Lindsay Lohan lands racy movie role: Linda Lovelace

(News Today) - Can one troubled movie star have insight into another? Producers of an upcoming film about the 1970s porn scene hope so -- reportedly signing up Lindsay Lohan to play famed adult star Linda Lovelace.

"We've all thought that Lindsay would be a great choice for a while now, and we're all convinced that she is going to do it," said "Inferno" producer Wali Razaqi, who confirmed the casting choice to the Los Angeles Times. "For at least a year, the director [Matthew Wilder] and I have gone back and forth imagining how awesome of a performance she could give if she was in the movie."

Besides their sharing the same monograms, Razaqi sees broad thematic parallels between Lohan and Lovelace (real name: Linda Susan Boreman), who had drug problems and was famously ambivalent about her career. She died in 2002.

"Not that Lindsay's life is similar in any way -- but she's been through a lot of ups and downs," said Razaqi. "A lot of times you're loved and then you're hated, and I think she can relate to those emotions and feelings. One week she's the 'it' girl, and the next, she's the 'What are you doing?' girl."

Razaqi says an announcement about Lohan's casting will be made at the Cannes Film Festival this month.

Source : CNN

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Freddy Krueger kills weekend box office

(News Terupdate) - It was a good weekend for Freddy Krueger. The 1980s horror villain is back with a vengeance, with "The Nightmare on Elm Street" remake earning a solid $32 million, landing it in first place at the box office this weekend.

Still, even with the success of "Nightmare" -- which stars Jackie Earle Haley as the disfigured madman who kills teenagers in their dreams -- this weekend's box office still couldn't trump last year's total in early May, when "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" grossed a boffo $85 million. (Of course, Hollywood will likely make up for it next weekend, when Robert Downey Jr. dons the Iron Man suit once again; the film is already hitting across the season, where its opened in 53 territories this past weekend, taking in $100.2 million)

And though "Nightmare" earned $32 million, the film fell steeply between Friday and Saturday night, and earned a C+ Cinemascore, which suggests that the film hasn't been very well received by audiences.

Second place for the weekend belonged to "How to Train Your Dragon," which, once again, held in remarkably well. The PG-rated 3-D flick grossed an estimated $10.8 million, down only 29 percent since last weekend. Its total gross now stands at $192.3 million.

The Steve Carell, Tina Fey-starrer "Date Night" fell only 27 percent, collecting an additional $7.6 million. The PG-13 comedy has now grossed $73.6 million. Not bad for two television stars, huh?

Despite a weak opening, "The Back-Up Plan" held on fairly well its second weekend in theaters. Falling 41 percent, Jennifer Lopez's romantic comedy grossed an additional $7.2 million to put the film's two-week total at $22.9 million.

Fifth place for the three-day period went to the other newcomer of the weekend, "Furry Vengeance." The PG-rated family film earned only $6.5 million but scored a B+ with audiences. The Brendan Fraser-starrer is unlikely to do much business going forward, but considering its a co-production between Summit Entertainment and Participant Pictures, its unlikely the film's disappointment will hurt either company much.

Sixth place went to "The Losers." The film -- which disappointed in its opening weekend -- fell 36 percent its second weekend in theaters, grossing an additional $6 million. The Jeffrey Dean Morgan-Zoe Saldana action flick has collected just $18 million after ten days in release.

"Clash of the Titans" took the seventh spot, earning an estimated $5.9 million, putting its total gross at $154 million.

"Kick-Ass" earned another $4.4 million in its third weekend of release, landing an eighth place finish. The R-rated film continues to fall steeply -- it dropped 52 percent, but has grossed a total of $42 million.

"Death at a Funeral" -- which took in $4 million -- and Disney's "Oceans" documentary, which raked in $2.6 million, rounded out the top ten. The R-rated Chris Rock comedy lost 50 percent of its value since last weekend, and, in three weeks of release, has grossed $34.7 million. Disney's doc dropped 57 percent, earning a cume of $13.5 million.

In limited release, the latest Nicole Holofcener drama "Please Give" grossed an impressive $128,696 in five theaters for a strong per-screen average of $25,000. IFC's disturbing horror flick "Human Centipede" only opened on one screen and earned $12,400 for the frame. Check back next weekend when we discover whether "Iron Man 2" will break box office records.

