Sundance Announces 2008 Lineup

The Sundance Institute has released the list of movies that will play at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Dramatic competition entrants include the awaited big-screen version of Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, from filmmaker Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) and starring Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard, and Nick Nolte, and an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel Choke, directed by actor Clark Gregg (The New Adventures of Old Christine) and starring Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston. Documentaries cover the usual assortment of topical fare (films about New Orleans, slavery, war-torn Africa, and steroids) and personality profiles (Hunter S. Thompson, Patti Smith, and Roman Polanski). In total, 121 movies from 25 countries were selected from 3,624 submissions — the biggest number ever. The festival runs from January 17-27 in Park City and other locations in Utah. The full Sundance slate can be found on Sundance.org.

By Joshua Rich Joshua Rich Joshua Rich is a staff editor for EW.com

NBC orders more episodes of 'Chuck,' 'Life'

NBC has clearly taken to heart the name of Chuck's place of employment, Buy More: The network just ordered nine additional episodes of the freshman drama starring Zachary Levi as a most unlikely secret agent man. The Peacock gave the same love to another new hourlong series, Life, meaning that when this strike business is finally resolved, both Chuck and Life will run for a full season. Meanwhile, NBC’s two other first-year dramas — Bionic Woman and Journeyman — can only press their noses against the renewal glass and pray for an early Christmas present.

Stuck on a Family Hamster Wheel, Mile After Mile, Year After Year

The hands that rock the cradle sometimes tip it over. Watching “The Savages,” Tamara Jenkins’s beautifully nuanced tragicomedy about two floundering souls, you have to wonder if those hands didn’t also knock that cradle clear across the nursery, sending both Savage children into perpetual free-fall.
Certainly Jon Savage, the angry lump played by a brilliant — oh, let’s just cut to it — the brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman, looks like a man who’s taken as much abuse as he likes to deliver. One night, Jon, a college professor who lives and teaches in Buffalo, is awakened from a deep sleep (Ms. Jenkins has a nice way with metaphor) to discover that his father, Lenny (a fine Philip Bosco), has gone around the bend and has begun finger-painting with his feces. The bearer of these unfortunate tidings is Jon’s younger sister, Wendy (Laura Linney, sharp and vanity free), a self-professed playwright whose greatest, perhaps only creation is the closely nurtured story of wounded narcissism and family wrongs unwinding in her head.

They mess you up, your mum and dad, Philip Larkin more or less wrote, which, though it provides steadfast inspiration for poets of all disciplines, has emerged as one of the banes of American independent cinema. At first glance “The Savages,” which had its premiere in January at the Sundance Film Festival, looks like another one of those dreaded indie encounter sessions in which everyone cracks wise and weary on the bumpy road to self-actualization. Ms. Jenkins, whose gifted first feature, “Slums of Beverly Hills,” fired up movie screens and critics nearly a decade ago, seems incapable of such falsity. I bet she knows the rest of Larkin’s poem, namely, “They fill you with the faults they had/And add some extra, just for you.”

Movie Trailer


Ms. Jenkins never explains how or why or even if Lenny filled Jon and Wendy with his faults, and what caused his wife, their mother, to run away. She omits the talk-show psychology and instead lets the clues seep through the realistic-sounding snippets and strings of dialogue, through sentences (not speeches), questions (not confessions) and silences as lived in as the story’s recognizably real and revelatory spaces. In Wendy and Jon’s separate if similarly cluttered homes, you can almost see the layers of aspiration and disappointment that have accumulated alongside the dust and the books; in Lenny’s sterile house in Sun City, Ariz., you see a man who has not only wiped away his past, but has also erased part of his own self.

