Celebrity and Entertainment

First there was the movie 33 where the King Leonidas, gloriously portrayed by hunky Gerard Butler, bids a grim goodbye to his equally lovely wife Queen Gorgo played by Lena Headey. In the movie, Butler and the rest of the men are shirtless, they was that red flowing cape off on one chiselled and broad shoulder. He looks into his wife’s eyes, the scene is captivating, not because of two beautiful actors, not because of that dramatic moment, but because of his pure machismo.

Anyone who did not react or squirm on their seats when watching this movie is forgiven. If they got a little bit distracted with all those gorgeous muscles and wonder how they would look like if they were in Butler’s place in the skimpy costume is forgiven.

Butler’s body was not what it used to be. His shoulders were massive and corded with tight muscles. His biceps were three times what they’d been, and his forearms, well. His stomach, his belly were ribbed with strength and his legs, hard and heavy roped thighs.

This body was not an overnight result. Neither were the bodies of Hugh Jackman for Wolverine, Taylor Lautner for Twilight: New Moon and Ryan Reynolds for the soon to be released Green Lantern. They did not just spend an overnight indulging in a workout that gave them the bodies to cry for, but they spent months working out, eating the right foods and getting down and dirty on a regimen that is painful, but gainful.

For Butler, he and the rest of the male cast members had to undergo a gruelling workout now called the 300 Workout. The 300 is not because of the title of the movie, it is because of the gruelling number of repetitions.

This was a gradual workout in a period of six months, and the finale is the most gruelling of them all. After months of constantly working out, eating protein and drinking protein shakes religiously, the actors were submitted to their finale of the 300 reps.

The media were wrong to print that the actors worked out every day, no, they did not. Instead, there was a plan drawn out for them to follow which included weight lifting, training with medicine balls and kettle bells which are cast iron weights with handles. Then, at the very end, to build the mass, they were given 25 pull ups and more pull ups, and 50 of each of dead lifting at 135 lbs, push ups, box jumps, floor wiper, and last, clean and press. That is a total of 300.

There is a high salary paid to famous actors in a movie. Some of these actors are so popular, that just associating the name of an actor with that movie can make that movie popular as well. In addition, the character of the actor spreads its quality and skill throughout the movie. Celebrities are the attention seekers valued for the position they hold in society. People cross various limits for just getting a glimpse of them sometimes.

Starting with actors according to Forbes Magazine, Matt Damon will be earning $29 million now onwards. His role in the first two Bourne films has netted $850 million and the third is now on the top of the U.S. Box Office.

The second on the list is Brad Pitt falling a place down and pocketing $24 million today whereas Vince Vaughn is on the third position after a tie up with Johnny Depp of Pirates of the Caribbean. Backing them up are the handsomes named Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise earning of salary of $30 million per film.

The one-time famous heroes Brad Pitt and Leonardo Di Caprio earn only $20 million adding up 20 percentage of the gross box office turn over per movie.

Jim Carrey was the top-earning actor collecting $39 million for his role in Cable Guy in 1996. Presently we have Tom Hanks who after the Da Vinci Code is being paid somewhere in the range of $29 to $49 million for the upcoming movie Angels and Demons.

Similarly, even after a flop Rendition in 2007 Reese Witherspoon is a moneymaker. She earns not less than $15 to $20 million whereas Angelina Jolie even after a movie like Beowulf earned only $8 million. The great Charlie girl Cameron Diaz is third having a price tag of $15 million.

Nicole Kidman of New York won Oscar award in 2002 for Virginia Woolfs The Hours was highest paid in 2006 but has dropped to fourth position to a salary of $10 to $15 million.

Renee Zellweger and Sandra Bullock get $10 million paycheck for their work. Even Julia Roberts a one time top class heroine also now belongs to same class of $10 million. Drew Barrymore and Jodie Foster together with Halle Berry follow the same track.

However, according to Forbes Magazine there are two such people away from industry but involved in it otherwise earning more than stars. One is J.K. Rowling and the other is Jennifer Aniston. The former is none other than writer of Harry Potter a craze throughout the nation whereas the latter took over Britney Spears last year and bagged $35 million for her as per reported by Reute.

