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‘District 9’ determined not to stick to formula

Science fiction flicks featuring aliens can be a little formulaic: Aliens invade American territory, mass destruction ensues, and nine times out of 10, Will Smith rides to the rescue But the alien-infested “District 9,” opening in theaters Friday, takes things in a different direction — if the producer may say so himself. “It’s utterly original,” producer Peter Jackson — yes, “Lord of the Rings” helmsman Peter Jackson — told Entertainment Weekly. “In an industry that’s looking to make movies out of every obscure TV show, or sequels, or video games, you look at ‘District 9’ and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen,” he said.

Hackers target Australian festival showing Uyghur film

Hackers repeatedly attacked the Web site of Australia’s largest film festival Saturday, asking organizers to apologize to the Chinese people for planning to screen a documentary on an exiled Uyghur leader. The attacks were carried out on the opening day of the Melbourne International Film Festival — in what organizers are calling the third phase of a “concerted campaign” to withdraw the film “The 10 Conditions of Love.” The documentary examines the impact on the family of activist Rebiya Kadeer as she fights for greater autonomy of the ethnic minority group, the Uyghurs, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China’s northwest. Kadeer is the president of the World Uyghur Congress, made up of exiled Uyghurs.

Chinese Film Directors Protest Documentary on Uighur’s Kadeer

Political tension over the deadly riots that struck northwest China has spilled into an unlikely venue: the Melbourne International Film Festival. Three Chinese directors announced they were pulling their works from the event to protest the inclusion of a documentary about a Uighur activist. The Uighurs are a Turkic speaking, largely Islamic minority group concentrated in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region.

Coppola’s wife: ‘Apocalypse Now’ was ‘out of control’

Eleanor Coppola met her husband, Francis in Ireland in 1962. It was on the set of splatter flick “Dementia 13” — she was the shy set decorator; he was the ambitious rookie director. They began dating and three months later she became pregnant and the couple married.

Michael Jackson’s legal woes likely to live on

Michael Jackson was a one-man cottage industry for the legal profession. Two child-molestation investigations (no convictions), two divorces, myriad civil lawsuits over concerts, special performances and soured business deals, near-bankruptcy and the threatened foreclosure of his Neverland ranch kept teams of lawyers busy. Jackson’s legal stable included the elite of Los Angeles, California, litigators — Thomas Mesereau Jr., Mark Geragos and the late Johnnie L.

Farrah Fawcett, sex symbol and actress, dies

Farrah Fawcett, the blonde-maned actress whose best-selling poster and "Charlie’s Angels" stardom made her one of the most famous faces in the world, died Thursday. She was 62.

Fawcett’s friend: No one has given her a timetable

Farrah Fawcett, whose public battle with anal cancer has brought new attention to a rarely discussed disease, has not been given a timetable from her doctor about how much time she has left, according to her friend Alana Stewart. “No one has said to her you have two months to live,” Stewart said Monday

Legal fight brews over ‘Farrah’s Story’

As Ryan O’Neal walked the red carpet at the premiere of "Farrah’s Story," he stopped every few feet to answer reporters’ questions about Farrah Fawcett’s battle with cancer. CNN’s Douglas Hyde was at the end of the line and the last to interview the actor, who was almost in tears after a string of intense explanations about his longtime companion’s condition.

Family of boxer fights for pardon of 1913 racist conviction

To this day, Linda Haywood recalls the shame she once felt for her great-uncle. “I could see from the expression on my mother’s face that it pained her to tell me about him,” she recalled, “but it wasn’t just her.

BBC: Iran held ‘backroom’ talks with Western diplomats

Iran offered to stop attacking coalition troops in Iraq nearly four years ago in an attempt to get the West to accept Tehran’s nuclear program, a British diplomat told the BBC in an interview aired Saturday. “The Iranians wanted to be able to strike a deal whereby they stopped killing our forces in Iraq in return for them being allowed to carry on with their nuclear program — ‘We stop killing you in Iraq, stop undermining the political process there, you allow us to carry on with our nuclear program without let or hindrance,” said John Sawers, now the British ambassador to the United Nations, in the documentary, “Iran and the West: Nuclear Confrontation.” The United States and other Western nations believe Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but Iran says it is developing nuclear capability to produce energy.