Source : CNN

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Graham's exit puts climate change bill in limbo

Washington (News Terupdate) - A climate-change bill that was scheduled to be unveiled at a news conference Monday is now up in the air after Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina walked out of talks.

Graham had worked with Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, independent from Connecticut, to unveil details of their "tri-partisan" climate-change legislation.

But Graham declared Saturday that he was walking out of talks because of Democratic efforts to bring up an immigration reform package.

"Moving forward on immigration -- in this hurried, panicked manner -- is nothing more than a cynical political ploy," Graham wrote in a sharply-worded letter sent to business, religious and conservation leaders that he has been working with on the climate-change legislation.

A senior White House official told CNN that in recent days Graham has been privately threatening to abandon the climate talks unless Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, backed off plans to move to a debate on comprehensive immigration reform ahead of the environmental legislation.

Graham is the only leading Republican who has been working with the White House on the contentious climate-change issue.

After Graham's announcement, Kerry and Lieberman postponed the news conference but did not announce an alternate date.

They pledged to continue working on the issue and expressed hope Graham would again join them.

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Suit alleges U.S., Mexican cardinals covered up sexual abuse

(News Terupdate) - A Mexican resident who says he was sexually abused by a priest as a child is suing the Roman Catholic Cardinal of Los Angeles and Mexico's top-ranking Catholic cleric, alleging they aided and abetted the abuse by moving the priest between dioceses as allegations piled up against him.

The suit does not name the alleged victim, identifying him only as a Mexican citizen. It alleges that Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony and Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera knew the priest -- identified in the suit as Nicholas Aguilar Rivera -- was abusive but authorized him to move back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. and to continue serving in parishes.

The priest, a Mexican, faces dozens of accusations of sex abuse and was defrocked by the Vatican last year, according to various media reports and to the law firm that filed the suit. The church has not commented on Aguilar's status, but it has not countered reports that he was defrocked.

The suit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles' federal court, says that the anonymous plaintiff was sexually abused by Aguilar when he was about 13 years old.

The suit alleges that Rivera -- then bishop of Tehuacan, Mexico -- transferred Aguilar to the Los Angeles Archdiocese in 1987 after Rivera suspected him of abuse. The lawsuit contends that Rivera sent Mahony a letter documenting what he called Aguilar's "homosexual problems."

The suit alleges that the Los Angeles Archdiocese learned of abuse allegations against Aguilar in one local parish, then transferred him to another parish, where additional allegations soon surfaced.

When the archdiocese confronted Aguilar about the allegations in early 1988, the priest said he planned to return to Mexico, the lawsuit says, and the archdiocese declined to alert the authorities. "These actions aided, assisted and facilitated Fr. Aguilar's ability to flee the United States of America," the suit alleges.

According to the suit, Mahony wrote to Rivera -- still bishop of Tehuacan -- in March 1988 when the priest was back in Mexico to say that "It is almost impossible to determine precisely the number of young altar boys that (Aguilar) has sexually molested, but the number is large... This priest must be arrested and returned to Los Angeles to suffer the consequences of his immoral actions."

Rivera's reply letter, according to the suit, said that, "You will understand that I'm not in a position to find him, much less force him to return and appear in court."

In April 1988, the Los Angeles Police Department charged Aguilar with 19 felony counts of sexual abuse against children, but Mexico has declined to extradite or prosecute him, according to Mike Finnegan, one of the lawyers for the unnamed plaintiff.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles Archdiocese called the lawsuit's claims "preposterous and without foundation."

"None of the documents concerning Nicholas Aguilar-Rivera are new," said the spokesman, Tod M. Tamberg, in a statement Wednesday. "They show that Cardinal Mahony urged Aguilar-Rivera's return to the U.S. to face justice."

Aguilar has been convicted of abuse by a Mexican court but has never served prison time, according to the plaintiff's law firm, Jeff Anderson & Associates, based in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Aguilar's current whereabouts are unclear.

