American Idol Reboot

The Dawg is already gone, Ms. Mariah needs more than tight
dresses to stay at the judges table. Ryan - aint goin' nowhere.
Nicki? We all know she's already gone. Keith Urban, the only
one I would want to see again next season.

I've been watching American Idol since the beginning. I have to admit, the past few years have been a challenge - lackluster contestants (with Adam Lambert being an exception and probably Philip Philips) and a parade of 'celebrity' judges who have not earned their large paychecks. With the lowest ratings in the show's history for this past season, Idol producers need to take note. Do something different. Do something completely different.

So what happened?

I get it. A lot of reality shows thrive on tension and drama ... but American Idol isn't one of those shows. The immature conflicts between Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey was painful to watch. So guess what? A lot of people opted not to. Take a look at The Voice which has benefitted from the great and positive chemstry between judges (and a note to Voice producers, keep this foursome!).

Out of the four, the only one I could possibly see coming back would be Keith Urban. Randy has already bowed out. Nicki Minaj has ticked so many people off that she won't be back and really, I know she's 'Mariah' but I don't think she needs to be back either. The best judge isn't even a judge, it's Jimmy Iovine. He knows what he's talking about and gives targeted feedback.

Then there are the contestants. It ended well, (love me some Candice) but getting there was at times painful. Zonette? Really? Some of the people that made it to the live shows had me questioning the judges' train of thought.

Suggestions

Go back to basics. When Idol started, no one knew who Simon Cowell or Randy Jackson were. I'm pretty sure they didn't break the bank to get Paula Abdul. Yet, it became the #1 show. AI made Simon and Randy stars and revived Paula's career.

Find several industry-insiders who can provide some Jimmy Iovine-style credibility and personality and put them at the judges table. Add a star that is past their heyday, but who has some knowledge and put them at the table. Yes, this would be a Paula Abdul-like role, but don't look for the next Paula Abdul.

Save the Drama for your Mama. And truth be told, your mama probably doesn't want to hear all that mess either. Have judges that actually get along.

Enough of the Judges Already! American Idol is at its best when it operates as a singing competition. In other words, make it about the contestants again and less about the judges. Find contestants that the audience can root for. We should be tuning in each week to see what the singers are going to sing not which diva is going to act the bigger fool.

Current Theme Weeks: After this season when the contestants relieved their painful ignorance of archaic, little known acts like The Beatles, I propose losing the decade-based themes. Instead go with different kinds of themes: Best Break-Up Songs, Diva Week, Acoustic/A Capella Week, Best High School Song.

If Idol wants to dominate the ratings again, they will have to do more than a little tweaking.

American Idol: Minaj vs. Mariah - Round 1

OMG! We are just as surprised as
everyone else that we don't get along.
We were expecting to be besties!

Is anyone surprised by the feuding and fighting (well, almost fighting, definitely threatening) between Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey? As far as I’m concerned, that’s part of the reason they were hired. Everyone knows the ratings for American Idol, while still awesome, have been declining. This is an easy way to boost them by bringing some Real Housewives kind of crap (and by crap I mean high school-ish drama) to the show.

For me, although the judges are entertaining, I watch for the talent. Maybe efforts should be spent on getting a more exciting mix of contestant and finding more relevant theme weeks. Those are changes that I could get behind. Hot messes and emotional  train wrecks have never been of much interest to me.

Whitney Houston ... RIP

Whitney will be missed.

I was enjoying a Girls Night Out when a guy came over and asked if we were Whitney Houston fans. Of course we were, we all agreed. We were expecting some sort of pick-up line next when he told us that it had just been announced that Whitney had passed. She was 48 years old.

I was shocked but not surprised. Whitney's struggles with addiction have been well documented. Although the cause of her death has not be determined, it isn't illogical to assume that her battles with drugs may have finally taken their toll.

A victim of reality-TV, it's sad that she'll be remembered just as much for her infamous reality show and her inadvertent catch phrase, "Crack is whack!" as she will be for her amazing voice, beauty and string of hits. Like Michael Jackson, I have memories that coincide with Whitney Houston classics. Heck, I had just moved to Phoenix when Waiting to Exhale came out.

