T.I. was released earlier this year after serving time for federal weapons charges.  He is currently on probation.  The emcee’s attorney, Don Samuel, tells the “Atlanta Journal-Constitution” that he’s not sure how T.I.’s latest arrest will impact his freedom.  He remarks, quote, “Without knowing all the facts, it’s premature to speculate what the court is likely to do.”

Lindsay Lohan in Underground Comedy 2010.

After years of bad behavior, evaporating movie work, and a 14-day stint in jail for violating probation, Lindsay Lohan is mounting a comeback. Sort of. On Friday the former Disney child star returned to the big screen for the first time in three years, playing a drug-abusing, spoiled wild child who dons a nun’s outfit and mows down bad guys in Robert Rodriguez’s bloodfest Machete. She’s also gracing the cover of the October issue of Vanity Fair, in which she’s quoted as saying, “I want my career back.” (See the 25 best — or is it worst? — infomercials.)

Machete winks heavily at Lohan’s past: between the promotional poster, featuring a habit-clad Lohan suggestively licking a massive pistol, and the outrageously self-referential subplots (we first meet Lohan’s character being rescued, barely conscious, from a drug den), the filmmakers appear eager to tap into her tabloid queen reputation. (Read TIME’s Machete review.)

But that’s nothing compared to Lohan’s other completed project, an appearance in Underground Comedy 2010 — a film proudly promoted as “the single most offensive movie you’ll ever see” — written, directed, financed by and starring Vince “The ShamWow Guy” Shlomi.

Shlomi, who goes by Vince Offer in the movie, is better known to late-night television viewers as the infomercial pitchman behind the super-absorbent ShamWow and the Slap Chop kitchen gadget. He has been trying to break into the movie business for a while on the strength of Underground Comedy — a collection of tasteless sketches he’s been working on since 1996 that was released briefly to horrified mainstream reviews in 1999 (The New York Times referred to the film as “wretched”).

Lohan’s segment of the film — in which she acts out a celebrity revenge fantasy, shooting up a gaggle of paparazzi while dressed like Marilyn Monroe — is tame compared to the movie’s other sketches, which include scenes of an infant being shot in a drive-by and a necrophiliac sexing it up with rotting corpses. But its very existence is a sobering reminder about how far the star of Freaky Friday and Mean Girls has fallen. Even Shlomi acknowledges he wouldn’t have had a chance to get her at the height of her game. “Ten years ago she’s doing Disney, and now she’s in the most offensive movie ever made,” he tells TIME.

Shlomi had Lohan on his wish-list for an attention-generating appearance and got his chance to make his pitch personally last May at the Cannes Film Festival, where Lindsay was photographed partying — and where she claimed her passport had been stolen, preventing her from attending a key Los Angeles court hearing.

The aspiring filmmaker and his co-producer Courtney Bingham first approached the starlet over blaring house music at a VIP nightclub. “We sent her the scripts and told her that it was gross-out comedy,” says Shlomi. “She’d done Funny or Die so she has a great sense of humor. That’s in the same vein, but our movie is a little tougher.” (Which might be putting it mildly.)

Neither side would disclose how much Lohan was paid for her appearance, although Shlomi maintains the actress was clearly interested in the payday. (”Money talks,” says Bingham.) But once the details were squared away, the biggest source of concern for Lohan was whether her court-ordered SCRAM alcohol monitoring ankle bracelet would be a problem for the shoot.(See the Top 10 Women-in-prison movies.)

Shlomi, however, was thrilled. “It looked cool,” he says of the device Lohan was ordered to wear at a court hearing immediately after her return from Cannes. It also would bring the scene that much more publicity. Lohan even helped work it into the script, when she changed a scripted fat joke about Monroe.

“The original line was ‘Marilyn could never fit in a size zero dress.’ “says Shlomi. “But [Lindsay] was like, no I don’t want to make fun of Marilyn. What if I say, ‘Marilyn would never wear a SCRAM bracelet.’ We were like ‘yeah!’ “

Lohan also agreed to the last minute script addition that had her pulling out a pair of handguns and happily mowing down photographers at a faux film premiere. That, combined with the visible SCRAM bracelet on her left ankle, promised instant headlines when an unrated trailer for the film was posted on the Internet in July.

