Tag Archives: country

American Idol Season 10: Confirmed Changes

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

As the nation prepares for the return of its favorite TV show, there has been constant speculation about the state of American Idol . Just what changes are actually in store? Will the show actually make like Big Brother ? Will there be a round of 24? Entertainment Weekly spoke to producers of the competition and can confirm the following facts about season 10. Will there be a music video challenge? No. Must contestants sing songs from various genres? Yes. Says Nigel Lythgoe: “If you do Motown, then I’m not sure [how] you’re going to sing an R&B song and give it your country flavor… it’s not going to be like that. They’ve got to be clever with it.” Will voting move online? No. How will the show replace the top 24 round? With a sudden death Top 20 round. In Hollywood, it will narrow the contestants down to 20 crooners, and then will viewers vote in a round that will select the finalists from among two groups of ten. How many finalists will there be? 10 or 12. Will there still be gender parity? No. Says Ken Warwick: “If I’ve got six fantastic boys and four average girls, I’m certainly not going to throw out a fantastic boy to put in another average girl, or vise versa.”

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Taylor Swift And Jake Gyllenhaal Break Up

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

A source tells People magazine that their relationship ‘ended last month.’ By Kara Warner Jake Gyllenhaal and Taylor Swift in New York City on November 25 Photo: INF Just when everyone was getting excited about how long Jake Gyllenhaal and Taylor Swift would last as a couple come reports that they are no longer together. According to People, Gyllenhaal and Swift have not been together for quite some time. “They’re over,” a source told the mag about the short-lived relationship. “It ended last month.” Gyllenhaal and Swift started the rumor mill churning with whispers of their romance back in October, when they both showed up to support pal Emma Stone when she hosted “Saturday Night Live.” After that, the lovebirds were spotted together in Brooklyn then laughing and getting ice cream sundaes in Big Sur, California. Things heated up in the media when reports surfaced that Gyllenhaal had allegedly dropped $150,000 to fly swift to the U.K. to hang out with him while he promoted “Love & Other Drugs.” Then, at Thanksgiving, “Jaylor” reportedly spent the holiday with Gyllenhaal’s sister, Maggie, and her husband, Peter Sarsgaard. Despite all the reports of the pair having been seen together, taking trips, etc., neither Swift nor Gyllenhaal ever commented on the supposed romance. The most we got from the country star was that her rumored boyfriend’s latest movie “Love & Other Drugs” was “good.” “I write in great detail about my personal life,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “But I don’t talk about it.” If “Swiftenhaal” are indeed no more, perhaps the actor and pop star are the first victims of the predicted fallout from “mistletoe syndrome,” a phenomenon that occurs from roughly November through February, often brought on by the warm fuzzy feelings surrounding the holidays. Related Artists Taylor Swift

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New Kids On The Block And Backstreet Boys Add 16 Tour Dates

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Boy-band supergroup NKOTBSB will hit even more cities on first joint tour. By Gil Kaufman Backstreet Boys’ A.J. McLean Photo: Astrid Stawiarz/ Getty Images Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. And when it’s two of the biggest boy bands in modern history that you’re missing, go ahead and double that longing. That might explain why the boy-band supergroup NKOTBSB (otherwise known as New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys) have announced plans to nearly double the amount of dates on their first-ever joint tour. After initially announcing two dozen dates slated to kick off June 2 in Uncasville, Connecticut, and run through a July 9 date in Vancouver, British Columbia, the scream-feeder pairing will now stay on the road through July 30 due to what promoter Live Nation called “overwhelming” demand for tickets. The 41-date swing will now wrap up with a July 30 show at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The additional dates include shows in Minneapolis, St. Louis, Orlando, Cleveland and Atlantic City. In their biggest tune-up to date for the outing, the group rocked it in front of millions on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” eight months after they set fans’ hearts aflutter by performing onstage together for the first time at a sold-out NKOTB show at Radio City Music Hall in New York in June. Then they knocked it out of the park in November when they closed the American Music Awards with a medley that included Backstreet’s “I Want It That Way” and NKOTB’s “Hangin’ Tough.” The tour will feature appearances by all but one of the groups’ original members: Joey McIntyre, AJ McLean, Jordan Knight, Howie Dorough, Jonathan Knight, Donnie Wahlberg, Brian Littrell, Danny Wood and Nick Carter (BSB’s Kevin Richardson left the group in 2006). Tickets for the new dates go on sale on January 15. NKOTBSB tour dates:

