still in the facility, which was not named, Hayes said. Chappelle's representatives have denied that the comedian was abusing drugs.
Chappelle reportedly signed a $50 million deal with Comedy Central for two more seasons of his show, a payday made possible because of the explosive sales of the show's first season DVD.
The magazine said Chappelle had shot four to five episodes' worth of sketches for the new season, but none of its onstage introductions.