Danny Puff

LOS ANGELES (AP) Unlike last year, when the Grammys became the Adele show, each of the leading nominees in a diverse and eclectic field got a chance to bask in the spotlight of music's biggest night.

Fun., whose anthemic and semidark jam "We Are Young" dominated the charts in 2012, won song of the year. Gotye's massive and oddball pop hit, "Somebody I Used to Know," picked up record of the year. And folk-rockers Mumford & Sons won album of the year for their platinum-selling "Babel."

Fun. also won best new artist, besting Frank Ocean in an upset.

The Recording Academy had a clear message at its 55th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night: There are a lot of top acts today with both mainstream appeal and an edge to their music, and the academy was happy to spread the love.

"One after the other, it was like, 'And the Black Keys...,' so I think we just sort of resigned ourselves to like, last year was Adele's year and this year would be the Black Keys," said lead singer Marcus Mumford, who thought his band would lose album of the year to the Black Keys.

Then Mumford added in a loud scream once he learned they won: "It's (expletive) awesome!"

Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, the night's big winner with four trophies, was one of six acts with the most nominations six each. He won non-classical producer of the year, while the Black Keys earned the best rock album, song and performance honors.

"Thank you to our families and everybody in Akron, Ohio, and everybody in Nashville," the band's drummer, Patrick Carney, said.

The Black Keys dominated the rock category, while Jay-Z and Kanye West did the same in the rap area. But the pop, country and R&B categories were a reflection of the top four honors, with no single act dominating. Winners in those categories ranged from Adele to Paul McCartney, Carrie Underwood to the Zac Brown Band, and Usher to Miguel.

Ocean, Mumford & Sons, Jay-Z, Kanye West and fun. were also the top nominees of the night, and they won multiple Grammys.

But Ocean who was anticipated to win best new artist won two trophies and was restricted to the urban categories. It was another year the Grammys dissed a rap or R&B artist from the top awards. Last year, West lost in an upset and in 2011 it was Eminem.

Ocean's official studio debut, "channel ORANGE," did win best urban contemporary album. He also won best rap/sung collaboration for "No Church In the Wild" with West, Jay-Z and The-Dream.

But the R&B singer released one of the year's most critically revered albums last year, which made several best-of-the-year lists. He also made headlines when he revealed his first love was a man shortly before the album's release.

Ocean's loss to fun. for best new artist was a shock, but the band's win was understood. The pop-rock trio had two of the year's biggest hits with "We Are Young" and "Some Nights." Their sophomore album, "Some Nights," is also near-platinum.

"Making music for 12 years you don't think you'll get Grammy-nominated," lead singer Nate Ruess said backstage. "Radio and mainstream just kind of picked up on (us) and it feels good for us after 12 years of people kind of just ignoring you and always feeling like you're kind of the bridesmaid."

Like fun., Gotye had a monstrous hit with the Kimbra-assisted "Somebody that I Used to Know," and it won record of the year and best pop duo/group collaboration. His album, "Making Mirrors," won best alternative music album.

Gotye's three wins were joined by Black Keys, West, Jay-Z and Skrillex, who picked up the same trophies he won last year.

"You know what, I thought I'd get used to it, but I tripped over every word when I was up there. I felt like I just wanted a pool of ice water and just couldn't even breathe or think," said the electronic-DJ, who won best dance recording, dance/electronica album and remixed recording. "It was crazy. I think it was even crazier than last year."

Double winners included Ocean, fun., Mumford & Sons, Chick Corea, Esperanza Spalding and Matt Redman.

The various winners of the night were hard to predict. Mumford & Sons won album of the year, though the band lost best Americana album to Bonnie Raitt. And fun. won song of the year and best new artist, but lost best pop vocal album to Kelly Clarkson.

The performances as usual were also a reflection of diversity in music: Taylor Swift opened with her pop smash "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and Miguel sang his R&B hit "Adorn" onstage and off of it.

"Miguel, I don't know who the hell you are, but we need to sing together," Clarkson said when accepting an award. "I mean, good god. That was the sexiest dancing I've ever seen."

The night's most memorable performance was the tribute to Levon Helm, which featured Elton John, Mumford & Sons, T Bone Burnett and the raspy vocals of Mavis Staples and Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes.

They earned a standing ovation. Jack White, who was nominated for the album of the year, was also well-received Sunday night.

Justin Timberlake made a return to the Grammy stage, performing his new hit "Suit & Tie" and a new song, the falsetto-heavy "Push Your Love Girl." Jay-Z joined the pop star onstage, and there were more collaborations like it throughout the night.

