Entertainment [5]

'Tis the season for tying the knot, and stars like Brittany Murphy and Christina Ricci have gotten a little loopy, accentuating their waistlines with pretty bows.

When Lucky Vanous took his shirt off and sent an office full of women into a swoon in 1994, he thought he was just hawking Diet Coke on TV. He had no idea he was sparking a social phenomenon.

Alan Cohen knows that your life sucks.

Get cozy with an extra-large towel for two ($20; target.com).

I thought the death knell for pop had been rung with a huge gong thanks to LMNT, a new boy band comprised of rejects from ''Making the Band.'' Imagine: an act that makes O-Town seem organic and talented. But I was wrong. The real barometer is ''American Idol,'' that amalgam of reality TV, game show, and ''Star Search.''

The crowded American Idol stage will thin out by one Wednesday night, when viewers choose who will stay and who will go. The stakes are high: The winning contestant will get a $1 million record contract and a chance at superstardom.

A new song by the country singer-songwriter Steve Earle that offers an empathetic view of John Walker Lindh is drawing criticism days after the American Muslim convert pleaded guilty to aiding the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The king of salsa, Marc Anthony, is back with his second English language album. Called Mended, the eagerly-anticipated album follows his 1999 triple platinum breakthrough, Marc Anthony.

Veteran actor Leo McKern, most famous for his role as the grumpy barrister Rumpole in the Rumpole of the Bailey television series, has died.

To the delight of Sex-starved fans, the anticipated fifth season of Sex and the City, debuts this Sunday on HBO.

The HBO series Six Feet Under was in heaven Thursday morning after earning 23 nominations for the 54th annual Emmy Awards.

Alanis Morissette has a lot to brag about these days. Few 28-year-olds can look back at their careers and say they've won seven Grammys, released top-selling albums, sang in the nude and, oh yes, played God in a movie.

Julia Roberts started off her Fourth of July with a bang -- she got married -- and now there's photographic proof of her marital bliss.

Two former Bollywood heartthrobs are to join the line-up in India's federal cabinet following Monday's mid-term shake-up by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Here are the cities and arenas Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be playing on their 2002 tour:

For now, there's no need for Bugs Bunny to ask, What's up, doc? According to TV Guide, he is.

John Frankenheimer, a legendary director of movies and television, died Saturday after suffering a massive stroke due to complications following spinal surgery, his business manager said.

On Tuesday, Bruce Springsteen's The Rising -- his first studio album of all-new material in seven years -- comes out. The record has made news not least because Springsteen has focused on the people affected by the September 11 attacks for much of his subject matter.

Country music legend and singer/songwriter/actress Dolly Parton is back with a new album: Halos and Horns. And some of her longtime fans may be in for a surprise: On the album she sings, of all things, the Led Zeppelin classic Stairway to Heaven.

The British city of Manchester has spawned such fine bands as New Order, The Smiths, Oasis and The Stone Roses. Add a new name to that list: Doves.

For a director with a near-fetishistic love of sleek, macho gadgetry -- and whose films rarely flirt with notions of brevity or subtlety -- it's fitting that Michael Bay's World War II drama be given such an ostentatious DVD berth: On the four feature-packed platters of Pearl Harbor: The Director's Cut Vista Series, Pearl Harbor the film is treated with nearly as much reverence as Pearl Harbor the...

Elvis Costello has never shied away from politics. Armed Forces is all about politics; the song Tramp the Dirt Down, from Spike, is as angry an anti-Margaret Thatcher diatribe as was written during the Iron Lady's 11-year rule.

The nominations for the 54th annual Emmy Awards were announced Thursday morning in Los Angeles from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre.

Last year's winner for best actor in a comedy Eric McCormack of Will and Grace was passed up for an Emmy this year.

There's a glamour in the too-smart/beautiful/talented-for-your-own-good ennui that Wes Anderson lovingly lingers on in his charming, Salingeresque ''The Royal Tenenbaums'' (cowritten with star Owen Wilson), about a family of prodigies coming to terms with the compromises of adulthood.

