A concept that was once considered dead weight has been revived over at Universal Pictures: The studio is back at work on a movie centered around the Ouija board game, reports Deadline.
The project reportedly had an original budget of more than $100 million, which is said to have been slashed down to $5 million. McG was attached to direct the high-budget version, but the lower-cost concept doesn't have a director yet. Michael Bay still serves as one of the producers, and Universal has tapped Jason Blum to produce the project as well.
Blum, of Blumhouse Productions, is also behind the successful "Paranormal Activity" movies, which easily recoup their tight budgets at the box office.
Plot details are light, but considering it's centered on the Ouija board, we can only guess that it would involve the supernatural.
We remember Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz showing off their (clothed) backsides while presenting at the Oscars on Sunday, but to hear the Internet tell it, Lopez also showed us a bit more than that.
The actress/singer/"Idol" judge looked stunning in a form-fitting Zuhair Murad gown with a cleavage-baring neckline. But some have said that at one point, it looked like one of her cups was running over, giving viewers at home a glimpse of a nip slip.
And yet, according to Lopez's stylist Mariel Haenn, those who saw it must've been imagining things.
Haenn's tweeted that the 42-year-old's gown was custom-made to avoid slippage or spillage of any kind. "The dress fit perfectly to her every inch. There were cups built in ...and in NO chance that there were any, how do you say?... 'slips,'" Haenn wrote.
She added in a statement to People magazine, "While the dress did give the illusion of sheer-ness, joke's on everyone who wishes they saw something!"
That hasn't stopped someone from setting up a Twitter account for a particular part of Lopez's anatomy.
(CNN) -- We've come to know her as Lady Gaga, but before the world tours, "The Fame" or even the dress made of meat, photographer Malgorzata Saniewska knew her simply as her restaurant co-worker, Stefani Germanotta.
In the summer of 2005, Saniewska, who goes by Maggie, happened to be tending bar at the same West Village restaurant where the 19-year-old soon-to-be star worked as a waitress.
Just 24 at the time, Saniewska had moved from her native Poland to the United States two years prior with dreams of becoming a photographer.
But to support herself, "I started working as a bartender," she recalled. "It was definitely a money thing. I did want to go to school, but I didn't do research on photography, my focus was to make better money."
Keeping an eye on her bank account is what drove Saniewska to study accounting, leaving photography to become an amateur pursuit for a while.
She went from taking landscape photos of New York City to setting up her own shoots, with Gaga being among some of her first ones.
"We were colleagues, we didn't hang out really heavily, but she's the nicest girl ever. ... She's down-to-earth," Saniewska said. "At that time, she gave me a CD of her first single, and I listened to it and I was really impressed. And she's a beautiful girl. Based on her looks and her personality I thought (a photo shoot) would be great fun." CNN Photos: See Malgorzata Saniewska's exclusive and unseen photos of Lady Gaga
Back then, Gaga "played piano and sang. This 19-year-old girl, she was really talented. She didn't talk about it a lot, (but) she did say that she studied music. ... I cannot even explain to you what she sounds like with just a piano, then or now," Saniewska said. "I offered her the photo shoot, and she said yes right away."
Gaga had the perfect location in mind: Her parents' place on the Upper East Side. (CNN has reached out to Lady Gaga's rep for comment.)
The two young women hopped on a train and headed over there, and set to work creating what Saniewska says became Lady Gaga's first photo shoot, although Saniewska didn't know that at the time.
"The house was empty, it was just the two of us," Saniewska said. "I knew she was a singer, so our focus was her and her very first piano. We just hung out in her parents' living room, and the piano was right by the window."
"She's a good model, obviously," Saniewska added with a laugh.
Armed with just her first point-and-shoot camera, Saniewska let the intimate shoot unfold organically.
"We had no plan."
"We basically walked into her house, she did hair and makeup, picked out the clothes and we started," she recalled. The lighting was natural: "No strobe lights, nothing special, no tripods," she said. "It was hand-held."
Saniewska, who's never been formally trained, said she shot around 200 photos that day. After culling through the resulting images, choosing the photos with the best natural lighting, she presented Gaga with a CD of the pictures. The burgeoning singer was happy with them, and used some of the art for her own promotional materials.
Of course, there's no way Saniewska could have known that the young woman she photographed on a summer day in 2005 would become the international superstar she is today. As a matter of fact, Saniewska says that at first, when she saw her as Lady Gaga, she didn't recognize her, having been accustomed to her as a long-haired brunette waitress.
