>’American Idol’-Jackson says he’s not filling Cowell’s shoes

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‘American Idol’ judge Randy Jackson has dismissed Jennifer Lopez’s suggestion that he is the “mean” judge on the show this year. Speaking on Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM show, he said he had no intention of trying to fill Simon Cowell’s shoes.
Jackson said: “I wouldn’t say I stepped into the Simon Cowell’s shoes. I don’t think those shoes could be filled, nor would I want to be in them! [But] I think you’ll see a lot of excitement.”
Speaking about Lopez’s remark, he said: “Oh come on! Jennifer, come on, take it back! It’s not true!””I’m a very humble, kind, mild-mannered man and I just try to give people the honest truth. We have to feed it to them the right way…”

>Super Bowl may trigger heart attacks

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This Sunday’s Super Bowl could prove to be a real heartbreaker for some fans of the losing team.
A new study suggests that the emotional stress fans feel after a loss may trigger fatal heart attacks, especially in people who already have heart disease. Stress generates the so-called fight-or-flight response, which causes sharp upticks in heart rate and blood pressure that can strain the heart.
For people with heart disease — or for those who are at risk due to factors such as obesity, smoking, and diabetes — such strain can prove harmful, if not fatal.
In the study, which was published Monday in the journal Clinical Cardiology, researchers analyzed death records in Los Angeles County for the two weeks after the 1980 and 1984 Super Bowls, both of which featured teams from Los Angeles. (The game days were included.) Then, as a control, the researchers looked at the same data from the corresponding days in the intervening years.
In 1980, when the Pittsburgh Steelers staged a fourth-quarter comeback to beat the underdog L.A. Rams, heart-related deaths shot up 15% among men and 27% among women in the subsequent two weeks, compared with the same period in 1981 through 1983.
There was also a significant increase in deaths among people ages 65 and older, the study found.
The 1984 Super Bowl was a different story. The L.A. Raiders handily beat the Washington Redskins, and unlike four years earlier, the cardiac death rate didn’t increase after the game. In fact, the death rate for women and older people dropped slightly.
“Fans develop an emotional connection to their team…and when their team loses, that’s an emotional stress,” says the lead author of the study, Robert A. Kloner, M.D., a professor of cardiology at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, in Los Angeles. “There’s a brain-heart connection, and it is important for people to be aware of that.”
The apparent link between the Super Bowl loss and heart-related deaths is plausible but largely speculative.
Kloner and his colleagues looked only at death-certificate data, not individuals, and they can’t be sure that the people who succumbed to heart attacks following the 1980 game were Rams fans, or even watched the game.
David Frid, M.D., a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic who was not involved in the study, agrees that “emotional triggers” can set off heart attacks and other cardiac events. But he’s not convinced that grief caused by the hometown loss was responsible for the spike in deaths.
“Was it due to the fact that the Rams lost?” Frid asks. “Or was it the emotional roller coaster of the game itself? Does it have to do with the excitement of the event?”
The 1980 Super Bowl was indeed an intense contest, as the study notes. The Rams and Steelers repeatedly traded the lead, and fans of both teams would have experienced extreme and fluctuating emotions — joy, frustration, anger, elation — throughout the game. (The fact that the game was played in the Rose Bowl, in Pasadena, may have only intensified the emotions for Rams fans.)
For a number of reasons, the 1984 game would have been much less stressful for people in Los Angeles. The outcome was never in doubt, the Raiders were relatively new to the city, and the game was played far from home, in Florida.
Stress may not be the only factor at work, however. For instance, consuming copious amounts of beer and fatty foods like buffalo wings — practically a requirement at many Super Bowl parties — can also trigger a potentially deadly heart attack.
“One high-fat meal can cause your blood to be more likely to clot,” Frid says.
The researchers were surprised by the increase in heart-related deaths among women after the Rams’ loss. A similar study conducted in Germany during the 2006 World Cup found that heart attacks spiked on days when the German team played, but mainly among men.
“It may be the same emotional response as it is for men. Women root for their teams, too,” Kloner says. “Another possibility is that perhaps a mate’s reaction adversely affects the female.”
Many people in the U.S. have heart disease and don’t even know it, Frid says. With Super Bowl Sunday approaching, he has a simple piece of advice for fans whose diet or lifestyle may be putting them at risk for a heart attack:
“Address what needs to be changed so that you can make it to the end of the game.”

