Main Page                                                 Archives

BOTTOMLINES

 

 

Catherine Zeta-Jones to play a drug addict (Go To Top)

     Washington: Catherine Zeta-Jones is reportedly in talks to star as a drug addict in new movie 'Rachel's Holiday'. According to Zap2It, the actress will be returning to Britain for the movie, which is based on the novel, 'Holiday', by Marian Keyes. Zeta-Jones might also produce the movie that will be directed by Francesca Joseph. 'Rachel's Holiday' tells the story of a New Yorker who likes her men, alcohol and cocaine. She is diagnosed as a suicidal drug addict and returns to her Irish homeland, where she checks into a rehab clinic that challenges her to learn a new way to approach life.

Alicia Keys gets her inspiration at midnight (Go To Top)

     London: Alicia Keys has revealed that she wakes up crying in the middle of the night and pens her songs. "Sometimes I wake up and go to my piano and write a whole song. Sometimes I am crying, but most of the time it is just speaking what I am feeling so that I am not feeling it any more," femalefirst quoted Keys as saying. The lyricist, who gets the inspiration to write some of her best songs in the dead of the night, confessed that the reason for her strange timing is down to her fascination with the morbid side of life. "As a songwriter I tend to be drawn to the negative sides of love, towards the complicated sides of love, the sides that are confusing or painful or misunderstood," she added.

Johnny Depp becomes a modern day Robin Hood (Go To Top)

     New York: Johnny Depp will star as a Hungarian bank robber in an adaptation of Julian Rubinstein's bestseller 'The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber'. According to the New York Post, the story is set in the 90s in post-communist Hungary and Depp will play Attila Ambrus, a Transylvanian refugee, who turned to crime and robbing banks after failing at several jobs including gravedigger, pelt- smuggler, church painter and a pro-ice hockey player. Despite robbing nearly 30 banks in six years Ambrus becomes a folk hero in his native country. And when he was finally arrested in 1999 he became a television star giving amusing interviews confessing from his prison cells. But just after a year in prison he escaped and began robbing again increasing his legendary status although he was soon re- arrested and remained in jail. Depp and Warner Bros have reportedly bought the film rights to Rubinstein's book for a high six-figure deal.

Richard Gere turns down 'The Sound Of Music' (Go To Top)

     London: Veteran Hollywood actor Richard Gere has reportedly turned down music maestro Andrew Lloyd Webber's invitation to star in the London musical, The Sound Of Music. According to Femalefirst, the British composer has been desperate to hook Gere for the role of Captain Von Trapp. "Nothing has been announced yet - it's all in very early stages," a spokeswoman for Webber's group was quoted as saying. "Richard Gere has been approached but it looks like other Hollywood films will take precedence - even after Lloyd Webber asked him personally," he added.

Salma Hayek gets suicidal over her naked breasts on screen (Go To Top)

     London: Hollywood actress Salma Hayek has revealed that at times she feels like killing herself when she sees her naked breasts on screen. Hayek, who gave a nude scene in the movie 'Desperado', said that she found it really difficult to perform the scene because of her strict Catholic upbringing. "Everyone tells me that the love scene is beautiful but I hated it. Every time I see it, I want to kill myself," femalefirst quoted Hayek as saying. The actress, however, admitted that the scene was necessary, as it helped give the violent movie a romantic moment. "It's a violent film and you need a tender scene," she added.

Now, Feng Shui undies to ward off evil (Go To Top)

     Sydney: After windchimes, coins, turtles and bonsai, now you have dragon printed Feng Shui underpants to protect yourself from any evil. The lucky undies designed by Yeung Tin Ming, a master of the ancient Chinese craft of Feng Shui, will not only ward off evil but also bring harmony in life, claims Life Enhance, the company seeking to bring the wisdom of ancient China to the mass market. The underpants, which come in red, grey and white and in boxers for men and briefs for women, depict a dragon on the front in accordance with Chinese belief that the mythical creature balances the erratic nature of roosters. "If you have a dragon on your underpants you will be protected. Our Feng Shui master says that having something lucky in contact with your skin would bring spiritual balance, so we thought lucky underpants would be ideal. They are as intimate as you get," Life Enhance spokeswoman Amy Law, was quoted by News.com, as saying. Feng shui advocates believe good fortune can be generated by arranging everyday objects in a way that guides invisible energies and "spirits" from all things. It is a key part of the ritual surrounding the Lunar New Year, as each 12-month cycle ushers a different set of spiritual forces and believers will spend time rearranging furniture and schedules to optimise spirit flows.

