Entertainment News
May 15, 2008CANNES, France - Fur might be a politically incorrect fashion statement on the red carpet at the world's most-prestigious film festival. Not when you're the star of a movie called "Kung Fu Panda," though.
DreamWorks Animation, whose past Cannes entries include the first two "Shrek" flicks and "Over the Hedge," put its adorable martial-arts hero alongside the festival's highbrow cinema entries Thursday with the premiere of the action comedy whose voice cast includes Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and Dustin Hoffman.
CANNES, France - The Cannes Film Festival has a big place in Aishwarya Rai's heart.
The Bollywood actress' first time at Cannes was to promote the lavish love story "Devdas" in 2002. The "Bride & Prejudice" star attended last year's French Riviera festival soon after her wedding to fellow film star Abhishek Bachchan.
TORONTO - Ottawa-born actress Kelly Rowan, who starred in the teen soap "The O.C.," has given birth to a girl and recently split with Canadian multi-millionaire David Thomson, one of the world's richest men.
Her representative told People and Hello Magazines that Rowan gave birth to a girl on April 28 in Los Angeles.
LILONGWE, Malawi - Madonna won't know until next week whether a Malawian boy she found in an orphanage in 2006 will become a permanent member of her family, her lawyer said Wednesday.
Lawyer Alan Chinula had expected the judge to rule on the adoption Wednesday but said the hearing was delayed after a Malawian human rights group presented arguments on "shortcomings" in the southern African nation's adoption laws.
LONDON - Two photo agencies have agreed to pay $113,000 to Hugh Grant, his ex-girlfriend Liz Hurley and her husband for taking photos of them while they were vacationing in the Maldives.
Britain's High Court says The Big Pictures and Eliot Press Sarl agencies apologized Thursday for using a long lens to violate the trio's privacy while they were at an island resort in October. The pictures appeared in several newspapers.
NEW YORK - It'll be David vs. David.
Syesha Mercado was voted off "American Idol" Wednesday night, paving the way for the expected showdown between David Archuleta and David Cook.
NEW YORK - It took only about 120 seconds last week for a Monet to exchange hands for a small fortune.
Christie's auctioneer Christopher Burge started the bidding at $26 million for a 1873 Claude Monet painting of two puffing locomotives crossing a river bridge.
BERLIN - A new staging of Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera" has been retooled for shock value, moving the setting to the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center and inserting liberal doses of flabby flesh and Hitler in drag.
The staging at the Theater Erfurt, which opened April 12 and runs through May 30, features singers dressed as Hitler - in a dress - Uncle Sam and Marilyn Monroe. Oh, and there are 35 extras between the ages of 50 and 69 wearing nothing but Mickey Mouse masks to represent what director Johann Kresnik called the "victims of capitalism."
BERLIN - The general manager of Berlin's famed Staatsoper is leaving immediately due to differences over programming, the city government said Thursday.
Peter Mussbach has been general manager at the Staatsoper, where Daniel Barenboim remains the music director, since 2002. His contract was set to run through the 2009-2010 season.
TORONTO - Here are the 10 bestselling fiction and non-fiction books in Canada for the week ending May 13 from Amazon.ca
TORONTO - The following is HMV Canada's top 10 CDs based on national sales for the week ending May 14.
TORONTO - Here are the top 10 hardcover fiction and non-fiction books in Canada compiled by Maclean's magazine.
NEW YORK - A collection of original art by noted psychedelic artists, depicting some of the biggest names in rock 'n' roll, fetched about $795,000 at an auction Wednesday, a spokesman for the auction house said.
Paintings, printing plates, ink drawings and painted cel vinyls of the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors and many other iconic artists were represented in the Peter Golding collection at Bonhams New York auction house. The 164 items included original artworks that led to final album covers and concert posters.
NEW YORK - A three-panel masterpiece by Francis Bacon broke a record for contemporary art auctions Wednesday, selling for more than $86 million after three bidders vied for it, a spokeswoman for the auction house said.
The $86,281,000 price for "Triptych, 1976" also set an auction record for the British artist, Sotheby's spokeswoman Lauren Gioia said.
HONOLULU - Bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman's cable TV show will soon be back on the air.
Filming has begun on the fifth season, according to executives with A&E, the cable network that broadcast "Dog the Bounty Hunter. Reruns of the show will start June 25, with new episodes coming a few weeks later.
CANNES, France - The Cannes Film Festival usually starts with a movie that's light and goes down easy. So Wednesday's dark, apocalyptic opening film seemed a puzzling choice - even to the movie's director.
"Blindness," by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, ("City of God," "The Constant Gardener"), is about an epidemic of blindness that strikes suddenly and inexplicably, with victims shunted off to a squalid institution. The film is a Canadian-Japanese-Brazilian co-production, with a screenplay written by Toronto's Don McKellar.
LONDON - A no-holds-barred biography of V.S. Naipaul and the true story of a Victorian murder are among six titles nominated Thursday for Britain's richest nonfiction book prize.
Kate Summerscale's account of an infamous murder case, "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher," and "The World Is What It Is," Patrick French's authorized but often unflattering portrait of renowned writer Naipaul, are shortlisted for the 30,000 pound (about $58,500) Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction.
DETROIT - Classical music enthusiasts long have sought to drum up support for the musical genre among young people, and now they have a secret weapon: the 4-foot-3, childlike robot ASIMO.
On Wednesday, the day after the Honda robot conducted the Detroit Symphony, ASIMO warmed up a crowd of 250 schoolchildren who came to the concert hall to watch a master class with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