“On YouTube there are nearly 850,000 views for that clip alone,” says Shlomi. “That’s more than Machete’s trailer.”

While Lohan’s official spokespeople declined to comment, some members of her camp contend there’s no such thing as bad publicity. “It’s cool to do these underground parts,” says Mike Heller, a family friend and the CEO of Talent Resources, who has brokered business deals with Lohan (but not for this movie), says “It keeps her current.”

“She’s not desperate,” he adds. “Many deals have come through this office and she’s turned them down.”

The Underground Comedy filmmakers wanted even more Lohan screen time in the film (Shlomi says he had three cashier checks totaling $350,000 ready for Lohan if she shot an additional psychologist’s office skit), but were happy enough to get her at all. “We offered her a lot more money but she only wanted to do the Marilyn character,” Shlomi said.

Though the movie appears most likely headed for a straight-to-DVD release, Shlomi hopes to either find a distribution partner or shill it to theaters himself for a late-November release. “With ShamWow, I had to become my own distributor because no one wanted it,” says the undaunted pitchman. “Out of necessity you become something you’re not expecting. It was actually a blessing.”

While Lohan is currently slated to work next on a biopic of porn star Linda Lovelace, Shlomi is counting on Underground Comedy 2010 being such a success that he may have a shot at working with her again. “I’m actually doing a romantic comedy,” he says. “And I’d love to send Lindsay a script.”

Source: Time/CNN

That would be Clooney, of course, whose character is known as Edward to some, but Jack to the man who seems to know him best — his fixer, Pavel (Johan Leysen). Whenever Jack calls him, which is often, and always from a pay phone (they still have those in Europe, apparently), Pavel lets out an involuntary little sigh — the way your dad did when he knew you were calling for another loan.

Jack doesn’t want money, he wants to know why “the Swedes” knew where to find him — a messy business that left three dead in the snow. He grudgingly takes Pavel’s car to rural Abruzzo, Italy, but dumps the cell phone and makes himself at home in a hilltop village across from the one Pavel suggested. And then he waits.

Waiting is integral to suspense — in one of the most suspenseful films ever made, Gary Cooper waits for a train due to arrive at “High Noon.” Even so, it’s rare for a thriller to give us as much down time as this one does. Clooney’s indeterminate retreat is characterized by friendly but evasive chats with the local priest (Paolo Bonacelli), energetic workouts with a prostitute (Violante Placido) who asks him out on a date, and five or six cups of coffee (at least one of them an Americano). Anyone who caught Jim Jarmusch’s “The Limits of Control” last year will recognize the pattern, though Jarmusch’s taciturn killer is a chatterbox next to Clooney’s quiet American.

Directed by Anton Corbijn, the photographer who made his debut with the highly regarded Ian Curtis biopic, “Control,” the film is cut to the bone, austere, still, and very beautiful to look at. But its severity works against it when the mechanism misfires, which is more often than you might expect.

It simply doesn’t make sense that Jack isn’t interrogated when the village is ruptured by a double slaying, for instance. The dialogue is extremely spare, but that may be as well, judging by the lean lines we do get. (The humdrum script is by Rowan Joffe, from Martin Booth’s novel “A Very Private Gentleman.”)

And when the thriller framework can’t support the metaphorical (even metaphysical) weight Corbijn expects it to bear, the movie comes off as trite and pretentious. Improbably, Jack is a lepidopterist — he even has the tattoo to prove it. In one scene he admires an endangered but obviously computer-generated butterfly that serves as a handy symbol of a soul we otherwise have to take on trust.

Clooney, of course, can hold the screen as easily as he wrests the high-powered rifle he builds out of secondhand auto parts. The actor constructs an engrossing portrait of a rigorously self-controlled professional on the point of unraveling — or becoming human, if you like.

Unfortunately audiences may feel that an hour and three quarters in the company of this guilt-racked cipher is more than he deserves.

Source: CNN

Looking for bright spots in auto sales so far in 2010 is like hunting for diamonds in a parking lot at Wal-Mart. You are hard pressed to find anything, and when you do, you have to examine it closely to determine its actual worth.

