Dean Goodman

It's been a wild year at the box office for Sandra Bullock, whose report card this decade has been middling at best.

The actress, 45, returned to theaters for the first time in more than two years in June with the romantic comedy "The Proposal," which went on to become the biggest film of her career (before accounting for inflation), with $164 million in domestic ticket sales. But then came her September stinker, "All About Steve," which was one of her weakest entries with $34 million in ticket sales. She is pictured at the premiere of the latter film, looking happier than she should have been.

Bullock bounced back this weekend with the sports drama "The Blind Side," which kicked off with $34.5 million, a personal best. The opening was good enough for a distant No. 2 behind "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" ($140.7 million, but who's counting?).

Critics and fans embraced the fact-based saga of a Tennessee housewife who takes in a homeless black teenager and turns him into a football hero. John Lee Hancock ("The Rookie") directed from an adaptation of Michael Lewis' book "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game." It scored a 70 percent positive rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to 30 percent for the "Twilight" sequel. Exit polling conducted by CinemaScore gave it an exceedingly rare A-plus across all demographics. There's even talk of an Oscar nod, which would be a first for the two-time Golden Globe nominee.

"The Blind Side" was produced for $29 million by Alcon Entertainment, which specializes in female-skewing fare like the "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" movies. The company is financed by FedEx Corp Chairman Frederick W. Smith, and it has a distribution deal with Warner Bros. Pictures.

Bullock cut her undisclosed fee to star in the film, but will share in the profits. "She'll make quite a bit of money on the movie," said Broderick Johnson, who runs Alcon with Andrew Kosove.

Johnson predicted the movie would enjoy "a remarkable run" in North America, and reach the $150 million level. But how will it play overseas? American sports dramas have limited foreign appeal, and so the marketing will emphasize the human-interest side. The strategy seemed to work in North America, where women accounted for 55 percent of the audience. Johnson said the international rollout will be worked out next week, but it would likely be spearheaded by launches in the Bullock strongholds of Britain and Germany (her late mother's homeland).

Aerosmith without Steven Tyler is like cocaine without a straw, or alcohol without a hangover.

But as fans come to grips with the very real possibility that the rubber-faced singer may abandon his scarf-draped microphone stand at the helm of one of America's most successful rock bands, the next question is: Who should replace him?

Guitarist Joe Perry said on Monday that the band is "positively" seeking a new singer, apparently having tired of the silent treatment Tyler has meted out to them in recent months. The final straw was an article published last week by Classic Rock magazine, in which Tyler said he was going to focus on "Brand Tyler." Perry -- Tyler's musical foil for 40 years -- was not happy to learn about the singer's plans online, and upped the ante by saying Aerosmith would continue without him.

One candidate to replace Tyler could be Hagen Grohe, a German singer plucked from obscurity to sing on Perry's newly released solo album, "Have Guitar, Will Travel." Perry has taken the solo project on the road, and Grohe does versions of such Aerosmith nuggets as "Walk This Way" and a reggaefied "Dream On," in a soaring vocal style reminiscent of Axl Rose. When Reuters asked Perry last month about Hagen eventually replacing Tyler, a somewhat outlandish idea at the time, Perry did not exactly rubbish the proposal.

Bands who replace lead singers have a mixed track record. AC/DC went on to bigger and better things with Brian Johnson, although many fans three decades later still long for his late predecessor Bon Scott. Deep Purple moved into the big leagues after Ian Gillan replaced Rod Evans in 1969. Van Halen survived the 1985 replacement of David Lee Roth with Sammy Hagar, but the rock band stumbled badly in 1996 when it brought in Gary Cherone.

And then there's INXS, which struggled to replace late singer Michael Hutchence, despite or because of a reality-TV contest. Sublime's recent attempt to reunite with a new singer was shot down by a judge at the behest of the family of the ska-punk band's late frontman. Others like Queen did not even bother trying -- at least until 2004, 13 years after the death of Freddie Mercury, when two-thirds of the group's surviving members joined up with British blues singer Paul Rodgers.

Which brings us back to Aerosmith. Rodgers, the former frontman of Bad Company, is Perry's favorite singer. People magazine facetiously (we hope) suggested Adam Lambert or Roth as replacements. Maybe Chris Cornell, of Soundgarden and Audioslave fame, would be a good fit? Or Pink, especially since Aerosmith had a hit song of that name? Or a merger with Run-DMC, whose rap version of "Walk this Way" reignited Aerosmith's career? Or perhaps the answer is staring at Perry in the mirror?

Chaz Bono, the showbiz scion formerly known as Chastity Bono until he underwent a sex change, is enjoying his belated initiation into manhood. Especially the shaving.

"I shave about once a week now," Bono, 40 (pictured at left in his previous incarnation), told "Entertainment Tonight" in a two-part interview that will air Thursday and Friday (check local listings).

"It kind of started to come in just like peach fuzz. I always wanted to shave. It is a very natural process. For my birthday I got a lot of shaving stuff."

Bono, the son of singer/actress Cher and late impresario/politician Sonny Bono, said he began his lifelong regimen of male hormones in March and had his breasts removed. He declined to discuss anything "below the waist."

