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Carrie Underwood’s new video “Last Name”

Posted in News, Singers on May 19th, 2008 | 1 comment

Carrie Underwood’s new video, “Last Name,” is the prequel to her smash “Before He Cheats.”

Carrie Underwood (WhoABC.com)“Last Name” is a song composed by fourth-season American Idol winner and country pop singer Carrie Underwood, Hillary Lindsey and Luke Laird. It is the third single from Underwood’s second studio album, Carnival Ride. It was released in the United States on April 7, 2008, by which point the song had already charted.

The song is one of four tracks on the album co-written by Underwood, and the third consecutive one to be released as a single from the album. The song tells about a woman meeting a man at a club and later eloping with him in Las Vegas after having had too much to drink that night.

She wakes up the next morning, “dreaming bout Elvis somewhere in Vegas”, to discover that she doesn’t even know her last name (i.e., she married the man while she was intoxicated), worrying that her “mama would be so ashamed.” The music video portrays the song as a prequel to her “Before He Cheats” song.

Carrie Underwood’s Music video:
The song is described in the video as what happened before the “Before He Cheats” video. The video starts with some segments from “Before He Cheats” and then goes into a scene 3 months earlier with her in the club having a drink with her friends.


The man from the same video as “Before He Cheats” spots her and asks her for a dance and she accepts with a head nod. During their dance the guy takes glimpse of another girl on the dance floor who is giving him a flirtatious look back at him as well. Then they leave in a pinto with lucky dice in the rear view mirror. The guy flirts with the girl who brings out his car and then she gives him her number. They make it out to Las Vegas where they participate in a couple of gambling activities such as Russian roulette and a pin wheel game, with the man again flirting with the hostess girls (Underwood seeming oblivious to all this). Later they get married in a chapel with an Elvis impersonator. They run off in his new pick up truck (the one used in “Before He Cheats”) and the video ends with a spark from the chapel head lights.

Carrie Underwood’s Last Name Lyrics:

Last night I got served a little too much of that poison baby
Last night I did things I’m not proud of
And I got a little crazy
Last night I met a guy on the dance floor
And I let him call me baby

And I don’t even know his last name
Oh, my mama would be so ashamed
It started off “Hey cutie, where ya from?”
And then it turned into
“Oh no, what have I done?”
And I don’t even know his last name

We left the club right around three o’clock in the morning
His Pinto sitting there in the parking lot Well it should have been a warning
I had no clue what I was getting into
So I blame it on the Cuervo
Oh where did my manners go?

And I don’t even know his last name
Oh, my mama would be so ashamed
It started off “Hey cutie, where ya from?”
And then it turned into
“Oh no, what have I done?”
And I don’t even know his last name
Here we go…

Today I woke up thinkin’ about Elvis somewhere in Vegas
I’m not sure how I got here
Or how this ring on my left hand just appeared out of nowhere
I gotta go
I take the chips and the Pinto and hit the road
They say what happens here stays here
All of this will disappear
There’s just one little problem…

I don’t even know my last name
Oh my mama would be so ashamed
It started off “Hey cutie, where ya from?”
And then it turned into
“Oh no, what have I done?”
And I don’t even know my last name

What have I done
What have I done
What have I done
Oh, what have I done
I don’t even know my last name

It turned into
“Oh no, what have I done?”
And I don’t even know my last name

It started off “Hey cutie, where ya from?”
And then it turned into
“Oh no, what have I done?”
And I don’t even know my last name

The single was generally met with mixed reviews. All Music picked the song as a “track pick”, calling the song “Miranda Lambert filtered through Shania Twain”, and dubbed it a “one night stand anthem.” Rolling Stone picked the track as their favorite, saying “the most fun is “Last Name,” where she gets wasted and runs off to Vegas with a guy she doesn’t know.” Blender awarded the song four out of five stars, describing the song as the “most irresponsible (and fun) moment on the new album involves one wild night, one too many shots of Cuervo and one unexpected ring.”

