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Great news!  Cullen Jones made the United States Olympic Swim Team!  He'll be swimming in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay in Beijing -- starting on August 10th.

Lia Neal also swam superbly.  She broke her own American age-group record in the 50-meter freestyle, she made the Junior National team, and she also qualified for the World Youth Games, but ironically she was too young to actually go.

Read more about PARTING THE WATERS at REELot.com

SPIDER-MAN 3 was the record holder (non-holiday) with $59.8 million of opening Friday and then a cume of $151.1 for the weekend.
More Information: http://www.warnerbros.com

The Dark Knight's Ghastly Joker: Heath Ledger Touted for an Oscar

Handsome is as handsome doesn't in The Dark Knight. Of the three male actors who dominate the movie, it's Heath Ledger with his face hidden behind twisted clown makeup, whose perfect features are never seen, who has proven to be the most memorable. Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight is both a demonic creation and three-ring circus of one. Ledger died in January at the age of 28 from an accidental overdose, after the principal photography of the film had concluded. His death could have cast a paralyzing pall over the movie if his performance were not so alive. Ledger's Joker is a creature of such ghastly life, and his performance is so visceral, creepy and insistently present that the portrayal pulls you in almost at once.

Ledger's performance is so intense and lasting in part because, despite his insane mask, it's a subtle and nuanced performance that is so powerful it almost erases all memories of the handsome Australian actor behind the Joker's mask. The makeup seems to have liberated Ledger. Ledger's body movements are flexibly agile, he's expressive with only his eyes and his voice has oscillating surges of irony, mockery and psychopathology. Ledger's performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight is an essay, in a way that he's never shown before when playing straight-faced characters, in pure magnetic charisma.

While Hollywood's Academy Awards are still more than six months away, the late Heath Ledger already is being touted for a supporting actor nomination for his terrifying performance in The Dark Knight. Ledger's performance is so mesmerizing and daring as Batman's clown-faced arch enemy that it's possible he might become the first performer since Peter Finch (in the 1976 Network) to receive a posthumous Oscar.

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The Dark Knight (Official Movie Trailer)

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Interview with Heath Ledger about The Dark Knight

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Director Christopher Nolan: Producing The Dark Knight

You can read more about what I've written earlier about Heath Ledger here and here.

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Woohoo, series 6 is going to start soon and by the look of it, it seems to be a brilliant series.  I will keep you informed when we can expect to see this series on channel 5 (yes I know some of you may have seen it on Sky or cable or whatever you have) but for some of us we don't have it, and have to wait till it is on "normal" tv.  But I can't wait, after CSI: New York finished and CSI: Las Vegas.  If any of these series stopped, I don't know where I would be lol.

LOS ANGELES - Britney Spears has agreed to hand the parenting reins over to Kevin Federline.

K-Fed's longtime attorney, Mark Vincent Kaplan, exclusively tells E! News the divorced duo have reached a settlement in their long-gestating custody case.

According to the agreement signed by all parties, Federline gets sole legal and physical custody of sons Sean Preston and Jayden James and Spears will have visitation rights.

"The case has been settled," Kaplan said. "The court still has to approve it. " Both parties are due in court Friday morning.

The case had been set to go to trial next month but all had been hoping to settle up beforehand.

"As of this evening there is a fully executed deal memo...All the issues that would have been addressed at trial have been settled," Kaplan told E! News. "Can't speak to the exact terms of the deal, [but the] orders in place...will stay in place."

Although this is theoretically good news for Federline, Kaplan maintains it isn't exactly what his client had in mind.

"Kevins was not [out] to get custody. Kevin's goal was to set up some kind of template so the mother of his children can coparent," Kaplan said.

"He said, 'I need to have Britney to be involved in the coparenting of the kids, but I need there to be a structure.' "

But this is the structure he got, and "Kevin is absolutely delighted," Kaplan continued.

"Nobody could have anticipated the terms of events that have occurred...This was a two-year journey that will be halted at a point that is good for these children. Custody is always modifiable. If there is a final order, it means there is nothing to try."

