KSFM DJ: The Specialist

Remember “Glitter”? Mariah Carey is about to make you forget all about it.

In the past two years, the Long Island-raised superstar, 40, has revived an acting career that most critics thought was dead on arrival.

She has stepped up to the plate with risky roles. Her latest: a tough-as-nails social worker in the gritty Harlem-set drama “Precious.“

The part was originally offered to Oscar winner Helen Mirren, and Carey came in to fill her shoes with determination — and without makeup.

Carey as a social worker in the gritty drama ‘Precious,’ about an abused teen

What’s more, the film, which hits theaters this Friday and also stars Mo’Nique and Brooklyn-born newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, is being hailed as an Oscar contender.

It’s a career turn no one could have envisioned for Carey back in 2001, when her semi-autobiographical star vehicle “Glitter” opened to atrocious reviews.

At the box office on its opening weekend, “Glitter” didn’t even make the top 10. It disappeared from cinemas within weeks, the soundtrack sold poorly, and by the end of the year, after reports that she had suffered an emotional breakdown, Carey was dumped by Virgin Records, the company that had signed her for a whopping $80 million only months earlier.

In building herself back up, Carey has attained a unique position. She has earned recognition as a serious actress without letting go of her popular appeal. She has targeted roles in indie films while climbing back to the top of the pop charts and enchanting fans with her fairy-tale marriage, played out across the pages of the celeb glossies.

She started her rebound from “Glitter” with a baby step: a role in the 2002 comic thriller “WiseGirls,” which premiered on cable, not in the multiplex. Carey, Mira Sorvino and Melora Walters played waitresses at a Staten Island restaurant run by the mob. Even though it wasn’t a hit, the film dulled the pain of her performance the previous year. Wrote Fox News columnist Roger Friedman: “Even though she tends to wear skimpy outfits as usual, her line delivery is sharp and she manages to get the right laughs.”

A producer of “WiseGirls,” Anthony Esposito, so admired Carey’s work that he announced she would appear in his next film as a boxing manager who pushes an unknown female fighter to fame. Other reports indicated that he had spoken too soon, and that Carey wasn’t sold on the project. It never got made, and Carey’s slow push toward screen stardom relied instead on an episode of “Ally McBeal” and cameos as herself.

In 2005, she soared back atop the pop charts when “We Belong Together,” from her album “The Emancipation of Mimi,” stayed at No. 1 for 14 weeks. She didn’t have to wait long before she landed a supporting role in the low-budget road movie “Tennessee” after catching the eye of producer Lee Daniels, who would go on to direct “Precious.”

“I never saw ‘Glitter,’?” Daniels said at the time, “but I liked her work in ['WiseGirls'].” Said Carey of the role: “Some people come into our lives and take a chance, someone like Lee Daniels.”

The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2008. It was an especially busy month for Carey. Not only was her performance singled out as one of the best parts of “Tennessee,” but she had recently broken Elvis Presley’s record for chart-topping singles, and only the Beatles remained ahead of her on the list.

On top of those successes, Carey stirred up engagement rumors when she arrived at the “Tennessee” after-party with Nick Cannon, a rapper and TV personality 11 years her junior, and an enormous, sparkling ring on her hand. It was her first serious relationship since before “Glitter.” She later revealed that Cannon had proposed on the rooftop of her Manhattan apartment, the 17-carat diamond hidden inside a candy ring pop.

Yes, you read that correctly — 17 carats!

On April 30, 2008, the two were married in a top-secret ceremony in the Caribbean. The next few months were an over-the-top celebration of their love. They made their first public appearance in New York at the Time 100 gala and dined afterward at the Waverly Inn. Cannon rented out a Six Flags amusement park in California and threw a Nick-and-Mariah-themed bash for their friends. The two openly discussed wanting children, and Carey has said in interviews that she is ready to be a mom.

