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BEN KINGSLEY and MARK RUFFALO have signed up to star alongside LEONARDO DiCAPRIO in MARTIN SCORSESE’s upcoming movie SHUTTER ISLAND.
DiCaprio will play a U.S. Marshall investigating the disappearance of a mental patient in the 1950s-set film, which marks the fourth time he has teamed up with director Scorsese.
Kingsley will star as a mental asylum’s chief physician.
Recent reports linked Sylvester Stallone to the project, although it remains unclear whether the ageing action hero is officially onboard.

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R&B hunk USHER "resigned" his mother as his manager - so she could dedicate her time to becoming a wife and grandmother to his baby boy.
Reports suggested the Yeah! hitmaker severed business links with his mother when she made it clear she didn’t approve of his wife-to-be Tameka Foster.
But Usher insists he had very positive reasons for letting his mother, Jonetta Patton, go.
He tells Essence magazine, "It kills me when I read what my fans think about my relationship (with my mother) because it’s so wrong.
"I didn’t fire my mother. I resigned her. Her jersey hangs forever. I could have a million managers. I will only have one mother.
"Our professional relationship has been very rewarding, but our exchanges can be very hard and difficult. There are times when I don’t need to sit and have a business conversation and have us end up bickering and fighting.
"She has lost years and time. She has a fiance now. I just want my mother to enjoy her life without having to keep a day-to-day eye on my career. I want her to be grandmama to my baby." And Usher dismisses reports that he’s estranged from his mum: "I’m going to need my mother to be there for me, to help me be strong."

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WILL SMITH humiliated a Japanese journalist who fell asleep during a recent press conference by insisting on having his photo taken with the snoozing hack.
The movie star was stunned when he caught the tired reporter napping as he promoted his new film I Am Legend - and decided to poke fun at the unnamed journalist.
After urging those sitting next to the hack to wake him up, Smith joked, "I appreciate that you fell asleep and I wanna have a picture with you." Smith then put his arm around the reporter’s neck and pretended to fall asleep on his shoulder.

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Actor JOHN C. REILLY is taking his comedy music character from new movie WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY on the road for a series of concerts this month (Dec07).
Reilly plays Johnny Cash ‘contemporary’ Cox in the rockumentary about a country rocker who never existed.
And, to promote the movie’s American release, the Boogie Nights star will become a country star for real when he kicks off a tour with his band The Hard Walkers, at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio on Wednesday (05Dec07).
The road trip will then wind through Chicago, Austin, Nashville, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story will be screened at each gig before Reilly takes the stage.

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U.S. TV actor LEIGHTON MEESTER has dismissed speculation she’s dating her GOSSIP GIRLS co-star CHACE CRAWFORD, insisting they’re just "really happy people".
While Meester admits the pair shares "the same views on life", she insists they are not romantically involved.
She says, "For the record, (reports of a relationship are) not true!"

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RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK star KAREN ALLEN was stunned when STEVEN SPIELBERG phoned her and asked her to be part of the new INDIANA JONES movie - because she was just a sweater shop owner in rural Massachusetts.
The actress, who played the adventurer’s love interest in the first Indiana Jones film, turned her back on Hollywood years ago and moved to Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
There, she runs a yoga studio and knits scarves and sweaters, which she sells from her town store.
Allen also teaches at a local college, and she had no idea she was being considered for the fourth Indiana Jones film.
She says, "Steven called and said, ‘You know why I’m calling… We’re making another Indiana Jones - and you’re in it!’ "I was jumping around with joy."

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Veteran British actor ANTON RODGERS has died. He was 74.
Rodgers starred in movies including Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and The Merchant Of Venice, but was best known in his native U.K. for roles in TV sitcoms May To December and Fresh Fields.
He passed away on Saturday (01Dec07), ending a 60-year career.
Born in Wisbech, England in 1933, Rodgers began professionally acting while still at school in a 1947 production of Carmen at London’s Royal Opera House.
He most recently appeared on the West End stage in a 2002 production of Under the Doctor.

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U.S. TV star JILL HENNESSY has given birth to a baby boy.
The Crossing Jordan actress, 39, and her husband Paolo Mastropietro welcomed their second son, Gianni, on 21 November (07) in New York.
The couple has another son, four-year-old Marco, reports website People.com.

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Actor JOHN CUSACK blames his publicity-seeking peers for the public’s obsession with celebrity.
The highly-private High Fidelity star claims he knows of some celebrities who insist the public know every intimate detail of their lives.
Rather than accuse the press of intruding into the lives of Hollywood’s A list, Cusack points out the stars who are able to maintain a private life.
He says, "You didn’t really know about what (Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino) did and what they ate for breakfast… of who they may or may not be sleeping with."

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Embattled U.S. President GEORGE W. BUSH has been given an odd boost by movie star JON VOIGHT, who has become an expert on American leaders.
The Deliverance star started studying past U.S. presidents a decade ago, reading up on biographies and essays, and he insists history will show Bush is among the country’s great leaders.
As the president prepares to give up his office and leave The White House in 2008, after two turbulent and troubling terms, Voight is urging Americans to stop giving him a hard time.
He says, "Firstly, I think America is an extraordinary idea, which we take for granted every day.
"I’ve read three or four books about George Washington and five books on Abraham Lincoln, one was The Eloquent President and it shows you the enormous problems he faced.
"And we can see that, with our president right now, the attacks on him and the vilification of him, the disagreement with this president is so crazy.
"People say he’s so stupid. He’s not stupid; he graduated Harvard. Maybe he doesn’t talk the way you’d like him to talk, but he’s a very smart guy.
"I like all his speeches. You may not agree with all he’s done but where is the stupidity? He’s an interesting president really. If you get to be elected president of the United States twice you have to have something. He’s no dummy."