Rivera was named archbishop of Mexico City, Mexico's top-ranking Catholic post, in 1995 and has since been named cardinal. The suit says that Aguilar occasionally served under Rivera in Mexico City.

The Minnesota law firm has represented previous Mexican victims of sex abuse against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in which the church wound up settling out of court. But this is the first in which the firm is also trying to sue the Catholic Church in Mexico.

The plaintiff's lawyers are relying on an obscure federal law that they say grants U.S. courts jurisdiction in foreign civil cases that violate treaties to which the United States is party.

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Supreme Court strikes down law banning dogfight videos

Washington (News Terupdate) - The Supreme Court has struck down a federal law designed to stop the sale and marketing of videos showing dogfights and other acts of animal cruelty, saying it is an unconstitutional violation of free speech.

The 8-1 decision was a defeat for animal rights groups and congressional sponsors of the unusual legislation.

The specific case before the court dealt with tapes showing pit bulldogs attacking other animals and one another in staged confrontations.

The justices Tuesday concluded the scope and intent of the decade-old statute was overly broad.

"The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the government outweigh its costs," said Chief Justice John Roberts. He concluded Congress had not sufficiently shown "depictions" of dogfighting were enough to justify a special category of exclusion from free speech protection.

The high court threw out the conviction of Robert Stevens, a Pittsville, Virginia, man who sold videos through his business, Dogs of Velvet and Steel. According to court records, undercover federal agents found he was advertising his tapes in Sporting Dog Journal, an underground magazine on illegal dogfighting.

"This is what I was hoping for," Stevens told CNN just after the ruling was announced. "I am not nor have I ever been a dog fighter or a promoter of dogfighting. I am a journalist and an author."

Among the products Stevens advertised was "Catch Dogs," featuring pit bulls chasing wild boars on organized hunts and a "gruesome depiction of a pit bull attacking the lower jaw of a domestic farm pig," according to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based appeals court that ruled on the case earlier.

Stevens was charged in 2004 with violating interstate commerce laws by selling depictions of animal cruelty. He was later sentenced to 37 months in prison, and promptly appealed. That sentence was put on hold pending resolution of this appeal.

He argued his sentence was longer than the 14 months given professional football player Michael Vick, who ran an illegal dogfighting ring.

It was the first prosecution in the United States to proceed to trial under the 1999 law.

The video marketer is not related to Justice John Paul Stevens, who turned 90 Tuesday. The court made no mention of the milestone as it held a two-hour public session.

Nearly every state and local jurisdiction have their own laws banning mistreatment of wild and domesticated animals, and usually handle prosecutions of animal cruelty.

Several media organizations had supported Stevens, worrying the federal law could implicate reports about deer hunting, and depictions of bullfighting in Ernest Hemingway novels.

Roberts agreed, saying, "We read [the federal law] to create a criminal prohibition of alarming breadth."

"Jurisdictions permit and encourage hunting, and there is an enormous national market for hunting-related depictions in which a living animal is intentionally killed," said Roberts. "An otherwise-lawful image of any of these practices, if sold or possessed for commercial gain within a state that happens to forbid the practice, falls within the prohibition of [the federal law]."

During oral arguments in October, the justices offered a number of wide-ranging hypotheticals over what the law could forbid, including: fox hunts, pate de foie gras from geese, cockfighting, bullfighting, shooting deer out of season, even Roman gladiator battles.

Only Justice Samuel Alito dissented in the case, and he focused on one of the most disturbing aspects raised in the appeal, the marketing of so-called "crush" videos, in which women -- with their faces unseen -- are shown stomping helpless animals such as rabbits to death with spiked-heel shoes or with their bare feet.

"The animals used in crush videos are living creatures that experience excruciating pain. Our society has long banned such cruelty," he said. The courts, he said, have "erred in second-guessing the legislative judgment about the importance of preventing cruelty to animals."

He predicted mores crush videos will soon flood the underground market, because the ruling has "the practical effect of legalizing the sale of such videos."

Roberts suggested a law specifically banning crush videos might be valid, since it would be narrowly tailored to a specific type of commercial enterprise.

Alito noted that would not help dogs forced to fight each other, where, he said, "the suffering lasts for years rather than minutes."