Even as Gaga's fame continued to grow, Saniewska kept those early photos to herself "out of respect," she said, particularly because she wasn't in touch with her.
And then, she just so happened to bump into her old colleague in 2010.
"I actually ran into her in the East Village, and she came up to me. She was already Lady Gaga, and we spoke a little, and she leaned on me, and she said in my ear, 'Did you know that this was my first photo shoot?' I had no idea," Saniewska said. "She was really excited. From that moment on I figured I could do something about it. And she's OK with it."
Saniewska hopes that those viewing the photos will get to see another side of Gaga, a peek at who the star was before the world knew her name.
But even with all the fame, to Saniewska, she's "still the same girl. The fact that we ran into each other and she came up to me - she didn't say 'Hi' and run off. She stood there for 15 minutes, just chatting. She remembered my name, she remembered who I was, and she had so much to say. She's still the same person to me."
(EW.com) -- Lionel Richie's got once, twice, three times the friends you do.
As previously reported, CBS will be airing "ACM Presents: Lionel Richie and Friends in Concert" after the Academy of Country Music Awards telecast April 13.
And while the special event already boasted an impressive roster of country stars -- including Kenny Chesney, Jason Aldean, Lady Antebellum, Kenny Rogers, Rascal Flatts, The Band Perry, and Martina McBride -- it turns out there are even more guests waiting in the wings.
Luke Bryan, Sara Evans, Tim McGraw, and Jennifer Nettles are the night's newest additions, the ACM and Dick Clark Productions announced today.
The concert will feature a variety of offerings, from solo performances to duets with the man of the hour. Naturally, a whole bunch of Richie hits from the man's upcoming country duets album "Tuskegee," due March 27, will be addressed throughout the night; here's a peek at the itinerary:
Lionel Richie: Houston was iconic
Jason Aldean, "Say You Say Me"
The Band Perry, "Penny Lover"
Luke Bryan, "Running with the Night"
Lady Antebellum, "Truly"
Martina McBride, "Still"
Jennifer Nettles, "Hello"
Rascal Flatts, "Dancing on the Ceiling"
Kenny Chesney with Richie, "My Love"
Tim McGraw with Richie, "Sail On"
Kenny Rogers with Richie, "Lady"
The concert will tape April 2 at Las Vegas' MGM Grand Garden Arena, a day after the Awards ceremony. See the full article at EW.com.
(CNN) -- "I don't know the ins and outs of his politics (but) for his procession to become President I was in America and his speeches were spine tingling. Barack Obama can talk, and coming after Bush it was something to behold. In my humble opinion, if he loses the next election to the other bunch then, good Lord, I will run myself."
So says Noel Gallagher, former creative force of British band Oasis and one of rock 'n' roll's biggest mouths. Singer-songwriter, brother to Liam and now a U.S. presidential candidate: 2012 promises to be quite a year for the 45-year-old whose song-writing talent has taken him from unemployment in a city called Manchester in northern England to sell-out stadium tours around the world, playing to millions.
By September, Gallagher will have completed the tour of his first solo album since the demise of Oasis in 2009; an expedition entailing 81 shows across Europe, the Pacific (Japan and Australia) and America as well as being a voyage into the unknown for the forthright backing-singer-now-frontman.
It was initially intended as a small affair, but such has been the demand for the new record -- "Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds" topped the charts in the UK in October 2011-- theaters have rapidly been upgraded to arenas to cope with demand. A move that surprised the man himself and maybe explains the overriding mood of calm satisfaction the guitarist exudes from beneath a leather jacket as he sits down with a coffee to talk to CNN.
Former Oasis man finding solo success
"The amount of tickets I've sold, the amount of records I've sold ... I (just) didn't have any expectations for the new record. I thought I might stall at playing theaters for a couple of years but I've gone up to arenas before the end of the first year, so I'm blown away by that.
In my humble opinion, if he (Barack Obama) loses the next election to the other bunch then, good Lord, I will run myself Noel Gallagher
"Part of me thinks: 'Of course I'll be playing arenas because I'm f****** brilliant and the songs are f****** brilliant so it's inevitable, but the other part of me says I don't have any divine right to do that and I've got to work at it. Turns out, the former was correct! I am very grateful though."
It is not the first time the man dubbed "The Chief" by former band mates, has experienced a wave of success. Until 2009, Gallagher had been the artistic catalyst and the calmer half of the capricious brotherly partnership that saw Oasis, with their mix of Beatles melodies and Sex Pistols attitude, conquer charts around the world and become one of the planet's biggest-selling bands.
