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Hollywood actor Russell Crowe has reportedly been handed two roles in the film ‘Nottingham’.According to MTV, the star was confirmed to play the Sheriff of Nottingham in the film but will now also play the lead Robin Hood in the epic, reports Hollywood.com.

‘It’s a good old adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes,’ director Ridely Scott told MTV.

Sienna Miller will take on the role of Maid Marion in the new take on the famous Robin Hood tale.

The movie is slated to release November 2009.

He bends spoons and forks with the gaze of his eyes, gets the initials of the name of a stranger he has just met appear magically on his arm, and can even read your mind. Meet street magician Ugesh Sarcar, who is creating waves on UTV’s Bindass channel with his ‘3rd Degree’ show.Sarcar, not related to P.C. Sorcar Sr. who is regarded as the father of modern Indian magic, belongs to North India and is a Punjabi Rajput, born and brought up in Bangalore.

For the UTV show, which has completed 60 episodes and has the TRPs climbing up, Sarcar approaches strangers at restaurants and bends the forks and spoons on their table - with a candid camera capturing the events to be aired later.

Among his other feats are escaping after being buried alive, and also coming out successfully from a wine barrel.

Speaking about his performances, done without any props and in the open, Sarcar says, ‘Street magic is a different ball game altogether. There is no scope for error. In a stage magic show everything, from the setting to the acts, can be planned.’

‘In street magic, it is impromptu and nothing is decided. There is nobody to assist you and no element to help you. You have to perform in a zero error situation with no second chances,’ Sarcar told IANS in an interview.

‘In fact there is no script to my show on TV. It is all spontaneous,’ Sarcar said.

An illusionist, escapologist and a mind reader, Sarcar has emerged on the Indian street magic scene with ‘3rd Degree’, at a time when the only names in magic were those of P.C. Sorcar Jr. from West Bengal, and Gopinath Muthukad from Kerala.

A school dropout, he is the son of Professor M.C. Sarcar - also a magician and the founder of the Karanataka Magic Academy Trust, Bangalore.

‘I have been born and brought up in magic and I was always inclined towards it. I have spent around 13 years of my life doing everything to understand the human psychology. I have taken up various jobs including working in a call centre before taking up magic.

‘It is very important to get into the psyche of the human mind before performing. Although magic is pure science, it is defying logic that defines magic and definitely a part of misdirection too that works in some tricks,’ said Sarcar, whose favourite magicians include his father and David Copperfield, an American magician.

However, excellence at one’s art doesn’t come easy and requires rigorous practice. Sarcar shed light on the training he took before making it big on the small screen.

‘Before being sure that I was completely prepared for the audiences, I practised for around 18 hours a day and completely ostracised myself from any human contact for three years.’

So what’s his favourite trick?

‘Every single trick that I perform is my favourite as I have practised a lot on it.’

Sarcar also has plans to promote the art globally.

‘With my show and public appearances, I am not trying to promote only myself but magic on the whole. I am here to get people shed the wrong notions about magic. In fact, the biggest drawback for magic in India is the lack of investment,’ he said.

‘My father tried to sustain and promote magic and I am going to take it to the next level,’ said Sarcar, who was here to perform at the AIIMS Pulse 2008 college fest as a part of the Bindass ‘Campus Attack’ show.

Asked if he faced any apprehensions before going to the public and shocking them with his stunts, he said: ‘There are no apprehensions. I am always waiting to be out there with people on the streets. However, it’s awkward sometimes when people don’t share the sense of humour I use to keep the show going.’

‘My best is yet to come,’ he promises.

Hollywood actress Lindsay Lohan has defended lesbian lover Samantha Ronson after her father’s new outburst against the DJ.Michael Lohan had earlier made it clear that he does not intend to see his daughter with Ronson.

Later on his blog, he branded Samantha “dark, hideous” and “disgusting.”

“I don’t believe that the recent blogs posted by ‘Lindsay’ were written by her. There is a lot more to Samantha than meets the eye. Not that what we see is so pleasing anyway… what’s with this ‘person’? Look at the way she ‘dresses’. (Ronson is) dark, hideous and a disgusting representation of humanity,” Michael stated in an Email to X17 online.