"(I'm) still not anywhere near what I will look like but really for the first time I am feeling much more comfortable with how I look physically," he said.

He also dodged a question about his mother's reaction. Bono has previously said that Cher was initially uncomfortable when he came out to his parents as a lesbian aged 18.

"The most important thing about this for me is that my outsides are finally starting to match my insides," he said. "I feel like I'm living in my body for the first time and it feels really good."

(updates with comment from Joe Perry)

The wife of Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry doesn't particularly care for the band's recordings, and has never listened to any of their albums in their entirety. 

"I am not a fan of Aerosmith's music without the live performance behind it," Billie Perry (at right with her husband) wrote on her Twitter page on Sunday.

"Honestly I have never listened to 1 CD all the way through. I listen in the studio when they record. I've never put an Aero CD on my player. I did order a few songs from iTunes, but have not listened." 

She considers Aerosmith to be one of the greatest live acts in rock 'n' roll, but "... without the live show the songs n lyrics don't move me."

Perry's comments come at a sensitive time for the veteran rock band. Aerosmith was forced to cancel a troubled tour two months ago after singer Steven Tyler fell off the stage, and he has not spoken to his bandmates since.

Joe Perry, who is promoting a new solo album that will keep him on the road through March, recently told Reuters he has not written a song with Tyler in 10 years.

But he took to Twitter to defend his wife's Twitter messages, saying she had told him when they first met that she was not familiar with Aerosmith and did not care about his fame or fortune. "Made me love her all the more," he said.

"She's a real true punk when it comes to R&R and makes no bones about it," he added. "She's one of the only people I trust to give me knowledgeable truth."

His wife, a photographer and poet, uses Twitter to update fans on the band's internal developments, to the occasional chagrin of fans. But her latest comments aren't likely to win her any awards for dutiful wife of the year. Alas, if Aerosmith cannot get past its current impasse, the albums are the only way she'll be able to appreciate one of America's biggest rock bands.

Gossip columnist Perez Hilton probably hoped for bigger crowds and better buzz for his inaugural North American tour of up-and-coming musical acts. But the three-and-a-half week trek ended on a high note on Saturday as upwards of a thousand people showed up at the Avalon Hollywood theater to check out the vibrant lineup of would-be superstars.

Numbers may have been boosted by the addition of a not-so-secret mystery headliner, indie rock band The Gossip, who are probably better known internationally. The other performers on the final stop of the "Perez Hilton Presents" club tour included the B-52s-like rock band Natalie Portman's Shaved Head, English singer/songwriter Julian Perretta, the glam-rock New York band Semi Precious Weapons, and usual headliner New Zealand dance-pop-rock starlet Ladyhawke (pictured at left).

And, of course, the excitable Hilton drew loud shrieks from his core demographic of young women packed into the front rows each time he took the stage to introduce the next act. "I have this little gossip site, but music is really my passion," he said at one point. "This is a dream of mine."

Whether the dream will yield a second tour is questionable. The trek drew modest crowds, and tickets for some of the all-ages gigs were given away. Tickets for the Hollywood show could be bought at the window for $25, down from the advertised day-of-sale rate of $31. Norwegian singer Ida Maria, one of the headliners, dropped out after a week claiming "total exhaustion."

It also passed under the radar of the music industry, whose denizens are neither enamored of Hilton's day job nor thrilled that he landed his own label at Warner Music Group. Hilton was aware that his stamp of approval could backfire on the artists, telling the Seattle Weekly that "if you love Ladyhawke, you shouldn't let your dislike for me get in the way from coming to the show. Just get over it. It's not about me."

On the other hand, the promoters did seem to keep costs down, judging by the fact that many of the artists set up their own equipment. Ladyhawke (a.k.a. Pip Brown) recounted that she had driven 8,000 miles in a van with both her bandmates and with Semi Precious Weapons. Presumbly Ladyhawke and Semi Precious Weapons' cross-dressing frontman Justin Tranter had plenty of time to swap makeup tips and pantyhose tricks.

Octogenarian poet Maya Angelou was alive and well on Sunday, despite the dire overnight reports of online gossip site TMZ and a panicked army of Twitter followers. 

TMZ reported on Saturday night that the prolific writer was hospitalized earlier in the evening ahead of a scheduled appearance at an awards show in Los Angeles. The report spread like wildfire through cyberspace, and Angelou became the top trending topic on Twitter as anguished members of the microblogging site passed around the news. Some morbid scribes added an "R.I.P." for good measure.

The only problem is that 81-year-old Angelou was not ill, and was nowhere near Los Angeles. She was about 1,800 miles away in her hometown of St. Louis.

TMZ updated its story on Sunday to say that Angelou was never scheduled to appear at the event. It blamed the erroneous report on event organizers, saying that someone had told one of its cameramen that Angelou was a no-show because she had been hospitalized.