The government had argued a "compelling interest" in stopping people who would profit from dog attack tapes and similar depictions. Roberts dismissed suggestions by the Justice Department that only the most extreme acts of cruelty would be targeted.

"The First Amendment protects against the government," Roberts said. "We would not uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the government promised to use it responsibly."

The Humane Society, other animal rights groups and 26 states backed the government.

If the law had been upheld, it would have been only the second time the Supreme Court had identified a form of speech undeserving of protection by the First Amendment. The justices in 1982 banned the distribution of child pornography.

This is the second time this year the high court has tossed out federal legislation on free speech grounds. The justices in January nullified parts of a sweeping campaign finance reform law, giving corporations, unions, and advocacy groups more power to bankroll federal elections.

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Latest James Bond film on hold

Los Angeles, California (News Terupdate) - The big-screen adventures of James Bond are on hold because of the financial woes of MGM, the studio that distributes the movies, producers said.

The 23rd Bond film was in pre-production for a release next year.

"Due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of MGM and the failure to close a sale of the studio, we have suspended development on BOND 23 indefinitely," producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said in a joint statement. "We do not know when development will resume and do not have a date for the release of BOND 23."

MGM has been on the brink of bankruptcy as it works with creditors to find a new owner.

The James Bond series is the longest-running film franchise in history, with the first movie about the world's most famous fictional spy -- "Dr. No" -- released in 1962.

The movie franchise and merchandising are controlled by EON Productions. Wilson and Broccoli took over the 007 franchise from Albert "Cubby" Broccoli in 1995.

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'Dragon' kicks 'Kick-Ass' to box office curb

(News Terupdate) - If only "Kick-Ass" had been in 3-D maybe we would have had a different outcome. But instead, the DreamWorks Animated 3-D flick "How to Train Your Dragon" squeezed out a surprise come-from-behind first-place finish with an estimated $20 million take in its fourth weekend in release.

Falling only 20 percent, "Dragon's" total now stands at $158.6 million; a dearth of competing kids' movies has been beneficial to the well-reviewed Viking flick.

Lionsgate's "Kick-Ass" grossed an estimated $19.75 million for a second place spot. (With estimates showing spots one and two separated by a remarkably small $250,000, Monday's final results may give us a different outcome.) In 3,065 theaters, "Kick-Ass" averaged $6,445, not a bad debut for a film that only cost $28 million to make, but not reaching the high expectations for the film, which has been gathering buzz among the fan boys for the last month.

In fact, the movie only generated a B from Cinemascore, suggesting that some audiences aren't quite getting director Matthew Vaughn's irreverent take on the superhero genre. The R rating may have also depressed the film's box office, keeping its core fan base of teen boys out of the ticket lines.

Third place belonged to holdover "Date Night," which grossed $17.3 million, or only a 31 percent drop -- quite strong for a comedy that generated middling reviews when it opened last weekend. The PG-13 rated flick from director Shawn Levy ("Night at the Museum") has now grossed close to $50 million after ten days of release.

Chris Rock's R-rated comedy "Death at a Funeral" grossed an estimated $16.4 million. The remake of the 2007 British film of the same name bowed to strong reviews, and a B+ Cinemascore, so perhaps it will hold strong in coming weeks. From director Neil LaBute, "Death" only cost $21 million to make and generated the highest per-screen average in the top ten with $6,913.

Spot five went to "Clash of the Titans," which grossed an additional $15.7 million. The movie fell 41 percent in its third week of release, and its gross now stands at $133 million.

"The Last Song" took 6th place with $5.8 million, bringng its total to around $50 million, while "Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too" earned 7th spot with $4.1 million and a total of $54.8 million.

"Hot Tub Time Machine" is hanging in there, neck-and-neck with "Alice in Wonderland" for 8th. Both films have grossed around $3.5 million for the weekend. For "Hot Tub," it was a drop of just 35 percent in its fourth week of release, raising its gross to $42.5 million.

"Alice," in its seventh weekend, has now earned an impressive $324 million.

"The Bounty Hunter" rounds out the top 10; the Jennifer Aniston-Gerard Butler starrer has now earned $60 million after adding another $3.2 million in its fifth weekend of release.

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