AND NOW, DIGITAL MOVIES COME TO RESCUE HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Hollywood studios will start selling digital versions of films such as Brokeback Mountain and King Kong on the Internet this week, the first time major movies have been available online to own. The films can't be burned onto a disc for viewing on a DVD player. Still, the move is seen as a step toward full digital distribution of movies over the Internet. Six studios said Monday that sales will begin through the download Web site Movielink. The site is jointly owned by five of the seven major studios. Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and MGM will offer some first-run and older titles on Movielink. New films will be priced similar to DVDs — between $20 and $30 (U.S.) — while older titles will sell for $10 to $20. In a separate announcement, Sony and Lionsgate said they will sell films through the CinemaNow site. Films from The Walt Disney Co. will not be available, although both services say talks are ongoing. "Digital delivery hasn't arrived until the major studios allow home ownership, and now they have and now digital delivery is very real," said Jim Ramo, chief executive at Movielink. Studios will sell some new films online the same day they become available on DVD. Most films will be made available within 45 days. Studios began renting films online several years ago as a way to combat illegal downloading. Movies have been available through the Internet 30 to 45 days after hitting video stores, with rentals lasting just 24 hours for viewing primarily on computer screens. Digital delivery of video grew rapidly after Apple Computer Inc. began selling episodes of TV shows through its iTunes online store last October. This year, devices powered by new Intel computer chips and TV service delivered over the Internet will allow more consumers to watch Web video on their TVs instead of their computer screens, a key factor in downloading to own, analysts said. Studios are being cautious about selling films online in part because DVD sales produce more profit than box office receipts. But studios are also preparing for the day when major retailers such as Wal-Mart and Amazon begin offering their own movie download services. "The important thing is to embrace the future, respect the economics of DVD but move forward into digital delivery," said Ben Feingold, president of Worldwide Home Entertainment at Sony Pictures.

The films available on Movielink can be stored indefinitely on a computer hard drive or transferred to as many as two other computers. The movies can be played on a TV if the computer is part of a home network. A copy can be burned to a DVD as a backup. Discs can be played on up three PCs authorized by Movielink but cannot be viewed on a standard DVD player because of special security coding. Consumers will not be able to transfer the films from a PC or laptop to a handheld portable viewing device. But that capability should be available sometime within the next year, Ramo said. Films on CinemaNow will be playable on just one computer. The company said it eventually expects studios to allow consumers to burn movies on DVD and transfer them to portable devices.  "This is a first step, but it is far from the final model," said Curt Marvis, chief executive of CinemaNow.

Singer Enrique Iglesias has been slapped with a lawsuit by a paparazzo and his wife. The Latin pop star is accused of malicious prosecution by Angel Mora and Celia Oliveira. The pair claim Iglesias made "untrue claims" to have them arrested after they snapped him eating with Anna Kournikova at Hiro Japanese Restaurant in Miami Beach. Mora and Oliveira, who were videotaping Iglesias and Kournikova, were arrested after an altercation with bodyguard Jerome Hall and Shirley Brooks, former publicist for Iglesias' famous father Julio.  Misdemeanor battery charges were later dropped.

But on the day Mora and Oliveira were arrested, in August of 2002, Iglesias allegedly "instituted ... criminal actions ... against plaintiffs with malicious intent," according to their statement of claim. Mora's lawsuit against Sean Connery in 1994 - while the star was in Miami shooting Just Cause - was dismissed.

MADONNA'S NEW TOUR

Photo: Madonna, ready for a big tour.

Madonna is going on a big tour. She
will open the Confessions Tour in Los Angeles on May 21, work eastward through North America and jump to Europe on July 30 in Cardiff, Wales, it was announced Monday. "I'm going to turn the world into one big dance floor,'" the 47-year-old singer said in a statement. It is Madonna's first tour since the 2004 Re-Invention Tour. She will be supporting her 2005 album, Confessions on a Dance Floor.

Other stops include Las Vegas, Phoenix, Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami and Atlantic City, N.J. According to Madonna's website, the only Canadian date is Montreal's Bell Centre on June 21. European destinations include London, Rome and Paris. The tour will also extend to Japan, featuring concerts in Tokyo and Osaka. More dates are expected to be added. As previously announced, Madonna will make her first festival performance at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., on April 30.