In their dyspeptic, quarrelsome fashion, the Savages are blissfully neurotic, often very funny variations on J. M. Barrie’s fictional offspring, John and Wendy Darling, those charmed, magical storybook children. (In their moments of terrifying mutual dependency they can also recall the brother and sister in Jean Cocteau and Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Enfants Terribles.”) If Ms. Jenkins’s middle-age characters have never grown up, in spirit and mind if not in body, it isn’t because they flew off to Neverland in a cloud of fairy dust, but because they did not and could not leave. Yet if Jon and Wendy have stayed locked inside, Ms. Jenkins also suggests — through an image of flight of surprising force and beauty — that some children find other means of escape, including their imaginations.

Ms. Jenkins doesn’t imply that all that pain is a worthwhile price to pay for imagination, but she acknowledges the paradoxical truth that suffering can also be a source of inspiration, a way out of the childhood room we sometimes call the past. For Jon, who is writing a book on Brecht, and his playwright sister, life has become something of a performance. Both were probably given a role to play a long time ago — superior brother, resentful sister — and now act out their parts to perfection. (Jon, who clings to Brecht as if to a baby blanket, is something of a walking alienation effect. ) Jean Renoir once asked, Where does theater end and life begin? Ms. Jenkins seems to answer that question reasonably by saying there is no separation.

It would give away too much to reveal what happens to these distinctly nondarling siblings, whose outbursts and moments of hilarious, often voluble cruelty border on the shrill and the unspeakable. Ms. Jenkins has a gift for family brutality, but she herself isn’t a savage talent. There isn’t a single moment of emotional guff or sentimentality in “The Savages,” a film that caused me to periodically wince, but also left me with a sense of acute pleasure, even joy. It’s the pleasure of a true-to-life tale told by a director and actors who’ve sunk so deep into their movie together you wonder how they ever surfaced. You live with Jon and Wendy Savage gratefully, even when they can’t always do the same.

“The Savages” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). The film has raw words and open wounds.

THE SAVAGES
Opens today in New York and Los Angeles.

Written and directed by Tamara Jenkins; director of photography, Mott Hupfel; edited by Brian A. Kates; music by Stephen Trask; production designer, Jane Ann Stewart; produced by Ted Hope, Anne Carey and Erica Westheimer; released by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes.

WITH: Laura Linney (Wendy Savage), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Jon Savage), Philip Bosco (Lenny Savage), Peter Friedman (Larry), David Zayas (Eduardo), Gbenga Akinnagbe (Jimmy), Cara Seymour (Kasia), Guy Boyd (Bill Lachman), Debra Monk (Nancy Lachman), Kristine Nielsen (Nurse), Margo Martindale (Roz), Zoe Kazan (Student) and Marianne Weems (Director).

Source: http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/movies/28sava.html

Nose on the Prize, but Which Oscar to Sniff?

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 27 — Eddie Valiant, the hard-nosed private eye played by Bob Hoskins in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” wasn’t about to fiddle with animation. “Forget it,” he said. “I don’t work Toontown.”

Now the makers of “Ratatouille” are about to find out if Valiant also speaks for the movie academy in Hollywood.

MOVIE TRAILER


As the awards season heats up, the Walt Disney Company and its Pixar Animation Studios unit have been wrestling with a conundrum posed by their warmly received, computer-animated fable about a rat who aspires to become a Parisian chef: Any move to promote it as the year’s best picture might lead to ballot-splitting that would diminish its chances of getting the less prestigious but more easily won Oscar for best animated film.

More than a technical issue, the dilemma goes to the heart of Hollywood’s evolving attitude toward animated movies. Only one, “Beauty and the Beast,” also from Disney, has ever been nominated for best picture by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (It lost in 1992 to “The Silence of the Lambs.”) In 2002 “Shrek” became the first winner of an Oscar for best animated feature.

But an unintended consequence of the new category was to confine animated movies to a kind of Academy Awards ghetto precisely as they were flourishing at the box office and challenging the best live-action films with their storytelling art.

