Rondo, Celtics refuse to sweat Heat

LAS VEGAS – The ink had yet to dry on the contracts of LeBron James(notes), Chris Bosh(notes) and Dwyane Wade(notes) before Las Vegas oddsmakers declared the Miami Heat the favorites to win the NBA’s 2011 championship.

Those oddsmakers apparently didn’t consult Rajon Rondo(notes).

The Boston Celtics’ confident young point guard doesn’t see any reason why the Heat should be favored to reach the NBA Finals ahead of his own team.

“They should be good, but they ain’t done nothing yet,” Rondo said after a recent practice during Team USA’s minicamp. “They ain’t done nothing.”

Rondo has already won one championship with the Celtics and came within a game last season of beating the Los Angeles Lakers for another. With Boston’s core returning next season, Rondo expects the Celtics to return to the Finals if they can stay healthy. Whatever challenge the remade Heat pose, Rondo isn’t fretting it.

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Channing Tatum and Wife Jenna Dewan Out In NY

Enjoying a relaxing weekend outing, Channing Tatum and wife Jenna Dewan were spotted making their way around Los Angeles, California on Sunday (July 25).

The "G.I. Joe" hunk and his actress bride were both dressed casually, holding hands as they partook in a bout of shopping at La Maison de Fashion.

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Oksana's Gotta Have Mel ... to Release Music

TMZ has learned Oksana Grigorieva has a full CD's worth of new music she wants to release -- but the catch is ... Mel Gibson has to sign off before that can happen.

Sources with knowledge of the recordings say Gibson produced the new songs for Oksana, and even co-wrote some of them -- which means he holds some of the publishing rights.

Gibson executive produced Oksana's CD "Beautiful Heartache" last year, but as they say -- that was then.

In 2010, there's a better chance of a snowball fight in Hell, than there is of Mel putting his Hancock anywhere near Oksana's album.

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Lindsay Lohan Rehab-Bound After Jail Stint

Lindsay Lohan may get out of jail sooner than expected.

Of course, then she'll have to head straight into rehab.

The troubled star's in-patient treatment will commence almost immediately after her painstaking sentence ends, and she won't have to travel far to get there.

As part of Lohan's sentence, she will receive the court ordered 90-day treatment in California. The idea behind entering a rehab facility that's close by is simple:

So people can actually keep tabs on her progress.

Michael Lohan lobbied for his daughter to enter a Long Island facility, but he belongs in jail/rehab himself, so he doesn't have much in the way of credibility.

What Lindsay's camp wants to avoid is a repeat of her 2007 rehab visit to Cirque Lodge in Utah - a very respected facility, but Lohan was too unmonitored.

Rather than focusing on getting better, she treated the facility and its program like a total joke and took up with that douche Riley Giles. Remember him?

Anyway, yeah. Rehab in and around L.A. this time. It sounds like it's the best fit for her when she's released, which may be by the end of this month now.

Written at Here at Hollywoodgossip.com

Jersey Governor: Jersey Shore Is "Negative" for Our State

Don't count New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie among the fans of MTV's Jersey Shore.

Jersey Shore cast signs on for Season 3

When asked whether the reality show was positive or negative on ABC's This Week (a serious Sunday news show, mind you) he told Jake Tapper the show is negative and "takes a bunch of New Yorkers, drops them at the Jersey Shore and tries to make America feel like this is New Jersey."

Christie isn't the only one not setting his DVR to tape the reality show. Last December, the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus says the show is "wildly offensive" and promotes derogatory ethnic stereotypes.

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Kim Kardashian Begs Fan Not to Get Plastic Surgery to Look Like Her

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery -- but a Kim Kardashian fan might be going too far.

On Saturday, Kardashian re-tweeted -- prefacing it with an emphatic "NO" -- one woman's disturbing entry:

"I'm getting head 2 toe plastic surgery nxt week 2 look like @kimkardashian so my husband won't leave me. He worships her"

"Pls don't," Kardashian, 29, begged in response. "Ur husband should love u 4 who u are! Don't try 2 b someone else. Im sure u are beautiful inside and out! Just as u are."

