LOS ANGELES - "Lost" will return next month after an absence of eight months, but fans of the TV drama may still feel deprived because of the Hollywood writers strike.
CALABASAS, Calif. - A cyborg skeleton from "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" brought in nearly $500,000 on Friday in an auction of Hollywood memorabilia dominated by props and costumes from Arnold Schwarzenegger's shoot-em-up sci-fi franchise.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Academy Award-winning producer behind the "Lord of the Rings" franchise has sued the films' distributor, New Line Cinema, to force it to disclose its accounting for the multibillion-dollar epic.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood's Golden Globe nominations did little to define leaders in the Oscar race as experts on Friday said the sweepstakes for the world's top film honors remained confined to a narrow list of contenders.
LOS ANGELES - Producers of Hollywood's annual self-congratulation rites have more to fear this year than boring, drawn-out acceptance speeches.
It was a cataclysmic collision of notable names. On Thursday, both the Golden Globe nominations and the Mitchell Report of baseball players suspected of steroid use were announced.
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - The last two years have provided a quick ride to the top for 2005 "American Idol" champ Carrie Underwood. And if there were any doubts about how the winner of America's most famous music reality show would fare in the country world, those doubts have long been erased.
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - There was no major-league comeback to rival Mary J. Blige's 2006 breakthrough or Mariah Carey's 2005 emancipation. And hip-hop sales overall weren't anything to write home about. But R&B;/hip-hop in 2007 still managed to chime in with several headline-making notes.
DENVER (Billboard) - Total video game sales (hardware and software) through October was $10.5 billion, compared with $7 billion for the same period last year, according to data from NPD Group.
NEW YORK (Billboard) - As 2007 comes to its end, the Top Classical Artists chart is a veritable redux of 2006, thanks to the staying power of artists at its very peak.
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Kenny Wayne Shepherd came in at No. 1 on the Top Blues Albums chart for 2007 with "10 Days Out: Blues From the Backroads."
LOS ANGELES - "Lost" will return next month after an absence of eight months, but fans of the TV drama may still feel deprived because of the Hollywood writers strike.
ABC and NBC will each be rolling out a multi-night competition show this week.
LOS ANGELES - The price was right but the car was wrong, according to a lawsuit filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court. In June 2004, a contestant on "The Price is Right" guessed that a sports car was worth $33,495 and left the stage thinking she had just won a new 2004 Pontiac GTO Coupe.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The price was all wrong for one contestant on "The Price Is Right," who claims the TV game show and its authorized auto dealership tried to pass off a rehabilitated wreck as a new car she won.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Production on all but two of the last few scripted prime-time television shows shooting in Los Angeles ground to a halt on Friday as a crippling strike by Hollywood writers neared the end of its sixth week, an industry group said.
LOS ANGELES - "Lost" will return next month after an absence of eight months, but fans of the TV drama may still feel deprived because of the Hollywood writers strike.
CALABASAS, Calif. - A cyborg skeleton from "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" brought in nearly $500,000 on Friday in an auction of Hollywood memorabilia dominated by props and costumes from Arnold Schwarzenegger's shoot-em-up sci-fi franchise.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Production on all but two of the last few scripted prime-time television shows shooting in Los Angeles ground to a halt on Friday as a crippling strike by Hollywood writers neared the end of its sixth week, an industry group said.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Academy Award-winning producer behind the "Lord of the Rings" franchise has sued the films' distributor, New Line Cinema, to force it to disclose its accounting for the multibillion-dollar epic.
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Figuring out where "30 Rock" ends and commercials begin requires a sharp eye thanks to American Express.
Selected home-video releases:
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Tearjerkers about dead spouses who haunt loved ones seem to be all the rage. In "Grace Is Gone," a father and two daughters cope with the loss of Mom in Iraq. In "Things We Lost in the Fire," a mother and two youngsters mourn the death of the husband and father.
LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) - David Edgar has trimmed his nine-hour 1982 Tony Award-winning play based on Charles Dickens' "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" to two easily digested parts, but they should please audiences just as much.
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Perfectly timed to cash in on the perennial endless radio plays of the classic novelty tune "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late"), this holiday movie presents the furry warblers in all their high-pitched glory.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Family films that won't make adults gag are always in short supply, so a pleasing British fantasy, "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep," is a welcome addition to the holiday season.
