Reviews of MP3 Players

Kara DioGuardi was called a standout songwriter by Entertainment mogul Simon Fuller who said he planned to work with Kara DioGuardi in music for many years to come. But she was not supported by some observers who faulted her for lack the pizazz that ex-judge Paula Abdul had provided.

“I felt like I won the lottery when I joined `American Idol’ two years ago, but I feel like now is the best time to leave `Idol,’” DioGuardi said in a statement Friday, calling her experience as a judge on the show “amazing.”

Her statement, issued by Fox, didn’t elaborate on her reasons for leaving. Her contract reportedly had a one-year option remaining that the network could have exercised.

DioGuardi’s departure comes as the top-rated show continues auditions for its 10th season, which starts airing in January. Tryouts have been held in six cities, with a seventh announced this week for Los Angeles on Sept. 22.

It started with a sore throat, Michael Douglas said, as he talked candidly about his cancer last night on the Late Show with David Letterman.

“It had been bothering me for a while. … In early summer, I had a really sore throat, early in the summer, and I actually went through a litany of doctors and tests and they didn’t find anything.”

He said he had a great summer traveling with his family, and he came back, went to the doctor again and “a guy said, ‘Aaaah,’ and he said, ‘Let me just take a little clip of that.’ And this all happened within three weeks, and got a biopsy and they analyzed it – it’s a stage 4, which is intense, and so they’ve got to go at it…” read more »

The Oscar-winning duo Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks will co-star in the big screen adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel. The name of film temporarily is called “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”.

The novel follows a 9-year-old boy whose father was killed in the terrorist attacks(911). The boy finds a key in a vase that belonged to his father and sets out on a mission to discover what it unlocks.

I wonder what’s the relationship between key and terrorist attacks. Generally that is impossible as the writter will not fabricate a story that is a real event but far away from the fact clearly known by us, like that the boy’s father has known that the terrorist attacks will happen. Maybe that is a very stupid guess! I am curious about the plot and can’t wait to see “Extremely Loud”. read more »

Angelina Jolie is no doubt among the best actresses. And now she is ambitious to make her feature film directorial debut with a love story set during the Bosnian war. The story follows a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman who meet on the eve of the war, and the effect that the war has on their relationship. Oscar-winning producer Graham King’s GK Films has annouched such exciting news.

Earlier reports this week had Jolie starring in the project, however, the actors will be solely comprised of various ethnicities from the region of the former Yugoslavia.

While there’s no word on when production will begin, Jolie will produce the $15 million movie with King and his business partner Tim Headington.

The latter duo recently produced Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s thriller “The Tourist,” which stars Jolie and Johnny Depp and will be released by Columbia on Dec. 10. read more »

‘Knight and Day’, flopping in America, took 2.4 million on its opening weekend in Britain, which is not great but not bad either. However when it comes to its two stars in the film, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, ‘Knight and Day’ is a little failing.

I’d say if Knight and Day under performed at all here, Cruise’s co-star Cameron Diaz should shoulder some of the blame. Astonishingly, she said: “The script kind of went out of the window and we wrote this movie along the way.” Can’t help thinking that might have deterred more than a few people.

So we overlook Cruise’s links with Scientology, and we don’t regard jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey’s sofa as a capital offence. Finally, I have to say Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are both old, especially the latter.

Romona and Beezus is a family-friendly movie as it tells a story about a little girl who is full of unrealistic dreams and puts all her talents to use on tricks in order to ‘rescue’ her family. Every adult getting in touch with her will feel funny and annoying with her little tricks and simple actions.

“If you can’t be brave at recess,’ Ramona muses as her trip along the climbing rings morphs via computer effects into a perilous traverse across a canyon, “how can you do it when it really counts?” And, yes, I know — reading this, you may feel the emotional equivalent of diabetes kicking in, as your system is overwhelmed by what seems like the syrupy sweetness of that encapsulation.

But then dad loses his job, and things get a little tense around the Quimby household — more so than usual, like when Beezus and Ramona quibble and quarrel and Beezus hides her report card in the freezer. But there’s also comfort to be had in the Quimby family as they come together, and distractions like Aunt Bea’s long-over romance with her boy-next door high school flame Hobart (Josh Duhamel). read more »

You’ll see that Susan Boyle’s performance and music of Paul McCartney feature the new season of hit Fox TV show “Glee”. That’s indeed exciting news.