These are the big names of Hollywood on whom the movie industry depends for its success.rs.

Beginning his career with the hit detective show Moonlighting, Bruce got the reputation of being difficult from that show. The show ended after having four successful seasons on air. It was said that the main reason behind the show ending were the big creative differences Bruce was having with co-star Cybil Shepherd and the Director of the show.

Bruce has many a times has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. He has had a lot of drunken escapades. Bruce was once the brand ambassador of Seagram’s but was removed after he was caught driving drunk. One of his neighbors had complained to the police against a party the actor was having at his house. The police were sent over and it was reported that Bruce had a minor scuffle with one of the officers. In many interviews in sporting events that Bruce likes to go, he has appeared to be drunk during those interviews.

Contributing to his reputation as a loose cannon Bruce, a big supporter of the New Jersey Nets was at a game on 29th April 2007. He was interviewed by a news channel and at the end of the interview uttered the famous catch phrase of his Die-Hard character John Mclane “Yippikayay Mother Fu**er” on a live television interview. There was a huge backlash from the media and the public, Bruce blamed the whole incident on jetlag.

He had once famously done a strip tease act on The Late show with David Letterman to promote Demi Moore’s movie Striptease. He has also hosted the late show in the absence of good friend Letterman.

Charity work has also been high on his list of things to do. Bruce runs the Bruce Willis Foundation that supports young people through monetary contributions. The Organization helps youngsters reach their full potential and get ahead in life. Another charity he supports is the Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition who provide training and support to hospice teams when they are attending and caring for a dying child. He is also an official spokesperson for the Special Olympics.

Bruce has been one of the very few vocal supporters of guns and the Republican Party. He once said in an interview that if common folk were not allowed to carry guns then only the bad guys would be having the guns. Bruce actively campaigned for almost all the Republican candidates except for Bob Dole; he had criticized his then wife Demi Moore for her role in Striptease. But in 1998 he clarified in an interview that he was apolitical and did not support the Republicans, but only some of their political ideologies.

An IP changing software is a program that will be able to mask your private data every time you visit a website. As you know, the Web is filled with dangers such as possible attacks from spyware, malware, and virus. If you do not do anything to protect yourself when you are online, you will most likely become infected with any of these harmful elements.

The thing is, many computer users install anti-virus, anti-malware, and even anti-spyware programs on their desktops and laptops. These programs are great and truly helpful however even when armed with these, you can still be put at risk when surfing on the Web if you do not make use of an IP changing software. If someone can trace your Internet Protocol address, he or she can easily obtain valuable data from you, which could put you at risk of becoming a victim of identity theft.

Security threats online are a rampant problem. In fact, many people out there have been complaining of unauthorized purchases from their credit cards and they don’t even know where these charges are coming from. Hackers and fraudsters lurking on the Internet can easily obtain credit card details every time you would buy something from online stores and they can use these to make purchases. Take into consideration that people browse the Web almost every day, to get in touch with family and friends, do business, to work, or simply to pass the time away reading celebrity news gossIPs and world news. The Internet is a good thing but it can also be a threat to your safety if you are not careful.

If you do not try changing your IP address when you visit websites, you would surely expose yourself to danger. Hackers can send you adware and spyware, and even key loggers. When embedded with a key logger will give hackers access to everything you type on your keyboard including usernames and passwords, and even bank account details. And all these could be accessed by hackers just by obtaining your Internet Protocol address.

So do you now realize how important it is to use an IP changing software? If you are able to get a program that will function by changing your IP address, you can surf the Web anonymously, which means that you will be kept safe and protected from hackers. Most software programs that work by masking your IP require a small fee to be able to download them however if you are truly concerned about your safety online, this shouldn’t be a problem.

It’s all over the Internet. It’s prominent on the cable news stations. It’s become popular on the network news. You can see it in the tabloids in the newsstands. Everywhere you can see the tragic mistakes of the modern celebrity. It’s all celebrity bad behavior all the time. The media’s sensational stories of celebrities’ personal, sad, and tragic problems have created its own industry of faux news.

