Movie News

NEW YORK - Sex. Drugs. Prostitution. Pedophilia. Rape. Pedro Almodovar has been able to translate some of the most delicate subjects to the big screen with grace and humor.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Michael Scott's young adult fantasy novels, "The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel," will be adapted as a series of feature films.

VIENNA - Tom Cruise has arrived in the Austrian city of Salzburg to shoot scenes for the new action comedy "Knight & Day."

NEW YORK (AFP) - Manny Pacquiao's 12th-round TKO of Miguel Cotto was the top-drawing pay-per-view bout of 2009 with 1.25 million purchases worth 70 million dollars in revenue, Home Box Office Sports said Friday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar organizers joined the MTV generation on Wednesday, naming Hamish Hamilton as director of March's movie awards ceremony, and they also unveiled their shortlist of films vying for a best documentary nomination.

Capsule reviews of films opening this week:

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Audrey Hepburn once declared her look was "attainable" and an upcoming auction of some of the fashionable film star's wardrobe will make that possible.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Penelope Cruz feels uncomfortable talking about nude scenes and says she has "an allergy to labels," but she becomes effusive when discussing her "dream year" with two special films about to hit theaters.

NEW YORK - The publicity for a Hollywood movie is a machine to behold, especially from the inside.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," lovelorn character Bella Swan gets dumped by her vampire man, sinks into depression and later flies to Italy to pursue him. While that may sound too extreme, actress Kristen Stewart thinks Bella is setting a good example to girls.

Where would Hollywood be without that old standby, the vampire-werewolf-schoolgirl love triangle?

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Demian Bichir, who played the young Fidel Castro in Steven Soderbergh's "Che," will play another revolutionary in the Mexican film "Hidalgo-Moliere."

LOS ANGELES - Of the 89 documentary films eligible for Oscar consideration this year, 15 were selected for a short list of potential nominees. And Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" wasn't one of them.

NEW YORK (AFP) - Actor and heartthrob Jude Law hurled oranges at an unwanted audience peeking on his exercise routine on his New York balcony, the New York Post reported Friday.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Grey's Anatomy" star Eric Dane has joined "Burlesque," a musical drama starring Christina Aguilera and Cher.

It's been a big year for animation, with a great variety of styles represented by "Up," "Monsters vs. Aliens," "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and the upcoming "The Princess and the Frog."

HONG KONG - A prominent mainland Chinese director banned by Beijing from making movies brought his new gay romance film to Hong Kong on Friday for what is likely the last of a handful of screenings on his home soil.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Justin Theroux is heading to space.

LOS ANGELES - Academy Awards overseers have chosen an entertainment veteran to direct the next Oscar show.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Agora," filmmaker Alejandro Amenabar's intellectual epic starring Rachel Weisz, a feature that sat without a U.S. buyer for six months, has found a stateside home.

LOS ANGELES - The "Twilight" series may have changed the lives of fans worldwide, but perhaps no one has been more affected by its success than the three stars of the film: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner.

MOMBASA, Kenya - Film star Nicolas Cage has visited a Kenyan prison holding suspected Somali pirates awaiting trial to highlight the problem of piracy in the Indian Ocean.

NEW YORK - Get lost, Hugh Jackman. This year's "Sexiest Man Alive" is once again Johnny Depp.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" didn't just garner rave reviews and worldwide acclaim, it also triggered a change in the way Indian movies are being distributed.

TORONTO - Nicolas Cage figures he owes no apologies when critics gripe about all the Hollywood action flicks he's done.

The Top 20 Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows in North America. The previous week's ranking is in parentheses. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.

PARIS (AFP) - Two years before she was killed in the stairwell of her Moscow apartment, Anna Politkovskaya mused about life as the Kremlin's number one enemy and pronounced it a "miracle" that she was still alive.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Films about subjects as varied as dolphin-hunting and high fashion are among documentaries hoping to be nominated for an Oscar, according to a shortlist released Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Funnyman Will Ferrell and British actor Ewan McGregor on Wednesday headed a Forbes.com list of Hollywood's most overpaid stars when looking at the financial returns of their movies.

Flying in the face of recessionary cautions about the video-game industry, Activision Blizzard is shattering record after record with its latest release. Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 continues to break box-office and sales records for a five-day worldwide sell-through.