But even as she was cavorting with Prince Charming and considering a family, Carey proved she had edge. Her feud with rapper Eminem, which has dragged on for years as he mines an alleged tryst with Carey to generate scathing lyrics, flared up again early this year. His track “Bagpipes From Baghdad” called Carey a “whore” and lashed out at her new husband.

Cannon defended Carey on his blog, a digital knight in shining armor, but she — in her inimitable style — had her own ways of getting even. Her chart-topper “Obsessed” — the first single from her latest album, “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel” — asked why a certain drug-addled dude with a “Napoleon complex” wouldn’t stop telling lies about her. Carey even dressed in drag in the music video, appearing as an Eminem-esque figure with a goatee and a hooded sweatshirt.

Eminem retaliated with “The Warning,” which contained graphic allegations about sex with the singer. Even that failed to fluster Carey. Comparing the two tracks, she has said, “See, the difference is, my song is on the radio and his, you have to search for it.”

But the trump card in the real-life emancipation of Mimi is “Precious,” in which she plays a role so transformative that some critics have said it is impossible to recognize the diva.

Carey’s welfare caseworker is flat-haired and tired, with just the hint of a mustache. “I looked so damn ugly!” she has said of shooting the film. “I just kept away from mirrors.” But she told People magazine when the film hit the festival circuit, “There’s a creative side of me that needs to do work like this.”

Mirren, another of Daniels’ past collaborators, had turned the role down because of a scheduling conflict. Carey was ready to follow Daniels’ vision — he helped create the play-against-type performance that won Halle Berry an Oscar for “Monster’s Ball” — and she sang at a “Precious” fund-raiser to help secure financing.

The film has impressed audiences at the Sundance, Toronto and Cannes film festivals and won the support of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. It was the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival in October. Carey’s red-carpet opportunities are multiplying, but to do her best film work yet she had to push aside that glamorous pop-princess image, at least temporarily. For Carey, “range” is no longer only about octaves.

“I basically told her, ‘I want to see the Mariah I see when I’m in your house and we’re kickin’ it, watching TV and eating popcorn,’?” Daniels has said. “I knew she had it in her.”

I don't know ya'll..Dem sound like fightin' words or is Jay-Z gonna take the high road..again...

How could one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors find himself owing $6.3 million in back taxes and deep in money troubles? The answer is easy if you believe Nicolas Cage.

In a lawsuit filed Oct. 16 in Los Angeles, the National Treasure star, 45, claims that his longtime business manager, Samuel J. Levin, duped “lined his [own] pockets with several million dollars in business management fees while sending Cage down a path toward financial ruin.”

That journey began in 2001 when Cage – whose next movie is the crime drama Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans – hired Levin to oversee and manage his business interests, investments and finances. Levin did not return calls seeking comment. A rep for Cage had no comment.

On The Market
Though Cage claims it was only recently that he learned the gravity of his financial condition, the actor started selling off some of his prized possessions months ago. In April, Cage bid farewell to his Bavarian castle, selling it to his German advisor, lawyer Konrad Wilfurth.

Now he has placed other homes on the market in California, Las Vegas and New Orleans, where two of his residences – each worth at about $3.5 million – are up for auction Nov. 12, according to the that city’s Times-Picayune. Regions Bank foreclosed on Hancock Park Real Estate Co., the owner of Cage’s properties, for $5.5 million in unpaid mortgage debts, the newspaper reported.

Tax Trouble
Cage’s home liquidation comes as earlier this month the U.S. government placed a tax lien on his vast real-estate holdings because of $6 million in unpaid taxes dating from 2007, according to court papers. In addition, the Internal Revenue Service has another lien for more than $350,000 in unpaid taxes dating from 2002 to 2004.

East West Bank also filed a breach-of-contract complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court that claims Cage had failed to repay a $2 million loan that was extended this past August.

In the lawsuit filed against his business manager, Cage says he “relied on Levin to handle his financial affairs to ensure that he and his family would have a financially secure future built on the foundation of the substantial monies Cage earned through years of hard work.”

