1. Lauryn Hill began serving her three-month prison sentence yesterday in Connecticut for failing to pay roughly $1 million in taxes. The singer “pleaded guilty last year in New Jersey to failing to pay taxes on more than $1.8 million earned from 2005 to 2007.” After her sentence, Hill “will be under parole supervision for a year, the first three months of which will be spent under home confinement.” Hill has a reputation for speaking her mind, so let’s hope this whole ordeal turns into a positive, resulting in an amazing album. [Vulture]
2. Rooney Mara, the moody star of “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and “Side Effects,” has been cast in “Trash,” the upcoming movie from Stephen Daldry (“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” ). The story revolves around three “street kids” in an “unnamed third-world country” who stumble upon a leather case and decide not to turn it into the police when they realize something is amiss regarding the bag. Martin Sheen has also been cast, but we assume he and Mara will not be playing the street kids. Richard Curtis (“Love Actually”) wrote the script, with production set to start next month in Rio De Janeiro. [Indiewire]
3. I can’t believe it took them this long. Because Hollywood can’t wait to exploit tragedy, there is already an option on a yet-to-be-published book concerning the Boston Marathon bombing, set to be written by Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson, the duo behind David O. Russell‘s Boston-set boxing flick “The Fighter.” The book, written by Casey Sherman and Boston Herald reporter Dave Wedge, concerns “the bombing, and the subsequent manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers responsible for the crime.” [Deadline]
4. Remember when controversial group Death Grips burned bridges, ultimately ending up being dropped by their label because they were totally anti-commercial? Well, the band is now back on a major label. Boy, that didn’t take long. The group created their own label, called Thirdworlds, via Capitol Records “and a distribution assist” from Caroline Records (a subsidiary of Universal Music Group). Let’s see if they can last a year before this whole thing falls apart. [SPIN]
5. Kanye West, who apparently is dropping his “no marketing” marketing campaign, dropped a video for “Black Skinhead,” before pulling it from the internet just as quickly. Was this part of the plan? Or was the video not finished? The consensus seems to be that the video just isn’t good at all, featuring a CGI-version of West dancing alone to the song, and features some computer generated nudity. Although the video has been yanked off Youtube and West’s website, it’s still floating around the internet. Watch below. [Fader]
- Craig Hubert
Previously: James Franco, David Fincher, M.I.A, “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Burton & Taylor”
Image: Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images