“I don’t think anybody ever thought about it,” June Foray, a longtime voice actress (“Rocky and His Friends,” “Mulan”) and former member of the academy’s board of governors, said of the resulting predicament. “We were just proud of getting an Oscar for animated features.” (Richard Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, spotted the danger early on. “We all hope this doesn’t take away the opportunity of an animated feature to be recognized as best picture,” he told Variety in December 2000.)

Under the academy’s rules, films nominated for best animated feature are automatically considered eligible for best picture. Similarly, their actors — though delivering only voice performances — are eligible for general acting nominations, though none have ever received one, and their writers and directors are similarly eligible for general awards.

But studios like Disney and DreamWorks Animation, which made “Shrek,” have come to fear that a push for best-picture votes, however well deserved, will pull some fans among the academy’s 6,000 voting members toward that category, while others cast a vote for animation.

Members could vote for the film in both categories. But Oscar campaigners assume that many would choose just one — a dangerous situation, given the small voting pool and the razor-thin margins that can determine a winner. Such a split could leave even a film as widely admired as “Ratatouille” — A. O. Scott, co-chief film critic for The New York Times, called it “a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film” — without a prize. Meanwhile a strong competitor like, say, “Persepolis,” about growing up in Iran, might slip into the animated winner’s circle.

The studios’ reluctance to advance their animated wares as candidates for best picture is enforced by a perception that actors, the academy’s largest branch, with about 20 percent of the membership, are reluctant to honor movies without live performances. Additionally, the academy has a definite allergy to family fare, like the G-rated “Ratatouille”: 28 R-rated films have been nominated for best picture in the last 10 years, while only two PG-rated movies — “Finding Neverland” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” — have. And none with a G rating have made the cut.

Disney executives declined to discuss their award-season strategy for “Ratatouille.” But early indications show the studio walking an awkward line between reaching for the big prize and pointing voters toward the smaller one.

A two-page advertisement in Monday’s Daily Variety, for instance, described “Ratatouille” as “the best-reviewed film of the year ... around the world.” But it modestly offered the picture “pour votre considération” only as best animated feature, while also mentioning the screenwriter and director Brad Bird.

Although the awards are not announced until Feb. 24, Mr. Bird has already shown up on the screening-and-appearance circuit that helps drive the movie world’s prize campaigns. And Disney’s reticence notwithstanding, a bit of a groundswell is likely to buoy his film’s best-picture prospects as critics’ “10 Best” lists start appearing in December, and the various pre-Oscar prizes, including the Golden Globes (where “Ratatouille” is eligible for only an animated award), fall into place.

Don Hahn, who produced “Beauty and the Beast” for Disney, meanwhile acknowledged that his own film might not have entered the record books with a best-picture nomination if the animated category had existed at the time.

“I hate to think that,” said Mr. Hahn, an executive vice president for Disney’s animation unit. “But as a voter, you tend to categorize animation as a genre as opposed to a technique.”
An admirer of “Ratatouille,” Mr. Hahn said he would be pleased to see that picture and its producer, Brad Lewis, end his own status as the only producer whose film was nominated for more than Toontown honors. “I absolutely want some company,” he said.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/movies/awardsseason/28rata.html?_r=1&ref=movies&oref=slogin

THE DARK KNIGHT TEASER TRAILER!!

Watch the exclusive video right here!

Sean Taylor Hits

Compilation of Sean Taylor crushing people in his rookie year

Tyra Banks on America's Next Top Model

Tyra Banks going crazy on America's Next Top Model

America's Next Top Model

Hilarious Video of Top Model. www.topmodelforsale.com

Hayden Panettiere- I Still Believe

"I Still Believe" performed by: Hayden Panettiere from: 'Cinderella 3'

Hayden Panettiere on Dating

Hayden Panettiere talking about dating in Hollywood.

Hayden Panettiere: Behind the shoot for GQ Magazine

Here's an behind the scenes look!

Amy Winehouse & Kate Moss Told Stop "Glamorising" Drugs

Amy Winehouse and Kate Moss have come under fire from the United Nations for 'glamorising' the use of cocaine.

