Wine and Film with Ed Burns
City Winery,1200 W. Randolph St., Chicago, will present "An Evening of Wine & Film with Ed Burns" at 8 p.m. today. Doors open at 6 p.m. Actor, writer and director Burns will join Michael Dorf, founder of City Winery, for an evening of pairing eight wines with eight scenes from various films, including Burns' new "The Fitzgerald Family Christmas." Burns will discuss each film clip, answer questions from the audience and enjoy wine paired with each clip with attendees. Cost is $48 and $38. For more information, visit citywinery.com -Eloise Marie Valadez
Lopez plays Santa for charity
Jennifer Lopez says she doesn't look forward to getting gifts at Christmas — she looks forward to giving them. "I love going and shopping for Christmas presents for everybody and making gifts for people and seeing their faces light up and surprising them; that's where I get my joy," the entertainer said last week. It's also why Lopez launched her "J. Lo's Christmas Gift" drive, asking fans to donate to her three favorite charities (the Boys & Girls Club, the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and the American Red Cross). In exchange, she'll give someone two tickets to the last show of her "Dance Again" world tour in Puerto Rico on Saturday. "It's just that kind of doing something nice for somebody, and they do something nice back and kind of paying it forward," she said in a phone interview Friday from Australia, where she was performing. Part of the reason Lopez chose the Red Cross is because of its relief work in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of New York City, where Lopez is from. She hasn't been back to New York since the October storm but her ex-husband, Marc Anthony, was affected. "My babies (4-year-old twins Max and Emme) had to go there and visit their dad shortly after, and it was like, kind of a scary proposition to send them because I didn't know what it was going to be like," she said. AP
Panettiere overcomes stage fright with 'Nashville'
While Hayden Panettiere is pretending to be a country music singer on TV, she's learning how to be one in real life. The 23-year-old actress plays ambitious country star Juliette Barnes on the hit ABC show "Nashville" (Wednesdays, 10 p.m. Eastern). Her character has performed on the Grand Ole Opry, dealt with the demands of a record label executive, written songs and tracked vocals in a recording studio. "The show, I feel like, is an amazing second step for me because I love music and I've always had such terrible stage fright," said Panettiere, who recently earned a Golden Globe nomination for best performance by a television actress in a supporting role. "This has been kind of the in between because I get to go out there during scenes with a crowd full of people and pretend like I'm performing onstage, and I'm actually performing a live show," she continued. AP
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