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LATEST: Actor DENNIS QUAID and his wife KIMBERLY are suing a healthcare company for manufacturing a drug they claim left they twin babies critically ill.
Newborns Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace were left fighting for their lives when they were mistakenly given 1,000 times the normal 10-unit dose of blood-thinning drug Heparin by staff at Los Angeles’ Cedar’s Sinai Medical Center.
In a lawsuit filed by the Quaids in Chicago, Illinois on Tuesday (05Dec07), the couple names Baxter Healthcare Corp. as the defendant, claiming the company failed to properly label vials of its product - the 10 units-per-millilitre vial of Heparin looks almost identical to the 10,000 units-per-millilitre vial.
The movie star and his wife insist the company executives has been alerted to past mix-ups, but chose to do nothing.
The Quaids’ lawyer Susan E. Loggins tells People.com, "They knew medication errors due to product labeling resulted in death but failed to recall the drug.
Each year there’s 1.5 million medication errors in America - it’s a national epidemic." Loggins reveals the twins, who were born to a surrogate mother last month (Nov07), appear to have recovered from the overdose and "everything looks good".
Quaid and his wife are seeking $50,000 (£25,000) in damages.

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More than 1,500 different holiday songs have been played on radio stations across the U.S. since Thanksgiving Day (25Nov07), according to the American Society Of Composers, Authors And Publishers (ASCAP).
Christmas tunes have been played 2,366,787 times altogether, according to weekly figures. More than 190 radio stations across the U.S. have switched to all-holiday, all the time playlists.
Meanwhile, the 2007 season’s biggest hit is festive classic Sleigh Ride, which has been played 86,925 times.

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Oscar-winning DREAMGIRLS star JENNIFER HUDSON was so disappointed with her performance of SOMEWHERE from WEST SIDE STORY at the Movies Rock event in Hollywood on Sunday (02Dec07) she insisted on re-taping the song after the show.
Although she sang to a virtually empty Kodak Theatre after most of the audience had left, Hudson’s reworked performance is the one that will appear when the show airs in America on Friday (07Dec07).
Online blogger Marc Malkin reveals, "She insisted on a redo because of a piano glitch. Producers obliged, but it occurred after the theatre was cleared and most were on their way to the after-show party."

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BLUR frontman DAMON ALBARN has signed up to guest edit an episode of BBC radio show TODAY over the Christmas (07) holiday period.
The Beetlebum singer will use the opportunity to investigate how the U.K.
recycles its waste when he takes over BBC Radio 4’s highly-regarded show.
Previous Today editors have included Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Bono and Yoko Ono.

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British goth rock supergroup BAUHAUS are to split for good after releasing one final album in 2008.
The Bela Lugosi’s Dead hitmakers reunited to perform at California’s Coachella Festival in 2005, but a recent "incident" has prompted the bandmates to go their separate ways.
So, after releasing their new album Going Away White in March (08), the group will part for good.
Drummer Kevin Haskins tells Billboard.com, "We were getting along really well, but there was an incident that occurred (and) some of us just felt that we didn’t want to carry on as a working unit." Haskins, who refused to elaborate on the incident, admits he knew the reunion would be strained: "I was concerned because history, most of the time, has proved that when groups reform and record, it doesn’t work out.
"(But) we all decided, let’s just give it a go and see if it’s working."

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Rocker BRYAN ADAMS has become the latest celebrity to take aim at fast food giants Kentucky Fried Chicken, urging the Canadian arm of the company to stop torturing chickens.
The Canadian singer/songwriter-turned-photographer has joined up with animal activists People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals in an effort to prompt KFC bosses to end their cruel practices.
In a letter to John Bitove, the CEO of KFC Canada, Adams, a longtime vegan, says, "I’m writing in the hope that you would be open to ways you could improve the lives and deaths of the birds who end up in KFC Canada’s buckets." He goes on to describe how the birds are scalded to death in tanks of hot water, and what KFC can do to stop this abuse and other cruelties.
He writes, "If you could dramatically improve the lives and deaths of the birds who end up in KFC Canada’s buckets by adopting basic recommendations…
then why not do it?"

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LATEST: The organisers of Tennessee’s Bonnaroo Festival have quashed internet rumours that reformed rock legends LED ZEPPELIN and METALLICA will headline the 2008 summer event.
Reports circulated on Monday (26Dec07), prompting Led Zeppelin fans to bid for early tickets and more information.
The frenzy has led to promoters to dismiss the reports.
In a statement, promoters Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment insist there are no plans for the two rock supergroups to perform, adding, "We’re very excited about the line-up that we’re putting together for this year’s festival.
We’ll be announcing the confirmed line-up toward the end of January/beginning of February." Led Zeppelin will play their only official show in London next week (10Dec07), although The Cult frontman Ian Astbury recently teased fans about plans to tour America with the Stairway To Heaven legends next year (08).

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Rapper PIMP C has been found dead in a Hollywood hotel room. He was 33.
The UGK member was discovered in bed by paramedics answering an emergency call at the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard on Tuesday (04Dec07) morning.
Pimp C - real name Chad Butler - was one-half of rap duo UGK, reports TMZ.com. (GES/WNWCMZ) WENN - BREAKING NEWS - 4 DECEMBER 2007 ——————————————————————-

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