Alicia Keys joined Maroon 5, Miranda Lambert sang with Dierks Bentley, and Rihanna, Bruno Mars and Sting paid tribute to Bob Marley. They were joined by Damian and Ziggy Marley. The crowd sang along during "Could You Be Loved."

Adele, who was last year's big winner with six trophies, won best pop performance for "Set Fire to the Rain (Live)." She said backstage that she's enjoying motherhood and is at the beginning stages of recording her next album.

"I've been up since 6 a.m. so I'm quite tired. But it's nice, I haven't been as stressed out," she said. "You kind of have to prioritize what you stress about and worry about when you have a child."

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A comedian, a millionaire and an orangutan. It may sound like the beginning of a screwball joke, but Donald Trump isn't laughing.

The famously outspoken real estate magnate has sued famously outspoken television host Bill Maher, demanding the $5 million Maher offered to give to charity if Trump could prove his father is not an orangutan.

But legal experts say Trump is unlikely to get a dime from Maher, the host of the HBO series Real Time With Bill Maher, because his offer was clearly made in jest.

"It's parody," said Bryan Sullivan, a Los Angeles entertainment lawyer. "You know Bill Maher is a comedian and a satirist. The offer is so ridiculous."

Trump, however, has taken the comic at his word.

"Attached hereto is a copy of Mr. Trump's birth certificate, demonstrating that he is the son of Fred Trump, not an orangutan," Trump's lawyer, Scott Balber, wrote to Maher last month.

When Maher did not respond, Trump filed a breach of contract lawsuit last week in Los Angeles Superior Court.

A Maher spokeswoman referred to his show Friday, in which he ridiculed Trump's lawsuit.

"It's never a joke when someone reneges on a commitment that benefits worthy charities," said Michael Cohen, special counsel to Trump, in response. "The tone of Mr. Maher's diatribe on Friday evening suggests he is far more concerned with the lawsuit than he wants the public to believe."

Last year, during the presidential campaign, Trump offered to give $5 million to charity if President Barack Obama would release his college records. Trump, who flirted with a possible White House run, previously questioned Obama's citizenship and boasted that he prompted Obama to release his birth certificate.

As a guest on NBC's The Tonight Show last month, Maher offered to give $5 million to charity if Trump could prove he was not the son of an orangutan, since the ape's orange fur matches the color of Trump's trademark gravity-defying coiffure.

"He can donate to a charity of his choice," Maher said. "Hair Club for Men; the Institute for Incorrigible Douchebaggery. Whatever charity."

Under contract law, a verbal offer can create a contractual obligation. But courts make exceptions for obviously satirical offers.

In a New York federal case, Leonard vs. Pepsico, a man sued the soft drink maker after it refused to honor a TV advertisement "offer" of a fighter jet for redeemable Pepsi Points.

District Judge Kimba Wood in Manhattan said an offer made "evidently in jest" is not a contract and noted the commercial featured a teenager using the jet to get to school.

"This fantasy is, of course, extremely unrealistic," Wood wrote.

Trump's lawsuit alleges that Maher's show is political commentary, not comedy. In a Fox News appearance last week, Trump said he was certain Maher's offer was not a joke.

"That was venom," Trump said. "That wasn't a joke."

(Reporting by Joseph Ax. Editing by Andre Grenon)

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SAN DIEGO (AP) U.S. border inspectors are warning of unusually heavy traffic at California border crossings into Mexico amid the search for a fugitive ex-police officer wanted in the slayings of three people.

Customs and Border Protection said Monday that it has joined efforts to find 33-year-old Christopher Dorner in Southern California. Heightened vehicle inspections are producing delays at San Diego's San Ysidro (ee-SEE'-droh) border crossing into Tijuana.

Baja California state police agents assigned to search for American fugitives have been given photographs of Dorner. International liaison Alfredo Arenas says the Mexican agents have been warned to consider the suspect armed and extremely dangerous.

Dorner was charged Monday with murdering a police officer and attempting to murder three others in Riverside County.

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TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index fell on Monday, dragged down by weaker gold mining shares and a sharp fall in BlackBerry , which lost another major U.S. corporate customer to rival Apple.

Cameco Corp , the world's biggest publicly traded uranium producer, also slipped after reporting a sharply lower quarterly profit and pointing to weaker earnings ahead.

Gold miners were among the heaviest laggards on the index as commodity prices fell. Gold extended earlier losses to one-month lows after recent technical support broke down.

