Lindsay Lohan As Stevie Nicks?
Lindsay Lohan could soon be joining the ranks of Hollywood actresses playing famous singers on-screen.
Life & Style magazine says the Mean Girls star is said to be the front-runner to play Stevie Nicks in an upcoming biography about the mystical songbird.
After Reese Witherspoon's Oscar-win playing June Carter Cash in last year's Walk the Line and an upcoming film about Janice Joplin to be played by Zooey Deschanel, it's no wonder the former teen-actress wants to put her money where her mouth is.
With a proven set of vocal chords as heard on her 2004 debut album (she co-wrote the single "Rumors" - the same name as Nick's former band Fleetwood Mac's 1977 hit album), Lohan might just sing her way right into the starring role.
"She feels like she's found a dream role in a story about Stevie Nicks at the height of Fleetwood Mac's fame." says one insider.
"Lindsay loves the music of that era, and people have told her she has the same distinctive gravelly voice as Nicks."
BitTorrent Goes Legit
Paramount, Lionsgate and 20th Century Fox are expected to join Warner Bros. in providing movies over the Internet via BitTorrent, the video web service that they once universally scorned, the Los Angeles Times Times reported on Wednesday.
As part of the deal, BitTorrent has agreed to use filtering software to prevent pirated content from going out over its service.
However, the newspaper indicated, analysts generally believe that the switch-over from an outlet for pirated versions of movies to one where users must pay a fee to receive them is likely to fail; it noted that similar Internet-based movie-download services are struggling.
Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research, told the Times: "The problem is consumers are not convinced that paying for and downloading video is worth it. ... The other problem is it doesn't end up on the TV set. The mechanisms that do get it to the TV, like DVD burning, are not quite what they need to be."
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart on Tuesday launched a new service that allows anyone who buys a DVD copy of certain features to download a copy of it onto their computer or portable digital device. The additional charge will be $2-4 dollars.
Wiggles' lead singer to stop performing
SYDNEY, Australia - The lead singer of the hugely popular children's group The Wiggles announced Thursday he will stop performing because of illness.
In a video-recorded statement, Greg Page said he had been diagnosed with a chronic condition called orthostatic intolerance.
"It's not a life-threatening condition by any means, but it is one that's going to be with me for the rest of my life," said Page, 34, who is known for bright yellow T-shirt. "It means that I'll no longer be able to sing and dance as I want to, and as a result I've decided to stop performing with The Wiggles."
Orthostatic intolerance is a little-understood disorder that causes dizziness, fatigue and nausea.
Page, who helped found The Wiggles in 1991, handed his yellow T-shirt over to his understudy, Sam Moran, who has been performing with the group for more than a decade as a backup singer and dancer.
"I'll miss being a part of The Wiggles very much, but this is the right decision because it will allow me to focus on managing my health," Page said.
Page has been battled health troubles since undergoing a double hernia operation last December. He withdrew from the group's U.S. tour in June after suffering repeated fainting spells and bouts of lethargy.
His fellow band members said they were sad and disappointed by the news at a media conference in the western city of Perth, where they were set to launch an Australian tour.
"It's very surreal that Greg's not going to be with us, very sad," said Blue Wiggle Anthony Field. "I know Greg loved doing the shows, it's just that he can't physically do it anymore."
Field, Page and the group's Red Wiggle, Murray Cook, met while studying early childhood education at Sydney's Macquarie University. They enlisted their fourth member, Purple Wiggle Jeff Fatt, and The Wiggles were born.
The group was rated by Business Review Magazine as Australia's top-earning entertainer last year, ahead of actors Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe. The four men in brightly colored T-shirts, accompanied by a cast of characters including Dorothy the Dinosaur and Wags the Dog, grossed $39 million last year.
The group has franchised its enormously popular recipe to several non-English speaking countries, including Taiwan.
Nickelback, Blige lead Billboard award finalists
NEW YORK (Billboard) - The past 12 months have been particularly good for one Canadian rock band, three Nashville upstarts, a once-imprisoned southern rapper and an R&B diva in the throes of a major comeback.
Now, Nickelback, Rascal Flatts, T.I. and Mary J. Blige are being recognized for their achievements as finalists in a leading five categories each for the 2006 Billboard Music Awards.
The 17th annual honors will be handed out December 4 live on Fox (for East Coast viewers) from Las Vegas' MGM Grand Garden Arena. The show will boast performances by Janet Jackson, the Killers, Gwen Stefani, Fergie, the Fray, Mary J. Blige and Ludacris featuring Pharrell and Young Jeezy.
The hard-touring Nickelback is up for artist of the year and rock artist of the year, as well as duo/group of the year. Its 2005 release "All the Right Reasons" will vie for album of the year and rock album of the year. The set has sold 4 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Rascal Flatts, which owns the second-highest selling album of 2006 with "Me and My Gang," is a finalist for artist of the year, duo/group of the year and country artist of the year. "Gang" is also up for country album of the year.