But “he is now forced to sell major assets and investments at a significant loss and is faced with huge tax liabilities because of Levin’s incompetence, misrepresentations and recklessness.” (Interestingly, Cage sold off his rare comic-book collection in 2002 for more than $1.6 million, a year after hiring Levin.)

Now as the actor gets ready to hit the big screen again this fall, he faces “catastrophic losses” in upwards of $20 million. The next court hearing in the lawsuit is scheduled for February 2010.

A Long Island gas station clerk says he was just doing his job Wednesday night when the two masked men stormed in and demanded cash. He grabbed their shotgun and chased them away. He had been robbed before and wasn’t having it this time!

Damn! Say it aint so...

Since Plies flooded the airwaves with his sex-driven lyrics on tracks such as “Becky” and “Bust It Baby”, the rapper has come off as being more than rated R as he has dubbed himself the realist. Being the realist, he has been one not to bite his tongue and say things exactly how he feels.

As a replacement for Gucci Mane this weekend at FAMU, however, the rapper showed that he is aware of that fact of timing and that there is a time and place for everything.

It was reported that before performing “Bust It Baby,” the rapper saw a fan that looked to be too young to be hearing those particular lyrics. As a result, the rapper gave the girl $1,000 from his pocket and asked her to leave and have her parents take her some place more appropriate.

If that’s not a curveball, then what else could it be?

The rapper has been one to show his charitable side in other instances as he gave his chain to a girl during a basketball game some time ago, but this action is much more than just making a girl’s day.

Society has always been the one to point out the fact that Hip-Hop’s lewd lyrics have caused a downfall in the youth of the country as they have been heavily influenced by what they hear and see through these rap artists.

Although he essentially paid for it, Plies showcased the fact that he acknowledges his responsibility as a rapper. He may not be able to stop everyone from buying his CD, but he will have some control to who he will allow to hear him while in his presence.

Hell Naw...3 million tho? Do she come wit tha bra...?

A new biography reveals that Angelia Jolie allegedly had an affair with her mother’s live-in boyfriend when she was 16 years old:

She may be a bad girl gone good, but it seems Angelina Jolie is never more than a step away from her scandalous past. In a new tell-all biography, controversial author Andrew Morton claims that Jolie bedded her mother’s live-in boyfriend when she was just 16-years-old. The A-list celebrity, who is often dubbed one of the most beautiful women in the world, was said to have been unable to come to terms with her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, after the unspeakable affair. The two allegedly struggled for years to repair their damaged relationship, reports Britain’s Now magazine. “Marcheline had a live-in boyfriend whom she was very much in love with, but Ange slept with him when she was 16 and barely out of school,” an insider told the mag. “Her mother found out and ended her relationship with the man.” The source went on to add, “When Ange admitted the story to her brother James just a few weeks ago, even he turned on her. She has hardly anyone left in life who likes or trusts her.” As fans might remember, Jolie’s mother died of cancer in 2007 at the age of 56. At the time, Jolie was allegedly devastated and photos from that period reveal her looking gaunt and tired.

The author of the unauthorized biography, Andrew Morton, has also penned similarly controversial works about celebrities like Madonna, Tom Cruise and Princess Diana. Morton’s book on Jolie is due out this winter.

Hmmm, sure there’s a gang of interesting little tidbits in that book.

An Italian man currently under house arrest has requested to spend the rest of his sentence in jail, to get away from his nagging wife.

30 year old Santo Gambino, who was charged and convicted for dumping hazardous waste, spend part of his sentence in prison, but was transferred to his home near Palermo, Sicily to serve the rest of his sentence. Gambino, a construction worker who spent much of time working, was not accustomed to spending so much of his time at home with his wife. The couple had argued often and his wife constantly blamed him since his inability to work due to the house arrest caused financial problems for the family.

So against the conditions of his house arrest, Gambino left the house and went straight to the police station, demanding to be arrested and put back in jail.

Police did charge him for violating the conditions of his house arrest sentence, but instead of jailing him, they sent him back home to make peace with his wife.