Give your picnic table some pizzazz this July 4.

British pop star George Michael is defending his decision not to release his controversial new single Shoot the Dog in the United States.

Pop singer George Michael said Wednesday that his newest song, a political satire skewering the British and U.S. leaders for their decisions regarding Iraq, was intended purely to spur public debate.

British pop singer George Michael is about to discover whether the controversy surrounding his new song has damaged his career.

Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson will not face charges in Britain in connection with an alleged incident involving a London taxi driver.

The new Austin Powers movie is No. 1 at the box office, and Robert Wagner, as always, is Number Two.

Given the choice between Hollywood's version of reality and a network news division's, television viewers are taking a clear stand this summer.

Could her current U.S. concert tour be Britney Spears' last dance?

Comic genius Charlie Chaplin had to wait 20 years for his knighthood because of British complicity with U.S. accusations that he was a communist and moral outrage at his marriages to girls, newly released documents reveal.

Michael Caine plays the role of Austin's father Nigel Powers in Austin Powers in Goldmember. In real life, the seasoned actor is a true Hollywood heavyweight whose distinguished career has brought him two Oscars and knighthood.

On the surface, everything looks fine at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch. Elephants and giraffes still fill the private zoo, and visiting children get to ride the steam train and battle with water balloons in a custom-built fort. On any evening Jackson can invite pals over to watch movies in his 80-seat theater, complete with concession stand. Says friend Bryan Michael Stoller, an L.A. director:...

Mini-Me is back, baby! Actor Verne Troyer is reprising his role of the diminutive but memorable clone in Austin Powers in Goldmember.

Tell a girl she can't travel with her beauty essentials on board? Watch out!

The honeymoon is over for newlywed supermodel Claudia Schiffer -- she is to be a mother!

The events: Super Saturday 5 benefit for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, hosted by Donna Karan and In Style magazine, in Water Mill, New York; the Robert Wilson & Louis Vuitton Water Mill Center summer benefit for the Byrd Hoffman Water Mill Foundation in Water Mill, New York; Russell Simmons's Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation benefit for advancement of underprivileged urban youth in East Hamp...

Oasis' Noel Gallagher recently took time out to sit down with The Music Room and talk about the band's latest album, Heathen Chemistry. Here's the rest of the transcript;

Gaining an upper hand on the world is a nice thing, as Noel Gallagher of Oasis would tell you. And any rocker with the audacity to release an album titled Heathen Chemistry is hardly likely to feel he's fighting an uphill battle. 

Sharon Osbourne, who stars with her family in the MTV reality series The Osbournes, was in good spirits and doing well after undergoing surgery for colon cancer last week, her publicist said Tuesday.

Rod Steiger, the gruff-voiced actor best known for his Oscar-winning turn as a Southern police chief in 1967's In the Heat of the Night, died Tuesday. He was 77.

From Baywatch to Playboy, Pamela Anderson has gotten the kind of exposure most celebrities can only dream of. But the TV star has also battled demons in her personal life -- a potentially deadly disease, a child custody battle and troublesome romantic relationships.

A British tabloid newspaper is set to learn if it has won an appeal against a legal order to pay damages for a story about supermodel Naomi Campbell's drugs battle.

The event: Paramount Pictures' 90th-anniversary gala, Paramount Studios lot in Los Angeles, California.

Family members and celebrities from the entertainment world gathered Wednesday night for the funeral of legendary singer and actress Rosemary Clooney, who died Saturday from complications related to lung cancer.

The fact that gyrating belly-barer Britney Spears stars as Lucy, a demure, premed-bound class valedictorian, is but one layer in the onion of implausibility that is ''Crossroads.'' Our Brit's also a cardigan-clad daddy's girl who says ''Y'all,'' who's as comfortable in her pop's auto-repair shop as in a seedy New Orleans karaoke bar.

This week, PEOPLE looks at Men in Black II, the new album from Papa Roach, and the TV movie Door to Door.