Chris Noise & other: June 2008

Friday, 27 June 2008

Robert Downey Jr - Robert Downey Jr To Swap Comics For Cowboys And Aliens

Robert Downey Jr is reportedly in talks to star in Cowboys and Aliens, a self-explanatory popcorn movie planned for a 2010 release.

According to Variety, the Iron Man actor is in negotiations with Dreamworks and Universal Studios to star in the adventure flick, with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard set to produce.

Based on a graphic novel by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley, Cowboys and Aliens tells of an Old West battle between Apache Indians and western settlers, including former sharpshooter Zeke Jackson (Downey Jr), which is interrupted by the crash landing of an alien spaceship near Silver City, Arizona.

As well as Grazer and Howard, Dreamworks' Steven Spielberg, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci will all serve in a production capacity, while the current draft of the script should provide some familiar territory for Downey Jr, having been written by Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus, contributors to the Iron Man script.

Their draft follows efforts by X2 writer David Hayter, Sahara scribes Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer, and a rendition from Jeffrey Boam, writer of The Lost Boys, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the second and third Lethal Weapon films.

Starring in the graphic novel adaptation would see Downey Jr celebrating his career resurrection, having rebounded from substance abuse issues and infamous brushes with the law to personal rehabilitation and taking the lead role in Iron Man, a $500 million (£250 million) box office smash.

Downey Jr will next be seen alongside Ben Stiller and Jack Black in comedy Tropic Thunder, before starring with Jamie Foxx and Catherine Keener in The Soloist, a new drama from Atonement director Joe Wright.

16/06/2008 09:17:15

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Monday, 23 June 2008

Steve Lacy with Don Cherry

Artist: Steve Lacy with Don Cherry

   Genre(s):
Jazz

Discography:

Evidence

Year: 1961
Tracks: 6

Mariah Carey - Carey Engaged

Monday, 16 June 2008

Denise Richards plans return to Playboy

Reality television star Denise Richards is considering shedding her clothes for Playboy magazine once again.

The former Bond girl, who posed for Hugh Hefner's magazine in 2004, is thinking about a return to the men's mag.

"It's still a possibility," Richards told AOL.com. "It's so iconic and fun."

Richards, who is embroiled in a bitter divorce battle with ex Charlie Sheen, said she liked the attention she received after the first photo spread was published.

"I think that my niche is as a sex symbol. I'm never going to be the girl next door, so why not play up my niche?"

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Thursday, 12 June 2008

My Morning Jacket headlining MSG show

Will play New Year's Eve 'evening with' concert

NEW YORK -- My Morning Jacket will play an "evening with" New Year's Eve concert on Dec. 31 at New York's Madison Square Garden, in what will be the band's biggest headlining show to date.
Tickets for the event go on sale June 27. The show extends an MMJ New Year's tradition, which most recently featured a covers-packed show at San Francisco's Fillmore as 2006 crossed into 2007. The band performed tracks like Lionel Richie's "All Night Long," Prince's "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" and George Michael's "Careless Whisper," among other oddities.
Meanwhile, MMJ is expected to post its best Billboard 200 chart position and first-week sales total next week with "Evil Urges" (ATO), its fifth studio album. The group is one of the centerpieces of this weekend's Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tenn., where it will play a midnight-3 a.m. set on Saturday morning.
"The greatest thing about live music is that it's something you can't replicate," frontman Jim James said. "It's something very communal, and I think society is lacking that. People are so alienated and trapped in their little cubicles with their computers and texting devices. When you go to a big concert and you're in a room with a bunch of other humans, I think that's really healthy."

Britney to Film Radar Clip in London

Britney Spears is set to film the video for her next single 'Radar' on the streets of London next week.

Brit's former manager Larry Rudolph, whom she allegedly sacked after he forced her to go to rehab, told the New York Post about the video.

"The theme is her and her girlfriends are going to be looking all around London trying to find a boy who she met in a club. Every time they think they have him, it's someone else."