Oasis' second album (What's the story) Morning Glory? broke into the Billboard top ten and sold nearly four million copies in the United States alone. But this figure proved to be seven times the sales of the group's next three albums put together according to USA Today, a position that left many critics to argue that, unlike other British musical exports that had gone before them, the Gallagher's had not been taken to heart by the American music-buying public. It's an assertion the writer of Wonderwall contests.
"We got off on the wrong foot with Americans because they are extremely professional corporate people and we kind of treated that attitude with contempt. The only time we were ever on the cover of Rolling Stone they set aside eight hours for a photo shoot. Eight hours! I think we stayed for an hour ... and they couldn't believe it. (But) we just couldn't understand why you have to enter into theatrics with Rolling Stone magazine on a day off, because we were s***-kickers from the streets and didn't have time for that.
"Four American tours in a row were either never started or never finished (with Oasis) and we were subtitled on television because of our accents ... basically people couldn't understand a word we were saying. We also didn't have a front man like Bono or Chris Martin, we had a different kind of front-man who was like Johnny Rotten, but I don't think anybody ... would look back at it with regret, we did what we did on our own terms."
We couldn't understand why we had to enter into theatrics with Rolling Stone magazine on a day off, we were s***-kickers from the streets Noel Gallagher
A staunch defense maybe of a band Gallagher currently has no plans to reform, but for someone so imbued with a British identity, the new album has particularly strong American sentiments. The new band includes an American guitarist, the first single release -- 'The Death of You and Me' -- has a New Orleans-style brass section, and the videos for all the singles so far -- including 'Dream On' and 'AKA ... What a Life!' -- have a 1970's Americana theme with Noel as a central figure. Despite this, when asked if this had been a conscious thematic move, Gallagher remains adamant there is no new ambition to "crack" the United States.
"(Oasis) never had a number one album, we had a number two album ... we nearly got there. I don't even know what cracking America is supposed to be though? If it's playing arenas everywhere, 10 thousand people a night then we did it. Not that I've got to justify it but we did sell out the Hollywood Bowl and Madison Square Gardens regularly and I've got gold and platinum discs (and) the house to prove it, Sonny Jim (sic). We never won any Grammys, we never got nominated, but those people like Green Day and Hootie and the Blowfish; f*** me, enough said."
The solo album has received good reviews broadly speaking so far. Rolling Stone magazine gave it 3.5 out of five with the recommendation that Noel had: "Cook(ed) down the Beatles' LSD pop into MDMA head-rushes like Oasis did, he does his old band proud. "Shout it out for me!" he declares in 'Dream On,' making you want to do just that." So did the album feel like a renaissance as it was being created?
"I've made enough of my records to know this was a pretty good bunch of songs. When I heard the final mixes, I wanted to stand behind them, they were good. Whether it gets five stars out of five or seven out of ten doesn't make it any better or worse an album for me - or if it sells 700 thousand compared to 100 thousand - it is a good album because it is.
"Every album I've ever been involved in, on the day that it came out I believed in it. Believed in them all equally but it's evident that Morning Glory and Definitely Maybe have lasted for 18 years and some of them haven't. We won't know where this sits in the canon of what I've done for another five years but I'm confident it will be up there though, in fact I know it will."
Basically, the album includes brilliant, well-crafted songs, deceptively fantastic lyrics (all) criminally underrated in America! Noel Gallagher
The music on the new album breaks new ground for Gallagher, both in musical terms -- the Dixieland band on 'The Death of You and Me' and the driving, repetitive beats of 'Everybody's on the Run' and 'AKA ... What a Life!'-- and in the song's lyrical content. They verge, even revel, in romance.
"I don't know how that happened! My wife would say I'm not romantic at all but I would say that I'm the ultimate romancer because I write about ... life being brilliant. Not like the Indie (independent) music scene where I come from, they like to sing about the news don't they? There's nothing good on the news. You're not telling me CNN is all cats in trees are you? Nothing can be that good if Piers Morgan is in it, you know what I mean?
"So the themes (of the album are) escapism, love, romance; to be on a journey - though I don't like that word, people say that on reality shows don't they - you know when a fat person becomes skinny they've been on a amazing journey. No they haven't, they've been on an amazing treadmill. Basically, the album includes brilliant and very well crafted songs, deceptively fantastic lyrics, all brilliantly played with the minimum of fuss and which are criminally underrated particularly in America," Gallagher surmises in unabashed appraisal.