However, The 9513 gave the song a ‘thumbs down’, describing the song as a “straight-laced performance” that just “places the focus on the vocal”. Slant Magazine labelled the single as a “bald-faced attempt at recreating the ‘Before He Cheats’ phenomenon”.

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Texas takes Miss USA

Posted in News on Apr 12th, 2008 | Comments Off

A 26-year-old entrepreneur from Texas was named Miss USA on Friday, besting 50 other beauty queens for the coveted crown.

Crystle Stewart, of Missouri City, Texas, runs a party-planning and motivational speaking company, as well as modeling professionally. She says she wants to dedicate her life to international philanthropy.

“I want to talk to people about how to set a goal and achieve it,” she told The Associated Press after the show. “Because I just achieved my goal.” Stewart edged out first runner-up Leah Laviano of Mississippi and Tiffany Andrade of New Jersey.

Miss USA 2007 Rachel Smith relinquished the crown — and the posh New York apartment that comes with it — in a show aired live by NBC with hosts Donny and Marie Osmond from the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The network co-owns the parent Miss Universe Organization with Donald Trump.

Smith, a former Miss Tennessee USA, said she was headed to Hollywood. Stewart was headed for the publicity circuit. She said she was eager to travel and spread her message of self-improvement to young women. She noted she was one of only a handful of black woman crowned Miss USA in the pageant’s 57-year history.

“I think the United States is coming together,” she said, citing the historic presidential candidacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. She declined to name her preference.

“I don’t know, we’ll see. Fundamentally, I’m a Democrat,” she said. Contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia have been in Las Vegas for nearly three weeks, rehearsing and hyping the 57th annual pageant. After stints in Baltimore and Los Angeles, organizers billed the new venue as a city beloved by the event’s international audience.

The pageant tried to showed off its edge, featuring a grinding live rock performance by the band Finger Eleven, music from Rihanna, and contestants in barely there black bikinis and faux-fur coats.

Donny and Marie kept up a steady stream of sibling banter even while swiftly whittling the field.

Donny Osmond told the losers to “put on a poker face” as he sent them home.

“Or use Botox; then it won’t move,” Marie quipped.

Stewart will compete in the Miss Universe pageant in Vietnam in July. She also becomes a spokeswoman for breast and ovarian cancer awareness and other causes, while traveling to promote the organization.

Miss USA contestants are scored in three categories: swimsuit, evening gown and interview. Miss Alaska USA, Courtney Erin Carroll, was chosen “Miss Photogenic USA” based on voting at the organization’s Web site. The other contestants named Miss Ohio USA, Monica Day, “Miss Congeniality.” Unlike the rival Miss America, Miss USA contestants are not asked to perform a talent.

Smith’s year on the throne has been marked by fewer racy headlines than her 2006 predecessor, Tara Conner. Conner’s underage drinking landed her in rehab and sparked a media circus documenting her fall from grace.

Smith’s low point was a fall onstage during the evening gown competition of the Miss Universe pageant in Mexico City. She was booed by the crowd and Miss Japan won the title.

A bigger blunder this year belonged to Miss California USA organizers. The judges crowned the wrong queen in their November contest and reversed it days later, saying Raquel Beezley, of Barstow, was the victim of a vote tabulation error. Dethroned Miss Los Angeles, Christina Silva, a Hispanic woman, has filed a lawsuit alleging racial bias.

Asked to comment on the lawsuit, Stewart was whisked away by organizers. The Miss Universe Organization would not comment on the matter.

The panel of judges for Friday’s pageant included Heather Mills, model and former wife of Paul McCartney; comedian Rob Schneider; Olympic gold-medal swimmer Amanda Beard; and Christian Siriano, winner of Bravo’s fashion reality series, “Project Runway.”

Crystle Stewart (born September 20, 1981) is a beauty queen from Houston, Texas who is Miss USA 2008. Stewart won the Miss Texas USA 2008 title in a state pageant held in Laredo, Texas on July 1, 2007, after competing against 121 other contestants. She represented Texas in the Miss USA 2008 pageant held in April 2008.