"She will be behind the camera as much as possible - she wants to make sure it's exactly right."

Rudolph also believes that Britney is closer than ever to a massive musical comeback. "She's in an amazing position for a comeback right now. She could end up being the biggest comeback in history."

Meanwhile Britney apparently made a cameo appearance in the video for the new Pussycat Dolls single 'When I Grow Up'.

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Suicide commandos

Artist: Suicide commandos

   Genre(s):
Rock: Punk-Rock

Discography:

Make a record

Year: 1978
Tracks: 15

Film industry lobbyist Jack Valenti is honoured by University of Houston

No more Dirty Harry for Clint Eastwood

Veteran Hollywood actor and director Clint Eastwood has no intention of returning to his famous role as tough-talking crime buster Dirty Harry, despite rumours to the contrary.

Asked to comment on press reports that he planned to reprise the character who first appeared on screens in 1971, 77-year-old Eastwood replied:

"No. That rumour's incorrect." Eastwood was speaking at a news conference at the Cannes film festival, where his latest movie starring Angelina Jolie is in the main competition.

Jolie, sitting alongside him joked: "I am", to which Eastwood replied:

"Dirty Harriet. The Tomb Raider will play it. I have no intention. There are certain things you have to be realistic about. Dirty Harry would not be on a police department at my age so we'll move on from that."

But he recalled the role, and in particular one of its most famous lines, with fondness.

"It was a fantasy role to point a .44 Magnum at someone and say 'Do you feel lucky?'"

The Oscar-winning director made several references to his age, both direct and indirect.

When a journalist congratulated him on his upcoming birthday, he looked slightly taken aback then said: "It's at least a week away, so let me in peace."

Another ageing Hollywood star, Harrison Ford, was also in Cannes this year fielding questions about his age. The 65-year-old has just appeared in the fourth Indiana Jones film 19 years after the last one.

In Eastwood's new movie, Jolie plays a woman in the 1920s whose search for her missing son forces her to confront a corrupt Los Angeles police department and a serial child killer.

Loud applause broke out at the end of a press screening in Cannes, ahead of the world premiere red carpet event later in the evening when Brad Pitt is expected to join Jolie.

There was only one hitch with the launch of the movie, already receiving fulsome praise in internet reviews - nobody seems to know what it is called.

In French the cast and crew agreed it was called L'Echange, but in English the original title given by Cannes organisers of The Changeling had been changed in festival literature to The Exchange.

"It may be in writing but is it the truth?" Eastwood asked, and the news conference wound up.

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Jousilouli

Artist: Jousilouli

   Genre(s):
Metal
   Rock

Discography:

Terrorista

Year: 2002
Tracks: 14

Prest

Year:
Tracks: 13

Keys' troubled time leads to success

R&B singer Alicia Keys is enjoying a successful worldwide tour, a chart-topping album and will act in an upcoming movie, but it might not have happened, she said, were it not for a near breakdown two years ago.

Keys, whose current hits include No One, is in the middle of her As I Am tour. The new As I Am album debuted on record charts at No. 1 and has sold over 3 million copies.

In October, she makes her film debut in The Secret Life of Bees, starring Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, the movie is co-produced by Will Smith and backed by indie powerhouse Fox Searchlight.

While Keys seems to lead a charmed life and has the sort of career that most other 26-year-olds could barely imagine, it hasn't always been so rosy.

Two years ago, the singer went through a troubled period that nearly derailed her life and career. A workaholic lifestyle and the death of a close relative from cancer pushed her "very close" to the breaking point, she admits.

Instead of having a public meltdown, Keys faced her demons in private.

"I knew I needed time away, so I went to Egypt for a month – on my own, which gave it a whole different perspective," she told Reuters in a recent interview.

"It allowed me to see things I'd never seen before – all the temples on the Nile, the Pyramids, the history. It was so rich and beautiful and strong, and it inspired me so much, and renewed me."

TIME TO REFLECT

Keys said she felt like it was important to be alone so she could reflect on her thoughts and examine her life, away from the media spotlight. She also cut back her work schedule.