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Kellie Pickler Marries Songwriter Kyle Jacobs

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The ‘American Idol’ alum married her longtime boyfriend on January 1. By Jocelyn Vena Kyle Jacobs and Kellie Pickler Photo: Rick Diamond/Getty Images Kellie Pickler is the latest in a slew of celebrity marriages. Like Valerie Bertinelli and Shania Twain , the country singer got married over New Year’s weekend, her rep confirmed. “Country star Kellie Pickler and songwriter Kyle Jacobs were married in an intimate ceremony on Saturday, January 1, 2011, on a private island in the Caribbean,” the statement to E! News reads. “No further details or photos are available at this time.” The rep added that the wedding took place “somewhere in the Caribbean.” In the days prior to her beach ceremony, on December 28, the “American Idol” alum tweeted a photo of herself, dressed in a sparkling dress, and Jacobs, writing, “Crazy about this man.” The pair, who began dating in 2008, got engaged on June 15, when Jacobs asked Pickler to marry him on the beach in Florida. “It was the most spiritual moment,” Pickler said of the proposal to People.com . “We would’ve gotten married that night had there been a preacher walking by!” Jacobs chose June 15 to ask Pickler to marry him because it was her late grandmother’s birthday. “It turned out to be the most amazing day of my life,” she said. “My whole world changed. We both feel like we got my grandmother’s blessing. I remember saying to Kyle, ‘Baby it’s like I’m dreaming — but if this isn’t real, I’m going to be very upset!’ ” When Pickler spoke to UsMagazine.com about Jacobs, she gushed about spending the rest of her life with him. “I’m so excited that when I am home I get to wake up next to him, because no one will love me the way that he does,” she said. “I could never love somebody the way I love him. He’s my world. I’m so excited about us planning our life together and our future. He’s such a man of God, and that’s so important.” Related Photos Celeb Romance Roundup 2011

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In White Folks News: Gwyneth Paltrow Talks Postpartum Depression “I Felt Like A Zombie”

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Postpartum depression is real: Gwyneth Paltrow had a blissful time during daughter Apple’s first few months of life in summer 2004. Two years later, when son Moses was born, things couldn’t have been more different. The actress found herself living a nightmare. “I felt like a zombie. I couldn’t access my heart. I couldn’t access my emotions. I couldn’t connect,” Paltrow, now 38, says in the February issue of Good Housekeeping. “It was terrible, it was the exact opposite of what had happened when Apple was born. With her, I was on cloud nine. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t the same. I just thought it meant I was a terrible mother and a terrible person.” It was Paltrow’s husband, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, who first thought she might be suffering from postpartum depression. “About four months into it, Chris came to me and said, ‘Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong,’ ” Paltrow recalls. “I kept saying, ‘No, no, I’m fine.’ But Chris identified it, and that sort of burst the bubble.” Paltrow says the hardest part was acknowledging the problem. “I thought postpartum depression meant you were sobbing every single day and incapable of looking after a child,” she explains. “But there are different shades of it and depths of it, which is why I think it’s so important for women to talk about it. It was a trying time. I felt like a failure.” With those dark days long behind her, Paltrow has rebooted her film career – and begun a musical one – with her role in Country Strong. Her husband, supportive as ever, helped her learn guitar for the part – which came as no surprise. “I can depend on him,” Paltrow says. “He makes me laugh. He’s really appreciative of me. You know, he makes me feel special.” Although sometimes, she has to push him a little to talk about his feelings. “I definitely have to coax things out of him when we talk. You know, he’s British, so it’s a different lexicon totally,” Paltrow says. “But you have to communicate. Otherwise there’s no relationship.” Via People

