Tuesday, January 23, 2007

South Korean pop singer U-Nee commits suicide

South Korean actress and pop singer U-Nee was found dead from hanging in her home in Seo-gu Incheon, Sunday afternoon.

U-Nee's grandmother found the body of the 26-year-old singer hanging from a door frame after she returned from a church service.

Police investigating the death have announced the case was an apparent suicide, though the singer left no note or will. U-Nee's mother has testified that U-Nee had been suffering from depression.

U-Nee's third album "Honey" is due for release on February 1. People have speculated U-Nee was suffering from the huge pressure associated with the release of the new album and was upset by online criticisms and attacks.

U-Nee came to the public's attention under the name "Lee Hye-ryeon" with her 1996 debut in the KBS TV drama "Grown-ups Just Don't Understand". She appeared in the movie "Seventeen" in 1998, then in the TV dramas "Theme Game" and "Tears of the Dragon".

Her debut album "Go" was released in 2003 and she gained even greater popularity with the 2005 release of her second album "Call Call Call." Her sexy dance moves and revealing fashions made her the favorite of teenagers across Asia.

"Stomp the Yard" tops North American Box Office

Sony's dance movie "Stomp the Yard" was at the top of the North American box office again this weekend with 13.3 million U.S. dollars in ticket sales, edging out Ben Stiller's "Night at the Museum," according to preliminary figures released here Sunday.

The Stiller comedy, which took in an estimated 13 million dollars, surpassed "Superman Returns" to become the fifth top grossing film of 2006, said box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.

The movie, the top earner for three weekends in a row, has grossed an estimated 205.8 million dollars since its debut five weeks ago, according to Media by Numbers, another Los Angeles-based box office tracker.

"Dreamgirls," starring Golden Globe winners Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy, came in third with an estimated 8.7 million dollars, while the horror flick "The Hitcher" debuted in fourth place with about 8.2 million dollars in gross receipts.

In fifth place was "The Pursuit of Happiness," starring Will Smith as a struggling father who remakes himself as a stock broker, with 6.7 million dollars in ticket sales.

Meanwhile, other film that won awards at the Golden Globe Awards last week, including Paramount Vantage's "Babel" and the Miramax drama "The Queen," jumped into the top 12 films group over the weekend, while "Pan's Labyrinth," directed by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, was at No. 7 with 4.7 million dollars.

The Spanish-language fairy tale film set in 1940s' Spain is one of the nine films vying for five slots in Academy Awards' best foreign-language picture category on Tuesday, when Oscar nominations are announced in Beverly Hills.

The 12 top-earning films grossed an estimated 76 m.

Big Brother on Probation

(From the TimesOnline.co.uk) The chairman of Channel 4 ordered an inquiry last night into whether underhand tactics had been used by the producers of Celebrity Big Brother to stoke up the race row between Jade Goody and the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty.

After a two-hour discussion between the network's board members, Luke Johnson said that Big Brother had been put on notice, but also indicated that the conduct of all connected with the show would be thoroughly investigated.

The announcement in effect puts on probation two of television’s most senior executives, with Andy Duncan, Channel 4's chief executive, and Kevin Lygo, its director of television, likely to be blamed should dirty tricks be uncovered.

The pair tried and failed to argue that the programme had begun a legitimate debate about race in Britain, amid accusations that it was encouraging abusive conflict to boost ratings.

There was further controversy for the channel last night after a contestant on its new Shipwrecked series made offensive comments about black people and homosexuals. Ofcom, the media watchdog, said it had had 69 complaints about racism after the comments by Lucy Buchanan, 18, a former public schoolgirl who told contestants that she supported slavery.