Watch the video here!

Mad TV - Desperate Housewives

Mad TV parody of Desperate Housewives!!

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE!

I'm Not There Movie Clip

This is a clip from the new Bob Dylan movie. It stars Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan and David Cross as Allen Ginsberg.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE!

Kanye West on the passing of his mother LIVE onstage!!

Kanye West LIVE onstage at Brussels, Belgium on 18/11/2007 talking about the passing of his mother, his emotion and the media. Dedicates the song Don't Stop Believing by Journey.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE!

Reasons to Be Thankful This TV Season

Well, tubers, it's that time.

Time to start loosening that belt, mashing those yams and roasting the delicious Tofurkey that will no doubt flawlessly complement your Aunt Margaret's pickled Jell-O salad surprise. (Or maybe it's time to figure out how you're gonna get out of the whole Thanksgiving dinner thing?)

It's also time to pause and take stock in all the glorious reasons for which we can be thankful.

And since this here column is all about all the things we can bow down to worship on the almighty small screen, allow me to share with you a few things that myself and my cohorts in TV-loving crime, Korbi Ghosh and Jennifer Godwin, are especially thankful for this season.

Why? 'Cause we want to. (And we're gonna give you all the chance to do the same! But first, listen up…)

Korbi Is Thankful For:
• The women's movement, which paved the way for careers like the i! nimitable Tina Fey's as well a s many other funny, talented and brainy females.
• The parents of the people who write Dexter, because they spawned some damn smart kids.
• NBC, which renewed the best drama on television, Friday Night Lights.

Jen Is Thankful For:
• The stories. I'm thankful for shows that get enough episodes to create genuine, authentic characters and give them arcs and have them grow and change as people. Movies are awe-inspiring and larger than life; books are deep and smarter than me; but TV people are my people, and I'm thankful there are so many amazing stories being told right now.
• That son of a bitch Sawyer and his crazy girlfriend Kate—those two are epic.
• TiVo, DirecTV, Netflix, screeners, iTunes and YouTube, for making the extremely involved and challenging work of watching TV a little bit easier. Before all that stuff, these working conditions were just terrible. ;)

Kristin ! Is Thankful For:
• J im Halpert and Pam Beesley, who I'm pretty sure could cure cancer, put an end to hate crimes and solve all the problems in the Middle East, if only scientists could find a way to bottle the squeal-good feeling we all experience while watching them. (Legislators: Look into it. Thank you.)
• Dexter. Really, the best thing on TV right now.
• Writer-producers like Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and Tim Kring, who have every right to hate the spoiler-spilling press and hate-spewing fans but still treat all of us with more kindness and respect than some members of our own family. (Plus, they keep doing what they do even though most of us in the same position would have suffered nervous breakdowns and been institutionalized long ago.)
• Finding a guy who has proven that even die-hard fans of Two and a Half Men and cheesy Brazilian telenovelas deserve love, too. (Turns out, that Men show doesn't even suck all that much…Who ! knew?!)
• Everyone who makes it possible for this here column to exist, including, most notably, the aforementioned and thoroughly awesome in every way Jennifer Godwin and Korbi Ghosh, plus my fearless editor Erik Pedersen, producer Kat Forcadas, the copy editors, interns, photo editors, production elves and, most important, our WWK mascot, Moondust, who's taught us too many life lessons to count (hair gel and pantomime among them).
• And most important…YOU, for coming to this column against your better judgment, for keeping me gainfully employed (yes, this is your fault!) and for making me feel a little less of a freak by loving TV as much as I do.

That said, there have to be a few things you're feeling grateful for this Turkey Day, no? So, sound off in our poll below. You can only pick one (because of the way our polls work), but tell us about your other faves in the Comments. What'd we miss? What are your favorite small-s! creen things? Post below, tuberino s—we wanna know!