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Brangelina Donates $2M to Namibian Wildlife Refuge

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

We will say it again. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are awesome. Over the holidays, the globe-trotting, philanthropic pair visited an animal sanctuary in Namibia, where their first biological child was born. When they departed, they left an astounding $2 million behind. GIVING BACK: It’s what Brangelina is becoming best known for. The couple made that huge donation to the Naankuse Lodge and Wildlife Sanctuary in Namibia, the country in which daughter Shiloh, now 4, was born. Of the donation in Shiloh’s name, Angelina said, “We want her to be very involved and grow up with the understanding of her country of birth.” The pair often donates to humanitarian causes, including Doctors Without Borders and Global Action for Children, via the Jolie/Pitt foundation. The couple and their children spent the holidays at the Namibian sanctuary caring for and feeding orphaned animals. It was a major success. Said Jolie: “We continue to be impressed by the hard work and dedication of the people and conservation of the land and wildlife of Namibia.” People question their motives, but even if they were entirely self-serving, do you think the people and wildlife of Namibia are worse off? No. Here’s a clip from 2009 of Angelina reflecting on her ties to the nation: Angelina Jolie in Namibia

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Understanding The Frenzy Over Vick and White Folks’ Heightened Love of Dogs

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

So Tucker Carlson, Fox News commentator and professional agitator, recently ignited a small controversy over his comments that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick should have been executed three years ago when convicted on dog-fighting and animal cruelty charges. As a Philadelphian, and needless to say Eagles fan, no one is happier than I (and the millions other Eagles fans around the country) to have a player like Vick leading the helm.  But even through his redemptive professional comeback, Vick still can’t escape the calls from animal rights activist and dog owners alike that he should have been stripped of his freedom and barred from the game forever. Continued at The Atlanta Post

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Understanding The Frenzy Over Vick and White Folks’ Heightened Love of Dogs

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

So Tucker Carlson, Fox News commentator and professional agitator, recently ignited a small controversy over his comments that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick should have been executed three years ago when convicted on dog-fighting and animal cruelty charges. As a Philadelphian, and needless to say Eagles fan, no one is happier than I (and the millions other Eagles fans around the country) to have a player like Vick leading the helm.  But even through his redemptive professional comeback, Vick still can’t escape the calls from animal rights activist and dog owners alike that he should have been stripped of his freedom and barred from the game forever. Continued at The Atlanta Post

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‘Little Fockers’ Win Big During First 2011 Box-Office Weekend

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro’s comedy sequel takes down the Coen brothers’ ‘True Grit’ for the second weekend in a row. By Josh Wigler Robert DeNiro and Ben Stiller in “Little Fockers” Photo: Universal Studios It’s a new year at the box office, but the specter of 2010 hangs heavily over the first weekend session of 2011: Beyond the extremely limited releases of “Another Year” and “Blue Valentine,” this past weekend saw a complete dearth of new movies in theaters nationwide, leaving old competitors to slog it out for supremacy. “Little Fockers” won the top spot for a second straight week — $26.3 million take giving Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro’s comedy sequel a total gate of $103.2 million since landing in theaters two weeks ago. While many studios would look at that number as a decisive success, it’s a trickier story with “Fockers,” as the film’s immediate predecessor, “Meet the Fockers,” had earned $162.5 million across the same dates in 2004. The comedy franchise apparently doesn’t carry the same weight it once did. Despite landing in second place, “True Grit” was once again the real box-office winner with a $24.5 million weekend haul. After bringing in $86.8 million in 12 days, the Coen brothers’ latest flick is officially their biggest one yet, surpassing the $74.3 million earned by their Oscar-winning “No Country for Old Men” in 2008. Box Office Mojo describes “True Grit” as “the most attended Western drama since ‘Tombstone’ from Christmas 1993,” which is one heck of an accomplishment and a deserved one, too, thanks to the film’s expert directing and brilliant performances from Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld and others. Bridges continues to hold a wide-ranging presence at the box office as “Tron Legacy” remained a top performer, hanging on to third place after three weekends in theaters. But with only $196.4 million earned worldwide since its initial debut, Disney’s decision to resurrect the cult revered sci-fi franchise remains questionable. “Yogi Bear” and “The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader” round out the top five at $13 million and $10.5 million takes, respectively. New releases “Blue Valentine” and “Another Year” played at a mere 10 locations between the two of them, resulting in a combined box-office total of $451,000. “Blue Valentine” secured the weekend’s highest per-screen average at $45,000 a pop. The Box-Office Top Five #1 “Little Fockers” ($26.3 million) #2 “True Grit” ($24.5 million) #3 “Tron Legacy” ($18.3 million) #4 “Yogi Bear” ($13 million) #5 “The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader” ($10.5 million) Upcoming Releases Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Country Strong” and Jim Carrey’s “I Love You, Phillip Morris” enter wide expansion next week, while Nicolas Cage’s “Season of the Witch” cuts its way into the new year. Check out everything we’ve got on “Little Fockers,” “True Grit” and “Tron Legacy.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos ‘Little Fockers’ Clips ‘True Grit’ Clips

