EDDIE MURPHY HOST OSCARS 2012

Veteran Hollywood comedy star Eddie Murphy is to host the Oscars awards show next year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Tuesday.

It will be the first time the standup comic turned actor — famous for films from “Beverly Hills Cop” in the 1980s to “Shrek” in which he does the voice of Donkey — has hosted the Oscars, the climax of Hollywood’s awards season.

Harry Potter fans camp out for glimpse of stars

Hundreds of Harry Potter fans have been camping out for days in London’s Trafalgar Square to secure a prime spot at Thursday’s world premiere of the final film in the epic series.

Sheltering from the traditional British summer rain, the hardcore fans were protecting their movie character costumes under tents, umbrellas and ponchos ahead of the red carpet event for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2”.

Many of the campers are teenagers who have grown up with the books by J. K. Rowling and the films, chronicling the adventures of boy wizard Potter and his friends through their years at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

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Raunchy movies in running for Teen Choice Awards

Raunchy comedy movies “Hangover 2” and “Bridesmaids” will compete alongside old favorites like “Twilight” and “Harry Potter” at the 2011 Teen Choice Awards, where 13-19 year-olds celebrate their hottest icons in film, music and television.

Vampire movie franchise “The Twilight Saga:Eclipse” led the Teen Choice nominations, announced on Wednesday, with 12 picks, including one for best sci-fi fantasy film, followed by TV musical comedy “Glee” with nine including for top TV comedy.

Drunken bachelor party romp “The Hangover Part II” earned six nominations, while “R"-rated comedies “Bridesmaids” got four and “Bad Teacher” scored three, including picks for its foul-mouthed star Cameron Diaz and co-star Justin Timberlake.

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Harry Potter to cast final spell with eighth, last film

As the studio behind the Harry Potter films likes to remind us, "It all ends here."

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2," the eighth and final installment in one of cinema's most successful series, has its premiere in London in a week, and experts predict records could tumble when it hits theatres on July 15.

The cast and crew have promised the most explosive Potter movie yet, even though computer-generated special effects and action scenes have been predominant throughout.

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Lindsay Lohan hits clubs hours completing house arrest

Mere hours had passed since the monitoring bracelet was slipped off and the doors to her Venice Beach home opened.

But last night Lindsay Lohan was already hitting the clubs in Hollywood as she celebrated being a free woman once again.

The Mean Girls actress attended a farewell party for a close friend at the Lexington Social Club.

According to witnesses, Lindsay stayed at the club for five hours before leaving with actor buddy Emile Hirsch.

Wearing a demure black wrap dress and strappy ankles to show off her monitoring bracelet-free ankle, Lindsay steadied herself on the way, according to photographers, as she left.

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News Corp. sells ailing Myspace for $35 million

News Corp. sold Myspace on Wednesday for a fraction of its purchase price, bringing the curtain down on Rupert Murdoch’s tie-up with a one-time social networking star that ended up being eclipsed by Facebook.

Myspace, which was bought by News Corp. in 2005 for $580 million, was bought by Specific Media, a digital ad-targeting platform, which said financial terms were confidential.

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Takeshi Kaneshiro's spotted with a new girl

The Asian hearttrob was spotted hanging out with a fresh-faced girl by Taiwanese media recently.

On June 24, a girl was seen going into a mansion where Takeshi was, holding something that resembled a takeaway meal.

It was two days later when the pair was seen coming out of the mansion, with the actor fetching his unidentified female pal to get more takeaways.

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Katy Perry and Russell Brand buying Hollywood home

KATY Perry and Russell Brand are buying a new $6.5 million home in Hollywood.

The couple — who married in a ceremony on a tiger reserve in India in October 2010 — have sold their $3.395 million mansion in Los Feliz, California, and are now moving into a new 35,Spanish-style home which belonged to Daniel Laikin, the former chief executive of National Lampoon, according to RadarOnline.