The online gossip community has had a mixed track record with recent deaths and mishaps. The emergence of Twitter means that such reports now get amplified. TMZ got the worldwide scoop on the death of Michael Jackson in June, but wrongly reported the following month that former UFC superstar Kimo Leopoldo had died. Last month, gossip columnist Perez Hilton claimed that former Charlie's Angels star Jaclyn Smith had tried to commit suicide. It appeared to be a case of mistaken identity. Hilton also suggested in 2007 that Fidel Castro had died.

If Taylor Swift had any intentions of catching Kanye West on the rapper's North American concert tour with Lady Gaga, she will now have to make other plans. The trek is off, according to a terse statement issued Thursday afternoon by concert promoter Live Nation.

"Live Nation announced today that the Kanye West and Lady Gaga 'Fame Kills' tour has been cancelled. Refunds are available at the point of purchase. Tickets purchased online and via phone will be refunded automatically."

A spokesman for Live Nation declined to elaborate. Publicists for West and Lady Gaga could not be reached. The arena tour was supposed to begin on Nov. 10 in Phoenix, and wrap on Jan. 24 in Dallas.

Details of the tour were announced amid the worldwide furor that greeted West's outburst at the MTV Video Music Awards last month, when the controversial star interrupted Swift's acceptance speech to say that her prize should have gone to Beyonce instead. An apologetic West told comedian Jay Leno the following day that he planned to take some time off and "just analyze how I'm going to make it through the rest of this life, how I'm going to improve. Because I am a celebrity, and that's something I have to deal with."

Lady Gaga had eagerly discussed the tour, which would have been a stylish coming out for the biggest new star of 2009. Her album "The Fame" ranks as the best-selling debut album of the year in the United States with 1.3 million copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and has yielded two No. 1 singles: "Just Dance" and "Poker Face." It's also the fifth-biggest-selling album of the year overall in the U.S.

Mommy, what's a threesome? 

If Britney Spears still has any 'tween fans left, their parents are about to face yet another uncomfortable question pertaining to the pop idol.

The former Disney Channel starlet has just released a new single, "3," which may be more appropriate for the Playboy Mansion than the Mouse House.

"Three is a charm, Two is not the same, I don't see the harm, So are you game?" she playfully asks at one point. You can listen to the song here.

The slick ditty should get the kids out on the dance floors, but there's even something in there for old folkies, since Spears tosses in a head-scratching reference to "Peter, Paul and Mary." The song was produced and co-written by Swedish hitmaker Max Martin ("... Baby One More Time"), so it's possible the 27-year-old singer might consider them three random names.

Equally unwittingly, she now follows in the footsteps of Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, whose ménage à trois with his girlfriend and a teenage heiress inspired the alternative rock band's 1990 song "Three Days."

"3" comes from "Britney Spears: The Singles Collection," which comes out on Nov. 24, almost five years after her last hits package. (She released just two albums in the interim.)

As U2 enters the third week of its North American tour, smashing sales records along the way, the big elephant in the room is the disappointing sales of the band's new album. "No Line on the Horizon" has sold about a million copies in the United States since its release in February, according to Nielsen SoundScan, becoming one of U2's least-commercial efforts.

"I walk out and sing (album track) 'Breathe' every night to a lot of people who don't know it," frontman Bono says in a Rolling Stone magazine cover story. (We have pictured drummer Larry Mullen at left, playing in Chicago on Sept. 24, since he and bassist Adam Clayton were omitted from the cover.)

"They're great songs live, and I think it's a great album," Bono added. "I think it will be seen as 'Gosh, one of their more challenging albums.'"

None of the album's three singles managed to click with fans, particularly the first single "Get On Your Boots," which stalled at No. 37 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart. With the exception of guitarist The Edge, the band now acknowledges it was the wrong choice, according to the article.

"Look, sometimes our audience isn't as groovy as we'd like," Bono said. (Rolling Stone said he was smiling as he said that.) "People are not sure about the club side of U2. They want 'Vertigo,'" the big crowd-pleasing single from the band's previous album "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb."

But the masses are still happy to see U2 on stage. The band's most recent show, at Giants Stadium near New York City, pulled in just under 85,000 people, which Bono told the crowd smashed a 14-year-old record held by Pope John Paul II. U2 manager Paul McGuinness said in the story that the tour is on track to become the biggest of all time, supplanting the $558 million haul of the Rolling Stones' 2005-2007 trek.

The next show on the itinerary takes place in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Dates for the North American leg are on tap through Oct. 28 in Vancouver.

Former "Charlie's Angels" star Jaclyn Smith did not shoot herself in Honduras, despite gossip columnist Perez Hilton's claim to the contrary on Tuesday.

Hilton created an international incident after he sent out a Twitter message: "OMG! Jaclyn Smith suicide attempt! Tragic news! She's in critical condition! Details coming ASAP!" 
    
His source was a Honduran newspaper that later appeared to correct its initial report to say that rather than Smith, the victim was a woman who played her stunt double.
    
Smith quickly took to Facebook and Twitter to calm the masses: "Jaclyn is safe and home with her family. She is not in Honduras. It is a lie."
    
Hilton, who once reported that Fidel Castro had died, took a lot of heat on Twitter, with the word "douche" cropping up frequently.