The gold mining group, down 2.2 percent in the session, has also been hurt by rising production costs and limited discoveries.

"There's too many companies out there digging holes and not coming up with anything encouraging, and then costs meanwhile keep picking up," said Levente Mady, a senior portfolio manager at PI Financial Corp.

Mady added that he prefers government bonds to Canadian equities because he thinks valuations are too high at current levels.

Goldcorp was the most influential decliner, down 2.4 percent to C$35.36, while Yamana Gold Inc fell 4.9 percent to C$15.77. Barrick Gold lost 1.5 percent to C$32.34.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index ended the day down 53.08 points, or 0.41 percent, at 12,748.15. Seven of the 10 main sectors were in negative territory, including energy shares, down 0.5 percent.

Shares of BlackBerry fell 4.5 percent to C$15.76 after U.S. home improvement retailer Home Depot Inc said it is replacing the BlackBerry smartphones it provides its executives and managers with Apple Inc's iPhone.

Cameco knocked off 3 percent to C$21.05 after the company announced it took a C$168 million ($168 million) write-down on an Australian exploration project, and said the current quarter would likely produce weaker earnings as well.

"We used to own Cameco ... my problem with Cameco is that I think the future of nuclear energy has been very much cast in doubt by fracking and tight oil," said David Baskin, president of Baskin Financial in Toronto.

"Because there's so much petroleum-based energy available now than people thought say five years ago, and because of what happened in Fukushima in Japan, I think that the whole future of nuclear energy is very much up in the air."

Slightly stronger financial and industrial shares helped to offset the broad declines.

Manulife Financial Corp , a major insurer, was the top gainer, rising 3 percent to C$15.28.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; Additional reporting by Claire Sibonney; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Mr. "SexyBack" performed back-to-back Sunday night.

After Justin Timberlake's performance at the Grammy Awards, the pop star electrified during a 90-minute set at the Hollywood Palladium.

Timberlake sang familiar hits from "Senorita" to "Rock Your Body" to "My Love" as well as new R&B numbers from his anticipated new album. He was easygoing onstage as if he'd never left.

Like at the Grammys, Jay-Z joined in for "Suit & Tie." Beyonce was among the VIPs looking on, along with Kelly Rowland, Neil Patrick Harris, Timbaland, Lance Bass and others.

Timberlake apologized to the eager crowd for taking so long to release new music. His last album was out in 2006.

He said, smiling: "It's going to be a fun year."

Timberlake's new album, "The 20/20 Experience," is out March 19.

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NEW YORK (AP) A decade after Dr. Mark Greene hung up his white lab coat for good on "ER," Anthony Edwards is back as the star of a new television series.

He plays Hank Galliston, a magazine publisher wrapped up in an historical mystery after his wife is kidnapped on ABC's "Zero Hour," which premieres Feb. 14 at 8 p.m. EST. The action thriller requires an audience to concentrate as the story unfolds layer by layer.

The road back to series television took Edwards many miles to travel literally thousands upon thousands.

Edwards' character Greene was the heart of what was then television's most popular drama before the actor bowed out after eight years. Upon leaving, "I didn't really have a plan other than I knew I wasn't going to jump into a series again and I knew that I was really tired and burnt out," he said.

Professionally, maybe. Personally, Edwards had a clear strategy. The California native moved his wife and four children to New York. He was going to spend time raising his kids and give his artist wife time to establish her career, before they took off on a dream adventure.

While fellow actors George Clooney and Julianna Margulies left "ER" quickly to try other things, Edwards committed himself to a four-year contract. At the time, the commitment seemed huge four years seems a lot longer at age 36 than it does now, when he's 50 but the decision set him up financially for life.

He bought a plane and took the family (and two teachers) on a 310-day trip around the world, through Africa, India, Southeast Asia and just about every exotic place you could imagine.

"It sounds like 'Howdy Doody,'" Edwards said. "But I've never met the older man who wishes he had spent less time with his kids while they were young. You don't meet anybody who says, 'God, I wish I had worked harder and was gone more.'"

He had an opportunity that few people have.

"I've always been able to pay for what I needed and always done what I've wanted," he said. "It got crazy when it was, yeah, we can buy a plane and go around the world, but that wasn't the goal. That was no more excessive than when I was 20 and I could buy a $150 pair of boots because I wanted them. It feels extravagant in the same way."

