ENTERTAINMENT NEWS

MUSIC/ THE DRUMS ARE #5 ON BBC'S SOUND OF 2010: The 1st act from the BBC's Sound of 2010 top 5 has been revealed, with New York band The Drums at #5. The list is intended to highlight the best new music talent for the new year. It is based on tips from 165 UK tastemakers, who named their favorite 3 new acts. A longlist of 15 artists was published last month. 1 act from the top 5 will be revealed in reverse order every day this week, with the overall list winner announced this Friday. Little Boots topped the list last year, while Florence and the Machine and La Roux were also in the Sound of 2009 top 5. Other previous winners have included Adele, Mika and Corinne Bailey Rae. A full report on The Drums can be found on the BBC website.

 

FILM/ BOFFO B.O. FOR "AVATAR": "Avatar" has become the fastest movie ever to achieve $1bn in ticket sales around the world. Distributors 20th Century Fox say it has earned more than $350m in the US and more than $670m in the rest of the world in only 17 days. The 3D science fiction blockbuster was directed by James Cameron, who also made "Titanic," the best selling movie of all time. The latest figures make "Avatar" already the 4th-biggest film ever made. Ahead of it are "Titanic" ($1.8bn), "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" ($1.12bn) and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" ($1.07bn). "Avatar" is reportedly the most expensive film ever made, with a budget of at least $300m.

FILM/ WARNING ON SHERLOCK BEING "TOO GAY": The US copyright holder of the Sherlock Holmes series has threatened to withdraw permission for a film sequel if producers develop a homoerotic storyline. "Sherlock Holmes" was released on Christmas Day and has made over $150m in the US alone. It stars Robert Downey Jr as the famous detective and Jude Law as his sidekick, Dr Watson. In interviews, Downey Jr has discussed the homoerotic tension between the two characters, who are shown wrestling and sharing a bed. He recently told David Letterman that he wondered whether Holmes was "a very butch homosexual".However, the US copyright holder, Andrea Plunkett, has threatened to withdraw permission for a sequel if Holmes and Watson become gayer. She told Total Film: “I hope this is just an example of Mr Downey's black sense of humour. It would be drastic, but I would withdraw permission for more films to be made if they feel that is a theme they wish to bring out in the future. I am not hostile to homosexuals, but I am to anyone who is not true to the spirit of the books.”

BOOKS/ BEATTY BEDS THOUSANDS: Warren Beatty's legendary womanizing is about to get some added polish, with this week's publication of "Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America". The 72-year-old star has already issued a statement though his attorney to refute the book's claims. "Using simple arithmetic," author Peter Biskind calculates, Beatty bedded "12,775 women, give or take, a figure that does not include daytime quickies, drive-bys, casual gropings, stolen kisses and so on." But in a statement, Beatty's attorney, Bertram Fields, denies that the book, which the New York Post reported was authorized, was, in fact, sanctioned by the actor. Among Beatty's conquests, Biskind writes, the star-producer can claim Jane Fonda (who at first thought her costar was gay), Joan Collins (whom he exhausted), Leslie Caron, Isabelle Adjani, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, Madonna and, of course, the actress Beatty married in 1992, Annette Bening.

BOOKS/ EXPLOSIVE CLAIMS IN FDR BOOK: It's hardly news that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was not a healthy man as he lead the nation during World War II. But aside from the cardiac problems that the public has known about for years, the authors of a new book argue that he suffered from a deadly form of skin cancer, and that it eventually killed him. In "FDR's Deadly Secret," authors Eric Fettman and Dr. Steven Lomazow, a neurologist, claim that a melanoma above his left eyebrow metastasized over the last 4 years of FDR's life and caused a tumor that killed him in April 1945. The authors were public yesterday with their theroy, on advance of the books publication. Fettman and Lomazow say in the book that FDR ran for a 3rd and 4th term in the White House while knowing "full well that he faced a likely death sentence." The authors say the president's doctors lied to the public about his health before and after his death.