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Rachel Weisz has brushed off any talk of competition between her and Katie Holmes, who are both playing Jackie Kennedy in two different projects.
The Oscar-winning star will portray the former First Lady in a biopic directed by her fiance Darren Aronofsky, while Katie will play her in a TV mini-series, The Kennedys, to be shown on the History Channel.
"She's a fantastic actress, she will be fabulous - it's not a competition," Rachel told People.com.
She added: "I'm surprised more people haven't played her thus far. It seems strange there hasn't been many versions, but it's great she has the opportunity to play her as well."
Rachel is keen to jump into the stylish shoes of Jackie Kennedy.
"It's extremely exciting and scary at the same time. She's American royalty, so there's some fear," she said.
"I haven't really got deep into it yet, but of course she's one of the 20th century's greatest and most fabulous fashion icons. I'm thrilled."

Favreau reveals Iron Man 3 plot

Director Jon Favreau has revealed his plans for Iron Man 3.
With Iron Man 2 currently topping the box office, the actor and director told MTV he wants the villain in his next movie to be Marvel character the Mandarin, a martial-arts expert who has superhuman powers that can tear apart Iron Man's suit with his bare hands.
Jon said: "You've got to do the Mandarin - the problem with the Mandarin is that the way it's depicted in the comic books, you don't want to see that."
He continued: "He has 10 magical rings - that just doesn't feel right for our [franchise]. So it's either tech-based, or the rings are not really rings. But maybe with Thor and all those others, you'll introduce magic to that world and it won't seem so out of place."
But while Jon said he is keen to make Iron Man a trilogy he admits all the other planned Marvel movies, with overlapping stories and characters, will affect his film
He said: "Iron Man 3 to pay it off, there's so much left to understand about what the world is going to be like then. You've got Thor, Captain America, Avengers all happening with different directors before Iron Man 3, and that's all going to affect Iron Man 3.
"And what's going to have happened by then?
"With Thor, you're going to have all this supernatural stuff happening, and magic. There's a lot of stuff going on in the world, if it's going to match the comic book, it's going to be incredibly complex for a film. I'm curious to see how they handle all that stuff."

Jessica Taylor welcomes baby boy

Jessica Taylor and her husband, England cricketer Kevin Pietersen, have become parents to a baby boy.
The baby - the couple's first - was born today (Monday) after Kevin jetted from Barbados, where he has been playing in the World Twenty20, to be by the former Liberty X singer's side.
A spokesperson said the baby, whose name has not yet been announced, was born without complication and that the new addition to the Pietersen family and his mother are doing well.
Kevin, 29, said: "This really is the most amazing experience of my life."
The cricketer plans to stay with his 29-year-old wife, a Dancing On Ice finalist, for a couple of days before flying to the West Indies to continue the tournament.
The spokesperson added that the couple, who married in 2008, would like to spend time on their own to enjoy the new arrival.

Betty White hits a homerun on 'Saturday Night Live'

Betty White fans have another reason to appreciate Facebook. Not only did it provide the platform to petition for the TV icon to host "Saturday Night Live," it became a hilarious punch line in her opening monologue.
"When I first heard about the campaign to get me to host 'Saturday Night Live,' I didn't know what Facebook was," White said. "And now that I do know what it is, I have to say it sounds like a huge waste of time."
The jokes continued -- "When I was young we didn't have Facebook, we had phone book," she said, "but you wouldn't waste an afternoon with it" -- but White's Facebook fans can rest assured their online effort wasn't a waste. In fact, the actress, who appeared in every skit, is getting rave reviews.
"All it took to reinvigorate a 35-year-old comedy show was the presence of an 88-year-old woman," writes Dave Itzoff of the New York Times. "The only real disappointment of the night was when the clock struck 1 a.m. and Ms. White and the cast had to step on stage to wave their goodbyes."
Whether singing her muffins' praises on NPR or donning a black ski mask for a hardcore version of The Golden Girls theme song, White shined on a night when SNL welcomed back many of its female heavy hitters, including Molly Shannon,Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer.
"Her comic delivery is still formidable," says the Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan. "The show would be smart to extend an open invitation to White to return as host any time, but given how in demand she is, who knows if she'd be able to make it back?"
And even musical guest Jay-Z seemed in awe of White. After his second song, "Young Forever," he dedicated the performance to "the most incredible Betty White."