The sight of Paris Hilton going to jail created a frenzy of news media coverage for two full days. Hilton was the number three story on cable TV. It was the eighth most heavily covered story on network TV news. However, this celebrity faux news did not make the top ten stories covered in American newspapers. There was similar television media coverage after the death of Anna Nicole Smith. For days nearly half of cable news coverage was devoted to her story, making it by far the most heavily covered story for a week on cable.

Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith are not exceptions. There are plenty of celebrity stories for the media and the paparazzi to exploit for faux news. They can choose stories involving the personal issues of Lindsey Lohan, Nicole Richie, and Britney Spears or the new legal issues of O.J. Simpson. There seems to be an endless supply of celebrity news for the media to report.

The media creates and distributes celebrity faux news because it can be packaged to appear to be sensational. It involves a celebrity that we know and therefore it appears to touch us in a personal way. For the television media it means ratings at a bargain basement price. The panel discussions, the speculation, and the experts are cheap. The same issue can appear on a cable channel all day or all week.

What does the American public think of all this celebrity faux news? The Pew Research Center for People and the Press completed a new national survey in July 2007. Here are its findings: “An overwhelming majority of the public (87%) says celebrity scandals receive too much news coverage. This criticism generally holds across most major demographic and political groups. Virtually no one thinks there is too little coverage of celebrity scandals.”

Who is to blame for the excess celebrity coverage? The Pew Survey states that “a majority of the public point to the media. Fully 54% of those who say celebrity news is over-covered also believe news organizations are to blame for giving these stories so much coverage. Roughly a third (32%) say the public is to blame for paying so much attention to them, and another 12% say the media and the public are both equally to blame”. In summary, the survey finds that 87% of Americans feel that celebrities scandals are over covered by the media. Nobody believes that there is too little celebrity coverage, and 66% believe that the media is in some way to blame for the excess coverage. It is interesting to note that a majority of young people under thirty blamed the public for excess celebrity coverage. People over thirty years of age overwhelmingly blamed the media.

This media obsession with the faux news of the sometimes troubled personal lives of celebrities is taking media attention and focus away from important national and international news stories and events in 2007. It is contributing to the “dumbing down” of American society. Indeed, it is very disturbing that we have heard little from the American media about the heroic story of Aung San Suu Kyi, even with the recent worldwide attention given to the sad events in Burma (Myanmar). However, we have heard far too much about the personal problems and issues of our celebrities. It is the substantive news that we could know, and don’t, that should concern us. This media age of celebrity faux news comes at the expense of real news, and poses a danger to a free and literate society.

Television shows have changed in the last few years. We still have our sitcoms and dramas, and the occasional movie, but something new has come on the scene lately, and it is giving these other types of shows a real run for their money. I’m talking of course, about reality shows. Reality shows started to appear on television a few years ago, and they have grown in popularity, until you cannot go through three or four channels without coming across some type of reality show.

Reality shows used to give people their fifteen or twenty minutes of fame when they first started out, but in the last couple of years, there have been some people who have found a bit of lasting fame from their appearances on some reality shows, and the public has really latched onto some of these new celebrities. There are so many different types of reality shows nowadays, and some of them seem to be more apt to launch their contestants into fame and fortune than others. Today, you can choose to watch reality shows such as, Survivor, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, Fear Factor, No Opportunity Wasted, American Idol, The Apprentice, So You Think You Can Dance, Hell’s Kitchen, The Hills, and these are just a few reality TV shows!

Survivor has churned out more than one new celebrity, and probably the two most popular was a couple who fell in love during their time on the show. Rob and Amber were very popular after competing on Survivor, and a lot of people have followed their lives, even years after the show. Add this to the fact that they appeared as contestants on The Amazing Race together, and came in second place in 2005, and their celebrity status doubled!

Chef Gordon Ramsay is another person who has achieved major celebrity status by appearing as the star on a reality show. His show, Hell’s Kitchen, did so well, that he is now doing another reality show, called Kitchen Nightmares, where he takes restaurants that are not faring so well, and turns them around. Chef Ramsay is getting a lot more recognition on the street since he has been doing these shows.