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’Twilight’ sequel shines brightest at MTV awards

The MTV Movie Awards are turning into a free infomercial for the “Twilight” movie franchise.

For the third year in a row, the vampire romance was named best movie at the light-hearted — and frequently X-rated — salute to Hollywood’s biggest crowd-pleasers.

"The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” which led the field with eight nominations, ended up with five awards. In a replay from last year Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart won for best male and female performance, respectively

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Shia LaBeouf Calls Fox Departure 'Blessing'

Shia LaBeouf has revealed that from an acting point of view it was a 'blessing' that Megan Fox does not appear in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

The actress left the project last year and was replaced by Rosie Huntington Whiteley - who will be making her big screen debut with the movie.

And while LaBeouf enjoyed working with Fox on the previous two movies he believed that there was no story arc for them.

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"Ugly Betty” star America Ferrera marries

“Ugly Betty” star America Ferrera has married longtime boyfriend Ryan Piers Williams, a representative for the actress said on Tuesday.

Ferrera and Williams were married on Monday night in a ceremony attended by Vanessa Williams and Rebecca Romjin, who are former co-stars from the ABC comedy, said the actress’ spokeswoman Carrie Byalick.

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Minogue blames traffic for late show in Indonesia

Australian pop diva Kylie Minogue has blamed Jakarta’s notorious traffic jams for her late showing at a concert in the Indonesian capital.

Her promoters said Tuesday the singer took a helicopter to the show Monday on the outskirts of Jakarta but her crew was stuck in traffic and the show had to be delayed by 30 minutes.

“Kylie Minogue’s concert started about half an hour late because of the traffic congestion on the toll road,” MP Entertainment marketing personal Rosana Wahyuni said.

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Transformers’ premiere to be held in Moscow

Russian film-goers will be the first to see the third sequel of the Transformers saga, which premieres in Moscow on Thursday, as Hollywood increasingly turns its attention to audiences in emerging markets.

Stars from the $200-million, 3D blockbuster “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” will grace the red carpet at the 33rd Moscow International Film Festival — a rare world premiere in the Russian capital, which is increasingly beating Western rivals for the honor of hosting such openings.

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Gere meditates at Indonesian Buddhist temple

Hollywood star Richard Gere meditated Monday at Indonesia’s Borobudur temple before touring the ninth-century Buddhist monument with his wife and son.

“He meditated for 20 minutes this morning at the top platform and made a 45-minute tour to admire the details of the temple’s reliefs,” temple manager Purnomo Siswo Prasetyo told AFP.

He said the star of “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “Pretty Woman” was “astonished” with the grandeur of the so-called temple mountain, which lies between two volcanoes about 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Yogyakarta.

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'Cars' rolls to the top of the weekend boxoffice

“Cars 2,” the sequel to the animated Disney film, did well enough — despite tepid reviews — to debut in first among weekend movies, industry estimates showed Sunday.

The latest Pixar production, with voices provided by Owen Wilson, Michael Caine and others, earned $68 million in North America, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Second place went to another new film, “Bad Teacher” about the classroom antics of a foul-mouthed, pot-smoking middle school teacher and starring A-list actress Cameron Diaz, which earned $31 million.

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Top-secret Weisz wedding for Bond star Craig

James Bond actor Daniel Craig and Oscar-winning fellow-Brit Rachel Weisz have married after a whirlwind six-month romance, reports said Sunday quoting their publicists.

Craig, 43, and Weisz, 41, tied the knot Wednesday in an ultra-secret New York ceremony. Reports said only four guests were in attendance, two family friends acting as witnesses, Craig’s teenage daughter and Weisz’s young son.

The pair team up in the forthcoming “Dream House”, playing a married couple who relocate to a quaint New England town only to discover that their idyllic new home has been the scene of horrific murders.

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Jackson 'Thriller' jacket sells for $1.8 million

The red and black leather jacket worn by Michael Jackson in his “Thriller” video went under the hammer for $1.8 million on Sunday, a day after the second anniversary of the pop icon’s death.

