Pacquiao floors Hatton in second round

Favorite Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines claimed the IBO light-welterweight title with a stunning second round knockout of Britain's Ricky Hatton on Saturday.

The 30-year-old southpaw twice knocked the Englishman to the canvas in the opening round before ending the fight with a stinging left hook two minutes and 59 seconds into the second round.

"I was surprised that this was so easy but I've worked hard in training camp since the beginning of March," a beaming Pacquiao said in a ringside interview. "He was wide open for the right hook. I knew he would be looking for my left.

"It's nothing personal. I was just doing my job.

"This is as big for me as the De La Hoya win," the Filipino added, referring to his eight-round stoppage of 10-times world champion Oscar De La Hoya in Las Vegas in December.

Hatton, who had stopped American Paulo Malignaggi in November to retain his IBO light-welterweight belt, was left motionless in the center of the ring for several minutes before being helped to his feet to sit on a stool.

"It was a hard loss but I am okay," the 30-year-old Manchester boxer said before being taken to the nearby Valley Hospital as a precaution.

"I really didn't see the punch coming but it was a great shot. I know I will be okay."

Widely regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, Pacquiao improved his career record to 49-3-2 with 37 knockouts.

Hatton, who had never previously lost at his natural weight of 140 pounds, slipped to 45-2 with 32 knockouts.

CAPACITY CROWD

Watched by a capacity crowd of around 16,000 that included Hollywood actors Christian Bale and Jack Nicholson and boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., Hatton began the opening round by cramping Pacquiao and repeatedly forcing him to back-peddle.

However, the Filipino responded with a flurry of combinations late in the round, bloodying the Englishman's nose with a right hook before sending Hatton sprawling to the canvas.

Under concerted pressure, Hatton was pinned to the ropes before again being knocked to the floor by a Pacquiao left hook.

Pacquiao maintained the dazzling pace in the second round, landing a series of sharp punches and jabs before feinting with the right and unleashing a stinging left hook to the jaw, which put Hatton flat on his back.

"This was no surprise," said Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach, who had predicted his man would need only three rounds to win. "Hatton pumps his hands before he throws a punch. He is a sucker for the right hook and this is what we worked on.

"He cocks back before he throws his punches. He fights the same way over and over. I studied tapes of all his fights for the last two months and I know him as well as I know my own fighter."

Pacquiao dominated the official ringside statistics, connecting with 73 of 127 punches thrown to 18 of 78 for Hatton. He also landed 65 power punches compared to Hatton's 16.

Hatton's trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. said: "I really felt Ricky would get him. I don't want to go into it more than that."

Pacquiao could next fight the winner of the bout between Mayweather Jr., who announced earlier he would come out of retirement, and Mexico's Juan Manuel Marquez who meet in a non-title welterweight fight in Las Vegas on July 18.

http://www.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idUSTRE5420FG20090503?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

Dad Speaks Out Against Madonna's Adoption Appeal

The man believed to be the biological father of Mercy, the 4-year-old Malawian girl Madonna is trying to adopt, says he he wants to raise her in his own culture.

"I want to take care of her, and I'm capable of taking care of my baby," James Kambewa told CBS's The Early Show in an interview to air Monday, the same day the court will hear Madonna's appeal of the rejected adoption.

"Mercy, she is a Malawian, so [I] need her to grow as a Malawian ... with our culture," he said.

The hearing in Madonna's appeal case will be led by the head of the judiciary in Malawi. The southern African country's High Court had previously rejected her application to adopt Mercy Chifundo James.

In his interview, Kambewa tells The Early Show that he's never met his daughter and has only seen her "in newspapers and TV, not face to face."

Madonna spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg said she doesn't know if Kambewa is the girl's father and that Mercy has been in an orphanage all her life, according to the Associated Press.

The singer, 50, found Mercy, whose teenage mother had died, at Kondanani Children's Village in the town of Bvumbwe when she first visited Malawi in October 2006, the same time she found David Banda at a different orphanage.

Madonna is not required to attend Monday's hearing.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20276305,00.html

Coldplay to give away live CD at gigs

Coldplay will give a live CD away for free to fans at gigs during their coming tour of North America, underlining the dwindling financial importance for successful groups of selling physical records.