But though his unshakable faith in his music remains the same as his halcyon days with Oasis, touring is now a different proposition. As a father of three life on the road now also means life apart from his young family too.
"The boys (Donovan and Sonny) don't like me going away but I can't wait until they're old enough so I can explain to them: 'You see all this all this multi-colored stuff (in our house), where do you think it comes from? Well, it doesn't come form Father Christmas, somebody's got to work for it and that somebody is me. So you jog on and go to bed and I'll see you in a month.'"
And with that Noel Gallagher leaves the room to prepare for his latest arena show, played on this occasion in the Scottish city of Glasgow, a stone's throw from the tiny venue where Oasis were first discovered all those years ago. Maybe now it is time for establishment acceptance of Gallagher in America, even if it is not in the White House.
Dustin Lance Black's traveling Prop. 8 play, "8," landed at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles Saturday night with its star-heavy cast, including the newly announced Brad Pitt (there's a "Se7en" joke here somewhere), George Clooney, Kevin Bacon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Martin Sheen, John C. Reilly and too many more to name. The play, which is a reading of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial -- the case the American Foundation for Equal Rights filed with the federal district court to overturn the bill preventing gay and lesbian couples from marrying in California -- was also livestreamed on YouTube. According to the AP, director Rob Reiner said the livestream attracted 200,000 viewers.
For those of you who were not sitting at home in front of your computers on a Saturday night, you can watch the full, one-night-only performance here this week (Reiner predicts about a million of you will do so). Pitt takes the judge's seat as United States District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker, while Clooney and Sheen play plaintiffs’ lead co-counsel David Boies and Theodore B. Olson, respectively. If only there were a market for star-studded C-Span trial recasts, we'd all probably be much more well-informed.
'80s sitcom star turned religious activist Kirk Cameron is not a fan of homosexuality and he isn't shy about sharing his feelings on the subject. During a new interview with Piers Morgan the "Growing Pains" heartthrob who transitioned from a "teen-idol-atheist in Hollywood and became a devoted follower of Jesus Christ in the middle of [his] career" explained that he believes homosexuality is "unnatural... I think that it's detrimental, and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization."
On the issue of marriage equality Cameron remarked, "Marriage was defined by God a long time ago. Marriage is almost as old as dirt, and it was defined in the garden between Adam and Eve -- one man, one woman for life till death do you part. So I would never attempt to try to redefine marriage. And I don't think anyone else should either. So do I support the idea of gay marriage? No, I don't."
When asked what he would do if one of his six kids told him, "Dad, bad news, I'm gay," Cameron responded, "I'd sit down and I'd have a heart to heart with them, just like you'd do with your kids."
Morgan shot back, "I'd say, 'That's great, son! As long as you're happy.' What would you say?"
Cameron offered, "I wouldn't say 'That's great, son, as long as you're happy.' There are all sorts of issues we need to wrestle through in our life... Just because you feel one way doesn't mean we should act on everything we feel."
Reported by Huffingtonpost.com
Megan Fox is considered one of the most ravishing women in Hollywood, but growing up, she tells Miami magazine: "I was never the pretty girl."
At 25, she's the face of Giorgio Armani beauty, but as a teenager, Fox says she was "abrasive" and "obnoxious," and that she felt like a "loner." Hard to believe she wasn't swarmed by guys ...
But Fox isn't the only ugly duckling who grew up to be a swan. "Transformers" babe Rosie Huntington-Whiteley told GQ, "I was really teased about the way I looked at school. I got teased because of my lips."
Katy Perry, meanwhile, paid the price for her curvy figure. "I had enormous boobs that I didn’t know what to do with, so I wore minimizers, which were not cute. Those thick-ass straps! I got made fun of for the over-the-shoulder boulder holder," she told Elle.
And Taylor Swift was famously bullied by "Mean" girls. "Junior high was actually sort of hard because I got dumped by this group of popular girls," Swift told Teen Vogue. "They didn't think I was cool or pretty enough, so they stopped talking to me."
A concept that was once considered dead weight has been revived over at Universal Pictures: The studio is back at work on a movie centered around the Ouija board game, reports Deadline.
By Breeanna Hare, CNN
'80s sitcom star turned religious activist Kirk Cameron is not a fan of homosexuality and he isn't shy about sharing his feelings on the subject.