The jacket, which fetched several times its estimate of between $200,000 and $400,000, has “Love Michael Jackson” written on the sleeve, and a dedication in the lining to his long-time costume designers, to whom he gave it.

The buyer was identified as Milton Verret, a commodities trader from Austin Texas, who plans to have the jacket tour and be displayed at children’s hospitals around the globe to raise money for their children’s charities.

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'Dabangg' wins six awards at 'Bollywood Oscars'

Screen tough guy Salman Khan’s corrupt cop romp “Dabangg” (Fearless) won a clutch of awards including best picture at the “Bollywood Oscars,” held late Saturday 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.

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Russia theatre legend quits in fury after 50 years

Russia’s most celebrated living director on Sunday parted company with the theatre he has led for almost a half century, accusing its actors of only being interested in money.

Yuri Lyubimov, 93, who founded Moscow’s Taganka Theatre in 1964, fell out with the acting troupe in a dispute over pay while on tour in the Czech Republic and said he had no intention of working with them any more.

“I confirm I have taken my final decision — to leave the theatre,” the director declared to the RIA Novosti news agency late on Saturday.

“I have no intention of working with this troupe. Let them be led by their trade union. I’ve had enough of this disgrace, these humiliations, this lack of desire to work, this desire just for money.” 

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LulzSec hacker group says Internet rampage over

Lulz Security hacker group said Saturday that it has ended an Internet rampage that included cyberattacks on videogame companies, police and even the CIA’s website.

“For the past 50 days, we’ve been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could,” the group said in a message uploaded to The Pirate Bay file sharing website.

“It is time to say bon voyage,” the message concluded. “We must now sail into the distance.”

The Lulz farewell contended that the group had a crew of six people and implied the plan from the outset was for the hacking campaign to last 50 days.

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Hong Kong shelves plans for Bruce Lee museum

Hong Kong has shelved plans to turn Bruce Lee’s old home, which later became a rundown love hotel, into a museum dedicated to the martial arts legend, the government said Sunday.

Fans of the icon, who died in 1973 at the age of 32, have long called for a museum in Lee’s hometown and the idea appeared set to become reality after the wealthy owner of Lee’s former home entered into talks with city officials two years ago to hash out a museum blueprint.

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Bollywood former model Aishwarya Rai pregnant

Former Miss World turned Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is pregnant, her father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan has revealed.

“NEWS NEWS NEWS !! I AM GOING TO BECOME A GRANDFATHER .. AISHWARYA EXPECTING .. SO HAPPY AND THRILLED !!!,” the veteran megastar wrote on his Twitter account late Tuesday.

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Yahoo approaches Hulu with buy-up offer: report

Yahoo! has approached Hulu about a potential acquisition of the US online video entertainment site, though the identity of the prospective buyer remains unclear, The Los Angeles Times said Tuesday.

Hulu has a complex ownership structure, with investors that include News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal.

The Times said word of Yahoo!’s unsolicited offer was confirmed by a person close to the company, but noted it remained unclear whether the offer had come directly from the Internet firm or another entity.

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George Clooney in 'sad' split with girlfriend

Hollywood heart-throb actor George Clooney has split from his Italian girlfriend of two years Elisabetta Canalis, the ex-couple said Wednesday.

“We are not together anymore. It’s very difficult and very personal, and we hope everyone can respect our privacy,” they said in a joint statement cited by People magazine.

A spokesman for 32-year-old Canalis added: “It is a very personal and sad matter, and Elisabetta wants it to remain that way. She will be taking some time... and then will face the press.

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New Glee, new class

The current cast of Glee including Lea Michele and Cory Monteith will be replaced by new actors next year (12).

The musical TV hit, set in a U.S. high school, has taken the world by storm since it first aired in 2009, and has made stars of castmembers including Michele, Monteith, Chris Colfer and Dianna Agron.

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