Will.i.am: I'm Cheryl's knight

Will.i.am has apparently claimed he could ride to Cheryl Cole's aid as her knight in shining armour.
The Black Eyed Peas frontman has shown his soft spot for the X Factor judge, who announced she was splitting from footballer husband Ashley following reports he had been unfaithful, and reckons he's man enough to be her protector.
"She needs rescuing after all she's been through and I'm the man to do it - whenever she needs me, she knows I'm straight there, no excuses," he told the Daily Star.
"The way Ashley treated her was just stupid and she knows I will always be there for her now."
Will, who first worked with Cheryl in 2008 when he asked her to sing on his single Heartbreaker, said he would drop everything for the Girls Aloud star, who is supporting the Black Eyed Peas on their UK tour.
"If she's in New York, I will get a flight straight away to see her. If she's in LA, I'll get on a flight there. I'll even come to London if she wants me to. I'd move to anywhere if it meant being with her," he added.

Singing legend Lena Horne dies at age 92

She started out as a 16-year-old dancer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, and later won two Grammys

Lena Horne, the silky-voiced singing legend who shattered Hollywood stereotypes of African Americans on screen in the 1940s as a symbol of glamour whose signature song was "Stormy Weather," died Sunday. She was 92
Horne died at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, a spokeswoman said. No cause of death was given.
Beginning as a 16-year-old chorus girl at the fabled Cotton Club in Harlem in 1933, Horne launched a more than six-decade career that spanned films, radio, television, recording, nightclubs, concert halls and Broadway.
As a singer, Horne had a voice that jazz critic Don Heckman described in a 1997 profile in the Los Angeles Times as "smooth, almost caressing, with its warm timbre and seductive drawl _ honey and bourbon with a teasing trace of lemon."
She was, Heckman wrote, "one of the legendary divas of popular music" _ a singer who "belonged in the pantheon of great female artists that includes Ethel Waters, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae."
Horne, 80 at the time and cutting a new album, took a different view.
"Oh, please," she said. "I'm really not Miss Pretentious. I'm just a survivor. Just being myself."
When Horne first began dancing in the chorus at the Cotton Club _ three shows a night, seven nights a week for $25 a week _ she did so to help out her family's troubled finances during the Depression.
By the time she arrived in Hollywood for a nightclub job in 1941, she had been a vocalist for the Noble Sissle and Charlie Barnet orchestras, had done some recording and was a cabaret sensation at the prestigious Cafe Society Downtown club in New York's Greenwich Village.
She created a similar response performing at the Little Troc, a small club on the Sunset Strip, where, according to one news account, "she has knocked the movie population bowlegged and is up to her ears in offers."
Signed by MGM to a seven-year contract in an era when no other blacks were under long-term contracts at the major movie studios, Horne went on to become one of the best-known African-American performers in the country.
With her copper-toned skin, strong cheekbones and dazzling smile, she was a breakthrough on the silver screen _ "Hollywood's first black beauty, sex symbol, singing star," as Vogue magazine put it decades later.
"I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept," Horne once said. "I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked."
Refusing to play maids and other stereotypical roles offered to black actors at the time, Horne appeared in a nonspeaking role as a singer in her first MGM movie, "Panama Hattie," a 1942 comedy musical starring Red Skelton and Ann Sothern.
That set the tone for most of her screen appearances in the '40s, a time in which she appeared in more than a dozen movies, including "I Dood It," "Swing Fever," "Broadway Rhythm" and "Ziegfeld Follies."
In most of them, she had only cameos as a singer, who was typically clad in a glamorous evening gown and singing while leaning against a pillar. It became her on-screen trademark.
"They didn't make me into a maid, but they didn't make me into anything else either," she wrote in "Lena," her 1965 autobiography. "I became a butterfly pinned to a column singing away in Movieland."
Horne's musical numbers usually were shot independent of the films' narratives, making them easy to be deleted when screened in the Jim Crow South.
Two exceptions were the all-black musicals in which she was one of the stars: "Cabin in the Sky" and "Stormy "Weather," both released in 1943.
Her memorable rendition of Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen's "Stormy Weather" in the movie became a hit recording for Horne, as well as becoming her signature song.
A World War II pinup girl, the glamorous Horne in 1944 became the first black to appear on the cover of a movie magazine, Motion Picture.
"Anybody who was not madly in love with Lena Horne should report to his undertaker immediately and turn himself in," actor and friend Ossie Davis said on "Lena Horne: In Her Own Voice," a 1996 installment of PBS' "American Masters" biography series.
"In the history of American popular entertainment, no woman had ever looked like Lena Horne. Nor had any other black woman had looks considered as 'safe' and non-threatening," Donald Bogle wrote in his book "Brown Sugar: Over One Hundred Years of America's Black Superstars."
"The Horne demeanor _ distant and aloof _ suggested that she was a woman off somewhere in a world of her own .... who appeared as if all her life she had been placed on a pedestal and everything had come easily to her. That was the way she appeared to be. ... The reality was another matter."
She was born Lena Mary Calhoun Horne on June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Her family lived in the home of her father's middle-class parents in Brooklyn, where Horne's grandmother was active in the Urban League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the women's suffrage movement.
Horne's father left his wife and daughter when Horne was 3. And her mother, unhappy living with her strong-willed mother-in-law, soon moved out to pursue an acting career with a Harlem-based black stock company.
That left young Lena in the care of her grandparents until she joined her mother on the road in the South a few years later.
Horne was living in Harlem with her mother and her out-of-work stepfather when she left school at 16 and joined the chorus at the Cotton Club in 1933.
While continuing to work at the club, she made her Broadway debut in 1934 with a small role in "Dance With Your Gods," an all-black drama that ran only nine performances.