The group, who had 2008's biggest-selling pop album with "Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends," kick off their summer tour on May 15th.

The CD, called "LeftRightLeftRightLeft," will also be available as a free download through the band's website www.coldplay.com.

"Playing live is what we love," Coldplay said in a statement. "This album is a thank-you to our fans -- the people who give us a reason to do it and make it happen."

Declining physical CD sales and Internet piracy have eaten away at bands' revenues from music sales, prompting acts to focus increasingly on live tours and merchandising.

In 2007, Prince gave away his album "Planet Earth" for free with copies of a weekly British newspaper, angering retailers and the record label which had a deal to distribute it.

But the publicity it generated was one factor behind his successful live run at the O2 Arena in London, where Michael Jackson plans to launch his comeback with 50 concerts starting later this year.

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE54050R20090501

A grown-up Matthew McConaughey faces his "Ghosts"

Moviemaking has finally collided with real life for formerly freewheeling actor Matthew McConaughey, not only in his new romantic comedy "The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," but in his career choices, too.

In "Ghosts," which debuts in U.S. theaters on Friday, the actor plays a man who bids farewell to bachelorhood, which seems appropriate for the 39-year-old who recently bought a house in Malibu, settled down with his girlfriend Camila Alves, and welcomed his first child, Levi, into the world.

McConaughey plays Connor in the movie, a philandering celebrity photographer who runs into his childhood sweetheart, played by Jennifer Garner, at his brother's wedding.

On the eve of the nuptials, he receives visits from three ghosts, who point out the errors of his womanizing ways and scare him to death -- nearly.

"It's got a huge heart," McConaughey says of the movie that draws from the premise of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" in which angry old Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by ghosts and sees that he should become a better man.

Sitting cross-legged in a patio chair and talking to Reuters about the movie, the actor well-known for his tanned physique said his new movie is about second chances.

"It's about what would you do if you could go back in time and change things, or if you could go forward in time to see where you're going to end up, on the path you're going.

"How have your actions affected other people? Maybe Connor didn't mean to hurt anyone, but he found out he hurt a lot of people," McConaughey said.

The herald of the three ghosts is the spirit of Connor's late Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas), an old-school ladies' man who taught his nephew all his womanizing tricks.

McConaughey credits his own mother as among his best teachers in the ways of love, saying she dispensed far better advice to himself and his two brothers than what Uncle Wayne offers in "Ghosts."

"My mother was always rooting us on, telling us, 'Look, a lot of people see it as the girl's the catch, and the guy just chases. Yes the guy chases, but remember, you're a catch, too.' So it was good hearing that from my mother," he said.

McConaughey will soon have the chance to pass along some of his mother's wisdom to his son Levi, who was born last July.

"I can't wait to talk to my son about women," he said. "We go somewhere now, he knows women, and he flirts with women.

"We put him in front of the duck for the first time. He looks at the duck, and he's like, 'Yeah, that's interesting.' He looks over to the left and there's this beautiful little three-year-old girl with long eyelashes, and he just reaches over and starts petting her hair. And we're like, 'Oh my gosh, there he goes.'"

In addition to what McConaughey calls "this epic that I'm making in raising my son," the Texas-born actor is staying busy acting. He will next star in the courtroom thriller "Lincoln Lawyer," drama "Stolen," and the bar-brawling comedy "The Grackle," which he will also produce.

But the arrival of Levi has made McConaughey more selective about his roles. "If I wanted to do something before Levi in South Africa, and we leave tomorrow -- 'Okay, let's go!'

"But now, there's a bigger circus you pick up," he said. "You're picking up your family. And you go, 'Okay, well, let's talk about this.' So I'm probably a little more selective."

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5406P720090501?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

"Angels & Demons" set for glitzy Rome premiere

After exposing a Church cover-up in "The Da Vinci Code," symbologist Robert Langdon returns to the big screen as an unlikely Vatican ally in the latest movie adaptation of a novel by author Dan Brown.

"Angels & Demons," again starring Tom Hanks as Langdon and directed by Ron Howard, premieres in Rome Monday at a theater a mile away from Vatican City.