“Once more, she uses her middle finger more than she uses words. Have you ever seen her apartment? For God’s sake, when she runs out of toilet paper she tells people to use the cardboard roll. (I was told this firsthand),” he added.

However, Lindsay has made it evident that she is sticking by her partner and has urged her father to take medication in order to get rid of his anger.

“My father obviously needs to be on medication to control his moods. He is out of line and his words show how much anger he has, and it’s dangerous and scary as it reminds me of how he treated my mother and I (sic) my whole childhood. He needs to be stopped. This is yet another reason why we aren’t speaking,” the Daily Express quoted Lindsay, as telling New York gossip column Page 6.

“My past is behind me, and that’s final. There’s nothing more to be said. All the false accusations that people try to make are simply because there’s no story when things are calm and good. But they might as well let it go because their lies don’t affect me anymore. Samantha is not evil, I care for her very much and she’s a wonderful girl. She loves me, as I do her, ” she added.

Danielle Bux, who has recently been spotted flashing her sparkling engagement ring, is reportedly planning to have a Christmas wedding with fiancee Gary Lineker.The ‘La Senza’ model said ‘yes’ when the football striker went down on one knee earlier this month.

Bux, 18 years junior to Lineker, has been dating the footballer for a year after meeting him on a blind date.

“They’ve talked about a Christmas wedding and Dani thinks it would be incredibly romantic,” The Sun quoted a source as saying.

Kate Moss and her rocker boyfriend Jamie Hince have flown to Ibiza after discovering that the supermodel’s house had been infested with fleas.The culprits are her two Persian cats and now 34-year-old Moss has had the whole house fumigated, leaving everything dripping in special anti-flea spray.

“Jamie and Kate are covered in red spots and Kate won’t touch him until it clears up. They joked: “She’s used to hangers-on but this is ridiculous,” the Mirror quoted a friend, as saying.

This is not the first time the catwalk queen has had problems with her house.

She has already had to replace the rush mat floors with plush carpet after it gave her beau sore feet.

And then she faced a barrage of criticism from neighbours over her cracked wall.

Video game makers Electronic Arts Inc and Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc signed a confidentiality agreement after agreeing to hold private talks about a potential transaction, EA said on Monday.

EA, publishers of the popular “Madden” and “Need for Speed” games, dropped its hostile pursuit last week of Take-Two, the maker of the hot “Grand Theft Auto” games, after Take-Two agreed to spell out its three-year product plans, but only in private.

“As a result, EA does not intend to make any further announcements regarding the status of any discussions or negotiations with Take-Two unless and until discussions between EA and Take-Two have been terminated or such parties have entered into a transaction,” EA said in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

EA offered to buy Take-Two for $25.74 a share, or about $2 billion, in April. The bid was promptly rejected as too low.

Shortly after EA dropped its bid, U.S. antitrust regulators said they would approve a combination of the two companies.

He’s written million-selling books about his early years and the meaning of public life. Now, Sen. Barack Obama, with the help of his campaign staff, has another side to share with readers: policy wonk.

“Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama’s Plan to Renew America’s Promise” is coming out Sept. 9 as a paperback with an announced first printing of 300,000 copies and a list price of $13.95. Looking ahead to the digital market, the e-book, also $13.95, will go on sale the day before.

“We are proud to have published two best-selling books by Barack Obama and are thrilled to have the opportunity to continue to work with his campaign on such an important and inspiring book at this critical moment in our country,” Crown Publishing Group president Jenny Frost said in a statement.

The book will include a foreword by Obama, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, and feature sections — written by members of Obama for America, his presidential campaign — on such issues as health care, energy and national security. “Change We Can Believe In” also compiles some of his better known speeches, including his celebrated talk on race and his recent address in Berlin.

“Change” will be released by Three Rivers Press, a paperback imprint of Crown Publishing, which published Obama’s “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.” According to Obama’s literary representative, Washington attorney Robert Barnett, the contract is between Crown and Obama’s presidential campaign, not Obama himself.

