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Screenwriter John Logan discusses Oscar hopefuls Hugo and Rango, and admits his new stage play is more secret his James Bond script.

It is Logan's third nomination, with nods for sword and sandals epic Gladiator in 2001 and Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator in 2005.

The result is a film that does not fit neatly into the family-friendly genre, and features a range of talking animals that are far from cute. One is a bird with an arrow lodged in his eye socket.

"We were guys coming from outside the world of animation," says Logan. "Whenever there was a choice, we took the idiosyncratic path."

It was during the recording sessions for Rango that Logan asked actor Alfred Molina (voicing an armadillo) to play the role of artist Mark Rothko in his play RED.

Opening at London's Donmar Warehouse in 2009 and later on Broadway, RED went on to win six Tony awards.

How much does Logan's stage writing (he has more than a dozen plays to his credit) come through in his film work?

"I wake up in the morning a playwright who fell into screenwriting," he says. "I cherish my theatre life and wouldn't feel complete if I didn't have it."

He adds: "The essential dramatic lessons in Aeschylus, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov are the bedrock of a career as a screenwriter."

It's this love of the great dramatists that led to Logan's screenplay for the first ever big-screen adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus.

"I didn't think anyone would be mad enough to want to make a movie of Coriolanus, until Ralph Fiennes came along – every bit as mad as myself – and we just did it."

And so to Skyfall – the new Bond film with Daniel Craig back as 007, and Fiennes and Javier Bardem in the cast. The film is currently in production, and Logan is still hands on.

"There's always tweaking to be done," he says, giving nothing away.

"I've been with Skyfall for over a year now. It's been the most fun experience I've ever had on a movie. It's like being part of a theatre company.

"I grew up on Bond and working with Sam [Mendes] is a dream because we're both theatre animals. We both speak the same language about story and character."

Logan reveals he has just finished writing a new play and is currently writing a screen adaptation of the Jersey Boys musical.

What's the play about? "The only thing more secret than Bond is my stage work," he teases. "All I can say is it will be in London this time next year."

Meanwhile, Logan's busy writing schedule will have to go on hold next week, as he has a couple of important appointments in his diary.

The Oscar Wilde awards are in Santa Monica on 23 February. The Academy Awards take place in Hollywood on 26 February.

Pop star Katy Perry has decided to donate the proceeds of her new single Part of Me to charity.

The profits from the song will go to arts charity MusiCares Foundation, which assists struggling musicians, reports Contactmusic.com.

"My proceeds of Part of Me from iTunes and others will go to one of my favourite charities for the arts, Musicares," Perry tweeted.

The I Kissed a Girl hitmaker’s latest song shot into the Top 10 on iTunes just hours after she debuted it at the Grammy Awards Sunday.

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Newark: Pop star Whitney Houston’s funeral will be Saturday in the church where she first sang as a child.

The owner of the Whigham Funeral Home in Newark said Tuesday that the funeral would be at the New Hope Baptist Church there.

The 48-year-old Houston died last Saturday at a hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Officials said she was underwater and apparently unconscious when she was pulled from a bathtub.

Her body was returned to New Jersey late Monday.

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Dubai: Videos of the Dubai Fountain swaying to Whitney Houston’s hit I Will Always Love You are going viral on YouTube following the singer’s death.

The 900-feet fountain, set in the Burj Khalifa lake, has had the song in its line-up for a few months – but there’s been renewed interest in the videos of the performance posted online.

View for one video, posted in July last year, went from 65,000 views to 260,000 in just three days since Satuday.

Gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who appears to be under the impression that the Dubai Fountain was performing a tribute, posted another video on Monday.

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Popular dance reality show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, which was aired on Sony since 2006, has now been acquired by Colors, which has already signed up dancing diva Madhuri Dixit as one of the judges for the upcoming season of the celebrity-based show.

The show, inspired by Dancing With The Stars, also saw Dixit on the judges’ panel in its fourth season. At that time, she was busy travelling between India and the US, where her family was then settled.

The actress has now moved back to India, and is expected to be more relaxed on the set as she doesn’t have to think of travelling far away after every shooting schedule, said a source.

The upcoming season on Colors will get a "colourful" make-over too, and the channel hopes to give it a metamorphosis in terms of style and look.

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Story By: Weekend Edition Sunday

Before Hugo was the hit film directed by Martin Scorsese, it was a children’s book called The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick. Host Rachel Martin speaks to screenwriter John Logan, whose script for the film has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Remember this face, as we bet you’ll be seeing more of it in the future. Hossam L. Hussaini is one of Egypt’s most promising rising stars, and 2012 is off to a great start for the actor after his latest film, Omar w Salma 3 — in which he appears alongside Tamer Hosni and Mai Ezz Al Deen — has shot to the top of the box office charts.

And UAE film fans can catch the latest instalment in the popular comedy series in cinemas across the country.

