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Justin Bieber tops list of most-viewed YouTube videos

LOS ANGELES | Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:54pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Teenager Justin Bieber had four of the top 10 most-watched music videos in the world on YouTube in 2010, with "Baby" taking claiming the top spot at more than 400 million views, YouTube said on Monday.

The 16 year-old Canadian, who was first discovered in 2008 by posting home videos on YouTube, also saw "Never Say Never," "Never Let You Go" and "Somebody to Love Remix" make the most-watched videos from major music labels for 2010.

A young Alabama man giving an impassioned TV news interview about a local crime spree became the most-watched YouTube entry outside those produced by major music labels.

"Bed Intruder Song" -- a remix of the words by Antoine Dodson, 24, set to a song by New York musicians Evan and Michael Gregory -- was viewed 60 million times around the world. The song also entered the iTune charts and the revenue helped Dodson buy a new house.

Other YouTube favorites outside big names in music included a parody of singer Ke$ha's hit "Tik Tok" called "Key of Awesome 13", and home video of 13 year-old Greyson Chance singing his version of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" at a school recital.

"YouTube has become the world's town square -- a place where culture is created and shared," said Mia Quagliarello, YouTube community manager.

"It's a sign of YouTube's growing importance as a platform for content creation that six of the top 10 most-watched videos globally were made-for-YouTube originals."

YouTube, which is owned by Google, said that more than 13 million hours of video were uploaded to the video-sharing website in 2010 and there were more than 700 billion playbacks.

The most-watched YouTube music videos from major record labels in 2010 were.

1) Justin Bieber "Baby"

2) Shakira "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa). Official World Cup song

3) Eminem "Love the Way You Lie"

4) Eminem "Not Afraid"

5) Rihanna "Rude Boy"

6) Justin Bieber "Never Say Never"

7) Justin Bieber "Never Let You Go"

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Gwyneth Paltrow and fans are giddy over "Glee"

By Zorianna Kit

LOS ANGELES | Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:48pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After her much talked about appearance on hit TV musical "Glee" last month, Gwyneth Paltrow will reprise her role as substitute teacher Holly Holiday, which she said has given her a new, younger group of fans.

"It was great fun," Paltrow told Reuters of doing the show the first time around. "The other day I was in Chicago doing this movie 'Contagion.' I was in my trailer, which was in a parking lot by a school, and there were these young girls who were like, 'Oh my God, you were on 'Glee!'"

Paltrow said the girls were "literally on the floor" making bowing motions with their hands toward the actress.

"I was like, this is hilarious!" she said.

On the November 16 episode of the show, Paltrow sang a cover version of rapper Cee Lo's "Forget You" and a mash-up of the classic "Singin' in the Rain" and Rihanna's "Umbrella" with castmember Matthew Morrison.

After the show aired, Cee Lo publicly praised Paltrow for her version of his song. The two have never met, but the actress said she has "always wanted to meet him."

"I love his music, and I'm such a fan," she said.

Paltrow also wants to ask the rapper a specific question dealing with her dad, Bruce Paltrow, a director and producer who died in 2002 of complications from cancer and pneumonia.

"Cee Lo's (first) record with Gnarls Barkley was called 'St. Elsewhere,' which was the name of my dad's show," said Paltrow. "I've always wondered -- you know, you kind of grasp at any connection to your deceased parent that you love. So, I wonder if there's any connection there, or if he just liked the name."

After making her career in movies, going back to TV with "Glee" proved to be a joy. "I adored it," she said.

Details of her next episode were being kept quiet, but her newfound fans still have plenty of Paltrow to anticipate.

The Academy Award winning actress takes on country singing in her upcoming feature "Country Strong."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Bollywood to Hollywood: Indian actors chase dreams

By Shilpa Jamkhandikar

MUMBAI | Mon Dec 13, 2010 12:47pm EST

MUMBAI (Reuters) - From "Spiderman" to "Mission Impossible," Bollywood actors are increasingly finding their way into mainstream Hollywood films.

As Hollywood brings more Indian and Asian characters into its stories, established stars in India are now looking for a career in the West, hoping to make it big in an industry Bollywood looks up to for inspiration.

"Slumdog Millionaire" actor Anil Kapoor has landed a role in the next Mission Impossible film, while Irrfan Khan, who worked with Angelina Jolie in "A Mighty Heart," has bagged roles in both the next Spiderman film and Ang Lee's forthcoming "Life of Pi," Indian media reported.

Success is not limited to the men. Bipasha Basu, who as one of Bollywood's most popular leading ladies also has her eyes set westwards, has won a role in Academy Award winning director Roland Joffe's next film, "Singularity."

"The Indian audience is increasing every day, not just in India, which is one of the fastest growing movie markets, but also in the US," said casting director Uma D'Cunha, who helped Joffe zero in on Basu.

"Indian audiences would watch a Hollywood film with a Bipasha Basu, rather than one that doesn't have an Indian connect," she added, referring to both Indians in their homeland as well as the Indian diaspora.

An actor would be unable to balance a flourishing career in India with one in Hollywood, especially since it would be tough to shuttle between Mumbai and Los Angeles.

GROWING MARKET

Chopra also said that while the growing Indian market will mean that there will be more roles for Indians in mainstream Hollywood, the scope of these roles will remain limited.

Indian actors have made sporadic appearances in Western films, but most of them have been bit parts in films that didn't really gain attention.

Former Miss World Aishwarya Rai, a Bollywood superstar, acted in a couple of films, as did several other mostly male stars such as Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri, but none garnered much acclaim.

