[Suzerain of Sheol]

Beorn is the were-bear who lives in a longhouse and puts the company up for a night before they head into Mirkwood. He was unjustly cut from the cartoon version, and if Jackson makes the same mistakes I refuse to even watch the rest of the moive.

And, for your second point, I don't think that's actually addressed in the Silm. That sounds more like a Book of Lost Tales/History of Middle-Earth sort of fact, to me. Gandalf doesn't get much screentime in the Silm.

I think I heard that he's trying to make it fit in with the atmosphere established in his LotR movies, so I can't see the songs making it in. That would kind of kill the persona he's established for the elves as detached stoic badasses.

I'm really more concerned about the content he decides to add, giving that he has 6 hours to play with. Since he's only legally allowed to use The Hobbit and LotR, most of the blanks will be filled in by his imagination, which... kind of terrifies me. I have this dread suspicion that these movies will barely even resemble Tolkien's work by the time he's done with them.