Mark Wahlberg - Entourage Movies Planned

Movie star MARK WAHLBERG is planning to turn his cult TV series ENTOURAGE into a major movie franchise.

The news comes after the show's star Adrien Grenier admitted he'd like to commit to the series for another 10 years.

Wahlberg, who based the show on his early years in Hollywood, tells Moviefone.com, "We're doing season five right now. We're hoping for maybe three (or) four more seasons, and then maybe a film or two."

Wahlberg reveals the decision to take Entourage to the big screen was inspired by Sex and the City: The Movie's huge success at the box office.

He says, "Obviously the Sex and the City success has opened up a window of opportunity there."

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George Michael - Michael Thrilled About Same-sex Marriages

GEORGE MICHAEL has launched the U.S. leg of his final world tour by congratulating lawmakers for legalising gay marriage in California.

The openly gay British pop star performed in San Diego, California on Tuesday (17Jun08) - the same day gay unions were made official after state legislators overturned a ban last month (May08).

And Michael, who was once arrested for lewd behaviour in a Beverly Hills park public toilet, admits he's thrilled California's gays and lesbians can now legally wed.

He says, "It's way overdue. It's something that happened... almost without a whisper in England.

"Because this is a much more religious society, there are a huge number of people who want unions to be part of something that they can place in their religion."

Hundreds of gay couples across California became husband and husband and wife and wife on Tuesday, when same-sex unions became legal.

California is only the second state in the U.S., after Massachusetts, to legalise gay marriage.

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The Music of Islam Vol 8

   
Artist: The Music of Islam Vol 8

   Genre(s): 
Ethnic
   

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Discography:


   
 Folkloric Music of Tunisia

   Year: 1998   
Tracks: 9

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Scarlett Johansson , Anywhere I Lay My Head

SCARLETT JOHANSSONAnywhere I Lay My Head(Atco)Rating: * *Verdict: Scarlett the starlet sings Tom Waits. Usual advice about day job applies. Well it's certainly a bold idea - a covers album of songs by a guy with such a voice by someone famous who doesn't really appear to have one.It's not that Scarlett Johansson can't sing. When it comes to the 10 Tom Waits songs (and one original), she can sure hold a note with her slightly androgynous throaty voice. And then, she holds another one just like it.It's just that mostly she's so buried in its esoteric production - think the 80s echo chamber of the Cocteau Twins, or the stuck-down-a-well approach of Mazzy Star - that her vocal presence becomes a moot point.Heck, on the opening track Fawn you can barely hear her at all ... oh it's an instrumental, which, of course, is the best way to start an album by someone who's a movie star. They need some theme music before the performance begins.




It is mildly intriguing how it sounds, care of TV on the Radio member turned very hip producer David Sitek and Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner. Songs which once clanked with gruff life in their original form, here swirl about the place, all fairground organs, shimmering textures, and doomy electronic rhythms. Or they do things that are plain awful like the perky 80s synthesizer take on I Don't Want to Grow Up.When Johansson's unexpressive delivery makes a rare foray to the forefront, it can still be effective. See the wide-screen Beach Boys-gone-dreampop rendition of Fannin' Street, or the ghostly music box-accompanied I Wish I Was In New Orleans. Occasionally the distinctive voice of a backing singer named David Bowie turns up, often upstaging the star of the piece on the likes of Falling Down. He and Sitek tend to render Johansson a supporting role on her own album. And if there was a point to the Waits song selection, it's not abundantly clear - they're neither arranged or performed with much sympathy to the original material, with Waits' tunes vague echoes of their former selves and his words drained of their story-telling power. It has its pretty moments, yes, the cover photo included. But it's no tribute album. Of course, Tom Waits does moonlight as an actor. So guess he had it coming, huh?