Leaving the Cotton Club in 1935, she became a featured singer in the all-black Noble Sissle Society Orchestra but quit two years later to marry Louis Jones, a Pittsburgh friend of her father's who was some nine years her senior.
At 19, she settled into domestic life in Pittsburgh and gave birth to her two children, Gail and Teddy. But she and her husband separated in 1940 and were divorced in 1944.
Although Horne gave up show business when she married Jones, money problems during the marriage prompted her to accept the co-starring role in "The Duke Is Tops," a low-budget, 1938 black movie musical shot in 10 days.
She also appeared in "Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1939," a Broadway revue that had only nine performances.
Moving back to New York after her marriage broke up, Horne was hired as a vocalist with the Barnet Orchestra, becoming one of the first black performers to sing with a major white band, with whom she had a hit record, "Good for Nothing Joe."
After leaving the Barnet band in 1941, Horne began an extended engagement at Cafe Society Downtown, where she first met and became friends with singer-actor and political activist Paul Robeson.
While under contract to MGM in the '40s, Horne met Lennie Hayton, a white staff composer and arranger at the studio who became her second husband.
Fearing public reaction when they married in Paris in 1947, they did not announce their marriage until three years later.
Horne later said she initially became involved with Hayton because she thought he could be useful to her career.
"He could get me into places no black manager could," she told The New York Times in 1981. "It was wrong of me, but as a black woman, I knew what I had against me." But, she said, "because he was a nice man and because he was in my corner, I began to love him."
But being married to a white man, whom she once said "taught me everything I know musically," took a toll _ from her impatience with black critics who questioned the marriage to her sometimes using her husband as a "whipping boy" and making him "pay for everything the whites had done to us."
Horne's last film for MGM _ a singing cameo in the musical "Duchess of Idaho," starring Esther Williams and Van Johnson _ was released in 1950, the same year she triumphantly appeared at the London Palladium.
Primarily due to her friendship with Robeson and her involvement with the Council for African Affairs and the Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee to the Arts, Science and Professions, both of which were named as Communist fronts, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to appear on radio and television in the early '50s.
But the cabaret business remained untouched by the blacklist, and she focused on her critically acclaimed nightclub/cabaret act.
Her "Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria" became RCA Victor's biggest-selling album by a female vocalist in 1957.
Horne, who was able to resume appearing on television in 1956, also starred in the hit Broadway musical "Jamaica," which ran from 1957 to '59 and earned her a Tony Award nomination.
Unable to stay in many of the hotels she performed in because she was black, Horne developed what she later described as "a toughness, a way of isolating" herself from the audience as a performer.
"There was no cuteness or coyness about her," comedian Alan King said of Horne on "Lena Horne: In Her Own Voice." "Lena came out there and stuck it right in their face _ boom! She was radiantly and subtly brazen, saying to herself, 'You want to take me to bed, but you won't let me come in the front door.' "
Throughout her early career, Horne experienced the injustices suffered by African Americans at the time.
While touring with the USO during World War II, she was expected to entertain the white soldiers before the blacks.
A day after performing for white soldiers in a large auditorium at Fort Riley, Kan., she returned to entertain black troops in the black mess hall.
But when she discovered that the whites seated in the front rows were German prisoners of war, she became furious. Marching off the platform, she turned her back on the POWs and sang to the black soldiers in the back of the hall.
Horne's long-suppressed anger over the treatment of blacks in white society erupted in 1960 when she overheard a drunken white man at the Luau restaurant in Beverly Hills refer to her as "just another nigger."
Jumping up, she threw an ashtray, a table lamp and several glasses at him, cutting the man's forehead.
When reports of her outburst appeared in newspapers around the country, Horne was surprised at the positive response, mostly from African Americans.
"Phone calls and telegrams came in from all over," she told the Christian Science Monitor in 1984. "It was the first time it struck me that black people related to each other in bigger ways than I realized."
In the early '60s, Horne became more active in the civil-rights movement, participating in a meeting with prominent blacks in 1963 with then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the wake of violence in Birmingham, Ala., and singing at civil rights rallies.
In the early '70s, Horne faced three personal blows within an 18-month period: In 1970, the same year her father died, her son died of kidney disease; and her husband died of a heart attack in 1971.
Horne later said she "stayed in the house grieving" until Alan King "bullied" her out of her depression, and she returned to singing and recording.
She also toured with Tony Bennett, as well as doing 37 performances on Broadway of "Tony & Lena Sing" in 1974. And she played Glinda, the Good Witch in "The Wiz," the 1978 movie musical directed by Sidney Lumet, her then-son-in-law.
Then, in 1981, she made a triumphant return to Broadway in the hit "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music."
Then 63, Horne went on to win the Drama Desk Award and a special Tony Award for her autobiographical show that ran on Broadway for more than a year and led to a Grammy Award-winning soundtrack album and a cross-country
Her rendition of "Stormy Weather" was, naturally, a show stopper.
She actually sang the song twice, first as she had in the movie when she was in her 20s and, she said in an interview, she couldn't sing it "worth a toot."
Then, at the end of the show, she electrified her audience by singing it again from the perspective of a woman in her 60s, who had experienced a lifetime of love and misery.
As Horne said in the documentary "Lena Horne: In Her Own Voice": "My life has been about surviving. Along the way I also became an artist. It's been an interesting journey. One in which music became first my refuge and then my salvation."
Horne was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient in 1984, and she received a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1998.