Kidman wins Lifetime Achievement Award for skin care (Go To Top)

     London: Nicole Kidman has been honoured with the first online Lifetime Achievement Award for constantly looking after her fair skin, while taking on a succession of face changing film roles. The actress won the accolades for fighting skin issues at the eighth annual Skinnies Awards, which are held to reward the film stars who serve as role models to the fair-skinned and spotty. California based dermatologist Vail Reese, who hands out the awards yearly on his www.skinema.com website, revealed that Kidman beat Julia Roberts to the first Lifetime Achievement prize. "For the longest time, Nicole Kidman has been a role model for the fair-skinned. She's pale and suffers apparent hand eczema, and yet she's one of the most attractive women," Reese was quoted by the Female First, as saying.

Brad and Jen's love still smoulders (Go To Top)

     London: Even though Hollywood's most beautiful couple, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, has split yet the pair seem to be very much in love still. The duo has been spotted together at various places. According to the Mirror, Brad and Jen were recently seen on a secret dinner date in a posh Los Angeles restaurant. Still wearing his wedding ring, Ocean's Twelve heartthrob Brad and 35-year-old former Friends star Jen were shown to a secluded booth. But they made no attempt to hide their obvious affection for one another as they spent the next three hours canoodling over a candle-lit dinner. "Brad and Jennifer came in giggling and holding hands, they looked totally happy," a source said. "Despite what's happened there's still a lot of mutual respect and affection between Brad and Jennifer.The fact that he hasn't abandoned his ring is a clear sign of how much she still means to him," he added.

Aliens visited Britain 88 times last year (Go To Top)

     London: Declassified documents released by Britain's Ministry of Defence's UFO unit has revealed that as many as 88 reports of UFO sightings have been reported in the English Isles in the last one year. According to The Independent, statistics reveal that the notwithstanding the worry the frequent UFO sightings caused to the military staff and members of the public, the updated "X- files" show the most recent observations were made on 15 January this year following two separate reports from Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, and Whitstable, Kent. While the reports from the above places refer to "strange lights seen in the sky", other sightings however, give a more vivid picture of the phenomena. While a report from the Devizes in Wiltshire on 24 September last year said that the object "looked like a big ball of fire coming down from the sky with a tail and sparks coming off the end of it", another from Somerset the week before, stated that "the object looked like a great bright light and was really intense, like a ball of fire coming down from the sky, rapidly moving towards the ground."

     Although officials believe that such sightings can be dismissed off as meteor showers or other astronomical phenomena, but the fact that the "witness had seen the object so clearly", paints a very different picture of an UFO hovering over the night sky. Many of the other sightings refer to UFO's changing colour, speed and shape. The most common colours are yellow, orange or black, with one report from Goole, East Yorkshire, recorded in April last year, noting that the "the object looked like a boomerang and was stationary over a power station. An aircraft was circling the object." "I saw a UFO with a cluster of four bright lights in a ring shape on it. Three beams of white light shone upwards and disappeared," the paper quoted a UFO observer from Seaforth, Merseyside as saying. However, these latest files to be declassified by the MoD are not as complete as reports from mid-1976 and 1977 released last month, when in July 19777, Flt-Lt AM Wood reported "bright objects hanging over the sea", with the closest object being a "luminous, round and four to five times larger than a Whirlwind helicopter" and the UFOs reported three miles out to sea at a height of about 5,000ft.

     The report, which describes Wood as "reliable and sober", describes that "the objects separated and one went west of the other, and as it manoeuvred changed shape to become body-shaped with projections like arms and legs." At that time, the report was considered so sensitive to the national interest that the MoD had delayed its release for an extra three years, and finally declassifying it only with the coming of Freedom of Information Act, on January 1.