Shooting is nearly finished for Burlesque, a contemporary musical that focuses on a neo-burlesque club in Los Angeles, loosely inspired by Bob Fosse’s Cabaret. Entertainment Tonight recently sat down with the cast to get the scoop on what the movie’s about and what it’s like working with the legendary Cher. The film stars a league of notable actors such as Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars, Couples Retreat), Eric Dane (Grey’s Anatomy), Cam Gigandet (Twilight), the now Oscar-nominated Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada, The Lovely Bones), and Alan Cumming (X-Men 2). That’s not to mention two powerhouse pop divas who co-headline the film, Cher and Christina Aguilera, both of whom will be singing in the film.

Burlesque marks Cher’s first real role in about 10 years, minus a small cameo in 2003’s Stuck On You, and Christina Aguilera’s big screen debut. The movie focuses on a fledgling burlesque club owned by Tess (Cher) in which Nikki (Bell) is the premier dancer. Ali leaves her small midwestern town and heads to L.A. where she discovers the club, and turns everything around for Tess when she’s given a chance to perform and blows everyone away.

It’s been ten years since Aguilera’s debut album and she’s had plenty of opportunities to do films but has held off until now. Unlike contemporaries such as Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Beyonce, after all this time she has yet to appear in any feature films because she was waiting for just the right project. She told Marie Claire in January, “I didn’t want to do something that was easy for me. I’ve actually had my character rewritten to be tougher and a little more spunky.” Aguilera also tells Entertainment Tonight, “I’ve always had tremendous respect for [Cher]. A woman who’s done everything before anyone did it.”

Plenty of pop stars have tried foraying into acting and it didn’t turn out very well. Mariah Carey and Madonna come to mind among many others whose acting projects have become infamous and earned them Razzie nominations. When asked about Christina’s acting chops, Cher had glowing things to say. “I’m shocked, but she’s really good. And the other day we were hamming it up so badly, it was so old — like vaudevillians we might as well have been. And she was keeping up. I mean she was hot. She was really up there. Her game is good.”

Aguilera and Cher recently made an appearance at the Golden Globes to do some early film promotion (Burlesque hits theaters Thanksgiving weekend) which created quite the buzz as both women have been known to do. Certainly Screen Gems is hoping the women will be able to return to the ceremony next January as nominees. With such talented actors and a script by Erin Brockovich scribe Susannah Grant, it isn’t a long shot to predict it just might happen.

Below is the full Entertainment Tonight interview with the cast of Burlesque.

It would be interesting to look at which has portrayed the lgbt community better–primetime soaps or daytime soaps. If Young and the Restless is any indication, I’m going with the former.

KRS-ONE says hip-hop needs more women. I’m not sure what happened to female rappers. We used to have Queen Latifah, Lil’ Kim, MC Lyte, where’d everyone go?

In its first weekend, the Michael Jackson documentary This Is It grossed over $100 million dollars across the globe, with 21.3% of it coming from the U.S.

A gay man in Karachi, Pakistan was beaten to death after being caught with another man in his home by an angry mob.

Oprah says audiences may not “enjoy” the gritty Lee Daniels film Precious but she says people will appreciate the experience.  The film opens on November 6.

West Hollywood, a gay hotspot in California, is trying really hard to reach out to gay and lesbian tourists in order to boost revenue for the city.

Black comedian Wanda Sykes is being criticized for using white sperm to impregnate her white wife–the couple now have two white babies.

Are the Bonobo apes riot grrls? An article about whether the primates known for living in an unusually matriarchal structure are feminist friendly.

Newsweek has an article on ten black women in North Carolina who are either missing or dead, in what might be a case of a serial killer.  The murders began in 2005, and have received no national attention until now–except not really.

Ten women have been found slain or have been declared missing in Rocky Mount, N.C., in recent years. But the rest of the country hasn’t heard about a possible serial killer stalking the young women in this Southern town of 60,000. The latest victim, Elizabeth Jane Smallwood, was identified on Oct. 12. Why have the Rocky Mount homicides been largely ignored?

