Greg Hernandez craves a daily fix of celebrity news the way some
people need their daily cup of joe. He's made it his mission to show
up to as many Tinseltown events as he's allowed into, to talk to any
famous faces that don't run from him, and to give readers several
daily shots of the day's breaking news. 
News Lite Online: Bette Midler, Ellen Page and Britney Spears...
Academy Award nominations will be announced early Tuesday morning and tomorrow, I’ll have reaction from some of the nominees.
But if we were to leap ahead 12 months, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Bette Midler makes the cut in the best supporting actress category for her terrific performance in the Helen Hunt-directed “Then She Found Me” in which she plays Hunt’s birth mother. The film won the audience award at this month’s Palm Springs International Film Festival where it made its U.S. debut.
Bette already has two Oscar nods under her belt for “The Rose” and “For the Boys” and she also recently wrapped a role in the remake of “The Women.”
But before she starts preparing any acceptance speeches for her acting, the Grammy-winning Divine Miss M is taking her act to Las Vegas. Starting Feb. 20, she replaces Celine Dion at the 4400-seat Colosseum theatre at Caesars Palace.
I love the name of her new act: “Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On.”
“Because I am a live performer, my legacy is ephemeral,” Bette said in this week’s issue of Parade. “I’ve made some good movies, I’ve made some bad movies. They will last. But the rest of it, what I did live, that’s only memory.”
All the more reason to catch her in Vegas where for the next two years, the 62-year-old icon will be doing 100 shows a year: “You never know when a zipper is going to break, when you’re going to sprain your ankle,” she said. “Every day is a crap shoot.”
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One actress who is likely to be nominated today is Ellen Page, such a sensation as lead in “Juno.” The movie is not only a hit with critics, but audiences love it too and it is close to passing the $100 million mark in domestic box office grosses.
Ellen plays an independent 16 year old who gets pregnant and decides to not only have the baby, but to pick its adoptive parents.
I had gabbed a bit with Ellen at the film festival in Palm Springs about her newfound fame - something that might be too much for some 20 year olds to handle.
“It’s kind of surreal, of course. It’s definitely new,” she said. “But all in all, I’m an actor because I love to act and when there’s excitement around this film, it just helps me get to have more choice and control. That’s really wonderful as an actor.”
I also checked in with “Juno” director Jason Reitman at the festival and he told me about recently going to a movie theater and watching the film for the first time as a moviegoer and not the director in the cutting room.
“I don’t mean for this to come off the wrong way, but I actually cried during the birth scene,” he confessed. “It moved me and it made me laugh. It turned out better than I ever could have imagined.”
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AND FINALLY, Britney.
Full disclosure here: I am trying to ignore Britney Spears’ endless antics for my own sanity but feel obligated to provide updates when they involve legal developments, head-shaving or ambulances.
Legal development: On Monday, she gave a second deposition at the law office of the attorney representing Kevin Federline in their ongoing custody battle - a week after she lost visitation with both her sons indefinitely.
She has previously missed several appointments for the court-ordered cross-examination. This time, Britney testified for more than two hours. K-Fed’s attorneys will use the testimony in their effort to convince the court that he should retain primary physical custody of the children.