Over the past few years, we held our collective breath and hoped she could make a comeback, but her voice just wasn't the same. It is fitting that she passed on the eve of the Grammy Awards, on her way to a party thrown by her mentor Clive Davis. Whitney was nominated for 26 Grammys and won six. She also could boast of 22 American Music Awards, 30 Billboard Awards, six People's Choice Awards, 16 NAACP Image Awards and 7 Soul Train Awards.

With just over 24 hours to prepare, tonight's Grammy Awards will feature a tribute to Whitney doing what she did best - singing.

Rest in peace, Whitney.

Maybe 3 Really Is A Magic Number!

I've got my fingers crossed!
Good luck!

Sure, she swore she would never marry again after her second marriage failed. However, Halle Berry is hoping that the third time is the charm. She accepted the proposal from French actor Olivier Martinez. The 46-year old actor offered his proposal along with an emerald and diamond engagement ring.

The two met on the set of the film Dark Tides (set to be released later this year) and started dating in 2010.

Berry’s first marriage to baseball player David Justice for four years. Her second marriage to singer Wric Benet lasted two years. She had her 3-year old daughter Nahla with model Gabriel Aubry but the pair never married.

Baby Blue!

Bey and Jay are all smiles
now that Baby Blue has
arrived!

Poison Ivy itches and causes a rash. But Blue Ivy? Blue Ivy is all good. That’s the name of the daughter of Beyonce Knowles and Jay-Z. Blue Ivy Carter was born on Saturday. She’s named after her dad’s album, The Blueprint, and mom’s favorite number: 4 (which in Roman numerals is IV – or Ivy). The power couple had an entire floor at Lennox Hill Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Reports say reserving the floor cost around $1.3 million.

Jay-Z, the proud poppa was so excited that, of course, he had to rap about it. Here are some of the lyrics from his song, Glory.

The most amazing feeling I feel
Words can't describe the feeling, for real
Maybe I paint the sky blue
My greatest creation was you: Glory

False alarms and false starts
All made better by the sound of your heart
All the pain of the last time
I prayed so hard it was the last time
Your mama said that you danced for her
Did you wiggle your hands for her?
Glory! Glory! Glory! Sorry..

Everything that I prayed for
God's gift, I wish I would've prayed more
God makes no mistakes, I made a few
Rough sledding here and there, but I made it through
I wreak havoc on the world, get ready for part 2
A younger, smarter faster me
So a pinch of Hov, a whole glass of Bé

He goes on to discuss an apparent miscarriage that they’d suffered earlier, “Last time the miscarriage was so tragic/ We was afraid you disappeared/ But nah, baby you magic.”

Beyonce delivered by C-Section, so I imagine she’ll be out for a minute recovering. But,… I’m sure soon after, she’ll be right back in the mix, with Blue Ivy in tow!

The $130 Million Dollar Man

Tyler Perry tops Forbes’ list of the highest paid men in Hollywood. In other words, Madea might be ghetto but she helped Tyler make some beyond bougie bank! He’s also extended his deal with Lionsgate (who has released all of his films). He’s currently in Cleveland filming, I, Alex Cross, in a role that originally went to Idris Elba.

The list was compiled of all Hollywood heavy hitters and not just actors. Here’s the Forbes Top 10 Highest Paid Hollywood Men:

1. Tyler Perry ($130 million)
2. Jerry Bruckheimer ( $113 million) – producer of Pirates of the Caribbean and all the CSI shows.
3. Steven Spielberg ($107 million) – super producer/director. His latest films War Horse and The Adventures of Tintin come out at Christmas.
4. Elton John ($100 million) – his latest tour grossed $204 million in a year.
5. Simon Cowell ($90 million) – His new show, The X-Factor debuts on FOX on September 21.
6. James Patterson ($84 million) – I thought it was a typo but he churned out 20 best sellers in 2010. Apparently, he uses a lot of co-writers. Tyler Perry is playing the lead in I, Alex Cross, one of Patterson’s books.
7. Dr Phil McGraw ($80 million) – And you thought Oprah was the only one raking in some serious bucks!
8. Leonardo DiCaprio ($77 million) – Shutter Island and Inception placed him as the only actor to make the list. Both movies combined earned over one billion dollars!
9. Howard Stern ($76 million) – He just signed a new deal with Sirius … and made some serious money in the process!
10. Tiger Woods ($75 million) – Despite his personal problems, he’s still the highest paid athlete.

Whitney Houston Sparkles?

