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Weinsteins buy rights to Klaus Barbie film
dpa German Press Agency
Published:
Monday November 6, 2006
Los Angeles- Independent film magnates Bob and Harvey Weinstein have snapped up the distribution rights to the controversial documentary My Enemy's Enemy, about the former Gestapo commander Klaus Barbie, according to a company statement Monday. Barbie terrorized the city of Lyons, France from 1942 to 1944 and the movie, by British filmmaker Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) follows Barbie as he turns from a Nazi war criminal to an American counter-intelligence officer after the war.
The movie culminates as the man who was also known as "The Butcher of Lyon" is finally brought to justice in 1987.
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Swank injured in on-set striptease snag
Los Angeles- Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank has been injured in a bizarre on-set accident during the filming of a striptease scene in her new film P.S. I Love You.
According to E!Online Monday, Swank was cut above the eye during a scene in which co-star Gerard Butler performs a striptease for her. But the saucy action went wrong when the elastic on Butler's suspenders snagged and hit the actress on her forehead.
"It was close," an on-set source told the website. "If she was hit just a bit lower, it would have been a major eye injury."
The movie P.S. I Love You is the big screen adaptation of Cecilia Ahern's same-named best-selling novel, and stars Swank as a recently widowed woman whose late husband has left her a list of 10 messages, all of which are meant to ease her back into enjoying life again.
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Hillary Duff's Russian stalker arrested
Los Angeles- Police in Manhattan Beach near Los Angeles have arrested an 18-year-old Russian immigrant after he threatened to kill teen actress Hilary Duff.
The 18-year-old Russian man, named as Maksim Miakovsky, is accused of stalking the Lizzie Maguire star and threatening to kill her at an event she was scheduled to attend on Sunday.
The arrest came just weeks after the 19-year-old actress and singer filed for restraining orders against Miakovsky for threatening to turn his infatuation for Duff into violent acts.
According to Duff's lawyers, Miakovsky moved from Russia to Los Angeles two years ago "for the sole purpose of meeting and becoming romantically involved" with the teen queen, and allegedly threatened to buy a gun and commit suicide if his feelings weren't reciprocated.
Restraining orders were also requested on behalf of Duff's sister, Haylie, her mother, Susan, and Madden's twin brother, Benji.
Miakovsky is currently being held on 200,000-dollar bail in Manhattan Beach jail and is scheduled for arraignment Tuesday.
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Sixteen animated features in Oscar race
Los Angeles- Reflecting the growing popularity of computer- animated movies, 16 full-length animated features have qualified for entry in the 79th annual Oscars, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said Monday.
The list is dominated by movies with talking animals such as The Wild, Flushed Away, Over the Hedge, Barnyard, Open Season, The Ant Bully and Ice Age: The Meltdown. Non-animal films included Pixar Animation's Cars and the independent thriller A Scanner Darkly.
Up to five films will be chosen as Oscar nominees on January 23 and the winner will be announced at the Oscar show on February 25.
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Lindsey Lohan to play provocative Southern belle
Los Angeles- Lindsay Lohan is to play a provocative southern belle in a little known film The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond by Tennessee Williams.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the screenplay tells the story of Fisher Willow (Lohan), the disliked 1920s Memphis debutante daughter of a plantation owner with a distaste for narrow-minded people and a penchant for shocking and insulting those around her.
After returning from studies overseas, Fisher falls in love with the down-and-out son of an alcoholic father and an insane mother who works at a store on her family's plantation. She tries to pass him off as an upper-class suitor to appease the spinster aunt who controls her family's fortune, but when she loses a diamond, it places their tenuous relationship in further jeopardy.
© 2006 dpa German Press Agency
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