First-time wins for actors

Hollywood veteran Jeff Bridges finally had his Oscar moment Sunday night, winning his first Academy Award for an acclaimed turn as a hard-living country singer seeking redemption in Crazy Heart. His received his first nomination in 1971 for The Last Picture Show.
"Whoa!" Bridges declared in response to receiving a standing ovation, before moving on to honour his performer parents, Lloyd and Dorothy Dean Bridges, who encouraged him and his siblings to follow in their footsteps.
"Thank you mom and dad for turning me on to such a groovy profession," he said. "They loved show biz so much, I feel an extension of them. This is honouring them as much as me."
Sandra Bullock, dubbed America's Sweetheart for her numerous roles in box-office friendly romantic comedies, picked up her first-ever nomination and Oscar for The Blind Side, in which she has a rare dramatic turn playing a wealthy southern woman who adopts a homeless teen and helps turn him into a football Star.
"Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down?" Bullock quipped in a speech that honoured her fellow nominees and was at times sentimental, but also punctuated by jokes.
"I would like to thank — what this film was to me — the moms who take care of all the babies in the world, no matter where they come from," she said, later also recalling her mother, the late German opera singer Helga Bullock.
Bullock's win was also one for the history books, as she became the first performer to win both an Academy Award and the dubious Golden Raspberry prize on the same weekend. Her triumph at the Oscars came a night after she turned up to accept the worst actress Razzie for the box-office flop All About Steve — with a wagon full of the film's DVDs.
A pair who have been unanimously recognized for landmark performances capped their film season trophy hauls with best supporting actor Oscars: Christoph Waltz, for Inglourious Basterds, and Mo'Nique, for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.
Waltz, a familiar face from European stage and television, picked up the evening's first trophy for his turn as a villainous Nazi in Quentin Tarantino's film — his first Hollywood role. Waltz thanked the American director for taking his career in a new direction.
"Quentin, with his unorthodox methods of navigation, this fearless explorer, took this ship across and brought it in with flying colours, and that's why I'm here," Waltz said.
"This is your welcoming embrace and there's no way I can ever thank you enough, but I can start now. Thank you."
Mo'Nique, an actress, comedienne and talk show host best known for brash, low-brow humour, delivered a startling, widely acclaimed performance as a monstrous single mother in Precious.
"I would like to thank the academy for showing it can be about the performance and not the politics," she said as she took the stage.
Mo'Nique also paid tribute to Hattie McDaniel, the Gone With the Wind actress who was the first black performer to win an Oscar, Precious' executive producers Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, and to her husband, Sidney Hicks, "for showing me that … you have to forgo doing what's popular to do what's right and, baby, you were so right."

