TORONTO (Reuters) - It's normally a proving ground for movies hoping to make a splash during Oscar season, but in a 2010 film season that has been thin on critical successes, this year's edition of the Toronto Film Festival could grab an even bigger share of the spotlight. Following a Cannes ...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian schoolgirl Natascha Kampusch survived the start of her eight-year captivity in an underground cell by asking her kidnapper to read bedtime tales in an "illusion of normality," according to her new book. Kampusch's memoirs "3,096 Days," which appeared ...

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - A veteran Syrian director who has shocked audiences by portraying a religious zealot who abuses women says his popular television series could help stop an Arab slide toward extremism. Najdat Anzour's "What your right hand possesses," whose heroine Leila is forced by ...

"The American," in which Clooney plays a laconic gunslinger holed up in a picturesque Italian village, earned $16.4 million across the United States and Canada during the four days beginning September 3, distributor Focus Features said on Monday. "Machete," a violent fantasy ...

VENICE (Reuters) - A powerful Chinese film on the plight of political prisoners condemned to forced labor camps in the late 1950s wooed critics in Venice on Monday, with some tipping it as a strong contender for the festival's top prize. "The Ditch" tells the little-known story of some ...

Schimmel, 60, was a passenger in his 19-year-old daughter's car on August 26 when she lost control after swerving to avoid another accident on a Phoenix highway. The daughter was hospitalized, but is expected to recover. Schimmel's 11-year-old son was also a passenger in the car and was uninjured, ...

VENICE (Reuters) - Martin Scorsese's latest film pays a personal tribute to Elia Kazan, one of Hollywood's and Broadway's most influential directors but also a controversial figure who turned anti-communist informant in the McCarthy era. In "A Letter to Elia," an hour-long documentary ...

Nathan Lee Parada, 31, of Redlands, California, could face up to six years in prison if convicted. Police said they do not know if Parada specifically targeted Hilton's home or if the burglary was random.

Klein, 31, also was sentenced to the four days he had already served in a Los Angeles jail and agreed to attend 18 months of alcohol education classes, officials said. The actor broke into Hollywood's ranks of young actors playing a naive teenager named Chris "Oz" Ostreicher in the 1999 ...

VENICE (Reuters) - The Venice film festival on Friday honored Hong Kong director John Woo, one of the few Asian filmmakers to enjoy box office success in Hollywood as well as at home. The 64-year-old was awarded a lifetime achievement Golden Lion at the world's oldest film festival on the same day ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Social media" is among today's most popular catch phrases thanks to the success of, among other things, networking website Facebook -- the favored way for today's youth to communicate on a global level. Now Facebook is the subject of what's expected to be the ...

VENICE (Reuters) - Sofia Coppola's latest movie is a Hollywood insider's look at the life of an A-list actor -- five star hotels and Ferraris, adoration and sexual advances, but also loneliness, tiresome media attention and boredom. "Somewhere" is part comedy and part examination of a ...

The Australian singer, 42, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and underwent surgery and hair-losing chemotherapy. But Minogue, whose career began on the TV soap opera "Neighbours," returned to the stage within a year and continues to perform. She toured 21 countries last year, and ...

The show, which earned wide acclaim in London's West End, is based on the popular Norwegian novels that tell of a pair of mismatched roommates, their friendship and their relationships with pizza, poetry and women. A movie based on the books was nominated for foreign language film Oscar in 2001, ...

The 93-year-old actress remains in a great deal of pain from being bedridden for around seven weeks, said spokesman John Blanchette. Gabor, who is as famous for her lavish lifestyle and number of husbands -- she married nine times -- as for acting, broke her hip on July 17 and had replacement ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Telluride Film Festival on Thursday unveiled the lineup of movies for this weekend's event, regarded as among the top U.S. movie gatherings of the year and an early highlight for Oscar hopefuls. The festival, which takes place over four days in the ski resort town of ...

T.I. whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., 29, was arrested with his wife on Sunset Boulevard Wednesday night after police smelled marijuana coming from a car in which the Grammy award-winning rapper was a passenger. He was booked for possession of a controlled substance and was released after ...

VENICE (Reuters) - The lives of four Arab-Israeli women spanning three generations against the backdrop of conflict are at the center of "Miral," a film by Julian Schnabel based on his Palestinian partner's biographical book. From the 1948 creation of the Jewish state to the 1993 Oslo ...

VENICE (Reuters) - Critics are queuing up to praise Natalie Portman in her latest movie "Black Swan," the opening picture at this year's Venice film festival, with one review saying the performance "elevates her ... to a major star." The 29-year-old plays a New York ballerina ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) - Independent filmmaker Lee Daniels got a big push for his movie "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire" when Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry signed on as executive producers after the film's Sundance Film Festival premiere in 2009. "Precious" ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The soon to be ex-wife of "Frasier" star Kelsey Grammer and a pair of Paris Hilton's aunts are among the women who make up the cast of the "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills." The reality show, slated to premiere on U.S. cable network Bravo on October ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nobody ever said Hollywood relationships were easy, and the on-again off-again affair of Justin Long and Drew Barrymore certainly proves that out. Are they still on? Are they off? This Friday, as the pair's romantic comedy "Going the Distance" debuts in theaters, ...

In a written statement to the festival, where his short film "The Accordion" is screening, Panahi said that he had been officially banned from making films in the past five years. "Despite having been released, I am still not free to travel outside my country to attend film ...