Ustad Amjad Ali Khan

   
Artist: Ustad Amjad Ali Khan

   Genre(s): 
Other
   Folk
   Ethnic
   

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Discography:


   
 Sadaayen: Evocation

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 4


   
 Sarod Recitals

   Year: 1994   
Tracks: 2


   
 Raag Yaman

   Year: 1991   
Tracks: 3

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The youngest boy of sarod role player Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan, Amjad Ali Khan has continued to lucubrate on his father's bequest. Performing as a soloist and in collaboration with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Charlie Byrd, Igor Frolav, Glenda Simpson, and Barry Mason, Khan has brought a planetary survey to the sarod, a 25-stringed, violin-like, Indian instrument. While The Gulf Weekly claimed, "(Khan) is in a category by himself, born with musical rhythm in his soul and fingers," The Lincoln Journal Star wrote, "(Khan is) far-famed for his elegant style and technique. After a lifetime of work on the instrument, he has voiceless a new life to an ancient form." In a followup of a concert by Khan, The New York Times proclaimed, "(Khan) casts a kind of charm on audiences, sending out ripples of excitement." Tracing his family's roots to Mian Tansen, a 16th-century musician in the court of the Emperor Khan, Khan began playing the sarod at the age of tenner. With his beginner as his guru, under the strict discipline of Guru Shisya Parampara, he advanced cursorily. Performing his first-class honours degree concert at the eld of 12, he was a nationally known famous person in India within trinity days. Khan's married woman, Subhalakshmi, a well-known Indian classical professional dancer, retired from performing next their union. In addition to recording many award-winning albums, including Raga Bhairav, which graded among the Top 50 classical albums of 1995 by BBC Magazine, Khan has been featured in several documentary videos including the Canadian-produced Amjat Ali Khan in 1971, and Live Concert In Tokyo in 1989.

Report says Travolta won't play JR

A report in the US says that John Travolta will not star as JR Ewing in the big screen version of 1980s favourite 'Dallas'.
The showbiz website Page Six.com, which is owned by the publishers of the New York Post, says that Travolta departed the project two weeks ago.
However, Page Six.com did not get confirmation from the makers of the film, 20th Century Fox.
Page Six.com claimed Ben Stiller had been lined up to play JR, but a spokesperson for the actor said that he had not been offered the part.

Hilary Duff - Duff Ditches Good Girl Label In New Movie

HILARY DUFF is hoping her role in new movie WAR, INC. will kill her good-girl image once and for all.

The 20-year-old has wrestled with the label since rising to fame as a clean-cut teen pop star.

She recently revealed her desire to be recognised as an adult - and went to great lengths in the movie to do so.

Duff travelled unaccompanied to Bulgaria to film the movie with co-stars John Cusack, Sir Ben Kingsley and Marisa Tomei, dying her trademark blonde locks for a darker hairdo to play onscreen temptress Yonica.

She says, "I got to play a character far away from who I am in my real life.

"I got to be a little bit of a bad girl for a change."

War Inc. premieres on Monday (28Apr08) at New York's Tribeca Film Festival.

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Durutti Column

   
Artist: Durutti Column

   Genre(s): 
New Age
   

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Discography:


   
 Tempus Fugit

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 15

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The Durutti Column was in the first place the vehicle of Vini Reilly, a guitar player born in Manchester, England in 1953. As a child, Reilly first took up the pianissimo, drafting inspiration from greats like Art Tatum and Fats Waller, ahead eruditeness to play guitar at the years of ten. Despite an early affectionateness for family and jazz, Reilly in the end became swept up by the punk movement, and in 1977 he united the grouping Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds.


In 1978, Factory Records founder Tony Wilson invited Reilly to link up a radical dubbed the Durutti Column, the name elysian by the Spanish Civil War anarchist Buenaventura Durruti and a Situationists Internationale comic strip of the sixties. Along with Reilly, the nascent band included guitarist Dave Rowbotham, drummer Chris Joyce, vocalist Phil Rainford and bassist Tony Bowers; following a fistful of performances, Rainford was fired, and after recording a mate of tracks for the EP A Factory Sampler, Rowbotham, Joyce and Bowers skint off to form the Moth Men, going the Durutti Column the sole responsibility of Vini Reilly.


Recorded with the attention of a few session musicians and released in a sandpaper sleeve, the debut The Return of the Durutti Column, a collecting of atmospherical instrumentals, appeared in 1980. With 1981's pastoral LC, recorded with drummer Bruce Mitchell (wHO remained a haunt collaborator), Reilly attempted vocals on a few tracks, and continued expanding his pallette with a geminate of explorations of chamber music, 1982's Another Setting and 1984's Without Mercy. Electronic rhythms, meanwhile, emerged as the polar element of 1985's Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say.