In the film, Langdon is recruited by the Vatican after the pope dies and four cardinals who are favorites to succeed him are kidnapped.

Langdon races through the "Eternal City" deciphering clues linked to a centuries-old secret society, the Illuminati.

"He is not the man the Vatican trusts -- he is the man the Vatican needs," Howard said in production notes for the movie.

Ewan McGregor plays the central role of the "Camerlengo," or chamberlain, who runs the Vatican between the time of the pope's death and the election of his successor.

"He sees himself as a man who will do whatever it takes to save the Church from the Illuminati and everything they represent," McGregor said.

The film hits theatres in the United States on May 15.

VATICAN STAYING QUIET

Angels & Demons has so far avoided the kind of broadside the Vatican aimed at The Da Vinci Code film in 2005 and 2006 and the following year at "The Golden Compass" starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

"Dramatizing the issue involuntarily gives publicity to Angels & Demons," said Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, in an interview with Italy's La Stampa newspaper.

"Be careful not to play their game."

The Da Vinci Code upset the Vatican and some Catholics because of its storyline, in which Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, creating a royal bloodline that Church officials kept secret for centuries.

Christians are taught that Jesus never married, was crucified and rose from the dead.

Despite the controversy, and a critical mauling at the Cannes film festival where it was launched, The Da Vinci Code went on to gross more than $750 million worldwide, supporting the theory that no publicity is bad publicity.

However, the Rome archdiocese did refuse Angels & Demons the right to shoot in historic churches, forcing the crew to recreate them in Los Angeles.

And in the United States, Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, accused Brown and Howard of "smearing the Catholic Church with fabulously bogus tales."

Howard responded by saying that neither he nor his new movie were anti-Catholic.

"And let me be a little controversial: I believe Catholics, including most in the hierarchy of the Church, will enjoy the movie for what it is: an exciting mystery, set in the awe-inspiring beauty of Rome," Howard wrote in a post on The Huffington Post website.

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5401TA20090501?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' grosses $35 million Friday night

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is howling its way to the top of the box office with an opening day gross of $35 million. Bowing in 4,099 theaters, the film boasted a per-screen average of $8,539 on Friday. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner) also scored a healthy opening-day number, with $5.8 million in 3,175 theaters. Wolverine's opening-day haul lags behind 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand's single-day opening gross of $45 million, according to Hollywood.com's box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. Whether the can make up the deficit in the next two days remains to be seen. If not, it's highly unlikely the Hugh Jackman flick will manage to match Iron Man's gross of $98.6 from this same weekend last year.

http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/05/x-men-origins-w.html

The Private Lives of Pop Stars, Male Division

In the past year the Jonas Brothers, three charming, talented, aggressively hairstyled, purity-ring-wearing brothers from northern New Jersey, transformed from a middling tween-focused band into perhaps the most significant pop juggernaut since ’N Sync.

They had a hit album and tour, experienced public romances and breakups and, in an unanticipated twist, earned some respect. They played — a bit awkwardly — with Stevie Wonder at the Grammy Awards. Rolling Stone magazine coordinated a surprisingly lively conversation between Nick Jonas, the band’s main songwriter, and one of his idols, Elvis Costello.

But “Jonas,” the brothers’ new Disney Channel sitcom, which begins Saturday, is a calculated, perhaps fearful step backward, a reclamation of innocence. Here Kevin, 21, Joe, 19, and Nick, 16, play the Lucas brothers, pop stars in retreat, trying to maintain normal lives at high school while fame rages just outside the door.

And yet there’s little innocent about “Jonas,” a blithe, thinly drawn, thus far unfunny show seeded with profound cynicism befitting a much older band. Nick chases a girl, Penny (Bridgit Mendler), a winsome blonde with a purple guitar who wants him only for his songwriting. And Stella (Chelsea Staub), the band’s schoolmate and fashion designer, spends Saturday’s episode designing tear-away Velcro clothing, a more economically efficient response to rabid shirt-grabbing fans. The show does neatly capture the many denizens of the rock star ecosystem. Here’s Stella, the loyalist who styles the band, chatting with Macy (Nicole Anderson), a twitching, zealous fan-droid who shrieks on command:

“What do you do,” Stella asks Macy, “just follow them around all day?”

