Lee rattles England

Brett Lee routed England as Australia won the fourth one-day international at Lord's on Saturday by seven wickets to take an unbeatable 4-0 lead in the seven-match series.

'Only Jesus or Virgin Mary can replace Diego'

Diego Maradona's faltering reign as Argentina coach would only be ended by the arrival of either Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, team manager Carlos Bilardo said Friday in a bizarre exchange with reporters.

Michael Jackson tribute moved to London in June

Jermaine Jackson, brother of late U.S. 'King of Pop' Michael Jackson, seen, during a news conference in Vienna, Austria.Photo: AP

A global Michael Jackson tribute in front of an Austrian palace has been scrapped and moved to London, organizers announced Friday, saying they needed more time to put together a show fit for the King of Pop.
Event promoter Georg Kindel and Jackson's brother Jermaine told reporters that too many top performers had scheduling conflicts, and they blamed the media for stirring up a negative atmosphere.
Friday's announcement came at the end of a turbulent week of reports that supposedly confirmed that artists including Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown and Natalie Cole couldn't make the event. Many invited artists had scheduling issues, and "maybe we underestimated these issues," Kindel said.
"The purpose for this show is to give something back to the fans ... we have to do this right," Jermaine Jackson said, at one point using a tissue to dab at one of his eyes.
"It's not about name-dropping," he added, answering critics who had complained that mega stars such as Madonna didn't figure among the headliners.
Michael Jackson died June 25 in Los Angeles at age 50.
The original plan had been to stage the tribute Sept. 26 outside a 17th-century palace in Vienna. Instead, Kindel said, it will be held at London's Wembley Stadium sometime in the first half of June 2010.
Everyone who bought tickets for the scuttled Vienna event will get refunds, he said.
Some fans had paid up to ⁈745) for VIP seats, and many expressed unhappiness that no major stars had been confirmed. Among the other performers said to have been confirmed were Sister Sledge, Akon and German boy band US5.
Nina Ellend, spokeswoman for World Tribute Productions GmbH, said the issue of whether people would be reimbursed for travel arrangements had not yet been addressed. Roughly 32,500 tickets — half the number available — had been sold, she said.
Kindel told reporters the decision to move the event out of Vienna was made partly because "renowned artists of the tribute were disrespectfully treated as B-list artists or even losers."
"We are going to a place where these artists are greatly appreciated and where Michael Jackson wanted to start his comeback tour," Kindel said.
"We need to be somewhere where this is going to be a wonderful event," Jermaine echoed, adding he was still "very much in love" with the Austrian capital but that he didn't like local speculation about who was coming. He had previously said that Vienna was picked as a venue because his brother "loved castles."
Kindel said tickets to the London concert would go on sale Dec. 1 and begin at 44 pounds ($73).
The city of Vienna, which considered the tribute a potentially huge tourism boost, had pledged up to ⁈0 ($870,000) to help underwrite the cost of diverting traffic, providing security and producing a promotional video.
But on Friday, deputy mayor Renate Brauner said the city had withdrawn the offer.
"Not a cent will be given to the promoter," public broadcaster ORF quoted her as saying

Tolkien estate settles 'Lord of the Rings' wrangle

The estate of fantasy writer J.R.R Tolkien has reached a settlement with the studio behind the "Lord of the Rings" movies after alleging it had not received "even one penny" of royalties from the trilogy of money-spinning films, officials said Tuesday.
The legal dispute had threatened to disrupt production of "The Hobbit," the eagerly anticipated prequel to the "Lord of the Rings" which is due to begin filming in 2010.
An attorney for the Tolkien Trust, which together with HarperCollins Publishers had filed a lawsuit against New Line Cinema in February 2008, said the settlement was finalized ahead of a scheduled October 19 trial.
The terms of the settlement are confidential.
The settlement was welcomed by J.R.R. Tolkien's youngest son, Christopher Tolkien, on behalf of the trust.
Tolkien said he and other trustees "regret that legal action was necessary, but are glad that this dispute has been settled on satisfactory terms that will allow the Tolkien Trust properly to pursue its charitable objectives."
"The trustees acknowledge that New Line may now proceed with its proposed films of 'The Hobbit,'" Tolkien said in a statement.
Alan Horn, Warner Bros. president and chief operating officer, said he was pleased agreement had been reached ahead of a trial. New Line is now part of Warner Bros.
"We deeply value the contributions of the Tolkien novels to the success of our films and are pleased to have put this litigation behind us," Horn said. "We all look forward to a mutually productive and beneficial relationship in the future."
The "Lord of the Rings" films produced by New Line were released in 2001, 2002 and 2003, respectively, and all were major box office hits.
The three films have grossed around three billion dollars at the worldwide box office.
However lawyers for the Tolkien Trust said in February 2008 that the author's estate had received no slice of the profits.
"I cannot imagine how on earth New Line will argue to a jury that these films could gross literally billions of dollars, and yet the creator's heirs, who are entitled to a share of gross receipts, don't get a penny," lawyer Bonnie Eskenazi said in a statement at the time.