He didn't leave the business. Edwards was always comfortable behind the scenes, and had been close to leaving acting for directing before getting the "ER" job. He has his own production company, Grand Central Entertainment, and was an executive producer of HBO's "Temple Grandin." He did some film acting, in "Zodiac" and the memorable flop "Motherhood."

Showtime's loss proved ABC's gain. Grand Central developed a series about a high-end public relations firm that Edwards had planned to act in and when Showtime passed, he found himself with free time. Edwards started looking at other scripts and found "Zero Hour" to be "a total page-turner."

Zack Estrin, one of the show's four executive producers, couldn't believe his luck.

"It's an honor when somebody who could have his choice of shows chooses yours," he said. "It's like, the prom queen chooses you to have a dance."

Having a well-known actor attach himself to your project has its obvious benefits, and Estrin hopes some viewers try out "Zero Hour" just to see what Edwards is doing. The danger is that television has its cases of actors being so defined by an overwhelmingly successful role that viewers have a hard time seeing them do something else. Edwards believes the characters he has chosen guard against that.

"My career has never been based on the fact that I was an action hero or a specific kind of comedian," Edwards said. "What's fun about it is it appears a little bit boring, but for me the subtleties of what is going on is what makes it fun."

In many ways, Mark Greene was designed to be a person that viewers can relate to. Same thing with Galliston. The show needs a character to steady the boat, Estrin said.

"That's what Anthony is," he said. "He's somebody who's solid and dependable, somebody the audience can trust. On a show where you don't know who you can trust and who you can believe, it's important to have somebody at the center you know you can."

Keep your eyes open for an inside joke. In one episode where Galliston is depicted escaping from pursuers he puts on a lab coat and walks through a medical facility. Mark Greene lives!

The young actor who once learned by example from Hal Holbrook and Sean Penn is now leading the same way himself, demonstrating to younger cast members the importance of showing up on time and knowing your lines. Edwards enjoys the comfort of being back on a television set.

"I understand how a day on a set is supposed to go and it makes perfect sense," he said. "It's my playground. A question from a 12-year-old? That's when it gets tough. Raising kids is hard."

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EDITOR'S NOTE David Bauder can be reached at dbauder"at"ap.org or on Twitter (at)dbauder.

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TORONTO (Reuters) - Singles who believe in love at first sight can turn to new apps that will match them with potential dates in time for Valentine's Day, but only if each person has expressed an interest.

With the new dating apps, users simply flip through photos of people in nearby locations and express their interest in dating someone. If there's a mutual attraction, the app connects them for a conversation. If not, their feelings remain anonymous.

"It limits the conversations to people you've actually expressed an interest in. So each of those conversations starts at a very deep level," said Sean Rad, co-founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based company Tinder, which developed the app of the same name.

Makers of the Tinder app, which is available worldwide for iPhone, said it has matched more than 10 million couples since it was launched in September.

The app pulls in member photos of people from Facebook, and then it's as simple as anonymously indicating interest in that person. If both people like each other, messages can be sent between the two users.

Rad said most users are between 18 and 30 years old.

Let's Date, which was released across the United States last week for the iPhone, is a similar app. But rather than simply focusing on the photo, the app provides the person's interests from Facebook for a broader view of the potential date.

"Our goal was to create an app that replicated the real world experience of going to a party or bar full of potentially eligible people," said Sean Suhl, founder of Let's Date.

"You're put into a crowd of people and if someone catches your eye and they catch your eye, then a conversation is struck up and then someone might ask the other person out on a date," he added.

The app resulted from a frustration with other dating apps, according to Suhl, who described them as "artificial and laborious".

"We're just presenting you the daters and you're just saying yes or no," he added.

Both apps require a login with Facebook, so people must use their real identity. Let's Date also stipulates that users must have been active on Facebook for a year, and have at least 50 friends before signing up.

Although the apps can set people up quickly, it still could take a while to find the right person.

"People are literally getting dates the same night, but you might want to give yourself enough time to find the right Valentine," Rad said.

Both companies plan to release Android apps.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney; and Peter Galloway)

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) Writer Geoff Johns has taken DC Entertainment's Green Lantern and its associated characters through brightest day and blackest night, but after nine years of scripting tales about the galactic police force whose rings are powered by will, he's leaving the series in May with issue No. 20 to focus on the Justice League and its related titles.

In doing so, Johns is stepping away from the characters that he first tackled in the pages of "Rebirth," a six-issue miniseries drawn by Ethan Van Sciver in 2004-2005, that brought characters such as Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, Kyle Raner and John Stewart back to the forefront while revisiting the six-decade history of the Green Lantern Corps.