Replies Macy, indignantly, “No, of course not!” And then, with a tragicomic exhale and hopeful fluttering eyelashes, “Why, do they see me?”

In the band’s music life, Nick gives off the savviest air, so it’s disappointing to see him here reduced to playing a dullard, a romantic incompetent resigned to life in the bubble. “Read the fan magazines,” he says to Penny. “I’m the serious one!” Or, as Macy describes him: “All that intensity!”

Because this premiere episode centers on Nick, Joe and Kevin have more room for tomfoolery, and it’s welcome. The show’s most credible moments come when the two oldest brothers needle the youngest about his crush; that sort of kid behavior never ages. But Nick has the air of an adult squeezed into children’s clothing and behavior — a glum, frustrated pop star playing a glum, frustrated pop star. Maybe he has never watched “The Monkees.”

The stench of obligation is overwhelming, except around Kevin, the least essential band member, but here on equal footing. In “Camp Rock,” last year’s Disney Channel hit movie, which starred the brothers, Joe was the lead, a bratty pop star in need of reform, a clever tweak to the group’s angelic image. In the initial, scrapped version for this show, the Jonas Brothers led double lives as spies, which, while a mockable conceit, at least was a conceit.

That this show lacks any such twist is less forgivable given that it’s not the Disney Channel’s first foray into the double consciousness of teen-pop fame. “Hannah Montana,” the Miley Cyrus vehicle, is about a pop star who leads a dual life. But while Ms. Cyrus grew up in, and through, “Hannah Montana,” the Jonas Brothers are already famous well beyond tweens. Their audience is wider and smarter and probably expects more than this noxious, awkward mix of art, commerce and romance.

“Are you saying the song’s available?” Nick asks Penny about the song he wrote for her, which she unsuccessfully used to woo another boy.

“It’s completely unattached,” she replies.

In that case, Nick proposes, “I think we have a demo to record.” All that intensity. Sigh.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/arts/television/02jona.html?ref=television

Could Adam Lambert be first gay "American Idol"?

Adam Lambert wears eyeliner and diamond stud earrings, sings like a dream and has won a rare standing ovation from tough-minded judge Simon Cowell.

With three weeks to go before the "American Idol" final, Lambert, 27, is favored to win the No. 1 U.S. television talent show and become, possibly, the first gay or bisexual singer to be handed the "Idol" title by millions of Americans.

Lambert, praised by "Idol" judges for taking risks with songs like Cher's "Believe", has never publicly confirmed his sexual preference, nor has he denied speculation about being gay -- a striking contrast to 2003 runner-up Clay Aiken.

When photos showing him kissing other men and dressed in drag circulated on the Internet last month, Lambert said simply: "I have nothing to hide. I am who I am."

Lambert ended in the bottom two for the first time on Wednesday night, but viewers have so far shown little sign of caring about his ambiguous sexual orientation.

An army of "Glambert" fans cheer him on, vote for him weekly and have made him the favorite to win.

"Some people are saying, wouldn't it be amazing that in the same year that the first African-American president took office in the U.S., we also elected the first gay and/or bisexual 'American Idol'," said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University in New York.

"I don't think that's comparable. Rather than being surprised, I am thinking 'Wow, have we really got this far without having one yet?'"

Gender-bender stars are nothing new in the music business -- Elton John, Prince and the androgynous Boy George. Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell are openly lesbian, and while TV stars like Neil Patrick Harris have come out as homosexual, Hollywood awaits its first huge gay male star.

"American Idol" may just give it to U.S. music fans. The show has become a cultural phenomenon in the United States in the last eight years and is as much a popularity contest as a talent show. The audience that averages 26.3 million viewers weekly has shown an openness to embrace everyone from 8 to 80 years old -- and it's the viewers who vote to decide who wins.

Aiken, the 2003 runner-up, dodged questions about his homosexuality for five years before publicly acknowledging in 2008 that he was gay.

Lambert, who donned a white silk suit and diamond ear studs for the show this week, is more flamboyant in his dress, vocal style and performances than most -- if not all -- contestants.

"Idol" judge Kara DioGuardi called him "confusing, shocking, over the top, theatrical -- but I like it!"