Spears has been enjoying monitored visits with her boys since late February after temporarily losing any on-hand-mommying privileges following a stretch of noticeably erratic behavior on her part and two brief hospital stays.

Federline's camp has credited the influence of Spears' father, Jamie, who was appointed a coconservator of his daughter's estate Feb. 1, for helping to get the 26-year-old popster back on track.

A court commissioner is scheduled to review whether to make the conservatorship permanent at the end of this month. If the arrangement were to end, what then happens to Spears' current deal?

"While I can't tell you the terms, the order does anticipate what happens if the conservatorship is ended," Kaplan told E! News. "The devil is always in the details, and this is a very detailed deal memo.

"Nobody can predict what the future will bring, but to the extent possible, I think we have really anticipated how to proceed."

Apparently Disney is finally coming out with an African-American animated princess film. For those who tried to keep buying the Princess Jasmine dolls because she was the darkest and most multi-cultural looking, there is hope.

But, as with most issues of race, the critics of Disney's cartoon movies are rearing their heads about the topic of this cartoon film.

Would a Disney movie that involves a black female character embroiled in a good-vs-evil plot regarding voodoo and being a "slave" of sorts to a prissy white Disney character be inflammatory?

This topic is no exception to the continuing arguments over race and positive imagery of black women. According to www.telegraph.co.uk:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="404" caption="Princess Tiana, the heroine of The Princess and The Frog, will be voiced by Anika Noni Rose [Star of Dreamgirls]"]"][/caption]

Originally called The Frog Princess, its heroine was to be a chambermaid called Maddy working for a spoiled, white debutante in 1920s New Orleans.

But it sparked a backlash from critics who claimed it reinforced prejudice and demeaned black people.

As a result the title of the musical, which has yet to be released, was changed to The Princess and The Frog and the princess will now be called Tiana.

Among the concerns were the New Orleans setting, the portrayal of voodoo and the overtones of slavery.

One of the film's staunchest critics was William Blackburn, a columnist for the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina.

"Disney should be ashamed of what it is trying to pass off as its first black princess," he said."Despite all its resources and experience, it has failed to create a black princess to rival its predecessors.

"For one, this princess' story is set in New Orleans, the setting of one of the most devastating tragedies to beset a black community. And then they throw in the voodoo theme and an alligator sidekick. When you put New Orleans, alligators and voodoo together, there's no beauty there."

He added that Maddy sounded too similar to Mammy, a name synonymous with the segregated Deep South.

Rodney Hinds, features editor of The Voice newspaper, said: "We are talking about a big company who has had to go back to the drawing board. It's disappointing... Some of the stereotyping of people from our community is still rigid in people's minds. We have our own dreams and stories like everyone else, and we want them to be portrayed positively."

Following the rewrite the heroine has been recast as Tiana who is destined to live happily ever after with a dashing character expected to be of Middle Eastern heritage. The race of the villain is also reported to have been revised.

A spokesman for Disney said: "The story takes place in the charming elegance and grandeur of New Orleans' fabled French Quarter during the Jazz Age... Princess Tiana will be a heroine in the great tradition of Disney's rich animated fairy tale legacy, and all other characters and aspects of the story will be treated with the greatest respect and sensitivity."-

From BallerStatus.com -- It's official Eminem is working on a new album.

It's been nearly four years since Em's latest studio album, Encore, but fans can now have something to look forward too. Dr. Dre's new protégé, Bishop Lamont, recently said the Eminem drought is almost over.

"Em is excited," Lamont told Entertainment Weekly. "He's been quiet too long, and he's got a lot to get off his chest."

While there is no release date just yet, the rapper's label confirmed that Eminem is back in the studio working on his next solo project.

Since the tragic death of his best friend and fellow rapper Proof, the 35-year-old rapper has been dealing with the grief and in the process has been MIA from the music scene.

However, Lamont says this new album will alleviate all that stress. "He went through what he had to go through, and now he's been able to take all the pain and stress and put it out in his music."

Stay tuned for further details.

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