NEW YORK - For those rock 'n' roll fans on your gift list this holiday season, there are plenty of new offerings to keep their heads bopping along happily into the new year.
"The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild" (Little, Brown and Company, 322 pages, $24.99), by Craig Childs. It's 8:30 a.m. A packed subway train crawls toward Manhattan from Brooklyn. I'm pushed on all sides, smashed against the door reading Craig Childs' newest set of essays, "The Animal Dialogues." Tears well in my eyes as I read about a perfect blue shark dying on a desolate beach.
TOKYO (Reuters) - In Japanese novelist Miyuki Miyabe's Tokyo, the moon hangs low over dark rivers, spiraling debt leads to murder, and a young woman roams the streets setting criminals afire with a single thought.
PROVO, Utah - Brandon Sanderson, author of the fantasy "Mistborn" series, will finish Robert Jordan's final novel.
"Watchman" (Little, Brown. 253 pages. $24.99), by Ian Rankin: Hell, a character observes near the end of this British spy novel, is not some far distant region. "It was a millimeter away, and all one had to do was scratch at the surface with one's fingernail to reveal it."
Signature Theatre Company in Arlington, VA, has its title player for The Kiss of the Spider Woman - Natascia Diaz.
The Broadway cast album of Young Frankenstein is now on sale in the lobby of the Hilton Theatre, where the Mel Brooks-Thomas Meehan musical is playing. The CDs arrived there the week of Dec. 10.
That sigh of relief you heard at the beginning of the week, on Dec. 9, was not the exhalation of Norbert Leo Butz after unhooking the stays of his bosomy corset in Is He Dead?, which opened at the Lyceum on Sunday.
Philadelphia native and Tony Award nominee Robert Prosky will star as the wise appraiser in the Walnut Street Theatre's new production of Arthur Miller's The Price Jan. 15-March 2, 2008, in Philly.
The works slated for the 32nd Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville have been announced.
NEW YORK - Want an autograph from Johnny Depp? Chances are, he'll sign something for you — and not be a jerk about it. The 44-year-old actor is the most gracious celebrity — for the third year in a row — on Autograph magazine's annual list of the "10 Best and 10 Worst Hollywood Signers."
PAARL, South Africa - Chris Evert and Greg Norman are engaged, less than a year after divorces from longtime spouses. The couple got engaged Sunday night, said Tami Starr, director of Chris Evert Charities in Boca Raton, Fla.
LOS ANGELES - Forget about her famous aunt or her actor-father, when Emma Roberts needs advice on how to look like a TV star, she asks her 6-year-old sister. "I'm embarrassed to say I do ask her sometimes when I'm putting on clothes. I'll say, `Is this cute, Grace?'" the 16-year-old star of TV's "Unfabulous" said during a recent phone interview.
LOS ANGELES - Running out of patience with Britney Spears, Kevin Federline's attorney on Friday said he plans to seek consequences. Mark Vincent Kaplan, who represents Spears' ex-husband in their child custody case, said Friday that he would ask for sanctions against the pop star for calling in sick to her court-ordered deposition.
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Chris Daughtry sounded a bit bleary the day after the recent American Music Awards, and for good reason. "Oh, yeah, we all celebrated," he promised, still basking in the glow of three AMA wins for his namesake band.
New York - With glamorous gowns displayed like elegant sculptures in her New York showroom, Reem Acra joined the increasing number of designers doing formal presentations for their pre-fall collections, the transitional season that retailers use to bridge spring/summer and fall collections.
New York - Subtle Asian-inspired elements were the basis of the Luca Luca Pre-Fall 08 collection, presented in their New York store on Madison Avenue on Tuesday, Dec. 11.
New York - A rose is a rose, and a perfume is a perfume, right? Well, not if it's the "World's Most Expensive Perfume." Clive Christian No. 1 was awarded the Guinness World Record for being the most expensive perfume on Saturday, Dec. 8, at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York.
New York - Fans of the ABC television series "Alias" knew that no covert operation would be complete without a suitcase containing at least one high-tech outfit change - and an identity-obscuring wig - for Sydney Bristow, the spy played by Jennifer Garner.
New York - Zac Posen continues to establish himself as a designer who can do over-the-top, camp and sassy, and yet still have the end result be couture-quality with tailoring, fit and detailing on par with a Paris atelier.
