Kenny Chesney says award comments "spun" by media

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kenny Chesney, who touched off a furor at the Academy of Country Music Awards by telling reporters that his entertainer of the year award had been "diminished" by Internet fan voting, says his remarks have been misconstrued.


Chesney, writing about the controversy in a blog entry on his official MySpace page, told his fans his much-discussed comments were not aimed at them and were shared by others in the country music industry.


"Sure, to make me sound ungrateful is a sexy way to spin this and drive viewers. It's a controversy and that sells," Chesney wrote on Tuesday.


"But realistically -- and based on the response in our fan forum -- you know how important you are to me, how much I believe in the way we've all built this together," he wrote. "You, the fans, are the reason I keep pushing, keep striving, keep wanting to be more and better."


Chesney was named entertainer of the year a fourth time on Sunday night, during the 43rd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, in the first year that fans were allowed to choose the winner by voting on the Internet.


The top-selling country singer told reporters backstage in response to a question that Web voting had cheapened the show's top prize.


"I don't think it's right that they picked the one award that means the most, that all the artists sacrificed the most for, and turned it into ... a sweepstakes, to seeing who can push people's buttons the hardest on the Internet," he said.


"It's a complete disrespect of the artists. I think because of that it really diminishes the integrity of the work." 

Rihanna: 'Chris Brown & I Are Very, Very Close'

Rihanna has once more denied her romance with singer Chris Brown, insisting she is “just good friends” with the Kiss Kiss star.

The pair has been inseparable for months, vacationing together, being photographed smooching and even exchanging expensive jewellery and getting matching tattoos etched - seemingly confirming they are romantically involved.

But the Umbrella hitmaker insists they are only friends, and are definitely not sleeping together.

During an appearance on The View yesterday, Rihanna said: "We hang out a lot. We are very close. He's an amazing person. But we are not dating. We are very close, very, very close."

When grilled on the difference between their friendship and 'dating', Rihanna replied: "There's a big difference and I think you know what."

"Vertigo" is still a dizzying, dazzling display of moviemaking, 50 years later

Watching "Vertigo," Alfred Hitchcock's glorious, intoxicating tale of obsession, is like entering a dream; time slows down in its green-colored light as the world is reduced to a man, a woman, a weary hotel room and a sad, doomed passion. Darkly inviting, it takes over its viewer in the way few movies do. Every time I watch it — and this film is meant to be watched over and over — it sweeps me in with its thick, almost humid atmosphere of yearning. As its final scenes go by, you watch it barely breathing, becoming part of it, knowing the ending is inevitable but wishing it could somehow change.

"Vertigo" celebrates is 50th anniversary this spring with a weeklong run at the Grand Illusion beginning Friday, in a version beautifully restored in 1996. It's a chance to revisit a film that never grows old. Set in a San Francisco whose wet streets and gray fog speak of untold stories, "Vertigo" is both psychological thriller and mournful romance. Scottie (James Stewart), a retired police officer, reluctantly accepts a strange job: An old acquaintance wants his wife shadowed. The wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), seems so fragile that a gust of Bay Area wind might break her; she's a whispery blonde obsessed with a long-dead ancestor. "Do you believe that someone out of the past, someone dead, can enter and take possession of a living being?" the husband asks. Scottie answers, instantly and firmly, "No."But the character's gee-whiz matter-of-factness (which nobody ever did better than Stewart; just the way he mutters, "I don't want to get mixed up in this darn thing," in the husband's general direction, is classic) quickly dissolves into the fog. The lonely Scottie falls, hard, for the doomed Madeleine, and even the protests of his sensible pal Midge can't stop the force of his unexpected emotion. (Midge, portrayed with delicate wit and sympathy by Barbara Bel Geddes, happens to be quietly in love with Scottie herself; "Vertigo," it turns out, is a journey through a hall of mirrors.) From there, the story swirls into unexpected waters, which I'll let "Vertigo" newcomers discover, deliciously, for themselves.

Based on the novel "D'Entre les Morts" ("From Among the Dead") by the French mystery-writing team of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, "Vertigo" was adapted for the screen by Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor. Hitchcock made the film in the middle of a remarkable 1950s run of work, which included "Rear Window," "To Catch a Thief," "Dial M for Murder," "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and "The Wrong Man" shortly before "Vertigo"; "North by Northwest" and "Psycho" followed immediately afterward.