The reality star continued, "Don't change yourself for anybody but yourself...be happy with who u are! Someone will appreciate and adore u just as you are."

To be clear, Kardashian doesn't object to plastic surgery completely. "I'm totally not against plastic surgery," she told ABC News' Cynthia McFadden in May. "I've tried Botox before. That's the only thing that I've done."

"I've never had my nose done," she said. "What's funny about my nose, it's my biggest insecurity. I always want to get my nose done . . . I went to the doctor, I had them take the pictures, he showed me what it would look like and it just didn't -- I wouldn't look the same."

Written at OMG!

The World's Most Beautiful Cars

Looks aren't everything. Given a rainy day on a pock-marked street, even a luxury roadster will look and feel less than stellar. But when it comes to attracting attention on a showroom floor, appearance does matter--a lot. Take, for instance, the case of Jaguar's new XJ sedan.

"From what we hear from our customers, the styling is really what gets people into the door for that vehicle," says Gary Flom, president and CEO of Manhattan Automobile Company. "And the XJ is a revolutionary car in terms of beauty, aesthetics and styling. It's a remarkable car that absolutely makes a huge difference for Jaguar--and I think sets a new benchmark in terms of the styling for a long, large sedan."

The $113,000 XJL Supersport is just one of 10 cars on our list of this year's most beautiful. Others, like the $240,000 Ferrari 458 Italia and $183,000 Mercedes SLS AMG, are much more sporty than Jag's large sedan--but they all have an allure that's hard to resist.

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Motorola Droid X debut a hit as Verizon website, stores report sellouts amid Apple iPhone 4 woes

Heads up, Apple: a new smartphone is trying to take a bite out of the iPhone.

Verizon and Motorola's much-anticipated Droid X smartphone has proved to be a hit, completely selling out online and in many retail stores after its debut Thursday.

"Customers have been enthusiastic about the launch of the Droid X by Motorola and inventory is either out or very low in some parts of the country," a Verizon spokeswoman told PC Magazine in a statement. "Customers may continue to order their phones and our expectation is the phones will ship on or before July 23."

Meanwhile, PC World says that many Verizon Wireless retail stores and Best Buys across the world have little to no stock left.

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Madonna in trouble over noisy London house party

LONDON (AFP) – US pop star Madonna was in hot water with her neighbours over a loud party thrown at her London house when she was not there, council officials said Monday.

Staff working for Madonna at her home in Marylebone, central London, threw a party on the afternoon of June 27 that was so noisy that nearby residents called to complain.

Officials who arrived at the property shortly afterwards said the music and singing was loud enough to be considered "statutory nuisance".

They pushed a noise abatement notice through the letterbox, after which the music stopped.

The order was issued to Madonna, who is listed as the building's owner, even though she was not present at the party.

The 51-year-old singer, who is not in Britain at the current time, was also told she could face a fine of up to 5,000 pounds for any further offences.

Westminster City Council said the case was unlikely to go to court.

"We take the issue of noise pollution very seriously and treat every case alike and fairly, regardless of who owns the property concerned," said councillor Ed Argar, cabinet member for city management.

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Sign of the Apocalypse: Charice Undergoes Botox for Glee Role

Charice Pempengco is 18 years old.

She's already a successful singer, having received a major career boost from appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. This fall, she'll recur on season two of Glee.

But Charice - who, it bears repeating, is 18 years old! - feels enough pressure from Hollywood to have undergone a skin-tightening procedure last week, along with Botox meant to make her face look rounder.

Speaking in the third person, the singer told ABS-CBN television earlier this summer: "All people will be anticipating how will Charice look? Is she good enough to pit against Rachel Berry? So of course there is tremendous pressure."

By Hollywoordgossip.com

Well cap kept shut despite possible seeping nearby

NEW ORLEANS – The federal government Monday allowed BP to keep the cap shut tight on its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well for another day despite the possibility something is seeping from the sea floor near the well

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'Inception' earns dreamy reception with $60.4M (AP)

LOS ANGELES - Leonardo DiCaprio and Christopher Nolan's "Inception" is anything but a sleeper as the thriller opened big with $60.4 million and a No. 1 finish at the weekend box office, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Warner Bros. action tale about a team that sneaks into people's dreams is DiCaprio's biggest opening weekend, topping his previous best of $41.1 million for last winter's "Shutter Island."

