A bright morning for Menounos
It's official. Medford native Maria Menounos will join NBC's ''Today" show as a West Coast contributor and be a special correspondent for ''Access Hollywood." An Emerson alum, Menounos cut her teeth in the world of entertainment reporting on the college's TV station and went on to be an international correspondent for ''Channel One News," which does TV news for high school students. Menounos, 27, was a correspondent for ''Entertainment Tonight," reporting on film, TV, music, and fashion for several years. She took a break from ''Entertainment Tonight" during the past year and had a recurring role on the WB hit series ''One Tree Hill" and appeared in the summer movie ''Fantastic Four." She will start this fall on ''Today" and ''Access Hollywood."
Walking tall
We think we now know how Leonardo DiCaprio stays so fit and trim: He constantly paces when he's working on the set of ''The Departed." Filming continued Monday night on a South Boston roof of the Martin Scorsese-directed film. Yesterday, DiCaprio was spotted going through the paces at the Hurley Building downtown, which is being used as a police headquarters in the movie. Crews continued their transformation of a Charles Street laundry/dry cleaning shop yesterday for scenes.Around town
John Oates, his wife, and son tried the lobster dinner and clam chowder at Anthony's Pier 4 Monday night. Hall and Oates played theThe Black Eyed Peas sat down with host Bill Lichtenstein yesterday at the Nine Zero hotel, where they've been staying, for a segment on ''The Infinite Mind" radio show. They discussed spirituality and music for an upcoming program focusing on religion. After the taping, Fergie, Taboo, and their pod-mates made their way to Fenway to open for the Rolling Stones.
Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler is throwing his name behind a campaign to get a ''Conquer Cancer" license plate approved in the state. Tyler was at the Marshfield Fair this past weekend helping to collect signatures.
A Boston Film fest appetizer
Although the official press release still hasn't been given the OK by the various movie studios, we can report that the Boston Film Festival opens Sept. 9 with ''Touched," starring Jenna Elfman, who'll be on hand to kick things off. The opening-night party will be at Bonfire, chef Todd English's Park Square eatery. Other movies that will screen include: ''Johnny Slade's Greatest Hits," and ''Prime," starring Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep.Looking good
Being hip-hop superstars and making movies. There are at least two things that Mark Wahlberg and Andre Benjamin, also known as Andre 3000, one half of Grammy-winning OutKast, can talk about. That and golf clothes. ''I'm on the golf course. I got my green 'Hey Ya!' golf shirt on," Wahlberg says in a piece that pairs the two in the September issue of Interview magazine. And as with all of the other exchanges in Interview, you get as much (or more) about the interviewer (Wahlberg) as the interviewee (Benjamin). The two are among the four stars of the recently released ''Four Brothers," directed by John Singleton. ''You should see the nice linen we got on right now, with an old-school skully cap to top it off," Wahlberg says in what's supposed to be a question. ''A lot of your attire is old classic golf gear, man -- Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan." Benjamin responds: ''Oh, man, I know it." But despite Benjamin's affinity for the clothes, golf's not really his game. In the Interview piece the two discuss -- well, mostly the former Marky Mark comments on -- work habits: ''Seeing you come in there, as a big star as you are, and just do the work . . . was just a beautiful thing," Wahlberg says. And making music for movies: ''Yeah, I've done that here and there on soundtracks for some of my movies, but I never wanted people to associate my characters with my past," says Wahlberg, who is finishing up working on ''The Departed," Martin Scorsese's film set in Boston. Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253. 
