Entertainment Express: Purple Rain, Spider-Man, The Flaming Lips, Sandra Bullock, Keke Palmer

Good day from New York! I attended the premiere of James Cameron’s 3D doccie, DeepSea Challenge at the American Museum of Natural History last night. There is truly no place better to watch the underwater adventure than in the museum’s Ocean Life Room!

* Let us take a moment to celebrate the Purple One, the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, Symbol, Prince again, and his classic soundtrack for the film Purple Rain, which marks its 30th anniversary right around this time. It hit no.1 and stayed there for 6 months – giving us Let’s Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, I Would Die 4 U and, naturally, Purple Rain.

* The Flaming Lips‘ Wayne Coyne posted a pic on Instagram revealing who he has on board for his Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover album, With a Little Help from my Fwends, due out in October. Seems he’s managed to get everyone from Miley Cyrus to Tegan & Sara, MGMT and My Morning Jacket for this Beatles tribute, which, like most other Lips projects, should be something quite special.

* There have been so many changes taking place in comic-book land, which is great for keeping up with the times, and now onscreen, it seems to be happening more so too, with Sony announcing it is planning a female-centric Spider-Man spinoff. There are several possibilities as to who this will be, from Silver Sable to Black Cat to Stunner, Firestar and Spider-Woman, of course.

* Last week we heard Robert Downey Jr topped the list of highest paid male actors, this week Forbes estimates Sandra Bullock is his female counterpart, coming in above fellow Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence. But where RDJ earned $75 million, Bullock came in around $20 million less, so we know Hollywood still has a way to go before things truly are equal.

* 21-year-old actress and TV’s youngest talk show host, Keke Palmer is heading to Broadway. She’ll be playing Cinderella, a role Brandy played on TV in the late 90s (with Whitney Houston as her fairy godmother), but it’ll be the first time an African-American takes up the part on the Great White Way. One day, we won’t need to marking these milestones of men, women, black and white…until then, “break a leg” Ms Palmer!