Movies Guide

The hilarious and talented Topp Twin’s, who play Camp Mother and Camp Leader in their show, were inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame at last night’s APRA Silver Scroll Awards in Auckland.

Jools and Lynda Topp, who’s induction makes the third in the Hall of Fame history, follow Jordan Luck and Johnny Devlin, who were inducted last year.

The award was introduced by APRA director Ant Healey, who outlined their career, which has included busking, and a comedic and protesting history, also saying that New Zealanders, whatever their politics, fell in love with them.

Whilst Healey described the twins as perhaps the most unlikely stars in New Zealand music history - “two yodelling lesbians from Huntly”, Prime Minister Helen Clark described the twins as “truly authentic Kiwi girls”.

Prime Minister Clark also paid tribute to the late Maori lesbian singer/songwriter Mahinarangi Tocker, honoured at the show’s opening, saying “Mahinarangi Tocker, so tragically taken from us - and so talented. I acknowledge and esteem her.”

An emotional tribute to Tocker was featured and her song “Forever”, featuring a string quartet, a school choir and the singers Shona Laing and Hinewehi Mohi was performed. Two screens were operating, showing images of Tocker with her fist raised in the air as she was performing at WOMAD guarded the stage. The piece ended to a standing ovation from the audience, some wiping away tears.

Out and proud lesbian musician Anika Moa was a finalist in the Silver Scroll Awards for her lovestruck tune “Dreams in My Head”, second only to  Opshop for “One Day”.

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Brad Pitt saved a young fan from drowning in Venice, Italy.

The actor - who was in the city at the Venice Film Festival to promote his new movie ‘Burn After Reading’ - grabbed the boy as he tripped while attempting to get an autograph from the Hollywood heartthrob.

As the youngster almost fell into the canal, Brad extended his arm and pulled him to safety.

An onlooker said: “The boy was just desperate to get an autograph. There were loads of paparazzi around Brad and he was trying to get through when he tripped and almost fell. Brad put his reflexes to good use and grabbed him at the last minute.”

Following the terrifying incident, Brad signed an autograph for the eager fan before dashing off.

Brad - who welcomed twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline with partner Angelina Jolie into the world in July - recently revealed he wants to have two more children with the ‘Wanted’ actress.

When asked how the babies were, father-of-six Brad replied, “The twins are fine”, before adding, “I’ll have two more by next year.”

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The former chancellor Helmut Schmidt is to mark his 90th birthday, on December 23, by releasing a CD on which he performs piano works by Bach. A film is also to be released to mark the birthday of Germany’s oldest living chancellor. On the CD, Chancellor and Pianist, Schmidt is accompanied by pianists Gerhard Oppitz and Justus Frantz, and the conductor Christoph Eschenbach. In a poignant interview Schmidt has said a growing problem with deafness is slowly destroying his ability to appreciate music, particularly that of Bach and Mozart, who he said had shaped his life.

YPSILANTI, Michigan (Billboard) - Bruce Springsteen concluded his three-day barnstorming tour in support of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday night with a 50-minute acoustic set for about 5,000 people in Ypsilanti.

“Hello, Michigan. Hello, Ypsilanti — glad to be here. I don’t know how to spell it, though,” Springsteen told the crowd at Oestrike Stadium on the campus of Eastern Michigan University.

The blue-collar set kicked off with “The Promised Land” and also included “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” “Thunder Road, “Devils & Dust,” “Used Car,” “No Surrender,” “The Rising” and Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”

Earlier in the show, Springsteen said: “I was on the campaign trail four years ago. This time we’re winning.” And before “The Rising,” he made a long speech similar to those he delivered Saturday in Philadelphia and Sunday in Columbus, Ohio (the text is posted on his official Web site (http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html)).

Springsteen finished the show leading the crowd in a rhythmic chant of Obama’s campaign slogan, “Yes we can.”

He isn’t finished with his Obama activism yet. On October 16, he will join Billy Joel and John Legend for a fund-raiser on behalf of the candidate at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom.

/Billboard

Michael Douglas will play a car dealer with a runaway libido in his new film ‘Solitary Man’.

According to Variety Douglas’ ‘War of the Roses’ co-star Danny DeVito will also feature in the film, along with Susan Sarandon and Jenna Fischer.

‘Ocean’s Thirteen’ writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien are directing a script written by Koppelman.

Douglas will play a former owner of a car dealership chain whose career and marriage were destroyed by his business and romantic liaisons.

Production will begin on the film in November in New York.

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WITH their raunchy outfits, suggestive choreography and ample cleavage, the
PUSSYCAT DOLLS are the last people on earth you’d expect to see dressed in
religious robes.

But MELODY THORNTON has confessed she wanted to be a NUN when
she was growing up.

