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Celine Dion plans Oscar surprise
Celine Dion (pictured) will unveil her new song, I Knew I Loved You, during a tribute to Italian composer Ennio Morricone at this year's Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said on Wednesday.
Morricone, who will receive an honorary Oscar at the February 25 awards, orchestrated the song for 1984's Once Upon a Time in America, directed by Sergio Leone.
Songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman wanted to write lyrics for the song, but the film's producers felt none were needed. The Bergmans got their chance with Dion's version.
Morricone, 78, has received original score Oscar nominations for Days of Heaven, The Mission, The Untouchables, Bugsy and Malena.
The new rendition of I Knew I Loved You, produced by Quincy Jones, will appear on Morricone's upcoming greatest-hits album and on Dion's forthcoming record.
Coppola scion to have a go at opera
US filmmaker Sofia Coppola (pictured right) is to stage her first opera, Puccini's romantic tragedy Manon Lescaut, at the Montpellier Opera house in southern France during its 2009-10 season.
Coppola's maiden try at opera, which will include directing sensitive French tenor Robert Alagna, responsible for a bundle of headaches at Milan's La Scala late last year, was announced on Wednesday by the Montpellier Opera authorities.
In fact the entire Coppola family is to be feted by the southern French city next July.
A music festival from July 11 to 28, run by Rene Koering who heads the Opera, is to feature a special Francis Ford Coppola Day on July 19, with the city orchestra playing music from his movies The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, written by his late father Carmine Coppola.
The 35-year-old filmmaker, whose companion Thomas Mars is the singer of the French rock group Phoenix, has given music a special place in her three films to date.
Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation feature French electro-pop duo Air, while Marie-Antoinette has mainly contemporary sounds, and just a hint of classical.
No wedding bells for Jim and Jenny
Jim Carrey says he and his lady love, Jenny McCarthy (pictured), aren't planning to get married. "No, we're never getting married, but we're never getting divorced, which is fantastic," the 45-year-old actor said on Tuesday's edition of Access Hollywood.
Will he get her a ring at least?
"I bought her a Chloe purse," he jokes. "Isn't that good enough?"
Carrey and McCarthy, 34, went public with their romance last year. "She's just a wonderful lady and much deeper than she's ever received credit for, and I'm very excited about her future," he says of the former Playboy playmate, who got her big break in the mid-90s as a co-host on MTV's Singled Out.
Carrey, who was previously married to actress Lauren Holly, has a 19-year-old daughter, Jane, with his first wife, Melissa Womer. McCarthy and film director John Asher filed for divorce in August 2005, after six years of marriage. They have a 4-year-old son, Evan.
Agencies
(China Daily 02/09/2007 page18)