By Kristin Dos Santos
Source: http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/w/20071121/119568160100.html

'Enchanted' Casts $50M Box-Office Spell

Audiences fell under the spell of "Enchanted," a fairy-tale romance that debuted as the No. 1 movie and led Hollywood out of its recent box-office doldrums with solid business over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Starring Amy Adams as a cartoon princess exiled to real-world Manhattan by her fiance's wicked stepmother (Susan Sarandon), Disney's "Enchanted" took in $35.3 million over the weekend and $50.05 million since debuting Wednesday, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Sony Screen Gems' family reunion holiday tale "This Christmas," whose ensemble cast includes Delroy Lindo, Regina King, Mekhi Phifer and Idris Elba, opened at No. 2 with $18.6 million for the weekend and $27.1 million since Wednesday.

Hollywood had been in a box-office funk this fall, but the two movies paced the industry to a healthy Thanksgiving, with the top-12 movies pulling in $218.1 million from Wednesday to Sunday, up 6 percent from the holiday period last year.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE!



"That's good for an industry that's been in a downtrend for almost two months," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "Thanksgiving sets the tone for the rest of the year and the holiday season in general. This was a key weekend, and it delivered."

"Enchanted" had the second-best five-day Thanksgiving debut ever, behind the $80.1 million haul of Disney's "Toy Story 2." Disney released all five of the top-grossing movie debuts over Thanksgiving, with "Unbreakable," "A Bug's Life" and "101 Dalmatians" trailing "Toy Story 2" and "Enchanted."

"It's a really good place to launch a movie," said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Disney. "When you get a movie as strong and well-playing as this, it bodes well for us right through the Christmas holiday."

Among other new wide releases, 20th Century Fox's video-game adaptation "Hitman" debuted at No. 4 with $13 million over the weekend and $21 million since Wednesday. The movie follows the exploits of a genetically engineered assassin (Timothy Olyphant).

The Warner Bros. drama "August Rush" opened in seventh-place with $9.4 million for the weekend and $13.3 million since Wednesday. "August Rush" stars Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Robin Williams in the tale of an orphaned musical prodigy seeking his parents.

The Stephen King adaptation "The Mist," a fright flick distributed by MGM for the Weinstein Co.'s Dimension Films banner, premiered in ninth-place with $9.1 million for the weekend and $13 million since Wednesday.

The third King adaptation from director Frank Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile"), "The Mist" stars Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Andre Braugher and Toby Jones among residents trapped in a supermarket after their Maine town is engulfed in a haze filled with terrifying creatures.

Horror films generally are trashed by critics, but "The Mist" earned fairly positive reviews, much like Dimension Films' summer hit "1408," also based on a King story. Bob Weinstein, co-founder of the Weinstein Co., said that could mean a longer shelf life for "The Mist" the same way that "1408" hung on in theaters.

"It just stuck around, and hopefully, we'll be around for several weeks," Weinstein said. "We're just so thrilled to be in the Stephen King business."

Expanding nationwide after two weeks in limited release, Miramax's "No Country for Old Men" came in at No. 10 with $8.1 million, raising its total to $16.6 million. Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, the acclaimed crime saga stars Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Enchanted," $35.3 million.
2. "This Christmas," $18.6 million.
3. "Beowulf," $16.2 million.
4. "Hitman," $13 million.
5. "Bee Movie," $12 million.
6. "Fred Claus," $10.7 million.
7. "August Rush," $9.4 million.
8. "American Gangster," $9.2 million.
9. "The Mist," $9.1 million.
10. "No Country for Old Men," $8.1 million.

Source: http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20071125/119602734000.html

David Beckham Denies Ignoring Cancer Kids

David Beckham's been forced to turn defender after being accused of snubbing a group of child cancer survivors.