Remember the movie Sparkle? Okay, maybe you don’t (there I go showing my age again!). It came out in 1976 and starred Irene Cara who later achieved fame by starring in ... Fame. Anyway, it was Dreamgirls, before Dreamgirls as it was also loosely based on The Supremes except this trio was made up of sisters.

It looks like a remake is underway. Written by Mara Brock Akil, creator of The Game and Girlfriends and directed by her husband Salim Akil (who directs The Game). American Idol Season 6 winner Jordin Sparks is set to star as lead singer - Sparkle. Houston would play her mother. Comedic actor Mike Epps is on board playing Satin, a comedian who marries one of the sisters.

In an unrelated story, it was only a matter of time before Bobby and Whitney’s daughter started singing. Here she is doing a cover of Adele’s Someone like You. What do you think?

Zero is NOT My Hero!

Zero? I don't think so.
She's still got some hips.

So according to Joy Behar, she saw Jennifer Hudson out shopping and overheard her and the saleswoman say that Jennifer Hudson is now a size zero.

The Weight Watchers spokeswoman has lost well over the 80 pounds she discussed on Oprah, but when I look at the League of Zeros (Courtney Cox, Mary Kate Olsen…), J Hud is still a little too hippy and booby to be a zero. I’m not quite believing it.

On a larger note, why should zero be the goal? ZERO means nothing and who wants to be a nothing? I am all for her losing weight for health and beauty reasons. Every woman, heck everybody, deserves to feel good and look their best but a zero? Is that really looking your best?

I absolutely hate the way Hollyweird insists on making full grown women look like prepubescent boys. Real women have curves. Most men like a woman with some curves. I’m not talking bumps and bulges but curves. You know, some cleavage, a shapely curve of the hips, a little meat on the thigh or in the booty.

When she hit the 80 pound mark and even as she lost a little more, she looked fabulous and healthy. Now? Not so much. Her face is starting to look gaunt and that is not a good look.If she’s happy, I’m happy for her but if I had a daughter we’d sit down and have a long talk about real women and reality.

Too much of a good thing can be too much of a good thing especially when it means whittling away to nothing.

Matthew, Really?

Seems like my hometown is coming up in the film world. We've got two movies shooting in Cleveland right now. First is next summer's blockbuster, The Avengers with Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and a bunch of others. Now, I find out that the new Alex Cross movie, I, Alex Cross is shooting there as well. Alex Cross, if you don't remember, is the fictional detective made famous by author James Patterson. He was played by Morgan Freeman in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. I reported on this film earlier in the year when director Rob Cohen dropped Idris Elba as the lead and replaced him with Tyler Perry. Yes, you read that right. At the time, I thought it was some kind of cruel joke, but, alas, it is true (stupid if you ask me ...but true).

Betcha he ain't smiling so pretty
with that busted lip. Don't
mess with Cleveland!

Also true is the fact that former Lost star, Matthew Fox, who was in Cleveland shooting his role in the Alex Cross film, got into a little melee over the weekend. Seems he had a little too much to drink and tried to board a party bus. The female driver, Heather Bormann, told him he could not board as the bus was reserved for a private party but Fox was not taking no for an answer. He insisted on trying to board the bus.

At this point, according to ABC News, he "punched her in the chest and stomach area" and she responded by punching him in the mouth and cutting his lip. Neither one sought medical treatment at the time, although Bormann now says she thinks she might have broken her hand in the altercation. She told TMZ she is considering pressing charges against the actor.

Cleveland not only rocks, it punches too!

Viv Gets Real about Reality Show Offer

As Vivica Fox prepares to walk down the aisle with club promoter Slimm, she told reporters at Comic Con in San Diego that she was approached about doing a reality show about her new marriage and she politely declined.

She explained, “I try not to live my life in a fishbowl. I have to turn off. If I’m on all of the time, how will my husband ever get to know me as his future wife? I have learned to turn off and to be able to hang out with my family and my friends and not be so on.”

Makes sense to me. It's hard enough keeping a celebrity marriage together and the track record of couples who do reality shows isn't that great either. Yes, I'm talking to you Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, Jon and Kate Gosselin, Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, just about all of The Bachelors, and the list goes on.

***********************************
Because I honestly didn't feel this bit of news deserved its own post, I decided to tack it on here. Just as Viv decides not to do a reality show, VH-1 announces a 10-episode show on rapper T.I. after his release from prison after a year on a parole violation. The show will follow him as he readjusts to life on the outside, with his family (wife Tiny from Escape and his kids) and as he goes back into the studio. Just another reason why I rarely watch VH-1

Get Your Facts Straight!