To see the girls, watch below:

Melody said: “I wanted to be a nun. I did.”

But when bandmate ASHLEY ROBERTS suggested she could still be one, she
replied: “I can’t actually. I’ve done too many things.”

Melody added: “I used to watch these movies about people who really devote
their lives to charity in someway or bettering the world, devoting
themselves to serve God or a common purpose.”

“When I realised when I could sing I realised I could do both, like ANGELINA
JOLIE.”

Keith Urban [ ], Tim McGraw [ ], Donna Summer [ ] and members of Nickelback, The Offspring [ ] and The Red Hot Chili Peppers [ ] are among the artists participating in a benefit auction for Lit [ ] drummer Allen Shellenberger, who was recently diagnosed with a grade 4 malignant brain tumor.

The auction, sponsored by The Make A Noise Foundation through Ebay’s Giving Works Program, will include autographed items by various celebrities and musicians including an archive-quality signed and numbered giclee of a painting by actor Pierce Brosnan, a custom tattoo session by Aces High, a guitar lesson with Steve Vai, a “Baby Taylor” guitar autographed by McGraw, a “Knocked Up” movie poster signed by Judd Apatow and member of the cast and a dinner with Lit.

Other items available during the Ebay auction include: an original lithograph by Summer; a guitar autographed by members of Stained; an amplifier autographed by members of No Doubt, Sugar Ray and Lit; drum heads by The Offspring; a “Stadium Arcadium” CD signed by all the members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers; autographs from James Taylor, Nickelback and Maroon 5; and many other one-of-a-kind items, according to a press release.

All proceeds from the auction will benefit Shellenberger and Cedars-Sinai’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosugical Institute in Los Angeles, where the drummer is being treated.

Despite the diagnosis, Shellenberger, who is pursuing radiation and chemotherapy treatments, is said to be in good spirits and committed to the fight.

Wanaka man Stuart Landsborough has issued a $100,000 challenge to the producers and psychics of the TV show Sensing Murder.

Mr Landsborough, a longtime sceptic and founder of the $100,000 Psychic Challenge, wants the show’s producers and each psychic to undergo a test devised by him to prove actual psychic ability.

He calls into question editing of the show and verbal and non-verbal cueing of the psychics on the show.

The test is based on the psychic finding two parts of a promissory note in 60 minutes.

Sensing Murder producer David Baldock declined to participate in the test, because the show was not about finding objects but revealing new information in unsolved murder cases, he said.

“It’s set up like a finding a needle in a haystack approach.”

While the show had not solved any of the 20 cases investigated, the psychics had revealed new information known only to the police and had provided leads for further investigation, he said.

New Delhi (ANI): Popstar Jessica Simpson is eager to start a big family with her sporty beau Tony Romo. The 28-year-old, who has been dating the footballer since November last year, revealed that she had fallen head-over-heels for Romo, reports China Daily. She said: “I’d love six kids running around, but I guess I”ll have to start pretty soon. It’s a beautiful relationship.

“Tony is everything I could dream of and I really love him. I’m proud to be his girlfriend.” “Even if things don’t work out between Tony and me - though, knock on wood, I believe they will - I don’t regret anything I’ve ever said. The blonde actress further said that she doesn”t regret her days spent with ex-hubby Nick Lachey or the MTV reality show ”Newlyweds” since it has made her the person she is.

She told Australia’s Daily Telegraph newspaper:

On first encounter with Woodpigeon’s winningly under-stated debut, you might be forgiven for thinking that the elegant Canadian eight-piece hail from California, such is the light, loving, chilled, sunny, serene, softly swooning, cosseting warmth of all that seems to be on offer.

But dwell a little, and a painful, wistful nostalgia, a disenchantment with the all too quixotic here and now, and rapidly fraying threads of longing and loss, of uneasy displacement, and of unsettling isolation begin to make themselves felt. And suddenly this Woodpigeon becomes an altogether tougher, chewier and tastier proposition.

Any album that begins with a song called Home As A Romanticized Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always And Forever, and ends with the deliciously tongue-in-cheek That Was Good But You Can Do Better, was always going to have something to recommend it. What is especially likable is that somehow Woodpigeon, thanks in no small measure to the engaging jangling juxtaposition of Mark Hamilton’s delightfully dour and lovelorn lyrics and sprightly, sweetly mellow music, makes the morose seem wholly palatable.

Hamilton’s acute eye for the detail of domestic dramas is matched by a well-proportioned sense of scale and while the easy-going lyricism of it all may evoke the gentleness of folk music, there are enough deftly executed attention-grabbing hooks that hint at a keen pop sensibility lurking in the background.

That Songbook can’t be easily label – is there such a category as ‘Canadiana’? – is just one enticing element in the manifold attractions of this accomplished, quietly intelligent, playful and really rather enchanting debut.