After 1985's live exploit Domo Arigato, Circuses and Bread marked a return to the densely-constructed guitar textures of previous industrial plant, piece 1987's eclecticist The Guitar and Other Machines graded among the Durutti Column's most challenging works to date. In 1988, Reilly backed Morrissey (also an alumna of the Nosebleeds) on his solo debut Viva voce Hate ahead reversive the Durutti Column to button a 1989 LP coroneted Vini Reilly, some other various function which incorporated vocal samples from Otis Redding, Annie Lennox, Tracy Chapman and opera principal Joan Sutherland.


1990's aggressive Obey the Time preceded 1991's Lips That Would Kiss Form Prayers to Broken Stone, a collecting of singles, rarities and unreleased material. After a long layoff, the Durutti Column returned in 1995 with Sex and Death, followed a year later by Fidelity, which amalgamated dance beats with Reilly's guitar lines. Night in New York arrived in 1999. Among Durutti alumni, Chris Joyce and Tony Bowers achieved the greatest winner as members of Simply Red; tragically, origination guitarist Dave Rowbotham was slain by an axe manslayer in 1991, inspiring the Happy Mondays song "Rodeo rider Dave."

Former Steps star reveals 'nightmare'

Former Steps star Ian 'H' Watkins has said that he found growing up gay a "complete nightmare".
The singer, who appeared on 'Celebrity Big Brother' last year, made the revelations in a new documentary 'Week In, Week Out' for BBC One Wales.
Speaking about growing up in Wales, the singer said: "I'm gay, and today I'm completely open about it. But growing up here in the Rhondda, it was a complete nightmare."
"The bullies at school sensed I was gay and picked on me relentlessly," he said.
"Despite my success, I couldn't be myself. In a pop group like Steps, you need to be three things: single, sexy and straight. I had to lie about the last one."

Latin Pop Star Ana Cristina to Kick-Off Her 23rd Birthday Events at Mynt Lounge and Vita Restaurant 'Sex and the City Style'

MIAMI, May 30 -- More than 450 guests, ranging from
Miami's movers and shakers, young elite, models, and famous faces in the
Latin and Hip hop music industry join International singing sensation, Ana
Cristina in honor of her 23rd Birthday Celebration.

Kicking off at the Italian eatery, VITA at 9:00 pm, the princess-themed
tiara-clad Ana Cristina will share an intimate dinner with 7 members of her
closest friends and family. Fast forwarding to 12:00 am, an exuberant bash
at the newly remodeled Mynt Lounge awaits while its usually themed rooms
transform into the birthday of the year, bearing the likeness of Ana
Cristina, on a giant image projector and displaying cover art photos across
the length of the front wall.

"I'm wearing a sparkle mint dress by Betsy Johnson, to go with the
whole theme of the rooms of Mynt and today's debut of the Sex and the City
Movie," says Ana Cristina. "It is important to stay fabulous at any age,
whether you're going to be turning 23 or 93!" Spoken like a modern day
Carrie Bradshaw.

As the evening progresses, guests will dance the night away and get a
sneak CD preview of Ana Cristina's newly recorded R&B pop song, "Envy."

About Ana Cristina:

Born in Miami, Florida on June 2, 1985, The Cuban-American singer's
prodigious 5 octave vocal range has opened the doors for her to sing in
hundreds of television shows and events. At the age of 15, Ana Cristina
signed with Sony Discos, to which she then completed her first Spanish
Language self-titled debut "Ana Cristina."

She was chosen out of a star-studded list of some of the most respected
performers in the nation to sing "The Star Spangled Banner" for the
presidential inauguration on January 20, 2005. In 2006, Ana Cristina was
chosen by the Univision Network to sing the promotional theme song for
Envision Sports' 2006 World Cup Germany entitled, "You Can Change the
World."

On October 6, 2006, Ana Cristina was invited to sing in the White House
for a private show produced by Emilio Estefan. Ana Cristina is currently
working on material for an English language debut album.


http://www.anacristina.com


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