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE53T7CB20090430

Iranian, U.S. films win top Tribeca festival awards

Publish Post

An Iranian film about college friends reuniting for a weekend by the Caspian Sea and a U.S. documentary about teenage go-kart racers won the top prizes at the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday.

Asghar Farhadi's "About Elly (Darbareye Elly)" won the Best Narrative Feature and Marshall Curry's "Racing Dreams" took out the Best Documentary Feature. The directors, who have previously shown films at Tribeca, were each awarded $25,000.

The world narrative competition judges -- producer Richard Fischoff, filmmaker Todd Haynes, and actors Bradley Cooper, Meg Ryan and Uma Thurman -- described "About Elly" as a "seamless piece of ensemble filmmaking."

"The universality of the characters and themes, and the directors riveting grasp of this story make 'About Elly' a film that collapses barriers and deepens our understanding of the world we share," they said.

The judges in the world documentary competition were filmmakers Liz Garbus, Morgan Spurlock, author and academic Henry Louis Gates, Jr., actress Whoopi Goldberg, and NBC News anchor Brian Williams.

"Is it nature or nurture? Is it the car or the driver? While those eternal questions will live on, we reacted with unanimous, unquestioned affection for 'Racing Dreams', and found it a completely compelling, entertaining film of incredible quality," the judges said.

Norwegian director Rune Denstad Langlo was named Best New Narrative Filmmaker for "North (Nord)", which tells the tale of a depressed 30-year-old ski lift operator who sets off to reclaim the life he lost after a sporting accident.

ACTOR, ACTRESS GONGS

Irish actor Ciaran Hinds won the Best Actor award for playing a widower with children who volunteers at a literary festival in "The Eclipse", while U.S. actress Zoe Kazan won the Best Actress award for her role as a college student struggling to control her emotions in "The Exploding Girl".

Ian Olds won the Best New Documentary Filmmaker for "Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi", which examines the life of an Afghani who translates and arranges interviews for foreign journalists. Naqshbandi was kidnapped and beheaded by the Taliban in 2007.

"A film about an unsavory world, and its unsavory characters, which through its superb direction, shines a light on a world unfamiliar to many Americans," the jury commented.

In the New York competition category, the Best Narrative went to "Here and There", directed by Serbian Darko Lungulov, starring David Thornton and his wife, singer Cyndi Lauper. It tells the tale of a jaded middle-aged New Yorker who travels to Serbia to make some quick money by marrying a woman who wants to move to the United States.

Best Documentary in the New York competition went to "Partly Private", which explores the issue of circumcision and is directed by Danae Elon.

The eighth annual Tribeca Film Festival, founded by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff to help rejuvenate downtown Manhattan after the September 11 World Trade Center attacks, showed 85 feature films from 32 countries this year.

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5400GG20090501

Kelis Files For Divorce From Nas

Publish Post

One of hip-hop's premiere couples is reportedly splitting: Kelis has filed for divorce from Nas, according to Vibe.com. She is seven months' pregnant with the couple's first child.

"I can confirm that she has filed for divorce," a spokesperson for Kelis reportedly told the site on Thursday (April 30). "We request the media to respect her privacy during this very difficult time."

On Thursday afternoon, attorney Laura Wasser (who has also represented Britney Spears) filed a divorce petition on behalf of Kelis, citing irreconciable differences. Vibe.com posted the petition on its site.

The news comes mere weeks after Nas spoke excitedly with MTV News about the baby. When asked earlier this month how Kelis was doing, he said, "She's great, man. She's doing good. [We are deciding between] a few baby names. It's kinda hard. I've been thinking about kinda putting something online: 'Choose his name.' You get a couple stacks for that. We take care of you for that. You win something real. But we're thinking now."

Nas and Kelis first met in 2002 at an MTV Video Music Awards afterparty thrown by Sean "Diddy" Combs. The couple dated for two years and were married in Atlanta in January 2005.

While rumors about the couple splitting have been circulating for some time, and RapRadar.com reported that a split was imminent earlier on Thursday, the news still took many by surprise.

Reps for both artists had not granted MTV News' requests for comment at press time.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1610426/20090430/nas.jhtml