>Porn star Kacey Jordan: Wild Charlie Sheen party scene

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“I’ve never seen — someone so self-destructive and able to take in so much at once,” says adult film star Kacey Jordan, who was at the recent Charlie Sheen party that sent him to rehab on Friday. “I thought maybe it was almost like a suicide binge.”
Jordan, who sat down for an interview with ABC’s Ashleigh Banfield, said she was offered $5,000 to attend the party at Sheen’s home. She wound up with a check for $30,000.
She described Sheen as being a mess. “He’s wearing an all-white shirt…covered in wine stains. All the way down him…down his shirt…his hair’s all messed up. He looks up. And he’s like…. His eyes are all like squinty,” she said. “I was thinking that I was gonna meet the Charlie Sheen that I see on TV. Not the one that’s like in shambles and wrecked…”
Jordan said there were four other women at the party, at least two of them were porn stars. At about 3 a.m., Jordan said Sheen asked one of the guests to produce drugs, and a man came in and dumped “tennis ball-sized cocaine” on the table. “It’s like I thought I was like living…it’s like Scarface. You know? I was like, ‘oh my God, I cannot believe it.'”
Jordan said throughout the night Sheen used a pipe and repeatedly smoked chunks of cocaine. “He said he only smokes — he only smokes coke. He never does lines.”
Sheen’s representatives released a statement to ABC News, saying, “It is a shame that during this time, while Mr. Sheen has sought treatment on his own, opportunistic women are trying to take advantage of his celebrity status.”
Meanwhile, TMZ is reporting today that Sheen will be in rehab for three months, which will affect the next eight episodes of Two and a Half Men, leaving crew members to wonder about their job security. CBS on Friday announced that the show would be going on hiatus, but did not say for how long.
The Los Angeles Times says two new episodes of the show are ready to air – on Feb. 7 and Feb. 14. And, of course, there is big money at stake. While CBS pays a steep $4 million per episode, the network still makes a tidy profit from ad revenue — an estimated $155 million in the 2009-10 season alone, according to Kantar Media.

>Google overtakes Nokia as top smartphone platform maker

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After passing Apple’s iPhone on its way up, Google’s Android has now passed up Nokia’s Symbian to take the top spot among smartphone platforms, ending Nokia’s 10 year reign on top of the global smartphone industry, according to one research firm.
Research firm Canalys revealed Monday that the 32.9 million handsets running a Google platform, which includes Android, OMS and Tapas, sold last quarter were enough to topple Nokia’s Symbian, which had sales of 31 million, from the number one place, Reuters reports.
Google saw 615 percent growth year over year, compared to Nokia’s 30 percent growth. Apple came in third with 16.2 million iPhones sold, giving it 16 percent of the global smartphone market. Research in Motion and Microsoft rounded out the list with 14 percent and 3 percent of the market respectively.
Though Nokia still maintains a sizable lead as the largest handset maker in the world, it has lost significant ground in the smartphone market in recent years. Former CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo admitted last year that the Finnish handset maker had failed to make a splash in the U.S. smartphone market.
In September, Nokia went through a major management shakeup. The company first announced it would change CEOs, bringing in Microsoft executive Stephen Elop, in hopes of reenergizing the company’s smartphone offerings. The company’s smartphone chief announced his resignation several days later, then Nokia Chairman Jorma Ollila declared his intention to step down.
Nokia’s flagship N8 smartphone saw numerous delays on its way to market. The company even went through a lost prototype debacle similar to the leak of an Apple iPhone 4 prototype that made headlines last year. Though sales of the N8 reportedly reached around 4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010, the figures have been viewed as too little too late for Nokia.
Google’s Android has seen its fair share of controversy on the way to the top. Reports emerged last year that Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs felt betrayed by Google after the search giant followed his company into the smartphone business.
“We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business,” Jobs allegedly said during a company meeting. “Make no mistake; Google wants to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them.”
While Apple has yet to pursue direct legal action against Google, the iPhone maker has filed infringement complaints against several prominent Android handset manufacturers. The Cupertino, Calif., company sued HTC in March of last year over alleged infringement of patents related to the iPhone user interface, architecture and hardware. HTC responded with a countersuit.
Apple and Motorola are also locked in a legal dispute. In October, Motorola accused Apple of violating a number of its patents, citing the company’s “late entry into the telecommunications market.” Apple responded in kind, eventually adding to the suit the same patents it was accusing HTC of violating after Motorola attempted to have them invalidated.
Quarterly sales of Android passed up the iPhone in May of last year. Earlier this month, research firm comScore reported that total subscribers of Google Android in the U.S. have passed the iPhone.
In the third quarter of 2010, Apple broke into the top 5 global cell phone makers, passing RIM to place fourth. According to IDC data released last week, Apple slipped to fifth in the fourth quarter.