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‘Little Fockers’ Win Big During First 2011 Box-Office Weekend

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro’s comedy sequel takes down the Coen brothers’ ‘True Grit’ for the second weekend in a row. By Josh Wigler Robert DeNiro and Ben Stiller in “Little Fockers” Photo: Universal Studios It’s a new year at the box office, but the specter of 2010 hangs heavily over the first weekend session of 2011: Beyond the extremely limited releases of “Another Year” and “Blue Valentine,” this past weekend saw a complete dearth of new movies in theaters nationwide, leaving old competitors to slog it out for supremacy. “Little Fockers” won the top spot for a second straight week — $26.3 million take giving Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro’s comedy sequel a total gate of $103.2 million since landing in theaters two weeks ago. While many studios would look at that number as a decisive success, it’s a trickier story with “Fockers,” as the film’s immediate predecessor, “Meet the Fockers,” had earned $162.5 million across the same dates in 2004. The comedy franchise apparently doesn’t carry the same weight it once did. Despite landing in second place, “True Grit” was once again the real box-office winner with a $24.5 million weekend haul. After bringing in $86.8 million in 12 days, the Coen brothers’ latest flick is officially their biggest one yet, surpassing the $74.3 million earned by their Oscar-winning “No Country for Old Men” in 2008. Box Office Mojo describes “True Grit” as “the most attended Western drama since ‘Tombstone’ from Christmas 1993,” which is one heck of an accomplishment and a deserved one, too, thanks to the film’s expert directing and brilliant performances from Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld and others. Bridges continues to hold a wide-ranging presence at the box office as “Tron Legacy” remained a top performer, hanging on to third place after three weekends in theaters. But with only $196.4 million earned worldwide since its initial debut, Disney’s decision to resurrect the cult revered sci-fi franchise remains questionable. “Yogi Bear” and “The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader” round out the top five at $13 million and $10.5 million takes, respectively. New releases “Blue Valentine” and “Another Year” played at a mere 10 locations between the two of them, resulting in a combined box-office total of $451,000. “Blue Valentine” secured the weekend’s highest per-screen average at $45,000 a pop. The Box-Office Top Five #1 “Little Fockers” ($26.3 million) #2 “True Grit” ($24.5 million) #3 “Tron Legacy” ($18.3 million) #4 “Yogi Bear” ($13 million) #5 “The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader” ($10.5 million) Upcoming Releases Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Country Strong” and Jim Carrey’s “I Love You, Phillip Morris” enter wide expansion next week, while Nicolas Cage’s “Season of the Witch” cuts its way into the new year. Check out everything we’ve got on “Little Fockers,” “True Grit” and “Tron Legacy.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos ‘Little Fockers’ Clips ‘True Grit’ Clips

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