Multiple wins

Precious was among the evening's double winners, with Geoffrey Fletcher nabbing the urban drama's second Academy Award for his script adaptation of poet Sapphire's story.
"This is for everybody who works on a dream every day," he said, his voice wavering. "To Precious boys and girls everywhere."
Along with the end-of-evening best actor trophy for Bridges, Crazy Heart won one of the night's early prizes when Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett were honoured for the film's theme song, The Weary Kind.
Also scoring two Oscars was adventure tale Up, winner of the best animated feature Oscar and best original score. It is the third consecutive Pixar film to win the Academy Award for animated feature.
"Never did I dream that making a flip-book out of my third-grade math book would lead to this," said director Pete Docter.
One of the evening's upsets was in the foreign-language film category, with Argentina's The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos) taking the title over higher-profile entries that have dominated other award shows, included Germany's The White Ribbon and France's A Prophet.
The 82nd annual Academy Awards, which opened with a song-and-dance number by Neil Patrick Harris and playful ribbing of this year's nominees by hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, also took a few breaks for tributes.
In addition to a dance segment set to the best score nominees and video montages paying homage to Hollywood's horror films, honorary Oscar-winners Lauren Bacall and Roger Corman and the annual tally of industry figures who have passed away, organizers put together a tender, stand-alone homage to John Hughes, with actors from some of his biggest films speaking as part of a tribute to the late U.S. producer, director and screenwriter.
Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy and Macaulay Culkin were among those who spoke about Hughes — who died in August 2009 — as a montage of his many teen and family comedy-dramas rolled on screens behind them, including Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Some Kind of Wonderful, Home Alone, Weird Science and Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Box office: 'Alice in Wonderland' on track to break all March records

Disney Studios sure chose the right date with its March premiere of Alice in Wonderland. The Tim Burton-Johnny Depp collaboration debuted Friday to close to $40 million, putting its 3-day cume in the range of $110-$120 million. That far surpasses the previous March record-holder, Warner Bros.’ 300 which opened to $71 million back in 2007. Overture Films’ release of the R-rated cop drama Brooklyn’s Finest bowed in similar fashion to the R-rated films of the past few weeks, earning an estimated $4 million on Friday for a early weekend estimate of $14 million.
R-rated thriller Shutter Island looks like it will drop an average 40% its third weekend in release, for a $4 million Friday and a $13 million three-day take. Last weekend’s debut Cop Out from Kevin Smith is likely to fall 50% for its sophomore session. The Bruce Willis-Tracy Morgan combo generated around $3 million on Friday, putting its weekend total in the $9 million range. And Avatar has finally fallen like a normal film after 12 astounding weekends in the release. With Alice taking the majority of 3-D screens, Avatar is likely to lose close to 40% this frame with an almost $2 million Friday and a weekend take of a bit over $8 million. Check back here tomorrow when I post the final results.

Oscar forecast: And the winners will be ...