>Jane Krakowski & Julie Bowen – SAG Awards 2011 Red Carpet

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Jane Krakowski and Julie Bowen grace the red carpet at the 2011 Screen Actors Guild Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on Sunday (January 30) in Los Angeles.
Jane, who was joined by fiance Robert Godley, showed off her baby bump in a Badgley Mischka dress, Lorraine Schwartz jewelry, Brian Atwood shoes, and an Amanda Pearl bag.
Julie wore a Catherine Malandrino jumpsuit, Brian Atwood shoes, and Neil Lane jewelry.
Julie, along with her Modern Family costars, picked up the award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Jane and her 30 Rock costars were also nominated for the award.

>Rosario Dawson & Josh Duhamel – SAG Awards 2011 Red Carpet

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Rosario Dawson shows off her gorgeous gams on the red carpet at the 2011 Screen Actors Guild Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on Sunday (January 30) in Los Angeles.
The 31-year-old New York City-born actress wore a J Mendel dress, Shoes & Clutch by Ferragamo and Jewelry by Susie Fox & Neil Lane.
Josh Duhamel presented with Rosario for Outstanding Female Actor in a TV Movie/Mini-Series. The SAG went to Claire Danes for her role in Temple Grandin.

>Julie Schenecker-Mom accused of killing teen children held without bail

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TAMPA – Julie Schenecker, the New Tampa mother charged with shooting to death her two teenage children because they were “mouthy,” was ordered held without bail this morning by Hillsborough Circuit Court Judge Walter Heinrich.
Schenecker, 50, was lead into the courtroom this morning by several deputies, one on each side of her, holding her by the elbows.
“You are obviously going to be held without bond,” Heinrich said.
Schenecker was represented by the Hillsborough County Public Defender’s Office. Neither prosecution nor defense attorneys commented.
Calyx Schenecker, 16, and her 13-year-old brother, Beau, were found fatally shot Thursday evening.
Earlier this morning, over the loudspeaker, King High School’s principal asked for a moment of silence for Calyx. Principal Carla Bruning said she wanted students to come together and support each other.
“I need to make an announcement about the tragic loss of Calyx,” said Bruning, who informed students a crisis team was on campus to assist them. “I hope you all stick together and have a great day in the land of the Lions.”Calyx was in the school’s International Baccalaureate program and a member of the cross country team.
At King, 6815 N. 56th St., several students wore “Harry Potter” garb to school this morning in support of Calyx, who loved the book series.
“Calyx was a wonderful child, the model child in my book,” Bruning said. “Sometimes you don’t say anything; you just listen, and sometimes you hug them and sometimes you cry with them. You don’t have the right words if there are right words. Sometimes just being there is the right thing for the child.”
Brian Noll, part of the crisis team at King, said it was important for adults to do more listening than talking.
“These kids are resilient and were here to support their grieving process,” said Noll, a social worker. “I’m a parent, and I have to answer that for my child. The best thing to do is listen more than talking. It’s important to reassure your child. It’s tragic but rare. Ask your kids what they are thinking, and listen.”
Julie Schenecker, 50, had told investigators she killed her children because “they talked back, they were mouthy and she was tired of it,” police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.
Her first court appearance initially had been scheduled for Saturday, but hours after being arrested she was taken to Tampa General Hospital for evaluation, sheriff’s spokesman Larry McKinnon said. She was suffering from a medical condition she had before being arrested on two counts of first-degree murder.
Authorities did not specify the medical condition, but Schenecker was shaking uncontrollably as she was led from police headquarters Friday afternoon. She was released from the hospital Sunday and returned to jail.
Police said Schenecker shot Beau twice in the head as they drove to their Tampa Palms home from soccer practice Thursday evening. Beau was an eighth-grader at Liberty Middle School and played soccer.
After killing her son, Schenecker went to Calyx’s bedroom and shot her twice in the head as she was doing her homework, police said.
Schenecker shot the children with a .38-caliber revolver she had bought five days before, investigators said.
When officers arrived at the 3,300-square-foot home in the gated Ashington Reserve community in response to a call from Schenecker’s worried mother, Schenecker was on the back porch in slippers and a bloody robe.
Schenecker said she had planned to kill the children and herself, police said. They said she left a detailed note with her plans.
Police seized the gun.
Schenecker’s husband, Parker, is a colonel in the U.S. Army and is assigned to U.S. Central Command, where he works in the intelligence directorate. He was in Qatar in the Middle East when his children were killed and was notified of the tragedy by MacDill Air Force Base officials.