Another tv reality show that has turned out a whole lot of stars is American Idol. Some of the winners of this singing reality show have not been so successful, (Justin Guarini has been the butt of many jokes) but a lot of the winners have sold multi-million records. Some examples are Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, Chris Daughtry and Taylor Hicks. This is one type of reality show where contestants definitely have a good chance at becoming an instant celebrity. Singers have a place in one of the most popular group of celebrities in the world, right along with actors and actresses.

If you want to achieve “celebrity status”, appearing on a reality show could actually be a smart way of doing so. Just do your research and make sure that you pick the right one. Don’t audition for a show that you have no talents for.

It’s no secret that celebrities are always gossiped about. No matter how large or tiny the issue – such as a small rip in their jeans, it always ends up in some gossip magazine or column and scrutinized avidly by the fans.

There is a fine line that separates celebrity news from celebrity gossip. No matter how thin the line, there is a way to distinguish one from the other.

News is based on facts (mostly) and contains information regarding current events, places, and people. Its form of medium is usually through newspapers, live television, news websites, and of course radio broadcast.

Celebrity gossip, on the other hand, talks more about the personal issues of celebrities. You could even consider these issues as trivial and shallow and gossip is not usually verified. It is based more on opinion rather than on facts. A lot of celebrity gossip not only is published in gossip magazines but circulate on the Internet as well. Gossip travels fast and today, with the millions of people surfing the Internet, it is the fastest way to spread it.

While news talks of things that are worthwhile such as politics, events that impact the community or environment, art, dance, music and the latest developments in technology, gossip focuses on things that should be privy to the celebrity.

This is what differentiates news from gossip the most: gossip cannot usually be verified from the person being talked about. News, in the realm of journalism, can only be published if the source is known and the information has been verified.

A lot of gossip is very biased and based on complete speculation and hearsay. No wonder we hear of celebrities suing gossip columns all the time. Gossip is not only mean but can impact the personal life of the celebrity involved.

We hear about the infamous paparazzi that stalk these poor celebs, taking all kinds of pictures then attaching ridiculous stories to what were actually normal events.

One telltale picture posted on the Internet is enough to start a malicious rumor which after not so much time, turns into celebrity gossip.

Our favorite sports stars have just as much of an ability to give us a thrill from a signed piece of memorabilia as our favorite movie stars do. An autographed celebrity photo of one of these stars will be sure to delight any fan. There are a number of ways that you could go about getting one of these photos from your favorite sports stars, you just need to be sure that you do it in the right manner. Thankfully, there are a number of tricks which, with a little luck and patience, will help you start collecting memorabilia from your favorite athletes!

One of the most important tips that you need to remember is to always be respectful and polite to the athletes. No one will want to come over and give you an autograph if you are screaming at them to get their attention. This will only make them want to ignore you and head over to the locker room. Secondly, you should always be aware of everyone on the team and know them by name. It is incredibly rude to try to get someone’s autograph when you do not even properly know who they are. Even worse is when you blatantly ignore someone who you don’t want an autograph of. This is very disrespectful and can often stop one of your favorite stars from giving you the autograph that you do want. It is much better to be polite and respectful to all the members of the team rather than being selective.

Making sure that you are carrying both the right type of writing instrument as well as the correct surface is important. For example, if you are trying to get a baseball signed by one of your favorite players, you should make sure that you have a ballpoint pen. Permanent markers will not work well on the surface of a baseball, for both materials are slick and will smear easily. On the same token, many baseball cards have very glossy surfaces and will also not do well with permanent markers.

Getting to the stadium or arena early is also another important factor. Going to watch batting practice can be a great way to not only have a good time, but to potentially get some autographs. By positioning yourself by the dugout, you can watch the players in action and easily be able to toss a ball to one of your favorite players to sign. This is a quick and easy way to get a signature as well as watching something exciting.

Finally, you should always take as little with you as possible into the stadium. It makes moving around much easier as you have less to carry around with you. Better mobility allows you to get to certain places faster and this can help you to be first in line and visible to the athlete who you want an autographed celebrity photo of. Taking only the photo that you want signed along with an appropriate pen will be one of the easiest and quickest ways toward getting that piece of memorabilia which you desire.