Entertainment - Page 26

Reuters - A film studio owned by technology and media entrepreneur Mark Cuban asked a U.S. federal court to force Google Inc. to identify people who put its copyrighted videos on Google Video and YouTube, Cuban said on Wednesday.

Reuters - MTV Networks, owner of the MTV and Comedy Central channels, is pushing a risky new Web strategy to win back young viewers from the likes of YouTube and MySpace.

AP - There was joy in "Roachville" on Wednesday as the edgy, Latino-themed comic strip "La Cucaracha" returned to the Los Angeles Times after a swift, Internet-driven protest.

Playbill - Conor McPherson's The Seafarer, embraced by critics in the 2006-07 season at the National Theatre of Great Britain, will play Broadway in fall 2007, according to a casting audition notice. More Info...  

AP - Lance Bass "tells all about his life, his music and his sexuality" in an upcoming autobiography, the publisher announced Wednesday. "Out of Sync" is scheduled for publication in October, said Simon Spotlight Entertainment, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

AP - Star Jones Reynolds has landed her own daily talk show — and she won't have to worry about Barbara Walters this time. Court TV said Wednesday it had hired Reynolds to run a show about criminal justice issues that intersect with the pop culture world. The show, which has no title yet, will likely start early this fall.

Fashion Wire Daily - After starring in a string of raunchy teen comedies - "Van Wilder," "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" and "Epic Movie" - Kal Penn can finally consider himself a serious actor based on his latest role in "The Namesake." At Tuesday night's NYC premiere, however, the 29-year-old actor was noticeably absent because he was off shooting his latest film. The title? "Harold and Kumar 2."

Entertainment News

AP - Frenchie Davis, dumped by "American Idol" in 2003 for lingerie shots posted on a Web site, moved on to Broadway success and thought she had buried a humiliating chapter of her young life.

Reuters - Indie singer/songwriter Leslie Feist spent more than two years on the road promoting her 2004 breakthrough, "Let It Die," but the core of her upcoming set, "The Reminder," was assembled in less than a week's worth of sessions at a rented home outside Paris. More Info...  

AP - Nancy Grace is taking on her first prime-time acting role, though it shouldn't be a stretch for the CNN Headline News talk-show host. More Info...  

AP - KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson suffered massive fractures and likely died immediately in the 1959 plane crash that also killed early rock 'n' rollers Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, a forensic anthropologist said Tuesday after exhuming the body.

AP - Since being booted from "American Idol," Jennifer Hudson has won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild prize and an Academy Award for best supporting actress. On Tuesday, the 25-year-old star of the movie "Dreamgirls" added one more award to the collection — she got her own day in her hometown.

Reuters - He is a watchdog of black American culture who might have directed any movie he wanted, but when it came to his first film, Nelson George tapped into subjects that hit close to home -- drugs, AIDS and his sister.

AP - The world premiere of "Three Days in the Life," a documentary about John Lennon, was canceled after lawyers for the slain Beatle's widow, Yoko Ono, warned that she had not authorized any public viewing of the film.

AP - Colombia celebrated the 80th birthday of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez on Tuesday with a vow to rebuild the author's childhood home in the banana-producing town of Aracataca and convert it into a museum.

AdWeek.com - IBM is the latest advertiser to illustrate the ongoing shift from traditional advertising to other marketing approaches as the company moves money to fund its foray into the making of short films. More Info...  

AP - Kanye West is not eating any $3,900 curry, his management said Tuesday. The British Raj restaurant had said that a music promotion company was paying that princely sum, plus travel and accommodation for the restaurant's head chef, to send a fully cooked Indian meal from Wales to New York for a meeting with West and seven guests.

AP - Ever conscious of a good trend, TV networks and advertisers are increasingly adopting the YouTube model of viewer-created content.

Entertainment News

AP - A lawsuit has been filed against Sean "Diddy" Combs, alleging the music mogul punched and pushed the plaintiff and his girlfriend at a Hollywood nightclub. Gerard Rechnitzer is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages in the suit, which was filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

AP - A lawsuit has been filed against Sean "Diddy" Combs, alleging the music mogul punched and pushed the plaintiff and his girlfriend at a Hollywood nightclub.