"I'm really proud of all the stuff we've built with Green Lantern from Larfleeze to the different corps," Johns told The Associated Press about his decision. "The universe has expanded and will live well past my run. It was more than just telling another story, but really giving back to the character by expanding and adding to their mythology."

Now, after nine years of writing about Green Lantern, as well as the assorted heroes and villains, along with helping retool their origins for DC's 2011 revamp dubbed "The New 52," Johns said he'd reached a point in the current story to step away and let someone else take over the writing.

"I was getting to an end point and a story line that made sense for me. I felt like it was time to close my run and focus all my energies on the Justice League corner of the DC Universe," he said, noting that his stories were collaborative efforts with artists and editors like Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Van Sciver and Peter Tomasi.

"It was a very, very hard decision. I absolutely love these characters but I felt like I had a story line that really made sense and felt emotionally satisfying and felt very big and very epic."

He's taking some characters from Green Lantern with him, too, including Simon Baz, a Muslim-American Green Lantern that Johns created.

Johns, who is DC's chief creative officer, was guarded in discussing his plans for the publisher's Justice League books, but said the time was right for him to make them his primary focus. He'll be working with writer Jeff Lemire and continue to write "Aquaman," too.

The Green Lantern titles will continue, too, and Johns promised a "monster of an issue" for "Green Lantern" No. 20 which is illustrated by artist Doug Mahnke.

"It really, for me, ties everything else and ends the Green Lantern saga," Johns said of the 64-page issue. "This story the way the story evolves I think people will get a sense of finality from it."

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NEW YORK (AP) It all started with a slap for Matthew Rhys. Trying out for "The Americans," he took one in the puss from Keri Russell.

This new FX drama, whose third episode airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. EST, focuses on two KGB spies posing as an ordinary American couple shortly after Ronald Reagan became president.

As Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, they have a comfortable home in a Washington suburb, two sweet kids, a travel agency they run and, by all signs, a solid piece of the American Dream. No one would suspect that they are Russian-born plants bent on burying the United States with subterfuge and brutality.

No one, that is, unless it's their new neighbor, FBI agent Stan Beeman (played by Noah Emmerich with an infectious mix of cunning and dorkiness), who has recently moved in with his family across the street. He represents just one among the many threats of exposure, imprisonment or death they face daily.

"It's an incredible balancing act to portray: the domesticity of their suburban lives and the struggle of their relationship as an arranged couple, and then the extreme spy stuff," says Rhys.

"The balancing act is very difficult," echoes Russell in a separate interview. "We're spies, but how much do you play that reality? And how do you play the masquerade that you're NOT a spy? There are so many layers to it."

"The Americans" is a good old-fashioned thriller, set in a pre-cellphone, -Internet and -PC world where gumption counts as much as gadgetry in the espionage game, and where the world is a very anxious place yet handily divided between Good and the Evil Empire (as Reagan dubbed the Soviet Union).

Meanwhile, the series calls on viewers to root for Philip and Elizabeth as they risk everything to advance this "Evil Empire."

But however driven in their partnership, they are butting heads. Elizabeth despises American values. She is fiercely devoted to the cause of Mother Russia. But Philip is torn: He doesn't think the U.S. is such a bad place.

"That kind of disagreement is something I understand as someone who is not a spy, but as just someone in a marriage," says Russell with a knowing smile.

For most viewers, Russell, now 36, needs no introduction. In 1998 she burst on the scene, complete with those flowing pre-Raphaelite curls, in the title role of "Felicity," then followed up with the miniseries "Into the West," films including "Extraordinary Measures," ''Waitress" and her upcoming horror flick, "Dark Skies," and, alongside Will Arnett, the short-lived sitcom "Running Wilde."

The script for "The Americans" arrived at Russell's door just days after the December 2011 birth of her second child, Willa Lou, with carpenter-husband Shane Deary. Understandably, she wasn't eager to rush back to work.

"But this show was so strange and complicated I couldn't really figure it out, and I thought, 'That could stay interesting and fun to do,'" she says. Besides, it conveniently substitutes circa-1980s Washington with New York locations. "It shoots near my house in Brooklyn. I can ride my bike to work."

Still sylphic and long-haired, Russell makes an ideal Elizabeth Jennings, who, by turns, is a lovely wife and mother, a fearless operative and a rock-'em-sock-'em brawler.

And to hear her talk, Russell seems thrilled with her leading man.