Rapper T.I. is up for R&B/hip-hop artist of the year, male R&B/hip-hop artist of the year, rap artist of the year, R&B/hip-hop album of the year and rap album of the year ("King").
Blige, meanwhile, earned finalist nods in the female artist, R&B/hip-hop artist, female R&B/hip-hop artist, R&B/hip-hop album and R&B/hip-hop single categories. Her 2005 album "The Breakthrough" has been one of this year's most consistent sellers, having shifted 2.6 million copies to date.
Among the other multiple award finalists are Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Jamie Foxx, Kenny Chesney and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sean Paul. In addition, Tony Bennett with receive Century Award, Billboard's highest honor for creative achievement.
Billboard Music Award winners are determined by performance on Billboard's weekly charts.
`Departed' stays put, `Flags' flagging
LOS ANGELES - Timing isn't everything when it comes to the Academy Awards — but it helps.
Two big fall films — Martin Scorsese's box-office success "The Departed" and Clint Eastwood's faltering "Flags of Our Fathers" — are bookends for the benefits and hazards of releasing acclaimed films early in awards season, when they could either get a jump on front-runner status or be forgotten come Oscar time.
Driven by glowing reviews and word-of-mouth that it's a return to Scorsese's old mobster form, the cops-and-gangsters epic "The Departed" opened the first week in October and has shot past $100 million at the box office, becoming the director's biggest hit ever.
The World War II Iwo Jima saga "Flags of Our Fathers" followed two weeks later with similarly positive reviews. But it opened with modest audiences and has limped to a $33 million return, about a third of the eventual haul of Eastwood's last two movies, best-picture nominee "Mystic River" and best-picture winner "Million Dollar Baby."
Two months into its run, "The Departed" still is drawing fair-sized crowds, coming in at No. 15 on last weekend's box-office chart. Meantime, "Flags of Our Fathers" already has dropped out of the top 20.
Not that box-office receipts are or should be a gauge for a film's Oscar merits. But everybody likes to back a winner, Oscar voters included, and commercial underachievers often end up fallen soldiers come nominations morning.
As good and ambitious a film as it is, "Flags of Our Fathers" now has the stench of a noble failure. Why audiences largely have passed on the film is a puzzle, though perhaps its grim, realistic combat footage is too painful a reminder of the military quagmire in Iraq.
"Mystic River" and "Million Dollar Baby" debuted in limited release in December and rode a wave of accolades into wider release as Oscar season heated up, the awards attention feeding their box-office performance, their commercial success in turn polishing their Oscar glow.
Would "Flags of Our Fathers" have fared better following the same release pattern? We'll never know.
On the other hand, "The Departed" cruises toward the Oscar nominations Jan. 23 looking like a movie that's in for the long haul, like such best-picture winners as "American Beauty" or Eastwood's "Unforgiven," which both came out in late summer or early fall.
Throughout the year, Hollywood executives brood over the best time to release their films to maximize their commercial prospects. Decisions over timing are especially tough late in the year, when studios release the bulk of their prestige films, adult-oriented dramas whose financial fortunes may climb or crash depending on how the movies fare in the Oscar derby.
Best-picture nominations and wins can extend the shelf life of a movie in theaters for weeks or even months, adding tens of millions of dollars to its final take. The trouble is: Everyone's chasing the same dollars and the same awards, leaving theaters overloaded with films that people do not have the time or energy to see.
The deluge is at its worst in December, the month that conventional wisdom dictates is prime time to release awards contenders.
It's the last-shall-be-first philosophy, the notion that the 5,800 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have short attention spans and will not recollect anything they saw way back in September, October or November when it comes time to cast Oscar ballots.
"Shakespeare in Love" swooped in back in December 1998 to bump off early front-runner "Saving Private Ryan" for best picture. Other December arrivals that took the top Oscar include "A Beautiful Mind," "Chicago" and, of course, "Million Dollar Baby."
But exceptions abound. "Gladiator" was released in the spring, 10 months before the Oscars, and "The Silence of the Lambs" came out a year before the ceremony, yet both took the best-picture prize.
At the Oscars last March, virtually everyone expected December release "Brokeback Mountain" to win. In one of the biggest Oscar upsets ever, "Crash" — released the previous May — came away with best picture.
In the awards autopsy that followed, analysts talked about "Brokeback Mountain" "peaking" too soon, performing well commercially and dominating earlier awards but waning at the finish, when people were tired of hearing about the gay-cowboy romance and were looking for a best-picture alternative.
A few years ago, the Oscar ceremony was moved up to late February, about a month earlier than before, shortening the awards season and making the year-end dash even more of a scramble as studios jockeyed their films to find the right slot to catch the most critical attention.
Like "The Departed" and "Flags of Our Fathers," more films have come sooner in the fall to avoid the Christmas rush and try to get a leg up on the competition. "Brokeback Mountain" aside, it's tough to cut into the momentum of a film that gets in early and hangs tough.