This was Stewart’s fifth attempt at the Miss Texas USA title, as she had placed first runner-up in both the 2006 and 2007 events, third runner-up in 2005 and made the semi-finals in 2003. Her first appearance in the state pageant was in 2002, when she made the semi-finals of the Miss Texas USA 2003 pageant competing as Miss Fort Bend County. In 2004 she again competed as Miss Fort Bend County and placed third runner-up to Tyler Willis at Miss Texas USA 2005.

The following year she competed in the Miss Houston local pageant and placed first runner-up to Lauren Lanning. She competed at Miss Texas USA 2006 as Miss Harris County, and placed first runner-up to Lanning for the second time. In 2006 she placed first runner-up to Miss Houston for a second time, and in a double repetition placed first runner-up to Miss Houston, Magen Ellis, in the 2007 state pageant (competing as Miss Southeast Texas).

In 2007 she did not compete for a local title, and instead entered as an at large delegate for Miss Texas USA 2008, again holding the Miss Fort Bend County title. She made the final two in the state-televised pageant, alongside Miss Houston Brooke Daniels, who was also a runner-up at Miss Texas USA 2007. This time Stewart won the title, and was crowned Miss Texas USA 2008. She also won the Everything but Water Swimsuit award, announced during the preliminary competition. Stewart is the second African American to win the crown at Miss Texas USA; Chelsi Smith was crowned Miss Texas USA 1995 (and later Miss USA and Miss Universe).

On April 11, 2008 Stewart represented Texas in the Miss USA 2008 pageant where she became the ninth Texan to win the Miss USA title. Stewart holds a degree in consumer science and merchandising from the University of Houston. Stewart is represented as a model by Neal Hamil Agency in Houston. She will represent the USA at the Miss Universe pageant set to be held on July 14, 2008 in Nha Trang, Vietnam.

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If you missed the Oscars

Posted in News on Feb 25th, 2008 | Comments Off

The Coen brothers completed their journey from the fringes to Hollywood’s mainstream on Sunday, their crime saga “No Country for Old Men” winning four Academy Awards, including best picture, in a ceremony that also featured a strong international flavor.

Javier Bardem won for supporting actor in “No Country,” which earned Joel and Ethan Coen best director, best adapted screenplay and the best-picture honor as producers.

Accepting the directing honor alongside his brother, Joel Coen recalled how they got their start in a career that has seen them advance from oddballs with a devoted cult following to broader audiences. He noted they have been making films since childhood, including one at the Minneapolis airport called “Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go.”

“What we do now doesn’t feel that much different from what we were doing then,” Joel Coen said. “We’re very thankful to all of you out there for continuing to let us play in our corner of the sandbox.”

Daniel Day-Lewis won his second best-actor Oscar for the oil-boom epic “There Will Be Blood,” while “La Vie En Rose” star Marion Cotillard was a surprise winner for best actress, riding the spirit of Edith Piaf to Oscar triumph over Julie Christie, who had been expected to win for “Away From Her.”

All four acting prizes went to Europeans: Frenchwoman Cotillard, Spaniard Bardem, and Brits Day-Lewis and Tilda Swinton, the supporting-actress winner for “Michael Clayton.”

The only other time in the Oscars’ 80-year history that all four acting winners were foreign born was 1964, when the recipients were Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Peter Ustinov and Lila Kedrova.

As a raging, conniving, acquisitive petroleum pioneer caught up in California’s oil boom of the early 20th century, Day-Lewis won for a part that could scarcely have been more different than his understated role as a writer with severe cerebral palsy in 1989’s “My Left Foot.”

“My deepest thanks to the academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town,” Day-Lewis said.

The Coens missed out on a chance to make Oscar history — four wins for a single film — when they lost the editing prize, for which they were nominated under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes.

“The Bourne Ultimatum” won the editing Oscar and swept all three categories in which it was nominated, including sound editing and sound mixing.

Past winners for their screenplay to 1996’s “Fargo,” the Coens joined an elite list of filmmakers to win three Oscars in a single night, including Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather Part II”), James Cameron (“Titanic”) and Billy Wilder (“The Apartment”).