The 38-year-old Welsh-born Rhys is best known from ABC's drama "Brothers & Sisters," where he played lawyer and gay man Kevin Walker. His credits also include the indie film "The Scapegoat" and the BBC miniseries "The Mystery of Edwin Drood."

"He's a real actor! I'm in awe of him!" says Russell. "We'll be doing a scene and I'll go, 'Matthew's doing all of THAT, and I'm just doing THIS! Arggggg!' Between Matthew and Noah Emmerich and me, I'm the most boring TV person in the show."

When those words are shared with Rhys, he bursts out laughing.

"She's INCREDIBLE! She's the total package!" he declares. "Her work ethic is huge, she takes the right things seriously and most of the other stuff, not. I wish she had a little more awareness of how good she is."

Rhys was asked to come test opposite Russell based on his impressive off-Broadway debut in the 2011 revival of the modern classic "Look Back in Anger."

"I was brought in for the infamous 'chemistry read,'" he chortles, meant to see how he and Russell would mesh.

He was one of several prospects.

"In between them, I was pumping in the bathroom because I was nursing a new baby," Russell laughs. "And then I'd come out and test with the next stranger. We were reading the scene in the laundry room from the first episode, where Philip presents the idea of defection." (Philip tells Elizabeth: "We could get relocated, live the good life, and be happy.") "My character is outraged that he would even consider it.

"Basically, there's a slap in that scene," Russell adds. "But when the first guy came in, I didn't do it."

Then it was Rhys' turn. "The director said, 'Slap him.' So I went for it."

Rhys picks up the story: "Strange as it may sound, she slaps incredibly well. In the same place every time, and never near your eye. The swing of her arm was incredibly violent, but her wrist remained soft, so there wasn't much force behind it."

Clearly, he and Russell connected.

"And now it's become this ongoing joke," he says. "Keri will slap me not hard just before a take, just to see how I react. I feel like Inspector Clouseau and she's Cato. It's a surreal feeling to have the demure, angelic Keri Russell wallop you across the chops at any moment. But it's great!"

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Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Academy Awards producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron have run out of rehearsal space. Dressing rooms, too.

The award-winning production duo is planning the most performance-filled Oscar show ever. They promise a "wow moment" in each of its 13 acts, so the show demands a more dynamic stage and more dressing rooms and rehearsal time than previous Oscar productions.

"I don't think any Oscars have been as performance-based," Meron said.

It's no surprise, given the pair's hit-filled history: They produced 2003's best picture, "Chicago," and count TV's "Smash" and the recent Broadway revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" among their credits.

Running out of space for their Oscar production's A-list roster of performers including Barbra Streisand, Adele and Norah Jones is what Zadan calls a "great problem."

"When you do an Oscar show, you don't have a dressing room problem. The presenters don't get dressing rooms. And how many people perform on the Oscars, like one or two?" he said. "We have a staggering amount of performers, and each of them needs a dressing room... We're measuring the magnitude of how big the show is by the fact that we don't have (enough) dressing rooms."

Just added to the list of stars who may need spots? The cast of "Chicago."

The producers announced Monday that Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Queen Latifah and Richard Gere will reunite on the stage where "Chicago" won its Oscar 10 years ago.

"In a night of celebration of the music of the movies, we find it very appropriate," Meron said.

So will the musical cast sing?

"We can't talk about what they're going to do!" Zadan said.

Here's what they will talk about:

Expect a dynamic, screen-filled set to accommodate the movie-focused numbers: "We're using a lot of cutting-edge technology with new LED screens of different sizes, shapes and configurations... It's kind of thrilling what we're doing with screens," Zadan said. "There will be, too, the regular screen that you have to use each year... but then we have all kinds of other screens that we're using in the show that are completely unique and different and allow us to do stuff with cinema, so it's not a concert thing where somebody comes out and sings a song. It's all integrated into movies."

Look for a lot of host Seth MacFarlane: "He's going to be very present as a host, as a host should," Meron said.

And expect to hear him show off his chops: "Seth will sing. He's got a great voice," Zadan said.

"Seth really does understand and have great reverence for the music of the movies," Meron added. "He loves it."

And about those "wow moments?" Among them will be a celebration of the James Bond film franchise, a tribute to movie musicals, Streisand, Adele, a "special appearance" by Daniel Radcliffe, Charlize Theron, Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and maybe something from the cast of "Chicago."

"We think seeing the cast of 'The Avengers' is pretty wow," Meron said.

Better book them a dressing room.

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Contact Sandy Cohen at www.twitter.com/APSandy.

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