Some analysts have seized on a zircon they may be mistaking for a diamond: the surge in sales of big SUVs. According to Dave Cutting of JD Power, sales of large utilities like the Chevrolet Suburbanhave risen 22%, while large premium utilities, exemplified by Mercedes’ GL 450, are up 21%.

That’s in an overall market up only 15%.

The mini-boom in SUVs is thought to be a sign that one, like frogs in boiling water, Americans have become accustomed to higher gasoline prices, and two, they won’t give up their oversize vehicles until someone pries their cold dead hands off the steering wheel.

In reality, the phenomenon may be nothing more than a death rattle. Customers are hurrying to buy SUVs before they become extinct.

“With the exception of the new Jeep Grand Cherokee, no real SUVs are being introduced anymore,” says Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds.com. “Today, the ideal utility vehicle looks like it can climb Mount Everest but rides around town efficiently and smoothly.”

In other words, it isn’t an SUV but a crossover.

Crossovers combine the design features of SUVs like an upright stance, command seating position, high ground clearance, and all-wheel drive with passenger car characteristics such as a comfortable ride, easy handling, and decent fuel economy.

Starting from nothing 15 years ago, sales of crossovers passed those of traditional SUVs in 2006 and have kept on growing. They now exceed two million. Traditional SUVs, meanwhile, peaked in 2002 around three million, and now account for less than one million sales. So far in 2010, crossover sales have leapt ahead 24%, and crossovers now account for 23.7% of the market — nearly a quarter of it.

Manufacturers keep adding crossovers to their lineups and they come in all sizes — small, medium, large — and soon a convertible. Nissan is scheduled to offer a droptop version of its popularMurano crossover in 2011. Honda CR-V, which pioneered the crossover category leads the compact segment, has sold 106,928 units so far this year. But it gets strong competition fromToyota’s RAV4 and the Ford Escape. Among mid-size to large crossovers, there is a tight four-way race going on among the Chevy Traverse, Honda Pilot, Ford Edge, and Kia Sorento.

Some crossovers, like the Audi Allroad and Toyota Venza reflect a station-wagon ancestry. “Most consumers in this space want the look of the SUV but the driveability and efficiency of a station wagon,” says Anwyl. The wagon look isn’t very popular these days, which explains why Subaruraised the roof of its popular Outback to make it more SUV-like. But Anwyl likes the utility that wagons offer. “Our team believes the Cadillac CTS wagon is a far better vehicle than the SRX crossover, but people are choosing the crossover even when the wagon makes more sense.”

As manufacturers discontinue old-style SUVs, they’re moving their nameplates to crossovers. The next Chevy Tahoe is going to be built on the Traverse crossover platform, not the Silverado truck platform. And the 2011 Ford Explorer moves from the Ranger truck platform to the Taurus car platform. Equipped with Ford’s turbocharged four-cylinder engine, it is expected to get 30% better fuel economy — 19 miles per gallon city versus 13 mpg for the V-6 equipped 2010 model.

At its best, the auto industry is Darwinistic, with the new and improved driving out the old and outmoded, and the change from SUVs to crossovers is a prime example of how it evolves.

The crossover offers improved flexibility and utility without the penalties of fuel economy and comfort. It will be interesting to see how it mutates. The convertible Murano may be only the first step.

Source: Yahoo! CNN Money

Antoine Fuqua’s Tupac Shakur film is scheduled to begin production later this year.  Fuqua previously stated that he wants to get a new face to play the part of Tupac.  He told the U.K.’s “Digital Spy,” quote, “That’s the goal, I want to discover someone new.”

Currently, Ronson is working with Duran Duran for their next album.  He’s also about to release his own new album, called “Record Collection” on September 28th.  D’Angelo sings on the track “Glass Mountain Trust” on that new disc.  Ronson says it’s his favorite track on the whole record.  “Record Collection” will also feature appearances from rapper Ghostface Killah and singer Boy George.

Hilton proceeded to tell authorities that the purse actually belonged to a friend, adding that she thought the cocaine was gum.  She was booked into Clark County jail, and released a few hours later without having to post bail.  Cy Waits has been charged with DUI, and was relieved of his duties as the head of nightclub operations for the Wynn and Encore properties.

Lil Wayne is serving a one-year sentence at New York’s Rikers Island for weapons charges.  He is expected to be released on November 4th.