Financial terms were not available, although Barnett says the campaign will donate all net proceeds to a charity still to be determined. The new release was assembled over the past few weeks and is not part of the senator’s current deal with Crown, which calls for him to write two more books, including a children’s book.

“Change We Can Believe In” will test Obama’s appeal. Policy books are rarely hits with the public, although they can be quite useful for candidates, such as Obama, who have been criticized for lacking substance. In 1992, Bill Clinton and running mate Al Gore released “Putting People First,” a blueprint for their time in office that became a best seller and remained popular even after they were elected.

Obama’s book will have strong competition at stores. It comes out at the same time as Bob Woodward’s fourth volume on the Bush administration, one of the fall’s most anticipated releases.

Sir Ben Kingsley has clothed himself in the roles of Jewish bookkeeper, Iranian colonel, brutal British gangster — and Gandhi.

But the Academy Award-winning actor wanted to remove disguises and make himself vulnerable to portray professor and culture critic David Kepesh, who falls in love — and apart — in “Elegy,” an adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Roth’s novel “The Dying Man.”

He asked to play 62-year-old Kepesh in his own voice, with his classic British accent. He picked clothes that both David Kepesh and Ben Kingsley could wear.

“I wanted me to feel that there was no hiding place. It was a removal of layers rather than an adding of layers,” Kingsley said in a recent interview.

Kingsley, 64, plays the charismatic professor whose self-assured lifetime of shunning commitment falls apart when he meets 24-year-old grad student Consuela Castillo, played by Penelope Cruz. Through jealousy and obsession, love and fear, lust and death, the actors displayed a vulnerability that left Spanish director Isabel Coixet in tears during filming.

Kingsley credits Coixet and her “very searching camera” with allowing the actors to feel safe. Coixet — whose work includes “My Life Without Me” starring Sarah Polley and “The Secret Life of Words” — shot “Elegy” herself, accompanied behind the lens by Director of Photography Jean-Claude Larrieu.

“Between ‘action’ and ‘cut,’ we were in a very protected private space in which we could be really vulnerable to each other,” Kingsley said. “There were very gratifying moments when she would emerge from behind the camera in tears, saying in a very quiet voice, ‘I don’t want to do another take.’”

Meanwhile, Kingsley said he was “tingling with joy” when he nailed down Kepesh’s character in a crucial scene.

“I know what he’s looking at! He’s terrified of intimacy and he knows, ‘If I take one step further, I’m going to die in her arms.’ I got him!’” he recalled thinking.

Kepesh is looking into his own abyss — “with two glasses of brandy and a pretty girl,” said Kingsley, laughing. “He has dodged mortality by having all these affairs. But for him to really commit is to commit to death.

“And in a sense, quite beautifully, I suppose it’s true. When you truly see somebody with whom you are overjoyed at spending the rest of your life, with whom you can see a great journey, the end of that journey is death,” he said. “So in a sense, you’re looking at your own mortality.”

Kingsley is accompanied by an impressive cast of searching characters in “Elegy,” all interwoven through David Kepesh, who “really is on the cross at some points,” Kingsley said.

Cruz’s Consuela is a young woman beginning to discover the power of her beauty but unaware that its strength can make her appear emotionally impenetrable.

Dennis Hopper plays Kepesh’s closest friend, George O’Hearn, a poet and a comrade in extramarital flirtation who gives an outer voice to much of the succinct monologue in Roth’s novel, telling Kingsley that “beautiful women are invisible.”

Peter Sarsgaard plays Kepesh’s son, who despises his father for walking out on the family but desperately seeks his advice when he, too, falls into infidelity. Patricia Clarkson portrays Kepesh’s long-term occasional girlfriend, whose comfort in their sexual friendship is challenged by his discovery of something deeper.

Kingsley currently has roles in five box office movies, including as a bong-toking psychiatrist in “The Wackness,” a severely cross-eyed Indian guru in Mike Myers’ “The Love Guru” and a Russian police officer in “Transsiberian.” He has also been shooting Martin Scorsese’s upcoming “Shutter Island.”

He said he always offers a lot of himself in any role, but often depended more on empathy than on personal experience.