Movies Dat Rock

1. Beowulf - $27.5M
In the age of heroes comes the mightiest warrior of them all, Beowulf. After destroying the overpowering demon Grendel, he incurs the undying wrath of the beast's ruthlessly seductive mother, who will use any means possible to ensure revenge. The ensuing epic battle resonates throughout the ages, immortalizing the name of Beowulf.

Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Animation and Adaptation

Running Time: 1 hr. 53 min.

Release Date: November 16, 2007 (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sexual material and nudity.

Distributors: Warner Bros. Pictures International, Paramount Pictures

U.S. Box Office: $27,515,871


2. Bee Movie - $14.0M
Barry B. Benson is a graduate bee fresh out of college who is disillusioned at his lone career choice: making honey. On a rare trip outside the hive, Barry's life is saved by Vanessa, a florist in New York City. As their relationship blossoms, he discovers humans are mass consumers of honey and decides to sue the human race for stealing bees' honey.

Genres: Comedy and Animation

Running Time: 1 hr. 30 min.

Release Date: November 2nd, 2007 (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG for mild suggestive humor.

Distributors: Paramount Pictures

U.S. Box Office: $93,570,695


3. American Gangster - $12.9M
Based on the life of drug-kingpin-turned-informant, Frank Lucas, who grew up in segregated North Carolina where he watched as his cousin was shot by the Klan for looking at a white girl. He eventually made his way to Harlem where he became a heroin kingpin by traveling to Asia's Golden Triangle to make connections, shipping heroin back to the US in the coffins of soldiers killed in Vietnam.
Genres: Drama, Thriller, Crime/Gangster and Biopic

Running Time: 2 hrs. 37 min.

Release Date: November 2nd, 2007 (wide)

MPAA Rating: R for violence, pervasive drug content and language, nudity and sexuality.

Distributors: Universal Pictures Distribution


For the week ended 11/18/07

American Music Awards 2007 Winners

POP OR ROCK
Favorite Male Artist: Justin Timberlake
Favorite Female Artist: Fergie
Favorite Band, Duo or Group: Nickleback
Favorite Album: Daughtry/Daughtry

COUNTRY
Favorite Male Artist: Tim McGraw
Favorite Female Artist: Carrie Underwood
Favorite Album: Carrie Underwood/Some Hearts
Favorite Band, Duo or Group: Rascal Flatts

SOUL/RHYTHM & BLUES
Favorite Male Artist: Akon
Favorite Female Artist: Rihanna
Favorite Album: Justin Timberlake/FutureSex/LoveSounds

RAP/HIP-HOP
Favorite Band, Duo or Group: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
Favorite Male Artist: T.I.
Favorite Album: T.I./T.I. vs. T.I.P.

ADULT CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
Favorite Artist: Daughtry

LATIN MUSIC
Favorite Artist: Jennifer Lopez

ALTERNATIVE ROCK MUSIC
Favorite Artist:Linkin Park

CONTEMPORARY INSPIRATIONAL
Favorite Artist:Casting Crowns

SOUNDTRACKS
Favorite Album: High School Musical 2

FAVORITE BREAKTHROUGH ARTIST
Daughtry

Source: http://abc.go.com/primetime/ama/index?pn=winners

Britney Bourne in L.A., Banned in Paris

At least Britney Spears can let someone else worry about the holiday traffic this weekend.
In light of Friday's court ruling that prohibits her from driving her kids around, the beleaguered pop star is battening down the hatches, although her attorneys didn't detail what sort of new "security measures" the "Oops!…I Did It Again" singer is taking.

"Recent aggressive actions by individuals who have followed [Spears] and blocked her access, with and without the children, have resulted in her decision to take certain security measures which she hopes will only be necessary temporarily, for the protection of the children," lawyer Sorrell Trope said in a statement Monday.

"Ms. Spears hopes that she and Mr. Federline will be able to reach an agreement as to all matters concerning their children. She hopes that by not commenting on court proceedings the media attention in those proceedings will subside, which she requests for the safety and well being of the children."

