Extreme Makeover

When it comes to makeovers at the movies, the rules have always been fairly straightforward: Girls get a Cinderella story, while guys get Spider-Man. It's pretty much been that way since the dawn of the movie makeover genre, which authors Elizabeth A. Ford and Deborah C. Mitchell trace to 1942's "Now Voyager" (starring Bette Davis) in their 2004 book "The Makeover in Movies. "That film may not be familiar, but the story arc certainly is, and it can be found in movies ranging from the animated "Cinderella" (1950)

The biggest trends at the SAG Awards on Sunday night were black, white and dark blue hues, sheer accents, corseted bodices and side-swept  Veronica Lake  hair according to T imes fashion critic Booth Moore, who live-blogged the red carpet. [Los Angeles Times] SAG Awards 2013: Best and worst dressed Italian luxury brand Fendi will be funding the restoration of the famed Trevi Fountain in Rome, the fashion house announced Monday. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2015.

IT was the perfect cast for an uplifting reality TV show: five orphaned siblings and the loving family friends who took them in. The story line certainly appealed to the producers of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." After learning that Phil and Loki Leomiti had opened their doors to the Higgins clan -- their former neighbors and fellow church members -- the show's executives proposed transforming the couple's modest Santa Fe Springs house into a nine-bedroom showpiece.

MADRID -- Spain's most infamous art restorer is hoping that any publicity is good publicity. Cecilia Gímenez was responsible for the badly botched touch-up last summer of a 19th-century Ecce Homo -- a painting of Jesus Christ -- in her local church near Zaragoza, in northeastern Spain. Dubbed the worst art restoration in history, the elderly parishioner's well-meaning but misguided work grabbed international headlines. One account described it as looking like "a crayon sketch of a monkey in an ill-fitting tunic.

CITY REC departments typically feature swimming pools, tinytot gymnastics classes, maybe kung fu lessons for the Greatest Generation. But Irvine is not typical, and neither is its rec department. On Saturday, in an oh-so-O.C. interpretation of the term "public recreation," the extreme suburb is offering a "Spa Morning," where mothers and daughters can experience the family bonding inherent in cosmetic makeovers.

A Downey family has sued ABC and the producers of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," claiming that there is a tale of greed and deception behind the scenes of the heartstring-tugging reality hit.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has rejected five orphans' claims that producers of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" owed them a permanent place to live after rebuilding the house of the family friends who took them in. Higgins siblings Charles II, Michael, Charis, Joshua and Jeremiah were ages 14 to 21 when their mother died of breast cancer in April 2004 and their father succumbed to heart failure two months later.

Having scored with its cosmetic-surgical "Extreme Makeover," ABC now moves into the shelter business with "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," premiering Sunday as a regular series after an "inaugural special" last December.

Deleese Williams, a young Texas woman so ill at ease with her looks that she avoided family photos, saw ABC's "Extreme Makeover" as a chance to have the face she had always wanted. After medical and psychological exams, intense personal interviews and the promise of a Cindy Crawford smile, Williams was slated for plastic surgery in Los Angeles. But at the last minute, her reality TV makeover was scrapped and she was put on a plane home.

Oakwood Homes, which served as the builder for an ABC-TV's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" project last January, filed for bankruptcy protection. The company, based in Woodstock, Ga., listed $22.2 million in debt and $31.6 million in assets in Chapter 7 documents filed Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Atlanta. Oakwood Homes is owned by Anthony S. Perry, the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Assn.'s 1999 builder of the year.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- President Obama cast the “new, latest version of Mitt Romney” as a salesman simply softening his image in an effort to close the deal with voters. After running in a Republican primary in which Romney called himself “severely conservative,” Obama said Thursday, “he's trying to convince you that he was severely kidding.” “He's trying to go through an extreme makeover,” Obama told a crowd in the basketball stadium at the University of Miami. As for analyses that estimate Romney's plans to cut taxes would cost close to $5 trillion, Obama said, the Republican nominee for president “just pretends it doesn't exist.” “'What $5-trillion tax cut?