Matt LeBlanc files for divorce

Photo: Matt LeBlanc has filed for divorce from wife Melissa McKnight.

Matt LeBlanc has filed for divorce from his wife, citing irreconcilable differences, but his publicist says the two remain "friends." The former Friends TV star filed papers in Superior Court on Thursday to dissolve his three-year marriage to his wife, Melissa LeBlanc. The couple separated Jan. 1.

"The dissolution is amicable. They remain devoted parents and friends," LeBlanc's publicist, Joe Libonati, said Thursday. "For the sake of their family, they ask that their privacy be respected at this time." They are seeking joint custody of their 2-year-old daughter, Marina. Melissa LeBlanc has two children from a previous marriage. The pair married in a celebrity-studded wedding in Hawaii in 2003 that was attended by several of LeBlanc's Friends co-stars. The 38-year-old played struggling actor Joey Tribbiani in the long-running sitcom that ended its NBC run in May 2004. LeBlanc has reprised the character in the moribund spinoff Joey.

Charges against Yanni dropped. Musician arrested in March for domestic battery

Prosecutors in Palm Beach, Florida, will not file domestic battery charges against new age musician Yanni.

Photo: Yanni, whose legal name is John Christopher, in his police mugshot.

The 51-year-old star, whose legal name is John Christopher, was arrested in early March for allegedly assaulting girlfriend Silvia Barthes, 33. According to a court document, the assistant state attorney said “while there was probably cause for arrest,” no charges would be filed. Barthes told police Yanni slapped her, grabbed her arms, shook her and threw her onto a bed. She called 911 from inside a locked bathroom in his mansion. Officers found her with a swollen and bleeding lip. Yanni admitted there was an argument but said he only grabbed Barthes after she kicked him in the groin. The musician’s lawyer, Orlando Gonzalez, said Barthes made up the story to harm Yanni’s reputation. The two were together for about 18 months and lived together since December. Barthes told police Yanni had asked her to move out during dinner on March 2nd.

At 73, And She  Is Still One Of The Best!

Legendary performer talks about today's pop stars and the last days of Elvis

Britain’s best-selling female singer reveals she feels badly for young pop stars like Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson. Petula Clark, who has sold more than 70 million albums, compares today’s chart-toppers to tissues. “You know, you use one and throw it away and get another one,” says the legendary singer, who performs March 10th in the Avalon Ballroom at Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls, “It’s a little bit like that and I think that must be very tough.” Clark, whose hits include Downtown and Don’t Sleep on the Subway, admits she is bothered by performers on shows like American Idol and Canadian Idol. “I see these kids coming in with such great hopes.

Of course, some of them do make it but how long are they going to be there and what happens afterwards? “Nobody seems to talk about that and that’s really the sad part, I think.” Clark, 73, said today’s music consumers are to blame.  “It’s because the audience is much younger and they’re not as faithful to their stars as they used to be back in the 60s.” Born in Surrey, England, Clark has recorded more than 1,000 songs and has graced both the silver screen and stages in London's  West End. Clark admits she finds it increasingly difficult to find new challenges. “The great roles for women of my age are few and far between and I think I’ve done them, really,” she says. “I’d love to do a new (theatrical) show but people are very scared about putting on new shows. They’re so expensive and extremely risky.” Clark says she has had offers to write a memoir about her remarkable life and career. “I’ve thought about doing it but it would take so much time out of my life. I’d have to sit down and think about that for two years, at least, and there’s so much of it that I would probably forget a lot of it,” she says. “And there’s stuff that might be rather delicate, shall we say, involving people that may not be so happy about having their names in it. And a lot of the good stuff I wouldn’t be able to tell, frankly.” Clark does recall, however, seeing Elvis Presley shortly before his death. “The last time I saw him was not so nice because it was near the end and that was really very sad. “I went to see the show and he could hardly sing. Most of the singing was being done by his back-up group. I mean, he had it down pretty pat. He knew the things he just couldn’t sing anymore so it was all carefully worked out that it didn’t look too bad. “He was very, very overweight. I went backstage afterwards and he came in and he was kind of out of it, frankly. I hate to say it but he wasn’t there anymore.  Everybody was saying: ‘Fantastic, Elvis, fantastic!’ and it wasn’t.

“I just didn’t know what to say to him any more and I just gave him a kiss and said goodbye. It was not a happy goodbye at all.” Just years earlier, Clark recalls, the King had tried to seduce both she and her friend, the late Karen Carpenter. She reveals: “We were just doing sort of a girls night out and we went to see him and we went backstage, of course, and we had a very nice time with him. Little by little all of his chums and, you know, hangers-on disappeared from the dressing room and it was just Elvis, Karen and myself. “After awhile I realized that Elvis was coming on quite heavily to both of us. Karen was very innocent, at the time anyway, and I was sort of like the older sister. I said, ‘Karen, we’ve got to get out of here’ and she said, ‘What?’ and I said, ‘Come on, we’re leaving Karen.’ “So eventually I more or less dragged her out. Elvis looked a bit downtrodden by this. He wanted us both. And that was my first meeting with Elvis.” Not too long ago, Clark visited Memphis and toured the late singer’s famous home, Graceland.

“I was surprised. Graceland is a nice little house. I mean, it’s not a huge mansion or anything and I found the whole thing very moving. There wasn’t anything pretentious about it and I thought that said a lot about Elvis. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.”  The night after visiting Graceland, Clark said she stopped by a bar on Memphis’ famed Beale Street, where she was invited on stage.  “I sang Hound Dog, which I had never sung in my life,” says Clark. “I was up there for 20 minutes singing that damn song and it was as if Elvis was right there by my shoulder saying, ‘Yeah, okay, go girl!’”

Nude Sculpture of Britney Spears causes scandal

Photo: This sculpture of Britney Spears giving birth is causing a stir.

Britney Spears will soon be giving birth again — in Brooklyn, as a sexy sculpture that has drawn thousands of hate e-mails. "This is a new take on pro-life. Pro-lifers normally promote bloody images of abortion. This is the image of birth," Daniel Edwards said of his work, to be unveiled at a Brooklyn gallery in April, months after Edwards' sculpture of Ted Williams severed head stirred up an artistic storm.

The life-size pop princess is naked and pregnant, crouching face-down on a bare-toothed bear rug as the baby's head appears on the opposite end. On Tuesday at his studio in Moosup, Conn., Edwards was pouring a mold to cast the sculpture in resin. It'll be transported to the Capla Kesting Fine Art gallery in Brooklyn's artsy Williamsburg neighborhood, where Britney the artwork is to appear next to a display case filled with pro-life materials. When some bloggers heard about the exhibit — "Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston" — the gallery was inundated with about 3,000 e-mails from around the world in just a week, split between pro-choice and pro-life opinions.

"We also got calls from Tokyo, England, France. Some people are upset that Britney is being used for this subject matter," said gallery co-owner David Kesting. "Others who are pro-life thought this was degrading to their movement. And some pro-choice people were upset that this is a pro-life monument." The gallery is hiring extra security guards for the free exhibit opening April 7 and running two weeks. The sculptor's three children — ages 3, 6, and 8 — helped build the first clay model of the sculpted Britney, mainly the bear rug. "At first, the kids thought it was kind of gross. Yukky. But then, they got curious," their 40-year-old dad said in a telephone interview from his home, which is near his studio. Compared to the hubbub around his art, Edwards' life is peaceful.

 He takes care of his two boys and a girl during the day, while his wife, a microbiologist whom he married right after high school, goes to work.  Then they switch childcare duties while he works on his art. His sculpture of the pop diva comes six months after she gave birth to her first child, Sean Preston — and about a half year after Edwards displayed what he called his "shrine" to baseball great Williams, whose body was decapitated and frozen in hopes that medical science could one day revive him. When asked why he creates art that generates publicity for him by piggybacking on subjects hyped in the media, Edwards said: "You're bombarded with these stories. And there's a thread that winds back to the art.

That's not a bad thing. People are interested in these topics, and it works for art as well." Spears' publicist, Leslie Sloan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday. Edwards said he never spoke to or met the star, and that he fashioned her face and figure from photographs.

"I admire her. This is an idealized figure," he said. "Everyone is coming at me with anger and venom, but I depicted her as she has depicted herself — seductively. Suddenly, she's a mom." His aim, said the son of a mother who gave birth to him when she was 17, was to stir up debate about a difficult topic that "is greater than the issues presented by either pro-life and pro-choice advocates." When asked whether he's pro-life, he said, "You nailed me. I'm not saying that I am. I wouldn't march with either pro-life or pro-choice advocates. This is not meant to be political."