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Diane LaneProducers guild picks 'Sunshine' as top filmThe offbeat, dark comedy "Little Miss Sunshine" was the surprise winner of the top feature film award
DiCaprio almost quit after TitanicBirthdays: Former Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., (79), actress Piper Laurie (75), actor Seymour Cassel (72), author Joseph Wambaugh (70), actor John Hurt (67), country singer-musician Teddy Gentry of Alabama (55), movie director Jim Jarmusch (54), hockey Hall-of-Famer Mike Bossy (50), actress Linda Blair (48), actress Diane Lane (42), actor-rap DJ Jazzy Jeff (42), country singer Regina Nicks of Regina Regina (42), rhythm-and-blues singer Marc Gay of Shai (38), actor Gabriel Macht (35), actor Balthazar Getty (32), actor Christopher Kennedy Masterson (27), pop singer Willa Ford (26), rhythm-and-blues singer Kelton Kessee of IMX (26), actress Beverley Mitchell (26), rock singer-musician Ben Moody (26). Leonardo DiCaprio reveals in the latest issue of Newsweek that he thought about giving up acting after the release of 1997 hit movie "Titanic." The actor says he was back to being considered "another piece of cute meat" after the film's spectacular box office success. It's an image he wanted to escape after years spent gracing the cover of teen magazines, he said. "It was pretty disheartening to be objectified like that," said the 32-year-old who spent years dating Victoria's Secret model Gisele Bundchen (more on her later). At Newsweek's Oscar panel discussion with other actors, DiCaprio said of "Titanic," "It made me, for the first time, in control of my career." Most recently, DiCaprio starred in a cast featuring Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon in "The Departed," which earned Martin Scorsese a Golden Globe for best director. So does DiCaprio still want to leave the business that earned him plum roles such as Luke Brower on "Growing Pains"? Don't be so sure. "There's no other art form in the world that affects me more. There's nothing that I walk away from feeling transformed by the way I do with cinema," he said. DON'T BLAME THE RUNWAY: Don't worry, we didn't forget about Gisele Bundchen, who on Friday entered Brazil's growing debate over anorexia, saying families are to blame -- not the fashion industry. "I never suffered this problem because I had a very strong family base," the supermodel, who stands 5foot-11 and is thought to weigh about 125 pounds, told the local Globo newspaper on Friday. "The parents are responsible, not fashion." Anorexia became a hot issue in Brazil after the deaths of four young women last month, including 21year-old model Ana Carolina Reston. "Everybody knows the standard for models is to be thin," Bundchen said. "But you can't generalize and say that all models are anorexic." Bundchen, who left home for a three-month modeling job in Japan when she was 14, said family support was key to her. "You leave home, the protection of your parents, but you still know you have their support," said the Brazilian, who has five sisters. YOU DON'T KNOW THEIR NAMES ... YET: Musician Alicia Keys wants to help talented youngsters go to college, so the Grammy award winner is offering $5,000 scholarships to students from four cities. "We're just looking for standout students who are definitely college-bound and need a little bit of help financially to really achieve their dreams," Keys said. The four scholarship winners will be selected from Jacksonville, New Orleans, Atlanta and New York City's Harlem neighborhood. In return for their scholarships, the winners will represent the organization at school appearances and must perform community service each semester. IN THE CROCODILE HUNTER'S IMAGE: At the tender age of 8, the daughter of the late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin has said she will continue her father's work spreading the wonder of wildlife. "I'm going to become a wildlife warrior just like he was," Bindi Irwin said Friday at the National Press Club in Washington. Bindi appeared on stage Saturday as part of the annual Australia Week tourism promotion, singing about snakes and eagles while fellow cast members held live animals. Bindi's father was killed by a stingray in the fall while filming one of his popular television documentaries on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. WINFREY ADDRESSES HALF-SISTER'S BETRAYAL: Oprah Winfrey says in the February issue of her magazine that she cried for three days when a relative told the National Enquirer that Winfrey became pregnant at 14 and lost the baby after birth. Winfrey already had confirmed the Enquirer's 1990 report that she got pregnant as a teenager, telling Parade magazine later that year that the baby was born prematurely and died shortly after birth. Her half-sister, Patricia Lloyd, sold the story to the tabloid, according to news reports at the time. PEOPLE WATCHComedy films rarely win big awards, so it was a surprise when Little Miss Sunshine won the top feature film award presented by the Producers Guild of America this weekend. The dark comedy beat back tough competition from such films as Babel, The Departed, Dreamgirls and The Queen -- all considered likely to receive Oscar nominations when they are announced on Tuesday. Michael Jordan's mom proud of new bookDeloris Jordan, mother of basketball superstar Michael Jordan, will be at Macy's on State Street in
DiCaprio's `Titanic' acting angstLeonardo DiCaprio wanted to give up acting for a time after the hit movie "Titanic."