Multi-talented Hussaini first made a name for himself as a director, working mainly on television commercials and music videos — his latest video being Hosni’s Akalemha. He’s also a keen rapper. Hussaini then made his acting debut two years ago, appearing in the hit television series Al Hara, followed by an appearance in the movie Nour Einey.

Here’s what he had to say about his latest film.

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NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) – For six decades the stage supported the likes of Patsy Cline, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, with the “hillbilly dust” sprinkled across its blonde oak planks adding to the legend of the Grand Ole Opry.

After one final show on Friday, however, the well-worn stage of Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium is scheduled to be torn up, replaced by a newer, more durable surface.

“It’s almost like a part of you is going to die,” said Oak Ridge Boys’ bass singer Richard Sterban, who along with rest of the country quartet will be part of the final Grand Ole Opry performance on the oak planks, which have supported 61 years of country music history.

Keith Urban and others will join them in the show.

The new stage of Ryman Auditorium – a 120-year-old historic former church tabernacle – will be Brazilian teak. Officials say it can support 120,000 pounds, three times the current stage’s strength. Concrete and steel will be used to reinforce hickory support beams and joists, while new cross-beams also will be installed.

Sterban said the stage is showing wear and tear, and he thinks the Ryman Auditorium is doing the right thing by preparing for the future. He applauded plans that call for an 18-inch strip of the old oak planks to be installed at the front of the new stage.

“Any time any of us go to perform on that stage, we can still walk on part of the old stage and still touch history,” he said. “That’s a magical thing.”

The Band Perry will break in the new stage with a show February 20.

Singer Emmylou Harris, who has spoken of the stage’s “hillbilly dust,” championed the Ryman Auditorium’s rescue from disuse in the early 1990s, almost two decades after the Grand Ole Opry moved to a new home in the suburbs of Nashville.

The Ryman was restored and re-opened in 1994, where it has hosted concerts by such performers as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello and Tony Bennett. The Opry also returns to the Ryman from the suburbs during the winter months.

(Reporting By Tim Ghianni; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Paul Thomasch)

Dubai: Fans in the UAE should to brace themselves for another round of killer vocals as singing sensation Charice heads to Dubai in March as part of her world tour to promote her second album Infinity.

The Pyramid singer’s performance in Dubai has been widely anticipated following a cancelled concert in October last year. Her last visit to Dubai was in 2010, when she had a concert with singer-songwriter Billy Crawford at the Dubai Tennis Stadium. 

On her official website, Charice listed her tour dates, beginning with Dubai on March 2, then Singapore on March 5, followed by Jakarta on March 7, Hong Kong on March 19 and Korea on March 21.

Charice’s meteoric rise to fame started with a YouTube video clip of her singing on an Asian variety show. The clip went viral, making her an instant celebrity and leading to a guest appearance at the shows of Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey, who was so impressed by her powerful vocals that she told her: "You are a force to be reckoned with. That voice comes from something bigger than yourself." 

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Charice has performed alongside artists like Michael Bublé, Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli, and Josh Groban, before finally releasing her first album, which hit the top of the charts in Japan and Asia. She also secured a guest role in TV series Glee and in the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, and has just finished filming her first feature film Here comes the boom with Salma Hayek and Kevin James. 

She describes her rise to fame as a "dream come true". For fans in the UAE, it looks like the same will hold true when they finally see her again next month.

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Video

Charice and Billy rock Dubai

Fact box

 What: Charice in concert 

When: March 2 

Where: Dubai Festival City 

Tickets: Dh195 for a front pit ticket, Dh95 for a regular ticket. On sale from February 1 on platinumlist.ae. Call 055 3691324 for more details.

<span class="articleLocation”>(Reuters) – Three-times married Jennifer Lopez said on Monday she doesn’t know if she’ll wed again after splitting up with her Latin pop singer husband Marc Anthony last year.

“Let’s see, I don’t know. It’s not time to think about that yet, do you know what I mean? Like, it’s still fresh,” the singer and “American Idol” judge told Matt Lauer on TV talk show “Today.”

Lopez, 42, who split with Anthony in July after seven years marriage and two children, also fielded questions regarding comments she made about her divorce in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine last August, when she said “I love myself enough to walk away” from her marriage with Anthony.

“Everything I wanted to say about the divorce I said in that article, and Marc and I agreed that we weren’t going to talk about it publicly again,” said Lopez.

“We’re human and it’s not the easiest thing in the world but I think we handled it with a lot of grace and a lot of caring and a lot of love,” she added

The “On The Floor” singer teamed up with her ex-husband on their “passion project,” new talent show “Q’Viva! The Chosen,” to find the best artists from Latin America for a stage show in Las Vegas. “Q’Viva” debuted on Saturday on Univision and on 20 other TV networks in Central and South America.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant)