Average cover version

Fizzy pop godesses Girls Aloud and Sugababes have teamed up for this year's Comic Relief single. As is tradition, they are mauling a classic song in the name of charity. This time round the song is Aerosmith's Walk This Way and, although it could be worse, it is still pretty bad. In fact, wearing a red nose might be the best way to avoid the stink.

Nonetheless, it is Girls Aloud and I am contractually obliged to (a) mention it, and (b) like it.

Wanna listen? ...Erm, I'm afraid you can't. I've removed the audio after hundreds of search engines started linking directly to the MP3. It's a charity single, you cheap bastards.

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Movie madness

A couple of times recently, I've read a book review and thought to myself "oh, I must get that". Only today did it dawn on me that, on each occasion, the articles have been about the same book.

It's not a scholarly tome - far from it. In fact it's the memoirs of Hollywood nutjob Joe Eszterhas - screenwriter of Basic Instinct, Showgirls and Sliver. These are not, it is safe to say, among my favourite films.

However, his caustic diatribes make for great review quotes if nothing else. Here are a few of my favourites:

"I'm jealous that Bill Goldman has won two Oscars and I've won none… But I bet Bill Goldman is jealous that I've bedded Sharon Stone."

"One man wrote War And Peace; 35 screenwriters wrote The Flintstones."

"Always go to a pitch meeting with a witness."

"I've never been nominated for an Oscar but Jon Bon Jovi asked me to fly to Budapest, Hungary, with him and introduce the band onstage in the Hungarian language." (this is possibly the best non-sequitur in history)

But my absolute, absolute favourite bit of the book has only been paraphrased in reviews. It concerns Flashdance, a film where Eszterhas acted as script doctor.

Apparently, he wrote a hugely complex, cinematic dance sequence into the film incorporating some of the latest street dancing techniques of the day (this was 1983, so it was probably that dance where people pretended to be a robot picking up a can of Fanta).

Unfortunately, he says, actress Jennifer Beals wasn't a very good dancer. They brought in several qualified professionals to act as a body double for these new moves, but none of them could pull them off. The only person who could was a man. Luckily, he agreed to shave his legs and don a leotard so that the sequence could be filmed. But he refused to shave off his moustache.

And so, if you slow down that iconic dance sequence at the end of the movie, you will see a moustachioed male dancer spinning around in a skimpy leotard.

I'll give £20 to the first person who can prove this on youtube.

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Big Ginger Video

Here is the new video from the first ever former Sugababe, Siobhan Donkey.

The song is called Don't Give It Up and I am seriously impressed.

Kudos to Siobhan's record label (Parlophone) for allowing her to release such a haunting, soaringly beautiful ballad instead of forcing her to record a plastic cover version of, oh I don't know, Got To Be Certain or something.

Also - nice frock.

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That Joss Stone single, then

The rumoured leak of Joss Stone's new album may never have happened, but her new single Tell Me 'Bout It has premiered on BBC Radio 1. Consequently, an MP3 is going round the houses like a randy milkman on national pants-off day.

First impressions:

The backing track is a bit like Groove is In the Heart played through a gramophone horn (ask your grandad)

Although Joss claims not to have been happy with her first two albums, this doesn't stray too far from her patented "I'm a bit like Aretha Franklin, me" sound.

Tell Me 'Bout It is short, like all good songs used to be before Genesis came along and ruined everything with their tedious plank spanking

The chorus seems a bit underwhelming at first, but it'll stick in your head like an arrow that was supposed to cut an apple in half but went into your head instead.

Record buyers who could not be bothered to buy Christina Aguilera's Back To Basics album will not be any more convinced by this effort

I think I'll put on that Amy Winehouse album now. She's quite good, really

Hear it off of this blog over here

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Oscar nominations: The best bit

Salma Hayek announces that her bestest friend in the whole wide world, Penelope Cruz, is nominated for best actress with an admirable sense of calm and restraint.

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Oscar trivia bonanza

One of my tasks at work today is to compile a list of facts about potential Oscars nominees in the four main categories. It's for internal use only (for the 20 or so stories we'll write on the Oscar shortlist after its announced in - eeeek - forty minutes) but I thought you might like a look.

Sorry it's so text heavy, but there's no way I have time to cut and upload pictures right now.

BEST DIRECTOR
::Martin Scorsese has been nominated in this category five times, but never won.
::Scorsese was beaten by fellow-nominee Clint Eastwood in 2005, when Million Dollar Baby triumphed over The Aviator.
::Clint Eastwood has won best director twice, for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. On both occasions, the film also won best picture.
::The Queen director Stephen Frears was Oscar-nominated for Grifters in 1990.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has never before received an Oscar nod.
::Inarritu was named best director at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival for Babel, but the film lost on the Palme d’Or to Wind That Shakes The Barley


BEST FILM
::Babel won the Golden Globe for best film, and features six different languages – including Spanish, Japanese and Arabic.
::Letters From Iwo Jima has won best film at the influential Los Angeles Critics and National Board of Review awards.
::Only seven foreign language films have ever been nominated for best film – the most recent being Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000. None have ever gone on to win best picture.
::Dreamgirls has been tipped for a nomination because many felt last year’s Oscars ceremony was too serious.
::The last musical to take home the best picture award was Chicago in 2002.


BEST ACTOR
::Forest Whitaker has been named best actor by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the National Board of Review and received a Golden Globe from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
::He is also nominated for the Baftas and the Screen Actors Guild awards.
::Whitaker has never received an Oscar nomination before, but he was shortlisted for worst supporting actor in 2002’s Razzies for his role in John Travolta’s sci-fi epic Battlefield Earth.
::Leonardo DiCaprio has been Oscar-nominated twice before, for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape in 1994 and The Aviator 2005. Like his mentor, Martin Scorsese, he has never won.
::Although he is just 32, DiCaprio would not be the youngest actor to take home a best actor trophy. That honour goes to Adrian Brody, who was 29 when he won for The Pianist in 2002.
::If DiCaprio gets nominated for both best actor and best supporting actor, it won’t be the first time. In 1944, Barry Fitzgerald was named in both categories for the same performance in Going My Way. As a result, the Academy changed their rules.
Other stars to be nominated twice in the same year include Sigourney Weaver (for Gorillas in the Mist and Working Girl in 1988) and Jamie Foxx (for Ray and Collateral in 2004).
::Peter O’Toole received his first nomination in 1963 for Lawrence of Arabia. Despite six further nominations, his first Oscar was an honorary award in 2003.
::Will Smith previously received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Mohammed Ali in 2002.


BEST ACTRESS
::With The Queen, Helen Mirren receives her first Oscar nomination as a leading lady. Her previous nominations, for Gosford Park and The Madness of King George, have both been for supporting roles.
::Mirren has already picked up at least eight awards for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II. She received the awards at the the Golden Globes, the Los Angeles Critics awards, the New York Critics awards, the British Independent Film Awards and by the National Board of Review, the Toronto Film Critics Association, the London Film Critics Circle and the Venice Film Festival.
::Penelope Cruz receives her first ever Oscar nomination for Volver.
::Cruz’s nomination for a foreign language film is not unusual. Catalina Sandino Moreno was nominated for Maria Full of Grace three years ago, while Salma Hayek was nominated for Frida in 2002.
::The last person to win an acting Oscar for a foreign language film was Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful in 1997.
::Kate Winslet makes the shortlist for the fifth time in her career, but she has never won.
::Dame Judi Dench receives her second nomination in as many years for Notes on a Scandal. She was shortlisted for Mrs Henderson Presents in 2006.
It is her sixth nomination – but she has only won once, for 1998’s Shakespeare in Love.
::Meryl Streep extends her lead as the actress with the most nominations ever. Her tally now extends to 14 nominations and two wins. Her closest competitor is Katharine Hepburn, on 12 nominations.

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