But, splendid as they are, none of these films captures imaginations and haunts dreams the way "Vertigo" can. Part of the reason is Bernard Herrmann's magnificent score — a lush, intricate orchestral work that uses unexpected combinations of instruments to weave a blanket of mood. The hypnotic overture, played over the Saul Bass-designed opening credits, seems to whirl us into a vortex; the music as Stewart follows Novak through the San Francisco streets shimmers with questions; the romantic sweep of sound, as they finally embrace, is achingly, decadently beautiful, yet something in the chords speaks of mournfulness and doom. Herrmann was known to consider the score his best work, though he had reservations about the film at least initially, wondering aloud at one point why it wasn't set in someplace hot and sultry like New Orleans, with Charles Boyer starring.

Stewart's performance, though, is astonishingly good; nothing the actor had done before quite prepared audiences for his work here. Scottie's transformation is thorough and devastating; he changes from laconic everyman to hollow-eyed ghost before our eyes. In the film's final third, he walks the streets like a gaunt shadow. What he's starved for seems gone — until, gazing at the object of his love, he's suddenly fed and desperate for more. And Novak's vulnerable, heartbreaking performance matches his; at times her character almost seems choked by her words, trapped in a cage of secrets.

"Vertigo" is filled with the sort of detail that rewards rewatching: the audaciously wordless 10-minute sequence early on that seems to go by in a heartbeat; the way cinematographer Robert Burks' light catches Stewart's blue eyes, making him look just the tiniest bit otherworldly and menacing; the long, sad hallway shot in which Bel Geddes makes her exit from the film; the way Novak's smile, late in the film, seems entirely drained of happiness. Now 50 years young, its strange beauty deserves celebration. Go walk those streets with Scottie and develop a little "Vertigo" obsession of your own.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com

See Also

• US acting unions end agreement
• Kate Moss - Fascinating Fact 5456
• Mendes leaves rehab but will return
• Red Sun touting two titles

Neil Diamond grabs first chart-topper

'Home Before Dark' propelled by 'Idol' appearance





NEW YORK -- In another busy week in the top tier of the Billboard 200, Neil Diamond's "Home Before Dark" zooms in at No. 1, becoming his first chart-topping album. The Columbia set got a big plug when Diamond appeared on "American Idol" two weeks ago, bolstering its 146,000 first-week U.S. sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The Rick Rubin-produced "Home" is Diamond's biggest debut sales week since SoundScan began tracking in 1991. He first appeared on Billboard's charts in 1966 with "The Feel of Neil Diamond"; the closest he ever got to No. 1 was with the 1973 soundtrack to "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," which reached No. 2.
With 103,000 units, Toby Keith's double-disc collection "35 Biggest Hits" (Show Dog Nashville) bows at No. 2. The country star has scored three prior No. 1 albums and two No. 2s.
Meanwhile, Madonna's "Hard Candy" (Warner Bros.) falls from the top slot to No. 3, moving 94,000 with a 66% slip. "American Idol" star Clay Aiken debuts at No. 4 with "On My Way Here" (RCA), with a slightly less total than "Hard Candy." Aiken's last studio album, 2006's "A Thousand Different Ways," started at No. 2 with the much larger sum of 211,000.
Mariah Carey's Island Def Jam album "E=MC2" continues its decline from No. 2 to No. 5 with 87,000 (-9%), and Leona Lewis' "Spirit" (Syco/J) slips from No. 3 to No. 6 with 76,000 (a 10% drop).
Gavin DeGraw's self-titled sophomore effort from J Records climbs on board at No. 7 with 66,000. Interest was spurred by the single "In Love with a Girl," which has peaked at No. 34 thus far on the Hot 100. "Gavin DeGraw" easily trumps the No. 103 peak of 2004's "Chariot" and the subsequent entry of "Chariot -- Stripped" at No. 56.
Josh Groban's concert CD/DVD "Awake Live" (Reprise) starts at No. 8 with 58,000, his seventh album to chart on The Billboard 200. Another country mainstay scores a top 10 spot with a hits collection, as Dierks Bentley's "Greatest Hits: Every Mile a Memory" (Capitol Nashville) opens at No. 9 with 43,000. His most recent studio album, "Long Trip Home," peaked at No. 5 in 2006.
Latin superstar Luis Miguel claims his highest charting album ever, as "Complices" takes a bow at No. 10 with 32,000. "Complices" (Warner Music Latina) also gives Miguel his eighth No. 1 on the Top Latin Albums chart -- the most of any artist in the history of the list.
Back on the 200, Tye Tribbett & G.A.'s "Stand Out" (Columbia) stands out with a No. 16 debut (26,000), and German rock troupe Tokio Hotel's "Scream" (Interscope) enters at No. 39 with 16,000.
Album sales this week are up 6.9% from last week's sum with 8.12 million units and down 4.6% from the same week last year.