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Lindsay Lohan, Hollywood's latest It girl thanks to sparkling performances in such hit flicks as Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, is officially a multi-hyphenate, having just inked a record deal with Tommy Mottola's Casablanca Records.

"I can confirm Lindsay has indeed signed with Casablanca," Peter Lofrumento, a rep for Casablanca's parent company, Universal Music Group, told E! Online.

No further details were disclosed, but it's believed Lohan has locked up a long-term, multi-album pact. Lohan, who turned 18 a week ago, does have a musical pedigree--and we're not talking about her role as a rocker in Freaky Friday or as girlfriend to popster Aaron Carter.

Her mom was once a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall, and Lindsay knows her way around a studio.

In 2002, she signed a five-album production deal with producer Emilio Estefan Jr. with the idea that he would shop her around to a major record label. (It's not immediately clear whether Estefan will remain involved in Lohan's recording future.) She also sang the song "Ultimate" on last year's Freaky Friday soundtrack and contributed three tracks this year to Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.

It was her made-for-soundtrack cuts that caught the attention of Mottola, the former boss of Sony Music. "I'm thrilled we have her," Mottola told the New York Post. "I think she's the next big star on the horizon. She has the potential--if not more--of any of the big ones I've worked with."

That would put Lohan in some elite company. Mottola is known for nurturing the megasuccessful careers of Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez and the former Mrs. Tommy Mottola, Mariah Carey (they divorced in 1998), while heading Sony's music label for a decade and a half.

After leaving Sony, Mottola linked up with Universal Music Group and formed his own label, Casablanca Records. According to the Post, Casablanca recently signed a deal to distribute all of Miramax Films' soundtracks, including Shall We Dance?, an upcoming musical starring Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere.

The Post says Mottola wants to put Lohan on the same musical trajectory as Lopez.

Lohan's first album on the Casablanca imprint is expected to hit record stores by the end of the year.

Besides recording, feuding with Hilary Duff, partying with Paris Hilton and purportedly dating That '70s Show's Wilmer Valderrama, the Parent Trap star has several high-profile flicks in the pipeline, including Herbie: Fully Loaded, an update of Disney's Love Bug; Dramarama, in which she plays a rich kid forced to attend public school after her family suffers economic misfortune; Gossip Girl, a comedy about dueling rich girls; and Fashionistas, in which she plays a young fashion designer out to exact revenge on a former editor.

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LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - From its uninspiring title -- and certain turnoff for young males -- to its limp slapstick and uneven acting, "A Cinderella Story" arrives with a dull thud. It doesn't help that this contemporary take on the classic fairy tale re-explores ground already covered this year by such movies as "Mean Girls" and "Ella Enchanted."



Thanks to popular young star Hilary Duff, the film might see a brisk opening next weekend. But word-of-mouth and more attractive options in the multiplexes should lead to a sharp drop-off by the second week.


Wicked stepmothers and Prince Charmings are awkward concepts in a contemporary setting. There is little evidence that writer Leigh Dunlap or her producers thought through how to re-imagine the fairy tale for modern day. Having Cinderella leave behind a cell phone instead of a glass slipper as the clock strikes midnight is not nearly enough.


First of all, the film never makes the case that our Cinderella, Valley high school senior Sam Montgomery (Duff), is truly abused. When her dear dad dies in the Northridge earthquake -- how exactly? we wonder -- her self-indulgent, plastic surgery-obsessed stepmom, Fiona (Jennifer Coolidge in an amusing but over-the-top performance), banishes Sam to the attic and puts her to work in her dad's '50s diner. The trouble is, designer Charles Breen turns that attic into a very cool-looking loft, Sam's paycheck goes to her college education and must we really feel sorry for a girl who complains that she has to drive a "beat-up old car?" The car runs, doesn't it?


Her high school is similarly disconnected from reality but not in the fairy tale sort of way. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Duff is a beauty, and costume designer Denise Wingate does nothing to make her seem otherwise. So why is Sam so unpopular with the boys? They mock her as "Diner Girl" -- what, no one else at school has a job? -- and her only male friend, geeky Carter (Dan Byrd), seems oblivious to her charms as well. Then she puts on a gown and mask and everyone is knocked out by her presence. Go figure.


Her dreamboat is popular football star Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray). He's a good-looking lad, but the script makes him into a boob. He's afraid of his dad, in a dead-end relationship with a shallow cheerleader (Julie Gonzalo), easily cowed by his buddies and unable or unwilling to pursue his Cinderella. They don't make Prince Charmings the way they used to.


Director Mark Rosman and Dunlap search for laughs in all the wrong places. Fiona's complete body makeover with implants, Botox, plastic surgery and a tanning machine earns a few laughs but gets old fast. The slapstick bumbling of Sam's "out-of-step-sisters," Brianna (Madeline Zima) and Gabriella (Andrea Avery), is thoroughly unfunny.


Duff and Byrd anchor the film in a perky though realistic acting style. But too many other actors resort to overblown shtick in a vain attempt to bring cartoonish characters to life. The diner sequences work the best: Regina King, Paul Rodriguez and others form a neat ensemble of characters who work hard, support one another and share a mutual contempt for the owner. Conversely, the sequences in high school or at home feel tired if not belabored.