The movie business is very good for OregonAs the current season of "American Idol" tells us, people love to see themselves on television even if they look and act foolishly and are publicly humiliated. But Oregon likes to see itself on television, as well as the movie screen too, an addiction that started with the documentary "Where Cowboy is King" in Pendleton in 1915 and continued most memorably, with "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," the Oscar-winning feature filmed in the Salem area in 1975. "Cuckoo's Nest," based on the Ken Kesey story (he hated the script, since he didn't write it), sort of spoiled us, and creatively we've never seen its equal since then, though filmmakers keep trying with occasionally good effect. Among the better films have been Buster Keaton's "The General," "Sometimes a Great Notion," "Paint Your Wagon" and "Drive He Said," as well as director Gus Van Sant's films "Mala Noche," "Drugstore Cowboy" and "My Own Private Idaho." Oregon will get to see itself again on television next Sunday when CBS shows the Hallmark Hall of Fame film "The Valley of Light," filmed in the Scotts Mills area in 2005 and starring Gretchen Mol and Chris Klein in an adaptation of the Terry Kay novel about a returning World War II veteran who finds a vastly changed world at home. As memory serves, the producers found a soggy valley in Oregon and had to retreat to California to finish shooting the movie, which is set in North Carolina. Given Hallmark's track record, we can expect something of quality, with an inspirational message mixed in with the drama and romance. Van Sant recently wrapped (prior to his DUI arrest) "Paranoid Park" in Oregon and Lakeshore Entertainment is filming "Untraceable" in the Portland area in February, with Diane Lane as a cybercop tracking an online predator. The film was rewritten to note the Portland setting and follows Lakeshore's "Feast of Love," with Greg Kinnear and Morgan Freeman, also shot in Portland. We still have our hopes that Oregon will once again strike gold with a made-in-Oregon movie, but our chances are about as good as winning the lottery. But Oregon has been an accommodating home to films, which pump large amounts of money into the state and generally make us look good. The film business has been on the upsurge, doubling from a low in 2003 to an estimated economic impact of nearly a billion dollars in 2005, paying $192.7 million to Oregon employees. The film and video industry, which includes commercials and industrial films, gave us $46.2 million in state and local tax and government revenues in 2005, according to the same study by EconNorthwest. The state now offers some good incentives, including the Oregon Production Investment Fund and the Labor Rebate, and several films (as always) are scouting the state. We are as impressed by celebrities and Hollywood as anyone and welcome them into our midst more civilly than some more urban states. We also are appreciative of what a no-pain business it is and how much we can use that easy money. So if "Valley of Light" is commendable and not a classic, just be assured there are trade-offs we can bank on and the more movies the better. When Tinsel Town loses its glitterAfter going from Oscar-winner to laughing stock in less than five years, Ben Affleck knows all about being built up and torndown in Hollywood. So in many ways it was an inspired bit of casting to have the 34-year-old portray tragic George Reeves in Hollywoodland. Reeves was the original 1950s television Superman whosedecline and death made for aclassic dark Hollywood story.While it was billed as suicide by a depressed has-been, therehas always been asuspicion it could have been murder. He died aged 45 when it was clear that not only was playingSuperman the peak of his career,itwas also acurse, as television was considered agraveyard for failed movie actors in the 1950s. Hollywoodland also stars Adrien Brody as aprivate eye trying to prove murder and Diane Lane as Reeves' scorned mistress. Bob Hoskins plays apowerful studio boss. Famous BirthdaysToday: Singer-songwriter Bobby Goldsboro is 66. Comedian-singer Brett Hudson of the Hudson Brothers is 54. Actor-director Kevin Costner is 52. Comedian Dave Attell (Insomniac) is 42. Actor Jesse L. Martin (Law and Order) is 38. Rapper DJ Quik is 37. Singer Jonathan Davis of Korn is 36. Singer
54. Comedian Paul Rodriguez is 52. Actress Katey Sagal (Married...With Children) is 50. Keyboardist
36. Actress Drea de Matteo (Joey, The Sopranos) is 35. Actress Jodie Sweetin (Pants-off Dance off, Full
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