“Glee” co-creator Ryan Murphy said British TV talent star Susan Boyle will play a character appearing in a Chrismas-themed episode and the Beetle legend Paul McCartney is also a big fan of the hit musical series. Paul McCartney sent a mix of some of his tunes, including “Michelle,” and asked Murphy to consider using them on the series.

“I was gobsmacked. I grew up with that guy. So, of course, we are going to do something,” Murphy said.

It was reported that songs of Britney Spears will be also featured in the new season, following the huge success made in the last season of Madonna and Lady Gaga-themed episodes.

“Glee” has been nominated for 19 Emmys in its first season on television. Its season two will start from September 21.

‘The Client List’, in which Jennifer Love Hewitt plays a prostitute, will premires this night at 9. It is going to worth looking at and thinking about, as prostitution isn’t really about sex, but power, gender, money, domination and control. ‘The Client List’ also relates to the economy, which is barometer of how bad the economy is still perceived to be by middle-class Americans.

Jennifer Love Hewitt in the film is a prostitute. But another line for the movie that says “A mother will do anything for her family” make us think she is different from general prostitutes who don’t give good impression on us. Let’s get the idea of what the film “The Client List” tells in brief.

Jennifer Love Hewitt plays Samantha Horton, a physical therapist, mom, wife and former smalltown Texas beauty queen, who finds her family in deep financial trouble when she is laid off from her job and her husband, a former college football star who works in construction, hurts his knee and finds himself unemployable. From two incomes to none, and their three kids still need braces for their teeth and uniforms for pee-wee football. What’s a determined Texas mom to do? read more »

I like people of stories, especially females. Melissa Gilbert is one of them. Some say men will keep far from women who has lots of vicissitudes of life. If that is true, then, let them go.

Personal life about Melissa Gilbert From wikipedia:

At 17, she reconnected with then little-known actor Rob Lowe, also 17. They met briefly when they were about 14. In 1981, Melissa, in her convertible, saw Lowe stopped next to her at a red light. Gilbert dated Lowe on-and-off for six years. During this time, both had affairs with other famous people. Melissa dated Tom Cruise, John Cusack, Scott Baio, and Billy Idol. After Lowe’s failed romance with Princess Stéphanie, he suddenly proposed to Gilbert. While making wedding plans, Gilbert found out she was pregnant. Upon being informed of the pregnancy, Lowe ended their relationship. Gilbert miscarried days later.

Heart-broken, Gilbert left for New York City to star in the play A Shayna Maidel. Gilbert was set up with actor Bo Brinkman, a cousin of actors Randy Quaid and Dennis Quaid. The couple married on February 22, 1988, only seven weeks after she ended her relationship with Rob Lowe. Gilbert became pregnant months later. US Magazine featured a very pregnant Gilbert wrapped in a sheer sheet and named her one of “America’s Ten Most Beautiful Women” in 1988. On May 1, 1989, she gave birth to Dakota Paul Brinkman. After Dakota’s birth, the couple began to have marital problems and divorced 1992. read more »

“Toy Story 3,” directed by Lee Unkrich, could have been a cynical cash grab: It is crafted in 3-D, 10 years after “Toy Story 2,” it’s full of new characters, and it could have potentially been as technically advanced and numbingly empty as the money-making, meaningless “Shrek” films.

Unkrich and his collaborators, most notably screenwriter Michael Arndt, whose “Little Miss Sunshine” offered a similar family of mismatched members on a journey, have instead made a very different film. “Toy Story 3″ has comedy, but that comedy comes from character and circumstance, not from loud slapstick and shallow pop-culture references.

“Toy Story 3″ has 3-D effects, but those effects serve the look and feel of the film, not just the bottom line of higher ticket prices. It has sentiment, and at the same time it earns every emotion with real writing and the choices of characters we have come to care about. It also has action, but that action is always an intrinsic part of the plot, and never a loud, large space-filler for the absence of plot as it is in all too many animated films.