Filed under: Celebrities, Dancing With The Stars, Casting

Seems like the Dancing with the News news is coming fast and furious these days (it must be August). Yesterday Allison told you about Dan Marino not doing the show, and the day before that I told you that Dan Marino was going to do the show. Football players…can’t make up their minds (see also Favre, Brett).

Now comes another name thrown into the mix: Tom Selleck! That’s the latest rumor for the show. In fact, it’s gone beyond the rumor stage and supposedly (emphasis on “supposedly”) Selleck has already accepted the gig. Part of me wants to say “don’t do it Tom!” but the show really does need an injection of real star power (if the names leaked this week really are accurate, though we know that they got Marino wrong).

Continue reading Your daily Dancing news: Selleck in, Leachman denied?

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Programming, Celebrities, Reality-Free

We have previously reported that Academy Award-winning film director Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlberg were developing a series for cable. Now, it looks like Scorsese might be directing the pilot of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire which chronicles the rise of Atlantic City in the 1920s. He’s directed about casinos before, so the subject matter should be old hat to him.

Admittedly, at this stage of his career this seems a bit like slumming. He has once before directed for television (an episode of Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories in the ’80s). Honestly, where else is there to go? He’s won the Oscar already. He’s even directed Michael Jackson. It’s his series (he’s the executive producer along with Wahlberg), so everybody wins with this deal.

I note how he has gone away from his native setting of New York City in his more recent work (for example, The Departed took place in Boston), and now he’s decided to cross the Hudson River into New Jersey. As a Jersey native, I can only say: it’s about time!

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Share This

Share This

Breaking miserable news.

TMZ has reported that the ever so famous 71-year-old Morgan Freeman has been involved in a serious car accident in Mississippi late last night around 11:30. He was airlifted from the scene to a Memphis, TN hospital.

State troopers have said that Morgan was talking when they arrived on the scene last night, so thank god he wasn’t suffering from brain damage. I really hope that everyone involved in the accident make its out okay and recovers as soon as possible.

WE NEED YOU MORGAN FREEMAN..TO NARRATE OUR LIVES!!!

Share This

Anne Hathaway is worried raunchy photographs of her will be made the public.

The “Devil Wears Prada” actress poses nude in the pictures for ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri – who she split from in June following his involvement in a series of legal scandals – but is concerned they may be leaked to the press as they are now in the hands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The pictures include a “sizzling” photograph of the 25-year-old actress wearing only black fishnet stockings, a garter belt and bustier that completely exposes her breasts.

Gossip website gawker.com claims the shots will be made public “in another two weeks or so.”

Anne is so keen to stop the pictures being published she reportedly asked her older brother Michael to recover them from a hidden storage box in the Bronx, New York where Raffaello had kept some of his and Anne’s belongings.

However, the FBI – who are investigating the businessman following his arrest for fraud and money laundering in June – had already removed the shots as they searched for evidence against Raffaello.

Raffaello is rumored to have paid a top photographer – who is believed to have copies of the shots – to take the pictures.

Share This

Eva Longoria refuses to wear some of her ”Desperate Housewives” costumes because they are too sexy.The petite actress – who is married to basketball star Tony Parker – has arguments on the set of her hit US TV show because the outfits they want her character Gabrielle because they are so revealing.

She said: “I’m always saying, ‘Isn’t that a bit much?’ to some of the lingerie. So I try on a lot of lingerie and I veto a lot.”

“I have said no to some very cheeky showing underwear. I do not like to do that. And I’ve said no to different bras that do different things.”

Eva, 33, also revealed she is thrilled producers have made Gabrielle more frumpy - as the new season of the hit US TV show flashes to five years in the future - because it meant she could have a break from her strict diet and exercise regime.

She said: “I love it. I come into hair and make up now and it’s 10 minutes instead of two hours.”

“It’s way more fun to play frumpy. Then you can focus on story and character as opposed to having to always look great. I feel like she’s dealing with a lot of real issues.”

Share This

Pregnant Rebecca Romijn is craving ”a lot of ice cream.”

The “Ugly Betty” star – who is expecting twin daughters with husband Jerry O’Connell later this year – can’t stop eating the frozen treat, the actor has revealed.

Jerry said: “Rebecca has been craving a lot of ice cream! And not any one particular brand … a lot of the different ones at Ben and Jerry’s, but also other crazy brands.”

Jerry - who married Rebecca last summer in an intimate Los Angeles ceremony – also said he is determined to do everything he can to make 35-year-old Rebecca’s pregnancy as comfortable as possible.

