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Celebrific

Tracking Celebrities in Their Native Habitat

jonsonroth

Celine Dion’s Tough Pregnancy

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Celine Dion is the latest celebrity having a baby later in life. While for some it’s because of career demands, in Celine’s case, it’s been because of health issues. She, now 42, and husband Rene Angelil just announced that they’re having twins, but it hasn’t been without great difficulty that she’s pregnant.

She’s had numerous attempts using in-vitro fertilization (IVF), which for her involves flying from Florida (where she lives) to New York. She’s also had acupuncture treatments in Montreal, Canada (she and Rene are originally from the province of Quebec). She told People, “I feel like I’ve been pregnant more than a year,” because of the IVF efforts, and that this pregnancy has been physically and emotionally exhausting. She went through six years of IVF treatments just to get pregnant with son Rene-Charles, now nine, and it’s possible that the twins are from embryos previously frozen.

Celine, who had a huge show at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas that lasted five years and ended late 2007, is planning to rest because of the priority she’s putting on the babies, though she does have another Vegas show starting in 2011. She was named Calendar’s number one artist of the decade primarily because of the sales figures she pulled in thanks to the Caesar’s engagement.

Image: Flickr, Anirudh Koul.

Screen Legend Dennis Hopper Passes Away at 74

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The Reaper seems to have it in for entertainers these days, what with the recent passing of Lena Horne, Lynn Redgrave, Gary Coleman, Ronnie James Dio, and others. Now, Dennis Hopper, a known rebel and hellraiser prone to paranoid delusions, but a screen legend regardless, passed away in his home in Venice, California, at 74 from complications due to prostate cancer.

Hopper, who was going through a difficult divorce with his fifth wife, wrote, directed and acted in 1969’s classic Easy Rider, which featured other acting legends Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda. Easy Rider, a film that changed Hollywood and which was made for less than $500K and grossed tens of millions of dollars, gained Hopper two Oscar nominations. Before that, he played Goon in 1954’s Rebel Without a Cause, beside James Dean. Amongst his 200+ acting credits, he also appeared in numerous other films including Apocalypse Now and Blue Velvet. More recently, he played Ben Cendars for 26 episodes of Crash, and had two film projects in progress: Alpha and Omega (voice) and The Last Film Festival.

He’s survived by four children from four of his five wives.

Gary Coleman Passes Away at 42

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Actor Gary Coleman has passed away at age 42, after suffering suffering an intracranial brain hemmorhage, according to his wife, Shannon. Coleman was in critical condition at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, after falling and injuring his head. His brother-in-law called 911 after discovering him. [RadarOnline]

Coleman had had two kidney transplants and was prone to seizures. He’s been hospitalized twice this year for seizures — once during a TV interview taping. He’s probably best known for his role as the short, lovable Arnold Jackson in Diff’rent Strokes, and his trademark saying, “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?,” when talking to his TV brother Willis Jackson, played by Todd Bridges. The cast of the show has been plagued by misfortune. Bridges has been arrested once. Co-star Dano Plato, who played Kimberly Drummond, committed suicide by drug overdose on May 8, 1999. Her son, Tyler Lambert, followed her nearly 11 years to the day, on May 6, 2010, taking his life with a shotgun after a drinking binge.

Celebrific Screen Scene — May 28, 2010

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Movie-wise, there’s possibly something for everyone this week, with a couple of big flicks, at least in hype if not in quality. IMDB lists four new releases, and you can get more details from their profile pages, which I’ve linked to from each movie’s title.

New Releases

  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley. Directed by Mike Newell. This one looks very much like the recent Mummy flicks with Brendan Fraser, at least in terms of the CGI. But it does look entertaining, despite being based on a video game. Apparently Gyllenhaal put in quite the effort to improving his physique.
  • Sex and the City 2: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon. Directed by Michael Patrick King. I was enough of a fan of the TV series to watch when I could, but I missed the first movie. Unfortunately, I’ve heard nothing good so far about SatC 2; only that there’s a lot of “bore” and “excess”. Still, die-hard fans will probably go, for completion.
  • Survival of the Dead: Alan Van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh, Kathleen Munroe. Directed by George A. Romero. Romero’s back with yet another ‘Dead’ zombie flick, but again in his newer style, which fans of his original material (before Land of the Dead) apparently tend to stay away from.
  • Micmacs [limited; French]: Danny Boon, Andre Dussollier, Nicolas Marie. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Jeunet is a multi-award-winning director, as well as a writer, producer and actor. Notable is 1991’s Delicatessen dark, futuristic comedy, balanced against a genre flick like 1997’s Alien: Resurrection. But beyond the plot as listed in IMDB, I know nothing about Micmacs.

