Entertaining Posts

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Rihanna says doesn't want to hurt Brown's career

NEW YORK | Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:48pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Singer Rihanna has told Rolling Stone magazine she agreed a judge could ease a stay away order against her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown over a violent altercation two years ago because she didn't want to hurt his career.

The 23-year-old told the music magazine it was "my decision" not to object to a Los Angeles judge's decision in February to downgrade a restraining order keeping Brown, 21, 50 yards away from Rihanna -- 10 yards at music industry events.

"It doesn't mean we're gonna make up or even talk again. It just means I didn't want to object to the judge," she told the magazine in an excerpt published Wednesday.

The singer added she had his music career in mind.

"We don't have to talk ever again in my life," she said. "I just didn't want to make it more difficult for him professionally. What he did was a personal thing -- it had nothing to do with his career. Saying he has to be a hundred feet away from me, he can't perform at awards shows -- that definitely made it difficult for him."

Rihanna's blunt admissions are a stark contrast to Brown, who last week threw an angry tantrum in his dressing from of a U.S. morning chat show after clamming up when an interviewer brought up the topic of his 2009 assault on Rihanna.

Brown, 21, was promoting his new album "F.A.M.E.," while Rihanna talked to Rolling Stone about one of her singles, "S&M," off her fifth studio album, "Loud," that spawned No. 1 hit singles including "Only Girl (In the World)".

Rihanna told Rolling Stone she put up a front in public after the assault.

"I put my guard up so hard. I didn't want people to see me cry. I didn't want people to feel bad for me. It was a very vulnerable time in my life, and I refused to let that be the image. I wanted them to see me as, 'I'm fine, I'm tough.' I put that up until it felt real."

About "S&M," she said that "being submissive in the bedroom is really fun. You get to be a little lady, to have somebody be macho and in charge...that's fun to me. I like to be spanked."

(editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Robin Williams haunts Broadway in "Bengal Tiger"

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK | Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:50am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Robin Williams made either a risky, or courageous, choice for his Broadway acting debut by depicting the ghost of a Bengal tiger slinking around the bloody streets of Baghdad trying to make sense of humans and war.

"Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" opens on Thursday and is risky because for years, most tales with the Iraq war as a backdrop have proven unpopular with U.S. audiences. But the actor and comedian believes the role is an obvious choice for him and the play is a worthy drama to challenge theater-goers.

"People say, 'why?' Because it's an extraordinary piece," he told Reuters. "I read it and went, 'This is worth doing.'"

As the curtain rises, Williams' tiger character stands upright in a cage, joking about the absurdities of life before being taunted by a U.S. soldier. The tiger bites off the man's hand and is then shot to death.

"To die in captivity in a Baghdad zoo, what a freakin' life," he muses to a laughing audience.

But the play, a Pulitzer Prize finalist last year, then turns toward the brutality of war, and the tiger's ghost takes to the streets of the war-torn city with surprising, acerbic reflections on the nature of animals, humanity and religion.

"Bengal Tiger" takes place in the early days of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and key characters including U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter are haunted by acts they have committed and the gruesome realities of armed conflict.

In trying to explain "Bengal Tiger," the 59-year-old Williams recalled his off-Broadway -- or as he joked, "under Broadway" -- stage work in the Samuel Beckett play, "Waiting For Godot" in 1988.

"It talks about the war, the consequences of war, ghosts dealing with other consequences, there is so much, it is so layered," he said. "It basically makes 'Godot' look Amish, because there is such brutality in there...and a weird spiritual journey too."

THROUGH A TIGER'S EYES

American playwright Rajiv Joseph said the play's plot was inspired by a newspaper article about a real tiger in Baghdad that was killed after biting off a U.S. soldier's hand.

He began writing the play "in earnest" in 2005, and it was first produced two years ago in Los Angeles.

But why the ghost of a tiger as the protagonist?

"To look at Baghdad through the tiger's eyes, to see what he sees, makes him an apolitical narrator, which is interesting," Joseph told Reuters.