It’s impossible to deny that these stories would have received more attention had the victims been middle to upper-middle class suburban white girls, and the article discusses that very issue.

Here he speaks to local news about his attack, which he says he never wants to see the video of, and comments on the allegations that the men beat him because he was soliciting for sex.

The most hilarious part is that he seems to be blithely unaware of the fact that religion (including Christianity of course) is already covered under the federal hate crimes bill and has been for some time now. Beyond that, there’s language in the bill that already protects religious leaders from speaking out against homosexuality. Just a boat load of ignorance all around.

It seems this is a preview of a “Gay In America” special that’s supposed to be similar to CNN’s previous “Black In America” special that aired earlier this year. I sincerely hope that the special goes beyond the “Down Low”.

And the bigots strike again.  This time they’re after one of our country’s limited excellent public school teachers.

A Southwestern High School English teacher has been suspended after reports he had students in his classes to read an article about homsexuality in the animal kingdom.

Delong is said to have allowed students to read the article “The Gay Animal Kingdom” from the June 7, 2006, edition of Seed magazine. Seed magazine is a science and culture publication.

The article by Jonah Lehrer talks about the research of Joan Roughgarden, a biology professor at Stanford University who said she has documented homosexual societies among the more than 450 animal species.

School district secretary Pat Milner said a special School Board meeting has been set for 6 p.m. Monday at the district office in Piasa to discuss personnel/employee discipline.

God forbid we introduce an article about science in a school!  The community including many of Delong’s former students have rallied around him and have even created a Facebook group in his honor.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s late wife Coretta Scott King and eldest daughter Yolanda King were vocal gay rights supporters but one of King’s other daughters Bernice King has on the other hand been very anti-gay and has even marched in anti-gay rallies against same-sex marriage.  

Now that Bernice has been named the first female leader of the Southern Black Leadership Conference, black publication Daily Voice is asking King to renounce her previous anti-gay bigotry.

She should renounce the anti-gay bigotry of her recent past. That bigotry was on shameful and insulting display in December 2004 when she and thousands of marchers stood at the gravesite of her father, Martin Luther King, Jr., and denounced gay marriage. The implication was that King might well have stood with her and them in their protest against gay rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. King’s fight against bigotry and discrimination, all bigotry and discrimination, was relentless and uncompromising. If anything that day, King would have been across the street from his gravesite with the hundred or so other counter-demonstrators. They loudly shouted that what Bernice and the marchers were doing at her father’s gravesite and in his name, was a travesty and a disgrace. King sullied her father’s name to show her enmity to gay marriage. She also sullied her mother’s too.

A few years before Bernice’s gravesite antic, Coretta Scott King issued a public statement forcefully denouncing anti-gay bigotry and made it perfectly clear that her husband would be a champion of gay rights if he were alive. [snip] On its website SCLC clearly says “its mission is to challenge all people of good will, of every persuasion, who believe in the principles espoused by Martin Luther King, Jr. to join us.” Presumably that’s the mission of its new president. She can prove it is by publicly renouncing her anti-gay bigotry.

I certainly won’t hold my breath.

I don’t know if any of you heard about this, but I had to post it ’cause I found it both poignant and hilarious, especially coming from a straight guy. Some background:

Kansas City Chiefs Larry Johnson has been suspended by his team after conducting a series of unnecessary remarks aimed at head coach Todd Haley after the team lost 37-7 against the San Diego Chargers on Sunday, and one of his Twitter followers.

The Twitter follower reffered to an incident where Johnson spat at a women in a nightclub, to which then Johnson commented on the followers profile photo calling it a “fag pic” and “ Christopher Street boy” which is a reference to a Pride march route in New York.

(via Pink News)

Then Jay Smooth (founder of longest running hip-hop radio station and most known for hip-hop blog Ill Doctrine) laid his ass the hell OUT.

Video below.

Jay was selected by Salon.com as one of the “sexiest men living”.