Data from IMDB’s Now Playing page.

Also Playing

Still in theaters: Shrek Forever After, Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, Letters to Juliet, Just Wright, MacGruber and others, mostly released last week.

Upcoming Movies/ Roles

  • Logan’s Run, slated for a 2012 release might have a new director, Carl Rinsch. The movie is being produced by Joel Silver and Akiva Goldsman, and is based, I assume, on both the 1976 movie (with Michael York, Farrah Fawcett, Peter Ustinov) and the short-lived 1977 TV series (Gregory Harrison, who is Paul Norris on One Tree Hill), not to mention the original novel from 1967. [Heat Vision]
  • Emma Roberts will join ‘Scream 4’. I must have lost track; I thought they were at #5. But the much of the original cast is in it: Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Neve Campbell. [Hollywood Insider]
  • Brendan Fraser will likely not be starring in the sequel for Journey to the Center of the Earth. Directing duties might fall to Brad Peyton. [Deadline]
  • The next Spiderman script has five contenders for the lead role: Jamie Bell, Alden Ehrenreich, Andrew Garfield, Frank Dillane, Josh Hutcherson. [Perez Hilton]
  • Nina Dobrev of the show Vampire Diaries will join Kellan Lutz and Samuel L. Jackson in the action movie Deathgames. [Heat Vision]
  • James McAvoy will play the younger version of Professor X (previously played by Patrick Stewart) in the next installment of the X-Men movies, X-Men: First Class, which takes place before the trilogy. [Hollywood, Heat Vision]

Screen Scene Tidbits

  • Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are two of the best actors in Hollywood, and on my top five faves. But does that mean they’re qualified to play Rat Pack pals Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra in an upcoming biopic? Martin Scorcese thinks so, and that means it’s pretty likely to happen. [The Playlist]
  • The Harry Potter film series is coming to an end. Can you believe it’s been about 10 years since the first one?! Apparently a few of the cast members, including Daniel Radcliffe, are a bit emotional as they’re wrapping up the last movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (2010; Part II will be released in 2011). [People]
  • Human Centipede is said to be one of the most revolting films ever made — so much so that some audience members were dry heaving in their seats during a viewing; the rest made for the door. But some wag got the clever idea to turn the opportunity into a Web-based video game — which doesn’t seem as offensive. If you don’t already know why Human Centipede the movie is so offensive, trust me, you never want to know. Even the description is revolting. Don’t even look it up. If you’re a little curious, play the Human Centipede Web game, which is just a clone of the original Centiped video game. Note: this game is NOT for the kiddies.

Enjoy the movies!

Did ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Make a Mistake?

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Nicole Scherzinger, along with her partner Derek Hough, might have won season 10’s Dancing With the Stars contest, but is she going to keep the object of her efforts, her mirror ball trophy? No. Instead, she’s pawning off the gaudy thing to her mother, whom she says was the reason for doing DWTS in the first place. But that’s not the controversy. Some people — including fellow contestants on DWTS Season 10 — are now suggesting that while Nicole IS incredibly talented, she shouldn’t have won let alone been on the show. Why not? Because she’s actually a dancer on the Pussycat Dolls, the cabaret-style entertainment group she founded.

On the one hand, as a lover of dance myself, it was amazing watching her and partner Derek Hough. I’m glad I saw their performances. On the other hand, she is in fact a very talented dancer from the get go. As contestant Niecy Nash put it, “There were moments you couldn’t tell her from the pro dancers.” It’s kind of like when the Olympics ceased to be a competition solely for amateur athletes — which is why it was resurrected in the first place — and allowed in all manner of professional athletes. Sure, we want to see great performances, but is it fair to the other contestants? Or should DWTS go entirely towards having only contestants with dance skills? Wouldn’t you rather see and cheer on the contestants who gain skills throughout the season?