While the bengal tiger lives in a world that seems surreal, the play is populated by several real-life figures, including Saddam Hussein's widely-feared eldest son, Uday Hussein, who is seen on stage holding his brother Qusay's severed head.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Lindsay Lohan avoids criminal charge in Betty Ford quarrel

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES | Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:22pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Prosecutors on Tuesday decided against filing a battery charge against Lindsay Lohan that might have sent the troubled actress to jail over a confrontation at California's Betty Ford Center rehab clinic.

The District Attorney's office in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, has determined there is insufficient evidence to charge Lohan with a crime, said John Hall, a spokesman for the office.

The "Mean Girls" star is on probation for a 2007 drunk driving and cocaine possession conviction, and a new criminal complaint could have violated her probation, putting her back behind bars.

Lohan, however, remains in legal trouble. The 24-year-old faces a separate charge that she stole a necklace from a Los Angeles jewelry store in January. Lohan has pleaded not guilty, and a preliminary hearing is set for April 22.

A conviction would send her back to jail where she spent around two weeks behind bars for probation violation.

In December when Lohan was staying at the Betty Ford Center in southern California, police were called to the facility and conducted a misdemeanor battery investigation involving Lohan and a Betty Ford Center staff member named Dawn Holland.

Holland initially said Lohan pushed her and snatched a telephone from her hand. But Holland later told investigators she would no longer cooperate and did not want charges filed.

"Our standard is that if we file charges, we believe that we can produce enough evidence to convict someone beyond a reasonable doubt and that was not the case here," Hall said.

Hall said he could not be specific about the findings of his office's review of the case.

Lohan left the Betty Ford Center in January, after checking into the facility in October for failing a random drug test required by her probation for the 2007 drunk conviction.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

"Mad Men" air date pushed back to early 2012

LOS ANGELES | Tue Mar 29, 2011 4:11pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The ad agency drama "Mad Men," which was due to begin its fifth season in the summer, will not return until early 2012 because of stalled contract talks with its creator, cable channel AMC said on Tuesday.

The network is reportedly close to signing a deal worth $30 million with Matt Weiner, but he is fighting demands involving product placement, cast changes and a reduced running time, according to news Web site Deadline Hollywood.

A spokeswoman for AMC, a unit of Cablevision Systems Corp, declined to comment beyond the company's statement.

"While we are getting a later start than in years past due to ongoing, key non-cast negotiations, 'Mad Men' will be back for a fifth season in early 2012," AMC said in the statement.

AMC said it triggered an option with the show's producer, the television arm of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, to begin work on a fifth season, despite the impasse.

The contract talks are expected to be resolved before production resumes for next season, a source with knowledge of the situation said.

Weiner, a former writer for "The Sopranos," is intricately involved with every detail of every episode.

"Mad Men," revolving around the martini-swilling staff at a Madison Avenue agency in the turbulent 1960s, draws tiny ratings for AMC. But it is one of the most acclaimed shows on television, winning the best drama Emmy for three consecutive years. Its fourth season, which ended in October, will be eligible for the Emmy Awards in September.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Dean Goodman)

Britney Spears to tour with Enrique Iglesias

NEW YORK | Tue Mar 29, 2011 12:00pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Britney Spears will begin a tour with Spanish pop star Enrique Iglesias in June, the 29-year-old singer said on Tuesday in an announcement coinciding with the release of her new album, "Femme Fatale."

Spears told Good Morning America in a segment that aired on Tuesday she will tour with Iglesias in the United States and Canada.

"I'm going on tour with Enrique Iglesias in June," Spears told the morning chat show backstage during a sold out small concert which was filmed on Sunday in San Francisco, performing her singles, "Hold It Against Me" and "Till The World Ends."

"I love music. It's my world," she said during the show. "I'm so happy to be able to share it with everyone."

The tour announcement coincided with the release of Spears' seventh studio album, the electro-pop "Femme Fatale", which has attracted mixed reviews and took two years to make.

Spears' has said little about the album -- which features a host of collaborators such as rapper will.i.am -- although she has called it "my best work yet" on a recent radio appearance when she stressed its dance roots.

The tour with Iglesias, 35, is scheduled to begin June 17 in Sacramento, California and will travel around the United States and Canada until the final show on August 13 in Toronto.

(Reporting by Bernd Debusmann Jr., editing by Christine Kearney)