That's not to say "The Departed" is a favorite at this point. After a brilliant first two acts, the film meanders through its closing chapter, concluding with abrupt and even repetitive violence.
It's a viable best-picture contender, and "Flags of Our Fathers" could suddenly re-ignite if it catches a wave during the crush of honors from critics groups and other Hollywood prizes announced in December.
As a nice reminder of "Flags of Our Fathers," Eastwood's companion film — "Letters From Iwo Jima," telling the story of the Pacific battle from the perspective of Japanese troops defending the island — has been bumped up to Dec. 20 release, making it eligible for the Oscars.
"Letters From Iwo Jima" had been scheduled for February, but arriving a month before Oscar nominations come out, it could call renewed attention to "Flags of Our Fathers," underscoring Eastwood's remarkable achievement of delivering two epic war films just two months apart.
Then, of course, the spirited "Dreamgirls" — starring Jamie Foxx, Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy and "American Idol" finalist Jennifer Hudson in a scene-stealing role — could pull a "Chicago" as another musical arriving in December and knocking off all the earlier contenders.
In the end, it would be nice to think that the best film will win, and all the machinations over when to put the movies out are just empty gestures by the Hollywood suits.
Reports: The Wiggles' lead singer may quit
SYDNEY, Australia - The hugely popular children's group The Wiggles is expected this week to announce the departure of its lead singer because of a serious illness, media reports said Wednesday.
The Australian supergroup has reportedly scheduled a press conference for Thursday in the western city of Perth to make a "major announcement relating to members of the group," according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Associated Press and the online edition of Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
The reports said the group was likely to announce the departure of the "Yellow Wiggle," Greg Page, who has been frequently absent from touring since undergoing a double hernia operation in December.
The 34-year-old known for his bright yellow T-shirt has been undergoing medical treatment since June after experiencing fainting spells and lethargy, the reports said.
Calls to the group's publicist were not immediately returned Wednesday.
The Wiggles were Australia's top-earning entertainers last year, ahead of No. 2 AC/DC and No. 3 Nicole Kidman. The four men in brightly colored T-shirts, accompanied by a cast of characters including Dorothy the Dinosaur and Wags the Dog, grossed $39 million last year.
Page, who was replaced by an understudy when he pulled out of The Wiggles' U.S. tour in July, reportedly said he needed to rest and seek medical advice for the fainting spells.
"I have had numerous bouts of this over the past eight months but they are getting more frequent, and more concerning," he was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph. "So I have decided that I must go home, rest and seek further medical advice to assure myself that I will be OK for future tours."
Publicist Dianna O'Neill told The Sydney Morning Herald that doctors had not been able to identify Page's illness.
Page helped found The Wiggles in 1991 after he and two other members met while studying early childhood education at Sydney's Macquarie University.
The group has franchised its enormously popular recipe to several non-English speaking countries, including Taiwan.
Kid Rock angry over Borat gag
PAMELA Anderson's estranged husband Kid Rock was reportedly furious with the star over her appearance in the Borat movie.
Anderson, who has filed for divorce from the musician after just four months of marriage, had a cameo role in the hit film as the fictional Kazakh journalist's dream woman.
Borat, played by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, falls in love with the actress after seeing an old episode of Baywatch and drives across America to propose to her.
Unlike most of Cohen's other targets, Anderson was in on the joke.
But Rock, whose real name is Bob Ritchie, did not find it funny, according to the New York Post.
Universal Studio chief Ron Meyer's held a screening of Borat at his house for a group which included the couple two weeks ago, the newspaper reported.
"It was the first time Bob had seen the movie, and, well, he didn't like it," a friend of Anderson told the Post.
"Bob started screaming at Pam, saying she had humiliated herself."
The friend added: "It was very embarrassing. Pam thought he could have a sense of humour about the movie.
"She was in on the gag from the very beginning and loved doing the movie.
"And on the eve of what was supposed to be a very positive thing, he made it an awful night."
Rock's spokesman did not return the Post's calls, while Anderson's manager declined to comment.
Yesterday it emerged that both stars had filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences.
Anderson, 39, wrote on her website: "Divorce. Yes, it's true. Unfortunately impossible."
Earlier this year she suffered a miscarriage in the early stages of pregnancy.
Friends of the couple expressed support – and in some cases surprise – after the news.
Denise Richards, who has just finished filming Blonde and Blonder with Anderson in Vancouver, told People: "My thoughts are with her and her boys.
"Pam is a very strong woman and will get through this difficult time."
Traver Rains and Richie Rich, designers who made Anderson's wedding dress, said they were caught off guard by news of the divorce.
"Maybe it's a spat," Rich told the magazine.
"They're so in love, and I'd be surprised if it was over forever. I don't think she'd let her prince go."
He added that he spoke to the actress recently and she showed no signs that anything was wrong in the marriage.