He added to Us Weekly magazine: “That’s all you can really do as the man - go out and get food.”

“I’m not really carrying anything, I’m not really putting on any extra weight, I’m just sort of trying to help out as much as possible.”

“Having children is something we really worked hard at, and it’s just happened. We’re blessed.”

Share This

Fancy an alarm clock that doesn’t wake you up with pesky noises, but the gentle scent of your favorite smell in the morning (or whatever time you need to roll out of bed assuming you work the graveyard shift)? The Osim Nioi alarm clock does just that, as it emits either a lavender or rose fragrance in the night to help you sleep better, while a more stirring smell like freshly baked bread is used to rouse you out of bed. Each smell will come in a relevant smell canister, but too bad this won’t be available in store shelves until somebody takes designer Alfie Lake’s concept seriously. I think the Public Toilet canister would be most effective in getting you up.

Source article | Add a comment

Share This

Filed under: Google (GOOG), Small business

Former Google, Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) engineers recently launched a new-fangled search engine, called Cuil. The goal was pretty ambitious; that is, to be the next Google.

Well, the debut was shaky, as the online reviews were mostly negative. Basically, the quality of the search results were lackluster — and the overall performance was erratic.

No doubt, in the social media world, things can get brutal. Yet, it’s something that many businesses need to think about.

So, how do you deal with negative reviews?

First of all, it’s a good idea to monitor the chatter about your company. To this end, you can use services like Google alerts. There is also a free application called Social Media Firehose that monitors various social media channels.

Show Up

In many cases, an online review site will provide for comments. And, according to Todd Defren — a principal at SHIFT Communications — it’s a good idea to respond to negative comments. However, be diplomatic.

Here’s one of his approaches:

“We were really sad to see that you had a bad experience with our product. Even though we have thousands of happy customers, we’re always striving to improve and I can assure you that we’re going to use your review as ammunition to make sure we do a better job in the future. We appreciate the time you took to put our product through its paces; even though we seem to have stumbled this time, our success is a marathon not a sprint, and you’ve helped us train for more success in the future.”

Having such an approach shows that you are serious about customer feedback and that you’re proactive. And, in light of the fact that many customers research the Net before buying products, it’s a good idea to have some participation.

“A bad review is an opportunity for a company to learn about a failing they might not have otherwise known about, connect with and win over a consumer and fix a problem,” said Marc Karasu, who is the president of MeasuredUp.com.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Well, after a brief break, we’re ready to resume our guide to Summer fun! Today’s chapter…

Chapter 4 - Food!

There are so many wonderful summer foods to try! Eat up!

Plants!

Now is the time to enjoy fruits and vegetables, because they’re growing like crazy! They’re green and leafy and healthy, and they…oh forget it, let’s skip ahead!

Fried Everything!

Who cares what it is? It’s fried!

More like it! Summer is the time for killing your heart! People fry everything in the summer, and all the best summer foods are fried. Funnel cakes, corn dogs, onion rings, hush-puppies, fried fish, french fries, these are staples. But wait, there’s more! Fried cheesecake, fried oreos, fried snickers! Fried pickles, fried zuccini, fried chicken! And what to wash it down with? Fried cola!

Hear that gentle sobbing? That’s your arteries. Yippee!

Ice Cream!

The ultimate summer food. It is cold, it is sweet and sticky, it comes in far more flavors than 32, it is perfect. It can even be fried!

What are you waiting for? Fry yourself a big slice of summer today!

Share This

Filed under: Action, Comedy, Dreamworks, Movie Marketing

Since it doesn’t open for another week, I’m not allowed to spill much about what I thought of Tropic Thunder, but suffice it to say, the laughs get off to an extra-early start with a collection of fake trailers featuring our leads as the film’s stars in other projects. Along the same lines came promotional efforts that included a fake trailer for a fake making-of doc (well, the DVD will prove that one) and several websites for those characters and their movies.

One of those websites was for Ben Stiller’s character, Tugg Speedman, in his high-profile bid for awards glory as a mentally disabled farmhand in Simple Jack. However, out of context, this high-concept faux-site has stirred up concern from the likes of many very real disability rights groups — among them, the Special Olympics — and according to Variety, the site has been pulled down in response.

The concern is fairly grounded, but it’s a relatively minor kerfuffle that will damage neither the image of the represented individuals nor the performance of the film when it opens… a film which just so happens to boast a terrifically astute assessment of performances similar to Speedman’s in the real industry, no part of which can stand to be repeated here and especially now.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This