Trope had no comment on reports that Spears had hired a private investigator to tail Federline.
Federline was awarded full custody on Oct. 1, and Spears is currently entitled to thrice-weekly supervised visits, including one overnight, with two-year-old Sean Preston and year-old Jayden James. She's still required to submit to random drug testing twice a week, and she has one hour to appear after being summoned by the court.

Her chauffeuring privileges were suspended Friday after the court reviewed paparazzi video of her running a red light with her sons in the car. She has also rolled over no fewer than three feet, including one belonging to a sheriff's deputy, over the past five weeks.

The 25-year-old has since employed a driver, who was spotted hauling her and her brood to the Four Seasons hotel over the weekend.

According to a newly released minute order from Friday's hearing, the judge has ordered the paparazzo who filmed Spears' red light run to return to court on Jan. 23. Spears and Federline, or their representatives, are also ordered to appear at that time. (View the minute order.)
As for Turkey Day, TMZ reported Monday that Spears will be celebrating Thanksgiving with her boys a day early, allowing Kevin Federline to take them on Thursday.

And it turns out that this isn't the only type of baggage that's been plaguing the pop princess.
A French civil court has ordered Spears' record label to pay Louis Vuitton more than $117,000 in damages over the pop star's use of one of the famed atelier's signature patterns in the video for her 2004 song "Do Somethin'" off of Greatest Hit: My Prerogative.

The suit named MTV.com, which allowed Francophiles the world over to watch the video, Zomba Label Group, which runs Jive Records, and its parent company Sony BMG as defendants. There was no immediate comment from the Spears contingent.

The video features Spears gliding through a heavenly sky in a pink Hummer tricked out with seats upholstered in Louis Vuitton's Cherry Blossom pattern, which has appeared on the fashion house's ultrapricey handbags and luggage.

But the eighth-most name-checked brand in hip-hop has enough exposure, merci beau coup.
According to the newspaper Le Figaro, the court tribunal, in awarding the damages and issuing an injunction banning the LV-flashing part of "Do Somethin'" in France, ruled that Spears in no uncertain manner spotlighted the brand "so that even a casual viewer would notice."

Louis Vuitton, now a unit of LVMH, argued in its complaint that Spears' association with the brand hurt rather than helped, both in sales and image.While the ruling was issued in French, Louis Vuitton was basically stating that it didn't want its fancy-schmancy image mixed up with whatever message Spears was trying to send at the time.

And that was then.

By Natalie FinnMon, 19 Nov 2007 04:53:03 PM PST
Source: http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=8488c19a-8c48-4237-b12e-b758d74b6d61

Daughtry, Underwood Not Idol at AMAs

Apparently, all the Chris Daughtry fans were just biding their time, while those Carrie Underwood fans just won't quit.

The gravelly-voiced rocker's eponymous band and the burgeoning country superstar won a leading three pointy prism trophies apiece Sunday at the 2007 American Music Awards, which for the first time in the show's history left the voting process entirely up to fans, who could choose favorites online.

Daughtry collected Favorite Pop/Rock Album honors for its self-titled debut, as well as awards for Favorite Breakthrough Artist and, beating out Norah Jones and John Mayer, Adult Contemporary Artist—not bad for a guy who finished fourth on American Idol.

"Before I go anywhere with this, none of this would be possible for us without the fans," Chris said. "We realize no matter how good our music may be, you guys make us who we are and we thank you for that."

While fans picked the winners, nominees are chosen based on album sales and radio play. Needless to say, Daughtry will be remembered in 2007 for both. As will Underwood, whose fans, it turns out, are all thumbs.

The 24-year-old Idol and Grammy winner also tripled her pleasure, scooping up awards for Favorite Country Album for the long-legged Some Hearts and Female Country Artist, as well as the T-Mobile Text-In Award, which not only means that she is the fans' overall favorite artist of the year, but that she'll probably be getting a free phone, as well.

Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake did almost as well and he didn't even need to show up, accepting AMAs for Favorite Male Rock/Pop Artist and Soul/R&B Album for FutureSex/LoveSounds via satellite from Australia.

Also an absentee two-timer was T.I., on house arrest in Atlanta while awaiting trial on gun-possession charges. His felony status didn't seem to matter to his fans, though, who still named him their Favorite Male Rap/Hip-Hop Artist and named T.I. vs. T.I.P. their favorite album in the genre.

Host Jimmy Kimmel, without a union-sanctioned monologue because of the writers strike, held his own as far as his opening remarks went—"Welcome to the 94th annual American Music Awards. This is my fourth time hosting the show and my first time hosting it drunk"—but then became the 1 millionth person to make a mockery of Kellie Pickler this year by pulling her and reigning Idol champ Jordin Sparks onstage to join him in the YouTube favorite "Soulja Dance."
(A nicer, albeit obvious touch, one that didn't require much dialog: Kid Rock pretending to slug Kimmel when he caught him sitting next to Celine Dion. Alicia Keys was later able to sing "No One" uninterrupted.)

The performance-packed ceremony, actually only in its 35th year, took place at the recently opened Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles and aired live on ABC.

Fergie opened the three-hour show with a "Fergalicious"-"Clumsy"-"Big Girls Don't Cry" medley, which segued into Will.i.am p- p- performing "Heartbreaker" and then teaming up with Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger on their single "Baby Love."

Fergie also ended up closing the show with her receipt of the AMA for Favorite Female Pop/Rock Artist (Kimmel also thanked Promises for letting so many stars out tonight), but it's possible that she wasn't supposed to, considering several major awards hadn't been handed out by Cinderella time.

At about the midway point, when the audiences' energy could have been flagging, Chris Brown followed up his table-topping performance at the MTV Video Music Awards with another attention-grabbing appearance, this time featuring the 18-year-old and his backup dancers clad head to toe in black track suits and beanies trimmed with glow-in-the-dark stripes—accoutrements that especially came in handy once three dancers were suspended from the ceiling and surrounded by laser lights.

The lasers returned to perk things up Duran Duran took to the stage to perform "Falling Down" off their new album, followed by a rather anemic rendition of "Hungry Like the Wolf."
Beyoncé, who earlier in the evening teamed up with country duo Sugarland for a bluegrass version of "Irreplaceable" (they all did their best), became only the sixth recipient of the International Artist Award, joining fellow luminaries Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart, the Bee Gees and Aerosmith, and former luminary Michael Jackson.

"I'm so blessed to wake up every morning and do what I love," the Dreamgirls star said. "I don't take it for granted—I'm so grateful, I'm so honored, I'm so humbled by this award."
Here's the complete list of winners from the 2007 American Music Awards:

Pop/Rock
Male Artist: Justin Timberlake
Female Artist: Fergie
Band, Duo or Group: Nickelback
Album: Daughtry, Daughtry

Country
Male Artist: Tim McGraw
Female Artist: Carrie Underwood
Band, Duo or Group: Rascal Flatts
Album: Some Hearts, Carrie Underwood

Soul/R&B
Male Artist: Akon
Female Artist: Rihanna
Album: FutureSex/LoveSounds, Justin Timberlake

Rap/Hip-Hop
Band, Duo or Group: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
Male Artist: T.I.
Album: T.I. vs. T.I.P., T.I.

Miscellaneous
Adult Contemporary Artist: Daughtry
Latin Artist: Jennifer Lopez
Contemporary Inspirational Artist: Casting Crowns
Soundtrack: High School Musical 2
Breakthrough Artist: Daughtry
T-Mobile Text-In Award: Carrie Underwood
International Artist Award: Beyoncé

by Natalie FinnSun, 18 Nov 2007 08:38:25 PM PST
Source: http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=3d1200f1-3b0a-4fe5-8422-f904ec825340