“I did a film called ‘Sexy Beast‘ and I do know that that is my anger in the film. You can’t invent this. I know that in ‘Schindler’s List,’ that’s my revulsion, an incomprehension that this could be happening to human beings. I know that in ‘House of Sand and Fog,’ that is my perception of how a man should look after his family,” he said. “The buck does have to stop here sooner or later.”

A common thread remains Shakespeare, and Kingsley called the playwright his “mythological touchstone” and an ever-present framework for his imagination.

“If I were really fortunate, then I would be born into some mythology,” Kingsley said, citing “the same beautiful story” of India’s gods, dances and worship that has been alive for thousands of years.

“British mythology is struggling,” Kingsley said, “but we can enter into Shakespeare’s world and by his miracle and the language, through him we can be back in ancient Britain.”

Kingsley touched on this Indian mythology with his Oscar-winning turn in “Gandhi,” a movie that the actor has called the last of the great epics. He noted that 400,000 people attended the recreation of Gandhi’s funeral and that no human being was computer-generated in the film.

“I worry about CGI when it tries to replace the actor’s human experience,” Kingsley said. “If I was to play Napoleon and they said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to CGI your army behind you’, I’d say ‘No you won’t.’

Kingsley said he would play Napoleon, but in exile. It would be yet another study of a character journeying into abandon.

“I’m rather fascinated by how greatness lets go, how men let go. Kepesh lets go, of the whole architectured existence, and he demolishes it,” he said. “The journey is what attracts me. How a man changes.”

A judge has dismissed a woman’s wrongful termination claims against Bob Barker, former host of the CBS However, former CBS employee Deborah Curling’s wrongful dismissal lawsuit will continue against the television network, attorneys for Barker and Curling said.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Malcolm Mackey also dismissed Curling’s claims of retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress by Barker, 84, who hosted the show for the U.S. network for 35 years before retiring in 2007.

“We’re very pleased because we don’t think the claims should have been brought at all,” said Patty Glaser, an attorney for Barker.

Nick Alden, an attorney for Curling, downplayed the judge’s decision. “Bob Barker is not the main target on this lawsuit — CBS is,” Alden said.

CBS in the past has declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Mackey ruled that Barker was not Curling’s employer, Glaser said.

The only remaining claim against Barker from the suit, which Curling filed in 2007, is an allegation that he created a hostile work environment, and that is expected to be dismissed as well, she said.

The suit said Curling testified in a case brought against the show by another ex-employee, Linda Riegert, and that as a result she was demoted, physically threatened and her job became intolerable.

Curling’s lawsuit cites several cases in which other ex-employees accused Barker of harassing them sexually or otherwise. Many of those suits were settled or dismissed.

Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder relied on little more than his voice and guitar during the third show of his summer solo tour in New York on Monday.
His performance at the United Palace Theatre boasted 28 tracks filled with obscure Pearl Jam songs, covers and material from his “Into the Wild” soundtrack.

Early on, Vedder showed his appreciation for the attentive (and non-shouting audience), joking, “We left all the a–holes behind in Boston,” where the tour began on Friday.

But there were plenty of opportunities for audience participation, particularly on Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door,” the Beatles’ “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away,” Pearl Jam’s “Porch,” and “No More,” dedicated to injured Iraq War veteran Tomas Young.

With Vedder alternating among electric and acoustic guitar, mandolin and ukulele, a number of Pearl Jam songs that don’t work as well as loud rock performances found new life in this scaled-down environment, including “Dead Man,” “Drifting” and “Man of the Hour.” Covers of Daniel Johnston’s “Walking the Cow,” James Taylor’s “Millworker” and Cat Stevens’ “Trouble” reinforced the intimate vibe.

Vedder also played a snippet of the title song from the comedy “Walk Hard,” in a nod to the film’s director Judd Apatow and co-star Paul Rudd, who were in the audience.

Opening act Liam Finn joined Vedder for two songs from “Into the Wild,” the bittersweet “Society” and a full rock version of “Hard Sun,” with guest vocals by Eliza-Jane Barnes.

Vedder’s tour continues through August 22 in Chicago. Before the end of the year, Pearl Jam is hoping to return to the studio to continue work on its next studio album with producer Brendan O’Brien.