With $64 million domestically, “No Country” is the biggest box-office hit for the Coens, whose tales often are an acquired taste appealing to narrow crowds. Their films include the modest hits “Fargo” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and such lesser-known yarns as “The Hudsucker Proxy” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

Cotillard, the first winner ever for a French-language performance, tearfully thanked her director, Olivier Dahan.

“Maestro Olivier, you rocked my life. You have truly rocked my life,” said Cotillard, a French beauty who is a dynamo as Piaf, playing the warbling chanteuse through three decades, from raw late teens as a singer rising from the gutter through international stardom and her final days in her frail 40s.

“Thank you, life; thank you, love. And it is true there (are) some angels in this city.”.

A relatively fresh face in Hollywood, Cotillard has U.S. credits that include “Big Fish,” “A Good Year” and the upcoming “Public Enemies,” featuring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.

With a heartbreaking turn as a woman succumbing to Alzheimer’s in “Away From Her,” Christie had been expected to win her second Oscar. She won best actress 42 years ago for “Darling.”

Heavies ruled the acting prizes. Along with Day-Lewis’ greedy oilman, Bardem played an unshakable executioner in “No Country” and Swinton played a malevolent attorney in “Michael Clayton.” Bardem, referring to the sinister variation of a page-boy bob his character sported, said: “Thank you to the Coens for being crazy enough to think I could do that and for putting one of the most horrible haircuts in history over my head.”

Host Jon Stewart joked that Bardem’s haircut in the film combined “Hannibal Lecter’s murderousness with Dorothy Hamill’s wedge-cut.”

Mickey Mouse gained a rival as Hollywood’s favorite rodent as the rat tale “Ratatouille” was named best animated film, the second Oscar win in the category for director Brad Bird.

Bird thanked his junior-high guidance counselor, who expressed repeated skepticism over his desire to become a filmmaker.

“It went on like this until we were sick of each other,” said Bird, who also won the animation Oscar for 2004’s “The Incredibles” and shared a nomination for original screenplay for “Ratatouille,” a $200 million blockbuster. “I only realized just recently that he gave me the perfect training for the movie business.”

The ceremony’s montage of photos and film clips of stars, filmmakers and others in cinema who died in the past year ended with a scene from “Brokeback Mountain” featuring Heath Ledger, who died of a prescription drug overdose last month.

Glen Hansard of the Irish band the Frames and Marketa Irglova, both non-actors who starred in the musical romance “Once,” won the best-song Oscar for “Falling Slowly,” one of several tunes they wrote for the film.

“What are we doing here? This is mad,” Hansard said, recounting the low-budget history of “Once.” “It took us three weeks to make. We made it for a hundred-grand. We never thought we’d come into a room like this and be in front of all you people.”

The song won over three nominated tunes from “Enchanted” written by composer Alan Menken, an eight-time Oscar winner, and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, a three-time winner, whose previous academy prizes included their song and score collaborations for “Pocahontas.”

The sound-mixing win for “The Bourne Ultimatum” extended the years of Oscar futility for Kevin O’Connell, a nominee for “Transformers,” who holds an academy record: 20 nominations, no wins.

Michael Moore, who assailed President Bush over the Iraq War in his Oscar speech for documentary winner “Bowling for Columbine” five years ago, missed out on a chance to take the podium again. His health-care study “Sicko” lost the documentary prize to “Taxi to the Dark Side,” a war-on-terror chronicle that centers on an innocent Afghan cab driver killed while in detention.

Box-office dud “The Golden Compass” scored an upset for visual effects over the blockbusters “Transformers” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.”

Other winners included “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” for costume design, “La Vie En Rose” for makeup and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” for art direction.

The Oscar broadcast began with a fanfare and an effects-laden opening segment showing key characters and creatures from past films lining Hollywood Boulevard.

Stewart started his opening monologue with a wisecrack about the 100-day writers strike that ended just in time for the Oscars to come off as usual.

“These past three and a half months have been very tough. The town was torn apart by a bitter writer’s strike, but I’m happy to say that the fight is over,” Stewart said. “So tonight, welcome to the makeup sex.”

Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy voted worst

Posted in News on Feb 24th, 2008 | Comments Off

Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy take honors for worst acting at the Golden Raspberry Awards. Razzies’ odd couple: Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy.

Eddie Murphy and Lindsay Lohan were named the worst actors of 2007 at the Golden Raspberry Awards on Saturday for two movies that dominated the mock awards created to spoof the Oscars.

For their lack of acting prowess, the veteran comic and the young actress with the hard-living reputation each won three gold spray-painted Razzie trophies worth $4.89.

The awards are presented by the Golden Raspberry Foundation, which announced its winners one day before the sometimes pompous Academy Awards presentation ceremony.

Murphy, who starred in the critically savaged comedy “Norbit,” set a record by winning three of the four worst acting categories.

Still, moviegoers turned out for the film, which took in $158 million at worldwide box offices based mostly on Murphy’s popularity.

Lohan won two worst actress awards for playing twins in “I Know Who Killed Me,” a film that was named worst of the year.

She also won worst screen couple for a scene in which she appears opposite herself in the tale about psychically linked siblings stalked by a serial killer.

“I Know Who Killed Me,” a major box office flop with $9 million worldwide, won eight of nine Raspberries for which it was nominated, breaking a record of seven wins previously held by “Showgirls” and “Battlefield Earth.”

Lohan was in and out of rehabilitation programs last year and acknowledged last month that she had fallen off the wagon at a New Year’s Eve party. In November, she served 84 minutes in jail for drunken driving and cocaine possession charges.

Murphy won the worst actor award for playing the hapless hero of “Norbit.” He had several parts in the movie and also won worst supporting actor and actress Raspberries for roles as a Chinese man and Norbit’s screaming overweight wife.

The comic actor earned an Oscar nomination for his dramatic turn as a troubled soul singer in 2006 musical “Dreamgirls” and some critics said the widespread distaste for “Norbit” — which hit theaters only weeks before the Oscar ceremony — cost him support for those prestigious awards.

Like Lohan, Murphy’s personal life also made headlines last year when he acknowledged fathering a child out of wedlock with Spice Girls singer Melanie Brown. In January of this year, Murphy and his new wife, Tracey Edmonds, split just two weeks after getting married in French Polynesia. ~ Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Bill Trott

Following is a list of this year’s Razzie winners:

  • Worst Picture: “I Know Who Killed Me”
  • Worst Actor: Murphy in “Norbit”
  • Worst Actress (tie): Lohan as twin sisters Aubrey and Dakota in “I Know Who Killed Me”
  • Worst Supporting Actress: Murphy in “Norbit”
  • Worst Supporting Actor: Murphy in “Norbit”
  • Worst Screen Couple: Lohan & Lohan in “I Know Who Killed Me”
  • Worst Remake or Rip-off: “I Know Who Killed Me,” based on several films
  • Worst Prequel or Sequel: “Daddy Day Camp”
  • Worst Director: Chris Siverston for “I Know Who Killed Me”
  • Worst Screenplay: Jeffrey Hammond for “I Know Who Killed Me”
  • Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie (New Category): “I Know Who Killed Me.”

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Jennifer Lopez gives birth to twins in NY

Posted in Celebrities, News on Feb 23rd, 2008 | Comments Off

Jennifer Lopez Jennifer Lopez gave birth to twins early Friday, making the singer and husband Marc Anthony the parents of a boy and a girl after one of pop music’s most closely watched pregnancies.

“She’s thrilled,” Lopez’s manager, Simon Fields, told The Associated Press. He said the babies were born “just after midnight this morning.”

Fields confirmed that the girl arrived first, weighing 5 pounds, 7 ounces. “Her boy is 6 pounds even and arrived about 15 minutes later” at a Long Island hospital, he said. The location was not identified.

Ending months of speculation, Lopez confirmed her pregnancy at a Miami concert in November. Her father, David Lopez, told Telefutura’s “Escandalo TV” earlier this month that the 39-year-old singer was expecting twins.

Lopez and Anthony, 38, married in 2004. The twins are her first children, and his fourth and fifth.

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