MacDowell and husband call it quits

Photo: Andie MacDowell at the American Cancer Society's Dreamball at the Waldorf Astoria in a file photo from Sept. 17, 2003 in New York. Photo credits: J. Gaylock.

LOS ANGELES, California- Four Weddings and a Funeral actress Andie MacDowell and businessman Rhett Hartzog have called it quits after nearly three years of marriage. On Thursday, MacDowell's publicist, Karen Samfilippo, confirmed the divorce, which had been reported earlier by People magazine, but declined to comment further. MacDowell, 46, and Hartzog, 45, married in November 2001 in Asheville, N.C.They had been classmates at Gaffney High School in South Carolina. The actress has three children from her first marriage to Paul Qualley. Hartzog's marriage to MacDowell was his first. MacDowell will appear in the upcoming Beauty Shop, starring Queen Latifah. Her films also include Michael, Groundhog Day and Green Card.

Team America goes for R

LOS ANGELES, California - South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone toned down the puppet sex scene in their film Team America: World Police and finally were given an R rating, Paramount Pictures said Wednesday. Team America uses marionettes to satirize the war on terror, Hollywood peaceniks and explosion-filled action-movie cliches. Although the main characters are 60-centimetre-tall puppets with visible strings guiding their movements, a jokey -- and explicit -- sex scene between two of them originally earned the movie an NC-17 rating. That severely limits the distribution, advertising and audience for any movie, and the filmmakers promised to bring Team America into R-rated territory, a studio representative said. Although various puppets are bloodily gunned down, eaten by sharks or dismembered, the scene of puppet love was a sticking point until Parker and Stone trimmed away some shots. On Tuesday, the ratings board gave the OK to the requested R citing "graphic, crude and sexual humour; violent images and strong language, all involving puppets." The Motion Picture Association of America's initial rating is regarded humourously by many in Hollywood -- especially since the puppets have no genitalia, just a network of joints and hinges. Team America opens Oct. 15, with sneak previews this Saturday in hundreds of theatres.                 

Photo: A scene from Team America.

Sofia Laiti gets a glowing review in La Femme Magazine

Photo: American cabaret diva, Sofia Laiti.

New York- American cabaret chanteuse, Sofia Laiti received wide recognition for her recent released CD "You Don't Me" from the music community and particularly from the press. La Femme Magazine called her the warmest, the purest and most truthful cabaret singer in the nation. Laiti's style of singing was compared to Marlene Dietrich flamboyant and dramatic genre. But, La Femme Magazine saw in her, the emergence of a new kind of singers echoing the vanished golden era of early cabaret days in Berlin and Paris. The magazine wrote: "Laiti's voice is happy. It does not sink your soul in a melancholic mood. Even thought, cabaret implores such distress and morose imagery. Shadows, because Laiti's voice is the truthful echo of the Cabaret Noire, the human drama,  the aura of Mata Hari-esc and the remembrance of the early intellectuo-sensual cafe cabaret of Montmartre...In Laiti's voice, you sense, you feel, you smell the sensual fragrance of a femme fatale. In Laiti's voice, you discover how enchanting and alarming is to look -straight in the eyes- at a woman who is physically captivating, emotionally threatening to our health and intelligently motivating. Laiti's voice gives you this sensation: Sensuality, intelligence, comfort, motivation." Ms Laiti's style is purely European with a zest of an American jazz flair. Quite a refreshing genre which did not find its roots in mirrored imitation of the style of the era,  nor has been influenced by other leading contemporary singers. This could be the dawn of a new existentialistic cabaret genre in the United States. Laiti's new CD is an authentic "mirage" of traditional European cabaret, a volcano of emotions and lava of personal experience. "You Don't Me" enriches and expands the perimeter of contemporary lyrical jazz cabaret repertoire. The abundance of warmth, implosion and explosion of drama and vocal beauty added  enchanting intimacy and sensuality to the sometime cozy and sometime bursting story-telling singing style of Ms Laiti. In other words, this is a delightful musical and vocal product; first class!

 MORE NEWS AND GOSSIPS ON THE NEXT PAGE.