For the first time in almost 70 years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has made room for 10 nominees for best picture.
That's no reflection of an exceptional peak in cinematic artistry, but rather a bid to stem faltering ratings for the Oscar telecast over the last decade.
Will it work? If they want ratings, they should get Simon Cowell to pick the winners. Asking Taylor Lautner to show his face is not going to attract younger viewers to a show hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, and a nomination or two for "District 9" won't change that.
On Sunday, we'll see how it affects the rhythm of the ceremony itself, but right now, I'll bet most people would have a hard time naming more than half the contenders.
Ten nominees or not, this has become a two-horse race between anti-war war movies. On the one hand, there's James Cameron's box office champion "Avatar," the 3-D sci-fi spectacular destined to save Hollywood (if not the planet). On the other, there's Kathryn Bigelow's incendiary Iraq thriller, "The Hurt Locker," a critics' favorite that was barely released. If it won, "The Hurt Locker" would be the least commercially successful best picture in decades.
Could David conquer Goliath? The Academy's new first-past-50-percent voting system gives the underdog a real chance. Assuming no film gets 51 percent straight off the bat, the film with the lowest number of votes is eliminated after the first round, and that film's ballots' second choices come into play. It wouldn't be surprising if supporters of "An Education," "The Blind Side" and "Precious" rated the more Oscar-friendly "Hurt Locker" significantly above "Avatar."
It could be a squeaker, but we'll never know, because the Academy won't disclose the margin of victory (though it might make better TV if it did).
So, I still expect "Avatar" to come away with best picture. This blockbuster is a remarkable accomplishment technically and artistically, it plays to a certain Hollywood liberalism and it helps the industry feel more confident about the future at a time when it's vulnerable -- a potent combination.
Lost in all the hype are at least two better films: "Inglourious Basterds" -- which you might call a pro-war war movie -- and (my favorite), the Coen brothers' masterpiece, "A Serious Man." But, hey, that's showbiz.
(Predictions of who the Academy will pick are in bold:)
Best director
It never makes sense when the Academy decides the best director didn't make the best picture, but of course it often happens. This year, I expect Kathryn Bigelow to take it as a consolation prize and because the Academy knows a female victory is long overdue in this category. One day, I would be interested to hear an explanation for how Lee Daniels ("Precious") was nominated and Joel Coen overlooked, but until then, I will content myself by pointing out that Quentin Tarantino choreographed the year's most unforgettable opening sequence and its best climax, but will certainly go home empty-handed.
Best actress
Helen Mirren ("The Last Station") is there to make up numbers. For Carey Mulligan ("An Education"), the nomination is a kind of coming-out party: America, meet a bright new star in the making. Gabourey Sidibe is superb in "Precious," the single best thing in the movie, illuminating without ever apologizing. Too bad she doesn't stand a chance. That leaves Meryl Streep ("Julie & Julia") vs. Sandra Bullock ("The Blind Side"). No offense to Bullock, who's irresistible if you like that kind of thing, but if the Academy sends Streep away empty-handed for the 12th time straight (she hasn't won since 1982's "Sophie's Choice"), next time, she's going to show up with a firearm under her robe.
Best actor
It may have been perfect casting, but Clint Eastwood didn't give Morgan Freeman enough to work with as Nelson Mandela in "Invictus." Colin Firth makes suicide look chic in "A Single Man," but the movie hasn't broken out. George Clooney does what he does best in "Up in the Air" -- it's a consummate movie star performance in a role tailored to his talents and persona. In another year, that might have been enough. Jeremy Renner is riveting in "The Hurt Locker," but he's not a star (yet?). And then out of left field comes Jeff Bridges as an alcohol-soaked country singer in "Crazy Heart," the right man in the right part at the right time, and a lock for the Oscar. Everybody likes Bridges, this critic included, but the best male performance of the year wasn't even nominated: Joaquin Phoenix in "Two Lovers."
Best supporting actress
If the awards season has taught us anything, then we know that Mo'Nique ("Precious") will win the Oscar for best supporting actress, and she will give the best acceptance speech of the night.
Best supporting actor
If the awards season has taught us anything, then we know that Christoph Waltz will win the Oscar for best supporting actor, and he will pay fulsome (and deserved) tribute to Quentin Tarantino in an idiom that reminds us he's not from around these parts. You could make the case that this was a lead role, but why spoil the party?
Best animated feature
Film for film, this must be the strongest category in the field. "Up" is going to win, mostly on the strength of that first 10 minutes. Should win? "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is a joy to behold. "Coraline" should be vying with "Avatar" for the (nonexistent) best 3-D Oscar. But whatever happened to Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo," his finest since "Spirited Away"?
Best adapted screenplay
Isn't it a bit ridiculous to claim that "District 9" is an adapted screenplay, since it's based on the filmmakers' own 10-minute short film? Be that as it may, Nick Hornby's adaptation of a fragment by Lynn Barber, "An Education," is exemplary screenwriting and fully deserving of the Oscar -- one that will wind up on Jason Reitman's shelf for his witty but glib and under-developed "Up in the Air."
Best original screenplay

Nice to see "Up" recognized as a piece of writing. "A Serious Man" is the best-written movie by our best movie writers. If "The Hurt Locker" wins this, it will be a signal of a very good night in store for Kathryn Bigelow et al, but Quentin Tarantino should have a speech ready to go, since you would have to be deaf and blind not to appreciate the literary qualities in "Inglourious Basterds."