The affecting documentary "Wild Horse, Wild Ride," directed by husband-and-wife team Greg Gricus and Alex Dawson, follows a diverse group of equine enthusiasts as they prepare to participate in the 2009 Extreme Mustang Makeover. This annual event is a contest of sorts in which 100 professional and amateur trainers present the results of their 100 days of work taming wild mustangs. The animals are then put up for auction and adoption - thus avoiding federal corrals. The committed and patient entrants here include an intrepid Arizona cowgirl and single mom, a Mexican émigré working as a Wisconsin roofer, a Navajo ex-rodeo champ and his son, a bearish Texan and his seventh wife, a PhD in biomedical engineering, and a pair of soulful New Hampshire brothers.

Is America ready to get their Bible lessons from Jeff Foxworthy, king of the redneck joke? It's about to become reality as Game Show Network has released the first look at its original game show"The American Bible Challege. " Game shows have tackled everything from the private lives of newlyweds to deepest fears of average Americans, so offering up the Good Book as the basis for frantic competition and fabulous cash prizes seems like the next logical step. They have rock bands and coffee bars in churches now, so it's not as outlandish as it may seem at first.

"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" will honor military families in a Veterans Day fundraising special featuring stars who include Jewel, Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams. The hourlong ABC special, airing at 8 p.m. on Nov. 11, will focus on issues faced by veterans and highlight the skills they can bring to the workforce and their communities, ABC and the charitable Entertainment Industry Foundation said Wednesday. Jewel, who is cohosting the special with Ty Pennington of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," also will sing.

When it comes to makeovers at the movies, the rules have always been fairly straightforward: Girls get a Cinderella story, while guys get Spider-Man. It's pretty much been that way since the dawn of the movie makeover genre, which authors Elizabeth A. Ford and Deborah C. Mitchell trace to 1942's "Now Voyager" (starring Bette Davis) in their 2004 book "The Makeover in Movies. "That film may not be familiar, but the story arc certainly is, and it can be found in movies ranging from the animated "Cinderella" (1950)

"Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition" 10 p.m. June 13, ABC Episode: "Dana" The premise Dana Baker is a 44-year-old gospel singer who weighs 498 pounds. He freely admits to a regular diet of cookies, Hawaiian Punch and donuts. He sweats when putting on his shoes, gets short of breath just standing or sitting and says he takes "eight to 10 painkillers every morning just to function. " Baker's plea for help is answered by Chris Powell, the 33-year-old personal trainer who works with experts from the California Health and Longevity Institute in Westlake Village.

ABC's special "Extreme Makeover," which followed a trio of people through plastic surgery, scored solid ratings Wednesday, beating "The West Wing" in the young-adult demographics sought by advertisers. Overall, the program averaged more than 13 million viewers, compared with 15.4 million watching the Christmas-themed episode of NBC's White House drama. "Makeover" had originally been scheduled for November -- during the rating sweeps -- but was subsequently delayed. Brian Lowry

Four years ago, Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Brent Moelleken was featured on "Dateline NBC" for his surgical innovation, the superficial cheek lift. The procedure earned him a prize for outstanding contribution to the advancement of aesthetic surgery, publication in a professional journal and not a single new patient. And yet in the months since Moelleken became a regular on "Extreme Makeover," patients from around the globe have sought him out, hoping for a miracle.

Not so long ago, the way to convey that something was extreme was to simply call it extreme ("X" for short.) There were extreme sports (think bungee jumping), extreme tourism (think traveling in order to bungee jump) and, of course, the "Extreme Makeover" television franchise, which took self-improvement and home improvement to new levels by throwing in hefty doses of plastic surgery and new construction along with the usual hairstyle and paint color changes. But perhaps you've noticed the new overused expression in town: "on steroids.

An intense, 16-month construction project designed to transform the Disney California Adventure entryway from a nondescript strip mall into a circa-1920s Los Angeles streetscape will begin in earnest Jan. 4. As part of an ongoing, $1.1 billion makeover, the sweeping and extensive reimagineering will wall off 4 acres of the main entrance between the C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A letters, Sunshine Plaza, Grizzly Peak and Hollywood Studios Backlot....