Helen Mirren, Oscar winner for her role in The Queen, will step into Bette Midler’s role opposite Al Pacino in the HBO film Phil Spector. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Bette Midler had to step down from the role after a herniated disc in her back put her out of commission; Midler may require surgery. Less than a week after Midler’s departure, HBO has announced that Mirren will replace her.

The film focuses on the relationship between music producer and now convicted murderer Spector during his first trial for the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson in his home. Mirren will play his defense attorney, Linda Kenny Braden. The original 2007 trial resulted in a mistrial; in 2009 a second trial ended with a conviction and 19 year sentence for Spector, who continues to appeal in spite of the conviction being upheld by the California Court of Appeals shortly after the original verdict.

Mirren isn’t new to television work, nor is she new to working with HBO. She won an Emmy in 2005 for her work on the HBO film Elizabeth I about the life of England’s most famous female monarch before she went on to playing another Queen Elizabeth on the big screen. The actress has also taken home 3 other Emmy awards. The cast also includes Jeffrey Tambor of Arrested Development and is written and directed by David Mamet who was nominated for an Academy Award for . The impressive cast gives HBO high hopes of another successful award winner with the Spector film.

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Screen tough guy Salman Khan's corrupt cop romp "Dabangg" (Fearless) won a clutch of awards including best picture at the "Bollywood Oscars," held for the first time in North America. The film directed by Abhinav Kashyap won in the hugely important music categories for best female playback singer, best male playback singer and best music direction, as well as best screenplay. Actor Sonu Sood also picked up the award for best performance in a negative role as the evil head of a regional political party in the film. He thanked his mother when accepting the award.

"My Name is Khan" followed with four nods for best story, best lyrics, best director for Karan Johar and best actor for Shah Rukh Khan's portrayal of a Muslim suffering from Asperger's syndrome who is detained at a US airport after his disability is mistaken for suspicious behaviour.

The making of the film was "emotional and therapeutic," Johar said after the win, adding it taught him "restraint and love."Tens of thousands of fans swarmed Toronto's Rogers' Centre stadium for the 12th annual Indian International Film Academy awards, and another 700 million were expected to have watched it on television.

"I love you so much," screamed Mamta Sharma over and over, after winning the award for best female playback singer for the song "Munni Badnam."A tense moment followed when a fan grabbed Shah Rukh Khan onstage, leading the "King of Bollywood" to complain that the man was hurting his leg.

"This is the problem, only men grab my thighs," Khan joked as his assailant was escorted off stage.
Khan's return to the awards show after a six-year absence had earlier been put in doubt by a knee injury that had required being taped up at a hospital and "a couple of injections."He said he had fractured a part of the bone and the ligament was "swollen to three times the size it should be."

He had vowed to perform at the IIFA show but in the end his dance steps were tremendously scaled back, and he urged the audience to fill in the rest by dancing in the aisles. Khan last attended the IIFA in Amsterdam in 2005, and last performed at the show a year earlier in Singapore.

A three-day festival leading up to awards night saw flash mobs of Indian dancers, gala movie premieres, a fashion show and Indian cultural events. Jermaine Jackson also performed his late brother Michael's hits with Indian pop singer Sonu Nigam at an IIFA concert on Friday to commemorate the second anniversary of Michael's death. Launched in 2000 at the Millennium Dome in London, the annual IIFA awards have been held in 11 cities around the world, including Colombo, Macao, Bangkok, Dubai, Amsterdam and Johannesburg. It is designed to celebrate the popular Hindi-language film industry and win new audiences abroad. The award for best dialogue went to the thriller "Ishqiya" (Love).

Anushka Sharma won for best leading female role for the romantic comedy "Band Baaja Baaraat" (The Wedding Planners), which marked the directing debut of Maneesh Sharma. Arjun Rampal and Prachi Desai won awards for best supporting roles in the thriller "Raajneeti" (Politics) and the gangster movie "Once Upon A Time In Mumbai," respectively.

Ritesh Deshmukh, who co-hosted the Indian film industry's glitziest awards show with Boman Irani, won best performance in a comic role in the Tamil film remake "Housefull.""Who said award shows are not fixed?" he quipped. "If you host the awards show for four years, they give you an award."The nominations came from more than 1,500 votes from the Indian film fraternity.

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At a press conference held recently in Nagpur, music director Ismail Darbar unsealed few boxes of secret which is likely to draw few controversies in B-town in future. Ismail accused internationally acclaimed film composer, A R Rahman for unofficially buying the Oscar awards as he did not deserve it. Accroding to Darbar, Rahman bagged two Oscars in 2008 Best Original Score and Best Original Song for his music in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ by bribing the Academy officials.

Reportedly, Darbar quoted that Rahman is a very good business man who knows hot to handle his public relations. He claimed that the ‘Slumdog Millionaires’ songs which earned lifetime fortune to Rahman are not even his as he is just a fantastic salesperson.

He said he has proof that ‘Jai Ho’ is not his but someone else’s creation and will expose the proofs if needed. Darbar even claims that industry’s big filmmakers Subhash Ghai and Mani Ratnam aren’t aware about it. However, according to him, none in the industry will come out and speak-up because Rahman is a big name.

Darbar also questioned a decade old incident when both ‘Saathiya’ won a National Award for music, (composed by Rahman) as he says that a dubbed movie never goes for such nominations. He further concludes that he wanted to talk about this forever abut just that no one ever asked me about it ever.

Meanwhile, Vijay Iyer, a Rahman’s team member laughs at the allegations made by Darbar and said that it’s a free country and everyone has the right to make his comments on anyone. AR and his music has always been sincere and loyal to his fans since the last twenty years, he sighed off.