While the big 2009 Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire, which was released in 2008, changed things a bit by ensuring that the West looked at India for stories, and Indian actors got noticed, plum roles for Indians in Hollywood remain illusive.

Frieda Pinto has bagged top roles, first in Slumdog Millionaire and then Woody Allen's "You will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger" and Juliet Schnabel's "Miral."

Pinto also has endorsement contracts and is working on three more Hollywood films, with actors such as Antonio Banderas and James Franco, but industry observers including Chopra pointed out that she didn't have much of a career in India to begin with.

But limits remain. In this year's big hit "The Social Network," director David Fincher chose British actor Max Minghella to play the role of an Indian character.

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Voice on Michael Jackson album far from finished article

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON | Mon Dec 13, 2010 7:40am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Recordings of Michael Jackson's voice on a new album being released this week were far from the finished article and required considerable digital enhancement, according to one of its main producers.

But Teddy Riley, who worked with the King of Pop on several records before his death, believed that "Michael" would go down as a classic, albeit short of the heights of Jackson's heyday in the late 70s and early 80s.

"I had to do more processing to the voice, which is why people were asking about the authenticity of his voice," Riley told Reuters of the first album of new Jackson material since the singer's sudden death 18 months ago.

The project has been mired in controversy since members of Jackson's family were quoted questioning the authenticity of the voice on some tracks and his father's lawyer said the perfectionist would never have wanted the music released.

"We had to do what we had to do to make ... his voice work with the actual music," Riley added in an interview.

"He (Jackson) would never consider it being a final vocal. But because he's not with us he cannot give us new vocals. What we did was utilize the Melodyne (technology) to get him in key.

"With the Melodyne we actually move the stuff up which is the reason why some of the vibrato sounds a little off or processed, over-processed. We truly apologize for that happening, but you are still hearing the true Michael Jackson."

Riley worked on three of the 10 songs on the album -- "Hollywood Tonight," "Monster" and "Breaking News."

The last two were recorded at the New Jersey home of the Cascio family in 2007, along with a third Cascio track "Keep Your Head Up."

It was these recordings that led some to cast doubt over the authenticity of the songs, although Riley, and record label Sony, have been at pains to show they were genuine.

PRICE OF FAME

Riley said much of the negative publicity surrounding the album came from people within Jackson's entourage who did not approve of the project.

"That don't just happen like that, that has to come from somewhere and where it came from was not a great place. It was from a family member, and some family members ... didn't totally get the last say so they kind of hate the project.

"So there you have it, a chain reaction, a domino effect that makes the credibility of Michael go down," he said.

"I am here to protect that, because I know it's him, I know it's great material, I know that it needs to be out, I know that the legacy needs to continue because he's such a great person, and there's more to come."

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"Black Swan" leads Critics' Choice award nominees

LOS ANGELES | Mon Dec 13, 2010 6:05am EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Black Swan," a melodrama set in the ballet world, took center stage among the nominees for the Critics' Choice Movie Awards, an event that has surpassed the Golden Globes as a leading Oscar predictor.

The film, drawing sell-out crowds in early limited release across North America, scored 12 nominations -- a record in the event's 16-year history, organizers said on Monday.

Close behind -- with 11 each -- were the British royals drama "The King's Speech" and the yet-to-open Western remake "True Grit." The sci-fi smash "Inception" picked up 10 nominations, and corporate drama "The Social Network" nine.

All five will vie for both best picture and director, along with "127 Hours." The 10-strong best picture race also includes "The Fighter," "The Town," "Toy Story 3" and "Winter's Bone."

Small art-house releases dominated the field, leaving "Toy Story 3" and "Inception" to fly the flag for mainstream crowd-pleasers. Notably absent among the nominees were such awards-season contenders as Sofia Coppola's upcoming "Somewhere" and the Martin Scorsese hit "Shutter Island."

Winners will be announced on January 14 in a Hollywood ceremony that will be broadcast live on cable channel VH1.

The awards, organized by the 250 members of the Broadcast Film Critics Association in the United States and Canada, have matched the Academy Awards' best picture choice eight times in the past 10 years. The Golden Globes, run by the considerably smaller Hollywood Foreign Press Association, have a 50 percent success rate in that time.

The crossover rate for the Critics' Choice directing winner is 70 percent compared with 40 percent for the Globes. Also in the last 10 years, at least half the Critics' Choice acting winners have gone on to claim Oscar gold.

HOLD THE CHAMPAGNE

But the cast and crew of "Black Swan" should not start celebrating yet. Ominously, the top Critics' Choice nominee is often snubbed at the group's awards ceremony.

Earlier this year "Inglourious Basterds" and "Nine," which led the field with a then-record 10 nominations each, were overshadowed by "The Hurt Locker," which went on to dominate the Oscars.

It was the same story in 2009, when "Slumdog Millionaire" came from behind to beat "Milk" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and then bask in Oscar glory. The year before, "Into the Wild" led the nominees but went home empty-handed. It was also ignored by the Oscars.

"Black Swan" stars Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis as rival ballerinas in a New York City production of "Swan Lake." They received nominations for best actress and supporting actress, respectively. Director Darren Aronofsky was also nominated.

"King's Speech" star Colin Firth will vie for best actor with Jeff Bridges of "True Grit," which opens on December 22. The field also includes Robert Duvall ("Get Low"), Jesse Eisenberg ("The Social Network"), James Franco ("127 Hours") and Ryan Gosling ("Blue Valentine").

Whoever wins that category should probably start writing an Oscar acceptance speech. The Critics' Choice Movie Awards best actor has gone on to win the same title at the Academy Awards for seven years running.

(Reporting by Dean Goodman; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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