Lawyers had been seeking 150 million dollars in compensatory damages, punitive damages and the right to strip New Line of its right to make any further films based on Tolkien's work, including the "The Hobbit."

Clooney, new Italian girlfriend dazzle Venice red carpet

Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney and Italian showgirl Elisabetta Canalis made their first public appearance together Tuesday for the premiere of "The Men Who Stare at Goats" at the Venice film festival.
The couple, who reportedly met early this year, strolled hand in hand down the red carpet, Clooney in a black tux and Canalis in a low-cut cobalt green gown, along with "Goats" director Grant Heslow and Clooney co-star Ewan McGregor.
In Heslow's dark comedy, scoop-hungry journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) happens upon Clooney's character, Lyn Cassady, embarking on a mission to find Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), founder of the US Army's secret "psychic soldier" programme, in Iraq.
Shown out of competition in Venice, the film is based on a book by Jon Ronson about the army's experimentation with New Age concepts and the paranormal, for instance the ability to kill goats by staring at them, begun in the 1970s.
"As funny as it is, some of the dumbest parts of the film are the true parts," said Clooney, whose character claims to be a former psychic soldier who was reactivated after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
"That's what made us laugh the most."
The mission takes Lyn and Bob to prison camp run by another psychic soldier, played by Kevin Spacey.
"This wasn't an Iraq war film, but a comedy about some of the crazy ideas that went on starting at the end of the Vietnam war, and then carried on," Clooney said.
Also Tuesday, claustrophobics were warned off a real war movie, "Lebanon", by Israeli director Samuel Maoz, shot almost entirely from inside a tank assigned to search a town that had been bombed by Israeli warplanes.
The intensely personal project tells the story of the first Lebanon war, reliving the director's own experience as a young Israeli soldier in 1982.
"I needed distance to do this film as a director and not just as someone who lived through it," Maoz told reporters. "I can't tell this story in a classical cinematic style."
The viewing sight of the gunner is "the filter through which I intended to tell my emotional story," said Maoz, one of several first-time directors vying for the prestigious Golden Lion at this year's Mostra, the 66th.
The sight's crosshairs are always in the frame as the action unfolds, with closeups of terrified civilians, charred bodies, or scenes of everyday life in the town.
Inside, the three young soldiers and their commander play out a tense interpersonal drama.
"I want the audience to be in the tank and to know only what the characters know," he said, adding: "I don't want the audience to understand, but to feel."
To train the actors for the part, Maoz put them "in a certain state of mind. I left them in a small, dark, hot container for hours" to experience claustrophobia.
"Then I banged it with metal pipes to simulate a scary explosion and being attacked."
Meanwhile the second Italian contender for the Golden Lion, "The White Space" by Francesca Comencini, offered a bracing look at the agony of giving birth to a premature baby, then waiting for an outcome -- any outcome -- after the infant spends weeks in an incubator.
In the film based on a novel by Valeria Parrella, Margherita Buy plays Maria, an independent 42-year-old who falls pregnant during a brief fling.
"I surrendered myself completely to this character, reaching a profound sense of her," Buy sai

Early honorary Oscars announced

Actress Lauren Bacall, producer-director Roger Corman and cinematographer Gordon Willis are the first Oscar winners of the season.

Warhol paintings stolen in Los Angeles

A multimillion-dollar collection of artwork by Andy Warhol was stolen from the home of a wealthy art collector in West Los Angeles last week, Los Angeles police said Friday.