Sugababes say they have nothing to fear from Mutya Buena legal challenge as they launch new album Sweet 7

Sugababe's Sweet 7 album launch on Wednesday threatened to turn sour after ex-bandmate Mutya Buena applied to the European Trademarks Authority to reclaim the band's name.
Not that the current line-up has any time to worry about such things.
At the morning launch they performed for fans, then popped to Downing Street to discuss illegal file sharing with the PM, then it was off to Notting Hill's Supperclub to do a second gig for fans. Phew.
Heidi Range tells us: "Our record company owns the name, so there's no conversations about who owns the name." Glad to hear it...

Party like an Avatar: How to throw an Oscar bash

Everything will glow -- the balloons, the table cloths, the blue martinis and the party favors. The red carpet will turn blue. Even the female impersonators will be painted -- you guessed it -- blue.
The first 50 guests will be given bright blue boas. There will be seven high-definition projection screens, and the winner of the trivia competition will win a massive, crystal-bedazzled Hpnotiq bottle. All-in-all, Edward Gisiger says, it's going to be one great Oscar party.
Gisiger is the owner of the Kit Kat Lounge and Supper Club in Chicago, Illinois. Every year the Kit Kat throws an elaborate themed party on Oscar night. This year they've chosen to transform the club into "The Land of Avatar," complete with Kit Kat diva Aurora Sexton playing the role of warrior princess Neytiri.
"This is one of the best years of Hollywood ever because of 'Avatar,' so there's a real reason to celebrate," Gisiger said.
With 10 best picture nominees, there are plenty of themes to choose from. But planning that party can be stressful and time consuming. CNN talked to Gisiger and other party-throwers to provide dos and don'ts for an award-worthy night.
Don't wait until Sunday
Mary Johnson and her friend Carolyn Mueller in Dayton, Ohio, held a "Julie & Julia" dinner party in December. The pair started prepping their individual ingredients on Tuesday, met on Wednesday to combine portions and baked early on Thursday to get all the dishes ready for Thursday night.
"Prepare as much of the food ahead of time so you can enjoy the party," Johnson recommends. "You also don't want to try new recipes out on a party. Choose recipes you feel comfortable with."
First season "Top Chef" host and cookbook writer Katie Lee offers the same advice. "It is important to be able to enjoy your party just as much as your guests. Don't keep yourself too occupied in the kitchen so you can join in on the fun. Put out a food and drink buffet to make it easier to serve."
Do make it interactive
Johnson and Mueller dressed up in old-school aprons, chef hats and pearls. Gisiger says this is a great way to get guests involved in the theme, especially if you offer them prizes for being creative.
Lee recommends creating ballot games and trivia to entertain guests in between watching category announcements at the Academy Awards show.
Do set the mood
Although Gisiger's budget may be a bit bigger than yours, his club's glowing blue atmosphere should inspire you.
"I think there are so many things you can do from home. It's just a way of being creative and making it different from others,'" the club owner said.
Gisiger suggests having a signature drink that follows the theme of the party, similar to his "Avatar Princess" martini made with vodka, Cognac and pineapple juice -- with a glow stick, of course.
Stacy Suzuki attended another "Julie & Julia" party in Hawaii where the host had guests bring a dish from Julia Child's cookbook. The recipes were on display and the dining table was set with lines from France. A French cooking DVD played in the background.
"A part-French poodle was running around the house wearing a doggie t-shirt made in Paris," she said.
Lee, also the Moet & Chandon spokeswoman, said you can offer your guests the same cocktail the stars are drinking on the red carpet and at the Governor's Ball -- Moet Golden Glamour.
Or bring the fashion world to your party by making it black tie optional and place digital cameras around the room to capture paparazzi shots, Lee suggested. Whatever you do, "don't keep the glamour to a minimum."
Don't have guests leave empty-handed
Suzuki's host created a full menu using all of Julia Child's recipes. When the guests left, the host had copies of the recipes available to take home.
The gift bags at the Kit Kat Lounge will include that blue boa, a glowing heart-shaped necklace and a T-shirt.
But most important, Gisiger says, is that guests leave feeling recharged.

"It's a fun way to escape," Gisiger said about both the party and movies in general. "That's kind of what we focus on."