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Rahman’s big O has run into big trouble — the singer’s Oscar awards, alleges composer Ismail Darbar, were ‘bought’, to which the 45-year-old Academy winner retorts, “Oscars cannot be bought. It’s 3000 people... how can it be possible!” The argument began at a recent press conference in Nagpur, where Mumbai-based Darbar, 46, claimed that AR Rahman, who has to his credit two Academy Awards — Best Original Score and Best Original Song — for his music in Slumdog Millionaire (2008), had ‘bought’ the honours and did not deserve them.

When we contacted him, he explained, “I just don’t understand how the music for that movie won the prestigious award. Aap hi bataiye us film ke music main Oscars jaisa kya tha ... kuch bhi toh nahi tha (What was Oscar-worthy about it? Nothing). Agar Rahman ko Roja ya Bombay ke liye milta, toh samaj bhi aata aur main bhi khush hota… but not for Slumdog (I would have been happy had he won it for films like Roja or Bombay). He did not deserve it. Aur, mujhe pata hai ki ise kharida gaya hai (And, It know that it has been bought).”Darbar, however, refuses to reveal more about how he ‘knows’ that the award was ‘bought’. He also says it is not publicity that is driving him to make the allegation. “There are other ways to get publicity,” he says. Meanwhile, others from  the industry seem to support Rahman. “It’s sad if Darbar said that. Rahman has made us proud,” says composer Lalit Pandit. “I don’t think Rahman can ever do that,” says composer Sulaiman Merchant.

 

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Fashion and Hollywood have always been inextricably linked. So when a bright new talent starts making waves on the film circuit, garnering awards and an Oscar nomination - as Jennifer Lawrence did for her break-out role in last year's Winter's Bone - the fashion community pays attention. 

Lawrence, 20, has just completed her first award season, meaning umpteen turns on the red carpet and a host of designers fawning over her.

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Academy Award organizers plan to move voting online, replacing the current mailed ballot system. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has contacted its members asking for e-mail addresses, so they can cast their votes electronically.

The approximately 6,000 academy members determine Oscar nominees, with a vote traditionally made in late December, and then the winners, with a vote cast after the finalists are named in January. They usually are given three weeks to mail in their ballot.

No timetable is yet determined for the change to electronic voting, according to academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger. The request for e-mail addresses is just a first step, she said.

Electronic voting could speed up the process of determining the winner, and lead to the Oscar gala being moved forward. That could affect the timing of other award galas, including the Golden Globes, second only to the Academy Awards in Hollywood glitz. Next year's Oscar ceremony is already set for Feb. 26, 2012.

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And the winner is... going to be determined online. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is planning to change its Oscars voting system to allow members to make their picks electronically, rather than through mailed, paper ballots the way they have for years.

The approximately 6,000 members of the Academy received a letter recently, asking that they provide updated email addresses. No exact timetable for the shift is in place, but this is the first step, Academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger said Tuesday. The change, which The New York Times first reported, could result in an earlier Oscar ceremony. The show usually takes place in late February.

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Very soon, the annual mailing of the official Oscar ballots — one of the goofier rituals in the annual Academy Awards cycle — will be a thing of the past. On Thursday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which presents the Oscars, sent a letter advising its 6,000 or so voting members that an electronic system for Oscar voting will be implemented “as early as this year, and will certainly be in effect by next year.”

The letter, which was signed by Kimberly Roush, the academy’s director of membership, asked members for a personal email address that is distinct from anything that goes to an assistant or intermediary. “At some point, once the system is up and running,” wrote Ms. Roush, “mailed ballots will be eliminated.”

The much-anticipated shift to electronic voting could have enormous import for awards season. By eliminating the lag time that comes with paper ballots, which were sent through the mail, the academy’s governors could move the awards night from late February to an earlier weekend. Many in Hollywood have argued that earlier awards will mean a shorter, more vibrant season; others have contended that less time to mull the movies means less attention to them over all, and perhaps fewer ticket sales.

To date, academy officials have been wary of an electronic system, which they feared might be subject to breach by hackers, or might tend to disenfranchise some of the older, less digitally inclined members. Teni Melidonian, a spokeswoman for the academy, had no immediate comment on the mailing.

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Oscar-winning French actress Marion Cotillard (Mah-ree-OHN Ko-tee-YAR) and her partner - actor-director Guillaume Canet (Gee-YOM Ka-NAY) - are parents. The Adequat talent agency said Friday that the actress gave birth in Paris a day earlier to a boy named Marcel - her first child.

Cotillard, 35, won an Academy Award in 2008 for her role as French singing legend Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose." She's currently among the stars in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris."She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in "Nine" last year, when she also co-starred with Leonardo DiCaprio in "Inception."

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Kirstie Alley admits to being an "airhead" about some things. While training to appear on "Dancing With the Stars," she told reporters how clueless she had been about the grueling regimen endured by professional hoofers. Now she seems to be a bit, ahem, confused about Hollywood trophies.

After she survived this week's elimination and reaped her first 10 score, Kirstie said that, if she won the show, it would "be like winning an Oscar. Because it's something I haven’t won before. It’s something I’ve always really wanted. It’s a different category, but I feel like we were just nominated."

Different category? Maybe she meant different universe. Maybe she's just a bit dizzy after all of that spinning and leaping on the show.

Oscars, of course, are for film, Emmys for TV. Alley has been nominated eight times for an Emmy: five times for "Cheers," once for "Veronica's Closet" and twice for TV flicks. She won for "Cheers" in 1991 and for the telefilm "David's Mother" in 1994. Alley has never been within 1,000 miles of Oscarland.

"Dancing With the Stars" has lost the Emmy bout for best reality-competition show five consecutive years. It not only lost for best reality-competition show each year, but -- worse -- it was also beaten for the trophy for best choreography. Maybe some of Alley's past Emmy glow can help the show now?

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