"I'm definitely a workaholic in some ways, although less than I was before," she said.

Ultimately, she said, the near breakdown brought about an artistic breakthrough that helped shape the music on her third album and her edgier stage persona.

Billboard magazine, in its review of As I Am, said Keys "takes a step closer toward the soul revival popularized by John Legend, with full band arrangements and bright horn hooks, only occasionally falling back into the piano/melisma combination that drove the singles off her first two albums."

Keys has always prided herself on being in control of her career and music, producing her records and writing songs, but ironically, she was able to push herself more on the new album by giving up some of that control, she said.

"I purposely didn't have such a kind of controlling approach about it and I allowed the music to flow," she said. "I've come more into my own, and really, with experience comes confidence and a little bit more of awareness of how I would like to do it, having learned from the past."

She added that she is anxious to experiment even more and wants to work with rock acts like the White Stripes, Green Day, U2 or Coldplay.

"Things that are not quite of the same world, or so you think," she said, "but when you put them together it's just really interesting."

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Nick Hogan Will Remain In Solitary Confinement, Judge Rules

For the time being, Nick Hogan has to serve his time solo.

Wrestling legend Hulk Hogan's 17-year-old son (born Nick Bollea) — who was sentenced to eight months behind bars last month for the role he'd played in an August car crash that left his friend John Graziano critically injured — got some more bad news Tuesday (June 3).

A judge denied a motion from Bollea's attorneys to have him moved from solitary confinement at the Pinellas County Jail in Largo, Florida, according to The Associated Press. Officials had segregated him from the jail's general population because he is a minor. Bollea, who was featured prominently in the VH1 reality series "Hogan Knows Best," was convicted in adult court.

His attorneys had put in the request — to adjust the conditions of his confinement — because being in solitary is allegedly causing him "unbearable anxiety," the wire service reported. The motion suggested Bollea be placed under house arrest with an ankle monitoring device until his 18th birthday on July 27, or that he be moved into one of the jail's minimum-security cells.

His lawyers argued that Bollea spends up to 17 hours a day alone and does not have access to amenities like educational programs.

After pleading no contest to the charges of reckless driving involving serious bodily injury last month, Bollea was ordered to serve eight months in jail. He was also slapped with a probationary period of five years and 500 hours of community service. He must also surrender his driving privileges for three years and complete a DUI school within one year of his release from prison.

In November, Bollea was charged for the August 26 crash in Clearwater, Florida, which left passenger Graziano, a former U.S. Marine, permanently brain-damaged after sustaining a broken skull. According to police, Bollea was driving his Toyota Supra at a high speed in a race against a Dodge Viper when he lost control of the vehicle and slammed into a raised median. The car reportedly flipped over, and the rear of the vehicle collided with a palm tree.

The judge's denial of the motion came less than 24 hours after Bollea's lawyers filed a suit against the Pinellas County sheriff, claiming that jail officials violated the minor's privacy by releasing recordings of telephone conversations he'd had with his parents to the media.

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Alanis Morissette continues channelling her anger

NEW YORK - Alanis Morissette is not the person Rob Thomas thought she was.

Matchbox Twenty and its lead singer once saw her as a Zenlike soul, Morissette told Newsweek magazine for its issue hitting newsstands Monday.

"He kept saying that whenever I wasn't with him, his imagining was that I was levitating somewhere, meditating," the Canadian singer said.

But then, "we had the most debaucherous, entertaining, hysterical time together, so they were the first to say that their perception of me was a little off," she told the magazine.

She did not elaborate on the debaucherous details.

Morissette is in the process of releasing her latest album "Flavors of Entanglement" and writing her first book, a compilation of essays, photographs and mood-boosting exercises.

She uses writing as an outlet for her anger, which she said is not directed toward ex-boyfriend Ryan Reynolds. The actor recently became engaged to actress Scarlett Johansson.

"I'm really happy for him," she said.