"Inception" falls far short of director Christopher Nolan's best, though. Nolan is the man who directed the Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight," which opened over the same weekend two years ago with a record $158.4 million.

Warner Bros. has carved out a niche with this particular mid-July weekend. The studio followed "The Dark Knight" with a $77.8 million opening for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" over the same weekend last year.

"We like this spot. Not to sound superstitious, but stay away from this weekend. I own it," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros.

The final "Harry Potter" movie debuts on the same weekend next summer. Warner plans to open Nolan's third "Batman" movie over that weekend two years from now, though Fellman said the studio could move it to an earlier date that summer.

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Top Earning Musicians

What does it take to become one of the highest-paid musicians of the 2010s? A career that peaked in the '80s. Nearly half of the artists that make up this year's list of the top-earning music acts have been around long enough that they could have appeared on the soundtrack to Back To The Future.

That U2, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna could collectively make an estimated $372 million between June 2009 and June 2010--a little more than half of the $700 million that the top 10 acts in music brought in--highlights the way that the music business has changed over the last decade. Apple's iTunes aside, few young consumers have shown that they are willing to pay for music that they can easily get for free. Album sales have plummeted by more than half since 2000, taking away a lucrative earnings stream for musicians and one of the ways that artists have traditionally broken through into the mainstream.

All of which makes the success of Lady Gaga all the more unexpected. The 24-year-old New York City native went from playing gigs on the Lower East Side to selling out Madison Square Garden within 30 months, thanks to an album that sounded like the best of early Madonna and videos that seemed to come from another dimension where wearing sunglasses made out of burning cigarettes makes perfect sense. With a worldwide tour and million-dollar endorsements with Polaroid, Virgin Mobile and Monster Cable, Lady Gaga netted an estimated $62 million over the last year, the seventh highest on the list. Madonna, meanwhile, came in below her, at No. 8 with $58 million.

Eighties super group U2 made more money than anyone else in music last year, netting an estimated $130 million on the strength of a worldwide tour that sold 1.3 million tickets at an average price of $94 a seat in North America alone. The band, which recently postponed some dates on the tour until 2011, will likely end up in one of the top spots on next year's list as well. Fellow classic rock staple AC/DC followed U2 with $114 million after finishing up a tour that grossed $2.3 million a night.

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Edward Norton Booted From Movie for Not Being "Collaborative"

Ouch!

Oscar-nominated actor Edward Norton has been booted from the latest Marvel action flick -- which will also star Scarlett Johansson and Robert Downey Jr. -- for not being a team player, the studio announced in a biting statement.

"We have made the decision to not bring Ed Norton back to portray the title role of Bruce Banner in the Avengers," Marvel said in a statement. Norton, 40, played The Hulk in the 2008 remake.

"Our decision is definitely not one based on monetary factors, but instead rooted in the need for an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our other talented cast members. The Avengers demands players who thrive working as part of an ensemble, as evidenced by Robert, Chris H., Chris E., Sam, Scarlett, and all of our talented casts. We are looking to announce a name actor who fulfills these requirements, and is passionate about the iconic role in the coming weeks."

A rep for Norton -- who has been nominated for two Academy Awards — sniped back in response: "This offensive statement from Kevin Feige at Marvel is a purposefully misleading, inappropriate attempt to paint our client in a negative light... This seemed to us to be a financial decision but, whatever the case, it is completely their prerogative, and we accepted their decision with no hard feelings."

Written at OMG! at Yahoo!

Efron Shares Vanessa Keeps Him In Line

Given the explosive nature of his fame, it’s a wonder Zac Efron hasn’t gone off the deep end with partying and excessive living like some of his young Hollywood peers have done.

But the “High School Musical” stud says he’s had some help making sure he stays on the straight and narrow- his relationship with girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens.

Zac told press, “It helped me through quite a bit. There are myriad distractions to fall into in this business.”

He continued, “To have someone to share with and to relate to is a very valuable gift.” Efron has also vehemently denied any wedding plans with Vanessa at this time.

Written by: Celebrity Gossip.net