I've heard it reported throughout the day that Will Smith and Jada Pinkett were separating. The story struck me as odd, so I started doing a little investigation. And all I had to do was a little.

What did I find?

I found that In Touch Weekly had an 'inside' source who talked about the separation. However, I didn't find an official announcement from a publicist, which is routine in these situations.

What's disturbing is that so many people initially reported this nonsense. My degree is in journalism, but my, how things have changed since I graduated (you should know better than to ask me when that was)! It's scary to think how quickly these media outlets will abandon little things like corroboration and fact-checking in their race to be the first to report the news ... even if it isn't news.

Here is the statement that Will and Jada issued to E! News.

"Although we are reluctant to respond to these types of press reports, the rumors circulating about our relationship are completely false. We are still together, and our marriage is intact."

In fact, as soon as the story broke family members and friends began tweeting that the story wasn't true.

The Moral of The Story: Wait for the facts before you believe the first thing you hear ... or visit me because I don't deal in rumors and I will dig until I find the truth!

Li-Lo? I Just Don't Know...

Yesterday, Lindsay Lohan was headed for a 90-day stint in jail, albeit in solitary confinement. Today, we are told that she probably wont' serve more than two weeks in the pokey. We’ve had a front row seat in this slowly simmering implosion for several years now. I just don’t know why people really care. Celebrities who achieve this level of attention are usually superstars (Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson) or people will boatloads of potential who we desperately hope can get it together (Robert Downey Jr. when he was in his drug phase).

I asked my friend T, what Li-Lo had done to gain any level of fame; basically it comes down to two movies (Freaky Friday and Mean Girls). I know she’s done other movies but those are her biggest. I just don’t see anything in her or her body of work that warrants this level of attention. I mean her sentencing was news – not just TMZ/Access Hollywood/Entertainment Tonight news – but news covered by real, legitimate news shows.

I keep forgetting that the new millennium is the future that Andy Warhol spoke of years ago. It doesn’t take much to get that 15 minutes of fame. This is the era of Paris and Perez Hilton, both of whom are huge on celebrity but light (positively anorexic) on talent. In comparison to the Hiltons, the stars of Jersey Shore, and just about every other reality show ‘star’, Lohan does stand apart. At least she has made movies. She’s made a couple that were even profitable.

So here we are, with a front row seat at yet another celebrity disaster. I’m not one of those people who wonder when and where Li-Lo will finally bottom out. I am, however, one of those people who is curiously watching to see just how low we can lower the bar on celebrity.

Mad Mel

You know things are bad when your agent drops you. I mean agents have a sleaze factor that's only rivaled by used car salesmen and guys who still wear polyester shirts open to the navel with big gold chains. Yet Mel Gibson was dropped with a big thud by the William Morris Agency.

Over the past few years, the man known for playing Mad Max has gone just plain mad. It was bad enough when he went on an Anti-Semitic and sexist tirade when he was pulled over for drunk driving a few years ago. Now, he’s apparently gone off the deep end over his baby mama Oksana Grigorieva and the custody fight over their daughter.

In the eight-minute rant released by Radar Online, Gibson seethes with anger, yelling, making threats, hoping she gets raped by niggers and telling him she should just smile and ‘blow’ him. In the first tape (there are three so far), he said “You look like a fucking bitch in heat. And if you get raped by a pack of niggers it will be your fault. Alright? Because you provoked it.”

When she asks him what kind of man would hit a woman while holding his child and who would break two of her teeth, he responded with a culpable “You deserved it.”

The man is clearly unhinged — hate-filled, abusive, and out of his mind in over the top anger.

Any of the massive love he got from Passion of the Christ is long gone. Now, he’s just an embarrassment. Acting, directing or producing anything in Hollywood is not even a realistic option for Gibson now. He’s offended anyone who is anyone in that town. I don’t even think the Christian population wants him (After all, he did divorce his wife of almost 30 years and mother of eight of his children to take up with Grigorieva the woman he had an affair and a child with and never married).

I wonder what Danny Glover has to say about all this. Did Murtaugh think that Riggs could be this much of a basket case?

Gibson's Racist Rant
Gibson's Angry Long Rant
Another Crazed Rant