DEAR ABBY: I am a professional woman in my late 20s. I admit to being commitment-phobic. I have no desire to be married or even in a relationship. I have always felt this way.
DEAR ABBY: I live 3,000 miles away from my immediate family. I am happily married and six months' pregnant. In the past, I had many issues with my family. I have a long history of anorexia, and my pregnancy has forced me to give up my self-destructive behaviors. I would never jeopardize my baby.
DEAR ABBY: I admit it: I am scatterbrained. I'm forgetful when it comes to events and information that affect me personally, although I have the odd ability to remember facts and trivia. It is a source of frustration and amusement to others that I can remember details about the Battle of Actium, but can also lose my car for several days because I forgot where I had it parked.
DEAR ABBY: I read with interest the problem encountered by "Hurt Beyond Words in Cedar Rapids" (Oct. 22). Sorry to disagree with you, Abby, but "Hurt" needs a divorce lawyer, not a marriage counselor. I'm speaking from experience.
DEAR ABBY: With the holidays here, I know you are again being inundated with questions about what kind of gifts to give to seniors. Years ago, I took one of your ideas and decided to help my grandmother with Christmas cards. (She had arthritis, and it was hard for her to write.) It was one of the best presents I ever gave her, and it was lots of fun for me.
12/14/2007 - DEAR MARGO: I've been divorced now for a little over 10 years. In the process, my ex-wife has alienated my family to the point where they want nothing to do with her. That's fine because I only deal with my ex-wife as necessary.
12/13/2007 - DEAR MARGO: I met and married the man of my dreams four years ago. Both of us were in our 40s, and obviously we each had a past. I was honest about mine; he said he just didn't remember things. After we married he remembered a few things . . . such as having sex with two women at the same time. I told him I found that disgusting. When he saw how shocked I was, he didn't tell me anything else.
12/07/2007 - DEAR MARGO: I'm a 27-year-old gay Afro American male, and I'm not out to my family or friends because I will lose all of them. They are church folks and think all gays are gonna burn in hell.
12/06/2007 - DEAR MARGO: I have a friend at work with whom I am relatively close. She regularly talks about how she can't wait to get married and how her house will look and the kids she will have.
11/30/2007 - DEAR MARGO: My wife and I have been married 11 years. We have four wonderful kids, with a fifth on the way. Due to my financial situation, my wife has not had to work outside the home. In fact, I don't work outside the home, either. My office is in the house, so my commute is walking down the stairs. I have worked hard and am financially successful.
Creators Syndicate - My fingers are trembling as I type this column, because it's about pets. I can say anything I want about people; I can pick on kids, men, women, even old people, and nobody gets upset. But say one word about dogs or cats and I get angry diatribes from readers about how heartless I am. I have to speak out, though, before it's too late. America, I'm afraid, is going to the dogs.
Creators Syndicate - In a bold move that could dramatically alter the playing field of the 2008 GOP presidential race, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee today named Jesus Christ as his vice-presidential running mate.
Creators Syndicate - For the first 44 weeks of each year, I'm a pretty disciplined eater, at least by my own, admittedly poor, standards. I limit myself to a couple of pieces of toast every morning, and I take in a decent sized lunch and a healthy dinner, with seconds if it's something I like. (I like a lot.) But I eat vegetables and salads, and don't eat desserts, cookies, candy, potato chips, or drink even soda.
Creators Syndicate - Officials from a major food exporter in China apologized to American consumers today for shipping over 70 million poisonous turkeys to the U.S. early last week but indicated that it was "too late" for a recall of their toxic food product.
Creators Syndicate - These days, almost every morning, I open my paper to read the findings of new scientific studies that tell us stuff I could have figured out myself.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The price was all wrong for one contestant on "The Price Is Right," who claims the TV game show and its authorized auto dealership tried to pass off a rehabilitated wreck as a new car she won.
NEW YORK - Want an autograph from Johnny Depp? Chances are, he'll sign something for you — and not be a jerk about it.
NEW YORK - He may not have won "American Idol," but Chris Daughtry is the king of the album charts this year, according to Billboard.
LOS ANGELES - "Lost" will return next month after an absence of eight months, but fans of the TV drama may still feel deprived because of the Hollywood writers strike.
NEW YORK - One man and one woman still have "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila" — and viewers are very interested.