Staten Island mother and plastic surgery patient thinks four breasts not twice as nice suit A Staten Island mom who underwent bosom-boosting surgery got far more than she bargained for - "essentially four breasts," her lawyer claimed yesterday.
The 2003 augmentation operation and subsequent procedures left Maria Alaimo, now 47, with "double-bubble" deformities that caused "pain...disability, loss of self-esteem, humiliation and embarrassment," according to a lawsuit she filed.
It also contributed to the end of the mother of two's marriage, her lawyer Michael Kuharski told the Staten Island Advance.
Alaimo, who started out wanting only a pair of full 36 C cups, now is suing Dr. Keith Berman of Staten Island for $5 million in damages.
Opening arguments in a civil trial were made in Staten Island Supreme Court yesterday.
Jurors were told Alaimo found Berman through an online ad and paid him $7,000 cash for the surgery.
Post-op photos show heavy scars on Alaimo's breasts, which appear flattened on the bottom with severe swells the size of a softball on top.
Kuharski called the "double-bubble" deformities "horrendous."
Berman testified he fully warned Alaimo about the potential risks of the surgery, but Kuharski told jurors the doctor was concerned only with collecting his fee.

Cheryl Cole agrees to counselling sessions with husband Ashley Cole

Cheryl Cole has agreed to attend counselling sessions with her husband Ashley Cole, it has been reported.

The first meeting with a therapist could even take place next week after Ashley Cole returns home from a rehabilitation clinic in France where he is being treated for a broken ankle, according to the Daily Mail.
The singer and X Factor judge released a statement last week announcing her intention to split from her husband following reports that he had cheated on her with several women and sent sex texts. They have been married for three and a half years.
The Girls Aloud pop singer, 26, announced her separation on February 23 but has not yet started divorce proceedings.
Two years ago she forgave her husband after he had a one night stand with a hairdresser he met in a nightclub called Aimee Walton.
Last month he was accused of sending sex texts to Sonia Wild a glamour model.
Since then Vicki Gough, a secretary, has claimed she had sex with him twice during autumn 2008 while Ann Corbitt, a US local government worker, alleged that she had sex with him in a Seattle hotel last July.
Finally Alexandra Taylor came forward and said she had a short affair with the 29 year-old in 2004 only hours after he and Mrs Cole made their relationship public at the National TV Awards.

Pirate boss to make the web pay

One of the founders of the Pirate Bay is kicking off a venture that aims to help websites generate cash.

Called Flattr, the micropayments system revolves around members paying a fixed monthly fee.
At the end of each month that cash will be divided among participating sites a Flattr member wants to reward.
Members might want to reward a band that made a track they liked, the author of a story they enjoyed or a site that gave useful advice.
Participating sites will sport a Flattr button in the same way that many have clickable icons that let visitors send information to friends or refer something they find interesting to sites such as Digg and Redditt.
"The money you pay each month will be spread evenly among the buttons you click in a month," said Mr Sunde.
"We want to encourage people to share money as well as content," Mr Sunde told the BBC. "It's a test to see if this might be a working method for real micropayments."
The minimum Flattr wants people to pay each month is 2 euros (£1.73) but members can pay more if they want to.
"That way you have control over your monthly spending on content, and you can rather help many people than just a few," he said.
Many micropayment systems had not proved popular, he said, because they were too cumbersome to use regularly.
Mr Sunde said he hoped it proved popular among the vast number of niche sites run by passionate amateurs that have a small, dedicated audience but which struggle to cover their operating costs.
Initially, Flattr plans to take a 10% cut of any cash paid as an administration fee. But, said Mr Sunde, it hopes to push that percentage lower as people sign up.
"We're not really in this for becoming rich," he said. "We're doing it to change things and making people get money they never got before."
"I know that people are nice enough," he said. "People love things and they want to pay."
Flattr is currently in a closed trial but hopes to be ready to launch by the end of March 2010. It is seeking partners looking to generate some cash from their content.
Mr Sunde said the idea for Flattr came to him about five years ago but could not pursue it because of "other things that took massive amounts of time".
"I wanted to find an one-click way to pay for content," he said. "I wanted it to be based on the idea that different people have different financial situations," he told the BBC. "So doing it in a flat rate manner was the only way."
The "other things" included The Pirate Bay website that pointed people towards copyrighted content such as music tracks and videos. Mr Sunde and three other administrators of the site were pursued in Sweden's courts by film and video game makers.
In April 2009, the four were found guilty of aiding copyright theft and were sentenced to one year in prison and fined 2.7m euros (£2.35m). Final appeals from both sides of the case are due to be heard in early 2010.