>’The King’s Speech’ continues its reign at SAG Awards

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Star Colin Firth takes male actor award and Natalie Portman wins for ‘Black Swan.’
In the span of about two weeks, “The King’s Speech” has gone from Oscar underdog to front-runner.
The World War II-era British drama took the Screen Actors Guild’s top honor Sunday evening, winning the movie ensemble acting award and essentially completing the trifecta of top Hollywood guild honors; its director, Tom Hooper, captured the top Directors Guild of America award on Saturday night, and last weekend the movie walked away with the Producers Guild title.
The movie about King George VI and his stammer is now riding a wave of momentum with just four weeks to go before the Academy Awards, stealing thunder from “The Social Network.” That movie, about the founding of Facebook, had been seen as the leading best picture Oscar contender after receiving the National Board of Review’s top prize in December, largely sweeping the nation’s main film critics awards, and taking home a best picture statue at the Golden Globes on Jan. 16. But the film received no trophies at the SAG ceremony. In the acting categories at the SAG awards, Colin Firth and Natalie Portman took home the top two prizes for their roles in “The King’s Speech” and “Black Swan,” respectively.
Portman kept her acceptance speech more compact than she did at the Golden Globes, but she was bleeped by TV censors when she thanked her parents who “taught me to work my hardest and never be an [expletive.]”
After accepting his statue, Firth took a moment backstage to send a text message his wife, who was back in England, with the news. He then assessed the biggest challenge of his role.
“[I wanted to] make sure it was respectful and real and true to what people [who stutter] go through. It needed to be because nothing would matter if it wasn’t,” he said.
The other big winner of the night was “The Fighter,” with Christian Bale and Melissa Leo taking home acting prizes for their supporting roles in the boxing drama. The cast was particularly celebratory since both Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund — the real men on whom the film is based — were in the audience to root on their newfound Hollywood friends.
Bale was joined on stage briefly by Eklund, who throughout the ceremony cheered loudly whenever “The Fighter” was mentioned. “Thank you for living the life and thank you for letting me play you,” Bale said to Eklund upon accepting his statue. He added, “It’s so silly what we do, sometimes it’s like playing dress-up. Other times it’s so meaningful.”
Leo continued the awards romp that began for her and Bale at the Golden Globes, this time giving a shout-out to the six women who accompanied her to the awards show — six of the seven actresses who played her colorful daughters in the movie. “Thanks for helping me get a man to take home tonight,” she quipped in reference to her solid bronze statue.
Leo also got a bit political, likely surprising non-Hollywood viewers with her union shop talk. “Let’s join together,” she said during her acceptance speech. “Let’s make it a real voice.” She was referring to a possible merger between the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. SAG represents 125,000 members, while AFTRA has 70,000. Many actors belong to both unions, and the two guilds conduct some joint bargaining. If the two unions were to unite, it’s unclear what next year’s awards might be called.
Meanwhile, in the television categories, the cast of HBO’s drama “Boardwalk Empire” won for best ensemble in a dramatic series just two weeks after taking home the top TV prize at the Golden Globes. Steve Buscemi won the actor award for his work on the series, just as he did at the Globes.
Julianna Margulies won best female actress in a drama series for the second year in a row for her role in “The Good Wife.” (Katey Segal won the Globe for her work on “Sons of Anarchy.”)
Alec Baldwin was named best lead actor in a comedy series — his fifth win in a row for his work on “30 Rock” — while 89-year-old Betty White, who last year was honored with the SAG lifetime achievement award, won for her work on TV Land’s “Hot in Cleveland.” “Modern Family” took home the award for best ensemble in a comedy series, besting “Glee,” which won last year (and captured a Globe two weeks ago).
The guild handed its lifetime achievement award to 94-year-old Ernest Borgnine, recognizing a body of work spanning about six decades. Most recently, Borgnine appeared in the 2010 action-comedy “Red” opposite Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren, and presenter Tim Conway noted it was Borgnine’s 164th movie. But Borgnine remains best known for his film roles in “From Here to Eternity, “The Wild Bunch,” and “Marty,” for which he won a best-actor Oscar, as well as for his television work on the popular 1960s show “McHale’s Navy.”
Yet Borgnine had his priorities in order for the evening. After accepting his award he told his wife: “Let’s get back to the table and eat before they take the plates.”

