Gosling's band to release CD | Fleiss pleads guilty to charges
Published Thursday July 9th, 2009
Canadian actor Ryan Gosling's goth-folk outfit, Dead Man's Bones, has signed a deal to release its debut album later this year.
Gosling started the two-man band with friend Zach Shields and wrote music for a "monster-ghost love story," which was originally destined for a theatrical production.
But the band ended up recording its songs about werewolves and broken-hearted zombies for an album, with producer Tim Anderson of L.A. indie rock group Ima Robot.
The Oscar-nominated 28-year-old Gosling, a native of London, Ont., is best known for starring in films including Half Nelson, The Notebook and Lars and the Real Girl, but this will be his first album.
The two-piece has already released self-produced videos for Name in Stone and In the Room Where You Sleep online.
The self-titled album is set for release on Oct. 6 through Anti-Records.
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She's engaged on NBC's The Office, and now, Jenna Fischer can say the same in real life.
Her spokesman, Lewis Kay, says the 35-year-old actress and her boyfriend, screenwriter Lee Kirk, became engaged in Paris on June 30.
Kay says the couple have been dating since January 2008.
Fischer was previously married to filmmaker James Gunn. They announced their split in September 2007 after six years of marriage.
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Former "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss has pleaded guilty to felony drug charges in Nevada, but will avoid a trip to prison.
Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett says Fleiss faces up to five years' probation after pleading guilty Tuesday to unlawful use of methamphetamine and possession of the painkiller hydrocodone without a prescription.
Fleiss declined comment to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which reported the case. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 15.
The charges stem from a February 2008 traffic stop in rural Pahrump, which is 96 kilometres west of Las Vegas.
Beckett says if the 43-year-old Fleiss successfully completes probation, the two felony convictions will be erased from her record.
Fleiss moved to Nevada after serving prison time in California for running a prostitution ring.
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Robin Williams is bringing his standup act back to HBO.
The cable network says a special of Williams performing in Washington will air in December. The show is part of the 57-year-old actor-comedian's Weapons of Self-Destruction tour.
Williams has done four solo specials on HBO. The most recent, which aired in 2002, received five Emmy nominations. His relationship with HBO dates back to his appearance on a Young Comedians show in 1977.
Williams co-stars with John Travolta in the upcoming Disney comedy Old Dogs.
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Richard Gere stars in a Hollywood remake of Japan's long-cherished story of Hachiko, a faithful dog that died at a train station waiting for its master. But Hachi: A Dog's Story is more about the dog than about Gere, the 59-year-old actor said Wednesday.
"On this movie, I was definitely second-class," he told reporters at a Tokyo hotel.
The movie premiered in the U.S. at the Seattle International Film Festival in June, and opens in Japan in August.
The story of Hachiko is a legend among Japanese, a pet-loving nation that honours self-sacrificing loyalty.
Hachiko, the story goes, always used to wait at Shibuya train station for its master, a professor at the University of Tokyo. Even after the professor died, the dog waited every day at the station for a decade, until it died in 1935.
People were so moved they built a statue of Hachiko at the station, which remains a popular rendezvous spot for Japanese today.
The story of Hachiko was made into a 1987 Japanese movie. Gere's version transports that story to a station in Rhode Island.
Gere said the Japanese breed of dogs called Akita used in the movie are close to wild dogs and very difficult to train. In the beginning, Gere was instructed not to even look at the three dogs that played Hachi.
"They only do something because they want to. You can't really buy them with food," said Gere, last in Japan four years ago for another remake of a Japanese story, Shall We Dance?
Gere said the new film evokes the artistry of silent movies.
Often, the crew would film the dog for 12 hours, and take just 10 minutes to shoot Gere's segments, he said.
"We were capturing something that was organic and real that was happening between me and the dogs," he said.
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