>Jesse Eisenberg Was ‘Great’ On ‘SNL,’ ‘Social Network’ Co-Star Says

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Armie Hammer tells MTV News at the SAG Awards it was ‘funny’ to see Eisenberg onstage with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Oscar front-runner “The Social Network” didn’t exactly paint the most flattering picture of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, but the young billionaire proved he can take a joke when he turned up alongside Jesse Eisenberg on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend.
Facebook’s CEO wasn’t the only one who watched Eisenberg host “SNL.”
“I saw the whole episode! I thought it was great!” exclaimed “Social Network” co-star Armie Hammer when MTV News caught up with him at the 17th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday (January 30). Thanks to director Darren Aronofsky and some subtle special effects, Hammer portrayed both Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the athletic Harvard twins who hired Zuckerberg to create a social-networking site and later sued him for millions. “It was so funny to see [Jesse] and Mark [together].”
Hammer was at the Director’s Guild Awards on Saturday when he received a picture to his phone of the pair standing onstage together in Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the famous location where “SNL” has taped since 1975. Hammer said he did a double-take.

“I was like, ‘What the hell?’ ” he recalled with a broad smile. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! It’s the two of them!’ ”
Zuckerberg has expressed reservations about some aspects of the movie, which won the award for Best Drama at the Golden Globes earlier this month. The movie also nabbed awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Composer (Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor with Atticus Ross) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin) at the 16th annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards.
Fincher, Sorkin and the cast have acknowledged that the movie is a somewhat fictionalized account of the rise of the omnipresent website: a true-life tale that severed friendships and has been the subject of many lawsuits between former co-workers who claim they were unfairly stiffed of their piece of the pie.

The Academy Awards has 10 Best Picture nominees: “Black Swan,” “The Fighter,” “Inception,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “The King’s Speech,” “127 Hours,” “Toy Story 3,” “True Grit,” “Winter’s Bone” and “The Social Network.” Most pundits predict a hotly contested race between “the Facebook movie” and “The King’s Speech,” which took the best film ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as the best actor prize for its lead, Colin Firth.

>Colin Firth wins best actor at Screen Actors Guild awards

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Colin Firth has won a best actor award for his role as King George VI in The King’s Speech at the Screen Actors Guild. His victory follows recent triumphs at the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards for his performance of the stammering wartime monarch and boosts his chances of an Oscar next month.
The King’s Speech took the prize for best ensemble cast, the guild’s equivalent of the best picture Oscar.
The King’s Speech triumphed over Black Swan, The Fighter, the Facebook drama The Social Network and the lesbian family comedy The Kids Are All Right.
Natalie Portman was named best actress for her role as an unhinged ballerina in Black Swan at the 17th annual awards.
The supporting prizes went to Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for The Fighter.
The Screen Actors Guild also honors performances in television. HBO’s new Prohibition-era series “Boardwalk Empire” took best cast ensemble for a drama, while its star Steve Buscemi won for his role as a corrupt politician.
Emmys favorite Modern Family won for best comedy ensemble, and 89-year-old former Golden Girl Betty White was a popular winner for her role as a sassy caretaker in the new comedy Hot in Cleveland.
Julianna Margulies made it two in a row for what she called the “role of a lifetime” as a buttoned-up lawyer in the legal drama The Good Wife, and Alec Baldwin won for the fifth straight year for his role as a network executive in the comedy 30 Rock.
The SAG awards are a good indicator of Oscar success because actors in the US film and TV industry make up the largest voting group among members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Firth, previously best known for romantic comedies such as “Bridget Jones’ Diary,” thanked his “dream cast.” Australian actor Geoffrey Rush, an Oscar nominee for his role as the reluctant king’s unconventional speech therapist, said the movie was a true example of ensemble acting.
“We have such a roll call of extraordinary heavy hitters,” said Rush.
The Oscars will be handed out on 27 February.
On Tuesday The King’s Speech picked up a leading.